Double Cross: From the Athena Lee Universe (Smuggle Life Book 1)

by T S Paul

  “You made it,” Steve said. His body relaxed as the fear and tension left.

  Rea shrugged. “It was nothing.”

  “Pointless,” Lindsey said in an annoyed tone that Steve heard far too often from her. She hated being forced to do things that didn’t have a real purpose. This must have been a waste of time. “Like really pointless.”

  Rea smiled. “She was just showing me that she had power in case we try something.”

  Steve tilted his head. That didn’t seem like a pirate, but she wasn’t a regular one since she was in charge of a planet of them. That sent a chill done Steve’s spine. He shook. “Well,” he said with what he hoped was a steady voice, “let’s go meet this mystery contact.”

  “Let’s,” Rea said.

  The others nodded.

  With that settled, Steve took point like the plan said. Rea took the rear.

  Aldis was right behind Steve. He leaned forward as they walked. “You really think that was all she wanted?”

  To answer, Steve grunted. He wasn’t one for gossip or what the Marines called scuttlebutt. This was a mission, and one Steve took seriously. Steve’s eyes took in any and all movement as they walked. Nothing slipped past him.

  It was a tense walk with so many people moving closely around the group, but none really appeared to be a threat. The pirates moved with unconscious grace and stealth, ways that made others nervous. The group knew they were being observed, but the watchers were really good. Steven expected no less from the pirates.

  Luckily, the contact they were seeking was in the same city they had been forced to land. Steve didn’t know much about Celtica, but it wasn’t exactly a small planet. No settled planet in the Empire that Steve visited had been small.

  Not that he had been to every known planet. He was thankful to be away from the Capital and Mars. They were having issues with the war and Earth attacking.

  Steve cringed, thinking about Earth attacking. Most thought they’d retreated from the rest of the humans, but that hadn’t been the case. The damn Cabal. Steve shook his head. He needed to focus on the task at hand and be a good Marine.

  “Wait here,” Steve said. He went ahead to check out the exterior of the building alone. He wasn’t going to risk the whole crew.

  Walking around the building, doing his best not to draw attention, he saw little that suggested danger. Next, he would go in for a peek, but first, he went back to the rest.

  “Outside appears safe.”

  They followed him into the building. The coordinates they had led them to a large building. Steve entered first to make sure it was safe. Inside, it was storage facility of some sort. It was lined with what Steve wouldn’t be surprised was stolen goods, ones pilfered from unsuspecting travelers.

  He came out to report. “Safe for the time being.

  The rest of the crew joined him in the building. In the center of the large open area, Steve could hear men talking. That must be the people they were here to meet. Steve entered a second area that had been cleared and tables set up. A group of a half-dozen people sat at the table talking.

  “Just who we have been waiting for,” a sizable man said. He stood, and to Steve, he was almost laughably a stereotypical pirate, patch and all.

  “We are,” Steve said. This was going to be an interesting experience. It always was with pirates. They were so unpredictable, and that worried Steve. He loathed dealing with unpredictable situations and people. It was beyond frustrating for the Marine. That was the worst part of being a smuggler.

  “Ah, the Marine,” the man said. “Let me introduce myself.” His voice boomed. He was a showman. “I am Captain Jack Drake.”

  Steve hadn’t heard of him, but that didn’t mean anything. He didn’t know many pirates by name. A glance back told him that neither did Rea. “Steve.”

  The two men shook hands.

  “I know,” Jack said. “I know the whole crew. I heard about Taylor. Sorry about that. Hope you find him.”

  It took all Steve had not to punch the man. There was no way he should have known about Taylor, but he did, and that rattled Steve. Steve clenched his jaw and stood still. He needed a fight and one fast.

  Rea stepped forward. “I believe we are owed credits.”

  Jack laughed. “Straight to business. That’s what I like about you Rea. Direct. Blunt.”

  “The credits,” Rea repeated.

  Jack reached into a pocket, and Steve got ready to defend his captain. A tablet was pulled out, and Jack’s finger slid over it and handed it to Rea. She too used it.

  “We good?” Jack asked. The pirate had a look that seemed to put Rea on edge.

  Rea nodded. “We are. Now, what do you want?”

  Jack gestured to the table. “Join me. We are about to feast. I have room for all of you.”

  Rea glanced at Steve and gestured to the table. “Very well,” she said.

  They sat on the opposite side of the pirates, and to Steve’s surprise, servers appeared with lots of food and filled the table. Not only was it a plethora of food, but it was some of each of the crew's favorites. Now, Steve was truly frightened. How did they know all this about them?

  The rest of the crew dug in and began to eat without even noticing. Steve expected that from Parker since she was so young, but the rest should have realized it and been more cautious. Even Rea was eating.

  “Marine, it’s safe,” Jack said. The rest of the pirates around him ate as if to prove his point. “I do have a job for you.”

  “I don’t trust food I don’t know where it came from,” Steve said.

  “Very well,” Jack said, “but the rest are fine.”

  With reluctance, Steve took a bite. It was a classic dish from his home planet. Steve hadn’t been home for a while and had forgotten how good it was. On the ship, the food was okay, but this was great.

  Steve dug in and ate like the rest of the crew.

  Chapter Seven

  After eating, Rea felt relaxed and slightly ashamed. She hadn’t been careful with the food. It had overwhelmed her with the aromas. She couldn’t control herself, unlike Kane. He had been patient and waited to make sure the rest didn’t get sick. At least he was careful and would have been able to protect them.

  Rea made a note to thank him.

  With everyone done, Jack stood. He went to the rear of the building and returned with a box. It wasn’t large. “I need this transported.”

  Typically, what they transported was bigger, something valuable. Rea took all sorts of jobs. She had one rule. Well, more than one, but only one that really mattered. She wouldn’t be part of slavery. That was the main thing. Her ship for the right price would smuggle people but away from something, not into it.

  Almost anything else was fair game. Not that Rea didn’t reserve the right to reject a job. She had to have that option, in case something arose that she wasn’t comfortable with.

  “Where to?” Rea asked. She knew better to than just to accept based on money. They already had ended up on a pirate planet. She didn’t want to end up someplace else like the Capital planet or Mars. Not right now anyway.

  “New Detroit,” Jack said.

  Parker groaned. That had been the planet they had found her on. It was on the other side of the Empire. It wasn’t part of the war as far as Rea knew. It should be safe, other than traveling through the systems that were part of the conflict. They wouldn’t be able to jump there without making several stops.

  “How much?” she asked.

  That would be the real factor now. If he was willing to pay what he had just to get them to show up, this had better be even more to make it worth the effort.

  “Triple what I paid already.” Jack gave a wry smile.

  That gave Rea a moment of concern. She was confident he was up to something, but the credits…

  “We need a moment.”

  “Very well.”

  The crew stood and walked away. Rea was sure they would do it but wanted to let the others make that c
hoice. If she did, they would accept it and move on, but that wasn’t how she ran her ship. It was what made it a good crew.

  Once far enough away as to not be heard, Rea halted. “Well?” Rea asked with a pensive voice. She wasn’t typically this way, but right now, she was worried and a little fearful about this whole thing. She hated not knowing what she was doing. Plus, she had this lingering feeling she knew the pirate, but she couldn’t place who he was.

  Parker hung her head. She appeared to be upset with herself and scared. “Sorry.”

  What Parker was feeling was understandable. She had the hardest time out of any of the members trying to hide her emotions. It was clear it had been a painful time, and it still hurt her. It concerned Rea what Parker went through, but that wouldn’t stop her from taking the crew back.

  “Don’t be, kid,” Steve said. “I get not wanting to go back.”

  Parker looked up, her face flushed with hate and disgust. “It’s just bad memories.”

  Rea completely understood. Parker had been abandoned and left for dead. They had saved the girl, and she had done well on the ship.

  “Anyone?” Rea looked at the others.

  “We have to,” Lindsey said. “That many credits.”

  “She’s right,” Steve said.

  It was going just as Rea figured it would. The credits were just too many to pass up. None of the crew had ever had that many before. It was a life-changing amount for a smuggler. Rea wished it wasn’t just for the credits, but she knew better. It was always about the credits.

  Aldis threw up his arms. “I’ve been against this from the beginning, but fine. Let's go to new Detroit, carrying god knows what.”

  “We rarely know what we carry,” Rea said.

  “True, but this is a pirate, one with an eye patch, and I can tell you from looking at it that it is high tech. It was scanning us,” Aldis said, angry.

  He was clearly furious with the choice, and Rea felt for him. She knew he wasn’t completely wrong, but the rest of the team spoke up. There was little to be done.

  Steve frowned. “I missed that.”

  “No worries,” Rea said. “Make sure to look him up back on the Rossi.”

  “I will,” Aldis said. “Trust me. I will know everything about this guy.”

  “Good,” Rea said. “Let’s go get the package.”

  Jack’s crooked smile grew when the crew returned. He had a pleased look. In his eyes, this was a foregone conclusion. “You’ve settled?”

  “We have,” Rea said. She eyed the box. It scared her not knowing. That wasn’t her norm, but Aldis was right. This was a pirate. It was most likely stolen property, but that wasn’t the real issue unless it was stolen from a powerful person.

  Though they didn’t have a smugglers code or anything. Most would never ask what they were shipping. They’d like to know but wouldn’t ask.

  “Good,” Jack said. He handed the box to Rea

  It wasn’t heavy. It was almost as if it was nothing but air inside. Rea knew that wasn’t the case. No way they would be asked to transport air.

  <<<>>>

  Parker couldn’t believe they took this job. The whole crew knew she hated that system, that planet. Everything about it.

  They exited the warehouse and made their way back to the ship with the cargo. Whatever it was.

  Parker walked with the crew, but she didn’t feel part of it for the first time. They wanted to take this job just for the credits. While she understood and realized it was a lot for them, it didn’t make up for the horror that she would have to relive on the planet.

  They walked the streets with Steve at the lead and Rea taking the rear. This was the norm when all of them left the ship together. Parker was completely okay with it on this planet. It wasn’t her favorite one they’d visited, but she had been worse places.

  Surprisingly, it wasn’t as dirty as she expected. She thought it would have trash all over the place. She had envisioned it with a stench of urine in the air, mixed with alcohol and perhaps other bodily odors. Parker had heard stories depicting pirates as unclean people who didn’t shower or brush their teeth. She thought they were anti-social animals who did gross things like fart and pick their noses.

  Celtica had been a giant let down in some respects. The young woman hoped to be entertained. Instead, all she got was a typical planet. So much for the myths she had grown up on.

  As they walked, her mind drifted back to the mission, to them going back to New Detroit. She cringed. Her time there had been horrible. It flashed in front of her.

  <<<>>>

  Parker ran down the streets of the largest city of New Detroit, Warren. Most of the cities on the planet were named after cities that had been close to Detroit on Earth. Not that they meant anything to Parker.

  She had never been to Earth, had never even been off the planet. It had been her home for all fifteen years of her life. It hadn’t been a good one either. She had lost her parents.

  Well, that wasn’t really what happened. They lost her, and by lost her, Parker was what her parents used in a poker game. They bet her on a hand and lost. The man who took her in wasn’t a good one. He was cruel and beat Parker.

  Viktor Thorn had his fingers in everything, from gambling, to loan sharking, money laundering, and racketeering in general. He forced Parker to work for him and made her do all sorts of nasty things.

  When she didn’t do something right, Viktor made her pay. It was awful. He’d beat her and smack her around. Worse, if he were drunk, he’d let his friends hurt her too.

  Parker’s face was constantly covered in bruises, her broken bones, left untreated. She was never given enough food to eat. She had to scrounge the alleys for scraps from dumpsters. It was terrible and never enough.

  “Parker,” Viktor said one time.

  The young girl walked into his office. It was gaudy and made Parker nauseous. She hated entering it. It usually meant a beating or some terrible job.

  “Yes,” she said meekly

  “I need you to run this over to the Dumas’s.” He handed her a letter and a package.

  “Okay,” she said.

  She took it and left. The Dumas’s might be the only people on the planet worse than Viktor. They were known to be in human trafficking. They took people off the planet and sold them for all sorts of terrible things. Stuff, a young girl, didn’t want to think about.

  Being late for them was not an option. They had been given permission by Viktor to beat Parker. She sprinted through the streets to their place and made it in record time.

  When she knocked on the door, the one brother, Simon, answered. When he saw Parker, he smiled, a crooked one that screamed scumbag. “Ah,” Simon said. “On time. Just like Viktor said. Follow me.”

  Parker nodded and entered the building. He led her to the office he and his brother used. They were identical twins, yet Seth was uglier. He had a scar that ran down the right side of his face. Rumor was that one of the people they had tried to enslave attacked him and got away.

  That had made Parker happy when she heard it, knowing one got away, had fled to freedom, and marked the man who took her. Not that the authorities did anything since they couldn’t prove it.

  Like Viktor, they never had been brought up on charges. Many of the people who worked under them had. That was the fear Parker had, that she would spend the rest of her life in prison because she was forced to do things she didn’t want.

  They made her break the law. Not that she was strictly against it. She just wanted to be the one to make that choice. Not be forced to by a slimeball.

  “Nice,” Seth said. “I wonder what he is paying us. He owes us big time.”

  “He does,” Simon said. “We got him out of a hole.”

  Parker had no idea what they were talking about, but she didn’t like the sound of it. Viktor had many holes and problems. That came with the territory. Not that he let Parker know about them.

  From time to time, she would overhear about some o
f the issues. Nothing over the last month or so. Whatever it was, it had to be bad for him to have involved the Dumases and owe them big time.

  Seth opened the box. Inside was an old bottle of Scotch. “Not nearly enough.”

  In all the time she knew Viktor, he never shorted the Dumases. With their reputation, they would make sure he paid three times what they originally thought they would get. Viktor was a businessman, a disgusting, nasty one.

  Simon opened the letter and began to read. As he did, his eyes lit up, and he smiled, looking over at Parker. When done, he handed the letter to his brother, who read it and had the same reaction.

  “Never mind,” Seth said. “Paid in full. She’ll fetch a pretty price.”

  Parker was lost. She stood there frozen in place for a moment. It sounded like they were talking about her as if she would be payment for something. It wouldn’t be that shocking for Viktor to sell her off, but he had given no sign of it and to the Dumases? No way he would do that to her.

  “Wait. What?” Parker regained some of her composure. She slowly backed away from them. She knew the building well. If she had to, she should be able to escape.

  If she did, she had nowhere to go. No credits. Nothing to her name. If she ran, she couldn’t even go get the few things she did own like the ratty clothes Viktor allowed her. Not that she would want them.

  “You are ours,” Simon said. “A young thing like you will definitely fetch a price. Just depends on the system.”

  Parker gulped. She had to get out of here. No way she was going to be a slave.

  Simon advanced on her. “You aren’t going anywhere,” he said as if he could read her mind.

  Without thinking, she dashed for the door, just making it, his arms flaring over her head.

  “Get her!” Seth yelled.

  Parker moved with speed she didn’t think possible as she used her memory to get through the building and outside. The young woman felt the twins hot on her tail. She had no clue where to run or what to do.

  She went south, away from Viktor, away from the twins. They exited the building, and she glanced back. They saw her. She was done for.