Star Binder

by Robert Appleton

  “On foot, though, right? They can’t be swimming here, not with two captives.”

  “On foot, yeah,” she confirms. “It was the weirdest thing. Once they’d snatched Lohengrin, they didn’t seem all that bothered about the rest of us. God, it was awful. We’d just crossed the river at the north end, and we were doing our exercises to keep warm, when Sarazzin shouted to us from somewhere in the rocks. It was a warning. ‘Duck-Boy, get out of here!’ he yelled. But before we knew what was happening the men had us surrounded. They’d jumped out of a gap in the cliff, and they were pointing their guns at us, like this.” She demonstrates with customary zeal—a dead-on re-enactment of the way the insurgents moved around and controlled the smashed-up café that day in Cydonia Sights. “There were six of them. Four of them wore short-sleeve khaki shirts and pants over dark survival suits, and those wide-brim hats they wear in the Australian Outback on Earth. Like tourists. The other two were really tall and hunched over. They wore cloaks with hoods. I didn't see their faces. Three of them stayed back to watch Sarazzin and the others. The other three went straight for Lohengrin, didn’t even think about taking Rachel and me. It was weird, kind of automatic, like—like they’d pre-planned it.”

  “They had pre-planned it,” Sarazzin buts in, keeping his distance.

  “I know. I’m coming to that,” she assures him. “Like I said—” back to Sergei and me, “once they’d got Lohengrin, they completely ignored Rachel and me, like we weren’t even there. They tranced Lohengrin to stop him struggling. Then the other three joined them, the ones who’d been watching Sarazzin’s team. They brought Walpole but left the others in that nook in the cliff.

  “Whoever those guys are, they seemed to have got what they came for, because just like that, they left us. Started walking south, this way. It didn’t make any sense until Rachel mentioned the word ‘Sheiker’, and we looked at each other and realised—this is a kidnapping. It has to be. For chrissakes, they’ve just snatched the heir to Rhea! There’s no telling what that could mean, politically, in the war for the Wing Worlds. They could make any ransom demands they want and Queen Mircalla would be faced with an impossible choice. Right?”

  “And you’re forgetting Walpole,” says Sarazzin.

  “Oh? What about him?” asks Lys.

  “His dad’s the CEO of Pacintic.”

  “Holy crap! The terra-forming empire? I didn’t know that.”

  “He made me promise to keep it a secret. About the only thing he did keep secret.” The former emperor curls his mouth into a wry smile, then quickly drops it when he sees the rest of us watching him. “This is no time for secrets,” he goes on. “Forget the Hex and all that. We’re not in competition anymore. People, this is it. If we don’t do something to stop these Sheikers leaving this canyon...”

  He can’t find the words to finish his rallying speech, but we all get the point, every last buggo. The upended stork is the Sheikers’ only transport out of here, and they don’t yet know it will never fly again. Maybe they just assume its comms aren’t working—damaged during the action with the bigger shuttle. In any event, they’re coming this way, and they won’t be long.

  “How did you get past them?” asks Sergei.

  “It was Rachel’s idea,” Lys explains. “Triathlete and all that. We knew we had to get past them without being seen. The only way to do it was to swim underwater as deep as we could, for as long as we could, and let the river’s current whisk us past them.”

  “But didn’t they see your glowsuits?”

  “Don’t know,” she answers with a shrug. “The sunset reflecting off the water might have dazzled them. Also, it's kinda murky in there. And we did swim down pretty deep.”

  “Does it matter?” Sarazzin argues. “They’re coming. That’s all we need to worry about.” While scanning the crash site, he thumps his chest in an attempt to dispel a phlegmy cough. “So what’s the deal there?” he asks me—not Sergei, whom he’s clearly still a little frightened of.

  I give him a brief account of our findings, show him the weapons in our small arsenal.

  “Better than nothing,” he suggests with almost shocking (for him) optimism. “Was it your idea to pump the stork’s fuel out like that? I can see the panel’s been opened manually.”

  “Um, it was his idea,” I admit.

  “Smart move,” Sarazzin addresses Sergei for the first time since the latter’s arrival in the Hex, almost three months ago. “Are you thinking bow and arrow, or harpoon?”

  “Harpoon,” replies the Minsk Machine. “It has sighting lock, and it’s more powerful.”

  “Agreed. So what’s the plan...after you’ve blown up the stork?”

  While giving the crash site a once-over with his gaze, Sergei masks an involuntary yawn with his forearm.

  Sarazzin chuckles to himself because Sergei really does appear ice-cool, almost indifferent to the whole thing. It’s just his way. “Fair enough, Sergei.” The former emperor summons his remaining loyal subjects, and invites the rest of us to join him inside the cave.

  “Okay then, people, we don’t have much time. Where do we go from here?”

  CHAPTER 16

  Sacrifice

  It doesn’t take long for us to agree that, for now, doing nothing is the only sensible course. The Sheikers have assault rifles; we have arrows and harpoons. They’re a coordinated unit of trained killers; we recently beat each other up in an overblown sandbox. We can’t engage them. So we’ll have to wait and see what happens. Sergei insists we use his plan to ignite the fuel as a last resort, in case another Sheiker ship arrives to take Lohengrin and Walpole off-world.

  “They knew we were coming. They were waiting for us,” explains Sarazzin. “Almost as soon as we opened our lifeboat hatch, they had us. What does that suggest to you?”

  “That someone from inside the Hex might have tipped them off,” says Rachel. “How else would they know about Lohengrin and Walpole?”

  “Right on,” says the former emperor. “They didn’t just get lucky. They can’t have just got lucky. This has been carefully planned—kidnap and ransom—a big deal. Once they got Walpole, their stork took off, fast and vertical. It must have gone a bit too high, a bit too fast, because the first time we saw it, it was above the cliff-top. It tried dipping low under cover when your shuttle approached. But I don’t think it managed to hide in time. Your shuttle started to swerve, real sharp-like, as though it had seen the threat and was heading back. Then the stork opened fire. It hit your ship twice. That was when your lifeboat ejected and its parachute opened, way off course. You guys were lucky you even made the canyon. The winds must have been strong up there.

  “But the ships collided before you landed on that ledge. Your shuttle was in bad shape, ready to go down, then all of a sudden it got this crazy burst of speed. It aimed right for the stork, like some kind of kamikaze dive. Boom! We saw the explosion, but we didn’t know if both ships were destroyed or what. We couldn’t see from where we were. Our Sheikers went nuts, started swearing their heads off. The ones with the hoods are the leaders, but we couldn't tell what they said. The others got rough with Walpole, made him tell them who was in the other lifeboat. He was scared out of his mind, so he told them everything—and I mean everything. About Lohengrin, O’see Hendron, the Hex. All of our points totals on the leader board, down to the last decimal place. That goddamn photographic memory of his! I’m telling you, we might have been the galaxy’s best-kept secret a couple of hours ago, but we sure as hell aren’t now. Walpole spilled his guts.”

  “So we can’t let them leave, no matter what,” Lyssa repeats. “Whatever happens, that information has to stay here with us.”

  “But they’ll back come for us, right? The Hex people? They’ll send the whole fleet in. Right?” Ramirez is on the verge of tears. None of us thinks any less of him for it—not that we could think any less of Ramirez. Half of us hate him only slightly less than we hate Sarazzin. Except we don’t anymore, not here, not now. It's stran
ge. Like the past half a year never happened.

  “They will come at some point,” I tell him, but even as I speak, my overactive brain is thinking a few moves ahead. “Just waiting in here, though, hiding until that happens—it could backfire.”

  “Why’s that, Jim?” asks Lyssa.

  “I’m thinking about our suits. It’ll be dark soon and we’ll glow like fireflies. Even if we stay down, these things give off way too much light. This whole cave will be brighter than Phobos when the sun goes down. They’ll have us in no time.”

  “What else can we do? Bury ourselves in the sand?” she says.

  “Not bad,” I reply. “But here’s the thing: even when our Hex ships arrive, what’s the first thing the Sheikers are gonna do? Try to steal them. They want a way out of here as much as we do. If we just hide in here, the Hex people will walk straight into an ambush. They’ll probably get killed. So the Sheikers will not only escape, they’ll escape with Lohengrin and Walpole, and we’ll still be stuck here, maybe for days.” Scanning the worried faces of my fellow buggos spurs me on. “So I guess the moral of that story is: we can’t wait here and do nothing.”

  “I always knew you were trouble, Trillion,” replies Sarazzin. “You never did play by the rules.”

  “No, he just never played by your rules,” Lyssa reminds him with a touch of venom.

  Sarazzin pretends he didn’t hear that. “What do you propose we do, then?”

  “I don’t have a strategy or anything, but look—” As dusk begins its slow, de-colourizing fade-out, I think ahead to a canyon inked in moonlight and shadow. A time of concealment. In our current glowsuits we can’t hide, but in the stork we found... “Survival suits, man-sized—there were at least three in there, weren’t there, Sergei?”

  “At least.”

  “Then that’s our advantage! We can move around without being seen. Guys, we can ambush them. ”

  “Oh, brilliant,” scoffs Ramirez. “We sneak up on trained gunmen, using our bare hands.”

  “Hmm. Not necessarily bare hands...” Sarazzin massages the nape of his neck as he mulls something over. “You know, Trillion might be onto something.”

  “Yeah, straight onto his own tombstone. It’s the dumbest idea I’ve—”

  “Shut up, Julio!” Sarazzin snaps at Ramirez. “Get you head out of your ass and think. That goes for all of you—both teams. Trillion’s right. We’ve got a chance to turn the tables here, as a group, but we need to be specific. Put it this way: how can we take out six armed gunmen without giving away our position?”

  We all watch him expectantly, as though he has the answer to his own question. He doesn’t. One by one, each of us looks away, filtering the frightening proposal through his own unique mental skillset that even our DEMOs won’t have been able to fully fathom yet. They’ve never observed us out in the field.

  Rachel’s the first to speak out. “Guys, I’m thinking of ways to split them up. But I don’t think we need to. I think they’re going to split themselves up to investigate the crashed stork. How many do you think they’ll send in there? At least one. Maybe two or three.”

  “I’d say two,” answers Lys.

  “Why two?” someone asks.

  Lys shrugs. “’Cause that’s what I would do. If I was going in there to look, knowing there are weapons on board and hostile students on the loose, I’d want someone watching my back.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking,” says Rachel. “Two go in, but the others will want to keep Lohengrin and Walpole at a safe distance. They’re the prizes. And that’s our chance for—”

  “Ker-boom!” Sergei slightly overdoes the sound effect, but his enthusiasm is infectious, especially when he grabs the bow and quiver. “And then for the silent strike. While the others are dazed,” he says.

  “How good are you with that thing?” asks Sarazzin.

  The Minsk Machine demonstrates his full-arm draw, and holds it with full-on cockiness. Lyssa rolls her eyes when his glance seeks her approval. He relaxes. “If I can get closer, I can put one straight through a Sheiker, no problem.”

  I’ve never seen him shoot, so I can’t really vouch for his aim, and his boast does have a whiff of Sergei-ese. Nevertheless, if I had to bet my life on anyone, it would be him every time. “So who gets to fire the harpoon flare, to set off the explosion?” I ask.

  “I’ll do that,” Sarazzin announces without hesitation. “I’ve fired weapons before. My uncles are both retired Phi—they taught me and my brothers how to shoot.”

  “In that case, you might be better off down there with me,” Sergei interrupts him. “When I’ve put an arrow through the third Sheiker, he’s going to drop his weapon. I might not be able to get to it without being seen by the others. But maybe you could, while his attention is on me. That could be our best chance to kill the rest. You get hold of a rifle, we could finish it.”

  The emperor swallows a golf ball.

  “And what if he can’t get the rifle?” a concerned crony—Orkney—asks.

  “Brother, this whole day’s been one big what if,” Sergei replies. “You got any better ideas, let’s have ’em. If not, here’s a ‘what if’ for you: what if I break your face for what you did to my pals in the Hex.”

  The big guy’s flash of temper pretty much seals the deal. It also scares the bejesus out of everyone—everyone except me. I’ve seen him like this before, and it’s generally a good sign. It means he’s one hundred percent committed to making something happen, and if you want to offer your two cents, they’d best be two cents betting on him. That’s Sergei. A great big Russian teddy bear most of the time, until he sets his sights on something. Then you can forget the teddy.

  Night-time casts its pitch tarp over the canyon. The river’s rapid flow is visible only as a pale, fluid mirage. It would normally reflect the light from Phobos and Deimos in a million smithereens, but the clouds are thick overhead. It helps us. Sergei and Sarazzin, both outfitted, like me, with a man-sized survival suit from the stork, lie in wait down there behind the charred wreckage of our shuttle. I can’t make them out. Hopefully they can’t make me out either.

  I’m alone up here among the broken teeth of a cave full of stalagmites. Several metres above the others' hiding place. I'm with a weapon I’ve never fired before, miming the launch sequence over and over. My hands start to shake. A tingle in my scalp and up and down my spine somehow seems to drain the air from my lungs. The only thing that helps is closing my eyes, concentrating on the rhythm of breathing, and pretending I’m afloat in zero-g.

  A noise in the distance snaps me to. It’s rhythmic, awkward, like the creaking of new shoes. It suddenly occurs to me that if I can hear it over the rumble of the waterfall, it must be close. Close enough to—

  They’re here!

  At the first glimpse of shapes moving at the river’s edge, I press myself flat against the rock floor, paralysed. This is it. The trap is set and we hunters must show poise. Patience. Take your time, Jim. Wait until they’re at the stork—two of them, at least. Any less and Sergei won’t have a prayer down there.

  Sergei...

  That’s enough to get me off the ground and back at my post. Observer and trigger-man. I realise I’ve held the same breath since hitting the deck. They can’t possibly hear me exhale inside my breather from way down there, but I ease it out anyway.

  The Sheikers’ formation isn’t what we expected. They have Lohengrin out front, at gunpoint. The hooded man at the rear carries Walpole’s limp body on his shoulder. They don’t exactly creep, but they’re definitely cautious, each watching a different direction, his weapon’s aim never quite matching the line of his gaze. If they don’t split up we’ll have to abandon our attack. We can’t risk killing Lohengrin and Walpole unless we’ve no other option.

  As they approach the fuel pool—I can tell because the rock is darker there—I snatch up a flare and hold it at arm’s length, squeezing, ready to spark it behind the butt of a fat stalagmite. I don’t want to risk warni
ng them ahead of time. Now if they’d only split up like they’re supposed to...that’s it...drag Lohengrin back, out of harm’s way...a bit further. He’s their jackpot, not mine. I need a busy, buggo-free zone around the taxi so I can light up this canyon.

  They’re taking the bait! Halving their force! Only one’s going in, though. Crap. We’ll have to wait. No sense in blowing our only shot on one Sheiker out of six.

  The loner retreats before he reaches the stork. Called back by his colleagues. The man carrying Walpole lowers him onto the ground at the river’s edge. The boy with the photographic memory lies still. Another man drags Lohengrin down beside Walpole, plants a boot on his chest to stop him escaping. Then the cruel suck-baits hold a conference. Bringing their combined professional experience to bear on a situation they are trained for and we are not. This is a world of men, of killers. They don’t play gigs. They don’t play at all.

  What were we thinking, trying to outsmart them like this?

  I relax my grip on the flare. This isn’t going to happen, not unless...

  They part company again...and in pairs! Four stay and two go.

  It’s on.

  I tear the head off the flare but keep the flame hidden. The Sheiker duo approaches the upturned taxi at a jog, right where I want them. The others are busy threatening Lohengrin, who will be more inclined than ever to give them the slip, with some of his captors gone. This is it, then—while they’re not looking this way...

  I lash the flare to the shaft of the harpoon, using the point of the spear tip to anchor it. The flare is very light, and the harpoon heavy, so it shouldn’t affect the trajectory much. I double-check the targeting. It hasn’t altered. All that’s left is to hold my breath and squeeze the trigger.

  Done. Done!

  The projectile streaks out over the dark canyon. It looks for one gut-churning moment like it’s going to overshoot and strike the burnt-out shuttle beyond. Before I have chance to gasp, it hits the stork, mid-tail. It sticks into the metal. The impact rips the flare apart. Green sparks burst out and then cascade to ground like the wilting petals of a brief but brilliant flower. Some of them catch fire in the fuel. The blaze spreads, quickly covering the rock and the taxi.