*****
There was a questioning glance from Quist to Kyle but the youngster supplied nothing except that his character had reverted to his normal cheerful self. Any conversation was curtailed by the distraction of Katya turning up with V.J. in tow. As she handed out the medi-kits she explained that the doctor was looking for a way out of London.
“Where’s home, mate?” Kyle asked and when V.J. told him, he said, ”No problem – it’s on the way.”
Nobody questioned Kyle but picked up their bags and followed him down a path until they reached the side gate close to Lambeth Bridge. A few blows with the fire axe and the lock was broken. Blindly, they followed him unsure of where they were going even when they went down a flight of stairs that led to the Thames and stepped onto the jetty.
“Your transport awaits,” Kyle chuckled pointing the axe towards a motor launch, ”That’s our way out – no one thinks of the river.”
“Can you handle one of those?” Quist queried hesitantly “I know I can’t.”
“All my life has been spent on the river,” Kyle explained as he boarded the launch and climbed to the cockpit. “Mum and dad as well. We ran pleasure cruises up and down to the Tower and Hampton Court.”
It was dark by the time they reached Richmond where V.J. disembarked. No one, knowing that they would never see the doctor again, said goodbye.
All through the journey Quist had withdrawn inside himself. The close proximity of the attractive nurse filled him with anxiety now that the adrenaline rushes had fled his system. Whenever she had looked at him he had turned away to focus on something else unable to trust himself to speak.
Then, plucking up the courage he faltered yet again as soon as he noticed that she seemed to be no longer interested.
Katya stared up into the sky. It had been a long time since she had seen such a canopy of stars. As she dropped her gaze she saw the moon rising above the smoky shadows over London. She shuddered as the stared into the great red eye in the sky.
“Red moon rising,” Kyle said, without looking around but at the orb reflected in the window “Bad things are going to happen.”
“Bad things?” Quist challenged. “Are you serious? Haven’t we been through enough?”
Kyle’s shake of the head was answer enough.
“Told you, Pete,” Kyle reminded him. “You are going to have to learn how to use that gun.”
“So what now?” Quist wanted to know.
“We head west until we run out of river,” Kyle confirmed.
© 2016 Ray Foster
Gracious Dragon
By Chris Raven
The Asteroid Belt (3AU from 19 Draconis, 49.2LY from Sol and held in fealty to the Terran Star Empire by the Imperial House of Orenstein.)
Two more months before this tour comes to an end, two more months and then he can go home. Two more, that’s all. Gus was amazed he had survived this long. Warfare in a Zero-G environment is remorseless, brutal even. There are no flesh wounds in outa space, anything that pierces an armoured battle suit’s skin results in death, plain and simple. Gustav Beemer was out on patrol, so he was grateful for the armour, the heat shields especially, as the temperature from 19 Draconis was unrelenting in the extreme, even as far out as the asteroid belt.
“Stay alert Gracious!” Sargent Dire’s stern voice barked out through the speakers in Gus’ helmet. That was Gus’ nick name within the squad, Gracious Gus, due to him never wanting to row with his shipmates.
“Serge!” Gus replied. He was being dragged backward, tethered to Grumbling Jed, just to make sure he didn’t drift away from the patrol. His job was to watch the rear, a formidable task in its own right. Old Draconis’ great blinding blue-white orb was directly ahead of him and it was hard to see anything, even with the helmet’s glare shield down.
“You just have to make sure no Orenstein bastard sneaks up on us Gracious, that’s all you have to do, d’ya hear?”
“Serge!”
Gus crewed on The Kestrel, a small ‘bandit’ class attack boat which normally hunted out and around Dragon’s Egg, a gas giant on the other side of the asteroid belt, on the ‘cold side’, away from the star. With a large number of lucrative mining colonies on many of its moons, there was always traffic in and out of the system, large haulers and free traders coming to and from The Egg to trade. The 19 Draconis system was officially owned by House Orenstein, one of the five ruling planets of the Terran Star Empire, though the Dragon Free Collective were in system first, by many centuries by all accounts. It now mainly survived by making raids out of The Belt to commandeer any cargo they could take from hapless and unprotected traders up and down the outer system. Out in the outer core of The Empire, there had been very little the colonies could do to protect themselves. That was of course until five years ago, when three cruisers of the Orenstein battle fleet arrived.
Something caught Gus’ eye, but it was just glare from the ‘Old Dragon’, he raised his blaster rifle anyway and scoped around through its sights for a few minutes to make sure.
“You see anything?” It was Jed, his voice was whiney and irritating, which was why he got his nick name.
“Naw!”
Two more months, half way there, not long before they can all go back to ‘The Perch’, Kestrel’s base in The Belt, where partners, bars, whores and relative safety waited. Two more months and they could even go back to privateering, although pickings had been lean with those cruisers patrolling around. Some of his shipmates made Gus laugh, especially Grumbling Jed and Rabbit. They thought the cruisers were only here to protect the colonies. Maybe so, but Gus also knew that they were after the asteroid belt for its rich deposits of rare ore. The Collective owned the asteroid belt and that was why they were out here dodging rocks in environment suits. The ship crews of the Collective had all agreed to take turns patrolling their shared back door on the ‘hot side’, just in case the fleet tried to get in behind them.
A brief flash of light again, small blue-white sparkles from Draconis, probably reflected off a mineral rich asteroid. It reminded Gus of Gloria 5’s eyes. Out of all the whores at Madam Jo’s back on The Perch, Gloria 5 was Gus’ favourite. She was an escaped pleasure replicate who had broken her conditioning and escaped. Finding her way to the asteroid belt and with very little ability or inclination for anything else, she had inevitably found herself working in Madam Jo’s doing the same work for which she had been designed.
“That’s OK lovely Gus,” she had often told him, “At least I have a choice of who I pleasure now.”
Gus had promised to take her away from that life, once he had made enough wealth from raiding. He hoped to even take her off system someday, not to the Core Systems of course, they would never let a pirate and a replicate settle in The Core. Only on the frontier would they have any future, on a proper planet maybe, with real air, gravity, some semblance of security. Replicates can’t have children like humans can, but they could still have a good life together on some out-of-the-way world where people didn’t ask too many questions. That was Gustav’s dream, achievable for sure but it would take money, lots of money. ‘No chance of that while patrolling The Belt,’ Gus thought, very little opportunity for plunder here. ‘Only two more months though,’ Gus reassured himself, two more months before he could get back to earning again. He wouldn’t have minded so much if his time in The Belt hadn’t been such a complete waste of time.
In all the time he had been out here, not one enemy patrol had he encountered and Gus was beginning to believe the whole exercise to be a waste of time. That in itself was inconvenient but justifiable, considering the recent increase in House Orenstein‘s naval presence. Gus could cope with that, doing his part for the greater good. It was the regular pointless loss of life that concerned Gus the most. Some parts of the ‘belt’ were just too tight for ships to safely manoeuvre and they were regularly forced to patrol in battle suits, which was risky as perspective was difficult, without clear points of reference. The asteroids were
often closer than expected and moved quicker than they appeared. Gus had seen more than one shipmate get knocked helplessly out into space or crushed between two rocks.
“You have a lot to say today,” Gus told the huge blue shimmering orb as its light reflected off an asteroid again.
“Who you talkin’ too?”
That was Rabbit, another escaped replicate, a military model this time, designed for strength and endurance, not particularly for intelligence.
“Nothing Rabbit,” Gus explained, “I’m just talking to Draconis.”
“Why? It can’t talk back.”
“Don’t worry about it Rabbit.”
Gus continued to watch ahead, tethered to Jed as he was, slowly being towed backwards. Draconis filled his whole field of vision, acting like a blue shimmering backdrop behind a complex mass of movement as rocks and planetoids drifted, turned and occasionally collided.
The blue-white flash caught Gus’ eye again and this time he wasn’t so sure it was just glare.
“Serge!” The urgency in his voice brought the patrol to a halt, everyone moving into defensive positions, a tall order considering they were all floating in free space. Serge came down to the rear with Corporal Frisk as Gus untethered himself from Jed.
“What have you got Gracious?”
“I don’t know Serge, something, movement? Something keeps catching my eye.”
The patrol floated around for the best part of an hour, everyone straining their eyes towards the sun, trying to see something in its glare. In the end the Sergeant decided they should investigate and the Patrol tentatively retraced its steps back the way it had come.
For hours they explored the asteroids, Gus trying to find the last place he thought he saw something but it was like trying to find a nut on a barrel of bolts. Serge was just regrouping everyone ready to return to The Kestrel when Gus saw something out of place on a small rock. Carefully controlling his manoeuvring jets, he was able to attach himself to its slowly turning surface, tethering himself to a hastily placed belaying pin. Frisk joined him and together they looked in disbelief at a single person pressure tent embedded deep in one of the asteroid’s craters. It had been the glare of its solar panels that had caught Gus’ eye.
“So much for no contact,” Gus commented dryly, turning to share the joke with Frisk, only to find him floating from his tether above him, a neat laser hole in his helmet’s plasti-glass visor.
“Frisk is gone,” Gus announced, struggling to crouch down in zero gravity, “sniper on this rock…”
“Form on Gracious!” Serge ordered, “Stay low Gus, we’re on our way.”
Gus scanned the rocks above him, pulling his tether in tight to keep himself as low to the ground as possible. There was a sniper out there in the rocks with an accurate and long-ranged laser rifle. Gus knew if he stayed still much longer the sniper would get a bead on him and he’ll join Frisk floating above the asteroid like a grisly balloon.
“What the hell, these suits are made to take anything.”
Gus set his jet pack on full power and untethered himself. He hit go and unfurled as he launched himself upwards, hurling himself towards the rocks, firing his blaster as he flew; bright red plasma erupting ahead of him like the fire from the jaws of a dragon.
© 2016 Chris Raven
Ufburk: Armour of Enthily
By Donny Swords