MoonRush (15 page)

“Docking complete,” the rather cheerful computer chimed.

“Nice work,
Eureka
,” flight control added. “Refueling and re
-
ionization will take approximately two hours. Please feel free to explore the station during your layover. Complementary chips are available to first
-
timers at the casino.”

Now
that
was Jarod’s kind of layover.

Jarod called out to the rest of the crew, “Guess
k
arma’s buying the first round! Didja hear that, Buton?” Jarod glanced at Cleo, who
still wore her planet
-
side frown.

“C’mon,” Jarod prompted. “How much trouble can we really get into in just two hours?

CHAPTER 6

Undisclosed location in the Rocky Mountains

March 28, 2049

0814 hours, MST

The rainbow-colored sparks flying out of the machine were beautiful
.
Dr. Weigner could not deny it. The fact that they were coming out at all was not such a good thing. This was the hundredth time he had run the tests, and what he had at first hoped was an anomaly had now become an almost certainty.

And now it was time to tell the general.

The grizzled Cold War relic had been pushing more and more in recent days, looking for his weaponized peacekeeper.
Now
. What had not even been a possibility before Dr. Weigner’s discovery was now needed yesterday. Working for the military had its benefits. This was not one of them.

The scientist glanced at his watch, an antique gold Bulova, his one and only nod to nostalgia. The timepiece had belonged to his grandfather. He had hated his grandfather. A nasty, crotchety alcoholic with a nasty, crotchety voice that he wasn’t afraid to use in the worst abuse a human voice could render
.
T
he scientist’s ancestor had made Weigner’s early childhood an absolute hell on earth. The doctor had left as soon as he could. Weigner wore the watch to remind himself of where he had come from and just how far he had traveled.

And no mere military man was going to take that away from him. Weigner may not be pleased with where the experiments had taken him, but he had a plan to make it work. And this plan would take him even farther than he had already gone.

W
ei
gner heard the general barking orders at the air near the entranceway, taking out
his
frustration on anyone
who
was unlucky enough to be in the commander’s immediate path. The doctor glanced at his watch. Right on time, as usual.

The general planted himself at attention in front of the computer array. Rather than draw out the moment, Weigner launched straight into the explanation of why he had called the general there. The doctor brought up the specs in a three
-
dimensional revolving demonstration in the air between the general and himself.

“As I explained, the limitation of the ‘star’ laser is its dissipation quotient.”

“Non-Klingon, doctor,” the general growled.

“The weapon’s range is directly proportional to the size of the crystal.” The general made a face that looked like he had tasted month-old milk. Weigner continued before the general could get a word in
.
“Let me show you.”

The display coalesced down to the size of a small gemstone. Weigner stepped forward to cup the hologram in his palm. “A two-
k
ar
a
t stone might reach across the street…” The gemstone more than doubled in size. “A five
-karat
will target across town…”

“How large a diamond would it take to arm an orbiting satellite and have the laser reach Earth?” Wei
g
ner stepped back as a monstrous stone took shape. The general breathed out
.
“The ultimate ‘peacekeeper’.”

“Exactly,” the scientist agreed. “If such a mother lode exists.” The general frowned. Weigner gestured toward the conference room. “Let’s sit down and talk, shall we?” The general followed the doctor as he led the way.

What other choice
did the commander have, really?

* * *

Buton trailed behind, seeking
to still the roiling in his stomach as the Rogues walked through the causeway and exited upon one of the most chaotic sights Buton had ever seen. Swarms of people milled about, the mix as heady as any nightclub test tube shot. The visual combinations were stark, with
partially
suited
-
up miners blending with half naked clubbers, their subdermal tattoos glowing as brightly as their fiber optic wigs, causing garish shadows to dance around the faces of those they passed. It created a Mardi Gras atmosphere, where everything was permissible and nothing shocked
anyone
.

Buton
estimated
an 87 percent probability that he was about to be ill.

The central hub where all the causeways leading from the shuttle bays met created a large hall. Encased in plasteel, the outer wall allowed for a crystal clear view of the blue
-
and
-
white swirl of the Earth below, the glowing orb of the moon to the side, and the wash of the Milky Way above. The turning of the station created gravity, so that “down” was always toward the center of the station. With no other opaque walls to create the feel of a firm structure, one was left to simply “feel” where the gravity was.

Buton was now 99
percent
certain
that
he was about to be ill.

From underneath a banner that read
,
“The Gateway to Your Moon Adventure
,
”
a welcome girl approached their small crew, her tight, form-fitting latex dress lit from underneath by her subdermal
s
. “
Eureka
! The crew of the
Eureka
?”

Jarod, who appeared to be hea
ding
for the casino bar already
,
stopped in his tracks and did a double take. He sauntered back to the welcome girl and winked, a grin spreading over his tanned face. “
Eureka
here.”

The welcome girl smiled
.
“Holograms are immune to charm.”

She looked toward the rest of
the
crew as Jarod’s face fell. Not that Buton
would
understand. This hologram was far beyond anything seen on
E
arth. The only odd thing
? W
hy would a hologram have an obvious chest enlargement?

“Before departing,” the welcome
girl
continued, “you will need to read the Moon Territory Regulations in full and digitally sign on the last page.”

She held out a disposable tablet with the information contained within. Buton accepted the device. Glancing at the scroll bar on the side and the microscopic dot that represented the current location of the cursor, Buton estimated that the manual easily surpassed the size of most encyclopedia sets.

As if to offset the painful size of the manual, the welcome girl produced a handful of holographic casino chips, each one glowing like a miniature sun from the neon gases trapped within. The chips disappeared from the girl’s hand and made their way to Jarod’s pocket in mere nanoseconds.

As if nothing had transpired, Jarod scrolled through the first few hundred pages with his thumb. The dot on the bar moved about a millimeter.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he sighed
, and
then his eyes found a lithe Asian woman with a flashing golden tiger pendant. Without taking his gaze from the retreating figure, Jarod mumbled over his shoulder, “Buton, take care of this, will you?”

That really was too much.

“Why must the one with the stomach ailments be left the task?” Buton pleaded at Jarod’s retreating back. Jarod didn’t even twitch in response. His attention was now obviously riveted elsewhere. Buton turned to Cleo, his eyebrows asking the question.

“Hey, I’m heading to the med facility to get something for that space sickness,” Cleo said. “Unless…?” She indicated the tablet. Buton shook his weary head. His need for her medical talents far exceeded his need for her to read the document.

Buton turned to the last member of the crew as Cleo disappeared from sight. Clearly hurrying before Buton might change his mind.

Rob answered the question before it was even asked, his teenage voice cracking as he protested. “A
,
I’m too young to sign a legal document. And B
,
I’m heading to the arcade.”

Rob nodded
toward
a sign that listed “arcade” in every language known to man. The amount of noise and light radiating from the room made Buton’s head pound all the more. He refocused on the welcome girl, who was only a slight improvement over the arcade. Emphasis on “slight
.
”

“What happens if we
by
chance break one of these regulations?” he asked.

“For a misdemeanor? You get your stake revoked.” The girl pursed her lips, the shadows cast by her subdermal
s
radiating from her mouth. “A felony? Life in prison.”

“Aha,” Buton answered. “Do you happ
en to have a magnifying glass?”

* * *

Rob darted from Buton as fast as his artificial legs would take him. No way was he going to get roped into reading some stupid manual when the arcade was calling his name. Rob looked around at all the lights and colors bouncing off of the hordes of people milling around, some of those colors radiating
out
of them. Okay, maybe the arcade screaming his name. This was his kinda place.

The pings and beeps and explosions of the arcades were a siren song that pulled him through the crowds like some kind of sweet magnet. Rob strolled through the arc of the entrance, which looked like it was made of pure light. Whatever casing had been used for the swirl of neon lights inside, it was almost undetectable. Rob watched the play of the colors across his clothes, his vision blurring. It felt
as though the
lights were hypnotizing him, luring him in with the promise of the most adrenaline
-f
ueled games he could imagine. And Rob could imagine a
lot
. He felt the pulsing of the room, the sounds colliding in his chest,
that
displac
ed
his heart’s own rhythm and forc
ed
his stride to the game temple’s throbbing beat.