Star Runners

by Clayton J Callahan

  Sundancer’s pipes contained nothing but the best, a brand called Rocket Fuel Beer. Once it got past the state’s customs goons, it sold for a reasonable price in taverns planet-wide. Jack felt a prick of pride for giving the common man his due. And by going ‘round the taxman, Jack made himself one hell of a profit. At this rate, he figured, the Sundancer would be paid off in only three more years.

  * * *

  Approaching Isis’s orbit, Jack’s scanners picked up an outgoing blip. Automatically, the Sundancer’s screens flashed the ident’; the MJS Vagabond, an old tub of a medium freighter, home-ported on a nowhere planet called Tarkan. He just shook his head, amazed that something that ugly could actually fly. Still, no reason to be unfriendly, he glanced once again at his commo unit.

  “This is MJS Sundancer to MJS Vagabond. Lulu, how the hell are you?”

  The Vagabond’s captain replied in her thick Russian accent, “Jack, you son of bitch, long time, no see. We hear you not making Earth to Rama run anymore.”

  “No, I got tired of doing military cargoes. Made me feel like I was still back in the service and you know how I love taking orders. What are you guys up to now-days?” Jack asked.

  “We do run from Tortuga to Isis, mostly.”

  “No kidding? Me too. Next time we’re on the same ball of dirt, we’ve got to have a drink together.”

  “Is deal, we buy you first round; you buy every round after.”

  “Ha!” Jack laughed. “Well, I got Isis Control on the other channel. Suppose I better get my approach vector before they start shooting. Safe voyage, Vagabond.”

  “Catch you on flip side, Sundancer. Lulu, out.” And with that, Jack switched to the other channel to get his landing instructions. He followed them to the letter all the way to a docking pad at the main starport.

  * * *

  “Captain Galloway, I am Protector Johnson. May I see your manifest?” said the man in the steel-blue uniform with the standard issue, bureaucratic face.

  “Yes, Sir,” Jack replied, as he handed the man his printout.

  The official studied the manifest much longer than Jack thought necessary. “Captain, I see you are transporting toys again. Is it to the same buyer as before?”

  “Yes, Sir.” Jack felt that when dealing with uncompromising and efficient public officials, it’s best to keep answers short. Calling them ‘Sir’ didn’t hurt either.

  “I see. Well, there should be no problem then. Unless you have something else to tell me?” The cop let the question linger menacingly in the air.

  “No, Sir.”

  “Very well. Please proceed to the clinic for your mandatory health check while we perform a routine search of your ship.” Over his shoulder, Jack saw a squad of IPP cops advancing toward Sundancer, scanners in hand. This was the part that always made Jack nervous. If just one of them decided to wash his hands, the gig was up. Still, he had no choice. He walked to the clinic for the usual off-worlder’s med exam.

  Two hours later, Jack finished with his exam, and Sundancer’s search was over. Fortunately, none of the Public Protectors needed to use the ship’s can. As the old lift-trucks arrived to unload the stuffed pandas, Jack decided to take his shore leave.

  Time to visit Chad.

  * * *

  Jack knew Chad from his Navy days. They’d served together on the old CJS Olympus during the Tau-Ceti Crisis. Old Chad was one of those ‘spooks’ from Fleet Command who needed a closer look of the bad guys, and Jack had been just crazy enough to fly him there. The fact that Chad was of the bald and spotted set didn’t bother Jack a damn bit. A friend was a friend.

  Jack knew the way to Chad’s house by heart. Just take the public tubes from the starport to the Dumptown Station, and then walk six blocks to the old shantytown by the river.

  As Jack approached the house, he noticed some things had changed a bit. For one thing Chad had fewer neighbors. A couple of lots were newly vacant and the char of fire stained the rubble-strewn ground. Chad’s house was perfectly intact but had a new steel door and a trip-wire fence. Otherwise, the outside looked like the same mud/brick/sheet-metal disaster Jack knew so well.

  Chad must have seen Jack coming as he opened his front door wide. ”Jack, you old nutcase! How ya’ doing?”

  Jack regarded Chad’s stained, gray coveralls. “A lot better than you, shipmate! Where’s the suit and tie?” Work clothes were not Chad’s style. He had the noble bearing of a king among the peasants of the space-lanes and usually dressed the part.

  “Well, these days a mutie’ who puts on airs is asking for too much attention,” Chad said with a shake of his head. “You look like shit yourself. Come on in and take a load off.”

  Jack walked past the battered porch and into the opulent living room. Chad’s missus was a fine lady from Central City. Her folks worked in the manor houses of Isis’s sovereign citizens, and she knew how to decorate. As Jack took off his old black leather jacket and draped it over a couch, he saw her enter the room with twin rug-rats playing around her knees.

  He could never keep them straight. Their names were Ader and Adora, both cute as hell at eight years old. Nothing disarmed Jack faster than their dimples. He kept that to himself, however. Jack didn’t think he would make a very good father, not after his dad’s example anyway.

  “Hello, Emma, those kids overrun you yet?” Jack said with a smile.

  “Mr. Galloway, you know some people actually like raising children. A few of us even do it on purpose,” she said. Her regal smile and warm eyes beamed to him through her tan and cream spotted face. Turning to her kids, she said, “Now, go outside. It’s too nice of a day to play indoors.”

  “But Mom...” the kids said in unison.

  “No buts, out!” she said as she pointed at the door.

  The girls turned to smile and wave to the visitor before scampering out of the house.

  Jack returned the grin and waved ‘bye-bye.’ Then, the three friends sat down for some coffee and conversation on the soft couches that circled the living room.

  “So, Jack, when are we going to hear the news that you’re settled down and raising children?’ Emma asked.

  Jack’s eyes went wide as he turned and silently pleaded to Chad for help.

  “Honey, Jack Galloway is definitely not the child raising type. He has one big kid that he looks out for, and that’s himself, and sometimes he’s not so good at that either. Like the time he got thirty days in the brig for hitting an officer,” Chad said with a roguish wink.

  Emma smiled as she poured the coffee. “Smart man like you, Jack? Say it wasn’t so?”

  Jack winced at the memory. “Stupid of me. The lieutenant was talking about a classified operation on the mess decks. Chad had made a lot of great contacts on the ground.”

  Chad nodded. “A lot of good people were taking big risks talking to me. Like Voss, the guy who just wanted to open a pie restaurant someday—but there were just too many explosions in his neighborhood for him to do that. If the Populists found out who tipped us off, they would’ve been happy to shoot him. The only people who knew my contacts identities were Jack, myself, and Lieutenant Hendrix, the intelligence officer.”

  “And what a dumb-ass Hendrix was,” Jack chimed in, “One day I’m’ having my lunch on the Olympia’s mess deck when this moron starts talking about our missions. Hendrix wanted to impress some pretty ensign, I guess. Anyway, I tried to get him to shut up polite like, ‘Excuse me, sir. But do you really mean to be talking about that?’ I said. But this idiot was just too full of himself. He says ‘Pilot, mind your damn place.’ So, I reached across the table and put my fist into his honker. It was too big a target to miss. The guy fell back in his chair with this ‘what the hell’ look on his face. Funniest thing I ever saw. Next thing I know, five marines are piling on top of me, and I’m off to the brig. God, I learned my lesson. Mind your own business. There ain’t no beer in jail.”

  “I got word from counterintelligence that there was a Populist sympathizer
on the ship,” Chad said. “Jack, maybe if you hadn’t hit that little creep our contacts would have all be in caskets.”

  Jack mulled it over. “Maybe, maybe not, Chad. I just wish I hadn’t had to share a cell with Petty Officer Kent. God what a whiner! But hey, thanks for the party when I got out.”

  Chad smiled, “Least I could do.”

  “Tell me about the party,” said Emma.

  Jack and Chad just looked at each other and smiled. Both glanced at the souvenir jacket draped over the couch.

  “Best I not say, Honey. Military secret,” Chad replied.

  Emma began to glare at Chad, so Jack switched subjects by commenting on the neighborhood’s new look. The mood in the room took a nosedive as Chad heaved a sigh.

  “Riot,” his friend answered, “About a month ago. The rebels scored a big victory in the swampland south of Central City. Scared the living crap out of the Regime. Next thing you know the news is full of anti-mutant hysteria. You know, the usual bigoted bullshit; ‘mutants are crazy, ugly and disease-ridden,’ oh, but somehow we're supposed to be happy to provide cheap labor to the sovereign class. You know the minimum wage laws don’t even apply to mutants anymore? They tell us we should be happy about that because it helps the economy. What crap! Anyway...a gang of sovereign citizens came ‘round here with a couple of firebombs and a lot of hate. I used a sonic-screamer that the regime didn’t know about, and they kept away from my house, but it was still awful. Our kids still wake up crying every now and again.”

  Jack heard that the mutant rebellion had gained speed, but he had no idea how close to the starport the fighting was now. “Chad, you’re staying out of this right? I know you got that secret squirrel training, but it won’t do you any good if things get real bad. The Regime shoots spies. This is the perfect time to stay out of it.”

  Chad gave Jack that half-twist of a smile he always gave before he lied. “No problem, shipmate. I’ve got no business getting mixed up in the movement. That would just put my whole family in danger, and where would we run to if that happened?”

  With the coffee finished, Jack made his goodbyes and headed back to the starport. After all, he had a schedule to keep.

  * * *

  Back at the starport, Jack walked past the customs cops and onto the docking pad that held the Sundancer. He took a moment to let his gaze sweep over her as the sun of Isis set below the horizon, its dying rays twinkling off her red hull. Man, such a beautiful ship.

  When he took his eyes from her, he turned his head to the sound of a maintainer truck approaching the pad. The driver, an old lady Jack had met before, gave him a quizzical look and Jack replied with a thumbs-up. She smiled as she dismounted the vehicle, lunch box in hand, and unraveled the hose from the back of her rig. The side of the truck read ‘water,’ but Jack knew its tank was empty. He watched as the driver screwed the hose into the port side access of Sundancer’s life-support panel. She pulled the release handle, and beer flowed secretly into the truck.

  Jack and the driver sat by the pad and chitchatted about nothing in particular for a few minutes. When the tank filled up, she disconnected the hose and drove away. Funny thing, she left her lunch box on the docking pad. Jack wouldn’t want anything to happen to it, so he picked it up and took it aboard his ship. Sure enough, it contained cash for 10,000 liters of beer, a very nice sum indeed.

  * * *

  In another week’s time, Jack found himself back on Tortuga, and what should be parked next to the Sundancer but that old rust bucket, the Vagabond. Well, this was just too good a chance to pass up. He went to his pantry, got his best bottle of whiskey, and marched right over to the next docking pad to pay his neighbors-of-the-moment a visit.

  “I buy the first drink, and you buy every one after. Is that the deal I recall you making, comrade?” Jack said.

  Captain Lulu looked down from the top of the Vagabond’s gangway at the black leather-clad space bum and smiled. “Da, something like that. You get ass aboard. I find some glasses.”

  The Vagabond’s common room showed real old school space travel design. Back when she was new, couches that doubled as acceleration safeties and cupboards that secured shot glasses in dura-foam probably seemed trendy as well as practical. Now the whole thing just looked obsolete. Still, Jack knew the difference between heaven and hell is the people you meet not the place you’re in. The Vagabond’s spacers were all-right guys by him. He threw his jacket onto a chair and took a seat.

  Lulu handed him a glass while he undid the bottle’s cap. Short Stack Mack, the ship’s diminutive navigator, went to get a deck of cards as soon as he saw Jack enter. Deirdre, the ship’s pilot, jumped in Jack’s lap and gave him a big sloppy kiss on the forehead. “Good to see you too, kiddo,” he said to the cute mutant girl.

  Drinks were poured and cards dealt. This was Jack Galloway in his natural environment, hanging out with a bunch of spacer bums without a care in the galaxy. After all, what’s freedom if you can’t enjoy it? The whiskey bottle soon emptied.

  “So, what’re you guys hauling to Isis these days?” Jack asked as Short Stack opened a bottle of vodka. “Can’t be making too much money. We’re betting less than ten credits a hand here.”

  “Nothing,” Deirdre answered. Lulu and Short Stack shot a look at their pilot that said ‘shut-up’, and the room got quiet.

  Jack looked at his hand, a king, a queen, a pair and a jack of the wrong suit. Of course, he knew that nobody flies from star to star for nothing. He anted up one credit. “Well that would explain you're obvious affluence. Tell you guys what. I got a real sweet set up. I run beer past the Isis customs goons. Make a forty-five percent profit every time. Don’t mind expanding the franchise if you’re interested?”

  The Vagabond’s crew eyed each other for a moment. Lulu spoke up, “Thanks Jack, we know you all-right-guy. We don’t need any more risk. We okay for now.”

  Jack thought about that. Risk is part of life. Sure, you didn’t go into a vacuum without a space suit on, but risk came to everyone, whether they faced it or not. The only question was which risks were worth taking and which weren’t. He poured a shot and took a sip of the vodka. He preferred the whiskey, but it hadn’t lasted long.

  “Yea, sure...it’s a risk. I get caught, and I lose my ship. Customs takes the Sundancer, and I spend maybe thirty days in the slammer for tax evasion. But at the rate I’m pulling in the dough, I can have the ship free and clear in just a few more years. Look at this crate,” he waved his arm about the Vagabond’s common room. “I bet the first spacer to fly in a ship like this has been dead for seventy years or more! It’s held together with spit and chewing gum for Christ’s sake. You flat out need the cash, and I’m just trying to help.”

  Lulu looked at her crew as they each gave their silent answer with a shake of their heads. “No. You trying to help folks so are we. We can’t afford to have Vagabond found with cargo of beer when we already carrying so much.”

  “What is it? Drugs? Weapons for the resistance? What the hell can you be carrying that is so damn risky but pays so damn bad?”

  “People,” Deirdre spoke out as her shipmates glared at her with exasperation. Lulu turned to Jack with an alarmed look and a steely gaze.

  “You keep this quiet, yes? You not let this get out,” Lulu pleaded.

  Jack’s jaw had dropped. “People? You’re trafficking in humans?”

  Short Stack spoke up. “Not humans...mutants.”

  Then it all made sense. Mutant refugees would pay to escape Isis, but few had any real money. Most smugglers wouldn’t touch a job like that. But Lulu always had a soft spot in her center. It would take a lot of refugees to make the trip worthwhile, and you could probably make just as much with a legit cargo.

  “You stupid sons of guns,” Jack exhaled. “Do you know what the Isis Regime will do when they catch you? The Confederation doesn’t give a damn what happens on Isis; they got fifty worlds to worry about! The Public Protectors will take your ship, yes, but that ain’
t the worst of it. You’ll be treated like enemies of the state, political prisoners, not common criminals. They’ll send you to some damn penal colony for life, and that’s IF you’re not summarily executed.” Jack looked at the mutant girl Deirdre, “It’ll be worse for you, kiddo. You know that.”

  She just nodded.

  Lulu spoke for her crew. “Is all right, Jack. You be sure you tell no one, okay?”

  “Damn straight!” Jack said as he picked up his black jacket. “The navy screwed me over plenty, fighting for causes, risking my ass for other people’s freedom. Well, I got some freedom of my own now, and I’m gonna’ keep it! People should mind their own business, and that’s what I intend to do.”

  With that, he put on his jacket and walked down the gangway.

  * * *

  “This is Isis Traffic Control to MJS Sundancer, sending approved flight plan now. Please maintain present course and speed until you reach the outer marker.”

  “I copy, Isis Control,” Jack answered. It'd been an especially long flight, and he was out of bottled water. But, in less than six hours, he would be checking into a starport hotel and taking a nice long bath. He would have loved to pay Chad another visit, but Jack hadn’t heard from him in months. Apparently, Chad and his family moved out months ago and left no forwarding address. Jack worried about his friend, but without any more information, that was all he could do. He checked over the flight plan on the heads-up display.

  Control’s course put him down on a pad near the starport’s warehouses, a little out of the way but no big deal. He did a cursory check and found that, once again, he would be parking next to the Vagabond.

  Jack considered paying them another visit like he did on Tortuga a while back, but no. Vagabond and Sundancer had been avoiding each other lately. Best not to stir anything up, he thought, especially not on Isis. A few more maneuvers and Sundancer fired its retros for a nice, soft landing on the docking pad. When all lights read green, he looked at the access control and stretched his arms. He heard the groan of the gangway’s release, and soon his feet walked down the ramp on a beautiful, sunny day.