by C. G. Hatton
The look on Dayton’s face darkened as the implications of what I’d just done started to dawn on him but I figured I’d spell it out for him anyway. “I have someone tracking this. If it gets taken off, I’ll know. If she dies, I’ll know. Either way, you get nothing.”
Dayton wasn’t stupid but he wasn’t a poker player either. Bluff and counter bluff. Like I said, Charlie taught me a lot that night in the storm.
“Fine,” Dayton growled. “Looks like we have ourselves a standoff, kid. Maybe I misjudged you after all, but understand this, I’m on a clock here which means this is a time limited offer. If I don’t have those keys back in my hand in six hours, she dies regardless. You understand?”
“Six hours and counting.” I turned and walked out.
I didn’t look round and Dayton didn’t shoot me in the back. I kept to the shadows. The sound of gunfire was increasing in all directions. Someone had set fire to a jeep on the main road north. There were other fires burning all over the southern part of the city, buildings alight, cars overturned, barricades in flames. It didn’t feel real, like I was walking through some kind of hellish nightmare. Like I might wake up at any minute in Latia’s house, with no pain, just her ragging on me for not going to school and calling me down for pancakes.
I had a horrible feeling she wasn’t alright. That Dayton had lied and she was dead already, but that was something I had no control over so I just had to hope she was okay, trying to figure out instead what had happened with Benjie while trying to watch out for trouble, working a route through.
I headed north, flinching back every time I heard voices too close. It seemed like the whole city was burning. My knee had stiffened up again and I was riding the pain with each step, even with the crutches. I took it easy, slinking my way through the shadows, past Dayton’s guys and past the fighting. They were pushing up close to the garrison at my favourite spot. I could hear kids’ voices in amongst the fevered shouting, higher pitched yells screaming over the gunfire, as if it was a game.
I watched for a while from the shadows of an alleyway, despair setting in as I realised there was no way in.
I wanted to get into the garrison and I wanted it so badly that it became my whole world, each step, each breath, each heartbeat, each pulse of adrenaline. The fight flowed around me as if it was orchestrated in slow motion. Earth, the resistance, UM. None of them mattered. All I wanted was to get in there and click that key into place to see what was on it, see what was so important that it was getting the people I cared about killed.
But there was no way in. The Earth troops were pulling back, tanks and APCs withdrawing into the garrison, every soldier they had manning heavy weapon placements and sniper positions around the wall, bolstering the automated AI defence grid. They were preparing for a siege. There was no way I could get across there without getting shot.
I didn’t know what to do.
There was no way I could even get to the wall, never mind over it and into the complex. UM were crawling over our desert and the KRM had the mines, the refinery, half the city and soon, they’d have the garrison and the space port.
I was paralysed by indecision. First time in my life. And it terrified me. I’d always been so damn cocky, so sure of myself. I always had an answer. I could always see the patterns, the way in, the way out, the solution to the problem. But in that chaos, there was no pattern. Panic started to set in, fear of failure, fear of losing Latia and Maisie. If anyone ever tells you I’m never scared of anything, it’s not true, I just don’t let it get to me. I thought I’d burned all the scared out of me as a five year old when I was trapped in the rubble that had been my home.
But that night, it flooded back and, with it, I flashed back to a memory of another time, something Charlie had once said to me… “You freeze, you die. Make a decision. Act. Deal with the consequences later, and believe me, there will always be consequences, but in the moment you have to do something. Right or wrong. Good or bad. But do something.” So I did something, something I’d never done before because I hated the idea of doing it. Something I was maybe even afraid of and the thought of needing to do it made me feel dreadful. I decided to ask someone for help.
If the southern part of the city was in chaos, the north was in meltdown. Sirens were wailing, smoke spiralling from buildings hit by rockets the KRM had launched at targets further north. Another hit as I headed across Tenth, some way off but close enough to make the ground tremble. I had my hood up, head down, taking one step after another, every muscle complaining. The streets up there were usually deserted under curfew. That night, as the city sparked and burned, they swarmed. It was like someone had hit the panic button and they couldn’t get away fast enough.
I joined the throng of people edging between the cars and trucks that were trying to get to the space port, expecting someone to tug at my collar any minute and expose me, yell at me that I wasn’t their kind, that I wasn’t welcome or worthy to share in their moment of terror as the troubles from the south impinged on their privileged lives. I was jostled, swept along, but no one called me out.
There were no troops on the streets and as we got closer to the perimeter of the landing field, I could see why. They’d reinforced the patrols and set up an outer ring of defences, tanks and APCs set up back to back with gun turrets pointed outwards towards the growing crowds of colonists trying frantically to evacuate. There was no way I was going to make it over the fence like I usually did. I worked my way round and pushed through until I could see the gate. The soldiers were checking passes, documents, scanning those nice folk with implants, searching every car. Those with the right permits, right clearance, the right birth certificates were being waved through, those without were being firmly turned away.
I sucked in a deep breath. I knew Peanut had to be in there, I just needed to get to him. I watched the soldiers shout brusquely, push anyone who wasn’t cooperating fast enough, armed guards on high alert hefting rifles.
The darkness and despair started to creep back.
There was no way in.
Chapter 21
You remember what I said about luck? Sometimes you can have the best hand and you know you’re on a winner, sometimes you just need the right card to drop for you. And sometimes you just need to be in the right place at the right time. Fate is funny that way, she can bite you on the ass or throw you a bone.
I started to turn away. I almost didn’t hear the high-pitched squeal, someone yelling my name and louder shouts to get back. I looked up. Spacey was running full tilt at me, adults running after her, shouting, one of them the schoolteacher from the outpost, her face fraught and drawn. Spacey bowled into me and hugged tight, her arms wrapped around my leg. I forgot I still had the stupid war paint on my face and looked up as the adults approached.
They slowed, looking horrified. They reached out an arm towards Spacey as if they needed to coax her away from me. She nuzzled deeper, sobbing, crying that she wanted to stay with me, that she wanted me to go with them, crying for Maisie and screaming louder when they inched forward and tried to take her arm.
I couldn’t get her off me. Short of flinging her away, I couldn’t get her to let go. A gunship roared overhead. She screamed louder. One of the adults, a guy who looked like he was probably a teacher too, that or some kind of social worker, put up his hands like he was going to try to negotiate with me or something. Like I was some kind of dangerous resistance fighter threatening their escape. It’s a good thing I didn’t have a gun. That would have freaked them out even more.
The schoolteacher squinted at me and swore. “No, wait,” she said, putting her hands up as if she was trying to calm it all down. I don’t know what they thought I was going to do. She stepped forward, glancing back at the guy and saying, “I know this kid.” She looked at me again. “Luka? It’s Luka, isn’t it? Is that right?”
I don’t even know what I did. Probably scowled at her.
She turned back to the guy. “We have to take him. He’s one
of the street kids that we registered for the school. He’s coming with us. Come on, both of you. We have to get back in line.”
I went with them, Spacey clinging to me. They led us through the crowd to a school bus that was inching forward in a line of other vehicles. The schoolteacher urged us to climb on board and steered us to a seat at the front. It was packed with other kids who all stared at me. I felt like I was from another planet. I held onto Spacey and stared out of the window. The soldiers at the gate were getting more and more agitated as the crowd pressed. They stopped the bus, yelled and hammered on the door to get it opened. The kids were whispering and whimpering to each other. I wanted to be anywhere but on that bus.
One of the soldiers climbed in, rifle in his arms, corporal’s stripes on his uniform. My heart was going nineteen to the dozen. I could smell the smoke and explosive fumes on my clothes. He looked round at us all, his eye catching mine for a second. I stared back, blank, bracing myself, expecting to be hauled off there and then and shot as KRM, but he just turned to the driver and said, “Only adults with current visas. The kids are all native. They stay.”
There was a clamour, crying. Spacey gripped my hand tight. I shifted my weight to get up but the schoolteacher stepped forward. “No, we all go. We have papers for all these children.”
They didn’t have papers for me. The school had given me some when they made me enrol but I’d lost those years ago.
She was steadfastly avoiding looking at me.
The corporal shook his head. “We have orders. Transport is limited. We’re taking citizens with visas. With somewhere to go. The adults can go through. This bus needs to back the hell up.”
He turned. She stepped in front of him and he shoved her aside. There were more yells. I stood, shaking off Spacey’s hand and standing in front of her. The soldier went to bring up his rifle. In a bus full of schoolchildren, he went to raise his rifle. The driver was shouting, the other adults were shouting, the schoolteacher the loudest, and it felt like the guy was a hair’s breadth from opening fire but another soldier climbed on board, hands up, yelling for quiet, telling his buddy to stand down, for Christ’s sake. “We’ve got a transport,” he said. “Freighter captain just in from Erica says he’ll ditch his cargo and take the kids. Corporal, get them all processed and get them through. Christ, this is the last thing we need.”
He left.
The corporal was pissed and started demanding papers. The schoolteacher turned to me. She mouthed, “Sit down,” trying to be reassuring but her hands were shaking.
I sat. Spacey clambered onto my lap and we sat there as the school staff fumbled out all the official crap they had to appease the asshole corporal. I had no idea how she accounted for me. I perched on that seat as the bus finally pulled through the gate and into the port, heart pounding, injured leg stretched out, Spacey sitting on my other knee, and it would have been so easy to go with it, just close my eyes and go with them.
But it could never be that easy.
The bus pulled up at some kind of terminal building and they ferried us off and inside. I hesitated at the door. I held Spacey’s hand tight and leaned down to whisper in her ear. The woman was watching us. Spacey did me proud. She listened intently to every word I said. I felt her little chin go up, that defiance we had ingrained into us kicking in.
“I’ll come find you,” I whispered. “I promise.”
She hugged me tighter.
I stood up. “I need the bathroom,” I said.
The schoolteacher looked at me, something like dismay in her eyes. She nodded, took Spacey’s hand and led her away.
I split.
We were inside the perimeter. All the attention was focused outwards, inside no one was watching too closely. I checked the time and limped out across to the workshops.
The maintenance bays were open, seemingly abandoned. There was the small courier ship Peanut had mentioned and a couple of shuttles parked up in the service bays. But there were no people in sight and it was obvious Peanut wasn’t there. I wondered if he’d found a way off-world already, if he was even still alive, and my heart sank. I stood there in the dark, chest heaving, leaning heavily on the crutches.
He walked in behind me, flicked on the light and made me jump out of my skin.
“Comms are back,” he said, throwing tools and components onto the workbench. He didn’t even seem surprised to see me. “Whatever was on that ship jamming comms, UM must have trashed it when they got in. They’re in, did you see that? And there’s Imperial reinforcements inbound. They’re less than a day out. The garrison can probably hold out that long, I reckon, then it’s going to get really ugly.”
I didn’t care. I pulled the key out of my pocket and held it up. “You need to help me get this into the garrison,” I said, words sticking in my throat. “Dayton’s going to kill Maisie and Latia unless I do it and I can’t get in.” I faltered. That was still tough to admit. “Peanut…”
He wiped his hand on a rag. “That’s the key you stole. I had a feeling that’s why Dayton wanted you dead. I figured it had to be something to do with that.”
I checked the time again. My hand was shaking. “He’s had a change of heart. Seems he doesn’t want me dead now. He needs me to do something for him. With this key, and I don’t even know what it is. I have to get back into the garrison and get to a secure terminal. I have less than four hours or he’s going to kill them… Peanut, I don’t know how to get in.”
“I tried to get back to you,” he said. “What happened?”
I couldn’t breathe and I opened my mouth to say Benjie the son of a bitch betrayed me but I couldn’t say it. I shook my head. “Just tell me how I get in.”
Standing in that workshop, with Dayton’s people setting fire to our city and Imperial forces about to descend on the colony in force, I reckoned I’d just run at the wall if there was no other option. I’d figure something out or die trying. Latia and Maisie deserved that from me at least.
I was trembling, about to walk away and be damned when Peanut shrugged in that unassuming way of his and said simply, “You don’t need to. That diplomatic vessel is still parked right outside. Get on board that and you have a connection right into the heart of the garrison.”
I think I just stared at him but he was throwing me a lifeline.
“It’s the only remote access into the whole secure level of the base,” he said, throwing me a pair of maintenance crew overalls that were two sizes too big, and a pass that wouldn’t fool anyone if they so much as glanced at it. “A diplomatic vessel will have all the security clearance you need. And it’ll be a damn sight easier to break into than a garrison under siege.”
I grabbed the overalls and struggled into them without thinking.
He looked me up and down and laughed. “Yeah, you look nothing like an engineer. Just keep your head down. And leave the crutches. I’ll get you something that’ll help.”
Peanut also gave me a headset, a tiny bead to stick in my ear, and told me we could talk if needed but keep it to a minimum. I gave him a hand to throw a load of parts and kit into crates on a loader then hunkered down between them as he drove out. The whole place was still in chaos. I could hear the shouts and yells as the soldiers at the gate processed the incoming crowds. It was getting more and more desperate. Peanut drove round and stopped at the accident and emergency centre that was across from the terminal building. I stayed down and out of sight. He vanished inside and reappeared, tossing a small box to me and jumping back into the cab.
I braced myself as he drove off again, fumbling open the box and downing a handful of the painkillers, double dosing, not realising how bad it had got until it started to ease off. The drugs kicking in gave me a rush of confidence that started to push out the despair. I could do this. I was the kid that could do anything, who’d never been caught. I felt like I was holding all the aces and the game was mine to control.
Peanut drove the loader right up to the diplomatic ship. I hid there, listening
as Peanut argued with the guards on the access ramp that he didn’t care they didn’t know they had a bust Prazi manifold, it had been reported and it was flashing up warnings on all systems, and if they wanted to make orbit before the space port was overrun they better let him on board to fix it. They bitched that no one had notified them but as Peanut pointed out, the whole place was in turmoil and the space port personnel were barely able to maintain what little order there was. It was hardly surprising in all the chaos, he said, that no one was telling anyone what was going on. I heard the guards grumble their agreement, the life of the military grunt, the other sagely conceding that it was not theirs to reason why. They laughed at that then told Peanut he’d better make it fast because they had clearance to go as soon as the boss got back.
While he distracted the guards, I dropped down and sneaked around the back of the loader and up the ramp. I glanced over my shoulder as Peanut got the guards to help him unload the heaviest crate. Then I was in.
The entry way was undoubtedly being scanned, but the guards on the ramp had just called in that maintenance technicians were coming on board for urgent repairs so I was banking on nobody watching a monitor being surprised at seeing a guy in coveralls coming on board. I paused for a moment to get my bearings, orienting from what I’d seen of the outside of the ship with what I expected inside. She was a big ship but not huge, not one of the deep spacers that hauled millions of tonnes of freight and cargo across space. There would be a flight deck, crew’s quarters, a messing area, engine room and a secure communications area. That was where I needed to get to.
I ditched the baggy overalls behind some containers. I reckoned I’d have a better chance of pulling off dumb, scared kid trying to sneak off planet than I did maintenance engineer. I would even have squeezed out a tear or two if required. Most grown ups really don’t know what to do with a hysterical kid. It makes them uncomfortable and I figured if it came to it and I blubbed enough, they’d be more likely to ditch me onto the terminal staff than arrest me for spying or terrorism.