Blue Sky of Mars

by Christopher R Wills

  Jethro leaned forward and took the same food the pirate had taken on his plate; a leg of chicken and some pineapple slices. A food replicator didn’t produce this stuff.

  How the hell did the pirate get hold of chicken and pineapples?

  Jethro ate cautiously. He ate because he needed to. He didn’t know when he would next get the chance and it was important to remain nourished so he could keep his energy levels up and his mind on the job.

  “Wine?”

  Jethro declined preferring water.

  The little man gulped down some red wine. “Let’s parley then. What do you wants from me?”

  Jethro liked that, straight to the point.

  “You have some people I’m interested in.”

  The little man put down his goblet. “I thoughts that might be the case. The problem is I needs them, to build up my defenses for when the alien comes.”

  “You think a stone wall will hold back the aliens?”

  “No, I don’t. Which is where you comes in.”

  Here it comes.

  “So you don’t need the people to build you a wall.”

  The pirate picked up a fork and speared a piece of pineapple then took a bite. He ate it like an animal with juice escaping from his open mouth as he chewed, dribbling onto his serviette which he had tucked into the open neck of his blouse.

  “I loves pineapple. You should try some.”

  Jethro picked up a fork and speared a segment himself but he bit off a small piece and chewed it with his mouth closed as they had taught him during officer training.

  “Good?”

  Jethro nodded, not wanting to offend the pirate and also to give him the impression he held all the cards.

  “I won’t beats around the bush, as it were. I want passage for me and my men to Earth.”

  Jethro thought it might be something like that.

  “Before we discuss that I want to see your cards,” said Jethro. “All of them.”

  The pirate stabbed the prongs of his fork into the chicken and laughed. “Me thinks that’s a reasonable request under the circumstances.” He gave the orders to one of the guards at the door.

  Jethro took some food and drank some water whilst he was waiting. Then there was a knock on the door.

  “Enter,” the pirate commanded.

  There was a clanking of chains and a chain gang entered led by Maddy. There were ten people in the chain gang including Conrad who was at the rear. Jethro recognized some crew of the Blackbird.

  Maddy was in a state. Her hair had grown but had not been brushed or washed for a long time. Her face was dirty as were her arms, and she was in bare feet. She wore the same dress she had on when Jethro rescued her from her hidey hole at her farm. The farm where the aliens had killed her parents, except that now the dress was faded and torn and reduced to a rag that was hanging limply off her starved body.

  The rest of the chain gang were equally ragged and starved. They saw the feast on the table and stared at it with haunted open eyes as if they had never seen such a feast before.

  The bastard planned this. He knew I would want to see them.

  Jethro gripped the table with his hands desperately trying not to display any anger or any emotion to the pirate in case it was seen as a sign of weakness. It was all he could do to stop himself leaping across the table and snapping the pirate’s neck or ramming his fork into the pirate’s jugular. The only thing that saved him from carrying out one of those stupid actions, which would have resulted in his death from one guard in the room, was the briefest of white noise clicks in his ear-piece.

  Gunny is in the building. Excellent.

  After hearing that, he could instantly calm down but he kept his grip on the table just in case.

  The only prisoner who still retained any semblance of dignity was Conrad. He too was emaciated and ragged and his face and arms displayed signs of torture and beatings but he stood tall and proud, showing that he kept some of his self-respect. Jethro winked at him and immediately turned back to face the pirate hoping he didn’t notice.

  He didn’t. “Take them back to their cell.”

  As they shuffled the chain gang out of the room Jethro took care to listen out which direction they went and noted that they appeared to have been taken to another room on the ground floor of the office block.

  “As you can see, I hold all the aces.” The pirate smiled and resumed his eating as if he had little interest in the parley.

  “And what are you offering in return?”

  “I’m offering freedom for you and all your men and women.”

  “So how’s that going to work?”

  The pirate took a drink of red wine but was a little over ambitious and some of it dribbled around the corners of his mouth. He took his serviette and dabbed the spillage. The napkin was now stained in dark red, which reminded Jethro of the color of blood just before it entered the lungs to be oxygenated.

  “Your ship is an EMV Mark 1.”

  How the hell does he know that?

  The pirate answered Jethro’s thoughts. “I had patrols out. Anyway. You will leave a skeleton crew on board. The rest of your crew can remain here. Your skeleton crew will take me and my crew to Earth to a place of my choosing. After we are safely there, you can return to Mars to collect the rest of your crew and the prisoners.”

  In your fucking dreams pirate.

  Jethro heard a double click of white noise in his ear-piece.

  Nearly there.

  “If for any reason you don’t agree with my plan, I will kill one prisoner every hour, starting with the first in line, that pretty young thing. I think they call her Maddy.”

  Jethro stood up but instantly realized the stupidity of his actions. He was unarmed in a room with four enemy all at a distance from him that would mean they could get quite a few shots at him before he could get to them.

  “Please sit down,” said the pirate with a hint of triumph in his eyes.

  Jethro sat and counted in his mind slowly to ten whilst he controlled his breathing.

  “I was impressed at how little emotion you showed when the prisoners were led in. But there was just enough in your eyes when you saw the young lady, for me to see that she is your weak point. You really should get control of those emotions.”

  Jethro had control of his emotions now, only just. He didn’t want to calm down totally because any minute now he would need the adrenalin.

  Three clicks of white noise. Nearly ready. Thirty seconds, twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven…

  chapter 35

  Alice: “Time for just one more story.”

  Ted: “I’d like to thank our viewers and listeners around the World for all their support in my time of difficulty.”

  Alice: “Ah, that’s lovely Ted. I love a good news story. So how many have contacted you to give their support?”

  Ted: “Three. And one of them was my dad.”

  Alice: “OK… still sleeping in the shed then?”

  Ted: “Yes.”

  Alice: “I take it you’re no longer going on the cruise.”

  Ted: “No.”

  Alice: “Producer? Can you help me out here?”

  Announcement: “We are sorry but because of adverse atmospheric conditions the World News has prematurely ended today.”

  chapter 36

  Twenty, Nineteen, Eighteen…

  The door burst open, and a woman rushed in.

  “Sir, sir.”

  The pirate put his hand up. “Calm down, calm down.”

  Fifteen, Fourteen, Thirteen…

  Jethro noted where his Glock was and quickly calculated how many steps it would take for him to reach it. The woman rushing in was ideal because it distracted the pirate and the others in the room.

  Ten, Nine, Eight…

  “But sir there’s a ship…”

  The pirate stood up. “What ship?”

  Five, four, three, two, one… Come on, come on

  Bang.

  The
floor shook, the wine carafe toppled over and Jethro saw none of it because he was already diving towards his Glock.

  He rabbit punched the man in the throat with all his strength. It might not kill him but it will disable him temporarily as breathing is an important function of the body and that concentrates the mind when it became difficult to perform. Jethro got his hand to the Glock and pulled it from the holster expertly turning it on and pointing it at the man’s head and finishing him off in one swift movement.

  He heard the pirate shouting, but he was already running to the door after shooting the two guards. He had to get to the prisoners before they did anything to them. This was the weakest part of his plan but once he had set the plan in motion, there was no way of stopping it because he could not possibly have communicated with his team without the pirate knowing.

  Jethro reached the first door and pulled it open. Nothing but two guards who he shot immediately. He heard shooting elsewhere in the building. Good. That meant Gunny was doing his thing.

  The second door. As soon as he opened it he saw the prisoners all on their knees facing away with the two guards lined up as if part of a firing squad. Bang bang. He polished both off with a head shot.

  He used his Glock to open the two end sets of shackles, but he knew he had no time for niceties. He thrust one of the dead guards’ guns into Conrad’s hands. He smiled at Conrad.

  “Stay in this room. Don’t leave or you will be in the way. Also, you’ll need face helmets. I’ll fetch some.”

  Conrad nodded. Jethro was already running for the door. His job was to clear the ground floor. Gunny’s was to clear the first floor and head up to the second floor to meet Peck who should have slid down a rope from the Methuselah and into the hole that the ship had blasted into the roof of the hangar. Others were to follow Peck but keep a safe distance for back up only or to polish off any leftovers. Guppy remained on sniper duty on top of the cliff to control any outside activity.

  Jethro ran through the rest of the ground floor, but all he found were surrenders. He herded them into the storage area outside the office block, making sure they wore helmets as the blast now compromised the building’s airtight security. He contacted the backup crew on his communicator and sent two of them to guard the surrenders and then he picked up a bag of face helmets.

  He returned to the room where he had freed the prisoners. They were now all free of the shackles and some were hugging each other and they were very pleased to see Jethro. He handed out the face helmets and told them to stay in the room whilst his team tidied the place up for them.

  “Jethro?” It was Conrad. “Have you killed the pirate?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Can I come with you?”

  Jethro knew he should have said no, but he also knew that he had killed all the guards in the pirate’s room.

  “Please Jethro.”

  “OK. But stay behind me.”

  Conrad agreed. They left the room and reached the end of the corridor. Jethro received confirmation the building was secure with no casualties although both Gunny and Peck had picked up minor injuries. That would please Gunny who had told him once he loved showing off his battle wounds to the ladies, “not the kind of ladies you might date sir, the kind who invoice you before the date, if you know what I mean.” Jethro knew exactly what Gunny meant and didn’t begrudge him his pleasures; war was a tough business to be in.

  Jethro signaled for Conrad to wait a moment whilst he entered the room. He opened the door slightly then smashed it open fully and dived into the Galleon room rolling to one side with his Glock pointing forwards.

  There was no need.

  The pirate was on his knees. On the floor in front of him were his sword, his gun and his hat. The thing Jethro noticed the most was the hat because it was sitting on the floor complete with all the tousled hair. The pirate was completely bald and looked a pathetic figure on his knees.

  Jethro gave Conrad the nod to enter the room. He stopped when he saw the pirate as if he couldn’t take it in. Then he walked up to the pirate and raised his gun to the pirate’s head.

  “Please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me.”

  Jethro considered whether he should stop his friend from killing the pirate. Personally he wouldn’t have given it any thought. If Conrad hadn’t come with him, he would have entered the room and shot the pirate the instant he saw him.

  But Conrad didn’t shoot immediately. He hesitated. Then he lowered his gun and turned back toward Jethro.

  Jethro could see huge emotion welling up in his friend’s face but he also saw something else. He quickly raised the Glock and put a hole in the pirate's head.

  Conrad jumped and immediately turned around.

  The pirate was now lying on his side with a small gun in his hand. Jethro had noticed him jerk his wrist which caused the small gun to shoot out of a wrist grip hidden under the sleeve of his blouse and into his palm. The pirate was going to shoot Conrad in the back and presumably then Jethro.

  Seeing the pirate dead on the floor made Conrad release all his pent up motion.

  Gunny entered the room.

  “Close the door Gunny.” Gunny shut the door behind him.

  “Building secure. We have control sir.”

  “Right get the pirates aboard, search them and put them in the brig. Get the Blackbird’s crew fed, cleaned up and have Doc examine them all. Tell Guppy to stand down. Search this place for anything that might be of use or valuable. We’ll take it back to Earth with us.”

  “What about the Lieutenant sir?”

  “Leave us be. I’ll take him on board. He will have the Captain’s cabin. Can you get my stuff cleared out?”

  “No problem sir. Oh, I found his spacesuit.” He placed it on a side table.

  “And Gunny?”

  “Job bloody well done. Tell the crew thanks.”

  “Aye aye sir.” Gunny saluted and left.

  When Gunny Stone had gone Conrad said to Jethro, “I couldn’t do it Jethro.”

  “What do you mean?” Jethro could see that his friend was close to breaking point.

  “Look at me I’m a failure. I heard a distress call, and I led my crew to this… this madman, and just now when I had the chance to kill him, I bottled it and let my guard down and he nearly killed me or even both of us. I’m not fit to lead. I’m not fit to be an officer.”

  Jethro barely knew what to say. He stood in silence as he watched the almost broken husk of his friend struggling to avoid breaking down into tears.

  “Conrad. There’s a very good reason you didn’t kill him.”

  “Because I’m a coward.”

  “No. You’re not a coward.” Jethro almost shouted at him. “You couldn’t kill him because you’re not a killer.”

  Jethro instantly realized what he had just said to his friend and what he was about to say to him. Something he had been denying to himself.

  “I’m a killer. It’s what they trained me to do. I get paid to kill. You get paid to fly spaceships and you’re bloody good at it. You heard a distress call and you went to help because that’s the man you are. When you stepped into this room with the others, I saw the wounds you carried and I saw how proud you were. They hadn’t broken you. And because of that the rest of them still had hope. Everyone was looking up to you, even the pirates.”

  Jethro stepped up to him and put his arms around him.

  “When you’re ready, you will put your spacesuit on and walk out of this room with me. We will board the Methuselah, where you will get a shower, some food, and you can pilot the ship back to Earth. OK?”

  Conrad stood taller. “OK Jethro.” He put his spacesuit on over his rags then stood silently for a few minutes.

  “I’m ready now. And thanks.”

  Jethro opened the door for him and followed as Conrad walked through the passageway of the office block and into the storage area. It was busy as some Methuselah crew were going through the storage boxes to see what the pirates had sto
red. The Blackbird crew were already in Spacesuits along with Maddy waiting to board the Methuselah.

  Gunny stood up on top of one of the crates. “Officers on deck.” He saluted.

  Everybody immediately saluted Conrad and Jethro, except Maddy, a civilian who started clapping. Conrad and Jethro acknowledged the salute and continued to the door but once the salute was complete, everyone took up the clapping and applauded them through the door.

  Jethro led Conrad up the ramp of the Methuselah and through the airlock in the loading bay and to his cabin. When Conrad removed his helmet Jethro could see the tell-tale red eyes that showed Conrad had been crying.

  “Take a shower mate and I’ll send for food.”

  Jethro left his cabin to arrange for the food to be sent in. Whilst out and about he asked if someone could send Doc to his cabin when she was available.

  The Captain’s cabin was not very big but it comprised two rooms, one for sleeping and one with a desk that doubled as a workspace and a dining table that could just about seat four if none of them were Raja. It also had a shower that converted into a gravity free shower cylinder when in space.

  Conrad was in the shower a long time which allowed Jethro to take out one of his uniforms from the wardrobe along with other clothing essentials and for Doc to arrive.

  “You wanted to see me Jethro? Oh I see you have someone here.” Doc seemed shocked that there was someone in Jethro’s shower. She made to leave.

  “Don’t go. Sorry I didn’t have time to tell you. It’s Conrad, a friend. He was captain of the Blackbird.”

  “Oh, I see. OK.”

  “I want you to talk to him.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Build his confidence up.”

  “I’m not a psychologist Jethro.”

  “Well, I’m certainly not one Doc.”

  Doc nodded. “You’re right there Jethro. I’ll do what I can. But if he needs it when he gets back to Earth, he must get professional help OK?”

  “I’ll see to it.”

  “Where are you going Jethro?”

  “I’ve got to make sure everything is ready for our flight back to Earth.”

  “But there’s a naked man in the shower just there.”