Milky Way Repo

by Michael Prelee

  Nathan lifted his mug. Outnumbered three to one on his own ship and another pair of troublemakers down below. It was undignified.

  “Listen, maybe things have been a little more crazy than usual,” he said.

  “Maybe,” Cole agreed.

  “But the job is what the job is,” Nathan said, finishing his thought. “We do it the same way we always do.”

  “I was hoping we would actually do it better considering the payday on this one,” Cole said.

  Nathan eyed him. “Will you quit clowning around? I’m being serious.” Cole held his hands up. Satisfied the interruptions were over Nathan continued. He pointed at Cole. “You keep an eye on your new girlfriend. No more surprises. No more poisoning people, no more shooting anyone and no more letting her run the show. You’re in charge of her. I want her and her pet kept quiet and out of sight until they do what they need to do.”

  “You really think she likes me?” Cole said.

  Nathan turned to Duncan, ignoring Cole’s question. “You’re the ship’s engineer, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then let me remind you that Richie works for you. You’re responsible for him. Get him up on his feet and keep him down in the engines. I want him working all the time. If he’s got idle time he’ll just find some way to screw things up. Put him on a leash if you have to.”

  “What about me?” Marla said. They moved back into the cockpit and she sat down in the seat to the right, the co-pilot’s seat. She picked up a pad stylus and chewed on the end of it.

  “The usual, post-flight checklist, fuel status, you know,” he said. “By the way, how did you find this place?”

  “I checked a couple different sites on the G-net and this shipyard had the lowest ranking and worst reviews. I figured no one would look for us here.”

  Nathan looked out the cockpit window at their surroundings. A wide, three lane road ran in front of the landing pad. Across the road was a string of warehouses that had seen better days. A large one was directly across from their landing pad. It was made of steel and painted a dark blue with rust in places. It looked abandoned. “Keep the doors locked and the cameras up and running. We’ll be lucky to get out of here without someone stripping off the hull plating for its recycling value.”

  A few minutes later, Cole was following Duncan down to the sickbay to check on Richie. “I hate when he’s all riled up,” Cole said. “A couple of things go wrong and we have to put up with him being cranky for the next couple days.”

  “Come on,” Duncan said. “We’re way outside our normal job description here. Cut him some slack.”

  Cole waved him off. “I know, I know. But his attitude has been crap since this whole thing started revolving around Celeste. He’s been better since right after the break up. Remember how bad that was?”

  “As if I could forget.”

  “And now he hears her name again and bam! Instant jackass.”

  “Yeah, well, this whole thing will be over in a few days,” Duncan said. “And then we’ll get back to normal. Chasing deadbeats, sneaking around dark places.”

  “Yeah, let’s check the kid.”

  They slid the door open to the small compartment. Richie was laying on one of two beds, flipping through movies on the ship’s database. “Hey guys,” he said. “You have some decent flicks, you know that? On the Martha Tooey I think everything was at least five years old.”

  Duncan jerked a thumb at Cole. “That would be him. He loves a good movie.” He typed a command into the doc comp and started a series of diagnostics on Richie. A number of probes dropped from the mechanism over the bed. Richie stiffened as a blood pressure cuff tightened on his arm and a blood sample was extracted.

  “How am I doing?”

  “You’d be better off if your personal baggage didn’t keep screwing things up,” Cole said. Richie opened his mouth to protest and Cole put his hand up. Richie stopped immediately. “Your little gambling problem put all our lives at risk and left a guy shot and burning in a parking lot.”

  “Atomic Jack is dead?”

  “Right now he’s probably a pile of ashes being swept off the blacktop.”

  “Oh, thank God. Did you shoot him?”

  “No, as much as I wanted to it was one of his guys.”

  “Which one?”

  “Kinty. Anyway, I don’t know if that solves your problem but when we get back to Go City you better figure it out. Nathan tells me he got your pay situation straightened around.”

  “Right, he did. I’ll take care of things when we get back.”

  Cole nodded. “Good. I don’t want to have this conversation again.”

  “’Course not.”

  “He checks out,” Duncan said. “It’s time for you to stop watching movies and get back to work.”

  “I’m still sore.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s because someone burned off your nipple,” Cole said. “You can have someone grow you a new one when we get home.”

  Richie turned to Duncan. “Can you give me something for the pain?”

  Duncan scrolled down a list on the medical computer. “I think we have something here. You should know that stocking the medicine cabinet isn’t a top priority for the cheapo who owns this ship.” He thumbed the lock on the drug stores and rummaged inside the cabinet, brushing his dreadlocks out of the way. He selected a bottle and tossed it to Richie. “You’re allowed two every six hours.”

  “You’re already a gambler,” Cole said. “Don’t turn into an addict.”

  He swung down off the table. “I think I’ll be able to handle it.”

  “I need you down in the port side engine room. We have a pump to change out.”

  “I thought maybe I could get some rest until the meet went down.”

  Cole smiled. “You thought wrong. You belong to Duncan now and it sounds like you have some work to do.”

  “Yeah, okay,” he said. “I’ll see you down there.” The young man walked out of the sickbay and Duncan checked to make sure he was heading in the right direction.

  “He’s going to be a busy boy, isn’t he?” Cole said.

  “You have no idea.”

  Milo Gradzac sipped his whisky in Heavy Dollar casino, eyeing the waitress working the booths in this section of the bar. She was a pretty little thing with blonde hair and a bright smile. If the meeting with the repo men went well tonight he thought he might be in the mood to celebrate. Given how nervous he was, though, he figured he might be celebrating alone.

  The bar was inside the casino, just to the left of the main entrance doors. It was dim, with no windows to the outside. Milo thought that if someone sat in here long enough and drank enough a whole day could go by without noticing. He sat back in the booth, sinking into the worn leather. The bar was kind of retro, stealing decorating elements from a few different time periods and a few different worlds. The bar itself was some kind of imitation oak, or maybe not imitation. It would have cost a fortune on Earth thanks to deforestation over the last few centuries but Olympia was younger and had forest to spare. Chrome trim highlighted tables in some corners and dark walnut seemed to be the wood of choice in a section filled with booths across the way.

  He grabbed a nut from the bowl on the table, munched it and kept an eye on the door. This assignment was odd. He had never tested a wetjack. Milo had been the technology guru for the Children of the Apocalyptic Rainbow for three years. It was his job to keep the signal flowing which was better than sweeping hotel rooms or emptying garbage cans. Another nut snapped under his front teeth and he thought a little more.

  He didn’t particularly like the area around the casino because it was kind of rundown. The Heavy Dollar casino was in a converted warehouse district near the ocean. The area was being transformed, gentrified some might say. Along this strip there were updated restaurants and clubs. A couple blocks in either direction, though, were streets and alleys that were done booming. Once the city had been built no one needed to ship and store freight as
much as they used to. Milo had taken a taxi from the spaceport when he arrived and hadn’t stepped outside since. He was pretty sure it would be possible to get mugged if he walked more than fifteen minutes up or down the street. Milo was used to playing it safe.

  His left leg pumped nervously under the table, making it shake slightly and spreading little ripples in his glass of whisky. Why had Montario done this insane thing and more importantly, why had he agreed to help? He was in for ten percent of the take and only because three years of following the seven paths to enlightenment had done nothing to make him more confident. The Children of the Apocalyptic Rainbow had worked wonders on others but Milo was the same scrawny little guy with greasy skin and dark stringy hair that he had been when he joined.

  The bar was moderately crowded, which was good enough for what they were doing tonight. If there were more people in here there was more of a chance of being overheard. Any less and they would gain too much attention from the wait staff. His fingers tapped on the table.

  The door opened and he saw a party of four enter the bar. A guy in a leather jacket, jeans and dark glasses led them in, followed by a guy in a dark suit. They in turn were followed by a stunning Japanese woman in a leather jacket and skirt and a tall, gangly freak with white skin sporting a leather suit better suited for some of the sex clubs down the road. That had to be the wetjack so this had to be the group he was meeting. He sat up straight and waved them over to his booth.

  The guy in the suit led them over. “Are you Milo?”

  “That’s me. You’re all from Saji Vy?”

  “Right. I’m Nathan Teller, This is Cole, Kimiyo and Arulio.”

  Milo pointed to the other side of the booth. “Have a seat.” He looked around the bar quickly.

  Kimiyo slid in the corner booth next to Milo, Arulio followed her and then Nathan with Cole sliding in on the opposite end. Cole looked around the bar again then focused on Milo. Milo looked at each of the people in the booth and found them all staring at him.

  “Why are we here?” Nathan asked.

  “Um…”

  “We’ve had a bad day, son. Don’t keep us waiting.”

  Milo opened his mouth, suddenly dry and started to respond when a waitress came over. They ordered drinks and resumed staring at Milo. He cleared his throat.

  “Well, you’ve been invited here today to help us with a small problem.”

  “That’s crap,” Nathan said. “We’re here to pay a ransom to you ridiculous people because you kidnapped a ship full of dead bodies. So let’s get down to it.”

  “Mr. Teller, please don’t think we’ve done this lightly. This is a tremendous opportunity for all of us,” Milo said. “No one is in any danger and Mr. Vy’s vessel and cargo will be returned immediately and in the same condition upon completion of our task.” Milo was starting to sweat. He wiped his forehead with a cocktail napkin.

  “And the Charon’s crew?” Nathan said. “I assume they will be returned in the same condition in which they were taken? Not all of the people on that ship were dead.”

  “Of course,” Milo said. “The Charon’s crew is healthy and are being well treated.”

  Nathan was itching to ask about Celeste but he didn’t want to let on that he knew her. Instead he asked if the Charon was in a condition where the crew could get back inside and fly home without fixing anything.

  “I said the vessel would be in the same condition in which it was taken,” Milo said.

  “I want you to be sure about this, Milo. That ship was traveling through space and you people did something to stop it. I don’t know what that was but I know it’s damn hard to make a ship that’s moving under its own power just stop so it can be boarded and hijacked. I’d like to know how you did that.”

  “I can’t tell you that, Mr. Teller. All I can say is that we were able to stop and board the vessel without damaging it.”

  “Was it an inside job? Because that’s generally how these things work, especially when a ship just stops moving all on its own.”

  Milo wiped his forehead again. “Mr. Teller, I know it may be hard for you to believe but we’re a very capable group when we have to be. We didn’t need help from the Charon’s crew to stop the vessel.”

  Nathan sipped his bourbon and considered it for a moment. “All right, Milo, what is it you want Arulio to do? What’s the ransom for the ship’s crew?”

  Milo smiled, looking excited. “This will not be a problem for a wetjack of Arulio’s capability.”

  “And how would you know what his capability’s are?” Kimiyo said. An eyebrow raised in Milo’s direction.

  “Saji Vy has only a few wetjacks working for him. I knew that no matter which one was sent to assist us they would be up to the task but Arulio’s accomplishments are legendary within the hacking community.” Milo smiled as he said this. “In fact, may I just say what an honor it is to meet you sir?”

  Kimiyo grabbed his arm. “I’m not interested in your nerd love, Milo. Do you understand? And I don’t know what you’ve heard in your ‘community’ but if Saji Vy finds out you’re discussing his business openly? You better hide in a deep, dark hole.”

  Milo pulled away from her and glanced around the table. Four pairs of eyes glared back. “I didn’t mean anything. I was just excited to meet Arulio.”

  “We got that,” Nathan said. “Now answer my question. What do you need Arulio for?”

  Milo looked around again. He was relatively sure no one was paying attention to them. “There is a relatively large sum of money sitting in several accounts that we would like transferred to other accounts. We know where these accounts are, we have the numbers of the accounts but we do not access to the accounts. We need the transfer to be accomplished quickly and without leaving a fingerprint.”

  “A bank job?” Nathan said. “You orchestrated all this to pull a bank job? Saji thought it might be some underhanded stuff like this.”

  “There’s more to it but that really isn’t your concern.”

  Nathan looked at Cole. Cole shrugged. Nathan pinched the bridge of his nose. “So where and when do we need to do this? Saji Vy wants it handled quickly, before the media becomes aware that several hundred dead bodies in his charge have been abducted. That only leaves us a few days before families start getting indignant and complaining.”

  “First things first. I need to make sure that Arulio is who you say he is. I also need to know he can accomplish the task.”

  Kimiyo set her daiquiri down. “A minute ago you were willing to push me out of the way to fawn all over him. Now you want to test him? Give me a break.”

  “It’s nothing that complicated.” He shifted under the table and reached into his pocket. Cole held a steady gaze on him and slid his hand down likewise. Milo pulled a tablet from his pocket, noticed Cole staring at him and held it up. “Just a pocket tablet, man. No need to get jumpy.”

  “Keep your hands where I can see them,” Cole said. “Don’t reach into your pants again unless you tell me you’re going to do it.”

  Milo nodded. “Right, sorry, I keep forgetting this isn’t exactly on the up and up.”

  “That could be a problem, Milo.” Nathan tipped his glass to the young man. “If you and your outfit treat this like anything other than what it is, you could get someone hurt.”

  Milo swallowed hard. “No worries, just a slip of the tongue. Anyway, I need Arulio to perform a small proof of concept task. Just a little something to prove we can move forward.”

  “What is it?” Kimiyo said.

  Milo looked at Cole and pointed to his shirt pocket. Cole nodded. He pulled a card from the pocket and slid it across the table to Arulio’s glass of ice water. The wetjack moved the glass and picked up the card.

  “What is this?” Arulio said.

  Milo pointed at the card. “That is a betting card used by the players in this casino. When you want to bet you get one of these from the cashier and have it charged with whatever amount you want so you can wager. That car
d has exactly one Olympian dollar on it.”

  “Why?” Nathan said.

  “You can’t have a zero balance without one of the attendants hunting you down and asking to recharge it. I would like that card to be charged with ten thousand credits.”

  “From where?” Arulio said. “Is there a particular account from which you wish me to draw the funds?”

  This time Milo tapped something on his tablet and held it up for Arulio to see. “This man has an account at 7th Commercial Bank of Olympia. Draw it from there.”

  “Is this somebody you have a grudge against, Milo?” Nathan said.

  “No, I selected it at random from a list I was given.”

  “Are you sure? Because if this is some guy who stole an old girlfriend it could lead back to you and then to what we’re doing. That would be bad.”

  “I’m sure, Mr. Teller. I can’t reveal where the list came from but it’s good information.”

  “He means the maids or janitors in one of the hotels gave it to him,” Cole said.

  “Not exactly,” Milo said.

  “Yes, Milo, that’s exactly it,” Nathan said. “I hope you guys planned your getaway better than you’ve planned everything up to this point.”

  “When does this need to be accomplished?” Kimiyo said.

  “Now.”

  “Right here? At this table? This is where you want us to commit a few felonies?”

  Milo nodded. “I need to know he’s the real deal, so yeah, do it now, right here in front of me.” He looked at all of them and picked up his drink. Nathan thought that with a little pressure this guy would crack like a walnut under a hammer.

  “It’s all right, Kimiyo,” Arulio said in his soft voice. “I can do this. Just keep an eye out for anyone we wouldn’t want to see.”

  Kimiyo looked at Nathan. “Now I’m a lookout for a bank job.”

  “At this rate you’ll be a gun moll before we get home and I’ll be driving the getaway car.”

  Arulio picked up the casino card, turned it over and ran his fingers across the back. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. The wetjack sat silently for more than a minute before someone spoke.