Telling the people who had followed them into the transit tunnels was hard. He didn't show his own grief, only delivered the information as accurately and as gently as possible. He didn't give false hope, he answered questions directly and he allowed the group to comfort each other. It was all in his officer's training, but to those who left friends they had made while defending the barricades behind it just didn't feel like enough. He wanted to offer them his sympathy, tell them that there was still some chance that someone made it out, that if they mounted a rescue mission there would be something to recover, but none of it was true so he had nothing but the hard, cold facts. The few who felt motivated to mount a rescue mission had to be told, over and over again, that there was no chance of survival. When that didn't work he played back the recording, let them hear the screams for themselves.
No one blamed Ayan, Jason or himself. That was a relief but little comfort. Many of them blamed Dementia and even Oz was led to wonder why he hadn't said anything about his countermeasures to the Holocaust Virus not being a permanent solution to Yves and the other resistance leaders. He had to put that aside, however. It wasn't something he had time to ponder and if there was anyone who was better suited to solve that puzzle it was Jason. His officer training came in handy once more; Dementia and the Clever Dream were their ticket off of Pandem so he went to work reassuring people that Yves had been warned, that Dementia had done everything he could have. It was a lie, but one that might hold them together until they were safely away.
It was difficult to raise spirits, but there were other facts to offer. A group of seasoned rebels and refugees were on their way. At the head of the group was Alaka; someone who knew more about these tunnels than everyone combined and had been responsible for directing them away from the overtaken refugee barricade. Beside him was their old friend; Jacob Valance, a well known bounty hunter and privateer. They were waiting for them so they could get to a ship with a cloaking device and an artificial intelligence that could fight off the holocaust virus. Those were the facts that, after they had a few minutes to mourn, Ayan, Jason and himself started to quietly remind them of. “We're getting out of here soon,” he reassured.
When things finally quieted down he found the most peaceful spot he could. He sat on an upturned block of broken concrete beside the sealed protective bag that held Minh-Chu Buu in suspended animation. Behind them was the thick concrete wall that had been erected ages before to block the tunnel off from the old spaceport receiving station.
As he opened a meal bar he couldn't help but remember his captivity on the Overlord II. “You know, no matter how good these ration bars taste, what they do with the texture, they'll always remind me of the condensed sludge chunks they fed us on that ship,” he chewed through that first bite slowly, enjoying the dark quiet. “It's funny, you kept calling yourself crazy, even back in the sims before I had met you, and I really didn't believe you were a little touched in the head until you hit the afterburners on that heap we escaped that ship on. You should have seen our faces, most us looked like they thought the thing would tear itself to pieces,” Oz couldn't help but chuckle and shake his head. “But then Jonas climbed into one of those ball turrets and I wasn't sure who was crazier. I wasn't far behind though, so there's no telling who gets the nutso prize. I felt so alive when we were on the First Light, like every moment counted for something. Even when we recorded a report we knew someone we'd run into on the ship would read it, it wasn't going to some stiff functionary or assessment program who we'd never meet. I'll never forget Jason's face when he saw the first one you recorded in the shower. He couldn't stop laughing for I don't know how long and all he said when we came to look was; 'he could have just recorded the audio!'”
Oz worked his way through another bite of his meal bar as he thought back. “You know, I barely knew you. Even in all the sims we went on before the First Light. You were so busy down on the flight deck when we got aboard I didn't have much time then either, but I tell ya it's not the same out here without you. Jonas is Jacob now, and he's seen and done some dark things if the holo archives are any indication, but when I saw you and Ayan I knew that if there were two people who could bring him back, remind him of who he really is regardless of everything he might have done out here in the dark, it would be you two. I'm just a soldier, but wherever you and Ayan go there's some kind of spark, rooms light up.” He sighed as he chewed through another bite. “Besides, after what you've been through you deserve to be where you want to be. Maybe we all deserve a little piece of what we had back,” he looked at the last bite of his meal replacement bar as he swallowed the preceding bite. “There's gotta be a better way to package emergency food. Ah well, quiet time's almost-” he started to say before he was interrupted by a sound, the smallest of sounds behind him.
He turned the audio receptors up on his comm unit and was instantly rewarded. The sounds of four running, booted feet were just on the other side of that wall and they were moving away. “Duck and cover!” he shouted as he dropped what was left of his meal bar, grabbed Minh in his protective vacbag, and ran a few meters to stop behind an upturned hunk of concrete.
The wall sealing the tunnel off exploded in a sudden heave of heavy brick, mortar and dirt.
Together At Last
Alaka and Jake led the way between several ancient maglev transit cars. They were two decks high and eleven meters across. Judging from the thick dust they were kicking up the tunnel had been abandoned for a very long time. “Why did they close all this up?” asked one of Alaka's children as he clung on his father's back and poked his head over his shoulder. He was from the middle litter, just barely a pre-teenager.
“They made a system that could travel horizontally and up and down so people didn't have to go from the rail cars to elevators as much when they got to the space port.”
“You and Mom used to tell me never to go there.”
“The Spaceport?”
“Yeah.”
“You remember why, don't you Temin?”
“I remember.”
“Say it aloud,” Alaka pressed gently.
“Because you and Mom didn't want slavers to grab us and take us away,” his son said quietly between sniffs as he pointed his snout in the air then directly ahead.
“That's right, but we have to go there now.”
“Because there's a ship ready to take us to the Triton,” he struggled to climb higher up on Alaka, almost coming over his shoulder as he sniffed the darkness ahead. “They're close dad.”
“I know, go see your mother,” Alaka said gently.
His son kept on sniffing the air, closing his eyes and ignoring his father's instructions.
“Go to your mother Temin,” Alaka said more firmly.
The boy hopped off his father's back and bounced off one of the old transit cars before running back to the rear of the line, where his mother and the rest of their children followed in the main group.
“He's a good boy, that one. He wanted to hunt rim weasels with me,” Alaka said quietly to Jake as he adjusted the strap on his massive improvised beam cannon.
“I like him, and he's right, we're getting close,” Jake said with a nod towards a light in the distance. He brought up a small sub display window on his visor and increased the magnification. There wasn't anything to see just yet, only the gradual curve of the corner with light hitting the far wall, but he knew that just around that corner they'd find the other group of refugees, led by Oz, Jason, Minh and Ayan.
His stomach was in knots despite the effort he made on concentrating on the longer goal; getting off Pandem and out to the safety of the stars if not directly back to Triton.