by Bobby Adair
“Like what?” Blair demands, from just a step out of fist-punching range.
“Everything.” With Blair stationary, some of Tarlow’s new-found deference disappears and he looks at Blair like the question is nearly too stupid to expound on. His eyes drift down to the single-shot rifle still in her hands. He doesn’t know she failed to chamber another round after she killed the Trog manhandling me in the airlock.
Come to think of it, I’m not sure Blair knows either.
Maybe she had time to work the bolt action, but I didn’t see her do it.
“We’re on a rock a billion miles past bumfuck-nowhere,” snorts Tarlow. “We’re running an illegal mining operation. We can’t exactly call back to earth for a repairman when something breaks. I fix everything.”
“Nobody fixes everything,” I retort. I decide he’s lying.
He looks past Blair, and sees me sighting my rifle at the center of his chest. Whatever the stabbing thing I did with the railgun a moment before didn’t convey, apparently my demeanor does now. He gulps. “I don’t fix the mining machinery, not much of it. Well, the kilns sometimes, and the small-scale smelters. I support other systems, air purifiers, electrical lines, radio repeaters, networking, lights.” He gestures at the malfunctioning illumination along the edges of the glass dome, just in case we don’t know what a fucking light is. “Oh yeah, explosives, you know, for blasting rock. I mix the chemicals and set up the charges before they drop them down into the drill holes.”
Blair relaxes. She seems to have gleaned an answer she deems sufficient. “What happened here?”
I keep my rifle up. I’m not that trusting.
“Trogs.” With Blair’s aggression dialed back a notch, Tarlow cranks an extra helping of disdain back into his answer. “You said they were outside.”
“They attacked the base?” Blair asks.
“Base?” Tarlow shuffles back a step as he glances at the SDF stencils on Blair’s chest. “Who said base?”
Blair exaggerates a sigh and glares back at me. She’s out of patience.
“Stop being evasive!” I order. What the heck? Blair was going to say it anyway.
“I know this is a Free Army base,” she tells him. “That’s why we’re here. You know it’s a Free Army base or you wouldn’t be here. Can we please skip the secret handshake game? Tell me what the hell happened and tell me why you’re freely wandering around with Trogs everywhere, because I have to tell you Mr. Fix-it, with every stupid answer you give me, you’re convincing me you’re a collaborator who needs to have a round punched through his chest.” Blair lunges forward and jams the barrel of her empty railgun between Tarlow’s ribs. “Answers. Fast.”
Chapter 10
“I… I…” Tarlow is looking at me, eyes pleading. The bitch is crazy!
Duh!
Maybe it’s a mistake, but I now feel sorry for him. I transition from orders to advice. “Really, stop being evasive.” He’s rattled, and I’m guessing the answers will come slower. That’s probably rationalization.
“I’m not being evasive.” He’s stumbling over his words. “They’ve got everyone locked up—the ones they didn’t kill.”
“Where?” asks Blair.
“Level nine?” Tarlow points down. “In some of the empty reservoirs.”
“Reservoirs?” I ask. That word doesn’t seem to fit with our current environment.
Tarlow looks at me like I should know the answer to that question already. “It’s why the Trogs came here.”
“Because of reservoirs?” Blair doesn’t understand, either. She thinks Tarlow is spinning up some bullshit.
“Water,” Tarlow pronounces. “The rock in this asteroid is hydrous, thirty-nine billion tons of stone soaked with a billion tons of H20.”
Blair is taken aback. “Water?”
The water comment throws me off too.
“Frozen,” Tarlow tells us. “We mine it out of the core, extract it from the rock, and store it in subterranean reservoirs—big tanks down on level nine until we ship it out to the other mining colonies. It’s the main thing we dig for out here. I think that’s why the Trogs came. There aren’t that many water mines in the asteroid belt.”
“Or they happened upon a colony and decided to attack.” Blair is being argumentative. She’s probably wired that way, someone who disagrees when progress is as easy as shutting up and listening.
“None of that matters,” I tell them both, comprehending what I see is the real news. “The Trogs didn’t destroy the base. They captured it. They took prisoners. Blair, the assault ship crews weren’t the only ones.” Refocusing on Tarlow, I ask, “How many are down there?”
“No.” Blair disagrees, of course. “What’s important is how Tarlow got out when it seems nobody else did.”
“I wasn’t locked up,” he argues, hurrying to the next part. “I was never captured. I know all the nooks and crannies. How to override the systems. I knew where to hide when the Trogs occupied the base.”
“And why are you wandering around, now?” asks Blair.
“The Trogs all of a sudden hurried away.” He points to the far end of the Potato. “Down the halls leading to the gun emplacements. I figured it was my chance to make my way to the surface and steal the tug.”
“That’s why you’re wearing the suit,” I deduce.
“I’ve been in the suit for two months.”
“To abandon your friends.” Blair doesn’t try to hide her disgust for his behavior.
“No.” Tarlow shakes his head vigorously. “No.”
That answer’s clearly not true, and I have the urge to tell him he should think through his lies before he starts to spout them, but where would the fun be in that?
Blair pokes him hard in the ribs a few more times. “You’re a coward, Tarlow. You were planning to run off, weren’t you?”
Shaking his head, Tarlow says, “I…I… maybe. I don’t know. I had to get away. I’d have sent back help. I would have.” He’s convincing himself now. Trying to, anyway.
“The tug is gone,” says Blair. “Even if it wasn’t, there’s a Trog cruiser parked about a klick up. It would’ve blasted the tug into junk before you made it ten meters off the ground.”
“Just one?” asks Tarlow. “Two attacked us.”
“We destroyed one,” I tell him.
He looks at me, wide-eyed, a hopeful smile starting to form. “You brought the fleet?” And then he looks sick. “I thought you weren’t SDF.”
“No,” I tell him, “there’s no fleet. Let’s get back to the important stuff. How many Trogs were down here? Where are the Grays? How many of you are locked up on level nine? Where did the Trogs put the weapons they took from you when you surrendered?”
Tarlow gawks at me. “How do you know about the Grays?”
“I got a postcard about it.” My impatience for answers I’m not getting is starting to irritate me.
“From who?”
“Kane’s being an ass,” Blair tells him. “How many Trogs?”
Tarlow reaches up to scratch his beard, remembers his helmet is there, and instead stares at the glass dome above us. After a moment, he says, “A thousand, maybe.”
“Weapons?” she asks. “Where are they?”
“Weapons?”
“The ones they took from my troops?”
“In one of the surface buildings, I think.” Tarlow looks up and to his left. “I haven’t found them, and I’ve looked. Unfortunately, with a thousand Trogs, it’s hard to sneak around.”
“How many of you are there?” asks Blair, finally getting back around to my question.
“Four hundred and sixty-nine,” he answers, “In three reservoirs.”
“That’s pretty exact.” Blair is skeptical. “How’d you manage to count them if they were all locked up and you weren’t?”
It’s Tarlow’s turn to be taken aback by her stupidity.
I figure it’s best not to say a
nything at this point, lest I suffer a withering glance as well.
Tarlow points to a small round module mounted on one of the walls. A green LED glows near one edge. “Signal relays. We’ve got them all through the tunnels. They carry the standard bands supported by the comm systems in the helmets. We need the relays because of the metals in the ore screwing up the signals. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to communicate down here.”
“How many of the four-sixty-nine are military, and how many are miners?” I ask.
“Mostly miners and support personnel,” answers Tarlow. “The garrison went out to fight the Trogs on the surface when they arrived. They were wiped out. The survivors surrendered.”
“Trogs don’t usually take prisoners,” says Blair. “How’d that work?”
“We were all underground when the fighting ended,” continues Tarlow. “The Grays found a way to telepathically link to one of the control room spaghetti-heads. They forced her to tell the commander to surrender, or they’d bomb us to dust. What else could we do?”
“Do you know why they took you prisoner?” asks Blair.
Of course, she and the other SDF mutineers were taken prisoner as well. Maybe that’s the question she’s really getting at.
Tarlow shrugs. “I don’t know if they were going to make us work the mine for them or take us back to Troglandia—”
I laugh.
Blair glares at me. “What?”
“That’s what I call it in my inner voice, Troglandia. Seriously.” I stop laughing, because Blair is looking at me as if she wants to come over and poke me with her empty railgun. “It’s funny, right?”
She clearly doesn’t appreciate my humor.
She turns back to Tarlow.
He straightens up and glances at us both, like he’s going to make an important announcement. “If Grays are in charge of the Trogs, like they’re in charge of the earth, maybe the Trogs’ Grays decided to acquire some human breeding stock to supplement their slave pool. Maybe that’s why they changed their policy on taking prisoners.”
Chapter 11
Behind me, the airlock door clinks against its frame.
I jump.
The light mounted above it flashes red.
Tarlow’s eyes go wide, and he starts backing toward one of the doorways to the lower levels.
“Don’t move,” Blair orders.
“But…” Tarlow points at the airlock, ignoring Blair’s admonition not to move.
I’m already against the wall, pulling one of the upturned lounge chairs in front of me.
“Railgun slugs will go right through that,” Tarlow bawls.
“I don’t want it to protect me.” Why am I explaining myself to Tarlow? “I just want it to hide me long enough for them to make it inside so I can take ‘em out all at once.”
“We should go down to level three,” Tarlow tells us. “I have a place down there—”
Blair pushes him through one of the doors and Tarlow stumbles on the stairs. “Get down,” she tells him, “and stay.” She kneels, using a wall for cover, and levels her weapon at the airlock door.
“You might want to chamber a round,” I suggest. “You’re too used to the automatic you had.”
“Shit.” She fumbles with the railgun made for larger Trog hands.
“Not loaded?” Tarlow groans as he steps back.
I swing the barrel of my gun around to put him in my sights. “Don’t.”
“We’re on the same side,” Blair tells him. “Stop being such a chicken-shit.”
“I don’t have a gun.”
The light above the door turns to yellow.
“Air’s going back in,” whines Tarlow. “We can still run.”
Full of confidence from the nine Trogs I killed—well, maybe eight—on the way here, I think I’m good. “How many will fit in there? Eight? Ten if they pack tight?”
“Yes,” Tarlow answers, “but they usually go in six at a time. They have a fetish for that number, just like the Grays.”
“You know a lot about them,” Blair observes.
“I’ve been watching them for two months,” replies Tarlow.
“Two months?” It doesn’t seem possible. Pointing out the hole in his story, I say, “How could you keep watch on them for two months and not get caught?”
“The camera system, of course.”
I glance at Tarlow.
He’s pointing again.
I follow the line of his finger and see a small, unobtrusive lens attached above one of the exit doors.
“They’re all over the complex,” he says.
Blair asks, “How do you—”
The light above the airlock turns green. The door unseals and swings open.
I press against the wall, thankfully cut from asteroid stone, exactly the color I’m coated in. With the lights flickering dim to add to my advantage, I doubt I’ll be spotted. I brace myself to pull the trigger.
Gray-dusted figures enter—one, and two more.
They stop on the stairs, glancing around as the airlock seals behind them.
They’re carrying rifles. Their bodies aren’t thick like Trogs. Their helmets are shaped and sized for human heads.
I don’t fire.
The one in front turns and looks right at me. “If you’re trying to ambush a Trog, do it from the right.” It’s Brice. “Nearly all of them are left-handed.”
“What?” How the hell did he spot me so easily?
“And the lights,” says Brice. “The dimness doesn’t do you any good. Ever notice how Trogs have those big puppy dog eyes? Well, it means they see pretty damn good in the dark. You’re better off turning the light all the way up and making them squint.”
“How the hell come nobody ever told us this shit in training?” I stand up and smile, despite feeling somewhat humiliated for my failed ambush.
Walking down the stairs and into the room, Brice ignores the question. He doesn’t have the answer. It’s those damn North Koreans who write the SDF curriculum.
He and the other two are near the center of the room when I join them. Blair is dragging Tarlow out of his hiding place to come toward us.
“Took forever to get here,” says Brice. “Dust and rocks floating everywhere and Trogs all over the place. Hell, I even tripped on a few.”
Blair glances at me like it’s my fault and I’m thinking she should be singing my praises, not assigning blame for someone tripping.
Brice catches the glance and looks at me, too.
I shrug. “I’ve whacked eight outside. Blair killed one in the airlock.”
“You’re full of surprises, Kane. I’ll give you that.” Brice turns to Tarlow. “Who’s this?”
“A local,” I answer, before giving Brice and the two soldiers with him the quickest rundown I can manage.
“What’s the plan, then?” asks Brice. “With all the debris in the air, I think the Trogs will be out there a while trying to find us.” He looks around. “It’s not a huge asteroid, but it’ll take a couple of hours at least.”
Tarlow steps forward, stammers, and then says, “When the Trogs attacked last time, they pounded us with railguns before disembarking their horde. It took a week for decent visibility to return up top and another few weeks for most of the broken rock to settle back down to the surface.”
“Well they won’t be out there for three weeks, that’s for sure.” Brice glances at Blair, then his eyes settle on me.
I start to speak, and Blair, suddenly back in MSS Colonel mode, talks right over me. “The group we killed was heading into the airlock. So no guarantees they’ll be out there a long time. Not all of them, anyway.”
Into her pause, I blurt, “We need to get this show on the road.” They all look at me, and why not? I said it with the confidence of someone who has a plan. After a quick spin on my brain’s imagination wheel, I come up with one. “Tarlow, can we access that video feed for all the internal cameras? How
do we connect our SDF suit comms to the internal relay system?”
“Passcode for the comm,” says Tarlow, again like it was a question so stupid it was barely worth his breath to answer. After some pained sighs, he provides it.
Like the others, I power up my d-pad to enter the code. Thankfully, the temperamental little device decides it’s abused our relationship enough for one day, and accepts the numerals without error.
Looking up, Blair has hers ready to go.
Brice is pissed. His d-pad is on the fritz.
Turning to Tarlow and tapping my d-pad, I ask, “Can you fix these things, too? Mine doesn’t work half the time.”
He nods. “It takes a while,” he says. “There are plenty up top on those dead Chinese. Theirs always work.”
I doubt the Chinese have any better equipment than we do, but I don’t say anything about it.
Tarlow continues, “Your best bet is to switch yours out for one of theirs.”
“Only it’s integrated with the suit,” I argue. “How do you switch it?”
“I could do it,” he answers. “But it would take a while. And then you’d have to reprogram it and it—”
“Takes a while?” I guess, with a big eye roll.
Neither of the troops who came in with Brice can get their equipment to respond to the passcode.
“What about camera access?” asks Blair.
“The room I’ve been hiding out in is on sublevel three,” says Tarlow, “I tapped into the camera feed and set up some monitors to watch.”
“That’s it, then,” I announce. I point to the two soldiers who came in with Brice. “You two, go with Blair and Tarlow and get down to that room. Keep on eye on Tarlow.” I turn to Brice. “We’ll hit the other airlocks and collect any survivors who make it inside.” Looking back to Blair, I see she’s pissed again, now that I’m passing out orders. “We’ll send them your way.
Thankfully, she doesn’t pick a new fight.
“Tarlow,” I ask, “how do I find my way around this complex?”
“I’ve been taking all the maps off the walls,” he says sheepishly. “The Trogs understand the pictures. They’re not stupid.” He shrugs. “I left the written signs up. They can’t read.”
