Born of Sand (Tales of a Dying Star Book 5) Page 10

  It was also an area particularly active with stingers.

  "The underside of a Riverhawk looks like one long battery," Farrow explained, "but it's actually clusters of them run in series. Dozens of them. A single Riverhawk should be all we need." When they had last picked over the graveyard, they'd focused on nearly-whole ships that would be easiest to refurbish into flying condition. Plenty of partial aircraft remained. It should not be difficult to find the required batteries.

  "Why not scrap one of the Riverhawks we already have here?" Kari asked. "There's three in the hangar that Hob can't get flying."

  He'd gone back and forth with exactly that question. "Absolutely not. Hob might not be able to get them flying, but I want to have Dok take a second look. You said he helped Bruno assemble the doomed freighters he sent into orbit?" He waited for Kari to nod. "The aircraft are more valuable than any number of electroids. If we can establish air superiority quickly..."

  "But we still don't have the pilots," Kari insisted. "I know you told Hob back there that you had a plan for that, but I'd rest easier hearing the details from you."

  "I'm still working out the details," he said, jabbing a finger at her as they walked. "But that's something I will need your skills for, later. So come back from the graveyard alive. With the batteries we need, preferably. But alive."

  She grumbled something under her breath but gave a jerk of her chin. "I'll go gather the men." She turned around and disappeared down another corridor.

  Farrow let out a long sigh. It felt like he'd been holding his breath for their entire conversation. He always felt uncomfortable around the bald woman, and could never quite be certain if it was due to her lithe, seductive stride, or her proclivity with knives. In either case, he felt safer with her gone.

  Dok sat on the floor of the workshop, exactly where they left him, tinkering with an electroid torso. Like a child playing with toys. The scene was so aggressively innocent that Farrow couldn't help but feel suspicious. Akonai cares nothing for our plight here, he thought. Why would he leave us with such a skilled engineer? Beyond Dok's strange social anxiety, what was wrong with him that Farrow didn't know?

  He was still studying the engineer when Mira and Binny came through the door. "Farrow, sir," Mira said, "what do you want me to do? I can continue assisting Binny in cleaning, if that's how you think I would be best used..." Her tone implied what she thought about that.

  But at least she was asking. It's a start. "No. I want you to work with the electroids. Take a look at the two already complete. Figure out how Dok assembled them, what he did differently, what parts he's using and which ones he's not. Building forty electroids will go faster with two workers, and even faster when Hob returns. That way when we acquire the batteries we'll already have most of the work completed."

  Mira looked uncomfortable. "Actually... the battery is one of the first pieces inserted during assembly. The rest of the internal circuitry and mechanics are built around it." She shrugged in apology. "We cannot simply build the electroids and insert the battery at the last minute."

  It's never easy, is it? "Still, learn the process, so that when we do have the batteries we can work twice as fast. I can't have the entire process relying on one man. If anything happens to him we're shit."

  "If anything happens to him?"

  Farrow approached Dok. "I need you to come with me." Dok didn't seem to hear.

  Mira asked, "Where are you taking him?"

  He reached down and gently grabbed Dok's arm. The engineer began mumbling and shaking, dropping the electroid appendage he had been working on. "Come on, get up," Farrow insisted, using force to pull the man to his feet. "It's easier if you don't fight me, Dok."

  "He doesn't like that," Mira said. "You're only making things worse. Just leave him there."

  "No," Farrow said, pulling Dok away from the electroid parts. "There's something I need from him."

  Chapter 9

  Their shadows stretched across the corridor walls as Farrow pushed Dok along.

  "Where are you taking him?" Mira asked. Binny stayed a few steps behind, looking scared whenever Farrow glanced back.

  "That's not your concern." Between Dok struggling in his grip and mumbling, and Mira's incessant questioning, Farrow felt his patience wear away. "Get back to the workshop and begin cataloguing the new electroid process. Begin by documenting the total parts list, if you're knowledgeable enough."

  But Mira continued following. The low vibration of machinery slowly grew louder. "You're not taking him to a cell, are you?" Mira asked. "He needs to go back to the workshop. You don't understand."

  Neither do you, Farrow thought. "We have a more immediately problem than the electroids," he said. "I believe Dok has valuable information in that regard."

  "But you can't!" Mira pleaded. "Dok doesn't interact the way others do. He's like a child. Look at him, he's shaking! You can't throw him in a cell and question him like you do others."

  They entered the corridor to the power plant, with the prisoner cells lining the walls on either side. Mira continued protesting as he pushed Dok to the end of the hall and into the power plant control room. She became silent then, watching as Farrow led the whimpering engineer into the loud turbine room.

  They approached the broken turbine.

  The deafening sound of machinery seemed to sooth Dok. He stopped struggling and muttering to himself, and looked around with wide eyes. "The turbine," Farrow pointed. "It broke six days ago. Can you fix it?"

  Dok took one step toward the broken turbine, then spun on his foot and darted toward the functional one next to it. "What the shit..." Farrow said.

  Binny put a hand on his arm. "Watch."

  Dok stood very close to the turbine. Its interior spun violently within its shell, with three open windows exposing it to the outside. Dok reached out with his palm toward one, dangerously close. If he sticks his hand inside it'll mangle him to pieces, he thought. Worse, it might break the shitting turbine.

  The peculiar man kept his palm inches away from the spinning metal, as if feeling the energy inside. After a few long, tense moments he turned and walked back to the broken one, grabbing a bag of tools off the ground. With the fearlessness of a desert rat he opened the intake pipe and jumped inside, pushing the bag ahead of him. A banging sound drifted out, barely audible over the ever-present roar of the other two turbines.

  A half hour passed while Farrow sat and waited.

  Finally Dok emerged, bobbing his head in a silent sort of confirmation. When they went to the control room and activated the turbine it crackled and sputtered with electricity, slow at first before joining the other two in a uniform hum.

  Farrow smiled widely and smacked Dok on the back. The engineer only grinned to himself and stared at his feet.

  Dok proved an expert at everything they threw at him. They spent most of the day in the workshop, going over electroid pieces while Mira catalogued them into a book and took notes. He fixed two of their heavy anti-air lasers and the radio jammer, though most of the time was spent digging in their piles of scrap for the right parts. He began carrying additional pieces of metal and gears on his person, clipping them to the outside of his clothing so that they dangled all over him and clinked together when he moved.

  At dinner he pulled a panel off the wall in the kitchen and made some adjustments inside. Farrow still wasn't sure what he did there, but Maggy said one of her broken stove burners began working again, and insisted her ovens heated more evenly. After that Dok did eat, and wolfed down his bread when Maggy gave him seconds. Even he seemed pleased at the day's work.

  Farrow watched Dok eat with a mixture of fascination and hope. How quickly their capacity for war had changed, with the help of one strange little man. And yet there is still much to do. They needed those batteries for the electroids, needed to repair the broken Riverhawks, needed pilots to fly them. Farrow couldn't remember the last time they weren't short on a thousand things at once. Before the Melisao came, maybe.
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  "Excuse me, Farrow, but do you think you could open the armoury?" Mira stood behind him, arms clasped in front. "Kari said she would help me practice shooting and sparring every night, but with her gathering scrap... you don't need to help me, just let me in. If that's okay, I mean. If you don't mind."

  He smiled wearily. For once her tone held the right note of subordination. "I don't mind. I appreciate you asking."

  Mira pushed dust around with one of her feet. "Truthfully, I went to Binny first, but she couldn't get in." Across the room Binny watched, but quickly returned her head to her plate of food when Farrow glanced over.

  The thought of Binny breaking into the armoury and trying to hold a rifle was too ridiculous for Farrow to be mad. "I'll settle for being the second most powerful person in Victory Base, behind Binny."

  They walked across the base in silence. A few times Mira looked like she wanted to say something to him, but stopped herself just before. Farrow gave her a sideways glance when they reached the door, and she turned away so he could punch in the code.

  She strode inside and approached one of the weapon crates. Farrow turned to leave, but lingered in the doorway as she hefted a rifle. She had to lean back to bear its weight. She carried it over to the shooting gallery, resting it on a stacked crate pointing in the direction of the targets.

  "You were shooting one of the X-100s?" Farrow asked.

  Mira shrugged. "I guess. It's what's Kari had me use."

  "That woman will teach you to swim by drowning you in the sea," Farrow muttered as he approached and picked up the gun. "It's a waste to use something so heavy. You'd never be able to wield it in combat."

  "When I'm stronger I can," Mira said. "When I rest it on a flat surface I shoot well."

  Farrow returned the gun to its crate and closed the lid. He began opening other boxes, searching. "Everyone shoots well like that. But in a real fight you won't have something so convenient. You'll be shooting while standing, or crouched on one knee. Often you will need to hold your gun well away from your body while firing from around a corner."

  Mira considered that. "The peacekeepers shoot like that. They place their rifles on a railing on the roof of the Governor's Palace, and inside the bunkers throughout town."

  "The peacekeepers are defending. We will be attacking, and lack the shitting luxury." He found what he wanted in the next crate. He removed two pistols that had their energy bars full. "This shit's more your size."

  She made a face. "They're puny!"

  "They'll put a hole through a man's chest. And they're easier to carry." He placed it in her hand. "Besides, we only have ten of the X-100 rifles, and those are going to my best shooters. We have plenty of these."

  He showed her how to activate the charge and disable the safety. "Grip it with both hands," he said when she tried using just one. "It still kicks a little bit, and you'll want both arms to absorb the recoil. Yes, good. Like that. Spread your feet more. Good."

  The high-pitched screech of laserfire filled the room as she began shooting at the target thirty feet away. Her first four shots missed, but her fifth grazed the edge. "It barely makes a hole in the foam," she complained, squinting. "The rifle punches a hole the size of a fist."

  "The rifle doesn't leave any hole if you miss," Farrow observed. "Hitting your target is more important. And the pistol does the job just fine against flesh. Hit someone in the gut with that and I assure you they'll drop. Until you can strike the target four times in succession I would not worry about weapon calibre."

  She practiced the pistol until she fully drained the battery, then emptied the replacement Farrow gave her. Whenever her form became sloppy he pointed out her mistake. She yelped with joy when she struck the target four times in a row, shooting him an excited, gloating look. Feeling playful, he took the pistol from her hand and began walking backwards, maintaining eye contact with her the entire time. When his back touched the wall--as far away from the target as possible--he raised the pistol and fired three blasts in quick succession, ping ping ping. All hit the human-shaped target in the head, clustered so closely together that they nearly appeared as one complete hole.

  Mira didn't celebrate her shots after that.

  "Can we practice sparring for a bit?" she asked some time later. "My elbows are sore from shooting, so I want to move them around. Get the blood flowing again."

  Farrow took the gun from her, disabled it, and placed it on a nearby crate. "I'm afraid I'm not as versed in hand-to-hand combat as Kari. I wouldn't be able to teach you anything useful."

  "Just make some basic attacks toward me so I can defend. I'll just be blocking and deflecting."

  After a moment of hesitation, he nodded. He stepped up to a waiting Mira and began making half-hearted strikes, punches and slashes as if he held a knife. Mira bent her knees and nimbly knocked aside his fists. She defended herself with clumsy motions, but Farrow supposed that would improve with time.

  "When you brought me here I didn't think I was brave," she said while they sparred.

  "How do you mean?"

  She jammed her wrist down, knocking his punch away from her body. "With Kaela and Ami, I always felt brave. I never had to think around them, I just did. In some instinctual way I always knew what to do, knew what was best for them. Working, stealing. Once a gang of boys accosted me and I struck one of them in the face so hard his nose bled and he crumpled to the ground."

  The mention of her daughters made Farrow purse his lips. A cruelty, he heard Akonai's voice. A kind man would tell her.

  She mistook his expression. "The boy was trying to steal my credits!" she said defensively. "I'd saved them for months, and Ami had a coughing fit in the middle of the night."

  "I'm sure it was justified." He knew well of the gangs of young men that roamed the city.

  "When I was with my daughters," she continued, "my actions always came easily. Whatever I had to do to protect them, I did. The dangers never came to mind because they did not matter at all. But once they were gone, once I was alone wandering the hot desert by myself, I felt as if I'd lost my bravery. I began second-guessing every decision I'd made. I felt unsure of myself. I was listless. When you captured me, threw me in a cell to be questioned by Spider, I was terrified."

  As her reflexes became more automatic, Farrow increased the speed of his attacks.

  "I didn't think I could be brave anymore, not without my girls. There was no reason to live at all without them. I was a mother and nothing else, and losing them meant losing myself."

  You've lost them more than you know, Farrow thought sadly.

  "But now I see that's not true," she said, gritting her teeth as she swiped away a kick. "There's more to just holding onto Kaela and Ami, hoping they will be safe for a day or week or month. Your Freemen here... you have a purpose. A goal that binds you all together, and may keep you safe for years, if you're successful. I see the importance of that, now. I've only been here a few days but I feel as if the sand has been rubbed clean from my eyes."

  Farrow smiled at the little woman, suddenly so energetic and full of life. "I am glad."

  "I want to be part of it," she said. "However I can help, I will. More than just a means to eventually reach my girls. I just wanted you to know that."

  He smiled curtly. He knew the feeling, the excitement of newness, of discovering a fresh motivation, latching onto it like a safety tether in space. We're all that enthusiastic, at first. When it's easy. Would she feel the same in two months, when they struck the Melisao and bled greatly for the cause? When the bodies dotted the dunes and the sand drank their blood?

  My paranoia comes from Akonai. He had been the one to instill distrust in the Freemen, told them to cower and hide. Made them cease their hit-and-run attacks on the peacekeepers, and stop trusting everyone. Yet here was a woman Akonai had made him trust, which went against all previous instruction, and she was quickly growing more trustworthy. Maybe some more trust was a good thing.

  She swiped away his hand a
nd lunged forward, stabbing his side with her palm. Farrow grunted and took a step back.

  "You look too worried," she said.

  "I'm the correct amount of worried. The more you have, the more you fear to lose." He'd never felt that way when his band was three men, stealing peacekeeper ammunition and lighting fires randomly in the city. Things were simpler, then.

  "Akonai said you would not disobey an order," Mira commented. "He said it in such a way that it was a joke. What did he mean?"

  "Nothing. An old story."

  She stopped fighting to give a rare smile. "I like stories."

  "You won't like this shitting one."

  She shrugged and they continued sparring. Farrow relaxed while completing the smooth, methodical motions.

  "You're improving," he said after a while.

  "Do you think so? Maybe with enough time I'll be so dangerous people will believe I'm a shade."

  Farrow stopped mid-strike. "No," he snapped. "Don't ever shitting say that. Not in joking, not even in passing. Half the men in this base would demand to have your skin lanced for saying such a thing."

  "I was only--"

  "I don't care what you were doing. Never say that again. Do you understand? Do you?"

  He realized he had grabbed her sleeve and clutched her menacingly. Mira held her fists close to her chest, shocked by his outburst. He let go.

  "It's important," he added, as if it excused his behavior. "Especially around Kari."

  Mira bobbed her head in agreement, then said, "What's special about Kari?"

  I'd give all the sand on Praetar to know that. "I'm not sure. She's prickly whenever a shade is mentioned. She changes: her temperament, her body language. She gets a look in her eye..."

  "What look?"

  "Fear." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "It's the only time you'll ever see her afraid, even at just the mention of them. Take care of your words." Still feeling guilty for his outburst--and for a handful of other reasons--he said, "Let's get back to shooting pistols."