Junker Blues: Phobos Read online

  “Why did Hazon think I would work with the damn Ilas?” Marcus hissed as the sucked down the dregs of his beer.

  Lashiel shrugged. “I don’t know. I am not very happy with this arrangement either.” She then flinched as she looked at him. “Must you do something like that?” Sha asked, rasing an eyebrow ridge.

  “What?” Marcus asked, smirking at her, “What am I doing?” Knowing full well what she meant.

  “That irritating song in your head,” she mumbled, running a hand over her wide forehad, her voice sounding strained even through the voxbox. “Its painful.”

  “You mean the mindworm?”

  “Such a pathetic name for it,” the Spider said. “Why—”

  “Look, Lashiel, I don’t like Peepers in my head. I have had enough things in there that I’d like to keep it quiet and private if you don’t mind,” Marcus said. “I know a bit more about you lot that I’d like to and it’s a strategy.”

  Lashiel leaned in a little, pitching her voice low. “I am sure, judging from the little information Hazon gave me, I am not surprised. I would like to know what it is you have that Hazon is so—”

  Marcus didn’t see a need for her to continue. He interrupted with, “I have a ship, I needed money for a certain program that would help in my junkology expeditions.”

  Lashiel raised a bare eyebrow ridge, a mocking grin on her wide pallid face. “Junkology? You’re a scav—”

  Marcus coughed and slammed the empty can of beer down to quiet her. “No, I am not. I study where I need to go. I don’t just rush headlong into the Sagasso without a plan. I do research. And, Hazon was supposed to send me someone who could help me with that. Is that you? Or do I need to find someone else?” He was already upset over being saddled with a Spider, but did Hazon even listen when he asked for someone with knowledge of the Pre-Crawl?

  “I’m your gal,” Lashiel said, her smile genuine. “I know—"

  At that moment, Klyn shuffled over with the two beers. He dropped them on the table, causing a bit of the pale amber and foam to splash out of the cans and hit spilling into the table. The copper tabletop, already damp from before Marcus had gotten then, making it worse.

  “Thanks, Klyn,” Marcus said.

  Klyn leaned close to Marcus, his good eye on Lashiel. “Not an issue. Just get the Spider out of here soon. I’d like to have the rest of my patrons to have fun, not stare daggers at a potential goldmine.”

  Marcus realized that all five of the others in the bar weren’t even hiding their open stares at the table. She noticed it and pulled into herself, her knees coming up and her back curling inward. Marcus wasn’t sure, but she looked even more uncomfortable.

  “Look kid, I doubt you can even fit into a spacer rig, let alone—”

  “I have my own rig,” she had said, frowning, the voice coming from her vox box. She looked down at him from her side of the table even as curled as she was, her back hunched because of the too-cramped corner of Kyln’s Marcus had placed himself. A very cramped space for an Ilas, Marcus realized. As Klyn started to retreat Lash moved before Marcus could pay. She dropped two fifty-piece chits and gave Klyn a nod, “Something a little better this time.” Klyn gave her a look, then at the chits scowling. He shrugged and wnt to bring back something akin to whiskey, yet Marcus was pretty sure he could strip the paint from the Junker with it as well— and it would cause damage to the metal hull.

  “So, what do I get out of it?” Marcus asked while eyeing the dregs of the dirty-brown liquor in his tumbler glass.

  She sighed as if composing herself or resigning herself to something. “You get to know where to go. The best targets, ones that will have a better-than-average chance to have something worthwhile. Something worth the time and money used to get there…and back.”

  Marcus raised an eyebrow. He’d been around and knew about the scams of promised pre-Crawl “jackpots.” “So, you have a “magic” treasure map that—”

  She cut him off, stopping him with a chopping motion of her skinny, skinny fingers. “No, I have an algorithm and numbers from pre-Crawl databases. It’s science, math, and probability—not a “magic” treasure map.”

  He slammed down the rest of the synth drink and let out a cough. “Impossible,” Marcus said, waving his glass a little before putting it on the metallic table, open side down. “No way anything escaped the Pulse. It’s a reason it was called—”

  “The Purge. I know. There were some databases found on Mars. I was able to access them,” Lashiel said, excitement in her voice.

  Marcus settled back into the much-patched upholstery of Kyln’s booth. “So, you see yourself as a hacker?” He asked, feeling as though something was wrong; his gut was sensing some kind of scam.

  “No, I was given the info.”

  Marcus rolled his eyes. There’s the rub. “Sure, you were kid.”

  “I’m not a kid,” Lash bristled. Her short-cropped milk-white hair started to arc with light, even under the cowl she wore. Her tendrils glowing brighter for a moment in a pulse of emotion. “I’m older than you think.”

  “What, twenty-five? No Ilas is older than—”

  “Twenty-nine. I’m a second gen.”

  That made him shift a bit closer, curiosity causing him to move forward. “They all died out,” Marcus said, keeping his voice low. Anyone hearing her talk about a second gen Ilas would paint an even larger target on her back. “Besides, second-gens were…”

  “Able to speak in people’s minds without their consent. Yes, I know,” she sent into Marcus’ mind for the first time. She grinned at him, a weirdly wide-and-even grin that was disturbing and far too human-looking.

  Marcus balked at that when he realized he’d dropped his mindworm. He shook his head and then pinned her with a glare “Alright, fine. But stay out of my head. Isn’t that part of your programming? You can’t—”

  “Something like that,” Lash waved her long, thin fingers at him. “I also have the info from someone you wouldn’t expect.”

  “Who, the peppermints?” Marcus said with a chuckle, trying to hide the strain in his voice. If an Eridani got wind of this… he didn’t want to go down that particular rabbit hole.

  “Yes,” Lash said.

  Slag! Marcus stopped his movement looking at Lash, making sure she was looking at him with her large yellow eyes. “There is no way a peppermint would allow an Ilas out of their sight if they had info about Pre-Crawl humanity and their tech.”

  “Why? They think your current tech is centuries behind theirs.” She stated.

  She had a point, Marcus had to agree. It wasn’t as though some of the tech from that time hadn’t survived the Purge and the dark days of the Crawl War. Otherwise, man wouldn’t be on Phobos. Man had puzzled out some of the tech, and some of the tech was just able to mess with what tech was invented, or re-discovered. Marcus let out a breath. “Alright, let’s say you are telling the truth. How can you prove it?”

  “Give me one shot. I will find something that will pay for my berth to the sector, food, and fuel costs to get there and back,” she said, her voice full of promise and hope.

  Marcus looked at her. “I still don’t fully trust you.”

  “I know, but I promise you won’t be disappointed,” she said, her smile somewhat infectious.

  Marcus felt himself smile, then he looked at her hair and realized she was pushing an emotion on him. He took a deep breath and centered himself, driving off the elation. “One rule,” Marcus said, maintaining eye contact with the Ilas. “Stay…out…of…my…head.” Marcus said every word with clarity. Then dropped his hand to his thrower to punctuate where he stood on the issue. “Clear?”

  “Crystal,” Lashiel said, looking distracted suddenly. She looked away to the back wall of the bar they sat by, dry washing her hands before looking back at him.

  Marcus raised an eyebrow, catching the sudden shift. “What’s eating you?”

  “A bad feeling,” Lashiel said. “I have a bad—”

  Marcus’s eyes opened wide. “If it’s what I think it is, then we should go.” He sat up and started to edge towards edge of the booth.

  “How do you know about it?” Lashiel hissed, following after him.

  Marcus didn’t say anything, simply slipped from the booth and crept towards the back, where the bathrooms of Klyn’s were. There was also an emergency exit. His hand was on his thrower when he felt a cold creeping dread run up his spine. “You said you had a bad feeling. The only time I’ve known a Spi…Ilas to have that is when the damn Crawl show up.” He continued to move. “So I am moving towards another—”

  There was a sudden bang from the front door. Marcus jerked his thrower out and spun around towards the noise. “Slag. Are we to late?”

  “Not if we move,” Lashiel said, continuing to move to the exit Marcus had been heading towards.

  “You’re cold blooded,” Marcus said as the door was struck harder this time, a louder bang that knocked part of the door off its hinges. A large bulging dent forming in the blued metal. By the time the second bang happened, the few patrons in the bar had their weapons out, trained at the door. Marcus was at the corner, part of him wanted to shout out a warning.

  Even then he knew it was too late.

  A second later, a dark glittering claw of a Crawl drone speared through the flimsy door. It wretched open a wide tear in the metal, and Marcus saw three Crawl standing outside in the light of the alley. Their milky eyes and waxy green blue skin marking them as Crawl drones, humans that had been infected by the Crawl ooze and become mindless killing biological killers. Marcus turned and ran, almost hitting Lash as she opened the back door, both exiting the bar with speed

  They found themselves in a small depression forming a ramp rising to meet the alley in one of the
multiple back alleys of Phobos. And already there were shouts and screams coming from the various buildings and bars around them.

  “You have a weapon?” Marcus asked.

  “No.”

  “Stay behind me then,” Marcus said. “And, try not to get bitten.”

  Hustling down the alley, away from the screams and the sound of pulse thrower fire, Marcus and Lash slid to a halt as they came upon a Crawl drone dropping to the ground, dead as a Phobos militiaman took it down with withering pulse blasts. Marcus was about to say something when Lash grabbed him and pulled him back.

  “What the hells, Lash?”

  That caused the militiaman to turn around and Marcus froze. The dark suited man had four bleeding slashes across his chest and a chunk of flesh and cloth taken from his left arm that was hard to see until he turned around. His eyes stared with an intense fire at Marcus. The militiaman stared to laugh, then cry, jerking his way towards Marcus.

  Slag! Marcus jerked to one side, the newly forming Crawl still unsteady. It lunged to where he had stood slammed into the concrete wall. Marcus shoved the plasma thrower into the neck of the drone, firing three times. The creature collapsed, the head melted off before the waxy layer could form fully to protect the drone. With his free hand, he yanked the thrower of the former militiaman’s death grip, tossing it to Lash. “Take it!”

  She grabbed it, turned and fired at two more drones that were creeping closer to the pair which Marcus had missed. “How much farther to your ship?” She asked.

  Marcus turned to point towards an opening of the alley. “On the other side of that street,” Marcus said, pointing to the main thoroughfare. As they moved closer, Marcus and Lash both slowed, seeing a handful of drones tearing their way through panicked people that were it with fight-flight-freeze and their bodies had locked up. Those cut and or bitten at one curb had already started to change, the wave of infection spreading like a wave.

  A few militiamen were trying to help, pouring their pulse longarm fire into the spreading Crawl drone infection, yet it was too little, too late. Marcus turned to dash down a side alley, he turned to see that Lash had turned back the way they had come. Slag, where is she going? He didn’t care, he was sure she was going to die. Hazon will be pissed, but I couldn’t control her.

  His thoughts about Lashiel stopped as three Crawl drones emerged in the mouth of the side alley and started to move towards him as he ran. His head whipped back to where he was headed, searching frantically for an open door, a garbage bin, something to hide behind for a few seconds so he could shoot these drones.

  He almost passed an open door, it was a dark rectangle in a badly lit alley, the only light coming from far overhead by the dome’s artificial lights set to nighttime mode. Why weren’t they turned on? Protocol demands that any Crawl detection, lights are turned on in domes? He shook his head, stop thinking like an MDF solider, survive and get to your ship.

  He skidded to a stop and slipped inside, with partial cover, he took aim at the three Crawl. He started to fire a dozen shots at two of them, taking them both down. Then, was saved as someone fired at the last, turning it around.

  Feeling cocky, Marcus took a moment to aim and as he squeezed the trigger of his thrower, he heard a gut churning click click. His thrower was dead. He wasn’t sure how, he had thought he’d charged it.

  The fire from behind the drone stopped and Marcus heard the wild screaming keen of a group of Crawl and the scream of someone being swarmed. The last drone turned as Marcus ducked inside the doorway. Marcus grunted as he yanked the door closed, which was a dark mesh screen, Terrific! He strained not to slam it closed with a bang to draw the drone closer. He held his breath as the Crawl started to move closer. He backed away from the grate, letting out his breath as slowly as possible. He kept his breathing calm, but anything louder would make the thing turn towards him. Slag…slag…slag!

  “Marcus, where are you?”

  Marcus heard the mental call, even though it was distant. He kept up his mindworm. He wasn’t sure if it was a trick of Lash’s to get back at him for abandoning him.

  Marcus wanted to curse. He gripped his hand, feeling the burning sting of the slave tattoo wanting to emerge. Dammit, keep it together.

  “Marcus?” The voice of Lash again burrowed into his mind, trying to get past his mindworm and failing.

  Stopping, he felt his body shudder. The drone was getting closer. He had a choice. He could either not say anything and have the drone potentially kill him, or say something and the drone would turn him. Slag…What do you want, Spider? He asked, banishing the song.

  “Tell me where the ship is, what is the code I need to get in?” Lashiel sent.

  Marcus thought about it for a moment, the drone moving a little closer, sniffing the ground closer to the door grate. He could hide in the shadows for a few more moments, hoping something came along.

  Marcus knew he shouldn’t tell her. She could simply run off. “What guarantee do I have?”

  “I’m your partner, Hazon made the call. I don’t like it, but we are stuck together. Tell me, I will meet you on the room of where you are.”

  Slag. Fine…he rattled off the security code and the deadman switch. You had better come back.

  “I am your partner, right?” She sent, a slight smile in the words.

  Marcus felt her withdrawn from his mind before he could answer. He licked his lips, suddenly dry and felt himself shaking. He didn’t want to die. He especially didn’t want to be one of the drones of the slagging Crawl! “Better hurry back with my ship, Ilas.” He then turned and sprinted towards the interior, seeking a way up to the roof of the three-story building.

  Getting to the top of the building was easy. It was half abandoned, and only once did Marcus come across a Crawl drone that had found its way in from the next building over. He hid from the creature as it passed him by. Marcus hid next to an exposed furnace, the heat from the unit corrupting the drone’s sight enough that it ignored him and the humming furnace.

  Sweat poured into his eyes as he took the last set of steps up to the roof. Lash, where are you? He called out. He hit the door hard, tumbling end over end before he was able to stop himself. He looked around, his spent thrower tied into his holster. He check it, making sure it was there. It was useless, but it gave him a granted false sense of security, but he took that over nothing.

  Lash! I could really use a pick up!

  He was about to scream out to her again when he heard the roar of his ship’s engines emerging from behind him. He turned to see his precious ship, Junker, a twin engine Bearing-class transport, heavily modified. Yet, his eyes moved lower to the door and the dozen or so Crawl drones that raced through the door towards him.

  Lash, I—

  “I see them. Get to the edge.”

  Junker has—

  Before he could finish, a small turret turned swiveled towards the rushing creatures. There was a low thrumming whine and the small bank of masers fired into the crowd of Crawl, cutting them down.

  Lash maneuvered Junker closer and lowered the boarding ramp. As Marcus walked towards it, he saw a paunchy man in black fatigues waiting at the top of the ramp for him. Marcus stopped and looked at him, hand straying to his thrower. “What is—”

  “Get in,” the paunchy man said with a frown. “You really want to wait for more?”

  Marcus nodded and realized it was a good point. Why bother at the moment. He could ask questions later. Once inside, Marcus felt the ship twist to one side. He grabbed a strut and saw the militiaman grab on as well, then fumble a heartbeat later and almost fall. Strange. Marcus brushed it off and started towards the cockpit.

  “Lash, who is this?” Marcus called out.

  “You could ask me,” the man said. Marcus realized he was following him towards the cockpit.

  “That is Kaz,” Lash called out from the cockpit. “Hold on, trying to slip through the gate before it closes.”

  Marcus could see the hangar for Phobos starting to close, a half dozen ships also trying to beat the Junker out into space. “Try the code I punched in for the gate,” Marcus shouted, running towards the cockpit.