Starhustler

by Chris Turner

  We walked past that place and stared at the next yard, Baer’s yard, where the docking crane lay and the chain-wired fence, and ugly looking cinder-block, prison-like warehouse with its equally rundown outbuildings.

  “This is it?”

  Marty opened palms in what looked like a mock apology.

  “Seems kind of dumb, Baer having this kind of setup for something this big.”

  Marty’s lips hooked in a knowing grin. “All part of the act, Rusco. Small security crew means nothing worth stealing. The bigger players don’t bother. Works well, costs them less, and doesn’t draw attention.”

  “Whatever you say, Marty.” I’d only met Q once, and didn’t like the man, that big shaggy mother of a criminal, with a dirty cigar hanging out of his mouth, brown teeth, b.o. and a shifty gaze.

  Marty stabbed a finger over toward the far side closest to the river. “Right, we jump a ride over there.”

  “Okay, you can work on ‘jumping a ride’. One of those air speeders?”

  “I don’t know, there may be something inside you can nab that’s better.”

  I shrugged. “I’m liking this less and less, Marty. Shoddy planning, it means somebody gets killed.”

  “Relax, Ruskie. You always worry too much.” He patted me on the back, again a little too hard. “Let’s go with the flow. This is a hot lead I’ve privileged your ears with. We’ve got a few hours’ lead on any other hustlers Q decides to spread the news to.”

  I rounded on him, my teeth bared. “So, why doesn’t big Q do this thing himself, instead of pissing this lead your way?”

  “Q’s done with Hoathville. Too many enemies here. He’ll call in his favor to me at some time. But by that time, I hope to be long gone.” He gave me that moony grin I knew too well and rubbed his chin as a flicker of past dealings came and went across that swarthy face of his. “Okay, I’ll let you in on a secret, Rusco. Word is ‘what’s going down in Baer’s crib is bigger than Lwippi’s spread back in ‘82’. Those were Q’s exact words.”

  My eyes dulled. “Woo, think I’m going to faint with excitement.”

  In the end I agreed to give the scope-out a shot, though I was ready to call it quits right there. Much against my better judgment, I contemplated the wire fence, ignoring that little nagging voice in the back of my head, the one that says, you stupid horse’s ass, Rusco, what are you thinking? The promise of riches to a man in a hard place though, was a hypnotic lure outweighing risk.

  Baer had taken over an old welding shop. A long rectangular building—white-washed cement blocks with tall twin brick chimneys missing several pieces. Rusted metal lay ripped off the outbuildings. Some dingy cargo-holders, transports, v-gauge Cessnas with wings clipped, fly-trucks, auto-meltzers, rusty cranes, some loading docks peeked around the edges. Probably a variety of stolen goods and contraband inside, worthwhile metal parts, salvageable electronics, fuels, explosives. Baer was likely a middle man for some bigger fish up the line. Okay, I was intrigued.

  One guard was way down the other end. From where we crouched by the service gate in the gravel, I could see him pacing by the wall, machine gun in hand. No dogs that I could see, fortunately. Just a single sentry.

  I looked across the dark thatch of river and caught the rise and fall of heavy metal arms, moving rigs. Migrant workers toiled in the fields there, shipped in from Escaron to work those oil rigs and the strip mines. Many died there, but that was life. A source of cheap labor and cash to boot and work for them. Hard to believe, but a better place for those migrants than the war-torn planets from where they had come. Marty interrupted my reverie.

  “What I figure is we take the guard down, blast the door with that dynamite I told you to bring.”

  “Or maybe not,” I grunted. “It ain’t dynamite either. Pipe down, I’m trying to think.”

  Marty grumbled, his fists curled.

  When the guard was well down the length of the wall doing his marching soldier routine, I aimed my R4 with its muzzled silencer and took out the main camera with a single, well-aimed shot. No more sound than the buzz of an angry bee.

  Marty blinked. “Why not just shoot the guard too?”

  “I got something against murder.”

  Marty snorted. “Give me the gun.”

  I pulled the weapon back from him and gave him a sullen stare. “Save your groping for your boyfriend.”

  Marty shook his head, muttering some disparaging comment.

  We checked our earpieces. We were still in good working order. Marty donned the black ski-mask; I settled for soot on my cheeks, not that either would save us if it came to a firefight.

  Killing the guard early on would be bad for us. First off, Marty was all too impulsive. If he thought the guard was down, he might get some cock-eyed idea, get careless and think he could slack off and just blast his way to the spoils. I didn’t feel like getting myself killed the first five minutes into our heist. Nor did I like the restless way Marty got up and started pacing from side to side. It was sloppy, and sloppiness meant disaster. More practical reasons were self-evident: cameras maybe I had missed. A dead body bleeding out on the tarmac, a conspicuous giveaway. The other thing is that sometimes these solitary guards were wired such that if their vitals failed, it sent a signal to a command post higher up that something had gone wrong.

  I was banking that nobody was checking that camera very often, if Marty’s information was to be believed. Our faces were covered, so nobody could ID us. I checked the kit strapped at my waist: pry tool, custom glock, penlight, blaster, explosives, medicaments, other useful knickknacks.

  I hopped the steel-wire fence, taking care not to jingle it too loudly, dropped on the tarmac on the balls of my feet.

  Marty followed, noisier than a dog. The sod made me wince with the racket. I cautioned him, and he nodded with a steel-eyed glare.

  I threaded my way along the weed-eaten tarmac, ducking behind a generator post and an old dray-cart then lost sight of Marty as he dipped toward the back of the main complex.

  Could I get at the guard from the roof? No. Too high. Drop a rock on his head? Dumbass, if you missed… come on, Rusco, you can do better than that. Blaster? Messy and bloody, undeniably noisy.

  The easiest, simplest way availed itself. Always the easiest, and the best. The man yawned. Tired from a mindless day of nothing but back and forth in the sun and the drone of air speeders and bottle flies buzzing about. He was not getting paid enough to do this gig. So what if he checked out for an hour? His guard buddy down the line would pick up the slack. Just keep on nodding off, fella. I saw the double chin drop a little lower, then the hand come to clutch at the walrus-like mustache. That’s it, a little lower. Probably got hammered last night and he’s yawning off the hangover after his drunken lay.

  I crept up behind the sap with my weapon cocked just as Poncho lifted his hand to stifle another of those cavernous yawns. One quick chop to the back of the neck along the Vagus nerve and the man fell in a soundless heap. I snatched up the fallen guard’s vintage AK—it brought a nostalgic lurch to my heart—

  I frisked the unconscious body, found a key ring, jammed it into the steel door, dragged him in, heels first then closed the door behind me.

  The blood pounded in my temples and I forced myself to relax. I looked out upon an unmanned, dimly-lit area. A few fluorescent lights cast a dull glow on a concrete floor that stretched far back to my left, into a haze of darkness and mystery. I paused to orient myself. A loading dock spread down to my left with the usual trappings: a ramp of gridded metal, guide bars and dormant red service light above. Across the way, a gray concrete wall loomed dotted with steel doors to other rooms. I caught the vague forms of forklifts, stacked crates, machine parts and tools spread out along the peripheries. A few weigh scales stood next to a loader.

  “Guard down,” I hissed into the com. “Marty, anything?”

  “Some rusted out three-wheelers around the back,” Marty replied. “Nothing to brag about. Going to try to juice a
n air cart I scouted out. Slower than hell, but serviceable. Over.”

  “Affirmative. Over.”

  Marty seemed to be dicking around. I hoped he was watching for cameras.

  I dragged the unconscious guard over to the far wall and tested the steel door. Unlocked. I stuffed him into the small storeroom. He’d be out for a couple of hours at least. Enough time for me to case the joint and snatch any spoils worth snatching. Hopefully a transport van of lucrative stock or contraband in some wing or bay around the sides I could drive out through the loading bay with none the wiser. Risky, and kind of a longshot, but hey, I was groping for anything at this point, and Marty assured me there was stuff here worth stealing.

  No one inside; no guards to speak of. I didn’t see any cameras—yet my eye was trained for them. Still, better to err on the side of caution. I thought to flush any other guards out quickly; an old trick I’d learned over the years. Basic but effective. Didn’t want any nasty surprises.

  Ducking in the shadows, I gripped the pebble I had snatched earlier. I tossed it lightly over my shoulder while I hid behind a wooden crate. The clinking echo rebounded throughout the loading area. I counted the heartbeats. Nothing. Only the hum of the fluorescent lights that played dim and cold over the bare concrete floor. Okay, that was a positive sign.

  I crept out of my hiding place, taking noiseless steps, the guard’s AK trained ahead.

  The place was a little too eerie for my tastes. Kind of a grisly vibe, as if it weren’t used much and had bad things happen here, like interrogation under torture. My mind replayed the dark, brown stains on the floor where I’d dumped Poncho. Sure as hell it wasn’t pigs’ blood. This didn’t look like an abattoir or meat packing place to me.

  The first creepers of disappointment tugged at my heart. I didn’t see anything here worth stealing, and my doubts grew, realizing the futility of this heist. Perhaps I was expecting too much. I saw the desolate reality of this complex. A bunch of mini forklifts, empty crates on skids materializing in the gloom. The hypnotic buzz of cheap, old, electrical wiring while the stale smell lingered in my nostrils: tar, ancient dust, old engine oil.

  I continued my rummaging. More crates filled with standard stuff. Boxes of grenades packed in sawdust, foot mines, circular mine sweepers, mild contraband. Military. But nothing to make any yols from this five and dime trash. The place was veritably empty.

  Wtf then? That toad-licking Q give Marty false information? Maybe Marty messed up with the details? No, he was not that incompetent.

  A wasted trip unless I could spring something fast. Floors bare and clean enough to eat fried eggs off.

  I tapped my earpiece. “Marty, you there?”

  Nothing.

  “Marty, this place is looking like a dud.”

  Where the hell was he? I was getting more agitated by the minute. Risking my neck out in this empty coop. I whispered harshly into the com again. Nothing. I gave another colorful curse. Maybe Marty’d gotten cold feet or bailed. Was he made?

  The storehouse branched out in an L-shape, and I stayed close to the rightmost wall. Across the way, I spied an electric flatbed tucked by the wall, one of the old, four-wheel lorries, riding low on its axles with covered canvas stretching over a back bed top. I slunk over. Nothing around in the back. This could come in handy if I found anything interesting, or if Marty didn’t come through with a ride. The driver door was open. I poked my head in and checked the console. Nothing that wasn’t easy enough to hardwire. On a whim, I tried starting it up. Ha! The engine whirred to life.

  I shut it down, creeping on back to the rightmost wall like a specter.

  A door loomed on my right. Blue plate steel with patches of rust caked on the edges. Grimy glass panes granted a view inside: some squarish-rectangular, cramped room. Too dim to distinguish details, but it was crowded with crates and other shadowy objects. Worth a look-see. The door looked fragile. I tried the outer U-ring. Locked. Should I blow it open? Seemed a risk, not to mention overkill. But unless I found something worthwhile here, this trip was batting a big fat zero. Maybe… I reached into my pouch. My universal pry tool gleamed in my hand, cool to the touch and very useful; I began a hack job jimmying the lock. I kept noise to a minimum, put my shoulder into it, forced it open.

  A light switch on the side tempted me, but I resisted it. Others could come roaming about.

  Crates and boxes of stuff lay stacked to the side. The lids of some I pried off to see weird things, looking like artifacts. Piles of them. Old technological junk, corroded batteries, wired circuits, strange bits of electrical panels, many half destroyed. But they didn’t look familiar. Could as easily’ve been telesat equipment for all I knew. Gutted ship parts? I poked about some more, becoming more puzzled by the second. Disappointed too. Why lock up all this junk?

  A set of small crates, stacked two high, aroused my attention. One was set off from the others.

  I shone my penlight in the topmost box. Three small, hand-sized objects like rings with a central disc lay in the bottom of the packed cellophane. Curiosity whetted, I reached for the first. It looked like hyperized barsol, like what they made ship hulls out of. When my fingers were about to make contact, it pulsed with peculiar iridescence, like the colors of a butterfly’s wings. I’m thinking it might have been something important, the way it swirled with all those alien colors, like chameleons’ scales, so I wrapped the cellophane around it, tucked it into my kit, not thinking of any consequences.

  Here, by the wall, stood a pair of devices, U-shaped, with waist-high parallel plates set a few feet apart. The things were balanced on black bases. I studied those plates. Circular designs like sucker marks inscribed their insides—alien tech by the look of it—with squiggles etched between its pale ribs. A chill passed over my spine.

  Something warned me that this was even more important. I dragged the first parallel-plate device out back to the flatbed. Lighter than I’d thought it’d be. Gingerly, I hefted it into the back and covered it with a tarp, then crept back to the room, thinking to grab the other one, when footsteps and the light scuff of a boot alerted me. I ducked down behind the truck’s rear tires.

  Two guards, wearing black and white caps pushed down over their short-cut hair, came inching up to the door from the other direction. I could see they wore black chest armor and hefted AKs with murderous ease. Truncheons bobbed at their hips. Their black boots made little noise on the concrete floor. One motioned to the other and they ducked into the room, creeping forward like weasels along the walls. One stayed low to the left, the other to the opposite wall. I could see the thinner one from the angle where I crouched.

  Shit, they must have been camped up in some command room watching the sensors. Could have been an infrared beam I’d triggered, which explained why the door was so lightly guarded.

  Pinned like a grasshopper, I ran through my options. If I tried to start the lorry, they’d be on me. I could storm in and waste the two, but that was risky, two against one and they looked competent. Sit tight, Rusco. No need to play the hero. Slowly, I edged toward the open door, holding my weapon and breath, feeling the nakedness of my position. Only an open swath between me and death. No protection, and they’d be searching this lorry before long.

  The seconds ticked by.

  I heard a grunt, then an exhalation of surprise. “Mitch, there’s nobody here. Maybe mice tripped the alarm.”

  “Right, mice just happened to jimmy the door?”

  “Yeah, that is a problem; okay, scrap that.” The other grumbled. “Hey, you been messing with this box? Something’s tore through the wrap. I remember three of the phasos, now there’s two. Maybe rats took one away.”

  “Yeah, rats took one and I came in like a Madonna, wearing them like bracelets behind your back, like I always do.”

  “Shut up, wise-ass. It’s my neck on the line too. Baer hears about this and we’re cooked—”

  “Relax. Baer doesn’t have to hear about it.”

  “Are you kidding me
? We’re fucked. Look—one of the amalgos is missing. Two of them were here propped by the wall, remember? Maybe some filchers are still prowling around?”

  “Look around again,” hissed the other. “Some fuck may be hiding in the shadows.” I ducked lower, hearing shuffling and curses, boots laid against boxes and mutters. This was not looking good.

  They came up near the door, breathing through their mouths. “Nothing. Let’s check the warehouse.”

  “No, wait. What about the phasos?”

  “Fuck the phasos, come on.”

  “I don’t like leaving them, Mitch, if there’re skulkers about.” He grabbed one. “Baer said they’re for Mong, the star lord—”

  “I don’t give a fuck if they’re for Bork of Ork. Put it away, those things give me the shivers.”

  “I don’t appreciate that kind of language, Mitch. Furthermore, I’ll touch what I want, bitchface. We’re living in a free world, aren’t we?”

  “You going to get stupid on me, Fario? I said leave it alone.” And he grabbed at the other’s arm, wrestled the thing out of his hand.

  In a blinding flash of light, the thug disappeared. I stared with stupid, blank-faced wonder. I blinked, rubbing my eyes. No ray, no secret gun aimed from the ceiling, no Marty behind holding a blaster. The one named Mitch just disappeared. For a second, I thought someone had spiked the wine I’d swilled at The Bodega. I shook my head. The guy’d been holding the disc thing, juggling it like an ape in front of the other, whispering some wise guy stuff, then poof, was gone.

  That could have been me holding that gizmo. I reached for my waist where I’d tucked the disc or phaso, then thought twice of it. Lucky I had covered it with cellophane. I swallowed hard.

  So…some kind of weapon? I shifted from my hiding place, head feeling woozy. The nitwit who triggered it was vaporized and his buddy, Fario, was coming out of his stupor, eyes wide in shock, a wild quiver in his gunhand. I thought fast. A medley of plans shuttled through my head. Plan 1, get out of here asap and chuck the phaso, Plan 2, double back, get the other units and mount an escape, Plan 3, blast everybody and run.