Table of Contents
Chapter 6
Calin Homeship, Planet Castin
Velorum System, Cygni Branch
“I say we wait at the vein,” Val said as he held his hand flat, facing upward above the metal table in the kitchen. “There’s still scraps left there. Not much, but enough to not want to leave it behind. I say we sit up on the hillside opposite of it, across the road, and ambush them the next time they come. They probably mined it under the cover of darkness. Too much risk otherwise. I’m willing to bet that they do it again.”
It wasn’t a half-bad idea. He was right; there wasn’t much left. But there was probably enough there to feed the family for a few years without worry. It made sense that someone would come back for it.
“They are never coming back,” Jar replied. “Who knows how much they got? What’s left probably isn’t much more than a tenth of a percent of what they took.”
“If they took enough, a tenth of a percent goes pretty far,” Jack said.
“Nah,” Jar said. “Too much risk for them to come back. Not for that much. They are sitting pretty. Instead of waiting out there and freezing our asses off for a bunch of mining drones that will never come, I say we go over there and confront them.”
“Who?”
Jar laughed. “Who? You really are dense, aren’t you, Jack? Vilge and his messed-up kids.”
“We don’t—”
“We do know that they did it. There isn’t anyone else. And if it is someone else, we’re never going to be able to catch them anyway. I say we go over there and shove a barrel of a rifle down their mouths and see what they have to say about it.”
“That’s too far,” the old man chimed in from the back of the room, his voice shaky. “You do that and our families are at war whether we are right or wrong.”
“So?”
“So? War means dead kids of mine. One of you. Or all of you. If there ever is something worth going to war over…lerasum might just be it. But we have to be right.”
“Exactly,” Jack piped in. “We need to do some more research. Ask around and see what we can learn. I agree with you that it is more than likely the Vilges. They’d be the most likely to do it.”
“Anyone would be likely to do it,” the old man said. “It’s lerasum.”
“True,” Jack said. “Still, we should find out what we can.”
“Find out what?” Jar said, exasperated. “You think Old Man Vilge went into town and told everyone that he found a vein of lerasum on our property?”
“No…probably not,” Jack said.
“Then we will go to their place tonight. Wait until they are all asleep and then storm the place. Their compound is a run-down old shack. It won’t take us long…”
“Enough,” Grandpa said. “We won’t do that. Not yet, anyway. For tonight, we wait. Tomorrow, first thing in the morning, Jack, you go talk to Lavernus. If anyone would have heard anything or noticed anything different, it would be him. Tonight, stake out the vein and see if anyone comes. Until we have some kind of evidence, we aren’t doing anything to anybody. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Jar responded before briskly marching out of the room.
Chapter 7
Borne, Planet Castin
Velorum System, Cygni Branch
That next morning, Jack woke up, got dressed, and immediately hopped on the solar buggy to make his way to Borne, the nearest town. It was about ten kilometers away down a dirt road. He could have taken the sand speeder, which was much faster, but had opted to give himself some time to think about things.
The morning on Tevsu I was Jack’s favorite. They were always crystal clear. It wasn’t yet hot enough to be uncomfortable, and often the dew gave the limited plant life a unique shine that lent the otherwise boring landscape a magical glow.
Jack had made the drive hundreds, maybe thousands of times. Borne was a small mining community that had sprouted up during the earliest homesteads. Since this region never really materialized into what they were hoping for, only a few small towns, each one similar to the others, were within five hundred miles of Borne.
Borne had its own rustic charm, with about five thousand people living within the limits of the city, which stretched for miles into the homesteads. There was a grocery, a mining supply store, a two-street residential area, and two bars in town. They had only bothered to pave Main Street.
He pulled up to the mining supply store. The old metal structure was immaculately cared for compared to the other handful of sand-swept buildings in Borne. Aside from a few early morning drunks loitering outside of the bar, there was no one in sight. He walked in and behind the counter was Lavernus Apoce, an early-50s man with a white beard who had come to Castin nearly thirty years before to take care of his ailing uncle, who had run the store before him and was much less pleasant to be around.
“Ahoy, Jack,” he said with a smile and a pile of metal parts on the counter in front of him. “What do you need this early in the morning? Mining drone break down again?”
“No, not exactly,” Jack replied, and Lavernus perked up a bit in his seat.
Jack took a quick look around the store to make sure no one was within earshot, going as far as to take a few steps to peer down the middle aisle, which led out into the shop where all of the heavy machinery was stored.
“Has anyone come in here spending a lot of money lately? Like…a surprising amount of money?”
Lavernus squinted. “Why? You know I can’t—”
“—we found a Lerasum vein—”
“WHAT?” Lavernus shouted, jumping up from his seat.
“But it’s mined out. At the edges of our property. Judging by the charring, it looks like it was freshly mined.”
“Get out of town,” Lavernus said, his eyes wide. “You’re saying that you guys didn’t mine it? Someone else did?”
“Yes.”
“WHO?”
“That’s why I’m asking. We just found it. I’m trying to get a beat on who it might have been.”
Lavernus dropped his head and fiddled with the metal pieces in front of him. He made quick eye contact with Jack but couldn’t hold it.
“Lavernus, what is it?”
“I can’t, Jack. They’re customers.”
“It’s Lerasum, Lavernus. And not a little bit of it, either. A lot of it.”
“Hmmph,” the old man said, squeezing the metal gears. “If you could guess it…”
“Vilge?”
Lavernus looked surprised. “Oh. Umm…perhaps I shouldn’t have made that offer…but…yeah. His eldest grandson might have been in here the other day. Not buying stuff, exactly. But the opposite.”
“He was selling stuff?”
“Well, sold. I bought quite a bit from him. And at too low of a price. I knew that it was too good to be true,” Lavernus said, wringing his hands nervously.
“So what are you saying?”
He chuckled lightly under his breath. “Ah, fine. They sold all of their mining equipment and told me that they were going to sell the homestead and move away. Now why would they want to do that? I thought the whole thing was off. Don’t you see, boy?” Lavernus pleaded.
“Oh…shit.” Jack replied, the reality of the situation washing over him like a sandstorm.
“Yes. Shit. And here I am profiting off of them stealing your shit,” Lavernus said with intentional alliteration.
“Well…we don’t know for sure that it was them,” Jack said.
“Oh, please. Yes we do. What else would make the Bilge’s up and sell all of their equipment and move away on a whim? That family is as Castin as could be. They are lifers, Jack! I would have thought you would have had to drag them out of here at gunpoint, that nasty old man. Unless…”
“Unless they just fell into a bunch of money and are now off to live the good life,” Jack said solemnly. He knew what that meant.
Chapter 8
Calin Homeship, Planet Castin
Velorum System, Cygni Branch
Jack wasn’t going to be happy to admit that Jar had likely been right all along, that it was the Bilge’s. He had hoped, somewhere deep down inside, that it wouldn’t be them, even though they were the obvious choice. But their nasty disposition held true. Based on what Lavernus had said, Jack was reasonably sure that It was them. Lavernus was right. They wouldn’t sell everything and leave town unless something big had happened.
He returned home to find everyone sitting in the kitchen in silence. The idea of doing any sort of mining while the stolen lerasum was hanging over their heads was a non-starter.
Jack cleared his throat, but no one looked in his direction.
“I spoke with Lavernus. He said the Bilge’s recently came in and sold off all of their equipment for dirt cheap.” They sat in stunned silence for a moment, taking in what exactly that meant.
“I FUCKING TOLD YOU!” Jar yelled as he brought his fist down onto their dining room table. “They should FUCKING DIE for this!”
“Yeah…” Jack could hardly deny his point. It was them and they had taken too much to forgive. They had taken Anna’s chance at a new life. They had taken his family’s right to shape their future and live any life that they wanted. And wasn’t that everything, really?
“I’ll get the weapons,” Val said and begin walking out of the kitchen.
“Wait,” the old man said weakly from his seat, stopping Val in his tracks. “Not yet.”
“But we know it’s them!” Jar retorted.
“No, you don’t. You suspect. And you have good reason to. But we don’t know.” The old man said.
“I mean…I guess,” Val said, shrugging. “But who else would it be Grandpa?”
“No one. It’s them and we all know it. But we can’t just go over there and demand they give it to us. They aren’t going to do that.”
“Besides, how do we even know that it is still on the planet? Maybe they have already sold it?” Jack asked.
“You said that they were just in the shop the other day selling everything?” Grandpa asked.
“Yes.”
“Then it’s still here. They would need some startup capital to transport the lerasum before they can get it off-world and sell it. They don’t have a ship. I know that. They are going to have to pay for transport with someone. And they will have to tell them what they have. Can’t hide a ton of glowing green rocks. Which means that they are probably going to have to offer them a cut to do that. Knowing Bilge, he’s not going to like that. He also won’t like having to let someone know that they have it,” the old man said.
“So…” Jar said. “Knowing all of that…how do we use that to our advantage?”
“We watch them,” Anna said from the kitchen doorway, surprising Jack. He hated that she was so aware of what was going on and the opportunity that she had lost.. She had enough on her plate already. “They are probably hiding the lerasum right? They wouldn’t keep it somewhere where someone could just stumble across it. And their property isn’t very big. There’s not a lot of places to keep it hidden.”
“And worst case scenario, we find out where it is right as they go to move it and then we can make our move. I could go into town tomorrow and use some of the savings to buy a few surveillance drones. Between us and some drones we could watch every move that they make and put a plan together,” Jack said.
Val and Jar made eye contact. Jar nodded. “I like it. Be smart about it. Don’t go in guns blazing, I get it. Grandpa?”
The old man nodded. “Find the lerasum first. Then we take it back.”
Chapter 9
Lavernus’ Shop, Planet Castin
Velorum System, Cygni Branch
The next morning, just before the sun rose, Jack departed on the buggy with a trailer hitched to the back. It bounced and banged as he made his way down the potholed diirt road to town.
He was betting that Lavernus would be there. Technically his store didn’t open for another couple of hours but had never shown up and found the store empty. In fact, now that he thought about it, he wondered if Lavernus actually lived there on a cot or something. Maybe the sofa had a fold-out bed. He had never seen his home or bothered to ask him where it was.
On the fifteen-minute ride, it was hard to think about anything else other than the Bilge’s and the lerasum. Had they found it themselves it would be have been a life-changing event. He was sure that it was for the Bilge’s too. Bastards.
He considered how he would have reacted if he were in their position. If he had stumbled across a lerasum vein over their own property line, what would he have done? Would he have told the owner that he had found it? He liked to think so. That was what good person would do. If the Bilge’s had shown up at their door and let them know about the vein, they would have given them a finders fee that would have made them beyond rich.
But on the other hand, would he be doing a disservice to his family? He would on some level. Denying them a payday that would change their lives and maybe tens of generations to follow.
By the time he was pulling into the shop parking lot he still hadn’t made up his mind. He stepped out of the buggy, checked on the small metal trailer that wasn’t much more than a welded box with wheels, and walked through the front door. The virtual bell dinged as he did and Lavernus popped his head around the corner.
“You again!” he said. “Early again too,” Lavernus said with his patented smile.
“Yeah…I’m sorry I know you’re not open this early. But I figured…”
“Nonsense, boy!. How can I help?”
“I need some drones. Surveillance drones.” Jack said with conviction.
Lavernus raised an eyebrow. “Surveillance drones? And what do you plan on surveilling?”
“Uh…our property. Maybe the surrounding area,” Jack said with a sly smile.
“So you are looking for something that flies very high? And has a solid camera with a deep zoom?”
“Yeah…I don’t know exactly. That sounds good though. What other kind of features are there?”
“Well, anything really. I can flash update the software. Might take a couple of hours as I have to do it via lightbeam as obviously, the Captera Drone Corporation doesn’t have servers on Castin. But just about every drone is capable of that.”
“I see. Well, I don’t think we need anything special. We just need to scout a few things and make sure people don’t leave the area in the middle of the night. What is the flight time on these things?”
“Well…they fly until you tell them to come down. Just send them up in the morning and give them time to bake in the sun. We have more than enough solar power for these things to stay in the air.”
“And I can tell it to follow or person or patrol a certain area?” Jack asked.
“Yes. I can show you how if you’d like.”
“That’s okay. I think I can figure it out.” Jack said. This was good news. It meant that they could handle business without being glued to the drone’s controls.
“Alright, let me go in the back and pull them out. They are pretty big, so I will pull them out on the wagon.” Lavernus said as he waddled his way through the aisle back to the storage room.
“Great, thank you Lavernus. And oh yea, how much?” Jack said, pulling out his device and getting ready to transfer them over.
“It’s on the house, boy!”
“Lavernus, no. That’s way too much.”
“Nonsense. Your family just had your birthright stolen. I’d love to help you all get even a piece of it back.”
“Thank you,” Jack said, and gave Lavernus an appreciative head nod and eye contact. Lavernus returned the nod.
A few minutes later, the three drones had been loaded into and on top of the trailer behind the buggy. They were much bigger than Jack had anticipated. But he figured that made sense. They needed to soar, they were going to fold out to be more than five feet wide.
“All set,” Lavernus said as he latched the last trailer cover cord on the bottomside of the trailer.
“Thank you,” Jack replied, nodded, and turned to leave.
“And Jack. One more thing. It’s…it’s not really my place to say this. But I feel like I must. The Bilge’s – they are not a clan to be trifled with. If they did what you think, and stole from you, they are going to die protecting it. If you’re going to go after it you risk doing the same. Your whole family does.”
Jack squinted as the rising son hit his face for the first time. “I know,” he said before patting Lavernus on the back and taking off down the dirt path toward their old, rusted homeship.
Chapter 10
Calin Homeship, Planet Castin
Velorum System, Cygni Branch
They had the drones in the air within an hour of Jack returning home. Three of them. They were no more than a foot wide when they weren’t in glide mode and flew at 10,000 meters, making them undetectable to anyone on the ground that wasn’t looking for them through a scope. Still, the zoom lens on the drone was good enough that you could zoom in on someone on the ground and see whether a person bit their nails or not.
He, Val, and Jar sat around the kitchen table, watching the views from the drones on the tabletop screen as they got a lay of the land.
The first person they spotted was Gar, the youngest son in the Bilge clan. There were three boys ranging in age from 16 to 34 – Gar, Carun, and Gentry. There was a sister, Eln, who was the second oldest. Then there was the old man, Carro. He was a mean old bastard. His skin was browned leather, hanging from his bones from years of working out in the hot Castin sun.
Gar was putting around the house when they saw him. Messing with what looked like a motorcycle engine. Occasionally someone else from the home would step outside to smoke a cigarette. But that was it. No one out on the property. No mining drones running back and forth. No buggies puttering around. Carro Bilge had never been the type of man to take a day off, either.
They watched them for a few hours. Intently at first. About an hour into surveillance, Gentry made his way into town on the buggie and stopped at the bar for about an hour. Then he drove directly back home. It was quiet.
Occasionally, Jack would pull a drone from their post and take a quick peek around the bilge property. He looked for anything that might indicate anything. He checked for minging drone trails that might have shown where the lerasum had been deposited but didn’t have any luck. If they had moved it recently they had done a good job of covering their tracks. More likely was that they had moved it some time ago.
There weren’t a lot of places on the property where they could keep the lerasum, either. There was their residence, a loosely connected system of trailers that had metal welded onto the whole of the outside of the house to help it weather the occasional sandstorm. But the home was tight for the number of people that lived there, let alone potentially several tons of lerasum.
There was a shed about thirty meters behind the house. It was too small. There was a covered equipment area that was quite large, but didn’t have walls. Just a metal roof covering. Not really the kind of place theta you would store stolen lerasum.
There was also a barn. If they were keeping it on the property, it was probably there. But that would be kind of obvious, they thought. But it really seemed like the only good option. Of course, the barn wasn’t well constructed. You’d expect to see the green glow at the entrance of the metallic barn.
So there was no telling where they were keeping it. It could be on their property. It could be elsewhere. They were just going to have to wait to see where they moved to get an idea of where it might be.
But then there was the prospect that they may suspect that they were being watched. They may have had their own surveillance drones who had watched Jack discover the vein. There was no telling how much they knew. If it had been him, Jack would have been as safe as possible. He would have been watching. But whether the Bilge’s would be that thorough he wasn’t sure.
ght ticked on. Occasionally Grandpa would wander into the kitchen and stare silently at the drone feeds, before walking back out to the living room and watching his shows. He didn’t seem bothered by it, but hadn’t shown much emotion at all since they had discovered what had happened.
They all took up their own activities and watched the feed more passively as the night went on. Eventually, Jar announced that he was going to bed. “If anything happens we can run the feeds back in the morning.”
He was right. They hadn’t left the home all day. They weren’t even sure if they were all in the home because one of the sons had never appeared. They were absolutely laying low. He figured it was safe to sleep, but a feeling in the pit of his stomach told him to wait.
Before long, he got his answer. Jack noticed a pair of headlights come on outside the home, deep into the night. The drone noted the movement, switched to night vision mode and followed a buggy as the youngest son, Gar, took off westward. He watched for a moment as he weaved his way through the trails.
“Hey!” Jack said, motioning for Jar to come look at the screen. They watched in silence as he winded his way away from the Bilge property up into the Northwest Mountains. He continued on that path for a few minutes and soon there was no denying it.
“He’s going to the vein!” Jack said excitedly.
Grandpa appeared behind them almost instantly. “Go grab him.”
