Stars in the Sand

by Richard Tongue

   Just as Marshall was about to enter, Ixia said, “Come back, Captain. We need you, badly.”

   “No-one is irreplaceable,” he said.

   “You’re wrong, Captain. No-one is replaceable. That’s the sad truth of the universe.”

  He drifted into the cabin, strapped himself down, and looked out of the viewport as the shuttle began its descent to the surface, Ixia’s last words echoing in his mind as he headed down to complete his mission. In two hours, either they would have successfully rescued his people or, more than likely, he wouldn’t be worrying about anything ever again.

  Chapter 27

   Cooper looked anxiously at the alley, then at his watch. In less than an hour, the auction would be taking place, and they were still far out of position, stuck out in the Smoke. Cantrell was across from him, frustration flashing on her face.

   “Where the hell is she,” she hissed, wiping the sweat and oil from her forehead.

   “She’ll be here,” Cooper said. “There isn’t anything we can do until she is, anyway.”

   Almost on cue, Jacqui dropped down from the roof of a nearby building, rolling to absorb the impact, a bag in her hand. With a smile, she tossed it to Cooper, who peered inside; a trio of rather primitive-looking explosives.

   “Got them,” she said. “What are you going to do with them?”

   Cooper glanced at Cantrell, then said, “We figure that once the authorities work out that the prisoners are being taken the wrong way, the first thing they are going to do is close up the airlocks.” Hefting the bag, he continued, “This should prevent that from happening.”

   “You’ll kill everyone in the dome!” she said, trying to snatch at the bag.

   Shaking his head, he replied, “Safety mechanisms will kick in thirty seconds after the bang. Long enough for the van to get away, not long enough for any significant contamination. They’ll be wrinkling their noses until the scrubbers can get rid of the smell, but that’s all.”

   “Might do them some good to get a taste of what we have to deal with out here,” Jacqui replied. “At the end of the alley is another hatch down into the tunnels. You should be able to get right to the airlock entrance that way, though there are always guards on duty there.” Passing them a crude datapad, heavy and bulky, she said, “I marked it on this so you can find your way.”

   “Thanks, Jacqui. We can deal with the guards.”

   “I guess you can,” she said. “This ticket is getting damn expensive. I’m getting back to the shuttle.”

   “Do me a favor,” he said as she turned to leave.

   “Another one?” she replied. “I reckon you are pretty heavily in debt to me at this point.”

   “This is a personal thing. If I don’t get back, then give this to Barbara.” He passed her another datapad. “Only if I don’t get back. Otherwise, just give it to me.”

   “Last letter,” she said, nodding. “I guess I can do that.” With one last look around, she said, “Good luck.”

   “You too.”

   Shaking her head, she replied, “I wouldn’t give any away at the moment if I were you. You’re going to need it.”

   Without another word, she raced off into the shadows, and a moment later, the sound of an engine started; on its way in, their transport had carried five people, but only one was returning in it. The prisoner’s van was going to be taking all of them home.

   “Shall we go?” Cooper said to Cantrell, who nodded.

   “Let’s get this over with.”

   “Not eager to be here?”

   “Not with a man who thinks he’s not coming back.”

   Shaking his head, he said, “You don’t get it, do you? One thing I’ve learned lately is that it’s a lot easier to assume that you’re going to die when you go into action. That way you don’t hesitate, and you do what you have to do to complete the mission. Living through this is a nice bonus.”

   “I think I’d rather assume that I’m coming back.”

   “Want some advice?”

   “What?”

   “When we get back, get a desk job.”

   “What do you think I wanted when I hacked into the intelligence network? Crawling through sewers on a kamikaze mission wasn’t the top of my career objectives, Corporal.” Taking a deep breath, she started to walk towards the hatch, “Let’s just get this over with.”

   “I think I preferred the eager young recruit who was looking for death or glory,” Cooper said, following her.

   “Maybe I do, as well,” she said. “And maybe you should consider that a good intelligence officer never tells the truth.”

   With a smile, he pulled open the hatch, then said, “A gentleman never asks a lady how old she is. And in the further interests of chivalry, after you.”

   She slid down the ladder, a splash heralding her arrival at the bottom, and Cooper followed, closing the hatch above him. It clanged shut with a worrying finality, and sealed them up into darkness; he tapped a hidden button on his respirator to activate the night-vision filters. The world around him erupted in paroxysms of riotous color until it settled down, adjusting to the light levels. Holding up the datapad, he pointed down the tunnel and began to walk, grateful that the respirator was stopping the smell of the thin brown stream from reaching him.

   The tunnel twisted and turned, the conditions slowly improving as they ventured closer to more affluent areas, nearer the protected parts of the city. The occasional flickering light broke the gloom, shadows dancing around, and at one point he could have sworn he had seen something moving in the darkness, some sort of creature.

   “Something wrong?” Cantrell said, pausing.

   “Nothing. Shadows playing tricks, that’s all.” He glanced down at his datapad again, and said, “We’re almost there.”

   They slowed their progress to a crawl, taking care not to make any extraneous noise. Cooper pulled out his borrowed pistol, taking point as he made his way to the ladder. He scrambled to the top, then looked at the hatch, slowly pushing it up, just enough to peer through it. Above he saw a pair of boots, someone standing directly in front of it; there was no sound of activity, no noise at all.

  He glanced at his watch. Their passage through the tunnel had taken more than half an hour; those charges need to be placed in plenty of time, but there was no need to risk raising an alarm yet, and he slid back down the ladder, slipping back into the shadows.

   “What are you waiting for?” Cantrell whispered.

   “Twenty-two minutes until the fun begins. I’m going to wait until two minutes to go. There’s a guard up there.”

   “So? We take him out, drop him down here, and…”

   “And then if someone turns up to relieve him, what do we do? It will be rather more than embarrassing. I can plant those bombs in less than a minute, and it won’t take any longer than that to hook up with the van.”

   “What if there is a hold-up?”

   “Then we will have to take a risk, but there’s no point taking an unnecessary one. Let’s head back down the tunnel a little.”

   “You think he saw you?”

   “There’s that ‘acceptable risk’ thing again. Now I know you’re not a field operative.”

   “For all you know, I’m still putting on an act.”

   “Hell,” he replied, “I’ve only got your word that you are an intelligence agent at all.”

   “That’s the spirit, Corporal,” she said. “Good healthy paranoia. I'll make a spy of you yet.”

   Cooper took the opportunity to take a proper look at the explosives he’d been carrying, checking over the detonator. From appearances, someone had taken conventional mining explosives and made some rather unorthodox modifications, trying to turn them into shaped charges. About the only thing he could guarantee was that they would make a real mess of the door, but all he could do was hope that it would do the job.

   The w
orst part of any operation was sitting and waiting for the action to begin, but this was worse than usual. He’d never known stakes this high before, and it was making him nervous. This mission was personal in a way no other had ever been; it was his idea, his plan, his project. For all he acknowledged that the Captain had a stake of his own, and that he admired him for taking the lead himself, he still felt as if he responsible for the operation.

   “Credit for your thoughts, Corporal,” Cantrell said.

   “I don’t like waiting,” he replied.

   “Then let’s get on with this.”

   “If you’ve managed to get hold of the guard schedules, you could have told me before.”

   “Just six minutes to go, and if there is some sort of problem, we need time to fix it.”

   “Right,” he said. “You said you were a hacker, time to prove it.”

   “Don’t worry. In thirty seconds, I’m going to be owning their security.” She pulled out a datapad and started to work, entering in commands and frowning at the results, then stepping nearer the corridor to get a cleaner signal. She hadn’t been totally honest with him; it actually took her thirty-four seconds to knock out the cameras.

   He looked at her, nodded, and scrambled back up the corridor, taking a couple of deep breaths before pushing the hatch open, leaping up, and diving for the guard. The man turned in fear as Cooper clubbed him over the head with his good hand, reaching for his respirator with the other one.

   It was only when he felt a kick on his side that he realized there had been two guards in the room, and he cursed himself for his stupidity. He turned, gasping for breath, only to see the guard collapse to his knees, Cantrell pointing some sort of tiny gun at him. Quickly, still leaning on his struggling foe, he turned the mix on the respirator down, enough to send him into a nice long sleep until someone came to rescue him.

   She turned to him with a grin, “Knew that would come in useful.”

   “Tranq gun? Wish you’d given me one.”

   “I didn’t have a spare. Shall we get on with it?”

   “Go make sure of the security, first. A lot can happen in five minutes.”

   While she moved over to the terminal, he examined his target. It was a standard vehicular airlock, a distant cousin to the elevator airlocks up on Alamo, and he’d have to make sure that both doors were knocked out. Fortunately, the outer door was open – a lax practice that was going to provide him with dividends now.

   “Better make this quick, Corporal,” she said. “I think someone’s on to me.”

   “They’ve spotted us?”

   “No,” she replied in between entering commands, “but someone’s worked out I’m in their system. I don’t think they know where yet, or what I’m doing, but that’s only a matter of time. How long left?”

   “Four and a half minutes.”

   “That’s a billion years in cyberspace. Move it, Corporal.”

   He walked into the airlock, looking up at the seal, and placed the first charge in the middle of the joint, pulling a cord out of the device and plugging it into his datapad. Entering some instructions, he carefully backed out into the tunnel, then reached up to the retracted door, placing the second charge at the right point to knock out the mechanism. This was going to be a nightmare to repair, but he decided he needed to make it worse.

   “What are you doing with that?” Cantrell said as he pulled out the third charge.

   “I’m impressed that you can hack and talk at the same time. I’m giving the Cabal something else to worry about.”

   He stepped over to the wall space in between the two airlock doors, looking for a flaw and not finding one – good engineering, evidently, and at least it showed that someone cared about doing a decent job. He might not be able to bring the tunnel down, but he could do enough damage to the wall to knock out any potential pursuit. This time he didn’t attach the cord, instead tapping a timing sequence to the detonator itself.

   “Done,” he said, stepping beside Cantrell. He looked down the passage, extending further to the south before emerging out in the Smoke. If anyone outside had noticed them, it seemed as if they didn’t care enough about the guards to do anything about it.

   “What do we do now?” Cantrell asked.

   “We wait until I get the go signal from Orlova. Then we give the Cabal a repair bill they’ll never forget.”

  Chapter 28

   Clutching her forged identification, Orlova walked up to the waiting truck, looking over the vehicle as she approached. A standard armored personnel vehicle, an older model handed over for civilian service, its rear door secured to City Hall’s airlock. The pop turret was still in position on the roof, but the weapons had obviously been removed long ago. She couldn’t see anyone inside, and glanced down at her watch. Only a few minutes to go.

   A hand tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned with a start to see a tall, dark man wearing a security guard’s uniform, a scowl on his face and his hand resting on the butt of his pistol.

   “What are you doing here?” he barked.

   Looking up at him, she replied, “My boss is up there bidding on the prisoners. He wants to know how long it will take for you to ship them out.”

   “Arrogant bastard, your boss. Must be half a dozen bidders today.”

   She shrugged, and said, “I’m just doing my job. One answer and I can keep him quiet for a bit.”

   “Five minutes. They’ll come right down in the secured elevator, into the rear compartment without ever hitting the street.” He looked at her again, saying, “I’ve never seen you before. Who did you say you were working for?”

   Glancing around to make sure they were alone, and more importantly, out of sight of the lone security camera that was covering the parking lot, she replied with a furious kick to the solar plexus, knocking the wind from him. He reached down for his gun, but she was too quick, cutting it away with another blow, sending it rattling to the ground.

   A sensible man would have run for help at that point, but his ego had taken over, and he hurled himself towards Orlova, arms reaching out to grab her and pin her to the ground; she only just evaded in time, rolling on the ground and towards the pistol. Just before he reached her, she managed to turn and level the gun at him.

   “Party’s over, buddy,” she said. “The only question is whether it is permanent or not.”

   “You won’t get away with this.”

   “Funny, I rather think we will. Is the van ready to go?”

   He laughed, replying, “Why should I tell you anything?”

   “Because if I get bored with our conversation I might try a little target practice to keep things interesting.”

   The driver’s face paled, and he glanced up at the cab, “All ready to go. Where the hell are you going, though? There’s only one city on this planet and the starport’s under lockdown. There’s nowhere to run!”

   She glanced around for a second, looking at the street, waiting for Marshall to arrive. He should have slipped out of the building as soon as it was apparent there was a winner, as soon as their comrades had been sold. The driver saw her hesitation and advanced on her again, taking a cautious step forward.

   “Something’s going wrong, isn’t it. Boyfriend not turned up yet.”

   “You’re the only one having a bad day, buddy.”

   He smiled, then said, “You aren’t going to shoot.”

   “Care to bet your life on it?”

   “No, just yours.”

   He dropped to the ground, rolling and pulling a pistol from a hidden holster; Orlova kept her gun leveled on him, but he was right; she didn’t dare to fire. She’d kill the guard, but no-one could miss the gunshot, and someone was bound to investigate.

   “Game’s over, honey,” he said with a leering grin. “Course, if you want to do me a few favors, I might be willing to forget this ever happened.”

 
 He advanced towards her, and Orlova leveled her gun, preparing to fire despite what it was going to cost them, but the decision was made for her; Marshall ran out of the shadows, slamming into his back, felling him with a blow to the head, sending him crashing down to the street. Snatching the pistol from his grip, he rose to his feet, brushing off the dust.

   “Thanks for the assist, skipper,” she said.

   “We’re ready. They were on their way down to the elevator when I left that hell-hole.”

   The two of them climbed into the van, Orlova taking the driver’s seat, trying to remember what all the controls did, while Marshall dragged the unconscious figure out of sight, underneath the van, carefully positioning him so that they wouldn’t run him over.

   She settled back in the seat, peering at the rear compartment monitor. It seemed like an eternity before the doors finally opened, and the prisoners from Alamo were marched on board, their faces a combination of defiance and despair. She counted them all in, and as the last one walked through, the communicator crackled.

   “Jerry, they’re on board. Give me your ident code and we’ll let you go.”

   Orlova shrugged, and reached up to the console. They were already past the point of no return anyway, but the fun was about to begin. She tapped the emergency override, and the door slammed shut, then turned on the engine and hit the accelerator, sending the van jerking forward.

   “Jerry, what the hell are you doing? Jerry!” the communicator shouted. Evidently they saw their friend laid out on the road, and a few desperate shots raced after them as sirens began to sound, alerts of a prisoner escape. Marshall looked at her with a smile, then tapped a button.

   “Everyone all right back there?”

   The astonished voice of Sergeant Forrest replied, “Captain? Is that you?”

   “This taxi ride is courtesy of the Battlecruiser Alamo!” Orlova whooped.

   “I thought…,” Forrest said, while the rest of the troopers celebrated in the back.

   “If this goes wrong your buyer got fourteen for the price of twelve,” Marshall said. “Strap down and brace yourselves. This is going to get wild.”