Moon of Odysseus: Black Ocean: Galaxy Outlaws, #8

By J.S. Morin

One man's crash is another man's treasure. 

"Blackjack, this is Scarecrow. I finally found it. We're going to be rich." 

Carl Ramsey gets a comm from an old squadron mate with a lead on the salvage of a lifetime: an ARGO battleship. The ENV Odysseus doesn't just represent more money than the Mobius crew has ever seen, it could provide answers on what became of the last ship Carl ever served aboard during his time in the navy. 

But experimental battleships don't just fall from the sky, and the Mobius will have to overcome whatever caused the Odysseus to crash in the first place. On an uncharted moon outside ARGO controlled space, Carl and the crew will have to contend not only with local wildlife and warring factions among the survivors, but a mysterious magical effect that renders technology inert. 

With the Mobius unable to fly and more potential peril than profit, can Carl bring himself to pull the plug on the salvage plan and just find a way to escape? Of course not. It's time to double down, double cross, and find a way to still get rich. Because some treasures just might be worth dying for. 

Moon of Odysseus is the eighth mission of Black Ocean: Galaxy Outlaws, a science fantasy series set in the 26th century. Do you wish there had been a second season of Firefly? Do you love the irreverent fun of Guardians of the Galaxy? Have you ever wondered how Star Wars would have turned out if Luke and Obi-wan had ditched the rebellion to become smugglers with Han and Chewie? Then Black Ocean: Galaxy Outlaws is the series for you! 

Pick up your copy of Moon of Odysseus, and join the hunt for the biggest score the Mobius has ever made!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Magical Scrivener Press
• Release date: Nov 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781939233813

J.S. Morin

I am a creator of worlds and a destroyer of words. As a fantasy writer, my works range from traditional epics to futuristic fantasy with starships. I have worked as an unpaid Little League pitcher, a cashier, a student library aide, a factory grunt, a cubicle drone, and an engineer--there is some overlap in the last two. Through it all, though, I was always a storyteller. Eventually I started writing books based on the stray stories in my head, and people kept telling me to write more of them. Now, that's all I do for a living. I enjoy strategy, worldbuilding, and the fantasy author's privilege to make up words. I am a gamer, a joker, and a thinker of sideways thoughts. But I don't dance, can't sing, and my best artistic efforts fall short of your average notebook doodle. When you read my books, you are seeing me at my best. My ultimate goal is to be both clever and right at the same time. I have it on good authority that I have yet to achieve it. Visit me at jsmorin.com

Book preview

Moon of Odysseus

MOON OF ODYSSEUS

MISSION 8

BLACK OCEAN: GALAXY OUTLAWS

J.S. MORIN

MAGICAL SCRIVENER PRESS

Moon of Odysseus

Mission 8 of: Black Ocean

Copyright © 2015 J.S. Morin

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

Magical Scrivener Press

www.magicalscrivener.com

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Ordering Information: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address above.

J.S. Morin — First Edition

ISBN: 978-1-939233-81-3

Printed in the United States of America

MOON OF ODYSSEUS

MISSION 8

Blackjack, this is Scarecrow. I finally found it. We’re going to be rich.

Carl Ramsey raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t often anything showed up on this old comm ID. Few even knew he had it. Checking on it had become a habit more than an expectation of getting a message, but that didn’t mean the message was unwelcome. It was welcome as hell. For months the Mobius had been drifting around, sneaking in and out of colonies, starports, and scrapyards. Small time stuff. A theft here, a barter there, and once in a while a frantic escape.

Carl set the datapad beside him on the bed, still displaying Scarecrow’s message. This could be the real deal. Plenty of shady contacts out there offered too-good-to-be-true opportunities; Carl’s message dump was filled with them. But this was Scarecrow, his old wingman and one of the survivors of Squadron 333. The day Scarecrow’s word wasn’t good enough for him was the day he didn’t deserve to captain a starship.

There were no details in the message, no explanation pending if he read farther down. The only hint was a set of coordinates buried in the comm routing code. It would be a rendezvous site. That would be where they’d meet, if Carl wanted in. And Carl wanted in.

The night was silent, save for the thrumming, mechanical background grumbles that he had learned to all but ignore. The holovid playing in the common room had ended nearly an hour ago—some weepy romance that Rhiannon and Esper were keen on. He couldn’t hear any signs of activity from beyond the door of his quarters. He had time to think while the crew all slept.

Come morning, he’d need to have a plan to convince them all to go treasure hunting.

Outside the cockpit window, the pin-speckled darkness of the Black Ocean loomed. As Carl watched, the unfamiliar local starscape faded, blurring into the uniform gray of astral space. Counting in his head, he waited. At fifty-eight, the gray darkened into realspace once more, and the stars reappeared. It had been happening at regular intervals all morning as Esper practiced guiding the ship back and forth between the two planes of existence.

The first time he’d noticed them drop into astral, he’d blamed Mort. A random astral drop by an experienced wizard was an annoyance. Instead Mort had informed him that it was part of Esper’s training. Being tossed without warning into a parallel dimension by a novice was downright terrifying. However after a few weeks of not dying, the terror had worn off, replaced by a dull, nagging worry—the same sort of worry as getting onto a decrepit intra-system shuttle or getting worked on by a med tech wearing a trainee badge.

Get out of that goddamn chair.

The regular pilot of the Mobius tore Carl from his musings. Hey, Tanny. Got a comm last night. Figured I’d run it by you first. He levered himself out of his seat and offered it to Tanny with a flourish.

She didn’t take her eyes off him as she settled in behind the controls. What kind of comm we talking? Did you break comm silence?

Carl held up an oath-swearing hand. All passive. I promise. He brought up the message from Scarecrow and handed it to her.

Her brow grew increasingly furrowed, and Carl knew she had read it more than once. I’ll bite. What’s the scam?

Carl grinned. I don’t know. Sounds like a nice break from pillaging deserted relay stations and cleaning up dead-space battlefields though, doesn’t it?

She tossed him the datapad. Pass.

What?

I said ‘pass.’ We don’t need a cockamamie scheme right now. We need something solid; we’re barely scraping by out here. One bad job and we might not recover.

You make it sound like we’re taking a job posted to the omni, Carl said, resting his elbows on the copilot’s chair. This is Scarecrow. I know you two never got along, but I’ll take this lead over anything we cobble together. This could be the break we’ve been looking for.

Tanny crossed her arms. Ask yourself how often you’ve thought that. And how does it always turn out?

This is different, though. Scarecrow—

Charlie, Tanny corrected him. She’s not your wingman anymore. And she’s the craziest of the bunch.

Carl twitched a smile. The Half-Devils of Squadron 333, craziest fuckers in Earth Navy. It was practically our motto. But Scarecrow’s no crazier than I am.

"I don’t say this often, but I think this time you’re not the more reckless one. Besides, it could be a trap. Why would she even send you a comm? Everyone either believes you’re dead or in hiding."

Hatchet would have told her, Carl said with a shrug. I told him to pass the word around to the squad.

You WHAT? Tanny threw up her arms. How were you expecting to fake your death if you had Hiroshi going around telling everyone you weren’t dead?

Hey, I owed it to them, Carl said. And he did. The Half-Devils weren’t just old navy buddies; they were family. Same as they told Rhiannon, Carl had to let the news get around that he wasn’t actually a dead man. Besides, who knows what those crazy fuckers might have done to Silde Slims for vengeance.

You see? You see? Tanny said, pointing. "That’s what I mean. They’re loose cannons. Hiroshi might have been the most stable of the bunch. But Charlie’s gone nuts."

Carl took a step back and put up his hands. It wasn’t the time to get into Hatchet’s personal history to refute her point. You know what? Fine. I don’t need consensus on this… just a majority.

The race was on. Carl bolted down the short corridor to the common room as Tanny extracted herself from the pilot’s chair to give chase. She was quicker than him, thanks to her chemically enhanced physiology, but he had too large a head start.

I found us a lead on something huge, Carl blurted out as he skidded to a halt.

All eyes turned toward him. Esper and Rhiannon looked up from their breakfast. From the couch, Roddy stopped flipping through the holovid database to glance over. Mriy opened the door from her quarters to peer out, her feline ears swiveling in Carl’s direction.

What’s this all about? Mort asked, stepping out of the shower in a bathrobe. The wizard was still sopping wet.

I got a comm, Carl said, glaring over at Tanny. No details, but I’ve got coordinates for a meeting.

Good. Mriy shut her door. That was the nice thing about her sometimes. She could just take good fortune at face value.

Lemme guess, Rhiannon said with a mouthful of cereal. This isn’t the sort of gig where I sing and people pay us, is it? Her career had been put on hold while the Mobius crew was in hiding. Skulking along the outskirts of the civilized galaxy wasn’t conducive to an aspiring singer’s prospects.

Where’s the lead from? Roddy asked. I’ve about had my fill of garbage picking, but I’m not working for a question mark if I can help it.

An old navy buddy, Carl said.

Hatchet? Esper asked, perking up. They’d worked with Hiroshi ‘Hatchet’ Samuelson on the heist that got Carl his own toy racing ship—one that was a civilian racing model based on his old military Typhoon IV. He was nice. I’d work with him again. Carl had to give Hiroshi credit; he had that effect on a lot of women.

No, not him, Carl replied. He looked over his shoulder, checking himself before he made eye contact with Tanny. My wingman, Scarecrow.

Rhiannon chuckled. You pilots and your call signs. I couldn’t believe my ears when you told Mom and Dad the guys you flew with.

Scarecrow, Hatchet, Brick, Wolfhound, Rib-Eye, Vixen, Cricket, Samurai, Juggler, Jackhammer, Wallaby, Biscuit, Athena, Vegas, Dynamo, Knuckles, and Prune Juice. And one Lieutenant Commander Blackjack Ramsey to lead them. The names cycled through his head in seconds as Carl’s eyes lost focus. Nearly half of them were dead, but he could still hear their voices over the comm, calling the role.

Roddy snapped his fingers. "Yo, Mobius to Carl. We lose you there?"

Carl blinked and shook his head to clear it. Nah, just thinking. Anyway, I trust Scarecrow.

What if it’s a setup, and it’s not really her? Tanny asked. Ever think of that?

Carl replied with a shrug. I always think of that. But my gut tells me this is legit.

Your gut’s about as reliable as Kubu’s, Tanny said.

Speaking of… how’s Kubu’s food supply? Carl asked, veering from the subject at hand.

Still got two giant carcasses stinking up the cargo bay, Roddy said. Can smell the rot clear back to the engine room.

How long’s that going to last him?

Esper cleared her throat. The hippo lasted him three days. He’ll probably get another three out of two moose. We’ve got some odds and ends that might hold him over longer, but you know Kubu… he loves to eat.

Sounds like we need a source of income to buy him some more, and soon, Carl said, sounding very concerned. Tanny had adopted Kubu, a puppy of a sentient canid species. But while he had come aboard the size of a large dog, he was growing at a frightening rate. He was already too large to fit through the ship’s doors without risk of getting stuck, limiting him to the cargo bay.

Tanny set her jaw. Carl watched her eyes scanning the crew, looking for signs of support, or at least that’s what he imagined. Sometimes there was just no telling what was going on in that head of hers.

Fine, Tanny snapped. As she stalked back to the cockpit, she yelled without turning. Send me the coordinates. Let’s get this over with.

The coordinates from Scarecrow included an astral depth of 6.5. Not being an integer meant it was off the standard travel lanes in the astral. Being lower than 4.0 meant that someone was running a high-end star-drive—possibly military grade. The flat gray space was deserted when they arrived. Tanny put the Mobius into a null-velocity position relative to realspace.

Well, we’re here, Tanny said, slouching back in the pilot’s chair with her arms crossed. So, what? We just wait and hope someone shows up, preferably not with an ARGO battle group ready to dust us?

Something like that, Carl replied offhandedly. His eyes were only for the astral. A grin broke out on his face as a ship appeared not ten meters from the forward windows.

Jesus! Tanny exclaimed. Scrambling to an upright position in her chair and grabbing for the controls. But Carl put a hand out to stop her.

Easy, he said reassuringly. That’s Scarecrow.

The ship was a single-seater, bigger than a Squall or a Typhoon, but only enough to cram in a bunk and a star-drive. Its hull was sleek and angular, painted blood red. Though it bristled with armaments, all pointed straight at the Mobius, none of them were powered. The pilot waved. She pointed first to herself, then to the Mobius.

Carl gave a thumbs up, and then poked the index finger of one hand into a loose fist made by the other.

Swing us around, and dock airlock-to-airlock, he ordered, using his rusty naval order-giving tone.

Wouldn’t the comm have been easier?

Carl chuckled. She had her ship cloaked while parked in the middle of nowhere, neck-deep in the outlaws’ astral.

Great, Tanny replied. Charlie’s got her conspiracy scanners on overload?

Paranoid people live longer.

How any of you crazy bastards are still alive is beyond me, Tanny muttered.

As Scarecrow maneuvered her ship to dock, Carl headed for the cargo bay and the airlock. It had been a long time since he’d seen his old wingman. It would be nice having a matching set of crazy on board.

The cargo bay had begun to smell. There just wasn’t enough room to store all the food Kubu required, and he wasn’t picky when it came to the state of the meat he ate. Those two facts had conspired to create a horrific lick the tarp clean policy where Kubu’s food was laid out on stain-resistant nano-mesh cloth tarpaulins on the cargo bay floor. Most of the crew limited their exposure to the smell as best they could. Tanny and Esper visited Kubu to keep him company but couldn’t stay as long as they might have liked; Esper had even tried going down in her EV helmet to filter the air. Roddy needed to get through to access most of the ship’s systems but got in and out as quickly as he could. Mriy didn’t mind the smell as much as the rest of them, so she’d started to bond with the big sentient canid.

Carl hadn’t been down there in days. As captain, he felt it was his duty to be there when Scarecrow arrived. Kubu looked on from a non-threatening distance away from atop a pile of discarded laundry that served him as a bed. His growth showed no signs of stopping, and standing next to Carl, they could look one another square in the eye.

A dull tremor in the floor told Carl that the two ships had docked. Someone—either Tanny or Scarecrow—must have been getting sloppy, since he hadn’t expected to notice the connection at all. A minute or so later, the airlock cycled. When the door opened, a vision from the past stepped out.

Scarecrow was scrawny as ever, a fact accentuated by her mousy features. The years had treated her well. No sign of wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. She hadn’t gotten doughy or gray-flecked in the hair. Her normally frazzled blonde hair was tamed in a mop of tiny, jaw-length braids that bounced as her head snapped this way and that—she rarely looked with just her eyes. She wore a bulky flight jacket that probably concealed an armored layer beneath, and baggy pants lined in pockets. A blaster pistol dangled in a holster around her waist, and her forearm was covered by a TeleJack.

With a few button presses on that interface, a second tremble in the floor told Carl they her ship had just released from docking. Hey, Blackjack. Long time, right? She strode over and grabbed Carl’s hand as he stuck it out. They clapped one another on the back. The smell of her hair brought back old memories.

Too long, Carl agreed. They separated and he looked down at her with a grin. She looked good; the years had been kind since he’d last seen her. Of course, that wasn’t the sort of thing he could just blurt out. But he’d gotten so used to seeing her in a flight suit or uniform that he always remembered her as a pilot, not as a woman. Realizing that he’d let a silence build between them as he stared, he said voiced the first unrelated question that came to mind. How’s the head?

Somewhere in the depths of his brain, Ladies Man Carl slammed his head against a desk.

She shrugged. Like all her mannerisms, it looked like someone had jerked too hard on a puppet’s strings. Better lately; still not great. Nice ship you’ve got here. Pretty soon you’ll be able to buy a fleet of them.

Anyone else would have said it with sarcasm and would have told him he could have bought a better ship. But Scarecrow got it—got him. This was a home more than a vehicle. As much as he loved Rhiannon, Scarecrow was like a sister who shared common interests.

So, you gonna keep us in the dark on this one, or tell me what scheme you’ve hatched to make us rich?

Scarecrow’s eyes darted to Kubu, who was watching in silence. He opened his mouth to let his tongue loll in what passed for a smile. Can we trust the canid?

He’s part of the crew, and hardly knows how to use the comm, let alone anyone to call. Carl winked at Kubu. Think of him as a giant six-year-old.

With a taste for raw… what the hell is that, a deer? Scarecrow asked, jerking her head at the tarp.

A moose, Carl said. Minus the antlers. Kubu, c’mere and meet an old friend of mine.

Kubu’s eyes widened, as did his grin. He bounded over, tail wagging. Hello. Nice to meet you. His English was improving, though his voice was getting deeper than the engines’ rumble.

Scarecrow didn’t flinch. She wasn’t a flincher. She had never needed to be. There were a lot of skills and talents that went into making a top-notch combat pilot: steady nerves, spatial awareness, teamwork, bravery. But the one that Scarecrow had in spades was killer reflexes. As she reached up to pat Kubu, she used her off-hand. If Carl were a betting man (and barring crew intervention, he usually was), he’d have put money that if Kubu lunged for her, she’d have her blaster out of the holster and the trigger pulled before Kubu closed his jaws.

You’re a friendly one, huh? she asked conversationally.

Nice hair, Carl said. I still remember you showing up first day at flight school, looking like you’d been struck by lightning.

"I miss the look, but loose