Deadland Drifter: A Scifi Thriller

by J. N. Chaney

  He didn’t seem to have an answer for that. “Just the restless sort, I guess.”

  Sara had a feeling that it was more than just wanderlust, but she didn’t push it any further. She had her own theory on the mysterious figure beside her. Much of his service records were classified, a surprise given the resources of the Constables. But what she had been able to pull through her contacts frequently featured notes about him going out of his way on various missions to help women and children… or people who couldn’t help themselves. Depending on who wrote the report, this was either framed as a noble sentiment to go beyond the call of duty and deserving of praise, or allowing himself to be distracted by sentimentality that bordered on dereliction of duty. It all lined up with what she had seen of the man in their short time working together.

  Her theory was that he saw himself as a wandering protector of sorts, travelling around and doing what good he could for those with nowhere else to turn. She might be romanticizing that a little, but it didn’t change the truth.

  Jack Burner was almost compelled to help those he saw in trouble and to seek out those situations where he can help.

  That was the kind of person who would find himself in the kind of situation he was currently in.

  “No one would have blamed you, you know?” She spoke without thinking, and now she was committed to completing her train of thought. “If you had just disappeared after terrorists kidnapped you. I mean, you had no responsibility to stop them, you were a victim in all this. But you chose to track them down. And it wasn’t just revenge. You did it because you were worried they might hurt someone else if you didn’t.”

  He just shrugged again. “I did it because it seemed like the right thing to do.”

  Sara decided she wasn’t going to crack that stoic exterior any further tonight. It was late, so it was time to get some rest. The autopilot would take them through their course and there wasn’t much risk until they reached the first S.G. Point beyond the borders of the Deadlands.

  Most of the trip passed uneventfully. Burner seemed to be in a state of focus Sara found familiar. It was the look an agent gets when their mind is homed in on preparing for a single mission, thinking through all the variables, running through possible setups, picturing the worst case scenarios. She didn’t want to disturb his concentration, so for the bulk of the trip they kept to themselves.

  It wasn’t until they had emerged from the final slip tunnel and were only a few hours out from the planet that they had a real conversation about their next move.

  The McGarry beat the scheduled arrival time of the passenger transport by about an hour and a half. Burner and Sara now had a decision to make about where they were going to land the ship. A mostly empty planet like this gave them plenty of options for a stealth landing, but they would then need to hitchhike. They’d be cutting it very close as to whether they would reach the port before the passenger transport arrived and started unloading. They could also take their chances docking at the port, but they might run into trouble if they needed identification, since Hank’s IDs didn’t match the names registered on the ship.

  “They don’t usually check in these kinds of places,” Burner proffered. “Not to mention, one of the rules of surviving out here is the fewer questions you ask, the longer you are likely to live.”

  Sara shook her head. “This is a peaceful world, though, not the kind of crime run world common beyond Union space. They might be concerned about the kinds of problems someone who steals a ship might bring to the planet.”

  They decided to err on the side of caution, if for no other reason than there was a chance the terrorists were keeping tabs on what ships went in and out of the port. It wouldn’t be hard on a planet that got so little traffic.

  Burner scanned the surface for some level enough ground to land on that wasn’t too far from the city but far enough away from any of the surrounding villages that it was unlikely anyone would stumble on the ship. He located one clearing of unpopulated flatland that was separated by a thin woodland from a country road that led right to the city. The autopilot, thanks to some safeguards put in it by Revalon’s employers, didn’t like the idea of landing outside a port, so Burner was forced to override it and land manually. The resulting bumpy touchdown was enough to knock the glasses in the kitchen from their cupboard and shatter them on the floor. One more thing they owed the ship’s rightful owner.

  One quick walk through the woodland later and they were on the country road, a sometimes paved but mostly dirt path that led through the closest villages and into the port city. Burner had been a little worried that they might not be able to hitch a ride due to rural folks’ general distrust from strangers and the two of them clearly looking like they weren’t from around here. If they had to take the entire path by foot, they would never reach the port in time. Thankfully, the people around here were more friendly than he had expected, and the first vehicle that passed by stopped and asked them if they needed a lift.

  Their cover story was that the two of them had come to visit family who worked on a farm out here, and now they were on their way back to the port to catch their ship back. Sara expressed her concerns that they might have left too late and they were going to miss their shuttle. The driver told her not to worry and pushed the vehicle’s antique hover engine to its limit. The man was so friendly that if he was at all representative of the population, Sara almost hoped that they wouldn’t find out terrorists had been living in their midst.

  They were taken into what passed for a city here, though it paled in comparison to the ports of cities on Zanpus or Dobulla. Most of the buildings here were no more than two stories tall, and while some streets were packed tightly together, on others two or three small shops might have the entire block to themselves. Here and there Sara spotted a recognizable chain, but most of the businesses seemed to be local operations. The sparsity of exterior lighting hinted that the city went to sleep at an early hour.

  Their ride dropped them off close to the Trion Space Port and gave them a friendly farewell. Thanks to him, they had managed to beat the passenger transport by a full ten minutes.

  As they made their way toward the terminal, Sara stopped at a tech stand and purchased a new com, and then she tossed her old one in a nearby trash bin. She read off the address from the side of the box to Burner so he could update his information.

  “Hm,” Burner grunted as he entered the digits into his device. “Very little signal here. Guess that makes sense on a planet like this, but you’d think there would at least be good network connectivity in the city.”

  She unboxed her new device as they both took their spots in front of the gate where the passenger transport was currently docking.

  “Don’t get distracted playing with your new toy,” Burner joked. “It’s showtime.”

  Sara scoffed, but before she had time to think of a retort, the ship began unloading its passengers. Both of them went to work studying the arrivals as they stepped out, using their clothes, their builds, their expressions, their luggage, and even their strides to build rudimentary profiles and find their target.”

  Burner examined a man with a lazy eye and a limp. “That injury could be from military service… no, he doesn’t carry himself like a former soldier would, and that eye condition would have been disqualifying from most branches anyway. Maybe a mercenary once, but retired now? Based on that expression, he sees this planet as a retirement spot. Not our guy.”

  The next one up was a tall, tan man carrying a great deal of luggage. Sara took the job of assessing him. “He’s got the right build, and he could be carrying any kind of weapons in that luggage. But that’s a farmer’s tan, isn’t it? Yeah, those fingers are callused from working the fields. I’d guess he just made a trip to purchase new tools not available on the planet, hence the luggage.”

  They took turns like this, rapidly assessing each passenger to determine if any were at all suspicious. They immediately disqualified people traveling with families and
anyone too young for military service.

  Sara picked out their first real potential suspect, a young man with frizzy hair. “See how nervous his movements are? The darting of his eyes like he doesn’t trust the ship brought him to the right place? Definite signs of a rough upbringing, the kind that attracts kids into a criminal lifestyle. The bags under his eyes and the cracks of his lips are evidence of drug use, too, though he seems to be clean right now, given his steadiness. Not the kind of person who would fit in with the locals. That could be our guy.”

  Burner studied him through the binoculars. “He’s definitely a shady character, but more of a street gangster shady. He could have come out here to lay low for a while. I thought our guy would stand out more. Like that guy.”

  He was gesturing to a scrawny man wearing a bright, flowery shirt and shorts. “That guy looks like he’s never been out in the sun a day in his life. Looks like he’s been sitting in a dark room on a computer instead of working out in the country. So what is he doing here dressed like he’s on vacation? There’s nothing to sightsee here, and he’s not exactly built for farm work. Of all the passengers we’ve seen, he’s the only one I can’t place with a reason for coming all the way out here.”

  Sara glanced at him sideways. “Maybe he’s just a drifter.” Her eyes danced playfully, despite the task in hand. “I hear they don’t need much of a reason to go place to place.”

  Burner didn’t shift his gaze from the target. “This place is far off any beaten path and very few transports come this way. No one is going to make their way out here if it’s not deliberate. What’s a tech worker type doing this far from civilization? I think it’s worth checking into.”

  Sara glanced over to where the frizzy haired man was getting away. “I’m not so sure that other chap isn’t my guy. Just because he looks like a low-level thug doesn’t disqualify him. He could be hired muscle. We’ve got two viable suspects.”

  Burner nodded. “We should split up, then. I’ll take the office geek, you take the drug runner, and we’ll see where they lead us. We’ll meet up again if we find any proof, or anything that disqualifies one of them from the running.”

  With a plan of action, and a little bit of friendly competition, the two parted company in order to follow their respective suspects. Sara followed her man out of the space port and into the city. He ran a circuitous route that Sara recognized as a basic counter-tailing tactic, full of sudden turns, quick swaps of vehicles that he had left waiting for him in various lots around the city, and quick strides through businesses with other exits at the back. This in itself convinced her that she had the right guy. One of them, at least.

  Despite the nagging concern in the back of her mind, she convinced herself that he was just being cautious. Sara was confident she hadn’t already been made. In principle he had all the right techniques that one would need to lose even the most dogged pursuer, but while the techniques were solid, his application of them were amateurish. The routes ran back along themselves, making trailing him by parallel streets easy, and he spent too long during his vehicle swaps making sure the vehicle he parked was properly locked up and secured before getting into the new one and safely pulling out of the space. Sara had no problem keeping up using a series of “borrowed” vehicles. Whoever this was didn’t have the practice of someone experienced in the field. Sara began to wonder if Burner might have been right after all.

  The target’s trail eventually led her back to the port area where he walked into a vehicle rental shop and ended up in the seat of a newest model they had on the lot. Sara kept her latest borrowed ride idling outside the rental lot until he had gained a little distance on her, then she pulled out after him. This new course was taking them out of the city. If he was going to lead her anywhere interesting, this would be it.

  She wondered if Burner was having any better luck.

  20

  Downtown Madalev, Demeter

  Burner’s target was eating a pizza.

  Not pizza-flavored soy nuggets. Not synthetic pizza substitute. Real pizza. Burner could smell it from his surveillance spot of a bench across the street. It made him hungry.

  Even at the height of his career, Burner’s diet had consisted mostly of soy supplements and synthetic food designed to look like the real thing. It wasn’t so bad when it came to sweets and other things whose flavors were disguised with a mass of artificial sweeteners, but it was disappointing when it came to things like meat. That’s just the way it was on most planets where the production of foodstuffs did not meet the needs of a burgeoning population.

  MaMa’s Pizzeria and Pasta on its signage promised fresh dough, real cheese, and a sauce made from actual tomatoes. And from what Burner could see, the prices weren’t as obscene as the ingredients would have demanded on most of the other planets. One of the advantages of living on a world built around agriculture, he supposed, was having access to locally produced ingredients not made sparse by overpopulation. Maybe Demeter was a good place to settle down on after all.

  Burner turned his attention back to the mission. His target hadn’t simply been walking by and then decided on a whim to stop for a slice. He had come here almost directly from the port, catching a shuttle, riding it to a nearby street and taking quick strides all the way to the pizzeria. He had clearly been to this planet before, enough times to know the location of his favorite restaurant by heart.

  Burner was convinced that this was one of the terrorists they had profiled, Mr. Two-Pizzas. After all the fake pizza he had eaten on Dobulla, it was no wonder he would be eager for some of the real deal.

  He paid his bill and gave a friendly wave goodbye to the staff, who all waved back. It seemed he was well known here, and well-liked.

  Burner tailed his suspect away from the delicious smelling pizza toward a residential area a few blocks away. This was a suburban area, sitting on the outskirts of the city. The neighborhood was filled with nice homes with big yards. On a more crowded planet, these kinds of homes would belong to the wealthy class, those who could afford to take up so much space when there was no space to give. Here, where space was abundant, Burner imagined these homes belonged to the middle class, those whose work in the city kept them close but who could still enjoy some of the benefits of country living.

  His suspect walked right up to one of these houses and went inside. Burner could see activity from one of the windows and crept low on the other side of the road so he could approach it without being seen. Neatly trimmed hedges kept him mostly hidden without attracting unwanted attention from nosy neighbors.

  There were kids at play inside the house. His suspect came in and the kids rushed up to welcome him. The warmness and familiarity there could only come from family. The suspect had acted like he had been on this planet before because he had. He lived on Demeter and had a family here.

  Had he picked out the wrong man? It had been a concern of his for a while that his profiling ability might grow rusty with disuse. It was a muscle, and like all muscles, it needed frequent exercise or it would start to wear away. The practice he got profiling patients in a dentist’s waiting room or passengers waiting for the metro didn’t compare to the workout it got when he was building a profile on a criminal suspect. When there were real stakes on the line, and real feedback loops. So far this guy’s crime had been that he liked pizza. That was a big leap to make without supporting evidence.

  But a couple of things still struck him as odd. If he was coming home to see his family, why stop off at a pizza restaurant first? Perhaps he had been slipped a note or something by the server, though that seemed a bit like he was stretching to make his profile work, a logical fallacy he had been warned against. Still, if his guy was a family man, he’d eat at home. Or at least bring some pizza back.

  Unless it was secret pizza.

  The sun set while Burner crouched there, spying on what might be an innocent family because he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more there. This area of the planet apparently
got very cold at night, and as darkness fell, Burner felt the chill seep through his not-quite-thick-enough jacket and settle into his bones.

  His mind drifted to thoughts of Sara. He wondered if it had been a good idea to let her go off on her own like that. Sure, she was a Constable, but she was still just one person. The organization they were tracking were at least four, and potentially much more. She could probably do with his help if she found them, and here he was tracking a family man and pizza lover.

  He checked his comm to see if he had any messages from her. Nothing. Not that he expected to hear anything, unless she had something worth contacting him about. For some reason, her lack of communication still made him uneasy.

  He had worked with partners before, both within the agency to tackle the biggest missions, and interagency when the branches collaborated on a case that crossed jurisdictions. He had worked with men and women, rookies and seasoned veterans, professionals and hotheaded amateurs. Yet he could never remember feeling this protective of one of them before. Of course, he would do his best to watch his partner’s back and had risked his own life to save theirs more than once. But with Sara he felt somehow responsible. Like if something happened to her, the blame would rest squarely with him.

  He decided to send her a message asking for her location and any updates. If he couldn’t find anything else suspicious about the family man, he could always go join up with her.

  No signal. He was standing in a complete dead zone. Dammit.

  While he was shifting his body around to try and find a spot that might have reception, the door to the target’s house opened. His suspect came out pulling on a coat—one that looked as bright and cheery as his flowery shirt—and carrying a large canvas bag that looked heavy given the way he was struggling with it.