FORT LIBERTY: VOLUME ONE (3 page)

“That’s fucked up,” Logan replies, disgusted.

“Yeah, like, Earth, what’s that? Oh, it’s where our factories are, where the consumers are, but hell, it’s kind of dirty, and it’s filled with assholes who blew themselves up in the last war, so let’s just pretend it doesn’t exist.”

“Pfft.” Logan’s containers are filling up. He tosses some spec manuals out, making room for… whatever.

“You’ll see,” Wyatt says. “Some of them will walk right up and thank you and everything, talk nice, shake your hand, say it’s an honor, but then it’s all like… please don’t bring your gun in here, please don’t talk about killing bad people and liking it, because life is so precious in this filter, so please don’t go nuts and wax us all, or blow your own brains out at the dinner table.”

Voss locks down his containers and carries them into the corridor, stacking them along the flat bed of the cargo loader. He leaves the boys to their bullshit, going up-ladder to the roof, to his own personal smoking overlook, or at least the corner of the barrack’s roof he thinks of as his own.

He’s got no helmet, no visor, breathing unfiltered, just like all the other Earthbounders do. It stinks, of course, the sky dark and thick, a toxic soup swirling in the red glow of the guard tower beacons. In the distance, a sea of lights stretches across the horizon, more neighborhoods with muddy rivers of sewage flowing through them, desperation, resignation, poverty.

Voss fishes a box of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and shakes one out, sliding it between his lips. A scratch of flame dances from lighter to paper, and he’s lit, drawing a deep breath, letting the burn settle in his lungs.

The aide sees what he wants to see, a war-torn trash heap, all of its power and most of its goods provided by, or managed by, the New Republic of Mars and its Block 12 companies. He sees a wasteland of savages, people victimizing their own, paying to keep the lights on with drug profits, beating each other down with oppressive religions. He doesn’t recognize the organized army that has risen out of that rage, or the small groups of Earthbound rich that are partnering up with them, just to make things even harder than they are.

Why should an NRM presidential aide concern himself with that? After all, Earthbound rich is nothing like Mars rich, nothing like living in the big sky with the Block 12 companies raking in the profits and greasing the wheels, firmly in command of the cruisers and the stations, guarding the halls of culture and the massive brain trust, surrounded by power brokers and their monuments.

The aide doesn’t have to worry about trash heap armies, or terrorists, or surf rebellions, because none of it exists where he comes from, and he has Rhys Corp to do his worrying for him when he’s Earthbound. He has ‘skilled killers’ to keep the violence from wiping out the last of Earth’s infrastructure, keep the survivors of the War of Last Nations living in whatever way they choose to, keep them building and consuming in whatever way they can.

So what does the aide worry about? He worries about getting a girl, all 50 kilos of her, through some transport interference that
might
show up between here and the Red Planet. Why there should be such interference, and what role this girl is supposed to play in the NRM’s stated commitment to help Earth rebuild is—of course—going to remain a big secret.

Voss exhales, letting the irritation slide out through his teeth.

On the tarmac, five hundred meters out, a four-engine cloud puncher sits on the launch pad, vapor wafting from its hoses, its windowless metal capsule just big enough to carry his team, plus gear, plus the aide, plus girl, on an auto ascent to the docking station in orbit. It’s a quick trip, fifteen minutes, give or take.

And then it’s on to a cruiser... and no more cigarettes.

He drags another slow breath, smoke curling around his fingers, his eyes narrowed on the cloud puncher. Space. Big sky. Ft. Liberty.
How many years has it been?
Of course, he remembers, even though he doesn’t want to, can name at least a dozen Earthbound firefights, war wounds, he’d rather revisit instead.

Movement streaks in the periphery and he turns, catching sight of the girl, Niri, running out of Airlock 4. She’s going hell for leather, as lithe and quick as cat, that shining braid lashing behind her.

“And where do you think you’re going?” he mutters, watching as she heads straight for the cloud puncher. To do… what?

He waits for a second, expecting the president’s aide to appear in his white suspension suit, plodding after her in triple the G he’s used to, pushing his lanky frame as fast as it can go, gasping for breath the entire way.

Only he doesn’t. No one does. No one comes after her, like no one knows she’s missing. The thought astounds him, maybe even amuses him a little bit before the realization sets in. She’s going to make it to the cloud puncher, and she’s going to do whatever she’s going to do, while he sits there like an idiot and watches it happen.

Flicking the cigarette into the darkness, he half-slides, half-leaps from the roof, setting off as soon as his boots hit the tarmac. Running comes easy, even after the femur rebuild, his body trained to the point of exhaustion every day, now lean, big on muscle, and stronger than it has to be. He sprints down the tarmac, heaving thick air, side holster biting against his hip. He catches up with her before she sees him coming, appearing on her flank when she’s got her eyes set dead ahead.

She leaps up onto the launch pad, a flash of movement caught in the glare of xenon lamps, and charges for the fuel hoses, like she’s come to wreck everything, maybe kill them both in the process.

Voss jumps after her, catching her around the waist and swinging her off-balance as gently as he can. She hits the grate, thrown onto her side with her palms down, cursing at him.

“Get away!” she cries, her small chest heaving, sweat glossing her forehead, down her neck. “You have no right to take me.”

Voss stands back from her, holding up his hands, a sign of surrender he hopes will placate her while he catches his breath. “You’re going home. You’re a citizen now. They’ll protect you, give you everything.”

“No, they won’t.”

“You don’t know these people.”

“Neither do you! You live here with the rest of us.”

Ah, for fuck’s sake…

She pushes to her feet, suddenly more woman than girl, her jaw set, her fists clenched tight at her sides. “Whatever they’ve told you, it’s not true.”

“They told me that you’re gifted.”

“I hear things. Terrible things. Is that a gift? They’ll destroy me. They’ll have no choice.”

Hear things?
It’s not what he expects, so it takes him a moment to respond. And when he does, it sounds like he’s grasping… because he is. “No… it doesn’t work like that. At this moment, you have more legal rights than I do. They can’t take that back. They can’t ‘destroy’ you. We clear on that?”

“They will have to.”

“No.”

“It’s not a gift.”

“Niri—”

“You don’t know what I hear. Only my father said it was a gift, and he didn’t know… ” She looks lost, her bottom lip trembling. “Now he’s dead.”

Voss rubs one hand over his jaw in frustration, knowing that this is his undoing, right here. Talking to men, to soldiers, is what he’s good at, conversations that rely on the heavy application of dominance, ridicule and bullshit. Talking to women, to this woman, right now, is a nightmarish prospect, a potential minefield of comfort cues and evasion techniques he can’t, doesn’t want to navigate.

Just get her away from the cloud puncher…

“He wasn’t supposed to die,” he says. “No one wanted it to happen like that. But you’re a citizen now, and that means clean air, clean clothes, clean food and water. Private quarters. Med care. Luxuries your father could never have dreamed of… and protection under the law. You’ll be with others like you, working in the brain trust to innovate, make things better. You’ll have a good life, and he wanted you to have a good life.”

She backs away from him, unable to take it in, hurting too much.

At that moment, he knows she’s going to bolt. He can see it plain as day, her small body leaning toward the darkness, ready to break loose and force him to chase her under the guard towers all night.

Voss reacts by taking a careful step forward, his hands still raised in the air, nothing threatening, just a little closer… “No one’s going to hurt you.”

Not good enough.

She tries to jump off the pad, but he catches her, swearing under his breath. But she doesn’t stop. No, she fights, twisting in his grasp until they’re face to face, her body crushed against his, the earthy scent of gutters still moist on her skin. She slams her knee into his groin, and he feels it, a burst of blinding pain.

His grip lessens and she slips away, snatching the knife from his belt and landing on her feet. All of a sudden, she’s a threat, eyes glittering, teeth bared, holding the knife like she knows how to use it, like she can fillet him from tip to tail if she wants to.

And maybe she does.

“Niri,” he says her name, trying to bring her back.

“They’ll destroy me,” she says. “And they’ll destroy you too, your men, all of you. You have to let me go.”

They stare at each other, shadowed reflections trembling across the chromed steel blade between them, the red glow of the towers catching on its serrated edge.

“Let me go,” she says.

In one swipe, he knocks the knife from her hand. She ducks out of reach to retrieve the blade, grasping the handle and springing back to her feet.

Only now his sidearm is drawn, the muzzle bearing down on her.

She hesitates, breathless, then raises the damn knife again.

You gotta be kidding.

“I will fight,” she tells him, in case he hasn’t figured that part out already.

“Niri—”

The girl charges.

He hits her with a stunner round.

She crumples, a match flame extinguished by unseen breath, dropping to the tarmac at his feet. The knife goes clattering into the darkness.

Voss swears.

“Damn, Col.” Wyatt appears at the edge of the light, grinning ear to ear.

Voss ignores him, sliding his sidearm back into its holster and kneeling down to make sure she’s still alive. And she is, the pulse in her neck beating strong against the pads of his fingers. Might have been safer to simply wrestle the knife away from her, but to be fair, he’d contributed all he could to that conversation.

I hear terrible things.

“That was interesting.” Wyatt is on the platform now, nudging her wrist with the toe of his boot. “Homicidal. I like that in a woman.”

“Suicidal, more like.”

“Oh, she might’ve got you with the knife and got away,” Wyatt drawls. “Because God knows, you were moving slow enough.”

“I was trying to talk her down.”

“That right?” Wyatt laughs.

“Voss!” the aide finally appears, just the way he was always going to, puffing his way across the tarmac, his visor sealed tight, sucking air so desperately the sound of it can be heard through the helmet speaker. “She’s gone! I left her for a second, out of respect, and—”

“Do you actually know anything about transporting these girls?” Voss snaps back, angry now. “You don’t leave a kid like this alone.”

The aide spies her small outline on the launch pad. “Oh, thank God. You found her. But… what did you do? What… not the head, I hope.”

“Stunner round,” Voss says it as if he’s talking to an idiot… which he is. “She’ll wake up in about thirty minutes, with a headache. No damage.”

“Barbaric. You couldn’t have simply held onto her? She’s so small.”

“And good with a knife.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the aide dismisses this, confident as he grabs for the launch pad railing and heaves himself up. Light shines off his visor, his cheeks glowing pink with exertion. “She’s a citizen now, an intellectual.”

Wyatt makes eye contact with Voss.
Do you believe this shit?

“She’s violent.” Voss lays it down.

“No, she comes from a violent place. We can help her with that.”

“Okay, but until then, she’s violent.”

The aide kneels down beside her and brushes the hair back from her face in irritation, a caretaker dusting dirt off a vase after a pair of barbarians dropped it. “Slightly unstable, perhaps, but that is of no particular concern. It’s part and parcel, when it comes to unique intelligence. We expect a little.”

“Oh, well that’s good.” Wyatt makes a face.

“It’s still of concern to me,” Voss presses. “If my team is pulling security all the way through big sky, trapped in a can with this woman, it’s necessary that we know everything relevant. She claims to ‘hear’ things. What does that mean?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the aide replies, not even bothering to lie convincingly. He tugs at her shoulder with both hands, trying to pull her up. “Oh… she’s a little heavier than she looks.”

Voss rolls his eyes, disgusted. Stepping forward, he moves the aide out of the way and lifts her from the grate without effort, the second time in so many hours that she’s in his arms, unwilling and unconscious.

“Ah, good, thank you,” the aide says. “Perhaps you could help me with her for a few minutes, given her… temporary instability. She needs to be cleaned before we go, new clothes.”

“No.” Voss jumps down onto the tarmac. “Absolutely not.”

“Ah, okay, but—”

A hiss streaks across the sky above them, the shot of a jammer rocket, followed by the flash of mortar rounds. The North guard tower shatters in cloud of concrete and dust. Close explosions pummel the air, thudding quick and heavy. Auto-gunners blast into the darkness, white flashes banging hot, lighting up the tarmac, red tracer rounds streaking overhead.

Alarms blare out between the towers.

“Effective, indirect,” Wyatt yells. “What the fuck?”

Voss is crouched with the girl, thinking the same thing. What idiot would attack Ticonderoga, a heavily armed outpost in the middle of No One Cares? What’s the objective? To kill a few Assaulter teams? Bust up some old equipment? There are better, cheaper, ways to accomplish both of those things.