They floated for a moment wondering what to do. “This thing ain’t got a gun, but how about a scanner?” said Greeley.
Jolo touched the water bird’s tiny screen and it showed their position. There were other letters on the bottom and Greeley hit the “S”. “S for scanner,” he said. It was too easy. The scanner popped up and instantly a small dot appeared a few hundred meters back towards 226 that registered a slight heat signature. There were other heat signs that were moving that Jolo figured were schools of fish. He headed for the one small dot that wasn’t moving.
They came on it quicker than Jolo thought. It was a large gray box. The base was about the same size as one of the towers. Jolo put the small craft right over the structure and his heart sank. He could hear it, just like the fake listening stations. The water bird’s screen registered the heat signature in a tight circle right beneath them. The circle was moving around and around. There was a drill under the box.
“Okay, can we go check out my spread now?” said Greeley.
“No. We gotta get back to Duval.”
“Huh?”
“The BG are gonna blow up Barc, too.”
Jolo had the water bird back with a few minutes to spare. He found Besen in the bar under the Crab Shack on 18 drinking the blue synth-ale popular on the outer planets. The locals called it “juice.”
“That shite’ll kill you,” said Jolo.
“You always were too good for it,” said the big man. Jolo paused for a second and pondered his former self, a man, like him, who didn’t go for the synth ale or any of the other drugs that he instinctively rejected. Besen snapped him out of it. “Why are you here? The money was sent as promised.”
“I know,” Jolo said, and took a good hard look at the sweaty man in front of him. Jolo hoped he would listen.
“Well, out with it,” said Besen. So Jolo told him everything: the stolen galaxite, the BG boats attacking freighters, the listening towers on Duval that weren’t really towers, how Vellos actually fell, and now the big gray boxes popping up on the sea floor in Barc.
“Why are you telling me this?” said Besen. “You want me to raise up Barc in defense of that dirty little rock next door? I didn’t think you were one to get involved.”
“I’m not. I thought I owed it to you. You were the first to take a shipment from me even though I was pretty hot at the time.”
“Still are. But don’t worry about the large, black mechs. They ain’t up to nothing on this end. And I seriously doubt they’re up to anything on Duval.”
“Something’s going on,” said Jolo, leaning in closer. “I know it.”
“BG hitting freighters? Towers with drills?” Besen shook his head and downed the last of his juice.
“How about the price of galaxite,” said Jolo. “I bet it’s up. Check it out.”
Besen leaned back in his chair and smiled at Jolo. “You’re full of shite you crazy pirate.” And then he raised his hand and a pale girl on hover skates in a tiny skirt brought him another glass of blue.
Towers
On Duval
37 days left
Koba brought the Argossy down into the ravine slow and careful. He was sweating by the time they made it to Marco’s, but proud that he hadn’t scraped the side of the cliff. At first Jolo thought they were under attack as a black Cruiser emerged from the main hangar, but then he saw a Fed frigate come out right behind that, both ships with a green star on the side. They were Radar Mantis’s pirate ships. There were smaller hover craft at the bottom of the ravine, some coming in, others heading out in different directions. When the hover boats cleared, Jolo could make out the person directing traffic: it was Katy.
“What are they doin’?” said Greeley.
“Mobilizing,” said Jolo. “They think they can save this rock.”
“Where we gonna run to?” said Koba.
“I dunno. Tichel?” said Jolo. “First order of business is convincing everyone to leave. They don’t know about Barc. That should bring them to their senses.”
Jolo broke the news about Barc to Katy and Marco in the atrium later that day. “That makes sense,” said Marco. “Those bastards are gonna cripple the Fed, then crush the core planets.”
“Duval’s got alacyte, Barc’s got fish harvesting,” said Katy.
“Guess what those Fed meal packs are made of?” said Marco.
“So y’all ready to start packing?” said Jolo. He was looking right at Katy. It’s a done deal, he thought. They’ve got to come now.
“They aren’t gonna take this planet,” said Katy.
“How can you say that? Look around you,” said Jolo. He put his hand on her shoulder. He wanted to go back to the day they were on the hoverbike together. He wished they’d just kept going past the reclamator and never found out about the BG’s plan.
“We’re gonna start taking down the towers.”
“They’ll just put up another one.”
“I don’t think so. Merthon and George have put their brains on this one. They’ve calculated the amount of alacyte it’s gonna take to finish the towers. Then they estimated the amount of metal they’ve mined from here and the other fringe planets and the bottom line is they are stretched too thin. They can’t possibly protect all of the towers. Merthon says if we can destroy 47% of the drills then even if they dump galaxite into the core the planet will remain stable.”
Jolo was beside himself. He had the urge to run again, but knew that wouldn’t help. Katy gave
