Anne remained silent and motionless, though she didn’t try to hide her presence.
The two newcomers were unceremoniously shoved into the meeting room with her, and the young woman started crying again. The older gentleman pulled her gently away from the doorway and patted her on the shoulder. “It’ll be okay. They clearly want us alive,” he assured her in a soothing voice.
The first guard punched the keypad again and the door closed. The other had already casually turned, his gun pointing downwards still, and started walking away. The other, seeing the door seal shut, caught up with him and they disappeared, heralded by the sound of their boots on the insulated flooring.
It was only then that the old man turned and saw Anne. “Oh. Hello,” he said gently. “I see we’re in a similar predicament.”
Anne nodded.
“Do you know why we’re here?” he asked.
Anne shook her head.
The girl turned around to face her. “Who are you?” she asked. “Where are you from?”
Anne recoiled, not wanting to share anything that might make her vulnerable.
“Hush. Don’t bombard her, Lana,” the old man told her. “She’s scared. We all are. But it’s going to be okay.”
He turned back to Anne. “It’s alright. We’re not going to hurt you,” he said.
Anne nodded and then tentatively sat down on the nearest chair to her, as far away from the newcomers as she could.
Lana glanced at the old man and then around the room. “We’re trapped,” she declared, despair in her voice.
Anne looked up at the vent. The old guy noticed. He moved forward and sat down on a chair at the table, several seats away from Anne so as not to intimidate her. “My name is Dr. Brahms,” he said, speaking slowly and quietly. “This is Lana. We’ve been kidnapped too.”
There was a scrape of chair legs on the floor as Lana pulled out a seat on the other side of the table and sat down, clearly following the doctor’s lead.
Dr. Brahms’s eyes flicked up at the vent that Anne had glanced up at. “You tried to get in there?” he asked.
Anne nodded.
“You couldn’t reach?” he asked.
Anne shook her head and showed him her hands. “I couldn’t get it open,” she said quietly.
The old guy nodded empathetically. “Okay. Well don’t worry about that for now. We may be able to help with that.”
Lana interrupted. “I think it would help if we could figure out what they want with us,” she said.
The doctor turned to her. “I agree. But it would be good to find a way out too.”
Lana looked up at the vent. “No way you’re getting through that. I mean, she would be able to,” she said, nodding in Anne’s direction as if she weren’t a part of the conversation, “and maybe I would fit. At a stretch…”
Her voice trailed off before a new thought took the conversation elsewhere.
“So at first when I came to in the back of that truck, I was thinking sex trade. But then I met you, doc.” She realized the social implications of what she was saying. “No offense!” she added quickly.
Brahms smiled. “None taken!” he exclaimed.
“But you said you were a scientist? What kind?”
“Planetary seismology mostly,” he said. “Recently I’ve been working for a company who is developing safer ways to extract ore from class A asteroids, though…”
Lana frowned. “I’m wondering… well, I’m not a scientist. But I do work as an operator for a company that does core mining.”
Her head snapped to look at Anne. “Are you a scientist or something?” she asked.
Anne shook her head.
Lana frowned. “You don’t say much, do you?”
Anne lowered her eyes to the table again.
Lana continued her questioning, despite the heavy stare from the doctor across the table from her. “Did you hear anything when they brought you in? Any clues as to why we’re here?”
Anne shook her head. “No,” she said, forcing her voice from her throat. “I was taken in the night from my home. They brought me in a van. Two humans. They talked about getting paid, but not why their buyers wanted me.”
Lana processed the information, seemingly satisfied that she had been given something to go on. Though she knew then and there she would be pressing her for more insight later.
The doctor interjected. “You know, I’m wondering if there is something to do with this equipment. If I’m not mistaken, that shape over there is very much like a deep drill used for extracting heavy metals at high temperatures.”
Lana peered out into the blackness.
“You can’t see it now,” he qualified. “But I noticed it before the lights went off again out there as they left.”
Lana slumped impatiently back into her seat.
“Look,” he said, turning back to the both of them. “Whatever is going on here, someone is going to notice we’re missing and start tracking us down. I’m valuable to my company. And my clients. They have resources, and some of the people I’ve worked for in the past know what’s going on in the black markets. If we’re being used for something illegal they’ll hear about it.”
Lana narrowed one eye at him. “Hang on - what makes you think that it’s not one of your shady clients that have kidnapped us then?”
The doctor shrugged. “It’s unlikely. But I don’t. However,” he turned to look at Anne again, “why would that explain why you two are here?” He shook his head gently as he looked down at his clasped hands resting on the desk in front of him. “No. My guess is this is indeed something commercial, and they need you for part of it.”
Lana tilted her head in Anne’s direction. “And what about her?”
The doctor took a deep breath. “That, I don’t know. It’s possible her presence here is completely unrelated.”
He turned to her. “You’ve not been running from someone, have you?” he asked gently. “You can tell us, you know?”
Anne had been on the run her whole life, for various reasons. But she wasn’t about to get into that. Or what she had overheard at the convent. No. Her best chance of survival was for them to think she was just a defenseless girl and leave it at that.
Safer that way. For everyone.
She shook her head gently and then returned to fiddling with her hands.
Aibek Moon, Orn System, Temple Caves
Ammo and Mennynad had been waiting on the bridge since the second shift.
Ammo paced up and down every now and again, trying to keep warm. “You think they’re going to remember to pull us out before it hits critical?” he called over to Mennynad, who was sitting cross legged and upright in the middle of the bridge within touching distance of the invisible wall.
Mennynad held out a finger for the umpteenth time since they had arrived, slowly moving it forward until the field dealt him a correction and pushed his finger back with a bite. “Have faith, brother,” he called back. “They wouldn’t leave us here to perish.”
Ammo wasn’t comforted. “Yeah, but what if they did?” he pushed, continuing to pace. “And more to the point, what if Jendyg is right, and we have been forsaken by the elders? Maybe their plan all along was to elongate our lifespans and leave us here.”
Mennynad turned around, resting his hands on the wooden slats of the bridge’s floor from his seated position. “You think that the elders would do that to us?”
Ammo shrugged. “They wanted a problem solved. They’d already taken us in and given us a life when we each had very few prospects. Maybe they figured we owed them?”
Mennynad shook his head. “I can’t believe that. Not of the people we knew,” he explained.
“Yeah, but think about it,” Ammo insisted, trying a different angle. “We’ve never seen any signs of this thing actually having power. Maybe it’s expired? And rather than bring us back and have to deal with reintegrating us, they’ve chosen to just leave us here.”
Mennynad frowned. “You got
any other theories you want to air?” he asked, poking fun at Ammo’s sudden tirade of doubts.
“You jest, but what if we have simply been forgotten?” Ammo said, the timbre of his voice much softer and more vulnerable than before.
Mennynad sighed. “If we’ve been forgotten, it’ll be because our elders were taken out of play by the very forces we’re meant to be protecting this place from,” he said firmly. “And besides, what would you be doing if you weren’t here. Our life was the monastery. We lived in active service. This mission gave our very existence meaning. If not this, then what?”
Ammo stopped pacing and seemed to slip into serious contemplation for a moment. He began shaking his head. “I don’t know the-”
His thought process was interrupted. Their ear pieces crackled and Koryss’s voice could be heard in their helmets. “Okay brothers, time to come home. The freeze is heading your way and you don’t want to be out in it.”
“Roger that,” Ammo acknowledged brightly, glad to be thinking about something more practical. “Thanks for the save.”
Koryss chuckled without humor. “Don’t thank me yet. We’ll all be back out there the second it is safe again. Gagai is pretty sure the witchery they worked isn’t going to hold for long.”
Ammo didn’t seem phased. “Well, I guess that’s good news in terms of being able to get them out of there,” Ammo responded as the pair walked back along the bridge.
“Yeah,” agreed Mennynad, “but remember his concept of safe doesn’t necessarily mean pleasant.”
“This is also true,” Koryss confirmed dryly. “See you shortly.”
The comms clicked out and the pair made their way back out of the caves to their bikes, relieved that they didn’t have to be the ones to kill the intruders, with their faith so shaky.
Aibek Moon, Orn System, Temple Caves
Giles scribbled away on his holoscreen and then turned the holo upwards to get a shot of the next piece of the etchings from the low part of the ceiling in the cavern. Now that they had light it was apparent that there was a low ceiling in the far side of the room as you came in from the passage, but there was a sweeping chimney feature that ran high up, probably to some point above ground level.
The presence of atmosphere and light was still troubling him, but despite that, there were more pressing matters to attend to. He checked the image he had just taken and then uploaded to his holo.
Arlene wandered over. “Anything I can help with?”
Giles shook his head. “Not yet, I’m afraid. I just need to get this onto the holo, and trying to figure it out as I go.”
Arlene shrugged. “Well, I can always start at the other end and have Scamp assemble the images when he receives them.”
Giles brought his eyes back down to normal eye level. “Ah, yes. Good thinking!”
Arlene laughed through her nose. “Right then,” she said, wandering over to the middle of the cavern in order to start on the other side of the rock carvings.
“You know, come to think of it, it might be worth Scamp doing some of the leg work on the analysis too,” Giles muttered as he worked. “Some of this can be deciphered by straightforward pictorial decryption methods, I’m sure. I’ve already spotted some recurring images.”
“I’m glad you’ve recognized that,” Arlene said brightly from the middle of the room.
Giles detected something in her voice. He looked over at her again. “What does that mean?”
Arlene turned back to him, pulling her attention from the ceiling. “Nothing,” she said casually, turning away again.
She paused. “It’s just that’s your thing. That you need to do it all yourself.”
Giles frowned. “No it’s not.”
Arlene smiled. “Okay.”
Giles fixed his gaze on her, his task forgotten. “No… no, come on. What are you getting at?”
Arlene’s smile faded. “It’s okay. I’m not getting at you… it’s just you’ve been kinda sacrificy recently.”
“Recently?”
“Yeah. Since we reconnected this last time.”
“Oh. That recently.” Giles scratched at the back of his head with a single finger, then closed his holo.
“Yeah,” she said, now giving him her full attention. “First it was the whole surrendering yourself to Shaa - which was the dumbest thing ever. Then there was the ‘I’ll keep them distracted’ suggestion for dealing with a few guards just now.”
Giles’s brow furrowed, but he kept listening. Arlene was what the ArchAngel’s therapists would call “safe space” - whatever that meant, he thought, momentarily distracted.
“And then,” Arlene continued, “just a little while ago with the air.” She shook her head, her eyes filled with a sadness. “You’ve got to stop trying to sacrifice yourself. There are people who need you.” She warmed her hands on the fireball and then decided to sit down next to it, careful to keep Giles in her line of sight.
Giles struggled to absorb what she was trying to explain to him. He took a breath. “In my defense, you and I both know that we wouldn’t be here without the intel I gathered on the Shaa mission.”
Arlene’s eyes flickered with pain and frustration. “Yes, but you endangered the Federation, too,” she said, trying to keep her frustration out of her voice.
Giles shook his head. “Reynolds would never have negotiated for me. He’s smarter than that,” he said decisively.
Arlene’s frustration deflated, leaving her eyes soft. “No, Giles,” she told him patiently. “He thinks of you as his son and he would have done anything to save you. And besides, that wasn’t that I was talking about. It was what you ended up telling them that could have meant the deaths of thousands.”
Giles lowered his head. “I know. And I still feel awful about it.” Arlene could see his complexion grow visibly older, even by the fire light. “But…” he continued slowly, “I knew you were listening and would take corrective action on the security end.”
His eyes remained guilt-ridden.
Arlene shook her head. “That’s not the point,” she persisted. “My point is, you seem to be wanting to sacrifice yourself. To put yourself into near-death situations. And I know this isn’t just thrill seeking anymore. You’re too old for that.”
“Am I?”
“Yes. You are,” she confirmed wisely. “So what is it?”
Giles was quiet for a long moment.
He put his hands onto the back of his head and wandered away, breathing deeply as if trying to get a handle on his feelings.
Arlene’s voice was softer when she spoke again. “It’s okay. Come on, we’ve known each other for forever. You can trust me.” She paused. “What is it? Why do you have a death wish?”
Giles’s hands dropped from the back of his head. His back was still towards Arlene. “I think…” he said, his voice quivering.
He took another breath and Arlene noticed he made a fist with one hand. He turned around. “I think it’s because I feel so guilty for all the selfish, stupid shit I’ve done over the years, I want to do something… heroic, I guess. To make up for it. I want for it all to mean something. I want to surrender something so I don’t have to feel so crap about who I’ve been.”
He dropped his eyes to the floor and covered his face with his hands.
Arlene stayed where she was. Coddling him wasn’t the way to pull him through this. “So, you think if you make the ultimate sacrifice, you’ll feel better?” she clarified.
Giles nodded from behind his hand. He wiped his face and looked up over at her. She could see his face glistening with tear tracks he hadn’t managed to get rid of.
She sighed sympathetically. “And so you think you’ll feel better when you’re dead?” she pressed, testing his logic.
He chuckled grimly. “Yes! I mean, no. I mean… yeah I know I won’t be around to… but, then it would mean that I’d done something good.”
Arlene used her wise voice that she had used with all her spiritual students at on
e time of another over the years. “It seems to me that while your intentions may be seen as noble on the surface, there are other, more effective ways to be heroic… which aren’t just a one-shot get-out.”
She paused a moment, letting him process what she had just said. Eventually she spoke again. “To become worthwhile, you sometimes have to take the long way ‘round. The hard route. The one where you survive and keep working on being a worthwhile human being. Not in a single act, but day after day after day.”
Her words hung in the air.
Giles bobbed his head, now staring into the fire. The fire balls crackled and spat, their flames dancing while tethered to some mystical fuel.
Arlene shifted her legs, straightening one out and rubbing it to improve the circulation. “I take your silence as an admission that I’m right,” she concluded.
Giles nodded, peeling his eyes from the fire, the pupils readjusting as he tried to make out Arlene in the half-light. “Yes,” he agreed. “You’re right.”
Arlene smiled. “Unfortunately, this is the harder route. But on the plus side, you get to stay alive. And, you get to do more good for those you care about than if you’re gone.”
“Right,” he agreed, taking a deep breath as if waking from a trance. “Yes, I see your point. Thank you, Arlene. Really. Thank you.”
They held each other’s gaze for several moments, streams of understanding and history passing between them. Giles teared up again. Only then did Arlene get up to give him a hug.
After a few moments she pulled back. “Right,” she said, closing the conversation off, “these hieroglyphics aren’t going to decipher themselves. Let’s get these images taken and uploaded to Scamp.”
Giles collected himself, and took off his glasses, cleaning them as part of his mental-gathering process. “Right,” he agreed. “Although, if they were hieroglyphics, I wouldn’t need Scamp to translate them.”
Arlene shook her head. “Good, so you’re feeling more like your cocky old self now then,” she smiled as she headed back over to where she had started working, and pulled up her holo.
Giles Kurns_Rogue Operator Page 13