Boom Town

by Craig Martelle

Shaunte crossed her arms and stood to her full 5’3”. “It looks like you’re running an illegal brothel.”

  A strangely beautiful woman emerged from the shadows. Black and red squares decorated her neck, shoulders, and cleavage. She wore a flowing, off the shoulder shirt and tight leather pants. Scrolling tattoos covered the delicate young skin around her bright blue eyes. She’s too young to be a madam, Shaunte thought.

  “What the hell are you going to do about it?” the checked woman said.

  “She’s the Company Man!” Dixie said as she barged forward.

  The young madam shoved Dixie down then turned on Shaunte. “That’s got to be a lie. No Company Man would try to break up our party without a small army behind him.”

  “What’s your name, young lady?” Shaunte asked, chin held high.

  “Shit, I ain’t no lady,” the new madam said. “Call me Dedra.”

  She swung a right hook that caught Shaunte on the jaw.

  Shaunte fell hard, not understanding how she hurt the front of her left knee and her right butt cheek from the same tumble. She also scraped her hands. And, to top it all off, there was an exceedingly annoying person yanking her by her hair.

  A very large man bear-hugged Dixie from behind and lifted her off her feet, carrying her away from the scene. Two additional men came out with stun sticks.

  “I’m the Company Man,” Shaunte said.

  They laughed. “That’d be pretty damn funny if it was true.”

  The first stunner hurt like hell. She didn’t think the device could injure her permanently, but that wasn’t what her mind screamed. She fell, then staggered to her feet, only wanting to escape. The red-haired man stunned her again, causing her to fall to her knees even farther from the Cheap Easy. The dark-haired man aimed his stun stick at the flesh of her backside and poked her hard, shoving her onto her face. She thrust her hands forward and lost most of the skin from her palms.

  After that, she lost track of the abuses. She staggered to the back door of the Mother Lode. Dixie leaned on her, or perhaps it was the other way around.

  * * *

  Shaunte hurt everywhere. Bruises on her face and ribs throbbed with pain. The nightmare trek across Darklanding wasn’t something she wanted to remember. Dixie pushed her shoulder under Shaunte’s arm, carrying most of her weight, which was only a problem because the woman was so much taller. To add insult to injury, Shaunte’s armpit was on fire, her hand was going numb, and her shoulder felt as though it would come out of the socket.

  The two women barged into the lounge at the back of the establishment, interrupting several women with their feet up on tables as they drank scavenged alcohol. Another was shaving her legs in the sink next to the microwave. Two errand boys pushed industrial-sized laundry carts toward a back room.

  “Get these people out of here,” Shaunte said, holding her bleeding eyebrow with her left hand and waving away Dixie’s girls and the other workers.

  Dixie, not much better off, clapped her hands and stomped one foot. “You heard the boss, girls. Get to your rooms or get out on the floor. The rest of you, do your jobs while you still have jobs.”

  Shaunte made her way to the sink and stared at the woman who still had one leg up and a razor in one hand.

  “What, Miss Plastes?”

  “The sink?”

  “Oh, sure. Just let me finish this real quick-like,” the young woman said. She swiped the razor this way and that, then dried off with a paper towel and dropped her foot to the floor. “All yours. Might want to rinse out the basin.”

  Shaunte wasn’t sure why she wanted to vomit. It wasn’t that she was offended by the woman’s public display of good hygiene, although she wasn’t sure how good it was on all levels, it was just that her head wouldn’t stop throbbing. “I don’t feel good.”

  Dixie rushed to her side and put one arm around her while she dampened a handful of paper towels with the other. She patted Shaunte’s forehead several times.

  “You look very pale, Miss Plastes,” Dixie said.

  “Is someone staring at us?” Shaunte asked.

  Dixie spun around, nearly shoving Shaunte against the sink. “What are you doing, Pierre?! Are you watching us?”

  Shaunte turned a bit slower and saw Pierre the younger standing in the doorway, his face expressionless. “Pierre told me to tell you that the sheriff’s ex-wife and that big hairy dude just showed up.”

  Shaunte leaned on the sink counter with one hand, collected her dignity, and nodded to the young man. “Thank you, Pierre.”

  “Those girls didn’t do anything to my canvas, did they?” he asked. “I need to move it up front where I can watch it. In the corner behind the register, maybe.”

  Shaunte looked around the room and spotted an easel with a canvas on it in the corner. It was faced away from the center of the room. There were several canvases stacked in the corner next to it. “What would they do to your paintings, Pierre?”

  The young man blushed. “Last week, these ladies used my best blanks for body art, smearing paint all over themselves and…”

  “I understand,” Shaunte said. “Now, if you could please excuse us, I need to vomit in private.”

  Dixie helped her clean herself up afterward and straighten her clothing.

  “I want to go out into the saloon,” Shaunte said.

  “Oh, Miss Plastes, you can’t do that.”

  Shaunte took several cautious steps toward the door. “If I can’t find Sheriff Fry, perhaps the SagCon Special Investigators can teach these jerks at the Cheap and Easy an expensive and difficult lesson.”

  She strutted unsteadily down the hallway to the main room of the saloon. Patrons and prostitutes moved out of her way, pressing themselves against the walls as they stared. Dixie followed, pulling her bodice back into place and straightening herself out. Shaunte hadn’t really thought of how much more disheveled the woman was in her costume.

  She stepped out onto the main floor and no one noticed her. The place was packed and the music was loud. She cut across the room with no resistance. Once people realized who she was and saw the look on her face, they stepped aside. She glanced at the bar, but Thaddeus wasn’t there, and neither was his deputy or his pig-dog.

  Penelope Fry-Grigman and Michael “Sledge” Hammer occupied their own table despite the shortage of seats. At first, Shaunte didn’t recognize the man except for his size. He had a scraggly beard and the look of unwashed neglect. His clothing was loose. He had lost some weight. Still tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular, he had lost some of the thickness. If anything, his muscles looked lean and dense.

  “Good evening, Miss Plastes,” Penelope said. “I apologize for my former partner. He’s been slumming.”

  “No apology necessary. I have a matter of great importance and request the assistance of the Sagittarian Conglomerate Investigators Corps,” Shaunte said.

  Penelope smiled. “We’re both retired.”

  “I missed you, Miss Dixie,” Sledge said, slurring his words.

  “Is he drunk?” Shaunte asked.

  “Obviously,” Dixie said, stepping closer. She wrapped one arm around Sledge, which pushed the side of his face into her chest. “Did I break your big, dumb heart?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Dregg

  Shaunte stayed in her room for almost two full days. She showered frequently and took a bubble bath—a luxury she could not have afforded only a month ago. She changed her outfit six or seven times but derived no satisfaction. Reports continued to come in and the noise downstairs continued to shake the Mother Lode. She wondered if she should add another layer of soundproof rugs. If the saloon wasn’t making so much money, she would close it down at a decent time each night.

  Pierre and Dixie insisted they were losing money to the new place across town. Shaunte didn’t want to face it. She shouldn’t have to deal with this type of problem. This was exactly why she had a sheriff. He’d been on his adventures before, but never this long.

  She put
herself together, as though preparing for a board meeting or a videoconference with her father, and faced the message camera. It took three tries, but the message she crafted for Thaddeus was measured and direct at the same time. There was no way he would miss the hint that his job was on the line if he did not get back to Darklanding and take care of business.

  The hardest part of the act was hiding her injuries. Makeup only went so far and she was stiff even after two days of bubble baths and hot showers.

  * * *

  Dregg was a bad, bad man, just like his momma always wanted. She’d said only a wolf could keep the wolf from the door. Wolves pissed themselves when Dregg started high-stepping.

  His sister strutted up the stairs to the Mother Lode, as sexy as money and the best trade schools in the business could make her. His men watched her. The locals watched her. Dregg watched her.

  A pair of the local women, Leslie and Chelsie, stood at the top of the stairs as though they might block Dedra. His sister was shorter than either of the women, AWOL shock troopers or fighter pilots, depending on who you listened to. Dregg thought they looked like fun. Looked like they wanted to party with a real man.

  He motioned for his men to hang back and see how his sister handled this.

  “You’re Leslie and Chelsie, right? Heard you flew that douchebag Raymond LeClerc into the ground awhile back,” Dedra said from two steps below them.

  Neither woman responded.

  Dregg massaged the muscles of his left forearm, looking them over from head to toe. They were hard core. He’d have to make sure they were on his crew and not his sister’s when everything was said and done. Their talents were wasted in a place like the Mother Lode.

  Dedra shrugged and started walking. Neither of the Mother Lode women moved. Dedra reached behind her with both hands and drew two wicked daggers. The blades flashed in the trashy streetlight. Leslie and Chelsie stepped back.

  That was all his sister needed. She moved into the saloon. Dregg and a dozen of his toughest fighters followed quickly. Leslie and Chelsie tried to block him, standing chest to chest and staring him down. He winked. He kept his hands to himself when a lesser man might have copped a feel or stared down her cleavage.

  “You’re not that tough,” Leslie said.

  Dregg punched her in the gut, a short, choppy strike she never saw coming. She fell backward and landed on her butt. One of his men snatched Chelsie off her feet and threw her down the stairs.

  The music died as Dregg and his men followed his sister into the saloon. The crowd melted away, pressing toward the walls. Some headed for backdoors or upstairs to rooms if they had them.

  “All right, boys. Let’s break some shit,” Dregg said.

  * * *

  Shaunte knew how to fly an airship, more or less. But why bother when her SagCon private air-limo could provide both comfort and security? Speed… Well, that was another matter. She used the time to read reports on her tablet and hold an audio-only conference with a newly formed zoning committee.

  “Reducing speed and approaching your destination. Please confirm destination. There are no listed landing platforms in this area of Transport Canyon,” the onboard computer said. “Landing without safety crews is not recommended.”

  Shaunte swiped the screen to mute the voice. “Please circle twice and land just beyond the Calico. Thank you.”

  The entrance to the cave overlooked an upland desert valley. In the distance, she saw the rock spires where airships had raced to the finish. The half-stadium silhouetted at the edge of her vehicle’s optics was overgrown with weeds and sand, last she checked.

  Two ships were parked on the flat area near the cave entrance. One was the Calico—a cobbled-together monstrosity Thaddeus had flown in his victory against Raymond LeClerc, the low-altitude racing champion of the galaxy.

  She looked through the view-screen and saw Thaddeus and his deputy cooking something over a fire pit near his ship. The other ship, she thought belonged to Cornelius Vandersun. The old man was nowhere to be seen—probably embarrassed by the gaudy red starship.

  The SagCon professional limousine took its time and landed gently. She double-checked her outfit. She hadn’t seen Vandersun, but he had to be nearby. It wouldn’t do to make a poor impression on one of the richest and most powerful men in the galaxy. She stopped at the door, adjusted the angle of her handbag from where it hung on her shoulder, and then nodded for the door to open.

  Hot wind blew against her face. She ignored it as best she could and started down the ramp. Her shoes were not the best. Good for walking on sand or even hiking, but not for winning fashion contests. Her slacks were of a safari brand, tailored to her exact form and embedded with global positioning devices in case she became lost in this environment. She reached into her bag and withdrew a large hat, pulling it snugly over her hair. Sunglasses completed the outfit, hiding what her makeup didn’t conceal.

  Thaddeus and Mast waited at the edge of the landing area. She headed straight for the absent-without-leave sheriff.

  “I’ve sent you dozens of messages,” she said as she closed the distance.

  He nodded. “Twenty-seven, to be exact. I only received them when we came up from the caves.”

  “That’s no excuse. Darklanding is in dire need of your services.”

  “I’m sure it’ll still be there when we get back. We ran into something pretty important. Something you should know about,” Thaddeus said.

  She waved his comments away, pointing at the ground for emphasis. “I need you to come back with me right now. Several of Dixie’s girls are in the hospital and the Mother Lode has been ransacked.”

  “What?”

  “There’s a new establishment in town and they have flagrantly violated all trade agreements between established business entities in Darklanding,” Shaunte said.

  Thaddeus clenched one fist and seemed to restrain a torrent of profanity. She watched and waited, hoping for him to realize all of this was his fault. He studied her features as if he could see through the makeup. She hurriedly looked away.

  “All right, I’ll take care of that. But first, I need to show you something,” he said.

  Shaunte couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I need you to fly that piece of junk ship of yours back to Darklanding, right this very instant, and take care of business!”

  He shook his head. “I hear what you’re saying.”

  “Ohhhh! You!” Shaunte spat. “You’re the most frustrating man on the planet. I was willing to believe you weren’t getting my messages, maybe some sort of technical problem, But now I know you’re disobedient and willful. I’m seriously questioning your usefulness to the company. I’m not going to stand out here in the desert and argue with you.”

  “Hello, Miss Plastes,” said a new voice.

  She turned and saw Cornelius Vandersun and Ruby Miranda walking down the ramp of the red and white starship he had parked next to the sheriff’s junker.

  “Hello, Mister Vandersun. Hello, Ruby,” she said.

  “I agree that your sheriff is very quarrelsome and difficult. You should take him back to the spaceport immediately,” Cornelius said.

  Thaddeus shook his head and stepped between the man and Shaunte. “That’s not gonna happen. She has to go all the way to the bottom and see it. You know I’m right.”

  Cornelius Vandersun attempted to stall, which intrigued Shaunte to the point of speechlessness.

  The old man stepped very close to Thaddeus and spoke in a low, angry voice. “She’s the Company Man of the Sagittarian Conglomerate. Maybe you trust her, but we can’t trust the company. There’s more than just my business interests at stake. One wrong move will be devastating to the natives of Ungwilook.”

  “That’s why she needs to see it. She needs to be ready when it can no longer be kept a secret,” Thaddeus said.

  Cold dread filled Shaunte. “What are you talking about?”

  “Let me speak to her,” Ruby said.

  “I don’t re
ally have time. Thaddeus can return with me this instant or resign. Which, I should remind him, means redeployment to his previous unit, wherever that is right now,” Shaunte said.

  Ruby took her by the arm. “Girl to girl. We really need to talk.”

  Something in the young woman’s manner convinced Shaunte to listen. They walked a short distance away from the others and stood watching the evening sky above the canyon. Shaunte crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently.

  “I know what’s happening to Darklanding. I’ve traveled more of the galaxy than you have, believe it or not. First with my family, then on my own,” Ruby said.

  “Get to the point,” Shaunte said.

  “No matter what my grandfather says, he is here for his own reasons. All he cares about is having the wealth and technology to continue exploring the galaxy. Controlling humanity’s access to space is just a necessary means to an end.”

  “I could have guessed as much.”

  Ruby looked back, then lowered her voice. “You might do well to be on the ground floor this time.”

  “What does that mean, exactly?”

  Ruby didn’t answer right away. “Well, I’m going to tell you more than I should. Without a firm commitment, full disclosure could cause serious problems. The kind of problems that get people killed.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  Ruby held her gaze. “There’s a ship at the bottom of this cave. Ancient, powerful, capable of going places no human ship can. We’re talking extragalactic travel.”

  “Is that how your grandfather guides exploration fleets beyond explored space?”

  Ruby nodded. “But the ships aren’t like human ships. They pick their pilots. My grandfather wants me to meet the ship down there, but what if it doesn’t like me? Maybe it would prefer someone like you.”

  “Why would you tell me this?”

  “This opportunity is too important to leave to chance,” Ruby said.

  “That’s enough girl talk,” Cornelius said as strode toward them. “Come along, granddaughter. Let the Company Man and her sheriff have their lovers’ spat.”