“Why the hell would you do that?” Dreyla spat. She may as well play the info extraction game, too.
“He’s got ships coming in,” Remy answered coolly for him. “I’m assuming that if you didn’t take the ship, you’d just drop out and be retrieved by one of them.”
“So, you ain’t as dumb as you look,” Joss said.
“That’s up for debate.” Remy gave him a sardonic smile. “But I can’t let you take her.”
“Got no choice.” Joss stepped closer to the exit, shoving her along. “We both know you won’t risk the girl’s life, so as long as I got her, you ain’t doin’ shit.”
Dreyla threw Remy a desperate look. Joss was right. Remy wouldn’t take the shot while he had her. She wanted to be all heroic and scream, “Never mind me!” but she really, really didn’t want to die. And definitely not like this.
“Who’s coming for you?” Remy asked, edging closer to Joss.
“An old friend of yours is heading this way. Personally, I find her even scarier than Larker.” Joss let out a low chuckle of relish.
Dreyla knew exactly which old friend Joss meant. The woman who would like nothing more than to unceremoniously blast off Remy’s arm, which was, in fairness, what he’d done to her, and who, once she’d finished blasting off other appendages, would eventually kill him. Possibly by disembowelment.
“So, you’re working for that bitch,” Remy stated rather than asked.
Joss nodded. “She pays a hell of a lot more than you do.”
“Can’t enjoy that money,” Remy said slowly, “if you’re dead.”
The quirk in Remy’s tone tipped Dreyla off. Following his gaze, she reached down and grabbed the handle of the blade still sticking out of her captor’s thigh and gave it a ruthless twist. He hollered in pain. His vise grip on her loosened so she could duck down below his shoulders.
Remy’s gun hand was up in a flash, firing straight at Joss’s head. The shot hit the target and Joss’s body lost all grip on her as he sank to the ground.
Dreyla moved so quickly that Remy hardly had time to lower the gun. She collapsed against his chest and hugged her captain… her protector… her father. He enfolded her in a tight squeeze. All the fear transformed into a wave of euphoria at their both being alive. Nothing else mattered.
“Drey… holy shit, Drey,” he murmured, his voice hoarse, sounding lost.
Tosh bounded in, faster than Dreyla had ever seen the old man run. “Anyone need medical attention?”
Remy released her from the embrace, and they all stood back to regard the man sprawled at their boots.
Tosh bent closer to peer at the hole in Joss’s head. “Guess not.”
“We need to reconnect the power coupling in the engine room,” Dreyla said, turning away so she wouldn’t have to see the dead man’s hateful face. “Abrams disconnected it.”
“Better hurry and get it online,” Remy said, all grim authority restored to his tone. “We’ll have company arriving… soon.”
Chapter 9
LILLY
Lilly pushed her reluctant charges down the short corridor to the check-in station, where Deputy Pierce sat behind a thick, plastic security barrier, playing a holographic game. He bolted forward in his seat as they approached.
“Holy shit, Sheriff…” Pierce’s faded blue eyes scanned Yercer’s tall frame. “Do you know who that is?”
“Prime scum de la scum, Pierce. You catch the whiff from outside?”
“Sure did, boss.” He grinned and buzzed them through.
“You’re in way over your head, Sheriff,” Yercer rumbled. “And your employees fooling around on the job. Tsk, tsk. What a shambles.”
Lilly gave him an extra hard shove for that. Pierce strutted out of the booth to help her. His counterpart, Potter, also appeared and joined them in their convoy down to the cells. Neither deputy had seen much high-profile action in a while. She hoped they were still sharp. Both men were quickly approaching retirement age, and Yercer had a nasty habit of escaping even the most high-security establishments.
The cells were small, barred rooms designed for security rather than comfort. Each had a fortified window and an interior printed in one smooth piece—no joints, vents, cracks, or anything that could be exploited by enterprising inmates. All signals in or out were blocked. The beds and toilet facilities were as sparse as functionality permitted. The only concession to prisoners’ souls was a view out each window. Currently, a billboard blocked most of said view, but criminal minds didn’t have well-developed souls, so who cared?
Lilly’s deputies disconnected the linking chains between the four prisoners and shoved two of them into the first cell. Potter deftly removed their cuffs through the bars as per Naillik Security Regulations Section 6. He then clicked open the next cell, but Lilly tapped her subordinate’s arm.
“On second thought, I’ll take Yercer with me. You look after this one.”
“My pleasure.” Potter prodded Yercer’s sidekick into the cell.
Pierce led Yercer into another room, sat him down, and connected his cuffs to a bar in the middle of the table, forcing him to hunch his back. Not a terribly comfortable position, which was the whole point.
Lilly sat down opposite him and stared at the big man. Pierce closed the door, handed Lilly a tablet, and then assumed the position of propping up the wall. Normally at this point, she’d dismiss him, but somehow, she couldn’t make the words come out.
Stony-faced, she scanned through several screens of info on Yercer’s last whereabouts and latest activities, none of which was new or surprising. She glanced up at him. “What are you doing in our town?”
“Sightseeing.” He grinned a mirthless grin.
“I’ll repeat the question. What are you doing in our town?”
“Darlin’,” he said with a labored sigh, “this ain’t your town.”
Lilly leaned in closer. “You all think I’m gonna just turn things over to you and your boss? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“What I’d like is irrelevant, my enticing, dark princess. Like I said, you don’t get it. Gono Darkbur has his fingers in everybody’s pies.” He eyed her up and down. “Soon, no doubt, in yours.”
“Fingers can be so easily broken,” Lilly replied with the utmost of calm. “Happens all the time in detention facilities, doesn’t it?”
“Sure does, boss,” Pierce helpfully answered from his corner.
“You’re all pathetic,” Yercer said. “Humans, dworgs, aflins, it don’t matter the species… it don’t matter the town. Sooner or later, you all fall in. It’s survival of the fittest, and darlin’, those of us from Bane are pretty damn fit.”
“If I didn’t know better, Yercer, I’d think you were trying to impress me.”
“Guess it wouldn’t take much, huh? I remember your late husband.”
Lilly’s senses clouded in a haze of hatred for the man, the thing, sitting before her. “You’re telling me that you and Gono already have footholds in Yerdua and Elocin?” Yes, it was on the nose. No, she didn’t want to be in the same room with Yercer for any longer than necessary.
“We’re everywhere. So, you see, little Miss Peace Officer, there’s not gonna be much peace here… from now on.” Yercer’s grin grew wider.
She pushed the button on the remote, sending a current into his body. He convulsed pitifully. But the yells she heard were not from him. They were coming from outside the room.
Lilly swung around to Pierce in confusion, but he looked just as blank as her. She turned back to Yercer, who was taking a moment to compose himself.
“Why the hell did you do that?” he asked, a bit of drool still stuck to the corner of his mouth.
“It’s a sign of affection.”
The door opened. Potter staggered into the room, a grimace plastered on his face.
Lilly sprang up from her chair. “What’s wrong?”
“Forgot to switch off the restraints.” Three sets of cuffs slipped from the deputy’s ha
nds onto the floor. “That hurt like hell.”
Yercer started to laugh.
She hit the button again. The shock to his system sent him sprawling atop the table. This time, drool dripped from his mouth and worked its way to the floor.
Potter smiled when he saw that.
Lilly slammed one of the counterfeit nano-biotic packets down on the table, close to Yercer’s thick nose. “The drugs are fake, but that’s a real delivery packet. Now, who did you get the pretty wrappers from?”
There was a defiant silence. Even with his head still on the table, she could see the hateful smile begin to stretch across Yercer’s broad face.
Her index finger hovered over the button, and she raised her eyebrows at him.
“Alright, alright,” he said. “You wanna know the truth so bad, do you? Hell, I’ll tell you. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Yercer…” she said, her finger on the button now.
His eyes flashed to the remote in her hand. “Ducett… We got them from Ducett.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Your brother,” Yercer supplied with such relish she wanted to zap him again and again until he passed out.
***
A few minutes later, with Yercer back in his cell, Lilly sat in her office, staring dully out the window.
Nate Ducett, her irresponsible younger brother, had arrived in Naillik shortly after she and Tim had moved here. And ever since, he’d been pulling one dumbass scheme after another. He was a con man, a criminal, but still her brother.
There was a sharp rap on the door.
“Yeah?”
The door opened, and Brand poked her head in, her blond mane swishing with excitement. “Sheriff, we had to arrest Ned Blakely.”
Before Lilly could ask why, Brand added, “He stabbed Owen Carcell with a shucker knife.”
“Huh. Just another afternoon at the Double L then,” she said listlessly.
Ned shucked sand-oysters for the patrons at the Double L. Since the planet Vox was almost seventy-five percent arid, there weren’t too many native species… at least not the kind you’d want to eat. Sand-oysters were the one and only that Lilly enjoyed. And the knife was meant for opening their shells, not gutting patrons.
“I put Ned in the back cell. He was pretty pissed off about something,” Brand said.
“Guess he’d have to be… to stab someone.”
Great, what else could possibly go wrong? The planet’s major crime syndicate was apparently trying to set up shop in her town. Her own stupid brother had dirty dealings with the bastards… and now someone who Lilly had always considered level-headed had tried to shuck someone else.
The worst thing? The day was only half over.
Chapter 10
REMY
Remy hovered over Dreyla, who he’d just promoted to chief engineer of the Jay. Basically, that meant she had the job of keeping the twenty-year-old ship working, and right now, she knelt in the engine room, attempting to undo what the mutineers had done to the ship’s power.
“Protein bar?” Remy asked her, as he took a bite out of one.
She looked up, at first annoyed, but he could tell she was hungry. He held up two bars: one yellow, one orange.
Dreyla scrunched her nose. “Which is less old?”
“Uh.” Remy inspected the labels and handed her the yellow bar. “Banana flavor.”
“Whatever that is.”
Remy took another bite, chewed, and grimaced. “Our next loot better be food, like real food, the kind you get at Restaurant Atmogrille. Oh, them steaks with caramelized toro roots and a side order of mushed zarpa beans.”
Dreyla smiled as she chomped gamely. “That would indeed be nice.”
“R.L. Johnson, stay powered down, and prepare to be boarded,” the comms system blared out.
“What the hell?” Remy groaned. “Can’t a man have his dinner?”
He pulled Dreyla to her feet and dragged her into the corridor, headed toward the bridge.
“We need to get this ship running,” she said, tugging back toward the engine room.
“Might need you to help me with this,” he replied.
They stepped onto the bridge, and he took his seat near the bow.
Dreyla raced to her nav station. “Looks like a command blade and two pirate ships off our stern.” She frowned at her console. “Five minutes out.”
“Tell me you’re kidding.” Remy pulled up the visuals on his screen.
Dreyla wasn’t kidding. The command blade hovered there menacingly, a ship four times the size of normal blades, and nearly as many times deadlier. He knew who was sitting in that ship. But what about the sidekicks? What assholes had chosen to side with Larker Max in this bullshit scheme to get rid of some perceived competition?
“Drey, what’s the identity of the other two ships?”
“Already scanning,” she murmured, eyes glued to the screen.
“I know that look,” he said slowly. “I’m not gonna like the answer, am I?”
“No, Cap.”
“Well, hit me with it anyways.”
“It’s the Kapriano and the Mearle.”
“Damn.” He slumped back in his seat.
The Kapriano was no surprise. Captain Langston hated his guts on account of him sleeping with Langston’s wife, Trinni, way back when. In hindsight, that little liaison hadn’t been the most stellar of ideas, but man, those legs.
Langston’s taste in ships wasn’t as good as his taste in women, that was for sure. The lumbering Kapriano looked like a set of tin cans hobbled together, with copious weaponry strapped on to make it seem menacing.
The Mearle, though. What a punch to the gut. He and Captain Pike—Jason the Red—had been friends. Or so he’d thought. Hadn’t they pulled off half a dozen jobs together over the last decade and lived to laugh about it? That’s what he got for trusting another pirate.
Jason’s ship, the Mearle, resembled a cruiser from the front, all sleek lines and innocence, but a battleship from behind, with its badass array of missile heads and multidirectional heavy-duty blasters. Two-faced, just like its owner.
“R.L. Johnson, under UNSF Code 4113, you are hereby charged with piracy. You are ordered to stay where you are and prepare to be boarded,” the voice ground out.
“Do you ever shut up?” Remy hit the comms button, but for audio only. “Sorry, currrrrrgh… we’re having… currrrrrgh… problems… give us…. Currrrrrgh… ouple minutes…. Currrrgh… clear up.”
Dreyla rolled her eyes at him, which made him smile even though they were in another tight spot.
“R.L. Johnson, under UNSF Code 4113, you are hereby charged with piracy. You are ordered to stay where you are and prepare to be boarded,” the voice ground out again.
“Like I’m going to come quietly,” he quipped.
“Cap, you don’t do anything quietly,” Dreyla said. “Anything.”
It took him a second to realize what she was talking about. “How was I supposed to know that little redhead from customs was such a…” he started.
“Howler?” Dreyla offered, smiling.
Remy shrugged. “So, sue me,” he said, winking at her.
“I think they intend to do more than that,” she pointed out.
He’d been in tighter spots. Had more guns on him. Been backed into a corner. He wasn’t worried… OK, maybe just a little bit.
Galactic Blues
Episode 2:
Call It Stormy Monday
A Newton’s Gate serial
by
C.J. Clemens
Copyright © 2018
C.J. Clemens
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the authors.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the authors’ imaginations and should not be const
rued as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, businesses, and individuals, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
For more information, visit the authors’ website: NewtonsGate.com
For Andy and Chris...
two brothers who have given us unwavering support.
Chapter 1
REMY
Captain Remy Bechet stared down at the comms he’d just cut off, knowing his performance would only buy him, Dreyla, and Tosh a little time. He glanced at the screen displaying the three ships closing in on them—the command blade and the two smaller pirate ships—and finally, he looked up into the eyes of his last two crew members. He needed to do what he always did: get them out of their current mess. Preferably alive.
“The both of you—get that power coupling reconnected. Fast,” Remy shouted. “My acting skills suck,” he added under his breath. He’d used the coughing, stuttering comm trick so often in his pirate career, he probably should’ve gotten better at it.
“What the hell do I know about power couplings?” Tosh said, scratching his head.
“Come on.” Dreyla marched Tosh off the bridge, tugging him along by the sleeve of his tunic.
Remy switched the comms setting to a different frequency, one he hoped the pursuing pirate ships would be monitoring. It was one thing for the United Nations Space Force to send one of its command blades after him, but for two of his own kind to have sided with the government… well, that was just disloyal. Of course, they were all pirates, and loyalty wasn’t one of their most prominent virtues. Still, he wanted to see their faces.
The monitor flickered back on, and he found himself staring at Jason Pike, the captain of the Mearle.
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