Chapter 9: Exfiltration

Boyd awoke to darkness, momentary panic gripping him as he realized that he couldn’t breathe. He pushed against something soft and fluffy – he must be trapped beneath Lorza again. She had probably rolled over on top of him during her sleep. Like digging himself out of a grave made from fat and fur, he eventually surfaced between her breasts, taking a deep breath. Instead of a relieving gulp of air, he found that it did nothing to help, the corners of his vision starting to darken.

His thrashing had woken Lorza, and the next thing he knew, she was pressing something against his face. The next breath that he took cleared his head, the second calming him, and he looked through his visor to see the Polar staring back at him with concern. She had leaned over to grab his suit and was now holding the rebreather over his mouth and nose. After a few more deep breaths, he felt safe enough to ease her hand away.

“Well, that was quite the wake-up call,” he muttered. “I guess we’ve discovered how long I can go without the mask.”

“We were so busy last night that you must have forgotten to put it back on,” she chuckled, her concern morphing into amusement. “Good morning, by the way.”

“Morning,” he repeated, his cheeks starting to warm as he gazed up at her. They had been so wanton in their explorations of each other the previous night – so uninhibited. Now that they had both sobered up, he felt kind of embarrassed. She grinned back at him, and his worries melted away, her clawed fingers rising up to scratch his head.

“What is that expression?” she cooed, leaning closer to whisper in his ear. “Are you remembering how I fucked you into a whimpering mess last night?”

“I remember things a little differently,” he replied, Lorza laughing as she pulled him deeper into her bust.

“Okay, I admit it – you might have gotten a few reactions out of me,” she purred. “Perhaps there is time for a tie-breaker before we set out again?”

He hesitated, the proposal as alluring as ever, breathing in her scent as he pushed his face into her inviting bosom.

“As appealing as that might be, no,” he replied. “I still have a mission to see through – we need to get to that refinery.”

She sighed with disappointment, hugging him tighter for a few brief moments, then began to unzip the sleeping bag. As he slipped out of the padded fabric and into the cold air, he quickly remembered that he was still nude – and somewhat sticky. He scrambled to pull his suit on, his breath forming ice crystals as he hurriedly tapped at his display to turn on the heating element. There was more than enough charge to activate the circuitry, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he felt its lining start to warm. Lorza was pawing at her thighs and belly, her delicate fur matted with the residue of their nocturnal romp.

“I need to bathe,” she said, reaching for one of the mess tins that was sitting beside the stove. “This is not something I wish to clean with my tongue...”

She lit another hexamine tablet, then fetched some snow to melt over the flame, upending the water over the problem areas as she combed her fur with her claws. There was plenty of snow to go around, so it wasn’t like they had to ration their drinking water.

“Pizdyet! It is still freezing,” she complained with a shiver. She rubbed herself down as best she could, then struggled into her coveralls, the fabric barely containing her voluptuous figure. Boyd watched with amusement as she struggled to get the now undersized clothes back on, her generous bust and rump bouncing as she danced on the spot. She fought to close the zipper, having to suck in her belly, leaving her cleavage on display as she failed to get it all the way back up to her collar. Damn, she looked good – even better now that he didn’t have to deny his voyeurism. He had to resist the powerful urge to walk over to her and just take a handful of her ass. She turned to look at him, seeing his smirk, which she answered with a frown.

“Oh, so now you want to go for round two? Well, too late,” she chided as she adjusted her bust. “I am not covering myself in ice water again any time soon.”

“How about some breakfast as a peace offering?” he asked.

Lorza made a show of considering, but he knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t refuse a free meal, and she eventually nodded. Boyd fetched a couple of squid steaks from the pack, then started to cook them over the stove.

“You think we should take the rest of this with us?” Boyd asked, gesturing to the steaming cut of meat. “It’s not gonna keep if we can’t refrigerate it. I doubt that whatever shuttle or transport we might find will be equipped with an onboard meat locker.”

“We are guaranteed to reach the refinery today, da?” Lorza asked.

“Yeah, I’d wager around midday,” Boyd confirmed as he prodded the sizzling meat with his fork. “We don’t have very far to travel now.”

“Then, we will not need it,” she continued with a shrug. “Better to leave it behind.”

“Turning down food?” Boyd said, turning to her with an expression of mock alarm. She leaned over and gently punched his shoulder, knocking him off balance.

“You are one to talk,” she purred. “One would think that you had eaten your fill last night.”

“Don’t be vulgar at the dinner table,” he chided, waving his dripping fork at her.

“What will we do if there is nobody at the refinery?” Lorza asked, turning the conversation to a more serious topic. “What if it is all automated? Is that possible?”

“It’s very unlikely,” Boyd replied, spearing the slab of meat before handing it off to her. He set the second one cooking, Lorza taking a wet bite out of her portion as she listened. “I doubt this is going to be a state-of-the-art facility, considering the location. Even then, there still need to be workers on-site to handle repairs and potential issues, and someone has to come pick up the fuel at some point. No, I’m sure there will be people there, and they should have whatever supplies we need.”

“And, if they are allied with the people who pursue you?” she added warily. “This Syndicate?”

“Then, we do whatever we have to do,” he replied ominously. She waited for him to elaborate further, but he didn’t.

When they were done eating, they packed up their gear, then headed out of the little cave.

The refinery loomed in the distance, growing ever larger as they marched. Boyd could make it out in more detail now, the tall stacks of its cooling towers jutting into the air, the machinery beneath them a rat’s nest of pipes and storage tanks. The sprawling structure was just perched there on the ice, some of the pipes trailing out of view beneath it, siphoning the precious water for processing. It wasn’t sitting on bedrock, but perhaps the ice sheet was just as hard here, and it stood no chance of thawing.

Lorza loped along beside him, a spring in her step. She had been all over him since the previous night, taking every opportunity to lay her hands on him or to sneak a cuddle whenever they stopped to rest. She seemed to be in good spirits, and Boyd had to admit that despite his reservations about what they might encounter at their destination, he was feeling better than he had in days. No – in years. It had been far too long since he had allowed himself to be intimate – both in the physical and the emotional sense – and it felt good to get back on the horse. His lifestyle prohibited romance, not through any official decree, but simply because he had to spend so much time undercover. Not to mention that his line of work might put his loved ones in danger. That was a foregone conclusion with Lorza, however. She was already in danger.

As they got near enough to the refinery that its long shadow reached them, Boyd gestured for Lorza to stop, and she pointed her round ears at him curiously.

“What is it, Boyd?”

“We’re getting close now, and there’s no way to be sure if the workers manning this place are loyal to ExoCorp, the Syndicate, or are unaffiliated. We should tread carefully from here on. I think you should say hidden for now,” he added, Lorza cocking her head at him. “I don’t want them thinking some alien creature has wandered in from the tundra.”

“Creature?” she grumbled, crossing her arms as she scowled down at him.

“You have to admit, you’d look pretty intimidating to a human at a distance,” he explained apologetically. “The last thing I want is you getting shot by some twitchy engineer with cabin fever.”

“Point taken,” she conceded. “But, what are you going to do? Is it safe for you to just walk up there?”

“I’ll pose as an ExoCorp surveyor who got stranded – try to gauge whether they’ve been told to be on the lookout for survivors,” he replied. “If things get hairy, well ... we may have to improvise. I’m told Borealans are pretty good in a fight.”

“That is not a theory I am keen to put to the test,” she grumbled, glancing at the refinery’s tall cooling towers warily. “I suppose we have no choice. I will find a snow drift to hide behind while you determine their allegiance. Just, promise not to leave me behind, da?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied, setting off.

“Wait!” Lorza said, Boyd pausing to look back at her. “What is the signal?”

“Signal?” he asked.

“Spies have signals!” she insisted. “I saw it in one of my roommate’s movies. They imitated the call of a bird to avoid detection.”

“If you hear gunshots or shouting, that’s the signal,” he said. He continued on, leaving the scowling Polar waiting in the snow.

The Chainhand leaned over the rig’s railing, looking out past the refinery into the blinding snow, the tinted visor of his snowsuit barely serving to lessen the perpetual glow. It was like staring directly at the damned sun. Didn’t matter how cold it was – the system’s star beat down on the powder to create a glare that would quickly make you snowblind without protective gear. Granted, it was a damn sight better than working the mines on Hades, but there was no bar and no women out here. What little free time they were given between rotations was boring and pointless.

They had put him on sentry duty today, so rather than maintaining the pumps and machinery, he had been tasked with keeping watch for approaching figures. Word had come in that a Ninnie had tried to infiltrate the Syndicate, but his cover had been blown, and his ship had been downed over the moon. It was unlikely that anyone could have survived the crash, but if he did, the higher-ups didn’t want him slipping past them. This refinery was the only way off-world, and if anyone was coming, they would be coming this way.

He wiped some of the flecks of snow from his visor, his furry collar blowing in the wind, and then froze. He could see something – a solitary figure walking towards the refinery through the snowdrifts. It couldn’t be...

Fumbling with his helmet, he struggled to activate the suit radio with his thick gloves, the Derrickman’s voice coming through with a hiss of static.

“What is it? I’m fucking busy down here. One of the joints has sprung a leak, and the Ginzels are giving me the runaround.”

“Sorry, Mister Cohen, it’s Darrel – the Chainhand. I don’t mean to disturb you, but ... I see something! There’s a person out there, comin’ our way!”

“What?” Cohen scoffed. “There’s no way. You wearing a tinted visor? If I come all the way up to the deck and find out you’re going snowblind, I’m dropping you down the fucking moon pool.”

“Nah, Mister Cohen, I swear! He’s about two hundred meters out to the East!”

“Right, hang tight,” he replied as Darrel heard the sound of shuffling in the background. “I’m getting the rifle and bringing some of the boys up with me. They wanted him alive, but I’m not taking any chances with a Ninnie. If he makes one wrong move, I’m painting the snow with his brains.”

“I hear you, Mister Cohen. You do what you need to do. Darrel out.”

He leaned his hands on the metal railing, the freezing steel cold enough to penetrate his gloves, and watched the stranger as he trudged through the deep snow. How the hell had this guy survived a crash from orbit, never mind the trek to the refinery? Ninnies must be downright supermen. The crew had seen the fireworks show from all the way over here – it had looked like a shooting star, and the vessel had hit the ground with all the grace of a falling brick. Yet, here he was, making his way towards them.

Darrel heard footsteps on the metal deck behind him and turned to see Mister Cohen and some of the Ginzels hurrying behind him – green as fuck miners who had been deployed to the rig without even being taught the basics of running the equipment.

Cohen moved up beside him and raised a hand to further shield his dark goggles, his rebreather exhaling clouds of mist. Darrel pointed towards the figure in the distance – a dark splotch against the snow.

“You see? I told you, Mister Cohen, it’s the Ninnie!”

“Well, I’ll be fucked...” He hefted a long rifle with a wooden stock and turned to the increasingly nervous Ginzels. “Alright, boys, this is your chance to show the Syndicate that you got what it takes. You prove your loyalty today, and I’ll make damned sure that the bosses back on Hades hear about it. This is the big one – they contacted me personally about this Navy lapdog, and if he slips through our fingers, it’ll be all of our asses on the line. Understood?”

There was some nervous and somewhat non-committal nodding, then the group set off down to the lower deck to intercept the man, Darrel trailing behind after taking one last look at the advancing figure. It was almost supernatural. He didn’t believe in ghosts, but this whole situation was giving him the willies. It wasn’t the first time that he had wondered whether serving his tax fraud sentence would have been easier than skipping bail and coming out here.

Boyd stumbled through the snow, trying to appear a lot weaker and worn down than he really was. If push came to shove, the less they knew about his capabilities, the better. He’d already noticed that there was a welcome party waiting to receive him – a group of a dozen men standing on the deck of the refinery where it met the snow. They were all wearing heavy winter gear, along with snow masks that obscured their features behind reflective visors. One was armed, which wasn’t a good sign. After a few more minutes of dramatic limping, he got within shouting range, and he heard a voice carry over on the wind.

“That’s close enough, pal!”

Boyd pulled back his hood to reveal his face, raising his hands to show that he wasn’t armed before shouting a reply back.

“Thank God! I thought I was going to die out there! My name is Henderson – I was part of an ExoCorp survey team searching for places to drop new refineries. I got separated from my team in a blizzard. Please help me!”

It had sounded convincing enough in his head, but the workers didn’t seem to be taking the bait. The one with the rifle was keeping the weapon aimed in his direction.

“Come over here!” the stranger shouted, gesturing with the barrel of his gun. It was an older model, nothing like the XMRs used by the Navy – some kind of caseless weapon, maybe. They were suspicious, downright wary of him. Had the Syndicate gotten word out that their ship had crashed here and that someone might have survived? At least they had stopped underestimating him. That must mean that these guys were on the payroll. Just his luck...

He decided to stick to his story, approaching cautiously as he kept his hands raised in surrender.

“Please!” he shouted, taking a few steps closer. “Do you have any food? I’ve been stranded out here for days!”

The man with the rifle – likely their leader – stepped off the platform and onto the snow to meet him.

“Yeah, yeah,” the man scoffed as he kept his weapon trained on Boyd. “Cut the shit, Ninnie. We know exactly who you are – you can drop the act.”

Boyd’s brow furrowed, and he lowered his arms, the demeanor of a frightened civilian evaporating. The men surrounding the one wielding the gun looked a lot less sure of themselves, shifting their weight from foot to foot as though they were extremely uncomfortable with what was happening. New arrivals, maybe? Perhaps he could use that to his advantage...

“Here’s how this is gonna go!” the man with the rifle shouted, his boots crunching the crisp powder underfoot as he neared. “You’re gonna put your hands behind your back, and one of my guys is gonna tie you up. We’re gonna take you to a shuttle and ship you back to Hades so the boss can pick up where he left off. We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he continued, coming close enough that he didn’t have to shout anymore. “This is going to be a lot faster and a lot less painful for the both of us if you just do as I say without trying anything funny, understand?”

Boyd slowly moved his hands behind his head and sank to his knees, the man gesturing for one of his goons to walk out into the snow and bind him with a chain that he was holding.

“Don’t touch his suit,” the man added, gesturing with his weapon. “And take the knife from his boot.”

“Sounds like you’re wise to all my tricks,” Boyd said sarcastically, keeping his head still as his eyes tracked the approaching worker.

“That’s right, Ninnie,” the man with the gun replied. “You may have gotten the better of those PDF jarheads dirtside, but nothing gets past me.”

“Sounds like you have everything under control.”

“That’s right,” the man said, keeping his weapon shouldered as though he expected Boyd to dart towards him at any moment. “Now, are you gonna keep your mouth shut and cooperate, or am I gonna have to tell my boys to rough you up a bit so you get the picture?”

Boyd turned his attention to the trembling man who was fumbling with the chain behind him, raising his voice loud enough to ensure that everyone could hear him.

“I’m authorized to make binding deals on behalf of the UNN,” he began. “You can still stop this – you can still choose to walk away. We can even give you amnesty for any crimes committed on Earth – or whatever colonies you came from – in exchange for aid and information. You could all go back home with a full pardon.”

“Hey!” the man with the rifle shouted, pointing the barrel at his head. “Shut the fuck up!”

“You can’t seriously believe that you’ll get away with this,” Boyd continued, ignoring the threat. “Sooner or later, the Navy is going to find out what you’re doing here. They’ll send a jump carrier full of battle-hardened Marines, and no amount of stolen PDF weaponry is going to save you if that happens. Ever go up against a Borealan Shock Trooper? I hear they’re not the understanding type.”

“I said shut the fuck up,” the man blurted, taking a few steps towards him as the rest of the crew looked on with uncertainty.

“The Syndicate is banking on the UNN not responding,” Boyd continued, looking to the rest of the men. “They don’t think we care what happens on these outlying colonies, but that’s not true. Ask yourselves – would I be here if the Navy didn’t care about your welfare? Would they have sent me if they had no intention of defending Hades from its enemies, alien and domestic?”

“One more word out of that mouth, and I’m going to knock your teeth out,” the ringleader hissed. “What’s the holdup, Bauer? Tie his fucking hands already!”

The man called Bauer hesitated, then stepped out from behind Boyd, the chain clutched tightly in his gloved hands.

“He’s right, Cohen. We don’t stand a chance against the Navy. I never wanted to get involved in this – I just came here looking for work. Hell, half of us came to Hades to start fresh and leave our criminal pasts behind us!”

There were a few affirmations from some of the other workers who were standing behind Cohen, and he looked back at them nervously as he fingered the trigger of his rifle.

“D-don’t let this glorified rent-a-cop scare you! He’s full of shit! The Navy never cared about Hades, and neither did the corporate stooges who brought you here just to put shovels in your hands! The Syndicate are the ones who sign your paychecks, they’re the ones who protect the colony, not these jumped-up fascists. They don’t give a shit about us. We have weapons now!” he added, gesturing to Boyd. “We shot down this Ninnie’s ship, and if they send a carrier, we’ll shoot that down too!”

Cohen was losing the crowd, and he knew it, now unsure of where he should be pointing his gun.