Black Hole Sun (10 page)

Jenkins huffs. Fuse elbows him. Maeve ignores them both.

“Now to business,” she says. “These past months, we were raided by the Dræu again and again. They attack out of nowhere, take what children they can carry, then disappear. We all know what the Dræu do to children. CorpCom law is useless out here, and we've got no weapons nor training in defending ourselves, so I sent Áine to hire a Regulator to train us. Blessedly, you all came instead, but we
know that if we rise against the Dræu, they will try to kill us all.”

“Which is why you need us to force them to move on,” I say.

“Move on? Tch.” Áine clicks her tongue softly. “Not likely, handsome.”

Maeve pats Áine's hand, a loving gesture that I interpret to mean
Enough with the flirting
. “What Áine is trying to say is, the Dræu are not reasonable folk, so them moving on would not be achievable.” Maeve goes on to state the terms of the contract and what will bring the final payout. “Either the Dræu are defeated, or they agree to sign a blood oath to never attack this outpost again.”

“The Dræu sign a blood oath?” Mimi says. “Not likely,
handsome
.”

I can't help but smile. But across the table, Áine smiles in return. Oh no. What have I done?

“Stepped in it,” Mimi says.

Maeve unrolls a sheath of electrostat. The contract is imprinted on it, and there's a box for my thumbprint. I scan the document to make sure it's all kosher, but I pause with my thumb hovering over the signature line.

“Before I endorse this. Once I'm in charge, I'm in charge of everything: fortifying defenses, training your folk in the use of weaponry, defeating the enemy in battle. You provide the support, the materials, and the food.”

“We've not,” Áine says, “promised to just turn ourselves
for you to use any way you'd like, Regulator.”

“But if that is what needs done, then we'll do it,” the old woman says. “We agree to your terms. Our lives are in your hands.”

“You can count on us,” I say.

“Let's see if you can still say that,” Áine murmurs, shifting the weight off her wounded leg, “after you've had a taste of the Dræu.”

 

In battle school, our masters drilled this mantra into our heads:
All warfare is based on deception.
From the recon we could pry out of the miners, the Dræu have a hundred fighters. We have five Regulators, a pint-sized acolyte, and about forty ornery miners. So my first job is to deceive the Dræu into thinking we've got
beaucoups
more personnel than that and the personnel is well-trained.

My other job is to make use of the skills the miners have to build defensive structures to control the enemy's route into the mines. If the Dræu can't reach the Cross, then they can't attack. The problem is, there are dozens of tunnels, and we can't defend them all.

“There are forty-two tunnels, to be exact,” Mimi says.

Vienne, Áine, and I stand in the dim light of Hell's Cross. Our faces are illuminated by the glow of a open electrostat, which displays a cross-section map of the Fisher Four mine. From this angle, it looks like an ant colony. The tipple and ore houses are on the surface. Six different lifts lead to the
tramway. Twelve different exit stations lead to elevators connected to the maze of underground stations. Most of the active mine shafts and worker settlements are a kilometer south and four hundred meters below us.

Vienne looks over my shoulder, pointing out the route that we took to reach the Cross via Crazy Town, and Áine stands close, pointing out landmarks.

“So we have forty-two tunnels of varying sizes,” I say, tracing the lines with my finger. “All of them lead either directly or indirectly to the four main corridors that lead to the Cross. There are only a handful of paths the Dræu can use to attack with a large force, like the way we came in. But there are too many spots where they can send in a skirmish line to harass us.”

“‘You can ensure the safety of your defense if you only hold positions that cannot be attacked,'” Vienne says, quoting from
The Art of War
and glaring at Áine.

“Right,” I say. “So we're going to do this in two phases. First, we'll close all but one of the corridors.”

“Why not close them all?” Áine asks. Then sticks her tongue out at Vienne.

“Because we want the Dræu to attack,” I explain.

“What?” Áine squeaks. “That's madness!”

“No, it's plumbing. We know the water is going to flow. We just decide where it's shunted to. Which brings us to the second phase.” I tap the map. Sweep my fingers across it. “This corridor leads to a bridge, which leads to where?”

“The surface,” Áine says. “And we call that the Zhao Zhou Bridge. You'd never heard of it? We use it when we go foraging. But it's full of junked-up machines.”

“Which makes it perfect,” I say. “The debris will slow down any rush attacks, and the Zhao Zhou Bridge will funnel them into our redoubt.”

“Our what?”

“Redoubt,” Vienne says, smirking. “A defensive structure designed to fight against sieges.”

Áine sticks out her chin, letting Vienne know that she doesn't appreciate her little lecture. “Well, Miss Know-it-all, we don't have one of those here.”

“No problem,” I say. If I don't do something about their bickering now, there will never be an end to it, and it might jeopardize the job. Then I hit on a plan. “No problem at all. In fact, you're going to build us one.”

Áine chokes. “Excuse me? You're having a laugh, right? We don't know about building redoubts or whatever you call them.”

It's my time to smirk. “Vienne is going to show you.”

“Chief!”

“Not her!” Áine snarls. “There's a fair suck of salve!”

“Tough.” I roll up the electrostat. “I've got to talk to Fuse. There's some blasting to do, and he's the right one for the job. You two enjoy yourselves. And oh, you've got twenty-four hours to get the job done.”

“Twenty-four hours?” they chime together.

“But how?” Áine says.

“With what?” Vienne asks.

“You're both smart girls,” I say. “I'm sure you'll think of something.”

As I walk away, a silent argument rages. I grin and ask Mimi to locate Fuse for me.

“Fuse is on the Zhao Zhou Bridge,” Mimi says. She shows me his coordinates on the aural vid. “You know what was going on back there, don't you?”

“Yep. I decided to let them hash it out.”

“Hash what out, precisely?”

“Their little turf war. We've got to be one unified force against the Dræu, so the sooner they learn to cooperate, the better.”

Mimi is silent, but I have the unnerving feeling that if she still had a head, she would be shaking it.

“What?” I say.

“Sometimes, cowboy,” she says, “I wonder if you are as dense and impenetrable as symbiarmor.”

“I am who I am,” I say, and head out to check out the bridge.

 

When the corridor ends, I step out into an open cavern. All around me, there are high cliffs. Check that. Not really cliffs. Cuts. Most of the walls of the massive cavern were cut by machines. Cut from the walls in large chunks so that the walls look like steps to a giant's house. It's like an open
pit mine underground. The walls are dark brown but look black where the overhead array of lights doesn't touch them. It feels like there's no end to the cavern, but the lack of a sky overhead leaves me feeling claustrophobic. It doesn't help that a deep gorge splits the cavern in half, and that the gorge is supposed to be bottomless.

As casually as I can, I walk to the edge of the gorge and toss a chunk of rock into its black maw. I count off seconds, waiting for the sound of it hitting bottom. When I get to one hundred, I quit.

Thank God for bridges, I think, and start walking toward Fuse.

The Zhao Zhou Bridge measures about one hundred fifty meters in length and is twelve meters wide. Built of slabs jointed with dovetails, the main semicircle arch rises high above the gorge that separates the corridor leading to Hell's Cross from a wide cliff on the opposite end. There are ornamental railings on either side and an arched swing gate on each end.

The deck of the bridge is littered with the carcasses of broken machines and tools. Which will have to be cleared. Off to the right, I count six heavy cranes. Rust covers the cockpits where operators once sat, and the massive cables that hang from their booms lay in heaps beside the treads. Farther away, near the side tunnels, I see an endless supply of shipping containers stacked ten high. In the before days, they were used to transport ore via the beanstalks. Now
they're scattered like a gigantic child's building blocks. Building blocks. There's a thought.

“Mimi,” I say, “keep scanning the area. Let me know if you pick up anything.”

“Will do,” she says. “But cowboy, these repetitive scans are putting a strain on your suit's capacity and therefore, you. Your body needs to sleep.”

“I'll sleep when I'm dead.”

“Which will happen sooner than later if you do not rest.”

“In the meantime, give me a pinch if I start nodding off.”

When I reach Fuse, he's holding a piece of electrostat. But it's turned upside down, and he's scratching his head like the map's an impossible puzzle. Clearly, cartography is not this soldier's forte.

Fuse jumps when I sneak up behind him. “Oy! Chief!” He pats his chest. “You almost gave me a coronary. Let a jack know you're coming, right?”

“Sorry, Fuse,” I say, turning his map to the correct direction. “First order of business is for you to close up every secondary and tertiary tunnel connected to this corridor. We're going to funnel the Dræu from that main tunnel over there and across this bridge to a redoubt that Vienne and Áine are designing.”

“So that's a bridge?” He points at the map.

“As in, the one you're standing on?”

“Oh, right. I see now. That's more like it. So, I'm to shut down a bunch of tunnels. Right. What've I got to work with?”

“Anything you can scavenge to do the job. If it's not nailed down, use it.”

Fuse surveys the area, pointing out the small mountains of discarded machinery and mining equipment. “I dunno, chief. Not much here that's not falling apart. What about the cranes? They might be handy for moving some junk around. Think they still work?”

“Fix them if they don't,” I say. “Also, the old woman Maeve says there's some C-forty-two in storage if you need it for closing down the tunnels. In the before days, miners used it for blowing tunnels.”

“Explosives?” Fuse's eyes light up. “This changes everything.”

I give his shoulder a shake. “Thought it might.” I turn to leave but find Jenkins at my elbow.

“Fuse is going to blow things up?” he asks.

“He is.”

Jenkins's eyes sparkle. “Can I help?”

“No carking way!” Fuse says. “Remember the last time you
helped
? I lost both my eyebrows.”

“Aw. They grew back.”

“The miners are collecting scrap in the back,” I say, cutting their argument short. “How about you lend a hand?” I steer Jenkins away from Fuse and toward the archway that leads to the Cross. “Gives you a chance to show off your muscles.”

Jenkins grumbles. Looks longingly at Fuse, who has
already climbed into the cockpit of a crane. He tries to crank the motor, but all we hear is the clicking of a solenoid. He's got his work cut out for him.

“Come on, Jenkins.” I've got no idea what job to give him to occupy his hands, but I breathe easy knowing he won't be near the explosives.

“Cowboy,” Mimi interrupts. “I have an urgent message from Maeve.”

“Hold up a second, Jenkins,” I say. Then tell Mimi to route Maeve through. “Put it on aural.”

“Durango,” she says, her voice popping with the bad connection. “We have a situation with you and yours. It's Ockham. He's causing a ruckus.”

That
scheißkerl
. I've had about all I can swallow of him. “What kind of ruckus?”

“It's better you see it in person,” she says. “Please come to the Cross. Before somebody gets killed.”

“The scrap collection will have to wait,” I tell Jenkins. Then signal Vienne and Fuse to join us in the Cross. “Seems there's a patch of trouble with Ockham.”

“There's always trouble with that oldie,” Jenkins says, almost under his breath. “Is it time to shoot him yet?”

“I haven't decided.”

“Can I shoot him when you do decide?”

“No. Vienne can.”

“Aw,” Jenkins says. “I never get to have any fun.”

Hell's Cross, Outpost Fisher Four
ANNOS MARTIS
238. 4. 0. 00:00

We find Ockham leaning against the bishop's statue. He has peeled off his armor, his wad of clumpy hair tied at the neck, and he stands observing Jean-Paul Bramimonde. The boy crouches low, unmoving, naked except for a linen loincloth, while a group of six miners form a loose ring around him. There are cuts on his back and shoulders, his body caked with guanite dust.

He's attached by the ankle to a cable. The cable is spiked to the ground. It's one of the barbaric methods the old Regulators once used to train their acolytes.

The miners are laughing, each of them wielding a makeshift weapon—crowbars, heavy wrenches, and a welding torch—and egging the boy on. Jean-Paul's eyes widen. Flecks of foam fly from his mouth as he lunges at Jurm. But the cable tied to his ankle snaps taut, and he belly flops onto the ground. He comes up spitting dust and frothing.

“Tch, boy,” Jurm teases him. “Is that all you've got?”

“Use your ears, lad.” Ockham spits on the steps. Wipes brown juice from his mouth. “Not your eyes.”

Tobacco, I think as Vienne and I close in on the circle. Where did he get the coin for tobacco? “Ockham,” I say sharply, “explain yourself!” Although I already know the answer.

“Training,” he says, not looking at me.

“Training?” Vienne says, taking her place beside me. “That boy is about to get his brains mashed out.”

“Care to wager on that?” Ockham says. Then bellows at Jean-Paul, “I said, stay low. That's it. Low! Balance and leverage. Put your weight on the back foot. Back foot!”

“Do something,” Áine calls to me, entering the Cross from a corridor.

Vienne snarls, “It's not for a miner to tell a chief how to handle his Regulators.”

“This is my home,” Áine snarls back at her. “So I'll say what I like. Want to make something of it?”

I can tell Vienne wants very much to make something of it, but she can't hurt someone she's sworn to protect. It's in the Tenets. Otherwise, I'm sure Áine would be finding herself in horrible pain and a part of her body in a cast.

But the fact remains that Áine challenged my authority in front of my davos. So, now, even though I was about to call a halt to the exercise, I have to stand and wait. Just to prove to her and the rest of the miners that they can't give us orders. It's a piddling contest, and I despise piddling in public.

Áine is huffing in frustration when, without a word, I turn my back on her. Vienne looks pleased. Wish I were.

“Piddling contests are in the job description,” Mimi says. “It's part of being chief.”

I ignore her, too. Focus on the fight. The real problem at hand.

Jean-Paul drops back into a crouch. He makes a chuffing sound to focus his chi. It's classic Regulator hand-to-hand combat training—a fighting style called tai bo that fuses Earther martial arts with physics. In battle school I was trained in the same style. But we faced other acolytes of the same age and size. Not grown men who outweighed us three-to-one and carried heavy, metal tools.

“Mimi,” I say.

“Yes?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Just a random reflex.” But in my mind's eye, I'm picturing myself standing at attention in front of my first davos while Mimi, my new chief, sized me up.

“You look like a movie cowboy in that new symbiarmor,” she said. “Did your daddy buy you that?”

“Yes, chief,” I said. “When I graduated from battle school.”

“Battle school?” The rest of the davos laughed.

The one named Vienne spoke up. “Another schoolboy, chief?”

“I don't understand what's wrong with battle school,” I said.

“That's because you went to battle school.” Mimi put an arm around my shoulder and led me away from the group.

Though I was tall for an age-six, she still towered over me, a tall, muscled age-nine with cropped black hair and a jagged scar across her forehead. “Look, kid, you can't learn to be a Regulator in school. You have to train with a master. You have to learn to follow the Tenets. Or you'll never be a true Regulator, just a movie cowboy.”

“I can follow the Tenets,” I said. “Where can I get a copy?”

Mimi laughed. “The Tenets aren't for reading.” She tapped her head then her heart. “They're here and here.”

“I—”

“Rule number one: Stop starting your sentences with
I
. It's
we
now.”

“I—”

She smacked the back of my head. “Rule number two: The base of the skull is your symbiarmor's weak point. An object is only as strong as its weakest point. The same is true of a davos. Are you going to be my weak point, cowboy?”

With Mimi's words echoing in my head, I shake the memory away. Ever since Mimi's brain waves were implanted to control the nanobots in my body, memories have become more vivid. More real.

“That actually was
my
memory,” Mimi says.

“It's getting harder to tell,” I say.

“For me, too, cowboy.”

A cold shiver runs down my spine. What does that mean,
for her, too
?

Another lunge by Jean-Paul catches my attention. There's blood on his ankle where the cable cut him, and the miners are getting nastier. Moving closer and closer to bait him.

Time to end this. I signal Vienne to move behind Ockham. Just in case things don't go well. “Jean-Paul is paying your fee, Ockham,” I say.

Ockham grunts. “So?”

“So maybe you don't want him dead. At least until he pays you.”

“I'm not worried. This kid's got giant yarbles.”

“Giant yarbles make bigger targets,” I say. “Maybe he ought to wear more than a loincloth.”

Ockham laughs. Slaps me on the back. “Didn't know you had a sense of humor, chief.”

“He does,” Vienne says. “I don't.” She bumps Ockham with her shoulder, a reminder that she's there.

“Order your miners to stand down,” I tell Áine and Maeve.

Áine curls her lip, and I can see that she's not happy. “What miners do is their business,” she pouts. “They don't need a chief to tell them how to act.”

Ouch.

“Especially when we're getting paid coin,” Jurm pipes in.

“Paid?” I get in Ockham's face. “You paid them to beat a boy?”

“Not me.” Ockham starts laughing, but stops when no one else joins in. “My acolyte paid them himself.”

“He did wh—” I say.

A scream interrupts me. As I turn toward the source, Jean-Paul, the miner wielding the arc torch charges. He swings the long, angled rod of the torch high over his head. Bears down on Jean-Paul. Who stays low, his weight distributed evenly on the balls of his feet. Hands in blocking position.

“Wait,” I yell—it's too late to stop it. Roll into the rooter, I think, urging Jean-Paul to use the miner's weight and momentum against him.

But the boy doesn't move. Instead, he stands his ground. Takes the charge. At the last heartbeat, he pitches forward to duck the welding rod. His hands useless against the miner's pumping legs. A knee catches his chin. He flies backward.

The miner stumbles, his legs tangled up in the boy's, and they fall together in a mass of flailing limbs. Proof that neither one of them is a trained fighter. The miner is first to his feet. He brings the welding rod up again. Ready to rain blows on Jean-Paul's back as the boy rises on hands and knees, trying desperately to catch his breath.

“Halt!” I shout as I jump down the steps. “Stand down! Now!”

The miner looks befuddled as I step into the circle. He turns to Áine, then to Ockham for direction. I
take the chance to snatch the rod out of his hands.

The boy's mouth is bloodied. Droplets roll down his belly, staining the dirtied, white loincloth.

I give Jean-Paul a good shake. “What were you thinking? That man could've killed you.”

“I want,” Bramimonde says stubbornly as he yanks his arm away, “to be trained the way a Regulator acolyte is supposed to be trained.”

“That? That is not how acolytes are supposed to be trained. Acolytes don't train against grown men,” I say. “Especially ones carrying hand tools for weapons.”

“Aw, we wasn't going to hurt him bad,” Jurm says. “He paid us to fight, so we figured it ort to be a good one.”

“Save it for the Dræu,” I say. “Ockham, untie the kid.” I drop the welding rod to the ground. It clatters on the stone, the sound echoing off the walls, and I'm a little surprised by the noise it makes.

Jurm picks it up and backs into the circle. But the boy isn't taking no for an answer. He drops into a fighting crouch. “Come back, coward!”

“I said,” I scold Jean-Paul, “stand down. Get yourself cleaned up.”

The boy wipes his mouth on the back of a forearm. “I'm fine. All systems copacetic.”

“Where did you hear that phrase?”

“From you,” the boy says, “when you saved my life.”

“I—” Then I notice that Ockham, followed by Áine and
Vienne, is joining us. “This is stupid, Ockham. Find another method for training the boy.”

“Durango,” Ockham says, whistling. “This method's been good oil for generations of acolytes.”

I point to the stains on the boy's loincloth. “You call that good oil? I call it stupid.”

“A speck of blood? Think what the Dræu would do to him if they laid hands on an untrained fighter.”

The tendons in my jaw start working. “We are not the Dræu.”

“He's got to be trained to fight them.” Still whistling.

“Not this way,” I say, stepping into his face, staring down at him. “It's barbaric.”

“Barbaric? Who was your master, then?”

“I didn't have one.” I can hear Mimi's voice from my memory:
you'll never be a true Regulator, just a movie cowboy.
“I trained Offworld.” And because I'm full of pride, I add, “At battle school.”

“Battle school? That means you're a rich brat officer?” Ockham says, stepping closer. “But you're
dalit
.”

A hush falls over the miners. I try to ignore them, especially Áine, who crosses her arms and scowls at me.

“What of it?” I say.

“Rich brat officers don't turn into
dalit
. Here I was thinking you were some cast-off pretty boy, but turns out, you're worse. Officer
dalit
. Hah. ‘Oh how the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men, go awry.'”

“Don't quote poetry at me, Ockham. I hate poetry.”

“He stole my line,” Mimi says. “Misquoted it, too.”

Ockham huffs tobacco in my face. His nostrils flare. I can smell the harsh stink of his breath. Here it comes, I think. But hold my ground. “Got something stuck in your craw, oldie?”

“Maybe I do. Maybe I'm thinking,” he says, and spits a string of tobacco juice on my boots, “a man ought to have to prove himself before he's fit to lead.”

With a flick of my boot, I sling the spit back at him. “That sounds like a challenge to me.”

“That's because, pretty boy,”—he thumps my chest with the heel of his hand—“it is.”