Seven... Jason counted in his head as he pulled himself toward the disembodied gun.
Six... One of Pal’s arms landed next to him, and he grabbed ahold of a small cactus for leverage, grinding his teeth against the pain as the needles dug deep. His broken arm and leg dragged uselessly, the wounds caking with dirt as he crawled sluggishly.
Five... “I may have overestimated my calculations, s-s-sir,” came the faltering voice of Pal 2000. By the sound of it he was being tossed around like a rag doll.
Four... Jason stopped, and panting, frantically brought his coke ring to his mouth, turned the gem with his teeth, and brought it to his nose.
Three... He snorted the coke to his head, and growling, pulled himself toward the gun faster, his heart hammering in his chest. The sound of Pal getting the shit beat out of him echoed up the side of the ravine.
Two... “Knock, knock,” he heard Pal saying. The T-27 didn’t reply, but the beating stopped momentarily, and Jason smiled to think of the confused robot’s face.
“Who’s there?” Jason answered for Pal.
“Shut-shut-shut the fuck up!” said Pal, and the sound like a sledgehammer hitting an anvil pinged in the night, followed by a heavy tumbling.
“I-I-I have ma-ma-managed to buy you exactly seven more seconds, s-s-sir.”
Jason glanced back in time to see Pal collapse. In the distance, the tumbling had stopped. He waited with bated breath and exhaled explosively when he heard what could only be the sound of a T-27, bent on murder, climbing up the side of a ravine.
Jason pulled himself the last few inches, stretched, and barely caught a hold of the Gatling gun’s wiring. He pulled the heavy gun onto his lap and sat up, facing the cliff that the T-27 had been knocked over. He fumbled with the wires with his one good hand, cursing and sweating and glancing every other second toward the edge. He bit the coating from a white wire and wrapped it around the blue before quickly tying off the green and black.
The powerful hand of the T-27 emerged from the other side of the drop-off. It grabbed dirt and crushed small stones as the other hand grabbed hold.
Jason hummed “Margaritaville” as he worked, and once the wires were crossed correctly, he took out his phone and smashed it on a nearby rock.
The T-27 easily pulled itself up over the edge. The machine stood to its full height and slowly began to stalk toward Jason. It aimed a gun at his chest, but Pal 2000’s arm suddenly shot up and grabbed the T-27’s ankle, stopping it. The T-27 pointed the gun at Pal and shot him three times in the head before turning back on Jason once more.
Jason fished the battery out of the phone, pressed it to the wires, and held on for dear life. The T-27 fired three times, hitting Jason in the shoulder, stomach, and calf. But he held firm as the Gatling gun began to spin and barked to life. Screaming obscenities, Jason emptied one hundred rounds into the T-27. The machine’s head, shoulders, and chest were reduced to scrap metal, and it fell back over the side of the cliff.
With a sigh, Jason tossed the gun to the side, saluted Pal 2000, and went back to sleep.
Chapter 5
Got Nine Lives and this ain’t One
The hallway seemed to go on forever. Like a carnival house of mirrors, the hardwood floor, smooth white ceiling, shiplap walls with endless doors, endless possibilities, stretched out before him. He turned to one, knowing this was not the one, but the many, and the only. He reached for the knob, pausing before he turned it and fearing what he might see inside.
“Can you hear me?” asked an angel of a nurse, twenty-five, with perky, 1950s pin-up tits.
Jason could hear her, and he could see her, but apparently, she could not hear him. Either that, or his efforts to speak were unfruitful.
She shined a light in his eyes and smiled. “Jason...”
Only his mother and his wife had ever called him that. He tried to tell the nurse just that, but again, he didn’t seem to be working properly.
“Jason, can you hear me?”
The nurse disappeared, and when again he opened his eyes, an old silver-haired man in hospital whites was scowling down on him, between glances at a holo-board.
Jason blinked, and the doctor was replaced by three clowns, each riding a unicycle and juggling fish. The next moment, he was making plans to escape and conspiring with a bald rabbit with too many stitches for one bunny to have to endure. Jason was intent on helping the rabbit escape—he had to avenge Easter after all.
Melissa swam by and waved, and when Jason tried to speak, bubbles came out of his mouth. He glanced down at his body, realizing with horror that he was an octopus.
He awoke with a scream, body covered in sweat, and a mouth that tasted like the bottom of a dusty tomb.
“Hello, s-s-sir,” came the voice of Pal 2000, who, to Jason’s horror, looked exactly like Jason, except that his head was projected on the robot’s holo-face.
“What are you doing with my body? And where is Mr. Rabbit P Esquire?”
“Shut the fuck up, Jason,” said Pal 2000 as he got up from his hospital bed and loomed over him. “If you won’t take care of your body, I will.”
Horrified, Jason looked down to discover that his human body had been replaced with that of the battered robot’s.
“Jason, can you hear me?”
“Nooo!” Jason screamed.
The nurse recoiled, startled, but then she smiled. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
The doctor leaned into his line of sight and grinned. “Welcome back, Jason.”
“Can I speak with him yet?” came the voice of a man Jason remembered. But the voice was so out of place in this nightmare that he was convinced that once again, he was dreaming.
He turned his head to find the man he suspected, and he blinked. “Admiral Tucker?”
“He seems well enough. If you don’t mind,” said the admiral. The doctor nodded to the nurse, and together the two disappeared.
“Are you real?” said Jason.
“I’m as real as your burnt house and your broken bones. What the hell did you get yourself into?” said Admiral Tucker.
“I ...I don’t know. Have you seen the rabbit?”
The admiral frowned. “What’s the last thing you remember?”
Jason swallowed hard. His throat was dry, his brains were scrambled. It was a lot like hibernation sickness. “The moon.” He looked at the admiral, his mocha skin shining in the light coming in through the westward facing window.
“Jason, that was three years ago.”
“I’ve been asleep for three years?”
“No, just two weeks.” The admiral scowled with sympathy. “You get well, Jason. I’ll be back when your eggs have unscrambled.”
Jason tried to speak. He had a million questions for the admiral, and more than a few were about the Easter bunny. But the room soon disappeared, and for a time Jason lingered in the darkness of the void.
The door swung on its hinges with a mournful creaking. In the still darkness the sound was alarming; loud enough to wake someone sleeping. Please, God, let her be sleeping. As the door swung away, Jason’s eyes found the family portrait on the opposite side of the room next to the bed. In it, he and Melissa and a five-year-old Ember were smiling for the camera. Behind them was the shuttle that would take Jason into space for yet another mission. It had been hot that day, but Ember was smiling brightly, her arm up to the elbow in a bag of popcorn.
The bed came into view. The sheets were rumpled and the blanket in disarray. Melissa had spent the better part of a month in that bed after Ember passed. But there was no Melissa, only her wedding dress...
“Good morning, sleepyhead.” It was the nurse again, and this time Jason found that he could talk without trouble.
“Morning. What’s for breakfast?” he said, moving his tongue around his putrid mouth.
She smiled that girl-next-door smile. “Today we have a delicious I.V. with a side of painkillers.”
“Yum.” Jason rubbed his belly with his right hand and
realized dully that it was no longer broken. Had it been a dream?
The nurse laughed musically. “My name is Alexis, by the way.”
“Good to meet you, Alexis. Got any water?”
“Of course, you must be very thirsty.”
“Not really. I was just looking for an excuse to make you turn around.” He winked.
She made on like she was shocked but then smiled devilishly and shook her head. “You old perv. I’ll be right back.”
Jason watched her go, sighing to himself as he stared at her perfect ass.
She returned with the water and on her heels came the gray-haired doctor. Alexis set the drink down, offered Jason a smile, and left the room. Jason drank as the doctor studied his holo-chart.
“How are you feeling, Mr. Eriksson?” the doctor asked without looking up from the charts.
“Loopy.”
“That’s the painkillers. Your arm and leg have healed nicely, though, and there are no signs of brain trauma.”
“That’s a plus.”
“Do you remember what happened to you?”
Jason shrugged. “Fragments.”
“Yes, well, you were in pretty bad shape when they brought you here.”
“Where’s here?”
“You are in a military hospital in Hialeah, Florida, sir.”
“When can I leave?”
The doctor grinned. “Good to see you’ve got a can-do attitude. But we would like to monitor you for a few more days. You’ve been in an induced coma for two weeks.”
“Well then, I’ve taken up enough of your time.”
The doctor looked at the door and nodded, before glancing back at Jason. “You have company. I will be back shortly to fill you in on your injuries and your roadmap to recovery.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
The doctor left, and Jason looked at the door curiously, wondering who his visitor might be. When the admiral walked in, Jason vaguely remembered seeing him earlier.
“You look a hell of a lot better,” said the admiral.
“You should see the other guys.”
“I have. They’re dead.”
“Exactly,” said Jason.
“You’re lucky to be alive.” The admiral picked up the holo-screen and scrolled over Jason’s records.
“I get that a lot.”
Putting the holo-screen back on the shelf, the admiral squared on Jason from the end of the bed. “I watched the recording of that night from your Pal 2000 unit. You seemed like a man bent on self-destruction,” said the admiral with concern.
“Thanks for your insight, Mark. You mind telling me why you’re here?”
“You will be briefed when you are well enough to travel.”
“Briefed? I’m retired.”
The admiral smirked. “Men like you and I don’t retire.”
“Look, man. The war is over. I did my time. I just want to be left alone.”
“I believe that you will get your wish,” said the admiral. He turned on his heel and walked to the door. He stopped at the threshold and offered Jason a knowing glance. “Rest up. You’re going to need it.”
“Cryptic bastard,” said Jason, knowing the admiral couldn’t hear him.
What could the fleet possibly want with him? Hadn’t he done his time? Hadn’t he earned some peace and quiet?
He looked at the TV and the Net-feed to its right. Once he located the remote on the side of the bed, he bounced through the news channels while surveying his favorite web forums. He didn’t have access to any of the pornography, but cute cats were good enough. He found that it was now the last week of June. The last time he remembered checking the calendar it was March. That’s what alcohol and a coma will do to you, thought Jason.
As he clicked through the channels his own name caught his attention and he turned up the volume.
“It seems that the Man Who Broke the Moon can’t stay out of trouble,” the female news anchor was saying.
The image then switched to the burnt wreckage of his beach house in St. Croix, then to footage of the accident that had put him in the hospital.
“There is still no official word on Captain Eriksson’s condition,” said the anchor as the camera switched back to her. “But KLME has obtained information from an anonymous source that the legendary captain is recovering from several wounds, and that his condition is now stable. Meanwhile, Captain Eriksson’s approval rating has plummeted another five points to twenty-two—”
Jason clicked off the TV when the nurse returned.
“Time for my sponge bath?” he asked hopefully.
She smirked. “Nope. It’s not bath time. It’s time to take out your catheter.”
Chapter 6
The Zero-G Club
Jason was released two days later feeling like a new man, and in some regards, he was. His liver had been cloned and replaced, and the nanobots that had been administered to speed his healing left him feeling twenty years younger. He hated the idea of millions of tiny bots infesting his innards, but then again, it was better than being laid up for months in a hospital. He had always loathed hospitals, and since Ember’s passing, the feeling had only increased.
For two days in bed he had pondered the admiral’s words, wondering what kind of mission they wanted him for now. The war was over, and without the threat of the rebellious lunar colony, Jason couldn’t imagine what they needed from him. Trouble with the Mars colony perhaps? No, they had proven their allegiance to Earth during the Terra-Luna War. But if not Mars, then what?
Jason had been released by the hospital, but he had not been released by the admiral. As expected, he was met at the door by two big fleet security officers, and swiftly led to a Mercedes i5000 with tinted windows—and no doubt, bulletproof glass.
“Where we headed?” he asked as he sat across from the two goons and spread his legs, which, given that he was still wearing the hospital gown, meant that they got a good view of his low hanging fruit.
Neither one so much as flinched.
“Typical,” he said aloud. “Either of you two gargoyles got a smoke?”
Again, nothing.
Jason sighed. He hadn’t had a cigarette in weeks, and the hospital drugs he was still on left him wanting one even more.
The car ride was quick, and Jason thanked the stars when the vehicle stopped and one of the goons opened the door for him. He was relieved to see the admiral, for he knew the man still smoked.
“Got a smoke?” he asked the salt-and-pepper-haired man as he surveyed the airfield. There was an interplanetary Tesla 927 on the runway.
“You look a hell of a lot better,” said the admiral, handing Jason a Marlborough. “How’s sobriety treating you?”
“Like a vengeful ex-wife,” said Jason, accepting a light and pointing at the Tesla. “So, I guess we’re going off planet?”
The admiral lit up as well and blew out a puff of smoke. “Beauty, ain’t she?”
“You answer first.”
“Yeah, we’re going off planet.”
“And where is the part where I make a choice?”
“Your ass belongs to the fleet. You knew that going in.”
Jason took a drag and blew it out through his nose as he walked with the admiral toward the ship, his ass smiling at the two trailing goons as the wind tossed aside his back flap.
“I thought that maybe, just maybe, ending the Terra-Lunar War might have counted for something.”
“It does,” said the admiral with a smirk. “We’ve known about your drug dealing for years, yet, here you are, a free man.”
Jason stopped, glancing from the goons to the Tesla. “Am I, though?”
The admiral let out a sigh and faced him. “Look, as much as I appreciate some good ole Jason Eriksson banter, we just don’t have the time. Your crew is waiting for you.”
“My crew?”
“This is the big one, Jake.” Tears came to the admiral’s eyes, tears that Jason had never seen shed, not since his son Thomas’s funeral.
“First contact?” said Jason.
The admiral only smiled. “I can’t say out here in the open. So how ’bout you get your ass on the ship and we get off planet. You will be fully briefed at that time.”
“Does that include actual briefs, sir?” Jason pulled out the bottom ends of his hospital gown. “It’s a bit breezy.”
“We’ve prepared your uniform. Trust me, you’re going to like the way you look.”
Jason walked up the stairs and into the shiny new Tesla, and instantly his eyes were drawn to the two flight attendants. One was a strawberry blonde, tall, with large breasts, and a big beautiful smile. The other was a short brunette, the type Jason liked to refer to as fun-sized. Both women perked up when they saw him enter, and he knew they recognized him.
Being the Man Who Broke the Moon had its upsides, and one of them was infatuated groupies looking for bragging rights.
“Hello, ladies,” said Jason at the threshold, blocking the admiral from coming aboard behind him.
“Hello, Captain,” they said in unison. “Welcome aboard.”
One of them held up his uniform covered in plastic, and Jason put on an act as he finally walked into the ship. He limped slightly and reached for the blonde. She came to help promptly, and Jason offered her a smile. “You smell nice. Penelope is it?” he asked, glancing at her name tag.
“At your service,” she offered and batted her eyes.
“Do you request help changing into your uniform?” the brunette asked.
Jason glanced back at the admiral and winked. “Yes, thank you, ladies.”
“We take off in ten minutes,” the admiral yelled from behind him as the women led him to one of the private cabins in the back.
Jason emerged a half hour later tucking in his undershirt. He pulled on his fleet jacket as he joined the annoyed-looking admiral. The two flight attendants emerged a half a minute later looking flush, and promptly resumed their duties.
“So, what’s this all about?” Jason asked as he strode down to his seat and strapped himself in.
The Man Who Broke the Moon Page 3