Crooked Stars

by Rock Forsberg

  ‘It’s a war down there,’ Pereen said. ‘So far, it’s been invisible to most people on the higher levels, but not for long. The control over the city is divided between four groups: FIST, Kisha Clan, the Runners, and us; for anyone to expand, someone needs to give way.’

  I looked down through a tilted window in a Spit City tower. In the distance, the buildings and the air came together in the black darkness that merged with the red of Heeg. Looking at a planet fill the sky was amazing. The windows were smaller, and the room was not nearly as grand as the one in the presence room. Still, the details—the desk, the paintings, and all the surrounding stuff, like the lamps and the screens, the water and coffee dispenser, and the small chairs—made it feel warmer than the virtual one.

  ‘That’s why we’re here,’ Sander said. ‘I brought my brother and Naido, both of whom have had an excellent track record at the Karu-124 base.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Pereen said.

  He appeared older in the flesh than he had in the virtual avatar. Grey hairs streaked his hair, and an old scar ran across his face. The mechanical eye glowed fainter than it did in the virtual world.

  ‘This war is pointless,’ he said. ‘It’s hurting us all. People wish for safety and might believe FIST can make it happen. And FIST grows stronger with all the money flowing into their operation, while Kisha Clan spends resources from Kisnashe, and the Runners expand their control over businesses by threatening to blow them up unless they submit to their outrageous payment demands. I want to end this, but it seems there's no way to stop now.’

  I turned around. ‘Tell me about the Runners.’

  ‘Yes,’ Pereen said, ‘your father… the Runners work with whoever bids the highest. I doubt the hit was their own initiative; someone paid them to do their dirty work.’

  ‘So far,’ Sander said, ‘the investigations down in Runcor have provided nothing.’

  That wasn’t very helpful. I wanted to get to them. ‘Where can I sign up to kick some Runner butt?’

  Pereen chuckled. ‘Sander was right; you’re an eager one. You should learn to control your emotions. Acting in anger will only bring you down. But who am I to say?’ he said, and looked away as if thinking about something else, then turned back to us. ‘Let’s get you guys into some serious training. You’ve learnt a lot, but you know nothing about modern urban warfare. Am I right?’

  ‘I have, er…’ I stammered, and glanced at Naido. He shook his head. Even if we’d had some basic weapons training, this would’ve been something different. ‘No, you’re right.’

  The next few days, we immersed ourselves in the tactics of urban warfare, a specific kind that explicitly suited a moon such as Spit City. It wasn’t an outright war yet, but close, as skirmishes occurred daily, and it didn’t take long for us to learn which of the groups controlled which areas, and their control points and stations.

  A big confrontation was brewing at the cross-section of a contested area between Kisha Clan, the Runners, and us, the Sweeps. A wide-bottomed building with six tall towers stood within Kisha Clan’s territory, but as the building housed the most significant water supply in the zone, the Runners wanted it in their control. For the Sweeps, it was an attractive, but non-essential bit of land.

  We were on a training run beneath the tall buildings, cutting through the thick smog that filled the bottom like water filled a lake. Benner, our trainer, led the way. He was a scruffy Andron man with hard stubble and a bald head and was making us suffer through the training because, as he said, the enemy will be worse, and you must be ready for it.

  As we scouted the area, the ground trembled, and the booming sound of an explosion followed. I clutched my rifle and took a hard breath through the mask. ‘What was that?’

  ‘A bomb,’ Benner said, then gaped upwards and shouted, ‘It’s coming down!’ He showed us the direction, and Naido and I ran.

  Above us, one of the six towers, the one in the corner, was tumbling down. The sight was surreal; the sky half-filled with the black of space, and half with the curved red of Heeg, and a massive tower, bigger perhaps than any building in Luzasand, started falling as if in slow-motion.

  ‘Here,’ Benner said, and opened a doorway.

  We ducked into a small corridor as metal, glass, and all kinds of rubble came down from the sky and hit the ground outside, sending a massive cloud of dust behind us.

  The corridor had saved us. There were no lights, but with my helmet already in night mode and the dust settled, I could see the passage descending ahead of us.

  ‘Where’s this going?’

  Benner shook his head. ‘It’s a freaking Runners’ hole. Get your weapons ready.’

  I gasped. Benner had told us all about their operations. They had tunnels underneath the city, and through them they would run out, surprising the enemy. As we went down further, I wondered whether similar tunnels existed in Luzasand.

  I readied my gun and stepped carefully behind Naido and Benner. I had thought I was in training, but suddenly it had gotten real.

  Something clicked behind us. I turned around.

  A silhouette of a man appeared in the doorway.

  Without hesitation, I let my finger squeeze the trigger and a plasma bolt flew.

  I hit the man in the arm, making him drop his weapon.

  Benner jumped to my side and past me. He ran up the stairs to the man and shot him multiple times. ‘It’s an active tunnel,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

  Naido tapped me on the shoulder and winced. We knew what active tunnel meant. It meant it led to one of the Runners’ outlets, and that we had to go in. ‘Shit just got real.’

  I nodded, and we followed Benner down the steps. The corridor took a tight turn and went downward for hundreds of metres. We took measured steps, avoiding noise, as the enemy was near. It took a while before we came to the end of the tunnel.

  A simple hatch lay in front of us. We listened but heard nothing.

  ‘Let’s blow it in,’ Benner said.

  Naido pulled a small explosive device from his belt and placed it against the door. We all stepped back against the wall behind the corner, and Naido detonated the bomb.

  The hatch came unhinged, and smoke filled the tunnel. Benner threw in a grenade.

  Through the smoke, plasma bolts whistled through the air.

  ‘Take cover!’ Benner shouted.

  I was too slow. A blue bolt hit me in the shoulder, and I stumbled on the ground. My shoulder stung like it was on fire; the protective suit of armour had ripped, and the shoulder pad had broken off.

  The grenade exploded.

  Dust and smoke were everywhere. While I struggled to see anything, the adrenaline got me moving. Through the pain, I fired in the general direction of the enemy. Naido beside me, we rose and hurried towards the door.

  As the smoke cleared, a dozen dead people, mostly Andron, some human, lay scattered on the floors and up against the walls, ripped by the grenade’s scatter blast. The room itself was full of screens and machinery, now blasted and broken.

  ‘Wait,’ Naido said, and turned back. ‘Where’s Benner?’

  A crack sounded from a corner. A Runner with a bleeding forehead eyeballed us above his gun, and shouted, ‘Eat this!’

  Just as he pulled the trigger, I pulled my trigger, too.

  Naido fell backwards, dropped his weapon, and screamed in pain. The Runner had shot him in the thigh.

  The Runner wasn’t so lucky; my shot hit his open face.

  I knelt beside Naido, who lay on the floor, grimacing. I glanced up and thought I saw the Runner’s body move. I shot my pistol three times at him and let go. The room was silent.

  ‘My leg hurts like hell,’ Naido uttered.

  The plasma bolt had left his leg a bleeding mess, the Kevlar padding of the trouser gone along with a chunk of muscle from his thigh. The bone was intact, but with the amount of muscle tissue ripped apart, I had to give credit to Naido for not crying out. My wound was a scratch compared to his, but h
e would live—we just had to get him out.

  ‘Benner?’

  Damn! He had been hit, too. I scrambled back through the unlit corridor to find him. ‘Benner, you all right, man?’

  There was a reason he was silent: his faceplate shattered, they had blasted his face off. He was dead, and there was nothing I could have done.

  Cursing, I scrambled back to Naido. ‘Benner’s dead!’

  He grimaced in pain. I had to do something to his leg. My belt had a Painkiller, a small pen, and I used it to zap his thigh. He let out a relieved breath, but the wound was still spilling blood.

  I sprang up, looking for anything with which I could tie it. My eyes fixed on a dead Runner before us. I pulled off his shoes and trousers and, unable to rip them apart, used them as-is to tie his bleeding leg.

  In retrospect, I’m not sure how I managed. Even though I wasn’t seriously injured, I was perhaps in shock from the pain and the whole situation, and remembered very little after the fact. It was all a blur to me.

  ‘Can you stand up?’ I said.

  He nodded, and with my help, clambered up. Even with the Painkiller, he could not put any weight on the leg.

  ‘We need to run before they come,’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘Can’t run far, mate.’

  I left Naido and went back inside the room. Random computer hardware and screens lay around. Most were just dummy network terminals, but there were storage devices too, and I grabbed as many of them as I could. I dropped my backpack, expanded it, and stuffed in all the hardware I could fit.

  I leaned against a trolley for support and stumbled as it rolled away from under me. That gave me an idea. The wheeled cart seemed sturdy enough. I pushed aside the hardware, letting it fall and crack on the floor, and pulled the trolley out of the room and into the corridor.

  ‘Let’s get you on this,’ I said, and helped Naido stand up on one leg and sit on the trolley.

  As he positioned himself, I took one last look into the room. A dozen dead men—no, one of them was a woman—lay in awkward positions in a bloody mess amongst a heap of broken tech, a gruesome sight. Instead of living the dream, I was in hell, but convinced myself it was only temporary, a way to something else.

  I turned around and started pushing Naido back up the tunnel. Sweat broke on my back, and the pain throbbed in my shoulder, as I took to running as fast as I could.

  As we got to the corridor, I slowed down to catch my breath and heard noises from behind.

  Whatever it was, I never looked back. I just pushed my tired body to run faster, faster, and faster up the sloping tunnel. While I ran, Naido readied his rifle.

  I could already see the corridor, when someone shouted, ‘Stop!’ from behind us.

  Naido set his plasma rifle on my shoulder and fired a few shots.

  Someone screamed, and Naido grinned.

  ‘Well done, mate,’ I said. ‘We’re almost there.’

  We emerged from the tunnel to the surface of Spit City, where the fallen debris from above covered the ground. The chasm between the buildings was quiet but for the hum of flying shuttles, flickering somewhere far above us.

  I closed the hatch and said, ‘We need to get back to the Sweeps’ perimeter. How are you holding up, pal?’

  He grimaced. ‘Not dying, but not running, either.’

  Usually, the moon’s surface, even with all the layers from thousands of years of dirt, was hard and smooth. Now, with all the fallen rubble, there was no way to push the trolley.

  ‘Let’s walk. I will support you.’ I stood close to him and extended my arm, and he got up on his good leg, and we started dragging ourselves back towards the Sweeps’ headquarters.

  With our black outfits, we disappeared into the night. I hoped the Runners were too slow to recognise what had happened, but doubted my hopes would deliver. The lab was connected; they would know.

  A black craft with red lights and a gleaming surface flew downwards through the mist from high above, looking like it was coming at us.

  I pulled Naido and myself quickly to a small opening in the wall, between two wedges. ‘Stay quiet.’

  We leaned soundlessly against the wall. Naido tried to control his breathing, but I heard the pain in his every gasp.

  The craft landed close by on the street. Damn, I thought, they found us. The only thing I understood was that it was small, capable of carrying less than ten people.

  ‘You got charge in that?’ Naido said.

  I checked my gun. ‘Plenty. Yours?’

  ‘Not too much, but enough for these guys.’ He crouched down on the ground with a grunt and aimed in the general direction of the craft.

  I leaned against the wedge and spied the enemy, zooming in with my HUD. The ship settled down, and for a moment, nothing happened.

  Then the ship’s door opened.

  I readied my gun.

  Just when I was about to shoot, the suit identified them as Sweeps. They were scanning the surroundings. I let them see my suit and connected with theirs.

  ‘Come on, boys, we’re taking you out,’ a voice inside my helmet said.

  The HUD identified the speaker as Jacobs, accompanied by Hector and Louresse. They were members of the Sweeps, and they were our ride home.

  I waved at them, and as they ran up to us, I helped Naido up. Seeing Naido’s condition, Hector and Louresse reached out to carry him. Jacobs led us back into their craft.

  The interior was sparse and utilitarian. We got seated behind the pilot and fastened tight into the crash seats, which in the absence of inertial dampeners would keep us still during the fast manoeuvres the ship could do.

  ‘We found an unmarked Runners operation base,’ Naido said.

  ‘It’s great, but things have happened,’ Jacobs said. ‘While you’ve been fighting the Runners, FIST struck a deal with the Dawn Alliance, and are bringing in a tough law to abolish our territories. They vow to unite Spit City, and make it safe.’

  ‘What does it mean?’ I asked.

  ‘FIST won the city. It’s the end of the Sweeps in this place.’

  With everyone seated, and the door closed, he engaged the engines to lift off. I sat in silence, thinking about the future.

  Chapter Twelve

  Naido and I spent the next few days in a doctor’s clinic being stitched up. A young doctor, Rene Goodman, who enjoyed an excellent reputation with the Sweeps, had set up a shady practice outside the establishment. The Sweeps contracted with many such Ghostnet-rated entrepreneurs and had a number of inside men to make sure there were no questions about our state or what had happened.

  Jacobs had been right. FIST had used their political clout with the Dawn Alliance Navy, and their pure power to negotiate a peace between the warring factions. The factions could remain in the city, but FIST’s law enforcement would extend across the moon. The Dawn Alliance Navy brought heavy troops to support FIST in transition. It had brought peace, which was good, but many were left disgruntled, and nobody expected it to last. It would only be a matter of time until someone struck back.

  We also expected the Runners to strike back at us.

  Nobody harassed us in the clinic, though. It was because of the Sweeps’ inside men, or the recent peace under FIST. In either case, I was glad.

  I hadn’t come to Spit City to fight, I just wanted to find my father’s killers. Fighting for power on a grimy lunar city had so far done little to help me find the murderers. I remembered the innocent days back in Runcor. The summer days under gleaming Reuna, the warmth and the light—the pure light of a perfect star. Only now did I realise how good I’d had it growing up. In this world, no such light existed. Here, everything was dark, cold, and grimy. My mood was the same. After two hundred days of leaving Runcor, I still had only a vague lead about a group of hitmen. I longed for home, but I couldn’t leave, not before I got what I wanted.

  I set the wall screen to show a blue sky, brown sand, and a calm ocean, and it made me long for Tiana. I remembered the days in th
e sun, lounging by the pool, as droplets of water glistened on her mocha-coloured skin. I had left her in Luzasand—she must have hated me for that—and wished I could change things and make her love me again. But I never even applied to the Academy of Virtuous Knowledge. Sometimes I wondered if she got in. If she did, she’d be immersed in her studies now. But what if she didn’t? Leaving her had hurt me, but it was my only option. Now, looking back at it, I doubted the choice I had made. Instead of staying home with my loved ones, my hubris and my thirst for revenge had driven me from the perfect home and family to fight someone else’s battles.

  But I couldn’t give up.

  They say you have to be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it. This time Sander brought me the news.

  ‘How are you, bro?’

  ‘Reminiscing about home,’ I said truthfully. ‘Missing the light of Reuna.’

  He laughed. ‘You’re always like that. I’m done with the sand. But hey, you can go now.’

  He was right; I could go whenever I wanted. I only had to organise transport and fly away.

  I sighed. ‘I’m still clueless about who organised the bombing.’

  ‘For now…’ he said with a grin and pushed his hair back. ‘I’ve got news for you, but first tell me: wanna hear the good or the bad first?’

  ‘The good, please.’ I was brimming with bad news and yearning for something better.

  ‘Brilliant choice, because there is more good news than bad. First, you can do pretty much whatever you want—because you got promoted. Also, Mr Pereen is rewarding you with cash and vested equity.’

  The news stumped me like a caved-in mining bot. ‘But what does it mean?’

  ‘Sounds like he’s offering you an impressive deal.’ He walked up to the screen with my view of blue sky, brown sand and gentle waves.

  Talk about bad timing. Just as I was thinking about bailing out, the big man reaches out to me. What did I do to deserve it? Why me? Still, a part of me was trembling with excitement. This was something I had wanted. The organisation that had lifted my brother was planning to raise me, too. But taking it up, I would have to say goodbye to Runcor, to mother, to Usher, to Runore, and of course, to my love, Tiana.