Chapter 21

DAY 38 – GEOTHERMAL PLANT – RUZA

“We have enough supplies for a couple of weeks, at least,” Amy said as she ran through the numbers on her tablet. “If we ration them, maybe a month. There’s no power, as the plant was never switched on, but most of the living space is below ground where it’s cool. The conditions are livable. Luckily for us, they tapped an aquifer before they left, which means that we have water. You can take as many cold showers as you like.”

“Could be a lot worse, then,” Bill said with a shrug.

The group of survivors was sitting in the geothermal plant’s cafeteria, which had become their meeting place. Despite being more modern and better furnished than the one they had left behind, none of the appliances could be used without power, and the state of disrepair made it feel somehow more derelict than the mines.

“I have first aid supplies, but little else,” Ruza added. He had taken to sitting on one of the tables instead of the chairs, as they were too small for him. “It is sufficient for treating minor wounds, but even if we could transport future battle casualties here, I have not the means to heal them.”

“We’ll be secure here for a while,” Rivera mused. “I think our first order of business should be trying to reestablish contact with other survivors. There are sure to be some holding out in the city.”

“We can only move under the cover of the storms, and only during specific windows when the winds aren’t too severe,” Delgado added. “One drone spots us traveling from the city to the plant, and it’s all over. Barbosa would have no qualms about dropping a nuke on us.”

“And storm season is nearing its end,” one of the civilians added. “In a few weeks, they’ll be too small to provide much cover.”

“I have the means to travel unseen in the desert,” Ruza said. “For the rest of you, I cannot say. It took time to teach my scouts.”

“Then we have a hard time limit,” Rivera grumbled, his chair creaking as he leaned on the polymer table in front of him. “We screw around too much, and we’ll be left exposed, without any allies to back us up. Ruza and I will organize a patrol. The rest of you – see what you can do to make this place a little more livable while we’re gone.”

“Bring back what supplies you can carry,” Amy added. “Food, batteries, meds – we need whatever we can get. I’ll make you a shopping list.”

They dispersed, and Rivera headed off to plan with his Marines, while Ruza joined Amy on her way back to their quarters.

“You should let me know if you need anything,” she said as they turned a corner in the dingy corridor. It got darker and darker the further away they were from the nearest window, but Ruza didn’t find it quite as troublesome as the humans with his better low-light vision. “Who knows how many of these trips we’ll be able to make.”

“I would prefer that we lay low for a time, but we cannot afford such a luxury,” Ruza sighed. “At least you will all be safe here for a time.”

“We’re not the only ones who knew about this place,” she replied, her brow creasing with worry. “We don’t know where Omar and Astrid are, or Bergmann, for that matter. If they’ve been arrested, do you think they might talk? The Borgs can be persuasive – I know that all too well.”

“As Rivera said, we are on a timer,” Ruza replied. “If we cannot rebuild our forces, I cannot honestly predict what may happen. We might have to simply hide until the UNN sends reinforcements.”

“That could take months,” she said with an exasperated shake of her head. “I don’t like hiding here while people suffer. I know that I’m not going to be holding a rifle, so maybe I’m being selfish, expecting everyone to resume fighting after everything that’s happened...”

“You have been as close to the enemy as any one of us,” Ruza replied, glancing down at her. “Do not think of yourself as somehow separate from the fighters simply because your responsibility is to keep us fed.”

They arrived at Ruza’s quarters. At least in this derelict place, privacy and space were ample. He ducked through the door, then made his way over to the mattresses that he had laid out to serve as his bed, kneeling to rummage through his sparse belongings. Amy had brought his bag, ever the thoughtful friend, and he wanted to check that he had enough supplies.

“Damn,” he mumbled.

“What is it?” Amy asked, peering over his shoulder as she hovered nearby. “I didn’t forget something, did I?”

“Not at all,” he replied. “I am still amazed that you thought to recover my things in such desperate circumstances. I am simply out of my medicine.”

“Your grav meds,” she muttered with a nod of understanding. “We never refilled your prescription.”

“There were more pressing matters,” he said as he stood up. “It had slipped my mind entirely.”

“Will you be alright? You aren’t getting sick, are you?”

“It would take some weeks for me to be weakened by the condition, and even then, many months for me to become impaired. I can endure.”

“We still have contacts at the hospital,” Amy suggested. “I’ll put them down on the shopping list, but only if it’s safe.”

“I neglected to mention that there are some mild withdrawal effects,” he said, giving Amy an apologetic smile as she planted her hands on her hips and shot him a suspicious look. “I would appreciate it.”

“You’re allowed to have medicine, Ruza,” she chided. “I’m the quartermaster – I give you permission.”

“Very well,” he conceded. “But only if it does not pose a danger to the team. The hospital is close to the enemy stronghold, and they may already be on alert for resistance members. Some of the injured patients from the base will certainly have been transported there. They would have no other choice.”

“They can handle it,” Amy insisted. “I don’t think either of us will be making any trips to the city for a while, so we might as well get comfortable here. If they bring us back some batteries, maybe we can get the lights and some of the kitchen appliances running – maybe some hot water. That’d be nice. I know that you boys are used to eating those MREs, but someone needs to investigate where all of our taxes are going if that’s what they’re feeding you.”

DAY 39 – HADES – PETROVA

Petrova sat on the edge of her bed, holding out one hand as she used a small tool to tweak the electronics in her wrist with the other. One of her fingers had been sticky since her fight against the PDF, and it was bugging her, so she was tuning the servos.

She was interrupted by a beep, lifting her gaze towards the phone that was sitting atop the otherwise empty tabletop in the cramped kitchenette. Feeling the cold metal of the prefab beneath her prosthetic feet, she marched over to it, lifting the device from the table.

“It’s Song,” he announced as she accepted the call. “Your hunch has paid off. Someone just picked up some grav meds at the hospital, and their system logged the prescription.”

“Damn, Barbosa was right on the money,” she hissed. “The Rask really did manage to slip the net. Resourceful little fleabag. Who picked up the prescription? How long ago was this?”

“Only a few minutes,” Song replied. “Looks like someone picked them up on the alien’s behalf, and the prescription was simply listed as filled. I’m trying to track them by drone, but everyone dresses the same way on this planet, and the masks make identifying anyone next to impossible. There’s a lot of foot traffic in the area thanks to the recent riot. I had considered planting a tracker in a fake pill, but the orders are all filled by hand, and we’d either have to get extremely lucky or make thousands of them.”

“There’s probably no way to track down the courier, then,” Petrova sighed. “They’re bold, coming back to the hospital only a couple of days after they got their asses kicked – I’ll give them that. At least we have confirmation. Have any of the prisoners talked about where the survivors might be hiding?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Song replied. “These kinds of interrogations tend not to yield results quickly.”

“If they expect to pose any threat to us in the future, they’ll need to rebuild their forces,” Petrova said as she began to pace restlessly around the empty room. “I know the Rask, and I know Rivera – they won’t give up so easily. They’ll want to reconnect with their comrades. Especially the Rask. He’s loyal, and he’s gone to great lengths to rescue his friends before. He stormed a garrison that was seemingly chosen as a target simply because his secretary was being held there.”

“Do you see a way to exploit that?” Song asked.

“If we can’t go to him, maybe we can have him come to us.”

“You want to lay a snare?” Song mused. “You’ll need some bait.”

“What do you have for me?”

“We picked up a few insurgents during the attack,” Song began, sending her a series of mugshots. “We’re pretty sure that a union boss named Bergmann was one of the highest-ranked members of the organization, and we took him into custody during the protest. We picked up a few fighters – mostly escaped Marines and turncoat PDF. They’re back in their cells.”

“Who’s this guy?” Petrova asked, pulling up the image of a man with a tanned complexion and a PDF officer’s uniform.

“Omar Jabril,” Song replied. “He’s an officer in the PDF. We released him shortly after the invasion, along with the first batch of troopers who pledged their support. My forensic investigation of the PDF computer systems showed that he accessed relevant personnel files prior to the most recent attack, which is likely how they knew to target specific garrisons. There’s no doubt in my mind that he’s the mole who’s been feeding information to the insurgents. With his rank, he would know access codes, troop movements, and even where specific prisoners were being held.”

“He’s probably responsible for the attack on Seventeen, blyat.”

“No doubt.”

“This seems like someone they would value,” Petrova said, pausing her restless pacing as an idea began to form. “Someone they would be close to.”

“I pulled records of all their comms systems and encryption codes from the servers that Roach and Crow dumped,” Song suggested. “I could spoof a distress call – do some voice modulation.”

“No, they’re too wily for that,” Petrova muttered. “They’ll know something is up if he just calls them out of the blue. Where is this guy being held?”

“Garrison One, along with all the other high-risk prisoners,” Song replied. “After what happened at Seventeen, we’re not taking any chances. One is absolutely impenetrable.”

“Then we need to move him,” she began, scratching her chin with a rubberized finger pad. “This can’t just be a staged prison break – it has to be a real escape. If I’m going to get close to the target, Jabril has to believe it. He needs to contact the Rask through his own channels – set up a meeting in a place only they would know about.”

“How are you going to do that?” Song asked. “Tracking him might be difficult with the storms.”

“I’ll be right there with him,” Petrova replied, more confident now. “Here’s what we do – we come up with a reason to transfer Jabril to another garrison, then we load him into an armored transport. I’ll be traveling with him undercover as another resistance fighter. There’s no way he knows everyone by name and face – there were hundreds of them. Along the route, something happens to the armored car, and we both escape. Once I gain his trust, he’ll want to bring me with him, and he’ll lead me right to the target.”

“We’ll have to work out the finer details,” Song replied. “It’ll need to go off perfectly. I’m not sure how Barbosa will feel about letting one of our most valuable prisoners escape, even temporarily.”

“The Commander will sign off on the plan if it comes from me,” she insisted.

“If you say so. What happens when you find the target? We could send in strike teams to take them out. If you organize the meeting in an uninhabited area – like an industrial park – we could drop a sabot on them. No way they’re crawling out of that.”