Son of Sedonia

26

Fish


INMATE 272313-A TRIED to keep his eyes off the laser drill’s beam as it sliced its way through the double hatch doors. All that stood between his group of over two-hundred Healed from the hangar wing. Freedom. Home. The words tasted sweet against the otherwise acidic pressure in his skull. Though the pain seemed to be fading. Not a moment too soon.

“Oki,” said a shaky voice next to him, “might be some guards on the other side of that, huh?”

“Might be,” said Inmate 272313-A. Oki. The name was like an old shirt he hadn’t worn in years. He slipped it on and savored its memories. Its power. He grinned.

“Better be. All this runnin’ around…” Oki twisted his grip on the giant Crawler wrench he’d grabbed from the Motor Pool, “High f*ckin’ time to go to war.” Remnants of the anti-aggro put a sting into the words like the curried pepper kebabs of Falari Market. He glanced at the doors and caught a side-glimpse of the laser’s ice-blue beam. Snapped his head away. Almost through.

“Get ready, y’all!” Oki shouted with eyes pinched shut.

“RA-SA-LLA! RA-SA-LLA! RA-SA-LLA!” the chant began all at once. It melted through the pain in Oki’s head, just as the final inch of the hatch doors was cut. He and three others rushed the doors. They shouldered into the reinforced titanium slabs, pushing until the molten seam split apart and opened. Wide enough for two to squeeze through.

He and a thick-necked Nine named Tolai were the first. They brushed against the ragged, torch-cut edges as they passed, marking their T99 tattoos with raking burns. There were guards on the other side, but far down the hall. Running for their lives. Oki, Tolai, and the two-hundred Healed poured down the corridor after them. Yelling curses through wild laughter.

They caught up in no time at all. Oki raised the wrench and brought it down on the exhausted guard, crunching into the man’s shoulder and neck with a force that flung the body into the wall. Another caught Tolai’s three-foot crowbar in the small of the back. The tide of the Healed rolled over the rest of the guards in seconds.

The rest of the way was marked with signs. Oki read them several times before he realized. I can read. Bittersweet. The ability came from the end of a needle shoved into the base of his neck. But this is what it’s like. He crumpled the thought, threw it in the corner of his mind, and led the charge on through the halls.

Other groups emerged from doorways along the route. Their numbers swelled to three-hundred. Five-hundred. Twelve-hundred. Before long, the wide halls were choked with them. Some in the crowd embraced and cried out when they saw each other. Their cheers rippled through the throng as they surged toward the Hangar Wing.

Oki peeked above the ocean of heads to see the hall open up into the Wing. A huge, circular chamber with industrial doors around the rim and a radial front desk in the middle. The crowd split up. Inmates each picked a door and ran to it. Which one?...Hell yeah. He turned to number Nine.

Waiting in line was torture. Half from the wonder of what he’d find. Half from suffocating crush of the others. Slowly, he inched through the doorway and took it all in. Ships of all shapes and sizes loomed over their heads. Like one of those auto-shows he’d seen when Suomo had a TV. Three bulk prisoner transports. Four high-occupancy commuter shuttles. And at least eight private craft. There was a sleek, sporty red vessel with soft edges and a flat nose. A silver luxury four-door with sixty-four point flight control. And even a glossy black ShadowBird with its muscular body and quad-core fusion engine.

Oki let the others beeline for those, picking a commuter shuttle instead. Something about it reminded him of the long, straight Copperfish his uncle used to hand-catch in the Rasalla River. They’d soaked up too many chemicals to be safe to eat, but when reminded his uncle would smile and say, “It’s nice to fish.” Back when there were fish, anyway. This one’s mine.

He stepped onto the ramp leading inside, and the mob suddenly hushed. Oki turned. Rusaam and Kolpa had entered the hangar. Without a word, everyone parted in front of them to make way. Then in walked the Healer. Cheers. Laughter. Shouting. Crying. All of it exploded in an instant. Oki let out a whoop.

“Rasalla!” he called out, waving. Jogun waved back to the room then gestured to Rusaam who bent to listen. Rusaam straightened and raised his arms. The noise died in seconds.

“Listen up y’all! Pick a ship, get inside! Pilots, turn your comms to Channel Three! We’re blowing the doors when the ‘Moon is Low’! LET’S GO HOME!” The noise erupted again, louder and higher than before. Oki yelled himself red in the face and still couldn’t hear his own voice. It felt amazing. The love people had in their faces when they saw each other, even for him. Not fear...love. Hands trembling, Oki climbed into the Copperfish, joining roughly fifty brothers.

As a hangar foreman, he had all the basic vehicle packages jacked into his brain. Crawlers. Loaders. And Scouts. Guess that makes me a pilot too! He rubbed his hands together. Inside the cockpit, two sixteen-year-old, bottom level T99 soldiers bickered in the flight seats.

“Cuz you don’t know shit! That’s why. Cuz you. Don’t know. Shit! Intra-atmospheric avionics just ain’t the f*ckin’ same as low-atmo maneuvering, and if you think I’m trustin’ yo ass with the flight stick, you crazy!”

“The thing with the motorcycle? That what this is about? We were twelve, man!”

“And you was drunk, yeah yeah, don’t matter! I ain’t never forgave you for that shit, and I ain’t about to trust you now with my life and the lives of every other sumbitch in this boat—AH, hey what the f*ck?!”

Oki grabbed the kid by the neck and picked him up out of the seat. The kid went passive once he recognized a senior enforcer.

“Run along back there with the rest of the ‘sumbitches.’ Me and little man here got this,” said Oki. The kid nodded and took off for the upper passenger cabin. His friend, Little Man, tried to bite back a shit-eating grin as Oki sat down and strapped in.

“Now this ain’t no damn motorcycle,” said Oki, “You got this?”

“Y-yeah. Yeah I think—”

“Cool. What’s your name, little Nine?”

“Kiosu.”

“Kiosu,” Oki put on his headset, took quick stock of the flight controls, then started flipping switches. “You know the song right?”

“Yeah,” Kiosu ran through the co-pilot startup protocol, “Pop used to sing it to me.”

“My man...” Oki toggled the intercom, “We full up?!” Replies came over the headset all at once.

“Yeah!”

“F*ck yeah, good to go!”

“Rasalla!”

“Aight brothers, get ready to sing! ‘When the Moon is low,’ we go!” Oki closed the main hatch, pressurized the cabins, then punched the ignition.

“Kiosu, flip us to Channel Three and patch it through to the cabin,” said Oki. Kiosu nodded and dialed the comms. Four minutes passed in static before it started. Many voices as one. Clear and strong.

My ladies of my family, don’t worry don’t cry

Don’t stay awake all night for me, I’m not gonna die

I live to bring your bread to you, I fight to survive

My tools: a brain, a heart, a soul, and edge of a knife

No doubt the fear will follow me but I’m not afraid

A Nine-ty Nine is strongest when his brothers are brave

Rasalla Soldiers, God’s own soldiers, no one a slave

And for you, my people, nothin’s gonna stand in my way

So shut the doors and cut the lights right after I go

Lay your head and close your eyes, you know I’ll be home

Rasalla waits, I’m on my way, one thing you should know

Tonight my eyes won’t need more light

“Be back before the moon is low,” over three thousand voices said in unison through the intercom. The hangar doors along the wall burst in a shower of sparks and were sucked out into the canyon. The rush of escaping air pulled at the ships on their pads, scraping landing gear across the deck.

“Gear up! Engines to Idle-Three,” said Oki. Kiosu did his part. The ship dipped all at once, then stabilized with a low-frequency vibration felt through the bulkhead.

“Main thrusters?” asked Kiosu, his hand poised on the throttle. Oki nodded. Chuckled.

“Moon’s risin’ tonight!”