“Yes.” Jessie said. “I’ve fired them.”
“With those?” the man looked closer at the crudely painted blaster with the hand carved grips.
“Those are Federation Blasters, Mark Sevens issued to battleship captains! They’ve been badly butchered but still… you say they work?”
“Yeah.” Jessie said, annoyed. He’d spent a lot of hours carving the grips and doing everything he could to reduce the size of the gun. He thought he’d done a pretty good job.
The man motioned Jessie behind the table and held open the cloth door to his tent.
“Come inside.” He said and cast glances in both directions. “I may have something you’ll be interested in.”
From the next booth, Maddy watched them slip behind the flaps and listened. A dark man cloaked in shadows, even when the light shone directly on him, claimed he had the information she was seeking. It wasn’t on any maps, if anyone was ever stupid enough to list the location that person would be paid a visit then meet a slow and painful death.
“I wouldn’t go unless you have been invited.” He warned.
“How do I get an invitation?” she asked.
“You can’t.”
She paid for the information the shaded man gave her and moved to the next booth, a little closer to the gun salesman. She’d been drawn to a necklace with a carving of a cat-like creature but she didn’t know why. Something in her thought it was pretty. She tried to push the foreign idea out of her head but it wouldn’t go. It was just a cheap piece of ore with a carved figure. It was ridiculous. She still thought it was pretty.
“Top of the line.” The man said and displayed a pair of sleek blasters. “Military issue from the Janos system and they use universal reloads, easy to get and plentiful. Very high quality. They’ve been decrypted, anyone can fire them.”
“And you want to trade for these badly butchered, out dated antiques?” Jessie asked. He read the man’s nervousness, the accelerated heartbeat and the way his eyes seemed to dart in three different directions.
“Yes, I know I’ll be losing credits, call me a sentimental. I like old, useless things.”
“No.” Jessie said. “I’m kind of attached to these. I think I’ll keep them.”
“I think I must insist.” The man said and stamped his foot twice.
“And I must refuse.” Jessie said and stomped his foot, thinking it was a local custom.
Jessie followed the man’s furtive glance to the curtains separating the rest of the tent as he stamped his foot again.
The fabric parted and another three eyed man came out holding his hands up, one with a blaster dangling from the trigger guard. Maddy was right behind him with the biggest hand cannon Jessie had ever seen pointed to the back of his head. It was crazy big, like something out of cartoon but it looked deadly, its cold steel gleamed dully and a set of blue neon lights lit it up in a garish manner. Jessie clicked the cartridge into his blaster and aimed at the man’s face.
“You were going to rob me?”
“No trouble! No trouble!” the man gushed, started bobbing his head and raised his hands. “I wasn’t going to steal from you, just maybe try to make you trade. No trouble!”
The man with the gun seemed to tell a different story.
“Why do you want them so badly?” Jessie asked. “You basically said they were junk.”
“Very old. Very valuable.” The man said and continued to bob his head. “And very powerful.”
“No trouble?” he asked hopefully. “I can tell you where to get fresh cartridges. No trouble?”
Jessie lowered his gun then holstered it. Maddy’s gun made his look like a toy.
“Okay. No trouble. Where?”
He told them, rattled off some coordinates and strange sounding names and Jessie committed them to memory.
They both turned to Maddy who still held the oversized gun to the other man’s head, her finger still on the trigger.
“How much for these?” she asked and held out a pair of rejuvenation bracelets. She pushed the gun harder against the man’s head.
The man’s split tongue darted out, licked his lips again as he considered how much he could demand for the stolen contraband. They were useless even if they could be reprogrammed for a new user. If they were activated anywhere other than inside a dedicated facility, the user would be obliterated. No one had been able to recreate a safe box and after a few messy failures, no one else was trying. Jessie face hardened as he let his hands slide down to rest on his guns.
“No charge.” He said quickly. “No trouble. No charge.”
“Cool.” Jessie said brightly. “Thanks.”
Maddy strode through the curtains to the busy pathway first as Jessie backed out, keeping an eye on them if they decided to get brave. If they thought a pair of antique blasters or stolen bracelets were worth fighting for.
They didn’t and he hurried to catch up.
“Where did you get that gun?” he asked. “And where did you hide it?”
“It wasn’t real.” She said and wiggled her fingers. “The collector should have an answer by now, let’s see if he has a buyer for the coins.
25
Double Cross
The Collector hurried the two reptilians out of the alley when they tapped on his back door. A decade ago he’d set the brothers up with new identities as a favor to wipe some debts he’d made with the wrong people. With his slate cleared and everyone on friendly terms again he’d hired the pair over the years for various strong-arm jobs. They had done well; they weren’t the usual dim-witted toughs he hired for dirty work, and they had the backing of the Consortium to help if it was needed. Together they had made a lot of credits for themselves with low-risk robberies and occasional kidnappings, paid the Consortium their small cut of the ill-gained credits and everyone was happy.
“She’s very, very dangerous.” He said and wouldn’t elaborate exactly how. “Watch them from here, I need you to get a good look at her, then follow them to their ship. You need to destroy it when they are in deep space, cloak her with electrostatic polymers and house her in a titanium box charged with negative polarity.”
“We don’t have that kind of equipment.” Prashad said in his vaguely snakelike voice. “What you’re asking will be pricey and will take days to assemble. It will also kill her, as I’m sure you know, so I don’t know why you want the box. Why the precautions? Who is she? What is she carrying that is so valuable?”
“No questions.” Chala hissed. “Do you want the job or not?”
“Depends on what it pays.” Drashad said. “Percentage or flat fee?”
“Flat fee.” Chala said. “Twenty thousand credits plus expenses.”
Both of their eyes shimmered a different hue of brown for a moment, an expression of surprise.
“What if they don’t wander from the shipping lanes? We’ll get spotted shooting up their ship. We’ll have to change our transponders again.” Prashad said. “That will cost extra.”
“Fine.” Chala agreed. “I want her, you understand? Don’t take shortcuts, do everything I told you and you won’t have any problems.”
“What do you want us to do with the male?” Drashad asked. “You need him too?”
“No, leave him. He’s nobody.”
The doors opened and he saw them enter through the mirrored glass.
“Remember.” Chala warned again. “Do everything I said or she’ll take you out. Don’t underestimate her.”
26
Ancient History
When they returned to the ship, they were five thousand credits richer and had a much better understanding of how the galaxy worked. Jessie’s’ ears had picked up much but Maddy had picked up more. She could process a hundred different conversations in a hundred different languages at the same time.
They sat in the little kitchen area as Jessie examined the bracelets and Maddy consulted their newly acquired maps.
“Your system is inaccessible.” She said and brought i
t up in a 3d hologram. “The jump gate used to be here but it was destroyed.”
She was pointing to a spot on the far side of Saturn.
“That’s not where I came from.” Jessie said. “There are too many planets.”
“This is what it looked like before the war.” She replied. “The maps haven’t been updated because no one has been there for eons.”
She zoomed in and they saw Earth, Venus, Maldek and Mars as they had once been. All had thrived and were dotted with cities, the earth he knew as a blue ball was shrouded in protective clouds. Now Mars and Venus were uninhabitable wastelands, the Earth had one of its atmospheric layers gone and Maldek was completely destroyed, nothing left but an asteroid belt. The power of the ancients had been unbelievably immense.
“What’s with all the clouds on earth?” he asked “Why is it covered?”
Maddy considered for a moment, searching for any data she had of the system and consulted every tidbit of knowledge Jessie had ever read or absorbed. Most he had long forgotten, but it was still in his subconscious mind. Humans stored everything they ever learned but a vast majority of it was lost in the imperfect filing system of their brains.
“It was a water canopy.” She said. “It blocked most of the radiation from the sun, caused a greenhouse effect and the entire planet was lush and verdant. Life was abundant. It was destroyed during the wars and your world was deluged with water, killing most of the inhabitants.”
“You mean the great flood? Noah and the Ark?” Jessie asked.
“Yes, most of your oldest writings tell of the event but your knowledge is incomplete. There should be more but there isn’t. You didn’t pay attention during your studies.”
Well, that isn’t breaking news Jessie thought.
“How long would it take to get there?” Jessie asked. “I mean, if we set the thrusters to full blast and took off today?”
“Many lifetimes.” She said. “Without a hibernation pod, you would die of old age. With one, you would arrive to a planet you didn’t know thousands of years from now. It may be thriving; it may be dead. You are a warlike people so it is difficult to say. Your only option is time travel and that is also almost impossible.”
“But is it doable?” he asked. “Is there any way at all, no matter how hard or complicated or almost impossible?”
Maddy wanted to tell him no, it was futile. Even with the exact coordinates he had, the chances of success were astronomically low. There were too many variables. She knew how he felt, though. His emotions ran through her, every cell affected and infused with a love that was more than love. A bond of blood that was a constant aching need and she wasn’t immune to the pull. She needed him to succeed, to get back to her, almost as much as he did.
“We can try.” She said “There are many things we need and the first is to have one of the bracelets reprogrammed with your imprint. We can’t do it at a rejuvenation center, we need someone who can alter it so it will work contrary to how it was designed. Also, you will need the other to be wiped and ready to be used on Scarlet. It may not be necessary but your world is dangerous. It is better to have it prepared even if you don’t use it. Besides, the Rejuvenation centers will know they are stolen.”
“Who’s going to do all that?” he asked “A data hacker?”
“Yes.” she said “But a very specialized one. We’ll have to visit the Queen of the Outer Reaches. From what the dark man told me, if a thing is obtainable, it can be obtained from her for a price.”
“Think she’ll take some of the old coins in trade?”
“Unknowable.” She answered. “But the only way to find out is to ask.”
27
Maddy
They were weeks into their journey across the galaxy and their jump routes had become less traveled. Sometimes they were the only ship in a dead system as they followed the map through the emptiness of space to find the right series of gates. Jessie tossed and turned on the couch. They’d fallen asleep after watching a Holo program. Him for real, Maddy following the subroutine commands she’d given herself. The more she lived in the form of the human, the easier it became for her. She wrote code, imbedded it into each cell and tweaked it as she studied him. She formed a heart, set it to beating and created veins to pump liquid. Step by step, little by little, she started reprograming cells to behave in a different way. Instead of a hive, instead of a single unit copying a form, she created the form. She studied anatomy and programmed cells to be hard bone, strong muscle or soft skin. The only thing she didn’t do was add a growing or aging command. She only had thirty trillion cells left, she couldn’t afford to lose any more of herself by trimming hair or fingernails. With the bone structure in place, she had to teach herself how to walk and use her fingers again. Her hands no longer automatically adjusted to the right size when using a tool. It wasn’t very intuitive to keep all the thinking parts in one central location, inside the head, but she trained herself to do it. She’d never pass as human if anyone took a sample of her but she was sure she could go through a scanner or x-ray machine and everything would look normal.
Her memories of Scarlet let her emulate the way she stretched and the way she moved. She practiced in a mirror to get the smile right but she was never sure. It was foreign to her. The mouth was such an expressive part of being human and was used to convey all of their emotions. Or hide them.
She didn’t think Jessie would be able to travel back to the place from where he came but she was powerless to stop him. She understood the inexplicable ache he had, even felt it in a way. It was her duty to help him but after a time, when failure after failure became too much to endure, she was sure he would give up and they would start a new life. She would be ready when they did.
She perfected being human because in this new time, with this lost human, her true self was in danger. If she were to be captured by the wrong people, they would study her, try to recreate her and most likely use her as a weapon of war.
She woke from her slumber when Jessie called out and fought some unseen enemy in his sleep. She left the reclining chair, knelt beside him and placed a hand on his cheek. He calmed, his nightmares faded and his breathing became normal again. She stroked the hair away from his brow and leaned her head against his, wished she could fix his broken dreams. She softly kissed his forehead and felt the love of Scarlet flowing through her. She didn’t try to fix it, reprogram it or shut it down. It was part of being human and she embraced it. Relished it. Her heart beat a little faster and she tugged at the half-formed memories that had been imbedded when his cells shot through hers a few nanoseconds before he reformed.
She felt desire.
Her nipples grew hard and her breathing grew a little ragged.
She didn’t have to think about it, the reactions were automatic. This was proof, physical proof that the hundreds of hours of study and recoding her cells was working flawlessly. She kissed his cheek, ran one hand over her breasts and the other down his chest. She felt a shiver of pleasure tingle through her and her lips found his. She didn’t issue orders; she didn’t think commands. She let the programming run its course, do what came naturally. She kissed him deeply and smiled when his eyes flew open. She wanted this. She wanted to experience him. She wanted to know where the cascading emotions would take her.
“What are you doing?” Jessie asked and scooted away from her. “You’re not Scarlet.”
A new set of emotions rocked her and she felt her face turn red.
Embarrassment.
Shame.
She’d programmed them in, knew what they meant, had seen it in others but now felt it for the first time. She felt small and useless. Rejected. How did humans deal with this? How did they not go mad from all of the emotions running through them all of the time? She jumped up and ran to the storage area, locked the door behind her. She had to be alone, she didn’t want to see him or remember the look on his face. She almost reprogrammed herself, almost made herself delete these emotions and memories but fo
rced herself to embrace them.
Live through them.
Deal with them.
Be human.
28
The Space Pirates
It took them months to make the jumps to the long-abandoned mining system on the far side of the galaxy. She didn’t try to kiss him again and after a mumbled apology at breakfast, they tried to forget. The closer to the Hub they got, the more jump gates became available and it became quicker to cover the billions of miles. The outer colonies only had one way in or out. As they neared the center of the galaxy where the Federation’s influence grew stronger, there were more gates available to travel to different solar systems. There were hundreds floating serenely beyond the fourth planet in the central system. There had once been many more before the war, most systems could be accessed with a single jump. Two or three at most for the far flung mining or agricultural systems. Now it took many jumps and creative mapping to cross the galaxy.
They stopped at other ports, landed planet side a few times and Jessie became skilled with the ship and learned its strengths and limitations. Maddy bought drones and launched them and they took turns piloting and gunning and it didn’t take long to determine who was better suited for the positions. Maddy became the gunner. She was faster at target acquisition, determining trajectories, calculating the speed of her shots, distance to target and likely evasive maneuvers the other craft would take. Jessie got good at avoiding incoming fire and she got good at blowing them out of the sky.
The shaded man from the bazaar said the jump to her system was protected by an Armada and if you didn’t have the Queen’s protection, you would have to run a gauntlet and fight your way through.
“Many old ships.” He’d said. “The pirates steal them, bring them there to strip down for salvage.”
Zombie Road | Book 8 | Crossroads of Chaos Page 18