“Looks like the exterior got a paint job.”
Trish nodded. “It did. But I can’t talk about it. Can’t talk about any of our efforts or experiences. I just spend my days in here watching the broadcast channels and talking to Mr. Farker.”
Tawn half smiled. “At least he’s an agreeable pet. And you don’t have to walk him.”
“He can be a pest when he wants. You have to scold him to get him to stop, and then he hits you with that sad face and makes you feel guilty.”
Tawn scratched the dog’s head. “You figure out anything more about him?”
Trish shook her head. “Not really. I quizzed his programming again but it’s all the same set of recordings. His parts are mostly hand-made. Only found a half dozen chips I could identify as commercial. And those manufacturers have been gone for tens of centuries. Wish we could get out to that one planet you couldn’t get to, Midelon or whatever it was.”
Tawn said, “I have a few days before my next supply delivery. I suppose we could run out there and try again.”
Trish frowned. “I have orders to sit and wait. Unless you can get him away from the food trough, I’m stuck here. At least the news has been interesting.”
“What’s happening on the news?”
“That planet Mr. Gruberg was talking about, Eden, it’s had more unrest. There’s a group of about fifteen hundred settlers now who aren’t pacifists. They’ve been demanding changes from the twenty-thousand who control the government. Two more people wound up dead yesterday.
“The non-pacifists are trying to open the doors to anyone who wants to settle there, while those in charge insist on only those who pledge to uphold the non-violent principles of the colony. The nons also want the right to carry weapons, which are completely banned.”
Tawn looked at the reporting on the console display. “Let’s hope they don’t open that door an inch. New Earth wants that planet. Or at least control of it.”
“That’s what Mr. Gruberg was saying. If plasma rifles make it there, the pacifists will get slaughtered and pushed out of power.”
Harris stepped up into the cabin of his ship. “I thought there were a bunch of flies buzzing around outside… what’s the occasion?”
Tawn said, “The occasion is that you need to give this poor girl something to do. She needs some projects.”
Harris chuckled. “She’s getting paid. And what do you care? Where’s your lackey?”
“He’s not my lackey, he’s my first mate. And he’s closing up the Kingfisher. I was giving him the afternoon off to go out and about on the station.”
Harris laughed. “So you’ve got nothing for him to do. Sounds familiar. I gave Missy here the option of browsing the station but she declined. I may be out stuffing myself, but at least I have a goal and a purpose.”
Gandy stepped up into the cabin. “All done. Hey, Mr. Gruberg.”
Tawn said, “I was thinking we might try another run out to Midelon. There must be a way to get there without burning four years on regular engines.”
Harris half scowled. “I guess I could go for that. The manager at the Emporium just threw me out and asked that I not come back. Seems I eat more than what I pay for.”
Tawn turned. “Mr. Boleman? Would you like to prepare the Kingfisher for a journey?”
Harris walked over to his chair. “Don’t bother. Trish. Fire this mule up and set a heading for Midelon. We’ll all go together.”
The automated exit procedure was implemented and the Bangor was on her way out of the station.
Tawn said, “You need a permanent project.”
Harris laughed. “I am a permanent project.”
“No. You need a goal. Something to work toward. Be productive. Do something or you’re gonna drag this poor girl down with you.”
“What would you suggest?”
“I don’t know. Help the poor? Get an education? Add ground effects lighting to your ship? Anything is better than nothing. And you have the credits to do whatever it is you want. Just do something. Come out to the Retreat and build homes.”
Harris rubbed his belly. “None of that has any appeal.”
“Then make it a goal to help Trish achieve her goals.”
“Not gonna do that, either. I’d just end up losing my first mate.”
The wormhole generator came online. The Bangor cruised into the area closest to Midelon that Tawn and Gandy had reached.
“You try heading in at an angle?”
Tawn nodded. “Just about everything. We even traveled into the space the jump drive wouldn’t take us to and tried from there. Wouldn’t let us jump back either. It’s like this barrier wall is there. When I entered the coordinates and sent them to the drive it rejected them over and over.”
Trish held up her hand. “When did you get rejected? When you initiated?”
Tawn replied, “When I tried to set them. Never made it to initiation.”
“Well it accepted my input.”
Tawn stepped up. “Let me see… hmm. It wouldn’t do that for us.”
Harris joked. “Maybe that’s because you’re missing this gauge.”
Tawn huffed. “You don’t even know what that does.”
“Actually, we do. We figured it out. And you’re right, it has nothing to do with jumping.”
Harris turned back toward Trish. “Miss Boleman. If the drive accepted those coordinates, let’s go see what’s there.”
The Bangor slipped through to a location a half hour from Midelon IV.
Tawn shook her head. “Why’d it let you through and not us?”
Harris chuckled. “Because we’re special. We’re better. My crew is better and my ship is better.”
Gandy said, “We do have one thing that’s different here. Farker. If he came from here, maybe he’s the key to coming back.”
Harris looked down at the mechanical dog. “You the key?”
Three farks were returned.
As the Bangor approached orbit, Trish said, “That’s a water planet. Nothing but ocean down there. At least on this side.”
The ship locked into orbit and began a descent as it slowed. Trish jerked and pulled on the control stick, keeping the ship relatively stable as it dropped through the atmosphere toward a single piece of dry land. Forward progress came to a stop directly above a lone island that measured fifty kilometers square.
“I show a single building down there, Mr. Gruberg. What would you like me to do?”
Harris replied, “Take us in.”
The Bangor settled on a grassy knoll a hundred meters from the outside of the single structure on the island. A square concrete building, it measured fifty meters to a side and eight meters tall. Grass grew on its flat top. A single door graced the north facing wall.
The hatch opened and the four visitors and their robotic dog hopped out onto the grass. Farker sprinted away, farking continuously just outside the door to the structure. It opened, allowing the dog to scurry in. The door closed immediately behind him.
Harris gestured toward the cockpit. “Miss Boleman. Could you try entering coordinates to get out of here into the generator?”
Trish replied, “We can’t open one in atmosphere.”
“Don’t want to open one. Just want to know if we’re blocked from using it.”
The Bangor’s first mate emerged seconds later. “Blocked. It must be that dog.”
Harris looked around. “Anyone happen to bring a year’s worth of food with them? If not, we may be calling this place our final resting place.”
The group walked down the knoll to just in front of the door.
Tawn placed her hands on her hips. “Hello? Anyone there?”
Gandy walked to the door and rapped with his knuckles. There was no indication of an answer. Options were discussed for the better part of a half hour. The Bangor was powered up and flown onto the roof of the structure.
Trish hopped out and walked to the roof’s edge. “Nothing special up here.”
H
arris rubbed his forehead. “Who was it that wanted to come out here so bad?”
Tawn scowled. “You wanted to know, too. Now we know what’s here. I guess we just have to wait to see if Farker comes back out.”
Repeated calls were made for the dog. Harris whistled into his comm. The door to the structure remained shut.
Tawn sat down on the grass. “At least the temperature here is pleasant. And I would bet that ocean is teeming with fish. If we have to eat, we at least have that.”
Harris scratched the back of his neck. “We do have one other option.”
Tawn looked up.
“Trish and I… well Trish anyway, was able to get one of our railguns working. I could blow a hole in this structure that we could drive the ship through.”
Gandy said, “You have a functioning railgun?”
Trish sat on the edge of the roof, looking down at the others. “Yep. And you’d love the solution we came up with.”
Tawn frowned. “I don’t think shooting our way in there is such a good idea. Remember what the recording said? Tamper with the facility and you risk losing the boson field. We do that and we’re really stuck here. There’s probably not enough years in our lives to make it back to civilization on standard drives. And not only do we not have the food, we don’t have the fuel.”
Harris gestured toward the door. “You have a better way in?”
Tawn laid back flat on the grass, placing the fingers of her hands under her head as she crossed her legs in a relaxing pose. “Don’t see that we have any option but to wait. We probably have what… a week’s worth of rations on there? And we can stretch that out if needed. You and I don’t have to eat as much.”
Harris chuckled. “Great. Sounds like the Emporium was my last meal. I shouldn’t have let that skinny kid kick me out of there. There was nothing he could do legally.”
Tawn shook her head. “Sit your stump-ass down and stop talking about food. We need to figure this thing out. Wait. I tell you what. Take Gandy with you over to the shoreline. See what our fishing prospects look like.”
Harris crossed his arms. “If we’re doing that, I’ll just have Trish go up for a quick scan.”
Tawn replied, “I say we don’t use even the tiniest bit of fuel until we know our situation better. Walk your lazy feet over and look at the water. If you can’t tell anything from the shore we can always take the ship up later.”
Harris scowled. “Come on, Gandy. Let’s check out our prospects. We might be wanting to leave the bossy women on their own side of the island anyway.”
Gandy followed along. “I like the bossy women.”
Trish looked down from her perch. “What are we gonna do, Miss Freely?”
Tawn smiled. “We’re gonna relax and enjoy the afternoon. If they get back with reports of sea-life, we’ll send them back to catch us dinner. Other than that, we wait for that stupid dog to come back. We aren’t blasting this thing unless we’re on the brink of death. We disrupt that boson field and we trap everybody, every Human, right where they are.”
Tawn rolled onto her side, propping up her head with her hand and elbow. “Tell me about the railgun.”
Trish’s eyes grew big. “It’s like mega-powerful. We only fired it a couple times, but wow! A twelve round burst, lasting all of about sixteen seconds, sandblasted the whole front of the ship after hitting a target a half kilometer away. That tiny stream of tungsten pellets left a crater that was five hundred meters long by two hundred wide, and fifty meters deep in the center.
And I think that’s what that mystery gauge is. Something like output power from the railgun. We had to add an automatic feeder and remove a choke from the power feeds, but that was it. When we get back I can help Gandy do it to the Kingfisher if you want.”
Tawn nodded. “I want.”
Gandy stepped out onto a rock that jutted over the water at the shore’s edge. “For having an ocean covering its surface, I wouldn’t have expected it to be so calm.”
Harris pointed up toward a cliff edge to their left. “Notice how these rocks going halfway up that cliff are wet?”
Gandy shrugged. “So?”
“That tells me a wave pushed water all the way up to there. And it happened recently, like in the last hour or so. This might not be the best place to be standing.”
Gandy looked up at the cliff and then back down into the water. “There’s fish in there. See the red ones.”
Harris looked at the horizon. “Come on. We better get back up top. I get the feeling these waves come in from nowhere.”
As the two turned and hopped from rock to rock, the ocean level began to rise. They climbed toward the cliff face they had slid down, only to be caught by the rapidly rising water. In seconds they were being lifted as the water rose and they flapped their arms and kicked their legs to stay afloat.
Moments later, the surge came to a stop and began to fall. Harris grabbed a jutting rock with one hand and a paddling Gandy with the other. As the water rushed down their legs and past their feet, eddy’s and swirls developed in and around the rocks at the base. Almost as quickly as it had come, the surge was over.
Harris dropped Gandy a meter to a rock just below. “Let’s get back up before another one of those comes in.”
Gandy stuck his finger in his mouth. “It’s freshwater. That whole ocean is fresh. That doesn’t seem right. Domicile’s are all salty.”
The wet adventurers returned to the structure.
Tawn laughed. “Go for a swim?”
Harris replied, “Something like that. There are fish. And the water is fresh. But we’ll have to watch for the surges. Water came up ten meters in a few seconds, without warning. Anything happen here?”
Tawn shook her head. “Just the sunshine and a nice breeze. I tapped on the door again and got nothing. Trish did a food inventory. We have four days normal consumption and maybe seven if we stretch it. I say we give this wait at least five days before we consider blasting our way in. And if the two of you can manage some of those fish, we could push that out for longer.”
The door opened and Farker raced out, making an immediate line for Tawn, who was lying in the grass. An attempted mount was pushed away with a scowl.
“Stupid dog.”
Harris gestured to Trish as she sat on the roof’s edge. “Bring the ship down and we’ll get out of here. We have the dog, we should be able to leave.”
A minute later the Bangor was rushing up through the blue Midelon sky. Coordinates for a jump back to Chicago Port Station were set and accepted. Once out in the blackness of space, a successful jump home was made.
Chapter 19
_______________________
Harris emerged from a shower on the Bangor with a change of clothes. “We should carry extra foodstocks before we go out next time. A week doesn’t quite seem like enough anymore. Put in an order for us when you restock.”
Trish said, “You see this? Fifteen people shot with plasma weapons on Eden today.”
Harris leaned in to watch the image displayed before him. “This isn’t good. That last body was a victim of a military grade plasma round. I’ve seen enough of those to know the difference.”
A comm was opened to the Kingfisher. “Gandy, put the boss on.”
Tawn replied, “Here.”
“You seeing the images from Eden?”
Tawn nodded. “I did. You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That those were military grade rounds?”
Tawn shook her head. “No. That we need to go out there and clean up our mess. Those rounds, and probably the weapons they were fired from, probably came from what we sold. We need to go out and collect them.”
Harris chuckled. “You want to plop us down in the middle of a potential civil war? One that is possibly being fueled by New Earth? I think you might need a better plan.”
Tawn crossed her arms. “OK, how about this, we go in and infiltrate the resistance, take back any weapons they’ve acquired, and find out where th
ey’re getting them from.”
Harris laughed. “Yeah, like the NE resistance on Eden is gonna let a slug and a stump infiltrate their ranks. What fantasy world are you living in?”
Gandy said, “We could do it.”
Harris returned a confused look. “Who?”
“My sister and I. We could be the infiltrators. We could feed you the information.”
Harris nodded his head. “Sounds like a good way to get your throat cut. If these are New Earthers, their intent is to bring back war. They wouldn’t hesitate to off a couple nosy kids who are meddling in their affairs.”
Trish said, “I actually like his idea. He and I could pose as greedy Domicile business people. We’ll tell them we want the titanium mines opened up because we want a cut of the business. I doubt they would be above using greedy Domicile citizens in their plot. If there is one.”
Harris shook his head. “Lame. Nobody would fall for that.”
Gandy said, “They have a goal. We offer a means for them to achieve that goal. They can check our past and they won’t find any government connection. And no one in their right mind would do this on their own.”
“Exactly,” Harris replied. “I’m gonna have to say no.”
Tawn said, “We should at least go there and talk to the pacifists. If this is just a minor squabble between two parties, we can walk away clean. If this is from our weapons, we can’t just walk away.”
Harris sighed. “I’m supposed to be retired. This being rich thing is turning out to be a lot of work.”
Trish said, “You really gonna let that happen?”
After several mumbles to himself, Harris sighed. “OK. We’ll go talk to the locals. Trish, update the foodstocks and then we’ll see about hopping out there.”
Tawn glanced at the time on her wristband. “I have a few orders to set up for supplies going out to the Retreat. Give us a comm when you’re stocked up and we’ll meet you there.”
***
The Bangor, closely followed by the Kingfisher, dropped through the Eden atmosphere as a pair of fireballs. The twin ships pulled up short of the main port city of Dove before calling in to the port controller. Clearance was given and the two ships landed side by side on the tarmac.
ARMS War for Eden Page 17
