by J. S. Morin
Esper glanced away. Yomin was staring right at her, as if she’d been watching the whole time. Guilt flushed Esper’s face at being caught scoping out the crowd.
Carl stood and sauntered up to the flatvid wall, activating it with a touch of the controls. It displayed a crude rendition of the Eyndar/ARGO Disputed Zone. “All right. I’ll bite. If we were to start hacking off the tendrils that the megacorps have embedded in the disputed sector, where would we start?”
Hiroshi’s finger hit the flatvid with a resounding thump. “Right here.”
# # #
A knock at the door to her quarters snapped Esper from her reverie. Wiping the nib of her pen on a rag, she set the instrument aside and straightened her back. “Enter.”
It was Carl of course. She’d known by the knock. “Got a minute?” He stepped inside and shut the door without waiting for an answer. “We’ll be hitting the Hades Breath system soon.”
“I could have dropped both ships into astral, you know. We’d have been there yesterday.”
“Well, Hatchet’s not keen on the idea of his ship going the manual route, but that’s not why I came by. First off, thanks for helping watch the kids. It’s been nice catching up with Jax and Rach.”
Esper shrugged. “It’s been no trouble. They’re good kids. Younger than I’m used to watching, but maybe that’s why.” More than the children themselves, seeing the whole Schultz family together warmed her heart. She wondered if she could ever have what they had.
“Yeah, about that. Lisa said you were writing a book.”
Esper patted the half-written tome on her tiny bedside desk. She’d picked it up from a specialty shop while offworld on one of Carl’s errands. Even with the Convocation discount, the blank, leather-bound volume had wiped out her hardcoin reserves.
“In blood.” Carl gave her a pointed look, interrupted briefly by a glance at her ink pot.
Esper sighed and rolled her eyes. “So melodramatic at that age. It’s just pig’s blood, plus a few preservative agents and whatnot. It’s nothing to worry about.”
“You’re still writing a book… in blood. That’s never a good sign. Plus, unless my eyes are going, that’s not English… or even Latin for that matter. I might not understand it for shit, but Latin letters are readable. Does Mort know you’re working on this?”
“Of course not. It’s a surprise.”
“Oh,” Carl said, backing toward the door as if suddenly regretful of having delved into this particular matter. Served him right, being a nosy Nelly. “Well, just—when you’re ready that is—come on out and ease us back into realspace. No rush. Wouldn’t want to… dry out your pig blood or anything.”
“Thanks. I’ll be right there. Just need to jot down a few more blasphemous incantations and finish my recipe for children pie. You… um, do know I’m joking, right?”
Carl eyed her warily as he opened the door. “Yeah. But some of that business wasn’t, and I’m not exactly sure where the line was.” The door closed.
# # #
Hades Breath was the local name for a moderately habitable planet with a scientific name consisting mostly of numbers. Between the pale skies and mountainous landscape, there was little to love about the inhospitable ball of rock. Plants grew there grudgingly. Animal life was unknown until explorers from other worlds arrived and brought it. While it was widely accepted that the atmosphere was safe to breathe, it stank of sulfur. To the locals who named the place, that was the joke.
The cargo bay of the Mobius lay open to the local air, the crews of both ships gathered to receive orders. Three of Hatchet’s held back as a reserve to guard the Hatchet Job.
Carl clapped his hands once for attention. “All right, people, listen up. We want to find who’s operating on the sly on this world. Forget the petty narcotics and weapons. Ignore the gamblers and mercs. We’re looking for people after local resources for shipment back to ARGO space. These are going to be our best bets as targets. I don’t want anyone going off alone. Hatchet, take Samurai with you. Juggler and Vixen are going together, of course. Reebo’s with me. Amy, you take Esper with you. Niang and Yomin are watching the Mobius and the kids.”
Amy shot Carl a scowl. “I thought we’d get some shore leave out of this.”
“Not in this shithole,” Carl replied at full voice, keeping his side of the conversation public. “Now let’s get out there and find some work. Keep comms at the ready. Coordinate through Yomin.”
The group broke up and filtered into the settlement where the ships had landed. Without a proper name of its own, the locals referred to the largest town on Hades Breath as Landing Zone. Esper said nothing, but fell into step a pace behind Amy and to her right.
Halfway to the section of Landing Zone where parked ships gave way to buildings and unpaved roads, Amy stopped short and let Esper catch up.
“This isn’t personal.”
Esper nodded. “You wanted to spend time with Carl. I get that.”
“It’s not even that. It’s just…”
“I can’t go off on my own,” Esper said with a sigh. “I get stupider about tech by the month. If I wore a comm earpiece and needed to defend myself out here, I’d probably fuzzle it.”
“Is that the technical term?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Esper replied with a wink. “I’m getting awful at anything technical, remember?”
Amy resumed walking, heading toward a cluster of buildings that looked like warehouses. “That’s not why Carl paired you with me.”
Esper kept silent. She knew just as well.
Amy shook her head. “I’m not marine like Tanny, but I look after myself just fine.”
“I’m sure Carl knows that.” She wished that someone besides Mort worried about her safety.
“That schlump? He thinks he can talk blaster bolts into missing him. He needs a wizard babysitting him. Not me.”
“I’m prettier than Mort,” Esper replied. “Better company, too. You could have gotten stuck with him if I hadn’t come along.”
Amy looked over her shoulder and grinned. “OK. Got me there. But let’s be clear: I don’t need coddling.” She patted the blaster pistol holstered at her side. “I know how to use this thing.”
Esper nodded. But as long as she was around, Amy wasn’t going to have to.
# # #
“Not the way I expected to be spending our first day without the kids in six months,” Rachel said. She stood on the front of a rented hover-cruiser as Jaxon watched the factory entrance through a pair of binoculars. There was no public record of what when on in that plant, but it was located too close to a primordial wildlife reserve to be a coincidence.
Jaxon passed her the binoculars. “Not the way I expected us to latch on with Ramsey again. Somehow I pictured us flying together, maybe in some stolen Typhoon V prototypes. You sure the kids are safe with Yomin and Niang?”
“I think once they heard about Esper’s ice cream stash they ceased being a threat to run off.”
“Sure, they wouldn’t want to leave the ship. But those kids are too smart for their own good. Maybe they start missing us. Maybe they want to keep the ice cream close at hand. Ever think they could fly that ship to come looking for us?”
“Jaxon Lawrence Schultz, are you trying to worry me to an early grave? I trust Scarecrow to fly that old junk bucket, or Ramsey. I don’t need to worry about Jax and Lisa trying to figure out those controls. Wait… I see a transport leaving the factory.”
“About time. Any idea what’s in it?”
Rachel jammed the binoculars into Jaxon’s chest. “Look through those and tell me you can see inside that transport. Because if they had steel-penetrating scanners in there somewhere, I’d like to know about it.”
Jaxon dropped down and slipped behind the controls of the hover-cruiser. “Coulda just said no.” He flipped through a quick start-up sequence, and the vehicle shot off in pursuit of the transport.
“Taking bets on who they’re selling to?”
> “I’m going with the Nebula Consortium. Can’t trust consortia. It’s like they’re going out of their way not to tell you what they do.”
“They made your boots.”
“Yeah, and about a billion other things. I’m guessing these frontier factory types are selling them the weird bio-goop from this planet. What Nebula does with it, who the hell knows? But I’m glad I’ve got a girl who lays odds instead of worrying whether I could follow that transport without getting spotted.”
Rachel snorted. “If I didn’t think you could handle it, I’d have driven.”
# # #
Carl was surrounded by the type of men most law-abiding folks hope never to meet in their lifetimes. He could tell at a glance that there wasn’t a man among them who hadn’t spilled blood for fun or profit—possibly both. If their looming presence bothered him, he didn’t let it show. He let them glare, eyes boring into him like laser drills. At his side, Reebo kept perfectly still.
“Ain’t got all day, Ramsey,” a man with a red eye-patch snapped.
“You in or you out?” demanded another who cracked his knuckles absentmindedly, one finger at a time.
Carl looked down at the cards he’d been dealt and tossed them away. “Out.”
“For the bleedin’ sun god’s sake. We waited all that time for you to fold?”
Carl held a thumb and forefinger a centimeter apart. “I was this close to calling your bluff, Razu.”
“The hell I was bluffing,” Razu snarled, flipping over a pair of kings as he raked in a sloppy pile of hardcoin terras.
Reebo leaned over and whispered, “Maybe it’s time we cut our losses and start asking around.”
“That’s what crews are for,” Carl replied softly. “I have to be a public figure. Let people get to know me. You know, mingle.”
“Boss…”
“Hey,” snapped the man with the red eye-patch. “No secrets at the table.”
Carl lifted a short stack of hardcoin terras and let them clatter back down to the table. “If this muscle-bound clod wants to help me lose my money to you faster, what’s it to you?”
There was a scraping sound as Reebo’s chair slid away from the table. “I’m outta here.”
Carl watched him storm away from the poker game but noticed he only ventured as far as the bar. Hades Breath might not have many amenities, but they were welcome in the casino as long as they had money. Plus, Reebo needed to keep his meal ticket safe, even if he was pissed about it. Restacking his hardcoin, Carl prepared to start winning back his money.
# # #
People like Radovan Dragovic didn’t take unsolicited meetings. People like Hiroshi “Hatchet” Samuelson didn’t accept no for an answer. It had taken a fifty-terra bribe to a cargo handler to get the name, another hundred to a sushi courier to find him, and some colorful lies to the door guards to get in to see Mr. Dragovic. Officially billing himself as an export facilitator, Dragovic was the sort of middleman-by-muscle that most lawless economies cultivated. In other words, he was human fertilizer but of a sort Hatchet had dealt with before.
Samurai followed into the office but hung back to let Hatchet do the talking. Wasn’t a tough sell to get Samurai to keep his yap shut. He kept quiet and still, making him easy to forget about with a guy like Hatchet drawing all eyes in the room.
Dragovic sat behind an industrial desk, rusted at the edges. His palms pressed together and he tapped at his lips. He studied Hatchet from beneath bushy eyebrows flecked with gray. “I already have enough ships carry goods from planet. I don’t like new blood.”
Hatchet walked up and planted a hand on the desk, leaning over to loom above Dragovic. To his credit, the export facilitator didn’t flinch. “Listen up. I’m here on business. I represent a new player in the sector, and I’m here as a courtesy. Y’see, my boss has the resources and the backing to put a lot of money in a lot of pockets but only for the ones willing to play ball. Having local help will make things go smoother for everyone. But between you and me, if I don’t get the help I’m looking for, trade off this rock’s gonna get pretty dry, and you won’t be making a cut of it.”
“Mr. Hatchet, let me be blunt. You come my planet. You barge my office. You, I don’t like. Bring stink of Earth with you.” He said something else over his shoulder to the two guards stationed in the corners of the office. Hatchet cursed himself for not having taken Blackjack up on his offer of a translator earring. Earrings weren’t his style, but neither was letting petty crime lords yap to their henchmen without him understanding a word of it.
But when the two guards approached, blaster pistols drawn, he got the picture. “Good day, Mr. Hatchet. Go. Do not make my men ruin these nice carpets I buy just last month.”
Hatchet stood his ground, fuming. The guards had a local look, sickly and thin from the shit in the atmosphere. Not that it took muscle to work a trigger, but there was more to shooting someone than finger strength. The guards came within arm’s reach. One prodded him in the ribs with the barrel of his weapon. Hatchet had him by the wrist before the poor slob knew what was happening. With a jerk, he twisted a wrist, and the blaster fell to the floor. His companion struggled to aim as Hatchet used his leverage to spin the unfortunate guard into the line of fire.
“Shoot him! Shoot him!” Dragovic shouted.
No blaster shot sizzled across the room in response to the cry. Instead, a head fell to the floor immediately followed by the rest of its body. Samurai stood with blood washing the last quarter meter of his sword. No emotion touched the placid expression he wore. He picked up the guard’s blaster and tucked it into his belt.
“Was not expecting that,” Dragovic muttered sullenly.
Without crossfire to worry about, Hatchet smashed his human shield in the temple with his elbow. The blow stung, bone on bone, but it dropped the unarmed guard like a sack of permacrete mix.
“Watch the door,” Hatchet called over his shoulder. “Time to negotiate.”
“You are dead man,” Dragovic said, but some of the bluster had leaked from him. “No one comes to Hades Breath and makes enemy of Radovan Dragovic.”
Hatchet stalked around to Dragovic’s side of the desk, drawing his own blaster. “Interesting opening offer. Let me make one of my own. You open that hidden computer console in your desk. Then you upload the contents to a comm ID I give you. Do that, and me and my buddy walk out of here with you still breathing.” He leveled the blaster pistol at Dragovic’s head.
To his credit, the export facilitator held his ground. He looked up at Hatchet over the blaster barrel and met his eyes. “Go to hell. I tell you nothing. Kill me or not, my men won’t let you leave here alive. You lose.”
Hatchet shook his head. “How’d you get anywhere in this business? You are awful at negotiating.” He pulled the trigger and put a neat, cauterized hole in Dragovic’s head.
Shoving Dragovic aside, chair and all, Hatchet popped the catch that opened the desk into a computer workstation. He was greeted with an incomprehensible language and what appeared to be a password prompt. He opened a comm. “Hatchet Job, come in. July, we need immediate extraction. Bring the ship, blast a wall at my location, and back the cargo ramp up to the hole. We’ve got equipment to load.”
# # #
Roddy scratched at the back of his head and sprawled back on his office couch. The message on the datapad held aloft between his feet made no sense. His outgoing warning to the Mobius had been light on details, since he wasn’t sure he’d messed around with anything. But he’d been pretty clear that there had been some concerns regarding the state of the engine room, its maintenance, and the safety of certain vital subsystems. The reply—sent five minutes ago, which meant they weren’t halfway across the galaxy like he’d imagined—contained just a single word.
Acknowledged. There was no indication who had sent it. The message came from the Mobius’s emergency comm ID with no signature.
Was that supposed to reassure him? Was is meant to piss him off? Because if it
were the latter, it had worked. He’d dangled his gene-mixers over the target range on this one just sending that warning. If Jean Niang wasn’t utter shit as a mechanic, he’d have caught anything wrong with the Mobius without the heads-up.
Roddy’s hand jittered as he reached for his coffee mug. He was getting sick of the taste, but the caffeine kept his liver busy. Once the syndicate got offworld trade figured out, he promised himself he’d get a selection of different bean blends to try. It’d be a warm day in the void before he found one that could replace the sweet nectar of hops and malt, but he at least needed variety. His mind was clearer with no booze in his bloodstream. His thoughts raced. But without a change of pace now and then, he worried that the allure of the bottle would prove too great.
He held a mouthful of coffee, letting the heat seep into him before swallowing and following the thermal path down his throat and into his belly. Roddy used the time to think. A response meant that the ship hadn’t gone and exploded or anything drastic. But the response wasn’t the reassurance he needed right then.
Switching the datapad from text comm reader to intra-Odysseus communicator, he looked up Doss. “Hey, what’s the status on the Mermaid?”
There was a long pause. “Lieutenant Charlton’s ship is off limits. I don’t have access.”
“Access granted. You’ve got thirty minutes to make it flight ready.” Roddy ended the call.
He’d done it. Sure, he still had time to back out, but he wasn’t going to. The astral relay had directional indication on the signal from the Mobius. It might not have been laser accurate, but it would give him a general heading. That, plus Roddy’s understanding of the hamsters running Carl’s brain would let him cross-reference and figure out where the bastard was flying. After all, he was looking to score a job, and Roddy’s worked as many jobs with Carl Ramsey as just about anyone. And if there was an exception to that in the syndicate, it was only Mort.