Born of Sand (Tales of a Dying Star Book 5)

by Kristoph, David

  She was about to argue some more but the words would not come. Her head gently rested back on the table as the darkness invaded her vision. She bowed to the inevitable.

  She dreamed vivid dreams of her siblings. Beth and Pavani running through the fields. Alard squatting in the mud, probing for worms with a finger. He found one and held it up for his sisters to see. Beth wanted to take it and smush it with a rock, but Alard cradled it to his chest and insisted nobody harm it. Alard was the best of us, the thought drifted across Kari's mind.

  Acteon sat in a chair watching his children play. He always liked to watch, when he was home from a tour.

  A violent trembling woke Kari, throwing her into alarm, until she realized it was only Leo shaking her by the shoulder. "Kari. Can you hear me? Focus on my voice." She felt a pinch of something in her right elbow. Which was strange, since the intravenous drip was in her left arm.

  She groaned and mumbled something at him.

  "Okay, very good. Now, can you sit upright? Just enough to get on your elbows."

  Kari's head felt like a swishing bowl of soup, but she did as he commanded. There was a worried tone in his voice. Not a shade anymore, just the concerned doctor he pretended to be. Which meant...

  "If she can stand, she can go," Farrow said at the foot of the bed. "Only then."

  Leo put up his hands. "Look, I don't want any trouble. But she threatened me last night, said if I don't let her go she'll..."

  Kari's vision came into better focus. The three in her group stood around her, armed with new rifles and fresh clothes. They were ready to go.

  Have to stand. Need to go with them. My mission.

  A warm surge ignited in her stomach, urging her up with renewed energy. With steady precision she swung her legs--one of which bore a line of staples sealing her wound--over the edge of the bed and dropped to the ground. Pain flared anew, but she pushed it down and stared at Farrow with what she hoped lucidity. She gripped the table to keep herself from swaying.

  "Fine," Farrow said, tight-lipped. "We'll meet you outside in five." He strode through the door with Geral close behind. Mira gave her a sympathetic look before disappearing too.

  When they were gone Kari began to waver on her feet. Leo grabbed her by the waist and said, "How you feel?"

  "Pain," she said through clenched teeth. "A lot of pain." Not just in her leg, but her hips and ribs felt bruised as well.

  "I took you off the drip an hour ago, so you could wake. You nearly didn't, so when they weren't looking I gave you a pinch of adrenaline to speed it up." He shook a tiny needle in front of her face and tossed it on the countertop. "You're welcome. Now hold still for a second while I get you something for the road."

  She gripped the observation table while he went to a cabinet and moved pills from one large glass container to a smaller one. "Recommended dose is one pill every four hours, but you can double that if you need to. Three pills at once in an emergency, but don't make it a habit." He handed her the bottle.

  "I used some of my femoral injector fighting the stinger. Did you refill it?"

  He snorted. "With those pills you won't need your femoral injector."

  She looked down at herself. "These staples in my leg. They're better than the stitches? I can make quick movements without them tearing open?"

  "Well now," Leo chuckled, "I doubt you'll be able to make any quick movements. But if you do, then yeah, you'll run that risk. If they come open you'll have a harder time of it. Gave you a few packs of extra blood but you can't go losing more of it. You're weak enough."

  Kari nodded.

  "Your gear's in the hall, along with some fresh clothes. Cleanliness room is at the end of the hall." He lowered his voice. "His Luminance's blessing upon you, glorious shade."

  She returned the sentiment and shambled out of the room.

  The clothes were where he said they'd be, plain but free of blood, which was all that mattered. On the way to the cleanliness room she passed the garage, where two men were using handheld polymer guns to repair the door of a cruiser. Kari grabbed an extra gun from the wall when they weren't looking and carried it to the bathroom. After stripping naked, she popped three pills--fuck your dosage recommendations--and used the gun to coat her wound with molten plastic. Only biting down on the leather grip of her knife kept her from screaming.

  The polymer dried quickly, and she dressed and retrieved her shiny new rifle before meeting the others outside.

  She was shocked to find the sky still dark. "Awfully early," she commented.

  "Not early," Geral said, glancing at Farrow. "Late. We gave you all day to recoup."

  Farrow gave him a look that hinted at an exhausted argument. He turned back to Kari and gave a weak smile.

  Geral still appeared unhappy. "Let's go, it's a few blocks this way."

  They followed him down the alleyway in the darkness, Kari hobbling along as best she could.

  "We should have left you," Farrow whispered after a few minutes. "It would have been the smart thing. Safe. But while you were out I realized how much we rely on you. How much I rely on you. Even injured, you're more valuable than any of the rest of us."

  "Thank you." You'll learn my value soon enough.

  If she had slept through the day, that meant she only had one more day until the Freemen back at Victory Base began their attack without Farrow and the pilots. Not a problem, as Kari would reach the palace within a few hours. Once inside she could contact the orbital command, and if they still remained unresponsive she could take Farrow straight the Governor himself. They were marching directly to their own capture, even easier than Kari springing the trap in the desert as originally planned. Some peacekeeper guards may die along the way before she had a chance, which is why she had not done it that way in the first place, but at this point it was an acceptable loss to stop the war.

  And then I'll go home.

  She nearly didn't remember her other life. It felt like just a dream, vague wisps of memory too distant to grasp. She'd known nothing but Praetar for so many years that even her family's faces were difficult to summon in her mind. She possessed no pictures, of course. Too risky. Would Alard, her brother, even look the same? He'd been so small when Kari left home. She couldn't picture him in a pilot's uniform.

  Farrow kept a continuous watch on her, constantly checking to make sure their pace was adequate for her to keep up. Their path took them mostly down dark alleys, though twice they needed to cross a main boulevard with yellow lanterns illuminating the dusty road. Geral paused to wait at those, ensuring no peacekeeper patrols were nearby, before leading them across at a jog. Kari hoped he checked thoroughly, as she was slower than the rest and if any peacekeepers did see them she'd surely be picked off with ease. An unfortunate way to go, so close to completion.

  The crumbling apartments grew wider as they went. The hum of machinery announced when they reached the industrial district. Black smoke rose from brick stacks above the factories, walls tall and windowless. The triangular shadow of the Governor's Palace stood larger than before. They were only a few blocks from the Palace and the enormous square before it.

  Geral stopped in front of one large building, stepping back to examine the outside. He nodded to himself. Instead of entering the factory through the nondescript front door, he turned and guided them along its side into a narrow alley that led to the back. Even at that hour, with darkness all around and the city sleeping, the sound of machinery and workers drifted from inside. Mira looked all around, tensing as they walked.

  They reached a plain door with no window. Geral nodded, his voice a whisper. "Through there. One guard, typically."

  "How do we get in?" Farrow asked. "Is it locked?"

  "It is, but..."

  Mira jumped in. "...the guard steps outside to take a break." Every head swung toward her. "He comes out here to smoke a pinch. Sometimes the door closes on him and he has to come back through the front door."

  Farrow said, "So we wait."

&nbs
p; They arrayed themselves on either side of the door, Farrow closest to where the opening would be. Pain seared Kari's leg as she crouched, and she stifled a groan with two more of Leo's pills.

  The wait wasn't long. Kari had barely gotten comfortable when the door clicked open and a skinny guard stepped outside. Though he wore a rifle across his chest, his hands were busy fumbling at his pocket. Before he knew what was happening Farrow covered his mouth with one hand, bringing a blade across the throat with the other. A line appeared on his white skin. Farrow helped him collapse to the floor of the alley, dark blood running against the dark ground.

  Mira watched with wide eyes, yet said nothing as they all slipped inside.

  It appeared as nothing more than a storage room for extra electroid parts, the same sorts of stacked crates they'd recovered from the captured freighter days before. Geral approached a pair of crates that appeared a slightly different color than the rest, more faded. Like they'd been there longer than all the others. He put away his rifle and felt around the outside with his hands until something made a ka-chunk sound. Two stacked crates swiveled outward on a hinge, the door to a dark staircase leading down into the ground.

  They all looked at one another before silently continuing.

  Farrow took the lead this time, walking down the seemingly endless tunnel. It felt like a bomb shelter, with concrete walls and little else, not even pipes or vents running along the ceiling. Lamps spaced every hundred feet created small spheres of light between the darkness. The air smelled wrong, too many particles floating around. Musty.

  Yet to Kari it smelled like safety, a familiar tunnel in which she'd often traveled. And for the last time, if His Luminance wills it.

  After what seemed like fifty minutes, but was probably no more than ten, the tunnel ended at a closed steel barricade. Farrow tried the latch, the metal straining against the door. It didn't budge.

  "I didn't know about this," Geral said. "It's usually open, with a guard around the next corner."

  This isn't right, Kari thought. The door was usually open, at least every time she'd entered the palace. Had the orbital station received her signal after all? Was the Governor locking down the palace in preparation for the attack? Either way, it seemed like a good sign to Kari.

  "Do you know the code?" Farrow asked, gesturing to a keycode panel on the side.

  Geral shook his head. "I told you, I expected just a guard to be here, the door wide open. Something's wrong."

  "Do you think we should abort?"

  "What other choice is there?"

  Grateful for her knowledge, Kari limped forward and punched a sixteen digit code into the panel. The sound of three massive locks opening echoed through the tunnel, and then the door hissed open. Cooler air filled the tunnel. The corridor beyond stood empty.

  Farrow gave her an appraising look. "Well fuck you for limping around like you're useless."

  She smiled weakly. "Not useless, yet."

  Geral hesitated. "I'm not sure I like this. I was told their routines are stringent."

  "A locked door is better than having to kill another guard, right?" Mira said. Her tone made it clear she didn't like the idea of killing anyone else.

  "I'm not so sure..."

  Farrow looked like he was thinking it over. No, don't change your minds yet. We're so close. Before they could, Kari hobbled forward and stepped through the doorway. No guard waited around the next corner.

  The corridor met a T-intersection. To the right was the gaoler's office, and the row of prisoner cells beyond. To the left was the lift that led to the surface. Using what stealth she could with a bad leg, Kari skulked along the wall to the right, toward the gaoler's office. She didn't want to kill any innocent Melisao, but didn't want one putting a hole in her chest either. Taking a deep breath, she spun around the corner and aimed her rifle in the office.

  Empty.

  Now that rankled the hair on the back of Kari's neck. Locking the escape tunnel was one thing, but leaving the prisoners unguarded...

  The others appeared, so she forced herself to relax. "I'll watch from here while you guys vet the prisoners."

  They crouched low as they passed the office, moving toward each individual cell. A window in the office showed the first cell, with a single male occupant huddled on the ground. Mira approached, whispering, "Hey, you. Come here," to the prisoner.

  Kari went to the computer terminal set in the wall. She typed her access code--oh how it felt strange to use her shade credentials again!--and the terminal flashed to a prompt. Planetary Comms Relay, then the outbound encrypted message function. The terminal flickered as it prepared the program. This is it. Confirmation, then it can all end. Then she could go home.

  The first cell was just around the corner, and Kari could hear the prisoner inside begging. "Please. I'm not a criminal. I did what I had to."

  Mira made a shushing sound through the cell bars. "It's fine. Tell me your name."

  The program in front of Kari blinked to indicate it was ready. She entered the address for the orbital command station and waited the thousandth of a second it would take for the ping signal to send, process, and come back.

  Destination address unreachable.

  What? She tried the code again, in case she'd typed it wrong. Same message.

  That couldn't be right. Even when orbital stations went dark in emergencies, they left their backup channels open. At the very least she should have gotten a ping response.

  "Tell me your name. What were you imprisoned for?" Mira's voice asked. The questions they'd practiced.

  "I didn't mean to. He pulled the pistol first..."

  The terminal had an outbound planetary connection, so Kari switched over to the wide-network database. A few screens and passcodes later and she had a blank query screen. She typed in her shade identification code and two rows of a table appeared:

  AGENT S462JJ9 - ACTIVE

  "No," she mumbled, "not active. I initiated the completion code!" It should have displayed her status as finalizing, indicating she was ready for extraction. Something had gone wrong with her transmitter.

  But she was beginning to suspect it was worse than that. No. Something is wrong with the orbital command station, not my transmitter. She'd been on her own for years, but the thought of the orbital command monitoring her had always been present. A guardian in the sky, always just above and out of sight. If something was wrong there then she truly was alone.

  Digging deep into her memory, Kari typed in the backup station address. She held her breath, and thankfully the ping came back responsive. She switched codes and entered the encryption key to initiate a comm. The wait was excruciating, listening to Farrow and the others readying the prisoners down the hall. She felt trapped, exposed. So close to the end, yet inexplicably held up. All I need is confirmation, stars damn you!

  A man's face appeared on the screen, along with a cacophony of noise. Somewhere in the background an alarm sounded, and men shouted to one another. The sound of hissing hung over it all, like a vent letting out too much steam.

  Through the window, Mira raised her head at the noise from the office. Kari turned the volume down and leaned close to speak.

  "This is agent S462JJ9. Requesting confirmation of completion signal received, sent at--" She unfolded the skin to reveal her wrist computer, and read off the time she'd marked from the desert, just before the stinger attack.

  The man--an officer--gave her a blank look. "Primary orbital station was knocked out in the first wave, two days ago! There was no one there to receive the signal." Another alarm, more insistent in pitch, sounded somewhere distant.

  "What attack?"

  "We've been fighting them from across the planet," the man continued, "in opposite orbits. But we're out of interceptors and drones, and our turret defenses..." An explosion shook the screen, knocking the man down. He rose, and in a fatalistic tone said, "Won't be long now."

  "Who?" Kari asked. "Who is attacking?"

  "Reinforc
ements arrived from Melis, but I don't think they'll get here in--" A bright flash covered half the man's face and the screen went black. The words, "Signal lost," filled the screen before it returned to the primary comms program.

  Kari stared at the terminal, struggling to comprehend what had just happened. An attack. From whom? The Freemen had no orbital ships, and the Children of Saria were focused on Melis. All reports showed they didn't care about Praetar at all. Pirates were always a threat, but they wouldn't attack a Melisao outpost directly. Would they?

  That explained why the guards were gone, at least. Everyone upstairs protecting the palace. Or at least preparing to.

  But now what?

  The delirious prisoner continued pleading with Mira. "I didn't know. How could I have known?" Farther down the hall it sounded like Farrow and Geral were still working on theirs.

  Kari fought a wave of nausea, gripping the computer so tightly that her knuckles turned white. It passed. Three years of work, skulking around this miserable planet, and it was all falling apart there at the end. So close to relief, to going home.

  I can still go home. She refused to accept it. She just need to reevaluate the plan. Try something different.

  She could have simply killed them, but the need to keep Farrow alive pulsed irrationally in her head. He had information. With an attack occurring they could use him as a bargaining tool. Hob was in charge of the Freemen now, and Kari doubted his resolve was strong enough to continue forward while they held Farrow. If they threatened to execute Farrow, Hob would surrender.

  Kari navigated through the directory until she found the code for the palace guard station upstairs. A uniformed man answered almost immediately. "Who the stars are you?" His face was flush and his eyes darted around nervously. "And what are you doing down in the cells?"

  She quickly whispered her code and rank. "I have two enemy combatants down here, attempting to free prisoners. One of them is the leader of the Freemen. Capturing him alive is of primary importance. I am badly wounded. Send five men to assist."