Mission to Sector ZZ1219 Page 14

  “You,” Janet said to Bill, “Up front, eyes front.”

  Bill smirked slightly, but took the front bench seat, pulled out the ‘hiding’ set of clothing and stripped out of the flight suit and put the clothing on.

  “Wondering what I suggest the hiding set meant was driving me nuts,” Janet said, in the seat second behind Bill’s, with Willi in the third, both of them dressing in that set of clothes for each of them, just as Bill was, their backs to him.

  Included in the packs were cache bags, obviously for their flight suits. A few minutes after they were changed, and the flight suits cached, and the three seated on the six-year-old sized bench seats, that were more than a bit uncomfortable for adult size people, Willi fed the coordinates into the transporter using the simple touch screen.

  Apparently, all three decided at once, the school field trip transporter was not the standard version it appeared. What should have been a dumb as rocks AI GPS guidance system was obviously something much more sophisticated.

  And so was the power drive. All three had to hold on tightly as the transporter lifted slightly, spun around, and took off at high speed.

  A much higher speed than what an Old Earth cotton tail bunny rabbit could reach, even with a hungry coyote after it. And every bit as agile as said rabbit when it came to changing course abruptly to avoid obstacles in its path, while maintaining the lowest profile possible.

  It was not all that long before the transporter grounded, out of sight, but well within walking distance of a city transporter stop. More than glad to get off, and away from, the crazy rabbit contraption, the three casually appeared at the transit stop, separately.

  Without acknowledging one another, other than the normal that would be expected by three fellow transit passengers, they boarded the transit car when it popped up out of the access portal.

  The car dropped down and headed into the heart of the city. There were several people aboard, so it was no problem for the three of them to take separate seats, well away from one another.

  Johnny had included materials in the packs for each of the clothing selections, that would help them maintain the particular look they were using.

  Willi was watching a vid on her wrist communicator, Bill was perusing a throwaway business ‘paper’, and Janet was trying to not look too inept at knitting whatever it was supposed to be that had been in the pack.

  “Such an old skill!” exclaimed a woman that suddenly sat down beside Janet. “My great… I think it was great, great, great grandmother used to knit.” She looked up from the creation to Janet’s face. “What’s it to be? A baby blanket, perhaps?”

  Janet turned deep red, kept her head down, and just nodded slightly.

  “Well, sweetie, you just keep it up. I am sure it will be fine by the time the baby arrives.”

  Fortunately, the woman got off at the next stop. Janet cut her eyes to Bill, just within the edge of her vision. She would bean him for the amused expression on his face, but later.

  Janet actually did not realize it was their stop, so wrapped up in trying to master at least one row of stitches, when Bill nudged her with his hip as he passed her for the exit of the transit car.

  Hurriedly she jumped up and followed the rest of those getting off at the stop. Still separated by half a dozen people, it was only when Willi’s voice in their tiny communicator earpieces said, “We have inquiring eyes.”

  Bill and Janet each saw the officers in the Governor’s personal guard uniforms at the same time. But they were close enough to Smokey’s to enter quickly, before the officers had time to react. Even if they did see the three and recognize them.

  The officers did not recognize them, but they had orders to investigate anyone and everyone going into Smokey’s, singly or in groups, that did not automatically come up as a known, positive ID on their scanners. So, they headed for the door from their watch points.

  Cherokee saw Willi, Janet, and Bill as soon as they came through the door. And though he did not recognize them as the individuals they were, he knew instinctively that they were the people that Johnny Oneshot had told him might show up in a hurry and asked him to help.

  Smokey saw them, too, but did not recognize them either. But he did see Cherokee lift the bar counter at the opening, and let the three through, where they then disappeared into the back of the building.

  “What…” Smokey asked out loud, heading that way, just as the Governor’s goons came rushing into the place.

  “Where’d those three that just come in go?” asked the one with chevrons on his uniform sleeve, after all four of them scanned the room.

  Smokey said not a word. He just pointed and backed away. There was no way he was getting himself killed by the Governor. Or her goons. But, if he ever saw Cherokee again, alive, he had a few questions for him.

  He was still backing away when an explosion, all-be-it a small one, sounded from the kitchen, and black smoke billowed into the barroom. The four goons came stumbling out, and as soon as one could clear his throat enough to speak, asked, “That entrance is blocked. Where is the next closest entrance to those tunnels?”

  “Tunnels? What tunnels?” Smokey asked, truly confused. He did not know about any tunnels underneath his place. The thought went through his mind, just before he died, that he should have at least faked an answer. Because the goon, two of them actually, did not believe his statement of his lack of knowledge. One zapped him with his stunner set on kill, and the other simply shot him in the head with a projectile weapon.

  Once inside the tunnel entrance, all four, Willi, Janet, Bill, and Cherokee, activated small green illuminators each was already carrying.

  In the eerie green glow, Cherokee found the lighting panel control and activated the illumination fixtures that were affixed to the roof of the tunnel every so often. Though the light was not that much more, it was a muted white light, rather than the night vision friendly green of the personal illuminators.

  “Over here,” Cherokee said immediately, before the others could ask him any questions. “Johnny Oneshot said there would be some… Holy Happy Hunting Grounds…” Cherokee muttered when he saw what was in the cubby Johnny had mentioned.

  Though all three looked at him curiously, due to his soft exclamation, all three quickly recognized, and took, the items that had them exclaiming similarly, in their own way.

  Willi grabbed the much larger version of the PDW device that Johnny had given her earlier, along with a belt pack of power ammunition.

  Janet, always something of a fan of an area weapon of some sort, took what was the very modern, very state of the art equivalent of an Old Earth double barrel ten-gauge cut down shotgun, except with a concentrated point effect option included, in addition to the wider area function.

  Bill was left with only three choices since Cherokee had already grabbed the heaviest weapon of the arsenal. A launcher similar to the one Willi had used on Warehouse Thirteen, except the next size up. And with it, the four large, heavy, ammunition bags that were with it.

  Deciding not to decide, Bill took all three of the other weapons, distributing them about his body. He simply shrugged when both Willi and Janet looked first at the weapons arrangement, and then his face.

  Willi heard an almost silent trill in her ear. She pulled out the comm device Johnny had given her, and when she saw the tiny projection lens light up, she turned it toward the wall so they could all see the output.

  Johnny was placing the items in the cubby, a recorder obviously attached to something near. He spoke as he arranged everything in what seemed to be a rather specific manner.

  “If you have need of these weapons, and therefore have disturbed them, triggering this display, here are my preferences as to what I would like you to do. Depending on who all is there besides Cherokee, whom you can trust absolutely, just as you would me, both personally, and in his weapons skills and tactical skills, I suggest first, just abandon the planet and system, using whatever you need to do so.

  �
��If not, then you might consider helping out a few people that are probably at risk at the moment. If what I planned has happened, and it probably has, since you are here, then the Governor is going to start tying up some loose ends. And many of those are innocent loose ends, that she simply wants eliminated, for one reason or another.

  “I would take it as a personal favor to me if you protected these people, and in a couple of cases, items. Though the items are not to be protected if there is any real danger for anyone.” A list of address appeared, with associated tunnel grid locations.

  Just before the projection died away, Johnny looked directly at the recorder lens. “Be careful everyone, please. Another personal request from me.” He reached forward, obviously to stop and retrieve the comm device that was recording him, and looked at the thing, his eyes only a very short distance away from it.

  “Almost forgot. That little… other thing… lying on that rock projection there in the cubby, will self-destruct in one minute. More or less. Probably do not want to be too close.”

  All eyes turned to the rock projection, now very obvious, once mentioned. None of the four saw Johnny’s sardonic grin in the projection, as he reached forward and turned off the comm device.

  And, since all four turned and began to run as fast as they could down the tunnel, not a one of them thought a single thing about missing it.

  Though the explosion did not seem all that massive, upon seeing the blockage in the tunnel at that point, Bill and Cherokee were convinced it was much more powerful than it sounded. They exchanged a look, and then turned to hurry after Willi and Janet, neither of whom had turned back to look.

  Looking back at it, in retrospection, and while giving their statements to the Confederation investigation team a bit over three weeks or so later, the four came to the conclusion that though at the time, doing what Johnny Oneshot had asked of them had seemed not only verging on being something to just keep them out of danger, danger being relative, as Willi’s mother was wont to say, but probably unnecessary anyway, as none of the places had come under any type of direct attack, the four decided that just perhaps Johnny had done the right thing in asking them.

  They did finally understand, that once the knowledge that Johnny Oneshot, and his ‘group of people’ were actively protecting the innocent from the Governor’s wrath, as well as preserving some documents and other artifacts of great sentimental value and historical worth from likewise being destroyed by her or her goons, said goons had decided that not doing the Governor’s bidding was probably safer than doing it, no matter how wild and deranged she had become.

  Had Willi, Janet, Bill, and Cherokee not done what they did, at Johnny’s request, one of the official investigators said, upwards of twenty-thousand people would have died, including hundreds of children, and not a few babies.

  Also, that preventing the destruction or damage of the original documents and flag of the first human settlement on the planet, the mechanical navigation tools that kept them on course after the colonization ship lost her navcoms near the end of the trip, and the pump that had sent the planet’s water through a survival purifier so it could be taken up to the ship to relieve the suffering caused by the partial failure of the ship’s water treatment plants, meant as much to the planet’s, and the system’s, inhabitants as anything except the actual lives saved.

  More than one of those whose life had been saved would have willingly given up their life to preserve the artifacts.

  Though the others were more than a bit concerned, Willi was in agony until she finally heard from Johnny, who had never returned or contacted them after he had personally cornered the Governor and the majority of her cohorts, including the leader of the Pirates, six Ecronian civilians, and two rather high ranking Ecronian government representatives, along with the locals that were part of the Governor’s plot, when he attended the ‘business meeting’ the day after he left Willi in the hide.

  One of the many questions that had come up, once those involved with him had time to think about some things and realized that they had absolutely no idea how he had managed many of the things he did, was answered.

  Although the hide that had been used by Johnny and Willi, and then Willi, Janet, and Bill, had been utterly destroyed, it was only one of several that Johnny had acquired, as he once mentioned to Willi.

  It was a set of them, somewhat larger, and drifting in amongst the asteroid swarm, in which Johnny stored many of the things he needed in his operations. That included a great deal of armament and fuel for the Dominators, neither of which ever seemed to run out, Willi had finally realized.

  Johnny eventually showed up again, two weeks after the Confederation Space Navy Fleet flagship began orbiting the planet, with other detachments of the fleet having taken up stations throughout the rest of the sector, especially closely spaced along the Ecronian border areas.

  As soon as Naval Command sent word that Johnny was aboard the Flagship, Willi relaxed. It was only when he dropped planetside after he had been debriefed by Naval Intelligence and Confederation Civil authorities; and walked into the jump arrival room in the civilian side of the planetary base, that Willi found out that Johnny’s left side, from hip to neck, was encased in a protective, enhanced healing cast.

  At Willi’s alarmed look as she hurried over to him, Johnny managed a one shoulder shrug, and the sardonic smile curled his lips. Rather sheepishly he explained, before Willi or the others could ask, “The Governor shot me again. With something a bit more powerful than her PDW.”

  “You let her shoot you again?” Willi asked incredulously.

  Bill, Janet, and Cherokee were rather glad she did, because all three were itching to ask the same thing.

  “Well, ‘let’ might not be the correct word, but I suppose it does fit. Better me than the Ecronian she was trying to kill after she found out what they had in store for her.”

  Four sets of eyebrows lifted in question. “Stewpot,” Johnny answered, softly.

  The others felt a bit sick. Coming from Johnny, they had no doubt that the rumors that had circulated for many years about the Ecronians’ primary use for humans was, after slave labor… food… were true.

  It took a while, and a great deal of prompting, some of it rather forceful from Willi, to get Johnny’s story from the time after he had left Willi in the hide, to the point he had just showed up, from him. They were eating in a private dining room on the base, but Willi noticed that Johnny had his comm device out and was monitoring it occasionally.

  After describing the meeting with the Governor and others, where Johnny sprang his trap, after having recorded the entire thing up to that point, by triggering the capture nets that he had rigged the room with, Johnny finally explained his injury.

  “The Governor was a bit more limber than I gave her credit for,” Johnny admitted, “and a bit quicker, too. She did manage to get her weapon pointed at the Ecronian, and was able to fire before her net constricted enough to prevent it. Luckily, I was able to step between them just before she fired.”

  “Luckily? Luckily! You call that lucky?” Willi exclaimed. Loudly. But then in much lower tones, after taking a look around the room, she added, “You need to look up the definition of lucky in a library somewhere.”

  Again that, already infuriating to Willi, one shoulder shrug by Johnny, that indicated that ‘no, he really did not,’ appeared momentarily, and Willi had to hold herself back from doing him bodily harm.

  Of course, there was not enough force in the universe to keep her from poking Johnny in the side when he kept avoiding and sidestepping and giving diverting answers to the question she kept asking, at different times all through the meal and conversation, “How did you stop the Ecronians from attacking before the Confederation fleet arrived?”

  Although she did grimace slightly in regret at having done so, seeing his wince, she did not regret having done it enough to not do it again, additional wince or no wince, when Johnny began his now expected reply of, “Little of
this, little of that,” which was in no way satisfactory for Willi.

  “Might as well tell her, Johnny,” Bill said with a chuckle. Which drew an aggravated look for him from Janet, which Bill could not understand at all what prompted it.

  His eyes on Willi’s for a short moment, Johnny Oneshot did, cementing his reputation even more, in the telling. With a sigh, and the prefacing words, “It really wasn’t a big deal,” Johnny told them what they all wanted to hear. At least at first. By the time Johnny finished, Willi kind of wished she had not asked, considering the actual real answer.

  “Since the Ecronian government had no way to know what had happened to their diplomats and business cohorts, as I was jamming their portable transmitter, their particular powers that be decided that the Confederation had discovered the plot, and taken their compatriots prisoner.

  “Since those diplomats and business… beings… could severely harm their plans if they disclosed the parts of the Ecronian Government plan that they knew, the Lead Commander of the flotilla was ordered to activate the safeguards that all Ecronians, except the highest members of government, and the ruling family, must wear.

  “The only one I had been able to deactivate was the lead ambassador. So, I was able to keep him… it… whatever… alive. And it has proved to be very valuable to Confederation authorities as a source of information about the Ecronian social structure, their government, their military strategies and tactics, capabilities, and weaknesses. Not to mention their eating habits.”

  The others all had the disgusted look on their faces again for a moment. Until Johnny kept talking.

  “Those safeguards can be monitored. As soon as they discovered that their lead diplomat was not, in fact, destroyed, they, as I was sure they would, headed this way as fast as their ships could travel, in order to lay waste to the planet and everything around it, that might leave any physical clue as to their previous plans.

  “So, I had to go head them off, directly. Leaving the netted-up conspirators in the hands of General Wainwright’s and Commander Vice-Admiral Calhoun’s people, with the documentation of what was going on, I jumped up to my Dominator, stopped at a couple of my re-supply hides just long enough to add a few munitions to the Dominator, and then went to meet the Ecronian fleet head on.”