Randolph Lalonde - Spinward Fringe Broadcast 08 - Renegades (26 page)

“I know, but a
privileged segment is forming on Haven Shore, I can see the classes
separating already. Privileged socialists here with millions of
lawless poor across Tamber. It’s only a matter of time before they
resent us for what we have, and for keeping it to ourselves. Even if
that weren’t the case, Frost is right: it’s as if the Haven Shore
Council thinks the war has already been won, when we only found a
good hiding place. I know there will be problems with recruiting from
Port Rush. There are probably even Order of Eden believers, thieves,
and a whole segment of people we won’t be able to find records on
anywhere, but the Triton has taken in people before. Why not
establish a military base in Port Rush and feed the Triton, even the
Warlord, crewmembers?”

“It’s ambitious,
and I think it’s the right idea, but it’s going to be harder than
you think.”

“I know, I’m sure
there will be something new and terrible every day, but the good I
can do there is so much more important.”

“What does Lacey
think about all this?” he asked.

“Still asleep,”
Ayan reminded him, glancing at her command and control unit. “She
only went to bed three hours ago. She may want to stay with the
Council though, so I’m not making any decisions for her. She’d be
good there. Great, actually. As for these ideas I just revealed, I’m
not completely settled on them. I have to see something first, and
we’re here.”

Commander Anderson, her
father, helped Ayan into the armoured layer of her suit, and checked
the cloaking systems. In minutes, they were descending from the
Clever Dream on lines, completely invisible. Ayan concentrated on
anything but the ground below as she fit her foot into the loop at
the bottom of the line and commanded her suit to adhere to the cord.
The science of the mechanisms were enough for her to mostly overcome
her fear: even if she did fall, her suit could protect her from much
higher falls; she was safe.

As they drew closer to
the ground she allowed herself to look around and her heart sank.

“Oh my God,”
Commander Anderson said to her over the encrypted proximity radio. “I
can’t believe people live here.”

They came down on the
bank of a narrow ditch. Toxic waste from ruptured wrecks, human
waste, and other chemicals flowed towards the distant shoreline. Only
a few metres away, black smoke billowed from a collection of
repurposed heavy metal crates as several people of all ages tended
them with long rods. They wore thick strips of insulating cloth from
the bulkheads of downed ships over their noses, mouths, hands, and
arms as they burned garbage. A young boy with an extractor slung
under one arm opened a tap at the bottom of one of the crates, the
silver-blue fluid spilled out, scorching the ground and he hurried to
close the tap again, his hand barely protected by an old, overlarge
glove. He stabbed the puddle with the nozzle of the extractor and
swished it around as the machine drew useful metals and compounds out
of the scorching slurry. “They’re cooking garbage to separate the
heavier compounds,” Ayan said as she watched her scanning system
analyse the results of their work.

“It’s probably how
they trade for food,” her father said.

A group of children ran
between them, leaping gingerly over the ditch to stay away from the
burning vats, giggling unawares as they pressed through the black
smoke. Ayan looked to the coordinates she had from her experience
with the Victory Machine and walked down the makeshift alley, her
father only steps behind. The hulls of ships that had imbedded into
the ground were left where they were, and any materials available
were cobbled together to form the shacks that surrounded them. Most
of the people were idle, keeping under shelter to protect them from
the hot sun. “I’m surprised most of these people don’t have
environment suits of some kind,” Ayan said.

“You grew up on
Freeground during the All-Con Conflict, so you feel natural in a
vacsuit,” her father said. “Most people have come to trust space
travel, at most they’d have an emergency under-suit, or a pod
popper on them.”

It was true, she often
did forget how much people trusted ships, and how they loved their
clothing instead of the security and uniformity of a vacsuit. She
could reshape the safety material into many forms, something she
proved occasionally herself, but people in vacsuits still ended up
looking similar to each other to an extent. There was just something
about the suit that informed the style. These people didn’t know
how important protective gear would be before they found themselves
stranded in a land of poverty, contamination, and rust.

A group of armed humans
in older looking power armour pushed people out of their way as they
marched down the alley. Four of them carried a large atmospheric
thruster over their shoulders, a roughly salvaged component. They
moved as though everything in their way was a lower life form. Ayan
stepped aside to get out of their way, but couldn’t resist pushing
on the side of the thruster, unbalancing the four carrying it and
sending them staggering to the filthy ground. Their power armour
would save them from any harm or contamination, but that wouldn’t
lessen the satisfaction Ayan found as she watched their leader turn
and shout, “Watch that load! I put you in armour, and I’ll have
you put out of it if I find that thing doesn’t fire up because you
bungled it!”

“Ayan,” her father
said over an encrypted signal. “Let’s not get caught in the
open.”

“Couldn’t resist,”
Ayan replied.

They came to a more
open area and she immediately recognized the shape of a hull fragment
sticking several metres up in the air. The black and brown dirt
around them, moistened by waste, provided the foundation for what was
a centre of refuse. Dangerous mounds of garbage that had been
stripped of value, and could not be repurposed, were dumped in the
space all around them. “Oh no,” Ayan said as the feeling of
recognition increased and she turned to her right. Regardless of the
place looking worse than it did when she virtually visited it in the
Victory Machine, she could recognize it instantly. Ayan recalled her
confrontation with her former self, the sometimes cryptic
conversation the future Minh-Chu had with her, and felt queasy. “How
could I let myself get so distracted,” Ayan uttered under her
breath.

“This is worse than
I’ve ever seen,” Carl Anderson said.

A rustling caught
Ayan’s attention and she stepped towards it. Several young children
sifted through the waste. The youngest was a toddler, who found
something shiny in the pile and plopped down as she put it in her
mouth. Her mother wasn’t far off, but there was no rush as she
picked her baby up and took the plastic out of the toddler’s hand.

“All right,” her
father said. He thought a moment then said, “Time for the Rangers
to get involved. I’ll give you everyone except for a few I have
plans for already and another token ten for Haven Shore. They’re
yours as soon as you want to move on this. I’ll even give you the
eighty-nine from next week’s graduates.”

“Thank you, but
that’s not near enough,” Ayan said. “I’m going to need your
support later today when I strip Haven Shore of all military assets.
I want to tell Oz, Jake, and Frost what’s going on next, so I can
start helping these people. Everyone in Haven Shore has enough food,
clothing, shelter, and water. There are thousands here, no, tens of
thousands, who are going without. I hear things are even worse in
Port Rush City.”

“I understand your
eagerness,” her father said. “But you need more time to inspect
the area and plan.”

“Mischa has the
Council reformation in hand, Lee can handle the final touches on the
Everin Building in his sleep, and Iloona has plenty of minders now.
Let’s not even consider the fact that Haven Shore is over-policed
because we have trained security people with nothing much to do.”

“What about the
agreement with the Carthans? They don’t want us recruiting from the
refugees out there because they’re afraid some of them are escaped
convicts.”

“Are you actually
seeing the same thing I am here?”

“Yes,” her father
replied. “I’m only playing devil’s advocate so you have all the
angles in mind before you start something prematurely.”

“All right, I
understand, and I appreciate it, but these people need someone on
their side, and the Carthans have abandoned them. I know what you’ll
bring up next: recruiting people for Jake,” Ayan said.

“I was going to
mention that,” Carl said, taking a deep breath.

“I’m finished
accommodating for the Carthans, they’re nothing but self-important
prison wardens,” Ayan said. “They can continue to interact with
the Council for now, but anything happening outside of Haven Shore
will be presented as a separate issue. I’ll make it work.”

“All right,” Carl
said. “You know I’ll be at your side the whole way, and I’ll
keep the Council out of it.”

“Thank you,” Ayan
replied. “Let’s get picked up. I have a lot of work to do.”

“We have a lot of
work to do,” her father corrected. “You’re not alone.”

Reassignment

Remmy Sands stood in
the hallway outside of Carl Anderson’s office in full Ranger gear,
listening to a song with a hop-skipping beat and lilting melody from
the Condensers. He bounced lightly against the wall to the rhythm,
his large equipment pack providing a buffer. The Order of Eden Knight
rifle he was given as a souvenir was completely powered down, leaning
against his waist. His regular rifle was slung over his shoulder,
while a much smaller pack was affixed to the front of his vacsuit
armour. The grit and marks of the field were still on him. He did his
best to clean up his gear on the way, but he was still helping with
the assessment of the Order of Eden base the Rangers had taken when
he got the call.

The other two Rangers,
both older than he by years but of a lower rank, were similarly
equipped, except neither of them had as many battle scars on their
equipment. He had a few more hours of service with the Rangers than
all of them combined, so he didn’t take much time to review their
files.

The tall redheaded
woman was named Dorothy Bedel, or Dotty for short, and she’d been
in three minor firefights. The last was with a group of raiders who
refused to leave the crash site of a downed Carthan cruiser after the
Rangers detected life signs inside. It went badly, and while she was
trying to shore up a patch of hull that threatened to collapse, one
of the raiders caught her flat-footed and opened fire. Dotty was
finally returning to duty after having her leg replaced from the knee
down with a vat-grown limb. The incident wasn’t her fault; she
scored high on situational comprehension tests, she was just trying
to save the people they had come to rescue and her strategic thinking
momentarily failed. Her rash action worked in the end, and the people
she was trying to save had just enough time to get out from under the
collapsing plating.

The other person
waiting was Elden Trust. The file on him didn’t look as promising.
He was a shooter, a born follower who preferred to be on the firing
line rather than doing what a Ranger should: find a good vantage
point, assess the situation, then consult and act if necessary. He
reminded Remmy a little bit of Jack Kipley, only with a little more
social grace – but just a little.

There were two things
Remmy enjoyed about ancient entertainment media aside from the
content itself. He enjoyed introducing people to old treasures he
knew they’d love, and he loved how people assumed that he wasn’t
paying attention to what was going on around him when he was tuned in
to something. He could be invisible without a cloaking suit, fade
into the scenery and hear what they thought as if he wasn’t there
at all.

“I wonder why we had
to report in full gear. Don’t we normally deploy from the landing
field and get our kits on the way?” Elden asked.

“I’ve never seen
the inside of the commander’s office,” Dotty said. “Hope we’re
not being sent to some dead watch post, or on long ranging. That’s
the worst.”

Remmy almost smiled at
Dotty’s last comment. He’d spent two weeks on a ranging mission
without returning to base. Even with his love of entertainment, which
he watched during off-time, he loved exploring Tamber, especially the
places where people hadn’t settled for a long while. It seemed that
once you got past the vast wastelands you found busy jungle-filled
corners, deep mysterious caves, and places where life thrived. The
first week was all adjustment, a hell made of boredom. Scanning,
walking, skimming along the more unremarkable areas of an abandoned
landscape and wishing that anything interesting would happen. He
couldn’t multitask while scanning; he couldn’t even talk to
whichever pilot picked him up to drop him somewhere further along
half the time because they were concentrating. Worse still was that
he spent most of his time on foot or hovering along on a portable
skid board, slow ranging so his scanner package could take in more
information. It was boring even in pairs or groups of four, but only
for most of that first week.

By the second week he
started to see the incredible variety of life, how much people
appreciated being given a resource pack and miniature water purifier,
and how valuable his boring close range scanning was. He could also
call a shuttle and get stranded people lifted to a port, a British
Alliance Emergency Assistance ship, or more commonly, Haven Shore.
Learning about Tamber and helping people during that second week was
more fascinating than his ancient entertainments. They could wait
while he made a difference.

The tall,
baritone-voiced Elden asked another question after a stretch of
silence that was a little too short for Remmy’s taste. “Wonder if
we should just go inside?”