The Bootlegger Broadcast: Book Two of the Green Charisma Chronicles by David Pearce

Author:David Pearce [Pearce, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-08-04T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

Twitching on the ground nearby, a grappler went through its last death throes. It grunted and huffed, brown saliva pooling out of its mouth onto the quills of its chest. Its musky stink mingled with the burnt ozone of plasma fire.

The Clodhopper offered his hand again; I stared at his gnarled olive skin and black nails. My jaw unclenched, and I allowed him to help me up.

When a native offers assistance in a hostile jungle, you accept. It’s rude to refuse, even if the gesture comes from a creature whose appearance resembles a cartoon character. After all, I was an alien on his world—a world that had tried to kill me.

The four-armed hominoid heaved me off the jungle floor with one arm. Thin lips grinned beneath a hooked snout, while twin bandoliers crisscrossed the front of his armor. He carried a short-barreled rifle with a wide aperture at its end—a shotgun perhaps?

He grinned with blocky teeth. “You’re a long way from Kansas, Dorothy.”

My mouth fell open. “What did you say?”

Our savior’s grin turned into a belly laugh, which was quite a sight when the entire shell quivered. “The Wizard of Oz? You have studied the classic cinema on your world, yes?”

My head spun. “Ah, yeah . . . but . . . but . . . how—”

“I’m with the Shellshock Syndicate. Our little rebellion has contacts throughout the Alliance—including Universal Health. We also received a message from Lieutenant ta’Chalik from the Alliance Telestic Templars, who told us you were coming. So, we learned as much about you and human culture as possible in the past few weeks.”

Holy shit. What did the Alliance tell them about us? “You did?”

“Of course. Did you assume we’d be uneducated rubes? What’s your slur for us? Clodhoppers?” He snorted through his turtle snout. “Our level of technology is the equivalent to what humans had on Earth at the end of what you call the twentieth century, and agrarian doesn’t mean dumb.”

My collar suddenly felt tight. “Well, uh . . . you see . . .”

“Ha! Knew it!” The skin around his red eyes crinkled.

“What do you call your kind again?”

“We’re the Chosen of this world. We call our planet Lacunae. We evolved as the pinnacle species here.”

“Ah.”

He sighed. “Does it sound pretentious to your ears? We know our place in the universe. Refer to us as Clodhoppers if you want. It doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t want to be rude,” I told him.

“Rude? The Polavians are killing my clan mates—at this rate, our species won’t last long. I’m more worried about practical matters.” His red eyes roamed the jungle. “I don’t see any cold brew or weapons. Weren’t you supposed to bring us some? Unless you’re hiding them in your shorts, Ian MacIntyre?”

I coughed into my hand. “We had trouble with the Polavians.”

“So I gathered from your SOS.” Our turtle tour guide chortled and gestured for us to follow him. “You can fill me in on the details later.” He stopped and held up a hand. “Crap. One moment.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.