Damocles (5 page)

“If you’ll come with us, Mr. Pell. There’s a car waiting for you out front.”

“What is this about? Am I in trouble?”

“No sir.” The shorter of the men guided him by the elbow, and Loul tried not to wince at the pressure of his grip. “Everything will be explained on the way.”

“On the way where?”

“Please, sir, just come with us.”

They moved Loul through the lobby of the satellite building with speed and precision, and before he had the presence of mind to shout out for help, he found himself bundled into the back of a black-paneled transit bus, the kind used to shuttle high-end travelers to and from hotels and airports. The door slammed behind him, neither of his escorts joining him, and Loul fell into his seat as the vehicle sped away from the curb. A wall of shaded glass blocked him from seeing the driver as anything more than a shadow, and a tinting on the windshield made seeing the road ahead even more difficult. The windows on the short bus had been blacked out entirely. Only the ceiling remained clear. Loul had no idea where he was.

He fumbled in his pocket for his phone. It was gone. One of the goons who grabbed him must have lifted it from his pocket during their kidnapping. He’d been kidnapped. Loul felt all the air go out of his gut as the realization hit him. Kidnapped. Why? He leaned forward and pounded on the glass but his only reward was to fall onto the floor of the bus when it made a sharp right turn. If the driver could hear him, he made no sign of it. The doors were locked. His pockets were empty. Loul climbed back into his seat, put his hands on his knees, and tried to pull himself together.

Why in the world would anyone kidnap him? He had no money to speak of. His family was comfortable but by no means people of notice. As for his access to satellite information, he’d heard about people being bribed and coerced to perform as spies, but he hardly had the clearance for the sort of information anyone would pay for. Someone had to have mistaken him for someone else, someone with higher clearance or more authority.

“Great,” he said aloud, hoping his voice would help calm him. “I can’t even get kidnapped right. Another Loul Pell success story.”

But the men who grabbed him had called him by name, right? He had swiped his identification card, which was also missing, he noticed, and when he’d been cleared to enter the secure area, they’d grabbed him. They had singled him out. But why? All he could do was wait for something or someone to come along and give him more information.

He didn’t have to wait long. Less than hour later, he could hear the sounds of traffic abate, and it sounded like the bus had pulled into a garage or warehouse of some sort. Loul could hear heavy machinery and the rumble of engines. He squinted through the glass to see what the driver would do but turned when the side door slid open.

“Mr. Pell? I’m General Dar. Will you come this way please?”

A general? Loul could only stare at the broad, black-haired man waiting for him beside the van. He didn’t know much about military rankings but there was an awful lot of shiny stuff on the front of his tunic. Loul knew enough to know that this was a man others obeyed. “Yes sir. Where am I?”

“You’re not there yet, son, but you will be soon. You get motion sick?”

“Motion sick?”

The general turned and smirked. “Not a lot of ventilation.” He waved his arm ahead and Loul found the presence of mind to take in his surroundings. They were in a trucking depot. Rows of long, over-the-road cargo trucks idled at open bay doors. Heavy industrial fans blew the exhaust outside, but even with their heavy blasts, the air stank and stung his eyes. As they walked toward the row of rumbling vehicles, Loul saw smaller trucks and tanks and weapon carousels being loaded into the backs of the big rigs.

He stopped and read the signage. Not one of the trucks had any military or government markings. One truck had the logo of a produce company, another of an office supply company. Loul craned his neck and saw the truck at the last door had the markings of Hark’s family furniture business. Before he could put it all together, the general handed him over to a team of six soldiers, all dressed in black, who lined up on either side of him and handed him into the back of a truck marked with a grocery store logo. Everything happened so quickly, and it was all so surreal, Loul found himself strapped into a seat bolted to the floor beside two women and across from three men who all wore the same bewildered expression he did. The only light within the cargo hold came through the strips of glass in the ceiling.

“What the hell is this?” He didn’t ask any of them in particular, and none of them answered. Apparently he was what the company was waiting for, and as he buckled his seat belt, a small woman in a combat uniform climbed in, slammed the door shut, and banged on it. In minutes, the truck rumbled to life and Loul was once again traveling with no idea of where he was, who he was with, or where he was headed.

After twenty minutes of silence, the soldier smiled around at the group, none of whom smiled back. “I know this is sudden, and I know you have a lot of questions, and I promise we will
answer as many of them as we can. For now, though, I’m going to ask you all to sit back, relax, and get some rest. We have a long drive ahead of us and we’re going to need you rested when we get there. If you need anything, food or drink, just let me know. Until then, I have to ask you not to speak to each other.” She shook her head with a bemused expression. “Trust me when I tell you, you’ll have plenty to say when we get there.”

What felt like a full shift later, they got there. The truck slowed. They could hear other trucks and other people over the sounds of heavy machinery. Finally the door to the cargo hold opened, and Loul had to squint as the glare of the Red Sun hit him directly in the eyes. The soldier stood silhouetted in the light as she waved her arm before her.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if you’ll follow me.”

Once he stepped down from the truck, Loul’s first thought was, “Po is going to shit.”

They stood within a circle of military vehicles that were contained by a privacy-webbing wall that stretched around an enormous perimeter. The smell of saltwater was heavy in the wind, and Loul didn’t have to wonder what he was smelling. It was the Ketter Sea. He was on the coast of the Ketter Sea staring at a spaceship. An honest-to-goodness spaceship. And if that weren’t enough, if that didn’t completely blow his mind, the spaceship was parked exactly where Po had always said it would be—on the ruins of the Roana Temple.

“Let’s go over it one more time.”

They stood in a circle at the shuttle door. Each of them wore a suit although all of their helmets were pushed back. Meg fidgeted with Wagner’s wrist monitor one more time, checking for volume and brightness and that the data was moving as it should. She rechecked the thin speaker patch sewn into the front of his suit, a patch each of them wore on both their suits and undershirts, although only Wagner’s would be active until Meg gave the command. Wagner stood still as her hands flitted over his equipment.

“I’ve narrowed the vocals down to what appear to be three of most likely greeting phrases based on repetition, tonality, and call-and-response patterns.” Uttering the jargon relaxed her enough to take her hands off the captain and speak candidly. “Of course, it’s important to remember that we don’t know exactly what we’re saying. I mean, literally, we do not know what these words mean, so let’s all rub our lucky charms that we’re not repeating some popular piece of profanity or this planet’s equivalent of
sieg heil
or, you know, like, a popular order at Taco Bell or something. It could be gibberish, and since we’re using the
recordings, it could be cut off wrong, edited wrong. I could have cut out the wrong undertones. I might have ruined whatever the message was to begin with. I might have—”

Wagner grabbed her shoulders, silencing her. “You might also have correctly identified a common greeting. Because that’s what you do and that’s what you’re good at.” Cho reached out and squeezed her shoulder. Jefferson and Prader followed suit, each assuring her with their touch that they had faith in her ability. When she had calmed down, Wagner nodded at her. “Give us one more rundown on protocol.”

“Right, protocol.” Meg looked to each of them. “Best option in any foreign situation is mirroring without aggression. We’ve seen how they’ve grouped. The soldiers are behind shields but it’s safe to say they stand in formalized group formations so we’ll do the same. I recommend a chevron. Captain, you in the front, Jefferson and Cho flanking you on either side, and Prader and I on the far ends. We won’t touch each other but we will stay in easy hand’s reach.”

“Our biopacks?” Cho asked. Each of them had a pack containing food, water, and water purifiers, as well as rudimentary first aid and a compressed-film sleep sack.

“Keep them on you,” Meg said, “hooked to your suit. We haven’t gotten a clear visual of the physiology of these people, and they sure haven’t seen us, so they don’t know that we don’t have big humps on our backs. It’s better to be safe than sorry since it could be a while until we can request food or water.”

She checked the captain’s patch speaker one more time. “When we disembark, we’ll take formation and stand perfectly still. Let’s see what they do, who approaches. Helmets and gloves on until we see faces.”

“I’m going to follow your lead on protocol,” Prader said, shifting her biopack, “but there’s no way in hell I’m going out there without my sidearm.”

“You’re damn right you’re not.” Meg patted her own leg where her gun rested hidden in a holster. “Every one of us is going to be armed and ready. We don’t know what to expect. Prader, stay close to the door. Leave it open. The first sign of violence, we’re in and up.”

Wagner nodded at that. “If worse comes to worst, we can hop around this planet until Aaronson’s got the all-clear. It won’t be easy and it won’t be comfortable. That’s also where our survival odds are the lowest so that is a last resort.”

Meg put her hand against the door of the shuttle, a little ritual she liked to perform at the doorway of every translation, negotiation, or first encounter she’d ever experienced. It almost seemed like she could feel the conversations she was getting ready to have. The coolness of the surface smoothed over her nerves, and when she spoke again, her voice was level.

“These are people. These are humans.” She looked at each of them in turn. “They may not look like us or talk like us but they are human and so we can reach them. We’re scared. We’re outnumbered by, like, a billion to one, and we’re definitely out-armed, but there is no sign that these people have had any space travel. Except for the unmanned communication satellites, there’s no sign they’ve ever been up where we were, so it’s probably safe to say that we’ve got the element of surprise on our side. That’s our advantage. Let’s use it.”

She checked her earpiece and waited while the rest of the crew checked theirs. “The vocals indicate a lot of guttural sounds and hard consonants. Also, unless the drones were wonked, speech volume is really high with these people. The sounds are loud. That means we should be able to talk under our breaths through the coms. Try to keep your mouth movements limited and they may not even know we’re talking.”

Jefferson spoke up. “Why don’t we want them to see us talking?”

“Psychology,” Meg said. “The only advantage we have is that they have no idea who or what we are. They may be able to communicate psychically or nonverbally, but judging from the audio volume of the sounds, I’m guessing not. If it seems like we move as a unit by signals they can’t pick up, they may hesitate to act aggressively.”

“Our coms are on.” Wagner reached for the door handle. “Everyone keep your eyes open, your sidearms ready, your movements slow and controlled. Meg, we’ll follow your lead via the coms. What do you say?” He gave them his best movie-star wink. “Let’s go make history.”

The rumble of machinery doubled as they stepped out of the shuttle, down the metal steps off the slab. Wagner went first, his head held high, his shoulders back. Cho and Jefferson stepped off next, followed by Meg and Prader. As they cleared the steps, the tone of the machinery changed, getting higher and more intense. Jefferson whispered through the coms. “A lot of directional equipment being pointed our way.”

“Could be cameras,” Meg said, her eyes moving across the assembly before her.

“Could be weapons,” Prader said.

“Let’s assume it’s all of the above.” Wagner’s voice was level. “Stopping in three steps. Three, two, one.” With that, they stopped as a group in the chevron position. Meg could see the side of Cho’s face through the slant of his helmet, and just those few smooth inches of tan skin calmed her nerves. “We move on your signal, Meg.”

Meg struggled to keep her breathing steady. All around them, shields rose. Some looked like plastic, some seemed to be made of a glass-like substance. No faces showed anywhere in the patchwork of black and gray that reflected the lowering
rays of a red sun. It felt like they stood that way for an eternity even though Meg doubted it was more than a few minutes. She listened to the sounds around her, going so far as to close her eyes briefly to maximize her attention. Humming, rumbling sounds came from every direction, machinery sounds, but underneath that she could just catch the tinny sounds the drones had caught. People were speaking over radios to each other behind the shields.