by Aaron Hubble
The stares weighed on him and he knew someone must have recorded his face. There would be no hiding from the authorities now. They would be wanted fugitives.
Sirens approached. A small port authority transport zipped toward the platform. He pulled Luana closer trying to be strong for both of them while fear gripped him. Thoughts of what would happen to Galila and Safiya if he and Luana were caught raced through his mind.
The panic nearly froze him, but he pushed on for his girls. They had to get off Carrefour, but first they needed to get away from the authorities. He turned his head away from the crowd and slipped through the throng of people, trying his best to disappear among them.
“Walk faster,” he whispered into Luana’s ear. “The authorities just pulled up to the platform. The guy you wounded will talk, and they’ll be after us.”
She nodded and let him lead her down the hallway. His gaze darted around the corridor looking for an exit or a place to duck into. They passed several platform doors, but their access panels glowed red indicating they were locked. That meant a ship was landing or taking off so it wasn’t safe to be inside.
Sweat beaded on his forehead as the sound of the sirens grew closer. Malone was on the verge of losing any semblance of rationality when he spotted a platform door on the outer ring standing open. With any luck it would be empty. Most of the platforms had a cargo entrance leading outside allowing freight to be hauled in and out. If they could get out, they would have a chance. He ducked through the door, pulling Luana with him.
A small, boxy cargo vessel stood in the middle of the platform. Rectangular nacelles rose above the body of the ship and swept backward. Malone cursed when he saw an older man on a fork truck loading boxes into the hold of the ship. The outside exit lay behind the ship. There was no getting to the exit without the man seeing him. Even if they dashed past him, he could easily let the authorities know which direction they’d gone. Their escape would be short lived.
Malone hung his head, overwhelmed by the odds piling up against them.
This all had to be a dream. A terrible one. Maybe if he closed his eyes long enough, he’d open them and see his girls playing in the front yard. He would hear Safiya giggling with delight as Galila pushed her on the swing.
The screech of metal sliding over metal brought him back to the awful present.
Wishing wasn’t going to bring the girls back.
Luana was right. They needed to do whatever was necessary. They needed to get off Carrefour and go after them. No laws, no danger, no threat of lost life would stop him.
Getting off this rock required a ship, and they’d stumbled onto one. What had first appeared as an obstacle had turned out to be a blessing. He looked at the little cargo vessel. Olibert was painted in red across the ship’s dull gray hull. The weight of the pistol rested against his leg. Any other time, any other situation, he would never consider such a drastic course of action, but today was anything but typical. Malone set his shoulders and grabbed Luana by the arms so they were staring into each other’s eyes.
“It’s my turn to have a plan. It’s not a great one, but I think it will get us off Carrefour so we can start tracking down the girls. I need you to put a smile on your face and trust me. Can you do that?”
She wiped tears from her eyes and then looked past him. “What are you planning?”
“I’m going to try and hire this guy. If that doesn’t work, well, we’ll need to be more persuasive.” He patted the gun still in the pocket of his pants.
“Our story is that we’re just a married couple looking for a cheap ride to wherever he’s going. We’ll let the situation dictate the course of action. Isn’t that what you told me?”
Luana nodded and took a deep breath. A smile spread across her face. It looked good, natural even. Malone prayed she could hold it together long enough to convince the pilot to help them.
They clasped hands and walked toward the fork truck. The whirring of the motor grew louder as they drew near. The truck made a quick turn and almost clipped Malone. He called out as he jerked Luana and himself out of the way.
The white haired man sitting in the seat yelped and slammed on the brakes. His deeply lined face moved from shock to anger. “What in the hell! Where did you two come from?”
Malone smiled. “Sorry if we startled you.”
Malone watched the older man, he guessed was probably in his sixties, turn off the lift and then stare at them. “Can I help you with anything or do you just make a habit of being in the way?” he growled. “Kind of in the middle of something and on a deadline.”
“Well,” Malone said. “We’re wondering if you were for hire. My name’s James Tennant and this is my wife Farah. We’re looking for a ride off Carrefour. See if there are better opportunities somewhere else. The EC’s made it hard to start a business around here, or even find a good paying job.”
“Damn Collective,” the man said, spitting a wad of tobacco on the floor. It splattered across the concrete leaving a dark brown stain. “Yeah, their port taxes are getting ridiculous and eating into my profits. The problem is, there’s no one who can or wants to stand up to them. Anyone who does, doesn’t do it for long.”
“For sure. Malone frowned, mimicking the man’s mood. “So, are you for hire?”
“I’m always for hire. For the right price. But I’m not a ferry and I’m up against my weight limit on this job. I suggest you try someone else.”
The old freighter’s hand reached for the key and started to turn it. The sirens of the authorities moved down the hallway. No doubt they’d found the wounded man and were starting their search. Sweat ran down the middle of Malone’s back.
Before he could think better of his actions, Malone pulled the pistol from his pocket and pushed the muzzle into the man’s face. The end brushed against the gray whiskers. Beside him, he saw Luana’s pistol pointed at the man’s nose. She’d moved so quickly, he hadn’t seen it. He glanced at her. Her eyes were cool and steady. Much more than he felt.
Malone fought to keep his hand from shaking and his voice from cracking. “Look. We don’t want to do this. Honestly, I want to pay you for your services, but our situation’s desperate and I don’t have time to get into it right now.”
The man’s eyes flicked between the two pistols pointed at his head and toward the doorway where the sound of sirens drifted in.
“If you left these remaining boxes unloaded, would there be enough weight for us to safely come aboard your ship?”
The man nodded.
“Good,” Malone said and took a step backward. “Lead the way. You just took on two passengers.”
The man hesitated and looked toward the doorway again. “I don’t want to get mixed up in anything.”
“We understand,” Luana said. Confidence had returned to her voice. “But you’re dealing with two people who would do just about anything to get off this planet. I can pilot your ship out of this hangar should you choose not to cooperate, but that’s a course of action I don’t want to take.”
Malone watched the man swallow hard, the meaning of Luana’s cold words sinking in. He crawled off the lift with his hands held high.
“I’m not a smart man, but I understand when I’m being threatened.”
He moved up the ramp of his ship, Malone and Luana following. The man pushed a button on a control panel and the ramp began to close. Lights flickered on as they entered the dim hold, three-quarters full of crates secured to the floor.
The hold looked used, but well maintained. Malone had fixed ships whose insides seemed to be covered in a layer of grease. That was absent here. Scuffs marked the floor where cargo had been moved in and out. The ship, and its pilot, had been ferrying cargo for a long time. Scorch marks spread across one wall, half scrubbed off. The ship probably had quite a story to tell.
Not unlike the grizzled man who was its pilot. To the side, Malone saw the engine room. Through the thick transparent windows, his trained eye could see the engine was not
standard. Modifications had been made that told him this ship could do much more than what she let on by a cursory glance.
They followed him out of the hold and down a narrow corridor that opened into a small kitchen unit. A small metal table was bolted to the floor with a cushioned corner bench wrapping around it. Two small bunks hung off the wall.
Past the kitchen unit a door on the left led into a small bedroom. Malone glanced in and saw a bed pushed against the wall and small desk.
He stepped into the cockpit. Two flight chairs faced the instrument panel. A third chair sat pressed up against the back wall. The old pilot took his seat, his hands busily moved over the instrument panel. Malone stood behind the chair, his gun still pointed at the back of the man’s head.
“This is new,” the pilot said, smiling while his eyes remained fixed on the control panel.
“What is?” Malone asked.
“I’ve done preflight hungover, sick, and with a copilot. But I’ve never done it at gunpoint.” A deep laugh rolled out of his chest. “It does add a certain thrill to the situation.”
He laughed again and pulled a bottle from under his seat. After taking a long pull of the whiskey, he tilted the bottle toward Malone, offering him a drink. Malone stared at him for a moment before shaking his head no. How could he be so calm? He had guns pointed at his head. Malone figured he was either fearless or crazy.
The deck plates beneath Malone’s feet began to vibrate.
“Looks like you’ve attracted an audience,” the pilot said nodding out the forward window.
A port authority vehicle skidded to a stop in the hangar. A commanding voice came across the ship’s comm.
“Freighter Olibert. Kill your thrusters and delay take off. There’s been a situation in the space port we would like to question you about. Your safety and the safety of the rest of the port may depend upon it.”
The pilot swiveled his head and looked at Malone. “I’ll assume you want me to ignore that and just take off.”
“Yes…please.” Malone said.
“Hang on. This is going to be bumpy.”
The ship ascended a few feet and then rotated like a top 180 degrees. Malone fought to keep himself upright. He looked at Luana and saw her sitting in the third seat. She was quickly strapping herself in.
The ship lurched and then shot skyward. Malone tumbled through the cockpit and hit the far wall. His gun fell from his hand as he flailed for something to hold onto. The deck shuddered when the little hauler twisted and rolled several times.
Malone rolled with the ship and seemed to hit every obstacle and sharp corner. He finally managed to grasp the side of the door frame leading into the kitchen and to keep himself from bouncing off anything else.
The violent movement ceased, replaced by the low hum of engines reaching their cruising speed after breaking through the Carrefour atmosphere. Malone gingerly rolled to his hands and knees and winced. Using the wall for support, he slowly stood. He closed his eyes until the vertigo faded.
When he opened them, he found himself staring down the muzzle of a pistol.
CHAPTER TEN
“Now this feels better,” the pilot said with a sigh. “More like home. Why don’t we start this whole thing over again.”
Malone raised his hands slowly. The pistol remained steady, and Malone saw the pilot had a second gun trained on Luana.
The pilot looked at Luana as she stood and then back at Malone. “I know you two had a plan you so generously included me in. And thank you, by the way, I haven’t had this much fun in quite a while. Here’s the thing, as enjoyable as this has been, I’m losing money as we speak and the rest of my cargo is on Carrefour. Now the authorities will have loads of questions for me. If I send a message back to Carrefour space port letting them know I have their fugitives, I’m betting they won’t give me any grief, and grief is something I’d like to avoid. I’ll be able to wash my hands of all this nonsense and fly away. Which, if you’ll remember, was what I was doing before you interrupted my day. Do you understand me?”
Malone swallowed and nodded. There was something about the man that made Malone nervous, like he was just one slight push from falling off a very thin edge of sanity.
“Excellent. We should get along great. Especially when you two are locked away in the hold—”
Luana cleared her throat. “Could I make a counter-proposal?”
“Sure, sweetheart. As long as it doesn’t involve me flying with a pistol inserted in my ear. Makes a guy twitchy.”
Luana slowly reached into her back pocket. “I have three cards here that, in total, have over five thousand credits on them. They’re yours if you’ll help us.”
The pilot’s eyes widened. “Five thousand? Why didn’t you give it to me in the first place?”
“You didn’t give us the chance.”
The pilot laughed again. “Where would I take you and why would we be making the journey?”
Malone looked at Luana. Desperation was creeping into her eyes again.
“The Collective took some very important things from us, and we want them back,” Malone said.
The pilot straightened up. “You want to steal something from the Collective?”
“Yes.”
“You want to take something from the largest and most dangerous criminal organization in the galaxy?”
Malone glanced at Luana again. She looked like a cat whose muscles were primed to pounce. He realized this could turn very, very ugly and somebody would likely be hurt.
“What they took is very important,” he said.
A big grin spread across the pilot’s face. He lowered the pistols, pushed them into Malone’s hands, and then brushed past him beckoning them to follow.
“I’m always up for sticking it to the Collective. And I’m always up for a drink. Follow me and let’s get to know each other a little better,” the pilot said.
Malone stared in disbelief at the pistols he held awkwardly. “What just happened?”
“I think we just signed on with the craziest pilot in the quadrant,” Luana said. She looked toward the kitchen where Malone could hear the clink of ice cubes in glasses. Luana smiled. “I like him.”
“Seriously?”
“Reminds me of my grandfather.”
Malone snorted. “The one who kept flies for pets and talked to the gourds he grew?”
“Yeah. That’s the one. He was nice. Crazy, but so nice.”
He laughed quickly before remembering the cards Luana handed the pilot. “Where did you get the money?”
“Stole it,” she said casually. “Bumped into a few people in the space port. I actually have no idea how much credit is on those cards.”
Malone shook his head, his eyes wide. “You stole and then you bluffed to what appears to be an unstable man pointing a weapon at you?”
“I did.”
The pilot’s voice came from the kitchen. “It’s rude to keep your host waiting. Especially when there’s good whiskey involved.”
“Shall we?” Luana said, gesturing toward the door and then disappearing through it, leaving Malone in the empty cockpit holding guns that were just minutes ago pointed at his head.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Malone looked around the corner of the door into the kitchen. The pilot had pulled a folding stool up to the front edge of the table and had his large hands wrapped around a tumbler half full of whiskey. Luana had slid into the corner bench and was chatting amiably with the old pilot.
He took a hesitant step into the kitchen and looked for a place to put the guns. The pilot noticed his awkward attempts and waved at the bread box. “That’s where I keep my backup.”
Malone lifted the lid on the bread box and saw the handle of a pistol sticking out from behind a loaf of bread.
“I’d hate to see where you keep your other weapons.”
“The stunner is under my pillow and the knife’s behind the toilet.”
“Of course it is,” Malone said. He settle
d on the sink. They wouldn’t slide off the tiny counter top if the ship hit some turbulence. He took his place next to Luana opposite the pilot.
Luana gestured toward the pilot. “Malone, this is Abram Ginnis.”
The thick set man thrust a hand toward Malone which he took slowly. Abram’s hand enveloped his in a crushing grip.
“Nice to meet you, Malone. I’m owner and operator of this little skiff.”
Abram pushed a glass toward Malone. “I’ll bet you’ll want that drink now.”
Malone reached for the glass and took a sip. He arched his eyebrows at the surprisingly smooth whiskey. Abram noticed him take another drink.
“Good, eh? You won’t drink any rotgut whiskey on the Olibert. I may be a drunk, but I’m a drunk with expensive tastes.”
Abram took another drink and then wiped the back of his hand across his whiskers. He set the glass down and fixed his blue eyes on Malone. There was just something off kilter about this man that made Malone nervous. His eyes held a contained craziness.
It was one thing to know what could set a person off. Not knowing when someone could explode made situations tenuous.
“Now, how about you two tell me why you commandeered my ship. Judging by the look of you two, it’s not something you do on a regular basis. Spill it.” The pilot’s face turned serious, his eyes sharp and clear. Malone breathed a little easier. Perhaps he wasn’t completely insane.
Malone and Luana looked at each other. Malone placed the palms of his hands flat on the metal table and ran a fingernail along a deep scratch. They shook and then Luana laid her hand on top of his. The small show of support touched him deeply and he felt some of his distrust chipped away. He smiled at her and then looked at Abram.
“The Collective kidnapped our daughters. The EC…they came earlier today to collect ‘taxes’. It’s really just extortion money. If you give them money, they’ll let you keep doing business in the area they’ve decided to take over.” He leaned back against the cushioned seat and ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t have the money. I’m a mechanic and business has been slow. I tried to reason with them, but they killed my apprentice, beat me unconscious, and took our girls as payment for the taxes.”