Some lessons in life are learned the hard way.
As opposites, the mercenary Mike and the mass murderer Keelan have overcome numerous challenges together. Now, Keelan’s past has caught up with him, and they are forced to consider whether they dare trust anyone else. It’s a difficult question when Keelan’s daughter, Misery, seems to have inherited a few of her dad’s more questionable talents.
Misery wakes up to a whole new life on a ship with mercenaries. Trust is not in her nature—especially when it smells of authorities.
But they can’t handle this one alone. It’s time to pool all their resources.
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Learning the Hard Way 3
Copyright © 2017 H.P. Caledon
ISBN: 978-1-4874-1208-1
Cover art by Erin Dameron-Hill
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Learning the Hard Way 3
Learning the Hard Way Book 3
By
H.P. Caledon
Prologue
Subject: Misery’s diary
Year: 2616
Location: In route
This is the most confusing day of my life! Nothing has gone as expected since I woke up in a stranger’s bed, in a stranger’s bedroom, with a strange man taking off his clothes.
I wonder how it would have gone if I had reacted differently? If I hadn’t attacked him and stabbed him in the leg with the piece of broken antenna I had on me?
Well, this was when things took an unexpected turn. The man, who turned out to be an overfed muscle-colossus in uniform named Kaleb, scolded anyone but me. He especially scolded a blond man in a uniform, who just laughed at Kaleb.
The blond guy, whose name I learned was Mike, didn’t laugh much when I attacked him with a fork during dinner. The muscle-colossus did seem amused while holding my arms so that Mike could get the fork out of his arm without having to fight me at the same time.
The only thing I hadn’t figured out at this time was why or how I had ended up on their ship, since the only thing they’d made clear was that they didn’t intend on collecting my bounty.
Maybe I should see if I can get all this in some kind of working order. Just so I can figure out what in the worlds is going on.
I woke up and... the other version of the story was that he wanted to take his shirt off, so the lawman logos on his shirt wouldn’t scare me. Nice pick, pal! To be a fifteen-year-old girl in a strange man’s bed is bad enough—to see him take his clothes off while he thought I was unconscious didn’t sweeten the situation.
And then there was dinner.
The strangest dinner conversation. Here I was given a lesson in all the things I’d done wrong when killing the man who tried to collect me.
“No one will miss a street bitch like you, so you might as well do some good as a silver slave,” the man had said. Something in my head clicked out of place. Fingerprints on the left behind murder weapon—the broken-off handle of an old pan—was one of the mistakes. I’m supposed to bring it and toss it somewhere no one will ever find it. Check. And that I had been too close to populated areas, so my retinas had been scanned. Check. And the best one—I should’ve been armed the entire time! What’s the point in that? I could get caught with a weapon. And there are enough weapons. All you need is enough of an imagination to see the opportunities in the objects.
Ha ha, a lesson in murdering people as a dinner conversation? Basic family anno twenty-six-sixteen.
As I said—confusing day with unexpected turn of events.
What I still hadn’t understood was what they wanted, but I sensed that they wanted to take me back to the Churchburrow Institute. Then I’d prefer Orlani juvie for murder!
And this is when I attacked the blond guy with my fork.
Churchburrow. A slave farm for kids, run by a fanatically religious couple. Here I was left as a newborn by a whore of a mother and... Dad is a question never to be asked. At least, that’s what I had always been told, but one of the unexpected events made even my birth a confusing matter.
It was right after I had stabbed Mike that he began yelling at Kaleb.
What was it he said?
“I may have expressed concern about all this because her mother is terrifying, but perhaps I should have remembered that her dad is so much more competent with makeshift weapons! A frying pan, an antenna, and a fork! Who did she inherit most of her genes from, I wonder? It’s more than her daddy’s ears, that for damn sure!”
Considering what I thought I knew about my parents, you can’t really blame me for being confused after a mouthful like that.
So, dinner was cut short. I was referred to sit on the couch in the common room where we were going to try something new. Talking. A non-violent and much more productive action, as Mike called it. Running out of ideas on how to get past the muscle-colossus and... okay, the small detail that I was on a ship that I couldn’t fly and definitely not land had registered, too. So I told them my story, and they promised me one in return. A slightly different version of who my parents were.
“He, once upon a time... ” Kaleb said.
“And let’s jump ahead a bit,” Mike said.
“Like what, nine months?”
“Better.”
“Okay, Misery was born. You were born within the Churchburrow Institute and not left on the steps. Your mother was never a whore, but a fifteen-year-old girl living at Churchburrow. Your mother’s name is Alice, and she has thought about you every day since Mr. and Mrs. Churchburrow took you away from her. Four years ago, I was told I’m a dad. Your dad. I was a Churchburrow kid, too.”
The conversation became less confusing after that, but Mike did a blood test which confirmed that Kaleb really is my dad. Not really confusing when a machine says beep and puts the result up on a display. But now, lying in my own bed on a lawman ship with two mercenaries and a prisoner in cryo on board, it all still seems a bit surreal.
But it’s true, and... my dad wants to help me.
Should I apologize about the antenna and the fork?
Chapter One
Misery looked down herself, then in the mirror. Her clothes had to be washed, so for the past three days she’d used Mike’s clothes as Kaleb’s were too big. She’d managed to steal one of Kaleb’s t-shirts as a nightgown, though. Gown being the key word here. Mike’s sweatpants were still so long that she had to fold them up or they’d bag around her ankles.
She stepped out from the bathroom and heard Mike and Kaleb arguing in the kitchen. She couldn’t hear what about, but if it was privacy they wanted, they could go into the cockpit or downstairs—the two places she’d been tol
d not to go.
“No... no, I won’t do it,” Kaleb said.
“Come on.”
“No!”
“Stubborn—”
“—I’ll help you toss his ass down the ramp, but I will not set my feet on Delta Zeich’s dock!”
Silence. Mike uttered a deep and resounding sigh. Misery smiled and stepped into the kitchen, finding Mike pouting by the sink and Kaleb slumped on the wall bench.
“How long have you two been a couple? More than a few years? Because it’s obvious the first love between you is over.”
Mike and Kaleb exchanged glances. Misery shrugged and found herself some breakfast, and Mike took a seat to make room for her. Then they just sat at each end of the table, brooding.
Mike inhaled, but Kaleb was faster. “Won’t do it.”
Mike growled and glanced at Misery. “Are you just as stubborn?”
“At least.”
Mike left the kitchen, and Kaleb drummed his fingers on the table.
“I’m gonna go do the laundry. Do you have more?”
“Yeah, I gathered it in my room.”
Kaleb got up and left the kitchen, too, leaving Misery to smile at the two odd friends.
* * * *
Keelan collected his and Mike’s dirty clothes before entering Misery’s room to look at what she had gathered. More like gathered individually all over the floor. To his surprise, he discovered a small stack by the door. He collected the stack and the rest in the room, stopping short when he noticed that the t-shirt under her pillow was one of his.
He glanced at the door before smelling the shirt. It smelled of her, so maybe she slept in it. Smiling, he bundled it up with the rest.
Once in the cargo hold, he sorted the clothes and hung them on the rack while listening to the rhythmic sounds of Mike’s fists impacting on the soft leather of the boxing bag.
Keelan’s hands stopped the sorting, and he held up a bra with a B-cup.
How did she pass as a boy?
Keelan made a new stack with Misery’s clothes while contemplating how they were going to locate underwear she could fit. She certainly wasn’t going to be wearing Mike’s boxers.
In the stack of clothes, he found the answer to his question about how Misery had masked her feminine attributes—a flexible fabric that could be tied. It fit the circumference of her chest. He wondered if that was why she’d tried to hide instead of run when the bounty hunters had been after her. Maybe the chest compression had made it difficult for her to breathe enough to be able to run for long.
He continued to empty her pockets and found a white... thing. He had no idea what it was, so he pocketed it and hung the rest of the clothes in the cleaning closet, programmed it, and turned to join Mike in the training room while the gases did their job at cleaning their clothes.
Mike was stretching after his workout.
“We have a few things to work out,” Keelan said, leaning against the door frame.
“Yeah, how you’re gonna come when we deliver and cash in a bounty.”
“And where we’re gonna find Misery clean underwear.”
Mike looked up. “Okay, that one’s relevant, too.”
“And she needs to learn to empty her pockets. Do you know what this is?” Keelan held up the white cylindrical thing.
Mike smiled. “It means the dilemma of finding her clean underwear her own size might soon be very relevant,” he said, walking to Keelan.
Keelan blinked.
“It’s a feminine product,” Mike continued, and Keelan raised an inquisitive brow. “For when they bleed.” Mike made an and-so-on motion.
Keelan must have looked like a question mark, because Mike finally chuckled and made a demonstration with his hand and the thing—making a loose fist with one hand, and pushing the white thing into the fist from the bottom, adding a knowing expression.
Something clicked in Keelan’s brain, and he took the thing and put it in his pocket. Shaking his head, he wondered how he could know so little about women and their... products. Maybe he should call Alice and ask for help—she’d been a teenage girl once.
But first, Keelan returned upstairs and found one of his own clean t-shirts. He put it on Misery’s pillow and put the feminine product in the drawer of the nightstand.
* * * *
Misery sat in Kaleb’s room and looked through a few books she’d found on a shelf.
“That one is good.”
She jumped at the sound of a voice and turned to find Kaleb in the door. “I’m not a good reader,” she mumbled and put the book down.
“Only one way to get better,” Kaleb said.
Misery looked at him. “Easy for you to say. You had an education and didn’t live your life on the streets.”
Kaleb snorted. “At Churchburrow I only learned enough to be able to read their bible. The fight to learn anything else came later.” Kaleb rummaged through a stack of books at the bottom of his closet. “You can borrow this one. Good beginner level. Above mine when I started, but so what.”
“Is it any good?”
“It’s weird.”
“And that one?” She pointed to one on the table.
“I’m reading it now. It’s good.” Kaleb picked up the book. “Coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
Kaleb left the room. Misery took the book Kaleb had found for her and sat on the couch opposite him. He glanced her way and began reading his book. She scooted down to sit comfortably and glanced at him. She thought it could be nice to sit and read when he did, but she had trouble actually opening the book and beginning.
“Why do you have these old dingy paper versions?”
“Because you can find crates stuffed with them on any spaceport. And Mike says technology can’t replace a reader’s love-relationship with paper... or in this case, soy stiffened fibers. He calls them classics.”
“Instead of ancient junk?”
Kaleb nodded.
Mike came into the common room. “I’m gonna grab a shower.”
“Thanks,” Kaleb mumbled.
Mike snorted and left them.
“By the way, Misery.” Kaleb looked up. “Now that you’ve been onboard a few days, there are a few things that need to be done. One of them is to remember to empty one’s pockets, and dirty laundry is collected along with ours. It’s not allowed to just lie around the place.”
“Okay, where?”
“In the bathroom. Right closet is a hamper.”
Misery nodded, staring at the page in her book again, but she hadn’t even made it through the intro.
“And I’m guessing we need to find you some underwear,” Kaleb continued.
“Yeah, your skippies are too big.”
“And can you wear skippies... all month?”
That certainly earned him her full attention, and she felt her cheeks heat.
“I’m new in the dad-business here. Any ideas?”
“When do we land somewhere?”
“We’ll set down in a prison next time. The kind without a ladies’ department.”
“Do you have a first aid kit?” she asked, meeting his confused look. “I’ll have a look myself.”
“Good plan.”
Misery and Mike sat in the cockpit already strapped in when Kaleb joined them.
“He’s waking up.”
“Good.” Mike moved to the copilot seat. “You’re gonna land. See if you can make it into the dock, too.”
“Okay.” Kaleb punched away on the buttons and was reminded of a few by Mike.
“Didn’t you learn to fly in the military?” Misery asked.
“No, I was used for the missions where no one was supposed to see or hear me.”
“In short, all the things you don’t even talk to the commanding officer about,” Mike added.
“Assassin?” Misery asked.
“You don’t call it that when it’s under military contract,” Mike said.
“Then what’s it called?”
�
��Some are DICs, meaning they officially died in combat. Unofficially they’re just some mean sons of bitches. Then there are SOUPs which stands for stationed on unspecified planet, but they’re still on board and almost as mean as the DICs. And then there’s the last kind.”
“Which are?”
“Glitches. They’re ghosts, unregistered even in the military’s own databases but they’re registered as normal civilians with normal jobs and normal hobbies. The traces are only digital, though. And if the authorities find them dead on some planet, well, then the bureaucratic mess it stirs up. Trying to find out how a person got from one planet to another in two seconds is so overwhelming that they just hide the body and put it down to a glitch in the systems.”
“Isn’t this classified information?”
“Nah. It’s so unofficial that if they’re gonna charge me with anything, it’s telling you a white or very creative lie. Do you see the idea in that?”
“Yeah. So Kaleb, what were you?”
Mike laughed. “A big glitch in the system.”
Kaleb scowled at him. “Hang on back there, we’ll breach the atmosphere in a few.”
Misery stretched to look out the front, but it was all black. “Isn’t the ship supposed to kinda be engulfed in flames?”
“Yeah, but some engineer thought it better to shield people’s eyes when descending, and we can’t see stars and shit anyway, the windows go black,” Mike explained.
A minute later the black disappeared, and a grayish brown and dusty atmosphere came into focus. They continued their descent without conversation, but then a big rock came into view. The ship descended further into a crater and lined up with a square hole in the side of what looked like a collapsed mountain in the side of the crater.
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