I grin. “I know what you mean.” I lean closer to him and whisper, “Do you think we’ll get our own tent?”
When we get near the shuttle, we see several figures gathered around it.
“Shit,” Ramses says. He throws Bala down and kicks his ribs.
Bala groans. Ramses kicks him again. “Wake up!”
“Hmmm?” Bala says.
Ramses pulls him up and points the gun at him. “What are you doing here?”
“I dunno’,” Bala says. “Someone snagged me and dragged me over here, so why don’t you ask them what I’m doing here?”
“Don’t be dense!” Kronos shouts. “What are you doing on Atlantis?”
The Marauders near our shuttle spot us and raise their guns at us, but they don’t fire.
Bala points at them. “They’re not going to shoot you. Not with me here. If you kill me though, then you’re toast.”
“Are you their leader?” Ramu asks.
“You’re kidding?” He says, “Out of all of us, you grabbed me, and you didn’t know I was the leader?”
“I guess we got lucky,” Ramses says. “Now talk. What are you doing here?”
“We’re just trying to survive. We got tired of all the coups and arguing and darkness on Darkstar. We’re all old and all tired. We just wanted to go somewhere simpler, somewhere no one would come looking for us. And now here you are.”
He glares at Malcolm. “I told you not to tell anyone!”
“I gave you a chance to come with me,” Malcolm says. “You refused.”
Bala sighs. “I’m tired of fighting. I’m done with it. Let me go and I’ll get my boys to leave you all alone. If you’ll leave us alone.”
“Have the Atlanteans made contact with you?” Ramses asks.
“Atlanteans?” Bala asks. “There’s no such thing! We’ve been here for over a year. There’s nothing here but giant spiders and regular-sized rodents and bugs. And snow, lots of snow. You get used to eating the rats; they almost taste good to me now.”
“You’re sure you didn’t just hallucinate your meeting with the Atlanteans?” Kronos asks. “I didn’t see your bioglove working like you claimed it did.”
“We stole a few biosuits when we left Darkstar,” Bala says. “None of them worked here. Looks like your human’s suit works just fine. How’d you swing that?”
“We’re the one asking questions,” Ramses says. “Come on. We’ll take you down to your friends, and you’ll get them to stand down.”
“Sure,” Bala says, “but only if you’re at least willing to trade with us.”
“We don’t intend to stay here,” Ramses says. “Anything we haven’t used by the time we leave, you can keep.”
Bala’s eyes light up and his ears go fully taut. “Deal!”
Bala waves his arms as we approach, and his army of old men put their guns away.
“They’re gonna’ trade with us!” Bala says.
One of the Marauders standing on the shuttle and holding a crowbar shouts back, “If you had kept them busy instead of getting captured, I could have looted the whole shuttle!”
Kronos looks up at him. “Not with a crowbar.”
“Give me enough time and the crowbar would have done the job!” the Marauder says grumpily.
“Put the crowbar down, Tolka!” Bala shouts up at him. “Don’t fuck up their shuttle! They’re going to give us everything they don’t need when they leave. If you break the shuttle, they can’t leave.”
Tolka throws the crowbar down into the snow. “Fuck, good, cause I wasn’t gonna’ be able to crack this sucker open with just a crowbar anyhow.”
Kronos gives me a look, and I whisper to him, “Old man stubbornness.”
“I heard that!” Tolka snaps. “Just ‘cause I’m old doesn’t mean I don’t have my Marauder senses still!”
“You said you wanted to trade with us,” I say to Bala. “What do you all have to trade?”
“Cured meat,” Bala says.
“Spider jerky!”
Bala arches his eyebrow at me and pulls his ears back. “Why would we bother curing spider meat? There’s so many spiders creeping and crawling around Atlantis that you can get their meat whenever we want. It’s rat jerky!”
I shudder involuntarily because of the ‘spiders creeping and crawling everywhere’ thing, and I nearly retch thinking about the rat jerky.
“I mean,” Bala says, “They aren’t quite rats, divergent evolution and all. Atlantis and Earth stopped contacting each other back before the Egyptians first made a funny letter on a rock wall.”
“They look like rats though, right?” Delphie asks.
“I don’t call them rats for nothing,” Bala says.
“So why would we trade you our good rations for cured rat meat?” I ask. “We will leave you behind everything we can, but I don’t see the value in giving up good food for rat meat.”
“Well,” Bala says. “Suppose you need to stay here a while--like you get stuck here--then you’d regret not making the trade right now.”
Kronos steps forward. “Why’s that? Is that a threat?”
“No, no!” Bala says, suddenly all teeth and twitching ears, “I just mean if you trade with us now, we’ll give you a real good deal. Ten kilos of rat meat for one kilo of what you’ve got.”
“And if we wait?” Kronos asks.
“Let’s just say you won’t get a deal like this ever again,” Bala says.
“On rat meat,” I add, voice flat. I whisper back to our crew, “Let’s remember we are haggling for rat meat.”
“We’ll give you one kilo for ten,” Ramses says.
“What?” I snap.
Kronos leans into me. “We have five kilos, much more than we should need--I think--and Bala can say it wasn’t a threat all he’d like, but I get the sense we just bought ourselves a lot of good will for one kilo of rations.”
“So one good will,” I whisper back, “And ten kilos of gross rat meat.”
Kronos nods.
“We just might need to eat it,” Ramses says. “If things don’t work out quite how I’ve planned.”
Ramu huffs. “The confidence is suddenly leaking all of of ya, peacekeeper?”
“It’s not an issue of confidence,” Ramses says, “I’m just trying to be realistic and keep my crew alive.”
“My crew,” Kronos says.
Ramses rolls his eyes. “My squad, I meant to say. That better? Your crew is part of my squad.”
“How about those tents,” Delphie shouts, shoving.
“You’re not used to the cold yet?” Ramu asks.
“How do you get used to this cold?”
Ramu shrugs. “Superior Marauder genetics? Maybe yours are just inferior?”
She shoves him, but he laughs and takes his outer jacket off. He wraps it around Delphie, and I see her cheeks flushing even redder than they already were from the biting cold.
“We got tents too,” Bala says. “Though I bet yours are nicer.”
The other old Darkstar Marauders start nodding enthusiastically.
“Sorry,” Ramses says. “We’re not giving up our tents for more spider meat, but like I said, when we leave you can keep them.”
“Give us one tent now,” Bala says, “And I will offer you our protection for the whole time you are here.”
“Protection,” Ramses asks. “What from.”
Kronos steps to his side and whispers into Ramses’ ear. Ramses nods as Kronos speaks.
Kronos steps up to Bala, meeting him eye to eye. “If you and your boys go back into the mountains, and stay there until you see our engines go off, we’ll give you one tent.”
Bala narrows his eyes. “What if you take off without the--”
“We will leave everything we don’t need behind here in a nice big pile. Yours for the taking.”
Bala nods. Ramses grabs a packed up tent, and throws it to Bala.
“I’ll bring that rat meat back--”
“Don’t bother,”
Kronos says, throwing down a pack of rations. “If we need that meat, we’ll come get you.”
Bala grins, and he and his crew haul the tent and rations back through the snow and toward the mountain.
“What the hell?” Delphie asks, “Why did we give them a tent? How many tents do we have? And what about the rat meat?”
“Yeah,” I say, “Same question from me.”
“What do you think they were offering protection from?” Malcolm asks.
“The big fucking spiders?” I ask. I feel as if no one else is actually terrified of them like they should be.
“Nah,” Ramses says, “Guns will make short work of those. Those Marauders were going to attack us if we didn’t give them what they wanted.”
“They still might attack us,” Malcolm says. “Once those rations are gone, they may decide they aren’t going back to rat and spider meat just yet.”
“Then why the hell did we give them all that shit?” Delphie says. “If they’re going to attack us anyway?”
Ramses ignores the question and pulls another tent out of the shuttle’s storage bay, then tosses it onto the snow at our feet.
“These tents sleep two,” Ramses says.
“So there’s three of them,” Delphie says, “For all six of us. Right?”
“There were,” Malcolm says. “Now there’s two.”
“Ughhh!” Delphie throws up her hands. “So you and Kronos can sleep outside since you traded your tent away.
“They can hold three in a pinch,” Ramses says.
“Let’s do what we need to do now,” I say, “So we don’t have to sleep here?”
Ramses shakes his head. “The sun is going down. We need to trek out onto the ice tomorrow at first light.”
I lay next to Kronos. He acts as a meat wall between me and Malcolm, who is snoring loudly.
“Superior genetics,” I mutter, “And he snores like an old man with pneumonia.”
Kronos reaches down between my legs, and I feel instantly wet, but I push his hand away. “No!” I hiss, “Not with him in here.”
“He’s out like a brick,” Kronos says. “He won’t know the difference.”
“What if he’s faking because he wants to watch us? Remember how he kept creepily forcing himself onto our comms?”
Kronos reaches for me again, but I shield myself.
“Alright,” he says, “Not now, but I’m saving it all up for when we’re back on the Time’s End.”
“Deal,” I say.
“Now that you mention it,” Kronos says, “What if Malcolm was looking through our cameras too?”
“You don’t have a camera in your quarters? Do you?”
“No,” Kronos says, laughing, “Just trying to scare you.”
17 Kronos
There’s a loud, obnoxious clapping sound from outside. “First light! Let’s go! Go, go go! Wake up princesses!”
Minna groans. I look over and see Malcolm is already outside.
“God,” she says. “I hate people who have energy in the morning.” She yawns.
“Malcolm slept like a baby,” I say. The weariness is still deep in my bones. “But he snored so loud that I kept waking up.”
“Me too,” Minna says.
Suddenly there’s a shout, and I leap out of the tent, still naked.
“Drop! One, Two, Three, Four!” It’s Ramses.
Both Ramses and Malcolm are stripped down to their underwear and doing pushups in a clearing in the snow.
Minna comes out shortly behind me and widens her eyes. “I hate them even more right now.”
Their muscles bulge as they switch to one-handed pushups, and then they alternate hands between pushups. I half-expect them to switch to one finger at some point.
Ramu jumps out of his tent next. “What the hell?” Delphie is right behind him.
“Why are they doing naked pushups?” She asks.
Then she looks up at me. “Gross, Kronos, put some clothes on!”
“Oh,” I say.
I duck into the tent and get dressed. I can still hear the shouting and counting from Ramses through the tent.
I come out fully dressed.
Malcolm looks up at me and scoffs. He’s panting and still nearly naked, but at least he’s not doing pushups anymore. “See? We’re getting our bodies used to the cold through immersion. Kronos sleeps in and wears his big coat, but Ramses and I are already adapted.”
Delphie comes back out of her tent with her coat and hood and scarf on. “It’s cold,” she says, “And you guys are idiots.”
“Peacekeeper discipline,” Malcolm says. “I guess I can’t expect pirates to understand that.”
“Guess not,” I mumble, yawning. “Did Ramses snore like a bear too, Ramu?”
Ramu laughs. “No, but I could hear Malcolm well enough!”
I wrap my arms around Minna and hold her by the waist. “You still warm enough?”
She nods. “Jerky keeps me warm and toasty.”
“I’m jealous,” I say.
“Here,” Ramses says, throwing a crate down. “Eat up, we’re heading out in ten minutes.”
I grab a bar of synthetic beef and devour it. I’m still hungry, so I eat another. Minna finishes her second bar after me, but I notice her eyeing the crate.
“You still hungry?” I ask.
“I shouldn’t be,” she says, “But yes.”
“It’s the biosuit,” I say. “Where do you think the energy is coming from to keep you warm and toasty?”
I reach into the crate and grab three more bars.
“What are you doing?” Ramses asks.
“Feeding the biosuit,” I say.
“You mean your girlfriend?” Malcolm asks.
I drop the bars and get up into his face, chest first.
Ramses steps in between us.
“Let her have the bars,” Ramses says.
“But she’s the one who won’t eat the rat meat if it comes to that,” Malcolm says.
Ramses whispers something into Malcolm’s ear, and Malcolm steps back.
I grab the bars and give one to Minna. “I’ll carry the other two if you need them later. These assholes seem to forget that you have the most powerful weapon of all of us.”
“I’m sure her suit can run just fine on rat meat,” Malcolm mumbles.
I see the look on Minna’s face when he says that.
“Don’t worry,” I whisper to her, “You’re not eating any rat meat.”
“Enough bullshit,” Ramses says, “Let’s go.”
We follow him in a long line. I keep the submachine gun in my hands, but I’m not holding it to my shoulder and scanning back and forth with it like when we were in the foothills. We’re already over a kilometer out onto the frozen sea, and there’s no way anything could sneak up on us--there’s nothing to hide behind.
“What if there are giant water spiders under there?” Minna whispers to me. “And what if they pop up through the ice and pull people down?”
Damn. She must really be afraid of spiders.
“It wouldn’t make sense,” I say. “Of all the hundreds of starsystems Marauders visited, they never encountered swimming spiders.”
“We had them on Earth,” Minna says, looking up at me with wide eyes.
“Those skimmed along the surface,” I say. “Think about it. The surface here is all ice, so a water spider would have to be able to live under water and only come up occasionally. How is an eight-legged spider going to swim better than a fish or an eel or some tried-and-true sea creature shape?”
Minna starts to nod, and I see the tension melt off her a little bit.
“I think we’re far enough out,” Ramses says. He drops his bag onto the ice.
“I Still don’t know what the fuck we’re doing out here,” Ramu grunts.
“Who cares,” Delphie whines. “This whole thing is a lot easier if you just follow them around and stop asking questions.”
I laugh. “Don’t use your brain and just fol
low orders, Delph? You sound like a peacekeeper now.”
Ramu laughs.
“Not funny,” Malcolm says.
“So what’s the plan?” I ask, my tone more serious now. As much as I’d like to just sit back and let Ramses do whatever the hell he’s doing, I’d greatly prefer that whatever he’s planning succeeds so that we can get the hell off of Atlantis.
“Malcolm,” Ramses says, “Line!”
Malcolm tears open the bag and removes one end of a huge coiled rope.
“No way!” Ramu says. “You’re not gonna dive down, are you?”
“I’ve been undergoing gene therapy for the past year,” Ramses says. “I can up to two kilometers deep, and I can hold my breath for nearly an hour.”
“You’ve been planning this for a year?” Minna asks.
He nods.
“Why don’t I just go down there?” Minna asks. “With the suit, I can--”
“No!” I say, stepping in front of her as if she’s already started to break through the ice. “That’s insane. Let Ramses do what he’s prepared for.”
Ramses look over at us. “Kronos is right. Even though I thought I’d have the bioglove, I still prepared as if it wouldn’t function. The Atlanteans could possibly shut your suit down if they see you coming, Minna. You’d die almost instantly.”
“But…” she says, her voice trailing off.
“Just think of all the underwater spiders!” Ramu says, throwing his hands up and moving his fingers back and forth like spiders’ legs.
Minna grabs hold of me and squeezes.
“Dick,” I say to Ramu, but I’m grateful that he scared her out of doing it.
Ramses straps heat packs to his torso, and then against all of his limbs. “These will last longer than my lungs will, so I won’t freeze.”
“You’re fucking crazy,” Delphie says. “So you’re just going to swim down and knock on their dome? They have a dome, right?”
“No idea,” Ramses says. “When I was in their city last time, I only saw one room. They put me into some bubble ship, but it tinted itself and made it so I couldn’t see a thing. But yes, I assume they have some kind of dome, or at least a force shield in the shape of a dome.
He pulls out two toothed saws from his bag. “You all will want to step back.”
“Why did all of us need to come out here?” Delphie asks.
Marauder Kronos: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (Mating Wars) Page 12
