by T. R. Harris
He took the device and ran it over the cock-eyed-attached label. A translation into his native language appeared.
Tarazi Outfitting and Expeditions. Balamar, Liave-3.
“Liave-3?”
“Yes, it is the major hub planet for the Dead Zone,” Pannel explained. “It is where most salvage operations originate.”
Sirous was furious. “This Tarazi Outfitting either sold the decon material to the thieves, or they are responsible for the salvage itself.” Sirous then turned to Pannel. “I now recall Liave-3! Is that not where you sent the team to address the Hax’onean problem? I understand there were complications.”
“No complications, Sirous. The Hax’oneans were dispatched, as was the order, even though my team was also killed.”
“Your professional assassins … were killed?”
“Yes. I did not pay much attention to the details of the outcome, not after learning the targets were neutralized. Liave-3 is a very dangerous place. I saw the outcome as beneficial. I did not have to pay the remainder of the assassin’s contract.”
“So, I will be due a refund?”
Pannel paused for a moment before nodding. “I suppose that would be appropriate.”
“Keep the credits, Pannel,” Sirous said impatiently. “Just find out who has my weapons. Nothing can begin without them.” The yellow-skinned alien then leaned in closer to Pannel. “And just as you were not required to pay the balance of the contract to your assassins, without delivery of the weapons and your subsequent support of my coup, I am not obligated to pay the remainder of my contract to the Cartel.”
“Kracion’s attack was unforeseen. If not for that, you would have had your war long before now.”
“That is why I have not pressed the issue with you until this point. But now that the weapons are gone, I will insist on no further payment until they are recovered.” Sirous held up the datapad, showing Pannel the translated label. “And you have a very good indication as to who did this. Fifty radioactive A-9 shipping containers cannot be easily hidden. And the sale of such devices undoubtedly will cause a ripple throughout this part of the galaxy. So far, we have not detected such a ripple. And as you say, forty-one days ago the weapons were here. The theft occurred recently. You must hurry to prevent any of my rifles from being sold. I cannot afford knowledge of them becoming known outside our circle. Is that understood?”
“That is the reason I dispatched the assassins. As far as we know, all loose ends have been tied off.”
“All the loose ends except knowing where twenty-thousand of the most powerful energy weapons in the galaxy have gone. A hope you do not consider that to be an insignificant detail, Pannel of the Gradis.”
“I will find your weapons, and when I do, I will eliminate anyone with knowledge of their existence. After that, the Gradis will do what is expected of us. We will expect payment in full at that time. Even now, this operation has gone on much longer than planned. My superiors are growing restless.”
“As am I, Pannel. Let us not have any more delays.”
Pannel turned from Sirous and began waving his arms, calling everyone back to the ship. He keyed his helmet comm and opened a link with the rest of his fleet.
“Attention. Prepare your ships for departure. Plot your course for Liave-3. Have the enforcer commanders shuttle to my ship as soon as we gain orbit. There is much to discuss.”
13
“Spit it out! Do it now, goddammit!”
Adam Cain had the huge green alien by the mouth, yelling at him while holding his jaws open, as two spindly legs extended from the opening, thrashing about wildly. Sherri Valentine had her ubiquitous baseball bat, pounding on the head of the thick, round creature. Nearby, others of his race were shouting, screaming at the Humans to stop before they kill their companion.
Eventually, Sherri stepped up and took a dangling leg in each hand and pulled with all her might. She fell backward, bringing a squat, pink alien with her. He plopped onto her lap, choking and covered in slimy yellow goo.
“You insanity!” the tiny pink being screeched. “How dare you attempt to eat me!”
Adam let go of the round-bellied alien, falling back himself against a wall of the hotel room. The air was thick with the cloud from a dozen smokesticks. Even the second-hand smoke was making Adam dizzy. This was some strong shit.
“What’s wrong with all of you?” Sherri yelled. She climbed to her feet, scraping away the gooey slime from her clothing. “You know the rules. You can do anything you want in your rooms, but you leave the other guests alone.”
“But he was in our room,” said one of the frog-mouthed aliens.
“After you ambushed me in the hallway and pulled me inside!” the hapless victim pointed out.
“That is simply an interpretation of the rules.”
“No, it’s not,” Sherri corrected. “With nothing illegal on L-3, I allow my guests to indulge in any pastime they wish. But you are not to harm anyone else. Isn’t that clear enough for you? We have food next door if you get hungry, including freshly-cooked meat.”
“Cooked meat?” asked the talkative frog. “Why?”
“Yes, away is the taste if not consumed fresh.”
The last statement came from the alien who tried to eat the other guest. Adam could see from his eyes that he was as high as a kite, as were all of them. Unfortunately, episodes like this were a constant occurrence at Sherri’s Golden Slipper Hotel.
Since its opening, Sherri had tried a variety of modifications to the place-to-sleep motif of a standard hotel, looking for something that worked on the planet. It seemed that in Balamar, sleep wasn’t what most of her guests desired. That made the rules basic and simple. If it was sex they wanted, they had to bring their own. And as for narcotics—as she said—nothing was illegal on Liave-3, so she couldn’t very well restrict that. As it turned out, each of the fourteen rooms she rented out was used for just about anything, becoming dens of iniquity rather than strictly hotel rooms per se. Most of the time Sherri didn’t care. When clusters of aliens got together for a bender, she could charge extra. The hotel was a decent profit center for the partnership.
That’s if the guests didn’t try to eat the other guests.
With grumbles and complaints, all parties returned to their respective rooms. Adam stood up, shaking his head.
“Whose idea was it to come to this godforsaken planet in the first place?”
“I believe that would be you, dickhead.”
“What’s the answer then; larger signs detailing the rules?” Adam suggested.
“Yeah, signs worked fine at the bar, until a hit squad came in and shot up the place. I vote for a couple of big-ass Rigorians as security guards. I know of some who would take the job.”
Adam cringed at the mention of Rigorians. They were huge, upright-walking alligator-like beasts who set Adam on edge. It was a primal thing for him, as was his fear of spiders. Rigorians were also the first breed of alien he ever killed, and as they say, you always remember your first.
“Make the call,” Adam conceded. “We’re going to need them for Cain’s as well when the no-weapons-allowed notice comes down.”
The two Humans were distracted by Kaylor running down the hallway toward them.
“Riyad wants to see you,” said the blue-skinned alien in a panic. “He received a distress call from one of his sponsored expeditions.”
Adam and Sherri looked at each other. “Which expedition?” Adam asked. “I didn’t know he had any out, just equipment rentals.”
“Dammit,” Sherri said. “He’s fronted the money again. We can’t afford this!”
“And he didn’t tell us, either.”
The trio left the hotel and made the short walk through Cain’s Bar & Grill to the outfitting business run by Riyad. The situation in the hotel had already set them on edge. They were in no mood for more bad news.
The huge open warehouse building that served as the outfitting business was packed full of environment
suits, decon tanks, netting, meters and sealed rations, along with a disorganized assortment of just about everything else under the sun. The business had only been up and running for six months, and it was turning into a continual learning curve for the owners. Salvage operations came in all shapes and sizes, and someone was constantly coming in and asking for something they didn’t have. Out of the three businesses run by the partnership, the outfitting operation was the least profitable. There were a lot more inventory costs than first anticipated, and more often than not, the deposits they required didn’t cover the losses. Salvagers were not the most upstanding citizens, and either they absconded with the equipment, or they lost it to raiders. It was getting so bad that Sherri was almost to the point of charging one hundred percent of the cost as just a deposit before allowing anything to be taken out of the store. But that would hamper business. Most salvagers didn’t have a lot of credits, and only recently Adam had learned that a certain dandy-dressing alien in Kanac was one of the main suppliers of high-interest loans required to finance what they needed.
In a way, that was fine for the Humans. Without Dal Divisen’s money to lubricate the process, there would be very little business. However, when inventory was lost or stolen, it had to be replaced. At that point, it became just a trade-off transaction, which was no way to run a business. Adam even learned that sometimes the salvagers would sell off their equipment just to pay back Divisen. Unlike with Adam and his people, the mobster had ways of enforcing his contracts, often at the end of an MK-17 flash pistol. He always got paid.
Riyad was in the small office at the back, sitting before a large electronics array tied to the Continuous Wormhole communications network located in the jungle between Balamar and Kanac.
“What’s going on?” Sherri asked—demanded. “You have a sponsored expedition that we didn’t know about?”
From the look on Riyad’s face, he was expecting the rebuke. “Save your condemnations for later. It’s something I did with Jay Williford.”
“Jay?” Adam said. “He was just here a few days ago. How did he get something going so soon … and without telling the rest of us?”
“You know him,” Riyad said. “He doesn’t think the two of you like him very much.”
“Well, we don’t,” said Sherri. “But that doesn’t mean you should sneak around behind our backs. What’s happened to him?”
“I don’t know, not for sure. Listen to this.”
Riyad pressed the playback, and the short recording played.
“Xaoc calling Riyad Tarazi. Hax’on expedition under attack. Raiders. Surprise approach. All defense eliminated. Final reporting …”
“Rans Xaoc?” Adam asked. “How much security was there?”
“Six people, all experienced.”
“What the hell were they doing on Hax’on?” Sherri asked.
Riyad shrugged. “I’m going out there. I need to find out what happened.”
“That’s pretty obvious,” Sherri scolded. “They got themselves killed. And what about the equipment? I bet it’s all gone.”
“Wait a minute,” Adam said. “Six security guards, along with Jay and his crew. That’s eleven people. How did they get to Hax’on?”
“They took the Ed Gibson.”
“The Gibson!” Sherri’s voice could be heard all the way through the bar next door and out onto the beach. “That’s our best and biggest ship. And I suppose you didn’t get any deposit, not from your little buddy.”
“We’re getting a share of the salvage.”
“What salvage?” Adam asked sarcastically. “Doesn’t sound like there’s any salvage to share in.”
Riyad stood up, his face a study in stone. “Yell at me all you want, but my little buddy—as you call him—is probably dead. And if he’s not, then I need to find him.”
“Along with our ship,” Sherri added.
“And our ship.”
“I don’t know,” Adam said. “You could go out there and get yourself killed, too.”
“I can take care of myself, as you well know. Now stop bitching at me. Yes, I screwed up, so let me make this right.”
“The only way to make this right is to get the Gibson back,” Sherri said. “At this point, the ship is the most valuable asset we have—or don’t have, in this case.”
“I’ll let you know what I find.”
Riyad didn’t ask permission. He simply picked up his go-bag and headed for the door.
“Be careful,” Sherri yelled after him.
Adam knew she was not only mad but worried. That came from the fact that her ex-husband was heading off into the unknown, angry, humiliated, and with a lot to prove. People with that mindset seldom make rational decisions. But Riyad was right. He could take care of himself. With a chuckle, Adam pitied the poor aliens who got in his way, especially with the mood he was in.
14
Four days after leaving Hax’on, the raider ship dropped out of the gravity-well and engaged its chemical drive, settling down on a light gravity world. As soon as the internals were turned off, Jay knew this wasn’t Liave-3. That planet had a familiar gravity; this one was a lot less. The stowaway was confused by this fact. There weren’t a lot of habitable planets four days from Hax’on, which meant this had to be a smaller planet or a large moon. So why stop here?
Then it dawned on him. The pirates had a huge number of container A-9 pods. And most were still radioactive. They would have to be stored somewhere until arrangements could be made to decon them. The other possibility is they would sit here until a buyer was found for the lot. A little discount in price for their current condition and the deal could be made as-is. It made sense.
That still left the clean containers on the flagship. The raiders had to work for someone; that was a given. And from the reaction of the aliens on Hax’on, they weren’t expecting to find such a motherlode. The captain would be anxious to show off his treasure to the boss. And it was a good bet Mr. Big wasn’t on some airless rock.
Jay checked his rations. He was running low, having budgeted for five or six days at max. Now he had no idea how much longer the next leg of the journey would take. At some point, he would have to risk another foray to the galley, late at night, while only the minimum watch was on duty.
The ship remained on the surface for eight hours, during which time Jay imagined the containers were being shuttled to the surface. He didn’t feel any vibrations that would signify landings and takeoffs, but that didn’t mean much. Then he thought that if the pods didn’t remain hidden in space somewhere, the Ed Gibson could be used for shuttle duty once more. That could mean his speeder was nearby, as well, even if contaminated with radiation. It could always be sterilized. But how would he ever find this place again? It could be anywhere, some uninhabited world in The Zone passed over by Kracion. There would be thousands of hiding places.
But then his fortunes changed for the better, which wasn’t something Jay was expecting, not the way things had gone for him recently. Forty-eight minutes after liftoff, the ship came in for another landing, and this time on a world which felt familiar.
Only four days from Hax’on and with Juirean Standard gravity. This had to be Liave-3. He was home, and the hiding place for the pods was somewhere in the Liave system. He quickly searched his memory for likely candidates. One stood out from the rest.
It was called Masnin, or Liave-7; a rocky world out near the boundary between the inner planets and the outer gas giants, similar to the Solar System. It had a cold, thin atmosphere, like that atop of Mt. Everest. There had been a few mining operations on the planet at the time Kracion made his sweep through the area, but everyone took off for the stars at that point, abandoning their mines and facilities, never to return. There would be dozens of these huge mines in which to hide contraband. Extrapolating from there, Jay figured the planet might be the main repository for confiscated raider wealth, at least until it could be moved to Liave-3 and sold.
Wheels spun in Jay’s head. If he c
ould find the location again, he could steal from the thieves, with most of the heavy lifting already done. Nearly all the items stored there would be radiation-free.
Even considering the fact that he was hidden away in a service airlock aboard a raider vessel, smelling of excrement and piss, his spirits were boosted. He now had something to look forward to. All he had to do now was get off the ship without being seen.
He listened carefully to the activity taking place on the ship. Metal hulls carried a lot of information if one knew how to listen. What he didn’t hear, however, was the opening of the rear cargo doors, where the pods would be offloaded. Instead, he felt pressure changes as hatches opened, and people began to leave the ship. There could be as many as four or five pods on the ship, but it seemed the pirates had no intention of removing them, at least not until they figured out what to do with them. That made sense.
But Jay couldn’t wait around for that to happen.
He moved to the airlock door and carefully unscrewed the hatch. Gravity wanted to pull the heavy door open, and he used all his Human strength to keep it from falling. Additionally, lights were going off on the bridge indicating a broken seal in the ship’s integrity. It was the same as on Hax’on, but on the surface, there could be a variety of reasons for this to happen, with crew members moving about doing their chores. He wasn’t worried, not about the hatch. What he was worried about was being spotted as he dropped to the ground.
It was just his luck that it was daylight on L-3. He wiggled his body out of the opening and dropped to the tarmac four feet below, holding the hatch up with his shoulders as he searched for legs moving along the side of the hull. He froze as a pair of long-legged aliens walked by, their tall, lanky forms keeping the underbelly of the ship hidden from their view. He dogged the hatch closed and then waited for an opportunity to make a break for it.
He was definitely at the Kanac Spaceport. He could see the control building in the distance, along with a dozen ships of all shapes and sizes between him and the building. Fortunately, there was little security at the spaceport. The only sort of authority came with landings, takeoffs and ship placements, and this was done more for safety reasons than anything else.