“Don’t take the shot if the synth gets too close! You’ll kill them both.” Jolo crested the dune again and the synth was thirty meters from Katy who was firing like a woman possessed, but hadn’t hit home yet. Jolo fired again, missed the head—the kill shot—but hit her side, and the Jaylen got thrown off course a bit but recovered and was now twenty meters out. One more shot from Jolo and the girl fell, but got up again, took two shots from Katy’s blaster, and still had enough juice to pull out two energy blades. She’d stopped running and was now just about on top of Katy.
The synth was going to sacrifice herself. Jolo hit her again in the body but she still kept coming. And suddenly the Argossy joined the party. A rail gun shot tore the ground near her feet, burning a black line between Katy and the synth and nearly taking out Jolo in the process. Two more shots came from the rail gun. One clipped the Jaylen and took her left leg off and Jolo could feel a burning sensation on the side of his face.
The synth was on top of Katy by then but Jolo shot her in the head and the synthetic girl finally fell. Jolo grabbed Katy by the arm and pulled her back out of the way as Greeley ran up.
The big man pointed his shotgun at the blond synth’s head.
Jolo and Katy walked up and they all stared down at the still, lifeless form of the synth girl, the red blades still lit in either hand. She had one leg, the other burned up by the big gun. Her eyes were open but she’d taken a bullet to the head and all logic and communication functions were destroyed. For a moment there was silence, everyone breathing hard, Katy covered in sand.
The synth twitched involuntarily, and Greeley lowered the end of his shotgun.
Jolo kicked her with his boot. “Ain’t nothing. Don’t fire.”
The girl’s one good leg twitched again and suddenly Greeley blew a hole in the synth’s chest with his shotgun.
“I just said DON’T FIRE!” yelled Jolo. “One day we might need that shell to save someone, but they’ll be dead. And then we’ll think back to right now when you wasted a perfectly good shot on a dead synth.”
“Ain’t so, Cap!” Greeley yelled right back. “You know them little bitches kin git right back up and go to work on a man. Or woman.”
“Yeah, but that one was gone.”
“Not gone from the eighteen shots you took before you finally hit her in the noggin.”
“Four! I took four.” And Jolo squared off on the big man, who was red-faced and sweaty.
Greeley had a death grip on Betsy, the muscles on his arms bulging and tense. “I ain’t had no gun play in quite some time and you begrudge me one dang shell?” he yelled. “Leave me here, maybe a few more a them blondes will come along and I kin have some fun ‘stead of dying up there on that big, Fed, insane asylum.”
“You disobey another order and I will leave you here.”
“You sound an awful lot like one of those dang, tippy-toed, blue-suit officers ain’t worth a shite! Maybe you aught to stop kissing arse on that big, shiny boat up there and get back to being Jolo.”
Jolo stared up at the sweaty man with the shotgun. This had been coming for a few weeks, so might as well have it out here and now. Jolo handed the Colt to Katy. Greeley’s sweaty grimace turned into a smile as he wrapped his shirt around his gun and put it on the sand.
By then Koba had lowered the rear hatchway of the Argossy. The synth, George, was standing inside the rear hold trying to suss out what was going on. “Just a little conflict resolution,” Jolo yelled.
Jolo ducked Greeley’s first punch easily, landed a quick left, and started to think it wasn’t going to be a fair fight. Jolo was faster and stronger. But then Greeley landed a strong right that Jolo didn’t see coming. The first bit was a setup. Greeley laughed. “Used the same move on one o’ your Fed officer buddies.”
“Y’all stop,” yelled Katy.
Jolo could hear the pain in her voice. This wasn’t the way things were done. But times were strange. Jolo didn’t know who he was any more now that Duval was gone, now that the war had started up again and the pirates from Duval were trapped on a big Fed boat with rules and order and Fed green for dinner and all manner of Federation red tape that had confounded the pirate crew ever since Duval was destroyed.
The captain ducked a vicious, but wild punch, and caught Greeley in the ribs. He eased off on the power, but the big man fell, clutching his side, gasping for air. He hit the ground and rolled, writhing in pain.
Jolo ran to him. “You okay, Greeley?” He knelt down in the sand and tried to feel if any ribs were broken. He looked at Katy and she was shaking her head, scowling. Just then a giant hand wrapped tight around Jolo’s neck. And suddenly, Jolo couldn’t breath. Greeley was grinning again.
“You a dang sucker,” said the big man, little bits of sand and spittle hitting Jolo in the face. Jolo was through playing. He hit Greeley in the face then brought his hand down on Greeley’s arm almost as hard as he could. Greeley lost his grip on Jolo’s neck and the two started circling each other again. Both breathing hard.
Katy fired the shotgun into the sky. BOOM!
“I’m leaving both of you idiots,” she said.
Just then Koba’s voice came over the external speakers. “We got two BG Cruisers and a transport just popped in on the other side of the planet. We gotta go.”
The Brown Stuff
Aboard the Federation Defender Persephony
Jolo stepped down onto docking bay C25 of the Persephony and put his hand on the hull of his Argossy, the vintage, round-nosed starship from a previous generation. Kray had offered him a sleek, Fed gunboat like he used to captain, but he’d refused. “Thank you, Girl,” he said, “you always bring us home.”
“Talking to it isn’t going to help,” said a man in Fed blues named Crenshaw.
Jolo stared at him blankly. Kray’s little pet. Then he did his typical post-run visual inspection of the ship. Hurley and Barth would do the same, he knew, but more eyes the better.
“We heard there was trouble,” said the Fed man.
“Let me clue you in, Crenshaw,” said Greeley. He put his hand on the man’s shoulder like they were friends at a pub, then looked around as if to make sure no one was listening and whispered, “There’s a war.”
“Why do you have a black eye? And you seem to be favoring your side,” said the man.
“Is there a war?” said Katy.
“There ain’t no war,” said Koba. “Greeley is an idiot.”
Pretty soon Hurley and Barth joined in and they all surrounded Crenshaw arguing with Greeley over whether there was actually a war. “No, Greeley, see, the blonde girls are really sex slaves and they want to, you know, do it,” said Koba.
“Whoa.” Greeley slapped his big hand on his forehead. “You mean all this time I been leaving Betsy-sized holes in ‘em an’ I coulda been, you know, doin’ it?” He slapped Crenshaw on the back so hard the man coughed.
“Crenshaw, let’s get us a boat and head to the core, brother!” said Greeley. He laughed and then grabbed his ribs in pain.
Jolo sighed, all the anger from earlier suddenly replaced by regret. He’d hurt Greeley. Here they were outnumbered a hundred to one. Trapped in a web of Fed protocol. Their ways were gone.
“Very funny,” said Crenshaw. “You know as well as I do the synths do not have reproductive parts.”
“Ahh, come on Crenshaw,” said Greeley. “Now who am I gone think about late at night when I’m all alone in my bunk?”
“Captain Vargas, Admiral Kray has called a meeting in the Great Hall on level four at 1800 hours. God help you if you did not get the listening module.”
Jolo nodded to George and he pulled the big module out on a hover cart.
Crenshaw, sour-faced, turned and marched off.
“George, you and Koba lock her down. I don’t want any Fed inspection team getting near the Argossy,” said Jolo. “Y’all get some rest.” He looked at Katy. “You wanna take a walk?”
……
Jolo and Katy took t
he tube to the level 5 cafeteria, got two half cups of water and some dried sembei crackers and Katy steered him to a table in one of the common areas next to some small trees in big pots.
Jolo grabbed a leaf and rubbed it between his fingers. "You know they are fake, right?"
“Not if you squint."
"Is that how you cope?"
"Yes, squinting and dreaming." She stared off across the hall where the children were playing. There were big classrooms with glass walls that faced the hallway.
"Why do we always end up here?"
Katy looked across the hall at the kids playing in the rec room. "I guess there's hope here." The kids inside were running around and making noise. Most were refugees from Duval, they still had dark tans, no shoes, and rags for clothes. Occasionally Jolo would see a little, soft Fed boy or girl in uniform with shiny black shoes.
Soon a bell sounded and all the kids queued up at the cafeteria chow line. There were at least a hundred Duval kids led by an old Federation woman. “Keep your hands to yourselves and form a sharp line!” she barked, but the ragged bunch of misfits jostled and elbowed each other for prime position in the front of the line. One tall boy that Jolo thought he recognized from Bertha’s place ended up in front.
“These are Bertha’s kids?” said Jolo.
“Most of them,” said Katy. “There are about five more big groups of kids like this. All orphans from Duval, spread out on the ship.”
Four Fed kids rolled up right to the front of the line and the old woman put her arm out, blocking the tall boy and letting the Fed kids skip right to the front of the line. The cafeteria bot came and started handing out food packs. The tall boy pushed to the front and took the first one.
The woman screamed at him and he turned to face her, almost as tall as she was. She poked him with an energy stick and he fell to the ground.
Jolo and Katy ran over there to help the boy. “What the hell are you doing?” yelled Katy at the woman. She raised the energy stick up in Katy’s direction and Jolo ripped it out of her hands.
“Use this again on a child and I’ll shove this thing down your throat,” said Jolo.
“I don’t think so,” said a man in a light blue coverall. Another man in the same outfit stood next to him. They were big, probably worked some bottom-of-the-pay scale job in the bowels of the boat.
“Is that so?” said Jolo, suddenly fired up again for the second time that day and it wasn’t even dinner yet. He turned to face the men while Katy helped the boy sit up.
“Jolo, don’t,” said Katy.
“Do what she says,” said one of the men.
Jolo slammed the stick down on the back of a chair and it broke in half, blue sparks flying up. He handed it back to the woman and she scowled at him. “We saved you people. And now we feed your children,” she said.
“And we are grateful,” said Katy, trying to diffuse the situation.
“Little rats,” said the man in the coveralls. “Rats that eat too much.”
By then the bot had resumed handing out food packs and Jolo and Katy stayed around until all the kids got some food and were heading back to the makeshift classroom across the hall.
Jolo and Katy sat down with the tall boy and watched him eat. These were dry packs. Protein, carbohydrate and some vegetable matter in a hard, brown square. Jolo had seen the marine teams eat this stuff but only when they were traveling as light as possible, or rationing, or didn’t have a big Defender in the area to resupply. They called it brown dog and it made fed green look downright delectable.
The boy ate the brown stuff and didn’t stop until he was finished, making sure to lick the inside of the pack until it was all gone. Then Katy gave him her water and he downed that. Jolo slid his drink over and he gulped that, too. He put the cup down and took a deep breath and smiled.
“She always that nice?” said Jolo.
“She ain’t like Miss Bertha, if that’s what you mean,” the boy said. “Miss Bertha comes by every so often, but she’s mainly with the little kids on level 12.”
“How long they been feeding you that?” said Katy.
“Right from the start. It don’t taste too good but I told the rats to eat every crumb. And they usually do what I tell ‘em. The kids with parents get a little green stuff thrown in, but we get mainly brown. It don’t matter though, we are alive. I tell ‘em that, too. My name’s Jessie.”
“You’re a good man, Jessie,” said Jolo. “But do me a favor. Don’t call yourselves rats any more. You are from Duval, just like me.”
“And don’t cross the Fed wench either, especially when she’s about to hand you some food,” said Katy. Jolo looked at her and took a deep breath. He hated to tell the boy to lay down, but what could they do?
“You are leading those kids. Set a good example,” said Jolo.
“And let them run over us?”
“They’re sad because they lost everything,” said Jolo.
“And we didn’t? We lost Duval,” said Jessie.
“We have each other,” said Katy.
“It ain’t right for that lady to let the Fed kids go first, but understand this: they don’t know if their children are living or dead or dying on a work planet.”
“One day I will fight for them. I’ll fight for their families and their children,” said the boy.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” said Jolo. And he stood and shook the boy’s hand and Katy gave him a hug and he was off to the classrooms again.
Katy and Jolo watched him go. “Good kid,” said Jolo.
Katy held Jolo’s hand and pulled him close. “Merthon said everything works, right?”
“Huh?”
“You know, down there.”
“Well we know that part’s fine,” said Jolo, wishing he was somewhere else but suddenly having a discussion about his man parts.
“I want us to try. Don’t you want a baby that’s a little part of me and you?”
Jolo looked down at her and she was giving him a super-charged dose of angst and desperation which usually melted him down into a puddle and suddenly he was saying yes to everything.
But this time he couldn’t. He stared off across the hall to where the kids were. The Fed lady had them reading, two kids per tablet. “Not right now. Not while the war is going on.” He stood up and straightened his jacket. “Kray is waiting.”
A Federation Man Ain’t Afraid to Die
Jolo and Katy sat down next to Marco, Barthelme and Merthon in the Great Hall of the Persephony. The last time Jolo sat in this room the old gunboat captain Marin Trant had shot Admiral Silas Filcher. It was like returning to the scene of a crime. Jolo looked up at the dais and couldn’t help but see Filch standing there with a hole in his chest. Jolo reached for the cup sitting in front of him, but it was empty. He fidgeted around in his seat.
“Nothin’ good comes when you get the Fed brain trust together,” Jolo said to his father, Marco.
“They couldn’t agree on what to have for lunch,” said the old man.
“Y’all be positive,” said Katy. Merthon smiled and put his hand on hers.
Kray stepped up to the dais and cleared his throat and took a sip of water. “Long live the Federation!” he yelled.
“Long live the Federation,” everyone replied. Kray yelled it again. And the officers repeated it louder. And they did this back and forth a few more times until everyone was back slapping and fist pumping. And the crew from Duval clapped politely. Jolo glanced at Katy and she had a worried look on her face. And then he noticed Greeley’s seat was empty.
Jolo leaned towards Katy. “What’s Kray sellin’?”
“He’s priming them up for something,” she said. “You stay out of it.”
“Alright. I ain’t gone say nothing.” Jolo sat back in his chair with his arms crossed.
When the crowd calmed down Kray continued. “We have been in hiding for months. And information is still hard to come by. The BG have cut us off and we still don’t know
the full extent of the damage to the core worlds. The recon mission to Barc has still not returned, but the listening post that Captain Vargas salvaged did have some valuable, encouraging intel.”
“What of the Vexus?” said one of the transport captains. “We heard it was close.”
“The last transmission came right before the listening post went down, and then just today Captain Vargas brought the unfortunate news that the Vexus and all on board were lost on Faraley. Captain Tomas and the crew will be sorely missed. Long live the Federation.”
“Long live the Federation,” everyone repeated, this time with a somber tone.
And there was a moment of silence. They were down another boat, not to mention the three gunboats Kray send a week earlier to recon potential water sources on Barc.
“Well, if he couldn’t be bothered to help the crew, at least he saw fit to rescue the listening post,” said the transport captain, breaking the silence. She stared across the floor at Jolo but he kept quiet. There were rumblings among the officers and Kray told them to settle down, but the noise only grew. Among the muttering voices Jolo distinctly heard the word synth.
Finally, Marco yelled, “If you want to say something, then out with it!”
“He saved the listening post but the crew of the Vexus are all dead. He was there on that rock and did nothing.” There were rumblings among the crowd and Jolo couldn’t see who spoke. Katy put her arm out to stop him from standing and he nodded to her. He wouldn’t take the bait.
Kray was calling for order and then another voice said, “We saved all of his people while ours died or were captured. And he can’t be bothered to help a dying Fed boat.”
Suddenly Katy jumped up. “He gave his life for you people once already. And he tried to tell you what was happening but no one would listen. And he did try to save the crew of the Vexus!”
Katy sat down and Jolo whispered in her ear: “Nice job of staying out of it.”
The Jolo Vargas Space Opera Series Box Set Page 41
