Starhustler

by Chris Turner

  “Say what?”

  “You heard me. No loaded firearms on my ship.”

  “What about your piece then, and hers?”

  “I’m the captain and she’s the first mate.”

  Wren covered him while I held out my hand. With reluctance he unstrapped it and tossed it over.

  I locked the guns from the weapons rack in the forward bulkhead with Raez’s and motioned him back. “I’ll show you to your quarters.” And here my mouth slackened in a smirk. There being no spare private cabins, I took Raez to the most grimy, cluttered space by the hold with a rat-chewed mattress and rusty pipes rattling on the wall, threw a couple of old dusty shipping blankets at him. It’d have to do, and I owed this miserable troublemaker nothing. “Head’s in the fore, not pretty in there, but I’m sure you’ll manage.” I left him seething and grumbling in the dimness, then I made my way back to the bridge.

  While Starrunner and Urgon had made some distance from Besi 6, we set out for the outer planets with four-fifths of our shipment. I looked over at Wren while the darkening feeling grew in the pit of my stomach. The old maxim of what doesn’t feel right, ain’t right thundered like a storm. Of course, Gris had refused to let Dolgra’s men board Urgon so I ended up parking at the space station orbiting Mora to give Dolgra his yols while Urgon sped ahead at subwarp.

  As I charted our course to catch up, while checking and rechecking our rendezvous with Jasmel, something gnawed at me. I knew we’d never make that destination. Why? Call it that voice of intuition that speaks in the dead of night when one wakes in a lucid moment. Everything was in order, and yet that disturbing hunch beamed like a hooker’s red light. Things had been barely smoothed over with Pazarol an hour ago! Raez had done his best to highlight how botched our job had been under my direction and we possessed only a portion of our cargo. I explained to Pazarol how it was impossible to go back to Gizren and get the rest of our freight without incurring casualties and risking the rest of the shipment. “The Gedra’ll cap our asses and we’ll have nothing to show for it, without less than an army to cut through that rat swarm.”

  Long story short, the deal would proceed as planned, but with a third less payout. Okay, I could run with that, as this was our highest paying gig thus far, even split three ways, and I didn’t want to jeopardize it. Raez didn’t seem to care much at the lesser payout; he seemed to be in it for the kicks. A strange sentiment—but a hell of a lot more interesting than hobgoblining around that gloomy warehouse on Tarsus. I stayed on the bridge. The others had gone off to their quarters, and my eyes, tired and lids drooping, were seeing fuzzy shapes while the ship stayed steady on Molly’s autopilot, keeping up with Urgon.

  As I was making for my cabin, I heard voices down the corridor. Wren’s husky voice was raised, an audible murmur.

  I crept down the passage, paused before the next corridor, my jaw set.

  “How about it, Fox?” came a familiar weasely voice. “What’s say you and me slip between the sheets, keep each other warm? I know you and the cap may have something going, but no worries. He isn’t about to hear it from me and I won’t ruin your gig.”

  I caught the pregnant pause, then guessed Wren, for a second, had considered the sleazy offer and had almost given in.

  Then I heard her stony hiss. “Buzz, off, creep. I don’t like your smell or your oily smile.”

  I smiled at that. Raez put up a fuss and spewed a bunch of spuriously offensive words, like ‘sloe-eyed bitch’, and ‘pissy dike’, and with a concerned look, I decided to step in and ‘defend the lady’s honor’.

  “Everything all right here? Wren, you okay?”

  Raez’s face lit up in a mocking grin. “No worries, cappie. Me and the bosomy lady were just getting to know each better, weren’t we, Wren, baby? I like to get under the skin of the people I’m working with.” The man’s patronizing, piss-licking grin almost made me want to plow him.

  Raez was one of those ungracious, low-class weasels who hung out at the casinos looking for easy lays—not that there was anything wrong with that—I’d done a few myself, those feel-good-about-yourself screws, but there was a way to do it, with a certain modicum of class. Everything in this schmuck’s aura spoke of boorishness. A regular wise guy with some black and white around the edges. Okay, I’ll stay open-minded. Irritant Raez, was egging for a rude awakening. This little soap opera reminded me of some cornball vid back in that ancient earth collection I used to watch when having nothing better to do.

  I followed Wren back to her cabin, keeping an eye on the lady. “Anything you’d like to tell me?”

  “No.”

  In the end we had a little nightcap, featuring some gin she’d snuck from the hamper. “Didn’t think you’d mind, Ruskie, one bottle missing.”

  I shrugged. “What do you think of our unwanted guest, Mr. Raez?”

  “A bottom feeder. I’ve known sleaze bags like him before. Think he’s trouble.”

  “Agreed. He almost got us killed.”

  She snuffled out a noncommittal sound.

  “So you think we should—”

  “Forget that rat, let’s think about us.” She crept closer and undid her tight leather then my shirt, her lashes fluttering, full lips parted in a breathless purr.

  “Good plan,” I murmured.

  Wren’s tomboyish energy was more feral feline tonight and I had trouble keeping up with her. After a rousing interlude, I stumbled back to my cabin, a bit bowlegged. On contact with the hard foam, I sighed and went to sleep.

  I awoke in the middle of the night, victim of a bad dream. Aliens, or some sort of freakos—those shoulder-high walking mantises that TK had described so eloquently—walked unseen. Mixed with that terrifying glimpse I’d seen out on the journey to nowhere with the phaso, it was a lethal combination. I shivered and shook off the memory. I sat up on my bed, wiping my dry eyes. A cold sweat had broken out at the base of my throat. That bad feeling resurfaced, that larger-than-life feeling that something vastly unpleasant was brewing. It seemed contagious. I reached for my bottle of redneck Black Bull gin stashed under the bed and chug-a-lugged. Made my gut sour. Winced. Took another swig. That didn’t go down well either. My gut was burning.

  I donned my brown captain’s leathers and did my patrol rounds, making for the bridge. The console lights burned brightly and I caught the old man hunched over one of the command tables, deep in concentration. Billy was at his side, making little grunting sounds like a curious chimp.

  TK jerked up and gave me a guilty look. “Hey, Jet. How’s the night watch?”

  “What the hell are you doing?” I cried.

  “Relax. Just checking out the inscriptions on this device.”

  My jaw dropped when I saw what he was working on there at the table and the iridescent flash of the phaso. “You sneaking bastard. I told you to leave that thing alone—”

  “Couldn’t. Managed to trace some info on the central free store, Mentera lore, and figured I could backtrace some of the coordinates and test it out some.”

  “Are you fucking insane? That thing’s deadly.”

  “No worries, I’ve got it all under control.”

  “You think? I don’t give a piss in the wind what you’re thinking. Put it back.”

  “Just another few minutes, Jet. I’ve almost got a handle on it—”

  I pulled my sleeve over my hand and swept the disc off the table, away from his grasping hand before he could tweezer it with those rods he held.

  All the time Billy’s watching and getting more agitated, blinking with his googly eyes, moving from side to side like an adder, wringing his wrists and making funny little sounds in the back of his throat.

  The kid reached over and grabbed at that spinning top as if it were some toy. The old man cried out. TK lunged to stop him, but it was too late. Some combination of buttons and coordinates the boy touched and he was gone in a crackling haze of dusty color. The disc rolled, spun to a stop, glaring up at us like an evil eye.

  The
old man’s mouth worked in various forms of rictus but no sound came out.

  I swore. “I’m locking this destructo up.”

  “Look at what you’ve done!” TK clutched at his hair.

  “You’re the bright one brought it out,” I stormed. “I told you the thing was dangerous.”

  He looked at me with shock then began rooting through the bulkheads, rummaging through hatches, searching for Billy like a madman before he dropped to his knees. “No! He’s got to be here somewhere!” I could see that the halfwit was like a son to him.

  I rounded up the strongbox underneath the sensor panel and used my sleeve to put the phaso in there. I locked the lid.

  “We’ve got to get him back!” TK’s pathetic wail raised my hackles.

  “Fat chance,” I gusted. “Move away. Nothing you can do.” I knew I should have hid that strongbox better, remembering the eager glint in TK’s eye when I locked up that nasty little device, but it’d slipped my mind.

  I heard bootfall behind me. I whirled to behold Raez. Great timing to stroll in. How long had the slug been there eavesdropping?

  He gave a low whistle. “A little love squabble? Where’s the kid?”

  “What do you care?” I growled.

  Raez stared at TK hard, hand pressed to his mouth. “Granddad, you gone and done something to him? You dirty old man.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” TK snarled.

  I didn’t know how much Raez knew or didn’t know, but I could only guess it would do us no good. More than ever I wanted to knock that bastard the hell off my ship.

  “Where’s Billy?” cried Wren, crowding in behind Raez. Where’d she come from? Was this party night on the Starrunner?

  “Dead,” I growled.

  “A joke, right? What do you mean ‘dead’?” she croaked.

  “What part of ‘dead’ don’t you get?”

  She looked around in disbelief.

  “I told the old man not to mess with the phaso, but what does he do—he goes and starts fucking with it.”

  “That’s not possible—” she frowned, a choked gurgle in her throat.

  She saw TK’s red eyes, tear-stained face and knew the truth. Unfortunate that Raez had heard all of this. In my anger I couldn’t stop the flood of heated words. But he didn’t seem to know what we were talking about.

  “Some kind of explosives we talking here?” he asked.

  “None of your business. It’s over and done.”

  I locked the controls on the bridge and took the silver box to my cabin. I was afraid to keep the phaso on my person in case I inadvertently triggered it as Billy had.

  What to do with the cursed thing? Part of me wanted to chuck it out in space, forget it ever existed. But it could be money, lots of it. The thing needed a new hiding spot, and my cabin was not the place—it was the first place anybody’d look to steal it.

  * * *

  No mention of the phase-distorter-shifter or Billy’s sad, mysterious disappearance the next morning. No sign of Baer and his ugly goats zooming in on us at our sub-warp vector. The phaso was a sinister episode better left forgotten.

  TK took me aside later in the corridor leading to the cabins and spoke in a distraught voice, “I’m still concerned about Billy. Dammit, Rusco, I think he may be still alive. How be I take a quick peek at the phaso and—”

  “N-O.” I grunted. “Forget it, Billy’s lost. A few hours out there, and the kid’s toast, let alone a day. Believe me, I saw the place.”

  “But could it be a different place?” Hissing and grumbling, he fired every foul name in the book at me. “You don’t know that, Rusco. We’ve no idea where Billy ended up. Maybe he ended up on some deserted island or in some abandoned city, calling for help.”

  “Maybe, but I doubt it. Unless the phaso coordinates were reset. Without a manual, we’ll never know how the thing works, and without having it on him, he can never leave.”

  “But I can go there.”

  I stared at the man with awe, seeing the genuine expression of a fatherly love for a long lost son presumed dead. “Forget it, TK. The thing’s jinxed. Anyone who touches it, dies.” And I could see the glowering resentment in his eyes, those gray eyes that looked at me with fathomless despair and loathing and under the influence of the instruments working in his sawmill of a mind—and I didn’t like what I saw.

  Chapter 15

  It was going to be a long trip to Jasmel. The whole mishap with Billy had me rattled. What was going to go down next? Three edgy crew members, and Dolgra champing at the bit with Gris incommunicative, whom I didn’t trust farther than I could spit. As I was doing my hall rounds, I went to check on the phaso, something bugging me again. I reached the panel bulkhead where I’d hidden it in the small hallway leading to the utility room, then opened the strongbox. All seemed in order. I shook my head. Paranoia. It played tricks on the brain. I packed up the kit, made doubly sure the box was locked with a combo only I knew and walked away with a weary yawn to my cabin. Wren was watching the bridge; I could count on her. It was time to turn in, get some shut-eye.

  I paused. Raez was staring at me, his ugly face catching the dim light from down the hall.

  “What do you want?” I growled.

  He gave me a high five. “Out for a little stroll, Rusco. I get insomnia on small space craft. Suffer from it all the time.”

  “Get back to your cabin. We’re keeping strict curfew here. Besides, this area is off limits to all but personnel.”

  “Oh, and spank my wee bottom, Cap’n. Gonna tuck me into bed too for a good night’s sleep?”

  “Don’t get cute with me, Raez. My ship, I make the rules.” I lifted my blaster, trusting the scoundrel less than ever.

  He held up his hands. “Okay, Cap’n, I’m hurrying. Don’t shoot me. I’m allergic to gunfire.”

  I saw him skip back to his grubby little cubbyhole and returned to my own digs, doing badly at falling asleep, wondering if I should call on Wren to help me relax. A bit of night play could do wonders for the soul.

  But not tonight. That disturbing feeling kept nagging me, even with all my precautions. I rustled on some clothes and staggered down the hall into the bath of dim blue light.

  I opened the strongbox. The phaso was missing. That fucker. Raez, you’re a dead man.

  I stalked to the hold looking for him.

  He was by the emergency escape vehicle, fiddling with the hatch as if he meant to take it somewhere. Like over to Urgon. We were nearing Jasmel at the cusp of the asteroid belt and it would be an easy jaunt for a thief on impulse power to get there or over to Urgon.

  He was speaking in a low monotone to someone in his ear communicator. Must have hid that on him.

  When he caught sight of me, he cut the connection as if in apology, while reaching for his left hip for a small concealed weapon. I put a bullet through his brain. He dropped like a stone, eyes staring up like glassy pearls. I kicked the body over, turned him about. Discovered the phaso in his black waist belt. Rotten bastard. I had to smile at the irony. The thief calling the beggar a thief. My smile didn’t last long.

  I ripped off Raez’s ear communicator, figured it would be useful down the road. Raez was about to jump ship and take the emergency vessel when we were close to a drop point. How he planned to accomplish this without getting his head blown off, or blasted by Starrunner’s fareon beams was beyond me. It kind of insulted my intelligence. But then, Raez was not the brightest bulb in the box. Yet this was the same guy who had stolen the phaso right out from under my eyes and was minutes away from his getaway. I needed a new hiding spot for the damn thing. I began bagging Raez’s corpse to jettison it out in the garbage hatch, all the while formulating a story to feed Wren and TK. He was stealing our share? No, what share? We got in a fight. He turned into a wise guy, and pulled a gun on me? Better. Yeah, closer to the truth, maybe I’ll stick with that.

  I got the body in the garbage compactor and released the load out to space. Relief. No evidence. Bye bye, Raez.r />
  I’d make some enemies with Pazarol when he got wind. The fat fuck deserved it though. Had he put Raez up to it? The schemer’d be cut out of his share. I’d steal his shipment and double bag the profits, provided his goons didn’t hunt me down and pepper us full of holes. There was still the problem of Gris out there in the freighter. A tricky business getting rid of him. The longer we stayed in this system, the more likelihood Pazarol’d catch up and deal with us, for double-timing him and murdering his man, Raez. Rusco, you’re making enemies like flies. Can’t help it, captain, just who I am.

  I snapped out my reverie. Okay, stop daydreaming and start thinking. Wake up the others and tell them what happened.

  We assembled at the bridge, TK groggy and Wren wiping her eyes. “You what?”

  “You heard me, Raez caught a bullet, on account of he kind of pulled a weapon on me and was taking Messenger for a ride.”

  TK groaned, his face in his palms. “Now what? We’re dead when Pazarol finds out.”

  “Not necessarily. Let me think—A longshot, but are you up for a blastfest?”

  Wren shrugged. “When haven’t I been?”

  “If I can figure out how to spin this…” I rubbed my chin, mumbled, letting the ideas run through my crooked mind. “Okay, how’s this?” I turned to TK. “Pull up as much data as you can on Urgon, the floor layouts, the sentry posts, weapons deployment, everything you got.” What I had in mind, was risky. I didn’t like keeping TK back on Starrunner, especially after the disappearance of Billy, but I had no choice. The few I could trust were getting fewer.

  Wren caught wind of what I was planning and glowed with enthusiasm. “Take Dolgra along for the ride. We’ll need backup.”

  “Good idea.”

  I contacted the Tanza crew. “Is this a secure line?”

  “I’ve flipped it to encrypt secure,” said Dolgra. “What is it?”

  “Raez’s meat. Fucker tried to kill me. Trying to make off with the escape pod, so I had to smoke him.”

  A wheezing groan came over the com. “Why would he do something stupid like that?”