Starhustler

by Chris Turner

  Real rib ticklers, these sharks.

  A faint, seaweedy smell oozed off the dark water and drifted in the window, making me feel slightly ill.

  When Wren played coy at leaving the game, I made a scene, pretending to get in a drunken huff and stalked off to the bar.

  Weaving a little as I walked, for effect, I could hear Wren murmur some gracious, bubble-headed words, giving a whole spiel of smiling, wincing and effusive apologies for her disgruntled husband whom she felt compelled to nursemaid from his griefs—the big sullen, drunken baby—her promising to return to the game asap. TK edged slowly toward the other games in progress closer to the exit.

  Good girl, cash out your chips, hit the ladies’ room, then make a beeline to the back door while those sods await your return.

  Drink in hand, I pushed through the double doors and hit the deck, glad of the fresh air. The sky was dark, starless; the air cool and musky. The shots of the local spirits, clouds of nicotine and the bebop beat had started to eat away at my skull.

  I counted the moments, listening to the laughter and the revelry and disco beats carry on across the water from the other boats. Wren came out, her cheeks flushed.

  “You got the yols?” I grunted.

  “Nice job, Rusco. Seems your scheme worked.”

  “Where?”

  “Right here.” She tapped the inside of her thigh where she had taped it.

  “Peachy.”

  A good act, but maybe not good enough. The door flapped opened.

  Elmer tripped over with a grim smile. “Hey, girlie, game’s still rolling. Well, what’s this? Hubby and dollface taking a little timeout by the water? Charming.” Elmer, with a smile that’d kill a grouper, slapped an arm around my shoulder.

  “Just came out for some fresh air, Elmer. Be back in in a sec when I get my second wind.”

  “Don’t rush. You don’t look so good, Hamber.”

  “Think I ate some bad fish.”

  His head bobbed as he smiled. “You know what, I think you guys are a bunch of shamsters. Funny how I take a dislike to scammers, on account that I live here. Own a legitimate business, have some genuine friends. Makes me and my chums look bad. All the stories you jokers’d tell of how you conned a couple of the local fish.” He laughed and TK took the unfortunate moment to breeze out of the swinging doors and give a gasping breath. Catching wind of the little gathering, he turned to hustle back in.

  “Wait up, gramps.” Elmer snapped his fingers. A couple of his thugs, all murder and glares, intercepted and pushed TK back to the rail in our direction. Elmer put his arm around TK’s shoulder now. “I like you, gramps. Very slick of you in there, giving signals like that as if you were swatting away flies. Nice gig. These two I don’t like, especially Hammy here with all his glib talk.” His boot shot out and kicked me in the bad knee, as if he’d known it was my weak spot. I went down, crouching in agony. “Smarts, doesn’t it, Hammy?” He laughed. “Suck it up, you pussy. Doesn’t look good in front of the missus.” He grabbed Wren by the hair and pulled her down to his crotch with his other hand rubbing his knuckles hard across her wig. The piece dropped off to show her skin head.

  “My, my, surprises by the minute. Didn’t know you went in for baldies, Hammy.”

  I was groaning, cursing myself for my stupidity. Fucker’d taken me by surprise. Innocent old uncle Elmer, a thug who could whack you with a tire iron before you could blink and you’d still be wondering what hit you.

  “Don’t want no trouble here,” TK stammered, looking as if he’d seen a ghost and was going to piss his pants.

  “Oh, no trouble, gramps, just a small misunderstanding. See, we’re going to go back into the gambling house and continue our game. We’ll let you join for free.”

  I got to my feet, swaying, pretending a show of drunken bravado, as Wren struggled in Elmer’s grip and I took a half-assed swing at Grease Hair to his side, making it easy for him to block. He gave a clown’s laugh and pushed me into his henchmen while I flailed away like a jackass. He thought I was an easy takedown and grabbed the cuff of my sportman’s jacket. Mistake #1. Never leave yourself open to attack, against even the dorkiest, most ham-handed drunk. One small tap on the throat or other sensitive area and it’s all over and the stars are spinning in your head and up comes the knee into the nose, pushing back the bone and cartilage into the brain, and the lights go out forever…which is exactly what happened. One step inside the left leg and I was all over Lemmy with a chop to the neck for added measure.

  I hipchecked the limp body over the rail, wincing at the splashing and flapping going on as if something large and gurgling, did their work. Elmer grimaced and licked his chops. Luckily the music was loud, or there’d be more fuss. But scattered couples were coming out to catch the next houseboat and watch the free show. I like putting on a show as much as the next wiseass, but all facts considered, things were not looking too good for us. We were in poor disguise and on a foreign world. Anything could escalate into bloodshed.

  Wren gurgled out a throaty cry and kicked Elmer in the groin while I sprang to toe-tangle with the other fellow. She dropped to grab her concealed weapon taped on the inside of her black-skirted thigh as TK pushed through the gathering crowd to get to the boarding dock. Wise and heroic move, TK. Leave your team behind while you make your escape.

  I stumbled after the old coward, cursing and grumbling and hopped the rail as he did, making a flying leap over to the next boat, but my midriff struck hard against the hull, knocking the wind out of me. Meanwhile feral critters thrashed below. The alcohol gurgled up in my throat. TK was spryer than I imagined, the wispy-haired codger, fingers clutching the varnished wood just as Wren vaulted over and clutched a higher point along the rail.

  Quick, neat, but we weren’t out the frying pan yet. We had to skip this houseboat in case more of Elmer’s goons stashed in the games room noticed the boss’s absence. That second boat was angling to shore.

  As soon as it bumped against the pier, we were off, tramping our way through the red light district and the back alleys, avoiding the downtown tram stops, in case Elmer’s thugs had eyes on them. I had to fry some vagrants who jumped out at us, looking for spare coins. It was a cold day in hell I’d let all that work go to waste while almost getting killed, only to get sacked by some wannabe, grublord, backalley punks.

  We doubled back toward the lake on a zigzagging course and caught an air taxi farther up the line back to the repair shop.

  Billy, turns out, had gotten himself in a bit of trouble, locking himself out of the loo, running back and forth not knowing what to do until he had finally wet himself. Was a while before one of the mechanics heard him banging on the hatch and had let him out. A sorry sight.

  We got Billy cleaned up and squared up with the repairmen. Back on Starrunner, I took a bit of Myscol to help with my reinjured knee. The familiar tingly warm feeling overshadowed the throbbing agony as my eyes glazed over. Okay for now, but that leg was taking a beating. I’d have to see some doctor. Wren, who had been eyeing me with more than appraisal as the night wore on, took advantage of the success of our little venture to attempt some familiarity of flesh. She leaned in, brushing against me to snake her arm about my waist, a gesture so intimate as to feel almost passion-driven. Her voice dropped in a husky murmur, “Well, hubby, a good night’s work, let’s do it again real soon.”

  I leaned in on my good leg with only slightly less languid intent. “Tigress, you’re being a naughty puss. Let the law of thuggery prevail. While the heat’s on, lie low.”

  TK chose to blunder in on us like an ox at that moment. “I don’t like this town, or their greasy games.”

  I blurted out an oath. “You and me both.”

  She slumped, turning away in frustration that the moment had been spoiled. “You know, you two are real wussies.”

  I shrugged. I could see that Wren was hedging for Miss Prickly of the Year award. TK and I moved off to the bridge.

  We’d just about broken
even after dispensing the funds for repairs, coming out a few hundred yols ahead. Not bad, but not good either. Split three ways, that wasn’t much. Well, strictly speaking, I took 60%, considering it was my ship and I was doing them a favor, saving all our asses by getting out of dodge twice now.

  The rear fin stabilizer was working so we couldn’t burn up or wobble ourselves to death upon reentry. The warp drive was still an issue, the Barenium canister still with a hairpin leak, but it was an old part that couldn’t be replaced too easily, the lead mechanic had told us. “We can put it on order, but a used part like that would be only 85% operational.”

  I slapped my fist down on the nav console as we warped out to Baile’s planet, somewhere far away in Yanadar.

  TK growled, “I know I should have monitored those greased monkeys better. I don’t believe the drive was ‘irreparable’.”

  “Good luck hanging around Zanzadeer while Uncle Elmer is on the rampage,” Wren groused. “We should’ve killed him and all his thugs while we had the chance.”

  “Don’t get too trigger happy. Do no good anyway. His business associate rats’d still come out of the culverts and get us. This is the problem with being a traveling huckster, Wren. No time to do fix-it-up jobs. One chance, and it’s vamoose. We’d better suck up our losses and move on. Bigger fish await in the pond across the way.”

  I felt glad to be away from Zanzadeer and the boats.

  Wren caught up with me in the hall as I was stumbling my way to my cabin. She pressed her mouth hard against mine. I was surprised, for she was up front to a fault, but she was a tomboy after all. Pretty no-nonsense and a convincing one at that, despite my initial non-interest in her. It didn’t feel proper to resist.

  Back in her cabin, our clothes quickly became unpeeled and after the inevitable, ‘Ew, what happened to your ear?’ we were right down to business.

  The woman had a luxuriant figure when stripped of her hunter’s-gauge black leathers and the grime. I suppose our first joining was fated. The cabin vibrated to the sounds of our lovemaking. A long sweaty dance of push and pull that had both of us gasping and sucking in the same lungfuls of air. It seemed Wren had always wanted to get it on with me. Okay, I’d bite. I couldn’t admit to the same, but I humored her all the same. It took the edge off the loneliness of a con-artist’s existence, with no hope for tomorrow.

  I awoke some hours later to a tangle of limbs. Her soft breathing on my left shoulder, a warm breast pressed to my chest. I rolled over and my barely purple-tinted hair brushed her neck like a horsehair fan. Her long legs twitched, a moan pattered in her throat. The memory of some horror of the past? I rumbled out a lion’s roar and squeezed her tightly and ran my tongue along her neck which prompted a murmur of escalated breath.

  She seemed amused by the animal roar and gave me a playful slap. “Enough, tiger. Let’s sleep it off. Plenty more time to play bride and groom in the days ahead.”

  Chapter 12

  We’d been scamming up and down the Zaion worlds for a few weeks now and after several false starts, began to turn a profit. We’d finally repaired the Barenium leak and equipped the landing shuttle on Starrunner with extra space suits. I’d got my knee looked after at the local regen clinic on Gainor, one of the six habitable, terraformed worlds. Some regen—not cheap, and a loving pat on the leg by the stony-eyed medic. After scouting down a new-old Barenium cylinder on Gainor, I gave a praise to the good Kazoo that I no longer had to worry about Baer tracking us. As for the blood-hungry pirate Mong, we’d keep an eye out for him. The man had discovered a superior form of armor or shield technology that had given him a significant edge over his enemies.

  I walked onto the bridge to catch TK and Wren glued to the holo screen. The free store planetary press was having a field day with the latest sensation—always a new goldmine of cheery information. The face that stared back at me with those eyes black as charred coal had me cringing.

  The broadcast came over the public channel—Mong, in all his glory and ceremonial garb, black-braided ponytails and leather shoulderpiece. His cheeks flushed a ruddy bronze, but that face was set as serene as an avatar.

  “Citizens and people of Questra! Surrender your government, your ships and your wealth, or I will unleash a rain of fire that will send you to hell!”

  The image cut out and the screen panned back to the announcer. “And that is the latest ultimatum from warmonger, Kaibus Mong, known as the ‘star lord’ or the ‘dark lord of death’. His latest conquest on Megal orbiting Tiran’s star turned the landscape into a fiery, feudal wasteland. Will ‘Questra’, another of the inner planets, suffer the same fate? No one has come to offer aid to either Megal or Questra. Experts say that nearby governments and planetary United Nations are reluctant to defy Mong, fearing retaliation with his blitzkrieg tactics.”

  “Turn that fucker off, please,” I ordered.

  TK hit the switch. “See, this renegade Mong is bad news, Rusco. Doesn’t look as if he’s going to let a few petty worlds satisfy his greed.”

  “No kidding.” The transmission had cast a shadow over my mood. “No different than Genghis Khan, from what I gathered from history. Snatching up territories as if they were candy for the taking.” I shook my head. “No matter. Nothing we can do except keep a wide berth.”

  I finally decided to quit Gainor and scout out crime leads in my old haunts on Tarsus, the second innermost planet. The gigs we were pulling out in the hinterlands were but two-bit shams, raking in a few yols, mere milk money, in retrospect. But they were stepping stones to test out my team, iron out the wrinkles, so to speak, see where TK and Wren’s weaknesses lay and how we could improve upon them. Wren was always too impulsive, a natural hothead, but brave and for the most part, unquestioning. TK, on the other hand, was a cautious worrier and a slightly lazy sort. But smart, and his input on cons, particularly timing and logistics, had given me an edge. Even that caper down on Zanzadeer had been a cockup, truthfully, a little bit too convoluted for my ragamuffin recruits. Had almost blown up in our faces. Not that I was Captain Gohimbo or anything. TK and Wren were rising in my estimation and I felt I could trust them with some bigger fish to fry. After purchasing some explosives down on Gainor with the gambling money from Zanzadeer, I decided to reach a little higher.

  An old acquaintance of mine in Haifor City gave us our first genuine break. A Gigor Knox aka ‘Blinky’, who worked as the concierge at the Big Apple Hotel was my lead. He was a middle man up to his ears in larceny and schemes, from black market to sex trade. A contract job had come up through the grapevine, orchestrated by a certain gangster, the Dancing Slugger, Pazarol.

  At the hotel and after a few words of catch up, Blinky took me aside. “I can hook you up for a meet down with Pazzy, kind of an open house.” He spread his arms wide, and I saw brown rotten teeth rooted there in his grin.

  “Sure,” I said. “Whatever you say, Blinky. Just looking for a few opportunities here.”

  “That’s the spirit, JR. That’s why I like you.” He patted my back with his ham-like hand.

  Risky, making the contact with Pazarol, knowing the man was on a par with Baer from what I’d heard. A faint watery voice, a very distant one, told me to back off. But not a loud enough voice for me to take heed.

  I did my research and checked out his modus operandi. A jack-of-all trades: arms, clothing, slaves, mercenaries for hire, anything that he could use to turn a profit, which in these days of gang-run, war-torn cities, was mostly contraband.

  The gas cloud in the holo view coalesced and morphed into whatever 3D stimulus the ship’s computer willed of it. The holo image, drawn from the public free-store, showed a series of dingy warehouses in a seedy industrial neighborhood with broken antennae prickling its rusty roof and decaying load lifters scattered in the yard with flat balloon tires. Inside, the secret cam, highlighting bootlegged clips from the free-store darknet, revealed some old sewing equipment. Outside, a wider pan revealed a few aging dumpsters and cargo ships. Junkers. Didn’t
think they would fly. A good front.

  “You coming with me?” I muttered at Wren.

  She shrugged. “Why not? We can go down together, but no wig this time.”

  I smiled. “Suit yourself.”

  TK grunted, “I’ll stay put with Billy.”

  “As you wish. Keep an eye on our progress. We’ll be wired for sound and video. If things go sour, that little red button’ll glow. Hit the override sequence, fire up Starrunner and blast that piece of shit warehouse to shreds. Then I’ll know my death was avenged. I’m not planning on Pazarol being that much of a shyster—but one can never be too sure... In the meantime, put that big brain of yours to work devising new and wonderful scams.”

  “I’ll do that,” he agreed with a laugh.

  Keep old TK busy, out of mischief.

  Those holo data dumps, part of the free store, came in handy. Someone had told me that far world data was updated by a simple file-sharing algorithm, courtesy of the ships’ computers that came into proximity of a star system. Every time a ship made the Varwol leap, the local network of a new world would collect any updated info and merge it with its own local database while uploading new data to the ship’s computer. Hence the system stayed current. Ingenious, but not 100% real time. Of course, worlds like Wren’s on Talyon would get nothing of this, having no traffic to speak of nor any network infrastructure.

  I met Pazarol and his gang down in his crib out in Tarsus in the decrepit town of Belgen, liking none of it from the get-go. I hoped to hell TK and Billy came through if there was trouble. Wren seemed indifferent to the meet, as if she were immune to danger. I think the days of violent terror she’d lived through in early years, with sand dervishes and mad boys had made her immune to fear.

  I landed neatly in the service yard and debarked. As the engines wound down, the wide gated shutter of tin fluttered up and eight men of a standard merc detail jumped out and escorted Wren and me inside. A large echoey warehouse was busy with motion, tall upright machines and long low vats, looking like stitching and dyeing equipment to me, and some robot assembly machinery stamping out circuits. Pazarol met me with a meaty hand, a big rubicund man with a gleaming pate and a fuzz of blond hair at the back. He wore a starchly-ironed blue plaid suit, polished black shoes, gaudy necktie, all smelling of cigar smoke. Protruding buck teeth dominated his face, goatee hanging from a snub chin. I had no reason to dislike the man on first meeting, but nonetheless I did.