“You mean Pho Pete's counter. Everyone knows that place. Best damn soup on Freedom Station. I wish he'd get more than eighteen stools at his counter.” Worthington was beginning to relax.
“He did, he added two small tables at the left end where the trash cans and condiments use to be.” Barcus let a smile through a bit, “Pete didn't always make soup on the station you know. He used to be military in the South America Union. He led the forces that took back the south side of Panama straight, as a Sargent.”
“Pho Pete is Sargent Pedro Morales?” Jimbo laughed out loud, “How the hell did he end up on Freedom Station?”
“He retired. Cashed in everything and brought his family to FS. Now he makes soup.” Barcus paused, “And a few other things.”
“Why are we talking about soup?” Worthington was suddenly serious again, “We were talking about my family.”
“Things will get crazy soon. You need to remember; Pete will help you find them.”
“How do you know Pho Pete?”
“I don't. I just like Pho.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT:
Best Laid Plans
“Low gravity and high poverty is a bad combination when lives are at stake.”
--Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: Captain James Worthington, senior surviving member of the Ventura's command crew.
<<<>>>
The Shanoi was really huge for a space port bar. Hagan could tell that the place was also a favorite of the locals, but he had no idea why. It was decorated in a cheesy Japanese style that had gone out of fashion long ago. The food takeout line was a hundred people deep and moving fast as people collected bags of fried chicken of all things.
“Shit.” Shaw said, “There has to be thirty bar tenders in here. “What do we do?”
“I think we should split into two groups. Shaw and I will start at this end, Elkin and Kuss, you start there.” Hagan said as they moved through the lunch time crowds.
On the way, they stopped by a sifter and exchange. Where Hagan traded a gold ingot for local credit chits.
“Damn; that chicken smells good. Reminds me of KFC back home.” Shaw said as they passed the takeout line.
“It might be KFC,” Hagan said sitting down. It only took a minute for a bartender to come over with their drinks that they had ordered through the bar top interface.
Shaw spoke first as she handed over the chits, “Is Johan around today? A friend of his asked me to stop in and say hi.”
“I'm Johan. What friend?” he smiled and wiped the bar absently.
“Really? That was too easy. I have a message, but I don't know it's really you. No HUD ID.” Shaw said as Hagan sipped his beer looking at the crowd, seemingly disinterested in the conversation.
He drew an ID card out of his shirt on a lanyard as he spoke, “Never got a HUD. Gives me the willies to think of something messing in my brain. What friend is this?”
Shaw's augmented reality HUD confirmed the badge
“Alice,” Shaw said. Johan's smile froze and faded from his eyes for a beat. “Alice Everett.”
The bullet that entered Johan's neck and shattering his Adams apple and spine also creased a groove in Beth Shaw's scalp. There was no sound of a gun shot. No panic in the crowd. Johan Engle fell straight down like a sack of meat. The only sound was the glass bottle of expensive vodka shattering behind Engle.
In the time, it took Hagan to turn and see Engle falling and back his eyes were drawn to the opposite end of the bar and Kuss moving.
She hammered a screwdriver into the back of a man’s head just as he fired. He never saw her coming because all his attention was on the scope.
Hagan flinched. Looking down he saw that his left thumb had just been shot off. Blood poured from the wound.
Elkin and Kuss arrived just as the screaming began. Both in the crowd over the man’s body and behind the bar. A woman, the next bartender down the long dark bar, had seen Engle.
“Go,” Kuss whispered harshly, hiding something under her coat. Elkin led. Hagan and Shaw tried to act nonchalant as they exited the Shanoi. Clearing the crowd let started to move faster.
Suddenly the glass was shattering behind them. Elkin cried out. People started to run. Glass walls began to shatter on the other side of the promenade. Two men in long coats with guns fell.
“GO!” Kuss yelled, no longer trying to hide the rifle she had taken from the assassins dead body.
They ran.
Just after they rounded the first corner, the first explosion detonated. They were no longer the only ones running. Two more explosions happened ten seconds later.
They came to a T in the corridor.
“Which way?” Kuss asked hiding the rifle again. Finally glad they kept the place so cold.
“Go Left,” Shaw said without hesitation.
***
“Be ready. There will be five of them all together. Never mind the official looking uniforms.” Wex said to Jude and Cine as she stood at the in the cargo bay in view of the open airlock hatch.
They were stationed on the catwalk directly above the hatch.
Wex stood in the center of the cargo area. Well, lit in the directional floods. She wore her thinest, tightest, white tunic. It was nearly see-through it clung to her so closely.
They could hear boots, marching in unison down the gantry and without hailing or requesting permission to come aboard, they entered the outer airlock and turned toward the open cargo bay hatch where Wex was playing the flute with her back to the hatch. She didn't turn when they entered, two by two, even though she was only three meters from them.
Looking at Wex as she turned slowly to profile, still playing, they didn't notice the women in black flight suits balanced on the catwalk railing above. They lightly stepped off the railing and descended in silence. The first thing to touch the two men in back was the points of their daggers as they pierced the tops of their heads. Twisting the blades before their feet set down, they rode the bodies down as they crumbled.
The front two men began drawing side arms and turning toward the threat, but before they could clear their holsters they were struck on the backs of their heads with a long black flute that was hard as iron, in quick succession. Their skulls caved in like eggs.
The last man had been completely surprised and froze an instant too long.
“What was that?” Jude said looking at the two men twitching at Wex's feet.
“These... People.” Wex didn't want to say 'men' “have spent their entire evil little lives in low gravity. It weakens the bones. Now get them out of these coveralls.”
***
“Where are we going?” Hagan asked as the reached a dead end.
“Left.” Was all Beth said as she approached an old style plain door with a knob. It opened into a large custodians closet. “Quickly.” Beth gestured with her free left hand; her right was pressing against the freely bleeding scalp wound.
“I'm hit. Bad.” Elkin admitted as she shrank down to sit on a crate of supplies.
Shaw saw the blood soaked down her back. “Kuss, Help me.”
Shaw saw Kuss was grimacing as well as she spoke, “What want me to do?”
Shaw had a first aid kit in her pack. She slipped the pack off and dug out the kit as best she could. “Elkin, stay with us,” Shaw said. They were all cover in blood.
“Get these nanites and medical adhesive and close my scalp wound then I will check Elkin.” Shaw said, “Wes, are you OK for now?”
Hagan had the rifle in his right hand pointing at the door. “Just dandy.” He was pressing his wound into his own ribs to create direct pressure. He was steady but a bit pale.
“Dammit. The good news is a bullet was deflected by your left shoulder blade. The bad news is your left scapula is broken, and I cannot do shit for it with the first aid kit. I can close the entry and exit wounds, fill you full of nanites, but walking back to the ship is going to really suck.”
Kuss had cleaned and closed Beth'
s head wound. It was a sloppy job but if she finger combed her hair over it would be fine.
Elkin was as good as she was going to get.
Hagan's thumb and part of his palm were gone, and Beth did her best to close up.
Kuss had a mystery gash in her left breast. The best Shaw could figure was that she had been cut by flying debris.
They all were covered in blood. A horror. They would have to find a way to clean up and get new clothes. There was a water spigot for filling mop buckets in there, but the water didn't work.
They settled for using all the sterile wipes from Beth’s kit to clean their hands and faces.
As they were finishing, there was a knock at the door.
***
“Will they be alright there? On Shackleton's base?” Po asked them when they were alone again.
“No. But they had to go.” Barcus replied. Torment in his voice. “It tumbles so fast from here on. No one will have a chance to breath. And I can do nothing... Except take the blame.”
“Are you doing all you can?” Po asked.
“Yes.”
“It's enough,” Po replied laying her head on his chest.
I don't know. I never will.
***
John Boyle was a special adviser to the Chancellor of Earth. He was one of the few people on the planet that had the permission to interrupt the Chancellor during a meeting without repercussions. He smoothly entered one of the many formal conference rooms via the Chancellors private entrance and closed the door behind himself without approaching.
“Chancellor. I need to speak with you. It is urgent.” Said Boyle.
He waited by the door, a slender hawk nosed man. It was a signal that there was a real urgent issue, not just a show to get the Chancellor out of a dull meeting.
“Excuse me, my friends.” He said as he stood and walked over to Boyle, who opened the door and stepped though followed by the Chancellor.
After the door close, the Chancellor immediately said, “What is it?”
“A member of the command crew of the Ventura has been seen on Luna,” Boyle stated.
“The Baytirus problem? Dammit Atish.”
“Yes, sir” Boyle swallowed, “Your orders were being followed. Terminate on detection. But they got away. Face recognition was certain. Plus we recovered his thumb. Print and DNA is a match.”
“How? It's been years since...” The chancellor was lost in tought. “Well, where is he? What is the problem? What happened?”
“The team that went after them all had heart monitors and bomb implants. Shackleton base authorities think it was terrorists. But Hagan disappeared.”
“Cancel everything for the rest of the week. We are leaving for the residence in ten minutes.”
***
The knock on the door was followed with a loud whisper from the other side, “Hagan, Shaw, it's me. Wex. Open for makers sake and don't shoot me.”
Shaw cracked open the door, and there was Wex wearing some kind of uniform, with her hair pulled back in a sever pony tail. Wex pressed her way in. Her arms were full of folded uniforms and boots, four full sets.
“Quickly, put these on, we need to get out of here,” Wex said.
“How did you find us?” Elkin said even as she stripped of her clothes.
“Never mind that now. If I can find you, others will.” Wex had a sidearm drawn now waiting at the door as bloody clothes went down a trash chute.
They were ready in two minutes.
“Now act like we are under orders. Ignore anyone that speaks to you.” Wex said as she opened the door. There was a cart waiting in the wide hall. Wex got behind the wheel and did a quick three point turn. Everyone piled in.
“Are you a big golfer?” Hagan said as he sat next to Wex in the front.
“Golfer?”
“You drive this cart like you know what you're doing... never mind. Go”
They rolled through the wide corridors easily and quickly. People stood aside
Hagan saw several others wearing the same uniforms. “Where did you get the security uniforms and cart?”
“They tried to take the ship. We stopped them.” Wex parked near the gate where the Sedna was parked but not directly at the gate. They walked the 120 meters without incident. Soon they were inside the ship and closing the airlock.
“Gantry detaching now,” Elkin announced, punching the control, as she ran toward the others in the main cargo bay and the elevator to the bridge.
She skid to a halt at the sight of the four dead men lined up on the floor face down. Jude and Cine were face down next to them. They were unconscious or dead with their hands cuffed to their ankles.
A huge man stood behind the bodies, in the shadows.
Stepping into the light, his two weapons were leveled on them. POLICE was stenciled across the chest plate of his body armor.
“On your knees, NOW!” His graveled voice was not to be argued with.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:
The Sub Cell
“We were wounded, running out of Adrenalin and confused. We did not kill Officer Jack Zimmerman. Several of us wanted to kill him, but none of us did. He was classic. All high gravity, Human Growth Hormones, martial arts, and bad attitude. Are you sure he's dead? He swore to us a hundred times he was unkillable.”
--Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, senior surviving Medical staff member of the Ventura's Memphis crew.
<<<>>>
“She worries for you,” Iosin said seemingly from all around.
Barcus replied from the same space, “Yes. She makes sure I eat and drink and take showers and sleep.”
“That is not what I mean at all. She worries because you have changed. The joy has gone from you. This is her worry.”
“How can I feel joy when I know what is to come.”
“Barcus, what will I say to you next. If you know so much, tell me.”
Barcus was taken aback. He had no idea what Iosin was about to say. He had no idea why he was laughing when Po returned with food.
“You only see what happens to you. Not your thoughts, not how you feel. You cannot see the moment you are in. Here with me, you are only in the seam between the past and the future. You can return here any time you like. You don't need me. And here is the truth about what you see in the future. You are just a witness.”
Barcus started laughing.
“You didn't see this coming,” Iosin said, and she drifted away.
Po enter the vast bridge from the elevator to echoing laughs from the air.
Barcus was wiping tears from his eyes as his laughter faded to smiles and bright eyes, then passionate kisses that she had missed.
“Has something happened?” Po asked, and it caused another laughing fit as water blasted out Barcus's nose, making Po laugh as well.
Finally, he answered, “Yes. Something’s happened.”
“What?” Po asked.
“Everything...”
***
“Which one of you buckets of puke is Trish Elkin?” He looked them over, “I'm guessin' it's this gob of phlegm here.” He holstered one gun and grabbed her by the hair and forced her to look up.
“Be careful you ape, she has a broken scapula, her shoulder blade.” Beth started to rise as she spoke.
“Shut your cock holster, Missy. I know what a fucking scapula is, maggot.” He let go of Trish Elkin and grabbed her throat so fast it was instantly frightening. Beth was suddenly dangling in the air from his hand around her neck. She could feel his thumb touching the tip of his index finger at the base of her neck.
“Stop. Please.” Hagan said, but he didn't get up from his knees. “I'm in charge here.”
“You must be the Ventura's limp dicked Chief Engineer Wes Hagan. I know all there is to know about your clueless stinking ass. Mostly I know that you will answer any question to stop me from breaking this fish guts neck.”
Beth suddenly struggled at his squeezing hand.
“Where the fuck is Captain Alice Everett?”
***
“Where's Worthington?” Barcus asked Sarah Wood as she was inventorying and repacking the med kits for the Memphis.
“I think he is on the bridge with Cook and Beary. I hate these new HUD settings. You can never find people, and they have to activate comms to even receive.” Wood replied without stopping her work.
“Thanks.” Barcus started up the ramp but paused. “Seriously, Sarah. Thanks for everything.”
“I'm glad you're OK,” Sarah said as he waved.
Barcus marveled how well the ship had been restored, trying hard to stay in the moment as he moved through to the bridge.
The door slid open to excited conversation. Worthington was in his command chair closely examining a new control screen and interface. Rand was looking at the same screen while speaking to him. Muir, Cook, and Beary were in a heated debate about the utility of something and Valerie Hume was greeting Barcus brightly. It seemed like loud, unruly chaos by contrast to the bridge on the Iosin.
“Everyone is excited that we can configure Quantum Entanglement Synchronous Transmitters on the Memphis, STU, and Sedna,” Hume said.
“Hey, Hume. Thanks for finding me.” Barcus put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
“What's all his. You going soft on us, Barcus?” She laughed and pounded her fist on his sternum.
“Had to be said. I said it, now kiss my ass.” He smiled as he roughly pushed her away. His mind had a completely different dialog. I'm sorry Hume.
“Jimbo, Iosin gave me an update. They are not coming directly back. They're mission is going smoothly, and they are on the way to New Tranquility.
“Let me guess,” Worthington to said, “There's a maintenance spider on the Sedna. All the damn things have QUEST comms build in that talk to Iosin. It's where the tech came from.”
Solstice 31: The Solstice 31 Saga, Books 1,2,3 Page 91