The Lost Gunboat Captain

by J. D. Oppenheim

  Before they said their goodbyes, Jolo made sure each person had their pockets filled with Fed rations. And the people genuinely seemed hopeful.

  The Jessica lifted off and Katy looked at Jolo. "Where to, Captain."

  Jolo suddenly realized he hadn’t thought that far. He mainly wanted to make sure that the people from Qualus had a chance. And now they did. But what now? He knew that Duval felt right. But that's all he had: a feeling.

  Instead of pulling up the local map, Jolo gazed at the orange Duval landscape on the large bridge screen. It reminded him of the escape pod and how he barely made it out alive. It seemed like years ago but it was only a week since he crash landed on the Soldown Flats to the south. He remembered the mountain chain, the wide river, and the orange earth.

  "Katy, take me to the north end of the mountain chain," Jolo said.

  There was nothing logical about this decision. And he couldn't tell the crew that this was just a hunch. So he pretended like he knew what he was doing. It had worked so far.

  As they got closer the mountain chain got larger and more rugged. Jolo felt like this was the perfect place to hide, maybe to make repairs to the ship. The thruster had taken damage on the right side and needed to be fixed. The computer didn’t accept all of Jolo’s commands. The cells needed charging and Hurley had a list of other things that needed doing which required some downtime.

  They flew over the edge of the mountain chain and Jolo saw a small crack that led into a narrow ravine.

  "Katy, take us there."

  "Captain, I don't think we can squeeze in," she said.

  "Yeah we can. Point the nose at that dark spot."

  So Katy slowed down the ship and eased towards the black hole between the two mountains. As she got closer the crack grew larger, but still, it was a tight fit. Koba said nothing, but gripped the edge of his console. Soon, the Jessica's proximity warnings started to sound.

  Koba couldn't stand it any longer, he had to say something. "Captain, we only have about 18 meters on either side."

  The moment the ship moved past the hole, the crevice grew deeper and wider the further down they went, extending out several kilometers. Katy looked up at Jolo and he just smiled at her.

  "I've been here before," he said, and then added, “I think.”

  "Confidence inspiring, Captain,” she said. “So is this a solid memory, or just one of your feelings?" she said.

  "A little bit of both. Head that way and look for another dark spot about 300 meters off the bottom on the left."

  "Where we going, Captain?" said Koba. "This may be a pirate nest, we just don't know."

  Katy guided the ship downward and even though the walls of the crevice expanded outwards, it was still tight and she was starting to sweat. Sure enough, 1 km north and about 300 meters off the surface there was a hole on the side of the ravine. It was just a dark spot and no one would find it if they weren’t looking for it. Katy slowly guided the ship in that direction.

  Jolo got on the comm and called the Greeley brothers. “Y’all get suited up and ready.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Guns?”

  “Yeah, but don’t start shooting unless I give the word. One of y’all get topside. You know how to work the boots?”

  “Affirmative, Captain,” came the younger Greeley’s reply. The magna-boots held crew members firmly to the side of the hull, and were usually used for emergency repairs in space, but were just as good in a pinch for putting another set of eyes on the top of the ship in a dark crack between two sheer cliffs half a kilometer below the surface of a dusty planet.

  “Stay low and use the safety line just in case. We’re gonna stick our nose in a hole and see what pops out.”

  Then he called down to Hurley. “We got enough juice for forward shields and a few bursts from the cannon?”

  “Yeah, barely, but if yer wantin’ to go toe to toe with a BG boat I’d suggest we head back to Sol for a recharge. I’m sure they’d love to see us.”

  “Roger that. We just need enough for show.”

  “This don’t sound good, Captain,” said Katy.

  Jolo gave her a nod and tried to look cool and collected, but he was worried, too. Something was pulling him here and he was going to find out. He was on alert, like he was heading right into a trap, but for some reason was okay with it.

  Katy put the nose of the Jessica 15 meters from the entrance to the hole. It was like a wide cavern that opened on the side of the shear cliff face. Inside the floors were smooth and Jolo thought he could make out a fuel cell recharger near some chains hanging on the wall. The space was plenty big enough to hide the Jessica, but whose secret cavern was this? he wondered. It smelled like pirate, and Jolo knew it, but for some reason he wasn't afraid.

  He got on the comm and called up to Greeley, "Are you topside?"

  "Yeah, Captain, nothing up here but the blue sky."

  "Captain," said Koba. "We got a bogey 30 meters south, directly under us."

  "What is it?" said Jolo.

  Koba stared at the screen, his eyebrows furrowed. "It's gone."

  Jolo told Katy to raise the shields, then told Greeley to check the bottom of the boat.

  Suddenly the shields went down and the power to charge the guns went offline. A few seconds later auxiliary power came on, but Hurley called from engineering. "Captain, we're dead in the water. We got juice to fly, but barely. I don't know how it happened. I thought we had more. We’re gonna have to set her down in a hurry."

  Greeley called in on the comm. "Captain, there's something funny hanging off the bottom of the--" and then his words were cut off.

  "Greeley, are you there? Greeley?" But there was no reply.

  Suddenly from either side of the cavern, trapdoors opened and two chains shot out and attached themselves to either side of the Jessica. The magnetized couplers hit the hull twice in the front and then two more from the back from the other side of the ravine. The sound inside the ship was deafening. It was like being inside a drum. Everyone instantly put their hands to their ears and the Jessica lurched forward towards the cavern entrance.

  An old man appeared from inside the hole in the cliff face holding a rifle. He reached to his left and pulled the comm off the wall. "Federation got no business here. I thought I had an arrangement with the Valhalla. So y'all better have a good story or I’ll bury your ship so deep no one's gonna find it and don't even think about trying to make a call back to Sol. I'll catch every transmission sent. Now I got one of your boys hanging upside down from the bottom and I got me a new Fed issue energy weapon, of course they ain’t worth a shit anyway."

  At that, he raised his own rifle which Jolo could see was not an energy weapon. It looked old. Really old, like his gun. The man fired a shot straight at the porthole window. Jolo ducked down, just like the green captain did when Jolo shot the port screen on the Jessica before.

  "Those energy shields don't work too well, now do they?" the old man said, smiling, clearly having fun.

  "I ain’t a Fed man anymore," said Jolo.

  "Is that so? Then you can retire the ship to me and I'll let you walk free."

  The chains holding the nose of the Jessica were taught and slowly pulling the the ship in towards the mouth of the cave as the old man spoke. Soon the nose was nearly touching the edge of the cave.

  Jolo ran down to the armory and found the older Greeley putting on the other pair of magna boots. “He’s my brother. I’m going to get him.”

  But Jolo told him to stay put, then put the boots on himself and went topside. He took a quick look at the bottom and saw the younger Greeley hanging upside down unconscious, but still breathing, and still tied to the safety line. So Jolo made his way back up top and then down to the entrance of the cave to talk to the old man. Jolo held his hands up but the old man had his gun pointed straight at Jolo as he made his way onto the surface of the cavern. The man held an old steel tubed projectile weapon that shot out a
pattern of small lead pellets. Like his gun, crude, but highly effective. Especially at short range.

  The floor was smooth metal and the inside was clearly designed to house a spaceship. Once on solid ground inside the cavern, Jolo walked towards the old man.

  The old man got a good look at Jolo and his face instantly softened. The rifle in his hands slowly came down like it was suddenly heavy. And then he just dropped it. He stepped towards Jolo and put his hands on Jolo's face. His eyes were red and watery and somehow he was older than he was a moment before. "Let me look at you, Boy," said the old man. "They said you was a synth come to destroy the peace. But all I see is Jolo. Those ungrateful bastards. They say they want to kill you because you're a synth. But that's a lie. They know you could fire up the rebellion again. Things ain't like they were."

  "Who are you?" said Jolo.

  "I'm your father. Welcome home."

  Father

  Duval, in the home of Marco Vargas.

  The hole in the wall turned out to be a large bay, complete with everything that Hurley needed to get the Jessica repaired. In the back of the cavernous hold was a tunnel which led to a large home with multiple levels and even an atrium near the top which could not be seen from above. Everything about the place was geared towards secrecy and seclusion. And so the crew stayed in Jolo's father’s house, which Koba called the Pirates Nest—a name Jolo's father did not seem to mind at all.

  And while the Greeley brothers discussed arms, historic and modern, with the old man that everyone called Marco, and Hurley and Koba busied themselves repairing the Jessica, and Katy sampled the strawberries growing in the atrium, Jolo spent most of his time in the library.

  For the first time in as long as he could remember, there was no immediate threat to his life. And even though the Federation and the BG were searching for him--here in this place, with the man called Marco, who claimed to be his father, a new feeling came over him. For the first time he felt safe.

  While he was trying to escape he didn't have much time to think, which was a good thing. But at the big, secluded house, hidden away in the face of a cliff, his brain would not shut down. He couldn't sleep, couldn't do much of anything, except think about the girl, Jaylen Voss. One thought dominated his mind: he had to get to her, to rescue her, to save her. And he didn't even know where she was.

  At night he would walk through the foreign place, a place that was supposed to be his home, and he usually ended up in the library, standing in the middle of hundreds of images projected in 3d space all around him. All of them starring a smiling, dark-haired boy running through the tall, green grass of a planet he did not remember, chasing a small brown dog, or being held tightly by a woman he didn't know, but supposed was his mother.

  One night when the house was quiet and everyone else was asleep, the old man found him there and pointed to the image of the woman and the boy. "She was so beautiful. She loved you so much.”

  Jolo wondered what he was supposed to say. Should he lie and say that he missed her? Like all the images that he saw there, she was just a woman that he didn't know, just like the boy in the pictures, just like the man standing before him. So he just nodded.

  “Casualty of war,” the old man continued. “The BG needed something and if your planet had it, then you were royally farked. They needed minerals from Pleny. And like dumbasses, we thought we could beat the black, alacyte bastards. Big and strong we were, ignorant farmers from a nutrient rich land. But they mowed us down and took what they wanted. Not many made it out. And after that you went dark, joined the Fed, and were hell bent on making things right in your mind. I think you figured if you could kill enough of them then you’d get some relief. But that never happened. I figured you was gonna die fighting.” And then he stopped, put his hand on Jolo’s shoulder. “But we got lucky, didn’t we? Sometimes forgetting is a good thing.”

  “What should I call you?” said Jolo.

  “Marco is fine, for now. But I am your father and it’s good to have you back.” The old man headed for the door.

  “Marco?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are any images missing? I’m looking for a girl I knew before when I was captain of the Jessica and Barthelme was chief. Her name is Jaylen Voss.”

  “Computer, is there a Jaylen Voss in the image archive?”

  “No, sir,” came the reply. The old man shrugged.

  Jolo checked the room Marco said he had slept in several years back. He found clothes that fit better than his stolen Fed blues, and he also found a beautiful, leather holster for his gun, but there were no hints of her existence. Why would there be? he wondered. It was forbidden by Fed regulations, so he’d tried to keep it hidden, he supposed.

  Jolo left the library and wandered around the dark house, finally ending up in Katy's room. He sat down on the edge of her bed. He moved the hair from her forehead lightly with his finger and checked the bandage that the med-bot replaced earlier. He didn't see the blood stain anymore so he figured the wound was healing.

  Suddenly Katy woke up and grabbed his hand. "Dansby?" she said.

  "Who's that?" asked Jolo.

  She stared at him, her eyes blinking, and took a deep breath. "Just some dumb boy on Mephis 4. Why are you here?"

  "I couldn't sleep." And he just looked at her for a moment. "Are you my friend?"

  She sat up in the bed, realized she was still holding his hand, and pretended to pull the sheets closer with both hands as if she was cold. "Of course I'm your friend."

  "Well that's good, because I think you're the oldest friend that I have, besides Barthelme. But I didn't know him for very long."

  "What's the matter?"

  "I can't get her out of my mind."

  She sighed. "Sounds like love."

  "No. I think there's more to it. My mind isn't right. I remember things."

  "You mean you remember your past?"

  "No. Nothing from the past. But I remember everything from the time I was in the escape pod."

  "Well, that's good, isn't it."

  "Well, it’d be good if it was normal. But I remember everything. Just after I escaped, I ran through the plaza. Do you know how many trees there are lining the walkway from the judicial building to the beginning of the park?"

  Katy sat up a little taller and tilted her head. "Of course not."

  "I do. There's 83. I know because last night I couldn't sleep and I replayed the escape in my mind like it was a movie. And I counted every tree. I can tell you the exact color of the flowers that grew beside the bench at the entrance to the park. I remember the names and serial numbers written on the uniforms of all four Marines that tried to take me down. I remember color of their eyes, the weapons they carried, the size of their feet. The short one was Johnson, serial number 38169473288zxc.7. He carried the standard Fed-issue energy weapon, but I don't think he used it very often because there were no scratches on it and his hands were white and soft like he’d been sitting at a desk. Now the tall one, Yoshikawa, serial number 3847294--"

  "Stop," said Katy. "I get the picture."

  "Do you think I'm strange?"

  "Yes," she said smiling. "But strange in a good way. You're a good person. But for now, let’s keep your super memory between us." She patted him on the hand. “Go to bed, Captain.”

  Jolo went back to his room and lay down on his bed. He took a few deep breaths, feeling better after talking to Katy. He closed his eyes and immediately went to sleep for the first time since he’d been there.

  He dreamed about Jaylen again. It was like she was calling to him, urging him on. It was the same dream as before. The BG had her in a jail cell. She was frail and thin. They prodded her with their energy weapons and so she cried. Occasionally, they let her out, and this is where the dream was different. For the first time Jolo could see the trees surrounding the large building that held prisoners.

  The trees were tall and had three large leaves just like he had seen in his dream before, when he was fighting with th
e Federation against the BG, when he had pain in his side and he thought he was going to die on the beach. Barthelme was there. It was the same place. And then the dream shifted to daytime and Jaylen was outside. And next to the three-leafed trees was a large pool in the shape of a diamond with green water, shimmering in the sunlight, and it looked odd and beautiful next to the drab BG prison.

  Jolo woke up with a start and looked around in the darkness. At first he didn't know where he was, and then he remembered. The image of the diamond-shaped pool and the strange trees were still fresh in his mind so he asked his computer about it.

  Computer, Jolo thought, which planets have large trees with three large triangular shaped leaves?

  There are 3,475 herbaceous life forms with a three leaf structure. The most common, and largest variety, is a tree called the trivold, typically found in the planets near Vellos and New Racelle.

  Computer, do you know of a diamond shaped pool with green water?

  In Federation space?

  Yes, Federation space and three jumps beyond the edge.

  There are 42,761 man-made green pools in the image archive, there are eight with a diamond configuration.

  Show all eight at two second intervals.

  Instantly images appeared in Jolo's mind. The first few were smaller pools next to residential houses which looks to be well within Federation space. One looked to be natural but there was no building next to it. And the rest were natural pools that had somewhat of a diamond-shape but nothing that looked like the pool in his dream.

  Computer, restrict the search to Vellos and New Raceli space.

  Zero matches, came the reply.

  The next morning Jolo walked down to the large bay where the Jessica was. He found Koba working on the computer array. Two logic boards were lying on the deck and he was reaching into one of the climate controlled logic bays, his arms and head most of the way in.

  "Koba, where is Hurley?"

  Koba extracted himself from the logic bay holding a small board. "Gotcha," he said, with a smile on his face. "Don't you want to know what I'm doing?"