Space, the final frontier, blah, blah, blah. Generations ago people left Earth because they had turned the place into a polluted feechole. It didn’t take long after that for people to explore more of the universe seeking their dreams. Some even found them too.
Of course some folks found nightmares, sometimes even on the same planet as their dreams. You found a planet with some real fancy metal that makes strong ship hulls? Huzzah for you, too bad that the oceans are made of acid instead of drinkable water, eh? Oh, you found a planet with nutrient rich soil and abundant clean water? Shame ‘bout all those volcanoes.
Luna Azul, imaginatively named for its blue moon, is one of those planets. Lush jungles, plenty of water, maybe a little warm and muggy, but you can get used to it. If only it weren’t for the Wildweed.
“Skink, you read,” Selby’s voice squawks in my ear.
That’s me, by the way, Rando Skink. I’m a cargo pilot for the Luna Azul Colonization Federation. I came here following my own dreams; didn’t find them, but I did find a life I don’t mind living.
“Yeah, I’m here. My E.T.A. is fifteen.”
“C.F. needs a Blindfold; Hospitality shuttle full of F.T. suits went down ten klicks outside Primary. You’re the closest rescue.”
I sigh heavily, “Alright, let me drop my cargo and I’ll get on it.”
“Negative, you need to respond now.”
“I have no room for passengers right now. I need to drop cargo.”
“Drop it where you are then; there are injuries, possibly fatalities. They’re only half a klick from a big Weed patch, and there are Ferals known to be in the area; hence the Blindfold.”
I grit my teeth, “Fine, I’ll drop here, but you’d better send someone to pick it up. I’m not losing my fee over this.”
I have a job besides cargo pilot. There are a number of us around the planet; people with a military past for the most part, although there are a couple of reformed pirates as well. We’re called Blindfolds.
You see, when big corps, like say Futuretech, come to Luna Azul with the aim of building some factory, or executive resort, or whatever credit generating enterprise, we're supposed to keep them from seeing the bad things that might dissuade a person from settling here.
There's really only one bad thing here, it is a beautiful planet right now actually, but it does have a pretty big issue. The bad thing is Wildweed, or rather what Wildweed causes.
Wildweed, and it has some scientific, latin-y name that I don’t know, has certain mind altering properties. It can be easily distilled and blended into a very nice liquor that causes nothing more than the normal damage booze causes; that’s not the bad thing.
The problem happens when you chew the raw weed. I’m told it’s a better high than even Reaper, not that I’ve ever tried either one. The bad news is that about fifty percent of repeat users lose their ability to think rationally; they become incredibly violent, in many cases cannibalistic, and will attack anyone who is not a fellow Weed chewer. We call them Wildmen. Yes, even the women.
Once you go Feral, you never come back, so there’s only one way to deal with a Wilder. Luna Azul is not a planet for people afraid to kill.
It is the Wildmen we want to hide from corps like Futuretech. Who wants to build on a planet infested with cannibalistic ferals? Of course we can’t hide them forever, but we can try and keep the blindfold on the bigwigs until they have finished building. Once that happens, even if they leave we still get whatever they built.
“Okay, I’m empty,” I say. Looking at my cargo on the viewscreen sitting unprotected on the roadside is practically torture; I never abandon a load, “Tell the survivors that help is on the way.”
The sky grew darker as I sped over the jungle and away from Primary. I was flying right into a storm; it’s probably what knocked the credit hoarders from Futuretech out of the sky.
There's a break in the greenery ahead from me, a strip of open space. I see smoke rising from the end of the canyon between the trees. As I close the distance I can see the Luna Azul Hospitality Shuttle sitting at about a thirty degree angle. The wing on the right side, the length not ripped off by the trees anyway, is sticking up into the air while the left wing is likely the source of most of the debris leading up to the ship.
It looks like the hull of the flyer is intact, and the pilot at least had the good sense to lower the emergency shutters so the occupants can't see out. Thank God for the small favours, right?
There's not enough room for me to land next to the ship, so I put her in hover mode directly above the shuttle. There's no sign of any Wildmen yet, so with any luck I can get through this without the blindfold slipping; I just need to gear up first.
Being a Blindfold is a bit of a pain, but it has its perks. You get some extra creds, access to limited supplies, extra rations, but that's not what I like best. It's the toys that do it for me.
I pull on my light riot armour, nothing that's going to stop an energy blast, but it will prevent me from being run through by a spear or knife, and then arm myself. I sling my plasma rifle, not one of those dinky stunner things, but real military issue, over my shoulder and strap on my blade. They tell me this thing is a knife, but it looks like a short sword to me; I love it. All geared up, I'm ready to go.
I open the hatch in the floor of my cargo hold, and drop down my plasteel chain ladder. The end of it dangles just above the right wing, waving back and forth in the wind from the storm; this does not make the climb down any more fun.
I carefully make my way down the wing and onto the side of the shuttle. My boots have a good grip on the wet surface of the craft, but it would not do for me to slip, break my leg, and need to be rescued myself.
I signal an entry request on the shuttle's doorpad, and bang on the door itself with the butt of my rifle, “Your ride's here, boys, and the meter's running,” I call.
After a few moments the door slides open, and I am greeted by the business end of a stun pistol. I follow the emitter back up its body to the hand holding it, then up the arm to the shoulder of the uniform jacket of a Futuretech security officer. I respond by pointing the nasty end of my own gun back at him,
“Mine's bigger, chummo,” I say, “Ship's leaving in five, get moving.”
“Who are you?” the security officer asks.
“I'm the girl with the working flyer,” I answer, “I'm also the girl who's very quickly running out of patience, so either get moving or you're going to find it a long and unpleasant walk back to Primary.”
“Identify yourself,” the officer demands in that unmistakable tone that says he thinks he's in charge of the situation.
“Are you serious?” I ask in disbelief, “My name's Rando Skink, and I was sent here by the C.F. to save the
rich, but otherwise worthless posteriors, of your employers. You know what? Let me talk to the pilot!”
The security guard stares at me for another couple of seconds before stepping back. In the moments between his blocking the door and the pilot taking his place I can see into the shuttle. There's another security guard in there with a streak of blood on the side of her head, and I can also see two men and a woman dressed in the kind of ugly business suits that you can only wear if you pay too much for them first.
“Hi, Rando,” says the pilot sullenly as she steps into the doorway.
“Hello, Marcy. You mind telling me what possessed you to take these people over a Weed field in a storm?”
“They wanted to get back to Primary, and this was the quickest route.”
“How did that work out for you?”
Marcy ignores my question, “We’ve got some minor injuries, probably a concussion or two, but nothing life threatening. They keep asking why I am keeping the shutters closed though, so we need to get them out of here before they get any more suspicious.”
“I was told possible fatalities, what-” I hear something moving behind me. I stand up, and look over the edge of the ship to see three Wildmen coming out of the treeline.
“Hold on a second,” I say, and kick the doorpad with my boot, causing the door the slide shut in Marcy’s face.
I step over to the edge of the shuttle’s wing, and take aim. Zap, zap, zap; the three Wildmen go down quiet and clean. Unfortunately the sound of my rifle discharging covered the noise of the Wildman who has clambered up onto the crashed shuttle behind me.
The feral woman slams into my back, knocking me forward onto my face. I feel the pressure of her teeth on my shoulder, but she can’t bite through my armour. They say the bite of a Wildman can turn you Feral too; dunno if that’s true, but I’m not planning to put it to the test.
I roll over, trying to get the woman off my back. While I do succeed in dislodging my would-be killer, I also succeed in rolling off the side of the shuttle. The Feral and I crash into the wet grass and muddy dirt.
Wilders are quick, but I'm quicker to my feet first, and have my knife unsheathed. I can feel her ribs snap as I drive the length of my blade into her chest.
More noise. I look: more Ferals coming out of the trees. How many of them are out here? I know I’m not far from a Weed patch, but this is ridiculous.
They see me. They charge at me. There’s five, no, seven of them. I need to put them down and get these corpers out of here.
I drop the woman, knife still in her chest, to the ground, and take up my rifle again. Mostly clean kills. One got close to me, and my shot burnt a whole right through his head; It’s going to take hours to get the small of cooked meat out of my nose.
The coast seems to be clear for the moment, so I reclaim my knife, and climb back up onto the shuttle.
“Open up, we’re leaving. Now,” I say, kicking the door with my boot.
It’s the security officer who opens up again, “What was that shooting?”
"Raccoons,” I reply, “I took care of them.”
The guard looks over at someone out of my view, and I hear the Marcy’s voice say, “Big raccoons in these parts.”
“I am done frassing around. Stop being a quot, climb on out of there, and get into my flyer so I can go home,” I order the guard.
He looks at me, thinking for a second, and then nods. He climbs out, and then reaches back in to help the executives out. One of them, the woman, is limping and I can see where blood has soaked through the leg of her slacks.
The two male execs climb out next, then the guard with the head wound. One of the security officers climbs up into my ship while the other helps the executives onto the ladder before climbing up himself. This leaves just me and the shuttle pilots.
“You owe me a drink, you know,” I say to Marcy, “I had to drop a load to come pick you up.”
“Yeah, well-,“ she stops as we see movement among the trees.
“Go,” I say, readying my rifle, “Get us moving.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be there in a second,” Marcy and her co-pilot start up the ladder, “and try not to crash this one,” I
yell after them.
Wildmen break from the treeline as I wrap an arm and a leg around the chain ladder. I take aim and start firing, but they’re moving too quickly, and there are too many of them for me to get them all. Some start
to climb up onto the downed shuttle.
I’m panicking; too many of my shots are going wild, hitting dirt and trees instead of Ferals. Wasteful! I need to pick my shots better.
“Come on, come on,” I say to myself, feeling my rifle growing warm in my hands.
I feel the ladder pull against me, lifting my slowly off of the shuttle’s skin. I curse Marcy for going so slow.
I rise up into the air as a couple of Wilders reach where I was. I think I’m safe until one of them leaps up, and snags my ankle. I’m not sure which hurts worse, his grip on my leg or the chain I’m hanging from digging into a pretty sensitive area.
“Frass off,” I curse, and kick at the man with my free leg as we start the flight towards Primary. My kicks don’t seem to do much to him, and he tries to climb up my leg, getting one hand onto the ladder.
It’s awkward, but I manage to jam my rifle’s emitter against the Wildman’s arm and fire it. Most of the arm between the wrist and the elbow is burnt away in the flash, leaving his hand dangling from the ladder
The sudden loss of grip causes the Wildman to swing wildly with his remaining hand still gripping my leg. He slides down the wet surface of my armour, catching on my boot.
“Let go already,” I say, and start kicking at him again.
The pressure on my leg and in my groin is almost unbearable, and then it is gone so suddenly as my boot slips off that I almost fall off the ladder myself. The Feral and my left boot disappear into the jungle below.
As I climb up into my ship, the wind whipping through my hair, I can’t help but think how much I liked that pair of boots.