Decker's War Omnibus 1

by Eric Thomson

  “At this point, I’m with you one hundred percent.” He jerked a thumb at the single story building. “Shall we go see how extortionate their landing fees are before they send a couple of goons after us?”

  From somewhere several kilometers southwest of Yavan, a dull roar reverberated and they saw a streak of light climb upwards.

  “Headed for another settlement? There’s no ship in orbit other than ours.” They began walking towards the larger of two doors opening out onto a cracked concrete path. “Did you bring some money? I think I forgot my wallet on the ship.”

  “Then you’ll have to watch me drink once we hit the local saloon.”

  “Evil woman.”

  “You know, that could also have been an unmanned pod hauling refined ore into orbit for a ship that’s on its way.”

  “Makes sense.” He pulled the scarred door open and stepped into a dingy waiting room.

  Devoid of life but filled with tired looking chairs and benches that appeared to have been scrounged from a crashed starship, it suffered under anemic lighting and walls shaded a lovely institutional green.

  “Over there, I’d say.” Decker pointed at a faded sign directing visitors to the port administrator.

  They entered an office overgrown with computer consoles, data tablets and other bureaucratic junk Zack couldn’t be bothered to identify. Its sole inhabitant, an overweight woman wearing creased gray coveralls glanced up at them with a sad, bulldog face. Her skin beneath an unruly mop of red-tinted hair had the pallor of someone who regularly skipped her turn under the solar lamps, a necessity when you lived in perpetual gloom.

  “You the shuttle on pad four?” She had the voice of a drinker and smoker, two of the four recreational activities usually favored on places like Andoth, the others being gambling and whoring.

  “That’s our shuttle, yes,” Talyn replied.

  “One thousand a day, no discount for partial days. How long are you staying?”

  “Three, four days maybe. Perhaps less.”

  “Okay,” the woman nodded, “I’ll put you down for three days. If you leave earlier, I’ll refund you for any full thirty hour period not taken.”

  “Thirty hours?”

  “Standard Andoth day, not that we notice it much down here. That’ll be three thousand – cash. For an extra two hundred a day, you can buy enhanced security services.”

  Decker tilted his head to the side, crossed his arms, and studied the woman quizzically.

  “What happens if we don’t buy enhanced security?”

  She shrugged.

  “Then I can’t guarantee that nothing whatsoever will happen to your shuttle. This is a rough place.”

  “So you’re offering a protection racket, is that it?”

  “Just looking out for visitors to our beautiful spaceport, sir.”

  “I’ll bet.” He nodded at Talyn, signaling that she should add an extra two hundred a day to their landing fees.

  A malicious look of triumph in the woman’s piggish eyes confirmed Decker’s guess that it was a racket. If they hadn’t paid up, they might have found all sorts of problems when they returned to the spaceport. When she put the three thousand in a lock box and pocketed the other six hundred, he locked eyes with her.

  “I expect to find not so much as a strange fingerprint on our shuttle.”

  “Come on, Ser Whate,” his companion said, turning to leave, “we have a contract to hunt up.”

  Zack, still looking at the woman, saw a flash of interest replace the malice in her eyes.

  “Let me guess,” he said, “for a fee, you can hook us up with folks looking to shift cargo, no questions asked.”

  “Maybe.” She began fiddling with a stylus, flipping it between her thick fingers. “Tell me what you offer and I can pass the word.”

  Decker looked over his shoulder at Talyn, eyebrows raised in question. She gave him a quick nod.

  “Free-trader, five thousand tons; we look at cash, not bills of lading and we land wherever there’s a flat piece of ground big enough for our ship. We can take care of ourselves and keep under the Navy’s sensors.”

  “Five hundred up front and a thousand when I have a contact for you.” When she saw his hesitation, she chuckled. “If you’re the kind who runs high-value cargo, no questions asked, it’ll be money well spent.”

  Talyn handed over another five hundred creds, glad that the black ops fund was paying for all this, with no questions asked.

  “I’m Triane Lyde, by the way,” she said, pocketing the money with practiced ease.

  “Pasek,” Talyn replied, then pointed at her companion, “and he’s Whate. Our ship is Phoenix. Got any recommendations for a place to stay?”

  “Sure.” Lyde’s smile perked up enough to warn both agents they were about to be directed to an establishment that gave her generous kickbacks. “The Andoth Paradise is the best place in Yavan. Got all the amenities: food, clean beds, casino, and brothel. You name it, they offer it.”

  Her wink made it clear the Andoth Paradise was prepared to offer more than what it advertised openly, provided the payment was right.

  “Sure.” Decker shrugged. “Provided they have Shrehari ale, I’m happy.”

  “Then the Paradise is your place, Ser Whate. When you leave here, turn right, and head towards downtown. It’s about a kilometer away. You can’t miss it.”

  “Thanks.” Zack nodded. “We’ll see you tomorrow then.”

  After they’d gone, Triane Lyde touched her console and called up one of her contacts. Spacers trolling for cargo who were that free with bribes and didn’t bother haggling were unusual enough to warrant attention.

  **

  “You know what I like most about this job?” Decker glanced at his partner, walking beside him along the dusty road. “It’s all the lovely, hard-working, honest folks you meet along the way.”

  “Cynic.” She jabbed her elbow into his rock-hard side.

  “Just a student of human nature, Sera Pasek,” he replied with an affected air of innocence, “alternating between amazement and despair. Mostly despair.”

  “Feeling the years creeping up on you, Zack?”

  “No, but I see that we’re creeping up on one of the more garish displays of frontier tastelessness I’ve seen in a long time.”

  They had come around a bend in the road that skirted a warehouse complex and got their first glimpse of Yavan’s outskirts which, being close to the spaceport, aimed to provide any and all entertainment money could buy.

  “Garishness to make up for the scarcity of decent offerings?” Talyn grimaced. “I confess to being both underwhelmed and a little nauseous, especially considering that without daylight, this little display is on continuously.”

  “Welcome to Andoth. You chose the destination, remember?”

  “If we’re going to trace the Garonne rebels’ supply chain, it’s only second to Kilia in this sector.”

  “And last in sanitation.” He sniffed the air, a disgusted expression twisting his features. “I’m going to guess they didn’t spend a lot of time and money putting in a modern sewage system.”

  “Not much air movement at the bottom of a rift this deep, I suppose.”

  “Open air septic dumps don’t help.” He pointed at a large, circular vat by the side of the road with biohazard signs on it.

  “You signed up for the Corps. Don’t complain when you’re sent to exotic places.”

  “I only signed up once, and they kicked me out after my twenty. The second time I re-upped it wasn’t voluntary. You shanghaied me, sweetheart, remember?”

  **

  The Andoth Paradise, three tiers of mismatched, stacked containers unified by a paint scheme that offended even Decker’s plebian tastes, gradually emerged from behind pulsating lights.

  “I think we’re here,” Decker remarked, staring at the building. “Frontier recycling at its best. If this is the finest Yavan has to offer, I’d hate to see the lesser places.”

  “It’
s the best that pays our spaceport friend backhanders, not necessarily the local equivalent of a five-star hotel.” Talyn shook her head. “If we wanted to live in the lap of luxury, we wouldn’t be in this line of business.”

  “As I keep reminding you, I’m not exactly in this line of business by choice.”

  He stepped onto the wide veranda and pushed the swinging doors aside, allowing a blast of music spiced by the tang of fried food to assault his senses.

  They entered what seemed to be a combination of main lobby, eatery, and bar. To one side, men and women, under the influence of who knew what spirits or pharmaceuticals danced to an irregular rhythm beneath lights pulsating at a frequency almost purposely designed to trigger fits.

  Decker blinked a few times, trying to chase afterimages from his protesting retinas.

  “Charming.” He turned towards the other end of the vast room and homed in on a corner well equipped with individual booths and seemingly beyond the typhoon of light and noise devastating the dance floor.

  “This way, I think.”

  A few meters from the first table, he felt a soft tingle on his exposed skin and the noise level suddenly dropped to no more than a soft background murmur.

  “Sound curtain.” Zack nodded with approval. “This layout’s not as dumb as it looks. It might be tolerable after all.”

  “Let’s sample the food before we declare the place tolerable, shall we?”

  “Ale, then food.” Decker slid into a booth built to cut off the worst of the flashing lights. Moments later, a tiny holographic waiter emerged from the tabletop and smiled at him ingratiatingly.

  “What may I offer?” It asked in a squeaky voice.

  “Shrehari Ale,” he glanced at Talyn, who nodded, “twice. What’s the special of the day?”

  “Our famous Paradise stew made with the finest vat-grown beef on the planet.”

  Zack snorted.

  “Doesn’t sound like much of a stretch.”

  “I can assure the good sir that we do not stretch our stew with non-meat ingredients.” The hologram sounded hilariously prim. “This is the finest eating establishment in Yavan.”

  “Two servings of your stew then,” Talyn quickly said, afraid Decker might engage in a lengthy discussion with a computer program just to see how far he could take things before it broke down into an endless loop.

  The hologram bowed and vanished, leaving the two operatives to study their surroundings in silence. Discussing the mission at a table that could sprout an AI waiter on its own wasn’t a good idea.

  “You think we might find a profitable run?” He finally asked, figuring that it couldn’t hurt to play his role to the hilt.

  “Stuff the Navy doesn’t like to see shipped comes through here for a reason,” Talyn replied, “and that’s where the money is. We need a few good contracts. Otherwise, we won’t be able to pay off the mortgage on the ship and when that happens...”

  “Yeah, we get the kind of financial counseling that usually ends up being fatal.”

  A human waiter who, by his looks, wouldn’t have been out of place among the Confederacy of the Howling Stars, appeared with a tray holding two mugs of frothy purplish liquid and two steaming bowls of a chunky, brown substance, along with several slices of dark bread.

  “Ten for the drinks, another twenty for the stews.” He said by way of greeting after placing the tray carefully on the table.

  Decker pulled three ten cred chips from his jacket’s inner pocket and dropped them into the man’s open palm.

  “Any chance of getting a room?”

  “Sure. Fifty a night. See Wim over by the bar when you’re ready.” With a last nod, he left them to their meal.

  Decker took a tentative sip and swished it over his taste buds before swallowing.

  “Not the worst I’ve ever had, but far from the best,” he concluded. “At least they have the stuff, and it’s genuine from over the border, not imitation.”

  “Maybe this place has direct or semi-direct links with the Empire, even if it’s just importing booze.”

  “Most places along the Rim do.” He took a healthier swig. “There’s money in some of the stuff the Imperials make. Why do you think I carry a Shrehari blaster?”

  “To tenderize the meat in this stew?” She began chewing on a hunk of vat-grown beef. “I’m glad we’re having the best Andoth can offer.”

  “It’s not so bad,” he replied after taking his first bite. “I’ve had stuff massacred by autochefs that you could use as armor after rinsing off the gravy.”

  He chewed contemplatively, washing each bite down with a sip.

  “I wonder if we could get a hook into some of the Shrehari trade,” Talyn said after wiping the bottom of her bowl with a bit of bread.

  “I hope you don’t mean the leg from the Empire to this place. Shrehari traders who work those routes won’t like competition and I don’t particularly feel like visiting the Empire. You break one of their taboos, they can get medieval on your ass to the point where your family will wonder years later why you stopped calling at Christmas.”

  “Not a problem for us, then. Neither you nor I have any family worth mentioning.” She smirked. “No, I was thinking about the shipping between here and the final destination. There’s got to be real money in carrying Imp wares.”

  “Probably.” He looked over his shoulder at the dance floor. “What do you say we get a room and do the horizontal samba?”

  “What if I’m more in the mood for a slow dance?” She stood, eyes on automatic scan, like any good agent.

  “You’re in luck; the next dance is ladies’ choice.” He gave her his best leer.

  “That sounded plural to me,” she replied looking at him with suspicion. “Are you implying that you’ll be inviting someone to join us?”

  “If you insist.” He managed to look so perfectly innocent that she had no choice but to smile.

  The waiter must have warned Wim that the newcomers were looking for a room because he waved them over to the side of the bar where the crush of patrons wasn’t so dense. Decker handed over fifty creds and got a key chip in return.

  “You room is on the second floor. The stairs are in the back.” Wim gestured over his shoulder. “You want anything special, you let me know.”

  “I think he offered to arrange a third party for our dance,” Decker whispered in Talyn’s ear.

  “No doubt he would arrange it if asked,” she replied. “But he probably meant something more in the line of stuff you shove up your nose.”

  “That, he can shove up his ass.”

  “I hear it gives you a quicker high that way.”

  “Pretty shitty addiction, if you ask me,” he replied, deadpan, getting the expected groan in return.

  Mercifully, the sounds of the eternal party faded quickly once they reached their floor.

  The second floor corridor consisted of painted metal walls and a hard, plasticized floor designed for an easy clean up after the night’s drunks had tossed their cookies on the way to bed. However, the room they’d been given was much different.

  “Basic brothel chic,” Decker said looking at the red wall hangings, velvet bed cover and plush chairs. “And there’s even the obligatory mirror on the ceiling. I guess these rooms do double duty as hot sheet screwbicles. Hopefully the linen’s fresh.”

  “Just a suggestion, Zack, don’t run a sensor scan over the room. You might not be able to fall asleep after that.”

  He tossed his small bag on a side table while Talyn visited the washroom.

  “No windows,” he said after checking behind the fabric curtains.

  “Thank God. There’s nothing to see outside except constant night and the damn lights,” she called out through the half-open door.

  “It does mean there’s only one way in and out of this room. I’ll just have to make sure no one gets in that we don’t want in.”

  “Try not to maim the housekeeping staff. Toilet’s clean,” she said, coming out of the was
hroom, “though if your plan is to shower with me later on, be warned that there’s not enough room to play hide the soap.”

  “Shower sex is overrated anyway,” he replied, pulling off his boots, “unless you’re on a starship about to go FTL. Then it’s just plain freaky. We going to play for a bit and then go looking, or are we in for the night?”

  “In for the night, I think,” she replied, shrugging off her jacket and pulling her shirt over her head. “Between the piggy bank at the spaceport and the folks who run this listening post, we might just wait and see if we get any takers before we start to solicit.”

  “Good,” Decker grinned, stepping out of his trousers. “That stew seems to have put a spring in my step, so to speak.”

  “Something’s on a spring alright,” she replied, glancing down at his groin area. “Good thing I know a cure.”

  “So do I. Want to play doctor?”

  NINE

  The next morning, while Talyn watched Decker devour a huge breakfast, a ponytailed man in a business suit approached their table.

  His pockmarked face creased into a smile when he saw Zack’s appetite.

  “Hard night?”

  “You have no idea,” Zack replied between two mouthfuls. He nodded towards Talyn. “Women of her age have cravings that would leave the fittest Marine in the dust.”

  The man chuckled briefly, then his smile vanished. He pulled up a chair and sat at their table without waiting for an invitation.

  “I hear you have a fast ship and empty cargo holds. Maybe I can help you with that. I’m Pavel Krig, by the way.”

  “Captain Pru Pasek.” Talyn shook Krig’s hand. “The competitive eater there is First Mate Bill Whate.”

  Zack nodded wordlessly but kept his attention on the rapidly diminishing pile of hash. Krig could damn well wait until he’d finished his meal.

  After a contented belch, washed away with a gulp of coffee, he finally acknowledged the newcomer.

  “Did the spaceport bribe queen tell you about us?” Decker asked.

  “No. How much did dear Triane Lyde charge you to ‘help out’?”

  “Five hundred up front, a thousand if we get a contract.”