by G. J. Koch
I shrugged. “Been dealing with him for years. He seems to like me. Besides, the Governor uses his connections to smooth things out with the Butcher. We’ll be fine.”
“If the Butcher knows how to get us off this rock, I’m all over your talking to him, Nap.” Slinkie sounded much more morose and uncomfortable than normal. I decided I’d see what I could do about that after I made my contact.
“I’ll ask him for ideas, Slink, I promise.”
CHAPTER 13
The Governor and I went into the room he’d taken as his. Closed the door, moved to the far side. He sat in a chair and sighed. “Exciting day.”
“Too true.”
“Exciting days are hard on old men.”
“True enough.”
“Why did you tell them you were dealing with Janz the Butcher?”
“Had to. No one on this planet respects weakness.”
“Yes, I know. I’m the one who taught you that, remember?”
“Yeah. So, what do you recommend?”
He rubbed his head. “You need to go to the ship to place your call. They’ll be monitoring the communications here. And if you don’t make a call, that will be as bad as if you make one that’s traced.”
I sighed. “That means you need to go back to the ship, too. Patching a call through here will mean it’s monitored.”
“True.”
“You up to it?”
“Do I have a choice? I realize we could wait to make the call, but who knows what will happen between now and the time for your arranged meeting.”
“Good point. I’m figuring more people are going to try to force us to do things we don’t actually want to do.”
“Business as usual is always a safe bet, Alexander.”
“Thank you, oh very wise one. Think they’ve put bugs on the ship?”
“I’m sure they’ve tried. You still have the sweepers set up?”
“Never turn them off. Why are you asking me stupid questions?”
“Have to stall a bit before we decide to go talk on the ship.”
“Why so?”
The Governor sighed. “So it’s believable for the others. Randolph seems quite shaken.”
“He never gets involved with the negotiations. For a reason.”
“I suppose it’s wise. His new, ah, lady friend could present some issues, however.”
“Well, if we go to the ship to make the call, chances are good Audrey will know what’s going on. If we stay here, though, then we’re back to everyone monitoring our communications.”
“Ah, what a tangled web we weave.”
I rolled my eyes. “The drama can stop any time.”
“Miss Slinkie seems quite distressed.” The Governor was the only one who called her Miss Slinkie. I always got the impression he got a private kick out of it, but I wasn’t sure why. I figured it was something depraved and chose not to question.
“Yeah, none of us like to hang on Herion. Possibly because some old guy we know has spent a lot of time telling us how scary this place can be when they don’t like someone. And, you know, we’ve been here before.”
“I rather like coming to Herion. You, personally, are so much more pleasant to deal with when you’re forced to behave yourself.”
“You sound like my Great-Aunt Clara. Keep it up and I’ll leave you here.”
The Governor chuckled. “Idle threats scare no one, Alexander.”
“But I enjoy making them. Just like you enjoy calling me anything but the nickname I actually like. Have we stalled long enough? If you’re too tired to go to the ship, just let me know.”
He gave me a dirty look. “I’m old, not dead.”
“You’re still doing a great job of fooling everyone on that.”
The Governor stood up. “Yes, thank you. There are many times I ask myself why, out of all the people in this vast galaxy, I’ve become tied to your particular hip.”
“Mine’s the only hip you can trust.”
“True. And what that says about the two of us I shudder to contemplate.”
“Yeah, yeah, cry me a space trail. Let’s get going.” We went out and got questioning looks from the others. “We talked about it and figure no matter how well we’ve scanned, Herion’s got communications bugged. We’re going to call Janz from the Sixty-Nine.”
“Do you require my assistance, Captain?”
“No, Audrey. As long as the bug sweepers are still active, in place, and finding any and all the bugs the various Herion factions are trying to put onto my ship.”
She nodded. “Yes, Captain. I can and have been monitoring from here. Several different Herion Military have placed bugs, the Business Bureau have placed bugs, and an as yet unknown party tried to place a bomb. However, said party was captured by Herion Military.”
The Governor and I exchanged looks. “Perhaps we need to find another way to make contact,” he said.
“Open to ideas.”
He shrugged. “There’s always the old-fashioned way.”
CHAPTER 14
I sighed. “We’re on Herion. Not so sure that’s a good idea.”
“What’s the old-fashioned way?” Slinkie asked, sounding both suspicious and worried.
“We use a cellular phone.”
The crew, even Audrey, burst into laughter which lasted quite a while. Randolph got himself under control the fastest. “Nap, you’ve got to be kidding. I know you keep that ancient thing on you, but who the hell else even has one?”
“Janz the Butcher, for one.”
They looked at me in shock. “You’re kidding,” Slinkie said. “Someone that well connected is using ancient technology?”
I shrugged. “He likes to be able to access anyone at any time. So, yeah, he has a cell. He also has a variety of transmitters as well as up-to-date equipment. You want to talk to him and question his choices?” This question was met with uncomfortable silence. “Didn’t think so. So, Governor, back to the bedroom. At least we know it’s not bugged. Probably our safest place to make the call.”
He nodded. “I’d prefer to be sitting anyway.”
“Randolph, while we make the call, can you and Audrey please check on who was trying to plant that bomb? And, Audrey, please up the security programs to full. We’re plugged in and charging, so the drain shouldn’t cause the Sixty-Nine any problems. Slink, I hate to say this, but call Lionside and see if he mentions this. Make a date with him for tomorrow night, oh-twenty-hours, at the Crazy Bear.”
Slinkie nodded. “Let me guess. That’s when and where you’re meeting up with the Herion Business Bureau.”
“I love you for your brains, Slink.”
“You lie pathetically, Nap.”
The Governor and I went back into his room, he went back to his chair. “We should have just said we were using the cell in the first place.”
“Would have raised suspicions. Slinkie, at least, would have asked why.”
“True. So, what’s the situation you want to tell Janz? In full, I mean?”
He drove me crazy with this. “We’re trapped on Herion, because there’s an armada with the best cloaking in the galaxy lurking in their solar space. You thinks it’s a pirate armada, but you haven’t seen fit yet to tell me how you know.”
“Because it’s a signature from over thirty years ago. Old nemesis. I’ll fill you in after we take care of this business.”
“Can’t wait. We have Herion Military watching our every move and suggesting we stay planetside. We don’t know if it’s because they want us spending our space credits, if they’re concerned for our welfare, or if they have nefarious plans for us.”
“I feel Miss Slinkie might be the goal of the nefarious plan.”
“Too damned true. And, finally, we have the Herion Business Bureau who wants a word. They insinuated but didn’t actually confirm that they want us to get something off this planet and out into the rest of the galaxy to make money. If that’s the case, we can’t say no. Unfortunately, the big question of
the day is how we get away from Herion solar space alive.”
“Succinctly put.” The Governor reached into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out a small, slim piece of very old equipment.
“Ringer’s off.”
“You can’t seriously think I’m going to waste the energy in dialing.”
He grinned. Still had all his teeth, and they weren’t disgusting. I was always grateful—Great-Aunt Clara had put a lot of store in good dental work, and it had rubbed off on me. “You don’t want to test and make sure the cells are still functioning?”
I rolled my eyes. “You got a call from the Ipsita Company on it just fine two weeks ago, right?”
“Right.” He leaned back and dropped his voice a few registers.
“What can I do for you, Mister Outland?”
I resisted the urge to hit him. He was an old man. Let him enjoy himself. “I need advice.”
The Governor nodded. “Janz the Butcher is glad to help his favorite son.”
CHAPTER 15
“If I were really your son, I’d be like eighty or something.”
“I never married. It’s a figure of speech.” The Governor shook his head. “You’re so testy when we do this. I’ve never understood why.”
The why was actually easy, and I’d never understood how he hadn’t figured it out. My crew and I, due to a system-wide mix-up that wasn’t my fault, had inadvertently caused him to be deposed as Governor of Knaboor. Which meant he’d lost the best cover and base of operations any intergalactic bookie and all around special fixit man could have dreamed of. I’d figured out who he was during this little fiasco, and instead of him ordering my execution, he’d moved in with me.
It had kept us in jobs for the past five years, and no one seemed the wiser. But I hated that he wanted to play pretend when it was just the two of us. He insisted it helped to keep his cover with the others. I was pretty sure he just liked yanking my chain. A lot. Maybe he did understand why it bothered me—like my Great-Aunt Clara, the Governor was good with the applied guilt.
“So, what do we do… Janz? And, more importantly, what do I tell Beber Zoltan when I meet up with him tomorrow evening?”
“You’ll tell him that Janz expects you to be given hazard pay, for whatever the job is. Whatever he first offers, quadruple it, allow him to bargain, but only settle for triple.”
“They’re a lot of them and they’re bigger than me. Frankly, all of the men on Herion seem bigger than me.”
“They put steroids in the milk here.”
“Thank God I only drink alcoholic beverages.”
“Truly. It affects their sexual abilities in a negative way.”
“My day just got a lot brighter.”
“Perhaps if you stopped screwing every female that moved, Alexander, Miss Slinkie would consider your suit.”
“How did this turn into ‘Your Love Life With Uncle Oldie’? What am I supposed to do if Zoltan and his crew don’t like how I negotiate?”
“Well, that’s why you had Miss Slinkie make a date with Herion Military, is it not? Stop playing stupid, Alexander. We don’t have the time. You will simply tell Zoltan that Janz has made his decision, and hazard pay, plus twenty percent of the gross, is the final decision. Unless, of course, they offer more than twenty-five percent of the gross to begin with.”
“Why so?”
He sighed. “Five years under my tutelage and you still have to ask?”
“I just love hearing you talk. Fine. If they offer more they’re either so desperate the job’s going to go bad in the first hour, or it’s a set up. But, this is Herion. I expect both of those and for them to offer one percent.”
He chuckled. “Good point. However, Janz the Butcher’s reputation seems intact here, if your description of how they reacted to the name is any indication.”
“Yeah, seems that way. So, getting off planet with a job and without military intervention is pretty much the story of our lives. I think we’ll manage that, somehow. But getting to Runilio, let alone out of Herion solar space, without being vaporized is the bigger issue of the day. Any ideas?”
The Governor shook his head. “Ideas, no. That’s your department. However, I can tell you who I suspect is behind the attacks, and why.”
“I’m listening. Intently.”
“I believe Pierre de Chance and the Chatouilleux Français Armada are back in business.”
I did a fast translation. “You’re kidding.”
“No, that’s really his name.”
“Lucky Pierre and the French Tickler Armada? And someone, anyone, considers this guy scary?”
The Governor gave me a long look. “Before he was stopped, Pierre and his minions had the entire Delta Quadrant under their control. No ships could come in or out of solar space without their approval and, of course, tribute.”
“How much was the tribute?”
“Seventy-five percent of cargo worth.”
My jaw dropped. “That’s piracy!”
The Governor gave me his patented “and I’m stuck with you” look. “Yes. Hence why I told you they were a pirate armada. This is the beginning. They capture any and all viable spacecraft. Kill or employ their pilots and crew. Once the planetary system is fully cut off, they offer negotiations. By the time that happens, economics are so bad the planets make the deals.”
“So, what’re the odds they’d hire us and let us work for them?”
“Slim to none. Your reputation is too good, Alexander.”
“I’m not exactly known as hero of the galaxy.”
“No. You’re known as the best pilot in said galaxy and a man who can be bought, but not employed. And while I know you’re a pirate, smuggler, and all around bad man, not everyone else does.” This was said in the condescending way he used when he wanted to make it clear to me that, as bad men went, I wasn’t really in the game, just pretending.
“So? I sound like a great addition to the French Tickler team.” Not that I wanted to join up, unless it meant all the women I could ever want, any time, anywhere. Then again, I had the best one in my crew already, and I just had to figure Pierre, as head man, would sort of expect Slinkie as a show of good faith.
“Pierre would never let you live—you’re someone who could, conceivably, take over his operation.”
“Yeah?” Felt pretty good all of a sudden. The Governor didn’t hand out a lot of compliments as a rule.
“Don’t preen. I said ‘conceivably’. Pierre doesn’t know you. I do. You’re fine with a small crew. Too many people and your so-called management skills deteriorate faster than a snowball on Thurge.”
“I think I resent that.”
“But you don’t and can’t deny it.”
“Sadly, no. I just want to get off this rock, go out, get some legal magma, get paid for our one legal job in the last six months, then go back out and relieve some merchants of part of their load in a nice and friendly manner. I may be a pirate, but I don’t take seventy-five percent.”
“Because you’re clear on the concept of keeping the herd fattened and producing.”
“True. Pierre isn’t?”
“No, he is. He had a desire to rule the world, however. Clearly the desire’s back.”
“How was he stopped the last time?”
He sighed. “We sent in an undercover team who infiltrated and were able to destroy from within.”
“Didn’t they kill off Pierre?”
“Oh, they did. But, I’d assume one of his children took over the family business. Some things are handed down.”
“Are you sure he was killed?”
“Very.”
“How so?”
The Governor chuckled. “Because I killed him.”
CHAPTER 16
“You were part of the infiltration team?” This seemed unbelievable. I took thirty or so years off the Governor. He’d still be ancient.
“You’d be surprised,” he snapped.
“Completely.”
“Suf
fice to say that part of how I became Janz the Butcher was due to this particular successful infiltration and leave it at that.”
I considered the Butcher’s reputation. He was said to have killed his superior in cold blood because he wanted to take over a galaxy-wide crime syndicate. Did so, and then retreated to the shadows, to become the head spider in the middle of galactic crime’s web. Yeah, that kind of flowery hype sounded like the Governor’s style.
“So, why didn’t you become Lucky Janz or something?”
He shrugged. “I was given the rule of Knaboor, the richest planet in the galaxy. Until that little mishap five years ago, I was Lucky Janz, in that sense.”
I pondered. “You think the Frenchies know you, you personally, are Janz the Butcher?”
“No. I think they’re aware that Governor Murgat no longer rules Knaboor. I was considered a military genius, if you recall.”
“Yeah, yeah. Not so genius that you didn’t get deposed.”
“Correct. I’d assume we’re dealing with, as I said before, Pierre’s offspring. I’m sure he had children all over the galaxy. One or more of them have come of age and decided to take up the family business.”
“Great. Nice to know and all that, but what we need is how to avoid them.”
“Actually, we need to determine how to stop them.”
“I thought we agreed I wasn’t hero material.”
“You aren’t. However, unless you want to be dead or give up seventy-five percent of all cargo, in and out, to the Armada, we have to stop them here. If they control Herion Military, which I’m sure is their initial goal, the rest of the galaxy will be in trouble, and quickly.”
“Why does this sound like heroics will be necessary? Why me?”
“Because I said so.” He said this in his Janz the Butcher voice. I hated that voice, particularly when he was saying things like this. Because when he used it and gave me the “make it so” order, he always meant it. And he was always right.