by G. J. Koch
“So, do we tell the others that Janz has ordered us to play saviors of the galaxy or fake it until we’re surrounded?”
“I’ll think on that. We have at least a day until we’ll be expected to leave.”
“We’ll have ten seconds once we leave this room before one of them asks.”
“Good point.” He was quiet for a couple of minutes. I took that time to contemplate if my original plan—just grab Slinkie and stay in bed for two weeks straight—wasn’t the wiser choice, no matter what. Maybe I could impress her with my knowing Janz the Butcher well enough that I knew what he ate for breakfast. Of course, if I had to tell her what that was, she’d probably guess Janz’s secret identity. Who else ate stewed prunes and watery oatmeal each and every morning? Aside from the Governor, my guess was no one. Back to heroics. I hated heroics. It never paid well and certainly not in terms of the risk to reward ratio.
“I believe we tell them about Pierre’s armada. Leaving out that I was in any way involved, of course.”
“No problem there. I think I’d have a harder time convincing them you were able to do anything active than that Janz wants us playing hero.”
“Hilarious. I can still be active when I choose, Alexander. It’s just rarely worth it.”
“Yeah, I know. You save it up for pleasure princess visits. I’ve heard. From you. Not so much from them.”
“Professional discretion is a wonderful thing.”
“Yeah, because most men don’t want to know they stink in bed.”
“You among them.”
“See, here’s the difference between me and the rest. They all think they’re great in bed. I know I am.”
“It’s that kind of blind belief in yourself that keeps me confident we’ll all survive.”
I chose not to argue with his wording. “Fine. You ready to go face the others with our still total lack of a plan?”
“We have a plan, Alexander. It’s still in the beginning stages, and will need flexibility in order to adapt as the situation changes, but overall, it’s workable.”
I shook my head. “The one thing I never doubt is that you were a career politician. The space droppings flow from your mouth like eggs out of an Aviatus henhouse.”
“One would think you’d have picked up the ability after five years together.”
“I filter it.”
“Is that what you call it?”
“Yeah, it is. Shall we?”
He sighed and stood. We went back to the living room. The others all looked worried. “I have a date,” Slinkie said morosely.
“I’ll take you out tonight and show you what a real date should be, Slink. Then you can pretend you’re out with me again tomorrow.”
“I feel so much better.” Strangely, her tone of voice said otherwise. “What did the Butcher have to say?”
“Half off on sides of beef, this week only.”
“That joke was funny the first time, Nap. When we’re at time five hundred plus, not so hilarious.”
“Everyone’s a critic. Fine. Janz gave me the deal for the Business Bureau. He’s not happy with them, so it’s going to be hefty. I’m not sharing, it’ll stress you all out and you won’t be negotiating with me anyway. Suffice to say the Governor about had a heart attack and leave it at that.”
“Can we get it, is the bigger question.” Randolph sounded worried. “I mean, get it and leave alive. It was some Herion xenophobe who planted the bomb. Apparently, there’s this crackpot group that’s become active since Herion got cut off by that armada. Their goal is to keep everyone planetside, so no one can be lost to the space devils, which is what they’re calling the armada.”
“Possibly because, before us, no one knew it was a space armada.” I thought about this. The group could be local crazies, but they could also be working for Pierre’s people. “Do a further search on the mad bomber, will you Audrey?”
“Right away, Captain.”
“Now, about the armada.” They all looked at us with expressions that said they were paying full attention. “Janz says he knows them, or at least the signature. Pirates from over thirty years ago. The original head man was killed, but the assumption is one of his offspring took over and is now old enough to follow in daddy’s effective but strangely named footsteps.”
“What’s the name?” Slinkie asked.
“Pierre de Chance and the Chatouilleux Français Armada.”
I waited for them to all do the translations. Unsurprisingly, Audrey translated first. What was surprising was that she laughed. Like a human. Randolph had done a really good job. I was starting to be impressed.
Slinkie translated second and, like Audrey, started to howl with laughter. “And they think that’s a scary name?”
“No, but apparently it was effective.”
“At preventing pregnancy while increasing satisfaction, sure.” Slinkie was still laughing. “But at scaring the general populace?”
Randolph translated, finally. Machines, computers and anything related to them were his forté. Languages, not so much. He blushed bright red. “I think that’s a really stupid name.” Of course, he didn’t like that we called the Sixty-Nine the Sixty-Nine, either. There were times I really worried about him. I looked at Audrey. Check that—there were now no times I wasn’t going to be worried about him.
“So anyway, Janz figures Pierre, Junior, or similar, is now flying the not-so-friendly solar skies. They only stopped Pierre the First before by infiltrating and blowing his brains out, up close and personal. I’d love to avoid doing that. However, Janz also feels we need to stop Pierre here, before he’s able to conscript Herion Military.”
The laughter stopped. “Did I hear you right?” Randolph asked slowly. “Janz the Butcher wants us to stop this armada? He didn’t tell you how to get away, he told you to take them down?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
Silence filled the room. Slinkie finally broke it. “Dear Feathered Lord—we’re all going to die.”
CHAPTER 17
“Well, see, not part of my plan. Us dying, I mean.”
“Great, Nap. If only the rest of us could perhaps know your plan, maybe we’d feel the same.” Slinkie shook her head. Her hair flipped around. Her mouth was moving, but I was focused on her hair. “NAP!”
“Huh? What?”
“You were doing it. Again. The not paying attention to me while I’m talking thing. The thing I hate. You remember?” She looked and sounded furious. Her chest was heaving. I forced my ears to pay attention. My eyes told me they were extremely busy and I shouldn’t bother them now.
“I was?”
“Yes. We want to hear whatever plan it is you have, and we want to hear it now.” Slinkie’s breasts wanted to hear the plan? Maybe I did have a shot.
“Oh. That. Right.”
“Nap, look at my eyes.”
“I am.”
“My eyes are in my head, you feather-brain!”
My ears told my eyes that pain was imminent unless my eyes obeyed. My eyes and I sighed and dragged up to Slinkie’s face. Great face. Angry, but great. “Yes. I’m looking at your eyes.”
“Finally. The plan. What is it? I’d like to know before I kill you.”
“So, not telling you is in my best interests. Good to know.”
“Nap, you’re making me think that sticking with Bryant is the way to go.”
That worked. I spoke quickly. “Fine, fine. We’re going to act like we’re happy to be stuck on Herion tonight. We’re going to go out and see if anyone else tries to kill us or recruit us. Tomorrow, we’ll make our deal with the Business Bureau and find out what’s going on that the military didn’t tell us. Once we know what we’re dealing with, we make our escape accordingly, race off to Runilio, get the magma, race back to Ismaliz, get paid, do whatever we have to in order to get paid from the Herion Business Bureau, and then go to Libsuno and relax.”
I watched them process this. If I was lucky, no one would notice the key portion of the
plan that was, for the moment, missing.
Slinkie, Randolph and Audrey all looked at me. “But how do we escape or destroy the armada?”
“That’s amazing. I’ve never heard the three of you talk in unison before. Have you been practicing?”
“No, but without asking I know we’re all ready to kill you.” Slinkie sounded serious.
The Governor sighed. “Until we know what we’re dealing with here, all that we’re dealing with, how in the galaxy do you expect Alexander to come up with a viable option? He’s given the outline, we all know how to work within it.” His voice shifted to peevish. “Now, I’m an old man, and I was promised a mineral bath. I want the nearest Herion equivalent or there will be some explaining to do.”
Slinkie sighed and held up a booklet. “I already looked, Governor. You have plenty of options, particularly now. I called the one I figured you’d want and made a reservation for you already.”
He beamed at her. “You’re so thoughtful, my dear.”
“No, I just hate hearing you whine.”
“Whatever works, my dear. Where and when?” Nothing nasty Slinkie said ever seemed to bother the Governor. Perhaps because, when it came down to it, he was going to get to cop his cheap feels again.
Slinkie sighed. “In an hour and yes, of course, I’ll take you. I’m going to have a bath, also. I need to relax. For some reason.” She gave me a dirty look, like this was all, somehow, my fault.
“I’ll go, too.”
“No, Alexander. I believe you should be giving the ship some attention and make sure it’s safe.”
“That would fall to Randolph and Audrey, wouldn’t it? As Chief Mechanic and, ah….” I stared at Audrey. What the hell were we going to say her title was?
“Copilot.” Audrey said this in her typical calm, cheerful way. I was going to have to sit next to her for the foreseeable future. I started praying she wasn’t going to think she had the right to get chatty. “I agree with the Captain. That would make the most sense.” I had to give her this—she was still the only one who gave me the remotest shred of respect and she was also helping me to go to the baths with Slinkie. Maybe having a Sexbot copilot would be all right after all.
“I suppose,” Randolph agreed. “What do you want us to say if someone comes and asks us what we’re doing?”
“Protecting our ship and not planning to leave any time soon.”
Randolph sighed. “I wish I could believe you were lying.”
“You know, have we ever not gotten off a planet? Ever? I mean, none of us have been in prison for any length of time, none of us have been kidnapped for any length of time, none of us have been left stranded for any length of time. I don’t see why everyone’s all doom and gloom.”
“Define what you mean by ‘length of time’,” Randolph said, a tad bitterly. “I remember being in prison, being a hostage, and being stranded. More than once.”
“And yet, here you are, alive, well, and with the right girl. Really, is there just no pleasing you?”
“No,” Slinkie snapped. “There isn’t. Can we go to the baths now? I don’t want to be late for our reservation.”
“Sure. I’ll come along, see if they have an opening. And, if not, I’ll just bathe with you, Slink.”
She gave me a dirty look. “This place isn’t co-ed. I made sure when I booked it.”
“Guess I’ll just sneak around and stare at you from the shadows, then.”
“Like you do every time I bathe on the ship?”
Dang. She knew? I shrugged. “Then it’ll just be like every other day, won’t it?”
Slinkie sighed. “Why do I stay on your crew?”
“Because it’s hard to leave the best.”
“Lethargy and comfort zone,” Randolph suggested.
“Fear of the unknown,” the Governor offered.
“Because you like the Captain despite his many flaws.” I tried to focus on the positive portions of Audrey’s sentence, versus the “many flaws” portion. Reconsidered how much I was going to like sitting next to her. Maybe Randolph could install a Captain’s Mute Button.
“I don’t have many flaws! I have hardly any flaws!”
Slinkie shook her head. “Let’s go to the baths. I’ll list your flaws for you on the way, Nap. Trust me, I have them all memorized.”
CHAPTER 18
The mineral baths on Herion couldn’t compete with those on Thurge, but for a non-volcanic planet, they weren’t bad. Sadly, Slinkie hadn’t been pretending—men and women were in separate areas, so I was stuck in the baths with the Governor.
I managed to enjoy myself anyway, because while the customers weren’t allowed to mingle, Herion wasn’t run by stupid people, and the attendants were female, quite attractive, and happy to see me. They seemed to like how I tipped, at least.
The Governor saw fit to give me a lecture as we finished dressing. “Alexander, how does your having, ah, sexual relations with each of the female bath attendants equate with your desire to land Miss Slinkie on a permanent basis?”
“Boy, are you old. I mean older than even I think you are, apparently.”
“And you’re stupider than I think you are, apparently.”
I shrugged. “Slinkie either will or won’t come around. I don’t think I need to become an Athriall monk in order to get her to see reason.”
“No, but you might not want to make her worry that by touching you she’s open to every venereal disease in the galaxy.”
“I take precautions. No diseases, no little Nappies running around. I have a perfect record, too.” I looked at him out of the corner of my eyes. “Why the sudden focus on the me and Slinkie idea?”
“Oh, no reason.” He was lying, and not trying to hide it. Meaning there was a reason, but he wasn’t going to tell me, just wanted me thinking about it. Not for the first time, I wondered why I’d left Great-Aunt Clara behind only to be saddled with her male counterpart.
We left the men’s side to find Slinkie waiting for us, looking extremely bored and annoyed. I got the vulture-glare. Not good. Presumably, she’d figured out why we were delayed. “I think I’m going to take Bryant up on whatever he offers me tomorrow night.”
I gave her my patented “guilty boy you can’t resist” smile. “Aw, c’mon, Slinkie. You know the difference between distraction and infatuation.”
She snorted as she stood. “Right, Nap. You’re infatuated with being distracted.” She strode out. The positive was she looked amazing from behind when she walked like this. I chose to focus on said positive.
I didn’t get to focus on it too long. As Slinkie reached the street, an autofloater skidded next to her, tires screeching. A door opened, and someone pulled her into the vehicle. I heard her scream my name, right before the door slammed.
Pilots have quick reflexes, and I was the best pilot in the galaxy. I didn’t think, I just ran and jumped onto the back of the ’floater before it got away. This was an older model, so there was a passenger board all the way around and a decorative hold-bar on the roof—these had been popular a couple of decades prior, when someone had thought it was a good idea for people to have their families stand on the outside of an ugly, moving, box-like thing. Stupid on the streets. Moronic in the air.
Happily, I had a good hold on the bar and got decent footing on the passenger board. Sadly, the driver realized I was on the ’floater and went airborne.
The windows were tinted, but I was pretty sure I saw a lot of movement. The ’floater was certainly rocking more than it should be, even while in the air. I figured Slinkie was showing why no one was ever going to force her to do anything she didn’t want to do without a huge fight and the potential that they may never be able to have children.
However, the driver seemed to want to get rid of me. At least, I assumed that was why he flipped the car. I didn’t fall off, thanks to that decorative bar, but I decided getting inside might be a good idea. Naturally, the doors were locked. But I had my laser gun and I was pretty sure Sli
nkie wasn’t in the front seat.
I shot at the front passenger’s window. Thankfully I’d shot at an angle, because the laser shot ricocheted off. Laser-proofing was expensive. I figured the Business Bureau wanted insurance in the form of my girl. Well, my soon-to-be girl. Okay, my maybe-one-day girl. But still, she was mine, one way or the other.
I holstered my laser gun and moved around the passenger board. If I couldn’t shoot them, they couldn’t shoot me. While I moved, I questioned why the Business Bureau was using an ancient autofloater. Maybe they liked to keep a low profile. Or maybe it wasn’t the BB after all.
The driver tried flipping me off again. Like before it didn’t work, but it did cause me to fall across the windshield. It wasn’t as tinted as the rest of the windows, and I could see three men besides the driver. Like all of Herion’s males, they were larger than me. Slinkie was doing a great job of kicking and hitting the crap out of them, but one of them landed a good uppercut and I saw her go over and down.
One thing I’d never felt Great-Aunt Clara was wrong about was men who hit women. She felt they deserved to die. I agreed, especially when they hit my woman. I couldn’t get in there to beat the crap out of them in return, but I could do something much worse.
I moved to the front of the ’floater. Older models like this had failsafes, and I knew where they were. I kicked the front grill at the emergency release point and the hood flew up. Searched around, yep, it was an engine all right. I didn’t want us crashing to the ground, but I wanted us going down. Found the helium-reactor and hit the emergency overload switch.
The ’floater shuddered and coughed. Good. I looked over my shoulder. We weren’t heading anywhere comforting. There were buildings around us and nothing all that soft under us. And, since I had the hood up, the driver couldn’t see. We were flying towards what appeared to be a sewage processing plant—the huge vats of stuff that looked fetid from up here, the many tubes running in between, the high and thick external walls, and total lack of other businesses surrounding this plant made it a good guess.