Chains of Freedom Read online

  "You sound like you're sorry for them!" David said in disbelief.

  "I . . . just think it's wrong, that's all. Here is this thing that could have everything and the way it is it has nothing. Take for instance the GSH who tried to kill us last night. He went after me exclusively, because logically you posed no major threat. So he ignored you and never realized that you were the real threat. If I were the GSH, I would have killed you first, because it would have been easy. Then I could have given all my attention to the Elite without having to worry about where you were. Sometimes the most logical thing to do is something illogical. Emotion causes you to think illogically." RJ finished with a shrug.

  David laughed."You're twisted."

  She took it as a compliment.

  Towards nightfall, the fuel gauge cranked over to empty, and RJ pulled into a Reliance fuel station. David thought he would die, but RJ acted as if she belonged there. The attendant filled the truck while she went inside and got a couple of sandwiches and some bottled soft drinks. David didn't dare breathe till they were three miles down the road.

  "Are you crazy?" David breathed at last.

  "Where did you think we were going to get the alcohol to run this thing, David? Squeeze it from a tree maybe?" RJ asked sarcastically.

  "I thought we'd steal it late at night when no one was around. I had no idea that you would be blatant enough to pull into the damned Reliance fuel station in broad daylight! You even went inside to get sandwiches, for God's sake!" David screamed.

  RJ just grinned.

  "It's not funny, RJ."

  "I guess you'll never understand, will you? Those people who run that station are just class-two work units. Only authorized Reliance personnel drive vehicles. Therefore, if a vehicle pulls in, it must be Reliance. Right?"

  "OK. But the way you're dressed . . . ."

  "They wouldn't care if I were buck naked and had 'The Reliance Sucks' painted in bright red letters across my butt. Don't you see? They service the vehicle, not who's driving it. All they do is fill the cars and trucks, and give you a sack lunch if you need it. They're not expected to think, so they don't."

  "But what if another Reliance truck had pulled in while we were there?" David asked.

  RJ started to say something.

  "No, wait, don't tell me. Let me guess. We kill them, right?"

  "You're getting better," RJ cooed.

  "You're sick, you know that, RJ? Real sick."

  "Hand me a sandwich," RJ said, pointing at the sack.

  He did.

  "That's your answer to everything, isn't it? Just kill it!" David said hotly.

  "Hand me my drink," she said, through a mouth full of sandwich.

  He handed it to her after opening it.

  "What happens when you don't kill someone? What happens when they kill you?"

  "You quit worrying about it," RJ grinned crookedly.

  David shook his head in disbelief. Not a damned bit of sense arguing with her about it, she wasn't about to change her mind.

  They drove for another hour then pulled off the road and parked. RJ pushed a button on the dash and almost gave David a heart attack when the seat flipped out of its own accord to make a bed. He and RJ marched in separate directions to relieve themselves, and returned almost simultaneously.

  RJ took off her chain and boots and lay them in the floorboards. Then came the blaster.

  David just sat there.

  "What's with you?" RJ asked, wondering if he was still mad over the fuel station thing.

  "I thought I'd take first watch," he said with a smile."After all, you did all the driving."

  "No one needs to take watch, David. No one's going to find us." She took off her shirt and hung it on the steering wheel.

  It was a strange thing to notice, made even stranger by the fact that he hadn't noticed till now. The golden-brown color of her skin, which he had attributed to time spent in the sun, wasn't a suntan at all. There were no tan lines on RJ's body. Her color was natural, and he had never knowingly seen anyone naturally colored this way.

  "Is that your natural color?" he asked, thinking perhaps it was a side effect of being exposed to something on some alien world.

  "My hair?"

  "No, your skin." To his surprise, RJ looked nervous.

  "Why?" There was a suspicious tone to her voice.

  "I've just never seen anyone colored like that. I thought it was a tan, but it's everywhere." He blushed as he said it.

  RJ sighed with relief. Just farm boy curiosity, nothing more than that. "Where I come from a lot of people are colored this way." She turned off the lights and lay down, covering herself up with her jacket.

  David was satisfied with her answer. He just didn't understand why it had made her so uptight. She must have thought he was coming on to her. Now he was really embarrassed. He took off his own boots, weapon and shirt, then lay down and covered up with his jacket. He purposely lay as far away from her as possible. If she had thought he was coming on to her, she could stop thinking so now. David knew he wouldn't be able to sleep. RJ had filled his head with too many things to think about. He looked out the window at the full moon.

  "RJ?"

  "What?" It was obvious, from the tone of her voice, that she wasn't ready for more questions.

  "Are there people living up there?" he asked.

  "Up where?" RJ asked with an indulgent sigh.

  "On the moon."

  "There's a spaceport there. All spaceships dock and take off from there. Everything goes from here to there through a matter transporter, and vice versa. It saves the ships having to use the energy and fuel to break away from Earth's gravitational pull. Not to mention the stress of re-entry." She was glad she had already explained matter transporters to him, otherwise she would have, no doubt, had to explain it now."The station itself is really very impressive. It spreads across the surface of the moon like some great spider, its tentacles occasionally catching and holding a ship so that it can be loaded or unloaded." For someone who had been reluctant to answer his question, she now seemed only too happy to fill him in on all the details. "You can see Earth from up there. It's quite a sight. I've seen grown people weep when seeing it for the first time. It is lovely, but it's the space view of Deakard that I have imprinted on my heart. It lies there in the heavens cold and black and distant. At just the right angle, you can place it so that both of its red suns are behind it. The light catches on the silver of the buildings that cover its surface, and makes for a glittering effect which almost, but not quite, overcomes the sinister look of the planet. I've never been to the surface of the planet of course, but someday I hope . . . I would like to see it again."

  When she spoke again, her voice was wistful."There is something in seeing it that I can't quite explain. It stirs the senses. You seem to smell things you have never smelled, see things you have never seen, hear things you have never heard, and want things you have never wanted before. For me, it was as if I had never really been alive before. As if I had been asleep all my life, and then I woke up and realized that I hadn't really done any of those things. It was as if a new day had dawned, and I could do anything I wanted. I guess it was at that moment that the seeds of rebellion were planted in my heart, because I knew I wanted more from life. And I knew the Reliance wasn't going to let me have it." RJ suddenly seemed to realize she was rambling. "We'd better get some sleep."

  The next day, shortly after noon, they reached their destination. The road had been cut through the mountain so that it ran between two cliffs. They made their camp at the very top of the cliff so that the whole roadway could be seen. They hid the truck in a clump of bushes. RJ set the weapons out in a pattern on top of the ridge. David helped her as she tied a rope around a tree and went down the side of the cliff to set explosive charges; this process took the rest of the day.

  Then they waited. One day passed, then two, then three. When, on the fourth day, David was eating yet another burnt dead animal and crunching on some weed
RJ said was wholesome, he'd had enough.

  "Are you sure that this is a supply route?" David asked for the five-billionth time in four days.

  "Yes, and don't ask me again." If David was getting tired of waiting, RJ was just as tired of his constant bitching.

  "We've been sitting on this cold-ass mountain for four days, and not one truck has gone by. Not even a small one," David said. He threw down the rest of the meat. "Just what the hell was that before you burnt it to a crisp?"

  "Some sort of bird," RJ picked the meat up off the ground and started eating it—bone and all.

  "I really hate when you do that," David said, making a face.

  "I know. That's why I do it," RJ said flippantly.

  David stood up and started stomping away. "That's it! I've had it with waiting for nonexistent convoys in the middle of nowhere. I've had it with trying to live on things that weren't even good before you burned them, and I have really had it with you!"

  RJ said nothing; she ignored him.

  David turned abruptly around. "Did you hear me?"

  "No. I was trying to listen to the convoy." She pointed down the road.

  He could see them.

  There were a few moments of pandemonium as they went to their respective positions.

  The two topless four-wheel-drive vehicles were positioned one before and one behind the huge cargo truck. The vehicles held a full company of soldiers.

  "Must be some good shit," David said excitedly.

  "Shush," RJ ordered, and there was no doubt that it was an order. She held the detonators in her hand, waited for just the right moment, then—BOOM! The first two charges sent rocks as big as the vehicles raining down into the road. Now they couldn't go forward. The mountain shook so hard that for a second David thought they were going to go down with it. BOOM! She blew the second set of charges. Now the road behind the convoy was blocked as well.

  David saw RJ pick up the rocket launcher. That was his cue. From behind his rock, he started firing. Not at anybody, just firing. That's all he had been told to do, and he soon found out why as the bullets and blasts started to bounce off his rock. He tried to make himself as small as possible behind it as shreds of rock rained down upon him. "Holy shit!"

  While they were all shooting at David, RJ made her move. She jumped out of hiding, aimed, and fired. The rocket hit the uncovered vehicle in the front. There were no survivors. RJ hit the ground before anyone had a chance to fire at her and crawled on her elbows and her knees over to where David was.

  "You knew they were going to shoot at me," David accused.

  RJ gave him one of her crooked grins.

  "You did a very good job. Being a target isn't as easy as it sounds." She jumped up and took off running.

  He wished that she would tell him what the hell she was doing. David didn't know what else to do, so he shot his gun, although all he was hitting was the trees above him.

  RJ fired, but this time all but one man jumped clear before the rocket could hit the uncovered car. RJ discarded the rocket launcher, and pulled out her sidearm. She checked quickly to be sure that David wasn't watching. In an apparent suicide attempt, she took a running leap off the top of the cliff. Landing with both feet on top of the truck, she shot three men before the truck stopped shaking, then jumped to the ground. RJ calculated quickly that there were seven men left.

  The first three were easily dealt with. They had taken cover from the "snipers" on the ridge, but hadn't counted on fire from behind. RJ had no qualms about shooting a man in the back. Dead was dead—it didn't matter how they got that way. The fourth man stumbled into her, and wound up with a face full of fist. The fifth heard the fourth's cries and came to help. He got a blaster bolt in his scalp for his pains.

  David couldn't see RJ. Even up here the smoke was getting thick. No one was shooting at him anymore, so he crept out of cover on his knees and elbows. He traded his blaster for the rocket launcher when he came to it. In his opinion, bigger was always better.

  The man had lost his weapon after one of the blasts. He felt helpless; the smoke stung his eyes so that he couldn't see. If he coughed, they'd find him. He wasn't sure, but he thought one of them was down here with them. If he could just get his hands on a gun! How many of them were there? How many of his people were dead? He didn't know. He had a bad feeling that he was going to die today, that they were all going to die today. When he saw the woman, he did what any good Reliance man would have done. He pounded the metal bar—his only weapon—into her head. She went down to her knees. Then he put a stranglehold on her and waited for her to go limp, but she didn't. Instead, she stood up, with him hanging on for dear life.

  She plucked him off her back and pitched him against the truck as if he were a toy. The dazed man looked up into the laughing eyes of his opponent. He was gripped by cold fear; the thing he fought wasn't human.

  "Go ahead, freak, kill me," he spat at her. "Someday they'll do away with all of you, and people like me . . . ."

  She went ahead and killed him.

  David peered cautiously over the edge. Through the smoke he saw RJ, then he saw the man crouching behind what was left of one of the four-wheel-drive vehicles, his weapon aimed at her. David didn't think, he aimed the rocket launcher and fired. It's safe to say he didn't get the result he wanted. He missed the man and hit one of the vehicles. The man fell back, temporarily stunned, and a big hunk of the vehicle landed on RJ pinning her underneath it. David dropped the launcher and ran down the mountain as quickly as possible.

  "RJ! RJ!" he screamed, running towards her. He knelt beside her. Only her head, shoulder and one arm were sticking out. Her eyes looked blank. David buried his head in his hands. "Oh, my God! What have I done?" He wept.

  "You mean besides throwing a piece of car on top of me?" a pained voice cracked. Her eyes blinked.

  David was only a little relieved.

  "RJ! You're alive!" Clearly, from the tone of his voice he was sure she couldn't remain that way for long. Maybe the kindest thing would be to give her the blaster and let her end it.

  "I'm not squashed, David, I'm just pinned," she said, ignoring the look of doubt on his face. "Push on that corner up there, maybe you can rock it enough so that I can pull myself free."

  David put his weapon down. He put his shoulder to the chunk of twisted metal and pushed for all he was worth. "It's not budging," David said frantically.

  "Keep trying. If you could just move it a little, I could get out," RJ was insistent, so David kept trying.

  RJ felt him before she saw him.

  "David." She pointed with her free hand.

  David saw the wounded man trying to sneak away, but he didn't care. The important thing now was to free RJ.

  The man started to run.

  RJ was frantic. "Leave me, I'll be all right. Get after him."

  "But, RJ, what could it matter? Let one get away."

  "You don't understand, he knows what I am. He'll tell the Reliance . . ."

  David didn't have to hear more. If RJ thought it was important, it must be. He nodded and took off after the man.

  When David was well out of sight, RJ put her hand on the edge of the chunk of metal. She braced herself, took a deep breath, and threw it off of her. She stood up slowly. "Ugh! That smarted." She rubbed at her ribs and back, took one of the pills, and sat down to give it a few moments to catch. In a matter of seconds she felt fine.

  She was torn. If she left David to catch the man, he might lose him, and then the man would get back to the Reliance and tell them what she was. If she got up and went after him herself, David would become suspicious. There was no way around it; she'd have to take her chances that David could catch the man. Besides, it wasn't really very likely that they would believe what the soldier had to say anyway.

  The man had been hurt by the blast, and David easily overtook him. David leaped, caught hold of the man's heels, and the man fell to the ground with a thud, face first into the dirt.

  The man k
icked out of David's grasp and jumped to his feet. David got up as quickly as he could. He expected the man to flee again, but he didn't. David didn't see where he got it, but suddenly the man had a knife in his hand. He lashed out at David and David barely stepped out of the way in time. David silently thanked RJ for not listening to him when he said he knew how to fight. She had taught him some basic martial-arts techniques, and one of the things she had taught him had just saved his life. Another trick she had taught him allowed him to use the soldier's failed attack to bring him down. As the man passed, David brought his knee up, kicked out and landed his foot just below the guy's knee. The soldier hit the ground hard.