Carrots, garlic, and cabbage weren’t Dek’s idea of the finest of meals, but given that A, they had taste, B, they were incredibly nutritious, and C, that he’d been half-starved, he considered it one of the finest meals he’d ever eaten.
Talina had boiled the haul in a pan over a Bunsen burner. Then she’d stood guard as he, Kalico, and Muldare had finished off the stew and guzzled water.
The headache was now at half-strength, his muscles still wobbly, but his blood sugar was climbing. All in all, one hell of an improvement over the wreck he’d been.
Talina and Kylee had saved his life—not to mention Kalico Aguila’s and Briah Muldare’s in the bargain. Had to admire a woman like that.
Having left the science dome via the back door, Dek followed along behind Talina as rain fell from a midnight-black sky and lightning—in shapes reminiscent of an old man’s tortured and throbbing veins—streaked, banged, and boomed. Didn’t matter that he was sick-puppy weak, his stomach rebellious from having overeaten. Fact was, he was alive. Lot to be said for that.
In a contrast as stark as night and day, where he’d been in danger of dying of heat prostration, cold rain now pelted him in a staccato of big drops. Lightning knotted and pulsed in momentary misery—to vanish into afterimages of blackness. He was on the verge of shivering, and his breath fogged white in the flashes of actinic light. Didn’t seem fair.
With lightning illuminating the way; he stepped over a section of pipe, careful to keep his rifle covered with the tarp Talina had provided him as a sort of rain poncho. He had the thing draped over his head, held the seams together at his throat. Must have looked like a pious Roman seeking the counsel of the gods.
Behind him, Kalico splashed along in his tracks, a similar tarp keeping her from the downpour.
“Watch your step there,” he told her. “Don’t trip on the pipe.”
“I see it,” she returned in little better than a whisper.
“How you feeling? Let me know if—”
“I’m a world of better. Thought I was going to die. Never would have made it but for that energy bar you gave me. Thanks for that. I owe you.”
“My pleasure.”
“Shhh!” Talina turned back, irritated.
Yeah, right. Some sort of distance microphone. As if they’d be heard over the roar of the rain where it beat on domes, in puddles, and racketed on old equipment. Not to mention the banging thunder, the crashing of the skies.
“Careful,” Talina hissed, pointed. “That’s the cliff right there.”
Dek squinted through the fold in his tarp, caught the contrast between rock and dark pre-dawn empty space. He stepped right, veering away from the edge. Wouldn’t that be the shits? Travel all this way, survive Ashanti, the forest, and heat stroke, just to fall to his death because of a misstep?
They were edging along the eastern side of the mesa, slipping between occasional aquajade trees that clung to the precipice. The figuring was that the Unreconciled would be planning an assault on the science dome, would be expecting them to sneak down the western side of the escarpment where the line of sheds would provide cover.
Briah Muldare—arm in a sling—brought up the rear. Holding her weapon one-handed, she kept sweeping her IR-enhanced rifle sight back and forth to ensure they weren’t being followed.
Kylee and the quetzal had vanished somewhere into the storm.
Dek stumbled over an irregularity, caught himself just shy of sprawling face-first, and wished mightily for night vision.
The looming side of a shipping container brought him up short.
Talina took him by the hand, led him forward and into the dark interior. Then she collected Kalico and Briah, saying, “I want you to stay here. Out of the rain. We’re opposite the admin dome. From the front of the container you’ve got an effective field of fire in all directions. They can’t take you by surprise, and they’d be idiots to try and rush you.”
“And if they do?” Briah asked.
“We shoot them down,” Kalico growled.
Dek winced, realizing what a slaughter it would be given Muldare’s and Kalico’s fully automatic weapons. At least for as long as the ammo lasted. Not to mention if the right-handed Muldare could even control the recoil with her weak-side left hand. Then there was Kalico’s pistol, his Holland & Holland, and finally his pistol.
“Dek,” Talina said.
“Yes?”
“The only threat to your position here is that rifle they took from Carson. Your job is to shoot whomever wields it. Take your time, breathe, and barely touch the trigger. Yours is the most accurate weapon we have at distance.”
He took a nervous breath. “Right.”
Talina laid a hand on his shoulder, was staring him in the eyes—though in the darkness all he saw was two dark spots in her night-shadowed face. Her voice dropped. “You understand, don’t you?”
“Understand?”
“That when they tried to blow up the Supervisor, Dya, Talbot, and Muldare, it was for keeps. Just like when they killed Carson. It’s not academic. Not a game. You’re going to have to kill people before they kill you.”
“I understand.” Just saying it sent a ripple through his soul.
“You’re sure?” Muldare asked as she peered out into the night. “You’re the weak link here. The rich boy who never had blood on his hands. You hesitate at the wrong moment, we all die as a result.”
Kalico said, “I could take the H&H. I’ve become a pretty good shot with a rifle. Save you the—”
“I got it,” Dek said through a hard exhale, feeling his heart begin to race. “I kill the person with Carson’s rifle. Make sure they can’t use it against us.” He raised a hand to still any reply. “Listen, I lived for years with the knowledge of what the Unreconciled were doing down on Deck Three. Had nightmares about them sneaking up in the middle of the night. Cutting me open while I was alive. And eating my . . . Well, never mind. I got this, okay?”
Talina slapped him on the shoulder. “You’re becoming my favorite Taglioni.”
“And how many of us have you met?”
“Just you. Talk about having an unfair advantage, huh?”
“What’s your plan, Tal?” Kalico asked.
“Link up with Kylee and Flute. They’re out on the flank, keeping watch. Once the cannibals move on the science dome, we make our play for the radio.” She smacked a hand to her rifle. “With this and a quetzal, I’m pretty sure that I can get in and out. Once Flute roars and flashes his collar, I may not even have to kill anyone.”
“Assuming Carson’s weapons are deployed against the science dome,” Kalico finished. “If their shooter is in the admin hallway when you burst in, that would change the equation.”
“There’s that.” Talina shifted, stepping out into the rain. “As long as we see each other at the same time, it all comes down to who’s faster. Their shooter, or me.”
“Good luck,” Kalico said softly as the woman vanished into the night.
Dek slipped out of his tarp, laid it to the side.
Muldare had taken a position at the open door. With her sore arm braced, she squatted against one wall as she swept the area between them and the admin dome with her IR sight.
Dek slipped his Holland & Holland from his shoulder, checked the charge and the setting.
“And now we wait, huh?”
Muldare said, “I’ve just scanned that roof hatch Talina told us about. It’s closed. From now ‘till dawn, it’s just a matter of me spotting him before he can spot us. But hopefully that shooter is preoccupied, preparing to blow the shit out of the science dome. They do that, and rush the ruins, we got them.”
“How’s the arm?”
“Fucking hurts. I tell you, after this, I can stand anything. Raya could pull my teeth and I wouldn’t need an anesthetic.”
Dek, his rifle across his lap, sank down, back to the wall beside Kalico. “We come all this way. Cross thirty light-years, survive by the skin of our teeth, and we’re trying to kill each other?”
Muldare whispered, “We gave them every chance. Came here to help them. Sometimes you gotta stamp out rot where you find it.” Under her breath, she added, “Come on, fuckers. Step out and give me an excuse to shoot, will you?”
Lightning strobed again, illuminating the admin dome across the way. In that instant, Dek saw someone emerge. “Got movement.”
He pulled up his rifle. Used the sight’s IR to watch a woman hunch against the rain and run toward the barracks dome next door.
“Wonder what that’s all about?”
“That’s where the children are,” Muldare said. “Assuming our intelligence is right.”
“Children,” Dek whispered. “So, we kill all the adults? What are we going to do with the kids? Murder them, too? Hold them responsible for the accident of their birth?”
In the back, Kalico murmured, “Scarred like they are, they’re branded for life. No matter where they go, what they do, they’ll be known as man-eaters from here on out. Talk about outcasts, there’s no coming back from that kind of stigma.”
“I wouldn’t want ’em around,” Muldare muttered under her breath. “It’d give me the creep-freaks every time I saw them.”
Lightning almost blinded him: Thunder cracked in a detonation that jarred him half out of his skin. Might have been a condemnation from the gods.