Junker Blues: Mars: Junker Blues series

by Lon E. Varnadore

  Wait, what? He watched in slow motion as three of the Ministry troops charged forward towards him, rifles out. One stayed behind, menacing Lash.

  “Show us your hands!” They all screamed again; all their rifles pointed at him.

  Marcus brought his hands up, the credentials spilling from his hand. The fastest of the three got there before the others, spinning his rifle around to deliver a powerful strike with the rifle’s stock into Marcus’ stomach. Marcus doubled over in agony. The same Ministry troop, not satisfied, brought a knee to hit Marcus’ descending face and nose, snapping Marcus’ head back upwards hard. For a moment, Marcus thought he’d snapped his neck. There was a spray of blood from his broken nose as he went flying backwards. He hung vertical for a moment with the low gravity slowing things, his hand reached toward his thrower out of instinct. Another trooper, having reached him, brought down a heel onto Marcus’ chest, slamming him to the floor. In a matter of moments, Marcus was gasping for breath, struggling to understand what in the Hells was going on around him.

  Crumpled onto the deck, the three troopers levelled their rifles at him.

  “Hands where I can see them!” The first one shouted.

  “Do you have any weapons we can’t see?” The one that kicked him to the deck yelled out, his boot already whipping out to kick Marcus’ thrower away.

  “Hands up, scavenger filth!” The third one screamed, his rifle muzzle about two inches from Marcus’ forehead.

  Marcus looked up, squinting at the light of the cargo hold, unable to speak. He opened his mouth but was unable to do anything more than groan in pain. These guys were amped on something. Marcus’ addled brain struggled to figure out what was going on. Their movements and their voices were on edge, quivering with excitement. Are they juiced? For a boarding against a scavenger? He’d used the stuff once on a training mission. Called it over-clock. It was intense, but he’d never wanted to use it again if he could help it. Marcus could remember his brain felt like it was on fire. He didn’t even try to change the name in his head. He was hurting too much for that.

  “You don’t have to do that,” Lashiel cried out. The voice sounded like a real female voice at first. Must have hit my head really hard, he thought as she came closer. Then, Marcus realized as she walked up that she had a different translator around her neck, a golden one that matched her top. It was sleeker and smaller. “Please, Master is not—”

  “I don’t think so, Snowbird,” the first of the men to kick Marcus’ ass shouted, swiveling around and shoving the muzzle of his rifle into Lash’s face. “Do not even think about trying to Spider my head. I will not hesitate to pull the trigger.”

  She looked perplexed, then grew angry.

  “I’m sorry, Marcus. I was—"

  Slag. Lash, don’t—

  His thoughts stopped. All conscious thought, for a single moment, simply ceased.

  Chapter Eight

  Marcus felt like he’d been slammed into the deck hard by a 4G acceleration. His head was ringing, and his ears felt as though they were plugged with cotton. The blood felt like it had rushed to his back, and even his hands looked very pale. “What’s going on, Lash?” He called out, and it sounded like he was underwater. He shook his head again, rubbing at his ears.

  As Marcus started to open his eyes, he found the rest of the Ministry troopers were unconscious on the ground, not moving. Marcus wasn’t sure what happened. One moment, the Ministry goons were turning their rifles towards Lash. The next, he was unconscious. He raised his head, though it hurt to do so, to see Lash was standing over two Ministry goons that had threatened her. Marcus blinked for a moment to clear the pain from his head. He thought they’d surrounded her. Shaking the thought away, he tried to get up and groaned.

  “They’re unconscious, Marcus,” Lash said, moving towards him until she loomed over him, blocking the searing light of the docking bay from Marcus’ vision.

  For a moment, he was thankful to see her unhurt. Now, he saw something that scared him. A thin trickle of green blood coming from her nose. “What did you do, Lash?” Marcus shouted, pushing himself up to a sitting position and immediately wishing he hadn’t. His entire body hurt.

  “I had to. They were overclocked on combat stims. That can’t happen,” Lash said, her hands coming up. She tried to help him stand. “Please Marcus, you have to believe me.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Marcus said. His entire body hurt. He pulled away from her help, yet he couldn’t get up himself. “What did you do?” Please tell me she didn’t use that.

  “I had to. It was—”

  Slag! “Lash!”

  The shout caused Lash to flinch. She pulled in on herself for a heartbeat. “I hit everyone with a blast, not just them. It was more spread out than on Phobos.”

  “Slaggin’ Hells Lash! What were you thinking?” Marcus shouted again. “These guys are trained—”

  “I’ll wipe them before we toss them back on their cutter.”

  Marcus glared at her. He touched his nose and was thankful he didn’t feel any blood. When she did it on Phobos, it was even rougher, and he’d barely survived that. “It isn’t that easy. They have protocols. They have—”

  “They didn’t. I checked,” Lash said.

  Marcus stopped for a moment, staring at her. “Explain.”

  “I went through their equipment and blocked or deleted any recordings and anything that reminded them to check their logs before they left. I was going to delete their recordings, but they weren’t doing any recording.”

  Marcus shook his head. “Regs state you—”

  “Marcus, I had Gideon double check. They weren’t recording at all. The cutter doesn’t even have any data on the Junker.”

  Ghost squad? Marcus didn’t like it. Nor would he even say it out loud. It was like Phobos again. A renegade group of MDF troops, off grid.

  “What’s a ghost—”

  “Don’t,” Marcus said, holding up a warning finger. “Don’t invoke that name. It’s a unit that’s not bound by the already ‘loose’ code of the MDF.” He didn’t continue with the fact that some ghost squads were used by the higher-ups in the Ministry and corps for their own needs. Anyone with enough money to get one. Hazon?

  “So, what do we do?”

  Marcus rubbed at his ears until he could start to hear properly again. “What was your plan before I gained consciousness?”

  “After the blast, erase their records and toss them in their cutter.”

  “Could have killed them.” Killed me. He thought, looking right into her yellow eyes.

  For a single heartbeat, Lashiel didn’t say anything. She pushed away from Marcus towards one of the corners of the cargo bay, pulling into herself. She looked down and finally tried to wipe at the blood coming from her wide and flat nostril. When she saw the smear of green, she trembled a little. In a voice he almost didn’t hear, even with the voice that was more natural than the one he had found, muttered, “I’m sorry, Marcus. I went too far.”

  “Damn right you did. These guys could be dead.” Marcus took a deep breath then walked over to the first troop. He realized it was the one who had first attacked him. It looked like he was unconscious, and Marcus saw a small trickle of blood coming from the unconscious troop’s ears. Marcus checked his own ear and found some blood crusting up there. It had mostly been rubbed away with his checking on his ears.

  He turned to look at her. “The last time you did this…”

  Marcus let it hang there. Lash said nothing. He ignored her and checked on each of the troops. He checked the readouts on their gauntlets and what Lash said was true. Each of them had been over-clocked on stims, ready to kill them both. Roughing them up was not the usual way. “This was a message.” He realized, seeing that Lash was right; their suits hadn’t been recording anything.

  “From who?” Lash asked.

  “Don’t know. Could be Hazon. He does have some militia on payroll out here. He could have a squad like this.”

&n
bsp; “But, why come in so hot?” Lash asked, finally pulling herself out of her stupor.

  “Maybe he was vague with his wording, and these guys get really bored while waiting on assignment. Any chance to get a little extra,” Marcus said, rubbing his fingers together. “Maybe someone else we pissed off in Hazon’s group thought it would be better to kill us.”

  He should know; for a time he was like these troops. While being in the Savior cult, the Eridani “Benefactors” loved that their little “pets” worked for the Martian government, and most of his “extra” assignments were to bloody the nose or kill any agitators who disrupted the cult.

  “Or it could be from the Eridani,” Lash said.

  Marcus didn’t say anything for a long moment. Marcus felt his blood turn to water for a moment. He grabbed at the closest militia man, trying to pull off the glove. It didn’t budge. “Damn it.” Please be wrong… please be wrong.

  “What?” Lash asked, her voice a little shaky.

  “Lash…” Marcus took a breath. Calm down, you need her help with this. “I’m sorry. I freaked out a moment ago. You helped me, helped both of us out with what you did. I need your help again to get this gauntlet off.”

  “Why?” Lash asked, not moving from where she’d settled.

  “I need to find out if any of them are marked by the Benefactors.”

  “What do you mean?” There was a hint of scorn in her voice.

  Have to tell her. “When you peep me, you said there is a fragment of Eridani memory there. Right?”

  “Yes,” she said slowly, standing up and moving closer towards him, her movements rushed.

  He gulped and told himself to relax. “Do you think part of it is because of the tattoo?”

  Lash was quiet a moment. “I-I-I would have to—”

  “I’m allowing it. I need to know, Lash.”

  Lash was quiet. Marcus thought she was still trying to decide when he saw the halo come up around her from the corner. She moved closer, and the light grew a bit more intense. He closed his eyes but didn’t start the mind-worm in his mind. He had to focus on not doing it; it had been such a reaction when he thought she was peeping that it now took effort to not use it when he knew she was in his head. It was disconcerting, and he still felt a little violated by it.

  There was another few heartbeats of waiting, not sure when she would be done. Calm down. Calm down.

  “I have to say, ‘maybe’ it is the tattoo that is causing that. Or it could be—”

  Before she could finish speaking, Marcus pointed to one of the troops. “Is it in their heads?” Marcus asked, looking down at the man.

  She looked at the unconscious trooper, then Marcus, and then back, head cocked to one side. “I’m sorry?”

  “Can you detect—”

  She leaned closer; her hair still aglow. “You want me to delve into others now? You hate it when—”

  Marcus flapped a hand. “Desperate times, Lash. And, we might be on a clock here.”

  “What do—”

  “Small recon cutter. I am sure they will have sent a signal. We need to get them off before returning to our course.”

  “So?” She asked, hands on her hips.

  He looked up at Lash. “Just, please?” Marcus begged. He licked his lips and hated the feeling of having to ask her to do this. Please let me wrong about this.

  She frowned at him, though she kept the halo glowing and closed her eyes. It took two minutes; each second of which Marcus paced the deck, feeling each second fall away. Worried within seconds they’d have another Martian patrol creeping closer to check out what happened to the squad.

  “Gideon, anything on scanners?”

  “Not since the last time you asked me, ten seconds ago.”

  Breathe, dammit, breathe. He felt his foot tap against the deck, stopping when Lash snapped her eyes on him, her eyes glowing. “Stop!” She sent.

  The glowing eyes snapped back down while she dug deeper into the troop’s psyche. He didn’t realize she was delving that deep until he saw the eyes glowing. Or to mess with his memories.

  Finally, she opened her eyes. “There is something about the Eridani in all of them, but this could be because they happy to be alive. Most humans see them as Benefactors as you…”

  She stopped, her words fading to nothing. She then looked at Marcus. “Wait.” She pointed to the one that Marcus was leaning over; the one he had futilely tried to get the gauntlet off. “This one is starting to wake up. There is something about a specific Eridani.”

  Marcus looked down to see the Martians’ eyes flickering open. Before the prone man could do anything, Marcus jerked out his thrower and pointed it at the Martian. “At ease, soldier.”

  “You are both under—”

  “I don’t think so,” Marcus interrupted the Martian. “We are going to leave. You are going to report that it was a false alarm.”

  “That isn’t going… to… ha…” The man’s words grew softer, and he shook his head. His eyes opened up again and stared blankly at Marcus.

  “Lash, tell them to go.”

  “I am,” she sent.

  Marcus tried not to shiver while watching all the Martian troopers stand up, swaying like drunkards. Vacant-eyed, they stumbled back to their ship. Once they cleared off, Marcus cut a look at Lash.

  “How long will they think nothing happened?” He asked as they both scrambled back to the cockpit. “Gideon, get us away. Pronto!”

  “I don’t know. I tried not to make it permanent,” Lash said. “It was a rush—"

  “Learned from Kyln’s?” Marcus interrupted, remembering how she’d made a mess of things at the bar on Phobos.

  Lash gave him a dirty look, then moved forward, ignoring him. “I keep telling you, that wasn’t the same—”

  The klaxons went off.

  Marcus rushed up to the cockpit as the small cutter was moving away. Whoever was piloting it wasn’t doing anything close to a safe procedure. As they left the Junker behind, one of the cutter’s small wings clipped the Junker’s wing. It was sheared off, and the ship rocked violently to one side. “Did you tell them to do that?” Marcus shouted.

  “Excuse me?” Lash shouted, slumping against the bulkhead.

  “Nothing, heat of the moment,” Marcus said. Though, he did think it was a little too easy for the cutter to clip the tip of Junker’s wing. No time for that, now.

  Chapter Nine

  The medbay was a mess, more from the deck plating having gone offline than the raid. It was generally an unruly sty that Marcus and Lash picked their way through while injured. Marcus said he had a system, but it was not anything that worked. He had yet to truly find anything the first time through. And coming in with Lash hanging onto his arm, he realized that he had to keep her clear of the mad-scientist setup in one corner, a larger, more cluttered version of the one in his quarters.

  She did pull herself up onto the medical table, which activated the scans from the autodoc of the Junker. It was one of the few perks of the old gal. It had a relatively newer version of an autodoc with a wrist cuff on either side of the table, depending on which arm the patient preferred to use. Granted, Marcus made sure only the bare minimum of Eridani healing serums were loaded for when he or Lash truly needed it. With the large cut across her leg, Marcus selected the suture-and-pain-med route. It was something she agreed to as he went through options.

  With the hiss of a saline solution going into Lash, which was more a mild narcotic than something used to keep a human stable, Marcus thought it was time to get some answers.

  She leaned back, wincing as the autodoc applied the disinfectant foam along the gash. It was bigger than Marcus thought it was. Her skirt had fallen open and Marcus was thankful the Ilas had worn something under the skirt. He took a sterile pad and pressed it to her side. There was a look of pain and then a bit of relief as the pain reliever kicked in from the pad.

  “Alright, talk,” Marcus said, looking at her as he leaned against the counter of
the medbay, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Where to begin?”

  “How long have you worked for the Ministry?” Marcus asked without preamble.

  “Never.” She looked at him, a hurt look on her face mixed with a confused look as if he’d said the sun was a black hole.

  “You aren’t an expert on pre-Crawl tech?” Marcus pointed out, trying to figure out if she was an agent or not. There was still something wrong with the confrontation with the Ministry troops. Something was wrong, he knew it.

  “I am. I know more than most about the Crawl, more than any human at least.” She gave him a strange smile. She then tapped the side of her head. “I am also someone who can sense drones, but I can assure—”

  “Then, why couldn’t you ‘sense’ the one that almost killed me on the Shelby?”

  Her face creased in anger. “It was dormant, Marcus! Would you please relax. I am not an agent of the Ministry. All of the knowledge I gave you was real. Everything we did together was real.” She said, looking at him with a hurt look. “You have to believe me.” The last few words came out as a plea.

  “Then why does it feel like you led me into a trap?” Marcus asked, pointing at the wrenched cargo bay.

  She didn’t say anything for a moment. She looked away, flinching when he shouted the question again. Steeling herself, she said, “I have no idea. I’m not the bad guy here.”

  What she said made sense. More of his rational mind was coming back to him. He rubbed at his face. There was still a sense of dread. “Why was there a Ministry ship in the Belt?”

  “Half of the Belt is Martian territory, you dolt. We’re doing illegal scavenging, simple as that.” Lash looked more and more pained. She looked away, biting her lip.

  Marcus puzzled over her reaction. That was odd. “There is more to it?” Marcus asked. “What aren’t you telling me?” He waited a half second. “What did you peep from them?”

  She closed her eyes for a heartbeat, then opened her eyes and mouth, only to close them both again. Finally, she spoke. “They are looking for something. The Ministry is on the hunt for something. Couldn’t get a read on what, just that there is something in the Belt. Before you ask, no, I couldn’t go deeper. They were so overclocked, even getting what I did was harder than normal. It hurt my brain to do it. Even unconscious, I could barely get more than that.”