Junker Blues: Phobos Read online

  Junker Blues- Phobos

  Lon E Varnadore

  Copyright © 2020 by Lon E Varnadore

  All rights reserved.

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  Contents

  1. Junker Blues: Phobos

  1

  Junker Blues: Phobos

  Junker Blues: Phobos

  by:

  Lon E. Varnadore

  The weight of the little orb pulled at Marcus’ pocket as he moved down the alley toward Klyn’s. Keeping his head down, ignoring the dome and the bright red planet of Mars looming over him like a titan’s eye glaring down at him in judgement. A mockery of “Humanity” that was Mars. Pre-Crawl, the thinking was the red planet a place of adventure and wonder, even without the canals and bug-eyed monster. After the Crawl, the real monsters, humanity changed. Marcus had lived on Mars long enough to know it was a place of broken dreams, despair, and the Eridani. The thought of the alien race—the Saviors of Humanity—caused a chill to run down his spine. Not my problem anymore, he thought. He almost believed the thought. His thumb felt a pinprick of pain, he ignored it knowing it was a sympathetic itch whenever he thought about those damn peppermint freaks. Those nanites can’t be awake yet.

  At the end of the short alley, he stopped, eyes drifted up to the broken neon sign of Klyn’s, the “l” not working and making it look like “K yns.” He didn’t care, he had a few credits left in his pocket for a drink or two. And he had time to kill waiting for this “partner” Hazon was making Marcus take along as insurance, as Hazon had called it. He had the skeleton key program and was ready to try it out on the little Pre-Crawl probe in his pocket he hoped to unlock.

  Better work. Cost me enough. He pushed the thought aside and walked towards the old metal door, sliding along on a squeaky track. The smell of rust and stale alcohol hit him hard when he opened the door. The squeak of the rolling door was something Klyn did to make sure everyone knew you were coming in.

  “What’d ya want?” Klyn asked, his one good eye staring at Marcus as he entered, a sawed off casually shouldered by Klyn as the one-eyed bartender glared at Marcus.

  Taking stock of the place, Marcus noticed five people in the place. Two scrappers sat in one booth, and three sat alone scattered around the large seating area, fiddling with handhelds. “A drink, Klyn. And, maybe something to fix that damn door.”

  “You don’t like it, don’t come in,” Klyn said, turning to pull a can from behind a large steel door fridge that ran half the length of the bar, while he also slipped the scatter gun into its nook between the fridge and the door proper . He was dressed in a dirty sleeveless bluejean vest, a dirtier white shirt and black jeans that still showed streaks of grease, grime and a bleached stain over one knee. All of the clothing not fitting him as it once had, since he’d stopped using the grav-treatments and gotten paunchy in some places and skinny in others.

  At least that is what Marcus assumed, since the lankiness of Klyn’s frame was a sure sign of someone not caring about maintaining any kind of need to withstand Earth gravity. Like it would matter, Marcus thought. Earth has been a ball of Crawl ooze for generations. We’re never getting it back.

  “What are you doing here, Marcus?” Klyn asked, pushing the aluminum tube toward Marcus as he bellied up to the bar.

  “Just give me my beer,” Marcus said, reaching for the can.

  “Five credits,” Klyn’s other hand spread out, a mechanical one, pulling the can back a few centimeters.

  Marcus sneered, yet tossed the five-cred chit at the man and grabbed the tube of aluminum with a grunt. “You’re a standup guy, Klyn.”

  “Enjoy,” Klyn said, while started to wipe down the place.

  Marcus gave him a nod, turned, and took a drag from the tube. Not surprising, itt was awful, yet it didn’t have a retched aftertaste. So, at least it was only horrible on the front end. “Slag,” Marcus muttered. “You’d think you’d get better stuff.” Though, anyone not using official Martian channels needed to deal with whatever the grey and black markets could get their hands on.

  “I brew it myself, ungrateful bastard,” Klyn said, letting out a small laugh. “Don’t like it, find another bar.”

  Marcus raised an eyebrow. “You brew this? With what, rotten eggs?”

  Klyn gave him a one finger salute. “Go find another bar then, ‘junkologist.’”

  Like where? Marcus thought, at least he got my title right. Marcus drank sparingly while settling into a booth made from a repurposed storage crate. But, then everything in the cantina was repurposed from something, even the coppertop tables that were forever wet had come from some other bar somewhere else. He was on Phobos, one of the few places close to Mars that he felt somewhat comfortable, or moderately safe away from the Mars Defense Force and the MDF overlords, the Eridani.

  Another burning itch spasmed in Marcus’ left hand, his eyes went to his gloved hand while suppressing the desire to itch it. He knew that he would need another injection soon and he had to find somewhere to procure ordinum. It was the hardest thing to get for the injections, but it seemed to be the only thing that stopped the little bastard Eridani nanites in his blood from sending up a signal to his former master to where he was. He wanted to find a more permanent solution yet was all out of leads. And I’m not going Klyn’s way. Marcus cast a glance at the bartender and his metal arm. He knew Klyn had been a Saved member once. Though Klyn didn’t know Marcus had been one, thankfully. Otherwise, the old man would’ve blown Marcus away the first time he entered the back alley bar.

  The only way to stay free from the peppermints was getting more ordinum. And the only way to get that was to be a scavenger. Though Marcus preferred his term of junkologist. Hunting in the Pre-Crawl derelict ships on the Cusp, the band of space between the territory of the MDF and the Belt, in the Sargasso was the easiest way to get the creds and possible find more of the rare mineral. He’d been doing it for over two years, and he had the perfect opportunity to find enough money, and maybe a trove of ordinum, to get him out of the dangerous occupation and out from under Mars, the MDF, and the slagging Eridani. It had cost him, yet it was worth the risk.

  If it worked.

  Without trying to look like he was doing something shady, though at Klyn’s that wasn’t easy since that is what everyone did, he crammed himself into a corner of the bar’s back area up against the far wall that Klyn’s shared with the flophouse next to it, which he used when he wasn’t able to stay aboard Junker. For a moment, he wished he was aboard Junker and gone from Phobos already. Yet, thanks to Hazon and the gangster’s paranoia, had to wait here for the spy to show up.

  The wall had been made from repurposed materials—of course—though wasn’t a simple box-like room. There were multiple crannies and corners that one needing to pursue more illegal pursuits could find a quiet place to talk amongst themselves to do their illicit deals. Yet the place was mostly empty at this time of day, which didn’t surprised Marcus. Settling in his booth, Marcus pulled out the small bronze colored probe from his pocket, the Pre-Crawl tech plain to anyone who looked at it. No one could see it with the waist high wall he sat behind without having to make a show of standing up to glance over it.

  He knew what it was, it was a pre-Purge datacore that he’d taken from a derelict in the Sargasso six months ago. He’d never been able to open it. And, while he was ready to sell it to Hazon, he wanted to make sure it was Purged. It wouldn’t be good business the amount of credits a core with only a fraction of its data could net Marcus enough credits to keep Junker flying for a long time, though he wouldn’t want that much attention since other scrappers would want to hunt down Marcus if the core did have any info. Another one of those scrappers had hit on a small datacore fragment that had yielded tons of data, and he whispered about something dubbed the Golden Helix out there that would hold answers to everything: Where the Crawl were from? Why humanity lost Earth—and not the propaganda that the MDF pumped out about the Hercules Incident. Who the Eridani were?

  Though, Marcus already knew about the grey skinned peppermint scented freaks. Snake-oil salesmen and hucksters, scheming to keep humans as slaves. By letting humans think the Eridani saved” them.

  Almost all datacores were blank thanks to the Purge that happened when the Pre-Crawl humans last pretty much all memory of everything. Lost access to their tech, to their own data. Marcus had a theory the Eridani had helped, yet couldn’t prove it. And, after two generations, had become Marcus’s grandparents. Most of the knowledge simply gone. It’s a reason Marcus was one of those who went in search of the Pre-Crawl tech, as the best junkologist in the solar system. He wasn’t a scavenger, that was such a crude term for what he did. He did his job with more finesse, brains, and research. Scrappers and scavengers were mere opportunists.

  The probe pulled him from his thoughts as it glinted in the flickering wan overlights of the bar. He took the small disc that he’d blown all of his savings on—a skeleton key that should open most—if not all—Pre-Crawl locks. He’d gone into more debt with Hazon to afford it—giving him sixty percent ownership of the Junker and making him take on a partner Hazon selected. Marcus was one of five people who owned this key. And, he would be rich.

  If it worked.

  The thought of the upcoming meeting wi
th Hazon’s agent reminded Marcus he had to speed it up a little. He wanted to make sure there was time to search through the datacore before the contact that Hazon was sending would arrive. Dropping the disc into the waiting slot of his gauntlet, the disc slipped into the computer built into the gauntlet. Usually, it was connected to Gideon, Junker’s AI, to help Marcus keep ahead of certain things and helping in day-to-day tasks. With the disc whirring away, the small screen he had on the gauntlet started to fill with bits of black ones and zeroes on the white background as the software of the gauntlet was re-written. He was fine with it, he had other such gauntlets on Junker, better ones. He was going to sacrifice this old one if need be to get this program to work. He did make sure to sever the link between Gideon and the gauntlet, in case there was a virus that could potentially infect the computer.

  The screen went dark for a moment, then blinked a bright green for several. “Well, here goes nothing.” He grabbed the small orb and waited, the contacts on the fingers of his gauntlet clicking along the metal of the probe, a soft thrum working its way through his fingers as the program started to work its way into the probe’s ancient code. For a long moment, he held his breath.

  He held his breath…Nothing.

  “What gives, damn it,” he said a bit too loud. Seeing the others in the bar react to his voice, h pitched his voice lower and grumbled, “Don’t tell me I—”

  Before finishing his thought there was a small chime from his gauntlet. The core’s bronze seams blinked an odd purple and green sequence of lights. Marcus couldn’t help but feelt he small flare of hope inside thinking that this might be different. This time, it could…It then hissed as it was opened like a cracked egg. Excited, Marcus turned the core’s open door to his face. The flare of hope dying.

  Inside was the actual datacore; a small burnt black cube of one time green plastic and silicone, the edges burned and the entire surface pockmarked with holes and only a few faint lines of green could be seen at the center to show what color it was originally. Slag. It wasn’t possible that the core held any actual knowledge. Stupid to even hope. Everything from before had been destroyed, almost purposely. There was the myth of the Helix. It was a myth. That Marcus knew for a fact, or so he told himself.

  His handheld went off. He plucked it from his hip holster. A text message appeared from the contact of Hazon’s named Lashiel. “I am close. Be ready.”

  He texted back where he was in relation to the front door and waited. “I wonder what kind of spy Hazon sent?” It was the only thing that made sense. This “Lashiel” had to be a spy. To oversee his investment into Junker and keep an eye on Marcus that he didn’t pocket the “good stuff” from the Pre-Crawl ships he searched without giving Hazon a look at it. Marcus was ready for pretty much any dark-haired curvy female; he hoped she’d at least be easy on the eye and didn’t remind him of his ex, at least too much like her. He shook his head to banish the thought of that fanatic Saved he’d left behind.

  Like you can complain, you were the one who brought her into the Saved, he admonished himself. He was the reason Sara was in the Saved. Neither he nor Sara were born into the movement, yet when coming of age on the Cusp, he was given a choice of either starving without any surviving family, or join the Saved to worship the Eridani like the Saviors—having helped Humanity fight back and face off against the Crawl—they pretended to be and survive for a few more years.

  It wasn’t until later he realized it was a cult, he’d “joined.” The thought caused his left thumb to spasm more. Are those little bastards waking up? No, he realized when he took a breath and the pain lessened, thy were simply reacting to his emotions. Meaning they were a little closer to being active than he liked. Anther sympathy pain. He really needed to work on another formula. He gripped his hand into a fist to try and banish the burning itch that started to creep along his thumb towards his wrist. He hoped it would stop.

  His attention was brought back to the bar when the door squealed open. Klyn, the other patrons of the bar, and even Marcus went for their weapons. Even if it was the laughable excuse for the Phobos militia, Klyn and his patrons had a right to fire first if they felt “threatened.”

  Marcus, nor anyone inside, was prepared for the female Spider to walk into the cantina. There was no missing the pale albino skin even though most of her was bound up in black pants a little too short for her and a dark blue hoodie, the long lanky frame, the soft glow coming from the hoodie she wore, or the two meter frame that towered over everyone in the bar. But the eyes, the golden eyes that swept over them all was what Marcus focused on.

  She held her hands up, seeing the weapons. Marcus felt a sinking feeling that this wouldn’t end well for the Spider. He wondered if the bounty on them was still in the three to four hundred credit range. He did need to pay for refueling the Junker and didn’t want to pawn off the little treasure he had just opened to do so.

  “Please,” the robotic voice from the voxbox on her chest crackled for a moment, “I mean no harm.” Most Spiders couldn’t actually speak, their vocal cords didn’t work properly. All had some kind of device that they used to turn their thoughts into speech. It was a little unnerving to see them speak without moving their lips.

  “Right, just like your Masters, mean to ‘help humanity?’” Klyn asked, his cobbled together sawed off held stretched out towards her. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t?”

  “I don’t want trouble,” she said, her big golden eyes shifting around looking at the different people in the bar. Trying to probe anyone that they could, if only to gt a surface thought. No way she is a second gen, they all died out. Her eyes settled on Marcus for a touch longer than anyone else, giving Marcus a cold chill up his spine.

  “Please, Hazon sent me,” the Spider sent to his mind.

  Slag. Slag…Slag! Marcus felt his hand clench around the pulse thrower, held on her. Hazon would be that kind of slaggin’ jerk. Looking her over a second longer he stood up; already his stomach dropping with the thought that spawned. If this is true. He also holstered his thrower and said, “Come on, let her in.”

  Marcus could tell it was a female because of the slight curve of the hip. The artificial Spiders—Ilas the Eridani called them after some ancient myth in their culture that even Marcus hadn’t been able to figure out—weren’t meant to be pretty, though he knew some humans who did use the Spiders for pleasure out in the Belt and on Europa. Slag…slag…slag.

  “Why?” One of the patrons asked, glaring at Marcus for a minute. “You know this Spider?”

  “No,” Marcus said as he took a long pull of the horrible beer to steady himself, “but why waste ammo on her?”

  “Target practice?” Klyn said with a short bark of a laugh.

  Laughter sprinkled throughout the bar at the comment. Marcus felt his stomach do another flipflop as she took a step inside. It stopped when she said, “I have business with him,” she said, pointing at Marcus.

  All of the eyes of the patrons swiveled to look at Marcus. Slag it all to…Thanks Spider, he muttered in his head, glaring daggers at her. Get over here then. Let’s get this over with.

  The Spider lowered her hands and walked towards Marcus, Klyn still leveling his shotgun at her. He then turned his good eye to Marcus. “You vouching for her?” His lips sneered, looking ready to kill her regardless of what Marcus said next.

  Marcus let out a long sigh. “Yeah, she’s with me,” he said, looking at the Spider for a second and nodded again. “Yeah.”

  Klyn turned to deliver his glower at Marcus. “You know—”

  “Yeah, I know,” Marcus said, waving a hand at the owner. “I take full responsibility for her.”

  Klyn shrugged and put the shotgun down. “Alright, two more beers?” He asked.

  Marcus knew he shouldn’t drink any more of the wrecked brew. But, it would mollify Klyn, at least a little. So, Marcus nodded.

  The Spider looked like she was going to reject the offer. Marcus shouted, “Yeah, and could you make them less malty this time.”

  Klyn stared at Marcus for a moment, then let out a short laugh his eye glinting with mirth. “That’s funny, Marcus. Two beers, coming up. Extra malty.”