by Jessie Kwak
Starla tries to climb down, but her feet slip off the rungs as the ladder tips backwards by degrees, faster and faster until it’s gone horizontal with a crash against the balcony. The impact breaks the last of her grip.
Starla falls.
Chapter 16
Jaantzen’s yelling as the Alliance woman — she can only be Mahr — takes aim at the ragged figure on the ladder. But he’s too far away, and his shot skims past her when the charge from her own weapon jolts her out of its path. He ducks for cover as the guard beside her turns and fires. Nayar’s ended up on the opposite wall, taking cover behind a stack of crates.
The plasma carbine leaves a smoking black char on the asphalt beside him — apparently the Alliance version of this weapon has gotten a boost beyond what Jaantzen is familiar with. Nayar leans out from cover and fires, but her shot goes wide, and she’s rewarded by a charge from the carbine that ignites the contents of the crates she’s hiding behind.
Someone is screaming. High above the battle scene. And Jaantzen watches in horror as the lanky teen girl who can only be Starla Dusai clings to the shrieking wreck of a metal access ladder as it rips from the building and twists on itself with a stuttering pop of rivets. The slow fall picks up speed until her grip is torn free and she falls a full story to the ground below.
He fires at where Mahr had just been standing, a second earlier, and hits nothing.
A minor avalanche of crumbling bricks and twisted metal is raining down around the girl. He can’t tell if Starla is moving.
He also can’t tell where Mahr ducked to hide, but the guard with the plasma gun is in a doorway, and he’s raised the weapon to fire at Ximena Nayar once more.
Jaantzen can’t get a clear shot from his corner.
He bellows and charges out from hiding, only faintly aware of Nayar following his lead.
The guard pivots, squeezes the trigger, but one of Jaantzen’s slugs catches him in the shoulder and it jerks the carbine off target, the blast sizzling past Jaantzen’s sleeve with a stench of charred wool. Jaantzen’s next slug goes between the guard’s eyes.
Searing agony catches Jaantzen in the ribs, left side, and he bites down on the pain, whirls to face Mahr, her hiding place betrayed by the shot she took at him.
Somewhere through the rush of blood in his ears he hears Nayar yelling, and in the split second before he pulls the trigger he hears her and drops his aim from chest to belly.
Lieutenant Mahr falls back against the wall, hands clenched and bloody around her gut.
“I’ve got her,” Nayar says behind him. “Get to the girl.”
Jaantzen glances at his comm. An alert from his biosilk chest armor tells him that he’s been shot — Thank you, technology — and that he’s broken a rib. It also tells him he doesn’t seem to be experiencing any internal bleeding. Gia’s meditech prodigy back at the plane is getting the same alert. He’ll be ready for triage when they get back.
And Starla — her eyes are open and blinking rapidly in shock; she’s lying on her back with her leg bent at a sickening angle, but shielded from the largest chunks of debris by the twisted skeleton of the ladder, which is propped above her. A fierce, protective place has opened up in Jaantzen’s chest, drowning out the searing stab of pain through his ribs as he flings the debris off her.
Her eyes focus on him and widen in panic, and somewhere in the adrenaline flooding his mind he pulls up a few of the signs Raj taught him the last time Jaantzen met his goddaughter, so long ago.
Hello, Starla.
He hopes he has her name sign right. “You’re going to be safe,” he tells her, trying to speak clearly. “You’re going to be safe.”
The panic in her gaze ebbs slightly, and she doesn’t try to fight him as he checks her for injury. The leg seems the worst, and she grunts as she pushes herself up to sit, face a mask of pain. Jaantzen’s surprised she hadn’t shattered like a stick of hard candy at the fall. She’s gaunt, unsubstantial, skin nearly translucent with shock and from growing up in the black.
She signs something to him, and he shakes his head, not sure what she’s said. She scowls and jabs at his broad chest, then opens up her hands in question.
In the distance, an alarm is going off. He can hear shouting, getting closer.
“It’s time to go,” Nayar says behind him. “Can she be moved?”
Jaantzen nods. “I think so,” he says to her. “I’m a friend,” he says to Starla. She frowns at him, and he’s not sure if she’s understood. He holds out a hand. “We have to go. You’ll be safe.”
She takes his hand, and he ignores the pain in his ribs as he hoists her up to stand on her good leg. She cries out in pain.
Behind them, Mahr is still lying against the wall, gasping for breath. Her eyes widen with recognition as he turns, her expression shifting from fear to surprise. “Willem Jaantzen,” she says. Her gaze darts back and forth between Jaantzen and Nayar. “Major Nayar, what are you doing with — ”
Jaantzen winces at the crack of Nayar’s pistol. Mahr slumps back against the wall.
“During a routine tour with a vendor, I came upon the lieutenant in the process of illegally selling an inmate into indenture,” she says quietly. “Unfortunately, Lieutenant Mahr resisted arrest. Equally unfortunately, the vendor has chosen not to do business with the Alliance.”
She reholsters her pistol. “A shame, but I’ll get over it. As for the girl, she ran off in the confusion. I doubt we’ll find her — and certainly not alive.” Nayar straightens and tosses him the key to the jeep. The shouting is getting closer. “Head back through this alley and take a left to find Dock 16. Keep the girl out of sight, and if anyone at the checkpoint asks, tell them I stayed late to take care of some business.”
Her expression is fierce as she takes his offered hand.
“Pleasure doing business with you, Major,” he says. “Until next time.”
A brief snort of a laugh quirks her lips into an exact image of her sister, but Jaantzen just turns away, arm supporting his goddaughter.
He has family to take care of, too.
Chapter 17
The man who knows her name sign motions for Starla to get into the coffin-like crate in the back of the jeep, and she does, trusting, screwing her eyes shut against the sight of him putting the lid over the top. He’s the biggest man Starla has ever seen, tall as her station-born cousins but bulky, too, in a way that’s hard to get out in space. His expensive-looking suit is tailored perfectly around his broad shoulders and barrel chest. His skin is a rich, deep brown. Diamonds glitter in his ears.
Something about him feels familiar, she thinks. She’s not sure why, but something about this ferocious, gun-toting man feels right.
And he knows her name sign.
The engine of the jeep thrums through her chest, each bump and stutter sending waves of pain and nausea sloshing up from her leg. They stop once, for a long time, and she tries not to panic though she’s desperate to know what’s going on.
Finally the jeep starts moving again, and a moment later the engine is off and she feels her crate moving, bites her lips, can only hope she’s kept herself from screaming out in pain. Feels herself resettled, and then searing light slices through the gap as the lid is removed.
She blinks, pushes herself to sitting. She’s inside, but she can’t tell inside what. Something narrow like a cargo shuttle; there are stacks of crates just like hers strapped against the wall.
The big man is here, too. He pauses, takes a deep breath.
Hi, Starla, he signs again. It’s clumsy, mechanical.
Who are you? she asks, but apparently that’s it for his bag of sign language tricks. He grimaces, looking embarrassed, and pulls out his comm. Speaks to it — she catches “My name is,” she thinks — and passes it to her.
MY NAME IS WILLEM JAANTZEN. I’M A FRIEND OF YOUR FATHER’S, AND I’M HERE TO GET YOU AWAY AND SAFE.
Where are my parents?
Starla signs the words frantically, and Wil
lem Jaantzen — she knows his name, her parents had talked about visiting him — furrows his brow, gestures at the comm. She types the question and thrusts it at him.
And then he meets her gaze, his own holding none of the pity that was in Hali’s expression, none of the softness or the fear to tell her the truth. Willem Jaantzen’s gaze holds nothing but cold anger. “Your parents are dead,” he says softly, passing the comm back, but she doesn’t need to look at the words blinking there to understand what he said.
Starla isn’t surprised, not any more.
Thank you, she signs, and he nods.
He glances over his shoulder, says something to a smaller, younger man with bright-red hair and a duffel bag. Together, they hoist Starla from the crate and onto a reclined chair with a flight harness, and for a brief moment she thinks they’re going home, they’re heading back to the stars. But this isn’t a shuttle, it can’t break the atmosphere, not without tearing itself apart and scattering them across the surface of New Sarjun in a spectacular, fiery hail.
Jaantzen hands her the comm. WE’RE GOING TO MY HOME, it says. YOU’LL BE SAFE THERE. THIS IS NOLE, HE’S GOING TO LOOK AT YOUR LEG. IS ANYTHING ELSE INJURED?
Starla shrugs, staring at the last sentence. Everything aches, but it has for days. And nothing’s screaming at her worse than her leg.
Nole’s already got scissors out, the metal is cold against her calf as he slits the material of her jumpsuit. Jaantzen reaches across her to snap the harness in place, then sits, wincing, in a seat beside her. She wonders if he’s been shot: there’s a hole singed in his expensive jacket, but no blood.
Jaantzen shouts something to the pilot and the plane begins to roll, faster, faster, she’s pushed back in her seat with the motion, like the Nanshe under thrust — like, but not the same. She can feel the moment the wheels peel away from the planet’s surface, the smooth glide tilting upwards, with a rush of adrenaline in her gut that’s almost euphoric.
She relaxes against the chair, lets her head roll to look out the window. She expects to see stars; instead she sees the second of New Sarjun’s moons cresting the horizon in a glimmer of cold fire. It’s a view Mona would have loved to see. Would love to see.
Starla waves to get Jaantzen’s attention, makes the sign for comm, which he probably doesn’t understand, though he hands her the device.
NEED TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO MY FAMILY.
His broad brow furrows at that. She can see him wondering if he needs to tell her again what happened to her parents.
COUSINS. AUNTS. WHOEVER.
She has to find out if she’s alone. She has to learn what happened.
Jaantzen takes back the comm to respond, but his speech is slow and clear. “You have my word.”
Starla turns to stare back out the window. The moon has risen fully now, liquid gold flowing over the crumpled-paper landscape of the desert. It’s unlike anything she’s ever seen: raw, surreal. Stunning.
Bonus Excerpt
NEGATIVE RETURN
Manu Juric is a mediocre bounty hunter. But he’s damn good at reading people and creating unexpected explosions — and that can take you a long way in this business. Just not far enough, he learns when he tries to take out one of Bulari’s most notorious crime lords: Willem Jaantzen.
NEGATIVE RETURN is part of Jessie Kwak’s Durga System series, a fast-paced series of gangster sci-fi novellas set in a far-future world where humans may have left their home planet to populate the stars, but they haven’t managed to leave behind their vices. And that’s very good for business.
If you dig character driven action-adventure stories with a splash of pinstripe, sign up for my mailing list so I can let you know when the next book is out.
NEGATIVE RETURN
CHAPTER 1: BAD JAZZ
The lounge singer is in over his head.
He has a decent voice when he stays in the right register, Manu Juric thinks, but every song he’s chosen tonight has been a challenge — a touch too high, the notes fraying around the edges. The Bronze Room is too cheap a bar to filter it through an autocorrect unit.
Manu’d chip in to buy them one, but he’ll never get invited back after what he’s about to do.
The singer’s crooning in a mismatched suit, his hair and makeup done expertly but cuticles scuffed and shoddy, nails flaking underneath the cheap lacquer. Not just overreaching his vocal chords — he’s overreaching his league.
Manu tipped him anyway, earlier this evening, his tagged one-mark token tumbled in with all the others in the jar.
Manu’s drinking whiskey, the bar’s cheapest over plenty of ice to water down the flavor of engine oil. He’s sipping it slow, taking his time, and already he’s starting to get looks from the bartender.
Nobody nurses shitty whiskey at the Bronze Room. The bartender is one poorly sung verse away from calling his boss and reporting his suspicions.
Manu knocks back the whiskey, tags the bottom of the glass, then raises a finger to the bartender. The bartender slides another whiskey across the bartop; Manu thanks him with a wink and a bit too lingering of a smile — it’s not faked, there’s plenty to admire, and the bartender’s tight shirt doesn’t require much of the imagination. Manu transfers him a generous tip from Sylla Mar’s expense account.
The bartender just turns away with a polite service-industry smile and drops Manu’s empty glass into the sanitizer without noticing the tag at the bottom. Let him come to the wrong conclusion about why Manu is camping at his seedy bar just outside the posh, touristy Tamarind District.
Manu can’t even remember the last time he came to this part of Bulari. He thinks it was when he was still a kid, just dropped out of third levels to help his dad with the business, barhopping on cash stolen from his dad’s till with some of his buddies from Carama Town, tallying up who could get the most colorful cussing-outs from tourist girls and toss-outs from bouncers. If he remembers right they got kicked out of six bars before the cops got called.
It was a good night.
Manu gives the Bronze Room another scan. This may have been one of those bars; he can’t remember. The end of that night’s a bit of a blur.
Manu taps a fingernail against the side of his glass, waiting. His nails are a poison acid green tonight, same as his hair. The color pops nicely against his black skin.
He goes over the dossier once more.
The mark tonight’s on the meaner end of the Bulari thug spectrum; he’s the type almost everybody’d like to see gone, though nobody but Manu’s been stupid enough to try. Small crew of riffraff, each uglier and crueler than the next. Got himself a live-in lady, a clean-looking type who must have a pretty low opinion of herself to end up with scum — but she’s hardly alone in this city. Manu’ll be doing her a favor, killing Willem Jaantzen.
Manu’s been gathering intel on his mark for two weeks, long enough that Sylla Mar’s started dropping hints that maybe his heart’s not really in it, that maybe Manu’s all talk and no action.
Those are the exact words she used, too, last time her goons brought him in. Lounging on that black velvet like she styles herself a goddess, smoke from her laced cigarette spiraling through her neon purple and pink locks. Dry, overpainted lips and eyelids weighed down with pigment, Sylla looked a caricature of a vid crime lord, right down to the thick-jowled musclemen who flanked her divan.
Even now, Manu tries to imagine those men as his co-workers, Sylla as his boss. Tries to imagine himself taking orders spoken in that husky undertone, punctuated by the cartoonish cracking knuckles of her goons.
Wonders if he’ll ever stop watching his back with them as his crew.
No. Joining Sylla’s crew isn’t ideal, but who ever said life was perfect? The city’s getting tight, lately. Strangling out the independent operators, choking out the way Manu used to exist. Too many petty alliances between the bosses, too many turning snitch on the little guys to build up their credibility with the government. Sometimes a freelance hitman needs a friendly c
rew to weather out the storm of crackdowns and backstabbings.
And Sylla’s crew will do.
Better than getting himself an indenture. Manu’d rather be free and hungry than owned by some corporation.
Provided he can handle this initiation she set out for him.
Killing Willem Jaantzen.
It’s a terrible idea, and Manu’s been thinking of walking away all week. He actually can’t decide if Sylla’s messing with him — maybe she’s one of those women who hates saying no outright, and this is just a convenient way to get rid of him for good rather than taking him in. She sure didn’t seem to think he could actually do it.
If he’s honest with himself, he hasn’t been thinking he can do it, either. He’s taken out his fair share of lowlifes and deadbeat ex-boyfriends, but he’s never had a mark this big.
You don’t know if you don’t try, though, right?
Because if he makes this hit, it doesn’t even matter if he sticks with Sylla and her band of shifty thugs. Killing Jaantzen will get him a job wherever he wants.
Killing Jaantzen with style might even get him a job with Thala Coeur, Blackheart herself. Now there’s a scary bitch — but she’s got a crew that actually watches out for each other. Joining Blackheart’s crew, now that’s a proper life goal.
Manu doesn’t need Sylla, but he does need this win.
The singer stops crooning to a smattering of applause that seems more grateful than appreciative, and he disappears into the back with his tip jar. Manu notes that with a frown. It’s not a big deal — Manu’s tags have been thoroughly seeded. Just, Manu hopes the singer hasn’t put all those tokens in his pocket. Nobody deserves that, even for botching show tunes this badly.