Tech Scavengers [Humorous, Action-Packed Space Opera]

The hovercar skimmed a hundred meters above the tallest hills. Negasi kept a close watch all around for any sign of life as Nova drove. Given their fiery entry into the atmosphere, some of the local yokels were bound to come investigate.

He got what he was looking for far sooner than he would have liked. Smoke signals puffed up from a hilltop a couple of kilometers away. A short puff, then a longer column, followed by two short puffs.

The smoke continued. Short and long. Dots and dashes. A message.

A message about them.

Negasi nudged his boss and pointed.

"Never mind," Nova said. "With this terrain, they'll never get here in time."

"Do they have any surviving vehicles?"

"I doubt it. You saw those villages."

Negasi wasn't so sure. He'd been to primitive worlds before, and more than once he'd been surprised at how the locals had managed to care for bits of old tech and keep them running for generations on nothing but baling wire and love.

"Do they have horses?" Negasi asked.

"How should I know?"

So you don't know if they'll get here in time.

"Step on it," Negasi said.

"Oh, thanks for the good advice. I would have never thought of hurrying if you hadn't suggested it."

"Sarcasm is unbecoming in a woman," Negasi said.

"Too bad."

She did speed up, though.

Nova took the hovercar down low, dipping and rising with the terrain. While that made them less visible, Negasi worried it would probably put them within range of even the primitive guns she said the locals had. He focused on the terrain, looking for any response to the persistent smoke signals that still came from a point a few kilometers away.

Oh wait, now two points, one of which was a lot closer.

"Do you—" Negasi began.

"Yes, yes. I see."

Nova gunned it.

They came to a broad valley, ducked into it, and followed it up a dry riverbed. The remains of a road ran alongside, its pavement cracked into countless pieces and a few bushes poking through the weathered asphalt. Negasi spotted the dark openings of several old mineshafts.

He glanced at Nova. She wasn't using a radio locator or anything else. She leaned over the controls, intent, lips slightly moving as if saying something to herself. Had she memorized where her husband had hidden the data chip all those months ago?

Apparently, she had. Negasi's estimation of his boss's intelligence went up as she said, "here it is" and swung the hovercar down to come in for a landing on a large patch of level ground in front of a mineshaft that looked just like all the others.

That estimation immediately plummeted again when a shot rang out from the darkness of the mineshaft.

Negasi recognized the white ball lightning of a pulse cannon, which hit the hovercar just as Nova slowed to land, shorted out the controls and made them come down the last ten meters with a thump. The crash webbing took most of the shock, but Negasi felt like his brain had just been scrambled in his skull like a giant gray egg.

That shot shouldn't have come. No one on this planet should have owned a weapon that advanced. It was like seeing a semi-sentient Greeb, the half-meter long ticks from some planet Negasi couldn't name and certainly did not want to visit, suddenly compose a sonata while expounding on theoretical astrophysics.

But the relative stupidity of oversized bloodsucking insects was the least of Negasi's worries at the moment. He was more concerned about shaking off the jolt of the crash and firing at whoever had fired at them.

He didn't get the chance.

By the time he'd cleared his head and gotten himself into an upright position, he was staring down the barrel of a gun.

Well, if you could call it a gun. It was a cheaply made tube of poor-quality steel no doubt fashioned by some village blacksmith. At the back was a flintlock mechanism Negasi had only seen in museums. Behind that was a grubby, bearded face that cracked into a gap-toothed grin.

"Howdy," the face said.

"Good morning," Negasi replied. It always paid to be polite.

"Any wrong move and I'll blow your head off."

So much for politeness.

The spoke Terran Standard, the most common human language in the Orion Arm. While the more remote planets ended up with their own dialects, they were all easy enough to understand even without his lapel translator.

A groan made Negasi check on Nova. She was just coming to, clutching a nasty bruise on her forehead from when she had done a face plant into the control panel.

Seeing she hadn't taken any serious damage, Negasi turned back to the barrel of that gun. Yes, it looked primitive, and yes, he was wearing body armor, but that gun had an intimidatingly large bore and was less than a meter from his head.

As if reading his mind, the gunman said, "That's a snappy suit you got on there. Some kind of flex armor? I could probably stab you with my Bowie knife from now until sunset and never do nothing but tickle you. But I bet this here musket could do the trick. Double charge, by the way, with a bit of shot packed in alongside the ball just for chuckles."

"We all like to laugh," Negasi replied.

While Negasi was pretty sure his helmet would stop a musket ball, at this range, the impact would still give him a hell of a case of whiplash, throw him on the ground, and knock him out. If the man fired at his body, it would probably go through or at least break a bone.

"I wonder if that suit will fit me?" the gunman mused. He wore simple homespun and a fur cap despite the warm day. "Leave that fancy rifle on the seat there. Carefully, now. All right. And take that pistol off the lady. Easy. I got you covered. All right. Put that down next to the rifle. Now you come out of that flying machine and help the lady."

The gunman backed off, chuckling proudly to himself. Negasi helped his boss out of the cockpit.

"You OK?" he asked her.

"I've been better," she replied. At least she could get her feet under her.

"Now take off your helmet," their captor ordered. He still had that flintlock musket pointing at Negasi's head.

"How did you know we were coming? And how do you have a pulse cannon?" Negasi asked.

Their captor inclined his head toward the cave entrance, where a crude device featuring a long tube adorned with wires and circuitry stood just inside the entrance.

"Homebrew. We got some techies who can still make some of the old stuff."

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"No radios, though. I saw the smoke signals."

"Good enough," the gunman said with a shrug. "Backup will be along shortly. Now take that helmet off."

Negasi did as he was told. The gun looked even more menacing without the protection of an impact-resistant visor.

The gunman now got a look at his face. "Sino-African, huh? My wife is Sino-African."

"You'd get more points for diversity if you let me go," Negasi said.

Another gap-toothed grin. "No can do."

"Why did you shoot us down?" Nova asked, still cradling her head.

"You know why. Your ship came down here a few months ago and tucked a data chip inside a false stone deep inside this here old mine. Took us ages to find it, and of course we can't read it. But we decided it must be something pretty good if you hid it on a nowhere dump of a planet like this. Good enough to come back for later. So we've had a sentry up here ever since, along with a string of watchmen all around the area ready to light up smoke signals."

"Who's we?" Nova asked.

The sound of distant hoofbeats echoed up the canyon. The gunman gave them another gap-toothed grin.

"You'll find out soon enough. Now put your hands on your head."

That was fine by Negasi, because it gave him a chance to touch his right palm with his right forefinger.

"Better pat you down," the gunman said, holding the musket in one hand, finger still on the trigger, while he reached for Negasi's pocket with the other.

"Yes, you better," Negasi agreed.

Just as their captor's hand was about to make contact with Negasi's pocket, Negasi ducked to the side and forward.

That brought the man's hand in contact with Negasi's suit, and two things happened at the same time.

First, the suit sent out a strong electric charge that made the gunman convulse.

Second, the man's finger pulled back on the trigger and the gun went off a few centimeters from Negasi's head.

A loud report jabbed at his eardrums, and the side of his face stung from the exploding gunpowder. Luckily, the ball passed harmlessly by and out into the mountain air.

Negasi staggered to the left, trying to keep his balance while clutching his ringing ear and trying to brush the burning powder off his face at the same time.

By the time he had recovered, Nova was training her flechette pistol on the local. She had also retrieved Negasi's rifle.

He took it and put his helmet back on. The man on the ground groaned and shifted his leg a little, but did not open his eyes. The hoofbeats grew louder.

"We got to get out of here," Negasi said. Shouted, actually. It was the only way to hear himself over the ringing in his ears.

"Not without the data chip!" Nova cried.

"They took it, didn't you hear? Look, they got the drop on us, but once we're in the Antikythera, they can't touch us. We'll hover over their camp and threaten them. They'll have to give up the data chip."

"All right. And if they don't, we'll blow them to the stratosphere!"

Negasi cocked his head. "Um, no. We'll only threaten them. Maybe blow up an unoccupied hut or something."

"Um, right. That's what I meant."

Nova grabbed the musket and threw it over the side of the cliff, then hopped into the hovercar. Negasi got in beside her. He aimed down his flechette gun at the crude pulse cannon and let off a quick burst. The slivers of hardened tungsten tore through the circuitry, sending off sparks and bits of metal.

"They won't be using that for a while," Negasi said, sitting down. Nova was cursing and hitting the controls. "What's the matter?"

"The system is totally shorted out. That idiot didn't know how to make a pulse cannon and set the charge too high. He fried the circuitry."

"Cack! Call the Antikythera and have them pick us up."

"The comm system is fried too."

"Of course it is," Negasi groaned.

The hoofbeats grew louder. They could now see a thin cloud of dust kicked up in the gorge below.

"We can't stay here," Negasi said. "This suit's got a pretty good comm. I need line of sight, though. If we get to the summit, I should be able to call Jeridan."

"Let's go."

They scrambled up the slope, a rough, bare incline that grew increasingly steep but at least provided lots of jutting rocks to give them handholds and footholds. The extra gravity made them sweat and suck in air. Good thing Nova seemed fit. A normal person used to 1.0 gravity would never get up this. Of course, the locals could do it just fine. They needed to get away fast. In a long chase, they would be sure to lose.

Negasi kept looking over his shoulder. The dust cloud grew closer, and finally, rounding a nearby bend in the valley, he saw them.

Thirty riders, dressed in homespun and furs like the man who had ambushed them. All had muskets strapped to their backs and rode tough little horses that looked accustomed to passing over mountains.

They spotted Negasi and Nova in an instant and spurred their horses the last stretch to where the sentry lay unconscious next to the hovercar.

"Hurry!" Nova shouted.

"Sounds like a plan," Negasi said, pumping his legs faster, chest heaving. He was already feeling tired.

The horsemen were only about a hundred meters below them. He didn't know how far those muskets could reach and didn't want to find out.

The bandits wanted to find out, though. A loud crack echoed through the mountain air, and a rock a meter to Negasi's right exploded into fragments.

Several more shots followed in quick succession, hitting the rocks all around them. Nova cried out as a fragment of stone cut her hand.

"We need to find cover!" she shouted.

Another good idea, except there wasn't any cover.

Negasi turned. He didn't really want to shoot these people, but this was self-defense. He leveled his flechette rifle, aimed at a man who was just raising his musket to his shoulder, and let loose with a short burst.

The man's chest exploded in gore. His arms flailed, the musket falling to the ground, and he backpedaled crazily before slamming into the hovercar and crumpling to the ground.

The rest of the group scattered. Some ducked behind the hovercar. Others ran for the mineshaft. A few ran for the horses.

A shout from one of the bandits halted the last group, who instead of riding away simply took cover behind their own animals.

Negasi aimed a burst at the ground near the horses. They were untethered, and he hoped to make them stampede, but as the flechettes stitched a line in the grit and stone, kicking up bits of rock, the horses shied but did not bolt.

"Well trained," Negasi said with approval.

They proved their training even more by standing still as three of the men hiding behind them fired their muskets over the horse's backs.

Negasi felt a blow to his chest and suddenly found himself on his rear end. His gun fell from his hands.

Nova rushed over.

"Are you OK?" she asked.

She didn't even look at him. Instead, she got to one knee and let off several rounds from her pistol. They were too far for pistol work, however, and none of her shots hit.

"Ugh. Yeah, the suit stopped it," Negasi said, retrieving his rifle and struggling to his feet. "I'm going to have a hell of a bruise, though."

"Shoot the bastard."

"I don't want to hit the horses."

Another musket ball cracked off a nearby rock.

"What are you, a vegetarian or something?"

"When I was a kid, I was too poor to be anything else."

A bullet whined through the air near their heads.

Negasi let out a burst, taking out a man hiding behind a rock. That made all his buddies put their heads down.

He and his boss took that as their cue to run further up the slope. Negasi's chest ached with every step. He could hear Nova panting beside him. She shouldn't complain. Sure, the air felt thin and the extra gravity was a killer, but at least she hadn't gotten the sensation of a sledgehammer slamming into her chest bone just a moment ago.

They only got another few meters before more shots came.

Looking over his shoulder, Negasi saw a dozen of them running up the slope, dodging from rock to rock as those hiding behind the hovercar provided cover fire.

"There!" Nova shouted, pointing to a boulder the size of a dinner table stuck at a crazy angle on the ledge.

They scrambled behind it, bullets chasing them all the way.

Nova crouched out of sight and smacked another magazine into her pistol. Negasi gave the advancing line a long burst, making them throw themselves down. He missed on purpose. He still didn't want to kill these people, and he knew he'd lose sleep over the two he already had, but it looked like they wouldn't give him much choice.

Nova had no such inhibitions. She popped up, braced her pistol against the rock, and took out one of the bandits with a single shot.

That earned them a hail of return fire. They ducked back behind the boulder.

"We got some good cover here. We can hold them off," Nova said.

Negasi looked around. The slope was fairly bare, with only a few rocks and declivities for cover. It didn't look like the bandits could flank them.

"We're safe for the moment," Negasi agreed. "But I won't reach Jeridan on the comm until we get to that summit."

The way up did not look inviting. The already steep incline grew steeper further on, a good three hundred meters of exposed rock where the going would get slower and more exhausting and they'd make perfect targets.

"We're never getting up there," Nova said.

"And sooner or later, they'll send some men around to get up there and shoot at us from above."

Nova looked at Negasi, back at the summit, and back at Negasi again.

"Got any ideas?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Not really, no."

Then things got worse.

They heard strange a whooshing sound and dared a peek around the rock.

One of the bandits had stood up and was twirling a length of twine over his head. A ceramic pot, trailing smoke, was tied to the end.

Before Negasi could shoot him, the guy let loose. The pot sailed through the air and landed just in front of the boulder.

Negasi dropped back behind the boulder just in time. The ceramic pot shattered and detonated, sending up a plume of smoke and making the ground tremble. Negasi peeked again and saw several meters of the hillside in flames and little patches of fire scattered around an even larger area. Whatever they had stuffed in that pot didn't burn high, but gave off a black, gritty smoke that soon had Nova coughing.

It also obscured their view of the slope below.

Negasi switched his visor to infrared. Through the heat haze given off by the flames, he spotted several figures charging up the hill.

This had gone too far, and he had lost all compunction about shooting these folks. He'd take some sleeping tablets tonight. Ask MIRI for a therapy program.

Negasi let off a burst and saw a figure fall, then shot two more before the rest went prone.

Negasi cursed. With them so low to the flames, the infrared couldn't pick them out anymore.

He fired a long blind burst, got back behind the boulder, and reloaded. Nova, coughing and wiping her eyes, said, "Let's get going while they can't see."

Before he could reply, another bomb sailed over the boulder and landed right behind them. He dove to cover Nova with his own body just as it exploded.

The force slammed them both against the boulder. Everything went black.