“We got Merthon. And we know the BG are dirty as hell.”
“Yeah, but the Fed won’t listen to me. Or Merthon.”
“Let them rot.”
And then Jolo got quiet for a moment. The wind kicked up and they were showered in red clay dust.
“On the way back home,” said Jolo, “I want to check on the freighter. If those two are alive I want to pick them up. We should have taken them yesterday.”
“You may not like what you find.”
“There’s another reason. I want to know why a BG boat would attack a freighter. If the freighter survivors won’t tell us then maybe we can get the manifest from the onboard computer. Now let’s get to work.”
So while Jolo queried his computer for the Frixon Corp. CoolFresh 2000 water claimer repair manual, Katy hid between two large water catchers and scoped out the BG operation with the binoculars.
“What do you see,” said Jolo.
“The boat ain’t a cruiser. It’s a transport. The structure looks like a listening station, but maybe bigger, taller. They got about five workers, two warriors, a few drones. And one other… it’s blocked.” She squinted, dust blowing into her eyes. She zoomed in as close as she could and started recording. At one point a worker moved out of the way and she had a clearer view. “Holy shite!” She screamed, stepping back away from the reclamators.
Jolo scrambled out from under the water catch. “That one actually had a clogged check valve,” he said. And then he looked at Katy. She had that look, kind of like when they boarded the Corsair. Right before the shit hit the fan. “What? What is it? What’d you see?”
“Nothing. Let’s go now. I got the vid.” And she started cleaning up the tools. The job was done.
“Give me the binoc’s,” said Jolo.
“No.”
“That’s an order!” he yelled, glancing over towards the BG transport.
“Please Jolo. Let’s just go,” Katy said. Jolo held out his hand and she gave up the binoculars. Jolo took a look and it was just like Katy said: bots, warriors, transport ship. But then he spotted a thin, athletic female figure in all black with long blond hair. She was running the show, ordering the bots around. The two warriors there for protection only. Jolo took a deep breath and shook his head. Her hair color was so blond it was almost white, but there was no question: it was a Jaylen.
He wasn’t sure what to feel. She was beautiful, but he knew what she was and what she was capable of. He looked over at Katy, still throwing tools back into the box on the side of the hover bike, thin legs and brown hair past her shoulders. Katy is real and has a beauty all her own, he thought. She cares about the crew, and me.
And so his mind shifted a little. “Wish I had a long-range weapon,” he said, staring back out towards the blond girl and the big, black ship.
“Don’t waste your time,” Katy said. “There’s more of her than you got bullets for.”
Jolo had to agree. It was time to go. “Let’s high tail it. I don’t want us being here to put Bertha and her bunch in danger,” said Jolo.
He handed the binoculars back to Katy and she took one last look. The Jaylen was running towards them. “She’s coming!” screamed Katy.
“Relax,” said Jolo. “She may not know me. If she recognizes me, I’ll take her out and we run. If not, we play it cool.”
“Jolo, she’s seen us both. This one may not recognize me, but if she scans your face, she will know.”
The synth Jaylen covered the ground amazingly fast, but when she got there she wasn’t breathing hard at all. “Why are you here?” she said. Jolo was under the reclamator again yelling at Katy to hand him a 15mm spanner. “We ain’t got time for your BG shite,” said Jolo. “This one’s got a bad valve.”
“I want you gone in ten minutes or I’ll blow this rusty pile of junk to the heavens,” she said and turned and headed back to the work crew.
Jolo and Katy were gone in five.
Filcher
On the Federation Warship Defender near the Calamar system
Admiral Silas Filcher of the Federation Warship Defender took another sip of coffee and rubbed his temples. He checked the time: 9:32 am. There was too much to do. He had command of over 2000 able-bodied crewmen aboard and the biggest guns the Fed engineers could make, yet instead of battling against pirates attacking the merchant haulers, and until recently, the BG, his life had boiled down to a list of administrative tasks. Since the BG alliance the military had grown complacent. Not long ago there were Fed recon ships reaching as far as Frixion in the outer reaches, and gunboats patrolling all of the shipping lanes, but orders had come down that the military pull back to protect core planets only. Our new friends, the Bakanhe Grana, could deal with the outer planets and protect the commerce routes that carried supplies vital to the fringes. The Federation even started decommissioning old, but still viable, warships. A year after the order the force was weak and withdrawn.
Filcher remembered those moments from not too long ago when a BG boat was trying to kill