Born of Sand (Tales of a Dying Star Book 5) Read online

  "But how did they know..." someone said.

  Mira stopped outside of the doorway, staying mostly out of sight behind the frame. The room held a metal table with various stools, around which four people stood. Mira cocked her ears to listen.

  "It started a few days ago," said Kari, the dangerous-looking woman who had identified Mira in her cell. "One of Bruno's suppliers, a foreman at a factory in the city, was removed from his position."

  "He was implicated for working with Bruno?" asked Farrow.

  Kari shook her head. "An unrelated offense. Stealing, I think. A strange coincidence. But he was removed, replaced by someone less... cooperative. Bruno visited the factory, gave the new foreman his normal pitch, part threat and part bribe."

  Spider cackled. "That fat loaf left his chair? I'd strangle myself with my own braids to see the sight."

  Kari shot him annoyed look before continuing. "The new foreman was less receptive than the old, and Bruno grew impatient for the electroid parts. He hired me to remove the new foreman, hoping his replacement would be more malleable." A knife appeared in her hand, and she flourished it in the air.

  A tall man at the end of the table suddenly spoke. "So this recent instability in our plan is a result of your action?" he asked quietly, with an accent Mira did not recognize. He seemed as implacable as a judge.

  "I never had the chance," Kari said, putting a hand on her hip while twirling the knife with the other. "The foreman must have gone to the Melisao. Two dozen peacekeepers raided the Station."

  There was a long, pregnant silence.

  The tall man asked, "And the electroids?"

  "Bruno activated them to defend himself. Marched out of the storage bay and started killing everything in sight--peacekeepers, Station brutes, civilians. One of his shuttles was about to launch, so maybe a hundred women and children were there. Whole thing was a mess. Lotta bodies."

  "And the electroids?" he repeated with a voice like ice.

  "I got out of there quick as I could," Kari said, "but I heard all of the electroids were destroyed. Those that weren't activated were probably seized."

  The others slumped at that piece of information.

  "Fuck," Spider cursed, slamming his palm on the table and turning away, hands gripping the back of his head. Farrow leaned forward on the table, hanging his head. Even Kari closed her eyes, as if disheartened to speak the news.

  The tall man stood very still, impassive.

  "A lot of peacekeepers died in the process," Kari said. "So that's something. Just a few thousand left, now."

  "Tell me how that fat shit died," Spider said. "Gutted by one of his own robots? Killed by peacekeepers?"

  "Jumped on the shuttle and launched it himself." Kari stabbed upward with her knife. "One of the Melisao stations confirmed it was shot down by a Sentinel in low orbit."

  Spider looked surprised. "Why'd he do that? He knew that all ships..."

  Mira didn't know what a Sentinel was, but she pictured the Lord of the Station floating in space, his body bloated more in death than in life. Pleasure washed over her at the thought of Bruno's cruel smile frozen on his face. Then she felt sick for enjoying it, like a greasy film over a soup.

  "Too quick of a death for him," Farrow declared. "A foul shit of man to work with, who cared nothing for our cause."

  "The electroids were a vital part of the plan," Kari said. "Correct? How delayed are we without that shipment?"

  "I don't know," Farrow said. "We only have twenty now, the ones we've scraped together from spare parts. Not shitting enough. And only ten are outfitted with weapons. We need to find new sources. Maybe we can go to the factories directly. Work with the distributors, or maintenance workers. Somebody."

  Spider said, "They'll just backstab us like they did Bruno. You see what happens when you trust them. I say we take what we need. Raid a factory, grab a whole damned shipment ourselves."

  Farrow shook his head. "Too risky. We can't risk the Melisao finding us here."

  "Why? You get spare parts delivered here often."

  "Parts delivered by junker craft," Farrow pointed out, "that were already passing through the area. Nobody notices when they fly low over the sand and dump a few crates for us. Raiding a factory would draw so much attention that we'd never get back here with stealth."

  "We can go at night," Spider insisted. "Kari'll help us. Ain't that right, honey?"

  She ignored him and continued playing with her knife.

  "You're still forgetting the most important part," Farrow said. "Even if we somehow acquired a hundred new electroids, we have shit-all for weapons to outfit them. Nor do we have someone skilled enough to reprogram them all for combat. We utilized Bruno because he did both of those things."

  Bruno did what? To Mira the Station was merely a place for drugs and sin and contraband medical supplies. And freighter trips into the sky. What did he do with electroids?

  "All I'm hearing from you are excuses," Spider said.

  "And all I'm hearing from you are shitting fantasies."

  Spider snarled. "Maybe you should--"

  The tall man at the end of the table raised a hand, instantly cutting off the argument like a blade. "Nothing has changed. Continue as planned for now. When the dump arrives tomorrow begin diverting as much toward new electroids as you can."

  "Akonai, I was planning on using those parts for the refurbished Riverhawks," Farrow protested.

  "Then send more scavenge teams into the desert. There's plenty more to salvage there."

  "After what happened with the last scavenge team," Farrow learning forward, "it's hardly worth the effort. The craft are decades old. The work is slow."

  Akonai spread his hands. "Then do nothing, and when our attack begins your force won't have the necessary strength. The choice is yours." He turned to the others. "I'm traveling into the city. I will return in three days, after which I'll be leaving this miserable sand-ridden planet."

  He turned away from the table, and Mira leaned back behind cover. His footsteps drew closer. Coming in her direction.

  "You can come in now, Mira," Farrow called. "It's fine. Don't be afraid."

  After considering bolting, Mira hesitantly stepped into the doorway. Akonai glanced at her with distaste as she jumped out of his way. The others stared at her. Spider seemed unhappy as she approached the table.

  "Shit in the sand, Spider," Farrow cursed. "You could've removed the ropes, too."

  "You said to cut her loose, so I cut her loose."

  Farrow's lips pulled into a tight line as he pulled out his own knife and removed the two ends of rope still tied to her wrists. She muttered a grateful thanks.

  "Is it true?" she asked. "Bruno is dead?"

  "Couldn't have happened to a better guy," Kari said, tossing her bald head. "It's a good thing you didn't stay at the Station. Fleeing into the desert was probably the safest thing you could have done."

  She hadn't exactly planned it that way, but Mira nodded.

  Spider's braids swung as he shook his head. "The safest thing she could have done was go back to her own home and wait for the peacekeepers to take her head."

  Farrow took her arm and said, "Come on. Let me show you around." He led her away from the table and down another corridor.

  "I don't understand. Am I not a prisoner anymore?"

  "You put us in an awkward position," Farrow confided. "You were wandering around up there for all the Empire to see, dangerously close to our base. At first you seemed like an obvious spy--they've sent them before, or at least tried--but then you seemed too obvious for it to be true. But I couldn't just leave you up there to wander the desert and die. Their scout cruisers would see your body from the air. Maybe stop and look around. So I had to bring you down. And now that you're here..." He shrugged. "We can't very well let you go, not before we... well. Shit. Consider yourself a sort of guest. It's better than what Spider wanted. You can thank Kari for that; she was there at the Station when you begged passage for you
and your girls."

  So we are in the middle of the desert, Mira thought. At least that explained the thick, ever-present heat. "What are you doing out here?" she asked. "Are you rebels? Fighting the Melisao?"

  "Something like that."

  Farrow paused in a tall doorway and gestured with his hand. "This here's the engineer bay." The cavernous room held piles of metal and electronics taller than Mira, like some sort of garbage dump. The ceiling was split down the middle as if it could open horizontally, and small piles of sand littered the floor. A variety of hangars lined one wall, each filled with an aircraft.

  "All our parts come in here and we pick through them, sort them, repair them. We do the best with what we have, because what we have is shit."

  They returned to the hall. "I want to leave," Mira blurted out.

  Farrow ducked low to pass through a metal bulwark before saying, "And I want a cruiser made of gold. Can't allow that. Sorry, but it's for the best, because--"

  She put a hand on his arm. "No. I want to get off Praetar. That man, Akonai, is leaving in three days. I want to go with him."

  "You do not want to go with Akonai. You have my full sincerity on that." They turned down a corridor crammed tight with electronic screens and buttons and dials. A low vibration filled the air. "This here's the control room for the power plant. Not a lot of room. More of a control hallway, I guess. Anyways, it's the old method used for power before the Melisao came. Deep under the surface the sand moves horizontally like a river, pushed and pulled by all the weight above. That turns three turbines. One's broken, but two still gets the job done. We don't need a lot of power down here, just enough to run the lights and equipment."

  That explained the noisy vibration. Mira still had her mind elsewhere, though. "You don't understand," she said. "I need to get to my daughters. They went on to the Oasis station without me. They're by themselves, they have no one. They've already been gone too long!"

  Farrow glanced sideways at her as they walked. "And they went on one of Bruno's freighters?"

  Mira kicked a pile of sand on the floor. "Yes. Ami is brave, but Kaela won't be used to being in charge. She won't know what to do. You need to let me go."

  Farrow walked in silence for a while. She must have made a convincing argument, because occasionally he glanced at her with a look on his face that said he was trying to make a big decision. "The block--" he began, then shook his head. "There are services on Oasis to help children," he said carefully. "They would be fine there without you for a time. But look. You cannot go now. There's just no way. Akonai isn't even going toward Oasis--I heard Spider say he's heading to the outer system. The gas giant Ouranos, I think."

  "What about the ship I saw when I arrived?" Mira insisted. "The one that rose out of the sand. Or the ships you have in the engineering bay."

  "Those are small ships we salvaged from the desert," Farrow said. "They're mostly two-person fighter craft, made for short distance travel and quick battles. And truth be told, they're not very good at that. We need a better engineer."

  "There has to be..." Mira said.

  Farrow stopped and gripped her by the shoulders. "Shit, Mira. I'm not lying to you. There's no way. At least, not yet. There might be in a few weeks, when we've finished what we're planning. But not before, no matter how much you plead and beg. So stop trying." He gestured to the door they'd stopped at. "Here's your room. No lock on the door this time, I swear it."

  Mira looked through the doorway. Although in a different part of the base, the room was nearly identical to her other cell: rusted metal walls, a small cot in the corner with faded blankets, barely wide enough to extend both arms out. "You should have just kept me in the other cell," she muttered.

  "Oh, you'll be much happier here. Those other rooms are adjacent to the power plant, and made to house small animals attached to computers." He took on a grim look. "If there's ever a toxic coolant leak the animals provide a cheap early warning system."

  "Oh." Suddenly her new room seemed like the Governor's crystal palace.

  "No bucket, either. The cleanliness room is down there. The kitchen is the other way. Two meals a day, nothing fancy, but it'll fill your belly. Anyways, recruiting is difficult out here because we don't know who we can trust. So we'll make the best of your accidental discovery of the base. There's always work around here that needs doing. If you want to earn your keep, you can start by helping Binny clean. I'll have her show you where the buckets and rags are."

  Cleaning? Remembering what she'd overheard between Akonai and Farrow, she said, "I can do more than that. I worked in a factory, assembling electroids piece by piece. I can help in the engineering bay."

  Farrow's face grew dark. "You ought to be careful what you overhear, and keep it to yourself. If you said something like that around Spider it'd convince him you're a spy after all."

  "We're not around Spider," she pointed out, "and you're wasting my skill. I'm not a maid. Let me help."

  "Putting pristine parts together on a conveyor belt," he said, "isn't the same as building them from spare junk. You need knowledge, not repetition."

  Mira began to protest, to say she'd worked at every station on the factory floor and knew the build order by heart, but Farrow added, "Shit, besides, if Spider saw you working on the electroids he'd probably kill you where you stood."

  Binny appeared from the adjacent room carrying two buckets sloshing with liquid. They were nearly as large as she was. "Ready to get started? It'll go easier with two!"

  Farrow must have seen the despair on Mira's face. "We can talk about leaving Praetar at a later time. But for now, if you want to help, you need to start here. You need to prove that we truly can trust you. Binny will show you the ropes."

  Mira bit her lip. She hadn't wandered into the desert to become a servant for some rebel group. She'd fled there to be free, to control her destiny, even if only in death. And her daughters were out there somewhere, waiting. Why couldn't they understand that? She crossed her arms and said, "I want to speak with Akonai, or whoever is in charge here."

  "Technically that's supposed to be me." He turned and walked away, saying, "Keep her in line, Binny," over his shoulder before disappearing around a corner.

  Chapter 5

  Mira watched Farrow go with a mixture of annoyance and despair. She was back where she started, toiling for some masters who cared little for what she wanted. Except this time she was in an underground compound, in the middle of nowhere, with almost no hope of escape.

  Binny smiled up at her. "You can use this bucket. It's the good one. The other's bent, and sometimes spills. It'll be easier for you while you learn."

  The girl spoke so cheerfully that Mira couldn't help but smile back. "I thought you were the doctor," she said.

  "That too. I'm really helpful. Come on, then. The sooner we finish the sooner we can eat."

  Binny led her through the facility while chattering away. Three dozen occupants lived in the base, though that was just the current number. It fluctuated almost daily as they recruited more from the city or lost some to the Melisao. Mira pictured the line of shadows she'd seen crossing the dunes. Maybe it hadn't been a mirage after all.

  She stuck her head in the kitchen as they passed. Ten people, men and women, occupied two tables inside. They laughed and joked, passing around a bottle of what looked like sweetwater. The large woman who had fed Mira while she was in her cell stood in the cooking area, bent over a pot of something steamy. "That's Maggy, the cook," Binny explained. "I like her."

  They passed the holding cells and entered the power plant. There wasn't much to it: a small room whose only light came from the array of computer screens. A glass window gave a view of a larger room with three turbines, round like sugar cakes. The sound of machinery filled Mira's ears, vibrated against her skin.

  Binny set down the buckets and turned to Mira. "The inside of the turbines get awful rusty, on account of all the moisture put out by the humidifiers. Normally, we would shut down o
ne turbine at a time to clean the inside, leaving the other two operational, but since this one's broken we can't really do that. The base can't get by on just one turbine, not even for an hour."

  "Are they going to fix it?" Mira asked.

  "Nobody here knows how. Farrow's worried something awful. Anyway, since one's broken we might as well clean it up real nice while we can." She stepped up to a computer screen--so high she barely reached it--and a door next to the glass window slid open. The mechanical noise abruptly magnified. "Come on. Grab your bucket."

  Mira followed her down a metal grate stairway into the room. It was tough to get a good sense of size from up in the control room, but the turbines stood at least twenty feet tall. A thin layer of sand covered the floor, making each step precarious and uncertain around so much machinery.

  "I'll open the maintenance hatch and climb inside," Binny said when they reached the broken turbine. She stuck out her chin stubbornly. "When Spider's bored he likes to close the door and trap me inside, threatening to turn the turbine back on. He never does, though, so I'm not scared anymore. He won't do that with Akonai around, but once he's gone... it'll be good to have you here to watch out."

  "Who is Akonai?" Mira asked. "Is he in charge?"

  "Sort of. He's someone important. Gives a lot of orders, talks about plans. Farrow doesn't like him. He doesn't say that, but I can see the way he acts around him. I can tell." A long tube connected into the base of the turbine. Binny knocked on it with her knuckles, sending a hollow sound through the air. Then she opened a metal hatch in the side. A puff of hot air billowed out, and sand trickled to the floor.

  "Doesn't it burn you?" Mira asked, eying the hatch. "It looks hot."

  "You get used to it,' Binny said cheerfully. "Farrow says I have tough skin. Okay, while I'm in there take your rag and bucket and scour the outside of the pipe. Once you finish that, you can start on the outside of the turbine itself."

  She started to climb into the pipe. It was barely wide enough for her to squeeze through. "Won't the water make it rust even worse?" Mira asked, staring at her bucket.