Rise the Renegade (Rork Sollix Book 1) (21 page)

Rork stared at him, trying to recover his dream.

The man pulled him forward and dragged him down the low-roofed trail. The walls narrowed and Rork bumped his head against a ridge in the ceiling.

The strong-voiced man shook his head. “Duck, new guy.”

Rork rubbed his scalp. It was wet. He held his fingers up to a passing light and they shone red. He stopped and ran his hand along his scalp. He touched the gash. It stung and he pulled his hand back, bloodier now.

“Baby need a diaper change?” The strong-voiced guy stopped and looked back at Rork with a disapproving glare.

“It cut me! I need first aid.”

The man grabbed a handful of dust from the floor and slammed it onto Rork’s head.

The impact tore Rork’s swollen scalp further and then the burning kicked in. He leaned forward, swept the dust out of his air with both hands and stomped the ground. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

The strong-voiced man grabbed Rork’s tricep and ran. “We’ve got a short amount of time to get this done and you’re holding me up.”

They rounded a corner, then another. The trail spiraled down at a sharp angle. The light receded. The dust thickened and the artificial lighting grew weaker.

Rork’s eyes burned. He stopped and blinked them, again and again.

“Let’s go, new guy!”

“I can’t— My eyes!” Rork’s breath caught in his throat. His lungs rebelled and he tried to expel the toxic powder. But with each breath he only took in more.

A hand covered Rork’s mouth and nose and he coursed with fear.

“Easy!”

A soft yet greasy rag replaced the hand. Strong hands tied a tight knot at the base of his skull and relatively clean air flowed into his spasming lungs again.

“Come on!” The hand clamped tighter over his upper arm and they proceeded down again. They turned another corner and the trail opened into a wide, rounded cavern.

Floodlights punched through the dust and illuminated the walls. Men paced the floor and waited. A short one, his face caked in dust, approached them.

“Sharp,” the short one said, “three unaccounted for.”

“Dead anyway,” Sharp said.

The short man nodded. “We cleared a path and sunk the shaft. Just waiting on new guy.” He sized up Rork.

Rork opened his mouth to talk and his lungs seized up again. He tried to cough and the cough caught in his throat. He drew breath again and expelled some of it but his lungs were full. He stretched his shoulders out and took more. Finally, the cough came in staccato burps and his lungs refused to take in air again.

The short one nodded at Rork and raised an eyebrow. “Him too.”

“We’re getting out of here. Pass the word,” Rork croaked.

“What?” Sharp said.

“We’re getting out of here. Pass the word!” He coughed then lifted the borrowed rag and dug his finger into his nose. Dust cascaded out and he began to breather easier.

The men laughed and Rork looked up at them.

“You don’t know who I am.” He managed to get the words out between hacks.

Sharp grabbed his arm and pulled him towards a serrated opening in the wall. Next to it sat a cube as wide as Rork’s chest.

“You’re going to take that cube through the path the guys cleared in the rubble. Then you’ll find a shaft. Climb down it with the box and set it gently — I said gently! — on the ground at the bottom of the shaft.”

“What if—” Rork started.

Sharp held up a finger. “Then, if you can, you climb back up.”

“Don’t you have bots for this kind of thing?”

Sharp looked away.

“What if I drop it down the shaft?”

“It’ll detonate and the shaft will channel the force of the explosion into your face,” Sharp said, one eyebrow higher than the other. “Let’s go new guy. You say we’re getting out of here? Well, step one is getting out of that shaft.” He turned and faced the other men. “Let’s go guys, hoof it outta here. We’re on a schedule, two minutes to detonation.” He walked over to the box and smacked a button on the top of it.

A numbered display glowed to life. 120. 119. 118.

“Now, new guy!” Sharp yelled.

Rork grabbed his arm. “If I do this, you’ll come with me tomorrow.” He searched Sharp’s face.

Sharp shrugged him off. “Your clock is ticking.” He strode up the trail, leaving Rork alone in the cavern.

Rork glanced at the box. It read 112 seconds remaining. Was this an initiation? Was this how they always do it? Did he run now? Or try it? The thoughts crashed through his mind like rapid laser fire. But he needed allies and he needed respect.

Rork ran and picked up the box with one hand. His shoulder jerked backwards. Jupiter, it was heavy! He stepped back, grabbed it with both hands and hefted it up to his waist. The rock here was darker, probably richer in the element Barbary was mining, platinum or palladium — maybe both. The box hit something and he rammed his ankle into it.

“Ouch!” Rork mumbled.

“Who’s there?”

Rork stopped. He dropped the box, stepped back and rotated it, its bottom scraping against the rough floor until the illuminated numbers showed forward. “I’m Rork. Where are you?”

“I see your light. Just up ahead,” the voice rasped.

Rork bent over the box. 67 seconds. Damnit! He picked it up and shuffle-limped forward.

“Behind you!”

Rork stepped back twice. A hand reached out from the darkness and locked onto his injured ankle. He jerked his foot away but the hand tightened.

“You gotta get me outta here, Rork.”

Rork grabbed the hand and pulled. It gave a little, then nothing. “Help me help you.”

“Rock on my leg.”

Help me, Jupiter.
Rork stepped into the blackness and kicked rock. “Ouch! Is it that one?”

“Yeah, just roll it off me.”

Rork crawled his fingers across the rock and found its edges. He squatted down and pulled. The rock lifted.

“Almost! Keep going!”

Rork brought his feet in closer and looked in the direction of the box.
How many seconds till it goes off?
His fingers weakened and the rock slid. “Now, has to be now!”

“I’m out!” The man limped in the darkness towards the cavern.

Rork fell forward onto the rock as his hold slipped. He sucked in air and looked over at the box.
No time, no time, no time!

The box beeped and a red light flashed on its top. It beeped again.

“Hey!” Rork stepped to follow the man he’d saved and fell flat on his side. He jerked his leg. It was stuck but it didn’t hurt. He’d stopped shivering. He remembered what Dad told him once about space survival. When you stop shivering, that’s when you’re dead.

“Hey! Help!” Rork yelled. The beeping spiked in his eardrums now. His jaw buzzed. He reached down and felt his leg. It was all there. Knee, shin, foot, toes.
Brax.
His big toe was under the rock. He only had one whole foot left and he needed it intact!

Lala flashed through his mind. He smelled her musty tang. She was all he wanted. That and revenge on Gamil Barbary so they could live in peace. If he died now, Barbary won and it was a lifetime of misery for Lala.

“You bastard son of a bitch!” Rork dug his fingers in under the rock and lifted. He pulled his leg out, stood up and promptly fell. His feet were numb from the cold.

He got to his knees and crawled on all fours, then got to his feet again, ran, stumbled and made it out into the cavern.

The beeping was everywhere now. It felt like it was inside his skull.

“Come on!” The man he’d saved, covered in black dust, rushed Rork and threw him over his back. He ran up the rocky trail, around curves, up inclines, fighting the artificial gravity.

Everything went silent. The wall rose up and threw Rork. His eyes shook in their sockets. Dust and rock cascaded over them. The man turned another corner, Rork bouncing along over his shoulder. The second shockwave hit as the bomb pushed everything out of the tunnel. Gravity disappeared and they floated onto the icy planet surface. Rork closed his eyes.

Rork opened them. A dim light illuminated the crowd of men huddled over him. He looked from one face to another.

Fingers snapped near his nose. Sharp’s disapproving face appeared over him.

“Well, new guy, you screwed us good. You caved in the mine on at least a hundred good men. We got nowhere to sleep. You saved one for the moment but you’ve doomed all of us, permanently.”

“W
E
’
VE
GOT
ten minutes before the temps drop again, and we’re still at least an hour from the spaceport.”

Rork studied Sharp’s eyes. They were smart and determined. But he was tired. They all were.

“We’ve gotta go back,” someone said behind Rork.

Rork scanned the horizon. Something other than ice shimmered in the waning midday sun. The spaceport was there, within his reach. Mary Ellen might be there. Rork needed her to get into Barbary’s Cylinder. He took in a frigid breath and watched the exhaled vapor cloud ice up in front of him. The same sun he’d always depended on warmed this artificial planet. It was just too far away.

“He’s right,” said another man.

Rork stepped up on an icy outcropping and faced the men. “Go back to what?”

“No thanks to you.”

“There is only death for you back there,” Rork said.

“Barbary needs us, he’s got sensors in the mine. He’ll send someone.”

Rork rubbed his rag-wrapped hands on his chest.
Men died last night because of me. Now I wear their clothes. I can’t do anything for them. That’s done. But I can save some of these men. And I will save Lala. Whether she takes me back or not is another question.

Two men turned and began to trudge back towards the mine.

“I need every man here to take that ship.” Rork stretched an arm out behind him towards the spaceport. “And every man here needs me to get off this snowball.” He scanned the group of a dozen men. “Unless you have any other pilots here?”

The two returning men turned and listened.

“Barbary took everything from us. Like me, you lost fathers and mothers, sisters and daughters. In a few generations, who will be left out here but Barbarys. What of the Mankins and the Sharps? The Fujimotos and the Iboges? Barbary is exterminating us.”

The burnt sun cast a pinkish glow on the ice behind the men as the little planet spun away from its closest daily approach. Rork took in breath, then exhaled, faster and faster. Strength was returning.

“What about your legacy, as men? What about your lives? The past you had is gone! The present you loathe is here but the future you want is within our grasp. I promise to you now that we will get our revenge on Barbary. We will rescue our loved ones. We will have our vengeance and together we will rebuild our lives!”

The wind howled through the assembled men, biting exposed skin on their faces, chests, backs and legs. Four more men turned and joined the departing two. The six of them trudged back towards the mine.

Rork balled his fists. It was the same everywhere. Small men. Small visions. Ruled by their fears. Comfortable with their fates — not the fates given to them by the Universe or God. No. The fates given to them by other men. Their betters. But betters only because these cowards refused to man up and fight them. He opened his mouth to scream, to curse their slithery spineless psyches.

“Let them go.” Mankin stood in front of Rork, his eyes searching. “Focus on the mission.”

Rork nodded. Mankin. He’d come back for Rork. They’d saved each other’s lives. This one he could count on.

Rork turned towards the spaceport and strode forward. “Come on, men!”

“It’s your turn on the harness,” Mankin said.

He turned and nodded at him, his stomach aflutter. The damned heavy thing could sap all his strength before he even reached the spaceport. How many men did they have to fight? They didn’t know.
 

 
Rork put the harness on like a jetpack, one strap over one shoulder, then the other. But this harness also had a belt. Rork pulled the heavy, stained thing tight around his waist and fastened it.

Sharp strode up from behind. He put the forehead strap on just below Rork’s hairline. “Now’s your chance to show us your commitment,” he said with a raised eyebrow.

No problem.
Rork stepped forward, two other men with similar harnesses two meters on either side of him. He pulled and the bomb wouldn’t budge. He pulled again, then walked back. The damned thing was frozen to the ground.
I knew we shouldn’t have stopped.

Rork grabbed it and rocked it from side to side. He stuck his fingers into the fresh ice at the bottom of the metal box and chipped away, his finger losing sensation. He pulled and it came free, almost hitting his senseless foot. He’d have to be careful. Pull it too hard down the incline and he was dead, or trapped. He wasn’t sure which was worse.

Watching the horizon was too painful for Rork. It was too far away. He looked down at the ice ahead of his feet. He saw Zero and that little girl. He never even learned her name. Thryk. No way, they didn’t survive. All that air ejected from the main hatch? It decompressed in under a second.

What a pain in the neck Zero was. But a good man. Loyal, caring. Rork would need him now. He remembered calling him a fraud and the memory stung. Thryk saved his life. He owed the man, no matter how dumb he was. Honor was honor. You paid it in kind. Once he had Lala, he’d search for the MORF-9 and give them a proper, respectful sendoff into the unknown.

A hand landed on Rork’s shoulder and he turned, startled.

“We’re here.” Mankin’s eyes shone. He unbuckled the harness from Rork. They took cover behind an ice ridge and watched.

There was the ship, less than two-hundred meters away. The gray rectangular mass sat on the spaceport causeway, its rear engine hatches lifted open, tools scattered across the ice-encrusted concrete. Jord supervised two men working on the engines.

“What now?” Mankin asked.

There was no cover between them and the ship. The spaceport was nothing more than a landing strip, a thin line of concrete in a sea of ice pack.

“We wait.”

Sharp approached and huddled next to Mankin. “We take it now.”