“Come in,” he called, putting on his best commander impression.
Clarke’s head pushed through the tent flaps and he stopped long enough to let his eyes adjust to the relative darkness. Life with two suns could do a number on the Helechi eye. Once he oriented himself, he pushed the rest of the way into the tight space and waited for Elida to address him again.
“Zeke said you needed me, sir?”
“Yes, I need you. Sit down.”
Clarke looked around doubtfully before sitting down on the stack of crates. His body was stiff, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in a while. It had been a confusing few days for the man. But now, Elida needed him to make his plan work.
“Well, obviously you know that we have traitors among us. People who wish for us to fail. The problem is, we don’t know how many or who they are, or even who they are working for. But the one thing I do believe is that you’re not one of them. The thing is, if we’re going to save this colony, we’re going to have to leave here. Immediately.”
“But we just got our tents fixed!”
“Listen to me, Clarke. I’m not worried about tents. There are other inhabitants on this planet. I know there are. Or at least there were, at one point. Anyway, they built things. Mines, houses, tunnels. I don’t know where or when, but I plan on finding them. I can’t go alone, but I also can’t take a roving band of traitors with me either. So we will conduct a secret mission. There’ll just be a few of us, and I need you by my side. You can keep an eye out, provide us with some muscle, and whatever other knowledge you have stored in there. We are leaving tomorrow night. I need you to be ready. I will have supplies for the trip, so you don’t have to pack anything. Just bring yourself, your weapon, and your loyalty. Got it?”
Clarke stared at the floor between his feet, stunned into silence by his leader’s words. He had come on this mission because he wanted to explore a new planet and be a part of the legacy of whatever colony they built, but things had taken a dangerous turn of late, and it was more than he had bargained for. He had known he would be faced with a slew of potentially deadly animals, plants and landscapes on this planet, but he had not realized that his own people might truly be the ones he needed to fear.
“Clarke? Did you hear me?” Elida chided, impatient.
“Yes, sir. I’m in, sir. Anything you say. I’m here for the whole ride.”
“Good, now get back out there and make yourself look busy with camp work so nobody gets suspicious. We need another able-bodied man to join us before we go. Find someone you think you can trust and let me know before tomorrow morning. I haven’t been out there to observe the crew in days, so you will have to be my eyes on this one. I’ll have Zeke verify whoever you recommend.”
“Will do.”
Elida paced back and forth in the tent, uneasy and impatient. He had to trust in his companions to do their part, and there was no way he could go walking around the camp to check on them. He had to stay put and wait for his medical team to come in for another round of checkups so he could recruit one more person. Then he would rest and prepare for the next part of their venture.
“Sir?” Clarke stopped at the tent door.
“What?”
“What about the others? Are we just going to leave them with these murderous traitors while we run off?” Clarke’s voice cracked, and the man’s sincere emotions touched Elida, but he shook the feeling off.
“We’ll come back for them as soon as we find what we’re looking for. I just can’t risk bringing the wrong person along when one wrong move could get us all killed.”
Clarke nodded but didn’t seem convinced by Elida’s words.
12
IN THE SOFT light of the second sun, the five men moved away from their respective tents. Elida had ordered them to stagger their departures so they wouldn’t look suspicious. They drifted toward the fence line, a few minutes apart, and searched for the area between two trees where Zeke had already loosened some ropes that held the fence upright. Two guards marched along the perimeter lazily, strangely comfortable in the environment. In fact, Elida thought they were overconfident, and that had to mean they were playing for the other team.
Elida had instructed Zeke and his medical officer, Wynn LaFaye, to get their supplies on the other side of the fence. Fortunately, nobody thought it was odd to see one of the medical team carrying large containers of what could be waste outside of the perimeter. They had packed their supplies accordingly, and LaFaye had smuggled them out, hiding them under a large tree whose roots had pulled up just enough to create a small cavity.
As the team gathered around the appointed meeting place, LaFaye handed bags and pouches out for them to carry. Zeke was holding the maps under one arm, ready to pull them out for reference, and Clarke had his weapon drawn. He had also managed to steal an extra weapon from his tent mate before leaving camp. He wasn’t the only one who had nabbed some extras either. They had all gone by the food tent early in the day and stocked up on whatever would keep for the next few days. Their pockets bulged oddly with all the bundles of provisions.
“Okay, let’s head toward the crash site, but we’re not going to aim exactly for it. We already know Sinnett has been making some extra trips out there, and we don’t know who else might be there. We’ll stay in the forest, just out of sight, and we’ll pass by there, continuing parallel to the path they were flying. I think that’s our best bet for finding whatever lies out there.”
They nodded, looking nervously over their shoulders at the sound of every rustle and crack. Elida took the lead, pushing through the trees as best he could without making a ton of noise. Still, his boots crunched, and branches broke, and strange and wondrous animals took flight.
Everyone followed him closely, mindful of their packs and any orange flowers poised to strike. As they got closer to the crash site, Elida slowed down once more. He peered through the foliage carefully, and everyone else was on high alert. Sounds up ahead confirmed their fears. Somebody was in the wreckage, and it probably wasn’t someone friendly.
Clarke drew his weapon and aimed at the downed plane over a fallen branch. He held steady, waiting to see what would emerge from the vehicle, and Elida raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes to do the same. They all held their breath, listening to the distant murmur of the voices, but unable to distinguish anything recognizable. Finally, two heads emerged, bobbing out from between the torn edges of the sheet metal. Elida sucked in his breath as he recognized the two men. Ferik and Cort, the two men who had chosen their campsite on the first night. Elida wondered if they had known about the clearing in advance, or if they had stumbled upon it and understood its significance.
Once the two men were out of the opening, somebody began handing them packages from inside the ship. These were not the packages that Elida and his team had seen on their initial reconnaissance trip. In fact, these packages looked almost new. Elida cocked his head to one side as he tried to puzzle out how they had gotten there. Either they had been concealed by the rotting mess that he had found, or someone had placed them there in the last few days, which meant that there were outside forces still at work here.
“What is it?” Clarke whispered anxiously as he saw Elida’s expression change from one of determination to confusion to anger.
“Change of plans. We need to stop these three before they get back to camp and kill somebody else. They don’t know we’re gone yet, and they’re preparing for something big. We need some way to detonate those explosives without them seeing us.”
The men looked from one to the other, searching for confidence among their companions. Finally, Clarke stepped forward.
“I have an idea, but I’m gonna need Zeke’s help. I read about how to do this once, so no promises, but it might be our only shot. Did we bring extra batteries?”
“I don’t have any spares. Too heavy. Besides, I thought the idea was to go dark. Didn’t think we’d need them,” Zeke offered, suddenly distraught at his own oversight.
/> “Fine, then give me your watch.”
“My watch? This is the only thing I brought with me from home. It was my great-grandfather’s. What are you going to do with it?”
“Smash it and take the battery out,” Clarke stated coldly.
“But-”
“But nothing, Zeke. If we want to make it out of this alive, we need to stop those three from whatever they’re planning and we need to create a diversion so we can get farther away from camp. I need a battery. On the plus side, if it’s the story behind this watch you’re worried about, just think how much better it’ll be to show your grandkids the busted watch someday and tell them how you blew something up with it!”
Clarke’s chipper attitude didn’t make Zeke feel any better, but he reluctantly loosened the watch band on his wrist.
“While I’m getting this battery out, I need you to get the rest ready. LaFaye, did you bring medical gloves? Empty one of those canteens out into a glove and tie it closed. Then, add whatever chemicals we have on hand to the bottom of the canteen. Deodorant, bug spray, whatever you’ve got. Make sure there’s plenty in the bottom and seal it up. When we’re ready, I will drop the battery into the canteen with the chemicals and water bag. If all goes according to plan, the glove will break and release the water on impact, shorting the battery, and causing the chemicals to ignite. It’ll be a small explosion, but if we aim just right, it might work. At least, I read that it would be strong enough to knock a few people out.”
“And what if it doesn’t work?” Zeke asked.
“If it doesn’t work, we must be prepared to shoot our way out of this,” Elida cut in.
Everyone looked to Elida for guidance. This seemed like a long shot and a potentially dangerous waste of their limited resources. Elida mulled the plan over and checked his binoculars once more. The three men were still unloading boxes slowly from the wreckage, joking with one another and laughing openly as they worked. He received another shock when he realized that the third man was part of his second shift security detail. No wonder Sinnett got past him so easily.
“They’re still working, but I don’t think we have much time. They have a ton of boxes out there now. Somebody had to bring those in for them. No way we missed that during our first inspection.” Elida mumbled to his team. “Get to work. We only have one shot at this.”
Zeke hung his head in defeat. He paused for a moment to examine the watch’s face one last time, and kissed it lightly, begging forgiveness from his ancestors before handing it over. Clarke set the watch down on a stone and then placed his foot down on it until he heard a grinding crunch. When he moved his foot again, the crystal face had shattered into tiny slivers and the hands were hanging pathetically from the center stalk.
Zeke dropped his pack to the ground and pulled out a small canteen. Between him and the LaFaye, they had enough random chemicals to mix into their makeshift bomb. They worked in silence, although the traitors seemed too preoccupied to take notice of any noise beyond their clearing.
“Yes!” Clarke exclaimed in a whisper, breaking their focus. He held the watch battery up in his hand and examined it closely. It was smaller than he had anticipated.
“You sure that’ll work?” Elida asked doubtfully.
“Not at all, but we don’t have much to work with. A battery’s a battery, right? How’s the canteen coming along?” he asked.
“Almost done here. But no, a battery is not just a battery,” Zeke corrected in exasperation, but Elida gave him a look and he stopped short of launching into an explanation.
LaFaye held up the canteen triumphantly. Carefully, she pressed the pouch into the mouth of the canteen, until it sat in the bottom with all the chemicals. Clarke dropped the battery inside and then added one more shot of chemicals on top of the mix before sealing the whole thing tightly.
“Who here can throw this into the middle of all those boxes?”
“I’ll do it.” Elida took the canteen gingerly and weighed it in the palm of his hand. This was the moment his men needed him most, and if he missed, it would be his own fault. “Three, two, one…”
The canteen hurtled through the air, barely missing branches as it sailed into the clearing. It didn’t exactly fly straight and true, the water sloshing back and forth to throw it off balance, but it landed with a dull thud in the loamy soil among the boxes. The three men in the clearing looked at it curiously as it bounced once and then again. There was a pregnant silence as they waited for an explosion that never came.
“Shit,” Elida and Clarke said together.
Cort stepped forward and toed the canteen, rolling it from side to side with his foot. Then he raised his eyes to the forest and scanned for the source of the strange delivery.
“Who’s there?” he called, drawing his weapon.
Moments later, Clarke’s weapon discharged, striking the canteen and causing it to explode in a flash. The man screamed, but the report of several other explosions interrupted him before he could call for help. It hadn’t been a flawless execution, but now that a few of the boxes had gone off, it had created a chain reaction, and one after another the explosions rocked the ground and sent bits of dirt and tree bark skyward. There was so much debris in the air, nobody could see what became of the men who had been in the clearing only a few moments before.
“Run!” Elida called to his team, grabbing at their clothes and turning them away from the spectacle.
Zeke scooped his pack up off the ground and looked wildly around for the remains of the watch. Clarke and the others were already darting through the trees ahead of him. With relief, he found the watchband laying on the ground and stuffed it into his pocket hurriedly before following suit. At least he had that much to hang onto.
As the sound of explosions died out behind them, a new sound filled the air. There was yelling carried through the air over the crashing sounds of branches breaking and feet stomping as they ran for their lives into the wilderness, dodging deadly orange flowers and ducking under low hanging limbs. The further they ran from the explosions, the more the sounds of their own ragged breathing replaced the shouts.
They slowed to a walk and continued on, Elida in the lead, and Zeke bringing up the tail. The land looked different here. The trees were still large and lush, and the air still reeked of the hideous flowers, but they were on a hill and the ground was growing rockier with every step.
13
AT THE TOP of the hill, the five men stopped to eat and catch their breath. The hike had been arduous, especially after the race to get away from the explosives and the wreckage. They sat in a small clearing where the sun shone down on them from a low angle, nearly completing its own descent toward the horizon. Elida estimated that they only had one or two days left before they were in full dark unless the other sun came up before then. They had to find shelter before that happened. The wind had picked up once again when they climbed above the tree line. It was cooler up here, but still it made things difficult.
From his perch on a rocky outcropping, he looked out over the treetops beneath him. A glint of sunlight caught his eye, and he reached for his binoculars. As they came into focus, he let out a groan.
“What is it?” Clarke asked between a mouthful of dry bread.
“We’re being watched. Or we were.”
“We already knew that. Isn’t that why we staged this whole escape and blew up our own men in that clearing?”
“No, there’s more. Look.”
Clarke clambered up onto the rock beside Elida and took the binoculars for himself. Elida turned him in the right direction and waited.
“What do you see?”
“I see trees.” There was a long pause before Clarke continued. “And a radio tower, and what appears to be the men missing from camp a few days ago. And some sort of power station. What are they doing?”
“They’re reporting our movements. They must have been watching us for the last week. But who are they reporting back to?”
“Maybe that�
�s why all those recon ships keep flying past. We thought they were trying to get pictures of our camp, but maybe they were dropping supplies and gathering intel from our enemies. I still don’t understand why though.”
“Because they wanted this to look like an accidental failure. And they wanted the colony that survives to be subservient to them on Earth so they could use it for their own purposes later on. This was never about righting wrongs. This was about sacrificing the strongest of the Helechi people to take hold of a planet that they could mine for resources.”
“Slavery. They wanted to ship us to this planet and then enslave us. Where nobody could see,” Clarke whispered as the reality of the situation dawned on him.
“I’m sure they made lots of promises to these guys. Probably offered them government positions and a handsome paycheck to sell us out. You’d be amazed how easy it is to get people to turn against their own interests by making them believe they can skip ahead in life and escape the very same cruelties that they’ve endured their entire lives. I’m disappointed but I can’t say I’m surprised.”
“So what do we do about it?”
“We put an end to it. Pack up our bags, and head straight for their camp. There’s no way they could have expected that little trick we pulled earlier, so now is the best time to pay them a surprise visit. They probably think the explosions were an accident brought on by their own carelessness.”
“What will we do when we get there?”
“We’ll bring them back into the fold, that’s all. We need to remind them whose side they’re on. I’ll handle that. I need you to make sure their radios are off so they can’t send any messages for a while.”
After a bit of grumbling from the other men, they were all packed up and on the move once more, this time headed down into a valley and straight into enemy territory. Their eyes flashed with fury, and they moved with steady strides until Elida held up a hand to indicate a stopping point. They spread out among the trees, surrounding the small camp and waiting for his signal.
Atonement Page 6