Galactic Blues - Box Set Episodes 1-3: A Newton's Gate Space Opera Adventure (Galactic Blues Box Set)

by C. J. Clemens

  “Release the body with the cargo,” Tosh demanded of nobody in particular.

  Remy assumed that Tosh and Dreyla had already loaded both into the airlock. There was a chance this crazy-ass plan, one that Remy had figured out only a moment ago, might have some merit after all. It certainly had style, feathered hat and everything.

  “Both are loaded, Captain,” Dreyla said from off to the side, her hands clenched over two different panels, ready to make her move.

  Hearing her address the old man as “Captain” like that made Remy chuckle. He stifled it when Tosh broke character to glance back at him. After an instant, the old man snapped back to his pretense as the captain.

  “Open the airlock,” he commanded.

  Through his gunner display screen, Remy watched as a large pallet of Teez and a body, which he assumed was Abrams, floated out through his airlock and drifted into the vastness of space.

  “As soon as you intercept them, we’ll be on our way,” Tosh said. Then he shut down the comms.

  Remy rose to greet him, arms spread wide. “Tosh, that was an award-winning performance. The last line was maybe overkill, but I think we got her, got her hard, you old devil.” He patted him on a spot on his shoulders that wasn’t as blood-soaked as the rest of his outfit.

  Tosh stumbled back, the familiar dull, stoned look washing over his face. “My mother always wanted me to go into theater.”

  “But you rebelled and became a doctor?” Grinning, Remy slipped into his station. He slid his fingers along the controls, assured that Dreyla’s plan had played out perfectly. He turned to her. “I’m assuming that body belongs to Abrams and that it’s loaded with explosives?”

  She nodded, her posture proudly erect but her brown eyes filled with apprehension. He had taught her well, but she was still finding her footing when it came to confidence, a prime requisite for being a good pirate, or at least surviving as one.

  “Guess we better power up then,” he said, “and get ready to blow this popsicle stand.”

  “A popsicle sounds good right now,” Tosh said, wandering toward the exit.

  “Whatever you say, Captain,” Remy said, swiveling his chair away from the console.

  Tosh winked at him before vanishing into the corridor.

  Dreyla’s gaze drifted toward the exit. “I don’t know how he managed to keep it together.”

  “Course he did. He’s wearing my lucky hat.”

  A grin transformed her face, bringing back the youthfulness. “Can’t believe we pulled it off, Remy.”

  “We haven’t pulled anything off yet,” he reminded her. But he couldn’t fight his own grin.

  He swung back to his controls and, once the power converters had kicked in, brought the piloting station and guns back online. And then ever so slowly, he used the lower landing thrusters to move away from the command blade and the two pirate ships. The thrusters wouldn’t register to the human eye, and he just wanted the ship to look like it was drifting.

  But looks could be deceiving. This drifting had purpose, and with any luck, the low-powered thrusters would push them away from what he suspected was going to be a rather large explosion.

  Chapter 7

  LILLY

  Lilly marched down the fourth-floor corridor in the Red Lady’s brothel wing, which was separated from the hotel by thick soundproofed walls and security doors. Here, the decor was dark and sumptuous—crimson walls and gold light fixtures. She didn’t visit this part too often. But she needed to now, if only to talk to Tryst and finagle her brother’s whereabouts out of her.

  Within the brothel, the soundproofing wasn’t nearly as effective. Maybe it was deliberate. Moans, murmurs, and heavy breathing emanated from the rooms—a cacophony of desires, mingling so you couldn’t tell which room produced the sounds.

  A sharp crack punctuated the ambience. She whirled around, reaching for her blaster, then realized it was just a whip.

  Just a whip.

  Seconds later came the inevitable cry of pain. A young male’s voice. She shuddered, then moved on. As a stakeholder in the Red Lady, she should be totally at ease with the dominance-submission scene, and ethically, she was. She just couldn’t get her head around asking for pain, let alone begging for it.

  Lilly reached her destination, Room 410. Hopefully, Tryst wouldn’t be in the middle of something intimate, or worse. She cocked her head to listen, but no sound emerged. Not so much as a snore. In a brothel, no noise almost always meant trouble.

  She pulled out her pistol and rapped on the door. “Tryst, open up. It’s Sheriff Greyson.”

  No answer.

  Just as she was about to force her way inside, the door inched open. A small, plump man in his fifties stood in the doorway, fully dressed in the kind of dark maroon tux fashionable in the casinos of Elocin. He glanced down at Lilly’s pistol, and his lips and chin trembled.

  She holstered the weapon and looked down into his strangely babyish face. “Sorry, I thought there was some kind of trouble.” She brushed past him. At least he didn’t think she was part of the act. That kind of misunderstanding had happened more than once, and it was always acutely embarrassing.

  “Do come in, Sheriff,” a smooth voice crooned from inside the room. Tryst. Even when she was being polite, she sounded snarky.

  The younger woman lay across a chaise lounge, preening her bright red hair. Dressed only in black panties and a matching lace bra, Tryst held Lilly’s gaze brazenly with her bright blue eyes. She wasn’t a model of human perfection, but her insolent, pixie-like charm, overlaid with an aura of sexual mischief, had worked its spell on many men—her brother, Nate, included. Formerly one of the most popular girls at the Red Lady, she had supposedly stopped taking clients once she’d started dating Nate. Or had she?

  Tryst’s legs stretched out, her feet propped on a pillow. Between each toe was a spacer. On the carpet before the lounge lay a toolbox containing all sorts of makeup and polishes. The heady ethanol waft of nail polish reached Lilly’s nose. Tryst had been getting some kind of pedicure.

  “Billy, give me and the sheriff a few minutes.” Tryst flapped her hand at the man still loitering in the doorway. “The polish needs to dry anyway.”

  He smiled and scuttled out, closing the door behind him.

  Lilly raised an eyebrow. “Did I interrupt a tryst, Tryst?”

  “Billy likes to paint my nails.” Tryst wiggled her purple-polished toes and grinned impishly.

  “So I see.”

  “That’s all he likes to do.”

  “Yeah, maybe I’ll get mine done, too. Have you seen Nate?”

  “What’s he done now?” Tryst moaned.

  This standard response had started to get old. Maybe she should do something about that. More to the point—maybe Nate should do something. But the window of opportunity for her brother’s character reform had probably long passed.

  Lilly stepped closer to the chair and adopted a casual smile she was pretty sure didn’t fool the woman. “I just need to talk to him.” She fiddled with the tassels of a lampshade and let an uncomfortable silence draw out between them. Oldest trick in the book.

  Tryst tapped her big toenail to test if it was dry, leaned back again, and huffed. Her gaze darted over to Lilly who just returned the stare. Lilly had the advantage of time. She could stay here until the sun set, but Tryst was no doubt on a timetable of clients, and it would hurt her reputation to be late for the next one, if she was indeed back on the market. Besides, Billy Toenails was lurking outside the door, just dying to put on a topcoat.

  “It’s about those nano-biotic packages, isn’t it?” Tryst finally burst out.

  “How interesting you should mention that,” Lilly said.

  Tryst pouted. “Look, I told him not to get involved with those guys, didn’t I?”

  “Those guys?”

  “Well, I don’t know, do I?” Tryst spread her arms. “He tells me nothing.”

  That rang of the truth.

  Lilly nodded. �
�Not even that he’s involved with Yercer Taul?”

  Tryst swung her feet down onto the floor. “Taul? You’re kidding.”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “He told me it was just a couple of small-time hoods. Figured they’d get themselves busted and that would be that.”

  “He expected them to get busted?” Even by Nate’s twisted standards, this was unforeseen.

  “Well, yeah, he didn’t want them actually selling the stuff to people, did he? Just wanted them to pay him for the empty packaging. Said they weren’t from here and that they didn’t know what they were doing.”

  Yep, that was exactly the kind of half-assed, cowardly justification her brother excelled at. He couldn’t even be properly bad.

  There was a nervous tap on the door. Billy poked his head back inside.

  Tryst held up her hand and waggled her fingers playfully. “Just a couple more minutes, honey,” she cooed in a much sweeter tone. Lilly admired her acting ability.

  Billy simpered and retreated into the hallway.

  “Why do you stay with Nate?” Lilly asked. “He’s my brother, and even I think he’s nothing but trouble.”

  Tryst’s expression grew vague. “Why does anyone stay with anyone?”

  Lilly swallowed and told herself not to think about that—not to think about Tim. She had to concentrate. “So, where’s he at now? And don’t try to fool me, darling, cuz I know you know.”

  Tryst smiled sweetly. “Your place.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Lilly started toward the door but stopped and turned. “Do not call him. I want to catch the little shit.”

  Tryst smiled enigmatically.

  Lilly headed out the door, passing the diminutive man who seemed eager to return to Tryst’s toenails.

  As she stepped from the brothel end of the building into the hotel section, she saw several people standing at the closest lift. Assuming they were heading down, Lilly elected to take the stairs.

  She slipped into the stairwell and climbed two flights to the penthouse suites. A heavy-duty door secured the entryway leading to the rooftop section, preventing any disgruntled customer or other lowlife from breaching the premises. The scanner beside the door was keyed to handprint or I.D. card, the latter of which Lilly had left back at the station. She placed her hand on the scanner, and a bright blue line scrolled up, verifying her print. A moment later, the door opened.

  Her place was all the way down and around the corner. Since each of the Red Lady’s partners lived in a suite, it had made more sense for the two operating owners to have more convenient locations, closer to the lift and the stairs. Luckily, though, her penthouse offered the best view.

  As she headed toward her suite, unsettling thoughts swirled in her brain. Chastising her brother was getting old. The job of Naillik’s sheriff was getting old. Sure, she held a respected position and was a reputable business owner, but still, she found herself living on Vox, a place where nobody was normal. Everyone was either damaged or working an angle or painting freaking toenails. Even the “good” people weren’t normal. Hustlers, the lot of them. A mining planet like Vox was a magnet for that type of person. She had just never thought that would describe her.

  And yet she was here. Still here. Even with Tim gone and little else binding her but a sense of duty likely driven by nothing more profound than her overblown ego. This ball of sand shouldn’t even be inhabited. If not for the mineral that now powered most of their galaxy, it would still be a forgotten dry rock in an inhospitable backwater of space with very little atmo.

  Just who was she kidding anyway?

  Chapter 8

  SHAW

  Shaw stood by her console. She preferred standing, even in battle. The chair always conveyed a certain amount of weakness in her opinion. She stared at the forward display monitor, watching the scene unfold. A large, wrapped pallet gently floated their way—a gyrating cube punctuating the darkness of space. It was about the size of nine coffins packed together in stacks of three, much larger than the typical size of a Teez shipment.

  Being this close to that much Teez made even her hardened head spin. Just a small amount was enough to power a medium-sized city back on Earth for half a year. Since the discovery of the substance itself, and the process to make it react with dark matter, it had been an energy game changer, and it had made the stuff so valuable that those out here in the Belt used it as hard currency. That cube alone was worth all the fuss and bother of dealing with Larker Max. But the real prize had been the thought of blasting a hole in Captain Remy Bechet.

  Still, there was something wrong with this delightful scene. Notably missing was Bechet’s dead body. Her blood turned cold.

  “Where’s—?” she hissed, but she had to swallow back her next words as the body came floating into view just behind the pallet. Just a damn parallax effect.

  She rubbed the back of her neck with her flesh-and-blood hand, nodding impatiently at Jibs and Zain to carry on. She needed to calm down, not get so emotional where Bechet was concerned, but frankly, it pissed her off that she’d missed her chance of ending him herself.

  The lights from the Kapriano lit up both the package and the corpse. The ghostly, bluish glow bounced off the shiny, black metallic suit and helmet of Bechet’s body, causing a flare to appear on her monitor.

  “Commander, the Kapriano’s moving,” Zain announced from his station.

  “Damn Langston anyway,” Shaw muttered. “Lock weapons on her.”

  “Everything?” Jibs asked.

  “Everything.” She slapped the comms button. “Langston, do not approach the package. I repeat, do not approach the package.”

  “Sorry, Commander,” came Langston’s unapologetic voice. “I have my orders. Larker was real specific on the details.”

  “Well, let me be real specific, too, Langston. Touch either the package or the body, and I blow the Kapriano out from under your greedy, interfering ass and into the next space zone. Got that?”

  “Uh, did you see that?” Zain cut in. “The R.L. Johnson’s moving. Jibs, do a—”

  “No!” Shaw cut in. “Jibs, keep your attention on the Kapriano.” She turned back to the comms. “Langston, you’ve been warned. The Johnson is mine. It’s your choice. We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

  “Commander, something’s not right here.” With a crackle of static, Captain Jason Pike’s gruff voice joined the comms conversation.

  Shaw groaned. “Oh, what now?”

  “Hey, Langston, I’d back off if I were you,” Pike said.

  “Stay out of this, Pike,” Langston shot back.

  “Commander,” Pike appealed to her. “You know I’m right.”

  She was beginning to suspect as much. “Jibs,” she ordered, “scan that container. Look for any energy signals that could belong to a reactor.”

  The Kapriano continued to glide forward. And as Zain had said, the R.L. Johnson was slinking away. They must be using their landing thrusters to avoid producing any telltale energy output.

  Smart.

  “Negative on any reactor signature,” Jibs said.

  “We’re moving in to intercept.” With a click, Langston’s communications line went dead.

  Zain turned to Shaw with a pale face, blinking rapidly. “Commander, the Johnson’s power just lit up.”

  Shaw nodded, frowning in concentration. Something even worse was bothering her. “Why did they put the helmet on the body?” she mused aloud. If Captain Tosh were just sending out Bechet’s corpse with the Teez, why rig him with an enviro suit?

  Zain’s eyes widened in simultaneous realization. “Oh, no!” He whirled around to his colleague. “Jibs, Jibs, scan the body!”

  Langston’s ship had almost reached the Teez package. The left side of the screen flashed orange as the R.L. Johnson’s engines flared up, and the ship rocketed away.

  “Target the—” Shaw yelled.

  The body exploded in a blinding, blue flash that obliterated her words and e
verything else on the screen. The deck shook hard. The impact from the explosion threw Shaw forward, causing her upper body to smash into her console.

  That son of a bitch.

  Steadying herself, she refocused on the forward viewscreen and saw that the Kapriano had been ripped in half. The explosion had apparently severed the bridge from the main engines and boosters. Debris spilled out from the gaping holes in each half and drifted off into space. No emergency shuttles seemed to have taken off. Electric arcs fizzed all over both sides, as if a fireworks party was in full swing. This would be Langston’s last party, that was for sure.

  And good riddance to him.

  The fact that she was still breathing meant that her own ship was functional, although they’d no doubt sustained heavy damage. Her officers were hugging their respective consoles, still recovering. The Mearle, now floating into view again, also seemed to be mostly intact. Pike would live another day. A pity he hadn’t been closer to the bomb.

  “Goddammit,” Shaw croaked, jabbing her finger at the R.L. Johnson on the main screen. “Zain, pursue that ship. Don’t let it out of your sight for a second.”

  Zain, his pinched, angular face bathed in sweat, maneuvered them around the debris. The Mearle followed suit. The R.L. Johnson already had a head start, but with a little luck, they might still catch up.

  The comms came back on, and she found herself looking directly into the face of the man she hated most in the universe.

  Captain Remy Bechet grinned back at her. He looked very much alive for a dead man.

  “I should have known,” Shaw sneered.

  “Seriously? You thought that lumpy body was mine?”

  “Your body will be lumpy when I’m finished with you.”

  “Commander, cut your losses,” Bechet said cheerfully. “Face it, Larker Max was gonna screw you over. Why are you doing his bidding?”

  “Why are you even talking to me?”

  “Don’t be sore, Commander. Larker Max screws with everyone.”