BSC 3 Snippet 2

 I have but a moment...

Still in chapter 1:

Tropical Village

 

Tariq Powell moved with the others as they harvested the wheat. She paused to wipe sweat from her brow. This was their third harvest, the last before summer ended. They needed the wheat if they were to survive the winter.

The problem was that they had to harvest by hand. Her right hand flexed around the sickle. She looked to the field and sighed; they still had a half acre to go before they needed to quit for the night. Another two days of work if the weather held and they’d be done.

She looked back to the bundles behind her. She had stood them up in cones for the next person in line to come and pick them up. They only had so many hands so they were ranging well ahead of the pickup team.

She grimaced bitterly. Had the bastard white man helped them as he’d done earlier, things would have been different. She shook her head. So, they’d shorted him! So what! He’d had plenty; yet, he’d insisted on indebting them! Like they were slaves!

She didn’t blame the late Trinika for what she’d done. What was done was done. The bastards hadn’t forgiven them though, which had hurt. It had hurt worse when that purple fruit had come into their hands.

She shook her head as she wiped at her face with a handkerchief. It was old and worn, but she had no replacements. And that she could lay at the bastard white man too. He had blacklisted them for not paying him back and other communities had done the same for fear of his reprisals.

Well, she’d tried to pay him back for his indifference to their plight when the plant had killed her son and others. It had failed though. Her lower lip quivered. She didn’t regret her part in it. So, the rest of the world hated them and despised them? Ignored them? So be it. She was from the Caribbean; she was used to being ignored and mistreated.

She sniffed. Sure, they had played nice to the tourists that came with their money. Purely because they came with their money. But that was all for show. She shook her head and turned as the wind picked up. The heavy stalks of the wheat moved. She needed to get busy before she lost them.

Her left hand reached up to touch the sun and then put her fingers under it as if to measure its distance to the ground.

The good news was that since they had far fewer mouths to feed they’d planted less. But it still needed to be brought in, threshed, and then ground. All by hand. She grimaced at the thought of the promised equipment el Jefe, the colonel had promised. Now that was just ashes, another broken white man promise.

She heard a rustle and turned in the direction of the rows of crops that led to the distant tree line. She knew that they had been told not to plant so close to the trees because their shade would make the plants grow less. Well, they’d been right but her people had needed the room.

Now though … her hand tightened on her sickle, wondering what it was. She opened her mouth to yell something, usually a loud noise was enough to drive something off and get the attention of the guards. But then something sweet covered her mouth and nose as hard things pinned her arms. She inhaled to shriek but that was a mistake. The smell made her body instantly relax against her will.

She slumped, and her hand let the sickle slip from her nerveless fingers as she crumpled.

Hard hands made certain she was out with an injection before bundling her up and taking her off into the rows of wheat and then into the tree line beyond.

Behind them footprints of raptors were left behind to confuse those that would search for her long enough for them to get away.

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New Falkland Island

 

“Package 1 acquired,” a voice said over the encrypted radio channel. Encryption wasn’t really required; they had a direct satellite link.

“Roger that,” Akira replied. He’d taken over the radio as Cassie had other concerns at the moment. He switched frequencies. “Package 1 acquired. You are a go Blue Team.”

Two clicks acknowledged him. He nodded, made a notation and then sent the go order to the Hercules.

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