Starhustler

by Chris Turner

  I dreamed somebody was rapping at the door.

  Figuring it was some room service personnel, I staggered half nude to the door. I opened the door, my jaw dropping. Wren? She caught a glimpse of a tangle of naked arms and legs in the white, disheveled sheets, and slapped my face. Cursed like there was no tomorrow.

  I awoke to damp sheets.

  Just a guilt-ridden dream. I was gone and back on Starrunner before dawn’s light with my packs full of supplies on a world with a day shorter than what I was used to. Raquel, I’d left a note for and was managing to forget her, as she, no doubt, me.

  Wren was all coos and giggles on the bridge, digging through the yummies I’d brought: the protein packs, the flavored meats. Granted, I would too, living off lizards and grasshoppers for so many years.

  I watched the mainscreen holo-vid. This maniac Mong again, conducting a cult ceremony. Seems he was all the rage with his planetary takeovers, promises of liberation. He had a murderous dark hero look, emancipating worlds of their oppressive gang control and abject slummery. Some ambitious journalist had done a human interest story on him. Was this mongrel everywhere at once? Gave me the creeps. A big hulking ape of a man with a fatherly face. A flat-topped, amber hat he wore on his oversized crown. The brute had some power, sure, to have all those people under his thumb. Look at them—tragic sheep, chanting his name, bowing and praising the works of Mong. He stood tall before the colonnaded temple giving a lecture to thousands, maybe tens of thousands, surrounded by a ring of devotees dressed in blue and gold robes with shaved heads but for a crop of chicken hair sticking up on top. With a slew of thousands more out in the field, holding their hands up in mindless abandon and chanting some Ciros thing—long live Ciros, long live Ciros, the fortress of Mong! Fortress of Mong!

  TK snapped me out of my reverie. “Ciros is the name of the temple,” he explained.

  “How would you know?”

  “Because they just said.”

  “Thanks.” I turned the set off and told them we had work to do. Starting with an idea I had for our next heist.

  “TK, scour the free data store for buyers of cutting edge, high end arms. First we need to unload our cargo. Outfits, organizations, anyone who’ll pay premium for cutting edge hardware. Go as high as you can and dark as you dare, on the Free Store. There’re enough low-ballers out there as it is. Don’t make contact with anybody,” I warned him, “just compile a list. Anywhere but Jasmel. I’ll go through your list later and pick the ones I think are good matches.”

  “Sure enough, sounds easy.”

  I turned to Wren. “Right. I scoped out some impound shops down Elphi Alpha. A goldmine of hardware there for the picking: ships, shuttles, probes, drones, the works, all arriving illegally, carrying contraband, gangsters caught by local police, mercs, shakedowns, that kind of thing. One branch is city-owned, just a regional office, so it’s light on security.”

  “What’s your angle?” she asked.

  “We go in, collecting a worthwhile hulk for transfer to a chop shop, bag the ship for our own and sell it cheap for quick yols.”

  “Sounds promising.” Although her voice was doubtful. “What’s the risk?”

  “Minimal, if we play it right. Good news is, I’ll be doing the initial scout, the run ahead and the main con. You help with the packaging and back me up if necessary.”

  “Whatever you say, Cap’n.”

  “Atta girl.” That’s what I liked about Wren, no fuss, no trouble during business. If only all women could be so cooperative.

  We’d go in with papers, pretending to be all official and scam us some hefty hardware for half-decent resale. Outfits like city impound send the ships there anyway, at least the seized vessels the bosses didn’t commandeer for their own uses. Better we get the money than some other shyster.

  The con operated on the loophole that these shops all kept paper copies of their records. Known fact: Breaking into a secure digital system would be much harder and not worth the risk.

  The next day I staked out the joint, The RAI: Regional Airspace Impound. I was at the office depot a few days before the heist. Low security there, easy to slip past the sensors. I’d worked on these types of shops before.

  I made sure my face was covered by a mask and disabled any cameras in ready sight I could find. Rifled the office while the staff was off duty, photographed the hundreds of letterheads of certain important acquisition forms, serial numbers of impounded crafts and particulars, studied both the names of the impound officers, owners, managers of the local office and those of the local businesses to whom they supplied parts. I hid out in the file room, eavesdropping on the clerks when they arrived in the morning the following day, heard a few names dropped, then listened keenly for more names when transcalls came through: Benzie Krai, Kata Layne, jotted a few down, recorded the rest on my little black recorder. Found out who presided over whom and whose authority made the difference. Tedious work, but necessary. It was enough to bluff my way through the two days later, when I came in, all important and business-like, deliberately arriving early in the morning, plopping my forged papers on the wicket counter and dropping the right combination of names I’d memorized the night before.

  “Who are you again?” the attendant asked, all squinty-eyed.

  “Juss Rambo. Over at Militia Distributing. Seems here that Mr. Kata Layne authorized this requisition. I’ll be taking the J-Zen cruiser to Meik’s strip yard, parts and wholesale.”

  “This is irregular, sir. I should get Mr. Layne personally on the line to confirm.”

  “You can do that,” I said with a frown, “but Layne might get upset, no pissed if you bother him at this hour. The other day he sent me over here to get this job done quickly. Seems as if something slipped through the main branch’s wire and now Mr. Layne’s weighing on us. There’s his signature at the bottom.”

  “Yes, sir, I see it is. One moment please.” The clerk frowned, scrutinized the papers, the seals, signatures and serial number, and scratched his initials on several pages, then fiddled with some files in the back cabinet. Finally he ripped off some yellow pieces of paper and passed two to me with a pink slip. “Go ahead, Mr. Rambo. The impound yard is down the way to your left.”

  “I know, been here before.”

  The attendant gave a curt nod.

  And that was that. A brief moment of nailbiting on the odd chance that sleepy pencil neck decided to call my bluff and summon the big boss Layne. Secret here is to look important and gruff and as confident as possible. Any bit of doubt or hesitation on the con’s part and the deal floats south. But I’d planned for that, recalling the hardware under my brown leathers, fingering my blaster and the grenade tucked in my waist pouch. Although that route could get ugly very quickly.

  Couldn’t work the same scam twice at the same place. No, no. Once they found out they’d been conned, they’d be up to their armpits in security. Somebody’s neck would be on the line. I pitied the poor soul to work a scam similar to mine.

  I radioed Starrunner in over the impound yard and, while TK hovered overhead, Wren jumped down. After a few moments with a yardman and a flash of pink papers, we attached the four towlines to the vehicle in question and boarded Starrunner, hauling the hulk away. It was a lighter job than her load limit, within her horsepower capabilities. Her impulse engines whirred in a high scream and we carried the J-Zen off across the smoggy skyline and on to the next city, dropped her at Regzie’s WR, one of the black market warehouses on the east end of town. 5G cash yols, no question asked. A quick job. We took off into the wild blue yonder, with the blackness of space curling around Starrunner as Elphi Alpha faded behind us like a dwindling star.

  Chapter 17

  TK came through with the compiled list. I’d followed up on it and whittled it down to four possibles. The third was promising, a certain Vee Hars. Said he’d pay cash for everything, especially the manufactured, enhanced weapons. The crystal he’d take as a favor. “Meet us in three days in the capital
of Myx on the nearby world of Trellian. Volgrim Enterprises, north end of the city.”

  Time to rendezvous with Dolgra on Urgon. I varwoled into orbit around Phoros, radioed Dolgra, told him we’d be there in minutes. Dolgra confirmed. I took TK over in the shuttle, where he set up the flight path and we shuttled back.

  Next stop Trellian.

  A day to arrive at Myx City and some more time to find the drop point. A day is a long time on a starship. A man’s mind can wander into stray territory. As mine did. Something about the whole affair with Pazarol still rankled. I’d had to kill Raez; Gris was casualty damage, scumbags without question, that was not a problem. But another loose end, some stone left unturned, I couldn’t figure it out. The puzzle left me staring up at the plated ceiling, lying in my hard bunk that night in wordless dismay, wondering what wolf was waiting around the next corner. Not even the lusty affections of Wren could assuage that.

  I jolted up, knowing there was going to be trouble with that phaso. I whipped on my clothes and staggered down to the hold. There in my workshop, near Raez’s former cubby hole, I set about making a clever imitation of it with the materials I had aboard and my budding artistic talent. To foil any eager searchers, I used extra varnish and colored lead tinsel to give it that shiny, iridescent look. I felt better when it was done. I inserted the fake in the strongbox and put it back in the forward bulkhead where it had been and hid the real phaso in a place no one would find it—in the conduit leading to the engine core, the Barenium chambers, taped to the inner wall. Maybe not the safest place for it, but at least out of TK’s reach, or anyone else who might be searching. I could trust nobody.

  Trellian came up on our sights and we bore down on the single, prominent continent. Starrunner flew over rich woodland—gigantic, three hundred-foot trees with plumed tops like ostrich tails. Beyond the outriders of Myx’s towers we coasted where a long patch of industrial lots stretched within the forest confines.

  We landed in Volgrim’s yard, Urgon first and Starrunner after, spraying up dust and specks of dirt from the grainy tarmac. The sky was overcast and the air slightly muggy. Even these outer worlds seemed to have been terraformed long ago with thick atmospheres to make them habitable. Their air generators had been running for decades to keep the planet warm, in addition to thousands of geothermal stations set up around the globe to pipe heat from the planet’s crust into the air. Major acreage of forests had been planted to supply ready oxygen.

  Two battered, rusty buildings stood in the foreground, with flat, rectangular roofs. A gravel pit loomed in the back, with several large freighters and smaller range vehicles huddled in the landing yard out front. It looked like an open graveyard, could as easily have been a gravel yard, or some construction depot. Dolgra’s men stayed back to watchdog the shipment while Wren, Dolgra and I debarked to meet Vee Hars and his associates and consummate the transaction. I relished closure on this deal. I packed extra weapons—R4, R3, some explosives—while ensuring Wren and I were carrying trackers that TK could monitor steadily from Starrunner. I wasn’t taking any chances. That bad feeling had not abated, despite my hiding the phaso in a safe place, so I started to wonder if it was something else that had my imagination piqued.

  I motioned to Dolgra. “Right, at two o’clock.” The equipment yard was bare but for oil drums, fork lifts and some metal skids piled with crates. Four figures came out of the first set of ugly, rust-coated double-doors on the warehouse.

  Hars was a medium-boned man of no great stature. A woman kept his stride, wearing a hardhat and two other men in coveralls trailed behind. I sized them up in a second—a set of trade business professionals, black market operators, possibly, but clean. So, why the worry?

  “Rusco? Hars, here,” the man said, husky of chest, short of leg, and held out a pink hand. “These are my colleagues: Deen, Faber and Lozane.” I gave them a salute and they all nodded.

  “Pleasure, Hars. My crew, Dolgra and Wren.”

  Hars tipped his head. “You have my merchandise?”

  “In the Urgon over there.” I pointed. “Ready for transport.”

  “Good, let’s move it out then. I’ve got a busy day and there are lots more things to do. There’s a spot set out in the warehouse.”

  “Not so fast,” I called. “Where’s our yols?”

  “Relax, you’ll get them, Rusco.” He frowned, fingering his jaw at the delay. “All two million of it. Fresh credits.”

  “Then let’s go get them, shall we?”

  He shook his head. “Let me take a look first at the merchandise.”

  “Fair enough. Follow me.” I set out at a brisk pace, Wren behind me, Dolgra to my side, forcing Hars and his gang to keep up to my impatient stride. Normally this all this would have been formal, a simultaneous transfer at a more leisure location. But these guys seemed a bit overcautious, even amateur—

  My thoughts came to a grinding halt at a deep rumbling sound from the sky. My hand went to my weapons belt. I looked up. Three ships streaked out of the clouds like dive bombers. An XT-5 warship, then a white-gray service freighter, and then one of those grey Markests I’d seen on Talyon, looking suspiciously like one of Baer’s.

  I swore. Guns from the XT-5 trained on us, reminiscent of the ships I’d seen in raids on civilian territories.

  Hars’s eyes darted up in sudden terror. “What the hell?—Rusco are you playing us?”

  “They’re aiming at me as much as you, Hars! Get down!”

  He ducked, but too late. Fareon blasts set fire to the oil drums nearby and hot gases licked out at us like chemical bombs. Flames lit the tarmac and sent us flying. I pulled Wren to my side to shield her.

  Two bullets slammed between Hars’ eyes and he sagged like a rag doll. One of his henchmen went to his knees, blood spraying from his chest. The other, I gather, the woman, was running, but she didn’t get far.

  A vulpine howl rattled in Wren’s throat. Dolgra had a slug in his leg. All happened so fast, my reflexes could hardly keep up with the unreality of it all.

  Starrunner and Urgon were rising in the air. Pulse blasts slammed from the Warhawk, finally flashed down to disable our ships’ electrical circuits for brief instants and they clunked down on the tarmac like dead weights.

  I saw the Warkhawk blast the rear thrusters off Urgon. Likewise the struts. Armed men stormed out of the Warkhawk and blew the ramp and boarded her. I don’t know whether they killed Dolgra’s men that instant or took them prisoners. Men were moving crystal out of the freighter on a big load lifter to their freighter. They weren’t taking any chances of their cash cow flying away.

  Wren was firing rounds into the cloud of smoke, but not getting much action. I was reaching for my grenade pin.

  The Warhawk wasn’t even on the ground when a dozen men in khaki fatigues jumped out of the hatch, spraying us with fire. We crawled on our bellies like worms, Dolgra moaning in pain. A paralyzer-slug zapped my shoulder. I convulsed, cursing. I looked up to see five grim faces peering down at me with weapons trained on us all. Boots flicked out and kicked the weapons out of our hands. Rough hands seized us and dragged us into the warehouse.

  I felt my shell-shocked grip on reality fading. More figures disembarked from the Markest and in my horror, I thought to see big P leisurely making his way down the tarmac with three of his ape-armed escorts.

  One of our captors threw a bag over my head while others dragged Wren and Dolgra down the dim-lit hall. I couldn’t figure it out. I easily expected we’d all be taken aboard P’s bandit cruiser and that would be the end of us. Truncheons slapped down on my neck; my shoulder spasmed and I groaned in pain. Thuds, blows, curses. Wren’s wild cries, Dolgra’s murmurs of agony—all came in a wild orgy—the opening and slamming of doors, heated arguing of voices, muttered yells, pitched insults. More blunt objects wracked against my body, and I was forced onto a cold, cement floor. Hands seized me by the hair and arms and thrust me into a hard-backed chair. They bound my forearms with twine to the armrests, roped my calv
es to the leg-rests. The whimpers of my team faded to a primal keening. Only the harsh mutters of violent men accompanied the scuff of booted feet.

  The bag was removed from my head, and I gulped in lungfuls of air. The paralyzer was fading and I reeled to the throes of a splitting headache, my face all puffy and my arms throbbing something awful. I struggled in vain to free myself from that chair in that bare storeroom with no windows.

  I recognized the hairy face that leered over me, but it was not who I expected it to be.

  “Déjà vu, eh, Rusco?” came Baer’s gruff voice. “Wipe that purple grin off your face. Hope your trip wasn’t too painful?”

  The shadowy figure donned a pair of heavy work gloves, blue-grey industrial grade with raspy edges and steel knit weave, and patted my cheek with a rough caress as if those mitts were made for handling asbestos. His arm seemed to be repaired, assuming he had either some wicked miracle glue or hardcore flesh regen. How about a mechno-arm?