For the first time since I’ve joined the force, I’m wearing my seatbelt. Hard to drive in zero grav when you keep floating off the seat. The kid is having too much fun, working the sat-link upside down, drifting in the cabin. Rehna just looks mortified...or is it pissed? Kind of hard to tell with Gawyn spinning around between us.
“Which way, kid?”
“Gawyn. My name is Gawyn, old man.”
“Fine...Gawyn. Which way?”
“Well, Priest, straight-a-freakin-head.”
Through the windshield is a mass of floating objects. Some are satellites, serving some purpose to someone. Some are space-decks, orbiting apartment units for people afraid of gravity. The rest is crap—trash tossed into space by folks in the late twenty-first century when they ran out of room for their trash. They figured it would all just float aimlessly through space for all eternity. Dumb bastards didn’t count on picking it all back up a year later when they caught up with their own shit. The thought that this is only a year’s worth of trash makes me sick.
“Heat signature is faint, but we’re within fifty meters,” Gawyn says.
All eyes scan the debris field. Some of the trash separates and we enter a clearing, twenty meters wide, twenty tall. Strange.
I cut the gas and we drift forward, toward the center of the clearing, where a satellite floats alone. It’s big, the size of an air-bus. At its base, pointed toward the Earth is what appears to be a satellite dish attached to three metallic coils extending out like a solidified DNA sequence.
Fwang! A series of laser blasts ricochet off the mobile unit’s hull. The kid jumps back, away from the windshield, but there’s nothing to get cranky about. “Ratchet down, Gawyn. Lasers barely left a scratch.”
Rehna looks at me, more relaxed now that we’re seeing action. “Maybe they’ll let you change the paint color now?”
The smile on my face must tell all, because Rehna looks away quickly. Never in my life has a woman remembered something I’ve said, unless it was an insult. Of course, now might not be the best time to think about it.
Fwang! Fwang! Lasers barrage the outside of the mobile unit doing nothing more than providing a cheesy lightshow. “Must be low yield,” I say.
“Probably to deflect space junk,” Rehna adds.
I steer us toward the satellite and pull up close next to what looks like a maintenance hatch. Then it occurs to me, this might not just be a satellite...maybe it’s a space station. Someone might be alive inside this thing.
As we come within inches of the orbiting beast’s hull, the laser fire dies off. Gives me a chance to inspect the outer surface for clues as to who owes me money. “Shit,” I say, now knowing I’ll never get reimbursed for my Tac-suits.
“What is it?” Rehna asks.
“Mooners,” Gawyn spits out. “Dirty Mooners.”
Fifteen hundred years ago a moon colony was established and its population grew. Low grav made them multiply like rabbits on Dretch. But their advance in everything techie grew just as fast and they quickly adapted to supporting a massive population. It was one of the most modern facilities ever built and larger than any Earth city at the time. Damn toilets probably wiped their asses for them.
Millions were thriving when Albin was born. The bastard rose to power two hundred years after the colony was formed. He was some kind of religious zealot and fancied himself as God’s divine prophet. And the Mooners, ungrateful little whelps, whining about being controlled by us Earthers, staged a brutal and savage revolt. Under Albin’s direction, a series of hit-and-run attacks on Earth cities were carried out. The cowards couldn’t stand toe to toe with us, so they took aim at normal people, the simps, the young, the yuppies, people who never see the inside of a mobile unit. Killed thousands. They forced Earth to retaliate. Rather than wipe the Mooners clean from the moon with nukes, like I would have done, the government at the time opted to carry out a strategic strike aimed at Albin himself.
A single Earth agent managed to infiltrate Albin’s organization and rose to power from within, as a trusted General. Too bad for Albin; he lost his head while taking a crap. A single, high-caliber bullet splattered his brains against the bathroom wall. Got what he deserved too. But he died a martyr. The Mooners continued to piss and moan and soon gained their independence. Not much has been heard from them since. The colony hasn’t grown in size. No new construction has been reported...but from the insignia on the outside of this satellite, I now know that they’ve kept busy over the years.
I attach the docking seal to the side of the satellite—another modification. The sat-link gives the OK and I unbuckle myself and float through the tight opening into the mobile unit’s backside. With my new C130 tight in my hand I head for the hatch.
“Wait for me.” Gawyn says.
I don’t even look back. “Sit your ass back down. No one moves until I say so.” I can hear her fold her arms. Must not be used to being told what to do. What I’ve seen her do with a computer this far leads me to believe she hasn’t had much parental supervision. Not that parents are any good for anything other than feeding you.
I open the docking hatch, and a burst of stale air surges into the mobile unit. “Ugh, smells like old farts.”
Gawyn’s right. Something either died in here or they’ve got a miniature cow farm tucked inside. At least the air is breathable. “Stay here,” I say, as I float forward, into the belly of a beast capable of wiping out entire cities.
Floating inside an orbiting super-weapon isn’t something I tend to do often. And the smell has got me spooked—so I lead with my C130 aimed high. It’s cramped inside, like a soda can just big enough for a human. I float through the entrance tube into what must be a cockpit and—holy shit!
I fire my weapon three times with deadly accuracy; two to the chest, one to the head. Too bad the bastard is already dead; shots that precise and that quick would’a gave me braggin rights. But this guy is a rotting heap. His skin is tight and dry, wrapped around his skull like a facelift for the dead. He’s probably been here for years, maybe hundreds, with nothing to break down his flesh. Nothing but a human-sized stick of jerky now.
For a dead guy, he packs a lot of attitude. His dried lips are frozen in a sinister grin and his two middle fingers are extended toward the entrance hatch. This guy died knowing he would eventually be found. Definitely Mooners. No one else is this fanatic, to deliver a message hundreds of years after his death. A thought occurs to me; if this guy is dead, who is picking targets and firing this hunk of junk?
“Out of the way, asshole.” I take the dead guy by his gray flight suit and toss him to the back of the inner cabin. I hear him hit the wall with a crack. Kind of gives me the creeps, defiling the dead like that, but I’m sure he deserves it.
My body fits in the single cockpit chair nicely. This boat was designed for a single occupant. After scanning the array of controls spread out across three separate panels, I decide I’m screwed. Everything is labeled in some language I’ve never seen before. So I decide to take a chance and start pushing buttons. The first three do nothing, but the forth opens a front panel, revealing a large windshield and a stunning view of the Earth below. Few people ever get to see the Earth like this, with all the garbage floating in orbit, real estate on the lower levels is near impossible to find. Of course, this view has a flaw. Even from this far away, the clean-cut hole in the Earth, through the heart of my city, can be seen clearly. Gonna make the bastards pay for that.
I reach for another button. “Don’t touch that, you idiot!”
I can’t remember ever jumping in fright, not even once in my life, but in zero grav I launch out of the seat and hit my head on the ceiling. Embarrassment keeps me from getting angry, as I float above the control panels, looking down at Gawyn. Kid takes my seat at the controls. Probably a good thing too; I might have ended up putting another hole in the Earth.
Rehna floats in through the entrance tunnel. “Sorry, Priest. I tried to stop her.”
Gawyn l
ooks up at me. “Can you read Mooner?”
“No.”
“Really? No kidding.” Gawyn brims with sarcasm. “Cause I could’a sworn you wanted to kill us all.”
I don’t argue.
Gawyn starts with the magic fingers again. Screens blink to life. The power comes online in full. The air is purified, thank God. I push down from the ceiling to get a closer look at the display screens. Images flash past quickly as Gawyn tears through the complex computer system. Then she stops and looks up at me, floating above her.
“I’m in,” she says.
“In where?”
“Mooner city. Their database.”
“Kid, you want a job with The Authority, you got it.” She smiles, and for the first time I notice she’s cute. Not that I go around calling kids cute that often, most of them are about as pleasant looking as an overused snot rag. But Gawyn, she manages to serve a purpose, and she ain’t bad to look at, at the same time.
I get lost in my thoughts and fail to notice the changes on the screen. “Priest, are you seeing this?” Rehna asks me.
The screen displays text and images: war machines, tactical gear, a diagram of the Earth with hundreds of orbiting satellites lit up in green. “What the hell?”
Gawyn reads my mind and digs deeper on the satellites. She brings up detailed schematics and tactical information. “Move over,” Rehna says, and I push to the side. Rehna can read faster than lightning. One of her eyes was shot out two years back, before I knew her, and she got some new-fangled eye. Lets her scan pages of information like a robot taking snapshots. Rehna scrolls through the information and even the kid can’t keep up.
“Holy...” I’ve never seen Rehna look so stunned. She looks me in the eyes, but the connection I’ve felt between us is buried deep beneath a sense of dread. “We’ve got an hour before three hundred of these satellites open fire on the rest of Earth’s major cities. Priest, they’ve been planning this for the last twenty five hundred years.”
I roll with the biggest mental punch I’ve ever received. “The last legacy of Albin. And then what?”
“Invasion.”
“So they turn the Earth to Swiss cheese and then invade,” I say. “Doesn’t sound like the Earth will be worth keeping around.”
“It won’t be,” says Rehna as plain as day.
My eyes widen with the realization that the Mooners don’t mean to take over Earth, they mean to destroy it...or at least everyone living on it.
I blink and the kid’s back to work, flying her fingers across the consoles, working the keys. “What are you doing?” I ask.
“I ain’t letting no Mooners take out my planet,” Gawyn replies. “I got friends down there you know.”
A loud hummm emanates from the rear of the satellite and the walls begin moving around my floating body. She’s turning the satellite, aiming at a different target...aiming at the moon. I can’t help but smile. This kid’s a fighter, but I can’t let her be a killer.
“Out of the seat, Gawyn, I’ll take it from here.”
“But...”
“Now.”
Gawyn huffs and floats out of the seat. I resume my place behind the controls. “Okay, now tell me what to do.”
Gawyn talks as fast as she types. I do my best to keep up. Within minutes we have the weapon powered up and aimed straight at Mooner central, which Rehna thinks contains the majority of their control centers, population and army, awaiting orders to begin the invasion of Earth. If we’re lucky, we can take them all out in one shot.
“Increase the target radius,” Gawyn instructs me. “We can take them out in one shot.” There she goes, reading my mind again.
As I increase the target radius, a blue bar races across the screen, turning green, yellow, orange and then red. Rehna looks over my shoulder. “Taking a shot that big is going to overload the system. I’d rather not die up here if it’s all the same to you.”
“If we leave even one control system intact they could still plug the Earth full of holes. I’m not gonna let that happen, even if it kills us all.” Rehna doesn’t argue, neither does Gawyn. Figures, I’m minutes away from dying and I’ve finally found a family I could get used to. Oh well.
A vibration tickles my ass beneath the seat as the weapon reaches full charge. I can feel the raw power being built up. Before I can finish my thoughts on how the Mooners were able to leap ahead of us technologically, I see movement in the debris field between us and the moon. Four men in space suits with rocket packs come at us like laser rounds. “We got company,” I say plainly.
“Who are they?” Gawyn asks.
“Doesn’t matter.” I look at their weapons. They look powerful enough to destroy the satellite before we can get a shot off. “Can we set this thing on a timer?”
“I don’t know!” Gawyn’s starting to panic.
I take her by the shoulders. “You stay here. Set a timer on this thing.” I look at Rehna. “Stay with her.”
Rehna takes my shoulder as I head for the exit. “Be careful,” she says.
What’s this mushy stuff? We’re trying to save the world from Mooner terrorists and my partner is about to cry over my freakin life, which I have yet to lose and don’t intend to lose. Ahh, screw it. I’m growing tired of being the rude, manly hero anyway. I take Rehna by the waist and pull her toward me, an easy feat in zero grav, and plant a wet one on her lips. I feel my normal stew of negative feelings cool to a light simmer before I pull away. Rehna floats away from me, looking stunned...and stunning. Now I know I love her.
Before Rehna can say something to change my mind, I launch through the docking seal and back into the mobile unit. I fire up the engines and prep the weapons systems. No way I’m gonna let these punks kill my girls.