by L S Roebuck
“Let’s take him,” Sparks whispered.
“No. Let him go,” North said. “It’s not worth the risk of us getting detected.”
“A second hacking box could come in handy,” Sparks said.
“Do you even know how to use i—” North looked up from crouching behind the greenhouse and saw Ryder had removed her poncho and strode confidently toward the trooper. Her form-fitting flexible armor fully on display, Ryder put some extra sway in her hips.
The trooper looked up. “Where did you come from?”
“Does it matter?” Ryder said, pushing her hands down the sides of her torso. “You said you were thirsty. Are not interested in this tall glass of water?”
“Whatever you are, I’m interested,” the trooper said, holstering his stun gun and standing upright. He straightened himself, and tried to look confident. “Where have you been all my life, baby?”
Ryder strode right up to the trooper, with just a few centimeters of space between them. “Are you sure you are Chasm? You seem a little… um… chauvinistic for the part.”
“Does it matter?” the trooper smiled, placing his left hand on Ryder’s hip.
Before he could put his right hand on her other hip, in one swift motion, Ryder reached over her back, unsheathed her sword, stepped back, flung her arms around in a powerful swing, and lopped off the trooper’s head.
Ryder held the pose with her now bloody sword extended, as the decapitated man collapsed, his head rolling in the general direction of North.
“Holy hell, Ryder,” North said as he and his squad came out of their hiding spot.
Ryder spit on the headless body. “Pig.”
“Wow, that was unexpected,” Sparks said.
“You like it?” Ryder said, as she wiped her blade on her poncho.
“Like, I think I’m going to puke,” Meliana said.
Ryder sheathed her sword, reached down and picked up the hacking box and the boy’s flask.
“Presents,” Ryder smiled slyly as she handed the hacking box to North and the flask to Sparks.
“This is my kind of greater good,” Sparks said as she took the flask from Ryder, unscrewed the lid and tilted it up. Sparks feigned taking a swig, but did not let the alcohol pass her lips. She would have liked to enjoy the burn of hard booze on her the back of her throat, but she had to stay one-hundred percent on her game now. She was the better fighter between her and Ryder, but the spy’s sudden display of swordsmanship reinforced just how lethal she could be. Sparks had no ideas where Ryder’s loyalties lied, and that made her even more dangerous.
“Should the doctor help this kid?” Advika asked.
“He’ll be all right; it was just a stun,” North said. “We have to keep moving.”
“What about the body?” Mateo looked at pool of blood collecting near the exposed trooper neck. “Should we hide it.”
“No time, this will all be for naught if we are–”
A man and a woman in civilian clothes, apparently unarmed, walked into the Orchid Hub, startled at the unexpected carnage on display. The man screamed.
“What is going on here?” the woman demanded, and started reaching for her infopad. Before she could activate it, it shattered. The woman dropped it, and looked up at Sparks, who had pulled one of her side arms to decommission the infopad with a bullet.
“You didn’t see us,” Sparks said, menacing.
North frowned and looked at his squad. “Let’s triple time it for the tubes,” North said as he took off for the opposite side of the commons.
“What does that mean?” Meliana asked Advika.
“Run!” Advika said as she took off after North. The rest followed.
“Wait! Are you Chasm?” the woman called after them, but received no answer.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Goldsmith was glad he had lost a score of kilos over the past year. He had resented his commanding officer’s extra-exercise-and-less-food regimen, depriving him of his gluttonous pleasures and giving him the pain of extended cardio exertion. ‘North’ had become a secret curse word for the tubby Marine. But in the tight squeeze of the service tunnel beneath the mass-transit Tube, Goldsmith could literally breathe a little easier as he slipped through.
North wasn’t out of shape, but he was a sizable man. His above-average height combined with the hard mass of his well-defined upper torso made the “underground” corridors, lined with pneumonic tubes, water lines, fiberoptic conduits and assorted manual pressure monitors a gauntlet of poking and prodding.
“We should be under the Africa Quadrant Medical Center,” Meliana said.
“Confirmed,” Condi chimed in from its pocket on North’s pack.
“If anyone can tell us where the Underground is staging, Dr. Lind should be able to help us,” Meliana said.
“We don’t have a better source of information,” Sparks agreed. “And I do not want to sit around in these dank tunnels. We should have just hopped on a Tube car.”
“Too risky,” North said.
“Risky? What’s risky is opening this secure hatch and climbing into the back of the medical center, hoping Dr. Lind is there and not some Chasm trooper,” Sparks said.
“Oh, you of little faith,” North smirked and looked at the pistols holstered to Sparks’ hips. “Just keep your friends at the ready. Goldsmith, you think you can get this hacking box to work?”
“Sure thing, sir,” Goldsmith said, attaching the hacking box to the control panel on the hatch. The control panel controlled the locking mechanism, and also housed the pressure monitors. A green light indicated good, breathable air pressure on the other side. Red indicated a deadly vacuum. The indicator was green. “It’s really quite simple, actually. The box tricks the locking mechanism into an all-open state.”
The seven-member squad waited in silence as the hacking box buzzed. It made a slight pop.
“Unlocked,” Goldsmith said.
“Sparks, on point,” North said, as he prepared to throw the ceiling mounted hatch open.
“Why do I have to be the cannon fodder?” Sparks complained as she drew her twin pistols. “It seems you have Marines better suited for that task.”
“You can get up the hatch faster than any of us,” North smiled. “And you are the fastest draw. Secure the room, then I’ll boost Meliana up. Ryder, head a deci-klick back and keep lookout. Chasm troopers must be close.”
Sparks stepped next to North, pushed herself up on the balls of her feet, and planted an open-mouth kiss on the handsome Marine. Ryder kept a poker face, but Advika and Mateo both went wide-eyed at the unexpected, sensuous display. Sparks slid off of North and then squared herself under the hatch, poised to spring.
“If I get killed, I hope you have many rotten, lonely nights,” Sparks said.
North winked at Sparks, put up three fingers, counted down and threw the hatch open. Sparks sprung through the open hatch, leaping with enough strength to clear her entire torso through the portal. She caught herself by throwing her stomach on the ridge of the circular opening, then rolling the rest of her body on the floor of the clinic.
She sprung to her feet, looked across the medical supply room at a gaunt, bald man in a white coat who had been reading inventory on a magnetic resonance screen. He looked stunned at the sudden appearance of Sparks in his clinic. Then he noticed she had two lethal-looking weapons pointed right at his chest.
“Dr. Lind I presume?” Sparks smiled. “Don’t say a word.”
To indicate he understood Sparks, Dr. Lind drug his finger over his mouth as if pulling a zipper.
“Clear,” Sparks called down the hatch. With a little grunting, Meliana appeared through the portal, as she was pushed up by North. Sparks did not offer a hand to help, instead keeping both firearms trained of Dr. Lind.
“Meliana!” Dr. Lind said. “I thought you were dead.” The white coats reached out and embraced each other.
“Dr. Lind,” Sparks said. “Back away for now. We have a few questions.” The mal
e doctor did as was instructed, stepping a few feet from Meliana. Meliana shot her colleague a “I’m sorry” look.
“Sparks, give me a hand down here,” North hissed. Sparks squatted down and stuck a hand through the portal and grabbed North’s up-stretched arm. Her other arm remained extended, gun at the end, threatening Dr. Lind with lethal force. She hoisted on him as he left, and North rolled into the room.
Advika’s voice rose from the portal. “Ryder signals Chasm patrol on approach. They are coming. Get us up!”
North reached down and pulled Mateo up with two hands. Mateo was a relatively small man, and North tossed him clear of the portal as if he were a sack of reconstituted protein powder.
“Come on, Ryder, come on,” Advika said in forced, hushed tones. She took her assault rifle and aimed it down the corridor. “They tracked us down here. They are about to find us.”
North bent over and pulled up Goldsmith by his arms, straining his back and rolling his Marine away from the hatch once cleared.
Advika held her breath and took the safety off her rifle. She was ready to shoot whatever came around the corner that wasn’t Ryder. North hosted the athletic woman onto the clinic floor. Although the clinic backroom wasn’t particularly small, it was getting crowded.
“Where is Ryder?” North asked.
“Down here. Hurry, Chasm on our position, ETA, 30 seconds.”
Then Ryder felt herself being lifted. North grabbed her by her pack and lifted her above the hatch as Mateo reached down and pulled the round door closed.
“The hacker!” Goldsmith shouted. “It’s still attached.”
“Shhhh!” Sparks said. “Too late. Hope they don’t notice it.”
“We need that box,” Advika said.
“Maybe not; I have Ryder’s present,” North said.
North indicated for silence, leaned down and pressed his ear to the hatch. He could barely make out footfalls. For a minute, they became louder, and then the sound dissipated.
North stood up and surveyed the room for the first time. For a storage room, it was relatively open. Medical compounds were stored in vacuum-sealed containers latched into a complicated locking grid from floor to ceiling. At the end of the room was an inventory database access terminal, and a very flabbergasted white-coat clad doctor.
North looked over at Sparks, who still had Lind at gunpoint. “At ease, Sparks. Dr. Lind, I am Commander North, Executive Officer of the U.S.S. Magnus, and we’re here to liberate Marquette.”
“Holy crap, North,” Ryder rolled her eyes. “You trust too easily. You just gave up strategic information.”
“It’s okay,” Meliana said. “Like, we can trust Dr. Lind. He has no love for Chasm.” She looked over at the doctor. “Is Pinita? Is she?”
“She’s safe, thank goodness. I was able to keep her safe from Chasm, for now,” Lind took Meliana’s hand. “And Ehud? Barack?”
Meliana looked to the floor and shook her head.
“Meliana, I am so sorry. I should have never told Ehud. It cost him his life?”
Meliana nodded, unsuccessfully trying to hold back tears.
“Barack, too. Oh, God, I’m so sorry Meliana.”
“Doctor, you need to tell us now,”
“Why does everyone call him ‘doctor’ and no one calls her ‘doctor’?” Sparks said to no one in particular.
“I’ve been secretly supplying the Underground with medical supplies,” Lind explained. “It was too suspicious for me, with complete access to … well to this.” The doctor waved his hands at the medicines. “I needed a courier and Ehud volunteered. We sent the stuff, painkillers, stabilizers, antibiotics home with Meliana. Ehud runs… er… he ran a microfactory close to the secret Underground base. He would drop the supplies off on his way to work.”
“Commander, should I recover the box on the bottom of the hatch,” Goldsmith interrupted. “They must be gone by now.”
“Or not,” Sparks said. “We have another. Well, we don’t know if it works.”
North waved the pair silent and turned back to Lind. “Dr. Lind, we must know where this base is. We must contact the Underground. Can you tell us?”
“Son, that information cost Ehud and Barack their lives,” Lind said somberly. “Are you willing to pay that price?”
“I didn’t a travel light year to play it safe,” Sparks said. “Okay, let’s be honest. I wouldn’t travel a kilometer to play it safe.”
“How can you be so callous with jokes?” Meliana raged. She wanted to slap Sparks’ smug face and pull out her strawberry hair. “They tortured Ehud for information. He didn’t give up the location. They threatened the life of our son, and Ehud didn’t give up the Underground, didn’t give up Dr. Lind, didn’t give up me. No way.”
Lind took Meliana into his arms. “Were you there, Mel. Did they make you see your husband suffer?”
“Like, I saw enough. He convinced them I had no knowledge, and then they separated us for hours. They brought me back, and Ehud had been beaten to a pulp. And they had Barack in the airlock. Ehud just blubbered, ‘you’re bluffing, you’re bluffing’ and then they… oh God.”
“Shhhh,” Lind comforted Meliana. “They are in a better place.”
“Doctor, we’re short on time,” North insisted. “The location.”
“If Magellan is designed like Marquette, then you’re probably aware of the reserve water tanks located a few decks beneath the main hanger. They are large tanks, maybe 30 meters long. One of them was empty for maintenance when Utopia arrived. That’s where the base is. Maybe 30 or 40 people are hiding there. Many of them injured from the skirmishes when Chasm was taking control.”
“How do they mask their heat signatures?” Goldsmith asked.
“Well, first, no one expects to find humans inside a water tank,” Lind said. “But our chief engineer, who survived with the Underground, built a false tank wall on the inside, like a tank within a tank, and flooded chilled water between the gap. Eventually, I’m sure Chasm would find the cooler that has been syphoning power, but for now, the Underground is remarkably well hidden.”
“Take us there,” North said with an overtone of demand.
“Sorry, friend,” Lind said. “I’ve already helped too much. Honestly, I don’t know you, and I just want to do what I can to help the people who are suffering. Getting caught and tortured will not do anyone any good. What if you are just undercover Chasm?”
“If we were undercover Chasm, you’d be dead,” Ryder said with a hint of finality.
“I don’t think you know Chasm as well as you think you know them,” Lind said. “They are not enemies. They are crazy, to be sure, but they believe they are making everything better. They believe they are making society perfect. Chasm is the apex of humanism. They would kill you if it helps the greater good, but if your life could contribute somehow, if you had some piece of information, that was valuable… they’d chew you up first.”
“I found that not all Chasm are as idealistic as their leaders,” Ryder said. “For example, there was this lecher whose head I removed earlier today.”
Lind’s eyes became wide as he noted the sword strapped on Ryder’s back.
“Heh,” Ryder smirked, as she pulled out a tube of lipstick and applied the cosmetic.
“At any rate, leave me out of your mad quest,” Lind said, “so that I can continue to help the hurt among us without obstruction.”
“That’s sort of … noble, I guess,” Advika offered.
“Okay, we’re running out of time,” North said. “Let’s make for the Tubes. Sparks, check out the front corridor to make sure it’s clear.” Sparks nodded and exited through the main door.
“Thank you, Lind,” North bowed slightly. “You seem like a good man. I hope we meet again.” Lind returned the gesture.
Sparks poked her head back in through the front door.
“It’s pretty clear. Ponchos on and let’s move.”
The seven-member squad drew a few stares as they made
their way at a decent pace from the clinic to the Tube Station. Once they were on a Tube car, they could get to near the hangar bay in a few minutes, and then hopefully, North thought, find the Underground in time for Magnus’ return.
The corridor opened up into the Auni Mandela Commons, named for the first president of the Pan-African Alliance. The Mandela Commons most prominent feature was the Tube station, where during normal times, people would queue up for a quick ride to all parts of the station. The tube cars floated and were pushed by highly regulated currents of pressurized air. Each car had seating for four, were pilotless and windowless.
The dim lighting in the commons contrasted with the brighter lighting in arterial corridor. The contrast silhouetted North’s party dramatically for anyone watching their entrance into the Mandela Commons.
North counted about two dozen people in the commons. He made a mental note there were no children. Some ate quietly at a picnic area, others headed to one of the few stores that were open. The planters, and it seemed, any other unneeded amenities, had been pulled out to make room for a make-shift dock. The whole commons seemed bleak to North, and not just because it had been stripped of its natural color. A trio of scrawny teens were loading crates into every other tube car, sending the unknown cargo to be presumably unloaded at one of the other four tube stations.
“They turned some of the markets into ration distribution centers,” Meliana explained. “Money supposedly has no value, like, says our Chasm overlords. But there is a black market and no one has tossed their credit chits away, yet.”
Sparks traded glances with a couple heading into a market. When the couple saw the squad, they hurried into the store.
“Don’t worry,” Meliana said. “Just keep walking. Like, they were just worried our group would get in line in front of them and maybe the rations would run out. They’ll be glad when our group moves on.”