Terminus Shift (Targon Tales - Sethran Book 2) Page 8

  The other thug had fallen off his sled and Seth lunged forward to ram head-first into his mid-riff when he ran toward Ciela. Both of them slammed back into the bog and Seth, heftier than his opponent, rolled over him to press his face into the mud. Ciela reached them within moments and dispatched this one, too.

  Seth raised himself up, struggling for air. She tugged on the rope cutting into his arms. There was blood on the knife she used to cut it. He doubled over to put his hands on his knees, still breathing harshly. “Where the hell did you get the blade?” he coughed and straightened up again.

  “You didn’t say I couldn’t have a knife. You’re just timid about me having guns.” She thrust the robber’s gun at him and squared her shoulders defiantly. For all her bravado he saw the hand that still held the knife trembling before she put it behind her back. She kept her eyes averted from the dead man on the ground.

  A distant buzzing sound drew their attention. “They’re back,” she cried, panicked by the sight of the other two locals returning.

  He handed her the gun back and searched the dead man for another. Too late to veer away, the red-haired leader and his companion were already in range of Seth’s well-placed fire. Ciela, at his side, shot wildly in their direction until both men and machines were on the ground.

  Silence returned to the marsh, disturbed only by Seth’s harsh breathing. Ciela untwisted the oxygen bottle from his shoulder and straightened the hose. He nodded when he felt air once again reach his lungs.

  “You know,” he rasped, “for an Arawaj, you are a terrible shot.”

  She looked as if she was about to snap something back at him but then suddenly her brow cleared and she grinned. “Yeah, I am.” She gave him her gun and, after a short and silent stand-off, also the knife. “Are you all right? You’re bleeding.”

  Seth raised his arm to see blood seeping through his torn sleeve. “Cazun...” he breathed. He staggered back to the inert skimmers where he paused to shoot into the roiling activity around the dead robber, grimacing when some of the bog worms surfaced, showing pink bellies. “Let’s get out of here.”

  She climbed into the sled and started to work with its control panel.

  “What happened?” Seth said. “Why did we stop?”

  She raised her arm without looking up to show him her data sleeve. “I looped into the sled’s control and cut the power link on both of them. Idiot wasn’t watching.” She tapped the console. “I hope I didn’t ruin this permanently.”

  He smiled, surprised and a little confused. “You did this while bouncing around on that sled? With that guy’s foot on you?” He went to check the other vehicle but it would not start up at his command. The driver sprawled over the seat and he saw the deep stab wound that had given her the chance to disarm and shoot him. He returned to watch her start up the other sled. “Tell me, though, why didn’t you just take off? Leave me here?”

  She shifted when he sat on the skimmer behind her, silent until they had returned to their backpacks. She watched him load the packs onto the vehicle and climb back on before she spoke. “Those men are probably an example of what’s going on in that town. I’m not a pilot. I can’t get out of this place by myself.”

  He cocked his head and studied her guileless expression. “Is that so?”

  “Well, yes.” She looked up into his face, sitting close enough for him to feel the heat of her body against his chilled skin. “I need you,” she said softly. “That’s all.”

  He looked into her fathomless eyes, thinking how pretty she looked with the small smile she gave him. “Don’t get cute, Arawaj,” he said just as softly. “What you need is some decon for that scratch on your face. Swing around to that ridge. We’ll dry out there before we check out the town.”

  She rolled her eyes and turned around to let the sled rise from the ground. “My name is Ciela.”

  It took an hour to reach the higher ground during which their scanners had not detected any life signs larger than the worms slithering through the mist below them. They stayed low to the ground, just high enough to avoid a plume of water in their wake. Seth was shivering by the time they stopped and his arm ached. But he had stowed a few pieces of clothing and insulating ponchos in their packs and, after Ciela’s help with disinfecting his scrape, started to feel more like himself again. A few neutralizing tablets took care of the queasy feeling the swamp water had stirred up in his stomach. She, too, got some care for the growing bruise on her cheek but she refused to let him apply a medical scanner to check for greater damage. He did not press her; it was not unusual for GenMods to be cagey about their physiology.

  Heating up some reconstituted soup almost made their little camp an acceptable way to rest for a while.

  “Is this whole planet like this?” she asked, gazing out over the bleak landscape.

  “No, just big parts of it, in the southern hemisphere. This is just the edge of the wetlands. North of here is probably the biggest rice-growing region in the sector. Sort of rice, anyway. Other grains grow in the dryer parts of the planet. It’s a big industry but probably not a really fun place to live.”

  “Those men seem to have reason to be here. Didn’t look like farmers to me.”

  He nodded, dispiritedly examining the tear in his favorite jacket. “It seems that some people are willing to live in the strangest places.”

  “Have you seen a lot of places? Not just weird ones?”

  He smiled. “Yeah, although I think I have my fill of swamps now. You’re a navigator. I’m sure you’ve seen some amazing sights.”

  She lifted one shoulder in slow shrug. “Not really. We just go from one station to another, or hook up with other freighters. Sometimes we get shore leave but I never really get to look around much. It gets boring sometimes.”

  “All for the cause?” he asked and immediately regretted that when she frowned at him.

  “Yes, for the cause,” she said. “We have no business interfering with these worlds. You have no business claiming them for your Commonwealth. We can’t take two steps before stumbling over a Centauri and your people aren’t even native to this part of the galaxy. You’re colonists and invaders like the Humans you brought here with you.” She stretched her arms out to encompass the horizon. “There is a difference between settling in a place where you don’t displace anything but a bunch of slugs, and settling where you’ll forever change a sentient population with your meddling.”

  He watched her animated features with interest, amazed as always by the fervor harbored by these rebels. She was right, of course, the Centauri did colonize this sector three hundred years ago and named it Trans-Targon. More of his people arrived regularly on massive immigrant ships to settle on these new worlds as soon as the Union deemed them suitable for habitation. But for most like him, Centauri, Humans, and more local races who had scattered on these few dozen habitable planets, this was home. “Some would say the slugs have rights, too. And a lot of those sentients you worry about are more than happy to join the Commonwealth. Our Union has changed many populations for the better.”

  “Like which?”

  “Well, Feyd, for instance. Their people live comfortably just by trading their goods. Food, mostly, like this place. Wine, sugar. Aram now houses huge cryogenic industries. Bellac has oceans full of fish that others want. The Commonwealth is about trade, not conquest.”

  She seemed unimpressed. “And Targon’s native people are now reduced to living in caves. Magra is perpetually at war. The Chaykos and Nebdans are routinely enslaved. Now your precious Union is taking over Tadonna. That’s my home planet.”

  “And the Shri-Lan have done horrible things to the Rhuwac population. Turned them into fighting machines and shipped them off-world as cannon fodder.”

  “I am not Shri-Lan!”

  “You will be if we don’t get you out of here. Not that Arawaj are much better than Shri-Lan.”

  She gaped at him, astounded by his words. “How can you say that? The Shri-Lan only want power. They
want to destroy the Union and take its place. Their territory is still growing, no matter what your Air Command does.”

  “Growing in places no one else wants,” Seth reminded her. “You are well aware of how incredibly vast Trans-Targon is, and it gets bigger with every keyhole we turn into a jumpsite.”

  “That’s exactly my point!” she said, more excited than angry now. “You expand your territory and the Shri-Lan tries to take it away, especially if there’s profit to be made from it. The Arawaj don’t even want this expansion to happen. We want to stop you from invading peaceful, unaware worlds. Stop importing more transports filled with Centauri from Terra-Centauri. Leave this sector to those who belong here.”

  He started to gather up the remains of their meal. Like Shaddallam and K’lar, he thought. Or Naiyad, where ages ago, it seemed, he did his part to make sure that no one would ever find anything interesting to exploit there. The Arawaj were not wrong in their ambitions; in some ways he even shared their views, if not their means. “So you got something against Centauri?”

  She frowned. “I didn’t say that. You know we have plenty of Centauri among the Arawaj. We just don’t need more of you here.”

  He shook his head. “What a strange bunch you are. But your methods are inefficient and unacceptable. Your actions have been as cruel as the Shri-Lan’s. Sometimes more so. That isn’t something the Union can tolerate.”

  “You can’t compare us to the Shri-Lan!” she objected. “We fight against Air Command in battle. We sabotage their installations where we feel that’ll slow the expansion. We teach locals to stand up to Commonwealth coercion and bribery.”

  “You actually believe that?” he said, incredulous.

  “It’s the truth.”

  “As you’ve been told.”

  She waved her hands in dismissal. “Don’t hand me your Commonwealth propaganda. We know all about that.”

  “You’ve killed people,” he guessed. “You had no qualms about those thugs back there. It looked pretty natural for you.”

  “No more than for you.” She shrugged but did not look at him. “I’ve had to defend myself and my people. I’ve had training. But I’m just a navigator. On a smuggler’s ship. I’ve never harmed anyone who wasn’t an enemy. Who, um, who…”

  “Who didn’t deserve it?”

  “Yes. We are defenders.”

  “Listen to yourself!” Seth said, drawn into the rhetoric in spite of himself. He had decided long ago to avoid these pointless debates that never found resolution. But she was so damn earnest about what she was saying that he could not stop the argument. “You defenders kept Bellac Tau in a state of insurrection for four years. Two thousand people died before things settled. It was Bellac’s own government that called on Air Command to drive the Arawaj out. The dam your people blew on Magra Alaric destroyed a whole town. That’s where they keep civilians in case you don’t know. Not six months ago one of your more lunatic Arawaj pals nearly destroyed Delphi.”

  “It’s Delphi’s fault that Air Command is as powerful as it is,” she returned but he saw the uncertainty in her eyes and heard it in her voice. She looked away. “What... what happened on Delphi?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Delphi is safe. For now.”

  “Because Air Command makes sure to guard their precious supply of spanners more than they protect any other place. Delphi isn’t even part of the Commonwealth.”

  He stood up. “And that is their choice. Kind of messes up your theory about the Union forcing themselves upon unwilling populations, doesn’t it?”

  Ciela mumbled something faintly insulting to his heritage. She refused his help with her backpack and heaved it into the skimmer herself. “Can I have that knife back? I’d feel safer.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “You can. I didn’t shoot you when I had the chance, did I?”

  “Probably would have missed, anyway.”

  Chapter Seven

  The town finally came into view when they steered their skimmer over an even path used also for wheeled vehicles. Traffic here moved mostly in the form of long trains of rice bins, ready to be loaded into shuttles heading for the moon. A few times they moved out of the way of massive farm machinery used to take care of the efficiently automated planting and harvesting here.

  Some homes and small farms appeared along the road, apparently making much use of rice fibers for construction along with imported shelter materials. Soon the isolated dwellings had turned into a busy hamlet on the fringe of the town and Seth stopped the sled near an open area bordered by shops. The place seemed to be a bit of a crossroads as goods were packed up for transport to the moon, and shippers and farmers stopped here for entertainment and supplies.

  Seth walked to where two elder Magrans worked on some sort of machinery that seemed to have no electronic parts at all. Ciela followed silently. She had not said much since their last rest stop but now looked around herself with curiosity. The men ducked their heads in greeting when they approached. Another Prime species, Magrans resembled Feydans but did not approve of the narrative tattoos that covered most Feydans’ bodies. Even in this overcast climate, their skin was dark brown and tough as old leather.

  Seth wrapped his right hand around the taller man’s right hand. “Two lives, brother,” he said in their language.

  The man showed the gaps in his teeth. “For you as well,” he replied.

  Seth looked back to where the road left the village. “Travel is dangerous out there. Here in this place also?”

  The men exchanged glances. “Only when strangers come looking for trouble. We value peace.”

  “Why are you holding that man’s hand,” Ciela asked, standing slightly behind Seth, a little unnerved by the throng of people pretending not to watch the exchange.

  “They are from Magra Fell,” he explained. “You can tell by those ripples along their necks. To touch while speaking is a sign of trust and honesty.” His hand was now loosely clasped around the man’s wrist. “Enemies don’t touch, nor do people who don’t like each other. By extension, that means liars and those with something to hide.” He turned back to his conversation. “We need to find a way to the station. Do you know the way?”

  The Magran chuckled. “Currency is always the way.”

  Seth nodded and gestured with his free hand to the skimmer. “All this can be yours.”

  They moved to the vehicle to let the Magrans examine it and the contents of the backpacks. Another man joined them and some of the items traded hands as they evaluated and judged. In the end, someone went into a nearby building and emerged again with a packet of flat rectangles embossed with strange designs and a holographic image. The trade also included a woven coat for Seth and a fringed scarf to cover Ciela’s hair in the way of the local women.

  Ciela fumbled with her wrap as they left the men to their new treasures and headed for the air field. “Why did you sell all that stuff?” She tapped his data sleeve. “Don’t they pay you at Air Command?”

  “They do, but something tells me that I don’t want to be flashing Union credit around here. The bald guy mentioned rebels on the air field.”

  “What? Here?”

  “Yeah. Shri-Lan. Keep your head down when we get there.” Seth nudged her into a narrow side street to avoid the main thoroughfare leading to the air field. “Why do I keep thinking you’re worth more than I think?”

  “What do I know what you think?”

  The town’s depot consisted of a vast tract of compound surface with weather-bleached markings to guide traffic toward the loading areas along the north side. From there, a steady stream of bullet-shaped shuttles lifted the grains to the orbital station. That the two private cruisers parked here were rebel-owned was probably not a secret to anyone. A few Shri-Lan, heavily armed and openly wearing their colors, loitered nearby, making the locals nervous with their scrutiny.

  Seth pulled Ciela into a block of warehouses and they made their way through rows of storage racks and conveyors until t
hey reached the other end of the air field. Sunlight streaming through transom windows below the ceiling painted thick beams through the dusty air. Ciela grimaced when her eyes followed them upward to see clusters of black insects crawl among the rafters, each as large as her splayed hand and moving far too quickly for comfort.

  Seth looked up. “Silo spiders,” he said. “They keep the bugs out of the grain.”

  “Do they bite?”

  “Yes.” He wiped cereal dust from a window set into a service door. The yard outside was busy with the loading of shuttles. He observed the activity for a while, seeing workers and overseers, identifying surveillance, counting rebels. “We should be able to get a lift to the moon on one of those. If we can get someone—” He looked around. “Ciela?”

  She was no longer beside him. He sighed and raised his eyes to the ceiling as if the spiders had some explanation for this rebel’s obstinacy. Some days it would just be easier to put on a uniform and slap his targets into irons to get them to where they were supposed to go. He set after her, easily following her footprints in the dust between tall pallets of grain bins to the other side of the building. They led outside and along the warehouse wall.

  He made no sound when he moved to where she huddled, peering around the corner into the yard. She yelped when he gripped her arm to spin her around and slam her against the metal wall. “Help!” She cried out. “I’m being—”

  He covered her mouth with his hand. “What do you think you’re doing? Shut up!”

  She glared at him, obviously not prepared to try to speak with his hand on her face. He pulled back by a fraction. “Let me go, dammit!”

  “Go where?”