Rise the Renegade (Rork Sollix Book 1)

by George Donnelly

  A numbered display glowed to life. 120. 119. 118.

  “Now, new guy!” Sharp yelled.

  Rork grabbed his arm. “If I do this, you’ll come with me tomorrow.” He searched Sharp’s face.

  Sharp shrugged him off. “Your clock is ticking.” He strode up the trail, leaving Rork alone in the cavern.

  Rork glanced at the box. It read 112 seconds remaining. Was this an initiation? Was this how they always do it? Did he run now? Or try it? The thoughts crashed through his mind like rapid laser fire. But he needed allies and he needed respect.

  Rork ran and picked up the box with one hand. His shoulder jerked backwards. Jupiter, it was heavy! He stepped back, grabbed it with both hands and hefted it up to his waist. The rock here was darker, probably richer in the element Barbary was mining, platinum or palladium — maybe both. The box hit something and he rammed his ankle into it.

  “Ouch!” Rork mumbled.

  “Who’s there?”

  Rork stopped. He dropped the box, stepped back and rotated it, its bottom scraping against the rough floor until the illuminated numbers showed forward. “I’m Rork. Where are you?”

  “I see your light. Just up ahead,” the voice rasped.

  Rork bent over the box. 67 seconds. Damnit! He picked it up and shuffle-limped forward.

  “Behind you!”

  Rork stepped back twice. A hand reached out from the darkness and locked onto his injured ankle. He jerked his foot away but the hand tightened.

  “You gotta get me outta here, Rork.”

  Rork grabbed the hand and pulled. It gave a little, then nothing. “Help me help you.”

  “Rock on my leg.”

  Help me, Jupiter. Rork stepped into the blackness and kicked rock. “Ouch! Is it that one?”

  “Yeah, just roll it off me.”

  Rork crawled his fingers across the rock and found its edges. He squatted down and pulled. The rock lifted.

  “Almost! Keep going!”

  Rork brought his feet in closer and looked in the direction of the box. How many seconds till it goes off? His fingers weakened and the rock slid. “Now, has to be now!”

  “I’m out!” The man limped in the darkness towards the cavern.

  Rork fell forward onto the rock as his hold slipped. He sucked in air and looked over at the box. No time, no time, no time!

  The box beeped and a red light flashed on its top. It beeped again.

  “Hey!” Rork stepped to follow the man he’d saved and fell flat on his side. He jerked his leg. It was stuck but it didn’t hurt. He’d stopped shivering. He remembered what Dad told him once about space survival. When you stop shivering, that’s when you’re dead.

  “Hey! Help!” Rork yelled. The beeping spiked in his eardrums now. His jaw buzzed. He reached down and felt his leg. It was all there. Knee, shin, foot, toes. Brax. His big toe was under the rock. He only had one whole foot left and he needed it intact!

  Lala flashed through his mind. He smelled her musty tang. She was all he wanted. That and revenge on Gamil Barbary so they could live in peace. If he died now, Barbary won and it was a lifetime of misery for Lala.

  “You bastard son of a bitch!” Rork dug his fingers in under the rock and lifted. He pulled his leg out, stood up and promptly fell. His feet were numb from the cold.

  He got to his knees and crawled on all fours, then got to his feet again, ran, stumbled and made it out into the cavern.

  The beeping was everywhere now. It felt like it was inside his skull.

  “Come on!” The man he’d saved, covered in black dust, rushed Rork and threw him over his back. He ran up the rocky trail, around curves, up inclines, fighting the artificial gravity.

  Everything went silent. The wall rose up and threw Rork. His eyes shook in their sockets. Dust and rock cascaded over them. The man turned another corner, Rork bouncing along over his shoulder. The second shockwave hit as the bomb pushed everything out of the tunnel. Gravity disappeared and they floated onto the icy planet surface. Rork closed his eyes.

  Rork opened them. A dim light illuminated the crowd of men huddled over him. He looked from one face to another.

  Fingers snapped near his nose. Sharp’s disapproving face appeared over him.

  “Well, new guy, you screwed us good. You caved in the mine on at least a hundred good men. We got nowhere to sleep. You saved one for the moment but you’ve doomed all of us, permanently.”

  31

  “WE’VE GOT ten minutes before the temps drop again, and we’re still at least an hour from the spaceport.”

  Rork studied Sharp’s eyes. They were smart and determined. But he was tired. They all were.

  “We’ve gotta go back,” someone said behind Rork.

  Rork scanned the horizon. Something other than ice shimmered in the waning midday sun. The spaceport was there, within his reach. Mary Ellen might be there. Rork needed her to get into Barbary’s Cylinder. He took in a frigid breath and watched the exhaled vapor cloud ice up in front of him. The same sun he’d always depended on warmed this artificial planet. It was just too far away.

  “He’s right,” said another man.

  Rork stepped up on an icy outcropping and faced the men. “Go back to what?”

  “No thanks to you.”

  “There is only death for you back there,” Rork said.

  “Barbary needs us, he’s got sensors in the mine. He’ll send someone.”

  Rork rubbed his rag-wrapped hands on his chest. Men died last night because of me. Now I wear their clothes. I can’t do anything for them. That’s done. But I can save some of these men. And I will save Lala. Whether she takes me back or not is another question.

  Two men turned and began to trudge back towards the mine.

  “I need every man here to take that ship.” Rork stretched an arm out behind him towards the spaceport. “And every man here needs me to get off this snowball.” He scanned the group of a dozen men. “Unless you have any other pilots here?”

  The two returning men turned and listened.

  “Barbary took everything from us. Like me, you lost fathers and mothers, sisters and daughters. In a few generations, who will be left out here but Barbarys. What of the Mankins and the Sharps? The Fujimotos and the Iboges? Barbary is exterminating us.”

  The burnt sun cast a pinkish glow on the ice behind the men as the little planet spun away from its closest daily approach. Rork took in breath, then exhaled, faster and faster. Strength was returning.

  “What about your legacy, as men? What about your lives? The past you had is gone! The present you loathe is here but the future you want is within our grasp. I promise to you now that we will get our revenge on Barbary. We will rescue our loved ones. We will have our vengeance and together we will rebuild our lives!”

  The wind howled through the assembled men, biting exposed skin on their faces, chests, backs and legs. Four more men turned and joined the departing two. The six of them trudged back towards the mine.

  Rork balled his fists. It was the same everywhere. Small men. Small visions. Ruled by their fears. Comfortable with their fates — not the fates given to them by the Universe or God. No. The fates given to them by other men. Their betters. But betters only because these cowards refused to man up and fight them. He opened his mouth to scream, to curse their slithery spineless psyches.

  “Let them go.” Mankin stood in front of Rork, his eyes searching. “Focus on the mission.”

  Rork nodded. Mankin. He’d come back for Rork. They’d saved each other’s lives. This one he could count on.

  Rork turned towards the spaceport and strode forward. “Come on, men!”

  “It’s your turn on the harness,” Mankin said.

  He turned and nodded at him, his stomach aflutter. The damned heavy thing could sap all his strength before he even reached the spaceport. How many men did they have to fight? They didn’t know.

  Rork put the harness on like a jetpack, one strap over one shoulder, then the other. But thi
s harness also had a belt. Rork pulled the heavy, stained thing tight around his waist and fastened it.

  Sharp strode up from behind. He put the forehead strap on just below Rork’s hairline. “Now’s your chance to show us your commitment,” he said with a raised eyebrow.

  No problem. Rork stepped forward, two other men with similar harnesses two meters on either side of him. He pulled and the bomb wouldn’t budge. He pulled again, then walked back. The damned thing was frozen to the ground. I knew we shouldn’t have stopped.

  Rork grabbed it and rocked it from side to side. He stuck his fingers into the fresh ice at the bottom of the metal box and chipped away, his finger losing sensation. He pulled and it came free, almost hitting his senseless foot. He’d have to be careful. Pull it too hard down the incline and he was dead, or trapped. He wasn’t sure which was worse.

  Watching the horizon was too painful for Rork. It was too far away. He looked down at the ice ahead of his feet. He saw Zero and that little girl. He never even learned her name. Thryk. No way, they didn’t survive. All that air ejected from the main hatch? It decompressed in under a second.

  What a pain in the neck Zero was. But a good man. Loyal, caring. Rork would need him now. He remembered calling him a fraud and the memory stung. Thryk saved his life. He owed the man, no matter how dumb he was. Honor was honor. You paid it in kind. Once he had Lala, he’d search for the MORF-9 and give them a proper, respectful sendoff into the unknown.

  A hand landed on Rork’s shoulder and he turned, startled.

  “We’re here.” Mankin’s eyes shone. He unbuckled the harness from Rork. They took cover behind an ice ridge and watched.

  There was the ship, less than two-hundred meters away. The gray rectangular mass sat on the spaceport causeway, its rear engine hatches lifted open, tools scattered across the ice-encrusted concrete. Jord supervised two men working on the engines.

  “What now?” Mankin asked.

  There was no cover between them and the ship. The spaceport was nothing more than a landing strip, a thin line of concrete in a sea of ice pack.

  “We wait.”

  Sharp approached and huddled next to Mankin. “We take it now.”

  “You a mechanic?” Rork asked.

  “Yeah, sure, I’ve fixed things. We take ‘em now. Then we fix it.”

  “What make and model is that?” Rork asked.

  The wind howled across them. The Barbary mechanics poured hot drinks for themselves from a container, the vapor spiraling pleasantly into the cold air. Rork pulled the rags tighter across his hands and rubbed them together.

  “Screw you,” Sharp hissed.

  Rork grinned. “That’s what I thought. Here it is. They finish. We wait for the wind to blow against us—”

  “Against us?” Sharp leaned in to meet Mankin’s eyes. “He’s psycho. That’s why he ended up here.”

  “It’s so they don’t hear us dragging this load.” Mankin startled, then pulled Sharp and Rork down with him. “They may have spotted us.”

  “Then,” Rork continued, “we slide the bomb right up next to the main hatch, arm it and get in and surprise them. They’re probably resting in the cargo bay. There are fold-out beds in there.”

  “This is llamabrax,” Sharp said.

  “We have the element of surprise,” Rork said.

  “I’m going in now, before I lose feeling in my legs.” Sharp pushed up, turned and his head vanished in a cloud of red.

  Rork grabbed Mankin and forced them both down further. “Brax!”

  The other two men stood up in front of him and Rork motioned them down. Their heads exploded in red clouds and their torsos crumpled to the ground.

  Rork grabbed Mankin’s arm and pulled him over Sharp’s headless, gushing body. He crawled over the ice, through a trough between two outcroppings, elbow over elbow, his legs scissoring over the ice, his pants soggy as his fading body heat melted the frosty surface.

  Footfalls crunched nearby. Rork stopped.

  “What the hell is this?”

  They’d found the bomb. Rork rolled over and shook his head at Mankin. Mankin pointed an index finger in the direction of the ship. Now was their moment.

  Rork nodded, he pulled himself up and sprinted. The raw air burned in his throat and his lungs tightened up.

  The engine hatches were closed. Rork stopped at the bottom of the lowered gangplank and looked back. Dad’s two men stood next to the bomb, their rifles raised. Rork felt them aiming on him and his heart jumped in his chest. He turned to enter the ship and a laser pulse sizzled on the gangplank.

  Mankin slipped and fell on his face with a dull thump. Rork turned. The man he’d saved lay flat and unmoving. But Rork couldn’t do this on his own anymore. Mankin needed him and Rork needed Mankin. Rork stepped forward and a laser shot opened a hole in the ground next to him. Water boiled off and a cloud of hot vapor burned Rork’s nose and eyes.

  He ran to Mankin, grabbed his hands in his own and pulled him backwards onto the gangplank and up into the ship. The bridge was empty. He reached for the button to raise the gangplank and another laser shot landed next to his hand.

  Brax, that hurts! Rork resolved not to look at it. He slapped the closing button then closed the door to the cargo bay and locked it with a sharp snap.

  More laser blasts entered the bridge and the men screamed but the gangplank closed and locked.

  Rork threw himself into the pilot’s seat, sparked the starter and gunned the engines for vertical take-off. It purred almost as smoothly as his MORF-9. Barbary hired good mechanics. Too bad the bastards would freeze to death down there. He smirked at the thought of it.

  A banging sounded on the cargo bay door. “Open this damned door! I didn’t give the order for takeoff!” Dad. The smirk disappeared. They likely had Mary Ellen back there.

  He focused on the controls. The ship rocked and tumbled. Chunks of ice fell around them. Rork switched on radar and enabled auto-guidance to avoid more icy clouds.

  “What the hell is going on out there!”

  Rork’s smirk returned. The old man always was a control freak. Everything had to be done perfectly, according to his specifications, in the order he wanted, the way he said. Nothing Rork did was ever good enough for him.

  He felt sorry for the old man.

  Heat flowed through the vents now. Feeling returned to Rork’s toes and fingers. His legs ached and his stomach turned from hunger. They’d find the MORF-9, re-compress it. All his clothes were there. He’d shower, gear up, eat. And then sort out the conundrum in the cargo bay.

  He brought up the course history and found where Dad and Jord attacked them. He approved the coordinates and engaged the engines.

  Nothing happened.

  “You fool! We haven’t fixed the zolt drive yet!”

  Rork looked at the door to the cargo bay and massaged his temples. The bridge turned red and an alarm sounded. Rork looked back at the control panel.

  “Thirty minutes of breathable atmosphere remain,” the computer said.

  Rork cleared the alarm but the control panel continued to flash red.

  “We were waiting on a new atmospheric assembly, too!” The old man’s laugh came through the door in a modulated metallic outburst. “Who the hell is this stupid? Say something before you get us all killed!”

  On the surface they had air but there were two armed men waiting for them with laser rifles. Dad and Jord had more weapons in the cargo hold. Mankin was down for the count. Rork looked around the bridge. No weapons in sight, not even a fire axe.

  A beeping sounded and the control panel disappeared. A series of concentric circles replaced it. Radar. A red dot approached them at high speed. The radio buzzed on.

  “Unidentified craft, prepare to be boarded,” said a voice like a dartle saw cutting steel. “And looted.”

  32

  “HERE HE is!”

  Rork felt the cold first. It made the skin tight on his finger bones and constricted his movement. He coughed
. Dust everywhere, his head swam. It was dark but a lone light ticked on and off, on and off. It was somewhere nearby.

  “Hello,” he croaked.

  A face appeared above him. Rork recognized it. The face smiled, its white teeth reflecting the blinking light.

  “It’s Rork! He’s here!”

  Zero. Zero’s alive? “I saw you die.”

  “You cannot kill an idea whose time has come!” Zero yelled.

  “What about...” Rork started.

  Thryk’s rosy-cheeked jowls came into focus.

  “Captain, I... Oh my Universe.” Water splattered on Rork’s cheek.

  “It’s okay,” Zero said. “We didn’t know. You didn’t know. You did the right thing.”

  Rork pulled himself up. “Were those Barbary guys?”

  Zero squatted next to him and frowned.

  “They fired on me, right?” Rork asked.

  “That was us.”

  “Thryk shot me down?” When did he get that good?

  “Come on.” Zero grabbed his wrist and heaved him to his feet. “Temperatures are falling fast. Careful where you put your feet.”

  The ship was upside down and the bridge had split wide open at the hatch from top to deck. The control panel lay strewn in pieces. The cargo hold door remained sealed.

  Rork grabbed Zero’s arm. “Mary Ellen, she’s— How did you guys survive that? I saw them blow the air out.”

  Zero grinned, his star-white teeth sparkling. “You underestimate Thryk.”

  Rork nodded. “I think Mary Ellen is in the cargo hold.”

  Zero reached for the door release latch but Rork grabbed his arm.

  “Barbary’s agents are in there, too. There are likely two others still on the surface, armed with laser rifles.” A lightness hit Rork and he tottered to one side.

  Zero steadied him. “We must go.”

  “I need her. She’s my in to get Lala, remember?”

  Thryk stood outside the busted ship, his hands digging into his scalp, sobbing.

  “You’ll fight them. They will go with us,” Zero said.