by Joanna Wylde
After they’d eaten, he allowed Devora to feed Bragan, and escorted him to the fresher. Then he and Calvin donned their suits and made their way to the airlock.
“The hand blaster is still fully charged,” he reminded Devora as they left. “Don’t hesitate to shoot him if he gets out of hand. We’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
“You shouldn’t leave them stupid bitches with a weapon,” Calvin muttered as soon as they started walking toward the ruined domes. “They’ll probably end up hurting themselves. And I don’t figure why you want to keep that murderin’ bastard alive. He ain’t got no more information for us. He don’t deserve to live.”
“It’s not up for discussion,” Seth coldly, and abruptly turned his radio down so he wouldn’t have to listen any more. The man really was a monster, he thought. It would be a pleasure locking him up. He had more than enough evidence to convict him for plotting against the occupation.
They reached the main bubble where Bragan had been living first, but that wasn’t Seth’s target today. He wanted to explore the second bubble, where the families had been. Calvin stumbled along beside him, muttering to himself. They didn’t have far to go, although the craters and debris made walking hard. The second dome’s entrance was still relatively intact, its airlock doors shut tightly. There was no power to open them, but it wasn’t a problem. They simply walked around, stepping through one of the many holes that had been blasted in the wall.
What they found inside was an eerily quiet war zone, a ghost colony. The interior rooms and corridors that remained were scarred with blaster fire and pocked with holes. It was hard to tell what had happened, but as they moved through the various rooms it appeared the men had fought their way out room by room. Darkened blood spatters could be seen in several places. It had been an ugly fight.
Nearly two hours later, Seth made their first useful discovery. Just outside one of the apartments was a holo-camera, the kind used often used as a security device. It looked like it had once been trained on the apartment’s caved-in door, although it was now dangling from a single cord.
“It’s probably where Bose, the station leader, lived,” Calvin said as Seth examined the device. “He would’ve wanted a record of who came to see him, even when he wasn’t around.”
Gesturing for Calvin to boost him up, Seth managed to grab the recorder and pull it down from its precarious perch. He turned it over in his hands several times, searching for signs of what happened. As far as he could tell, it was fine except for a power source.
“It’s amazing it wasn’t more damaged during the attack,” he finally said. “I wonder if there’s anything on the recording. Let’s hook it into a power source and see. Turn around.”
Calvin turned, giving Seth access to the small power pack on the back of his suit. It took Seth a couple of tries before he managed to splice a connection between Calvin’s suit and the camera. Then it flickered into life. Seth started the playback mode, and a small holographic representation of the apartment entrance appeared in the air before them.
Apparently the camera had been set to slowly pan back and forth between the apartment door and the corridor, and for several minutes they watched shots of nothing happening. No one walked by; it had been a quiet day on the station. Calvin grew impatient, and made to pull the camera away from his suit, but Seth held up a hand to stall him. The picture before them was changing. There was a flash of movement, then the camera’s view slowly panned from the apartment entrance to the corridor, revealing a horrifying struggle for survival.
First there was simply a shot of empty corridor as it once appeared, unmarked by blaster fire. Then a group of filthy men—presumably the slaves—came creeping up into the camera’s vision. Several carried homemade weapons, while a few held blasters. Their leader gestured them to stay back, and cautiously stuck his head around the corner at the far end of the corridor. A flash of blaster fire came back, and the men froze. Then the leader stood and yelled something. Seth and Calvin had no idea what he was saying—the camera wasn’t sophisticated enough to record sound—but whatever it was put life into his men. As a group they charged around the corner. There was more blaster fire, then the camera’s angle started to change as it swept back toward the apartment entrance.
At first there was nothing, then an obviously terrified child came running up to the door, pounding on it for entrance. The door opened, and a young woman wearing a dark dress opened it quickly and pulled the child in. She glanced down the hall, then slammed the door shut. After a few seconds another woman, this one older and carrying an infant, came running up. She too was allowed into the apartment, then nothing.
The camera swept back to the corridor, where several men—different than those who had been there before—were setting up benches to form a makeshift barricade. They seemed to be Pilgrims. They shot down around the corner several times, with blaster fire answering them. After a few seconds of intense firing, one was hit and he went down. Then a second was hit. The final man continued to shoot desperately until his blaster stopped responding. It must have run out of charge, Seth thought grimly. The slaves sensed his weakness and swarmed him in an instant, one of them slitting his throat savagely. The fight appeared to be over.
The camera slowly panned back to the door, which remained shut. Seth and Calvin watched, mesmerized, as one of the bloodied men came up to the door and hammered on it. The man was tall, his bare arms roped with muscles. It was the leader who had lead the charge around the corner earlier. He turned his head, said something to the men behind him, then hit the door with one fist. A weapon came into view, passed to the escaped slave from one of his companions, and he yelled again. Then he stood back, took careful aim and shot at the locking mechanism.
It held out for a minute or two, then exploded in a shower of sparks. The man shoved the door open and stalked into the apartment purposefully. Several men followed him, their mouths open in silent whoops and screeches of victory. After a second the child who had taken shelter in the apartment came running out, chased by two of them. The woman with the baby walked out next, surrounded by several more. They quickly disappeared from the camera’s view. Then, to Seth’s frustration, the camera’s view swept out into the hallway again, maintaining its steady surveillance schedule, oblivious to the traumatic events it recorded.
Seth and Calvin stared at the empty hallway for a minute or two. Every once in a while someone would come running through—a child, a jubilant slave. One looked like Bragan, although he moved to quickly to tell for sure. There was still no sign of the man who had broken through the door however, or the other woman who had been hiding in the apartment. Finally the camera turned back to the apartment door. Seth sucked his breath in at what he saw next.
The young woman in the dark dress was struggling to escape the man who had blasted his way through the door. She was pressed up against the doorway, pinned by the weight of his large body. One of his hands was twisted into her hair, and he crushed her mouth against his in a brutal kiss. The woman was fighting him with all her might but he was too strong. With a sickening feel in the pit of his stomach, Seth wondered if they were about to witness a rape. It wouldn’t be the first time such a thing had happened in the heat of battle.
The woman flailed against her captor desperately, one hand catching against something tied around his neck. She pulled at it, trying to choke him. Seth held his breath, wondering what she could hope to accomplish; even if she subdued the man, there were fifty more just like him. He already knew how the story ended—the slaves had won. The poor girl didn’t have a chance.
The man lifted his head from hers to wrench whatever she had grasped out of her hand. They fought for possession of it, then it broke and something small and bright came off of it and flew out of the camera’s range. The man looked around for it, but apparently he couldn’t tell where it had gone. The woman, sensing his distraction, chose that moment to try to break free. She kicked him savagely in the groin, and he doubled over in a
gony. She jerked away from him but was pulled up short by her long hair. A chunk of it was tangled in what was left of the shattered door lock. She pulled at it frantically, but before she freed herself the man had recovered enough to realize his prey was escaping.
He grabbed her arms, savagely twisting them so she couldn’t move. Then he pulled out a homemade knife from his belt, a sharpened piece of metal with fabric wound tightly around one end. He brought it toward the woman’s head, and Seth caught his breath. The man raised the knife and slashed through the chunk of hair holding the woman to the door. She fell forward against him. Dropping the knife, he grasped the back of her head and crushed her mouth to his again.
Once again, the camera moved back to view the corridor. This time it was empty. Then the man came into view, dragging the woman with him. He searched several minutes for whatever it was that had flown out of his grasp, but the woman struggled against him fiercely. He finally swung her up over his shoulder, her upper body flopping down against his back. She kicked out helplessly and he swatted her butt hard in response. The camera swung away from them as he strode around the corner, his cargo having given up her fight.
As the camera focused once again on the apartment door, a large hand came around in front of it. It grasped the camera, darkening the picture, then the recording ended. Someone had ripped it away from its power source.
“It makes me sick to think of honest Pilgrim women being touched by scum like that,” Calvin growled into the silence that followed. “Even if we could get them back, they’re no good now. Once a woman’s tainted, she’s ruined for life. It’s a damn shame.”
Seth grunted in response. There was nothing to be said to Calvin’s statement, and the woman’s plight—frozen in time—haunted him. He turned around, surveying the corridor. Something had flown off the man’s necklace, and he wondered what it was. Probably just some little keepsake, but it would be interesting to know. He appeared to be one of the leaders; any clues Seth could find to his identity would be helpful when he returned to Discovery station.
Simply looking around, Seth found nothing, so he keyed the suit’s scanner to help him. Moving slowly and deliberately, he covered every inch of the corridor, pausing to investigate every anomaly. Unfortunately there were quite a few, as each blaster burn and piece of debris registered separately on the scanner.
“What the hell are you doing that for?” Calvin asked, clearly disgusted. “We should get back to the ship and kill that bastard. Then we need to hunt the rest of ‘em down. They’re killers, and there’s only one way to deal with killers.”
“Shut up, Calvin,” Seth muttered. The sensor chirped in his headset as it picked up something. It was crystalline in structure. Following the readings, Seth made his way across the corridor. The remains of the small barricade were still there, although they had been torn apart—perhaps the man had come back to find his pendant? Using the sensor as his guide, Seth narrowed in on a broken bench made of hollow plast-crete. Cheap and easy to form, plast-crete was used in construction throughout the empire. In most cases it was brightly colored or shaped to resemble some other material. This was simply plain without ornamentation.
Using the sensor as his guide, Seth turned the plast-crete bench over. There was a rattle inside. After several tries, he realized he wasn’t going to be able to get it out by simply maneuvering the bench. Calvin, who had come up behind him to watch, spoke.
“Why don’t you just cut the damn thing open?” he asked. “That’s the best bet for getting’ it out.”
For once, Calvin was right. Removing a small laser-cutter from his tool belt, Seth carefully lined the tool up on the bench leg. Making his cut well above the place indicated by the sensor, Seth slowly made the cut. The leg came off easily.
He grasped the newly freed leg and tilted it. A small, shiny object fell out into the open palm of his glove.
“What is it?” Calvin demanded.
“It’s a holographic pendant,” Seth said, turning the bauble over in his hands. “You know, the kind you can get taken in booths for a half a credit.”
“I ain’t never seen one of them booths,” Calvin admitted slowly. “We don’t hold with that kind of thing.”
“Have you ever been out of the asteroid belt?” Seth asked curiously.
“Nope, and I don’t wanna ever leave, either,” Calvin said harshly. “There ain’t nuthin’ for an honest Pilgrim out there. Me and my family plan to stay put on our rock.”
Seth sighed, wondering briefly what kind of man Calvin might have been if he’d grown up somewhere else, or had access to education. How did a person become so filled with hate?
“How does that thing work, anyway?” Calvin asked, trying not to look too curious.
“Watch,” Seth replied. Gripping the little disk between his thumb and forefinger, he held it up in the air. Then he took a small light from his pouch and aimed it at the disk. “You shine the light through it, and the hologram will appear right in front of us.”
With a flick of his finger, he turned on the light. The beam hit the disk, and an image of two people took shape in front of them. One was the man who had lost the pendant, although he looked different in the hologram—younger, not as hard. Seth turned his attention to the woman with him, and his heart stopped.
It was Devora, smiling brightly. Her head was tucked snugly against the man’s neck, his arm holding her gently around the shoulders. Both seemed to filled with happiness. Below, written clearly in the wavy, gimmicky font often used by public holo machines, was “Jess and Calla, Celebration of the Accession of his Imperial Majesty, Belpharian IV.”
The holo was less than two years old. It was as if he’d been kicked in the gut. She’d duped him, been lying to him all along. She was the slave, Calla, and she’d used him to escape and look for her husband, the one Jenner had sold.
Calvin cackled into the silence.
“Looks like there’s more going on here than I realized,” he said with evil glee. Ignoring the man, Seth snapped off the light with tight, controlled movements. He placed the holo-disk into his pouch, then started toward the ship. It was time to ask “Devora” a few questions.
Chapter Ten
“Something’s wrong,” Sarai said quietly. She and Calla were sitting in the cockpit, watching the men approach across the barren landing field. “Look at how Calvin is walking, he’s almost bouncing. He’s happy about something.”
Calla followed Sarai’s pointing finger. Calvin was strutting like he’d discovered gold. Seth walked with strong, deliberate steps beside him. Whatever had Calvin going hadn’t excited him.
“I’ll call Seth on a private channel,” Calla said as the two women watched them approach. “Maybe he can tell us what’s going on.”
She toggled the com switch, then carefully entered the correct transmitter coordinates and hailed Seth as he had shown her. She and Sarai had listened in on Seth and Calvin when they’d first landed, but it had grown tedious after Bragan’s arrival. Calvin talked enough while he was on the ship; both women treasured their breaks from his noise.
“Seth, do you read me?” she asked. “It’s Devora.”
Seth didn’t reply at first. Then, just as she decided to give it another try, his voice crackled over the speaker.
“Really?” he said tightly. “Because it sounds like Calla.”
The bottom dropped out of her stomach, and her hand wavered over the com switch. Sarai gasped, then reached across to cut off the transmission.
“He found out,” Calla whispered. She looked up at Sarai with a lost look. “How did he find out?”
“I have no idea,” Sarai said in a quavering voice. “But you’re in trouble. He’s angry, and when men get angry they get violent. We’ve got to do something, it may be our last chance.”
“Seth isn’t violent,” Calla said, but her heart sank as she said it. A vision of him slamming his fist through the wall at the hostel raced through her mind. He’d been in battle hundreds of times. He
had enforced the occupation with cold calculation, sentencing more than one man to death. He was more than capable of violence…
“What am I going to do, Sarai?” Calla whispered, looking to the woman hopelessly. “I’ll never be free now.”
Sarai’s face hardened.
“We should leave, like Bragan suggested,” she said after a brief pause. “We should just leave, and never come back. I don’t know how we’ll survive, but we will. I can work hard, and you know all about what it’s like outside the belt.”
Calla bit back a harsh laugh. “Sarai, all I know anything about is being a slave at a Discovery station hostel. Besides, we don’t have any money.”
“If we steal the ship we can sell it,” Sarai replied, somewhat shocked by her own audacity. “This is a valuable ship, and I’m sure we could get enough credits for it to start over somewhere. We could work together, and maybe the kids could go to school. It would be like a dream come true for both of us, and you know it.”
“What about Calvin and Seth?” Calla asked. “We can’t just leave them here. They’ll die.”
A dark look came over Sarai’s face.
“I don’t care if Calvin dies,” she said bitterly. “I hope he does die. He’s an evil bastard, and I want better for me and the kids. And I don’t care about Seth, either. He hasn’t done a damn thing for us. You’re the only one who seems to care what Calvin does to me.”
It was true, Calla realized. Sarai tried to hide her bruises with her hair and clothing, but she had seen them. Calvin really was evil. But Seth …
