by Eric Thomson
Josh, scattergun still pointed at them, slipped around, unlocked the door and shoved it open. Then he stepped out, looking left and right to make sure no one could see them. He nodded at the guard, who gestured with his gun.
“Start walking straight down the alley. I’ll tell you when to stop.”
Zack and Hera stepped into the dusty night air, eyes briefly looking up at the stars, to get their orientation. Within a few minutes, they’d covered half the distance to the mine pit and were ordered to enter a non-descript container-style building marked ‘Security.' They didn’t meet another soul along the way, and Decker was starting to feel twitchy. Two guns on them, no witnesses, in the dark and now in an otherwise empty office. That kind of scenario never ended well for someone.
“In the corner over there.” The guard pointed towards an open space between two desks. Then he glanced at Josh.
“I gotta figure out what to do. The Company won’t be happy we got folks coming from where no one should be and walking right in here. They’re gonna want to know what they’ve been doing and what they’ve seen.”
Decker’s eyes darted from one to the other. This was beginning to sound bad.
“Triple S, Reg,” the fat bartender replied. “Shoot, shovel, shut-up. Even if they’ve seen something, they won’t have told anyone else yet. The company doesn’t need to find out about it.”
“What if one of them has a radio and called something in?” Reg, the guard, finally noticed their packs and frowned.
“What if they did?” An evil smile spread across Josh’s bloated face. “Company won’t find out if the radio vanishes with them.”
Time to find our own transportation, Zack old boy, Decker thought as he quickly measured the distance between him and his captors, mentally adding the additional reach from his pack. Josh, with his scattergun, was the most dangerous of the two. Though neither of them looked like crack shots, the bartender could just go in spray and pray mode. At this range, they were toast. Of course, it was likely they’d want to keep the security office from being covered in gore.
He subvocalized a soft warning only Talyn, standing next to him, could hear before tensing up and shifting his balance slightly. Then, in a sudden burst of movement, he spun to the right, pack swinging up and out, catching Josh across the face. The bartender was thrown backward, his head hitting the wall with a hollow thud. He dropped his gun and fell over.
Reg seemed frozen to the spot by the unexpected violence and Decker, using the momentum from his attack on Josh, closed the distance between them, ducked down low and aimed his pack at the man’s knees. A sharp sound cracked in the small room, and Zack felt the warmth of a plasma round singe the hair on the side of his head. If he hadn’t gone into a crouch, that shot would have punched through his heart. Then Reg crashed to the floor.
Decker jumped on him, pinning both arms with his knees and repeatedly punched him in the face until he slumped into unconsciousness. He heard a soft groan behind him and turned to see Josh slowly reaching for his gun. Talyn bent down to grab the guard’s blaster and aimed it at the bartender.
“I think we’ll all be happy if you just calm down and sit back, hands on your head.”
Josh gave her a vicious stare but obeyed.
“Shoot, shovel and shut-up, eh?” Decker snarled as he looked around for something to tie both men up. “Is that the usual hospitality around here? Or are we special for some reason? You guys sound like you’ve done this before.”
The bartender didn’t answer. He kept his hate-filled eyes on Zack while Talyn quickly searched the battered old desk. She found some disposable plastic cuffs in a bottom drawer.
Tossing a pair at Josh, she said, “Lucky for you I don’t go around killing strangers just because I don’t like paperwork. Take the restraints, and stick your right hand into one loop. Just like that. Pull it nice and tight. Now stick your left hand into the other loop and tighten that with your teeth.”
Once Josh had cuffed himself, she motioned with the captured blaster.
“Now you’re going to stretch out on the floor, on your stomach. Don’t worry; I’m not going to shoot you in the back of the head.”
Decker picked up the ugly scattergun and butt-stroked the man. He then quickly tied Reg up before the latter could wake. After a few moments’ thought, he pulled out his knife, cut Josh’s apron into strips and then used the grimy material to muzzle both men.
“There. Nice and neat.” He stood up. “Now what?”
“Now we get out of here. Those bozos were going to kill us simply for walking into town without permission. Whatever this mining company’s up to, they really like to keep it in the family. It’s probably something as dumb as prospecting and extracting in the backcountry without paying royalties to the local government. When we get back to HQ, I’ll have our Constabulary liaison drop a word in the right ear. Let’s see if we can liberate some transport.”
She very carefully opened the inner door. In the darkness, they could see a hallway with three further closed doors, one on the far end and one on each side. The furthest one probably led back to the outside. Talyn silently tried the one on the right, finding an empty guard room, the desks abandoned for the night, computer terminals shut down.
“If this Company is so concerned with security, it sure as hell isn’t running a twenty-four-hour watch,” she commented acidly.
“Or there could be patrols roaming all over the place right now. This security guy seemed to be a boss of sorts.” Decker opened the third door. “And here is his car.”
“What are we waiting for?” She tossed her pack in the back before taking the passenger seat.
Moments later, Decker was carefully threading his way through the camp, hoping he hadn’t lost his orientation. According to the map, the single road out went due south. Mercifully, it didn’t pass too close to the mine pit and whatever passed for a grinding mill. If there was security walking around, that’s where they’d be.
Zack whistled with relief when they emerged on stabilized earth ribbon disappearing into the darkness. He poured on the power, and they quickly left the mining operation behind.
“If things stay quiet for a few hours, we’ll make it to the main road where we can ditch this thing.”
“We can only hope. Once someone finds our buddies Reg and Josh, the hunt will be on unless they really want to keep it quiet. Letting themselves get snookered and then having a company car stolen isn’t exactly good for the reputation, or job security.”
Almost exactly two hours later, they saw the lights of Carvalla over the next rise. Decker pulled the car off the road and behind a cluster of boulders. A few hard slashes with his knife and the exposed back end of the car was covered by some dirty brush. It wouldn’t stand much scrutiny, but at least it would keep the sun from reflecting off the rear window come morning. That way, it wouldn’t be seen from a distance.
“I’ve sabotaged the system,” Hera announced, backing out of the driver’s seat. “It’ll take a while to get it running again.”
“Good. C’mon.”
Decker pointed to a set of distant lights on the highway running parallel to the mountain range.
“That might just be our transport out of here.”
The massive road train slowed down just enough as it passed through the sleepy hamlet for the two of them to jump on the last trailer, a flatbed with industrial machinery tied down by heavy cables. One after the other, they crawled into a narrow opening between two covered, yet massive, pieces, out of the slipstream but not out of the dust. Not by a long shot. Decker lifted up a corner of the tarp on the largest one and grinned at Talyn.
“This is perfect.”
They slipped under the stiff plastic material and found themselves between the wheels of a heavy loader.
“I’ll take the first watch,” she said, settling down on her pack. “You grab some shut eye.”
*
Hours later, they felt the road train slow down, and Decker peeked
out. They were approaching a large urban area. Since the sun was already past its zenith, they had to be almost a thousand kilometers away. He pulled out his pad, called up the map and studied it intently.
“This has to be Undine. It’s got a spaceport, but unless things have changed, it won’t have a ship going in our direction.”
Hera glanced at her timepiece.
“We can still make Mishka if we find some way of covering the final few hundred kilometers quickly, but right now the trick will be to get off before anyone sees us. I doubt they look kindly on stowaways in these parts.”
“Too late for a drop and roll,” he replied. “We entered the town.”
“So we wait until this rig gets to its destination, which might well be the spaceport.”
A short time later, after the road train had slowed to a walking pace, they crawled out from under the tarp and found themselves in a narrow canyon between two rows of windowless concrete warehouses. A sudden rumble echoed overhead, heralding the passage of a small spacecraft that streaked upwards, quickly disappearing against the bright blue sky.
Nodding at Talyn, he jumped off the end of the trailer, landing on his feet with the balance of a natural athlete. She followed with an equally graceful recovery.
After briefly glancing at their former ride, Zack looked at the way they’d come and swore: a gated fence gleamed dully across the narrow horizon. He really didn't want another run-in with a company rent-a-cop. Leaving a trail of tied-up security guards wouldn’t help their cover.
Packs slung over their shoulders they walked along one side of the cracked pavement, trying to look as nonchalant as possible as if they worked in the warehouse district. When they got near the gate, Decker examined it.
“Fully automated and not a guard hut in sight. That’s both good and bad. There’s no one to see us in person, but there’s also no way to get out unless it’s over the fence.”
She grimaced. “It doesn't look electrified, but it probably has some kind of sensor network tied to it.
“I think this fence is more to keep people from wandering onto the runway than anything else. That means we can probably climb over and be away before security can send someone to see what’s going on.”
Then, they heard a loud roar behind them as a large cargo carrier loaded with a dozen dented containers came around the corner. Decker touched her arm briefly, and they just kept walking towards the gate, trying to look for all the world like spaceport workers coming off a long shift.
Talyn waved at the puzzled driver as the truck passed, and then they accelerated the pace to keep up with it. As Decker had hoped, the gate slid open automatically at the vehicle's approach, and they were able to slip through without a hitch. Someone might have seen them on the video feed, but they didn't intend to hang around and find out.
*
The spacetown dive they found just off the main drag was typical. Run-down, noisy and aromatic. Very aromatic. But they needed a quick, cheap meal and a cold beer. It was just as well that they weren’t going to be too picky. The food was filling, and that was pretty much it. At least the beer didn’t taste like horse piss and no one paid them any attention. After a few days living rough, even Hera had lost her luster and didn’t look out of place.
Decker dropped a couple of creds on the bar and motioned to the bartender. When the man saw the healthy tip included in the sum, he smiled.
“Where can a guy get some quiet network access?” Zack asked.
The bartender looked at him searchingly. Then, “I can rent you net time, so long as it won’t be for anything illegal, but it’ll cost you.” The man worked his jaw muscles for a few moments. “What outfit were you in?”
Zack raised an eyebrow. “Ninth.”
The bartender nodded.
“Had you figured for an ex-Marine. Too squared away to be a spacetown rat. I was in the Twenty-Third’s pathfinder company before I retired.”
Decker grinned.
“I should have pegged you for one of those idiots who jump out of perfectly functioning shuttles. Did some time in the Pathfinders too, before they let me go.”
The man stuck out his hand, and they shook.
“Holger Dansk is the name. What’s an ex-pathfinder doing on a shit hole like Merseaux?”
Decker’s grin vanished.
“Trying to get to Mishka and off this shit hole, or if there’s a ship going our way sitting at the Undine spaceport, we’ll see if it has a cabin.”
“That’s what you want the net for.” He grimaced knowingly. “I can save you the trouble. Ain’t no ship lifting for two days, and you don’t look like you got that long. Train to Mishka’s leaving in two hours. It’ll do you better. Station’s a klick to the left when you get out on the street.”
“Thanks, buddy.”
The bartender shrugged.
“Us old jumpers need to watch out for each other, eh?”
“For sure. Thanks again.”
As Decker and Talyn left the bar, he chuckled.
“What is it about Marines and the dream of opening this kind of joint when they retire? Just like my buddy on Aramis.”
“Like I said before, you jarheads live for two things: sex and booze. A bar takes care of the latter, and enough of it might get you the other.”
It didn’t occur to Zack until much later that he hadn’t given Dansk his name, nor had the other ex-Marine asked. Another member of the loose network of retirees with one foot still in the Corps, perhaps?
*
The train ran on steel rails, and it was massive, the engine powered by its own fusion plant and pulling a dozen two-story passenger cars at speeds of more than three-hundred kilometers an hour.
The ticketing machine had accepted the Tally credit card without triggering any alarms, and they boarded along with the remainder of the anonymous throng destined to enjoy the dubious comforts of third class benches that reeked of cattle class filth.
The tough looking Marine and his equally dusty, road-worn companion were given plenty of space by the other passengers, and they were able to talk quietly.
When they got to Mishka, the crowd was thick enough that they slipped past police patrols without a hitch and hopped on a public transport platform advertising the spaceport among its destinations.
“Do you think we’ve shed any tails?” Decker glanced around at the grimy street as they neared the terminal building.
“Almost certainly.” She laughed humorlessly. “I defy even the best operatives to have kept up with us. We couldn’t have planned it to be so convoluted. The question is how fast they can piece things together from the various clues we left along the way. For example, if that idiot at the mine reported us and added a good enough description, someone sifting through the net might stumble across that part of our little cross-country excursion. The same could happen as a result of the security cameras at the Undine spaceport, but with any luck, we’ll have lifted on Aranjuez before they can figure it out.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.” He pointed at the entrance, where a pair of grey-clad constables and a pair of blue-clad local cops were scrutinizing anyone entering or exiting the building.
“Probably not for us and if it is, it’ll just be them covering all the possible places we might show up.”
“At what berth is Aranjuez docked?”
“Twenty-two alpha.”
“Then we stay on this thing until it goes past the terminal and around the far corner. That way when we do get off, the guys at the door won’t see us. We’ll just go in through the freight end.”
“We’d still have to get past the security barrier.”
“One thing at a time.”
As Zack expected, when they left the transport platform, it was along with a small crowd of merchant spacers returning to their ships. The bored security guard simply waved them through as a group rather than take the time to check them one by one. Since they looked the part, no one questioned their right to be there.
“We’re in luck,” she said after a short surf to Aranjuez business site. “They have a cabin for two available. No need to cancel the Wenn and Venzi reservations, and possibly raise suspicion that we’re a mere substitution. There, it’s been booked and,” she tapped her Pruw credit card against the reader, “been paid for.”
Their reception at Aranjuez’s gangway was matter-of-fact. The tramps sailing between frontier worlds were used to planet-hopping passengers showing up at the last minute.
Like most of its kind, it was primarily a freighter with extra cabin space to pad the bottom line when cargo got scarce. The quarters they were given likely weren’t very different from those of the small crew.
Decker dropped his massive frame on the bottom bunk and stretched out.
“Should we check each passenger, this time, to make sure there are no Sécurité Spéciale or Constabulary operatives on board?”
“You do what you want,” Hera replied. “Me, I’m taking a shower. It’s been a fun few days and I know I smell like it. So do you for that matter.”
“Go ahead. I’ll wait until we’ve broken orbit. Wet and sudsy’s no way to be found when the inertial dampeners hiccup.”
“Live a little. There’s no such thing as safe space. It only exists in the imagination of small minds and timid souls.”
“I could join you.”
“Have you seen the size of the shower stall? You and me in there at the same time, no one’s going to play pick up the soap.”
He leered at her as she dropped the last piece of clothing on the deck, not bothering to hide his interest. In return, she blew him a kiss and raised the one finger salute before vanishing into the small washroom.
Twenty-Five