by J. S. Morin
“And a longer prison sentence,” July muttered.
“You were all commando-girl to be a pirate when it was just a free Squall for the taking,” Hiroshi replied. “With any luck, it still will be. But we don’t leave shit like this to luck.”
The chrono counted down. There were just minutes left. Then seconds. Then zero hit, and Hiroshi dropped the Hatchet Job from a 4.5 astral depth to 2.0, right where the Silde Slims 06 was scheduled to be. A Jamestown-class cargo freighter appeared a few hundred meters to starboard, traveling full speed.
“Looks like your guy didn’t come through,” July said, crossing her arms.
Hiroshi hit the throttle and angled to intercept. “Don’t count him out just yet. Now keep quiet.” He keyed the ship-to-ship comm. “Silde Slims vessel, stand down and prepare to be boarded. We’re taking your cargo whether you live to see tomorrow or not.” He cut off the transmission.
“You’re such a sweetheart,” July said. “Does that holovid spiel ever work?”
“More often than you’d think,” he replied.
The Silde Slims 06 slowed to a halt. Its engines went dark. “Ambush or legit?”
Hiroshi stood and let July slide over to the pilot’s seat. “Only one way to find out. Just dock us and keep an ear open on the comm.”
He commed ahead as he made his way to the airlock. “Ready for full EV. Worst case, we might see some dry space. Best case, they open the door for us.”
“Good to go, boss,” Randall replied. “Betcha they don’t put up no fight though. That knee-sniffer ain’t got it in him, and the hangar folk won’t want no trouble.”
“Just leave Jordan Myles to me,” Grixlit Gthaa said. “I owe him a debt.”
“Well it’s payback day all around,” Hiroshi replied. “Just don’t get going without me.”
Down in the airlock, Hiroshi found Grixlit and Randall suited up. Even in full EV gear with tinted helmet visors, he could tell them apart in an instant. Randall was a wide-shouldered and nearly two meters tall; Grixlit stood in a habitual crouch that put him a half meter shorter. Both were geared for a raid, from the marine-surplus blaster rifles to the concussion and breach grenades clipped to their belts. Hiroshi took a blaster pistol from its holster and nodded to signal his readiness.
The Hatchet Job was equipped with a breaching collar for its airlock. It could latch onto a vessel and cut a hole pretty much anywhere, forming an airtight seal to allow boarding. But today their prey was rolling over and showing its belly. A gentle thump and the readouts on the airlock controls indicated that they had made a proper docking with the Silde Slims 06.
“Age before beauty,” Hiroshi said over the inter-helmet comm, drawing a chuckle from Randall.
Grixlit turned and faced his helmet at Hiroshi. Despite the reflective tint, he knew there was a glare behind that visor. But the sitharn pilot took the point, heading through the airlock with Randall and Hiroshi following close behind. The whole trip was only a few meters, and the hatch on the far end opened readily.
Rick Tochi greeted with a blaster pistol in hand and a giddy grin on his face.
Hiroshi breathed a sigh of relief and broke the seal on his EV helmet. Just a few minutes in it, and he was sweating. “You had me worried a minute there, kid.”
“The pilot took some convincing,” Tochi replied. “He thought I was joking around. Hope you don’t mind, but I put a hole in one of the maintenance panels.”
Hiroshi shrugged. “Some guys need to see a little plasma fly to get the message. Any other surprises?”
“Nope.”
“Liabilities?” Hiroshi asked.
“Pilot’s about shit himself,” Tochi replied, still grinning. “And my reputation’s flushed. Hell, just getting myself assigned to Myles made me enemies.”
“I meant other crew,” Hiroshi said.
“Just the three of us: me, the pilot, and Jordan Myles.”
Hiroshi nodded. All in order. “It’s all clear,” he commed to July. “If you want a front-row seat, now’s the time.” He closed the comm. “Randall, go make the pilot our standard offer. Get a read on him.”
Randall gave a lazy salute. “Yessir. One heart-to-heart on the joys of piracy, comin’ right up.”
“You’re with me,” he said to Grixlit. “Let’s go see how our friend is doing.”
Grixlit grinned. With his EV helmet tucked under one arm, his sharp-toothed smile was fit to make an herbivore cower.
Jordan Myles was down in the cargo bay, frantically attempting to remove the mooring clamps holding his Silde Slims standard-issue racing Squall in place for shipping. He leapt to his feet and whirled on Hiroshi and Grixlit when they entered.
“Who are you?” Jordan demanded, brandishing a wrench at Hiroshi. He then aimed the tool in Grixlit’s direction. “And what are you doing here?”
Grixlit Gthaa stalked toward Jordan Myles as if he wanted to savor each step along the way. “You stole my spot in the Pan Galactic League. I finished second to Ramsey. I should have been the one to make the big time.”
“You didn’t win,” Jordan said, backing away. It seemed to occur to him that a wrench wasn’t going to do him much good against a blaster rifle. “Stacy just needed someone to take Ramsey’s place. I was the obvious choice. I’m a more polished racer—not that you aren’t!” he quickly amended when Grixlit snarled.
“Aw, pretty human,” Grixlit cooed. “You were going to be Stacy Kain’s little thaiju—her show toy. Grixlit Gthaa is too scary to put on holovid except to lose to humans and laakus. Right?” With a sudden dart forward, he slammed the butt of his rifle into Jordan’s face. The wrench dropped to the floor with a clatter.
“Looks like I got here just in time,” July whispered in Hiroshi’s ear. “Sure you don’t want to put a bolt into both of them and be done with it?”
“Shh. Easy does it,” Hiroshi said. “Gthaa’s one of my boys. Sorry if he stepped on your pretty little toes, but you weren’t beating Ramsey anyway. I saved you three weeks of bullshit, showing him that shortcut. We were just out for the quarter million until Ramsey came up with a better scam.”
A wet, meaty impact echoed across the cargo bay, the first of several. “Not so pretty now, human, are you?”
“All right,” Hiroshi called out. “Fun’s over. Leave the kid alone.” Hiroshi holstered his blaster and sauntered across to where Jordan lay on the deck plates with a bloody face. Grixlit backed off with obvious reluctance, never taking his eyes off the racer.
“I didn’t do anything,” he mumbled. “It was all Stacy Kain. She picked the backup.”
“Didn’t do anything?” Hiroshi asked. He clucked his tongue. “You tried to blackmail a good friend of mine. A friend by the name of Bradley Carlin Ramsey.”
“Oh God,” Jordan moaned. “I didn’t do anything to him. I wasn’t going to actually do it.” He curled into a ball on the floor.
“I want the names of those friends of yours,” Hiroshi said. “Who has copies of that recording?”
“Nobody,” Jordan whined. “I didn’t have anyone I could trust. It was all a bluff. I couldn’t outrace Ramsey, so I tried to scare him into throwing the race. The dumb fucker couldn’t even get that right. But he’s dead now, so I’ve got no reason to go public. I don’t even have the recording; Ramsey smashed my datapad with the only copy.”
“Ramsey has a lot of friends out there,” Hiroshi said. He shoved Jordan back to the floor as he tried to stand. “Friends who don’t take kindly to threats against him. Friends who don’t stand by and do nothing about it.”
Jordan nodded frantically.
“I want you to remember that for the rest of your life.”
“I will,” Jordan agreed instantly. “I will. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried,” Hiroshi replied. He drew his blaster pistol and shot Jordan once, dead center in the forehead. “Let’s button this thing up,” he shouted. “I want to be long gone before anyone thinks to come looking.”
July stop
ped him as Hiroshi headed for the airlock. “Can I ask you just what the hell Carl did? This isn’t just a friendly favor. No amount of money is worth the risks that guy takes, and you did it all for nothing.”
Hiroshi looked at her, locking gazes with those pretty violet eyes. Secrets came with ties, and if she was going to be staying around, maybe he was ready to tie himself to her—at least a little. “Our last mission together—the last combat mission either one of us flew for the navy—it went bad. Real bad. Ramsey’s the one who got us through it, the few of us who survived, anyway. There’s no Squadron 333 in Earth Navy any more. You hear someone say they’re a member, they’re either lying, or they owe that crazy fucker everything.”
Hiroshi glanced over to the corpse of Jordan Myles, would-be extortionist. “Taking care of a pest like that? It’s the least I can do. Come on; let’s fly. You’re with me now. I look after my own.”
# # # # # # # # #
I hope you enjoyed Alien Racer! If you want more from the crew of the Mobius right away, there are a couple of ways to continue on for free.
1. Tech, Lies, and Wizardry, the prequel short story, is available on Amazon, Nook, and Kobo.
2. Salvage Trouble, Mission 1 of Black Ocean, is available for my Email Insiders to try for free. Subscribe for book announcements, then request a copy, at: www.jsmorin.com/tryblackocean
Retro Version
Mission 6 of the Black Ocean Series
J.S. Morin
Retro Version
Mission 6 of: Black Ocean
Copyright © 2015 Magical Scrivener Press
It was a somber duty to inform someone of her brother’s death, but it was bizarre to instead notify her that it was all faked. Tanny closed the taxi door, and the petrol-burning relic grumbled and rolled away. She was left standing on asphalt black-top that wound its way through rows of tiny wooden houses, each fenced in by white pickets surrounding bright green patches of lawn. The smell of petrol exhaust mixed with fresh-cut grass and grilled meat from a barbecue taking place down the street.
Checking her datapad to verify that she had the right address, Tanny hopped the low picket fence of 413 Mapleview Terrace and strode up to the front door. The only hint of a control console or door alarm was a single plain button set into a wrought iron fixture. Pressing it caused a two-tone bell to ring inside the residence. Tanny stood at military ease and waited.
Hard-shod footsteps approached from inside. A moment later the door opened. “Hi, Tanny. Funny seeing you here,” Rhiannon Ramsey said. She wore a floral top with slim slacks and low-heeled shoes. Her bouffant hair was bleached blonde and locked in place with hairspray. Every bit of her looked completely adapted to the retrovert surroundings. Carl’s parents’ predilection for the middle twentieth century had seeped into her to the bone. But through the veneer of her retrovert trappings, Tanny could see the tension in her shoulders and neck, the quiver in her lip.
“Rhiannon Ramsey,” Tanny said, her tone clipped and military. “I regret to inform you that your older brother, Bradley Carlin Ramsey, is alive and well and every bit the asshole he’s always been.”
Rhiannon breathed a sigh and a weary smile crossed her face. “Come on in. I just made lemonade.”
Tanny stepped past as Rhiannon held the screen door. It swung closed behind her, pulled by a spring. “Sorry if he worried you. We couldn’t risk broadcasting, since this place has no security encryption.”
Rhiannon led the way through a tiny family room and into the kitchen. The lone table was circular and less than a meter in diameter, flanked by a pair of wooden chairs. Rhiannon poured two glasses of the promised lemonade from a glass pitcher with lemon slices and ice cubes floating at the top. “You park the Mobius anywhere around here? How’s Mort?”
“No, we’re at the spaceport,” Tanny replied, accepting a glass. She winced at the overpowering sourness as she took an experimental sip. “You’re taking this a lot better than I’d expected.”
Rhiannon sighed. “Who in the galaxy has a brother who says to wait three months after word comes that he’s dead?”
“You knew?” Tanny said. She blinked to make sure she was seeing Carl’s little sister, the reluctant retrovert, and not some ARGO special agent. “He didn’t even tell us until the last minute.”
“Typical,” Rhiannon muttered. “No, but he clued me in years ago that something like this might go down. It’s our old man’s rule, really. Carl just tuned in, and I tuned out. He stole the Squall, right?”
Tanny took a long swallow of lemonade. It was refreshing once she got over the sourness. “You sure you’re in the right line of work?”
“Singing’s a lot safer than the shit my brother gets himself into,” Rhiannon replied. “But it makes sense. That whole racing crash while he was out of scanner view was just too fucking convenient. So either he’d died doing something stupid—which is my guess as to how he will die one of these days—or he was playing an angle.”
“But what makes you think he could have snuck a Squall out from under everyone’s noses?”
Rhiannon smirked. “C’mon, Tanny. I flew with Mort as long as Carl did, back when he the old man ran together.”
Tanny glanced into the adjacent bedroom and washroom. The bedsheets were rumpled, thrown into the middle from two sides. Towels littered the floor beside the shower. “Where’s Derek?”
Rhiannon rolled her eyes. “Get it together; you’re three boyfriends behind. Me and Derek split after the show on Paris VII. Lloyd’s down at the golf course with his buddies.”
“What’s he do?” Tanny asked. Rhiannon was too much like her brother, sometimes.
“Golfs, mostly,” Rhiannon said. “But when he does work, he’s a TV producer. On-world stuff. Between you and me, mostly shit. We don’t even watch the boob tube though; we’ve got a holovid in the basement.”
Tanny bit back a snide comment. Wouldn’t Rhiannon ever quit chasing show-biz types? “Living the life, huh?”
“Hey, I don’t mind the style, but this place takes it a little too far sometimes,” Rhiannon said. “Living here’s good for my career, but I won’t retire here. Hell, even the ‘rents couldn’t put up with this place forever.”
“Any chance we can find someplace local to crash until things blow over?” Tanny asked.
“We’ve got a spare bedroom, but not enough for your whole crew. Besides, I’m guessing my brother’s gotta lay low. You’re welcome to stay though. I can never get a straight story from him about what he does between visits.”
“Sure,” Tanny replied. “I’ll just let them know.”
“Roddy can blend in,” Rhiannon said. “It’s not remotely authentic, but the laaku population’s going up every year. I think it’s close to 15% by now. Mort and Chip can obviously—”
“Chip’s dead,” Tanny said, feeling the familiar knot twist in her stomach. She hadn’t thought about Chip in weeks. “Salvage accident.”
Rhiannon had her arms around Tanny in an instant. “No way! I’m so sorry.”
Tanny let herself be comforted for the sudden pang she felt. They had been close once, briefly. Each was as close to a sister as the other had ever known. “It’s all right. He went quickly, at least.” In her heels, Rhiannon was the taller of the two of them. Tanny rested her head on her ex-sister-in-law’s shoulder and felt tears well in her eyes. It must have been something in the Ramsey blood that knew how to cut through the leather around her heart. “It was my fault. I promised my aunt and uncle I’d look after him.”
# # #
Esper looked over her shoulder as the shuttle-port disappeared behind a bend in the forest path. Gravel crunched beneath her boots, stiff knee-highs still too new to be comfortable. It felt as if she were walking into another world, which was silly because that was exactly what she was doing. Except that this world wasn’t from her time, or even Mort’s for that matter.
“You’ll trip on your own feet if you don’t mind where you’re going,” Mort admonished her. He was dresse
d in his formal robes and fit into the setting better than she would have expected. The staff he used for a walking stick looked less like a prop than it normally did aboard the Mobius.
“I just feel like we ought to be doing more than waiting,” Esper replied. “Kubu’s out there with that crazy laaku woman, and we’re visiting a medieval colony.”
“Where we’ll meet with the woman who’s going to help us get him back,” Mort said. “This isn’t a time for rashness or impatience. Who’d have imagined a wizardess would go to the trouble and paperwork to officially adopt him?”
“Sneaking in, grabbing him, and running away seems like a perfectly viable option,” Esper said. “You said yourself that laaku aren’t very good wizards.”
Mort sighed and looked up into the trees, ignoring his own advice to watch his footing. The forest trail was well worn, but unpaved and not very level. It wound and twisted, with the occasional tree root poking up to hook unwary toes. Birdsong filled the air, along with the scent of evergreen. “I could do just that, you know—lead a magical assault and get Kubu back in one piece. Probably.”
“Then why don’t we?” Esper asked. She hurried ahead two paces and turned to face Mort, blocking his way. “When did we become so cautious? Just because Kubu isn’t human?”
Mort stopped. “I have been on the run for twenty years—at least for some loose definition of running. I have been hounded, pursued, ambushed, and assaulted. Reward-seekers have tried to poison me, slit my throat in my sleep, and lure me aboard a ship with the life-support system rigged to explode. These incidents have come fewer and farther between over the years, but when I hear that one of our friends has been kidnapped by a wizard—laaku or not—it raises my hackles.”
Esper swallowed. Mort had never told her much about the Convocations attempts to apprehend him. “I’m sorry. I just assumed—”
“By all accounts, he’s being treated well. Were it otherwise, I would throw myself beneath the headsman’s axe to rescue him. But I haven’t lived all this while with a price on my head by acting rashly. We’ll meet my contact at a little place I bought years ago, when I had more optimism than financial sense. It’s as secure a spot as we’re likely to find.”