Edward Grant - Rebellion

The medics hadn’t cleared him to return to action yet, but he’d sneaked out of the hospital with bandages still wrapped around his legs after Logan and Bairamov smuggled in a set of fatigues so Gallo could hide his wounds.

He might be in trouble with the officers tomorrow, but what were they going to do? Send him back to the unit early? With the casualties they’d taken, he’d be there again as soon as they could get him fit enough to operate his suit. Which wouldn’t be more than a few days, either way.

“Everyone has a name for us.”

The useless ones, the unconnected ones, the ones who didn’t come from a distinguished, ‘elite’ family who could pull strings, and whose only value was that they might be slightly cheaper than machines. And slightly smarter.

From talking to the other recruits he’d met, he knew now that families like his own existed in every country on Earth. The workers, to be used and abused by the toffs, and replaced if they objected to their fate. Maybe one day things would change, but how? The toffs had all the power, and no qualms about using it. The workers had none. The unemployed had even less.

“The French, you know, call them Les Sauvages,” Desoto said from Logan’s right. “Savages, like wild animals.”

Logan had heard that slang more than once from the flics in the ZUS. “The aristos are the real savages.”

Bairamov tossed a ten-franc note onto the table. “Raise.”

“I’m out,” Gallo said, and tossed his cards onto the table.

‘Me too,” Desoto said. “I’m out of the game for tonight, and I’m out of money.”

Bairamov smirked, and stared into Logan’s face. “So, how about it, hero? You feeling as lucky tonight as you were in those tunnels?”

Logan squinted as he stared into Bairamov’s eyes. Was he bluffing, or did he have a better hand? He was right, either way. Logan had used up plenty of luck in the tunnels.

Could he rely on having any left tonight?

He placed his cards down. “Fold.”

“Thank you,” Bairamov said, as he reached out for the pile of cash on the table, and added another hundred francs to his winnings. Logan grabbed Bairamov’s cards, and flipped them over. Two tens, a four, a five and a two.

Well, Logan didn’t really need the money, did he? What could he do with it? They’d be back out in the field before he knew it, with nothing to spend it on.

Bairamov grabbed the cards, and shuffled them back into the pack. “Another round?”

“I’m done,” Gallo said.

Desoto’s chair legs dug gouges in the dirt floor as he pushed his chair back and stood. “I’m gonna take a look around, while the sun’s still up.”

Bairamov stuffed the cards in his pocket. “Good plan.”

Logan grabbed his helmet, and studied the faces of the men and women in the bar as he strolled toward the doors. Few of them looked up, and none of them looked like they wanted to pick a fight with four Legionnaires.

But their friends still might.

The air outside the bar was beginning to grow cold as the sun descended toward the horizon. Logan shivered as they stepped out of the doors, and sudden pain stabbed his eyes as they adjusted to the bright light of the setting sun after the dim electric glow inside.

Bairamov strolled away along the street, toward the setting sun. They followed.

“So, Volkov stopped hassling you?” Bairamov said.

Logan rubbed his jaw.

It still hurt from where Volkov had punched him after they returned to base, because he came out of the tunnels without the girl, or any other prisoners to keep Poulin happy. Poulin was still bitching about that, despite the tablet he’d found her, which she’d been doing her best to investigate with Intel.

He rubbed his stomach, which hurt too where Volkov had punched him earlier that day, when he wouldn’t admit that he was working for the insurgents.

Which, admittedly, would still have to be better than being beheaded as a traitor if he had admitted to it.

“I don’t think he ever will. He’s convinced I’m working with that girl.”

“You did let her escape twice.”

“You don’t really believe I’m on their side, do you?”

“Well, you do have to wonder.”

“I didn’t let her go. I had more important things to do than chase her. Like stay alive.”

“Catching her could have saved more lives.”

“I checked the drone footage after the explosion. She must have sneaked back to the barn while you and Desoto were looking at the crater. Then went racing away on the horse until she was out of drone range. There was no way to see where she went after that.”

“I doubt you’ll be seeing her again. After what happened back at the village, she’s going to be scared out of her wits and hiding out somewhere. That is, if her friends aren’t pissed that she led us right to them, and ready to stick her head on a pole. Must have taken them a long time to build that base, and we destroyed it overnight.”

“I think Volkov’s trying to get me killed, because he can’t prove I’m on the other side.”

“He’s just playing with you because you’re a newbie. And you know what they say… if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you more bad-ass. At this rate, if you survive this posting, you’ll be toughest son-of-a-bitch in the Legion.”

There was that.

“Besides,” Bairamov continued. “If he really believed you’re on their side, you’d be back in jail by now. Or dead.”

“I’m surprised he let you out of the camp,” Gallo said. “Those latrines are a hell of a mess.”

“He said he’d rather have me out in the town where I couldn’t cause more trouble for him.”

An old man stared at them from a small, round table outside the next bar along the street. A small white cup steamed on the table in front of him. The smell of coffee filled the air as they passed. Logan took an even deeper breath than he had been taking while walking along the street to keep his lungs filled in the thin air. The warm, rich smell of the coffee helped to clear his head after the wine they’d drunk in the bar.

Faint piano music grew louder ahead of them. Light glowed from the windows and doors of a building to the right, maybe ten metres wide, with two rows of windows below the dirt roof. Girls leaned on tall wooden poles beside the doors, where the light from the windows played over the bare skin between the narrow bands of cloth that covered the more interesting parts of their bodies.

Desoto pointed toward a blonde leaning on the left-hand pole. “I’m sure I saw her at the Mayor’s singalong.”

He was right. Though the girls had been wearing more clothes back then.

She must be freezing in the evening air with so much flesh exposed to the elements. The other girls looked familiar, too. Bairamov had been right about them putting on the show to tout for customers.

The girls waved at them, and yelled.

“Hello, soldiers.”

Bairamov turned slightly, angling toward the steps at the front of the building. “Coming to the knocking shop?”

Desoto frowned. “Would if I had some money left.”

Gallo shuffled beside them, staring at the girls with wide eyes. “Wish I could, but Volkov will kill me if I pull these wounds open, and can’t get back to the section on time.”

Logan looked up the steps at the girls. They reminded him too much of the girls he’d known back in Section 19. Down on their luck, broke, and desperate to make a living.

If the Governor had been right about the number of women on this planet far exceeding the number of men, it was little surprise that girls would end up working for their living any way they could.

The bureaucrats might be able to afford concubines, but few miners would. No matter how many men arrived on New Strasbourg from Earth looking for a new life, there’d probably always be an oversupply of girls and women looking for a way to survive, or to pay their fare back to Earth. And few places for them to work when most of the money came from mining.