by George Ellis
I hate guns. And not only when they’re aimed at me, which happens more often than I’d like. There’s just something lazy about a gun. Any idiot can pick one up and start blasting away. Even if you have terrible aim, as I learned long ago that I did, guns create more problems than they solve.
Next to the soldiers, a stocky, balding officer regarded me with cold eyes. Jeffries.
“Denver Lamar Boyd,” he said, correctly stating my name, as if I should be impressed. He looked me up and down. “Say, you out of diapers yet?”
That was not a new one. I got age jokes all the time from people, and the diaper jokes were a favorite. Usually they came from people underestimating me because of my age. They saw a teenage boy. What they didn’t see was that I probably had more life experience than they did. I could’ve made a joke about how short he was or that his combover was more obvious than his diaper comment, but it wasn’t worth it.
So we all stood there waiting for what came next. I scratched my ear, then checked to make sure my shoelaces were tied. The only other time a fed had ever used my full name, he was a judge sentencing me to two years’ probation for transporting illegal animals and robots. It’s a long story.
I considered giving Gary the order that would instantly release a localized electromagnetic pulse inside the confines of the airlock, rendering the guns trained on me useless. They were standard issue firearms with electronic triggers and palm recognition. Once the guns’ circuits were fried, the soldiers would basically be holding hunks of plastic. I guess they could try throwing them at me.
The EMP would be followed a thousandth of a second later by a chemical fog that would knock everybody in the room out cold. Except me, as I had built up immunity to the fast-acting barbiturate. I got the idea from an episode of Batman, a campy TV series I’d seen starring a cheesy guy who thought he was some kind of bat.
I simply had to say the words “Holy fog, Batman” to get the process started. Sure, I could have chosen a shorter trigger, but I liked staying true to the TV show, and the catchphrase would only confuse people more, stunning them for a moment before the gas floored them.
Perhaps sensing there was a reason I had remained so calm with multiple guns pointed at me, Jeffries glanced up toward the vents, then broke the silence.
“Your reputation precedes you,” he flattered, flashing bright white teeth. He was insincere to the core; that much was easy to see. “Although most of that reputation might be due to your late uncle’s exploits.”
“He was misunderstood. It seems I am too,” I said, nodding toward the weapons. “I’m just a friendly teenage mechanic. You need me to fix something or what?”
Once I was aboard the 405, the soldiers scanned me for weapons. Satisfied the only tools I was packing were in fact tools, they led me through a corridor to the rear of the vessel.
“Last I checked, the engine room on this model is under the bow,” I noted. Nobody responded. They just kept walking through the narrow pathways as we snaked to our destination.
The 405 was designed for function. That meant space was at a premium. You could walk two by two through the halls — barely. The ceilings were seven feet high. And everywhere there were exposed pipes and vents and other essential systems. The walls were covered in anti-radiation shielding, which were basically thin sheets of treated metal that distorted cosmic rays enough to render them mostly harmless. Military ships like this had the cheap version, which was just another reason I didn’t want to be aboard any longer than I had to. I could spend a year on the Stang and be exposed to less radiation than a week on this heap. Once again, my uncle spared no expense. The feds did. They spared all the expenses.
The soldiers abruptly stopped and fell into place along the walls, their boots clanging against the shielding. Two on one side of me and one on the other, joining another blue suiter who was already standing guard outside a door. Jeffries looked at my tool kit with disdain.
“You and I are going into that room,” he said, motioning to the door that had been under guard upon our arrival. “You will be there strictly to observe unless I ask you a direct question. Is that clear?”
I looked again at the door and the soldier next to it. He had restraints dangling from a hook on one side of his belt. The hook on the other side was empty. About five feet away was another door leading to what I assumed was a viewing room.
“Sabotage?” I asked. “Who is he?”
Jeffries’ eyes gleamed for a moment, then he narrowed them in a stern warning. “Follow my lead and we won’t have any problems.”
“As long as I get paid,” I said. “But just so you know, I don’t have a stomach for the rough stuff. No torturing the prisoner when I’m around, please.”
Jeffries snorted and motioned for the guard to step aside. Then he pushed open the door and immediately began speaking, as if he was in the middle of a conversation.
“Well, you’re in trouble now,” he told the woman sitting in the metal chair in the otherwise empty room. Her hands were bound to the chair with magnetic restraints controlled remotely by security personnel. Jeffries held up one of the remotes. He hit a button and the restraints tightened.
My first impression of the woman was that she looked tired. Electric blue eyes, bloodshot from lack of sleep. She wore weathered navy cargo pants and a white tank top, her dark brown arms covered with tattoos. One side of her head was shaved, the other had dyed blonde hair flowing out of it like a fountain. She was late 20’s if I had to guess.
“How’d I do that again?” she asked, throwing a grin my way. “Is he gonna tell me?”
Jeffries shot a glance in my direction to suggest I should plant myself in the corner. I obliged, leaning against the wall, my eyes fixed on the prisoner. She had to be one of the engineering crew, and judging by her demeanor and physique, I guessed a mechanic.
“We found your tool kit inside the engine room,” Jeffries told her.
“Congratulations,” she spat back. “You do know that’s where I work every day, right?”
“Such quick wit. You know, most mechanics aren’t very smart,” he teased, as much for me as for her. “But you, Batista…you know how to turn a phrase. That makes me like you even less. A traitor and a smart-ass.”
“Traitor’s a strong word,” said Batista. “Let’s assume I did sabotage the ship, which I didn’t by the way, because you wouldn’t have found any evidence. But if I did, would that really constitute treason? It’s not wartime and we’re just a transport ship, besides. I mean, you clearly deserve a higher duty than to preside over a lowly transport vessel, but the fact remains that’s what we got going on here. No, I’d say a year or two in prison, at worst.”
I was beginning to like this woman. She knew it, too, casting me another smile. “I just feel bad you brought this poor kid into it. You got a name, wrecker?”
Wrecker. Unlike most of the other people in my profession, the moniker never really bothered me. It didn’t much describe what I did, as I spent more time fixing ships and towing them for repairs than I did scavenging them or bringing them to wreck yards.
“Don’t answer that,” Jeffries ordered me.
“Denver Boyd,” I said, ignoring him. Then I smiled back at Batista. “And you don’t have to apologize. I get paid whether I find out what you did to this ship or not.”
Batista sighed. “Guilty until proven otherwise. Sad.”
I stepped forward, Jeffries glaring at me, his face red and trembling. The only thing stopping him from having me tossed from the room was that he clearly hadn’t made any progress, so he was willing to see where this went.
“How long have they had you in here?” I asked, sympathetic to her cause.
“Three days,” she replied, yawning for effect.
“A day and a half before they called me. Interesting.” I winked at Jeffries and moved closer to Batista. I put my hands in my pockets and searched her face. If she was guilty, she wasn’t giving anything away.
Still, I had a wor
king theory. I kept my eyes on Batista, but addressed Jeffries. “Let me guess. No problem with life support.”
“None,” Jeffries answered. “Only the propulsion system.”
“Which means this wasn’t a suicide mission. Whoever did this planned on being aboard a while,” I explained. “Just wanted to cripple the ship.”
I wasn’t positive, but I could’ve sworn a hint of satisfaction glinted in Batista’s eyes.
“Where were you headed?” I asked.
“You know I can’t answer that,” he quipped.
I turned and shrugged. “How am I supposed to help you if I don’t know what’s going on? Are you carrying any out of the ordinary cargo?”
Apparently out of patience, Jeffries signaled to the two-way mirror. “I guess I missed the part where you were some kind of investigator. You’re a goddamn wrecker, so all I care about is if you can fix the ship. Our friend here doesn’t seem to want to lighten her sentence at all by talking, so you’ll just have to figure out what she did yourself.”
I nodded. “I suppose I’ll have to, well, investigate.”
Batista chuckled and gave a nod of approval. I shared a brief moment with her, then followed the guard out.
The lower deck was warmer than I expected it to be. I turned to the 405’s chief engineer, a condescending woman named Harber. She was watching over my shoulder as I surveyed the propulsion system.
“Always this hot in here?” I asked, trying not to stare at the pronounced unibrow she had going on.
“No,” she sneered.
“Care to elaborate?”
Harber studied me for a bit. She was clearly frustrated she couldn’t figure out the problem and they had to call in someone half her age to fix it for her. No doubt she had some kind of academic background. Maybe a physics specialist or high-achieving engineer grad from one of the federation’s top science academies.
And here I was, an uneducated wrecker, grilling her about the engine room in her own ship.
“We attempted to spin up the turbines, but the heat dampers failed,” she said. As she explained what happened, something gnawed at the back of my mind. Something was off about the whole situation…and not just the mechanical issues.
I realized Harber had been staring at me while my mind was wandering.
“The heat dampers? Are you sure?” I asked.
She bristled at the question. “Of course I’m sure.”
“And central engineering confirmed?” I pressed.
Central engineering was the federation’s tech support, an off-site team of specialists who could assist on-site mechanics and engineers with repairs via video and audio sessions.
Instead of answering, Harber remained silent. I waited, but she just stood there. Not. Talking. It got awkward.
“You did check with them, right?”
“Can you fix it or not?” she barked.
“Uh, well I at least have an idea of the problem now,” I offered, heading over to the panel where the heat dampers were located.
Another red flag: they either hadn’t reported the issue to central engineering or Harber couldn’t tell me what they said.
“We already checked them,” said Harber, growing impatient.
I stopped for a moment, as a possible piece of the puzzle fell into place. Of course she already checked the dampers. For an engineer like Harber, things were absolute. If a part failed, you checked that part.
But my mechanic brain was used to improvising. To tinkering. I had inherited my uncle’s curious nature. What could cause the damper to fail, I mused. The obvious answer was the wire coupling. A mechanic would know that. And Batista was a mechanic.
As I unscrewed the access panel to the wiring stack, I knew that someone wanted me on that ship. Before I removed the cover, I looked over my shoulder at Harber.
“This could take a while. You seriously gonna hover like that for the next two hours?”
Harber grumbled and retreated over to her workstation about 20 feet away. I waited an extra beat to be sure nobody else was around, then unscrewed and flipped back the cover.
Bingo.
The wires were crossed. On purpose, based on the precise way they had been twisted out of position. And placed right next to them was a security remote, not unlike the one Jeffries had been holding in the interrogation room.
A short note was taped to the device. I read it. Then I re-read it. Then I pressed the button on the remote.
For a few moments, nothing happened. It was kinda anti-climactic, to be honest.
Eventually, an alarm pierced the air: “Security 3 Alert.”
I hurried over to Harber and asked her what was going on, even though I already knew the answer. “Escaped prisoner,” she blurted. “Stay here, wrecker.”
Harber snatched her weapon from its holster and stalked out of the engine room. Good. Now all I had to do was figure out how I was going to find —
“Took you long enough,” said Batista, appearing in the doorway Harber just left. She had blood on her shirt and a gun in her hands. It wasn’t pointing in my direction, but it wasn’t far off. “I thought you’d find that remote a lot quicker.”
“Alright, first of all, it was pretty damn quick. I had the unibrow wonder over there watching my every move,” I said. “And get that gun out of my face. I just helped you escape.”
“We haven’t escaped shit,” she replied. But she did lower the gun.
“Before we go any further, tell me what you know about Missura,” I demanded, holding up the note she had taped to the security device.
“Once we’re on your ship, safely undocked from this one, I’ll tell you what I know. And not a moment before.”
I stared at her for a few seconds as the alarm continued to blare. There was no compromise in her eyes.
“Get me to the airlock and I’ll do the rest,” I told her.
“You better do a few things along the way,” she warned, tossing me her gun. I caught the weapon as she produced another one from the back of her waistband. “We’re outnumbered 28 to 2.”
I smiled and handed the gun back to her. “I’m more of a tool guy,” I explained, pulling a steel wrench and an air pistol from my kit.
Batista whirled, flashing out a leg at the soldier rushing through the door. Her boot connected cleanly with the young man’s jaw, sending him plummeting to the deck. He was unconscious before he landed.
Mental note: don’t mess with the escaped-not-escaped-yet prisoner lady.
The corridor was deserted, save for Harber, who was slumped on the floor, bleeding from a gut wound. She moaned angrily as we stepped over her like a pile of dirty clothes.
I easily sidestepped her feeble attempt to trip me with her foot. Batista suddenly jabbed her palm in my chest and shoved me into an alcove. She pressed against me in the shadows as a soldier ran past.
“When was the last time you showered?” she whispered.
I had no idea. Somehow, despite being stuck in the same clothes for days in a hot interrogation room, she still smelled better than I did.
“I usually travel alone,” I managed. She waited another beat, which was fine with me — it was the most physical contact with a female I’d had in more than a year — then she stepped back into the corridor. She motioned for me to follow.
A second later, all hell broke loose.
Three soldiers turned the corner just as we reached the end of the corridor, where it forked off toward the cargo area.
Batista shot one of the men in the shoulder, but before she could aim at the second, larger fed, he knocked into her, ramming her smaller frame into the metal walls lining the ship. The brute force of the impact left a dent in the wall and dazed Batista. Meanwhile, the third dude swung at me with a standard regulation federation knife. He caught my upper arm with the swipe and I felt a searing pain as he went in for a stab.
This time I was ready. I grabbed his arm and twisted it with a quick burst of strength he wasn’t expecting. He shrieked as his
elbow bent entirely the wrong way.
I kicked his legs out from under him and he landed, hard, on the floor. Before I could deliver a blow with my wrench, two thick arms wrapped around me from behind in a bear hug and I was lifted off the ground.
I didn’t panic.
See, the thing about fighting is that I’ve always been kind of good at it. I never took martial arts lessons. I’m not extremely flexible. I don’t even have the quickest reaction time.
But I hardly ever lose a fight.
My brother used to call me “brick,” because hitting me was like hitting a brick wall. No matter what punishment he doled out, it just didn’t faze me that much. He’d punch me in the jaw and somehow his wrist would be the thing that broke.
And thanks to years of working with my hands, I’ve got overdeveloped forearms and palm muscles. Yes, palm muscles. You don’t really think about those in the gym. I grabbed the hands of the guy holding me and squeezed. I felt a series of crackles and pops as the fragile bones in his hands broke.
The guy groaned and his grip loosened. I snapped my head back, caving in his nose. Effective, but messy. I could feel his hot blood spray onto my neck as I freed myself from his clutches. Gross. I turned and swung my wrench to the side of his head, putting him to sleep for a good long while.
I caught a navy blur and flash of black metal out of the corner of my eye, and turned just in time to see Batista slam into the soldier that had been aiming his gun at my head, forcing the bullet to miss by mere inches.
She finished him off with a hard elbow to the temple.
“Thanks,” I said, regarding the bullet lodged in the wall next to me.
“Yeah,” she replied, getting back to her feet. “Not so bad yourself.”
My momentary swell of pride was blunted by the pain I felt in my arm. The knife had torn skin and muscle, and the wound was bleeding freely. My brother might have thought of me as a brick, but I was still a human one.
“That was fun and everything, but we’ll never make it out of here,” I surmised.
