by C. Gockel
Nova was surprised by the anger that had finally cracked the surface of his outward serenity. He had seen enough, done too much these past few days to hang on to his optimism and it pained her to see him in this state. She had to admit to herself that she had come to rely on him to infuse her with some of his tranquility.
“I don’t pretend to understand all of it,” she said softly. “And sometimes I wish we weren’t so heavy-handed. But look. The Shri-Lan are using your people like shields; we often display our uniforms even when camouflage seems a lot more sensible. They recruit children and species barely able to comprehend what they’re fighting for; we train our troops to treat our enemies humanely. We don’t hold dying people hostage. We—” Nova interrupted herself with a sudden and peculiar awareness that her own words sounded like so much propaganda. She thought about Captain Beryl, as cruel and cold-blooded as any rebel. About Captain Dakad, quick to order the ‘mitigation’ of his downed pilot. Djari was right to worry about all of them being mitigated. “Maybe we’re not so noble, but given a choice I know on what side I stand.”
“Do you have to be on any side?”
Nova hesitated. This was the second time someone had asked her to think about that recently. Only a day or two ago Reko had assumed she would leave Air Command at some point. Was it really that simple? “You’d have me stand by and do nothing? If I can help to defeat the Shri-Lan, why wouldn’t I?”
He began to say something, paused, and then shrugged. “I suppose that makes sense. You’re a warrior, Lieutenant Sunshine.”
She smiled back at him, glad that he seemed willing to put this subject aside. “I am. And this warrior needs to stop being a nurse and get back to soldiering. Just don’t tell Coria.”
Chapter Five
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Nova whispered. “It’ll be safer here for you.”
Night and silence had fallen over the hall, interrupted only by the occasional moan from the injured and the murmurs of their guardians. A fan whirred somewhere in an attempt to stir the stifling and fetid air. Things had improved a little today with the arrival of another scanner and a handful of decon wands. More disinfectant was not to be found but they had received enough soap and fresh water to improve sanitation.
“I am,” Djari said. “I’ll be your lookout.”
She retied the scarf around her head and then nudged Reko’s legs to retrieve some of their concussion bullets. She transferred them to the pockets of the baggy trousers that now hid her own combat armor beneath it. Reko stirred with a groan but did not wake. She murmured soothingly and stroked his stubbled cheek. His fever had grown alarmingly and his wound was hot and swollen. They had tried to cool him down but there was little more than water for that. Nova thought of all the wonderful medical equipment available even out here, at the garrison near the other end of town, that would have him up on his feet and firing off his lame jokes within hours. Right now, it might as well be on the next planet.
“What are you going to do with those?” Djari asked.
“Just in case.” She showed him the modifications Reko had made to the capsules. “Too noisy to use around here, but better than nothing if we find ourselves in a tight spot.”
He untied a braided leather string he had been wearing around his neck, looped several times. He held it up to reveal a leather cup sewn into the middle, hidden under his hair. “We use these for hunting. I bet I can throw one of those things a long distance.”
“Nice!” She examined the sling with appreciation. “And much safer, frankly. I throw like a little girl.”
He laughed, a pleasant sound in the dark.
They looked up when Coria came with a bowl of water for Reko. She said nothing while she wiped his face and picked up some discarded bandages. Before she left, she looked from Djari to Nova, her gaze clearly conveying what her silence did not.
Nova watched her go. “She really doesn’t like me.”
“No, I don’t suppose so.”
“Why?”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t like Humans. You seem to bother her especially.”
Nova hesitated. “Is she your… I mean are you two…”
His teeth flashed in the dark when he smiled. “No. But she thinks I’m sweet on you.”
Nova blinked. She had expected him to repeat Coria’s fears that she was a risk to them, or perhaps even reveal that the woman was a rebel; something Nova had begun to suspect. “Um, what?”
He shrugged.
Nova tilted her head. “Is she right?”
“Subtlety is not your greatest gift, I think,” he replied. “But I like that about you.”
They waited for one of the rebel guards to wander past them, his gun dangling lazily at his side. She nodded to Djari and they crept into a narrow hallway to the crude toilets that served the clinic. A service door leading to the septic area was only rarely inspected and quickly unlocked with a tool Nova had fashioned earlier. Clearly, their guards relied on the Rhuwacs patrolling outside to discourage escape attempts.
“Do the Rhuwacs have any weak spots?” Djari asked.
“Not really. They don’t even feel pain. They don’t see very well, but they can smell things going on in the next valley. Not much we can do about that.”
Once through the exit, Nova paused and breathed deeply of the sweet, hot air outside the building. The sky was overcast but their eyes were already accustomed to the dark. She stopped Djari from slipping away and put a finger to her lips. Gradually, the night sounds around them became identifiable. A shuttle in the distance, possibly at the garrison. Some herd animals left behind by the fleeing population of Shon Gat. Muted voices far to the left. And, finally, the congested snuffling of Rhuwacs.
She flattened her hand high over her head before realizing that Djari would not know that to mean Rhuwac. But he nodded and held two fingers up for her to see. She agreed with his guess that there were two of them. She pointed away from the source of their sounds. Circling around them meant a delay in finding the shed their young scout had discovered. It also seemed a whole lot safer.
They moved silently. Djari’s hunting experience served him well and she grew more confident in crossing the shadowed spaces in this warren of alleys and passageways. She counted the twists and turns until they reached the ancient wall that used to encircle the town before it had sprawled beyond its fortification. As reported, a metal shelter huddled among the whitewashed buildings, looking as out of place as any of the off-world constructions here. Light spilled from the open door and a lone Bellac sat on the stoop, busy with a pan of food.
Nova’s eyes followed a rusted tower upward to see a net of wires spread out from it, anchored to the nearby wall. A primitive array used by the Shri-Lan in remote areas, it provided excellent reception but was less effective for transmission. A lamp swung from the same mast, casting a bleak pool of light over the building.
She turned to Djari with a few gestures, cautioning him to remain here and hidden. He moved as if to object but she shook her head firmly. He scowled, obviously not convinced, but then nodded. She watched him fit one of the explosive charges into the sling and then turned her attention to the Bellac rebel.
Grateful for the long, drab vest that helped her blend into their surroundings, Nova sidled closer to the metal shed. There, she tested a plastic crate before stepping on it to peer into the dimly-lit interior. She made out some field equipment along the far wall where a woman slouched in her chair, feet on the cluttered bench. She was idly bending a length of wire into shapes while she monitored incoming messages that didn’t appear to hold her interest. A rifle was placed just within reach on a cot beside her. The rest of the interior was crammed with crates and barrels, some of it arranged to form crude table and seats. Nova lowered herself back down and approached the front of the building.
The other rebel was still working on his dinner. Nova realized how hungry she was when the greasy chunk of bone and meat on his plate actually made her mouth water. She
wrapped a long, thin string, made from a braid of sutures and medical tape, around her palms to form a garrote. With another quick glance around the alley, she stepped forward and used the choke to pull the rebel into the dust where his flailing legs made little noise. She felt the garrote cut deep into his throat, cutting off his shouts of fear and pain and, soon thereafter, his life.
Nova waited another minute, breathing harshly, alert to any sounds from the shed. She did not look at the rebel’s face. As a pilot, she rarely faced her victims and she doubted that she could ever get conditioned to defeating them in close combat. It was best not to look, not to think about who these people were. Quickly, she searched him for weapons and came up with a sidearm laser, a decent knife and, oddly, a dart gun.
She raised her hand to prevent Djari from approaching. He was invisible in the but no doubt had been watching. She raised one finger and pointed toward the shack. The stoop creaked when she stepped on it.
“Hey, Jast,” the woman inside called out. “Check this out. I should be an artist.”
Nova stepped into the room and fired her new pistol at the back of the rebel’s head. The stench of burned hair filled the room and she quickly went outside again to wave to Djari. She waited while he hurried to the hut. “Hide that body behind the shed,” she said to him, pointing to the first rebel she had dropped. “Then sit here. Look like a rebel.”
“What is all this?” he said, looking over the boxes behind her.
“Hopefully something useful. Oh, look!” She picked up a canvas bag that had caught her eye and handed it to him. “Med supplies.”
Nova walked over to the console and pushed the rebel’s chair out of the way before looking over the displays to tap into the com system. Random conversation dribbled from the speakers in sporadic bursts, none of it the sound of battle. Some expletive-laden exchanges among patrols, a more cerebral conversation regarding the hill villages, a lot of static.
She smiled when she spotted a portable perimeter scanner dangling in its case from a hook. “You know,” she said to the lifeless rebel as she pulled the woman’s data sleeve from her arm and a pistol from her belt. “If you’d watched your scanners instead of your art project you would have seen us coming.” Grunting, Nova shifted the body to the floor and pushed it under the cot. It meant a small delay if someone came by here, but desertion was common among rebels and would be assumed before they’d start looking for bodies.
Nova connected her neural interface to the com system and entered a coded signal, barely a blip among the traffic. She waited. After a few seconds of peering out of the shack’s grime-smeared windows, she sent another.
Finally, an answering signal came back to her from the base. She closed her eyes, concentrating on chatting in a bored, Feydan-accented voice about the miserable conditions out here and what she thought of Air Command. She carefully embedded, through code words and timed signals, the information about a possible prison break on the ridge and the name she had gleaned from the Caspian rebel. Whoever this Pe Khoja was, he was surely important enough to stage an assault against a guarded Air Command installation.
A hissing noise from the door caught her attention.
“Thought I heard something,” Djari whispered when she came to stand behind him.
“Rhuwac, guessing by the size,” she said after adjusting the scanner she had found. “Just one. Over that way. Let’s get back to the clinic.”
“Huh? Just shoot it.”
“Ever try to lift a Rhuwac? We’ll never get him hidden away. Besides, they smell, alive or dead. Those boxes are locked. Let’s get out of here.”
“Could be supplies in there.”
She aimed her gun at a lock without using the tracer. It hit the spot, anyway, and the lock melted. “What’s all this?” she said when the container revealed stacks of tightly packed tubes, coiled like some weird green sausage. She pried another box open and found the same.
“Mince ,” he said.
“What?” She turned her head to survey the stack of similar crates along the wall. “All this is dope?”
“Looks like it.”
She sighed. At least this made some sort of sense. The demand for mince , a paste made from one of Bellac’s succulent plants, was boundless in other parts of Trans-Targon. The local, sturdy desert population enjoyed a chew of it as much as she might enjoy a glass of wine. Certain other species, notably Centauri and Feydans, achieved far more significant results with the drug, none of them healthy. Mince was extremely addictive. It was frowned upon in some places, illegal in others, and a very significant source of income for the Shri-Lan rebels.
“So that is what this is about? The reason why there are so many rebels in Shon Gat?”
“Been going on for years. Long before the Union even started to build the elevator. The stuff gets smuggled across the hills through Shon Gat and by caravan to the coast. Once it’s on ships to Panyan they’re in the clear. It’s not illegal there. There are caches like this all over town. Some of the locals process it into other forms, too. Of course a lot of this gets smuggled off-planet as well. Your new garrison is complicating things.”
“I had no idea. I suppose that’s why everyone got so upset when Air Command started knocking on doors.”
“Keeping you in the dark like a proper grunt, are they?”
She shrugged. “Just one more reason to rid this place of Shri-Lan. I don’t care.” She gave him a sheepish look. “Well, I do. Are they using the elevator for this?”
“Doubtful. Not with the kind of security you have. I mean, the elevator is standing right in the middle of your base. The caravans are a safer way to move this stuff. The governors are touchy about Air Command harassing the nomads.” He lifted a length of mince from its box. “We’ll take some of this. If we run out of pain meds for the Centauri at least we have this to get them through.”
Both of them ducked for cover when the sharp rapport of a ballistic weapon cut through the night silence. Nova leaped from the doorway and pulled Djari into the shadows between two buildings, expecting rebels to return to this station. More gunfire racket reached them.
“Is that from the hospital?” Djari said. “Is that Air Command?”
Nova shook her head. “They wouldn’t just blast in here at night. I’m not that important or they’d have done that already. Let’s get closer.”
A terrible roar rose up behind them, like something huge and angry and possibly in pain.
“Rhuwac,” Nova said just as the creature ran at them from the alley. He was wielding a massive club in massive hands and Nova suddenly felt very very small. The brute shouted something about Humans and they saw spittle fly from between the slabs of teeth he bared. “Ugh,” she said and aimed her weapon. It took a few passes from her gun before he fell, silenced.
Shouts reached their ears, closer than the gunfire still sounding in the distance. The Rhuwac’s noise had alerted someone.
Djari stepped away from Nova and readied his sling. He let it swing a few times before it rotated around his wrist. At the correct moment he heaved back and let the projectile fly high into the sky. They heard it detonate in the distance, surely drawing attention for a while. As one, they turned and fled in the opposite direction, along the wall and into the slums.
They were breathless by the time they had put a safe distance between themselves and whatever was going on back there.
The door to one of the deserted homes did not yield to her pick but Djari forced it open with a few well-placed kicks below the lock. The single-room dwelling looked like whoever had lived here left in a hurry. Pieces of clothing and household items cluttered the floor and storage boxes stood open and empty. The corner used for cooking was cold. Djari poked around the looted shelves and found nothing edible.
Nova placed the scanner stolen from the rebel station onto a windowsill and found it in working order. There was no one nearby. “Safe here for a bit.” Although there was still much interference from the rebels’ jamming syste
ms, she detected moving bodies throughout the quarter, many more than she had assumed to be here. Shots still rang out at intervals but the sound of voices and the ugly growl of Rhuwacs had faded away.
“What do you think happened?” Djari looked over her shoulder at the screen. “Are you sure those aren’t soldiers?”
“Those guns are not military issue. I know the sound. Those are rebels. Maybe they noticed us gone.” She winced. “Maybe they took that out on the others. Coria was right, perhaps.”
“Don’t think that way,” he said. “There’s nothing to be done about that now. That might not even have come from the hospital. We probably got turned around back here.”
“Wish I could do that,” she said dully.
“Do what?”
“Look at things the way you do. Don’t you get scared?”
“Are you scared?”
She adjusted the display screen on the sill. “Of course I am. We’re surrounded by rebels. Completely outnumbered.”
“You do very well for someone who’s scared. Not too scared to kill a man with your bare hands and a piece of string. Not too scared to shoot a Rhuwac like you’re swatting a bug.”
She lifted her shoulders slowly in a shrug. “That’s just training. It kicks in. You must think that’s all pretty awful.”
“I do and it is. I could not do this… work. But being scared doesn’t help things.”
She turned to face him, suddenly aware that he was standing very close to her. His gray eyes were fixed on her own and there was a half smile on his dark face.
“You’re scared right now?” he asked again.
She nodded.
“Wait a moment.”
She frowned, mystified, but waited quietly for a long interval where only the sound of their breathing broke the silence.
“Now,” he said at last. “Are you still scared?”
