Roberts pulled two new Tasers out of her pocket and handed one to me. “I got these out of the security locker. Last two, eight missing, if the locker was full.”
“The President’s daughter, it was full,” I told her.
“That one is fully charged. This one is almost full. Want to tell anyone else about them?”
“No,” I said, and the noise behind us caught our attention. “I have something for you later too.” We watched Nelson enter the ship from his building.
“Any sign of her so far?” he asked.
“We were just going to open this hatch and continue aft. There is music back this way,” Roberts told him. She turned and thumbed the control panel. This door still had power and hummed to life before it opened.
“Daiman is watching our exit from the port hatch, what about your team?” I asked, as we three moved into the next aft compartment.
“I left them watching the starboard side. In case you didn’t notice, that section of the ship’s fuselage is missing,” Nelson informed me.
“I noticed.” I stepped into the compartment after Roberts.
“Ms. Garrett, Agent Roberts, I’m here to get you out. Answer up, please.” Slowly, Roberts walked deeper into the area and toward the next hatch. The music was louder here, coming from the next section. Roberts held her pistol in her right hand and touched the hatch door control with her left. “It is disabled from inside,” she reported to me.
“You ready, Nelson?” I asked over my right shoulder.
His hands rested on the controls of his flamethrower as mine did. He nodded.
Roberts pulled the door hatch lever. “Unlocked,” she whispered and opened the door. “Ms. Garrett, Agent Roberts here.”
I followed her into the private area belonging to the President’s daughter. Both sides of the bulkhead walls were lined with plush sofas. The back wall was dimly lit from failing battery power, even as the music played. The back wall held a wet bar with three padded chairs. Sitting on the center stool was a young woman; I presumed she was our target.
“Jane, it’s Mia,” Roberts told the woman.
The woman turned slightly with a nearly empty bottle of brandy in her left hand.
“Jane,” Mia repeated.
I could see she was trying to focus, to understand what she was seeing. She turned and faced us.
“Gun,” I called out and rushed Jane Garrett. At my side was Roberts. I took the weapon before it registered to Jane that I was charging her.
Mia Roberts took the empty bottle away, as she pushed the drunk woman back deeper into the bar stool backing. “Jane, look at me, it’s Mia, Mia Roberts! Remember me?”
“Mia.” Jane smiled. “Sure, make me a drink, Mia. Hey, how’d you get here?”
“Your dad sent us,” Nelson announced to the woman over my shoulder.
Jane lost her smile. “Go away then, be gone.”
“We can’t do that, Ms. Garrett,” I said and looked around the ship. “Where is the rest of the crew, your private guard?”
She shook her head and got a dazed look on her face. “This is a horrible place. You can’t imagine how bad it is here.”
“Your private guards, Ms. Garrett, where are your private guards?” I asked again, only this time I stepped closer to her.
“Gone, they are all gone. Kevie!” she cried out softly. “They told me to wait here, they’d be back.”
“Kevie?” I said to Roberts.
“Her boyfriend, Kevin Sanchez.” Roberts turned back to Jane. “Why would Kevin be here?”
Jane looked to me.
I could read her face. She did not want to talk with me here. She shifted her gaze to Nelson. Her eyes narrowed on him. “You, you have the gall to come here after me.”
“Roberts, find out what you can. Nelson and I will be just outside this compartment. Nelson, time to go.” I motioned him away from Jane Garrett and out of the room. “So spill it, that girl hates you, why?”
“Not important.”
“What haven’t you told me about this accidental crash that just doesn’t look that accidental to me?”
“What does she know, she’s young, just sixteen?” Nelson started to go around me and back to the room.
I stopped him. “You left that out of the report too.”
“I didn’t leave out anything important. We’re here to rescue her, whether she is sixteen or thirty-six, it’s all the same.” Nelson faced me now. “What is important is that we have a deadline, or no one is getting out. We can talk on the trek to the extraction site.” He again started for the room.
“Just stay here and let Roberts do her job.”
“Harry, I don’t think I need you anymore.” Nelson stepped back from me. He brought the tip of the flamethrower my direction. “Your job here was to locate the girl because we thought this would be like any other prison planet, but it wasn’t, and you still proved to be useful. I think I can handle it from here.”
“Why do you think I gave you a flamethrower, Nelson? It doesn’t have the precision of a gun, like the one I just got from the girl.” I shifted, so the gun was in his view, but not in his reach. “I don’t think you are ready to kill yourself just to kill me. And of course the girl you are here to rescue dies as well.”
Forward of our position, Jenkins started calling for me. “Boss Danbeu, we got company.”
Nelson was not ready to argue with the pistol in my hand. He turned and left the area.
I leaned into the other compartment. “Roberts, trouble, time to go,” I ordered before I followed Nelson.
“Harry, we can all still get off of this planet,” Nelson said over his shoulder as he was walking forward.
“That’s my plan, off of here and back into the network,” I agreed.
Nelson and I moved into the center of the common area with Jenkins and Daiman.
“What’s the problem?” I asked, as I watched Bikes walking nervously toward the section of missing spacecraft.
“Bikes says there’s scavs coming up the stairs, following our group. They are slow, cautious, but coming,” Jenkins told me. “On the demo team, Bikes is normally right about this kind of thing.”
I turned, intending to go get Roberts and Garrett, but Roberts brought her out of the back. “We have to go, now,” I told them.
Garrett’s eyes shifted from Roberts to me and back.
“You can trust him. I told you that, Jane,” Roberts told her.
“Everyone out the port hatch, now,” I ordered. “Go out the left door and back into the stairwell. Daiman, you have point, Bender next, and Bikes stay close to Little Boss. Help her and the girl. Everyone go. Nelson, you, then me.”
“Hold on, Harry, I need a minute up front,” Roberts told me, left Jane with Bikes, and ran for the cockpit.
Nelson looked to me. “She knows this bird won’t fly, right?” he asked.
“You trained her, you tell me.”
***
“Start them down, Nelson. Jenkins, stay close to Bikes and the girl. Roberts will be behind you in a minute. I’m rear guard.” I motioned everyone into the building and waited at the hatch for Roberts. She was fast, but before she returned I could see the shadows of people moving in the far building. Roberts turned up just before they did. She ran out of the spacecraft and by me.
I turned on the flamethrower and roasted the inside of the other building through the missing section. The flames would die out fast with the building having been stripped to bare floors and walls years before. There just was not much to sustain a fire. As I headed for the hatch, I lit everything on fire that would burn. It was roaring as I ran to join up with the others. I ran to the stairwell and found the groups just standing.
“Is there a problem?” I asked, hoping that scavs had not come up both buildings.
“We’re waiting for you, Little Boss’ orders.”
“Go!” I yelled down to the front of the group.
Even with our increased numbers, we moved faster down the st
airs than we had coming up. The thing was it was still eighteen flights of stairs. We all walked into the lobby winded, well, except Bikes who looked fresh enough to do it again if he had too, or if Little Boss said to.
Roberts walked over to me. She did not appear to be winded either. “When we had Big Chin’s quarters, I used his maps of the area to work out the extraction point. I took this from the ship.” Roberts held up the ship’s guidance display. “Fully charged, which means there’s forty-eight hours of life, maybe a little longer if we conserve its power. With it and the map which I have, I can plot that exact location. It’s just not a close location.”
Echoing through the building was the sound of grinding, groaning, and twisting metal. “Nelson, Bender, check it out, fast.” I turned to Roberts. “You’re going to have to make your calculations on the move.” Roberts and I headed toward the door as Bender was returning with Nelson only a step behind him.
“Great job, Harry!” Nelson yelled at me. “What are we going to do now?”
I pushed past Nelson and looked outside. The spacecraft fuselage had given into the crash, and the fire I set had been the noise. Not only had it fallen, but a big section of it had landed on our one and only vehicle. Now the truck was a crushed, burning piece of junk. I moved outside, everyone followed.
“Nelson, light up the ground floor of that other building. Scavs went up, so that means they’ll want to come down. Give them something to think about.”
“Great plan. Might buy us a few minutes, but there’s not much in these buildings to burn,” Nelson complained very angrily at me.
“Go,” I ordered. “Jenkins, take this and go help him.” I handed over the flamethrower. “Roberts, get me coordinates to that extraction point.”
She unbuttoned the middle of her shirt and extracted the map, knelt down, and stretched it out on the dirt covered road. After a quick check of the guidance display unit, she folded the map and stood up. “Okay, Harry, I’ve got the coordinates, follow me.”
Nelson and Jenkins ran back to the group. “You know those dust clouds are coming here.”
“That’s also our direction. The extraction point is that way, straight at them,” Roberts said, looking from Nelson to me.
“They’ll be tracking the smoke by now. That dust cloud means vehicles, not scavengers with sticks and clubs.” Nelson pointed at the cloud with his flamethrower.
I had to agree with him. “It’s also the wrong direction for Highman to be coming from. We have a third player on the board. First scavs, then Highman and the other compound bosses, and now these guys.” I shook my head, then started walking in the direction Roberts had indicated. “Well, let’s go.”
“Right at them?” Daiman questioned. “We don’t know what kind of weapons they have, numbers, nothing.”
I stopped and turned back to the group. “Yeah, so we don’t fight them. We move toward them fast, duck off to a hole, and let them pass. After they move on, we skip out and run for the extraction point.”
“What if they see us? They might have scouts, or something, I would.” Daiman was wringing the grip of his pistol like he wanted to fight these guys.
“If that’s the case, we fight them. We don’t do that until I say so. We will most likely die if we fight, but fighting is our last resort. We fight only if we have no choice.” I started walking again. “Let’s go.”
Everyone followed this time. Quickly, we left behind the burning and crackling wreckage of the spacecraft and our own vehicle. The building seemed to be burning better than expected with its dark column of smoke rising into the midday sun. We all watched for any signs of scavs.
Our group moved fast and made good time toward the approaching dust cloud. It helped that whoever was making the dust seemed to be making good time toward us as well.
Along the route, we ducked into a half knocked down, abandoned building. The walls that remained standing were only three to four feet high, but that was enough for us to huddle down, keep an eye on the dust cloud, and still not be in an obvious hiding place. It was not a very defensible position; the ground was covered in the loose debris of the building. The objective was to stay out of sight and maybe get a look at who or what was causing the dust cloud.
I scattered everyone around the debris field, so we were in two and three person groups. I put Jane and Roberts with me, where I thought it would give us the best vantage point to see, and run if we had too.
“Now, why are we hiding in this building when there are more solid looking structures not that far away?” Jane asked Roberts.
We had Jane on the ground tucked in close to the base of our piece of wall.
“Ask Agent Danbeu, it’s his plan,” Roberts told her.
“The people on this planet aren’t guards and agents. They don’t think like soldiers. A scavenger will overlook this building because it’s already fallen, nothing left to take,” I explained to Jane.
“Or you’re hoping they think that way. If they don’t though, we don’t have a lot of cover to protect ourselves here.” Jane had gone from drunk, to more hung over and argumentative, finding a problem with every decision that had been made.
“First, if they find us, we don’t have the firepower to fight them for very long. That is a big group moving to create that much dust. They would win by sheer numbers even if they have no weapons. Secondly, if we could outrun them we would be doing that right now, but we can’t because they are between us and the goal. If we move way to one side, or the other, they have time to reach the site, look around, and come up behind us. We stay here. We stay low and quiet as they march straight to your crashed ship.”
“So this is my fault that you came down here unprepared?” she said to me sharply. “Didn’t you watch the feed we sent after the crash?”
“Feed, what feed?” Roberts touched Jane’s arm to get her attention.
“How did you come to crash here anyway?” I thought it was about time for that bridge to be crossed. “Your ship would have had life pods. You could have ejected in one of those, and could have hung out in high orbit until a rescue ship reached you.”
Jane stared at me.
“Jane, I know you don’t trust Agent Nelson, but you do trust me and I brought Agent Danbeu in on this. You can trust him, I do.”
Before Jane answered, we could hear voices approaching. It was the forward tip of the group making the dust cloud. I peeked over the rubble wall. At first nothing, just the voices, then there were people. They all carried a length of pipe, or similar club. They walked at a steady pace, but in no column or group. What started off as a few scattered people, thickened, and soon there were people by the tens and twenties. Shortly, the rumbling of vehicles could be heard, and dozens of people walking with them.
The smaller vehicles led a larger truck that pulled a flatbed behind it. I watched with great interest because it was clear from the placement of weapons that this was a person of importance. The people walking at the front had pipes and sharpened clubs. The people walking next to the flatbed, and the few on it, had assault rifles. In the center, of the flatbed, was a big man seated at a canopy-covered table. He had a rifle across his lap and a glass of something in his left hand.
All of my guys, me included, sunk a little lower to the ground. I was sure they would pass us unseen if we just laid here a little bit. Lay still, lay quiet, and stay alive. There would be no fighting these guys.
“We’re here, wait, we’re here.”
Everyone from our group, and the passing army, stared at Bender after he stood up from his hiding place, waving his arms, and calling out over and over to the enemy. I peeked at the column of armed men which had their weapons trained on Bender’s location. All of them were now scanning the area, our area. I looked back Bender’s direction. With his hands high in the air, he moved out of his hiding place and approached the armed enemy.
“I can help. I have what you want, they’re here.” Bender pointed to my location first, then to the positions of the oth
ers. “They are all right here.”
One of the armed men jumped off of the flatbed. His boots made little puffed clouds of dirt when he hit the ground. The man walked over to Bender, as Bender reached the building wall. I could hear them talk, but it was not loud enough to hear the conversation. The man moved to the wall as two of his people disarmed Bender and took him back toward the flatbed. “Come out now, or I give the order for my people to level this place!”
Jane leaned close to me. “Great plan, Danbeu,” she said.
One assault rifle fired, making a big hole in a section of bricks not too far from my place in the dirt. “Out now!” the man ordered.
“Fine,” I yelled back. “I’m coming out.” I stood up, hands in the air, and waited.
“All of you. Your friend told us how many. Everyone, get up now.”
In minutes, we were all stripped of our weapons what few we had. Our wrists were bound; we were tied together in a line, then tied to the back of the flatbed. The flatbed was turned around and headed back the direction it had come from.
Bender had told the leader of this army that the spacecraft was destroyed, and that we had some kind of an escape plan, but did not know any more. At least we were headed in the right direction.
I moved the line of tied people as close to Bender as I could get. “Why?” I asked.
He looked to Roberts. “I want her, and I have skills. I’ll trade my skills to them for her.”
“We were going to get you off of this planet, Bender. There are lots of women off this planet.”
“Off of this planet, like there is such a thing. Children’s stories that is what you planned your escape on from our compound to this?” Bender shook his head.
“Off world, Bender, you just gave up your seat to get off of this planet.”
“When they kicked you out of your old compound, was it because you were crazy?” Bender inquires.
“Roberts and I didn’t come from another compound, but from a ship in orbit. You could have been there too.”
“Off world doesn’t exist. And why go there when she is here? Off planet without her, or here where her safety depends on me? It wasn’t a hard choice. As far as the rest of you are concerned, who cares about you?” Bender turned his attention forward.
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