Retribution (The Long Haul Book 2) Read online

  RETRIBUTION

  THE LONG HAUL: BOOK 2

  ©Geoff North 2017

  Cover art by Tom Edwards

  www.tomedwardsdesign.com

  Other Books by Geoff North:

  Ambition (The Long Haul Book 1)

  Thawed (CRYERS Book 1)

  Horror (CRYERS Book 2)

  Lawmen (CRYERS Book 3)

  Live it Again

  Make Believe

  Children of Extinction

  Conspiracy Hotel

  Out of Time

  As the World Ends (Book 1)

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  www.geoffnorth.com

  Table of Contents:

  Events before Retribution

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Events before Retribution

  In 2322 Earth received the following ominous transmission from the star system 51 Pegasi.

  “We are aware of your existence. We will end you.”

  People living throughout the Sol system prepared for what seemed an inevitable conflict. The mining vessel Ambition was refit militarily and sent out to strike first. The decades-long voyage between stars was hit with catastrophic hardship along the way. An attempted mutiny was thwarted, but the ship’s main fold-drive propulsion system was sabotaged. Seventy years of travel stretched out to more than seven centuries without contact from home, and complete silence from the Pegasi system ahead.

  In 3040, Ly Sulafat—Ambition’s thirtieth commander—led a final generation of more than ten-thousand weary star travelers into the Pegan system, hoping their ages-old prerogative of beginning an inter-stellar war could be avoided. After an initial round of hostilities, Captain Sulafat contacted the Pegans. Peace between the two civilizations had almost been achieved until a handful of Ambition’s original command officers and corporate representatives were revived from their cryonic slumber.

  Admiral Neil Lennix reassumed command of the ship, and all-out war ensued. The truth behind Ambition’s original mission was revealed; the Pegan communication received centuries before had been a warning for the Earth people to stay away, not an actual threat of war. A handful of greedy Sol corporations had used it as an excuse to conquer the alien system for its resources.

  With the help of his most loyal officers, Captain Sulafat recaptured the ship, but the damage had already been done. Battered and beaten, Ambition was ordered to leave the Pegan system. Sulafat and more than forty of his crew were forced to stay behind as permanent prisoners of war.

  Chapter 1

  3041

  Loke guided his sister up over the last of the concrete ruins as the sun set into the distant mountains. Charm nestled up against him, shivering from the dropping temperature and rising fear. They sat uncomfortably, arms clutched around each other, teetering back and forth for balance on the pitted edge of what had once been a section of wall, but what was now just more of the endless rubble.

  “We’re safe up here,” he assured her. “Starvers can’t climb so good.”

  “Starvers can do almost anything if they’re hungry enough,” Charm replied. “And they’re always hungry. Momma warned us, but you wouldn’t listen. We ain’t never supposed to stay out past dark, and we ain’t never, ever supposed to go off the paths.”

  “I listen just fine. You were the one that saw the cat. You were the one that chased after it down the alley.”

  Charm shifted away from him. She slid down the concrete another foot and crunched into a ball amongst the pulverized rocks and red dust. “I gave up on the cat. I came back to the street.”

  “But you wouldn’t quit bawling,” Loke countered. “Figured if I got it, you’d be happy.”

  “There ain’t many cats left in the city. Probably ain’t a dozen left on all of Mars anymore. Momma would’ve been so happy.”

  Loke sighed and shivered. “Yeah, well she won’t be too happy with us now.”

  The ten-year old twins sat in silence and watched the sun sink into the columns of smoke. It was swallowed up whole into one of the distant churning chimney stacks. There were a dozen of the massive structures lining the northern horizon, and they were always belching smoke into the atmosphere. The terra-forming factories kept them alive, but they weren’t pretty to look at. The day would come when there would be no need to continually pump gas into the sky—that’s what the teachers had taught them in school. In three or four more centuries, Mars would be able to sustain human life all on its own. It didn’t make people—especially children—living there now feel much better. The chimneys were a constant reminder of how fragile life was on Mars.

  The dirty orange sky faded pink. Brilliant strips of crimson settled over the outskirts of Deimos City to the east. The cold grew as lights powered on in the houses people still called homes. There had been thousands of them before Loke and Charm had been born, maybe even millions. Now there were only a hundred or so, and those lights were disappearing faster every year, every month, every week.

  “You still mad at me?” She finally asked.

  “Mad at myself. We have to get home. We’ll freeze to death up here if we try and make it through the night.”

  “Maybe we should wait till full dark. The starvers won’t be able to see us when it’s all black.”

  Loke nodded. It was a good plan. He knew exactly where they were up on their summit of the bombed apartment complex. He could see the path they had to take, and how far it was home. Three blocks, a kilometer and a half straight line. But there was no such thing as a straight line in Deimos City anymore. They would have to travel the crooked trails snaking through the rubble, and climb over the spots where the paths had been cut off altogether. Two and a half kilometers, maybe three, he figured.

  “Loke?”

  “What?”

  “You figure Momma would’ve let us keep the cat?”

  Loke ran a finger in the air across the path they would have to take in the dark. “That’s a dumb question to ask now.” He traced out the trail a second time and committed it the best he could to memory. “What does it matter?”

  “I think having a cat would’ve made her feel less lonely. It can’t be easy raising twins with no Daddy around to help out.”

  “We never knew our Daddy. He was long gone before we were even born.”

  “But Momma knew him,” Charm countered. “I bet she misses him still.”

  “No cat’s gonna make her feel better.”

  “You don’t know that for sure.”
>
  Loke slid down the concrete and rested up against his sister again. “I guess not. But she’s gonna miss us a whole lot more if we don’t get home, cat or no cat.”

  “We’ll get home,” Charm said. She locked an arm around his neck and wrestled him in. “My big strong brother will fight off the starvers and save the day.”

  Loke giggled, working his way out of the headlock. “You’re stronger than me, chances are you’ll—”

  A piercing wail sounded from somewhere below. The two children jumped, sending a mini-avalanche of rock and rusted debris down the side of their fifty-foot-high perch. “It’s the starvers!” Charm whispered frantically. “They found us, they’re gonna eat us alive!”

  Loke grabbed her shoulders and forced the blonde-haired girl back down to her knees. “They can’t see us way up here, they’re still looking.”

  A second scream echoed out into the early evening. Charm jerked again but remained sitting. “Why do they have to sound so scary?”

  “That’s what they do—how they try and sound. They’re trying to scare us, hoping we’ll do something stupid like run.”

  There was a third long howl. It sounded much closer than the first two. Charm’s cold, shaking hands took hold of her brother’s. “I am scared, Loke. I don’t want ‘em to get us.”

  “Keep quiet. Keep still. They won’t look for us up here. When the time’s right, we’ll start for home. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

  “You promise?”

  The thin upper atmosphere continued to suck color from the terra-formed sky above their heads. The red was all gone, and everything around them was suspended in a deep shade of purple. Sunsets didn’t last long on Mars. Loke could barely see his sister’s round, terrified eyes less than six inches from his face. “I promise.”

  The howls and screams grew louder. The starvers were closing in below from all directions. They would have to creep down through the rubble very slowly, very quietly, Loke thought. He looked up into the cloudless night at the stars. They were sharp and bright, piercing through the black like a thousand needles. Phobos would be rising in less than an hour, casting even more unwanted light upon them. The small moon wasn’t particularly luminous, but starvers didn’t need much light to see by. They knew the back alleys and destroyed sections of the city better than a couple of kids from the habitable zoning areas.

  “Isn’t it dark enough yet?” Charm pleaded. “Can’t we make a run for it now?”

  Loke squeezed one of her hands. “Yeah, it’s dark enough, but no running. We have to go slow… You ready?”

  He didn’t need to see Charm nodding her head to know she was prepared, or at least as prepared as she was going to get. They stood together and started working their way back down over the rocks and twisted metal. Loke led the way, Charm’s fingers digging into his scrawny shoulders.

  The bottom of one of Loke’s shoes scraped across a rusted piece of rebar. There was enough rubber tread left to create a small ripping sound—barely audible under normal circumstances, but deafening considering where they were stuck now. Loke froze on the spot and held his breath, waiting, listening. Charm’s nails dug in deeper. He could feel her rapid breaths on the back of his neck.

  He turned his head to the side and whispered out one corner of his mouth. “Shoes… Take them off.”

  Both children squatted down and started to unlace. Charm didn’t need to ask if they should leave their shoes in the rubble; decent footwear was almost as valuable as clean water. They worked quickly and quietly. Loke tied the laces together again through a belt loop in the waist of his pants, Charm secured hers from a hole in the bottom of her shirt. She tapped her brother on the shoulder to let him know she was ready again. They continued descending in bare feet.

  A voice yelled out. “Gitchy-coo!”

  Loke stumbled, one foot caught beneath the edge of a rock and he fell forward. Charm clutched at the collar of his shirt and pulled, saving him from falling face first. His knee drove against an old piece of glass plating resting against a concrete slab, shattering it further into dust. Loke bit down on his bottom lip and didn’t make a sound.

  “Gitchy-coo, gitchy-coo, one and two… Gitchy-coos, we seeeee you!”

  Gitchy-coo.

  Loke hated the word. Older kids in school used the term for children in lower grades. It meant you were a baby, soft and helpless. You were usually called a gitchy-coo after a bully-beating. The starver taunting them now in the dark made it sound much more threatening.

  Charm had gotten ahead of her brother somehow and was pulling him after her. Stealth was no longer an option, Loke supposed as he climbed back to his feet. He could feel blood trickling down his leg as he limped behind her through the rest of the debris.

  A second voice shouted. “Where you going, little pink piggies? What’s the big rush?”

  Loke stumbled a second time and fell into dirt. They’d made it to the bottom of the rubble pile. Charm grabbed onto his collar again and yanked. “Keep moving! Keep moving!”

  He was halfway up when a ball of fire lit up the dark. Loke squinted and looked into the face of the starver holding the torch. Black shadows flickered in the hollows of his sunken face. The scars and sores on his cheeks and bald skull seemed to slither like worms in the dancing light. “Why you got to run away like that, gitchies?” He grinned, revealing a mouthful of diseased grey gums and a few brown teeth. “Me and my buddy was just looking for someone to have supper with. You’ll stay awhile, won’t cha, gitchy-coos?”

  A second starver came into the light. He was even uglier than the one holding the torch. Me and my buddy, Loke thought as he spat dirt from his mouth. There’s only two of them.

  “They don’t wanna stay for our eats,” the second starver grabbed the torch and lowered the flame end dangerously close to Loke’s face. Loke crawled back, bumping into his sister. “The little pink’s afraid. The little pink wants to run home.”

  “Leave him alone,” Charm said in a quivering voice. “Keep away from my brother.”

  The man squatted down in front of Loke, bringing him to eye level with Charm. He brushed back a clump of tangled hair from his eyes. He had plenty to move, unlike his friend. It trailed down over his shoulders in greasy knots all the way to the ground. Patches more were growing out of his cheeks and from the tip of his chin like dead weeds. “What’re you gonna do if I don’t, little coo? What would you say and do if we ate up your brother for supper?”

  “You w-wouldn’t do that. People ain’t supposed to eat other people,” Charm blubbered.

  The bald starver had begun circling around her. “Listen to the little girl. Starting to cry. Acting up like all gitchy-coos do. Maybe we should take a bite out of her first.”

  Loke remained frozen where he was, on his hands and knees in the cold, dry dirt. Charm could still speak, he thought. She was at least trying to talk their way out this.

  “Maybe you both should run away before our Daddy shows up,” Charm warned. “He’ll be looking for us.”

  “You ain’t got no daddy,” the torch-holder said. “We been watchin you for hours. Hell, we seen the two of you before on other days—always hauling water and supplies, skipping back and forth to school. There ain’t no daddy, there ain’t no older brothers or cousins. There’s just two pink little piggies all alone in a place they got no right to be.”

  Charm screamed out as the man behind her grabbed onto her arms. The starver in front jabbed the torch into Loke’s pants. Loke rolled through the dirt, snuffing out the flames. He stood just in time to see his sister sink her teeth into a dirty finger wrapped around her bicep.

  “She bit me!” The bald starver yelled, releasing the struggling girl. “Little bitch made me bleed!”

  Loke knew this would be their only chance. He bent down and scooped up two handfuls of rust-colored sand. The torch swung back towards him. Loke threw the dirt into the starver’s face and raced for Charm. She was already running down an alley. “Wrong way!” H
e called out to her. “You’re taking us deeper in!”

  Something heavy punched into Loke’s back. He was down on his face once again, choking on dust. The torch was back in his face moments later. “That was a stupid, dumb thing to do, coo.” The starver was still blinking dirt out from the corners of his eyes. “We’re gonna make you hurt for that.”

  Charm was brought back into the light. She wasn’t putting up a struggle. The fight had been scared clean out of her. “This one first,” the bald one demanded. “Gimme back the torch and I’ll shove it between her teeth. Teach her it ain’t nice to bi—”

  The starver’s head jerked back. His eyes started crossing in. He staggered two steps and fell to his knees. A second later he collapsed all the way to the ground next to Loke. A figure stepped forward from behind him holding a three-foot bar of metal. “Take your fire and go back into the dark, or you’ll end up like your friend.”

  “You ain’t no daddy,” the torch holder stammered.

  The woman took another step toward him. “No, I’m a hell of a lot worse. I’m a mommy.”

  She swung the iron bar a second time and snapped the starver’s torch in two, mere inches above his fingers. The burning end landed in the dust next to Loke. The boy picked it up and threw it back into the man’s face. He tried batting it away, sending a shower of sparks into the air. Some of it landed in his hair and ignited.

  They watched the starver run, weaving crazily back and forth into the alley Charm had tried escaping down. They could hear his screams long after the orange glob of his burning head disappeared from sight.

  “I think you killed him, Mommy,” Charm said, hugging up against her.

  “He’ll live.” The woman produced a flashlight and shone it over the man still lying in the dirt. She kicked him in the side. His leg twitched. “So will his friend.” She tossed the bar down into the dirt. “Loke and Charm Edmund… How many times have I warned you about these back streets?”

  Loke stood and tested his knee. It would hurt like hell in the morning. “It’s all my fault. I wandered off the main path.”