Scrapyard Ship 3 Space Vengeance (9 page)

“
I couldn’t sleep, how about you?” she asked, right before kissing him on the mouth and pulling him close.

* * *

When Jason awoke the next morning, he was alone in bed. His thoughts immediately went to Nan and their late-night lovemaking. Now, in retrospect, it only complicated things. His mind then went to Dira. Why do I feel I’ve been unfaithful? Jason knew why … Because that’s exactly what he was.

Someone was yelling at the back of the house. It was Nan. No, Nan and Mollie. He quickly pulled on his jeans, opened the door, and ran down the hallway into the den.

It they hadn’t looked so scared, the scene would have been funny. Nan was holding a floor mop ready to strike and Mollie was ready to swing the old Louisville slugger.

“
Get back! Get out of here!” Nan yelled in the direction of the front door. Jason couldn’t see who they were screaming at. As he stepped around the corner and into the room, he understood. It must be one of the new droids, specifically the one Ricket had repurposed to stay behind.

“
It’s okay, it’s one of ours,” Jason said, holding up his hands to fend off an attack from either of them.

Turning to the droid, Jason was surprised by its appearance. It seemed the Caldurians had made an effort to humanize, or more accurately, Caldurian-ize, its appearance. But there was something menacing, dangerous about it. As tall as Nan, the drone was an iridescent white, had a head and two arms, a long angular-shaped torso and it was legless—it hovered several inches above the floor. It had a cold, intimidating face with a somewhat downturned mouth, which Jason guessed was strictly placed there for appearance’s sake, without being functional. It moved with aggressive purpose.

“
What the hell are you doing in here?” Jason scolded.

“
Captain Reynolds identified. Nan Reynolds identified. Mollie Reynolds identified. Drone allocation 724 security perimeter circuit in process.”

Mollie’s eyes were wide with fear and never left the hovering droid.

“
Relax, both of you. It’s here for your safety; really, it’s okay,” Jason said, trying to sound calm.

The drone moved forward into the house, passed by Jason, and turned down the hallway toward the bedrooms.

“
Oh no, that thing is not going to be floating around this house like a frigging ghost while you’re gone.”

Mollie nodded her head in agreement, eyes still wide.

Jason knew Nan well enough to know that laughing would be a bad idea.

“
This is my fault. I should have mentioned the drone. But it’s here for your protection. We just need to set up some parameters.”

“
You think?” Nan barked. Then she gestured for Jason to look behind him.

Startled, Jason jumped back. The drone was hovering mere inches from his back.

“
Get away from me!” Jason yelled.

This brought nervous giggles from both Nan and Mollie.

“
Seriously, Jason. That thing creeps me out. Tell it to stay outside. And maybe it can make some noise once in a while,” Nan said.

“
Yes, absolutely.” Jason held two fingers to his ear and hailed Ricket.

“
Go for Ricket.”

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Bristol had contemplated leaving—but where would he go? Pirating had been the way of his family, their clan, for hundreds of years. Truth was, it was all he’d ever known. If nothing else, he supposed he was loyal.

Bristol watched as his brother sent another backhand toward Brian’s already red and beaten face. Usually, he was not one to feel much in the way of sympathy for anyone, but this new round of beatings was taking things a bit too far. Fuck, the guy had already lost an eye to his brother’s fury.

Brian, a bloodied makeshift patch covering his now empty right eye socket, moved to protect his damaged face. But he was too slow, or too weary to fend off the blow.

A week had passed since Brian had been chained to a post below ground in the bowels of this ridiculous fortress monstrosity. Made of stone, and virtually all the available timber on this Godforsaken planet, Bristol’s brother’s lair was more like a castle.

“
Generalities are useless. So exactly where will I find them?” Captain Stalls asked, his voice stern but hushed.

Bristol had to give Brian his due; he’d still not given up the specific location on Earth for Captain Reynolds or his family. And he knew his brother well enough not to intervene, but the continual torturing of Brian didn’t seem to be working very well.

“
Just tell him what he wants to know, Brian,” Bristol said. “Come on, you’re going to tell him eventually anyway.”

Captain Stalls hesitated. “They always do, don’t they, little brother?” Stalls replied, with a quick glance and smile toward Bristol.

“
I haven’t lived on or even visited Earth in years. I have no idea where Jason or his family would be living now.”

“
So, let’s start with the last place you saw him. How about that?” Stalls asked.

A virtual image of Earth hovered in the air close by. Brian watched as it slowly rotated. Stalls pointed a finger toward North America. “Let’s start with the continent and work our way down from there.”

Stalls knelt down next to Brian and put an arm around his shoulder. Somewhere along the line Stalls had pulled a knife from his sleeve and now held it in front of Brian’s one remaining eye. “Remember this? Silly of me, of course you do. I imagine it was quite uncomfortable, losing an eye that way. Plucked from your head like a plum from a jar. You have plums on your planet, don’t you?”

“
We have plums.”

Now seated, Stalls used his hands to virtually expand North America. “Where?”

Brian hesitated, then gestured his head toward the left. The western states of the U.S. magnified. The knife was back in front of his eye.

“
San Bernardino. We grew up in San Bernardino, Central Valley Scrapyard. That’s the only place I know where he may still go.”

Stalls got to his feet, then gave Brian several pats on his head. “Release him into the dunes. It’ll give the hoppers something to play with tonight.”

“
Why don’t you just kill him? You’ve gotten everything you need from him,” Bristol asked, immediately regretting he’d opened his mouth.

“
Oh, so now you want to tell me how to run my business? Perhaps you think you’re ready to lead the clan yourself? Be my guest … but be forewarned, it’s far more trouble than it is worth. You’ve seen it. Nary a day goes by without someone evoking the clan challenge, thinking they are strong enough or cunning enough to take my place at the top. It has not been easy, little brother. The many scars on my body are a testament to that, no?”

“
I’m just saying it seems senseless to keep tormenting him. Why not just kill him and be done with it?”

Stalls contemplated that for a moment, then shrugged. “No. Strip him down and deliver him out on the dunes. Do it now and let’s not speak of this again, understood?”

“
Yes, okay, whatever.” Bristol watched as his brother rushed across the stone floor and ascended the long stairway.

“
What are hoppers?” Brian asked, his one eye still on the stairway.

“
Best if you don’t know ahead of time.”

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

As of that morning, the modifications to The Lilly were finally completed and put through an exhaustive regimen of tests and virtual combat scenarios. Jason reluctantly said his goodbyes to Nan and Mollie and wondered if he was doing the right thing leaving them behind. But in the end, he’d left them with the droid, a healthy stock of energy weapons, and one of the older shuttles, parked in the cavern below the scrapyard. With luck, they would be fine and even have some semblance of a normal life again, at least for a while.

The Lilly made her approach to the Allied outpost in the Chihuahuan Desert. Jason, who had been sitting at the desk in his ready room for the last two hours, needed to get his head back into the game. He’d been working and reworking a strategy to deal with the Craing fleet, but each plan of approach came up short. Simple math revealed the problem: fifteen hundred Craing vessels against eight or nine hundred Allied warships. Even with The Lilly’s advanced capabilities, the Craing fleet, with their three massive Dreadnaughts, would be nearly impossible to defeat in any kind of conventional space battle. Although no one had used the words, it was obvious the upcoming confrontation would be all or nothing. A defeat by the Craing fleet would certainly result in the total subjectification of all the Allied worlds, including Earth.

As the Allied Forces Commander, Jason’s father Admiral Reynolds was in command of the EOUPA fleet, as well as its ragtag forces now assembling in space. The logistics alone had become an overwhelming nightmare for the admiral, and Jason had seen and heard little from his father over the past week. In lieu of that, the admiral was adamant that his commanders come up with better, more effective strategies than those proposed thus far.

Jason entered the bridge. The wraparound display, showing the outpost below, was a vision to behold. Freshly painted, the fleet of two hundred and thirty destroyers, light cruisers, and heavy battle cruisers shimmered under the midday sun. Each vessel bore a large U.S. flag at its aft section. Looking at the warships on display, Jason became more cognizant of another potential complication. The vessels’ pilots were mostly Craing, and out-and-out bribery had been used to entice those same Craing prisoners to join the Allied fleet. But it was the threat of being sent back home to the Craing worlds that worked best. Dishonored by a defeat against significantly fewer ships at the edge of the solar system, the captured Craing crewmembers faced public humiliation and inevitable execution if they ever returned home. Jason wondered if they would hold to their new Allied allegiance during intense battle situations … or would their previous loyalty to the Craing Empire re-manifest itself?

Jason gave the order to set down at the designated landing zone, but to keep all systems active and at the ready.

* * *

The admiral had assembled his fleet commanders in the outpost mess hall and Jason took a seat just as Admiral Reynolds moved to the front of the room.

“
The Craing will most assuredly be ready for us. The same unconventional methods used by Captain Reynolds and The Lilly crew to defeat the Craing at the edge of our solar system will be expected and, if tried again, could be used against us.”

Heads turned in Jason’s direction. He felt scrutiny from the other officers as they assessed him. Not only was he the admiral’s son, he had defeated an overwhelming force and virtually saved their planet. There wasn’t a man or woman present, Jason thought, who didn’t want to prove they were just as capable, or even more so, than he.

The admiral continued. “With that said, we have been studying the combat vids from that battle and have uncovered several potential weaknesses within the Craing defenses.” The admiral proceeded then to talk specifics, including the use of drone fighters, combined centralized attack formations, and better utilization and distribution of shields.

Unfortunately, Jason thought to himself, none of that was going to be enough. Perhaps he should have pushed Granger and the Caldurians harder to upgrade the weaponry on the outpost’s fleet and not just on The Lilly. But Granger had been fairly clear that the Caldurians weren’t ready to go that far. It seemed the last thing the Caldurians wanted was an imbalance of military might in the universe, and a force, perhaps, to contend with further on. Simply put, they did not trust us yet. So … the one technological advancement they were given access to would have to be enough.

“
With the detection of the Craing fleet on long-range scans,” the admiral continued, “I’ve had numerous enquiries as to how we’ll even reach the Allied systems in time to make a difference. But there have been some new and, quite frankly, exciting developments in that regard. Captain Reynolds, please come on up and give your report.”

Jason made his way to the front of the room where the thousand-plus seated officers silently waited for him to take the podium.

Jason pointed out the large floor-to-ceiling windows to the airfield beyond and the hundreds of warships sitting at the ready. “What if each one of those vessels had the capability to reach virtually anywhere in the universe—and do so in the blink of an eye? This technology may soon be available.”