Lockdown Read online

  Lockdown

  Pox War Runners Episode 2

  By

  Joshua Done

  Edited by

  Tanya Andrious & Jana Miller

  Table of Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  Thank you for reading!

  About this eBook

  1

  “Attention HmS Vermillion; power down your defensive shields and slave navigation to docking control.” This was the third port we’d arrived at so far and every single one of them thought I would fall for the same line.

  “I’m sorry docking control; we will be touching down on pad three. All registration and fees have been prepaid with the owner and we will not be paying slave docking fees.”

  “Negative Vermillion; docking regulations strictly prohibit Independent Docking Protocols.” I sighed. I really hated the Alliance government. They did this to everyone, even their own citizens; counting on their ignorance or just the shier enormity of the bureaucracy to fore their way into your plans and pockets.

  “Negative, docking control. I have Imperial registry and AHW papers. That law only applies to unknown and unregistered craft. Please be advised that any further action on this issue will result in the submission of my communication logs to the Imperial Consulate for review under the anti trade restriction pact to which your government agreed.” I sat back and waited. I’d been running goods in Pox Space for three years without paying a docking fee and I wasn’t about to start because some yokel port authority wanted to make a buck off an Imperial merchant.

  “Confirmed Vermillion, please proceed to platform three under your own control. Have a nice day.”

  “Do they always act as if they were just being nice after trying to skim you?” Suzie asked.

  “Pretty much,” I agreed. It’d only been three days since her parents had died in a Tarin’Tal invasion of her homeworld; well, home colony. Her city had been the only one on the small rock and its population topped out at a few hundred thousand. It had been a border world; very remote and made sense as the first target for the ‘Tal invasion. Suzie had been learning about the ship and trade as a way to occupy herself from thinking about the loss of her family, and I didn’t blame her one bit. Somehow I had become guardian to the lithe seven year old and I still didn’t know how I would handle becoming an impromptu parent.

  “OK.” I told Suzie. “Watch the angles of approach; remember what I said about velocity and the angles of relative gravity?”

  “That they should be kept to a ratio of 1.5Gs for docking and 2.3 for plant landing.”

  “Right. And what are they?”

  “Um…” She started cycling through some of the screens on the holographic monitor. I had raised and replaced the copilot’s seat to better facilitate her small frame and her fingers flew over the controls, flipping through displays at an incredible rate. The kid was a true genius when it came to computer interaction. “2.6.”

  “And what does that tell you?”

  “Well, it’s still within port regulations for both the Empire and the Allied Human Worlds, but its gunna be a little rough on the ship’s grav plates.”

  “Right. So what should I do about it?”

  She flipped to another image of the ship and spun the hologram, tapping portions of the ship and causing them to glow. “Lower flaps by .3 degrees and increase deceleration thrusters by 7 percent.”

  “Good, you’re learning fast.”

  “Does that mean I can drive next time?” she said with excitement.

  “Maybe when you’re older,” I chuckled.

  “Older than what?”

  “Um- tell you what. I’ll let you calculate our next approach. If it’s accurate I’ll let you pilot us down to three thousand feet. How’s that?”

  “Yah! That’s great!” The ship touched down and I pushed the flight rods back into the dash and felt the ship’s artificial gravity disengage. It seemed like every world in PoxSpace had less than 1G gravity and it was rather disconcerting. I liked Lintalla’s comfortably heavy 1.1G feeling. Even Sh’in’s gravity was a bit too light for me.

  “OK, well we’ve got to see our buyer before we talk to the local governor. I don’t want to spend any more time here than we need too. The last two worlds weren’t really open to the reality of a ‘Tal invasion and something tells me Xenograft won’t be any different. We need to get to an Imperial outpost as fast as we can.”

  “Right; because the Empire isn’t dumb.”

  “Well.” We began walking down the ramp into the cold dry air of Xenograft’s night. The planet wasn’t quite a dust bowl, but it was fairly arid. The city of ArctusTerra was over three times the size of Yesler, the name of both Suzie’s old home city and planet.

  “It stinks here,” Suzie said, wrinkling her nose.

  “Yah, no oceans means no tides and trade-winds. Not even any plains and mountain corridors. The air’s a little stagnate, but not dangerous.”

  “But it stinks. Why would anyone want to live here?” she asked honestly.

  “Well howdy do to you too,” a tallish young man said as he came out of the shadows of another landing pad’s support pillars. “After a day or two you don’t notice the smell, after a month it gets normal, after a year - well...” He took a deep breath. “You’d miss it if it were gone.”

  “Hay, Skat.”

  “I told you to stop calling me that.”

  “No can do, my smelly friend. Figure if it’s good enough a name for your boss to call you by its good enough for me.” The young man ground his teeth in frustration. It didn’t take much to get under his skin, although I did it less often now, taking pity on the poor kid.

  “Follow me. The Duke is expecting you.” Randy Ferdinand, of course, was most definitely not a duke. The Empire had lords and ladies, Dukes, and Counts, etc. But the AHW had stuck with the ‘no nobility’ tag line from the old North American civilizations that had fallen during the Death Apocalypse.

  The city wasn’t ominous, per say, but it did hold a certain element that I always found unsettling. Too many rusted parts and unused machines. Inefficiency was everywhere and there were too few people. The Allied Human Worlds were suffering from the same labor shortage as the Empire, although for different reasons. There also wasn’t as much color or affluence, not that I could judge someone for being poorer, it’s just the storage version of pride that ran with it gave me a weird feeling.

  “Here we are,” Skat said, pushing open a heavy metal door with the initials ‘IPS’ sketched on it.

  “Ah, Vince, nice to see you. I hope your trip was uneventful.” His heavy emphasis on the ‘I’s in every word grated on my ears.

  “I take it you got my transmission?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you know Yesler’s been taken by the ‘Tal, and we need to shed this cargo fast so I can be on my way.”

  “Ah, yes. About that. I was hoping you wouldn’t find that to be important for today.” His accent was worsening; that always meant something bad was going on.

  “What’s going on Tony?” I asked; my hand began to itch for the feel of a gun.

  “Well you see…” There was clatter of activity and two Alliance MPs came from around the corner of his back room, facing us from behind the power merchant. “I wasn’t the only person who picked up your transmission and the alliance is not so big on war right now and doesn’t want you to...how shall I put it? Spread unnecessary reports.”

  I made sure Suzie was slightly behind me. “Unnecessary!? You tell that to the people of Yesler! You tell that to her,” I gestured, motioning towards Suzie.”

  “Sir, we don’t want a problem,” one of the MPs said.

  “Then what do you want?” I asked. “It sure looks like yo
u turned a meeting with my client into an illegal ambush. You gunna try to arrest us now?” I felt my stance widening and my hand hovered just above my pistol.

  “No, Sir. We just want to make it clear that seditious rumors will not be tolerated on Xenograft.”

  “That’s a violation of free speech.”

  “That’s an Imperial law, not Alliance.”

  “Well I’m an Imperial Citizen.”

  “Just keep your bloody mouth shut, ok!?” Tony snapped. “I don’t like this as much as you do but I need those power plants you’re selling and I don’t need problems with the law.” I threw my hands up in frustration.

  “Fine; the price was in the transmission.”

  “Done.” Tony nodded.

  “Just be quick about it. I want to be off this rock yesterday.”

  2

  Suzie and I walked back into the night air and I felt the beginnings of a headache begin to spider up the back of my head. Tony could make my blood boil even when Alliance personnel weren’t involved.

  Suzie looked perplexed as we walked. “Why wouldn’t they want us to tell everyone about Yesler?” she asked. “It doesn’t make sense… its stupid.”

  “Because people would rather live in a reality they make up for themselves than the one they’re presented with.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that the Alliance doesn’t care enough about the outlying colonies and would rather let the ‘Tal take them than go to war with them.”

  “But that’s stupid.” Suzie exclaimed with indignation. “If someone starts stabbing you, you should stab them back!”

  “They don’t see it like that.”

  “But, but won’t the monsters just keep coming? Daddy said that the Tarin’Tal don’t do little things like attack one ship or one colony. They only go after big things, like developed worlds, fleets, and systems.”

  “Your Dad was a smart man. That’s how the ‘Tal have always worked and there’s no reason to believe they’re going to change any time soon.”

  “Then why would they ignore us?”

  “They aren’t ignoring us,” I cautioned her. “Two fully armed MPs definitely counts as paying attention. They don’t want word getting out.”

  “But why?” Suzie was getting frustrated now.

  “Frankly, I don’t know and don’t care. We just need to dump the cargo, get our money, and get the heck out of dodge. We won’t stop till we reach Redstone Outpost.”

  “OK,” she said. “But it still doesn’t make sense.”

  3

  Something was off. The landing pad floodlights were on full blast and I could hear lots of people walking around as we reached the ladder to the platform. There was no way Tony’s men could have gotten there already; it would take them at least another hour. I made a motion for Suzie to keep quiet and began listening to a conversation just out of sight.

  “It’s locked up tight, Sir. I can’t seem to find an Alliance Override panel anywhere.”

  “That’s because it’s an Imperial Craft, Private. Why would they obey Alliance law?” There was a disgruntled tone to his voice, almost as if the question were rhetorical.

  “Maybe they should,” replied the other. “I don’t really see how we can open her without a directed explosion, and the cargo manifest says she’s carrying reactors and trait.”

  “Meaning we blow any of the hatches and we might blow the port along with her.”

  “Yah” subordinate.

  “Alright. Set up a perimeter and keep a low profile. We’ll nab the shmuck and force him to open it. We’ll be able to erase the erroneous data and send ‘em on their way.”

  “Catch and release Sir?”

  “Doesn’t make much sense to me, but Governor’s orders so what are ya gunna do?”

  “My job I guess.”

  “Right…” The pair kept talking but I’d heard enough. My handy recording node had heard enough too.

  “Isn’t that illegal?” Suzie whispered.

  “Yeah, vary. We’ve got to get to the consulate.”

  “OK.” Suzie started to trot back down the stairs ahead of me. “Why?” she asked.

  “The local diplomat is Calmonite, and I’ve got a good reputation with Duke Calmon.”

  “They’ll help us out?”

  “Probably.”

  Like ghosts, we silently made our way to the bottom of the stares, only to find out another squad of Alliance MPs had taken up position since we’d passed by only minutes before. Suddenly there were footfalls coming down the stairs. “Crap,” I whispered. “We need to get out of here.”

  “Will these help?” Suzie asked, producing two smoke grenades from a little sack she was carrying.”

  “Yeah, where did you- why do you have these on you?”

  “You said to always be prepared and they were in one of the boxes labeled ‘emergency’.”

  I smirked. “Right. Cover your mouth and try not to breath till we clear the cloud. One- two-” The man coming down the stares was almost on top of us. “Three!” I pulled the release on both grenades and tossed one out of the stairwell and into the MPs under the platform and the other up and into the face of the man coming down the stares. I picked Suzie up and ran for everything I was worth, breaking from the billowing cover in moments and ducking behind a row of storage buildings.

  “That was fun!” Suzie giggled. “We lost them like crickets in a field.”

  “Not quite.” I said, hearing fast footfalls among the hacking coughs from the MPs who’d accidentally inhaled the respiratory inhibitor laden smoke. “It wouldn’t kill them, but they’d be out of commission for a while.”

  “We’ve got to run. Try to keep up.”

  “Yeah!” Suzie agreed excitedly. She loved running apparently, and said that her Dad let her take Parkour because her Mom made her take dance lessons; not that she didn’t like dancing, but she said it wasn’t challenging enough. I had tried to imagine a seven year old practicing the ancient street running, semi-martial art but I always had found myself giggling instead. Now I hoped her lessons had been dead serious.

  We took off down the alley and to my surprise Suzie was keeping up. “Wow!” I shouted despite myself as an arm shot out from a corner and tried to clothesline me. I threw my head back and barely missed catching my chin on the arm and snapping my neck. Instead I snagged the arm and twisted down, throwing my momentum into the motion and dislocating the MP’s arm. His scream and the popping sensation from the arm told me he wouldn’t be trying that again any time soon.

  Another pair of MPs stepped into the street ahead of us and Suzie looked back at me hesitantly as she ran. “Keep going!” I shouted. “I’ve got this.” One of the officers tried to grab her as she leapt off a bin mounted to the alley wall and missed her by inches. He was off balance and I delivered an elbow to the underside of his chin as I passed by, hitting the pressure point and knocking him out.

  The second MP pulled out his sidearm and aimed it at Suzie. For a second I couldn’t believe it. A trained soldier was aiming an armed weapon at a little girl instead of the armed and dangerous adult; it was inconceivable. My instincts kicked in and before I could think, I had drawn my own weapon and sent two bullets flying. The first hit the man’s hand, blasting a neat hole where his thumb connected with the wrist, and the second blew out his shoulder. He’d never be able to aim with that arm ever again.

  I spun again and kept running. “What happened?” Suzie shouted back to me. She had gained distance during the scuffle but I was still faster. No matter how talented she may be, longer legs helped a lot.

  Finally we broke into the main street and the consulate was in plain sight. “By order of the Governor and the Alliance, stop!” a voice commanded from behind us. It was a MP Commander at the head of five more MPs and they were almost on top of us. I ignored them and kept running.

  “Suzie!” I yelled. She was ahead of me by yards. “Catch!” I threw her my wallet; it had my Imperial ID card in it
. “I’m an Imperial Citizen!” I shouted at the gate officer of the consulate. The gate started to open and Suzie shot through. I was mere feet away when there was a sudden pressure on the back of my legs and I suddenly became vary familiar with the particular blend of materials that had been used to make the city’s streets.

  “You are under arrest!” The MP shouted as I felt a rifle barrel shoved into the back of my neck. Someone cuffed my hands behind my back and pulled me upright onto my knees. I could see Suzie inside the consulate gate yelling out; the guard was also talking quickly into a phone before slamming it down and raising his rifle.

  “Release Mr. Grumman,” he commanded.

  “He has violated Alliance law,” the commander stated. “He is under arrest.”

  “State the accusation. We will take him into custody and if you can make a case for his arrest a hearing will be held with his lord. Until such time you have absolutely no jurisdiction over any Imperial Citizenry.”

  “Negative. He is coming with us.” The guard left the gate rifle held up and aimed directly at the officer’s head. It was one to six, but it would be a cold day in hell when an Imperial Marine would back down.

  “You are in violation of Imperial law and AHW-Imperial treaty. I will ask you one more time to release Mr. Grumman or this will be considered an act of war.” The man spoke calmly, as if threatening war were a routine, although serious, event. The Empire takes the rights of its citizens extremely seriously.

  “You wouldn’t open fire over one man!” the MP said indignantly. “That’s madness.”

  “No, it’s Imperial law,” I said curtly. Suddenly twelve more marines came from each side of the compound and a warrior in full battle armor marched up to the open gate and aimed a heavy plasma rifle out. In his hands it looked normal, but its yield was greater than all the weapons in the Alliance squad combined. “Back down, buddy. It was checkmate from square one.” The MP began cussing and screaming into a radio.

  “Hay!” yelled the guard. “I’m not asking anymore. I’m ordering you to release Mr. Grumman and back off or we will open fire!” Suddenly, the pressure of the hands on me were gone, the cuffs too. I looked behind me and the MPs were running, almost panicked, back to the vehicle they had come in.