Waria knew that. Because Bowie had wanted him to.
Bowie had shown him the contents to get the deal to get access to the party that he knew was happening today. The party that was the only place one could sell such dangerously expensive and high-quality drugs.
Rich people drugs.
He opened the door. An actual door that needed to be swung inward. Not a pneumatically driven portal that whooshed silently open like in nice hotels, or every other building in the Republic. Or what had once been the Republic.
Why are you thinking about that? thought Bowie as he stood aside for the two hired thugs to get a real good look at the briefcase. These people are here to kill you.
Have a care, dear boy.
And…
You never know, do you.
Except in this case he was pretty sure he did know. Goon One was a swolly from a Reach world that bred those ample-sized and powerful pig men. The brute, rippling with muscles and fat, and shoved into a cheap suit, practically snorted as its beady eyes spotted the briefcase on the bed…
What thing, boss?
The thing I sent you in there to get.
Or at least that’s how Bowie had run this little playlet in his head. The night before and the three days since he’d been trying to make this deal. Everyone would be playing for themselves. And that was how he’d play them.
Get that thing! He could almost hear the pig man screaming inside his bulbously round skull.
The Pig Man thought he’d played it cool. And the access hall from the motel room door was tight, what with the stupid ex-navy hooman officer who was about to get killed standing aside, behind the door no less, to let the swolly pass.
The second blaster was a shaven-headed human. Mean face. Bad scar. Tight suit. Two blasters concealed. A real hard case. And not just because he thought so.
He was just walking past the navy officer he’d been sent in to kill when he heard the snik of the tanto. That very specific snik of a flipped jackknife.
The one the ex-navy officer who was about to get killed kept in the sleeve of his jacket and had palmed as the swolly walked past.
Mean Face had done time, fought for his life in alleys, and stabbed other people to death to always get out alive. He knew exactly what that snik was. He’d heard it before. Maybe even been the motivating force of such a snik.
But as has been stated, tight quarters, and for the two predators, Mean Face and Bowie, all the two “hoomans” had time for was to look each other in the eye and telegraph something to the equivalent of “So… that’s how it’s gonna be.” All the while the greedy swolly, thinking how easy this was going to be, trotted forward to grab the briefcase all for his piggy self. Typical swolly. Somehow trusting that Mean Face would handle the killing while swolly got away squealing with delight into some hidden back alley where Waria would never find him.
Except Mean Face now had a blade sticking out of his eye. Hands that should have been throttling the ex-naval officer who was supposed to be about to die, or protecting himself, were now trying to pull the knife sticking out of his eye… out of his eye.
But that’s not an easy thing.
Think about it.
It’s in your eye.
And you’re asking, no matter how hardcore you are, you’re asking yourself, “Is it bad?” And the voice inside you sounds panicked.
And…
“Will I make it worse by pulling it out?”
That’s what you’re doing.
In fact… That’s all you’re doing.
Which allows ex-navy intel chump to give you a good shove into the bathroom across the hall where you crash into the cheap glass shower and cut your throat, slash your chest, shred your hands, and shove the knife farther into your orbital socket. Maybe even into your brain.
But it’s really the cut throat that settles matters for Mean Face. You can do a lot of things, but not many with a cut throat. Options are limited.
All someone in one of the other rooms heard in the moments after the zhee call to prayer outside was some drunken scream, and then a loud crash through the dangerous glass shower.
Serves him right, think the other drunks, hookers, and pimps, waiting to crawl out into the night once more. Then they go back to sleep. No one wants trouble. Which is the best way to avoid trouble in the K’keeb District.
And then the Python is out and pointed at the swolly who’d turned, rather innocently like a greedy child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and realized how badly all this had gone.
“Stupid hoomans.”
06
Waria Sskindaru came to Kublar in the early days of the Prosperity Zone and found work as a hired blaster for Toogu Campa, a Gomarii pimp with connections to the slavers. High-end stuff for the new bureaucrats courting the winning tribe of koobs that had finally managed to assert dominance over the rest of the tribes.
Big money in those days, a couple years after that destroyer blew up over the planet. As the koobs finished their war and the Republic came back in, they acquired more and more of a taste for all the Republic had to offer. Toogu Campa had risen through the ranks of the local crime syndicate to earn a place at the table in the back room of Zentreet’s Ruckus Room over in Sundance where all the big commercial shipping was done.
Then Toogu got killed when the zhee showed up and while Waria wasn’t necessarily offered a place at the table, he was tasked with running mutual trade between the Cartel and the zhee.
Finding out that there was an ex-naval officer hawking some unobtainable Ice was too good to share with the Cartel. Even if it got him a place at the table. So here Waria was on this morning in Marina Beach, trying to get a jump on the deal before the Ice went where it was supposed to go.
And now he was seeing Murch, his swolly right-hand assistant, and a “hooman” but not his “hooman,” coming out from a sleazy motel into the bright sunlight of the rundown main drag of Marina Beach.
The place was a visual representation of a cheap H8 hangover.
“Where my hooman?” he wondered absently as he put the high-end sled car in drive. Clearly it looked like the ex-navy chump had Murch at blasterpoint and was ushering him across the empty street. One hand holding all the Ice in a briefcase for sure. The other tucked into the nice gray suit coat “hooman” wore.
“Obviously none of Waria business is this…” decided Waria with a hissed slur and made to leave. But “hooman” crossed the distance quickly and then brazenly pointed the blaster he’d had under his coat right at Waria’s triangular serpent’s head.
Waria settled back into the rich leather interior and flicked his forked tongue out, tasting the air.
Bad news hooman, he thought. All hoomans always news bad.
Murch was directed into the front side passenger seat of the convertible sled while navy chump slid onto the back bench of Waria’s flashy ride.
“What happened to Sully?” asked Waria more of the pig man than of Bowie.
“He broke him,” indicated Murch sullenly.
“I broke him,” confirmed Bowie, the powerful snub-nosed blaster now pointing at the Lahursian’s slender frame. Snake men were incredibly muscled across their midsection. But blasters went straight through them at this range. One of the side effects of their slender structure.
Bowie smiled.
You always get more with honey than vinegar, his grandma had once told him. Throughout his years, Grandma’s advice had been as valuable to Jack Bowie as all the most competent naval training in Escape and Evasion, Interrogation, Termination, and Demolition had been. Even the bits involving ultra-violence provided by hardened Legion NCO instructors.
“So what now?” asked Waria. “I tell you where party is and you kill us in back alley.”
“Nah,” said Bowie. “Deal’s still on. You’ll get your cut. But now you’re playing for per
centages. What did we agree on?”
“Five percent.”
“Three percent,” replied Bowie.
“Three percent!” hissed the snake man. “Three percent is no credits for many. Why two percent less?”
“You tried to kill me,” replied Bowie good-naturedly.
The snake man thought about this.
“It’s true,” said Murch with a soft, almost sympathetic snort. His gaze remonstrating his boss for something he’d been told to do.
Waria shot his lieutenant a look of disgust. But unless you were Lahursian, you had no idea that such a look had been given. The narrowing of the iris within the slatted eye and the quick flick of the viper’s tongue in a specific direction would have led to an all-out fight with fangs bared back on that swampy world. But here, Waria could get away with such a dismissive gesture and not have to strike to the death. Its meaning was completely lost on the stupid swolly as well as the “hooman” pointing a blaster at his guts.
“So let’s get going to the party?” suggested Bowie, the briefcase on the rear bench next to him. Resting on rich red Ankalorian leather. A must-have when Waria had ordered this vehicle. That and the full weapons package that deployed from beneath at the press of a button.
Not now.
Maybe chances there will be, he thought in his snaky way of thinking, I will sink my fangs into great wealth.
Such thoughts of opportunistic violence to achieve wealth beyond imagining were common. But weren’t a reality yet.
“Easy not so much hurry,” announced Waria as he started the sled.
Jack Bowie leaned back, blaster still out, and put on his sunglasses. It was going to be a long, hot day in Soob City. That was for sure.
07
“Party at Cliffside,” said Waria over the drone of the convertible sled’s engine. “First off, not easy district to get into. Many former Republican diplomats and officials make their living now. Since boom go, Republic many have private armies there now. Weapons high tech. Killers professional. Legionnaires who serve no longer find work expensive to pay. Money free to keep powerful safe in holes.”
“And…” prompted Bowie as the sled hit the main transit through the heart of a protectorate that was turning into a city rising in all directions at once. Every corporation had set up an outpost here within the last two years. Whereas once Kublar had been some backwater legionnaires had been sent to die on for no real reason anyone outside Utopion could fathom, now it was an economic boomtown. At least here in the zone.
“And… Waria pay to reach Sustus Caul’s estate where party happening all the time… or we get pulled over and searched. Finding they will your briefcase. Which you will open. And then we all die quickly. Very much so with much screaming.”
“So how do I get in?”
“We. Words is we,” demanded Waria. “We partners, hooman. Three percent partners.”
Bowie looked off. The sun was beginning to climb over the top of the highest buildings. He had another plan. But… it involved playing high stakes poker. So… maybe there was another way today. But time was running out.
Maybe.
“Happy girls.”
Pig man’s eyes went wide, and then narrowed with delight.
“Happy girls?” asked Bowie.
“Happy girls,” replied the snake man. “Girls coming in on freighter today at noon. Landing at Qwamdolla star port out in Sundance. Fun time party girls coming in from the mid-core. We go in with them.”
“Fun time party girls?”
Murch nodded happily.
“What’s the catch?” asked Bowie.
The snake man hissed. “Catch there always is. I think in your profession… they call it a hijacking. Pull one you ever, hooman?”
“Yeah,” said Bowie.
Except in the Marines, they called it assault boarding.
08
The trick to Waria’s plan didn’t involve hijacking the freighter coming in from the mid-core, the Silver Koan out of Vanusia. That was the good part. The freighter would set down at Qwamdolla star port out in Sundance. It was a fringe field that was little more than a massive duracrete apron on the edge of a cyclopean sprawl of shipping and trade that had been set up to do business for Soob City.
Jacking an entire freighter while carrying a case full of Ice with two partners who might shoot you in the back at any moment was beyond anyone’s skill set, reasoned Bowie.
Now the three of them were parked on a side street beneath a ramshackle tower in downtown Soob City that offered berthing spots for the local dropship trade.
“Berth eight oh fourteen,” hissed Waria. “Dropship prepping with crew…”
“It’s not oh. It’s just eight fourteen,” said Bowie as he studied the building from behind his shades.
Waria stopped and swiveled his triangular head around to stare at Bowie in the back seat of his car. And then was reminded that a blaster was still pointing at his midsection.
He nodded wisely. The maneuver had merely been pulled for him to confirm that the blaster was still out. Both parties were aware of that.
“Okay then… eight fourteen be where they preparing, hooman. Central well. In twenty minutes, they’ll taxi out into the lift well and be raised to the hangar. We have until then to take the ship.”
“How many floors?”
“To top pad where launching happen?” asked Waria.
“Yes.”
“Twenty.”
“Twenty floors from eight?” asked Bowie.
“No. Just twenty.”
“So twelve.”
“If that’s how you are wanting to see it, hooman. Then… yes. Twelve floors.”
“Why not take them in the berth?” asked Bowie.
“Ah. The bite of your fangs is prudent,” hissed the snake man. “Strike before the lift. But alas no do can. Berths are secure. Flaps Jonso keeps a security team ready during loadout. He work for big boss who provide happy girls for Caul’s party times. Like… ah… it would be like rushing a bunker with fragger between your teeth. You lose either way.”
Bowie looked skyward, scanning up the side of the dropship storage. It was typical. Racked storage with flyaway hangars on every berth. This place had been secured with only one exit up and out. And something wasn’t straight.
Waria was lying.
Or, as the old saying went… how do you know when a snake man is lying? Because his tongue is flicking. And Waria’s tongue was flicking back and forth pretty steadily. Like he was testing the air every ten seconds. Like he was lying through his fangs. But this was Jack’s only way in and the deadline was closing fast.
“How do we get in?” he asked.
“My ship on seven. We enter the ramp that winds up through the outside of the tower. Drive to nine, and board the lift as it passes. Neutralize Jonso’s crew. Take the dropship. Make the pickup. Carry the girls to Caul’s estate in Cliffside. Easy to be peasy.”
“Just easy peasy. No to be.”
Waria nodded making some look.
“Let’s do it then,” said Bowie.
And with that, Waria started the sled and drove down the block into the security station that accessed the ramp up to the berths.
A gloomy bot, battered and one-eyed and chattering in logic-numerica, accepted Waria’s code-phrase and they were in. It was dark and the dim lighting came in sudden bright washes as the sled crawled up the circular ramp that wound through the building. On level three, Waria mashed the accelerator and spun about, fangs bared and ready to fill Bowie with an easily deadly amount of neurotoxin. Murch squealed and dove for the steering wheel as the snake man lunged for the hooman in the back seat.
The first thing Murch did badly as he tried to drive the sled from the passenger seat, heaving his rotund barrel pig chest across the front seats, was connect with the sidewall
of the ramp spiraling up through the levels of the dropship garage. He also terror-squealed.
Whether this was some innate swolly defensive technique to alert the herd, or the pig was generally afraid for its life, Bowie had no idea. He was too busy trying to throttle Waria with both hands because the collision with the wall along the ramp, and the sudden screech of ceramic and metal, sparks flying up into the dingy light of the climbing tunnel from off the tricked out sled, had caused him to drop the Python in the back seat.
Snake men move fast. Some say almost as fast as the galaxy’s other uber predator… wobanki. Which is pretty fast. Twitchy fast on the part of the wobanki. Lighting fast where Lahursians are concerned.
Though Lahursians are genus serpentoid, with a human-like body, they are serpents. And their propensity to strike and coil about their prey as fast as possible is old and well known. The best way to deal with them is to cut off their heads. And in lieu of a good head-chopping weapon, throttling them is your next option.
Jack Bowie had learned that, and a hundred other ways to kill the various species humankind had found out in the galaxy, during jungle phase with the SOTO groups in the Navy. Both of his thumbs were now pressing in, trying to collapse the windpipe of the snake man. Of course, Waria was trying to sink both fangs into Bowie’s jacket and dump both sacks of neurotoxin into the stupid hooman’s weak non-serpent body. Which would deal with the “hooman” effectively in less than fifteen seconds.
Waria leaned in closer, constricting every muscle and turning into an iron pole that seemed to loom over Bowie in the back seat as the luxury convertible sled slammed into another wall of the tunnel and the pig man squealed again with dire abandon.
Waria leaned in close, jaw unhinging, fangs dripping with poison as somehow the sled’s speed increased. Which, to Bowie, seemed unwise for all of them, given the current circumstances.
He couldn’t let go to get a hand on his other blaster, or the knives. But he had a knee and Lahursians had a solar plexus. A large one in fact due to their humanoid nature. Bowie smashed his knee up into the solar plexus while never releasing pressure from both thumbs on the windpipe of the snake man. One smash… two smash… the third smash did the trick and Waria reeled back and tried to inhale, temporarily releasing his airway. A second later Jack Bowie’s two thumbs snapped the snake man’s wide hyoid bone. When he felt it go, he released and pulled his holster blaster. He jammed it into Waria’s writhing belly and fired three times. Then a fourth. Waria collapsed back into the front seat, draping himself over the swolly who was still trying to drive from the passenger seat. A second later the speeding sled crashed into the side wall ramp hard, throwing Bowie onto the floor of the vehicle and the pig man through the front glass.
Galaxy's Edge: Takeover: Season Two: Book One Page 5