The Cold Dead Earth (The Jolo Vargas Space Opera Series Book 3)

by J. D. Oppenheim

  How could this be? thought Jolo. There was only one explanation: Hazuki was a synth.

  By this time Hazuki had swung around, gun in his free hand coming to bear on Jolo. But Hazuki was too late. Jolo fired and caught Hazuki in the chest. He held on to the cable, but his gun fell to the floor.

  “Jolo!” came a high-pitched voice. Koba.

  Jolo jumped down to the row of cells that looked to be part of a small intra-stellar hauler’s cargo holds. Koba was in one of the cells, iron bars and old piping instead of an energy field keeping them all inside. Koba yelled again and pointed to his left. Several men were wrestling with a large man with a mechanical arm and getting the worst of it.

  There were five men surrounding Barth. Jolo took two out but the others were too close for even Jolo to risk a shot. Barth’s face was covered in blood. He was bare chested and there were cut marks above his mech arm like they’d tried to take it off. Barth had one man’s neck in his tri-grip mech hand. And Jolo could hear a gurgling noise followed by a pop as the man’s neck snapped. Jolo bowled into one of the men, knocking him into the wall and he fell to the ground. Jolo turned on the last man but he had the gun pointed at Barth. Jolo shot him in the head before the man knew what happened. Barth grabbed the man Jolo shot and pushed him into the corner. He disappeared into a large hole.

  The man guarding the cell took a shot at Jolo and missed. Barth backhanded him with his mech arm and the man crashed into the cell bars and Jolo took his weapon. For moment it was quiet. Hazuki was still clinging to the giant mirror ball high up on the ceiling, his energy blaster on the dance floor underneath. Jolo heard a deep rumbling sound coming from underground, but Hazuki’s men were either dead or had run off.

  Barth fell onto the ground, his bare chest and back were covered in blood and he took short shallow breaths. Koba was in a panic trying to open the padlock with a tiny piece of metal.

  “It’s an ancient mechanical tumbler lock. I can get it open if I had more time.” He stuck the thin piece of metal into the hole and jiggled it around, his arms and face dirty and sweaty.

  Just then the ground shook and the rumbling got louder and louder.

  “It’s the Queen, coming to feed,” said Koba, his eyes red, wet and fearful. Jolo stepped back to take a shot at the lock with the Colt, but he lost his feet. Suddenly light filled the room and loud music bounced off the walls of The Cage.

  “…it’s fun to stay at the Y. M. C. A. Y - M - C - A ayy…”

  The mirror ball started to spin and little squares of light raced around the dirty walls of the old night club. Jolo turned to face his attacker but there was no one. And then a funny thing happened: his body got light and then he started to float upwards. Koba and Hurley floated up as well inside the cell. Chairs, tables, old glass bottles with cursive writing on the side, bits of rusted pipe, Barth, who’d passed out, all went up. Dirt and dust filled the air, the lights so bright that Jolo couldn’t see. Even the mirror ball itself rose, everything suspended in the air as if the gravity had somehow been sucked out of the room.

  Jolo couldn’t get a hold of anything to steady himself. He was in a spin and couldn’t stop it. Then he saw Hazuki’s blaster floating in the mess above the floor. The loud music kept on going and Jolo couldn’t hear anything else.

  Young man, are you listening to me? I said, young man, what do you want to be?

  “Artimus, you sodding idiot! I told you to unplug the electronics!” Hazuki yelled from above Jolo. Jolo spun around again but couldn’t get a shot off because the mirror ball was in the way. He fired twice anyway and glass shattered, floating into a big wooden desk.

  Firing the Colt sent Jolo into a backwards spin and he tried to grab the railing on the second floor but it was just out of reach. He waited until he spun around towards the mirror ball again and took another two shots which pushed him even closer.

  His fingers just touched the edge of the railing.

  No man does it all by himself. I said, young man, put your pride—

  And just like that the music stopped and the lights went out. And the gravity kicked in again full force. Jolo’s body got heavy and he dropped like a rock. He tried to get his feet under him but ended up crashing down on his back, the impact knocking the Colt from his hands. He glanced up and saw a flash of white coat and then his field of vision was blocked by a light brown, wooden desk. It caught him in the head at an angle, the bulk of it crashing down on his chest.

  Jolo cried out in pain and then his vision went black.

  George, Part 2

  George followed the man until the darkness swallowed up the big Argossy behind them. “Stop,” he said to the skinny man.

  The man came to a dead stop, reached into his pocket and nibbled on some of the black stuff.

  “I want to avoid any more men with guns,” said George.

  “Cain’t do that.”

  “Maybe I’ll just shoot you right here then.”

  The man changed his tune a bit. “Well, maybe we could go up top. Mr. Hazuki don’t go up much unless a ship come.”

  George considered this for a moment. Down here he was at the mercy of a skinny man with missing teeth that smelled like urine. At least up on the ice he could see a good ways around and could spot any potential threats.

  “We go up top. Then what?”

  “Then we drop down near the cage. There’s where yo people gonna be if they ain’t been et yet.”

  “Exactly who’s going to eat them?”

  “Queen.”

  “Can’t wait to meet her.”

  An hour later they were up top again and they trudged over the ice with nothing around them as far as they could see. This was safer, George thought, but his chances of finding the crew still largely depended on the man with a wet spot on his pants. If he had the capacity for human emotion, he should be feeling a bit of worry right about now, he thought. They walked for about thirty minutes and the man suddenly stopped, and there, ten meters or so off, was a small hole with a stairway leading down into the ice.

  He said nothing, just started down.

  “Wait,” said George. “What’s on the other end?”

  “Side entrance to the cave.”

  “If you call out to anyone I’ll kill you.” The man eyed the blaster George carried, and started down. Lying can be more effective than killing, thought George.

  They dropped down into a tight tunnel, and the man pointed to a torch on one end. “That’s the entrance to the cave.”

  George’s sensors picked up a foul odor again, but it intrigued him. It was microbial, chemicals released when organic matter decomposes plant—or animal—matter. The fact there were microbes at work was a good sign, at least some organic activity was present, but he hoped they were not working on his friends.

  They were thirty meters or so from the torch and out of nowhere there was a loud noise and flashing lights at the end of the tunnel, and suddenly George found himself floating up to the top of the narrow pathway, his back to the dirt ceiling. There was yelling from the end near the torch light and he heard the distinct report of an old kinetic hand gun: the Colt.

  George was pinned to the ceiling, but found he could crawl along on his back upside down and make slow progress towards the light and sound and gunfire. Jolo was there. The skinny man was laying upside down on the ceiling with his eyes closed, like he was taking a nap, still chewing of bits of the black stuff from a pouch in his pocket.

  Four more shots were fired and George heard Jolo’s voice, maybe Koba’s, too. He struggled to make it to the entrance. Several feet before the end of the tunnel he fell back down to the floor and the lights and music stopped. There was a big crashing noise as everything in the cage hit the ground. Dust kicked up and filled the dimly lit room as George stepped inside. He was standing on the second level staring down onto some kind of old world pub or dance hall. On the far wall was a neon sign, out of power but still glowing: The Cage.

  He heard a voice yell out. It sounded lik
e Jolo, but there on the dance floor was the man in the white coat: Hazuki. He was staring down at something. He kicked at it and laughed. And then George heard a moan and saw Jolo’s boot sticking out from behind a big piece of furniture. He was behind a large, broken desk, drawers sticking out. Plastic chairs, shattered glass and other debris lay scattered around.

  George quietly set the energy blaster to stun, that way he could go for a high percentage body shot with no risk of killing the man. Ironic, he thought, the very safety protocols designed to protect humans would hamper his efforts to save Jolo.

  He calculated his options. A shot at this distance: 52.4% success rate. Not good enough, he thought. He could try to use the energy rifle which had better accuracy but that would only bring him into the 67.2% success rate range. Not good enough. Hazuki did not yet have a weapon in his hand so George had a moment, but needed to act fast.

  “Mr. Hazuki! Up here!” the skinny man yelled from behind him.

  Well, that decides it, thought George. He sprinted forward, two quick steps, then he jumped, pushing off the railing with his right foot. He flew high into the air, and once within range he fired the energy blaster, hitting Hazuki square in the chest. The man fell next to Jolo and George landed on the far edge of the floor. He glanced up at the railing and there was the skinny man standing there like a target. One shot on stun and he went down. George ran to Jolo, who was out cold.

  “George!” Koba yelled from inside a makeshift cell. Jolo was breathing, but unconscious and bleeding from a cut on his forehead. George carefully pulled Jolo to the edge of the dance floor closest to the cells, then ran to Koba and Hurley.

  “Get us out of here!” screamed Koba.

  “Stand back.” George pulled out the energy rifle and melted the old lock off. The bars were red hot so Koba kicked them and the door flew open. He and Hurley rushed out.

  “Where’s Barth?” said George.

  “He was hurt bad,” said Hurley.

  They found him still near the hole, barely breathing. It took all three of them to pull the big man closer to Jolo and the cells where the dim light was a little better. The stench coming from the hole in the ground was so bad Koba and Hurley couldn’t breath the air.

  There were several of Hazuki’s men dead on the floor. Jolo was here, indeed, thought George. He took out his knife and cut off part of one man’s shirt.

  “What are you doing?” said Koba. “Let’s go.”

  “Stop the bleeding, then go.”

  George wrapped the cloth tightly around Jolo’s head wound, then went to check Barth. “More cloth. Try to get clean strips if you can,” said George, handing the knife to Koba.

  “Better let me do it. He’s a little out o’ sorts,” said Hurley.

  Barth’s wounds were more serious. Two deep lacerations in his shoulder, and his skin color, even in the low light, was pale, his lips blue. George tried to slow the blood loss, but he knew it didn’t look good.

  Hurley came back with some dirty rags and George did what he could for Barth. Koba stood near Jolo, holding the energy rifle, keeping watch. His head jerked back and forth between the front and back entrances, then back up to the second level.

  George slowed the blood loss to the largest of the two wounds, and started on the second when he heard a noise. He pricked his head up and focused on the back entrance. Several men were coming, thirty meters down one of the mazelike tunnels. They’d be here in approximately 12.4 seconds.

  George looked at the still, pale body of the engineer, his breaths were shallow gasps and his heart beat was weak. It didn’t take any time at all to assess the situation. Hurley was barely able to walk. Koba was ready to crack. And Jolo was unconscious.

  Survival odds vs. superior force: 7.2%.

  There was only one thing to do. It was a difficult thing, even for him.

  But it had to be done.

  “Hurley, Koba. Time to go,” said George.

  “No,” said Koba. “We can’t leave Barth,” said Koba.

  “Ain’t leavin’ ‘im,” said Hurley.

  Humans, thought George.

  “I don’t want to leave him either,” said George. “But if we stay then we all will die. And then who will rescue Katy?”

  By then the men were nearly to the back entrance of The Cage.

  George ran to Jolo, and with Koba’s help, got him on his shoulders and started towards the ground level tunnel. Koba and Hurley hesitated, then the men appeared, yelling. “The cell doors are open!” And that was plenty of motivation.

  George made it into the tunnel that led to Paco’s Pizza. Koba was yelling for him to stop but he couldn’t think of a good reason to. Then he turned around.

  And there stood Hurley in the center of the raised, wooden dance floor holding the Colt.

  “Does he want to die?” said George. By then Jolo had started to come around. George went deeper into the tight tunnel and sat him down. He handed Koba the energy blaster.

  “Kill anything that comes for you. Take a good look at what you are shooting before you fire the weapon so you don’t kill Hurley when we come back,” said George. “If we don’t come back, then get Jolo out of here.”

  George stepped back into the room. Hurley had found cover behind a pile of debris and was taking wild shots at Hazuki’s men. There were four of them. They hadn’t seen George yet.

  One man had Hurley pinned down behind the broken desk, and the other three were dragging Barth back to the hole. George fired, took down one of the men that had Barth, and the other two returned fire. Barth lay just a few feet from the hole.

  George jumped up to the second level and suddenly had the advantage. He hit the man who had Hurley trapped and now there were two left. He was taking random shots from an old energy blaster, but one man had a big kinetic rifle. Several shots hit the wall near his head and he could feel the force as the bullet tore into the plastic and metal wall.

  George knew if this went on any longer that Hurley was going to get hit, but the men ran to the same side he was on and hid under an alcove so he was shooting blindly. Sure enough, a moment later Hurley took a shot from the blaster and the Colt flew from his hand and he hit the ground close to where Jolo had been before.

  They moved forward for the kill shot. This may be the end of me, thought George. He jumped down to defend Hurley and was in the open. Both men fired on him from thirty meters or so away and he felt the burning charges from the energy blaster and the lead projectiles whiz past his head. He tried to pull Hurley back while firing at the same time. Out of the corner of his eye, yet another man was dragging Barth closer to the hole.

  George desperately tried to end the fight but couldn’t hit either of the men.

  But then the man with the big rifle went down. And after that, the man with the blaster. George looked back and there stood Jolo.

  “Is he okay?” he said.

  “He will survive this,” said George.

  “No!” screamed Jolo. Hazuki was standing next to Barth, one foot on his back. “You are nothing here!” he yelled and kicked Barth, rolling him into the hole. And then the man in the white coat ran away through the back entrance. Jolo started to give chase but fell, still wobbly from the blow to his head.

  “He’s gone. Nothing we can do for him. Come home,” said George.

  “Where is that?” said Jolo, on his knees.

  “Where we are all together.”

  “I need to go to the hole. I need to say goodbye to Barth. I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. I couldn’t save him.”

  “He’s gone. Come now. You can still save us. Save the core. We can still do what we came here to do.” George helped him back to his feet, picked up Hurley and they escaped into the mall, heading for the bookstore.

  Probe Jet

  Jolo’s head was pounding but he was conscious, though his legs were still wobbly. Part of him wanted to just curl up and lay down. They’d come so far to have it all end this way. How were they to continue without Barth?
His head sagged down and each step sent little shockwaves of pain through his brain. George kept a vicious pace and at a certain point they had to wait for Koba to catch up. He finally made it to them, red faced and angry, a death grip on the blaster George had given him. Jolo was thankful for a brief rest.

  “You know how to use that?” said Jolo, eyeing the blaster.

  “Yeah. Point it at one of those assholes until they drop. Them give ‘em some more,” said Koba.

  Riley was waiting for them outside the bookstore. “Can’t go there any more. They know we are there. Come this way.” He led them down through the center of the mall, then they went through the remains of a large store at the end. There were rows of empty shelves and little metal cages with wheels laying on their sides. On the far wall was a giant picture of a family: a child on his father’s shoulders and a pretty woman. The picture was dirty and gray, hard to see in the dim light, but in the image there was sky and land and Jolo imagined the sky blue and the ground green like he’d seen in the data feeds about old Earth when he was a kid. The people were always smiling and there was sun. Bright sun. But there in the store his boots kicked up the black dust on the floor and the sky was brown at dusk. The image on the wall was a lie.

  They went down yet again to a lower level and were in a big open space with a low ceiling and columns spread out at intervals as far as he could see. They found Greeley and the kids behind several large, boxy metal old Earth transports.

  “Are we safe here?” said Jolo.

  “For now, yes,” said Riley. “They usually don’t come for us. The Queen prefers a larger meal and the kids tend to run and make things difficult.” He said it so matter-of-factly. Jolo imagined the beautiful little family on the wall of the store running from the Queen.

  “You hurt?” said Greeley.

  “Fine. Hurley needs tending to.”

  “Where’s Fat Man?”

  Jolo just looked at him and no words needed saying.