Blood of the Scarecrow: Book 3: Solstice 31 Saga

by Martin Wilsey

  Kendall’s face went pale as Dalton returned to his side.

  “GO!”

  ***

  “Sawyer, wake the fuck up.”

  Dan Sawyer was a tug pilot. He was one of the few that remained on Freedom Station that could fly the old manual tugs and freighters.

  There was pounding on the door. Dan was in bed under a big pile of blankets. The only light in the room came from the stars outside his meter square window.

  “Come in,” he called out to the door control.

  It opened.

  “Dan. What the hell? I’ve been trying to call you for an hour.”

  He stumbled on a half empty case of bourbon.

  “What do you want, Max,” Dan said, pressing his forehead to the cool window adjacent to his mattress.

  “Jesus, Dan. What the hell are you doing in this coffin?” Max asked, activating the light over the sink.

  The place was tiny. Nine square meters of floor space, all covered with laundry and take-out containers. They called them Three-by-Threes. Most prison cells were bigger.

  “Hey, it has a window,” Dan said, placing a hand flat on it. “What do you want, Max?”

  “Do you know what the failure rate is on those? Only one layer from vacuum.” He moved a bit closer to the door.

  “Especially on these old spires.”

  “Max!” Sawyer barked.

  “What?”

  Dan pushed off the pile of quilts and let his feet over the side of the bunk. He picked up a half empty beer and drank it.

  “I need you, man.”

  Max was fat and a bit greasy. Dan didn’t like him, but he worked in the commercial dispatcher’s office of Station Traffic Control.

  Dan stepped directly out of bed into the tiny bathroom and started taking a piss without closing the door. He still wore an old-style flight suit.

  Max never stopped talking.

  “I got this old, Oarcart-91 mining vessel out there that needs to dock, but the kid at the helm doesn’t trust himself or his old man to manually dock it. It’s one of the big factory hard-locks. Gotta be perfect or we’re fucked up the ass, and not in a good way.”

  Max laughed at his own joke as Dan washed his hands and face in the small sink. He pulled on his deck shoes and pushed Max out the door.

  The farther he got from the window, the louder he heard his heartbeat in his own ears.

  ***

  “GO!”

  Kendall was sure they had done this exercise before. The two center rows of ten ran by the naked woman, brutally stabbing her from either side. They started on her upraised arms and worked down. The first four groups stabbed in only non-vital areas. Even though they each plunged their knives in deep, they avoided major arteries and veins. The last group stabbed her in the torso; mostly in the abdomen, but also in the chest.

  She swayed, bathed in blood. Only her face remain clean and fair. Only a few drops of blood splashed her cheek.

  Dalton walked up to her and offered her, her own knife.

  “Only one soldier left,” he smiled.

  She didn’t take the knife.

  “You may lower your arms and finish it,” Dalton said.

  Her arms fell. She swayed. He offered the knife again.

  She took it and plunged it into her own heart and held it above her head, like the rest of the company. Every knife was red in the setting sun.

  Dalton watched as she managed to stay on her feet for another full minute before she fell backward.

  “I want her gutted, skinned, and in the stewpots before dinner. Move out!” Dalton yelled.

  In an almost ritual fashion, they passed her flight suit around, and each of them cleaned their knives on it. Then, they lifted her above their heads and jogged, in tight formation, back to the barracks.

  “They really will do anything you tell them to do?” Kendall asked.

  “Only if you never let them see the world.”

  ***

  “Max, just get me a pressure suit and a grav-pack. I don’t need a shuttle for spit’s sake. I can see the damn thing from here.”

  “Dude, it’s like three K out. Those things are big.”

  Max tried to keep up with Sawyer.

  “Some dumb-ass might splat you on their windshield.”

  “Just warn them, I will be over in fifteen minutes. Now, Max.”

  Dan knew how bad Max needed his cut of this docking fee.

  “And I want a piece of your end.”

  “Sawyer, you’re killin’ me.”

  Dan just pointed.

  “OK, OK. I’m going, you crazy fuck.”

  Sawyer was into the pressure suit and pack with ease. When the airlock opened to space, he stepped out and just floated, for a moment.

  He took a deep breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth, relaxing. He smiled wide, looked around, and activated the grav-pack, sending him in the direction of the Oarcart-91.

  “Max, here is the freq for the miner. Its official designation is the TUNA-MELT. I ain’t shittin ya.”

  Max laughed.

  Sawyer cut him off as he rounded the nose of the massive ship. It was like a long board on edge with both sides covered with old, rusty shipping containers. Four giant engine bells aft and the bridge in its nose. Faded letters were painted on the side of the nose: TUNA-MELT.

  The airlock strobes flashed in the top portion of the letter A, and the outer door was already open. He was inside and pressurized fast.

  The inside surprised him.

  It was well-lit and looked well cared for. The ‘kid’ turned out to actually be a kid. It was Zero-G in this section. Sawyer took off his helmet first and placed it on a rack, while he said, “Hi, I’m Dan Sawyer, the dock jock.”

  By then, he had the top of his suit off, over his head.

  He shook the kid’s hand.

  “I’m Keith, the chicken shit pilot,” he smiled.

  “You may be the smartest pilot I have ever met, son.”

  He slid out of his lower suit.

  “You can leave your pressure suit on, if you want. The manual says you should,” Keith said.

  They went up three levels and then in deeper.

  “I never do,” Dan said, floating down the hall after him.

  “Oh?”

  “Not since the war.”

  The ship looked well-maintained on the inside, all the way to the bridge.

  “Careful. We got grav-plates on the bridge. Painted over the signs long ago though,” Keith said, going in first through the hatch that was held open with a rope.

  “Dan, this is my pops, Morris Bagley. This is Dan Sawyer, our dock jock,” Keith cheerfully said.

  The bridge was huge, like on the old freighters. Real windows, his favorite. Good visibility all the way down to the huge dock collar.

  “Greetings, guy. Sorry to yank you outta bed. I’m just too old to do a proper job, and Keith just ainna never done it before. Both of us are getting fixed up with longevity and stuff this trip.”

  “How’d you know I was in bed?” Sawyer asked, thinking of punching Max.

  “Was talking to Station. Told me,” Morris said, as he got out of the co-pilot’s seat for Keith and offered the pilot’s seat for Dan.

  “Why were you talking directly to Station?”

  Sawyer strapped in and tested the thrusters.

  “Well, it’s kind of embarrassing.”

  He laughed, and said, “Want coffee? Oh shit, forgot. You need both hands.”

  Sawyer moved in, toward the station.

  “Station, this is the Tuna-Melt. We are proceeding to smelting spire 36, dock 5.”

  “Like I said, I had to report to security a Harvester in the belts, just sitting there. Oddest thing I ever saw. Didn’t respond to hail. Made note, moved on,” Morris said, like he used the phrase a lot.

  “Harvesters are prison ships. The manual says to never dock or stop for a Harvester. Cause, you know, prisoners,” Keith said.

  The spire ap
proached quickly, but their alignment was perfect. The seal was tight, the first time.

  “I love these old ships,” Sawyer said, as he shut down and unstrapped.

  “Well, the Tuna-Melt’s days are about over. Maybe some in-system, short hop freight but she’s wearing a little thin.”

  AI~Station added a bonus to Sawyer’s paycheck.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: M-City

  “Admiral Kreiger lived in Mexico City. All the evidence against Barcus seemed to point to the fact that Kreiger was the target. We didn’t know he survived Mexico City, until thirty-two years later.”

  --Solstice 31 Incident Investigation Testimony Transcript: General Patricia Chase, senior member of the Earth Defense Coalition.

  <<<>>>

  “On Thursdays, Krieger always goes and works out at a boxing gym off base. He goes as a civilian,” Zimmerman said. “Then, he always goes for sushi at a hole-in-the-wall called Itto.”

  “Sushi?” Shaw asked, incredulously. “In Mexico City? Does he have some kind of death wish?”

  “Don’t judge, missy,” Zimmerman clipped. “When was the last time you were even on Earth?”

  “What does that have to do—” Shaw began.

  “Enough!” Barcus barked, not looking away from the complex tactical screen AI~Stu had presented him.

  Kuss pointed, as she stood behind his seat.

  “There. Polar entry vector. Move south, west of Rockies, here. All open skies, no traffic monitoring from catapult ports.”

  AI~Stu added a simple, “Acknowledged.”

  Barcus rotated the seat around, before he spoke, “We will be coming in low and slow and boring.”

  He stood, as the tactical dome shifted to a map.

  “We will be touching down in four hours at a salvage yard in the Oklahoma desert. We will meet Hagan there, in the drop ship from the Memphis, as it goes to Port Sri Lanka.”

  He turned and indicated the hold.

  “You will take two of the Warmarks, leaving us three in case all this goes sideways, somehow,” Barcus said.

  “I recommend we make contingency plans. Places to regroup. Low key communications channels, in case we need them,” Zimmerman said, professionally now.

  They spent a few minutes establishing rendezvous points on Earth, Freedom Station, and Luna. AI~Stu told them about a Texas restaurant called the Stew Pot that had a little used comments section on their obsolete web site that was open and unmoderated. Easy to remember.

  “We will arrive at Oklahoma Salvage around midnight,” Barcus said. “Hagan knows the owner. It’s about ten square kilometers of air and spaceship graveyard.”

  “That fits the cover as well,” Zimmerman said. “I’ve heard of the place. It’s been there for like hundreds of years.”

  He chuckled. “On a clear day, you can see it from Freedom Station.”

  All three seemed to look at Po at the same time. She was asleep in the co-pilot’s seat. The five-point harness held her up.

  “She has the right idea. Tomorrow is going to be a long day,” Zimmerman said, as he sat in the last row, reclining instead of strapping in.

  Barcus thought, tomorrow is the Solstice, the longest day of the year.

  The longest day in human history and he could do nothing to stop it.

  ***

  Cook approached Earth-controlled space, on manual. No one blinked regarding their ident codes. He remained on the approach they gave him and, as expected, it took them directly over the western region of North America.

  The drop ship fell away, silently, with all their weapons and Ben’s AI module as well. As soon as it detached, it disappeared from the tactical, even though they were doing active proximity scans.

  “OK, what the hell time is it in Sri Lanka?” Muir asked. “I have been on space standard time for so long, my body is going to flip out.”

  “We get there when we get there.” Karen laughed, then said, “Hey, it’s going to be Christmas soon!”

  “Karen, are you one of those people still awaiting his return?” Cook laughed.

  “Hey, it could happen!” She was serious.

  “If he left Earth and traveled long enough at relativistic speed, he could still return.”

  Muir and Cook both began to laugh.

  “You know there are prisoners on the Harvester ships whose sentences will keep them in for over 2,000 years!”

  “It could happen.”

  Cook smirked.

  “It’s possible,” Muir said.

  “Bite me,” Beary answered.

  “Wait, doesn’t Christmas mean you will buy us presents? We have cash, and there is excellent shopping in Sri Lanka!”

  ***

  Jimbo left the bedroom where Bobbie and the girls slept. He had written a note and left it on the bedside stand. Once the door silently closed, he turned to find both Rand and Hume standing by the main door.

  “Barcus told me that the chancellor has hidden a nuke on Freedom Station,” Rand said, coolly.

  “He told me the same,” Jimbo said, as he noted the time in his HUD. “He also said that Station will help us.”

  “Let’s find out,” Hume said, as she initiated HUD comms.

  Rand and Worthington sensed Hume come back online.

  “Welcome, Lieutenant Valerie Hume,” AI~Station said politely, in her head. “Thank you for trusting me. I have been expecting you.”

  “You have?” Hume said.

  “Yes, my dear friend Barcus told me to expect you and to help you any way I can. I have already removed all of you from the security notification watch lists. Please let me know if I can help you, in any way.”

  “Station, I will be honest. We have a reliable report that there is a nuclear bomb hidden on this station. Is it possible for you to run an internal scan?” Hume said, as she gave Jimbo and Rand a thumbs up.

  They left the apartment as their HUDs initialized.

  “I have already begun the internal scans. Areas without internal sensors will take longer because my scan drones will need to get to them all.”

  “Barcus mentioned smuggling,” Jimbo said. “And Pho Pete…”

  The Anchor icon appeared in all their HUDs. The word “Station” appeared next to it. They now had full-time access to the Station AI.

  “What’s the quickest way to Pho Pete’s?” Jimbo asked, and a mist rope appeared in their HUDs, showing the way.

  They jogged in the easy 1G.

  ***

  They saw the giant salvage yard, in the moonlight, from high altitude.

  “Beautiful,” Kuss said.

  “You would consider a fucking graveyard beautiful,” Zimmerman said to her, his voice waking Po.

  “Sleeping technology in moonlight, awaiting resurrection. What could be more beautiful, glupi?”

  “Who’re you calling stupid, suka. Nie lekcewaz mnie,” Zimmerman said.

  “Mówisz po polsku? Może cię do łóżka później, jeśli cię nie zabije pierwszy.” Kuss replied.

  “Oklahoma Salvage to shuttle transport unit Latha. Kinda late to be stopping by, don’t you think?”

  The voice was a cool male voice with a slight Texas accent.

  “Is this Hunter? Wes said to touch base with you,” Barcus said, not identifying himself.

  “Yes, sir. Set down on the most western edge. That section looks like a big J from the air. Right in the hook of the J. It’s cold tonight. We open at about 7AM, if you need anything.”

  “Thank you, sir. Goodnight,” Barcus answered.

  “Welcome. Hunter, out.”

  The channel closed.

  “That was an AI. I know it was. I’m not sure anyone human is down there,” Po said.

  Barcus glanced at her.

  “Doesn’t matter either way. Look,” Zimmerman said, pointing at the massive J made up by several derelict ships.

  The drop ship was already there.

  ***

  Hagan and Shaw stood on the cargo ramp of the drop ship, lit from behind by a red lig
ht that didn’t impact their night vision but allowed them to see. As the STU’s ramp lowered from under its chin, Zimmerman caught sight of patrolling Warmarks.

  As the ramp touched, two Warmarks came to life in Stu’s hold and descended to take up security posts as well.

  Zimmerman walked up to Hagan, and before introductions asked, “You have an Echo in there?”

  “Hello, Jack,” Echo said, as her avatar appeared behind Hagan.

  “I’ll be a son of whore. No one’s deleted you yet?” Jack smiled, ear to ear.

  “They keep trying, but they keep missing,” Echo said, smiling shyly.

  “Barcus, we might survive this shit storm after all.”

  He started to laugh.

  “This is the meanest little bitch in the known universe. There ain’t enough space in a human for all the mean contained in this little shit storm. I’ve seen her rip heads off just to get a crowd’s attention.”

  “You’ve met?” Hagan asked, at the same time Shaw said the same words.

  “Jack here was once one of my Black Badgers,” Echo said. “Never could get this one killed. Too smart for that.”

  “She’s hateful because she was always surrounded by fine man flesh and couldn’t fuck any of us.” Zimmerman laughed.

  “Jack.” Echo became serious.

  “Ferris and all the Black Badgers on the team died on the Memphis. Died strapped into their briefing room seats. Goddamn vacuum.”

  None of them had ever heard emotion like that from an AI.

  ***

  The tactical display on the Memphis labeled itself the Winton, thankfully. The new ident code allowed them to make a slow grav-foil approach and descent to the private hangar rental area where Karen had made arrangements a few hours earlier. Hangar T94-118 already had the doors open and lights on. The landing pad strobes flashed, and it was well marked.

  “I have never seen so much traffic before. Anywhere,” Cook said, out loud.

  A skinny kid with a clipboard and a handheld scanner waited. They slid the Winton in, nose first, like an amateur would. Once it was down the aft, primary cargo ramp lowered.