Even Stars Go Cold

Chapter 14 - Betrayal

Trust. Power. Lies.

"Absolutely no... fucking... way!"

Drick emerged from the cache like a bear prematurely roused from hibernation. He turned, wildly, this way and that, bellowing: "Sam! Sam! Where the hell are you?!"

Overcoming the temptation to remain hidden, Sam cautiously stepped out. Drick was obviously fuming, and unheeding of the danger they might be in. She pulled him into cover, even though her instinct for survival urged her to leave him.

"What is your major malfunction?" she demanded harshly.

"This..." he popped up his omni-tool display. "I'm being sent to hunt her down..."

"You need to catch up with her," Sam countered, holding Drick's arm to study the display on his device. "She's moving towards Roundway, and way faster than on foot. The road is that way," she added, pointing in the direction of the rising sun.

"They're sending me after her with live weapons!" Drick persisted. "Did you get the same thing?"

Sam opened her omni-tool display, and it seemed to match his instructions exactly.

"You're not considering doing this, are you?" he demanded.

"I'm not considering disobeying orders... at this time." Sam shut the display off and adjusted her gear as she continued. "We're wasting time, Drick. She has a head start, and a vehicle. We catch up, we figure it out from there. For all we know, it may be a joint mission."

Sam took Drick's arm and turned him back towards the cache with surprising strength. "We need to shut up shop and move; not many vehicles on that road between Fellowship and Roundway. You were so eager to assume that we were on a co-op not that long ago."

It had been a hurried scramble, over treacherous rocks and arid scrub, though overall the land was relatively flat. He was fit enough, under normal circumstances during military physical training. His legs were burning like they tended to when doing rapid, short-step exercises. The key difference was that those normally only lasted for a handful of metres before changing focus. It was quite another thing to run for an unspecified amount of time, with urgency, and contend with the uneven surfaces underfoot which threatened to throw him to the ground with every footfall.

Ahead of him, Sam was almost dancing from rock to rock, always seeming to know where to put her feet. It was a precision that Drick could not match; choosing his own path left him lagging behind, sweating profusely.

Damn you if you ain't enjoying this! he scowled at her back, as he tried to keep up.

Twenty minutes later, Drick checked his omni-tool yet again. The distance between them and Abi was growing; endlessly, in his mind. They were now within sight of the black strip, slightly elevated above the rest of the terrain, when his device indicated an incoming call. Metres ahead, Sam stopped to check her wristband; the call was to both of them.

In miniature, the Assistant Director's head appeared above each device. It was the first time during the exercise that anyone had contacted them directly; all previous communication had been texts, holographs, and locator references.

"Good, got you both. We have a serious problem for you to solve. A vehicle will be with you in the next few minutes, and I need you to track down Miss Ramsey. All we currently have is her location, and it's still moving so that's the best bet. If you can stop her getting to Roundway, that would be ideal."

Drick, already steaming with anger, kept walking to catch up with Sam. "Why are we going after her?"

"She's what we call 'off the reservation', Mr Andre. We believe she has hijacked a vehicle, and she's using it to run."