by J. F. Holmes
“Hey, I gotta take a shit. You gonna be okay for a few?” the tallest one said, cracking his neck side to side as he climbed out of the hub, careful not to hit his head.
“Could you bring me back something to drink, Skip?”
“Yup,” the man who was probably the captain said.
Dean hadn’t tried to squeeze himself behind a locker since he was a small boy, but somehow he got his bloated carcass into a space that would have sent a claustrophobe into a complete meltdown, and discovered one of the few dusty places on this ship. The UNES officer didn’t see him and walked out of the engineering room with haste. It took what felt like forever, but finally Dean wiggled back out of the nook in the wall and fell flat on the floor. Looking up, he realized, to his eternal horror, that he was staring directly at the pilot’s feet.
“Hey, hand me a 3cm ratchet head before you go,” the pilot said, throwing his arm back. “C’mon, my neck is cramping like this.” Thinking quickly, Dean reached into the tool box and found the head in the appropriate place. Kelvin would never have left anything this organized. What a marvel these people were. “Thanks,” the pilot said, getting back to work without knowing anything was different about the world around him.
Being sure to make a little bit of noise on his way out, as the Charybdis’ skipper hadn’t, so the pilot wouldn’t expect someone to hand him anything else, Dean made a run for it. Taking this as a sign to stop playing with his freedom and get to work, he made a quick job of pilfering the supply room. There were a lot of things he’d like to have taken, but it had to fit in a backpack. Once he had everything he thought he needed to take back to Roadrunner, he made the sign of the cross over his chest and started toward the hatch. A shadow startled him, and again he hid just inches from the much larger skipper as he made his way back to the engineering room with a couple sodas and a bag of chips in hand. Feeling his luck wasn’t going to hold much longer, Dean made a beeline for the hatch, nearly slipping on the deck in his dusty socks.
Chapter 4
Slumping down against the bulkhead, Dean took a deep breath and tried to collect himself. At some point, the UNES cop had tried to overcome Kelvin, taking a bullet in the head for his troubles. In the struggle, his friend’s bandages must have come undone and he’d finished bleeding out. Before he’d gone, though, he’d dug the keys to his personal safe out from his belt’s thumb-print-encoded buckle/hidden compartment. They’d discussed this very event; perhaps not quite this scenario, but in case of Kelvin’s death, Dean was to take the contents of his safe and not open them until he was long gone from wherever it had happened. If he was going to be caught, there was something inside to bribe his way out of it, Kelvin had promised, or at least down to a lesser charge. He imagined it was bearer bonds or blackmail evidence on local officials, but the reality would surprise him.
“Why’d you have to go and do this,” Dean sighed, holding back how incredibly upset he was. Deter Kelvin had been his best friend for the better part of a decade. He’d found Dean drinking the last of his final paycheck in a dive bar on Xerxes II, paid his tab for him, and the rest was history. Deter was older, maybe by as much as ten years; salt and pepper had taken over his temples where dishwater blonde had been, but he was still a handsome man. Wynona had adopted the jovial wanderer as quickly as she’d latched onto to Dean when they’d first met, possibly easing their new friend’s mind as to whether or not Dean was an undercover cop. It hadn’t been six weeks after they’d met that the three of them had decided to buy the Roadrunner together, knowing full well not all their cargos would be legit. Since then, Kelvin, as he preferred to be called, had catapulted Dean and Wynona from the bottom of middle class, bordering on destitute, to never having to worry about money again, if they were careful. For that they were already eternally grateful; alas there was little he could do to help his friend now, or even memorialize him. The lawless sometimes didn’t get a Christian burial, or even a marked grave.
Steeling himself, he took the key from Kelvin’s already cold fingers and stepped on the UNES officer’s body for good measure on his way back out. With every step his temper soared, remembering one insult after another committed by the almighty United Nations against anyone who wasn’t born on their precious damned Earth. Sticking it to the man by making money they couldn’t tax was one thing – hell that was just for fun – but sticking it them all really good by taking one of their shiny patrol ships would be a good first step toward making up for taking Kelvin from him too early.
Grabbing a few pictures Kelvin had above his bunk, Dean stuffed them in his pockets and left the room, after he’d emptied the safe into a hardened container that could survive open space. He thought about using the stun-grenades stored in Kelvin’s gun locker, but time was precious, and dragging two full-grown men off their own ship would take too long. Dean didn’t bother sneaking aboard Charybdis, it was about time for Officer Mike to be coming back, so when he strode into the engineering room and pressed his gun against the pilot’s head, he didn’t meet any resistance. Both of the UNES crewmen were still working on the thruster, though it looked like they were just finishing.
“Where did you come from?” the skipper stammered out.
“What do you mean, where? I’ve always been here, Chuck.” He said, knowing using the captain’s first name would freak him out. It was printed on every document on the ship, and on the manifest, and on the registry, so why wouldn’t he know?
“Where’s Lieutenant Dunsford?”
“He’s dead, and unless you want to be, too, I’d start walking.”
“We’re in space. Where the hell do you think we’re going to go?” the pilot said, getting snarky.
“Shut up, John. I’ll kill you first, I swear.” Dean put a round into the tool box to make a point. Even a suppressed pistol made quite a bit of noise in a contained and pressurized room like this. “The hatch to my ship. Move.”
“You should know the United Nations does not negotiate with terrorists,” the captain said, putting his hands up and gesturing for his pilot to do the same.
“Obviously you didn’t major in history.” Dean made sure to stay out of arm’s reach while they made their trek to the hatchway. “Look, I know this is a long shot, but if you were me, you’d do the same thing. I don’t expect you to agree or even understand.”
“Murdering unarmed men isn’t something I’d do in any lifetime.” The captain turned around and stopped walking just before the hatch.
Dean rolled his eyes. “I didn’t kill your man, my copilot did, while I was stealing shit off your boat.” He pointed the gun at John. “You first. There’s power and life support. You can probably figure out how to send an SOS once you get to the bridge.”
“You won’t get five kilometers from here before Command sends a signal to disable this ship. Just put the gun down and surrender now,” the captain boasted.
Taking a moment to think it over, Dean shrugged. “Won’t know till I try. Now get in the hatch, walk into my old ship, and close the hatch again, unless you can breathe in space, of course, then I’ll happily blow out the airlock.”
The skipper and his pilot walked slowly backward until they were at Roadrunner’s hatch. With great hesitation, they stepped inside and sealed it tight. Dean slapped the emergency release button and severed the umbilical between the two ships. Racing to the bridge, he found the grossly standardized controls child’s play and disabled any incoming transmissions. Plotting a jump to a sector UN forces largely ignored, he spooled Charybdis’ FTL and started thrusting away from his old ship, and indeed, a large part of his old life. Taking a moment to look out the window, he admired with a chill the damage the old Zephyr had taken, and mostly how she’d kept him alive despite it. Her hull was wrinkled like a discarded soda can, exposed pieces of the frame bled fuel and atmo, and ultimately, the ship’s frame was bent by at least three degrees. She would never have jumped again. He’d probably have to dump this ship, too, after only one or two jumps. It was impossi
ble to keep it, and certainly the Fleet would be looking for their precious little tub, lest they lose face in front of the colonies.
Unlike the distorted visuals and general feeling of motion sickness caused by older jump drives, this one was so smooth, at first Dean wasn’t certain he’d actually made the leap through a fold in space-time. Dipping the ship’s nose down, however, exposed the roiling maelstrom of Gas Giant 835872S; Kelvin had called it Big Bertha. The gravitational forces exerted on most ships by the massive celestial body, and the strain of navigating through warped space-time was so great and unpredictable that only the most determined, or extremely lost, ventured here. Kelvin had shown Dean this particular nook in the broken mass of a crumbling moon that would, in thousands of years, fall into GG-835872S’s pink, purple, and green storms. For now, though, the rotation of this halved moon made the centrifugal forces at its core nearly Earth-norm. A ship could land there, and the crew could get out and perform repairs from the safety of a cave the size of New York City, with complete concealment from scanning warships or lurking scientific satellites left in orbit.
Now it seemed…lonely. He could almost hear the winds and see the tumbleweeds outside. Dean had set Charybdis down with the gentlest touch, shut off all but the life support…and lost his ever-loving shit. Men aren’t supposed to cry, sure, but that was only when someone might see them. Throwing a tantrum that would make an insolent child at the supermarket flee in terror, he broke anything not bolted down. Finally he sank into the pilot’s chair with a bottle of sports drink, as the damned UNES ships didn’t carry liquor. He’d also forgotten his stash of cannabis edibles on Roadrunner, though honestly the last thing he wanted to do was feel good about himself or his situation right now. Returning to the hatch after having himself a good little fit, Dean sat on the walkway just outside and opened the contents of Kelvin’s safe.
The first thing that fell out was a vacuum-sealed bag of reefer with a note attached to it. He read it aloud, “Dear Dean, If you’re reading this, I’m dead, and you could probably use a chill-pill.” Dean smiled, knowing how true that was. “Also, if you’re reading this it means somehow you got away. I doubt I helped with that, so accept the rest of the contents as compensation…
“PS. I saw your wife taking a shower once and didn’t look away. I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not. You married yourself a bombshell, buddy.
“PSS.” Dean said with some sarcasm, rolling himself a joint. “I haven’t been entirely honest with you (Well no shit). You’re a good guy, so I won’t spoil your memory of me by giving you the gritty details of my past, just a go your own way and don’t look back, you guys gave me the best years of my life. You were real friends, and the only people I ever considered family.” Dean tried not to cry again, but he failed. “PSSS.” A sticky-note came off the back of the first one. “I didn’t leave a lighter in the safe.”
He looked down at the bag. “You son of a bitch.” He sighed. Still, there were more surprises in the safe, and more notes. Dean used the laser-welder the crew had left in the engine room and lit his joint, then came back to the safe and sat down again like a child inspecting a stuffed stocking on Christmas morning.
Tucked into a small manila envelope was another key. It opened a safety deposit box at a bank that wasn’t afraid of the UN, and a receipt for no less than a million UN credits worth of platinum, silver, and gold ingots. A final gift, with a final note that made it clear there had been a lot more to Deter Kelvin than met the eye, was again sticky-noted to the manila envelope.
“Get these to the right people,” the note said, as Dean read it with curiosity. In a dirty plastic bag with a broken zipper at the far corner of the mini-safe was what looked like seeds. Dean was no farmer, he’d never even grown flowers before, but he knew what he was holding just because of who had given them to him. That newspaper clippings and micro-printed pages detailing the criminal career of one Robert Lignal were used as stuffing for the envelope the seeds were in also wasn’t lost on Dean.
It dawned on him then, as he held the photo of Robert/Deter’s first mugshot after robbing an ATM at age 15, that the contents of this dusty little bag were worth more to all of mankind than any hoard of shiny in all the myths from all the worlds. The criminal career, the stunning amount of loot, the ties to organized terrorist cells and notorious mobsters, Kelvin had been one of the most prolific pirates in history. He’d murdered innocent people for money, cost tax payers millions, and sold the security of an empire to the highest bidder. Yet he’d also given those who sought to free themselves from the shackles of their masters the means to do so.
Screw worrying about being traced, Dean thought, dropping the key to his new-found wealth into his pocket to race toward the bridge. As soon as he handed these seeds over to Wynona’s friends in the Free Farm movement, the loss and recovery of one little boat would be the least of the United Nations’ problems, as colonies all across known space and beyond would finally be food independent, and then maybe, truly free. All because of an outlaw and the handful of heirloom seeds he’d snatched once upon a time…
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J.K. Robinson lives in the Northern Ozarks and is a huge fan of the works of Robert A. Heinlein and JJ Abram's rebooted "Star Trek.". He served in the US Army as a Military Policeman and is an Iraq War veteran. He also draws two comic strips about his time in the Army and a loving parody of Star Trek.
The Big Picture
by J.F. Holmes
Chapter 1
Britt O’Neil was bored, and a bored Britt O’Neal was a dangerous thing. She’d just sat down to try another hack at the UN Community Services database, when an actual UNCS Citizen walked in through their office as if the lock wasn’t there. Sky-blue uniform with the globe and stars and everything, the light colors contrasting with his dark skin. For a fleeting second she thought her hack had been detected, and her hand reached for the pistol hidden under the desk.
The citizen held up his hand and made a calming gesture. “Miss O’Neil,” he said, “if I wanted you dead for your futile hacking attempts, not that I care, there would have been a Community Services Tac Unit coming through that door. Instead, I have a job for your team. Is Captain Agostine in?”
“You know he is, or you wouldn’t be here, scumbag,” said the redhead. Her blue eye flashed with anger, while the sensors beneath her eyepatch scanned for weapons. She blinked and shut it down; it wouldn’t matter if he was armed, there was no way any good could come of a shootout on station.
The man smiled, showing perfect, white teeth that she wanted to punch, and said, “Touché, Miss O’Neil. Please let him know that I would like to talk to him.”
Brit cursed that she’d been on the desk roster when the UNCS showed up. The spooks made her skin crawl, and she thought back to an interrogation and beating she’d suffered at their hands last year, after that bad op on Simons’ World.
Maybe I could get a tracer on this guy, follow him back to his quarters, and make him have a little accident. No, she thought, Nick would kill me, and I’d get found out somehow. #stop#
“I’ll talk to him, Brit,” said Agostine, stepping out from the back office. “Put out a recall. Ahmed, Red, and Doc are out shooting on the range ship. Jones and Ziv are doing a pub crawl down on Deck Eleven. I need everyone back here in two hours. And sober.”
“Got it,” she said, shooting a dirty look at the UNCS citizen as he walked past. He smiled at her again, and she gave him the finger before activating her comm.
“All team, RTB by,” and she glanced at the display on her screen, “seventeen hundred station time. We’ve got work.” She didn’t wait for acknowledgements, just flipped her screen over to the station management interface and punched in an Uber order for a fast packet.
***
“So what’s the job?” asked Agostine. His artificial leg was bothering him; maybe after this mission, they’d finally have enough credits to get it regrown. Not like the Veterans Administration would pay for it. Prost
hetics were good enough for the average joe; regrowth was for the wealthy one percent.
Citizen Harver paused, took out a small device, and activated it. Agostine’s computer screen flickered and died, and he felt his leg seize up. Goddamned EMP. He heard Brit curse loudly from the reception area.
“Sorry about that. Can’t take a chance of any recordings. Nothing permanent, all the electronics will reboot in fifteen minutes. Even your leg.”
Neither man paid any attention to the ancient Colt 1911 pistol that sat, hammer cocked back, on Agostine’s desk. The mercenary suspected the citizen was boosted, and could probably get to it long before he moved. The UN had all the money for that stuff.
“So, again, what’s the job?” Agostine asked patiently.
The man leaned forward and placed his elbows on the desk, looking at Agostine, and said nothing for a minute, as if judging him. Then he spoke. “The Free Farm movement has gotten their hands on a package of non-sterile seeds. They’re currently growing them in a secret facility on Dyson. I need your team to take it out.”
“Do it yourself,” said Agostine.
“Can’t. Things on Dyson are, well, a bit tricky right now. It was settled mostly with Native American refugees after the cyberwar, and they are, well, not very happy with UN rule.”