by Troy Osgood
It was an ugly sight.
We broke through the trees and the smuggler’s trail disappeared, fading into the grass of the plains. The wind pushed aside the tall grasses as did the hovercars thrusters and we were able to pick up some speed on the relatively flat ground. I looked back and couldn’t even see the trail. I’d have to remember that location, it could come in handy someday. Good smuggler’s drops were hard to come by as the various planetary law enforcement groups got better and better tech.
I adjusted the path and aimed for the landing dock to the side of the city. I knew there was no way we’d approach undetected and we didn’t have speed and surprise like we did when we left. There was going to be someone waiting for us.
The question was what story would we give them?
We sped across the plains, the sun setting behind the tall buildings casting shadows. We passed in and out of them, the temperature dropping each time with the strips of sun shrinking as the gaps between buildings shrunk. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for the people that lived in the city itself. Did the sun ever actually hit the streets?
Probably not.
Because of the angle, the entire landing dock was covered in shadow. I could make out the shape of the Wind along with a couple new ships and a couple that had been there before. The yacht still stood out from the rest. Still shiny, still fancy, still expensive looking.
And there was the welcoming committee.
Two armored hovercars with official looking markings, some kind of symbol that I didn’t recognize, patrolled the edge of the dock. There was a weapon mounted to the top with an armor wearing Tui manning it. Both vehicles turned towards me, heading at an intercept angle.
I slowed the hovercar and brought it to a stop. Dresla had been looking out to the side and now turned her attention to the two hovercars.
This was going to be fun.
*****
The hovercars stopped about twenty feet away, placing themselves in a way to block me from moving forward and able to give chase quickly if I moved any other direction. Of course the weapons pointing my way were a pretty effective roadblock. The vehicles were armored but still looked faster than what I was driving. The Tuis that I could see, pointing the weapons at us, were fully armored as well. Head to toe. Tall and skinny, not much could be seen of them beyond the fact they were humanoid.
I lifted my hands from the wheel, holding them up so the Tuis could see. Dresla copied my actions.
Armored doors on each hovercar popped open and uniformed Tuis stepped out. Nearly identical. Dark gray uniforms, weapons holstered at their waists. The Tuis were tall, skinny and green skinned. Each a different shade with black eyes and no hair that was visible. They looked emancipated, their skin pulled tight against their bones and muscles.
Another reason that Tui is not a popular planet. The natives aren’t that pleasant to look at.
The uniforms were trimmed in red and black, loose and not form fitting.
“Good thing the pod is registered,” I said with a sigh.
Dresla didn’t react.
The two Tuis walked closer, each coming to a different side of the hovercar. I noticed their hands resting on their blasters.
“Good evening,” the one on my side said in accented Tradelan.
Not a good start.
I’d never had a good interaction with law enforcement on any planet that started with ‘good evening’.
Both sets of eyes searched the inside of the hovercar. Noting both of our holstered blasters, the rifle on the seat behind us, the Daelot that Dresla was still holding and even giving the escape pod strapped to the back a glance.
I started to speak but Dresla was quicker.
“I am a duly appointed law officer of the planet Storw,” she said turning to look at the Tui on my side, the one that had spoken and had to be the one in charge. “This man was assisting me in finding and securing stolen Storwo property,” she held up the Daelot for emphasis.
The two Tuis stood up and exchanged glances, stepping back and coming together to confer. Not what they had expected. They talked quietly for a minute before returning and taking up the same positions except the leader was now on Dresla’s side.
“Identification,” he said holding out a hand, his other still resting on his blaster. “Slowly,” he added unnecessarily.
The Tui on my side tensed up. I tried to project an aura of calm. Which I felt. Having some armed guard ready to draw standing so close to me wasn’t that unusual. He was also standing in a way that I could easily and quickly disarm him if I had to.
Carefully Dresla placed the artifact on the floor and held her right arm up and away from the holster and blaster on that side of her body. With her left hand she reached into an inside pocket of her shirt and pulled out a thin card. I couldn’t see what was written on it as she handed it over. The Tuis took the ID card and pulled a reader out of a pocket, inserting the card.
He spent a quick couple seconds looking the screen over before taking the ID card out and returning it to Dresla.
“Explain yourselves,” the lead officer said.
And Dresla did. She started with the theft of the Daelot on Storw and ended at the roadblock. She was more truthful and gave more information than I would have. But she’s the law officer and I’m the independent freight pilot that sometimes gets involved in shady stuff. It was probably better that she told the story.
Once she was done the two officers stepped back to the front of the hovercar and talked quietly again. I noticed the weapons on the officer’s vehicles were still pointed at us.
“They are fellow officers of the law,” Dresla said watching the two talk. “They will understand.”
Was she trying to convince me or herself?
The two officers returned, the leader on Dresla’s side again. They didn’t speak, not at first, just gave us the glare and stare. Eyes roamed us and the hovercar, stopping on the weapons, studying us. A classic intimidation technique.
“Is there a problem?” I asked. I knew it was tempting fate but I was getting impatient. I wanted off this planet before the Herfto could come up with some kind of revenge plan or make another play for the Daelot.
“Are those weapons licensed,” the officer on my side asked.
Yes and no. My blaster was. The other two, not really.
“Terran registry,” I replied. “As well as Council.”
Not that it would mean much. The problem with so many planets and their own governments was that each had their own laws and lists of banned weapons and objects. Some planets even banned beard shavers. The Planetary Council had a set of guidelines that was supposed to be galaxy wide and accepted but that didn’t happen. Planets chose what to enforce and made changes how they wanted. Yet another example of what a colossal failure the Planetary Council really was.
Their registration was a joke but they still got to take our credits for it.
“The pod is yours?” the Tuis leader asked me, looking past Dresla.
“Yes. Registered to my ship, the Nomad’s Wind.” I looked past them to where I could see the wedge shape of my ship on the dock. They both looked that way and quickly looked back.
“Why did you not contact Yorunital Protectorate,” the one in charge asked focusing on Dresla, cop to cop.
“Time,” she replied, her tone gaining some authority and confidence. This was familiar territory for her. Different police organizations were always getting into pissing contests over territory and arrests. “By the time we would had gotten you involved, the deal would have been finished and the criminals escaped.”
The Tuis officer thought it over for a minute before nodding.
It made sense. There really wasn’t anything he could say to counter it. Bureaucracy was the same no matter what planet you were on.
“If you hurry you can catch the Storwo thief and the Herfto smugglers she was meeting,” I said helpfully.
The lead officer stepped back and motioned to the other. They
once again came together in front and got to talking. I could imagine what was being said. They had every right to hold us, question us further and generally make life miserable. But they had an opportunity now. Who was the bigger prize? Us or the smugglers.
Also how crooked were they?
We had the only evidence that Torsi and the Herfto had been up to anything illegal. If the Tuis went and arrested them, what would be the charge? Would it even matter? They could make something up or just arrest the Herftos and interrogate them until they had the information they wanted.
To some cultures, that was perfectly acceptable.
The conversation ended and only the lead officer returned to our car. To my side this time. The other officer went back to his hovercar and it immediately backed away. It moved past us and the other hovercar, heading the way we had come from. Towards the smuggler’s road.
So far it was going good.
“How much longer do you intend to remain on Tui,” the officer asked, his tone of voice telling me what the correct answer should be.
“I was landing to refuel before all this,” I told him waving my hand back towards the pod. “And now I have to get that thing put back onto the ship. We’re leaving as soon as both those things are done.”
The Tuis stepped back, nodding. He looked towards the forest where the other hovercar was still visible and then towards the Wind.
“Both things need to happen quickly,” he said and walked back towards the other vehicle.
I waited, not moving, until that hovercar was turned back towards the city and about a hundred feet away. Our hovercar lifted up and gained speed slowly. I didn’t bother going too fast, we were close to the dock now and I didn’t want to give the Tuis any reason to mess with us again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Kaylia was waiting outside when we pulled up to the Wind.
The side door was open and she was standing there, pacing back and forth. She at least waited until I had shut off the hovercar and stepped out before running over and throwing her arms around me.
She hugged me tight and I returned it, finally pulling her arms off me.
“Hey kiddo.”
What took you so long?
She looked past me at the hovercar, different from the one we had left in.
Where did you get this?
“Long story but the short answer is that we found Torsi and got the Daelot back,” I replied and pointed at the artifact that Dresla still held.
Was there trouble?
I reached into the hovercar and grabbed the rifle, slinging it over my shoulder. I looked around the dock, out of habit, and saw no eyes on us. I didn’t mind carrying around a blaster in public places, but having a rifle out in the open like this was a bit odd and I felt like it might draw more attention. Or the wrong attention.
“Nothing that we couldn’t handle,” I told her, putting my arm around Kaylia and pulling her in close as we followed Dresla into the ship.
*****
Besides the standard bribe, the cost of fuel was double what I had expected. Had to wonder if the Yorunital Protectorate officers had anything to do with it. I had no choice but to pay and it dipped significantly, and scarily, into my back-up credits. This trip was hurting.
It also cost a lot to get a lifter to help load the escape pod back into its berth on the Wind. Again, more than it should have. Larger ships had systems in place to help load the pods. Not mine. The Castellan designers never bothered with that kind of thing. It took up space that could go towards storage. Besides being able to reload an escape pod ran against the nature of it in the first place. It was an escape pod. When it was launched, it wasn’t meant to go back because there would be nothing to go back to.
Sound reasoning. This was the exception and it was an expensive one.
I had to rent a magcrane with a Tui operator. He at least knew what he was doing. It didn’t take long for the crane to lift the pod and maneuver it back into the bay. The thing that took the longest was me climbing up into the bay and adjusting the Wind’s damaged clamps to hold onto the pod.
The whole thing was going to have to get repaired. The pod and the launching mechanism. More credits than I had or would have for awhile. Didn’t look like it would be getting fixed anytime soon.
I climbed down out of the pod launch bay, squeezing between the pod and the hull. The magcrane had already left, taking most of my emergency credit fund with it. I hopped down, feet touching the metal decking and stretched. There hadn’t been much space around the pod in which to work. As I worked out the kinks and knotted muscles in my back and shoulders I noticed a group of people exit the fancy yacht.
And of course they headed my way.
I’d been expecting this. I had a feeling the yacht belonged to whoever was controlling the Herftos. The style wasn’t that of a business persons. This yacht was all about flash and being noticed. It belonged to someone with money to burn. Businesspeople wanted to look important but not flashy. It really only made sense for this yacht to be here if it belonged to whoever was meeting Torsi.
Turns out I was right.
I adjusted the holster on my hip, glad to still be wearing it. Working in the cramped spaces had been uncomfortable with the blaster on, but I wanted to be prepared.
This was also why I had ordered Kaylia and the Storwo to stay inside the ship.
There was no urgency to their walk, just calm and without a care. Like they were out for a casual stroll. I looked around the dock and didn’t see anyone else around. Wonder how long they had been inside the yacht waiting?
They weren’t in any hurry and neither was I so I leaned against the hull of the Wind and waited.
The front two were Herftos, both wearing a mix of clothing and holstered blasters. Their eyes moved around constantly, taking in everything, but always returning to focus on me. The two in the back were large Guykiks. Big, scaly and humanoid lizards. They made my 6’-0”, 200 pounds, look tiny. Three clawed fingers on each hand, long and ridged tail with the ridges continuing up the back. Wide faces, short snouts and lots of razor sharp teeth. Bright yellow eyes with black slits stared at nothing but me.
Not good. Guykiks were tough bastards. Their scaly hides were pretty impervious to blaster fire. It took a lot to knock one of them down. That’s why they were the favorite thug of a lot of criminals. The Guykiks were just muscle.
The being in the middle was the important one.
A Divut.
Humanoid, basically. Two legs, two arms, a head. Pale pinkish skin, backwards jointed knees that gave it an odd walk. Legs that ended in two large toes in front and one large in the back. Arms ended in wrists that attached to the hands perpendicularly so there were three fingers on one side and two on another, kind of like a pincer. The head was large, almost too large for the body. Wide at the top with a wedged shaped flat ridge of bone, small and dark eyes and a mouth hidden by tentacles that hung down onto it’s chest.
This Divut wore pretty fancy and expensive clothes. Just like the yacht. Almost too flashy and both said how rich he was. But then when you had two Guykiks and a herd of Herfto on your payroll, broadcasting how rich you were wasn’t a big deal.
Without showing it, I tensed up and got ready to move. I still leaned against the hull, but my hand lowered a little closer to the blaster where I could get it quicker and my boot slid a bit to the left to get a more solid connection for when I might need to push off.
The two Herftos moved to the side, the Guykiks staying behind their boss. The Divut stopped in front of me. The head moved up and down, examining me.
“You must be Captain Lancer,” he said in Tradelan. The voice was bubbly, the tentacles quivering as he talked.
“And you are?”
I glanced at the two Herftos. They were a couple feet away, just barely in my line of sight. If they shifted a bit, I’d lose them both and really have to turn my head away from one or the other. But they didn’t, they just stood there. Dumb or were they ordered to sta
nd like that?
“You may call me Gur,” he said with a slight bow.
Because of the small eyes and the tentacles, a Divut is hard to get a read on. You can learn a lot about a person by their eyes and how the face moves when they talk. Not so much with a Divut. Was this guy angry? Curious?
“Let me guess,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Bet you’re the guy that bought the Storwo artifact.”
He started to say something but I purposefully interrupted him. He had come to me, trying to do this on his terms and under his control. It was time to show him that he wasn’t in control.
“Did you get your money back or was it non-refundable?”
The tentacles twitched in a way that I took for annoyance.
“How much did you pay for that thing anyways?”
There was more twitching of the tentacles. Definitely agitated.
I smiled.
Gur took what I figured was the Divut version of a deep breath before starting to speak. He paused, waiting to see if I would interrupt. When I didn’t, he continued.
“That was my transaction that you interfered with.” He took a step forward, leaning in. Was he trying to be intimidating? “I was just curious why you did so?”
I shrugged.
“Something to do.”
Gur made a strange sound. He stepped back, hands coming up and shaking, the fingers coming together. I think he was laughing. Whatever it was stopped and he got serious again. This time I knew he was trying to intimidate me.
“You are a funny man Captain Lancer but maybe not a smart one. You should not have interfered with my business dealing. I am not someone that you want to make an enemy of.”
“Are you?”
That question caught him by surprise. The Herfto and Guykiks too. They weren’t used to someone talking to their boss this way. They all had shocked expressions, or what passed for shocked on their various faces.
