by C. G. Hatton
He looked at me horrified, like he wanted to argue, but he was also looking slightly behind me, over my shoulder, and I could tell Calum or one of his buddies was there.
“It’s fine,” I muttered and I left.
I could hear the rumblings of thunder in the clouds, rolling in from the foothills, and there were spots of rain in the air. It wasn’t quite dark. That crappy time between daytime and night when the light was weird and shift change meant the guards were all hyper-alert waiting for curfew to kick in. There weren’t many people about, even in the main streets as I worked my way over to the west side. A few scurried past, trying to get indoors before the storm broke.
The outpost over in the west quadrant was right next to an area that had got the crap bombed out of it. No one had ever bothered to rebuild or clear out the ruined buildings.
There was no sign of Charlie. I clambered up onto one of the rooftops, lying down on my stomach under an overhang of mangled corrugated sheeting, getting the position right so I could see everyone coming and going. Then I waited.
It started to get dark after a while. The searchlights on the roof of the outpost arced into life, white beams cutting through the inky blue black of the night. There were no other lights in that quarter of the city. From my vantage point, I could see right out into the desert to where the hulking shape of the crashed ship lay surrounded by a cordon of UM forces that were still pounding it.
Different vehicles drove up to the outpost a couple of times but still no Charlie.
The wind was picking up, swirling vortices dancing out on the plain and gusts starting to send heavier and heavier flurries of rain into my little shelter, turning into an insistent pounding on the sheeting over my head. And it was getting cold. I wasn’t wearing much and as I got colder and it got darker, storm clouds gathering, it was tempting to jump down and go find out what was going on. Except none of the other soldiers would take as light a view as Charlie did to a kid being out after curfew.
I was starting to think something must have happened. I shifted my weight and hugged my arms around myself to keep warm. Time to bug out. I wasn’t stupid.
Turns out I was.
I climbed down into an alleyway and dropped down, a scuffing sound of feet on the rubble behind me, and a ringing of metal on metal.
I turned, saw them and knew exactly what had happened.
Calum walked forward. He was holding a length of metal pipe in his hand. “What happened, Luka? Your buddy not looking out for you any more?” He had to shout. The rain was getting harder, pelting down, the rumble of thunder getting closer. He had two cronies with him, rifles slung on their backs. We were all getting soaked.
I shivered, blinking water out of my eyes, and squared up to him, shouting back, “What the hell are you doing?”
“We know what you’ve been up to,” he yelled. “Dayton knows. He’s told us everything.”
“Told you what?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“Admit it. Admit what you’ve been doing. It’s time to choose sides, Luka.” Calum was striding around, barking mad, acting like he was on a stage, commanding a performance with a ragged pipe as a prop. He banged it against a drainpipe, pointed it at me then waved it theatrically towards the outpost. “Are you with us? Or are you with them?”
Chapter 13
Water was streaming down the back of my neck. Calum’s cronies moved to either side, bringing their rifles up to point at me. They weren’t even standing right. Even at that range, they’d never hit me holding them like that.
I couldn’t help the smile that snuck out.
Calum glowered and stepped forward. “What are you laughing at? You little shit. You’re done betraying us. We don’t need you any more. Don’t you get it?”
He stepped in, swinging the pipe two-handed, aiming for my head. I sidestepped and shoved him. He shouldered me aside and someone grabbed me from behind, almost hauling me off my feet.
The alleyway lit up with a flash of lightning that forked across the sky.
Calum came at me again and they were holding me so all I could do was curl up as the pipe hit, taking the brunt of it on my shoulder. It stung like hell. I kicked out, clawed at the hands holding me and bit the nearest arm I could reach.
A blow landed against the back of my head, almost sending me to my knees.
Calum grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me upright, nose to nose, rain streaming down our faces.
“You’re not one of us,” he screamed. “You never have been. You’re Earth scum and we know what you’ve been doing.” He was spitting rain at me.
I didn’t flinch and yelled back, “What the hell am I supposed to have done?”
He gestured again, wildly, towards the outpost. “Sold us out to them.”
“How?” I almost laughed again.
That didn’t go down well.
He flung me around, sending me staggering backwards, as a clap of thunder crashed overhead.
He yelled something I missed as I went sprawling. I rolled splashing through puddled dirt and raised my head, shaking water off my nose, as a figure stepped out from the shadows between us, topknot unmistakable.
She had her back to me, facing up to Calum, protecting me from them, protesting, shouting, “He hasn’t done anything.”
The two with the rifles closed in.
“Get out of here, Freddie,” Calum screamed.
I scrambled to my feet and pushed past her, grabbing her hand.
“What are you going to do?” I yelled. “Shoot us?”
Another flash lit up the city. There was a massive rumble that was too close to be thunder. I could feel the ground tremble under my feet. Gunfire started to echo through the streets. Dayton was starting his assault.
“Calum,” I shouted again, trying to get Freddie behind me, “what the hell do you think I’ve done?”
He almost lurched at us. “You betrayed us.” He looked at the kids on either side of him and yelled, “Do it.”
They fired.
I ducked sideways, grabbed Freddie and ran. They missed. The shots ricocheted off the wall by my head as I barged into a doorway and shouldered open the door. I bundled her through and into darkness.
They were shouting after us. I ran, dragging her alongside me, running blind through rubble and debris, shoving our way through door after door. We burst out into another alleyway, back into the rain, and ran, hand in hand. I could hear them behind us and I could see a fire escape ladder half hanging off the side of a building up ahead. If they meant to kill us, they had a clear shot. We had no other way out but to run for it.
A shot pinged off the metal frame as we reached it. Freddie squealed. I grabbed her and hoisted her up, following as soon as I was sure it would hold us both. We scrambled onto the rooftop and ran. There was no easy way off it. I grabbed Freddie’s hand as we approached the edge, running full tilt, and yelled, “Jump.” We landed and rolled, skidding on the wet surface of the roof below. I lost hold of her and had to scramble back, dragging her back up into a run. She was struggling, limping and whimpering, but she kept going. We made it across two rooftops before she was done. I pulled her into the cover of an overhang and pushed a finger to her lips, mouthing, “Stay here.”
I crawled out and listened, not picking up anything but the howling of the storm and the echo of gunfire in amongst the driving rain.
They could have been right on top of us and we wouldn’t have known until it was too late. We couldn’t stay there. We were both soaked through and shivering. Freddie was holding her ankle.
“What do they think you’ve done?” she said as I crawled back in.
“Calum’s an idiot. I haven’t done anything. Can you walk?”
“Yeah.” She looked up at me. “Luka, why would they think you’ve betrayed us?”
I could tell from the look on her face, rain streaming down her cheeks with the tears, that she was thinking that I must have done something. That something must have happened.
I must have stiffened, pulled a face or something, because her face fell back into that dismayed look. She reached and touched my knee. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “You’re one of us. I don’t care what they say. I know you haven’t done anything.”
Problem was, I couldn’t have sworn for sure that I hadn’t.
“I know you haven’t, Luka. That’s why I followed Calum. To warn you,” she said, voice small, shaking. “Peanut told me about the ore plant. Is that why we’re in trouble?”
“We’re not in trouble,” I said. “Calum’s just an idiot. You shouldn’t have followed him out here. Come on, we need to move.”
We went back out into the rain and across the rooftops as fast as we could. I wanted to get her to Latia’s. That was the only place I could think of to go. The thunder was still rumbling. Those storms didn’t usually last long but they always got worse, much worse, before they tore themselves apart. We slid down a gutter and fell out onto a flat roof that was mostly intact. I pulled Freddie up and helped her into a run. We weren’t too far from Latia’s district. I couldn’t feel my fingers any more. Freddie was trembling. I looked around. Unless we wanted to jump down a bomb hole, the only way I could see to get down was on the far side of the roof. We had no choice but to run out into the open.
There was a yell. Shots that pinged off the venting pipes next to us.
Freddie screamed, exhausted and about ready to collapse.
I grabbed her and pulled her back. We slipped round into the shadows and waited, listening as they yelled to each other, trying to figure out where we were. I grabbed a handful of rubble and threw it, as far as I could, watching as it hit the far wall with a clatter. They were stupid enough to fall for it, running off in the opposite direction. I gestured Freddie to be quiet, as lightning flashed in brilliant white tendrils across the sky, then we climbed up and round, back onto the higher roof.
Calum was standing there, waiting. He narrowed his eyes, a sly smile on his face, shifted his weight and hefted the pipe. Shadows moved on all sides as his cronies stepped out to surround us.
“Luka hasn’t done anything,” Freddie yelled, a clap of thunder drowning out her words.
I let go of her hand and moved, going for Calum as fast as he was coming at me. I ducked the pipe and got in the first punch. He went down but one of his buddies swung the rifle like a club. Right in my face.
I went flying, hit the ground and rolled, sprawling.
Then it all went into slow motion.
They got Freddie by the scruff of the neck and they dragged her away from me. She was protesting, kicking at them but they were too big.
They spread out. Freddie was screaming. The others were all shouting, jeering. They were still waving the rifles in the air.
Calum was on his feet, pulling something from his belt.
There was another flash of lightning.
Whatever he had in his hand glinted. The idiot had a knife.
I got up, reaching into my own pocket.
Calum held up the blade, grinning.
I heard Freddie yell, “No,” and saw her twist away. There was another crash of thunder then a gunshot, a sharp crack that cut through the storm and the darkness.
Freddie staggered.
My fingers closed around the cold, hard sphere of the grenade. Freddie turned, looked me right in the eye with terror frozen on her face, and then she was falling. I tried to catch her but I couldn’t move fast enough.
Calum slammed into me and a burning heat burst in my stomach. I felt my knees going.
I clicked the primer.
Calum pushed me away from him. I couldn’t help staggering backwards. I threw the grenade. There was a flash. And then my feet went out from under me.
I fell. I can remember hitting something. Pain so bad it didn’t feel real. I think I might have screamed.
And that’s when I bust my knee.
I didn’t black out. It would have been easier if I had but I lay there in the torrential rain, feeling every spark of agonising pain. I’ve had worse. Compared to some of the stuff I’ve been through since, with the guild, that night at the bottom of that wall was a breeze. But back then, I was thirteen and it was the first time I’d really got hurt, and boy did it hurt.
I couldn’t move without feeling like I was going to drop into a dark hole. I lay there, rain streaming down my face, every muscle tense, hand pressed over my stomach where the wetness was warm and sticky. I could feel every heartbeat pounding in my chest, feel it pulsing in my abdomen.
I can remember wondering if that was what it was like to die. Wondering if that’s what it had felt like eight years ago when the bombs had hit our building, and my mother and grandparents, and my uncles and all my cousins and all those other people had died. It had been raining that night too. Did bad things always happen in the rain and the dark? I could see every detail of it, relive every minute I was trapped there in the rubble as everyone faded and died around me. I could hear every voice and cry, every whisper that got quieter and quieter until there was nothing but my heartbeat in the darkness.
Lying there that night at the bottom of the wall, I did anything to stop thinking about it. I started counting, worked out volumes of water, volumes of blood, fluid dynamics and how much I reckoned I was losing by the minute.
I lay there forever, calculating distances and fuel consumption, trying to work out if I knew enough about flying a ship yet to steal one and get everyone away from there. I was expecting Calum to turn up and finish the job. I had no idea what he thought I’d done, why Dayton would think I’d done anything to betray them. I’d just given them exactly what he’d sent me in there after. I tried to backtrack over every second of it all, figure out if I’d screwed up, if I’d done something so terrible they could see it that way, and every time I came back to nothing.
I started to fade out, grey closing in but then I heard shouting. I tensed, adrenaline pulsing. If Calum turned up and held a gun to my head, there was absolutely nothing I could do.
Chapter 14
The shouting was joined by the noise of engines and weapons, far away, and then a voice really close up, yelling in my ear. Not Calum. I blinked.
Someone took hold of my wrist and someone pressed down hard on my stomach. There was a sting and the pain went sky high so bad it took my breath away, then just as suddenly, I couldn’t feel anything any more. I felt my knee well enough when they tried to move me and I think I screamed again.
“Give the kid something to knock him out, for Christ’s sake,” someone shouted.
I felt another sharper sting on my neck and I drifted off on a cloud.
I woke up in the medical bay again. When I was in there with concussion, everyone had seemed really pissed at me. That second time, when I was really hurt, they were different, way more protective somehow, as if there were degrees of being hurt and if it was bad enough, it didn’t matter what you’d done to end up there. That seems to be a trick I’ve got away with a lot since then.
There were more people around that time too. They were hustling with wounded and I caught snatches of conversations, talk of bombs and casualties, medical supplies being low and where the hell were the reinforcements.
It was hard not to feel guilty.
I was polite whenever any of the medics checked on me and I lay there listening, trying to figure out what I could move. There was a line in my arm again. My left knee was firmly immobilised in a brace. My stomach was sore but everything else seemed fine.
I slept a lot and one time when I was only half awake, I thought I could hear Charlie, but he wasn’t there when I opened my eyes.
Then for the first time since I’d got there, I woke and felt fully awake, different, more aware, the IV line gone.
There were quiet voices beyond the curtain. They were talking about me and that time it was Charlie. He was arguing, soft tones like they were trying to keep quiet but he was pissed about something.
“No,” a wom
an said, quiet but firm.
“He’s one of ours,” I heard Charlie say. “Just look at him.”
“We’re at our limit here,” she said. “The kid is good to go. We can’t keep him just because, yes, I agree, in all likelihood, he is probably the bastard sprog of some grunt who could have been here for one tour thirteen or fourteen years ago. The kid has family here. We’re releasing him today.”
Charlie sounded desperate. “We’re still fighting out there.”
“I know,” she said. “That’s why we’re at our limit. I’m letting him go.”
There were footsteps, walking away, then he pulled back the curtain and stood there. He looked like he’d been working back to back shifts. He had that tang of dust and dirt and explosives hanging around him.
I sat up and said, “Hey.”
He forced a smile.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I need to go. Is it okay if I go?”
He nodded.
There was a pile of clothes on the end of the bed. Desert colours, stuff the soldiers wore off-duty. I guessed that my clothes had been trashed. I shrugged into a tee shirt that was way too big.
“It’s the smallest we could find,” Charlie said. “Here let me help.”
He got me up and dressed. The shorts were big but not stupidly so. The pack of cards was lying there on the bed. It was bulky somehow, like it had been soaked and then dried out. He must have rescued it for me. It meant a lot and I didn’t know how to say it. I stuffed it into a pocket.
My sneakers were there and he helped me into them and grabbed some crutches.
“You know how to use these?” he asked.
“I’ll manage.”
“No climbing.” He said it with a smile in his eyes.