Moonful of silver, p.14
Moonful of Silver, page 14
ESTEBAN
Past
Esteban woke with a gasp. He panted, trying to quell the thudding of his heart and get a bearing on his shadowed surroundings. Light from another room illuminated familiar shapes. Work boots by the closet. A small potted tree in the corner. A plant on the nightstand. Benito’s old bedroom.
Mine now. He clenched his fist, grasping wet sheets, sticky with sweat. Ghostly images from his nightmare flickered through his mind. Benito, bloody and broken. Benito asking him why. Esteban wiped his hand down his face and groaned. Even in death his brother got the best of him.
He eased his feet to the floor and cradled his head in his hands. More than anguish kept him there. The large bed was comfortable and the sheets soft. Not luxuriously soft, but better than anything else he’d had as a mere worker. He deserved this bed and he deserved the quality linens. It wasn’t fair for Benito to have gotten the best of everything while Esteban was always stuck with the leftovers.
Not anymore. I have your life now. He chuckled. All but Maria.
He grabbed a bottle from the nightstand and took a swig. The fire of alcohol burned his throat and settled onto his chest. The pain eased into warmth and he prayed for a calming buzz. He couldn’t take much more of this. Months had passed and he still had nightmares. The first time, he thought it was just a quirk—his mind coping with the act of taking his brother’s life. But it should’ve been dealt with by now, especially since this had been a long time coming. Both he and Benito had finally gotten what they deserved.
He ran his fingers through wet hair, grasping a clump in his fist and pulling. It hurt, but not as much as the tumbling in his gut. This wasn’t guilt. It couldn’t be. He deserved this life. And everything was going so well. He had complete control over the colony now. Sure, he’d had to get rid of a couple of Benito’s friends, but they’d attacked him. It was self-defense.
Not even Maria protested his leadership. She hated that her husband was gone, and she still blamed him, but she never once spoke out about his right to take over.
The doorbell rang. “Silt!” Esteban groaned as he checked the clock. He was supposed to be up a half-click ago to meet with the workers at the mines. Apparently, they had some concerns. Didn’t they understand he was doing everything he could?
He rose on shaky legs as his hangover pierced his skull. A quick rake of his fingers through his hair made him almost presentable as he ambled across the room. Opening the door brought a blast of cool air. The heaters worked well enough during Moonnight, but a deep-rooted chill still lingered.
“Boss?” Alessandro asked, concern wrinkling his forehead. He’d been the first to join Esteban from the colony after the captaincy was formalized. The first to pledge loyalty—even beating Diego and Ramone to the oath. In other words, a man with his priorities straight. If Esteban couldn’t trust a survivor like Alessandro, who was there in this dust-forsaken place to call brother, even just in name?
“Yeah. Yeah. I know. I’m late. I’m on it. Give me a few minutes.”
“You alright, boss? You look like you ate dust.”
Yeah, brother, Benito’s voice said. You look like you ate dust.
A pang stabbed through Esteban’s chest. That voice. So real, but it couldn’t be! He must’ve imagined it, even as it whispered right beside him. He glanced about involuntarily.
“Boss?” Alessandro said again.
Esteban waved him away. “I’m bueno. Just didn’t get much sleep is all. I’ll be ready in a minute.”
He closed the door, flinching as the hatch clicked shut. An eerie silence settled. He grabbed a bottle of liquor from the counter and drained another swig before carelessly slamming his fist on the wall. Glass rattled beside him. Esteban spun. Three other empty bottles rested on the counter along with a fourth on the coffee table and two on his nightstand.
He planted his hands on his hips and furrowed his brow. Had he really drunk that much? Naw. I just haven’t cleaned up lately.
Keep telling yourself that, Benito said.
Esteban whirled around, seeing no one. “Leave me alone! You’re dead, you silt-eater! Dead!”
The voice chuckled. I’ll always be here in your head, hermanito.
Esteban chugged the rest of the bottle.
Shut up, Benito. This is my colony now. Mine.
And nobody was taking it from him. There was no one banging down the door to Tranquility V. He’d won.
Finally.
So why in Lunar’s name couldn’t he get any dust-forsaken sleep?
LUNAR HQ
[Redacted]
Gah. This tastes foul.
Some things don’t improve with age.
Tastes fine to me.
If you think that’s what scotch is supposed to taste like, you’ve been up here too long.
You’re right. I’ve been up here ever since the ceasefire.
Why did you agree to pause the core program, Toku?
Because of the race.
You keep talking about this race, but will someone please tell me what it means!
It started off so well up here, you know. The mining. We were ahead of schedule. Drilled down to the core and set up domes and satellite teams and we were ready to pour in a new core. Give the Moon the mass it needed to retain an atmosphere, and then start it spinning. That’s when Earth West summoned me to a meeting. Said peace depended on it. So, naturally, I obliged. I’d been Earth East’s representative for so long, they’d stopped keeping tabs on me. So when I took a trip down to Earth West, nobody even knew I was there.
And that didn’t raise any alarm bells?
They showed me an impact analysis of the Moon’s colonization on the global economy. Something their tech boys had cooked up. Told me they were a few years behind Earth East in terms of manufacturing turnarounds.
Manufacturing?
That was the big sell of striving for the Moon, Jimbo.
What are you talking about?
Have you never read a history book?
Earth East and Earth West bankrolled LunarCore because of the profits it would make in pure resources alone.
Every printer needs materials. And Earth was at its limit.
Limit?
To the amount of materials it could afford to sacrifice. It still had to provide a home for all the people living on it. Earth couldn’t keep feeding the printers forever. So where better to source raw product than the Moon?
Except, Earth East was so far ahead in manufacturing technology. They’d figured out how to take the minerals up here and turn them into what we needed down there. If we’d kept up with the core program, they would have monopolized the markets by producing at an accelerated rate. They were winning the race of mass production at a planetary scale. Earth West would have fallen so far behind, they’d have disappeared from the map. The only way to stop Earth East from global domination would have been an all-out war.
And you believed they’d go to war over it?
Didn’t matter what I believed. They needed time and were prepared to do anything to get it. What other choice did I have?
Blackmail! You were blackmailed! They can’t do that. It’s against so many laws.
You think money obeys laws? Laws are there to serve nations, not the other way around.
No wonder Mallory felt so betrayed.
Ah, yes. Mallory. She had a different take on the whole thing, of course. Thought the idea of a sustainable Moon would change the economic climate back on Earth. Was convinced their analysts had overlooked the Moon’s controlling factor.
She didn’t want you to cave to their demands.
And you sided with me, remember, Ronin?
At the time, yes. And I’ve regretted it ever since. But it’s not too late. We can still make it right.
By breaking the ceasefire. Yes, I know. Isn’t that why we’re drinking?
You mean, you’re going to do it? We’re going to fill the core?
It’s like you said, we either starve or eat each other. What other choice is there?
We should have listened to her. She’d have still been here with us instead of buried somewhere in the badlands.
Everything dies eventually. It’s just a question of how.
Cheery.
Alright. Let’s brighten the mood, shall we? Bottoms up, gents. We’re about to commit mass genocide! Hip hip . . .
NAMELESS
Present
Nameless flanked Esteban’s hovercycle as they sped across the plain. She’d been gifted Alessandro’s old hover. Its saddle was slightly too small for her long legs, but even more awkward was the thought of riding a dead man’s cycle.
Sanchez followed her, and at Esteban’s side, Ramone kept ahead of Diego who towed the trailer.
They’d been on the dust for two Earth-days. Esteban allowed no stops. He rode at a demented speed, showing no regard for the bumpy terrain. Her legs began to strain as her collar sent the adrenaline she needed to sustain the pace. Her blood pulsed with collar-fed speed, and she couldn’t figure if her arms shuddered from the rattle of the handlebars or the exhaustion her body was forced to combat. Did it matter?
Well, not until they reached whatever colony Esteban was leading them to. Then every twitch of her scanning finger would mean the difference between breath and death.
For so long, they’d chased nothing but a mirage on the horizon—the glassy lake that only existed by a trick of the light. But now, there seemed an odd blur, like a scuff on the distant dune. A pockmark to disrupt the silt. And above it, space warped in the distortion of an atmospheric shield.
Esteban’s voice crackled through their helmets. “Look alive. We’re almost there.” His words shook with a quiver of violence. “Sanchez. You’re with me. Ramone, you go with the scanslinger.”
They took turns easing off the throttle and removing their scanners, expecting the usual resistance from any who caught the dustclouds approaching.
But as they neared the colony, there was no disturbance. No resistance. No movement of any kind. Only the pale bricks of domes and the odd relic of machinery scattered the street.
Esteban pulled up first and floated into an abandoned plaza.
“Well, that was easy.” Diego’s voice crackled through their helmets.
“It’s never this easy,” Esteban countered. “Come on. Keep a sharp eye out for trouble.”
Sanchez disembarked and joined Esteban as they entered the left side of town, while Ramone glided toward Nameless. She was the last to dismount.
“Let’s go,” Ramone said. He pushed off with his scanner raised and booted down the door closest to their hovers. It flew from its hinges and kicked up a ridiculous cloud of dust.
Through her helmet, the sound of a scream pierced the static, followed by a thud.
“What was that?” Ramone.
“Nothing,” Esteban said. “Just some old lady with a scanner trying to get the jump on us. Look alive. She may not be alone.”
Nameless tried the adjacent door by giving it a light push. It opened. Ramone’s theatrics barging the door off its hinges seemed so childish. How many times had this crew raided colonies and never thought to try the lock?
Ramone grunted as he passed, and they moved from one dome to the next.
Every room was the same. Filled with furniture. Tables laid with food. Glasses half-full and with lipstick marks fresh on the rim. Cushion-padding morphed into the shape of backs that had recently reclined on them. Books left open on the side. The only thing missing from the colony was people. As if life had been interrupted and everyone had simply—what—disappeared?
Ramone took one door.
Nameless the next.
Another door, another empty dome.
Then Nameless spotted it. A line on one of the rugs disrupted the dust. She entered and floated to where the line stopped. It led to a kitchen wall and a small pantry door. Nameless crouched and placed two fingers on the line, lifting them to her helmet and scanning the composition. Nothing irregular, save for traces of DNA.
People.
She flicked her visor settings to scan further and found the wall blocked her from seeing beyond it.
Ramone called from outside the dome. “Hey! You okay?”
Nameless reached for the pantry door and yanked it open, scanner in hand. Inside a hidden room, twenty huddled together. Maybe more. People of all ages. Children. Grandparents. Men. Women.
They gazed at Nameless like a cornered flock of sheep might stare at a moondog. Disbelief. Resignation. Desperation. It was written across their faces in the lines of their foreheads and creases of their frowns. It was a beggar's final cry. Please. Don’t do it.
Ramone’s voice through her earpiece again. “Hey! I said, are you okay? Found something?”
Nameless lifted her hand to her helmet, preparing to answer. Ready to accept judgment for what she knew she had to do.
JO
Serenity II
“Come on, you stupid thing!” Jo seethed under her breath. Ever since Gabe had told her to talk to her tools, she’d tried to be nice to them. But all these cycles later, and they still didn’t treat her right. “You useless piece of junk! I should scrap you into a melted down pile of—”
The wrench spun and the nut loosened.
“There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
The water purifier hissed as it leaked air and Jo waited for the slurp of liquid to bubble back to the top before she tightened it again.
After so many cycles, she should have grown used to the grunt work instead of hating it. But it wasn’t like there was any avoiding it out here.
She stepped away from the purifier and covered it back up, leaving the boiler dome and finishing her shift, satisfied the well would flow for a good while yet. Moonday was still fresh in the air. Cap signaled from across the street.
Jo glided to where she waited.
“How’s it looking in there?” Cap asked.
“Ship shape. Once the water’s cycled, we shouldn’t be drinking grit.”
“Excellent. Speaking of drinks, do you want to grab a quick one before the traders arrive?”
“They’re still an Earth-day away.”
“Gives us plenty of time for a drink, then. Doesn’t it?”
How many times had Cap flashed her that same smile? And not once had she refused it. “Fine. I’ll meet you in the saloon. I just want to check on the Murrietas. They were having trouble with their chiller.”
“I’ll be waiting. But the longer you take, the warmer your drink will get.”
“Deal.”
Cap sauntered through the passersby towards the saloon. Jo shook her head in wonder at how she kept it all together. How they’d survived so long in the badlands. The families they’d sheltered. The way Cap had taken her in and stopped her running from one disaster after another.
No. That wasn’t true. She was the disaster. What Cap had done was stop her running from herself. Here was a space where she could make mistakes. Here was a place where she could just . . . be. They all could.
Even the Murrietas—Ignacio and his three energetic sprogs.
Jo was under no illusions. This was the third time their chiller had bust in as many Moondays. But when the littlest insisted on throwing moonrocks at everything in the house, there was only so much damage a chiller could be expected to take.
She knocked on the Murrieta’s dome.
“It’s open,” Ignacio called.
The door swept open and Jo stepped into the havoc that was a family. Toys lay strewn. Mini-hovers ran across the floor to bump against the table’s leg. Ignacio stood over a kitchen worktop with so much debris, it would’ve made a junkyard seem tidy.
Little Nona ran to Jo and crashed into her legs, throwing her arms around Jo’s knees.
“Hey, Nona!”
“Jojo! I got a dustbunny.” The little one showed off her latest toy, sewn together from the oddments of old clothes, and filled with handfuls of dust.
“What’s her name?”
“Bunny.”
Jo smiled. “That’s a lovely name. Ola, Bunny!”
“Nona, go play with your brothers,” Ignacio said. “Jo, come on in.” He pulled up a chair for her and she pushed it back under the table.
Nona disappeared out the door to go and find her two older brothers and, no doubt, rub it in their faces that she had a new toy.
“Thank you for coming, Jo. The chiller, it’s—”
“It’s okay, Ignacio. Let me take a look. See if I can make it more childproof.”
“I’m not expecting miracles!”
Jo laughed and stooped to the chiller. Outside, a single horn blast sounded.
Ignacio tutted. “Traders.”
Traders? They weren’t due for another Earth-day. “Probably. You ever know traders to be early?”
“No. But, there’s always a first, right? Besides, who else could it be?”
Jo nodded, but a knot twisted in her gut. When she looked down at the chiller, she didn’t need to be told that little Nona was to blame. But that horn—traders—it didn’t fit together. In all her time spent in the badlands, she’d never felt that pull which had driven her here so long ago. The knife in her belly that had forced her to run. But there it was. The old familiar pain, the adrenaline surge that signaled something was wrong.
“I’m just going to fetch some tools.” Jo stood and left the dome, pushing through the square to a clear view of the gathering dustclouds on the horizon. Several small black dots shimmered across the silt. No large trader wagon. No cargo ship. Just hovers.
Just . . .
Silt.
Nona. Where was Nona?
“It’s a raid!” she shouted. Jo ran through the street, eyes everywhere. “Raid!” she cried. Panic swept across Serenity. Crowds shrieked, fear spreading through the town.
“Nona! Nona, where are you?”
Ignacio appeared from the doorway. “Jo, what’s going on?”
“Raid! Get Nona.”
