by Eric Thomson
They wouldn’t have found much for their troubles. Zack Decker was just about broke, his meager pension barely holding out from one month to the next, especially since he’d crawled into a bottle and stayed there, day and night. With nothing else to do and no money for the better places in the city, he visited seedy bar after seedy bar in the spaceport precinct, each worse than the next, his itinerary without rhyme or reason, searching for something without knowing what.
The Heaven’s Gate slums had plenty of flyblown bars. Zack had been at it for three weeks straight, ever since a tramp freighter had dumped him here when his money ran out. Not that Decker minded. He didn’t know where he was headed, anyway. One planet was just as good, or bad, as the other. He’d lost the only home he knew when they handed him his pension papers.
Tonight, he’d stumbled on an old pal, Tren Kinnear, once sergeant first class in the 9th. Gone to fat in his old age, but they’d been through plenty of tough times together and become tight buddies. Tren had always wanted to own a tavern somewhere, near enough to a spaceport so he could hear the transports land and bring more thirsty spacers to his place, and he made that dream come true, for what it was worth. Had himself a woman too.
The night air in Heaven’s Gate was chilly, and a thin mist was spreading from the open sewer the Heavenites called their river. Zack shivered and tried to burrow deeper into his jacket, in vain. A uniform had been good enough for twenty years, and Decker never had much of a civilian wardrobe. Now, when he needed the rags, he didn’t have the money. Couldn’t even remember where the dough had all gone. Cheap booze, it had to be. Couldn’t have been cheap hookers. Even dead drunk he had more sense than that.
Muffled thunder broke through the still night air and resonated in Zack’s skull. He glanced back at the port and saw a sleek trader ship heading off for parts unknown. At least her captain had a purpose in life.
Laughter and music poured out of an open doorway across the street, and a splash of multicolor light fell on the cracked, grimy pavement. Two men in spacer coveralls, much worse for wear, stumbled out of the whorehouse and stood on the sidewalk, swaying as they fought to get their bearings. The music and illumination vanished, leaving them stranded in the night.
Zack gave them a glance and decided the footpads would take whatever the whores had left in their pockets before they had walked one block. They should have stayed with the hookers until daybreak. It was safer that way. But some guys were too dumb to survive. Decker shrugged and kept walking. Not his business. Survival of the fittest in his universe and that meant not only the healthiest body but also the sharpest wits.
A few minutes later, he heard a strangled yell behind him, but he didn’t even break his pace. Survival of the smartest.
*
When Decker reached his rooming house, he was cold stone sober, with a headache to beat all headaches, and no hangover pill to be had for love or money. The ship’s sawbones used to hand them out like candy whenever the crew of Musashi took shore leave. But there were no naval surgeons in the seedy areas around the spaceport. They all had enough money to sleep in fancy hotels, drinking good hooch, instead of Tren Kinnear’s rotgut.
The rooming house was an old tenement a few blocks from the spaceport and had been built so long ago that its original owners were long forgotten. It had seen no maintenance since before Zack’s birth, but it was cheap enough, and it came furnished if you could call the crap he had furnishing.
The plascrete stairs squeaked under Zack’s weight when he walked up to the third-floor landing. The building’s lift had broken down so long ago that they didn’t make spare parts anymore.
It was a big place with a clientele that included every variety of loser imaginable: hookers, thieves, welfare bums, goons and more, all jammed together on five floors of warehouse-grade concrete. At four in the morning, most of them were coming home from work or play, and Zack did his level best to ignore the young prostitute next door as she struggled to open her lock. It wasn’t easy, the way she was dressed.
She wore indigo leather tonight, a bustier that left her midriff and nipples free to the admiring eyes of potential customers. The nipples, painted a screaming shade of green for the occasion, to match her hair and eyelids, were of admirable proportions, especially under the assault of the cold night air. A matching mini-skirt attempted to cover her nether regions, but as designed by its makers, it failed.
Zack was sober enough to notice Rosette’s obvious intoxication on whatever drug she had bought with her nightly earnings. He didn’t know her age but would have sworn she wasn’t a day over twenty, even though her eyes could easily have given her ten, fifteen years more. Part of it was thanks to her choice of career. But most of it was thanks to the hard drugs she used.
Decker might have crawled into a bottle, but he hated hard drugs with all his being. He had spent enough years chasing the scum who smuggled the crap into the Commonwealth so it didn’t end up in the bloodstream of mixed-up kids like Rosette. Zack felt sorry for her, but he refused to get involved. Or in her bed.
The girl suddenly realized she wasn’t alone and looked up.
“Hi, Zack.” Her white grin seemed unnatural in a dusky face darkened even further by the uneven lighting. “Wanna come in and spend time with me?”
“No thanks,” Zack shook his head, immediately regretting the motion and unlocked his door before she could grab his arm and try to pull him into her room. Decker didn’t believe in taking advantage of a zoned-out girl who should be in school and falling in love instead of turning tricks and snorting junk. Then, there was Zack’s fear that the whore had scary bugs lurking in her privates, diseases just waiting for a stupid prick.
With a loud snick, the door closed behind him, cutting off the sound of Rosette’s voice. Decker looked around the room, feeling a deeper depression than the one usually brought on by too much alcohol. To call the place dingy didn’t do it justice. Though it was larger than his cabin aboard Musashi, it wasn’t as comfortable or as clean. It didn’t even come close to being as clean. Nor did his old cabin have resident scavenger insects, a few of them larger than his thumb, which seemed to thrive in the rooming house.
No hangover pills meant only one solution since Zack didn’t want to try sleeping with an artillery barrage rolling through his skull. He pulled a half-empty bottle of cheap whiskey from under his bed and pulled the cork. Not even bothering with a glass, he took a swig and swirled it in his mouth, trying to kill the sour taste of Tren’s rotgut. The whiskey burned a trail of fire down his gullet and added to the lethal stew in his stomach. Perhaps the booze hadn’t such a good idea. Still, the headache faded, replaced by heartburn. But that was something Zack could live with.
Unfortunately, this time, it didn’t take many king-sized swigs to put Decker back into the swim again. And the more he drank, staring out of the grimy window at the first pearly gray of dawn, the worse he felt.
His eyes wandered over to the closet door. Like everything else in this building, it was broken, jammed wide open. There, hanging as if in his shipboard locker, was his black Marine uniform with the stripes and crossed-swords of a command sergeant on the sleeves, Pathfinder jump wings on the breast and all the other ribbons and devices that came with twenty years of memories, good and bad.
Staring at the uniform gave Decker painful pangs of homesickness
He took another swig of whiskey and leaned back in his chair to open the drawer of a scarred white dresser, from which pulled a battered but serviceable blaster. Meeting Tren tonight had reminded Decker of too many things.
The blaster came from a Shrehari marauder he and Tren had fought years ago. Like most Pathfinders, Decker had kept his trophy and carried it with him in battle, after getting it chambered for Fleet-issue ammunition. When he retired, he had held on to the gun. It was his private, if unlicensed, property.
With practiced movements, he stripped the weapon, checked each piece, and reassembled it, satisfied that it was in perfect working order.
He rammed in a full magazine of Fleet-issue ammo, unaccounted for when he left Musashi and armed it.
On some worlds, suicidal gamblers still played Russian roulette with old six-shot revolvers. Zack had seen them at it once. But you couldn’t play Russian roulette with an automatic blaster: each pull of the trigger was a sure winner.
He looked at the pistol in his hand and took another swig of whiskey. Then he raised the gun, eyes staring at the pink line of clouds on the horizon, and stuck the barrel into his open mouth, muzzle pointing up at his brain.
Two
The universe, in its infinite wisdom, wasn’t finished with Zack Decker yet. Not by a long shot. Just as he was about to pull the trigger and blow his brains across the room, he heard a scream that tore through the haze of self-pity and booze. Admittedly, it was a muffled scream, but the sounds of a body thrown against the wall separating Zack’s room from Rosette’s was convincing enough.
Fights weren’t unusual in the decrepit rooming house, and sure as hell not in the slums. But this sounded like a young, screwed-up kid getting the living crap beaten out of her, and that was different. At least in Zack’s eyes. Though he wouldn’t admit to it, he felt just a bit protective about her. She was young enough to be his daughter although he hoped his real daughter wasn’t out turning tricks and getting high.
With a speed surprising in a man his size, and with the level of alcohol in his blood, Zack was across the landing, kicking in girl’s door. The plas shattered around the simple lock just as whoever was giving Rosette a licking did something that made her scream again.
Without thinking, Decker closed the few feet between himself and the sharp-faced, greasy goon who was holding her by the wrists with one hand and doing something painful between her legs with the other.
He smashed the butt of his blaster against the man’s skull, feeling the bone crack under the impact. The goon gave a last grunt and slid to the floor, blood seeping from his scalp. Rosette merely stood there, almost naked, the glittering costume jeweler and green dye making her look pathetic in the dingy, smelly room.
She stared at Zack wordlessly, scared by the violence in the former Marine’s eyes. Decker breathed in and out a few times, working to regain control of himself. After a few moments during which none of the losers on the floor had come to see what the ruckus was, Zack slammed the door shut with one hand and knelt beside the man.
He reached for his neck and tried to find a pulse, without success. Zack had cracked his skull and smashed his brains. Once again, the great Zachary Decker had waded in without thinking and struck without moderation. He sobered up for the second time that night. Many people out there would call this manslaughter.
“Who was he, Rosette?” His voice was a lot harsher than he wanted it to be. The girl flinched at Zack’s tone and looked out the window while she rubbed her wrists. “Please tell me this was a slime ball who won’t be missed, least of all by the militia.”
“Is he dead?” Her voice quavered with a mix of fear and coming down from her drug-induced high.
“Yeah. If it makes you feel any better, this shithead won’t be smashing you around no more.”
“Oh no!” She wailed and crumpled to the floor beside the rapidly cooling corpse.
“It’s okay, kid.” Zack tried to smile as he reached out and put a light hand on her shoulder. “Tell me who he is, and why he was using you for torture practice.”
“He was a fucking militia cop.” Her voice rose in pitch as she hid her face in her hands, crying openly now.
Shock silenced Zack, and all the blood drained from his face.
“His name,” Rosette sobbed, “was Leath.” She raised her head to look at Zack. “He was as bent as an old pipe cleaner. Worked the vice squad in the spaceport precinct.” She sat back and leaned her head against the wall, tears streaming down her face. “Bastard runs hookers, pushes shit, and does protection. You name it, Leath did it. He isn’t alone in the precinct either.”
Figures, Zack thought. Corrupt bastards always ran in packs and covered for each other, which meant no awards from the local militia for cleaning up their in-house filth. More like a quick bullet in the head to warn any other strong-arm who wants to put bent coppers out of business.
“He came here tonight,” she continued, “to collect his cut from my night’s take, and what I owe him for some stuff he gave me, stuff he says they seized off a trader and can afford to sell at a discount. He also wanted a quick fuck, on the house, but I told him I was too tired. So he became mad at me and started beating me around. Then he grabbed me down there, and it hurt. Oh God did it hurt.”
And then I promptly stepped into it. Would have been better to blow my head off instead of playing cavalry to the rescue. I just killed a fucking cop!
But Zack Decker didn’t become a command sergeant in the Pathfinders without growing some smarts. As the last whiskey fumes vanished from his system, the combat soldier in him, trained to survive, took over.
“First things first, Rosette. Put on your regular clothes, pack everything you own and prepare to move. You have fifteen minutes.”
“W-what?”
“You can’t stay here. I might have killed him but what d’you expect this shithead’s buddies to do to you when they find his body in your room? You have to leave. Now move it, girl.”
She nodded and stood, still shaking. Gingerly stepping over the body, she went to the closet and pulled out a simple street outfit, nothing flashy. She didn’t even bother with underwear. Then she wiped off her makeup and took off the fake jewelry.
With her green hair tied back into a ponytail, Rosette almost looked like the schoolgirl she should be, not like the streetwalker she was. Almost. When she’d cleared the closet of her belongings, Zack picked up the copper’s corpse by the armpits and dragged him into it. With any luck, it would take a day or two before they found him. Like when he started to smell ripe. A day or two to get away. Of course, if the local fuzz had military grade scanners, it might not matter how much of a lead he and Rosette had. For further insurance, Zack jammed the closet door shut with a well-placed kick.
“C’mon, kiddo. I have to pack too, and I’m not letting you out of my sight.” He grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her from of the now-empty room into his, next door. Rosette looked around with curiosity as Zack packed his duffel bag.
“Hey, you been in the Marines, lover-boy?” She asked, pointing at the uniform.
Decker grunted. “Yeah. And you can cut the whore talk, Rosette. You’re too fucking young for this kind of shit anyway.”
“Hah,” she snorted, “what the hell do you know, Marine-man? You haven’t been where I’m coming from.”
“No, you’re right,” he replied as he carefully folded the undress tunic and tucked it into the drab green carrier with his name stenciled on it. “I’ve been to worse places. Didn’t push me into drugs and hooking.”
“No?” She held up the bottle of whiskey. “Booze is a fucking drug just like any shit you snort, inject or plug into your brain.”
That hit a raw nerve with Zack, but instead of lashing out, he snorted.
“Smart girl, aren’t you? Too fucking smart to waste your life on the streets. How old are you anyway?”
“Twenty-five.” There was enough defiance in her voice to make Zack doubt her word. He took her chin in his hand and forced her to meet his eyes.
“You’re not a day over sixteen, Rosette. Not even legal age to sell sex on Aramis.”
“Am too!”
“Suit yourself, but you’ll have to find a new line of business. Heaven’s Gate cops will be looking for a green-haired, green-skinned whore called Rosette who’s probably underage and hooked on any kind of drug she can get. Doesn’t exactly narrow it down, but it won’t take smart coppers too long to end up with you in an interrogation chair. If Leath had you on a string, his buddies will know who you are.”
And Decker ends up next in line for the rubber hose treatment.
He clos
ed his duffel bag with finality and took one last look around. Nothing that could be easily traced to him, except the DNA he left everywhere in his fallen hair and dead skin cells. But perhaps he’d be lucky, and Aramis was a place where the fancy gear came out only when a wealthy or influential person was killed, not a bent militiaman. Good thing he had taken the room under a fake name.
Decker nodded, satisfied. The booze hadn’t entirely rotted his brain yet. He could still think like a Pathfinder. And that might be the only thing to keep him out of an Aramis prison. If he made it that far. The dead creep might have good buddies who’d swear one Zachary Decker died while trying to escape. It wouldn’t be the first time a coroner’s inquest overlooked the fact that the escapee died from something other than the plasma round fired at close range.
At least Zack had enough money to cover his trail until he could find a ship. Getting the funds for a passage might be a bitch, but he’d seen worse. Ironically, he hadn’t even realized that all thoughts of suicide had vanished with the rising sun and that he felt more alive now than he had in months. Decker lived for action and adrenaline. This was probably as close as he’d get.
Then he saw the girl waiting for him. What the hell was he going to do with her?
“Rosette,” he frowned, a sudden thought crossing his mind. “You rent the room under your real name?”
She remained silent for a moment, debating whether to answer.
“No,” she finally replied. “Rosette’s my street name, not my real one. The room and my hooker’s papers are under the name Rosette.”
“Did they check your ID for the hooker’s papers?”
“You gotta be kidding, Zack,” she replied laughing bitterly, confirming his suspicion she was underage and therefore not legally eligible for a prostitution license. “My papers came from a pimp who was more interested in fast money than laws. That was before Leath came along, put the pimp away permanently, and took over.”