Huddled in doorways, she met frightened eyes, and people hurried away at her approach. In time, she arrived at a tiered shantytown, built from scraps and the remains of the colonial habitats. At first glance, it looked like all the most structurally valuable pieces had been scavenged and moved offsite. “What’s going on here?” she muttered.
A thin, ashen man stepped into view from inside
his home and stuttered, “W-We have nothing.
P-Please leave us alone!” He
succumbed to a fit of coughing that left him stooped over by its end. He slowly straightened, grimacing.
Taryn furrowed her brow. “I’m not here to take anything from
you.” She nodded toward the darkened
interior of his home, toward the others inside.
“What happened to the habitats?”
He studied her, and he coughed lightly into his
hand. “You don’t work for Rowan?”
“No. Who’s
Rowan?”
“She’s lying!” shouted a young looking woman from
inside, and she cautiously approached the entryway. She was thin, like her male companion, and
her brown eyes were badly bloodshot. Her
dark brown hair looked frayed and ratty.
“Get back inside.”
“Please go,” he hissed, and he returned to the
safety of his shanty. The woman closed
the poorly fitting makeshift door with a slam, and Taryn heard it latch. A chorus of coughs followed.
Screwing down her brow, Taryn strode to the shanty
door and pounded on it. “Look, I’m not
here to hurt you. I really don’t know
who Rowan is or what’s going on. My
friends and I came here to deliver some medicine.” She pounded again. “We’re here to help!”
A quiet moment passed, and she growled in
frustration as she spun about on her heels and marched away, back toward the
road. Behind her, she heard the door
creak open, and the ashen man shouted, “Wait!
Please wait.” Taryn turned back
to regard him. “It’s been a long time
since we’ve seen any friendly faces around here. Rowan takes great pleasure in tormenting us.”
“Who’s Rowan?”
He puffed his cheeks. “Rowan Fenmore. She runs Hygeia. Her and her kwercian army have been chipping
away at the rightful government ever since they got here.” He dryly laughed, followed by a moment of
coughing. Clearing his throat, he said,
“There has been no relief effort, not really.
She keeps us alive, but little more than that.”
Taryn stepped close and set her helmet down on a
gutted car. “Rowan Fenmore… Is she
related to Ashley Fenmore?”
The ashen man shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. She doesn’t actually talk to us, so much as
she herds us.” He glanced behind him and
swept his arm around the shantytown.
“All human. She saw to that. Except for the kwercians, she found a reason
to deport every member of every other race.”
Crossing her arms, Taryn looked puzzled. “Why would she do that?”
“Again, I wouldn’t know.”
“Dmitry, get inside!” barked the woman.
He glanced her way and said, “No, Sonja, this
one’s OK. I got a good feeling about
her.”
Sonja pointed past Taryn to the main road as a
glossy silver sky car set down. “That’s
nice, but Oren and his thugs are here.
You know what they’ll do if they catch you outside!”
His eyes wide, Dmitry bolted back into his shelter
and waved Taryn over. “C’mon,” he
hissed. “They’ll beat you to death if
they see you out here!”
She raised a brow.
“I’m wearing power armor.”
“Good luck, then.”
He closed and latched his door.
Taryn turned to face the distant sky car as its
gullwing doors butterflied open. A pair
of gnarled oak thugs stepped out, followed by a lean pine of a man. He tugged on the collar of his woven green
suit and surveyed the shantytown.
Immediately, his eyes befell Taryn.
She stood defiantly in her gleaming black armor. Her head feathers added a splash of red. With narrowed eyes, he approached Taryn with
his enforcers at his back. “Who might
you be?” he asked as he regarded her suspiciously. His goons moved slowly to flank her.
“Taryn Sikes.”
She scooped up her helmet.
The pine fellow looked her over. “That doesn’t match what’s printed on your
shoulder.”
“Yeah, well, the Captain hasn’t gotten around to
that yet.”
“Is he the captain of the Sanguine Shadow, or is that another misprint?”
Taryn shifted her weight over one hip. “No, that’s right. She’s
the captain of the Sanguine Shadow.”
Oren nodded. “Forgive me, but I thought Rowan got rid of all the xenos on Hygeia. For their own safety, of course. There’s a Canten’s pandemic here, you know. Maybe it’s best if you and your ship were on your way.” He pressed thin his lips. “For your own safety, of course.”
She squared her jaw. “What are you going to do to these people?”
“They’re sick.
They need their medicine.”
“Is that what you’ve got shoved up your ass? Because, I don’t see how it could be anywhere
else.”
He swallowed visibly and clenched his jaw. “How unpleasant.” Looking to his guards, he said, “Alon, Elon,
make an example of her. Make sure
everyone here sees the result.”
“Yes, boss,” rumbled the larger of the thugs.
Taryn sealed her helmet, balled her fists and
smiled.
·· • ··
An hour previous, Rowan watched as her kwercian
brutes marched single-file through a wide door, into a spacious warehouse. “It took you long enough! Stack them in that corner,” she said and
pointed across the room. Dutifully, her
oaken henchmen arranged them two-wide by two-high.
A particularly gnarled oak asked, “Anything else,
boss?” His massive arms creaked as he
lowered them to his sides.
“No. You
can go.” She crossed the room to inspect
her delivery. Glancing up long enough to
glare at her minions, she added, “Actually, Alon, get Elon and you two go find
Oren. Pay the shanties another visit. Their corrupt governor was just
assassinated. I imagine they could use
some guidance after such a shocking loss, and I don’t want them getting any
bright ideas.”
Alon, her burliest oak, grumbled, “Yes,
boss.” He followed the others as they
marched out of the warehouse.
Rowan returned to her examination. She ran her fingertips over the surface of
the first crate she came to. After a
moment, she straightened and stormed over to the cell door embedded in the far
wall. “Where were these crates supposed
to be delivered to before you stole them?”
Zerki answered, “They weren’t marked. We just grabbed all the medicine we could
find and packed it into the nearest containers.”
“Shit,” snarled Rowan. She took a moment to consider. “What facility?”
“I don’t understand.”
She slammed her wooden fist into the door, and a
deafening boom rang through the warehouse.
“I don’t have time for this! What
facility? I won’t ask again.” Furiously, she gripped her rifle and set to
unlocking the door. A moment later, she
threw it open and leveled the gun at D’Arro.
Zerki cleared her throat. “K’n-yal.
The Thayless Estate. If that’s
what you mean.”
Rowan scowled, but her expression quickly
softened, and she lowered her gun. “That
is what I mean.” She kicked the door
closed and set down her rifle. Puffing
her cheeks, she walked back to the crates, propping her chin in the crook of
her thumb and index finger. “Probably
meant for the Sector Three Outer Systems, then.
Good.”
“Why should it matter?” Zerki asked, but Rowan
ignored her.
Oren’s sky car was airborne a moment later, headed
south to the closest shantytown, while Rowan set to unlocking each crate. One at a time, she opened every large plastic
pill bottle she found inside and smelled its contents. Some time passed before she was finished.
Satisfied with her findings, she drew her phone
and dialed a number. She held the device
to her ear. After a moment, she said,
“Hey, it’s Rowan. Everything’s still on
track. I’ll keep this number for a few
more hours. Call me back if you get this
message in time.”
·· • ··
Lightning flashed from her teleport device, and
Taryn appeared directly behind the smaller brute. The machinery inside her gloves hummed alive,
and she tore free chunks of sappy bark from the assailant’s shoulders. As the oak man yowled in pain, arching his
back as he clutched at his wounds, she took the chance to spring from his head,
throwing him off balance and crashing to the ground. She landed on his neck, and a loud crack of
wood filled the air.
“Elon!” cried the larger brute. Gritting his teeth, with tears in his ears,
he loosed a primal howl and reached for Taryn as she flashed away in a bolt of
jagged light. A blur of motion, and
Taryn appeared behind Oren. She gripped
him around the waist.
“Alon, help!” he wailed as he felt himself lifted
up off the ground.
Momentarily confused, Alon swept around and found
Taryn as she hoisted his master. “You!”
he boomed and lumbered toward them both.
Again, he reached for her, past Oren, and she heaved. Oren cried out as he was launched up in the
air, and Alon tried to track him, then to catch him.
With a crunch, Oren hit the ground, dazed, his
arms and legs splayed. He coughed as he
tried to stand. “Help me up, you oaf,”
he barked, and Alon reached down for him, momentarily losing sight of his
opponent. A blinding flash of light, and
Alon found himself high up in the air, with Taryn’s arms around his neck.
Her internal display showed a diagram of her
suit. Every section was red, and the
arms and hands were bright red and flashing.
I’ve got to time this just right,
she thought, and she began to plummet along with the oak brute, directly down
on Oren.
Frozen with shock, Oren stared up at Alon as he
fell. It was the last thing either of
them saw as the burly oak struck the well-dressed pine with thunderous
force. Lightning flashed, and Taryn
reappeared where she had been, but at a right angle to her original direction
of travel. She shot across the clearing,
skipping along its surface, and she tumbled end over end as pieces of her suit
broke off, cast high in the air.
At last, she came to rest at the outskirts of the
shantytown. What remained of her armor
smoldered, and she wasn’t moving. Dmitry
and Sonja watched for only a moment, before they both dared to step outside
their home. Dmitry hurried to Taryn’s
side and coughed as he knelt to check for signs of life.
Lifting free her shattered helmet, he set his
fingers against her neck. Glancing to
Sonja, he exhaled a relieved sigh.
“She’s alive.”
“Thank God,” Sonja whispered, and she glanced
toward the slain kwercians. “Let’s get
her inside. See if we can’t get hold of
her ship.” She and Dmitry lifted Taryn
by the shoulders and strained against the weight of her armor, but were unable
to move her. Slowly at first, then with
growing boldness, more and more of the shantytown’s residents emerged. They lent their strength to dragging Taryn to
safety.
1 comment:
Love this! Book is looking great!
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