The Dark Defiance

by A. G. Claymore

  A pair of police drifted slowly past on hover bikes. A few seconds later, a wave of angry demonstrators marched into view bearing a wide banner at the front. Chelak, seeing the crowd, elected to use the pedestrian side entrance rather than the driver’s door. He waved his hand over a circle on the skin of the vehicle, opening the side door.

  A uniformed employee from MoonSilver stepped forward with a broad tray loaded with eight tall steel mugs, each one embossed with the moon logo. “Compliments of MoonSilver,” he said with a smile. “Please tell your friends back home about us!”

  Kale took one with a nod of thanks and sniffed the vapors emanating from the small opening in the cover, much to the employee’s amusement. “Smells like some kind of tea,” he said, mostly to himself. He took a sip. “Damn! That’s not half bad,” he exclaimed. “Kind of a salty – spicy taste… Screw the allergy evaluation, I’m drinking this while it’s still hot.”

  Liam nodded as he sampled from his own mug. “Their genomes are almost exactly the same as ours. The chances of an unexpected reaction are pretty slim. I’m not inclined to wait fifteen minutes after every taste of something new either. It would take all bloody afternoon just to have lunch.”

  Kale looked up from his mug in alarm. “Tell me were not eating down here. Ahh! Goddammit!”

  Everyone looked over in surprise. The mercenary was holding his drink in his right hand and covering his right arm protectively with his left hand as he glared at the departing café employee.

  Tommy couldn’t help but grin. “I think he likes you.”

  “Oh, he likes me all right,” Kale muttered darkly. “With a little seasoning and a few vegetables…” He looked back at his mug with suspicion. “Sooner we get back to the ship, the better.”

  Tommy looked back at the crowd to hide his amusement. He could make out small spherical objects moving along above them. Cameras? He took a look at one of the signs that bobbed along above the marchers. “Chelak, why are they warning about the return of the ‘giants’?”

  “They’re just a doomsday cult.” Chelak said dismissively as he stepped gingerly over Bernie’s legs to reach his own seat, sliding his own free mug into a holder in the center console. “They call themselves the Apokalyptii. They’ve gone in and out of style with the Kholarii over the centuries. Used to be banned outright when the empire held sway out here.” He sighed as he slid into his seat. “They claim that an ancient race of giants will return someday and reduce our civilization to rubble.”

  Bernie got out of the vehicle and stretched. He sauntered to the front where he leaned on the generator compartment and looked across at the shouting mob.

  Chelak gazed out the window with disdain. “Naturally, adherents of such a religion tend to be pretty unproductive, sitting around in caves with stockpiles of water, dried food and weapons. The empire didn’t much care for them so they declared it an illegal cult. Tore down the temple and exterminated any who didn’t recant.”

  “So they’re legal now?”

  “No, the original declaration is still on the books. It’s just that nobody cares to enforce it anymore. You can’t very well start slaughtering Kholarii unless you have the ability to call in a couple of imperial divisions to help keep the peace.” Chelak shrugged. “They don’t tend to hold many prominent positions but they still make up two thirds of the total population.”

  “So, it’s not the predominant religion on Khola?” Tommy was watching the faces turning towards them in mild alarm.

  “Most of my people – the Bolsharii – follow the Ancestor lore. It was brought here by the Empire, thousands of years ago, along with a pantheon of gods from the various other subject worlds.” He took a long sip. “The Empire brought the Bolsharii as well. We were the administrative class until the fall. Most of our ancestors elected to stay here where we had put down roots. We’ve continued in our belief of the ancestors ever since.”

  “Ancestors? The belief that all life everywhere was started by an ancient race who seeded all the worlds with basic life forms?” Tommy frowned. “I read about it in the Dactarii data-stream but isn’t that more a scientific theory than a religion?”

  “What is a theory if not a belief?” Chelak turned to grin at Tommy. “Are not all religions based on belief; on faith? What is science, if not a religion? Every time we test our scientific beliefs, we end up uncovering greater mysteries.”

  “Hello!” Liam exclaimed. “What’s their problem all of a sudden?”

  The crowd was becoming agitated. Even for a mob of marching demonstrators, they were becoming more excited than one would usually expect. Faces were turning to the left, towards their van. Those who were looking towards the human party tried to slow down but were pushed by those behind them. Arms were pointing and angry voices were rising.

  They were looking at ‘Bernie Stanford – MBA’.

  Tommy felt a chill down his spine as the pieces fell together. “Dad,” he said urgently, “that’s a doomsday cult. They believe a race of evil giants is coming to destroy them.” He waved a hand towards the front of the vehicle. “Compared to the locals, Bernie is a giant!”

  “Loaded, but safeties on,” Liam said quietly before leaning out the open, right side of the vehicle. “Mr. Stanford,” he addressed the purchasing agent casually, the tone at odds with the sound of cocking weapons. “Perhaps you would care to join us inside the van – there’s a good chap. Wouldn’t want to get us torn to pieces by an angry mob now, would we?”

  Bernie shook off the horrified trance that had gripped him. He turned away from the naked rage that was being directed at him and forced one foot after the other until he could climb up and collapse into his seat in a cold sweat.

  “Congratulations, Bernie.” Ken Ferrick, the former Ranger reached up to clap the shaken man on the shoulder. “They think you’re one of their gods!” A nasty grin spread across his face as Bernie turned to stare wordlessly at him. “An evil god, but you have to start somewhere…”

  The angriest of the protesters were now being pushed past the van, replaced by others who hadn’t seen how tall Bernie was. One angry male, frustrated at being unable to make himself heard over the mob, made a rush for the left-side door of the van. Liam’s men tightened their holds on their weapons.

  When the protester was only a few feet from the vehicle, there was a loud snapping sound and he disintegrated into a collection of bloody flying parts. The occupants of the vehicle flinched as a red spatter hit the windows. A four foot wide wall of metal stood where the protester had been, a red light glowing at the top. It began to slide back down into the surface of the roadway, sloughing off grisly pieces of muscle and bone as it retracted into its surface housing.

  The crowd surged on past, not fazed in the least.

  The wall had deployed with such speed that Tommy’s eyes were incapable of registering the motion. For the protester, it had been like getting hit by a supersonic freight train.

  “Never cross the red line.” Chelak shook his head as he looked at his side monitor, inspecting the mess on the left side of the van. “We’d better stop at a wash station before I take you shopping for business partners…”

  The Völund

  In orbit around Khola

  Deirdre Kennedy sat on one of the couches in the crew lounge with her back to the windows. She was playing a wireless board game against Doc Fredo’s daughter, Elise, and Sue Del Castro, one of the three engineering technicians. Elise, who usually sat in one of the club chairs during their games, was sitting on the couch next to Deirdre this morning and she was unusually chatty, almost nervous, to Deirdre’s perceptive young ears.

  Though only eleven, Deirdre had been able to put together twenty-word sentences since before she was two. Liam and Jan had made every effort to challenge her as she grew and their efforts had not gone to waste.

  Elise had been quiet for at least two minutes, frowning down at her tablet. Finally, her expression cleared and Deirdre saw her own avatar become active. She built a h
otel? She doesn’t have enough cash to support that unless Sue or I land on it in the next round, and the chances of that are incredibly slim – neither of us is even close. She’s usually much more cautious. She tapped the roll button – a double six. Maybe this will pay off for her after all...

  “Must be nice to get off the ship for a change.” Elise tucked her feet up beneath herself. “Your brother must be bored to tears, though, having to translate all day…”

  The youngest Kennedy held back the smile that threatened to form. It wouldn’t have been nice to show Elise how transparent she was being. That was the fourth time she had mentioned Tommy since the game began. Deirdre had landed on a lucky square, winning a small fortune. She accepted the transfer to her game account and rolled again – another double six. She was on a square that she owned. The double meant she would have to roll again. Any combination that came to a five would mean a payday for Elise.

  The young woman would ordinarily have been watching the results of her gamble from the edge of her seat, but she was gazing out the port side windows of the lounge at the blue world below.

  Deirdre looked back at her tablet to locate the ‘roll’ button and stopped in surprise as she saw a massive reflection move across it. The couch shook ever so slightly as Elise was startled out of her reverie. Her view of Khola had been interrupted suddenly by the blunt bow of an arriving ship, alarmingly close and very large.

  “Why would they park us so close up here?” Sue frowned in alarm. “There’s barely enough room for both of us to keep our nav shields running at this distance.” She stood up and moved to the window. “That looks like a human ship.”

  “What the hell?” Keira, the ship’s engineer, was standing just out of the hatch that led to the aft section. She walked over to the couch where her technician had been sitting and took her tablet, clearing the game and bringing up the telemetry interface. “The Zheng He,” she said, looking down at a close up of the other ship’s hull. She opened a link with the bridge.

  “Carol, we might have a complication…”

  Khola

  The Five Systems Gas Mining Co.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Bernie,” Tommy translated for the alien executive who had abruptly come to his feet, signaling that this meeting was at an end, “but what you propose is entirely out of the question.” He rendered the alien’s note of finality into English.

  Bernie was not to be put off so easily. “Can you tell me why?” He remained seated on his cushion; Harry and Thomas were taking their cue from him for the moment and remained seated as well.

  Tommy translated for Bernie and then for the alien. “What you suggest is unheard of. We have had stable relations with the same clients for the last four and a half thousand years. If we took on a new client, it would upset an ancient balance. The other companies would feel threatened and seek new sources of revenue as well. How long would it be before they tried to take customers away from us?” Tommy didn’t bother to replicate the executive’s angry head shake. “Chaos,” he declared. “We are not some fringe mining company, scrabbling for custom.”

  “Fringe, huh?” Harry leaned in as Tommy translated his words. “And just where would one find these fringe companies?”

  The ride down in the elevator was quiet. Bernie stewed in silence and neither of his crewmates wanted to do anything that would start him talking. When the doors opened, they let him pass through the lobby ahead of them, his face announcing his failure to the security team that stood with Chelak on the sidewalk.

  “I did warn you,” Chelak shrugged.

  Tommy looked at the captain, who nodded. “What can you tell us about the fringe mining companies?”

  The driver laughed. “So you did learn something of use while you were up there! Frankly, I’m surprised those idiots would give anything away, even information they consider to be useless.” He leaned back against the side of his vehicle. “The fringe refers to the 100 block – the lowest hundred levels of the city. Any company that sets up down there has to fight tooth and nail to stay in business. They go to extraordinary lengths to win a customer because most of them end up shutting down within a single month – only the best survive.”

  He nodded at the door that they had just walked out of. “Big firms up here in the 900’s like to disparage their fringe counterparts but I think they actually fear them. Fear that their cutthroat practices will migrate up into their own world. Any employee caught using such practices would find himself black-listed instantly.”

  Tommy smiled. “I suppose you have a relative running a mining operation down in the fringe?”

  “It just happens that I do!” Chelak grinned. “And he’s been in business for fifteen years!”

  They descended back into the night.

  Kobrak’s office was a sprawling, two-storey structure on a quiet, level-50 street. The next fifteen levels in this area simply didn’t exist and it almost felt like being outside. The only thing between Kobrak’s roof and the next level of the city, thirty meters above, was a concrete monorail platform, cantilevered over his storage yard and the corner of his building.

  Chelak pulled up to his ‘cousin’s’ gate. In a small bunker to the left of the gate an armed guard was reaching for a button but stopped as he got a better look inside the vehicle. “You in distress, Chelak?” He frowned at the rifle barrels sticking up in front of the company mercenaries. A handful of guards suddenly materialized at the top of the ten foot high wall, weapons aimed.

  “Stay calm, lads,” Liam advised his men. “As Ken would say, ‘they have the drop on us’. Let’s not give them any reason to think we’re unsociable.”

  “I can vouch for them,” Chelak told the guard. “They just tried to buy helium isotope from Five Systems and now they’re ready to deal with a sensible company.”

  “Five Systems?” The guard laughed. “What rock did you find them under?” He punched the button to open the gate, coming back out with his own weapon to watch the street as the van pulled through the gate.

  The side doors of the van were opening and Tommy grimaced in disgust at the dried stalactites of blood and tissue that still dangled from the lower edge. The door was half way open when the bunker outside the gate was blown to pieces. It happened just as the guard was turning to head for it and he was thrown brutally to the ground.

  “Everyone out of the van,” Liam yelled, shoving Tommy out the side door and towards the corner where the wall met the office block. Voices sounded slightly tinny. The blast had been a loud one. The sound of automatic weapons fire sounded like an underwater Chinese New Year celebration.

  Having secured their principals, the company mercenaries followed Liam to the gate where they took up positions on both sides. “Indication,” Liam shouted.

  “Seen,” Ken replied. “Three plus infantry in the red two-storey structure directly to our front, across the street. First floor, window to our left of the door.”

  A chorus of ‘seen’ followed from Terry, Kale and Liam.

  “I’m going for the guard,” Kale shouted. The team poured suppressive fire on the window and door while he sprinted out, grabbing the unconscious guard by the shirt and dragging him back behind the wall on the left hand side. The return fire was heavy but wildly inaccurate. The enemy were most likely firing wildly over the window sill.

  “Right,” Liam shouted. “They have a rocket launcher. Nothing for it – we’ll have to go straight in. Kale and Ken – suppressive fire. Terry with me.” He flipped his weapon to full automatic, looking at his men who nodded their readiness. “Cover,” he yelled. As Kale and Ken concentrated their fire on the window, Liam and Terry moved out from cover and raced to the right, behind the ruined bunker, before turning left and crossing the street. The added distance allowed Ken and Kale to keep up a withering fire on the enemy until Liam and Terry were almost directly under the window.

  Ken continued to fire for a few seconds, but only at the area of the door handle. His heavier-caliber Stoner made short work of t
he locking mechanism.

  They snugged up against the wall below the window and Terry pulled out a stun grenade, removing the secondary safety pin. He put his finger in the primary pull ring and nodded at Liam who slid out from the wall and aimed his weapon up at the window, firing a burst at the face that suddenly appeared following the lull in cover fire. Even Kobrak’s guards on the wall had possessed enough sense to hold their fire now that their prospective customers were in the way.

  The face disappeared in a spray of blood as Terry pulled the pin and stood to throw the weapon through the window. A shout of fear came from inside, followed almost immediately by the blast.

  The door was narrow, so Liam led Terry in a single-file entry, shooting the one enemy who still held a weapon and striking the other with his rifle butt to keep him friendly. Terry moved past him to the back door of the room, finding a blood trail and an abandoned rocket launcher. “Clear,” he called over his shoulder. He crouched down to pick up the discarded weapon.

  Tommy heard shouts of approval from the wall above him. The guards sounded relieved. They were obviously pleased with whatever they were now seeing. He walked over to the gate and looked across the street. His father was carrying an unconscious male alien over his shoulders, his weapon still at the ready in his right hand. Terry walked backwards behind him, looking out for further trouble.

  The young translator felt a surge of pride. The sudden attack had thrown the compound into panic. The enemy had possessed superior destructive power and things would have gone badly if not for the quick, professional actions of Liam and his team. Tommy had only ever seen Liam in action on one previous occasion, ten years ago. At the time, he had been so shocked at learning that his father was still alive that he had noticed little else about his own rescue.

  One of the guards on the wall threw his weapon to a comrade and climbed down a ladder to the right of the gate. He headed straight to where Kale was checking the now-conscious guard. “How is he?”