The room went quiet again. Greeley started to speak, but stopped. His face squinched up in hard thought. “Well, shite,” he said, “we’ll never even get a sniff of that frozen rock even if we did get past the orbital patrols.”
“Obviously, we’ll have to sneak in,” said Jolo. “Hurley, the T4s gotta get regular supply runs, right?”
“There’s a hangar up top right between all the guns. Provisions come on supply drones. There’s a bunch of drone couplers up top and they fly in and plug right into the harvester.”
“Marco, can you get me in one of the supply boats.”
“I’ll get on that. They’re small drones, that okay?”
Jolo shrugged. “Yeah, gettin’ jammed into tiny coffin tubes is my specialty,” he said.
“But the distance this time won’t be too bad. I think they originate about four jumps away in Holsted. They’ve got to feed the workers,” said Marco.
“You mean slaves,” said Katy. “And how does Jolo and Barth get off planet?”
“Same way they came in,” said Hurley. “They’ll fill up the supply boats with trash and broken parts and such. So weight shouldn’t be a problem. And I imagine Barthelme’s gonna be a little, uh, lighter than you remember.”
“So I git to go, too, right?” said Greeley. “He’ll need firepower.”
“Just me,” said Jolo. Greeley took a deep breath, frowning. “Can’t kill ‘em all without me.”
“If Jolo can get to the main computer array, I can take out the internal sensors and unlock the thing from the inside. Make it look like a hardware failure.”
“How soon can you make that happen?” said Marco.
“With George’s help, maybe a day.”
“Or less,” said George, smiling.
“I’ve got something that might be of use,” said Merthon. “It’s an experimental suit that might help an infiltrator go unseen. It’ll also help defend against those evil energy blades the BG love to brandish about.”
“So it’s settled,” said Jolo. “Sneak me in, alone. And I bring Barth and whoever else I can find home. Right under their noses.”
Silana
On Duval
29 days left
A small black pod landed in the sand amidst the rubble of a burned out pirate ship. A young, brown haired girl named Silana climbed out and headed east in the baking Duval heat for the nearest settlement. Behind her the tiny ship exploded, the metal from her ship mixing in with the pirate ship debris. Better than burying it, she thought. In the distance, she heard the sound of BG cruisers taking out the humans and their pathetic, last bit of defiance.
The Lords will let them play rebels for a little while longer, she thought. At least until The One is found. Find The One. That was her mission.
A few hours later a woman and an old man came up to her in a hover craft. She glanced at the old, dust covered boat: her pattern recognition algorithm kicked in instantly. Horvarst 37 XC; manufacture date: 2489; class: 2 seat, open hull, hover; comments: short range.
“You need water, honey?” said the brown, leathery-skinned, middle aged woman driving. She handed over a plastic jug.
Begin speech synthesis recording, thought the girl.
“Oh, yes ma’am. I’m so thirsty.” No comparison data, said the computer in her mind.
“You ain’t from round here are ye?” said the old man, watching the girl drink. He wore coveralls and was bald except for a few random gray hairs that whipped around in the wind.
“Why you say that?” said the girl. 32% speech pattern match.
“Well, you dressed kinda funny is all,” said the woman.
“Yeah, and yer hair’s jus too gang purty,” said the old man, smiling.
“Y’all close yer eyes jus’ for a minute.” They look at each other, shrug, and then close their eyes. “Now listen to my voice,” said the girl. “I sound jus’ like y’all, right?” 89% speech pattern match.
“Sound like you from Hilder, down aways a bit,” said the old man, eyes still closed.
“Yeah, I spent some time in Hilder awhile back,” said the girl. 99% speech pattern match.
Lock in current speech pattern files, she thought to herself. Then she started taking off her clothes.
“Stand up,” she said to the woman, and the woman looked at the old man and then slowly stood up.
“About 55 centimeters,” said the girl, now standing naked. The old man’s eyes suddenly fixed on her crotch. His hands clutched onto the edge of the door like he was gonna be blown out.
“I wanna help take down a tower,” said the girl.
“Keep going thataway to a settlement called Rybat,” said the woman, waving a hand to the east. “They got a few crews just started.” Then her eyebrows narrowed a bit, “But Honey, you gone have to git some clothes on.” There was concern in her voice like a mother. The old man hadn’t moved, eyes still drawn to the spot between the girl’s legs.
“Frank, stop droolin’ on the poor girl. Obvious she ain’t all there, but that don’t give you no right to get yer jollies.”
“Yeah, but somethin’ ain’t right about her you-know-what,” he said, one wrinkled, bent finger pointing at her groin. “Ain’t nothin’ there,” he said. And the woman started apologizing.
The girl grabbed the man and threw him out of the hover craft. He flew upside down, landing in the hot dirt on his shoulder. His collarbone snapped with a loud crack and he holwed in pain, half his face covered in Duval sand.
“Take off your clothes,” said the girl to the woman.
A few minutes later the synthetic girl named Silana, dressed like a poor Duvalite, started walking towards Rybat. She stopped for a moment to roll around in the sand. She poured water from the
