by B. V. Larson
“Talk to Major Ramirez. Get her to let up on us. She’s throwing violators in the brig left and right. Some have been flogged. You know, like with whips! There’s a rumor she’s even going to execute Master Sergeant Yates. Not that he doesn’t deserve it for what he did to that little boy, the bastard, but…”
“But you can’t stand not seeing your honey for a few days?”
“I have no idea what’ll happen once we transit in. I might get stationed away from her, and never see her again!” Karst seemed as if he might cry.
“Look, kid. Corporal. My standing with Major Ramirez isn’t too high right now, and she needed to crack down. Sorry you and your girl got caught in the gears, but that’s life. It’ll work out. Do what she says for now, and when we get back, I’ll try to make sure you get assigned to this base. Either that, or we’ll get permission for her to cohab with you. You might have to formalize the arrangement.”
“Oh, yes, sir! We want to get married!”
“After knowing each other for what, a week? Maybe you should just do a one-year contract.”
“We’re in love! We want to be together forever. Haven’t you ever been in love, sir?”
Straker massaged his forehead, remembering how he’d felt when he met Engels at Academy… and how their relationship remained unconsummated. Maybe the kid was smarter than he was. At least he was rolling the dice. “Yeah… All right. Just cool it until we arrive. Don’t violate orders.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll try.”
“You better do more than try, or I’ll flog you myself. Dismissed.”
The next morning, Heiser handed him a message. Karst requested to see him in the brig.
“Why am I not surprised?” Straker said. He punched the wall of his temporary office, leaving a visible dent in its surface, and then marched the two blocks to the building Major Ramirez had turned into a brig. He brushed past the guards there as they made abortive motions to stop him. They backed off at the look on his face and the warnings from his bodyguard.
Inside, he spoke to Karst. “What the hell happened, Corporal? Didn’t I tell you to stand down for a while?”
“I… I’m sorry, sir. I couldn’t stay away. I guess her parents reported me. I got arrested before I even got to see her. They’re going to flog me.”
“Sounds like you’re getting what you deserve for violating orders. Hell, I told you I’d flog you myself, didn’t I?”
“Yes, sir. I’m not asking to be pardoned. I just wanted to apologize, sir, and to ask a favor.”
“Why should I do you a favor, dumbass?”
“Not for me, sir. Please, go tell my girl what’s happened and that it will be all right, that we’ll be together soon enough. Her name is Cynthia Lamancha. You can find her house in Section Five. Everybody knows everybody here. Just ask around.”
“All right. I’ll do what I can. For her, not for you.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Karst went back and sat down among the dozen other offenders in his cell, grimly awaiting the lash.
The Lamancha family house stood among a score of similar dwellings: small, neat, homey, in the village-like grouping of Section Five. By the time Straker knocked on the door, he had calmed down from cursing under his breath at the idiocy of youth.
A short, plump woman with dark hair answered the door, her face showing tremendous fear. “Yes, sir?”
Straker was surprised and saddened by the intensity of her terror. He didn’t think the situation warranted it. Maybe she was afraid he was there to take her daughter Cynthia away on Karst’s behalf. Maybe she was afraid he was there to retaliate for wanting to stop the relationship. He sighed under his breath. This was exactly why he’d forced Ramirez’s hand. Mix unprofessional fighters in with naïve civilians and trouble always cropped up.
“Sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Lamancha. Everything’s all right. I’m not here to… for anything bad. May I come in?” He signaled Heiser to stay outside.
“Of course, sir.” The woman backed up into the room.
Her eyes flicked to the left as alarm bells went off in his head. He’d just begun to react when he heard the crackle and felt the discharge of a heavy stunner lock up all his muscles, fry his nerves, and pummel him into unconsciousness.
Chapter 26
Freiheit. Mining entry lock.
Head pounding and nauseated, Straker came suddenly awake to the whining of a half-familiar voice.
“What’s going on? What are you doing to me?” he heard a man say in the local accent.
“Shut up,” came a reply, and then a heavy thud. “He’s out. Goddamn pussy civilians.”
A chuckle, and another voice. “Civilian pussy, you mean.”
“Yeah, baby. Most of them is virgins, too. Nothing like busting a new cherry.”
“What’s an old cherry?”
More guffaws and crude jokes followed. Straker slitted his eyes open but remained completely still. Two men moved around the room, setting up equipment. He could see hardwires and electronics.
One was unfamiliar, though he was sure he was an Unmutual fighter. The other he recognized. Master Sergeant Yates, the man accused of raping and murdering at least three locals, one a boy of twelve. He was supposed to be in the brig.
The floor on which Straker lay was crudely finished rock, as was the chamber. It appeared to be a utility airlock, a large one such as led to the airless tunnels that honeycombed the asteroid base’s thick outer shell. Mining gear sat here and there, waiting to be used.
Testing, Straker could tell he was bound by fibertape, hands and feet and mouth. The stuff was nearly unbreakable, but it could be cut. Waiting until both of his captors’ backs were turned, he edged over to a small ore-crusher and began to try to wear through the tape on a metal corner of the machine. He kept his movements small, and froze every time the others faced him.
“This is gonna make one hell of a bang,” said Yates from across the room, patting something as if in affection. “You sure they’ll be able to block the hole before we lose all our atmo?”
“Oh, yeah. Remember, the ingress breaches were bigger than this. We let the locals do their jobs. They’ll bulldoze a plug and write off this tunnel. Our traitors here’ll die trying to sabotage the operation and everything can go back to normal.”
“Good. I was getting really tired of play-acting like a good little boy.”
“I dunno. I think it was kinda fun. Did you see Straker’s do-gooder reaction when we set Karst up? ‘Sure, kid, I’ll fix everything. I’m your fairy godmother. Let me handle it.’ God, these recoverees are such clueless straight-arrows. Act like they’re in a kiddie showvid.”
“Yeah,” said Yates. “It always takes a while for them to toughen up. Wish I could shoot them all, right now.”
“Ramirez said no, on the off chance they get dug up later with holes in them. Have to keep up appearances for the local yokels and the general.”
“They’re gonna have fibertape on them, though. That’ll be obvious.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Stun them again and let’s take it off. Then we can set the timer and get the hell out of here.”
Straker stepped up his efforts to cut the tape, but the industrial-strength fiber resisted his efforts to wear it through on the corner he could reach. He heard the buzz of the stunner, once, twice, three times, and then it was his turn. He summoned every ounce of power to his arms and tried to break the weakened tape, but he couldn’t.
The last thing he saw was the muzzle of the stunner pointed at him.
* * *
Straker awoke again swearing he’d never let himself be stunned again. Repeated nerve overload left him feeling as if he’d been kicked in the groin. His vision wavered and his head pounded. His only consolation was a belief it would have been far worse without the Hok biotech’s boost. In fact, it may have saved his life, as they’d obviously intended him to remain unconscious until the blast they’d mentioned went off.
Straker rolled to his feet, free of th
e fibertape. He found Loco, Engels, Heiser and a citizen unknown to him, all stunned. He grabbed a large, half-empty bottle of water and drank it, then splashed some on the face of each sleeper.
Engels and Loco sputtered awake. The local and Heiser didn’t stir. “Come on, you two, get up,” Straker yelled, searching the room for the device Yates had left to kill them. When he found it, he groaned in despair.
He’d hoped it would be a simple mining charge, something where he could remove the detonator and that would be that. Instead, he saw the warhead of a Sledgehammer rocket, hardwired to a countdown timer. The numbers on the display read seven minutes and falling. He knew next to nothing about disarming bombs, so he dared not touch it.
As Engels and Loco stumbled to their feet, he tried the room’s inner door leading back toward the habitat, but it wouldn’t budge. It opened away from him, of course, so loss of pressure on this side would automatically seal it due to the atmo on the other side.
The other door of the mining prep chamber, the one leading out to the tunnels, opened inward for the same reason. With vacuum on the other side, the pressure inside would keep it shut. He couldn’t open it. But if there were no pressure…
“Suits! Get into those suits! There’s a bomb and we need to get out of here, through the mining tunnels!” Straker yelled, grabbing one of the work suits off the rack. It was a standard heavy-duty model, intended to withstand the rock chips spit out by borers. Fortunately, it had been stored open, ready and fully charged with air and power, all according to Hundred Worlds safety regs.
He dropped the suit, realizing that it would hinder him in getting Heiser and the citizen into theirs. Dragging the unconscious men over to the rack, he selected correct sizes and stuffed them into the things, making sure they were sealed and the air was on.
Engels and Loco reported suited up as well. He got into his own in record time, just like in a loss-of-atmo drill, blessing those who’d trained him to the highest military standard.
Engels found and opened the room’s emergency air exhaust valve as Straker sealed his suit. Usually this was used to put out a fire by depleting all the oxygen, but this time it would give them escape.
Their suits inflated as the pressure dropped. “Loco, help me,” Straker said, and the two men undogged the outer door and used crowbars to break the seal. The small amount of remaining air rushed out and the door swung inward, wide open.
“Three minutes,” Straker said, checking the timer. “We’ll take one minute to grab supplies. Carla, can you drive this mini-borer?”
“I can figure it out.” She climbed into the vehicle’s one-person cab and powered it up.
“Loco, hook up that trailer.” Straker grabbed air cylinders and began piling them into the square bed even as Loco manhandled it to attach to the borer. He searched for food and water and added a box of survival rations and a water tank.
“Let’s go. Two minutes left. We don’t want to be nearby when that thing blows.” Engels said.
“Grab these guys,” Straker said, and helped Loco set Heiser and the local in the bed of the trailer, both still unconscious. They jumped aboard, and Engels drove the borer out into the tunnel, turning left.
The borer’s top speed seemed to be about fifteen kilometers per hour, a trot for a fit person. Several twists and turns ensured that when they felt the shudder of the blast through the rock, nothing but a few wisps of dusty gas reached them.
Engels pulled over in a wide spot and dismounted, turning on all the external lights. “What the hell just happened, Derek? One minute I’m getting into my lifter, the next I’m waking up in a room with a bomb.”
“Me too,” said Loco. “I was tinkering with my Sledgehammer and…”
“They bushwacked us and stunned us.”
“Who?”
“Ramirez’s goons. One was Yates.”
“The guy they were going to execute?”
Straker nodded within his clear crystal helmet. “Yeah, I guess that was a ruse to keep us from getting suspicious. I thought I’d gotten her to do the right thing and crack down on these criminals, but it was all a ploy.”
“So these guys really are pirates,” Loco said.
“Pirates with a cause,” Engels replied. “Everything can’t be an act. They really do want to overthrow the Mutuality, but they’re no better than their enemies if they allow their troops to rape and pillage.”
“Maybe DeChang doesn’t know about what goes on away from his base,” said Straker. “Yates said something about keeping him in the dark.”
“Oh, Derek, open your eyes,” snapped Engels. “I know you wanted to believe the best of him, but he has to have an inkling. As long as the job gets done, he probably doesn’t care.”
Loco chimed in. “Yeah, these pirates are so used to abusing those they raid, they don’t know how to act when they liberate civilians. I think Ramirez really did want minimum trouble, but she wasn’t going to piss off her own troops by taking their fun away… until you insisted.”
Straker began to pace from rock wall to rock wall. “But that seems pretty extreme. I mean, is she really willing to sacrifice the only two mechsuiters they have, plus a crack pilot, just to let the troops run wild? She could have kept the situation under control without killing us. It’s too risky. Unless it’s personal. I may have gone a little overboard in making my point.”
Engels and Loco exchanged glances.
“Derek,” she said, “I don’t think this is only about you. If it were, you’d be the only one they bushwhacked. Loco and I found something out.”
“What?”
“I recorded an explosion in the refugees’ boats just as we were transiting to sidespace. I confirmed chemical explosives. It couldn’t have been an accident.”
Straker stared at her, trying to reorient his train of thought. “The refugees? Explosion? What does that have to do with anything?”
“Derek, don’t you get it? All those refugees are dead! The Carson didn’t fire on them, and remember, Murdock had a two-hour technical delay in transit. That means someone planted a bomb that was supposed to go off two hours after we left, to kill off the ones who wanted to stay and join the Mutuality. Even Zaxby suggested it.”
“I’m just as bad,” Straker whispered.
“You didn’t want to kill them!” said Engels.
“No, but I viewed them as a problem, not as people.”
“Derek, snap out of your stupid guilt mode. It’s not always about you and the weight of responsibility on your shoulders. You didn’t suggest killing them, Zaxby did. I bet Ramirez gave him the go-ahead and that amoral son-of-a-beach was happy to oblige.”
“I say, that was clever aquatic wordplay,” came Zaxby’s voice over their comlink, “but I assure you I did not plant any bomb or kill any humans. It was clear the consensus was against me, and when there is only one Ruxin and hundreds of humans, it pays to exercise discretion.”
“Damned unsecure civilian networks,” muttered Engels, looking around as if she could see him. “Zaxby, if what you say is true, then you have to help us.”
“Of course, Carla Engels. You’re by far my favorite human. What can I do for you?”
“Zaxby, this is Straker. What’s going on out there?”
“I believe I was speaking to your female, not you, Derek Straker. Please do not interrupt.”
Loco began to choke on laughter within his helmet.
Straker sputtered. “My—oh yeah, my female. Okay, Carla, ask this squid what’s going on out there.”
“Pejoratives will not help your cause, Derek Straker. Squids are a lower form of life.”
“You can say that again,” Loco commented.
Engels broke in. “Zaxby, answer the question. What’s going on out there?”
“The official word is there’s been an explosion caused by attempted sabotage, and you, Straker, Heiser and Paloco are among the dead, along with a local miner named Linz.”
“And why are you talking to us? Why hav
en’t you reported us?”
“Because I like you, Carla Engels. You treat me with respect, and you give good head rubs.”
Loco turned to Engels with a grin. “Head rubs? Ooh, baby, I could use a head rub.”
“Shut up.”
“This is all starting to make sense to me,” Loco continued. “Tentacle-porn!”
“Tentacle porn?” Zaxby asked.
“Look it up yourself, Zaxby,” Engels said.
“I just did. Quite graphic. I could do that for you, Carla Engels, if you’d like. It seems a fair recompense for a head rub.”
“Zaxby, forget about it and never, ever mention it again,” Engels growled. “Moving on: how’d you get on this channel?”
“When the excitement started, I began to scan all the comlink bands in order to gain more information. I ran across yours and listened for a while. I am very interested in hearing what sabotage you were planning and how you escaped blowing yourselves up after all.”
“We didn’t plan any sabotage,” said Engels. “Ramirez’s goons stunned us and tried to set us up to be killed because we found out about the refugee bomb. Straker got added in because he pissed Ramirez off.”
“Because I was standing up for the local citizens,” Straker said.
“Yes, that too, and we agree with what you tried to do, if not how you tried to do it, as usual.” Engels raised an eyebrow at Straker. “So what do we do next?”
Straker resumed pacing. “If we could get to our mechsuits, we could crush them.”
“Killing cockroaches with sledgehammers—pun intended,” Loco said. “I’m in—but we’ll still need help. Even with Zaxby and a few other allies, we can’t eliminate almost two hundred hardened rebels. Only a few of them would side with us; people from the prison, I mean. The Unmutuals could hold facilities and people hostage, and you know some aren’t above murdering civilians to get what they want. We’d end up in a standoff until transit, at which point… who knows?”
“At that point it would depend on General DeChang,” Engels said.