“Let it go, Kinty,” Jack said. “There’s time for that later.”
“Sure there is,” Cole said. “You ever forgive him for shooting you back on Olympus?”
“Yeah,” Nathan said. “I’ve been wondering about that. How did you survive? I saw him put a couple rounds into you and your suit and you lit up like flare. How are you standing here?”
“He only popped the suit, not me,” Jack said. “The regeneration unit in the suit and painkillers are doing their job.”
“That is some amazing technology.”
“It gets the job done.”
He looked at Kimiyo on the ramp. “Does your friend over there have any more biologic weapons? We’re not being exposed to anything right now are we? No exotic virus this time?”
“She’s got a rifle this time. I think you’re safe.”
Bonto came running out of the temple. He was moving fast, breathing hard, like he didn’t do it very often. He ran up to Jack and held up a pair of plastic cuffs.
“They’re gone, Jack.
“Where?”
“I found a girl who admitted to cutting them free. She said they ran off together, out the other side of the temple, toward that small town below.”
Jack turned to Nathan. “You playing games?”
“He was in there when we left. That’s all I can tell you,” Nathan said.
“No one is leaving here until I get that money back.”
“Can’t happen, man,” Nathan said. “It was taken from that account and transferred into lots of smaller accounts. When I found out who the money belonged to I tried to have it transferred back. The wetjack couldn’t do it. It’s in too many different banks. He could never get them all.”
Atomic Jack looked at the temple and breathed heavily. Nathan could hear it through the speaker on the suit’s helmet. “He had to have been planning this for a while.”
“Obvioulsy,” Nathan said.
“Was his plan to get away on your ship? Is he on there now? Are you playing me? Trying to make a fool of me?”
Nathan held up the rifle. “Calm down there, chief. We were hired to deliver the wetjack and escort the crew back to their vessel. Giving Montario a ride wasn’t part of the deal. He had to have a plan for getting away, one that didn’t involve us. There’s no more shuttles on the landing pads either.”
“I want to look on your ship, make sure he isn’t hiding there.”
“He’s not,” Celeste said.
“What would you know about it?” Jack said. “Weren’t you being held hostage here?”
Nathan looked at her. “Did he say something while you were here? Did he say anything that would lead us to where he is going?”
Celeste blushed. “No, he didn’t say anything. It’s just that earlier he was heading out the front of the temple when we saw him with his bag packed. He wasn’t coming to the landing pad.”
“I want to see inside your ship,” Jack said.
“Not today,” Nathan said. “We’re leaving. I’ve told you who you’re looking for and told you what went down. My people are out of here. Celeste, get aboard. Then you Kimiyo.” Nathan lifted the rifle, pointed it Jack and said, “I’ll hit more than just the suit if you try to stop us.”
They heard a rumble then, the distinctive sound of a ship lifting off. All of them turned toward town. Atomic Jack stepped out from under the Blue Moon Bandit and Nathan followed him, keeping the rifle pointed at him. A small ship was shooting into the sky, screaming as it shot through the atmosphere.
“That isn’t coming from the regional spaceport,” Nathan said. “It’s on the other side of town. I saw it on the way in.”
Jack fumed. “There was a private strip in that direction. We saw it when we circled the area. I think there was a small ship.”
“That’s got to be your guy,” Nathan said. “Looks like you have a choice to make. Are you going to keep screwing around with us or go after him?”
“Damn it!” Jack said.
“I don’t ever want to see you again, Jack,” Nathan said. “My crew and I are off your list. You want the guy who stole your money, go find him. We’re going to go finish our job. Oh, and you’re square with Richie.”
Atomic Jack seethed but there was little he could do. He turned to Kinty and Bonto. “Get back on the ship.” He pointed at the ship speeding away. “That’s our man. Let’s go.”
They moved off toward their ship, running as fast as they could. Nathan watched them go, making sure they didn’t pull anything as they left. Celeste and Kimyo were aboard and Cole stood beside him.
“Are we going home, Nathan?”
Nathan nodded. “Yeah, let’s go. I’ve had enough of this place.”
He jerked a thumb toward the dead men at the rear of the ship. “What about Jack’s guys? The ones we shot?”
Nathan looked at them. They were half visible, their suits in disarray after they were shot. “Let the Children of the Apocalyptic Rainbow deal with them. They weren’t part of the job.”
They climbed the ramp and closed it behind them.
28.
Marla had them rocketing skyward as soon as the rear landing ramp was closed. Nathan walked up to the cockpit and checked the course to the Charon and got an ETA. He made his way back to the galley and stood in the doorway. The room was crowded with his crew and the crew of the Charon. He saw Captain Geechy was awake and sitting at the table. He had a blanket around him and was sipping a mug of coffee. Celeste saw Nathan and she walked over to him.
“How’s your skipper?” He asked.
“Sobering up,” she said. “Duncan gave him a shot of something and that scary woman with the gun gave him some coffee.”
“Kimiyo.”
“Yeah, her.” She looked over everyone seated around the table and standing in the galley. “This is a big crowd for this ship. I saw you go up to the cockpit. Do you have an ETA to the Charon?”
“Twenty-five minutes. We’ll get you there and make sure she’s spaceworthy.”
She nodded. “I hadn’t thought about that. I hope those kids took care of her. I have to tell you, the Charon is not the most well maintained ship I’ve ever served on. Saji Vy doesn’t like to spring for a lot of new parts.”
“I’ll have Duncan and Richie help your crew. Cole and I will go first, though. That Montario guy said he had some people on board maintaining things. I want to make sure they don’t give us a hard time.”
She smiled. “Thanks. I notice you got Duncan a helper.”
“He’s needed one for a while and we’re doing well enough now to bring someone aboard.”
“That’s good to hear,” she said. “I was worried when I left that things would go south. Nice to see you’ve managed to keep things flying along.”
“We’re not helpless, you know. We are the premiere starship repossession company in Go City.”
She smirked. “You’re the only one.”
Nathan shrugged. “It’s a niche market. We fill a need.”
Twenty minutes later Nathan and Celeste watched Marla match the velocity and heading of the Charon. Celeste had been right about the condition of the ship, Nathan noticed as he looked over the hull. It was pitted and scarred with welds and rivets holding patches in place. He turned to Celeste. “You jump that past light speed?”
“Look, I’ve been through some stuff here, okay? You don’t need to tell me how bad the ship looks. I fly it every day.”
Marla turned to Nathan. “What do you think the Blue Moon Bandit would look like if Duncan didn’t work as hard he does? Sounds like you and this Saji Vy have a lot in common.”
“I’m getting ganged up on, here,” he said. “Okay, Marla, swing us around the long axis. I want to see if anyone else is here.”
Marla goosed the thrusters and they eyeballed the Charon. There was no shuttle docked with it. If the Children of the Apocalyptic Rainbow were aboard they didn’t have a ride home.
“Where’s the best place to dock, Celeste?”
Marla asked.
“There’s a small loading bay but our shuttle is in there. Swing around over the top. There’s a standard hatch amidships. We can go in there.”
Nathan went back into the galley and grabbed Cole. “You ready? We’re here.”
Cole nodded. He hefted a shotgun. “Nonlethal rounds. You want one?”
Nathan shook his head. “I can’t see where I would be any better of a shot than you. Besides, I think the kids are gone. I bet they got a call the moment we left the surface.”
They felt their ship dock. Nathan turned to the crowd around the table. “Captain Geechy, we’re going to inspect your ship. When we’re satisfied it’s secure, I’ll call for you and your crew.”
Geechy nodded. “Take Celeste with you as a guide.”
“I was already going, Cap.”
The inside of the ship smelled musty and the lights were low. Celeste accessed a control panel and called up the environmental controls. Fresh air began to flow and the lights grew brighter. “I don’t think anyone has been aboard for a few days,” she said. “I’ll bet they were living on their shuttle.”
“Given the cargo, I’m not surprised no one wanted to stay aboard,” Nathan said. “What’s the best way to search? Stern to bow?”
She nodded. “This isn’t a complicated ship. Engines in the rear third, then the cargo holds then the bridge and living quarters.”
“Okay, then,” Nathan said. “Let’s have a look.”
The engine room was empty. Nathan noticed it was in serviceable condition but nothing special. They passed the atmospheric generators and emergency batteries and then came to a door marked with a large black “A”.
“What’s in here?” Cole said.
“What do you think?” Celeste said.
Cole drew back from the door. Celeste laughed. “Come on you big baby. They don’t bite.” She pushed through the door and stepped into the hold. Nathan gestured to Cole. “You have the gun. Shoot anything that moves and isn’t one of us.”
“Right.”
They moved in behind Celeste. She hustled ahead, moving at a good clip. Nathan looked around him. The hold was chilly, the temperature was probably around zero centigrade. A thermometer on the wall confirmed that for him. There were rows of coffins stacked neatly in custom shelving. The hold was arranged to hold bodies three high, each row was ten coffins long, thirty bodies to a row. There were five rows in this hold, Nathan counted.
“This is creepy,” Cole said.
“Yeah,” Nathan said.
“Two more holds to go, guys. Hurry up.”
They moved to catch up to Celeste and moved through the last second hold, marked “B”. The last, “C” was almost empty. “You didn’t have a full load this time out?” Nathan said.
“We rarely do anymore,” Celeste said. “It seems like fewer people are opting for a burial back on Earth. It’s expensive and it takes us a month to do a circuit so some families don’t like the wait.”
Cole moved ahead of them, pushing the door open. “Is this the door to the living quarters?”
“It is,” she said. “There’s another access corridor so you can reach the engine room without going through the holds but we needed to do the search.”
“Well let’s make sure we use the access corridor to get back to the hatch,” Cole said. “I’m not going back through there.”
“I remember you being tougher,” Celeste said.
He pushed a cabin door open and looked around. “It’s got nothing to do with courage. It’s a bad luck thing. Those folks don’t want me disturbing their eternal rest.”
“Are you serious?” Celeste said. “Are you superstitious?”
“Think about everything we’ve done,” he said. “All the scrapes we’ve been through, all the tight spots we’ve squeezed out of. You think that was all skill? Not me. I’m not getting my Karma all screwed up by disturbing the dead. Uh-uh. Those people earned their peace. I’m not disturbing them.”
“Is he serious?”
“Sure is,” Nathan said. “I’ll tell you something else, right now I’m in total agreement with him. You may be used to treating the dead like boxes of vegetables but I’ll be happy when we’re off your ship.”
Cole nosed into a cabin at the end of the corridor. “This the last one, Celeste?”
“That’s it. The bridge is just up those stairs.” She moved to go up but Cole beat her to it. He climbed the stairs two at a time and went in. She followed and Nathan brought up the rear.
It was empty.
Celeste sat down at the controls and checked them. Nathan looked over her shoulder. “It’s all automated,” she said. “They set the auto pilot and it doesn’t look like they messed with anything else.” She made some adjustments and started bringing things back to manual control. “If you want to get Captain Geechy and the others we can probably be underway in an hour.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Cole said.
“Is this where you were when you got boarded?” Nathan said.
“Yeah, it was my shift. Not a lot to do, you know. The ship pretty much flies itself. Even this ship.”
“How did they do it?” he asked. “You were probably moving pretty fast. How did they make you stop?”
Celeste stared at the control panel and continued checking statuses. “I really don’t know. The systems went dead, even gravity, and then we got pulled out to their shuttle.”
“You didn’t have to brake? I saw their shuttles. I wouldn’t have thought they could catch a ship moving at speed.”
“Well, they did,” she said. Her shoulders hunched. “Look, it wasn’t my proudest moment, okay? It was just another failure in a long list of failures. You know, I don’t know what I’m going to do after this.”
“What do you mean?”
“Flying this tub is the bottom of the ladder, Nathan. It’s the end of the line. The list of pilot jobs available after you’ve been fired from flying dead bodies around is abysmally short.”
“You don’t know you’ll get fired.”
“You met Saji Vy. Can you imagine him keeping me on? Do you know how big of an embarrassment this incident would have been for him? There’s nothing left but the termination notice delivered by a middle manager who is probably already hunting for my replacement.”
“Maybe you could come back to work for me.”
Her head drooped further. “I don’t want your pity. Besides, you have an excellent co-pilot. Marla has great skills.”
“I could ask around.”
She shook her head. “You know what? Just give me a moment here, okay? Let me just deal with this.”
He put his hand on the back of her seat, unsure of what to do next. Finally, he left the cockpit and went to check on the engineering crew.
The ride home to earth took a little over two days. They kept things slow so the Charon could keep pace with the Blue Moon Bandit. To Nathan and Duncan’s mutual surprise the body barge stayed in one piece during the transit through the warpgate back to the Sol system. They cleared Neptune, made a light speed jump and arrived in Earth orbit fifty hours after departing Port Solitude.
Captain Geechy and his crew oversaw the unloading of the Charon. Grateful families were happy to receive their loved one’s remains. The ship was only a couple days late arriving so nothing was mentioned in the press. Celeste offered to explain things to Saji Vy in person when she learned Nathan would be meeting with him. Captain Geechy asked her to stay aboard the Charon. “If anyone has any explaining to do,” he said, “it’s me. I’ll be seeing the big man tomorrow. The meeting is already set.”
Nathan and Marla took the Blue Moon Bandit back to the spaceport in Go City and landed in the berth Nathan leased. He left her, Richie and Cole to do the post-trip work on the ship and called a taxi for himself, Duncan, Kimiyo and Arulio. The van took them directly to Saji Vy’s office in the downtown business district.
The building was impressive; about seventy stories tall, formed from dark,
charcoal colored glass with a smoky tint and chrome trim. It was different from the residential building where their first meeting had taken place but no less impressive. Nathan led the way in. It was afternoon on a Tuesday so business foot traffic in the lobby was heavy. Kimiyo produced an ID badge and whisked them past the security desk and up an escalator. The second floor held access to a bank of high speed elevators and Kimiyo led them to one. She stopped a man in a suit from joining them by holding out her hand and saying, “Private car.” Nathan noted the clean, pressed suit she had changed into after re-entry and realized she was at home in this corporate environment. She waved her badge in front of a reader in the elevator and pressed 70. The elevator raced up.
At the top they stepped into a suite of offices that Nathan could only marvel at. His own store front office was barely a closet compared to Saji’s digs. The décor was modern, tasteful and didn’t seem to reflect Saji’s own eclectic tastes. He got the feeling Saji hired a decorator based on reputation and accepted whatever they said was a good look. A young woman who might have been a model was sitting at reception. It was real girl, too, not a hologram construct like you saw in many offices. His musings were interrupted when a large security guard in a sharp suit stepped out to meet them in the lobby.
Kimiyo held out her hand, “Andre, how nice to see you.”
“He’s in his office, Kimiyo,” the giant said. “Do you need an escort?”
She smiled. “I know the way, thanks.”
Kimiyo pushed through a door to the right of the receptionist desk. Nathan took a last look at the woman behind the desk and followed Kimiyo. She walked down a long hall to the double doors at the end. The doors swung open by themselves before she could knock. Nathan smiled at the little bit of theater and followed Kimiyo into Saji’s office.
The billionaire was behind his desk seated in a large chair. He looked as small and shriveled as Nathan remembered. He gestured for them to sit down in the chairs on the opposite side of the desk. Nathan gestured for Kimiyo to sit first and then he and Duncan followed. Arulio remained standing.
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