Renegades, page 33
She stepped into the main office of the Sherriff, a post which was vacant, and walked across the ceramic floor. She made no effort to quiet her footsteps and made no grand gestures by stomping across the floor. She wanted Ander to know it was her and know that she was calm.
On her way past, she grasped the shoulder of the chair in front of the sheriff’s desk and pulled it with her into the holding area. She squared the chair up in front of Ander’s cell, sat, and crossed her legs.
Ander was lying on the bench that served as the single piece of furniture in the cell. He did not sit up when Becca entered. He just glared at her through the bars. She sat still in the chair, dragged a loose hair up and behind her ear, and waited. She would not be the first to speak; he would set the tone of the conversation.
“All of this… what you see… what you think has happened… it isn’t…”
“It is, Ander. But it doesn’t matter. No excuse, no reason you can weave together will change my mind.”
“It comes down to the math, Becca. Nothing more. We were too few, and I always had to consider the possibility we would lose a Lance, as we did. Healthy men can father many children, a hundred, even, but women can’t…”
“Stop, Ander. As I said, nothing you can say, no reason you can give, will absolve you of this guilt.” The disgust she felt at that moment reached every corner of her mind.
“It isn’t a reason, it was a necessity,” Ander said at a stronger volume.
“You may be right. But even if you are, the problem isn’t the reason you’re in this cell; your solution is. A solution that could have easily been replaced with patience.”
Ander sighed and resumed his more subdued tone. “You know nothing of the politics of Orris. If you did, you would have begged me to leave even sooner than we did.”
“I can’t think of a single circumstance where I would beg you for anything. You are the beggar, Ander. You are the weakling.”
Ander finally sat up and glared into Becca’s eyes. “Do you think this silly cage can hold me? Do you think you still have the same power over me you once did? Because I can assure you, that time has passed.”
A thin smile formed on Becca’s lips and in her eyes. She did not answer immediately, choosing to think carefully about her words. “My power has migrated. I don’t need you anymore, Ander. I have the Renegades. And this cell you’re in? What of it? Go ahead and break out. Where are you going to go? The Lance is your prison, Ander. The opinion of you held by the Renegades is your prison.” Becca shifted in her seat. “And where exactly do you think you can hide? On this ship? On my ship? Where? You can’t. That is the answer. You can’t.”
Ander’s face drained of color. Slowly, he lay back down on the bench. His gaze had left Becca’s face and instead fixed on a dark corner of the room. “Don’t rely too heavily on Jerrick. Remember, he’s just a rocket jockey, a dolt. He’s not a leader, not a thinker, like we are. He could be the end of you.”
Becca stood, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. “You know that’s not true, Ander.”
Ander closed his eyes. “Please, let me be.”
“For now, I will. But we’ll talk again soon.”
“What else could we possibly have to talk about?” Ander asked without opening his eyes.
“Your sentence. If it were up to me, you’d be dead. If it were up to Todd, you’d be dead. You’d be in the same hole as Ehgrim. Jerrick saved your life. Remember? The dolt? You owe him every breath you take for the rest of your life.”
Ander sighed but did not reply. Becca nodded briefly and left the jailhouse.
Chapter 15
Enumeration
1
Darkness fell as scheduled in the artificial sky above the prison yard. Ten young, fit men gathered at the base of the northeast guard tower. Chuck Simms was among them.
“Thank you all for volunteering. I know our own outlook is grim, but this is one last thing we can do that is good. If we fail, they’ll torture him for years to come,” Chuck said and looked around for eavesdroppers or guards.
“We can’t wait for him to fall asleep. He probably won’t sleep tonight. I’ll approach him. The rest of you surround us and keep your distance. When I place both of my hands on the top of my head, it’s time.”
The men nodded as Chuck began his slow walk to the other side of the yard, where Volo had last been seen. His heartbeat grew faster and faster until he could hear it pulsing in his ears.
Volo was sitting on the ground with his ankles crossed and leaning back on his outstretched arms. Chuck approached from directly in front of him. He wanted Volo to stay in that position. It would be a good position to start from.
“Hey, Volo. How are you holding up?” Chuck stood a few feet from him, giving him some distance.
“Oh, I don’t know. Probably about as well as everyone else, I guess. How about you? And the girl? What was her name?”
“Jemma. She’s having a real tough time with it, but she finally fell asleep, so that’s why I’m out wandering.”
Volo nodded. “You shouldn’t let her sleep. We only have so much time left before it’s forever-sleep.”
Chuck did not answer. He stood in front of the former commander of Lance 10, rocking back and forth on his heels while he formulated his next question. “Volo, do you know what enumeration is?”
“Um, yeah, I think so. That’s when they walk a prisoner around Orris, making them list off the towns they’ve been through, right?”
“While being whipped and stoned, but yeah. Do you know what they do when the prisoner is injured so badly that they are about to die?”
Volo shook his head. “They rush him to the nearest hospital. They care for him until he is back to optimal health, and then they pick up where they left off.”
Volo shook his head. “Wow, that must have been horrible. It’s so barbaric. They don’t do that anymore, though, right?”
Chuck nodded and placed both hands on his head. “They do.”
From the shadows, two thousand pounds of young, strong men converged on Volo, two men to a limb, and pinned him to the ground. He fought the assault with all his strength, but he was no match for their numbers. Chuck stepped over Volo’s chest and kneeled down, straddling him. With only eight men needed for his limbs, the final volunteer held his head firmly to the ground.
“You will be enumerated, Volo, if I don’t kill you right now. I know you’re scared. I know this is awful, but I have to do it. They are going to enumerate you. Bellinger told me himself. Goodbye, my friend. I have to do it. I have to save you.”
Chuck gripped Volo’s throat with both of his hands and squeezed. Volo reacted violently, and the men all had to put real effort into holding him down. In the end, there was no way one man, flooded with adrenaline or not, could have beaten those odds. As the oxygen concentration in his blood dropped, he became weaker and weaker. After two minutes, he stopped struggling altogether and just stared into Chuck’s eyes. After three more, his pulse stopped.
2
Garrett walked into the Felenci Cryo-Storage Vault the following morning around the same time the Brightwood Penitentiary guards discovered Volo’s corpse. Ben and Della were dutifully seated in their positions at the reception desk.
“Good morning,” he said, before even reaching the desk.
Della looked up and a wide smile spread across her face. “Good morning, Garrett.”
Ben smiled and shook his head. Della said “Garrett” like she was the only one allowed to call him by his given name.
“Can I just go in?”
“Of course, Garrett. I’ll sign you in,” Della said, her smile never wavering. “Just don’t forget to say goodbye on your way out.”
Garrett winked at her and walked past into the interior of the building.
The room where Lauren was being treated was dark, and he flipped on the lights after opening the heavy wooden door. There was nothing out of the ordinary when the room illuminated, but he could only see the steel-colored cell, more like an open casket, that he knew his wife’s body lay within. His heartbeat sped up as he walked closer, and the skin of her left arm became visible. The color had come back. The dingy dead greens and yellows had disappeared, and the bright tones of healthy skin had returned.
Garrett leaped the last two steps to consume the image of his wife, a healthy, living version of his wife, who he had left so many ages ago it was hard for the mind to comprehend. Her cheek was rosy, her forehead smooth and natural-looking. Her profile obstructed his view of her face, so he quickly skirted around to the other side of the steel container. She was as beautiful as he remembered, even with an additional twenty years of age.
“My angel,” he said, and placed a hand on her cheek. “Come back to me, my angel. We’ve waited too long.”
The respirator churned, and the pacemaker buzzed, but she did not wake up. He stared at her face for another moment and then her chest, rising and falling with the mechanical action of the respirator. He knew she would not wake up, at least not then, so he resigned himself to taking her hand once again.
“I have so many stories to tell you. Most of them are great, wonderful stories. I had a lot of successes. I had failures, too, though. I suppose it’s only fair to the universe that I tell you both.”
Garett stopped. He did not want to tell her stories in the state she was in. It would be like giving up. To tell her of his adventures while she was unconscious would be equivalent to abandoning all hope of her waking up. He would not do it.
“Well, I’ll tell you what, nerd. I have a lot of great stories, but if you want to hear them, you’re going to have to wake up. You’re going to have to come back. I miss you. It’s not fair that you’re still sleeping. I need you to come back to me. Please, nerd. Please. I love you so much. Just come back.”
Lauren lay still. She looked like she was sleeping. Garrett leaned into the steel casket and kissed the hand he held.
3
Len Bellinger awoke with pain in his back. The amenities for the officers in the prison were better than the ones for the population, but nothing like his own bed.
When he entered the control room, he sighed deeply. It was time to address the crowd of prisoners, and he was not looking forward to it. He sat on the stool before the mic and depressed the transmit lever.
“Good morning to you all. This is Len Bellinger, Commander of Orris. The results of the investigation have come back poorly, I’m sorry to say.
“Your young children have been moved to foster care, where they will be treated well. The teens are in a rehabilitation facility. They will all live long, normal lives. I promise all of you that we will do our very best to see that they are cared for.”
Len took a few deep breaths and finally resumed.
“While I don’t believe I will ever understand the disillusionment you all must have felt toward Orris, I do understand the consequences of the actions you all took as a result. Some of you have been found guilty of theft, some of you have been found guilty of murder, but all of you have been found guilty of treason.” The Commander took another deep breath and cleared his throat. “All of you have been found guilty of treason, and you will all pay the sentence for it today. I beg all of you to comply with the staff. This process, while frightening and heartbreaking, can be completely painless if you only comply with the staff. If not, then it will be a very unpleasant, very painful experience, and it will end the same way. Please take care of yourselves. Please mind the staff.”
Len paused again to collect his thoughts. “The process starts now. Please congregate near the east gate. The guards will call your name for queuing, so pay attention. Present yourself when called. Failing to do so will end badly for you.”
Len paused a final time. Even though his script had been read through, he added a personal sentiment.
“I’m devastated that I have to do this. I’m sorry for all of your children, who will now grow up without you, but you did it. I did not. I will sleep well tonight.”
4
Chuck and Jemma walked to the east guard tower holding hands. They stopped as soon as the crowd became dense, and others piled up behind them.
Beyond the east gate was a convoy of transports ready to ferry the prisoners up to the Command cylinder, where the executions would take place. By design, the sentences would be carried out in public, the punishment meant to discourage any further law breaking.
The guards were all armed with long, shafted weapons, the business ends of which had four prongs. Two produced a high voltage, and the others could heat up to blistering temperatures. Six guards manned the gate, and a seventh held the roll, using a bullhorn to call out the names of the convicts.
Chuck listened to the amplified voice, trying to determine a pattern in the list. The names were not being called alphabetically. Men and women shuffled through the crowd as their names were called, and they entered the transports they were assigned. The crowd thinned as time passed, and Chuck gradually inched closer to the gate. He did not intend to be blindly obedient but simply aimed to reduce the chances that either of them was introduced to one of the guards’ torture weapons. When there were only a dozen people left, Chuck thought the guard might not call on them at all, that Bellinger may have reconsidered. When they were the only two that remained, he had his hopes dashed when the female guard looked directly at Jemma.
“Jemma Frederick?”
She squeezed his hand, and he pulled her forward so they would not hurt her. He walked behind her, so she wouldn’t feel like she was being separated from him.
“And Chuck Simms?” the guard said, having abandoned the bullhorn long before.
Chuck nodded and followed Jemma into the transport.
5
Garrett was stirred from the nap he was taking by the familiar chiming of the yellow box Becca had left with him. Once he realized what was disturbing him, he jumped off the couch and ran to the hallway, where it still sat on the floor. Having used the box before, he picked up the handset, sat on the floor, and leaned against the wall.
“Becca?”
“Hi, Garrett. I’m really glad you answered. We have a problem.”
Becca explained their situation: the rapidly depleting fuel, the expectation of how far they could get with what they had left, and their current plan for what to do about it.
“That’s a tough position to be in, Becca. Once you stop, and before you use any more fuel, call me again. I don’t know if I’ll be able to help, but if you get me the coordinates once you’re in the Milky Way, I may be able to help you navigate. I had systems I was going to use as a life raft if I ever encountered a problem. I’m very familiar with the galaxy.”
“I will. I was hoping you’d say that. I have some other news; some news that complicates everything.”
“Sure, what is it?”
“Ander, I mean Ambassador Wex, has been removed from power and imprisoned.”
“Oh, wow. How did that happen?”
“Jerrick and I did it. We didn’t have a choice.”
“There must be more to that story?”
“He kidnapped young girls. About two hundred before we left Orris. I wanted to kill him, but Jerrick stopped me. He had planned to use them for breeding. When I discovered what he had done, I snapped.”
The word “kidnapped” sparked a memory in Garrett’s mind, something he had heard about, but could not put his finger on. “I don’t think anyone would blame you.”
“There has been no backlash yet, but we also haven’t made any formal announcements. We will do that tonight.”
“Okay, Becca. There’s not much I can do about the girls on my end. No one even knows that I am communicating with you. Let me know how it goes, and be sure to get me those coordinates when you have them.”
6
Len paced slowly in front of his podium while he watched the first group of prisoners exit their transport. They were back in the banquet hall, but all the tables had been cleared out and a wooden ramp constructed against the back wall. It led up to a platform that stood dead even with the bottom of an incinerator hatch. The heavy hatch door had been removed entirely.
As the prisoners filed in, the room itself was filling with spectators. The air smelled of freshly cut wood mixed with the sour smell of burnt organic matter originating from the open incinerator. Security guards armed with the same weapons as the prison guards lined the newly built ramp and formed a pathway to the landing, where the shuttles dropped off the prisoners.
Three security guards without weapons stood to receive each transport, tying the hands of each prisoner in plastic bindings and confirming the names of the convicts. The expressions on the faces of the guards ranged from robotic to compassionate. They had been briefed and understood the full gravity of what was about to happen to the people they processed.
