CHAPTER 8
New Austin
Lone Star System
Cimarron Territory
Southern Hemisphere
“I really wish you’d have called for backup, boss,” Deputy Marshal Wade Bishop said, scanning the cluster of old, prefabricated buildings through his rifle scope. “There are a lot of guys down there.”
Colonial Marshal Marcus Winchester agreed, as he studied the situation through smart binoculars. “We’re out of line-of-sight communications range.” He looked down at his radio. “I’ve got no signal on sat-comm.”
“Jammers?” Wade asked.
“Most likely,” Marcus answered. “It’d take a tac team hours to get out here even if we could call for backup, and I don’t trust the locals.” Cimarron Territory was at the very edge of New Austin’s terraformed zone, where it was difficult to distinguish the terraforming from the rocky, windswept wastes that lay beyond. It was a region of rugged mountains capped by ancient glaciers, where very little of the imported Terran ecosystem was in evidence. The sun had already disappeared behind the mountains to the east, the light slowly fading in the long twilight.
The marshal and his partner were crouched behind a boulder, one partially covered in bright red, native pseudo-lichen. Below them, in an alcove hidden on all sides by cliffs and towering rock formations, was what had once been a survey camp. It was over a hundred years old, dating back to the Second Interstellar War, and had been used by some of the first explorers to land on New Austin. It had supposedly been abandoned for many years, but a months-long investigation had led them to this remote place.
“What do you want to do?” Wade asked, ducking back down.
Marcus frowned. He’d gotten a warrant to raid this encampment and arrest the squatters. Technically the facility was still the property of the Colonial Government, though no one would have bothered if the people taking up residence there weren’t also suspected of manufacturing and distributing Red Eye. The territorial sheriff had been especially uncooperative with the marshals, and Marcus hadn’t been keeping them informed of his plans.
A dangerous synthetic drug, Red Eye was being used by more and more of New Austin’s criminal element. In the right mixture, called Beast Red Eye, the drug would increase strength, stamina, speed, and aggression. Another mixture, known on the street as Chill Red Eye, induced a euphoric high while decreasing inhibitions. Both versions were a thick, red fluid commonly administered by droplets to the eye, hence the name. Both versions were also incredibly addictive and had severe side effects. Chill was usually taken by abusers of Beast to help them calm down. Taking too much of either would result in brain injuries or death. Red Eye was so dangerous that it was one of the few drugs banned by the Colonial Government, which otherwise took a laissez-faire approach to such regulation.
“They haven’t spotted us,” Wade continued. “There’s two of us and at least six of them down there, and most of them are armed. The smart thing would be to get out of their jammer radius, call for a tac team, and guide them in.”
“Even if we get ahold of HQ, have you checked the weather?” Marcus asked, not putting down his binoculars. “There’s a huge dust storm north of here. They won’t release an aircraft until it’s cleared up.”
Shit, Wade cursed to himself. New Austin’s rugged outback usually provided sunny, clear weather, but every so often the winds would pick up, creating dust storms hundreds of kilometers across, which sometimes lasted for days. “Well, we can still head back to Canyon City and get the sheriff to help us, maybe come back tomorrow. Maybe now that we have proof that something is going on out here he’ll be more helpful.”
“I don’t trust that son of a bitch as far as I can throw him, Wade. I think he just might be…Hold on.” He lowered his binoculars and looked at his partner. “Take a look.”
“Huh?” Wade shuffled around, peeking out from behind the boulder and shouldering his rifle again. “What do you—son of whore.”
“Yup,” Marcus acknowledged. The Colonial Marshals watched as, far below them, one of the squatters walked a woman to a small outbuilding. He was a large man with long hair, who had a weapon slung over his shoulder. He shoved the woman in front of him and made her walk. Her hands were bound together and another line was tied around her waist. The long-haired man held the end of it, as if it were a leash. “She look like she’s being held against her will, Wade?”
“She sure as hell does, Marshal,” Wade answered, watching as the man pushed her into the outbuilding and waited by the door. “Looks like they’re taking her out for a piss break. Christ only knows what they’ve done to her. Did you ID her?”
“The binos say there’s an eighty percent chance she’s Misty Esteban. She’s a known grifter and con artist. She did time in prison for fraud, was out early for good behavior, but she dropped off the map a few months ago. Guess we know where she ended up.” Criminal or not, Colonial Marshals couldn’t abide a person being held in captivity by a gang of thugs. Once they realized what was happening, Marcus and Wade were obligated to intervene.
“We can’t risk her being used as a human shield. The guy guarding the door, can you hit him from here?”
Wade reached under his coat and retrieved a metallic cylinder. Attaching the sound suppressor to the muzzle of his rifle, he braced the weapon on a rock and looked through his scope. “Say the word, Marshal.”
“We won’t have good comms until we shut that jammer off. I’m gonna creep down there, as close as I can get. You watch him. If he spots me, or tries to sound the alarm, or if the girl comes back and he goes to leave with her, you drop him. Make it a clean shot. Don’t put her in danger.”
“You got it. I just hope to hell this is what it looks like, and not some crazy sexual fetish or something. I wish Devree was here.”
“Hell, I do too, Wade,” Marcus said, making his way back from the boulder as quietly as he could. “She’s a much better shot than you.”
“Yeah, yeah, just get your butt down there before it’s too late. I gotcha covered.”
In the failing light, Marcus made his way down the rocky slope at a crouch, staying in the shadows of stony outcroppings and avoiding loose rocks. The wind blowing through the hills helped drown out any noise that he might have made, and the long-haired man guarding what he was guessing was the latrine seemed to be none the wiser.
As he approached, the stench of the outbuilding filled Marcus’ nose. That’s the shitter, no doubt about it. The long-abandoned camp’s plumbing clearly no longer functioned. He was close now, as close as he could get without being seen. Crouched behind a boulder, carbine in his hands, he waited for the woman to come out of the latrine. A few lights turned on, in the main part of the encampment, as darkness overtook the alcove, but the latrine building remained in the shadows.
A moment later, the woman exited the latrine, her hands still bound together in front of her. She looked like she hadn’t been treated well. Her clothes was dirty and her hair was tangled. Marcus didn’t want to think about the things these drug peddlers had been doing to her. It was hard to tell in the poor light, but he agreed with his binoculars’ assessment: she was Misty Esteban.
Her handler, the big, long-haired man, stepped forward with another length of rope in his hands. He was about to reattach his leash to her when his head burst open with a wet splat. A sonic crack echoed through the hills, but Marcus barely heard the report from Wade’s rifle. He didn’t waste any time. He was on his feet and moving before the long-haired man’s body hit the ground. He startled the woman, who was staring at the corpse in shock, blood splattered on her face. Before she could scream, Marcus clamped a gloved hand over her mouth.
“Shh,” he said. “Look at me. I’m a Colonial Marshal. We’re getting you out of here, but I need you to be quiet. Can you be quiet?” Eyes wide, Misty slowly nodded. “Good,” Marcus said, removing his hand. “Come this way.” He led her behind the latrine building, where they were concealed in shadow and out of sight of the rest of the compound. “Are you Misty Esteban?”
“Y…yes,” she stammered, her voice hoarse. “Are you looking for me?”
“Your probation officer would probably like to hear from you, but I’m after these guys, not you. Hold still.” He drew a combat knife from his vest and quickly cut the bindings around her wrists. “Are you injured? Can you walk?”
She nodded, shivering as a cold wind blew through the camp. Marcus took off his long, brown duster coat and put it around her. “Climb up there,” he said. “My partner is waiting for you. Is there anyone else? Anyone they’re holding?”
“There’s another girl, Rochelle. Her name is Rochelle.” Misty said. “I don’t know where she is most of the time. They kept me in a locked room, but not her. I don’t think…I don’t think she’s one of them. She’s nice. She tried to protect me. I think she’s there against her will.”
“Damn it to hell,” Marcus muttered. He’d been hoping he could just sneak away with Misty. “Get going up this hill, and stay out of sight.” He looked up at where Wade was hiding, and waved for him to come down.
“What are you going to do?”
Marcus straightened his wide-brimmed hat and raised his carbine. “I’m gonna go get that other girl.”
“What am I supposed to do if you get killed?”
“If you get over this hill and keep going due east, you’ll come to a dirt road. Follow the road north and you’ll come to our vehicle. It’s got a transponder in it, so just stay there. Sooner or later somebody will come looking for us.”
“That’s it?” the woman asked, incredulously. “That’s your plan? You’re going to have me go wait while you kick in the door and shoot the place up?”
Marcus grinned. “Lady, I didn’t plan on you being here at all. I’m improvising. Which building is Rochelle being held in? How many of these guys are there?”
Misty pointed to the largest of the blocky structures, and the only one with two floors. “There, the main building. They kept me locked in a room in the basement. I don’t know how many of these skags there are. Seven, eight?” She looked over at the dead man. “Oh. One less, now, I guess.”
“Great. Get going, okay? About the worst thing that can happen to you is that my partner and I get killed and they recapture you.”
Misty agreed, wiping the blood from her face. “Right. I’m going.”
“Oh, and I want that coat back when we get there,” Marcus added, as she began the climb up the rocky slope. She reached Wade, who was on his way down. He helped her up a particularly steep ledge and pointed her in the direction she needed to go before continuing on his way down. A few moments later, he joined Marcus behind the latrine building, crouched in the shadows.
“Holy hell,” he said, crinkling his nose. “That’s a powerful stench. What’s the plan?”
“That was Misty Esteban. She said there’s another captive, a gal named Rochelle, in there, too. Main building, probably, but she said she wasn’t locked up.”
“What the hell is she doing with these guys, anyway?”
“I didn’t ask. We’ll question her later. Right now we gotta get in there and get that other girl out. Misty said there might be six or seven more guys, not including the one you killed. Nice shot, by the way.”
“How you wanna do this? I could scramble back up the hill, fire some shots to lure them out.”
“Not with just two guys,” Marcus said. “We need to cover each other’s backs, especially when we go in that building.”
“This is a bad op, Marshal. We’re outnumbered and we’re going to try to clear this camp by ourselves?” Wade grinned. “The legend of the Mad Marshal, Marcus Winchester, continues to grow.”
Marcus looked over at his partner. “The…what? What legend?”
“I’ll tell you later. We gotta do this now before they come out and see the body. And Christ, I need to get away from this shitter before I puke.”
“It doesn’t get better with time, that’s a fact,” Marcus agreed. “And I’m cold. Let’s go.”
“Hold up, Marshal,” Wade said.
“What are you doing?”
The deputy retrieved from a pouch on the side of his vest a bulky monocular with an eyepiece at one end and cluster of lenses at the other.
“What is that?”
Wade took a knee, lifted the device to his eye, and scanned the compound from the shadows of the coming night. “It’s my snooper scope, and it sees everything. It has night vision, it has infrared, it even sees through walls.”
Marcus crouched next to his partner. “How does it see through walls? X-rays?”
“No. Radar, something about the Doppler effect on a moving target. I don’t know. Here, just look. Use the buttons on the side to zoom in and out.”
The marshal took the device from Wade and looked through it. Gyroscopically stabilized, the scope presented a remarkably clear, enhanced image of the compound, better than Marcus’s own smart goggles. A ghostly image, a silhouette, of a person walking appeared briefly, then disappeared as it stopped.
“It’s basically a motion detector. It doesn’t work so well if they stop moving, but you can track people with it. Kind of gives you a limited 3D picture of the inside of the building.”
Marcus noted several signatures of moving people. None of them seemed to be in a hurry, which meant that they likely didn’t suspect anything. One appeared to be heading down a flight of stairs, somewhere in the building, then vanished. “I can’t see the basement.”
“I’m not surprised. Too much dirt in the way. The effective range is pretty limited, too. It wouldn’t have worked from up there on the hillside.”
“I see at least five guys moving around, not counting the guy who went downstairs.” He lowered the optic and looked at Wade. “We ought to give them the chance to surrender.”
“It’ll put the hostage at risk.”
“We don’t know that there is a hostage. All we have is the word of a known criminal who might be trying to keep us busy so she can get away. Besides, we already shot that one hooplehead unawares. We go in guns blazing and it might look bad. I don’t want another investigation from Internal Affairs.”
Wade sighed heavily. “Fine. You wanna do the callout or should I?”
“I’ll do it,” Marcus said. “Get to cover and provide overwatch.”
Clutching his rifle, Wade nodded, and moved off into the shadows, taking up a position behind a pile of boulders. Marcus stood up, adjusted his hat, and strode toward the middle of the compound, stepping into the light. There was no sign of movement in the compound, save vortices of dust being kicked up by the cold wind.
“Gotcha covered, boss,” Wade said, into Marcus’s earpiece.
Marcus tapped his earbud, activating a voice amplifier. “Colonial Marshals!” he announced, his voice booming over a loudspeaker on his vest. “You are all under arrest! Lay down your arms and come out with your hands up!”