by H. E. Trent
He’d made the long trip all the way to one of his usual trade haunts, looking to turn a quick buck—or at least to make having burned the fuel worthwhile—only to have been shut out from the deal.
Something was going on. He couldn’t put his finger on what, precisely, but if he had to guess, he’d swear someone was trying to home in on his business. All of his crew, except for Locke, had abandoned him for some reason, too.
He narrowed his eyes at Locke. “You sure someone didn’t give you shits a better offer? What was it? More cash? A better house to rest your grimy heads in at night?”
Locke’s jutting brow furrowed, and he gave his head the slowest of shakes. “Not sure any of the guys would have said anything to me, if they had. None of them had been around for as long as me. I’ve always been loyal, haven’t I?”
“Uh-huh.” Reg scratched his chin and instructed the ship to make descent at the usual place.
He didn’t see the point of joyriding. He didn’t have the fuel to spare. “We’ve got to find some way to make some cash,” Reg said idly.
“Whaddaya mean?”
Shit.
Reg massaged the bridge of his nose and blew out a breath. He hadn’t actually meant to say that aloud. The last thing he needed was to have someone as mouthy as Locke running around and putting Reg’s business in the street. Everyone would know that Reg didn’t have the finances to pull off his schemes, and without cash or goods to trade, he was a nobody. He didn’t follow his father all the way to backwater Jekh to be a nobody. He’d gone to Jekh because he wanted to be a fucking king.
“I just mean,” Reg hedged, “I don’t want to use my own resources to find that girl, you know?”
“Oh. Smart.”
“I need to get the Tyneali off my back. I mean, they’re probably the reason folks won’t get near me, right? Folks see those bastards on my tail and decide not to approach, because who knows what those red creeps are going to do.”
“Want me to send out a hail and see if any are around?”
“No. Why the hell would you want to do that?”
Locke shrugged. “Figured if they wanted the girl back bad enough, maybe they’d give you some moola to grease the works and set things in motion.”
“Huh.” Reg propped his feet up on the console’s ledge and scratched his chin some more. Locke’s idea was ludicrous, of course, but just wily enough that people might expect such a stunt from Reg. If the Tyneali didn’t cough up the cash, they could at least give him some breathing room for a little while. Reg wanted to get off that fucking planet ASAP.
“Yeah,” Reg said. “Send out a message telling ’em to wire me twenty thousand credits in Terran currency, and that I’ll get right to work getting their little bitch back to them.”
He really needed forty to get as far away as he wanted to be, but he could always negotiate upwards at the time of delivery and hope for the best if they balked. The worst they could say was no, though they could do a lot worse. He just didn’t think they really had the balls. From what he’d heard, the Tyneali actually didn’t have balls. They had “reproductive pouches” somewhere on their persons.
Reg shuddered.
“Sent the message. Also, we should be on the ground in five minutes,” Locke said.
“Great.” Reg fastened his harness for landing and, at the flashing of the COM panel between him and Locke, went rigid. “They have an answer that quick?”
“No way of knowing.”
“There is a way of knowing, dumbass,” Reg said, his indignation quickly returning. “Hit the button and see who’s hailing.”
Locke shrugged and pressed the receive button. “Yeah?” he said.
“This is the Southeastern Aviation Authority,” came the fluid voice. “Your vessel has been identified as belonging to Reginald Devin.”
Reg rolled his eyes. Nobody called him “Reginald,” except his mother, and he hadn’t talked to her since soon after he’d arrived on Jekh. He had no use for her. She’d picked her side, and it was the wrong one.
Small mind.
He was through with small-minded people.
“What of it?” Reg asked the voice.
“Please file your landing plans at your earliest convenience,” came the falsely neutral voice. Some people just didn’t do a great job at pretending to be pleasant. Reg never bothered trying.
“Why?” Reg asked. “I never had to before.”
More like he’d never bothered to. Sure, he was supposed to, but nobody in Buinet could enforce shit, especially not with all the riots happening. Also, whoever had said that there was an opportunity for profit during wartime didn’t know shit about Jekh. With all the women gone, there was hardly anything worth stealing or reselling. Smalltime players had the commodities markets locked down. Reg had never dabbled with that little shit before, but he suspected he might have to start if he wanted to make enough cash to get off the planet again. He made a mental note to find out who was dealing in shoes and bread and things like that.
The voice on the ground answered his question. After a minute of crackling in the connection, the voice returned with, “Per local aviation guideline sixty-three, section eight, if you land without communicating your destination in advance, we will seize your ship.”
Reg snorted. “You fuckin’ kidding me?”
“This isn’t a joke, Mr. Devin. I’m sure you’re aware of the instability on the planet as of late. It would be in the best interest of all parties if you abided by protocol.”
“Screw protocol.”
Reg wasn’t even sure how to file the docs. Nobody enforced that shit. “I’ll land where I always do, or maybe not. Maybe I’ll land somewhere else.”
“If you do, Mr. Devin, we will not hesitate to tow you home.”
“Excuse me?”
“Good day, sir.”
The COM light dimmed.
Reg whipped his head around to Locke, who stared at him with wide-eyed horror. “The fuck is going on?”
“I dunno,” Locke said, “but they sounded to me like they were serious.”
“Why the sudden change, do you think?” Reg shook his head, and leaned forward, bracing his forearms against his knees. “No, never mind. Don’t think.”
“So…land at the regular place?”
Reg sighed. As much as he wanted to fuck with that controller and set his ship down any damn where he pleased, he’d calculated his fuel expenditure down to the last few gallons. He didn’t have the fuel to get to anywhere but Buinet.
He gave a dismissive swish of his hand, looking more cavalier than he felt. Fooling people into thinking he knew his shit had always been a cool twenty-five percent of his job. That hadn’t changed. “The depot is fine. Some bored asshole is just blowing smoke, is all.”
“You’re probably right, Reg.”
“I know I’m right.”
Yet as the ship descended into Jekh’s largest city, Reg wasn’t so sure. He used to be able to speak his desires and force them to be reality, but things hadn’t been going his way lately.
His father had always taught him, though, that he couldn’t let anyone see him sweat. Alpha dogs never bowed their heads to submissives, and Reg wasn’t about to start letting his head hang low.
Once on the ground and with the ship parked in Reg’s oversized spot at the hangar in Zone Two, Reg unbuckled his harness, and stood to stretch.
Locke didn’t move. He stayed in his seat, his big, rough hands tightly gripping the cushioned armrests. He stared straight ahead through the windshield.
“Let’s go,” Reg said. “We can check the systems later. I want to get home and review my secure messages.”
Locke swallowed audibly.
“What’s wrong with you?” Reg asked impatiently.
“You…you didn’t see that?”
“See what? You’re talking nonsense, man. Get out.”
Locke did that slow shake of his head again. “No. I mean, sometimes I do. Maybe even a lot of the time. Bu
t this time, I think I saw something you might care about.”
“Well, what the hell did you see, if it was so important?”
“I was…taking a look at the depot personnel like I always do, you know? Seeing who might need a few coins on their palms and such.”
“And?”
There usually weren’t many men there, especially not since the majority of the armed forces left Buinet during the riots. Typical “I didn’t sign up for this shit” behavior.
Cowards.
“How long were we gone, Reg?”
Reg shrugged. “Thirteen days. Or maybe fourteen. Why?”
Locke nodded. “Okay. Maybe that was long enough.”
“Long enough for what?”
“You didn’t see who was manning the depot, I guess.”
“I told you I didn’t. Who’s out there? One of my competitors?” Reg snorted. “Wish I’d thought of that. I could extort a fee out of anyone who comes back with cargo.” He could have kicked himself for not considering that possibility sooner.
“I don’t think so, Reg.”
“Then what?”
Locke undid his harness, sighing, and then shuffled ahead of Reg out of the cockpit and to the door.
“Get out of the way.” Reg pressed his palm to the reader, and the locks hissed. The panel popped down, slowly descending on creaky, unoiled hinges. “Piece of junk,” he muttered. He missed his ship. His real ship.
Reg waited with his hands pressed to the sides of the door, like a king impatiently waiting for someone to unfurl the red carpet ahead of him.
As the hatch touched the depot floor, and personnel moved in close, Reg finally suspected that he shouldn’t hold his breath for the royal treatment.
He looked from one frown-wearing Jekhan male to the other, then noted a third approaching from the hangar doorways.
They all had guns.
Big guns.
“What the hell is this?” Reg said under his breath, taking a step back into the hall.
The Jekhan man in the lead pointed to the depot floor with the nozzle of his gun. “If you would step down, please, Mr. Devin.”
Reg tapped his chin. “How about… Oh, I know. Fuck you?”
“Jeez, Reg,” Locke muttered behind him.
“Shut your cakehole, Locke.”
“Why you gotta say my name so loud?”
“Locke, Locke, fuckin’ Warren Locke, okay? Shut the hell up. You’re not as anonymous as you think you are. Everyone knows you run with me. Choose your next words carefully or I’ll think maybe you’re regretting our association.”
Locke sighed.
“Just what I thought.” Reg cocked his chin toward the guy with the gun.
He drew in a deep breath and stared unblinking at Reg for several seconds.
Reg gave him the finger, and then showed him the other one, too, for good measure.
Not like these punks are actually gonna do anything.
He scoffed. They’d more or less handed their planet over without a fight. The time had passed for them to try and play protectors.
“You’re in breach of a number of regulations,” the man said. “I suggest that you cooperate if you’d like a guarantee of leniency.”
“Whose regulations?”
The guy cocked up a red-tinged eyebrow. “Whose planet are you on, sir?” His voice had been flatly neutral before, but he’d threaded some bass through what should have been a perfectly benign question.
Hostile Jekhan?
Reg scowled. Jekhans didn’t fight back. They’d let a small fleet of soldiers overtake their entire planet. So why were three of them pointing rifles at him?
His plan to step back into the ship and cue the hatch up came too slowly.
One of the Jekhan men had stepped forward and hooked him by the ankle. He had to outweigh Reg by a good twenty kilos and had maybe half a meter on him in height, too, but more than that—he had will. His will at the moment was to get Reg’s face on the ground and his hands pinned behind his back.
That chickenshit coward Locke didn’t even fight back.
He sat, quietly cross-legged near Reg with his wrists cuffed, and eyes round as moons.
“You gotta be kidding me,” Reg said, spitting out dirt from feet and ship exhaust that had transferred from the floor into his mouth.
“This apprehension is not in jest, Mr. Devin,” the first Jekhan guy said.
“This is your place now? You controlling the depot?”
The guy didn’t answer.
At the arrival of a pair of boots in front of him that were far too small to belong to any of the Jekhan men—or even an adult human male—Reg craned his neck and squinted upward, the bright lights in the rafters blinding him temporarily.
But then the head of the person blocked one of those lights, and her face came into focus.
Not Jekhan. Couldn’t be Jekhan unless he was, and he sure as shit wasn’t that.
“They’re not only controlling the depot, Reginald,” his mother said.
So calm. So pleasant. As weak-willed as ever, and apparently in cahoots with Jekhan trash. He should have expected that of her. She’d always cared more about people who didn’t matter than she cared about him.
“They control most of Sectors Two and Three as well,” she said. “I’m certain they will reclaim the remainder of the city in the coming weeks. Perhaps if you’d read the letters I’d sent you instructing you to leave the planet, we wouldn’t be here right now having this conversation. In spite of everything, I wanted to give you chances. This was your last one.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” He let his head flop down. His neck was starting to burn from the strain.
She knelt beside him, and a long breath escaped her lungs. “I wish things didn’t have to happen this way,” she said, “but you picked the wrong side.”
He scoffed, and shook his head against the floor. “Dad was right about you being shortsighted and useless.”
“If you’d like to finally discuss my and your father’s divorce after all these years, I’d love to chat with you. Perhaps over lunch?”
“Not gonna happen.” Apparently, he was going to jail. His mother was a cop or something, and not one of the ones he’d had in his pocket for so many years. They’d all stop taking his calls, too.
“Very well,” she said, sounding somewhat regretful. He couldn’t imagine why. “Still, we’ll chat anyway, once you’re upright and your blood has had a chance to flow back into your head. I’m sure circumstances are somewhat disorienting to you right now.”
“Disorienting” was definitely too mild a word, but his mother had always been flowery with her speech in that way, as if she worried about hurting people’s feelings or something.
Reg had no such hang-ups.
“We’ll take Mr. Locke into custody,” one of the Jekhan men said. He pulled Locke up by the wrists, cuffed him, and got him moving.
“Way to put up a fight, Locke,” Reg shouted at him.
“Sorry, Reg. I know when to struggle. This don’t seem like a good time, you know?”
“Idiot,” Reg muttered.
“Being able to discern when a fight is worth the effort isn’t necessarily a hallmark of stupidity,” the nearby Jekhan freak said.
“Do me a favor and don’t talk in my direction.”
“Perhaps you should do yourself a favor,” his mother said, “and mind your tongue. They’re being far more polite than some people would say you deserve.”
“Are you one of those people?”
She didn’t respond.
Years ago, she would have probably had a quick response for him—one full of worthless optimism and all sorts of conciliatory language that would make his body reflexively convulse and engage his gag reflex.
Instead, she stood, and padded away. “Let me know where you decide to hold him,” she said to one of the remaining men. “I’ve got to be in a meeting in fifteen minutes. Perhaps he’ll be in a more conversational mood by dinn
er time.”
“And if he’s not?”
When no immediate response came, Reg forced his head up to see why.
As his mother fondled the edge of her city employee bag, she looked down at him, and there was something akin to revulsion in her eyes.
“Fuck you,” he said.
She turned to the Jekhan. “Never mind. I’ll be terribly busy coordinating with Salehi and Escobar, anyway. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll get in touch. If not, maybe Mr. McGarry will in a day or two.”
She strode away without another look back.
McGarry?
The Jekhan yanked Reg up to his feet, damn near pulling his pinned arm out of its socket.
“Watch what you’re doing!”
“Cooperate, and you’ll have fewer pains.”
Reg scoffed, and then stumbled over a crack in the depot flooring.
The Jekhan pushed him back upright.
“Look at you,” Reg spat. “Nothing gentle about you, is there? You make yourselves out to be victims in every fucking thing and like you deserve to have things handed to you just because you were too weak to protect what was yours.”
The man gave Reg a push toward a metal staircase that led up to the second floor where offices and conference rooms assigned to military personnel were assigned.
“You’re just as vengeful and violent as everyone else, aren’t you?”
“Do not believe for one moment that being Lillian’s son exempts you from having to follow the rules.”
“Screw your rules.”
The Jekhan man grabbed Reg by the wrists and maneuvered him down the hall. Reg fell onto his knees, and the man kept pulling anyway, obviously not giving a damn whether Reg was on his feet or off them.
Reg thrashed in his grip and tried to force his arms back down before the guy dislocated his wrists. “That hurts!”
The man dropped Reg’s arms and, in a flash, was kneeling beside him, snarling into his face, “I’ve seen you doing worse, and to women at that. I’d advise you to keep your mewling complaints in your head and to not let them escape your lips, because my patience is not what it used to be.”