Authors: Dain White
I whispered as quietly as I could.
“Why are we being so silent?”
He
replied with soft laughter. “Force of habit, Jane… I was thinking we should try to get into the room a little more stealthily. I wouldn’t put it past this mook to eat a gun the moment we get the drop on him; that’d be an immediate downcheck from the Captain.”
I nodded,
“What do you have in mind, somehow tunneling through the wall over here?”
“Yeah… what do you think? Can we do it quietly enough?”
I thought about screaming colonists and the shriek and moan of bending metal, and realized… they have been listening to booms and crashes throughout the Revenge for a while now.
“No way, Yak… but
listen… what would stop you from going back there and blowing something else up? I’ll peel the corner of the room at the same moment.”
“I love the way you think, Jane… that is diabolical.”
He floated off while I took a knee at the corner, and studied the way the wall section was fitted to the baseplate.
“R
eady Jane?” he called on comms after a moment.
“Go.”
“Boom coming in 3… 2… 1…”
As the explosion boomed and rocked through the ship, I punched my hand into the corner, through the metal into the space between decks.
“Give me another one, Yak”, I hissed.
“Copy, in 3… 2… 1…”
I hauled up on the corner, shredding my hand upwards through the metal like it was made of wet cardboard.
“One more, I am almost in.
”
“I’m running out of stuff to blow up, Jane.”
I waited patiently.
“Ok
, I’m there. Damn this is fun. Ready? 3… 2… 1…”
I hauled up on the panel, ripping it from the floor and opening it in a big curling bend, taking a quick scan through the opening.
There he was, and he was wired. Worse, he was wired to a real mine.
“Need another?”
“No, and stay there, Yak.”
“The hell I will.”
“Damn you, Yak, listen to me.”
“Nope.”
“He has an active mine, Yak…. a very, very big one.”
“Can I beat him with it?”
“Yak, please stay away. I can do this.”
“I said no, dammit”, he replied, and hurled into sight from a lateral hallway, making the corner pretty clean and flying towards me like a rocket.
I laughed, despite the tears that threatened to burst out of my leaky face.
“
That’ll work great”, he said, pulling up short and taking a look. “We can take him, Jane.”
I took another look.
“Yeah… cover me, Yak.”
“Covering”, he replied softly.
I dropped to the deck and steadied myself. Thinking about the tentative baby steps I’d made not too long ago in this suit, I couldn’t believe I was going to try this. Carefully, I pulled myself through the opening, drifting slightly off the deck.
We had made entry into a pretty dark corner. The colonists were huddled together, trying desperately not to get close to him, but clearly terrified
too much not to follow his commands to do so.
Yak pulled through like a bad dream, and joined me as we slowly drifted through the room, closer and closer.
Yak held up while I slid over to the mine and waited until I had it disarmed. The moment I flashed him a thumb, he dropped mimetics and immediately grabbed Red by the throat with both hands, hauling him off the ground.
“RED MARTIGAN”, he roared at the top of his lungs
in a tectonic scream of fury that boomed through the hold. Terrified colonists fled screaming away from us into the corners of the room. “You are hereby remanded to the custody of Captain Dak Smith, of the ARCHAEA!”
As they
floated higher off the deck, he spoke in a deep, hissing voice as dark and cold as the depths of deepest space, “So nice to see you again, Red.”
Red starfished in his grasp, terri
fied completely out of his mind. Voiding his bladder, he slipped slack into unconsciousness and hung dangling from Yak’s outstretched fist.
I chuckled;
he hadn’t even tried to trigger the mine.
“Mission a
ccomplished, Captain”, Yak said proudly, holding him easily by the neck.
“Well done son. We’re enroute, hold for delivery.”
*****
They brought him into the cargo bay, naked and stumbling, their hands locked like vices around his upper arms. He looked terrified, but it looked like an act to me.
Gene and Pauli were on the upper catwalk, looking down, as I met them in the middle of the bay.
I stared him right in the eyes.
“Red Martigan, for the crimes you have committed, as Captain of this vessel, I hereby remand you to the brig for the duration of our return to Earth.”
He
looked down, silent, his darting eyes seething with rage, barely contained.
“Do you have anything you’d like to say?” I asked politely,
and then cut him off the moment he opened his mouth. “No… I don’t care, actually. Put him in the brig.”
“
Sir, the brig…?” Yak asked quietly.
I smirked. “See that container there, Yak?”
“Yes, sir”, he replied.
“That there, is my brig.”
“Very well, sir”, he said, hauling Red over to the container.
“
Hold your breath, everyone”, I commanded, and held mine while Yak opened the container. Red started screaming the moment Yak shoved him in, kicking and fighting to get out. Yak forced him into the dark, naked and howling in rage like some demon, and shut the door with a final clang.
“What the hell is that smell?” Gene groused from the catwalk.
I replied with a smile. “Gene, that’s some of the nastiest mud ever seen on any planet, ever. Janis saved it for me after she cleaned the crab, and said that we would need it, worms and all.”
I paused, listening to the
muffled screams of indignant rage and other vulgarities coming from the container, and looked at my crew for a moment.
“Good job, all.
I’ve been looking forward to this moment for quite a while. You’ve made me very proud.”
Chapter 12
The tribunal lasted as long as it took to present a staggering amount of incontrovertible evidence, including the duplicity and guilt of Americo Ventures, a deep forensic review of their financial holdings, and all information on their Solis program.
They fought tooth and nail against every proceeding, and will probably end up settling with the survivors, making some form of monetary compensation. Some people will undoubtedly lose their jobs, and a few may end up in prison, if they are caught.
Red had no such opportunity. The tribunal pronounced
Red’s sentence immediately, his fate was sealed.
Following the time-honored traditions of the service, he was afforded a last meal, and given an immediate, painless death by firing squad.
I stood at attention while they fired, and the squad’s chemsers burned through him like fire, dropping him instantly. It was a quick and justified punishment for a man who had deserved so much worse for his crimes.
Americo Ventures was beyond the full reach of the service, but their holdings were seized, forfeited, and
barricaded in every place they could be, and they were branded a criminal organization. Gloms have many faces, however, and I guessed they’d probably remain in business and profitable, for as long as stars burn in the sky.
Janis
and Emwan see it differently. Emwan had perfectly assimilated the M2 variant, and it looked like their real troubles were just beginning. Pauli shared with me that both Emwan and Janis were reeling in M2 nodes throughout the Unet, so there was really no place it could hide at this point.
With Emwan at the helm of the Revenge, we had transported everyone to Earth.
Some of the colonists eventually returned to their homes, others were afforded every luxury they wanted from a service that shared a collective guilt for failing to defend them from the horrors they had experienced.
I don’t know if this experience opened their eyes, but even if it did, it wouldn’t necessarily matter. Galactic society had grown too large. Gloms would still chase every credit as if it were their last, and step on anyone and anything to get it.
They wanted to give me a medal, but I declined. I had plenty of medals already. I did pull some strings to get Yak and Shorty reactivated, so they could receive the Medal of Honor for their efforts. They definitely deserved that, and more. The service was kind enough to discharge them afterwards with full honors and benefits, though they already had everything they needed.
It wasn’t all perfect however.
On the trip back, I was ashamed to admit that I had fallen to just under 10 kilos of coffee, even with dire rationing. My crew saw a full barrel tote full of beans, but I saw the last tote left. I was pretty sure it would be irresponsible of me to take us much further without a reload.
As we were also
running low on huckleberries, I made a command decision, and one warm August evening found us dropping out of the still sunset sky into a field just to the south of Whitefish, Montana.
The occasional grounder
hissed past along an ancient and careworn roadway, following their cones of light through the dusk, unaware of our presence in the shadows of the trees along the field.
“So this is Montana?” Pauli said, stepping dow
n the ramp behind me, looking at the mountains to our north reaching for the sky.
“Sure is, son”, Gene replied, following him down and taking a breath
. “Ah, Dak, it stinks down here!”
I sniffed the deep aroma of cattle and
country, and looked at the twinkling stars far above. “Watch out for cow pies, Gene.”
“Pies?” Pauli exclaimed, looking around.
“He means dung, Pauli”, Yak said with a laugh.
“Is that what
stinks?”
“No, we’re smelling silage, Pauli”, I responded, waving off towards the line of silos at the far end of the field. “It’s sort of like, where they take the dung to rot.”
“Ah”, he said, clearly not liking the answer.
“Everybody watch for grounders, now”, I cautioned, as we walked
through the dusty grass up to the venerable roadway, cobbled with endless patches. Far from collapsing into ruin, it was an homage to the engineering feats of an earlier time.
We timed it for a pretty good gap, and then
darted across the road like kids running for the candy store. A quick sprint devolved into a foot race, and Gene surprised us all in how quickly the elderly can move, when they get going.
Montana Coffee Traders had a
faded sign hung slightly askew from the clapboard planks of the siding above, while a dusty, but well-painted porch beckoned us up a stoop and through a door paneled with beveled glass, rippled and wavy with age.
A subtle ding sounded
when we stepped through, as a well-worn brass bell on a metal spring bounced off the top of the door. We filed in to the warm, soft lights of the room and looked at the glass cases of beans, stacked up like a general store. The entire room looked like it fell out of some faded daguerreotype from the ancient west.
“Now that smells nice”, Pauli said softly, as we took it all in. Beans of every color, consistency, and texture, raised right, finely roasted and cared for like the treasure they were. I could smell the rich Arabica, the subtly pungent Robusta, the rare and exotic Peaberry
, all blending into a rich aroma that filled my soul with warmth and delight. Each type of bean had their own piquant tendencies, subtly enhanced by the roasting method that was used.
“Can I help you folks
?” a smiling lady asked, walking to the counter from the back of the store.
“Yes ma’am”, I replied. “We’re here to
pick up a hundred kilos of your finest, I am Dak Smith.”
“
Well, it’s nice to meet you Dak” she replied sweetly and started swiping through her screen, open anachronistically next to an ancient cast iron cash register.
“
This is really a nice little shop you have here. Do you get a lot of business?”
“
Well, we’re not in danger of being picked up by a glom or anything, but we do alright. We pride ourselves more on having quality coffee, than lots of money, I guess. It keeps business coming, and that’s all we care about, really.”
“How long has this business been here? It looks ancient…” I trailed off, looking at the burnished wood of the front counter.
“Oh, I’m not sure, to be honest. I think the owners bought it from someone else about ten years ago, but they were in the same business. It’s a great business, and we sure have a great sign and a beautiful little shop. I don’t know if it’s continually been in operation, but coffee has been roasted here for a very long time, all the way back to about 1981, I think.”
“Well, it’s a fantastic name, and it
smells in here like you’re definitely carrying on a great tradition.”
“Thanks, I’ll make sure the owners hear that. They’re pretty proud of what they do.
” She smiled. “Okay here you are… ah yes, right on time, they just finished roasting this batch earlier today. One hundred kilos, assorted, should be ready for pickup on the loading dock, in fact. Bring your truck around and we’ll get you loaded.”
I smiled at Gene, and winked.
“Go get the truck, would you Gene? I’ll settle up.”