From there, she fumbled through her pellet rack as leviathan bats scrabbled madly at the hole. She got a close up of their hairy, slimy mouths and was slapped in the face by their foul breath. Clutching a red pill, Charley rolled it underneath the bats into the cavern. It was what she hoped it would be - a very light incendiary. It ignited several of the bats in flight, bringing them down in a cacophony of grunting. It scared others, increasing their panic and causing them to bump into each other. Charley followed up with a white pellet which quickly released a thick cloud of cloying smoke. The abrasive air particles rose to the ceiling of the cavern, choking the bats but leaving Charley relatively unharmed. The bats at the hole retreated. Charley took a deep breath and watched as the bat colony turned on each other, driven mad by her various toxins. As she considered her next move, she remembered that she hadn’t yet called the Galactic Office of Names. She swore vehemently as she hauled herself back down the passage. She hoped she hadn’t missed a golden opportunity to get across that cavern.
Blinking in the bright sunlight, Charley dusted herself off and contacted the relevant authority via her wrist pad. She was greeted with drop shaft music for a good ten minutes before an actual person deigned to talk to her. She spent the time pacing up and down after checking that the DC23 was okay.
Charley was taken aback by the use of her name, but guessed it was transmitted with her wrist pad ID.
“Yes, I want to change my name please,” she said. “I just discovered I’m the daughter of a deceased man.”
“I’m sorry Miss Walker, but without valid authorization I cannot enact any changes to your official details.”
“Oh sure, just a moment,” Charley said brightly, scrambling over to the DC23. She opened the trunk and grabbed Silverton’s gray hand. The smell was terrible.
“Ready when you are,” she reported.
“Transferring fingerprint,” Charley said, pressing Silverton’s decaying thumb into her wrist pad. She waited with bated breath while it was processed at the other end.
Charley was gobsmacked. On one hand she was elated to be a Silverton, daughter in spirit to the pirate lying in the trunk before her. On the other hand, what kind of civilization allowed such an easy change of identity? They didn’t even ask how Charley had gotten hold of the body. She made a mental note to leave instructions that she be cremated when she died.
“Well, yes actually,” she stammered. “May I have access to my father’s last will and testament?”
“And to you,” Charley said absently, waiting for her wrist pad to ping. When it did she couldn’t open the incoming document fast enough. Many of the contents were quite strange, and included snippets of bad poetry and some kind of pirate haiku. It seemed Silverton was a sentimental man, leaving various favorite possessions with lovers of the past. Charley made a list of the things she needed to leave alone once in the loot cache. One of the very last lines of the document contained exactly what she needed - the access code to the cache.
“Bingo bango,” she said triumphantly as she memorized the number.
Charley needed another drink from the trickle before she entered the cave. She hoped it wasn’t contaminated by the toxins she’d spread throughout the inner cavern. She climbed back into the tunnel with a heavy sigh. At the far end of the crawl space she checked her blasters - both were back online. Another flash bang painted the walls with light. Most of the colony was either critically injured or had retreated into cracks in the wall. Charley stood confidently, dispatching the last few with precise blasts aided by the targeting computer. The visor was only useful when there were a handful of targets. A stampeding horde and the reaction time was better spent trying to get the fuck out of the way. Finally the last bat went down with a mournful shriek. Charley was free to step forward and check out the security panel on the far wall. She entered the code with greedy anticipation. A thick steel door opened noiselessly and lights flickered on in the next room.
Charley beamed as she walked into Pirate Silverton’s loot cache. The first thing she noticed was piles of money. Intergalactic credits mostly, but exotic currencies from far-flung places too. Bags, cases, clips, digital dispensers. Credits galore. More than enough to send Charley halfway across the galaxy to live it up in some beachside hotel for six months. But she’d made a promise. Worse still, she’d made a promise to a pirate. Something told her that such promises carried weight. Sure, Silverton was dead now, but Charley had a keen sense of justice and instinctively knew that crossing a pirate was bad fucking energy. It may not come back to bite her, but there was always the possibility. She didn’t want that hanging over her head. So she would leave the money alone and loot everything else she could. And there were some seriously weird objects in Silverton’s loot cache.
For starters, there were the manaquettes. Sex dolls from gods knew where. It seemed Silverton had quite the perverse streak. Either that or he had simply traveled alone for much of his career in deep space.
There were six manaquettes in total, most of them dressed in garish sex garb that seemed impractical even for a manaquette. The sixth lifelike figure was different. For whatever reason, Silverton had dressed that one in a practical utility suit. No, more than that. Charley gave a low whistle as she touched the jet black fabric. It felt expensive. Light and tactile but extremely tough at the same time. Charley activated the holotag at the base of the neck. It was from a production house called DSM, or Deep Space Merc. The tag claimed the suit was heat, cold and toxin resistant. The style was classic and non-demonstrative. Simple, elegant lines. Charley thought she’d try it on and was gratified to see it fit snugly around her pert frame. The zipper even allowed her to expose just enough cleavage to gain the advantage over most men.
Nodding in satisfaction, Charley moved on to see what else was in the cache.
Apart from the money, Silverton had amassed quite a gallery of exoticana over the course of his life. There were idols of all kinds - animalistic, shamanistic, cosmonautic, cybernetic. Silverton clearly had a fascination with the various cults and religions across the galaxy. She got the impression that pirate lore borrowed from a number of belief systems, adapting them all to its own particular philosophy. The main thing she learned from this loot cache was that a pirate hoarded idols and totems like other people kept photographs - they told the story of the pirate’s life.
Still, Silverton hadn’t mentioned anything about totems and idols. As far as Charley was concerned they were all fair game. She piled them all into a bag, ready for transferal to the D23. She wondered how much money she’d get from them.
Further back in the loot cache Silverton had stored a variety of weapons and armor, just as Charley had hoped. She didn’t find a saber exactly like the one she’d been forced to sell in Zeba, but she did lift something possibly even better. It was a scimitar, deadly and curvaceous. It probably demanded a different technique to the saber, but it was much lighter and it hefted more naturally in Charley’s right hand. It sliced through the air like the saber had done and Charley suspected it was of the highest quality. Better still, it came with a sheaf so it wouldn’t cut Charley to pieces as she walked around. She found a basic utility belt and slid the deadly scimitar into the band at her hip, just behind the right blaster holster. She even found a custom pellet rack to attach to the belt. It felt so good to gear up.
16
There were multiple pieces of armor but Charley suspected they were too big for her. It was common for pirates to wear armor pieces over their utility suits like the ancient warriors did many centuries before. There were titanium gauntlets, br
eastplates, boots, greaves and pauldrons. All of it could be shield-activated also. Silverton must’ve seen a lot of close quarters action.
Charley wasn’t planning on getting so close to the enemy any time soon. She took the boots and pauldrons for salvage but the rest was too heavy.
Finally, the weapons. Silverton kept a weapons rack at the rear of his cache. Unsurprisingly for a man with so much battle armor, the pirate favored short range weapons. High-powered quantum pistols, very expensive. Snub-nosed shotguns. Flamethrowers. The only medium range weapon was a murderous looking RD47 assault rifle with rotating ammo chamber. Charley slung that over her shoulder.
Dragging the bag back through the crawl space wasn’t easy but she wasn’t about to leave any loot behind. After stowing the bag in the back of the D23, she had a promise to keep. She dragged Silverton’s corpse rather unceremoniously over the boulders to the cave entrance. By that stage she was baking in the sun and needed more of the water trickle. It took about twenty minutes of awkward pulling and dragging to get Silverton into the loot cache. Luckily the leviathan bats seemed to have retreated for good.
Charley laid Silverton to rest on a bed of credit chips, just like he would’ve wanted. A tear squeezed itself from her eye and she brushed it away. She didn’t really know him after all. But a life so well lived was something to be respected.
“Thanks, Silverton,” she said softly as she shut the cache door, probably forever.
She was still feeling a little vulnerable as she made her way back to the rock crawler. FIGJAM seemed to sense her mood and had the good sense to keep quiet.
Sitting behind the wheel of the throbbing D23, Charley considered the journey ahead. She more than likely had the means to buy a ticket on one of the long haul cargo freighters that left from Spacetown. She didn’t really care where she went at this stage, just that it was away from Abeyas. Silverton had mentioned something about a man who could possibly teach her a few things. That seemed a reasonable way to start. She wasn’t going to get anywhere if she didn’t have a particular survival skill. Besides, she was armed to the teeth. It would be such a waste if she didn’t at least learn how to protect herself properly.
And as for a becoming a pirate? Well, she would at least visit Silverton’s friend and see what happened from there. Seeing the old pirate laid out in his chosen resting place had made her feel strangely flat. Did she really want to be a pirate? What kind of life saw a person feel the need to entomb themselves with their unspent riches? It just seemed like a lonely existence. Then again, Charley didn’t have to follow Silverton’s example to the letter. She could put her own stamp on what it meant to be a pirate. Feeling a little better, she turned on some music and threaded her way north through the gorge. Her nav map suggested there were a string of settlements on the far side of the Dusty Mountains. From there she could swing east in a wide loop to reach Spacetown. Or so she hoped.
The gorge thinned into a tricky descent. The path was jagged and perilous as it spiraled back down to the northern plains. Charley took the road carefully, glad that the D23 was built for exactly this type of terrain. Within three hours she had negotiated the worst of the downward run and was cruising through rolling foothills once more.
“You need fuel, baby,” cooed FIGJAM from his position on the backseat. “This desert has sucked your titties dry.”
“Thanks for the report, asshole,” Charley muttered, but the PalBot was right. One of these northern outputs had better have some fuel or she was toast. She couldn’t bear the thought of trying to scrounge another transport.
The first of the settlements she encountered was just a fineli transfer station. Fineli were large birds that ran the salt pans in this part of the world. They were farmed for their rather dry and stringy meat.
Charley pressed on, hoping to have more luck at the next town. Ondego had what looked to be a fuel depot, but it was manned by a bunch of men with the predatory look of gangers. No thanks. Since Charley wasn’t able to switch off the D23 without losing Tando’s activation, she didn’t want to turn her back on the thing with men like that hanging around. With fuel running desperately low, Charley rolled into a small fuel depot that looked abandoned. It turned out to be a family operation. An elderly lady with a freakish set of teeth loaded a few rusty looking fuel cells while her husband assaulted Charley with his breath. Charley passed on one of Silverton’s jade trinkets for the fuel. It was overs but she was keen to be on the road again. She also bought a drum of water and some tarbor jerky. It was a concentrated protein that would keep her going until she got to Spacetown.
Charley drove until dusk settled. It was well known that driving on the salt pans at night was a dangerous activity. Too many bandits and sand skinks.
Charley rolled to a halt under a lonely mesa and killed her lights.
“Is this where we fuck?” FIGJAM asked solemnly as Charley pushed the driver’s seat back and prepared to sleep.
“Play your cards right and you won’t be left in pieces on the fucking salt pan,” she snarled, tempted to simply turn the thing off.
“Fine, have it your way,” the robot muttered.
Charley closed her eyes and dreamed of what she would find once she finally lifted off this hellhole. Presently a rustling sound drew her attention. It was rhythmic and close.
“FIGJAM?” she asked nervously. “Are you trying to jerk off!?”
“Just getting comfortable,” came the defensive reply.
“You do know you don’t have any sexual organs, right?”
The PalBot snorted. “Semantics,” it said with a sad tone.
Charley shook her head in wonder and rolled over. Amazingly, the throb of the prop bulb felt comforting and she was asleep within a minute.
The dawn sun woke her, bright and piercing through the D23’s broken windshield. And the cabin was cold. Damn cold. Rubbing her arms, Charley prepared to continue on her way.
“Morning, gorgeous,” said the PalBot brightly. “I feel we got off on the wrong foot. Can we start again?”
Charley eyed the little robot warily. “Sure,” she said. “Why the sudden change?”
“Ah, nuttin’” came the cagey reply. “I like it when you’re facing me. I like the way your nipples poke through that smokin’ jumpsuit.”
Charley gasped and checked herself out. It was true - the jumpsuit was extremely good quality but the sheer material didn’t leave anything to the imagination. She realized the idea was to wear protective underwear underneath the utility suit. But the sun was climbing and there were hundreds of miles to travel today. She could change at Spacetown. Glaring at FIGJAM, she took a mouthful of water from the drum.
“I totally wish that nozzle was my penis,” it said in a serious tone.
It took Charley less than a second to shut the infuriating PalBot down. In blissful silence she continued on her way, tackling the shimmering salt pans with renewed determination.
17
The journey southeast was long yet uneventful. Charley stopped at a small settlement right out the front of a street hawker selling delicious meat sticks. Charley had no idea whether it was scavenge meat or something more palatable but it tasted wonderful nonetheless. Or maybe she was just damned hungry.
The next two hours saw her pass increasingly inhabited terrain. There seemed to be a number of moisture farms north of Spacetown. The city itself rose in the distance like a mirage. First, the port dome shimmering like a magic sphere. It looked huge even from this distance. The rest of the city lay further to the east, a hazy skyline of minarets and towers. Someone once told her that Spacetown held close to half a million people. Charley couldn’t imagine so many people crowded into one location. She felt nervous just thinking about it.
Before long the port dome loomed to her right as she took a thoroughfare through the city’s northern limits. The road was thick with speeders and utility haulers, most of them heading away from the city. Charley checked her wrist pad - early afternoon. The rental on her wrist pad
was about to expire, so she made a mental note to have her access replenished once in town.
The low garages and farm supply dealerships to either side gave way to larger tenements. Before long Charley was traveling down a busy street right into the center of Spacetown. She felt intimidated by the neon billboards and the towering res blocks on all sides. The sidewalks were awash with all kinds of people. Hookers, pimps, hustlers, dealers, cryjacks, lurkers, borgs, monks, urchins, runners, mercs. All manner of scum available for hire or rent. As the capitol of Abeyas, and the door through which all interstellar travel flowed, Spacetown had a particularly dirty reputation for sin. Sex and violence were both bought and sold on a regular basis. Charley drove slowly through the milling traffic, awed at the various sights and sounds of the city. She saw large bands of patrolmen wandering the streets and remembered the gossip of Zeba. Maybe it was true that the planetary authorities were cracking down on crime and poverty? Charley had no idea how they planned to do that but she was hoping to be gone before it became a potential issue for her.
Exhausted, Charley looked for a hotel symbol and pulled into the shadowy garage underneath a three star building. She killed the D23 when she found a place to park. It had served her extremely well but she had to let it go. She figured she’d be able to reach the port dome by shuttle when the time came. Hauling her water and gear with some difficulty, Charley checked in and slumped to the queen size bed with immense relief. She’d made it to Spacetown!
There was a metallic thunk and then a whirring sound across the floor.
“Where you going, FIGJAM?” she asked with irritation. The fucker had crawled out of her treasure bag.
“Just scopin’ the joint …” came the reply. The robot stopped at the window that overlooked the street.
“What are you looking for?” Charley asked.
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