Gary Little has been stringing letters into words and words into sentences for 50 years. First as a Baptist preacher, then as a programmer and now as a fiction author.
Content advisory: Please be advised that this story contains graphic violence and combat.
Alvin sat in Wally’s World, nursing a Scotch when he noticed them. He noticed them because they were trying not to notice him. Their eyes dodged a dozen different ways when his gaze passed their way. The only thing they didn’t do was whistle while looking at the ceiling.
Wally’s World is a spacer/belter bar on Helios Station in an orbit about one astronomical unit from a star named Ranger. It was privy to many prospectors, such as Alvin, and those who preyed on them.
“Damned amateurs,” Alvin said to himself. He was a prospector and spent weeks, even months, in his Mule, crawling from asteroid to asteroid, looking for something interesting with no one to talk to except himself or his AI. He and Buford, what he called his spaceship cum Mule, had found the richest strike of metallic hydrogen anyone had ever seen. And if he were not careful, he would never live to reap the benefits.
He threw back the last of his watered-down Scotch, nowhere near the Glenlivet he had ordered, and pushed off for the door. Twenty minutes later, he and his Mule were burning for a higher orbit and Dakota Station.
He cut his engines and drifted. When he saw the blip on the edge of his proximity display, he dismissed it until the transponder information every ship was mandated to have did not appear. They were out of Helios, like he, and Helios had a repair dock. By Patrol mandate, no ship left dock until all repairs had been made, and a ship was fully functional. Either the transponder was broken, or … they had disabled it. Hell, Alvin had done that a time or two.
I knew it. Banditos, Alvin thought.
“Buford, fly casual.”
“Casual, sir?”
“You know. Pretend you don’t know they’re there.”
“They, sir?”
“The banditos.”
“Banditos, sir?”
“Look at your proximity read-out, you brainless battery! Do you see that blip? Does that blip have any info?”
“Ah, yes … I was about to query the Patrol about them.”
“Well, don’t. I don’t want them to know I know they know about us.”
“Sir?”
“Oh, shaddup. Pretend they ain’t there.” He was not about to do an Abbott and Costello routine with a brainless battery.
“Yes, sir.”
Buford flew “casual.” The bandits kept creeping closer, gaining a few meters a second. Alvin did a slingshot around a small moonlet called Dodge to get a bit more delta-v, but met that same bogey on the other side.
“That tears it. They got all the delta-v they need in their tanks, and here I am, stuck in a Mule. No offense, Buford.”
“None taken, sir.”
A Mule was a prospector’s vehicle, big and bulky, but equipped with enough life support to make it liveable. Livable is not comfortable. Spending days, even months alone, Mules tended to be named, and entire soliloquies have been addressed to them.
One story told of a prospector on his deathbed, not dying till he could say goodbye to Murgatroid, his Mule of fifty years. Murgatroid had a leaky fuel line and blew up. All that could be found was the steering column. They presented that column to the man on his deathbed. He took it, and everyone expected words of kindness and affection. Instead, the old salt cussed it up one side and down the other, and nearly threw it through a portal. Some prospector/Mule relationships were contentious.
Alvin would be a rich prospector if he could get to Dakota Station and register his claim or get within communications range. Right now, he had the entire bulk of Tonto between him and Dakota, and with days to go, he would be clear of the planet’s shadow.
Alvin mumbled, “Tonto. A planet named Tonto, circling a star named Ranger. Who in the hell came up with that one?”
He had a simple plan. Head for a moonlet named Earp, in high orbit on the far side of Tonto, fake an engine explosion, and use Buford’s escape pod to pull a getaway. Buford would look demolished, which is what Buford looked like anyway, and settle into an orbit around Earp. Alvin could come back and get Buford later.
It worked, just not as well as he planned. He forgot escape pods were screamers. Forgot, no, not forgot, he didn’t think about it. He had never used one, had forgotten all he knew of them, and was unaware that the pod would start broadcasting his location. Not only that, but the damn thing had lights flashing everywhere. That would never do. Yeah, the Patrol would send out a ship and scare the bandits off, but the banditos would have him before the Patrol could get here.
That left him one option.
“Seal,” he said to his AI, and the nanoites of his Godwin & Sayer Mark VII personal pressure suit executed the command. The helmet formed around his head, and gloves formed on his hands. The suit’s chin display indicated full power and volatiles.
He breathed deeply a couple of times, got himself ready, did an emergency blow of the escape pod hatch, and let the air pressure eject him.
He was in Tonto’s shadow, facing the dark side of the gas giant. He could see nothing—nada. It was black—blacker than black, if that were even possible. That black could best be described as Stygian. It could also be called Vanta.
Those descriptions drifted through Alvin’s mind as he put his hand on his faceplate. He knew it was there but could not see it. His elbow said it was bent, his palm said it was touching something, and everything said it was in front of his face, but he could not see his hand.
“Time,” he said to nothing.
To the left of his nose, a dim display lit up. 02:13 STD. That provided enough light for Alvin to see the palm of his glove pressed against his helmet.
“Ok. That’s good. I’m not blind,” he said. He was probably facing Tonto’s dark side and had more yaw than pitch or roll. He could see no stars, just a big black nothing that was the dark side of Tonto.
The display winked out, and that Stygian Vanta-black returned.
Time passed. How much he did not know. He was tempted to check the time again, but decided not to.
More time passed.
“Time.”
02:13 STD.
“Ugh. Not possible. Damn.” Alvin thought a bit and said, “Time with seconds.”
02:14:09 STD.
It had been six minutes since he had ejected from his Mule. He did not know where the banditos were; with any luck, they did not know his location. He had chosen his hiding place well. A little place called the Briar Patch, or the L2 Lagrange point of Tonto. L2 was always in shadow. For a few million miles in any direction, Alvin knew he could hide here for a while.
Time passed.
From his lower right came a flash of light. That was why he did not want to be seen or heard. The bad guys had just blown up his escape pod, and that light had reflected off something not very far away. At least he hoped it was not far away. It could be either very close and small, or very large and very far.
“But what was it?” He was whispering. More habit than anything. What was that old cinema saying? In space, no one can hear you scream. But he had seen something.
Something, he did not know what, had been revealed by the explosion of his escape pod. He had maneuvering capability in his P-Suit, but he had no idea where to maneuver, and any change in velocity would reveal his position to the bad guys. He turned to face the reflection.
There … and there … again. Something eclipsed stars across the lower right of his view.
He waited again. When he saw more stars eclipse, he queried his suit’s AI. Across the chin display of his helmet scrolled, “Asteroid, approximately 14 kilometers in diameter. Distance: 11 kilometers. Named Kemosabe by the John Reid Expedition.”
As he read the data, the distance dropped to 10. His AI did a quick calculation, and he knew he would land on that asteroid in just over an hour. The closing speed was about 2.5 meters per second. “I can handle that,” he said to himself.
Alvin drifted and waited for his destination to draw closer.
At 3 km, Alvin pulled a line off his tool belt and checked the grapple. According to the brochure, it was designed after the ancient Earth gecko’s foot and would stick to anything. He was about to find out.
1.5 Km.
He chanced a quick flash of light and found a rock wall rushing past. He threw the grapple, felt slack in the rope, thought he had missed, but wrapped a coil of line around his left arm. That arm was jerked almost out of the socket as the slack was taken up, and Alvin found himself with a 14 Km fish on the end of his line.
With care, he worked his way to the grapple. Per the instructions on that brochure, he peeled it off Kemosabe and let the reel take up the slack. Chalk one up to the Gecko Grappler Company.
“OK, where’s the banditos?” he said as he faced outward from the little worldlet. Alvin had a great view of the stars, but there was no ship with lights flashing. Of course … they were sneaking around like he was.
“If I am lucky, they’re on the other side, and I can keep them there.”
But how could he find them? This blackness worked for both. He could not see them, and they could not see him. Alvin decided the best thing to do was to wait.
A star winked out. There, another star winked out. He waited and watched. When he saw the first star wink back into being, he whistled.
“Holy crap.” Alvin let out a prolonged whistle. He estimated the size of the vessel eclipsing the stars, and he guessed he did not have to fear a sloop. He had to fear a stinking frigate, a vessel twice the size of a sloop. A 2000-ton frigate. A crew of 20 or 30. Two torpedo launchers fore and aft, and 30mm rapid fire cannons down each lateral side. Armed? Considering the large vessels they went after, to think they weren’t would get himself very dead. These guys wouldn’t rescue anything unless he had something they wanted, and Alvin had the location of his as-yet-unfiled claim.
For the moment, he lay doggo and watched that shadow eclipse more stars. Had they dropped anyone on the far side? Did he have a marauding, bloodthirsty hoard screaming over the horizon at any moment?
“Get real. They don’t even know I’m down here. Yet.”
Stars winked out and back as he followed the bandito’s ship. He saw something that made him ask what that damn fool of a captain was doing. The ship suddenly sprouted brilliant jets from bow and stern. A very brief pause, and then more jets from points opposite to the first.
“Bloody hell! He has to fly that ship around this rock pile. He can’t just orbit. He has to expend fuel to stay here and search!’
That would limit their search time. But Alvin might not like the end game. A small nuke could ruin his day, if they had a nuke, and he saw no reason to think they didn’t.
Alvin turned in the opposite direction of the bandits and scrambled towards the near horizon. His first scramble put him about a meter off the surface of Kemosabe with an agonizingly slow drift back down. He tried again, with more caution, and managed to keep the horizon between himself and the banditos.
It took a few missed scrabbles to get the hang of things, and one or two heart-sinking high bounces. He was in zero-G almost all the time as a prospector, but creeping along like Spider-Man was not something he did a lot.
“Oh crap, not that stupid song … Here comes the Spiderman … oh shaddup Alvin.”
Radar, he did not worry about. He had nothing that would reflect radar. Infrared might be a problem, but an S&G P-Suit was known not to display a huge heat signature. If he did not silhouette himself, he might be able to evade the black hearted rustlers looking to jump his claim.
“Kemosabe, you may indeed be a very good friend,” Alvin said to no one but himself.
Alvin continued his creep, checking star occultations to maintain his position relative to the bandits. He tried infrared, but could see nothing. If it was ex-military, they could dump excess heat without becoming visible. Well, that’s just fine and dandy!
After two dozen round trips of Kemosabe, he was creeping over a slight rise, scanning for the frigate, not looking ahead, when something happened that scared the crap out of him. He was on the face of Kemosabe, facing Tonto. The gas giant was so huge that it filled his view from horizon to horizon, and it was pitch-black. No starlight, planet glow, or light of any kind, except the green and red LEDs in the helmet of the spacesuited figure he almost crawled over.
Alvin froze, wondering about this new twist to a very old game. How many other “guests” were on this rock pile he had decided to hide on? He cautiously crept back a meter or two from the space-suited figure and observed. The figure was looking away, but as Alvin watched, the figure turned, and he could see the man’s face within his helmet.
“You’re kidding. You have your internal helmet lights up!?”
Old and grizzled, burr type hair cut, with a scar down the right side of his face. The man could have been a Marine DI fresh off a recruiting poster. No. Too stupid. A Marine DI would never have his helmet lights up that bright.
Alvin backed off another meter or so and slid into a slight depression. He observed the stranger from the defilade. The heavens opened and poured forth a brilliance, bathing this face of Kemosabe in white actinic light. His helmet snapped to dark, but not fast enough to keep some of the glare from dazzling him. He waited. The light swiveled in a search pattern and moved away.
Once his eyes had adapted, he observed his newfound friend again.
“Now that ain’t friendly, Herbert.”
Not that the guy’s name was Herbert. Names didn’t matter, except for the name of the object Herbert held in his right hand. A Mark VI 8mm LAZE pistol. A weapon of deadly intent. Alvin knew they had no intention of taking him alive. There would be no quarter in this game.
When the searchlight moved away from Herbert, Alvin grabbed the rockhound pick he carried on his belt and made his move.
On the common frequency, Alvin said, “Hello there”. The figure jumped and looked up at Alvin, looming over him. Herbert’s weapon came up as Alvin drove the needle-sharp pointy end of his pick through both sides of Herbert’s helmet. It took years of practice to make that swing in the puny gravity of Kemosabe, but Alvin had lived in space all his life. He had learned combat in space. Unfortunate for Herbert, his head was in the way. Alvin removed his pick from the helmet, and there was a brief puff of air with bloody bits of brain and bone.
One down. 29 to go. With the stupidity he had just seen, Alvin had no doubt he had a fair to middling chance of surviving.
He drifted there, one hand holding to a rock outcrop, longer than he should, but he pondered that LAZE pistol. Should he take it? He remembered an escape and evade class given by a Gunnery Sergeant, and he could again hear that gruff voice saying, “A pistol, or rifle, can get you killed. Why? Because you start to think stupid. You depend on the pistol or the rifle and think it can get you out of trouble. Chances are, the weapon got you in that trouble. The best weapon you got is the one between your ears. Think! Use your brain, and the guy with a gun doesn’t stand a chance.” Gunny had then taken all 32 members of Alvin’s training platoon apart with nothing but hands and feet. He grimaced, remembering one well-placed kick.
Alvin bent and took a Bowie knife from Herbert’s belt. He unsheathed the blade. Not as fine as his own, but it would make a good backup. He left the LAZE pistol gripped in a dead hand and crept back into the dark.
That pistol didn’t do Herbert one bit of good. Guess Gunny was right, he thought as he moved on.
“That’s one,” he said on the common frequency.
Tactical, Alvin thought-clicked to the government issued AI he had been issued by the Stellar Marine Corps decades ago. That AI would be needed.
“Good morning, Elvina. Is this a wabbit hunt?” said the GI/AI.
Alvin grimaced and slowly submerged as Elvina came to the front of a highly complex mind. She had adapted to Alvin, suppressing all thoughts of Elvina Ramirez when she had left the Corps. Now she needed the skills Gunny Johnson had taught Elvina so long ago.
Wabbit hunt. The platoon of Amazon’s she had led used that phrase, just as other units used “bug hunt.” A hunt with no quarter given. Either she would die, or every other ten-toed biped she was about to encounter would die. Elvina had no intention of it being her.
Now … Elvina hunted.
It took her over ninety minutes to circumnavigate Kemosabe. The body count increased by another five.
“Six,” she said on the common frequency as she slithered back into the shadows after the latest kill.
Seven and eight were almost simultaneous. Her prey had gotten wise and had now buddied up. Alvin was a prospector and had the skills of a prospector. Elvina had a particular set of skills that she had honed and refined over two decades, on more missions than she wanted to count. Skills she had hoped never to use again. She would have been happy to remain Alvin.
Next, she queried the GI/AI.
“It would appear they have withdrawn,” the AI replied. “Two minutes ago, twelve Mark IV Excursion suits left the surface.”
Elvina grimaced and said, “So they don’t want to play.” She settled to the surface and into a small opening on Kemosabe’s surface. She found the frigate and watched as the reaction control system flared and the main engines lit up. Slowly, but faster and faster, the frigate moved away.
“Cost’m a good portion of their crew,” she mumbled to herself, and thought clicked the deactivation code for the GI/AI.
“Food,” Alvin ordered the normal AI and grimaced. She had never been able to completely get over the thought of how an S&G P-Suit synthesized food. Or water.
Still tastes like crap, she thought.
The AI remained silent on that one. She had lost that argument with Elvina/Alvin too many times.
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