He finished stuffing the bag, closed the top flap, took a box of medical supplies under one arm and withdrew from the car. He wasn’t smiling. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do here, but you’re all over the place. I mean, look at you; I can see you have two guns, probably have more. You have a hover car running, and no problem getting supplies. Why haven’t the Order taken you out? You say these bugs are coming and we’re not supposed to be armed, but you are the contradiction.”
“I’m just one guy,” I explained. “Probably not worth going after.”
“All right, maybe you spent a little too long on your own, it’s messed with your head. Hide your car, and come with me. We’ll settle you in and maybe some time with people will get your head straight.”
“I didn’t come up with this myself, I found it on the Stellarnet, posted by the British Alliance from the Rega Gain system. Ayan, a commander in Haven Shore, this place they’re building there that’s safe, where there’s food and good people, narrated the whole thing. There was proof going back ten years.”
“Can I see it?”
“I tried to use the comm to call out, and the Order blocked all transmissions, started tracking it so I had to blast it.”
“All right,” it was clear he didn’t believe me. Andy patted me on the shoulder and Theo’s head fell out of the large pouch on the outside of my bag. He looked at it, part melted and inert, then back at me. “That’s the friend you were talking to when I came up on you?”
“He wasn’t infected until a few days ago, I had to slag him,” I explained lamely. “But the core is still good, so maybe I can cure him.”
“I’m telling you this for your own good, because you’re helping me and my friends. You should find a safe place to sort all this out. I don’t know what you’re on, maybe it is just loneliness, but whatever it is, you’re imagining things. I don’t know why we were relocated here, I think it was so they could use our home worlds for resources without having to deal with the citizens, who knows? What I can tell you is that I found a few good people since I first met ya, and thanks to you we’ve got enough supplies so we don’t have to beg and trade favours for our daily calories. You’ll be welcome with my people, maybe even be a hero. Come with us when we get enough stuff together to move on.”
“What’s the difference between that and getting on a ship then blasting out of here?”
“The difference is that the Order is going to blast you so bad that you’ll be nothing but a grease spot, or if you do get into one of their ships and take off, they’ll vaporize you once you leave orbit. So, if you’re not going to come with me, I’ll thank you for the supplies, and wish you luck. Really, thank you so much.” He extended his hand and I shook it.
I watched as he retreated into the shadows of the tall, half fallen city. Sometime after he had gone, I took Theo’s head and made sure it was securely sealed in my bag’s outer pouch.
Part Thirty-Two
A small group of people found me a few streets over from the blasted clearing in front of the Commerce building, and I was thankful that Andy only took a bag full, leaving about twenty-four bars and a small selection of loose snacks behind. I wished he believed me for obvious reasons, sure, but also because he seemed like a good friend to have.
When a couple kids approached my car, I made sure they each left with a turnover in their belly and another in their pockets. “It’s a secret, this car,” an older fellow said as he approached with a younger man and woman. He looked older than most people I’d seen, but was spry, steady on his feet. “We’re from that old building there,” he pointed. The structure looked intact; an old red bricked apartment building. It was the same one Andy took his bag of goodies into the night before. “Most of us know where you are, but we’re keeping it from those greedy bastards in the Commerce Centre.”
I got ready to give him and his friends meal bars and a packet of emergency nanobots, but he waved his hand. “No need to bribe us, son,” he said. “I just thought you might want to hide your car and come inside tonight. It’s starting to get cold, and I noticed you don’t run your machine at night. Can’t be too warm.”
He was right, it was starting to get cold. “I have to stay near my car,” I said with a shrug. “I’m going to steal a ship next time they come here. I bet they’ll land in the clearing, so I’ve gotta stay close.”
“Delivering food, fattening us up for the bug invasion,” the old man said, nodding, smiling a little. “We heard. Most people won’t go near you, they think you’re crazy.”
“I can’t help what I believe,” I said. “Are you sure you don’t want this?” I said, waving the boxed nano treatment and the six bars. “Crazy’s not contagious.”
He accepted my offering. “Thank you,” he said. “And when you’ve lived as long as I have, you see that crazy is plenty contagious. When do you think they’re coming?”
“The Edxians?” I asked.
He recoiled a little. “The Order, the food.”
“I don’t know,” I told him. “But there’s a building with hundreds of people inside,” I nodded in the direction of the Commerce Building. “There’s a clearing right next to it, and I bet when they come, they’ll drop right there. When I saw it happen at the Remington Mall, soldiers didn’t stick around to see everyone got fed, either. It was first come, first serve until a bunch of thugs took charge.”
“You’ve seen a lot on this planet, haven’t you, son?”
“Guess I have,” I replied. “Seems like I’ve been here forever.”
“Lost some good people?” he asked quietly, compassion in his eyes.
I swallowed hard. “A good friend, yeah.”
“When you get tired of watching the skies, you come to us. Fifth floor. Ask for me, ask for Orillio.”
“You could always come with me,” I offered.
“Best of luck,” he said, waving as he turned away. He and his companions walked to the building in no great hurry, and I have to admit that I was tempted to ditch the car and catch up. I was finally meeting people who seemed nice, who seemed like they wanted to cooperate. I was doing better than everyone I saw, as though I was born to the wandering, looting life while they were newly marooned. They were, that was the truth, and I was hoping that there was another round of ships coming. Dropping off people or food, it didn’t matter. I started wishing on the stars for Order ships, going through my plan to take one every few hours.
Like most nights, I fell asleep in the driver’s seat. The sound of thrusters passing overhead woke me, and for a moment I thought I was dreaming. I looked up and saw an Order of Eden drop ship flying so low that I could read the slogan on the side of the large cargo container. ‘Bringing Life Saving Sustenance To Those In Need,’ it said. I laughed and started my hover car.
It roared to life and I was off, chasing the ship down the street to the clearing. I got there just in time to see it drop the large food container off, decouple from it and lift into the sky at great speed while the doors on the container popped open. I was within ten metres without a ghost’s chance of getting to the rear hatch of the ship. “God dammit! They’re too fast!” I shouted, pounding the wheel.
Then I realized that I’d beat everyone to the cargo container. In fact, people were just starting to realize it was there, they weren’t even running for it yet. The cargo doors yawned open, maybe five metres from my passenger door. I realized I could grab a few boxes with enough emergency rations for ten people for a year inside before anyone even knew what was happening. I could go to that apartment building, do something really important for them, buy my way into their group. If I filled my back seat, we could eat for a couple years if the group didn’t grow too large.
A streak of light crossed in front of my windshield as my hand reached for the door handle. Another ship was on its way, from the low altitude I guessed it would descend somewhere nearby. “That’s not far away,” I told Theo. I looked at the cargo container, still open, still right there. I rushed ou
t of the car, grabbed a box of three hundred sixty emergency meal bars and shoved it into the back seat. “New plan: We take less food than we could, and drive like hell. If I miss the next ship, I won’t have to regret passing up good clean food. If I make it off this dirt ball, I’ll leave the car and the food for some lucky guy.”
A giant plume of black dust surrounded my car as I hit the accelerator and headed for the streets past the battle-flattened patch of land. It felt like my heart was in my throat. I expected failure, there was no way I’d catch a cargo ship if I had to travel for more than a few seconds to get to it, but I was so eager to try that my car took a few dings and dents as I rushed through the streets as fast as I’d ever gone. “We learn most from trying, not from sitting around, hoping shit gets better, right, man?”
I imagined Theo commenting on how clever my little expression was and laughed. “Of course it’s clever, I live on clever, clever keeps me entertained and fed.”
Through narrow, and broad streets, over hills and down sudden drops, I pushed the car to its limit, and when I spotted the landed ship with two crewmen outside, I grinned maniacally. They were struggling with one of the clamps on the crate they were supposed to drop. The doors on the crate were already wide open, and people were already starting to move towards the public park they’d used as their landing spot. “Surprise, assholes!” I howled as I pointed the front of my car at the pair of lightly armoured Order soldiers and slowed down just enough so I wouldn’t kill myself and rammed into the side of the cargo container. One of the soldiers was caught in the middle of my bumper, crushed so bad that his helmet came off, the middle of his suit burst and part of him was spread across my hood.
The collision felt like an iron fisted punch that hit me everywhere at once, but my adrenaline was pumping so hard that the driver’s seat was open, and I was out of the car with Needler in my right hand and a few suppression bombs in my left. I pinched a suppression bomb and tossed it at the Order soldier who managed to jump out of the way of my bumper. He was pinned to the grass by a thick web of suppression fluid, a perfect shot. I pulled Needler’s trigger briefly, rattling thirty or so rounds into his torso. His armour protected him from a lot of it, but not all. I could see spots of blood spreading from tears in his light green uniform before I turned my attention to the most important part of my plan.
The rear hatch was opening, only a metre and a half above the ground. A man in a dark green pilot’s suit was poking his head out. “What the hell was that, Regibald?”
I turned on him and squeezed my trigger, catching him before he could close the door and filling him with tiny pinholes. I knew what my weapon did to people. It filled them with micro shrapnel that shredded their insides, and at that time I celebrated it. To me, there was nothing worse than an Order of Eden soldier, or pilot, or even sympathizer. They were responsible for killing my entire family, marooning me on Iora, and then destroying my only friend.
The pilot fell through the door onto the grass and I leapt onto him. “Give me the control chip! The security key! Whatever the fuck you unlock this thing with! Now!” I pressed the hot barrel of my weapon to his cheek.
He reached into the collar of his uniform and pulled a tiny golden chip on a chain out. “It’s just a job, man, I’m just a bus driver,” he said before coughing and sending a spatter of blood onto my coat.
With a yank the chain came off his neck, and I rushed the rear hatch of the ship. It was small inside, with four seats for crew that folded away so bunks could be pulled out, and a couple heavy lockers for equipment and precious cargo. There was a slim medical alcove, an emergency stasis pod across from it, and then the door to the cockpit. It opened, and I squeezed my trigger not a second later. The face of the co-pilot’s helmet was open, and most of my needle rounds hit their mark, filling his head with rounds. He was dead before his helmet bounced off the deck with what was left of his noggin inside.
The rear hatch slammed with a firm pull on the handle, and I rushed the cockpit. The co-pilot was surprisingly light, so it was easy to pull him out of the front cabin and into the rear. I was sitting at the controls in a heartbeat. I dropped my bag into the co-pilot’s seat, the idea that Theo was in there was comforting.
Part Thirty-Three
I began lifting off, an alarm indicating that one of the grabbers on the underside of my ill-gotten ship was still jammed in the closed position, meaning that I was awkwardly stuck to the container filled with food. I didn’t want to leave the people below without, so I looked for a solution while I jiggled the controls, hoping that the crate would break free. It didn’t.
Then I spotted a statue in the middle of the park made of gleaming metal. It was rose coloured in the early morning light, a woman clothed in a single piece of cloth wrapped around her as though it was windblown, pointing a bow and arrow straight up. “That’ll work!” I said.
I’ll understand if you don’t believe this next bit, but I tell you it’s all honest, true to the last word. With reflexes and visualization skills I didn’t know I had, I lifted the cargo container up, moved forward, and planted it onto that statue, spearing the thing with the metal woman and her bow. When I tried to pull up again, the container came free of that one stuck clamp with a creak, and the ship lurched into the sky.
I looked at the rear scanners in time to see my handiwork: the cargo container was perfectly planted with the tip of the arrow poking through the middle of the top. I don’t have pictures, but I’m telling you that’s what it looked like. People were already running through the park towards the Order soldiers I put down, two of whom were still moving They were after my car, and the cargo container too. It would be a good day down there, and I didn’t expect there would be many after that. There were hundreds of them, and I wondered how many were believers in my unintentional prophecy; that the Order would come with food, and I’d steal a ship.
I looked away from the screen and examined the information projected across the windshield in front of me. “Okay, everything looks pretty obvious here,” I said. “Way more modern than I’m used to, but the controls are pretty normal.” I located the damper controls, the local navigation panel, the interstellar navigation panel, and the system status displays.
“Where are the navnet and combat scanners?” I asked, looking in every direction but behind me and right in front of me. After a few seconds I realized that they were projected in the middle of my view if I looked straight ahead and nodded. “Okay, good.” To my surprise there were markers indicating nine cargo ships in the sky. That could be a problem if any of them decided to intercept me. I was always told that the best way to win a fight – even a dogfight – was to avoid getting into one if you could. I pushed the thrusters hard and watched the altimeter reading climb fast, the whine of gravitational dampers filling my ears. “Burnout, we go flat,” Lurk warned from the inside pocket of my jacket.
“Good point, we don’t want to burn the dampers out,” I replied, slowing my ascent a little. “This thing probably has a different set of rules when you’re flying without cargo.”
I was in space a few moments later, and my scanners marked two destroyers and a carrier along with ten smaller ships. They were a hemisphere away. I set the autopilot on a path to orbit between the hulls of large derelict ships that littered the near space around the planet, aiming for a clump of debris that was so large it must have been a space station, then switched seats. “You’re going to have to go on the floor, buddy,” I told Theo as I moved his bag out of the co-pilot’s spot.
I tried to use the interstellar navigation panel, and it asked of my credentials. I held up the golden command chip, it scanned it, then a superior sounding male voice said; “Bioscan mismatch. Please ensure that the correct crew member is attempting to use this terminal with the correct command chip in their possession. Error one-one-four-zero-four.”
I tried again and got the same result. “Oh, God, the chip’s matched to the pilot,” I cried aloud.
I hurriedly open
ed the cockpit door and searched the co-pilot for his command chip. “Tell me you’ve got one, the jump system is in front of your seat, you’ve gotta have a command chip!” After searching through the gore of his neck and reaching into the neck of his shirt, I found it. “Okay, back in your seat, man,” I said as I half picked him up, half dragged him back into the co-pilot’s seat and tried to access the navigational panel.
“Life sign failure. Error-one-nine-six-zero-one,” the computer said.
“Of course the computer can tell if he’s dead!” I said, throwing up my hands. I pushed on his chest, compressing it over and over, trying to force a beat into his heart and cringed at the same time as blood started pumping through the holes in his neck and face. After a few pumps, seeing that the blood was moving, I took one of his hands and tried to access the interstellar navigational panel. It activated, and I sat in the thin co-pilot’s lap awkwardly. Hey, he wasn’t just skinny, he was dead, and I had trouble keeping him from slumping out of his seat. I didn’t have time to get the corpse out of the way though, so I muddled through. “You are injured, Petty Officer Arsenault, seek medical attention immediately,” the computer said. “Error six-zero-one-four.”
“No shit,” I laughed as I hurriedly looked up the Rega Gain system. It came up, and I ordered the computer to start plotting a course and generating a wormhole. As soon as I saw that it was working, I returned to the pilot’s seat. My hands were bloody, somehow the back of my neck was wet, and I expected everything to go wrong any second.
“Cargo Shuttle Seventeen,” came a voice through the cockpit communication system. I spotted a holographic recorder between the seats and grabbed a meal bar from my pocket, busted it open and crammed half of it into all the crevices and tiny receiver rods. There was no way they could see what was in the cockpit with it clogged up like that. “I see here that we are not receiving any data from your service crewmen, or the pilot. We also received an error code: Six-zero-one-four for the co-pilot. Report immediately.” His words were urgent, but he sounded way too calm, too collected for me to believe he was really concerned.
Spinward Fringe Broadcast 10.5: Carnie's Tale Page 21