Wings of Earth- Season One

by Eric Michael Craig

  He reached up and fingered the small slash that stretched horizontally below his captain’s bars. Fleet Captain. It was only a commercial merchant designation, but since he had never hoped to have more than his own ship, it floated his spirit in a profound way. Even if it was only two ships and a couple dropships under his license.

  Of course, he knew it wouldn’t have happened at all, except that the settlement Jefferson had landed from the Science Wing of the Coalition, was obscenely huge.

  The government administrator who ended up holding the glueball of responsibility, turned out to be more than accommodating when he realized how far they had him bent over the bulkhead. The fact that a government employee was running a slaving operation out of a Science Wing Facility worked well as a hammer to shape the negotiation in a favorable direction. Keeping the details from public scrutiny was more important than protecting a lot of credits sitting around in a government bank account.

  The Coalition had deep enough pouches that when they opened them up, fortunes changed. The Elysium Sun was proof of that.

  His thinpad beeped in his pocket, snapping him out of his euphoric cloud. He pulled it out and read the message: If the Lord-Admiral can quit eyeballing his new baby, he needs to remember his crew is waiting for him to show up for dinner. Quinn is about to launch another rescue party for you, and unless you want to see him prowling naked through the station, I think you should show up soon. Nuko.

  On my way. Tell him to keep his pants on… at least until I get there, and we all get more alcohol into us. He pried himself away from the window and turned toward the upper lift platform.

  Grabbing the first overhead carriage, he punched in the name of his destination and was surprised as it swung out over the lower decks and whisked him toward the station’s high-cred district. He looked down at the display on his thinpad to confirm the address.

  How did a place named Badger Bob’s end up on Promenade-Two?

  When he stepped off the tram and bounced down onto the landing platform, he looked around in awe. It was undeniably above his paygrade, no matter how many chits he had under him now. A shimmering wall of light and mist stretched in both directions to the edge of the deck and blocked the entire end of the promenade. His destination was a polished metal arch that penetrated through the center of the mist.

  A woman stood outside the arched doors, scowling at the entrance as he approached. Behind her, what appeared to be her two husbands stared at the ground and tried not to attract her looming wrath. She wore a gown that looked like a cloud of dancing ice crystals. As he got close enough to get a good scan of her he realized that the translucence of her dress was an illusion, and what she actually wore was a holographic projection from a jewel encrusted headpiece, and not much else.

  “Two hundred thousand in papercred for this dress and that LEO Colony scuzzwhistle won’t let us through the door,” she hissed, glancing toward Ethan as he walked past her. “What do you think? He’s a flatbrain isn’t he?”

  Frak!

  He turned and smiled politely. “Were you talking to me, ma’am?”

  “I was,” she snorted, looking down at his basic duty uniform. “But what would you know, you probably crawled out of the same recycler he did.”

  He bit down on his first response, and the next several, that popped into his mind. Finally, he shrugged and leaned to look past her to husband number one. “Perhaps one of you gentlemen should take her home and see that she gets her meds rebalanced?”

  He spun and walked on toward the door as both husbands snorted in unison.

  “How dare you?” she shrieked. “I know the owner. They don’t let people like you in there.”

  He nodded but didn’t turn in her direction. He half expected her to hurl a shoe in his direction ... except he was pretty sure she wasn’t wearing those either.

  He reached the doors without a projectile accompaniment, and the proximity scanner swept over him once. He smiled as the face of a real person appeared on the display.

  “Captain Walker. Welcome to Badger Bob’s. Your party is waiting for you in the Hole in the Sky lounge.” The doors opened silently, leaving more than enough audible headroom for him to hear her stunned gasp.

  As soon as he cleared the inner edge of the arch, it was his turn to gasp. He swung his head in a slow scan of the area, trying to absorb the reality of what he was seeing. It looked like he’d suddenly transported down to Earth.

  In spite of knowing better, he glanced back at the doorway he’d just come through to make sure that wasn’t what had happened. For an instant, the howling lady in the cloud bank dress was still visible before the doors sealed shut behind him.

  The walls and ceiling had to be screens, but it was the finest projection job he’d ever seen. A slight breeze in his face, matching the gently swaying trees that had replaced the walls, enhanced the illusion.

  He was still shaking his head as a large man walked up and stuck his hand out. “Captain Walker, I’m Bobert Primm. Welcome to the Badger.”

  “Primm?” Ethan raised an eyebrow as he shook the man’s hand. He was over two meters tall and bore more than a passing resemblance to an older version of Quinn.

  “Yah, you know my nephew Quintan,” he said, winking and holding an arm out in the direction he wanted them to head. “He’s told me a lot about you.”

  “Hopefully not the bad stuff,” he said, dropping in a step behind the man. It was disconcerting to walk on a hard floor when the projections made it look like they were on a rickety wooden deck sticking out over a sandy beach.

  “He speaks highly of you,” Bob said. “It’s why he wanted to bring you here before you head out again. He said you are quite the captain.”

  “I don’t know about that. I’m just lucky I think.”

  “Favorable odds are a desirable consort. Many never climb above the machinery of fate to win her favor.”

  As they followed the deck further out toward the ocean, the beach dropped away and the platform they walked on rose on massive wooden pilings. They paused beside a large potted areca palm sitting next to a gap in the railing. Quinn’s uncle pushed his hand against what looked like open air, and a door swung open ten meters above the sand below. The illusion of opening a hole in the sky was so convincing that Ethan’s mind resisted the reality. Voices he recognized carried out of the impossible space beyond.

  Bob winked at his reaction. “Do try the lobster tonight. That is, if you fancy ocean meat. It is wonderful with our house brew.”

  “Lobster?”

  “Yes, we brought them up from Newfoundland this morning.”

  Ethan nodded. Not sure what exactly a lobster was, Quinn had taught him to not to ask a Primm about food. It was probably better not to know.

  “Enjoy your evening, Captain. The room is all yours for as long as you want, and the food and spirits are on me.”

  “Thank you, but that’s really not necessary,” he said.

  “Nonsense. Family always eats on the house.” He waived toward the room as he turned to leave. “I will send someone by to present the appetizers and whatnot.”

  Ethan had to force himself to step across the half meter gap, tapping his foot lightly to make sure there was a floor under him. “That would be a hell of a drunk trap,” he muttered as he managed to make the step across without leaping.

  Looking back at the wall he’d just come through, it had disappeared, along with everything but the floor and a railing. The sky above was velvet-black and shot through with stars, while the world beyond the edge of the deck was an endless ocean. The moon hung just above the horizon and sent flashes of light across the surface of the undulating water.

  Angel, Ammo, and Quinn leaned against what looked like an antique wooden bar that sprawled like a mahogany monolith along what had to be a wall. The rest of his crew reclined comfortably around a circular table that dominated the center of the deck. Jefferson and Elias had joined them and they were all talking animatedly about something.

>   “Evening boss,” Quinn said as he walked up to order a drink. “Was that Uncle Bob?”

  He nodded. “It’s pretty obvious too. You look a lot like him.”

  Ammo’s mouth dropped open. “He’s the one that used to hunt—”

  The handler nodded. “Yep. Papa gave him the nickname. Probably better than using the one Momma gave him.”

  Angel scrunched her eyes closed and shook her head. It was clear she was trying to hold back on asking.

  Ethan jumped in fearlessly for her. “What was that one?”

  “When she was feeling mannerly, she called him Naked Bobby.” The handler grinned. “She had others, but I don’t think I should be repeating them in polite company.”

  “That’d be a lousy name for a top deck place like this,” he said.

  “So, he really is your uncle?” Ammo asked.

  He held his hand up like he was swearing an oath. “He’s my double uncle. He’s my mother’s brother, but he’s married to my father’s uncle. That makes their kids their own half cousins once removed, and he’s his own—”

  “Quinn, I don’t think we need to know that much about your family bush,” the captain said. “Grab your beer… or whatever fancy umbrella juice that is… and let’s sit. I want to talk about where we go from here.”

  He walked over and dropped into the open seat between Rene and Nuko. He looked across the table at Jefferson and Elias. “I want to say thank you to both of you for pulling off what has to be the biggest Miracle Mike in history.”

  Nuko grinned and nodded. “I didn’t see any way we wouldn’t be spending the rest of our lives locked up.”

  “I have to admit that I am surprised at how fast they rolled on this,” Jefferson said. “We had a winnable case, but I don’t think I got a good understanding of what happened behind the front face. They were pushing back like I’d have expected, but then I got a summons to the Science Chancellor’s office. She made a fast reverse and we were looking at a lot of zeroes.”

  “What would have caused that?”

  He shrugged. “It was like a higher authority told her to let it go.”

  “There is no position of authority above the Wing Chancellors,” Marti said. The humanform automech walked up to the table carrying a small glass of something fruity looking.

  “God, maybe?” Rene suggested.

  The AA stared at him for several seconds before it drew the corner of the mouth on its projected face up slightly. “Debating the existence of a creator awareness is a null value endeavor, even as I sit in the presence of what could be called the people of my own gods.”

  “Don’t be too quick to give us that label,” Ammo said, shaking her head as she slid into the chair beside Marti. “I was watching the newswave a couple hours ago and they were covering the arrests of Parker and Ansari. They were definitely not being godly.”

  “I’m sure they weren’t,” Ethan said. “Have we heard what will happen to the Ut’arans we brought out?”

  “I’ve been told they’ll have their implants removed and will go home to be repatriated,” Jefferson said.

  “How much will they remember?” Nuko asked.

  Kaycee shifted uneasily in her chair before she looked down at her hands on the table. “I don’t know. Probably some of it. A lot, maybe,” she whispered.

  “What about Mir’ah akCha’nee? Will they hunt her down and remove her implant?” the captain asked.

  “I don’t know that, either.”

  “You know she believed the shiny man was a god,” Rene’s expression showed that the idea didn’t sit well with him.

  “Her god has abandoned her,” Angel said. She and Quinn stood behind their empty chairs, looking like they were each slaying emotional dragons of their own. “She committed atrocities in his name. When the implant is gone, if she remembers, how will she deal with that?”

  “We’ve done it, too,” Ethan said.

  “But have we ever come to grips with it?” the engineer asked.

  Ammo shook her head. “Not really.”

  After the silence hung for almost a minute, one of the tenders walked up and poured a round of alcohol into the tall crystal glasses that sat in front of each table setting.

  Ethan picked up his glass and stared at it. Small bubbles rose to the surface and exploded in miniscule sparkles of vapor. He raised it higher and waited until everyone had lifted their own glasses.

  “To the day when Mir’ah akCha’nee can accept that no matter how shiny, her gods are still made of clay.”

  Rene nodded, glancing over at Quinn who still stood behind his chair.

  “And to longer loincloths.”

  THE END

  Beyond

  the

  Edge

  Wings of Earth: Book Four

  ERIC MICHAEL CRAIG

  Chapter One

  Walton Terry sat staring at the small button in his hand. The light hadn’t come on yet, but inevitably it would, and when it did, he would push it. He tried not to think about what it meant and what might come from it. He was doing a job and there was nothing more to it than that.

  Somewhere several kilometers across the dome, three of his people were hooking up wireless connections and hiding micro-charges in the superstructure of one of the oldest buildings on Mars. Once they had finished and circuits were live, the light would turn green and it would be time. His orders had changed in the last few minutes, and now instead of waiting to give his people a chance to escape, his orders were to push the button immediately.

  It was essential that no one survive to tell what happened.

  Walton was smart enough to know that included him. Somewhere, hidden where he could not see, he knew there would be a sniper waiting and watching over him. Once he’d done the deed, they would erase him along with those who served with him. It was the price of dedication to a cause greater than the value of a life.

  Or even four.

  Walton leaned back on the bench, trying not to look nervous. In fact, he was trying not to think about anything except the button. In reality, it didn’t matter what the target was, he was simply to do the job and trust that those who had sent him on this mission understood why it was so important.

  Across the concourse, a small park filled in one of the cracks between buildings of the immense dome of the Robinson Colony. It had been the third dome built on Mars after humanity had begun to escape the collapsing biosphere of Earth. Over 200 years old, it was the sanctuary that kept humanity alive on Mars during the Burroughs Outbreak of the early days.

  Now filled to capacity, the dome was home to over twenty million people. Walton watched a family playing in the small open space. A mother supervising her three children as they threw a flying disc back and forth. It was a normal life, of a normal family, on a normal day, that was about to be shattered.

  The actuator in his hand vibrated as the first of his people logged that they had completed their task. He glanced around drinking in what he knew would be the last moments of normalcy. Another few moments and the reality of life in Robinson would forever change.

  A second hum, followed by the third, and the time had finally come. He hesitated, looking around and scanning the tops of the nearby buildings for some sign of the one that would take him down. Seeing no one didn’t surprise him, but it did leave him wondering whether he would be lucky and walk away.

  Taking a deep breath, he slid his thumb forward over the button and clenched his hand closed.

  Distant thunder rolled through the dome, shaking the ground beneath his feet. Growing up on Earth he knew what thunder was, but the Martians living in this dome had never heard it. The children stopped playing, looking around in fear. The mother bounced up and stared at the artificial sky above. Somewhere in the distance someone screamed.

  Walton stood up, turning once more and watching for any sign of the coming bullet.

  He didn’t have long to contemplate his fate. A stabbing pain tore through his chest and he dropped to his knees,
releasing the button from his hand. Watching it tumble to the ground as he collapsed into darkness, he fell as surely as the hospital building and the abominations incubating inside.

  Chapter Two

  Ethan Walker hated paperwork almost more than he hated anything else. It wasn’t really the paperwork itself that annoyed him, it was taking care of the business side of things. It amounted to a nuisance of monumental proportion no matter how he piled it. Or, more precisely, how it piled itself.

  After he bought the Elysium Sun, he discovered exactly how much extra headache came with running a second cargo ship. It was far more complex than just finding loads and sending the ships out, there were weeks’ worth of compliance requirements that he had to deal with first. Licenses, permits, upgraded shipmaster certifications, and an endless stream of payouts necessary to grease the bureaucracy necessary to get his second ship outside of Zone One.

  When he’d decided to tie off the Olympus Dawn at the Phobos Landing docks he’d hoped to get a chance to visit his parents at home on their ranch. So far, he hadn’t even found time to look at a shuttle schedule down to Olympus Station. He knew he wasn’t on a deadline to get his ships qualified, but he also knew he’d never be able to relax and enjoy the time at home if he didn’t get the work out of the way first.

  “Boss, I need you to report to MedBay.” Quinn’s voice sounded stressed. Quintan Primm wasn’t the kind to let stress overwhelm his easy-going farm boy nature, so his tone immediately set Ethan on high alert.

  “What’s swinging?” he asked as he jumped up from his desk and headed for the lift.

  “Ammo got smacked in one of the lower promenades. I found her leaned against a bulkhead with skidmarks all over her.”

  The ship’s doctor was out at Gateway with Nuko and the Elysium Sun. “Do we need to get her to the Medical Center in Phobos Landing?”

  “She’s arguing with me about it. She says it’s nothing some skinseal won’t fix, but some of these look pretty deep and she’s leaking a lot.”