43 Days to Oblivion

by J. D. Oppenheim

  “Why they gonna scan us?” said Koba, gripping the edges of the console like gunboats were coming to take them out instead of simply being scanned by a drone.

  “Relax, we’ll BS our way out of this. We only need a few more minutes,” Jolo said. Then he pressed the comm button to connect to the Persephony: “Persephony, this is Torino, how about a little professional courtesy here. We’re just a transport heading to Cresser. We’ll be jumping out in a moment and are on a tight schedule.”

  “Understood, Torino. Just protocol. The scan drone is pretty quick. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

  “They just launched the scan drone,” said Koba.

  Greeley was still leaning back in Koba’s chair with his eyes closed, his chest slowly rising, air whistling out from between his lips on each exhale.

  “Greeley,” said Jolo. “How good a shot are you with the magna hook?”

  “I can hit a box from 50 meters all day,” Greeley said, eyes still closed.

  “How about smaller?”

  “Oh yeah, I can just about nail a half-box, like the Fed small parts boxes and what not.” He scratched his head and looked up at the display. Blue dots everywhere: smaller dots for cargo and support ships, larger for gunboats and a few huge dots for the Defenders. One tiny dot was headed straight for the Argossy.

  “Koba, point our tail right at the drone and ease us out a bit. Just a little so they don’t think we’re running.” Then he slapped Greeley on the shoulder. “Let’s go fishin’.”

  Greeley suited up and hooked himself to the safety line, tromped out to the edge of the cargo bay in the heavy mag-boots and stared out into the blackness of space. Far out in the distance he thought he could make out one of the Fed ships but then he realized the closest one was 50 kilometers out. Koba said the drone was 750 meters and closing but he couldn’t see it either. He waited, the magna-hook launcher in his hands, the big electro-magnet on the floor in front of him ready to load. He made sure the cable was spooled nicely and wasn’t tangled on anything, especially his right foot. He’d heard of pirates getting their legs wrapped up in the line, struggling to untangle themselves before the line went taught and getting their legs pinched off. If you didn’t get flung out into space with a hole in your suit and end up freeze dried, the best you could hope for was to walk with a limp.

  Soon Koba called in to say the drone was 50 meters out and was going to start scanning. Greeley squinted and leaned out as far as he could into the cold blackness, the massive void extending out in all directions, further than sight or even imagination, the drone hopelessly lost in the black.

  “Cain’t see the dang thing,” said Greeley. Koba engaged the forward thrusters and closed in on the drone by fifteen or so meters.

  “Y’all got the drone yet? We can’t get scanned,” said Jolo over the comm.

  “Ain’t got eyes on it, Captain,” said Greeley.

  “Koba, launch a flare,” said Jolo. Soon a bright orange ball shot out of the rear tube of the Argossy. Greeley picked up the reflection off the hull of the Fed drone a few seconds later. He loaded the hook and raised the gun. At first he aimed high to adjust for distance, then remembered, the beauty part of shooting the hook in space was there was no range adjustment, the hook would track straight, so he lowered the gun and aimed right at the glint. The hook burst out with the cable trailing. He couldn’t hear the slap of the big magnet on the hull of the drone, but the moment the electro-mag found its target the winch engaged and the line went taught.

  “Got it, Captain.”

  “Good work. Lemme know when you get it onboard,” said Jolo. Then he called back to Barthelme. “You got the P2P connection?”

  “Almost, waiting on the handshake from the Persephony.” Barth checked in a few seconds later. “We got it. Message sent, Captain. If my codes for Silas Filcher are correct it will go to him and him alone.”

  “Good work, Barth,” said Jolo.

  “Hey, y’all remember that little old drone? Well, the dang thing is huge,” said Greeley. “I got it up next to the Argossy now. What you want me to do with it, Captain?”

  “Kill it.”

  Back on the bridge the Persephony called in: “Torino, this is Persephony, we’ve lost the drone feed. Do you have a visual?”

  “Negative Persephony,” said Koba.

  Jolo called down to Barth but there was no reply yet from Filcher.

  “Keep stalling them,” said Jolo.

  “Torino, we’ll have to do a manual scan. We’re sending two gunboats from formation. Please hold position.”

  “Negative. Negative, Persephony,” Jolo was winging it. Koba stared up at him with big, scared eyes. “No need to send a gunboat. We’ve just got a visual on the drone. Took its time getting here.”

  “Greeley, cut the drone loose!” Jolo yelled into the comm.

  “Ain’t done killin’ it yet!” Greeley yelled back.

  “What’s the status on the drone?” said Koba.

  “I’d say severely wounded,” said Greeley.

  “Boys, we got company coming. Two gunboats,” Jolo said shipwide. Then he put his hand on Koba’s shoulder. “Relax. Hold it together. We’re just merchants.”

  ……

  On board the Federation Defender Persephony, Admiral Silas Filcher stared at the screen at the point to point from the little merchant ship on the edge of the sector. But his mind was elsewhere. The call for his wing of the fleet to move had come and Filcher had sold it as a training exercise. And so far they’d bought it. A few of the old salts had raised a ruckus but Filcher had put it down. “We’ve got to be ready,” he’d said. “The pirate threat is real.” And most had fallen in line like good military people were supposed to do. He just didn’t know how long he could keep the charade going. If this was it, then he hoped it would happen soon. He’d been waiting for an encoded message from the President telling him the rendezvous point, somewhere way the hell out there, and he thought the message on his screen was it. But it had come from Franklin Barthelme. How could that be? Barthelme had been shipped off to a prison planet.

  “Millicent,” he yelled. “Is this P2P for real.”

  “Yes, Sir,” he said. “As far as I can tell. The sigs were good. He knew your codes. It’s a Fed military transmission.”

  “I don’t trust the source.”

  “Then don’t accept. They may just be fishing. If you accept then they’ll know for sure it’s you. They’ll know your location.”

  “No one care’s about my location. I’m not the president and this isn’t war time.” He stopped and pondered the irony of that. Lately, things had come out of his mouth that sickened him. He wasn’t a liar. He remembered what the president had said: Our job is to save as many as we can. But this just didn’t feel like saving anything. It felt like betrayal.

  And now this. From one of the few men who stood firmly against the unholy alliance with the worms, and paid the price. But I was smarter, thought Filcher.

  Against his better judgment he accepted the message from the former one-armed engineer. It was short. A plea for help. Duval and Barc were under attack from the Bakanhe Grana and both planets were going to be destroyed much like Vellos just after the alliance was formed.

  The destruction of Vellos was a black mark on the Fed that had been swept away and forgotten, a small footnote, lost in the excitement and hope of peace. After the accord was signed it was as if the core planets all exhaled together, and finally kids playing on the streets again replaced bomb shelters and weapons training. And the destruction of a planet on the edge of known space was a necessary end to a synth threat that had never amounted to much. People saw what they needed to see.

  If what Barthelme said was true, then it was sound logic. Duval, as much as it’s forgotten by the commoners, had alacyte, the key to warship production. Barc had water and food. Remove those first. You cannot fight hungry. You cannot fight without weapons. The fancy Fed warship production facilities in the core on Garrett would be rendere
d useless without the raw materials.

  Filcher took a deep breath and slipped his hand into his pocket, unscrewed the metal cap and tipped back the flask. Not too much. He stared at the metal container, rounded just so. The old-timers used to call synth whiskey jet fuel. It dulled the edge. He took another pull and typed a quick message.

  Unauthorized usage of a Federation P2P channel is forbidden. Leave the sector immediately or your ship will be seized and your crew will be conscripted.

  ……

  The two gunboats loomed large on the screen, closing fast and railguns hot.

  “Captain, they’ll be in range in 10 seconds,” said Koba.

  Jolo called down to Barth. “Did we get a reply from Filch?”

  There was a long pause, then finally: “He said no. I’m sorry, Jolo.”

  “Five seconds, Captain,” said Koba, panic in his voice.

  “Hey Barth,” said Jolo. “Maybe we need to talk face to face? Maybe he doesn’t believe its really you?”

  “Yeah, much better odds with a face to face, but how you gonna do that?”

  “I got an idea,” said Jolo. “Koba, fire up the guns.”

  “Huh? We can’t beat all them,” said Koba.

  “Exactly, now pull up the guns.” Koba hit the button and the rail guns popped out and instantly the Argossy’s warning klaxon went off. The gunboats were in range and were locked on.

  “Barth, can you do a dead fake on this ship?” Then Jolo checked the screen. “Koba, full forward shields.”

  “Yeah, Captain. We can do it,” said Barthelme.

  “Ok, do it on the first hit.” Jolo put down the comm and thought for a moment. “Greeley, bring a battle suit up here.” No response. Jolo turned and Greeley’s eyes were closed, both boots on the console, his breathing slow and easy. “GREELEY!” Jolo yelled.

  Greeley’s eyes popped open and he jerked forward, both feet landing on the deck. “Are we there yet?” he said, rubbing his eyes.

  “Greeley, run down and get a pair of mag-boots, two Fed rifles, and you put on the heavy armor.” Then he turned to Koba. “You and Hurley get suited up and wait in the cargo hold. When the Argossy goes dead, y’all sneak outside and wait.”

  “Uh, how long?”

  “At least until they’ve boarded and scanned.”

  “Where you going?”

  “Me and Barth and Greeley are gonna pay Filch a visit, but now we gotta convince the gunboats to fire on us.” The gunboats were close enough for a clean look and Jolo could see immediately that one boat was old: burn marks near the forward thrusters, dented hull, other sections had slight ripples in the alacyte panels, the result of multiple patches. “Koba, hail the older boat.”

  “This is Captain Marin Trant of the Federation gunboat Nymeria, retract those pop guns or I’ll cut you down.”

  Jolo smiled. Computer, Jolo thought, who is Marin Trant?

  Marin Trant, Federation gunboat captain. Won three Gold Stars for his exploits in the Bakanhe Grana wars. Passed over for Commander position due to disciplinary action.

  Perfect, thought Jolo.

  “I thought Trant was a worm-lovin’ yellow momma’s boy, too scared to swim out here in the black with the sharks,” Jolo said.

  “You ain’t no shark,” said Trant. Then he added, “Pirate.” Jolo cut the comm link.

  “Are you nuts?” said Koba.

  “Just making sure he does what he needs to do.” Then Jolo called down to engineering. “You boys ready?”

  “Good to go,” said Barth.

  “Alright then. Hang on, Boys, we ‘bout to get rocked,” Jolo said over the comm shipwide. Greeley had just come back with the suit and guns. He dropped everything and strapped in to his seat.

  “Koba, send the good captain our regards.”

  The Argossy hit the Nymeria with both rail guns.

  Reality Check

  Callen

  14 days left

  The first salvo from the gunboat rocked the Argossy. The deck moved under Jolo’s feet but he clung to his chair, the air on the bridge suddenly tingly, electric. Another blast came right after that from the second Fed boat and the shields took a hit. Jolo still had functional comms but before he could call down to engineering Barth did what he was supposed to do and shut everything down.

  And so the Argossy lay naked, shields down and presumed dead in Callen with two pissed-off gunboats at point-blank range and half the Fed fleet behind them.

  The main screen on the bridge went black and the air movers stopped humming and Koba huddled under his console. The ship was oddly quiet and suddenly Jolo could hear his own breathing. The hull groaned and creaked, the metal cooling back down after absorbing two hits. Please don’t slap us again, thought Jolo. He knew the Argossy could take one or two more shots with shields down, but he’d rather not test the hull integrity of the old ship again.

  A moment passed. Then another. And the Argossy floated, but the gunboats stuck to protocol and did not fire on the disabled ship. “Koba,” said Jolo, “run down to Hurley and y’all get suited up and get out.” Koba jumped up and headed to engineering. “Greeley, let’s go greet our guests.” The big man handed him a rifle and the mag-boots and followed him to the docking bay in full battle gear. Both rifles were set to stun.

  Pretty soon they felt the Argossy shudder as the Fed gunboat locked onto the docking adapter and both ships linked together.

  The original Argossy docking bay wasn’t designed for modern Federation starships. So when Marco retrofitted the standard, round two-meter docking tube into the Argossy, he made a few improvements. The typical vestibule between ships could hold three men abreast, and that’s just how the Argossy looked from the outside, but the walkway quickly narrowed so that only one man could enter the inner air lock at a time.

  So when the Fed marine team came barreling into the main hold, guns hot, in their bright, shiny blue battle armor, they quickly realized that this wasn’t going to be the usual rock and shock takeover of a merchant ship way past its prime.

  Right before the marines burst through the air lock Jolo told Greeley to get into position. “You’re gonna do your thing again, aren’t you?” Greeley said, sour faced.

  “You jealous?” said Jolo.

  “Naw, it just ain’t natural is all.”

  “Sort a like your tiny brain?”

  Marco’s beautiful retrofitted air lock door started to glow orange near the top as the Feds, always anxious to use their gear, especially during peacetime when life was a blur of pinochle and training runs, had decided to burn their way in.

  “You know, I was gonna open the dang door,” said Jolo. He made sure the mag boots were strapped on tightly, then he shut them down and set them to lock on contact. He jumped straight up, turning in the air so his feet landed on the ceiling. He waved down at Greeley who was still shaking his head.

  A spray of tiny orange sparks flew into the vestibule, some bouncing off the deck a few times before going black. Soon they’d be through, so Greeley stepped back a few meters and waited. His job was to draw their fire while Jolo took them out. The Feds usually came in four man teams so Greeley had to wait until they all cleared before taking out the first one which meant he was gonna have to take a few shots for the team. This wasn’t the first time the Argossy had been boarded and Greeley hated being the designated target in Jolo’s little plan. So early on Jolo had taken him aside and confided a simple truth. “The rest of these guys are wussies. You’re the only one man enough to do this. And I’m the only one who can make it to the ceiling.” Greeley had to agree, the rest of the crew couldn’t do it. And from then on he reluctantly played his part, standing there like a green recruit who didn’t know better than to get the hell out of the way.

  The first marine burst through, handsome shiny blue battle gear and a Fed energy rifle, searching for a target. And there was Greeley ten meters back. He side stepped behind the doorway of the air lock showing just enough of himself to divert the lead man’s attent
ion. The rest barreled through and Jolo popped the fourth one as soon as his head came through the doorway. Now there were three.

  Greeley got hit twice before Jolo got the second marine. They weren’t expecting a half-synth hanging from the ceiling. He jumped down, a few centimeters from crushing one of the downed Feds under the heavy mag boots and took out the third. Greeley got the fourth.

  Jolo closed the door manually, locking everyone on the Argossy side of the vestibule. He checked on Greeley, who was sprawled out on the deck. “That shit hurts. Ain’t doin’ that no more,” the big man said. They had a special battle suit designed just for this occasion. It was heavy, the new Fed suits were light and nimble by comparison, but the big suit could take a ton of punishment before the power was gone.

  Jolo pulled the helmet off the closest Fed and put it on. He felt the sensors gently press down on his temples and the heads-up display showed Jolo’s vitals. “Marine 4, this is Command, why was your helmet off? Your heart rate is down and blood pressure is low. Report.”

  Jolo held up Koba’s comm scrambler near the helmet and responded. “We’ve got two down and two helmets off. Have a med team on standby. Comm is sketchy. Securing ship now. Two hostiles down.” Jolo motioned for Greeley to put on a helmet.

  “Roger that, Marine 4, I have Marine 2 back online, but no comms. Med team on the way. Be safe,” said the Persephony.

  Greeley and Jolo quickly stripped the two downed marines and put on their blue armor. The med bot took the two marines in their white tights down to the med bay. They’d wake up later strapped to a bed. The bot would check them out and give them a shot and they’d go back to sleep.

  Barthelme limped in, out of breath, then sat down next to one of the marines. “He okay?”

  “Bit of a headache,” said Jolo. “Did Hurley and Koba make it out?”

  “Yes.”

  “You ready?” said Jolo.