Instantly the ship started limping back to the portal. Jolo ran to George and dragged him back out of harm’s way just in case the big Cruiser fell before it made it to the portal.
Greeley and Mamba were keeping Hazuki busy but they couldn’t hold forever. Jolo turned George over and his heart sank. There was a bullet hole through his head and one in his chest. Jolo pulled George out of the way, fired his last grenade at Hazuki and his men, then unloaded his M-16 into the gaping hole in the Cruiser.
The big ship made it over the portal and Jolo broke into a sprint and dove under the dying Cruiser. Greeley was yelling, “Jolo! Jolo!” And Mamba was backing up, firing her M-16 in short bursts just to keep what remained of Hazuki’s men pinned down.
Jolo slid over the cold ice right up under the wounded BG boat, the shiny black metal dominating his field of vision. There was gunfire and shouting. Greeley’s deep voice muffled by the green helmet. Grenade explosions. And then the sound cut out. And the black ship spread out in all directions to the edge of his vision and beyond, until everything was black. And for a split second his body felt light and his mind became disoriented like when the Argossy made a jump, only this time he couldn’t get a handle on which way was up and which was down. He fell, sideways, into a dark hole where time and feeling and thought were cast up into the wind. And he was a tiny thing, a piece of dust, caught in a giant storm. He fought to hold onto his consciousness, a whispered breath of air, I am Jolo--the thing that held him in place. But it, too, was cast away, then his body, and finally, his mind.
When Hell Breaks Loose
Katy sat in the captain’s chair of the Argossy with Riley manning the weapons array. They’d gone over it several times. If she had to she could use the computer override. She could almost do everything by herself, but it was better to have someone there. The ship was designed to be able to be flown by a crew of one, but a good crew of five was best. As it stood now she’d have to run Riley down to engineering if the shite hit the fan. She needed Koba, but he was baby sitting the wild boys.
Hurley demanded that he pilot the Stingray. And as Katy watched the old man nearly fall trying to get into the tiny cockpit she wondered if this was a good idea. But she wasn’t Jolo and couldn’t change his mind.
The Fed pilot, Risa, seemed competent enough. But Katy wasn’t even sure they’d get off the ground to find out. Up to now they’d only heard gunfire and explosions. Every gunshot sounded like a pop pop pop. Each one made Katy wince, and she prayed none of the bullets found Jolo.
Katy had Hurley swing the Argossy around facing the entrance to the junk pile so she could see if Hazuki came calling. She felt for the blaster at her hip, checked that it had a charge and waited.
Every so often she’d try to spin up the engines. But so far, nothing. She knew they weren’t going to work because the display on the main screen still was throwing a strange error she’d never seen before: Main engine: Offline @3272:34623.433, temp log entry 3238237.34. All the other readings were fine. Other than that, the Argossy thought the engines were perfect. All the checks came back good. Katy pondered the meaning of the message for awhile then remembered that Koba and George had been over it a million times, with far more brain power than she possessed, and hadn’t fixed it. So she just tried to stay calm and ready.
There was a crescendo of explosions and then things got quiet for a few minutes. Hurley opened the canopy on the Stingray and yelled to her.
“You wanna stay? Maybe we should git a gun and go shoot somethin’?”
“We stay,” she said. “Jolo said wait here. We’re no good playing with guns. We belong up there.” She pointed up to the orange sky beyond the ice ceiling.
……
Greeley watched, dumfounded, as Jolo dove under the dying ship like an idiot. Greeley called out, started to run to him, then all at once the ship, and Jolo, were gone. Greeley stood straight up. The rules of time and space had been violated.
He heard a loud noise and was thrown to the ground, a burning, hot point of fire in his left shoulder. He started cussing. Mamba, steady as always, kept firing on Hazuki trying to keep them in check. Greeley got up with his left arm throbbing, and grabbed George by the collar of his jacket and started pulling back. He didn’t realize just how heavy the synth was. He fell back at one point, landing at Mamba’s feet. “We can’t keep this up!” she yelled. “Get back behind the transport!”
Then a Cruiser and two fighters appeared. They just appeared. Greeley let go of George, loaded his last grenade and took out one of the fighters. It was the best he could do in a shite situation.
Mamba grabbed Greeley and pulled him back behind the transport just as Hazuki started peppering them with a large automatic weapon that sprayed about a thousand rounds a minute. The transport was getting torn in half by the onslaught. There were three other fighters left at that point besides Greeley and Mamba. “I gotta get George!” yelled Greeley.
“Not dead you won’t,” Mamba yelled right back.
They all huddled behind what remained of the transport. They stayed as low as possible to avoid the lead flying overhead but soon the transport would be gone and then they’d all be dead.
“Save any grenades you got for the black boats!” yelled Greeley.
……
Katy ran down to engineering and checked the fuel cells one last time. Hurley’s encyclopedic knowledge of the ships in the junk pile had proved invaluable. He knew just which dead boats would have the fuel cells for the Argossy and the other two as well. He’d point to an old boat so deep down into the pile that you could only see the nose or the edge of a wing, but he could id it. And then he’d launch in to some long tale of how that boat helped the expansion to the core, or how that boat had failed miserably, or some small moment from his childhood.
Katy ran back up to the bridge and checked the main screen. “Shite.”
The funky error was still there on the screen. She wanted to shoot it with her blaster.
At that point she was ready to grab a gun and run to the surface. Jolo told her not to call on the comm. But she tried anyway and he didn’t respond. A moment later Greeley called in and told her to stay with the ships. “They’ll fly soon,” he said, the noise in the background so loud she could barely hear. They sounded like thrusters. “Y’all git here as soon as you can,” he said.
If Greeley says get here fast, she thought, things must be desperate.
“How is Jolo?” Katy yelled into the comm. But Greeley didn’t reply.
“Katy, look!” said Riley, pointing at the screen.
The error message was gone.
Katy tapped the screen refresh a few times but the message didn’t come back. She pulled up the engine controls and took a deep breath. Up to this point every time she tried to wind them up there was dead silence, even though the computer thought everything was fine.
This time she hit the button and instantly she felt the air change and the low hum of both engines winding up.
“Hurley and Risa,” she yelled into the comm. “I’m hot. Stay back until I break through the ice. Target any black boat and stay on my rear ‘cause they about to get the heat.” The Argossy’s engines spun up and Katy could feel the whole ship come to life. She pulled on the stick and the nose lifted. The old boat eased up off the dirt floor and the thruster wash pushed an old ship deeper into the pile. She had to get the nose up a bit so the railguns could come into play. “Hold on!” she yelled.
“You can’t go full thruster in this confined space!” yelled Riley.
“You strapped in?” She glanced over and made sure the former merchant navigator was good. Then she gunned both engines full on and the nose popped up and the ship shot straight up right for the ice ceiling. “Riley, railguns, now!”
“Nothing to target.”
“Override the computer. Fire the guns. Now!”
The railguns tore the ceiling and giant chunks of ice fell onto the Argossy and then down onto the junk pile below. Katy pushed th
e old boat harder and it screamed out of the hole and into the orange sky. She gained altitude, the scanner lighting up with red dots.
“Holy shite, we got BG all over!” said Riley.
“Keep your pants on.” The g-force pressed Katy deep into her seat. She knew the Argossy could never win a dog fight in atmosphere. But just then two small blue dots appeared. One right on her but the other veering off erratically.
“I’m on you,” said Risa through the comms.
“Hurley, where are you?” The other blue dot came in at an odd angle.
“Gettin’ used to the controls. Something’s wrong.”
“Stay out of the way if you’re not in control. Don’t take out our people on the ground.”
“I kin do it!” yelled Hurley, but then he popped off the screen again.
Katy made a hard turn and dove right back down towards the battle on the ice. There were two fighters and one big Cruiser, plus another BG ship that was down.
“Risa, you give them hell but don’t let the big ship get a clean shot. Stay low and fast and away from the nose of the Argossy. Railguns’ll cut your boat in half.” Just then the two smaller red dots moved out of the fight on the ground to pursue the Argossy and the Greenback. Good, thought Katy, come and get us.
The BG fighters were fast and agile and were soon all over the Argossy and the Greenback. Risa turned hard to evade and one followed her, the closest one staying with the Argossy.
“We got a bogey in weapons range,” said Riley, fear and uncertainty in his voice.
“Relax, that little boat ain’t gonna hurt us. Just then the Argossy lurched to one side and the rear shields dropped to 64%.
“Katy!” Riley screamed.
“Ain’t nothin’. We want the big one.” From the screen it looked like the Cruiser was hammering a smaller BG boat.
“Target the fighter on our tail boat,” said Katy.
“We got no rear guns.”
“Just do it. He’ll be coming around in a sec. Stay strapped in. Be ready to target the big one right after that. Hit the little one with the ion cannon and then give the big one both rail guns.”
Katy magnified the screen and suddenly saw Greeley’s green battle suit and a few others using the transport as cover. They were dug in tight, but the BG boat was all over them.
“I’m gonna flat spin us so hold on.”
“You can’t do that this low—” But Katy cut him off.
“Kill the fighter when it comes in range!” She cut the port engine, engaged the forward directional thrusters and gunned the starboard all at the same time. The Argossy swung around while moving forward and suddenly the little fighter appeared on the screen. It was peppering the Argossy with it’s single light turreted ion cannon, trying to destroy the starboard railgun.
Riley locked in and hit it with the ion cannon and the little red dot went gray, then disappeared from the screen, but there was no time to watch the burned metal bits and the fuel cell explosion.
Katy waited until the Argossy swung around and kicked in the starboard engine. The big ship righted itself, but was nose down and off kilter so Katy hit the forward thruster just a touch.
“We’re flying a little off center,” said Riley.
“We’re fine.”
“This thing can’t turn for shite can it.”
“Nope. But that ain’t what’s important.”
Meanwhile the big BG boat kept pounding away at the transport, even as Katy got within range. Finally it stopped the barrage and turned to face the Argossy.
“No dang respect,” yelled Katy. “We’ll teach him some.”
“What’s the plan?” said Riley.
“Nothin’ fancy. Toe to toe. Peg him as soon as we are in range. Give him everything. Ion cannons and the rail guns.”
Both ships locked in at about the same time. The BG boat’s ion cannons firing just before the Argossy’s railguns let loose. The Argossy was flying low with a full head of steam and pounded the black ship. The Argossy rocked and shook with the impact of the black boat’s guns, but she kept coming.
“We’re coming in too low!” yelled Riley.
“That’s the idea.”
Katy got on the comm to the ground team. “Y’all get down!”
The Argossy screamed right over the burning transport, Greeley and the ground force laying flat on the ice. Katy got a glimpse of the area right before impact. There was a body on the ground.
“We gotta pull up,” said Riley.
Katy adjusted course slightly and dropped down even lower, increasing speed. “Proximity alert! Proximity alert!” the computer repeated over the comm, the whole bridge blinking red. Katy tapped in the manual override and the message stopped. Riley was screaming, his head down and his arms wrapped around his knees.
The BG boat tried to reverse, but it was too late. The Argossy clipped the top of the black boat, tearing off the big ion cannon. The black boat bottomed out on the ice and the Argossy’s computer reported damage to the lower heat shields.
The Argossy streaked past, and started a slow turn back to the black boat, who suddenly was left with one turret to defend herself.
“Risa, you okay?”
“Yeah, barely. I killed the bg fighter.”
“Great. Go kick some ass on the ground. Our people are behind the burned out transport. Buy us some time while I swing around.”
“Roger that.”
Katy watched Risa on the screen, her small ship streaking down towards the ice. A few minutes later Katy had the Argossy headed back for a final run. The BG boat moved towards the mall, but didn’t run.
“What’s he waiting for?” said Katy, more to herself than Riley. The merchant crewman was still hunched over in his seat.
Katy didn’t like it when the enemy acted stupid. It meant they knew something that she didn’t.
“Risa, what’s the Cruiser doing?”
“Hovering over the mall. Trying to hit me with the turret.”
The Argossy came in fast again. This time a little higher. “Riley, target the black boat!” He moaned. So Katy went into auto-pilot mode and targeted the big boat herself. It still hadn’t moved. The Argossy zoomed over the transport for the second time and unloaded on the BG boat.
It crashed down onto the ice in a ball of fire. Risa had Hazuki and his men on the run, pushing them back out onto the ice, away from Greeley and team.
Katy landed the Argossy on the ice and it sunk down and tilted to one side, the one landing pad still missing. She lowered the hatch and scrambled out of the ship. Greeley was waiting. He looked like hell. Riley ran out and fell onto the ice and puked.
“What’s his problem?” said Greeley.
“Who’s on the ground over the mall and where’s Jolo?”
“It’s George. He went down,” said Greeley.
Katy had seen him there earlier and he hadn’t moved. But she knew she couldn’t cry in front of everyone. He’d pulled through worse. “Okay,” she said, her voice a little too loud and bit too much bravado. “Let’s get him to the med bot,” said Katy.
The rest of the ground team were still behind the burning transport. Their eyes were big and their faces were haggard, most of them limping or nursing some ailment. There were a few dead women on the ground and Mamba and Greeley carried them and laid them down near the Argossy.
Koba showed up with two of the older kids, all of them with M-16s and grenade launchers. They walked together to where the center of the action had been, right over the mall. The ice was melted in spots from the BG boats. In the middle of it all was the body of synthetic life form George. He was still face down.
“Koba, keep your eyes open. We don’t know where Hazuki is,” yelled Greeley.
“Where’s Jolo?” said Katy.
Koba shrugged. “I just got here.”
Risa flew in and landed the Greenback right next to the Argossy.
Twenty meters or so from George the ground began to rumble. Everyone stopped. Katy looked ba
ck to Greeley and the rest. Greeley didn’t say anything, he just grabbed a grenade launcher off the ground. He motioned to Mamba to do the same.
“Spread out,” Katy whispered into the comm. More rumbling. Katy felt it up through her boots. Everyone stepped away from each other, their guns ready. Katy pulled out her blaster even though she knew it wasn’t going to help much. Katy looked over at George. He was twenty meters away. She eased toward him.
“Katy, stay put,” whispered Koba.
The ground shook again and the ice on top cracked. A loud sound like a freighter at full burn came up through the ground, and with it the Queen, rising up into the air through a giant hole in the ice. Her body was bigger than the Argossy. One giant yellow eye, moving back and forth in its socket, wet and cloudy with mucous, searched the ground. Rows of teeth as long as a man’s arm, hundred of spikes pointing back into her maw. The creature screamed and wailed and everyone fell to the ground, hands over ears.
I feel your pain, Katy, the giant beast whispered into Katy’s mind. Let me ease your burden. Your man is gone forever and the girl inside your body is mine.
“No!” Katy yelled. She screamed it over and over.
Jolo Vargas is dead. The child is mine, the Queen said.
“She is mine!” Katy yelled, her hand instinctively covering the spot under her belly button where the little baby was growing inside her. “Where is Jolo?”
You don’t know, Girl? They didn’t tell you? He has gone to a place you will never reach. Too much time and space separate you now. Let go of him. Let go. And give yourself to me.
Anger filled Katy and she stood. One of the boys was rolling around on the ice, the M-16 and the launcher off to his side. Katy picked up the launcher and fired at the giant worm.
The Jolo Vargas Space Opera Series Box Set Page 60