by Jason LaPier
The big man’s lips tightened and he gave a short nod. “You aim to scare ’em off.”
Runstom felt his face go hot. Suddenly, his plan sounded less heroic than he’d hoped. “Trust me, this is the best way out of this.”
“I agree,” Koin said, scratching at the stubble of his chin. “Tactically, it’s a good move. Minimize losses on both sides, including civilians.”
“Tactically,” Troyo said with a short laugh as he slipped off his stool to join them.
Runstom looked at Troyo and then at Koin. “Have you served?”
He sighed deeply. “Yes. I was stationed at the outpost on Sirius-8 for twelve years. We fought off Waster raids on more than one occasion. And I agree with you: they know when to gun, and when to run.”
“We’ll be outnumbered and under-experienced,” Runstom said. “But they don’t know that. ModPol Defenders routed some Wasters from a power relay station only hours ago. Right now they’re wondering how many more Defenders are on Vulca. So we really need to sell it. We need to be loud, and we need to kick up a lot of dust.”
“Puff yourself up like an animal.”
Runstom leaned in close. “I need your help.”
Koin grunted and frowned. “I’m supposed to be retired.”
“I’m supposed to be in Public Relations.”
The big man’s chest bounced with a short laugh. “Show me your armament.”
Outside there was a growing crowd, and not just from the patrons of The Rambling Whistle; small packs of people were drifting down the street from three directions. The four privates seemed to drink in the attention from the civilians ogling their cart of destruction.
“Officer Runstom,” one of the Defenders called when she saw him. “Just got a message from B Team.”
“B Team?”
“The patrol that went east this morning. They’re on their way here. ETA twelve minutes.”
“They’re coming here?” Troyo said. “Why?”
“When they got the message from Captain Oliver, they had orders to come back to town to secure the area.”
“Good,” Runstom said. “They’re coming with us.”
“Roger that,” the private said.
He looked around at the milling crowd. “Where did all these people come from?” Runstom asked, not directing his question at anyone in particular.
“I got the word out.” The short, red woman with the half-helmet device on her head appeared next to them. “Name’s DAI, by the way.”
“Die?” Troyo said.
“Not like die as in dead. It’s D, A, I. My initials.”
“What do they stand for?” Troyo pressed.
“Doesn’t matter,” she said, then tapped her helmet. “In my network, I’m DAI.”
“These people,” Runstom said. “Are in your network?”
“Yep. Most were just sitting around wondering what’s up with the VCP lockdown.”
“Are they going to help us? They have transports?”
“Yeah, some of them, I imagine.” She shook her head lightly. “I still think you’re going to get everyone killed.”
“Then why’d you bring all these people?” Troyo asked.
She smiled broadly, closed her eyes, lifted her head, and sighed. “Only thing that beats the rush of being on the scene first when something big goes down? Being the one to make it big by inviting everyone else.”
She spun around and dove into the crowd to do some of the highest-speed mingling Runstom had ever seen. Troyo leaned into him. “She’s a weird one.”
Runstom nodded. “Grassroots media junkie. I’ve run into her kind before. When I was an officer. All they care about is their social reach. The bigger the story, the bigger the reach.”
“Sounds like a pain in the ass.”
“They are,” Runstom said. “When you’re an officer, they get in the way.”
Troyo slapped him on the back. “And when you’re a public relations officer, they’re on your side.”
* * *
The all-terrain vehicle tore across the bleak surface of the moon, the throttle cranked. They only managed to secure two of them, so Thompson and Barndoor had to share, and they were drifting farther behind, according to the crude radar screen. Dava couldn’t verify this by sight because of the amount of cold dust that was kicking up behind her.
The naked atmosphere on Vulca wasn’t bad enough to kill a person outright, but too much exposure and the toxicity would start to worm its way into the system. She and the others had already crossed the landscape on foot in the middle of the night, and now the thin air was stinging her eyes and nose. Through the blur of tears, she could see the observatory dead ahead.
And something else to the left. Some kind of storm on the northern horizon. She’d done a little research on the weather systems on Vulca while planning for her team’s approach to the power relay station, and what she’d learned was that the moon was extremely mild weather-wise. Minimal winds, and due to a lack of major bodies of water, no precipitation. There was nothing about dust storms or anything of the like.
Whatever it was, it was on the move. She gritted her teeth, leaned forward, and pushed the throttle to its maximum.
She saw a couple of grunts standing watch outside the matte-gray walls of the observatory when she finally eased off on the ATV and let her stinging eyes clear. They raised their rifles in her direction for a moment, but quickly recognized her and lowered them. Even at a distance, her dark skin guaranteed little chance of mistaken identity.
When she got off the ATV, the grunts weren’t even looking at her. Their attentions were focused on the northern horizon. One of them had binoculars and was lifting them, pulling them down, readjusting them, lifting them again.
“Some kind of dust storm?” she asked as she walked up.
“I don’t think so, Capo Dava,” the one without the binoculars said. She felt an internal twist at the formal use of rank. Jansen’s influence was spreading through Space Waste like an infection. “Listen,” the grunt said.
She listened and heard nothing. She stopped breathing. Then she heard it. A distant grumble. “Thunder?”
The grunt with the binoculars said, “Engines.”
She pulled them away from his face and took a look. They were right. Vehicles in the distance, moving fast enough to kick up a serious amount of dust. She counted from left to right and could make out eight. She couldn’t tell what they were, how big they were, or who they belonged to.
“Where’s 2-Bit?” she asked, shoving the binoculars into the grunt’s abdomen.
“Captain 2-Bit’s somewhere inside. Probably up in the top where the target is.”
“Raise him and tell him to get his ass down here.”
“Capo Dava, we’re supposed to be radio-silent—”
Dava took the grunt by the scruff and pulled him close. “Raise him. Now.”
“Y-yes, sir.” She released him and he pulled out his comm. “Captain 2-Bit. Come in, Captain.”
The reply crackled through after a few seconds. “Who the hell is this? I ordered radio silence.”
“Give me that,” Dava said. The comm was on a short wire to the grunt’s suit, so when she yanked it out of his hands, he was forced to lean into her as she put the device to her ear. “Captain 2-Bit. It’s Dava. We need you out front.”
“Dava? What’s going on? The power went out, so I thought we were a go.”
“Just get out here, Captain.” She released the comm and when the grunt regained his composure, she asked him, “How long have they been inside?”
“About thirty minutes?”
“Have they loaded anything out?”
“Not yet, but someone came out just a few minutes ago to tell us they’d be loading soon.”
2-Bit came out of the building just as Thompson rolled up on the other ATV, Barndoor sitting behind her.
“We ready to roll?” Thompson said. “To go back for Johnny and Frank?”
“What’s this about Jo
hnny and Frank?” 2-Bit said.
“Captain.” Dava took him by the shoulder and pointed him to the north. “Look.”
2-Bit squinted. “Some kinda storm?” She took the binoculars from the grunt and gave them to the captain. He looked at her and cocked his head, then used them to look to the horizon. “What the hell is this?”
“Trouble.”
“Local defense force?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But ModPol showed up at the power relay station.”
2-Bit dropped the binoculars. “What? Are you sure?”
“They took Johnny Eyeball and Freezer,” Thompson said.
“And I got shot,” Barndoor added, holding his bad arm up with his good arm. The sticky bandage oozed a blend of red and white. He swung a leg around to dismount the ATV and almost lost his balance.
2-Bit looked back out at the approaching storm. “More ModPol?”
Dava shook her head. “I’m not sure. It’s hard to tell.”
“They aren’t supposed to be here,” Thompson said. “Boss Jansen said—”
“Forget about what underboss Jansen said,” Dava spat. “They’re here. ModPol is here. In force.”
“How many were at the relay station?” 2-Bit asked.
“Had to be a dozen,” Barndoor said.
“We took a few out,” Thompson said, pulling the ammo drum out of her gun to check it. “And Johnny is probably giving them all kinds of hell right now.”
“I think those are civilian transports.” One of the grunts had retrieved the binoculars. “Hard to tell, but they all look different colored.”
“The ModPol vehicles at the relay station were armored and camoed,” Thompson said. “Those military types. Fenders.”
“Oh, yeah,” the grunt said, still looking through the lens. “I think there might be one or two camoed trucks in the pack.”
“I don’t like this, Captain,” Dava said. “We need to pack up and get out of here.”
“What? Retreat?”
“Captain, we’ve been ambushed. And we’re about to get ambushed again.”
“This is the best score we’ve had in ages,” 2-Bit said. “RJ said—”
“Fuck RJ,” Dava said. The reaction from the rest of the group was restrained, as though everyone knew it was wrong for a squad leader to disrespect an underboss, but it wasn’t like Space Waste was a real military outfit. And very few dared cross her, regardless of rank. “He was wrong about everything. Did you even find the equipment that was supposed to be here?”
“Yeah,” 2-Bit said quietly. “We think so.”
“You think so.” She sighed through gritted teeth. “Well, ModPol is on Vulca. We know so. And we came here expecting local security. So does that make us prepared for this fight?”
“Prepared?” 2-Bit’s face began to redden and his voice took on a rare acidity. “Listen to me, Capo. We don’t run from fucking Pollies. We shoot fucking Pollies.”
“Fenders,” Thompson grunted. When 2-Bit looked at her, she said, “Told ya, ain’t Pollies. Fenders. That’s how come Barndoor got shot through the arm instead of just stunned.”
“We shoot Fenders too,” 2-Bit said, but with much less gusto.
Dava waved at the growing clouds in the distance. “We don’t have a lot of time here. Who or whatever that is out there is about to ruin our party. If we got what we came for, we need to move.”
“What about Johnny?” Thompson said. “And Frank?”
There was an audible crack then from the distance, and they all stopped to look. A thin trail of white smoke drew its way up the pale morning sky, then began to fatten in reverse.
“Is that – a missile?” one of the grunts whispered.
They all dove for cover. The closest solid object to Dava was an ATV, and she found herself behind it, moving on instinct, but regretting in her conscious mind the fragility of her chosen shield. She peeked up over the front fender to see the projectile in the distance. Coming head on, it was hard to tell how far it was, but then it hit the ground suddenly, a good hundred meters distant. The resulting fireball was massive, a pure white sun exploding in her eyes before she ducked back behind the ATV.
“What the fuck was that?” Barndoor yelled as the rumble died down.
“It’s a Billy,” 2-Bit shouted from the side of the observatory. “Nasty bastard.”
“It didn’t come anywhere near us,” Thompson said as they all tentatively poked their heads from their hiding places. “Hey, Barndoor, someone out there is a worse shot than you!”
“Fuck you, Thompson!”
“Captain,” Dava said. “It’s time to pull back and regroup.”
2-Bit was talking into his comm, then he finally called back out. “The shuttle is due south. I just checked with them and they aren’t seeing anything down there. We can hold this ground until we know what we’re up against.”
“Wait, you guys, shut up,” Barndoor shouted. “Listen!”
The rumbling of distant engines was augmented by higher-pitched popping. Dava squinted into the horizon. The vehicles were close enough to make out with the naked eye. All around them, tiny pops of white appeared. Muzzle flashes.
“Well, the vehicles might not be military, but the weapons are,” Thompson said.
“Fuck this,” Barndoor said. “I’m with Dava – let’s get the hell out of here. I don’t want to get shot again for at least a week.”
Dava flitted across the open air and slid into a space next to Captain 2-Bit by the observatory wall. “With all due respect,” she said, “Jansen’s intel was wrong. But that doesn’t mean he would want us to get killed out here. He would want us to cut our losses and pull out. I mean, you can always get the shuttle to relay a message to him, if you want to wait around for him to respond.”
She knew he wouldn’t, not because of the time it would take, but because that would mean letting the absent underboss make a decision about an operation in progress. Captain 2-Bit was old school. If he was in charge of a mission, he had to make the choice of when to gun and when to run.
2-Bit sighed. He lifted his comm. “Alpha Team: get as much of that gear as you can carry into the trucks and be prepared to leave. We’re evacing in five minutes. Anyone not on a truck in five minutes is getting left on this dustball.” He frowned and looked at Dava. “Satisfied?”
She looked out at the growing storm of dust, the sparkle of gunfire glittering across it, then her gaze drifted to the west, where the relay station lay.
“Sorry, Johnny,” she whispered.
CHAPTER 10
The first thing Lealina noticed when she came through the door was the flashing number four on the screen just to the left of the TEOB sign that spread across the top of the opposite wall. Below the flashing number were three status screens lined up vertically, and each of those was marred red by some warning she couldn’t make out from a distance. Instead, she looked at the map under the TEOB sign. The map – the largest feature of the room, displaying a flattened projection of all of Terroneous, largest moon of gas giant Barnard-5 – had become nothing but wallpaper to her over the last four years. Occasionally, it presented a blip here or there – a spike in weather or an equipment malfunction – but she’d never seen it complain about more than a single event at any given time. As the door closed behind her and took the glare of the morning sun with it, she watched four small circles pulse steadily at various locations around the map.
“Riky, what’s going on?”
The young operator on duty spun his chair halfway to face her. “Oh, Lealina. Good, you’re here.” He spun back to face the smaller monitors that curved around the half-circle console.
“Four alarms?” She stepped closer to lean over his shoulder, trying to take in all the panels at once and failing to assimilate anything useful. “Another gas pocket?”
They both looked up at the flicker of movement when the looming number four was replaced by a five.
“Damn,” Riky breathed. He scratched at both o
f his dark arms, one followed by the other. “No, not a gas pocket. Magnetic.”
“What, really? We’ve never had one of those. Have we?”
“I’ve never seen one.” The comm on the side wall lit up, flashing white and jangling its jingle. “Can you get that, Lea?”
She crossed the room and tapped at the comm and the small image of a gray-haired woman appeared. She was too short for the unit on her side and the top of her head ballooned as she angled it up.
“Terroneous Environment Observation Bureau,” Lealina said, but the woman started talking over her halfway through.
“Hello? Hello! This is Kay Klosky at the Stockton Public Library. One of those … thingies … is making all kinds of racket.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lealina said, glancing back at Riky. He pointed to a screen at his console but she couldn’t see it from her angle. He stuck up a thumb, then went back to his keyboard. “We can see that one of your sensors is in an alarm state. Rest assured, we’re looking …”
She trailed off as the librarian cocked her head and turned away from her. She disappeared from the window, and Lealina could hear muffled conversation.
“What … where?… cross the … bank? Oh my.”
“Six,” Riky called from behind her. She turned and stared at the counter as if she didn’t believe it could go that high.
“What’s happening?” The librarian’s panicked voice brought Lealina’s attention back to the comm.
“We’re looking into it ma’am,” she said. “I have to go now. We have your contact information and we’ll let you know as soon as we know more.”
“But—”
Lealina flicked off the comm and went back to the console. “Are the others …” she started, then leaned over again to try to make sense of the middle-right panel.
“All magnetic,” Riky said, pointing at what she could already see. Six lines stacking up, all of them alarms on magnetic sensors.
Colonizing strange moons was never a sure bet, even after decades of surveying and preparation. Although Terroneous was as close to Earth as anyone might hope, there were always dangers to be on alert for, and having been born and raised on this moon, Lealina was as indoctrinated as any local on the perils of such threats. The Terroneous Environment Observation Bureau kept an eye on the most deadly possibilities: rising solar radiation, seismic activity, volcanic fissure vents, pockets of gas appearing just below the surface, and changes in the atmospheric mix, to name a few.