by M. D. Cooper
“Dunno who did it. Wasn’t in the brochure,” Ramsey replied. “It’s a twenty kilometer hike to the outpost. Once we get in there, we can see where the Gettsbird landed and maybe where they have Petra’s brother.”
“I wonder what they have him doing—what can some bacteria really be worth, anyway?” Lashes asked.
“You remember what we got sent to prison over?” Ramsey countered.
“Good point,” Lashes nodded.
“Colonel, I think I can fix this up and get us a ride,” BAMF said from amidst a pile of debris not far from the shuttle.
Ramsey walked toward the sound of BAMF’s voice and saw a boxy ground vehicle sitting amidst the junk. It had two large doors on the back, and he opened them up. Inside it was almost empty with just two seats in the front.
BAMF opened a door at the front near the vehicle’s controls and fiddled with some wires hanging from the console.
“That never works,” Lashes said with a sigh. “Just leave it.”
A moment later, the vehicle’s engine roared to life and BAMF grunted with satisfaction.
“Runs on hydrogen,” she said and walked back to the shuttle to grab a tank.
“It’s kinda shiny,” Lashes said as she looked the white vehicle over.
“See if you can find some paint or something,” Ramsey replied. “If not, we can just go down by the ocean and cover it with mud.”
“You want me to drive in the mud-mobile?” Lashes asked with a look of disgust on her face.
“Hey, check it out,” Ramsey said and grinned around his carrot. “There’s whole case of black paint over here. Too bad we don’t have some music to listen to while we work.”
By the time BAMF had returned from pulling a spare fuel tank out of the shuttle, the vehicle was painted black.
“Looks good,” BAMF nodded, “but something’s missing.”
She rummaged around in the crate where the paint had been found and produced a can with a red lid. With expert precision, BAMF painted a red stripe across each side of the vehicle.
“Much better.”
“That’s, ahh…worse,” Lashes said.
“No, better, fool,” BAMF grunted.
They secured the fuel tank in the back, and BAMF switched over the fuel lines.
“OK, girls, let’s roll,” Ramsey said.
“Aren’t we going to bolt in another seat?” Lashes asked.
“Wasted enough time,” BAMF said as she sat in the driver’s seat, while Ramsey took the passenger seat.
“Raaaahmsey,” Lashes whined.
“Shut up, fool,” BAMF said as she gunned the engine.
“What’s that written on the console?” Lashes asked as she hung onto the back of Ramsey’s seat.
“Uhh… Vehicular Ambulatory Navigator,” Ramsey said.
“Seriously? It’s a VAN?” Lashes asked.
* * * * *
The VAN trundled along a dirt path that stretched across the island’s low hills. The landscape consisted mostly of patchy grass, low bushes, and the occasional stunted tree. A rain storm moved in halfway through their trek and the road grew slick and treacherous.
Lightning flashed above them, and the moon’s atmosphere ionized.
“Comms are down,” Lashes commented. “Hopefully things are OK up there.”
“Worry about down here, fool. This thing steers like a dog fucking a football,” BAMF grunted as she struggled to keep the VAN on the road.
“This has to be one of the most miserable little balls of muck in the galaxy,” Lashes added. “Glad we’re not walking out there, though.”
“We’re getting close to the outpost we spotted on the way down,” Ramsey said. “I’m not sure if it’s a research facility, or a fishing town. A lot of the boats in the harbor looked pretty rickety.”
“Maybe it’s where your scallops came from,” Lashes said with a grin. “Might explain why they were crap.”
“Did they taste like mud?” BAMF asked.
“Pull behind that hill there,” Ramsey said. “This is as close as we should get.”
“Think they get a lot of visitors here?” Lashes asked. “What’s our story?”
“Getts owns the whole place, so these folks…whether researchers or fishers, or whatever, are company people. I vote that we tell them we had some trouble with our ship and had to set down…south of here,” Ramsey said.
“Plausible enough, we’re a ways from most of the other stuff orbiting the planet up there. I’d probably buy it if I were them,” Lashes agreed. “BAMF?”
“Sure,” BAMF nodded.
BAMF stopped the VAN and Lashes slid open the door, peering out into the pouring rain.
“You gonna go out, or just think about it, Lieutenant?” Ramsey asked.
“I’m still just thinking about thinking about it,” Lashes replied. “What should we do with our guns? Think we can pack heat here?”
“Sidearms only,” Ramsey said. “Nothing big.”
Lashes nodded and tucked a pistol into her jacket while BAMF looked like she was about to say something.
Ramsey shook his head. “Whatever you’re about to say, no.”
A minute later, they were outside slogging through the mud toward the outpost. It only took ten minutes to get there, but it felt like hours. The dim lights of the outpost were like beacons of hope as the storm grew worse.
Once they reached the buildings, they could see they were a mixture of larger, longstanding structures, and some newer, more ramshackle creations. They all looked worn and aged, their siding discolored from exposure to the briny air, and windows fogged up from humidity. A dilapidated sign labeled the sorry group of buildings as Port Kendall.
A small doll was tied to the sign and Lashes peered at it through the rain. “Huh…I don’t get it, what’s with that doll?”
“Shut up, fool,” BAMF grunted.
Few of the buildings gave any clue as to their purpose, though most appeared very utilitarian—Ramsey looked for any sort of common house or barracks amongst them.
“There,” BAMF grunted at a low, wide building that had the word ‘Commissary’ painted above the door. The lights were on, and it looked more inviting than any other structure around.
“Perfect,” Ramsey said and the team made a bee-line for the door.
Ramsey pushed it open and stepped into a subdued scene. The commissary was half general store, half bar.
On one side, a disheveled-looking woman wandered listlessly through the aisles, as if she hoped there was some discovery she had failed to make on previous visits. The other side of the space held a dozen men and women—sitting at improvised tables, and along a high counter. Some held unmarked bottles, while others stared into glasses containing a few fingers of brown liquid.
Low voices carrying on quiet conversations had been in the air when they entered, but those fell silent as every head turned to eye the three newcomers—except for a scantily clad man and woman who were circulating amongst the patrons. Ramsey guessed that those were servitors which did double duty as pleasure bots.
He was about to take a step when a voice called out from behind the bar.
“Your boots! Take ’em off, and step into the Dri-Rite. I just finished washing the floor!”
Ramsey saw that the speaker was a rotund woman who stood behind the bar with her hands on her hips.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he said with a nod and began to pull off his mud-coated boots.
“I don’t think these floors have been washed in a month,” Lashes said as she slid off her boots and set them in the cleanest part of the boot-rack.
Ramsey saw a tall arch with the words ‘Dri-Rite’ emblazoned on it. “I guess they see a lot of rainy days here,” he said as he stepped into the device. A sonic wave, followed by warm air, hit him like
a truck, and he almost fell back. However, a few seconds later, his clothing was perfectly dry and he stepped out.
“Impressive, I bet that thing gets a lot of use,” he said.
“What makes you think that?” a man at a nearby table said with a snicker.
Ramsey returned the barb with a smile and approached the bar. Behind him, he heard a squeal and thud as Lashes was blown clear out of the Dri-Rite, much to the amusement of the patrons.
“What do you have to warm someone up?” he asked the woman behind the bar. Ramsey knew better than to approach a bartender and ask for information before buying a round.
“I got whisky, vodka made from some local tubers, and a beer that Jimmy over there makes.”
The whiskey had the least backstory, which Ramsey hoped meant it was imported, though he wasn’t about to ask and ruin his fantasy.
“Whisky for me, and vodka for my two friends,” Ramsey said as Lashes and BAMF approached.
“We don’t take credit here,” the woman said. “Company takes their cut of that. You got chits?”
Ramsey nodded and pulled five twenty-piece chits from his pocket. “That do to open a tab?”
The woman’s eyes widened and she smiled. “That’ll do just fine.”
“So, what you doing here?” a man at a nearby table said. “We don’t get a lot of visitors in these parts.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Lashes muttered.
“Ship broke down,” Ramsey sighed. “Life support was acting hinky and we didn’t want to risk making the run to the closest station. Your moon here was nearby, so we set down—didn’t really expect to set down in the middle of a storm, though.”
“They’re pretty common round here,” the bartender said. “You stood a better chance than not of setting down in one.”
“Lovely,” Lashes said.
“We’re a few klicks south of here,” Ramsey said. “Any chance we’re near a port?”
“Only port is down on the west end of the island,” the bartender said. “You got about a hundred kilometers of rain and muck between you and there.”
“Set down south of town?” a woman at a table asked. “Good thing. North of here is all Getts’ super-private land. They wouldn’t take too kindly to anyone dropping in out there.”
“I would have thought that Getts owned this whole place,” Ramsey said. “What’s so special about that land up north?”
“Dunno, but its mighty special to the company folks,” the bartender replied. “Most of the settlements like ours service the robotic shipping fleets that Getts owns. Oceans are messy places, and human labor can better deal with the repairs we have to make on the ships. But up there, they run some sort of R&D facility. All hush, hush. We’re the furthest north fleet repair depot on the island.”
Ramsey was about to reply when the outside door swung open and a tall, dark-haired man in a black slicker walked in. He hung the coat on a hook, but didn’t take off his boots or use the Dri-Rite as he strode toward the bar.
“Greta, whiskey, the real stuff, not that shit you people make here,” the man said as he crashed onto a stool, his boots dripping on Greta’s ‘clean’ floor.
He glanced over at Ramsey and his crew. “Who the fuck are you three?”
“New Eden Health and Safety,” Ramsey said without missing a beat. “We were on our way to Ontario Station but had some environmental system issues, so we set down nearby for repairs.”
“H&S?” The man asked. “Not due around here for months.”
“Like I said,” Ramsey replied, not surprised the man hadn’t paid attention, “set down for repairs—though since we’ll be here for a day or so, I suspect that we may take a look around. I’m Greg Ramsey, you are?” Ramsey asked, while extending his hand.
“Letch, supervisor of this facility,” the man replied warily and gave Ramsey’s hand a limp shake. “Where’d you set down?”
“Down south a ways,” Ramsey said. “Picked the first flat, dry-ish spot we could find.”
He glanced behind him at the assembled patrons, praying none of them would call him out on his bluff with Letch. In the grand scheme of things, it was a pretty safe gamble that none of them were big fans of the company, and more than willing to help someone stick it to the man. Just another company town in the ass-crack of space filled with people trying to make it by.
“Good,” Letch replied before turning to one of the men who had spoken up before. “Jimmy, tomorrow, after you get those repairs done on seventh fleet’s processor ship, help out the good H&S folks here and get them on their way. We wouldn’t want to hold up their trip to Ontario any longer than necessary.”
“Thanks for your generosity,” Ramsey said with a nod.
“Oh, no generosity here,” Letch grinned. “H&S will get billed in full for any assistance rendered, as well as a port fee.”
“A fee for landing in an empty field?” Ramsey asked.
“This is a private moon,” Letch said. “I would never turn away New Eden Health and Services folks such as yourself, but I would be completely in my rights to.”
The threat was thinly veiled, and Ramsey knew that his impromptu cover wouldn’t survive the end of the storm and the first offworld query.
Letch finished his drink in silence and left without paying. When he had, Ramsey nodded to Greta and Jimmy. “Thanks for lending a hand there.”
“Smart move,” Greta grunted. “He would have called his enforcers if he learned you weren’t government—still may, just to be sure.”
“I can’t really help you fix your ship,” Jimmy said. “At least not on the books. Not unless it has H&S registry and their big blue logo on the side.”
Ramsey shook his head. “We have neither of those things, though we have been known to slap on a coat of paint in a hurry. Since you good folks did us a favor, I’ll play it straight with you: our ship’s fine. We’re looking for a friend of ours that came here on the Gettsbird just a few days ago. He’s in trouble and we’re here to take him home.”
One of the women shook her head with dismay. “I saw them come down on radar not long before the storm came in. Landed up north like they always do—they never come in at Port Fenris where the cargo lifters all dock.”
“Patty runs the radar station on this side of the island,” Greta said. “She knows pretty much everything that goes on here.”
“Like how I saw where your ship came down,” Patty said with a wink. “North, not south.”
Ramsey took a last bite off his carrot and set the nub and drooping stem down on the bar. “Well, thanks for keeping that to yourself. I assume it’s on the official logs, then?”
Patty shook her head. “No chance. I run my own special rig—the company scan can’t see through a flock of gnats cleaning their asses, let alone half the weather here and they won’t spring for anything better. I picked you up on my gear, not theirs. Chances are their station up north didn’t spot you, either—though you may not want to bet your lives on it.”
“Fool. Gnats don’t move in flocks,” BAMF muttered.
“Where is their station up there?” Lashes asked. “We didn’t see anything coming in.”
Jimmy nodded. “It’s hard to spot, tucked in a cove—real beaut, too. In the leeward side for most storms. We’d have a better time of it if we could harbor our fleets up there, but they won’t let us near the place, some super-secret research or somethin’.”
“Plus, that’s where they took Missy,” a young man at one of the tables lamented.
“Don’t you go starting with that, Sam,” Greta said. “Missy left this mudball to go back to her parents. She even sent me a message from Port Fenris.”
“I don’t believe it,” Sam replied. “She told me she was going to collect some shells along the shoreline. I know she was going to go north—though I told her not to. Next thing I hear, she’s gone.”
“Maybe she just told you that,” one of the patrons chuckled.
&nbs
p; “Fuck off,” Sam said. “If you’re going north to find your friend, I’m going with you.”
“Hold up, kid,” Ramsey said. “We’re a trained team of professionals. We’ve spent years honing our skills and abilities. We know each other like the backs of our own hands. You would slow us down and get us caught. But if we find your friend Missy, we’ll be sure to get her out of there.”
“But…” Sam began, but Greta shushed him.
“Storm will be over in a few hours,” Patty said. “Skies will be dark for another ten or so after that, be a good time for you to go in.”
“In that case, I’ll have another of whatever that was,” Lashes said. “Gonna take a few more of those to warm me up enough to the idea of going back out in that muck.”
“I’ll take a refill, too,” Ramsey said as he pulled another carrot out from his jacket. “Guess we’re settling in for a bit.”
NOT SO FAST
Ramsey sipped his second glass of whiskey—the good stuff, now that he knew it was available. On his left, Lashes was racing BAMF and a few other locals to the bottom of a bottle of the homegrown vodka, and everyone was trying to ignore the sounds of one of the sex-bot servitors and a patron in one of the back rooms.
It was a welcome distraction when the commissary’s door crashed open to reveal Letch and a group of goons in Getts company uniforms. They stomped in, getting rain and mud everywhere—the man had a real problem with respecting property.
“You there!” he called out, pointing at Ramsey.
“Who, me?” Ramsey asked.
“Yeah, you. You’ve got some nerve!”
“I just…I’m still not sure you’re talking to me,” Ramsey said. “You kinda pointed off to the right at Jimmy there, do you mean him or me?”
“Yeah, it really looked like you pointed at me,” Jimmy said with a nod.
“You!” Letch hollered.
“See…you’re still just using pronouns. You know my name is Ramsey, and his is Jimmy,” Ramsey said as he pulled his carrot out from his mouth and gestured at himself with it, then Jimmy. “Could you just clear this up and use names? It would make things a lot easier.”