Paddy’s Moonshine Still
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While the Technos started invading—or liberating the outermost moons, depending on how you’d look at it—General Bragg’s rebel flotilla strayed towards Fenrir, Saturn XLI. Added to the strenuous context, a recent upsurge in desertions had made the Freedom League general staff both worried and paranoid; resulting in most of the infantry and fleet pilots being confined to their dismal quarters. This unfair policy led to gruesome epidemics and cabin fever crises too often resolved with Russian roulette contests.
Concerned about his platoons’ state of mind, it was with a great deal of bowing and scraping that Captain Stuart obtained permission for them to take off on simple patrols, thus allowing the reckon units’ F-XIV to stretch their wings among Saturn’s ravaged Norse moons.
On that particular evening, Miles Villanueva and Pierre Candide found themselves on a ride with Ameera “Shujaa” Faris. Her Flicker left a green trail as her jet engine melted a cloud of rare meteoric beads over her male companions.
Unfortunately, the beauty of the moment couldn’t reach Pierre’s poetic side, deeply buried under his Cajun-born mantle. “We’re fucking bored, ain’t we?” he said within a exaggerated yawn. Whether he was sitting on his tiny bunk playing on his loud Game Pocket or in the void gliding closer to a mighty gas giant, Shrimp always died of ennui. And when he died of ennui, he’d kept talking about Ballou, his longing homeworld. “How I miss the green grass of Ballou. With those slight blue reflections. Have I ever told you how my family gets magnificent bluish tints, Red?”
“At least ten times,” his pilot heaved.
“How about you, little Shuuj’?”
“Ain’t caring much, brother.”
Shrimp heard neither answer, and resumed his monologue: “Kentucky Bluegrass seeds can only be found at the Neosterdam’s organic market—in De Wallen. They’re deenay pure—not modified. That’s crucial. The purplish hue is Earth-original, but the ardent reflection of the Ringed Planet emphasized it even more. Why? I ain’t got no clue. It’s my cousin—Kat—she got a green thumb, and—”
“Hello, patrol. Do you copy? Caught a distress call. nearby,” interrupted a radio officer from the F.L.S. Chickamauga.
“Thanks Buchanan! Savin’ us a lecture on blue weed again!” Shujaa sighed.
Pierre growled. “Y’all naggers.”
“Will you listen to what I have to say, you assholes?” Buchanan snapped with his electric guitar voice. Miles then heard him chewing his tobacco, and his squad’s apology was punctuated by the ting of a spittoon. “So… a gonk’s in mucho trouble not far from your plan à trois in the bluegrass. A Judge—according to the S.O.S. emitted. He’d have a gang of moonshiners on his mercenary ass. Sending you the coords, right away for your to investigate. Over.”
“A Judge?” Pierre noted. Unfolding his map, he tapped with his free hand on the keyboard in front of him.
“Bounty hunter,” Miles explained, reading the mayday relayed by his copilot. “The Judges are competitors to the Alliance and the Martian Headhunters, for example. They work solo. Their federation swore loyalty to the Rings—unlike the other private groups.”
“Private? What the hell do we care then, Buchanan? Over.” Pierre asked.
“They’re on our trajectory,” the officer clarified. “And we don’t want civilians strafing each other near our old nut shells. Besides, shooting a Judge would look bad in the press. Especially when the list of our allies is as thin as the cheese toasts served in the mess hall. Over.”
“We still got cheese toasts?” Pierre asked.
“No…” Buchanan replied.
“Roger that F.L.S. Chickamauga, we’re handling the Judge and his moonshiners buddies,” Miles said.
“Thanks, Red. Good luck. Out, patrol.”
The trio immediately made their way to a deserted sector where, a few days before, a local corporation had come to restore the intraweb network sabotaged by Techno infiltrators. The small asteroid studded with satellite dishes and solar panels whirled in the distance between a dozen glittering ice blocks.
When one of them flashed red, Shuuja, in the lead, warned the others: “The Judge just pinged me.”
Miles and Pierre advanced up to her.
“Tell him not to play dumb,” Pierre burped as he finished his cold root beer.
“Shit.”
“What?”
“The Judge’s not the one poking my hull.”
“The moonshiners,” Miles guessed.
“Yes. In their fuckin’ old Comanches!” Shuuja shouted as she realized a sudden lurch.
A salvo of small-caliber machine guns found its way through the sidereal void to constellate the long canopy of Miles and Pierre. The starry impacts drew a curve, which the pilot followed while dashing his stick on the dashboard’s left.
“Talk to me, Pierre!”
“Behind you, Red!” shouted Shuuja at once.
Pierre replied with his characteristic slight delay. “Behind us.”
“Thanks, Pierre,” Miles laughed, consulting his instruments.
“You’re welcome. Pretty fast for pre-war American drifters…”
A ricochet of bullets on the hull startled them both. On the wizzo’s radar, three fighters still bearing their blue United Nations yet almost-faded registrations started chasing them. Closer to the ice field, Shuuja was clashing against a fourth lone attacker who had the misfortune to cross her sights.
“Got a visual on the Judge’s ship. Think he can sup us?” Pierre asked as an alarm implied that a Comanche was locking on to them. “Motherfucker!”
“Hold on your stomach!” Miles shouted.
Luckily, the expected missile didn’t come from the light fighter modified enough to stand up to post-Uprising Flickers, but was launched from the bloated piece of junk piloted by the unknown Judge. Appearing as the misspelled Chopping Bock—according to her transponder—the bounty hunter’s Beetle-XIV immediately fired a second rocket from the same pad riveted on her celestial-dust-polished dorsal.
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“Incoming!” Shrimp howled. An enemy tracer drew a glowing straight line near the opening lever of the canopy’s left side. “Top attack flight profile.”
“Righteous…” Miles replied.
In front of them, the torpedoes climbed vertically before soaring into the dogfight. The first passed a foot from the F-XIV’s left wing before recovering again. A second later, the late one narrowly missed the aircraft’s nose. Without a superhuman reflex from the pilot, it would have pulverized the helping rebels.
“ … not,” Miles groaned while shutting down the incoming Baltimore cycle.
Pierre just swore before biting his tongue.
The Chopping Bock’s guidance system had, however, perfectly locked the Comanches behind. And two of them joined the starry firmament, adding anonymous graves. Their wrecks would become reference points for the future stranded of the Space Highway.
“Still one fucker left!” Pierre bellowed, in the midst of a breathing exercise to maintain consciousness.
The hull creaked, and twisted. Miles was already working on it. Using the double blast from the explosions, he brutally spun the F-XIV around, trying to come face to face with the moonshiner. Cutting the reactor to stabilize the ship, he hoped for his enemy to pass the shroud of glowing debris then in front of them.
Thanks to his onboard computer, the smuggler read the balance of power reversal. But only too late. And so, as soon as his skiff emerged from the cloud, a blizzard of bullets leveled the canopy down to the rubber seals. The storm turned its inhabitant and the old Boston-made electronic equipment into a marmalade of frozen blood and shattered glass.
“No missiles?” Pierre burped as Miles dodged the incoming remains.
“Keeping them warm.”
Shuuja also returned victorious from her duel. “Did the quartermaster yell at you again?”
“The Judge’s Beetle,” Miles said. “Don’t trust him.”
Gulping a couple of acidic refluxes away, Shrimp welcomed his caution. “That—that hunter’s radio’s still dead flat. We’re going to have to get on board.”
“Roger.”
The three of them then cautiously approached the Chopping Bock presumably armed to the teeth, but obviously badly damaged.
While closer, Shujaa asked: “You know how to use irons, boys?”
“I do,” Shrimp began, “but regarding guns, Red has the hand-eye coordination of a snake.”
The focused pilot didn’t respond to the provocation. Instead, he positioned himself near the access hatch of the silent ship. As a hacking cable unfolded from the front of the fighter to connect to the outlets controlling the doors, Miles prepared for his exit. Following Pierre’s orders, Shuuja started hovering above the Beetle’s cockpit shaped like bug’s orbs.
“Blew the airlock with a small bypass,” the wizzo explained a minute later. “An impact had fried some circuits, preventing the panels from opening.”
“Shall we?” Miles asked as he rehearsed for his short jump into the void.
“You first,” said Pierre, tossing him one of the handguns stored under the pilot’s seat next to his MacNaughton. “Don’t shoot me in the foot.”
The following boarding progressed smoothly until Miles and Pierre reached the half-light hold.
Manning an old lead spitting arquebus, the Judge spotted the two revel aces from behind a big barrel facing the sliding doors. His greeting came only after the clatter of the security. “One step further and y’all chilly worm-meat, birdmen…” the man warned them, frowning his thick bushy unibrow, whose most protruding parts hugged the brim of his hat. Chewing his pipe stem, he then motioned for them to drop their weapons.
Miles and Pierre kept the hunter at gunpoint. The man pulled on his pipe, which still emitted a very unpleasant odor, even though the two rebels were getting their oxygen directly from their stomach pouches. Rings-grown tobacco’s stench would reach anything behind any filters.
“Who the fuck are ya?” asked the Judge. Immediately, the long barrel of his strange weapon split in two to aim simultaneously at Pierre and Miles. On the butt, a stapled battery buzzed.
“Lieutenant Miles Villanueva from the 1st Cavalry of the Freedom League.”
“And my name’s Pierre—”
The Judge cut Shrimp off at once, raising his caterpillar-brow: “Miles Villanueva? The SASCAR champion?”
“The one and only...”
Jumping over his barrel with the arquebus on his shoulder, the bounty hunter displayed a broad smile that revealed a set of uneven teeth as yellow as the Mimantean pilot’s old sweater. “What a surprise, Red Swan! I’m Paddy Bean.” Still held at gunpoint by Pierre, he throttled towards his saviors before extending a hairy bear hand to Miles. “Why the heck are ya here, boy? Ain’t you stiff?”
“No, sir,” Miles replied, shaking his paw.
Meanwhile, Shrimp—far from enjoying the same notoriety of his friend—got only a nod from the man
“Ya a soldier now? What’s the next step? Movie star? Techno-Senator?” The Judge’s joke was accompanied by a loutish laugh, and he patted his large chest until a coughing fit stopped him.
“Sir? We just wanted to let you know that you were safe,” the WSO said. “But your radio was off.”
“Well, I’m safe… I’m safe! Of course, I’m safe…” The Judge then reached into the back pocket of his greasy space suit—strangely held together by a pair of colorful suspenders—and pulled out a damaged Techno-Civil Code. Snorting, he tore out a moldy page to blow his nose and welcome the spit stuck behind his black molars. “I’m safe but y’all fucking late.”
“You’re lucky we were around,” Shrimp dryly replied.
“Ah! Lucky the Technos didn’t kick yar rebel asses up to Planet Nine yet, ya mean.” The Judge laughed again, and ripped out two new sheets in anticipation. “Your friend the gal ain’t coming?”
“Somebody’s gotta watch out in case moonshiners—” Miles began.
“—or Technos…” Shrimp picked up.
“Or Technos, yes. We need an eye on the radar. And a direct contact with our fleet.”
Jeering, the Judge blew its purple nose at a page dedicated to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. “Ah! Her loss…” He then pointed to the bottom of the fusty hold. “Ya gotta check this out while ya’re here, rebels hot shots! Besides, I gotta give ya something.”
“What do you mean?” Miles went on.
“Here, boy!”
Behind a dirty tarp appeared a dubious conceived assembly of copper pipes and balloons rusting between huge bags of grain nailed to the floor. In the relative gravity of the ship, corn and alcohol bubbles clogged the filters and life support equipment around, when clouds of droplets from twisted drains didn’t stick to the rungs of the ladder leading to the cockpit.
“What on Saturn is this?” Shrimp asked as he brought his opening visor closer to bottles dripping with a clear liquid.
It was moonshine; in an almost literal sense since the rotten corn had apparently grown in Titan’s hydroponic farms.
“That’s a still, boy.”
“You stole it from the perps?” Miles inquired. “I didn’t know the Judges could slap civil-asset forfeitures.”
“Who? What? Oh! Nah…” the Judge reacted, making his unibrow and glowing pipe dance with each synaptic connection. “This is mine! All mine! Those shiners hoped to creep it from me. Bunch of them yellow livers.”
Shrimp appeared confused. “Ain’t you a bounty hunter?” he asked.
“Uh-uh,” the Judge acknowledged, serving them a generous shot.
“And you make contraband alcohol?”
“Sure. The best ‘round the Norse group.”
“We risked our lives for you and…” continued Miles’ wizzo as he took a shy sip.
“Ya hazarded yar lives for my fancy booze, sure.” The Judge drank his poison in one gulp, while Miles hesitated. “Ah, boy!”’ he exclaimed, his face slightly redder. “But what a treasure! Taste it—instead of peeping like a gal!” His loaded breath turned gravity upside down.
“It reeks like Blue…” Miles moaned as he sniffed the foaming mixture.
“Ah! That’s the key ingredient, Mr. Red Swan.”
Miles spat out the few drops that had already burned his lips. “We’re leaving…” he spoke, returning his half-full glass.
“Suit yourselves, birdmen!” the Judge laughed as he swapped Shrimp’s, emptied glass, with two fresh bottles of his latest vintage. “And long lives the Cause!”