Colony 41- Volume 2 Page 3

  “Cusack, why don’t we launch a preemptive strike against them?” I recalled every strategy lesson I’d had in the Academy, and I knew there were tactics that a smaller force could use against a larger one that would actually be effective. “We could strike at them with a group of, say, ten or fifteen Freemen, then fall back, and keep repeating that over and over. If they lose enough of their troops they’ll stop to regroup, and then we can—”

  “Era,” he interrupted me, “it doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters,” I tried to argue.

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because.” He looked away from his scope to point out the window. “They’re here.”

  Looking out the window I saw what everyone must have seen by now. Lights in the sky marked the approach of their one remaining HoverHawk. On the ground beyond the wall, in the streets between buildings, marched dozens, and dozens, and dozens of gray and black suited Enforcer troops. Light and the noise of heavy engines gave the position of support vehicles following the lines of soldiers.

  It might have been my imagination, but I thought there were maybe fewer of the Enforcers than there had been before. The Children of the Event had thinned out their ranks, after all.

  “Well,” Cusack croaked, “you were right. I’m sure everyone can see that.”

  I picked up the binocs and knelt down by the tall rectangular opening, keeping to the side to be out of the line of sight for any overeager Enforcer snipers. The digital sights focused on the scene in front of me, awash in the lights from both the camp and the advancing army. As I zoomed in, I saw exactly what I had expected to see.

  Impossible odds, stacked against us.

  Rows of Enforcers marching in perfect unison, the visors of their helmets reflecting the light back at me in silver flashes, their assault rifles held at low ready with their fingers near the triggers. At perfectly spaced intervals among all of those troops were hovering metal canisters the size of a man’s torso and bristling with an array of weapons and scanners and folded robotic arms. Those were the floating metal death machines that First Marshall Avin Blake had created to keep the people of the Colonies in line. He called them security droids. I had a name for them, too. I called them Fluffy.

  Long story.

  There was no time for stories now, that was for sure. At the front of the line I saw the commanding officer of this force. Third Marshall Amicus. I’d never actually seen his face before, except from a distance. He strode along without a helmet, arrogantly confident in his safety, and I focused the magnification of the binocs on his strong jaw and his deep set eyes and the white puckered line of a scar that cut across his left cheek and up to where the tip of his ear was missing on that side. This man had seen serious combat in the past. His uniform was all black, except for the silver hash marks on his upturned collar that marked his rank.

  He was unarmed, but the two people flanking him made up for it.

  A woman on his right, a man on his left, both carrying stun pistols and electric knives on their belts and the same heavy assault rifles the other Enforcers carried slung on their backs.

  There were other Enforcers walking in the group at the front. These would be the senior troopers, I knew, either the ones who had the most experience in the field or the ones who had distinguished themselves by being more ruthless than the rest. There was one, in her helmet and battlesuit, with a long body and a confident walk that reminded me so much of… no. That was wishful thinking.

  They stopped a good distance away from the barricade of the wall. They were still a lot closer than was good for my comfort. “Why doesn’t anyone fire at them?” I asked.

  Cusack was quick to answer. “Commander Ross has a plan.”

  “Oh, really? Do you know that for a fact or are you just hoping?”

  “He’s got a plan.” It was the same answer, which is to say it was no answer at all.

  Plan or not, I set the binocs aside and picked up the assault rifle instead. The thing was long, and heavy, with a clip of ammunition wider than the span of my hand. Big bullets, but they were still bullets. I had to rest the end of the barrel’s shroud against the sill to take some of the weight. A shot from this thing could easily reach the troops out there. I could start picking them off, one by one, starting with the Third Marshall.

  And then all the rest of them would start shooting back. Hundreds of them. Right. Now I understood why Commander Ross was holding off. I just hoped that Cusack was right, and there was a plan here. Other than just waiting to die.

  A noise behind me made my head spin around, my short hair flying around my face. It was Jadran. His face was grim and he carried a shoulder-mounted photon emitter, something that could kill a cluster of people with a single shot from long distances away, and something I never suspected the Freemen would have in their arsenal.

  “Are you seeing this?” I asked him, tipping my head at the gathering army outside.

  “Yes. Hello, Cusack.” He knelt down next to me, resting the butt end of his weapon on the floor. “I was just outside conferring with Commander Ross. I came as soon as I could.”

  I kept my attention on the Enforcers, waiting for them to do something. Jadran was so close to me that his thigh pressed up against mine, and still I kept my focus on what was happening out there. I kept my thoughts from wandering. I definitely did not think about anything else.

  “So what did Laria have to say?” Okay. Fine. I had a few things on my mind besides the impending doom marching out there in the crumbling streets.

  I saw his expression darken in the back glow from the pole lights. “I do not want to talk about it.”

  The way he said it told me he meant it. Well, that was all fine for him, but I thought I deserved a little bit more than the silent treatment. I didn’t appreciate being cut out of things. Still, I held my tongue because there was an army out there, after all, determined to kill each one of us.

  So what were they waiting for? I knew why Ross was holding back. It just made sense. But the Enforcers had a far superior force and air support and multiple copies of Fluffy the attack drone. Why didn’t they attack us already?

  The HoverHawk floated closer, above the heads of the Enforcers, above the wall, its four antigrav engines humming silently. Front spotlights added more illumination to the night as I saw Third Marshall Amicus lift a device to his mouth. A microphone.

  “To all people in the camp,” Amicus’ voice boomed through the speakers in the airship. “By now you have all seen the force we bring against you. There is no hope for you. There is no salvation. You will fall.”

  His voice was strong and deep. It commanded attention.

  I wiped my sweaty palms against my pants.

  “He wants something,” Jadran said, echoing a thought I’d just had myself.

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Any ideas what that is?”

  “I’ll bet we’re about to find out.”

  Amicus lifted the device up to his mouth again and began pacing back and forth at the front of the Enforcer’s lines. “Where is your leader?”

  Silence fell, and then down below I saw a man walk across the space between the building and the wall. Commander Ross. He looked big even from my vantage point four floors up. He took his time climbing up the staggered steps that brought him to the top of the wall, and then he called down to Third Marshall Amicus in a voice like thunder.

  “My name is Ross. I am in command here. You should leave, Enforcer, before I order my people to kill every last one of you.”

  The woman standing next to Amicus took off her helmet and laughed like Ross had just told the best joke ever. Hers was a hard sort of beauty, with cold eyes and a permanent smirk tugging the one corner of her mouth. Her brown hair was cut severely short. She was a Master Field Sergeant, according to the three intertwined circles stitched into her collar with gold thread. Her rank put her just below the Third Marshall.

  When she took the microphone remote f
rom Amicus, she laughed again. It was an eerie sound coming through the HoverHawk’s speakers. “Perhaps they don’t teach your people how to count, here in the Outlands. There are four of us to every one of you. That includes your children and your injured. Would you have them killed as well?”

  “We could end you all right here,” Commander Ross insisted. “If you want to kill us then why haven’t you done it already? What are you waiting for?”

  Amicus held his hand out, and the Master Field Sergeant handed the microphone device back. She did it reluctantly, like she wanted to stay the center of attention.

  “I have a proposition for you,” Amicus said in answer to Ross’s question. “Why don’t you hear me out before we start killing each other?”

  I didn’t like any of this. “Aren’t they afraid they’ll attract Children of the Event to this show?” I asked, remembering the huge mutated beasts that lurked in the city.

  Jadran shook his head. “I doubt Third Marshall Amicus is concerned. You saw what they did to the Children that were attacking us.”

  True enough, I supposed.

  “This is my offer,” Amicus was saying. “There’s a certain girl within your wall. The Restored Society has a special interest in her, and we want her back.”

  The short hairs at the back of my neck stood up on end. He meant me, of course. I reached for that calm that usually forced itself on me whenever I sensed danger, but now that I actually wanted it that cold, efficient emotion wasn’t there. It felt like I was being betrayed by my own body.

  “Nothing to say to that?” Amicus said with a grin, looking up at Ross. “Well. Let’s add one more thing to our bargain.”

  He motioned with his hand and two Enforcers brought forward a man in torn and bloody clothing. They had to drag him between them, shoulders under his arms, as the man blinked repeatedly in a daze and tried to stand on his own feet. At the other window, Cusack gasped.

  It was Lockett. Jadran and I had lost track of him during the attack by the Children of the Event that had nearly killed all of us at the JEA tower. The last time we saw him one of the Children had been trying to plow its way through our group with its oversized, malformed fists. Lockett had gone down. He hadn’t gotten back up again. All of us had been sure he was dead.

  We’d been wrong.

  Funny how that works.

  “I’m offering this man’s life in exchange for the girl we seek,” Amicus said into his microphone, speaking slowly. “Era Rae. Give her to us, and I swear, no harm will come to any of you. Including this man.”

  The Third Marshall shoved Lockett hard on his shoulder, and the injured man buckled down to the ground.

  He was hurt bad. How much of that had been done by the monster’s attack, I wondered, and how much of it was Enforcer handiwork?

  “I’ll kill them all,” Cusack muttered, tightening his grip on his weapon.

  “Don’t be foolish,” Jadran told him. “They have the numbers. You see what we face. Stand your post, is what you need to do. Trust Commander Ross.”

  “Well someone needs to die for this.”

  For just a moment, he glared at me out of the corner of his eye. The implication was pretty clear.

  On the wall, flanked by other Freemen, Commander Ross hesitated. He was considering the offer. I could tell. He was thinking I was trouble to begin with and here was his chance to get rid of me and get one of his people back in the bargain, and maybe get the Enforcers to overlook their camp for one more day. I couldn’t believe he was actually thinking of turning me over…

  Then I remembered how he had nearly killed me, and Jadran too, and I could believe it after all.

  I jumped when Jadran put a hand on my shoulder. “He won’t do it, Era Rae.”

  “Yes,” I said. “He will.”

  After another handful of seconds passed by, Ross cleared his throat. His voice boomed louder than before. “You’ll give me time to think about this.”

  It wasn’t a question, but the Third Marshall spread his hands anyway before speaking into the microphone device with a smile. “Of course. You have exactly fifteen minutes. My people are anxious for a fight, but we have somewhere else to be. Give us a reason to leave, Commander. Otherwise I’ll come in there and take what I want.”

  “No,” Ross promised him, “you won’t.”

  “Commander, look around you.” I didn’t see Amicus give an order, but suddenly the HoverHawk turned and trained its floods on the ranks of soldiers and machines and drones. “You can not hope to win. Trade me Era Rae for this pathetic, beat up man. That’s the only way you’re going to survive this night.”

  Ross lifted his hand, and in it I saw a thick, black rectangle. At first I thought it might be some kind of speaker device like the Third Marshall had, but Ross sure didn’t need anything to make that resonant voice of his carry loud and clear. “You make any kind of move to get into my camp,” he warned, “and you’ll be the one who doesn’t survive.”

  He pressed a button on the device in his hand. A high-pitched squeal vibrated through the night, emanating from speakers placed along the wall. I’d seen them before, when Cusack had been showing me around. I just didn’t know what they were for.

  Apparently, they were a defense mechanism.

  Out among the Freemen, every single soldier put their hands to their helmets and pulled them off. The Fluffy drones began spinning out of control and sinking to the ground. A disruptor wave, I realized. Audio sound embedded with digital signals that interrupted electronics of every kind. The Enforcers coms were blaring static in their ears. The Fluffy drones were having technical problems.

  Even the HoverHawk began to list to one side.

  Nice.

  Ross flipped the switch again and the disruptor wave cut off. Through the sights on my rifle, I could see a look of respect on the Third Marshall’s face. “I think we understand each other,” he told Ross as the HoverHawk righted itself again.

  I whistled out a breath. “Maybe we have a chance after all.”

  “Sure,” Cusack snarked. “Too bad it’s just a trick. The speakers won’t last for more than a few minutes, at best, and the Enforcers can still shoot without their helmets.”

  He was right, of course, and now that I knew Ross was bluffing my heart sank in my chest again. I watched the lines of Enforcers recover themselves and form their lines back up. The Third Marshall leaned over to say something to the Chief Field Sergeant. The woman preened under his attention. The other Enforcers at the front shook themselves and lifted their helmets back into place…

  No.

  No, no, no.

  The Enforcer I had seen before, with her long legs and her confident posture, the one who reminded me of Saskia. I saw her face before she put her helmet back on. Wires and tubes connected the helmet to her neck, and electronics had been attached to her scalp. Burn marks and surgical scars marred what had once been a beautiful face. Her hair, once long and golden, had been sheared away to stubble.

  She didn’t just remind me of Saskia.

  She was Saskia.

  I couldn’t catch my breath. I couldn’t think, I couldn’t move. Saskia was alive. I’d given up on her. I’d made myself accept the fact that the Restored Society had killed her for saving my life. I’d made peace with the fact that I would never see her again.

  And now here she was.

  Saskia.

  My friend.

  “Era,” Jadran said to me, his hand still on my shoulder, “what is it?”

  He could see the distress I was feeling inside. It was written all over my face. Down there, among all those Enforcers waiting to kill us—or rather, me—was Saskia Deberin. I’d told him about her before. A little, anyway. Not everything. There was no way I could bring myself to tell him things I didn’t fully understand myself.

  “That’s…” I fumbled for the words. My tongue was thick in my mouth. My mind was racing. “It’s someone… I know her.”

  I shouldn’t have tried to hide anything from J
adran. He knew the parts I hadn’t said. I could see it in his eyes. The hand on my shoulder moved to cup the side of my face. “You can not go out there. If you do, they will kill you.”

  “The Freemen?” I asked, carefully not looking over at Cusack. “Or the Enforcers?”

  “The Enforcers, of course. They want you dead.”

  Not right away, I thought. They have plans for me first. “I have to help her,” I pleaded with him. “I promised.”

  “No. Era, if you do—”

  “I know. It’s risky. The Enforcers might catch me, but Jadran, I have to try.”

  He shook his head. “Worse than death, is what you will find at their hands.”

  Cusack cleared his throat as he shifted position, keeping his gaze focused outside where Commander Ross was stepping down off the wall, even as he listened to us with obvious interest. I could see him thinking about throwing me over the wall himself, if it would mean saving the Freemen from all of that out there. He must know the Enforcers weren’t to be trusted. Turn me over to them, and they were likely to kill everyone in this camp anyway.

  Not that I was going to give him the chance to find out. I had something to do. He wasn’t going to keep me from it. Neither was Jadran.

  With gentle pressure, Jadran turned my face to look up at him. “Promise me,” he said. “Promise me you will not do anything stupid. Do not go out there.”

  He loved me. There was no denying our feelings. Not anymore. I loved him, too, and I knew he was only looking out for me. He wanted to keep me safe.

  There was no safety here. Not with the Enforcers hunting me. Not with the Freemen hating me.

  I wasn’t safe.

  Neither was anyone else.

  Still, he needed to hear the words. “I promise,” I told him. Part of me even meant it.

  With a nod and a relieved sigh, he turned away, trailing his fingers along my cheek as he did. With one step he was over at the other window, right up in Cusack’s face, and I heard steel creep into his voice. “If you try to take her out of this room, and over that wall, you won’t have to wait for the Enforcers. Kill you myself, is what I will do.”