by Skyler Grant
"Wouldn't be the first time we made friends with someone we used to shoot at, sir," Taki said.
"I don't mind staying here, but those people play dirty," Jinx said.
"I recommend hearing them out but with due caution. No more meetings on their territory where they hold all the power," Tamara said.
Quinn had no problem agreeing with that.
"Do we need their money? We just got a decent payout, and we've got what’s in our hold," Dela said.
"What’s that?" Taki asked.
"Artifacts. We had to steal an old survey vessel to get you back and we wound up lifting a bit more than that," Quinn said.
"Worth much?"
Dela said reluctantly, "Give me six months and time to make some inquiries, I can probably get us ten thousand out of them. They aren't extraordinary, but with a little patience so we can match the right buyer at the right time ..."
"We don't have time for all that. We're going to accept Sofia’s offer to visit Arkstone. I want them out of our hold by the time we lift," Quinn said.
Dela grimaced. "That gives me a lot less room to work with. If I knew the planet, I could still do okay, but going in blind?"
"Any estimates?" Taki asked.
"Go through a fence, the whole lot," Quinn told Dela.
"We'll lose a lot that way. Any reason why?"
"The museum. It has been bothering me too," Tamara said, before Quinn could answer.
"Too much money. All of that in the middle of nowhere. Nose might have been planning to hit it, just like Sofia said, or her family might have taken the opportunity to do a job they couldn't do themselves," Quinn said. “But no one was in any hurry to commit. I can guess why.”
"You think the exhibit was owned by another crime family," Dela said.
"Oh, I'm not convinced of anything, but I am wary," Quinn nodded.
"Nothing in the computer of the Longstrider pointed towards a crime connection. As far as I could tell the sensor logs were authentic and old, that’s all," Mara said.
"Were you able to get into their systems at all?" Quinn asked.
"I did, but we were in a hurry. I was more focused on covering our tracks than digging out their secrets. For whatever it’s worth, they won't have any clean sensor logs of the heist."
"Then let’s make sure we remain the dashing and mysterious sorts that we are. We unload this as fast and as invisibly we can."
Dela said, "Set us down at the major trade port. I'll find a way to sell them fast and clean. Like I said, we won't get much though, a thousand if I'm lucky, and a lot less if I'm not."
It was a lot less than ten thousand.
"If we're going to stay here we need friendship with a good fence," Quinn said.
"I can help with that," Tamara said.
Taki arched a brow. "A few jobs and you're thinking you're a master of the criminal underworld?"
"Do you think that after a few hours talking to the local attorneys I can't tell you exactly who is on the top of their game on that planet? " Tamara said.
"Tempting as that is, you might be out-sizing our importance," Taki said.
"But not mine. I'm a good friend to have, and my friendship can buy you the friendship of others."
“Will this planet even have fences? I mean it is run by a bunch of crime lords, are there even police?” Dela asked.
“Local law is minimal. There is something that passes for a police force but it exists largely to protect the interest of the corporations and the crime families. Unlike in most systems possession is effectively all of the law. If you can steal it and you can keep it. It is yours. It is concerns over that last bit that make fences still a thing, Let me do this,” Tamara said.
It wasn't something that Quinn was comfortable with. The reputation of the ship and the crew was something they'd all earned, and this felt like almost a handout from Tamara. A debt they’d owe her. Of course, he had to ask himself if he'd feel the same if it were any other member of the crew with a connection. She was family and maybe genuinely doing her best for everyone.
"Do it," Quinn said.
"But before anyone does anything crime-related we're celebrating. We're all together and we're okay, and we need to blow off some steam," Jinx said.
New Cruz was a massive resort city on Arkstone's surface. With regular shuttles to and from all the other major cities it made an ideal place to settle down. The suite Tamara had reserved was a huge affair, a tower room near the shuttle port looking out over an artificial lagoon.
"Nice," Dela said with a look around. "But can we afford this?"
"Our family budget, with a bit of a contribution from me, can swing it for a week," Tamara said.
"We each have our own rooms?" Jinx asked.
"Follow me," Tamara said.
The bedchamber was large. The bed was plush, covered with pillows, and looked designed to fit a good two dozen people.
"More room than we need, I know, but I think that’s best to get used to things," Tamara said.
"When I said blow off some steam I ... uh.. I didn't mean a nonstop sexual marathon," Jinx said.
"I am so into that," Kara said.
"Good," Tamara said, loosening buttons and letting her clothing fall to the floor as she walked towards the bed. "I needed a volunteer. Kara? Join me? I made a mistake with the schedules. This is my attempt to make it right. We'll keep separate beds available if someone wants some privacy. But if not? Trial run to do something like this with the ship."
"Don't have to invite me twice," Kara said, her clothes tossed aside with vigor.
The two wasted little time before becoming tangled on the bed, kissing and petting before Kara's hand slipped between Tamara's thighs.
"Well," Dela said, flushing a bit. "I'm no prude and straight as hell but, uh ..."
Jinx’s pale skin was turning bright red too. Still, a moment later her own clothes were shed and she hooked her arm with Quinn's. "I'm of a mood to thank my rescuer."
"I helped too," Kara grumbled, barely audible over the sound of Tamara's moans.
"I'll thank you later," Taki said, her clothes dropping as she took Quinn's other arm. "Captain first."
Melody soon joined in with Tamara and Kara.
Dela undressed and wryly said, "Guess I'm queuing up."
With Kara in the room, Quinn was fully responsive to whatever her alien physiology had done to him. In her presence he was always hard, always ready to go around, which was a good thing with so many demands upon his attention.
Dela, pressed against his side, had gotten herself off twice by the time Jinx finished atop him. Once more with him on Taki, her pleasured cries by far the loudest of any present.
"How are we going to sleep through that?" Dela asked.
"Sexual exhaustion, I hope," Kara said.
"Screw all of you," Taki said breathlessly between pants. "Can't help it."
"We'll figure it out," Tamara said firmly. "That’s what families do."
"This is weird though, right?" Taki asked.
"I like it. I like having everyone together. It’s like dinner only naked," Melody said.
"Everything is strange the first time you do it. We're not living by anyone else's rules but our own," Tamara said.
Tamara's really, given the nightly rosters and now this had been her idea. Quinn wasn't of a mind to protest, this had been fun, but sleep really was vital for a pilot. It was good they were testing this out on a vacation.
12
Quinn spent the next day trying to find work. From their luxury resort it was a quick shuttle ride to the docks, and where there were docks, there were criminals. There, he wasn't having any luck. Absolutely everything was buried beneath layers of underworld bureaucracy.
Crime went through the families almost exclusively, requiring their certification before any fixer would even work with an independent pilot. Picking up passengers demanded having a passenger ship license. Even moving cargo you had to be a member of the Hauler Guild or the Union
of Traders.
He was repeatedly turned away and every effort to find a way around the systems was rebuffed.
It was with a good bit of frustration that he headed back to the Centauri Bliss. Despite that anything involving making money seemed to need certification a dozen different ways, spending it however you wanted was surprisingly straightforward. Shops existed selling every recreational drug Quinn had ever heard of, brothels advertised in the open, and weapon stores had open racks of weaponry. What most worlds prohibited was easy to find here.
They had no problem getting work done on the ship. When he arrived he found Melody directing a few dockworkers and Taki watching, leaning against the hull in the cargo bay.
"Thought you'd be out enjoying the city," Quinn said.
Taki flashed him a wry smile, pulling away from the wall to lean in and pull his head down so she could brush a kiss against his lips. "Crowds are fun for awhile, sir, then I need a break from them. This was about the only place on the planet I knew I might get a little solitude."
"Sorry if I'm interrupting."
"You know that isn't what I meant," Taki said, reaching out for his hand and her fingers curling with his as she pulled him towards a step and settled down for a seat. "So uh, want to talk about last night?"
Quinn had been wondering how she'd been feeling about it. Every member of their new-formed family had their issues with some aspect of it, but he knew Taki must have more than most. She loved him, she'd wanted him for a long time, and had been the loyal and faithful companion hoping that he might someday feel the same way.
"You hated it that bad?" Quinn asked.
Taki frowned and let out a long, low breath. "I didn't say that. A part of me hates to see you with other women, but Dela and Jinx are both truer to you than I am since they're straight. You might have five wives, but under the circumstances I have four too."
"A little logic doesn't change how you feel though," Quinn said.
"Sir, shut up and let me talk, and stop assuming. I'm not talking because it was all bad, I'm talking because I was all kinds of torn up. I didn't much like the watching, but I liked being seen and heard. And the others, they're growing on me more than I thought they would."
"You getting feelings for any of them?"
Taki was silent for a moment. "Some. Melody, I'd never even thought of her that way and then all this happened and her and me ... I don't even know if she can feel anything back, but I feel something. You, sir?"
Quinn wasn't sure of the right answer here for her feelings, wasn't even sure there was one. The truth then, as best as he could put it.
"I've some kind of affection growing for all of them. I don't know if that means if I can't separate my dick from my brain."
"I know you don't want to hear this, sir, but I think Kat would be happy for you."
The name was like a splash of ice water across his face. Sudden and shocking, and brutal.
"I'm fair sure she wouldn't and I would appreciate you not guessing at her feelings about anything," Quinn said.
Taki looked down at the deck. "She weren't happy, sir, when you two and Ice split. She thought you three were in things together, and then you thought you were in a choosing game."
There had been occasions, it was true. The last time Quinn had met up with Ice he'd wound up in bed with her and Kara The same had happened more than once with Kat, but it wasn't like that. It wasn't like last night.
"You don't know what you're talking about," Quinn said, colder than he intended.
"I'm not disrespecting your memory, but I'm telling you not to tear yourself apart. You made her choose—you didn't mean to but you did—and she chose you because that girl loved you dear. But she didn't mind sharing you then and she'd be happy you found happiness now," Taki said.
It wasn't like Taki to lie to him, even to soothe his feelings. It was why she'd always been such a reliable second, why he could always count on her. Quinn gave her hand a tight squeeze.
Silence lingered and clearing his throat he said, "Thanks, I've a hard time ... I don't know what to do with that just yet except absorb it in. Change of subject, what is happening with the ship?"
"Tamara still isn't happy with how that fancy hub is working so she asked for a fancier external transceiver. No problem putting it in, but the power draw required us rewiring half the secondary systems."
"I know that thing is paying for itself and may have saved my life, but I don't like it," Quinn said.
"Had my doubts, sir, but I don't anymore. ‘Sides that, she's expanding, expanding, expanding. Few of the quarters are staying singles, but most are getting bigger beds even if she's holding off on the giant one for you. Bigger dining table, it’s been getting crowded," Taki said.
The Centauri Bliss could actually hold a fair number of passengers. While it had been built so an independent trader could operate the ship solo, it wasn't expected that they would. The life support would handle them cramming in fifty people, and thirty could exist in moderate comfort if they didn't mind living close and losing some cargo space. With all that in mind, it had never been expected that they'd all want to eat dinner together at the same time.
"Sounds good," Quinn said.
"I didn't think you'd have any problems with that. Something else I wanted to get your opinion on though. Guns. I know you didn't like them in the Core, but we're not in the Core. We've got the mounts and here we could buy what we need to make something of them."
In the Core going without had made a lot of sense. You didn't want Imperium ships shooting first and asking questions later. Having those mounts equipped with weapons instantly made you look more suspicious than the smart smuggler wanted.
Quinn had already seen that the Rim was different. Most traders here had a few weapons mounted on their vessels. Pirates were more common here and the law a far weaker force.
While it would make sense to add some, he still didn't like the thought. Perhaps it was just too much change too fast, but he feared it. A gun on any ship made some men stupid, made them turn to it to solve their problems instead of using their heads. Their ship had never been about shooting their way out of problems, it had been about out-thinking and out-running them.
"What do you think?" Quinn asked.
"I think I know what you're thinking, and you're not wrong. I also think there are places that you don't want to walk into without a gun at your hip, and you're just asking for trouble if you do. I'm fair sure we might soon be flying into those kinds of places," Taki said.
"Walked into one of the local gun stores yet?"
"Can't say I have, sir."
"I did earlier today, wanted to look around. Every pretty toy you can imagine, but with the most basic ammo along with stunners. No smart rounds, no piercers."
"Nothing that might let you win an actual fight with those who know what they're doing and came ready for one," Taki said.
Quinn nodded. "If we do this, we're loading up on weapons they're selling at the docks, not in the streets. Ask Kara to do the shopping."
"She'll enjoy that," Taki said with a grunt and then allowed, "And be good at it. I'm still not over her shooting me, but I got to admit, girl knows her guns."
"Just don't let her bankrupt us buying them. Second-hand and functional," Quinn said.
"I'll see what we can find—if we can find any. Maybe selling the good stuff requires a license nobody has figured out how to get yet?"
Quinn wasn't the only one having trouble with the local bureaucracy then.
13
With work, either legitimate or illegitimate, seeming impossible to find it left Quinn at least with time alone to enjoy a proper vacation. The others all had some tasks of their own to do, but over the next week he managed dates with all of them, some more than once.
Quinn went ground-vehicle racing with Taki. They had full courses set up to simulate sudden surprises. Explosions, a collapsing cliff, in one case the entire track quickly turning to ice beneath the wheels causing vehic
les to spin out of control. They ended the day behind a tool rack in a garage, naked bodies getting covered in oil before Taki's screams got them kicked out.
At least Quinn got to win at the driving, which was more than he achieved going out for shooting with Kara, Mara, and Taki. Quinn was a decent shot, but all three were better. By the end their bets on shots were getting increasingly risqué. He spent most of the night paying off his debt, to their considerable delight.
Tamara, Jinx, and Dela dragged him off to the opera. Quinn gave it his best, really he did, but it was an event that required him to dress up the most and engaged him the least.
Kara and Dela took him out drinking one night. By the end his score was seven beers, two fistfights he won, one he lost, and a bill for damages that made Tamara murmur disapprovingly when they got back to the resort.
Big losses at the casinos turned into a small winning balance when Jinx joined them, until the mana detectors went off and they were politely but firmly shown the door.
Melody invited him along to a flight museum. They didn't rob this one and both enjoyed looking at the ships.
Mara wasn't spending much time with them. As she wasn't a member of the family she didn't share their suite with their bed, and largely her mysterious business was keeping her occupied. Still, when Quinn sent a message asking her out to dinner, he got a quick affirmative in response.
They'd been tortured together, very nearly died together, and in his delirium during all of that he'd talked a lot about his life—and she'd not talked a lot about hers. It was a strange sort of intimacy that went only one way and he was hoping he'd get a chance to learn more about her.
Quinn let her know he'd like to talk and suggested she make the arrangements. He'd been told formal attire was required and given the address.
The restaurant was in one of Arkstone's mid-sized cities, occupying the tallest building. Each booth was completely sealed, offering a magnificent view, anti-eavesdropping technology, and automated staff.