MoonRush

by Ben Hopkin

  Gil spoke over his shoulder while still observing the swarm of military activity. “Yeah. Buy them out if you can. If not, you know what to do.” He frowned, refocusing his attention on his right-hand man. “And I want full status on the fields by 1700 hours.”

  Gil turned back to the northeast sector. Now that the landing site was covered, the men were doing an adequate job of impersonating mere prospectors. So much so that Gil was almost fooled. Almost. He allowed a feral grin to creep over his face as he watched the just slightly too precise movements of the men.

  The more predators the merrier, Gil thought to himself with satisfaction. This was about to get a whole lot more interesting.

  * * *

  Cleo felt her stomach leave her body for a moment as their ship pitched and yawed its way toward the surface. Observing the wonky angle of their descent, she found her body trying to compensate for the displacement. She leaned so far to the left that she bumped into Jarod, who glanced over at her. He must have realized what she was doing, as a frown plastered itself on his face. One good thing…he did adjust the yaw, although his attitude left a lot to be desired.

  The landing was less a landing and more of a hop-skip-and-a-jump situation. Once the dust cleared, Cleo did a quick assessment. She had several new bruises—some of them would be quite colorful—but there were no broken bones. Considering the state of the ship they came in and the pilot in question, it wasn’t a bad landing.

  Rob piped up, “Hey, you’re getting better, Uncle Jare! Nobody’s in a stretcher this time!”

  “Har de har har. C’mon, guys…get to your workstations and give me a report.”

  Cleo studied the readout. “We’re going to need more oxygen and another carbon dioxide scrubber.”

  Buton piggybacked her request with one of his own. “Several more backup fuses would also be in order.”

  “Okay,” Jarod responded. “Put together a list, and I’ll head to the supply station.”

  Having dealt with Jarod and his attention span more times than she could count made Cleo cautious. Perhaps it was a good time to drill the point home. “Jarod, we really need that oxygen.”

  Jarod waved away her concern. “No problem.” Ah, the next step in the Jarod-being-responsible dance. Cleo had drilled the point home. Now she needed to hammer.

  “No, I mean we really need it. Right now, we can only last a day—two at the most.”

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  Drill? Check. Hammer? Double-check. Time for the pneumatic jackhammer. “No side trips, and no adventures. To the store and back, right?”

  “Of course!”

  Why, oh why, did Jarod’s response not do anything to dispel Cleo’s concerns?

  * * *

  Adjusting to life on the Moon presented few difficulties for Dr. Weigner. He found the additional discipline of a low atmosphere and gravity environment were quite similar to pristine laboratory protocols. And the terrain, while a touch monochromatic, was widely varied in terms of terrain and geology. The doctor felt like he was on some kind of incredible grown-up field trip. Even the food was similar. Plentiful and largely horrific.

  After settling in to the military-issue atmos-tent, Dr. Weigner donned his space suit and headed over to the main pavilion. He waded his way past the various military personnel attempting to look like the standard miner with varying degrees of success. Weigner located Captain Stavros by heading toward the biggest cluster of human bodies. The captain acknowledged Weigner’s presence with a small nod, to which the doctor responded vocally.

  “I will be at the café if you need me.”

  The captain started, pushing aside a couple of aides, apparently to make sure he had a clear line of communication. “That’s unwise, Doctor. We can get you some coffee here.”

  Weigner sighed. He had anticipated that there might be an adverse reaction to his leaving the base of operations. He spoke slowly and clearly so as not to be misunderstood. “It is not a drink I seek, but information.”

  Once more, the military man raised an objection. “My men can do the recon.”

  Dr. Weigner pinched the bridge of his nose between his index finger and thumb. “Captain, with all due respect, your men are not going to understand—” Stavros opened his mouth, clearly to protest once more. Weigner spoke over him, a calculated risk in this situation, but establishing his intellectual preeminence was necessary.

  “A miner found a fragment of a new type of crystal. Black and brittle. Are your men going to know what that indicates?” He paused for a moment to let that idea sink in. “Could they even comprehend the questions to ask such a miner?”

  Captain Stavros bent his neck to one side and then the other, the cracking of his vertebrae audible. His discomfort was palpable. Having his authority challenged so directly was more than likely a singular experience for the captain.

  “You’ll have a two-man escort. But keep your head low. Do you understand?”

  Weigner was savvy enough in the ways of authority to know when to no longer push. “Fully.”

  Much as the doctor had never thought he would say these words, even to himself, it was time to hit the clubs.

  * * *

  The bar-slash-café-slash-general store went by the name of Dark Side of the Moon. As might be expected, there was a huge Pink Floyd symbol on the sign outside. What might not be quite so expected was the general condition of the café itself. It looked like someone went to hell and then decided to open up a bar decorated as a cheap knockoff of what they had seen.

  It was not pretty.

  Paint peeled off the walls, and not in the shabby chic, overly distressed kind of way. This was just shabby. The walls themselves looked like the only thing holding them up was the fact that they leaned into one another. This was the kind of place where good taste came to die, or at least receive cut-rate hospice care.

  Jarod looked around as he pulled up on his less-than-stylish Mooncycle. Okay, truth be told, the thing was barely functioning. It was clunky and unwieldy and had been thrown in with the ship. The bike fit in quite nicely with the general décor of the Dark Side of the Moon. What did not go quite so well was the gorgeous Harley-Davidson Moonhog Jarod pulled up alongside. Jarod did what he could to control his envy. That was a nice machine.

  As Jarod entered, he had to pause to let his eyes adjust to the low lighting. Many places did that to create ambience. This joint clearly did it to keep their patrons from looking too closely at their environs. Once more, Jarod wondered at the apparent ravages of the Moon’s atmosphere. What exactly caused paint to peel in less than two months? The same thing that wore out the carpets in cheap hotel rooms in the same amount of time?

  Pink Floyd was playing at full volume, so as Jarod went to check his helmet with the hat- check girl, he had to raise his voice several decibels to be heard. “Supplies?” he yelled.

  The girl looked up from her outdated People magazine and hollered back at him. “The General Store is through the swinging door to the right.”

  The girl was cute, in a minimum-wage kind of way. Jarod grinned and winked at her as he replied, “Thanks, hon.”

  Without missing a beat, the girl pointed to a staircase off to the side of the hat-check area. “Brothel’s on the third floor.” She went back to her magazine without a second glance at Jarod, or his award-winning smile.

  “Damn, I am losing my touch,” Jarod muttered to himself as he pushed through the swinging doors that led to the General Store. Maybe shopping would take his mind off of it.

  * * *

  Inside the Vanquisher, Gil stood hunched over Talon’s shoulder, reading the computer terminal display as his henchman pulled up the data. Gil did not like what he was seeing. And when Gil did not like something, heads would often roll. He entertained himself with that image while Talon accessed the next sector’s information.

  “Sector 72?” Gil probed.

  “Dry.”

  “73?”

  Talon shook his head in dismissal. Sector afte
r sector was coming up with nothing. No diamonds. Not even a sliver. “74? 75? Anything, anywhere?” Gil didn’t even have to wait for Talon’s negative responses to know in his gut what was happening.

  “Damn it! Where are those diamonds?” He held up a hand to forestall Talon’s explanations. A thought percolated through his brain. Gil didn’t want to lose it in Talon’s sea of excuses. Excuses were the product of a weak mind. A mind like…

  There it was. “Where did Jarod land?”

  Talon scrolled through his rosters and registers, courtesy of Moonbase. “As far as we can tell…he didn’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Talon double-checked his notes, and then replied. “He did a flyby, and then disappeared. He hasn’t registered a new stake yet.”

  Gil drummed his fingertips against the console. “That bastard wouldn’t just leave…” He waved his hand at Talon to continue his work at the computer. “Work the angles here. I’m gonna find where our cash cow is staked.”

  As Gil started to move out, Talon called his attention back to the northeast sector. “There’s still no word on our new ‘neighbors.’ I believe that Moonbase is honestly unaware of their presence.”

  Gil bared his teeth at his right-hand man. “Can you taste it, Talon? Even with no atmosphere, I can smell blood.” He slapped his hand against his thigh as he headed toward the door. “Blood and profit.”

  * * *

  It took a lot longer than Jarod would have liked, and it had cost a lot more than he could afford, but he had his supplies. He had not had any idea that this would be the easy part of the excursion. Now he had to get those supplies out the door.

  Not as simple as it sounded.

  His arms were loaded down with everything he and his crew needed, Jarod was now doing some kind of erratic dance through the crowded bar. It wouldn’t be half as difficult if it weren’t for the fact that the patrons seemed determined to keep some sort of a fight going at all times. He was so close to the exit that he could almost taste it, but every step forward necessitated at least two sideways—like some insane version of that game with sliding tiles where you tried to line them all up.

  Jarod sidestepped a vicious roundhouse swing that had clearly been aimed at someone else. Unfortunately, his sidestep sent him careening into a very large, very muscular woman whose bump back sent Jarod’s packages skittering across the barroom floor. Jarod went to collect his merchandise, only to find patrons snarling over each item like a pack of rabid canines.

  “Hey!” Jarod yelled at one scrawny but surprisingly strong miner who refused to let go of Jarod’s carbon dioxide scrubber. “I need that!”

  “Get your own!” the man cackled at him.

  “That is my own, you lunatic!” Jarod yelled back, changing the pull into a push that caught the man square in the chest and sent him reeling against the bar. Jarod took that as his cue to get the hell out of there. He went to move toward the exit again, only to find his way blocked by a wall of stinky diamond hunters. Jarod backed up, bumping into someone behind him. He whirled around and found himself face-to-face with a jade scorpion pendant.

  “Why am I not surprised to find Gil’s lackey here spying on me?” He sneered at the Asian woman, jumping back just in time to miss a kick aimed at his head.

  She snapped back. “My name is Mia, and I only hitched a ride with the scumbag, which I paid for. That’s it.” She whirled around and delivered a snap kick to a large man’s midsection. The breath went out of the miner in a whoosh of alcohol-drenched air.

  Mia looked back over at Jarod and yelled, “Get down!” She tackled Jarod, taking him to the floor just as a bottle whizzed overhead.

  Jarod now found himself prostrate, his limbs entangled with those of the lovely Mia. “How Freudian.” He chuckled at the perplexed look on Mia’s face. “You know, I’m starting to form a new theory about our rendezvous.” He grinned, loving the flush that was creeping up the woman’s face. “You’re stalking me.”

  Mia stood up, seeming a bit rattled. Jarod slowly rose, allowing a bit of swagger to enter in. “Yeah. You’ve got a taste of the Rogue, and can’t—”

  A beer bottle to the jaw knocked the remainder of that sentence clear out of Jarod’s head. In its place was the most fantastic display of fireworks Jarod could remember seeing. He shook his head, trying to figure out where the bottle-wielder had gone. This good-natured bar fight was starting to turn downright ugly.

  Mia spoke over her shoulder at Jarod as she headed toward the exit. “Follow me.”

  “What? While you recite poetry?”

  Jarod watched while Mia kicked off her gravity boots. All of a sudden, this lithe woman became a whirling dervish of destruction. Using the low gravity to her advantage, Mia kicked off one brawler, propelling her fist toward another. She was a whirlwind of striking heels and slicing hands. Jarod had seen Cuisinart blenders that did less damage than Mia. He followed in her wake of broken bones toward the hat-check area.

  “Remind me never to piss you off.”

  The hat-check girl, still reading her magazine, seemed unfazed by the mayhem surrounding her. She handed them their helmets as they rushed for the door.

  “Thanks for visiting the Dark Side of the Moon. Come again soon.”

  Jarod and Mia raced out to their bikes, but found only Jarod’s decrepit cycle awaiting them. “Where’s my Harley?” Mia shouted.

  “That piece of muscle was yours?”

  “Yes! But it’s been jacked.”

  Jarod revved the engine on his clunker, trying to make a point. Unfortunately, the motor only sputtered before cutting out. He kicked it back to life, trying to look like that was his intention all along.

  “Bummer. Catch you on the flip side.”

  Jarod watched out of his peripherals as Mia assessed her situation. The fight from inside the bar had now spilled out and threatened to engulf her once more. Jarod looked back and did a double take. An older, bookish-looking man was walking toward the bar and the still-raging fight, flanked by two burly looking guys. He shook his head. It took all kinds, he guessed. He mentally wished the old guy well.

  Mia reasserted herself. “Wait! Can I buy a ride off of you?”

  Jarod snorted. “Sorry. I’m not for sale.” He paused a second, and then mumbled to himself, “Well, at least not yet.” He inched his way forward, forcing Mia to trot to stay alongside the bike. She dodged to avoid a particularly nasty knife fight.

  “Look, I’ve got a scientific method to help you locate diamonds.”

  Jarod laughed. “Sorry, but the Rogues’ brainiac position is filled.

  Mia jumped to the side, avoiding being stabbed by mere millimeters. She reached into her pocket, pulling out an elongated black device. It was the thing she had waved in front of his face in the bar back on the space station.

  “Does he have this?”

  Jarod put on his best neutral face as he responded, “That looks like it could have many uses, several of which I really don’t want to know about.” He was gratified to notice that once more, a serious blush was heating up Mia’s cheeks.

  She wasn’t done with her presentation, however. She showed Jarod that the device was clearly scanning for something. “It can locate a diamond within a twenty-foot radius.”

  Jarod felt his expression freeze for a moment. Then the smile to beat all smiles broke spread over his face. He stopped the bike.

  “Hop on.” He waited until she clambered aboard before continuing. “You had me at ‘pretentious car.’ ”

  Jarod cranked the lever on the bike, lifting them up to cruising altitude. He then pointed them in the direction of the Rogues’ ship.

  Mia tapped him on the shoulder. “Where are you going? The diamond fields are to the east.”

  “I’m taking the scenic route.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Diamond Fields on the Moon

  March 31, 2049

  0830 hours, LST

  Cleo surveyed the panning equipment the ship had com
e with. One nice thing about Star Diamonds being undetectable is that mining tools were mostly low tech. That kind of gear had a tendency to stay relatively intact. Now that the Rogues had finally made it out to the fields, they had as much chance of succeeding as anyone else out here. Cleo glanced over at Buton and reassessed. They had a much greater chance. This whole thing could actually work—for once.

  Working alongside Rob, Cleo nudged him in the ribs as they both pulled out the panning equipment. They had been putting everything to the test since Jarod had left to get supplies, and everyone seemed to be in higher spirits than Cleo had seen in quite some time. Rob shied away from her ribbing, a grin plastered on his face as he knelt down in the dirt and scooped up a pan full of moondust.

  “Check me out, Cleo! I’m a prospector.” He spoke with an exaggerated hick accent and pulled a face that dropped his IQ down at least fifty points.

  She felt the laughter bubble up from a place deep inside her. Sometimes, in her drive to make sure that Rob was protected, she forgot just what a good kid he was. Impulsive, sure. But kind and thoughtful, too. And funny as all hell.

  Buton looked over and beyond both of them. “It appears Jarod is returning.”

  Cleo faced the direction Buton’s body was pointing. She squinted against the dust the bike was kicking up, realizing after the fact that she was wearing a helmet. Habits die hard. Just one more reminder of how different this environment was.

  As the cloud cleared, the entire crew seemed to notice at the same time the additional body plastered against Jarod’s back. The additional female body plastered against Jarod’s back.

  Jarod swung his leg over the side of the bike, reaching out a hand to help down whoever it was behind him. Cleo didn’t give him a chance to settle in.

  “Jarod! I can’t believe… You can’t bring some one-night stand to our ship!”

  Cleo watched Jarod’s spine stiffen. “How do you think that you joined the Rogues?”