Contents
Title
BOOK 1: The Lost Gunboat Captain
The Can
A Moveable Feast
The Dreams of a Desperate Frog
96 Hours
Supplicant
Bullet in the Blue Sky
Duval
President
Hospital
Inquisition
Jail
Merthon
Flight
Jessica
Qualus
Gravity
Duval, Revisited
Father
Jamis
Alacyte
Run
The Man in Black
Corsair
What a Frog Doesn't Know
Trash Run
Leviathan
Falkowski
Attack on Montag
The Emperor
Home Again
BOOK 2: 43 Days to Oblivion
Fortinbras
Mama Loves Mambo
Jaxxon
Filcher
Galaxite
Certain Things We Didn't Want To Know
43 Days
Pirate Run
Barc
Towers
The Score
Aftermath
Silana
Infiltrator
Barthelme
Misha
Bertha
Last Gasp
Reality Check
Silana, Part II
Certain Things We'd Love to Know
Escape
Decisions
Love Tap
The Things We Do For Love
Duval
In Orbit
BOOK 3: The Cold Dead Earth
Goodbye, Vexus
The Brown Stuff
A Federation Man Ain't Afraid to Die
No One Returns
Trant
Return of the Gunboat
Fools Die
Heat
Ice
Holes
Little Richard
Here She Comes
Some that Needs to Die
Wild Boys
Katy
George
The Cage
George, Part 2
Probe Jet
The Kawasaki Grand
Alexxus
I-75
The Thing About Town
Vault
Guns
Goodbye, Macon
The Captain Returns
Finding Katy
Black Hole
The Lost Argossy
Battle Royale
When Hell Breaks Loose
Late to the Party
Goodnight, Georgia
The Jolo Vargas Space Opera
Books 1-3:
The Lost Gunboat Captain
43 Days to Oblivion
The Cold Dead Earth
Copyright © 2019 by J.D.Oppenheim
All rights reserved.
[email protected]
Dear Reader,
Thank you for downloading The Jolo Vargas Space Opera Boxed Set. Please consider leaving a review if you like it.
Check the back of the book for a link to get Book 4 for free!
—J.D.Oppenheim
The Lost Gunboat Captain
Book 1 in the Jolo Vargas Space Opera Series
Copyright © 2019 by J.D.Oppenheim
All rights reserved.
[email protected]
The Can
Deep space
The deafening roar tore through the man’s mind, vibrated through his body. His hands instinctively covered his ears. His eyes popped open and he saw nothing but pitch black. He tried to move his body to one side but he was pinned. He touched his chest and there was a thick, woven strap holding him down, another at his waist and one near his ankles.
Where was he? Sick bay capsule? Some sort of full-body scan? Everything started shaking and he felt motion. A turn. His shirt, damp with sweat, stuck to his chest, the heat almost unbearable. There was an acidic, burnt chemical smell in the stale air. It set him on edge but he didn’t know why. He’d smelled it before. Something was wrong.
He reached out to feel his surroundings. Dense padding all around. A tight, confined tube. He pushed up hoping a hatch would pop up, but no luck. Above him, he saw tiny dots of light. Small white points that finally gave him focus, gave him an anchor to hold him in place.
This is no sick bay scanner, he thought. The tiny lights were far away stars in the deep black of space. And the sound was the roar of a thruster, loud and hot and shaking like he was sitting on top of it. This was a probe or an escape pod ripping through the galaxy. To where, he did not know.
How did he get here?
He remembered a blurry mix of bright lights at night and men screaming. Blue uniforms. Lying on a beach in the sand, a pain in his side so bad that death would have been a relief. Funny trees with three large leaves hanging over. He thought he was going to die there. But then another idea hit him: maybe he’d die in the pod with no memories at all.
He started to scream but couldn’t hear his voice, so he screamed louder and he could just hear himself over the thruster.
He cried out until his throat hurt and he just lay there in his own sweat taking deep breaths, trying to calm down. He put his hand on his chest and waited until his heartbeat started to slow.
He got a finger between the inner padding and felt the curve of the fuselage. He touched his face, then the pads just above him, only about ten centimeters of space. His hand went to his neck. He had a collar and a patch above a pocket. He felt small folds just under his belt, maybe pleats. There was a tube coming out of his pants leg. And another, smaller tube taped to his arm which he figured was intravenous. In and out. Someone wanted him alive. Meanwhile the noise had started to subside.
He pulled the small, plastic release on his chest belt and the strap slid right off. His hands did it without thinking. Had he done this before? He did the same to the waist and leg straps. It felt good to be able to move his body and legs. He tried to move his knees up to his chest, but his legs hit the inner wall, so he bent them as much as he could. He wiggled his toes, rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck.
He accidentally yanked on the IV tube and a sharp stab of pain went through his arm. He settled down and reattached himself to his “bed” with the waist belt. He figured it’d be safe to let his legs and upper body float. He gently touched the piece of tape holding the thin line that fed into the artery in his wrist. He felt around it and decided it was dry. No blood. No leaks. That was the food tube. Lose that and slowly starve to death.
He took a few deep breaths, enjoying the freedom of movement, trying to imagine he was in a larger space. He wasn’t claustrophobic, but he could feel a tug at the back of his mind: escape, break free. He had to maintain control and not go crazy in a space no larger than a coffin tube. Was this a coffin tube? They had thrusters. He decided to call the thing a probe. C-tubes weren’t meant for inter-stellar travel. This pod was going somewhere.
He fastened the chest belt and tried to rest. He opened and closed his eyes several times. He saw the same thing: black.
……
When he slept he dreamed of a girl.
He saw her passing him in the tight lower corridor of the gunboat. She saluted, thin arms, blond hair in a pony tail. It was the first time he had really noticed her pretty face and the curvy figure he could make out even in her mechanic’s coverall.
He marked her presence with a nod like he was supposed to do. And even though she was near the bottom at G-7, didn’t even have her two-year sta
r yet, he wanted to speak to her, to be near her. He always made a point to greet his crew in the hallway, but right then he didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what to do, didn’t know where to put his hands.
He reached for the cold metal wall as if to steady himself. He decided he’d ask about the inductor coils because even though he never was much of a mechanic, especially when it came to the newer Federation engines, he knew they had an inductor coil.
“Ensign Voss,” he said.
She turned, brown eyes, smooth skin, her beauty striking against the gray ship and her light blue uniform. And just then the wall hit his head and he yelled out in pain.
He awoke thinking he was in a bunk and tried to roll out but there was nowhere to roll. He was in the pod, but something was different. The engine noise was down by half. He yelled and heard his own voice and was surprised. Like it was someone else’s voice. Deep and strong. He said a few words just to hear himself, then suddenly had an urge to sing, but couldn’t think of a song. He must know a song. And then a thought drifted up into his consciousness: Did the pod have a computer?
“Computer!” he shouted.
Nothing.
“Computer!”
Still nothing. I just want a song, he thought. What’s a good song to sing when you are lost in space and can’t remember anything?
A song popped into his head. The lyrics flashed into the front of his mind like they were on a computer screen.
The lady from Sarnos with golden hair,
Dreams of a man from Col du Faire.
Run along, run along, Gunboat man.
Long live the Fe-der-a-tion clan.
Neural network?
“Computer. Are you connected via neural net?” And then he remembered that didn’t work, so he asked in his mind. Computer, are you connected via neural net?
There is no neural net, came the reply.
Computer, the man thought, What’s my name?
No data.
Where am I?
Logic functions beyond simple query unavailable.
What kind of boat is this?
Please supply serial number and year.
He read the first line of the song slowly. “The lady from Sarnos with golden hair.” And he listened to the sound of this voice he couldn’t remember. Everything was new. Was it coming from him? It must be. He laughed at the thought and surprised himself again at that new sound. It was a good sound.
He said the first line again a little faster. Then again. Then he full on belted it out:
“The lady from Sarnos with golden hair,
Dreams of a man from Col du Faire.
Run along, run along, Gunboat man.
Long live the Fe-der-a-tion clan.”
There were more lines and he sang those. His arms and legs moving. He smiled and sang, his heart a little lighter. Right at the end there was a big crescendo.
“We’ll blow your ass right out of the sky.
Fe-der-a-tion man ain’t afraid to die!”
He raised his glass, and someone said, “JV don’t do synth-ale.” Blue uniforms in a large hall. But there was no glass, and his hand hit the inner padding of the pod.
Computer, who said, JV don’t do synth-ale?
Invalid search parameters.
Who is JV?
Invalid search parameters.
What kind of shite computer are you?
Vellosian Mark V prototype, v. 25940912.4
“Vellosian?”
No answer.
From Vellos?
Yes. Rigel 5, First of the three moons, Vellos space.
Are we going to Vellos?
Functions beyond simple query logic unavailable.
He reached down with his right hand to scratch his leg, discovered he was wearing boots.
Who are the Vellos?
Digest or full-text, came the reply.
Digest.
The Vellos are a humanoid race from the Halafor sector, formerly under Federation protection, known primarily for agricultural production, meat synthesis for human consumption, and synthetic humanoid generation.
Synth-humans… Oh, shite, he thought. I’m a synth!
Am I a synth?
Invalid query.
Am I a synthetic life form?
Please state your name and serial number.
“I don’t have a serial and don’t know my name!”
He released the waist belt holding him to the side of the pod. Took a few breaths. If it ain’t there I’m pulling the tubes, he thought. He eased his hand down into his pants and gently probed between his legs.
“Oh, thank you, God!” He smiled, holding his private parts gingerly, careful not to bother the tube sticking down into his penis.
“Hey, computer. I’m human. Log that in your shite database!”
He reattached himself to his bed with the waist belt, and took a few more deep breaths. He lay there for awhile content and calm. But soon the triumph of him actually being human, of having a penis, faded a bit, and the hand protecting his human male parts slowly let go.
He hummed the song again. His hand tapping out the beat on his leg. He searched for a smooth bit of fuselage he could knock with his knuckle, but there weren’t any spaces large enough between the padding.
He tried to remember his name, who he was. Where he came from. It was like opening a familiar door, but what was supposed to be everything he knew, his place in the worlds, was formless and gray. No data.
He remembered waking up. Remembered the loud noise, the burn, the stars through the porthole above him. He wanted to track time so he could check his memory. He guessed his short term memory was good.
Computer, do you have an onboard clock?
Functions beyond simple query logic unavailable.
“How about a simple, No?”
Then he started thinking. The computer was a dumb database. Maybe the nav was separate? Could he control the thing? How much time did he have?
Computer, do you have a timestamp function?
Yes. Elapsed time is 3,628,923.2 seconds.
How long is that in days?
42.0014 days.
42 days. He reached down with his right hand to scratch his foot. His fingers couldn’t make it all the way so he just rubbed his boot on the padding. Good data but he had no idea where the pod originated from. He scratched at his beard, wishing he could shave.
Computer, can you generate a star map?
A large 3D map opened up in the front of his consciousness. It was there, right in front of him. He saw it clearly with his eyes closed. It was strange, having the map in his mind.
Locate Vellosian space.
The map spun and zoomed in. Two worlds, three moons, near a dense asteroid field. One planet, Vellos, was displayed as a 2d circle, the rest were nice 3d renders like on the ship.
He sat up quickly, but his head hit the padding and he settled back down. The ship. He’d seen star maps like that on a ship. It was a memory. Just like the battle. Just like the girl, Voss.
Why is Vellos just a 2d circle?
Vellos no longer exists.
Where did it go?
Vellos was destroyed by BG in 2586.
Who are BG?
Digest or full-text?
Digest.
The BG are a mechanized race from the Grana system. Formerly at war with all planets in Federation space, but currently policing commerce in the core Federation worlds via the Re-Unification Accord of 2589.
What color are Federation uniforms?
Blue.
The girl, Voss, wore blue. So did the men on the beach at night. So did the men in the big hall…
Who is Ensign Voss, from Federation space?
There are 4,249 Voss’s in the Federation.
Women only, he said, trying to narrow down the search.
1,234.
This was ridiculous. Then he had an idea.
Under 50 kilograms.
723.
Blond hair.
Beautiful?
Invalid parameter.
Display all 318 one at a time at 2 second intervals.
Women, mostly in the standard blue Federation uniforms, began flashing across the “screen” in his mind. Most he could rule out immediately. Too old. Too senior in rank. His Voss was younger, a new recruit. Some wore the gold-trimmed collar of a colonel or an admiral. Occasionally he screamed stop and nothing happened. Then he’d curse, say, stop in his head, then rewind. He thought he had her once, but she was a navigator on a Fed frigate and her first name was Marica. The name wasn’t right. He didn’t know how he knew, he just felt it. So he moved on.
Finally the images stopped and an end of query message popped up. He wanted to break something, but there was nothing to break, so he thrashed around. He pushed at the padding, just a few centimeters from his face, surrounding him like a cocoon, or a coffin. He pushed until his arms started to shake, then he beat it with his fists. The padding moved a little, and for a moment he had gained a few extra centimeters of space, but soon the padding regained its original shape.
He moaned for a while. Then realized his mouth wasn’t dry. Why wasn’t his mouth dry? He took a deep breath. The air near his head was moist.
“Who put me here? Why am I here?” he yelled.
He pushed up with his hands so his feet found the bottom of the tube and he started kicking. His boots hit metal and he could hear a drum-like sound, like knocking the side of a gunboat, especially down in engineering where there wasn’t much insulation.
He strapped his chest to his bed. Deathbed. He looked up towards the smooth porthole and he stared out into the blackness. He wanted to see something with his eyes. He wanted to taste real food. To feel sunlight on his face. To talk to the girl.
He didn’t want to die in that dumb can.
A Moveable Feast
Deep space
For the second time he dreamed of the girl.
The Jolo Vargas Space Opera Series Box Set Page 1