Interstellar gunrunner, p.17
Interstellar Gunrunner, page 17
I brushed the crystalline sands with my boot. “Fine, fine.”
“Seriously—if you want this to work, you have to persuade these people to fight and die for a vision of what Lattram might be,” Chaska said. “These people can’t imagine anything other than what they have right now.”
She jerked her chin toward a group of pounder children standing on the roadside, staring us down. They sniffed the air in a gesture I can only imagine to be judgmental.
“Right you are,” I said, offering the children a weak wave. They took off running. “See? They adore us already.”
When Chaska didn’t reply after a few seconds, I glanced back over my shoulder. She was holding her ops-tablet with both hands, studying its main screen with a look of pure wrath.
“What is it?” I asked.
She spun the tablet’s screen toward me as though it meant something. In my eyes, it was a jumble of grid lines, red dots, and scrolling digits.
“Our crews,” she said finally. “You see there? They’re moving them up to the orbital station already.”
I nodded as though the graphics made sense. “Well, that solves that.”
“Solves it? What do you mean?”
“Look around you, Chaska. We’re arming lopers—around here, trigger-happy lopers. And here I was, thinking that phrase was redundant.” She cocked a brow. “Never mind. What I’m saying is, it’s safer for them to be up there than down here. Once our cuddly friends start sweeping Hegemony territory, they won’t be checking their targets twice. It’s going to be a massacre.”
Chaska eyed her ops-tablet again, her frown receding. “You might be right.”
“Of course I am. I’ve seen plenty of coups, Chaska. Discretion is always in short supply.”
“But that doesn’t make it any easier for us,” she said. “If they’re on that orbital station, we’ll need to do it the brute-force way. We can’t depressurize it.”
If I hadn’t already been captivated by Chaska, I’d have fallen under her spell right then and there. She was a woman after my own heart. A through-and-through pragmatist, even if she herself didn’t accept the label.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll figure it out.”
She didn’t offer a reply, let alone a reassuring nod.
“We will,” I said, more serious now.
“I’d like to think that, Bodhi. I really would.”
“But?”
“But I know better. I’ve been fighting this thing since I was a girl, and I’ve seen things that still keep me up at night. We can’t always get our people back.”
“This time, we can.”
“Well, well, look who’s the optimist now.”
“And look who’s the pessimist.”
Chaska smirked. “I’m speaking from experience, Bodhi. You know how I got wrapped up in this whole thing?”
“Oh, do tell.”
“My parents got taken to a reeducation camp when I was five,” she said, recounting it as though it were a fact from an archive. “They never came back. So I guess you could say this war raised me.”
“Sorry to hear it.”
“Are you?”
“A bit, yes.” I met her eyes. “But pain is also the womb of greatness.”
“Spoken like a man with daddy issues of his own.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’ll have to work harder than that to crack me open, Chaska.”
She folded her arms, appearing poised to deliver a fatal blow to my self-image, but quickly turned her attention to the mewling of a sand-choked turbine rushing over the flats.
Not ten seconds later, Urdas pulled up on his tube-shaped, armored hovercraft and killed the engine. Then he hopped off, peeled his goggles up onto his forehead, and grinned at us.
“Good news,” he said in his scratchy soprano voice. “They loved the sample of that gun. Real kick to it. Looks like they’ll give you a good rate on the salvage.”
I nodded. “Two hundred tons for the Loperators?”
“Yup.”
“And the fuel?”
“They threw in a few barrels…”
“And the attack?”
“Oh, they’re definitely in for that. They’ve been itchin’ to hit the local garrison for six seasons.”
“Cheers, Urdas. Head back, if you would, and tell them we’ll bring the ship in for the exchange.” As the insurgent tipped his cap and headed back to his hovercraft, I glanced Chaska’s way. “Now, would you look at that? With a touch of belief in ourselves, we’ve managed to reverse our fortune in no time.”
“Don’t celebrate too early,” Chaska said.
“Why? Superstitious?”
“Something like that.”
“Never fear, Chaska. From here on out, everything will go to plan.”
If the universe itself is alive, I know nothing of its personality aside from the fact that it enjoys challenging statements of certainty. As soon as the words “go to plan” left my lips, a shrill whoop carried over the flats, followed by ten more whoops, then a thousand. A parade of pounders streamed out of Funfunlights and headed toward us.
“They look… eager,” I said, shifting nervously.
The pounder at the head of their pack—the leader, I suppose—aimed the Loperator A3 model at a nearby rock pile and fired five times. Dust and rock shards exploded in whirling blossoms, drawing cheers from the crowd. Echoes of the concussive blasts rippled out toward us.
“You cannot be serious,” Chaska growled.
“Now, let’s be reasonable,” I said. “They might have excellent discipline when—”
Wild shrieks and trilling overtook my words. The entire horde of pounders launched into a spirited chant:
“Kill! Kill! Kill!”
As you might expect, Chaska was less than pleased with my failure to report the Loperator A3’s explosive functionality. So far less than pleased, in fact, that she confronted me about her disappointment not long after we departed the outskirts of Funfunlights.
“I’m going to rip your throat out,” she said.
I tossed a hopeful look at Kesh, who was busy analyzing Umzuma’s flight trajectory. Pretending not to notice the imminent murder, I suspect.
“Chaska, let’s discuss this,” I replied. “This whole thing is a misunderstanding.”
“Misunderstanding? You told me you were giving them onetime-use rifles.”
“Which the Loperator A3 is, to be fair.”
“It’s not a rifle! It’s a handheld missile battery!”
“Technically, no,” I said, holding up a finger as she stalked toward me. “You see, a missile has its own accelerant and—”
“Technically, I’m going to gut you like a fish.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“What were you thinking? You lied to me, Bodhi.”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“Nothing is, right?”
“No, Chaska. This time is different.”
“How!?”
I was halfway to breaking the news about Left and Right when I remembered Kesh’s presence. And by Kesh’s presence, I mean the extinction-level threat of nanite soup posed by revealing any information about my constructs.
“It’s complicated,” I told her. “But you have to believe me, this was an accident. And it’s too late to go back.”
“Yeah, it is, because you already armed an entire planet with those things.”
“Not yet. We still have to head west and finish the arming.”
Chaska poked my chest. “I can’t believe I trusted you. I knew this was bad from the start.”
“I understand you’re upset,” I said calmly, “but everything will come together. I promise.”
“No, it won’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because even if we manage to hit that ship and clear it out—which I sincerely doubt you’re capable of making happen—this world’s set to go up in flames. All thanks to you and your brilliant plan.”
“First of all, thank you for acknowledging the brilliance. And second…”
My well-crafted reply was cut short by a flickering transmission line request in my peripheral vision. It took me a moment to recognize the source of the request—UR781, the code for Urdas’ personal transmission station back in Funfunlights. Chaska must’ve read the concern on my face, because she stepped back and folded her arms, waiting.
I opened the line. “Urdas?”
Chaska’s eyes sprang open, and she waved her hand in demand of an explanation.
In response, I held up the customary cool down finger.
When Urdas’ face materialized in full, it was even wilder than usual, his hair thrown into ragged tufts and gaze darting around the transmission room. “Hey, Bandi, I’ve got some news you need to hear.”
“It’s Bodhi.”
“Bodhi, yes, sorry. Where are you now?”
“On our way to the other loper clans. Why?”
“Yeah, well, about that…” Somewhere near his station, glass shattered and pounders let out feral screams. “So remember how you said… that I should say… that they needed to wait for me… to give your signal… before they attacked?”
I nodded, trying to make sense of Urdas’ zigzag phrasing. “Yes?”
“The pounders have decided to attack now.”
“Now!?”
“Now.”
Chaska, in spite of only hearing my replies to Urdas, seemed to grasp the situation in full at this point. She laced her hands behind her head and began roaming in circles like a caged animal.
“How far’s the nearest target?” I asked him.
“For the pounders, about two hours,” Urdas replied. He ducked as a metal bottle streaked over his head. “Maybe you can catch ’em?”
I ran the mental math and realized there was no way. We’d given Loperator A3s to thousands of the pounders, and they each seemed to think and plan in groups of four to five. Even if we managed to swoop back there and find them, burning precious fuel in the process, we’d be working against the dangerous psychology of a mob. A mob armed with explosive-firing rifles and generations of rage.
“Urdas, stay put, alright? I need you to—”
“Nope!” Urdas shouted. “Your plan’s nuts. Nuttier than nuts. I’m gettin’ off-world before this whole thing crashes and burns! So long, fella. Thanks for the commission!”
And with that, Urdas cut his transmission line.
I faced Chaska, who was still wearing grooves into the floor. “Well, Urdas sends us his best regards and has full confidence in our ability to improvise.”
Kesh walked up to me. “What failure has occurred now?”
“There’s no failure,” I said, “only a temporary barrier to success.”
Chaska’s nostril-breathing grew louder, sharper. “Bodhi’s just killed any last fetus of hope this mission ever had.”
“That’s an overstatement,” I said. “Kesh, trust me. We’ve got it handled.”
Kesh’s thermal scanner remained contracted. “What… has happened?”
I pressed my palms together to form the broadly accepted symbol of let’s take a step back, everybody. As I’d predicted, it didn’t placate Kesh, much less Chaska. “Well, put simply, the lopers who live in the salt flats are on their way to attack a Hegemony outpost.”
“Which means the Hegemony will lock everything down,” Chaska snapped.
“Not necessarily!”
“When they see those rifles, they will.”
Much as I’d have liked to exchange verbal blows on that point, Chaska was correct. The Hegemony was intellectually backward, but not stupid. At the first sign of explosive-rifle loper trouble, they’d throw the planet into a complete cordon and alert the Purgation. Especially if the Purgation was carrying something sensitive enough for Nerikhad to steal it.
“The answer is simple,” Kesh said. “We must call for a coordinated strike that aligns with this assault, and proceed to the orbital station sooner than expected.”
Chaska and I paused, mutually slapped into silence by the idiocy of Kesh’s logic.
“Sooner than expected?” Chaska said. “You mean… now?”
Kesh nodded. “Why not? Bodhi Drezek has a plan for seizing control of the station.”
“Oh, he does now?”
“He had better. If he does not, there may be grave consequences.”
That veiled threat sent a whirlwind through my mind. All at once, the half-cocked ideas and wishful schemes I’d been digesting slid together with a mason’s precision, leaving behind a plan. A foolproof plan. Such a wave of insight can only be likened to a scientist making a historic breakthrough.
“Kesh is right,” I said, beaming despite our present situation. “Chaska, start thinking of a motivational speech for the lopers.”
“Is that really a priority right now?” she asked.
I winked at her. “It’s our way aboard that station.”
Fifteen
It has famously been said that desperate times call for desperate measures. I would amend the statement slightly. Desperate times call for creative measures. And if there’s one thing that has ensured my survival, it is creativity.
If you are not a creative person yourself, then you may not understand the actions I am about to present. You may find them overly reckless or foolhardy or even callous. That’s fine. In my eyes, there was no other course of action we could take. You see, all creativity must be paired with conviction to succeed. A sculptor or poet cannot produce work if they lack conviction in their own creativity. To that end, I believed in my own vision and did whatever it took to actualize it—up to and including sabotaging my earlier plan.
Due to the pounders’ impatience, we’d lost a precious eight to ten hours. Those hours would have been used to arm the remainder of the lopers, but alas, fate had other plans. As such, I made an executive decision to touch down at Bigbog, a nearby city built among the swamps and gurgling waterfalls of the central basin. Our visit wasn’t done with the intent of supplying the residents, however. We’d already delivered the Loperator A3s to Bigbog that morning.
So why return, you ask? Simple. Bigbog was instrumental to my plan of “public relations.” More on this soon. For the time being, all you need to know is that I had a good reason for standing in neck-high, insect-infested reeds just outside the city limits. I waited there with bated breath, mostly on account of the gnats trying to worm their way into my nostrils. Fetid water pooled around my waist and seeped through my jacket lining.
Forty meters ahead, Chaska stood atop a woven root bridge spanning two waterlogged trees. Thousands of lopers packed the swamps below her, some waving their rifles, others thrusting obsidian spears or polished hatchets into the air. To the unknowing eye, it was a small army gathered before an empress. Circling carrion birds and curtains of mist rounded out the ambience.
“Lopers, I stand before you as your comrade in arms,” Chaska shouted, prompting the creatures to drum their chests and squeal. “Some of you may know me as Chaska, daughter of Pardesa. Others may know me as commander of the Lattram Regiment, part of the greater liberation effort. I was born on Lattram, the same as you all, and I, too, have suffered the endless injustices of the Halcius Hegemony. I have had my family taken from me. I have seen my friends killed. I have watched homes and memories burn in their fires.”
As the scene played out, I was once again struck by Chaska’s spirit. If nothing else, she was alive. Many people mistake themselves as being alive, but in actuality, they are just temporary things drifting through the world. To be alive, deeply alive, is a rare thing. And Chaska was. Every word affirmed that truth.
“Like you all, I spent years in terror,” she went on. “I slept and woke with guns in my bed. I ignored the beauty of the forests to remain vigilant and ready. I didn’t dare to dream of freedom, because the idea was too distant, too impossible to fathom. But now… it’s here. The day of liberation is upon us. By nightfall, the Halcius Hegemony will have no place on this world. Their bones will rot in the mud beneath our feet.”
Now the lopers were on the verge of an all-out riot. They shook and sniffled with fury, leaping atop one another, howling. Good. The wilder, the better.
Chaska held up a hand, reining in the spectacle. “On my command, we will march upon every foul encampment on Lattram, and we will tear them up at the roots. None who are born of Halcius will survive this purge. None! Have courage, and have strength on this day. Your brothers and sisters are with you, as are those like myself, the humans who seek liberation. Our ships and machines of war will follow you into battle. Even if your weapons break down, use your nails and teeth. And if your morale begins to wither, look up into the sky and watch the Hegemony’s Worldspear vanish in a rain of fire! We cannot fail!”
Chaska thrust a fist into the air, and, as predicted, the lopers went absolutely berserk. It was the performance of a lifetime. A tightrope act that walked the line between inspired and melodramatic. To cap off the masterpiece, I crouched down among the reeds, descending until I saw only darkness.
We were ready.
Fifteen minutes after the proverbial curtains closed following Chaska’s speech, we found ourselves soaring skyward on Stream Dancer’s bridge. Recollecting this phase of the job in its full glory is difficult for several reasons, one of which being the sheer number of moving parts. More difficult, however, is excavating my state of mind during this mad ascent. Herein I will refer to this state of mind as “the fuzz.”
A working definition:
The fuzz (noun): A human conditioned marked by inner pandemonium, a shutdown of logical processes, and poor decision-making. Typically caused by task overload or emotional strain.
One side effect of the fuzz is a decrease in the mind’s ability to create and store memories. The body becomes a fleshy machine, a tool for achieving goals in a sloppy and often manic fashion. There is no room for self-awareness or introspection once the fuzz is entered. Such functions are a luxury that require brainpower, after all. What I am trying to say, perhaps confusingly, is that my mind was in a dark, muddy place prior to our encounter at the orbital station. There was so much to do, and so many fatal errors to avoid, that my mind sank completely into the fuzz.
