Stars Beneath My Feet

by D L Frizzell

  “You walked here from the Rekeire Plains?” Grisha pressed. “Any man doing that should be killed once and eaten at least twice.”

  “I took a shortcut across the plains to catch my bounty,” I admitted. “Not one of my better plans, since I lost my aerobike in a magnetic storm on the far side of Avaria.”

  Judging by their reactions, I had said too much.

  “Listen, men,” Hawkins said to his group, “Marshal Vonn is an expert scout and hunter. We’d have nightmares just thinking about it, but I’m sure the marshal here wouldn’t have any trouble crossing the plains if he had to.” Hawkins had stood up for me, but his frown told me he didn’t quite believe it himself. “You were alone the whole time, Marshal?”

  “I work alone,” I said evasively. “You know I do.”

  “Hmm,” he said, fidgeting nervously with his rifle strap. “Did you see anything strange along the way?”

  I sure as hell wasn’t going to mention my encounter with Xiv, or the massacre at the caravan for that matter. “I found a clefang den while I was out there,” I said, “but they weren’t home. Other than that, it was fairly quiet.” Yeah, I thought. Those dead caravaners were real quiet.

  I felt bad for lying, especially considering that the caravan was probably the one that just passed through Dogleg. If I’d learned one thing, though, it’s that people lost their collective minds with that kind of bad news. I’d tell them everything soon, but only after I got what I came for.

  “We need your help, marshal,” Hawkins said, glancing at Grisha and the others for agreement. They all nodded.

  “Why?” I asked.

  Grisha rubbed his nose as his eyes darted back and forth between me and Hawkins. He looked like a man spoiling for a fight.

  “We need help with the militia,” Hawkins replied quietly. “Please.”

  “Mister Hawkins,” I said. “I’m going to sound like a jerk, so I apologize in advance. Whatever is going on here, I’d rather not be a part of it. If I could just buy a horse and be on my way…”

  “We’re not asking what you’d rather do,” Grisha interrupted. “And you’re not getting any help until we get some answers.”

  Judging by Grisha’s expression, it had been too long since somebody rearranged his face. I was almost ready to give him another broken nose, and I wouldn’t even charge him for the service.

  Hawkins clearly didn’t want a confrontation, but he jumped in anyway. “Marshal Vonn, there are some very strange things going on. We don’t understand any of it because we’re not trained to. But you are trained, aren’t you?”

  I sighed. “Is it that bad?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Hawkins replied dourly. “Look, I know you don’t get along with the militia, but they won’t even talk to us. That’s why we need you.”

  “They brought yonderguns,” Grisha blurted.

  My eyebrows shot up in surprise. When it came to mobile artillery, a yondergun beat everything else. It was a giant cannon, pulled around on a pair of wheels the same way as a regular cannon half its size, but was designed so that it could eliminate a hardened target halfway to the horizon before they even knew you fired a shot. It was essentially a two-ton sniper rifle. Forged entirely from titanium, it came with a hefty price tag, but when you could put a ten-centimeter explosive projectile into a thirty-centimeter target at the speed of sound – at a distance that an enemy with binoculars would have trouble seeing you line up the shot - the cost was worth it.

  “You should probably see them for yourself,” Hawkins said.

  “Them?” I asked. “They brought more than one?”

  “They brought three,” Hawkins said, “for a half battalion of men.”

  I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly at first. A yondergun was something used by a full military division. For a half battalion to drag three along for maneuvers was crazy. Unless there was a good reason. I thought back to the scene at the caravan. There were at least three T’Neth in the area recently. Was that a coincidence? I asked myself. It had to be. The militia couldn’t know about the attack on the caravan so soon. At any rate, they would have had to leave Celestial City weeks before the massacre even occurred. Here was a puzzle where the pieces didn’t fit. I did my best to pretend I wasn’t concerned by their claim, even though it was beyond ludicrous. Unless…

  I formed a timeline in my mind. The militia would have had to leave Celestial City shortly after Jarnum attacked their livestock. I stopped at my apartment on my way through the city to grab a few things, but there was no indication the militia was preparing their troops for something this big. This operation was either a closely-guarded secret, or hastily prepared in response to Jarnum’s actions. But neither one of those possibilities was likely. The Plainsman Territory had been through a peaceful period that had lasted for several years, and Jarnum was just one man who’d been stuck in a mine for over a decade. There is one other possibility, I reminded myself. “Have you seen any strangers in Dogleg recently?” I asked, dreading what the answer might be.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary,” Hawkins replied. “

  “Are you kidding?” Grisha said. “You think the militia would send that much firepower to catch some wandering vagrants?”

  I really wanted to punch this guy in the face, but kept a patient expression if not a patient mind. “I wouldn’t think so,” I said, but remembered what Redland and Xiv told me about Jarnum earlier. You don’t know what he’s capable of. He kills T’Neth. A chill went down my back. No, even Jarnum wouldn’t rate such an exaggerated military presence. There had to be something else going on.

  “It’s the T’Neth isn’t it?” Grisha said, putting my exact thoughts into words. “The T’Neth are coming to kill us all.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Hawkins said. “Grisha, you’re paranoid.”

  I noticed the other men nodding agreement with Grisha. Hawkins wasn’t trying to convince his men as much as he was trying to convince himself; he had the same fear.

  “All our cattle have been spooked lately,” Hawkins said. “We’ve heard that happens when T’Neth are around.”

  I almost said that was an old wives’ tale, but I didn’t want to do these men a disservice by telling them more lies. These farmers wanted an explanation, or maybe just some comforting reassurance, but I wasn’t ready to give them either one. I had to keep them in the dark a little longer, at least until I knew where the real threat – or threats – were coming from. “Have you seen anybody with a metal cylinder covering their right forearm?” I asked. “From the same direction that I came?”

  They looked at each other questioningly. A few shrugged.

  “We get riders once in a while,” Hawkins said. “I don’t remember seeing any with metal on their arms. Isn’t that how you identify escaped convicts?”

  That’s when an idea germinated in my mind, something that might allow me to avoid some difficult admissions, while still giving the townsfolk an appropriate sense of danger. “Yes, exactly,” I said. “The escapee I’m chasing has a long criminal history. He also has alliances with different bandit groups.” I paused for emphasis. “Bandit groups in this region.”

  “And you followed him this way,” Hawkins said, taking the bait.

  “Maybe it’s not a coincidence that the militia showed up,” I said. I pulled the wanted poster out and unfolded it for the farmers to see. Once they drew in close, their eyes expectant, I painted a mental picture for them. “This is Oliver Jarnum. He’s a clipper. That means he’s a killer-for-hire. He got himself locked up ten years ago, but he got out last month. We don’t know how.” I looked around at the men and their frightened stares. So far, so good. “A large number of prisoners have escaped in the last six months. This is Ovalsheer Prison I’m talking about. The place was considered escape-proof a year ago.”

  They all nodded. “We’ve heard about increased bandit attacks from the caravans that pass through,” Hawkins said. “Are you saying these escapes are related to the militia’s presenc
e in Dogleg?”

  I didn’t want to lay it on too thick, so I gave a vague response. “It would explain a few things.”

  “Why’re his eyes black?” one farmer asked, pointing to the wanted poster.

  I had no answer for that, other than the truth. “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ve never seen him myself, but I’m told that picture is accurate.”

  Grisha pushed his way past the others and looked greedily at Jarnum’s likeness. “Exactly how much is the bounty on that man’s head?”

  Hawkins gave Grisha a warning look before turning back to me. “You think this fella is the reason the militia occupied Dogleg?” he asked.

  “He’s just one man,” I shrugged. “Look, this is all new information for me, and we’re just speculating here. All I can say is that this,” I waved my hand in a circle to indicate the current conversation, “doesn’t contradict what I already know. The bandits could be organizing.”

  “But why here?” one man asked plaintively.

  Hawkins raised a shaky hand to his forehead and wiped sweat away. His pained expression told me he was thinking about his family, a wife and two daughters.

  “Tell you what,” I offered, “get me into town without the militia seeing me, and I’ll get some answers.”

  “Why so agreeable all of a sudden?” Grisha asked, suspicious again.

  “I’ve been after Jarnum for over a month,” I explained. “Wrecked a very expensive aerobike in the process. If the militia starts a skirmish with a group of bandits and kills Jarnum, they get the credit and I don’t get paid. Not one slim nickel.”

  “The militia’s your competition,” Grisha sneered. “You greedy sonofabitch.”

  I didn’t like Grisha. There were too many jerks like him in the world, but he bought my story because he wanted it to be true. The rest didn’t have to agree with me - they agreed with him. “It’s my job,” I said. “Think what you want.”

  “Then you’ll help us?” Hawkins said.

  “Yes, and it’s a good thing I showed up when I did.” I said, shaking Hawkins’ hand, wishing like hell I’d gone to Bogfield instead.

  Chapter Nine

  Hawkins sent the other men back to patrol the fields while he led me to the corral at the rear of the barn. Cows ate hay quietly, looking up only for a moment to see the two of us climbing over the fence. Hawkins apologized for the smell, explaining that this route would get me closer to the militia without being seen.

  We ducked into the barn’s cargo bay when a squad of soldiers passed by. As we hid behind one of the thick structural supports, it seemed like a good time to get better acquainted with the Dogleg barn. The textured steel floors were in pretty good condition, other than having a generous coating of manure and trampled straw. Hay bales, kept fresh and dry from the weather, were stacked in a corner behind an ancient computer console. Grain barrels were stored inside a vacant elevator shaft, protected from mooching animals by a wooden barricade. The walls were built entirely from stainless steel, save for the forward bulkhead that led to the inner workings of the repurposed spacecraft. That was laminated with the same epoxy that covered the vessel’s exterior. It had held up well over the centuries; there wasn’t a single scratch or pockmark anywhere on its red surface.

  Once the militia squad rounded a corner down the street, Hawkins led me out of the corral, past a mercantile to a shaded alley at the far side of town. I shook his hand again and said I would meet him later in the back room at the drinkery. With a quick check around the corner, he thanked me and left.

  As I worked my way across town, I started wondering if I would find anything out-of-the-ordinary at all. Thinking the townsfolk might have exaggerated what they’d seen, as people tend to do when they don’t understand what’s going on, I half-expected to see a column of fresh recruits transporting a couple of regular cannons from Celestial City to Den Gora and back. If this was a simple training mission, which I started to believe as I approached the last few buildings at the edge of town, the cannons might be nothing more than sewer pipes filled with concrete, just to make the trainees work that much harder.

  I was very wrong.

  A column of a half dozen heavy militia transports, vehicles with conventional wheels in front but tracks on the rear, formed a perimeter outside of town. At least a dozen wagons created another circle around them. A pair of aerovees – armored four-seater versions of an aerobike - hovered just above the ground by Dogleg’s water tower. They ran on solar cells, a rare commodity these days.

  All thoughts of a possible training mission fled my mind, as the reality sunk in – the situation was much worse than the townspeople had thought.

  As Hawkins had already indicated, three yonderguns sat near the edge of the militia camp on their two-wheel axles, with crates of shells stacked high on either side of their hitches. The guns weren’t crated for transport. They were fully deployed, ready for use on a moment’s notice. The militia wouldn’t have poured concrete foundations and mounted the guns if they had a different destination in mind, so the necessary conclusion was that Dogleg had gained strategic importance. But how the hell does an agricultural town in the middle of nowhere suddenly become so important? I asked myself. One thing was certain, though; Hawkins and the rest were right to worry.

  I really, really wished I’d gone to Bogfield.

  Beyond the perimeter formed by the vehicles, I spotted enough tents to hold about two hundred soldiers. Farther on, cavalry horses grazed in one of Dogleg’s open pastures. I glanced over to a fire pit where a chow line had formed behind a steaming table of food. Many of the soldiers were wearing full combat gear, with others dressed in the coveralls of an engineering unit. They weren’t simply in a state of readiness – They were building something.

  If I didn’t know better, I thought to myself, I’d say there was a war going on.

  That’s when a disturbing thought crossed my mind. You shouldn’t be here, Alex.

  Somebody approached me from behind. I couldn’t hear footsteps or breathing, and there weren’t any reflective surfaces nearby that I could glance to for a surreptitious look over my shoulder. I just knew, instinctively, that I wasn’t alone. I even knew who it was. “Hello, Norio,” I said without turning around.

  “Your instincts are as sharp as ever,” Norio replied in his usual soft tone.

  “Benefit of experience,” I said, turning to face him. “I know when I’m being watched.”

  Norio looked just as I remembered with his small Jovian build and bushy brows over almond-shaped eyes. His dark hair was a little greyer than the last time I saw him, a little more receded, but still pulled back tightly in its customary knot. He clasped his gloved hands together and stared at me. “I am surprised to see you,” he said.

  “Really? You didn’t come looking for me?” I asked. I’d known Norio since he brought me back to Celestial City at the age of fourteen. An exile from the Jovian Nation, he’d escaped a death sentence in his homeland and bore the crippling marks of torture on his arms. Yet, as a survivor with an ever-infuriating sense of calm, he patiently tutored me on the scientific disciplines that most universities deemed pointless in this day and age. He also preached a philosophy he called ‘The Lost Art of Curiosity’, along with more practical training in scouting and hunting techniques. More importantly, he became my friend. Despite being a spy – and my nation’s sworn enemy - for most of his life, my father asked Norio to watch over me. Norio had done exactly that. He had respected my father, and himself knew what it meant to be an outcast. In other words, he became my father when I no longer had one. For him to suggest that meeting in Dogleg was a coincidence seemed a bit far-fetched.

  Norio never did anything without a reason, and usually had multiple reasons. If he sought me out, it was because he had an agenda. Since I wanted to spend as little time as possible in Dogleg, I went with a direct approach. “What do you want from me, Norio?” I asked, and waited for his plea to bury the hatchet with the militia or get back together with
Kate.

  “I do not want anything from you, Alex,” Norio said, his tone almost confrontational. “You should not be here.”

  “Why are you here, Norio?” I asked, annoyed at being wrong again. “Are you traveling with the militia?”

  He turned to leave.

  My instincts gave me the answer. I looked up and there she was, my crazy Kate Runaway, sitting high up on the barn’s roof in her patchwork desert garb, feet dangling over the edge, face hidden by her signature oversized goggles, hood, and tangled brown hair.

  “It is none of your concern, Alex.”

  “You’re here with her,” I accused. “Why?”

  “Why are you here, Alex?”

  “Shopping for new friends.”

  “We will leave,” he replied, and waved to Kate. She jumped onto the barn’s epoxy-coated thruster assembly, expertly navigated the other machinery to the ground, and followed Norio as he walked away. She looked at him when he whispered something, and then jerked her head in my direction. Her face was expressionless, as it often was, but she seemed conflicted nonetheless.

  I thought of an appropriate expletive to throw at them but held my tongue. It would do no good to yell at the old man because he was impervious to insults. Kate wouldn’t understand most insults to begin with. So, lacking a better plan, I stormed off in the other direction. In my anger, I failed to consider where I was going and wound up in the middle of the militia encampment.

  “Ho, Alex.”

  Dammit. I knew that voice well. Sergeant Brady. Known by his friends as ‘Halfway’ - a nickname he never explained – he jumped down from one of the tracked vehicles and trotted over. He was a big guy, stocky but not fat, a force to be reckoned with in hand-to-hand combat. He stood just a bit taller than me, with a sword on one hip, a machete on the other, and a pistol in a shoulder holster. I knew he only wore the pistol to satisfy regulations. As a non-commissioned officer, he was required to carry a firearm at all times, but he was a blade guy through and through. Inexplicably, he seemed happy to see me.