by AM Scott
“Mother Ferra,” Captain Ruhger said, “we’re a single-ship fold transport company. We are not a mercenary company and we can’t go up against Galactica. If Galactica found something here, we’ll help you relocate, but that’s all we can do.”
Mother Ferra nodded. “I appreciate that. We don’t think they have found anything—yet. We think the Badlands have been invaded by a group of speculative miners. They are probably sponsored by Galactica Corp but not closely directed by them.”
Sister Ani spoke before Mother Ferra finished her last word. “This group of miners has shown up on Galactica Corp worlds before. They are covertly dropped onto a world in groups of twenty to fifty, depending on the area and type of exploration, and they’re expected to support themselves. If they find something valuable, then they get paid well, with shares in the discovery, and they end up rich. If they don’t find anything, they’re either picked up and taken to the next world or stranded—it’s a fifty-fifty proposition and depends on how the colonists take it and the political situation at the time. These beings, usually the same species as the colonists, quite often take over a colony if they’re stranded. They’re well equipped with exploratory equipment and weapons. The bottom-level workers are often recruited from prisons, so they have absolutely nothing to lose by being ruthless.”
Sister Lashtar broke in, staring at Captain Ruhger. “On merc-net, they’re known as the Inquisitors.”
Clutching at the arrow of pain stabbing into her heart, Saree gasped involuntarily. Suns. The Inquisitors. Her blood froze in her veins and she shuddered.
The end of her childhood, named aloud.
Chapter 4
Ruhger glared at ‘Sister’ Lashtar. By the giant black hole of Andromeda. Lashtar knew exactly what that name meant to them. Those mud-burrowers started it all—from the end of Phalanx Eagle to the death of their parents. Oh, they knew now Galactica Corp was behind it all, the backers of fear and terror across the fringes, encouraging PE’s greedy leaders, but the Inquisitors were a key arm of terror and control. PE had been called in to support the Inquisitors’ actions on mining colony Jericho when the miners turned out to be tougher than they seemed. He looked at his crew, his rage reflected in their faces. His gaze caught on the Scholar’s face—pale as death with slashes of red highlighting her cheekbones. Fear or anger? He peered closer. Both emotions raged in her face. She noticed his attention, her expression abruptly clearing as she looked away. But her face still looked like a fresh corpse. Why would the Inquisitors inspire emotion in the Scholar? What did she know about them? Had she run afoul of them?
Chief said, “Are you certain, Lashtar?”
The unusual intensity in Chief’s voice brought Ruhger’s attention back to the main conversation. Chief gripped his ever-present wrench tight enough to make his veins stand out.
“It’s Sister Lahstar, Chief Bhoher, and we’re as sure as we can be,” Sister Ani said. “There’s no real way to know; it’s not like they advertise on Gliese-net or hang banners over the cave entrances.” She sniffed. “Since we’ve been watching the Badlands, we’ve taken vids of twelve individual men. One of them is a known Inquisitor commander, one of the exploratory team leaders. He goes by Dalm. He’s known to be particularly ruthless and intelligent, or maybe cunning is a better word.” She scowled harder, but there was more than anger, there was terror in her face too, no matter how hard she tried to hide it.
Sister Ani continued, “Dalm is already rich, but evidently he enjoys raping and killing too much to settle down into a life of wealth and ease—but not just ‘simple’ pillage, no, he seems to enjoy the chase, the slow rise of terror, the adrenaline of knowing he’s the cause of it. He’s got warrants across the core for brutal killings—he spends his ‘downtime’ from the Inquisitors terrorizing, raping and killing girls. He likes to pick a girl out, stalking and threatening her, and he does this time after time until a world gets too hot for him or the Inquisitors call him away. He’s sick. Extremely sick.” She shuddered hard, a full-body convulsion.
Ani wasn’t just angry and worried but outright terrified. Probably not for herself but for their girls. Although she could fight, just like all the Sisters, most of her fighting was on the net. Ruhger looked around the grim faces of the Sisters. There were only fifty or so of them, and while they were well armed for a group of colonists, they didn’t have anywhere near enough firepower to take on the Inquisitors.
Neither did Lightwave.
“How many groups have been dropped on Gliese, Sister Ani?” he asked.
“We don’t know. Maybe only here.” Shrugging, she shook her head slowly, hopelessly. “There’s been no reports of attacks elsewhere, but this is a very sparsely populated world. If one of the compounds on the equator was taken out, we might not know for weeks or months. Or ever.”
“I can ask the Al-Kindis to keep an eye out,” the Scholar offered. She had recovered her color, although she still looked grim. “They’re in the equatorial area, looking for perfume essences.”
Mother Ferra nodded. “That would be a good idea. They should be warned of the potential danger.”
“Yes, they should. Before they left,” Ruhger said, making his anger clear. Mother Ferra was about to say something else, but he cut her off. “When was the last time you talked to the Havenites?”
She frowned at him. “A few months ago.”
He glared back. Stubborn, shortsighted old bat. “Last time we were here, Grant warned you that your isolation would bite you. I understand you don’t want to open your girls up to bad influences, but trying to fight off the Inquisitors on your own is a losing proposition. If you’re trying to stay alive, you’ll need all the help you can get.”
Mother Ferra and the rest glared at him, but Lashtar nodded in fervent agreement. Thank all the suns she hadn’t forgotten everything she’d learned.
“Sister Ani, what happens on worlds where the Inquisitors are pushed back or taken out?” the Scholar asked.
An interesting and intelligent question. The Scholar impressed him more every day. She also worried him more every day—she had too many secrets. Her reaction to the Inquisitors hinted there were more.
Sister Ani’s mouth twisted. “That doesn’t happen very often, but usually, the world is ignored for some time, from a standard year to five, then a new group is dropped. The only worlds successfully keeping the Inquisitors away did so by inviting another mining company in,” she said with a grimace. “The results aren’t horribly different—there’s still a lot of strip mining and destruction—but at least the colonists get a credit stake to move someplace new. But those were independent worlds, not a Galactica Corp world. If it’s a Galactica Corp world, eventually everyone is eliminated, one way or the other.”
Ruhger blew out an exasperated breath. “So there’s no sense in fighting them. Even if we eliminate this group, we’ll end up trying to get you off-world eventually. So why aren’t you packing up and leaving? We’re here now. Find a new world and let’s get moving.”
Mother Ferra glared at him. “And what about all the colonists?”
“You inform them of what’s happening. It’s their problem to get off-world. Either they make a big stink and get relocated by Galactica or they pull up stakes and go.” Why was Mother Ferra even asking, when she knew the answer?
“With what? Most of them were brought here as homesteaders. They have no credit to hire a way off-planet and nowhere to go,” Mother Ferra said.
“There’s always indenturing,” Chief said.
“Slavery!” Mother Ferra spit at him.
“With the right company, it is better than death or slavery by Galactica,” Chief answered, calmly. But his hands, clenching on the wrench, told a different story.
“Enough!” Tyron broke in. “This is a distraction. You’ve kept yourselves isolated out here and don’t know the Havenites well, so you’re not really worried about them. Why aren’t you telling us where to take you? I know you’ve done the research already—you
’re not stupid.”
Ruhger barked out a laugh and got glares from the Sisters, but answering looks of approval from the crew. And the Scholar. Once again, Tyron’s analysis of people was right on target. “Tyron is correct. What’s holding you here? Why aren’t you telling us where you want to go? You know we won’t charge you beyond our costs.”
Lashtar, looking at Mother Ferra expressionlessly, said, “I told you.”
Mother Ferra glared at her for a moment, then turned back to him with a look of resignation. “Yes. You are correct. There is a reason. One, we don’t have a stake anymore. How do we start on a new planet without resources? We saved for ten standards to make this move and we were prepared for the conditions.” She sighed. “And…we have a chance to get that stake if we can get the Inquisitors out. We did some exploration in the Badlands. One of our Sisters was a prospector in her former life.” She grimaced. “She found evidence of transuranic metals.”
Someone gasped. Ruhger looked; he wasn’t sure, but he thought it might have been the Scholar. Interesting. “Still, what good will it do you? Galactica owns the planet. You can’t scoop them with another company.”
Mother Ferra gave him a twisted smile. “No, we can’t. But there is a provision for a finder’s fee in our original homestead contract.”
Ruhger nodded slowly. Now it all made sense. “What are the odds of actually collecting that fee?”
“With the Inquisitors here? Not good. But if we can…neutralize them, get the hard evidence and get it to Galactica Corp headquarters—the main headquarters, not the mining corp sub-headquarters—then we’ve got a good chance. We’ve got a core press agent waiting for this kind of good news story—she’s willing to help us make a splash, one that will make Galactica look good too, and that way, they’ll leave us alone.” Mother Ferra smiled at him, but there wasn’t any joy. No, it was like looking at a Chelonian monster baring his teeth to eat you. Well, no. Ferra’s smile was more like one of the cute, cuddly-looking ‘teddy bears’ of Auriga Three when they smelled blood—and they opened their double-hinged jaws wide, displayed their triple rows of needle-sharp teeth and tore you into pieces. Gritting his teeth, Ruhger glared at her, too furious to speak.
“So, let me see if I’ve got this straight,” Grant drawled out, an ironic half-smile on his face, his body still lounging in the poofy seat—but sheer rage in his eyes. “You thought you’d draw us in with a big sob story, get us to return to our old ways and do your dirty work for you, then clear out without us knowing anything about all this and getting any part of it? And you’d keep your hands ‘clean’ with no bloodshed? Hypocrites.” He was barking out his words furiously by the end.
Ruhger didn’t blame him; he felt the same rad-blasted way. He glared at Ferra in support of Grant—she just sat there, stone-faced. He noticed quite a few of the Sisters, especially those in the outer circles, looking shocked. Anger was starting to show on many of those faces as well. Lashtar was clearly trying to hold back laughter. Katryn looked utterly betrayed.
“I think a more pejorative word than ‘hypocrite’ might be appropriate,” Chief said with no emotion at all. Ruhger looked at him, worried; Chief didn’t have his berserker face on, but his grip on the wrench was tight. They needed to get out of here, soon.
Springing to her feet, Katryn glared down at Sister Ani, her hands clenched on her hips. “You phony. You fraud,” she hissed. “You had the gall to toss me all that blast and rad about ‘betraying the Mother’s principles for a man’ when you had this all planned out?” She leaned down, bending so she was almost nose to nose with Ani. “What principles?! You’re nothing but a bunch of liars.” She spun to him. “Ruhger, I say we blast off this planet now and leave these fakes to their fate.” She tugged on Tyron’s arm, pulling him up.
Sister Ani snarled, “Including your friends, there?” She swept a hand toward some of the women gathered around Katryn.
Ruhger laughed, deliberately. There was nothing funny about any of this, but he had to break it up, and not in the way Grant or Chief would. Or Ferra. Every face turned toward him, still displaying the same emotion or lack thereof. “Actually, we were planning on hiring some additional security people, and my guess is Katryn’s friends will fit right in. As for the rest of you?” He swept the room with a glare, ending at Ferra. “We will do our best to move all of you to another planet, but more than that? No.”
He stared at Ferra coldly. “I told you already, we are not mercenaries. I am not going to put my life, and the lives of my crew, my friends, my family, on the line for selfish people unwilling to do their own dirty work. While there are many reasons we aren’t mercenaries anymore, this is the number one reason. Clients lie. Even those with so-called principles.” His lip curled derisively. “And you aren’t even real clients—you aren’t willing to pay us a rad-blasted thing. Thank you for providing one more reminder of how treacherous humans are.” Ruhger stood, unable to sit with these—people—for one more second.
This particular treachery hurt like a stabbing. And since he’d taken a knife thrust or two, he wasn’t exaggerating. The Sisters were a refuge, not just physically, but mentally and spiritually. Realizing they were a sham this entire time? It was a profound betrayal. Ruhger forced himself to be polite, knowing it would cut them worse than his anger. Still, it was an effort to grit out the words. “Thank you for the meal. We’ll be here one more standard day, then we’re leaving. Let me know if you want transport. I will see what we can do.”
Whispers started across the room and several of the Sisters held up hands. “Excuse me, but I do have an option for your consideration,” the Scholar said, her voice ringing out across the room and cutting through the chatter. The room fell silent, everyone turning to her.
Ruhger looked down at her. She was usually so quiet and self-effacing; the projection was shocking. Must be her vocal training as a Scholar of Music—he’d never heard her voice so clear and strong. Her face was completely blank and she was staring at Ferra, not him. He waited, wondering what a Scholar of Music—or a Clocker—had to offer.
Ferra nodded at her, equally expressionless.
The Scholar said, “If you have samples, you could contact the Sa’sa. Galactica owes them reparations for stripping several of their claimed worlds. You would need Gov-Human’s help to negotiate with them—I recommend contacting the representative on Sa’sa, rather than the core. If the Sa’sa are interested, you’ll still have to leave Gliese, but you might get a finder’s fee from them.” She shrugged. “It’s difficult to predict how they’ll react, even for those of us who grew up around them.”
“Thank you, Scholar. That is interesting,” Ferra said. “The problem is, we don’t have any physical evidence. Sister Trena wasn’t young when she joined us and she suffered from some of the diseases miners often end up with. She died of cancer before she dug up a sample. She suspected transuranic metals because of the various geophysical factors and what her instruments said, but…” She sighed. “She passed to the Mother before she told us where she looked. She kept a journal, but it’s coded. We haven’t decoded it, so we don’t know where to start, other than the Badlands. The now-occupied Badlands.”
“If you have a scanned copy of the journal, I have some pattern-matching software I use in my research. I could run it through.” The Scholar raised a hand palm up, with a politely inquisitive look. “It’s unlikely, but maybe I can break the code.”
“Thank you, Scholar. We’ll send it over immediately. You’re very generous.”
The Scholar nodded solemnly but didn’t smile. Ruhger turned to climb over the Sisters and out of this room of deception.
“Ruhger,” Ferra started.
“Captain Ruhger,” Katryn spit out, fury clear in her voice and stance.
Ferra’s lips flattened, but she nodded in acknowledgement to Katryn, which surprised Ruhger. The old bat must be truly worried. And she should be. He’d leave her here to rot if it wouldn’t hurt all the others. Ferra turned back to h
im. “Captain Ruhger. I apologize. Sister Lashtar warned me I was being shortsighted, but I ignored her warnings.”
“I said stupid, not shortsighted, Ferra,” Lashtar said derisively.
Ferra looked at Lashtar with ironically amused acknowledgement. “Yes, you did, and you were right. I was stupid. In my defense, I was worried.” She shook her head and sighed. “No, not worried, terrified. Terrified we’d all end up dead or enslaved no matter who we told or what we did. I should have trusted her assessments, I should have trusted you, and most of all, I should have honored the Mother who watches over us, and I didn’t. I betrayed my principles and myself out of fear, and—” she looked around the room of women “—I led all of you down the path of fear and betrayal with me. I am sorry.” Ferra looked back up at him. “Please give us a day to consider our options with new leadership.” She looked at Lashtar. “I resign my position and will enter into penitent contemplation.”
Lashtar glared at her. “We accept your resignation, but you do not get to retreat like a coward into silence. You will stay as an active Sister to provide your experience and counsel to help guide us out of the mess you engineered. That is how you will appropriately show contrition. Is that clear, Sister?”
All the Sisters were nodding in agreement, although Ruhger was sure some of the inner circle didn’t think Lashtar had the right to lead them. Or make this decision on her own, judging from the glances between them.
Ferra nodded again. “You are correct again, Sister Lashtar.” She bowed, bringing her forehead to the mat in front of her crossed legs. Ruhger winced a little, knowing he wasn’t limber enough to pull off that move.
“Captain Ruhger, we need to speak in Circle. Could you please give us an additional day?” Lashtar asked. She put none of her usual ironic emphasis on his title and her request was made with heartfelt pleading.
