One night, it seemed a lifetime
ago, a smaller she had lain shivering on a floor as cold and hard as this
one. A baby tooth rotting and whaling in pain. Snakes' hisses and explosions
in her head. And the sound of a huge fan beating above her echoing through
the bombed-out building. Her childhood. Her present. Her dream . . . .
Rayn jumps. Her restless
sleep broken by a comrade stirring. Not by the weapons’ fire. That noise
had become background, like wind blowing through dying trees or the beat
of a fan’s blades in the infested hideout of a homeless child, part of
her world. Only small sounds woke her now, near ones, people ones.
She stretches out her stiffness
and goes through her silent, solitary pre-morning routine: cleansing, changing,
charging her weapons and pulling on the jacket of her purple uniform.
"Rise and Ready!" Old Krachi
comes through, wearily kicking his troops awake, glaring at them with his
one good eye.
"Damn!" Kindra rises, rubbing
the ridges around her eyes and down her aching spine. "Safe haven or not
this is a rotten deal!" She grabs her precious mirror shard, still preening
even in uniform.
An explosion on the level
above them. Shockwaves ripple down. The roof starts to collapse. Krachi
yells, "Structural integrity compromised! Move out!"
Rayn gathers up Kindra.
They scramble through evacuated
buildings and streets. Weapons’ fire and cave-ins herd them into a dead-end.
So they dash down a side alley that leads . . . nowhere. Twenty paces in,
the ground just falls away.
~
An enormous structural collapse
had created a vast chasm as far on either side or below as the eye could
see. The other side, a distant line on the horizon. Above, stars. Rayn
gasps, hit by a yearning so strong she almost drops her laser-bow. The
collapse had come from the very top. With most levels’ environmental controls
powered down, it had been a while since she had seen anything above but
the stifling dinge-green of the domes. And now, for the first time in her
life, she could see real sky, real stars. Stars? Somewhere above her it
must be night.
Weapons’ fire, the music
of war, grows closer, louder. Greens are coming. They are trapped.
How had it come to this?
First rioting, terrorism,
now war. Once, their beautiful planet Teran had risen united, sphere upon
sphere. Each its own culture, its own world. All levels glistening with
rounded marble and crystal buildings, squares, and towers reaching, supporting,
from earth to sky. Well, most levels. Well, the ones on top. Each year,
each month, each week, she is driven lower to find a level more claustrophobic,
poor, and run down than the last. But still that’s no reason to…
Marching footsteps around
the corner. Buzzing behind them. This could be it. Wait. The buzzing’s
below, beyond the chasm’s edge…
How had they come
to this?
Rayn and Kindra about to
die under the stars, because of that strangely familiar old man with scar
tissue bulging around his eye-patch. Grouchy Krachi and his two modes,
weary-reflective and living-yell. His hands always locked behind his back
while grit seeps its way deeper into lines on his face that might once
have been laugh lines if he had once ever laughed. After the destruction
of the Din, he seemed to take an interest in her. He "saved" them. A choice
between execution as Green-rebel sympathizers and "safe haven" via joining
up with the Highlands’ side for the body count. Some choice . . . .
They look down. Helipods.
Piloted by Purples! They jump in just as the squad of Greens bears down.
Rayn looks back to see two
comrades just behind her struck down before her eyes. Yoseph who hummed
in his sleep and Anela who missed her son. Their blood splattered her lips.
She could taste it. Rayn had known death, had seen it all her life on the
streets. But there it was slow, so slow you could almost miss it. This
was too different, too quick. She hated this. She hated everything.
Only Rayn, Krachi, and Kindra
had made it to the surviving pod alive. The other had been destroyed on
lift-off. Shots scorch the air around them as they dive.
The two young pilots look
them over. Rayn finds the one with rusty curly hair and a crooked grin
somehow familiar, but unpleasantly so. Kindra finds him attractive even
with such a prominent nose, certainly more so than his blank-faced, pale,
dandruffy friend.
"The cute one’s Myles," says
the rusty one pointing to himself. "Chuckles there is Hitt. You are?"
Kindra leans forward. "Unit
P25, Recon/Rescue. Kindra and--"
"Rayn." Rayn is less interested
in him than the heatseeker missiles behind them. Usually their troop just
gathered and took whatever found back to Noma’s group for processing, but
today…
"Recon? Haven’t seen real
war yet, huh?" Hitt snarls. "We’re all that’s left of our unit."
Old Krachi finally returns
from the far away place his mind wanders whenever he loses people. "Consider
them your replacements then!"
"Now you’ll see." Hitt growls
ominously.
"Told you. Nothing but comedy
with this guy." Myles grins.
Deeper they dive into the
chasm, until Rayn’s hearing catches something the others do not. Music.
She grabs Myles’s controls. They swerve sideways into and through a dark,
labyrinthine level. They dodge the missiles only to crashland among the
narrow causeways.
"Why the hell did you . .
.?!"
"Listen."
All can hear it now. Not
the music of war, but a hollow, haunting music dancing through the cave-like
brick structures. It compels them to follow.
~
Inside a candle-lit cavern
three robed figures kneel before a dozen forms under blood-stained sheets,
playing on spiral shells the most joyful sounds Rayn had ever heard. Gypsies.
Playing for their tribe to celebrate lives ended by explosion and collapse
of the hand-made hearth and painted trees and stars that had been their
temporary home.
Rayn, "Did the Greens . .
. ?"
The youngest, Meena, turns
to Rayn. "I dreamed you would come." Her red curls remind Rayn of
the boy whose mother had left her alone, in danger, that first horrible
day. She wouldn’t leave this girl the same way.
Gunfire.
They scatter for cover. Greens
attack from all sides. The men fire. Kindra and Rayn hesitate, torn between
anger and fatigue, looking from their guns to the bodies around them.
Krachi, "If you don’t fight
they’ll kill you!"
Kindra breathes and fires.
But Rayn, "I’ve never--"
Krachi grabs her, "They killed
your family, Arayna!"
"How do you . . . ?!"
The two elder gypsies are
killed in the crossfire.
Meena plays for them. Weapons
lock on the sound. The nearest, Hitt and Rayn, both jump to cover her.
Surrounded and firing blind, Rayn is convinced she’s dead. But when her
charge runs out, they are alive. Rebels, withdrawn.
Krachi goes to report.
Rayn pants, throat closed,
ears ringing, senses dulled and spinning with shock, "I can’t believe I
. . . ."
But Rayn had faced death,
absolute fear, and survived. When the next waves attacked, she hesitated
less. And nights later she would finally sleep, soundly, without dreams.
advertisement
