Bones are Made to be Broken Read online

  “Nelson and Rocco?” Grimes asked.

  They looked at the end of the cabin. The rear compartment hatch was almost completely unrecognizable.

  Newby wiped his mouth and asked, “The beacon?” His body trembled, his round face cheesy and coated in sweat.

  “Tripped when we crashed,” Stephens said absently. He shouldered past Grimes and went to the cockpit. Newby shrugged at Grimes, a brief spasm of his shoulders, and started for the storage compartments which had been below the bench seats but were now overhead.

  Grimes considered the blood-smeared outer-hatch, which resembled crinkled tinfoil someone had tried flattening smooth again. There was protocol here, but it escaped him completely. Mentally, he felt like he was punching against a soft, suffocating cushion. Shock from the crash, he supposed.

  The last one, he thought. He sensed he was pleading, but didn’t know to whom. Not god. He’d stopped believing in god when the UPF sent him to the frontlines as a “morale booster.” The last goddam one before I got back to Janey.

  He mentally shook himself. “What do we know of this place other than it’s a mining colony?”

  “Rocco was the know-it-all,” Newby said, awkwardly carrying three of the opaque emergency helmets. “Tartan-6 went off the grid early, though, which is weird considering how far from the frontlines they were. Air’s breathable but thin, hence the helmets.”

  Stephens stooped in front of the cockpit wreckage and pulled a palm-sized black square from a glob of grue. When he turned, Grimes saw it was a memory-chip from one of the pilot helmets.

  He noticed Grimes and Newby watching. “I flew missions with Moore before,” he said. “His people will want this.” He put the chip in his pocket and took a helmet from Newby. “What’s the equipment and weaponry look like?”

  “Still locked down,” Newby said. “The rifles are cracked, but the bolters look all right. One of Nelson’s tech doodads looks messed up, but that might be how it looks normally.”

  “At least the weapons survived,” Grimes said, staring at his exhausted reflection in his helmet faceplate. He tried again to shake the suffocating numbness and could manage only a vague bitterness. The last one, he half-pleaded to no one. “We all know how useful they’ve been thus far.”

  They got the outer-hatch open and, helmets on, stumbled outside.

  They’d crashed maybe a klick away from the colony, the transparent half-sphere nearly dominating the horizon. Mountains cut across the right and left.

  “Company,” Stephens said over the helmet comm. His helmet nodded towards a dune-buggy transport cresting a hill up ahead. The six men in the transport wore no Delta insignia.

  Grimes stiffened. UPF protocol stated Deltas met all visitors.

  A click in his helmet as a comm-link opened. “Quite a crash there, guys,” the man in the passenger seat said as the transport stopped. His eyes were bright behind his clear face-plate. “Any casualties?”

  “Four,” Stephens said. “We’re—”

  “The UPF ship,” the passenger finished. “I’ve been Station-hopping since you were kids. This isn’t my first re-contact.” He glanced at the ship and a pained expression crossed his face. “After all the UPF losses, any extra just seems tragic.”

  Grimes grimaced. The sentiment sounded robotic coming from this guy.

  “I’m Station Supervisor Dugan. These folks are—” Dugan flashed a toothy grin. “—the Welcome Committee.” He pulled a digipad from beside him and unclipped the stylus. “Okay. You said there were four casualties. They were …?”

  Stephens said, “Can’t we do this—”

  “Quicker this way,” Dugan interrupted. “The casualties …?”

  Stephens said, “Pilots George Richmond and Brad Moore, Cultural Guide Mike Rocco, UPF Alpha Gregory Stephens.”

  Grimes jerked. He opened his mouth—

  (—don’t say a word i know what i’m doing)

  The thought was as sharp as a knife-blade, as violating as a rape. Stephens’s voice, loud and clear and cold. His brain felt like it’d plummeted into an icy lake.

  Psi? he thought. Stephens’s a Psi? But that was only rumor—

  The jes-folks look left Dugan’s bumpkin face. “No military survived?”

  Stephens shook his helmeted head. “No.”

  Dugan’s face softened. “Who’re you folks, then?”

  “I’m FedShip Tech Fred Nelson,” Stephens said. He gestured at Grimes and Newby. “This is UPF representative Owen Grimes, and mining rep Phillip Newby.”

  Dugan scratched across the digipad with a stylus. “Was your distress beacon tripped?”

  “The recorder was smashed upon impact.”

  “All right, then,” Dugan said. His eyes were bright. “Hop in back and we’ll take you to town.”

  “Why didn’t the military come out?” Grimes asked.

  Something shifted on Dugan’s face and suddenly the thousand-watt smile appeared pasted on. “Mr. Grimes, our soldiers went to war.”

  A hollow suddenly opened in Grimes’s chest. Colony-stationed soldiers never went to the front; it was UPF protocol, it was why there were Deltas. How could Dugan think Grimes wouldn’t know this?

  He thought of arguing, looked into Dugan’s face, and thought again. The Supervisor’s expression offered no answers; a true bureaucrat. You would never read Dugan’s inner feelings on anything unless he allowed you to. He was a cipher, broadcasting only what his job specified.

  You know your own, Grimes thought and felt sick suddenly. The migraine in the back of his head tightened a notch.

  Without a word, he climbed aboard with Stephens and Newby and the dune-buggy lurched into a U-turn. Grimes watched the ship, twisted and bent like a scorpion tail, disappear behind them.

  Stephens nudged him and nodded towards the space under the opposite benches.

  Grimes counted four military rifles clipped to the floor beneath the “Welcome Committee.”

  Cold air blew through the hollow in his chest. He’d shaken off the shock of the crash. Oh yes, indeed.

  Inside the dome’s igloo-shaped Entrance Chamber, they stripped out of their bloodied jumpsuits, leaving them with only white T-shirts and gray trousers. Grimes eyed Stephens’s muscular body warily. No one else on the ship had that type of honed form.

  Dugan and his “Welcome Committee” stood near the hatch leading into the dome proper as three bored-looking men pulled the DeCon hoses off the wall.

  “Don’t bother,” Dugan said. “We have places to be.” He gestured for Grimes, Stephens, and Newby to follow him through the hatch.

  It was at least ten degrees warmer under the dome. The Entrance Chamber led to the loading bay, an expansive field that took up a third of the entire station, where the colony’s payout was kept for transport. Motorized dogcarts were parked around towering shipping containers. Beyond, the “town” began—a collection of short, stout buildings on either side of a wide dirt road connecting the Entrance Chamber to the mining crater at the far end. Emergency spotlights ringed the town.

  “Welcome to Tartan-6, gentlemen,” Dugan said.

  An icepick shot into Grimes’s mind:

  (—ask where we’re going)

  His jaw wanted to lock, more from the idea of talking than the sudden violence of Stephens’s message. He had no helmet to hide his expression now. “Where are we going? I don’t think any of us are up for our duties.”

  Dugan glanced behind him. “Off to see the Chaplain.”

  He wasn’t able to hide his bewilderment. “Why—”

  “Are you sure that’s wise, Supervisor Dugan?” Newby asked suddenly.

  Dugan didn’t even look this time. “I don’t see why not.”

  “Quarantine,” Stephens said, almost absently.

  That stopped Dugan, and he turned slowly. “Quarantine?”

  Grimes cleared his throat. “According to UPF protocol, all crash survivors must be quarantined for twenty-four hours or until the cause of the crash is known.”


  Dugan’s bureaucratic façade cracked. “But our infirmary—”

  “I can assure you we’re perfectly healthy,” Newby said, “and we thank you for allowing us to skip DeCon, but we can’t speak for our pilots, or what they may have had.”

  “Are you familiar with Sparta-C, Supervisor?” Stephens asked.

  The façade was gone and Dugan was nonplussed. “I—well, yes—”

  “Then you’re aware of their cholera epidemic,” Grimes said. “That was our previous stop, and—”

  “We have no medics!” Dugan screamed.

  “We’re probably perfectly healthy,” Newby said.

  “Without a working infirmary,” Grimes asked, “is there somewhere else we might stay?”

  Dugan’s shoulders slumped. “The Delta barracks.”

  Grimes smiled his best bureaucratic smile. His head ached—a galloping black horse across the soft meat of his brain. “Given the importance UPF has for Tartan-6, no one wants any unnecessary risks taken.”

  The Welcome Committee looked decidedly uneasy—this wasn’t in the script. Their faces told Grimes that there very much had been a script, but to what? If Grimes hadn’t asked a question, what would’ve happened?

  Dugan looked at his watch. “Quarantine to begin at fifteen-thirty, per arrival at the barracks.” He visibly struggled to regain his former posture. “This way, please.”

  The procession began without its previous urgency. They reminded Grimes of kids forced to do their chores.

  They entered town. Gray, utilitarian buildings stared down at them, the windows and doors empty. Grimes could hear the syncopated chugging of the climate system.

  Where were the people? They might’ve been walking through forgotten stage-settings.

  “Nice place,” Newby said, eying the emptiness.

  Dugan missed his tone. “We’re strict about that. To be clean, to be orderly …” He trailed off. “It is of the utmost importance.”

  For what? Grimes thought. He looked down at the road and saw the dirt had been raked. The lines were the only things on the road. Not a single piece of trash or footprint anywhere.

  He looked at Dugan. What was this? Keeping the colony clean was important, but this was taken to its extreme.

  A nice town with very clean streets, he thought and shuddered.

  Ahead, he heard a rustling sound where the side streets intersected the main road. The rustling grew to a patterned roar and, like an opened floodgate, swarms of people suddenly flooded out onto the main road.

  Grimes stopped for the briefest instant and he thought he heard Newby gasp.

  A blast of cold in his head—

  (—don’t stop don’t you dare stop now—)

  —and Grimes found his footing again.

  The people, dressed in blue, grey, and green jumpsuits, surrounded them, lining the building fronts three deep. Grimes couldn’t read a single expression on any man, woman, or child. No one spoke. Their heads turned as one to watch the group pass.

  The sight of all those people, blank and uniform and eerily silent … they hurt his mind. His eyes couldn’t focus on any one person. They made his footsteps louder, his migraine more painful.

  The Welcome Committee took no notice of them. They might not have been there at all.

  Up ahead, cranes rose out of the wide crater of the mining pit. What must’ve been hanging mine dust cast a strange, flickering yellowish light over the various mining machinery.

  Dugan turned left, away from the pit, before Grimes could study it more closely. Behind them, Grimes thought he heard a deep sigh.

  He refused to look back. His flesh prickled and crawled.

  They passed the colony’s Congo Church—the only un-boxlike structure in town with its neo-Catholic pointed steeples and rounded corners.

  On the sermon display next to the front walk were two words:

  FREE IT!

  Free what? Grimes wondered.

  Dugan dumped them unceremoniously at the Delta barracks, a long L-shaped building outside of town. From one of the slit windows, Stephens watched them leave.

  “Aren’t they going to guard us?” Newby asked.

  Stephens turned away. “Why bother? There’s nowhere to go. Besides, who can they spare to guard us with the military gone?”

  “You think the civilians offed them?” Grimes asked. He looked around. The barracks could’ve housed a hundred soldiers.

  Stephens’s eyes darkened. “Yeah, although I don’t know how. Those rifles all but clinched it.” He frowned. “I think that whatever the civs are up to, military isn’t welcome.”

  “And that’s why you faked being Nelson,” Newby said, then winced.

  “Headache?” Stephens asked.

  “Since we landed.”

  He turned to Grimes. “You?”

  Grimes nodded.

  Stephens rubbed his temple. “Me, too. It’s the electro-magnetic field, I think. It’s …” He trailed off. “I bet compasses would be useless here.

  “You’re a Psi,” Grimes said. “Why didn’t you tell us? Jesus, when you sent that first message—”

  “Alphas aren’t encouraged to divulge it.” He looked at them. “You both from Earth?”

  They nodded.

  “I was raised on Ellis-7. Any child that tests high for Psi capabilities is sent there. Psi-abilities have something to do with the brain’s electrical impulses. It makes us very sensitive to any planet’s EMF. Tartan-6’s off the charts.”

  “You think that crashed our ship?” Newby asked.

  Stephens shrugged.

  Grimes paced the barrack’s central aisle, scrubbing his face with shaky hands. “Jesus fox-trotting Christ, what’s going on here? The military’s gone, the town is acting …” He couldn’t come up with a word to describe the faceless mass they’d seen. “… and you’re saying a planet’s EMF is all messed up.” He looked at Stephens and Newby. “Why the hell were we being taken to the Chaplain? Two-thirds of the Fed planets don’t even have religion.”

  Stephens rubbed the stubble on his cheek. “We’ll find out why soon enough. They won’t give us much time—twelve hours at most—before saying screw it. That’s not enough time for the beacon to draw anything useful.”

  “Then what?” Newby asked.

  Stephens merely looked at him.

  The Congo Church rose in Grimes’s mind.

  “Free it,” he muttered.

  Newby and Stephens stared at him as he shivered.

  Night on Tartan-6. Stars like cuts in black velvet shined brilliantly in alien constellations. Grimes would’ve happily given anything to be staring at Orion or Cassiopeia with Janey.

  They showered and changed into new jumpsuits. Newby found aspirin. Stephens begged off—he needed his head clear.

  There was nothing to do except stare at each other and watch the clock and ask themselves the same question over and over: How long do we have?

  Finally, Stephens headed for the door. “I’m going out.”

  “What for?” Grimes asked.

  “Get some clue of what’s going on. Maybe check the ship if I can.” He studied them. “Try to sleep. You might not get it later.”

  But sleep never felt further from Grimes when he lay down. The idea that he could wake up with Dugan standing daunted rest.

  He fell into a scratchy doze and dreamed of Janey, of seeing her in her gardening sun-hat, its floppy band obscuring her heart-shaped face. His relief in the dream was palpable, but tinged with uneasiness.

  He kept thinking he saw a pit out of the corner of his eye, flickering with a yellow light.

  Stephens’s haggard voice, calling down a well: “C’mon, Grimes.”

  Grimes opened his eyes to see Stephens and Newby standing above him, faces pale. He cried out as a lightning bolt of pain struck his head.

  Grimes sat up slowly. His muscles felt like cheap concrete, his bones made of crushed glass. Newby handed him four aspirin.

  “What’s it like outs
ide?” Grimes said, dry-swallowing the pills.

  “No signs of struggle. The Deltas are just gone.” He shook his head. “An untrained civilian population disposed of nearly one hundred Deltas and there isn’t a sign of battle anywhere? How in the hell did they do that?”

  “Those people didn’t look like they had any migraines,” Newby offered.

  Stephens nodded. “Yeah, so why us?”

  Grimes couldn’t think of a reason. “Anyone see you?”

  Stephens shook his head. “Everyone was standing around the crater. You noticed that yellowish … light? glow? … earlier? It’s coming from within the crater. Everyone was looking into it and sighing.”

  “Why?” Newby said.

  Confusion warred on Stephens’ face. “I don’t know.”

  Questions crammed Grimes’s aching head, inarticulate and impossible for Stephens to answer. “What’d you do, then?”

  “Went to the Entrance Chamber—no one was there—and out to the ship.”

  “Why’d you go out there at all?” Grimes asked. “The ship’s destroyed.”

  Stephens opened his Suit and pulled out three bolters, setting the boxy plastic-and-metal handguns on the bed. “For these.”

  Outside, Grimes heard nothing except the muted rumble of the climate-control systems. He could see no lights on anywhere. A soft breeze whistled between the buildings.

  He stopped suddenly. “Where’s the wind coming from?”

  Both wore incredulous expressions, which then melted into puzzlement. “How the hell do you get wind in a dome?” Newby muttered.

  They started again, heads down between hunched shoulders. Beneath the glow of the stars, the town was a rippled monolith of black.

  Grimes’s hand tightened over his bolter. He’d only handled one during training sessions. His combat experience had been strictly behind the front.

  They stopped at the edge of town, crouching down behind an outcropping of rock, and looked at the loading bay. There was a fair distance of open ground between here and the safety of the shipping containers.