“Did you come to die, Jolo Vargas?” said the hissing, electric voice of the worm, both ends of the long energy staff lighting at once. “The Emperor will give me a title for this,” he said, taking a step forward, the big, metal foot coming down right next to Barthelme. “Maybe a Fed planet!” he yelled, and started that terrible laugh that sounded like something between a coughing fit and a child screaming.
Jolo heard the Argossy before the mech did. He wanted the heavy metal beast to move further away from Barth so Koba could get a clean shot with the rail guns but it didn’t budge.
“Jolo, we’re coming!” screamed Katy into his earpiece.
“I know. Don’t use the big guns. It ain’t safe for Barth. Get Greeley here now!” Jolo said.
Soon the Argossy was right over them and Greeley jumped down onto the roof from the back hatch, cursing when he landed. He started firing at the mech, while still laying on his back, even before he got up. Katy tried to swing the nose around and knock it off the roof, the forward thrusters fighting to keep the big ship from crashing down onto the harvester. Jolo waved Katy back after nearly being blow off his feet in the Argossy’s thruster blast.
Meanwhile Greeley continued to fire on the BG, BOOM BOOM BOOM, its black chestplate starting to dent. Jolo could hear the worm inside, and this time it wasn’t laughing. It shrieked and cried, unable to get its energy blade around to strike. Its thick alacyte armor and the force field around it were designed to do one thing: absorb energy weapons attacks. But it had no answer for tiny balls of lead.
It slowly stumbled back towards the edge of the roof. Jolo joined in and finally it fell off the side and crashed down onto the rubble eighteen levels below, one of its long metal legs snapping off at the knee. It lay unmoving as the rain continued to fall.
Greeley carried Barthelme into the Argossy and headed straight for the med bay. Katy held the big ship steady a meter off the roof without putting the landing pads down.
“Jolo, come now! We got BG boats inbound!” she screamed into the comm.
Jolo touched his earpiece. “Pick me up at the bottom. I’ve got to get a few more. Go without me if you have to. Save Barth.” He started for the stairs then changed course and thinking to save time, jumped off the top of the harvester all the way down to the ice below. He’d covered distances greater than this, but worried about the landing surface. The cold wind rushed up, biting his face, and for a moment he though he might land on the tangled mess of black metal laying beneath him, the dead Lord, but nearing the bottom he realized the unmoving mech was thirty yards back. Both feel sunk into the mush at the rear of the harvester and he sprinted for the lower level door.
Jolo slipped inside the big machine, still moving across the ice, and scanned for the blond girls with the red blades. A sharp pain stabbed at his left side if he took a deep breath, his hand instinctively reaching around to support his ribs. He jumped onto the ground, careful to stay moving with the harvester lest he get run over by the rear track wheels. He jogged to the right side and there was the girl, running along with the harvester as always.
“Come with me,” Jolo yelled over the sound of the machinery.
She didn’t respond. Didn’t even look his way.
Jolo looked around and saw two men, the rock humpers, sitting on the edge of the platform.
“Come with me if you want to live,” Jolo said.
“They’ll kill us,” one man said in a shakey, fearful voice.
“Most of them are dead.”
Both men looked at each other and then gave Jolo a nod.
“She don’t speak,” one of the men said.
“I’ll be back,” said Jolo. Then he ran up to level 5. Four of the men were still alive, two claimed they could walk, so Jolo carried one, ordered the Med bot to carry the other one, and they made their way down to the bottom. Jolo grabbed the girl and the two men followed him out onto the cold, wet rubble.
Jolo, the girl, and the six ragged men watched as the harvester slowly moved away from them, still grinding away at the earth, as the Argossy came down to take them home.
Misha
Duval
24 days left
Jolo sat on the exam table in the med bay at Marco’s house. His shirt was off and his ribs and shoulders were covered in a patchwork of black and blue bruises. Each dark spot a gift from the Jaylens on the ice harvester. Merthon’s suit had done its job and the Jaylen’s knives couldn’t penetrate, except for the gash on the side of his face that Merthon had stitched up.
Marco’s and the Argossy’s med bots both tended to the survivors, each laying in a cot nearby, IV lines nourishing their bodies, and soft music in the background, which was Katy’s idea, to help ease them back. Even Jolo could tell they all looked better. Barthelme’s color was returning, but it was still difficult to imagine this frail creature so close to death only a day before, was the same large, loud, strong man who’d kept the Jessica in one piece long ago when he was fully human, and who’d rescued him from jail and given him his gun. Had given him his life.
Katy walked in, her smile turning sour when she saw Jolo. “What happened to you?” she said. She put her hand on his shoulder and he winced in pain,
