Enemies of a Sort Page 4

  *

  Carbon.

  Drab, rust colored, gritty carbon.

  Sand.

  It fell from between Flynn’s fingers, glinting as though granules of red sugar were mixed with the dry grit. “What sort of Hell have you brought us too, Chad? Sand planets are worthless unless the composite mineral is good for manufacturing weapons or munitions.”

  “Sukiyaki’s just that sort of planet. The Colarium buys the ore they bring up, but otherwise, they’re on their own.”

  “What kind of ore?” Flynn asked, off hand. He supposed it didn’t really matter.

  Chadrick shrugged, having apparently come to the same conclusion some time ago. “I never cared enough to ask.”

  “You’ve brought us all the way here and don’t even know what these people are fighting over? You’re friends with one of the miners, and you don’t care?” Putty sounded offended, though Flynn couldn’t fathom why.

  “Bruce isn’t a miner. He owns the local bar. The only one in the galaxy with a view of the Redland’s famous sand spires.”

  “Now that’s the sort of friend you want to have!” Putty clapped the doctor on the shoulder, his mood apparently brightened. “That would have been the best sort of friend to have back when we were in school.”

  “Except he was a half a galaxy away.” Flynn looked around at the dried out husk of a town.

  “So were you.” Putty turned a glare on him. “Did you manage to get an education beyond, ‘stuff ammo clip in gun, release safety, pull trigger’ or are you still operating at the tenth year level?”

  Flynn didn’t bother to respond. The Lazarai hadn’t cared about finishing his education, but Kathrynn had. They’d snuck away any time he was planetside on leave, and she made sure he kept current on the galaxy at large. She’d even forced him to take a few mathematics tests before she decided the rewards were not worth the struggle he put up.

  He’d hated it at first, but when the war got bad, he’d pushed their time limits. He’d give anything to go back and have that time with his sister again. Hindsight was a bitch grinding spike heels into your eyes.

  Putty was still talking, but Flynn ignored him, looking instead to the town before them. It was old… or the climate here was worse than he thought. Warped and weathered boards were held together with long straps of iron, darkened to red by whatever in the atmosphere oxidized them. The dry tingle in his throat, and the glittering copper alongside the iron, told him it couldn’t be excess water.

  A pier-like wooden sidewalk lined the storefronts, connecting each building, porch to porch. Flynn bit his tongue to keep from spitting. This place was dry enough the whole street would go up like kindling if a fire broke out in one store.

  “How do they insure any of this?” he asked no one in particular.

  Chadrick and Putty didn’t hear him. They plodded along ahead without a care for the fire hazard they were traipsing into; Putty nattered on about some gadget he’d bought that would help him dismantle something that undoubtedly didn’t need dismantling. Most of what Putty took apart didn’t need fixing.

  The majority of the town around them looked like it did.

  The bar was an old square building set at an angle to the rest of the street, it’s back overhanging at a gentle slope. The tall roofline was emblazoned with faded paint proclaiming Susan’s Bar “the best place to get schnockered this side of bent space.”

  Flynn had a feeling the bar would fail to live up to that lofty promise. He followed Chadrick and Putty inside anyway.

  The planet’s sun was brutal. As Flynn’s eyes adjusted to the dim surroundings, he saw a long wooden bar, polished to dullness. Putty sat in one of the handful of mismatched chairs set around a couple of wobbly tables, and nodded to the barkeeper. The middle aged man stood half hidden behind his bar. With a rag in one hand, he cleaned the dirty surface. His other hand hung below the lip of the bar. The guy was worried enough to keep a hand on his gun. Flynn wondered what was really going on in this ramshackle town.

  “Bruce,” Chadrick said, making the introductions, “this is Putty and Flynn, the Monroe brothers. I brought them in to help with your problem.”

  “Guys, this is Bruce Walker, professional drink slinger and colossal pain in the ass.”

  Flynn gave the man Chadrick felt needed protecting a once over. Bruce was not the sort Flynn would expect to put up a fight – though he’d seen less imposing people take up a hand cannon when their life or livelihood was on the line. Thick around the middle with a ruddy face and thinning patch of dark blond hair, the barkeeper looked perfectly at home behind his ten foot long wooden countertop.

  “So, where’s this Susan you named the bar after?” Putty asked as he wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his garish flannel.

  A sad sort of smile passed over Bruce’s face. “Susan was my sister. She’s passed on.”

  Putty sputtered an apology as Flynn took a seat at one of the barstools. “I’d like to know why we’re here… or I’d like a shot. Either one works for me”

  “That sort of attitude will get you shot if you use it around any of Refuti’s boys… assuming they don’t shoot you just for being here in the first place.”

  “Refuti? As in Giuseppe Refuti?” Putty asked. The look on his face was something between disbelief and excitement.

  Flynn made a mental note to ask Putty for the story that went along with that reaction later.

  “They’re one and the same. Giuseppe is trying to run us all off the planet, make a grab for the mines. He doesn’t like that we aren’t the sort to roll over and just give it up,” Bruce growled as though he worked the mines himself, though Flynn would guess the man had never stepped foot inside a shaft.

  Flynn looked out the window toward the rickety water tower and pulley system Chadrick had pointed out when they arrived, and wondered the people of this quaint town shouldn’t post a guard. “So how are they trying to run you off the planet?”

  “We’ve had four different explosions in the mines in the last week. They’ve been increasing in frequency.”

  “And you’re sure it’s not just faulty systems breaking down after so many years of use?” Putty asked. His eyes were closed, the movement beneath his eyelids told Flynn serious calculations were taking place.

  “The last explosion came from an extruder that was less than three months old. There have been night raids. We managed to kill two of the bastards; the dead bear the mark of the Refuti,” Bruce said, a bit too defensively. “Besides, we’ve been here long enough to know what to avoid. Our focus charges are specially calibrated for this planet… for these mines. The planet isn’t completely stable, but none of the tremors we’ve had were bad enough to cause a fuss.”

  “This doesn’t seem right,” Putty muttered. “I mean, sure the Refuti do hostile takeovers… but that’s corporate mergers, boardroom stuff. They do not invade planets.”

  “What’s this mark you’re talking about?” Chadrick asked. He watched Putty with a worried scowl.

  “The double R brand. All their thugs have it… it’s a way to keep them loyal since no one wants to hire a man with the Refuti brand. He could be a spy.”

  “You’re wrong.” Putty’s words were quiet, but forceful.

  Bruce turned to Chadrick and asked, “Is your friend here defending those bastards after what they did to Kalen?”

  Chadrick placed a hand on the barkeeper’s arm, “He doesn’t know the situation, Bruce, none of us do. And no one is defending any of these murders. But you have to admit it is a little strange for a corporation to invade a planet.”

  Flynn stepped to the side, getting himself in a better position in case his brother or the barkeep decided to jump each other.

  Bruce slammed his fist down on the counter. “If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you.” He ushered them all outside, pulled down a rattling roll-up door and locked up shop. “I don’t know who you think the Refuti are, but mark my words; they’re not the haloed angels the
y want the Colarium to see them as.”

  Bruce led them across the street and into the back alleys of the small town, to a building Flynn had seen on a dozen other planets. Med units, emblazoned with Colarium messages of hope and good will, were deposited on every planet they terraformed… even ones like Sukiyaki, where the process had all but failed. Unmistakably a piece of Colarium-created design, this modular building was half buried in sand. That, at least, was different.

  The morgue module was cold and sterile – like every other one Flynn had seen – stamped out of cookie cutter molds somewhere in the Colarium’s center ring. Designed to meet safety and health standards, they were white cubes full of hard lines and laser-smoothed surfaces. It gave him the creeps – more so even than the body Bruce pulled from the far wall of lockers.

  Flynn had grown accustomed to corpses. It wasn’t as if you had a choice when you were entrenched on the battlefield.

  A sheet covered the dead man, and Bruce pulled it away harshly, flipping him over with no care at all for the state of the body. Flynn wondered where the medical examiner was. It wouldn’t surprise him if the dustbowl couldn’t attract someone to fill the position. Perhaps Chadrick would take it up after he finished his schooling.

  Bruce pointed, jabbing the air over the man’s left buttock, “See there? It’s irrefutable proof!”

  Raised from the corpse’s flesh, the branded Rs – back to back – were clearly enough evidence for Bruce to convict and sentence the Refuti Corp for whatever this man had done.

  As Chadrick leaned in to study the marking, he let out a burst of laughter.

  Flynn looked to Bruce before he and the barkeep both turned to Chad with a matching pair of confused glances.

  “What? That was funny. Irrefutable. Get it? Refuti-ble?” Chadrick looked back and forth between them, his mouth slipping from its grin. “You don’t think that’s funny?”

  Flynn started to respond and then thought better of it. Turning back to Bruce, he shook his head, “A brand doesn’t prove anything.”

  “Yes, it does.” Putty’s face, white as the sheet half draped over the body, contorted in a mask of pain.

  Clapping a hand on his brother’s shoulder, Flynn searched his face. “What is wrong with you?”

  “I just— I need some air.” Putty turned to leave, stopping to lean against the doorway between the morgue pod and the rest of the med unit, and stared at the sterile floor.

  Flynn gave a half hearted shrug to the questioning glance Chadrick shot him, and turned back to the man who had brought them here. “So, Bruce, we seem to be tied in the camps of ‘proof’ and ‘not proof.’ Suppose you tell me more about how that scarring has you convinced it was Giuseppe Refuti who sent this man to take over the planet. Branding notwithstanding, people do leave their loyalties behind for the most, and least, complicated of reasons.”

  Bruce glowered down at the body. “You don’t leave the Refuti… not without a body bag wrapped snug around you.”

  “Some people might say the same for the Lazarai, but I’m standing here and I have a pulse. I’d tell you to check, but I’m not real partial to people touching my neck right now.”

  Bruce shrank away, looking at Chadrick as though he’d just tossed a pissed off rattler into the room. “You brought a Lizard here? What the hell, Chad, we don’t need the help of Rag scum.”

  “If you want to dial up the Colarium and see if they’re likely to run on over and save your ass, be my guest,” Flynn shot back defensively. “I can wait.”

  Chadrick pulled Bruce away to consult on how they wanted to proceed, or maybe to discuss Flynn’s stability. Given their last exchange, Flynn couldn’t really blame the man.

  He went to Putty who stood in the open doorway staring into the empty unit. Putty flinched as Flynn reached out his hand, touching his older brother’s shoulder.

  “I know I’ve been gone a long time, and that Kathrynn being… well, that’s all my fault. I’ll own to that. But it’s not something I can change. You can’t imagine how much I want to.”

  “I don’t need this right now, Flynn. Go play hero with someone else.” Putty cast a dull look at him. “I don’t have the stomach for it.”

  With his brother stalking further off in to the med-unit, Flynn turned back to the body. Chadrick hovered over it, scrutinizing.

  “If you look, just here…” Chadrick used the tip of his pen to point at the most heavily scarred portion of the brand. “He picked at it, making the scar worse… slightly deformed even.”

  “Why does that matter?” Bruce asked, his voice thick with apathy.

  “It doesn’t, I just think it’s interesting.” Chadrick poked at the scar. “Usually this sort of damage, exhibiting signs that he never let it fully heal, tells me he was probably self conscious about it.”

  “Well, I hope the bastard realized just how much pain he wrought on us before he died.” Bruce’s face screwed up like he was going to spit on the body.

  “Just how many have they killed?” Flynn asked. It was a messy detail, but one he needed to know. One was too many, but casualties happen every day. They were a simple fact of life – especially out here on the third tier planets.

  Bruce looked quickly to Chadrick, shifting on his feet. “We were never a big place to begin with.”

  “That only makes it worse. How many?” Flynn prodded.

  Bruce shifted on his feet, glancing nervously between them.

  Flynn glared at him. He wasn’t going to ask again.

  “Seventy eight known dead. Twenty three more missing.”

  “Out of an original population of?” Chadrick was holding himself up against the dead man’s slab.

  “Seven hundred and thirty, give or take.”

  Flynn did the math in his head quickly, silently thanking Kathrynn. “Fourteen percent of your population? That’s a huge hit.’’

  “All but three have been men who work in the mines. Those three… well, they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” the barkeep’s voice drifted off. He obviously had a personal stake in this. “Kalen, my sister’s best friend, didn’t have a chance. The poor girl was like a sister to me after what happened to Susan, and she was just taking lunch to her husband. They both went up in the last blast.”

  Chadrick sat down at the med unit’s computer terminal and started tapping in commands. “Tell us more about what you’re facing.”

  “That’s the biggest problem, Chad. We don’t know… not for certain anyway. We see the effects, that’s for sure, but we don’t have any real witnesses.”

  “You’re just guessing it’s the Refuti?” Putty asked, rejoining them. “Sure, you have a brand on this guy’s butt, but how many people know about the brand? Somebody might be trying to throw the blame onto them. I mean, do they even have a presence here?”

  Bruce looked again at the brand and then shoved the body back into cold storage. “It’s an educated guess, Mr. Monroe. We’re one of the Refuti Mining Corp’s few competitors. And we’re the smallest, easiest to take out, especially with us being so far from the rest of what the Colarium considers ‘civilized’ space.”

  Flynn clenched his jaw. Sukiyaki wasn’t more than a week’s hop from “civilized” space. It was the less than profitable, rustic lifestyle inured by the climate and storms that didn’t appeal to the so-called “benevolent” government.

  Bruce waved for the others to follow him and Flynn fell in behind the barkeep.

  As they made their way to the door, Bruce said, “The Refuti may have been a legitimate corporation at some point, but they’ve taken advantage of the fact the Colarium looks the other way, and we’ve all had to pay the price for it. Now they’re just thugs; pirates, really.”

  Bullets peppered the side of the modular medical facility. Bruce shoved everyone back inside.

  “Who the hell is shooting at us?” Flynn yelled. The gun in his hand was useless with Bruce blocking him from a clear shot.

  Ignoring Flynn, Bruce
edged toward the door and shouted.

  “Seamus! Stop that right now. You’re going to get somebody killed – likely your damned fool self.”

  “Bruce?” A quiet, squeaky voice came back.

  Flynn stepped out from behind the bartender, gun leveled at the mouse-voiced man’s head…. or it would have been. Two feet below his aim, a bright red cowboy hat sat atop a boy’s head. He couldn’t have been over eight years old… maybe nine.

  “Are you so desperate you’re arming school boys?” Flynn asked, holstering his gun. Death by pre-teen; that would make Archimedes laugh.

  “How old are you, Son?” Flynn asked the little face under the hat brim. “Put that thing down before you hurt someone.”

  “I’m old enough to have a gun.” Seamus did as he was told, with a theatrical stamping of his foot and two fists on his hips.

  Flynn turned to give Bruce a disparaging look. “He’s barely out of diapers!”

  “AM NOT!” The kid pulled his gun again, holding it with a steady hand and cocked the hammer.

  At this distance, the boy couldn’t hope to miss. Flynn would be dead, or mortally wounded, and the town would have Chadrick and Putty to deal with their mess – could this get any worse?

  “Son, have you ever shot a man?” Flynn asked.

  “No, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t.”

  “Whether you can or can’t isn’t the question. Anyone can shoot anyone else. What you need to be concerned about is how you’ll feel afterwards. Sure, you can shoot me. A lot of people out there in the black want to. And not just because they got hurt by something I said. But think about how you’ll feel afterwards.”

  The boy was too young to hear this lecture, but Flynn continued. “You could lie to everyone – to yourself – and claim I was armed, but you and I both know I’m not pulling my gun on you. You’re just a boy. You may want to be more than that right now, but you’re not. You’ve got a hell of a lot of time ahead of you before you want to start making decisions along the lines of who deserves the bullet in that chamber.”

  Seamus’s little mouth screwed up and his face turned an identical shade to the hat on his head, but he un-cocked the gun and stuffed it back in his hip holster.

  Bruce pulled Flynn away as Chadrick went to talk to the boy.

  “You have to understand, Mr. Monroe. Seamus is Kalen’s youngest son. He’s grieving. Both of his parents were killed in one of the blasts. He’s young and confused, and he’s pissed off, and he needs to do something.”

  “So you gave him a gun?” Flynn said the words as quietly as he could. He didn’t want the boy to throw a tantrum and start with the high-noon stuff again.

  “Out here, kids learn to shoot almost as soon as they learn to walk. I didn’t give him anything. His parents are dead. He and his brother inherited their house and everything inside it. What Jemoa lets his brother do is up to him. He’s the legal guardian now.

  Flynn groaned. “Please tell me the other boy is past puberty.”

  “He’s nearing sixteen, but he’s just as pissed off as his little brother.”

  “Good.”

  “What?” Bruce’s left eye narrowed.

  “Say you’ve actually got a war here. The only way to win a war is to make sure everyone here is pissed off…. Well, I might leave the kids out of it.”

  “So, you’re in?” Chadrick asked, stepping back from his conversation with the boy.

  Flynn nodded, turning to the barkeep. “If a little boy is willing to stand up for you… I guess I can too”

  “Thank you, I’ll go tell Henri.” Bruce hurried away, dragging the boy with him, and Flynn checked the time on the clock tower.

  He looked up to see Putty’s glance shift from the boy, to Bruce walking quickly away, to him. “We are not staying.”

  “By all means, Putty, go. I’m staying to help these people.”

  Growling, Putty turned with fists clenched. “You know, there are days I honestly consider fraternicide”

  Flynn bit his tongue to keep from smiling – to keep from correcting him. “Use smaller words, Putty. I am a high school drop out after all.”

  Putty glared at him. When he spoke, it was through clenched teeth and with slow, clear words. “I’m going to kill you.”

  “You two never stop, do you!” Chadrick said, standing beside Putty, his smile pinched, his shoulders shaking.

  Flynn let him laugh. If things continued the way they were currently shaping up, there would be little laughter to go around later.