Among Enemies, page 29
part #9 of On Silver Wings Series
Just a step ahead of the explosive blast of air and dust, she threw herself out of the tunnel and into the Arkhanan desert, tumbling across the dusty and rocky terrain as she felt the ground quake under her.
Sorilla heaved herself over onto her back, looking back the way she'd come. There was a cloud of dust rising to the sky, as the ground heaved once more then seemed to collapse in on itself before everything became eerily silent aside from soft aftershocks.
Groaning, she slumped back, closing her eyes.
It was over, one way or the other. It didn't matter if she'd succeeded or not, Sorilla was tapped out. If the Ross were still able to be active in the area, she knew she was dead or captured.
She didn't try to fight it this time when the darkness took her.
*****
The conclave was not pleased.
That really went without saying, but it also didn't remotely encompass the reaction they had to the events. The ship on the human inhabited world was gone. They were uncertain if it were destroyed or merely damaged sufficiently that they could no longer path to it, but in either case the effect was the same.
They would send another vessel to investigate, but the damage was done.
Frustratingly, they were not even certain if Entropy had survived the destruction she had wrought. It was considered a distinct possibility, but for almost any other human they would have simply listed her as dead in her final action.
That was a mistake they would not repeat for a fourth time, however.
The mission objectives for the plan were still largely ongoing. However, this current setback, or setbacks, would present unique challenges. What those challenges were, frankly, they could not entirely predict.
It would depend on the reaction of the Alliance, more than anything else. If they reacted with the craven primitive instincts, they had mostly leaned on thus far, the Plan would likely continue apace with little change.
However, the People had long learned that predicting the primitives was a tricky thing. Most of the time it seemed straightforward enough. Predictions were generally accurate and dependable... until they suddenly were anything but.
Whether this would be one of those times remained to be seen.
They had a great deal of mess to clean up regardless, however.
*****
It was dark when Sorilla awoke, though she could see the line of the false dawn illuminating the horizon as she struggled to her feet. Her body was screaming that it didn't want to move, every muscle and joint stiff and burning with pain, but she worked through it anyway.
Her internal clocks all agreed that she'd been out for almost eighteen hours, lying there in the desert heat and then near freezing cold when the sun dropped. Without the suit's protection she'd be in pretty bad shape, but even with it she didn't dare take any longer than she had to.
Unfortunately, she didn't have any map of the region, which was problematic, but at the same time the locals seemed to have a broadcast radio station playing so she listened to that while walking and let her armor run the triangulation on its own to guide her steps.
It was going to be a long walk.
*****
Lira McCallen didn't look up from her cleaning when the door to her pub opened up. It was early for the regulars, but someone always seemed to find time to pop in for a drink shortly after she opened the doors, regardless of time.
She finished wiping down the bar before turning to greet the customer, and stopped dead when she saw the battered figure standing there, one arm hanging limp, and the most outlandish getup she'd ever seen looking like it had been drawn through forty acres of mud and rock from the back of a high-speed car.
"Are you alright?" She asked, carefully and slowly edging to where she kept her carbine.
The figure lifted its good arm up and unsealed its helmet, popping the covering off amid a pressure hiss. Lira blinked in shock, recognizing the face within.
"Good god, lady, what happened to you?" She asked, moving around the bar.
Sorilla, she remembered, grimaced as she gingerly lowered herself into a seat and carefully lifted her back arm up to rest on the bar.
"It's been a long few weeks," She answered. "How have things been here?"
Lira snorted, "Since you blew up Constantine's ranch? Oh, just peachy."
Sorilla rolled her eyes, "Not our fault his own men were trying to assassinate him. How is he doing, by the way?"
"Finished his little rampage of revenge a while back, still a smooth talker, picked up a couple scars that the ladies love, or so I hear."
Sorilla looked up at her, smirking slightly.
"Sounds about right."
"Now what about you?" Lira insisted. "You look like... well, pardon the brashness, but you look like hell wasn't bad enough and you got sent lower."
Sorilla laughed, which turned into painful coughing. Lira noticed flecks of blood on her lips as she did.
"Lower. Higher... every which way, you might say," She answered. "As I said, it's been a rough few weeks. The last few days, or so, worse than the rest."
"When did you arrive back on Arkana?" Lira asked.
"Yesterday, maybe the day before. Not sure, don't feel like checking my computer," Sorilla admitted, looking like she was wavering slightly in place.
"There's been no ships come in."
"No, no there haven't."
Lira was alarmed by the wavering look in the other woman's eyes, as though she were fading in and out of reality almost. She snapped her fingers, "Are you alright? You didn't answer me... I can call a doc."
"No need, I'll live," Sorilla responded, waving with her right hand. "Just a little desert sickness on top of everything else."
"Here," Lira poured a tall glass of water. "Drink this."
"Thank you," Sorilla nodded, taking a deep draw.
"Not too fast, not if you're dehydrated..."
"I'm not, armor helps there, just not enough I guess." Sorilla said, settling the glass back before looking up at Lira evenly. "I need a favor."
Lira eyed her briefly, a slight smirk in her features, "Don't suppose you have anymore Earth whiskey?"
"Not on me, sadly, but I can see what can be done."
"Fair enough. What do you need?"
*****
Eri Constantine looked over the Saloon with slight disdain. Sasha Dalton nodded to him from the door, so he knew that there wasn't a trap waiting at least.
"She's inside," Dalton said as he approached him. "Looks like hell, but it's her."
Eri wondered at that, the last time he'd seen the woman she hadn't been in the greatest of shape either, but he'd not have said she looked like hell.
"I'll have Franky the Idiot keep watch down the street," Dalton said. "But it looks on the up and up."
"Thank you."
Eri took a breath and pushed open the doors, walking through into a building he'd honestly rarely had much cause to bother with. If he wanted to drink, or company while drinking, he had better ways of acquiring both.
There was a figure slumped at the bar, armor he recognized. He walked over slowly, sliding out the stool a space down from her, and taking a seat.
The owner, Lira, dropped a bottle and a clean glass in front of him.
"It's on her tab," She said, glancing at the slumped figure. "You awake, woman?"
Sorilla shifted, groaning quietly as she opened her eyes and pushed off the bar with her right hand. Eri's eyes fell to the way her left hung loose and widened.
"What happened to you?"
"Just a skirmish, nothing really," She said.
"You never should have trusted those Xenos." He chided her, pouring a couple fingers of whiskey.
Sorilla waved his concerns off, "Trust was never in the cards, and the Ross want me anyway. I need something, Eri, and you're the only one I know can help."
"What?" Eri asked, taking a sip, genuinely curious what he could help this woman with.
"A ship."
He choked on the booze, shooting her an incredulous look.
"Is that all?" He demanded after he stopped coughing. "Do you have any idea how much the Xenos want for anything remotely decent?"
"You can get one, Eri."
"Perhaps, but why should I?"
Sorilla flopped her left arm over, looking at him, "Do you have a computer? Alliance interface would be fine, but I can work without it."
Eri looked at her for a moment, then snapped his fingers.
One of the men at the door walked over, settling an Alliance computer on the bar. Eric powered it up before turning it over to her.
Sorilla didn't touch it, but a moment after Eri saw the screen change and what looked like schematics appeared. He pulled it back, reading them carefully before closing the screen and turning back to her.
"How do I know any of this is real?" He demanded.
She rolled her eyes, "Do you really think I walk around with fake intelligence cluttering up my systems? It's real, all of it. Get me the ship, you get the data, and I'll even have samples smuggled back in as soon as SOLCOM decides to open up routes."
"You seem sure they will."
Sorilla snorted, "Between you and I, I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't already, but I don't have any contact information for that. The tech should keep you at the top of the power structure here, for a long time."
The way she stressed the word long caused his eyes to flicker back to the device. Slowly, Eri nodded.
"I will see what I can do."
"You do that. You get the rest of the data when I get the ship." Sorilla said. "I need to sleep. If you have anybody reporting to the Alliance, don't tell them I'm here."
Eri pushed back from the bar, waving off the man who'd come to fetch the computer. He carefully picked that up himself, not willing to let it out of his sight. He glanced at Lira, then dropped a handful of scrip on the bar.
"For your time."
*****
Hayden Subcontinent, A Week Later
Alarms screamed, waking Cassius from a deep slumber in a shock. He was out of the bed and halfway across the room before he fully blinked his eyes open and forced himself to stop and grab a pair of pants and his preferred lever action rifle on his way out the door.
It was the air approach alarms, he recognized, and he briefly wondered if he should drop the rifle and fetch something beefier from Sorilla's vault, but ultimately discounted the thought.
He found a terminal with the alert showing, and quickly got the data up on it.
We don't have anyone due for a week, especially not this time of night. No transponder either, what the hell?
He noted that the incoming contact was coming on the standard glide path, though, and the speed was coming down fast. He doubted it was anything untoward, so he killed the audible alarm. Bad guys usually didn't bother following protocols when they approached a target, after all.
Cassius slung the rifle, grabbing a light jacket on his way out the door, and started the walk to the landing pad.
He spotted the aircraft moving against the dark sky, but the running lights... if that was what they were, didn't look normal to him.
A couple of the security guards from the city work crew were already there when he arrived.
"Hey Mr. Aida, any idea what this is about?" The guard asked.
Aida shook his head, "Not a clue, I was going to ask you lot."
"We got a call about an unknown contact coming in," The guard admitted. "No transponder, no communication, and they're from off world."
"Really."
That was strange. The only off world visitors he could think of at the moment would have certainly called ahead, and they'd be running transponders sure as hell.
Cassius was regretting not grabbing something beefier than his rifle after all.
"Well," He said aloud, nodding as the big aircraft slowed above them. "I'd say we're about to find out what this is all about.
The security nodded, hands dropping unconsciously to their weapons as the ship, and it was a ship... a small ship, but clearly not an airbreather... settled into position over the pad and lowered itself neatly down beside the military jumpship parked there.
They waited as the craft powered down, odd sounds echoing through the night air every few moments for reasons none of them could tell. After several minutes, a crack opened up under it, air hissing as pressure equalized, and a ramp lowered.
Bathed in light from within, they watched a person limp down the ramp, coming to a stop at the base, looking the small group over.
"Dad?"
Cassius choked, his rifle dropping in the sling as he surged forward.
"Sor?"
"Hey dad," his daughter smiled at him, looking more tired than he'd ever seen. "Good to see you."
Cassius grabbed her up, ignoring the rigid armor as he hugged her.
"Don't you ever do something like that ever again," He told her, holding back tears by nothing more than force of will. "Never again."
"I'm done, dad." She promised, one arm lifting to hug him back. "I'm done."
*****
Epilogue
Hayden Subcontinent, Later
It had been a good career, she decided as she looked over the repaired SOLCOM armor where it stood in an alcove built into the wall at the back of the room. On either side were the Alliance weapons she'd managed to scrounge up on her way back, one captured pulse rifle, and a few pieces she'd picked up from the Arkanans.
Fixing the damage her kit had taken had been harder than healing the wounds it hadn't been able to entirely protect her from, but that was what the gear was for, all things considered she supposed.
SOLCOM had come and gone, weeks of interviews with everyone from the Old Man to Ruger to a parade of officious assholes whose names she wouldn't remember by choice. She'd given them her intel, all the data she'd scrubbed from the Ross computers, of course, and everything she'd seen.
They tried to take her ship, but Sorilla told them all where they could shove that order. SOLCOM didn't have any right to it, and she sure as hell wasn't going to give up her own Jump Ship, even if it was an obsolete Parithalian beast of a ship. Of course, since she'd paid for it with essentially public domain intelligence controlled by SOLCOM, they might actually have a case... but she had no intentions of ever letting them know that and the only person who knew what she'd paid was sure as hell not going to let anyone else know where it came from. Controlling the market on life extension drugs was certainly going to be extremely lucrative for Eri in the short term, after all.
She had allowed them to help repair her baby, though. SOLCOM paid for the parts and experts, she got to watch and learn, and they both got to keep the information they learned about how the thing was put together.
Once they learned it was unarmed, Mattan and Ruger had even managed to get her permitted to fly into SOLSPACE.
Sorilla thought that maybe she might, at that.
Eventually.
For the foreseeable future, though, she was going stay on Hayden, at home.
They hadn't asked about her armor, which surprised her. She had taken a peek at the reports, and Mattan had obliquely implied that it had been damaged beyond repair during her escape from the Ross.
He wasn't far wrong, she supposed, but ultimately it had been repairable.
Sorilla stepped out, letting the heavy door seal as she walked up the stairs and into the clearing behind her home. She flipped the heavy storm doors closed over the stairs and decided that she'd put flowers over the door.
Something nice, roses maybe.
Sorilla didn't plan on ever digging up what she'd stored down there, but years of training wouldn't let her dispose of any of it either. Out of sight, though, would be out of mind, and that was good enough.
She walked around the back of her home and looked out over the rolling hills to the ocean beyond. The shimmering gossamer thread of the new orbital thread gave a surreal touch to the beauty of the scene.
The Alliance would send their first diplomatic teams soon, or so she had been told
The Old Man had let slip to her that SOLCOM probes had returned with intelligence that indicated the Alliance was experiencing something of a shakeup. Fighting was being reported in several systems, from the sounds of things the Alliance was cleaning up a mess that someone had exposed.
She hoped that meant that the intelligence had gotten out with the group she'd traveled with.
Sorilla wondered if she'd see Kriss or Sienele again?
That would be nice, She thought wistfully. Perhaps she'd prepare special rooms for them in the city.
She picked up her hunting rifle from where it had been resting, slinging it over her shoulder, and started off across the fields to the landing pad. The Socrates was due for a visit shortly, and she had a dinner date with Jerry and Tara in the evening.
As she walked away, a MOFAB unit trundled into action behind her, covering the storm doors with dirt while another rolled in and placed a statue of an old, broken, plow being pushed by a happy looking man over top of them.
We paid a lot for our plowshares, Sorilla thought as she walked. But I suppose we always do.
END
Evan Currie, Among Enemies
