Children of Zero

by Andrew Calhoun

  Saeliko didn’t seem to mind. “Ready to go?”

  “What?”

  “They’re flanking us. We have to get out of here. And anyway, we have to get Radovan before they get him to the Black Star.”

  “Umm, guys?” Haley said. “We’ve got a problem.” She was using her left hand to point to her right hand, which was pulling on the trigger of the gun. Nothing was happening. “No more bullets.”

  Saeliko looked at the gun and said, “Make it go boom instead of rattattat.”

  “How?”

  “Try this,” Kettle said and pressed an indented circular nub that looked like, if nothing else, a button. The entire angular panel behind the button lit up like an iPad screen and presented three touch options, one blue, the other green and the last one red. There were labels in an initially unrecognized script, but once again Kettle’s babel fish came to the rescue. Blue was standard, green was grenade, red was self-destruct.

  For a moment, he pondered the exact meaning of self-destruct, but he quickly decided that he didn’t have time to think about that, what with the current band of pirates trying to kill him and all.

  Haley, who had read the same thing, tapped the green button and heard a satisfying click come from somewhere inside the internals of the gun. She turned and fired at a group of women that had been emboldened by the absence of gunfire. The resulting explosion sent them running for cover.

  “All right, you two,” Saeliko said. “We’re going to sprint for it. Haley, give us another blast, and then we’ll chase down Radovan. Once we get him, we’ll figure out what to do next.”

  The plan seemed genuinely lackluster, but Kettle didn’t see any other options, except for hightailing into the forest and aborting the mission altogether. That might give him a better shot at surviving this mess, but it also threw away any chance he had at getting back home, so he nodded in agreement.

  Haley fired at the bulk of pirates, who, anticipating the destructive force coming their way, decided to dive for cover. As the explosion ripped a new hole in the ground and sent a shower of dirt and rocks into the air, the three of them ran.

  They moved as fast as their legs could carry them, hurdling over obstacles and slaloming around trees, boulders and mini-karst formations. In less than a minute, they were on the trail again. They didn’t bother to look behind them; they knew they had a big head start. It would take the Lavic women a while to reorganize themselves and launch a pursuit, particularly with Harker Mikka gravely wounded and unable to lead them.

  Despite their lead, they didn’t slow down. Each of them realized that their success or failure might very well depend on buying themselves enough time to deal with Radovan’s captors and get him away before the main group caught up to them.

  “Haley, your ass is bleeding,” Kettle noted between heavy breaths.

  “Yeah, I got shot. Stop looking at my ass.”

  Two minutes later, they rounded a bend and stopped in their tracks. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kettle laughed.

  The three pirates charged with escorting Radovan Mozik to the Black Star were laying on the ground next to the trail in a heap. Next to them, Dallas and Soup stood guard, pistols in hand.

  “Dallas!” Haley yelled. “Soup! Oh, thank God!”

  The Marine unleashed a buff, Men’s Fitness smile, which Soup accompanied with a more sheepish grin of his own. “Looking for this guy?” He pointed at Radovan.

  “Hell yes!” Kettle exclaimed. “How did you get him?”

  “We’re United States Marine Corps, dipshit, not mall cops.”

  Kettle laughed again. “I’ve never been so glad to be called a dipshit.”

  Saeliko quickly jogged over to check the status of the three Lavic pirates. All of them were unconscious. Dallas and Soup must have ambushed them and taken them out before they had a chance to react.

  Kettle walked straight up to Radovan. It was his first good look at the man. Strange, Kettle thought. This is him. The little old man was the nexus of this entire battle between two pirate crews. He was the owner of the name that could start wars. His was the name the airplane pilot – a man from Earth, mind you – had given to Kettle before crashing into the sea. Yet, for all that, he looked scrawny and haggard. Even before he had been beaten up, he probably wouldn’t have looked very imposing. Maybe five-seven or five-eight in height, unkempt white hair and a bald spot, liver spots on his temples, a weak chin, and a bit of a pot-belly. Not the stuff legends were generally made of.

  “Jesus Christ! Where did you get that?” Dallas blurted. He was pointing to the assault rifle in her hands.

  “Long story. Tell you later.” Then she turned to Kettle. “Where do we go now?” she asked once in English and once more in Maelian for Saeliko’s benefit.

  “My house,” Radovan replied in English to everyone’s surprise.

  “I have so many questions for you, old man,” Kettle said, frustrated that they were in such a rush.

  “As I for you, Zero Child,” Radovan said back and smiled.

  “What?”

  “I can tell what you are,” he said and smiled through cracked lips. “You’re Zero Stock, aren’t you?” Then he pointed to Haley. “Her, too.”

  Kettle didn’t know how to respond to that, so he just said, “Why do we have to go to your house?”

  “Oh, right. Because I have a ship.”

  “In your house?”

  “No, no. Don’t be stupid. I have a ship under my house.”

  “Down the cliffs? You’ve got an anchorage down there?”

  “You’re not very smart for Zero Stock,” he stated. “There’s a bunker under my house. Big bunker. With an aircraft inside it. Kye-shiv. Old ship, but a good one.”

  Kettle, despite his confusion, got the gist of what Radovan was saying and looked to Saeliko. “Okay,” he said in Maelian. “We’ve got a plan!”

  “Whatever it is, we’ve got to go now. I can hear them coming down the trail.”

  “Can you run?” Kettle asked Radovan.

  The old man looked back at him strangely. “You don’t know you’re a Zero Child, do you?”

  “Let’s have this discussion later.” He grabbed Radovan by the arm and guided him up and perpendicular to the trail.

  Dallas, Haley and Saeliko each dragged a body as quickly as they could, depositing them behind a cluster of bushes. With any luck, the Black Star crew would walk by and head down into Maglipan before figuring out what had happened.

  They didn’t wait around to see if the ploy worked. Instead, they kept to the woods and began jogging back toward Radovan’s house, keeping roughly parallel to the trail. Of the six, Dallas was the only one who hadn’t taken a beating of some sort during the day, and he looked the part. He moved like Kettle imagined Marines would move in the field, taking point and scanning for danger, stopping to wave battle buddies forward, periodically checking the rear for signs of pursuit.

  “Kettle?” Saeliko said in a low voice.

  “Yep.”

  “Why in the Five are we going back this way?”

  “Oh, right. Forgot. Umm, remember that airplane that I crashed in?”

  “Yes,” she said suspiciously.

  “Radovan has something like that hidden under his house.”

  She didn’t answer. Instead, she creased her brow and thought about what Kettle had just told her.

  “They’re onto us,” Dallas stated quietly.

  Kettle could hear it as well. There were shouts and curses coming roughly from the place where they had left the three bodies. It wouldn’t take an expert tracker to spot the six sets of footprints heading into the forest.

  The team picked up the pace. Kettle wanted to go even faster, but they had to move at the pace of their slowest members. Radovan could only run so fast, and Soup was holding his shoulder uncomfortably. Both were breathing hard. Even Haley was starting to slow down; the pain from her butt-wound was probably starting to overpower the adrenaline that had been surging for the past h
our or so.

  Their flight through the woods felt like an eternity to Kettle. As the minutes ticked by, he imagined their pursuers drawing closer and closer, pistols and cutlasses at the ready. Collectively, Kettle and his small group were the tired fox being closed in on by a pack of long-toothed hounds frothing at the mouth.

  “They’ve spotted us!” Dallas called out. A couple wild shots were fired as if to confirm the Marine’s claim.

  Kettle knew what needed to be done. “Haley, give me the rifle.”

  “No, I can do it,” Haley said, guessing what he was planning.

  “No. Give it to me. I can still sprint. I’ll buy you time and then catch up.”

  She reluctantly nodded and tossed the weapon over to him without breaking stride. Kettle caught it, placed his finger on the trigger, stopped running and turned to face the hounds. He aimed at the lead runner and fired, feeling a little surge of extra adrenaline as the rifle gave a little kick and satisfying tthwop sound, and a little more adrenaline still when the ground in front of the Lavic pirates exploded. He suspected that he hadn’t actually killed any of them, but it sure put a stop to their chase. Bodies dived for cover and hid where they could.

  Dallas let out a low whistle. “Damn, son! I’ve got to get myself one of these!”

  “Why are you still here?” Kettle asked.

  “What, you wanted to make a heroic last stand all by yourself.”

  “I’m the only one with a grenade launcher at the moment.”

  Dallas looked down at the small flintlock pistol he was holding. “Didn’t know we were having a dick-measuring contest.”

  Kettle laughed despite himself. Dallas laughed, too. They both stopped when the Lavic pirates started shooting and the tree next to them took a bullet or two at head level.

  “Strategic retreat?” Kettle inquired.

  “Good idea.”

  Kettle launched another grenade toward the right flank of the pirates where some of them looked to make a dash in an effort to circumnavigate Kettle’s position. The resulting explosion kept them in place. He then aimed at the left flank and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He pulled it again. Still nothing. He looked at Dallas, who looked back at him questioningly.

  “Run,” Kettle said.

  They both turned and bolted. Kettle pumped his legs and reached his top speed within four or five strides, and Dallas was right there with him. He knew they were closing in on the house, and he allowed himself to be hopeful that those last two grenades had given their group the time they needed. They were on the trail now, and Kettle was certain the scenic cabin would come into view around the next couple of corners.

  “How far?” Dallas huffed.

  “We’re close.”

  A scream of surprise pealed through the air from in front of them. Was that Haley? It was followed by a yell and a shot being fired. The echo of the shot reverberated off the trees and rocks around them.

  “What now?” Dallas asked, still running full speed.

  Kettle didn’t answer. He was already running as fast as he could, but he willed the muscles in his legs to give him more. His mind raced, trying to guess the possible scenarios that were unfolding ahead. He wondered if Saeliko had betrayed them after all. If she had done anything to Haley, Kettle was going to kill her. He didn’t know how, but he would find a way to do it.

  The two of them rounded the last corner and burst into Radovan’s expansive front yard. The scene in front of them was chaos. Kettle’s mind slowed down one more time, the new instincts that he had developed over the past weeks kicking into full operational mode. In less than a millisecond, still in full stride, his brain registered all of the participants spread out before him.

  Soup was standing in the middle of the open space, his flintlock raised and a puff of smoke still rising off the tip of the barrel. His free arm was stretched out behind him, his hand grasping the shoulder of Radovan, who was kneeling on the ground and taking shelter behind the Marine.

  Haley was also standing, though she had a cutlass in hand rather than a pistol. She was stalking forward cautiously with the blade raised and ready to strike.

  Directly in front of Haley, Janx stood like a nightmare in the flesh, blood drooling out of a half-smile half-grimace, one eye swollen shut, crimson oozing out of a broken nose and a fresh bullet hole in the shoulder of her left arm, an arm that was still outstretched at the tail end of a throwing motion. Janx wasn’t looking at Haley; she was looking triumphantly at the other woman.

  Saeliko lay on her back in the dirt, the hilt of a knife sticking out of her chest. She wasn’t moving.

  Kettle barely slowed his run. He shaved off just enough speed to dip a hand down and grab a cutlass lying next to a dead Lavic pirate before adjusting course and running toward Janx.

  Janx identified the two threats advancing on her and scrambled quickly to her right where a big blunderbuss had fallen in the muck near the outhouse. Haley abandoned her cautious approach and launched herself forward, knowing as Kettle did that if Janx got a hold of the blunderbuss, they were in real trouble. As Kettle dashed forward, he could see it was going to be a close call. Haley was going to reach Janx before he would, and if Janx could get a shot off, it would tear the Korean girl in half.

  Haley knew it, too. She abandoned her cutlass, letting it drop as she ran, and then threw herself into the air just as the Saffisheen’s left hand grabbed the handle of the blunderbuss. The weapon came up and fired, but not before Haley’s outstretched hands latched onto the top of the barrel and pushed it downward. The shot pulverized the ground but otherwise did nothing. Haley’s momentum sent both women tumbling to the ground. Janx rolled up into a squatting position and looked for the next threat.

  Kettle plunged his cutlass point-first straight through her ribcage, lifting her entire body with the impact and violently hurtling her six feet backwards until she slammed into the side of the outhouse. Only then did Kettle stop running.

  Janx made a ghastly gurgling noise and then she died with her eyes open and startled.

  “She’s still alive!” Dallas yelled. Kettle spun around and saw the Marine bending over Saeliko, who was trying to use her elbows to lift herself off the ground. Dallas had his hands poised over the hilt of Janx’s knife sticking out of Saeliko’s chest as if trying to decide if he should pull it out.

  Soup cried out “Hey!” to get everyone’s attention. “They’re almost here!” He was pointing back toward the trail.

  “Follow me,” Radovan said and started for the house.

  Kettle sprinted to Dallas’ side and asked, “Is she going to live?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “You take her legs; I’ve got her arms.” Together they picked her up off the dirt and ignored her high-pitched snarl of intense pain as they moved her. They hustled her as quickly as they could toward the house just as Lavic pistols began firing in their direction. Haley and Soup were standing at the front door waving them onward, Soup firing a wild shot at the oncoming pirates in an optimistic effort to give them pause.

  Kettle flinched as the wood on the doorframe next to his head splintered apart from a gunshot. But then they were in.

  “Where did he go?” he yelled.

  “This way,” Haley called. She was pointing to a staircase at the back of the front room that led downward. Kettle and Dallas shuffled their charge over to the top of the staircase and adjusted her into the right position so that they could clamber down without dropping her. All the while, Saeliko grunted in agony and let out the occasional violent curse.

  The stairs bottomed out in a storage room. Some crates were piled up in one corner and a bookshelf lined one of the walls. There were wine bottles, too. Lots of them.

  Kettle ignored all that and focused on an entranceway opposite the staircase. It opened up to a hallway leading into the earth, and it was bathed in light coming from long fluorescent tubes installed on the ceiling. Radovan was standing inside, and on the wall beside him, Kett
le spotted a digital keypad.

  Technology! his mind shouted. Oh, how I missed you! His celebration was cut short by the sound of the house’s front door being kicked open by a mob of angry pirates.

  “Get in,” Haley whispered. “Quick! Move! Move!”

  No one needed the encouragement. They dashed into the hallway, Haley coming in last and helping Radovan close the door. It clicked shut just as boot steps came thundering down the staircase from above. Radovan quickly entered a code on the keypad and they heard the miraculously relieving sounds of bolts slamming shut from the top and bottom of the steel door.

  “Is that it?” Soup asked. “Are we safe?”

  The sounds of pounding and chopping came from outside the door. Radovan nodded and said, “Probably.” His nod wasn’t very convincing. “But we should go quickly.” He pointed to the other end of the hallway where a metal staircase led downward.

  Saeliko coughed and a considerable amount of blood splattered onto her chin.

  “Hey,” Kettle said. “You’ve got medical supplies, right? A first aid kit?”

  “Yes. Medical room down below. Full diagnostic equipment.”

  “Don’t suppose you have a doctor down there, too.”

  He shook his head. “This place was abandoned a long time ago. It’s just me.” Kettle thought he detected a note of loneliness in the old man’s voice. “It’s okay, though. I had some medical training. I’ll get what we need and we’ll take it on the Kye-shiv with us.”

  “Wait, that won’t work,” Kettle said. “She can’t come with us back to Earth. She doesn’t belong there.”

  Radovan looked at him confused. There was a short silence as the two men stared at one another, each trying to parse the other’s thoughts, a silence that was only punctuated by the banging on the outside of the door. “You don’t understand,” Radovan finally said.

  “What don’t I understand?”

  “Two things, actually.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “First, we cannot leave your friend here. That door and this bunker are strong, but they are not impregnable. Eventually they will get in, and I cannot allow that. There are too many things in here that would alter the course of their history. The only way to prevent that from happening is to initiate the bunker’s self-destruct sequence. If we leave Saeliko behind, she’ll die. If you want her to live, she comes with us.”