Pursuit of the Guardian (Children of the Republic Book 2)

by Jason Hutt

  Christian let the comment linger, but Max wasn’t about to tell him any more than he needed to know.

  “How’s she doing?” Max asked.

  “Oh, she’s all right. Just got herself a new ticker,” Christian said tapping the middle of his chest, “So she’s off her feet for a couple days. This whole run will help pay those bills a bit.”

  “Well, I appreciate you coming out here under such circumstances,” Max said.

  “About that, Max,” Christian said, “Once we’ve done our business, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t come callin’ again.”

  Max nodded with a grimace. “I can respect that, Christian. Trust me, I’m just glad to get whatever help I can at the moment.”

  “Well, nobody’ll miss a little water or some food paste. We throw away more than this in any given month,” he said. Christian started eyeing Hannah again.

  “Why don’t we get this over with? How much water did you get?”

  “Twenty thousand liters. I must admit, it’s been awhile since I’ve used that damned code. I couldn’t remember what ‘incubation chambers’ referred to.”

  Max chuckled. “Meds, but don’t worry about it. I’ll hit up someone else for that.”

  “You must be pretty far down the contact list at this point,” Christian remarked.

  Max nodded as they walked to Christian’s cargo hold. “I’m trying to stay away from recent contacts. We’re hot enough right now that I don’t want to put my regular channels at risk.”

  “So you’ll throw an old man to the wolves?”

  “Not my intention,” Max said.

  Christian gave him a dismissive wave. “I’m just messin’ with ya. I needed the business. Helps me meet my retirement goals.”

  “You always told me you’d retire when you’re dead.”

  “Still the plan,” Christian said. He nodded towards a supply pallet. “That’s your water.”

  Max gave the old man a relieved smile. “That’ll do.”

  “Got somethin’ else for you too, if you can afford it. Couple of old water and waste processors. Each one’ll process about five hundred liters a day. Get those, find some floating ice chunks, and you won’t need to come callin’ for water anymore.”

  Max looked over the crates Christian had pointed out. The insides were a mess of tubing, filters, and connectors with a small display panel attached. He didn’t really have the time to do a thorough inspection and checkout.

  “I’ll take them,” Max said. “How much?”

  “Fifty thousand a piece.”

  Max let out a slow whistle. He looked at the old man’s grim, matter-of-fact expression and decided he had asked for enough favors that day.

  “All right,” Max said, “Reggie will be able to do the transfer.”

  “Fine by me.”

  “What about food?”

  Christian jutted his chin toward the back of the hold. “I’ve got a thousand kilos of military-grade food paste. Best I could do on short notice.”

  “Military-grade?”

  “Used and approved by your garden variety grunt,” Christian offered, “Also, chickens love it. Fattens ‘em up faster than anything else I’ve tried. Speaking of which, I’ve got a couple hundred kilos of animal feed – wheat and rice mostly – that you can take.”

  “It’ll do. You’ve done us a great favor, old-timer,” Max said.

  “Like I said, I don’t want to hear from you again, okay?” Christian said, “I don’t like what I’m seeing all over the news. Somebody’s turning you into a big dog-and-pony show. You need to lie low for a while, stay out of the headlines.”

  “I will if I can,” Max said. He opened a comm channel on his wrist computer. “Hannah, Reggie, let’s get moving. We’ve got a lot of cargo to transfer. I want to be out of here within a few hours.”

  “Yes, sir,” Reggie answered.

  Reggie’s footsteps echoed in the corridor as he headed for the cargo hold. Hannah stepped through pushing a cargo sled and offered the old man a pleasant enough smile.

  “Glad to see her with you,” Christian said, “Looks like she’ll do you proud.”

  “It’s not what it looks like,” Max said.

  “Things never are,” Christian said, “How’s Sharon doing?”

  “She’s dead,” Max admitted, “They got her on Maisha.”

  Christian grimaced and wiped at his hands as he cast his gaze to the floor. “I’m sorry to hear that, Max. Really, I am. She was one tough bitch and I mean that in the nicest way.”

  Max couldn’t help but laugh. He wiped away a tear that threatened to fall. He thrusted his chin in the direction of the cargo hold. “We haven’t exactly been close over the years. She’s got no one else to look after her.”

  “You’ve got blood between you, Max. She’ll come around.”

  Max nodded. “I don’t know, Christian. I’m not even sure that would be for the best.”

  “Some advice for you, Max,” Christian started. He paused looking for Max’s consent to continue. “Find a way to help each other. You just gotta find out what’s in her heart. Help that, support that. It’s too hard out here to go it alone.”

  “The problem is…I think I know what’s in her heart. I just don’t have the stomach for it anymore.”

  “Well, then find her someone that does,” he said.

  Max laughed. “I get the sense she’s not looking for me to find her anything.”

  “Max, quit being so negative. It’s easy to find reasons not to do something; start looking for reasons to do it.”

  “Right,” Max said with a sigh.

  Christian waved a hand at him. “Get a damn move on. You’re starting to depress me. Hey, remember - use different contacts every time, don’t talk to the same person twice. Never know when the Republic will be listenin’ on the other end.”

  “I know, Christian. I’ve been around this block before.”

  “Judging by current circumstances, it seems you could use some remedial lessons.” Christian gave him a warm smile. “Sorry, Max. Just hate to see anyone in a spot like this.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Actually, to more things if you don’t mind,” Max said, “The Republic picked up someone, a girl, Eleanor Shaw, on New Roosevelt. I need to know where they took her.”

  “My information chain isn’t what it used to be, Max.”

  “I don’t have many other options, Christian. Please, I need to find her. And I can’t start doing searches under my name.”

  Christian stood, squirreling his face as he sucked at something between his teeth. “I’ll do my best.”

  “Whatever it takes,” Max said, “I’ll pay it. If you need something up front, I’ll get Reggie back here right now and we’ll give it to you.”

  Christian waved him off. “No need, Max. Let me see what I can find. If I do find something, I know how to get it to you. You can pay me back when this all blows over.”

  “Thanks.”

  Max watched as Reggie moved a fully-loaded cargo sled through the connection between the ships. Hannah followed right behind him carrying another large water bag.

  “I’m desperate, Christian. That girl’s in a lot of trouble.”

  “Aren’t we all,” Christian said. “What was the last thing?”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve got anything to drink?” Max asked. “Beer, scotch, whiskey, even a little moonshine will do?”

  “Helluva thing to ask, Max. Don’t you remember that’s why my wife didn’t want me working with you anymore in the first place?”

  ***

  Hannah slumped heavily into the co-pilot’s seat. She tried to extend her legs, but her knee joints ached. Within seconds of sitting, her quads started twitching to the beat of some unheard frenetic drummer. She tried to reach down and rub at the knot in her calves, but her shoulders protested. From the tips of her fingers to the balls of her feet, she was one giant ache. She lo
oked at Max, who was rubbing a knot at the small of his back. Sweat had matted his graying hair to his forehead. His cheeks were still slightly red.

  “Everything’s locked down and ready to go,” Hannah reported.

  Max didn’t look up at her. She wondered if he was still embarrassed that she had made him quit and take a break.

  “Take a look at this,” Max said, punching up something on the cockpit console.

  Hannah leaned forward in the chair, rolling her neck to try and appease her screaming muscles. She wasn’t really interested in reading anything. Mostly, she just wanted to crawl onto her sleep mat and get some rest.

  Max tapped a corner of the display and a news bulletin came up. A series of pictures cycled through the bottom half of the page. Max saw his face come up, then Victor’s, then Locke’s, and then a few more faces from the colony that Hannah knew but couldn’t quite put names to.

  “No surprise,” Hannah said, “We knew they’d be on our trail. I wonder what they’re offering?”

  “There’s one more you need to see,” he said as he tapped the corner of the console again.

  Another page appeared; this one had Hannah’s face only. At the top of the page, in large font, the page read:

  HAVE YOU SEEN THIS CLONE?

  20 YEARS AGO HANNAH CABOT DIED.

  18 YEARS AGO THIS THING WAS CREATED.

  Hannah read the paragraph at the bottom of the page- any information leading to her arrest would be rewarded with a year’s supply of rations.

  Max shook his head as Hannah sat back in the seat and started rubbing her eyes. He started cycling through other pages. “There’s one of these for each of us,” he said, “Little personalized wanted posters.”

  Max stopped when her page came up again. He let out slow whistle.

  “What?” Hannah asked.

  “Look at the page views,” Max said with a nod towards the bottom of the display.

  Hannah’s lips parted slightly; her lower lip trembling. Her hands had balled into fists. New rivulets of sweat were dripping from her forehead; she wiped her face on her sleeve.

  “And you just expect me to run,” she finally said. She couldn’t think of anything else to say. She leaned back heavily and chewed on the end of her thumb. She felt like slamming her fists on the console and screaming at the top of her lungs, but instead she just stared at the stars in silence.

  “You have to run from this,” Max said, “We both do. We need to hide. Get out of sight. This’ll blow over and they’ll turn to some other enemy of the week.”

  “How long do we hide, Max?” Hannah asked with a shake of her head. “Am I supposed to live in a cave until my hair turns gray? Is that what you really expect me to do?”

  “We’ll adapt,” Max said, “There’s more than one way to hide yourself. There’s plenty of Docs out there who can do some feature modification.”

  “There’re plenty of Docs out there who would turn me in for a year’s worth of food, too.”

  “We’ll find people we can trust.”

  Tears welled-up in the corner of her eyes.

  “What is this ‘we’ crap? You’re ready to pack it in – to quit – and go live in some god damn hidden corner of the galaxy. I’m not. I’m not going to spend the next thirty, forty years running from hole-to-hole, scavenging for whatever handouts I can get from the poor souls who’ll have pity on me.”

  “We don’t have a choice, Hannah. If they find you, you’ll never have a life. Our only chance is to hide.”

  “No,” she said.

  “We can make them think we’re dead, Hannah. We disappear.”

  “No.”

  “There is no other choice.”

  “There is a choice,” she said.

  “Yeah? What are you going to do?”

  “Fight,” Hannah said, “Fight for my life.”

  “You can’t win.”

  “They can’t do this to me. They can’t treat me like this.”

  “They’ll kill you, Hannah. Without even batting an eyelash, they’ll kill you.”

  “Then at least I’d die on my terms.”

  “And just how do you plan to do this? Are you just going to walk up the Capitol steps and challenge them all to a fight? Maybe you can take them all on one-by-one. Maybe they’ll be gracious enough to line up for you. Let you take a shot at every single citizen of the Republic.”

  “You’re an asshole, Max.”

  “I know, kid,” Max said, “It’s what I’m best at.”

  “There are others out there, Max. Plenty of people who are tired of living under the Republic’s heel. They’ll fight. They just need someone to bring them together.”

  “You?”

  “Why not me?”

  “They won’t fight for you, Hannah,” Max said, “They’re just as scared, tired, and hungry as you are.”

  “They need something to rally around. They need to see that you can fight back. Show people that, give them some hope, and they’ll fight with me.”

  “This is dumb. You’re going to get yourself killed. I can’t let you do this.”

  “You’re not my father, Max. You don’t get to tell me what I can or can’t do.”

  She could tell from the way Max’s look fell to the floor that the remark had stung. She pursed her lips and felt a momentary pang of regret.

  “You could help me do this,” she said, “You’re right. I can’t do it alone, but with your help, your connections, it would be a start. Surely you know someone out there.”

  Max shook his head and stared straight ahead out the cockpit window. “It’s suicide,” Max said. “There are people out there, people I know, who would do things to you that I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. We can’t risk it.”

  Max refused to look back at her. He just continued to stare blankly out at the stars. Hannah stood and lingered at the exit to the cockpit, looking back at Max. She could see the pain in his expression reflected off the cockpit console. She opened her mouth to say she was sorry, but held her tongue and walked out.

  ***

  The size of the press contingent on Ceres was much smaller than Maria was accustomed to seeing. She sat to Hunter’s left as he deftly maneuvered the conversation through safe waters. She had only been asked one question to this point and her mind started to wander to the sleeping face of Eleanor Shaw. The image of that creature, towering over the young girl, blood dripping from its talons, kept replaying in her mind’s eye.

  How could that girl forgive Max Cabot? How could she work with him? She was just a child and she had to witness her mother being brutally savaged by this thing that Cabot had delivered to the station.

  “Senator?”

  Maria blinked the thoughts away. “I’m sorry, Chuck, could you repeat the question?”

  “Senator Graham gives you credit for being the brainchild behind this task force. How will you know when it has been successful? How will you know when it has achieved its goal?”

  “We’ll know when we have reasonable evidence that population growth has slowed in the outer colonies. Unfortunately, those areas that have been loosely regulated up until about a decade ago have been infested with breeder colonies. Until this task force was commissioned, those colonies went relatively unchecked. Now, everyone is being forced to adhere to Republic law.

  The older reporter wasn’t satisfied. “But, how will you know? What measure do you have?”

  Senator Graham leaned forward in his seat. “We’ll know. In the meantime, the creation of this task force resulted in the commissioning of a new class of Republic fast-attack craft. The construction of these ships created thousands of jobs, jobs that will continue as the task force continues to expand and establish its presence.”

  “Speaking of that, Senator,” a reporter from one of the outer colonies said, “How do you justify the increased military expenditures in the face of so many other issues? Shouldn’t the Senate be more focused on other means of job creation or addressing some of the widesprea
d famine and disease outbreaks? Shouldn’t-”

  Graham cut the man off. “Every unauthorized child that is born takes away from resources that need to go to the current citizens of the Republic. It takes food off of people’s plates. It creates medicine shortages in other colonies. We view strict enforcement of this policy as a net gain for everyone.”

  Maria cleared her throat. Graham looked at her; she could see the little vein bulging in his forehead that showed he was aggravated.

  “If limiting families to one child each was working as intended, we would have seen a substantial reduction in the population by now,” Maria said, “But census data clearly shows it has not had the desired effect. Early voluntary measures were not effective. Even methods of altering the reproductive cycle were not effective without appropriate enforcement. We must be willing to put teeth behind the laws we enact. It’s the only way we’ll ever have real change.”

  “Are you endorsing Senator Graham’s proposed changes to the Family Planning Act?” A young woman asked.

  “Yes,” Maria said, “I support Senator Graham’s common sense reforms. The outer colonies need those reforms to be enacted if they are to remain viable.”

  Senator Graham leaned back in his chair and smiled.

  ***

  “What do you miss most about commanding a ship, Admiral?” Maria asked as she cut off a piece of her steak. Her stomach rumbled slightly in anticipation; her mind and body were both drained from the three-day inspection tour. The piece of meat smelled and looked so good she couldn’t tell of it was real or reconstituted.

  “I don’t normally consider myself beholden to romantic notions,” she said, “But I must admit I miss travelling from world-to-world. The beauty of a world is never more apparent than when you can look down on it as a whole and take it all in. Here, on this asteroid where every world is but a pinprick of light in the window, I find I miss that view terribly.”

  “Admiral Dorn has had quite the distinguished career,” Admiral Kersey said, “She’s twice been recognized with the Order of the Republic.”

  “Do I get the sense that your career is winding down?” Maria asked.