Planet Eaters (Galaxy Mavericks Book 8)

by Michael La Ronn

  “Hmm,” Miller said.

  “Lot of people usually stay. Not worth the effort of having to wake up a dormant ship. When you moor them like this and then revive them, it puts a lot of stress on the engines.”

  “How long does the average tenant stay here?” Miller asked.

  “Couple of years.”

  “Then where do they go?”

  “Another marina. Or sometimes they sell the ships to others who are looking for a place to go live.”

  “Do you have any records of who Miss Sharma bought her ship from?”

  “We don't ask those kind of questions,” Edmund said.

  Miller sighed. “All right. Let's go ahead and open her up.”

  Miller knocked on the bay doors.

  “Miss Sharma, this is Special Agent Ryan Miller. I need to speak to you regarding some important matters. Please open up.”

  Silence.

  Miller studied the windows. The lights were off. Nothing stirred inside the house.

  Miller knocked again.

  “Miss Sharma?”

  Silence.

  “I've got a warrant, and I'm coming in whether you open up or not,” Miller said.

  He knocked one last time.

  “Miss Sharma, as a fellow GALPOL agent, you understand the importance of opening the door.”

  Silence.

  Miller motioned to Edmund, who walked up to the door with a keycard. Miller scanned it.

  The bay doors hummed, then opened up.

  Miller and Edmund jumped back.

  Ahead lay a dark airlock.

  Miller drew his handcoil.

  “Wait here,” he said.

  Miller advanced into the dark airlock, his gun at the ready. He moved slowly, expecting anything.

  In all his years in the force, he knew to be ready for anything. Whether it was a criminal hiding in the shadows or an elephant in a tutu, anything could happen.

  His instinct drew him to the wall. He hugged it and moved slowly along. He slid a flashlight from his pocket and used the light to help him.

  He scanned the darkness.

  The airlock was empty aside from a lawn chair and a water bottle on the floor that was half empty.

  Miller picked up the bottle.

  Warm as a summer day.

  He reached the end of the airlock and found a door that led into a salon.

  A circular window near the top of the door was covered with a blanket.

  He tried to peer through but couldn't see.

  He put his hand on the door handle, counted to three, and pushed it open. He put his back to the wall, expecting gunshots or movement as the door creaked open.

  Silence.

  He maneuvered his way safely into the salon, staying close to the ground.

  The salon was the emptiest he'd ever seen.

  There wasn't even a television.

  The countertops in the kitchen were caked in dust and the area smelled slightly musky and mildewy.

  He swept the area with his flashlight.

  Completely empty except for a worn cloth couch that was ripped in several places.

  Miller paused, taking in the area.

  Shit, new GALPOL agents didn't make much money, but this was pathetic. He was seriously going to chat with the chief about pay raises next time they spoke.

  This kid lived like a dog. Like a dog that didn't want to be found.

  He saw a bedroom and crept into it. A lone, solitary bed dominated the room. The sheets were messy and hung onto the floor.

  Three standard-issue GALPOL uniforms hung in the closet, perfectly pressed, still wrapped in dry cleaners’ plastic.

  At least she got that part right.

  Seeing nothing in the bedroom, he moved back into the salon.

  He checked the engine room. Nothing.

  He checked the cockpit. Nothing.

  Opened all the cabinets and any doors that someone might be able to hide in. Nothing. No one.

  Once he assured himself that the area was clear, he tucked his gun on his belt and kept the flashlight in one hand.

  “Well, Miss Sharma,” he said quietly, “let's see what you might know.”

  There wasn't much to search.

  What he did find, was irrelevant. Documents and papers related to certain cases she was working on.

  But no evidence of Tavin Miloschenko.

  Nothing that could point to a motive.

  Miller put his hands on his hips, took one last look around the ship’s interior.

  So much for this search.

  Something didn't add up.

  He remembered Tavin Miloschenko’s dead body. The knife wound in his gut.

  Why would a GALPOL agent stab someone to death? For better or worse, GALPOL agents lived and died by the handcoil. A knife would have been too messy. Especially for someone in a detective unit.

  Shouldn't they have known that fingerprints would have transferred too easily to a knife? Shouldn't they have known not to leave a murder weapon at the scene of the crime?

  Some agents were dumb as cardboard, but not even the dumbest GALPOL meatheads would make that mistake.

  Not if they wanted to spend the rest of their lives on Defestus.

  He stroked his chin.

  Just didn't make any sense.

  He wasn't so sure that his assumptions were correct. But he wasn't so sure they weren't, either.

  He had the evidence.

  The knife.

  And on that knife, clear as could be, were Devika Sharma’s fingerprints.

  He couldn't ignore that.

  No GALPOL superior or prosecuting attorney would ever let him ignore that.

  He started to walk out of the ship when something caught his eye.

  A photograph tacked to the wall.

  A woman. Caucasian, late forties, early fifties. Brown hair with a streak of gray. Glasses. Gentle smile.

  He'd done his homework on Sharma’s past. The woman must have been Sharma’s adopted mother.

  Made sense.

  As he walked off the ship, he tried to figure out the best way to contact Mary Williams to let her know that her daughter was a murder suspect.

  9

  Smoke waited out the sandstorm in the corner of the shelter he built.

  He sat, back to the wall, legs pulled up against his chest, with a handkerchief over his mouth and a pair of goggles over his eyes.

  The wind lashed at the shelter.

  Fffp! Fffp! Ffffp!

  The wind howled.

  The wind roared.

  He’d never heard anything like it in his life. It was like a tornado out there. And all the while, sand.

  Sand everywhere.

  Sand.

  Sand.

  Building up on the floor, like his shelter was a huge hourglass that someone tipped over. It started as a little pyramid, but it was almost up to his ankles now. Meanwhile, the dark brown sky outside flashed as striated whirlwinds passed over the settlement.

  The sandstorm was a thunderstorm without rain, a rainstorm without water. The entire desert rumbled, shifted, submitted to its power. Several times Smoke thought his shelter would collapse, but it held.

  He spit out sand. Even with the handkerchief over his mouth, sand still got in. It gritted against his teeth, and no matter how much he spit, he couldn’t get it out, and he couldn’t stop his mouth from drying out.

  He wanted to reach for water.

  No.

  If he opened his water bottle now the whole thing would be polluted.

  He swallowed, winced as the sand spread across his mouth.

  A strong gust ripped through the window and blew his handkerchief. It flapped against his skin and stung him. He tucked his head further into his chest.

  This place was hell.

  He preferred the jail ship. Even the worst penitentiary was better than this. At least they fed you there. At least you had a real roof over your head.

  The wind lashed the shelter again. More sand
spilled into the room. The howling swelled to a deafening crescendo.

  And then, it stopped.

  The sky brightened. The sand stopped spilling. The howling slowly whirled away and then vanished. The air grew warmer. Hot. Blazing hot.

  Smoke looked up. Through the square window in his shelter, he saw gray sky again. Boots crunched against the sand.

  He took of his handkerchief and downed his bottle of water. Then he wiped the sand and sweat from his face and emerged from the shelter, squinting.

  The sands had shifted. The shelters were covered in it, and it looked as if the dunes were trying to swallow what everyone had just built.

  “Damn, that was rough,” someone said.

  “You all right, Smoke?” someone else asked.

  Smoke nodded as the prisoners surrounded him.

  “Hope you all had time to think about your sins,” someone said.

  “Get the brooms. Start sweeping,” Smoke said. “You. Cook something. You. Organize the supplies. You. Laundry. You. Get out of my sight. You. Help him get out of my sight.”

  Smoke watched as the prisoners scattered and began their new chores. He grabbed a broom from his shelter and started sweeping his front step.

  He swept robotically, without thinking. As the hot sun burned down on him, he calculated that most of the gang’s time would be spent reclaiming the settlement from the sands. That storm lasted approximately thirty minutes. He hoped to God there wasn’t going to be another one. One storm a day was enough. Wouldn’t be long before some men started dying. Not a problem, as long as it wasn’t him.

  He sized up the men in the camp, rated them from strongest to weakest, gave them secret superlatives.

  “Hey, boss,” someone said.

  Smoke turned around and saw Most Likely to Cry When Sucker-Punched waving at him.

  “What?”

  “We’re running out of supplies,” Sucker-Punched said. “We don’t have enough materials to build shelters for at least five guys.”

  “Those five will sleep with you until we have supplies,” Smoke said. “Start sweeping.”

  A tattooed man whistled. He stood over a trough of water and wrung out a worn shirt.

  “First come, first serve laundry!” Most Likely to Die First said.

  Smoke pointed at two men, then he pointed at the trough. The men ran over in an instant.

  “Don’t waste water,” Smoke said to Die First. “Waste even a drop, and your head is mine.”

  “Sure you don’t want to go first?” Die First asked.

  Kiss ass.

  Smoke threw the broom like a javelin. It struck Die First in the head and he flew backward into the sand.

  “Ouch!”

  Smoke walked over to him quietly and leisurely. He picked up the broom.

  “If I wanted to go first, I would have gone first,” he said.

  “Sorry, boss…”

  Smoke turned to walk away. All of the prisoners backed away fearfully.

  Then he returned to his step and start sweeping again. Silence fell across the settlement, except for the measured sounds of sweeping.

  Smoke almost lost himself in the silence when someone called him again.

  “Boss! Boss!”

  At the edge of the settlement, a man was sweeping sand off the roof of a shelter. He pointed to the sky.

  Smoke squinted, but he saw it.

  High in the sky, brown specks in the clouds.

  He knew it intuitively even though he’d only seen it once.

  “It’s a drop!” someone cried.

  “Round up!” Smoke said.

  Two pickup trucks were stationed under a corrugated lean-to, with several canisters of gasoline stacked next to them. Smoke hadn't seen them before.

  The keys were in the ignition, and tied to them was a note.

  Our gift to you fucktards. —Tara

  So maybe she was a good one after all.

  Or maybe not.

  Maybe there was some advantage Tara received for him having a truck. A future advantage. He still hadn't had the chance to visit the other settlements in this place.

  Somehow the trucks didn't seem like a blessing.

  He grabbed the nearest man by the shirt collar.

  “You. Get in.”

  “Got it!”

  The man, a burly black man, turned the keys in the ignition and the truck roared to life.

  Smoke climbed onto the pickup bed. He pointed to several men and directed them into the trucks. Several men joined him.

  “Drive,” Smoke said, “Now.”

  He put his handkerchief over his mouth and his goggles over his eyes.

  The men revved the trucks.

  “Let's hope there's some food in those crates!” a man shouted, pumping his fists.

  Smoke held on as the trucks sped across the desert.

  The brown specks became crates with parachutes, drifting through sky like leaves in the wind.

  Smoke kept his eyes on the crates.

  They were windward, but they would land in a few minutes. And when they did, he didn't want to be in their way.

  The trucks revved and the other men cheered.

  “Gonna get some food!” one cried.

  “I'm hungrier than a motherfucker,” another said.

  Smoke said nothing and kept his eyes on the crates.

  A thick set of clouds scudded across the sky, colored brown by remnants of the sandstorm.

  The crates hovered closer to the ground. Smoke could see the parachutes billowing in the wind now.

  He scanned the horizon.

  No one.

  Nothing for miles. Just gray sky and sand.

  The crates neared the ground and as they did, they seemed to pick up speed.

  The first crate slammed into the sand, and the men cheered.

  All across the area, the crates landed.

  Smoke told the drivers to speed up, and soon they were upon the field of crates just as the last one touched down.

  The trucks stopped.

  Smoke hopped off the pickup.

  He held up a hand, and the men stopped and quieted.

  The wind howled. The crates’ parachutes rippled and flapped.

  He looked into the sky, made sure there was nothing else coming.

  Far, far above, some officer was probably remarking about how desperate the prisoners on Defestus were.

  What kind of bastard could drop all these supplies on this planet with a clear conscience, knowing the prisoners would fight over them like dogs?

  “Boss, what's the matter?” someone asked.

  Most Likely to Die Second stood next to him. Looked like a methhead. Bad skin, sores all over.

  “What are we waitin’ for?” Die Second asked.

  Smoke looked across the field of crates.

  “It's quiet,” Smoke said.

  “Let's grab these damn crates before another gang gets ‘em!”

  Another gang.

  Where was Tara?

  Why weren't her people here, picking up the drop?

  Were there other drops he didn't know about, all over the continent?

  Didn't seem right.

  He retreated toward the pickup, pointed at the crates and told the men to go.

  Like a swarm, the prisoners descended upon the crates, breaking them open with crowbars.

  “Water, baby!” Die First said, holding up a freshly-wrapped pack of water bottles. “And there's peanuts, chicken, spices, and candy bars. We hit the jack pot!”

  Die First held up a candy bar and pointed to Smoke.

  “Have one, boss!”

  Smoke prepared to catch as Die First swung the candy bar a few times, practicing an arc.

  Then he released the bar.

  A shiny, orange wrapper glinted in the sun as it twirled through the air.

  Smoke raised his hand to catch.

  The candy bar spun and flipped in the wind.

  Smoke took a few steps forward to compensate.

&nb
sp; The bar fell.

  And fell.

  And fell.

  And then a giant shadow appeared under the sand, like a whale emerging from depths of a dark ocean.

  In a split-second, Smoke saw it, and pulled his hand back.

  A giant lamprey exploded from the sand and engulfed the candy bar.

  With its tail, it struck one of the pickups, denting it and crushing two men who were standing on the back.

  The lamprey roared, twelve rows of sharp teeth gnashing. It didn't have eyes, and its skin was a sandy, rough membrane. It stood ten feet tall.

  Smoke drew his handcoil.

  Fucking Tara.

  Die First started to run but the lamprey dipped toward the sand and crushed him in its jaws, swallowing him whole.

  The men screamed and scattered.

  More lampreys burst out of the sand, rearing their ugly heads, their sickly skin and their sharp teeth.

  “Run!” someone cried.

  Smoke grabbed a nearby crate and threw it on the back of the pickup. He climbed onboard and screamed to Sucker-Punch to drive.

  The men yelled and screamed as the lampreys attacked them. Others grabbed whatever crates they could and ran for the pickups.

  Sucker-Punch reversed and dashed in the opposite direction, toward the settlement.

  The other pickup truck followed, but slower.

  “Hurry up!” Smoke yelled.

  But one of the axles was dented from where the lamprey attacked it.

  A lamprey began to chase the damaged truck.

  “Shit, they don't stand a chance,” someone said.

  Smoke knew a losing battle when he saw one.

  “Drive faster,” he yelled. “Leave them.”

  “What about the others?” Sucker-Punch asked.

  “Screw the others,” Smoke said.

  “But we can't leave ‘em—”

  WHACK!

  Smoke swung into the open window on the back of the cab and sucker-punched the man. Sucker Punch cried.

  Then Smoke opened the truck door, and threw him out into the sand. He stomped on the accelerator, pushing the truck up to max speed.

  In the rearview mirror, he watched as the lamprey smashed the other pickup, drowning it in sand. It stopped and devoured the men one by one.

  All across the sands, the other lampreys broke open the crates and devoured the food.

  But at the edge of the field, Smoke spotted another pickup—another group of people, darting between the lampreys and grabbing whatever crates they could. They were scooping up the crates easily, benefitting from the distraction.