Umi sighed and told Claude the tale. He left out the bits about killing any of the Boben. He didn't know for sure that any were dead, though he assumed a few likely were.
Claude rubbed his cheeks. "You can't break out of a jail, shoot the police, escape, and not expect anyone to care."
"You know, that occurred to me, but once we heard they were going to execute us, all bets were off." He sat back and looked at Claude. Trust him? It wasn't like he had much to lose. At this point, he also didn't have anything that anyone wanted, either. "What now?"
"I convince the Lokeen to let you get tried in a Terran court."
"They, uh, can't just let us go?"
Claude stood and smoothed his jacket. "This isn't a war zone, Mr. Matsuo. I'll be in touch. Good day."
Umi lay back. Foolish. No, he thought, stupid. Had he just waited, they'd probably be on Terra by now. Now he didn't have a passport, any luggage, or a weapon, and he was stuck with a set of wounded-ass legs. "Dumbass."
He mulled on his short and relatively unsuccessful career as a mercenary. One successful contract training a battalion of Vasilov convicts, a bit of escort work, not many losses, and now a complete and total failure. He focused his thoughts on how to get just himself thrown in jail. Vik, Vaughn, and Kelly didn't deserve it.
The Lokeen surgeon barged into the room a few hours later and set up a surgical gantry.
Umi caught a glance out the door and saw a pair of Lokeen soldiers standing in body armor. So much for any thought of escape.
Shortly after, they numbed his legs. A dozen more Lokeen clustered around. The surgeon explained that they were medical students. "An exquisite opportunity for study!"
Umi looked away when they started picking out the flechettes. He grabbed one of the flexible darts from the disposal tray and rolled it between his fingers. It gave him the willies just thinking that they were wormed into his muscles.
The surgeon gave him the usual talk about staying off of them, drinking plenty of liquids, and consuming a large quantity of garlic. Umi wasn't sure about the garlic bit, or where the hell the Lokeen learned that from.
A few hours later, the anesthetic wore off, but the pain wasn't nearly as bad. Claude came when they let Umi out, along with a group of Lokeen soldiers. They put him into an old wheelchair, and they all climbed into a transport.
The transport drove away from the medical center. The city was compact, built up about three levels, and set against a raw backdrop. Fields of lush greenery extended out a few kilometers and stopped. It made for a rather harsh line against the dark, stony soil.
"Where are we going?" Umi said.
"To get the others, then to the stargate complex," Claude replied. He looked bored and tapped at a tablet.
"Which one?"
Claude looked up. "The right one. You're Terra's problem now. Some Earthborn judge will sort it all out."
"And they're fine with it?"
"You're a headache, Mr. Matsuo, a headache the Lokeen don't want. The sooner you're gone, the happier they'll be."
The transport pulled up to a squat, official-looking facility. Vik, Vaughn, and Kelly stood out front, each in shackles. They hobbled into the transport.
"You guys get the scoop?" Umi said.
"Claude filled us in," Vik said. He rolled his eyes and settled back into the chair.
Kelly leaned over and scratched her ankles. She glanced at her hands and then at the Lokeen next to her.
Umi shook his head. "We're riding this one out."
"Hmm?" Claude said.
"How long?" Umi said.
Claude spoke to the Lokeen in a language Umi didn't know. "About six hours. We're going through the salvage zones, so there may be delays."
"Salvage zone?" Vaughn said.
Claude's face lit up. "You'll see soon enough."
The distant, razor-topped ridges fanned out away from the road. The stone was crisp, raw, like someone had drawn a plow through just a thousand years before. Closer up Umi could see the fields were tended by automated equipment.
They drove through a tunnel. Umi stared ahead and waited to see the light at the end, but it was just darkness. He didn't like the thought of a massive mountain on top of him. He clenched his eyes shut. Sweat ran down his face, and he shifted in his seat.
Vaughn let out a long whistle. "Would ya look at that..."
Umi opened his eyes.
The road shot straight through a massive debris field that stretched from one range of distant hills all the way to the other. The valley was a graveyard of steel, iron, and wreckage. Massive structures lay broken and corroded. Rock and dust sat high in spots, completely obscuring sections.
Through it all sat cranes, robotic digging equipment, transit camps, and heaps of sorted goods. Equipment crawled up edges, plowed away dirt, and tugged out more junk, and it was everywhere. One section toppled in the distance and sent up a massive cloud of dust.
"The hell is all that?" Vaughn said.
"The reason we're here. Wreckage of crashed starships. Big fight once upon a time. Lokeen picked out the good stuff, and we sift it for the stuff they missed."
Starships. Umi knew virtually nothing of them. Only a few human nations had any, and they were ridiculously old. No one had made a functional starship in eons. Even the Lokeen, as old as they were, didn't make their own. Though if someone was willing to travel far enough, and pay enough, they could get one.
"So what, you guys pick out the ashtrays, cup holders, and floor mats?" Kelly said.
Claude gave her a wry smile. "We salvage whatever we can. My company sells the salvage rights to the pickers; they provide us with what they find."
"Huh, well, wake me up when we get there. Just a bunch of old shit," Kelly said. Vik agreed and the two nodded off.
"What kind of stuff is left?" Vaughn said. "How old is it? Does it function? Whose starships were they?" His face was almost stuck to the window.
"The tougher things, mostly. Power systems, conduits, occasionally a weapon system. Old? Well, maybe fifty thousand years, though we're not exactly sure. As to who, well, the Ken-Ashi on one side, and the Emflife on the other. Or whatever they were called back then."
"Huh," Vaughn said.
They drove on through the fields of wreckage. Claude pointed out dig sites as they went. It just kept going on and on. They drove through it for hours.
The scale of it struck Umi. This wasn't just a few ships, but armadas. Whoever fought this war had done so on a massive scale.
"So who won?" Umi said.
Claude broke off from explaining a dig site. "Pardon?"
"The war. Who won?"
"Neither of them did. The historians call it the end of an era. The details are a bit foggy. The remaining Ken-Ashi don't talk about it. And the Emflife, well, no one talks to them."
The Lokeen in the transport started talking among themselves. A moment later, the transport slowed. Lokeen troops manned a roadblock and diverted the transport on a side road.
Umi looked behind and saw teams of Lokeen headed into the wreckage. They were in a full combat kit, with heavy-bored weapons. "What's going on there?"
"Sometimes we find things that don't want to be found," Claude said. "The Lokeen handle it."
Soon they were out of the salvage zones and into the main stargate hub. The city had a boomtown feel. Drunken men and women stumbled about, right next to corporate employees. Umi noticed his group wasn’t the only ones in shackles. He asked Claude.
"Smugglers," he said disdainfully. "They try to sneak out the good stuff. You know what that does to our profits?"
Claude left them for a minute and came back with a set of documents. "These will get you back to human space."
"What, you're letting us go?" Umi said in jest.
"Not quite. They're going with," Claude said. He hooked a thumb at the Lokeen. "To ensure a proper transfer."
"Of course," Umi said dryly.
A short while later, Claude departed. He wished them
a halfhearted good luck and disappeared. The stargate opened shortly after, and they followed a long string of human workers through. Umi asked to get the shackles off; the Lokeen didn't answer.
At each planet it was the same. They followed after more humans. Everyone was heading the same way they were. It took a few days to catch all of the transfers. Finally, they came to the last Lokeen-administered planet and were transferred to the custody of the Terran Civil Union. The Lokeen handed off a data tablet, watched as the humans signed for it, and then left without word.
"Can you take the shackles off now?" Umi groaned.
"No," a human officer said.
***
It was three more gates before they were finally on Earth. Umi didn't realize it at first. He'd lost track of how far they'd gone. Then suddenly he was staring at sign that said, "Welcome to Terra! Cradle of Mankind." It all felt anticlimactic.
The gate complex was massive. It bustled with hundreds of thousands of people. Staff struggled to keep everyone organized into transit lanes. Security details patrolled the area, while augmented canines dodged in and out of the crowd sniffing for contraband.
Someone ran up and stuck a flower into Umi's shirt. He smiled and then saw that everyone was getting them. Daisies. Thousands and thousands of daisies.
They followed the guards outside and stopped suddenly. There it was. Sol. Burning up high in the sky. Space elevators rose up into the sky all around him. Contrails filled the skies, and there was bustle everywhere. It felt good at a primal level, even if he was wearing shackles.
Instead of heading out into the streets, the guards steered them downward. They waited at a large cargo elevator.
"You'll transfer from Stargate, us, over to Judicial. They'll take you from there."
"What then?" Umi said.
The guard shrugged. "Trial, followed by detention. I mean, that's usually what they do to people who break laws." His tone said he wasn't amused.
They shuffled into the elevator. The guards stood around them.
Just as the door shut, a woman pushed in with a cargo cart. She wore a yellow maintenance uniform and had a toolbelt on her waist. The door closed behind her. She was on the edge of too tall, with high cheeks. She flashed a wide, white smile at the guards.
"Hey, we're doing a transfer here, lady." The guard leaned over to slap at the "open" button.
"C'mon boys, gonna make a girl take the stairs?"
The guard leaned back, and the elevator started to move down.
The girl hummed and swayed back and forth. She picked up a heavy-looking box off the cart. "Hon," she said to the guard next to her, "hold this for a sec? I got an itch I just gotta scratch."
The guard took the offered box with a confused look.
"Don't drop it now. Fragile and all that jazz."
The girl leaned in and pulled the guard's stun gun out of his holster. She spun and fired it into the neck of one guard at the back of the elevator. Then into the next guard.
The guard next to her reached for his stun gun.
In one liquid, smooth move she threw an arm around the guard standing next to her and tossed him off his feet. His head cracked on her knee, and he was out cold. Her movements were, fluid, perfect—like those of a ballerina, without a single extra movement.
It was over in barely a second. Umi stood still and watched it happen around him. There wasn't much he could do to assist. He was watching a professional, and for now he just let it all happen. There was a special pleasure in watching someone at the top of their game.
Three men had fallen to the floor. The only one left standing was the guard holding the box. His eyes were wide and locked right on her.
"Sorry, hon," she said, and jabbed the stun gun into the guard's side.
The guard fell in a heap. The box tumbled to the floor and cracked open. Black bags rolled out.
"Two minutes," she said. She tapped the "stop" button. The elevator slowly decelerated and finally halted.
"Thanks," Vik said.
"Get in the bags."
Umi looked over at Vik.
"We've got two minutes, now get in the damn bags," the woman said. "The clock is ticking. Now I can get out, but you're in an elevator with a bunch of unconscious cops. How's that gonna look when this elevator arrives at the police station?"
"Do it," Umi said. He squatted down and unfolded the bag. Stenciled in big white letters was the word CORPSE. He struggled inside of it.
"Get on the cart."
"Can we get these shackles off?" Vaughn asked.
"No. Now get on the cart. Hurry!"
They did as they were ordered.
Umi lay on the top with Vik next to him. He stared up at the woman. She was beautiful, toned and muscled like a boxer.
"Here we go," she said. She stepped back and fired the stun gun in rapid succession. First at Vaughn and Kelly, and then Vik.
Umi tried to sit up. "What—"
"Shh," she said with a smile. Then she shot Umi.
This time he had dreams, but they all ended poorly.
He woke suddenly and violently as ice-cold water was poured over him.
He scrambled back with wide-open eyes. Glaring lights blasted in at him. The shackles were off.
A man stepped into view and squatted down in front of Umi. He held out his hand and let a pendant drop. It snapped tight at the end of its chain. A cracked pendant. The pendant Umi had worn. The pendant for the Order of Terra.
"Tell me, Captain Matsuo. Where did you get this?"
#
Chapter Eleven
Planet Squire, Kalivostok System
Squire-Kali Defense Facility
Outside, night came, and a cool breeze rushed in from the south with the dust stirring everywhere. The units settled into the front.
Colonel Clarke followed Commander Arap into the command bunker. A few of the 19th ACR's COs were already waiting. Other officers from the garrison, infantry units, and artillery stood around the command display. An aged general stood at the head of the display.
"That's fucking stupid," Riga said in his raspy voice. The Sigg mercenary tapped the display with muzzle of his pistol. "Quit treating armor like infantry. Then pull your head out of your ass."
A colonel named Sovey stared back at Riga with his mouth open. He started to speak.
"No, shut up. Look here." Riga tapped a ridgeline with his pistol. "You roll up that, keep the topside clear, while the armor runs these links."
"But the main road!" Count-General Pishkin said.
"Fuck it," Riga said. "Beat the piss out of it with artillery. They're probably all set up there anyway."
"That's not how we operate!" Colonel Sovey said.
"And that's why you're fucking stupid."
Colonel Clarke stepped up to the display and studied the map.
"Colonel, this mercenary is insolent!" Count-General Pishkin said.
Clarke didn't look up from the map. "Yes, he is."
Riga holstered his pistol. "Ya waste a tank, and it's gone. You ain't got no more of 'em."
"We'll roll up that center with the infantry," Colonel Carco said.
"My orders are to probe and recon," Colonel Clarke said. "I could use that support."
Colonel Carco crossed his arms. "You leave me hanging, and I'll see your convicts shot."
Clarke could see the route. If his forces faltered, then Carco's unit wouldn't be able to extract themselves fast enough. They'd not only get flanked, but likely cut off completely. Encirclement was the greatest fear of any unit.
Not that it helped Echo Company. That unit had deployed into light cover and took the brunt of the Kadan strike. Even the lighter Kadan weapons penetrated through the thin steel armor. Clarke was at fault for letting that design go through, and he knew it. Not again. Never again. Now those deaths were on his shoulder, and he was a dozen tanks down.
Count-General Pishkin sat back and sighed. "Colonel Petovic, tell them what we know."
A female colo
nel stepped away from a group of officers at the side of the room and stepped up to the display. Her nose was scarred, and she didn't have any earlobes. She wore all the scars of a veteran of Lishun Delta.
She closed the aerial map and replaced it with a star map. "These are the inbound planets. Squire is unique. It sits close enough to Kalivostok to have its own stargate. Normally one star system, one stargate. But what makes it even more unique is the chokepoint. The further out we go"—she highlighted a line of star systems—"the more empty star systems we run into. Until finally you reach a dead end. It was Kalivostok's own private economic zone."
"We already planning our invasion?" Commander Arap said.
"Ahmed. Charming as ever, I see," Colonel Petovic said dryly.
Commander Arap grinned back at her.
"No, but it highlights the fact that this attack is a feint. They can't bring the logistics to bear to support an army large enough to secure the Kalivostok system. They have to transit either empty star systems, or cross planets lacking any atmosphere."
Colonel Clarke studied the star map. His eyes traced each link as it went further out. Exploration dates showed that no one had visited those worlds in a very long time, and why would they? The exploration gates were expensive, the duty was dangerous, and what was there to discover?
"Because of this, we believe they're going to strike another star system. Simply, gentlemen, Kalivostok is a ruse." Colonel Petovic stepped away from the display. She crossed her arms.
"And if it's not, Colonel?" said Captain Janke, Fox Company CO. She pulled off her helmet and revealed a totally bald head. "We don't have the forces here to stop it."
"We facilitate the evacuation and hold as long as we can," Count-General Pishkin said.
"We'll be the last ones to leave," Colonel Karling said, nodding his head sharply.
Colonel Carco turned away and looked back at the star map. He swiped his hand on the screen and pulled the aerial view back up.
A turret fired in the distance. The bunker shook, and thin lines of dust dropped from the ceiling. A second turret opened fire, and then all was quiet. No one said anything for a few moments.
"What of the evac?" someone asked from the back of the room.
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