“Where is he, anyway?” Darius asked.
A whisper from the dark next to him nearly made Darius scream in surprise. “I’m right here. Try not to wake the neighbors.”
“Be safe,” Barajas added as he closed and secured the tent flap.
Darius settled himself into the sleeping bag and tried to get comfortable on the cold, hard ground. Once he got a feel for the slope and irregularities of his patch of earth, he shifted again and finally found a balance that didn’t threaten to have his back in knots come morning.
“Once I can see the other bank of the river, I’m gone,” whispered Quinn.
“Good for you,” Darius replied in kind. “Good to see you’ve given up just when you’re needed most.”
“Given up? God damn it, it’s over. Kimura’s in stasis. Brandon’s going to be executed tomorrow. We’re fugitives as long as we’re hanging around, and you’re saying I’ve given up? Just what the hell are you expecting to do for your grand finale there, Owens?”
Honestly? I don’t know. It’s not like I planned any of this, you know.
“I’m going to make a stand. Make a difference. Maybe even stop the execution.”
“What?” Quinn choked. “After all that you’ve done, you’re going to go back for more? Kintney’s going to rip you to shreds.”
“Seriously, man,” Novak whispered from the darkness. “What do you think you could do at this point except get yourself killed? Colonel Eriksen was pretty clear about wanting you gone, and that major sounds like one psychotic fuck.”
“Eriksen thinks I’m good at turning people against him. Really, it’s just the way he’s been carrying on that’s the problem.” Darius folded his hands behind his head and looked straight up. His eyes could not see the canvas just a couple feet from his face, but it seemed like he could see into the soul of the colony. Images of a colonial mob hurling insults and raising their fists in defiance coursed through his mind. “I know I’m not the only one that sees it. All they need is a little push.”
“Who?”
“Everyone. The whole colony.”
Quinn released an exasperated sigh. “Well, at least now I know you’re nuts. That makes the decision to leave you here a lot easier.”
“Then don’t stay and help me out. Stay for Lieutenant Reid instead.”
“By doing what?” The distress in Quinn’s voice was apparent as he escalated beyond a whisper. “I don’t know how many times it has to be explained to you. If we go back there, Eriksen will have us arrested. Or worse.”
“Shhh,” hissed Novak. “Keep it down.”
“I don’t care anymore,” Darius replied. “I made a promise to help Doctor K, no matter what. I’m still standing, so I’ll keep fighting.”
“Yeah, you’ve really been doing a good job of talking Eriksen out of things. Keep it up.”
“Maybe you could make a little more noise,” Novak interjected.
Darius paused for a second, confused. “What do you mean?”
“Do you remember how Eriksen got control of the crowd after the doctor’s verdict?”
Darius could not form an immediate response. The prospect of using fear tactics to counter the colonel made his stomach churn and his skin crawl. “You don’t mean…” He paused. “No. No weapons. No way.”
“You don’t stand a chance without at least something.”
“He’ll have me shot on sight if I’m armed, Ivan. Besides, I’m not going to play at his level. If I have any chance at all of getting the colonists to demand his resignation…”
“His resignation?” Quinn snorted. “You think he’s going to resign if the people get upset? He’s still got all the weapons.”
“Not all of them,” Novak amended. “The scouts all have arms. So do the hunters, farmers, and some of the foresters.”
“You’re not serious,” Darius uttered in unison with the former captain.
“Fine. Just don’t say I never offered to help.”
“Thanks, but I can’t do that.”
A couple minutes passed in suffocating silence. The tips of Darius’s fingers flexed as he expected one of his companions to voice a further objection or idea, but only the feral sounds of distant alien wildlife filled his ears.
“If you change your mind,” Novak’s whisper cut the silence. “There might be a crawler at the edge of camp tomorrow that someone accidentally left unlocked. And there might possibly be a rifle or two carelessly left inside. Just saying.”
“Give it up, Novak,” Quinn replied. “He’s too bull-headed to take you up, and I’m gone before sunrise. Thanks for finding us a place to bunk, but it’s over.”
Darius swallowed and clenched his teeth as quiet descended once more inside the confines of the canvas. After a few minutes he began to hear the snores of his companions on either side of him, and he knew that he was alone with his thoughts. He settled his nerves as best he could and tried to formulate speeches and arguments to anything that Colonel Eriksen might say. He knew that timing was key, and that Lieutenant Reid’s life counted on Darius being able to incite the passion of the colonists before the execution could take place. After racking his brain for a half hour, he sighed and gave up.
Quinn is right.
Calvin McLaughlin
24 April, Year of Landing, 07:49
Gabriel Landing Site
The colonial camp was vacant. As they stole between tents to avoid detection, Cal realized that he and Sergeant Drisko were alone in the expansive sea of triangular canvas. Laundry on makeshift lines flapped in the gentle breeze, waiting for the rising orange sun to warm them up. Scraps of trash rolled lazily down the rows. But there was no human movement at all.
“Something’s wrong here,” Cameron muttered under his breath. “There should be someone here. I mean, where the hell did they all go?”
“Beats me. They didn’t pack up and move, though. That’s for sure.”
“I don’t like it. We need to get out of here.”
“Not until we get what Colonel Dayton sent us here for.”
“You mean Darius?” Cam laughed nervously. “Sure, point him out, let’s get him, and go.”
“Come on, they have to be around here somewhere. Let’s get up on that hill over there and look,” Cal replied as he pointed to a brown rise just on the far side of the sleeper ship’s stern.
Drisko’s lip curled and he marched away toward the target without a word. Cal followed a few steps behind. They reached the hill a few minutes later, and found that it had been tilled almost completely from top to bottom. A pair of horse drawn plows rested near the top, where the work had been abandoned. The parched earth revealed that the work had been done some time ago, but seed had only been planted in a few areas.
“What the hell have these guys been up to?” Cal asked. “Are they going to leave their fields open forever?”
“Why don’t you ask Colonel Eriksen when we run into him?” Drisko sneered.
Cal shook his head and ignored the sergeant’s demeanor. He bounded over empty rows of tilled soil. With each step, the question of why kept repeating itself, growing ever louder in his mental refrain.
Have they found more edible native plants? If not, they really need to get a move on.
As Cal trailed his friend up the broken, dirty hill, he noticed a bulge in the beltline of Cameron’s jeans. A glimpse of dark steel caught his eye as a gust disturbed his shirt.
“What the hell?” Cal growled as he bounded up to Drisko’s side. “Dayton said we were supposed to come unarmed. Just like last time.”
“Then next time he can come out here himself. Last time was bad enough, but this shit’s just too creepy.”
“You know I’m going to tell him when we get back.”
“Good. Maybe he’ll stop sending me on these insane errands of yours.”
“C’mon, this is important. I wouldn’t have snuck out here without Alexis knowing if it wasn’t. Do you have any idea what she’ll do to me if she finds out that I
broke my promise and started working for Dayton again?”
Cameron wheeled around as they reached the crest. His coal-black eyes were wild and full of fire. “You’re not a kid anymore. Dayton expects you to man up, and part of being a man is accepting the consequences of your actions. Remember that when she kicks you in the nuts tonight.”
Cal felt himself flush. He shook his head and turned away from his friend, biting back the scathing rebuttal that he wanted to deliver. Instead he took several deep breaths and began to survey the land beyond Gabriel. What he was searching for did not take long to find; hundreds of colonists were gathered in a mass near the edge of a solitary grove that loomed between two small rises, just over a kilometer away.
“There,” he pointed and started down the far side of the hill.
“Wait, you’re just going to charge right in?” Cameron complained as he hurried alongside.
“Going to take a look first. If they’re gathered to watch something, we should be able to slip in like last time.”
“Ugh. Here we go again.”
They traversed the gap in the brush-pocked terrain in just over ten minutes. As they drew near, Cal confirmed that the colonists had indeed gathered to watch something, though a quick estimate told him there were only around a thousand present. Conspicuously absent were all of the children that he had seen the last time they had arrived in the colony.
Where are the kids? And the rest of the adults?
The crowd stood in a wide, deep arc, looking part of the way up one of the rises. At the point where the collective stare gathered, Cal could make out several men in flight suits. One knelt on the ground with a blindfold around his eyes and bindings on his wrists. Three more stood at attention, twenty feet downhill, facing the crowd. Each one had a rifle slung over their broad shoulders, and if not for the difference in their heights and hair styles, Cal might have thought his eyes were playing tricks. One final figure paced back and forth along the contour of the hill as he addressed the crowd in a grand speech. His frame was even more square and thick than his nearby cohorts, and his neatly trimmed red hair and beard were marred with streaks of white.
“Colonel Eriksen,” Cameron whispered, standing stiff as if suddenly gripped with paralysis. “Shit.”
Cal pulled his friend into the crowd and maneuvered forward to where he could hear what Gabriel’s commander had to say.
“Don’t think that I take this lightly,” Eriksen’s stern voice carried easily over the distance. “This is not a show of force or retaliation. Lieutenant Brandon Reid was convicted of treason. Treason against the government and people of the country he swore to protect. Treason against all of you. This execution is not because we cannot contain a criminal; as you have seen, Doctor Kimura has been placed in stasis for his crimes. Treason is a capital crime. There is only one punishment that we can give. For that, I’m sorry.”
“And you’re still full of lies,” a deep voice belted out from near the front of the crowd. “You still stand in front of us and tell us your excuses for persecuting a man whose only crime was to save the lives of almost everyone here.”
“Darius Owens,” the colonel boomed as he folded his arms across his chest. “This, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly why coddling the traitors cannot be tolerated. Mr. Owens was once a trusted officer of mine, but he has become corrupted by the idea that grave crimes can be dismissed with a simple apology and swept under the rug. He threw away a promising career by constantly undermining what we’re trying to build here on this world. And by staying, he’s thrown away his freedom, too.” Eriksen turned to the trio of officers and barked, “Major Kintney, please take Mr. Owens into custody.”
“Yes, sir,” the barrel-chested man in the middle replied with a smart salute. He handed his weapon to one of his companions and began the march down toward the crowd.
Darius clamored to a higher vantage point, and his head and shoulders became visible above the crowd. He turned his arms out in appeal and shouted, “Look at what’s going on here. All I’ve ever done is talk. Words and reasoning that have fallen on his deaf ears. This man is so vindictive that he is willing to have me arrested in front of all of you, because I have the audacity to speak against him.” He glanced in the direction of the major, then turned to face Eriksen. “I’ve never said anything bad about you before today. I have had nothing but the utmost respect for you as a commanding officer, sir. But this is all wrong.”
“Take him,” Eriksen snarled.
Major Kintney sprang and tackled from whatever high point he had gained, and both hit the ground with a thud. The crowd reacted with a collective gasp, and bodies began to mill about.
“He’s not a threat,” Darius called out. “His wife is pregnant. Please, think about what you’re doing.”
A high, shrill voice rang out from near the front of the crowd, cracking in panic. “God damn it, listen to him! Brandon never hurt anyone!”
“Shit, we need to get out of here,” Cameron whispered as he tugged at Cal’s arm.
“I need to see what’s going on,” he protested.
“Our mission’s over. They’ve taken Darius. Come on.”
Cam and Cal turned to make their way from the crowd, but the riveted audience paid no mind to their urgent need for flight; they stood fixated, and the pair from Michael had to press through to get anywhere. They did not get far before conflict flared up again.
“Let them go, Colonel,” shouted yet another man from the edge of the crowd, just below where Eriksen’s officers stood. Cal craned his neck to see over the mass of humanity, and caught a glimpse of a tall, young, and very muscular red-headed man in a filthy flight suit. “You have to stop, for the good of the colony.”
Eriksen’s scowl briefly changed to a look of surprise before his features hardened again and his lip curled. “Tyler Quinn. That’s two renegades. You going to bring out Miller next?”
“Let them go,” Quinn repeated firmly.
Eriksen paused for a moment, and for that short span of time, the tension in the air seemed to draw the collective breath out of the nearly thousand people present. Though he could make out what looked like the edge of the crowd, Cal found his movement hampered even further by the enraptured throng. He gasped for air as the blue sky and gray hull of the ship taunted him from far away, their safe haven beyond his reach.
“Marks, take Quinn.”
“Yes, sir,” one of the subordinates shouted. He rested one of the two rifles that he carried against a rock, and then started toward Quinn in a deliberate march, leveling the weapon at him. The red haired man stood firm, with his chin held high.
“Garza, carry out your duty.”
“S-sir?” the last subordinate on the hill stammered.
“Execute the lieutenant,” barked Eriksen.
“No!” shrieked the woman in the crowd, echoed a split second later by Darius.
Garza hesitated for a moment. He looked at the defenseless prisoner, and then back to his commanding officer. Colonel Eriksen’s face turned a nearly infernal shade of red; even from where Cal stood, he could see the shade grow darker.
With powerful, long strides, Eriksen covered the gap to Garza in just three seconds. He snatched the rifle from Garza’s grip and jabbed him in the gut with the butt, causing the young man to crumple into a writhing, coughing heap.
“No more,” Eriksen bellowed at the top of his lungs. “No more questioning my authority. This traitor dies!”
From the corner of his eye, Cal caught a movement, and his head swiveled just in time to see Tyler Quinn take a side step and rip the weapon out of Marks’s hands and deliver a punishing blow to the jaw with the stock. Marks staggered and dropped to his knees, reaching for his face. Shrieks rose from the crowd near Quinn. Cal felt the throng press against him, and Cameron slipped away as two women pushed into Cal, knocking him backward.
“Cam!” he gasped and shot his arm out, reaching for his friend as the shifting crowd enveloped him.
“Cal!”
his friend called back, but Cal could not see him anymore.
A single shot pierced the air, and what little order was left in the crowd evaporated. In an instant, Cal was thrown to the ground. He crawled underneath a prickly blue-green bush to avoid the dozens of pairs of feet that trampled the ground where he had initially fallen. Shouts and commands were hurled between the combatants, and only seconds later the air was filled with the deafening reports of gunfire.
Though it was only a few seconds, it felt like an eternity to Cal. With each boom, he tried to curl farther under the bush. Throwing his hands over his ears and closing his eyes did nothing to quell the fear that rose as the battle ensued. He yelped as a hand clamped on to his wrist and yanked. His eyes opened to reveal Cam kneeling next to him, dragging Cal with one hand and wielding a Beretta in the other.
“Come on,” he shouted. “Let’s go. This way.”
Cal stumbled to his feet and willed his legs to move with all their strength and speed as they crouched low, running across the nearly empty field that just moments earlier acted as Eriksen’s makeshift amphitheater. A few dozen colonists lay scattered on the ground. Most who were unfortunate enough to be caught in the middle were on their hands and knees scrambling away. Others lay flat and pressed their hands to their heads.
“Get down!” Drisko yelled, and shoved Cal from behind as two eruptions of dirt darted up from bullets striking the ground a few inches in front of them.
He hit the ground hard, just behind a sizeable boulder. He winced from a sudden pain that shot through his left wrist. Loud reports ripped through the air as Cam discharged three rounds, and others echoed from farther away in response. Cam dropped to the ground next to Cal, though the thump was barely audible over the ringing in his ears. Cal inched his body to the left until his side touched the hulking rock, and did his best to draw his legs in so they were not exposed. Cam dragged himself slowly next to Cal.
“Shit,” Cal muttered as he shook.
“Cal,” his companion whispered. “They got me.”
Cal rolled to his other side and his heart plummeted. Cameron’s face was drained of color, and he drew his hand from his chest, completely soaked in blood. His shirt was awash with the red liquid, and a river began to pool on the ground in front of his stomach.
Project Columbus: Omnibus Page 78