by Scott Rhine
Max held a long conversation with Commander Krannek. In the end, the Yellow Slash security forces decided that they needed more hard evidence before invading a sovereign preserve. “We can, however, help you with the stolen silence fields. I can’t give you details, but I have the destruct codes for that lot. I’ll transmit them to your wrist computer along with an application. The signal will detonate any active units within three hundred of your meters. This should get you close enough to determine the magnitude of the threat.”
“Roger.”
Then the miner reported to his boss that his brothers had been killed by a Mbutu ambush. He mentioned nothing about cooperating with Turtle security. Zrulkesh ordered them to continue upriver. “The moment you find Vrilkesh, call me.”
Zrulkesh outlined a plan to haul down a container of iron in his shuttle so that the natives would think he was just making a final delivery. They could snatch Vrilkesh and be gone before the natives grabbed their spears and arrows.
When Max and Iggy returned to the boat landing, the ship’s steward refused to let them back aboard, claiming they had repeatedly started feuds with other passengers and crew. “No fighting on my ship. You can walk the rest of the way.” He tossed their belongings to them, including the tent. Men with shotguns backed his authority.
Max and Iggy buried the two dead Saurians. Then they stole a canoe, crossed to the uninhabited side of the river, and made camp for the night.
****
In the morning, Max checked the power levels on his devices. Each had recharged overnight. “Iggy, I guess your share of the profit is double the original amount now.”
The miner stared at the ground, holding a bloody machete in one hand and Ace’s sonic pistol strapped to his hip. “I can’t spend money in hell. I will have no eggs to bear my strand, and no brothers to drink my passage.”
“Then why continue?”
“The uplifters have need of my help. If I am faithful, there is hope for me.”
Max put an arm on his shoulder. “Then I will be your brother in this. Nothing will harm you if I can do anything to stop it. Any wrong against you will be avenged.”
“The captain will kill you after the mission.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Max joked.
“He has access to three Magi rifles and explosives from the mine.”
That I didn’t know. “Thank you for your loyalty. Let’s move. We have a long distance to hump before dark.”
Puffing to keep up, the Saurian asked, “Aren’t you afraid, vampire?”
“Terrified, but shame at my failings and anger at what’s been done drive me onward.”
“Good. For a moment, I was afraid you were trying to kill yourself.”
Max considered the theory. If there weren’t so many people depending on him, he might have. However, he had long ago decided that the only moral way to commit suicide would be through starvation. So far, his survival instinct had consistently overcome self-loathing at the three-week mark of fasting. “No. I go on these missions because I’m not good for anything else.”
“If I survive this, Yellow Slash females will be falling over each other to mate with me. Yes?”
“You know it, Iggy,” Max replied. “But just in case … if you ever hear me say the word ‘translator’ in conversation, I want to you haul your scaly ass as far away from me as you can.”
Chapter 27 – Camp Kalanga
Max and Iggy crept past the final steamboat stop at dusk. Finding a thin trail past a cornfield, Max pressed onward through the dark. “Fewer trees, more people,” he warned, turning his night goggles to the maximum sensitivity. Eventually, they reached a four-meter fence. His mind boggled. Even with minimal metal, the expense to build this barrier must have been phenomenal. What the blazes are they hiding?
Max broadcast a quick GPS burst to both Turtle security and Zrulkesh, alerting them to stand by. Then he scouted out an unguarded spot near the woods with drainage problems. Dirt had eroded at the base of the fence and would be easy to dig.
He signaled Iggy to stay and duck-walked to the weak point with his silence field on. A trenching tool in utter quiet could work miracles. Max vibrated the shovel blade to make insertion easier. By his sixth spadeful, he was sweating buckets. His grip slipped, and he grazed the base of the fence.
Searing artificial lights, brighter than the arc lights of a car dealership or ski resort, flooded his area. This would have temporarily blinded a normal person standing in the dark, and his starlight goggles further amplified the discomfort. Max threw the goggles aside and disabled his sound-suppressor field.
Sirens wailed. Iggy’s pistol fired repeatedly, making a vibrating echo similar to a pipe banging on a long, hollow tube. “Run for it!”
Machine guns answered. Running toward that voice would be suicide. Instead, Max laced his hands behind his head, lay on the dirt, and shouted in English followed by click speak, “Translator! I’m just the translator. They made me do this.”
Instead of bullets, darts penetrated his shirt and pants. One or two, he might have ignored, but they hit him with at least five paralytics—from at least three guns quite similar to his own. No doubt the ammunition came from the same medical supplier here on Eden.
Iggy smashed through the brush, attempting to escape, and many boots swarmed in pursuit. Boots were expensive. Most locals went barefoot. He could only hope that his ally evaded capture long enough for the paralytics to wear off.
Men without boots bound Max’s hands and feet with nylon rope. Metal handcuffs were too rare, even in this military compound. This gave him hope. He knew a few tricks to escape from duct tape and rope. Then he heard the sizzle and smelled the nylon fusing when they clamped a crimping device over the ends. These bonds were meant to be permanent.
As his captors slid his bound arms and legs over a long pole for carrying, Max’s vision began to return. The white spots became electric lights in front of each long house. He counted at least five barracks capable of holding about twenty men. A hundred men, destined to be murderous copies of him. Abomination isn’t strong enough.
Max wondered where all the electricity was coming from until he saw the elite guards atop the tiny dam and all around the base. They had tapped the modest waterfall and the rapids at the head of the river to construct a small hydroelectric plant—definitely against the preserve’s charter, and probably what the cops had been paid to ignore. Did they know about the military training base?
With a diversion, and legs that worked, he might be able to get into range and blow the whole thing.
His bearers dumped him unceremoniously into a raised hut with a bamboo floor. The leader of the cartel, Peter Ooloombenga, lifted Max’s eyelid. His hair had receded since the news photo, and he’d lost weight. By the light of the single, bare bulb dangling from the rafters, he removed the remaining darts and counted blood-stained holes. “Too much drug. Idiots. Now we can’t question him until late morning if he lives through it. Put his gear over there.”
A voice from a man he couldn’t see explained, “We didn’t remove the vest or wrist device in case they were booby-trapped.” They emptied the harmless contents of his pockets and pack onto the room’s table, including Vrilkesh’s monogrammed wallet, ration bars, bounty papers, and a ball of string. The gun, dagger, and doctor’s bag they confiscated. He couldn’t see his thigh pocket to check for the scissors yet, but he still wore the vibro gloves. A pile of bandages and a roll of medical tape sat ominously to one side.
“At least you did that right. Don’t worry, though. His mouth will move long before his hands and feet. The gear is a mix of alien and local. Who is he?” asked Ooloombenga.
“Boatmen called him preacher. He speaks !Kung, so we brought him here.”
“Hmm,” Ooloombenga mused, examining his captive. “If he cooperates, the emerald mine can use more workers.”
“Is it right to torture a man of God?” asked another unseen soldier.
“Later we let him pray. If his
God answers, we set him free.” They all laughed at the compromise. “Post guards outside in case his friends attempt a rescue. How many Saurians are we looking for?”
“Five boarded the ship, sir.”
“We’ve only killed one. Keep searching.”
So much for Iggy calling in the cavalry.
****
The hours it took for the paralysis to wear off were the longest of Max’s life. His body wanted sleep, but succumbing meant death. He focused his attention on a spider building a web in the corner. In the face of chaos, it built a home—a thing of beauty. When Max could finally move his jaw, he bit his lip for the boost of pain. Even if he managed to push the transmit button on his wrist, he couldn’t call for air support without the guards hearing. He needed to escape his bonds to send a text message.
The moment he could twitch his fingers, Max began dragging himself across the floor. Slugs moved faster. The journey lasted half an hour. Every millimeter of the underside of the table was etched in his brain. Grasping the string on the table took almost as long. Needles tingled in his limbs due to decreased circulation.
Max spent a ridiculous amount of time looping the string around the top layer of ankle rope. When he held both ends tightly, he activated the gloves. He had to bite his lip again, this time to keep from screaming in pain. As the string sawed through his leg restraints, the coarse nylon rope scraped away skin from the backs of his wrists. He stopped only when one of his guards gave a muffled, “Did you hear that?”
Max curled around the string to hide it, whimpering in the process.
Someone opened the door and peeked inside. “He’s coming out of it.”
“Should we tell the boss?”
“Nah.” He booted Max idly in the testicles. The pain didn’t compare to his bloody wrists. “It’ll be hours more.”
Once the door was locked again, Max examined his legs. The string had cut over two-thirds though the thick rope. He couldn’t take the gloves much more, so he looped the string into the same crack and manually rocked the string, using hands to hold one end and teeth the other. Seeing a hint of daylight through the bamboo wall, he sawed frantically. With pressure from his legs, the last thread of nylon snapped.
He stood, letting the blood reach his numb toes. He wanted to smash something.
Patting his leg, he found no scissors. Max needed to cut the wrist ropes soon. Wincing, he rotated his wrists so fresh skin touched the bloody rope. Then he tied the string to the table leg, looped his wrist restraint, and tied the last end to another leg. He turned on the vibration and pulled. The string broke halfway though its task, and he almost passed out from the pain when he fell backward and struck his head.
Someone fumbled with the lock, and Max curled up in the same positions as before with his legs together.
“His head moved. I’ll go wake the boss.”
When the door closed, he shifted his wrists to the last square centimeter of uninjured flesh. Then he struggled to untie the biggest piece of string. It wouldn’t budge and wasn’t long enough to reach another anchor. Teeth and toes would take too long. Could this pooch get any more screwed?
Laying on the floor, he whispered, “Gauwasi spirits who guided my ancestors, if you have any suggestions, I am listening.”
That was when sunlight glistened off the nail head. A shoddy repairman had left a three millimeter gap between the head and the underside of the table. He looped the loose end around the nail head and sawed again. Low batteries made the work slower, but the string lasted longer this time. For the last thread, he hooked the rope on the nail head and heaved.
Hands free, Max wanted to cheer. He photographed the wallet on the table and sent the image with a message to Zrulkesh, “Found bunk. Ran to lake. Meet ASAP.”
After grabbing all the possessions he could, Max hurriedly wrapped bandages around his wrists and taped them like a boxer’s fists. If he had to swim in the lake or river, he didn’t want to die of infection. The wrist comm went into his vest pocket. As he worked, he heard the door knob again.
Max dove to the side. When the door opened, he kicked the guard in the testicles as hard as he could. The man doubled over. Then Max put him in a choke hold. “That’s how you do it, asshole.” He looked upward and mouthed an apology for the profanity. Exactly how did one repay helpful hints from gauwasi?
His pocket comm said, “ETA fifteen minutes.”
He looked down at the purpling guard. “How am I supposed to stall for that long? Huh?” When he was sure the guard was out, Max borrowed the man’s jacket and helmet.
Once he queued up the self-destruct application to begin with the touch of a button, Max locked the door and walked casually across the compound, pretending he knew where he was going. Only a few trained killers carrying stolen, forbidden tech would suffer.
The first building he could duck into turned out to be a dojo. Pictures on the wall showed weak points on Humans and Saurians.
The man in charge turned to him. “Why are you out of uniform? Those shoes and shirt are a disgrace.”
“Just left the infirmary, sir.” Max put a hand to his chest as if he had been running and pushed the button to start the app. “The command center was hit by some kind of orbital weapon. I’ve been ordered to gather every able-bodied soldier to guard the dam from attack shuttles.”
“Ridiculous,” said the trainer.
For a moment nothing happened, and then an explosion rattled the windows.
One of the students pointed at the courtyard. “I think I saw the beam.”
Another explosion sounded. “That was the mess hall.”
Max took out his comm and hit Pause. “Commander Ooloombenga just texted me. He called me an idiot and wants to know where his dam support is.”
The teacher shouted, “You heard the man. Move out!”
The power is upon me. My words bring destruction from the unseen. Max followed the class until the teacher indicated a building with a loud speaker on top. “Tell everybody on the PA.”
Saluting, Max replied, “Yes, sir.”
When the corporal inside expressed doubts about using the public address system, Max resumed the self-destruct application. “We don’t have long before the next strafing run.”
The next series of explosions was much more satisfying. “They hit the dynamite storage depot.” The corporal triggered an air-raid siren and made the announcement for Max. According to rumor, technology enforcers were raiding the compound.
In such chaos, fifteen minutes didn’t seem like long at all. He hopped from building to building, spreading the word with the good corporal. He felt like he could point, and men would die.
When the shuttle swooped like a bird of prey with stubby wings, every weapon in the camp opened fire on its approach. Two Magi beam weapons lanced out and melted the mounted guns.
Max reset the program to restart the broadcast sequence from the beginning.
Zrulkesh swung around and flew north toward the lake. He detached the ore container flying at over 200 kilometers per hour. The cargo smashed into a parade formation of native militia and scattered outward like shrapnel. Though only a skeleton of the shuttle’s body remained, the eyes of the bird still blazed. The Magi beams raked the camp with vicious precision, sweeping legs off dozens of men.
Ignoring the screams, Max sprinted for the left riverbank.
Almost as an afterthought, someone fired a shoulder-mounted rocket. Smoke poured from the shuttle as it skimmed low over the giant lake.
When Max made it up a staircase to the parapet he saw an officer filming everything with a pocket camcorder, another piece of illegal tech. “Why aren’t you defending the dam?” asked the officer.
The cluster of explosions behind him answered this question. Gravel rained down after the thunder, hissing and clattering onto the concrete barrier. Support cables twanged. The subsonic rhythm building in the structure reminded Max of God playing a giant didgeridoo. Another muffled explosion led to cracks. Everyone r
an for high ground as the dam groaned, yielding to the pressure of nature.
A mighty torrent of water swept through the valley, sweeping away nearly every trace of the school for assassins.
Chapter 28 – Bounty
Cameraman in tow, Max located a powerboat at a dock on the lake—really a rubber raft with a big motor, but this was advanced technology for Eden. The spare fuel canister smelled vaguely like rum. He had never used an internal combustion engine before. Worse, the shallows reminded him of a moat teaming with hungry Phib soldiers.
Ironically, in the midst of the flood, the camouflaged boathouse beside him was on fire. Men threw buckets of water on the flames as the lake lowered. Max shouted, “The commander ordered me to track that downed shuttle so we can get revenge. Who can pilot this?”
One man volunteered, pulling a cord to start the motor. The loud drone of the outboard made conversation difficult. The cameraman seemed eager to leave the scene to document events elsewhere. Once the vessel was underway and clear from the vortex sucking water downstream, Max pointed the way using the black trail in the sky. A gentle breeze dissipated his marker within ten minutes.
On instinct, Max checked Union mayday frequencies on his comm unit. The shuttle was sending out a steady pulse every few seconds, and he used his wrist computer to establish a heading. Zrulkesh had splashed down in the deepest part of Lake Kalanga, another five minutes from his position. When he was certain of the coordinates, he held up a hand to stop the raft. The rapid putt-putt-putt of the idling motor sounded like a frightened heartbeat.
“Put on your life vest. Regulations,” Max shouted to his pilot. Max held the rudder while the man grabbed a bright-orange vest from the bottom of the boat. As he slipped it over his head, Max shoved him overboard. “You don’t have a weapon, but you do have a family. Swim south.” When the surprised man was clear of the prop, Max gunned the engine.
“Why did you do that?” asked the cameraman.
“How long after I call in the coordinates do you think we’ll survive? I might get lucky and ram them, but we’re no match for their armament.”
