“No grenades!” she shouted after him as an afterthought.
When she entered the bank the scanners flashed at her, and a disembodied voice said; “Welcome, Aspen White.” Arrows on the floor directed her to across the glassy black surface to a kiosk that was just as clean, and just as dark. A door closed behind her and the face of a gorgeous man appeared holographically only centimetres away from her nose. His blue eyes studied her, his smile was meant to disarm her, but she was firm in her purpose. “Access primary accounts and the accounts listed under the name Larken White.” When she hid that name in the paperwork, Larken, she believed he had been dead for months. She thought it would be one of her last tributes to him.
The hologram was replaced with something much prettier to her in that moment, the records for five bank accounts, none of which were with human banking systems. Captain White had four hundred ninety-six million, three hundred seventy thousand, four hundred twenty-three International Currency Exchange Credits left. ICE, the Interplanetary Currency Exchange, based its currency on the value of platinum, which had been relatively steady for centuries. In United Core Authority credits it was worth half. “So much more money than you should have, Captain. There’s no way you made that without ripping the crew off. If turning me in for a bounty wasn’t bad enough, skimming off the top of everyone’s share will finish you off.”
She dug a little deeper into the deposits and payments and discovered that the repairs and refitting on the Cool Angel only cost him five million in UCA, and he was paid twenty-five million for betraying her. He didn’t earn anything for the other crewmembers he betrayed. The bounty payment was clearly marked. “I’ll take that,” she said to herself as she motioned for that amount to be moved into her own accounts, where it would be filtered through several non-human banks so no one could recover it. She was standing in the exchange, so she watched the pre-scripted money laundering happen in front of her, and when it was finished the amount was down sixty thousand UCA thanks to fees, but it was hers. “Teller,” she said, addressing the supervised automated system built into the kiosk.
“Yes, Aspen?”
“Please move all of our funds to the new account I’m giving you, then divide them evenly amongst the list of people I’m about to send you. Lock the funds behind the password I’m setting now,” Spin watched as the rest of Captain White’s funds were drained and sent to his crewmembers. When the account reached zero, she couldn’t help but giggle. “Now close all of the White accounts please.” Her personal shadow account, set up with her DNA but under a name that was just a long number, was separate from the accounts she set up for Captain White.
“Are you sure?” asked the teller’s voice from above. “That act is irreversible.”
“Yes.” Spin said. “I’m sure.” The account reports disappeared one by one until only her shadow account remained. “Now, switch identities to Spin Seven and confirm with a scan.” The scanner flashed.
“Identity confirmed, hello Spin Seven,” replied the Teller’s voice. Her account transaction appeared and she was delighted to see all the money she earned by ransoming Dexter and Tilly Rinnel. The amount made her grin. After dozens of banks charged fees for opening and closing accounts while transferring the money, she was left with seventy million, twenty-one UCA credits. “I have the money, now I need people I can trust,” she said to herself. With a few quick transfers she made the currency available to herself under a fresh identity that could only be activated using a deep biometric scan. The kind of scan her wrist computer could do on her from where it was imbedded in her skin. “I want twelve million in UCA credits delivered to my ship.”
“Is this your ship?” asked the Teller, showing her a hologram of their new ship and the landing area.
“It is,” she replied. “Can I request that a guarded delivery be made elsewhere later?”
“Yes, for a fee of five hundred UCA credits. We will guarantee its safe delivery anywhere in the solar system.”
“That’s fair. Thank you. Please give me twenty thousand UCA credits in large denominations and one thousand in pips and small coin. Then shut down and disallow any access to my account unless I scan in.”
“Thank you for doing business with the Interplanetary Currency Exchange, enjoy long life,” the teller said as a tray emerged from the wall, laden with strips of platinum that glittered with industrial diamond dust that had been coded to foil counterfeiting. They reflected light in different colours depending on their denominations. The smaller amounts were in slim strips and small round pips that were too small to be considered coins. She stashed her money away in the smaller pockets inside the tops of her boots, and in her jacket pockets so they didn’t jingle when she moved. “Captain White should notice that he’s dirt poor any second now,” she muttered with a grin as the doors to the kiosk opened.
18
“Please, help me,” Dorian said into his communicator using the voice of Keith Daniels, the first mate of the Cool Angel. “Lieutenant Sun is here, and she used her cyborg to kidnap me. They’re going to kill me.” He grinned and waited for a response.
“Keith, it’s Gordon, we’re coming for you, man! Where are you?”
“I’m pinging you my coordinates right now, I’ve gotta go, someone’s coming,” Dorian pinged the location of the Fleet Feather and cut the signal. From his perch in the rafters of the large hangar holding the Cool Angel he waited and watched.
Getting away from the Fleet Feather was easy. After he delivered Keith to the infirmary everyone was distracted, and if anyone saw him leave the ship, they didn’t say anything to stop him or give chase. Deciding on how to distract the small loading crew aboard the Cool Angel was another thing entirely. He could have stormed the rear of the ship, catching them with the ramp open and slaughtering the lot of them. He could have hacked into one of the secondary hatches, but there was no power throughout most of the ship, so getting it open would have been difficult and loud because he’d still have to pull it open manually. Stowing away in one of the supply crates was a good idea, but there was always the chance that he would have to wait until the crew left the cargo compartment, and that could take hours.
After nearly an hour and a half of pondering his options and watching the behaviour of the loading crew, he came to a decision. He would have to send trouble towards the Fleet Feather. When he checked on Nigel’s location and found that he was on the other side of the planet, far from harm, he decided he could live with the consequences.
He almost giggled to himself as he watched the entire loading crew, some still wearing strength exoframes, storm out of the ship’s main ramp. Nine in all, they loaded into an old troop transport, armed and ready for a fight then sped out of the hangar. Dorian started a scan of the area far beneath him and lit one of his last Dice cigars. The results passed through his mind as he puffed at it and felt the tingle that always preceded the mad rush. The main aft loading ramp was still open, and his scans said there was still someone there.
He took one long puff on the cigar, his head swimming with glorious intense sensation. The world around him seemed to slow down, and when he looked at the heat bloom of the last crewman by the loading ramp, he could make out new details. The head, the shoulders, the beating of his fragile human heart. “Have to stay clear for this one,” Dorian muttered to himself, letting the cigar drop from his mouth. It was already half gone.
Faster than the cigar fell, he swept down from his perch and landed in front of the crewman. It wasn’t anyone he recognized from his time on the Cool Angel. He snatched the man’s head in his hands. “Where is Captain White?”
“His cabin,” the crewman replied, stunned. “He freaked out a few minutes ago,” he said, struggling to free himself futilely.
Dorian tightened his grip, sure he was bruising the thin skin covering the man’s skull. “You are going to run now, and if you warn anyone that I’m here, I will track you down and tear you into scraps. Do you understand?” He didn’t wait for an answe
r, letting go instead.
The crewman ran towards the ship at first, then seemed to come to his senses and sprinted away from the loading door, towards the nearest hangar exit. Dorian moved as fast as he could through the main loading door, closed it behind him, and then pushed on at a dead run through the corridors. He couldn’t help but recall his time aboard with Boro, Trevor, Nigel and the rest of the crew. It seemed like the best time of his life as he learned how the ship worked, spent time lazing around with his oldest friends, and felt as though he was surrounded by a growing family.
It was all overshadowed by Captain White’s inflexible response to the accusation that he wasn’t paying the crew fairly. Dorian did the math after they were all paid for a bank robbery, and from what he saw when they cracked the vault open, it looked like their share was short by half. Accusing the Captain directly was a mistake. Once he made the accusation, offers to take it back were worthless, and the only mercy White granted was the choice of which nearby port he would be left on. He told his friends to stay aboard the Cool Angel, it was one of the best ships in the region, but he warned them to keep a watchful eye. They were hesitant, but remained, mostly because Boro gave his word to Captain White that they’d remain until the end of the year. Then, they would have enough for their own ship, and pick him up no matter where he was.
He was crushed between two ships, assumed dead by most before then. The cargo section of the ship was behind him in less than a minute. He managed to go around two crewmembers who were stowing spare parts, and was sure he wasn’t noticed. Dorian’s path through the four hundred fifty-metre-long ship took him up three decks through emergency crawl ways, forward past the galley where he attended more birthday parties and celebrations than he could count, then up two more access shafts and he emerged at the rear of the command deck.
There were three people there, his thermal imaging system saw them through the walls. He quietly moved around the corner, eager to meet the first in the middle of the only four way crossing of corridors and came face to face with Burt Franco, the Tactical Officer for the Cool Angel. Dorian barely had occasion to speak to him while he was aboard, but he remembered the short, skinny man well. He was still human, but had an appetite for performance enhancing drugs that made Dorian’s look tame. “Holy hell, what are you?” he said as he turned towards him at the worst possible moment and stepped backwards with impressive alacrity.
“Just here to pay the Captain a visit,” Dorian said, reaching for him as quickly as he could. He caught the man by the wrist and yanked him closer. “I hear he’s resting in his cabin?”
“Bridge,” Burt said, somehow slipping his grip then running down a narrow corridor leading aft. “You’ll find him on the bridge.”
Dorian realized that he was still holding Burt’s wrist. Sometime since he was left behind, the Officer had at least one of his forearms replaced with a detachable model. The thought that he was willing to shed a limb and leave it behind to escape amused him, so he dropped it and decided not to pursue. “Bet I’ll find you useful.” The run to the bridge was quick, and he was able to push right past two crewmembers working behind it. The armoured doors to the control centre of the ship were closed, but Dorian knew how they were put together. He used his cutter to slice the bolts hidden under the main armour sheeting protecting the door, then pulled the double doors apart. “Captain White!”
He ducked and dove to the left, behind one of the older, sturdier consoles at the rear of the bridge as bolts of energy sizzled past his head. “I almost got off this fucking planet without running into any of you,” Captain White said.
He was instantly recognizable since he dressed to suit his name. A long armoured white coat, a mane of white hair, and painted white cutter pistol made him instantly recognizable. To Dorian, it made him look fancy and weak. “I’m just here for the ship,” Dorian said. “Quino would like to see you dead, but he really wants the Angel.”
“Like explaining yourself will make this a transaction instead of an act of piracy? You already have all my money, you could buy four Cool Angels with that take alone.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, White. Hand over your command codes, and I let you walk.” Several shots burst against the opposite side of the console Dorian hid behind. “That’s a no?” he watched the Captain begin moving towards the port side exit through his scanners. He was pinned down, but if he didn’t do something, the Captain would escape.
Dorian burst into a run around the rear of the bridge towards Captain White, staying as low as he could, and activated a personal shield. Captain White fired while he rushed for the exit, making his shots unsteady. Only one streak of energy struck Dorian’s shield. The whine of the small device told him it was close to burning out.
Dorian lurched towards Captain White as he rounded the last console and caught him as another shot struck the shield. The emitter overloaded with a small pop. He batted the cutter pistol out of the Captain’s hand and gripped him by the throat. “The command codes, and I don’t start breaking bones.”
“My people will be here soon, you’d best run if you don’t want to get parted out for spare limbs,” Captain White said.
Dorian’s scanner told him otherwise. The few people left on the command deck were leaving in a hurry. “I don’t know what you’ve been doing, Captain, but no one’s coming, no one wants to save you. I might be your best friend right now, or at least the most honest one you have. Give me the command codes and you have my word, I won’t take your life.”
“You don’t hold that Captain’s post as long as I have without making important friends, boy.” To Dorian’s surprise, his visual and main auditory sensors went dead. His damage system told him that he’d suffered serious damage, and most of his head was gone. The world slipped sideways and he fell to the floor. “Or without learning a few tricks,” Captain White said. He moved to the command seat and began the initialization sequence for the ship. Heat and secondary audio sensors told Dorian that the whole ship was warming up. There were indeed two people coming up to the command deck and they were moving fast.
His secondary systems finished taking over for the damaged and missing components that were housed in his machine skull, and he quietly stood. Dorian crept up on the Captain from behind, and was one step away when White turned around and blasted him in the hip. It took three attempts for him to snatch the hand White held the small holdout blaster in, each attempt faster than the last. With hand and blaster in his grasp, he squeezed until the two were crushed together in shreds of metal, bone and flesh. “You think I’d keep my brain box in my head? Stop thinking like a human, Captain. Give me your command codes and you can keep your other hand.” He said using his secondary speaker, it was a scratchy, loud voice that cut through Captain White’s screams.
With his free hand, White pulled the collar of his fine tunic down to reveal a necklace shaped like a three pointed star. “In the data chip!”
Dorian got his hand around it and was about to duck when several bolts of energy tore through his armoured jacket then into his cyborg body. His right hip joint failed, followed by the main stabilizer system in his stomach, then the protective case housing the synthetic organs that fed his brain everything it needed reported a critical failure. “You die today, White.” He said as he felt the emergency stasis drugs that may save his grey matter begin to put him to sleep. “Someone will finish this.”
As his sensors began to go dark, he watched Captain White turn towards perhaps the last faithful crewmembers he had. “We fall back to the Hexer.”
19
“I’m broke,” Nigel told Spin happily as the complimentary shuttle dropped them off at their Long Runner. He carried a lightly armoured case with him, the purchases he wanted to show her as soon as they got to their small ship.
The delivery of her cash was already there, waiting in their landing space. “Your docking fees, refunded as promised.” A guard said as he handed her the coinage. “Thank you for doing busine
ss with us. Would you like us to load your cargo onto the shuttle?”
“Thank you, we’ll open it up for you,” Spin said.
Nigel opened the Long Runner’s main hatch, eying the heavily armoured transport that had landed beside their ship. There were two heavy turrets on top, and the main cabin had enough room for six large soldiers. From a small segment between the troop carrier portion at the rear and the cockpit in the front, a pair of robots with thin appendages emerged carrying her credit cases. They made them look light, bearing one each, but Spin knew that she would barely be able to lift one on her own, it would take Nigel and her to carry those for more than a few metres at a time. “Is that all money?” Nigel asked in a whisper as they moved towards the Long Runner.
Spin nodded and directed the short robots to a panel in the floor that would have enough cargo space for all three cases. “You’re not broke, either. I’m going to do something now, and I need you to try not to react.”
“What?”
Spin unlocked his portion of the money Captain White had hidden, and she watched as he checked the computer display that he had tattooed on the palm of his hand. Nigel’s shock at seeing over six million real credits in his account was comical, watching him try to hide his grin and amazement was even better. “Why are you paying me enough to buy my own combat ship?” he said under his breath.
“Oh, that’s not from me,” Spin said as she watched the third credit case get carried to their Long Runner. “That’s from Captain White. You remember how he used to go on about spending every last pip on his ship, leaving a pittance for himself while the crew got paid?”
“I remember, he used to say ‘pittance’ a lot, you couldn’t do a good imitation without it,” Nigel replied. “Wait, this is from him? He was hiding this? Why give it all to me?”
Cool Pursuit: Chaos Core Book 2 Page 15