by George Ellis
Gary paused, thinking about it. Or computing on it. You get the idea. Finally, he spoke up. “I’ll take my chances you guys make it back.”
I snorted at the prospect. I couldn’t even begin to envision a scenario in which I made it out of this jam alive, let alone in charge of my ship. I picked up Pirate and walked out of the cabin without saying another word.
Chapter 16
They put us in separate rooms. Smart. How I would have played it too. If I were a scumbag fed.
For all I knew, they were already questioning and/or executing Edgar and Batista. The federation was a bureaucratic machine with countless processes and procedures, save one area: meting out justice. That was swift and often at the sole discretion of the senior officer in charge of a vessel or region.
Nobody had come for me yet. Slay had been true to her word, letting me bring Pirate with me. The cat snoozed in his carrying case, either unaware of the situation or he just didn’t intimidate easily. I liked to think it was the latter. We’d already been waiting an hour, and it dawned on me that I might soon be sharing Pirate’s litter box with him.
I looked around the small room. It pained me to say it, but it was nice. Much like its captain, the Burnett didn’t fit the federation mold. The ship couldn’t have been more than a year old, and everywhere I looked, the tech was state of the art. Even the walls were painted a less depressing blue than the usual fed blue, which almost looked more like a puke-green. Even the chair I sat in was so ergonomically sound, I could have fallen asleep under less dramatic circumstances.
The door slid open with a hiss and Slay entered. Alone. That was odd. I wasn’t a danger, considering one of my arms was in a sling and both my hands were cuffed to the table, but when the door closed behind her, I couldn’t help but wonder why she hadn’t delegated this interrogation (or sentencing) to someone of lesser rank.
Was I really that important?
The obvious answer was no. I wasn’t. Something else was going on here.
Slay sat down across the table from me and looked at Pirate, who was snoring loudly. A flicker of a smile crossed Slay’s lips, then disappeared quickly.
“Your cat is either very brave or very dumb,” Slay said.
“I was thinking the same thing, actually,” I replied. “I’ve been flying with him for a while now and I still don’t know which it is.”
“Doesn’t make you the best judge of character,” she said. “But I guess that explains the other members of your crew.”
I wanted to tell her they weren’t my choice. That I’d been tricked into partnering with one and forced to take on the other. Instead, I just kept a blank expression, trying not to give anything away.
“You don’t need to play it this way. I already know all about your crew and why they’re on board.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Why are we talking right now? Shouldn’t you be dealing out justice?”
I figured what the hell, rip the band-aid right off. Slay nodded.
“I once dated a wrecker. In my youth,” Slay said.
“If this was some elaborate way of asking me out on a date, I could’ve saved you a lot of time and trouble,” I replied.
Slay smiled at that one. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve even guessed the smile was genuine. “I’m far too old for you, Mr. Boyd –”
“Call me Denver.”
“Denver. There will be time for immature jokes about sex. And there will also be time for justice. But right now, I’m interested in your help.”
I took a beat to let that one sink in. I was unable to hide my surprise. Slay acknowledged it.
“Yes, there’s a warrant on you and your crew,” she said. “And yes, your crew just killed a dozen fed soldiers. These are facts. Do you dispute them?”
I didn’t say a word. I was too confused about what the hell was happening.
“I’ll take it by your silence, you do not. But there are also circumstances beyond your knowledge that cause me…” she stopped for a moment, choosing her words more carefully. “Circumstances that force me to set those transgressions aside for the moment and ask for your help.”
First Desmond. Then the federation. Who was going to need my help next?
“Let’s say I help you. I mean, I can’t even fathom why you would need my help, but let’s pretend this is a real offer. What happens after I’m done with this whole helping thing? Because if I just get justice served then, I’d rather just get on with it.”
“The slate will be clean,” she said.
“I’m sorry, I want to get this straight. You don’t care about the dead soldiers?”
Slay stiffened at the question and I saw the first glimpse of true anger in her face. She quickly subdued it.
“I never said I didn’t care. I care. The federation cares, and as far as I’m concerned you should be floating in space right now, along with your cat, no matter how cute he is. But I have an objective that supersedes the dead soldiers, as distasteful as that is to me. And so here we find ourselves. Are you in? Or should I shove you and your crew in the airlock and press the big red button?”
“So you think my cat is cute?” I joked.
I don’t know why I did it. I guess I just can’t help myself sometimes. I knew it was the wrong thing to say even before I finished saying it, but, as Slay said, here we find ourselves.
Slay just got up and started to walk out.
“I’m in,” I said. “Assuming I don’t have to kill anyone else, I’m in.”
She stopped and turned. Her eyes examined mine, perhaps wondering why I had suddenly turned into a pacifist. “I’ll brief you and your team in 10.” And with that, she walked out.
The door slid closed and a second later, the electronic handcuffs on my wrists clicked open. I rubbed my wrists and looked at Pirate. “That took an unexpected turn.” He simply twitched his paws in response.
* * *
A pair of silent feds led me through the hall into a conference room. The room seemed designed for a business meeting rather than a military briefing. Batista and Edgar were already there, sitting at the far end of a shiny oval table, eating protein packs. It was the first time I’d ever seen snacks provided to prisoners on a fed ship, although we weren’t technically prisoners anymore, I supposed.
I placed Pirate’s bag on the floor next to an open chair and sat down. There was nobody else in the room yet. Just the crew of the Stang. We all looked at each other.
“Anyone else confused?” Batista asked.
Edgar just grunted. I shrugged.
“They offered me a drink,” Batista said, incredulous. “Since when did the feds have refreshments and conference rooms?”
“Did they tell either of you why we’re not dead at the moment?” I asked.
Nope. Both of them had gone through a cursory interview, much like mine. I wanted to hear their thoughts on what they thought was going on, but Slay strode into the room, followed by a beefy man in civilian clothes. He was mid-40s and had the look of violence about him, whether that meant dishing it out or just being familiar with it in all its forms. He instinctively took a standing position closer to Edgar than either Batista or I. A second later another non-fed entered. She was maybe five feet tall and 100 pounds. Her dyed red hair was shaved close in the back and long in the front, covering one of her eyes. The other eye was pierced above the eyebrow. She wore a black leather jacket and dark jeans. She might have been 20. Slay introduced her as Romy.
Romy sat down at the other end of the table from us. There was a nervous energy about her, and she didn’t make eye contact with any of us. All her focus was on her handheld. I didn’t even bother guessing why she was in the room for this meeting. What was the point? I honestly wouldn’t have been surprised if Desmond walked in the door after her.
Once the door was closed, Slay looked at each of us in turn.
“Not the team I would have chosen, but it’s the team I got,” she said.
“Team for what?” Edgar wondered.
“Keep your mouth shut and I’ll explain.”
Edgar brushed off the retort and took another bite of his protein pack, chewing it slowly and deliberately. The big guy standing behind him tensed his neck muscles. Edgar must have sensed it, because he cracked a grin and snickered to himself.
Slay turned to the bank of monitors on the wall and waved her handheld at it. An image of a modern, half-sphere station with a gleaming clear dome appeared on the screens. The 600-foot-tall cross protruded from the top of the dome.
“Jasper Station,” Slay said. “Home of the Believers.”
I traded a look with Batista and we both had the same thing on our mind: when did that place become the center of the verse? I couldn’t tell if Slay noticed the brief exchange.
“We have reason to believe the Roxelle Baker, which you probably all know as The Rox, will be attempting an attack on the station in less than a week. Normally, the federation would simply send a dozen warbirds to protect the station and intercept the attack, but in this case, there are special circumstances.”
“Seems to be a lot of that going around,” I noted.
“Indeed,” Slay agreed, annoyed by the interruption. I put up my hands in mock surrender.
She proceeded to explain there was an item aboard the Rox that the federation needed to acquire in order to ensure “safety and balance” in the verse. When Edgar asked exactly what that item was, she refused to answer, saying it was not relevant and that if we eventually needed to know, she’d inform us then. Edgar already knew what the federation was after, as it was the same thing Desmond wanted to get his hands on. It was really starting to scare me. I knew I’d have as much luck getting the answer out of Slay as I did Edgar, so I just nodded and continued to listen.
The reason they’d chosen my ship – and me, specifically – is that they needed someone to get aboard the Rox and secure the item. They had come to the same conclusion as Desmond: a wrecker was the best way in. And since I already had a bounty on my head, they had leverage.
“Why not a Silver Star ship?” I asked. “Plenty to choose from.”
“Because we don’t want this to fall into Jack Largent’s hands, either,” Slay responded.
Add one more complication to the plan, I told myself. The more I thought about the situation, the more I felt I was being dragged slowly toward my death, but there was nothing I could do to stop it.
One question that had bothered me ever since Desmond enlisted me to do the very same thing for him and the Tracers was how they were so sure the Rox would need a wrecker in the first place. Now Slay was sure, too. When I asked her about it, she smiled.
“We’ve got that taken care of,” she replied.
For a fraction of a second, I saw surprise flash across Edgar’s face. He must have been wondering if Desmond’s plan had been compromised. Had the federation found out the Tracers were planning to cripple the Rox somehow, and they decided they could swoop in too? That didn’t make sense. If they knew that, then surely they would have known I was part of the plan as well. The rendezvous between the Stang and the Golden Bear that Slay’s Burnett had broken up would be a tipoff that I was involved, meaning the federation probably didn’t know about Desmond’s seemingly identical plot. They were just there to grab me.
Maybe those missiles they’d fired at the Stang were warning shots. Edgar has destroyed them in time, but maybe Slay was just trying to throw Desmond off the notion they were going to try and enlist me. It would’ve been a risky gamble, to assume I could either out-maneuver or somehow disable the missiles. I wanted to ask about that, but I tried to keep my questions to a minimum so I didn’t accidentally tip them off to the fact we were working for Desmond as well.
The other thing Slay didn’t realize was that Edgar – who she probably viewed as some random thug – was actually a former crew member of the Rox and also the Golden Bear, giving him maybe the best pedigree of any weapons specialist in the verse.
According to Slay, our role was simple. Get the Stang to Jasper Station in time to service the Rox, once the call went out. And it would go out, she assured us. Then, once aboard, we would work with Romy and Gareth (the beefy silent guy) to extract the item. We’d then meet up with the Burnett to transfer the item and our part of the deal would be fulfilled, and we could go on our merry way.
“Two problems,” I said, motioning to Romy and Gareth. “Her and him. The last thing I need is two more crew members on my ship. You want us to extract something, fine, we’ll do it. But I’m not bringing two more people I can’t trust onto my ship.”
“More?” Slay asked.
“You know what I mean,” I said, waving away my verbal stumble. I looked at Batista and Edgar with the best smile I could muster. “Are we in agreement?”
“He’s the captain,” Edgar said, doing his best impression of a dutiful subordinate. Batista also gestured as if to say it was my call.
Slay wasn’t fooled by the shows of deference. She evaluated the situation for a few moments and then came to a decision.
“Romy is non-negotiable,” she said. “She has expertise that none of you could possibly possess as it relates to the item we need to remove.”
“Yeah, and what expertise is that?” Edgar asked.
“I helped design it,” Romy said, speaking for the first time. She didn’t look up from her handheld, but if she had, she would see the grimace on Slay’s face. It was clear the admiral would’ve preferred Romy hadn’t divulged that information. Edgar was not only satisfied with that response, he was pleased with it.
“If she’s so smart, why don’t you just have her design another one of these whatevers that we’re stealing?” I asked.
“If only they’d thought of that,” Romy snarked, before realizing she may have said something confrontational. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
I raised my eyebrows to show I’d taken no offense. Slay cut in.
“She only understands certain aspects of the device,” Slay explained. “To create another one, we’d need the whole team. That isn’t feasible at the moment.”
I nodded. Suddenly it was a “device” and not an item. Interesting.
“I guess she’s exempt from uniform because she’s so smart?” I asked.
“She’s not a fed,” Slay said, stating the obvious. “Romy is an independent contractor.”
I appraised Romy and decided the hipster genius girl was not a threat. Gareth on the other hand…
“Fine. She’s mission-critical. But we can’t have silent muscles over there,” I said.
“You get him or you get a failsafe,” she said.
Failsafe was a fancy word for a bomb. Basically, they’d rig the Stang to blow if we deviated from the plan in any way. The right bomb setup was basically impossible to defuse, and given her confidence, I knew Slay had the right setup at her disposal.
“Besides, it seems you have all the muscle you need already,” she admitted, referring to Edgar and Batista.
“Done,” I agreed.
Gareth wanted to say something, but he knew his place and simply bit his tongue. Slay’s decision to allow Romy to go alone with my crew answered one of my questions: was Gareth protection for Romy or insurance if my crew ran into trouble on the Rox. Seemed like the latter. What Slay didn’t know is that we couldn’t take Edgar onto the Rox. She also didn’t know we had an inside man in my brother.
Avery. It was breaking my brain a bit to consider all the angles and pieces in motion. Whatever was on the Rox was a universe-changer, enough to force all kinds of unlikely alliances. On top of that, add the fact that someone wanted to destroy Jasper Station. Strange days.
As for the negotiation at hand, I was good with the results. Romy didn’t seem like trouble and a failsafe was a problem for another day. Survive today, I thought. Worry about complicated bombs tomorrow. Something told me it wouldn’t be the only deadly device in my immediate future.
Chapter 17
&nbs
p; The Stang was getting crowded.
When I inherited the ship from my Uncle E, I hadn’t thought much about putting a crew together. I just never envisioned myself as a “captain.” I also had my uncle as my role model. He was a loner in his own ship, traveling where he wanted, when he wanted. He took the jobs that appealed to him and avoided the ones that smelled like trouble. It only felt natural to follow in his footsteps. Sure, I had told myself at the time, it would lead to a more lonely existence than surrounding myself with crew members.
But it was safe.
I would be accountable only to myself (and Pirate, of course). Life, it seems, has a way of messing up plans like that. Maybe it would turn out for the better, I thought.
Sure, that’s how my luck had been going as of late. Everything would turn out perfect!
* * *
Romy might have been small in stature, but she was another person who required a room, personal space and a station in the cabin. I actually had to bring a little table into the cabin for her to sit at so she didn’t feel left out. Not that she would, probably, but once you’re on my crew, you get treated the same as everybody else. Even if you’re an oversized killing machine like Edgar.
On the bright side, the failsafe was only about the size of a lunchbox. So it didn’t take up much room at all! Slay’s team had installed it in the cabin, I guess in the hopes I wouldn’t forget about it when I was making important, life and death decisions. The bomb was hardwired into the ship’s power supply, which basically meant if we tried to remove it or bypass it in any way, we were screwed. Slay personally had access to remote-detonate the ship as well. That didn’t bother me as much as it could have. The woman had already held our lives in her hands once and let us continue breathing, so maybe she would do it again.
I had no intention of making any other stops before we reached Jasper. If we ran out of food, so be it. No more beer? Too bad. Okay, maybe for coffee I’d stop, but considering Batista and I were the only caffeine addicts, we were likely okay on that front. Edgar seemed to run mostly on candy bars, and Romy had a supply of little yellow pills she took a few times a day. I didn’t even want to know what they were.