by K S Augustin
“Orders confirmed.”
He sat in the chair at one end of the gantry. It ran on a rail so he could choose where, along the length of the metal platform, he wished to greet his guests. This time, he decided to stay in the corner. He strapped himself into the harness and tried to relax, while waiting for the insertion and the tumble to begin.
No matter how much stability the Perdition attempted to maintain, Quinten knew the short jaunt to the rendezvous point would be uncomfortable and disorienting. But it was either that, or be shot into scrap through his carelessness.
The ship jolted, then the spinning began, and Quinten felt bile rise in his throat. Grimly, he kept his mouth shut and swallowed hard. Eyes opened or closed, it didn’t matter. The cargo bay would settle into familiar lines for a second, then blur into nonsensical diagonals, and the vertigo played havoc with his sense of balance. It seemed to continue for an eternity, a brief reprieve followed by a dance of lines. If there was good news in the vertigo, it was that no ambushers appeared to be close to his position.
“One ship within scanning range.” The Perdition voice was smooth and unconcerned, while Quinten’s own fingers clenched the alloyed armrests of his chair, the suit’s strength almost forming furrows beneath his hand. “Ship identified as God’s Harness, belonging to the Neon Red cartel.”
So they still had that hulk, he thought, while the world spun around him.
It’s probably in better shape than mine.
Then the physical spinning ceased, although the after-effects kept going for far too long. Quinten knew he either had to fix the sensor problem soon or resign himself to a constant state of budding nausea.
While he willed his stomach to some semblance of normalcy, the ship picked up and reported on a small pod that had detached itself from the God’s Harness, traversing the distance between the ships carefully, as if a two-person shuttle could simulate walking forward with bare hands stretched into the air. Quinten grunted in satisfaction. The craft was obviously piloted by someone who knew the routine. Good. He hated breaking in new guests.
The clang, as the pod docked with the circular hatch embedded in the bay doors, echoed through the void, then the unlocked hatch turned and opened inwards.
Quinten’s finger was literally on a hair-trigger, waiting to blast whoever appeared into their component atoms. His touch relaxed fractionally when he recognised the second-in-command of the Harness, Setino Shaw. The man looked as he always did, like he’d woken up to find himself robbed and dumped naked in some spacer alley. The sour look on his face didn’t change as his pale gaze scanned the bare bones of the cargo bay.
There was a flash of white—Quinten’s finger spasmed—that resolved itself into a woman, stumbling then catching herself as her bare feet touched the cold floor. She was tall, with short white hair and pale skin that looked like it had never been exposed to a planetside sun. Despite her appearance, however, there was something strange about her. Quinten kept quiet and observed her for a moment longer, taking in the jerky hesitation in her movements. Her dark, fathomless eyes looked around, much as Shaw had done, then her gaze narrowed in on Quinten’s figure, unerringly finding him amid the high tangle of metal and weaponry.
Only one other person emerged through the hatch after the albino, Ifola Breit. It must have been he who pushed the woman through, causing her to trip.
Somehow, life had just got more interesting.
“Tamlan, you here?” Shaw asked belligerently, but Quinten detected the note of anxiety beneath the bluff.
“I’m here,” he answered quietly, and had the satisfaction of seeing both men spin around crazily. He thought they would be used to his amplification system by now. Something else must be making them jittery. “How can I help you gentlemen?”
“We’re here to sell something.”
Breit jangled a nerve-chain, a combination restraint and control method for delivering excruciating pain to a captive’s skin through their nerve-endings. Quinten’s eyes followed it, from the small control pad in Breit’s florid hand, down to where the chain’s slack curved gracefully, and up to the wide collar that fitted snugly around the woman’s neck, like a grotesque form of jewellery.
“What is it?” Quinten asked, although he was reasonably sure of the answer.
“Not sure. Type B humanoid, we think.”
Yes, that would explain the subtle differences in how she moved. The Republic hated to admit it, but occasionally breeding occurred between humans and the rest of the galaxy. The results, classified as Type Bs, were hated by both groups, regarded as too alien to exist in each other’s communities. They often turned to crime to make a living. As Quinten was sure the young woman in front of him had done.
“So?” he drawled. “Why sell one to me?”
“You’re probably the only person we know who can control it.” Shaw snickered. “It tried to commandeer the Harness. It took four of us to restrain it until Ifola grabbed the nerve-chain and latched it round its neck. It hasn’t been out of the collar since. And that was a week ago.”
“Language?”
The pirate spokesman shrugged. “Don’t know. She may be deaf. Stupid. Playing stupid. She’s cunning though, like a Republic strike fighter. You know what these Subs are like.”
Quinten started assembling the little facts together in his mind.
Perceptive. Female. Strong. Hated.
“Where did you catch her?” He wasn’t going to play along with Shaw’s petty xenophobic digs.
Shaw shifted his feet, his posture relaxing with each sentence he spoke. He even lifted his hands onto his hips and slouched a bit. It was obvious he thought he had this deal sewn up. In the darkness, Quinten’s eyes gleamed.
“She was in a small passenger craft near the inner edge of the Chimpect sector. Must’ve killed the crew, some gentry family joy-riding around the galaxy, before taking control. We didn’t find any bodies, but there was enough blood to supply a hospital.”
Breit chuckled and jiggled the chain again, as if proud of some favoured pet’s antics.
Ruthless. Determined.
The Chimpect sector was solidly in Neon Red territory. No surprise that they had caught her. No surprise, too, that they couldn’t keep something like her. And what Shaw said was true. Quinten was probably the only one among the cartel’s even semi-regular customers that wouldn’t turf them out on their ears the moment they caught sight of the cargo.
“Why would I want a Sub?” Quinten asked, idly. “Don’t you think I have enough to worry about without adding one of them to my problems?”
In the back of his mind, however, there was something strangely compelling about the deal he was being offered. If there was any person, or species, more reviled than him in Republic space, with the exception of shapeshifters, it was the Type B humanoids. Their ability to act with total implacability, their physiology—sometimes exceeding human norms—and their propensity to wreak havoc within governed space, were legendary. Whenever a Sub community was found, the Republic either killed them all or shipped them to Bliss, depending on how much trouble they turned out to be. There was no love lost between the two groups. Only shapeshifters were treated with equal ruthlessness.
It occurred to Quinten that the solution to his nagging problems was staring him straight in the face.
Not hearing a response, Shaw put a wheedling tone in his voice. It was his equivalent of exhibiting intellect.
“She could be useful to you.” He looked around. “On this ship. Pretty big for just one person to handle.”
So, it was obvious to them too. That wasn’t welcome news.
“As long as you keep her on the nerve-chain, she’ll be as passive as a lump of putty, and not likely to betray you. And if you get lonely,” Shaw shrugged, “well, with that chain around her neck, she’s not going to be too―”
Quinten unlocked his harness in one movement, and vaulted over the gantry’s railing, landing hard on the floor. The thick metal vibrated with the forc
e with which he hit the deck. He had towered over Shaw by a head when he was whole, and he looked down on the pirate now from that height.
“Too what, Shaw?” he growled.
Shaw’s eyes tightened and he looked away, but whether it was from the expression in Quinten’s eyes, or the remnants of jagged scars that radiated from his right cheek across his entire face, didn’t matter. Breit remained as still as a rodent, not drawing attention to himself. Only the Sub dared look him in the face and he was surprised to see that she was taller than he thought, the tip of her head just brushing his bottom lip. Her expression was impassive, detached, as if the men were discussing something other than her life.
“I was going to say, she’s not going to be too resistant,” Shaw muttered. It was a lie.
Fussy. The bastard was about to say, fussy.
Quinten made a show of walking around her. Probably to safeguard their own security, they had dressed her in little more than what was strictly necessary. The tight, short-sleeved suit hugged slight curves, the leggings ending above her knees. Her toes, like her fingers, were long and lean, tipped with short, colourless cuticles. Everything about her form was bland and pale, except for those huge angled, dark eyes that looked at him as if he was nothing more than an interesting biological specimen.
“We’ll throw the nerve-chain in,” Shaw added. “No charge. We reckon you’ll need it.”
“And what are you asking for in return?” Quinten took a step back and cocked his head, watching her intently.
“Captain Mestoo wants some shield technology.”
“You can buy your own shield technology.”
“Not like what you got. Not the stuff that can evade the military’s sensors.”
“I can’t evade all their sensors.”
“But you can evade more than most,” Shaw insisted.
Quinten considered the deal. The shields on the Perdition were his own refinements built on a very promising kernel. Even if he traded an older version of his customised technology for the Sub, there was still the slight chance that somebody could reverse-engineer what he’d done and find a vulnerability.
He shook his head. “Forget it.” And turned to walk away.
“Wait!”
Shaw’s frantic voice stopped him in his tracks. He slowly spun around and lifted an eyebrow.
“We don’t know what to do with her,” Shaw admitted with a hunched shrug. “We don’t want the entire fucking government after us just because we have her with us. It’s dangerous enough as it is for the cartel. Once word gets out that we have a Sub, one that murdered some fucking gentry family with more money than sense, everybody’ll be wanting a piece of us.”
“But you obviously don’t mind if they have a piece of me?”
“Anyone with sense already knows to stay away from you.” Perspiration started beading on Shaw’s upper lip. He was fighting for the continuance of his, and his friends, lives. If Quinten had been them, he would have shoved the Sub back into the passenger craft the moment he’d discovered her, and given her three minutes to either take off or be blown into oblivion. Human-alien hybrids were more trouble than they were worth.
“And it’s much harder to just go after the Perdition than the five ships that make up the cartel. None of our ships are as fast as yours.” Shaw was almost begging by now. “Give us something, Tamlan, and we’ll be happy with that.”
“You shouldn’t have caught her.”
“We didn’t know there was a fucking Sub in that ship! We thought it was easy pickings for us. Looting, ransom, then a quick escape.”
Silence filled the chill of the cargo bay.
“I have two military-grade sensors in storage,” Quentin finally told them. “Republic sourced, version five kernels. They’re still working, but I upgraded my systems three years ago, and they’re now obsolete.
“They’re still more powerful than any of the commercial stuff that’s selling nowadays,” he added, holding up a hand to forestall their objections. “That’s my deal. The two sensors for the shapeshifter.”
He might still need replacement sensors for the repair job he knew awaited him, but the two he was trading wouldn’t set him back significantly. Besides, he still had the feeling that the current malfunction was minor.
Shaw and Breit looked at each other.
“The Harness is one of the fastest ships the cartel has,” Quinten told them. “And it can’t outrun a Republic striker. Help yourselves. Take the deal. Increase your chances of survival.”
“There are five ships in the Neon Red,” Shaw said.
“I only have two sensors.” He waited for three heartbeats. “If that isn’t enough for you, then take the Sub back to your ship.” The alien shifted at the words, and Quinten wondered how much of the conversation she understood. “Try selling her to someone else.”
“We did,” Breit remarked, before Shaw could stop him. “Nobody wanted her.”
A cruel smile lifted the edges of Quinten’s mouth, made even crueller by the pull of scar tissue on the right side of his face.
“Two sensors, Shaw,” he repeated. “That’s the offer. Take it or leave it.”
“Damn you, Tamlan.”
And that’s how Quinten knew the deal was done.
Intrigued? Read the rest when the book is released in late 2011.
The Check Your Luck Agency
Chapter One
There’s one thing I hate more than being wrong, and that’s being right about presuming somebody is as big a scumbag as they turn out to be.
“Are you sure about this, Xiao Chong?”
A small cherubic face looked up at me and nodded vigorously.
Looking at us together, a casual passer by—if they noticed us at all in the crush of people—would think I was merely placing a takeaway order from one of the nearby stalls. The covered open-air food court was noisy with the chatter of hungry diners and the hard surfaces of concrete, plastic, steel and melamine kept all those voices bouncing off each other until they combined and reached a crescendo of sound. It was late, I was hungry and, between my growling stomach and the clattering din, I was getting a headache.
I hate eating when everyone else does, shoving elbows out of my personal space and my meal. I hated the case Fiona had handed me. But most of all, I hated that I was right.
“I was sitting next to them at the same table,” Xiao Chong explained. He held up a small vinyl bag full of round bulges, his gaze guileless. “Playing marbles.”
Xiao—or Little—Chong is one of my best assistants. Yeah, that’s what I call him. I’m sure others might have different names for it, usually incorporating the words “child” and “exploitation”, but he’s smarter than a lot of adults I’ve met. He has the face of an angel and the deviousness of a, well, child, and he can appear completely innocent in places where I would stick out like a sore thumb. I keep such assistants in most of the major food junctions around Singapore, like Chomp! Chomp!, Maxwell, Newton’s and Lau Pa Sat, but Xiao Chong is, without a doubt, the best of the lot.
Crap. What he’d just told me put a whole other spin on the situation. I almost wished I could blame everything on a ghost instead.
“Thanks Xiao Chong.”
I slipped him ten dollars and walked out of the food court, glad to leave the bustle behind me.
What my little nine-year old friend had told me wasn’t enough to solve the case, but it told me where to start digging to nail the real culprit. I could’ve gone back to Fiona with my news and that would have been the end of it, but I pride myself on my attention to detail. I like my cases closed so tight there are no little doubts hissing as they escape. In this particular case, I doubted the client would thank me, but that’s just how I work.
Considering the crush at Lau Pa Sat, Robinson Road was quiet and serene. On either side of the road, tall office buildings loomed, now half-emptied of their quota of wage-slaves. I had thought to be one of their number once, ascending the corporate ladder no doubt on the
heads of those slower than me, but that was in a different life. I’ve become a woman of much simpler needs.
Speaking of which, it was high time I went home. At this time of night, just past seven-thirty, most of the Malaysian workers would be back across the border and at home, enjoying an evening meal with their family. The Causeway joining both countries would still be busy, but would have lost that anarchic edge from a couple of hours ago. I walked to the nearest MRT station and took the train up to Kranji.
Kranji is a strange kind of place, an anomaly in super-populated Singapore. Its only edifice of any note is the immaculately landscaped racetrack complex that takes up hectares of valuable land. The station and its surrounds were built with only one purpose in mind, and that’s to divest punters of as much money as possible as fast as possible. Competing with the long gleaming row of automatic turnstiles at the station’s boundary is a long row of ATM machines just beyond it. Having had opportunity to use one of them in the past, I noticed that they hand out more money than the machines in the rest of Singapore. I suppose fewer trips to the machine means fewer betting opportunities missed.
Usually the area is as quiet as a graveyard but, when my travel schedule coincides with race day, the truth is that I can hardly move in and around the station. The huge paved area that I normally consider obscenely large gets turned into a tightly squeezed mass of excited humans. People spill in and out of the brightly-lit shops along the short arcade and even the spaces along the walls are marked out by hawkers. Unfortunately, such people are not easy to spot until I’m almost on top of them, especially when there’s a crowd obscuring my progress.
The budget-price entrepreneurs are usually elderly. The women dress in their Chinese floral pyjama outfits and the men in their white singlets and navy blue shorts. They stake out their space with a rug or sheet of plastic about a metre deep and a metre and a half long and arrange their knick-knacks on top of it in an orderly fashion. Packs of tissues, wind-up toys, herbal tinctures, small gee-gaws. I’ve never seen anyone actually stop and buy anything from these grandparents, but they appear like clockwork every race day, so they must be able to make a living somehow. I’m sure that it’s actually against the law to sell things from a cheap synthetic blanket on the floor of a public thoroughfare, but if the Singapore government decides to turn a blind eye to the practice, who am I to complain? I have enough gripes about what they do notice.