Junker Blues: Mars: Junker Blues series

by Lon E. Varnadore

  After a heartbeat, the Eridani flopped his head towards his bodyguard. He took in a rasping breath and let it out in a rattling wheeze. “Harley, we are friends here. Put your weapon away. Please, enter our humble abode,” he said with a weak smile that Marcus knew was part of the Eridani ploy to appear weak. Physically weak, the chair, the bodyguard, and whatever other goodies the Eridani had at his disposal, Marcus was not dissuaded by the show of false weakness.

  Harley moved aside with a begrudging sneer stamped on her face, letting Marcus and Lash move inside. She also picked up the probe before Lash could retrieve it. She flicked the barrel of the laz-pistol to one side, to make sure they both kept moving, and gave them a look daring them to try something, anything. Marcus licked his suddenly dry lips, knowing what Harley was thinking too well. He’d done the same thing for Hy-Zong80 as well.

  Marcus wasn’t sure if Lash could take Harley or not, especially as injured as she was. And there was no way Marcus could take either of them at the moment. As if on cue, Lash crumpled to her knees and then pitched forward. The Eridani looked down at Lash’s prone form, smiling as he looked back at Marcus. It was a cold and predatory smile. “Oh, it looks like your little toy soldier isn’t faring so well.” There was that same cold, mocking bark of a laugh.

  “She’s tougher than she looks,” Marcus said, going to Lash’s side. He watched Harley’s hand slide to the holster, but she didn’t draw it as Marcus went to Lash’s side, helping her stand.

  “The Experimentals were always more durable than they seemed. A pity we had to kill so many of them,” the Eridani said with mocking frown. He looked down at Lash again. “Harley, be a love and take her to the medical unit. I am sure that the slave-boy won’t do anything… untoward with you indisposed helping his companion. Will he?” The Eridani looked at Marcus. “Am I right?” The Eridani asked with a raised eyebrow ridge.

  Marcus shook, his hands grinding his already-tattered suit gloves into a useless carbon filament. “I’ll try and stay civil,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Harley looked at her master for some kind of confirmation. He nodded. “He won’t do anything. Take care of his friend.”

  Marcus glared at Harley as she picked up Lash without strain or effort and fireman-carried her towards a door hatch that broke off to the left of the entrance and main habitable area of the bunker.

  Marcus looked around; it was one of the nicer bunkers of the pre-Crawl sanctuaries. It had several hatches that led to different sections. There were two large sections that he knew would be the main habitable units. Lights shone down from a uniform, sky-blue ceiling, the furniture looked old but serviceable. The size of the bunker made Marcus believe it was a smaller station that held maybe ten people maximum. The smell of the place had a slight tinge of age, a whiff that was overpowered by the stink of the Eridani peppermint musk.

  The sanctuaries were used for the first living quarters on Mars by the pre-Crawl society while building the first cities. He would have preferred to have lived then, not having to deal with the Eridani or their yoke of slavery. When it was a united system, not desperate colonies struggling to survive with Earth a cesspool of Crawl goo that had cannibalized itself to send out drones to spread its plague.

  “A penny for your thoughts?” The Eridani asked, a strained smile on his lips.

  Marcus turned and looked at the Eridani. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “A penny for your thoughts?”

  There was a long pause. What the Hells, let’s play. “I hate you and wish your entire species would jump into the Void,” Marcus said with a hard grin.

  There was a small, amused smile on the Eridani’s face. “Interesting. Hy-Zong didn’t break you in very well, did he?”

  Marcus grimaced. “He tried. I escaped before he finished.” Marcus didn’t see the need to lie. There was no need to. Though there was a point in Hy-Zong78— 80’s training where Marcus felt for sure that he’d break. When Lisa had thrown her ring in his face when he had offered her a way to leave the Saved.

  “Leave?” She had asked with a shake of her head, like speaking to a small child. “Why would I want that, Marcus? They saved us. We are the next chosen people. And you want to leave?”

  At that moment, mere months before he left, he came very, very close to breaking and succumbing completely to the greater needs of the Eridani. To stay with her and stay safe and comfortable.

  Instead, he left.

  “He did try,” Marcus said again, shaking his head from the memory.

  The Eridani’s eyes went a bit wide. “Oh, a wolfling I see.”

  Marcus growled knowing what the word meant. “Yeah, wolfling! The original designation you gave Earthlings during the Crawl War.” Marcus liked the name. It was what the Eridani used for Earthlings other than the Saved. It was a reference to Earth having no help in reaching a level of technology to reach the stars. The Eridani had themselves been helped by a species that had long ago disappeared from the galaxy, the Eridani benefactors had fostered many such intelligences to such a position. Humans did it for themselves. Wolflings.

  The Eridani’s smile vanished. “Yes, and one species we have never fully trusted. Tell me, little wolfling, what is keeping me from transferring your mark? Make you my own to control? To teach you the proper decorum and manners towards a member of the Saviors?” As he spoke, the Eridani moved closer and closer, the stink of his peppermint musk growing cloying, his eyes narrowing. “What is to keep Grin-Izo49 from making you a puppet and your little toy-soldier friend a trophy?”

  With a smug smile, Marcus felt his back straighten and held Grin-izo49’s eyes. “You need his permission. It will be kind of hard, since he is on Epsilon Eridani being re-spawned.”

  Grin-Izo49’s lips twitched, and there was a superficial flinching movement of the head. “How did you know?” He asked, though the rest of his body palsied in its usual way.

  “When you said he was on incarnate 80, I knew. He was to respawn when I escaped. If he died after my escape, you lot need permission to get a clone after 79. Only way for that to happen is for his consciousness to plead his case before the Tribunal on Epsilon Eridani in an android body,” Marcus said, spreading his hands and shrugging. “Am I close?”

  Grin-Izo49 tsked sullenly. “You give me less and less reason to keep you alive,” he said. His fingers shook on the controls. The turret at the top of his chair flicked towards Marcus. “My reputation could take a hit—as you monkeys say—for killing the property of Hy-Zong. On the other hand, for a feral wolfling like yourself, I might even get a small reward.” The smile on his face was small, but it was real this time.

  That smile worried Marcus. Swallowing hard, he tried to think of a rebuttal. “But you won’t, or you wouldn’t have let me inside in the first place. You need something from me, don’t you?” Marcus asked, trying for a long shot.

  “No, I do not,” Grin-Izo49 said, his eyes sliding away from Marcus for a second.

  It was only a second, but Marcus caught it. Gotcha, Grin…“Yes, you do,” Marcus said with a smirk. “Something that you can’t do. Something you as a species can’t do anymore.”

  There was a momentary pause from the Grin. The turret deactivated, and Marcus let out a sigh as the chair settled closer to the ground. “You know,” Grin mused while pushing himself up a little on the chair with the help of a few machines, “The phrase ‘humans are such an enigma’ is apt at times.”

  “How so?” Marcus asked, genuinely puzzled by the remark.

  Grin took a deep, chest-rattling breath of the recycled air. “You somehow bumble your way into space. You fight each other with such crass tribalism even to this day. You have aspirations to the stars, yet you still squabble over which imaginary being helped to ‘create’ you. And yet you are all capable of so much more.”

  “Then your species came along and took advantage of that bit about who ‘created’ us, didn’t you?”

  There was a small, palsied smile from Grin. “True. There w
as some of that. Not as if your species was making any headway, not in any real way.”

  Marcus felt his stomach drop out. He admitted to it? This is not good. Marcus schooled his face as best he could. In for a penny… “So, why do it? Why come to Sol at all if we aren’t worth it?”

  There was a rasping chuckle that devolved into a small coughing fit. “Oh, you are most assuredly worth it. You are a strong stock for slaves and for other things,” he said, his eyes flicking towards the medical bay where Lash was still being tended to by Harley. “Your DNA is simple and can be useful for our own needs.”

  “So?” Marcus asked when it sounded like Grin wasn’t going to continue the thought. His words chilled Marcus.

  “Your species and mine had a mutual problem, and the Council saw it as opportunity to take the reins of a wolfling race and give it a… ‘course correction’ is how you humans would say it, I suppose.” Grin gave Marcus a cold, predatory smile. “Problem?”

  Marcus felt his blood chill in his veins. Why is he telling me all this? He had looked away from the Eridani, but when he looked back at Grin, he saw the smile there. It was hard and much darker before.

  Marcus then remembered what Lash and he had seen outside before they had gained entrance. “You do need us for something, Grin?” Marcus asked.

  The Eridani was silent for a moment, frowning at his name and line being mocked. “Oh, please do tell…”

  “You need Lash and I for bait. The Crawl are close by. You and Harley aren’t enough to get out of here once the sandstorm is over. You need something to sacrifice?”

  His grin broadened. “You got it in one, human. Very astute. I am almost sorry to see you destroyed.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  He needed to know Lash was better. She was his only ally here. While he moved a little closer to the medical bay, the turret on Grin-Izo49’s chair tracked his movement again. Marcus looked at Grin-Izo49 and raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Force of habit,” the Eridani said with a shrug of palsied shoulders. He then settled back and moved his chair backwards a little more, the turret disengaging from tracing Marcus— but still hovered close to where he was, just in case, Marcus was sure. “I am sure your companion is—”

  There was a sudden bang against the bunker wall, reverberating through the multilayered composite structure. Marcus and Grin-Izo49 turned to look at the monitors. Images flittered on across the monitors, forming a composite image of the outside from the multiple small cameras that the pre-Crawl residents had placed for security. Marcus gulped. The decrepit ship he’d seen before they reached the bunker had landed within five hundred meters of the bunker, without grace. The noise was from the crash of the ship, shuddering through the planet. Being as close as they were, Marcus could understand why the noise was so loud, even inside the bunker. Then, he saw movement, and he felt his blood turn to ice.

  Dozens of Crawl drones moved out of the ship, creeping along in a stance already bracing from the sandstorm they shambled into. Some were swept away by the sandstorm as they left the derelict hulk of their crashed ship. More made their way towards the bunker. The monitors switched, showing three had reached the airlock already. Each one was ravaged by the sands with bits of bleached bone showing where the sand had scoured away the tough, waxy layers of Crawl and even the odd grey-purple flesh of the drones. All of them looked even more macabre and horrific than the holodramas that used them as some background piece or as some force of perverse “Natural” antagonist.

  And they were banging on the giant doors and walls.

  Lash didn’t stagger out of the medical bay—which was good, though she did limp a little. The limp didn’t fill Marcus with confidence. She moved better than before, still looking shaken from the fact an Eridani was here. Or it could be the fact that Crawl was clawing and prying at the airlock door, getting closer and closer to them. She moved closer to Marcus, tapping at her temple with her spindly forefinger.

  He groaned internally. It was a signal to him to get permission to speak in his head. He hated to acknowledge but had to in this circumstance. He did with a curt head nod. “Yeah, Lash, what’s up?” Marcus asked in his head.

  Lash sent, “I don’t like this. The Eridani—”

  “Can’t be trusted I know, but we have to deal with them. They can’t go anywhere without our help.”

  “Help? How? I don’t like this, Marcus.”

  Marcus nodded in agreement. He didn’t like the fact the an Eridani was out here all by himself with a single bodyguard around. He knew that Harley was packing some heavy weapon modification and prosthetics that could do some nasty damage to him and Lash without Harley breaking a sweat. He’d seen others taken in by the Eridani go through their body modification, a “present” for being amongst the most loyal of the Saved. It sickened him, more because he knew what Harley had been spoon fed, since he’d swallowed a ton of the shite himself.

  Harley stepped out, and Lash gave her a cool nod before looking back at Marcus. Marcus saw a small smile twitch on Harley’s face when she looked from Lash to Marcus.

  “You two have girl time in there?” Marcus sent to Lash.

  “Not the time,” Lash snapped back.

  “Well, that shouldn’t have been unexpected,” Marcus muttered. Lash gave him a glare, as did Harley.

  A half a heartbeat later, the alarms of the sanctuary blared to life. “Looks like you have a few more guests, Grin,” Marcus said with a smile towards the small alien in his chair.

  The Eridani’s large eyes swung towards Marcus, his mouth quirked into a frown. “Yes. I assume you shall help?”

  Marcus gave the Eridani a bigger smile. “Of course, we will help, won’t we, Lashiel?”

  Lash looked from Marcus to the Eridani and back. “Yes,” she said after a longer pause than Marcus thought necessary, nodding her large, bulbous head slowly. “We will,” she said, dragging the words out.

  The Eridani quirked an eyebrow ridge, but said nothing. He turned back to watch the monitors, studying them for several heartbeats. “This makes no sense. Why do this? The storm is at its peak. Why are they are even more suicidal that usual?” Grin-Izo49 puzzled at what he witnessed. “The sensors of this place are pathetic and—”

  “Master, the wolfling is right,” Harley said, rushing to the controls, tapping in a series of commands. The commands dulled the sound of the klaxon, but the lights still throbbed while the klaxons still made enough background noise for Marcus to wince more than once.

  “What?” Grin-Izo49 asked his bodyguard.

  “Crawl, Master. There are Crawl outside, and we need to leave,” Harley said, looking at Grin-Izo49 as if he were suffering from dementia.

  “Could have told you they were coming,” Lash said with a soft chuckle that caused her to wince and lean against the wall of the structure. “No one asked.”

  “We still have a deal, right, Grin?” Marcus asked then clenched his jaw, looking at the Eridani.

  “Does it matter, wolfling?” Grin asked, his already-palsied hands shook more than a typical quake. “They are here. You are going to agree to my terms, or do I leave you here?”

  Marcus looked at the Eridani. He saw the frail shell of the alien, body shaking in the tech-cocoon of his hover chair, his head quaking from random shakes of his frail body. They always look so frail.

  “You can’t seriously be considering the offer?” Lash hissed in Marcus’ head.

  Out of my head, Spider. If we can get out of here alive, I am considering it, he sent without looking at her.

  “You know what they will do,” She said.

  Marcus felt her pain and fear mixed with his own. That moment, he’d let her get close and mix with his thoughts, which spiked right then from the connection forged from living together and from her getting into his head earlier. Get out of my head. Now. Slaggin’ Hells, woman.

  When she did, the pained look on her face as she backed away bore into Marcus. The pain in her face had nothing to do with her p
hysical pain.

  Marcus turned to Grin-Izo49. “We either agree to your terms, or we die here. Is that what you are forcing us to choose?”

  Grin-Izo49 gave Marcus another smile, bigger than before. Maybe that is why he calls himself “Grin?”

  The alien continued to grin at Marcus for a moment. “I could take you along, without taking your slave mark and simply be ‘rescuing’ you. Use that as fodder for the useless masses. ‘One of the ex-Saved had to come to a Savior for help.’ I can tell that isn’t going to work well enough. I need to make some kind of profit for this little deal. I get your slave mark, you get rescued. Only way. Or I leave you as I stated earlier.”

  Marcus shook his head. He knew that the threat to leave them here for the Crawl was to knock Marcus off balance. “You’re coming at me the wrong way. See—”

  Grin flicked his wrist in a dismissive gesture. “Spare me your feeble attempt to dissuade or bamboozle me with your infantile logic,” Grin said. “My terms. Or you die and become part of them,” he said while pointing to the screens. Marcus watched as more Crawl drones shambled closer to the entrance, joining those pounding on the door. All of it adding to their slow dissolving of the first airlock door and to the noise that was starting to get louder than the klaxons. The rhythmic bang… bang… bang on the airlock door and the bunker itself.

  Marcus sighed and turned towards Lash. She had heard enough. She gave a weak nod, knowing they were doomed. He glimpsed out the corner of his eye that Lash’s tendril was glowing.

  “Fine,” Marcus said, “We agree to your terms. Let’s go—”

  “Mark first,” Grin said. He gestured, and Harley, who had crept closer without Marcus noticing, grabbed Marcus by the wrist. She slapped a cuff on that constricted around his flesh. He let out a grunt of pain, but the pain disappeared, as did the background pain of his thumb and slave mark. Well, that is one good thing. He knew it was a dampener and locator, yet he’d beaten them before. He would beat this one.

  Lash turned away, her tendrils still glowing. He knew that she was sensing the Eridani or Harley… or both. She was trying to measure them somehow. He knew that neither of them would be easy to read. Both had training, and the Eridani had a brain that was truly alien. Plus, Marcus knew that the Eridani made it so the “Experimentals” were unable to read their Eridani creators’ mind completely.