Deadly Cargo (Jake Mudd Adventures Book 1)

by Hal Archer

  The air was still, though it was the shuttle’s instruments that told him that. He saw no vegetation of any kind on the planet, at least where he was headed. The ground offered only dirt and rock and sand, all the way to the horizon in every direction. No water in sight either. Hills surrounded the settlement, and beyond those, five miles out, mountains. Some of the tallest he’d seen.

  “Why the hell would anyone live here?”

  The shuttle screen marked Halcion Station with a crosshair. He turned the craft to line up with the flat stretch of dirt just behind the station. Halcion was one of the larger buildings, the same white walls he could now see were stone. Big rectangular blocks stacked three high, then the metal roof on top. Fixed to the roof, a satellite dish and an antennae array. No vehicles outside. Not around that building or any of the buildings.

  Jake took the shuttle down to land. The dust kicked up a red cloud. He couldn’t see the ground for the last sixty feet. The thud jolted him in his chair, even with the landing shocks doing their job. He figured he miscalculated the ground by about fifteen feet. Not the worst landing of his career. Still, he was thankful there weren’t people outside to see what he’d done.

  Then he saw a woman standing beside an open door of the Halcion Station building. She had one arm high above her head, waving it back and forth. Jake cut the engines and stepped to the shuttle door just as it was opening and lowering to make the ramp. He left his go bag in the shuttle next to his pilot chair, but not before pulling the atmospheric meter from it. With the shuttle door down, he held the gauge out to get a quick reading.

  All planets on the delivery route were pre-cleared for atmosphere, but Jake figured it better to find out himself instead of relying on the research of the Galactic Shipping Regulatory Agency. He heard of a few planets that bought their way into the system despite failing minimal atmospheric safety standards. Getting air toxicity sickness would put him out of work for months, and his one-man company, G.D.S., still had loan payments to make for Sarah. That's what he called the payoffs he regularly made to anyone that might be able to keep the General and his men at bay.

  “Breathable.”

  He shoved the meter into his jacket pocket, then he stepped down the ramp and out of the shuttle. He gave a wave back to the woman at the door to the station, some thirty feet away, through a haze of freshly disturbed dust. She waited for him.

  Walking away from the shuttle, he pressed the transmitter on his belt, shutting the ramp door. He made a survey as he walked toward her. Her voice had been spot on. She looked in her late twenties. Fit. Long brown hair. A refreshing change from the usual sort that he met on cargo drops, slave girls aside. Her clothing might have been a uniform. She had tan pants, form fitting, and a shirt that crossed in the front at a diagonal, two sides forming a triangular neckline. There were emblems on the shoulders, though he couldn’t make out what they were.

  The red cloud his shuttle kicked up on landing hadn’t settled. As he stepped in front of the woman, a hot wind blew across the yard behind him, throwing the red sand and grit against his back, and then all around the two of them. Before he could greet her, the wind howled and the red sand stung his face. Without saying anything, she stepped through the doorway and signaled for him to follow her inside, which he did.

  Once inside, he noticed that it wasn’t the red sand in the air that made her skin look reddish. That was its color. A muted rust sort of red. Not a sunburn, at least it didn’t look like one. It looked more like her pigment. He wasn’t surprised. He’d seen many non-human races over the years. But he was curious, he hadn’t seen her kind before. Aside from her skin, she looked human, at least what he could see of her. He wondered if he’d have a chance to check the rest out later. What sort of woman makes it in a harsh place like this. Must be something inside her. Then he thought about the cargo and the fact that he’d soon be handling a much-needed million-credit chip. Priorities.

  “Do you have the code, or do we need to wait for your father?” Jake asked.

  “He has it, but he should be here soon. Where’s the package?”

  “On the shuttle.” Jake looked for signs of distress in her face. A small precautionary test. “In my experience, it’s best to meet the point of contact for the delivery before bringing in the cargo. Especially for secure goods.”

  She walked to the other side of the room, past a table with three chairs, to a waist-high cabinet. She opened the door to the cabinet.

  “You don’t look like you’re any trouble though,” he said.

  “If you say so.” She winked at him. “Why don’t you bring the package in, I’ll make you a drink while we wait. It shouldn’t be long.”

  “Sure. If he’ll be here soon, I guess.” He hoped her father wouldn’t be there any time soon.

  He walked back to the door and opened it. A quick look outside. “At least the wind’s down. Should be just a minute.” He stepped out and hit the transmitter on his belt to open the shuttle door.

  A minute later he returned holding a small silver box by the handle on its top. He shut the door to the station just as the wind started up again.

  “I’m Nadira, by the way,” she said as she walked to the table and placed two simple metal cups on it.

  Jake moved to the table and took a seat opposite her. He placed the case on the table and put his hand on the cup, but didn’t drink. “Thanks.”

  She sat and took a sip from her cup.

  He maintained an air of ease, but he noticed the door behind her at the back of the room, not the one he had entered but another, was open just a few inches. When he’d been in the room the first time, the door was closed. He was certain. Situational awareness saved him for ten years in the merc wars. A habit doesn’t fade after that kind of history.

  “So,” he said, “what’s the drink?”

  “They call it Daedalon wine,” she said. “It’s distilled from one of the indigenous root plants in the area and fermented. It’s my favorite.”

  “You’re not from here?”

  She didn’t answer right away. A glance at the table. A sip from her cup. “Not originally,” she said. “My father and I came here when I was a child.”

  Jake kept note of the door behind her as he reached under the table and flipped open the strap that was across the grip of his pistol.

  “Try it,” she said.

  “What?”

  She nodded toward the cup in front of him.

  “Sorry,” he said, “I should have told you. I should stay away from alcohol. I had a bit of a rough night, and I don’t think my stomach could handle it right now.”

  “Oh.”

  He noticed she let slip a frown for a split second before recovering her pleasant demeanor.

  “No offense,” he said.

  “No, of course.” She got up from her chair and took his glass and hers and walked to the counter where she’d poured the drink.

  Jake watched her, and the door, and he moved his hand onto the grip of his pistol.

  He noticed her reach into her pocket, fiddling with something.

  Damn secure packages.

  CHAPTER 4

  He preferred not to have to shoot her. He thought it might be worth getting to know her. Sure, she had red skin, but she was a beauty, and not every planet he stopped on turned out so well.

  Before he could give the dilemma more thought, the door across the room flew open, and a large gray-skinned man burst in with a weapon drawn. Jake stood and stepped to the side, and at the same time flung the table up on its edge from underneath, shoving it toward the man. It was enough of a maneuver that the blast missed Jake.

  Jake aimed his pistol, already drawn by now, and fired back. His shot, even taken while moving, pierced the man through his left shoulder. Unfortunately, his assailant held his weapon in his right hand, and the energy bolt from Jake’s gun didn’t deter him. If anything, the man gained ferocity. Dressed in a uniform like Nadira’s, the attacker advanced a couple of strides toward Jake
and took aim again. But he hesitated.

  Jake noticed something in the man's gaze, the way he looked at Nadira.

  Jake stood beside her. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her raise a pistol toward his head.

  He made a quick decision to trust his instinct about what he saw. He ducked her gun and swiveled around behind her. Then he reached up and knocked her weapon from her hand. He wrapped his arm across her chest, holding her in front of himself.

  “Do it!” she screamed to the man fifteen feet away, his gun still trained on Jake.

  The man floated the barrel of his weapon, trying to get a clear shot at Jake. But he didn’t shoot.

  Jake, easily overpowering Nadira, held her so that her body blocked his. She elbowed him, but he didn’t loosen his grip.

  “Drop your weapon,” he said, fixing his aim. A courtesy. He knew from the grimace the man wore that he wouldn’t give up.

  Jake watched the events of the next second unfold, as if in slow motion. The man’s eyes narrowed. His brow furrowed. His jaw clenched.

  Then, the cue Jake waited to see. The man’s tension disappeared.

  Jake, still holding Nadira, dodged to the side, keeping her tight against himself, out of the line of fire, answering to a deep instinct.

  He heard the charge of the blaster bolt surge past his ear. Unlike Jake, the heavy gray man didn’t dodge. Jake’s aim found dead center. Aptly named. The man dropped to the floor.

  Jake took his arm away from Nadira, but turned his blaster on her.

  “Waiting for your father, eh?”

  She said nothing in response. Her eyes darted, then settled on her weapon on the ground behind him.

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” he said. He kicked her pistol farther behind him. “This is why I don’t like secure packages.”

  With his weapon still trained on her, he stepped over to the silver case on the floor. He knelt and picked it up.

  “If you don’t have the code for the case,” he said, “and he’s not going to be any help—” he pointed his gun at the dead man, and then back to her “—then this delivery is turning out to be a problem.”

  “I must have what’s in that case.”

  “I’m sorry. If you weren’t paying attention for the last couple of minutes. I don’t think that’s going to happen. Here’s the thing. I’ve been shot at plenty of times. What doesn’t happen, though, is a delivery failure. Not my drops. So, you’re getting real close to ruining my day.”

  “What are you going to do?” She worked a tear up. Maybe it was real.

  “I’m going to ask you one time, why did you two try to gun me down for the case and what did you do with the Halcion Station person or persons? Unless they’re all dead, I’m making this delivery.”

  “They’re not dead,” she said. “At least, I don’t think so. Though, they may be by now. They were taken.”

  He stepped over to the table he’d toppled and stood it back up. Then he pushed a chair next to it. “Sit down and explain, and maybe I won’t shoot you.”

  She sat. He picked up her weapon and stuck it between his belt and pants. Then he sat opposite her.

  “We’re desperate,” she said.

  "Keep talking."

  “The contents of that case are our only chance to stop the Cracians. They hunt our people, the Waudure. Some of us survived by running and hiding. But then they started the hunts.”

  “What’s in the case?”

  “I don’t know. My father wouldn’t tell me.”

  She wiped the tear. Looked real enough. He motioned for her to continue.

  “Years ago, we were brought to this planet against our will to work their mines. When the mines dried up, they didn’t need us anymore, but they didn’t want to share the planet’s resources with our people. Sending us home was too costly, they said." She paused and seemed to be feeling the events again. "There was so much death.”

  Her breath took on a staccato rhythm. He caught himself noticing how the light played with the rust brown color of her eyes through the contour of another tear in the making.

  “I’m not saying I believe one thing you’re telling me.” He holstered his pistol, “But I’ll play along for now. I’ve got a payment to collect, and you’re going to help me get it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Where’s the marker chip for this delivery? Something that valuable doesn’t just disappear.”

  She cast her eyes downward, but he still saw the tear fall. “The Cracians have it, along with my father, but far from here.”

  “So, how can I find these Cracians?”

  She looked to the man on the floor. “He was one of them.”

  Jake got up and stepped over to the body. With his right boot, he nudged the man’s face, turning it upward, to take a closer look.

  Not a rookie, he thought. A scar on his left brow. His skin lacked Nadira’s red tone. In fact, it looked drained of color entirely.

  Maybe just his kind's look.

  Years of strain and concern was etched on the Cracian's face. Now, Jake thought, they served as an epitaph to a stranger.

  Jake knelt and felt for a pocket, anything that would give him a clue about the man, about the Cracians. Nothing. He picked up the man’s weapon, but the grip felt awkward. He dropped it onto the man's chest.

  “Your partner isn’t being cooperative.” Jake turned back to Nadira. “How far are the others?”

  “He’s not my partner. And I told you it's far from here.”

  “You told him to shoot me.”

  “I had no choice! They have my father.”

  “You sounded pretty convincing when he had me under the gun.”

  “I had to keep him fooled. I agreed to help him get the case in exchange for my father’s life. I might've shown him more interest than I really felt, but I had to.”

  “That’s the problem. You’re easy to believe.”

  “They’re expecting us to return by nightfall,” she said. “Our transport pod is just outside. They’d see your ship coming, and their defenses are too strong. The pod’s the only way to get inside their base.”

  “So, what’s in the case?”

  “I already told you, I don’t know.”

  Jake walked back to the table and leaned over it, bracing himself with his hands on the table top. He came in close and looked at Nadira’s brown eyes. Her breathing was audible, and it warmed the air in front of him.

  Too easy to believe.

  She looked at him, but said nothing.

  “So, we hop into the pod you and the dead guy came here in. Then we head straight into enemy territory, with just a couple of blasters. And once there, we rescue your father, I get my payment marker, and somebody takes this damn package off my hands. And all without the Cracians capturing or killing us, or you shooting me in the back. Is that the plan?”

  “I know, it sounds crazy.”

  Jake soaked in her gaze and breathed in her words. He gave a slight nod, and an exhale that said why the hell not.

  “Works for me. I have some time to kill. Just don’t cross me again. I’ve had a rough week.”

  Nadira reached across the table and grabbed his hands. “Thank you!”

  He slid his hands out from under hers and stood upright. “Show me the pod. And you need to tell me more about the Cracians. How many are we talking about?”

  “Thousands, but I know a way to where they’re keeping my father that will get us past their defenses.” She stood. “It’s a long journey there. We must hurry. The pod’s this way.”

  “Two blasters. Thousands. If you’re leading me into a trap, darlin’, we’re not going on a second date.”

  “No trap, but I can’t promise it’ll be easy.”

  “It never is. I’m going to grab some gear and send my shuttle back up for safe keeping. Give me a few minutes.”

  “Of course.”

  Jake stopped at the door before he headed back out to his shuttle. "You know we're going to need a better plan
, right?"

  She threw every bit of allure and desperation she had into her eyes. "I just need your help."

  He left her and went back to his shuttle to retrieve his go bag. When he got there, he called up to Sarah.

  “I didn’t expect to hear from you this soon,” she said through the transmitter in the shuttle.

  “There’s been a snag down here.”

  “Nothing you can’t handle, I hope.”

  “That remains to be seen. I’m sending the shuttle back up to you for now. Send it back down in a couple of days. Same coordinates. If I don’t call in then, give me another day or two before you celebrate.”

  “So, push the next delivery out a few days?”

  “It can’t be helped. Besides, with the money we’ll get on this one, we could take a month or two off without worrying about it.”

  “You’re the boss. What’s the problem, anyway?”

  “It’s complicated. They’ve got my payment marker, so I’m going to retrieve it.”

  “There’s a girl involved, isn’t there?”

  “Just business, darlin’. I’m sending the shuttle back up in a few minutes.”

  “Ok. But don’t die down there.”

  “Not my plan.”

  CHAPTER 5

  "C an we trust her?" The slender man with reddish skin addressed Kharn with his head bowed, eyes averted. The man wore a uniform, gray and unassuming, a single insignia on the right lapel of his buttoned coat. A circle containing a section of a DNA double helix spread apart at one end, each diverging strand merging into the surrounding circle, the insignia marked him as a member of Crassus Kharn's science service.

  Roles were assigned to all in Kharn's grand experiment, the society he'd built on Daedalon after leaving the Cracian home world under threat of execution. On Daedalon, Cracians, and those Waudure that stayed loyal to him, became scientists, soldiers, or one of a small group of administrators that served Kharn. The system was necessary, Kharn had decided, to advance his cause — the rise of Cracians to their collective destiny.