43 Days to Oblivion Page 6

  “And our smart move is to get the frack out of here,” said Jolo. “What can we do against the full weight of the BG? They got killer bots, mech warriors, a fleet of ships that could crush the Fed fleet tomorrow, not to mention a thousand or so crazy, blond-haired synth assassins with little red energy blades.”

  “But what about Duval?” said Katy.

  “What about it?,” said Jolo. “I know we all have a soft spot for this dirty rock. But technically, it’s just another Fed planet on the fringe. Why do we care? The Fed doesn’t care about us, remember? You get soft you’ll end up dead.”

  “What about Bertha and the kids?”

  “They can leave. Just like us.”

  “And don’t forget,” said Koba, “the Fed has started decommissioning the older ships from the war. Their military force is weak. They actually think the BG will help defend them.”

  “This may not be easy to hear, but the Fed is standing tall with their pants down and the black bastards are gonna mop the floor the those fools,” said Greeley. “Best to do what Jolo said: get out now.”

  “We’ve got time, right? They aren’t finished installing the drills,” said Katy.

  At this point Merthon came in wearing his normal lab robe made from Vellosian cloth Jolo had “found” on a cargo hauler a few months back. It was stained in places on the front and Jolo thought he looked decidedly better not carrying a sawed-off shotgun. “I’ve done some quick calculations, and based on what I know now, and what happened on Vellos, I believe this planet will be gone sooner than we all think.”

  “How soon?” said Marco.

  “Forty-three days,” said Merthon.

  The room went silent. Katy started to cry. “It is time to leave,” said Jolo. Greeley, Koba and Hurley nodded together. There was nothing else to be done.

  “I ain’t leaving,” said Marco. “Y’all go. I don’t blame any of you. I’m too old to start again. I think it’s best if you all go. Head to Barc, I hear Greeley’s gonna buy a spread there.”

  “That’s crazy,” said Jolo. “You’ve been through this before when the BG came to Pleny, and you suffered for it.”

  “That’s true,” said Marco. “But I was young then and I fought because I was stupid enough to believe I could win. Now I’ll fight because there’s nothing else for an old man set in his ways to do.”

  “I ain’t leaving either,” said Katy.

  “Katy!” yelled Jolo. “You can’t stay. It’s a death sentence.”

  “I’m staying,” said Merthon.

  “Me too,” said George.

  “Why are y’all siding with them?” Jolo yelled. “Have you forgotten so quickly? They wanted me sent off to a prison planet. They’ve hunted us. We have to hide. Greeley can’t even get a plot on Flannery.”

  “It’s all fine and dandy to rip off cargo haulers and stick it to the BG and the Fed,” said Katy. “But that world left us a few seconds ago. Those black bastards intend to wipe out not just the Feds, but all humans. I don’t think this is a Fed issue. It’s us or them. The humans they do keep around will be used on work planets. Time to take a side, Jolo. Barthelme saved you for a reason.”

  “For what?” Jolo screamed, his face red and his fists clenched. “To save Merthon?”

  “No,” said Merthon. “Merthon saved you to save Merthon. Which you did. Barthelme did what he did of his own accord. He thought you might one day save his world. You choose your own path now. You are beholden to no one.”

  These people are crazy, thought Jolo. They’ve all lost their minds. “That’s right! No one!” he screamed. “I’m leaving this death trap of a planet. If you in then come now. There’s a hauler coming through Vesper tomorrow and I’m gonna be there.”

  “I’m in,” said Greeley.

  “Me too,” said Hurley. They both stood next to Jolo. Koba took a deep breath and stared at the floor. Then he shuffled over to Jolo’s end of the table without saying anything.

  Jolo stormed out of the library, his mind already working on the preparations for the ship. He’d have to check to make sure the repairs had been done, and the food supply on board was adequate, and who’d pilot the ship now that Katy was out.

  Katy was out. That was worse than the BG coming to blow up the planet.

  Pirate Run

  In orbit above Vesper in Federation space

  42 days left

  The Argossy lifted up into the bright afternoon Duval sky, puffy white clouds against a wide stretch of light blue, the only bit of gray a hint of rain off to the west. Koba sat in Katy’s seat and fought with the controls, nearly clipping the edge of the cliff face on the way up. Jolo stood on the bridge and stared at the planet’s surface on screen, red clay extending out from either end of the ravine that hid Marco’s place. As the ship gained altitude, the view widened and the red turned to orange, and a brown and gray patch came into view that Jolo knew was Jaxxon, beyond that the smaller settlements Hilder and Raypatch. They’d all have to go he thought. Most were pirates or had pirate blood. They knew how to survive. Jolo imagined Marco on the radio to Bertha, then she to Granly in Hilder, and so on. And soon the whole planet would know, via an ancient, old-Earth technology neither the BG nor the Fed had bothered to monitor, that the end was near. But Jolo also knew that no amount of old-Earth tech, no amount of stolen Fed guns, no rag-tag fleet of pirates, could stop the black ships. He just hoped they had sense to realize it.

  “Katy,” said Jolo. “Take us—” and then he stopped. Koba, glasses and dark hair, thin little arms, stared up at him. Jolo didn’t say he was sorry, he just shook his head.

  “It’s not my fault,” said Koba. “She didn’t want to come, remember?”

  Jolo watched as the bright picture of the planet faded and the screen went dark as the ship broke out of the atmosphere. How could he go without her? She’d been on all of his adventures.

  “Captain,” said Greeley, “if it makes you feel any better, Katy was asking about your parts the other day.”

  “What parts?” said Jolo.

  “You know,” he said, grabbing his crotch.

  “What’d you say?”

  “Well, I said unfortunately Merthon didn’t have time to finish the job but he was growing a big one in a tank right now.” Greeley and Koba started laughing.

  Jolo forced a smile.

  Vesper was the closest Jolo had been to the heart of Fed space in some time. But the risk would be worth it. Early on Jolo and the crew had learned the key to taking a freighter was not the actual taking of the freighter. That was a dangerous bit of work, for sure, but the real tricky part was knowing which hauler to target. Jolo had heard of pirates disabling haulers only to find their cargo holds full of shit, literally. The Fed called it HWC, or human waste compost. In the right part of the galaxy a hauler full of HWC would fetch a fine price, but that particular outfit had jumped the freighter near a bunch of green planets that had no use for it. Jolo knew he had to be a little more strategic or the odds would catch up to him and he’d end up getting caught and everyone sent to a work planet.

  And that’s where Marco came through again. He had a contact on the core planet Dolbi who worked at the Federation Freight Inspection station. All commercial freighters originating from one of the core Federation planets had to pass inspection there on the Dolbi station before departure. So after a month of hit and miss freighter raids where one day they’d score military hardware they could sell quick and the next they’d get a giant hauler full of tiny plastic toys: cute little hovercraft that Greeley liked but you couldn’t sell anywhere; they started getting reports from Dolbi. And that’s how Jolo knew the Fortinbras had Fed rations, and that the hauler they were going to visit, the Derbinster UCC headed through Vesper, had a boat full of high-grade ship building hardware. They weren’t black-boxed because they weren’t complete components, but they usually had alacyte ship parts and other things that a fringe planet would buy.

  Jolo would never target the same company in the same month
. Never the same sector, never the same type of cargo, never the same time. He wanted to be as random as possible, like a ghost. The ruthless pirate Jolo Vargas would show up anytime, anywhere, to take your stuff.

  It’d been a clean run up to Vesper. Jolo figured Koba earned a lot of the heat he and Greeley sent his way, but one thing everyone agreed on: Koba’s ship id scrambler was a fine piece of kit. The Fed was looking for an Argossy, but their scanners always said something different.

  “What are we now, Koba?” Jolo said, one jump away from Vesper.

  “I’ve got the transponder set to C-class Runabout with Calamar registration.”

  “Sounds good,” said Jolo. Then he grabbed the comm and called down to Hurley for a final check. “Hurley, everything okay down there?”

  “We all good, Captain. The engine repairs are holding fine,” he said.

  “Okay, boys,” Jolo said into the comm shipwide, “we’re jumping into Vesper. Look sharp. We don’t know what’s there.”

  The Argossy popped into Vesper space and immediately the warning klaxon started repeating: “Hostile vessel in current sector!”

  “Koba?” said Jolo.

  “It’s a Grana boat, Captain. Bigger than a Cruiser, but it’s got full shields up and the guns are hot.”

  “Distance?”

  “38.792 kilometers. The Derbinster ain’t here yet.”

  “Damn, the BG boat’s waiting on the hauler. Have they all gone pirate?” yelled Jolo.

  “Koba, give me an ID on that BG boat. Let’s see if we can find a weakness. I got half a mind to take that thing out.”

  “Uh, Captain, if Katy was here she’d say that was a shitty idea,” said Koba.

  “Yeah, and if George was here he’d say we had a 26 point blah blah chance,” said Greeley. “But they ain’t here, so I say we blow that big, black bastard the hell up.”

  Jolo knew Koba was right, but it pissed him off anyway. Was the freighter hauling galaxite? he wondered.

  “Koba, where’d the Derbinster originate?”

  “Uh, Sartus, in Regulus. Heart of Fed space.”

  Computer, Jolo thought, how close is Sartus to Corpus 2.

  Corpus 2 is one jump from Sartus in Federation space, came the reply.

  “The hauler’s got galaxite,” said Jolo. “Shite!”

  “How do you know?” said Greeley.

  “The Fortinbras made an unscheduled stop at Corpus, and the Derbinster’s origination point is one jump away from there. And look at the BG boat. It’s bigger than a Cruiser, probably with more cargo space.”

  “Captain, the BG boat is an Absalon class transporter. It’s big, made to carry stuff, usually has at least a Cruiser for support, but she’s solo right now.”

  “Guns?”

  “Nuttin’ we can’t handle with ease.”

  Just then the Derbinster popped into the sector. “The party’s started, Captain,” said Greeley.

  Immediately, the BG boat opened fire on the the big, slow hauler. “Koba, ease us in closer, keep the guns hidden.” The freighter released it’s anti-pirate drones, which the BG ship shot down one by one with its top-mounted turret. Then the BG boat tried to take out the bridge with its rail gun. “They’re going for the head, just like the Fortinbras. Jolo took a deep breath. He could risk attacking the BG boat, or just wait.

  “Captain?” said Koba, and Jolo knew this meant he wanted to help the Fed boat.

  “We are not here to help the Fed. Shite on all of them,” said Jolo. But something pulled at him. Did he hate the BG more than the Fed? The BG were the ones trying to destroy another planet. His planet. The Fed were just ignorant. He called down to Hurley. “We ready?”

  “We can fight,” said the old man. Meanwhile, the BG rail gun pounded the forward compartment of the big freighter. Finally, one of the pirate-buster drones attached to the BG boat and exploded, but it only took out one of the engines. Three remained.

  Jolo couldn’t stand it any longer. “Koba, take out the BG’s rail gun,” he said.

  “Light that black bastard up!” said Greeley. But just as the large, alacyte covers opened fully and the Argossy’s cannons came up, a Fed gunboat popped into the sector. It moved into position, then paused for a moment. Meanwhile, Jolo had Koba retract the guns. We are just a small Runabout with engine trouble, thought Jolo.

  “Captain, you wanna bug out?” said Koba.

  “No, let’s watch and see. But be ready to run.”

  The BG transporter was no match for the Fed gunboat. The Fed ship opened fire and took out the BG ship’s engines and it looked like the Derbinster was in the clear, but then a BG Cruiser showed up. It opened up on the Gunboat and suddenly the tide turned. The first volley took out the Gunboat’s starboard engine, but the Fed captain wasn’t going down without a fight. He hid behind the Derbinster, then dropped under and got a solid hit on the Cruiser. But the big BG transporter, now nearly disabled, was still firing on the Gunboat and doing some damage. The Gunboat couldn’t take on both at the same time.

  Jolo knew the party was about to be over. He looked at Katy’s seat. He knew what she’d be saying right now, but why should he risk his life and the lives of his crew for the Fed? Katy would say they are people, and the BG are trying to kill all of us.

  “Koba, bring out the toys,” said Jolo. “Let’s party. Hit the transporter first.”

  The Argossy came into range and took out the big BG’s gun. But the Fed Gunboat was in bad shape: it was down to one hot railgun and a failing port engine. Jolo could see the railgun over-heating. It started to fire intermittently as the computer struggled to bring the temperature down. But the Fed captain continued to play cat and mouse, still using the Derbinster’s middle compartment as cover. The BG had nearly blasted a hole right through the Derbinster and Jolo could see the captain trying to keep the line of fire away from the forward compartments where he knew the hauler’s crew would be. Jolo could tell this wasn’t the Fed captain’s first fight and wanted to help him.

  The Argossy hid behind the freighter then popped out and unloaded on the black ship. The BG boat’s shields held but suddenly the Argossy touched the Derbinster and started to spin.

  “Straighten us out,” said Jolo. But it was too late. The Argossy could take anything head on, but when she swung around the BG ship got a clear target, and took out one of her ion cannons. Koba recovered quickly though.

  “Koba, give them everything we’ve got.” The Cruiser fired back, this time at the Fed boat, but it was over. Both the Fed boat and the Argossy concentrated their guns at the Cruiser and both the BG engines blew. The ship again lost power and went into a slow dead spin. This time it wasn’t coming back.

  Both black ships were dead. But Jolo didn’t like being so close to a Fed Gunboat. The Fed always had too many questions that he didn’t have good answers for. He shook his head and took a deep breath. What good has come of this? he thought. And then he remembered the Fortinbras, her crew sucked out into space. The Derbinster was still in one piece.

  “Hurley,” Jolo said on the comm, “status?”

  “Ain’t good, Captain. We’re down a gun and the shields are low.”

  The Fed Gunboat captain hailed the Argossy. “Thank you for your assistance, Captain. My name is Waylan Magnan, captain of the Federation Gunboat Arella.”

  Computer, did Waylan Magnan know Jolo Vargas?

  Waylan Magnan and Jolo Vargas fought together in the BG wars before the alliance was formed.

  “Thank you, captain. We’ll be on our way now. We’ve got a pickup on Calamar that can’t wait,” said Jolo. The Arella moved from behind the Derbinster but Jolo eased the Argossy towards the front of the cargo hauler, putting Fed civilians between his boat and the Arella’s guns.

  “I’ve never seen a Runabout like that. Especially with so much firepower,” said the captain.

  “The enemy is coming. Always,” said Jolo.

  “I’ve heard that said before, years ago, by a great captain.” The gunboat con
tinued to move toward the Argossy and Koba struggled to keep the cargo hauler between them. Soon they’d be nose to nose.

  “That gunboat’s still got one good railgun, Captain,” said Greeley. The Arella was down to one thruster and Jolo doubted the shields were full up, but Magnan kept coming. He feinted a downward move then rose up quickly and suddenly they were facing the Arella’s one working railgun.

  “Let’s cut the crap, Captain,” said Magnan. “Who are you and why are you here? You’re no trader.”

  “Like I said. Just making a run,” said Jolo.

  “No, you aren’t. Captain Vargas.”

  Jolo cut the comm. “Koba, keep the guns hot,” said Jolo. “Hurley, give me all shields to the front.” And the two boats faced off, no more than 100 meters between them. Jolo knew more Fed boats were coming, but if he turned tail and ran would the Arella take him out? Another minute passed, and Jolo decided to run, but then Magnan hailed him again.

  “Captain Vargas, why are two BG boats hitting a cargo hauler?”

  Jolo held the comm in his hand and paused, tried to think of a good line to feed the Fed captain, then finally decided on the truth: “The hauler has galaxite.”

  “Why do they want that?”

  “You won’t believe me.”

  “Try me.”

  “They’re going to use it to blow up the planet Duval, just like they did to Vellos.”

  “You’re right. I don’t believe you. And I’m not going to ask what you are doing out here either. But just so you know, we’ll be busy helping the Derbinster so if you happen to find a bit of cargo floating out in space, I’m sure you’ll see its taken care of.”

  “Of course,” said Jolo.

  “Thanks again, Captain Vargas. You saved my crew,” said Magnan. “One more thing. A transport and a few Gunboats will be in the sector in five minutes.”

  Jolo cut the comm link.

  “Uh, what just happened there?” said Greeley. “How’d he know?”