by Chris Turner
I saw Deidra shudder and turn pale.
The gangster came marching up the yard, guns in both hands leveled to either side, firing indiscriminately while Kragen’s yardhands scattered or dropped, and his henchmen grinned and fanned out to cover the exits.
The slaves fled on, up into the catwalk, behind bins, quaking in their boots. Not easy for these two score of workers to flee Kragen’s yard with the high wall surrounding the compound and barbed wire gates at either end. I herded us deeper behind the drums, my mind trying to brainstorm a plan of action.
Sharki’s mop-up man was uglier than sin; a waddler, short, built like a tank, wide-spaced cow-like eyes. Sharki was no better. Warted brute with a sawed off nose, chunky cheeks, shark eyes and buck teeth. Wouldn’t doubt he was augmented like his bounty boy. Both garbed in silver kevlar plate with bands of leather wrapped across shoulders and thighs. Both armed to the teeth: R3s, bowie knives, morningstars. I nudged Deidra beside me who was quivering in the dirt and grease. “What’s the deal with this kingpin? Is that a nose or a mask he’s wearing?”
“Got it in a cat fight in Veglos,” she hissed. “Someone tried to teach him a lesson—whipped out a knife. Slice and dice. Let’s just say that thug’s a hole in the ground.”
Sharki marched on, whistling and chuckling. “Come out, come out, wherever you are. Rusco, Jet Rusco, you playing possum on me? That’s no way to deal. Lots of little hidey holes to hunker down in here. We’ll find you all. And little Deidra—I can smell your pretty little hide.”
A movement to my left. Sharki fired full on into the bins, spraying oil every which way not ten feet away from us. If one of those bullets hit a pressure tank…
A man in coveralls fell, blood-drenched and croaking.
“Oops, excuse me. My condolences, grandpa. Thought you were rat fink Rusco, the thief who shot up my station. Forgive a fellow an honest mistake.”
He blew the head off the maintenance man, Edgar, who tried to make a break for it back in the plum shadows behind a machine-tool rack.
Sharki laughed and recited a kids’ rhyme. “Me, oh, my, folk I do spy, dying in the heat of the day. Hum dee hum. No need for all this bloodshed, Rusco, if only you’d bring your cowardly ass out and fight like a man.”
I ducked back. To my right stood oil canisters stacked three high, a reeking, rancid grease pit; to my left stacks of tools, cellophane and fencing. One of those tire irons might be a good weapon. The whites of Marty’s eyes gleamed. The hothead was about to do something rash, with his pipe wrench tight-fisted in a hand, so I gripped his shoulder and shook my head. I crept around back, careful not to disturb a pebble, searching for some way to even our odds. No chance. The smart thing was to get that weapon off our bounty hunter or one of his tag-alongs. The stupid thing was to try some heroic kamikaze act, like these other bozos.
I felt pity for them. They’d no love for Sharki, after what he did to their boss. The ones who ran off got darts in their faces or bullets through their chests. Rat-a-tat. It was like a sick symphony.
“That’s it, Silas,” laughed Sharki as he poked hither and yon with the butt end of his rifle. “Round ’em up like steers.”
Silas moved on, huffing, in a wincing limp. They moved up on the crucible platform, and the beginnings of the catwalks.
“Hoof it up, you laggard, you’re dragging. One little dog bite isn’t anything to get worried about. Just a chicken scratch.”
Silas wanted to tell Sharki to bug off. I could tell, judging from the red spreading up his neck, but as they walked under a higher catwalk, a wild shape leaped out of the air.
Bessy, for all her bravery, took a wild plunge from her catwalk level, right onto Silas’s back, knocking him backward against the main crucible. Yowling and cat-scratching, she hooked her extended claws in his face. Silas howled. His left arm pinwheeling grabbed a hank of hair, flailed into the acid water, singeing half his side and arm. He let out a blood-curdling shriek.
Sharki shook his head in dumb amazement. He bullet-holed Bessy on the spot. “Idgit.” Her eyes stared up in glassy death.
“Silas, you witless knob, what the hell have you gone and done? Got yourself dunked like a dumb dog in a poison pool.”
“Help me,” he begged, writhing on the metal-gridded platform, clutching at his sizzling burns.
Sharki clicked his tongue. “You’re beyond help, Silas. Best I can do is put you out of your misery.” He lowered his R3 to the back of Sila’s skull. Brains flew in three directions.
Sharki barked out orders into his com. “Man down! I repeat, man down. Get your asses over here—Kragen’s crib! Full speed.”
I looked to the sky, knowing in minutes Sharki’s lightfighters would be touching down to fire us full of holes. I wanted the hell out of here. Yet I also wanted to hunt him down and waste him badly, but that would mean the deaths of us all.
I tapped Deidra on the arm. “Try to distract him. Make some noise or something, throw a wrench his way.”
She peered at me with owl’s eyes. “You insane? He’ll shoot us to pieces.”
“Do it or we’re dead,” I rasped. “Only a matter of time before Sharki flushes us out. I’ll try to figure something out.”
She shook her head in exasperation.
“Marty—go with her,” I hissed. “Cover her. Throw pipes, tire irons, whatever. If I can get that weapon off Sharki’s bounty hunter, our problem could be solved.”
Marty grimly accepted the task.
I saw Deidra’s green look. “He’s not that stupid. Not going to kill you…maybe enslave you and your pretty ass, so stall him as long as you can.”
I moved out of my hiding place, keeping low to the line of shadows, gauging my time. One, starship, two starships. You’re moving too slow, Rusco. Get up on that scaffolding. You’re going to—”
Crucible #2 tilted as some yardbird worked the hydraulic controls. A foul slop of chemical slurry poured out on the hardtop. One of Sharki’s hirelings screamed, splattered with hot acid.
“Holy fuck!” Sharki bawled. “Kill that bastard working the controls.”
Fire sprayed up at him on a first level catwalk where the great iron crucible yawed and a bullet-holed body sagged and fell headfirst to the tarmac. The slick spray on the hardtop gave off noxious sulfurous fumes. It was the diversion shield that allowed Marty and Deidra and me to crawl our way to better cover.
But something crackled behind me. Sharki caught a whiff of movement, maybe my shadow moving a fraction too fast.
“Hold it.” He came waltzing back down the catwalk, gun leveled at me. “Where you going, spider man? Back it up, don’t try to run off.”
I exhaled a curse, holding my hands up, rising from my crouch.
He walked up and sized me up. I closed my eyes just as his fist came angling up. An explosion of pain burst across my mouth with the coppery taste of blood. Disoriented, I opened my eyes, wiped off the streaming liquid. Gave him back a twisted grimace.
“You know, Rusco, it’s scabs like you make my job a lot harder.” He backhanded me another stinging blow in the face. “An honest rogue trying to make a living in this depraved universe gets messed up by a prick like you. It’s like having a hot tong jabbing you in a sensitive place. You sticking your nose in business you have no right to. Turning my own against me like that liver-licking Deidra piece of ass who’s careening fast to a reckoning in the sluthouse.”
He kicked me down to my knees.
“Stay down like the dog you are.”
I licked my lips, contemplating my options which were few.
“You’re in a heap of trouble here, Rus-boy. Think I’ll kill you slow, draw out the pain—for every atom of damage you did to my operation.”
“Knock yourself out.”
He hoofed me in the gut this time. I was feeling some serious pain right about now. He reached down to pistol whip me but something alerted him at the last minute. He jerked back as a rat-a-tat came at him. He gave back a high-pitched yelp.
> At the same time some engine started up behind us, to the side. A forklift, headlights glaring, came to life barreling toward us. What the fuck? Someone managed to get it up and running. Marty?
Shots rang out, shattering the glass. Sharki’s #3 boy, crouched and ready, laid into the approaching metal, ripping the cowling to bits. I saw a dark form dive out of the cabin as the thing came whizzing by. Good old Mar!
Where was Deidra? Her bullet caught Sharki on the left toe. He was hobbling around, cursing and hollering orders, but nowhere near incapacitated. Nothing worse than a wounded shark.
I scrambled away to cover before he decided to pop me.
Marty came out of his roll, smashing into the crouching guard taken by surprise. The man fell backward. Marty ripped the weapon out of his grasp.
He tossed a sawed off rifle into my hands as I rushed forward. Must have lifted the other off one of the dead guards. I grabbed it, nestled it against my beating chest. The stock felt warm from the sun. A grin of triumph broke out on my blood-dripping face.
Sharki half limped behind the shell-shot forklift which had crashed into the cement wall and stalled out there, smoke rising from its hood.
Steel whipped out and Marty’s carbine flared. He and Deidra took out the last of Sharki’s stooges in a burst of crimson blood and guts.
I followed up with fire of my own, aiming for Sharki’s hideaway. He laid into us with all his firepower, shells ripping what little cover we had. Me and Marty scuttled like land crabs on our hands and knees out of gun shot range.
Deidra sprinted in a wild dash beside me, her hot breath on my neck.
Sharki called out of his hiding place. “So the traitor bitch shows her true colors!” He spat phlegm and coughed. “You’ll be on the end of a leash before sundown, slut. Mark my words.” He shot blind at us.
Deidra howled, a gobbling, gulping sound and I had to pull her back. “No sudden moves, you fool. You’ll get gunned down. He’s just trying to goad you into showing yourself. We have to think smarter.”
Sharki was tucked in behind that broken, smoking fork lift, firing blind shells out at us. Anyone tried to get too close to that mad dog would get his legs shot off.
“Come on, let’s move!” I rasped. “The ship’s waiting and isn’t going to come to us!”
We raced back to the main gate and out into the adjacent yard where Goliath stood parked. My eyes ever roved to the sky waiting for Sharki’s lightfighters to blow us to bits.
Chapter 5
The service yard was a beehive of activity. Slaves running, firrits barking, shouts, bedlam, general waves of confusion. The gunfire had spooked them. Kragen’s no-gun policy had them ill-prepared and running scared. But a few intrepid slaves grabbed up tire irons and were about to storm the refinery. Good luck to them. Didn’t doubt the local law was on its way too. Good time to get the hell out of here. We scooted into Goliath’s open cargo bay and hoofed it to the bridge. Deidra started Goliath’s impulse engines and we blasted off.
“Why don’t we buzz Sharki and finish him off?” Marty bawled when we were in the air.
“No, he radioed in for backup, remember? By the time we flush him out, he’ll have a battalion of V-Zons on our ass. What we can do is slam his ride. Circle back,” I instructed Deidra. She swung the vessel around in a wide arc. Sure enough a high-powered V-Zon sat parked in Malley’s smaller yard with a bunch of other vehicles. “Zone in, let me shred that shitter.”
She came in close and I worked the weapons grid, riddling the enemy fuselage with bullets. Sharki’s ship smoked and sizzled and looked a sorry sight.
Marty grunted in satisfaction. “Why don’t we buzz the forklift he’s hiding under too?”
“What, and kill innocent yardhands? Sharki’s moved on by now. We spray the yard, innocent people die.”
Marty grumbled, “So where to now?”
“We aren’t going far until we get this warp drive fixed, after all, 10k yols worth of repairs already done. Tyrone City, Narpoon Town?” I expelled a breath of frustration. “I just want the hell out of this place. Not going to let this shipment slip out of our hands though. Worked too hard for it.”
Deidra sighed. “Last place Sharki’ll think we’ll go is Tyrone City.”
“Then Tyrone City it is. He’ll be banking we head to some out of the way yard again.”
“As good a plan as any,” Marty conceded.
A quick mental check. An innocent stop at one machine yard ends in tragedy. I could just see the headline: Machine yard Bloodbath. Crog and gangster bloodfest! Good one, Rusco. How many more people going to die as a result of your recklessness?
The yardmaster didn’t have to die. That was our doing, at least indirectly. I hated random, useless deaths. But then this was a dark time, the colonized worlds were a seething cauldron of violence. Stealing from the bad guys had not been working out too well for us.
“Question is where can we hide the ship?” interrupted Deidra, disturbing my thoughts.
“We can’t be gallivanting roughshod with this clunker,” I said. “It’s like waving a red cape in front of the bull.”
Marty heaved a sigh. “I don’t know, you’re the brain came up with the scheme.”
“Deidra?”
She winced, catching sight of what must be my swollen face and black eyes. “You look bad, Rusco.”
“Yeah, well, not all of us have good days.” I pointed to the holo index. “Time’s wasting.”
She consulted the grid, a 3D enclosed sphere of color and sound, showing a rotating image of a map and gridded layout with various installations. She pressed tabs on the color-coded menu. A computer voice narrated on. She gave a cluck of irritation and turned it off.
A list of registers came up, layover places, merchant retreats, repair shops, seedy guest houses, smoke shops and other dives.
“A couple of these look promising.” Her voice lacked enthusiasm. “The Midges’ Retreat, or wait, here’s a good one, The Traveler’s Depot—meals to go, underground hanger, extra charge. Every miner’s dream.”
I scowled. “Nah, don’t like any of them. Too conspicuous. Sharki’s scouts’ll make us in a second and report us.”
She sucked on her lower lip in glum reverie. “I wish that bastard had died down there. I’d feel a lot better.” Marty sat, nursing his wounds. I winced at the bruises and bloody scrapes all along his forearm.
Deidra brightened. “Wait, I know a place—outside town. It might work—an old quarry, adjoining Abashal’s mine. We can park this ship in the gully and leave for town on foot.”
I rubbed my chin. “Maybe, Deidra. Better…I like it more than the ‘Midges’ Retreat.”
She gave a sigh of defeat. “One of us has to stay back to guard the ship. Guess that’ll have to be me.”
I snorted. “No doubt you’d volunteer. The answer is no. I still don’t trust you. You’re coming with us. We all go in as a group.”
“What the hell? You’re a real hardass.” She threw up her hands. “I have a bad feeling about Tyrone. Already told you about Sharki’s plans for me.”
“Yeah, well me I have a bad feeling too,” said Marty. “Boo hoo. Suck it up.”
“We need flesh regen. Marty’s hurting. Also need to find a mechanic who can repair the warp. If Kragen had come through and fixed that too we wouldn’t be in this mess. I don’t trust just winging in with this giant. Guess we’ll be hitting Tyrone City after all.”
Marty set the coordinates for the quarry and Deidra flew us in. The quarry loomed up on our sights, a big open sore amongst the wide stretches of bogtree and endless pools of brackish water. We dipped down into the mammoth pit and found a spot along the bottom amongst the crags and pegmatite rock formations deep in the ravine, long quarried to death. We set Goliath back under a natural overhang that hid her from sight from the air. It was damp and humid, populated by creepy crawly things no doubt deeper within but we didn’t investigate. This place’d do for now.
Deidra wrinkled her no
se in the muggy air. “Happy now? What’s next?”
I motioned her up the carved-out pit along an animal path. Climbing up out of the quarry was an onerous hike. Topside, we took the long slog through lowlands and bogs. We humped it up to Tyrone along the backroads, twelve miles or so into town.
We were running low on food...I had grabbed the last vacuum sealed packs from the ship and we gobbled them down as we walked. Unpalatable fare—freeze-dried mutton with synthetic potato. Food was food and beggars couldn’t be choosers. Better than going hungry, I thought. Only some wild firrits, roaming out of the mangroves in packs in curiosity, crossed our path. But their half-lizard hisses and dog-like barks drew out low-lying gators that came snapping at our heels. We did a frantic U-turn in a hell of hurry to outrun them. Some air cars and supply trucks passed, ignoring us. Ships raced across the lavender-green sky but these were too high to spot us as anything suspicious. Sharki’d be looking for a big ship which he wouldn’t find, if all went to plan, not some hitchhikers and straggler hobos humping it up the backroads out in the boondocks on their way to Tyrone.
Everything on this planet was weird. The spooky light, the queer animals, the creepy, stunted trees, the uncanny windless silence. The odd combo offered an enchanted beauty, one which I could not appreciate at the moment.
We made it to center town at dusk, a weary, disheveled bunch of misfits by the time we caught the last air tram. Narrow streets, puddles of rainwater, hustle and bustle, staring eyes, grifters, hustlers looking for marks. Glitter and chrome, wall to wall billboards and towers, although more rusted and less high than those seen on Gainor and Alphanor.
Night was upon us. Tyrone City lay like a reaper’s cloak, the big bad ugly side of temptation and sin exposed in all its malevolent glory. Neon signs glared sickly across the skyline. Echoes of discordant, computerized music, thump-thumped amid the rankness of the city air.
I’d seen worlds like this before. Destitute, reeking of vice. Arenas of debauchery. Violent, lawless towns. A product of the boom of raw beryl like any gold rush town throughout history. Didn’t like being forced to dip my nose into the reeking stench but here we were.