by Logan Jacobs
I engaged the throttle and tore away from the dock. I didn’t need to look at the rear cameras to see the frustration on the cops’ faces. But I had a feeling that there were more than a few of them who were at least as impressed as they were angry.
As soon as I was above the confines of the shipyard, I ripped up on the accelerator and angled the ship where I needed her to be. I set her course for the Alexandria and whistled.
“Let’s go get some breakfast, shall we?”
“We do not need food to survive,” my chip observed cheerfully.
“Yeah, well I do,” I muttered.
The worst part about taking off into space was never the initial launch. It wasn’t even when I passed through the atmosphere and felt the skin of my cheeks slide back so far I thought my skull was open. That part, I liked. It felt like all the pressure in the universe was concentrated in my ship alone, so it pushed me into my seat until I might as well have just been another cog in the craft.
No, the worst part was always the first moment after I left the atmosphere. For half a second, everything in the ship went weightless before the artificial gravity kicked in, and that was what I hated. I was a boots on the ground kind of person, so I didn’t really take even to the brief feeling of floating.
Finding the Alexandria was easy enough. With the coordinates already plugged in, it was just a matter of guiding my ship safely into orbit until I trailed the space station. It was an impressive sight. Twin generators studded either end of the station to power it, and they moved in slow circles as they caught the light of the sun. As soon as I was within hailing distance, I accelerated just enough to catch up but not so much that I would crash into it.
The control panel pinged with an incoming message.
“Medical ship 4812, we see your approach,” a tinny voice said through the ship’s speakers. “We put out no request for emergency assistance. Please report.”
I laughed. I wasn’t close enough yet for them to tell who I was or what ship I was flying. They could only go from how I’d recoded the external manifest.
“Medical ship 4812, responding to the request of the Alexandria,” I spoke into the intercom. “We are not an emergency ship. Repeat, we are not a medical ship. We are brunch guests, and so we request permission to dock.”
“Repeat last transmission.”
“I said, I’m here for brunch,” I tried again. “Trevor Onyx, at your service.”
“You do not have permission to dock, Onyx.” The tinny voice sounded panicked. “Repeat, you do not have permission to dock.”
I glanced at the control screen to gauge my approach. I didn’t have much time left before I reached the space station, and it didn’t look like I’d have enough room to alter my course without crashing into the blasted thing.
“No can do,” I sighed. I was close enough now to see that the hangar doors were open, but I guessed there was a panic on board as the workers tried to close them.
“You will be fired upon if you attempt to dock,” the voice said through the speaker.
Again, I looked at the control screen. It was 6:58. In spite of the cops’ gravity beam, I had still managed to get to the Alexandria right on time. Of course, that also explained the frantic attempts to keep me from docking.
They didn’t know I had disabled the bomb.
Favian Grith had set up the test with the bomb for me to see how quickly I could get there. He had likely told his crew that they had to disable the bomb as soon as I landed, but the cops had delayed me long enough that they probably all thought I had exploded on my way to reach the space station.
And now they were worried that I’d explode when I docked on board.
“I think it’s a little late for that threat,” I said. I was close enough now to see people in the hangar scrambling toward the exits. Others were still trying to close the doors, but the doors were big enough they were taking an age to slide shut. Besides, the doors were only backup to the force field that was the real safeguard between the Alexandria and the vast reaches of space.
“Cease your approach,” the tinny voice said again. “You will be fired upon.”
“I’m too close for your weapons system to engage,” I growled. “So if you don’t lower your hangar shields, I’m just gonna crash this beauty into your precious station anyway. Do you really want to see how many of you I can take with me?”
There was no response from the tinny voice. I jerked back on the brakes to prepare for landing, but all the braking in the world wouldn’t stop me unless they dropped the force field standing between me and the hangar.
“Lower the hangar shields!” I shouted.
I turned the throttle to angle my approach. There was still no response from the crew of the Alexandria, but I was committed to my course now. I’d either explode against the hangar shields, or I would skid into the space station on luck and a prayer.
“Shields lowered,” Honey Bee chimed in my ear, and I’d never been so happy to hear her voice.
The ship careened into the bay with an awful shriek of the emergency brakes as I yanked us to a stop. There were a few other dozen ships parked in the hangar, but no one came out to meet my ship or flag us into an appropriate docking spot. Instead, I just picked an empty spot and guided her in myself. It was a bit of a rough parking job, but then again, I’d thought I might explode against the shields of Grith’s space station until thirty seconds earlier.
I put the ship in standby mode in case anyone decided to be less than friendly. I looked at the clock again. 7:00 sharp. There was no chance Grith wouldn’t hire me for a job now. I had done too perfect a job.
I stood up from the bridge and unholstered one gun just to be safe, but I kept it pointed at the ground as I moved toward the cargo doors. With my other hand in the air, I strode through the doors and into the gleaming hangar of the Alexandria.
Tales of Favian Grith’s wealth had not been exaggerated. The hangar was so polished that other than my half-cocked parking job, it didn’t look like ships ever landed or took off from the spotless bay. The vessels all around me glittered in the blue-white lighting all across the hangar, and I spotted at least twenty automated drones and droids all scurrying about to do Grith’s dirty work.
The human crew were scurrying too, but they had all scuttled to the edges of the docking area. As if a few dozen paces would have kept them from pulverizing in the bomb blast they had all anticipated.
“You’re late,” growled a voice to my right.
I looked up to see a short man with angry eyebrows.
“It was seven, right?” I nodded at the watch on his wrist. “As far as I can tell, I’m right on time.”
“Brunch is at seven,” the angry man answered. “You were supposed to be here before then.”
“I hope that doesn’t mean somebody else drank my bloody mary,” I sighed as I glanced around to get my bearings. “So brunch is-- so sorry, old pal, but could you point me in the right direction?”
The short man blustered toward me until his chin was inches away from my chest. My fist tightened around the grip of my gun.
“I’m sorry, was my question not clear?” I asked.
“You cheated,” the man accused.
The fingers of my other hand flexed at my side. I wanted to punch this little ball of anger across the hangar, but I was just too hungry to start another fight. Besides, it probably wouldn’t go over too well if the first thing I did on Grith’s space station was to punch one of his lackeys.
“And just why would you say I cheated?” I demanded.
“Because that’s the only reason you could be standing here and talking to me.” The man’s angry eyebrows glared at me.
I remembered the panic of everyone in the space station when I had landed. “Ah. You mean, cheating is the only reason I’m standing here alive and shit.”
“Exactly.” The short man took a step back so he could cross his arms over his chest.
I looked around at the small crowd that ha
d gathered at the edges of the hangar. There were only two main hallways that branched off the docking area, and only one of them wasn’t completely blocked by people. If I had to make a break for it, I could slip around this short angry man and dash in that direction.
I wasn’t about to retreat back to the spaceship after all my work to get here.
“So you mean to say, you lot wanted me to explode on my way up here?” I asked. “What, had all you folks gotten together up here to watch me turn into a flaming meteor? Was I supposed to be your morning entertainment?”
The short man held his ground. “You were supposed to be here before seven, so we could disable the bomb. Brunch is served at seven, which means your ass is supposed to be in the dining hall right now.”
“Are we still calling it brunch?” I groaned. “If it’s before ten o’clock, can’t we all agree it still counts as breakfast?”
“You’re late,” he said again. “So the only reason you’re not floating out there in pieces is because you cheated on the test.”
“Hey, I’m here, aren’t I?” I grinned. “And I don’t know how it works in your little brain, but in my book, a win’s a win.”
“It’s not a win if you cheat,” the man growled. His eyebrows were positively jumping off his face in their eagerness to take a swipe at me.
“It’s not cheating if you win,” I fired back.
The short angry man clenched his fists at his sides, and I guessed I had about ten seconds before he really lost his temper. It looked like I was just going to piss off everybody today.
“Why, for the love of all that’s holy, are you both just standing here when the eggs are getting cold?”
I recognized the voice from the call at the Den back on Deltulu. The angry man and I both looked away from each other at the sudden appearance of Favian Grith himself. He had changed since the video call, and he was now wearing a blue suit that fit too tight across his barrel chest. Another silk bandana was tied precisely around his throat, but this one was purple instead of scarlet.
“Would anyone care to explain why my omelette is in this moment inedible because you’re all here arguing in the hangar?” Grith ran his hand over his mustache.
“He cheated your test,” the short angry man blustered.
The crime lord just smiled.
“He was supposed to be here early so the explosion wouldn’t-- but he cheated,” the man said again. “That’s the only reason he’s not dead.”
“Oh relax,” Grith sighed. “That just means he passed the test. Also means he’s smarter than you.”
The short man looked like he might pop an artery in his red-purple neck. He started to protest, but the mustached crime lord raised a hand and snapped. Instantly, the angry man fell silent and bowed his head. The hangar crew at the edges of the docking area slid back to their stations, and some of them even came over to my ship to get her cleaned up and straightened out.
Grith was clearly not a person anybody wanted to upset.
“Would you care to join me for breakfast?” The blue-suited crime lord turned to me and smiled again, so his eyes lost their hard edge.
“Thought you’d never ask.” I grinned.
“If you don’t mind,” he said and nodded at the gun still gripped in my hand.
I gave a little bow, holstered my weapon, and followed him out of the hangar.
I noted everything I saw as we walked toward Grith’s dining hall. On the one hand, I considered it good research into the crime lord. After all, what was the old saying? To see a man’s ship was to see the man. But on the other hand, it was just good research into a space station’s best practices. I had to start somewhere before I had the funds to set up my own.
We turned into a main hallway and walked down it on top of a completely see-through floor. The only lights along the hallway were faint blue bulbs along the edges of the floor, so every star that hung outside the space station was visible through the transparent floor. The clear plating had to be reinforced with force fields. Otherwise, that was too much of a hazard, even for a supposedly peaceful space station.
“A peaceful space station that threatened to fire on us,” Honey Bee reminded me. She actually sounded irritated.
I said nothing in response but just kept pace with Grith. The walls were studded with a green metal I didn’t recognize, but I guessed they might be some relative of jhozium. The hallway turned again. It branched off into three routes up ahead, and I wanted to follow all of them to see what all Grith concealed on this space station.
He ploughed straight ahead at the fork in the hall. I paused for just a second behind him to see if I could see anything down either of the other branches, but Grith just cleared his throat without looking back. I rolled my eyes, thankful now that they were hidden behind shielding glasses, and followed after him again. It seemed exploring more would have to wait.
The dining hall stood at the end of this corridor branch, and it was empty except for a few well-dressed waiters standing at attention beside the doors. Even though there were only two of us, the table itself looked like it had been prepared for a dozen starving diners. Eggs of every description and variety lined the middle of the table, but it was the food along the edges of the table that caught my attention. There I saw salmon pastries, berry-spotted waffles, flatbreads with fresh asparagus, and even a four-layered cake with real flowers on top.
I might have only had one stomach, but the oti from the street stall in Etoria had long since evaporated. I was prepared to act the part of at least half a dozen diners.
“Please, sit anywhere you like,” Grith said and waved his hand toward the table.
I made straight for the place setting with the biggest bloody mary on the table. Grith snapped his fingers again, and the waiters emerged to take all the rest of the bloody marys away from the other places at the table and stack them beside the plate I had chosen.
I could get used to this.
Grith sat down directly across from me as I waved away the waiter trying to fill my plate. I’d take the drinks, but I could get my own damn food, please and thank you. As soon as every inch of my plate was covered with food, I raised my glass to Grith.
“To your health,” I said and gulped down the most peppery bloody mary I’d ever tasted. It burned my tonsils on its way down and then floated back up to sting at the backs of my nostrils.
It was wonderful.
The crime lord raised a mimosa to me and nodded. We both started on our food, but from the careful portions he put on his plate, I guessed Grith was having seconds. He didn’t ask me anything when I started eating. More than anything else, that earned my respect.
Never come between a man and his food.
“You’re not going to ask me to take my sunglasses off at the table?” I finally asked through a mouthful of waffle. I was curious.
“I don’t much care what you do with your glasses.” Grith shrugged. “They’re your glasses, aren’t they?”
“I happen to think so,” I agreed and then grinned. “I think you and I are gonna get along just fine.”
“I like your optimism,” the crime lord smiled. His eyes glinted hard again like they had when he snapped in the hangar, and I wondered what he might do to someone who crossed him. After all, he had planted a bomb on a ship just as a test, so there was no telling what he had done to anyone who had made themselves his enemy.
And I didn’t intend to find out.
When I finished my second plate, I leaned back with my drink in hand. The waiters rushed in to replace my dirty plate with a clean one, but I shook my head when they tried to fill it up with food again.
“So,” I exhaled. “I think you might have a job for me.”
“I do,” the carefully mustached crime lord said. “If you’re interested, of course.”
“Of course.” I finished my drink. “So what’s the job?”
“I need you to steal a ship for me,” the crime lord said. He adjusted the purple silk bandana around his
throat.
“Didn’t I already do that?” I grinned and leaned forward again on the table.
“You did, true.” Grith returned my smile.
“But you need me to steal something more difficult,” I guessed.
“You could say that.” He twirled the end of his mustache.
“I think I’ve proven I’m the man for the job, wouldn’t you say?” I took a sip of another drink. I could tell Grith was considering his next words in detail before he spoke them.
“I would say that, yes,” he answered. He glanced at my drink. “Do you want another one? How about eggs? Were they too spicy, or you want something else?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” I pushed the clean plate away from me. “I’d just like to hear about the job.”
“You’re focused. I like that.” Grith pushed his own plate away now.
“When I need to be,” I said with a shrug. “Focused enough to beat your test, anyway.”
Grith waved toward one of his lackeys who was standing at attention against the wall. The man hurried over and bent down beside the crime lord.
“You sure you don’t want anything?” Grith asked me again. I shook my head, so he turned toward the waiter. “We need more salmon. And cream. A lot more cream. After all, this coffee’s not going to drink itself.”
“So what’s the problem?” I asked when Grith finished his order.
“And take the others,” Grith called after the waiter. “I want this all to come back at once.”
Grith waited until all the waiters disappeared and we were alone in the dining hall. As soon as the men were out of earshot, the crime lord leaned toward me across the table and fidgeted with the silk bandana around his throat.
“Finally, we can speak freely,” he sighed. “It’s so hard to find good help these days.”
“You don’t trust your own men?” I raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t trust anyone,” Grith answered and touched his nose. “How else do you think I got to where I am?”
“Well you certainly don’t get to own your own space station by making friends everywhere you go,” I agreed. “So why trust me?”
