Table of Contents
Chapter 11
Calin Homestead, Planet Castin
Velorum System, Cygni Branch
In less than two minutes they had woken Val up, loaded the buggie, and hit the trail as fast as it would take them. There weren’t a whole lot of reasons for him to be heading out there this late than to try to pull some more lerasum out of the hillside. If they could catch him in the act and take him, their chances of getting at least some of their lerasum back skyrocketed.
Luckily, they realized early on where he was heading and were going to be able to beat him there by just a few minutes. He had a longer drive coming over from the Bilge property.
They set up on the opposing hillside in a little nook, parking the buggie off of the path about a quarter mile away. It would take them less than a minute to close on Gar when he arrived.
They waited. The anticipation was killing him. A few minutes later, the headlights appeared far down the path, beyond the bridge in the distance. He slowly made his way closer and pulled up on the side of the road near the ditch where the vein had been carved out of the mountainside.
He exited the buggy and quickly descended the dip toward the vein. He was wearing a metallic backpack-like device that Jack immediately recognized as a mobile drill.
“The fucker is back for a final taste!” Jar said, his teeth clenched.
They waited until he was set up and drilling into the glowing material, hoping that the noise from the drill would mask their movement.
They crept slowly, making their way down the face of the hillside opposite from him. When they reached the path they ducked as he stopped drilling and wiped at the surface with his gloves. Jack didn’t dare move. Seconds later, he started drilling again.
They crossed the dirt path and closed the gap quickly. They stopped worrying about the noise that they made. As they approached, Gar began to hear the sound of rock shuffling behind him. He cut the power to his drill and turned around just in time to see a crowbar hit him in the goggles.
Chapter 12
Calin Homestead, Planet Castin
Velorum System, Cygni Branch
Jack sat in front of Gar watching over him with his pistol as the youngest Bilge son started to open his eyes. His forehead had been split open and they had used liquid bandage to close it up, which they kept in every vehicle on the property. Scrapes and cuts were common in a backwater mining operation that required a little elbow grease to get the drones working correctly most days.
They arrived back at the homeship and carried him in, tying him to a bed in the back room of the ship. He had been in and out of consciousness for hours. They had worried that Jar had killed him, which would have been a disaster and ensured that there would be all out war between the families. But with him alive, they had something worth bartering.
Gar survived. Barely. When he woke, it was clear from the look on his face that his head was pounding. He was still tied to the bed, each appendage tied to a different corner of the bed, with Gar unable to move much at all.
“Sorry he whacked you so hard,” Jack said.
Gar moaned. “Who……who hit me? Where am I?”
“You don’t recognize me?” Jack asked.
“No,” Gar responded through his delirium.
“Alright. We’ll get to that when my brothers get here.” Jack said.
“Brothers?”
“Yes, my brothers Jar and Val.”
“Oh…I know where I am now.” Gar responded.
“That’s good,” Jack said. He knew that he was supposed to be scaring him right now. But that wasn’t Jack’s way. Being intimidating was for his brothers. Jack just didn’t have it in him.
A second later, Val and Jar walked through the door. “He’s up,” Jar said in a cheery voice. “How are you feelin’ old boy?”
“I’ve been fucking better, Jar, you shiesty fuck,” Gar responded groggily.
“Oh…me? I’m the shiesty fuck? What were you mining out there on our property, exactly?” Jar responded. The youngest Bilge son didn’t say anything. “I Thought so.”
“So here’s the deal,” Val said. “We’re going to trade you for our lerasum back. The message is already sent to your old man that we caught you doing it and we have you. All cards on the table, as far as I’m concerned.”
Gar stared blankly for a second before breaking into a deep belly laugh. Val, Jar, and Jack made awkward eye contact.
“What’s so fuckin’ funny?” Jar said as he picked up the crowbar off of the bedside table and raised it.
“Ya’ll are so damn dumb, that’s all,” Gar said. “Do you think my old man is going to take kindly to this? You think we took your lerasum? OK, alright. I don’t know anything about that. But my old man is going to kill every last one of you for taking me.”
“We’ll see,” Jar said as he punched him in the face.
***
It was a few hours later when the buggy pulled up in front of their home. They hadn’t expected the old man to take his sweet time after receiving the message, but apparently, he was in no rush to get his son back.
He had come alone. He exited the vehicle slowly and stood beside it, waiting for them to come out and meet him there. They did.
“I got your message,” Old Man Bilge said, spitting black spit on the rock beside him. “At least I think it was yours. Did you send that Old man?”
“I did. I authorized it,” Grandpa responded with confidence.
“That’s a shame.”
“What do you mean by that?” Jar injected.
“It’s a shame that ya’ll would engage in conspiracies like that and go as far as to kidnap my son. Have you been hitting the bottle?” Old Man Bilge asked sarcastically.
“We caught him red-handed,” Grandpa said. “Mining the scraps of a lerasum vein on our property. He drove right to it and knew where it was. You can’t tell me it wasn’t you, Bilge.”
“I don’t know a good god damn about whatever you are talking about. Whatever you’re accusing me of, you can go fuck yourself. You have two days to release my son, and he better be in one piece. If he doesn’t come walking his ass back into our home by then, I’m coming back here to get him and I will kill every last one of ya’ll to do it.”
Then, just as quickly as he had arrived, he hopped back into the buggie, peeled around kicking up rocks and dirt, and shot off back into the night.”
“Fuck.” Val said.
Chapter 13
Calin Homestead, Planet Castin
Velorum System, Cygni Branch
“He’s going to know that we’re watching them now,” Val said, staring at his shoes on the kitchen floor. “He won’t move anywhere with us nearby.”
Jack nodded. “Well, at some point he will, right?”
“That’s the problem,” Grandpa said from his chair in the living room. “I don’t know if he wants Gar back. Maybe he doesn’t, being the old angry bastard that he is. If its between the lerasum or his son, I wouldn’t put it past him to choose the lerasum. But I do know one thing. He knows that we know. He’ll never admit it. But he knows. And he knows he can’t make a move to get it off-planet without exposing himself. We have to figure that he is going to figure out we have drones in the air and might try to shoot them down. I’d pull them up another five thousand feet.”
“And then?”
“And then we wait.”
“…What are we waiting for?”
“Something to change.”
***
They spent the rest of that evening sitting outside in chairs, watching both the horizon and the feeds from the surveillance drones they had in the sky. They had watched Old Man Bilge return home. One of the sons had met him outside. But then they both had returned back into the house. Since then, nothing had happened. The drones waited above them.
Late in the night, they were all falling asleep in their chairs. They weren’t much for firewatch, apparently. And the drones had been instructed to sound the alarm if there was any movement on the Bilge homestead. Jack decided that is was safe to go to bed.
When Jack got inside the front door, he found the old man asleep in his recliner. He still seemed off to Jack. This whole thing had thrown him for a loop and it was wearing on him. That much was obvious. He covered him up with a blanket, gave his shoulder a love tap, and headed to bed.
He lay there for a while, unable to quiet his mind and fall asleep. He waited for the notification to ping on his coms device, signaling that someone had left the Bilge compound. He worried about Anna. He often did. He’d wonder if he should poke his head into her room often to check on her breathing. But he never did, he knew it would be labored. And then he’d have a hard time getting back to sleep himself.
He played through many scenarios in his head. Maybe the Bilge’s would willingly trade some of the lerasum for Gar and they all could go home happy with a new future. But maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they’d choose to fight for it. Or they might just say “fuck it” and leave Gar behind. If they truly didn’t care about Gar that took away any of the leverage that they thought that they had. Either way, he didn’t see an easy path for them to come out of this completely unscathed. Old Man Bilge wouldn’t let kidnapping his son go unnoticed.
Jack didn’t know how late it was when the intrusive thoughts finally cleared from his mind and he was able to drift off to sleep, but it was late.
***
Jack wasn’t sure how long it had been before he was jolted awake by what could be described as the loudest sound that he had ever heard, which was immediately followed by screaming. They were shooting. And from the sounds of it, inside of the house.
Jack pulled himself out of bed, grabbed the rifle by his bedside and peered out down the hallway. It sounded as if a majority of the commotion was coming from the front of the home, near the living room. He could hear Jar and Val screaming, along with other voices. Shots were traded back and forth.
Jack crept down the hallway, stopping at Anna’s room and cracking the door. Anna scrambled behind the bed as the door opened, pulling a blanket over her. They made eye contact. Jack nodded at her and signaled to stay there by holding his hand up. He closed the door securely behind him.
He had taken more than three steps down the hallway when there was an explosion. Immediately, the old transport ship that they lived in shook. A bright light flashed the inside of the ship and the sound was so loud that Jack was absolutely certain that he had ear damage.
He couldn’t hear anything but could make out a faint popping sound that he knew to be gunshots at the front of the house. He had fallen but pulled himself to his feet. It was hard to see, the old ship was filled with dust. He reached the end of the hallway and turned the corner to the kitchen. There, in the window, Val was trading shots with someone that appeared to be over by the front door of the ship. He was screaming, but Jack still couldn’t hear.
He crept forward and opened the cabinet below the kitchen sink, still just around the corner from the line of sight from whoever was firing at the front door. There, he knew they kept a small sawed off shotgun, which would be a better choice than his rifle for close quarters combat. He picked it up, checked to make sure that the clip connected to the pulse shotgun’s back was loaded, then ducked behind the cabinet and began creeping forward.
His hearing started returning, but the constant sound of gunshots was sending a sharp pain up the back of his neck and into his head.
He peeked around the corner. There was Wark Bilge, the Uncle to the boys. He was shooting a handgun wildly around the corner while Val traded shots. Jack watched closely. Every few seconds that man would peak, launch a few new shots, then disappear around the corner.
Gar was still tied up at the back of the house. They hadn’t breached that far yet. There was no way to get to him in the room unless they came through the house. That told Jack that they were here to kill them all to get their man back.
The next time that Wark Bilge peaked, Jack jumped from behind the cabinet and shelled the front door three times in quick succession. He had always been great with a shotgun. He saw that he had made solid contact with the first shot, some contact with the second, and maybe even the third, although Wark had disappeared around the corner.
Jack wasted no time, sprinting toward the door with Val in tow. He got outside, turned the corner, and was met with a barrage of bullets from somewhere out in the desert. Beside the door laid Wark, his chest blown wide open and severe wounds to his thighs and midsection. He choked on his own blood and clasped at his chest. Jar exited the door, held his handgun to Wark’s head, and pulled the trigger. His brains splattered on the concrete patio below him.
Jack dove behind the nearby workbench and started returning fire. Instantly, he wished that he hadn’t left his rifle sitting up against the sink in the kitchen. Val dove behind the nearby mining drone that was sitting in disrepair and began returning fire with his rifle. Jar joined him.
There were four of them out there firing back. They ducked into divets in the desert dirt and laid waste to their home. They returned fire, and Jack left cover and dipped back into the ship to grab the rifle. By the time he returned, the gunshots had subsided and the Bilge clan had turned tail and run off toward the hills. He fired a few shots but wasn’t even really trying to hit them.
They sat there in disbelief for a moment, watching the small dots that were the Bilge’s disappearing into the distance.
“What the fuck, was that!” Val said breathlessly.
“I have no idea,” Jack said, staring off into the night. The sun was just starting to peak above the mountaintops.
“OH NO! FUCK!” Jar screamed from somewhere behind them. Jack turned and ran. He found Jar in the living room staring at the remains of their grandfather. His legs had been completely sheathed off, his pants scorched. His face was completely pale and hollow. There was no life. From the looks of things he had bled out quickly.
Near him, at the back side of the room, a ship window was broken out. They had thrown some sort of explosive through it, judging by the state of the room.
Anna let out a bloodcurdling wail behind them. She had finally ventured out of her room now that the shooting had stopped. She wept and fell over his bloodied body, or what was left of him at least. Jack tried to pull her off of Grandpa, but she held on as tightly as she could. His blood smeared all over her cheeks and clothes.
“We’re killing every last one of them,” Val said.
Chapter 14
Calin Homeship, Castin Planet
Velorum System, Cygni Branch
The dust that the explosion had kicked up into the air throughout the ship had sent Anna’s breathing into a multi-hour fit. They had to pull her outside while she heaved, trying to catch her breath. Anna hadn’t been able to get it together for the next full day. She was inconsolable. She and Grandpa had been so close. Jack held her that first night as she wept at the back of the house and Val and Jar kept watch outside. Eventually, she got up and ran out, trying to get some time to herself out in the desert. He’d chased her down. It was too dangerous for anyone to wander off right now. They would snatch one of them up in a heartbeat to get Gar back.
Jar was, as you would expect, a puddle of rage. He wanted nothing more than to be unleashed, and head to the Bilge homestead guns-blazing. Luckily Val had been able to talk him down, because Jack knew that he would never have been able to.
All morning long he had lobbied to go back to the back room and “get answers” from Gar. Jack had been able to keep him from doing it, but only for a few hours.
Val went into town the long way, which looped out far away from the Bilge homestead and went to see Lavernus, to tell him about Grandpa and pick up the rest of his drones. They weren’t sure how the Bilge’s were able to sneak out of their house without being detected by the drones, but they had all decided that it would at least be a good idea to make sure that they had some sitting in the sky above their own home as well.
Worse yet — if they could sneak out to attack them, they could sneak out to move the Lerasum without them seeing. Jackson knew they needed to find where it was and quick.
Val returned about three hours later, with an extra trailer in tow behind the buggy. He stopped in front of their home, hopped out, and swung open the doors of the trailers to expose another five or six drones, taking up every inch of the old rickety trailers.
“Lavernus fell apart when I told him about Grandpa. He wants to help. He gave us every drone he had,” Val said.
“Good,” Jack said. We could really use these.”
Mostly, he just wanted to make sure that they could keep Anna safe. Briefly, they had discussed sending her to a neighboring homestead, but that would require telling them why she was there. The last thing they needed was more people to know about the lerasum.
“Oh, that isn’t all,” Val said before walking to the back of the buggy and opening up the small trunk at the back. There, neatly packed were two stacks of C4 explosives and four smaller drone boxes. “Me and Lavernus were talkin’ about different ways we can get at these guys. See, they have a lot of guns. Lavernus was saying that there’s too much risk in us going head-to-head with them. But if we bring bombs down on top of their head…what are they going to do about it?”
Jack nodded and snapped his finger at Val. “I like it,” he said. Bombing them with mini-drones would have been seen a ridiculous suggestion just a day ago, but now it seemed necessary. If it was us or them, he preferred that it be them. And it was too late to turn back the clock on this thing.
Jackson had been tasked with cleaning up Grandpa, which included moving his body into a wooden box behind the home and scrubbing the floors. He was sick and cried throughout, but it had to be done. They couldn’t leave their Grandfather smeared all over the living room. Luckily the interior was mostly metal, so there would only be a few stains and reminders of what had happened.
To make matters worse, the explosion had ripped a hole in the hull at the back of the room. It was about a foot and a half across and pointed in a direction that the wind typically roared in from at night. Jack covered it with a tarp, but they were going to need something better than that if they didn’t want to get frozen out come nightfall.
Once Jack had finished and Val had the drones in the air above their homestead, it was time for them to speak to Gar. Jackson checked in on Annie. She was in bed, her face streaked with tears with bright red nostrils. He patted her and told her to put on some headphones. She nodded and did as he asked.
They walked in the room to find Gar awake and staring back at them. Val had given him a knockout shot of clonazepam the night before but it appeared to be decently worn off. They had saved some to loosen him up if he absolutely refused to talk. Anything to keep Jar from killing him.
“Last fucking chance,” Jar said. “Tell me where the Lerasum is or I am going to rip your throat out.”
Well, that was a way to start.
Gar spit on the floor in front of them. “Fuck you!”
Jar didn’t waste a second. He cocked back and landed a punch square on Gar’s nose. A fountain of blood began rushing from it, spilling down his chest. “Try again!”
“Fuck you!” Gar responded.
Jar landed another punch, this time directly on his left eye, which made Jack wince. Gar coughed and moaned. Jar gave him a few moments to recover and landed another punch. Then another. And another, before Val held out his arm to signal him to stop and bent down in front of him.
“You need to tell us about the lerasum, Gar. You tell us, and you’ll be able to go home.
“I tell you shit and my Daddy will kill me when I get back either way. Why would I tell you anything?”
Val nodded, stood up, and stepped back from Gar. He gave Jar another slight nod and he went to work again.
This little charade went on for another couple of hours. Gar refused to say anything and by the end, his face looked like a swollen plum. Jar had to start hitting him with objects in his arms, torso, and legs as his hands had grown too sore and he was afraid he’d kill him if he hit him in the face anymore. They were afraid that if he hit him much more in the face, they might accidentally kill him.
Jack had left after about an hour of beating. He understood that after Grandpa, they had no choice. It was now or never. If they couldn’t figure out where the lerasum was, they were almost sure to lose it forever. Eventually, someone would be able to sneak away. They already knew that they had a route, although Jack couldn’t figure out for the life of him how the Bilge’s were able to evade the drones watching over them.
He spent the next few hours launching the remaining drones. They had seven mini-drones, which were capable of carrying a C4 brick a piece. They were going to use the mining detonation system they already had to blow them up when the time was right.
They also had another five drones that they could put up into the sky to watch over things. Jack strategically positioned three drones in a triangle shape around their home. Their vision zones overlapped with one another so, in theory, no one should be getting onto their property without alerting them. Two of the drones were primarily watching the North and South directions of the road and the portions of the desert that flanked the house on either side. Another drone that they had laying around was positioned to the north, watching over the property out there.
That left two more full-sized drones to be deployed. The first, he decided, should go watch over the Lerasum vein. Jack doubted that any of the Bilge’s would be so risky as to go out there again, but if they did, there was a good chance that they would lead them back to the rest of the haul. It was too important to ignore.
The last drone was set to rove over their own property. He didn’t know what else to do. They had managed to sneak out of their house to come and attack them, so they must have had a way out. And that meant they could show up at their doorstep again at any time. With the drone positioned high, they’d have at least a five-minute warning, even if they were high railing it to them on a landspeeder.
That was all of the drones that Lavernus had. They had officially depleted the drone supply in the whole county, given the fact that Lavernus was the only shop in the county that carried drones.
Jackson was happy when the moans from Gar had subsided. But when they started back up again, he decided that he was going to head into town once more, to see if Lavernus had anything that would help him to seal up the tear in the hull in the living room. He was going to have to be careful. He didn’t want to get caught out on his own by the Bilge’s. Luckily, he knew a route that would keep him off of the main road without wasting too much time.
Chapter 15
Borne, Planet Castin
Velorum System, Cygni Branch
The elder Bilge and the youngest son rode a beaten-down solar buggy into town. He didn’t have to look up and squint to know that there were drones above him watching his every move. They had discovered that shortly before they’d hit them at their home.
They had bought them from Lavernus, no doubt. There was no other place to get them within one hundred kilometers.
And if he was willing to sell drones to them, he could sell them to the Bilge’s too. They could use an eye in the sky. And once they had used them to shoot down the Calin drones, they’d be able to get out cleanly, knowing that they weren’t being watched. That was the plan anyway. But the Calin’s were too stupid without the old man to figure that out.
He pulled the buggy up behind the mining supply store and parked behind the old dusty building that was Lavernus’ shop that sat adjacent to the store. They wanted to stay hidden, just in case the Calin boys came riding into town. No one wanted to get caught with their pants down.
He hopped out of the buggy, his old bones cracking and creaking and he rose to his feet. That was new. He had always been spry for his age, but these last few years he had started to feel weathered. But he wasn’t going to let that stop him from getting his hands on some lerasum if it’s right there for the taking. He’d gladly die for that. He’d gladly sacrifice a child. He’d already sacrificed his brother, Wark, for that. It killed him but he couldn’t think about it now. And he was an idiot for running up to the front door. Of course, he got killed doing that.
Once he was out, he reached back into the buggy’s glove compartment, pulled out his pistol, and tucked it into the back of his work pants.
He walked around the front and entered the shop through the front door. His entrance was announced with a ring. Then Lavernus, the strange fat ass man that he was, poked his head out from the backroom door.
“Mr. Bilge!” he said, a little surprised. “How are you? How is the gear holding up? Here to sell more? Wark came in and…”
“–I need some drones,” Miron Bilge interrupted gruffly. “Every drone you have.”
“Oh…” Lavernus said, wiping his head off on his shirt with awkward flicks on his chest. “Yes…umm…well, you see, we are actually all sold out of drones.”
Old Man Bilge lowered his brow and stared at him for several seconds. “What do you mean?” He growled.
“They’ve been sold. We…umm…we recently had our stock bought out,” Lavernus stuttered.
“By the Calin’s.”
“I…uh…can’t disclose what our customers have purchased from us-”
“–Cut the shit, Lavernus.” Old Man Bilge interupted. “I know that you sold them those drones. I know because we’ve seen them up there, keeping watch on our house and following us around everytime we take a step. And you knew what they were going to use them for.”
He rapped his knuckles on the counter between them, gritting his teeth. This asshole had chosen sides.
“Oh no, Mr. Bilge. I assure you I did not. I don’t ask questions, I just sell my products.”
“Bullshit” he said as he spit a hunk of chewing tobacco onto the shop floor. “You’re all buddy-buddy with those degenerates. Besides, who comes in here and buys out your stock of expensive drones and you don’t ask any questions?”
“I value privacy,” Lavernus replied.
“I know you know about the lerasum, Lavernus.”
Lavernus fell silent. They held eye contact for several seconds. “What do you want from me?”
“Me? Oh, nothin,” Old Man Bilge said as he ran his arm along a shelf and knocked all of the items onto the floor. Lavernus winced. “I actually just came down here to buy some drones. I already knew you had to have sold them the ones that they were using to illegally spy on us. But now I find out that you’ve sold them every drone that you have? Seems to me that you’ve chosen sides here, Lavernus.”
Lavernus held his gaze for a moment, reading the situation. Longing to know how mad the old man was.
“I can promise you I’ve done no such thing. A customer asks for drones and I sell them. I made a pretty penny from that sale. What am I supposed to do, say no?”
The old man nodded, and his eldest son walked behind him to the entrance behind the counter and folded his arms.
“Yeah, maybe you are a shrewd business man,” the old man said as he continued to waltz around the storefront, obnoxiously knocking items off of the shelf. “But I’ve never known you to be that type of man, Lavernus.”
“And what type of man do you know me to be, Mr. Bilge?” Lavernus replied, a sheen of sweat visibly accumulating on his forehead.
He thought about it for a moment. “I’m not sure, actually. A fake aristocrat, I reckon. I’ve never been able to square how you got all the way out here. Doesn’t seem like the type of place that a person like you would end up.”
Lavernus held his hands together and gave an empathetic nod. Apparently that fake aristocrat bit had hit home.
“Yes…well…circumstances out of my control brought me here. And I do admit that I have always felt quite out of place. But I make the best of it.”
“Maybe,” the old man said as he stomped in his heavy boots back up to the counter, having had his fill of knocking items off of the shelves. “Or maybe you’ve managed to dig yourself a hole that you can’t climb out of, cozying up to the wrong people because you are a confused, lost old man.”
Lavernus tightened in his stance and sat awkwardly silent for a moment.
“Alright, Mr. Bilge. I’ll tell you what. We have our storage shed out back. I might have some drones out there. Small ones, maybe. Let me go take a look and see if I have any for you, on the house.”
The old man raised an eyebrow and gave a smirk. “Alright, that sounds more like it.”
Lavernus nodded and slowly turned around, heading past the son who was still standing with his arms folded and a less-than-bemused expression for the backdoor.
As soon as his back was turned, Mr. Bilge followed him through the door into the slim hallway. Lavernus hadn’t noticed or at least he acted like he hadn’t. Just as he went to reach for the door handle to the back door that led to the shed, the old ma reached into the back of his pants, pulled out the pistol, and fired it into the back of Lavernus’ head, a red mist splattering the door and walls behind him.
