Rebel Yell: Operation Ardent Redux: Episode 1 (A Space Opera Adventure) Page 3

  Roni squinted. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “That’s what I was thinking, too. Why would they send a transmission about eagles, eggs, and hornets? And what’s ‘the Mother’?”

  “No,” Roni said, waving a dismissive hand at Zadria as she replayed the message. “It’s in code. They’re saying the GC is back on Hera and using the mine there.”

  “And the hornets?”

  “They want a small tactical force to come in and help with the situation.”

  “So, what doesn’t make sense?” Zadria asked.

  “The GC abandoned Hera years ago, leaving the people there to suffer in squalor. It got too dangerous. The planet was becoming unstable from all the mining. I don’t know why they’d go back there.”

  “Okay, well we should probably tell someone, right?”

  Roni sat back in her chair and furrowed her forehead. The GC had access to so many mines. She couldn’t figure out why they would choose to return to an unstable planet. She did know one thing: She wanted to find out.

  “You’re thinking about going, aren’t you?” Zadria asked, breaking Roni’s concentration.

  Roni glared at her. “What if I am?”

  “Well Rebel Code says—”

  “What do you know about Rebel Code? You’re not even a real rebel.” Roni laughed.

  Zadria almost looked hurt. “I-I’m just saying, your dad’s not going to let you go. Not after you lost David.”

  Roni pursed her lips. Zadria was right. Losing a close family member or significant other excluded you from missions for a period of time. They had to pass the amendment after too many people went off plan on missions for the sake of their own revenge. Anyone sustaining a significant loss had to be cleared by Barbara, and talking to her was the last thing Roni wanted to do. She knew there was no way she’d get cleared for a mission.

  Unless it was a secret mission.

  “Maybe no one has to know,” Roni said, carefully eyeing Zadria’s response. Roni half expected her to run out and blab about the transmission, but instead, she surprised her.

  “Shuttles are scheduled to return to the Houston after the memorial. If we catch a ride on one, then I could probably convince my dad to let you take the scout out for ‘research purposes’.” Zadria winked along with her finger-quotes.

  “Wait, you have a GC scout ship up there?”

  Zadria nodded. “The Houston was a GC ship, after all.”

  Roni grinned and stood. “You know, I totally thought this would go a different way.”

  “There’s just one thing…”

  Roni arched an eyebrow. The other shoe. “What?”

  “You have to take me with you.”

  Chapter 3

  “Missed you at the memorial,” Bob Devereaux said, catching Roni off-guard as she was climbing into the shuttle.

  “You know I hate those things,” she said as she turned to face him.

  “Heading up to the Houston?”

  Roni nodded. “Yeah, I need to get out of here. I feel like I can’t breathe down here.”

  Bob stared at her a moment before slowly nodding. “Alright, well, try to stay out of trouble.”

  “You know me.” Roni half smiled.

  “Why do you think I said that?” Bob chuckled. His eyes lingered on her a moment, then he turned and walked away.

  “Everything okay?” Zadria asked as Roni finally climbed inside.

  “Yeah, he was just checking on me. You know, dad stuff.”

  “Oh trust me, I know. My dad—”

  The shuttle pilot cleared his throat, reminding them both that they were on one of Patrick’s shuttles.

  “Right,” Zadria continued, lowering her voice. “I know how dads are.”

  The ride to the Houston was quick and uneventful, which made Roni fidget in her seat with anticipation. She had stolen plenty of ships, but it was always from the enemy. She felt anxious about stealing from someone on her side. A few deep breaths helped Roni shove her feelings into the back of her mind. Once docked, they exited with the rest of the people returning to the research ship and made way for the bridge.

  Patrick raised an eyebrow as Zadria and Roni entered. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

  “I brought Roni up to see the GC scout. We’d like to take it out,” Zadria said. “Research.”

  Patrick seemed to study the two of them, his eyes narrowing. “Okay.”

  Roni tried to contain her surprise. She didn’t expect him to agree so easily. Zadria turned and left the bridge without another word, and Roni hurried after her.

  “I can’t believe that worked,” Roni said with a chuckle.

  “Well, kind of,” Zadria replied.

  “Wait, what do you mean?”

  “You’ll see.” Zadria scanned her ID and stepped through a doorway into a room without answering Roni. The room was lined with shelves and various supplies.

  “What are we doing here?” Roni asked as she glanced at the contents of the shelves.

  “We’ll need supplies, right? How long are we going to be gone?” Zadria grabbed two bags, tossing one to Roni. She started winding through the labyrinth of a storage room.

  “Depends on what’s going on. Hera’s not far. Maybe a few days. We’ll check it out and see if there’s anything we can do or if we need to call for backup.”

  Zadria stuffed a few handfuls of meal rations into each of the bags and continued to the back of the storage room. Once there, she pulled a shelf out of the way and crouched near an air vent. “Hand me that screwdriver?”

  Roni complied, watching the girl curiously.

  Zadria removed the cover and slid on her belly into the duct.

  “Am I supposed to follow you?” Roni asked as she watched Zadria’s feet get farther away.

  “Nope, just wait for me,” she whispered back, the words echoing along the metal walls of the duct.

  Roni took the opportunity to look for more supplies they might need: rope, flashlights, a first aid kit. She added things to the bags until she heard Zadria coming back.

  “Oh, now we’re talking,” Roni said with a grin as Zadria pushed a small bundle of weapons out of the air duct in front of her.

  “They’re small but they’ll work. We can’t make it obvious we’re stealing from the armory.”

  “You know, I had you totally had you pegged as an uptight rule-follower.” Roni laughed.

  Zadria shrugged. “You wouldn’t have been wrong before. But now… now everything’s different.”

  Roni opened her mouth to probe Zadria further, but ultimately decided against it. Instead, she helped Zadria to her feet, and the two of them concealed the weapons on themselves and in their bags.

  Zadria led the way to the scout. It wasn’t a large ship, but it didn’t need to be. The GC scouts were designed to fly far and fast.

  The two women sat in the pilot’s seats, and Roni looked over the controls while Zadria wiggled a panel open overhead. Once the cover gave way, she reached up, felt around, and withdrew a small device, still connected to the wiring overhead.

  “What’s that?” Roni asked.

  “Limiter,” Zadria answered with a smile. “It cuts the engines if we head out of range. Helps discourage theft.”

  “Shouldn’t we disconnect it?” Roni asked, staring at the flashing green light on the device.

  “Not yet. Let’s get out of here first.”

  Roni nodded, and Zadria ran through systems checks and launched the scout out of the Houston and into the dark.

  “Play around with it.” Zadria smiled. “Just in case they’re watching. Make it look good.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice,” Roni said with a laugh. She took the controls and took some time to get acquainted with the ship before she started pushing it. Before long, she was flying laps around the Houston and performing dazzling barrel rolls in front of the bridge. She gradually widened her orbit, pushing the limits of the scout’s allowed range. As the flashing green light chang
ed from green to yellow, Zadria reached up and disconnected the device.

  “Houston to Scout 1, we’re showing there’s a problem with the ship. Please return at once.”

  Roni and Zadria shared a glance before Roni reached over and clicked off the communications link. Zadria looked like she was going to be sick.

  “You sure you’re up for this?” Roni asked.

  Zadria nodded. “Yeah, I just… I have to do this.”

  Roni studied her face. At first glance she looked terrified, but there was determination in her eyes there below the fear. Zadria reminded her of herself when she was younger and leaving home for the first time.

  “Inputting Hera’s coordinates,” Roni advised.

  “Plotting a course,” Zadria answered.

  They cloaked the scout and turned on the autopilot before sitting back to relax in their seats. Roni’s thoughts danced around, changing direction every few minutes. David. Penn. The GC. The rebels. Hera.

  “Have you ever been to a ‘retired’ GC planet before, Zad?”

  Zadria shook her head.

  “It’s ugly. I mean, it starts off pretty well. The Galactic Conglomerate shows up… either with a group of volunteer civilian colonists or to an inhabited planet. They provide everything for them. Food. Medicine. Technology. They put them to work gathering whatever resource drew them to the planet. In Hera’s case, it’s coreshine ore. Some of the best in this sector. They use it for everything: ships, buildings. As long as everyone keeps working and meeting quotas, everything is great.”

  “I have a feeling it doesn’t stay that way.”

  “Nope. Resources dry up. When production dwindles, the GC starts withholding things… as if that will somehow magically replenish whatever they’re after. But it never does. Eventually, they pull out and leave the people there to fend for themselves. They’re cut off. The planets usually take a pretty big dive after that.”

  “Why don’t they just leave?” Zadria asked.

  “Some do. Some can’t. A lot of them don’t have any place to go. Those that are lucky enough to have the option of resettling, well, they have to come up with the money to pay a pilot to get them off their rock, and that’s not cheap. We help when we can, but most of our resources are tied up… and lately we’ve been losing more ships than we’ve been gaining.”

  “What did the transmission mean about ‘Mother is angry’?”

  “The mine on Hera isn’t depleted. The GC left because the planet became unstable. Earthquakes opened gas pockets underground that made a lot of people sick. The planet is dying. I was part of the rebel group that took medicine to Hera to help the people there. Some of us stayed behind to help the people who were left reorganize. Look, we’re coming up on her now.”

  An orange ball hung in the night sky, growing increasingly larger at their quick approach. Zadria slowed the scout down as a Class A GC ship came into view.

  Roni sat up straight in her seat, her eyes searching the monstrous ship. Scrawled on the side was the name Connecticut. “That’s not a cargo rig, that’s a warship. Steer clear of them and see if you can get us down to the surface. We’re small enough that we might just make it by unnoticed with our cloak. I’m entering the coordinates from the signal.”

  ***

  After a rocky reentry, the clouds fell away. Massive swaths of farmland were scarred by giant rifts. The once green fields were now brown, and the herds of cattle and hupnal that grazed during Roni’s previous visit were gone. Ahead, a handful of towering buildings came into view. The skyscrapers themselves looked abandoned. Glass was missing from several windows, and plant growth reached skyward from many. At their feet, dozens of multi-story buildings lined the streets. The footprint of the city wasn’t more than a few square kilometers, but it was densely populated. Streets were lined with unmoving vehicles and trash. The city itself had a small footprint but many towering buildings.

  “Wow, it’s not what I was expecting at all,” Zadria said as she navigated the cloaked scout toward an open field just past the massive city. “It looks deserted.”

  “It’s slowly getting that way. It’s just a matter of time before it’s just another GC ghost planet.”

  Up ahead, the earth fell into a great crater with layers of stepped edges moving down to a flat bottom. Inside the bowl, between the various mineshafts scattered throughout, lay a small village of temporary buildings bearing GC markings. Fabric draped between them provided shade against the glaring sun above. Conveyor belts carried bits of silver rock out of the shafts and toward a resting cargo craft.

  “Shit,” Roni said with a sigh. “It’s worse than I thought. They’re not just testing the waters—they’ve resumed full operations from the looks of it. What I don’t understand is why. Why would they risk being here on an unstable planet? They can’t possibly need the ore that badly… right?”

  Zadria shrugged. “I mean, there are other mines out there. Is there something about the ore here that makes this one better?”

  Roni stared out at the mix of guards and workers. “Maybe we need to go find out.”

  * * *

  Roni darted across the dusty-red sand, crouching behind the corner of one of the temporary buildings. They left their ship inside a shallow rift and made their way to the camp on foot, hiding in the sparse vegetation when the surveillance drones drew uncomfortably close. Zadria followed after Roni waved her over. The guards laughed and joked with one another, calling out insults to the workers from time to time. The workers plodded on almost mindlessly, like robots in a factory.

  “It’s like they’ve given up,” Zadria whispered.

  Roni didn’t answer her but couldn’t have agreed more. It didn’t seem at all like the same planet she had visited before. Then, the people were feisty and ready to do whatever it took to get the GC out of their backyard. But now, now they were just shells of their former selves. It was as though all the hope had been leached from their souls.

  An officer walked tall through the camp, hands behind his back as he surveyed his surroundings. He paused and stiffened as an elderly man approached him.

  Roni squinted as she watched, a nervous feeling growing in her stomach. They were too far away to hear, but she could see the man hold up a respirator to the officer. The officer swung his hand toward the object, making contact and causing it to fly from the man’s hand and into the dirt. The old man turned to walk away, but the officer grabbed him by the arm. Then the officer drew his blaster and fired on the man, his lifeless body dropping to the ground.

  Roni cringed. “Looks like that’s the asshole in charge.”

  “What’s the plan?” Zadria asked.

  “I’ve been looking for a friendly face but haven’t had much luck yet. I’m not sure where our contact is, but I’m not seeing him.”

  Roni’s eyes landed on a nearby GC guard standing away from the others. He didn’t show the light-hearted persona the other guards had. In fact, he looked downright miserable. Roni stared at him, a glimmer of recognition flickering in her mind.

  “I know that guy,” Roni said, nodding his direction.

  “The guard?”

  “Yeah, well… he wasn’t a guard before… he was one of us. I don’t know what he’s doing now.” Roni bit her lip and glanced around before shuffling off to the next point of cover. She continued to work her way closer to the man, Zadria zig-zagging along behind her.

  “Psst, Ryan,” Roni whispered once she thought she was close enough.

  He didn’t react.

  Roni picked up a small clod of red dirt. “Ryan,” she said again, tossing it at him.

  The clump hit the toe of his boot and exploded into dust, and the man looked her direction. He held his gun up as he neared her.

  “Who are you? Why aren’t you working?”

  Roni wrinkled her forehead. “Okay, I know it has been a while, but I thought you’d remember me. Roni, remember?”

  “Put your hands in the air,” he ordered.

  “Whoa,
Ryan, I thought we were on the same team. You really don’t remember me?”

  “You better get back to work before Luftchek sees you.” He looked back toward the officer.

  “Oh, I get it.” Roni chuckled and turned to Zadria. “He’s undercover.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, ma’am. I just don’t want to see anyone get hurt. Please get back to work.”

  “Are you sure you know this guy?” Zadria whispered.

  “Ryan, it’s cool. I just need to know where the signal came from and what the plan is.”

  “How do you know my name?” he asked.

  Roni frowned, her irritation growing. “Quit screwing around. Where are the others? What’s the plan?”

  “Luftchek! Over here, sir!” Ryan called out.

  “No, stop it!” Roni hissed.

  It was too late. Luftchek jogged over. “What have you got here?”

  Roni stood, pushing Zadria behind her.

  “Mmm, some nice, healthy-looking women,” Luftchek said with a grin.

  Roni glared at the man as he looked her up and down. Behind her back, she reached for her blaster.

  Luftchek lowered his voice. “You ladies don’t look like you’ve been working in the mines. We could use a few more healthy folks down there.”

  Before Roni could react, he hit her with a stun blast. She felt her legs crumple beneath her as the ground raced up to break her fall. In her last moment of consciousness, she watched Zadria suffer the same fate.

  * * *

  Roni inhaled sharply as she came to. It was dark, and the air was damp and thick. “Uhng… how long was I out?”

  She felt around in the dim light, head pounding, until she felt Zadria’s leg. “Hey, are you alright, Zad?”

  Zadria moaned. “Ouch.”

  “Yeah, I feel you. I’m pretty sure the ass had his stun turned up as high as it goes.”

  “Where are we? The air feels so… thin.”

  Roni continued to feel around, then a bobbing light came into view, illuminating the dirt and stone walls, ceiling, and floor. “Shit. We’re in the mine.”