Randolph Lalonde - Spinward Fringe Broadcast 08 - Renegades (8 page)

“I’m afraid not.
Over the last few months, it’s become plain to me that Haven Shore,
the Triton, and even the Warlord seem to have things in order, even
though there is still danger on your doorstep. Meanwhile, there are
billions of people in this galaxy who are much more in need of help.
I plan on taking a spaceliner coreward, to one of the interior
systems that were hardest struck by the Holocaust Virus. There will
be people to teach, homes to rebuild, and I feel I’ll be of best
use there. I’m sorry if this displeases anyone in Haven Shore, but
it’s time for me to move on. Since the word is out, and my hope of
a clean good-bye is gone, I’ll be leaving today. My second, Tyra
Kim, is prepared to take my place and run my office.” He bowed and
began saying his personal farewells, turning to Mischa Konev first,
who hugged him with great fondness. Sunny Zinnes shook his hand and
wished him luck. Victor Davis did the same, adding, “You’re going
to tell us how you’re doing once you get comms up.” It wasn’t a
question. Liam Grady then wished Iloona and her family the best, and
she told him to have a safe journey.

Ayan felt as though
there was a brick turning slowly in her stomach as Liam Grady said an
obligatory farewell to Cory Greene, who looked as though he had a
fiercely bitter taste in his mouth. Tyra was behind him for every
step, and she looked away as Liam Grady regarded Ayan. “I’ve
tried to say this more than once in messages,” he said to her in a
hushed tone. “And this will be the last chance, so I hope I get it
right. I was near you when you needed the help and care of a friend
and mentor. Your instinct was to get as close to someone you trusted
as you could, so you could feel safe and alive again.”

Ayan hated him for
using that warm, comforting tone with her, but bystanders seemed to
fade away as tears threatened to come. The onrush of emotion
surprised her; he was bringing back all the hurt she felt over their
failed relationship. Even though she regretted the whole thing, they
did have some good moments together. Ayan tried to hold on to what
she thought they had, but within a few weeks after New Year’s Eve,
it became plain that there was no making it feel right, and they were
already drifting apart despite the good times and comfort they had at
first. She looked up at him, meeting his gaze. He normally looked a
little less than fifty years old, even though he was over seventy. As
she looked at him then, he looked weary, wearing more years than
she’d noticed before.

He continued his
farewell, resting a hand on her shoulder. “I took you in the wrong
kind of embrace, and I’m more sorry than I can say. I could go on
for hours about what I should have done to support you in that time,
but that wouldn’t change my mistake. The only solace I have is our
short time together, and the lessons you taught me. You’re a
boundlessly magnificent woman, and I have no doubt that you’ll only
get better with age. Goodbye.”

It felt as though her
head were throbbing, a few escaping tears ran hot down her cheeks and
her jaws were clenched so hard she was afraid molars were about to
pop. How could he ambush her with this eloquently executed departure?
Everything he was saying about their past together rang true. He was
admitting to reacting badly when she tried - and succeeded - in
getting too close to him just because he was there and she trusted
him. He was telling her that he should have countered her instincts,
and that the short-lived relationship that followed was wrong, too.
How he said it was so condescending that it made her want to scream.
To her, it felt like he was telling her that she was once a helpless
babe in the woods crying for comfort, for closeness and he caught
her, poor clueless Ayan, and took advantage. Hearing herself depicted
so aimless, helpless made her want to lash out at him.

It almost overshadowed
the truth she’d come to settle on months after they drifted apart:
that he was a good man, and they were wrong for each other. They
could have been great friends, and she realised only then, as she
stared up at him, furious and hurt, that she expected that they would
be on easy talking terms again some day. That promise would die with
his departure, and all she could manage to say was, “Good-bye.”

He waited a moment,
looking at her, then slowly closed his eyes and turned away.

Over Issel Gulch

Alice supposed that
most of the wilderness fruit pickers she rode with in the transport
had never met a ranger. It was a new division based in Haven Shore,
and it represented a cooperative training effort between the new
Haven Shore Council, the Sunspire, and the Triton. The Rangers would
eventually be an elite unit that could take action or give direction
in any field. They were sent out on their own to explore the land,
learn what scanners couldn’t and make decisions independently. That
was the dream, but all the rangers were new, and Haven Shore needed
something to trade. The rangers, along with pilots and experts on
their regular roster, were outsourced to help the Carthans and
several smaller organizations for a fee. The ones that remained
behind worked with soldiers to accomplish tasks set out by Haven
Shore, like hunting down the remaining framework troops and systems.
There had been successes. Thousands of people had been rescued from
wrecks long after everyone had lost hope, and framework soldiers were
hunted into near extinction. All the rangers suspected that there was
one more active Order of Eden bunker, and all of them wanted credit
for finding and eradicating it.

The legend of the
rangers was already growing, and Alice was proud to wear the ranger
skull logo on her dark green vacsuit. The designation of RANGER was
used as the death’s head’s teeth. Ringing the top of the skull
were the words: EXPLORATION, LEADERSHIP, ENFORCEMENT, and the only
part of the promise of the rangers that intimidated her was
leadership. She was far more comfortable with the other logo she bore
on her chest. Another silver skull with the word WARLORD written
beneath it marked her as a crewmember on her father’s ship. There
would be no marked intention above the skull, and that somehow made
it more interesting to Alice. No one knew what that ship was for,
exactly, and many didn’t want to.

The fruit pickers and
perimeter scouts took two three hour shifts per day, and there were
hundreds of them. Alice had never taken a ride into the deep jungle
on one of their transports, none of the rangers did, as far as she
knew. There were only a few shipwrecks in the vast jungles that were
left untouched by the events of the battle for Port Rush. Not many
survived those landings, and they were easy to map from above, so
there was no need for rangers to venture in.

The perimeter scouts
were a different story. They moved ahead of the pickers, making sure
that the big cats, curious monkeys, predator birds, and other
wildlife were frightened off. They chose where the pickers would
work, set up base camps, and reported on interesting finds in the
jungle. The hover truck that carried them all into the jungle down a
temporarily placed road between giant tree trunks and heavy vines
carried over thirty of them at a pace that seemed meandering.

Alice almost regretted
not keeping her vacsuit’s hood up when she boarded the back of the
antigravity truck. Young pickers and their parents smiled at her and
whispered to each other. Some of the scouts made a point of ignoring
her, perhaps having been rejected as a ranger, while a couple of
others closer to her age regarded her with surprise. She didn’t
know how to talk to these people, having spent so much time away from
Haven Shore, either working on the Warlord or ranging across Tamber.
She’d never met a picker before, even though she was well aware
that a lot of her food came from the picker camps in the jungle.

The well-worn passenger
bay at the back of the truck jostled and one of the scouts sat down
beside her. She was around Alice’s age, had green and yellow hair,
and wore a reflective orange vacsuit like the other scouts. “Is
there trouble ahead?” Alice’s security system projected the young
woman’s name and details into her eye; she was Joslyn Bulmer, and
was promoted from picker to scout three weeks ago.

The scout carried the
scent of their surroundings with her as though her vacsuit had been
through the thick jungle many times, smelling sweet and earthy. “I’m
pretty sure I’m going further in, and what I’m after isn’t
armed.”

“Animal, vegetable,
or machine?” asked a young Nafalli who wore bright yellow markers
instead of a full vacsuit. His dark brown and grey striped fur was
matted here and there but mostly clean – impressive considering his
job. “We’ve found a few interesting things in here.”

All eyes were on her,
these were only some of the questions that everyone in the transport
were eager to ask. If she were running her mission with Haven Shore’s
knowledge, she would have been able to use one of their rebuilt
skids, and she wouldn’t have to answer any of their questions.
Alice didn’t know how much to tell them, but knew hesitating too
long would probably make them worried. “I’m chasing after a lost
bot.”

“Does it think it’s
a picker or something?” asked the Nafalli, to the mirth of a few
riders.

“It’s just
confused,” Alice replied when things died down.

“Do you think they’ll
still need us when they get the bots working?” asked Joslyn. “Bots
probably pick faster than people, right?”

Alice didn’t know
what to say; she hadn’t thought much about the people she hitched a
ride with, or what they’d be doing if their job was mechanised.

“I earned my
apartment with this job,” Joslyn said. “My first. I was just a
kid before, never earned anything myself,” she said proudly.

Alice immediately
recognized how serious these people were about keeping their place,
their functions in Haven Shore. She knew what it was to be lost, to
have no home, and she realized then that she was surrounded by former
refugees. She considered the desperate need Haven Shore, the Triton,
Warlord and all the other ships had for precision workers. Bots were
the go-to for that kind of work, and she couldn’t imagine many of
them getting assigned to something like picking fruit, when humans,
Nafalli and a couple of other rarer races were picking tons a day. If
the feedback on Crewcast was to be believed, they didn’t mind the
work either. “I really don’t know, but I wouldn’t replace you.”

“Diplomatic answer,”
said the Nafalli with a chuff. “She’ll be off-world soon, Jos.
Won’t even think of us when she’s on the Warlord.”

“Leave her alone,”
Joslyn replied. “She’s a ranger, they rescue people.”

“You feed people,”
Alice said without thinking. That attracted more than a few smiles.
If the conversation was to pick up after that, Alice would never
know. The hover truck came to a stop as they arrived at a mid-tree
station.

The platform
surrounding the tree was made of durable stiffened cloth, and it
hosted dozens of tents. This was where pickers who wanted more shifts
and less travel stayed. Other trucks were pulling up, and a load
shuttle was rising up into the trees, its cargo most likely filled
with fruit. Alice had tried to get signed onto one as a passenger,
but they were off limits – too busy to multitask.

Everyone disembarked in
a practiced fashion. As Alice waited for all of them to pass her so
she could get off last, one grizzled man with slicked back hair and a
broad face put his hand on her shoulder. It was so large that his
fingers reached the bottom of her shoulder blade. “You give ‘em
hell for us when you get out there on the Warlord, girl. We’ll keep
you fed, you keep the war going.”

He didn’t wait for a
reply. Alice couldn’t think of anything to say anyway. As she
stepped out of the transport and checked her tracker for the android,
she tried to ignore everything she’d seen. Thousands of people were
living vastly different lifestyles in and around Haven Shore, and she
didn’t have time to consider them. If she didn’t focus and find
that bot soon, Haven Shore would be alerted to the absence, then
she’d have to explain why she set out to track the bots down alone.

The Last Garrison

“Stop! They’re
running us into a trap!” Remmy Sands shouted after his squad of
Haven Shore soldiers. They wore combat vacsuits with a battered layer
of heavy armour overtop. The rifles they carried bore the scars of
several battles, including the Port Rush siege. The Order Knights and
a small band of frameworks were losing, but the Haven Shore Regulars’
personal energy shields were depleted in most cases, and they bought
into the lure that the Order Knights had set out.

In a daring tactical
manoeuvre, the Order Knights had sent the last of their framework
soldiers directly into the fray when the Haven Shore Regulars, with
Remmy advising from the rear, entered the command level of the mobile
garrison. It was a suicidal effort on the framework soldiers’ part,
and the Haven Shore rifles, modified to destroy framework soldiers
specifically, ripped them to shreds in a forty two second long fire
fight. The gambit was working, and Remmy was just starting to see it.
The Order Knights sacrificed their lesser soldiers to convince the
invading Haven Shore Regulars that they were on the brink of winning,
and it worked. The Regulars rushed in as though the Order Knights
were just more framework peons.

An explosion rocked the
deck of the mobile garrison, and Remmy watched as smoke and debris
was blown down the hall in his direction. The tactical screen on his
head's up display indicated that the pair of squad members on point,
Irinia and Shawn, were severely injured and immediately drugged into
stasis.

Irinia Chen wouldn’t
make it; she’d taken critical head injuries and there wasn’t
enough of her left. His remaining team of nine were pulling back,
dragging the injured with them hurriedly. Remmy waited, holding his
rifle at the ready.