Conviction Page 5

  His eyes drop to Pete. “Fine, deal,” he finally says, his voice much softer than his words.

  “Good, now—”

  I’m cut off by David’s voice coming through my VDU. “Aly, Soltznin, get your asses out here. I got trouble.”

  6

  BUZZARDS

  I thrust the filters at Drew and push by him back inside, rush past their father, who stares in surprise, and bang through the door at the dwelling’s rear where we’d originally come in. Soltznin marks my every step. The quad is still where we’d left it beside another two. Drew must have removed the water tank while we’d been speaking with his father. A bonus.

  “Where’s the backup battery?” I yell.

  The kid has followed us and points without hesitation to a compartment that had previously been under the tank. Soltznin opens it, looks inside, and gives me a quick nod.

  “You drive!” I tell her, taking the passenger seat. Speaking into my VDU, I call, “David, we’re ten minutes away. What’s your situation?”

  Soltznin triggers the engine and gets us moving, leaving the kids and their dying father behind like so much dust in a windstorm.

  “Scavs are closing. I can see at least four ATVs. Maybe ten people total. I locked up the craft, but it’ll only be a few more seconds till they get here.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Took cover on one of the rock pinnacles inside an impression about ten meters up. The only way they’ll get to me is with artillery.”

  “David, what if they have some?”

  “Hurry.”

  Soltznin gets us onto a track outside of town instead of going through it. Fewer obstacles, but a bumpier ride. The set of craggy pinnacles is visible, though barely more than a shadow at this distance. The suns are low enough that the entire horizon is melting into a uniform deep red and gray. I leave my VDU on, its camera feed showing just the edge of David’s face as he squints at the approaching chaos, and the shadowed wall of the rock indentation he’s perched in. “Push it,” I somehow manage through a jaw that feels too tight to move.

  As we draw closer, clouds of red dust from the ATVs hover in the still air, reducing our visibility. But also providing us cover. The interlopers are assembled in a ring facing the buttoned-up craft. We have the advantage of being nearly noiseless on the battery-powered quad, and they aren’t expecting company from the rear.

  “David, are you sure they’re a threat? Could just be—” The sound of a shot ricocheting off the front faring of our quad cuts me off. “They’re firing! Cover us!”

  I yank my eyes from the VDU and bring my carbine up, immediately sighting in on the two men from the leftmost and closest ATV and squeezing off a shot. Through the noise of their still-running engines, I can’t hear if my shot hit its target, but the way the man on the right crumples awkwardly against his vehicle tells me my aim was good. The other immediately drops behind the ATV, using its sparse size for cover. The action draws the attention of the rest, but too late for three of them, who are picked off by David from his fortuitous vantage point. He isn’t called Eagle Eye for nothing.

  That leaves six, at least by David’s count. The dust and shadows of the rock make it hard to know for sure. The quad doesn’t move fast enough for anyone with even a moderately decent firing group to miss, but the only cover out here is behind the rock spires, and Soltznin keeps pushing toward them as David and I continue to fire at the parked scavs. They’ve all hit the deck behind their own vehicles. Their vantage reduces their chances of hitting us, but I still feel much, much too exposed.

  Within a minute, Soltznin passes the evac craft and our assailants and pulls the quad up short just before barreling into a bench-sized boulder at the edge of the field of rocks. We both dive for cover among them.

  “David, we have good cover, but it’ll be hard to hit anything from here. What can you see?”

  “Four more of them. Three pinned down behind the two ATVs on the right and one on the ground behind the first one you took out.”

  I turn to look at Soltznin. “What do you think we should do?”

  “I don’t know, but they could have friends on the way, so we better do it now.”

  She’s right. Swallowing against the hard knot in my throat, I decide. “I’m moving closer, see if I can get a better shot.”

  “We got your back,” David responds, and Soltznin gives me a thumbs-up.

  Staying low, I push through the strewn boulders as quickly as I can. The ground slopes up, leaving the angle of sight better for the scavs. Every time I rush from the cover of one sandstone slab to another, a shot follows me, always whining too close off a rock for me to draw a comfortable breath. My lungs feel as if they’re being squeezed by a fist, and sweat begins to slip down my neck into my shirt. I have to force myself to stop and put my back against a boulder for a few seconds to calm everything down, my heartbeat, my breathing, my jittering nerves.

  “Aly, you good?” David asks.

  “Just having a personal moment.”

  Suddenly Soltznin’s voice rings out. “You scavs have one chance to get out of here before we cut you down.”

  Her words, infused with the authority of a seasoned squad leader, batter the rocks with their force, and I take the unexpected moment of distraction to leap forward several meters to the cover of a slab directly behind the evac craft’s port wing foil. The sound of my boots against the gritty rock redraws the scavs’ focus, but not fast enough for them to put a stop to my progress. I drop to the ground and find a funnel of open space between the rocks, just large enough for me to get a good visual on someone’s carelessly exposed foot. His scream when I shoot off everything from the arch to the toes could break glass.

  In typical scav style, they barrage the rock I hide behind with a useless volley, using up too much of their ammo and achieving nothing except to assure the three of us that they have no plans to decamp. Like rabid dogs, their jaws are clamped tightly, tenaciously, and maybe fatally to this quarry.

  David’s spire looms to my left as I face the craft. Looking up, I can just see the barrel of his carbine aimed down at the vultures from the darkness of his rock depression. Now what? Only a minute or so has passed since I started forward, but with the exception of one less foot, our accosters don’t have any more of a disadvantage, and I still don’t have a clear shot. With about ten meters between them and the craft, they can’t move forward and use its frame as cover without risking full exposure, and I’m sure our display of firing skills hasn’t made them eager to risk it. We’re at a stalemate.

  On my VDU, keeping my voice low: “I’m going to have to kamikaze it.”

  “Hold on, Aly, let me think,” David responds.

  No. Thinking is only going to make me reconsider. “You two start suppressive fire in three…two…now!”

  Relying on their discipline more than my faith, I run down the slight slope, bent forward and firing at every potential target, my senses lit up like the core of a supernova. It’s only adrenaline, but this isn’t the first nor will it be the last time adrenaline saves my life. The sound of David and Soltznin’s cover fire is almost as faint as drops of water in a deep cave as my brain cycles into a sense that supersedes sound or sight and becomes something stronger, far more powerful. A sixth sense known as survival.

  An explosion of blood, which to my overattentive focus appears a thousand times redder than normal, erupts across one of the ATVs as its driver rises too high and one of David or Soltznin’s bullets ghosts him. I’ve covered the gap between me and the nearest ATV at the speed of arterial spray and shoot the man behind it before he realizes I’m there. My aim isn’t perfect this time and only hits him in the shoulder. Before I can finish the job, one of the other scavs sees me and fires in my direction. His shot does finish the job, unintentionally hitting the scav I’d shot in the shoulder, and my target goes down for good with half the brain matter he used to have.

  I take cover behind the slimed ATV, now only meters from the othe
r two sets of scavs. They know I’m here, but they can’t get a good shot without exposing themselves to my cohorts. Of course, neither can I.

  “Aly?” David asks.

  “I’m clear.”

  “Can you draw them out?” Soltznin chimes in.

  “Any ideas how I might do that?”

  Silence.

  The clock, if there were a clock, would be ticking. The buzzards, if there were buzzards on this rock, would be flying overhead. My patience, if I had any patience, would be at its limit.

  But battles are often won in the silences between shots, and I’m just not ready to become the next bleeder on this dusty piece of earth.

  Soltznin: “I’m moving in. Erikson—both of you—keep your eyes open.”

  My turn to create a distraction. “Boys, you know you’re not going to win this one!” I yell.

  “You shouldn’ta landed where you don’t have any friends,” one of them responds. “We’re going to tear you up and feed you to the rats! That ship is as good as ours.”

  “Speaking of friends, you’re down to two, buddy.” A wild shot whines through the air above me to illustrate how little my new conversationalist thinks of this observation. “Good idea. Use up all your ammo. You’re going to win this fight for us.”

  This is received with an angry silence.

  I hear Soltznin advancing through the rocks, drawing closer. With me so near, none of the scavs dares move into position to fire at her, making her approach much easier. David’s vantage from above and she and I working on the ground could be all we need to beat them with our better aim and experienced military tactics. If we’re lucky.

  “I’m just behind you, Aly. Coming to your position in—”

  I hear it at the same instant she does. Another vehicle approaching. With the shadows cast by the three lowered suns, I don’t see anything but a dark speck about a hundred meters out, approaching from the same direction Soltznin and I had come from. It’s moving slowly, but the engine is louder than the battery-powered quad’s. Friend or foe? Or just an innocent passerby? There’s no way to tell at this range.

  “David, can you see what that is?”

  After a second he gets back to me. “It’s an ATV or a quad, boxy, like a land trans, but too small to be a regular trans. It’s moving way too slow, though, like he’s getting a read on you.”

  “Take a shot,” Soltznin says decisively, and I don’t argue. Yeah, it might be a hapless local with no ill intent, but given the people we’ve met today, none of us are willing to bet on it. “Just take him out, Tech Sergeant,” she repeats.

  David’s end is quiet, but I can imagine him at this moment. Calming his breathing, in and out through the nose; hardening his solar plexus and the muscles in his shoulders as his body completely stills; blinking his eyes slowly, deliberately, before bringing his carbine stock to rest naturally against his cheek. His right pointer finger hooked through the trigger guard; his right thumb cocked along the upper breech. The center of his pupil in-line directly in the center of the scope. An in-breath, an out-breath, and…

  An explosion ten times louder than rifle fire cracks through the artificial stillness, and a fireball drenched in black smoke careens upward from the destroyed ATV five meters away. Then once more, and the second ATV joins the first in instant, total cremation. I flatten my body against the packed earth, as if trying to press through it, the only thing I can do to escape what my mind simply cannot understand. Something much bigger than a bullet just blew up those vehicles, and the scavs just became the outcome of a very bad day at the range. All I can think is that I’m next, and these last few hours of being a deserter were the only taste of freedom I’ll ever have.

  But I’m not dead.

  “Aly, get out of there!” David yells, his voice so loud I hear it from his perch as well as clanging from my VDU.

  Scooting backward to try and put the gory ATV between myself and the approaching quad—where else could the artillery, if that’s what it was, have come from?—I simultaneously and clumsily try to emplace my carbine atop one knee to be ready to take a shot. The new vehicle no longer moves toward us but has stopped about twenty meters distant. As I stare, the roof swings upward and open, like a trapdoor, and someone’s head and shoulders appear.

  “Don’t shoot!” the gunman yells. “It’s Drew!”

  7

  BROTHERLY LOVE

  The moment passes like a languid breeze on a humid day while I try to make sense of what I just heard. Drew? The sixteen-year-old with the cruiser-sized chip on his shoulder? Wrapping my mind around the concept that this kid really just incinerated the scav team with some kind of explosive projectile weapons takes the last bit of energy I can spare.

  Blinking several times, more to clear my disbelief than my sight, I take a closer look. His pinched, freckled face and gangly, overly long arms are unmistakable, even at this range.

  I get to my feet and relax my grip on the AK. The fact that my body remains in one still-healthy piece is enough for me to forgive him for following us out here and scaring the living shit out of me. That, and the fact that he’d saved our asses.

  Into my VDU, I say, “David, Soltznin, hold your fire.” Then out loud: “What the hell are you doing here, kid?”

  David asks, “Aly, do you know who that is?”

  Forgoing the VDU altogether, I turn and wave at him until his face appears outside the dimness of his enclave. “He’s one of the kids we met in town. Sold us the quad. I think it’s safe to come down.”

  Gauging the danger to be on hold, Drew climbs clear of his weaponized vehicle and approaches. Wisely, his hands stay at shoulder height.

  When he’s close enough, I ask again, “What are you doing here?”

  Soltznin has stepped clear of the boulder field and stands beside me, adding, “More importantly, where did you get that ordnance?”

  Drew stops a few steps away, but he doesn’t say anything. His eyes are wide, taking in the destruction he’d caused and never even looking toward Soltznin and me.

  “Kid.” I keep my voice calm. “You can put your hands down now.”

  Realizing they’re still upraised, he drops his arms quickly with an embarrassed glance at us. As I watch, his face slowly loses its shocked expression and begins to reassemble into the mask of worldly hardness he’s spent his formative years trying to create. Once more, his behavior reminds me of me, of being forced into growing up and toughening up before feeling ready. Because there isn’t a choice.

  “I’m not going to ask again,” Soltznin says, her tone steely. She holds her Bowker in her palm, lowered but still threatening, and I’m surprised by the irritation I feel at her.

  “Did your dad send you after us?” I ask.

  “Uh, yeah. He, uh, he knew there was trouble, and he wanted to know what might happen.”

  He wanted to see if there was a chance he could benefit from our “trouble” more like, but I don’t take it personally. “That took some balls, what you did.”

  He shakes his head, unsure if my tone is admiring or mocking.

  “You got that artillery from the smuggler Temple was telling us about, didn’t you?”

  He nods. “We bought it for protection.”

  “Well, it works,” I say. “Nice job, kid.”

  David, down from his eagle’s nest, joins us. “This the kid who said he could get us a buyer on the e-craft?” I nod, and after taking a look at me, he continues, “Are you sure you’re not hit, Aly? There’s…” He gestures at my face and neck.

  With the hand not holding my carbine, I wipe my cheek. My fingers come away covered in sand-infused, coagulating blood. “Ah, shit.”

  Drew loses it, doubling over and stumbling away a few steps as whatever his last meal was rumbles out of him with the velocity of a rail gun. The sound of his retching is the only noise on the still plain.

  “None of it’s mine,” I comment, waiting for the kid to get it together. “You know, if this smuggler can get his hands o
n something like that quad and that kind of firepower, he may be the real deal. Exactly the kind of person we could use to flip the ship.”

  “None of these fucking scavs can be trusted,” Soltznin says.

  “Your point?”

  “My point is this whole idea needs to be rethought. We don’t belong out here.” She starts to say more, then pauses, getting control of what sounds like a change of heart.

  Carefully, deliberately, I say, “We can’t turn back now. We’re deserters, Tech Sergeant. Or should I just say ‘non-citizens’? There isn’t any going back.” My eyes flick to David, looking for backup. But that’s not what I see.

  He says, “Look, little sis, we need to consider what Soltznin is saying. If the Corps finds us out here, deserters…this may not be the right move—”

  I cut him off. “Let’s discuss this later. It’s late and we could lose more light. We need to set up a watch and defense. Who knows what other kind of company we’ll get, and we’re not in a position to go anywhere right now.”

  David nods in agreement, reluctantly, and Soltznin says nothing.

  “I’ll help.” Drew, recovered, stands nearby listening closely.

  “Help what?” I ask.

  “I can help you keep watch.”

  Soltznin snorts dismissively. Drew’s eyes narrow at her.

  “Thanks, kid,” David says, “but you shouldn’t be out here in the first place. This”—he waves a hand toward the smoking ATVs—“isn’t something you want any more to do with.”

  “Look, helmet head, I know everyone around here, and everyone knows me. If they see me here, they’ll think twice about bothering you.”

  “They see this and this”—Soltznin holds up first her Bowker, then a modified CCIX rifle she’s pulled from the hand of one of the dead men—“and they’ll think twice. We don’t need help from a scav. Especially a little one like you.”

  “Soltznin—” I start angrily.