Weekly Drabble #249: Dust - Command and Control (Patreon)

This week's prompt is 'a compassionate enemy' from stratomunchkin, and with it, we return to the alt-screamers universe, Dust. Enjoy!

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Command and Control:

“So, a duster,” one of the Conglomerate troops said. He was of average height with rust-coloured hair and a face thin from lack of food. Not starvation, but closer to it than not.

Lorelai tilted her head towards the man. “Yes.”

“Haven’t seen many of you around lately. Definitely not one all on their own. None of them as pretty as you.”

“Hey,” Colmec cut in, before Lorelai could respond, the specialist looking over at the Connie and Lorelai.

The grey-suited soldier glanced back at her. “What is it, Alliance?”

“Don’t talk to her.”

“What are you, her mother?”

“I said, don’t fucking talk to her.”

The Conglomerate soldier straightened, his face darkening. “I’ll talk to whoever I want to, Alliance. And ifI tell you to shut the fuck up, you’ll shut the fuck up.”

Rashid put a hand on Colmec’s shoulder. “Easy, Andrea. We’re on our best behaviour, remember?” He didn’t know what was going on in this place, but with the captain gone, the squad was his responsibility. The last thing they needed was for anything to start something with a bunch of armed and jumpy Connies. Of course, I expected I’d be the one to watch out for, the lieutenant thought.

“But he-”

“It’s just talk, so let’s keep things civil as long as that’s all it is.” Whispered, so that the Conglomerate soldiers couldn’t hear: “I know. I know, Andrea. But this isn’t the same. Lorelai can look after herself.” The image of her half-naked and dripping with duster blood and brains was burnt into his memory. He’d been doing his best not to make it obvious he was watching her – it – but if the SV decided that it was no longer in the mood to be a prisoner, it’d go right through the guards watching over them and probably a good chunk of the Connies besides. So far she was playing along.

Louder, before the Connies could get twitchy about private conversations: “We’re all friends here, or at least not enemies, right?”

The Conglomerate guard glowering at Colmec just snorted. His partner, sitting towards the back of the room and pretending to file her nails with a bored expression on her face spoke up, though her eyes didn’t shift from her inspection of her fingers. At least, at first glance. Rashid could see the careful, hooded look she’d tossed his way the instant an altercation had looked to be starting. Contrary to appearances, she was watching them very closely. “Not active enemies,” she corrected. “For now. We’re waiting on what the captain says.”

“That’ll work. No reason to get excited and risk the planetary population dropping even farther, right?”

“The population’s in that sorry state because of you,” the first guard pointed out.

“Helped along by a bit of municipal remodelling, courtesy of the Conglomerate Air Corps,” Rashid replied, then raised his hands. “But what good’s arguing about all that now? We’re all stuck here and waiting for our respective captains to come back and let us know what the score is. So neither of us should be getting into anything that’ll make their jobs harder, right?”

The guards shared a brief look. The woman shrugged like she was bored of the conversation and went back to her personal grooming.

“How many other dusters have you seen?” Lorelai asked into the brief silence.

The first guard – Dekin by his nametag – glanced back at her. “Not a lot,” he replied. “Few days out from here, we ran across a couple families out foraging, trying to stock up provisions for next winter. Was about a week before that, we stopped at a small enclave for a couple nights. Not as many people left topside,” he said, shooting a dark look at Rashid and the rest of the disarmed Alliance soldiers. “Not everyone has nice, comfy hives to crawl into and hide. Definitely haven’t seen anyone on their own for a long time.” He paused. “Were you alone?”

“Yes. I was living in New Berlin.”

“New Berlin? I heard that city was still intact – relatively speaking,” he quickly added to avoid another comment about the Conglomerate’s bombing campaign.

“It’s a shithole,” Rashid put in. “But I suppose it could be worse. There’s a question,” he said with sigh. “Where’s it better to live? A burnt-out carpet-bombed ruin only slightly crawling with SVs or a city overrun with them.”

“Take it from us, Alliance,” the female guard said. “We’d take the bombs any day of the week. There’s a reason the captain had to lead us across God’s forgotten country just on the chance there was shelter here.” She stopped cleaning her nails and looked up, though her gaze was set far behind any of the Alliance troops, as if she were staring out beyond the concrete walls of the base. She shook herself. “That’s not even a question,” she finished, her voice starting to shake. Her expression hardened, as if she were on the verge of saying more, then seemed to mentally shrug and go back to her distracted act.

Rashid was silent for a moment. “Yeah,” he finally admitted. “I can understand that.” The Conglomerate called the Alliance sore losers, but they’d been the ones to start burning down whole cities. On the other hand, Rashid had seen too many people die ugly from the Svs. If given a choice between a few minutes of terror and a fiery death, or weeks of paranoia and panic before a brutal, bloody end he might welcome the bombers in himself.

A few of his people were looking at him. They’d lost friends and family in the blitz and wanted him to push back. Any other day, he might let his mouth start talking as Kawalsky would say. Not right now. Not when their current good health depended on their captors’ graces.

Dekin went back to chatting up Lorelai, though he stayed on the other side of the table, smart enough not to get within arm’s reach of her or any of the Alliance troops in case they tried to rush him and get his weapons. Between that and his fellow’s seeming indifference to her duties, they were either in the hands of two very lax guards – or two smart ones, and he didn’t think anyone who’d survived a cross-country trek was likely to drop all caution at the first sign of a pretty face.

Lorelai was a good place to start an easy interrogation. She was the one outsider in the group; the Alliance soldiers could present a united front against questioning, but a civilian, even one in their company... there were several points of leverage that the Conglomerate could use. Resentment for living outside the hives, fear of the SVs, anger at the Alliance for unleashing them. It might not even take that much prodding to get all of that bubbling up to the surface.

Unfortunately for the Connies, they weren’t questioning a person, but a killing machine with a bugged line of code in it. Or maybe Rashid was just being paranoid and Dekin really was thinking with his little head, and just wasn’t dumb enough to act like a caricature. Either option put him on edge. The captain said Lorelai was on a leash, but how much could anyone trust her? Those things were built for one purpose and one purpose only. It was just like he’d told Andrea: it could look after itself. It was everyone else that needed to worry about what it might do.

“How long were you on your own?” Dekin asked. “At least, I’m guessing you were. I figure if you had anyone else, they’d be running with you and your associates here.”

“I was,” Lorelai confirmed. “I never really had anyone else, so I guess... as long as I can remember.”

Dekin let out a sympathetic exhalation. “That sounds rough. It was plenty hard for us since the Alliance let their little toys loose, but I can’t imagine what it was like being on your own since A-day, even in Alliance territory where the cutters weren’t as thick.”

“I saw a lot of people die,” Lorelai told him, looking down, her voice lowering as if recalling painful memories. “I remember all of it.”

“Same here,” Dekin assured her. “Every damn day of slaughter. We got hit first, but all of you – you got it too when those things turned. Now we’re all in the same boat, just trying to survive. Hey,” he paused as if something just occurred to him.“I bet you’re hungry.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out a chocolate bar. He slid it halfway across the table. “Here, dig in.”

Lorelai looked atit carefully. “I can’t,” she told the Conglomerate soldier. “You’ve probably been holding onto this for a long time. A special occasion, right? I can’t take it.”

“Nothing more special than finding someone who’s survived Hell on Alcatar all by herself,” Dekin assured her. “Especially one as pretty as you, if you’ll pardon the flattery.” He smiled charmingly.

Lorelai looked at him for a moment, then took the bar and broke it in two, pushing one half back across the table and delicately nibbling on the other. Dekin accepted it, pulling out a chair and sitting down. “So,” he said, glancing briefly at the sullen Alliance soldiers before returning his attention back to the beautiful blonde killing machine. “You mind if we talk some more?”