Junker Blues: Mars: Junker Blues series

by Lon E. Varnadore

  “Look kid, I doubt you can even fit into a spacer rig, let alone—”

  “I have my own rig,” she had said, frowning, the voice coming from her vox box. She had looked down at him from the table, her back hunched because of the too-cramped corner of Kyln’s Marcus had sequestered himself in, and it was a very cramped space for an Ilas. He’d gotten back from buying the skeleton key and was celebrating with a little drink at Kyln’s on Phobos. Blowing the last of his credits on something akin to synth whiskey, but cheaper, was the easiest thing to do. He was pretty sure he could strip the paint from the Junker with it as well— causing damage to the metal hull. This Ilas, Lashiel, she had introduced herself as, bought him another drink, and it was slightly better than the cheap swill he’d been drinking, so he let her talk, if only out of curiosity.

  “So, what do I get out of it?” Marcus asked while eyeing the dregs of the dirty-brown liquor in his glass.

  She sighed as if composing herself or resigning herself to something. “You get to know where to go. The best targets, ones that will have a better-than-average chance to have something worthwhile. Something worth the time and money used to get there.”

  Marcus raised an eyebrow. He’d been around and knew about the scams of promised pre-Crawl “jackpots.” “So, you have a magic treasure map that—”

  She cut him off, stopping him with a chopping motion of her skinny, skinny fingers. “No, I have an algorithm and numbers from pre-Crawl databases. Science, math, and probability.”

  He slammed down the rest of the synth drink and let out a cough. “Impossible,” Marcus said, waving his glass a little before putting it on the metallic table, open-side down. “No way anything escaped the Pulse. It’s a reason it was called—”

  “The Purge. I know. There were some databases found on Mars. I was able to access them,” Lashiel said, excitement in her voice.

  Marcus settled back into the much-patched upholstery of Kyln’s booth. “So, you see yourself as a hacker?” He asked, feeling as though something was wrong; his gut was sensing some kind of scam.

  “No, I was given the info.”

  Marcus rolled his eyes. “Sure, you were kid.”

  “I’m not a kid,” Lash bristled. Her hair started to arc with light, even under the cowl she wore. “I am older than you think.”

  “What, twenty-five? No Ilas is older than—”

  “Twenty-nine. I’m a second gen.”

  That made him shift a bit closer. “They all died out,” Marcus said, keeping his voice low. Anyone hearing her talk about a second gen Ilas would paint an even larger target on her back. “Besides, second-gens were…”

  “Able to speak in people’s minds without their consent. Yes, I know,” she sent into Marcus’ mind for the first time. She grinned at him, a weirdly wide-and-even grin that was disturbing and far too human-looking.

  Marcus balked at that. He shook his head and then pinned her with a glare “Alright, fine. Stay out of my head. Isn’t that part of your programming? You can’t—”

  “Something like that,” Lash waved her long, thin fingers at him. “I also have the info from someone you wouldn’t expect.”

  “Who, the peppermints?” Marcus said with a chuckle, trying to hide the strain in his voice. If an Eridani got wind of this… he didn’t want to go down that hole.

  “Yes,” Lash said.

  Marcus stopped and looked at Lash, making sure she was looking at him with her yellow eyes. “There is no way a peppermint would allow an Ilas out of their sight if they gave them info about pre-Crawl humanity and their tech.”

  “Why? They think our current tech is centuries behind theirs.” She stated.

  She had a point, Marcus had to agree. It wasn’t as though some of the tech from that time hadn’t survived the Purge and the dark days of the Crawl War. Otherwise, man wouldn’t be on Phobos. Man had puzzled out some of the tech, and some of the tech was just able to mess with what tech was invented, or re-discovered. Marcus let out a breath. “Alright, let’s say you are telling the truth. How can you prove it?”

  “Give me one shot. I will find something that will pay for my berth to the sector, food, and fuel costs to get there and back,” she said, her voice full of promise and hope.

  Marcus looked at her. “I still don’t fully trust you.”

  “I know, but I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

  And Marcus hadn’t been disappointed. At first, he was wary of what had happened after their little escape from Phobos. Junker had barely made it out of the trap the Crawl had set. She had come through on her promise and on helping Junker and Marcus survive Phobos. That was a year ago, and she had been right every single time. With Lashiel on his team, they’d found some good stuff over the past year. Then their bad luck started with teaming up with Paulson, damn bastard and his crew got greedy. And this will be the best score yet. Least I hope it is, the streak is over.

  “What’s got you frowning?” Lash asked.

  “Run of bad luck, Paulson and his crew,” Marcus said.

  Both were quiet for a minute. Lash broke the silence. “I should have—”

  “No, you only sensed that he was turning. Didn’t know he’d b asymptomatic until the end.” He shuddered, thinking of the small three-man crew of the Argos slowly altered by the Crawl venom that Paulson refused to acknowledge. “But, we are going to shake off this bad luck. Why are you so negative about this site, Lash?” Marcus asked, looking at Lash’s face in his monitor.

  “A feeling is all,” Lash said with a shrug. Yet, she was looking away. Marcus ignored it.

  He walked the last few feet to the Shelby’s airlock as she spoke. “Wonderful. Thanks for that note of dread,” he said. He connected his gauntlet to the interface of the Shelby’s airlock, thankful that he’d found a small attachment that would work with the tech of both his suit and that of the pre-Crawl. The suit was newer than the ship, yet Marcus had found most pre-Crawl tech, once they found an interface that worked, stuck with it for a very, very long time. He keyed in the last digit of the old smuggler’s code, a skeletal key he had paid a hefty sum. It was a backdoor code for ships, according to Hazon, that he’d sold part of his ship for. Almost threw Marcus into debt with another moneylender, but Hazon had agreed to give it to Marcus, for thirty percent of all profits. There was a five-second pause, and Marcus started to feel like this was a mistake. He opened his mouth to say something when there was a click and the airlock on the old ship started to cycle through its opening process and hissed open.

  The door opened with the sound of some escaping air that was picked up on Marcus’ helmet scanner. He reached out with his right hand, and the built-in scanner on the fingers read that there was a bit of breathable O2 inside. That’s a good sign.

  “Hmmm, even has some functional atmo inside. Told you, Lash. And if my research is correct, this will be the big score we have wanted for some time.”

  “Isn’t that my research? At least partially?” Lash asked, her voice somehow causing more of a grating tinny sound in the comms.

  As Marcus stared into the dark depths of the ship’s airlock, he smiled. “Our research at this point. You and I are partners, remember?”

  “I remember you drinking and fooling around with your chemistry set in your room and medical stuff more than helping me for research.”

  When she mentioned “chemistry set” Marcus’ left thumb started to itch and burn. Slag, not now! Stop it.

  “What’s wrong?” Lash’s voice broke into his thoughts.

  “Stay out of my head, Spider,” Marcus hissed. His left hand burned more. He clutched it into a fist, hoping to stave off the feeling for a few minutes. He took a deep breath, shoving away the burning sensation hard. The burning itch decreased, changing into a tingling. He threw the mind-worm into his head automatically as he thought for a second about how long it had been since the nanites had been defeated. The chemical compounds he was injecting into himself thanks to what Lashiel called “chemistry se
ts” were the only thing keeping him from facing the one problem he couldn’t face. The nanites had started to chew through the new formulas faster than he anticipated. He knew he was starting to live on borrowed time. One day, he’d fail at a formula, and the Eridani would be on him again.

  Not today! “Sorry Lash, needed a moment to think, almost hit a broken control panel. The wires were arcing. Got a small zap for my trouble.”

  “I’m not reading any power fluctuations in the suit on my end,” Lash said, concern in her robotic voice. “Drop the mind-worm, please Marcus.”

  “Well, maybe there is a malfunction with the sensors in the suit. We can find out later. Have a treasure to find,” Marcus said and dropped the worm. He didn’t want to keep her out too long.

  “Uh-huh.” There was a beat where Marcus thought she was going to try and reel him back in. Instead, she said, “Have fun with your treasure hunt.”

  “Going in now, Doubting Thomas.”

  “I’ve never understood that parable. Why—”

  “It’s religion, Lashiel. It isn’t supposed to make sense.”

  Whatever she said next came in garbled as he passed into the Shelby. The shielding of the pre-Crawl ships was still better than most modern spaceships. The comms would work again once he finished getting through the airlock cycle and into the ship. He was alone for a moment. Marcus enjoyed the quiet and let out a breath, the visor not even fogging. “Things are already looking up.”

  Chapter Three

  The lights flickered on and off for a few seconds as Marcus finished the airlock cycle and pushed his way in. He set his booted feet on the deck and felt a slight tug “down” and was a little surprised to feel the deck plating still functioned.

  He found himself in a short, five-meter corridor that led to a T-intersection; most hallways were a little over four meters. Marcus gave Lash the news. “You’ll have to deal with the cramped airlock, not so horrible,” he said while moving forward with some caution, his head on a swivel, scanning for anything out of the ordinary.

  He swung his head to one side, and he caught a shadow looming closer to him from behind. He spun around, hand going to the only weapon he had, a pry bar with a multi-tool arm. He gripped it low, ready to sink the multi-tool into whatever it was like a sickle. He swung hard as he pivoted, seeing a form looming over him.

  And the multi-tool sank into the icy flesh of a dead man hanging in the air. Marcus cursed, realizing his grav-boots had kicked on without his knowledge and while he was still on the deck, the dead crewman was hovering out of sight down one arm of the corridor.

  “Slag!”

  “What?”

  “Dead body,” Marcus muttered, freeing his pry bar and running an eye over the multi-tool. It was wet from the ice yet looked to be intact. At least our tech can do some things right.

  “Crawl?” Lash asked, a hint of heightened anxiety in her voice. It was followed by a short bark of harsh laughter. “You’re letting your imagination get the better of you.”

  “Thanks,” Marcus said gritting his teeth. He gave Lash’s cam-feed a sneer. “It wasn’t like—”

  “Keep going, oh brave one,” Lash said before he could finish. “You are all alone. I don’t detect anything living over there.”

  “Thanks,” Marcus said, a little too bitterly. He did trust her, but he’d been doing this junkologist thing for more years than she had. Also, he had thought he was alone when a Crawl drone almost burned his arm off three years ago. He winced as his right bicep flared in the half-forgotten pain of Crawl venom. He was thankful he’d brought the kit with him. His left hand tapped the small satchel on his left thigh, feeling two small vials there alongside the injector. Just in case.

  He didn’t feel alone. Not in the pre-Crawl ships. There was something about them that gave the feeling of something being around, some sentient thing still hanging around, which was impossible. Finally recovering, he noticed the body that he had attacked a bit more, looking at it closer. The face was covered in a thin sheen of ice, though he looked to be in his mid-twenties. Barely more than a kid, Marcus thought, and then his eyes fell on the uniform. It was the typical green-and-oatmeal color of a crew uniform with one of the long-dead ship companies that had folded during the Dark Years.

  Shake it off, even the Spider says you’re alone.

  “I don’t like that name,” Lash said through his commlink.

  Yeah… yeah. Marcus pushed her mentally aside and started to move down the corridor, a little more alert and wary of the bodies that would be hanging around. As he approached the bend in the hallway, he saw another shadow floating closer to the bend. This time, he waited half a heartbeat and saw the body move into view, the slight movements of the ship, from micrometeorites and even from the slow venting of the ship’s long-dormant engines of particles of free plasma drifting out caused the ship to move in imperceptible ways. Yet those hanging inside did not completely move with the ship.

  This body was hanging upside down, the ice-crusted eyes staring at him as he moved around the bend. Marcus pushed him aside. Another T-intersection. Without a thought, he turned right, having an idea of where he would find a location that would have something worth salvaging.

  As he moved closer to his target, an auxiliary cargo hold, he ran into three more bodies. These were different, and for a moment, Marcus was confused.

  Each one of them was coated in a thin crust of ice, though that didn’t hide that these bodies had the form-fitting suits he had grown accustomed to seeing on a pre-Crawl ship officers. Slate grey form-fitting suit from neck to knee with boots that were much slimmer than his own clunky magnetic boots. He knew that all of them could easily cling to almost any surface of the ship since it didn’t involve magnets per se. It had some kind of static generator. He’d only heard part of the theory, and it never did make much sense.

  He spotted a shadow that wasn’t moving in the light of the ships at a T intersection. He swallowed hard, knowing it was another dead body. This time, he couldn’t shake off the dread, the small part of his lizard brain that was screaming at him to get off the ship, get back to the Junker and run. He pushed himself forward and was stunned to see someone standing in the hallway. His hand gripped the multitool harder, his throat feeling a bit dry, for a second, then his brain kicked in and realized what he was looking at and he let out a small laugh.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  “Gideon, give her—”

  Before he finished the command, he heard Lash let out a small gasp. One of the bodies of the pre-Crawl humans had their grav-boots connected to the bulkhead of the corridor. She stood there, her body pale even under the ice, eyes icy red and black from the exposure to hard vacuum. Her arms were out floating free, unmoving, and that was what had startled Marcus for a moment.

  “Why are you laughing?” Lash asked.

  Marcus shrugged, “Gallows humor?”

  “Humans are weird,” Lash said. Marcus heard the exasperation in her voice.

  “Says the hybrid Ilas,” Marcus shot back with an internal smirk.

  Lash let out a groan. “Just keep going. Think I can at least start wheeling the—”

  “No, stay there. I want someone on the Junker to keep an eye on the ship and sensors. Never know when—”

  “The last patrol was two Earth Standard days ago. We have another three or four days,” Lash said, chiding him.

  Marcus sighed, then let out a breath. “I don’t care. Being cautious. Give me that, alright?”

  “Fine, Captain,” Lash said. The word “Captain” had a trace more anger than Marcus thought possible.

  Marcus shook his head. What is going on with her? Even the “fine” was more like how his ex used the word when he’d screwed up. The you screwed up, and I’m going to punish you without telling you why you screwed up.

  Shrugging his shoulders, he made his way down past the corpse on the bulkhead towards the auxiliary cargo bay of the transport. The main cargo holds, which made up the bulk
of the craft, was probably picked clean by other scavengers. He bet most were too lazy to check the auxiliary ones, but either he or Lash would do it before they took off.

  Marcus started to feel like something was wrong again. He noticed a few more crewmen than he expected for a ship the size of the Shelby. And then he noticed the emblems on their breast and shoulder patches. They had the same slate grey uniform, yet there was a slight difference in the design, more of a military rigidity to it. Then his brained kicked him, seeing the triskelion design on the patch, the swirls looking to be made of bits of computer code. Something nibbled at his brain a few seconds before he remembered where he’d seen that. He kept moving forward a few seconds.

  He was concerned when he saw that a majority of the uniforms had the same patch. He gave Gideon an order on a private channel to go back and look at the other corpses and all of them had the same symbol on them right shoulder. How did I miss that? Then, the name came to him. TSI. Technology Survival and Infinity. Slag.

  He knew that in the pre-Crawl days TSI were a part of the United Earth Alliance, and it had a hand in coming up with the defenses against the Crawl. Weapons that worked, for a time. TSI, he could remember, was like the ancient DARPA outfit, before the shift from individual countries having their own governments to a one united government. If they’re here, then…

  Marcus stood in front of the hatch for the auxiliary cargo bay. “We should go,” Lash said.

  Marcus cocked his head. “I just got to the cargo hold. Might as well… hmmm.” He cocked his head as the door didn’t open when he stood before it. He passed a hand over the door sensor at the right-hand side of the door. Nothing. Then, the left. There was a tone that Marcus heard in his helmet. “Gideon, what is going on?”

  “Unknown. The ship wants to open the door, but there is something blocking it. I can’t seem to access the system.”