by Piers Platt
Those trees must have cost a fortune.
His initial walk-through of the area yielded nothing: Lloyds was likely inside the plant itself, but the inner entrance to the plant was blocked by a security gate. He did notice several workers installing a podium on a small stage under the trees, however. An official opening ceremony out here, maybe? Desh remembered a mission, long ago, the target a recently-elected politician. He had set up his position on a rooftop across the city square with a long-range dart gun. Back then, he had been excited to be a guildsman, electrified at the prospect of so much wealth and the challenge of missions.
And how quickly that luster faded.
A flurry of movement in his peripheral vision caught Desh’s eye, and he turned, looking back at the same entrance through which he had entered the arboretum. A man was walking out of the tunnel’s arch, flanked by an aide and several alert-looking men whose demeanor immediately earned them the label ‘bodyguard’ in Desh’s mind. Desh dialed up his optical implants, zooming in on the man’s face, switching to infrared.
After a second, a notification popped up:
“I’ve got him,” Desh said.
“Okay,” the pilot replied over the radio. Desh could hear the whine of the shuttle’s engines kicking on in the background.
He switched back to normal vision to count the security personnel. Four. Wait – could be five, he chided himself. Don’t get sloppy now and automatically dismiss that aide as a non-hostile.
Lloyds and his entourage were headed in his general direction, so Desh pretended to study the menu options at the nearest food stall and let them approach, relaxing and breathing evenly. Then he saw two men across from him leave a store, heading straight for the target, eyes focused on the man. Desh swore under his breath.
And here come the local crew. And they’re telegraphing their intentions like kids near a candy bowl.
Time slowed, as it always seemed to do in the seconds before an engagement. The bodyguards had seen the threat, and by unspoken agreement, they tightened their formation around the target, protecting him with their bodies, while one of them stepped forward to confront the approaching men. The two local hitmen traded a worried look, and then yanked cut-off heavy rifles out of the boxes they were carrying, opening fire with an incoherent yell. Their fire was wild and undisciplined, but their first salvo killed the lead bodyguard and the aide.
Desh drew his pistol, dropping to his right knee in one fluid motion. The white cross-hairs appeared on his heads-up display as he brought the weapon up, and he squeezed the trigger smoothly as the cross-hair bracketed his first target. He fired two rounds, shifted aim, and fired two more, dropping the local hitmen in the span of three seconds. The surviving bodyguards, in the midst of returning fire, now turned to face Desh, surprised by the intercession of a third party. They aimed their pistols at Desh, keeping Lloyds kneeling in the center of their tight circle.
Desh stood up, pistol pointed at the ceiling, and yelled, “Interstellar Police, don’t fire!”
Killing an Interstellar officer carried a death sentence on many planets, but Desh knew he had only bought himself a second or two of confusion. He braced himself for the final push, and took a deep breath of air.
“Now!” he yelled.
Above the bodyguards, the shuttle erupted through the outer skin of the arboretum, shattering the airlock seal and showering the people below with fragments of glass and steel. The craft skewed wildly as the pilot fought to regain control. The three surviving bodyguards turned their heads to evaluate this new threat, their weapons no longer pointed at Desh. Holding his breath as the atmosphere vented out of the structure, Desh lobbed his fragmentation grenade at the security personnel. The detonation knocked the knot of bodyguards over, and Desh saw the target go down as well.
Probably dead, but no sense in cutting corners now.
He caught a glimpse of a team of armed security personnel pulling on oxygen masks back at the entrance to the factory, but ignored them and ran up to Lloyds, stopping to fire four rounds into the man’s inert body. Then he dashed over to the hovering shuttle.
His lungs burned from lack of oxygen and his vision began to blur by the time he reached the craft, but Desh managed to grab one of the shuttle’s support struts and pull himself into the cabin. The pilot sealed the door behind him, and Desh gasped in a gulp of fresh air.
“Get back to the transfer station!” Desh coughed.
The pilot veered out of the arboretum, deftly exiting through the hole his craft had made, and accelerated to gain altitude, heading for high orbit and the freedom of an interstellar transport. On impulse, Desh checked his counter bracelet, tapping the button. A golden ‘50’ appeared above his wrist, spinning slowly. Desh closed his eyes and smiled, letting out a long sigh. An insistent beeping interrupted his reverie.
He opened his eyes and noted several red lights blinking on the shuttle’s dashboard.
“Equipment malfunction,” the pilot reported. “I think the boosters were damaged by the crash.”
Desh saw the numbers on the altimeter slow to a stop, and then reverse with growing rapidity. The pilot struggled wordlessly with the controls and then swore. Outside the window, the rocky landscape blurred as the craft went into a shallow spin. The pilot continued to fight with the controls, but Desh just let his head rest against the window, watching as the planet’s surface hurtled up toward them.
God, I’m tired.
But at least I’m free.
The Lone Sailor
Straining with all of his might, the boy finally succeeded, and the fiberglass hull rumbled and scraped reluctantly across the clay-colored sand. As the bow met with the first tiny waves lapping the shore, the boat slid in with increasing speed, until it floated uneasily, bobbing in the shallows. The boy locked the rudder down into place, threw a lifejacket into the boat, and grasped the halyard firmly in his right hand. The sail came up in jerks, luffing noisily in the wind and beating against the boy’s bare back. He cleated the halyard, readied the dagger board, and, running with boat, gave a mighty push and clambered in.
For several moments the boat wandered aimlessly from one point of sail to another, and then suddenly, the wind arrived. The boy saw it coming, saw the wind spreading its dark shadow across the small waves, and he let more sheet out, so that the sail caught the wind, hurling the boat forward. As the boat increased its speed, it began to take on a dangerous tilt, and the boy hiked himself out over the windward side of the boat to compensate. The small onshore gust had livened into a full wind, and the little boat flew across the lake, leaving a foaming trail behind it. His speed was checked when several motorboats crossed ahead of him, and the boy was forced to change his course to meet their wakes head on, pitching and smacking through the short steep surf.
As the boy and his boat moved farther from the island, the gusts picked up, until the boat was nearly perpendicular in the water. The boy pushed far out over side, laughing and shouting from the thrill of the ride, exulting in his ability to push the stalwart little craft to its limits.
His arm soon began to tire, so he altered course to let his other arm hold the sheet. His new course took him close by another island in the lake, and he realized with a jolt that he was in danger of losing sight of his own island – when he glanced back over his shoulder, it had nearly slipped below the horizon. He pushed the rudder reluctantly over, swung the bow around, and headed home.
When the beach drew near again, he sheeted the sail in tight, eyeing the canvas closely and calculating the speed he would need to glide in under the lee of the land. His mother waved to him from the beach, and he could see his sister and her friend, bound in life jackets, waiting excitedly for their turn. He smiled, and slipped over the side of the boat into the cool clear water, letting the boat glide slowly into the beach, unpiloted for the final few yards.
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Text copyright 2013 by Piers Platt
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