“All the tracks are leaving. Not one of them is facing the door. No trace of them entering. Just exiting.”
“Wind must have eroded them,” Simon said, but he sounded mystified.
Ionia knelt down and looked closer. “And these are flame boots.”
Miranda looked down at the prints. Her oversized coat made her look like a five-year-old who’d borrowed her mother’s clothes; no hands showed, and her face was obscured by a fluffy hood. “They look like mine, but bigger.” They examined the trail Miranda had left and the tread matched.
“Maybe the attackers made the marks, but why only one set and only leaving?” Ionia shook her head, another question without a logical answer.
She straightened. The only way to find the truth was by moving forward. She gulped in a lungful of air. No time like five minutes ago, her mom always said.
She pressed in the code, and the reinforced door slid open.
Scorch marks in the bay and down the hall to the living area gave proof Rod had not slept through the attack. The heat ducts stained black, scored by fire. No hum of generators. Eerily quiet. Silent as the surface of the Moon.
They entered. The inside proved not much warmer than the outside. Emergency lights flickered and sent dappled light in crisscross patterns over the dock.
Ionia shivered. The coat that Simon lent her had the best internal heating system his father’s credits could buy, but her face still burned from the cold in the air. The further they walked, the harder her breath came, like her air supply lacked O2. And the closer they moved to the inside, the less she wanted to go forward. All this time, she’d been desperate to get back to find her mom, but the reality of what she might find was just too vivid. She stopped.
Simon and Miranda quietly talked in the bay a couple of meters behind, waiting for her to make a move. Den's eyes remained on her expectantly.
She forced her feet forward, one shuffling step after another until they approached the living area. Nothing but the sound of their footsteps echoed in the hall.
Ionia smelled alcohol and cleaning solution from the med bay. She took a step inside the door.
Den's hand fell on her shoulder and yanked her backward off her feet. Her breath whooshed out as he pushed her down, twisting his body to block the entrance and provide a shield.
A bolt of light flashed over their heads. Den rushed inside. Ionia could hear the sound of a scuffle.
Simon and Miranda pulled her up and helped her forward. Ionia reentered to find Den with his gun fixed on the shooter.
“What is going on-” Ionia's voice faded, trapped in her throat.
Rod sat on the floor in the corner with a bottle of booze in one hand and a blaster in the other. His leg lay sideways, twisted too far to be normal, toe and knee in opposing directions, clumsily bandaged and bleeding through the plastifabric.
“I ain’t leaving ‘til I kill the bastards that took my dog.” His hazy, unfocused eyes set on Den. “You the bastard that took my dog?” He swung his blaster at a wild angle.
Den leveled his weapon at Rod's forehead.
A kill shot.
“No, Den. He's drunk. He won't hurt us.” She hoped. Ionia crouched down to his level and met his watery eyes. His breath hitched, and he bit his lip, his face contorting as if holding in a shout.
“Rod. It's Ionia. What's going on? Why are you still here?”
“Brandy. Brandy is gone. Maybe, she could be...but she can't. Such a good dog.” He squeezed his eyes shut.
“Why don't you come with us back to the transport and--” Miranda said.
“Not without Brandy. I'm gonna find her or the bastards that hurt her. That's what I told 'em.” He snorted. His head fell to his chest, supported only by his beard, then snapped up as if he had just woke up. “They regretted tangoing with the Rod Dictum. No one messes with the Dick.”
Ionia sighed. He was half-drunk and all crazy. Little good he would do for her or anyone.
“This is your sergeant?” Simon asked. “No wonder this place got sacked.”
Rod’s face sagged in confusion, and he searched for the source of the comment. Ionia sent Simon a shut-the-freakin’-hell-up look before crawling closer to Rod. She placed a hand on each side of his wire-haired face. “Listen, Rod. I’m looking for my mom. What happened?”
His head bobbled, and his dilated bloodshot eyes finally focused on her face. Something she’d said cut through his haze and his mind seemed to clear. “Ionia? I’m sorry kid. I don’t know. I wasn’t drinking when it happened. Really. The alarms didn’t go off. If it weren't for Brandy, I would have been ambushed. But they got her in the confusion. Least ways, I couldn’t find her. I holed up in here ‘til they left.”
“What about the constables? Didn’t they try to get you help?”
“What?” His eyes lost the alertness, and his head dipped.
“Did you see what happened to my mom?” she yelled near his ear.
He jerked up, pulled from her grasp, then looked down and away. “I didn’t see it, but you should check the control room. Really am sorry.”
Her heart twisted on a bed of pins and needles, and her breath wouldn’t inflate her shriveled lungs. Rod never apologized or looked contrite. Something waited in the control room, something she wasn’t sure she wanted to see, but something she had to see.
Miranda shuffled back and forth in a nervous two-step. Simon pressed his lips together, his eyes saying what he didn’t want to say. Den stood with his gun ready and his face set. With his surface damaged, he looked like a war torn hero, bruised and tired, but hyper-alert and hyper-aware.
“Let’s go,” Ionia said.
The bamp of a blaster vibrated the walls. They all turned and followed the sound. Simon and Miranda both looked terrified, faces white, mouths open. Den pulled up his gun.
“Thhhheeeey’re baaaaack.” Rod’s voice rang out, weird and creepy.
All eyes turned to Ionia. “We need to find out what’s happening. Come on.” A new flow of nervous, scared energy popped in her veins.
“Did the attackers come back?” Miranda asked.
They reached the door and heard Rod trying to stand and falling forward flat on his face. He lay still, breathing shallowly at their feet. His gun lay, safety off, with a half charge still flashing green, at their feet. Ionia gave it a wide berth. Simon crunched his forehead at her and shook his head. “We might need it.” He scooped the weapon up.
Den led the way to the loading area, Ionia behind, the Feinsteins in the rear.
Outside in the unsteady glow given off by emergency lights of the station and the transport’s headlights, stood the men who had attacked Ionia and Den, bruised and beaten to a pulp, with death in their eyes. The leader held a gun on Cam. She raised both hands in surrender.
Den pushed Ionia away into the hall.
“Den! Cam’s in trouble. I need to help her!”
Simon hesitated, a slight waver in the weapon in his hand.
The big ugly one, the man that had smashed Ionia and kicked her, pointed the gun at Cam’s head.
She remembered how it felt to be helpless, to be beaten, to feel like she was going to die. Cam’s life hung by the man’s finger twitch--Ionia’s fault and responsibility.
She yanked the gun from Simon’s hands. Her mom had taught her to use one, had drilled her on how to hold it, where to shoot, how to kill.
Her heart and stomach sank, but she walled the feeling. She couldn’t let those bastards hurt Cam.
Ionia released her breath and the shot at the same time. From all her mom’s training and from the level of hate in her stomach, she wanted to take off his head and mount it on a pole, but she aimed to injure, not to kill.
The blast sliced his hand neatly, cauterizing the wound. So much cleaner than guns that still used gunpowder. The injured man fell to his knees and cradled his stub.
The man’s howl jerked his crew into action. They converged on the transport. Cam seized her gun and fired into the melee.
Den stood next to Ionia, still shielded by the station wall. The pupils in his eyes narrowed, like a gun sight telescoping down to pinpoint its target. He scanned the scene. “You are in mortal danger. I am instituting protection protocols.”
It was more of a warning than she’d gotten last time he’d gone NAR solider. “Fine. But I will be helping.”
With a double brow arch and a deep sigh, he swung his weapon. “Then I must make short work of them.”
Even with his mauled shoulder, Den’s aim was perfect. He winged a scraggly man with long, loose, unkempt hair. The other three started firing wildly at them. Ionia pulled the laser blaster up to her shoulder and took aim at the farthest, a gray, round lump. He tumbled like a puppet without strings, knee destroyed.
“Cover me!” Cam said.
From her position behind the treads, Cam rose and sprinted towards the entrance. Ionia pulled up her gun and fired. Den copied her, trying to give Cam some protection. One of the marauders, a woman, stepped out from hiding behind the giant metal treads. She pointed a gun at Cam’s escaping back.
A blue blast from Ionia’s gun hit the woman in the torso, but also nicked the convertaplane’s lower plate that shielded the fuel tanks. A fire bloomed and spread as if she’d dropped dry paper on an open flame. The blaze sprinted up the side along a welded seam and spread into the cockpit. The flames expanded as if the machine was doused in gasoline. None of the fire systems had time to come online. The transport burned, the flames fueled by its own tanks.
Ionia peeled her eyes from the fire and saw Cam. Her coat was still too thin for the weather. She had only a worn pair of thermogloves, but she didn’t seem to feel the cold.
Her cocoa skin washed gold by the flames. Her eyes widened and unblinking, mouth open. A hand hovered near her chin. Ionia started to move to Cam, but Den stopped her.
“Wait,” Den said.
The attackers withdrew to their battered blazers. The ones that were missing limbs crawled away, helped by their compatriots. Some lay unmoving in the snow.
The fire sizzled through the transport. A panel flew into the air like a wounded bird trying to escape and fell with a dull, dead thunk against the gray, ash-washed snow.
Chapter Twelve
The transport burst into a fireball. Cam’s last attacker took the brunt of the impact and flew two meters from the vehicle. Den leveled his gun at the remaining marauders. They retreated, boarded their blazers, and jetted off in a flash of fire.
Ionia huddled in the mouth of the South Pole Station’s hangar with Den flush to her side. Simon and Miranda clutched each other and hid behind a steel support beam.
“Sweet Zeus, we have to help Cam,” Ionia said.
Ionia dropped her gun and ran to Cam. A wave of heat washed the skin of her face. She pushed the dead woman off her friend. “Are you ok?”
Cam blinked, long and hard, as if trying to clear her vision. “What the hell happened?”
“The transport exploded. I was trying to save--”
“You blew up my transport. I’m stuck here. No. no. no. no.” Her face screwed up like she’d laid her tongue on a lemon. “What am I going to do?” Cam staggered and stalked toward the inferno. Ionia grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the flames. Simon and Miranda stood helpless in the entryway. Den turned from the retreating attackers to face Ionia and Cam.
“Gotta save my baby.” Cam pulled from Ionia and charged forward, her steps wavered, uneven.
Ionia’s brain unfroze, panic sending a wave of adrenaline to her limbs. “Stop. I can help.” Ionia beelined to the firefoam in the bright orange box on the side of the station and pulled out the hose. Den hung back, gun cocked, eyes roaming.
The hundreds upon hundreds of vidclips her mother had forced her to review on a monthly basis replayed in Ionia’s brain. She held the nozzle down and next to her hip. “Simon! Miranda! Get your asses out here and help me hold the hose.
The Feinsteins broke from their horror trance and hustled up behind her.
“Grab it like me or you will go flying. Cam, turn on the flow.”
She stumbled, her movements jerky and hesitant, but she reached the wall and turned on the flow.
Fire flared and sizzled, flashing through the reinforcement plates. Ionia kept the foam flowing, coating the exterior, killing most of the blaze, but the internal inferno still sputtered.
Another panel blew off and released a tongue of flames that shot into the air, creating a horrible twilight in the black sky.
“Turn it off.” Miranda released the hose and trotted over to the valve.
There was nothing left to do. The foam would spread and destroy the rest of the fire, but Cam’s transport was lost.
Cam dropped to her knees in the snow, hung her head, and pressed her wrists against her temples.
“Everything I own. Everything. My life was that transport. All I have left are the wings and what the hell good are those without a body.”
“I’m so sorry,” Ionia said.
“Sorry.” Cam’s head snapped toward Ionia. “You’re sorry.” Cam’s eyes expanded until the whites showed around her pupils. Her teeth bared, she leaped to her feet and lunged at Ionia, gathering handfuls of coat in her hands. “If you had just done what you were supposed to do then everything would have been fine. But you had to cause all this.”
“I was just trying to help.”
“This is your fault.”
Ionia’s chest ached, not from smoke, but from guilt. Cam was right. Her friend was suffering because of her behavior because she couldn’t just stay put in the station. Because she couldn’t just leave well enough alone. “I am sorry.”
Den crossed the distance between them in two long steps, his gun out. Cam released Ionia’s coat, flopped back down into the snow, and buried her head in her hands.
Cam’s hands may have released Ionia, but her words still had Ionia’s heart on tender hooks.
Simon and Miranda backed away and disappeared into the base. Den watched Cam like she was a cobra ready to strike.
“Let’s go inside and give her a minute,” Ionia said.
Den’s curly hair fell on his ash-smudged forehead, covering most of his damaged face. He looked more like an adorable waiflike orphan than a steel-skeletoned, killing machine.
Ionia’s knees shook, and her hands quivered. He offered her his arm. She laughed a little under her breath. He always knew when she needed him. She sighed and took his arm, and he guided her back into the station.
###
The human world and interactions were beyond his programming to comprehend. He had advanced psychology DLed into his hard drive, but the behavior of the group defied reason.
Even Ionia had fired a weapon near the vehicle, their sole means of escape without forethought of the repercussions. To be truly human, to bend to the sway of every emotion seemed illogical, unpredictable, and undesirable. Being a logic-based entity appeared infinitely preferable.
But not like him. A logic-based entity with free will and emotion. Options pushed at his consciousness, tugged at his mind, waited for him to let a stray bit of energy go then he would fall back into the loop. But Ionia needed him more than ever. How had she survived seventeen years without him?
“The transport could not have been saved,” Den said.
Ionia averted her head, covering her face with her hand. “No. It couldn’t.” Her voice registered in low and strangled tones.
Den ushered Ionia into the building. Cam stumbled in behind, and from his medscan, appeared to be suffering from shock. They rejoined the others in the med bay.
“I'll just call my dad and he'll send--” Simon said.
“Coms are down, stupid,” Miranda said to her brother. “They've been down since we left. The only way we found Ionia was the link Dad has on all his stuff.”
“I can secure the entrance so we are not surprised by more marauders.” Den kept his eyes on the skyline. The two escapees appeared beaten, outnumbered, and
out gunned, but they had proven tenacious in their pursuit.
“Good idea.” Ionia looked up at him with a tiny, tilted smile. A warm tingle of emotion spread from his central processor through his body.
He returned the smile, nodded, and grasped the metal. The bay door didn’t compare to the weight of the transport, but it still taxed his system. Within minutes, he closed and manually locked the hangar.
He reentered the med center. The Feinstein girl had taken on the role of caretaker of the captain, bandaging a small head wound. His vision telescoped on Captain Cam. The woman reacted emotionally, owned many weapons, and now seemed unstable.
Den upped her danger category to Serious.
The sergeant lay unconscious on the floor, snuffle-snoring. Judging from Den’s blood scan, the man may yet die of alcohol poisoning. He was also on the danger list from his earlier erratic behavior.
He had a moment to scan for other threats. His sensors reached out, but his signal rebounded.
The memory clip jerked back to his awareness in a sudden flood. “My sensors have been blocked, as they were in the Feinstein house.”
The Feinstein boy scrutinized him. “You were blocked at home? Who would do that?”
“Dad. He does lots of things without telling us.” Everyone turned to Miranda Feinstein. “You're too busy in your rooms and at enclass.” She paused and took a deep breath. “I notice. He thinks I'm too sick, but I know. He's got a big project. It is supposed to change how we do business in Mac Town, but he is missing some component. He’s been worried he will never finish.”
“How come I don't know about this? He usually tells me everything.”
The Feinstein girl glided across the floor with a grace even a high precision machine would have a hard time matching and laid a hand on his arm. “He tells you what he wants you to hear. What he thinks will benefit the business.”
The annoying boy's face lost animation, and his brows hung low over his eyes. “That’s not even important, right now. I’ll ask him when we get back.” His voice had a close-the-subject tone.
Ionia didn’t want to say anything to disturb Simon’s idea of his father more, but after exploring Mac Town, and listening to the constables, she had massive doubts about the magistrate, his motives, and his business. It was best to change the subject back to more immediate threats.
Frozen Hearts: The Ionia Chronicles: Book One Page 21
