by T S Weaver
So, why did the idea leave him unsettled?
“Keep moving,” Cora ordered the last two down the ladder. They’d made it this far. No aliens, no screams, no one firing on the group. She opened up her comm and checked she had it on the right channel. “Sergeant Bloodlaw, update. We’ve found a supply dump and will be restocking. Will advise when we’re on our way.”
Static filtered through the airway. “Understood.” A single word, it was all she needed.
The kids were still alive. Another point in their favor. She could do this. They could. But it didn’t prevent the weight of doubt from dropping onto her shoulder if she let her focus slip away from the work at hand. Cora waited until she knew the last of her people would be by the airlock, only then did she pull the front door closed and followed them, making certain the door to the closet was closed behind them, and she tugged the entrance to the ladder shut before she joined them at the bottom of the ladder. Because of the size of the airlock, she let the two ahead go in, then took her turn when the airlock was empty.
“Not a bad bolt hole.” Lackey grinned as she stepped out into view.
“Give me a few to get my bearings, but as long as those creatures don’t find us, we’ll be fine.” She shook out her hands, then pulled the gloves off and rubbed them. Heat, oxygen, light, and supplies. Not everything they needed, but close enough for Government work. She tugged the mask off, setting it on her head as the others had done. “Gives us a chance to warm up. If there are replacement suits in here, our bodies still require time to recover if we’re to be effective.” She’d take back up suits, but if they could find one full suit, they could shove Gunny into it, giving his body a chance to recover.
Won’t be enough. Need to stop lying to myself.
She pushed back the thought, it was one thing to know Gunny was dying, another to admit to it, and keep the idea at the forefront of her mind.
“Welcome relief.” Lackey agreed.
“Take stock.” She rolled out her shoulders, then arms, getting the circulation moving. Her toes tingled, heat seeping into them, and she fought against the urge to whimper. Sergeant’s didn’t bloody whimper. Not where her people would hear them.
“On it.” The corporal hurried away, catching the attention of the rest of the men.
Orders rang out as she found the Gunny. “How you holding up?”
“Could be better, could be worse.” A small shrug, followed by a wince. “Ribs don’t like this. Took more of a beating than I expected.” He glanced up at her, then away.
“Don’t imagine they do.” She moved to his side. Nothing said about the real danger, the fact his coloring spoke of death, and his body was failing him as they tried to find a way of extending his life. Such conversations weren’t needed until there was no other choice. “Need to check what’s going on with you.” She slid the medical unit into her hand and ran it up and down the Gunny. Her heart sank. Punctured organs, internal bleeding. Her vision hazed and she blinked unshed tears away. She wasn’t going to cry, the one damn thing she’d never been able to get rid of was the foolish need to scream out her frustration at the wrong time. Better to let it out when she was alone, where no one could see her and call it a weakness. Real marines didn’t cry. Buck it up, Marine. Oh, she’d heard those lines more often than she cared to count. “Appears to be more like cracked than broken, not that it makes much a difference. Pain is pain.” How long did he have?
“Cracked hurts, broken offers more problems. As long as I don’t do any more damage to them, I should be alright for a few hours.” Color didn’t return to his face, and blood bubbled at his nose and mouth. “We’ve got a decent place to hold up here. You contact the kids?”
“Yes, let them know we’re delayed.” She slid the unit into a pocket. Change in topic. She couldn’t blame him, not with what she saw on the scanner. “Shit, Gunny, you pick the worst times to want a vacation.” A few hours? Would he last that long? She glanced at the medical unit. No, not if this was anything to go by. He wasn’t going to make it, not without a full medical bay, and it wasn’t an option they had to hand. “I can give you something for the pain.”
“Hey, I’ll grab a vacation when I can get one. We kick these aliens hard enough, and they’ll be throwing us parties back home.” His gaze shifted in the direction of Stone. “Watch him. We need him, but...” he let the last word trail off.
“Understood. Don’t much trust him either.” As in she didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him, with gravity at double strength. “But he got us here, and we haven’t lost anyone.”
The Gunny lifted his gaze. “Yet. He won’t follow orders for long, and you’ll have to remind him who’s in charge.” He coughed, flecks of blood spread with the push of air from his damaged lungs. “If it means a beat down, you do it. Think of him as a recruit with a chip on his shoulder. If you can get his respect, you’re halfway there.”
She inclined her head, not willing to say more on the subject. “I’ll check on the others.” On Stone. The rest she could trust to get on with the assignment. Even the other two civilians knew better than to argue, they’d complied and worked alongside her team, with Gunny, and hadn’t caused a problem. Stone was another matter. “I’ll be back soon, don’t go anywhere.”
“I’ll be here.”
She exchanged a handful of words with the Marines before she found Stone. The man had half disappeared in among the shelving and stacked supplies. He ran his hands over a stack of food packs and turned as she approached.
“Something I can do for you, Sergeant?”
“How many more dumps like this are in the colony?”
“You don’t really expect me to answer, do you? Give all my secrets away without anything in return?” He arched an eyebrow. Like the others, he’d taken off his gloves and pushed the mask back, revealing his features. No one wanted to waste oxygen, you didn’t have to be military to know when it was best to use the atmosphere supplied in the bolt hole. “No, I didn’t think so. You know how the world works.”
“Can’t blame me for trying.” She leaned against the nearest set of racks, allowing her body to relax.
“I suppose not, and if you’re attempting to appear less threatening, it doesn’t work. Anyone looking at you can see you’re military. The fact you’ve climbed the ladder to Sergeant in the Marines, says you’re skilled enough to be dangerous. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.” He rested one hand on an unopened box. “We’ll need to open this one. It has pressure bandages, and rib wraps. I don’t know if there’s a bone fuser in here, but I’ll keep searching.”
The bone fuser had a technical name, but the only people who used it were doctors and the clerk in charge of ordering replacements. “Thanks.” Fine, trying to relax around Stone wasn’t going to work. She’d find other ways of managing the smuggler. “We’ll need as much information as we can, supply wise before we head out for the kids.” The space here was large enough to bring half a dozen survivors in, more would be a stretch, but doable. “And we’ll need to know about the other locations to have enough shelter for the kids, and whoever else hid in the destroyed remains of the colony.
His top lip curled. “Good attempt, but no.”
“You think I threw you a line?”
“Yes.”
“You’re insane. This isn’t about getting you or anyone else in trouble. We don’t know how many survivors are hiding outside and are now running out of air.” Warmth was the same problem. If they didn’t have full suits, they’d be feeling the cold. Places like this would provide them with a better chance of staying alive.
“Doesn’t change a damn thing. If they’re still alive, they’ll be fine. They’ve got air and--”
“They might be in the same situation we are, with basic suits, and no long term supply of air. Food, water, medical supplies, they’re going to need all of it. Or they’ll die. Either killed or through hypothermia, dehydration, injury.”
“Not my problem. When you go for the kids,
I’m staying here. And you won’t be bringing them back.”
Her muscles clenched, eyes narrowed. “You agreed to follow orders.”
“I didn’t say how long, and I agreed to follow Gunny’s orders.”
“I see.” She flexed the fingers in her right hand.
“It’s got nothing to do with you being a woman. You know what you’re doing, or you wouldn’t be wearing stripes.”
“Then what?” Cora shifted her weight a fraction, never turned away from him.
“This isn’t my fight. I’m a survivor, Lawbook. Not a marine. A merc, not a soldier.”
She moved, closing the gap between them, one hand locked around the man’s throat as she shoved him back against the racks. Items slammed together, clinking and rustling filled the air as she held the man in place. “You’re either with us, or you’re dead. No middle ground. If you’re with us, you take orders. If not, I’ll strip you of anything useful and shove you in front of the next damned alien myself.”
He didn’t reach for her hand. Didn’t attempt to break free. The only reaction to her grasp was the increase of his pulse beneath her fingers. “You’re strong, I’ll give you that much. And I’m outnumbered, but you won’t kill me unless I openly threaten you.”
She closed her grasp enough to make each breath a struggle. “Don’t confuse me with Gunny. He’ll give you a chance. I won’t.” She leaned in, her face inches from his, eyes never leaving his gaze. Chances were a luxury she could no longer afford.
One hand rose, fingers touching the hand around his throat. “Persuasive.”
“Which is it to be. With us or not. Make your choice.”
He swallowed, pulse rapid. His voice calm, but strained with the way she held him. “What makes you believe I’ll stick to my choice?”
“You’ll search for loopholes, you’re a merc. But betray your given word? Oh, you might, the odds are against it as time progresses, unless there’s a profit in it for you. But somehow I don’t think these creatures will be open for trading anytime soon.” She eased back on her hold, then tightened. “Choose.”
His eyes widened under the new pressure, then narrowed, lines furrowing across his brow. “Fine, I’ll follow your damned orders, Sergeant, but this isn’t over. When we’re safe, no longer at risk from being discovered, you and I will discuss how you handled this.” He rubbed his throat as she released her grip and stepped out of his immediate reach.
Jakob leaned against the wall, relief at knowing they weren’t on their own resulted in a welcome change of pace. The Marines had found another bolt hole, undamaged by the attack. If there was one, there’d be others, which meant a chance at finding other survivors. His parents. Salla’s father. Pippa. Gail. Maybe they found a way of breaking free from the enemy? And marines. If marines had survived, then the navy might be on their way.
They wouldn’t be alone.
He wanted to believe, to hope the rest of their families and friends were still alive. A prisoner had a chance. A corpse didn’t.
“You holding up?”
“I think. Maybe.” He glanced at the ceiling. “Not really in the headspace to be able to think straight.”
“I get you.” She paused for a moment, long enough to glance back at the others before she continued. “We can’t stay here much longer. Be safer if we move deeper into the caverns. Seal everything up behind us. Make it harder for them to find us.” Salla followed his gaze. “They will be coming for us, sooner or later.”
“Why?” What was she getting at?
“I don’t know why they hit the colony, but they were grabbing people. Not outright killing them. We can’t sit back and fool ourselves into believing we’re safe when we know we’re not.” She scrubbed a hand over her face. “They aren’t going to give up at the first roadblock. Shit, they cracked the dome. Blasted the military base. Destroyed the navy presence and--”
“Wait, what? How do you know they destroyed the base and the navy?”
“Because they didn’t meet any resistance. Must have blown them out of existence. Either that or the navy saw what was coming our way and got out fast. But I don’t think they pulled a coward’s retreat. Not without sending word to the colony.” Her eyes half closed. “No, they hit hard, fast, took out the most dangerous targets first. Like the Navy ships. Only then did they attack the dome. It’s how Dad would have handled it if he’d been in charge of an attack.”
Jakob should have been afraid, but there was a tone about the way Salla explained things. She didn’t panic. Her voice calm as she continued to watch him. He smiled, then wrapped his arms about his body and shivered. “Alright, how do we get this lot moving? Not like they’re going to listen to us.”
“Yes, they will. Someone has to take charge, might as well be those who’ve thought things through.” She pushed away from the wall and marched to the largest group.
His gaze narrowed. Where were the adults? He could see three of four, but the rest of them were teenagers, with a few younger kids in the mix.
“We need to keep moving. They’ll search for survivors, and we don’t want to make it easy for them.” Salla announced, her voice carrying clearly through the chamber.
She had the right idea, but would the others agree? He hurried, joining the group. “Who’s in charge now?”
Salla rolled her eyes. “No one, that’s the problem. It’s why we’re all standing around waiting for one person to step up and tell us what to do. We can’t take the risk. Not with our lives at stake.”
“The military will be here soon. Then we’ll be safe. They’ll get us out of here, and more will be on the way to deal with those things.”
“If you mean the small group heading out way, it won’t be fast. They’re stocking up, and we don’t know how far away they are.” Salla gestured to the rest of the teens. “We have to step up. Make decisions. I suggest we head deeper into the system, down to the supply rooms, where we have a chance of hiding or scattering through the tunnels if they break through.”
“Supplies might have weapons if we have to make a stand to let the younger kids escape,” Jakob added.
“Make a stand? We’re not military.” A pre-teen complained. “You can’t be serious about this.”
“Never said you were, but we all know how to point and pull.” He mimed holding a sidearm and pulling the trigger. “Don’t have to kill them, fire enough their way and it’s bound to do damage. If we can buy enough time for the little ones to get clear, it’s all that matters.” Had those words come out of his mouth? He straightened, pushing his shoulders back. He wasn’t a kid. So what if he was a teenager, he was seventeen, old enough to make a few decisions himself, and he’d been on Pluto for ten years. “Come on, people, what choice do we have?”
“We could, you know, surrender?” Freckle-faced with a mess of red-blond hair, the girl rested one hand on her hip as she glared at Jakob.
“Sure, go ahead. You give up. Let me know what it’s like being turned into food.” Black haired with an upturned nose, the older girl smirked.
“Helena, you don’t know they’re going to eat us.”
“You don’t know they won’t either, Felicia.”
“It’s Fee, you know I hate Felicia.”
“What you going to do about it?” Helena took a step toward the redhead.
“Enough. If you want to fight, save it for the aliens.” Salla moved in between the two girls. “This isn’t school. You can flex your social muscles when things return to normal.”
If they ever did.
Stone didn’t turn away from the woman, one he now counted as far more dangerous than he had moments ago. The way she’d gone for his neck, with a grip strong enough to put pressure on his ability to breathe? Impressive. Not an action he’d have believed she’d take. Now he knew better.
“A talk? Only thing you’ll be doing is following orders until we’re safe, then we’ll part ways.” Her voice remained calm.
“Is that right?” His hands itched to do someth
ing, anything to be rid of the tension. His temper bubbled, and he took a step away from the racks. “You won’t always be in charge. Flex your temporary muscles all you want, we both know it won’t do any good. Sooner or later we’ll find a Marine of higher rank, and you’ll have to answer for your actions.” The same ones he would have taken had the roles been reversed. Not information he’d share with Lawbook anytime soon.
“I don’t doubt my command is short term. When the Gunny is back to full strength, he’ll be in charge unless we run into an officer.” Her voice cold.
Gunny.
The older man had a core of steel, but he was no fool. He’d seen the way the man lost his color, the blood at his lips and nose. If he made it another hour, Stone would be surprised. “I’m human, remember? Means I have rights. Ones you can’t strip from me.”
“I’m aware.” The two words bland, emotionless. She knew. The way she spoke, the lack of emotion, oh, she was aware Gunny was dying.
“I haven’t signed with the military.” He watched her, searching for a sign of what was going on behind her eyes. “And I don’t have any plans to change. Happy enough with my life, or was until these visitors arrived.”
“I know.”
“Which means you don’t have the right to tell me what to do.”
“Right now I do, you gave me the right by agreeing to follow orders.” Her lips twitched into a smile which vanished a moment later. “Or are you saying you lied? Never intended to keep your word?”
He growled. If there was one thing he held to, it was his oath. A merc who couldn’t be trusted to finish the assignment or a trader who didn’t follow through with their load, couldn’t be trusted. If people believed you’d take their money and run, you didn’t get the chance at the bigger packages or working for the man with the deepest pockets. His word was all he had. “No, I didn’t lie. Not something I’m in the habit of doing.”