Enemies of the empire, p.12
Enemies of the Empire, page 12
I stopped in my tracks. “You rescued Aria?”
“I saw a couple of technicians leading her somewhere when I came aboard. I originally wanted to rescue you first, but when I saw her, I knew I wouldn’t have a better opportunity.”
“But how did you know it was Aria? I mean, you don’t even know what she looks like.”
“I accessed the Merciless’s network. They’ve got all kinds of information on her, including photos of her outer casing.”
I scrutinised Val, reluctant to just take her word for it that Aria was waiting for us at the escape pods. It all seemed too good to be true. As we stood there in the middle of the corridor, a couple of red-uniformed engineers passed, giving us quizzical looks. We were probably drawing too much attention to ourselves. But I didn’t care. I couldn’t leave the ship without Aria.
“Nolan,” Val pleaded. “She’s waiting for us. I promise. Now will you hurry up and get a move on? If we don’t get out of here right now, we’re going to be finding ourselves back in that chamber real soon, only this time, there will be two execution tables.”
I eyed Val for a moment longer before finally giving her a curt nod. Val seemed to exhale a breath she had been holding for a long time, then she turned and walked a little way further down the corridor. I followed, keeping my distance so as to make it seem like we didn’t know each other. I wasn’t sure whether termination officers and phantomguards often fraternised, but it seemed unlikely. When we reached the end of the corridor, we entered into a long, low-ceilinged room with dozens of circular doors all lined up along one wall.
The moment we were both inside the room, the main door closed behind us. As I surveyed the escape pods, searching for the one that contained Aria, I heard a sharp beeping at my back and looked around to see a red light had appeared above the main door.
“Val?”
“I’m sorry, Nolan.”
My eyes widened with horror as I suddenly realised the truth of the situation. “Val!” I yelled, taking a step towards her. I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to put up much of a fight against an ex-shadowarden wearing the armour of an imperial phantomguard, but I was going to give it a try.
“Nolan, there’s no time. Ravus has her completely locked up. There’s no way we’ll be able to get her out - not now, at least. We need to get out of here, regroup and make a new plan.”
“A new plan? Do you really think they’ll just keep letting us sneak aboard this ship? When Ravus finds out we’ve escaped, he’ll triple security. We’ll never get another chance like this. Never.”
“Maybe, but we’ve got a better chance of getting her back if we get off this ship now. I know how you feel, Nolan. You’re not the only person in the universe who’s ever had to leave behind someone they loved. But we have to leave the ship without the droid - otherwise we’ll both end up dead, along with the droid.”
My entire insides seethed with rage - with seething betrayal - as I wrestled with what Val was telling me. Sure, there was some truth in it. I couldn’t deny that. But I couldn’t just leave Aria. I couldn’t just get into an escape pod and launch myself away from the ship while she was probably being subjected to more horrendous torture as I had those very thoughts.
“Open this door,” I demanded, pointing to the door through which we had just come.
Val shook her head.
“Open it.”
“Nolan-”
“I don’t care, Val. I don’t care about risking my own life to save her. I’m grateful you came aboard to rescue me. Really, I am. But I don’t need any more help. You get out of here. If I can, I’ll follow - but only with my droid.”
Val looked at me for a long moment, then she nodded. “I understand.”
Val moved towards the door controls.
“You do?”
“Yes.”
Val tapped about on the door controls, and a moment later, a green light appeared above the main door, and the double door whooshed open, revealing the corridor. Where they were keeping Aria and how I would get her out, I had no idea. But I had to try.
“Thanks, Val,” I said, looking around. “You really-”
The rest of my sentence was abruptly cut short, never to be uttered aloud as Val thrust the tip of a stunstick into my belly.
20
Chapter 20
“I had to do it,” said Val. “If I had just left you there, you would have-”
“Died trying to rescue the only person in this universe I still cared about.”
Val yanked the lever on the side of the door back and forth, but the door of the escape pod remained firmly shut. Its sensors should have alerted the central computer that we had reached the ground, burying ourselves in a long trough that scored the red earth in the outskirts of Terl. But instead of allowing us to safely exit, we were trapped inside, forced to endure each other’s company in close proximity as our oxygen supply steadily dwindled.
“Well, that would have been a stupid way to die,” Val grumbled. “Maybe if you’d actually listened to expert advice, instead of just deciding what to do all by yourself and never even considering for a second that your own plan might be as idiotic as the person who thought it up - maybe then you might actually have had a chance of getting your droid back.”
Val shoved against the door, but the door held firm.
“Will you just stop doing that for a moment,” I said, pulling my hypertool from my pocket. “I can hot-wire the door controls.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the door controls,” Val grunted as she continued trying to force the door. “The problem’s with the locking mechanism. You can’t fix it by crossing a few wires.”
“Well, it doesn’t look like you can just fix it by barging it with your shoulder, either.”
Val gave one last effortful grunt, and the door gave way. Hot desert air rushed into the escape pod, filling our lungs with crimson dust.
Val flashed me a triumphant look. “You were saying?”
I scowled as I pushed past Val and emerged out of the escape pod into the blinding sunlight. What time was it and how long had I been in the imperial battlecruiser? It had been dark when I had first crept aboard, but now the sun was hanging low in the sky over Terl. The capital city of Reydros III shimmered like a mirage under the harsh sunlight, and I felt myself longing to be back inside the climate-controlled dome that covered the city.
“You know what your problem is, Val?” I said, jabbing my finger into her chest.
There was a hiss of air at the sides of Val’s helmet as she pressed the release buttons. A moment later, she had lifted the phantomguard helmet from her head, revealing her short shock of silver hair and her leathery, war-hardened complexion. Despite the force of my anger, I felt myself suddenly itching to make a run for it. The imperial phantomguard’s uniform was scary, there was no doubt about it, but Val’s face was scarier.
“What?” she said, her eyes flashing dangerously.
“You just can’t stay out of other people’s business,” I croaked, a lot less confidently than I had originally imagined myself sounding before Val had taken off the phantomguard helmet.
“Right.” Val tossed the phantomguard helmet across the sand. “I bet you’d like it if I just left you alone to your own devices. Oh, no. Wait a minute. If I did that, you’d be dead by now.”
“Believe me, I’d much rather be dead right now than stuck out here in the middle of nowhere with you.”
Val’s iron countenance suddenly cracked, and I found myself for a split second staring at a fragile, vulnerable old woman. Before I could figure out something to say to soften the harsh blow I had dealt with my cutting words, the crack closed up, and the hardened exterior returned.
“Come on,” said Val. “We can follow the mag train line back to the city.”
Val pointed into the distance where a grey road ran in a straight line across the horizon.
“I’m not coming,” I said.
“You’re not what?”
“I’m going to stay out here. I’ll find somewhere I can lay low for a while, then I’ll sneak onto one of the transports and get off-world.”
Val blinked in the dusty, wind-bitten air. “What about your droid?”
I shook my head. “Aria’s gone. I know that now. There’s nothing I can do to save her. Besides, even if I could somehow get her off that ship, the empire would still chase me to the ends of the universe to get her back. Maybe if I run myself, they won’t be so bothered.”
Val looked at me with a pitying stare. “Nolan, there’s still a chance to get your droid back. If you’d only just-”
“No, it’s all over. I can see that now. You were right. It was better that we just got off that ship in one piece. At least now I’ll be able to live out my days on some distant planet on the fringes of the empire’s reach.” I gestured towards the mag train trackway. “You get back to the city. I’ll be fine. I can take care of myself. There are some ration cubes in the escape pod and a urine recycler. I’ll find somewhere to hide out near here.”
Val looked at me with a mixture of confusion and pity. For a long moment, she just watched me, no doubt trying to make up her mind as to whether to just leave me there or give me another jolt with the stunstick and drag me back to the city. But eventually she just nodded once and said, “Alright, Nolan. It’s your choice. I won’t stand in your way. Not this time.”
I nodded back. “Good. Take care of yourself, Val. Don’t make too many more daring rescue attempts just to save desperate nobodies.”
“You’re not a desperate-”
“Goodbye, Val.”
Val nodded. “Goodbye, Nolan.”
Val turned and strode off through the sand towards the mag train trackway, kicking up a trail of red dust in her wake. I looked around at my surroundings. Somewhere out here, there had to be a place I could hide out until the heat had died down. I knew there were bandits who lived in the wildlands of the desert. I would have to watch out for them. But I could take care of myself. I had been doing it all my life. The only difference was…
Now I was going to do it all alone.
21
Chapter 21
Before the empire came to Reydros III, there was only the Reydridian Kingdom. A group of colonists had settled on the planet some centuries earlier, and had begun the long, laborious process of colonisation. Being that they were only a small group - not much more than a few thousand in total - and even taking into account that they included within their number many capable scientists, engineers and architects, the settlers of Reydros III were slow to build their new world. Over the course of several decades, they had managed little more than to string together a few res towers, two solar refineries and a nutrisynth facility. But despite the lack of the usual kind of amenities found on most planets in the Tulridian Galactic Order - the galactic governmental body to which Reydros III belonged before the arrival of the empire - the colonists seemed happy enough. They had no wars, no major incidents, no uprisings - none of the normal business that often went hand in hand with setting up a colony on an uncharted world. It had all been going well - a rare instance of a successful colonisation that the president of the TGO talked about in glowing terms (as well as took credit for when election season rolled around).
The empire had changed all that.
When the empire had come to power, the TGO had been amongst the first of the galactic orders to fall. Reydros III had quickly fallen under the dominion of the empire, and a rapid colonisation unit had been dispatched to bring the planet into line with current imperial colonisation standards. A new capital city had been set up, and it had been given the name ‘Terl’, which had no meaning and was merely chosen at random by a computer designed specifically for the purpose of naming all the new planets that were steadily falling into the hands of the growing empire.
That had been the end for the colonists of Reydros III, and of their city, Zialir. Over the centuries since the empire had taken power, the city had fallen into disrepair. And now it was little more than the ghost of a city - filled with fallen facades, broken windows, rubble-strewn streets and creaking signposts that pointed to nowhere. On the vast, sprawling parklands, wild harakeen performed their bizarre mating dances, while in the lofts of the res tower, sinor eagles made their sticky black nests. The solar processing plant had long since ceased to function, and the nutrisynth facility had been scavenged of every last ounce of food-gen resin a long time ago. It was a world for no one, with nothing to offer even the most hermitic citizen of the empire.
But it was good enough for me.
At least, it would do for a few weeks. I had no idea whether Ravus and his imperial forces would still be looking for me. After all, they still had Aria, and I had pretty much nothing that would have interested them - except maybe my life, but even then it felt unlikely that they would even have bothered to drag me back to molecular disintegration chamber if they could have helped it.
Still, I would play it safe. Hide out until I was sure the heat had died down, probably after the Merciless had left the starport. Then I could slip back to Turl, sneak onto some cargo freighter and make my way to another world. It was the same basic plan I had envisioned when I had first contemplated running away with Aria, only now she had been surgically removed from the plan. I felt bad about it - as any father would when they decide to leave their children behind - but I had no choice. There was nothing to be gained from another attempt to rescue my sanitation droid.
No, I thought, as I bit the meat off a leg of flame-grilled harakeen. She’s not my sanitation droid anymore. She’s the emperor’s.
I chewed the harakeen meat slowly. It was tough - tougher than I had remembered from my time in incarceration on the harakeen farm when harakeen meat had always been on the menu in some way, shape or form (except when we were treated with grot). The difference in taste might have come from the fact that this was a wild harakeen, and not one of those farm-grown fowls. Alternatively, it could have been made tough by the manner in which it had been caught.
I had heard stories about harakeen flesh toughening if the black-feathered creatures were killed in a way that alarmed them. That was supposedly why all harakeen in the universe were transported to Cidian Cetra, where the empire’s most brilliant scientists had created a slaughterhouse that killed harakeen before they could even realise what had happened. The harakeen I was eating had been killed by sinor eagles, then stolen from their ravenous blue beaks by a shrieking ex-inventor wielding a large section of metal piping.
Of course, it was also possible I had just over-cooked the bird. I had never been much of a chef. The cooking in my house had always been the purview of my wife - and then later Aria. Still, it was the first decent food I had eaten in over sixteen hours, so I wasn’t exactly going to throw it into the fire and just eat red dirt instead.
I wonder what they’re doing to her now, I thought, and almost as soon as the thought had appeared, I chastised myself for even thinking it.
Aria was gone. I had to forget about her now. When I got to wherever I was going, I could build a new droid, something that wouldn’t be highly sought after by the empire. Sure, it would probably have that same bland, humourless personality that most droids possessed, but if it could clean the house, keep stocks of astro chocolate topped up and cook crab spaghetti once in a while, then it would do just fine.
On the other side of the fire, a line of yellow eyes stared down at me with the animal version of bitter contempt. The sinor eagles had perched on top of a long, horizontal, dragon-like bronze structure that was laid out in the middle of the parklands. Having had their dinner stolen, they were waiting to pick the flesh off the bones - or possibly to find themselves a new dinner in the form of something with fewer feathers and more fingers. I would have to make sure to lock the door of the res tower lobby when I slept, and to lower the steel shutters over the windows if I didn’t want to wake up with an army of blue beaks hovering over my face.
In the distance toward the east gate of the city there was a soft, low humming that might have been thunder if it had not persisted at the same sound and frequency for what felt like a long time. The golden eyes of the sinor eagles swivelled to point in the direction of the sound, and after making their examination with their far-sighted eyes, they flew off one after another, disappearing into the shadows that lurked at the top of the res tower.
“What the hell?” I said as I got to my feet, my hand still clutching the harakeen leg. I squinted into the distance. From where I was standing, I could see the east gate, its glimmering, metallic arch illuminated by the reflected brightness of the moon. On the other side of the gate was the desert, and then there was nothing, not until you got to the outskirts of Turl. The bandit camps were a long way away in the Kulinor Hills. Whatever was making that noise, it didn’t come from the desert or the mountains.
Dropping the charred harakeen wing onto the floor, I picked up the megascope I had scavenged from the nearby electrical store. The thing was ancient, and I had had to tinker with the circuits to get it working again, but now it worked well enough. Not as well as any modern megascope, but it was still better than cupping your hands over your eyes and squinting.
On the display of the megascope, a light blue grid was superimposed over the magnified image. In the top right-hand corner, there was a distance reading. Not being able to make things out much more clearly, I twisted the rangefinder on the top of the device, and the distance reading increased. I hit the button for night-mode as well, but then immediately turned that off. Seeing everything in shades of bright green might have technically been clearer than seeing the world in just the bare moonlight, but it looked like a hideous mess. The nightvision on modern megascopes was much better - much more akin to someone just turning the brightness up. How had people ever managed to use these ancient technologies?
