43 Days to Oblivion

by J. D. Oppenheim

  “Marco, can you get me in one of the supply boats.”

  “I’ll get on that. They’re small drones, that okay?”

  Jolo shrugged. “Yeah, gettin’ jammed into tiny coffin tubes is my specialty,” he said.

  “But the distance this time won’t be too bad. I think they originate about four jumps away in Holsted. They’ve got to feed the workers,” said Marco.

  “You mean slaves,” said Katy. “And how does Jolo and Barth get off planet?”

  “Same way they came in,” said Hurley. “They’ll fill up the supply boats with trash and broken parts and such. So weight shouldn’t be a problem. And I imagine Barthelme’s gonna be a little, uh, lighter than you remember.”

  “So I git to go, too, right?” said Greeley. “He’ll need firepower.”

  “Just me,” said Jolo. Greeley took a deep breath, frowning. “Can’t kill ‘em all without me.”

  “If Jolo can get to the main computer array, I can take out the internal sensors and unlock the thing from the inside. Make it look like a hardware failure.”

  “How soon can you make that happen?” said Marco.

  “With George’s help, maybe a day.”

  “Or less,” said George, smiling.

  “I’ve got something that might be of use,” said Merthon. “It’s an experimental suit that might help an infiltrator go unseen. It’ll also help defend against those evil energy blades the BG love to brandish about.”

  “So it’s settled,” said Jolo. “Sneak me in, alone. And I bring Barth and whoever else I can find home. Right under their noses.”

  Silana

  On Duval

  29 days left

  A small black pod landed in the sand amidst the rubble of a burned out pirate ship. A young, brown haired girl named Silana climbed out and headed east in the baking Duval heat for the nearest settlement. Behind her the tiny ship exploded, the metal from her ship mixing in with the pirate ship debris. Better than burying it, she thought. In the distance, she heard the sound of BG cruisers taking out the humans and their pathetic, last bit of defiance.

  The Lords will let them play rebels for a little while longer, she thought. At least until The One is found. Find The One. That was her mission.

  A few hours later a woman and an old man came up to her in a hover craft. She glanced at the old, dust covered boat: her pattern recognition algorithm kicked in instantly. Horvarst 37 XC; manufacture date: 2489; class: 2 seat, open hull, hover; comments: short range.

  “You need water, honey?” said the brown, leathery-skinned, middle aged woman driving. She handed over a plastic jug.

  Begin speech synthesis recording, thought the girl.

  “Oh, yes ma’am. I’m so thirsty.” No comparison data, said the computer in her mind.

  “You ain’t from round here are ye?” said the old man, watching the girl drink. He wore coveralls and was bald except for a few random gray hairs that whipped around in the wind.

  “Why you say that?” said the girl. 32% speech pattern match.

  “Well, you dressed kinda funny is all,” said the woman.

  “Yeah, and yer hair’s jus too gang purty,” said the old man, smiling.

  “Y’all close yer eyes jus’ for a minute.” They look at each other, shrug, and then close their eyes. “Now listen to my voice,” said the girl. “I sound jus’ like y’all, right?” 89% speech pattern match.

  “Sound like you from Hilder, down aways a bit,” said the old man, eyes still closed.

  “Yeah, I spent some time in Hilder awhile back,” said the girl. 99% speech pattern match.

  Lock in current speech pattern files, she thought to herself. Then she started taking off her clothes.

  “Stand up,” she said to the woman, and the woman looked at the old man and then slowly stood up.

  “About 55 centimeters,” said the girl, now standing naked. The old man’s eyes suddenly fixed on her crotch. His hands clutched onto the edge of the door like he was gonna be blown out.

  “I wanna help take down a tower,” said the girl.

  “Keep going thataway to a settlement called Rybat,” said the woman, waving a hand to the east. “They got a few crews just started.” Then her eyebrows narrowed a bit, “But Honey, you gone have to git some clothes on.” There was concern in her voice like a mother. The old man hadn’t moved, eyes still drawn to the spot between the girl’s legs.

  “Frank, stop droolin’ on the poor girl. Obvious she ain’t all there, but that don’t give you no right to get yer jollies.”

  “Yeah, but somethin’ ain’t right about her you-know-what,” he said, one wrinkled, bent finger pointing at her groin. “Ain’t nothin’ there,” he said. And the woman started apologizing.

  The girl grabbed the man and threw him out of the hover craft. He flew upside down, landing in the hot dirt on his shoulder. His collarbone snapped with a loud crack and he holwed in pain, half his face covered in Duval sand.

  “Take off your clothes,” said the girl to the woman.

  A few minutes later the synthetic girl named Silana, dressed like a poor Duvalite, started walking towards Rybat. She stopped for a moment to roll around in the sand. She poured water from the plastic jug onto her hair, rubbed sand around in it, then tossed the jug away. Behind her the flames engulfed the Horvast 37 XC. The woman’s screams carried across the flats, but no one could hear. If someone asks, I’ll say it was the BG, she thought. They would believe her. Because humans were gullible and weak. And besides, it was the truth.

  Infiltrator

  Sotec in the Scina System

  26 days left

  Jolo bent the latch from the inside of the supply drone and pushed on the door with his feet, his back to the hull of the thin tube of a ship, his body sore and aching after the nine hour trip. The broken hatch had to look like a faulty lock mechanism, he thought, pausing for a moment to rest. When the little drone had gone nose down and seated itself into the landing coupler atop the Titan, it almost felt like being on solid ground again, but then he could feel the slow, undulating movement of the harvester as it made its way across the ice below.

  Once again he pushed as hard as he could, his whole body starting to shake. Then suddenly the hatch flew open, the door landing with a crash on the deck below, and the everything inside, mostly packages of dried protein substitute, and one half-synth in a skin suit, spilled out in a pile under the drone. It was a two meter drop and for a split second Jolo felt the cold rain cutting in at an angle, knew that it was dark outside. But then his head hit metal and he blacked out.

  He awoke to the sound of two girls talking. At first he thought it was another dream. The voice was Jaylen, the girl on the gunboat, the one with blond hair, the one he had to find. Did find, he remembered. He thought to call to her, to tell her he was here. He missed her. And then the words his father said came to him, “Hide. Don’t use the gun.” His face was cold and wet. He opened his eyes and stared into the darkness. There were no stars, just little tiny glints of rain, each drop reflecting a light from the other side of the deck.

  “Another faulty hatch,” one girl said.

  “I’m not going down for this one,” the other girl said.

  And then it all came back to Jolo. The voices had to be close, maybe ten meters or so off. His right hand was touching the Colt. Don’t use the gun, he thought. If I take these two out then they’ll be missed and I’ll lose my advantage. Maybe I’ve already lost it, he thought, laying on a pile of wet, brown protein. But then he remembered: he was wearing Merthon’s special suit.

  When Jolo had gone to Merthon’s lab three days earlier, he thought it was a joke. “It’s on the table there,” the tall Vellosian had said, casually gesturing with his long, graceful fingers. But there was nothing on the old wooden table. “Look again,” said the frog. Jolo looked again and noticed something strange, an undulation, a slight variance in the wood grain. Merthon laughed and picked something up off the table that wasn’t really there, or was it? Onc
e it was in Merthon’s hands Jolo could see it, sort of. Merthon handed it to him and he could feel it, but his eyes found nothing to focus on. It was like he was looking at the shadow of something, but the real thing casting the shadow was gone.

  “Is it invisible cloth?” said Jolo, wondering if the question sounded as stupid as he felt saying it.

  “No, you fool,” said Merthon, laughing. “That tech is beyond even me. This cloth simply blends with its background. It matches colors, patterns and can mimic even textured surfaces.”

  Jolo put the skin-tight suit on, pulled up the hood and stood next to the blue tanks. He looked down at his legs and it was like he was looking through them. He touched his thigh with his hands to break the illusion, but then even his hands looked like blue tank water.

  “The suit has a series of tiny fuel cells. You can use the power to warm your body, but try not to use it. That burns your power supply. Once the power runs out, you go from stealth infiltrator to a fool in tights. The suit will hold the last blended image when the power goes out. I wanted to have it go black, but didn’t get around to it. Time constraints.”

  “It’s awful thin,” said Jolo, pulling at the elastic material.

  “Yes, but it’s made to stop energy blades used by the BG.” Merthon grabbed something off a shelf, held it in front of Jolo, and out popped a small red energy blade. He put the suit over Jolo’s arm then came down with the knife, just hard enough to draw blood, but instead of the hot blade cutting into his skin, he just felt a slight push.

  “Again, lose power and you lose the blade armor. And it won’t stop a kinetic energy weapon like your old pistol.”

  By then Marco had come into the lab. “And remember,” his father said. “Your instinct is to fight, to use the gun, to attack. You’ve got to use a different tactic this time: Stealth. It’s best if they are not hunting for you.”

  Jolo fought the urge to go for the gun and to relieve himself of the threat standing a few meters off. The Jaylens were fast and he’d seen them wield their deadly red energy blades. But he remained still.

  “Those rock tossing dogs will die without the brown stuff,” one of the Jaylens said.

  “They’ll bring more,” the other one said.

  “The Lord will not be happy.”

  “No worries, I have an idea. This drone never came. I’ll have the repair bot destroy the beacon and toss it over the side. The fault will be with the idiot humans on Holsted.”

  And then the voices stopped and Jolo heard a door slide shut and he was alone. He waited a few more moments, then carefully slid the gun out of its blend-suit covered holster and took a peek over the hill of mushy, brown protein. All clear.

  He stood up, rubbed the bump on his head, angry at himself for nearly taking himself out before he had a chance to save Barth. He reholstered the gun and let the rain wash off the protein. He stood on the edge of the giant ice harvester, a massive square building, slowly making its way across the planet. In front, glassy, shimmering ice, reflecting the two moons—and behind, a neat row of dark rock was all the Titan IV left in her wake.

  An ion cannon as large as the Argossy was mounted at each corner. He imagined them coming to life when a ship came within their scanner range and the large barrels swinging up to find the target. How many gunboats would it take to bring this thing down? he thought. But for now the turrets were quiet and asleep, almost like gargoyles on Old Earth buildings long ago, each barrel pointed down at a 45 degree angle.

  Jolo climbed back into the drone ship and pulled out the charges. Between the base of each turret and the heavy gun on top was a ball joint so the barrel could pivot in all directions. Jolo put each charge right on that vulnerable section. The freezing rain was still angling down from the dark sky and Jolo’s hands had started to go numb, but George had created a charge with a magnetic backing that stuck to the wet, freezing metal like a magna-hook, and didn’t require nimble fingers. Jolo hoped the charges would blow the guns right off the harvester, but failing that, the tracking computer just above the charge should get fried.

  Jolo turned each charge on, a small light flashing green so he knew the bomb was active, then he tapped his suit pocket to make sure the tiny switch was still there. Once he found Barth he could hit the little red button and two things would happen: the guns would all blow, and the homing beacon, a small, black box he placed on the deck opposite the drones, would begin transmitting.

  Jolo pulled up the Titan IV schematic on his computer and headed for the stairs. He figured no one in his right mind would be out in the weather, so he should be able to move up and down levels from the outside emergency stairs unnoticed. There were eighteen levels on a Titan IV ice harvester and the computer array was on 11, just above the bridge and the machinery below that. Jolo stopped for a moment at each floor to peek through the round window on the big sliding door. On the upper levels there wasn’t much beyond long corridors that looked too clean to be slave quarters. On one of the empty levels he pulled out the Colt then gently pressed the open button on the door. An id scanner popped out so he moved on.

  On level twelve Jolo found a row of hibernating Jaylens, just like at the facility on Montag. He counted ten, all lined up, all standing with eyes closed, plugged into a machine. Is this how they sleep? Jolo wondered. Must be getting a recharge, or data upload. He put the barrel of the Colt against the glass near the closest one’s head, blond curls on its shoulder, and wondered if a bullet would penetrate the glass. Marco had crafted a custom silencer so the barrel was a bit longer, but he’d be able to fire the gun without alerting other Jaylens or warriors on other levels. In the end he holstered the gun and moved on, sure there’d be more opportunities soon enough.

  When he made it to level eleven the cold had started to take its toll. His whole body was shivering and he wasn’t sure if he could even hold the Colt, much less pull the trigger. He squatted down and reached for the small box, a gift from Koba, that was in a pocket on the back of his suit. At this point he couldn’t feel his fingers anymore, but he was fairly sure he had the box. He thought he could feel it against his back. He stood up and his legs cramped and the full weight of his body fell against the railing. Pain shot through his side as his head and upper body teetered over the edge. He could see the wet ice below and he knew if he fell, even if he survived the fall, he’d die of the cold. He pulled himself back and fell onto the metal platform, cursing under his breath.

  The plan was to make it inside without using the suit warmer, but that wasn’t going to happen. If he fumbled the little box over the edge he’d have to break his way in and then he’d be dead. If he couldn’t fire the gun because his fingers didn’t work he’d be dead. If he fell over the edge he was dead. Shite on it, he thought.

  He touched both index fingers to his chest and waited. Soon his whole body felt better, like he had suddenly jumped into a warm bath. He paused there for a few minutes and soon his breathing slowed and his legs seemed to work again. He stood and reached behind his back for the box with suddenly warm, nimble fingers.

  Then he pressed the door button and when the id scanner popped out he put the little black rectangle over it and waited. It clicked and hummed, the door light flashing green, then red again, then green. Jolo pushed on the door and it opened, and he was in. He touched his suit again to turn off the warmer, hoping he hadn’t used too much juice, and stepped into the corridor. He pulled up the schematic and headed for the end of the hall, the Colt out in front just in case.

  Inside, he could hear a steady grinding noise, almost like he was standing on one of the tower drills. The white floors and walls were perfectly clean and the air was warm and smelled like a med bay. The main bank of logic arrays should be two down on the right. He headed in that direction, but before he got there he heard voices coming from a connecting corridor at the other end of the hall. He started to run to it thinking to get a closer shot, but then remembered that’d be a bad idea and instead plastered himself against the closest door, wh
ich was set into the wall about ten centimeters. Most of his body was in full view, but he stood there, holding his breath. A BG Lord and two more Jaylens walked past. The black mech was so tall it had to hunch down, its heavy, metal foot pads clanking against the floor. Jolo gripped the Colt with sweaty fingers, but the black beast and the blond girls walked past without a glance in his direction.

  Jolo stepped into the logic array room and there, between two large banks of computers, wires snaking between, was a Jaylen. She was sliding a board into the array near the floor. “Did you bring the conduit feeders?” she said. She looked right at Jolo, her head tilting, a confused expression on her beautiful, synthetic face. For a split second Jolo thought of his Jaylen, and he paused. And then she started to stand, her eyes narrowing, staring right through the blend suit, but then Jolo raised the Colt and fired. The gun made a muffled THMMMP sound and her legs lost power and she fell to the ground like a human, but that’s where the similarity ended—no blood anywhere, and a slight whiff of smoke slipping out of the hole in her forehead. Jolo dragged her to the corner of the room and waited. Soon enough, another Jaylen came holding a box. She took two steps in and another THMMMP brought her down. And Jolo leaned her up against the other one.

  He accessed Koba’s instructions on his computer and found an open port and inserted the small memory chip. This was the moment of truth.

  Koba said one of two things should happen: either the virus would get into the system and shut the whole operation down, one section at a time, which would send all of the slaves to their quarters and have the BG technicians chasing down phantom hardware issues, giving Jolo a nice bit of chaos in the machine to find Barthelme; or nothing, in which case things got a bit dicier for the solo half-human armed with a Colt against an ice-harvester full of BG workers, Jaylens and one big Mech Lord.