The Collected Lancer Volume 1

by Troy Osgood

  I waited until both were committed fully. They had taken a couple steps away from the hatch, moving away from the other and eyes still looking everywhere. Neither had really glanced at the dead body of their partner. Both had targeted in on the most likely location for me. The only place where crates were stacked two high.

  “That’s far enough, I said and stepped around those crates, my weapon drawn and pointed towards them.

  They turned towards me, pointed their weapons at me but didn’t shoot. Why would they? As far as they were concerned I was outnumbered and well I could shoot at one of them, there was no way I could stop the other from shooting me. It was a stand off of a sort and they felt like they had the upper hand.

  Also they were curious.

  Who was I? How had I taken out Eretut?

  Risky? Sure. But they were ship thieves. Everything they did was risky.

  “How’s it going,” I asked smiling at Tani. “We could have been having some fun right now instead of pointing weapons at each other.”

  She smiled back and shrugged.

  “It would have been lots of fun,” she replied with a smirk. “But my sister and I will still end up having a good time.”

  “We’ll get a good amount of credits for your ship,” Jada added. “Even if it’s not in the best shape.”

  “Ouch. Insulting a man’s ship,” I said with a shake of my head. “That’s not very nice.”

  Silence fell and I let it linger a bit. The sisters glanced at each other, waiting for one of them to give the go-ahead and make a move. I wasn’t going to do anything but wait on them. I could be patient. Missions with the 2E special forces had taught me that.

  Jada took a couple steps forward, Tani a little slower but following.

  “Far enough.”

  “I don’t think so,” Jada said. “We’re going to take your ship.”

  As they moved forward the sisters put more space between them, walking close to the sides of the hull. It was a smart move.

  “You’re not taking my ship,” I told them pointing my blaster at Tani and looking at Jada. “Or any others.”

  Both of them paused. There was a lot of confidence in my statement. More than there should have been. When someone is trying to sound tough, make a threat, they need confidence in their tone to make it work and sometimes the person on the other end can see right through it. See that it’s a bluff. But then there’s the time when the person isn’t sure. The speaker has such confidence, sounds so sure, that you have to start to wonder. That’s what was happening to the sisters.

  “I could kill you both,” I told them, no doubt in my tone of voice. “Or you could end up killing me but I doubt that happens.”

  “How do you figure that,” Tani asked with a chuckle.

  “You ladies really need to vet your targets,” I told her, watching as they got closer.

  Most criminals in space don’t have any specific or special training. It’s something they just fell into. Could be there was no choice, forced by family, or a myriad of reasons. Doesn’t matter. They became criminals and use amateur tactics and fighting styles. Usually just brute force. They succeed with a lot of shock and awe attacks. It’s amateur to someone like me that has seen real shock and awe.

  The Welker sisters were doing exactly what I wanted. My blaster was in my right hand, pointed at Tani. Both sisters were creeping along next to the ship’s hull but Tani was not directly across from Jada, she was lagging behind a couple steps. Because I had the weapon pointed at her.

  Predictable. She was doing what I wanted.

  “Yeah, Eretut almost got me,” I admitted but pointed down at his body with my left hand. “We all see how that still turned out.”

  “So,” Jada barked. “What are you, some kind of super human?”

  “No, just former Earth Expeditionary Forces Spec Ops.”

  That made them both stop. Which I wanted them to. Still doing what I predicted. Even though I could guess what their reactions would be, there was a lot that could and would go wrong. A plan is only good until the first blaster fire, my old commander used to say. So far the plan had gone perfectly.

  Their next action, which I hadn’t predicted, made it even better.

  They glanced at each other.

  It was only a split second but it was enough.

  I followed with my original plan of attack. Their slip-up just made it easier on me.

  My weapon was pointed at Tani, the natural target, but I moved it and shot at Jada. I pulled off two quick shots and dove to the ground, also in that direction.

  Tani was quick and her plasma bolt slammed into the hull, only a couple feet away from where I had been. My shots, green blasts, came close to Jada. One on either side. It caused her to stop and pull in on herself, trying to make herself smaller. My dive put me beyond the plascrate and a clear shot at Jada.

  Laying on the ground, I held my blaster steady against my other arm, aimed and pulled the trigger.

  The green blast slammed into Jada’s chest and sparks of energy wrapped around her body. She fell backwards, collapsing against the hull.

  “Jada,” Tani yelled and just started firing wildly.

  Idiot.

  Keeping low I moved from crate to crate until I got to a good firing lane. Standing up I took aim and pulled the trigger. Tani fell just like her sister.

  And it was over.

  Neither sister was dead. I’d hit them with stun blasts. I could have killed them easily, but why bother? I’d done my share of killing when I was a soldier and I was tired of it. I’d still do it when necessary, but that wasn’t now.

  If the sisters ever crossed my path in the future then it would be necessary.

  *****

  The airlock door slid open to reveal a near panicked Hert. His stony face, which rarely showed expression, was definitely worried.

  “What the youki,” he said as he stepped into the room. The door slid shut behind him and he looked around. There were the scorch marks on the floor but nothing else besides me and the large plascrate on the maglifter that I was towing.

  I had been about to leave when he appeared.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I answered. “Especially now that you’re here to help with this thing.,” I said and pointed at the crate.

  “What,” he asked, still surprised and not sure what was happening.

  I lifted the top of the crate and he looked inside. Eretut’s body was on the bottom with the two sisters piled on top, both still stunned and would be for a couple hours. They were also tied together with flexline. I wished he had shown up earlier. It had been a pain to get all three inside the crate, especially Eretut. The Europan was heavy.

  Hert took a step back and shook his head.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have been worried about you,” he said with a chuckle. “What happened?”

  So I told him and explained what I was planning on doing.

  *****

  Finding an empty storage bay on the station’s docking ring was pretty easy. Hacking the lock to get in, just a little more difficult. Lugging the large plascrate through the docking ring and opening the door without attracting attention? The easiest of all.

  Pretty much everyone flying in space holds to the idea of minding their own business.

  If I had followed it, I wouldn’t have been dumping a crate with a dead Europan and two stunned Terrans into a storage bay. But here I was.

  The sisters would be out for another couple hours and would have a hard time getting out of the crate. A very tight space with no room to move. They’d be stuck together for awhile. Sometime soon they’d be found. Bays didn’t remain empty for long. Most likely the station’s law enforcers would be informed when someone found them.

  Once they were in the law’s hands, it wouldn’t be long before their history came out. They’d probably be arrested and sent off somewhere.

  Not my concern.

  I figured it would be best to be off station when all
that happened so I never got to finish the game with Hert or have another drink. We said our goodbyes and I launched the Wind into space.

  Before I hopped into wildspace I sent some feelers out to a couple contacts.

  To fly from solar system A to solar system D you basically hope from A to B to C and end up in D. Well hopping you enter the space between solar systems, what we call wildspace. Well in wildspace you can’t send or receive transmissions. So it would be awhile before my contacts were able to get back to me.

  So it was a couple days and hops later that Lieutenant Kristin Higareda of Earth’s Territorial Protectorate got back to me. Where the Expeditionary Forces were the military arm that went around fighting Earth’s wars in space, the Territorial Protectorate were the law enforcement on the various colonies and worlds that Earth controlled and settled. I’d known Kristin for a number of years, both professionally and personally. Good friend.

  She confirmed some suspicions.

  Turned out that part of Eretut’s routine was real. He had been on some kind of Europan pilgrimage but had run into the sisters before anyone else. It hadn’t taken them long to get their hooks into him and convince him to join up with them. The Welker sisters had been on the Protectorate’s most wanted list for awhile. They’d been busy the last couple years and got busier when they hooked up with Eretut about six months ago.

  Then they had the bad luck to run into me.

  They wouldn’t be busy much longer.

  Kristin was happy to learn they were still guests at Corric Station. She was personally on her way there to pick them up. No word on what had happened with Eretut’s body.

  I felt bad for the Europan. He’d still be alive if the sisters hadn’t gotten a hold of him.

  But like I had told him, the galaxy is not a nice place.

  THE LAST CHILD

  Originally Published

  May 26, 2018, eBook on Amazon

  CHAPTER ONE

  “That’s it?”

  The Pierd in front of me just mumbled something in it’s language, which I didn’t speak. It sounded like rocks grinding against other rocks, long sentences made with lots of short words. It, I can never tell the Pierd sexes apart, stood four feet high and two feet wide. Short and stocky. All covered in brown fur with a head like a block. Flat nose, beady eyes.

  They were shrewd traders and this one was trying to cheat me.

  It held out a credchip good for one thousand creds. Not close to what I was owed for this job.

  The cargo itself wasn’t a big deal. Relatively small. It was the delivery location. CU145792 was a large asteroid in the Callic Cluster. This was Deep Space. The outskirts. As far out as you could get and still be in the known galaxy.

  My territory.

  The place didn’t even have a real name. Part of an asteroid belt that orbited a dead planet called Untun, CU145792 had been hollowed out and mined by the Culkin Union. Not a friendly or welcoming place but it still needed goods to survive. The problem being that it was so far out of the way that the larger shipping concerns didn’t want to waste the fuel needed to get there. That’s where freighters like mine came into the picture.

  Trips like this were barely profitable for me. As long as I got paid.

  “Give me the full amount or you don’t get your cargo,” I growled at the Pierd.

  It’s name was Yunil and it ran one of the local general goods stores. The asteroid was home to miners, miners and more miners. Along with the services and people that supported them. The Culkin Union was a Pierd group, so beings like Yunil were in charge of everything on the rock.

  Yunil yelled at me some more. I’m sure it translated to “cheater”, “scammer” and so on. It ended with what was likely “I already have the cargo” and the Pierd gave me what I assumed was a smirk, thinking he had the upper hand.

  I leaned in close, giving it the look.

  I’m six foot, two hundred. Black hair and beard, with streaks of gray. Brown eyes. Ruggedly handsome, so I’ve been told. Not the most intimidating at first glance, there are many bigger, but I’ve worked hard on ‘the look’ and it gets results.

  The Pierd took a step back, even though it weighed as much as I did, things still get intimidated by those bigger leaning over them. Yunil glanced around the lobby to its shop, especially at the transaction window and the office behind the blastproof polycarbonite window. Yunil had wanted to stay back there to conduct our business, the circuitry of the window would have translated it’s words to Tradelan, Terran or some other language I could understand. But it would have been behind the protection of the carbonite. I made it come out here.

  I’m not stupid.

  “I’ll take back the cargo, sell to your competitor and break some stuff on my way out.”

  Most of that was a bluff. I knew it, Yunil knew it. First there was no competition on the rock. Yunil’s shop was it. I could take the cargo back to more populated areas of space, but that would cost me fuel and the job would be a major loss. Second, if I was to break stuff, the Culkin Union would have me arrested or fined. Neither of which was good for me. Yunil looked up at me, studying and thinking. How much was a bluff and how far was I willing to go?

  The Pierd made a noise that I assumed was a sigh because it handed over another credchip. Good for another thousand credits and paying me what I was owed. Yunil had figured it wasn’t worth the hassle of calling my bluff.

  Which I knew he would have.

  Yunil isn’t a bad sort. We’d done business before but times were getting rough on the asteroid and he was trying to save every cred he could. Can’t blame it. Times were tough everywhere.

  “Thanks,” I said biting back a sarcastic remark.

  Which was hard for me. Sarcasm came naturally.

  But no need to annoy one of my regulars.

  I needed the work Yunil offered.

  With a last huff, Yunil turned its blocky body around and headed for the door. The Pierd’s people had unloaded the cargo from my ship when I had first arrived and it was probably already lost within all the supplies the shop carried. The door slid open into the metal wall and Yunil disappeared.

  I turned, pocketing the credchips, and walked out the shop’s lobby. The asteroid was a backwater, no automatic scanning of cargo and deposits like at some of the bigger stations. Still did transfers the old fashioned way. I tended to like that more. Personal. Got to look the being in the face and eyes. If they had eyes.

  Like most Pierd establishments, there was an empty lobby with a display board that would list the shop’s wares. You’d order from the board, under the watchful eye of the shop owner behind the window, and one of the employees would bring your order to you. Larger orders would be picked up out back. Efficient with minimal interaction.

  Just as the Pierd liked it.

  The shop’s door slid quietly shut behind me and I was out on the street.

  Being an asteroid, everything was carved out of the interior. So the gray stone surrounded everything. Only about twenty feet high, the cavern was carved like a ring through the stone with shops on both sides. About three miles long in total, it was very busy. The workers and homes were in side caverns, the entrances scattered around the oval. The hanger was another tunnel, midway around the north side of the ring.

  The city, for lack of a better word, was called The Oval. Not very imaginative but it did the job.

  It was dark and crowded. What little light there was came from the shops and glow lamps hanging from the ceiling. The smell of dozens of aliens of all species mixed in the refreshed air from the circulators mounted in the cavern roof. Beings moved in both directions, pushing against each other, not caring. Most were dirty, miners off their shift. No one looked wealthy. There was an air of resignation everywhere, people given up on life.

  Not a fun place.

  Not that I blamed them. If I was stuck inside an asteroid that didn’t even rate a true name, I’d be pretty depressed too. I couldn’t wait to get off this rock.

 
Just needed to find a job first.

  *****

  The life of a freighter is not glamorous. Not by any means. Don’t let the books and vids fool you. They like to make it seem better than it is. The daring swashbuckler off on another adventure.

  Tired of your mundane life stuck on your backwater world? Become a freighter and see the universe. Visit exotic locations. See all that the galaxy has to offer.

  Sounds like the same pitch used to get people to sign up for the Expeditionary Forces.

  Sadly, it works. For both.

  Sure, some haulers get the good runs. Get to see the inner core worlds. Visit the good places. But those are the ones that sign up with the big interplanetary outfits. The others, the independents, like myself, we get stuck with running small hauls out to worlds and asteroids like this rock.

  Nothing glamorous about CU145792.

  The void of warpspace gives a solo pilot plenty of time to spend on contemplation. So I have lots of opportunities to reflect on my life and the choices that got me here. It’s not just the time in warpspace either. Sitting in dingy and rathole bars while waiting for a job offer gives that same kind of time.

  Dingy and rathole bars like this one.

  It didn’t even have a name, just a sign over the door written in Tradelan that said ‘bar’.

  The room was large and square. No windows, just the door. The bar counter was along the back wall, lots of stools that could adjust in height to accommodate various sized beings, and built out of solid rock. Nothing fancy, got the job done. Tables filled the rest of the space. No organization, just as many tables as would fit. Some were broken with cracks and even missing pieces. There wasn’t enough chairs for every table, so some beings had to stand along the edges.

  I’d taken a chair at a small table in the corner where I could watch the door as well as the vidscreen mounted to the wall. It was behind a sheet of somewhat clear blastproof polycarbonite which made the picture a little fuzzy but still watchable.

  Wonder who has the contract for bringing polycarbonite here? They use a lot of it.