“There, now. Was that so hard?” he asked. “Even Guy took a slug of it.”
Dekker shrugged and slapped Guy on the shoulder. “He’s my emotional support animal. It’s his duty to get in the way of any potential decisions like that one.” Dekker tapped himself on the scalp. “Gotta keep a clear head and whatnot.”
Doc arched an eyebrow and rested his hands on his hips. “Heh. Alrighty, lets see how yer buddy handles my ‘deinhibitor juice.’ Guy, tell me about all of Dekker’s bad decisions, lately.” He flashed Dekker a mischievous glare.
Guy didn’t notice as Dekker tried to flash him a warning look. Guy’s cheeks had already flushed; an intense warmth spread across his face and neck. His eyelids seemed to open at different speeds with brows arching to different heights as if controlled by feuding marionette strings.
He slurred his speech. “Well, I got some stories for ya,” Guy’s voice warbled.
Dekker took the jar away as Guy reached for another drink. He sniffed it and wrinkled his nose. “This smells like it could kill a grubark.”
Doc winked. “I got a whole pack of dead grubarks out back in fact.”
"Dead?" Guy’s face blanched. He whispered wide-eyed, “Am I gonna die?”
The old scrapper nodded his head gravely. “I’m afraid so. It’s the end of the line for you, my friend.” He put a hand over his heart.
Shock and drunken heartbreak riddled Guy’s face.
Fryberger, Doc’s partner, entered carrying a box of parts. He scowled disapprovingly at the inebriated Investigator. “Don’t go tormenting that poor boy with the Leerium.” He shook his head. “Doc’s just messing with you, Guy. You’ll be fine in about twenty minutes. It’s a hard drunk, but it wears off quickly.”
Doc and the others belly-laughed at Guy’s near-death-experience. A few seconds into the laughter, Guy also laughed. Nervously. As if he had no idea what was so funny.
The old salvage worker nudged Dekker playfully. “Alright, Guy. This stuff numbs a person's inhibitions so hard that it’s practically a truth serum.”
“An unreliable one,” Fryberger called over his shoulder.
“What’s Dekker’s biggest, darkest secret?”
Dekker crossed his arms and grinned. “As if you think I’m stupid enough to let any of these idiots know my darkest inner-workings.”
Guy cut him off and pointed a finger. “He’s too scared of commitment to seal the deal with Vesuvius. She’s been chasin him hard, and for years, and he’s barely done more’n held the poor girl’s hand.”
A pang of nervous emotion rippled through Dekker. He shot Guy an alarmed look.
The drunk cracked up with laughter at how spot on he’d landed. “’At’s why she’s down at BOA doin research for th’next job.” He hiccuped. “She’s mad bout Dekker shutting her down again. He said somethin bout moving too fast.” Guy slumped, clearly losing the battle against the fuzziness in his brain.
Doc shot Dekker a confused look. “That’s funny,” he chuffed. “I never figured you for the sort who played it this safe. Always thought you were more of a risk taker.”
“Remind me why I come here again?” Dekker stiffened his jaw. Suffering minor indignations for the owners’ amusement had always been part of the price built into Doc Johnson’s work.
Doc merely shrugged. Dekker and him went way back, far enough that the inventor-turned scrap-yard manager earned the right to rib him a little.
“Well,” Doc asked Guy, “has he done anything right lately?”
Guy nodded. “Got us a decent job with us on the rebound from that missed payday…”
“Ah. I heard about that one… some kind of mix-up on Io.”
Nodding with a goofy, lopsided smile, Guy said, “Yeah. Austicon woulda been a big paycheck… I hear those kids are gonna make a mint. But the Crusader took a hella-ova… hullihfa… haliv… it took a beating. Shivan pirates and the MEA both tried to smash her. Ya know. You do quality work. You should start a business…” He sniffed at the air like a man between sleep and wakefulness.
Dekker took over before Guy could ramble aimlessly. “Your latest shield tweaks performed as well as promised,” he said. “It didn’t stop the EMP, but you never promised it would… it did, however, keep the boat alive despite the pirates and the Druze hammering away on her when she was dead in the water.”
Doc nodded with furrowed brows, taking the info as both compliment and request. “I imagine you’ll need some armor replaced and a bunch of other upgrades, plus a full diagnostic to make sure nothing’s still burned out?”
Dekker nodded and handed him a list. “Anything more than this that you can think of?”
Doc pursed his lips as he ran down the items. “Gonna take some time. This is a lot of work.”
Shrugging, Dekker said, “Yeah, but who else is going to let you monkey with their ship. You’ve got something of a reputation for coloring outside the lines. Matty here is the only pilot who seems capable of piloting anything you’ve re-engineered.”
“That’s because I actually read the manuals,” Matty hollered from the back.
“He, he,” Doc chuckled. “You might be the only one.”
“How long?” Dekker asked.”
Doc shrugged. “Thirty days?”
Dekker frowned and bobbed his head to Guy, “That job he mentioned is in ten. We have a job taking us to Galilee, over in the Trappist system. Medical mission for the expansion world.”
“Aye. I know the one.” Doc reassessed the list and stroked his chin. “I can get it done in ten if you do me a favor while you’re there.”
Dekker cocked an eyebrow.
“I got a cousin there, Benjamin. Lives and works in Newhope, same kinda business as me. He’s been bugging me for parts and supplies. Sounds like things are tight for him over there. If’n you can bring him a few crates of stuff he needs for his shop, I’ll make sure the Rickshaw Crusader is ready for you in ten days.”
The investigator shot a hand out to shake on it. “Done. Any family of yours is a friend of ours,” he pledged.
Doc shook on it and tossed the list to one of his workers who hurried out the door. “Lemme loan you an old lunar bus to get you and your guys back to Reef City. She ain’t pretty, but she’ll get you dirt-side until I can get your boat ready for ya.”
Dekker and his crew thanked Doc and turned to head towards the door. Guy gasped in a lung full of air, suddenly clear, or mostly so, just as Fryberger had promised. He blinked twice and realized his party was about to leave without him.
Doc waved them out as Guy staggered to his feet, trying to catch up. He slowed his gait momentarily and grabbed the jar of Leerium on his way out the door, grinning as he went.
6
Kheefal opened a message left for him by authorities on the TransNet system. He raised an eyebrow and opened the communication. He may have been a licensed Investigator, but he tried his best to avoid constabulary services. His kind spent too much time dancing around the fringes of the law to make contact a habit.
Pursing his lips, Kheefal’s spirits lifted. His stolen spacecraft had finally been located. The thief had abandoned it somewhere near the Mars transit hub where MEA forces confiscated it as a derelict; they’d traced the transponder before putting it into impound. He could recover it by the evening so long as he had cash for the reclamation fees.
Kheefal grinned as a plan formed in his mind. Finally, the last piece had fallen into place for him.
He kissed his fingers and pressed them to his heart, thanking whatever gods might exist for deciding to pull his number on a last-minute blessing. The MEA might have outlawed religion years ago, and Kheefal didn’t particularly believe in any of it anyhow, but he was grateful that karma hadn’t reared its ugly head. His ledger dripped with red ink, and he didn’t see that changing anytime soon.
Kheefal felt happy enough that he swiped away the next message and declined an assassination job on the BlackWeb. He hoped that whoever controlled karma would believe it
was in response to his fortune.
If a quick, meaningless prayer could appease a god or gods, he’d offer it, but in reality, only money talked. His Jagaracorps contact promised a far heavier payday than simple murder did… and Jagaracorps had deep pockets.
7
Vesuvius’s curly, red locks fell across Dekker’s face in tangles. They stuck like velcro to the ever-present stubble of his face as she leaned against him in the rec area of their groups base. She sipped a hot cup of tea as she leaned into his arm which lay across the top of the couch.
The media stream played despite the muted audio. An advertisement broadcasted opportunities for hard-working folks to join human expansion efforts on new worlds, boasting personal and economic freedom for anyone willing to sign on.
“I’m just saying that I don’t ever want children. You’ve known that for a long time,” she played her decision off nonchalantly, as if it had not come as a result of her personal orphan-baggage.
She looked away and sipped her drink, trying to deflect from the topic. The cloud that settled over Dekker’s face indicated he’d have trouble giving the subject up. Her voice grew quiet. “We’ve known each other a long time, Dekker. You know why… or some of it at least… it’s not likely I’ll change my mind.”
Dekker’s jaw tightened. “I have my own stuff, too, you know.” He sighed. “Family is the most important thing to me.”
“Well maybe if you’d let me in,” she said with a barbed tongue. “I bet whatever it is—whatever your life was before we met all those years ago at Muramasa’s—I would understand.”
Dekker stiffened his neck and looked away.
Guy entered the room and stood straight. He locked eyes with his two friends who had tried their best to keep their relationship amongst the rest of their companions professional.
Dekker slid slightly to his left and created some space between him and Vesuvius, keeping up the charade.
Vesuvius shot a sidelong look to her left and glared daggers at him. The room temperature seemed to plummet. “What the heck, man! Family this and family that—the Dozen are our family and you can’t even pretend we’re a real thing whenever any of them are around. And this… this is just Guy!”
Guy touched his chest with a worried look. Fearful for his life at being drawn into a lovers’ quarrel, he slowly walked backwards out of the room.
Vesuvius continued ranting. “Maybe if you were more concerned with the here and now instead of trying to measure out the details, you’d have invited me into your cabin by now. Then we’d be working on the actual mechanics of your heart’s desire instead of whatever the heck this is.”
She whirled to her feet and spat over her shoulder as she left, “Family! You can’t get a better one than what we have already, and I’m fine with that. If you and I are going to really happen, you’re going to have to accept that.”
A few moments of silence passed. Finally Dekker called out. “What did you need, Guy?”
“I’m hiding until the scary lady is far, far away,” he whispered from outside the door.
8
Zarbeth skulked across the tarmac cloaked in shades of night. He’d secured a package to his forearm by pluralanium bonds which would not release unless the women in yellow entered an access code to relinquish its grip. The alien ducked inside his long-range skiff and activated the VTOL thrusters which lifted the craft into the sky before he punched the engines.
The Krenzin’s master had sent him on an errand of utmost secrecy and importance. Zarbeth was determined not to let the Pheema down.
He did not notice the small space-transport that hovered just below him. It mimicked his every move and hid in the Krenzin’s sensor shadow as they blasted east from the Krenzin controlled District Three and crossed the Atlantic Ocean.
Nearly half way across, and too far for any help to respond in time, the hidden vessel braked and rose slightly, sneaking in directly behind Zarbeth. The Krenzin’s alarms went berserk. He only got off a few shouts for help before his assailant scrambled his broadcasts.
An EMP burst crossed the bow of his skiff as a warning shot. Zarbeth tried to take evasive maneuvers, unwilling to surrender his cargo, but he had never been known as a particularly skilled pilot. Another trio of EMP beams splashed across his craft, killing the stick.
As soon as the transport hit the water it skipped like a stone, dashing Zarbeth around the inside of the cockpit despite the safety restraints. Emergency measures activated and deployed the flotation system to keep the wreckage from sinking to the depths and a homing beacon activated
The Krenzin looked up groggily as his enemy’s craft, a Class A spaceship hovered precariously close overhead. Its pilot bay opened on a hinged axis to let the intruder commit high seas piracy.
Kheefal clamped a load-lifter arm onto the Zarbeth’s cockpit canopy and ripped it open, letting it slide into the saltwater. The rogue snapped off a few rounds of laser fire into the system controls just in case there remained any chance of regaining power before he’d retrieved his quarry.
“Give me the seed!” Kheefal screamed at the alien, ramming the muzzle of his weapon into Zarbeth’s eye socket.
“Never,” Zarbeth yelled, pulling his arm back and out of his enemy’s reach. The pluralanium case wouldn’t come free even if he wanted it to—just as the Pheema had planned.
Kheefal smacked him in the other eye with the butt of his pistol, swelling it shut. “Give it up and I’ll let you live.”
A long-range proximity warning chimed from the thief’s craft.
“You’ll never get me out of this chair without my cooperation—not in time—and dead weight will slow you down,” he grinned through the trickle of blood leaking down his face as if he’d somehow won the game.
Kheefal tipped his head. “You’re probably right.” He grabbed the alien by the wrist and put his gun to Zarbeth’s elbow. He smashed the alien in the face again as he tried to wriggle away and then fired five shots through the joint and ripped the limb free as Zarbeth shrieked and passed out from the pain.
The thief tucked the severed limb and accompanying seedpod under his arm and returned to his craft, leaving Zarbeth to bleed out atop the rocking waves.
Kheefal grinned, noting the rescue ships on their way. Five of them rocketed towards his location with such speed that they were likely private fighter jets owned by the Pheema. Those crafts were equipped more to take down an enemy than to rescue one expendable Krenzin in the Pheema’s employ.
Sealing the hatch, Kheefal activated his thrusters. They probably couldn’t take him down in the air, but he didn’t intend to stay planet-side. Kheefal had a package to deliver and a paycheck to receive. Within a few moments, he’d be out of sensor range and be able to hit FTL.
Kheefal leaned back in his seat and slapped the armrests, happy to have his ship back. “It’s gonna be a good payday,” he murmured and then punched the thrusters.
9
“…and my final piece of advice,” Guy said at the front of the line, “is to never let Dekker pick what you eat for lunch. Not unless you want to try fried decapod toe or grieggarian snard; just avoid any restaurant he recommends.” He led the new guys down the barracks hallway of the Dozen’s headquarters on the edge of Reef City.
Two large rooms on either side of the hallway sprawled open before them with beds made with military precision. He slid out the old markers and inserted new name-plates onto the face of each door to mark the new residents.
With thin lips, he tucked the name badges for Murtaugh, Dirk, and Trigger into his back pocket. “You can kinda pick and choose where you’re staying,” he told Nathan, Shaw, and Britton.
The three men traded glances with their fourth companion who shrugged. Juice didn’t have any outstanding physical characteristics that identified him as a soldier or indicated any kind of martial prowess. “I’m just temporary help,” he noted.
Guy taped over Nibbs’ name and wrote Juice across it. “Your homework, Juicebox…
”
“Um, it’s just Juice,” he interrupted.
Guy scowled at him with mock indignation. “We are very formal here, Mister Box, don’t forget that. You came highly recommended, so don’t screw this up with protocol violations. He pointed to the personal effects Nibbs had left behind after taking an extended, personal leave following their Io mission. “Your homework, Mister Box is to find something in this room to make a bomb out of by dinner time.”
Addressing them all, Guy said, “Dinner’s in the mess at nineteen hundred. Don’t be late.”
An hour later, Guy joined the rest of the regular crew at the mess hall: a glorified rec room off the main hangar bay, and waited for dinner.
The new crew members trickled in.
Juice entered the room and tossed Guy a dirty sock that had been tied off and a jar filled with clear liquid. “My homework,” he reported.
“It’s some kind of sock bomb?”
“No. It’s the regular kind. There’s calcium hypochlorite in the powder; it’s the main chemical in the cleaning solvent.”
Guy jiggled the other container.
“Polyethylene glycol… antifreeze fluids for spacecraft are loaded with the stuff. I noticed a big barrel of it when we walked through the first time.” He glanced back towards the hangar. “But I don’t see a ship.”
“It’s invisible,” Guy retorted.
Mustache shook his head. “The Rickshaw Crusader is currently on its way back from Luna, getting repairs and upgrades done at Darkside Station. Also, you can just assume that most of what Guy told you is somehow wrong.”
Juice sighed with relief. “Oh good. He said that Dekker was super formal. I’m a real casual person and didn’t get that vibe at all when he and I spoke previously about me coming on.”
Mustache kept a serious face. “Oh, no. That part is true. For your sake, don’t get too cozy around him… but the rest of what he said is malarkey, and the rest of us are all pretty relaxed, though. But Dekker? He likes things a certain way.” He flashed the new member a wink.
Spawn of Ganymede Page 2
