by Scott Moon
Maximus pushed away thoughts of his lost pack. Of what happened to them. Of how they were treated worse than food. The humans had come to Glakridoz and died. If they had only asked before they came, Maximus and his pack would have warned them it was a bad place for humans.
Pain grew, and grew, and grew inside of Maximus. He wanted his suffering to stop.
VoidHunter laughed as he gained ground on Maximus. “I hit you, didn’t I, you filthy beast? Damn, you’re still fast. Not even you can survive a wound like that. Would you just…stop…running so fast…”
The blaster wound hurt each time Maximus stretched his left leg forward, even though injury was in his side, dangerously near his stomach. He tried to ignore the pain, but each time he tripped, it was like getting harpooned by yicktidi-glak-o-an. The Heart Stone shifted within his backup stomach. He ran slowly—embarrassing, downright get-yourself-driven-out-of-the-pack slow. Muchly slow, as Mast Jotham would say.
A breeze carried the scent of his friend the sheriff-pack leader. “Snort! Ra-ooooh.” Which meant something like “Let’s get some” in human talk. He turned several corners in quick succession. The hunter from Glakridoz followed him.
***
Thad heard Maximus before he saw the animal. A gust of wind carried the smell of starship engines powering up. This far from the spaceport, that was a bad sign.
He keyed his radio. “Mast, come in. Can you hear me?”
“I do hear you, Sheriff. How are you today?”
Thad stared at the speaker, nearly tripping before he slowed to a walk. “What?”
“How are you?”
“I’m…good. Chasing an escaped psychopath that wants to kill my dog. You?”
“I’m trying to keep a ship from taking off and destroying half of Darklanding! We need help! Bring your prisoner and make him turn off the launch sequence!” Mast yelled, his voice distorting through the radio.
Maximus howled, closer this time and moving fast.
“The prisoner escaped. I’ll get back to you,” Thad said, then clipped the small radio to his belt.
“Not good!” Mast’s words were cut off as Thad turned off the radio.
Maximus darted around the corner. “Aroooooh! Snort!”
Zane VoidHunter followed him, reloading as he ran.
Thad seized the initiative, slamming the man to the ground. “You just can’t get enough of losing, can you?”
Zane grunted in pain as he hit the cheap asphalt.
Maximus rolled his eyes.
“Everyone’s a critic. You’d do it different?”
Maximus growled, showing four rows of teeth and eyes that seemed to fill with blood. Thad saw nothing but bloodlust in the Glakridozian’s eyes, more ruthless than the animal had been during battle on Centauri Prime.
The pig-dog thought he should kill the hunter. Maybe he was right.
Zane shoved both arms into Thad’s chest, then thrust his hips until Thad’s balance was pushed up and sideways—a classic jiu-jitsu counter-move and escape tactic. Thad resisted getting dumped aside, but it was too late. The man was good. This was going to be a nasty fight.
Thad rolled away and came to his feet, drawing his blaster.
Zane kicked it aside, drawing his own weapon and trying to finish reloading.
Thad hammer-fisted him across the forearm, sending the weapon skittering across the pavement.
What happened next was the worst moment of Thad’s life. He didn’t understand how the Glakridozian human got the drop on him, but the speed and force of his attack was like a thunderbolt. The man tackled him, lifting him into the air and slamming him down on his head. He pinned Thad to the ground and started dropping fists and elbows on Thad’s face.
Thad wanted to resist, to twist free, to do anything but lie there and get pummeled. Unfortunately, his brain didn’t seem to connect with his body. Stunned, hurt, and suffocating from the pressure of the man’s knee on his stomach, Thad realized he was going to die right here, right now.
A horrible sound split the night. A nightmare ripped Zane VoidHunter off Thad, dragging the man away like he’d been hit by a truck. Blood sprayed into the air, still falling long after Thad’s opponent disappeared.
He rolled into a sitting position in time to see Maximus dragging the Zane VoidHunter into an alley.
Screams and growls echoed through Darklanding.
Mast ran down the street. “Thaddeus! Sheriff Fry! Are you okay? Can you come turn off the ship before it blasts off?”
Thad shook stars from his head. “Sure thing, Mast. It’s all about you. No rest for the sheriff.”
“You are muchly having a pity party,” Mast said.
Thad stared at him. “Really?”
Maximus trotted back into the street. Darklanding seemed quiet and peaceful. Only the sound of space freighters circling the upper atmosphere disturbed the cool night air.
“What’d you do with that asshole?” Thad asked. He considered vomiting, but standing and bending over to puke seemed like an impossible feat of strength and coordination. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”
“Snort.”
“Should we expect more hunters from Glakridoz coming for the Heart Stone?” Thad asked.
“Sheriff Fry, I am not muchly wanting to be a pain in your hindquarters, but we must turn off the ship somehow. Penelope—who is muchly okay, in case you were wondering—says you know how to do it,” Mast said.
Maximus never looked away from Thad. “Snort.”
“No more hunters? Are you sure?”
“Snort.”
Thad shook his head, wondering why he was talking to a pig-dog as he levered himself to his feet. “Let’s go turn off the ship. Anything else on Penelope’s honey-do list? I thought she was the general’s problem now.”
“Do not complain to Mast Jotham. You are the one who acquired so many ex-wives. You must muchly pay to play.”
“Aroooooh. Snort.”
Episode 11
Diver Down
CHAPTER ONE: Fight
Sheriff Thaddeus Fry sat on a ledge with the over-sized head of a pig-dog resting in his lap. Weak, lethargic, and sad, the animal refused to leave his side. Maximus’s condition had steadily deteriorated during the days following the incident with the hunter from Glakridoz.
Thaddeus scratched roughly behind the animal’s ears, moving the large head side to side. “I wish I’d known sooner what you were going through.”
Maximus lifted his head, staring into Thad’s eyes as though to wonder what the sheriff thought he could have done about the problem.
Sunset over Transport Canyon was spectacular—red, orange, and yellow layers of the same atmospheric distortion. He could almost see the curve of the planet. There were three rails for high-speed trains now, built during the boom and barely used with little but exotic ore dust coming from the SagCon mines. A flock of native birds gathered, circled, and dispersed on the horizon. He saw a herd of animals grazing on distant foothills. Size and speed was impossible to know from this far away. He could point binoculars at them but didn’t care. He would enjoy the rest, then he’d take Maximus into one of the most secret and sacred places on the planet.
Few people, human or Unglok, knew about the ship Cornelius Vandersun and his granddaughter, Ruby Miranda Vandersun, had flown out of the mines—causing the floods, incidentally. Even fewer knew of the ship Mast Jotham, Thad’s deputy, had seen below Darklanding during his vision quest. Thad and Maximus would be the first and last human and Glakridozian to trespass in the sacred shrine, a shaft that led into the depths of the planet.
Mast had seen another ship down there among clouds of A19, a substance poisonous to Ungloks. He’d reported monsters, hordes of hallucinations trying to drag him down and devour him. Thad believed the creatures Mast had described were imaginary. Now he was betting his life and the life of Maximus on this assumption. Why? Because the bottom of the shaft was the only place he could dispose of the Heart Stone.
For re
asons he didn’t fully understand, but that Mast had worked out during long “arguments” with Maximus, the Heart Stone couldn’t be launched into space. Such an action would only cause the stone to seek the planet’s surface, where it would crack open and begin knocking over dominos in the biosphere.
“Are you ready?”
Maximus bobbed his head, failing to snort, fart, or drool.
“Your lack of flatulence actually worries me, my friend.”
Thad led him into the cave as Mast had instructed. They encountered Ungloks dressed in ceremonial robes who bowed and chanted. The cave led to the top of a vertical shaft thirty meters in diameter. Looking into the black hole was like giving up on life or seeing a glimpse of the end times. It was cold, dark, and absolute.
“It will be difficult,” an Unglok named Lingviat said. “Few are able to make the climb. None have made the climb while carrying another…being.”
“We’ll manage.”
“Snort.”
The other two Ungloks offered a large wicker basket to Thad. He slipped his arms through a pair of straps, then squatted low. “Mount up.”
“Snort,” Maximus snorted as he snuggled into place. Thad grunted as he stood up, took a deep breath, and backed onto the ladder that led down. It started with the first foot, then the next.
Thad climbed for three days, resting on narrow ledges where previous pilgrims had left burnt incense, jars of cool water, and dried food. He took what he needed and replaced what he could, as was the custom in this place.
Hours passed slowly. There were times he turned off his light and accepted the darkness like penance that would bring absolution. Other times, the same quality of the journey nearly drove him crazy. Maximus barely made a sound, barely breathed until they arrived at the bottom.
Clouds of mist swirled around them without effect on human or Glakridozian. Maximus squirmed free of the basket Thad had carried so far and trotted into a deeper darkness and thicker mists.
Thad sat near his lantern a safe distance from his animal friend as the Heart Stone was regurgitated into the dormant alien ship. He wasn’t interested in the details of this part. Ignorance was bliss, but not entirely possible. He covered his ears and whistled a happy, off-tune melody.
“I hope Mast was right. It makes sense. The ship should be able to hold all kinds of toxic chemicals without poisoning a crew, not that it seems to have one now.” He thought he saw movement in the corner of his vision—something crawling sideways, or maybe backward. The monstrosity sent shivers through his spine.
Mast hadn’t been hallucinating. There was something down here. Fortunately, the creatures seemed frightened of the pig-dog.
Thad smacked the side of the animal’s neck, then roughed up his fur good-naturedly. “I knew you were good for something.”
Maximus returned, exhausted from the ordeal. Thad put the pig-dog back in the saddle, so to speak. “You’re heavy, buddy.”
“Snort, snort.”
The ascent took five days. Thad never wanted to see another ladder for as long as he lived. Every muscle, tendon, and joint ached from overuse. His hands and feet were a mass of blisters broken and reformed too many times. He was hungry and thirsty. The A19 mist had given him a headache that lingered all the way home.
“Snort, snort, snort,” Maximus snorted and pranced. “Snort!”
Thad smiled. “Totally worth it, dog.”
This sent the Glakridozian into a tirade of complaints and obnoxious sounds. Who the hell are you calling a dog? the creature seemed to complain.
Maximus snorted a lot, all the way back to the Mother Lode.
***
Thaddeus quietly closed the door to his room. Maximus had fallen into an exhausted slumber the moment they returned. Concerned for his friend but also needing a shower nearly as much as he needed to breathe air, Thad cleaned up and put on a fresh SagCon jumpsuit with the well-worn but distinctive stripes of management. Coat, gun belt, boots, and blaster prepared him for anything Darklanding had to offer. He hoped.
At the top of the stairs, he heard familiar voices coming from the saloon. He wasn’t in the mood for his ex-wife or the general, so he went out the back. Taking the alley was always a gamble. One never knew what one might see in the shadows behind a brothel.
He was greeted by the sound of glass breaking and two men yelling from around the corner. He moved tactically, taking the corner wide so he could see larger and larger pieces of the pie before revealing his own position. There was a metal barrel that had been converted into a blazing fire pit. These things were more and more common as credits for fuel became scarce. The weather in Darklanding was changing.
Instead of two or three malcontents, he saw nearly a dozen men he knew as solid workers from the mines gathered shoulder to shoulder to warm their hands. Unfortunately, the presence of regular workers didn’t exclude the presence of street-thug losers. These days, the line could get a bit blurry.
“I said shut your mouth. The mines can’t close. SagCon has too much invested to allow Darklanding to go belly up,” the first voice said.
“You’re such a dumbass. Companies as big as SagCon go under all the time. First thing they do is lay off everybody and make a bunch of promises.”
Thaddeus watched from a half-dozen meters. The miners and dockworkers were facing the fire, completely unaware of his arrival. They were hardworking men and women, not TerroCom soldiers.
“They ain’t laid no one off yet,” a second voice said. On his sleeve was a stripe of a line supervisor, one of P. C. Dickles’s junior foremen.
“They ain’t given us no work neither. It’s the same thing. And we can’t do a damn thing about it. You all think the Company Man is a genius or something, but I just think she has nice jugs. Profit-sharing? You really believe that? I never heard of SagCon doing nothing like that,” the first voice said.
Thaddeus was backing away, content to leave them to their petty squabbling, when the argument became a fight. Punching and kicking usually led to injuries, which were considered vandalism to SagCon investments…the investments being workers who were expensive to ship from distant worlds more desperate than Ungwilook. Which meant it was time to do some Sheriff-ing.
“You calling me stupid?” the second voice said.
The reply was lost under grunts and curses and the sound of the fire barrel getting slammed sideways. Thad rushed into the fray, shoving noncombatants aside to get at the brawlers. One man had another pushed up against the wall. They wrestled for balance, occasionally pulling back a hand and swinging a fist. The fire barrel tottered a few feet from them. Some of the other men and women were trying to get control of the burning container before it tipped over. They shouted at the brawlers, to no effect.
“Darklanding Sheriff’s Department! Stand down!” Getting control of the two men proved more difficult than he had expected. They fought like maniacs and moved back and forth across the width of the alley. On the third try, he snagged one by the collar and yanked him off his feet. The other fighter barely noticed Thad as he pushed his sudden advantage, jumping forward like he was going to stomp on his fallen foe.
Thaddeus shoved him backward without letting go of the other guy’s collar.
The jumper recovered and rushed forward again. Thaddeus decked him with a right cross. Without hesitation, he yanked the other man farther away from the fight.
“I said, Sheriff’s Department, stand…down.”
The miners and dockworkers pulled their friends back and held onto them.
“Sorry, Sheriff. Just a little disagreement is all,” one man said.
“Get them home right now. I see either one of them again today and they’re going to jail. Don’t piss me off, and don’t waste my time.”
“No problem, Sheriff. Sorry, Sheriff.”
Thaddeus gave each of them a stern look, then marched out of the alley. He completed his morning rounds, making note of vacant warehouses and putting a stop to three other fights before they started.
There wasn’t much he could do about clusters of men and women sitting around on street corners or near the worker depot, the loading dock where humans and Ungloks alike waited for work. Darklanding appeared tired and dirty. Something had to change or people who had left everything behind seeking their fortune would do something desperate. And desperation could lead to things that the sheriff might not be able to control.
***
Shaunte ignored Thaddeus when he finally arrived. Her message had requested his presence as soon as possible, which apparently meant whenever he felt like it. Her calendar was full, her daily agenda packed with video conferences, market analysis, and strategic networking. She didn’t have time to babysit her sheriff. Worse, her annoyance was going to affect her mood later when they were supposed to have a romantic dinner.
For his part, the man didn’t seem to mind waiting. He leaned back in his chair, one boot crossed over one knee and his arms spread wide enough to rest on the back of the new leather couch she’d added to her office last month. He held the sweat-stained and faded cowboy hat in his left hand. She’d always wondered what a cowboy was, exactly.
His hair was a bit longer than she liked. The only thing he had going for him was that he had bathed recently. If he’d been to his outdoor gymnasium recently, he had the courtesy to clean up afterward.
She turned off her computer screen with an exasperated sigh. “Took you long enough.”
“I had to rough some people up.”
“Very funny.”
“I wasn’t joking. The natives are restless. Well, not the natives, actually. The miners and dockworkers need credits to buy food and other luxuries. I think they’re hangry.”
“I know all about the lack of work at the mines. Panning for exotics is a joke, an appreciated best effort to be sure, but nowhere near what we need to keep this operation running,” she said.
“I’m just saying I need a raise. Mast and I’ve been breaking up two or three fights a day. I’m constantly cracking down on illegal gambling and theft. Half the population is running a scam on the other half. The boom gave everyone a taste of the good life. Now they can’t endure the miserable survival wages and impossible work conditions. A lot of workers feel like they’re being exploited. They think the Sagittarian Conglomerate is going to abandon them—close the operation and leave them here with the natives of Ungwilook they love so much.”