Star Marque Rising

by Shami Stovall

  Then again, her suit would incapacitate me in a heartbeat. I gritted my teeth and took a deep breath, suppressing my anger.

  “The way I see it,” she said as she glanced over her shoulder, “you can take your chances with the Star Marque and become an enforcer, or you can drown in a cesspool of your fellow lowly criminals.”

  “I'm not a lowly criminal,” I stated.

  “Then prove it.”

  My blood ran cold. She thought she could manipulate me? But still, she had a point. I never would have been given the option to become an enforcer before. They didn't recruit from places like Capital Station, after all. And going to Ucova was as good as signing my own death warrant.

  But off-station enforcers traveled between stars and handled all sorts of dirty problems the superhumans didn't want to deal with themselves. It was the peak of occupational hazards. They died all the time.

  “Fighting the filth of the outer colonies is an enforcer's job,” I said. “I might live longer on Ucova.”

  Endellion turned around and walked back toward me, her gait powerful. This time, she got closer, less than 30 centimeters away.

  “If you've given up, you've given up,” she said. “Nothing I can do about that. But I should let you know, I don't lose to gangsters and lowlifes. I don't lose to smugglers or ex-soldiers or terrorists or even circumstance. If superhumans came to stop me, I'd fight them, too.” She paused for a long moment, and I waited.

  “Join me,” she finally said, “and I'll take you to greatness. Nothing will stand in my way.”

  She held out her hand, like this was a crossroads of destiny—epic and shit—but as much as I wanted to mock her, I could feel the weight of the decision bearing down on me. She meant what she said.

  I took her hand and shook it.

  Her grip surprised me. Stronger than I imagined, and I questioned the source of her speed and strength. Was she genetically-modified? I had never met another like me. It required special doctors and thousands of credits.

  “Let's do this,” I said.

  “Excellent.” Endellion tapped her left forearm. “Sawyer, did you get that?”

  “Yes, Endellion,” Sawyer's voice said through the communicators on the enviro-suit.

  “Good. Then pull the ship back into port. We have things to complete in Capital Station.”

  “You're the captain?” I asked. “And a ground commander? And a commodore?”

  Endellion nodded. “Welcome to the Star Marque, Clevon.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE CAPITAL STATION DOCKS

  I pulled at the enviro-suit clinging to my body, hoping to let my skin breathe, but no matter what I did, it stuck as though suctioned in place. My movement wasn't restricted, and I rotated my arms to help alleviate the faux feeling of strangulation. I had never worn such a high-quality enviro-suit before.

  “Endellion wants you as part of the dock security,” Lysander said.

  “What?” I asked. “She's just going to throw me in? No training? No nothing?”

  “Endellion does things in a peculiar manner. She has her reasons. Unless you think you can't handle yourself.”

  I gave my enviro-suit one final adjustment around the crotch. “Oh, I can handle myself.”

  Lysander sneered as he motioned to our surroundings. “Then we'll be in charge of Dock Seven.”

  Ah, the glorious stench of Dock Seven. It was just as fragrant as the legends foretold—rotting sewage waste with a hint of decay.

  “We?” I asked.

  “You, me, and Lee.”

  Three of us? For all of Dock Seven?

  I snorted and forced out a single laugh. Each dock was massive. Twenty to thirty starships clogged the docking hatches, and each starship required twenty station workers to handle it at the bare minimum. Not to mention the starship crews, which could be upwards of 2,000 personnel. And then each docking station had its own food stands, hookers, and other businessmen all looking to get a few credits from the weary travelers.

  Three enforcers were not enough to wade through the masses.

  “We're here to maintain order,” Lysander said. “But we're also investigating a larger smuggling operation. A group of chem dealers are transporting their wares right through this dock.”

  “No shit,” I said. “Standard fare.”

  “The chems we're looking for are different. Powerful neuro stimulants. They fry people's brains, killing them.”

  “And three chumps in high-tech enviro-suits are supposed to handle this?”

  “No,” Lysander snapped. “Two professionals are going to handle this, and one chump is going to sit back and watch how we operate.”

  I cocked an eyebrow, but he remained silent.

  Lysander and I—we weren't going to get along. I hadn't decided that. He had.

  “Endellion wants to evaluate you as an enforcer,” he said. “Your actions today will be under the harshest scrutiny. If you don't mesh well, there's always Ucova.”

  “And I just happened to get assigned to you?”

  “Endellion herself said you were to assist me on these docks. Consider it an honor.”

  The hiss of powerful hydraulics dragged my attention away from Lysander. One of the Star Marque's loading doors lowered, revealing two dozen enforcers, suited up and ready to go. They exited in pairs, precise as ants, and headed straight for the section lifts. All except one.

  The last man walked over to me and Lysander and gave us a nod.

  He was short, and he had to stare up at me to make eye contact, but he held himself with confidence. Unlike most of the denizens in Capital Station, he had a healthy bulk to him, and clean-cut, black hair. He offered half a smile, and I relaxed a bit.

  “Lee?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. Then he tapped my arm like we belonged to the same little brotherhood. “I haven't seen you before. What's your name?”

  “Clevon Demarco.”

  “Gentlemen,” Lysander said as he snapped his fingers. Like we were dogs. “We have work to do.”

  Lee pulled his helmet over his head and it clicked into its hardened state. Lysander stared, waiting for me to do the same. I hesitated for a moment, and when I finally pulled the thing over my head, it suctioned to my face like a second layer of skin.

  I had never considered myself to be claustrophobic, but the new experience left me on edge. I took deep breaths, wondering if I was getting enough air, and I stared out of the flexi-glass visor, attempting to gauge how much of my vision had been limited.

  The visor pulsed to life, revealing a screen of technical information. Once powered, the screen cleared, displaying minimal data at the periphery of my vision. The air had 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen.

  Lee motioned to the side of his helmet, tapping at the “ear,” and then pointing to mine. I tapped my helmet, and the screen displayed that the comms had switched to a squad setting.

  “Have you never used these before?” Lee asked, his voice crisp over the enviro-suit's comms system.

  “He's Endellion's newest recruit,” Lysander replied, his raucous voice right in my ear, grating away the last of my patience.

  “He's the one we picked up the other day? The guy from the fights?”

  “The criminal, yes.”

  “Oh. Endellion has… eccentric recruitment methods.”

  Lee and Lysander both tapped their helmets a second time. A strained silence fell over my comms. The visors for the enviro-suits were one-way mirrors unless you were up close, but I didn't need to see Lee and Lysander's faces to know they were discussing my dubious background. They had the subtlety of an out-of-control crane careening through a busy section corridor.

  And then Lee stepped away from me and gave me the once-over. No doubt Lysander had filled him in about my past. Made me wonder if I should even be there, but I thought back to Endellion. She was something else. Something more than Lysander's pettiness. But was she enough to keep me there?

  The comms clicked back to squad, and Ly
sander pointed to the section doors. Lee and I followed him into the docking station, a corridor that led to the central hub of Dock Seven. Before we were more than a couple meters in, we were bombarded by the shouting and megaphones that dominated the area. Rickety stands and mobile kitchens were set up all along the dull, gray walls, each manned by aggressive salesmen, all trying to outdo each other in the hopes of gaining attention.

  Their ragged jumpsuits and thin frames told me business hadn't been good. Then again, it never was, not unless you were MF Grain.

  I could mute the sound outside my enviro-suit—at least, according to the display screen—but I didn't. There were too many advantages to hearing my surroundings that I wouldn't want to forsake.

  Lysander walked up to the first mobile kitchen. He slung his plasma rifle off his back, and the old bag manning the hot plate cringed away, her leathery skin coated in sweat.

  “You, uh, hungry?” she asked as she tapped her spatula against the heated metal surface of her grimy cooking area.

  My helmet indicated that the hot plate was 250 degrees Celsius and that the “food” was primarily made of cellulose and glucose—cardboard and sugar.

  Lysander double-tapped the side of his helmet. “We need to inspect your equipment,” he said aloud, his comms set to vocalize.

  Really? This was how we were going to go about finding the smugglers? A systematic search of each rinky-dink stand?

  I tapped my comms and cycled through until I had Lee in a private little communication. He gave me a sideways glance, and I snorted.

  “Is this how it usually goes?” I asked.

  Lee nodded. “Well, there's typically a lot more of us. We comb the docking station, and then inspect the area using the suit's scanners. If there's anything suspicious, we report to Sawyer.”

  “Suspicious?”

  “The usual. Known criminals. Illegal substances. Off-the-book cybernetics. Right now we're supposed to be tracking down some sort of smuggler who trades in faulty chems.”

  “Where are all the other fucking enforcers? This place is huge.”

  “Endellion won the bid for enforcement of the area. She insisted we were all that was needed for Section Four security.”

  I mulled over the information while Lysander continued harassing the crone at the hot plate.

  Off-station enforcers got hired through a bid system. Whoever offered the lowest estimate for their services got picked up by the cheapskate overseer of Capital Station. Normally, a few teams were hired to police the lowlifes that infested the corridors, but I guessed Endellion had faith in her crew. That, or the pressure of being a captain, commodore, and ground commander had impaired her judgment.

  “The food you're serving is below regulation standard,” Lysander said.

  “It's edible,” the woman said, her voice rising. “And biodegradable!”

  “Let me see a list of your suppliers.”

  “I don't got any, and you don't need to see them! It's edible, I tell you! It is!”

  Lysander snapped his fingers again, and I turned to him, glaring.

  I switched my comms back to squad. “You got a problem?”

  “It looks like we'll be needing restraints. You two go and fetch some.”

  “Two of us?”

  “Lee will get what I need. You watch him work.”

  There was no point in addressing the flaws in Lysander's tactics. Instead, I walked with Lee back toward the Star Marque. The moment Lysander returned his attention to the old, screaming woman, I grabbed Lee by the arm and returned to our private chat. “You get the restraints. I'm gonna talk to some people.”

  “Lysander wants us to stay together.”

  “You and I both know that's a waste of time. Besides, I'm familiar with Capital Station. Someone comfortable with the ins and outs is better suited for gathering information than doing simple fetch-quests.”

  Lee shifted his weight from one foot to the other, biding his time in silence. If we hadn't been wearing our enviro-suits, I knew the man would have eventually seen things my way. The pheromones that wafted from my body often got people to trust me when they were on the fence. Without them, I'd have to rely on logic.

  Lee took in a ragged breath, probably ready to deny my request, but I cut him off and said, “Endellion recruited me. Don't you trust her judgment?”

  I asked partly to sway him and partly to see what he would say about his commander.

  To my surprise, he said, “She's never let us down. I guess… talking to the denizens won't hurt. Just don't take long. I'll get Lysander the equipment he needs.”

  “Good.”

  Smiling, I headed deeper into the dock.

  Lee stood stiff, and I glanced back to catch him watching me walk through the crowd of sweat-coated workers. The longer he stared, the more I thought he regretted his decision, but his faith in Endellion got me thinking. If she'd recruited me from the dregs of humanity, where had the rest of her crew come from?

  I shook my head and approached a group of loitering thugs. They hustled away, pushing past anyone in their path. I shouldn't have been surprised—I was an idiot for thinking this could even work. One whiff of off-station enforcers would cause anxiety for anyone on Capital Station. Enforcers didn't play by the rules. They were rough and never had to answer for their lack of due process. That kind of authority created a chasm between me and every fool in this corridor. No one was going to trust me for shit.

  With a heavy sigh, I pulled back my helmet. I took a couple quick breaths, and already I regretted my decision. The stench. I choked on it.

  My usual tactics weren't going to work. When I was Demarco the Gunrunner, I was one of them—scum from the same urinal—but now there was no reason to talk to me, and a hundred reasons to keep their mouth shut. Snitches get stitches and all that.

  I strode forward, half-smiling as the crowd parted, their heads down, and their eyes glued to the muck-covered floor. Children ran to their parents, and a few halfwit teens fingered their knives, but no one approached. Even the whores zipped up their jumpsuits and shimmied on to the next guy looking to burn some credits.

  I would have to think of a different tactic.

  If I were smuggling chems through Dock Seven, where would I do it? Through the food service workers, just as Lysander suspected. Those mobile kitchens were designed to be driven all over Capital Station. They flitted from dock to dock, chasing the starships and offering whatever they had for a meager amount of credits. That kind of mobility was the key to getting chems into the hands of potential buyers.

  But Lysander's methods would tip off the smugglers. We needed to be clever—or at least, subtle—with our investigation. Perhaps we should have even ditched our enviro-suits. The smugglers were thugs, but thugs sure got clever when it came to avoiding the authorities. No doubt word had spread that enforcers were shaking down anyone and everyone, which would scare away our targets.

  I stopped walking and glanced around.

  Reality hit me.

  I was wearing an expensive enviro-suit and carrying a plasma rifle. With Lee and Lysander busy, I could walk to the nearest departing starship and sell my equipment for a few thousand credits. I would be off this station and halfway to a planetside destination in a matter of minutes. There would be little chance I would ever see any of them again. Sure, I would probably see dirt and sky while working as an enforcer, but how long would that take?

  This would be so much easier.

  And it was their fault for giving me all the tools for my escape. Why would Endellion send me here untrained? Maybe she wanted to use me as a meat shield—making me a pilot was just a pretense. Maybe I was the fool for trusting her in the first place, and if I didn't run now, I would be squandering a golden opportunity. They should have—

  “Oh, it's you!”

  A flailing woman cut off my train of thought. She hustled over to me and stared, wide-eyed, while I regarded her with a cocked eyebrow.

  “You're the one,” she said
through puffs of breath, her bony frame clearly unaccustomed to quick movement. “The one from the death fights.”

  “Yeah,” I drawled.

  “You won.”

  “Obviously.”

  “I didn't know you were an enforcer.”

  I went to correct her, but she cut me off with a bow, sweat from her forehead dripping onto the boot of my enviro-suit. “Never mind. Please, come with me.”

  I glanced around, wondering if this was a trap. Didn't matter. My old associates had rivets for brains. If they didn't take Reggie's death as a warning sign, they deserved what was coming to them.

  The woman guided me through the flea-infested crowd and over to a mobile kitchen, no fancier than any other and half as busy. Two women, just as thin and wan as her, operated the hot plate. They scraped together “omelets” made of factory mold—an organic substance grown on the station in a mossy lump. Supposedly it was healthy, but I hated looking at the shit. When heated, it congealed into a slime-like substance. The omelets were garnished with pureed roaches.

  Fancy.

  “This is him, Lissa,” my guide said. “The one who won the fights in Section Six!”

  Lissa, a short woman with puffed cheeks that betrayed a glandular problem, turned her attention to me. She stopped her cooking and exited the kitchen, wiping her hands on her oil-stained apron.

  With tears at the edges of her red eyes, she grabbed my forearm and bowed her head. “Thank you, thank you,” she muttered.

  I ripped my arm away. “What is this?”

  She flinched back. “I'm sorry, uh, but—”

  “Do I know you?”

  Maybe I had slept with her. I had been with a lot of people on Capital Station—men and women—there was no way I could remember them all. She didn't look like my type. Too sickly and withdrawn. And she stood with slumped shoulders and a slight hunch.

  I wouldn't have said no if she'd offered, of course.

  “My husband,” Lissa said as she wiped her face dry. “He entered the death fights after I begged him not to. Thank you so much for saving him. I don't know what I'd do without my Darryl.”