Dire Steps

by Henry V. O'Neil

  “What is that?” Mortas asked, staring at a rusting metal pipe jutting a few inches out of the tree’s torso at eye level.

  Mecklinger ran a finger across the open end of the pipe, which had been distended by the blows of whatever instrument had hammered it into place. He rubbed his fingers together, and then sniffed at whatever was on them.

  “It’s some kind of sap.” The helmet turned a dirty face and goggles in his direction. “They’re tapping the trees.”

  “You ever see this before?”

  “No, sir. Pulled this mission three times, not counting this one, and I never saw anything like this.” He sniffed at the discharge again. “I think ol’ Sam has been out in the jungle a little too long. Poor guy has gone nuts on us.”

  “Any idea what they could be using this for?” Captain Dassa directed this question at Captain Pappas. Both men and the company command element had joined Mortas’s platoon in order to see the tree tapping for themselves. Alerted to the strange Sim appliances, the troops of First Platoon had discovered several more of the pipes buried in the same kind of tree. The cart path moved past the tapped trunks, suggesting it was used to take away the sap.

  “Could be a lot of things. They’ve been out here a long time, living off the land and what they can scavenge.” Detritus from the battle for the planet years earlier had slowly disappeared over time, and any downed resupply drones were usually picked clean within hours. “They could be making adhesives, sandals, or even tires for the carts.”

  Dassa’s goggled face looked away, an idiosyncratic way of telling everyone that he had an incoming call. Kneeling in the brush with the command element and Sergeant Dak, Mortas took a moment to view the overhead imagery of the area. First Platoon was now formed in a defensive ring on both sides of the cart path, which swung north only a few hundred yards from the spot where they had first detected it. Both Second and Third Platoons had snugged up on them to the east, in preparation for First Platoon’s sidestep to the west of the trail. Leery of the path, Dassa had decided to skirt the newfound supply lane on both sides. Extra targets had been plotted across the company’s front, and the fire-­control personnel on the Dauntless had been warned that the infantrymen might make contact with the enemy shortly.

  Mortas slid the goggles lenses up so that he could look around with unaided eyes. Lush greenery pressed in from all sides, and he fought off a shiver at not being able to see more than a few yards. Every man in B Company stood out as a tiny dot on the imagery provided by the Dauntless and the satellites, despite the jungle canopy and the heat of the day. They were astride a main Sim supply line, and yet there were no heat signatures for their enemy anywhere.

  “Okay, keep looking.” Dassa ended the communication with the commanders of the two Force detachments guarding Broadleaf and Cordvine to the north. “They’re reviewing the satellite feed for this spot from the last few weeks, but so far nothing shows up except animals passing through. There is no way that a bunch of Sammies, pushing carts up and down this trail, could have gone unnoticed by the scanners.”

  Dassa looked at Pappas. “I pulled this mission once before, over a year ago, but the only signs we found were footprints. Look at this thing. They had to do some major clearing, just to be able to move the carts. A lot of work.”

  “Exactly.” Pappas nodded, a green-­faced owl wearing body armor. “Whatever they’re doing with this stuff, it’s important. And it’s somewhere up this path.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Ayliss was warm. Too warm, lying there in Selkirk’s embrace. Naked, sated, exhausted from the work of the previous days, but still too warm.

  She fought to make herself wake up, feeling a tiny furnace inside her, bucking like an engine running out of fuel. Even asleep, Ayliss knew her body and knew something was wrong. She was sick, in a way she’d never experienced before.

  Her eyes wouldn’t open, and her mind raced as she slowly ascended from the depths. She couldn’t be sick. Not here. Not now.

  Voices. Male and female. Close in the darkness. Selkirk’s arm sliding out from under her, roughly, alarmed, then he was gone. Remarkably, a chill ran straight up her back where he had been, and her eyes finally opened.

  Unsure of where she was, but then recognizing her room in the house that she thought she’d given away. Confusion and anger mixing together when she remembered Hemsley refusing her request for modest lodgings inside the old Sim tunnels. Shuffling up the slope with her small retinue, feeling Blocker’s unstated reproach for having sent their shuttle away prematurely. Setting up in the building she’d given to the veterans as a hospital, sited between the Zone Quest managers she’d intentionally alienated and the veterans she’d courted.

  Her eyes came into focus in the dark room and she saw Blocker at the door, in whispered conversation with a robed Selkirk and a shorter figure in the hallway. Ayliss pushed herself up into a sitting position, her face flushed and her muscles weak. The small figure looked in at her, and spoke.

  “Minister, you have to come right away. Trust me.”

  The voice belonged to Tin, the irreverent Banshee. Ayliss impatiently tugged the sheet loose from the bedclothes and walked to the group, trying to appear sleepy and not ill. Blocker was wearing Force torso armor and holding one of the short-­barreled assault weapons, and Selkirk was wrapped in a skimpy robe that actually belonged to Ayliss, but it was Tin who held her attention.

  The brunette’s face was smudged in soot, and a dark bandana held her hair in place. She wore black fatigues and combat boots, and Ayliss detected a slight smell of smoke.

  “What is it?” she asked, pressing into the group as if trying to keep the conversation secret. Her weight rested against Blocker’s armor, who turned concerned eyes in her direction before surreptitiously sliding an arm around her waist to hold her up.

  “There’s been an accident.” Wary eyes jumping from Selkirk to Blocker to the walls of the building constructed by Zone Quest. “Hurry.”

  In spite of Blocker’s protests, and his solicitous palm applied to her forehead that took Ayliss back to the age of five, the group was soon rolling down the slope in an armored mover. The mining complex blazed with light, and the roar of an engine could be heard from the small Zone Quest spacedrome on the mountain’s top.

  Ayliss had changed into a set of dark green fatigues festooned with the Auxiliary’s patches, and she gritted her teeth while they rolled down the road toward the entrance to the Sim tunnels. Weak and dizzy, hot but not nauseous, she had no idea what she might have caught. Blocker had already diagnosed it as a NOA, an acronym she’d never heard before that stood for NonSpecific Outerspace Ailment.

  “We have to get you into the ZQ infirmary as soon as we’re done with this.” Blocker had grumbled, still displeased by her handling of Rittle. “If they’ll take us.”

  The main entrance to the tunnels was an arch cut into the stone right at the end of the road. A dozen armed veterans wearing torso armor stood in a loose group outside the gate, and they waved the mover to a stop. There was some argument about who was going to be allowed admittance, but Tin’s insistence got them all through.

  Selkirk had already described those parts of the underground warren that he’d been allowed to see, and so Ayliss wasn’t surprised to find the main tunnel well lit and clean. The Sims had smoothed and painted the stone walls once the minerals were extracted, and the floor was flat and level. Selkirk and Tin preceded them through the entranceway, and Ayliss concentrated on walking normally inside the circle of her bodyguards.

  The entrance tunnel had been dug perpendicular to the ridge itself, and so they reached the main transverse corridor in no time at all. More armed veterans were posted there, and Ayliss recognized one or two of them in the light. They stopped the visitors, instructing them to wait in tones that were not friendly.

  Tin stayed with them, and Ayliss was finally able to see that the short Banshee�
�s fatigues were indeed singed. The soot on her face was night camouflage, but fire had come very close to her in the last few hours. Swimming inside the fog of her illness, Ayliss still detected the agitation that filled the air.

  Moments later Lola approached, also dressed for night maneuvers but not smelling of smoke. “Come with me, please.”

  They only went a few yards down the ridge’s center core before Lola stopped them at a side room. Looking down the long passageway, Ayliss detected several more entrances and decided these were the quarters the Sims had made for themselves. There appeared to be a lot of them, and she wondered again why Hemsley had refused her small party a place to stay.

  “Minister.” The voice came from inside the room, male and menacing.

  Ayliss forced herself to look calm and then passed between Selkirk and Tin. She only got to the doorway, as the room wasn’t large, and three stretchers were laid on supports inside it. Two of the stretchers supported boot-­clad bodies that were concealed beneath blankets, and the third was occupied by First Sergeant Hemsley. His shirt was off, revealing a pale torso half-­covered in a gleaming salve coated over angry pink flesh. More of the salve was on the left side of his face, which was swollen and red.

  “What happened, First Sergeant?”

  Two medics stood on either side of him, one squeezing an intravenous fluid bag while the other dabbed at the worst of the burns. Hemsley swatted the second man away before speaking.

  “Isn’t it obvious? The Guests attacked us with one of their gunships. Killed two of my ­people, a driver, and”—­Hemsley shrugged, and then winced—­“aw, fuck it.”

  Using his unburned hand, the old veteran reached out and pulled back the top third of one of the blankets to reveal the blackened face of Deelia. Ayliss gasped before seeing that the discoloration was just more camouflage.

  “She didn’t burn. She got hit with a minicannon round, dead center.” The blanket flipped back into place. A thumb pumped at the other corpse. “Fuckin’ gunship tore up the mover we were using, killed the driver.

  “Now what are you going to do about this . . . Minister?”

  Behind her, Blocker cleared his throat as if to speak, but Ayliss stopped him with a raised hand. Something wasn’t right here. The burns on Hemsley and Tin, but not on the victims of the gunship attack. If a mover had been destroyed, it would likely have caught fire.

  “You got those burns pulling something out of that mover. What was it carrying, and where were you?”

  “Whole buncha miles away, out in the middle of nowhere, taking delivery of those supplies I mentioned, the ones we’re supposed to get from the Guests that we have to buy from the smugglers.” A hand waved at Deelia’s body. “That’s not exactly important right now.”

  Smugglers. Station Manager Rittle’s promise that he was going to link the veterans to piracy.

  “What were you hauling? What was so important you got this badly burned?”

  Hemsley stared at her in defiance, but Lola spoke up. “Tell her, First Sergeant.”

  “All right. Seeing as you care more about a little contraband than dead veterans. We were receiving a shipment of antiaircraft rockets. Shoulder-­fired.”

  “You moron!”

  “Call me any names you like. They murdered two of my ­people. What are you going to do about that?”

  Ayliss felt the heat swelling all the way through her body now, as if she’d been the one near the fire. Anger rose over the realization that Hemsley had played right into Rittle’s hands.

  “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? You gave them the only thing they needed. Proof that you’re consorting with pirates.” Her eyes moved to Lola’s, then Tin’s, startled to see disapproval. She went on anyway. “Now they have everything they need to kick you off this planet—­and me too.”

  “That’s what you’re focusing on? Right now, with these two murdered soldiers lying right in front of you?”

  She was suddenly aware of the stares from the two medics. Dizzy, weak, and made more so by the suspicion that she’d just made an enormous mistake.

  A hand gently came down on her shoulder, Blocker’s. “We should leave, Minister.”

  Feeling her vision narrowing, in danger of swooning, but not willing to do it in front of these ­people. These ­people who’d ruined everything and somehow believed it was all her fault.

  “All right. Let’s go.”

  “We have to get you to Zone Quest’s infirmary.” Back at the mover, Blocker spoke almost in her ear because Ayliss appeared to be losing consciousness.

  “No.” A weak hand gripped his arm, the blue eyes opening with effort. “They’ll never speak to me again if you do that.”

  “They’ll never speak to you again if you die.”

  “Just sick, that’s all. Put me to bed for the night, we’ll see how I am in the morning.”

  “No. Help’s available up the hill, and I’m taking you there.” Blocker would have continued, but Selkirk leaned in close.

  “ZQ’s complex might not be the safest place tonight.” He glanced at the veterans near the tunnel entrance. “There’s going to be trouble.”

  “From this bunch?” Blocker shook his head. “The Guests have got defensive wire, searchlights, and two gunships.”

  “That’s right. Only two gunships.”

  “Tempting target, if they can get somebody onto the airfield.” Blocker’s face wrinkled for a moment. “Nah. Even something that simple, they’re not up to it.”

  “That dead Banshee in there? Tupelo’s her husband, and I didn’t see him anywhere. Unless I miss my guess, he’s a Spartacan deserter. He’s more than up to it.”

  “Lee?” Ayliss croaked at Selkirk.

  He took her hand. “I’m right here, darling.”

  “Get me back in with them. Do it for me.”

  Selkirk’s face broke into a broad, half-­crazy grin. He kissed Ayliss’s forehead and slid out of the vehicle. “Anything for you, baby.”

  “Get outta here, kid.” Hemsley was on his feet, still bare-­chested, when Selkirk came back down the tunnel escorted by two uncertain veterans. Armed men and women came and went on various errands, but Selkirk sensed there was great activity in other parts of the settlement.

  “Let me talk to Tupelo.”

  “He’s grieving.”

  “He’s preparing.”

  Hemsley turned, and the lights reflected off the salve. “You see a lot, don’t you?”

  “What is he, a Spartacan Scout?”

  “I never asked. Whatever it was, it was messy.”

  “Has he even got a plan?”

  “A plan.” Hemsley snorted. “He figured out the Guests’ defenses the day he got here. He’s had a plan for a long time.”

  “He’s one man. There are two gunships.”

  “You making an offer?”

  “No. Minister Mortas is.”

  On the far side of the mountain, two dark figures scurried up the slope. The Zone Quest compound had vibrated with activity for several hours after the attack on the veterans, but as the evening wore on without a response, things had gone back to normal. Lights atop the double fencing still shone, and armored men still kept a wary watch on the ridge that contained the Sim tunnels, but the rest of the perimeter had settled in for the night.

  Even the spacedrome had finally gone quiet, both gunships landing and shutting down. Tupelo and Selkirk had put the time to good use, rehearsing their movements and preparing their materials. Now, dressed in black from head to toe, the two men waited in a fold of the ground almost a hundred yards short of the fence.

  They knew their heat signatures would stand out against the cold rocks if they moved any closer, but Tupelo had provided the simplest of solutions. He’d spent many nights circling the fence line, noting patterns and looking for opportunities. Flattened against t
he hard rock, he squeezed Selkirk’s arm to signal that their moment had arrived.

  Forty yards above them, a segment of the hill began to move with a grating sound. Two sections of rock seemed to be separating, but Selkirk knew what to expect, and so he recognized it as the opening of a very large pipe. Not far on the other side of the glowing fences was a low building that refined the raw ore so that it took up less room on the transports. The process involved an extraordinary amount of heat, and the unwanted by-­products had to go somewhere.

  Selkirk looked away as soon as the darkness in the pipe began to lighten, already warned that the initial flow was almost blinding. The hand on his arm released its grip but stayed flat. The air above them took on a noxious aroma, and then the ground began to vibrate. Up the slope, the pipe’s insides became as bright as daylight, and a white-­yellow sludge came rushing out.

  Tupelo’s hand began to rise and fall, and Selkirk counted with it. One. Two. Three.

  Looking up now, seeing the superheated muck sliding toward them. Eight. Nine. Ten.

  Unable to gauge how fast the lethal discharge was moving, but now doubting Tupelo’s assurance that the count went to twenty. Wanting to raise his head higher, needing to find some kind of reference, but warned not to do this back in the tunnel. The vibration stopped abruptly, exactly on twelve as predicted, the sign that the giant pumps forcing out the detritus had stopped. Selkirk now became aware of heat reaching for the top of his head, felt the camouflage paint on his face beginning to melt, then the hand on his arm clenched hard.

  Rolling away from each other, just in time, and then he was up, running hard, trying not to trip over the loose rock and hardened furrows left behind by countless dumpings. Forcing himself, against all logic, to get in close to the steaming yellow creek that now rolled downhill, knowing it would hide him from the heat-­seeking scanners on the wall. Seeing the pipe now, knowing that the material from which it was made was invulnerable to heat and therefore safe to walk on, even as the lava-­like river inside dropped off to a narrow stream.