Attack Planet: A Space Opera Novel Read online

  8

  Flint counted three scavages spreading out to flank him. He ducked, opened the door on his side and crawled into the driver’s seat. With no roof over him, he squeezed himself between the front seats. Used his left hand to push the pedal and his right hand to steer his vehicle blindman style. He couldn’t see the incoming scavages anymore but guessed their location.

  “Get dat boy,” one of them said.

  “Blast ‘em goood,” the other freak said.

  They fired, but Flint pushed pedals, and he pushed them good. Before he knew it, he ran over the attacker trying to flank him from the left.

  Scavage, meet hood.

  Hood, meet scavage.

  The running gag of the day.

  ‘Ungh’ was all Flint heard as the freak felt the impact of the rider’s hood. The shots kept raining and tore at the vehicle’s rear. One volley pierced the side doors and left nugget-sized holes. Flint, still ducking, peeked through them and caught sight of the other two scavages. At least he knew where they stood.

  Steer.

  Push.

  And hit.

  Incoming scav number two didn’t fare better than the first. When he saw Flint coming after him, he stopped shooting and ran away. Or tried to. Apparently, scavages weren’t much smarter than wraggs. No one could outrun the guy in the rider.

  No one.

  In less than a blink, Flint ran him over with the power of two tons and left a trail of bloody puree.

  Only one more to go.

  He charged after Flint and unleashed a volley of bullets at his trunk. Flint wanted to knock him over like the others, but he realized this was the scav with the corrosive ammo.

  Damnio.

  Flint steered the vehicle into a sharp curve, trying to avoid the incoming acid rain.

  Fat chance.

  The majority of the shots hit the trunk and ripped it apart, just like the wragg corpses on the backseats. Flesh and steel shreds tossed through the air like burned confetti.

  There goes dinner.

  Flint hit the brakes and took cover behind the front seats. The scavage charged at him and reloaded his disc SMG.

  This was the moment.

  Flint grabbed his porn magazine and threw it at the scav. Who knew porn would save his life someday? Granted, the throw only distracted the attacker for a second, but that was all Flint needed to swing his hunter knife. He slammed it into the scav’s skull face shield and made it crack.

  Gotta luv permasteel blades.

  The scavage hissed like a wragg with its balls cut off. Flint brandished the knife and aimed for the freak’s right hand that clutched the disc SMG.

  Clutchin’ no more.

  The scavage howled.

  Flint followed up with another strike to the cracked face shield.

  And another one.

  And another one after that.

  He battered the freak’s face shield till cracks turned into crevices. Broken shreds pierced the scav’s face underneath. The attacker moaned and plucked the pieces from his face as Flint grabbed the disc SMG from the ground. He served the attacker with his own acid medicine.

  The patient didn’t like it.

  Three attackers down, Flint told himself.

  But the satisfaction remained brief.

  In the periphery of his vision, Flint noticed two scavages retreating to their makeshift rider. They started the engine and crashed their vehicle into the front door of his home.

  Those suckers just breached his living room.

  9

  “Where the hell are you, boy?”

  Flint’s father screamed from the upper-right window on the second floor. His deep voice echoed hundreds of meters across the barren ground.

  “Coming,” Flint said from afar and charged toward his house with the disc SMG raised. He jumped over a handful of scavage corpses and grabbed one of the scattered disc magazines. Entered the massive opening that used to be his home’s front porch. The scavages inside leaped from their rider and aimed for the stairway.

  Bang.

  A scattergun blast shot a swarm of pellets into the scav’s thin armor and blew the freak off the ground. Flint glanced back at the stairway and saw the young woman holding the massive close-range gun.

  “Thanks, sis.”

  She pumped the gun and smiled back at him.

  “De nada, brother.”

  Father and mother showed up behind her. Ma was the first to run down the stairs and welcomed Flint. She stretched her arms and embraced her son with teary eyes.

  “Are you okay, sweetie?”

  Flint closed his eyes and enjoyed his mother’s warmth.

  “Are you guys okay?”

  “We’re still alive,” his father said from atop the staircase.

  “To hell with youuu.”

  One of the scavages dusted the rubble off his battered body. He crawled along the bullet-drowned floor and spat out blood. Flint walked up to him and aimed his disc SMG at the scav’s noggin.

  “This is for invading my home.”

  He pulled the trigger and sent rounds of corrosive bullets into the freak’s head. It insta-melted like Meadow cheese over a fusion thruster.

  Acid on auto-fire for the win.

  —Chapter 2—

  Organic debt

  (it grows on you)

  10

  The Ocelot family survived the attack.

  But at what cost? Flint turned around and surveyed the chaos. The front of the house was blown apart. Bullet holes peppered the walls like a bad case of freckles. Singed furniture parts lay around like burned wood but smelled worse.

  “Why did they attack you?”

  “Because they’re scavages, Flint,” father said.

  He knelt next to one and retrieved his face shield.

  “Scav teenagers, I should say.”

  “What?”

  Flint looked down at the unmasked face. The scav looked his age. Father breathed out.

  “That’s why their attack was so uncoordinated. They just wanted to have a little shoot ‘em up fun with us.”

  “Sick,” Flint’s sister said and tiptoed down the staircase, “sick sick sick.”

  Flint nodded, returned his glaze to his mother and noticed a stream of red liquid running down her leg.

  “Mom, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Giselle said before she collapsed.

  11

  Mother hit the ground like a star tomato sack and leaked a lake of blood. Sister freaked out and dropped her scattergun.

  “What’s happening? What’s wrong with her?”

  “Maybe she got shot.”

  Father and Flint carried her to the couch and applied first-aid. Which wasn’t much—disinfection spray and a couple of bandages. Thank Fortuna they discovered the injury fast enough. Pellets from a scavage scattergun pierced mother’s stomach line. Some shreds only reached skin deep, but others penetrated all the way through the muscle tissue or even deeper.

  “Ain’t looking good,” his father said.

  He wasn’t a doctor, but life on the Great Meadows meant lots of first-aid.

  “We have to get a doc, Flint.”

  Since he was the only family member with a limited connection to the holoweb, he was the go-to person for outside help.

  “Got it.”

  He spotted the nearest doctor via the geo-locator and ordered him to come by in a flash. The bald guy with the furry beard arrived at the blown-out porch with an expression of amazement.

  “What happened?”

  “No time,” Flint’s father said.

  The doc nodded and approached mother first. He scanned her, flipped through the charts and inspected her 3D representation. Everyone, even sister, shut up during the examination process. When the doc finished his analysis, he straightened his back and released a sigh. Followed by a worry face.

  Flint could tell it was bad, bad news.

  Doc said,

  “She must visit a medcube as soon as possi
ble. She probably needs an organ replacement.”

  Flint was like,

  “What?”

  “A bio-printed replication,” the doc said. “The scattergun shrapnels penetrated her intestines and caused irreparable tissue damage. She needs to have her liver and stomach replaced with a bio-printed copy extracted from her cells.”

  Flint squirmed. The doc mumbled too much jargon which was a no-go for Flint’s brain. But the doc seemed to understand because he reduced his word choice to the level of a five year old.

  “In short, she needs her stomach and liver replaced or she’s going to die.”

  Flint understood that. He collapsed into a nearby rocker and groaned. Watched his father and sister looking back at him with distorted faces. No one said a word, except for the doc.

  “I know this comes at a shock, given your financial situation. But I’m afraid you have to act now.”

  Flint’s father swallowed his spit.

  “How much is it going to cost?”

  “That depends on which option and brand you choose, but I reckon it’s going to be in the one-to-two million credit range.”

  Father’s eyes bulged out.

  “Up to two million creds?”

  Doc shrugged.

  “It’s a replacement of two vital intestines. The meds have to extract the cells from her body to bio-print them as fast as possible. And express tissue-printing costs a premium.”

  Flint watched his father’s face. He was a proud man who could handle emotional distress better than anyone else in the family. But this time, the strength seemed to escape his face. He was pale as milk powder—after the date of expiry.

  “We don’t have millions of creds. We don’t even have a hundred. I only got a pity allowance from the government.”

  The doc hesitated with his reply.

  “I understand.”

  “What can we do, doc?” sister Letty said.

  Flint wanted to know the same.

  “Yeah, there must be another way. There always is.”

  “Well, there is another option. It’s going to cost you more in the long run, but it’s going to be free from the get-go.”

  Everyone paid attention to him.

  “You can lease her organs,” the doc said.

  “Lease?”

  Flint was going to learn a lot of medical jargon today.

  “Yes, leasing. It’s similar to taking a credit. You get the organs for free and pay for them in monthly rates. The only downside is the interest rate. The industry standard is ten percent per month.”

  “Ten percent of two million creds?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if we can’t pay it back in time?” Flint said to the doctor.

  “Depends on the medical service you use. I can recommend one fine brand that suits your needs.”

  Everyone nodded and looked at mother. She bit her lips and suppressed shouting. No one needed a PhD to see that she was stuck in a world of pain.

  No time for thinking.

  The Ocelot family had to act.

  Now.

  12

  Wraggs roam the woods.

  Scavages attack the innocent.

  Mother with organs no one can pay for.

  House half-way blown apart.

  Welcome to the twilight home

  of the Great Meadow Zone.

  13

  Flint spent the night pondering the disaster.

  His father patched some of the front door damages. He took the remaining boards and blankets from the basement and fortified the house’s blown-out exterior. It looked makeshift and still left half of the front porch exposed, but it was better than nothing.

  It was a new beginning.

  Flint sat in the kitchen where his sister slurped hot cocoa. Father walked in and wiped the sweat from his wrinkled face. He’d been working all day and night.

  “I just got a call from the medical cube. Good news—your mom’s going to make it.”

  Flint and his sister jolted from the chairs. Letty even shed a happy tear.

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Her body accepted the liver and stomach replacements. But she’s exhausted. They want her to stay in bed for at least another week.”

  “Sounds good,” Flint said.

  “Yeah, good,” father said.

  He grabbed a chair and sacked into it. Tiredness spread across his crusty face.

  “What’s the matter?” Flint said.

  Now Letty became quiet too.

  “They also sent me the bill. It’s spicy, to say the least.”

  Spicy? Flint never heard that expression in relation to bills.

  But he wanted to know.

  Needed to know.

  “How much, pa?”

  He gulped down the coffee in one shot.

  “Three million and five hundred thousand creds. Plus eight percent interest per month.”

  14

  Flint almost forgot to speak. Almost.

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Does it look like I’m kidding?”

  Flint shook his head. It had been half a decade since father told a joke, ever since the government fired him from the fields.

  “What now, dad?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t.”

  It hurt Flint to see his father like that. ‘Gran-daddy’ was the go-to guy in the community.

  Had a problem with the life support system of your house? Walter would drop by and take a look. Something messed up with the circuit board of your landbuster? Let Walter have a crack at it. But now? Walter the working bee no more. He tilted his head and released a moan. Sister Letty tapped his back.

  “I have over five hundred creds saved up. We can use them.”

  “Thanks, sweetie. But that’s just a single bullet on a permasteel plate. We need more financial fire power than that.”

  Flint chimed in.

  “If there’s something you want me to do, I’d love to help out.”

  “Like what? Taking the rider for a joyride and hunting wraggs in the wild?”

  “I did more than that.”

  Walter raised his eyebrow.

  “What do you want to do?”

  Flint shrugged.

  “I’ll come up with something.”

  “Like what?”

  Father raised his voice. Letty shivered and almost dropped her cocoa cup. But there was no stopping Walter.

  “Now, finally, after a devastating scavage attack, you want to prove yourself useful?”

  “Dad,” Letty said.

  “Nah, it’s true. Has the boy ever done anything valuable instead of hunting wraggs?”

  He turned to Flint and snorted.

  “I mean, for Fortuna’s sake, you aren’t a teenager anymore. I was already married and had a child when I was your age. I was working my face off to keep this family alive.”

  Flint protested.

  “But I do tons of stuff.”

  “Like what?”

  “I help around the house. Help you repair the equipment. Stuff like that.”

  “Whoopie, what a go-getter. Be careful or you’ll work yourself to death.”

  Flint sighed and dropped eye contact. Father’s line of sight was too hot to handle.

  “Now leave me alone and let me come up with a plan. Go play with your rider and waste your time as usual.”

  Flint frowned but left the table. He couldn’t argue with his father. At the doorframe, he looked at his little sister who shot him an I’m-so-sorry glance.

  Yeah, he was sorry, too.

  On his way upstairs, he pondered the family’s predicament. The damage on the house was repairable—all it needed was some extra helping hands and leftover plates from the junkyards. But mother was in real trouble, and she needed assistance from everyone in the family. She needed him more than ever.

  Flint swore to himself—don’t you worry, Ma and Pa, I’m going to come up with a kick-ass idea, just you wait.

  15

&nbs
p; Back in his room, Flint went to bed and stared at his ceiling. He activated a soothing Astroturf song to calm down. Father’s rant got to him. Walter hadn’t blown up in a while. No hard feelings—this was by far the worst day in the Ocelot’s life. Still, the accusations echoed through Flint’s mind. Just because he never had a ‘real’ job didn’t mean he was useless. He helped his parents with the house, helped with…all kinds of stuff.

  Man.

  He checked his gizmo and activated the search function. Looked for new ways of making money. The job situation in the Great Meadow Zone was abysmal to say the least. The previous generation harvested all the Amazium and turned the economy into a wasteland. Now the landscape reeked of broken dreams and rotten infrastructure. But complaining wouldn’t help his mother out. And even though Flint wanted to tune out the world, he moved on. The inner nagging scratched at his conscience and urged him to keep looking for a job.

  So he asked,

  “How to make millions fast,” and waited for the results.

  One billion three hundred twenty million showed up. It took Flint over an hour to find the relevant results, but in the midst of the scanning, he found an offer that glowed like a beacon of hope. With another wipe, he made a holograph ad appear in front of his eyes.

  “Want to make millions, or even billions of credits? Enroll in the BEAM battlebiz program and create your world of wealth.”

  World of wealth? Sounded good to Flint, so he entered the official BEAM presence and allowed it to pop over his gizmo in glorious 3D. A commercial played with a compelling soundtrack. Classic orchestral music faded in, supported with climactic drums. Flint recognized the universe and the gazillion stars sparkling in it. A wide-angle shot of planet Fortuna appeared. A formal female voice began speaking over the clip.

  “Let’s face it. Making money is hard, damn hard. If you have a great idea worth billions, it’s outdated the second you penn the business plan. If you have a trending product that sells like starcakes, it becomes a dust collector when demand changes FTL.”

  Pause.

  “But there’s one business model that has survived since the dawn of mankind. A business model so simple and yet so brilliant, it will exist for millennia to come, no matter WHO and WHERE you are in the galaxy.”