Tool: Born for War, War for Bonds (Numbered Book 2)

by Magus Tor

  She felt it before she heard anything. Something blunt and hard was shoved into her back, pressing into a kidney.

  “Didn't say you could leave,” a voice said behind her.

  Immediately she recognised the speaker as the figure in the breathing suit she had spoken to minutes earlier. Her heart beating fast, she slid a hand into her pocket and grasped the stunner.

  “I'm sorry. I… I didn't mean to be rude,” she stammered.

  “Well, come on back, then, and we can start over,” the voice said, rough and cold.

  “Sure.”

  Aurelia began to turn slowly, removing the stunner from her pocket as she did so. By the time she was facing him, the metal device was already pointed at him. He eyed it for a second, just long enough for Aurelia to press the trigger button.

  She saw the metal pipe coming towards the side of her head but could do nothing. The last thing she thought before it hit her was that Elza had warned her that electronics didn't work Out. Then everything went black.

  Chapter Seven

  She could see nothing. Only the dull hiss of the filters in her breathing suit told her that she was still alive and somewhere outside of the dome. Her head ached, a pounding sensation that pumped through her skull like a pulse. After several minutes of lying still, breathing, and concentrating only on the fact that her head hurt, Aurelia thought that she might chance some sort of movement. She licked her lips, which were dry in the air of the suit, and took a deep breath. Okay, that was good; there was no pain in her chest. Experimentally she wiggled her toes. All good. Fingers. All good. When she tried to flex her legs, she found that they were restricted. Hmmm. Arms? Somehow pinned to her sides. If she concentrated, she could feel pressure just below the elbow.

  She took in all of this information, analysing it, compiling it, building up a picture of the state of her body. But what the hell had happened? She remembered walking on the lunar surface, the hard-packed ground beneath her feet. She remembered swapping words with someone. A man, she thought. Then nothing. From the information she had, she deduced that she had been attacked in some way. Hit on the head and then restrained.

  She was still pondering all of this, the soft hum of her breathing suit calming her, when a white flash cut through her head. She heard herself scream and tightly closed her eyes. A heartbeat went by, then she chanced opening one eye a slit.

  A bright beam of light cut through the darkness.

  “Awake, are we?” a voice said.

  She started to nod, but the movement made her head hurt. “Yes,” she whispered in a hoarse voice.

  The beam of light shifted, and there was the sound of metal clanking against metal before the light became a softer yellow shade coming from above. Whoever was there had lit a lantern. Aurelia opened her eyes carefully, but she saw only someone else wearing the same kind of breathing suit that she had on. The figure pulled a stool from somewhere and sat down beside her.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Who are you?” the voice replied. It was a man's voice. Rasping.

  Aurelia didn't answer, taking the chance instead to look around. She was inside something. Not a room, she thought. The walls don't look solid enough for that. A tent, maybe. She was lying on something that was probably a bed, though she couldn't see it, and there were packs littered around the walls, like a squad of people had just dumped them and gone off unburdened.

  “Where am I?” she asked.

  The figure next to her shook his head. “I don't think you get it, girl. You don't get to ask questions anymore. Tell me your name.”

  There could be no harm in that, surely. “Aurelia.”

  “Good start, Aurelia. What are you doing Out?”

  She thought back. What was she doing here? Then it came to her. Gods. Nicholas. “I'm looking for a friend,” she said.

  The man laughed. It was a dark laugh, deep and throaty. “Well, you might have found more friends than you were banking on.”

  Without warning, he stood and carelessly ran a hand over her body, feeling the shape of her under the breathing suit. Aurelia squirmed as much as she could, but being restrained meant that she couldn't get away from his touch.

  “Shame I can't get that breathing suit off you,” the man said. “But you're more use alive than dead, I suppose.” He paused. “At least right now.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  He ignored the question. But Aurelia was coming up with answers of her own. She was beginning to realise that she'd been taken. Out was known to be the territory of criminals and brigands, those who had somehow escaped punishment inside the dome and had the wits or the money to arrange an escape. She had no doubt that that was what this man was. These men were; if the packs on the wall could be believed, there was obviously more than one man here. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she schooled herself to keep calm. Panicking wasn't going to get her anywhere.

  The man had been looking her up and down, and he seemed to come to some sort of decision.

  “You're coming with me,” he said shortly.

  He began pulling at something, and Aurelia felt the release of pressure around her arms. He was freeing her. Her breath quickened. As soon as her arms were free, he moved down to her feet, and instinct kicked in. Without even thinking about it, Aurelia pushed up from the bed, twisting as she did so. She aimed her shoulder to thrust into the face of the man's breathing suit. Her movements were flowing, smooth, and there was no thought behind them at all. But the man moved, dodged, and the crash of a hand coming down around the side of her already aching head was enough to plunge her back into darkness.

  The next time she awoke, there was light. The man was gone, but he had left the lantern. Her arms were tied again. Her head ached enough to make her nauseous, and she bit down on her tongue, concentrating on not vomiting inside her suit. When the wave passed, she closed her eyes and began to think things through again. What she had done had been stupid. She saw it. She wasn't even sure why she'd done it; some kind of survival instinct had swamped her. But if she wanted to survive this, she was going to have to use her brains, not her body.

  This time, when the man came in, she was ready.

  “I'm sorry,” she said in a quiet voice. “It won't happen again.”

  The man grunted. He bent to retrieve something from one of the packs. “You'll pay for it if it does,” he said when he straightened up.

  “I know,” said Aurelia. She hoped that he would once again untie her. Her limbs were dead weight, the full flow of blood cut off by her restraints.

  “You'd better make yourself useful, then,” he said.

  He came to her again and untied her arms. She lay still as he did so. He untied her legs but quickly fashioned the rope into two small loops. He put one of her feet through each loop, leaving a hands-width of rope between them so that she could shuffle but not walk fully. Aurelia lay patiently until he told her to sit up.

  Flexing her arms to improve the circulation, she managed to push down on the mattress with her hands and force her body up into a sitting position. It made her head swim, and she swallowed down the desire to vomit again. Then she swung her legs around until her feet hit the ground.

  “I'm going to put you to work,” the man said before she could get off the bed. “But let's be completely clear here. Out there you talk to no one. You say not a word. You do as you're told. Disobey me and you'll be punished, just like you were before.” He drew closer to her, and she could just see the glint of his eyes under his hood. “And there's no guarantee that a few blows to the head won't tear that breathing suit of yours, got it?”

  She nodded. “Got it.”

  Roughly, he pulled her up off the bed by her elbow. Then he half dragged her to the opening of the tent, pulling the fabric doorway aside as he did so. Yanked through the door, Aurelia found herself in the middle of what was obviously some kind of campsite. There were ten or so tents in a circle around a clearing in which a small fire dome stood.


  “They'll be back soon. I want hot food for them,” the man said.

  He pointed her in the direction of some supplies, and Aurelia nodded.

  “You need anything, you talk to me and me only, clear?”

  Again, she nodded.

  He left and went to sit in the entrance of one of the tents, half watching her and half doing something on a roll up screen. There was no need to watch her closely; it wasn't like she could get far with her legs tied. Sighing, Aurelia shuffled over to the supply pile and began selecting things that she could use.

  She also tried thinking of a plan. Her provisional plan was to keep her head down and do as she was told. There was no point in getting beaten, and certainly no point in dying from a ripped breathing suit. She was going to have to be patient and wait for an opportunity to get the hell out of here. She kept her hands busy as she thought, glad to have something to do that was keeping her from breaking down and crying. She had never been hysterical, but then again, she'd never been in the custody of brigands before.

  She broke down the packages that she would need, adding dehydrated ingredients into a specially formed pot. Her head still ached. Carrying the pot over to the fire dome was tough; it was heavy, but the man didn't stir to help her, just watched her from across the clearing. The fire flickered under the small dome, flames licking up as she gently forced the pot through the material. The flames died down as the outside atmosphere leaked in, then jumped up as the dome reformed over the hole that she had made. Finally she went back and got a water canister, then thrust that through the dome, waiting until the material closed around her arms before opening it and adding it to the pot.

  So engaged had she been in her task that she hadn't noticed the arrival of others. When she looked up again, there were half a dozen figures scattered around the clearing. The meal was almost ready, so she made her way over to the man, who was still sitting, though another figure stood in front of him, gesticulating angrily.

  She stopped a metre or so away and stood patiently, head down, for all the world like an indentured servant. But she was listening carefully.

  “We don't have room for dead weight,” the gesticulating man was saying, his voice sharp. “No hangers on.”

  “But, Kardem, she's useful. She already made dinner,” the man who had beat her said.

  “Useful, my ass. I know what you're wanting her for, Garda, and it ain't her cooking skills. She's just lucky that neither one of you can get out of those breathing suits any time soon.”

  Garda hung his head sulkily. “Like you wouldn't do it given half the chance,” he said.

  “Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn't. But it makes no difference since we can't, and now we've got to drag her around and keep an eye on her too. We get rid of her.”

  “But, Kardem,” Garda whined, “she can cook and carry stuff too. You said we got too many packs to go around. Plus, you never know. We could, like, ransom her or something.”

  “Ransom? Yeah. Do you actually know how that works? You ransom the rich and famous, dumbhead, not some random Worker girl that you picked up.” Kardem paused for a moment. “On the other hand...”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, no saying that we can't sell her when we're done with her, is there?”

  Garda jumped up. “See, told you it was a good idea. We just use her to get the stuff back and cook and stuff, then when we've got everything stored away, we can sell her to the highest bidder. It's not like there's a whole lot of girls to choose from around here.”

  Kardem nodded. “Alright,” he said. “But she's under your care. You watch out for her, and you're to blame if anything goes wrong.”

  He turned around to leave, almost bumping into Aurelia as he did so. “M'lady,” he said with a mocking bow. She could hear him laughing as he walked away.

  “What?” Garda said, looking at her.

  “Dinner's ready,” she said.

  He took her back inside the tent and tied her again before he left to eat with the others, obviously not trusting her to be out or around anyone else. Aurelia took the chance to rest her aching head, sitting up only when Garda brought her a small bowl of cold stew an hour or so later. Then, once more, she was left alone.

  Later that night, she awoke from a deep sleep to feel someone climb into the bed next to her. She didn't need the light to figure out who it was. Thank the Gods for the breathing suits. He once again ran a hand over her, but he didn't touch her after that. After a while she heard him snoring and guessed that it was safe to fall back into sleep, herself. At some point during the night, she felt his body shift and come closer, but he didn't try anything, and in the end she was grateful for the warmth.

  She was kicked awake and given orders to get breakfast ready. With the same supply packets at her disposal, she made the same stew as she'd made for dinner, though this time she was allowed to sit and eat her share with the others. No one complained about the menu. Before long, the other suits got up and made their way out of the camp, Kardem giving Garda a curt nod on his way past, leaving just her and her captor.

  Garda managed to keep her busy for most of the morning, clearing things away, packing and repacking boxes and carrying packs. But by around lunchtime, he'd run out of chores for her to do and was content to let her sit on the ground close to the tent, where he was jabbing fingers onto his screen.

  For a time she sat quietly, but she found herself wondering about so many things that she just had to ask him a question. She timed herself carefully, waiting until he'd put his screen down to roll his shoulders and stretch.

  “Where do they go?” she asked him quietly.

  He turned to look at her. “Why do you care?”

  She shrugged. “I don't really. I was just wondering, that's all. Just trying to make conversation.”

  She was quiet again, waiting. Sure enough, after a couple of minutes he spoke. “They're getting more stuff,” he said.

  Okay, it wasn't much of an answer, but at least it was something. “What kind of stuff?”

  “Are you, like, a sec Worker or something? None of your business.” He picked up his screen again but didn't unroll it.

  “Look, it's not like I'm going to tell anyone,” Aurelia pointed out. “And I know that you're planning on selling me to the highest bidder or whatever, but...” Here she took an educated guess. “I'm thinking that the highest bidder is going to be you, right? So there's no harm in telling me.”

  “We'll see about that,” Garda said gruffly. “But I suppose you're right.” He glanced around the clearing as though checking that no one else was there. “Over there's a mine,” he said, gesturing behind the tent where a hill rose up. “They've gone to get stuff from there.”

  “Steal stuff?” Aurelia asked.

  “Maybe, but mostly it's easier just to pay the Workers to smuggle it out for you. Most everyone out here looks after himself first,” said Garda.

  “Then what do you do with it?” Aurelia was finding herself increasingly interested. She had no idea what this stuff was that they were stealing, but she presumed it was some kind of resource that the mine was digging up.

  “We take it back into the settlements and sell it,” explained Garda. “Or trade for things we need. Simple, really.”

  A kind of black economy, she supposed. “How long have you been here?”

  “Couple of days. We'll probably head out tomorrow, once we've got as much as we can carry.”

  That wasn't good news. At least here, she had some vague idea of where she was, and she knew that she was close enough to other encampments and even to the mine. The Gods knew where they were taking her next. But what could she do? It wasn't like she could stop them from leaving. Garda was getting tired of their conversation. He'd unrolled his screen again, and she could just make out a scowl under his hood when she tried to talk to him. In the end, she went inside the tent and lay down. There was no point in wasting her energy. If indeed they were going to leave the next day, she'd need all the energy she
could get.

  The next morning they started walking. Aurelia found herself carrying a large pack, which even in the low-gravity environment was still almost heavier than she could bear. The straps dug into her shoulders, pushing the breathing suit into her skin, and by the time they'd been walking for an hour, she could feel the fluid of burst blisters running down her arms.

  In a long, straggling line the brigands made their way through the landscape. After a while, Aurelia just stopped thinking. She had to. Thinking led her to inescapable conclusions that she didn't like, such as the fact that she still had no plan to get away from here. At least her feet had been untied. But with a heavy pack and a flat, bleak landscape, there was nowhere for her to run to anyway.

  She put one foot in front of the other, time after time. Her breathing suit hissed. She moved mechanically, her eyes on the pack of the man in front of her. All she could do was just keep moving. They stopped once, at around lunchtime, she judged. Each man was given a water canister, and they sat for a few minutes. It was just long enough to drink but not long enough for aching muscles to seize up and stiffen, and then they were on their way again.

  When they finally stopped to camp, it was late into the evening. There was no cooking, just dry rations.

  “How long will this take?” Aurelia asked Garda, who was overseeing her arrange their tent.

  “Couple of weeks,” he said. “Maybe more.”

  Two weeks of walking like this. Groaning, Aurelia got onto the bed. Again she was glad for her breathing suit. Sure, it protected her from Garda, but it also meant that she couldn't see the damage that had been done to her shoulders. She could feel the fabric sticking to her skin, though, but she couldn't see blood.

  It happened on the fifth day. The line had been marching out as usual, when at around mid-morning there was a small commotion. Aurelia stopped and glanced around her, having to look twice before she could finally make out the shapes of men on the horizon. Kardem quickly took charge. Packs were dropped, and a handful of men followed Kardem off in the direction of the figures. Meanwhile, the others stayed and ate and drank, preparing themselves to either set up camp or flee in an instant, whichever was necessary.