The cartel wasn’t wasting their time. The stunt with a murdered local and her face being broadcast across the system was going to bring in every bounty hunter in the system. “How long until the first arrival?”
“Nine hours.” There was the faint hiss of air being released from deeper into the ship; the exit hatch opening. “Your gear is by the ramp, Jeff.”
I finished the coffee in a single swallow. “Thanks, Renée.
The curafoam made for a tight fight, but I was able to get my armor on with only a few grunts and a wince or two. I wasn’t as fluid as I liked, but I’d been in worse shape a couple of times previous, scars across the breastplate testament to my survival. I gave the tie-down on my right leg a final tug to make sure the holster was in place. “Local law?”
“Open carry for hunters with valid permits,” came Renée s reply. “You can never have too much firepower, Jeff.”
On that we could agree. I reached into the locker and pulled my second pistol out, fastened it to my belt along my left hip. I straightened slowly, stretching so all the bits and pieces of my armor fell into place. Leather and carbon plating, it would protect me from all but a direct laser blast. And huge booted feet planted into the chest from large men at close range. I winced slightly, but the morpha was doing a good job of keeping that memory at bay, at least for now. And only if I avoided any direct contact for another few days. “Wish me luck?”
“Luck is for idiots, Jeff.” She waited until I was halfway down the ramp before continuing. “I’ve got a lot riding on you making it back. Don’t do anything stupid.”
I grinned and gave a thumbs up to her camera at the bottom of the ramp. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Salina wasn’t hard to find. Then again, I had an ace up my sleeve that none of the others did. She had a penchant for lavaspress and third-floor balconies looking out over any sort of panoramic view. The Lathe Mountains rode the southern skyline like the ridges on a diamondback lizard, the three moons spread across the late morning sky, and the Ultirna River snaked away in the valley below, twenty kilometers or more nearly straight down. She had found a quiet, rundown little building directly above a cafe, with a view straight down the gullet of the gorge. No doubt the evening skies were something legendary.
“Really, Sal?” Her blaster bolt had left a smoking hole the size of a golf ball in the door to 3B, and burned itself out in the wall across the hallway. There was a new scorch mark along the right side of my breastplate; if I had moved a second later it would have cored right through me.
A dark green eye peered through the hole. “Shit, Jeff. I didn’t know it was you.”
“You could simply answer the door next time someone knocks.”
“Have you seen the size of the bounty on my head?”
“Why do you think I’m here?”
Rattles and thumps from the other side of the door. I cast a glance in both directions down the hallway. Either every other unit was vacant, her neighbors were at work, or this was a worse neighborhood than I had originally thought if no one was paying attention to a blaster shot in the middle of the morning. She yanked me through the door, and I grunted as I stumbled into the entryway, my ribs twinging with the movement. She slammed the door behind us and then she was in my arms, her lips firm against mine.
I waited a little longer than I should have before I pushed her away. “This is serious, Sal. Derin, Mattock, and who knows who else. They’re on their way.”
She tossed her head, those jet-black locks dancing in the way that I had always found so hard to resist. “How is Renée?”
“Don’t deflect.”
She glared at me. “Want a coffee?”
“Sure.”
She gestured towards the balcony, so I took in the view while she busied herself in the kitchen. The views were indeed legendary, daytime or no. I caught a whiff of tabac and coffee, and she was there, two steaming cups in her hand, a stick dangling from her lips, smoke curling up. She still hadn’t kicked the habit. I nodded, took a sip. It was dark, hot, and without sugar, just the way I liked it. She took a deep drag and blew it out into the breeze. I watched the tendrils twirl and fade into the void.
“How long do we have?”
I shrugged. “Probably six or seven hours.”
“I can’t leave without my cargo.”
I took a long drink of the coffee and eyed her sideways. “You have a death wish you want to tell me about?”
“Don’t be a smartass, Jeff.” She flicked the last of her tabac stick out into the gorge. It flailed in the wind before dropping out of sight. “I need to show you something.”
I finished my coffee and followed her to the spare bedroom. I leaned against the doorway and rubbed a hand across my face as I looked inside. “Well, shit. That complicates things.”
She smiled mirthlessly as she glanced up at me. “Why do you think I haven’t left already?”
He was in bad shape, but she’d done the right thing by sticking him in a cryo chamber. Where, or rather how, she had gotten one was a question for another time. I scanned the vitals on the box, and gave a low whistle. “You certainly don’t fuck around, Salina.”
“He didn’t want to pay up after the contract.” She kicked the edge of the box.
It certainly explained a few things. The man whose mangled face looked back up at me through the frozen interior of the cryo chamber was none other than Clay Reman, head of the Reman Cartel. The very group who had put out a contract on her head. He was sporting a swollen, black eye and a couple of missing teeth, courtesy of my pale-skinned friend.
My comm pinged. I flicked it on. “What’s up, Renée?”
“You know radio silence makes me nervous, Jeff. Is she alive or dead?”
“Hey, Renée.” Salina rolled her eyes at me while mouthing, “she’s like your mother!” I
shrugged in reply. She wasn’t wrong.
Silence for a few moments. “Anything I need to know about?”
“Do we still have those adaptors from the Clarion job, Renée?”
Another extended silence. “Jeffrey, what did you do?”
I raised my hands in defence. “It wasn’t me!”
The sigh that came through the comm did not need any visuals to express the level of disappointment that went along with it. “Local authorities are on high alert. I don’t know you are going to get a cryo chamber across town.”
I stepped out of the hallway and glanced out towards the balcony. “You feel like some fancy flying, love?”
More silence, followed by, “Are you going to get my planetary permissions revoked?”
“Only if we get caught.”
Salina grinned. There was a slight pulse of static over the comm. “Ping me your coordinates. And this better work. I don’t need to be kicked out of another system. You can’t afford the fines.”
“Ouch. That’s low, even for you, Renée.”
“Not as low as the amount of credits in your accounts, Jeffrey.” She cut the connection, leaving us alone in the room.
I stretched my shoulders and turned towards the balcony railings. “Let’s get these out of the way.”
*
“Move it to the left!”
“Your left or my left?”
I grunted at the weight of the cryo chamber slipped slightly in my hands. My ribs were complaining, even with the morpha. I had one leg planted on the balcony edge, and the other on Renée’s ramp, which was drifting slightly with our movements, a two-foot gap in between my legs offering a view straight down into vertigo. “Her left!”
A final heave and the box cleared the gap between the balcony and the ramp and slid most of the way into the cargo bay. Salina threw me one of her grins. I made to grin back when a sudden gust of wind from the gorge below us pushed Renée a good eighteen inches up and outwards from the balcony. I lurched forward, reached for one of the hydraulic arms of the ramp, missed, and went headlong into the ravine.
Sal’s grip caught one of the straps o
f my armor across my shoulders and yanked me back onto the ramp. I stood for a moment, catching my breath as I looked down those twenty or so kilometers to where the river twinkled away in the afternoon sun. She smacked my ass and pushed the cryo chamber deeper into the hold to strap it down. I pushed the button to raise the ramp and headed towards the cockpit, trying not to heave at the thought of all that empty space and the long plunge that had nearly claimed me.
“How are we doing on time?”
The holo screen flickered a few times as Renée cycled through the channels. “Three hours, give or take.”
“Cutting it close.” I strapped myself in and leaned forward to peer out the windshield. No sign of the authorities yet. I flipped the internal comm switch. “Where are we headed?”
“Away from here for the moment,” came Sal’s reply over the speaker.
The low ping signaling Renée had transferred manual control sounded. I disengaged the hover control and sent us down into the valley below. I heard cursing from deeper within the ship, then Salina’s voice on the comm. “Who taught you how to fly?”
I grinned and punched the accelerator. Renée gave a low, throaty laugh. The river grew closer in the windshield. “What are our chances of getting off this rock without anyone tracking us?”
The screen flickered for a few moments before she answered. “Decent, if we hurry. We only have about twenty minutes, but that should be enough to get us off planet. After that, the local control will realize I’m gone from my berth and—”
She cut off as the comm system pinged. “What happened to my twenty minutes, Renée?”
Silence for a few moments. “Well, shit,” she replied.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means my hack didn’t work as well as I thought.”
The comm system pinged again. I sighed. “Can you patch together a clearance for us?”
“Right now?”
“Um, yeah.”
“I’m not a miracle worker, Jeff.”
Time to improvise, then. I flipped the switch. “Donnivan here. What can I do for you?”
Local traffic control flickered onto the holo screen, showing an older man who was frowning. “Mr. Donnivan. Your ship just showed up on our radar, and we don’t seem to have any flight clearance for you.”
“Huh. That’s weird. We got it about twenty minutes ago.”
The frown deepened. “I can assure you that no such clearance was issued, much less for the valley. That’s a restricted flight zone.”
I shrugged. “Can you run it again? My ship tells me we’re good to go on our end.”
The man’s face disappeared from the monitor for a few moments. The person who sat back down in his chair had her hair pulled back into a severe bun and her frown was even deeper than the first guy’s. “Mr. Donnivan, if you don’t turn your ship around in the next 30 seconds and return to your landing pad, I will have to revoke your clearance and send a patrol after you.”
I turned towards Salina as she entered the cockpit. She shook her head no as she sat down and strapped herself in. Renée’s voice came over the interior comm. “Jeffrey….”
I aimed for the third moon on the right, flicked the holo screen off, and punched the throttle to maximum.
*
The comm pinged. I rubbed sleep from my eye, disentangled myself from Salina’s warmth, and walked out into the corridor. “What is it, Renée?”
“It’s the cartel. I’ve got them on a direct line from Cyroth.”
Sleep vanished, replaced by adrenaline. “I’ll be right up.”
Charles Remen, or Chuck as he was known to most people on his good side (I wasn’t), was a head shorter than his older brother, Clay. He also had a few more teeth. Other than that, he was the spitting image of the man in the box in Renée’s cargo hold. He showed me his full set as he leveled a sinister smile at me that didn’t reach his eyes through the holo vid. “If it isn’t Jeffrey Donnivan.”
“In the flesh. So to speak.” I settled into the chair and glanced out the window. We were still somewhere in space.
“You realize there is nowhere for you to run.”
Renée delivered me a coffee via a hatch in the center console. I leaned forward, took a sip. “Who said we were running?”
Charles frowned. “Is he still alive?”
“A little stiff, but yeah.” I took another sip of my coffee. “Let’s talk price.”
His laughter was like a small dog barking. One of those Pomeranian fluff balls. “That’s rich, even for you. You aren’t in a position to bargain.”
I pushed the button to open the cargo door, then routed the camera through to his vid screen, showing the vastness of space beyond, and his brother’s cryo chamber. “I dunno. I feel pretty comfortable.”
He bared his teeth at me in a snarl. “You wouldn’t dare. Every hunter in the ‘verse would be on your tail for the rest of your life, which would be short, considering how much money I would offer for your head.”
I shrugged. He wasn’t wrong, but I couldn’t show him that. I took another sip of my coffee and flipped another switch. One of the clamps holding his brother’s cryo chamber in place slowly opened. I watched his eyes narrow. I hit another switch, watched a second clamp open. I took another sip of my coffee. There was a bead of sweat on his forehead now. I raised my finger a third time….
“Goddammit, Donnivan.” He grit his teeth. “What do you want?”
“For starters?” I finished the coffee, placed it back in the hatch. “You’ll cancel the bounty on Sal’s head, and you’ll pay up like you should have done in the first place.”
He grunted and nodded his head.
“I’m gonna need a verbal confirmation, Chuck.”
His eyes flashed and I wondered if maybe I had pushed him a little too far. It was too much fun, though. “Confirmed. We’ll cancel the bounty on her, and pay her the agreed upon sum. But not a credit more!”
I nodded. “Just so you know, I’ve recorded this conversation, and will be sending it out via the ‘net to my associates. Your reputation being what it is, you wouldn’t want anyone knowing you backed out of a contract, would you?”
He cursed then, something low and soft enough I didn’t hear it through the vid. It was a serious enough threat. Reputation was everything in this business, and if word got out that he had reneged on a contract, the cartel would be ruined. No one would work with them again.
The screen flickered as Renée suggested a place for the meet. I nodded my agreement, sent it through to his end. “Nine in the morning, local time tomorrow. That work for you?”
He nodded.
“And come alone. I don’t like surprises.”
He gave me a sarcastic salute, and then cut the connection.
“Well, that could have gone better.” Renée’s voice was tinged with sarcasm.
I stared out the window into space and contemplated life on the run from all the hunters in the ‘verse. I didn’t see any other way it could have gone.
*
It was a seedy little spaceport, the kind that the dredges of society use for dealings they want kept off the books. Which was exactly why Renée had chosen it. No authorities were likely to show up during our meeting. On the plus side, no one would stick their noses were they weren’t wanted. On the flip side, it meant we were on our own. Which really wasn’t that different from any other time. I checked again to make sure my weapons were loose in their holsters, and pushed down the craving for a stick as the scent of cafebac wafted over from where Sal was seated, perched on the edge of the cryo chamber.
“They’re late.” She blew smoke into the wind and grimaced slightly at something.
A crackle on the comm; the equivalent of a snort from Renée. I rolled my eyes and tugged at my breastplate; it was snug enough, and for the first time for the past few days I didn’t wince. The meds were doing their job. As long as I didn’t do anything to knock my ribs out of place again I’d be good as new in another d
ay or two.
“Southwest perimeter, Jeff.”
I looked in the direction Renée suggested, and nodded. A small skimmer pulled into view and stopped at the edge of the docking bay. A lone figure stepped out. Charles. “Is he alone?”
“My scans don’t pick anything up.”
Even so, I eased the straps on my holsters as I started out across the hundred yards or so of empty space between us and him. I let my right handle caress the handle of the blaster riding my hip, and raised the left in a greeting. “Morning, Chuck.”
His face twitched and he spat into the concrete of the pad beneath us. “Is he alive?”
“And in one piece. Though maybe a bit bruised for wear.”
His eyes flickered to the cryo chamber and back to me. “I’ll need to see him.”
I motioned Salina forward. She flicked her stick and obliged, the hum and whir of the gravpads muffling her steps as she pushed the chamber into position. She wiped condensation from the glass plate. His bruise had deepened with purple tones despite the sub-zero temperatures. A sliver of eye peeked out from underneath the swollen flesh. I nearly shivered; it felt like he was actually watching us.
Charle’s fists clenched, and his right hand moved towards his blaster. I tsked and drew my own. “I thought we agreed this was a friendly parlay, Chuck? Pay the lady what you owe her, and we’ll be on our way.”
A ping on the comm. “Jeff….”
I didn’t need her to tell me anymore. The sudden appearance of a bright green dot on the middle of Sal’s forehead spoke volumes. It was my turn to clench my fists, which I did as soon as I holstered my blaster. “I thought we agreed to do this nicely, Charles?” Maybe mentioning him his preferred name would smooth things over.
His smile was ice. “I have a reputation to consider,” he replied. Apparently he wasn’t referring to the one I had mentioned earlier. “You.” He drew his blaster and waved it towards Sal. “Take my brother over to the skimmer.”
The green dot didn’t waver, and I realized one was painted on my chest as well. I sighed and stayed put. As soon as they were out of earshot, I flipped the comm and kept my voice low. “Any idea who is out there, Renée?”
Bloody Knuckles (And Other Tales) Page 3