by Susan Kelley
Vin made three complete circuits of Hovel Port in ever widening circles. No humans moved outside the town for as far as the scanners could see, meaning he could safely take a trip to his interstellar ship. He flew the short distance to where he parked it in stealth mode. Only top grade military scanning equipment could detect his cruiser, a concern if the admiral came after Emma. That was the main reason Vin had hidden his ship, not because he expected the miners to find it.
He stowed his hover craft in the cargo area and went to the bridge. The ship woke on his coded command. It took only a moment to connect the ship’s sensors to the AI’s data stream. He flew the cruiser to a clearing only two miles from Hovel Port. With the surrounding jungle teaming with hostile fauna and flora, it was unlikely anyone would stumble upon it. But now it was close enough to Hovel Port that he could use its sensors to provide a wider net of security. After resetting the stealth mode, Vin went to his weapons locker. The ship itself wasn’t a warship, only a fast transport.
Over the course of the past six months, Vin had hunted his enemy using many methods other than shooting. Quieter methods. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t prepared to face a regiment. He doubted the civilians of Hovel Port could handle the more sophisticated weapons but he had a few the guards could share without shooting each other rather than intruders. He also gathered more of his clothing. He changed into the chameleon style as it would work equally well in the town and the jungle. Another set he took was night-black for working in the shadows.
He freed the hover from the cargo bay and continued his patrols. The AI unit fit into a designed slot in front of him. With a touch to the screen he brought up a view of the surrounding five miles around the cruiser’s sensors. No one could sneak up on Hovel Port now.
* * * *
Emma fell into the same routine as the guards over the course of the next ten days. They patrolled during the day and until a few hours after dark. Vin slept from after dinner until the middle of the night when he would take over. She prepared meals and dealt with small medical issues during the day. After a late dinner with Vin, she joined him in his bed. Each night he would leave her during the darkest hours. She vowed to wake when he did and kiss him for good luck and safety, but somehow he always rose without waking her. By the time the gray light of dawn roused her, his side of the narrow cot had cooled with no remembrance of his presence other than the way he’d tucked the covers so carefully around her.
None of them knew where Vin went during the day. He scaled the walls and disappeared into the jungle. Today was no different. She’d held back his serving of baked wild hens. Moe and Vannie waited with her, the four of them usually discussed the day before turning in for the night. Well, Vin didn’t really discuss anything, but he did add relevant details when needed.
“I’m hungry enough to eat my share and Vin’s tonight,” Vannie grumbled. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed, lass, that you’ve been giving bigger portions to him than to either of us.”
Moe rubbed his belly. “And I helped to prepare it only to be fed child size bites.”
Emma laughed with her friends, but she watched the door. No matter how confident she was in Vin’s skill, she worried every time he was out. Another quarter of an hour passed before the door opened and Vin walked in out of the night. His steely gaze found her immediately.
“Finally,” Moe said, pushing himself to his feet to help Emma get the food from the warmer in the kitchen.
Relief spread through Emma as she and Moe served up the food. Vin was safe for another day. They sat and ate, almost like a family. Except for the AI unit Vin sat in the middle of the table. Curious lines and squiggles danced across it. The topics discussed weren’t exactly normal family sharing either.
“After all the attacks came one right after the other, I expected them to hit us with something before now,” Moe said between bites.
“I’m thinking we should attack them, let them know we’re not going to be pushed out so easily.” Vannie waited but when Vin didn’t respond he made it clearer. He and Moe were learning to communicate better with a Recon Marine. “Don’t you think we should go upriver and pay them back for what they’ve done to us?”
Vin shook his head. “They have at least two hundred miners and another dozen guardsmen who look like former military. They could have armaments that we’re unaware of. The men of Hovel Port are not soldiers.”
“I don’t like being a sitting target, waiting for them to come and get us.” Vannie stabbed at his roast fowl.
“They won’t know we’re ready for them.” Vin had improved in his sharing of strategies. “The rain will be here later tonight. Hopefully, that will keep them at home and everyone can get some rest.”
“Maybe we can get some lawgivers in here,” Emma said. “They would have to leave us alone once the officials arrive. We need to start mining our iridium.”
“No!” Moe and Vannie said together. Even Vin shook his head. Moe spoke for all of them. “The only way we’d get a lawgiver this far out within half a year would be to use your real name. Then your stepfather would know where to find you.”
“I have to face him sooner or later.” Emma wished she’d confessed her breach of security before now. Her stepfather might already know her whereabouts. As soon as they were alone, she would explain to Vin how she’d exposed her position by contacting her accounts. Would he think she’d set up the meeting to take advantage of his presence to protect her from the admiral? Vin’s honor ran deep as did his honesty. Probably the most dishonest thing he’d done was lie about his name and try to fit in as a regular person, and he’d been terrible at it. Why hadn’t she told him sooner?
“You’ve never told me why you’re hiding from him.” Vin ate his meal in his usual slow manner, treating each bite as the best thing he’d ever tasted. He always finished last.
Vannie and Moe shook their heads. They still didn’t trust Vin but they only needed to get to know him better. But she would wait to explain her stepfather’s motives until later also. Vin might have trouble understanding them.
After Vin finished, Moe and Emma carried the dishes to the kitchen. It only took a few minutes to clean up and turn the lights off. Emma heard the soft strikes of rain against the back of the building. Soon it would turn into a driving downpour.
When Emma and Moe rejoined the other two, they found Vannie and Vin leaning over the AI. Vin explained the weak spots he would attack if he led the Underboss’s men. It made little sense to Emma, but Vannie nodded his agreement.
“I’m for bed,” Moe said around a yawn.
Before Emma could add her agreement the AI screen flashed and lit up with a new picture.
“What the hell is that?” Vannie asked.
Vin stood up, his posture suddenly different. Every line of his body, the look on his face, marked him as soldier. “They’re coming.”
Chapter Thirteen
The AI functioned in any kind of weather and extreme temperatures. It would see the coming threat even if the rain hid it from Vin. He was still dressed in his fighting gear, ready to go.
“Vannie get everyone into position. Moe, get the women and children into the café along with Russ. Emma, you stay in your surgery.” Everyone’s roles had been previously decided. The women without children would stay in the surgery to help Emma with any wounded. Moe would guard both the café and surgery. The rest of the men would be divided between Vannie’s and Dillon’s leadership. Vin would be outside the fence.
Emma touched Vin’s arm as he started for the door. “Please be careful. You don’t have to do this yourself. We’re all here to help.”
Vin looked at Moe and Vannie shrugging into their overcoats. Two middle-aged overweight men and probably the best fighters he had. Dillon would act as one of their leaders, and he had little more than a strong desire to defend his home. But all that desire wouldn’t defeat this enemy. “It’s what I do, Emma. I’m better at being a soldier that I’ve been at being a civilian.”
“How many are coming and from where?” Vannie asked.
Vin looked at the AI. “They’re coming from the north in three vehicles. I can’t distinguish how many men until they get closer. Vannie, put double the men on the north gate and keep your radio at hand. They have some military men so they might be experienced enough to plan a feint.”
The rain soaked them as soon as they stepped outside the door. It sluiced off Vin’s gear, but the other two men wouldn’t fare so well. Vin slipped through the alley separating his shop and the surgery. Holding the AI in one hand, he hopped up and grasped the top of the wall. He vaulted over and jogged to his hover.
The enemy had moved closer to Hovel Port and therefore closer to Vin’s cruiser. The ship’s sensor showed the three vehicles less than two miles from the town. One ship had moved pretty far away from the other two either because they had no experience traveling in formation, or the weather interfered with their instruments. The reason didn’t matter, but it gave Vin an advantage.
He flew near the treetops, trusting his vision and the auto evade system of the hover. If Joe was here, Vin’s former commanding officer, he would have a great plan. Though Vin didn’t think he needed any great strategy. The sensors distinguished separate life sources now that he was closer, showing nearly a dozen men on each ship. The majority would be miners, selected or volunteered for the raid.
Vin slowed as he neared them, letting the sensors do their work as it scanned the intruders for armament. Conventional projectile guns, bigger caliber than what had been on the drones. The ships were simple transport sleds that left the men exposed to the torrential rain. They used no tech themselves to scan their surroundings leaving them completely blind to his presence as he landed on the edge of the lane a few hundred yards in front of the first ship.
The dark and rain insured they wouldn’t spot him with human eyesight and his hover blended into the overhanging vegetation.
They rode on an unfamiliar model of transport craft but he heard the low tones of a battery engine. Unlike the men on the machines, Vin did have high tech weapons to disable their propulsion systems. He waited until lightning flashed to fire a concentrated laser shot at the battery cells of the first ship. Fortunately for the men on the ship, the batteries weren’t explosive but their ride dropped into the mud with a bang heard over the rain. It skidded forward, digging a crooked grove into the road. They slid past Vin, not even looking for an attacker. They probably thought the engine had failed. Keeping machinery running in a rainforest required constant attention.
The other transports stopped as they caught up to the wreckage of the first one. Men crawled from the downed craft, many with minor injuries. They split into two groups and boarded the other two rides. Someone shouted orders, but Vin couldn’t hear the words as he worked his way behind the last ship. Then he used the deeper darkness along the edges of the road to work his way up beside the downed transport.
After seeing the craft up close, Vin understood their limitations better. Probably they’d brought them because of their reliability in rough conditions. But the light vehicles weren’t designed for heavy loads. The extra men on each transport created a dangerous overload, and they would need to gain more altitude to pass over the wreck on the road.
Again Vin waited for a lightning flash though he expected even these slow-witted attackers would figure out they were being attacked. He waited until the second ship struggled in the moisture-laden air and moved exactly on top of the downed craft. The ship’s altitude improved the angle of the shot to the battery. The transport dropped like a rock in heavy gravity.
It didn’t land squarely on top of the other one. Metal screeched against metal. This time Vin heard the cursing and a few screams. Some would be disabled by injuries.
The invaders had been traveling with only running lights but now beams of brilliance stabbed out from the one working vehicle.
Vin glided back into jungle, knowing the light couldn’t penetrate the green curtain in front of him. His camouflaged suit meant he didn’t have to stand still. He dodged through the thick growth until he passed beyond the reach of their lights.
The men working the search lights didn’t know how to do a grid search and never bothered to check the open road behind them. Vin took his time and aimed his cutting laser at the last ship’s power source. Working with the lightning again, he sent the final transport crashing into the sloppy mud.
More shouts and screams until someone finally took the initiative and fired into the trees. Others followed the shooter’s useless example until the strobes of gunfire lit the dark night. They didn’t fire one round toward the road behind them.
Vin watched them strafe the jungle, patient in the role of the hunter. A little more than a mile separated the wrecks from Hovel Port. He doubted the residents of the settlement heard the gunfire over the rain but they might see the flashes as the road ran straight from here to the north gate.
After nearly ten minutes of continuous fire, the shooting slowed and then stopped all together at a sharp command. The scent of hot gases hung for a short period of time but the rain soon washed it away.
Vin worked his way closer, quiet and invisible, not that they would hear him over the downpour. As he neared he heard moans from the injured, but the rest of the men watched the jungle. He ghosted over toward the edge of the greenery so the next flash of lightning didn’t expose him. Not even his high tech camouflage could hide him in the open. He had to close within a few steps to hear their conversation. They grumbled about the weather, about the equipment and the planning of the raid. Vin ignored their rough voices and concentrated on the two men speaking only to each other. They weren’t grumbling.
“Surely we got them,” the first man said.
“Not like we can go into that viper’s nest and look for their bodies,” said the second man. “Do we walk from here or turn back?”
“I don’t like going in there without our ships but we’ll sweep those river rats aside with no problem. They have at least one old transport ship that they used to pick up supplies at the space port. We can take it to get back.”
“Don’t forget they have that one guard.”
“I wonder how they had the coin to hire him. Hope he caught one in the trees just now.”
“He’s just one man even though he shot down those drones. Underboss was sure furious about that. Cost him nearly half a year’s salary to get them. And now he has to report the sabotage at the mine.”
“Hardly matters if they fix it or not with the dribbles of ore we’ve been pulling up lately.”
Vin drifted back toward his hover. The enemy climbed down onto the muddy road and worked their way around the wreckage. They sloshed through the puddles at a pace to reach the settlement in a half of an hour or longer. Lots of time to rethink their intention to go forward.
The cruiser’s sensors picked up the individual heat signatures as the enemy spread out. The bastards had left their injured behind proving their dishonorable natures. The uneven, sloppy formation as they moved forward further confirmed their lack of competent leadership.
Vin allowed them peace for a while as their line stretched. He shadowed them from above the trees, the hover craft too quiet to be heard over the rain. He could rake them with lethal fire, killing or disabling them without return fire. But it seemed like … murder. They were so damned incompetent.
He didn’t care for the indecision. The AI interrupted his internal debate with an alert. Vin touched the screen and expanded his view from the area tight to the settlement to a wider circuit of the entire area. Two dots appeared east of Hovel Port, moving rapidly. They weren’t sluggish transport ships and made no attempt to hide their approach. The sensors
identified the dots as small jumper ships, capable of breaking atmosphere.
Vin’s heart leaped. The Underboss wouldn’t have such ships but Emma’s stepfather might. He slapped the accelerator panel and guided the hover into a steep climb over the enemy. The shocked men ducked and swung their weapons up as he flew over their heads. The darkness hid him before any of them fired. He keyed up the radio he’d fashioned from things in the shop. Moe and Vannie had the matching devices.
The wind and rain whipped at Vin’s words as he shouted into the radio. “Guard Emma! They’re coming for her!”
* * * *
Emma drew the drapes closed to hide the lights from outside as Vin had instructed them. She wished he’d had enough radios to give her one though she probably would have distracted him by constantly checking to make sure he was all right.
She brewed a pot of tea for the three women waiting with her, volunteering to be her nurses for the night. Though none of the women with her had small children, they all had husbands or grown sons standing watch out in the night. They appreciated the tea and all sat together on one of the cots.
No sounds leaked in over the pounding of rain on the roof. Moe looked in on them once and told them Vin had the invading party in sight on the north road. Emma’s tension twisted up a notch, an hour dragging by while she imagined him alone out in the dark.
Angry voices rose outside the surgery door. Emma braced herself to treat injuries but her hands shook with fear of seeing Vin’s body bloody again. Something slammed into the door and then it was pushed open. A vision from a nightmare stepped inside, another crowding in behind it. The first soldier was the biggest man she’d ever seen, covered in armor similar to what Vin wore. Long guns sprouted from their gloved hands and masks covered their faces.
