43 Days to Oblivion (The Jolo Vargas Space Opera Series Book 2) Read online

  The President declared this an unofficial visit, so most of the crew didn’t even know he would be on board. He wore a Fed-blue colored suit which pissed Filcher off. He was just a core world softie, mid-forties, graying hair and a great smile for the media. He was a master at blending in. He was what you wanted him to be. Fed blue for the trip to the Defender, silk suits for the upper crust, black leather for the BG? he wondered—and he had them all fooled, but Filcher knew he was a snake. He rose to power when the war turned and the BG suddenly accepted the offer of peace. He put the deal together. He met with the Emperor, the tall, metal worm. It was a coup and so many lives were saved, and he rose like a rocket. The election was decided before it began. And here we are, on the brink again. And this time we do our duty.

  The President agreed to meet in Filcher’s office and this being unofficial, he wasn’t trailed by a cadre of sycophantic losers calling themselves advisers. Filcher breathed easier. If the President came alone he could speak his mind.

  The President breezed in without a knock, busy with a button on his blue suit. “This is my assistant,” he said, waving his hand behind him, no good morning, no fake-assed salute he gave when the advisers were in tow. A thin blond started sweeping the room for bugs. She wore a typical Fed up-and-comer pinstriped suit, tight around the ass, but not too much. Just enough. She went about her work without a glance in Filcher’s direction. She scanned every corner, his books, the old leather chair, then she got close to him and had the nerve to wave the black wand across his chest. He grabbed her arm and it was like he’d grabbed the arm of a statue. He couldn’t move the twig-armed girl’s hand down away from his body. But that was only for a split-second, and then she squealed like he’d poked her with a stick and her arm came down, like a girl. But she was no girl. She wasn’t human. If you weren’t looking for it you’d never see it. She moved gracefully. But there was something off, something very subtle. She moved too gracefully.

  “You brought one of those onto my ship!” Filcher yelled at the President, who was sitting in his leather chair.

  “One of those?” the President mocked him. “My assistant Alyce? I’m sorry, Commander, she’s new.” Once the girl was through she nodded and stood by the door, hands behind her back. And then the President got down to business.

  “Why am I here?” he said.

  “To make sure I’m on board.”

  “See, that’s why I chose you. You know the score. You understand the game we are playing. Most of it, at least. So, are you on board?”

  Filcher shifted in his seat, his hand instinctively reaching for the flask. The girl took two lightening quick steps towards him. He couldn’t pull his hand out empty so he pulled out the flask and took a drink, offered it to the President who waved it off.

  “Yeah,” he said, sliding the whiskey back into his pocket. His fingers gliding over the pistol. He thought about it for a split second. And right on cue, as if she could read his frakking mind, the girl took another step forward. He wondered if he could get the gun out in time. Probably not. And even if he could, they’d kill him and everyone on his boat. It’d be an accident way the frak out in deep space, and the Fed would send out 2000 of those little blue boxes families get when one of the military dies.

  The President rehashed his sales speech. “Silas, you supported me when we made the alliance. That saved lives: civilian and military. The war stopped. And you zoomed up the ranks. Look at us now, two leaders. Leaders make difficult decisions. Now we have to do it again.”

  “They ask too much.”

  “Here’s the deal, Commander, oh, I’m sorry. You’re an Admiral now. Thanks to me. Now I’ll lay it out simple so even a military man can get it. You got two options: 1. Fight and Die. 2. Stand down and Live. Humanity must survive.”

  “Leave,” Filcher said to the synth girl. She did not move. He turned to the President, “Tell your little robot pet to leave or we’ll see if her circuits can withstand an energy blast.”

  “She’s mostly biological,” said the President to Filcher, then turned to the woman: “Can you wait in the common area down the hall?”

  “He will not be pleased,” she said.

  “He?” said Filcher.

  “Yes, He!” yelled the President. “Who do you think holds the cards in this little game? Not me!”

  Filcher couldn’t help but stare at the blond abomination standing there smug and satisfied. He will not be pleased. Filcher loosened his tie and spun his chair to the side, slid his hand into his pocket and brought his hand gun out. But before he could level it on the skinny synth girl she had leapt over the table. One hand a vice around his neck, then other hand the gun. It was like he’d been chained down, immovable.

  He stared into her synthetic eyes, unreadable. A human would show emotion: anger, hate, fear. She showed him nothing. She looked at the President. Filcher knew what that meant: Should I kill him?

  The President shook his head, no. And he put his face close to Filcher’s, the girl’s hand still on his neck, still choking him, his head pressed back against his chair. “Do you see your options a little more clearly now? Die, or not die. It’s so simple. Silas Filcher, controlling half the fleet, a war hero, can’t even defeat this little girl they have created. How could you possibly think to defeat all of their ships? We have exactly ten Defenders. Ten Galaxy class warships. They have fifty. Fifty!” he yelled. “Do the math, Admiral. It’s a bigger number! You don’t need to see the computer models to know the outcome of a war with these worms. Their boats are bigger and have better guns and stronger defenses. They’ve got double the amount of gunships. Double the transports. And they’ve got thousands of these little creatures,” he said, putting his hand on the synth girl’s shoulder. She gave him a cold, blank look and he pulled it back.

  “Imagine about 5000 of these unleashed on Sol. Can you imagine them running through the streets of Valaris, streaming into the core Fed buildings killing everyone that matters? Leaving only the strong to work in some Alacyte factory. These synthetic creatures were a gift from the Vellos, God rest their souls. See, the Vellosians didn’t even have a chance to survive. We do.” He nodded at the girl and she wrenched the gun out of Filcher’s hand and released her grip on his neck.

  She glided back to her spot, still clutching the gun. For a moment he thought she might try and crush it in her hand, but she just dropped it and it landed under the leather chair, nothing on his desk had been disturbed.

  “Those skinny little synth girls won’t make it to the core admin buildings. They’ll all be shot.”

  “Oh, you mean with one of your energy weapons?” said the President.

  Filcher nodded. Then the President picked up the gun under the chair and pointed it at the girl. She didn’t move. Before Filcher could say no, the President fired. The energy blast flowed into the girl and at that range Filcher thought she might pop. Filcher’s gun was old, before there were stun settings. His gun delivered as much as a Fed rifle carried by the marines. A human target would have been burned dead instantly, the heat would have blown out through the top of the head, or a leg. But not this thing.

  The girl’s eyes closed yet she remained standing, and then her eyes opened again and she looked around.

  “Who are you?” said the President.

  “I am Alyce. Ward of the Bakanhe Grana, made on Montag by the Creators.”

  “She just reboots.” The President shrugged, and for a second he let his guard down and Filcher could see he was tired and beaten. “I’m going to save as many of us as I can. Help me.”

  Filcher nodded, feeling beaten himself.

  “Two final things,” said the President. “If you come across Vargas, kill him. And lastly, soon, the Fed will send the fleet on a training mission in one of the far reaches of the galaxy. Some in the military will go rogue and not leave. They’ll be destroyed. You must take as many as you can. Use your influence. Remember, our job is to save as many as we can. Those ships that stay in the rendezvous poi
nt will be spared.”

  Galaxite

  Arcon 7 Jump Point

  Three pirate ships feasted on the remains of the UFP Fortinbras like vultures eating a dead carcass. The smaller ships were busy and well lit, men in jet-packs corralling as many boxes as they could into their holds. The dark, cold Fortinbras was laid bare, now fully broken into two separate pieces. The sight was unsettling and unnatural to Jolo, like when an arm is broken and bent the wrong way. A pair of disabled deep space gunners, neither generating heat, both with UNITED FREIGHT on the side, both with black holes where thrusters once were, drifted nearby.

  “Vargas!” came a loud, rough voice on the comm. “This is Radar Mantis of the Succulent Beast. You’ve had your pick, you know the rules, now stay clear.” His words, both angry and somehow jolly, bounced around the bridge of the Argossy.

  “What about the two survivors?” said Jolo.

  “What do you care?” said Mantis.

  “I don’t.”

  “One of the scouts got away.”

  Jolo was glad they’d escaped. I should have forced them to come with me though, he thought. The man who didn’t know how to use a rifle and the lady in the blue dress got lucky. “I need to access the bridge. I want the manifest. I ain’t gonna take a box.”

  “Alright. In that case help yourself, Vargas.”

  So Jolo and Koba jet-packed into the burned out forward compartment of the Fortinbras. Koba checked the logic array panel in the rear of the bridge, pulled off the cover, but the board was already gone.

  “Did Mantis and his crew grab it?” said Koba.

  “Probably not,” said Jolo. “Maybe the captain got it before the end. Or maybe it’s drifting out there in space. Now we’ll never know what was in the black box.”

  “What about the backup?” said Koba. “You can’t not have a backup. The only problem is where would it be?”

  Computer, Jolo thought, were are the backup logic boards on Allesar 405 Class freighters?

  Forward compartment, captain’s ready room, next to operations. Would you like a schematic?

  Yes, thought Jolo. And suddenly he could see the layout of the forward compartment in his mind.

  “Come on,” said Jolo. And Koba followed him off the bridge, down one level, then along a dark corridor, their helmet lights cutting through the black, occasionally flashing on bits of broken ship suspended in zero gravity.

  The sliding door to the captain’s ready room was stuck open about five inches. The large, well-funded freighters often had real wooden furniture, not like the military boats where a seat was a piece of metal bolted to the floor. When the BG boat put a hole in the hull and the forward compartment depressurized, everything in the room tried to squeeze out through the five inch crack and got stuck. A wooden sofa leg was sticking out, the red velvet back of a chair was swedged in just below that, and at the bottom was the remains of the captain.

  Jolo held out his arm to move Koba behind him. “Don’t look,” he yelled. But it was too late. Koba threw up in his suit, and Jolo could see little yellow bits on the inside of his face shield. While Koba wretched and cursed, Jolo called for Greeley to come with the torch. The upper part of the captain’s body had been squeezed through. He’d long since been freeze-dried, but it was still a gruesome sight and it saddened Jolo to see it. This was the only captain to ever stand against the feared Jolo Vargas. This captain had bested him, only to be tricked by a BG Cruiser.

  The Fortinbras had been betrayed by the BG, and in most circumstances Jolo would be happy to see a BG and a Fed ship taking shots at each other, but this was different. Jolo hadn’t felt truly afraid for his crew in a long time. He thought back to the moment when he was running through the Argossy in the dark to have Hurley engage the kicker, all the while waiting for the big freighter to deliver the kill shot. The Argossy had taken three from that giant cannon. Another might have opened up the hull and sucked them all into space, or at least fried everything in the ship, including the kicker, and left them floating in a dead ship, waiting for the oxygen to run out or the cold to get them. What would he have said to Katy and the crew? No way to call for help. Nothing to do except die. But this captain who lay here disfigured and frozen, who could have killed him and the only friends he’d ever known, had shown restraint.

  Soon Greeley arrived and cut a hole in the door. And once Koba found the backup board, they headed back to the Argossy.

  ……

  Back on Duval, Katy expertly dove straight down into the ravine at speed, clearances so tight that most Federation boats would have alarms going off, then turned at the bottom and soon guided the old boat right to Marco’s hidden landing bay on the sheer cliff face.

  Jolo stepped off the ship and Marco gave him a hug like they hadn’t seen each other in a long time. Jolo looked into the old man’s red, watery eyes, standing there in the large bay where they’d first met, or reunited, Jolo reminded himself.

  “Your message scared me. Glad you guys got home okay,” said Marco. “Something ain’t right out there.”

  “No, it ain’t, but here’s a clue,” said Jolo, handing him the logic array.

  “What’s this?” Marco said.

  “It’s the backup off the Fortinbras. Can you crack it and find out what was in the black box?” said Jolo.

  “Not me, but maybe George. BG boats attacking Fed property is a strange thing.”

  “Yeah, I know. Maybe it’s the beginning of an offensive against the Fed planets? Could this be it? Our food stores are good, right? I just gave Bertha four and a half boxes. We may have to hole up.”

  “We’ll be okay for a long spell, but let’s see what the black box says before we jump to conclusions.”

  That night after dinner Jolo stopped by Katy’s room. After the attack on Montag everyone had decided to stay at Marco’s. Katy had turned a tiny storage bay into a livable space complete with a pull down cot and some plants from the atrium. Merthon had installed a grow light so they’d stay green. Jolo found her reading up on the Argossy spec and repair manual. “I didn’t mention it at Bertha’s, but I’m sorry you had to float out there in space. I should have been more careful.”

  “We made it home. That’s what counts. None of us were expecting a monster ion cannon on a UFP freighter.”

  Jolo sat down on Katy’s one piece of furniture, a metal box with a pillow on top for a seat. “The BG is up to something and I think things may get worse, but we’ll do what we do and lay low and not stick our necks out. Let the Feds and the BG kill each other.”

  Katy looked up from her manual, “Jolo, if you don’t want to get involved, then why go back for the manifest.” said Katy.

  “Self preservation,” said Jolo. “I don’t trust the BG or the Fed. We need to know what they’re up to so we can protect ourselves. So we don’t end up dead or on a work planet like Barthelme.”

  “Do you miss him?”

  “Honestly, I didn’t know him for long, but yeah, in a weird way, I do. I want to help him.”

  “You know we can’t get past the outer patrols in our little Argossy, sturdy she may be.”

  “Yeah. I know. Maybe there’s another way. I’m gonna talk to Marco about it.”

  The next day, after getting cleaned up and feasting on some of Marco’s atrium spinach and butter squash, everyone met in the computer room where George had been busy.

  “We’re here to suss out exactly what our black metal friends are up to,” said Jolo. “They’ve been installing listening stations on Duval, which is part of their mandate to protect shipping lanes, but their actions lately don’t add up.”

  “There’s too many of the damn things,” said Marco.

  “Yeah, and they’re too close to each other for a planet this size,” said Jolo. “Add that bit of dodginess to the attack on a Fed boat they were supposed to protect, then the theft of a black box, and something ain’t right.”

  “And the fact they killed Fed citizens,” said Katy.

  “They wante
d to make it look like a pirate attack,” said Marco.

  “But we don’t operate that way,” said Koba.

  “We don’t. But some have,” said Jolo. “Which brings us to the logic array. George?”

  “Well, it took a long time to crack the Federation encryption, but once I got through that, it was just a matter of time before I found the manifest list, including the contents of the black box. Federation encryption is the finest in this corner of the galaxy so it did take some time…” George paused here for effect and gave everyone a look with his glass eyes. He waited some more, smiling. “Long time,” he said. “Long time.” Everyone stared at him blankly, clearly missing the point.

  Finally, Katy got it. “Oh, so George, how long did it actually take? Must’ve been hours and hours.”

  George smiled. “Yes, you would think. But it only—”

  “What was in the dang box a’ready?” yelled Greeley.

  “—forty-two seconds,” said George. “Not my best time, but fairly respectable.”

  “The box?” said Jolo.

  “Yes, of course. The box contained 182 metric tons of galaxite.”

  “Galaxite?” said Jolo. “The rocks the astral projectors use?” Everyone stood around and pondered exactly why the BG would think to steal galaxite, a shiny rock that had little value in Fed space.

  “I used to have a polished galaxite rock my father gave me,” said Katy. “It was smooth and would heat up in your hand and stay warm for a time afterwards. It was a dark colored rock, but it looked like multi-colored stars in a tiny galaxy if you shined a light through it.”

  Computer, thought Jolo, what is galaxite used for?

  Currently, in Federation space, it is used by astral projectors who claim to forsee the future, though there is no scientific proof their prophesies are valid. Mostly the rock is used, in a highly polished form, as a trinket to carry in one’s pocket. Some believe the rock brings good luck. In old Earth time, the rock was used for fuel storage before the modern Federation fuel cells were created.