by A. B. Keuser
With Chad and Putty’s help, Flynn unburied himself. He’d probably be shaking sand out of his boots for months.
He climbed out of the cockpit, trying to leave as much of the dirt behind and it took three tries to pry the back hatch open. By the time they got out, dragging the still unconscious Lazarai with them—thankfully both men had survived—Flynn had worked up a sweat, and his neck burned furiously.
They were about a quarter mile outside of town—far too close. Figures moved toward them in the distance.
He hoped they were friendly… though who knew if they had any friends left after that catastrophe.
“Holy Crap,” Seamus’ hat had fallen back as they stared at the sky, pointing up.
Putty’s face was turned upward too, and Flynn followed his horrified gaze.
Chunks of moon burned through the atmosphere, and beyond them, once a glowing sphere, the moon—still visible in the late morning light—now had a huge chunk missing from it.
“I hope anyone left up there was able to get out.” Chadrick’s words were low, swept away on the wind.
“I didn’t know they were explosives.” Putty shook his head, tracking a burning chunk as it streaked through the atmosphere. “They weren’t labeled as….”
He turned sharply to Flynn. “You have to believe I didn’t do this on purpose.”
“What did the crates say they were?”
“I didn’t take the time to read the packing list.” Putty bit off the words. “But they weren’t marked with any of the required signage.”
“We know the Lazarai are involved with the Refuti one way or another now… we can’t take anything for granted.” Flynn looked toward the approaching truck. “But we don’t want to make that public knowledge. I’ll tell Henri, and we’ll let her decide where it goes from there.”
Because if the Lazara were bringing disguised explosives onto the planet’s surface, they wouldn’t be for anything so benign as mining.
Thirty-Six – Kathrynn
The sound was deafening.
The tunnel shook just as much as the ground, and Hele screamed, the sound cut sharply off when she slapped her own hand over her mouth.
Kathrynn ignored the fact that she could hear the NEU’s workers rushing around them. They’d have bigger problems if that shake was the possible future she’d foreseen.
Pulling Hele with her and yanking the bags from the truck, she dragged them both through the thin dust raining from the tunnel’s roof, no one who ran past them gave them a single glance.
“What’s happening?” Hele whisper was only audible because she’d tucked up right next to Kathrynn.
“It’s pretty safe to guess this is one of my brothers’ faults.”
Whatever Hele said after was drowned out by shouting in front of them. Kat dragged her back into the shadows against the wall as a group from the gate trundled through, calling out for drivers and crews.
“They’ve moved up the schedule.” One said, their face shadowed, but their fully automatic pistol visible enough.
“How do you know?” Another asked, hurrying to keep up with them.
“Someone just blew up a damn moon. If the Lazarai aren’t making their play for the planet, who else is stupid enough to do that?”
“So why aren’t we evacuating the compound.”
“We will as soon as we’re sure we can’t save the facility. But we’re taking the product to a safer storage location until we’re sure.”
Maybe it wasn’t her brothers after all.
The distraction was what she needed, so she wasn’t going to complain… not yet. Not until she saw the real effects of what, exactly, Archie had done.
Because, regardless of who had actually triggered the explosion, she was certain the blame could be laid squarely at his feet.
Another group blocked the door, and when Kathrynn would have pushed her way out Hele gasped, clutching her arm and holding her back.
Giuseppi stood among them, arguing in sharp tones.
No one in the entrance was happy, and it looked like he was looking for something… sanctuary? A high? She didn’t know. But whatever it was, the NEU cultist he spoke with wasn’t cooperating.
Lights from the end of the tunnel swept over them, wobbly headlights of the truck they’d just been in.
“Lovely,” Kathrynn said under her breath. “We should have stayed put.”
Shaking her head Hele whispered, “They check the inventory before they roll out.”
Keeping Hele close, she started a slow walk, waiting until the truck reached them and they were in the dirty mirror’s blind spot before she kept pace with it.
Holding tightly to Hele’s hand, she used it to screen them and slipped behind the rocks before it picked up speed and headed for the unseen launch site.
They could have stayed there—likely for hours—if she’d wanted to hear whatever Giuseppe and the woman were arguing about now. They didn’t, she didn’t.
The ground was rough, and Hele wasn’t sober enough to manage the terrain on her own, so their progress was slow, but the bike had gone undiscovered.
She stacked the bags on the very back of the bike, using the unwieldy tie straps and the handles to make an improvised netting.
Slinging her leg over the fuselage, she helped Hele on behind her.
“Hang on to me, tight. And whatever you do, don’t lean back. Those bags are not going to support your weight and neither of us wants me to have to scrape you off the desert.”
Hele’s response was a soft breath of a laugh in her ear.
If she wanted to say anything else, it was drowned out by the engine revving to life, and the clatter of rocks as the bike’s tires tore a line in the dirt, headed back to the city.
It was mid-morning when they reached the temple, and Kathrynn’s ribs hurt. Hele had taken her advice to heart and the vise grip might have left her with bruises.
When they reached town, she slowed, and was finally able to look up at the destruction she’d seen the portent of weeks before.
The moon was… grotesque.
Of the innumerable broken things she’d seen in her life, there was something about those that had come about due to unintentional malice that grossly amplified the grotesquerie.
Leaning against her, Hele looked up, tipping back far enough Kat had to grab hold of her to keep her from falling straight back. She gazed past the temple’s tower, eyes clouded—both from the drug, and concern. “That wasn’t always like that was it?”
“No. It definitely wasn’t.”
The town had emptied out, she could hear the commotion to the northeast, knew that whatever part her brothers had to play in it, they’d be taken care of by the locals.
At this point, putting them in a holding cell in the peace enforcement office might be the best option for their safety.
Wrapping an arm around Hele’s waist to support her, Kathrynn led the way up the long, shallow steps.
Sibylla and a trio of sisters were waiting at the entrance. The three bags hefted in one hand, up against her shoulder, Kat supported Hele on her other side.
“Blessings,” Sybilla said, radiant joy in her smile. “The Great Mother has brought you back to us with more than expected.”
Kathrynn held out the bags. “Incinerate this.”
The smile disappeared completely. “Do you know how much three months of this is worth?”
“I do. But I also know that it’s been in the hands of people who misguidedly believe the sisterhood is a threat to Heressa. And those vials cannot be trusted.” She helped Hele stand more firmly upright. “Burn the bags, the glass. Everything goes into the furnace.”
The other sisters around them swallowed loudly, blinking too fast, and Sibylla took the bags with shaking hands.
“Do you want one of the Great Mother’s children to take madmilk that might kill them… or worse?”
“No,” Sibylla straightened, seemingly having found her spine again. “Of course we don’t. I’ll see to it myself.
Nothing will remain.”
She hesitated before turning, “And your friend?”
“Hele is under the sisterhood’s protection now. She will need iron rich food and water. Then, place her in one of the anechoic meditation chambers.”
Sibylla’s gaze went to the woman’s shoulders, her brows pinched and worry replaced the disbelief that had replaced her smile. “The Great Mother will help her, and so will we. In any way we can.”
Kathrynn handed Hele over into their care. She would be safe and they would get her clean. Before the planet’s fate was finally decided, Kathrynn knew she would need cooperation Hele hadn’t yet agreed to.
Thirty-Seven- Sophia
Sophia couldn’t feel her fingers.
They worked fine enough. She was able to point and shout orders, though she wasn’t completely sure those orders made sense anymore.
Banks, translated for her on more than one occasion when her request wasn’t quite right.
When a moon blows up in the sky over one’s head, nothing’s quite right.
The tingling numbness worked its way up her wrists and over her arms, until it crawled over her shoulder to take hold of her neck.
If she didn’t get away from the noise, she wasn’t going to be much help for long.
The site crews were fast, their responses didn’t need her micro management, and her hands were beginning to shake. Her lips starting to prickle.
She bit them as Banks ushered her inside, and all but blocked her view. Blocked her from view.
“You need a doctor.”
“I don’t.”
“You look like you’re about to have a stroke.”
“It’s just the stress… the right side of my face is falling asleep.”
He shot her a look that said he didn’t believe her.
He didn’t have to.
“What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know, but we are going to find out.”
Geo had left the moon before them, and was no doubt sulking in one of the guest quarters. She’d worry about him when there was time for it.
“We have to figure out who was still up there and we have to get rescue crews—”
Banks stopped her with a hand on each shoulder. “It’s being done. You already gave the orders, three ships are being supplied, manned, and fueled. They’ll be to the moon within the hour.”
“That might not be soon enough.”
“It’s the best we can do.”
The lift doors opened, to reveal Maggie, scowling at them. “It seems I’ve arrived at the worst possible time.”
“Do you know what’s happened?”
“Only what I’ve seen. And it doesn’t look good.”
Banks steered Sophia through to the offices with a gentle hand at her back, and explained what they knew.
“I’ve found the answer to your missing miners… though now might not be the time to discuss that.”
“No, tell me.” It would be a good distraction. Something she might actually be able to do something about.
“Archimedes Holzen put out the call. I met someone close to his inner circle who provided me with information that… when added to what I learned from miners who’d answered the same call your men did, paints a picture that can’t be ignored. Holzen has found a new source of UPD-5… and he plans to destroy Sukiyaki.” She glanced toward the window as a bright flash of burning debris streaked through the sky. “Maybe the moon was a precursor to that.”
“Or maybe,” Sophia tore her attention away from the burning sky, to look at Banks. “Maybe they found a way to use our moon as an entry point for those explosives, and something went wrong.”
Banks’ jaw hardened and his gaze shifted to Maggie. “Trey Dinair approached us on Capo, wanting to make a deal on behalf of his employer.”
“His parting words were that he had to at least offer first.” Sophia’s hand shook as she reached for the video feed that had pinged on her comp unit. “If we’re right, he found someone willing to help hi—”
The video upload from the hangar was perfectly clear. She could see Trey Dinair as though he was standing in front of her… unfortunately, the audio had been corrupted during the final transmission before the blast. So she couldn’t hear what they were saying… but she could guess, from her brother’s gestures, that he knew who Trey was, and that he wasn’t supposed to be there.
Why else would he have started, what seemed like, an evacuation, directly after leaving her.
“It looks like the sisters were right.” She spun the image around so Banks and Maggie could see. “Geo is at the center of this.”
And now he was gone again. She would not believe he was inside the Terrafarm boundary until she saw him with her own two eyes.
Maggie and banks had a discussion out of earshot while she watched her moon base clear out. They’d started by loading crate after crate onto the ships. Ships she’d only now noticed were not all hers. And they’d waited until she had left, before taking off themselves. Where they all went, she didn’t know, but the second to last ship took Trey Dinair and a handful of others, leaving the hangar empty, save for two men who definitely didn’t work for her.
The timestamp ticked through, and then, the Monroe brothers and their doctor appeared.
And a child as well….
She had no idea where the kid had come from, but they definitely knew Putty.
Putty’s brother dealt with both of the men while their doctor friend surveyed the hangar and pulled the kid away from the fight, onto the only remaining ship.
They dragged the men on board… she fast forwarded until the feed cut out.
The days on sukiyaki were too short.
When she looked up from the comp unit, dusk had begun to fade, and she watched another chunk of her moon burn through the sky.
She’d glanced at the report with their trajectories, happy to see they were all headed for the uninhabited portions of the planets… one less thing to worry about.
And worry was all she seemed to have at the moment.
Pushing to her feet, she let Banks follow her to the lift. Said nothing as the elevator climbed to her quarters. He suggested she eat something, but disappeared into the room set aside for whoever on her guard staff accompanied her. It was within the room that was hers.
There were times Sophia hated her job. Hated that she’d chosen to build an empire instead of taking what she’d started with, investing it, and living a quiet life somewhere on Capo or another of the more comfortable Colarium worlds. But she’d made her bed… and now, she’d lie in it.
Her quarters took up an entire level of the RTF tower. Technically a waste of space—she was here so rarely anymore—but a blessing at times like these.
From the enormous windows, she could see every part of the terrafarm.
The dome that spread out from its connection point two stories below her had been erected their first, a year later a second, and then a third…. The fourth was larger than the three that had come before it… combined.
Catwalks providing consistent rain schedules connected them all to each other and to the fifth, where her arborists had managed to cultivate a veritable jungle in a matter of six years. Her venture here had been a risk, and it had paid off in ways she’d never imagined.
But it wasn’t going to matter one bit if she didn’t figure out what her brother was up to.
She needed time to clear her head, needed to breathe air that wasn’t filtered through a dozen processes before she tasted it.
Banks would try to stop her… if she asked.
Sneaking past his room like a teenager, she pressed the lift buttons and held her breath until the double doors closed.
The safety he provided was necessary, but she needed a break from her human leash.
The tower’s security was focused on who and what came in. She didn’t pass anyone with the nerve to stop her. A member of the security staff looked at her askance and as the recognition clicked in his ey
es, she knew her remaining time was limited.
She pushed out the door and inhaled a full gulp of fresh air. The taste—what was missing from ships and compounds—reminded her why she’d created the agridomes in the first place.
Why she wanted this place to thrive so badly.
Even on Capo the air tasted… wrong.
Maybe she’d retire here in forty years…. She’d be ready to hand over the reins when she was seventy-something.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
The terrafarm had rolling shifts, but night hours… the lights were dimmed and tinged green like the darkness overhead. The maize growing, the scuff of her boots in the red dust… and a single worker whistling on the other side of a cabbage field were the only sounds that reached her ears.
Three of their crops required round the clock tending—and would until the ecosystem was able to stand on its own over the entire planet. The rest were hardier stock, almost self-sustaining after a handful of years cultivating the soil and sowing the nutrients it hadn’t had on its own.
Sophia walked the long row between the maize and cabbage without paying attention to either. She could see the cracked remains of her moon. Jagged remnants were still falling from the sky in fiery streaks toward the northern polar region, but nothing—so far—had done any real damage. One of the upsides of the planet’s small, highly concentrated population.
The data was still coming back, readings inconclusive. She didn’t want to believe the Monroe brothers had blown up the moon in some fit of spite, but she now knew Putty had the temper his Colarium file claimed, and he certainly had the skill set.
Temper wasn’t an explanation for that.
But she didn’t actually know him.
And after their interaction on the moon base, she knew he didn’t know her.
“You’re not supposed to be out here alone,” Banks said from where he leaned against an interior gatepost.
“Maybe I came looking for you.”
“And maybe I’m here because someone tattled on you after you snuck past me.” Banks’ inhale turned into a sigh. “You need to sleep, Sophia… we’ve been awake for twenty hours.”
“Tell that to my brain.”
