by C. G. Hatton
It was like having my own private playground.
I walked out onto an overhead beam and waved down at the others as they appeared below.
Maisie yelled up to me to be careful but that just made me climb higher. I ran out along an open gantry and saw what Benjie must have been hinting at.
I dropped down and yelled, “Hey, Peanut, come take a look at this.”
Peanut whistled when he saw it.
Calum was struggling to breathe, he was so out of shape. He pushed past us and grumbled, “What the hell is it?”
Peanut was hypnotised by it all and walked forward, almost stroking his hand along the crates and barrels. In the centre of it all was some kind of robot, half built, components glistening in the dim light, towering almost to the ceiling of the shed. It looked like it was sleeping, like it could power up at any second, turn and confront us for trespassing. The rest of its modules and parts were strewn on the floor, half in and out of boxes.
Peanut turned to look at us, goggles perched on top of his head pushing his hair out at all angles. He grinned like a kid in a toyshop, wandered back and whispered, loud and theatrical, “Holy shit.”
We left, and riding our dirt bikes back across the desert, it felt like we’d imagined it. Maisie yelled at me, “Was that even real?”
We laughed. Peanut said it was a mining robot but I argued it could be a super soldier. It had an AI, that was obvious from the conduits. Maybe its weapons were in another box. He’d said no way but he’d looked anyway, pocketing as many gizmos as he could without risking anyone noticing too much, and we’d run when we heard the main hangar doors start to open.
We should have gone straight back into the city but Calum cut me up, skidding to a halt and forcing me to stop. He pointed. The old midway telecoms tower was looming in the dust.
“Bet you can’t reach the top of the mast,” he said.
I’d climbed a few of the towers before but never that one. It was decrepit as hell, abandoned for years and near to collapse.
“Bet I can,” I said without thinking and took off for it.
I was half way up, reaching for one of the cross struts and only holding on with one hand, when there was a roar and a tremble in the air that washed right over us. The ship hit the ground out near the foothills, wiping out one of the mining facilities out there.
The fireball was massive. The mast shook, I grabbed for the bar and I almost lost it completely as my hand slipped on the slender shaft and I dangled there, mouth open, staring at the smoke and flames.
The others down below me were yelling. I wrapped my legs around the mast, slid back down and dropped onto the roof.
“They’ve shot down one of our drop ships,” Maisie said.
She was standing right on the edge and squinting out into the darkness. Dayton and his resistance army didn’t have many ships but they had a couple of low orbiters that dropped supplies to them out in the desert.
“Not a drop ship,” I said.
She looked at me, raising her eyebrows.
“Too much fuel burning.” I’d done the calcs from the distance and the height of the thick black column of billowing smoke. “It’s a deep spacer.” Only jump ships carried stuff that burned like that.
She didn’t question me. No one ever asked me how I knew all the weird things I did.
Calum swore. “We should go back,” he said.
I stared out into the night as lights began to trail out from the northern part of the city towards the crash site, emergency response and rescue teams probably, APCs bouncing along the dirt tracks, gunships tracking them, scanning the beams of their searchlights all around, looking for insurgents.
“We should go see what’s going on,” I said.
And that’s how I got into trouble.
Chapter 7
I sometimes wonder what would be different if I’d known then what I know now about that crashed ship. We just wanted to see what was happening. See if there was anything to be scavenged.
We jumped back on the bikes and took off across the desert, eventually ditching them when we got close enough. We ran the rest of the way. I was messing around, half running, half tumbling, throwing myself into backflips and somersaults. Maisie started singing marching songs and we all joined in, laughing. We didn’t have a care in the world.
That was probably the last time I can remember ever feeling like that.
We shut up when we got close enough to see the cordon they were putting in place around it. Then we got real quiet, real quick. We kept to the low ground and dried out river channels so no one could see us, hunkering down anytime a gunship flew overhead whether it had its searchlights on or not. We dropped into a ditch and crawled as close as we dared.
“Why would they build a perimeter like that?” Maisie whispered.
It was a defensive ring of overlapping fields of fire, way out from the crash site, alternate auto sentry positions and manned guard posts.
“Is that to keep us out?” Peanut muttered, “or to keep something in?”
He was paranoid as anything, did I say that?
We sat there in the dust, peering out of our little foxhole. We could just about make out the hulking shape of the wreck in there, plumes of dense smoke still billowing out from whatever in there was burning, debris and wreckage scattered on the desert floor lit up by the searchlights scanning out from the perimeter around it.
The refinery was trashed, mangled pipelines spewing steam, twisted gantries crashed into the low buildings on ground level.
It was eerily quiet.
“Is it Wintran?” Calum said, too loud.
Maisie elbowed him in the ribs.
“It can’t be Earth,” Peanut whispered. “No way. The guns would be pointing outwards if they were defending it. They’re containing it.”
Whatever it was.
Calum turned to me. “Go on then, squirt. You reckon you can get up close to it?” He laughed. “Not so cocky now, are you?”
I wish I could say I’d learned something of self-restraint in those happy times on Kheris but you know me, and you know I never have. Even now.
I braced myself to get up, and turned to Maisie and Peanut. “If it’s Wintran, it’ll have insignia.” Back then, there’d been five of the big original mega-corporations still operational. It was too big to be Zang or Marathon and I didn’t think it was UM. “What do you reckon?” I said. “Aries or Yarrimer?”
Maisie gave me her look. “Luka, don’t.”
I threw her a grin. It wasn’t every day we had corporate Winter crash-land on our doorstep and upset the Imperial troops so much. She wasn’t persuaded but she didn’t wrestle me to the ground or anything to stop me going.
I went to climb out and stopped. I could feel it more than hear it. I ducked back down, flattening myself to the ground and gesturing the others to stay low.
They must have emptied half the troops out of the city. A convoy of APCs and jeeps rumbled past, a couple of DZs in there for good measure.
I should have stayed where I was but I didn’t. I didn’t think, just timed it right, ran out and ran alongside an APC until I could jump and grab onto the side of it.
I hunkered down and clung on, looking back and watching with a grin as Calum tried to do the same. He wasn’t fast enough. He never did have the reflexes to act on impulse.
I watched him fume as I left them behind. The problem with bullies is that they don’t like to get shown up. The problem with smartass kids like me is that we don’t realise when we are showing people up and somehow it always comes as a surprise when people take offence. At least I knew where I was with Calum. He didn’t like me and I didn’t like him. Maisie was different. Sometimes she’d back me and sometimes she’d back him. And there were times I couldn’t tell.
It was a bumpy ride but I held on. I was a lot stronger than I looked, one thing to thank the gravity for.
They drove right up to the perimeter. I dropped down as they pulled up and hid underneath,
watching as the back ramp clanged open, kicking up a cloud of dust, boots thundering down. There were fast and sharp exchanges of orders, crisp military precision as they hustled into position. I’ve never got the hang of taking orders and even then I found it bizarre that guys who were so smart could snap to at a yell from some idiot in command. Charlie had tried to explain it to me when I was nine, the night he was with the gunship crew that caught me out after curfew when they were grounded because of a thunderstorm. Games, he’d said as he was dragging me in out of the rain so I didn’t get caught by another patrol. You play the games and you choose which games you want to play and how you want to play them. That was the trick. That was how to be really smart. Then they’d got out the beers and taught me how to play poker.
That night at the crash site, I crouched there in the darkness under the APC, listening, needing to concentrate to understand some of the accents, but getting the gist of it clear enough. Scary stuff. It just made me want to get closer.
I waited until they were getting ready to make their move then scrambled out from under the APC and ran behind the guard post. The next few minutes were a blur of frenzied activity, units getting into place as they prepared to approach the crashed vessel. Something had happened to the rescue teams they’d sent. No one knew what the ship was. And all comms were being jammed. I heard that clearly enough. They were using runners, hand signals and whistles.
They moved out. I watched as they hustled into position, waited a heartbeat and moved forward, creeping up behind them, keeping to whatever cover I could to keep close. I wanted to see if there was any insignia on the ship. I wanted it to be Aries. I wanted to think that a big corporation as cool as Aries could be interested in our little corner of space. Like, maybe if they were here, there might be a way out.
The hull of the ship was intact, damaged, but intact. But there was no way it was ever going to lift and fight its way out of our gravity. Whoever it was trapped in there, they were gonna have to negotiate their way out, and I wanted to see it.
But as the Imperial troops worked their way forward, guns up, and tension sky high, it started to feel like they weren’t the ones on top there. They were hesitant, arguing with each other, freaked out and nowhere near in control.
The metallic tang and cloying smell of burning fuel in the air was making me feel sick. There were bodies on the floor, in that no man’s land of open ground around the crashed ship, wreckage strewn everywhere. I followed them as they moved past massive chunks of debris that were hissing steam and got close enough to see the detail on the hull of the ship, black twisted metal, slumped on the desert floor in a way you never wanted to see any vessel. It made me feel cold. There was no insignia to see, no badges or name plates. I started to back off, feeling an unease deep inside that I couldn’t have explained to anyone. I didn’t want to be there any more. There was no curiosity or temptation to know more, I just suddenly needed to get away.
I was already backing off when the shouts from the Earth troops around me got louder. A deep thrumming noise reverberated from the crashed ship. I turned and ran. Rifle fire opened up all around me, sharp cracks that rattled my ears. The sound coming out of the ship deepened, resonating deep inside my chest. I couldn’t move fast enough to get away from it. I skidded in the dirt, lost my footing and fell, scraping my elbow and scrambling to get away. The vibration deepened again. It felt like my skin was on fire. The shouts were turning into screams. The pressure in my ears was getting unbearable. It was like the worst thunderstorm I’d ever been in, times a million. I stumbled, ran and threw myself under the nearest cover I could reach, scraping and burning my arm on the twisted metal as I dived in behind it. There was a flash, heat, pressure, then nothing.
I didn’t even know what had happened until someone grabbed my wrist. A weight was lifted off me. I blinked.
“We got a live one,” someone was yelling, foggy like they were miles away or shouting through a muffler. There was cursing. “It’s just a kid.”
They pulled me out. I hurt everywhere and I had to squeeze my hands tight, fingernails raking into my palms, to stop myself from crying out. I could see lights around me but they were swirling in mad spirals so I shut my eyes and tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. The voices had Earth accents so I gave in to them, no choice but to trust them, more scared about what Latia was going to say.
They lifted me and I thought I was going to throw up but everything just whirled around for a minute then someone was holding my hand and saying my name.
Charlie. I thought it was Charlie and I tried to say something but nothing would work. There was a cold sting against my neck followed by a rush of warmth. Inviting but I fought it. Delirious. It felt like I was sinking into soft mud. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to know what was happening.
I found out soon enough. Back at the Imperial Garrison.
I can vaguely remember someone arguing that they should take me to the city hospital but Charlie said not and they didn’t argue with him. I blinked open my eyes in a medical bay. Charlie was standing there with his arms folded.
He said, “Hey,” as he saw I was awake, not impressed and not hiding it.
I wanted to ask about the others but I didn’t want to let on that they’d been out there as well so I kept my mouth shut, except to mumble, “Hey,” back at him. Our game.
I tried to sit up but my head went spinning off and it felt like my eyeballs were going to drop out. Something was in my arm, a line snaking out to a pouch that hung overhead.
“What were you doing out there?” he said.
It wasn’t comfortable to talk but I managed to say, “Wanted to see what was going on.”
“Did you see anything?”
“No.”
Charlie shook his head as if he was really pissed at me. That hurt more than the headache. “You’re good to go as soon as you feel okay,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” he said. “Get some sleep.” And he turned, muttering something I didn’t catch as he left.
I didn’t mean to sleep but I must have because it was dark when I opened my eyes again. There was a medic there, checking something or other. She was stressed out, I could tell that.
I sat up, trailing wires, the line in my arm catching with a tug. My head was pounding but the room didn’t spin. That was something. “What happened?” I said quietly.
She turned, looked down her nose at me and said, “That’s classified, kid. Now lie down, close your eyes and go back to sleep. You understand what curfew means, right? Or do you want me to read it out to you?”
I stared at her for a second, weighed up my chances and lay back down, watching as she injected drugs into the pouch that was dripping fluid into me. Something really bad had happened and I had a feeling I was lucky to be alive.
As it happened, it was worse than that.
Chapter 8
They let me go the next morning. Maisie was waiting for me, hovering at the corner. She took my hand without a word as I walked up, just walking next to me as we walked away from the garrison.
My eyes were hurting. I narrowed them to a squint and stared at the ground, counting each step and each block until we got home. Two of the others were on watch duty. They stood and stared as we walked up. She nodded to them as they let us pass and she steered me inside. I couldn’t manage the stairs so she grabbed me a blanket and we sat on a mattress in a corner, huddled together, on the ground floor.
“Do you know what happened?” I asked eventually.
She shook her head. “We just saw the blast.” She shivered. “They’re saying it must be Aries to have stuff like that.”
I didn’t shake my head because it was hurting too much but I muttered, “They don’t know what it is.”
I’d woken up a couple of times in the night when there were people in the corridor, talking. Harsh, raised voices. People asking why the hell this scrawny kid was the only one they’d pulled out of there alive. They had no idea
how I could have survived it when no one else had, except someone said I’d been found under wreckage from the crash. Ten metres from the nearest body, someone said, as if there’d been a calculated radius to the effects of whatever weapon it had been. I must have been just outside its range.
I’d lain there in the dark, listening to them hustle and yell, waiting for the next shot of painkillers. I wasn’t scared. It wasn’t as bad as the night we got bombed when I was five. Nothing could ever be that bad. I’ve not been scared of anything since that night.
At one point, someone had shouted out orders to get all the defunct auto sentries out of storage… anything, everything they had, to make a new perimeter further out. They’d been blindsided and they were furious. The language I’d heard would have made Maisie blush.
She twisted round and looked at me intently. “We thought you…”
I thought she was going to cry but she didn’t. She pulled herself together. She leaned in, kissed me on the cheek and whispered, “Nice bruises there, panda boy,” then she grinned, got up and threw the blanket back over me.
“Where’s Latia?” I said as she walked out, trying to stop my eyes closing, eyelids feeling like lead weights.
“Trust me,” she called back, “you don’t want to see Latia right now.”
My great-grandmother was sitting next to me when I opened my eyes. I must have fallen asleep because it was dark outside, different kids on the door.
She had hold of my hand, tight, her thin parchment fingers stroking gently along mine, reaching every now and then to touch the knotted band around my wrist.
I sat up, aches pulling at every muscle in my entire body.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“You’re lucky.” There wasn’t much sympathy in her voice.
It wasn’t often that Latia came out to our hidey holes. Someone must have gone to get her.
We sat there and I ended up with her arm around me, snuggled into her side, like I hadn’t since I was tiny.