Wings of Steele - Flight of Freedom (Book2) (48 page)

They still needed to find that mine... or
mines
as the case might be, because they needed to pay a little visit and serve an eviction notice to the current tenants. Tenants that seemed to have some questionable ties and business practices.

Paul Smiley shifted in his seat. “The Revenge will be testing her GOD drive, out and back, folks. So since we expect her departure and return, let's see if there any telltales that the sensors pick up that might be used to predict a GOD event. It might help us combat these things in the future.”

“Incoming message from the Archer, sir.”

“
On screen.”

The Admiral appeared as an inset video on the big screen. “Commander,” he acknowledged, nodding. “It seems UFW Directorate has seen fit to assign the UFW77 to our little task force. We are now five,” he smiled. Something he didn't do much.

“I guess they like the job we're doing?” asked Paul.

Kelarez's smile screwed to something resembling distaste. “Or we're not doing enough and they want us to do more. Never can tell with them.”

“Wonderful,” snickered Paul.

■ ■ ■

The Remora was nearing the edge of the atmosphere, streaking straight upward, leaving the blue and green marble behind, swirls of white scattered clouds obscuring some portions of the marble. Steele looked back over his shoulder, “Almost looks like home.”

Lisa took a deep breath, her eyes watering. It was both beautiful and amazing. She could actually see the upper layer of atmosphere as they left it, a soft blue transparent bubble surrounding the planet. And then the stars, it was like you could reach right out and touch them. Touch the face of God. The enormity of it gripped her and took her breath away, seeing it unhindered for the first time. Seeing it through portals or on view screens just didn't do it justice. “Oh my
God,”
she whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“
You OK?”

“
Yeah,” she shivered. “It's beyond description... It's like my heart wants to jump out of my chest... In a good way,” she added.

Jack angled toward the Revenge in the distance, only visible on his sensors. “Yeah, it's something... never ceases to thrill me. The New Vanus system was my favorite so far. It has these amazing streaks of iridescent blue dust that stretch across the entire system... like something out of a video game. But wait till you see an ether storm...”

“A storm in space?”

“
Yeah,” he laughed, “it looks like living tie-dye in the sky, spread like a wall across a system...”

“
Revenge to Rem One.”

“
Rem One, go...”

“
Sir, we have a GOD event on sensors.”

“
What?!
Where?”

“
Our GOD system picked it up before occurrence. It's an incoming jump, starting now, about four thousand feet off the surface of the planet.”

“
Quick, feed me the coordinates. Inform the task force, I want fighter backup,
NOW!”
He snap-rolled the Remora over so he could look up at the planet. “Contact the surface; inform the base and the Prime Minister they may have some weather heading their way.” Steele pulled up his tactical systems, arming weapons and powering shields.

The screens in front of Lisa lit up, her controls suddenly active. “Uhhh, stuff is coming on back here...”

“Your controls and screen operate a rear turret.” The coordinates locked into his navigation system and he hammered the throttle hard, pointing the nose of the fighter back at the planet. “Hold on, kiddo, re-entry might get a little rough.”

“
Turret..? Wait,
re-entry?”

“
Yeah, listen closely; I'll explain how it works - just think of it like a video game...”

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

TYRILLIUM-VANADIUM MINE :
NO HONOR AMONG THIEVES

Mining was a dangerous and dirty business. There was no glamour, no glitz, no fancy equipment, at least not here on Veloria. Who needed expensive, specialized, hard to transport equipment that needed constant maintenance when you had cheap disposable slave labor?

Sure there were the standard things like borers, conveyors, rock crushers and continuous miners, but most of the work was done the hard way. Mind numbing, back breaking, lung blackening, bone crushing labor. Mine 01 was the largest and busiest on the planet with five actual mines, a maze of tunnels that stretched for miles into the mountains of the third continent. A continent the miners had nicknamed Hellion. The farmers on the continent had been left alone by the mine consortium; they were useful to provide food for the extensive needs of the facilities' workers. But the cities and most towns were empty, lifeless, hollow shells, bare of inhabitants except for a few that were practiced at hiding from the
recruitment patrols
.

Once a beautifully green, forested area, the canyons around the mine were clear cut for their timber and the working space needed for massive transport vehicles and ships to land on the rocky, bare ground. The nearest airport was nearly twenty miles away and while not designed for space ships, was occasionally used for the largest ore ships. It was no matter, abandoned, it served no other purpose.

Nearly six thousand slave miners lived in an unused portion of Mine 01, in squalid conditions. They were poorly fed, some were in poor health, forced to work in shifts around the clock, then killed or left to die when their usefulness had run out.

As far as the mining consortium was concerned, it was a race against the clock before the entire project came to a screeching halt when things went south, which seemed inevitable. They had taken a lot of risks with this project and had been pushing the limits for a couple of years, but the last several months had been relentless. It was an extremely large score of both Tyrillium and Vanadium. A rare find indeed, to locate an area with two key metals for shipbuilding, both in their original forms and used in specialized alloys. While gold was a commonly traded commodity and used for monetary purposes, the combination of these two metals and the sheer volume of their presence here, made them significantly more valuable.

“Mr. Dantos, the grunts are restless... is there anything we can give them to do?”

Reiger Dantos leaned back in his chair, adjusted his eye patch and scratched his beard, eyeing his aide in the office doorway. The morning sun pouring through the windows behind him, across the dusty mine office. “No. They do any work and we'll have no place to put the ore, we're overflowing already. Feed them and give them some alcohol. Maybe that will shut them up. If they can't behave, shoot a couple.” He glanced down at the e-Pad on his desk and back up again, “Nobody useful, though.”

His aide nodded. “So when's the next ship due in? This stoppage has got to be costing us a fortune...”

Reiger waved his hands lazily above his head, “Not until after those UFW clowns up there bug out.” He folded his arms across the top of his shaved head, then leaned forward and let them drop to the desk. “And yes, it's costing the company a fortune. And me a bonus, so please don't remind me.”

“Sorry, boss.”

“
Yeah, just remember
your
bonus comes out of mine.” He wiped the sweat off the top of his head, “So until they leave, no work, no ships, no supplies and no electricity - we can't afford them picking that up. I'm hoping we're invisible enough that they can't locate us from orbit.”

“
The last thing we want is a visit from them,” confirmed his aide.

“
Obviously. We'd want to be gone from here if that happens. Is our shuttle ready if we need it?”

“
Yes. And I personally saw to it that all the mine entrances have been wired.”

“
Good, good.” Reiger Dantos put his elbows on his desk and his face in his hands, “What about
what's-his-name
at Mine 02? Does he got his shit all prepped?”

“
Setzel?”

“
Yeah, whatever his name is.”

“
He
said
he's got everything ready.”

Reiger sat back and put his feet up on the desk. “Because y'know if we get caught, it'll be that asshole's fault. He's such a royal fuckhead.” He folded his arms across his chest. “That moron pulls any more stunts like sending out that ore transport the other day...
GOD activation in atmosphere...”
he muttered, “goddamn ass, I'll kill him myself. Who
does
shit that stupid?”

“
He said he was worried about missing his quota.”

“
Oh good,” quipped Reiger, “get us all caught or killed for a motherfucking quota.” He took a deep breath. “Say, where's his ship? Maybe we should pay it a visit and pull a few choice system boards.”

The young man wiped the sweat off his face, adjusting his hat, “He's got it in a hidden bunker at the Air and Space Port, about twenty miles south of the Capital.”

Reiger blinked, dumbfounded. “He's on the middle continent and his ship's on the first continent, a third of a planet away..?
Bwahahahahaa...”
he roared, holding his chest. “I cannot fathom that level of stupidity.”

“
Maybe tonight we should take a ride out to the airport and check our systems and power cells?”

Reiger Dantos nodded, “Good idea. We'll wait till everyone's asleep.”

The aide shifted, leaning against the doorway, “What about the fighter pilots?”

“
They've got their own birds, let them do some work for once. They're here to cover our asses. Lords know they haven't done anything except play Ruge and fuck the local girls for months.” He waved the aide out, “Alright, get outta here, I've got work to do.”

■ ■ ■

Sy Setzel was a frenetic little man who never seemed to stop moving. Had he visited a mental health professional on Earth, he would probably have been diagnosed with a Napoleon complex, a bit of attention deficit disorder, some paranoid schizophrenia, intense delusions of grandeur and various nervous twitches and tweaks. Of course, on a rare occasion there was more than one personality presenting itself, but that was just the voices in his head arguing. Today his ADD was driving him to clean his already spotless office. He despised dirt and dust... working in a mine environment was probably not the wisest choice for his wildly erratic condition. It was however, very profitable.

“
Timmian!” shouted the little man, dusting madly. “
Timmian!
Where are we on tube forty-two?!”

Timmian limped into the office, leaning through the doorway, not wanting to step on the spotless carpet. “About three-hundred and fifty yards...”

“Three-fifty!” Sy Setzel stood up behind his desk and paced vigorously. “They have to be farther than that...
No they're always slow,
” he countered himself. “They need to speed up!” He put his hands on his hips,
“You're not going to get any more out of them unless you motivate them...”
He banged his hand on the desk, “Then do it, and stop bothering me...”

Timmian stiffened apprehensively. He was used to seeing this and knew better than to interrupt one of Sy's ongoing conversations. He was limping because one of them shot him in the foot during an argument - with himself. Yeah, it didn't make much sense to him either. He wasn't sure which one did it and truthfully he didn't have the brain power to figure it out. But it sure made his job as mine manager a lot more difficult. As if four thousand angry slave miners and Setzel's impossible dig quotas weren't enough. “Sir, I thought we were going to stop production until we got transportation restored.”

“And who told you that?”

“
Dantos over at Mine 01 said...”

“
Dantos?
Screw Dantos!
I run this mine. Mine 02 is
my
mine!
”
Timmian dodged a flying ashtray that flew past him, through the doorway. “You get them to four-hundred by the end of the day, we
have
a transport coming!” His face twitched at the out of place ashtray,
“Pick that up!”
he pointed.