Black Hole Sun Read online

“We’ve some food to share later,” the old woman says.

  “Not much,” Áine says quickly. “We miners ain’t used to eating like you rich folk.”

  “We understand,” I say, trying to keep to the subject at hand.

  “Understand like blazes,” Jenkins blusters. “Them rusters out there, they looked fat enough to me. We come thousands of kilometers on TransPort, walk an hour through tunnels, and you ain’t even decent enough to feed us? Don’t cry poor to me. You got food hid, I know you do. Ain’t like miners not to have something set back.”

  “Poor thing,” Ockham interrupts. “His belly’s empty, and he’s at nobs end about it. Shame, no? Tell me, chief, do you have to change this boy when you’re done feeding him? Or is wiping his own ass something he’s capable of?”

  Jenkins whips a combat knife out of his boot. “How’s I wipe your ass with this, oldie?”

  Ockham yawns.

  “Stop it,” I say in a low voice that echoes off the rock walls. “Both of you.”

  “You’ll not be giving me orders, chief,” Ockham says. “It’s not you paying my freight.”

  “I’m in charge of this job,” I snap. “And I say no bickering. You don’t like that? Find yourself different work. I don’t care a whit who’s paying your damned freight.”

  “Is there a problem?” the woman asks. Beside her, Áine smiles coyly. Plays with a strand of brown hair.

  “We’re just cranky from the TransPort,” I say. “It’s been a long ride.” I clear my throat and introduce my davos.

  “Welcome, all of you,” she says. “You met Spiner, Jurm, and Áine before. I’m named Maeve, but the miners call me old woman.”

  “It fits,” Jenkins says.

  Fuse slaps him.

  “Ow! Oy, I’m just speaking the truth.”

  “Yes,” Maeve says, “he’s right. It does fit. But we got off to a bad start. My apologies for the greeting you got. As I said, miners are wary folk by nature.”

  Jenkins huffs. Fuse elbows him. Maeve ignores them both.

  “Now to business,” she says. “These past months, we were raided by the Draeu again and again. They attack out of nowhere, take what children they can carry, then disappear. We all know what the Draeu do to children. CorpCom law is useless out here, and we’ve got no weapons nor training in defending ourselves, so I sent Áine to hire a Regulator to train us. Blessedly, you all came instead, but we know that if we rise against the Draeu, they will try to kill us all.”

  “Which is why you need us to force them to move on,” I say.

  “Move on? Tch.” Áine clicks her tongue softly. “Not likely, handsome.”

  Maeve pats Áine’s hand, a loving gesture that I interpret to mean Enough with the flirting. “What Áine is trying to say is, the Draeu are not reasonable folk, so them moving on would not be achievable.” Maeve goes on to state the terms of the contract and what will bring the final payout. “Either the Draeu are defeated, or they agree to sign a blood oath to never attack this outpost again.”

  “The Draeu sign a blood oath?” Mimi says. “Not likely, handsome.”

  I can’t help but smile. But across the table, Áine smiles in return. Oh no. What have I done?

  “Stepped in it,” Mimi says.

  Maeve unrolls a sheath of electrostat. The contract is imprinted on it, and there’s a box for my thumbprint. I scan the document to make sure it’s all kosher, but I pause with my thumb hovering over the signature line.

  “Before I endorse this. Once I’m in charge, I’m in charge of everything: fortifying defenses, training your folk in the use of weaponry, defeating the enemy in battle. You provide the support, the materials, and the food.”

  “We’ve not,” Áine says, “promised to just turn ourselves for you to use any way you’d like, Regulator.”

  “But if that is what needs done, then we’ll do it,” the old woman says. “We agree to your terms. Our lives are in your hands.”

  “You can count on us,” I say.

  “Let’s see if you can still say that,” Áine murmurs, shifting the weight off her wounded leg, “after you’ve had a taste of the Draeu.”

  In battle school, our masters drilled this mantra into our heads: All warfare is based on deception. From the recon we could pry out of the miners, the Draeu have a hundred fighters. We have five Regulators, a pint-sized acolyte, and about forty ornery miners. So my first job is to deceive the Draeu into thinking we’ve got beaucoups more personnel than that and the personnel is well-trained.

  My other job is to make use of the skills the miners have to build defensive structures to control the enemy’s route into the mines. If the Draeu can’t reach the Cross, then they can’t attack. The problem is, there are dozens of tunnels, and we can’t defend them all.

  “There are forty-two tunnels, to be exact,” Mimi says.

  Vienne, Áine, and I stand in the dim light of Hell’s Cross. Our faces are illuminated by the glow of a open electrostat, which displays a cross-section map of the Fisher Four mine. From this angle, it looks like an ant colony. The tipple and ore houses are on the surface. Six different lifts lead to the tramway. Twelve different exit stations lead to elevators connected to the maze of underground stations. Most of the active mine shafts and worker settlements are a kilometer south and four hundred meters below us.

  Vienne looks over my shoulder, pointing out the route that we took to reach the Cross via Crazy Town, and Áine stands close, pointing out landmarks.

  “So we have forty-two tunnels of varying sizes,” I say, tracing the lines with my finger. “All of them lead either directly or indirectly to the four main corridors that lead to the Cross. There are only a handful of paths the Draeu can use to attack with a large force, like the way we came in. But there are too many spots where they can send in a skirmish line to harass us.”

  “‘You can ensure the safety of your defense if you only hold positions that cannot be attacked,’” Vienne says, quoting from The Art of War and glaring at Áine.

  “Right,” I say. “So we’re going to do this in two phases. First, we’ll close all but one of the corridors.”

  “Why not close them all?” Áine asks. Then sticks her tongue out at Vienne.

  “Because we want the Draeu to attack,” I explain.

  “What?” Áine squeaks. “That’s madness!”

  “No, it’s plumbing. We know the water is going to flow. We just decide where it’s shunted to. Which brings us to the second phase.” I tap the map. Sweep my fingers across it. “This corridor leads to a bridge, which leads to where?”

  “The surface,” Áine says. “And we call that the Zhao Zhou Bridge. You’d never heard of it? We use it when we go foraging. But it’s full of junked-up machines.”

  “Which makes it perfect,” I say. “The debris will slow down any rush attacks, and the Zhao Zhou Bridge will funnel them into our redoubt.”

  “Our what?”

  “Redoubt,” Vienne says, smirking. “A defensive structure designed to fight against sieges.”

  Áine sticks out her chin, letting Vienne know that she doesn’t appreciate her little lecture. “Well, Miss Know-it-all, we don’t have one of those here.”

  “No problem,” I say. If I don’t do something about their bickering now, there will never be an end to it, and it might jeopardize the job. Then I hit on a plan. “No problem at all. In fact, you’re going to build us one.”

  Áine chokes. “Excuse me? You’re having a laugh, right? We don’t know about building redoubts or whatever you call them.”

  It’s my time to smirk. “Vienne is going to show you.”

  “Chief!”

  “Not her!” Áine snarls. “There’s a fair suck of salve!”

  “Tough.” I roll up the electrostat. “I’ve got to talk to Fuse. There’s some blasting to do, and he’s the right one for the job. You two enjoy yourselves. And oh, you’ve got twenty-four hours to get the job done.”

  “Twenty-four hours?” they chime toget
her.

  “But how?” Áine says.

  “With what?” Vienne asks.

  “You’re both smart girls,” I say. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

  As I walk away, a silent argument rages. I grin and ask Mimi to locate Fuse for me.

  “Fuse is on the Zhao Zhou Bridge,” Mimi says. She shows me his coordinates on the aural vid. “You know what was going on back there, don’t you?”

  “Yep. I decided to let them hash it out.”

  “Hash what out, precisely?”

  “Their little turf war. We’ve got to be one unified force against the Draeu, so the sooner they learn to cooperate, the better.”

  Mimi is silent, but I have the unnerving feeling that if she still had a head, she would be shaking it.

  “What?” I say.

  “Sometimes, cowboy,” she says, “I wonder if you are as dense and impenetrable as symbiarmor.”

  “I am who I am,” I say, and head out to check out the bridge.

  When the corridor ends, I step out into an open cavern. All around me, there are high cliffs. Check that. Not really cliffs. Cuts. Most of the walls of the massive cavern were cut by machines. Cut from the walls in large chunks so that the walls look like steps to a giant’s house. It’s like an open pit mine underground. The walls are dark brown but look black where the overhead array of lights doesn’t touch them. It feels like there’s no end to the cavern, but the lack of a sky overhead leaves me feeling claustrophobic. It doesn’t help that a deep gorge splits the cavern in half, and that the gorge is supposed to be bottomless.

  As casually as I can, I walk to the edge of the gorge and toss a chunk of rock into its black maw. I count off seconds, waiting for the sound of it hitting bottom. When I get to one hundred, I quit.

  Thank God for bridges, I think, and start walking toward Fuse.

  The Zhao Zhou Bridge measures about one hundred fifty meters in length and is twelve meters wide. Built of slabs jointed with dovetails, the main semicircle arch rises high above the gorge that separates the corridor leading to Hell’s Cross from a wide cliff on the opposite end. There are ornamental railings on either side and an arched swing gate on each end.

  The deck of the bridge is littered with the carcasses of broken machines and tools. Which will have to be cleared. Off to the right, I count six heavy cranes. Rust covers the cockpits where operators once sat, and the massive cables that hang from their booms lay in heaps beside the treads. Farther away, near the side tunnels, I see an endless supply of shipping containers stacked ten high. In the before days, they were used to transport ore via the beanstalks. Now they’re scattered like a gigantic child’s building blocks. Building blocks. There’s a thought.

  “Mimi,” I say, “keep scanning the area. Let me know if you pick up anything.”

  “Will do,” she says. “But cowboy, these repetitive scans are putting a strain on your suit’s capacity and therefore, you. Your body needs to sleep.”

  “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

  “Which will happen sooner than later if you do not rest.”

  “In the meantime, give me a pinch if I start nodding off.”

  When I reach Fuse, he’s holding a piece of electrostat. But it’s turned upside down, and he’s scratching his head like the map’s an impossible puzzle. Clearly, cartography is not this soldier’s forte.

  Fuse jumps when I sneak up behind him. “Oy! Chief!” He pats his chest. “You almost gave me a coronary. Let a jack know you’re coming, right?”

  “Sorry, Fuse,” I say, turning his map to the correct direction. “First order of business is for you to close up every secondary and tertiary tunnel connected to this corridor. We’re going to funnel the Draeu from that main tunnel over there and across this bridge to a redoubt that Vienne and Áine are designing.”

  “So that’s a bridge?” He points at the map.

  “As in, the one you’re standing on?”

  “Oh, right. I see now. That’s more like it. So, I’m to shut down a bunch of tunnels. Right. What’ve I got to work with?”

  “Anything you can scavenge to do the job. If it’s not nailed down, use it.”

  Fuse surveys the area, pointing out the small mountains of discarded machinery and mining equipment. “I dunno, chief. Not much here that’s not falling apart. What about the cranes? They might be handy for moving some junk around. Think they still work?”

  “Fix them if they don’t,” I say. “Also, the old woman Maeve says there’s some C-forty-two in storage if you need it for closing down the tunnels. In the before days, miners used it for blowing tunnels.”

  “Explosives?” Fuse’s eyes light up. “This changes everything.”

  I give his shoulder a shake. “Thought it might.” I turn to leave but find Jenkins at my elbow.

  “Fuse is going to blow things up?” he asks.

  “He is.”

  Jenkins’s eyes sparkle. “Can I help?”

  “No carking way!” Fuse says. “Remember the last time you helped? I lost both my eyebrows.”

  “Aw. They grew back.”

  “The miners are collecting scrap in the back,” I say, cutting their argument short. “How about you lend a hand?” I steer Jenkins away from Fuse and toward the archway that leads to the Cross. “Gives you a chance to show off your muscles.”

  Jenkins grumbles. Looks longingly at Fuse, who has already climbed into the cockpit of a crane. He tries to crank the motor, but all we hear is the clicking of a solenoid. He’s got his work cut out for him.

  “Come on, Jenkins.” I’ve got no idea what job to give him to occupy his hands, but I breathe easy knowing he won’t be near the explosives.

  “Cowboy,” Mimi interrupts. “I have an urgent message from Maeve.”

  “Hold up a second, Jenkins,” I say. Then tell Mimi to route Maeve through. “Put it on aural.”

  “Durango,” she says, her voice popping with the bad connection. “We have a situation with you and yours. It’s Ockham. He’s causing a ruckus.”

  That scheißkerl. I’ve had about all I can swallow of him. “What kind of ruckus?”

  “It’s better you see it in person,” she says. “Please come to the Cross. Before somebody gets killed.”

  “The scrap collection will have to wait,” I tell Jenkins. Then signal Vienne and Fuse to join us in the Cross. “Seems there’s a patch of trouble with Ockham.”

  “There’s always trouble with that oldie,” Jenkins says, almost under his breath. “Is it time to shoot him yet?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  “Can I shoot him when you do decide?”

  “No. Vienne can.”

  “Aw,” Jenkins says. “I never get to have any fun.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Hell’s Cross, Outpost Fisher Four

  ANNOS MARTIS 238. 4. 0. 00:00

  We find Ockham leaning against the bishop’s statue. He has peeled off his armor, his wad of clumpy hair tied at the neck, and he stands observing Jean-Paul Bramimonde. The boy crouches low, unmoving, naked except for a linen loincloth, while a group of six miners form a loose ring around him. There are cuts on his back and shoulders, his body caked with guanite dust.

  He’s attached by the ankle to a cable. The cable is spiked to the ground. It’s one of the barbaric methods the old Regulators once used to train their acolytes.

  The miners are laughing, each of them wielding a makeshift weapon—crowbars, heavy wrenches, and a welding torch—and egging the boy on. Jean-Paul’s eyes widen. Flecks of foam fly from his mouth as he lunges at Jurm. But the cable tied to his ankle snaps taut, and he belly flops onto the ground. He comes up spitting dust and frothing.

  “Tch, boy,” Jurm teases him. “Is that all you’ve got?”

  “Use your ears, lad.” Ockham spits on the steps. Wipes brown juice from his mouth. “Not your eyes.”

  Tobacco, I think as Vienne and I close in on the circle. Where did he get the coin for tobacco? “Ockham,” I say sharpl
y, “explain yourself!” Although I already know the answer.

  “Training,” he says, not looking at me.

  “Training?” Vienne says, taking her place beside me. “That boy is about to get his brains mashed out.”

  “Care to wager on that?” Ockham says. Then bellows at Jean-Paul, “I said, stay low. That’s it. Low! Balance and leverage. Put your weight on the back foot. Back foot!”

  “Do something,” Áine calls to me, entering the Cross from a corridor.

  Vienne snarls, “It’s not for a miner to tell a chief how to handle his Regulators.”

  “This is my home,” Áine snarls back at her. “So I’ll say what I like. Want to make something of it?”

  I can tell Vienne wants very much to make something of it, but she can’t hurt someone she’s sworn to protect. It’s in the Tenets. Otherwise, I’m sure Áine would be finding herself in horrible pain and a part of her body in a cast.

  But the fact remains that Áine challenged my authority in front of my davos. So, now, even though I was about to call a halt to the exercise, I have to stand and wait. Just to prove to her and the rest of the miners that they can’t give us orders. It’s a piddling contest, and I despise piddling in public.

  Áine is huffing in frustration when, without a word, I turn my back on her. Vienne looks pleased. Wish I were.

  “Piddling contests are in the job description,” Mimi says. “It’s part of being chief.”

  I ignore her, too. Focus on the fight. The real problem at hand.

  Jean-Paul drops back into a crouch. He makes a chuffing sound to focus his chi. It’s classic Regulator hand-to-hand combat training—a fighting style called tai bo that fuses Earther martial arts with physics. In battle school I was trained in the same style. But we faced other acolytes of the same age and size. Not grown men who outweighed us three-to-one and carried heavy, metal tools.

  “Mimi,” I say.

  “Yes?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “Just a random reflex.” But in my mind’s eye, I’m picturing myself standing at attention in front of my first davos while Mimi, my new chief, sized me up.