Blood of the Scarecrow: Book 3: Solstice 31 Saga

by Martin Wilsey

  “Stopping in to see an old friend,” Hagan said, as he slipped the man four gold coins—more than double the two day fee. “There is a little extra in there, to ensure a smooth exit. We are leaving a security team onboard and the reactors are idling.”

  The man dropped his pretense.

  “No weapons. No skipping decontamination. I'm serious. You will go through three scanners before you reach the terminal.”

  He gestured to the walk-through portal behind him.

  Only this one guy was there. Hagan was surprised at that.

  “No air fee?” Hagan asked, quietly.

  “It is all included in your site tax. The governor owns the air now and is very generous.”

  He spoke loudly, in case they were listening.

  “Can I help you find anything? Company? Herb? Anything?”

  The man walked backward as they approached the security threshold.

  “No, we are good, for now. Maybe later.” Hagan walked through, uneventfully.

  Shaw held her small backpack off to the side as she walked through.

  A small chime sounded, and her med pack became illuminated in red.

  “It's just a first aid kit.”

  She suspected it was being scanned for good drugs. She knew better than to include any. He waved her through.

  Elkin went right through, but Kuss caused the clear panels to close on her, trapping her inside. The scanner image was visible to heat.

  “Just tools, working!” Kuss said.

  The scanner showed an old-school set of plane screwdrivers and a large two-headed wrench. Kuss rolled her eyes and stood patiently. She wore work coveralls.

  Cameras were everywhere, not just in the terminal.

  They knew the way, but looked at the worn wall maps to make sure.

  None of them noticed they were being followed.

  .

  ***

  “Soup?”

  Worthington was taken aback by the non sequitur.

  Barcus didn't release Jimbo's shoulders as he spoke, conversationally. “There is pho from Pete’s place, you know noodle soup, on level 42. Really great soup.”

  Barcus released Jim’s shoulders but not his eyes.

  “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 began to relax.

  “He did. He added two small tables to the left, on the end, where the trash cans and condiments used to be.” Barcus let loose a smile.

  “Pete didn't always make soup on the station, you know. He used to be military in the South American Union. He led the forces that took back the south side of Panama straight, as a sergeant.”

  “Pho Pete is Sergeant 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 spaceport 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 take-out 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 bartenders 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 over there,” Hagan said, as they moved through the lunchtime crowd.

  On the way, they stopped by an exchange, where Hagan traded a gold ingot for local credit chits.

  “Damn, that chicken smells good. Reminds me of KFC from back home,” Shaw said, as they passed the take-out 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 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 on a lanyard, out of his shirt 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 shattered his Adam’s apple and spine, also creased a groove in Beth Shaw's scalp. There was no sound of a gunshot. No panic in the crowd. Johan Engle fell straight down, like a sack of meat. The only sound was the bottle of expensive vodka shattering behind him.

  In the time it took Hagan to turn, see Engle falling, and turn back, his eyes were drawn to the opposite end of the bar. Kuss was moving.

  She hammered a screwdriver into the back of a man’s head just after 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 down.

  “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 them start to move faster.

  Suddenly, the glass shattered behind them. Elkin cried out. People ran. Glass walls shattered on the other side of the promenade. Two men—in long coats—with guns, fell.

  “GO!” Kuss yelled, no longer trying to hide the carbine she had taken from the assassin’s 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 carbine again. Finally glad they kept the place so cold.

  “Go left,” Shaw said, without hesitation.

  ***

  “Be ready. There will be six of them, altogether. Never mind the official-looking uniforms,” Wex said to Jude and Cine, as she stood at 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 thinnest, tightest, white tunic. It was nearly see-through it clung to her so closely.

  They heard 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 played 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 in profile as
she turned slowly, 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 two men in front drew sidearms and turned toward the threat; but before they could clear their holsters, they were struck on the back of their heads, in quick succession, with a long black flute that was as hard as iron. Their skulls caved in like eggs.

  The last men, completely surprised, froze for 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 they reached a dead end.

  “Left,” was all Beth said.

  She approached an old-style, plain door with a knob. It opened into a large custodian’s 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, sitting on a crate of supplies.

  Shaw saw the blood soaking 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 covered in blood.

  “Get these nanites and the 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 the right hand, pointing it at the door. “Just dandy.”

  He pressed his wounded thumb into his own ribs, creating 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 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 his wounds.

  Kuss had a mystery gash in her left breast. The best Shaw could figure was that she had been cut by flying debris.

  They were all 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 closet door.

  ***

  “Will they be alright there? On Shackleton's Base?” Po asked him, when they were alone again.

  “No. But they had to go,” Barcus replied, with torment in his voice. “It tumbles so fast from here on. No one will have a chance to breathe. 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 advisor 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 chancellor’s 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,” the chancellor said, as he stood and walked over to Boyle, who opened the door and they stepped through.

  After the door closed, 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 became lost in thought.

  “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. Hagan disappeared.”

  “Cancel everything for the rest of the week. We are leaving for the residence in ten minutes.”

  ***

  The knock on the closet door was followed with a loud whisper from the other side.

  “Hagan, Shaw, it's me. Wex. Open the door, for Maker’s 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 severe ponytail. 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 off her clothes.

  “Never mind that now. If I found you, others will, too.” Wex had a sidearm drawn now, waiting at the door as bloody clothes went down a trash chute. They were ready in just under 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 this cart?”

  “They tried to take the ship. We stopped them.”

  Wex stopped 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 skidded 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 gravelly voice was not to be argued with.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: The Sub Cell

  “We were wounded, running out of adrenaline, 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 un-kill-able.”

  --Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: Dr. Elizabeth Shaw, senior survi
ving medical staff member of the Ventura's Memphis crew.

  <<<>>>

  “She worries for you,” AI~Iosin said, seemingly inside his head.

  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 AI~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,” AI~Iosin said, and she drifted away.

  Po had entered the vast bridge from the elevator, to echoing laughs from the air.

  Barcus wiped 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.

  It caused another laughing fit, like water blasting 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 rose as she spoke.

  “Shut your cock holster, Missy. I know what a fucking scapula is, maggot.”