Shoot the Humans First

by Becky Black

  Right. Right. Just had to think of a way out of this. I only had the cage itself to work with. I groaned and held my head for a moment. I had a headache with yelling and thirst, making it hard to concentrate. Frustrated I grabbed the bars and shook them, making the cage swing. An alarming creaking came from above, quickly followed by a small shower of rock flakes and grit. I let some of it land on my hand and closed my fist over it, feeling the grit in my palm. I looked up at the steel cable in the pulley wheel. The cable reached across the ceiling, secured by brackets. Several meters of cable before it vanished into a hole in the wall. I looked further up, at the bolt that secured the pulley into the rock itself.

  I had an idea. A stupid, dangerous and potentially fatal idea. But still more fun than staying up here and dying of dehydration, so I might as well try it.

  I started swinging the cage, throwing my weight first to one side and then the other. I only had about a meter of cable to play with between the cage and the pulley, but I still managed to get a good swing going.

  The bolt ground away at the rock around it and more grit and flakes and even chips of rock rained onto me. The cage slipped with a violent jerk and then it happened in a rush. The bolt tore clear, the hole it rested in worn too wide by my swinging. I curled into a ball, hands over my head and screamed out a battle cry as the cage went into free fall. Brackets that had held the cable in place across the ceiling pinged off one after another as the weight of the cage and me ripped them out. The cage smashed into the wall, catching a corner, bouncing and hitting again, not as hard, before coming to rest at last.

  I lay still for a long time, panting, waiting to see if I would fall any more, or get hit by something heavy. Nothing happened, so I cautiously opened my eyes. I did an inventory of myself. Everything intact, though I suspected I'd soon have some bruises in strange places and I'd bitten my tongue when the cage smashed into the wall.

  Looking down I estimated a two-meter drop to the floor. Easy. First though I still had to get out of this cage. Crashing into the wall had bent and distorted the bars enough to create a gap I thought I could maybe squeeze through, but now that gap lay against the wall.

  That turned out to be the trickiest part of the whole damn business. I had to go and push the cage away from the wall, while at the same time turning it to rest a different side against the wall. This involved a lot of throwing my weight around and contorting myself into strange positions, but at last it worked. The cage wobbled on a corner for just a moment and then flipped to rest on a different side and left the gap facing the air.

  No sense in waiting around looking at it. I started to squeeze out. Getting my shoulders through was agony and I tore a couple of gouges in them and in my arms as I came through. At last they were free and the rest of my body followed quickly. I hung onto the sides of the cage like a monkey until I got my feet clear. Then I took a deep breath and dropped to the floor.

  When I tried the cell door I found it open. Good thing too. It would have ended up smashed into its component atoms if it had done anything to piss me off. Still cautious, moving silently on my bare feet, I ventured out into a dimly lit corridor, carrying one of the ceiling brackets as a weapon, just in case I wasn't as alone as I thought. I opened another couple of doors to find the same set up as my old homestead, but with empty cages.

  At the end of the corridor, a thick door led through to a more cheerful area. Crew quarters, a couple of bunkrooms for the guards, single rooms for the officers, a recreation area, a couple of offices, a kitchen and dining area. They all appeared abandoned, the bedrooms stripped of personal belongings. The common areas while not trashed were at least in some disarray. My captors had bugged out in a big hurry when they left me to die of thirst.

  Speaking of thirst--I stopped in the kitchen for a while and ate and drank. I found the stores held enough food to last me for months. I didn't intend to stay that long.

  ****

  Once I'd eaten, I felt better and ready to start making plans. I continued to explore and found the control room. I checked the power levels first and saw I had plenty. I adjusted the heat and light. Then I took a look at where the hell I actually was.

  An underground complex on a barren rock, some kind of big asteroid or small rogue moon. It floated in neutral, undisputed, uninteresting space. I knew now what to call my new home.

  A black prison.

  Small units where especially interesting prisoners could be kept and interrogated outside of the system. Prisoners nobody officially knew about. Military Intelligence and High Command denied the existence of black prisons but soldiers whispered about them. I almost felt flattered that High Command considered me special enough to put me in one.

  When I'd done preening about how bad to the bone I must be, I deflated my ego and checked the log for this station, looked for the last entry. Major Imtiaz's face popped up on the screen. He looked tense as he reported that as per High Command's general order he and his staff were evacuating the unit.

  "We are leaving the prisoner behind as ordered," he said. He didn't look that happy about it, credit to him. "I obey that order under protest. Repeat, I am leaving the prisoner behind under protest." He frowned a moment, looking thoughtful, then shook his head and signed off. The screen went black. What had gone through his mind in that moment? Had he considered disobeying orders and taking me along? More likely he'd considered finishing me off quick rather than leaving me to die slowly. Some things are a step too far even for a torturer. I checked for the general order he'd mentioned and felt myself go cold as I read it.

  A recall order. All Earth units to come home. Every last one. Right now. Fast as possible. In addition, treat all alien troops from the big four as hostile.

  The Prophecy had come true.

  Ilyan had been right and High Command finally believed, probably too late to do anything about it. The had started to scramble to do what Ilyan had told them to do a year ago.

  Right at that moment, I didn't care. Because I had only one aim in mind. I had a general order of my own.

  To find Tesla.

  Chapter 26

  The prison didn't have a distress beacon. Hardly surprising since it didn't officially exist. However, it did have powerful scanners, which let me see the comings and goings for a long way around. I set them to scan for ships and prepared the comms equipment to contact anybody I liked the look of and I waited.

  I waited for almost a month. I slept with an alarm set to wake me if anything showed up on the scanner. I slept restlessly, dreaming too often of digging in the earth with my hands. Sometimes I considered taking a sedative from the medical unit to knock me cold. But I feared sleeping through the scanner alarm.

  I spent hours every day exercising, working hard to get back into top shape, ready for the mission ahead. That's how I thought of it. A mission. Perhaps the most important one of all. No. I had failed at the most important mission. Now I had to succeed at this one to redeem that failure.

  ****

  Twenty-seven days after I escaped from my cage the alarm woke me from an uneasy sleep. I raced naked to the control room and the scanners showed me the prettiest sight I'd seen in a while. A small but fast ship. The database listed it as a registered Sylebine trader.

  Sylebine. I smiled. Sylebine stayed relentlessly neutral in all wars, interested only in trade. Not grasping, they were famed for their generosity. They just seemed to view trading like a game. Once they cinched a deal they almost lost interest in the money and went looking for their next sale.

  Someone once told me the Sylebine never ignored a cry for help, since increasing "goodwill" was one of their most cherished ambitions, almost a religious obligation. Even if you had no money right now they'd be nice to you on the general principle that you might have money one day and you'd remember them.

  I liked the Sylebine. Right now, I liked them so much I'd sleep with them on the first date.

  I sent out a distress call to the ship and it responded at once, changing cours
e towards me even before we finished a brief audio conversation. I had an hour before it arrived, so ran around putting on clothes and gathering up anything valuable or interesting I could find to offer to my rescuer. By the time his ship landed I stood ready to leave, with a nice stash of goodies to present to him.

  The airlock cycled and the Sylebine trader stepped out. He walked on three limbs and helped me gather up my gear with the other three. Along with never ignoring a cry for help the Sylebine loved a good sob story, but I feared my real one might make him nervous. So I weaved a tale about this station being a listening post, manned single handed on rotation. But my relief hadn't come, and with all these terrible rumours I heard on the broadcasts...

  "I understand," said my new friend, sympathy in his large golden coloured eyes as he helped me load my gear and offerings onto his ship. He smiled through a face of soft blue-grey fur. "I am pleased to help. And to have a companion, or it would be a long and lonely trip to Olojimi."

  "Oh, you're going to Hollow Jimmy?" I couldn't keep the grin off my face. Perfect, just perfect.

  ****

  So I set off for Hollow Jimmy with a Sylebine, whose name I couldn't pronounce. He said most of his people couldn't pronounce it either and that his friends just called him Ik. Although it was small, I found his ship fairly comfortable. The grav field was weaker than earth normal, which made me worry about my muscles wasting. I'd have to keep up a strict exercise regime.

  Ik made a pleasant companion, chatty, funny, and full of stories about his travels. I taught him to play cards and soon felt glad we played only for fun and not money. I should have known a salesman would have a good poker face.

  It took us three weeks to get to Olojimi. We had a couple of stops on the way, on planets and stations where Ik had sales meetings. Several times I went with him. I thought only to help out by carrying his sample cases for him, but he said later that my presence meant he could go to some places he might have been afraid to go without my protection.

  "I'm not a good choice of bodyguard, Ik." I said to him, when he told me this while we sat in a café after one such meeting.

  "But you humans are so famous for being tough," he said, frowning, seemed slightly puzzled by my attitude. "Isn't it true what they say? That on Earth everyone is a soldier?"

  "Not quite," I said, thinking of Ilyan. "Not quite everyone."

  ****

  The closer we got to Hollow Jimmy the more I started to think and plan, and the more I started to brood. Ik noticed it of course. At first, I'd made an effort to enjoy myself with him, to forget the empty sky, even briefly. But it became too hard and my grief and pain were impossible to conceal. Poor Ik did his best to deal with it. More than once, I woke screaming from a nightmare to find him stroking my hair and singing some soothing tune he admitted parents crooned to their children back home on Sylebine.

  When we reached Olojimi, nearly a month after he picked me up, having to say goodbye to him made me sorry.

  "Jadeth," he said to me, as I packed my gear. "Things are about to go very badly for your people."

  "I know." I checked the pistol I'd bought one on of our stops and put it into a holster on my hip. Ik looked at it worried. He didn't like weapons much.

  "You are sad, Sergeant Jadeth, I know this." I looked up into his golden eyes, thought they seemed sad too. "You are looking for something. I wish I could help you find what you look for."

  "You have helped me, Ik," I said, straightening up and put on a long dark grey coat I'd found in the prison. I'd had to patch a bullet hole in the back of it.

  "You can work for me, if you want, Jadeth," Ik said, as I heaved my pack onto my shoulders. "You have seen that sometimes I go with my money to dangerous places and I need a bodyguard--"

  "No!" I snapped, and then bit my lip. I can't do that job again. Can't let someone trust me to protect him. I'd let Ik down, just as I'd let Ilyan down. "Sorry, Ik, but no. Thank you for the offer, but I'm afraid I have something important I must do." I held out my hand to him. He understood the gesture and took my hand. His soft and silky fur tickled my palm. "Goodbye, Ik. Good health and goodwill."

  He nodded his head, a back and forth rather than up and down motion, that made the light glint off his fur.

  "Good luck to you, Jadeth. Good health and goodwill."

  I marched away. Good health I had; I'd never been fitter, but goodwill I had only a very small supply of.

  ****

  Hollow Jimmy had changed. It always used to be full of human soldiers on leave, looking for fun. But now only the civilian humans that lived on the station and a small number of soldiers remained, the soldiers waiting for transport home. They were tense and quiet and wore "kill you if you look at me funny" expressions on their faces.

  I made the bank my first stop. All my money Maiga had salted away into secret accounts was still accessible--Military Intelligence hadn't found it yet. I soon had it all in good, hard cash. Then I took a taxi to a coffee shop and on the way told the taxi driver I was a man in the market for some very hard to obtain information and could pay well for it. I sat at a table outside the coffee shop and waited.

  An hours and two cups of coffee later, a woman sat down at my table. I eyed her suspiciously. She wore her greying hair cropped short, like many women soldiers, but looked past military age. She could be intelligence of course, but so could any body around here.

  "Morning," she said, stirring an espresso she had brought with her to the table. "What do you need?"

  "Your name for a start," I said.

  "Oh, you think my name is useful information to you, do you?"

  Oh great, one of those conversations. Like talking to Esha, only even more fun.

  "Are you any good?" I asked.

  She sat back, looking smug, crossed her legs and brushed some imaginary dust off the knee of her dark grey pants.

  "You tell me, Jadeth."

  I gasped and stared at her. She must be military intelligence. My hand reached instinctively for my pistol.

  "Oh, keep your knickers on, Sergeant, I'm not a spook." She sipped her espresso and put the cup back down. "Any more."

  I relaxed a tiny bit. She probably already knew what I wanted. But I got out my snapper and she took out hers and let me send across all the information I had on Tesla.

  "Tell me where this man is."

  "Ah, Tesla, ex-intelligence analyst, fugitive."

  "Ex-fugitive."

  She nodded. "Friend of the Prophet--"

  "I know who he is." I cut her off. "Tell me where he is."

  "Cost you fifty-thousand. Half now."

  "That's pretty steep."

  "Did you hear me say this would be easy? You did not. Fifty K. Half now."

  I sighed and handed over the money. She made it disappear some place inside her jacket.

  "Meet you here tomorrow, same time," she said, glancing at her watch. She started to rise, but I grabbed her wrist.

  "I need a guarantee you're not going to be on the next transport out of here with my money."

  She stared at me. "Are you stupid? Don't you know what it's like for humans out there right now? We're best off right here on neutral territory." She pulled her hand away from me and stood up. "See you tomorrow." She looked me over critically. "You need a haircut."

  ****

  I went shopping. First, I sold some stuff I didn't need then bought a few things I did. I managed to put together a full infantry uniform, from boots to helmet. I hung onto the big coat though so I could be a soldier or not as it suited me.

  After I ate dinner, I took a hotel room in a "cash only no questions asked" kind of establishment. I slept light as usual. Not only because of the dreams, but because I had to listen out for trouble, even in my sleep. However, nobody tried to slaughter me in my bed and I woke up safe in the morning.

  I showered, gathered up my gear and set out to get some food and start investigating transport options. I wanted to leave as soon as the spook gave me the information. If
military intelligence spotted me on the station, I'd end up dead in an alleyway, just like Rin. Even after I paid the rest of the fee for the information I still had enough cash to fly to Tesla's bolthole. If I couldn't find a commercial transport going that way I'd hire someone to take me. I thought briefly about maybe even hiring Ik and his fast little ship. But I decided against it. I liked him too much to drag him any deeper into the disaster area I called a life.

  The spook turned up as arranged and at once snapped some data over to me. A planet, co-ordinates, pictures of a house, maps of the area, details about security arrangements, and a couple of fake IDs that would get me there. Well worth the rest of money I handed over to her.

  "You didn't get that haircut I see," she said as I reviewed the data and she counted the money.

  "What are you, my CO?" I looked up as I spoke. "This is great, exactly what I--" She had gone. I shook my head and put the snapper away. I had plenty of time to study up on the fine detail on the journey.

  I'm coming to get you, Tesla.

  Chapter 27

  So close now.

  I lay on my belly in the undergrowth, half a klick from the isolated house where Tesla hid. I watched the building through my helmet visor, zooming in on the perimeter, a low fence. Two guards, infantrymen, patrolled the area. I knew they'd be bored to death and careless.

  Darkness began to fall. It came fast on this world. You could blink and miss the twilight. I prepared myself for the mission, stashing my pack and coat. Not quite dark enough to move yet, so I waited, sitting on the ground, cross-legged and with eyes closed. Meditating, the way I'd seen Esha and Akil doing it, preparing myself. I breathed slowly. My mind drifted in grey mist.

  Soon it would be over. He'd be dead. I knew killing Tesla wouldn't end my pain. It would give me a sense of... satisfaction perhaps? But I wouldn't feel better. That didn't matter. This was for them, not for me. They deserved vengeance and who else would do it? If I didn't avenge my friends how could I call myself a man? What honour could I claim, if he lived while they grew cold in the ground?