Hells jesters, p.12
Hell's Jesters, page 12
“I doubt it.”
“Show me your arm.” When Jerry began rolling up his right sleeve Grassley shook his head. “No, no, show me the left one.”
Shit. Okay, asshole. Jerry did as told and bore his tattoos. Some were the ink of youthful bravado. The face of Betty in her prime—well, that had turned out to be a bad idea. The rest had come after the Cerelon riots. He could’ve had those removed, after his name had been cleared, but he’d always thought of them as a mark of pride for fighting the good fight.
“I thought so.” Grassley smirked. “I remember you from the trucks, the Hauler.” He gestured at the markings. “Penal tattoos. So you know a thing or two about what we’re expecting. I’ll expect good behavior out of you, Hauler.”
“Yes sir.”
“No talk!” barked one of Grassley’s escorts, jabbing the muzzle of his blastrifle into Jerry’s ribs.
Grassley’s chuckles followed him down the rest of the line.
For a moment, despair overwhelmed Jerry. He knew this dance all too well, knew too the kind of men that would get this kind of posting. Death camp. Grassley and small, brutish creatures like him had run scared their whole lives, hiding the monstrousness that lived in the putrid caves of their souls. Employers like Syntar saw the potential in such cowards, giving their hatred and barely-contained fear ample room to run their gruesome, primal course.
Maybe execution now is better. He bit his lip, fought back the dark wall of depression. But no...Tina...I’ve got to remember Tina...
Scuffles and a sharp, indrawn breath of pain came from the bunker. A pair of guards prodded a tall, slender woman out into the snowy night. Auburn hair hung in tangles about her face. Despite her ragged appearance, she strode with purpose, defiance almost.
A few steps from the column, the woman caught a slick spot with her heel and lost it, crashing face first to the setcrete. She made no sound, save tight breaths as she labored to get back to her feet. Jerry saw blood drooling from a shallow cut on her cheek. He lurched towards her.
“Stop!” One of the paramilitaries aimed his blastrifle.
“Yes, stop, Hauler!” Grassley strode from the end of the line. “Or don’t—it’ll make little difference, I suppose.”
Refusing to meet the Director’s stare, Jerry edged back into his place.
Grassley reached the woman’s side and halted to gaze down on her, a sickeningly satisfied glimmer to his expression. “We’re waiting, Ms. Harrison.”
The woman fought to get to hands and knees and, one painful breath at a time, levered herself erect. Jerry got a good look at her face now and couldn’t suppress a grimace at the half-mask of drying blood. He looked away as she took a spot in the column vacated by one of the discarded elderly.
“You’ve all had your first lesson, people.” Grassley raised his voice, the effort giving it a touch of effeminate squeak. “And that lesson is this: if you can’t carry yourself, you are done. Like the Universe itself, only the strong are permitted to survive. Fall behind, get marked as weak, and you are no longer useful.” He whipped about to sneer at Jerry. “And anything as squeamish as carrying the weak with you marks you as one of them.”
Grassley paced to the side of his uniformed fellow executive. “All of you have proven your worthlessness to the Alliance as a whole with your vile insurrection. Only through your labor can you prove your worth once again to the Galaxy.” The Director held up his arms in a theatrical gesture. “Syntar Fleet Corporation has the pleasure of facilitating this.” The arms dropped as did his smile. “You should be thanking us.”
The column responded with battered silence.
One of the paramilitaries fired his blaster into the air. “Thank the Director, you curs!”
“Thank you, Director,” the captives chorused.
“I’m sorry.” Grassley cupped a hand to one ear. “I didn’t catch that.”
“Thank you, Director,” Jerry and the others repeated with force.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jerry saw the woman—Harrison—spit something, but she didn’t even pretend to mouth the words.
EMERGENCE INTO REAL space flared supernova white. Then Tim’s Hellhound was sailing down the gravity well of Junction System, a backwater of backwaters, barely mentioned in Alliance Survey Corps records.
“You’ve got the codes of the day?” Tim asked Jeanie hoarsely. “I’d hate to eat a Jester scatter pack.”
“We’ll be fine,” the AI responded. “Overmind will recognize my signature.” She referred, of course, to the shadowy super intelligence on Junction of which she was a copy—or, more accurately, a fraction—and which aided the Jesters’ struggle. “It’s good to be home.” There was something almost mimicking cheer in the AI’s tone.
“Yeah...” Tim winced away a memory of Niccole’s accusing eyes—the way Ben’s hand had rested intimately on her arm “...home.”
Time spooled by in silence as the Hellhound streaked towards the pale yellow of the system’s G2 primary. A ringed gas giant of wild, orange swirls and planet-sized storms lumbered off to starboard and was left behind to the ecliptic as the star fighter’s grav drives labored and sputtered, battered far beyond any kind of design specifications. Junction wheeled further down the well, second world out from the star, the innermost planet an unnamed, cooked husk of rock.
“Contacts,” Jeanie announced, painting a pair of blue icons on the tactical display. “Hellhounds and they’re closing fast.”
“At least someone’s watching the door,” Tim remarked glumly. Call signs blinked over the icons as they approached and the ships’ AI’s recognized each other. Tim keyed the open frequency. “Miss me, Pitt?”
A globular hologram sprang up to show bony, youthful features. “Folks were wondering if you’d show at all, Watkins. We had a pool. You just cost me credits I don’t have.”
“Then it’s a good day.”
Pitt snorted. “We were just heading in. Follow us.”
The pair of sentinels took up positions at Tim’s flanks and the trio accelerated for the heart of the system. “Did I miss anything?” Tim asked.
“Something...” Pitt’s voice had an edge of unease. “A ship came in last night, real hush-hush like. Red’s called a meeting. I’m guessing she’ll want you there.”
Tim frowned. “What kind of ship?”
“I said hush-hush, didn’t I?” Pitt shrugged in the hologram then offered a sneaky smile. “It’s been a couple weeks, Watkins. Where’ve you been?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Uh-huh.” Agate eyes flashed wickedly. “Well, I’m sure it’ll come out when the AI’s get to talking.”
Tim killed the connection but couldn’t escape the wave of cool sweat that prickled across his flesh. Maybe this was a mistake.
“AI’s don’t ‘get to talking’, Tim,” Jeanie said before he could speak. “Your time away is your business.” The machine seemed to pause thoughtfully. “I can audit my databanks.”
“No, forget it,” Tim replied, feeling guilty in a ridiculous way. They’re just machines... “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“Of course you don’t.” The way the AI said it sounded almost like a promise.
The stark, brownish orb of Junction grew in the forward display, streaked with cloud wisps and speckled with silvery dashes of small seas. The Hellhounds angled down for its surface, catching the glow of reentry then shuddering through a gloom of storms. Rain wasn’t uncommon on Junction but true, soaking downpours, the kind that birthed crops and civilizations were. Flecks of lightning cut the roiling interior of the storm, reminded Tim of deep space clashes and death, froze the perspiration settled across his body and set his hands to trembling. He was thankful Jeanie had the controls.
The Hellhounds tore through the overcast into a turbulent squall. Rain lashed against hulls, hissed away across the gray sky with contrail tendrils. Harsh, rocky terrain whipped by below. The forward display chirped and highlighted a mountain ahead, rising higher than the surrounding crags of wind-cut range and notable for the ruins crowning its sheer peaks.
Exploration and xeno-archaeology had undergone a brief vogue during the latter part of the Third Diaspora that had seen the Outregion settled. A small team of explorers had been drawn to Junction after the discovery of the presumably alien catacombs by first-wave colonists. The stories got confused there, some saying the explorers contracted disease and died to a man—others crazier, whispering of alien ghosts. Whatever the truth, the sparse settlements that still remained on the world shunned the ruins.
That made them perfect for those who didn’t want to be found.
Jeanie brought the fighter in easily, followed by Pitt and his cohort, gliding through an opening cut from the cliff face and slowing into a bay of metal and glaring lights fashioned into pocked rock. Tim dragged in a breath as the systems wound down and the landing gears squealed under settling weight. Home again, indeed.
The canopy cracked and Tim stood stiffly. The bay around him rang with heavy machinery, the whine of grav drives, and the crackling of a PA system. Air stank of hot metal, lubricants, sweat, and rain. Around him, rows of Hellhounds sat under flickering lights, some swarming with work crews, others, mangled and blackened from energy weapon hits, remained untouched, waiting for attention or the picking-over of salvage crews.
Too few, Tim thought with a scowl, anymore it’s too damned few.
On the far side of the bay the boxy hulls of assault shuttles huddled like metallic beasts about a watering hole. Apart from these, obvious for its cleanliness and sleek lines, a strange craft with the looks of a fast luxury packet glimmered. Our strange guest, I presume?
“You couldn’t have sent word?” a youthful voice spoke from below.
Tim smiled tolerantly and looked down at the short, slender girl beside the port wing. Cory Xiang had features reminiscent of Old Earth Eurasia, painfully narrow facial bones and slanted green eyes under an unruly mop of blue-black hair—but also something more exotic, ears almost pointed and a stare too wise for her years, hinting at a past as alien as the ruins.
“Hey there, kid.”
“Damn you, Tim Watkins! People were worrying!”
“I heard they were betting.” Tim hiked a leg over the cockpit lip and slid down the wing to land beside her, a head shorter than he. “Pitt said the good money was on me being dead or deserted.”
“Galen Pitt is a dick.”
“No argument from me, there.”
Cory looked at him an instant longer, eyes shimmering, then threw her body against his. He chortled gently and put his arms around her, patted her head. “I’m all right, girl.” He forced steadiness in to his voice as Niccole’s glare cut through memory. “I’m back.”
“It would’ve been one thing if it had been Pitt or one of the others had gone so long without news...”
“Even if it had been Red?”
She pulled back. “That’s different. Red is Red.”
“Right.” Tim chuckled again but his tone took on seriousness as Cory broke the contact and led him away from the Hellhound. “How many did make it back?”
She hesitated, but Tim knew it was not from despair. She was calculating—always calculating in a way that added more to the alienness about her. For all her apparent youth, Cory Xiang was the Jesters’ wonder-child Director of Operations. Mastermind behind the process that allowed them to convert simple flitters into fighting machines she possessed an almost inhuman affinity for the computer intelligences that were so integral to the raiders’ continued survival.
Pitt joked that she was a witch. Tim couldn’t totally disagree.
“With you returned, twenty eight made it from Gallaton—”
“Christ on a crutch...”
“—of those, six are no longer flight worthy. We’ll scrounge them for parts. We should have enough ordnance and pods to fully re-arm and refit nineteen.”
“Jesus, Cory.”
“It’s not the ships I’m worried about, Tim. We’re running out of Jesters.”
He caught her by the arm. “What good are more Jesters if we don’t have the ships?”
Cory’s eyes widened. “Oh, that’s right. You don’t know!” The momentarily flaring of enthusiasm faded behind a guarded look and a glance around the bay. “And Red told me not to talk too much.”
“Talk about what?”
“Where’s my head? I almost forgot—I was so excited to hear you were coming in.” She yanked at his arm. “There’s a senior staff meeting! Red will want you there, Tim, for the news.”
“What news? Cory...damn it, tell me what you’re chattering at!”
“No time!” She pulled him towards an exit passage. “Come on! They’ll be starting!”
“WELL, LOOK AT WHO DECIDED to rejoin the living,” Red quipped as Cory led Tim into the Jesters’ senior conference room. Relief in tired eyes belied the sarcasm of her voice and the hard line of her lips. Her mane of dyed crimson had grown out a bit, gone shaggy, glinting at the roots with a touch of gray.
“Reports of my demise were apparently premature,” Tim quoted.
Thin laughter met his response. Very thin. Tim pretended not to notice the mostly-empty nature of the chamber, the unoccupied seats around the circular table. Before Orpheus, briefings had been a crowded, boisterous affair of wing and squadron leaders, assault shuttle and boarding party commanders, and representatives from the organization’s support departments. Now, the handful of hollow-eyed survivors made a mockery of the broad, oval room while fitful rain pattered against slit windows and wind moaned across a slate sky.
Footsteps behind Tim prefaced a sniffing at his collar. Galen Pitt sidled past him to take a seat with a smirk. “Maybe fit a bath in next time you decide on a side trip, Watkins.”
“No amount of bathing is going to wash the stink from you, Pitt,” Cory snapped as she took another chair near Red.
Tim offered her a smile of thanks, noting at the same time Pitt’s murderous glance at the girl.
“Next time, Tim, try not to leave us wondering so long.” Red winked in feigned nonchalance but there was warning in the words.
“Does somebody want to tell us why we’re here?” asked a pale, blocky man of deep brown eyes and cheeks pocked by childhood malnutrition. Peter Yoshenko, seated apart from the others, had succeeded Vheng to command of the assault companies after Orpheus and seemed determined to mimic his late predecessor’s harsh manner, as well. “I’ve better things to do than listening to Hellhound jocks complain about their grooming.”
“Fighting leaves a lot of clean-up,” Pitt sneered, “not that you’d know.”
Yoshenko started from his seat. “I was ordered out of Gallaton—”
“That’s enough.” Red waved the assault commander back down. “Peter’s right. It’s time we got to business.” She touched a communicator built into the table. “Send in Mr. Jones and seal the room.”
The door on the far side of the chamber whisked open and a handsome man in a suit of steel-gray silk stepped through with a briefcase and the kind of smile that only big bank accounts can furnish. He took the seat at the opposite head of the table, where Red normally sat, placed his case on the top, and folded his hands to appraise the Jesters. “Good morning, everyone.”
Tim took the seat to Cory’s right, uneasy at once with the newcomer. “It’s the afternoon, pal.”
“Oh, right.” The man glanced at a data display glowing from the smart-fabric woven into an immaculate sleeve. “My sense of time hasn’t been right since the first leg out from the Foundation sectors.”
“Foundation—” Tim glanced at the leader of the Jesters. “What is this, Red?”
She met his look with stern eyes. “Why don’t we let him explain?”
A grumble could almost be heard in the shuffling of Jesters in their chairs.
“Thank you,” the newcomer replied. He straightened some imperfection in his shimmering black hair. “I am Mr. Jones, here to represent Amalgamated Galactic Holdings—”
“AGH?” Pitt glared at Red. “What the hell?”
“I said, let him explain,” Red snapped back with enough vehemence to shock the rising anger from Pitt’s face.
“Thank you again.” Jones met each of the Jesters’ glowers with that infuriatingly-perfect smile. “Don’t think that I don’t appreciate your discomfiture. Really, I do. It wasn’t all that long ago that your group and ours were at cross-purposes. But that has changed since.”
“You think so?” Tim couldn’t help it. But Red’s furious eyes silenced him.
“I do,” Jones answered, the smile never faltering. “And your commander agrees. We can help each other. I don’t think I need to explain how Syntar’s recent actions have disrupted more than just lives. They have also destabilized a balance of power in the galaxy that had existed for decades. Together, we can do much to redress that balance.”
“And help your profits,” Pitt interjected.
“Naturally.” Jones shrugged. “I’ll not condescend to you. Hurting Syntar helps AGH, just as your attacks on us helped them.”
“You’re saying it’s our fault Syntar is on a rampage?” Tim bit out.
“Everyone calm down.” Red stood from her seat. “Let me lay it out for you all. We’ve got, maybe, nineteen Hellhounds left. There’s not a lot we can do with that, right?” She glanced at Cory.
“It’s more than that,” the prodigy spoke up. “The transuranics Gallaton paid us won’t last out the year and the weapons we have left are barely enough for one more engagement. We need parts to keep the fabrication suites running, if we even want to consider converting new Hellhounds. And word of our strung-out shape after Gallaton has spread to our black market sources. Procurement tells me contacts are drying up. No one trusts we can make good on payments—or worse: that they can be tracked back through us now that we’ve become so high profile.”
“We’re dying, people.” Red looked around the table at each Jester. “Think about that real hard, because it’s the truth.” She pointed at Mr. Jones. “Without some kind of outside help, we might as well dissolve the organization right here and now.”
