Spirits seemed to lift a little in this room, and Jolo knew that’s why Marco had everyone meet here. It’s easier to think dark thoughts in the artificial light of a hangar bay or even in the library, but standing in the real light of day in a jungle of green could put a positive spin on just about any situation. George’s update last night after the unexpected BG assault, in which three separate tower busting crews were attacked, had sucked the hope out of Duval. Only five towers had gone down yesterday, triple that had been erected by the BG, and 52 of Duval’s people had been killed.
In the center of the Atrium, everyone stood around a holographic display of a planet called Sotec, in the Scina system. It looked so small there in 3D above the display table, but Jolo knew on the ground were large numbers of warriors defending the slaves, and BG warships in orbit above. Sotec was an ice mining operation. The BG used the prisoners to drill for and secure ice, which then got loaded into black transport ships and hauled off to BG strongholds in Grana space.
“Well, ain’t that a nice little picture,” said Greeley. “All we gotta do is take out the boats up top and then disable the ice harvester, snuff out a few walkin’ mech worms, grab the fat man, and come on home.” The big man was ready to go. He shook his head up and down like the decision had been made and it was time to prep the Argossy.
“How many in orbit?” said Koba.
“Usually one Destroyer and several cruisers,” said George.
“You’d think there’d be more now,” said Jolo. “If the BG take out Barc, then that little ice rock Sotec is even more important.” Jolo paused for a moment to consult his computer, then continued. “Don’t forget: Barc’s floating desalination plants crank out about 18 million cubic meters of fresh water a day. If that goes then the BG will protect Sotec. They’ll keep it away from thirsty Fed boats.”
“So that’s just great. It’s hopeless,” said Katy. “Marco?”
“I agree with Jolo’s logic, but the last message I got from one of our pirate friends in the area was that Sotec only had three cruisers in orbit. The Destroyer is probably moving in closer for the coming assault on the core planets.”
“With Mantis’s help we could take out three cruisers,” said Jolo, and suddenly the plan was back on.
“And then we bust in, have us a little worm hunt, grab the old engineer, and bug out,” said Greeley, this time sure the plan was a go.
Everyone looked hopeful, except Hurley, who usually didn’t have much to say, until then.
“So, y’all just gonna fly in and disable an ice harvester? That’s a good way to git dead quick.”
“You know about the harvesters?” said Marco.
“Know about ‘em? Hell, I used to run an old Titan Mark II on larger asteroids back in the day. The T2s ain’t around no more and the BG probably got the newer Mark IVs. I seen two old Asmor Stinger pirate ships one time try to disable a T3. Both them Stingers ended up in the ice.” Jolo queried his computer for the Titan IV schematic. It was twice as big as a Federal building on Sol and cost four times as much to construct. The early ones were Fed designed but were now made on Grantis near BG space. They used a compartmentalized design so even if you breached the outer hull, the big machine would keep right on going.
“How’s an ice hauler gonna take down a gunship?” said Greeley.
“That’s what everybody forgets,” said Hurley. “After a few of them T2s got taken in pirate attacks, the newer models got fitted with some real nice guns. The T4s got ion cannon turrets on top as big as that monster the Fortinbras was carrying. That freighter only had one of those big bastards and it nearly iced the Argossy. How about four pounding on you?”
The room went quiet again. Greeley started to speak, but stopped. His face squinched up in hard thought. “Well, shite,” he said, “we’ll never even get a sniff of that frozen rock even if we did get past the orbital patrols.”
“Obviously, we’ll have to sneak in,” said Jolo. “Hurley, the T4s gotta get regular supply runs, right?”
“There’s a hangar up top right between all the guns. Provisions come on supply drones. There’s a bunch of drone couplers up top and they fly in and plug right into the harvester.”
“Marco, can you get me in one of the supply boats.”
“I’ll get on that. They’re small drones, that okay?”
Jolo shrugged. “Yeah, gettin’ jammed into tiny coffin tubes is my specialty,” he said.
“But the distance this time won’t be too bad. I think they originate about four jumps away in Holsted. They’ve got to feed the workers,” said Marco.
“You mean slaves,” said Katy. “And how does Jolo and Barth get off planet?”
“Same way they came in,” said Hurley. “They’ll fill up the supply boats with trash and broken parts and such. So weight shouldn’t be a problem. And I imagine Barthelme’s gonna be a little, uh, lighter than you remember.”
“So I git to go, too, right?” said Greeley. “He’ll need firepower.”
“Just me,” said Jolo. Greeley took a deep breath, frowning. “Can’t kill ‘em all without me.”
“If Jolo can get to the main computer array, I can take out the internal sensors and unlock the thing from the inside. Make it look like a hardware failure.”
“How soon can you make that happen?” said Marco.
“With George’s help, maybe a day.”
“Or less,” said George, smiling.
“I’ve got something that might be of use,” said Merthon. “It’s an experimental suit that might help an infiltrator go unseen. It’ll also help defend against those evil energy blades the BG love to brandish about.”
“So it’s settled,” said Jolo. “Sneak me in, alone. And I bring Barth and whoever else I can find home. Right under their noses.”
Silana
On Duval
29 days left
A small black pod landed in the sand amidst the rubble of a burned out pirate ship. A young, brown haired girl named Silana climbed out and headed east in the baking Duval heat for the nearest settlement. Behind her the tiny ship exploded, the metal from her ship mixing in with the pirate ship debris. Better than burying it, she thought. In the distance, she heard the sound of BG cruisers taking out the humans and their pathetic, last bit of defiance.
The Lords will let them play rebels for a little while longer, she thought. At least until The One is found. Find The One. That was her mission.
A few hours later a woman and an old man came up to her in a hover craft. She glanced at the old, dust covered boat: her pattern recognition algorithm kicked in instantly. Horvarst 37 XC; manufacture date: 2489; class: 2 seat, open hull, hover; comments: short range.
“You need water, honey?” said the brown, leathery-skinned, middle aged woman driving. She handed over a plastic jug.
Begin speech synthesis recording, thought the girl.
“Oh, yes ma’am. I’m so thirsty.” No comparison data, said the computer in her mind.
“You ain’t from round here are ye?” said the old man, watching the girl drink. He wore coveralls and was bald except for a few random gray hairs that whipped around in the wind.
“Why you say that?” said the girl. 32% speech pattern match.
“Well, you dressed kinda funny is all,” said the woman.
“Yeah, and yer hair’s jus too gang purty,” said the old man, smiling.
“Y’all close yer eyes jus’ for a minute.” They look at each other, shrug, and then close their eyes. “Now listen to my voice,” said the girl. “I sound jus’ like y’all, right?” 89% speech pattern match.
“Sound like you from Hilder, down aways a bit,” said the old man, eyes still closed.
“Yeah, I spent some time in Hilder awhile back,” said the girl. 99% speech pattern match.
Lock in current speech pattern files, she thought to herself. Then she started taking off her clothes.
“Stand up,” she said to the woman, and the woman looked at the old man and then slowl
y stood up.
“About 55 centimeters,” said the girl, now standing naked. The old man’s eyes suddenly fixed on her crotch. His hands clutched onto the edge of the door like he was gonna be blown out.
“I wanna help take down a tower,” said the girl.
“Keep going thataway to a settlement called Rybat,” said the woman, waving a hand to the east. “They got a few crews just started.” Then her eyebrows narrowed a bit, “But Honey, you gone have to git some clothes on.” There was concern in her voice like a mother. The old man hadn’t moved, eyes still drawn to the spot between the girl’s legs.
“Frank, stop droolin’ on the poor girl. Obvious she ain’t all there, but that don’t give you no right to get yer jollies.”
“Yeah, but somethin’ ain’t right about her you-know-what,” he said, one wrinkled, bent finger pointing at her groin. “Ain’t nothin’ there,” he said. And the woman started apologizing.
The girl grabbed the man and threw him out of the hover craft. He flew upside down, landing in the hot dirt on his shoulder. His collarbone snapped with a loud crack and he howled in pain, half his face covered in Duval sand.
“Take off your clothes,” said the girl to the woman.
A few minutes later the synthetic girl named Silana, dressed like a poor Duvalite, started walking towards Rybat. She stopped for a moment to roll around in the sand. She poured water from the plastic jug onto her hair, rubbed sand around in it, then tossed the jug away. Behind her the flames engulfed the Horvast 37 XC. The woman’s screams carried across the flats, but no one could hear. If someone asks, I’ll say it was the BG, she thought. They would believe her. Because humans were gullible and weak. And besides, it was the truth.
Infiltrator
Sotec in the Scina System
26 days left
Jolo bent the latch from the inside of the supply drone and pushed on the door with his feet, his back to the hull of the thin tube of a ship, his body sore and aching after the nine hour trip. The broken hatch had to look like a faulty lock mechanism, he thought, pausing for a moment to rest. When the little drone had gone nose down and seated itself into the landing coupler atop the Titan, it almost felt like being on solid ground again, but then he could feel the slow, undulating movement of the harvester as it made its way across the ice below.
Once again he pushed as hard as he could, his whole body starting to shake. Then suddenly the hatch flew open, the door landing with a crash on the deck below, and the everything inside, mostly packages of dried protein substitute, and one half-synth in a skin suit, spilled out in a pile under the drone. It was a two meter drop and for a split second Jolo felt the cold rain cutting in at an angle, knew that it was dark outside. But then his head hit metal and he blacked out.
He awoke to the sound of two girls talking. At first he thought it was another dream. The voice was Jaylen, the girl on the gunboat, the one with blond hair, the one he had to find. Did find, he remembered. He thought to call to her, to tell her he was here. He missed her. And then the words his father said came to him, “Hide. Don’t use the gun.” His face was cold and wet. He opened his eyes and stared into the darkness. There were no stars, just little tiny glints of rain, each drop reflecting a light from the other side of the deck.
“Another faulty hatch,” one girl said.
“I’m not going down for this one,” the other girl said.
And then it all came back to Jolo. The voices had to be close, maybe ten meters or so off. His right hand was touching the Colt. Don’t use the gun, he thought. If I take these two out then they’ll be missed and I’ll lose my advantage. Maybe I’ve already lost it, he thought, laying on a pile of wet, brown protein. But then he remembered: he was wearing Merthon’s special suit.
When Jolo had gone to Merthon’s lab three days earlier, he thought it was a joke. “It’s on the table there,” the tall Vellosian had said, casually gesturing with his long, graceful fingers. But there was nothing on the old wooden table. “Look again,” said the frog. Jolo looked again and noticed something strange, an undulation, a slight variance in the wood grain. Merthon laughed and picked something up off the table that wasn’t really there, or was it? Once it was in Merthon’s hands Jolo could see it, sort of. Merthon handed it to him and he could feel it, but his eyes found nothing to focus on. It was like he was looking at the shadow of something, but the real thing casting the shadow was gone.
“Is it invisible cloth?” said Jolo, wondering if the question sounded as stupid as he felt saying it.
“No, you fool,” said Merthon, laughing. “That tech is beyond even me. This cloth simply blends with its background. It matches colors, patterns and can mimic even textured surfaces.”
Jolo put the skin-tight suit on, pulled up the hood and stood next to the blue tanks. He looked down at his legs and it was like he was looking through them. He touched his thigh with his hands to break the illusion, but then even his hands looked like blue tank water.
“The suit has a series of tiny fuel cells. You can use the power to warm your body, but try not to use it. That burns your power supply. Once the power runs out, you go from stealth infiltrator to a fool in tights. The suit will hold the last blended image when the power goes out. I wanted to have it go black, but didn’t get around to it. Time constraints.”
“It’s awful thin,” said Jolo, pulling at the elastic material.
“Yes, but it’s made to stop energy blades used by the BG.” Merthon grabbed something off a shelf, held it in front of Jolo, and out popped a small red energy blade. He put the suit over Jolo’s arm then came down with the knife, just hard enough to draw blood, but instead of the hot blade cutting into his skin, he just felt a slight push.
“Again, lose power and you lose the blade armor. And it won’t stop a kinetic energy weapon like your old pistol.”
By then Marco had come into the lab. “And remember,” his father said. “Your instinct is to fight, to use the gun, to attack. You’ve got to use a different tactic this time: Stealth. It’s best if they are not hunting for you.”
Jolo fought the urge to go for the gun and to relieve himself of the threat standing a few meters off. The Jaylens were fast and he’d seen them wield their deadly red energy blades. But he remained still.
“Those rock tossing dogs will die without the brown stuff,” one of the Jaylens said.
“They’ll bring more,” the other one said.
“The Lord will not be happy.”
“No worries, I have an idea. This drone never came. I’ll have the repair bot destroy the beacon and toss it over the side. The fault will be with the idiot humans on Holsted.”
And then the voices stopped and Jolo heard a door slide shut and he was alone. He waited a few more moments, then carefully slid the gun out of its blend-suit covered holster and took a peek over the hill of mushy, brown protein. All clear.
He stood up, rubbed the bump on his head, angry at himself for nearly taking himself out before he had a chance to save Barth. He reholstered the gun and let the rain wash off the protein. He stood on the edge of the giant ice harvester, a massive square building, slowly making its way across the planet. In front, glassy, shimmering ice, reflecting the two moons—and behind, a neat row of dark rock was all the Titan IV left in her wake.
An ion cannon as large as the Argossy was mounted at each corner. He imagined them coming to life when a ship came within their scanner range and the large barrels swinging up to find the target. How many gunboats would it take to bring this thing down? he thought. But for now the turrets were quiet and asleep, almost like gargoyles on Old Earth buildings long ago, each barrel pointed down at a 45 degree angle.
Jolo climbed back into the drone ship and pulled out the charges. Between the base of each turret and the heavy gun on top was a ball joint so the barrel could pivot in all directions. Jolo put each charge right on that vulnerable section. The freezing rain was still angling down from the dark sky and Jolo’s hands had started to go numb, but
George had created a charge with a magnetic backing that stuck to the wet, freezing metal like a magna-hook, and didn’t require nimble fingers. Jolo hoped the charges would blow the guns right off the harvester, but failing that, the tracking computer just above the charge should get fried.
Jolo turned each charge on, a small light flashing green so he knew the bomb was active, then he tapped his suit pocket to make sure the tiny switch was still there. Once he found Barth he could hit the little red button and two things would happen: the guns would all blow, and the homing beacon, a small, black box he placed on the deck opposite the drones, would begin transmitting.
Jolo pulled up the Titan IV schematic on his computer and headed for the stairs. He figured no one in his right mind would be out in the weather, so he should be able to move up and down levels from the outside emergency stairs unnoticed. There were eighteen levels on a Titan IV ice harvester and the computer array was on 11, just above the bridge and the machinery below that. Jolo stopped for a moment at each floor to peek through the round window on the big sliding door. On the upper levels there wasn’t much beyond long corridors that looked too clean to be slave quarters. On one of the empty levels he pulled out the Colt then gently pressed the open button on the door. An id scanner popped out so he moved on.
On level twelve Jolo found a row of hibernating Jaylens, just like at the facility on Montag. He counted ten, all lined up, all standing with eyes closed, plugged into a machine. Is this how they sleep? Jolo wondered. Must be getting a recharge, or data upload. He put the barrel of the Colt against the glass near the closest one’s head, blond curls on its shoulder, and wondered if a bullet would penetrate the glass. Marco had crafted a custom silencer so the barrel was a bit longer, but he’d be able to fire the gun without alerting other Jaylens or warriors on other levels. In the end he holstered the gun and moved on, sure there’d be more opportunities soon enough.
The Jolo Vargas Space Opera Series Box Set Page 29
