Born of Sand (Tales of a Dying Star Book 5) (14 page)

"He wouldn't leave the workshop," Mira said, sitting at a table next to Binny. "He ignored everything we said, and fussed when we tried pulling him away from the scrap parts."

Farrow eyed the woman.
Two newcomers, neither of whom can obey orders
. Still... "Many of you have seen what Dok can do. He's some sort of savant when it comes to mechanical and electronic work. That trade is worth thirty electroids any day." He didn't truly believe that, nor was it a trade he'd agreed to, but there was no use saying that out loud. "He claims he can build forty new electroids with the scrap we have. I'm not sure if I believe him, but I sure as shit believe that he's an expert at what he does. There's only one problem: we don't have enough batteries. We have three, and we need thirty-seven more.

"I have a two-pronged approach for acquiring them." He peered over at his other engineer, seated at a table. "Hob. I want you to make a trip into the city. Talk to our factory contacts, see what they can safely part with. Ask if they know of any other foremen who might be sympathetic to our cause. Be more aggressive if you have to, but don't be reckless."

Hob nodded.

Kari strode forward. "Send me instead. I've worked jobs in those factories, intimidating foremen for Bruno. I know who is most malleable, and who will not bend."

"Valuable information," Farrow agreed, "which I would ask you to give Hob before he leaves. I need you here, Kari."

"And what do you have planned for me?" she demanded.

And now the part they won't like.
"We can't rely solely on factories. We may not be able to procure enough, and possibly none at all." He took a deep breath. "That's why I want to increase the scavenging parties in the desert."

It had the effect he expected. The room exploded in an uproar of anger and protest.

"Carla's group still hasn't returned," Hob said. "And we know what that means..."

"And you want me for
that
?" Kari asked angrily. "You can send anyone..."

Someone shouted, "Sending more scavenging parties is a fine way to lose more manpower, not gain it!"

Binny shouted and waved her hands, trying to calm the room down like some sort of four-foot-tall enforcer.

Farrow waited quietly, standing with his legs spread apart and his arms crossed. He needed them to voice their displeasures before they could move on. "I know it's not a pleasant plan," he said when they finally did, "and it's not an order I enjoy giving. But you all know it's necessary. We have two months to muster what strength we can, and that means taking some uncomfortable risks."

He turned to Kari. "Which is why I'm sending you to protect the scavengers. You'll go in one large group of eight. You should be safer that way."

"Eight men or two, it won't matter if we happen upon a stinger in the sand."

Now she was just being stubborn. Two had no chance against a stinger, but eight should be able to distract it and retreat in pairs. Especially with a trained assassin among them. Addressing the room, he said, "Kari will select the group she takes. I want no arguments if she selects you." Nobody would, he knew, but it was worth saying anyway. "Are there any other questions?"

The Freemen shifted in their seats, but remained silent.

And now the pitch
. "I know we've been in a constant state of preparedness for years, waiting for the signal to attack in earnest. Well now that time is truly here. We have two months. We must do everything we can to be ready. Because ready or not, we will attack when that signal comes. There will be no greater time, no more opportune moment.

"The
Children of Saria
are focused on capturing Melis. Beyond the signal, we cannot rely on their help. And frankly, who would want it? This planet is ours, has always been ours, and we should not rely on others to give it back to us. Do we want them to hand it over, like this miserable Victory Base? A gift bestowed?

"
Fuck their gifts
, I say! A freedom gifted is no freedom at all compared to one taken by strength and will. We will seize the planet and live as our fathers lived, as free men on a free Praetar!"

The room erupted with cheers. Metal cups rang on the tabletops. Faces stared back with eagerness and loyalty. Farrow strode from the room before they could ask anything more.

He was halfway to the workshop when Kari caught up to him. "You're wasting my skill," she growled, keeping in step. "Hob has a weak hand with sourcing. He'll come back with an empty palm and a mouth full of apologies."

Farrow tried to keep his voice level. "I want a soft touch for this," he said. "We need to take risks, but so close to the attack we cannot afford to be reckless."

"What
is
the attack?" she asked. "Surely you know more than just some vague promise of a signal."

He shook his head. "Unfortunately not. Akonai claims he will contact us when the time is most ripe. That the peacekeepers will be weakened, somehow."

"And what of his attack on Melis?

"He would not say beyond that."

Kari ground her teeth. "Where do you want us to scavenge?" she said, changing subjects.

"You know where."

"The graveyard." A statement, not a question.

Farrow nodded. Kari began a string of curses.

The graveyard was what they called the area where the final air battle occurred in the last day of the war, when the Melisao finally captured the planet and overthrew the monarchy. Dozens of aircraft and vehicles had crashed across four square miles of desert, abandoned and eventually buried underneath the shifting sands. An area lush with salvageable parts, sometimes mere feet below the surface.

It was also an area particularly active with stingers.

"The underside of a Riverhawk looks like one long battery," Farrow explained, "but it's actually clusters of them run in series. Dozens of them. A single Riverhawk should be all we need." When they had last picked over the graveyard, they'd focused on nearly-whole ships that would be easiest to refurbish into flying condition. Plenty of partial aircraft remained. It should not be difficult to find the required batteries.

"Why not scrap one of the Riverhawks we already have here?" Kari asked. "There's three in the hangar that Hob can't get flying."

He'd gone back and forth with exactly that question. "Absolutely not. Hob might not be able to get them flying, but I want to have Dok take a second look. You said he helped Bruno assemble the doomed freighters he sent into orbit?" He waited for Kari to nod. "The aircraft are more valuable than any number of electroids. If we can establish air superiority quickly..."

"But we still don't have the pilots," Kari insisted. "I know you told Hob back there that you had a plan for that, but I'd rest easier hearing the details from you."

"I'm still working out the details," he said, jabbing a finger at her as they walked. "But that's something I
will
need your skills for, later. So come back from the graveyard alive. With the batteries we need, preferably. But alive."

She grumbled something under her breath but gave a jerk of her chin. "I'll go gather the men." She turned around and disappeared down another corridor.

Farrow let out a long sigh. It felt like he'd been holding his breath for their entire conversation. He always felt uncomfortable around the bald woman, and could never quite be certain if it was due to her lithe, seductive stride, or her proclivity with knives. In either case, he felt safer with her gone.

Dok sat on the floor of the workshop, exactly where they left him, tinkering with an electroid torso. Like a child playing with toys. The scene was so aggressively innocent that Farrow couldn't help but feel suspicious.
Akonai cares nothing for our plight here
, he thought.
Why would he leave us with such a skilled engineer?
Beyond Dok's strange social anxiety, what was wrong with him that Farrow didn't know?

He was still studying the engineer when Mira and Binny came through the door. "Farrow, sir," Mira said, "what do you want me to do? I can continue assisting Binny in cleaning, if that's how you think I would be best used..." Her tone implied what she thought about that.

But at least she was asking.
It's a start.
"No. I want you to work with the electroids. Take a look at the two already complete. Figure out how Dok assembled them, what he did differently, what parts he's using and which ones he's not. Building forty electroids will go faster with two workers, and even faster when Hob returns. That way when we acquire the batteries we'll already have most of the work completed."

Mira looked uncomfortable. "Actually... the battery is one of the first pieces inserted during assembly. The rest of the internal circuitry and mechanics are built around it." She shrugged in apology. "We cannot simply build the electroids and insert the battery at the last minute."

It's never easy, is it?
"Still, learn the process, so that when we do have the batteries we can work twice as fast. I can't have the entire process relying on one man. If anything happens to him we're shit."

"If anything happens to him?"

Farrow approached Dok. "I need you to come with me." Dok didn't seem to hear.

Mira asked, "Where are you taking him?"

He reached down and gently grabbed Dok's arm. The engineer began mumbling and shaking, dropping the electroid appendage he had been working on. "Come on, get up," Farrow insisted, using force to pull the man to his feet. "It's easier if you don't fight me, Dok."

"He doesn't like that," Mira said. "You're only making things worse. Just leave him there."

"No," Farrow said, pulling Dok away from the electroid parts. "There's something I need from him."

Chapter 9

Their shadows stretched across the corridor walls as Farrow pushed Dok along.

"Where are you taking him?" Mira asked. Binny stayed a few steps behind, looking scared whenever Farrow glanced back.

"That's not your concern." Between Dok struggling in his grip and mumbling, and Mira's incessant questioning, Farrow felt his patience wear away. "Get back to the workshop and begin cataloguing the new electroid process. Begin by documenting the total parts list, if you're knowledgeable enough."

But Mira continued following. The low vibration of machinery slowly grew louder. "You're not taking him to a cell, are you?" Mira asked. "He needs to go back to the workshop. You don't understand."

Neither do you
, Farrow thought. "We have a more immediately problem than the electroids," he said. "I believe Dok has valuable information in that regard."

"But you can't!" Mira pleaded. "Dok doesn't interact the way others do. He's like a child. Look at him, he's shaking! You can't throw him in a cell and question him like you do others."

They entered the corridor to the power plant, with the prisoner cells lining the walls on either side. Mira continued protesting as he pushed Dok to the end of the hall and into the power plant control room. She became silent then, watching as Farrow led the whimpering engineer into the loud turbine room.

They approached the broken turbine.

The deafening sound of machinery seemed to sooth Dok. He stopped struggling and muttering to himself, and looked around with wide eyes. "The turbine," Farrow pointed. "It broke six days ago. Can you fix it?"

Dok took one step toward the broken turbine, then spun on his foot and darted toward the functional one next to it. "What the shit..." Farrow said.

Binny put a hand on his arm. "Watch."

Dok stood very close to the turbine. Its interior spun violently within its shell, with three open windows exposing it to the outside. Dok reached out with his palm toward one, dangerously close.
If he sticks his hand inside it'll mangle him to pieces
, he thought. Worse, it might break the shitting turbine.

The peculiar man kept his palm inches away from the spinning metal, as if feeling the energy inside. After a few long, tense moments he turned and walked back to the broken one, grabbing a bag of tools off the ground. With the fearlessness of a desert rat he opened the intake pipe and jumped inside, pushing the bag ahead of him. A banging sound drifted out, barely audible over the ever-present roar of the other two turbines.