Mercenary

by Dave Barsby

  “He will not,” Larisa informs the senator with authority.

  “Don’t spoil my fun just yet,” Rogdo interjects.

  Larisa wheels on him. “Excuse me Captain, but I believe I should handle this matter. You are just pawns. This is an affair of state between the senator and the reigning monarch of Almudena. Of which, I believe, you are neither.”

  “That’s a fair assumption,” Drift points out. Larisa turns her attention back to the cowering Senator Vitari. I move myself into an unimpeded position so my memory implant can record his confession clearly.

  “Why, Senator?” Larisa begins. “Why?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” is Vitari’s pathetic response.

  “It is too late to feign ignorance, Senator. It is not as though you can claim your employees were acting without your authority.”

  “Why isn’t it?”

  “Because you tried to kidnap me then burn me with your spaceship’s engines on Camera-7. If nothing else, that makes you look rather suspicious, doesn’t it.”

  “‘Doesn’t it?’” Vitari imitates. “Listen to you. Begging your pardon Your Highness, but these space filth have corrupted your mind. They have even destroyed your perfect vocal intonations.”

  “Did he just call us filth?” Drift asks.

  “Space filth,” Tima tells him.

  “Oh. Is that better or worse than regular filth?”

  “Is this where you try to make me doubt the validity of my own mind, Senator?” the Princess asks.

  “We all know there are some very powerful cults operating on the fringes, Your Highness.”

  Drift stiffens. “Did he just call me a-?”

  “No,” Tima interrupts. “He said ‘cult.’”

  “They have the power to make you believe, Your Highness,” Vitari continues. “Believe whatever they want you to. How else can you explain your colloquialisms, your clothing, this insane allegation? They have corrupted you.”

  “It is not I who is corrupt, Senator. It is not I who instigated the bombing of the Senate.”

  “The Senate has been bombed?” Vitari feigns shock. “Gosh! Is everyone okay?”

  “Excuse me, Princess,” Rogdo interrupts. “But this chat is getting us nowhere. May we start hurting him now?”

  Larisa sighs. “I suppose you may. Do what you will, but leave him able to talk.”

  “Kneecaps it is, people!” Rogdo happily exclaims. I sincerely hope he is bluffing. He isn’t. Fortunately, Vitari is a better judge of character than me.

  “Wait, wait!” he calls as Rogdo’s boot comes perilously close to crippling the man. “I will make a deal with you.”

  “You are in no position to make a deal, Senator,” Larisa chides him.

  “Does it involve lots of money?” Rogdo asks. The look he receives from the Princess alters his mind. “Doesn’t matter,” he adds.

  “It is a good deal, Your Highness. I will tell you everything and I will cancel the operation.”

  “And in return?”

  “You or your lackeys do not harm me, and I will never repeat what I am about to say in a public inquiry.”

  “Meaning you get away with it.”

  “And you can return to your seat of power without fear of attack.”

  “Throw in ten mill and it’s a deal,” Rogdo says.

  Larisa turns to him. “Please?” she insists. “Senator, you must pay the full penalty of the law for your crimes.”

  “I’ll go into exile, how about that? We’ll call it an extended vacation on grounds of ill health.”

  “I do not think so!”

  “Those terms are acceptable,” Rogdo says, grabbing Larisa’s arm. “Now let the man speak.”

  “Right,” she answers. “Yes. Very well. I can accept those terms.”

  “So, we’re clear. I am not harmed, and I deny any allegations you raise against me.”

  “Once you have informed us exactly what you did and why,” Rogdo says, “you may never speak of this incident again. You have my word.”

  “Begging your pardon, mercenary, but I am not sure if your word is good enough.”

  “I am your Queen,” Larisa counters, before faltering. “Technically,” she adds. “You have my word.”

  And thus we gain a full, frank and sometimes rather emotional confession from Senator Gustavus Ionian Vitari. But this is not the end of my tale. Far from it. This is not even the end of our dealings with Senator Vitari, though the end is just a few paragraphs away in that respect.

  Having confessed, Vitari relaxes. I would say it is a great weight off his mind, but I do not believe that. I believe he is more relaxed because he has delivered his end of the bargain, and his future is now looking quite rosy.

  “Thank you for that,” the Princess tells him and he crawls off the floor to a more comfortable position on the sofa. She turns to Rogdo. “Now all we need to do is inform the public and your name is cleared.”

  “Tell them,” Vitari says, laughing. “No one will believe you.”

  “They will believe you.”

  “You gave me your word!” Vitari hisses. “I will never, ever repeat those words in public! I will deny all!”

  “We don’t need you to repeat anything,” Rogdo informs him, leaning in close. “We just need to show the public footage of this conversation.”

  “What footage?” Vitari laughs. “I installed a dampener field around this house. Any concealed cameras would have stopped working the moment you set foot on my property.”

  “Does that work with memory implants?” Rogdo asks.

  I quickly rewind five minutes in my head. It is crystal clear and exact in every intonation. “No,” I inform him.

  “Memory…implant?” Vitari whispers. He is suddenly crestfallen.

  “Anyway,” Rogdo says happily. “It’s been a blast. Come on everyone.”

  He heads through the front door, pre-empted by Drift and Tima. I linger just outside the doorway, waiting on Larisa. She stands defiantly in front of the fallen Senator. Slowly he looks up at her. She slaps him across the face, hard.

  “You have forced your reigning monarch into kinky boots!” she states. “May you rot!”

  She turns and strides out of the house in a very cool, badass manner. Her imperious exit almost works, but the inner lining of Rogdo’s overlong coat catches on the door handle, pulling her back.

  Regaining what little composure she has left, Larisa unhooks the coat, closes the door and joins us on the front lawn.

  From inside the house we hear a crash, a clatter, as Vitari systematically rips his home apart. The sound dies for a few seconds. The silence is followed by a loud bang and a soggy thunk.

  “Oh yeah, I forgot,” Tima says. “He hid a firearm in the kitchen drawer.”

  Back at the ship, Bolland tries to insert a long, scary needle into my head.

  “What the…? Get off!” I shout, brushing him away.

  “We need to extract the data,” he complains.

  “For God’s sake! Just point the computer’s infrared port at my left eye! Do you think I skewer myself every time I want to download something?!?”

  Bolland lowers the sword-like data needle and pulls a telescopic infrared beacon from a flat panel. He aims it at me.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ, I’m blind!” I complain, squeezing my eyes shut. “My left, you moron!”

  I feel a slight tingle towards the rear of my head as my memory implant makes a connection with the ship’s computer. “Okay,” I say. “I’m in. Do you want me to edit it at all?”

  “No, no, no,” Rogdo tells me. “It might look falsified then. Send it all.”

  “Including the bits where you threaten his life?”

  “Well, maybe just chop off the start, then.”

  It takes me a short while to select the correct footage and pare it down to just video and audio. Some things are sacred and I don’t want the whole universe to know what I was thinking at that moment, nor the fact that I could taste a small l
ump of peach lodged in my back teeth. Audio / video would do just fine. I send the 123Gb file. After three seconds I break off the connection.

  “That’s it,” I say.

  Tima checks the file on fast-forward. “Yep, all seems to be there,” she tells us. How dare she question my editing skills!

  “So it is over,” Larisa breathes. “It is finally over.”

  “Well, not quite,” Tima adds. “It hasn’t been added to our website yet. But, all I have to do is press this button and…” She presses a button. “We are on-line! Seventy six hits already!”

  “Hotsexxx.com do your thing!” Rogdo calls.

  “4,092 hits. I think we’ll be okay.”

  “Is it over now?” Larisa asks.

  “Yes, Princess,” Rogdo tells her. “You can breathe your sigh of relief now.”

  She does just that. “Home,” she says. “A soft bed, flowing gowns, roast duckling, perfume. Take me home.”

  “Erm…right,” Rogdo answers.

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Kind of.”

  I slump into the only remaining chair in the cockpit. Troubled as she is by Rogdo’s words, Larisa also finds time to scowl at my forward thinking.

  “What now?” I ask, exasperated.

  “Come on, Captain,” Drift adds. “They’ve had enough. Let’s face it, we’ve had enough of them too.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “It’s not so much a problem as a…well, it’s a problem. We still don’t have any money. Supplies are short, and I doubt this craft can stand another long journey without major repairs.”

  “No money,” I repeat. “Great. Shall we start robbing the old ladies now or wait until dark?”

  “No, no, there is a solution. It’s just…well, it’s going to be tricky.”

  “Does it involve weapons, violence or being underhand in any way?”

  “No. At least, not on our part.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning my mother has quite a temper. Around me.”

  “I can’t see why,” I say.

  “Your mother lives here?” Tima asks, incredulous.

  “Wait,” Drift counters. “You have a mother? I mean, you were actually born? From the womb of a human being?!? This I have to see!”

  “So you’re going to raid your own mother’s meagre savings?” I ask.

  “She’s worth a little more than that. My father was…a successful businessman. In the same way I am.”

  “Ah, the life of Captain Flavian grows ever more complex.”

  “What are we waiting for?” Larisa asks. “Borrow some money from your mother and we can set sail for fair Almudena. I will reimburse you, of course.”

  “I said it’s tricky,” Rogdo says. “I…well, the last thing she’s going to do is give money to me.”

  “How do we get it, then?” Hiaelia asks. She leans in close and whispers conspiratorially. “Are we going to steal it from her?”

  “No!” Rogdo shouts in disgust. “It’s just…someone else will have to get it. Plead my case. If she and I were to meet, it would end in hospitalisation.”

  “You’d hit your own mother?”

  “Not her! Me!”

  “She sounds charming,” Bolland says.

  “I never knew my mother,” Dirk suddenly interjects (I’d almost forgotten he could talk). “She’d turned into a butterfly long before I slithered into the daylight. Just flew away, she did.” He sniffs. “I miss her.”

  “Oh Lordy,” I say. “So one of us has to go and beg for money from your mother, a woman who would happily hospitalise her only child. How is she with complete strangers?”

  “Technically,” Rogdo answers, “you should be okay.”

  “I don’t like the use of the word ‘you’ there.”

  “We need to send the nicest, politest person here. The politest two, actually, so Tima you’re going as well.”

  “Oh, joy,” she answers.

  “Here,” he says, removing a pendant from a chain round his neck and handing it to Tima. “Show her this and she’ll know I sent you. Just…be nice to her, have a chat and a cuppa. Play the sympathy card, look like you’re life depends on it. Hopefully, she’ll give you the money and not a clout round the ear.”

  “You really do fill us with hope, you know,” I tell him. “Are you sure two complete strangers will be enough?”

  “Take the Princess as well. She looks bedraggled and in desperate need of help.”

  18. 53,212 TABS

  Faced with the challenge of begging money from Rogdo’s mother, Larisa has elected to be the spokesperson when we arrive at yet another perfectly-kept sand-and-red bungalow. It is not an election Tima or I are invited to contribute to. The Princess knocks on the door. It opens slightly, a chain lock fixed into place – possibly the only lock on the entire planet.

  A small, grey old lady peers out from above the rim of her spectacles. She certainly doesn’t lok the type of person Rodgo would be scared of. “Yes?” she asks in a wizened voice.

  “Good day, madam,” Larisa begins. “I am the Princess Larisa of Almudena.”

  The door closes. Silence. We try knocking again.

  “What do you want?” come a voice from inside.

  “Mrs Flavian,” I say. “We come bearing news of your son.”

  The door opens on the chain again.

  “Others have said that. They weren’t very polite and had big guns.”

  “We are friendly and unarmed, I assure you. You can trust us.”

  “Then why did the tart say she was a princess?”

  “She is. It’s a long story.” I glance at Tima. “The pendant, the pendant!” I whisper. Tima removes the object from her pocket and proffers it at the crack in the door.

  The door closes again. This time we hear the chain being slid out of its mooring and the door opens fully.

  “Come in, then,” Mrs Flavian tells us.

  As we enter, the old lady mutters to herself: “Doesn’t look like a princess to me.”

  “You have a lovely house,” I say, inspecting the sitting room. In fact, it is almost identical to Vitari’s house, even down to the same furniture in the same place. One of the major differences is the décor, specifically the two fully-automatic laser rifles hanging over the fireplace.

  “Tea and biscuits anyone?” Mrs Flavian asks. She places a handgun she’d kept hidden behind her back onto a coffee table, then sits in her recliner. It is evident by the effort she makes to sit that any positive answer will be unwelcome.

  “Thank you, no,” Larisa answers for all of us. Tima and her take up seats on the sofa, I head for the mantelpiece in the hope of spying a photograph of a gawky teenage Rogdo. No such luck, but there are plenty of images of a man in his fifties with a stout appearance and a thin moustache.

  “My husband,” Mrs Flavian tells me. “Dead twenty years now.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tima tells her.

  “Oh, don’t be. The cunt deserved it.”

  Her language doesn’t shock me as much as I thought it would. Maybe I’m becoming immune to such things. I take a seat at the end of the sofa, decide to introduce myself, Tima and Larisa. We receive another disgruntled look when Larisa is again introduced as a princess.

  “So, what news of my shitbag of a son? Is he in trouble again?”

  “When isn’t he?” Tima responds. “It’s a long story, but-”

  “Oh, please. I like long stories. Especially when it involves my only child fucking up again.” She may look frail and small, but the guns and language are definitely starting to make this woman feel more like Rodgo’s mother.

  Tima looks to me to tell the story.

  “What?” I say.

  “You’re the storyteller. So tell her the story.”

  “Oh dear. Quite simply, Mrs Flavian, we’ve all had a very traumatic time, what with people shooting at us and chases across the galaxy and talking turtles and the like. Things have happened…bad things…and to put it simply we
need to return the Princess to her throne.”

  “‘Return the Princess to her throne?’” she mimics. “Sounds like a fucking fairy story. Not something Roggy would be mixed up in. He only deals with the scummiest cunts in the galaxy. I guess it makes him feel at home.”

  “Well, true, your son did have a hand in removing the Princess from her throne in the first place, but he’s had a change of heart.”

  “Has he sent you to get my blessing? Does he want a fucking medal? Why are you telling me all this?”

  “Quite simply, ma’am, our ship is damaged and we need to repair it. We need money.”

  “But I’m sure my son has millions by now. Is he too fucking cheap to pay for it himself?”

  “I’m afraid all his money kind of blew up with the previous ship.”

  “So he needs some money and he was too much of a pussy to come and ask me himself.”

  “Yes. I believe that is why we are here instead of him. He’s scared.”

  “He’s also desperate,” Tima says. “I’m sure he wouldn’t have sent us to ask you for assistance if he didn’t really need it.”

  “Oh, no, he’d fucking ask whether he needs it or not. The number of times I had to bail that bastard out when he was young. And I mean fucking bail him out. From jail. I’m not sure I have the desire to help him out again.”

  “He really needs your help, Mrs Flavian,” Larisa chirps up, hoping that her posh accent will carry some weight. “Will you not help your only child in his hour of need?”

  “No.”

  “Then how about helping the Princess?” I ask. “She can pay you back.”

  “Ten-fold,” Larisa adds. “Please, Mrs Flavian. I have been shot at, burned, mentally abused and forced into uncomfortable clothing. I have had to sleep rough for months, eat paltry meals and bathe in the ocean. I want to go home. Will you please help me?”

  “Ah, bollocks to it,” Mrs Flavian says, having considered her options. “You do seem like three very lovely young people, and if you are friends of my son then maybe he is improving. How much did you want to borrow?”

  “Forty thousand,” I tell her, then cringe, awaiting the clout around the ear Rogdo promised. I feel like I am trying to cheat my own mother out of her retirement pension. This, combined with all I have witnessed and the still hurtful loss of the universe’s most intelligent species, makes me feel as though I can’t get any lower. I feel terrible. This must be the worst anyone has felt since the chairman of the inaugural Narcoleptic Swimming Olympics watched the bodies being fished out of the pool. Still, I have lower to sink.