“You are here. Thank the stars and the sun,” Jatal said.
“Yes. Landing at the spot you gave us in--” I looked to Z, and the woman flashed her right hand twice. “Ten seconds,” I finished.
“We are pulling your payment out of the caves. We must be quick,” Jatal said.
“Understood. Looking forward to meeting you.”
“Same here. You all are life savers. I’m glad our allies were able to find you,” the man said with obvious joy.
“Landing now. We’ll be out in a few moments,” I said as I motioned for Eve to cut the communications.
“She’s down, Captain,” Z said a moment later.
The hacker had landed Persephone on a bluff overlooking a massive canyon. The entire sky was filled with the view of the purple gas giant, and it cast a weird light down to the surface of the moon. The color made the surface almost look like a cross between a dream and a painting.
“Let’s go help them unload,” I said. The women both nodded, and we headed to the elevators.
A minute later we were in the cargo hold. Z ran to the controls to open the doors and extend the ramp down, and I moved with Eve to the front of the loading ramp.
“I’m not expecting any trouble, but make sure your weapons are hot,” I said to both women as the door started to spiral open.
The women both reached down to check their weapons, and then we waited for the ramp to extend down to the rocky ground of the moon.
“Greetings!” Jatal called out from below. The man wore a purple colored cloak that blended into the rocks almost perfectly. He was joined by eight other people, two of which piloted a giant forklift.
“Greetings,” I said from my position at the top of the ramp. A few of the gathered people held weapons, but none of them were pointing them in our direction, nor did their body position hint that they intended to use them.
He intends us no harm. Their need is great. They have been starving for the last two weeks.
“Come aboard,” I said as I waved to them.
“Thank you,” Jatal did a poor job of disguising his joy, and he motioned for his team to walk up to us. The two men piloting the forklift activated the engines, and the beast began to lumber up the ramp at the back end of the procession.
“Good to meet you in person,” Jatal said as he extended his hand to me. His eyes were a bright blue and contrasted with his dark skin tone. The man’s cheeks were hollowed out from not eating, and I could easily see the veins on his neck.
“Likewise. This is Eve and Z.” I nodded to my friends as I shook his hand.
“Thank you all again,” the man smiled.
“You’re welcome. Always nice to help good people. I’ll show your crew which crates to take,” Z said to the men and women who had followed Jatal up the ramp. Their faces all looked almost skeletal, and they followed the blonde hacker into the hold without question.
“Tell us more about what is going on. Maybe we can help in other ways,” I said to the man.
“I don’t know what other service you could provide beyond what you already have done for us.”
“Do you have the location of their ground troops?” I asked. “We might be able to fly by and spray them with some ordinance.”
“That would help us,” the man said with a sigh. “But I hesitate to get you all involved beyond what you have done already. This is our war.”
“Everyone needs help. It is no crime to take what is offered,” Eve said.
“I know, thank you,” Jatal replied with a smile. “But they have missile launchers on the ground and air drones. I would say that you would put your lives at more of a risk if you tried for a bombing run.” The man gestured over his shoulder with his thumb, and I glanced to the mouth of large cave some twenty meters behind him. “We know the caves of the moon better. It’s where we’ve worked for generations. Our ancestors first came here during the first expansion from Earth’s system. It’s taking all of their troops to try to flush us out. Your food and supplies will give us a much needed morale boost, and we’ll be able to hold out for another six months.”
The forklift was backing out with the storage crate that Wayne had given us, and the two men controlling the machine were carefully steering it down Persephone’s ramp. The three of us watched it for a few moments, and then I turned to the man.
“You said Alloprize has most of their troops on the ground here?”
“That is what we think. Their ships can’t hold more people than what we have counted, and we’ve intercepted a few encrypted messages that lead us to believe there is only a handful of support staff on each of the five vessels. It is a worry for them. The longer this campaign goes, the higher the chances of another megacorp coming by and attacking them.”
“I see,” I said as I glanced at Eve.
“So the plan is to use the food and supplies to dig in more. They keep trying to open the shafts we’ve closed, but they don’t know how to navigate the mines, and we just blow the tunnels behind them. We’ll outlast them, and when they go back home, we’ll come to the surface and repair all of our defense weaponry. They only got this far because our people were divided by family, but now we are all aligned.”
“You are providing them inspiring leadership,” Eve said.
“Ha, thanks.” The man shook his head. “A year ago I was the eldest son of one of the most powerful families within four light years. I’d never done an honest day’s work in my life. Then they killed my parents, and…” the man let out a sigh and glanced back at the forklift. It had set Wayne’s shipping container on the ground between Persephone and the cave and was making a return trip.
“War turns everyone into a soldier,” I said.
“If we can win this, things are going to change. No more families fighting over fucking rocks. I want everyone to have a piece of our profits. The things I’ve seen and done have changed me.”
“Can you get more food or supplies?” I asked as I gestured to the forklift carrying the storage bin from Cynthia down the ramp. The other six purple cloaked freedom fighters followed the machine, and Z came to stand by us.
“We hope so. We don’t have access to our mining drones anymore. So this will be all the rhodium we’ll be able to get until Alloprize’s troops clear off the surface and we have a chance to repair them.” Jatal pointed to a spot on the ground where they first stood to greet us. Two of the cloaked men pulled away a purple sheet that had blended in with the ground perfectly. Under the cloth were two cube-shaped crates. They were only a meter along each length, but it they were filled with rhodium then each box was probably worth Persephone’s cost.
“That’s about twenty four thousand kilograms of rhodium. It’s all in powder form. We’ll help you load it on your ship. Want to look at it first?” The man gestured for us to follow him, and the three of us walked down Persephone’s ramp.
We reached the first container, and the man pressed the open button on the side of the lid. The seal hissed, and then he pulled the top of the crate off. Inside were countless plastic bags of a grayish-white-silvery powder. The sight made my breath leave my body, and I thought about the ancient stories I’d read about treasure seekers finding a chest filled with gold.
A hundred grams of rhodium was worth a hundred kilos of gold.
“Oh. Sweet. Momma,” Z panted, and I saw her eyes glaze over when she looked at the wealth of metal.
“It seems like you are getting a bad deal,” I said to Jatal with a shrug. “A kilo of this would have paid for all that we brought. Hell, it would have paid for monthly shipments for the next fifty years.”
“We need the food and medical supplies. The metal is worthless if Alloprize kills all of us and takes our home. Half is for Wayne Sampson, and the other half is for you, as agreed.” The purple cloaked man put the lid back on the crate, and it closed with another hiss.
“As agreed?” I asked the dark skinned man with the blue eyes.
“Yes,” he looked confused. “You told o
ur contact you’d deliver the medical supplies for the twelve thousand kilos of rhodium.”
“Cynthia Jayhee? She offered us some--”
“Cynthia Jayhee? What do you mean? She isn’t working for us. She’s selling food to Alloprize. Been in their pocket since they attacked us. We have our own people on 876 - C ii. They gave you the medical--”
“She is the one who hired us to bring you one of those crates,” I said as I pointed to the one the forklift carried.
“No, Jayhee works for Alloprize. My team on C ii has been preventing her from shipping food for the last four months.”
“What?” I growled my question as my eyes moved to the larger of the two storage bins that we had received from Cynthia. The forklift was about to set it on the ground.
“She’s hired a bunch of folks to ship food to Alloprize’s fleet, but my men have destroyed their ships. I hate to do it, but--”
“Get down!” I shouted as the sides of the storage bin fell away suddenly.
There were three battle drones inside, and the machines’ miniguns began to whirl with the whine of a thousand chainsaws.
Chapter 11
“No!” Jatal screamed as the spray of bullets tore through the men driving the forklift.
“Shit!” Z shouted as she dove into the hole beside the crates of rhodium.
Eve jumped into the ditch with her, and I yanked Jatal down a moment before the bullets sprayed over our heads.
Unlike the spider style robots Elaka Nota Corporation had guarding their facility, these drones looked somewhat humanoid. They had two stocky legs with reverse knee joints, armored torsos, and fixed guns instead of arms. They didn’t seem to turn that quickly to target, and I wondered if the pilots were on the ground near us, or if they were up on one of the starships. I doubted it could have been the latter since there would have been too much control lag time.
“You brought their drones!” Jatal screamed as he reached for the firearm he wore on his hip.
My hand was quicker, and I grabbed onto his wrist before he could pull the weapon. He pulled against my arm and tried to punch me in the face with his other hand, but I dodged his clumsy strike, yanked on his wrist so that he fell to the ground, pulled my revolver out of my holster, and then pointed the massive barrel at his face.
“We didn’t know,” I growled. “She told us we were working for you and gave us your relay code. You didn’t say anything about her when we first spoke to you.”
The man’s blue eyes went cross a bit as he stared down the massive barrel I pointed at his face. The terror was clear there, as was the hopelessness and the defeat.
“Cynthia must have captured and killed my men. Damn,” Jatal said, but I couldn’t really hear him over another string of bullets that slammed into the purple colored dirt near us.
“She must have been planning this with Alloprize for a while. She was waiting for someone that would make the delivery,” Eve said what I was already thinking.
“So how are we going to get out of here?” Z asked, but then another spray of bullets erupted over our heads, and the blonde woman tried to burrow into the dirt next to the crates of rhodium.
“Our drones,” I said as I gestured to Persephone’s ramp.
“That’s ten meters away! There are three Alloprize drones right there. They will fill me full of holes in half a second,” Z’s blue eyes opened wide with horror.
“No, I’ll run,” I said as I shook my head.
“So you’ll get filled with holes instead of me. I don’t see how that-- Shit!” a stray bullet slammed into the top of one of the crates next to us, and shiny gray powder exploded into the air.
“No! The rhodium!” Jatal and Z shouted at the same time, but I guessed it was for different reasons.
I let the beast emerge from my soul.
It filled my vision with rage, my body with unbridled strength. My spine cracked and popped as it elongated, my flesh pushed against the armor of my suit, and the purple world took on a yellow hue. Jatal stared at me with horror during my transformation, but the man was too terrified to even think about pointing his gun at me.
The screams from the other side of the bins ended, and I guessed the drones were done killing the rest of Jatal’s comrades. It meant that the three robots would now focus on us.
It meant that we had very little time.
“I will run,” I growled, but just as I said the words the ground between our position and Persephone's ramp exploded with an almost endless spray of bullets.
But I didn’t run toward my ship.
I jumped out of the trench and sprinted toward the storage bin Wayne gave us. The pilots hadn’t expected the movement, and they swung the upper bodies of the fifteen-foot tall drones at a pace that was too slow to catch me.
I made it behind the bin and continued my dash to the far corner. I had visual cover from the machines now, but I doubted the metal of the bins would actually stop their bullets. I was proven correct a few moments later when a spray of bullets ripped through the metal container and scattered dried food everywhere.
I had a full magazine in my rifle, but I hit the release and switched it out for one with armor piercing bullets. It might have been overkill for the trio of drones, but I didn’t like the idea of whittling them down with conventional bullets. If I didn’t take these fuckers out in the next few seconds, they would probably destroy the rest of the food and kill me.
I leaned out from behind the bin as soon as my new magazine was secure. Then I squeezed on the trigger and aimed my holosight at the center mass of the first bipedal drone. My bullets left craters into the chest piece of the thing, but it was returning fire, and I had to throw myself to the dirt so as to not get cut in half.
I heard gunshots from Eve, Z, and Jatal’s location, and I rolled back to my feet before I sprang out from behind the bin. One of the drones was turning back around so that it could walk over to them, but the other two were aiming their arms in my direction.
My rifle barked again, and my spray of bullets cut the right arm off the one I had shot earlier. The limb continued to fire, but the end of it wasn’t aimed at me or the bin, and bullets just flew into the sky.
The other drone shot at me, but I dove into a roll that carried me back behind the bin. Then I sprinted to the other side of the metal container and popped out with my rifle pointed at the drone with the missing arm. This next burst removed its remaining arm, and I rolled back behind the bin before the robot could target me.
The bots couldn’t aim that fast, and the observation gave me a stupid idea.
I ran to the other side of the bin, but had to dive mid-trip when a spray of bullets cut through the middle of the container like a saw. When it passed over me, I launched up to my feet again and sprinted out from behind the cover.
My thumb flipped my rifle to full auto.
The second drone was turning its upper torso around to aim at me, but my own rifle was up while I ran, and I pulled the trigger as I continued my sideways strafe. My bullets sprayed across the metal of the thing as if it was a stream of silvery water from a hose. The metal of the drone began to melt and break off as if the robot was actually made of sand, and it turned into a fiery mass of molten metal before its twin guns could rotate around enough to shoot me.
This left the last drone, and it was only a few meters away from being in a position where it could fire into the hold where my friends were taking cover.
I sprinted toward the machine while I tried to aim my rifle. Three bullets slammed into its back, but the thing didn’t stop walking, and then my weapon clicked with the lack of ammo.
Shit.
I dropped my rifle and forced my legs to sprint as fast as they could. The distance was only about twenty meters, and I was able to reach my full speed half a moment before I slammed my shoulder into the back of the drone.
The machine was unprepared for my tackle, and it went down sideways. I was running too fast and couldn’t keep myself upright after I hit th
e thing, so I tumbled down on top of it.
The thing started to fire with both of its miniguns, but I managed to get my arms wrapped around its right arm while the boot of my right foot pushed against the forearm of its left weapon. Then I twisted my body back with all the strength in my legs, back, and shoulders.
“Grraaaaaaahhhhhh!” The scream escaped my throat and somehow sounded louder than the bullets pouring out of the guns.
I felt the hydraulics parts of the arm pop out of the joints, and then I twisted my body sideways. The limb I had my arms wrapped around tore free of the drone’s shoulder, and a rain of smoking shell casings bounced off my tiger head. The gun was still firing, so I spun it around in my hands and aimed the business end of the minigun back into the body of the robot. There was only eight seconds worth of ammo left in the arm of the gun, but it was more than enough bullets to turn the drone into tiny pieces of smoldering scrap metal.
“Anyone hit?” I asked as I dropped the gun arm and walked back to the ditch where my friends had taken cover.
“What are you?” Jatal’s face had paled, and he pointed a trembling finger at me.
“He does that when he gets angry. Don’t worry about it,” Z said as she climbed out of the hole. “I’m not hit.”
“Nor am I,” Eve said as she stepped out.
Gray rhodium powder covered the hair and shoulders of my friends, and I realized I had a bunch of it on my armor as well. I moved my eyes over to the crates and let out a long growl of disappointment. The topmost box was filled with bullet holes, and the top part was blown off. I guess about half of the powder was displaced and mixed in with the dirt. I was sure Jatal owned a machine that could sort through and separate the metal, but I doubted we had the time to wait.
Alloprize had planned this with Cynthia, and they would be heading to our location.
“My comrades. The food. The medical supplies. We are finished,” Jatal sobbed as he walked over to the bodies of his friends.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “We didn’t know.”
“I believe you.” He turned to me, and the fear was plain in his blue eyes.
Space Witch: A Paranormal Space Opera Adventure (Star Justice Book 2) Page 9
