by Evan Currie
He stared for a moment, but didn’t opt to say anything as Sorilla banged on the roof of the armored vehicle. “I’ll ride on top. Roll on out.”
The APC was built on a V-shaped, armored hull and rolled on six airless tires, each of them almost two meters in diameter. The ride wasn’t exactly smooth, but it could drive over anti-vehicle land mines and keep rolling.
That wouldn’t do much against a Ross gravity valve, unfortunately, but it made for a reasonably secure ride.
Sorilla settled into a crook in the armor and let the breeze cool her down as the vehicle accelerated out of the landing area and took a right down the road that led into the city a few miles away, down at the river delta.
*****
The man in the transport depot watched the APC pull out and head down the road before he turned away and walked into the back room to pick up a handset.
“Hey, Eri, it’s Malcom down at the field. Interesting arrival today, looks like a military ship. Naw, not the Xenos. Earth.” Malcolm laughed. “Hell yes I’m serious. Had a nice chat with a pretty lady in combat gear…looks better than our stuff. Hell, I think it looks better than what the Xenos have…or use anyway.”
He listened for a moment, before continuing.
“They’re cruising in toward town now. Looks like an armored rig, but they’re not riding for a fight… Because she’s riding on top, that’s how I know, and her face is exposed. If she were spoiling for trouble, she’d be riding inside, or wearing a helmet at least, Eri, give me a break.”
Malcolm sighed. “Of course they’re armed. She’s packing at least two pistols in belts, a knife…not sure what else, but the rest of them looked like they were loaded for Kodiak Maulers…and that’s the rub. They’ve got a squad of the Xenos with them. Yeah, the tough fuckers.”
He listened for a while longer before speaking again.
“To hear her say it, Earth just found out we were still alive and asked the Xenos to let them take a look around… Yeah, don’t know that I buy that either. Anyway, I have work to do. Just figured that you’d like to know. I’ll see you, man.”
Malcolm hung up the handset and settled in behind his desk.
He saw the damndest things come through his station.
*****
The APC was near-silent on its electric motors, and the road wasn’t horrible, so Sorilla found herself rather enjoying the ride as they made their way rapidly from an extremely arid environment to a much more tropical-feeling one as the low brush was replaced by thick foliage and irrigated fields.
Buildings were few and far between, but they were mostly made of local materials by obviously older-generation fabrication units. She could see the layering lines that were a distinctive signature of early-gen machines. Newer ones, like her own, were designed to smooth out the lines and leave a crisp surface to work with.
It was a minor change, as such things went, but it was noticeable.
The road they were on paralleled the river, passing plenty of acres of arable land. Most of it was heavily irrigated from the river, judging by the multitude of pipes that were visible pulling water out of the source.
“I’m seeing rice, wheat, looks like corn,” she said, gesturing to the fields. “Good staples. They planned well when they left.”
“Their leaders were assholes, but they were survivalists,” Strickland responded. “Strict isolationists, very big on self-sufficiency.”
“True, but that’s not enough and we both know it,” she said. “They left before flash flesh was feasible. Where’re the herd animals? Protein from vegetable source…you can live off it, but it doesn’t satisfy, and these guys? They’re not vegans.”
Strickland looked around, thinking for a moment.
“Cloning?” he suggested.
“Resource intensive,” Sorilla answered, “but maybe. The question then would become…why? It would be less effort to just seed grazing land for the animals, I’d expect.”
“Planet is extremely arid. Maybe they’re just not willing to waste land,” Strickland said. “Long term it would be questionable. You know how much waste is involved in livestock. It’s a losing proposition for a colony. Hell, it damn near crippled Earth before flash flesh was developed.”
Sorilla nodded.
Livestock was several times more resource intensive than crops, but at lower population levels it wasn’t a massive problem. When Earth topped ten billion or so, livestock had become near-crippling for even Earth’s impressive biome. No colony world could sustain livestock for long; the population would just tend to outstrip available land, unless someone hit the lotto and scored a near perfect Earth analog world.
Still, while cloning would free up a lot of land that would serve well for staple crops, it still required the same level of feed energy, and she didn’t think that was sustainable.
On a more arable world, with the appropriate bacteria cultures and natural food, sure. Not on an alien exo-planet that had to be slowly adapted to a Terran biome.
“Well, it’s one more puzzle to work out, I suppose,” she said. “I wish the Alliance were half as diligent as they should have been, or were sharing what they have at least. Just too many things to figure out here and no time to do it all in. I hate working like this.”
“If we always had the intel we wanted, this job wouldn’t be half as interesting,” Strickland told her as they drove along.
“Maybe not, but boring can be good too, Major.”
*****
The airless tires crunched on the dirt and stone as the APC slid to a stop along the outskirts of the city, just in front of what looked like a bar. Sorilla had called a halt as soon as she spotted the bar and slapped the armor a couple times as she hopped off. “Security, stick close to the APC. Lucians, stay inside. I’m going to take a walk.”
“Take a partner!” Strickland snapped.
Sorilla sighed, pausing. He was right, and she knew it, but she didn’t want to work with anyone. That was one of the reasons for retiring. She was tired of getting people killed.
“Fine,” she said after a moment, looking over the men who’d taken up positions around the APC and pointing at one of them, basically at random. “Corporal, you’re with me.”
A baby-faced soldier stared at her blankly for a moment before Sorilla gestured in annoyance.
“Come on, move your ass,” she snapped.
“Go on, Nicky,” Strickland growled. “The colonel gave an order.”
“Yes, sir!” the corporal said quickly, breaking from his position and running over to match Sorilla’s pace as she started back toward the bar.
Sorilla looked up before entering, judging the sun.
The local UV index was bad enough that she’d be tempted to use sun block if she were out in it much.
Definitely not conducive to long-term health. I wonder what the skin cancer rates are here?
Given the genetic stock the colony was based on, and the nature of the planet itself—low ozone, magnetic field weaker than Earth, and a few other factors she’d noted—Sorilla was betting it was obscenely high.
While it was patently false that darker skin was “immune” to skin cancer, light skin was as much as twelve times more vulnerable. For a colony with no logistical support from Earth, plucked from a gene group with high risk factors, and dropped onto a planet with high aggravating factors, it could get out of control in hurry. The social implications would be interesting, if it was as bad as it could be.
She filed the speculation away as she stepped up to the door of the bar and pulled on the handle. It didn’t budge, so she pushed and the door swung smoothly inward. She looked around as she stepped in, ocular implants allowing her to adjust to the darker lighting instantly.
It was almost a Wild West saloon.
I think they took their affinity for the West a little too far.
The culture was clearly modeled on an idealized vision of the American Old West. She wasn’t surprised in the least; given the nature of American li
bertarians, it was almost inevitable. There were worse cultures to base off of, in her opinion, so to this point she was actually rather enjoying herself.
“Anyone here?” she called out, scanning the interior as the corporal took up a place beside the door.
The wall behind the bar was interesting. She spotted a lot of bottles, mostly local distillates, she suspected, but enough Earth brands to raise her eyebrow.
Sorilla stepped up to the bar and looked closer, noting several bottles of Jack, among multiple other brands she knew. She couldn’t imagine they were still good to drink, not unless the proprietor had taken extreme caution in the high UV environment they’d been brought into, but it was possible.
“What can I do for you?” A woman’s voice came from a door behind the bar.
Sorilla slipped onto a stool as an older-looking woman stepped out, wiping down a glass as she looked Sorilla over.
“Haven’t seen you in these parts, and I’ve seen everyone,” the woman said firmly. “Also never saw a rig like yours parked outside.”
“New here,” Sorilla said, eyes scanning the bottles again. “What’s good?”
“Everything.”
Sorilla laughed. “Now that’s never true.”
“Who are you?” the bartender asked, scowling.
“I’m almost disappointed you don’t know,” Sorilla admitted. “I figured telling the story to the man at the landing field would have spread it around by now.”
“Malcolm? If you told him a good story, then he called Eri before you were out of sight,” she laughed. “Eri wouldn’t spread it around unless there was value in it to him.”
“Ah.” Sorilla nodded. “I should have expected that. So, who’s Eri?”
“Now I know for sure you’re not from around here,” the woman snorted. “Everyone knows Eri.”
“Is that a bottle of Johnny Walker Black?” Sorilla asked, shifting the subject as she looked over the woman’s shoulder. “Haven’t seen one of those in twenty years.”
The woman glanced back involuntarily at the sealed bottle before she nodded. “Came over on the ship, been in the family for four generations now. Don’t ask, it’s not for sale.”
Sorilla chuckled, reaching under her poncho.
“Relax,” she said as the woman tensed, eyes darting to something under the bar. Sorilla exposed a carbon-fiber flask as she pulled her hand back. “I said I haven’t seen a bottle of it in twenty years. Give me a glass.”
The woman eyed her suspiciously but slid a glass over to Sorilla as she popped the lid off the bottle and poured a couple fingers of amber liquid, then slid the glass back.
“Fifteen-year-old Johnny Walker Black,” Sorilla gestured. “Enjoy.”
“Fifteen? That’s not possible.” The woman shook her head, even as she lifted the glass and very lightly swirled the liquor around before taking a sniff of the evaporated alcohol. A sip followed, eliciting a surprised look with wide eyes. “That’s not local.”
“When I was briefed on the colony ship that came out this way, I stocked some good American booze,” Sorilla said with a grin, “and a fair amount of rotgut. How’s the local stuff taste?”
The woman never took her eyes off Sorilla as she mechanically retrieved a bottle, blowing dust off it, and broke the seal to pour her a serving. Sorilla intercepted the glass as it was slid in her direction and mimicked the woman’s actions, wincing as the burn of the alcohol seemed to eat at her eyes.
“Strong,” she said, whistling, “and I haven’t even taken a sip yet.”
It was a barley whiskey. She recognized that much when she did take a slow draw and the liquid burned down her throat and set every pain receptor in her mouth on fire. She’d never quite call it smooth, but it wasn’t bad. An acquired taste, but easily acquired, she suspected.
“What’s that aftertaste?” Sorilla asked, puzzled.
It wasn’t the darker flavors she was used to, almost like a hint of apple or almond.
“The filters don’t get all the hydrogen-cyanide out of the distillate,” the woman said with a smirk as Sorilla’s eyes widened as she looked closer at the drink. “It’s from the ground here. Only trace levels, of course, but you can taste the effects.”
“And I thought Absinthe was asking for trouble,” Sorilla joked as she held the glass up, examining the liquid through her hyperspectral implants.
The hydrogen-cyanide spike was there alright, but only when she cranked the sensitivity up to extreme levels. Certainly not lethal, but she couldn’t imagine it was good for her either.
Sorilla made a mental note to be more careful about the local area and foods.
“So, you’re clearly not from around here, and if this is really fifteen-year-old whiskey from Tennessee, I suppose that means you’re from Earth,” the bartender said.
“Hayden’s World these days, but I was born in the southern states,” Sorilla confirmed, taking another sip of the local whiskey. “This is almost like home.”
“Hayden’s World?”
“Jungle planet, about halfway back to Earth from here,” Sorilla said, oversimplifying massively. “Almost surprised you lot didn’t find it on your way out here. There’s not a lot of other ways you could have gone, so you almost had to have jumped through there.”
“As I understand it, the captain didn’t stop to look around at random systems on the way out.” The bartender shrugged. “Jump in, jump out.”
“I suppose it probably seemed pointless,” Sorilla conceded. “It’s not a high-probability star, and by then you’d have passed a lot of dead systems.”
“Could be,” was the reply. “I’m Lira, by the way. Welcome to Arkana and my pub.”
“Sorry, where are my manners,” Sorilla laughed, shaking the extended hand. “Sorilla. The heap against the door is Corporal Farrel."
“I was going to ask,” Lira said dryly. “Does he follow you everywhere?”
“No, though it seems he may start,” Sorilla groused a little. “They don’t much like letting me out of their sight these days.” She looked over her shoulder. “Damn it, Corporal, stop looking like you’re guarding the President and act sociable. You’re in the Fifth, damn it, not the Marines. Blend in.”
“That would be difficult, wearing that gear,” Lira laughed. “Where you get your poncho anyway? Design looks local, but I can see that material ain’t.”
Sorilla shrugged. “Had it put together last night before we came down, based on photos we got from the Alliance.”
Lira’s eyes narrowed. “You’re with the Xenos?”
“‘With’ is a strong term, except literally, I guess.” Sorilla shrugged. “Got a squad of Lucians riding with us. Alliance weren’t exactly going to allow us to fly around their space unescorted.”
“This is our space,” Lira hissed.
Sorilla just sort of looked bored. “Maybe someday, but Alliance controls your orbitals. That makes this their space, I’m afraid.”
Lira glared at her, but Sorilla just poured her another couple fingers of whiskey from the carbon flask.
“I’m not saying anything you don’t already know,” Sorilla told her bluntly. “No point getting pissed at me for making you face it. You’ve got no serious space industry, no fleet, and no hope of standing up to the Alliance in a straight-up fight. So, for now, they control the space.”
“For now? Maybe someday?” Lira asked, cautiously taking a sip as she looked at the other woman over the glass. “You suggesting something?”
Sorilla chuckled. “I’m a guerilla warfare specialist. I don’t need to suggest anything. I know the signs, and lord knows I can read the psych profile of the colonists that landed here. If you’ve not begun an active resistance, it’s only because you’ve not finished planning it yet.”
Lira shrugged, but said nothing as she looked over the corporal, who was stiffly taking a seat beside Sorilla.
“Get you something, Corporal?” she asked.
“No, ma’am.”
Sorilla sh
ook her head. “Goddamn, Corporal, what would you do if an Afghani offered you a drink in his own home? Turn him down? You can’t be that green.”
“Twice, yes, ma’am,” the corporal responded instantly. “Accept the third offer.”
Sorilla smiled. “Good. But this isn’t Afghanistan, Corporal. These are American cultures, or they originated from them, so what do you do here?”
“Face value, ma’am. No hidden agendas in an offer from the States.”
“So what did you do wrong?” she asked, turning to cast an even gaze at the man.
Corporal Nicholas Farrel stared back, a little blankly, with no answer on his lips or in his eyes.
A glass with a splash of local whiskey slid to a stop beside him, and he turned as Lira laughed at him.
“You called me ‘ma’am,’ soldier. This ain’t an army base,” Lira told him, amused. “Hell, we don’t even have an army base.”
“Sorry, ma’am…” Nicholas winced. “Lira.”
“Better, Nicky, better,” Sorilla said.
“As amusing as the lessons are,” Lira said, “why are you here?”
“Officially, unofficially, or actually?” Sorilla asked, laughing at the question. “I’ll warn you, though, all those answers are subject to change with no notice.”
“And you wouldn’t tell me the truth anyway, I expect,” Lira sighed.
“It’s not whether I’d tell you the truth,” Sorilla told her, “it’s whether it would still be true tomorrow.” Sorilla shrugged and went on. “It’s an old game. I’m getting tired of playing, to be honest. Right now, the actual reason we’re here is to gather intel.”
“On us?” Lira asked, skeptical.
“No, though we’ll do that too,” Sorilla said with blunt honesty. “SOLCOM is more concerned with the Alliance. Me? I'm actually fascinated by the two cultures you represent.”
“Two?”
“Yeah, the Muslim ship that colonized a world a few light years from here as well,” Sorilla said. “For my specialty, the idea of seeing how two cultures developed once isolated from Earth is not something I could pass up.”
