Contents
Title
Fortinbras
Mama Loves Mambo
Jaxxon
Filcher
Galaxite
Certain Things We Didn’t Want To Know
43 Days
Pirate Run
Barc
Towers
The Score
Aftermath
Silana
Infiltrator
Barthelme
Misha
Bertha
Last Gasp
Reality Check
Silana, Part II
Certain Things We'd Love to Know
Escape
Decisions
Love Tap
The Things We Do For Love
Duval
In Orbit
43 Days to Oblivion
The Jolo Vargas Space Opera
Series Book 2
Copyright © 2017 by J.D.Oppenheim
All rights reserved.
Dear Reader,
Thank you for downloading 43 Days to Oblivion. Please leave a review if you enjoy the book!
—J.D.Oppenheim
Fortinbras
Deep space, near the Arcon 7 jump point
The UFP freighter Fortinbras was ten times the size of the Argossy, but Jolo Vargas put his ship square in front of the big cargo hauler and waited. This was his favorite part. The cat and mouse. What was the captain in the big ship made of? Would he crumble at the mere mention of the name Jolo Vargas, who had a reputation as a ruthless killer.
Jolo had truly come to be a clever pirate in the last six months since the attack on Montag, but the people in Fed space knew him as an evil monster mainly due to the Federation government’s smear campaign. They didn’t want the old Jolo, the war hero the people once loved, to stir up the military against the BG and destabilize the fragile peace, so they created a monster of him in the people’s minds. To the typical Fed commoner, the old Jolo was dead, replaced by nothing more than a synth who enjoyed harassing and stealing from hard working people.
This worked just fine for Jolo and his crew and their new gig as space pirates. Far greater than bigger guns and a faster ship, a pirate’s greatest weapon was fear, and Jolo Vargas was feared most of all.
“Katy, how we looking,” said Jolo.
“We’re clear,” said Katy, checking her monitor. The cargo hauler and the Argossy were the only two boats in the sector. Jolo wanted to get in and out cleanly.
"I hope they got a black box," said Greeley, smiling like a kid headed to market with money in his pocket. A black box usually contained Fed issue military components. For your typical space pirate, it was gold. You could sell anything from a black box just about anywhere on the fringes of Fed space and have a nice long line waiting for it. They didn’t come around often and even if you knew one was on a freighter, finding the one box in a giant ship with multiple storage holds was difficult. Sometimes freighter captains hid the black boxes in with the rations and perishable bio boxes in case of pirate attack. Jolo had snagged two black boxes in his six month stint as a pirate, but that was early on. The freighter captains were starting to hide the military stuff in secret compartments on their ships, some were even mounting larger guns, forgoing storage capacity to defend against attack.
"Good luck finding one on that giant beast," said Koba.
"Need a few more black box deals and I’ll be buying a little spread on Barc," said Greeley.
“Barc?” said Koba. “Nothing but ocean and fish. How about Flannery in the Seguba system? They got sweet beaches and pretty girls and Fed credits actually have a little value there. Barc ain’t got shit.”
“Koba, for a smart dude you shore are dumb as shit sometimes. You think the Fed’s gonna let any of us just roll up an buy some land in friggin’ Flannery? Wanted by all Federation planets, a big red X across our names? They’d hang any of us.”
“Oh. I guess you are right,” said Koba, and the mood turned sour.
“Katy,” Jolo said. “Keep us nose to nose. Uncomfortably close. I want proximity warnings going off on the bridge. Koba, show him the guns.” Koba touched the switch on screen and the big railguns popped out on either side of the Argossy. This was usually all it took.
But not this time.
“Hurley,” Jolo called down to engineering on the comm. “How we doin’?”
“We full up, Captain,” the old man said. “We can give ‘em hell and have enough juice to jump twice.”
Jolo hailed the big boat, but still no answer. “Katy, we still clear?”
“One big transport just popped in on the outer edge. Can’t get a make on it.”
Still no communication from the freighter.
“Katy, love tap.” They’d done this before. Katy rammed into the nose of the Fortinbras.
And that did it.
“This is Captain James Franks of the UFP Fortinbras. Get off my bow.”
“Captain, this is Jolo Vargas. I’ll take five containers of Fed rations and you may pass unharmed,” said Jolo. At this point most freighter captains cut communications and just released the goods, slowly backing away then jumping out. But this time was different.
“No. You won’t,” said the freighter captain. “Now get that antique boat out of my way.”
Something’s wrong, thought Jolo. What’s he hiding? Fear was the accustomed response. “I don’t like it,” Jolo said, off comm. “He’s acting cocky. What’s his game?” Then he called to George, who had suited up and jet-packed out to the under belly of the freighter. He’d welded the door to the Fortinbras’s fleet of pirate buster drones shut. “You got the door locked?” said Jolo.
“It’s locked, Captain,” said George, floating under the big ship, his welding gear in a small container next to him.
“Ok. Come on home,” said Jolo. “Katy, we still clear?”
“Yes, Captain. Still got the transport out aways, but no other boats in the sector.”
“This don’t smell right,” said Jolo. “Katy, back off slowly. Koba, keep the shields up and the guns hot and ready.”
“What’s wrong, Captain?” said Koba.
“He ain’t acting scared.”
Jolo grabbed the comm: “Captain, I got your little drone bots all nice and locked up. There’s not a BG boat in
