by Jake Elwood
Alice shrugged. The war in the coreward systems didn't interest her. She'd always considered it an irrelevant distraction from the cause of freeing the Green Zone from United Worlds oppression. In fact, she would have guessed the Sarens were part of the Coalition. “It can be done, then.”
Ham nodded. “Absolutely.”
“It takes good intel, though,” Bridger said. “You can only send in a small force, or you'll be spotted. So you have to know what you're up against. Otherwise it's suicide.”
Alice nodded, swirling the water that remained in the bottom of her glass. Her earlier sense of frustrated helplessness was gone. She almost missed it, because if she couldn't do anything, she couldn't get herself killed.
“I know that look,” Bridger said mournfully. “You're going to get us into trouble again, aren't you?”
She looked up. “You don't have to-” The indignant look on his face stopped her, and she smiled. “Yes,” she said instead.
“Great.” Ham rubbed his palms together. “I was getting bored.” It was false bravado. She could see a shadow behind his eyes. He'd been tortured by the Dawn Alliance, and however brave he acted, he couldn't quite hide his fear.
However, he'd be coming with her. That went without saying.
“We'll take the Evening Breeze. It's small and quick. We'll pop into the Gamor system and take a little look around.” She looked from Ham to Bridger and back again. “We'll get some scanner footage. If we don't see too many warships we'll sneak in close to the planet. Get a scan of the prison camp. Maybe even get a rough count of the prisoners. Then we'll hightail it back here and deliver everything to the Navy while it's still fresh.” She grimaced. “With any luck we'll get here when Johnstone's got a day off. Maybe we'll get to talk to someone who'll actually listen.”
Ham made a face. “They should be doing this themselves. We shouldn't even have to do anything.”
Alice thought of Johnstone, the skeptical, amused look on his face. “They think we're lying,” she said. “So we'll give them something they can't just dismiss.”
Of course, scanner records could be faked. The Navy might still ignore them. But maybe, just maybe, it would be enough.
At any rate, she was going to find out.
Ham said, “So when do we leave?”
Alice rubbed her eyes. It felt like someone had packed the lids full of sand. She desperately needed a shower and a good night's sleep.
Well, the ship had bunks and a tiny shower. She stood. “Right now,” she said. “Let's go.”
Chapter 16
For once the prisoners got the VIP treatment.
Tom sat on one of the bench seats that lined both sides of a cargo flitter, the wind whipping at his hair. The flitter, essentially a rectangular steel box with a repulsor at each end, had open sides. It wasn't moving all that fast, but wind blew freely through the interior, exhilarating him.
Twelve prisoners rode with him, along with a Dawn Alliance engineer and four guards. He couldn't see the men on the far side; the middle of the box was filled from floor to ceiling with machinery. Tom had no idea what any of it was for. He was apparently going to help install it at a remote location, though.
The sky was clear for a change. When Tom turned his head he couldn't see the ground at all, just a distant blue ocean and the blue-black sky above. He was hungry, of course, but aside from that he thoroughly enjoyed the flight.
As the flitter descended he peered around, trying to get a sense of how far they had come. The jungle-covered hills all looked pretty much the same, though. He saw a mesa jutting up above the trees. It looked different from the mesa near Camp One, but it could be the same mesa from another angle.
Ultimately, he knew, it didn't matter. He would do whatever work they made him do, and at the end, if he was still alive, they would fly him back to the camp.
That discouraging thought dampened his mood, and he was feeling sour and petulant by the time the flitter touched down in a broad clearing. A loud metallic clank rang out, and the two end sections of the flitter rose into the air. They hovered briefly, twin pods linked by a fragile steel framework, then raced off to the north, leaving behind a steel box full of machinery and men.
To Tom's disgust, the first task the prisoners faced was construction of a compound to contain them. The thought of working hard to build his own prison irritated him, the more so when he recognized the stack of fence posts among the equipment. He'd supervised the cutting of those poles from a stand of young trees the week before, not knowing what they'd be used for.
They dug the post holes by hand, naturally. The stockade wouldn't amount to much by the time they were finished, just a rectangle maybe thirty paces on a side. Tom watched the men dig, wondering sourly how long this pen would be their home.
Half the holes were dug and teams of grunting men were lugging the posts into place when Tom became aware he had a slacker. He had two of them, actually, but one he already knew about. O'Reilly was back on duty, but he didn't have much in the way of stamina yet. He sat on a plastic crate, sorting the metal staples they'd use to tack the wire to the posts.
Another man, Jamie Barnard, sat with O'Reilly. Sorting staples was make-work, a way to make O'Reilly look busy to the guards. It was barely a one-person job. It certainly wasn't a two-person job.
Tom walked over, and Barnard looked up, then shifted furtively, setting something on the ground beside his foot. Tom sighed, glanced around to check there were no guards in earshot, and said, “Just tell me what you're up to, Barnard.”
The man stared up at him for a moment, then sighed and lifted a small box of staples. He murmured, “I'm cutting the staples short, Sir. See?” He held up a staple. Instead of its usual three-centimeter length, the staple was barely a centimeter long. The tines were crudely cut off. Tom leaned over and saw a heavy-duty pair of pliers on the ground by Barnard's foot.
A kick, even a good hard tug, might be enough to pop a short staple loose.
It was pointless mischief. Even if they could get through the fence, what would be the point? It was boosting Barnard's morale, though, and Tom was in favor of any kind of sabotage that didn't get them caught.
“Make damn sure you get rid of the staple ends,” he said. “Try to get them into the bottom of a post hole.”
Barnard nodded.
“And when you use them, try to put them close together.” Tom thought of the night he'd wriggled under the fence. “Adjacent posts, so the wire has some play. Close to the bottom is probably best.”
“Right, Sir,” Barnard said, and smiled.
“Oh, and Barnard?”
“Yes, Sir?”
“For the love of God don't get caught.”
Once the fence was done the prisoners assembled a couple of prefabricated buildings, one inside the fence and one just outside. They approached the construction of the inside building with more enthusiasm than they usually showed. It was going to be their shelter for the rest of their time here. They built a single hut, less than half the size of the huts back at Camp One, with thirteen bunks inside. There would be no more separate accommodations for officers. Tom would sleep with the men.
The new building was better than the huts at Camp One. The roof was a sheet of flexible polymer that they unrolled, glued down along the edges of the walls, and sprayed to make it harden. It didn't look as if it would last very long, but in the meantime it was perfectly waterproof, which was a vast improvement. It even let in a bit of light.
The second building, intended for four guards and an engineer, was every bit as large as the prisoners' hut. It included internal dividers, too. The guards didn't just get space, they’d have some privacy.
The men put real effort and ingenuity into making this building as uncomfortable as possible. The Dawn Alliance engineer supervised them closely while they dug trenches, put in forms, and poured a couple of long strips of concrete that would serve as a foundation. The foundation was perfectly level. The engineer checked it a half dozen
times.
When the time came to lay down the three long polymer sheets that would form the floor, though, the men got creative. They slipped rocks and narrow scraps of wood under the sheets as they laid them across the foundation. Then, showing an unprecedented level of initiative, they grabbed fusing tools and stuck the floor down before the engineer could check their work.
One man even managed to fit a pebble between the edges of two sheets, leaving a thin but unmistakable gap in the floor. The engineer was beet-faced with rage when he found out.
The outside walls went up crooked, the engineer running from one corner to another as the prisoners, expressions of earnest goodwill pasted on their faces, did their best to fuse the ends of the walls together before he could spot their mistakes. When the time came to hang the door, the men looked so cheerful the engineer chased them away and did it himself, an annoyed guard helping him.
“I'm afraid the roof is going to leak,” O'Reilly confided to Tom as the polymer sheet was hardening. “You wouldn't believe how many pinholes are in it.” O'Reilly grinned, his expression filled with something Tom hadn't seen in a long time.
The satisfaction of a job well done.
Their first night in the new camp was downright cheerful. It was impossible not to feel good about sleeping inside a building you’d helped build with your own two hands, even if you'd done it under duress. Whatever labor the coming days held, at least they were away from the dreary tedium of Camp One. Tom went to bed that night with a light heart, certain he'd be able to handle whatever tomorrow held in store.
In the morning they dug a hole.
It was a massive hole, and they dug it by hand. One crew softened the dirt with pickaxes. The next crew followed with spades, shoveling dirt into wheelbarrows. The third crew wheeled the dirt away, making a massive heap that was only going to get bigger.
By the look of the equipment still in the box, the end result would be a tower with a parabolic dish at the top. Perhaps it would allow for better scanning of the system, making rescue more difficult. That was an ugly thought, more pressing than the usual abstract knowledge that they were aiding the enemy's war efforts. Tom kept the men working, allowed as much slacking as he thought they could get away with, and dreamed of sabotage.
Even if they couldn't achieve anything meaningful – and he was pretty sure they couldn't – he yearned to do something to undermine the project. Prisoner morale demanded it. His own morale demanded it. The idea that they were helping their captors to keep them contained ate away at him. He became grouchy and irritable, because it was the only way to keep from sinking into despair.
With straightforward labor to do, the guards weren't going to tolerate any more staple sorting. Tom gave O'Reilly the one machete among their tools and put him to work clearing brush. The excavation was close to the compound, part of the same wide meadow with the edge of the jungle half a kilometer or so in every direction. Tom didn't know why no trees grew in the meadow. As he watched the men set to work with picks and shovels he could only hope it wasn't because the ground was too stony.
Lush grass filled much of the meadow. It wasn't a hindrance to the work; the men simply trampled it flat in passing. The shrubs were another matter. Thin, twisted, and covered in wicked thorns, the shrubs varied in size from waist-high nuisances to monstrosities taller than a man. Tom had O'Reilly tackle the job of clearing it all away.
O'Reilly set to work and Tom turned back, watching as the pit took shape. The men, frustrated by the thick grass, abandoned the picks. Instead, a line of men with spades cut out chunks of turf. They'd cut all around with the blades of the spades, then squat, pulling up on a fistful of grass with one hand and prying with the spade with the other hand until a chunk of turf came free, trailing a tangle of dirty roots.
It was brutally hard work, the tall grass dragging at the wheelbarrows, the roots impeding the spades. It looked as if the job might get easier, though. The grass would soon be trampled flat, and once the top level of turf was gone, there would be nothing to remove but soil.
Wood crackled behind Tom, and a voice cried out in pain. He whirled, and saw a man drop the handles of a wheelbarrow and run toward a towering shrub. Tom hurried over, his stomach twisting.
O'Reilly lay on his back beside the shrub, the machete on the ground beside him. His right forearm was covered in blood. At first Tom thought he'd cut himself with the machete. It crossed his mind that it might even be a suicide attempt. O'Reilly was right-handed, though, and the damage was to the back of his right arm.
A chunk of branch lay beside him, blood glistening on some of the thorns, and Tom realized what had happened. O'Reilly had slashed at a branch above his head, and the branch had come loose, hitting his forearm on the way down. It was a solid branch, propelled by Gamor's high gravity, and several thorns had torn into O'Reilly's flesh.
It would have been a trivial injury under most circumstances. Gamor's lush jungle seemed to marinate in bacteria, though, and O'Reilly wasn't going to get much in the way of medical treatment.
Tom tugged at the jagged edges of the torn sleeve, ripping the fabric until he could peel the sleeve back above O'Reilly's elbow. Then he said, “Move your hand.”
O'Reilly reluctantly complied.
He had three long gashes between his wrist and elbow. One was quite deep, with something sticking out that Tom for a horrified moment thought was bone or ligament. He finally realized it was a thorn and plucked it out.
“Damn it!” O'Reilly hissed. “I mean, thank you, Sir.”
“Get some water,” Tom said to Cooper, the man who'd dropped the wheelbarrow. He looked around, thinking he'd better tell the rest of the men to get back to work, but the guards beat him to it, shouting at the prisoners who reluctantly resumed their labor.
Tom bathed the arm as best he could, relieved to see the bleeding was already mostly stopped. Cooper stayed beside him for a minute, until a guard chivvied him away. Tom looked up at the young soldier. “I need a first-aid kit.”
“Back to work,” said the guard.
“This man has an open wound in his arm.”
“Back to work. Now.”
For a moment an old familiar rage rose within Tom, putting a red haze on his vision. He pushed it down. Losing his temper could only make things worse. “Look. I just need a minute. And some sealant.” The guard scowled, and Tom said, “A healthy man will do more work.”
The guard slid his rifle from his back and pointed it at Tom.
“You're an idiot,” Tom said, and stood. That was enough to make the rifle twitch in the guard's hands. Tom ignored him, extending a hand and helping O'Reilly to his feet. Tom picked up the machete and put the handle in O'Reilly's left hand. “Take it as easy as you can,” he said. “Don’t let your heart rate get too high until that scabs over.”
O'Reilly nodded and Tom turned away, heading back to the pit.
In the morning, O'Reilly's arm was badly swollen. He ate his breakfast awkwardly, holding a spoon in his left hand, and grimaced every time his moved his right arm. He picked up the machete cheerfully enough, though, and headed out to resume his war with the shrubbery.
Rain began to fall in late morning. At first it was a blessing, cooling the air and softening the ground. The pit quickly turned to mud, though. Every spadeful of dirt weighed twice what it should. The wheelbarrow got stuck each time it left the grass, so the men plodded over to dump a scoop of mud at a time into the wheelbarrow where it waited at the edge of the hole.
Progress was slow. By midday the hole was barely knee-deep, and it was half-full of water. When the spades hit rocks the men plunged their arms into the black water and fumbled blindly, gasping and cursing as they pried stones free and lifted them out.
When Santiago collapsed, Tom blamed exhaustion. He hopped down into the pit, sloshed his way over to where the man sat submerged to the waist, and helped him to stand. They slogged their way over to the edge and Santiago sat, his head slumped forward. When he started to sag sidew
ays, Tom put a hand on his shoulder to hold him upright.
The man's shoulder felt strangely warm. Tom put a hand on his bare forearm, then swore.
Santiago was hot to the touch.
“That's enough rest. Back to work.”
Tom looked past Santiago at the guard on the grass behind him. “He's sick.”
“He's lazy. Tell him to-”
Santiago flopped backward and stared up into the rain, then closed his eyes. The guard prodded him with a toe, then knelt and slapped his face. Santiago opened his eyes, and the guard flinched, then scrambled back.
Santiago's eyes were vividly bloodshot.
Chapter 17
By the end of the day three men were in their cots and the floor plan in the prisoners' hut was changed, the sick men against the back wall, the rest of the cots crowded together near the door. It was far less isolation than Tom would have liked, but with the rain pouring down outside it was the best he could do.
O'Reilly's cot was with the healthy men, but he was far from well. The swelling in his arm had increased all day, until the forearm was twice its normal size. He lay on his bunk, his elbow propped up on a rolled-up blanket, his forearm pointing straight up, leaning against the wall to keep it elevated. His face wore a permanent grimace of pain, but he didn't complain.
“The guards are scared,” Cooper said. “I saw them dosing each other.” He scowled. “They've got fever medication, and what are they doing with it? Giving it to healthy people!” His lip curled. “Sons of bitches.” He leaned toward Kuzyk, who sat on the next cot wringing water from his socks. “How do my eyes look?”
“Like limpid pools,” Kuzyk assured him. “The whites are still white.”