‘Okay,’ she said, pushing her way through the pedestrians, out of the flow and towards the wall to their left. They pushed through the gap between two stalls, and then Ellie cautiously poked her head around the back, looking left and right. A few other people were walking up and down this narrow, dim, passageway, equally frustrated by the crush of people out front. She saw a few traders pulling stock out of crates stacked behind their stalls. But it was empty enough that they could make faster time jogging along it.
‘We should run,’ said Ellie.
Jez pushed past her. ‘Okay, but let me go first, I’ll scare anyone out of our way,’ said Jez breaking into a jog, her platform boots clacking loudly off the metal floor.
Ellie followed in her wake, offering an apologetic smile to those few people they passed by, pressed awkwardly up against the wall to let them through.
‘They’re much more polite here than in New Haven,’ Jez shouted back over her shoulder.
Ninety-four, ninety-five…
They passed behind a stall selling music chips. Most of it was pirated and imported from other worlds by the look of the crates of goods out the back of the stall. She heard the muted twittering sounds of the Crazie-Beanie song blasting out from speakers around the front of the stall, and realized, finally, she’d heard the damned tune enough.
CHAPTER 23
Aaron noticed the handshake icon on screen, and a moment later, he felt the thrusters surge to life as the automated port guidance system assumed control of his shuttle. Lisa rose slowly off the pad amidst a cloud of steam and dust.
The shuttle’s pug nose tilted forward slightly as the guidance system slowly turned his craft around to head out of the opening hangar doors.
Aaron watched out of the window as the orange glare of the world outside the hangar slid into view. The hangar doors finished opening, and almost immediately, he felt the gentle push of the aft thrusters easing the shuttle out into the late afternoon sunlight. He felt the warmth on his face and hands as the cockpit filled with light.
Something glinted beside him, and he looked across to his right at the co-pilot’s seat. On the ripped and threadbare seat, beside the spring that stood out through the upholstery, he noticed a small piece of plastic jewelry. It was one of those thin, stretchy Beanie-bangles that Ellie liked wasting her money on. He reached across and picked it up, turning it over in his hand to look at the silly character-logo on the thickest part of the round gel strip.
He smiled and shook his head. Ellie loved that stupid damned character; a pointless irritating mascot created to help sell a cleaning product, and now it seemed stuck on the side of everything. For some reason, he felt compelled to hang on to it. He slid it over his left hand, the stretchy plastic struggling to accommodate his wide knuckles, then it slid easily past the rest of his hand and settled around his wrist.
His control panel chimed and the handshake icon was replaced with the release icon, Lisa was once more in his control. Staring out at the empty world ahead of him, he set off, knowing where he wanted to go first. There was a family out there that deserved a decent burial. He took the control yoke and headed west, hugging the arid ground.
*
‘Deacon?’
He touched his earpiece. ‘Yes, what is it now Leonard?’
‘The shuttle left before our men could stop it.’
Dammit.
‘Did anyone get back on it?’ he asked.
‘Not that I could see. Just the pilot.’
That was another loose end he was going to have to track down and sort out, but not now. Ellie Quin was still here, and she was the principal target. The shuttle pilot could be picked up later. Harpers Reach was a poor place to try and hide.
‘Thanks Leonard,’ he replied.
He concentrated once more on the narrow choke-point in front of him. The faces streaming past were more frequently male than female, varying skin hues. There were almost as many off-world types here as in the other city. Every now and then, Deacon’s eyes would pick out a feminine face, and for a moment, he felt a prickling spark of exhilaration until further examination revealed the face was not one of the two he was after.
Keep looking for that neon yellow, he reminded himself. A feminine face, and a splash of that distinctive bright yellow amidst that crowd, and he’d have them.
Music from a stall a little further down had started playing - a twittering, gibbering hi-pitched voice on top of a deep pounding bass line, that he could feel as much as hear. It was already giving him a headache. Worse still, he suspected the mind-numbing melody, if it could be called that, lurking in that cacophony somewhere would undoubtedly plague him all the way back home to Liberty, until he could settle back in his comfortable apartment once more and dislodge it with the sophisticated melodies and rhythms of a little late twentieth century Drum-n-Bass.
Do people really call this twittering moronic crap…music?
He heard something else though, faintly at first, ebbing and flowing behind the noise of the market place and that damned jingle. Something new….clatter-clack, clatter-clack, clatter-clack; the sound of heeled shoes on metal, someone running…someone in a hurry. It drew his attention and he leant forward and looked down in the direction from which the faint noise was approaching, looking for the bobbing head of someone on the run, but saw nothing.
*
Jez drew up short and Ellie piled into the back of her.
‘What are you stopping for, Jez?’ she yelled. Jez was silent, frozen in place.
‘Jez? What is it?’ Ellie stepped around her friend and saw him standing a dozen paces in front of them, his gun held out ready, his eyes locked on theirs.
‘It’s him,’ hissed Jez, ‘one of the men from the weather station.’
Ellie recognized him, even though she had only seen his face for a few moments by a torchlight that had jumped and danced erratically in the dark. It was the man who had let them go. He kept his eyes on them, with no flicker of reaction on his features.
Ellie hesitantly pointed up towards the top end of the concourse, the gesture was a question.
Will you let us go again?
She put her hands together as if praying.
Please.
There was no reaction from the man for several long seconds. And then with the slightest nod, and the lowering of his weapon by a few degrees, he wordlessly assented, the gesture almost imperceptible.
They moved warily towards him, squeezing past, their eyes locked alternately on his eyes and the gun he continued to hold ready. Jez winked at him and blew him a kiss and Ellie mouthed thank you and then they were on their way again, glancing backwards once more to be sure he hadn’t suddenly changed his mind and was lining up a shot on them. They broke into a run once more
*
Clatter-clack, clatter-clack, clatter-clack
The noise was coming from the other direction now. He turned to look up the concourse and for a fleeting moment, between two stalls on the far side of the choke-point he saw the bobbing heads of two girls, and the tiniest flash of neon yellow as a drab-colored jacket flapped to one side.
It’s them! How did they get past us? Shit!
He pulled his weapon out and fired a burst up into the air.
The effect was instantaneous. As the deafening and distinctive rattle of several gunshots echoed off the walls, the entire river of people in front of him dropped to the ground, a hundred feet in either direction. Further away, people froze and looked round to see what the noise was.
Only two people within sight were still on the move, now running as fast as they could.
‘Over there!’ he shouted to his man across the way, and pointed towards the two girls. ‘AFTER THEM!’
Deacon broke into a run on his side of the thoroughfare, not wanting to be slowed down by having to wade across a mass of prone people to join his man. The mercenary began to run after them, faltering here and there as he wound his way past cowering stall holders and stacks of goods.
/> Deacon looked ahead. He could hear the noise of those hard-heeled boots clattering and scraping ahead, amidst the tremulous hush that had descended on the formerly busy thoroughfare. He caught another glimpse of their bobbing heads up in front as they passed between two stalls. He was gaining on them, a little.
God these girls can run.
In a heartbeat he decided they were close enough to take a shot. Sliding to a halt, he braced his weapon hand against the post of a market stand and lined up along the short barrel of his gun at a larger gap between two stalls on the far side, ahead of where he had last seen them, and waited, holding his breath to steady his aim. Waiting for them to step into his aim.
*
Oh-crud-oh-crud-oh-crud!
Ellie staggered behind Jez, already winded. Jez was making better speed than she was. But every now and then she slowed and turned round to check Ellie was right behind her. ‘Keep running girl!’ she yelled.
They heard the rattle of a pulse rifle behind them, and the wall several feet above them sparked with the impact of a dozen poorly aimed shots.
Ellie shot a glance over her shoulder. The man who had let them past was now after them, but making slower progress than she would have thought.
Deliberately slow?
‘Don’t worry Ellie, I think he’s aiming high,’ shouted Jez back at her. ‘Just keep going, we’re nearly there!’
Ellie looked up at the hanger door they were racing by.
One hundred and five. She hoped that the barge was actually ready to go. It had better be or they were both going to be screwed.
What if there is no barge? She banished the thought from her mind. They had made their play, rolled the dice and that was all there was to it. She suddenly recalled that bizarre fortune-telling session Jez had dragged her along to. The boojam fortune teller had said she would make it into space, and if you believed that kind of hooey it looked like he’d got it right. But she wondered why the hell it hadn’t occurred to him to warn her that it might be a somewhat hasty departure.
Jez turned round, grinning like a fool. That was Jez all over – her stress response was to leer like an idiot.
‘Hey limp-chik, bet you didn’t think we’d be doing this…’
The metal wall to her left exploded in a shower of sparks as a rapid-fired volley of high caliber projectiles slammed in from somewhere on the far side of the concourse. Jez flew back against the wall as if some giant invisible mallet had swung down and caught her in the midriff. She slid down onto her bottom, clutching her side and looking down angrily at the blood spilling into her cupped hands.
‘Ouch!’ she said spitting out flecks of crimson onto her pale chin.
Ellie knelt down beside her. ‘Oh Jez, please…no!’
She looked up at Ellie panting wildly, and then nodded towards the way ahead. Ellie could see it now, could see what Jez was pointing out…the door to hangar 113, only fifty yards away. Just there. She turned back to look down at Jez, knowing in her heart what her friend was urging her to do.
‘I’m can’t leave you Jez, I’m not going to leave-’
‘I’m not asking you to fregging leave me here! I want you to get me up dammit!’ she spat the words out accompanied by a globule of blood. Ellie pulled Jez to her feet, and she shrieked with the pain. ‘Go…go go!!!’
They staggered towards the doorway, as another volley of fire peppered the wall and the ground, and showers of sparks danced around them.
*
The mercenary watched the painfully slow progress the two girls were making up ahead of him. He had no idea where exactly it was they were making for. If it was the entrance to the city, then they had no hope at all. That was right up at the far end, another four or five hundred yards….might as well be a hundred miles away as far as things looked for them now.
Shit.
These girls weren’t going to get away, not like this. It was all over for them. Nice try, ladies, but it wasn’t going to happen; which was bad news all around. His really big pay check, the one that dwarfed the generous payment he was getting from the Administration for assisting the guy in the smart dark suit track down and kill this girl, was based on the target getting off-world alive. All bets on that big payday were history now. He had already pushed his luck as far as it should go letting them come past him. The guy in the smart dark suit must now be wondering whose side he was playing for. Very dangerous. He’d have a suspicion. There was nothing for it now. He needed to be the one to finish them off, to dispel any suspicions the man might have of him.
Time to cut your losses, and bring them down.
He knelt down and pulled his rifle up to aim at the backs of both of the girls, a pathetically easy shot to take. This wasn’t going to be a kill he was ever going to be particularly proud of.
And then without warning they slid sideways out of view.
*
Ellie looked up at the barge ahead of them inside hangar 113. ‘We’re here Jez! There it is!’
Jez looked up at it. The engines were already rising in pitch, the loading ramp was still down, but warning lights were flashing above the cargo hold entrance. It was an automated barge, no crew, no pilot, no one to plead with to give them just another few seconds to make it across the landing pad. It was going to leave at exactly the scheduled time, not a second earlier, nor a second later. Launch time was merely seconds away.
They had to run for it now.
‘Come on Jez! We need to hurry!’ Ellie manhandled her friend across the floor of the hangar towards the barge, as a shrill warning beacon began to sound inside the large hangar.
‘Oh no! Don’t leave!!!!’ Ellie cried out as she struggled with legs that felt like lead and grunted with the exertion of carrying the dead weight of Jez.
The timbre of the engines increased in pitch and volume and the shrill wail of the warning siren was all but drowned out. With a loud clank and a whine of motors, the loading ramp began to rise.
Ellie hurled herself and Jez forward and, with a sense of déja vu, they collapsed onto the corrugated surface of the ramp and, as it swung swiftly upwards, were unceremoniously rolled down into the cargo hold inside. With a loud clang the ramp locked home, and locking clamps outside slid shut.
*
Deacon staggered into the hangar, breathless from the final frantic sprint up the way, and having had to manhandle his way through the crowd. The mercenary was there already, standing just inside the doorway. Deacon noticed a dozen bullet casings scattered around the man’s feet.
‘Did you get them?’ he shouted into the mercenary’s ear, competing with the roar of engines of the barge as it lifted off the pad, tilted forwards and glided out through the opening doors of the hangar.
The mercenary hesitated almost imperceptibly. ‘Yeah, I think I might have winged the smaller one, just as the barge’s loading ramp closed.’
They both looked up at the dwindling barge, rising rapidly into the peach sky, leaving a contrail in its wake, as the doors of the hangar began to close once more.
‘You winged her? Do you think it was a fatal shot?’ he asked as he fought a little more air into his beleaguered lungs.
‘Hard to say, sir.’
The hangar bay doors closed again swiftly with a loud reverberating rattle, shutting off their view of the barge, now little more than a black dot in the sky. Deacon sighed and shook his head. Mason’s little creation had managed to bolt for it after all.
This was one of the contraband hangars, of that he was almost certain. So, that meant there was going to be no record of the ship in orbit that this barge belonged to, nor any details of its flight plans.
‘Fine…if that’s how we’re going to play it,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Fine.’ He suddenly found himself laughing…a desperate wheeze of a laugh; a spasm of exhaustion, released tension and a hint of exasperation, or maybe all three.
‘If that’s how you want to play it…I’ll just have to quarantine every other fucking planet in this damned s
ystem.’
He could do it. He had the goddamned authority to do it.
CHAPTER 24
Ellie stared out of the tiny, grime-encrusted porthole at the receding world outside. Here it was, the moment she had been fantasizing about for as long as she could remember, the moment she finally waved goodbye to Harpers Reach. In her fantasies, the window through which she would see it all gradually dwindle away to nothing more than a dusty red spot in space, had been big; a large viewing bay in some luxurious inter-system pleasure cruiser, surrounded by the great and the beautiful. And in this particular escape-from-this-cruddy-world fantasy, that she had played over and over in her head countless times since she was old enough to realize there was a much larger world beyond her immediate horizon, she had not been cradling the blood-spattered face of her closest, her only friend.
‘Can you see it Jez? We finally made it off-world, just as we said we would,’ she said gently stroking her pale cheek. ‘We did it!’
Jez groaned fitfully and opened her eyes to stare out at the sight. She smiled up at Ellie and nodded. ‘Yeah, we did it girl. Not just cube-chiks now….we’re space-chiks,’ she replied weakly. A droplet of blood trickled from her nose, and rolled down across her face into Ellie’s lap. It left a trail almost as dark as Jez’s favorite shade of lipstick.
‘Shhhhh. Rest now Jez….You’ll be alright. I know you will. We’ll get you a doctor or med-unit onboard the ship. You’re going to be fine.’
Jez nodded, closed her eyes, and settled gently in Ellie’s lap, her breathing growing quieter, fainter.
Ellie fumbled in her pocket for the data-disc the old man had handed her. She pulled it out and slotted into her palm-dictionary. One file. An audio file…
‘For twenty years I’ve been agonizing over how exactly I was going to tell you about who you are…what you are. For twenty years, I’ve only ever known you as L-239-HR-2457709….and since I’ve been here observing you, I’ve learned that your parents called you Ellie.’