by M. R. Forbes
He twisted the throttle, getting the motorcycle moving through the rest of the junkyard. He had only made it about a hundred meters when he heard a rumble in the distance. He stopped again, freezing to listen.
“You hear that?” he asked.
Rhonna nodded. “It’s getting closer.”
“Let’s find some cover. I don’t want to get caught out here with a dead battery.”
“The Liberators?”
“I don’t know. The pitch is too deep to be a drone, and it sounds like its coming along the ground.”
“Cars?”
The noise was getting louder, echoing in an almost rhythmic cadence. “I don’t think so.” He motioned her from the bike, and he climbed off. He kept his grip on the handlebars, rolling it to a small space between two stacked piles of old metal parts. Then he dislodged his broken hand from the bars. “Satchel?”
Rhonna handed it to him. He opened it and removed one of the pistols, and then closed it and dropped it on the ground.
“Wait here.”
He dashed across the path to a dark spot almost opposite Rhonna and the motorcycle. If there was trouble, they would catch the interlopers in a crossfire.
The noise grew louder. Whoever it was, they were definitely coming this way. He recognized the sound now, and he smiled at the familiarity.
Not that it made whoever was approaching any less dangerous.
He pressed into the crevice, gun up and ready to fire if needed. The rumbling slowed, the individual footfalls of horses becoming more apparent as the animals slowed to a walk.
Chapter 30
It took an hour for the transport to arrive at the helicopter’s crash site to carry James and Buzzcut back to Fort McGuire. James was nearly seething again by the time the large, armored truck arrived, pulling off the closest road and coming to a loud stop a few dozen meters from the downed aircraft. Between his frustration at losing Sheriff again and the arrival of these new soldiers from Proxima, it was nearly enough to bring him back to a boil.
It was just like the Trust to start out by underestimating the problem and then trying to overcompensate for it. They had asked Tinker to deal with the Stacker problem, and Tinker had sent James to do the job. If it hadn’t been for Sheriff, the whole squad would have come to Earth for nothing. The threat would be neutralized, their trip wasted.
Too fucking little, too fucking late.
Of course, the threat hadn’t been neutralized. They hadn’t wasted the trip. And that only made him angrier. Sure, he could use them to do the work his people had so far been unable to do, but it was an insult to his pride. He couldn’t believe how this one Spacer had been outmaneuvering him so far.
“Sergeant Sho reporting, sir,” the leader of the retrieval squad said, approaching James slowly, the rest of his unit spreading out around the area to keep watch. Buzzcut was standing off to the side near the helicopter, holding his distance from the interaction.
“Sergeant Sho,” James said, the man’s voice breaking him out of his thoughts. “It’s about fucking time.”
“We came as quickly as we could, sir,” Sho said. “As you know, your armor—”
“I’m aware,” James replied, cutting him off. His armor was too heavy for a normal car to pick him up. He glared at the sergeant through the visor of his helmet. “There’s no need for a perimeter, Sergeant. If there were anything dangerous out here, I would have killed it already.” He fought hard to hold back the anger he was feeling and not take it out on his sergeant. The original James Stacker had shared the same quick fuse, and it had been both a blessing and curse to them both.
“Yes, sir,” Sergeant Sho replied. “Of course, sir.” The sergeant spoke into his comm, and the other soldiers immediately retreated to the truck. “This way, sir.”
James followed behind him, raising his visor and climbing into the back of the transport in front of Sho. The other soldiers came to attention as he entered.
“At ease,” he said, making eye contact with each of them as he went to sit in the front behind the driver. He was sure they could see the spark of fury in his eyes, but they would take it as passion and use it as motivation.
He lowered himself to the reinforced seat, facing out toward the rest of the Liberators. They remained quiet in his presence, cradling their weapons in their laps and waiting. Sergeant Sho hopped into the rear of the truck, and then pounded on the top of it. “Corporal, let’s get General Stacker back home.”
“Yes, sir,” the driver replied.
The truck whined and shuddered, lurching forward. It bounced hard over the terrain by the helicopter before climbing back onto the road and turning south, the ride smoother but not at all smooth on the cracked and broken concrete.
James spent the ride back to the Fort in contemplative silence, doing his best to make sense of where he had gone wrong. It was vital for him to understand his tactical mistakes so he wouldn’t make them again. He couldn’t change the fact that Sheriff had escaped, but he could do more to ensure he wouldn’t make a fool of himself again.
It was the trife. Sheriff knew the trife. How they would act and react. It was almost as though he could communicate with them. It was almost as though they knew him, and they acted according to his will. Of course, that idea was stupid. The trife were only slightly more intelligent than a fly. But Sheriff had used that lack of intellect against him and his team. He had turned the trife into a weapon. The creatures were challenging enough to fight on their own, but when they had human soldiers backing them and helping their teeth and claws? He had just seen firsthand the kind of chaos they could cause.
And there was nothing he could have done about Sheriff’s death-defying leap from the top of the old naval vessel. It was like something out of an old movie stream. The action hero’s incredible leap of faith. And he had gotten Needle’s gun. And he had shot the fucking helicopter.
James slammed his fist down on the side of the seat, denting it and frightening the driver. The car slowed suddenly before a quickly barked command convinced the driver he should be more afraid of his passenger than anything hiding in the landscape around them. Then James laughed, releasing some of the pent-up tension. The closer they drew to the end of the trials, the more on-edge he became. He had been waiting for something to throw a wrench in Tinker’s plans and Stacker had been the first. Sheriff was the second. And now the Trust’s imports were the third.
The car slowed as it neared the outer edge of the Fort’s walls. James could see his soldiers in their towers surrounding the base, two at each position keeping constant guard. It had taken some time, but the trife had slowly come to understand that getting too close to the Fort meant certain death, whether there were a hundred of them or a thousand. They hadn’t been able to mass an army large enough to dislodge the Liberators. Not with the Hellion on the base.
His soldiers saluted as the car passed the open gates, which promptly closed behind him. He saw the Trust’s starship right away. It was bigger than the one he had hit with the plasma bombs and much larger than Nathan’s little escape vessel. It was dark and angled, with a pair of plasma cannons mounted on limited rotatable turrets on either side of a short nose, which led back to a wide fuselage and a pair of wings just big enough to give it stability in atmosphere.
He had asked one of the pilots once about how they managed to get everything moving back and forth without getting caught. The asteroid mining rigs that spread for nearly a light year around Proxima made for a suitable base for clandestine operations, and their connections within the government did the rest.
The loading ramp of the ship was already down, but there was no activity around it. The ship’s hold was no doubt filled with supplies, but they were destined for Edenrise, not here. The Trust delivered everything from clothing to weapons to replicated parts down to Tinker, who would then exchange them for alternate tech, including other weapons he had made with the raw materials, like the plasma bombs. James didn’t know what the Trust was doing with all
of the equipment Tinker had sent back to them over the years. By now, it was probably enough to seize control of Proxima if that was what they wanted. His direct communications with the Trust had always been limited, but he had never gotten the impression that was their end goal.
What was their end goal?
He didn’t know, and he was sure it didn’t matter. Once the trials were done, none of it would.
The transport came to a stop on the tarmac near the Centurion starship. James stood up, walking past the soldiers again and moving to the rear of the vehicle. Sergeant Sho stood at the exit. “Fort McGuire, sir.”
“Thank you, Sergeant,” James said.
He jumped down from the truck, landing easily. He noticed someone was standing at the top of the starship’s loading ramp, dressed in Centurion combat armor. One of the soldiers the Trust had sent. The squad leader, no doubt.
The man descended the ramp and walked over to him. He came to a stop in front of James, looking up at him, unintimidated by the bigger man in the powered armor.
“General Stacker, sir,” he said. “My name is Bennett. Lieutenant Kyle Bennett. Centurion Space Force Special Operations. General Haeri sent us to provide additional support in controlling the fugitive and cleaning up the residual fallout. Assuming the threat hasn’t been neutralized?”
James stared at the replica. He didn’t feel the same sense of brotherhood with this one as he had with Nathan, probably because they were from a different line.
“Lieutenant Bennett,” he said. He clenched his jaw, working to swallow his pride. He had to think of the bigger picture. All of this had become a distraction from that. “The fugitive is dead. I killed him myself. We have most of the fallout under control, but there is one Spacer that has proven to be very resourceful. In fact, based on his knack for survival, I was wondering if he was Special Operations. His call sign is Sheriff.”
Bennett’s eyebrow lifted. He lowered a device from the side of his face, dropping a small piece of glass over his left eye. James could see writing appear on it, tiny from his perspective.
“One second, General,” Bennett said. “I’m checking the Kiev’s personnel records. That name doesn’t sound familiar to me.” His eye twitched as he read the contents of the Oracle. “Are you sure it’s Sheriff? There’s another Bennett in the manifest. It could be him, but that’s not his call sign. We’re the latest and greatest. Hard to kill, unless you catch us by surprise.” He smirked slightly.
“No. I’m certain it’s Sheriff.”
“Hmm.” Bennett lifted the Oracle away from his face. “Sorry, General. If Sheriff is right, then whoever the hell this guy is, he isn’t listed as part of the group Command sent to recover Stacker, and he isn’t one of ours.”
James couldn’t help but laugh. It figured that the man who had given him the most trouble wasn’t even supposed to be part of the mission.
But if he wasn’t with Space Force, where the fuck had he come from?
“Well, whoever he is Lieutenant, not only is he still alive, but I have reason to believe he has what your bosses are so desperately searching for.”
“Roger that, General. If you’d be so kind as to give me his last known position, my team can take it from here. Our assessor figured our trained Spacers might be too much for you Earthers to handle, even with a fancy metal can to protect you.” Bennett’s smile grew, arrogant and smug. “I guess they were right.”
James felt his hands balling into fists. It took all of his effort not to slam Bennett in the face for the intentionally demeaning comment. The Spacers were all alike. They all thought they were so much better than anything Earth could produce.
He would let them hold onto the arrogant notion that they were superior for now. They were tools. A means to an end.
“Come with me, and I’ll patch you into COMCENT,” James said. “They can provide you with the most recent data, and you can be on your way. Do you want any of my people to accompany you?”
“Negative, General. If you took out Stacker, then you’ve already done the bulk of the work. We’ll handle the rest of the cleanup from here on. I’ll have the Pulse drop my team in the hot zone, and then she’ll continue to Edenrise to finish her supply run and wait for us to complete the mission. I’m sure you have your own business to return to.”
“Very well,” James said. “Don’t hesitate to contact me if you require any additional resources. As you know, Tinker is a friend of the Trust.”
“And the Trust is a friend of Tinker. Thank you, General.”
“Of course. Follow me.”
James walked ahead of Bennett, keeping his pace slow to make up for his long strides. He wished he could be there when the Spacers found Sheriff. He wished he could be there when they killed him.
And when Nathan showed up, alive, and killed them.
Chapter 31
“I saw them, Hi-top. I know I did. They came this way.”
“I think maybe you been hitting the juice a little too hard again, Rogan. A dude and a chick on a motorcycle? Where the freak would they have come from?”
“Liberators maybe? I don’t know.”
“You’d better hope they ain’t Liberators. Those assholes come back, and we’re all as good as dead.”
Hayden stayed against the stack of debris, out of sight of the four men on horseback. He could hear the horses snorting, their hooves clomping as they turned and shifted. He could only make out the sides of the two front riders. An older man with a line of white stubble around a square jaw, and a younger one who couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. They were both wearing leather jackets, ripped and faded, and equally battered jeans and boots. The older man, Hi-Top, had a hunting rifle slung over his shoulder, standing at attention behind his back. He didn’t get the impression they were dangerous, not from their posture or their faces, but he had been wrong about that sort of thing before.
“Maybe we should go with them?” the younger man, Rogan, said. “I mean, you heard that guy on the radio. Tinker? He said Edenrise is ground zero for a new beginning. That can’t be bad, can it?”
“Where’s your momma, Rogan?”
There was a pause. “Gone.”
“They took her, Ro. Ten years ago they stole her away from me. Stole her, you hear me? She didn’t go to no damn Edenrise because she wanted to. They rounded her up like a freaking cattle. Do you ever listen to a damn word I say?”
“Sorry, Hi-Top. I do. I just. I don’t know. I dropped her necklace near the food mart. I know I did. But it wasn’t there, and I seen them heading away. I seen it. I swear.”
“How many times I told you not to carry your momma’s necklace around with you, especially in that ratty old coat. Ain’t the first time it fell out your pocket, neither.”
“Shit, Hi. I know. I just wanted it back.”
Hayden glanced past the riders, trying to see into the shadowed alcove where Rhonna was hiding with the motorcycle. The necklace she had found belonged to the kid?
“Hi, how long are we going to stand around here?” a new voice said, coming from one of the riders beyond Hayden’s line of sight. “I’m hungry.”
“Me too,” a fourth man said. “I didn’t see anyone, and we’re way too close to Crosston. Ro lost his mamma’s necklace, that ain’t our fault. They catch us wandering out here like this, and we’ll be the next ones the Liberators take south.”
“Yeah,” Hi-Top said, his voice hesitant. “You’re right.” He paused again. “Come on Ro. If you lost it this time, you lost it for good.”
The horses started turning, guided back in the other direction, their riders preparing to leave. Hayden stood in the shadows, trying to decide if he should go out and talk to them. It was obvious these people were no friends of the Liberators, but… The rest of his thought fell away as Rhonna walked out from her hiding spot.
“Excuse me,” Rhonna said.
The horses whinnied slightly, as the men all reached for the nearest weapon they had on hand and then fro
ze almost in unison when they realized she was armed.
“Whoa,” Hi-Top said. “We don’t want no trouble, lady. Just stay calm.”
“I’m calm,” Rhonna said. “Sheriff, you can come out.”
Hayden sighed, smirking slightly as he stepped from the shadows behind the men. He got a look at the two in the rear. One was short and dense, the other tall and muscled. They were wearing similar clothes to Hi-Top and Rogan. One of them had a baseball bat in his hand. That one noticed him appearing out of the darkness, and he turned his horse to face him.
“What the freak is this, a robbery?” Hi-Top asked. “We don’t got nothing valuable to take.”
“Not a robbery,” Rhonna said. “I want to barter.”
Hi-Top’s eyes shifted away from her, to the complex beyond the junkyard and then back. He didn’t look at Hayden until Hayden circled to join Rhonna. The man was afraid of the settlement, even though there didn’t seem to be anyone around.
“What could we have that you need?” Hi-Top asked.
“Information, for starters,” Hayden said.
“What?” the man looked Hayden over, his gaze stopping on the battered replacement hand. “Damn. You look like you got run over. Where’d you get a piece like that, anyways? I never seen one so slick as that. Yeah, anyway, what kind of information could we have that you need? Shit’s all the same out here, man.”
“And what could you have that we need?” the muscled man with the bat said. “Besides that rifle of yours.”
“And that woman of yours,” the shorter man said.
“Hero, watch your freaking mouth,” Hi-Top snapped. “You want her to fill that big-ass belly of yours with lead?”
