Warden: A Novel (16 page)

“But how’s that even possible? And it’s so
warm
.”

Tana smiled as she looked up at Barent, clearly enjoying the heat pouring out through the opening.

“I don’t understand it either,” he replied. “This ship should be a frozen block of ice. But the only way we’re going to get any answers is to go down there and take a look around.”

Barent saw the look of excitement on Tana’s face and knew he’d get no argument from her. He stooped low beside her and crawled through the door first, dropping almost two meters to the floor of the next room. Then Barent reached up and helped Tana as she made her own way down.

“Thanks,” she said.

They carefully passed through the jagged edges of rent metal where the opposite side of the room had been torn away, and then stepped down into the
Olin’s
central core. Both reached out in curiosity to touch the waist-deep foliage.

“It’s damned hot in here,” Barent noted.

He took off his cloak and tied it around his waist, and then Barent reslung his plasma rifle and they began hiking through the plants.

“You weren’t built for the heat, eh?” Tana asked, a little too cheerily for Barent’s liking.

“Not really,” he replied. “I fought in a desert war once and it was far hotter than this. But that was well before the climate treatment.” Then Barent grinned. “But I didn’t like it much back then either.”

“Is this a problem for you?”

“Not at all. I’m just not used to sweating…so damn much.”

“Well, good,” Tana replied. “Because
I
like it.”

“The sweating?”

“That’s funny, Barent. The histories never said you had a sense of humor.”

“Not much of one, I’m afraid.”

Barent stopped and knelt down at the base of a large tree, closely examining the ground around it. “The trees we brought with us were all mutated to require fewer nutrients, and to minimize the root systems they needed to survive. But this is still quite remarkable.”

Tana squatted next to Barent as he pushed his hands down through the thin layer of soil. “The dirt here is only eight inches or so deep,” he said.

He dug around one of the larger roots and traced its path through the soil, eventually reaching the hull of the ship. The root disappeared down through the metal. “Well I’ll be damned,” Barent said. “The roots have penetrated the
Olin’s
fuselage and are trying to get to the planet’s surface.”

“But how’s that possible?” Tana asked.

“Oh, it’s possible,” Barent said. “The trees aboard the
Le’sant
had the exact same modifications. They were designed to puncture the rocks and icy surface of the planet, so metal wouldn’t be that much of an impediment to them—especially once the trees grew larger and more powerful.” Barent looked down toward the front of the ship, again marveling at the vast expanse of green. “The storage tanks must have ruptured when the
Olin
crashed, sending the soil flooding throughout the interior. The seedlings and frozen cryo-growths were probably spread around the same way. Either that, or the animals ate the surviving plants and scattered the seeds around through their bowels. However this happened, it’s pretty damn amazing.”

“Yes,” Tana agreed. “It really is.”

They got back up again and Barent brushed his hands off.

“What I don’t understand,” Tana said, “is why this all exists in the first place.”

“What do you mean?”

“Take a look around, Barent. Just
look
at all of the technology and effort that went into this. I’ve only ever known Le’sant as a city, but to see this—to imagine those two massive ships sailing through space… Why go through all that trouble and expense just to settle on this frozen hunk of rock? Why put a colony
here?
I mean…I know Earth was a mess, but this planet isn’t exactly paradise, either.”

“That’s easy to explain,” Barent said. “This is one of the very few planets the explorer probes found with a suitable atmosphere, and that had decent soil we could manipulate. The geothermal energy was just the icing on the cake.”

“Still…” Tana said. Her tone made it clear she was unconvinced.

“There were a lot worse places, if you can believe it.”

“I can’t,” Tana replied, and then she stepped over to pull an apple off a nearby tree, taking a big bite out of it.

“How does it taste?” Barent asked her.

“It’s delicious,” Tana mumbled. “You want one?”

“No thanks. We’d better keep moving. This place is huge, and there’s just so much to see. With the city partially extended, the
Olin
is even longer than three kilometers now, and it’s wider than the transit configuration as well.”

Tana had already taken another mouthful of apple so she smiled a reply, and then they started making their way through the wild growth again.

They noticed the plant life beginning to thin out as they moved deeper into the ship, and the landscape started to take on the appearance of a proper forest. Barent and Tana glanced at each other in mild surprise when they happened upon a clearing in the woods, and their expressions shifted to astonishment when they spotted the small house at the center of it. Barent signaled for them to stop at the tree line so they could examine the wood-framed structure from concealment.

They watched the animals corralled in a pen next to the simple dwelling as they ambled around inside their enclosure, and observed four cultivated fields at the back of the clearing, each sown with a different crop.

“Barent…” Tana whispered.

But before he could reach for his guns two people stepped out from behind the trees on either side of them—a man and a woman. Their faces were rigid, set hard and emotionless, and each was armed with a drawn bow.

Barent and Tana froze when they noticed the metal tips of the arrows pointed right at their hearts.

“Don’t move,” the man said to them, drawing his bow taut.

“Don’t even twitch.”

An unfamiliar sound drifted into Dura’s dreamless sleep.

It hovered just outside the edges of his consciousness, pushing hard to find a way in. To most people it would have simply gone unnoticed, never stirring any interest or acknowledgment. But Sergeant Dura wasn’t
most people
; he was a Warden. His trained mind immediately identified the faint wisps of sound as boots—lightly brushing across the micro-fiber flooring as their wearer crept forward.

Dura sat up sharply in his bed, fully alert.

Someone is in here.

He slid down to the floor and crouched low, just as the door to his bedroom burst open. Dura peeked around the foot of the bed and saw three commandos storm into the room, sweeping their gun barrels in all directions looking for their target.

Looking for him.

A hit team?

Who would dare?

He reached underneath the bed and felt for his spare pistol, quietly unfastening the holster and sliding the weapon out. Dura traced the movements of the commandos through the gap between the bed and the floor, watching their boots. And when he saw one of them coming toward his position he pulled the trigger twice, striking the man in both ankles. The impact from the powerful rounds sent Dura’s would-be assassin straight to the ground.

As the soldier fell his gun went off, firing harmlessly into the ceiling, and the other two commandos guessed at Dura’s location and began shooting down into the bed. But by that time, he’d already leapt away and was kneeling next to the injured man on the floor. The shooters were avoiding the small area so they didn’t hit their comrade, and that hesitation gave Sergeant Dura the only three seconds he needed.

He crushed the commando’s face with the butt of his pistol and snatched the rifle from his hands, and before the other two soldiers realized what was happening Dura popped up and shot them both in the neck—right between where the body armor met their helmets.

He ignored them as they collapsed, instead dashing over to the bedroom door so he could peer out into the main living area of the apartment. But there was no one else out there. Dura stood up straight and strolled back over to the lone survivor, stomping down hard on the man’s stomach and sticking the rifle barrel into his left eye.

“Who sent you?” Dura said.

The commando mumbled through broken teeth. “Malves…it was General Malves.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Dura jabbed the rifle in a little harder and the man screamed, pushing his arms out defensively.

“I swear! All I know is that they plan to kill the Wardens…all of you. It’s the
only
thing I know. I swear!”

“All of the Ward—” Dura stared down at the man’s face. His anger was gone, replaced by something far more frightening. “You tried to kill me,” Dura said calmly. “In my sleep…like a fucking coward. What do you think I should do with you?”

“Let me live?”

Sergeant Dura pulled the trigger.

“Wrong answer.”

He ran over to his comm unit and tried to contact the other members of his squad, but no one answered. Then Dura attempted a few other Wardens he knew and met with the same result. It was obvious to him that all of their communications were being blocked.

It’s really true then,
Dura thought.
The Collective are finally making their move against the Wardens. I wonder if it has anything to do with the crazy rumors we’ve been hearing about the Great Betrayer.

Dura went to his closet and pulled out a civilian outfit to wear so he wouldn’t draw attention to himself, and then he grabbed a combat uniform and his weapons, and stuffed them into a backpack. When he was finished getting dressed, Dura went to the bedroom window and crawled out onto the ledge, planning to make his way into another apartment before sneaking out of the building—just in case there were more commandos waiting nearby.

But Sergeant Dura wasn’t running.

And he sure as hell wasn’t scared.

He was on a mission, and the tightly controlled anger and indignation gave his thoughts perfect clarity. Dura intended to get to the rest of his squad before the assassins did—to gather up every Warden he could find, and then make the Collective answer for this treachery.

He found an unlocked window two apartments over and quietly snuck inside, making his way out of it and into the corridor before taking a service lift at the back of the building. Five minutes later, he was on the street. Sergeant Dura darted a look around the corner and spotted two APCs parked out front, and then he doubled back behind the building again and ran off into the night.

The Collective will pay for this,
Dura thought to himself, his anger propelling him swiftly through the back alleys of Le’sant.

We’ll show them exactly what happens when you fuck with the Wardens.

It took a great deal of effort to suppress years of combat training, screaming for him to act, but Sergeant Barent remained absolutely still.

Except for his eyes.

He gazed past the arrows and beyond the bows, examining the pair closely. And Barent saw them staring back at him with equal intensity—no doubt harboring similar questions. He noticed their size first, even before the remarkable skin tone, and after several days spent living among the people of Le’sant it was almost surreal to encounter
normal
humans again—and well-fed ones at that.

They were both wearing the original sky blue clothing of the colonists, identical to what Barent remembered. But the sleeves had been removed from the shirts entirely, and the pant legs cut away just above the knees—likely to help them cope with the extreme heat inside the ship. The woman’s shirt was knotted at the bottom, exposing her midriff. And the top of it was unbuttoned almost halfway down to reveal some rather ample cleavage—something else Barent hadn’t seen in Le’sant.

The man’s shirt was unbuttoned completely, and Barent noted they both appeared well-muscled and healthy. Their tanned skin stood in stark contrast to the pale citizens of Le’sant, and reminded Barent of people who frequented the beaches back on Earth. But the nearest beach was dozens of light years away from Torvus, and the mannerisms
these
two exhibited were far more militant than touristic.

“They aren’t Exiles, Calif,” the woman said. “What are they?”

Exiles?
Barent wondered.
What the hell are Exiles?

“I don’t know, Draly. Look at their skin…and how small the female is. I think she might be ill.”

“We didn’t mean to trespass,” Barent said. “We were just looking around. We didn’t realize people were living here.”

“Who are you?” Calif said forcefully. He drew his string back a little further and the bow creaked.

“My name is Barent. And this is Tana.”

“Where did you come from?” Draly asked. “Have you climbed down from the spires, or are you from out on the plains?”

“The spires?” Barent repeated, confused by the question.

Draly pointed down the center of the ship at the partially extended buildings of the city—visible high above the trees. She indicated the few that had sheared in half as the
Olin
tried to deploy, pushing up against the mountainside to stand at only half their intended heights. The very tops of the buildings disappeared through large ruptures in the starship’s outer shell, exposing the uppermost floors to the planet outside.

“No,” Barent said, shaking his head. “We’re not from the spires or the plains. We are from the
Le’sant
.”

Calif loosed his arrow and it flew right past Barent’s head, lodging in a tree directly behind him. Then he nocked another in what seemed like only a fraction of a second.

“The second ship? Lies! Tell us the truth, or the next one finds your heart.”

But instead of responding to the threat with fear, Barent’s reaction truly confounded the man.

He laughed.

“What are you laughing at?” Calif snapped. “Maybe if I put an arrow in
her
you will take my question more seriously.”

He pivoted his bow slightly and pointed it at Tana.

“Stop!” Barent yelled. “I take this
very
seriously. I laughed because we call the
Olin
the second ship.”