Ashore

by Isabelle Adler

  “Do you think they might consider hiring us?” Matt perked up a little at the thought. A contract with the IMA, even a temporary one, would do a lot to boost their ratings with other clients.

  “I don’t know. I guess I can ask around. I know some people who work here, but…” she trailed off, but Matt understood her meaning. Not everybody would be willing to talk to a disgraced ex-colleague.

  “If you could put some feelers out, that’d be great,” he said. “But if it doesn’t pan out, it’s okay. No pressure. There’s always something else waiting in line.”

  Tony nodded, but Matt could still sense her apprehension. He couldn’t blame her for her reluctance to call on favors that were long past their expiration date. He couldn’t bring himself to do the same, after all.

  He patted her on the arm. “Thanks, Tony. I appreciate it. And if any of them are giving you trouble, I’ll whip their snooty asses.”

  “Be careful, or you’ll make Ryce jealous,” she said with a wry smile. “And good luck at the bar. You might pick up on something before I do.”

  Matt grinned back at her and headed toward the exit but found his way blocked by Val, who was waiting for him by the main hatch.

  “I’ll go with you,” the engineer said.

  “Really?”

  Val didn’t usually frequent bars. His favorite pastime was reading (for the most part, 19th- and 20th-century Russian literature), and when he did go out during their many shore leaves, it was prowling junkyards for pieces of equipment.

  “Yeah,” Val said. “Ryce thought it’d be better if we went together. If you do find us a job, I could assess the technical side.”

  “Huh,” was all Matt could say. Val had never once weighed in on the technical plausibility of any of their runs prior to Matt striking the bargain. Usually, he presented Val with a done deal, and any issues would be worked out between them in the process. This was something else, and it hadn’t come from Val. Did Ryce really think Matt needed a chaperon? Did he not trust him enough not to let his eyes and hands wander when on his own?

  Perhaps Matt couldn’t boast a stellar reputation when it came to romantic involvements, but this lack of faith kind of hurt. Granted, three weeks, with most of them spent in space runs, was a short time to garner absolute trust from his new partner, but so far, Matt had given him no cause to doubt his fidelity. Hadn’t he?

  “Okay, fine,” he said, a touch grumpily. “I guess there’s a first time for everything. Let’s get you to a bar.”

  Chapter Two

  THE BROKEN STAIRWAY Canteen was located at the outer ring of the Freeport. It was one of the cheapest on the station, but it was on the larger side, and the huge panoramic windows provided a stunning view of the stars and the blue planet the station was orbiting. Elysium-5, the only terrestrial planet in the system, closely resembled the old Earth in its geological makeup and atmosphere and had at one point been considered a prime destination for colonization. But the water toxicity levels were found to be too high to sustain humans, due to some peculiar compounds secreted by the local flora, and high-water-content planets were notoriously harder to terraform. So, the poorly named Elysium system only hosted human settlers on rocky moons and space stations, until a viable solution could be found for taking over the paradise planet.

  The vista was truly breathtaking, but right now, Matt was more interested in what was going on inside. The bar was open at all hours, with the flow of patrons fluctuating between working shifts and transport arrivals. It was packed, but Matt and Val were lucky enough to find two freshly vacated seats at the end of the counter. Matt swiped the digital countertop and ordered them a couple of beers to start with.

  Val was not the best companion for barhopping. As much as Matt appreciated his insight and companionship, the man was neither chatty, nor a social drinker, so Matt was worried his looming presence would put a damper on other people’s willingness to strike a casual conversation. Besides, it still rankled that Ryce thought he needed someone to hold him back from temptation.

  “I thought we were sitting pretty now we had upgraded the cooling system.” He sighed, his thoughts circling back to their current trouble.

  Val shrugged. “It’s an old ship. It’s always going to be one thing or another.”

  He was right, of course. Matt wouldn’t trade his precious Lisa for anything, but the constant upgrades were eating away at any profit they managed to turn. He prided himself on the ship being extremely fast and maneuverable for a Phaeton-type vessel (which was by and large Val’s doing), but he couldn’t deny the heavy cost of keeping it afloat.

  Matt took a swig of the cheap artificial beer the bartender put in front of him and turned around, letting the background noise of soft music and loud voices wash over him. There was no point in sitting there feeling sorry for himself when he could be doing something useful.

  As always, he picked up strands of conversations from the general din. A sergeant sitting at the nearest table was complaining to her friend about a couple of privates missing one too many tactical drills because of made-up medical emergencies. At another table, a military spacecraft maintenance tech was trying (unsuccessfully, in Matt’s expert opinion) to hit on a bored-looking guy whom Matt pegged as a crew member of one of the passing freight barges. To their right, a man sitting with his back to Matt was telling someone on his comm about an Onorean spacecraft that had entered Dock L28 two hours ago.

  This last tidbit made Matt perk up a bit and listen in more carefully. Ryce was half-Onorean, so any mention of them was bound to arouse his interest. Onoreans rarely ventured outside their closed community, so this was somewhat curious—especially considering how remote and unimportant the Elysium system and its Freeport were. But that particular conversation ended quickly, with the purpose of the Onoreans’ visit remaining a mystery.

  Nothing of what he’d overheard was of any particular use, but Matt filed away any little piece of information that helped him get a better feel of the place. Every station, from tiny maintenance outposts to the city-sized Freeports, had its own distinct vibe, its own unspoken rules, and Matt found that familiarity with the ways of the place was worth the extra effort in the long run. If you treated the right people the right way, they were more amenable to persuasion and more likely to consider him one of their own. In a business where word of mouth was everything, being in the know was of utmost importance.

  “I’ve got to get this done quick,” a low baritone said somewhere on his left, making Matt’s attention snap in that direction. The speaker, a portly gentleman in a green duster coat, was talking to the bartender. There were tiny metal adapters on his temples, much like Matt’s, indicating he was—or at least at some point had been—a pilot. He was holding a glass of something neon-bright and colorful.

  Matt leaned in just a fraction, tuning out the other noises and Val’s presence, and focusing all his attention on the man with a problem and a peculiar taste in drinks.

  “I know I should’ve scheduled it with the station control,” the man said irritably in response to the bartender’s muffed question. “But things had come up unexpected, and now they’re acting like real jerks about it. Say they can’t accommodate a rush request because of the traffic load, or some such nonsense. Bastards.”

  Before the bartender could offer an answer, Matt swooped in, a solicitous smile plastered on his face.

  “Those petty functionaries can be such a drag to deal with, am I right? No consideration for us folks with actual work to do.” He leaned on the counter, gesturing toward the portly man with his beer bottle. “What is it you need to get done, exactly?”

  The man, who’d first appeared to be slightly annoyed at the interruption, nodded, somewhat mollified by the shared sentiment.

  “Our ship was redirected to another dock, but the thing is, we’ve already unloaded some of the cargo,” he grumbled. “It needs to be stored in a different warehouse now, but the station won’t assign us a loading team. And they want it moved
ASAP. Where’s the logic in that? Now, I don’t have the manpower to haul it, and those crates are damn heavy. Another day and they’ll start charging me storage fines. That’s what they do to make an extra cred on our backs, I tell you.”

  Matt clicked his tongue and nodded sympathetically. “Those fines can be killer. But you know what? I might be able to help here. It just so happens my crew and I are between jobs at the moment. We could lend you an extra hand—for a small fee. How many crates did you say you have?”

  “Twelve, about a hundred pounds each.” The man still sounded dubious.

  “That does sound like a lot, but seeing you’re in a jam, my mate and I could be willing to help.” Matt gestured to Val, who grunted by way of agreeing.

  The guy in the green duster sized him up, and, apparently satisfied with Val’s obvious ability to handle heavy loads, nodded.

  “I can’t spare more than five hundred creds on this, though,” he said.

  “Fair enough. So, do we have an agreement, Mr.…?”

  “Tanner,” the man said. “Captain of the Northcott. Hey, if you can have all the cargo sitting in Warehouse S10 by 21:00 hours, you’ve got yourself a deal.”

  They shook hands briefly, and Matt introduced himself. After a few more minutes of meaningless chatter (with Tanner complaining about every circumstance of his business he could think of, and Matt readily agreeing on the awfulness of it all), the other captain excused himself with the promise to send Matt the access codes to the cargo.

  Val waited until Tanner was well out of earshot before turning to Matt and raising his eyebrows.

  “We’re working as dock hands now?”

  “It’s something,” Matt retorted. It wasn’t ideal, but at least it was something they could do in the meantime instead of pointlessly moping around. “Word gets out we’re willing to pick up all those loose-end jobs, and we’ll get more of them. It’s true they don’t pay much, but it all adds up, doesn’t it? And we only need enough to get us running again, anyway. Now, can you get us one of those service forklifts?”

  Val got up with a sigh. “I’ll make some calls, but it’s too noisy in here. I’ll be right back.”

  He made his way toward the exit as Matt swiped the countertop to pay for their drinks. This job wasn’t on his top list of lucrative ventures, but as he’d said, it was something. If he had to scrape for proverbial peanuts to make sure his ship stayed afloat, so be it.

  Matt was about to take out his commlink to call on Ryce and Tony’s assistance, but a large hand closed on his arm above the elbow and yanked him backward, nearly toppling him off his seat.

  Matt spun around, glaring at the unexpected assailant. “Hey, man! What the hell?”

  The other guy let go of his arm but did not step away. He was tall and muscular, with stark white hair that radiated from his head like spikes or a hedgehog’s spines. He stared, unblinking, into Matt’s eyes.

  Matt’s hackles rose. He prided himself on having an excellent preservation instinct, and right now, it was clamoring for him to get as far away and as fast as he could from this guy, ridiculous hair notwithstanding.

  “Captain Spears, is it?” the man said. There was something slightly grating about his voice, like the scrape of metal against metal. “I heard you’ve been doing a bit of business here at the Broken Stairway.”

  “Maybe. What of it?”

  “You’re new here, on the 73,” the man said, “so I’m gonna give you a heads-up. You can haul your shit in space all you want. But you don’t butt in on what goes on around the station. That’s Griggs’s turf.”

  “Oh yeah? And who’s Griggs?”

  “My boss. And trust me, you don’t wanna mess around with him.”

  Unfortunately, Matt had a long and tumultuous history of messing around with people he’d been warned against. While it certainly made life less boring, he preferred avoiding unnecessary trouble when he had no possible escape routes. Five hundred creds weren’t worth getting on a local black-market dealer’s bad side, at least not until Matt had the opportunity to find out if this Griggs fellow was really as influential as Frosty made him sound. Looking at the henchman, though, Matt’s chances didn’t seem promising.

  “Listen,” he said, holding up his hands in a pacifying gesture. In his experience, the best tactic was to play the naïve newbie, agree to everything, and hope to be able to circumvent the imposed restriction later. “I don’t want any trouble. As you said, I’m not from around here. So, how about you give me the lay of the land, and we can see how we can work things out to keep Griggs happy?”

  Frosty opened his mouth to answer, but in the same moment, a hurricane-like force swept him off his feet and threw him to the ground.

  “I’m gonna kill you, you scum!” Val roared, punching the man in the face with bone-shattering force.

  Ignoring the gasps and shouts of the startled patrons around them, Matt jumped off his seat and grabbed Val from behind in a vain attempt to contain him. It was like trying to hold back a spaceship in the middle of an interstellar jump.

  “Val, stop!” Matt yelled in the engineer’s ear, trying to avoid getting elbowed in the face. While he appreciated Val coming to his aid, this went beyond overreacting.

  “Kranty tebe, tvar’! Ublyudok poganyi!” Val responded with a string of curses in Russian questioning the circumstances of Griggs’s unfortunate representative’s birth and his personal hygiene while making a serious effort at beating him into a pulp. However, the other man proved that Matt’s instinctive assessment of him had been correct. In a blur of motion, he twisted out of Val’s vise-like grip and kicked him in the groin. Val hissed in pain and fumbled backward, sending Matt, who was still holding on to him, sprawling on the dingy floor.

  The white-haired man sprang lightly to his feet. Blood was streaming from his broken nose, but it hardly gave him pause. As Val scrambled to get up—fully prepared to lunge again at the other man—an electric blade appeared in Frosty’s hand, glowing blue under the dim lighting. He bared his teeth, giving his bloodied appearance an even more deranged twist.

  Aside from Matt, nobody else in the bar was reckless enough to try to break up the bizarre brawl. The place had emptied at the first sign of trouble. The bartender, crouched behind the counter, was talking to someone on his commlink—most likely station security.

  “You think a knife’s gonna help you?” Val asked with a sudden calm that scared Matt even more than his earlier blind rage. “I’ll tear your heart out with my bare hands, podonok.”

  “Val, for fuck’s sake, stop it!” Matt got back to his feet and stepped between the men, holding his arms out. The hell was going on? This behavior was so unlike Val that his mind boggled. Matt had never seen the engineer be so violent with anybody.

  Val swatted his hand away, his eyes blazing with murderous fury, but he didn’t have the chance to renew the attack.

  “Stop where you are!”

  The responding officer hurried toward them across the empty canteen floor, gun drawn. Two more security guards followed on her heels.

  Frosty’s blade disappeared as quickly as it had come out, and he stepped back, lifting his hands docilely. Blood spattered the front of his gray T-shirt, making it obvious who’d borne the brunt of the assault.

  “Now, officer, there seems to be some sort of misunderstanding—” Matt began, but the security team wasn’t listening. The two guards took hold of Val, slapping a pair of magnetic handcuffs on him. Thankfully, the engineer didn’t resist, but he still didn’t take his eyes off the other guy, his chest heaving with barely contained rage. If looks could kill, Frosty would have been incinerated on the spot, but now, handcuffed and held at gunpoint, all Val could do was glare at him.

  “What’s going on here?” the officer demanded sternly, her gun still at the ready.

  “This crazy fucker attacked me out of nowhere,” Frosty said. “I think he broke my nose.”

  “He did attack him,” the bartender piped in. Matt turned to glower
at him, but the guy ignored him. “These guys were talking, and then he,” he gestured to Val, “just came at him for no reason. Yelled something about killing him. I was afraid he was gonna do it, too.”

  “This what happened?” the officer asked, turning to Matt and Frosty. The other man nodded and made a point of wiping his nose with his sleeve.

  “Now, wait just a moment,” Matt interjected. Everything was going terribly wrong, and it seemed like he was powerless to put a stop to the absurdity of it. “There must be some kind of mistake. I’m sure Val had no intention of hurting this gentleman, right Val?”

  “The hell I didn’t,” Val ground through his teeth. “This bastard killed my wife.”

  “What?” Matt looked at him in confusion. “I thought you’d…I thought that guy was dead.”

  “There were two of them,” Val said. “I never tracked down the other one. Until now.”

  Matt turned to Frosty, but apparently the guy had taken advantage of their momentary distraction and slipped away unnoticed. It happened so fast Matt couldn’t even tell which direction he’d taken. “Damn! Where did he go?”

  “Make sure to find him and take him in for questioning,” the officer told the other guards before holstering her weapon and gesturing to them to lead Val to the exit. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait, where are you taking him?”

  “Protective Services Office. Let him cool off a bit and see if anybody presses charges.”

  Matt was left to watch helplessly as Val was hauled away, still trying to process this new information.

  “Fuck my life.” He wearily rubbed his forehead. The piss beer had not been enough to properly prepare him for handling this kind of fiasco. “And thanks for all your help,” he told the bartender.

  The man threw his hands up. “Hey, don’t look at me. I know better than to screw with the wrong people. It’s more than my life’s worth if I didn’t back him up.”

  “Who is that guy, anyway?” Matt asked.

  He was ready to howl with frustration, but that wasn’t going to help anybody. Having his engineer arrested for battery and disorderly conduct was yet another item on the long list of things he didn’t need right now, and he had to figure out quickly how to get Val out of trouble.