Tech Scavengers [Humorous, Action-Packed Space Opera]

Back at the Antikythera, Jeridan studied the smoke signals and felt increasingly anxious.

He hit the comm link. "Negasi, Nova, do you copy?"

No answer. For the third time.

He drummed his fingers on the dash. What to do? Nova had told him to stay put, and he didn't want to bring any more attention to themselves by launching the Antikythera. On the other hand, the inhabitants of this planet obviously knew they were here.

He hit the internal comm.

"Aurora, do you know where the data chip is?"

"Why would my mom tell me that?" the girl replied like it was the dumbest question ever uttered by a human mouth.

"Why wouldn't she?"

"Well, she didn't."

"Great," Jeridan grumbled. He hit the tone to signal a general announcement. "Strap yourselves in, folks. We're going after them."

He waited just long enough to give the kids and the mystery alien holed up in astronavigation the chance to strap in, then hit the bottom thrusters, taking the Antikythera up to a thousand meters. That should keep them out of range of whatever primitive weapons the natives might have.

Turning in the direction that Nova and Negasi had headed, he switched on an automatic comm beacon. Obviously the hovercar was out of action or they had gone out of range of it and Negasi couldn't patch in with his armor's comm system. He'd have to contact Negasi directly, and that would take a clear line of sight.

A readout came up on his screen. The S'ouzz had sent him a calculation of how far the hovercar could have gotten at maximum speed, as well as another calculation for how far it could have gotten at its last known speed. The two circles were laid over a map of the area the S'ouzz had made on entry. Given the speed they had hurtled through the atmosphere, it wasn't the clearest image in the world.

Jeridan started typing a thank you before remembering what his buddy had told him about this species. He deleted the message unsent.

He took the Antikythera on a zigzag route, the comm beacon pinging every two seconds, Jeridan poised over the visual sensors, trying to pick them out amid the innumerable hills and shadowed ravines.

Black smoke rising from the far side of a slope to the southwest caught his attention. Hitting the thrusters, he shot over to that location and banked, coming to a stop to hover five hundred meters above the summit of a ridge.

A crowd of figures moved along the bare slope. In two spots, flames sent up a greasy smoke. He saw several figures lying prone, and the hovercar parked at the entrance to what looked like a mineshaft at the base of the slope.

Cursing, Jeridan increased magnification, scanning through the figures, men and women in simple leather and cloth, all carrying muskets and other crude weapons, until he found them.

Nova and Negasi lay near a rock, surrounded by several locals. They did not move.

The locals stared up at the Antikythera, mouths open. One dumbass actually pointed his musket and fired, only to get slapped upside the head by the man next to him.

"Negasi!" Jeridan shouted into the comm. "Negasi, do you hear me?"

A figure next to Negasi bent over him, fiddled with the helmet, and popped it off.

"If you've killed my friend," Jeridan shouted, "I swear I'll level whatever turd-kicking village you came from!"

The local held the helmet up to his face. "Can you hear me?"

"Yes. Did you hear me?" Jeridan growled.

"Oh, yeah. Big tough guy in his modern ship. Or is it a modern ship? Maybe they got better stuff now. Anyway, neither of your pals is dead. The lady is a bit singed, but she'll be all right."

"Let them go right now!" Jeridan shouted.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

"Um, no. I don't think so. We got the data chip, and now we got a couple of your friends. Plus there's the little matter of some blood money you owe."

Jeridan turned the Antikythera and fired a missile at the next peak. The entire summit exploded, rocking the landscape. Dust and rock fragments flew everywhere. The horses below bolted, and all the locals got thrown off their feet.

When the dust settled, everyone could see the top of the hill had vanished.

"That was pretty cool," the guy with Negasi's helmet said. "It wasn't nice of you to make our horses bolt, though. Doesn't matter. We're still going to get what we want."

"If you don't give them up right now, I'll make you regret the day you were born," Jeridan said.

"I've always enjoyed my birthday. I'm kind of a kid that way. Cake. Candles. A roll in the hay with the old lady. Pretty fun. You take all that away and I'll kill your friends. Now back off and let us gather our horses and go back to our settlement. Our council of elders needs to discuss terms. Don't worry, we won't be greedy. We're just going to fleece you for all you got. We're reasonable."

"Why you—"

"More threats? Come on. Gain some altitude or we'll never get those horses gathered. And don't try any funny stuff. We're going to keep your friends right in the middle of the crowd where they can take whatever you try to dish out."

Jeridan cursed a blue streak as he rose to a thousand meters.

"What's going on?" a voice said behind him. He turned in his chair. Aurora.

She came over, staring at the visuals that were still focused on her mother. Aurora got a stricken look.

"Don't worry," Jeridan assured her. "We'll get her back."

"All for that stupid data chip!" the girl fumed.

"They're keeping them prisoner. They want to make an exchange."

"Let them have the data chip. Just get my mom back."

"Not sure what they can do with it. They don't look very advanced." Jeridan turned to the girl and studied her for a moment. "You know what's on it? I mean, what exactly is this Imperium station that your mom's hunting?"

Aurora looked away. "I don't know anything about it."

That sounded convincing.

"If I knew what's on it, it might help me get them back," Jeridan prompted.

"I don't know what's on the stupid data chip!" Aurora bawled. "Just get her back, OK?"

She stormed off deck.

Great. My best friend and my boss are prisoners of some back-planet hicks, and I'm stuck working as a babysitter.

He watched as the locals rounded up their horses. Nova and Negasi woke up and were put on a couple of spare mounts, no doubt once ridden by some of those dead bodies littering the hillside. Their captors didn't tie them up. Instead, several hefty fighters flanked them, gripping machetes.

A few men rummaged around in the hovercar. Not finding anything, they tried to move it but found it too heavy. One grabbed some rope and began to tie it to a pair of horses, but the man carrying Negasi's helmet waved him off. Soon, the whole band headed down the trail.

Jeridan gained altitude and flew in increasingly large circles, trying to find where they might be going.

It didn't take long. Down in a nearby valley about ten kilometers away stood a walled town. A high timber palisade surrounded a cluster of thatched roof houses and a couple of larger stone structures. A river flowed nearby, a couple of mills by its side. He estimated the settlement numbered some five hundred people, maybe more. A couple of smaller villages, also walled, stood downstream.

"I think I need to show these hicks who's boss," Jeridan grumbled.

He took the ship down on a low fast pass over the town, timing it perfectly to create a sonic boom directly overhead, probably the first they had heard in a century. The sight of fleeing livestock and people, and most of their roofs losing their thatching in a yellow tsunami, gave him some satisfaction, but didn't solve the problem.

"That wasn't very nice," Aurora said over the comm link, laughing.

"If that council of elders has any sense, they'll see we mean business."

He flew back to the column of horsemen, zoomed in the optics to reassure himself Negasi and Nova were still all right, then flew back to the hovercar.

"What are we doing back here?" Aurora said from behind him. Jeridan jerked in his seat.

"Damn! You sure know how to move quietly. You practice by sneaking out of the house to meet boys?"

Aurora made a face. "I never get to meet any boys. I'm always stuck on this cacking spaceship."

"Don't swear. It's unladylike."

"Instead of lecturing me, why don't you save my mom?"

"I will," Jeridan grumbled. "I need to think of a plan first. In the meantime, we're going to retrieve the hovercar. We might need it. You got an external crane on this thing?"

"We've been flying for days. Shouldn't you have found out by now?"

"I was too busy beating Negasi at chessboxing."

"Actually he won five matches to—"

"Where's the crane?"

"Here." Aurora sat down in the copilot's seat and hit a few buttons. From the rear vidscreen Jeridan saw a portal open just above the cargo hold door and a metal crane telescope out. "Reduce altitude and pitch the stern lower."

Jeridan glanced at her. "You're going to do this?"

Aurora gave him a teenaged eye roll. "I do this all the time."

"Don't break the hovercar."

"It's already broken."

"You mean don't break it more."

Jeridan watched nervously as Aurora lowered a cable fitted with a magnetoclamp on the end down to the hovercar. It fixed onto the hood and Aurora pulled it slowly up as she opened the cargo hold door. She stopped the hovercar just outside the door, let it steady for a moment, and then pulled it in. An interior vidscreen showed a long portal open along the ceiling of the cargo hold with a track fitted to it. The crane ran along this and then deposited the hovercar into its parking space.

"Nice job," Jeridan said.

She smiled at him. "I can do lots of stuff. Why don't you track those hicks while I see if I can fix the hovercar?"

"You can do that too?"

"The way my mom goes through engineers, I end up doing most of the work around here."

The girl stomped off, leaving Jeridan to wonder how much of that was true.

He hoped it all was, because there was no way he could run this ship, fix the hovercar, and save his friends at the same time.