Pirates of the Outrigger Rift

by Gary Jonas

A dark shadow passed over them with a deafening roar. A spaceship soared just over their heads, matching their speed. From out of nowhere, light flashed as a blaster beam shot out from the ship at the black sedan. The vehicle exploded and flaming chunks of twisted metal rained down to the ground.

  “What was that?” Sai asked.

  “Elsa, of course,” said Hank. “She’s a talented little cybernetic wench. Here we go!”

  Light from the tractor beam bathed them as it locked on. Slowly they were pulled into the ship’s empty hold.

  “Hey! I thought you said you needed to refuel.”

  “I lied.”

  “Why, Sergeant Cox, fancy seeing you here.” Chandler stood over the prone, bleeding, and nearly naked security officer. “You working undercover? Trying to act like a guy who got his ass kicked and his pants stolen?”

  “Ugh—what happened?”

  “How the hell should I know? I was on my way back to my ship and I saw you lying in the alley, so I stopped to check on you.”

  “The girl? Where is she?”

  “You don’t let up, do you? I told you before. I don’t know the girl,” Chandler said. “Is this some sort of interrogation tactic? Am I supposed to feel sorry for you or something? Because it ain’t working. I’m trying hard not to laugh at your sorry ass.”

  “No, you idiot! This girl was here. She did this—”

  Chandler chuckled. “That little girl from that bar did this to you? I don’t know where you’re from, mister, but in my neighborhood we don’t admit to having our asses kicked by a one-hundred-and-twenty-pound girl.”

  Cox groaned and rose shakily to his feet.

  “Is there someone I can call for you? A cop? Oh, that’s right, you are a cop. Maybe your mommy? Heh, heh.” Chandler walked toward his ship. “I’d get some pants if I were you. Some of these starport bums might take that as an invitation to bend you over. Unless you’re into that sort of thing.”

  Chandler stopped, looked back, and smiled. “Oh, thank you for guarding my ship. I’ll pass on a good word to Lord Randol about you and your men.”

  Cox made rude hand gestures at him as Chandler walked away. Idiot. At least the girl was able to get away, but Cox had managed to bungle the exchange. Still, the girl knew where to go. She would be safe under Randol’s protection, and it freed Chandler up to pursue details on Helen’s abduction. He used some of Randol’s credits to make that task a little easier. His first step was going to be meeting this Vincent Maxwell that he’d heard so much about.

  Maxwell was going over corporate reports with an analyst when the door to his office flew open and an angry woman wearing a Confed uniform stormed inside. Maxwell’s secretary entered behind her with an apologetic look on her face.

  “Vincent Maxwell,” the Confed officer said. “We need to talk.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” the secretary said. “I tried to stop her.”

  “It’s all right,” Maxwell said. He turned to the analyst. “Go back over this again, and bring it back in fifteen minutes.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the analyst. He took his notescribe and moved around the Confed commander.

  When the secretary closed the door, Maxwell faced the commander. “As you can see, I’m very busy. What can I do for you?”

  “My name is Commander Joann Montgomery, and I’m here to find out what the hell you’re doing.” Her eyes burned like fusion fire and she ground her teeth so hard, Maxwell half expected them to crumble in her mouth.

  He gave her an unflappable expression. “I was going over a sales report.”

  “Your corporate goons blew up half a city block on Raken! We’re still counting the injured and the dead.”

  “We had reports of—”

  “That is not a corporate sector! You have no jurisdiction there.”

  “Look—”

  She was having none of it. “In addition, I have three people confirmed dead at Tyree’s, several injured, and damage to a building across from the Bryant Hotel. Your corporate squad has no authority for any of this and you’ve been dodging my calls all afternoon.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “No shit. You keep your corporate security teams out of our territory. The spacer’s guild is shitting peach pits over this. You’ll be getting a bill for all the damages your men have caused.”

  Maxwell glared at her. “Listen here, Commander. If your Confed people would do their jobs, my men wouldn’t need to go to the free zone starport sector. You’ve done nothing to stop Thorne or any of the other pirates, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you come into my office and stomp around like you own the place.”

  “You’ve got no right to criticize. We’ve been doing all we can. You’ve got a security leak in this corporation that you could steer a battlecruiser through. We’ve tried to get you to cooperate on covert action, but time and again you’ve refused.”

  “Director Casey refused. Not me. And if I have a lead, I’m going to run after it and I don’t care if you get your regulation panties in a wad over it.”

  “I’ll have your job for this, you insufferable little prick.”

  “Someone stole some data from us, and we were trying to get it back. Your people ignored our calls for assistance, so you’d best get down off my ass or I’ll have your job.”

  “You can’t blow up buildings and kill people with impunity. You put a leash on your people now, because if any of them set foot in our territory again, I will arrest them and dump them in a deep, dark hole. And then I’ll be coming after you. Do you understand me?”

  Maxwell smiled. “Oh, I understand. Now, you write this down because you won’t want to forget it: I’ve already pulled back my corporate security. I’ve put forward a reward for the capture of the fugitives, so hopefully someone else will bring them in, but if you ever come into my office again throwing empty threats at me, I’ll label you an enemy of the corporation.” He stepped up close to her, invading her space. “Do you know what happens to enemies of the corporation when they’re on corporate property?”

  Montgomery blinked. The look in her eyes told him she did know, but he wanted to drive it home for her.

  “As an enemy of the corporation here on corporate property, you lose all rights, and you’re taken down for a full deconstructive brain-scan to ensure you don’t have any corporate secrets locked away. By the time we’re done, you won’t be able to spell your name, assuming you even remember it. By the time your bureaucratic buffoons at the Confed manage to cut through all the red tape to get you back, all that will remain of your pompous ass is a drooling mass of human flesh. Meanwhile, I’ll draft a sincerely apologetic memorandum about mutual cooperation and communication breakdowns and you’ll be put in a Confed home with the rest of the basket cases. Don’t fuck with me, Commander. I mean it.”

  She swallowed hard.

  He remained in her space, his eyes burning into hers. After enough time passed without comment he whispered, “You’re dismissed.”

  Hank and Sai hustled inside the ship, sealing the hatch and making their way forward to the cockpit. Hank sat down in the pilot's seat and fastened his G-harness. “You’d better strap in.”

  Hank didn’t speak again until the ship broke free of Raken’s atmosphere and the artificial-gravity field kicked in. Then he unbuckled and spun in his chair to face Sai.

  “Okay, where to?” Hank asked.

  “The Trent System,” Sai answered.

  Hank ran the coordinates through Elsa. “All kidding aside, we are definitely going to need a fueling stop along the way.”

  “I have enough credits for that.”

  “Being on the run and all, the destination surprises me. That takes us back coreward into Manspace. I’d be headed toward the Outyonder. Okay, now the tricky part. Why?”

  Sai took a deep breath. “I’m paying you well enough that I shouldn’t have to answer any questions.”

  “Maybe so, if this were some leisurely cruise, but I had to kill three men down there. That ma
kes me part of this for good or for bad. I guess I’m just stupid, but I threw my lot in with you. I do that sometimes. Call it a character flaw. But now that we’re in this together, you owe me an explanation, lady, and a piece of the action.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Everything boils down to money. If someone is willing to foot the bill for a hit team to take you out, then you must be worth the effort.”

  Sai laughed. “You want a cut, you got it. But if I tell you what I’ve got, you’ll regret it.”

  “Try me.”

  “I believe that I have an answer to the riddle that Nebulaco would pay a year’s profit to solve. I have the goods on the person behind every major hijacking and caravan raid against Nebulaco for the past three years.”

  “Thorne?” Hank said.

  “You got it.”

  Hank slumped in his chair. “Crap. We’re dead.”

  EPISODE THREE

  CHAPTER NINE

  Read that transmission back to me again,” Hank Jensen said. He stood rubbing his temples, leaning on the back of his pilot's chair.

  “Fifty-thousand-credit reward for information leading to the apprehension of Sai Collins, wanted for theft, assault, and espionage. Last seen leaving the Raken System traveling with Hank Snow Jensen, free-trader and known petty criminal. Authority Vincent Maxwell, Director, Nebulaco Security Service.” Elsa’s synthesized voice echoed in the cockpit.

  Hank shook his head. “Petty? Really? Never.”

  “I would have assumed you’d be more upset about the criminal part,” Sai said. “Or maybe the price-on-our-heads part.” She sat sideways across the copilot's seat, swinging her booted feet back and forth nervously.

  Hank shrugged. “We’ve all done a few things, but petty? I find that insulting. That and I can’t tell you how mad I am that they used my middle name. I never use it. Now everyone is gonna call me Snowman, and Snow Job, and God knows what else.”

  They were en route to Trent with the Elsa straining for as much speed as she could manage. They were on track to reach a refueling stop on an outpost planet called Jonesy in about six hours, but to Hank, it couldn’t be soon enough.

  “I suppose I shouldn’t care since, after all, we’re dead as sure as if the necrocytes were gnawing at our bones. That broadcast was sent to every ship and port in this sector. I should have known better. Never trust a pretty face.” He sat down heavily and bent over the navigation station to verify their position.

  “I’m not going to say I told you so,” Elsa’s voice droned.

  “Well, that’s great, because it wouldn’t help and it would just piss me off.”

  Sai frowned and pointed a finger at Hank. “All I need from you,” she looked upward, “either of you, is a ride from planet A to planet B, no special favors. You don’t have to involve yourself any further. Someone asks questions, you just tell them you don’t know anything.”

  “Do you honestly think that they’d let it go with that? Nebulaco put a price on my head, so I won’t be able to do business anywhere in this sector, and Thorne surely won’t let anyone live who knows his secrets.”

  “Technically, the price is on my head. Still, the data is secured and untouched. I haven’t opened the courier package.”

  “They won’t care. They’ll fry you—and me. Don’t think that hiding in the Outyonder will last long, what with everyone after you. Greed is universal. Besides, Trent is in the wrong direction. We’re heading into Manspace. More regulations, better customs screening.”

  “I have a plan,” Sai said.

  “You’d better have a good one because from here things don’t seem to be working so well,” Hank said.

  “Really? Well, genius, what would you do?”

  “Well, for starters, since we’re both effectively doomed anyway, why don’t you tell me the truth—all of it. The whole story from start to finish. Maybe we can figure a way out of this mess together.” Hank looked deeply into her eyes. “I’m not going to abandon you. We just need to focus and figure out what to do.”

  Sai considered it for a moment. She was always hesitant to trust others. But, in spite of his arrogant, childish ways, she truly liked Hank. She knew he wasn’t afraid of a fight and from what she’d seen, he was a great pilot. She needed an ally.

  “Okay,” she said, “but I don’t think it’ll help.” She stood, and she paced as she talked, her arms folded. She told him about her new life on Nebula Prime, getting the job at Nebulaco that seemed like a windfall, obtaining the datastore from Kendrick, and the failed exchange after Hank had transported her to Raken. Finally, she told him about going to see Dirion.

  “So this Dirion guy, he’s an oracle?”

  Sai nodded. “He was. He’d been on Raken for over forty years. He had a massive network established. Everyone came to him when they needed help—” Her voice cracked. Tears welled up in her eyes. “I’m sorry—it’s just that, for all practical purposes he was my father.” She was angry at herself for crying in front of a stranger, but that only made the tears harder to stop.

  “He took me off the streets when I was a kid. He knew I was a cyber-psi before I did. I couldn’t have figured it out without his help. He helped me develop my gift, made me believe I could be somebody.”

  “Just one second,” Hank said. He reached under the pilot’s console and opened a panel, withdrawing a cold canned beverage. “You want a beer?”

  Sai nodded and wiped a tear from her eye.

  “Here you go,” he popped the top and handed it to her, then opened one for himself and took a drink. “So what exactly is on the datastore?”

  “I don’t know. It’s still sealed.”

  “Then how do you know it’s full of Thorne’s secrets?”

  “I trust Dirion. I think he came to that conclusion based on the identities of the interested players, the involvement of Nebulaco, the ferocity of the response. It’s somehow also tied into the recent death of Nebulaco’s former security director.”

  Hank silently let the words sink in for a moment then took a sip of his beer. “So what’s your plan?”

  “Well, actually it’s Chandler’s plan. He said if I couldn’t make the drop, I should go to Trent and give the information to Lord Randol.”

  “And this lord is going to offer you protection?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” Sai said. “But it seems like my best shot. He’s the one Chandler was working for. Since Nebulaco has been hit so hard by piracy, it makes sense that he would be eager to get the datastore. The other thing is that it would be hard for the Security Service to say that I was trying to steal data when I turned it in to a lord.”

  Hank grumbled to himself for a few minutes. Randol was known to be on the lighter side of crazy … for a lord. “Well, it is what it is. We’ll be at Jonesy soon, and from there it’s not that far to Trent. I’m good with your plan for now.”

  “In the meantime,” Sai said, “you wouldn’t object if I picked up a little around here, would you? Because it’s either that or I’ll have to spend the rest of the trip in the airlock. I could stand the short trip to Raken, but this place is too filthy to endure longer than that.”

  “Suit yourself, but it’ll just get dirty again after you clean it—and don’t move any of the stuff in my cabin! I have it all organized.” With that he finished his beer, crushed the can on his head, and tossed it into the corner with the others.

  “Hank, if I had hands I’d slap you,” Elsa said.

  “What did I say?”

  Chandler had to admit that he liked working for Randol. It carried with it certain perks and privileges. He was able to use the corporate holo communication system at no cost and Randol had paid for Chandler to install a unit in his ship; it was work related after all. He needed to be in many places at the same time in order to press his investigation as quickly as possible.

  Randol set up a meeting with Vincent Maxwell, who would never have given Chandler an appointment otherwise. The quality of the holo unit w
as fantastic. It was more than just a projection. It was a virtual-reality unit, transmitting sight, sound, and even touch to Chandler’s senses. Walking toward the security director’s desk, he felt and heard his footsteps echo as if he were actually physically present on Nebula Prime.

  He took a look around him. The office was designed more for show than for work. The art was the sort that people said they liked because it was tasteful. Chandler thought it was god-awful ugly, like gilded turds. The music wasn’t much better.

  Maxwell sat reclining behind his oversized desk, bathed in a pool of soft light, waiting for Chandler to approach. The rest of the room was shadowy except for spots of illumination here and there that made the shitty art look even worse.

  Maxwell was just the type that annoyed Chandler by breathing. He exuded a smug, superior attitude that made you want to knock out his pretty white teeth. Chandler took an immediate dislike to him.

  He displayed those teeth in a salesman’s smile when Chandler finally reached the desk. Maxwell stood and made a slight bow. “Good to meet you, Detective.”

  Chandler looked at him like he was a dead rat. “Charmed. I suppose you know why I’m here.”

  Maxwell casually sat back down. “Yes. Lord Randol seems to think that a fresh perspective might be of help in our investigation.”

  Chandler planted his holographic butt on Maxwell’s stylish desk.

  Maxwell’s smile strained.

  Chandler looked closer at Maxwell. The tanned complexion, the touch of gray at the temples, the suit that cost more than Chandler’s annual income. Yeah, it was official, Chandler decided. This guy was an asshole.

  “You don’t agree?”

  “I don’t have to, Mr. Chandler. I serve the corporation.”

  “Then I suppose Randol has already explained to you that he expects you to cooperate.”

  “He encouraged me to help you, but you must understand that although Lord Randol is a member of the Council of Lords, he does not—”