by Rick Partlow
He re-aimed for the darkness of the trooper’s helmet visor and held the trigger pad down, spraying out half a magazine at the man. Plasma flared, a line of coruscating white and yellow connecting them for half a second, and the visor splashed away along with the face beneath it. Some tiny part of Sam’s mind still operating at a level beyond fight-or-flight screamed at him that he’d just killed a man.
Yeah? What’s your point?
The armored corpse collapsed backwards and caused a chain reaction, moving the next man just slightly, distracting another, pushing a third directly into the line of fire. Sam wasn’t sure if it was Telia or Fellows who shot the one who’d stumbled, or both, but he jerked away from the flash and sprawled half-in and half-out of the doorway, and that was enough for the three of the armored troopers left alive.
“They killed the Prime Minister!” one of them was screaming, the shout distorted and tinny over his helmet’s external speakers. “Jesus Christ, they killed the Prime Minister!”
Sam lurched after them by instinct, not entirely sure what he would do if he caught up with them. Shoot them in the back? Try to tell their side of the story?
“Stop.”
Fellows didn’t yell, barely raised his voice, but Sam froze just the same at the gravelly tone of control and command somehow perfectly audible over the blaring alarms. He glanced back and forth between the doorway, littered with three dead bodies, and Fellows, rising from behind the table, the rifle cradled in his arms.
“We need to go make sure everyone knows the truth!” Sam insisted, waving towards the door.
“Are you all right, sir?” Pris was asking Gage, helping him to his feet. The old man was pale and shaken, but he didn’t seem to be hurt. He pulled away from Priscilla and knelt over the Prime Minister’s body, anguish writ plain on his lined and weathered face.
“Grab what guns and ammo you can carry,” Freeman instructed, stripping spare magazines from Blumenthal’s body. “And someone hand me my pistol.”
“They’re going to be bringing reinforcements,” Telia said, cool and unaffected, already obeying his orders and grabbing reloads for the rifle she’d appropriated. “We won’t be able to take them all on, even if they don’t break out sonics or gas grenades.” She shrugged casually. “Or thermal detonators, or frags, or…”
“We’re not taking them on and we’re not going to stick around to debate them,” Fellows snapped, coming to his feet.
Sam had pulled the man’s gun-belt free of the woman whose face he’d smashed; he handed it over wordlessly, trying not to look at the blood splattered across the web belt. Fellows grinned and buckled it on.
“You hold on to that one, flyboy,” he said, nodding towards Telia’s pistol, still in Sam’s right hand. “You’ll probably need it.” He moved toward the door, motioning for the others to follow. “Come on, all of you---you too, Minister Gage, assuming you want to add a few more years to your already-impressive total. This place is a nest of vipers.”
“And go where?” Gage demanded, standing from Brecht’s lifeless body slowly, reluctantly. Sam remembered he’d thought the man was unflappable, like he’d seen everything.
Guess he hadn’t seen this.
“The last place they’ll expect us,” Fellows said.
He was moving out the door and Telia followed him, the rifle at her shoulder, scanning side to side. Pris took Gage’s arm and gently guided the man after them, while Sam brought up the rear, slinging Telia’s pistol belt over his shoulder, not taking the time to adjust it to fit his waist.
People were running away from them, screaming as they emerged from a wreath of smoke into the tableau of chaos that had been a cubicle farm. At the other end of the long, open chamber, dozens of government office workers were jammed up in the stairwell against a squad of Guardians trying to squeeze past, the angry shouts of the troopers tinny and muted against the alarms and the cries of the civilians.
“In here.” Fellows was down a short hallway, more of an alcove, holding open a doorway.
Inside was a dark, narrow hallway lined at intervals with metal access grates, what looked to Sam like the sort of maintenance crawlway techs used to service data cores. When Sam was through, Fellows yanked the door shut and pressed his hand to a security pad beside it. The plate glowed red and Fellows squeezed past the others, scooting down the hall sideways, his shoulders barely clearing the unadorned, cement-block walls.
“Where the hell are we going?” Gage demanded, beginning to sound less in shock and more upset, which Sam supposed was an improvement.
“You don’t build a top-secret shelter like this without a top-secret emergency exit,” Fellows told him, coming to a halt so quickly the grey-bearded Minister nearly ran into his back.
The metal grate was a meter on a side and identical to all the others, but Fellows went to it as if it had a holographic marquee advertising “secret passageway.” He pulled a multi-tool out of a pouch on his belt and jammed it into a notch along the edge of the grate, prying down and outward at once, and it popped open with a vibrato rattle.
“What’s at the other end of this?” Telia asked, crouching down, looking at the narrow passage doubtfully.
“Another empty warehouse.” He shrugged. “But one far away from here. I gotta’ admit, that’s as far as I can get us, unless any of you know someone who’ll give us a lift from there.”
“You know,” Sam said, a grim smile passing over his face, “I just might…”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“I could get in real trouble for this,” Sully mused, goosing the throttle.
The shuttle’s belly jets thundered through the fuselage of the craft, kicking them away from the landing field with enough force to leave Priscilla’s stomach somewhere on the outskirts of Capital City. She tried to answer him, but the g-forces were strong enough she could barely take a breath, much less squeeze out a sound. The night sky spun on the view-screens and city lights merged with the scattered clouds and the waning moon until she thought she might throw up, implants or no.
In the end, it was Telia who spoke first, which might have been simply her innate fortitude or possibly her bionics.
“You said you could fake the flight clearance,” she reminded the pilot. “If that is not the case, we should know now.”
“Naw, I know this guy,” Sully said once the g-load slacked off and they were three thousand meters up and ascending at a more sedate acceleration. “He works in Orbital Traffic Control and he owed me a favor.” Pris was just behind the pilot’s position, between his seat and Sam’s on the right, and she could see the sulky pout on his face when he shrugged. “I was hoping for an intro to his sister, but I guess this’ll have to do. I was just thinking what happens when we get where we’re going and I ain’t got clearance to land there.”
“We all appreciate your sacrifice,” John Gage said, and Pris thought she could detect the dry tone in his voice without turning to see his expression. “And we definitely appreciate the ride. But right now, I’d like to hear exactly what Guardian Prime Fellows has planned for when we land.”
Fellows, Telia and Gage were all seated in the second row of seats in the shuttle’s cockpit, just forward of the steps down to the passenger compartment and Gage had been giving Fellows the stink-eye ever since they boarded. If she was any judge from their acquaintance of the last three years, the Minister was a man used to being in charge and wasn’t fond of the way the Guardian had kept him in the dark up to this point.
“The coordinates I gave our pilot,” Fellows announced, spreading his hands as if the whole matter wasn’t of any consequence, “are from the flight plan Tejado’s jet filed with traffic control.”
“We’re going to Tejado?” Gage asked. “But what if his flight plan wasn’t accurate? Why would he tell anyone where he was meeting this Resolution traitor?”
“You deviate from a filed flight plan,” Sully explained with exaggerated patience, as if he were speaking to a child in Primary School ra
ther than one of the highest officials in his government, “and you’re asking for a squadron of armed drones up your ass.” He glanced back at Gage, face screwed up in consternation. “Ain’t you ever flown anywhere before?”
“I haven’t flown commercial since before your father was born, son.”
“He probably thinks there won’t be anyone left alive to follow him,” Fellows said.
“Where are we following him to?” Sam wanted to know, sounding as tired of the secrecy as Gage.
“The Canadian Rockies. I checked my personal ‘link on the way over here and all I could find in the database is it’s close to what used to be some sort of old military base, back before the original Consensus was formed. I don’t know what could still be out there, after the war…maybe just a place to hide out until things blow over.”
“Like the planet,” Telia murmured.
Gage gave her a sharp glare and she spat a curse.
“I’m sorry, sir,” she shook her head, eyes closing. “But that ramship is still coming. We have months to live, weeks to actually do something about it, and now someone inside our own government just assassinated Prime Minister Brecht. I have tried to maintain my faith, but I see little hope ahead.”
“We can still do it,” Pris insisted with more conviction than she actually felt. “If we can prove factions from among our own people were involved, I know Mother will try to make things right.”
Fellows snorted humorlessly, head tilting back.
“Oh, you sound almost as if you believe that, missy.”
Pris rounded on him, eyes flaring, the stress of the last month finally making its way past her iron control.
“I haven’t heard any better ideas from you,” she snapped at him. “Unless you think we can turn the thing around with glares and harsh language.”
“No,” the Guardian admitted freely, tossing a hand. “You people are the last chance we got now.” He shook his head. “I just don’t think it’s a great chance. You might actually care about saving us as much as you claim, but I don’t believe for one minute your fucking computer god gives a shit.”
“If she didn’t give a shit,” Pris argued, “why would we have built the Gate in the first place?”
“You built it,” he agreed. “And then one of your own blew the damned thing up. We helped you build it, and then one of our own does the best he can to sabotage anything we can do to save ourselves. The Belters try to help us, and now we’re at war with them. It seems to me someone is doing their damnedest to make sure this fucking ship kills us all.”
“Something doesn’t make sense,” Gage insisted.
“Just one thing?” Fellows cracked, but Gage ignored him.
“I can understand someone from the Resolution considering us the enemy, not wanting to save us. I could understand the Belters, even…” He grimaced. “But Jamie…Minister Tejado, he’s many things, but he’s loyal to the Consensus and he has to know the threat is real. How could he condemn us all to death? What does he have to gain?”
“You can ask him yourself,” Sully chimed in, his voice as cheerful as ever. “We’re gonna’ be there in about ten minutes.”
***
The sun peeked out over the crest of the mountains, bathing their snow-capped spires in a pink alpenglow, spreading slowly down through the aspens in scatters of red and gold and it was probably one of the most beautiful things Sam Avalon had ever seen. He clutched the grip of the pulse pistol tighter, shivering fitfully from temperatures just above freezing and wishing he was anywhere else in the universe.
“You should have stayed behind,” Telia said again to Minister Gage, a stray glint of dawn reflecting off the metal of her bionic eye as she glanced back at the older man.
Gage stared at the ground intently, hands buried in his pockets, seemingly entirely focused on simply putting one foot in front of the other on the steep, snow-covered trail.
“I should have done many things,” he responded evenly, not showing any affect from the cold. “Yet here I am.”
Sully, at least, had shown the good sense to stay with the shuttle. He’d put her down in a clearing about three kilometers from where they’d spotted the VTOL flyer, which might have been a waste of time if Tejado and Valley had bothered to deploy surveillance drones, but it seemed like a risk worth taking. Well, it had seemed worth taking until Sam had gotten out on the damn trail and his boots had started sinking a couple centimeters into the snow with each step and the wind had started cutting through him.
“Someone should have mentioned we’d be taking a nature hike,” he grumbled, half to himself, staring at one tree that pretty much looked like another and almost wishing someone would shoot at them.
“Watch for grizzlies,” Fellows cautioned over his shoulder from the front of their single-file column. The cold didn’t seem to bother him at all. “This place is lousy with them. Wolves too, but those probably won’t bother five people travelling together.” He shrugged. “And mountain lions, lots of mountain lions of course.”
Sam heard Priscilla chuckling behind him and he glanced back at her, a bit surprised. She was smiling, which surprised him as well, even though she was just as cold as he was, and just as underdressed for the elements. Telia had given Pris her sidearm and it looked somehow out of place belted around her narrow waist; he had never pictured her holding a gun.
“I have seen and done so much these last three years,” she told him softly, noting his curious look, “experienced so much. This,” she nodded around them, “seems an appropriate place for it all to end.”
“Nothing is ending,” he said, knowing his tone sounded sharp but not caring. “We’re going to capture Valley and find out who’s behind this.”
“We will,” she agreed, stepping up and putting a hand on his shoulder. “But nothing is guaranteed in life. And if this is my final act, I want you to know you made this the best of all possible worlds for me.”
“That’s all really fucking sweet,” Fellows said, voice kept low but not a whisper, “but we’re getting close and I think it’s time you all just shut up before you make me lose my breakfast…that I didn’t get to eat, thanks all to hell.”
Dawn was finally working its way down through the trees, turning what had been menacing shadow into mundane, winding trail, snow-crusted rocks and fallen branches. Sam didn’t think there’d be any bears. He thought he’d read bears didn’t attack big groups of people. But he still kept thinking about mountain lions every time they passed a rock shelf, which they did more and more as the trail began sloping sharply upward, and he cursed Fellows silently.
The paranoia dragged the hike out and, in between imaginary lions and spectral enemy soldiers, he kept wondering if the landing site they’d spotted from the air was just around the bend, or just over the next rise. It wasn’t, and still wasn’t, and kept not being until it seemed like it never would be and they’d be walking past these same rocks and trees for eternity, stuck in some sort of boreal purgatory.
Are we lost? Does Fellows actually know how to get there?
The Guardian raised a hand up to shoulder level, the universal symbol for everyone to halt, then clenched it into a fist and took a knee. Sam wasn’t totally sure what the gesture meant, but he saw Telia and Gage imitating the motion and he took the chance Fellows was telling them to get down, so he did as well. Ahead of them was a sharp rise, the trail cut with steps at some point, well worn now until they were mere indentations. He couldn’t see anything over the top of it and he thought maybe it leveled out ahead.
Fellows waited motionless, head cocked to the side as if he was listening, though Sam couldn’t hear anything.
Huh. Can’t hear anything…including birds, or squirrels or whatever was making those chittering noises in the trees. Just nothing.
Fellows turned back to them and patted the air in what Sam thought was a gesture for them to stay there. He pointed to himself, then forward, then signaled he was going up ahead to reconnoiter, which seemed like a
damned good idea, though Sam would rather have gone with him than stayed back here where he couldn’t see anything. Telia looked even less happy about it, but she said nothing, just glared at Fellows’ back as he disappeared over the top of the rise, crouching low.
Sam shared a glance with Priscilla and considered talking to her via the neurolinks, but decided not to risk it. They operated via radio waves, and if Tejado had left anyone behind in the plane with the right sort of gear, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility they might detect the transmission. Besides, he had nothing important to say; it was just nerves wearing on him, the nagging worry he might have to kill someone else. And it wasn’t so much it had bothered him, but more that it hadn’t. He kept expecting guilt to set in, or shock, but there was nothing.
What he did keep seeing over and over, looping like a video clip in his mind whenever he closed his eyes, was the plasma blast hitting Prime Minister Brecht in the chest, her collapsing backwards with a look of pain and shock on her face. She’d seemed so strong and certain in life, yet it had abandoned her in death. Was that how he’d look when his time came, like death had come as such an utter surprise?
He was still trying to push her death mask out of his memory when Fellows returned. He wasn’t crouching this time, was almost sauntering, the pulse rifle held at low ready. He waved them forward and Telia led them off, with Gage kept in the middle between her and Sam. The climb up the rise was steep and Gage faltered near the apex; Sam thought he’d have to help the old man, but Gage caught himself, leaning forward and grabbing onto an exposed rock ledge and pulling himself over the crest.
Sam followed and nearly stopped in his tracks when he saw the flyer. It was only twenty or thirty meters ahead, where the path widened out into a clearing. Blackened stumps dotted the bare dirt and Sam guessed there’d been a fire in the area recently, within the last year or so because of the lack of re-growth. Enough space had been cleared in the clumps of aspens for the VTOL jet to touch down, its tricycle landing gear squeezed between half-meter tall stumps.