by M. D. Cooper
Jack did have to acknowledge that Vincent’s T-shirt read, ‘Go ahead and try’. He wasn’t sure the context was quite the same, but he chose to take it as a sign. “Not entirely sure who he is, but looks good to me.”
Alissa groaned and rolled her eyes. “Vincent is a Class-A sleazeball, surely, but what about his taste in art?”
“That’s where his wife Merica comes in,” Triss continued. “Apparently, Vincent’s reputation of being an uncultured dirtbag was starting to hurt business, so he decided to try to buy himself some class—much like anyone with too much money and too little common decency. He found himself an impressionable young Art History major with an exotic accent to be both his arm candy and personal stylist. She’s recently completed a remodel of his estate on Estrada, complete with seventy million credits’ worth of new art installations.”
Jack scowled. “What a stupid amount of money to spend on art.”
“Can you think of some better way to spend it?” Alissa asked.
“Um… a spaceship?” he ventured.
“Think of the luxury yacht we could have for seventy million…” Finn said with a wistful look in his eyes.
“No, this whole plan is based on us taking the art to sell on the black market, which we’ll trade for goods to sell for credits to donate to the needy,” Alissa said firmly.
“Yeah, that was the original plan,” Jack replied, “but I like ship upgrades much better.”
“I think we’re all in agreement on that.” Triss returned her attention to the holographic image. “So, anyway, the remodel is complete, but Vincent hasn’t yet moved into the property. That means his full security detail won’t be there.”
“And when’s the move-in date?” Jack questioned.
“Two days from now.”
“That’s no preparation time at all!” Alissa exclaimed.
Finn raised an eyebrow. “Since when do we prepare properly for anything?”
Alissa took a deep breath. “Fair point.”
“I’m thinking we raid our old equipment stash and have at it,” Triss suggested.
Jack cocked his head. “Wait, what equipment stash?”
“Oh, you know, just some… stuff,” Triss faltered.
Jack’s one good eye narrowed. The heat signature on his cybernetic eye revealed that her face was flushed. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“We maybe kinda didn’t need you to have that eye mod,” Triss admitted.
“Truth be told, we completely forgot about the tech we had hidden down there,” Alissa added. “It was only after you already had the eye that I remembered.”
Jack took a step back. “So, let me get this straight… You barely even used me on the op that you modded me for, and you didn’t even need those mods to accomplish what little use you did get out of me?”
Triss looked down. “Yeah…”
Alissa placed a soothing hand on Jack’s shoulder. “But remember, the eye adds character.”
“You’re all unbelievable.” Jack shook his head.
“On the flip side, though,” Finn said in the ensuing silence, “we will need those mods to complete this heist, I expect.”
“Yes, we can definitely figure out some way in which you’re absolutely necessary,” Triss affirmed.
“Aw, you’d do that for me?” Jack asked with a tear in his eye.
“Absolutely.” Triss patted his hand. “Now, we’ll need to get the stealth suits out of storage, and some high-res projectors.”
“Plus the laser pistols,” Alissa added.
“Well, obviously.” Triss smirked. “Finn, can you reach out to your contacts and get them warmed up to the idea of fencing some expensive paintings?”
“Can and will do.” He saluted.
“What should I do?” Jack questioned.
“You can carry the gear once we have it,” Alissa replied. “In the meantime, try to stay out of trouble.”
He frowned at her. “What have I done in the past month to possibly warrant that statement?”
“There was the time when you got your hand stuck in the peanut butter jar,” Finn supplied.
“Or when you decided that the air ducts looked funny in the corner of the lounge room and you replumbed everything so the cooking hood vented directly into my bedroom,” Triss added.
“Which, incidentally, is also my bedroom,” Alissa grumbled.
“And yet you resist our request for a new ship. This one needs a total remodel,” Jack insisted.
Alissa glared at him. “We didn’t need a remodel until you decided to paint the lounge room lime green right after you knocked down the partition wall.”
“I thought it would make it more airy—like we were laying in a meadow.”
“Then why did you paint the ceiling?” Alissa pressed.
“I just really like green, okay?” Jack’s cheeks burned.
Triss smiled. “Needless to say, we will not be relying on Jack to pick out the good art from the estate.”
“I may surprise you.” Jack waited for Triss to continue her explanation.
“Okay, so with Jack staying out of the way, the rest of us will get everything prepped. We can be at the supply cache in about two hours, right Alissa?”
The captain nodded. “An easy jump from here.”
“Great. We’ll grab what we need and then bust into the estate before they know what hit them,” Triss concluded. “Any questions?”
Jack tentatively raised his hand.
Triss swore under her breath. “Yes?”
“Do I get a stealth suit, too?”
Alissa massaged the bridge of her nose. “Yes, you’ll get a stealth suit.”
“Okay, just checking, because the last time we went on a job, you stuck me in that awful pink hazmat onesie.”
“Don’t try to deny that you loved that suit,” Triss said.
“I—”
“Any questions from someone other than Jack?” Alissa asked. No one spoke up. “All right, get to work.”
Jack let out an exaggerated sigh and walked back to his spot on the couch in the lounge room. He waited for everyone to be busy with their tasks before he kicked back to relax. It was so much easier for the others to think he was incompetent so they’d do all the work and he could just go along for the ride.
While Finn was busy making video calls to potential fences, Jack took the opportunity to level up his rival character in a game they’d had going for the past month. All in all, it wasn’t a bad deal to be the manual labor punching bag on the team when there was no hard work to be done—certainly better than having genuine responsibility. He didn’t know how Alissa could keep her sanity.
True to the estimation, the Little Princess II arrived at the destination planet in just under two hours. Jack gazed out the window as the ship made the final approach and settled into a geosynchronous orbit.
“What is this place?” he asked Triss when she came to retrieve him.
“Doesn’t have a colloquial name,” she replied. “We just know it as RT-317.”
He took in the brown ground and minimal cloud cover. “Is it habitable?”
“Oh, no. Not even remotely. The gravity is just about the only thing that falls within tolerable limits for us frail humans.”
“So… EVA suit?” Jack asked.
“Yep. We’ll take the landing shuttle down and bring back what we need.”
“We’re not landing the Little Princess II?”
“The air is too acidic. The shuttle has better shielding.”
Jack frowned. “But the EVA suits—”
“They’ll be fine for the few minutes we’ll be down there. Come on.” Triss led the way to the hold in the belly of the ship.
It was the place where Jack had spent the least time over the past month, since they’d mostly just hung around in the lounge room playing video games and drinking too much of Alissa’s delicious coffee. So, it came as a particularly great surprise to Jack when he entered the hold and was confronted
by a two-meter-tall column of white feathers.
“Hello, Jack,” the feathers greeted.
“Um, Triss…?” Jack jumped backward.
“Oh, you haven’t met Morey?” she asked. “He’s our mechanic.”
“Th—the feathers?” Jack stammered.
“Right, sorry!” The feathers rustled. “I was in buffing mode.” White feathers cascaded to the floor a moment later, revealing a bipedal metallic robot.
Jack’s heart rate returned to normal. “Oh. I thought you were an alien.”
Triss snickered. “Nope. Just our mechanic droid.”
“And the feathers?” Jack asked.
“Easiest way to polish the chrome accents on the crawler,” Morey replied.
“The crawler?”
Triss shook her head. “Stars, Jack! You know nothing about what we have on this ship, do you?”
“Apparently not…”
“The crawler is our all-terrain vehicle for when we can’t land right by the destination and need to travel over rough ground. We’ll use it to get to the estate, since we can’t bring the whole ship right up to the entrance. I had Morey get it looking all extra shiny and fancy for us so we can blend in with the high rollers.”
“I don’t think an all-terrain vehicle is going to pass as a luxury towncar…” Jack pointed out.
“No, but we can look like some very sophisticated groundskeepers.” Triss took a deep breath. “But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. First, the equipment.”
“Right.”
Jack eyed Morey cautiously as he stepped around the robot and its feather suit so he could get to the landing shuttle.
“Have a safe flight!” Morey waved goodbye to them with his claw-like mechanical hand.
“We’ve really had a robot worker down here all this time?” Jack asked Triss once they were inside the shuttle with the door sealed.
“Yeah. Like, every ship in this size class has a robo mechanic.”
“Then why have I never seen one?”
“Have you ever been on another ship in this size class before?”
“No.”
“Well, there you go.” Triss powered up the shuttle. “Honestly, Jack, sometimes I forget that you’re a grown man.”
“You’ve never given me a proper chance, if we’re to be perfectly honest,” Jack told her.
“I guess you have proven yourself useful here and there.”
Jack buckled his flight harness. “I’ve come a long way. No more chewing straw, I put away the dishes…”
“Well, you try to put away the dishes.” Triss smiled as she directed the shuttle out of the docking bay. “It’s clear you don’t know where the bowls go.”
“There are too many sizes.”
“Uh huh…”
Jack crossed his arms over the restraints. “There are seven different types of bowl, Triss. That isn’t a remotely reasonable number for a ship with four humans and one robot.”
“Two robots.”
“Where’s the other?”
“In the waste processing tank.”
Jack stared straight ahead out the front window. “That one I never want to meet.”
“You and me both.”
The shuttle descended through the thin atmosphere and glided above the tops of rocky mountains towering twenty kilometers above seemingly bottomless canyons. There didn’t appear to be a flat landing area anywhere across the barren landscape, let alone a place where people could walk safely.
“You were crazy to hide anything down here,” Jack commented.
“Which is precisely what makes it such a good hiding place.” Triss dove the shuttle into one of the narrow canyons.
Jack fought the urge to grip the restraints with his hands and brace for impact as the shuttle passed dangerously close to the canyon walls. “Where is everything stored, anyway?” he asked, hoping for a distraction.
“A cave,” was Triss’ only response.
He allowed her to focus on the flying.
Four minutes later, the canyon terminated at the maw of a mammoth cave. They passed into shadow, the shuttle’s onboard lights casting an eerie blue glow on the rough walls.
Triss landed the shuttle on a wide ledge a hundred meters inside the entrance. “And here we are.”
“How did you find this place?” Jack asked with wonder.
“Commandeered from an old associate of ours,” she replied. “Let’s get our EVA suits on.”
They climbed to the back of the shuttle to suit up in the airlock. The gold EVA suit was Jack’s least favorite attire, but he donned it like a pro. At least this time he’d only be facing acid air rather than transporting a container of radioactive material. Small blessings.
Once they were geared up, Triss activated the airlock and they cycled out.
The cave seemed even larger and more ominous when Jack stepped out of the comparative protection of the shuttle. The roof was at least half a kilometer overhead, with the walls a quarter kilometer to either side. Nowhere in the massive space did Jack see a stash of equipment.
“This way.” Triss headed at an angle toward the right wall.
“Is it far? Maybe we should park clos—” Jack cut off when Triss extended her hand outward, causing the space in front of her to simmer.
His face lit up. “You have it cloaked.”
“Sure do.” She grinned inside her suit.
With a flick of her wrist, the shield dropped, revealing a dozen crates and a transparent enclosure holding six sets of armor. At the center of the grouping was a decaying corpse.
“Hmm,” Jack snorted. “I’m gonna guess he’s not supposed to be here.”
Triss stood in silence for several seconds as she surveyed the corpse from afar. “No, that certainly should not be here.”
She took a tentative step forward with Jack at her heels.
“Who else knows about this place?” he asked her.
“Not enough people for me to feel remotely good about who that might be.” She knelt down next to the body and inspected what little remained of its clothing. “I don’t think this was a he, but a her.” She pointed to some feminine stud earrings and open hips. Her expression sank. “I think this was Kayla.”
“I’m sorry. Where did you know her from?”
“We weren’t close.” Triss rose to her feet. “She worked with a crew Alissa and I used to be attached to while we were with Svetlana. Kayla was one of the associates.”
“How would she have ended up here?”
“That is a very good question.” Triss approached one of the nearby cases and popped the seal. She looked inside. “Damn it.”
Jack jogged up next to her. “I imagine that’s supposed to be full.”
“Indeed it is.” She resealed the half-empty crate of weapons and restored the interior vacuum.
“Why wouldn’t whoever was here take everything?”
“Probably because they only took what they needed—assuming this was their stash to raid as they wished. That means that whoever was here doesn’t think Alissa or I would be back for it.”
“And a person who might make such an assumption would be…?
“Trent,” Triss snarled.
“You said that like it’s the name of a bad ex-boyfriend.”
“Because he is.”
“That would explain it. Care to elaborate?” Jack asked.
“Not now. Let’s get this equipment loaded in the shuttle, and then we’ll talk with Alissa.”
As it turned out, transferring four stealth suits and a small arsenal wasn’t near as straightforward as Jack had been led to believe. His first indication that he was in for a terrible afternoon came when Triss simply stood aside and pointed at one of the crates.
“That. Make it be on the ship,” she said.
“I thought I was here to help you, not just be the muscle,” Jack objected.
“Yeah, you’re here to help me in exactly that way. Do the thing.”
“It’s kind of awkwa
rdly shaped for one person to move…”
“I thought you had skills and were setting out to surprise me with your prowess?”
Jack straightened. “You want a show? Fine. I’ll give you a show.”
He positioned himself behind the crate and gave it a good shove. Unfortunately, the crate seemed quite happy in its present position.
Undeterred, he jogged over to the shuttle to secure a length of cabling. He looped one end around the crate and clamped the other to the hydraulic winch in the airlock. With any luck, the winch would pull the load right into place.
“Jack, this seems like a terrible idea…” Triss cautioned.
“You want me to do this? I’m going to do it my way.” He activated the winch.
A whine of grinding metal rang out in the cave. Before Jack even had time to lower the volume on his external comm, the cable snapped with a sickening twang.
It lashed out like a whip from the shuttle, slicing off a back stabilizing fin on one end and the other embedding in an adjacent crate.
Triss stood with a stunned expression a mere meter from where the far end had cut through the four-centimeter-thick crate wall. “I told you so.”
“Really? That’s how you’re going to play this?” Jack groaned.
“You almost killed me!”
“And myself!”
“That doesn’t make it any better!”
Jack took a deep breath. “I hate these crates.”
“That we can agree on.” Triss placed her right hand on her hip. “We’ll have to unload them and transfer everything piece by piece. But it’ll have to be quick or the acidity will make these weapons useless.”
“The seal is broken on that crate.” Jack pointed to the container with the embedded cable. “May as well start there.”
Chapter Three: Getting Down to Business
Dressing up as a groundskeeper made for only a slightly more comfortable outfit than an EVA suit.
Jack tugged at the overly tight collar of his jumper, amazed how the suit could simultaneously be too tight and yet baggy. “You couldn’t think of any other disguise?” he asked Triss.
“The interior of the manor is complete. The last project is to prune the shrubbery,” she replied.
“I’ll prune your shrubbery,” Jack muttered.