The Daedalus Job (Outlaws of Aquilia Book 1)

by M. D. Cooper

  Stars…I’m the one being a dumbass.

  To his credit, Oln didn’t reply, though he did shake his head while walking around to the other side of the sled.

  “Remember, Jax,” he said while settling into his seat. “If you gotta spew, do it over the side.”

  “Where? In the back?” I twisted, looking at the sled’s bed. I’d intended it as a joke, but I forgot the poor attempt at humor when I saw three crates strapped down. “What are those?”

  “I stopped by Skip’s warehouse and picked up that cargo. I figured since I was he—”

  “You what?” I breathed out the words in an anxious whisper. “Was he there?”

  Oln shook his head as he turned on the sled and pushed the throttle, turning it on the street to go back the way he’d come—or so I assumed. “No, the doors were open, and those three crates were pulled out, sitting on a hoverpad right by the entrance. I wandered around calling out, but no one was there, so I took ‘em.”

  The adrenaline now flowing through my veins was washing away the alcohol, something that was annoying me almost as much as Oln’s idiocy.

  “So let me get this straight, you just grab some random crates from one of the most infamous gangsters this side of Barras without knowing if they’re ours?”

  A look of worry crossed Oln’s face. “Well…I mean, we’re expecting three…and there three are. How many shady people could Skip be doing business with?”

  “How many?” I sputtered the words. “How—” The power of speech left me for a moment, and when I got it back, the words “All of them!” spilled out.

  “So, like…this might be someone else’s shit?”

  I shot the scraggly-haired man a dark look. “It just might be.”

  “Should we take it back?”

  I weighed the options and decided that if I had to kiss Skip’s ass, it would be with my crew backing me up. That summoned a rather awkward image, and I shook my head to clear it out—and nearly puked.

  “No, let’s get back to the ship,” I replied after swallowing the bile. With Oln on task, next up was Kallie.

  HOT TOP

  Ten klicks from Willston…

  The ride back to the Kerrigan was long enough for me to sober up and construct a plan of action. It was not, however, long enough for the nausea to subside, so when Oln came over the last rise, my stomach finally gave up the fight.

  Leaning over—the correct direction, thank the L—I let loose what seemed like more vomit than one person should be able to produce.

  “Fuck, Jax…what did you eat in that place?” Oln asked, sounding a little ill himself.

  “Everything, from the looks of it,” I said, my voice gaining strength.

  There was a bottle of water in the sled’s dash compartment, and I grabbed it, taking a few long pulls before focusing on the view ahead of us.

  We were coming down the gentle slope of a narrow valley, just a few hundred meters across at the bottom. The hillside around us was covered in scrubby sage and yellow grass. Further down, things greened a bit beside a small creek, and next to that meandering waterway lay my pride and joy.

  The Kerrigan.

  She wasn’t the prettiest ship that ever flew the black, but the hundred-and-thirty-meter vessel had a special place in my heart. I’d bought her just a few weeks after passing through the nebula and arriving at the Delphi System. She’d been in rough shape then, but after some hard work—much of it with the help of Kallie, who I’d hired early on—the Kerrigan was as space-worthy as any other ship plying the black.

  Even if she doesn’t look it most of the time.

  My gaze settled on the ship’s dorsal cannon, and I saw that one of the barrels was missing, and two pieces of hull plate were laying near the closest airlock.

  So much for spaceworthy.

  The acerbic thought wormed its way through my mind, seeking an outlet, and I reached out to Kallie, ready to vent my spleen.

 

  Her rejoinder came back just as hard.

  I countered.

  I could feel the eyeroll coming back at me over the Link.

 

 

  “Sure do it often enough,” I muttered as Oln slowed the sled.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, Oln.” I jumped off the sled as we reached the open cargo doors on the bow of the ship.

  My dismount wasn’t as graceful as I’d hoped, and I grabbed a landing strut to steady myself. Glancing around to be sure no one saw—Oln had continued into the bay—I dusted off my clothes and looked for any signs of vomit.

  Looks like I’m—

  “Got something on your back,” a voice said from behind me. “Looks…oh tri-stars, what the….”

  I turned to see Finn, a relatively new addition to the crew and the sort that was handy when it came to getting information and skirting customs tariffs. He was staring at my shoulder, a look of revulsion on his face.

  “What is it?”

  Finn turned away. “I don’t want to know.”

  Worried it was some sort of horrid local bug—Barras had a few nasty ones—I shrugged off my jacket and carefully looked at the shoulder in question.

  “Stars…how’d that get there?” The object in question was a lumpy mass covered in white fur.

  “But what is it?” Finn asked, peering through interlaced fingers.

  Giving him an extended eyeroll, I flicked the thing off. “It’s a guzca worm, they put it in the local swill. You’re not really supposed to drink it—I wonder if that’s what messed me up so much.”

  “OK…I gotta ask.” Finn took a step closer as I pulled my jacket back on. “How the heck did it end up on your shoulder if you drank it?”

  “Musta blown back when I puked.”

  “That’s not all that blew back,” Oln looked green as he walked out of the cargo bay. “You kinda smeared the side of one of the crates. There are like…at least four of those little caterpillar things they have here. One was moving. Aren’t those things poisonous?”

  A wave of nausea came over me, and I bent over to complete the ceremonial emptying of my stomach.

  “Yeah,” I groaned. “Where’s Tammy? I might need her to check me over.”

  Kallie’s voice entered my mind, carrying a note of caution with it.

  I replied, reaching down and checking that my sidearm was in place. “Oln, get those crates wiped off, but don’t open them or anything. We’ll just play this off as a misunderstanding.”

  “Does that ever work?” Finn asked, a grin settling on his freckled cheeks.

  “Yeah, sure.” I shrugged. “Sometimes.”

  Finn checked his sidearm as well. “OK. If you say so.”

  I gave the man a sidelong look. “Isn’t your smooth tongue what I hired you for?”

  “My smooth tongue mostly stays in my mouth while I infiltrate someone’s network and steal all their secrets.”

  “Did you hack Skip’s?”

  Finn shook his head, cheeks reddening. “Well, no. I thought he was a friend.”

  “Fuck.” I turned back to the approaching dust cloud. “The L really needs a better quality criminal.”

  The man’s long, fair hair looked bright red in the morning light. “You know, the way you talk, folks might start to think you don’t believe
you’re from the nebula.”

  Shit, I need to watch my mouth. I decided to double down on my slip to throw him off the scent. “What if I’m not?”

  “No one’s come through the nebula in centuries,” Finn scoffed. “Especially with Big Red Number Two throwing out so much plasma lately. A ship plowing through that would glow like a frickin’ nova.”

  “Ya got me,” I said with a laugh. “Looks like I’ll just have to make do with the criminals we have here.”

  “Crates are clean,” Oln said as he walked out of the ship’s bay, a heavy coilgun resting on his shoulder. “We gonna give Skip what-for?”

  Finn’s eyes widened, and I shook my head. “Shit, Oln. Put that thing away. We want this to go peacefully.”

  “Oh,” the big man grunted. “So…you don’t think there will be shooting? That seems kinda dumb. There’s always shooting.”

  “Why’s everyone so pessimistic?” I asked, glancing around. “It’s entirely possible that we can deal with an issue like this in a calm manner.”

  Oln only grunted and turned to walk back into the cargo hold.

  “You know he’s going to just stick it around the corner,” Finn said.

  “I do.” I let out a long sigh. “Good thing, too. We’re probably going to need it before long.” I switched to the Link.

  the pilot replied without hesitation.

  She’d replied on the general shipnet, and Oln gave an indignant snort from where he stood at the bay’s entrance. I gave him a warning look, and he folded his arms in defiance, but didn’t respond.

  Thank stars. Last thing I need is those two bickering in my ear when I’m trying to deal with Skip.

  The next three minutes passed in silence as we waited for the vehicles to arrive. The largest, a covered truck, stopped just behind the crest of the closest ridgeline. The vehicle was out of the ship’s line of sight, but I wasn’t a fool, so I still had eyes on it. A drunk, maybe, but a fool, no.

  Whenever we touched down, we sent drones up to keep an eye on the area—unless we landed at a spaceport, which was why I liked to avoid those whenever possible.

  My hand wanted to stray toward my pistol, to feel the comfort of its grip, but I knew that was no way to welcome someone like Skip. The guy wasn’t as paranoid as a hixjacker, but he ran a close second.

  I suppose if I made a living skirting the law, I’d watch my back, too. Wait…that is how I make my living.

  Even years into this life, I sometimes still forgot what a long string of dire circumstances had turned me into.

  The two remaining vehicles, a larger van and a low-slung car that hovered half a meter above the ground, stopped sixty meters from the ship. I hid a smirk as the predictable group of thugs spilled out of the van. Hard cases who had likely seen some small action—who on Barras hadn’t?—but clearly had no military training.

  They weren’t terrible at their jobs, though. A couple stood in the open while others moved behind the van for cover. Two walked toward the groundcar and stood on the far side.

  Finn whispered over the Link.

 

  Finn gave a soft snort.

  I decided to ignore Finn and forced my lips into a smile as the door on the far side of the car opened, and Skip emerged.

  Where his guards all wore mismatched armor that looked to have been handed down more than once, their boss was a different story entirely. Despite the backwater nature of Barras—even the capital often had cattle on the streets—Skip dressed in foppery that one would only expect to see in a posh club on Delphi. His long black hair was swept back in an elaborate wave, and a dozen necklaces hung over a voluminous white shirt that must have needed a serious amount of nano to keep so clean.

  “Skip.” I raised a hand and waved, careful not to let my smile waver—though I really wanted go off on the man and ask him why he had to be such a drama queen all the time. “I wasn’t expecting a personal visit.”

  The other man wore a smile that wasn’t unlike my own as he walked toward the rear of his car, which he stayed behind. “I wasn’t either. But then again, I wasn’t expecting you to rob me.”

  “You know I wouldn’t rob you.” I did my best at a casual chuckle. Unfortunately, a wave of nausea hit me just as I laughed, and instead, I sounded like a warbling calf. Drawing a steadying breath, I continued, “Or at least, if I was going to rip you off, I’d be better at it. But really, that robbery shit’s too stressful; that’s why I just stick to transporting stuff someone else steals.”

  “So you’re saying that your man there just accidentally grabbed the wrong crates?” Skip’s eyebrows rose in disbelief, and I suddenly wondered if there was something to the story I didn’t know.

  “Umm…yeah. Is that so hard to believe?” I glanced back at Oln to see him fidgeting. Oh shit.

  “Sure, if he hadn’t broken down the door to get in and get them,” Skip accused. “Maybe you are a thief, just a shitty one.”

  “I…uh…might have leaned on the door a bit,” Oln muttered.

  I glanced at Finn. A smile lit my face as I spoked to Skip. “Or not a thief at all. It was just a mistake. Oln’s not too bright, you know that—”

  My words were interrupted by the man uttering a soft “Hey!” and I held up a finger in warning.

 

 

  I stuttered for a moment, trying to remember where I was, when Skip held up a hand.

  “Your crew discipline issues aren’t my concern. You’re responsible for their mangy hides when you’re dirtside, so this is your problem. Where are the crates you stole?”

  I didn’t take my eyes off Skip as I spoke. “Get the sled, Oln.”

  While we waited, I walked down the ramp, Finn keeping pace. I didn’t want to give the impression that we might run back into the ship.

  Some of the guards relaxed, while others tensed further. I picked out the pros by their total lack of tells, marking them on my HUD as the greatest threats, and passing that data to the others on the shipnet.

  Skip was an unknown. I’d heard stories about his penchant for brutality, but with a person in his position, it was difficult to separate fact from fiction. For all I knew, they were lies spread to bolster his legend. Granted, on a place like Barras, he would have had to get his own hands dirty once or twice to survive this long, so he had to pose some level of threat.

  “Did you bring the items I’m supposed to be transporting?” I asked, attempting to make this seem like a standard handoff.

  “What makes you think I’ll trust you to run it for me now?” Skip sneered. “You’re not exactly in my good books.”

  I felt my heart rate pick up at his words.

  I was under contract on both ends of the haul. If I didn’t return to Delphi with the right crates, I was going to be up shit creek without a boat.

  I need to find a better line of work.

  Lifting my hands in a mollifying gesture, I said, “I get that, I totally do. But remember, I’m paying for the goods before I take them off your hands. I have Korinth’s chits on my ship.”

  “Let’s take this one thing at a time,” Skip said, his tone not giving me any hint about what he might be thinking.

  I nodded, and turned to watch Oln as he backed the sled out of the ship’s bay, eased it down the ramp, and parked it midway between the vessel and Skip’s car.

  “I’m really sorry, Mr. Skip,” he said, ducking his head as he got off the sled and walked around to unstrap the three crates.

  I called up as Oln fumb
led with the straps.

 

 

  A snort came over the Link from Kallie.

 

 

  Oln had finished pulling the straps free, and Skip nodded for one of his guards to examine the cargo.

  While the lackey pulled out a scanner and ran it over the three-meter-long cases, I asked Kallie,

 

  I repressed a sigh.

 

  “Looks good, boss,” the man called over his shoulder, though he didn’t take his eyes off the crates as he spoke. “Something gross is smeared across the side, though.”

  “OK.” Skip’s voice increased in volume as he walked around the car, and I saw his guards all shift into a heightened state of awareness. “Back up onto your ship, Jax. Our business is done.”

  Shit. Here it goes. “Sorry, Skip. I’m not moving till I see our merch. Korinth isn’t the forgiving sort, and I need to make good on this haul.”

  Not for the first time, I wondered what was in the crates that I’d been contracted to retrieve. Sending a starship between systems to pick up such a small load greatly reduced the possibilities. It also meant that Korinth had good reason to believe Skip had what he said he had.

  At my words, Skip stopped his slow walk toward the sled, now in front of his car. “Um…no. That’s not how this is going to work. I’m not dealing with you anymore, Jax. You broke my trust, and that’s not something that you get back with a quick apology.”