by Ian Cannon
It was a lonely moon, fairly large by lunar standards at four thousand kilometers in diameter lending itself to one full gravity. Mortus was surrounded in mystery. There was no primary source of life on Mortus, yet the moon radiated methane from deep pools of organic waste that had spent millions of years seeping up from its core. Some thought Mortus had once been a living organism that died and was slowly decaying. Others figured it had colonies of microbial life growing in its deep subterranean caverns that ultimately released methane as they decomposed. Nevertheless, as Ben and Tawny looked down at the moon, they could see the millions of hair-thin, deep blue veins of methane that consumed the planet’s upper atmosphere like ivy. The in-between spaces were gray and black surface rock crafting a mountainous lunar body, broken by endless canyons, plateaus and high peaks, all suffused in a lower atmosphere consisting almost completely of helium. It was breathable at the surface, but not for long. They’d have to wear bio-suits.
“Okay,” Ben said, “let’s get them on the horn.”
“Hailing,” Tawny said. “Mining operation Zephrim Colony, this is private cargo freighter REX on approach, over.”
After a moment a 3-D head grew over their holopad wearing a bulbous headset over disheveled hair. A pair of workman’s goggles were slung down under the chin and the guy looked around at them with a grin. This was definitely an ore miner roughneck. He said, “Hey guys, welcome to Mortus. This is Zephrim Colony. Are you the aqua runners?”
“That’s us,” Tawny said.
“Great, we’ve been waiting. How you guys doing?”
They looked at each other. Tawny said, “Happy to be here. What are our instructions?”
“I’m feeding the drop off zone coordinates to you now. Come around to quadrant four, far side hemisphere. It’s our usual drop-off and pick-up zone.”
“Okay, Zephrim Colony, hold.”
Ben entered the coordinates. A projected 3-D map of Mortus formed over the holopad breaking the moon’s surface down topographically. It auto-zoomed into the proper coordinates showing a sector several square miles large. Overlaid with the surface detail was a twinkling, real-life rendering of methane bands. The Zephrim crew had chosen a large, flat lunar plain surrounded by a mountainous region for the drop-off area where the methane had released its hold on the moon lending to a vacuous sky.
“We got it,” Tawny informed. “ETA, one hour.”
“That’s perfect,” the guy said. “We’ll send out our welcoming crew. Looking forward to meeting you.”
“Affirmative, out,” she said. The head holo-zipped away. She gave Ben a look that oozed with skepticism.
“What?” he said.
“They seemed awfully happy to see us.”
“They’re rough-neckers stuck way out here in the middle of cosmic nowhere, sweetie. Of course they’re happy to see us.”
“No,” she said. “They acted like we were a Molta-Danoran bikini squad. They were too happy.”
Ben inhaled big showing he was ready to accept her doubt, and said, “Okay, what’s on your mind?”
“I just don’t buy it,” she said.
“You think something’s up?”
She shook her head. “I mean, why would I think that? But still…”
“I tell you what,” Ben said, “let’s study their drop-off coordinates. Maybe it’ll tell us something.”
She nodded, agreed.
“REX,” Ben said, “move the map image to the passenger hold.”
“Boss is right, you know,” REX said. “Rough-neckers—they always cuss and spit and scratch themselves. Most of them have missing teeth and bad breath with bad hair and bad manners. They all stink like some kind of—“
“What’s your point, REX?”
“That guy seemed awfully sweet, Cap.”
“Just send the map, please.”
They moved down the main corridor into the passenger hold where REX emitted the moon surface image over the main holotable. It glimmered and pulsed. Every detail showed with vivid clarity.
The drop-off zone was a large moon plain miles across, all hardpan and flat rock. Any atmospheric methane that might have been present had been removed, probably by automated vortex creators. The plain was surrounded on all sides by jagged, mountainous peaks, some a thousand feet tall, where the methane had collected in and through its crags, valleys and low spots. Deep mountain shafts pierced the tortured landscape in perfectly vertical wells, like planetary veins plunging through the mountain peaks all the way to the planet’s core. They were similar to volcanic shafts which Mortus had used for eons to breath its deep methane product out into the sky.
A scrolling window showed specs on the moon’s composition and makeup. Ben read it, intrigued. “There are water pools in the mountains. Hydrogen and oxygen. Almost drinkable. Full gravity.”
“Where’s Zephrim Colony?” Tawny said.
“Zoom out twenty percent.”
The map pulled out opening more of the moon’s surface area. There was a facility highlighted. It was tucked away in the mountains to the northeast.
“Rotate ten degrees, zoom back in,” Ben said.
The map rolled over, zoomed in. “Here,” he said, pointing to an operation complex built into a steep mountainside—a series of terraced operation huts connected by passage corridors, all weaved in and out of jagged rock formations.
A mountain pass snaked through ridges and valleys, opening into the flat drop-off zone. “This passage is how they shuttle equipment to and from their station.”
“Look at all the methane,” Tawny said. “Why would they place a miners outpost smack dab in the middle of a methane cloud? That’s just asking for trouble.”
“The whole moon is a methane cloud. They gotta go where the nickel ore is. I’m sure their safety protocols are as long as my arm.”
“Or maybe…” she started to say.
“Or maybe what?”
“Maybe they’re not mining nickel at all.”
Ben laughed. “Tawny, come on. You’re not being paranoid, are you?”
“Well, what do we know about these people?” she asked.
“We know they sent a contract through the Guild service. We know Sympto vetted them.”
“And how well does Sympto vet his customers, especially if there’s money involved?”
“Tawny, we’ve dealt with outliers before. This situation isn’t unique.”
She bit her lip dripping with doubt. Borderline concern. “I don’t like it.”
Ben rubbed his face. He was the tactician, the one that spent his career pouring over combat coordinates, studying maps, improvising enemy troop movements. She was the combat specialist. She knew weaponry, how to fight, the proper way to break a bone. Maybe that gave her a sixth sense about such things. He capitulated and said, “Do you want to treat this like a hostile situation?”
“I think we should,” she said.
“She’s right, Cap,” REX chimed in.
He looked up, annoyance showing, and said, “Thank you, REX.” To Tawny, “Okay, given the nature of the terrain, I say we go with drop-off protocol number two. I’ll be front and center, you set up shop at long range.”
She nodded, pursing her lips in thought and leaning toward the map. “This looks good, here.” She pointed to a mountain face off to the west. It was a rock ledge at three hundred feet elevation, open to the lunar flat but collared by high mountain walls behind and to the sides—a perfect cubbyhole for a long range sniper scout to set up.
Ben said, “Okay—you leave ahead of time. Take the drop pod, set up. I leave REX in orbit, take the mag-mule, land in the center of the drop-off zone and wait for company. Stay on our covert channel for comm.”
“Yeah, that sounds smart,” she quipped.
“Still say it’s overkill. All they want is water.”
“Blah blah blah,” she said.
He chuckled, leaned in and kissed her. “Okay, let’s go.”
Tawny geared up. Her-bio suit was a Un
ited Confederation Corps-X body-forming bio sustainment vacuum combat suit, tight to the skin constructed from a vacuum weave—very light weight, very flexible—with a rigid upper body harness, breathing apparatus, maglev-motion boots and seal joints.
She opted against applying the Titan-Y1 dura-armor blast-protectant, pierce-proof, battle-mech exoskeleton. The armored suit was too bulky with its alloy plated body pieces, and though it had been known to save her life against direct projectile and light laser blast impacts on countless occasions during her time in the war, she preferred the more streamlined effect of leaving it aboard REX.
Her swivel frame for the M-209 strapped on at the waste with its arms collapsed, tucking the body-length cannon closely to her side and ready to unleash in a split second, its power charger on her upper back. Her slick, visored helmet coupled onto her breastplate with a hermetic hiss. She checked her optical overlay system—sniper cannon targeting, visual map feeds from REX’s upload/download systems and bio-suit readouts, all painted into her visor micro optics web. Everything was operating perfectly.
The drop ship was next. She fed the map and its coordinates into its REX-sub-A.I.-mind, which was hot-spliced wirelessly into REX-prime’s control function, and received an all readouts signal. The light was green. She gave Ben a look through her visor, which showed all but those deep, gold-brown eyes of hers and said, “See you after, baby.”
He nodded touching her visor as if laying a hand on her face and said in a tender, demanding way, “You be safe, you hear me?”
She huffed, giving him a ridiculous smirk, and said, “Such a man. Watch your fingers.” The airlock slid shut. His heart sank, as it did every time feeling Tawny’s drop pod undock from REX’s underbelly and whisk off toward the moon. With that, Tawny was on her way quick as a bullet, ripped, equipped and ready to blow some stuff up. Ben shook his head. Bi-gods, he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
He went to the cockpit. The countdown had wound down to fifteen minutes. Likewise, the rendezvous was coming up through the viewport. REX had dropped to very low orbit making the mountaintops seem nearly touchable. Up ahead, the endless ocean of rocky jags and sharp, unlivable peaks broke suddenly away and the open plains of the moon spread out before him. From orbit, it looked massive. He could only imagine how endless those gray, drab flatlands were from surface level. It didn’t matter. If there was trouble, Tawny’s M-209 had plenty of range. And she was a deadeye hot shot.
“Okay, REX, prep the mag-mule. I’m taking her down.”
“Okay, Cap.”
Outside the ship, the mag-spires rotated on their turnstile to the straight-up position with the mag-mule’s tiny bubble cockpit tucked between, putting the REX fuselage at the bottom of a tower of cargo units. Ben crawled through the starboard mag-spire’s newly repaired control hub and up into the flight control. Pulling himself into the pilot’s chair and gripping the dual directional levers, he said, “Okay, REX, all systems go. Disconnecting.”
A jet of release gas huffed out and the entire mag spire attachment separated. It scooted away until it was clear of the main fuselage and cargo bay, and Ben lowered it down toward the moon.
“Good luck, dummy,” REX said.
“Okay, stupid,” he responded drifting down and down until REX was a dot falling away in the distance.
From inside his bubble, Ben looked up. His space bubble showed only the tonnage of the cargo units right overhead, while below, the moon came up. He glided over the towering mountaintops and toward the moon plain, dropping in altitude.
He flipped his bio-suit comm control to their private frequency and said, “You in position, hot shot?”
“Copy,” her voice came back. “I’m four clicks westerly. I see you.”
“Perfect. I’m coming in for a landing.”
Tawny stood at her mountain ledge surveying the drop-zone. The mountain ranges standing as tall as the sky around her shadowed her hideout in a deep blue. Below her was a sheer three hundred foot drop off showing a rocky, jagged terrain that leveled out into the expansive flatlands, a distinctive gray, almost white. The distant mountains far to the east broke up the horizon pasted against the backdrop of space.
This was where she belonged; at altitude, everything distant, yet within a moment’s reach of her M-209. She was tiny in this space, but her vision was far and wide. The whole moon was hers on a whim.
She watched the pin straight wake of Ben’s mag-mule as it churned the thin atmosphere, falling in from outer space. It lowered to the surface leaving an immense ground-born cloud as it settled. He was four clicks away making the huge mag-spires look tiny as they stood perfectly vertical. But he was clear as day.
She reached behind and thumbed on the optical feed to her weapon. The digital overlay illuminated inside her visor. It showed distances, planetary curvature, atmospheric motion—a host of calculations that would automate upon her data input. The zoom capacity was a circular reticle that she could highlight with an eye command, and a window would appear to the lower portion showing her target. Currently, she had Ben exposed. She watched him slide out of the mag-mule’s command bubble and step outside.
A secondary overlay integrated itself with the targeting suite that showed potential activity in the surrounding area. Bringing it up, she saw highlighted blips several clicks beyond his position worming their way through the far mountain range. They were too far to get a full read on—no way to know exactly how many there were—but they were definitely moon vehicles of some type. Somebody was approaching.
Here they came.
This was where her theory would be proven wrong, hopefully. Or right. Were they lonely rough-necking ore miners looking forward to an aqua drop, or was this something else? She tightened her lips as they began fanning out over the lunar flat way to the east.
It was time.
She checked her plasma cannon charge. One hundred percent. Perfect. Unfolding the tri-pod at the end of its long, steel barrel, she lowered down into the prone position, her weapon jutting out over the edge of the mountain face. Her targeting paradigm narrowed in on the incoming, searching for succinct bull’s eyes. They would need to come a little closer before she could make a solid read. It would only be minutes. She pasted her targeting painter on them and waited.
“Okay, boys…” she muttered, “this is where the fun begin…”
Something zipped toward her very fast, whistling through the sky. She heard it before she saw it. It was small, quick. It made her gasp.
A bullet?
She made a tiny noise as something clicked onto the exterior of her visor. She pulled focus on it, expecting anything. It was round, the size of a coin. Then she heard chuckling. It was low, menacing, and she knew immediately…
It was an audio coin.
And she knew that chuckle.
A voice dripping with malice said, “Hello, Tawny.”
She breathed out long and angry, and muttered, “Rogan.” She looked around with her eyes. There was no telling where he was. His audio coin had probably flown for miles searching her out. And now here she was, hearing his ugly voice.
“Yeah, baby,” he said. “If I were you, I wouldn’t move. Not even a finger.”
She knew immediately, she was in someone’s sights. There was a sniper out there scoping her right now. She’d been beaten at her own game. Everything just changed in a real bad way. It made her heart sink, made her fume with anger. She said through clenched teeth, “Well, that’s too bad, because I got your finger right here.”
More chuckling filtered through. “Oooh, baby. I like it when you talk dirty.”
Ben stepped away from the mag-mule with its two hundred foot spires standing directly vertical like a tower reaching for the low skies above. The cargo containers, each carrying twenty thousand gallons of water, were tucked in between, held in place by the super-magnetic conductors of the spires. He looked out across the plains. The mountains shimmered distantly.
At first, he couldn’t see their approa
ch but his opticals began tracking them several minutes before they appeared. Eventually, he saw their rover lights like mirages against a deep black wall of rock. They grew toward him distantly, very slowly at first. He watched them using the naked eye. After a minute, one rover became two. Two rovers became three.
Three rovers became four.
It made him squint.
This was one big greeting party.
And then there was something else. Not a rover. It was big.
“What the heck is that?” he whispered.
There was sudden recognition. He’d seen this before. A stitch of concern crawled up his back.
A lunar tank.
He took an instinctive step back toward the mule and said, “Uh, Tawny, you reading this?”
She didn’t respond.
He tapped his visor, said, “Tawny, you copy?”
She still didn’t respond. His nerves spiked, made him nervous.
Now they were close enough to see clearly. The rovers fanned out. There were eight of them. The tank was front and center, the whole convoy stirring up a cloud that stretched across the horizon. They kept coming, not slowing down.
This was no greeting party. His hands went down to his weapons, one to each hip. The vehicles reached him skidding to a stop in a half circle, flanking him to the right, to the left. The tank rumbled up on four axels, big tires, armored, hulking body. A spinner turret jutted toward him. A gunner was perched at the top gleaming at him through a red helmet and black visor.
Ben’s blood chilled under his bio-suit. The insignia on the tank’s forward armor became clear. He recognized it.
A square.
Three dots.
Non-linear.
The Hominus IV job. The Heiress Orona captors.
He knew these narse-holes.
He slid his twin laser blasters from their holsters and held them low at his hips, prepared for a confrontation.