On Point Page 2

  My idea of an easy trip to Deck A side vanished when I saw the tram car. It rested crosswise to the meg-rail. The front of the car dented, gashed, and peeled back from sonic grenade impacts. It seemed the Marine Corps’ resistance had claimed territory and demanded a high toll from any unwelcomed visitors.

  The alphabet tram zipped up to the station forcing me to run to a different platform. I made it by jumping into the car as the doors closed.

  ***

  The tram ran around this half of Construction Station. After an hour of traveling, it pulled into the BCD&E station. During the trip, I’d seen Constabulary Troops standing guard on platforms at a few of the tram stops. Realm citizens ignored the big creatures with the rifle sized electronic prods. They acted as if having the Troops there wasn’t a big deal and posed no threat. Their familiarity with the enemy wasn’t a good sign. Could they all be Empress’ sympathizers?

  I rode the escalator down to the commercial level on the brown street. It was midday according to the artificial sun, and I was hungry. On my last visit to Construction Station, I’d grown fond of a few specific restaurants. One was a short walk from where the escalator ride ended.

  ***

  A new sign hung above the restaurant’s door. The lettering was in symbols and it took me a few seconds to translated their meaning; Royal Constabulary Nutrition. I knew Troops couldn’t survive on human food and humans couldn’t eat Troop food so it made sense to have separate restaurants. Out of curiosity, I began to reach for the oversized door handle.

  “Don’t do that citizen,” a security officer ordered.

  I was so busy staring at the symbols, I failed to notice him approaching.

  “I just wanted to take a look, officer,” I informed him.

  “They don’t like to be disturbed when they dine,” he said with a sneer. “I walked into a Constabulary diner one time. And I can tell you, I’ll never do it again.”

  “Get in trouble, did you?” I asked.

  “Not from my superiors,” he explained. “From my stomach. Let’s just say, they have terrible table manners.”

  I was undercover with a mission and didn’t need the attention of the local security force. Besides a mild curiosity about the Troops eating habits, I didn’t really care about them.

  “I’ll take your word for it,” I said turning away from the door.

  Then, he nudged me and pointed to a procession coming up the street. While he raised a hand salute to the brim of his cap, I watched the people across the street. They put out their right arm and cupped their hand as if expecting something to be placed in their palm. I aped their movement.

  The security officer turned to me with his mouth open and rounded. Glancing across the street, I noted the people on the far curb had formed the same odd mouth shape. Again, I mimicked the gesture. The officer nodded his approval and faced forward.

  The procession approached and I could see it was a line of coffins on wheeled carts. Walking in front were two Constabulary Troops, while on either side of the coffins walked Realm citizens. One hand resting on the plastic boxes and the other hand held at waist high as if asking for a handout. They all had their mouths opened and rounded.

  As the first coffin neared me the speaker system along the street squawked and a voice spoke.

  “Many pass from this hard life and the Empress weeps for each of them,” announced the voice. “Hunger, need, want, and disorder are the killers. Right now, we hold out our hand in want. And, mouth our hunger as does the Empress. Her Royal person understands your loss. But know this, the Empress loves you.”

  The first coffin was surrounded by adults and teens resembling the adults. I assumed they were related to the deceased. Possible a grandmother or grandfather. Another coffin rolled by with the same type of escorts. When the next casket rolled by I gasped.

  It was small and the couple accompanying the coffin were young adults. Inside the tiny casket must be their child.

  “Many pass from this hard life and the Empress weeps for each of them,” continued the voice. “Hunger, need, want, and disorder are the killers. Right now, we hold out our hand in want. And, mouth our hunger as does the Empress. Her Royal person understands your loss. But know this, the Empress loves you.”

  Loves you my butt, I thought. Hunger, need, want and disorder didn’t kill the old and very young. It was the low oxygen. And, the ketone and cleaning fluid tainted air that smothered them.

  I knew the Empress needed new DNA to maintain her Constabulary Troops and supplement their human handlers the Travelers. As direct decedents of the original citizens exiled with the Empress, the number of Travelers was dwindling. Their gene pool shrunk with each generation limiting their ability to breed new Troops. The Royal Constabulary was weeding out those Realm citizens unable to survive in this harsh environment.

  As the last casket passed by a young woman with a satchel slung over her shoulder scurried up the sidewalk. She said something before depositing an item in the outstretched hands of the spectators. While withdrawing something from the satchel, she approached me.

  “The Empress loves you,” the woman whispered as she dropped an information chip into my outstretched hand. The security officer also received a chit. And, he was assured, “The Empress loves you.”

  The young woman moved on staying near the last casket.

  “There’s another parade at the end of second shift,” the officer told me. “It’s not encouraged but over in orange you can catch another parade at dawn. Not a bad deal getting food chits just for standing witness to a parade of caskets.”

  “So, those caskets were empty?” I asked hopefully.

  “They were at first,” the security officer explained. “But a week after the arrival of the Royal Constabulary, the bodies started dropping. Suddenly, the coffins were more than a gruesome parade. They became real funeral processions.”

  And a training tool to control the citizens, I thought. Work and get food, or stand for a funeral procession in a weird pose for your food. Propaganda and brainwashing in one simple process. The Constabulary was teaching the citizens to accept the deaths by feeding the living when they performed a ritual. Yes, the Empress does indeed love you, if you survived.

  I thanked the officer for the information and continued up the street. Then something occurred to me. Why didn’t the security officer question me? It was obvious I was new to Construction Station and had no clue about the death parade ritual. Under these circumstances, most peace officers would grill me about where I came from and what I was doing on their station. The security officer acted as if new arrivals were commonplace on a recently captured station.

  I filed away the concern when I located a diner without a Constabulary notice or a Traveler’s sign. Traveler’s food was digestible. But I didn’t feel like eating with an enemy who killed the old and very young in a cruel selection process.

  ***

  Maybe it was the air, but the food was unsatisfactorily seasoned, yet filling. Plus, it was plentiful enough I managed to tuck a ham and cheese sandwich into my plain bag. I took the exit door opposite from the one I used to enter the diner. It put me outside on the orange sidewalk. While the brown side was in early afternoon, here it was after midnight.

  I checked my PID, personal information device, for the schematics of Construction Station. The plans had been downloaded by a Navy Cartographer. She assured me, I could pull up every culvert, large pipe, duct, and shelf running throughout the station. Right now, I just needed an opening to quickly disappear from the living and commercial levels.

  ***

  The park was depressingly dark, and empty, when I crossed it. On the far side, I located a set of steps. Even the lighting on the stairs leading down to the subterranean level were dimmed. I didn’t remember the lighting being this low on my last visit to the station.

  Even more garbage and trash had accumulated on the delivery road at the subterranean level. While it had been unsightly before, it was almost a hazard in th
e weak light. I passed the entrance to the Breached Plate and briefly thought about stopping in for an ale. But, I was on a mission and had to cross almost half the diameter of Construction Station. It would take me twelve hours if I didn’t meet any Constabulary Troops along the way.

  A rustling noise came from further down the service road. It might have been a delivery cart, or workers returning from an evening of carousing. Or, as I saw in the weak light, three tall and broad-shouldered figures. What were Troops doing patrolling a garbage strewn road? I didn’t have time for a conversation so I choose the closest escape route.

  The maintenance hatch came loose and I crawled in backwards. I reattached the cover, dragged a red filtered flashlight out of my bag, turned, and headed deeper into the interior of the station. Behind me, the Troops passed without noticing anything.

  ***

  Two hours later, I left the maintenance passageway and slipped between the walls of living and working compartments. The utility tunnel was narrow with pipes and fiberoptic cables running along the walls and overhead. At crossings, I had to high step over them but once through the intersections, the utilities basically ran in the direction I was walking.

  I could have taken a number of routes but this one assured me privacy. My mission was to gather information not to engage the Constabulary. So, while dirty and filled with obstacles, the tunnel kept me away from being detected.

  The floor in the narrow space became tacky. My boots made a squishing noise for three steps before I stopped. It could have been engine oil, fluid from gears of an ion motor, or gray water. Unfortunately, I’d spent most of my life in space and was well aware of the substance. I also knew, I wasn’t alone.

  From the plain bag, I pull my Knight strap and slung it over my head. Then I shoved my hands into the muffler shaped holder. When they came out, the backs of my hands and my forearms were encased in leather guards. Clutched in my hands were a pair of handles. I shook them and the Knight fighting sticks extended.

  Alloy bands gave the appearance of weathering snakes wrapping around the shafts. While most of the sticks looked alive, the dark tips drank in the light. I moved forward slowly, cautiously approaching the spiders’ nest.

  ***

  I had a Military forty-five in the bag. While it would have been easier to use the hand cannon, I had no way of knowing who occupied the compartments on either side of the tunnel. A clip of kinetic rounds pinging off their walls would send people, or Troops, to investigate. I had to settle for the Knight fighting sticks.

  The spiders, in comparison to heavily irradiated spaceship spiders, were small. Small as in the four spiders were about half the size of my torso. Apparently living on a station with massive, but mild, white ion drives didn’t create the enormous spiders found in blue, or yellow ion powered ships. And certainly not the aggressive giants found after a long cruise in a ship powered by red ions.

  They detected my movement and two raced to the ceiling. The other pair of spiders remained on the floor. I began my Sinawali. Slow at first, but as I neared the nest, I increased the speed of the fighting stick patterns.

  I wasn’t trying to impress the arachnids. They lacked the mental ability to appreciate my performance. No. I was moving the sticks so when…

  One spider raced along the overhead pipes. An arm’s length from my face, he jumped. The weaving of my fighting sticks meant one of the deadly tips was already in motion towards the aggressive spider. I pivoted and slashed. As the black tip ripped along the spider’s side, separating legs and opening a gash, my legs felt dampness and pressure. The spider fell and smacked wetly into the deck.

  I didn’t have to look down at my leg. The moist strings of webbing were expected.

  Pick your battlefields, my Druid instructors taught. If you can’t pick the location, then pick your foe. I never completed Druid training so I wasn’t sure what criteria to use when picking an opponent. The last spider on the overhead pipes seemed to be in position to do me the most harm.

  I’m fast thanks to enhancements from the Druid Council of Elders. Not arachnoid fast, but as a Knight Protector of the Clan, I moved faster than most humans.

  My stick, as I stretched forward, sliced across the spider’s right principal eye. Animal, insect, reptile or spider, take out an eye and they will retreat, at least for a moment. Even if they had seven more eyes left. The overhead spider backed along the pipes and disappeared into the dark. This freed me up to slice at the two on the deck. One advanced and I ripped off two of its legs with the tip of my right stick. Lopsided, the spider toppled over. It was an act. I didn’t fall for the ploy by kicking at it.

  A spider has eight legs and, even missing two, the spider was mobile. They may not have the metal ability to value beautiful stick patterns, but they are hunters. Its fangs dripped poison as it spun trying to locate my limbs and get a grip on my ankle. That’s why I didn’t kick it.

  I jumped over the snapping spider and ran both of my sticks through the joint between the other spider’s body and its head. The head drooped and the body collapsed.

  Turning rapidly, I slashed three more legs from the downed spider. While mobile with six legs, reducing them to three put the spider out of the fight. Advancing slowly, I searched for the spider with the injured eye. It had climbed onto a high shelf and curled its legs inward.

  I shook off the bulk of the webbing off my legs and walked away. A few steps later, I heard wet chomping. The spider on the shelf, after avoiding me, had started to feed on its fellow nest mates. As I explained, spiders are hunters.

  ***

  The walls opened a little and the deck ended abruptly. Dividing upwards and downwards, the pipes and fiberoptic cables disappeared into the dark above, or over a cliff below. Peering down, I could see the next level far below. Maybe I should have taken a chance on a more heavily traveled route. Turning around, I backed over the ledge and used the pipes to scramble to the lower level.

  Now, I was four levels below the commercial and living decks from where I started. However, I was on course and only two levels beneath my destination. Although I’d walked for nearly five hours, I was still less than half way there. After digging in my bag, I pulled out the ham and cheese sandwich. I munched on it as I walked between the steel walls on the lower level.

  Before I finished my lunch, the walls echoed with the burp of a heavy weapon. Someone wasn’t practicing noise discipline. I shoved the last of the sandwich into my mouth and rushed to the next intersection.

  Another burst of rattling from the crew-served machine-gun bounced off the walls to my left. I paused and considered my choices. I had a primary mission and that lay straight ahead. There was a secondary mission but it was in conjunction with the primary.

  The big gun ran out another burst and I imagined the kinetic rounds ricocheting downrange. The only way to avoid them, you found cover to the front and behind you. And, preferably, a deep crevasse to hide in while sucking deck.

  Putting the mission aside, I faced left, and hesitated as I considered the detour for a second. Then, I jogged towards the sound of combat.

  Chapter 3

  After locating a hatch and an exit from the utility tunnel, I put my ear to it. Silence didn’t mean the compartment beyond was empty but it told me there was little to no activity. Spinning the handle, I shoved the hatch open, and jumped into the room.

  Tools lined the walls and a couple of workbenches took up the center of the maintenance shop. It was empty. As was the corridor outside the door on the far side of the compartment.

  Far down the hallway, the machine-gun fired another two bursts. There was a firefight in progress. And according to the Navy’s last reports, the only resistance to the Constabulary forces were from Galactic Council Marines. If any survived the station’s invasion.

  Now, I could hear a few answering kinetic rounds pinging off the bulkhead nearest me. It must be return fire by the Construction Stations’ Marine garrison. However, the volume of rounds didn’t come close to
the rapid fire from the Constabulary’s side.

  The hallway ended at a partially open airlock. I shouldered it to a hand’s width and peered around the thick door.

  ***

  A steel walkway extended to either side of the airlock. One end stopped at a railing. The other end met a rounded railing which circled rungs set in the wall. It was an emergency ladder down to or up from the deck.

  Attached high above me, the ceiling was crisscrossed with tracks. Dangling from transport motors attacked to the tracks were lifting straps and hooks. The equipment was for moving and placing large containers. All this identified the area as a container storage warehouse. Cargo crates on the deck confirmed it.

  The crates were arranged so a wide center aisle lay open between rows of containers. The aisle ended at a deck-to-ceiling set of doors. The double collapsible doors, to another warehouse or fabrications deck, were closed. Across from me on the far side of the warehouse, a catwalk bracketed another airlock. Descending from the catwalk, a wide, steel staircase gave access to the cargo deck below.

  My perch was a level and a half above the deck so I had a good view of the battlefield. Bodies sprawled unmoving in the center aisle. On my side, Constabulary Troops stood between crates. Every so often, they’d step forward and snipe across the gap at Marines. The Marines returned fire with accuracy forcing the Troops back. But dominating the firefight was a machine-gun mounted on a pivotal base. In front of the crew served weapon and protecting the crew was a metal barrier. The gun fired through a slit in the shield which was a blessing and a curse for the Marines.

  The firing slit prevented the machine-gun from targeting specific riflemen which was good. Conversely, the metal shield prevented the Marines from sighting in on the gun crew and stopping the dominant weapon. Meanwhile, the shower of rounds blanketing the containers on the opposite side held the Marines trapped behind their crates. They couldn’t attack or retreat from the machine-gun and its human gunners.