“That’s funny,” I said as she opened the door. “The data in the Xennologist database suggests it’s paved with brimstone.”
She rolled her eyes. “You come up with a name for this place yet?”
I smiled and shook my head.
Through the open door, Rauder thundered, “You in or out? The bet stands at fourteen souls.”
Adriassi ground the orange nut in the palm of his gauntlet and sifted the dust into a bowl, then squirted a blue liquid from a pouch he’d just purchased. The merchant warily eyed Rauder and me, fully armored and with our rifles slung over our shoulders. Then he turned his attention back to Adriassi, who motioned for him to add another powder to the bowl. The concoction quickly congealed and became a lump. Adriassi scooped the doughy mixture from the bowl and offered it to me.
I retracted my faceplate and held it to my nose. It smelled earthy and resembled a chunk of sod.
“You sure that’s okay to eat?” Rauder asked, her voice hesitant.
“Sure,” I said, without much confidence. One of our first activities on new planets is testing a variety of foods in the public market for toxicity and most check out as safe, even if they fail to please our palates. Occasional successes like the ratleaf, however, made experimenting worthwhile. I closed my eyes and took a bite.
“This is fantastic!” I said, working the material in my mouth. “It’s sweet but not overpowering. Smooth and just a little salty. Try it, Raud, you won’t believe it.”
“No thanks,” she said, but again sounded hesitant.
“Great stuff,” I said, still chewing. “Now the flavor’s shifted. It’s deeper, more subtle. Keep this recipe secret, Adriassi. You could trade this stuff to any Confederation personnel who might pass through here in the future.”
“Let me see that,” Rauder said, taking it from my hand and retracting her faceplate.
Adriassi shrugged his shoulders in modesty. “It’s very common,” he said, beaming. “But I’m happy you like it. And you?”
Rauder cast me a glance. “Sure, I’d buy this. I might even send some home. I haven’t tasted anything like it before, and we’re what you’d call well-traveled.”
“Chalk it up in the win column, Adriassi,” I said, then added quickly as his face twisted in confusion, “That’s just an expression. So, what else can you show us?”
As Rauder’s faceplate shut with an audible hiss, I turned, not able to keep myself from smiling. Before turning in last night, I had submitted my report to Confed Command like always. I indicated that I would be doing field work with my cultural contact the following day and requested a companion escort for safety reasons. I had briefly mentioned my confrontation with Rauder and hoped, perhaps naively, that the CC officer issuing work details would take the hint. I went to sleep praying they would pair me with Vok and woke up to discover they’d assigned Rauder. I’ve become convinced CC does that kind of thing either for laughs or to be deliberately annoying.
Rauder had been even less pleased, but apparently decided to make the most of it, and the morning had passed without any conflict. Rauder hardly spoke as Adriassi led us through the maze of carts, identifying the multicolored foods, medicines, and ornamental crafts as I took samples and conducted material studies. The eyes of the shoppers and merchants followed us, some fearfully, others with curiosity. Rauder’s free hand often strayed to the priest’s hood she wore at her belt, or her “soulbag” as she’d taken to calling it. When Adriassi excused himself to haggle with a merchant, I asked her, “Think someone’s going to steal that off you?”
“What? This?” Rauder asked, again covering the bag with her hand. “No.”
“I notice you keep touching it. Feel a little self-conscious maybe? Carrying a hateful reminder like that around a peaceful place like this?” I asked, motioning to the shoppers. “Mixing with the locals isn’t so bad, is it?”
“Kiernan—” she started to say, her voice hard, when our WDSs went off in unison, a faint but unmistakable high-pitched whine, alerting us to the presence of hostiles in close proximity. My faceplate hissed closed as Rauder reported. “We’ve got fifty—no sixty—seditionists closing fast from all sides. Real fast. Marsten, Finnel, report. Fireteam Alpha, check in, we’ve got a situation.”
“Is there a problem?” Adriassi’s stood beside me, his face gaunt and frightened inside his helmet. The seditionists were closing faster than any of their ambushes in the fields, and I tried to think of a way to get Adriassi to safety when it hit me: We were in the center of a sprawling market. Over the com, Marsten and Finnel reported that they would reach our position in under five minutes, but Fireteam Alpha was on the far side of the city. The seditionists would be on us in seconds.
“Would they attack us in this market?” I asked, but Adriassi’s face was blank, uncomprehending. I remembered he couldn’t hear over our communications system and would have no idea what I was talking about. “Would the seditionists attack here, with all these people around?”
Adriassi’s mouth fell open. Rauder had her rifle ready and screamed, “Get to cover!” as the first green plasma bolt shot through the crowd, skipping off the top of her helmet. Then the air was filled with weapons fire from all sides and chaos erupted. Shoppers rebounded off our armored frames, running like crazed animals, trampling the fallen in their attempts to escape the barrage. Stray bolts passed through their limp bodies, which offered no resistance.
Rauder tipped over two carts, forming a bunker, then called to me. Shots careened off my chest and back, each hitting with concussive force, driving the wind from my lungs. Adriassi cried out as a shot tore through his thigh, and on instinct I grabbed him by the collar and flung him to safety behind Rauder’s barricade.
A bolt struck my ankle-joint and I screamed at the instant, searing pain even as more shots ricocheted off my forearm and shoulder. Our barrier was disintegrating under the hail of fire as Adriassi crouched between us, whimpering. Rauder poked her head out to squeeze off a shot and was rewarded with a half-dozen blows, one glancing off her helmet and blasting the earth beside the petrified Adriassi.
“Fireteam Bravo,” Rauder shouted into her headset. “Deploy firebombs when you reach our location.”
“You can’t!” I shouted over Adriassi’s head. “There are still civilians in the area, and Adriassi’s armor can’t handle a firestorm. He’ll be burned alive.”
“Launch!” Rauder shouted over the com as a chunk of the barricade exploded and peppered our faceplates.
My eyes fell on the brown bag hanging at Rauder’s side, and without thinking, my hand darted out and grabbed it. “What are you doing?” she shouted as I rose, reaching out and extending the bag out over the edge of our blasted and blackened barrier.
Plasma bolts struck my fist, as I began waving the bag, knocking it down, but I hoisted it high again. A few seconds passed and then the bombardment slowed, and then stopped. Rauder mounted her firebomb on the end of her barrel and hissed, “Are you crazy? Get down.”
I stood up slowly, the bag held aloft over my head. Around me, the market stood in ruins, blackened and smoking, the colorful wares spilled onto the dirt streets amidst the bloody bodies of the fallen. In every direction I saw seditionists, their rifles trained on me, their expressions invisible behind their black faceplates. I opened my hand, showing I held no weapon. Then I exaggerated my motions as I opened the bag and again waved it, pushing my hand through the bottom, turning it inside out. I waved it again then let the breeze carry it from my hand. I amplified a single word—“Free”—and the scorched air fell silent.