mcgrew's Journal: Mars, Ho! Chapter Twenty One

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                I went into the pilot room still haunted by the horrible, awful, terrible sight of a faceless woman, and strapped in. As normal, I warned the cargo and crew that we were going to zero gravity for a couple of minutes in a while. The computers can give you a better idea of the maneuvers so I won't go into detail about that.
                However, there was one thing that wasn't right: One of the computers disagreed with the other three about a reading. I dropped to point one gravity and trudged (bounded might be a better word at .1 G) to the remaining generator, which is what the computers disagreed about.
                In all my years of driving these boats I've never seen the computers disagree about anything, so I was pretty worried. Especially since we only had one generator left; we could make it to Mars on batteries, but if we had to we'd be like Wild Bill and in danger from the pirates when we got close to Mars. That's where the pirates usually are, because that's when shipping is most vulnerable to them.
                The disagreeing computer was right, there was a tenth of a volt overvoltage going to engine seventeen, but a tenth of a volt wouldn't hurt anything. I shut number seventeen down anyway, and then went back to the pilot room, strapped in, got ready to maneuver and dropped the thrust to zero G.
                The maser beeped. "John, Bill here. I got some bad news for you, buddy. I picked up some radio traffic from pirates, and one of the boats you destroyed had survivors. They're really, really pissed off at you, John. Be careful when you get close to Mars. Have all your weapons armed, not just as many as the book says but all of 'em. And if I was you I'd even have atomics ready. You should have heard them talking about you... there's a price on your head, John. Sorry to bring bad news, hope I see you on Mars, I'll buy you a beer. Kelly out."
                Shit. God damned pirates, I wish the company would build a few warships to rid the solar system of those God damned mother fucking sons of bitches. God damned bastards!
                I got the boat turned around and went back to my apartment... sorry, "quarters".
                Destiny looked up from her tablet as I came in. "What's wrong, Johnnie?"
                "Bill called," I said. "One of those damned pirate boats had survivors and now the pirates want my head. We're sure to be attacked when we get close to Mars."
                Her eyes got wide. "Oh, my,"she said, "Are we going to be okay?"
                "Don't worry," I reassured her, worried myself. "I called the company. They'll sent a huge armed convoy to escort us on the last leg. Meanwhile we can still outmaneuver them with one generator. And we have arms ourselves. In fact, I'm getting a cup of coffee and then checking out our weapons.
                "That generator itself is a weapon, even. I can make it spew gamma rays behind the boat, they'll be too sick to fight in minutes and dead in days. Honey, we're armed to the teeth. We have rail guns, lasers, EMP mines and rockets, other atomics..."
                I got a cup of coffee. "Ugh," I said after taking a drink.
                "Sorry," she said, "the robot made it."
                "Nasty damned robots," I replied. "Ill make a fresh pot."
                "What do you mean by 'other atomics'?"
                "We have hydrogen bombs. Lots of 'em. You don't think the company would leave their property defenseless, do you?" Damn, I didn't want to wait for a cup. Oh well.
                As the coffeepot gurgled I said "Don't say anything about pirates to anybody, especially the whores. They're the last ones I want to upset. I'm a lot more worried about them than pirates."
                She laughed. "you finished Tammy's book."
                "Yeah," I said, "I did. Scariest book I ever read."
                "You've read a lot of scary books?" she asked, grinning.
                "No," I admitted, "I don't really like reading."
                "That's too bad," she said. "Look how much help Tammy's book is to you."
                "That book gives me nightmares!" I exclaimed, finally pouring my coffee.
                "It might save your life," she said sternly.
                "Yeah, I agreed. "I wish I'd read it before that first rock rain. I'd have known the effect of lowered gravity on dropheads."
                "You've been calling them that lately."
                "Got it from the dropheads themselves. Seems that a 'drophead' is an angel tear addict and a 'dropper' is someone who uses them but isn't addicted. One of them said 'I ain't no drophead, bitch.' But they're all dropheads, some get addicted the first time they try it, according to Tammy's book."
                "I know," she said, "I read it."
                "Why didn't you tell me?"
                "I thought you read the book."
                "I should have. I should read more."
                "Yeah, you should."
                I finished my coffee. "I gotta get back to work."
                She asked "want to watch a movie when we get back?"
                "Sure," I said, "make it a funny one. One without any damned droppers."
                "Old one then," she said. "Today's comedies all have droppers."
                "Nothing funny about dropheads," I growled. Damned whores...

It may be a while before I post another chapter, as I'm at a loss as to what sort of trouble Knolls finds himself in next, except a vague idea about droppers not liking having lowered gravity as they approach Mars. So I'm going to work on the ending for a while, but won't post it until whatever chapters will come next.

I'm 18.3% towards the goal of 100,000 words. If I get there I'll see if Baen will publish it, self-publishing is a pain in the ass, a lot of work. OTOH you have almost complete control over the finished book, so if Baen rejects it I'll publish it myself.

I've gone through and edited a few times, but not what is posted here. So far I was pointed to a typo that I might never have seen, and another informed me of the best way to present the German sentence, and I thank them both. Editing seems to make the chapters longer, which is fine because I want to hack out a lot of verbiage that hopefully isn't garbiage.