Soldier of Fortune (2nd ed)
Page 27
Outside, Gideon, Mia, and Hama waited for the general’s car to drive off before turning for the city, Hama walking his cycle, while Mia perched on the seat, and Elvis perched on Mia.
As they made their meandering way from the riverfront, Mia continued to regale the men with plans for Gideon’s new business, from where to set up shop—near but not in Lower Cadbury, she determined—to the type of jobs he should take, to what sort of advertising would best serve Nike’s first ever Private Facilitator.
Hama, for his part, continued to intersperse which laws and statutes would have to be observed to keep Gideon out of the nick and, more importantly, paperwork off Hama’s desk.
Gideon, amused, let them wrangle over the details.
For himself, he was perfectly happy to make it up as he went along.
Six years back pay from the Corps wouldn’t quite elevate him to the level of a risto, but it would provide a cushion.
Enough to keep himself and Elvis, and—he glanced sideways at the animated dodger on the bike—his assistant, fed and under a roof while he worked it out.
In the meantime, he was, for the first time in memory, free to do as he chose.
Chances were what he chose would be messy, skating the edges of legality and, if the past thirty hours were any indication, worthy of at least the box theatre at the Circus.
It would also, almost certainly, be interesting.
And who knew but, while he was making interesting messes, he might also manage to help a few people out. People like Jinna and Tiago and—admit it, Quinn—himself.
People the system had somehow overlooked, or left behind, or simply turned its back on.
He thought all of that as he walked along with Mia and the detective, and then he thought maybe they should grab some grub, as he was at least a quarter past starving, and Elvis was looking a bit gray as he hunched away from the despised rain.
He thought about how to find homes for the dodgers currently sheltering with the keepers at the Elysium, and whether the Ohmdahls had gotten their radio back, and what sort of charges Killian Del might be facing.
Which made him think they should get word to the Errant that it was safe for Jinna to return to Nike if she chose, (possibly breaking Rory’s heart) and if she did, what were the chances of her still having a job to return to?
The one thing he didn’t do, as they turned onto the main road to the city, was count how many steps he was taking.
Join Gideon, Elvis, and Mia in
Fortune’s Fool: A Gideon Quinn Case, available now!
* * *
Meanwhile turn the page for a sneak peak of the second book of The Fortune Chronicles, Outrageous Fortune.
Outrageous Fortune
An Errant Enterprise
Dyar’s Canyon
Eastern Allianz Territories
February 9, 1449 AL
* * *
John Pitte ducked a sizzling bolt of plasma, straightened, looked at the acrid, smoking hole the bolt left in the canyon wall, and experienced an immediate surge of anger. Less for almost being killed than for the damage done the multihued strata for which Dyar’s Canyon was renowned.
Admittedly, Dyar’s Canyon was also renowned for its inhospitable fauna, alkali lakes, and treacherous electrical storms, but John had always felt a perverse fondness for the place. It was dangerous and beautiful and defiant and didn’t give a lick for the humans who’d created it.
“What the fecking comb are you waiting for?” Jagati O’Bannion asked, slapping him upside the head as she ran past.
“Sorry,” he said, racing after her, “but these people have no respect for nature.”
“Report it to the Keepers,” she called over her shoulder, fogging the desert’s icy air with her breath.
John assumed she was being facetious, and might have said so, but a series of shouts followed by more plasma bursts and a smattering of crossbow bolts had both turning to lay a quick burst of suppressive fire and, in Jagati’s case, a blistering stream of curses.
Thankfully they’d reached a narrower section of the canyon, preventing their pursuers from spreading out to surround them. In addition, the thickening smoke raised by both sides of the fight provided cover, and as soon as it reached sufficient density the two, in silent agreement, held their fire and began their retreat.
Several paces later, the enemy were still shooting at their previous position, so they took off running, weaving single file through the jagged fissure.
As the pair were close in height, the six-foot-tall John topping Jagati by a mere two centimeters, and both in fighting trim, they covered a good distance.
“Come on, come on, come on!” Jagati hissed as she clambered over a tumble of fallen stone, her long legs finding purchase with the speed and agility of a mountain goat.
“I’m come onning,” he replied, one hand on the satchel he wore cross-wise over his jacket.
He’d almost reached the top of the rock pile when another shot had him diving the rest of the way over, resulting in an awkward rolling-falling-bruising affair. He continued to roll to his feet with a fresh spate of twinges. “It’s entirely possible,” he panted, running after his partner, “that taking this job was a mistake.”
From the steady stream of epithets drifting back his way, he could only assume Jagati shared his opinion.
“—ing, smog-eating, spawn of a hornet,” she finished as he came even with her.
A sideways glance showed the raw umber of her skin matted with the same violet grime which coated their clothes and dusted the spiraling mass of her brown-black curls. Combined with her fierce expression, the end result was rather demonic.
At least she looked threatening. If the back of his hand was any indication, John figured he came off like a victim of some unnamed, wasting disease.
“We’re close to the LZ, right?” she asked, slowing as the canyon they traversed narrowed to the width of an airship’s crawlspace.
“Almost certainly,” he agreed, nudging her onward while he removed the satchel and held it at his side so he could fit through the cramped fissure.
“Almost?” Stuck sideways with her head turned forward, he could only imagine her glare. “Pitte.”
“Keep moving,” he prompted, not liking to think what would happen if their pursuers caught up with them.
Even more, he didn’t want what he thought would happen to actually happen.
She hissed, but she kept moving, and in minutes which passed like only a few years they squeezed through the other side where Jagati came to a halt and scanned the wider space, her expression uncertain.
“Pitte,” she said again, which in Jagati shorthand meant Tell me we’re not lost. And if you can’t tell me we’re not lost, at least tell me we have a plan to become unlost. And if we don’t have a plan to become unlost, feel free to present your ass for me to kick all the way back to the shadow traders’ camp.
Jagati’s shorthand was an incredible time saver.
“We’re not lost,” he told her.
“Good.”
“Except I think we should already have passed the column that looks like a mammoth’s—”
“Pitte!”
“Oh wait,” he said before her shorthand became punching-hand. “There it is.” He pointed to the right, where the cold blaze of the noontime suns had flattened the distinctive geographic feature.
Jagati gritted her teeth and followed John. As she ran, her eyes locked on the rock formation in question. “Overcompensation,” she muttered to herself.
As if their pursuers agreed with her observation, a rapid-fire series of plasma bursts cut the suggestive formation down to size.
Jagati ducked, glanced back, and cursed anew as a shadow trader emerged from the crevice.
“Almost there,” he called, his voice muffled.
“Can’t be soon enough.” She jogged past him as he kept watch over their seven, then noticed his normally fair complexion had gone bone white under the dust. A second glance sho
wed smoke curling up from a fresh plasma score on his right thigh. “Smog it, Pitte, you’re—”
“Heads!” he warned.
She ducked. Another burst burned through the air where her head had been half a second before. She rose and fired on the foremost outlaw. When the distant shape let out a short squeal and dropped, she backed up and tucked herself under John’s shoulder.
Thus linked, they turned and ran for it, with John adding the occasional backward shot to keep things interesting.
“That’s the last tunnel.” He jerked his chin forward, towards an inverted V of a passage which connected to the canyon where they’d left their airship moored.
An airship their crewmates should have fired up and ready to fly the second John and Jagati hit the gangplank.
She nodded and urged him faster. “This is more resistance than I expected. Do we even know what it is we’re retrieving?”
“The client chose not to disclose that information.” He disengaged his arm from her shoulder and limped into the tunnel. “When I asked, she said it was sensitive and started to cry.”
“I hate when they cry,” she said as she followed him into the passage. “Wait! I mean, don’t wait, but… the client’s a she?”
“Of course. Didn’t I say?”
“Nooo…” The single word seemed to stretch through the darkness ahead of her before looping back in an echo.
“Ah. Well, then, yes—the client is a woman,” he said. “Typical spoiled risto with more money than sense. I’ve no doubt we’re risking life and limb for her great-grandmother’s 7-Up reliquary.”
“Could be worse,” Jagati said. “Could be another one of those ancient torture devices.”
“That was a shoe. An original Louboutin, as I recall.”
“You say shoe, I say spiky pain-delivery device.”
“At any rate,” he said, “whatever is in this satchel meant enough for the client to offer treble the usual fee for a recovery.”
“It’s not enough.”
“At the time, I thought she overestimated its value.”
“Seems more like she underestimated it, from the way these guys don’t want to let it go,” Jagati said, following.
An understatement, if ever he heard one. “I can see light ahead.”
“Just fifteen minutes,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer, but limped faster, bracing a hand against the side of the cavern until he stepped out into the bright light of day...and froze in his tracks.
Behind him, Jagati came rushing out, only stopping when she ran into his back.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, squeezing past him. “Shouldn’t we be boarding about now?”
“It was here,” he said, staring at the wide, flat, and, most importantly, empty space before them. “It was right here.” He peered up, shielding his eyes from the suns, and she followed suit.
What she saw was nothing. No sign of the Errant anywhere.
“Smogging son of a drone!” Jagati’s shooter rose and her boot stomped. “This! Isn’t! Funny!” She paused and looked up again, as if her shouts would bring the ‘ship crawling back like a recalcitrant child, seeking momma’s forgiveness.
Leaving John behind, she ran forward into the empty place once occupied by their vessel, hoping it would offer a better vantage, but all it gave her was room to stomp more vigorously, raising a veritable purple fog. Then she—yes—cursed some more.
“Feel better?” John asked, limping up to join her.
Her lip curled in a snarl. “What do you think?”
“Just asking,” he said, giving the tunnel they’d emerged from a meaningful glance.
She growled, then gave him a punch on the shoulder, then led the way to a craggy outcropping at the base of the canyon’s northern wall. Not ideal, but it offered higher ground and some cover. “I will kill them,” she said matter-of-factly as she began to climb.
“Duly noted.” John holstered his shooter and prepared to follow, apologizing to his leg as he did.
“Here,” she called down, “toss me the case.”
He unslung the leather carryall and heaved it up.
Jagati caught the strap and slung the bag over the top edge of the ridge, leaving John hoping whatever was in that satchel survived the trip in one piece.
She must have sensed his concern. “There’s level ground up here,” she offered by way of reassurance. “And it’s defensible. Sort of.”
He nodded and started to climb, but a sudden rattling of stone from the canyon wall to his right had him stopping cold. Turning, he clung to the face with one hand and shaded his eyes with the other as he searched for the sound’s origin.
What he saw had him releasing his grip on the outcropping and dropping back to the canyon floor, where his leg almost buckled under him.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jagati asked from on high.
John, in the act of raising his hands, jerked his chin upwards.
As he had, she shielded her eyes from the suns and stared in the indicated direction.
There was a telling silence from above. It told him Jagati had also spied the sniper perched at the canyon’s upper edge.
And in case there were any doubts, a splat of plasma seared the rock less than a foot from her shoulder.
“It keeps getting better,” she said, slithering to the ground at his side. “Remind me what made us think this was a good career choice.”
“Funny, I was just thinking the same thing,” John said, “except without the ‘us.’”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked as the first of their pursuers emerged from the triangular tunnel.
“Nothing.”
“Don’t say nothing when you mean something!”
“Fine.” He shrugged, then went still as a warning shot from the sniper sizzled to his left. “What I mean is I was doing fine before you came hunting me down in Nike.”
“I did not hunt you down.”
He looked at her.
“Okay, maybe I hunted you down, but you were not doing fine.”
“I had a decent job.”
“You were smelting scrap allusteel.“
“It was good, honest labor,” he insisted, staring at the oncoming shadow traders a moment. “I was doing fine.”
“Sure you were.” She squinted, trying to make out individual shapes in the approaching group, “If by ‘fine’ you mean ready to drink yourself into an early grave.”
End of sample.
Outrageous Fortune is available now.
Click https://dl.bookfunnel.com/uvcj2ce61t to download your Free Story.
You can also follow Kathleen McClure on Bookbub.
Also by Kathleen McClure
The Fortune Chronicles
Soldier of Fortune: A Gideon Quinn Adventure
Outrageous Fortune: An Errant Enterprise
with Kelley McKinnon
Fortune’s Fool: A Gideon Quinn Case
* * *
Tales of Fortune
Orphan, Dodger, Soldier, Spy
* * *
The Zodiac Files
The Gemini Hustle
with L. Gene Brown
Orpheus||In the UnderWorld
with L. Gene Brown
* * *
Short Stories
Ghosts in the Graveyard and Other Tales
The Measure of a Man (Or, the Uncommon Escapade of the Rat in the Subway)
Acknowledgments
Foremost thanks go to the rest of the Clan, beginning with James for his ceaseless technical and emotional support and for never once (openly) questioning the madness. Next tip of the hat goes to Connor, whose proofing and enthusiasm for the project were invaluable. Finally, (continuing in order of appearance) due credit to Kelley, for providing a sounding board and truly excellent motivational signage.
Thank you Kelly Kilcoyne, for inspiring me to tell my stories in the first place.
Many thanks to the members of the Megiddo Forum for allowing
me to write my way through the bad times with them. If they hadn’t been there, I might not have continued to write into the good times.
Special recognition is due to fellow writer Kelley McKinnon for allowing Jagati O’Bannion a cameo in Gideon’s story.
Thanks also to Alexa Humberson, my brave beta reader, and to Jane Jennings, my equally brave copy editor.
Most of all, thanks to Jil Maltsberger, for never doubting.
About the Author
Writer, actor, mom, facilitator, evolving Human Kathleen McClure writes for the love of story and the desire to give readers a strong dose of optimism, cloaked in fun.
Since unleashing Gideon Quinn onto the world in late 2015, Kathleen has since joined with fellow writer Kelley McKinnon to add the Errant crew’s exploits to The Fortune Chronicles, and further expanded her genre-mashing ways to include the spy-fi series The Zodiac Files, with L. Gene Brown.
Kathleen currently lives in Austin, TX with her quirky, chaotic, much-loved family, who have come to accept that after a day of revisions, dinner may be a little burned/bland/unidentifiable.
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A Note on The Language of Fortune
Words, words, words…
By early on in the book, it will be easy to see, and hear, that Fortune is quite different from Earth.
From Tyche and Nemesis, the two suns blazing over the Barrens, to the mammoths wandering the Nasa plains, to the three moons, to that crystal stuff everyone’s after, the planet has more than a few striking differences from our own little blue marble with its single, lonely sun.