Here We Stand, page 29




“Hopeless romantic, aren’t you?”
Marc looked like he was about to issue another official denial of his position on Ingram but the front door opened and Tev came out. Marc looked at his watch.
“Jury back already?” he asked.
“You want the short version?”
“Ah.”
“It took a while to make them believe me, but they want time to think about it. I mean, we’re already cut off from everybody Becky and the kids know, and we daren’t go back, so leaving isn’t the main problem. They’re worried about the effect on Sera and the baby.”
“Take all the time you want, mate,” Marc said. “It’s a big deal, and not the first time we’ve had to face it.”
“Are you happy on Opis?”
Marc looked into the distance as if he was trying to decide. “I’m more at peace than I’ve been in years.”
“I told you it’d all be healed, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“Well, you might as well come back in, if you can stay a bit longer. A few more beers and a nice cup of tea.”
Tev steered him back into the house. Chris hung around outside for a few moments before following, checking there was nobody keeping an eye on them, more out of habit than any foreboding. Now everyone knew the score, at least he could talk freely with Tev’s family.
“How did you feel when you found out about all this?” Mere asked.
“I had trouble believing it, ma’am,” he said.
“Do you ever wish you could come back to Earth?”
Chris hadn’t missed home as much as he’d expected. He’d been ready to feel some primal level of distress about leaving the world humans had evolved to fit in with, from its daily rhythms to its bacteria, but he’d already done his grieving for the Earth that was long gone before he was born, the one he could still see in old movies and video archive.
“I think it’s too late now,” he said. “And I like Opis. I’m not sure if we’ve made a fresh start, but we’ve still got time to put things right.”
While Chris was talking to Mere, he could hear Marc telling Sera about the medical care in Nomad and the new school. He wasn’t doing a hard sell, but he was definitely trying to reassure her about the kind of life they could lead.
“Or you could go back to Britain,” Chris heard Marc saying. “I can ask Lawson. So you’ve got other options.”
It was early evening now. Chris should have done a radio check with Solomon, but Sol had the probes out keeping an eye on the area, and he could call them any time.
“You going to call Howie, Marc?” he asked.
Marc looked at his watch. “Damn, he’ll be asleep now. I’d better make sure Ingram’s looking after him.”
Tev gave him an approving nod. “So you took in Howie.”
“Two lost souls. I’ve been adopted by Dieter’s pit bull, too.”
Marc stood up from a cross-legged position with surprising ease considering how much he griped about aches and pains and went outside to make his call. Chris carried on answering questions as honestly as he could and finding images on his pocket screen to show harmless views of the base and the surrounding area.
And Tev remembered the long-distance images of what everyone had thought were just big, black crows at the time.
“Those birds were the teeriks, yeah?” he said.
“Probably Fred’s grandsons,” Chris said. “Demli and Runal. Fred said they used to come and explore the base before humans arrived. They’re growing up fast. They’re learning engineering on the job now.”
Chris realised how many strange things he accepted as routine these days, and while it had seemed like one shock after the next at the time, it had still been gradual compared to what Tev and his family had to absorb in a few hours. Chris and Marc should have gone back this evening, but it didn’t seem right to dump all this on the family, tell them they could come to Opis, and then go home and leave them to stew in it as if nothing major had happened. It was like breaking the news to Earth in microcosm.
Chris was happy to stay over for the night and clear up the kitchen, and maybe help them take in what was happening. Marc and Tev were having a quiet conversation in the corner with a glass of something, almost head to head, and Chris didn’t interrupt.
“We really will think about Opis,” Sera said, putting plates away. “It’s hard to even know what to ask at the moment.”
“I’m sorry,” Chris said. “We should have handled this better. You know you can contact us any time.”
“No, you didn’t do anything wrong. The truth isn’t always what we want to hear. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t speak it.”
Chris finished cleaning the kitchen and wondered if she was coming around to the idea. But he’d just rewritten the rule that had driven all the secrecy about Opis, that nobody who knew about the technology could go back to Earth because the news would leak. It was the whole rationale behind everything they’d done so far, from the way they handled the evacuation to banning contact with Earth, and here he was, making himself available at the end of a comms link to answer Tev’s family’s questions about settling there. When it came to Nomad Base, they weren’t all in it together. He’d never thought of himself as exploiting the privilege of command before, but he just had.
A dose of shame didn’t keep him awake, though. He was so tired, gate-lagged, and lulled by the kava that he had no trouble falling asleep that night on a thin mattress on the floor of a back room with his lumpy rucksack for a pillow. It was just like old times, happy times even as Western civilisation fell around him. Yeah, it had been ninety per cent misery, but the ten per cent of succeeding and being with his buddies almost made up for it, or at least it felt that way now. Time had laundered the worst of it.
He woke with a start when he heard someone moving around in the house, and he was already primed for intruders when he realised it was Marc and Tev. He would have gone back to sleep, but the door opened and Marc loomed in the doorway. Suddenly there seemed to be a lot of movement.
“Chris, Sol’s just called,” Marc said. “We’ve got to leave. All of us. The probes picked up two offshore raiding craft heading this way plus two helicopters standing by on Vanua Levu. It’s not official APDU, but it looks military, so you can guess who it is. We’ve got just over an hour, Sol thinks.”
Chris’s mind cleared instantly. Adrenaline was a great tonic. “How does he know they’re heading here?”
“He intercepted their comms. It’s a PMC job. It’s got to be Pham. He’s still doing this off the books.”
“Bastard.” Chris pulled on his pants. “Have you got a plan? Because I have.”
“Take the boat and decamp to another island.”
“There’s a really simple way out of this, Marc. Gate.”
“I know. But Tev doesn’t want to go to Opis because he’s worried the gravity or the immunisation is going to affect Sera and the baby. They can live off the boat for a few days while we come up with a better solution. Sol says he can transfer some of the tents and equipment we used for the Kill Line evac once we fix a location. Mere’s got relatives on Totoya, so that’s another option.”
“This is our shit. So we fix it.” Chris loaded his rifle and pulled on his ruck. Someone was already in place on this island, waiting for them to show up, maybe even the guy on the phone who was watching them in town. Everyone seemed to notice them, though. It could have been anybody. “I’m a frigging idiot. Tev was bait for us. Pham knows how to play us.”
“This isn’t some Moby Dick shit about your existential feud with him, mate,” Marc said. “We took our eye off the ball. Pham must have been keeping tabs on Tev from the start. He wants the gate first. Then he’s coming for everything else.” He tapped a vest pocket to indicate the gate locator. “I know he saw the portal, but even if he hadn’t, and whatever he’s planning isn’t going to work, he can do a lot of collateral damage along the way.”
“We’ve got an hour. Cut the chat and move out.”
Chris was angry, but not with Marc. It just came out that way. He was furious with himself and mortified that they’d put Tev’s family in this spot. The gate would have solved everything, but things were bad enough already without risking Sera’s baby. She’d probably cope with the sudden shift to higher gravity and the immunisation, but probably wasn’t good enough for Tev and Joni, and he could see that.
Walking out into that main room and facing Tev and his family was the hardest thing he’d done in a long time. They were bundling possessions into bags, not that they seemed to have many. They all stared at him. At least he could feel utter shame, so redemption was still possible. After Jamie and Nina, both dead because he made the wrong call, he wasn’t going to let this become number three.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “This is down to us and we’ll fix it.”
“You’ve got a gun,” Mere said.
That was what they were staring at, not his incandescent guilt. But it didn’t absolve him.
“You’re not responsible for what we do next,” he said. “It’s us they want, not you.”
Everyone was now silent, just packing as fast as they could, no panic and no recriminations. Chris and Marc helped Joni load the pickup while Tev released the chickens and pigs that Chris hadn’t even realised were there. It was going to be a tight fit on the truck, five people in the cab and three on the flatbed with the bags. Joni helped Sera into the front passenger seat, took one look back at the house, and got behind the wheel. Chris, Tev, and Marc jumped on the back and the pickup drove away.
Tev examined the Marquis that Marc had just given him, then slid it into the space between his leg and the side panel, out of sight.
“Pretty smart. Not bad for a knockoff.”
“We knit all our own weapons,” Marc said. “And yoghurt.” He wasn’t happy, though. It was broad daylight now and they’d be spotted. “Sol, can you hear me?”
“I have both of you on audio and I have a probe following you,” Solomon said. “Can you put me on your speaker so Tev can hear me too, please?”
“I can hear you,” Tev said. “I kept my comms kit when I left Ainatio.”
“Excellent. It’s good to hear you again, Tev.”
“Sol, can you see a route that’s clear of nosey parkers?” Marc asked.
“The coastal path. Join it at the second turn on the right.”
“Bloody hell,” Tev said. He tapped on the rear cab window and Becky opened it. “Can you take the path, Joni? Cut through Tomasi’s land. Nobody’s around at the moment. Go careful, okay?”
The pickup turned along a track flanked by palms, straight towards the sea, and then Chris understood why Tev had cussed. The path was exactly that, just a path around the rocky end of the island with enough of a drop to be potentially deadly, and even a wheel sliding off the edge would strand them here. It was two miles of intense concentration on Joni’s part.
Tev shut his eyes for a few moments as the pickup eased onto the path in a low gear. It was slow going.
“Are there going to be people out on the wharf?” Marc asked.
“Maybe. All the fishing boats will be at sea by now, though, and we don’t get tourists very often.”
“So what’s our story if anyone sees us?”
“Taking everyone to see relatives for a few days. Big reunion.”
“Oh, I’m convinced.”
Chris risked a look over the side panel and wished he hadn’t. But if he’d been worried that he was going soft after a few peaceful months on Opis, this was stiffening his sinews a treat. Marc actually looked bored. It was the longest, slowest couple of miles Chris had ever travelled, but boredom wasn’t part of it. He felt a lot better when the vehicle crawled out onto a broad dirt track again.
“Anyone at the wharf yet, Sol?” he asked.
“Nobody so far, and the nearest vessel’s five miles offshore. I’ll tell you if that changes. Leave the observation to me.”
“Give me the feed on my screen,” Marc said. “It makes me feel better.”
“Very well.”
Sautu was the only vessel alongside when they arrived. It wasn’t until they started loading her that Chris realised she was a catamaran. There was space below for the women to stay out of sight and take it easy, although both hulls were partly taken up by refrigerated storage, but there was room on deck for defensive action. Marc and Tev took up firing positions behind the wheelhouse. Chris picked his spot on the small foredeck. There wasn’t much by way of machinery at the bows to provide cover, except maybe for the anchor housing and the tiny capstan, but as the biggest threat was probably an aerial assault by helicopters rather than raiding craft lower on the water than he was, it was probably academic.
Tev stood at the stern and looked around. “All done?”
“Yeah, let’s go.” Marc patted his back. “Come on, Joni.”
Joni stood on the jetty gazing back at his pickup for a few moments, clutching the key, and looked heartbroken. With the boat, it must have been everything he’d saved for and probably gone into debt to buy, and he’d only just started over. Chris had to say something.
“Don’t worry about the truck,” he said. “Leave it secured and we’ll retrieve it later.”
“Yeah.”
“We can, Joni. Trust me on that. I might have screwed up so far, but the one thing we can do is move things.”
Joni stuffed the key in his pocket and nodded, forcing a smile. “Okay, I believe you.”
He moved the pickup to the gravel parking area and jogged back to jetty. Sautu got under way, leaving the inlet behind. Now they had just under an hour at sea ahead of them. The region was dotted with islands, which meant they could go in any direction, but if they were being tracked already then the advantage was lost. The daylight that had made them vulnerable to detection on the island was now on their side, though. Chris could see what was coming even without probe assistance, at least when it got closer.
He joined Joni in the wheelhouse and tried to familiarise himself with what the catamaran could do. He was a long way out of his comfort zone. Ingram would have been handy to have around right now.
Marc wandered in, cradling his Marquis. “What can this boat do, Joni?”
“Cruise at thirty, thirty-five knots, which makes the most of fuel, but close on fifty flat out,” Joni said, one hand on the wheel. “Engines operate independently, so we can even move sideways if we need to. Good radar, collision alarm, autopilot, position hold, and heading hold. But I never thought I’d need it to evade mercenaries. Or an APS commissioner.”
“Evasion only works if we can outrun them and they don’t know where we’re going,” Marc said. “Even civil helicopters can do four times your top speed. Offshore raiding craft could overtake you, but it depends how much they’re carrying. The helos are by far the biggest threat. Unless the raiders catch up and we find they’re manned by some bad buggers like former Aussie or Korean marines, of course. Because that’s who Pham would recruit.”
“Then why are we even bothering to run?” Joni asked.
“Because your dad thinks the easiest solution — our FTL gizmos — might put your wife and baby at risk. And I agree with him. It’s never been put to the test. Being transported probably won’t harm them, but she’s already under a lot of stress. So I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you don’t lose your child. Because there’s no way to make that right again.”
So it wasn’t purely tactical, then. Joni must have heard Marc’s history from Tev, because he looked awkward and blinked a lot.
“I know,” he said. “And you wouldn’t take the risk unless it was a last resort.”
Marc just nodded and left the wheelhouse. Chris couldn’t tell if Marc was letting his personal issues override his judgement, but he had to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. He hadn’t survived this long without being able to keep his feelings out of it. But escape looked like a very long shot now.
Chris wedged his screen on the dashboard’s fascia to watch the feed from the probes. There was nothing visible out to fifty miles, just a lot of glorious blue water and some seabirds following the boat, a windless day with a flat calm sea. He couldn’t even see islands ahead.
It wasn’t going to last. He needed to talk to Solomon. He went outside and sat down by the rails at the bow.
“Sol, we could just gate to another point in the ocean,” he said. “It’s not Opis. The gravity’s the same and there’s no medication involved.”
“The distance doesn’t make any difference,” Solomon said. “I agree with you. If they just want to hide, there are hundreds of islands here, many of them uninhabited, so I could place a gateway in Joni’s path and he’d just sail through and wonder why he was in a completely different location. But we’ve never put a pregnant woman through the gate. Ainatio did extensive research on the effects of increased gravity and pharmaceutical interventions for women settling on Opis, but we have a very different situation here.”
“But you’d get us out of a tight spot if there was no other choice,” Chris said.
“I have my mission, and you have yours. I make the best decision I can at the moment I have to make it.”
Chris took that as a yes. He understood the fine line Solomon walked when it came to placating humans with different opinions on a fraught topic.
“Can Pham see us?”
“I’ll know very soon if they divert from the island or skip it altogether,” Solomon said. “A lot of their satellites are functioning again. It’s much harder to move around their networks now, mainly because I broke them.”
They were thirty-five minutes into the hour’s head start when Solomon alerted them again.
“A helicopter’s landing at Tev’s house,” he said. “It looks like they’re going to search the place. The other one’s peeled off, and two fast patrol vessels appear to be on an intercept course with you. They’re maintaining radio silence. They realise they’ve been hacked now.”