A chance

How could one make amends when so much was broken? How could one even find a way to start when the other had fled to the farthest reaches of Final-Edge? Paul Kalman ached in places he knew a medical scan would never find the source of. His judgement then had been clouded by anger. Now it stung with regret. And even though he had a job to do, every minute of it was interrupted by a memory of her, played back across his mind in harsh clarity. Even here, on the Inner-Edge planet of Hilmir, thousands of lightyears from deep space where… someplace… she was waiting.

But he had a job to do.

The person Paul was tracking had a grade-S Armablast bomb surgically implanted where his right kidney had once been. He knew from the quick infrared scan he had stolen during his toilet break. Any hint of a compromise and his target’s innards would very soon become his outers, catapulted and instantaneously incinerated by a two kiloton blast. It was the last thing Paul wanted. Not just because it would reduce thousands of people to ash, but because it would turn the Home-Hold Alliance’s most valuable weapons smuggling business into a crater of molten metal.

He had once walked through the devastation of atomics with Sarah. They had written a joint article about it afterward, both so passionate to reveal the horror of radiation poisoning and the after shadows of those within the initial fireball; they had worked through the night… together. So close. Paul clutched his rake in response to an agony he could not place.

But he had a job to do.

Rain and the reactor fallout of starships pattered loudly on his hood. He stood shin deep in a sloppy mixture of mud and red nutrient fluid, one which he was meant to be scraping across the Scalka plantations that stretched around him for thousands of acres. From above, the lander platforms of Hilmir’s multi-cluster spaceport loomed. Vast stretches of steel and concrete – most fifty miles in length – disappearing off towards the grey horizon, with support columns, thick enough to hold cities, keeping them aloft and casting the entire, forgotten world below in an eternal twilight.

Paul took a moment to stare up at it all and steadied himself against his spreading rake as his bionic eye once again zoomed in with dizzying speed on his target. At this hour he was loitering on gangway 74. That morning’s shipment had just left and the midday cargo vessel of manufactured parts was due any moment now.

Suddenly, there was another man that caught his eye. He recognized him only from the specific way in which he walked and the hand he always kept tucked within the fold of his trailing trench coat. From the public shuttle craft he ambled his way to the escalators and began to ascend into the spaceport itself.

There was a whir of wind and a loud buzzing and then Paul found himself with normal vision, being addressed by a robotic voice.

“Worker not focussed.”

Paul looked to the overseer’s drone, to the piercing red beam fixed upon him and the angles of black metal swept with rain. Out the corner of his eye he saw the other countless hooded figures dispersed along the plantation momentarily freeze, like the ghostly stumps of a burnt and cleared forest. Paul lowered his head and carried on scraping. The others whose real job this was followed suit. And the drone whizzed away.

I will have to wait until later to meet him.

He carried on dispersing the nutrient fluid for three more hours, slowly crawling his way up the plantation with the others. Lunch arrived and he sat huddled with them underneath a weak matter-field to keep the rain off as they guzzled cold every-juice out of cold cantinas with their even colder hands.

“Wha’ playin’ at Cram?” one of the hooded strangers aimed at Paul in the local Hilmir slur.

He tightened his own throat, relaxed his mouth and drawled back, “S’gazing, s’all.”

There was a gesture of the head to show affirmation, and the stranger got back to his lunch.

“Punshment ya wha’?” said another.

“No mor’n scran.”

Another nod.

The slurping sounds took precedence and their dull break dragged out for ten more minutes, when finally 13:05 standard time approached and Paul announced he needed to relieve himself. He trudged out into the slop and the rain, and headed for the trench that sloped into the spaceport’s sewage outlet. He stood slightly down its east bank and had to breathe through his mouth whilst he forced something out.

There had been a time when a similar stench clawed at his throat. He had been walking side by side with her through the slums of a refugee cluster tucked away beneath a spaceport much smaller than Hilmir’s. They had interviewed those huddling there with not a bucket to spit in and only a canvass to protect them from starship fallout. Paul yearned to be there with her, even in such a place and surrounded by that nightmare, if only to weather it together. But where could he begin? Every quick search he had conducted to find her came back with nothing. She was gone.

Job! Needs doing.

Paul spied for his target through his bionic eye. Everything he did was recorded this way too and broadcast back to the Hope Front Rebels when he linked with the coms hub up top. The HFR wanted to know every single item being moved, at what time, and where they were all going. But most importantly, and also why Paul was being forced to wade through these grim fields, they wanted to know why the HHA were so interested in additionally shipping Scalka. Because once the midday shipment had left, his target would descend to the squaller below and make sure several hundred tons of the stuff was loaded into train carriages and taken to a space-dock.

Paul finished up and readied himself. Today was the day. It was all lined up. The overseer was bought and the device was in his pocket. This was the last shift he would hopefully need to pull in this muck infested underworld.

Like a host of dark, upright slugs the workers of plantation 22E waded back across the red, brown, grey and blue fields. They laid their rakes across the nutrient fluid and like every other day, began spreading. Paul made sure to position himself by the hovering cargo container that followed in their wake. Inside sat the overseer: the manager of this section, the man Paul’s target was about to meet for the shipment. And down he now came in his private cruiser, crackling its thrusters over the rain and blasting strong gusts across all the hooded figures, who braced in its wake. During this small distraction, Paul slipped the device into his hand and shook the long sleeve of his plastic coat down to hide it. The cruiser landed and the whirring of the overseer's drone got everyone back to work.

Within an hour, Paul had put down his spreading rake for the last time.

Sunset was slowly approached. After escaping unnoticed from the plantations and making the long ascent up a supporting pillar, Paul stood level with the clouds as they pressed up against the spaceport’s matter-field like hungry children against the glass windows of a sweet shop. He had his modest clothing donned. A trailing trench coat of midnight blue brushed ankle high boots, with a collared jacket beneath, trimmed with red linings that matched those on his matte black trousers. The plantation was replaced with pristine white tiles, the workers with crowds of travellers swarming the docks. A pain flickered across his eyes as he watched the gangways.

He heard himself calling out for her. That day she had chosen a space cruiser not too dissimilar from the one that was docked a few hundred metres from him. He had come to realise his mistake only in the last moment and by that time the hundreds of people he was trying to push past had been too much. He had taken too long. The barriers had gone up, the thrusters had kicked in, and she had shot away from him at a steady Mach 4.

“Enjoying the change in scenery?”

So it was him, no doubt. Paul continued to stare straight ahead as he replied, “Anything is a joy after that.”

There was a pause, then the man in his matching trench coat nodded. “Walk with me.”

Paul obliged and it was not until they had cleared the immense lander platform and strolled into a deserted alcove holding several giant steel cables which helped support such a monolith, that the man spoke again.

“So, mission success?” His voice echoed eerily beneath the coils of steel thicker than skyscrapers. Paul managed to get a quick glimpse of Isaac. He appeared exhausted and had grown out an unkept stubble of grey hairs. His long hair was swept back and shined with grease, but a strong whiff of cologne kept any other signs of neglect at bay. This war was taking its toll.

“The Scalka is being taken to Varek. I have the confession recorded.”

“Varek? They’re using it to make… drugs?”

“Or the drug facilities are a coverup,” suggested Paul.

"Hmm... well... in any case, I’m impressed. How’d you make him slip that without the Armablast going off?”

“The computer within has a three second window for common interferences such as EMP. I made a device to shut it down for just under that, the moment he said the key word, which I guessed to be Varek.”

“And how’d you ask him?”

“Blackmailed the overseer. By the time he realises it was a bluff, cleanup will have got to him.”

Isaac fell silent and they continued over the dusty concrete.

But Paul had known there was something off about his friend's composure ever since he had spied him from the plantations.

“Why are you here, my friend? I was not informed of your arrival.”

“I… it’s…”

Isaac was not usually one to stumble over his words. Paul felt the pain return.

“If it’s important, have out with it.”

“It’s Sarah,” Isaac blurted. He deflated then, expelling a long sigh as if he had been holding his breath since coming planet side.

Paul stopped. News of her discovery would go either one of two ways. One of those ways included his most trusted friends finding her first. Only they would bring the information to him. Which meant that if it was disclosed to him in any other way than joy and relief, it meant someone else had got to her first. That someone else being either the HFR or the HHA, for she knew one of the largest kept secrets within all three Edges.

“Which one found her?”

Isaac halted a few paces ahead, his back facing Paul.

“Isaac, tell me!” demanded Paul.

The latter’s back straightened up and he turned, bringing his arms solemnly behind him.

“Paul… I regret to inform you that at 07:34 Junfar Standard time, Sarah was taken into custody by the Home-Hold Alliance…”

Paul’s knees buckled.

“…she is currently being held within a top security detention facility on Home-Hold 3.”

The concrete met his legs, his head drooped and he welcomed the physical pain, if only to distract him from everything else. Around him, his trench coat lay like fallen wings.

“I’m so sorry.”

It was the worst outcome. There was no hope for amends now. If the HHA had her, it was torture and then execution for knowing what she knew, what Galactic Truth really was. He should have followed her instead of accepting that offer when he had discovered the secret too. He could have been there to hold them off, to take her place while she escaped.

He let a small groan of despair escape his lips. Gone. Truly gone. He had been tearing himself apart waiting to receive news on her whereabouts. How ironic it was to dread their ultimate arrival.

Never again would he see that face and smile at that smile–

No! Paul got one boot beneath him and hauled himself up.

“I will not leave it how I did,” he told Isaac.

Worry sprouted across that old face. “There’s nothing you can do, my friend.”

“No, I refuse to accept that. I’m getting her out. I need… to fix this.”

“We’re just spies, Paul, not an entire assault squad!” pressed Isaac, hurrying to catch up as the former broke into a swift stride to the landing platform.

“I’m not asking you to come with me.”

“This is suicide. Please from one friend to another, we have to plead with the council to send in a unit to break her out before the secret is forced from her.”

Paul grimaced at the image that flashed across his mind. A dark chair, an even darker room, Sarah screaming in agony with torturers in white coveralls peering over her.

“By the time they’ve got their asses in gear and deployed a squad it’ll be too late. Look…” Paul stopped and grasped Isaac’s shoulders, “…I’m going in, regardless of the odds. Contact the HFR, use any connections you have, get a squad there to pick us up.”

“Paul–”

“We don’t have time, Isaac! Go!” He pushed his friend forward towards the docks.

Isaac paused and his expression gave way. He knew it was useless to argue. “Alright. I’ll get a squad there. On my life, Paul, I’ll have someone to get you out.”

Paul nodded and watched as the flapping trench coat disappeared into the deepening red glow streaming from the landing platform. His route, however, was up an elevator to the express shuttles. And as he looked down through the glass of the free-fall chute, his bionic eye zooming in on Isaac frantically plugging into a coms hub amidst the swell of tourists pouring from a cruise-starship, he reassured himself that he would return safely. That they would be back... and amends could be made.