Time Siege (19 page)

“The Flatirons have fallen for this ruse before,” the voice replied. “We will not again.”

“We can't go back the way we came. There are those chasing us.”

“Then you bring them to our building if we let you pass.”

“I beg you.” Elise took a step forward.

The ground at her feet kicked up dust, causing her to start. She threw her hands straight up in the air, her sleeves falling down to her shoulders and exposing her arms. They shook as she tried her best to fight back the tears. If this other tribe saw the Elfreth's leader panic, what would they think about the rest of her people? Some leader she had turned out to be.

“Leave,” the woman's voice repeated. The dust in front of Elise kicked up again.

Elise took a step back. “Can we at least talk this over?”

“No. My next shot will be through your heart.”

Resigned, Elise turned and walked back toward the tribe. She hadn't made up her mind yet whether they should attack the barricade or not. It would be bloody. Did they have a choice, though? How long could they keep this up?

“Wait,” a new voice rang from behind the barricade. It was a man's voice this time. Older, more frail.

Elise realized that the word, while still being translated through her comm band, wasn't from the common language these wastelander tribes used. It was Solar English. The new speaker had been to the outside world.

She turned around and waited. There was a long pause. Elise kept her hands held up above her head. She forced herself to keep looking straight and not back at the Elfreth twenty meters behind her. If they wanted to kill her right now, there was little her people could do to stop it. After what felt like an eternity, to the point Elise was beginning to get bored, the metal door in the barricade swung open, revealing a darkened room behind it.

“You may enter. Only you.”

Elise took a step forward, and her legs almost buckled. She looked back at the Elfreth. Both Eriao and Rima were shaking their heads furiously, gesturing for her to backtrack toward them. She tried to take another step forward, and found that her leg was refusing to lift off the ground.

A middle-aged woman stepped out from the barricade and walked hesitantly toward Elise. She stopped just in front of her and bowed gracefully, almost in a curtsy. Elise tried to return the gesture but looked awkward trying to imitate that motion.

“I am Harre, the Teacher's sister,” she said. “I will stand in your place until you return.”

Elise looked at the distance from here to the barricade, and then back at the Elfreth, who seemed so much farther away. It hardly seemed like a fair trade-off. However, this small gesture was more than she had thought she would receive. It gave her a small boost of courage.

“Thank you,” she said.

She forced herself not to look back again as she walked through the double doors into the darkness behind the barricade. Immediately, weapons surrounded her on either side. Several narrow beams of light focused on her. Shadows danced around her, prodding her forward. A path in front of her opened as they herded her a third of the way down the length of the building, through a massive wide-open hall with ceilings three stories tall. This looked like it was once a lobby, or a warehouse. It actually reminded her of those old train terminals from before her time. It was gigantic. Cracked marble ran up and down the walls and torches were spaced evenly down the hallway, giving her a perspective on how expansive this building was.

A woman wielding a rifle stepped into one of the lights and pointed at a door to the side. “Go.”

It was the same woman who had spoken with her earlier at the barricade. Her left arm and shoulder were bandaged tightly with rags, and she had red burn marks all over her body. Elise looked to both sides of the woman and realized that many surrounding her had suffered similar injuries. Pitched battles had been waged here lately. No wonder they were suspicious of strangers.

Elise stepped into the small room and found a roaring fireplace in front of two wingback chairs. On the left, a wrinkled man with long gray hair and a beard to match sat staring up at her. He motioned to the other chair. “Sit. I am Teacher Crowe of the Flatirons. You are standing in my home. Allow me to offer you a seat.”

Elise was thankful that she got to sit. Her legs were Jell-O right now, and it helped calm her shaking. If she really was going to negotiate, it might help to not be quaking in her shoes the entire time.

“Thank you for speaking with me,” she said. “We were on our way north. My people just need a place to rest. Your tower seems spacious and sheltered. I ask that you consider—”

“In a moment, we will speak more of that,” Crowe said, cutting her off. “You wield chronman bands.”

Elise held up her arms. “You know what these are?”

“I do. In fact, I recognized many of the weapons your warriors wield. Why not simply blast your way through us?”

“I meant it when I said we were peaceful,” Elise said.

The old man nodded. “You are not from around here. You speak our language through your bands.” This teacher, it seemed, knew a lot of the outside world.

She nodded. “I've joined my tribe recently.”

“Yet you lead them.”

“It's complicated.”

“Tell me, what other technology do you possess?”

It was an opening, at least. Elise took a deep breath and began negotiations.

*   *   *

Two hours later, an exhausted and relieved Elise left the center doors of the barricade and approached the Elfreth. By this time, Eriao had lined the Elfreth up only a few meters away from where Harre stood, and had them ready to attack at a moment's notice. The woman's face drained of tension when she saw Elise come out.

“That took longer than I thought,” she said.

“Your brother asks a lot of questions.”

“The Teacher is not actually my brother.” Harre shrugged, a wry smile on her face as she retreated back into the barricades.

“What happened?” Franwil demanded.

“It is night, and the jungles are awakening. We need to get off this bridge immediately and find shelter,” Eriao said. “The tribe is ready to go. We might be able to take the north portion of the building southwest of here. I'll send scouts there to locate a safe place to set up camp.”

“No.” Elise pointed at the entrance. “We go in.”

“How much do we have to pay for passage through their building?” he asked.

“We're not passing through,” Elise said. “I negotiated for food and two floors on the upper level. The Flatirons own the entire building from this floor up.”

“How is that possible?” Rima asked. “Do they have that many in the tribe?”

Elise shook her head. “They're a large tribe, slightly larger than us, but not much. They destroyed all the connecting passages above and guard this floor like a fortress. They use the above floors for farming, much like we did with the Farming Towers back in Boston.”

“Why are they letting us in, then?” Eriao asked.

Elise pointed at several of the crates being carried by the Elfreth. “Bring seventeen of the medical supply crates, including all the equipment for treating burns, and leave them in the hallway. They're no longer ours. Also, hand over thirty powered blaster rifles with chargers.”

“Oldest,” Eriao said, alarmed. “That is a high price to pay.”

She sighed. “I know, but we need the respite.”

Franwil nodded. “It is a high price, but worthwhile if we have found a safe haven where the Co-op and those other wastelander dogs cannot nip at our heels, even for a little while. I trust that you and their teacher came to a good permanent accommodation?”

Elise sighed. “Accommodation, yes. A permanent one, no. We're only allowed to stay for ten days.”

 

EIGHTEEN

R
IOT

For the second time in less than a year, that bastard James Griffin-Mars had turned Levin's life upside down. It was becoming a habit, though Levin was hard-pressed to argue that breaking out of prison wasn't going to be an improvement. He guessed it'd have to depend what was waiting for him outside.

The main reason it took so long to plan the riot to distract the guards wasn't actually because starting a two-sided riot took planning, it was because the Apex and the People had to negotiate the terms for the fight. In the end, the best Levin could do was ensure that neither side would use weapons and that the riot would end as soon as they were gone. He hated himself for abandoning the People. The two groups also committed to keeping the peace, though that promise was probably only good up until Levin and Cole got off-moon. He had had to try, though.

“I don't want to hear it,” 461 said, shaking his head when Levin tried to apologize to him personally. “I don't want to hear about your ass abandoning us or not keeping your promise. If you get a ticket out of here, you take it. That goes for any of the boys. Have to be an idiot not to.”

“They're good men,” Levin said. “Keep them safe. As long as you stick together, you'll be all right.”

“Don't worry about us in the clink, free man,” 461 replied. “Someone out there thinks you're valuable enough to bust out. You just make sure you do what you set out to do.”

“I'll come back for all of you someday,” Levin said.

461 smirked. “Don't make another promise you can't keep, boss.”

Levin put a hand on 461's shoulder. “We'll meet again, my friend.” The men he led, he didn't know who they were before they came to Nereid, but he knew who they were now. These were good people. People worth redeeming. He stuck out his hand. “Levin Javier-Oberon.”

“Pardon, boss?”

“That's my name. Each of us, we're more than just numbers. I think it's time we remember that.”

461 hesitated, and then shook Levin's hand. “Iro Bami-Earth.”

“From Earth?” Levin said, surprised.

Iro nodded. “The Colorado underground colonies, actually. It's why my skin is as pale as a spaceborn. Got pinched when I was young robbing a food corporation's delivery transport. Was starving. Accidentally killed a guard when I hit him.” He looked down at his beefy hands. “Didn't mean to. I was big even as a kid.”

Levin understood. He had no doubt several of these people's stories were similar. Times were hard, and it brought desperation out of those who might not have committed any crimes otherwise. Funny, he hadn't thought this way before he came to Nereid. The penal colony had reformed him, but not in the way it had intended.

The riot erupted after the meal that night. It began with a wink, a nod, and then a hard right cross from 461 that intentionally missed one of the Apex captains. With tensions on both sides boiling over, it didn't take much for the staged fracas to turn into a real one.

Levin watched the chaos unfold. Watched as several of his people were bloodied, and as the violence spread from inmate to inmate like wildfire. Soon, the entire commune was a battlefield. James, still with Raets's paint over him, pretended to try to quell the riot. He made a pretty good show of it, using the big man's arms to pull the inmates apart and knock them on the ground. Then, Cole dove off one of the dining tables and jumped on top of him. More of the Apexes followed suit until he was buried beneath an avalanche of bodies.

That set off all the guards. Usually, when fights broke out, the prison guards were content to spectate. If it got bad, they usually would just vacuum out the air until the prisoners passed out. However, if one of their own was in trouble, the others would soon come down in full force.

Standing in the midst of the fracas, James made his presence known as he pretended to be in serious trouble. He shrieked for backup at the top of his lungs as he made wide clumsy swings at the inmates surrounding him. The inmates had been instructed not to touch him, but some of them must not have gotten the memo. Those unfortunate fools who took it too far—all Apexes, as far as Levin could tell—were handled by James with extreme prejudice, which made the scene only more realistic.

From a professional auditor viewpoint, if Levin were grading James's performance, he would have said the ex-chronman was overacting a little. The guy James was impersonating looked entirely too amateur, and the way he pitched the screaming was a bit too frantic. He was also beating the inmates who got close too efficiently. A regular guard wouldn't have had his skill, and his actions should reflect that. Also, a real guard in this situation wouldn't have had the breath to keep shouting this loud while fighting at the same time. To be perfectly frank, Levin was disappointed in this Tier-1's performance. Not that it mattered. Not anymore.

James did his job, though. The penal colony guards must have raised the alarm, because a few minutes later, the two double-door entrances on both sides slammed open and several rows of guards, clad in riot gear four shields wide, charged into the commune. They barreled into the crowd of prisoners locked in step, indiscriminately swinging their pain sticks.

The inmates were ready for them. No sooner had the doors opened and the guards streamed out than the inmates stopped fighting each other and turned on them. The guards weren't ready for the coordinated attack and were pushed off to the side, away from the entrance. The rest of the inmates charged through the security doors. They were met by another locked double door at the far end of the corridor and pounded at it futilely.

James, still painted as Raets, appeared next to Levin. They signaled to Cole, and together, the three of them pushed their way to the front of the crowd. “Stand back,” he said, pulling the men next to the door away from it.

Levin nodded at James, who approached the door and placed his hands on it. A yellow glow leaped from his palms and blew the doors outward, ripping the panels off their frame and flinging them into another group of guards on the other side. The mob surged forward. James signaled to Levin and Cole, and together, they broke away from the main crowd, moving down a side corridor and up through a maintenance stairwell.