Tears of Glass (The Jana Darren Saga Book 1) (16 page)

“David? David!” Jana hissed. She reached back with one hand and shoved him. He groaned and got up, coughing. His face was covered in soot, and his clothes were singed, but he looked okay otherwise. “Where is Lexi?”

“I’m over here!” From around one of the other booths, Lexi crawled on all fours to them. Her hair was in shambles and her face was dirty. It looked like she’d taken at least three tacks over various parts of her body, and as she got close, she put her hand in one of the puddles of molten glass from the chandelier. Jana clapped a hand over Lexi’s mouth and motioned for her to stay quiet.

“There’s men with guns over there. Looked like four, but it’s hard to tell. They have masks on, too. We need to find Aeronth and Gordon. Which way was the bar?” There were three entryways to the room. One for the lobby, and two more to adjacent rooms. “I think it was that one over there, but I’m not sure. I didn’t see which way they went when they left.”

“Should we split up and look?”

“This place is big. If we split up, we might not find each other again.” Jana eyed the burning curtains anxiously. “We won’t have a lot of time. Most of this place is covered in fabric. It’s obviously flame retardant, but once the smoke from the grenade starts to settle, this whole place is going up in flames. We have to find them and get out of here.” Jana tried to stop her hands from shaking, turned to Lexi, and said, “Give me your gun.” Lexi shrugged, one of the corners of her mouth turning up in a grimace. “How does a weapons specialist not keep a damn handgun on them?!”

“Where the
hell
would I put it, Jana? Up my happy place?!”

“Fine. FINE. We’re not going to be shanking anyone with a butter knife, so Lexi watch the men at the door. I’ll go ahead and make sure we have a clear path. Give me a signal if one of them starts coming over here. David, please tell me you have a way to contact someone.”

He looked appalled. “Of course.” He held up his watch.
At least someone’s specialty proved useful.
Jana ignored Lexi’s furious expression. “But it won’t do much good if they’ve jammed the colony’s signal.”

“We don’t need the colony’s signal. You need to get in touch with the military post here ON the colony. I doubt they’ve shut off local communications. Tell them what’s going on here, have them send an extraction team. Get the access codes for the power grid from them, then patch into the line in A Block. 135 South, 610 West. Number 73. Send a distress signal. No questions, just do it. Stay with Lexi, and don’t follow too closely. We need to go
now.
”

She moved quietly through the debris. Broken tables and glassware filled her path, but Jana tried to brush it aside. The bodies were more difficult to avoid. Civilians who hadn’t gotten out of the way of the blast in time, or hadn’t been shielded.
You can’t help any of them now. Keep moving.
Her hands and knees were bloody from shards of glass, but she avoided the puddles. She could see Lexi and David in her peripheral, ducking and weaving to follow the path Jana took, stopping so Lexi could check the position of the masked men, who started to walk through the room towards the survivors.

One of the gunmen approached a man whose leg was blown off by one of the blasts. He writhed in agony on the floor. The masked man knelt down, appeared to say something to the injured one, then stood and shot him in the head. The curtains dampened the sound from echoing, but it was clear, and loud. And terrifying. The remaining people who’d taken cover from the blast moved towards the door choking, coughing, crying. They didn’t make it far. The other gunmen grabbed the people, looked them over, and discarded them.

They’re looking for someone.
Jana thought back to her hotel room.
Did they do that?
This has to be about what happened on Earth. They’re coming for me.
Jana made it to the big open doorway to the side room, and saw at least a dozen people huddled in the room behind chairs, tables, booths, and the long black bar counter at the back.
Found it. Now where are they?

She saw the swing before it connected and ducked out of the way. She rolled into the smaller room, grabbed a fallen butter knife in one hand, and pivoted. Aeronth and Gordon crouched on the other side of the wall from the main room, one on either side of the doorway.

“Jesus Christ, Jana!” Aeronth pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her. Cold steel pressed against her side.

“You have a gun. Thank god.”

“Where are the others?”

“Behind me. There’s four of them. Maybe more. They have masks on, and guns. They’re shooting civilians. Aeronth, I think they might be looking for me. David is getting in touch with the military presence on and off base.” Shortly thereafter, David and Lexi raced into the room on hands and knees and ducked behind the dividing wall.

“Jana,” Lexi panted. “They’re coming this way.”

Jana tried to steady her breathing. “Any luck yet, David?” Aeronth readied his sidearm. Jana held the knife close to her body, crouched down like a cat ready to pounce.

“They’re patching in now to get the communication line out for additional support. There’s a team en route to our location. We just have to hold out for a few minutes.” He tapped the display on his watch. “I don’t know exactly how long until they get here.”

Black smoke filtered into the room. Jana’s eyes watered and she knew they didn’t have much time. She yanked Gordon’s suit jacket off and frantically ripped the lining out of it and into strips. She used one of the black silk strips of cloth and wrapped it around her face, tying it behind her neck like a mask. The bar room had been spared of the incendiary, so there were no flames or pools of molten glass. The metal and stained glass vase centerpieces were also untouched.

“Throw it.” She handed it to Aeronth. He hefted it, then hurled it across the room. It smashed into a table and shattered loudly. The insurgents immediately started shooting at the area it landed, unable to see through the thick smoke. She turned back to the rest of her team, and the scared faces of the survivors huddled near the bar. “Get them out of here.”

Jana never saw Aeronth in action before. As he leapt through the doorway, he rolled forward and recovered, gun flashing as rounds sailed through the barrel. Jana motioned to the others to follow her. Aeronth was four meters away from the doorway, ducking behind an overturned table and firing rounds off. One of the insurgents was already down; the others quickly took cover. Visibility was nearing zero.

We’re running out of time.

There was no way for her to approach the insurgents and guarantee that they wouldn’t hear her coming. She wasn’t worried about Aeronth; he could take care of himself. It was the civilians they had to protect.

For once, her size played to her advantage. Jana navigated the maze of debris, moving with the swirling black smoke. Her eyes stung, but she continued to force them open. Her thumb rubbed against the smooth metal knife handle, and it was this she focused on to keep her grounded and focused. Any path directly around the outside of the lounge was impossible. The velvet curtain remains popped and dripped, spattering flaming synthetic material onto the carpet, where small sparks of fire began to catch.

Jana thought of the warm, inviting campfire they’d made on Earth. The heat was becoming unbearable on her skin. Even through the mask, breathing was increasingly difficult.
The sprinklers should have kicked in. The pulse grenade must have damaged the system.
She cringed, thinking how similar this situation was to her simulator to become a TAME. On Earth, it was just Jana and Aeronth. This was her whole team she was putting at risk.
And three of your team almost died in that simulation.

From her vantage point behind a blackened, half melted booth, Jana could just barely make out Aeronth across the room. The insurgents were close by, taking turns popping off a few rounds in Aeronth’s general direction, away from the bar where the civilians were slowly crawling from, careful to keep under the smoke and out of line of sight. Sprinkler water lines were always filled, to react quickly when triggered.

The knife in her hand was dull.
This isn’t going to work.
Nearby, she noticed a deep punch bowl that was only slightly tipped, red liquid sloshed over the side. How did it survive the pulse grenade? Inside, something shiny glimmered in the refracted firelight. Jana scooped it out of the bowl, a teardrop shaped piece of glass with a long, thin tail. There was a chandelier above the bowl, the molten glass had dripped down into the punch bowl, rapidly cooling it.
A Rupert’s drop.

It was big. The fattest part of the tear was larger than Jana’s palm. She was careful to avoid touching the delicate tail, knowing that if she broke it, she’d effectively be setting off a very large hand grenade. There was only one chance at this.

Jana heaved the teardrop at the insurgents. She watched it sail through the air, then lost sight of it from the thick air. But she heard it explode, pictured the fragile little tail of the drop hitting the edge of a table. The insurgents screamed, and Aeronth didn’t waste any time. Jana lunged forward, charging through the debris.

One of the enemies lost grip on his weapon as he fell back, startled by the impact. Jana snatched the rifle out of the air before it hit the ground. Behind her, pounding feet crossed rough terrain of the destroyed lounge and bolted out the door to the main lobby. She fired the weapon down at her feet. The kickback of the weapon felt good, grounding.

That was the moment Jana realized they were trapped inside the burning building, quickly losing any hope of getting out. Aeronth kicked the other surviving insurgent at the base of their neck, grabbed Jana around the waist, and ran.

The rest of the team was waiting in the lobby with a group of terrified civilians. Lexi had her nose pressed to the glass, trying to get a good view of the street without opening the door. The lockdown alarm sounded. Without hesitation, Jana slammed open the door and ushered everyone out. Certain areas of the colony had automatic lockdown procedures. When triggered, all exits were sealed and no one could come or go. Right now, it was important to get the civilians to safety so they wouldn’t be caught out in the open. There was no way of knowing the scale of the intrusion.

She looked back at the building. The place would burn up from the inside, but it wasn’t a danger to the rest of the colony. The fire would be contained. Bigger problems were at hand.

“We have five minutes to get them to a lockdown facility.”

“Four minutes and thirty-nine seconds,” David corrected.

“We need guns. But we can’t get to the nearest MP station and to a safe point in that little time.” The streets were already empty. She frowned.
Think...think.
It dawned on her. “I know where we can take them. David, get me a route...”

“Already on it. The nearest Military Police station is about a kilometer away.”

Jana counted the scared, injured people. Twelve civilians were all that made it. Seventeen people was a lot to hide, especially if the terrorists already had access to the surveillance system. That’s what they were now; terrorists. Their group would be sitting ducks. “It’s going to take us thirty minutes to get there with these people.” A few of them were badly injured; a woman in a satin dress was being supported by two men; her dress was ripped to shreds and her face was badly burned. They needed medical attention, and safety. The closest medical center was in the opposite direction from the MP station.

Lexi needed medical attention, too. They could leave the civilians in an easily defensible spot and leave her with them for protection. She noticed an older man sobbing into bloody hands clutching a woman’s high-heeled shoe. Her stomach churned.
Were they after me? Did all these people die because of me? You can’t think about all of this now.

“There’s an access door to the reservoir near here. No one will think to look there, but there’s a ledge down a set of stairs that’s wide enough for you to hide safely. We’ll come back and get you when it’s all over. Lexi, you’re staying with them.” Jana directed firmly. “No arguments. You can barely move as it is.” Lexi pursed her lips but nodded anyway. The MP station was in relatively the same direction as the reservoir access. “How many guns do we have right now?”

“Just the one I brought with me,” Aeronth frowned.

“Give it to Lexi. Gordon, you’re going with them too. These people need medical attention and you’re the only one here who can help.

He was so pale, almost shaking. “Lieutenant, a word?” He took her around the side of the building, out of earshot of the rest of the group, who were being herded under the awning of the building next door by Aeronth.
Smart. Get them out of view from cameras.
Gordon leaned in close, his catfish eyes brimming. “This doesn’t feel right. I don’t think the lounge was an isolated incident.”

“I was thinking that, too.” There wasn’t another person in sight; the place was a ghost town. Colonies didn’t run 24 hour schedules like military stations did but there should still be people around this time of night. Even with the alarm, civilians should have been outside still. Something else was going on, and she fully intended to find out what it was.  

“My family.” It wasn’t a question. Gordon looked her straight in the eyes. “I need to find them. I can’t concentrate on my job if I’m worried they’re in danger.”

“I will find them and get them to safety, I promise. You need to stay with these people.” She wrapped her arms around him firmly, held him for a few moments, and released quickly. “I’m not very good at comforting people,” Jana admitted. “Let’s go.”

The group split up a block later. Lexi, Gordon, and the civilians hobbled and dragged one another down a side street on the way to the reservoir. Jana paused and watched them, praying she made the right decision.

The silent colony, lit only by street lamps, was eerie. It reminded her far too much of the simulation from her TAME exam. The streets were immaculate, the buildings were dark, and they had no idea what they were up against.

Each of the buildings surrounding them were coated in a protective tint. As one, every loudspeaker on the colony roared to life with white noise. Jana clapped her hands over her ears and hunched over. Buildings started flashing white, then black again.

“They’re enabling the emergency system!” Jana shouted over the noise.

In times of crisis, the buildings of a colony could be used as a beacon. When power was lost, there was a window of time where the life support remained functional. Without the colony’s signal, it was easy to pass by without knowing there was a problem, or that the colony was even there. The coating on the buildings acted as solar panels to fuel the life support system, and their distress signal could be seen on scanners. But these intruders weren’t broadcasting the distress beacon; they were using the buildings as television screens.

Jana looked up at the nearest skyscraper, trying to find any clue to where it was broadcasting from.

The screen showed dark room in which a single light from a recording device illuminated a single figure with a mask on. It was a rough material, similar to burlap. A mouth was drawn on it with black paint, and narrow eyes watched out emptily. Jana remembered seeing pictures of scarecrows from old books about farming back on Earth.
Don’t worry about the mask! Look at the room! Where are they?
It was futile. The figure stood there, unmoving. The picture flickered briefly. A deep, tinny voice filled the once-quiet air.

“Attention citizens of colony 32. You have been selected to assist in the destruction of the suppressive hold your government has on its people. This video will be rebroadcast, in time, with footage of our takeover, to the entire Network. In the meantime, we have shut off all outside communications. Thank you for your sacrifice. And to the government, we ask this; if a dog bites the hand of its abusive master, is it the fault of the dog, or the owner for not showing the animal enough care? Your time of imprisoning citizens to cold orbital rocks, monitoring the comings and goings of your people, and your death grip on commerce are over. No more will the people stand to be outcast and ignored, left to starve on outlying colonies because they can’t get licenses for trading while the warmth of your light shines upon the Hub. We are the Reconstructionists, and we will rebuild humanity by tearing you down.”

“The fuck is going on?” Aeronth hissed. The video froze on a frame of the terrifying masked figure. “We need to keep moving. We only have a minute or so left.”

They sprinted to the MP station; Jana’s lungs burned from smoke inhalation.

“This doesn’t make sense,” David remarked. “If they were going to plan this big invasion of the colony, why send anyone to a random bar? That was an extraction team. Who were they looking for?” Aeronth clenched his jaw and kept running. They made it to the MP station, but it was empty. “Where is everyone?”

“Worry about that later.” Aeronth pulled the door open and hopped the counter. It was a small, square room with a white counter and two doors along the back wall. Aeronth ducked into one of these open doorways and Jana overheard scraping sounds. She went into the other room where a line of unoccupied desks sat undisturbed. There would be a gun cabinet somewhere around here, but what Jana needed was information. One of the terminals was still logged into the colony network.

“David!” he poked his head into the room.

“It doesn’t look like anyone is outside at all.”

“Find out what happened. Where did the Reconstructionists dock, where are the soldiers who are supposed to be here?” She left him there, and went to find the gun locker. There were more rooms branching off from the office area, with automated doors between each. Jana could see the front entrance from her position. Aeronth pushed a heavy metal crate into the open doorway.
Good thinking...I should have remembered that.
During lockdowns, certain buildings had security codes that enabled them to override the emergency protocols. Police stations, fire stations, medical centers, and a select few others. Without an access code from one of the soldiers, they couldn’t override the system.

Moments later, the emergency floodlights came on and the flashing stopped. A blast door cranked down onto the crate with a squealing crunch. The motor stopped. The crate was slightly bent out of shape, but held against the blast door. They had about two square feet of space on either side of it to get back out of the building.

“It’ll hold,” Aeronth said, nodding. “For a time, at least. Have you found the gun locker?” Jana shook her head, frowning. “It might be in that room, there.” He pointed behind him into the room he’d emerged from. “I think I saw it when I scanned the room for something to hold the blast door.”

They found it there, an upright steel cabinet with a hand scanner. She pressed her hand to the squishy gel pad. Nothing.
This is a small police station. Without the outside connection to the Net...
“Without the Network connection, it won’t recognize our handprints because the data isn’t stored locally. Only soldiers stationed here are going to have access.” She inspected it, but didn’t see a way to break it open by force. “Do you think we can bypass the lock manually somehow?”

“Not without a drill. Maybe David can think of something?”

“DAVID! Get in here!” Jana shouted over her shoulder.

He rounded the corner, tapping away on a wrist augment he’d found in the offices, like the one he’d had on Earth. “I think I figured out where they went, the soldiers. Is that the gun cabinet?”

“Yeah, and we can’t get in. Is there a way to manually override it?”

She could almost see the gears working in David’s mind. He leaned in closely, examining the touch pad, the way the base of the slanted arm joined the bulk of the cabinet. “There’s no way to break it open,” he finally said. “There are redundancies in place to keep that from being possible.”

“Then we’re screwed.”

“Not quite.” David held his arm with the augment up next to the scanner, punching commands in rapid succession. “Jana, hold your hand up to the scanner.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m artificially making you a registered user.”

“How? My file isn’t even local, it’s on the Network.”

“You lived here, so there’s a citizen’s record for you. It would be much more difficult to change,” he said, pausing for her to try. Jana pushed her right hand into the gel pad once more. It beeped, and the cabinet hissed, seal broken, “if they hadn’t cut the connection to the Network.”

“You are amazing.” Jana wrenched open the doors and finally, something was going their way. For the first time since their whole ordeal started, they had a chance. “You were saying something about the soldiers stationed here?”

“It’s not good, Jana.”

Her hands wrapped around the barrel of a sniper rifle, and she thought of Lexi.
She would have been useful in this.
That gun went to Aeronth, along with a handgun for each of them. Jana took two, and a thigh holster. One glance at her tattered dress was enough to make her cringe. She reached back and pulled the mess of her hair out of the ponytail, ran her fingers through the matted, dirty locks, and put it up in a bun.

“Status report.”

David cleared his throat and hastily stuffed the handgun into the small duffel he’d found. “There was an alarm pulled.”

“That’s no reason for everyone stationed here to abandon their post and go. That makes no sense at all.” She gathered up the few useful supplies they’d found and tossed them to David. Flashlights, flares, handcuffs...

“Could it have something to do with that building you had me tap into?”

Jana whirled around. “What?”

“135 South, 610 West. Number 73. You told me to send a distress signal from that location, so I did.” Jana’s shoulders dropped.
We pulled them away with the distress signal from inside the bar.
“What is that place, Jana? Why would the entire military force on this colony go there when I sent the distress call from outside? What alarm did I trip?” David’s eyes were narrowed at her, demanding answers.

“The residence of Senator Michael Darren.”

David’s mouth twisted into disgust. “We did this FOR them. WE pulled the soldiers from their post because you had me send an SOS from a fucking senator’s house. We led them out into the open and now who knows what’s happened to them. Now we have no backup and we’re going against who knows how many of these...Reconstructionists, or whatever the hell they are.”

Jana shivered, clenched her teeth, and looked him dead in the eyes. “Did you get the signal out?”

“Yeah, Jana, I did.” He was furious.
I didn’t consider the risks. I didn’t weigh the options. I made a snap judgement and it was the wrong one.

“YOU can call me Lieutenant Darren. And don’t worry about my father. The man could survive a nuclear holocaust. That’s what cockroaches do.” He shut his mouth, but didn’t break eye contact. “Let’s go.”