Keeper Hunter

The countryside changed from intensive farming to swathes of forest interspersed with open pastures of grazing cattle. We passed what looked like a transport hub with sky tugs lifting containers into the sky. Sky tugs were just lift engines on a frame that carried containers. A more efficient way to transport cargo than the transports that dogged our way here.

“Can I ask a question?” I wasn’t going over why she had decided to drive instead of taking a shuttle. That was her personal thing. I just wanted to ask about the transports. “What gives with all the transports on the road I’ve seem nothing but transports on this road. And here we have sky tugs doing the same job?”

“That’s easy,” Copper replied. “Sky tugs are for off world freighters. Anything else is local.”

That had me told.

We’d just passed the hub when I heard an explosion behind me. A quick glance behind me saw flaming wreckage falling out of the sky. I skidded to a stop and leapt out of the ATV leaving the door open, a shaken Copper climbing out beside me. We weren’t the only ones that had stopped. The explosion had brought the whole highway to a stop everyone watching the same thing.

“Should we go and help?” I asked Copper.

“No, there’s nothing we can do.” She got back into the ATV.

“Surely there is something we can do?” I said to her through the open door.

“Best we get back on the road.” She looked at me sadness in her eyes.

I climbed back in frustrated. “I’m sure we could have helped?”

“No we can’t.”

I growled annoyed. This was her world and she knew it better than I did. “This happen often?”

“More since the Separatist offensive. The wreckage fell on the forest. No one died.”

“What do you mean no one died. What about the pilot of the sky tug?”

“It’s automated.”

“And you as an Imperial is ok with that?”

“I’m half T’Arni, the Governor approved of using automation. He considered the loss of a living driver greater than having a machine do it.” Copper regarded me. “It sounds strange for me to hear you say that since you lived with the Valkyrie?”

“True but things like that make me nervous. I’m still uncomfortable using those red driverless cab most Confed cities have.”

“T’Arni are more accepting then Humans are.”

“Sorry.” I felt like an idiot. I’d easily accepted Cell Stitchers then I hadn’t a choice with those. It didn’t make things easier to know I had my own version of a Cell Stitcher swirling around in my blood. What I couldn’t accept was her blatant disregard of the incident behind me. That was me I had a need to investigate, to find the truth and bring those behind it to justice. And yet I’d spectacularly failed to do just that on a number of occasions. Always something else had interfered with it Komana, The Black Stripes and Lady Broaden to name a few. Others were getting into their vehicles we drove on putting the hub behind us.

We drove for about another hour passing more forested areas the countryside was getting wilder. There were some farmlands but the separation by the forest was much wider. The only thing of any interest was the bridge over a wide river. It had high reinforced concrete barriers separating it from the highway. They seemed a lot stronger than what I expected for a road bridge of any sort.

“We should be coming up to an exit ramp soon. Take it down,” Copper, said.

“Ok,” I replied. I was still fuming over the incident with the sky tug. Unfortunately Copper was right there was nothing I could do. I had no jurisdiction here heck I wasn’t even an investigator with the Alliance anymore after Komana had me exiled .I now understood how Solstrid and Ljufu felt exiled from their Clans. I concentrated on keeping my eyes open for the exit ramp.

“We’re getting close,” Copper remark her voice tense as if she was expecting

something bad happen.

I took the ramp down onto a less used road I could see why she had opted for an ATV. Trees crowded the new road and in some places their roots had taken a toll on the surface of the road. It had the feeling of something neglected.

“It never used to be like this,” Copper said sadly. She had lapsed into a silence as we took the ramp down.

“No one lives here?” I asked her my thoughts on the abandoned town in the scrubland. It probably explained her reaction to that abandoned town. “You want to talk about it?”

Copper sat silent for a moment. “I suppose I should tell you you’ll see once we get there,” she said after awhile. “It started just before the war with Confederacy. I shared a station office with two Security Officers.” She gave me a look. “Please don’t ask me for names it’s bad enough to remember what happened without having to say their names.”

I could respect that I had my own list of names I had to contend with. “Please go on?”

“We also shared the work load there wasn’t much need for my services out here everyone got on just fine.” Copper sighed heavily the pain in her voice that obvious. “So when one of the outlying farms called for help I went. I’d thought it was a boundary dispute the farm involved was always arguing with their neighbour. What it was, was worse so much worse.” She paused here eyes distant. “I wished I never got involved but I guess people would have died anyway to keep the secret.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. Secrets worth killing over weren’t worth keeping secret. “Ok.”

“There was a crashed shuttle that straddled their boundary. I was annoyed at first they should have called in straight away in case there had been casualties. When I got there they told me the shuttle was empty. I doubted them and took a look for myself.” She gave me a look. “I didn’t believe it had been remotely piloted. Inside was a silver cube stuck to the pilot’s console…” She never had the chance to finish her sentence.

I braked hard my heart beating like a drum it sounded too much like the cube like device attached to the computer in the cavern a Rhosani device. My mind in a whirl, what had Mouse said when she had mentioned the Corrupted? I had seen first hand what the cube had made the Corrupted do to breech the wall cavern from the fake area. Being trapped in that harness was a good indicator of what the cube could do. A thing like that would use anything it could to achieve its goal. Had not been for the First Ones it would have wiped out the last of the Keepers and taken half the planet with it. The First Ones had only slowed the inevitable but that hadn’t stopped it. That was until I came a long and awakened the Keepers. I wasn’t sure if the computer was a sentient being or not but it had forced me to save it. At the same time Mouse and the other Keepers remade themselves to take that burden off me. In helping them after I was released from the harness that I’d found the cube. I remembered the danger I was in handling it. I had thrown it into the acid lake surrounding the computer. Mouse had shouted at me to destroy it. “Did you touch it!” I demanded.

“Yes I had to take it in for evidence. I did use gloves and put it into a evidence bag.”

Copper regarded me carefully. “You knew about that!” she said angrily. “You bitch you knew all this time!”

“Not about yours but I have encountered one before, before I knew what it was. I was told to throw it as far away from me as I could.” I still felt cold when Mouse told me was it was. “I threw it into a lake of acid.”

“What was it?”

I felt reluctant to tell her knowing her heritage. She may only be part T’Arni but this was her history as well.

“It is a Rhosani control device.”

Copper was out the door and puking before I could stop her. I waited patiently until she had finished. I handed her a bottle of water. She swilled her mouth out with the contents. I could see she was trembling I was the same inside yet my outside remained calm almost detached.

“You going to be ok?” I asked her concerned.

“Never!” she declared dramatically. She turned to me her eyes big and round her face disbelieving. “Are you telling the truth?”

It was almost a plea for me to deny it I couldn’t. “It’s the truth Mouse told me about them.”

“Mouse?”

“My daughter kind of it’s complicated.”

Copper just nodded she seemed drained. “That explains a lot.”

“They killed my whole village for it?” She stared into the distance. “All those deaths,” she said her voice low and pained. “All those lives wasted.”

I was more interested in what happened to the cube. “What happened to the device?”

“I lost it when I jumped into the river. I hope a Sharptooth ate it. But the bastard wouldn’t believe me. He killed my mother because he thought I still had it.”

At that point I began to see the picture and understood her pain. “Sharptooth?”

“A very large fish with razor sharp teeth. Good eating if you can wrestle one out of the water. It was why Frigga was there in the first place she was fishing. She dived into the water and saved me I can’t swim, still can’t.” Copper continued. “I swear I shot him dead but somehow he came back to life. Frigga chopped his head off with a sword. I’d swear blind he was surprised when she did that. Trouble is his body crumbled to ash and we have no proof of him ever being there.” Copper looked distant again. “I went with Frigga that was the second time she saved me. I didn’t have a choice.”

Again I understood her predicament. “What is gone is gone.” I assured her. But did I really believe that? I got a bad feeling about this. I glanced around we were flanked by forest. I took a look down the road in the distance I could see a plume of smoke.

“I see a column of smoke ahead,” I told Copper quietly.

She stiffened. “That’s from the village there shouldn’t be anyone there?”

“Get in,” I said climbing back into the ATV.

“I’ll drive,” Copper said.

I slid over to the passenger seat.

“Keep that gun of yours handy,” Copper said a grim determined expression on her face. She started the engine and we drove towards the distant smoke.