Read 23 (Memory Block, pt. 1)
Gigi Gagnant awoke feeling as
though she’d done all this before. She was angry for no reason. Something was
wrong.
A young man leaned over her
open cryo chamber. Mocha skin, black hair, piercing dark eyes. She had the odd
feeling of knowing him without recognizing him. For an instant his eyes flashed
red in the artificial light. A Bloodite? How the hell had Greens gotten ahold
of her?
Maybe she’d imagined it. Her
mind was as fuzzy as the dry, coppery taste that played across her tongue. The
last thing she remembered was a picture, a set of coordinates and troops
approaching. Not so much a memory as an impression, like waking from a dream. How
many times had she done this?
“Rise and shine, Half-rack. Time
to earn your pay.”
Gigi didn’t recognize the corpsman’s
voice but remembered enough to know that he was being insubordinate. “You will
call me Lieutenant, mister. Or Sir. Anything else and I’ll take it out of your
hide.”
He sneered back at her as he
gave her naked body the full once over, lingering only briefly on her one
intact breast before drifting lower. “I’m not in your military, Ms. Marine.”
Something in his words rang
true, confirmed by his slack posture and slovenly appearance. Gigi’s smoldering
anger flared but she tamped it down.
“Fine.” She sat up,
struggling against the urge to shake her head to clear it. She knew that would
only bring on a debilitating wave of vertigo so soon after being revived. “Then
you will call me Gagnant. I’m still in command of this unit.”
“Your name’s irrelevant,” he shot
back. “I’ll just forget it the next time we come up. If you’re even still
here.”
Gigi glared back at him, her
anger rekindling like a furnace. She rose from the chamber, swinging first one
bare leg then another over the side, and stood. She tested her balance just
long enough to verify it would hold.
“If you feel dizzy, nauseous,
or disoriented, let me know,” he instructed without enthusiasm, as if checking
off a box, before he turned to tend another cryo unit. “You could have cryo-sickness.”
“This isn’t my first
cold-transport,” Gigi snarled. “I know the drill.”
Before the corpsman could
react, she stepped up behind him and swept a leg out from under him while she
pinned him against the cryo chamber he now faced with the full weigh of her
body. She gripped one of his wrists and splayed him across the top of it, with
her other hand pressed firmly against his neck. It was all about leverage.
With her face almost nestled
in his hair, his scent rose up to greet her like a knife. He smelled exotic, of
sandalwood and spices. It triggered a deep sensation of distrust. With her chest
pressed against his back as he struggled futilely against her hold, she growled
in his ear, “As long as I’m in charge, corpsman, you’ll remember to use my name.
Is that clear?”
“As long as you’re in
charge,” he half-mumbled, his face pressed sideways against the cerama-glass of
the chamber, belatedly adding, “Gagnant.”
Gigi pushed off of him and bounced
back onto the balls of her feet in case he opted for a counter-strike, which he
seemed just about stupid enough to try.
When none came, she turned
back to her own cryo chamber and keyed the footlocker drawer, carefully
watching him from the corner of her eye. Atop a set of pixilated, sand-camo fatigues,
she found her nightshades waiting. Setting them aside, she dressed slowly and
deliberately, almost mechanically. Quick movements just out of cryo would cost
her for some time. She tried not to let it show.
Re-armored now in battle
dress and nightshades, Gigi surveyed the Medbay. It contained six full-sized
cryo chambers and one miniature as if fitted for an infant or a child. Two
stood empty. Her name appeared on one, Patel on the other. That must be the
corpsman’s name. The remaining five had eased open, their occupants warmed and
slowly rousing. Bryce, Wilmots, Meinert and Baidu were the lighted names on the
standard units. Maahes 17 glowed in green on the miniature.
Patel sullenly ignored her to
concentrate on reviving the others. She left through the hatch marked
“Squadbay.”
The adjacent compartment was
dominated by a utilitarian conference table mounted to the floor with eight
similarly mounted seats on swing arms allowing them to tuck in under. On the table
lay a datapad atop an opaque plasti-sheet document envelope.
After a quick diversion to
the head and then to the galley cubicle for a cup of coffee, Gigi retrieved the
mission briefing by pressing her thumb against the print reader of the datapad.
She collapsed into a swing-arm chair at the head of conference table to review her
orders while she waited for the other members of her team.
Briefing was too long a word.
The datapad contained almost no information. Under the Personnel heading she
found her squad was comprised of seven members including herself. Norene
Wilmots and Ghalib Baidu were security. Ranjit Patel was listed as a medic.
David Bryce was a heavy grav vehicle driver. Kai Meinert was a driver/cargo
master. And Thomas Maahes 17 was a gunner. That answered the question of the
smaller cryo unit. Someone had assigned her a CuFF. And that someone must have
extensive contacts with the LOW OrbIT Navy which had an almost exclusive lock
on the genetically modified combat felines.
The equipment manifest included
five standard LOW OrbIT tactical infantry loads, one LOW OrbIT combat med-kit,
one MTV-27W Buffalo 6x6 wheeled electric cargo hauler with an engine driven
winch/crane, and one RV31-Mk5EG Nyala gravitic reconnaissance vehicle with a
dual-10mm turret-mount coilgun (CuFF interfaced). The Mk5 was the armored cargo
version of the highly successful 7 Nations original. No special environmental
equipment was listed, rebreathers, cold-weather gear, heavy-G harnesses, cool
suits, etc. Her only ancillary information was a (separate) holo-pic of their
contact and a set of local nav coordinates.
The mission statement was
just as terse. She and her team were to deliver an unspecified cargo (pre-loaded
in a standard 20-displacement-ton cargo container and strapped onto the Buffalo
That was belied by all the
details, or lack thereof. First, Gigi tried to pull up planetary information
from the datapad and found it locked out. As were all the system details. The
only information she could bring up was that the dropship was a converted
strategic system recon vessel, probably decommissioned and sold at auction. Two
man crew, one bridge, one gunner. Even her orders, which technically conformed
to LOW OrbIT formatting, were missing key particulars such as an issuing
officer, authority and agency. Still, she didn’t doubt their authenticity. Some
deep-seeded instinct whispered they were real. They were standard 5 paragraph
orders for detached operations where most of the other information normally
supplied was either not applicable or redacted.
That meant covert ops. Combined
with her memory loss, it raised a huge red flag. Mindwipes. That was as dark as
black ops could get.
She unsealed the document envelope.
Inside, she found only a printed, still picture of Malick Sennikov with the
same set of coordinates neatly scribed upon the back.
So, she scoured the rest information
she’d been given for the details she could find, the ones almost impossible to hide
if you knew where to look and how to piece the puzzle together. She didn’t have
long before the others would arrive.
First up, the coordinates.
Once she was on the ground and had access to a nav system, she could run some
basic calculations that might narrow down the system and planet. That would
have to wait. But she knew a couple things right away. The coordinates were in
LOW OrbIT Strategic System Recon standard format. Which either meant the planet
was a LOW OrbIT sanctioned colony, or it was so low-tech that it didn’t have
its own GPS. Or maybe it was hostile to the idea of GPS altogether.
The equipment caught her
attention next. While the gear looked like LOW OrbIT combat loads, most of it
was well-disguised, more readily available substitutes, the kind used by corporate
security details, that didn’t attract the same level of scrutiny when the
equipment was acquired. None of their uniforms had smart-camo, though the tan
and brown pattern meant they’d set down in a desert. The Buffalo
That left the picture. She
could tell by the resolution that it was a surveillance image, an old one no
less. It had all the telltale sharp edges of being enhanced and aged. Whoever
this was, he was hard to capture digitally. That meant he either who knew how
to dodge LOW OrbIT’s ubiquitous public surveillance, or was rarely exposed to
it. A Fringer or a Green. She studied the hardcopy image more closely. European
features not much diluted with the rough chiseled face, gray eyes and dark hair
of the Eastern regions. His pupils had a slight cast of red. Either an artifact
of reflected light or he’d been exposed to the Blood Eye Virus and survived.
Odd as that virus was contracted only on Blood, an Indian national colony. That
pointed toward a Green. Probably a Revolutionary.
Gigi loaded the image into
the memory of her nightshades just as the hatch to the briefing room opened and
the others began to spill in. She quickly slid the photo back into the envelope
and blanked the datapad before her.
She looked up to find a
subdued, distrustful group of two women, three men, and a CuFF assuming their
places around the table. If it weren’t for their pictures on her datapad she
would have seen them only as a collection of soldiers. She was surprised that
term sprang to mind. But all of them except Patel had an air of experience around
them as they dropped into the swing-arm seats.
Patel had chosen the seat
opposite her at the far end of the table. The father to her mother? He might
need another reminder he had the pecking order backwards. Or maybe he just
wanted to remain far beyond her reach.
The feline CuFF settled on
the table before an empty chair, just to her right, with his front paws tucked
beneath him. His tail dangled over the edge of the table, sheltered by the
seatback. She’d have trouble not thinking of him as a cat, though she knew that
mistake could prove problematic. CuFFs had a reputation for being
temperamental.
The others filled in along
the sides, leaving an empty chair to her left like students afraid of sitting
too close to an unknown teacher.
Unlike most staff meetings, Gigi
didn’t need to wait half a minute for everyone to quiet down before she got
started. These soldiers weren’t chatting casually about nothing. Instead, they
eyed her like a new commander, their faces masks from birch to mahogany, waiting
to see what she would do. The men she know how to handle. The women could be
trickier. The CuFF was beyond her experience.
“I assume you all know why
you’re here.” Gigi started, uncertain whether she’d delivered this stock
motivational speech before. If she had, she didn’t remember. But then, they
wouldn’t either. “You screwed up. I don’t know how, or why. Maybe you pissed someone
off you shouldn’t have. Maybe, you were just born unlucky. Maybe you just
volunteered. Honestly, I don’t care. All I know is that we have a mission, one I
mean to succeed. And I need each of you in order to accomplish that.”
She looked them each in the
eye as she spoke, left to right, listing off their names and team functions silently
as she passed, linking them to a face and distinguishing feature. Norene
Wilmots, security, beaded maroon hair. Ghalib Baidu, security, short and
muscular. Ranjit Patel, corpsman, piercing black eyes. David Bryce, heavy grav
vehicle driver, horseshoe moustache. Kai Meinert, driver/cargo master, rugged.
Thomas Maahes 17, gunner, charcoal gray fur.
She held each of their gazes
a moment before moving on. Most had open expressions and dropped their eyes
when she stared too long. Patel developed a condescending sneer before he
finally acceded, rubbing his neck. She came to Maahes last. Unlike the others,
he just stared back, undaunted, evaluating her though green cat’s-eye irises. Gigi
couldn’t decide whether it was a challenge or just normal CuFF behavior. But she
thought she might like him. At the very least, she hoped she could count on
him. None of the others looked like Marines. He was Navy so as close as she
would get.
“The trick is, while I know
what your jobs are,” she weighed the datapad in one hand, “I don’t know the
extent of your abilities. I don’t know your strengths or weaknesses. I don’t
know your aptitudes or shortfalls. I don’t know how to assign you into
cross-supporting teams. And I don’t have time to learn.”
She stood to emphasize that,
while admitting weakness, she was still in charge. “That means two things.
First, when I give an order, I expect it to be obeyed. Out here results matter.
There is no try. Second, communication is paramount. If you see or hear
something I or someone else needs to know about, sing out. We are a team, which
means our lives depend on each other while we’re here.”
“If I could tell you where
here was,” she continued, “I would. Command has deemed that information not relevant.
That means from touchdown to dust-off, we treat dirtside as hostile territory.
“We’re here for an escort mission.
In brief, we’ve been ordered to exchange a preloaded cargo container and a cryo
unit for a second preloaded container at a specified location. We’ve been
supplied a Buffalo
“Assignments: Meinert, you
will drive the Buffalo
“Ok then, Meinert, you and
Bryce check the vehicles in the cargo bay and verify our container is properly
strapped down. Task Wilmots and Baidu as you need them. Maahes, crosscheck the
Nyala’s weapons interface. Patel, confirm the cryo container is properly secured.
Each of you will need to familiarize yourself with your own equipment and load
it up.”
“Who’s second in command?”
Patel asked, adding casually, “You know if something goes wrong.”
A reasonable question, though
given his earlier comments Gigi suspected he asked it as a provocation.
“Maahes. I’ll brief him in the Nyala.”
“Didn’t you say communication
is paramount?” Patel countered. “How’s he going to assume command if he can’t
even speak?”
Maahes’ tail swished back and
forth once. A sign of annoyance? Gigi had no measure of the feline’s mental
state. Without an interface in the briefing room, all he could do was listen.
“There’s a comm interface in
the Nyala’s gunnery station. Maahes is the only other one here I know has LOW
OrbIT experience.”
Patel opened his mouth to
protest. Gigi cut him off. “If you don’t like my decision, Mr. Patel, I suggest
you take it up the chain of command.”
Patel snapped his mouth shut.
“Ok, people. Let’s get to
it.”
---
Gigi caught up with Maahes in
the Nyala. Meinert had commandeered the others to re-strap the cargo container
on the Buffalo
Maahes was plugged into the gunnery
interface as he ran through the checklist for the weapons station. Gigi dropped
into the commander’s seat just below the turret. She noted their nav was an
inertial navigation system rather than a GPS. Wherever they were headed, it was
either primitive or someone wanted this mission to stay strictly off the books.
“You got a minute?” she
called up to the turret.
Maahes popped his furry head
out of the custom gunnery compartment. “What’s up, Lieutenant?” The Nyala’s
comm interface was primitive so his voice came out sounding eerily artificial
and computer constructed, like an ancient text to voice app.
“I wanted to brief you on the
rest of the mission details.” Gigi plugged her datapad into the slot by the
commander’s chair and transferred their orders to the gunnery station. She
watched as he accessed and skimmed the file.
“Seems like a pretty
straightforward drop and swap,” he replied though the interface.
“There’s some ancillary information.
A picture.” She pulled the hardcopy photo from the file envelope and held it so
he could study it. Closer, his fur smelled clean and reliable. She hoped she’d
made the right choice.
He stared at the picture
moment and then wrinkled his nose and sniffed it. “I’m not really good with
faces, Lieutenant. What’s wrong with his eyes? They shine like ours in low
light.”
“I think he’s a Bloodite, or
at least been exposed to the Blood Eye Virus at some point.”
“Like our medic,” Maahes
noted.
Gigi returned the photo to
the envelope and then slid it down beside the commander’s seat. “You know where
it is if you need it.”
“Why not scan it and upload it?”
His whiskers flicked forward then back as if in confusion.
“I figure if the higher-ups
wanted it available to everyone, they would have done it themselves.” Gigi eyed
him for a moment. “But let me ask you this, Thomas: what’s your evaluation of
the rest of the team?”
The CuFF tilted his head
sideways “You do understand that calling me ‘Thomas’ is like me calling you
‘girl’ right, Lieutenant?”
Was he making a joke? It was
hard to tell with the crude intonation of the comm interface but she thought he
was. She suppressed a smile. She definitely liked him. “Sorry. ‘Maahes.’ Call
me Gigi.”
“Not much information in the
files, Gigi. I get the feeling some of us have worked together before. But our
bush medic doesn’t smell quite right.”
So she wasn’t the only one.
“Anything specific?”
“Nothing I can hook my claws
into.”
The thought they’d worked together
resonated with Gigi. Suddenly, she caught a flash of memory: a picture,
coordinates and troops approaching across the ice. Then it was gone, as elusive
as smoke on a foggy morning.
“You ok, Lieutenant,” Maahes
asked. “For a second there, you looked like a kitten about to chase a ghost.”
Gigi shook her head. “Fine. I
need to finish up with preparations before the drop. If you think of anything
else, let me know.”
He eyed her enigmatically
before replying. “Aye, aye.” Then he pulled back into the gunnery station.
---
The drop went smooth and by
the numbers. Not that there was anything any of them could do other than ride
it out. Whoever was driving didn’t even give them a view. Probably would have
revealed too much information. Not that they could do anything with it now.
The Nyala could have made the
last of the drop unassisted. Its gravitic drive was designed for high altitude
insertion. The Buffalo
The landing zone was a dun,
sandy Mars-scape. A flat, hard-packed, rock-strewn plain surrounded by sweeping,
rippled dunes that undulated about a klick away, like in an old holo-vid of an
ancient Egyptian desert. The air didn’t conform to that image. It was warm,
dense and humid but breathable and untainted. Gravity was Earth-normal plus
roughly twenty-percent. The sun, a Class M dwarf, hung low to the horizon, casting
a deeply shadowed pinkish glow across the landscape. One large and two small
crescent moons hung like an uneven string of pearls across the pale blue-violet
sky.
Gigi ran that information
through her knowledge of human colonized worlds, at least those on record. She
hoped they were still in authorized LOW OrbIT space, not on some undocumented
Fringe colony. She narrowed it down to a handful of possibilities, none of
which gave her a warm fuzzy about their mission. She had a feeling she knew
which one it was but didn’t want leap to any conclusions. She hoped she was
wrong.
“Goggles on,” Gigi ordered as
she adjusted her nightshades. “These red dwarfs flare without warning.”
The combination of gravity
and atmosphere left everyone winded as they policed up the landing site. In a
matter of minutes, the chutes and covers had been stowed and buried. After a
quick crosscheck to ensure no damage had been sustained, both vehicles eased
off their pallets, the Buffalo
Gigi dropped a waypoint for
their location on the INS interface then issued her deployment orders. “The
Nyala will take point. Bryce, use our sensor suite to pick a navigable trail
for the Buffalo
They picked their way across
the barren landscape, the Nyala sniffing out stable ground. They made good
progress despite the terrain. Gigi kept an eye on their lat/long coordinates as
they progressed. She noted the first time the hundredths clicked over, dropped
a waypoint, and then waited for the second. When it came, she dropped another
waypoint. From the distance between, she calculated it would take another an
hour to reach their destination. She then plugged in the coordinate ratio into
an equation that gave her the radius of the planet. Rough numbers came up
between ten and eleven thousand klicks. A big planet.
She used that as a final
filter against the colonies of human space. She had a nagging feeling that
she’d done this set of calculations before, on another planet, for another
mission. As troops approached across the ice.
Only the worst possibility
remained. Scorn. The birthplace of the Green Revolution. The first colony to
fall through a marginally democratic process. Later, the Greens had refined
their tactics and parlayed that victory into another on Down 2, and then Blood.
When LOW OrbIT had finally taken notice, The Greens had gotten impatient and embarked
on a full-scale, multi-system revolt that had taken five years and most of LOW
OrbIT’s military energy to counter.
The threat to Renewal was
quickly relieved. But the human cost of reclaiming Darwin
So, Scorn, Down 2 and Blood
remained in Green hands, though even they didn’t see eye to eye with on forward
doctrine. Scorn and Down 2 felt Blood was too liberal in its interpretation of
Green dogma. Blood believed that was a deficiency that could be corrected after
more systems signed on. Blood had never fully supported the violent policies of
the Green Revolution and had thus avoided the worst of the sanctions that
followed its failure. Down 2 had sidestepped the most damaging by virtue of
being a Russian national colony.
As a LOW OrbIT chartered
colony, Scorn had suffered. At least until the government Balkanized once it
became apparent that the Interstellars were intent on prosecuting a shadow war using
human rights trials, bounties and outright assassinations. While Scorn remained
a hotbed of Revolutionary thought, and occasional action, the Greens lacked
even a shadow of the long arm they’d once cast. Now, the planet was just
another heavily monitored fringe colony brooding on the margins of human space,
pining for its days of glory, mostly forgotten.
Except by the bounty hunters,
the armchair strategists, and the political refugees who had fled both sides of
the conflict. And the LOW OrbIT spy masters who still sought to decode the secret
of the Greens’ meteoric rise, and thought they had the leverage to extract it. None
of which gave Gigi comfort as to why she and her team might be here under a
shroud of secrecy layered down to mindwipes.
Her eyes drifted
instinctively back to her monitor, sweeping her quadrant for contacts. With a series
of taps, she switched the feed from sensors to enhanced view to raw video. Had
it suddenly gotten brighter out there? The dunes had taken on the bleached out
color of drifted snow.
Her previous memory returned
unbidden. Troops approached across an ice sheet dancing with windblown flurries.
Sprinting across it, she urged her team toward the goal of the extraction
ship’s cargo ramp buried in a drift, knowing in her heart they would never make
it. The enemy was already firing low-percentage shots that sent crystal shards
ricocheting across her path. Their vehicle was a slowly burning composite hulk
a couple klicks back, an unlucky casualty of a low-probability volley from a
pursuing ice-cat. Her team’s comm channels had been compromised and were flooded
with Russian alternating between entreaties and outright threats. But Gigi
still had their prize slung over one shoulder, the objective of their mission.
The limp burden of an underweight body.
She turned her head to see
how her passenger was faring, but didn’t have time to focus before a flicker of
motion snapped her head back forward. The underslung turret of the extraction
ship swiveled her direction. That was it then. Mission failure. She knew the protocol: leave no prisoners. Destroy as much
evidence as possible before dust-off. Her heart sank yet she kept running anyway,
just as she’d been trained. Never give up or give in unless you received a
direct order.
Then an artificial voice cut
through cacophony of Russian on the comms. It took a moment for the words to
sink in. “Mission team. Get. Down. NOW!”
By force of will, Gigi
stopped her legs from catching her on the very next stride. An instant later,
she was falling. She twisted to absorb the worst of the impact. As her shoulder
hit and snapped her helmet against the ice, her field of vision brightened to
white-hot as the ship’s weapon unleashed a narrowly focused fragment of the
sun….
“Solar flare,” Gigi called
into the comms, firmly back in the commander’s seat of the Nyala. “Make sure
those goggles are on and tight.”
The sand-strewn terrain
beyond the windows bleached further as though a giant sodium vapor security
spotlight panned across the landscape. The red sun brightened to nearly double
strength then faded just as quickly.
Gigi surveyed her screen again
for contacts, and found none. “Security team, report by sector. Left flank is
clear”
“Right flank, clear,” Wilmots
reported.
“Aft sector, clear,” Baidu
confirmed.
“Forward sector, clear,” the
comm interface spoke for Maahes. The same artificial voice and intonation Gigi
remembered from the ice. Is that what had earned Maahes a position on her team?
Or was her mind just filling in missing time by spinning a convenient story?
She couldn’t focus on that
now. They were about two klicks from their destination by her calculations. “Wilmots,
float a drone. I want a look at what’s up ahead.”
After a moment, Wilmots’
response came, “No drones loaded, Lieutenant.”
Bad enough Gigi didn’t have
real-time satellite coverage but now they were supposed to approach the
rendezvous blind? Even on Scorn, she couldn’t assume that enemy observation was
limited to line-of-sight. Someone was insisting they do this the hard way.
“Ok, Meinert. Hold position
with the Buffalo
“Got it,” was her only reply.
The two vehicles inchwormed
their way through the dune complex, never coming within direct line-of-sight.
Like a one-man, bounding overwatch where point always remained in the lead. Not
ideal but Gigi saw no other way to protect the Buffalo
A klick and half into the
maneuver, the desert gave way to the fringes of civilization. The dunes sloped
down to the ragged circle of another hardpan plain, held back by lines of snow
fences at the edge of a frontier oasis. Beyond, the grid-work of a settlement awaited,
its low, pale buildings constructed from some hidden desert quarry, its sage
green gardens overwashed with sand.
Gigi called the Nyala to a
halt. She scanned the outpost from her vantage. The main road took a straight
shot in toward a central square. The settlement appeared uninhabited. No heat
or energy signatures. Walls and roofs partially collapsed. Dying palms and
tumbleweed grasses clogging backyard garden plots. Sand drifting along the
streets. An abandoned, low-tech ecoforming site.
Gigi shook her head. With so
many angles and side alleys, her current approach would be worse than useless.
It would actively leave the Buffalo Buffalo
“Meinert, snug up the Buffalo
To her surprise no complaints
followed. Within minutes the Buffalo
“I need you two to perform
recon,” Gigi said. “See the main street that leads to the central square?” She
didn’t point in case they were being watched but both of them glanced over her
shoulders to the town below. “Baidu, I want you to scout one block left of it,
Wilmots, one block right. The Nyala will cover your approach. Signal back all
clear and we’ll start down. We’ll cross-check at each intersection. Take up concealed
covering positions on either side of the square. Radio silence. Hand signals
only unless you need cavalry. Got it?”
They both nodded. At least
they seemed prepared to do their jobs, if not overly enthusiastic by their
expressions.
“Enough of the powwow.” Patel
chimed in from the Nyala’s rear hatchway. “We’re late for the rendezvous,
Gagnant.”
Gigi flicked her hand for the
other two to proceed before turning on Patel, the barrel of her gauss rifle pointed
at the dirt just below the threshold at which he crouched.
“Is there a timetable I’m
unaware of, Mr. Patel?” she asked. “No? Then get your ass back in that vehicle.
They’ll wait until I’m good and ready.”
Patel grumbled as he crawled
toward the cargo compartment. Gigi climbed back inside. “Look sharp, Maahes. I
want those two fully covered as they make their way down. Bryce, keep us ready.
We move on my signal.”
Gigi alternated between
watching Baidu and Wilmots pick their way down toward the settlement, and
scanning the outer buildings for telltale signatures and movement. The pair
took advantage of what scant cover was available on their descent, Wilmots
slightly better than Baidu despite her unorthodox appearance. Within minutes
they disappeared into the ruins. Gigi continued scanning as she waited. A few
minutes later, Wilmots ducked around the back of a building and delivered a
series of hand signals. One vehicle, seven hostiles, all in the central square.
Main road clear.
“Bryce, take us onto main approach,
half road normal. Meinert, snug up tight. We’ll give you what cover we can.
Look sharp, people.”
The Nyala eased silently down
toward the main road above a meter high buffer of air. The Buffalo
A few minutes later, the
Nyala entered into the central square. Gigi thought about holding the Buffalo
Gigi instructed Bryce to
swing the Nyala broadside to their position. She ordered Maahes to swivel the gun
turret to sight in on the top central quarter of the truck’s cargo, just far
enough elevated not to be interpreted as a direct threat but a clear warning
she wouldn’t tolerate any nonsense. Meinert parked the Buffalo
Gigi dismounted with her
gauss rifle and strode across the sandy pavers. One of the seven detached from
the group to meet her. She zoomed in her nightshades on his face. They aligned
it to the facial recognition metrics from the stored picture. Malick Sennikov,
a little grayer perhaps, slightly fleshier and with a few more weatherworn lines
but definitely the man from the photo. Except he had no red cast to his eyes.
That froze her heart. Until she remembered her nightshades would filter them
out as a reflection.
Gigi raised her left hand to
her temple and tapped in an adjustment for a raw feed. And there they were,
ruby eyes just like an albino rat. With his genetics, definitely a Green. She
closed the filters back down.
Then she heard the scuffle of
a footstep behind her. She spun around, gauss rifle leveled, to find Patel
scurrying to catch up. She had a spontaneous urge to shoot him right then, just
pull the trigger and put him out of her misery. Instead, she turned back and
continued walking. Ordering him to return to the Nyala at this point probably
wouldn’t do much good. Besides, she wanted to know what he was up to.
Sennikov waited half a dozen
paces away. A smile ghosted the corners of his mouth. He couldn’t have helped
but see her reaction to Patel. Gigi swore again inside her head.
When Gigi stood before him, Sennikov
towered several centimeters over her, but that didn’t faze her. Time to seize
the initiative. She shifted her weapon to her left hand and extended her right.
To his credit, Sennikov only hesitated an instant before he grasped it. Typical
male, he tried to play a little dominance game with his grip and seemed mildly
surprised to find hers reacted with equal pressure. But Gigi wasn’t paying attention
to him. She was watching Patel out of the corner of her eye, shielded and
enhanced by her nightshades as he stepped up beside her. And there it was, a
slight chin nod of recognition toward Sennikov. That about tore it. Her eyes flicked
back to their contact who made no acknowledgement in return.
After a sufficiently extended
handshake that became prolonged into almost embarrassing territory by LOW OrbIT
standards, Sennikov released his grip. Gigi concentrated not to flex her hand
or shake it out and lose whatever respect she might have gained. Instead, she
shifted her gauss rifle back.
“I understand that’s for us,”
she pointed to the cargo container on the flatbed. “Any chance your guys can
unload that themselves?”
“The arrangement was you bring
the crane,” Sennikov said in an accent that marked him as being out of LOW
OrbIT circulation for some time. He looked around behind her at the Nyala. “You
also brought a container? And something else, yes?”
She nodded slowly as she
looked toward the ground then back up at him with her head cocked as she smiled.
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
She was pleased to see that
threw Sennikov for a second. But only one as he turned toward the truck, put two
fingers to his mouth and whistled then swung an arm over his head and dropped
it. Four of his crew got busy with the fasteners for the tarp. A moment later,
they slid it off. Incongruously, a standard white starport cargo container lay
beneath, an exact duplicate of their own plus or minus a few odd scuffs and scratches.
How the old truck’s suspension held up was beyond her.
“We need it out from under
that awning to employ the crane,” she commented.
Once again, Sennikov whistled,
this time accompanied by the universal hand signal for come here. One the
Greens jumped into the cab. A second later the truck roared to life, belching
thick, black smoke like a slowly roused dragon. Jerkily, accompanied by a
grinding sound that could only be from mechanical gears, it exited its lair and
approached, squealing to a stop a dozen meters away. The other Greens trotted
over, rifles once again in hand.
Gigi murmured into her mike,
“Meinert, bring up the Buffalo
It could. Meinert parked the Buffalo
Meinert stepped down out of
the Buffalo
“Task their people as
necessary,” Gigi said then looked back at Sennikov. “They know what they’re
doing, right?”
Sennikov looked at her
quizzically. “Where is the rest of your team? We bring seven, you bring seven.
That was the arrangement.”
“My people have other duties.
None of them can be spared.” Gigi nodded toward the Buffalo
Sennikov cocked his head,
then shrugged. He strode back toward his group, ripping off a quick string of Russian,
or some lesser known Slavic language, that sent his people scurrying.
“I’ll go prep the cryo unit
for the exchange,” Patel said, heading back to the Nyala.
Gigi considered ordering him
to stand fast but thought better of revealing any further dissent. Instead, she
called to his retreating back, “Don’t bring it up before my say-so.”
Patel flipped a hand casually
as his only acknowledgement that he’d heard.
Sennikov’s men did exactly as
Meinert instructed, with one of the men acting as an interpretive foreman. They
hooked the winch to it, then inclined the Buffalo Buffalo
Meinert returned the bed to
level and began repositioning the Buffalo Buffalo
Gigi adjusted her
nightshades. She took the opportunity to see if she could spot where Baidu or
Wilmots might be hiding, knowing the Greens might be doing the same. Time
seemed to have slowed to a near standstill. Since they’d been dirtside, the sun
had barely crawled across the sky.
The wind picked up. Dust
danced in small dervishes across the pavers as Sennikov’s people harnessed
their cargo container for unloading. They wrapped their mouths with bandanas
but seemed otherwise unperturbed. The buildings sheltered them from the worst
of stinging sand.
After instructing his people,
Sennikov had retreated to the shade beneath the awning where the truck had been
parked. He sat at battered café table that had been revealed and poured himself
a cup of what might have been tea from a pot heated by a low-tech flame unit.
He leaned back and sipped his steaming beverage while he watched the activity
on the square as if he was on holiday somewhere in Old Europe.
When his eyes drifted across
her, Gigi was just another piece of the scenery. Suddenly, she felt extraneous
and exposed.
Meinert seemed to have the
transfer process under control. So Gigi opted to check on Patel, and maybe see
if Maahes had spotted anything she’d missed. After catching Meinert’s eye with
a wave, Gigi turned to amble back toward the Nyala.
Maahes synthetic voice in her
ear stopped her dead. “Heads up, Lieutenant. I couldn’t stop him.”
Just then Patel appeared from
behind the Nyala guiding a grav-sled loaded with the cryo chamber. What the
hell did he think he was doing?
Gigi strode to intercept him
through the cloud of fine dust now swirling around the square like icy snow.
Their paths intersected halfway between. Gigi planted herself directly in the grav-sled’s
path and held up her left hand for him to stop, her right clutching her assault
weapon tight as it leaned against her shoulder. Patel ignored her, not slowing
the sled even a fraction. While the cryo chamber had no real weight suspended
on the sled, it still had full momentum. There was no way she could muscle it
to a stop.
“Shut it down, Patel.” She
dropped the barrel of her weapon, centering it on his chest. “Now.”
He eyed her narrowly for a
moment, then keyed the sled to stop. The flapping leg of her fatigues snapped
against the front of the cryo unit when it finally slid to a halt. Gigi didn’t
flinch. Another inch and her knee would have bent backwards. Now she was
pissed.
She skirted the grav sled,
her weapon centered on Patel as she moved. When the barrel was almost touching
his chest, she channeled the voice of a drill instructor she vividly remembered
from basic, “Do you have a hearing problem, or a learning disability I don’t
know about, Patel?”
Patel said nothing, just
stared at the gauss rifle aimed at him, his dark eyes occasionally flashing
red. A Bloodite, definitely. Just like his companion across the square.
“Now that I have your full
and undivided attention, I want you to turn this sled around and put it back in
the cargo compartment of the Nyala. When I give the order, and only when I give
the order, will you bring MY cryo chamber back out.” Gigi rested her left hand
atop it as she spoke to emphasize her ownership. “Is that understood?”
Cold from the unit seeped
through her tactical gloves as she faced Patel down. The icy-hot sensation
triggered another memory. The same memory as before with a picture, coordinates
and troops approaching across the ice. Only this time she could see a face. The
face of her objective. A dark-haired girl too young to be directly involved in anyone’s
power play. A kidnapped pawn in someone else’s game. A girl, just like the ones
on The Farm, innocent and prepubescent. With that a flood of memories almost
overwhelmed her. The bodies of young girls playing hide and seek through
rolling hills in a yellow-green mist that smelled sickly sweet.
Gigi snatched her hand away
from the cryo chamber as if it’d been burned. Patel stood wide-eyed. She now remembered
the echoes of his panicked voice screaming in her ear as she ran across the ice
with her burden. “They’ll never make it. Maahes to take them out!” Instead,
Maahes had saved her life, she might never know why. And when she’d next seen
Patel inside the extraction ship’s cargo bay, he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
Gigi’s face hardened to a
mask.
“Open it,” she commanded.
“What?” Patel stammered,
blinking for a second in incomprehension. “If I do, she’ll die.”
Gigi brought her left hand up
to support her gauss rifle. She took a step back to make sure Patel didn’t
attempt something foolish and get himself killed. Though there still might be
time for that later.
“Open the observation port.”
She gestured to the cryo unit with her weapon and crouched slightly. “Now!”
Patel did as she asked, slowly
and deliberately keying a sequence on the control pad. He looked sick, as if he
longed crawl beneath the cryo chamber, or into it. He had to know a memory had
broken through, something dangerous. His expression said he knew exactly what
she’d see. That meant he’d never been mindwiped like the rest of them. Oh, that
was just perfect.
The reinforced cerema-steel
cover retracted. Gigi flicked the barrel of her weapon to motion Patel away. He
complied without hesitation. Gigi stepped up and peered inside.
The observation port quickly condensated
in the warm, dense air. Ice crawled and networked its way inward from the edges
like the time-lapse of a spider spinning a crystalline web. But not before Gigi
could make out the same pale, gray-eyed angelic face from her newfound memory sleeping
peacefully within, haloed by the same dark hair.
Gigi’s eyes closed unbidden.
She almost reeled as she understood what she’d been sent to trade.
“You’ve got company, Lieutenant.”
Maahes’ voice snapped her eyes back open to the red-tinged reality of Scorn.
Gigi turned, combat crouching
further. Sennikov was halfway across the square. His Greens had abandoned
Meinert’s ropes to regain their rifles, leaving the cargo container swinging in
midair midway beneath the crane between the truck and the Buffalo
Gigi backed to where she
could watch both Patel and Sennikov, then keyed her mike. Which one to choose?
She opted for the one her intuition said she could count on. “Wilmots,
non-lethal response. Draw a line in front of the armed crew.”
A trail of paver shards
sprang up about a meter in front of the closest Green followed an instant later
by the staccato crack of a gauss rifle’s flechettes going supersonic. Everyone in
the square froze.
Gigi shouted across to
Sennikov. “That’s it for warnings. Tell you men to lay down their weapons.
Slowly.”
Sennikov said nothing just
extended an arm and slowly lowered it until it pointed to the ground. His crew
laid their rifles at their feet and stepped away.
“Wilmots, get down here,”
Gigi murmured into her mike. “Baidu, stand fast.” Wilmots’ position was compromised
anyway. Gigi just hoped Baidu would be as willing to comply if she gave another
order to fire.
Now what? Gigi adjusted the
weapon in her hands. She was dangerously off script and everyone on both sides
knew it. “Ok, Sennikov, get your men back on those ropes. We complete the
exchange as agreed. Only we keep the cryo chamber.”
If the Green leader was
surprised she knew his name, he didn’t show it. “And if I refuse?”
“Then my gunner will blow both
containers and we walk away.”
A slow, sly smile spread
across his face without warming it. “Your passengers wouldn’t appreciate that.”
Passengers? What the hell was
he talking about? Gigi desperately needed a moment to think.
She didn’t get it. Wilmots came
trotting across the square. Gigi kept her weapon trained on the Greens. There
were too many moving pieces now and too few people she could count on. She’d
have to make do.
“Wilmots, collect their
weapons. Maahes, cover her. Bryce, maneuver as necessary. Keep all fire clear
of Meinert’s container.” Gigi held her breath until she saw everyone began to
comply. They were still with her. So far.
“Patel, join Sennikov,” she
ordered.
Patel raised his hands
slowly. “I had no choice, Gagnant. Just like you...”
“Shut up and move.” Gigi
gestured with her gauss rifle.
“You’ll regret this, Lt.
Gagnant.” Sennikov looked at her like a fish he was about to gut with a
well-honed filet knife.
“Yeah? Does anyone even know
you’re here?” She glared at him behind her nightshades. “And where exactly on
Scorn do you report being ripped off as a part of your illegal smuggling deal?”
Sennikov said nothing though
his eyes danced with blood and fire in the low-slung light of Scorn’s seemingly
stationary sun.
“That’s what I thought,” Gigi
added with disgust. “You Greens have no problem using kids. Just more collateral
damage in your political game. Well, some of us won’t be complicit in the underage
slave trade.”
“That’s not what this is,”
Patel protested.
Gigi turned on him with her
gauss rifle. “I don’t know what story someone fed me that convinced me to
abduct her, Patel, but I remember enough now that you’d do best to keep your
mouth shut.”
Patel’s complexion greened as
he looked even sicker than he had before.
Wilmots came trotting back
weighed down with six rifles cleared of ammunition. She dropped them in a pile
several meters away.
“What’s it going to be,
Sennikov?” Gigi asked. “Get your men on those ropes and you still have a chance
to walk away with something. Otherwise my gunner starts target practice with
the container we brought.”
Sennikov looked like he’d
bitten into a lemon but he waved his Greens back to the ropes. Within minutes,
Meinert had the container settled on the Buffalo
“Ok, Sennikov, you and your
crew move to the center of the square,” Gigi ordered.
The Greens shuffled across
the pavers. The wind had died back to a simple breeze, cooler but not
refreshing.
“Now on your knees with your
fingers interlaced behind your heads and ankles crossed,” Gigi commanded. The
dense air and adrenaline suddenly made her giddy. “You, too, Patel”
Slowly, the Greens dropped down
and assumed the position she’d ordered. If they were afraid she would execute
them, none of Sennikov’s Greens showed it. Instead, Gigi had Wilmots zip-tie
them one by one while she kept the others under the watchful eye of her gauss
rifle. She saved Patel for last. He shook like a dried leaf in an autumn wind.
With the Greens secured, Gigi
issued new orders. “Maahes, Baidu, keep them covered. They so much as breathe
rapidly, take them out. Wilmots, you’re with me.”
Gigi strode across the square
to where Meinert was waiting.
“What the hell was all that
about, Lieutenant?” the cargo master demanded as she ratcheted the last of the
cargo straps tight.
Gigi ignored her question.
“Is that container secure?”
“It is now,” Meinert snapped.
“I almost lost both the container and the Buffalo
Gigi shot a look toward
Sennikov, remembering something he’d said. She headed for the rear of the Buffalo
Gigi climbed the ladder onto
the back bed. The cargo container still towered over her. She waved Meinert up.
“Open it,” Gigi ordered.
Meinert looked uncertain.
“You understand if we break the seals, it will be a nightmare for whoever signs
off on it in Customs.”
“Like I give a damn,” Gigi
shot back. “I need to know what’s so valuable someone’s willing to trade a
little girl for it.”
Wilmots and Meinert exchanged
a confused look. Wilmots adjusted the grip on her assault weapon. Meinert shook
her head and mumbled but started keying in an emergency override sequence into
the cargo container’s control pad. She acknowledged and dismissed two red-light
warnings. When the third came up, she stepped aside. “It’s all yours, Lieutenant.
Place your right hand on the scanner and say ‘accept’ along with your name,
rank and agency. It’ll be logged under your authority, classified as military
necessity.”
Gigi laid her hand on the
datapad without hesitation. “Lieutenant Griselda Gagnant, LOW OrbIT Marines.
Accept.”
The control pad went red and
the Customs seals fell away. The door sighed open as the airtight integrity was
broken. The scent of densely packed humanity stung Gigi like a slap. Meinert shielded
her nose and turned away.
Gigi grabbed lip of the cargo
unit’s door pulled it open until the interior was fully exposed. Inside, a
dozen shabbily dressed men and women clustered as far back from the hatch as
they could. Three were standing, peering toward the entrance. The others were on
the floor slouched against the walls. Half shielded their eyes against the light.
The rest looked too exhausted to bother. All were haggard, gaunt and deathly
pale. None looked younger than middle age. Wrappers from ancient League of
World’s humanitarian aid ration boxes were strewn between the grungy and
stained foam pads that littered the floor. A composting toilet with a makeshift
privacy screen squatted in one corner.
An underspeced scrubber unit in desperate need of new filters rattled
along the ceiling in a heroic yet futile attempt to cleanse the air.
Wilmots peered over Gigi’s
shoulder.
“Fugees,” Gigi whispered,
stunned and at a loss as to how all the pieces fit together. She felt dizzy. She
had no training to fall back on for this.
“I don’t think so
Lieutenant,” Wilmots responded. Gigi shot her a questioning look. Wilmots
pointed. “Check out their shoes.”
Then Gigi saw it. In contrast
to their dirty, mismatched styles of clothing, all of them, men and women alike,
wore nearly identical, unscuffed shoes. Odd, but Gigi still didn’t know what it
meant.
“Prisoners,” Wilmots said
when Gigi turned back to her with an uncomprehending expression. “Probably
politicals. Fugees come as they are. Prisoners get issued shoes on release. We
used to see it all the time in Customs Enforcement.”
A hostage exchange. That made
sense. Who knew what the other container held. Arms? Parts? Luxury items?
Anything Scorn could no longer import. While it disgusted her, it wasn’t her
problem. These people were.
“Wilmots, tell Patel he just
got a reprieve. Cut him loose and bring him here. Make sure he brings his med-kit.”
Wilmots wasted no time
trotting across the square, her beaded hair clicking as she ran.
The comm in Gigi’s ear
chattered to life. “Lieutenant, Baidu here. Our friends brought company. I’ve
got a dust column rising from the road outside the settlement. Maybe two or
three vehicles.”
This mission couldn’t get
much worse. “ETA?” Gigi asked.
“At present speed, fifteen
minutes tops,” Baidu replied.
“Acknowledged. Return to the Buffalo
She turned to Meinert. “Get
ready to move. We pull up stakes as soon as Baidu hits the square.”
“And the refugees?” Meinert
raised an eyebrow.
As heartbreaking as it was,
Gigi knew she couldn’t let these people out of the cargo container. She didn’t
have time to assess their condition. Prisoners or refugees, it didn’t matter.
Isolation made people unpredictable. You never counted on them treating you
like a liberator. And she had no idea who she was dealing with. All this was
well above her pay grade.
Wilmots returned escorting
Patel, med-kit slung across his shoulder. He eyed her as like a dog that had
grown accustomed to being hit.
“Here he is, Lieutenant,” Wilmots
said, pushing him forward.
“Get up here, Patel,” Gigi
ordered. When he hesitated, Wilmots prodded him with her assault rifle. He
stared into the cargo container, more dismayed than surprised.
“Wilmots,” Gigi instructed as
she watched him. “I want you to get that cryo chamber back onto the Nyala. Tell
Bryce to get ready to move.”
“You can’t take her, Gagnant,”
Patel protested. “She’s his…”
Gigi cut him off. “Shut up
and get inside.”
Patel’s eyes went wide but he
didn’t move.
“You heard me, get in there.”
She gestured with her gauss rifle.
Reluctantly, he obeyed,
skirting as far away from her as he could. “I don’t know what you expect…”
“I expect you will keep all
of these refugees alive and healthy until we make dust-off. You will render any
aid and comfort they need, even if that means wiping their asses and washing
their feet. And should anything happen to any one of them, I will hold you
personally responsible, in a very intimate and terminal way.”
“You can’t…” he started.
“Unless you want to be listed
as a combat casualty here and now, Patel, you will shut up and obey my orders.”
Gigi propped her nightshades onto her forehead and leveled her most
intimidating stare. “Am I clear?”
“But you…” Patel shrank
farther away.
She shifted her grip on her
weapon and intensified her glare. “I said, ‘Am - I - Clear?’”
“Y…yes.” Patel stammered as
he swallowed hard. “But my eyes,” he whispered. “They’ll think I’m one of them.
They’ll tear me apart.”
“Aren’t you?” Gigi asked,
remembering his voice on the comm from the previous mission. Before he could respond,
she swung the cargo door shut.
“Seal it up,” Gigi ordered
Meinert, resettling her nightshades then jumping down from the bed of the Buffalo
As she strode across the
square to the Nyala, Gigi shot a dark glare at the cargo container resting on
the pavers. She’d let the Greens keep their ill-gotten gain, and their lives.
That part of this Devil’s bargain didn’t concern her. Her priority now was
getting all her people off Scorn intact.
---
Her team’s retreat to the
dust-off site sped by. Without having to pick their way through unknown
obstacles, the return journey flew in a fraction of the time. Gigi had the Buffalo
At the dust-off site, they
found the evac ship waiting. Meinert and Bryce scrambled to get the vehicles
loaded while the others secured their gear for departure.
Gigi sent Maahes to scout the
ship. She ordered Baidu to gather food, water and all their spare equipment.
“Field gear, rations, the emergency kits from the Nyala and the Buffalo
Gauss rifle still in hand,
Gigi climbed the steps to the bed of the Buffalo
There was no time to check on
the refugees. They would have to take care of themselves when they awoke until
they arrived at their destination, whatever it might be. If the Greens had
radioed ahead to whatever passed for air defense in this district of Scorn, it
could be a rough ride back to orbit.
Baidu and Wilmots returned,
their arms laden with supplies. She had Baidu pile everything he’d gathered inside,
away from the hatch, while she and Wilmots installed the improvised
filters.
Maahes reported the evac ship
was an unmanned cargo drone outfitted with cryo chambers rather than
acceleration couches. Someone intended for them all to be out before they made
orbit. Gigi ordered Patel to put Wilmots, Baidu and Maahes under while she,
Meinert and Bryce finished up. They’d follow as soon as they were done.
The moment the vehicles were
secure, Gigi sent Meinert and Bryce after the others. She told them she’d be
right behind.
She gave Patel just enough
time to get them both into cryo before keying the confirmation that everyone
was secure for liftoff. After a moment’s hesitation, she layered in a lockdown of
the external hatches which would open them under her authorization only. A
delaying tactic she knew would never hold.
As the evac ship accelerated skyward,
Gigi returned to the Nyala’s cargo compartment, her gauss rifle still in hand. She
knew she didn’t have much time. She should have been in cryo with the others by
now. If she wasn’t under by the time they docked, and her weapon wasn’t logged
back into the armory, she knew silent alarms would be set off at the drop ship.
Security would be waiting at the hatch.
It wouldn’t take long for
Patel to come looking. While she waited, Gigi keyed her command override into
the cryo chamber’s control panel and reviewed the girl’s initial medical scan. She
didn’t know exactly what she was reading, but LOW OrbIT medical flags were
exceedingly hard to miss.
“What the hell, Gagnant?” Patel
complained as he approached. “We’re not secure, yet. I barely got Meinert and
Bryce under.”
As soon as she heard his
voice, Gigi keyed a different sequence into the control panel. If she thought
she could have left Patel at the square, she would have. But she was glad she
didn’t as she needed him now. It would be better if there was a doctor was
present but she had to rely on him.
“What are you doing?” Patel demanded.
“Waking her up,” Gigi
answered as she engaged the automated warming cycle. LOW OrbIT military tech left
as little to human error as possible. Physical crew was just another redundant
system in case anything went wrong.
“You can’t.” Patel took a
step forward. “She’ll die.”
Gigi leveled her weapon. Patel
froze. “You said that before but I don’t believe you. It doesn’t make any
sense. I doubt Sennikov had any better medical facilities than we have here, or
a much better doctor than you.”
Gigi watched the medical
processes kick off one by one. She only needed a few minutes before the warming
cycle was irreversible. If there was an issue in bringing the girl back to
consciousness, it would be revealed before then.
“You know what I think?” Gigi
looked up to see that Patel’s gaze had followed hers. She adjusted her grip on
her weapon. He remained unmoving. “I think you’ve got only one shot at waking
her. That you detected some genetic predisposition toward cryo-sickness in your
initial scan. That if I wake her, she’ll never go under again. Am I close?”
Patel swallowed hard, but
didn’t look at her. He just stared the control panel, watching the seconds tick
by. “You’ll never get away with this.”
“Probably not.” Gigi
shrugged. “But by the time someone sorts it all out, I’ll have bought her enough
time to make sure someone doesn’t use her as a bargaining chip again. If I’m
lucky, they’ll think she’s just another refugee.”
“You’ve got it wrong,
Gagnant,” Patel shook his head, finally looking up at her, fear lingering
behind his eyes.
“Do I?” She glanced at the cryo
unit readouts. Green lights across the board. “You were the only one of us who
wasn’t mindwiped. You knew the details of this mission all along. You
recognized Sennikov at the square. He’s a Bloodite, just like you. I think you
were his contact. That’s why they needed you here.”
Patel said nothing. He
remained frozen, as if some other threat scared him as much as she did. Or
someone. But when the threshold for a safe abort slipped by without an alarm
sounding, his posture crumpled. It would still be another twenty minutes before
the girl awoke but now there was no turning back. After she awoke, she couldn’t
be put under again for several hours. By then Scorn would likely be too hot for
any covert operations for quite some time.
“Get her into the cargo
container with the others,” Gigi ordered.
Patel didn’t move. He just
stared at the readouts in disbelief. “They’ll never believe she’s a refuge, not
in that chamber.”
“They don’t have to,” Gigi
replied, “Just get her in there.” She gestured with her assault weapon for
emphasis.
This time, Patel obeyed
without comment. The grav sled did all the real work. At the Buffalo
Gigi began to relax. She felt
a smile creep across her face. She had saved the girl at least for the moment.
She might wake up cold, scared and alone but at least she was out of the hands
of the Greens.
The retrieval ship stopped
rumbling. They must be approaching the orbital rendezvous. It wouldn’t be long
now.
“You really have no idea what
you’ve done, do you?” Patel clutched his head in his hands.
“Why don’t you explain it?” Gigi
replied, collapsing at the edge of the Buffalo
“You think you’ve pieced it
all together.” Patel looked up at her wearily. “I warned them your mindwipe
might not stick. But you aren’t remembering the full picture.”
“And what’s that?” Gigi
raised an eyebrow.
“We didn’t kidnap the girl on
Down 2,” Patel sighed. “We kidnapped her back.”
A new memory unfolded in
Gigi’s head, this time the briefing along with the girl’s picture. This is a
hostage situation. You are the rescue mission.
Confusion washed over Gigi. That
didn’t make any sense. “Then why take a shot at us just when we were almost to
the extraction ship?”
A metallic ka-chunk rumbled
through the cargo bay. The docking clamps engaging. Security wouldn’t be far
behind. It wouldn’t take them long to bypass the hatches.
“We couldn’t risk her falling
back into their hands because of what they might do. It was just lucky that
Maahes’ stunt didn’t kill you both anyway.”
“I don’t understand,” Gigi stammered,
though she had a sinking feeling she did. Her confidence began to slip away.
“Why is she so important? Who is this girl?”
The hatch to the cargo
compartment blew inward followed by the hollow thump of a grenade launcher. A canister
rattled across the deck then tumbled to rest, hissing beneath the Buffalo
Before he passed out, Patel
managed a two-word answer that confirmed her worst fears. “Sennikov’s daughter.”
The words hit Gigi like a blow.
Her memory fragmented, no longer intact. Another face with another name
resurfaced just as her world started to go dark. Nick Michaels. What exactly
had she done?
---
Gigi awoke feeling as though she’d
done all this before. Something was wrong.
Read Time-Lock (Memory Block, pt. 3)
© 2014 Edward P. Morgan III
