The Pirate Captain (The Space Pirate Chronicles Book 2) Page 10
Charley zipped herself back up in a smooth movement, but it was obvious what she and Harry had been doing. Vinnie made no effort to hide his pain.
“I’ll keep moving,” he said. “Stay here if you want, but you might get more visitors.”
With that, Vinnie keep moving down the line. He was really pissed. Charley looked at Harry with intense shame. The old man just shrugged.
“At least he didn’t come earlier,” he observed. His dry humor alleviated Charley’s embarrassment a little bit, but she still felt guilty. After a rough start Vinnie Teks had been good to her.
But right now it was time to move. With a worried glance over her shoulder, she grabbed hold of the zip line and followed the others as they swung like monkeys. It was harder than it looked and required a fair amount of strength. Charley wasn’t sure how far she’d be able to go before her arms got too tired. Gunfire rang out behind her and chips of bark were stripped off a nearby tree. Men in Silent Runner armor were hauling themselves along the zip line in chase. Luckily they needed to stop to be able to aim their blasters, and even then shooting was difficult. Charley wondered why they didn’t simply reverse the line to bring them back to the depot. The technology was admittedly quite primitive and may not allow for that kind of adjustment.
Charley moved along the line with all the speed she could muster. Harry frequently called out encouragement and words of support. Vinnie had already disappeared far up the line. Charley wasn’t sure if he would care if she and Harry were dropped by the bandits. They were probably his least favorite people in the galaxy right then. There was nothing she could do about it except accept the consequences.
Another few hundred yards and Charley was starting to get very fatigued. Her arms felt like lead and were screaming at her to stop.
“Harry,” she breathed. “I’m not sure if I can keep going.” She didn’t want to think about the drop all the way down to the forest floor. The ground itself would be quite soft but that would no protection against a forty-foot fall.
“That’s normal, Charley,” Harry said reassuringly. “I’m felling a little beat myself.”
“How long to the next transfer platform?” Charley yelled.
“The last one was several hundred yards,” came the reply. Sure enough, the next platform appeared around the bend. The flat ledge encircled the yaob tree, but there was no obvious way of getting down. Harry dropped to the platform and Charley followed suit. They both stood behind the tree and waited for the first Silent Runners to appear. They came quickly, four of them in quick succession and moving much faster than Charley had been. She had gotten off the line just in time. Harry picked off the leading bandit with a well placed shot to the neck. The man dropped to the forest floor, screaming all the way. Charley found dropping these bandits to be quite difficult. Their armor was blaster resistant and her targeting computer wasn’t so good at predicting the trajectory of targets bouncing around on a zip line. Her blasters had heated out before she could manage a kill, but Harry dropped his second with minimal fuss. The two bandits that got through dropped to the platform boldly. Charley could hear them running on the other side of the tree. Her blasters were still cooling by the time the first reached her. She drew her scimitar and swung it in a vicious arc. To her surprise she cracked the breastplate of the Silent Runner and stopped him in his tracks. He tried to bring his blaster to bear but Charley lopped off his gun hand with a quick horizontal strike. The bandit began howling as he looked down at his bloody stump. Charley finished the kill with an efficient chop to the neck.
The other bandit cleverly stayed behind Charley so Harry couldn’t fire at him. But that meant facing Charley with her scimitar. Weapons like that weren’t often seen in the galaxy anymore. Guns usually got the job done, and it you didn’t have money for those, you bought yourself a baseball bat. This is what gave pirates one of their advantages. Most enemies weren’t trained in the use of swords which therefore meant that they weren’t trained in the defense of swords. Charley wasn’t trained either, but she was the one holding the sword. All it took was a crazy feint followed by a fist to the balls to knock the bandit on his ass.
Harry finished with a neat shot to the visor. Technically visors were considered armor, but they weren’t as strong or as durable as the rest of the armored suit. This bandit’s visor cracked and splintered under the force of Harry’s plasma blast. Charley didn’t need to see what happened next - shots to the face were never pretty. What she needed to do was find a way down the yaob tree. It was difficult to find handholds but there were shallow gouges in the trunk at irregular intervals. Charley started down hesitantly, half expecting to slip at any moment. Luckily, the dry sunny weather made climbing less difficult than it might have been and she reached the wide trunk bottom without mishap. Harry dropped down beside her and gave her a passionate kiss on the lips. Charley responded with vigor, unable to help herself. She could see more Silent Runners edging along the zip line to the east. Her comrades were nowhere to be seen. She hoped Vinnie was keeping a cracking pace.
“Let’s run, sweetheart,” Harry said. The pair broke into a sustainable three-quarter run through the undergrowth. Harry kept pace with Charley easily, and she had to wonder who was keeping up to who. The older man seemed in superb condition.
The pair was able to follow the zip line with minimal difficultly. The line itself was difficult to see but the transfer platforms were not. After twenty minutes of running north northwest the terrain opened up into sparse woodland. The zip line was much clearer now and Charley could see Vinnie and Gronko pulling furiously on the zip line as they made a desperate run for the a terminal post. The post was on the roof of a similar bunker facility to the one they had cleared out.
The same lake shimmered in the background. It must be a huge body of water, with a number of bandit facilities around the edge.
With a shock Charley realized that there were a bunch of Silent Runners hauling themselves along the line toward the fleeing pirates. Just as she drew her blaster, a number of plasma bolts sang through the trees and the first two bandits fell. Harry took care of the rest, dropping the distant targets with unerring accuracy. Charley turned to see Vanessa crouched in the trees, panting wildly. The blaster Charley had given her was heat maxed.
“Nice shooting,” Charley said, unable to hide her surprise.
“Thanks,” Vanessa said. “It was either get involved in the action or tear myself apart with panic. I couldn’t keep hold of the line so I got off at a transfer platform. I’ve been following Vinnie and the other thing ever since.
Vinnie and the “other thing” were now safely dropping to the roof of the lakeside bunker. Something wasn’t right about the scene. She realized that the missing ingredient was the bandit firebird. Shouldn’t it be waiting for them at this end of the zip line? All they had to do was wait here to pick them off. And yet the lakeshore was ominously silent as Charley, Harry and Vanessa emerged from the trees and approached the bunker cautiously.
“Charley,” murmured a electronic voice. It was FIGJAM, and he almost sounded coy.
“What is it, Figgy?” Charley asked as she walked.
“You were so hot back there,” said the PalBot. “With Harry in the tapo bucket.”
17
Charley felt a wave of embarrassment. “And I should know to shut you down when those things happen,” she said sharply.
“Relax, honey,” said FIGJAM. “Just playing with you. And being serious at the same time.”
“Shut up,” muttered Charley. The PalBot could be really annoying sometimes.
Vinnie and the alien were waiting for them inside the bunker. It wasn’t as large as the forest bunker. For starters, this facility didn’t have a perimeter wall or defensive turrets. Secondly, there was no sign of enemy activity. It was as if the Silent Runners had completely abandoned this facility. Their zip line, which wo
uld normally have run deliveries of tapo fruit for export to the salukar, was inactive.
“None of this adds up,” Vinnie said with a frown. Charley had to agree.
The only tech in the building was a boat. It was about medium size, a tough, rugged inflatable with twin motors and a gun turret at the back. The thing didn’t look like it had been used recently. The support struts were rusted and dirty. Gronko activated a valve on the wall and a loud noise filled the chamber. Water was now pouring in from the lake, floating the boat. Charley and the others made sure they were standing on a raised ledge running the perimeter of the room. The water rose steadily until the boat was floating freely but still tethered to a stanchion. Vinnie found the release toggle for double doors on the north wall. They slid open to reveal an expanse of water, glittering in the noonday sun.
“I don’t know,” Harry commented. “No firebird waiting for us, no bandits stationed here. This boat, abandoned and rusty. Something tells me they don’t like using the lake at all.”
Vinnie nodded, reluctantly agreeing with his father. He still looked fairly pissed about what he’d seen between Charley and Harry up in the forest canopy.
“I don’t think we have any choice but to cross the lake,” Charley said. “It’s either that or cower in the forest trying to avoid the firebirds.”
“She’s right,” Gronko growled. “We go forward or die.”
“I’m picking up a transmission,” FIGJAM announced. “Would you losers like me to play it?”
Vinnie looked like he would smash FIGJAM once and for all. “Just play it, FJ,” Charley warned.
The voice had been deep and commanding. A silence fell over the pirates. Gronko snorted in disdain, but Charley could tell he was shaken too.
“Just another enemy to deal with,” Vinnie said with an attempt at bravado.
“Why are they so focused on killing off the criminal traders like us and the Silent Runners?” Charley asked.
“Because they wanna get their hands on all our loot,” Harry said. “The drugs, the contraband, the weapons. All of it can be used to supply the war effort.”
“I don’t like it one little bit,” Vinnie said. “This Galactus sounds like a slave driver to me.”
“Let’s try and focus on the task at hand,” Charley suggested. “We need parts for the Surprise and then we need to make our delivery to MinCorp. Once we’ve done that we can upgrade the Surprise. Maybe even buy a second ship.”
“I agree with Charley,” Vanessa said quickly. “We need to focus on the here and now.”
Vinnie clearly agreed because he jumped onto the boat and tried to start it. It wasn’t until he’d opened the fuel line several times that the tired old engine came roaring to life.
“We have just enough fuel to make it across the lake,” he said. “All aboard.”
Charley climbed gingerly onto the boat, taking a seat at the rear next to Vanessa. Gronko stood at the turret like a towering sentinel. Harry and Vinnie stood at the controls.
Vinnie accelerated forward and within seconds the boat was skimming over small waves. The day was still clear and the sun reflected off the mesmerising water.
Charley might have enjoyed the ride if not for the fact that she had a strange sense of foreboding. Not only were there no enemies in sight, there was also no birdsong, no sign of fish. There was an electric tension in the air that made her hair stand on end. Her instincts told her there was life here at the lake, a rich presence that dominated the whole region if not the entire planet. One look at Harry and Vinnie confirmed her fears.
The attack boat bounced across the waves and Charley felt a little revived by the salt water slapping her across the face. The water was a deep blue underneath them, and with a lurch she realized they were right in the middle of the lake. The bottom seemed fathomless. As she was gazing down into the depths she saw a flash of light that radiated from a central source. It might have been beautiful if it didn’t seem so threatening.
“Did you guys see that?” she asked the others. No one answered - they were just as discomforted as she was.
A second flash of light rolled upwards to the water’s surface and all of a sudden the engine was choking.
“What the fuck?” Vinnie muttered as he worked the ignition furiously.
It was no use. The attack boat wasn’t going anywhere and bobbed uselessly on the small waves.
“I don’t like this,” Vanessa said ominously as she peered over the edge. “The water’s changing color.”
And so it was. It went from deep blue to pale yellow to smooth pink.
“Could be a seismic event,” suggested Vinnie. “Earthquake or somethin’.”
“That’s no earthquake,” said Charley, horrified but unable to tear her gaze away all the same. A creature was moving toward them from the bottom of the lake. Not just any creature, but one that seemed to fill the entire water body. It was huge, larger than a fair-sized town. At least a mile in diameter. As it moved closer Charley could see tiny filaments along the pink surface of its body. Tentacles. All of a sudden the water was a forest of writhing flesh. The pink tentacles were thin, floppy and occasionally flashed with energy.
“Maybe it’s just checking us out,” Harry said hopefully, but no one believed that to be true. As if to disprove the notion, a tentacle rocked the attack boat and almost turned it over. Charley was pitched forward into the surprisingly cold water and began flailing immediately. She was embarrassed to expose herself as a non-swimmer but there hadn’t been any open water bodies on her home planet Abeyas.
Plus, there was a certain friction and pressure about this water. It felt heavy and tense somehow, dragging her down with relentless power. Charley sank despite her frantic efforts to stay afloat. She could see the boat above her, the worried expressions of the other pirates as they leaned over the side.
An explosion of bubbles suggested that someone had dived in. It was Vinnie, stroking powerfully toward her. He grabbed her hand and with amazing strength dragged her to the surface where Harry hauled her into the boat.
Even though she was still gasping for air Charley reached down to return the lifesaving favor that Vinnie had provided her. She pulled his arm with all her strength but his armor was slick from the lake water. It wasn’t like normal water, it was more viscous and slimy. Plus, Charley could see a number of snake-like filaments entangling themselves around Vinnie’s ankle. They glowed yellow occasionally, infusing Vinnie’s whole body with the same glow.
“Help me!” shouted Charley, a sense of dread overcoming her. It was as if the lifeforce of the lake was telling her that Vinnie was somehow destined to be claimed here and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.
Harry lent his support, pulling on his son’s arm in vain. Even Gronko tried to grab Vinnie’s other flailing arm. Not even he could outmuscle the tiny tendrils dragging Vinnie to the bottom of the lake.
Charley pulled and pulled until she was worried she might rip Vinnie’s arm from the socket. She pulled until the tears were flowing freely down her face. A blizzard of messages and emotions were flooding her skull. She knew that none of them were actually hers, and that whatever was dow
n in the water was sending them to her. Somehow she was informed that the creature had lived in the lake for several millennia and reserved the right to claim anyone who got too close to it. The monster tried to telepathically convince Charley that what it was doing was not only justifiable, but fair. Charley blocked the incoming thoughts and concentrated on Vinnie. All her efforts were in vain. The burly pirate took one last look at Charley and disappeared under the water. Charley watched in horror as he was enfolded by soft folds of pink flesh.
“It’s like a mammoth jellyfish,” Harry said, and he was right. That was exactly what this thing was. A huge, ancient, intelligent jellyfish.
“It can do what it wants,” Charley said in a soft voice. “Until humans or another race settle this planet properly, it rules all.”
Harry and Vanessa nodded, clearly receiving the same vibe from the monster. Gronko spat into the water but otherwise held his tongue. Even he had been made to feel the majesty of the beast beneath them. With a thousand plumes of tiny bubbles the jellyfish began descending back into the depths of the lake. Vinnie had, for all intents and purposes, been consumed.
Unable to control her tears, Charley sagged over the edge of the boat, not caring if the monster came back to claim her too.
“Vinnie,” she breathed. “What have I done to you?”
18
Charley’s sense of guilt threatened to overcome her. Would Vinnie have survived if she hadn’t had her moment of weakness with Harry? He’d been acting strangely ever since he discovered them together. But then Charley had been the one to fall into the water first. The jellyfish had multiple chances to claim her but didn’t. Had Vinnie been identified as the one all along?
The thought gave Charley the creeps but it was entirely possible. The bottom line was she’d lost her second in command and a very, very good friend. She and Vinnie had their differences but she loved him in a number of ways. She couldn’t bear to think she could lose him so soon on their pirate adventure together. It was Vinnie who had given her the means of buying the Surprise. It was Vinnie who had made her pirating dream a reality.