DusktoDust_Final3 (4 page)

Letsego was taken aback.
“
But sir-
“

Burleigh put up his hand.
“
Staff Sergeant, I
’
ve made up my mind. And I
’
ve read your file. This is what you were sent here for, to stop these people. You have the most experience with undercover intelligence work, therefore I want you on the ground. I can
’
t trust anyone else with this mission.
”

Letsego didn
’
t like this. He had been sent to Prospect to run the intelligence collecting operations, not conduct them himself. The captain was right, he had the most undercover expertise of everyone in the Prospect garrison. He had been on Mars before the uprisings had started. He had been undercover in the asteroid belts with the raider gangs. But that had been ten years ago. He had done no prep work for this.

“
Sir, this is not a good idea. My men on the ground are perfectly capable of keeping an eye on them. I am more valuable here. Someone needs to be their eyes and ears.
”

Burleigh was getting agitated.
“
Staff Sergeant, I don
’
t know how it was in the South African army, but when a superior officer in the Peacekeepers gives you an order you say
‘
Yes, sir
’
and execute!
”

So that’s how it’s gonna be then
.
“
Roger that, sir.
”
Letsego snapped to attention and threw a crisp salute.

Burleigh returned the gesture.
“
Good. And Staff Sergeant
…”

“
Yes, sir?
”

“
Wherever they go, you go. We can
’
t afford to lose this hand. Think of this as the ultimate hunt on the safari.
”

Letsego did not appreciate the racial stereotype. He may be a black man from Africa, but he had never been on safari or even known anyone who had. All those animals were long extinct.

But does he mean
everywhere, he thought.
“
What about the PDP, sir. Am I still bound by that?
”
The PDP, or Prospect Denationalization Pact, was what gave UNEC authority on Prospect. It had been written to put an end to the Colonial Wars, where the colonizing countries of Prospect had gone to war over mining territory. The conflict had eventually spread to Earth. To put an end to the bloodshed, UNEC had made Prospect
un
sovereign territory. No nation could own a stake in territory on Prospect. Now the planet was divided up among numerous multinational corporations.

The Peacekeepers were there for regulation, but their powers were still limited. Under the PDP, the Peacekeepers could operate overtly across the planet as long as they had the approval of the local corporate security firms. Covert Peacekeeper operations outside of UNEC jurisdiction were not allowed. UNEC took this regulation very seriously so they could keep their control of the planet legitimate. Letsego wanted to know if Burleigh was telling him to break the covert regulations.

Captain Burleigh looked around the security room, then looked back at Letsego. He took a moment to phrase his next comment.
“
Staff Sergeant Letsego, you will go anywhere and everywhere necessary in order to track these smugglers back to who hired them. Do you understand?
”

“
Good to go, sir.
”
So that’s how it’s gonna be. When the law isn’t convenient to us we’ll just ignore it.

The Skylift was an amazing feat of modern engineering. Connecting Skylift Station with the surface of Prospect two hundred kilometers below, riding on the Skylift was not as simple as riding on an elevator. Alana and David sat in the seats of the turbolift car, hurtling down towards the planet. As a passenger you couldn
’
t tell how fast you were going- there were no windows on the car- the total trip was said to take about twenty minutes.

There were other passengers in the car, which had seating for well over one hundred, but Alana and David had managed to grab the seats under the only surveillance camera, which was pointed at the far end of the car.

David waited until the car had stopped accelerating and then pulled out a small cylindrical device. It was a sonic whistler and would prevent the camera microphones from recording their conversation. He switched it on and gave Alana a thumbs up.

She kept her voice low. There were still other passengers around but they were not close enough to hear their whispering.
“
So what was that about? Why did they stop us?
”

“
They had a photo of me.
”

Alana
’
s face creased with concern.
“
Are you sure? From where?
”

“
It was definitely me. I remember where it was taken. It was on that run we did a couple of months ago for Tyrus. The night before we made our run I stopped for a drink in a bar. I guess UNEC has upped the number of cameras in the corporate sectors.
”

“
Do they know who we are?
”

David shook his head.
“
No. They just know that they have a picture of an illegal on Prospect, and that the picture matches me.
”

Alana thought about this for a second.
“
Wait, if they know it was you why did they let us go?
”

“
The picture wasn
’
t great, but I
’
ve thought about that too.
”
He paused.
“
If the PKs wanted to hold us, they would have done so. Proof or no proof.
”

Alana nodded.
“
So that means they wanted us to leave.
”

“
And that means they are following us.
”
David saw that she was already scanning faces in the car for anyone who looked suspicious. He put his hand on her arm.
“
Don
’
t worry. They won
’
t be on the lift. They
’
ll try and put a tail on us once we reach Base.
”

“
Okay, then what
’
s the plan?
”

David paused for a second to weigh the options.
“
I don
’
t think there
’
s any question that they
’
ve tagged us for smugglers. Trying to convince them otherwise- convince them that we are the Dominguez
’
s- will take time. Time that we don
’
t have. The only option is to shake the tails, get to Windcorp, and get the hell off this rock with our cargo.
”
While it was a difficult plan to execute it looked like the only feasible option. Their contact with Windcorp was fifteen hundred miles away. They had to meet him in two days. That was a lot of ground to cover, and it was through some of the worst parts of the Dusk Zone.

Alana was thinking through the route they would take.
“
Where will we lose him?
”

David smiled.
“
We
’
ll go through the Skull Pit. I don
’
t think anyone could follow us through there.
”

When the car reached the ground Alana and David hustled off. They moved quickly through the Base Station, leaving UNEC and the Peacekeepers behind them. It was time to get to somewhere a little less regulated and a little more familiar.

They exited the Base and found themselves outside in Mandell Square, named for the captain of the
UNV Brasilia
. This was corporate territory, no longer under the direct jurisdiction of UNEC. The square was the center of what could be considered the capital of Prospect, Mandell City. But there was no central government, no governing body. There was just industry.

Mandell City was a series of industrial centers and residential zones all owned by multinationals. It was by far the most upscale region on the planet, and one of the few areas on the planet that hadn
’
t been scarred by the Colonial War some fiftyyears ago. Back then Mandell City had been a colony of the Arab Union so Middle Eastern architecture was still prevalent. But despite the city being named after the great ship captain and explorer, the land that Mandell City was built on was not rich with ores and minerals. Because of this, no aggressor in the Colonial War took interest in the metropolis.

After the war, since Mandell City was one of the only places still standing on Prospect, UNEC chose it to host the Mandell Accords, where the Prospect Denationalization Pact was signed. The city also became the center for the reconstruction of Prospect. The Skylift was built, along with layer upon layer of urban sprawl. All of this was paid for by UNEC in conjunction with Scepter Tech, the multinational company that now owned the land Mandell City was built on. The city saw an influx in population and its economy boomed. Even with its lack of local mines, it became a major center for ore processing.

But the prosperity didn
’
t last. Six years after the Mandell Accords, Baoshi was discovered. Soon thereafter, all mining companies on Prospect with Chinese, Korean, or Siberian ties left Prospect to begin mining on their new
“
Gem
”
. The economy of Prospect plummeted. Mines shut down over night. Mandell City went from being the pride of the planet to just another run down slum in the Dusk Zone.

Alana and David descended the flight of stairs into the center of Mandell Square. The place was crowded with pedestrians and vendors. There were bums on park benches and in gutters. There were even some street performers doing God knows what to earn a note. There was rubbish everywhere. The city was a hellhole.

Despite the square
’
s aesthetic qualities, it was much safer for the two of them than the Skylift had been. There were no cameras out here, at least no cameras that UNEC could use to monitor them. Nearly every corporation within the Dusk Zone used some type of camera surveillance. But because everyone knew about the intrusive computer techniques used by the Peacekeepers, all of these cameras were on closed-circuit fiberoptic networks, which were nearly impossible to tap. Of course, UNEC did have drones in the sky, but once David and Alana got underground the prying eyes from those aerial sentinels would be useless. All that they had to worry about was human monitoring. David doubted the PKs were above breaking the PDP
’
s covert clauses.

He scanned the crowd looking for any sign of Peacekeeper human surveillance. There were no telltale signs of pursuers, but he wasn
’
t surprised. They were there. As much as the smuggler joked about the ineptitude of PKs, he knew they were good at what they did.

Alana and David made their way across the square. They reached a bank of turbolifts and boarded one. It went down. Far down. Ten stories, then twenty, then thirty. The metal and concrete that made up the decaying metropolis flew by outside the lift
’
s viewscreen. They were going all the way down to the planet
’
s surface. They were going to the train station.

There were twenty-two colonies in the Dusk Zone and all were connected by repulsor trains. The train network on Prospect had been ground breaking at its inception. It circumnavigated the Dusk Zone and stretched deep into the dark and light sides of the planet. Many of the major lines had been destroy or damaged in the Colonial War, but had since been rebuilt. The trains transported passenger and cargo alike around the planet. Decades ago the trains had been state of the art, featuring fully automated controls and beautiful interiors. Now David would be lucky to find a compartment that didn
’
t smell like rat feces.

The two of them got off and walked into the giant lobby. David went to the ticket kiosks, and Alana took a seat on a bench which just happened to have a great view of the turbolift banks.

There were fifteen trains leaving from Mandell City in the next hour. Six were headed out of the Dusk Zone. Four were exclusively freight trains. One was fully booked. That left four viable options for David. There was one train going directly to Windham. But that was too obvious, the PKs would be all over them. Finally, he settled on two tickets to Decham. It was an iron mining hub about two thousand kilometers away. It was past Windham but close to the Skull Pit. Once they got there it wouldn
’
t be hard to find transportation to their final destination.

After buying the tickets, with cash, David returned to Alana.
“
What
’
s the word?
”
He hoped they could identify their tail before they boarded the train.

Alana continued to look casually around the lobby.
“
A few possibilities,
”
she said.
“
Over by the restrooms there
’
ss a guy in a green jacket. He
’
s been loitering here since we walked in. Then there
’
s the woman on the bench over there. And lastly, the black guy in line at the ticket kiosks right now.
”

David slowly turned his head and checked out each one of the possible suspects. They all looked slightly out of place. Nothing that an uninterested citizen would notice, but to David
’
s trained eye he could see it. The woman was fidgeting too much in her seat. The man by the bathroom was looking at the clock every five seconds. And the man at the kiosks was looking around too much.

At that moment a girl walked out of the bathroom. The green jacketed man grabbed her hand and starting dragging her to the train platforms.
Well that takes care of one,
David thought.

For the next ten minutes, David and Alana sat on the bench, watching, listening. They kept up casual small talk to avoid suspicion, but their minds were elsewhere. The woman on the bench did not move. David didn
’
t know what she was waiting for.

He leaned over to Alana.
“
We have to make a move.
”

She nodded.
“
I
’
ve got it. Wait here. See what she does.
”
She got up and headed for the bathroom.

David waited, watching the fidgeting woman. At first she didn
’
t move. It looked like their hunch was wrong.. But then she got up and headed for the bathroom.
Hello, looks like we have a winner
. He continued watching, waiting for Alana to return.

She walked out a couple minutes later. She met eyes with him and shook her head. She walked back and sat down.
“
No dice. Looks like our lady just had a romantic rendezvous planned in the restroom.
”

“
With a guy?
”

“
Nope.
”

David chuckled inwardly. To each his own.

He looked back over to the ticket kiosks. The last man of interest was just getting to the front of the line. David watched as he punched in commands on the screen. It looked like he knew exactly what he wanted. He finished his purchase and turned around. David was still watching, and then it happened. The man looked up and locked eyes with David. It was only a split second and he played it off well, but it was enough.

“
It
’
s him,
”
David said to Alana as calmly as he could.

She gave him a sideways glance.
“
How do you know?
”

“
I don
’
t. Only one way to find out.
”
He got up.
“
You
’
ve got my back.
”

David made his way across the lobby. In his periphery he thought he saw the other man turn and follow. David headed for a hallway on his right. He assumed it led to administrative offices or other support facilities. Either way the area would be a lot less crowded, which would make it easier to identify if he was being followed.

He headed down the hallway and made a left at a T intersection. As he turned the corner he confirmed it. The man was definitely following him. David made a right as soon as he could. Now he could tell that he was leading them into some type of maintenance facility. The walls were buffed a shiny gray color. The hallways were wide, conceivably to bring train parts through to work on. There were still a good number of people, both in civilian clothes and tech uniforms, moving about the halls. David guessed that the doors he was passing were to large maintenance bays. It took him about two seconds to formulate a plan.

He could hear footsteps behind him still. He was definitely being followed. At the next intersection David turned left. Once he rounded the corner he took off at a sprint, passing several startled technicians. About one hundred feet down the hallway there was another T intersection.
Perfect.

David made a left. Immediately on his left there was an old fashion hinged door. He went through it. He was now in a large tech bay. There were train parts at work stations with technicians working on them. They didn
’
t even notice his presence.