Born of Sand (Tales of a Dying Star Book 5) (11 page)

Farrow stood in front of a computer screen in the control room, watching the scene in the armoury. Mira stood with the rifle resting on a crate, firing at a target. Kari watched with arms crossed, occasionally repositioning Mira's elbow, or fingers, or any number of other points.

"See?" Akonai said next to Farrow. "She seems quite determined, to me."

"Maybe." Determination was valuable, but Mira was hardly impressive. Given enough time she might master a weapon, or at the very least command enough accuracy to be valuable when they attacked the city, but for now all Farrow saw was a desperate mother shooting wildly at a foam target.

Still...
an hour ago she'd been crying against the wall
. Now she was shooting a rifle. Shit, it was something.

"I don't like trusting someone who won't follow an order," Farrow said.

"You do not need to trust her," Akonai said. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back. "You just have to use her. She is valuable. Your strength here is too meager to distrust everyone you come across. My order is logical, you will see."

"And what," Farrow asked, "is to stop me from throwing her in a cell the moment you leave?"

"You would not disobey an order. Not again."

He said it with such correct confidence that Farrow cringed. I disobeyed an order, once.
An impossible order. And because of that...

"And you certainly won't kill her," Akonai continued. "We
all
know that."

The comment sent Spider, sitting at the table in the middle of the control room, into a fit of laughter. He immediately winced at the pain, putting a hand to his mouth. Binny had cauterized what was left of his tongue, but Farrow doubted she did a thorough job on the cruel man.

He turned to Spider. "Thank you for that. I had wondered if a man without a tongue could laugh. You've answered the shitting puzzle for me. It was more of a crone-like cackle, though."

Spider stood, knocking back his small stool, fury in his eyes.

"I'd like to throw
her
in a cell," Akonai said, pointing at Kari on the screen. "Cutting off tongues, threatening greater mutilation. That woman needs her strength metered."

It was Farrow's turn to laugh. "Shit, go ahead and try. Though the armoury is a poor place to assail her. I would arm yourselves well."

Akonai frowned. "If I requested five of your men to come--"

"...then that is an order I
would
disobey," Farrow finished. "Kari is well-liked, and valuable. I ought to use what is valuable, I believe you said."

Akonai stared down his beak-like nose at the screen. "No doubt you are correct. Kari would likely cut through your five best men without issue, such is the state of their skill."

I don't have time for this.
"Are you going to stay and berate me all day, or are you going to leave?"

"Soon. Our goods are nearly loaded, then we will be gone."

"I had your freighter loaded yesterday in anticipation of your return from the city." Farrow had been an anxious mess of nerves waiting for the two Melisao men to leave. Farrow's rebellious Freemen had been independent for years. They'd resided in Praetar City then, striking at the occupying forces wherever they identified an easy target: bombing a factory, disabling a transport ship, setting fire to the grain houses. They were never more than a handful of rebels, such was their turnover, such was the danger. It wasn't much of a fight, but it was the only way they knew how to resist.

Until the Melisao came. Not the same as the others: the
Children of Saria
, anti-Emperor fighters who somehow hated their Melisao brethren more than the Praetari did. Akonai pooled Farrow and the others together--other pockets of independent resistance had existed, they learned--and refurbished an ancient base buried beneath the sand. He made promises to the fighters. Organization, cooperation. Weapons and food and all the other supplies they desperately lacked. It had seemed too good to be true.

And so it had been. The
Children
departed and gave little further assistance. Half the time they hardly seemed to exist at all, leaving Farrow's group to their own decisions. And the rest of the time they arrived unannounced and began giving orders, demanding information, complaining that the Praetari weren't doing enough. "We need food, weapons, engineers," Farrow would insist every time Akonai arrived. To which he would reply, "We have helped you plenty. You must help yourselves."

Yet aside from their desert base, the only thing the Children had given them was another layer of bureaucracy. Akonai was like a vulture, stooped on Farrow's shoulder and pecking at whatever he happened to find.

Farrow was happy to be rid of him again. "With the freighter ready, you may depart at your leisure," he said with as much politeness as he could fake.

Akonai seemed bored, still watching the women training on the computer screen. "My requirements have changed. Spider and I have different destinations, so we will be taking separate ships. Spider will take the freighter back to Melis when its loading is complete. I will need a Goshawk."

Farrow rounded on him. "I can barely part with one ship, but you want two? Shit on that! You'd leave us with only a single Goshawk and four Riverhawks. And no transports."

"I counted seven Riverhawks in the aircraft bay. And three Goshawks."

Farrow bit back a snarl. "The others aren't yet functional. And probably never shitting will be, unless we can find more shitting parts, which seems unlikely given that we've already picked the shitting desert clean."

"Send more scavenging parties," Akonai suggested. "I am sure there is more scrap if you look closely."

"The more I send, the fewer return. If I grow any bolder our base itself will soon be discovered."

"I am sorry," Akonai said, sounding the opposite of sorry.

Three dozen men and women, thirty electroids--in various states of armament--and five aircraft. When the time came they would be hard-pressed to fight the occupying peacekeepers with that. "When will we receive the signal to attack?" he asked. If they had more time, and could recruit more to their cause...

"It will be soon, yet," Akonai said. "With the transfer window optimal, it will take me ten days to reach the Ouranos system in a Goshawk. Once there I can set into motion the final piece of the plan. The attack on Melis will begin in two months, at most. The peacekeepers will be weakened then, and you will be in prime position to attack."

Two shitting months?
"That won't be enough time for us to gather our strength." Farrow began counting weeks in his head.
Two to try capturing a freighter, another three to arm the rest of the electroids...
"If you could delay your attack to three months, or maybe four, our preparations would be significantly greater."

Akonai's blue eyes sparkled with humor. "My plans do not hinge on yours! Praetar is an entertaining facet of the war, but certainly not the prize. If you cannot rise up and take back your planet for yourselves, then why should I change my carefully molded plans?"

Farrow gritted his teeth. "I am not asking for much. A little coordination, some extra time. It's the absolute least you could possibly give us."

"We acquired a sand cruiser in the city," Akonai said, referring to the craft he'd used to return that day. "Nearly a fair trade for the Goshawk. Beyond that, we have what we need from you. When the time comes we will give you the signal, and whether you choose to take advantage of it or not is out of my hands."

He has what he needs from us?
What the shit was that supposed to mean? Something he said earlier prickled Farrow's memory. "You said you're waiting for the freighter to be loaded. With what?"

"The electroids, of course."

"We've already loaded your electroids." Akonai had visited the city to see if anything could be salvaged from the Station. Most of everything had been destroyed in the battle there, but he did return with ten pristine electroids found in a hidden storage bay. Farrow oversaw them moved to the freighter himself.

Akonai's mouth twitched. "Not those. Yours. The few your
engineers
managed to scrape together. They're pitiful robots, but they're better than nothing, and at the very least they'll help swell our numbers for the attack on Latea."

The blood drained from Farrow's face. He pushed past a smiling Spider and left the room at a run. The men and women of his base frowned at him as he passed in the halls. He ignored their hails.

He skidded to a stop inside the aircraft bay. It was exactly as he feared: his engineers used rolling dollies to transport the human-shaped electroids up the ramp and onto the freighter. The electroids they'd spent so long collecting and assembling.

"Stop," he ordered the men. "Unload the freighter."

They stopped, but only to stare at him with confusion. "But Akonai said..."

"Now."

They were his men, had been more loyal than any leader deserved, but they hesitated. They stared at Farrow with confusion, then their eyes flicked past him.

He whirled to face Akonai, who strode into the room with purpose. Spider followed behind. He'd retrieved his rifle at some point, and held it across his body. He looked like he wanted an excuse to use it.

"We worked for months assembling these electroids," Farrow said, biting off every word. "We lost men and women collecting the shitting parts. You cannot take them from us so soon before the attack."

"I am confident you
Freemen
will make do," Akonai said, bored. "And if not..." He shrugged.

All the pieces fell into place. Everything Akonai had done in the last few years. Arriving, taking men and women, rarely bringing supplies. Taking ships. And now the electroids. In a flash of realization, Farrow knew. "You don't give two shits what happens here. You only care about Melis, and the Empire there. You're abandoning your efforts on Praetar."

"We care about the Empire everywhere," Akonai said. "Though correct, Melis is of prime concern. I believe I have always made that clear." He gestured at the engineers, who continued loading the electroids.

"You told us we'd receive supplies, weapons, vehicles," Farrow accused, jabbing a finger into Akonai's chest. "You told us you'd help us retake the planet. You said we'd be heroes!"

Akonai looked down at Farrow's finger. Spider raised his rifle a fraction of a degree. Across the room the engineers shifted uncomfortably.

"You used us," Farrow said, more defeated than angry.

Akonai smiled a cruel smile. "My dear Praetari. All men use one another. It is man's nature, whether his eyes are blue or brown."

"I don't use anyone," Farrow said. "Not like this."

Akonai spoke quickly. "When were you going to tell that woman her daughters are dead?"

Farrow recoiled as if from a blow.

"When were you going to tell her Bruno's freighters were built to be doomed, shot down by the Empire's orbital blockade? When were you going to tell her that there was no salvation at the Station?"

Farrow had struggled with that question since she arrived. He fumbled for words. "I have waited to tell her. A kindness..."

"A cruelty, I call it. A kind man would tell her now, so that she may begin to accept. The longer you wait the worse it will be for her." Akonai spread his hands. "But until then, she will be quite motivated. All men use one another. You may deny it, but the guilt is clear on your face."

While Farrow stood there, Akonai turned back to Spider. "You'll rendezvous with the other craft at the Harpon Supply Station. Their industrial freighters will carry your electroids along with all the others, to deploy on Latea when the attack begins. After that proceed as planned with my son, on the surface. Onero will make you one of his lieutenants."

Spider nodded. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and climbed the ladder into the freighter cockpit. Akonai strode toward his Goshawk, which was being wheeled in from the side bay.

"You've picked us clean," Farrow said. "What are we supposed to do?"

The freighter's engines exploded to life underneath its hull, blowing sand across the metal floor in all directions. Farrow jumped back and shielded his eyes from the blast. Above him, a groan of gears and scraping of metal announced that the massive surface door began sliding open. New sand cascaded down into the room like waterfalls. When they dwindled the dark sky appeared, bearing a yellowish tint even at night.

The musical tone of the engines increased in pitch as it lifted off the ground. It rose into the air with reckless speed, passing through the open door and then shooting off out of sight.

The sudden silence jolted Farrow back to attention. "What are we supposed to do?" he repeated.

"Whatever you wish," Akonai said as he climbed into the Goshawk. "You're in charge here, as you so often remind me."

Farrow felt the warmth of anger rise in his belly and chest and throat. Everything had changed so quickly. They were making off like thieves, swooping in and taking what they needed and leaving before anyone could question them.