Edge of Redemption (A Star Too Far Book 3) (25 page)

The troops shuffled and moved with an awkwardness that she at first mistook for fatigue. The armor sloped up to shield the sides of the head and the necks. She leaned closer and watched again. The weapons they held weren’t rifles but clubs. Heavy, weighted clubs. As the final creature walked by she stopped it and stared into its eyes. She turned and glanced into the open space and shivered in fear.

*

“This is a bad idea,” Emmet said as he leaned against a concrete embankment.

“Gotta play ball,” Emilie said. “Once we make contact, then we can get these things where they’re needed.”

Emmet shook his head and scanned through the low mist. A silent darkness shrouded the road and hills. The grassy crater was nothing but shadow.

“So I thought the square was the landing spot?” Emmet asked.

Emilie smiled. “The first one where people survived.”

Emmet chuckled. “Oh, that’s funny.”

“The first colony lander didn’t deploy retro-rockets or a chute.”

“Thwack!” Emmet nodded. “A helluva place for a meeting.”

“It’s a place the Hun wouldn’t know. If they were listening, they’d be camping out Founders Square.”

The smile dropped from Emmet’s face and he looked around once more. “I’ll be on the sea side. If you run into trouble—”

“Head for the water, I know.” Emilie pushed the fear back and hoped more than anything that she wasn’t walking into a trap. She patted the tiny pistol in her jacket and felt a tingle of adrenaline.

“Remember, Kari is watching, too.”

Emilie nodded and walked through the knee high wet grass. She looked but knew she’d never see Kari or the sniper drone. She remembered coming to the spot as a child, a field trip for school kids. The sky was bright and she remembered the brilliant emerald green of the wet grass. A sound snapped her out of her thoughts and she focused on the darkness ahead.

The trail was stiff rock with a touch of mud. It sloped up and paused at a squat stone monument. The outer face was slick and polished with the mist hanging in beads from the edge. Beyond it was a shallow depression, totally dark.

She felt afraid as she came closer to the dark pit but knew she had to do it. Her hand brushed the bulge of the pistol and she pulled it out slowly. It was cold in her hands—cold, wet, and heavy. She kept walking and stopped on the backside of the monument.

Should she call out Bark’s name? She didn’t know. A moment of panic struck. Wasn’t there supposed to be a code name? “Hello?”

Nothing. Not even a wind pushed through the grass.

“Hello?” she called out again, louder. Her eyes opened wide and tried to take in every bit of light.

The hole was lumpy, low, and had the look of an outdoor carpet.

“Are you alone?” a woman’s voice replied from across the crater.

Emilie felt relief wash over her and she stepped closer. “Yes.” Control, she thought. Calm down, three breaths. Stand. Relax. Now take it in. Her heart still raced but she could focus. But she couldn’t get the hardass negotiator to come out. She wanted someone to connect with, someone to trust. Someone to take the load off her shoulders.

A hard black shape appeared and moved along the edge of the crater. The light was too low to make out any details.

“Are you alone?” the voice asked again, louder.

“Yes,” Emilie replied. “I’m alone.”

The shape stepped before her and held out a hand. Emilie looked down in the shadow and her eyes took in the slightest of details. The hand was not the hand of a woman with two augmetic arms.

Fear rolled over her and she stepped back. She slid the pistol up and tasted bitterness in her mouth. “Who are you?”

The shape stood and dropped both arms to the side. The drop continued lower and the hands hung level with the knees. Too far.

Emilie groaned and knew it was one of the simian faced monsters.

“Are you alone?” the sound asked once more. It crackled slightly.

“Shit,” she said. A recording. She leveled the pistol and pulled the trigger.

The light exploded out from the barrel and blinded her with both light and sound. Darkness enveloped her and she cried out. The monument met her back and the cold wetness pushed through her jacket. She scrambled, rolled and pushed away. The grass was thick against her legs and she ran. Ran.

A mewing sound called out after her. She spun and fear filled her. She waved the pistol and fired once more. Her feet couldn’t move fast enough to get away from the sounds of feet stamping and breathing. It was all around her.

“Help! Kari!”

She turned and ran, sprinting into the hummocks of grass. A dark shape loomed before her and she cried out and shot at it. The shape shuddered and fell to the side. The heavy footsteps were closer but she still couldn’t see. The fear was electric inside of her, deep, an animal fear that was tens of thousands of years old. A prey reaction, flight.

“Help!” she screamed out again.

Another voice yelled out in a language she didn’t know. Then they were on her. The thick armed beasts leapt at her. Heavy hands snatched out and ripped the pistol from her grasp. The hands were wet, cold, like slabs of meat. They pushed her down onto the ground.

She screamed in fear and thrashed against her captors but couldn’t get away. The strength was amazing. She tried to move but was held tightly to the ground. A clump of grass was tight against her cheek. It smelled like tea. She was too afraid to cry. The monsters holding her were now placid like livestock—there was no anger, no retribution, just a dull compliance.

Something warm dripped on her face and ran down into the corner of her mouth. She licked her lips and turned away from it. Blood. The sickness came back and she tried not to retch but couldn’t stop it.

Soft footsteps came closer. The voice spoke again and she was heaved into a standing position. She couldn’t see who was before her, but a slight green glow came from the face shield. She wiped her lips on the collar of her jacket. “Well?”

A loud crack sounded out and the green tinted faceshield exploded. The shape crumpled onto the ground in a thud. Shouts echoed from the darkness and the meaty hands threw her onto the ground once more.

Emilie lay and listened as the wind grew louder. The hands held her and she finally relaxed. She owed Kari for at least taking one, but there were others now, someone ordered the heavy ones. She thought on it and saw the caste system. These were animals holding her, animals who took orders from someone else.

A sound scraped closer and she turned her head. Another green tinted faceshield crawled up. The light was low to the ground and bored into her. “You weren’t alone,” a man’s voice said in a heavy Australian accent.

She felt a cold metallic touch on her neck. The fear stabbed into her. There was a hiss and then the darkness came. The darkness mixed with fear.

H
uron pointed to the screen above him and ran his hand from one edge to the other. “Some damage here, but nothing severe. Grav shields are about useless.”

“No chance to refit more?” Shay asked.

“There isn’t any niobium or technetium in the cells. We used the last of it on the decoy.”

Shay sighed and nodded.

William watched the maintenance display and ticked off what they could repair. He listened to his meager staff banter back and forth about failed and failing systems. The real worry on his mind was when the ship would begin to fail. Was the Gruffalo right, he wondered?

“Structurally?” he asked.

“Fine. Fine.” Huron gestured to the screen. “Strain sensors show it all looks good.” His eyes glanced to Shay and Bryce.

The three looked between each other, avoiding William.

He saw it and knew what they were thinking. “Keep an eye on it.” His eyes danced over the screen and stopped on the yellow icon for the launcher. “Missiles?”

Huron shrugged and glanced at a maintenance bot that hung from the ceiling. “It shows loader alert, but I can’t see anything wrong with it.”

“Will it fire?”

“I don’t know,” Huron said, the displeasure evident on his face.

“You don’t like not knowing, eh?” Shay asked.

Huron sighed and shook his head. “No! It’s just these things, well, we don’t have the systems for this.”

William frowned but knew it was true. They had barely enough supplies to get them to Winterthur and back to Earth. Already the supplies of food and water were approaching empty. He hadn’t mentioned rationing yet, but the computer told him it was coming.

He thought of running out of food and a tightness spread in his chest. His pulse darted up and he sighed. Food. He starved once before and even the thought of it happening again was enough to terrify him.

“Captain, if we head back now—”

“No,” William said.

“It’s lost, Captain, we haven’t heard from the surface in two days. Even if we take out the
Gallipoli
, what then?”

William clenched his hands. The part that hit him hardest was he knew she was speaking the truth. He itched the palm of his augmetic hand and breathed out loudly through his nose. He could feel the weight of the eyes on him. He was on the fulcrum of the moment, they could go either way. “We chose to stay to make a difference, not abandon this world. Ms. Rose told us they wanted to make a change on the surface. What if by knocking out the only hostile ship in the system, we could make that happen?”

Shay stared at the floor. Bryce darted his eyes between Huron and Shay. “But what if they can’t?”

“We need to refit, get ready to strike again. How long?” William said to Huron.

Huron sucked air through his teeth. “Two more days?”

Bryce stood slowly and raised an arm up and pointed at the solar system view. “What about that?”

A pair of icons hung on the edge of the system. The two were so close that they almost touched. The monastery ship was almost on top of the prison facility.

The bridge was silent as everyone looked up. Huron made a clicking sound with his tongue and the corner of his mouth rose into a smile. “Huh.”

“Bryce, tight beam to both, see if anyone is listening,” William said. “Shay, call up the details on that ship.”

“Does it even move?” Shay asked.

“You need to find out,” William said. Troops. They found troops. Well, he thought, they were technically convicts, but if they could move them and get them to that elevator.

“Wait a second, you want to use the monks to transport a load of convicts?” Shay asked.

Bryce nodded. ”Uh, yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”

“Why would they? I mean, either one? I mean they’re monks and convicts. You’re going to have to give them weapons!”

“All you need is proper motivation,” Huron said.

Shay shook her head. “This is crazy.”

“I’m open to options,” William said.

Shay leaned over her console. Her fingers tapped slowly. She turned and looked over at William. “We’ll know in an hour.”

William smiled and patted her on the shoulder. Was this really a way forward? Convicts and clergy. But would they fight? “Mr. Huron, let’s see what your cell can produce for weapons.”

The two men walked off the bridge. The smell of garlic was still in the air even though they ran out of the flavoring days before.

William caught himself just before the transition to zero gravity and prepared by tightening his stomach. He still disliked the feel and pushed himself through it as quickly as he could. At the opposite end of the hallway, the scuffed orange line came up quickly.

The engineering console brought up a short list of small arms. A mix of rugged pistols, the venerable Benelli boarding shotgun, and a second generation Colt. The largest caliber weapon was a static platform that punched out a twenty millimeter slug. William scrolled through the list and nodded. “Corporal Vale?” he called over the comms.

“Sir?” Corporal Vale snapped back a second later.

“Engineering, please.”

The heavy sound of thudding footsteps was only interrupted by a bellow of “Make way!”. In less time than it took for William to cross the zero gravity gap, the Corporal stood in the doorway, at attention, with her chin held high. “Captain.”

“At ease, Corporal, I’m in need of some advice.” William smiled and explained the plan.

She watched with her hands clasped behind her back and not a single shred of emotion on her face. When William was finished, she glanced down at the display. “Do they have experience?”

“We don’t know.”

“What’s going to keep them from shooting us?”

Valid point, William thought.

“Incentives,” Huron said.

She scratched a scar on her nose and tapped the screen. “Mostly shotguns, squad support with the Colts and a twenty-to-one ratio on the heavy platform. Armor if you can swing it, boarding shields, hmm.”

“Speak your mind, please,” William said.

“What if that old bucket of shit can’t launch capsules? You’ll have to assault the elevator and that’s a terrible thing to do.”

William nodded. He’d assaulted one elevator from the ground and defended one from the ground. He was well aware of the terrible price to pay.

“Who’s going to lead them?”

William looked over to Corporal Vale and smiled. “Corporal, I can think of no finer task for the Marines.”

Corporal Vale, without the slightest hint of sarcasm, replied, “My thoughts exactly.”

“I’ll get the station pumping out some weapons,” Huron said as he poked at his console.

William walked out of engineering. He decided to give Shay and Bryce some more time and snap up a bite to eat. The thought of filling a monastery with convicts brought up a feeling of giddiness and worry. Even if both sides agreed, how would he cover it? The monastery would have to blink towards the planet. The two were close enough that they could load the ancient dropship using grav drives, but as soon as they blinked it’d be like a beacon.

Attack, he thought. He smiled over at Grgur and scooped up a shallow tray of reconstituted noodles and sauce. His tablet buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket and clicked it open. The action was almost subconscious, a reaction bred from a lifetime of instant data gratification.