A hard turn was made toward a mountain range named after a similar range on Earth, the Adirondacks.
Tawn watched on her nav display. “Come on. Drop another kilometer. Come down to me.”
As the modified Zwicker Class freight-shuttle shot across the plains outside the city of Denver Flats, the Domicile Defense Force cruiser captains did what Tawn was wanting. As their altitudes evened, Tawn took the ship vertical.
“This is our one shot of breaking out of here. Expect it to get bumpy.”
Repeated plasma rounds came their way now that the threat of peripheral damage was no longer an issue. The hull of the Bangor clanged, rocked, bounced and reverberated as repeated rounds struck her aft. As she broke free of the atmosphere, still accelerating, the plasma strikes become more pronounced.
“They’re starting to gain on us,” said Trish.
Tawn winced. “Three minutes and we should be able to jump.”
The hull boomed and shook as each round impacted, the plasma charges spreading out before dissipating. Minor jogs to the right or left kept half the rounds from striking home.
Sharvie cringed with each hit and Gandy covered his ears.
Harris asked with a loud voice. “What’s happening? Who’s shooting at us?”
With his ears still ringing, he could not hear the response.
“She can’t take much more of this,” said Trish.
Tawn opened a comm. “We want to negotiate.”
A voice replied as the plasma rounds ceased to come. “Bring your craft to an immediate stop and prepare to be boarded.”
Tawn replied, “OK, hold on. I have to get back to the controls. I got knocked out of my chair.”
Trish asked, “What are you doing?”
Tawn turned. “I’m buying us time. When that yellow jump bar goes green we can go. Need another ninety seconds or so for that to happen. Expect our last minute to be the roughest. They aren’t gonna want to let us go. How do our systems look?”
Trish scanned the console. “Everything is good still.”
“Bring your ship to an immediate stop!”
Tawn replied, “Still trying to get back in the cockpit! There’s debris scattered all about in here! One sec!”
Tawn let out a long breath. “They won’t buy any more. Grab your ass and hold on. The rounds are about to start, and they will be coming in from two ships now. Twenty-five seconds.”
“OK. I’m almost to my chair! I can almost reach the controls!”
The jump bar went green. Tawn Freely slapped the generator button on the console. A wormhole opened and the Bangor slipped through, taking an immediate hard turn to port once through.
“Not sure why they didn’t fire.”
Trish said, “I have wormholes opening to starboard.”
Tawn checked the distance. “Excellent. They took the bait.”
As the Domicile cruisers came through, they were heading in a direction away from the Bangor. Tawn opened a new portal, slipping away into Midelon space. The Domicile cruisers were too far away to follow.
Harris stood from the bench and walked to the cockpit. “What are we doing?”
Tawn said, “Can you hear me?”
“Barely. What happened?”
“Farker sensed Mantor was about to pull the trigger on his Fox, so he blasted him with a concussion wave. You took it in the back. We dragged you aboard and ran. Two Domicile cruisers chased us. We got away. Heading back to Midelon now. Will be on the ground in forty minutes or so.”
Harris fiddled with his ears in frustration. So that’s it, then. We can’t go home.”
Tawn nodded. “We can’t go home.”
Trish asked, “So what do we do with ourselves now?”
Tawn turned. “Same as before. We have to stop the Earthers at Eden. Only now we’re completely on our own.”
Harris said, “We have food. We have fuel—at least for a while. We’ll just have to put our heads together to figure out how we keep ourselves in the game.”
Gandy stepped up behind the others. “Wish we could have finished that Banshee. All the systems were in, they just needed hooking up. Any chance we can sneak back and grab it?”
Tawn shook her head. “That warehouse has to be crawling with DDI. Give them fifteen minutes and that ship probably won’t even be there anymore. I don’t think we’ll be going back to Domicile unless Alex figures out how to make us invisible. Even then, we won’t be able to set foot on the ground without some camera ID’ing us. Unless something dramatic happens, we’re now officially outlaws.”
Trish flopped back in her chair with a frown. “My whole life ahead of me and I’m an outcast.”
Gandy said, “We can always bounce around on the truce colonies. There are no extradition treaties from out there.”
Sharvie said, “Well, we might not be able to go home, but at least we have the credits to live decent lives. I did manage to get your money back. And then some.”
Tawn asked, “And then some?”
“Yeah. My friends decided the Earthers weren’t in need of their funds, so they kind of moved them all. Turns out it was about four hundred twenty million credits. Of course they are all scrambling to cover their tracks now, but that whole operation should be bankrupt.”
Tawn returned a half smile. “Well, at least that’s something positive.”
She glanced down at her credit store. “So when will those credits show in my account?”
Sharvie shook her head. “We’ll have to get you a new account. That goes for all of us. If that was the DDI back there, they’ve already locked down everything about us.”
“Well, where’s the money right now?”
“It’s probably spread out over hundreds of thousands of dark accounts. My friends have moved monies before with a few hundred accounts, but nothing like this. The government monitors all moves of a thousand credits or more. So that’s… wow. That’s over four hundred thousand accounts. That’s insane.”
The Bangor landed on Midelon in its usual spot.
Sharvie was the first out the door. “Alex can get me a comm connection back to Domicile. I’m going to check on my friends. Be back in a bit.”
Harris squiggled his ear with his finger. “I almost heard all of that. Trish, thanks for bringing her aboard. She’s been a real asset.”
“I’ve known her for years. Learning new things about her every day. She was into all that cyber stuff back in school, but I never knew how much.”
Gandy stepped out into the warm sun of Midelon. “Well, at least if we’re gonna be stranded somewhere where it’s like paradise. The temperature here is always perfect.”
Tawn followed Harris out, with Farker and Trish just behind.
Harris knelt to show his dog affection. “So my pup saved me again. And now we know he has some kind of concussion weapon. That’s a heckuva bark you got there, boy.”
Three farks were returned.
Trish said, “And now the million credit question… what do we do with ourselves?”
Harris sat back, resting on his elbows, basking in the Midelon sun. “The way I see it, we have two missions now. One is our continued survival here. We might have to plant crops and get practiced at fishing. Alex might be a good source to ask about both of those.
“The second is still our Eden problem. We need to get the colonel and the others out of there and drive off the Earthers. We’ve got a good stockpile of food and fuel, so I’d still put Eden as our higher priority effort right now.”
Tawn said, “Definitely Eden as priority.”
Harris glanced around. “Crap. We lost the shuttle. Left it back there at the warehouse.”
Tawn shrugged. “We’ll have to pick up another.”
“Where are we gonna get another out here?”
Tawn thought for a moment. “We could always jump to Earther space and steal one. Sharvie could probably hack in and fly one away to us. A little shuttle like that isn’t gonna have all the security of a warship, and w
e can already get into the comm system of one of those.”
Gandy sat. “Pirates around New Earth. Now that sounds exciting. And, you know, if we were able to steal an Earther warship, we could always bring it back here and park it. They’d never get it back.”
Trish said, “Maybe if we can’t stop the titanium, we can swipe enough ships so they still can’t conduct war.”
Tawn laughed. “I’ll give it to you two, you sure are dreamers. Even if we managed to steal one New Earth destroyer, it would be highly unlikely we would ever get another. They would change all their security systems and protocols. And they’d be looking for us next time around. So while that sounds great, I don’t think it’s possible.”
Harris chuckled. “There you go again, just being Debbie Downer, squashing everyone’s dreams.”
Tawn returned a stare. “How about I squash your big round pumpkin head?”
Harris sighed. “Now see what you’ve done? You’ve gone and made me hungry.”
~~~~~
What’s Next
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Stephen
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(Preview)
ARMS
(Vol. 3)
Jebwa Atrocity
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Several days were spent kicking around ideas about Eden. No solutions were put forth that showed promise. After another long session with Alex, Sharvie returned to the group, resting on the grass in front of the bunker.
“You all have new accounts with your prior amounts in them. I have the account codes we can enter into your stores whenever you’re ready. As a backup, we’re still sitting on over four hundred million credits. And my friends say the accounts and other information we collected might lead to what they believe are other well-funded Earther operations. If they determine that’s true, that four hundred million might grow.”
Trish said, “Fat good it does us out here. Wealthy beyond our wildest dreams and nowhere to spend it.”
Sharvie replied, “That may not be entirely true. Alex was reviewing what we have done to date. I entered what I knew into his databanks. Anyway, he thinks we should set up trade with Jebwa. We can trade them credits for food. Those credits they can spend back on Domicile on whatever they need. And our food situation is taken care of. Alex projects Jebwa may be producing almost double the food they need within only a few months.”
Gandy added, “Maybe we could get them to buy fuel to resell to us as well. We could certainly make it worth their while.”
Harris nodded. “That would solve two of our biggest problems here. Nice work, Sharvie. I think we should make a jump to Jebwa right now. And, you know, we might even be able to get them to purchase a shuttle to resell to us. Would save us from getting involved in any pirating mess with New Earth.”
Gandy frowned. “I was looking forward to being a pirate.”
Harris stood. “Sorry to burst your adventure bubble, but if we can get what we need through Jebwa, I’d rather not risk putting us in Earther territory.”
Tawn asked, “You going somewhere?”
Harris pointed at the ship. “Jebwa. Might as well get out there and see what we can trade for. Lying around here might be relaxing but it doesn’t accomplish anything. We’ve been here for days. It’s time we finally started getting stuff done. Our friends are still running out of food on Eden.”
The group piled into the Bangor’s cabin. Two hours later they were settling on the tarmac at the Haven spaceport. A Jebwa citizen came out to meet them with a transport.
“Welcome to Haven. Can I ask what business you might have with us today?”
Harris said, “You can take us to your main meeting hall. We’re interested in discussing trade with your council.”
The man nodded. “Very well. Have you been here before?”
Harris smiled. “We built this place. Hope things have been working out for you.”
The man replied, “Oh, they couldn’t be better. Everyone is busy, busy, busy. This setting is idyllic compared to Eden. Our lives have changed so much for the better. We can enjoy the outdoors, nature… our whole environment is now centered around living and not survival. Survival here comes easy.”
“Glad to hear you’re doing well.”
“Better than well. We have a waiting list of applicants who wish to move here. That hasn’t happened since our colony at Dove was first made available. It is an exciting time for all of us. Life couldn’t get any better.”
“Sounds like you’ve found your utopia,” said Tawn. “Driving this transport your job?”
“I volunteer for this on Tildays.”
“What’s a Tilday?”
“On Jebwa, our rotation spans nineteen standard hours, and we traverse once around the sun every two hundred days, so we created our own timebase with new names for our months and weekdays. For instance, one hundred crons makes up a bellet. There are one hundred bellets in a meg, and one hundred megs in a talla. A talla is a Jebwa day. Tilday is the fifth day in the Jebwa week, of which there are ten days.”
Harris chuckled. “Sounds like a lot of work to memorize. Why not stick with the standards that everyone else uses?”
“Because this is our colony and our planet. We want our customs and traditions to be our own. The new system makes sense for this planet. What the rest of the galaxy does with regards to time is their business. Here, it’s ours.”
The transport pulled to a stop in front of a domed building. As they walked through the doors they entered a great hall. Red velvet drapes adorned the walls, while the ceiling of the dome had been covered in murals and frescoes. Large beanbag style seating circled a center stage.
Harris nodded. “I like what you’ve done to the place.”
The man replied, “All decisions are made here by the council. If you have a request, take it to the center and let those in attendance know what you desire.”
Harris looked at Tawn. “You want to do this or should I?”
Tawn chuckled. “Neither of us are salesmen, but I think our ideas might just sell themselves here.”
Tawn walked to the center stage, climbing the three steps to the main platform. Twenty townies were lying about in their robes and sandals.
“Ladies and gentleman of Haven, we’ve come here today looking for trade. We would like to purchase food and possibly other items from you. Our current needs are meager as we only have five mouths to feed, but we are willing to pay a premium.”
A voice came from a townie. “What are you looking to trade?”
“Standard credits. I know you might prefer to barter instead, but I also know you have to purchase goods from Domicile from time to time. We offer credits, and as I said, we are more than willing to pay a premium to ensure we have sustenance for our small colony.”
Another voice said, “Why not join this one? As you can see, we are well fed, clothed, housed, and worked.”
Tawn replied, “Just as you enjoy your colony, we enjoy ours.”
The awkward negotiations took two additional hours before the group was directed into another building to meet with a trade minister. After repeating much of her pitch, a deal was finalized and signed.
The Jebwa colony would provide twenty-five hundred prepackaged meals per standard month for a tidy sum of sixty thousand credits per delivery. The meals would be made available for collection on th
e tarmac at the preapproved dates and times. The group returned to the meeting hall for a second negotiation.
Tawn gestured toward the platform. “This one’s yours.”
Harris winced, “I’m not the best person for negotiating the price for a ship. I can propose it, but one of these two needs to finalize it.”
Trish said, “You want a shuttle like what we just had?”
Harris nodded. “I think that one worked well.”
Trish shoved him as she walked past. “Get out of my way. I’ll do it.”
Gandy quickly followed. Wait, let me set the stage for your tougher deal-making.”
Three hours later, the group emerged from the trade minister’s office. “Will be here in three weeks at most. He has the model number and where to purchase it. We offered a 25 percent premium for them to manage the effort on Domicile. As a colony purchase for Jebwa, there won’t be any scrutiny. And with them being a collective, nobody back home knows their finances either.”
Sharvie said, “You transferred credits to an account, right?”
Trish nodded. “A down payment.”
Sharvie smiled. “Give me the account number and I can tell you exactly how much they have. That includes what’s in that account and any related accounts they’ve moved credits to or from.”
Harris held up a hand. “No need to hack their accounts. We need to keep them happy and our business here under wraps. Unless we have further business here, I suggest we get back and figure out a way to save Eden.”
The trip back saw discussion about how promising the colony of Haven looked. People were out walking about with smiles on their faces. Cats, the preferred pet of the pacifists, roamed about freely. Haven would likely never have a vermin problem.
More than a thousand species of birds filled the skies and the trees with song, to the cat’s delight. Other docile animals moved about the colony as all predator species had been wiped out by the prior colonists. By all accounts, it was a happy and friendly place. Even the attitudes of the pacifists had changed for the better. They were living in their nirvana.
Harris paced back and forth in the grass. “We should make a run to check on the colonel.”
ARMS Harris' Revenge Page 26