“Just helped him along with some on the job training.”
Connor looked us both over and then turned away. “Maybe we should get down to business before you hurt any more of my staff.”
“To be fair, we didn’t actually hurt anyone.”
Connor ignored me and sat down. He slid a file across the desk towards me. “Here are the details for the job, and an estimate for the payment.”
“Connor, this contract is only for smuggling goods?”
“You are a smuggler, correct?” Connor said, meeting my eye.
“So I take it those goods have already been acquired, and someone will be loading them on my ship for departure?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then the payment isn’t sufficient.”
“I have thirty other pilots that are more than willing to take on this job for the price I’m paying,” he said, glaring at me as if I had just grown two heads.
“Then you wasted our time by calling us here.” I made a move to stand up.
Connor rose to his feet first motioning for me to sit back down. “Drake, come on.”
I sat down but my patience was wearing thin. We needed this job, but I wasn’t going to beg for it, and I sure as shit wasn’t going to let him underpay me for it. “If you didn’t need us to secure the cargo and bring it back, then you would have hired someone else. Someone that wasn’t smart enough to spot the deficiencies in your contract.”
“Well, you can’t blame me for trying,” Connor said with a little laugh.
“No, but I can make you pay more.”
“So how much is this going to cost me?”
I slid the disk into my holo and pulled up the file. Maze moved in next to me and started going over the details. I looked at her, and she shook her head. I held up three fingers, and she nodded. The first shake let me know that our normal strategy of doubling the price was out. We went over the data for a bit, and I waited for her to nod again in confirmation.
Knowing that she had evaluated the odds and that we could do the job was all I needed. I closed down the images on my holo and looked over at Connor. The smile he had been wearing disappeared as I began to talk. “Triple your original figure.”
“Triple, you’re out of your mind.”
“If you want the goods delivered and unharmed, you know we are worth it.”
“Fine, but if anything goes wrong with my cargo, I’ll be coming for you.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” I turned to leave and stopped just outside of the door looking back into the room. “Oh, and Connor? We’ll need fifty percent down on this one.”
“Sending it now.”
The fact that he was so ready with the payment let me know I should have asked for more. The guy hadn’t gotten where he was by offering a fair wage. We were the best in the business, and he knew it. We got up and started to walk out of the room. I’d have to remember how easy he crumbled next time we had to negotiate a contract with him.
We just cleared the door, and I was turning towards Maze when two beefy hands grabbed my coat and slammed me against the glass wall. The glass shook, and the air squeezed out of my lungs. I found myself looking into the rage-filled face of the security guard Connor had taught a lesson to, apparently the lesson hadn’t sunk in.
“You should have given me the guns.”
Jesus, was this guy still stuck on that. It’s not like it was me that kicked his ass. “Take it up with Connor.”
“I’m taking it up with you,” he said slamming me against the glass again.
“Actually, you’re going to be taking it up with her.” I looked over his shoulder at Maze and gave him a wink.
The guard slammed me into the wall again before dropping me and spinning around. I couldn’t see what happened next, but I heard the burst of electricity from the end of a shockstick and the guard fell to the ground. Maze stood over his body with a smirk on her face. When she looked up at me, her eyes were sparkling with laughter.
“What would you ever do without me?”
“Probably get slammed into a bunch more walls for starters.”
She collapsed the shockstick and replaced it on her belt. “Maybe I should have let him hit you a few times, then you might be more inclined to show the proper thanks to someone that just saved your ass.”
Maze started walking towards the elevator. I shouted towards her, “I had it under control,” before kicking the guard hard in the ribs. I had to at least leave him with a little something to remember me by. Don’t judge me, I never said I was a saint. I stepped over his still body and hurried to catch up with Maze.
Once we were inside of the elevator, I looked over at Maze and smiled. “You’re right. Sometimes I don’t appreciate everything you do.” She looked up at me one eyebrow rose in question and I couldn’t help but smile back. “It’s your own fault really. You set the bar so damn high, it’s getting harder and harder for me to be impressed.”
She leaned her shoulder against mine. “So how high is the bar?”
“Below killing space zombies and above taking out three guys at a time.”
Maze let out a little laugh. “Well, at least I know where I stand.”
The elevator doors opened, and Luthar was waiting for us. He wasn’t nearly as talkative on the way out of the building. When he opened the last door for us, he gave us a curt goodbye and slammed the door behind us. Apparently, he was taking what we did to his cousin personally. Maze and I shared a chuckle as we hopped into the first autocar available and headed back to the Talon.
Chapter 15
Captain Drake
The ship was still in one piece when we got back it, so at least something was going right. I entered the code to open the cargobay doors and commed Ice. “Get our bird ready to fly.”
“Captain, I thought you’d be longer.” There was a giggle in the background. “I haven’t had time to fully delay Kyra yet.”
“Maybe you can get in some more practice when we are in FTL.”
“Practice, as if…Hey, what are you doing?”
Kyra’s voice came over the comm. “Captain, I thought we were going shopping.” She started to giggle.
Jesus, what had those two gotten into while I was gone? I hoped that hadn’t started smoking that spiced herb from Cagnus Nine again. “Is there anything the ship needs immediately, or can we wait until our next port of call.”
“Port of call.” More giggles. “Firstly, no one says, port of call, and secondly, we will be ok as long as we have enough food stocked for the trip.”
I cut the comm to them as the giggles started again and I heard Ice mumble something dirty into Kyra’s ear. Gabe was waiting for us in the cargobay as we closed the door and started heading into the rec room. “Gabe, how are we looking on food?”
“Depends on how well you want to eat.” Realizing that wasn’t enough, he continued. “If you’re talking fresh food, we have about a week, maybe a week and a half’s worth of rations. If you don’t mind eating everything bars, then we have about a month’s worth.”
A shiver ran down my body at the thought of having to eat those damn bars. They were a step up from the rations we got in the military, but that wasn’t saying much. “It’ll have to do.”
“Maze, see if you can rouse our pilot and our engineer.” She gave me a look that could have wilted flowers. “On second thought, why don’t we let them have a little more time together?” I said it hastily and watched her to find out if I was headed in the right direction. She patted me on the back and headed towards her quarters. I picked up the weapons she had discarded and loaded them back into the armory with my own. I guess that was how things worked when you declared your love. You ended up having to do twice the work that you had to before. Did no one on this ship realize I was still the captain?
Gabe was smart enough not to say anything as I closed the armory. “Take some time to yourself, Gabe. Once we are in the air, we’ll meet in the rec room.”
“Sure t
hing, Captain.”
He walked away, and I headed down the corridor to my cabin. I opened the hatch and slid down the ladder. I stripped off my coat and turned towards my bunk before I realized that I wasn’t alone.
“If we are going to share quarters on a more permanent basis, you’re going to need a bigger bunk.”
“I don’t know, this is kind of cozy.”
“It won’t feel that way after I have to use the lav in front of you.”
“Maybe you have a point.” I started to say more but her arms wrapped around my waist and as our lips met for the first time in days, I lost track of my thoughts. Maze led me back to my bunk, stripping my clothes as we went. We slipped between the sheets, and I silently thanked Ice for the delay.
At some point, Ice got the ship back in the air and out into space. Without a heading, we were just set in a gentle orbit around the planet. That was about to change as I walked into the rec room. The crew was already assembled and waiting for me, maybe they did realize I was the captain after all. We were the best at what we did, and we were going to need all of those skills to come out on top of this job.
I tossed Ice the datacard. “Pull this up.”
She pulled up the details of the job and spread them across several large screens. I gave everyone a few moments to look over what was projected there. Ice was the first one to ask the question.
“Captain, am I missing something here? I don’t see how we can get on and off that freighter before they punch into FTL.”
“That’s the beauty of my plan.”
Ice looked at Maze. “Does he really have a plan?”
Maze just nodded her head and went back to eating. I did have a plan, it might have bordered on slightly suicidal, but it would work if we executed it right. A lot could go wrong when we tried to implement it, but as far as I could tell, it was the only chance we had. Plus if we pulled it off, we’d sail off into the black with goods, and no one would even know we had been there.
“We’ll need to get close enough to the ship that we can dock against them without anyone knowing. Then when the ship makes its jump to FTL, we board her, remove the goods and slip back onto the Talon. When the ship drops out of FTL, we break away and engage our drive back to Connor’s drop point.”
“That’s a great plan, Captain,” Gabe said.
“Yeah, except for, we can’t do it. It’s fucking suicide,” Ice said.
“Ice, are you telling me when we are in stealth that you can’t land us against the massive ship without anyone feeling it?”
“No. That I can do.”
“So your hacking skills can’t cut the mustard against some corporate fleet ship’s airlock.”
“Hacking the door won’t be the problem.”
“Then what in the hell is the issue?”
“If they discover us and detach us from the ship while we are in FTL, we could end up anywhere, and when we get there we will be scattered across space in a million little pieces. That is if we don’t get scattered into space the second the jump to FTL.”
“So we need a way to make sure they can’t detach us from the ship. Kyra will think of something.”
“I can make some kind of clamps for that,” Kyra said with a smile. “The real problem is that our stealth field is down.”
“Jesus, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did.” She put her hands on her hips. “Over a month ago.”
“So you’re saying we actually did need to go shopping.” I knew I should have pushed the issue before we took off. It was my own damn fault for wanting to get this over with so we could finally relax.
“Well, it isn’t critical most of the time. Give me two days, and I’ll think of something.”
“Ice, how long will it take us to get there?”
“Twelve hours.”
“Kyra, you’ve got twelve hours to get me stealthy. Anyone else have something to add?”
“Who’s going on the ship with you?” Maze asked.
“Gabe and the Doc, unless he has any objections.” The Doc looked a little nervous as I said his name, but he met my eyes when he spoke.
“No objections.”
“Why just the boys?” Kyra asked.
“Long term mining and shipping vessel like that will most likely be all men. Any of you would stand out like a sore thumb,” Gabe said.
“Good, cause I didn’t want to carry heavy boxes around anyways,” Maze said with a sigh. As if moving freight was the most boring job in the world.
“That’s ok, you’ve got the hardest job out of all of us.”
She hit me with a look that said it better not be that hard. “Oh, and what’s that?”
“Sitting around doing nothing.”
She tossed an apple at me. I caught it and pulled the knife from my belt cutting off a slice before flipping the apple back to her. None of us liked to stand still for long. That was why we were here. Flying around the verse, taking work where we could find it. It wasn’t time to pick a spot to settle down just yet. As long as I had Maze by my side and we were free, then everything was right in the world.
Maze kept her eyes locked on me. Finally I relented. “Ok, so it might just be possible that I have an extra uniform for you Maze, but you’re only to enter the ship if something goes wrong. Otherwise, your job will be to secure the door to the Talon and make sure it’s clear when we come back with the goods. Not to mention I bet you look cute in a baggy brown jumpsuit.” This time she threw the apple at me with a little more force.
“All right crew, we all have jobs to do. Let’s get to work.”
Ice gave Kyra a kiss and headed to the bridge. Kyra rubbed her palms against her overalls and headed in the opposite direction. I knew if anyone could get the stealth generator working again, it would be her. Without it, this plan was dead in the water. Ice would find a way to get us on that ship, and from there it was up to me to secure the cargo.
The rest of the crew followed me to the cargobay. I hit the wall to open the panel to the armory. In the back left corner, we kept a stash of different kinds of generic uniforms, just for these kinds of occasions. I pulled four of the plain brown jumpsuits out of the box and tossed them to the crew. “These don’t offer any actual protection so make sure to wear your vest underneath.” I looked over at Richard. “Doc, I’ll get you fitted with a vest in just a second.” He nodded his head. “Only light arms and stunners on this job, we don’t want to kill anyone. The entire point is to get in and out unseen.”
Moving over to where we kept our combat armor I motioned for the Doc to join me. I gave him a pair of the skin tight ballistic pants and shirt and adjusted one of the vests to fit him. The last thing we needed was for our doctor to get hurt. He might not have a lot to do on a daily basis, but if you got shot or stabbed, he became the most important man on the ship real quick.
“How are you feeling about all of this, Richard?”
“I did a little time working in a warehouse to help pay for med school. I’m pretty sure I won’t ever forget how to operate a lifter.”
“Good, and you’re not worried about coming along on your first job?”
His eyes sparkled with mischief when he looked up. “Actually I’m kind of excited. I’ve never done anything like this before.”
I patted him on the back and led him out of the armory. “I’ll call you back down here when we are ready for you, Doc.”
“See you then, Captain.” He walked back towards the medbay.
Gabe had already left, leaving Maze and me alone. I stood there looking back down the length of the armory thinking about how far along the doctor had come since joining our crew. We found him broken on a slave ship after his whole family had been slaughtered. He saved Kyra’s life and decided to join the crew. It had taken months before he joined us for meals and a year before he really came back to life. Now I almost couldn’t imagine the man we had found hiding behind that gurney.
Maze came up behind me slipping a hand around my waist. �
�What are you thinking about?”
“Just the Doc, and how he joined the crew.” Maze pulled me back against her.
“I know you don’t like to show it, but you’ve got a soft spot in there.” She patted her hand against my chest. “In a way, you helped save all of us.”
I wasn’t a savior or a messiah. Maybe I was more of wayward talent scout. More than likely, I was just lucky finding the right people, but once you had them in place, you had to do everything you could to keep them there. Somewhere along the way the people I brought on board stopped being workers and started being family, not that I wanted them to know it.
I turned around in her arms and dropped down to give her a kiss. She tasted like apples and lunar spice. My mind wandered towards my crew as we kissed. I thought about how unlikely it was that we all came together. I saw it so clearly how each person came into my life and how they decided to stay. Last of all, I saw Maze and the day we met. I didn’t know it then, but I did now. My life changed forever that day.
We broke apart, and Maze patted my chest before walking out of the armory. I loved that woman something fierce and never wanted to let her go. I looked over the armory one more time and then shut off the lights and walked out. In less than half a day we’d know if we succeeded or failed.
I dumped my gear in my bunk and changed into my workout clothes. An old guy like me had to work just a little bit harder to stay in shape. Now that I was going to be in a relationship I didn’t want to let myself slip. When I reached the gym in the back of the rec room, I almost laughed. Seemed like former soldiers had the same ideas about how to pass the time.
A little smile tickled at the edges of my mouth. There was nothing quite like walking into the gym only to find your lady there doing some kind of stretches. I figured after we got in a good workout we could curl up back in our bunks for a while. Once we were docked against the larger vessel I had no idea when we would get to sleep again. It almost felt like we were going behind enemy lines for an extended tour. We wouldn’t be able to get away until the larger ship dropped from FTL.
It was risky, but outside of storming the ship, it was our best play. We didn’t have the manpower to take over a ship that size, so it left us with the stealthy option. Now I just had to rely on the best in the business do their jobs.
Forced Compliance (The Galactic Outlaws Book 1) Page 12