It was unclear if it was the same Tusian battleship they’d seen on their previous trip, or if this was a new one that had just happened to be left behind long enough. What was entirely clear was that it intended to stand its ground at the gateway and pound the hell out of the Authority ship for as long as it possibly could. Mortar explosions and energy discharges lit up the space outside, glowing an odd mixture of orange and brown as the dusty debris of the Wall filtered the light they gave off. It looked very much like a thundercloud speckled with lightning. There were no audible concussions, of course, with only the silent vacuum between the battleground and their vantage point.
“Is Colossus going through all that?” Barry asked, looking wide-eyed on the spectacle.
“If we’re lucky, he’s already back to the Red Robert,” Balta said. She stabbed a fat finger at the battleship. “And that just might be our ticket out of here.”
It took Petrick a second to understand what she meant, how this wanton display of explosive power could help them . . . and then he realized that the Authority capital ship, which had been so solely bent on their capture, was now otherwise occupied with not being blown up by the Tusians. It was a diversion, and one they could use. He felt his heart quicken. They might get out of this after all.
Once they stopped and the carriage’s doors opened to the station, he realized it wasn’t going to be quite that simple. Above the old, decrepit station on a flickering but still-working video screen were more giant lit-up wanted posters with his face and those of his friends. The group stopped and looked at them in all their blazing, insistent glory.
“Crap,” said Balta. “These are going to be everywhere.”
“What are we going to do?” Suzy asked, taking a step outside the carriage.
Balta threw a meaty arm out to stop her. “You listen to me, like I said, and don’t get out till I say so,” she said, her eyes flicking back and forth around the station platform, “and we move fast.”
“You’re already too slow,” an unpleasant voice called out from the shadows of the corridor ahead of them.
The waspish form of Hek revealed itself. His sickening smile led the way. Behind Hek were two other men with large-looking guns held in their hands.
“Hands up, all of you,” he said. A multitude of weapons whined as their power packs juiced up, ready to fire. “You’ve got nowhere to run.”
37
HEK HAD them outnumbered and surrounded.
“No shiny robot to protect you this time,” Hek said, rubbing his wrists where Colossus had suspended him back in the marketplace. He pointed up to the wanted posters. “Your friends are going to make me much more than I thought they were.”
Balta side-eyed the children and Haber, signaling for them to stay where they were.
Brrraappp-braaapp.
Two discharges went off from Hek’s weapon and exploded a shower of sparks from the top of the station platform. All three of the children flinched.
“I said hands up,” Hek said. He waggled his gun upward to punctuate the command. “And come on out of that tram car.”
Again, Balta side-eyed the children, and again, Petrick had the distinct impression the look meant they should stay where they were.
“Okay, okay,” Balta called out to their captor. “Just don’t—”
Braaaapp-braaappp braapp-braapp-braapp.
From her overcoat, Balta had pulled out two large golden guns and blasted off five shots in the vicinity of Hek and his goons before any of them had time to react. At first, Petrick thought that Balta had terrible aim—not a single shot had actually hit any of them—but what Balta did next convinced him otherwise.
With the hand nearest the sliding carriage door, gun and all, Balta slapped the control there. The doors shut just as Hek and his men were reacting, but not only was there now a physical barrier protecting their would-be prisoners, clouds of steam were billowing out from a series of pipes that Balta’s golden guns had shot holes into. A second later, and even Petrick couldn’t see two feet beyond the transparent doors.
Shots rang out wildly in their direction, but the carriage jolted forward and whisked them away from danger.
“You knew they were going to be there!” Petrick said, turning to Balta.
“I thought it was likely,” she admitted. “I saw what I thought was one of his men watching us back at the station by Chronos’s.”
“I’d have preferred you shared that information with us before putting us all in danger,” Haber said.
“And have these give away that I was onto them?” Balta pointed at the children. “No way. It was only the fact that they thought they’d surprised us that let me surprise them, okay?”
“Hey, we can pretend to be surprised just as good as you, squinty,” Suzy said.
“Wait, where are we going?” Petrick interjected, gesturing to the carriage, which was taking them further into the Liberatia side of the station.
“This tram’s next stop,” Balta answered.
“Okay, and where is that?”
“I . . . am not really sure. I was hoping we’d have beaten Hek to the usual stop. That’s the only one I’ve ever used.”
“Great,” said Barry.
“I’m telling you, we do not want to go through the market.”
Balta jabbed an open hand up at yet another grimy, flickering screen in yet another dark and dingy corridor that was showing their wanted posters from the Authority.
There was more low rumbling and shaking of the station. They’d been happening every couple minutes or so. It indicated to Petrick that the battle was intensifying somewhere out there beyond these walls.
“We have to stick to the outer corridors,” Balta said, a phrase she’d been repeating now for quite some time as they wandered through the back ways of the station.
“But we know how to get to the ship from the marketplace,” Suzy insisted. She pointed to a crudely scrawled sign on the same wall with the wanted posters. “And the marketplace is that way!”
Petrick entered the fray. “We can’t be seen. Let’s trust the captain.”
“But she’s lost.”
“I am not,” Balta said.
They came to an intersection of corridors that gave them the choice of a right or a left.
“Oh, yeah?” Suzy said. “Which way then?”
Balta hesitated. The station rumbled again.
“Captain, if I may,” Haber said, “while I agree we should try as much as possible not to be seen, the longer we take to reach the Red Robert, the greater the chance the Authority—”
“Oh be quiet, all of you,” Balta said with a wave. “We want to go this way.” She took them to the right. “I think . . .”
They walked a short distance and came to another intersection, this one a T situated in the middle of a long, straight corridor.
“See!” Balta said.
Down to the right, there was a round window that opened to space. Down to the left, clearly, was the marketplace, bright and busy. It was a bit unnerving to be so close to all that hustle and bustle, but they had finally reached the outer edge of the station.
Balta took off down to the right, toward the window. “Come on!” she called to her charges. “The android is right. We need to hurry.”
The window at the end of the corridor was actually the elbow of a turn in the hallway, which then curved gently along the gate-side edge of the station. They stopped briefly at the window, and Balta peered outside to get her bearings.
“I know my way from here,” she said. There was undeniable relief flooding into her voice. She had been lost.
Outside the window, a battle was raging. The shuddering of the station was more intense here. Flashes of orange, red, green, and white light preceded it.
“Our docking bay is just . . .”
Balta trailed off.
Someone was coming toward them down the long, curving corridor.
Four someones, it was revealed as they came closer. They were
running.
Our group was so exposed out in the open that there was nowhere to duck or hide, so they stood there. It was a foursome of men, tall, all dressed in dirty grays and browns; their clothing was initially a relief to Petrick, since he doubted that Authority troops would appear so shabby. Balta’s words earlier, however, about all of Liberatia now being a liability rang in his ears.
The foursome beelined right toward them and the one in the lead raised something in his hands. It was a weapon. Haber instinctively huddled the children closer to him. Balta pulled out her two golden guns at her sides, tense.
“They’re coming!” the lead of the foursome said. “Right behind us!”
The men were upon them now, and all their weapons were out, but they had no eyes for our group. It was now that Petrick saw they were glancing behind them over and over. They were being chased.
The foursome of tall men swept past and disappeared in the direction where our group had just come from. Ahead, down the long, curving corridor, they could hear faint sounds of gunfire and see flashes of light . . . getting closer.
“Damn,” Balta said. She looked out at the fighting ahead of them and then back at the other long corridor behind them that ran toward the marketplace.
“The Authority is between the Red Robert and us,” Haber deduced.
Balta nodded in the affirmative. “We’re going to have to go through the market.”
Suzy bit her tongue and shook her head, but she didn’t say anything.
They turned and Balta led them, reluctantly, back down the corridor for the open entrance to the bright marketplace. The cacophony of activity buffeted them from all sides, and once they reached the entrance, they paused and instinctively shielded themselves. On the ceiling of the chamber were their pictures staring back down at them. Wanted. Each image had to be at least a hundred feet tall.
Barry groaned as he looked at them. “The captain was right. How is this ever going to work?” he said.
There was a pause before Balta answered, “Just keep your heads down, and let’s move quickly.”
The sea of people ahead of them was tossing and turning like a storm. Petrick wasn’t sure “quickly” was going to be possible, but Suzy grabbed his hand and plunged in first, and everyone followed.
They bobbed and weaved their way through shopkeepers desperately collecting their wares into bags, rolling carts, and even their clothing. Opportune thieves were running this way and that, snatching what they could, whether people were watching or not. People yelled. A gun was fired somewhere nearby, and our group instinctively ducked, looking for the source, which was nowhere to be found.
It was chaos.
Until a voice rang out.
“Hey,” it said. “Hey!”
It was a woman. Her face was wide with recognition, her hand-woven hat askew on the top of her head, her clothes covered in grime. She was pointing a shaking finger at Petrick.
“You’re . . . ,” she said, and then looked up at the ceiling above them, where Petrick’s giant image glowed alongside the others.
Another person stopped nearby, and then another.
“Yeah,” said a man with a child at his side, clinging to his leg. The man pointed up to the ceiling.
Two more people stopped around them.
“We have to keep going,” Balta hissed.
Our group began to back away from the small crowd that was forming . . . and bumped into another small group that was developing from behind.
“Captain . . . ,” Haber said. They were becoming surrounded.
The crowd was growing and started to press in around them.
“Stay back!” Balta shouted. “Let us pass.”
They were silent. In the air among the crowd, Petrick could feel the people asking themselves a question, standing on the edge of a cliff and considering whether it was worth jumping, worth selling their soul to the Authority . . .
“Let us pass,” Balta repeated, holding her hands up to the crowd.
“They only want them,” someone said in the crowd. It was impossible to tell who.
“Yeah,” said someone else from the opposite direction.
The crowd had grown amid the rest of the chaos. It pressed ten bodies or so deep, and someone shoved Haber. He was the tallest, the easiest target. He didn’t fall.
“You should shoot them,” Suzy whispered to Balta.
“Too many,” Balta replied. To the crowd, she raised her voice. “Let us leave here,” she said. “We’re not who they say we are.”
“You’re a traitor!” another voice rang out. It sounded familiar.
Petrick craned to see, but it was Haber with his height who first saw him. “It’s Hek,” he said. “And . . . he’s talking into some sort of small cylinder device.”
“It’s a transmitter,” Balta breathed. “He’s calling the Authority.” Balta pointed a finger straight at the snake of a man and raised her voice yet again to the crowd. “He’s the traitor!” she yelled. It was a well-timed gesture because Hek was bent over into his small transmitter just as the words were flung in his direction. The crowd turned, and Hek reacted with impulsive guilt. “He’s leading the Authority here!” Balta yelled. “Right now!”
On cue, there was a loud banging sound from the far end of the marketplace, where they’d been heading. A stream of armor-clad bodies rushed into the cavernous room. They were shiny black, gray, and white, covered from head to toe. Their weapons were drawn. From their midst, an imposingly tall figure in striking red stepped into view, a hand up.
A panicked hush fell over the entire room as three thousand fugitives watched the soldiers pour in and take their positions.
“Remain where you are,” the figure in red said, somehow amplifying its voice across the entire market. It was booming, full, and vaguely female. It hurt Clarke’s ears. “We’re looking for the fugitives.” Petrick could feel a thousand eyes on him and his friends. “Do not resist.”
“Not bloody likely,” Petrick heard Balta mutter. Her golden pistols were in her hands. She tapped Haber on the shoulder and shoved one of them into his hand. “Watch our tail, android,” she said. She clicked over a cylinder that sat above the trigger and raised the gleaming pistol up toward the ceiling.
“Never defeated!” she yelled as loudly as she possibly could.
It was doubtful that the crowd much further than three hundred feet or so from them could hear the rebel call, but everyone could hear what happened next.
Balta fired two quick blasts up toward the ceiling of the market. They struck straight in the middle of the giant Petrick image, which burst into sparks and flames. Balta had hit the holographic emitter. That emitter must have been connected in a power chain to the emitters for the other holographic pictures, because they too disappeared in sequenced bursts of fire. The sparks and flames then started to fall down onto the marketplace, almost in slow motion, fluttering in every direction.
The reaction from the crowd was immediate. Weapons fire erupted from a dozen directions, aimed squarely at the Authority troops, who likewise reacted instantly. Nobody had been fooled by promises of peace; this was exactly what they’d been prepared for.
Petrick felt the tug of Barry’s hand in the melee. He tore his eyes from the firefight to see that Balta was charging her way through the crowd, away from the fight, away from Hek, and back toward the entrance they’d first emerged from.
“Don’t let go of me,” Barry pleaded to Petrick. Petrick nodded and then ran.
Haber brought up the rear, keeping a close eye on Hek, who was red faced but falling behind them as the crowd swarmed in every direction. Some were running toward the fight, others away from it, all in the shower of sparks from the exploded holo-projection system above them. Balta’s distraction had proved incredible.
“Did you know that entire thing was going to explode?” Suzy called up to her as they reached the edge of the market.
“Nope,” Balta heaved, putting a hand up to pause the group as they
stepped back into the corridor. “I was just aiming for the ceiling.”
The corridor ahead of them was empty, with the window at the edge of the station far, far ahead.
“Come on,” Balta said. “We’ve got to get back to that window.” She set off running again, sweating as she was.
They were about halfway down when shouts from ahead of them stopped the group in their tracks. They strained to listen.
“Authority troops,” confirmed Haber, and he tapped his artificial ears to indicate that he could hear them.
Petrick looked back behind them. The marketplace was a flashing chaos. No Hek yet, but he’d seen them escape into this very corridor. There was nowhere to run.
“We’re blocked,” Haber said, stating the obvious.
Balta was frozen in place, looking back and forth in either direction. “We’re screwed.”
“Then we have to hide,” said Suzy.
“Where?!” said Barry.
“There’s nowhere,” Balta said. “Unless you know a way to make us just disappear, we’re screwed.” She raised her weapon and set her jaw.
An idea leaped into Petrick’s mind. “Ah!” he said aloud. But as quickly as the idea came, it was squashed when he glanced at Haber and realized the android had left something behind in Chronos’s chamber. “Oh, crunch,” he said.
“What?” Suzy prodded him. She looked at him eagerly, desperately hoping he had a way out for them, but Petrick knew he didn’t.
“You left the pack of my dad’s things back there,” he said to Haber, figuring he might as well make sure, “didn’t you? On Balta’s ore cart?”
Haber’s eyes widened with recognition, and then he sagged and nodded. “I’m afraid that’s correct,” he said.
Barry piped up. “Why do you want it?” His voice sounded funny.
“We could use the atomizer,” Petrick said. “But it’s no use.”
Barry cleared his throat, and everyone now turned to look at him. Somewhat sheepishly, he swung his backpack around to his chest and untied it. Inside, clinking about, was a rather large pile Petrick instantly recognized as various handheld inventions that had been in Haber’s pack. “I . . . thought they might come in handy,” Barry said.
Starstuff (Starstuff Trilogy Book 1) Page 24