by T Q Chant
Weird thing was, she was nervous in a way she wouldn’t have been if she was just going into a firefight with the goons. Firefights she at least had some control of; here she was reliant on a virtually unknown individual who had a suspiciously in-depth knowledge of how things worked in this fucked-up place.
“And my betrothed, whose father is Jonathan, will be hearing of this!” came the final ringing denouncement (or something along those lines), probably louder than Williams was really comfortable with.
The hostiles were backing off, glancing with a mix of disgust and curiosity at Williams and not looking at the disguised Kora or Caha at all. They about-faced and hurried away – from the set of her body, Williams guessed Cane was seeing them off with a furious glare. She was grinning when she turned back to them, but it was a shaky grin.
“It’s all about the chutzpah,” she murmured to Williams as she fell in next to her and the small party headed off again. Williams could feel a slight breeze on her face now, suggesting they were close to an outdoor space. Or air reprocessing.
“You got engaged while held here?”
“Long story – you’ve heard of arranged marriages?”
“Nope.”
“Me neither, until these people ‘saved’ me.”
**********
“Fuck,” Williams breathed as Sam led them out of one of the many service tunnels into the brightness of the agricanyon.
“Like I said,” she said, feeling a certain amount of smugness as the three soldiers stared at the broad expanse of fields and pens, broken by the rusting derelict hulks of the abandoned machinery. It was still not-night and the strange, grainy half-light lent the whole cavernous space an eerie air and made it seem like the fields of corn and other crops were endless. Too early, thankfully, for even the earliest shift to be heading out to work. “City, not installation.”
“How have they kept this secret?” the male half of Williams’ backup act asked.
“By being clever and by hiding where nobody would think to look, and by nobody even suspecting there were people out here already. And here’s the scary bit – I don’t think this is their only world.”
“Full briefing in due course – right now we need somewhere to lay low and plan a double-ee.”
Sam pointed at the nearest of the derelict agrimachines, half a klick away. The wrecks had become taboo by official decree – nothing to do with what Sam had discovered, of course. “That should be deserted. We've gotta be quick, though – morning shift will be coming out soon and I've got an appointment with a near-fatal accident.”
She wasn't quite sure where this black humour was coming from; nerves and adrenalin, she guessed, maybe just having someone to talk to who wasn't one of the rapture zombies.
“Let's go – you two, ditch the robes. Would just look suspicious if you're caught in them now.”
The wreck had a long, cavernous chassis slung low between old-fashioned caterpillar tracks. The four of them hopped into the stuffy, noisome interior; it stank of some sort of animal shit, mercifully not the sickly sweetness of the angels.
At some point, while they were getting settled, Sam found herself staring down the business end of Williams' sidearm. She hadn't even noticed the sergeant re-arming herself.
“Now – how the fuck do you speak their language, why the fuck are you wandering around unescorted if you're a prisoner, and the fuck’s up with having a fiancé?”
Sam didn't let herself panic – it wasn't the first time she'd been on the wrong side of a gun, and the way her life had been going recently it was hardly the worst thing that could have happened. Williams could just have decided she was a liability like the two Near-Raptured.
Which wasn't to say that she wouldn't come to that decision anyway...
“In order – because they fucked with my head, because they fucked with my head, and, oh yeah, because they fucked with my head.” She wasn't panicking, but she was pissed off.
“And you have unfucked your head?”
“What do you think?” she spat back, and then relented. “It's a work in progress. They tried to reprogramme me to be one of them – they call it Saving – and have been struggling to make it stick. I'm some sort of test subject for them – they're coming for everyone else next. So we should maybe report back to your superiors?”
The gun disappeared, Williams at least partially mollified. For now. “You mentioned an appointment with an accident?”
Doesn't miss anything, this one. “I overheard them – they're giving up on the project and want to turn me into a...vessel for their angels. They call the weird mutant things that serve them angels.”
“We've encountered them.” Williams and the other woman were both watching her with flat, unexpressive expressions. Cahaya – Sam had caught the name earlier – was keeping a discreet watch out. “OK, here's the sitch. Our ride is running silent as there's an unidentified, probably hostile vessel in orbit. We need to get a ship to get offplanet.”
“There was a shuttle onplanet, about five klicks up the canyon. Came down yesterday to deliver reinforcements, so it's definitely spaceworthy.”
“That'll do. Let's go.”
“We need to rescue the other colonists.”
“Come again?”
“Some of the colony survivors are being held prisoner here – properly in chains. I assume your mission includes getting them out?”
“Nope. Come here, get intel, pull you out if you were still alive. Which, apparently, you are.”
Sam took a moment to consider that, then said something even she didn't expect. “I can't leave without them. I owe them.”
Rule number... Shut the hell up.
“Look, Cane. We've lost four mates on this shithole planet already, and the only way that would be even remotely worth it is if we get the intel we've gathered off it.”
“They might have more useful intel – like I said, my head's been messed with. They haven't been reprogrammed.”
Williams' natural expression seemed to be a scowl. Now it deepened until crevices appeared in the already-lined features. “Probably not worth the risk.”
“You're not getting off this planet without me, and I'm not going if we're not taking them with us.”
“You're optional.”
Sam realised she was probably out of her league with this one – Tier One operators were famously cold-blooded.
“OK. How about this. You let me worry about the colonists, you guys secure the shuttle. Then, if I don't make it, you can fuck off anyway – and at least I'll be providing you with a distraction.”
Williams looked like she was chewing a particularly unripe mango. “Alright. We should be able to make it to the launch pad before local sunrise. We'll give you two hours after that to free the colonists and join us. If you're not on-board then, you get left behind.”
Sam nodded, realising with a cold, sick feeling in her gut that she was going back into the belly of the beast, and doing so voluntarily. “There's one thing you can do for me to make this happen.”
CHAPTER NINE – SCHOOLS OF BETRAYAL
Sam hurried back underground, back to the hostel. Back into danger. She knew she'd cut it fine with the amount of time it had taken her to get the soldiers clear and make a plan for the rescue. Because she did owe the colonists.
No such thing as owing someone. Not unless they have a marker on you, and only then if they can call it in.
“Yeah yeah yeah – no honour among thieves and all that. This I gotta do, though.”
The first shifts for both the fields and the factories were starting to rise and make their bleary-eyed way to the refectories. Sam fought down the urge to hurry or even pick up the pace, rather just kept her head down, avoided eye contact and blended in with the crowds.
“You're up early,” Bethany said brightly as she emerged from her dorm room, just as Sam was about to disappear into her own room.
A sudden surge of emotions almost floored her. Anger, bitterness, disappoin
tment. Lust. The pain of betrayed trust. Some of it must have shown on her face; Bethany's smile slipped. “What's the matter?”
Sam forced a tired smile – tired wasn't hard to fake as she hadn't actually slept for more than a local day, but the smile was an effort. “Nothing – just didn't sleep well last night, so I got up and went for a walk.”
Bethany looked genuinely concerned by that. Well, I am her experiment, so she would worry. “It's not safe to be out unescorted, Sam. Samrit. We are under attack, and sometimes the angels, well...they sometimes cannot tell who is a threat and who is a true believer.”
They'd be right in thinking of me as a threat. “I understand – it won't happen again.”
Bethany took her arm companionably, Sam forcing herself not to flinch at the touch she had enjoyed before. “Well, we had best get some food and caff into you. Another day in the fields awaits.”
“Another day of service,” Sam replied, forcing some life into her voice. Come on, this is bread and butter stuff. You pulled your first con when you were thirteen.
The stakes were never quite this high, though.
**********
“Never seen anything quite like it,” Kora reported as the three of them scoped the landing field. They were sheltering in a field of two-metre tall transgenic corn, adaptive concealment capes spread over them despite the heat hammering down from the exposed end of the canyon. “Completely new design.”
The shuttle that squatted under basic camo netting on the field was a squat, blocky affair that sat upright on massive flared plasma thrusters, its blunt nose pointed at the sky. Williams wasn't entirely convinced that it looked safe.
“Or very old,” Cahaya pointed out. “Everything else we've seen suggests they're using ancient Earth tech, not making new stuff.”
“Probably a bit of both,” Williams suggested. “Cane did point out that they have manufacturing capability here; nothing to say they don't have anything offworld.”
“Could be alien.”
“Lotta 'could be’s',” Williams pointed out, almost unconsciously adopting their dead squad leader’s favourite phrase. “Question is – can you fly it?”
Kora was running the imagery through some specialised software in her rig systems. She wasn't a combat pilot by any stretch, but she had basic training – any intel team always went onplanet with at least one person trained in basic surface-to-orbit. “I think so – the control surfaces and engines look simple enough. It's more a question of sitting on a giant fire and hoping for the best, I suspect.”
“Cahaya, security?”
The intel specialist snorted – he was starting to get quite blasé about the hostiles. “They shouldn't have bothered – one guard on the ramp, a pair walking the perimeter.”
“Easy enough. This has to be fast and quiet. Caha, you and I are going to ambush the perimeter pair. Kora uses the Engager to put down the guard on the ramp. Then up and in, and kill anything inside that moves. Kora, straight to the cockpit and start launch sequences.”
“We are going to wait for Cane?” Cahaya interjected.
“We'll see – if we make a lot of noise or there's more of a presence here than we think, we go. Getting the intel back to the cutter is our main priority. If we're still clean, we give her the time allotted and no more.” Williams passed her coilgun across to Kora – she was the best shot in the team when it came to sniping, even if she'd never had to do it in the field before. Medusa had been her way of reaching out and touching someone in the past. More to the point, she was the one they had to keep in one piece. “You go when we go.”
She stared hard at Cahaya. He'd been holding up well and had done his part of the trigger work, but he was still an intel specialist, not a hard fighting killer. She didn't think he'd freeze up, though. She pulled her sidearm. “Let's get this done and go home.”
**********
The sun was up, but not long since, by the time Sam and the other overseers were out in the fields. By now, the allies would be at the landing field and had either seized the shuttle or were preparing to.
Sam couldn't decide whether the day was slightly cooler or whether her fatigue and nerves were grinding her down. The enormous ruin of the harvester nearby was a threatening presence; she had to force herself not to glance towards it too often. Everything had to appear normal – for a given standard of normality. She couldn't let on that she knew they were planning something, or that she had her own plans already in motion.
She eyed the slaves. They were dirty, dishevelled, most of them still in the scraps of their simple, rugged everyday colonial wear. They'd have to move fast when the time came, but they were so beaten down she wasn't sure they'd even notice if she did free them. It wasn't far to the landing field, but they'd have to do it at a run to get there before they were cut off.
Or the shuttle left without them.
Okafor had strolled over to the harvester. He was trying very hard to look casual, but he wasn't a pro. The other overseer who emerged from the vehicle, his face and hands stained with dirt and oil, wasn't even trying. Bethany was lying back on a clear patch of ground, apparently just enjoying the sunlight, and the other two overseers were away on the far side of the group, tormenting one of the weaker colonists.
She grabbed the nearest slave by the arm, the one called Lafarge. “Is Sergei still alive?” she asked him, keeping her voice low. She swung her goad a few times, in a way she'd calculated to look menacing without her ever actually having to apply it.
The colonist blinked at her, her words forcing their way in through layers of exhaustion, grime and stubble. “Yes. Over there.”
“Don't point. Listen. Shit's about to get real.” She didn't have time to explain, didn't have time to try to convince him that she was on their side – a bit of swearing would probably help though. “When it does, you gotta be ready to move. Spread the word, but don't let those fuckers overhear you.”
For a moment she though Lafarge would just continue to stare at her. She menaced him with her goad, raised her voice. “Do you understand me, dog?” she shouted. He nodded jerkily, went back to his hoeing of the rocky ground. One of the other nearby colonists caught her eye and gave a very slight nod of understanding.
“Samrit, would you join me please?”
That dull, dead voice didn't so much as send chills down her spine as freeze her whole body. She smiled as she turned, saw Okafor beckoning her into the shade of the harvester. His assistant was nowhere to be seen.
She looked up, at the great blades of the rotary harvesters that hung limp and unused just above head height. She was surprised they'd never been scavenged for material.
Focus. This is how it happens.
She walked forward towards Okafor, towards her so-called fiancé. Wondered if he thought he'd be rewarded with a pleasanter, more compliant wife for doing this deed. Bethany, perhaps? Or Cho, to cement her loyalty to Jonathan. Sam smirked at the thought.
She stopped just shy of the blades, eyes searching for a clue as to how they were going to try to cripple her. Looking for what she needed to get out of this. “You wished to see me?”
Okafor gave her one of his smiles that were supposed to be warm and encouraging but just made her skin crawl. “Come to me, my betrothed,” he said. “I wish to show you something of the way things used to be here.”
Yeah – an agricultural accident. “These relics have been declared off-limits.”
A flicker of impatience, anger even, appeared in his eyes. Sam was impressed – she thought his father had crushed all the emotions out of him. Apparently it was just the positive feelings that were gone.
“Such rules do not apply to our kind.”
She couldn't stall any longer. She was about to step forward, but froze on the spot when a voice was raised behind her.
“Master! Do not trust her! She is planning something!”
Lafarge. Lafarge who hadn't overheard her talking to Janssen, because Cho trusted him. Lafarge who had overheard her
reassure Lucien and had betrayed her then. Not Bethany, but one of the people she was trying to save, was the betrayer.
“Son of a bitch.”
**********
Williams' mark dropped as a flechette took his throat out; Cahaya's sidearm snapped three times a moment later. Not a great grouping but it put the second guy down. Williams was already sprinting for the shuttle's ramp, stooping to retrieve her weapon as she went. The guard at the foot of the ramp was only just beginning to react when his head turned into a red mist, the pellet sparking off the shuttle's side and whining into the desert, barely slowing as it ended a life.
Williams leapt his body and went up the ramp fast, Cahaya on her heels. A technician loomed in front of her, his expression somewhere between furious and terrified as he swung a spanner at her head. She blocked his arms with her left forearm, pistol-whipped him own and shot him three times in the chest. Cahaya went past her, firing single shots into the two crew members beyond. Kora was a blur going past, coilgun slung and her own sidearm seeking targets.
The inside of the shuttle was cramped and dark, smelt of coolant and tinned air, the slight reek of unwashed bodies that had spent too long inside it. A short corridor led to a ladder that went all the way up the two levels to the cockpit that surmounted the craft. “Cahaya, sweep this floor and down. Kora with me – we go up!” Switching to her dagger for this close work, held in a reverse grip, Williams went up the ladder, looking for more kills.
She tried not to feel disappointed when it turned out the rest of the ship was deserted. She knew it wasn't healthy to crave the kill, not in the way Yvgena did (or had, rather). She owed someone some payback for her dead squadmates, though.
“This system is truly ancient,” Kora commented as she dropped into the pilot chair and started examining the controls. “Some of it is even analogue. LED displays.”