Junker Blues: Mars: Junker Blues series

by Lon E. Varnadore

  “Do you think you’ll be able to get away from us?” Grin asked, a finger touching his chin in a thoughtful pose. “I can easily get your tracking info.”

  “It can be masked,” Marcus said with a smile. Being so close to Grin made him gag, the cloying stink of peppermint caused the back of his throat to feel the burn of bile trying to claw its way up. “Been masking it for years.”

  “I can call for your mark to be used,” Grin said. “It will be horrific and painful.” The thought seemed to bring the Eridani some measure of pleasure.

  “You’ll have to go to the Tribunal.” Marcus said. He smirked. “Face it, Grin, you lost this round.”

  “I prefer my full name from a slave race,” Grin said. “It is Grin-Izo49.”

  “Sure, it is,” Marcus said, shaking his head. “Suck it up, Grin.” The sneer that the Eridani gave him made Marcus feel as though this was all going to work, and he started to relax.

  The deck shuddered for a moment as the engines started up finally. He still didn’t feel the ship moving. “Lash?” Marcus asked, hope rising in his chest.

  “I was able to start them up, but navigation is a different beast. We need some kind of help,” she said, sticking her head out from the cockpit.

  “Come out and watch this piece of peppermint filth while I take a look,” Marcus called out.

  Lash walked out, holding a thrower he assumed she grabbed from Harley’s stash. “Fine,” she said. She moved and took Marcus’ place, pressing her weapon to where Marcus held his. “If you—”

  Marcus took a breath as he moved away from Grin. “I know you think you were created with all of this knowledge,” Marcus said while walking towards the spacious cockpit, “But, I have actually been on an Eridani ship before. Even piloted one.”

  “How?” Lash asked, her voice easily heard through the open door. Marcus could see her still holding her weapon on the Eridani. “I thought you said you were just a slave.”

  Marcus shrugged. “I suppose it was me holding cards close to the vest. My old master took pity on me more than was normal. He taught me many of the things the Eridani refuse to show humans. I was fascinated at first,” Marcus said, turning to look at the console. He started to read the nav computer and stopped. It was all in the regulation script. He punched in a few commands. He knew that sometimes the Eridani pretended to have regulation script to throw off people, but this all worked.

  He stopped and blinked his eyes. “Hey, Lash, you said the computer was too—”

  There was the all-too-familiar whine of Lash’s pulse thrower powering up right behind him, and he felt the pressure of the thrower in his back. Her face was a blank mask.

  “What in the Slagging Hells! Lash, the freak’s right—”

  “Do not refer to my Patron by that name. His designation is...”

  Marcus felt his stomach dropped. “What?”

  “He is my patron, Marcus,” Lash said. “My protector. My Savior.” The last word came out as if she spoke in reverence of the Eridani.

  The cold reality of what she said struck him. He didn’t believe it at first. “No, you said—”

  “I said I was cast out by Eridani. Some of them. Grin-Izo49 was one of the few who saw my potential. He has helped and protected me since then.”

  “For how long?”

  Lash gave him a cruel smile. “Five years.”

  “Wait, you said... slag.” Things started falling into place. The reason she had used the stunner rounds on the Mars Ministry troops and then the mental nova. The reason she and Harley seemed to get along so well, so at ease with each other so soon after Grin’s “allowance” of them inside. Why she was easy to convince to come to Tharsis City after the debacle with Hazon. Why it was easy to convince her to do this suicidal thing.

  Slagging Hells. “This was all a trap?” His mind felt blank, and his body wanted to crumple into the deck plating.

  “I believe it is called ‘Playing the long game?’” Grin said. “You would say at least. I prefer the Japanese cultural saying, ‘I have the patience of a spider.’”

  Marcus felt something break inside of him. He looked at Lash, rage causing his blood to hammer in his ears. “I trusted you, Lash! Truly trusted you!”

  “See what happens when you trust someone?” Lash asked with a small grin on her face.

  Marcus balled up his fists, then he looked out the cockpit screen to see they were about to break atmo. Damn that was fast. Turning, his body lunged towards the pilot seat to brace himself as the ship rocked hard. He felt anger boiling inside of him. The pain of Lash’s betrayal stabbed deep.

  “Please turn around,” Lash said. “You’ll need to be placed in cryo. You will be going to see the Tribunal, as will Grin-Izo49. Both will need to be ready to petition for a transference of the slave mark.”

  Marcus let out a bark of laughter. It was a bitter and hated thing. “You, a Spider, are going to take me to the Tribunal?”

  “Yes,” she said. “You would do well not to resist.” She moved closer. Her eyeridge raised. “Still using the mind-worm?”

  For a second, he didn’t even realize he still had it going. He let out a small laugh. “You already lost.”

  “What do you mean?” Lash asked.

  “You sent me in here, you were Spidering me?”

  “Yes,” Lash said. “And?”

  Marcus laughed again. “You see what I punched into the computer?”

  “They looked like commands, but I’ve never seen—"

  Marcus’s hand slapped the console in front of him, but the ship’s nav system was already executing the three commands he had input moments ago. A countdown started, as he knew it would, and he started laughing louder. “You lose, Grin.”

  “What did you do?” Lash asked, her head snapping up to the countdown that started on the main displays, just as the countdown started to audibly pipe through the ship. The counting was first in the strange harsh language of the Eridani and then English. It started at two minutes, which was a strange number in the Eridani count.

  She pushed the thrower into Marcus’ head. “What did you—"

  Marcus turned around, looking bemused at the point of the barrel. An eerie calm coming over him. “I’m not going back.”

  “So, you are taking us into a jump without plotting a course?” Grin shouted from his position in the hatchway between the cockpit and the common area.

  “How did—” Lash started before she stopped.

  Marcus flapped his hand at the Eridani and the Ilas. “Told you. I was taught much about these systems. I knew a shortcut. It locks out users and initiates a short burst jump in two minutes. No way to stop it.” Marcus looked at them and smirked. “So, take your chances with the jump, or get off my ship. You have a minute-thirty… twenty to decide.”

  Lash looked at him, pleading. “Please, Marcus, you have to stop it.”

  Marcus crossed his arms. “Can’t. Auto sequence. Controls won’t come back until after the jump, a minute-five.”

  “When?” Grin shouted. “When did you do this?”

  Marcus pointed at Lash. “When I went to see to the cockpit when she was supposed to be looking after you, you grey freak,” Marcus said. “Fifty-five seconds.”

  “You didn’t know though,” Lash said, mouth agape.

  “No, but I always have an escape route set up. Forty.”

  “Stun him, Lash!” Grin screamed, “Then we can stop it! And I can find out why he survived the attack from the Crawl.”

  “No way to, Master,” Lash said. “He has us locked out.” She had tried to push a few buttons, and nothing responded, which made Marcus smile.

  “What was that about surviving?” Marcus asked, completely thrown by what Grin said.

  “Stop the countdown and I will,” Grin said.

  For a heart wrenching second, Marcus wanted to. He knew he could, without destroying the engines or potentially killing them all—he focused all his attention on the other question, not about the countdown
. But how do I know? The arm that had been bitten, he realized while glancing down for a second, it was scarred, but nothing more. that he hadn’t stopped to think how he had survived. Slag. Lash…How did—

  “Only if you turn off the countdown,” Lash said.

  Marcus smirked. It has to be a trick? That is the only thing that makes sense. As Lash and the Eridani pulled back towards the escape pods, Lash looked at him, her tendrils flaring for a moment.

  Bring it, Spider.

  “I am sorry, Marcus.”

  The words stunned Marcus, not sure what was going on. He recovered quickly. “I know,” Marcus said out loud, waiting for them to leave. “Twenty.”

  The moment he felt the shudder of the escape pod, Marcus lunged for the pilot seat and started to buckle on the belts. He had not expected to use the sequence and wasn’t sure where exactly it would take him. Somewhere in the Belt was all he knew. I hope. He was able to get three of the six-point harness belts connected when the first of the jump-drives kicked in.

  “Don’t die,” Lash’s voice filtered towards him, though it sounded far away and melancholy. “And Grin wasn’t lying, you survived the Crawl attack somehow.”

  The words made a surreal kind of sense. Was there a part of Lash that didn’t want this? Some part that had wanted to help him? Maybe it was why she bought what he said so easily and hadn’t tried to do anything to override the countdown. He had bluffed one thing: had they tried to shut down the power completely, it would have stopped the countdown. But that could have damaged the ship beyond repair. Marcus gave a mental shrug and then sent a mental grin.

  I’ll try not to, Spider. Stay out of my head. And by the way, the ship’s name is Junker Blues.

  Marcus closed his eyes as the jump window opened, and he felt the ship transition through the wormhole towards parts unknown.

  TO BE CONTINUED IN

  JUNKER BLUES: THE BELT

  Also by Lon E Varnadore

  Junker Blues: Phobos

  Find out how Marcus and Lash became partners.

  All I ask is for your email, I promise I won't spam you. Join up and find out when the next in series is coming…and yes it will be soon!

  About the Author

  Lon E Varnadore has been writing sci-fi for some time and is happy to start the Junker Blues series.