She led the way into the bar, moving like a sapient bulldozer and assuming anyone would get out of her way. To the credit of the patrons’ intelligence, they did—and anyone who might have caused trouble spotted the three Special Space Service troopers bringing up the rear and thought better of it.
Few bits of body language were universal across species, but Annette suspected that having a hand on the grip of your firearm was one of them.
Annette caught up to her alien companion in time to hear her threaten the bartender.
“We’re here to do business, Ik!It. If you want me to break the bar, fine. But I doubt Ondu would approve.”
The bartender was the first cephalod-esque alien Annette had seen except for the A!Tol themselves. The vast majority of the races she’d encountered to date had, in fact, been bipedal tool-users like humans. The exceptions—the Frole, the Rekiki, the Laians themselves—had clearly been regarded as oddities even by aliens.
The bartender, however, looked like a twelve-armed octopus. He resembled an octopus, in fact, a lot more than the A!Tol resembled squids.
“Fine,” it spat at Ki!Tana. “Rumor says your new friends have cargo worth dealing.”
“They do,” the A!Tol replied. “And I owe Ondu enough to give him the first chance. Do you really want to cost him that deal?”
The bartender hit something Annette didn’t see and a panel in what had appeared to be a solid chunk of cargo-container wall next to the bar retracted into the rest of the wall and slid aside.
Ki!Tana went toward it without hesitation, and the Terrans, strangers in a strange land now, followed.
They found themselves in what appeared to be the storehouse for the bar, except that several pallets of booze were moving aside to create a clear path—and two massive guards clad in power armor were emerging from the shadows.
Like the Rekiki, they had four legs supporting a two-armed torso. Where the Rekiki were proportioned much like Earth horses, these guards were not. They both towered two and a half meters tall and fully a meter and a half around, barrel-thick bodies evenly supported on their four legs as they loomed.
“You know me,” Ki!Tana told them. “We’re meeting Ondu, on business.”
“Weapons,” the guard on the left said. “No tricks.”
“Leave the guns,” the A!Tol told the humans.
“What promise of safety do we have without them?” Wellesley asked, though the SSS Major was unslinging his submachine gun.
“Ondu’s,” the guard rumbled. “And mine. In that door, you only get hurt if we’re dead.”
“I think we’re safe, James,” Annette told him. “Let’s see what this Ondu is about.”
Chapter 31
Ondu was yet another alien whose species Annette had never met before, though at least she recognized his species from the files they’d been assembling. He was a Tosumi, one of the first races conquered by the A!Tol. Grossly obese for his race, Ondu was a four-armed biped covered in short yellow feathers. He wore a tightly fitted tunic-like garment that made his obesity obvious and also pinned the vestigial wings of his race to his side.
“Ki!Tana,” he snapped, clacking his night-black beak on the click in the name as he leveled jewel-like eyes on the human group and their A!Tol companion. “You are foolish to return to me.”
“We have always dealt fairly with each other, Ondu,” Ki!Tana replied. “Why would I not come to you with this opportunity?”
“Fairly?” the Tosumi sputtered, spraying spittle from his beak but still remaining in his chair. “You sold me twenty thousand defective power cells! I lost customers who’d worked with me for two hundred years.”
Annette quickly checked her translator software. It happily confirmed that, yes, it had translated Ondu’s number as well as his time unit. He’d actually said something like “three eighties of star-dances”. Networked across Tornado’s computers and all of the hardware issued to her thousand crew, the software was getting very smart.
“That was Kikitheth,” Ki!Tana pointed out. “And she warned you she wasn’t sure of the quality of those power cells. You cut thirty percent off the price because of it, Ondu. You were hardly scammed.”
“There’s uncertain quality—and then there’s cells exploding from casing fractures! I had to buy back all of them I could find before anyone died!” Ondu’s beak clacked in what Annette suspected was feigned distress.
“I would say raise it with Kikitheth, but she’s dead,” Ki!Tana replied. “And, old friend, you really should have checked the cells yourself. We didn’t have the tools.”
“I would hope you’re not expecting a good deal after that,” the Tosumi grumped.
“I have brought you the best deal this station has seen in a dozen years,” Annette’s companion replied. “Ondu Arra Tallas, meet Captain Annette Bond, privateer of the United Earth Space Force. The flotilla that just arrived is hers—and she needs the best agent on Tortuga to liquidate her prizes.
“If you do not want to deal with me, of course, we can go talk to others. I believe Palani is still in business?”
“That amphibious reptile would not get you half the deal I would, and you know it, you big tentacled soft candy,” Ondu snapped. “Welcome to my office, Captain Bond. Despite what it may seem, being brought here by this”—he gestured at Ki!Tana with an upper arm—“is a recommendation few can share. You even sent Kikitheth to me on her own.”
“Kikitheth, I imagine, could find her own way around Tortuga,” Annette demurred calmly. “Can we do business?”
“I saw your flotilla,” the bird-like alien allowed. “Costa!” he shrieked, a predatory sound that made Annette’s heart race. A third of the four immense hexapods, this one lacking armor and so revealing a richly furred red creature with large eyes and heavily clawed hands, emerged into the room. “Bring seats for our guests. Water as well.” He glanced at Annette. “I can guarantee other things would not kill you, but not how they would taste.”
The chairs that emerged—four of them slung along one mightily thewed furry arm—might not have been designed for humans, but they were close enough to be perfectly comfortable. Annette sat gingerly and faced the agent across his desk.
“We have three ships to sell, plus their cargos,” she told him flatly. “I am not averse to paying a fair fee nor taking time to find the best deal, but I will find a fair deal and I will want to begin upgrades on my ships relatively quickly.”
She laid a data crystal on the desk. “Details of the cargo are in there, but the high summary is one cargo of point six cee rated missiles, one cargo of raw protein, and one cargo of molecular circuitry cores.”
Ondu slotted the crystal into a display unit and balanced on his chair, clicking his beak softly as he reviewed the data.
“Were I to offer to buy all of this from you right now, Ki!Tana would physically remove you from my office,” the bird-like alien observed. The humor and harassment from earlier were gone. He was all business now, gesturing for Costa to lay out the drinks. “I am an agent and a broker. The most generous offer I could make you without would still be a paltry price for what you have brought—and risky for me regardless. Neither of us would benefit.
“Finding buyers will take time. Those who can purchase this quantity of missiles prefer higher quality, so they will need to be sold in smaller batches. No one aboard this station has the need for this many molecular cores, but many have a need for some.
“I can find a single buyer for the food,” he noted. “The only value there, as I am sure you understand, is quantity. Raw protein is cheap.
“The ships…even with the damage, they can be sold, but again…I would want to line up a buyer. You need an agent, Captain, which is why Ki!Tana brought you to me. I am the best.”
All four of Ondu’s hands suddenly flickered into action, moving with a speed that belied his bulk. “I believe I can arrange buyers for all of your goods inside ten A!Tol cycles. For…forty percent of the gross.”
Annette sa
w Ki!Tana’s skin flash bright orange but raised a hand before the angry A!Tol could explode.
“I don’t even need Ki!Tana to tell me that you’re robbing me at that rate,” she told Ondu sweetly. “Ten percent of the gross.”
“That is robbery,” Ondu shrieked.
“You know where those ships came from,” she observed, carefully taking a drink of water to make the broker wait. “Believe me, Ondu, I know what robbery looks like.”
The alien clacked its beak rapidly, throwing back its head in a disturbing gesture it took her a moment to realize was laughter.
“It involves more battle damage in your mind, I imagine?” he asked after a moment. “I can go to thirty, Captain Bond. You are asking a lot of work of myself and my staff.”
Ki!Tana was no longer visibly furious, but Annette wasn’t going to take that as solid. A!Tol showed their emotions on their skin, but it wasn’t always a guaranteed thing. In this case, Ki!Tana had clearly progressed to the light red of amused pleasure. She was enjoying watching Annette dicker.
“Then a lower rate would motivate you to seek an even better deal for me,” she told Ondo. “I can go as high as fifteen percent, I suppose, but even that seems unreasonable. We are, after all, delivering one of the most valuable cargos this station has seen in a while—and I will need to spend much of that money as well, a task I assume you would also be willing to help with.”
Ondu paused for a moment, clearly considering.
“I can go as low as twenty-seven,” he finally conceded. “Lower would not be possible.”
“Really?” Annette asked. Something in her tone led Major Wellesley to have a nasty coughing fit beside her. “That’s such a shame.”
“A shame?”
“I can’t possible go above twenty,” she told Ondu. “Though I suppose we could, say, sell the food cargo immediately to you at a discounted rate to assure you of a reasonable profit to start.”
Which would also meet her need of immediate cash.
The birdlike alien stared at her unblinkingly, a state that reminded her very much of a hawk she’d met on her family farm as a child. Of course, Ondu was an overweight, flightless hawk, which robbed the glare of much of its implicit threat, and she stared right back at him.
Finally, he gave one sharp snap of his beak.
“You and I, Captain Bond, are going to be wonderful friends,” he told her. “Twenty-two, please, to salve my wounded pride.”
“Very well,” she replied. “Shall we arrange the funds transfer for the protein cargo immediately?
#
Banking on Tortuga was one of the services run by the Laians. They provided a secure financial database that tracked the accounts of every ship on the station, reported and recorded every transaction in a secure, confidential manner, and made sure that the Crew got their cut.
Ondu had a remote connection to the service that enabled him to confirm that an account had automatically been set up for Tornado on arrival and set up the transfer.
“You will want to go talk to the bank,” the Tosumi noted after sending over the money for the first part of their deal. “The Crew is very specific on who can access accounts—and all of your crewmembers will need them too. Easier to pay their shares that way; gives them spending money on Tortuga and allows them to take cash in whatever currency they want.”
“These accounts are safe?” Annette asked.
“So long as Tortuga exists, the Crew will honor your accounts here,” Ondu replied. “The Laians act as arbitrators of all contracts and transactions aboard Tortuga. They are trusted to do so because they keep their word.”
“Odd bunch of criminals,” she noted.
Ondu laughed again, the strange clicking noise unnerving still.
“You misunderstand the Crew,” he pointed out. “They are not criminals. They are exiles and sapients without state, unbeholden to any law or code but their own, but they are not criminals. They simply do not…care what others do, so long as they are paid.
“Very mercenary. But they are not pirates or slavers or murderers themselves.”
“On my world, they would still be criminals,” Annette pointed out. Money laundering was the politest legal term she could see applying.
“On most,” Ondu agreed. “But they see it…in more complex ways.” He tapped one final command and closed his holographic screen. “The sale of the food supplies is complete. I will have people by to empty the ship in three hours, if that works for you?”
“I’ll let my people know,” Annette agreed.
“I do suggest you talk to the Bank, though,” he repeated. “Ki!Tana can take you there. The Crew will not…complain if you do not, but they will be less cooperative as time goes on if you don’t play by their rules.”
“Ki!Tana?” she asked.
The alien flashed a blue-purple color Annette was starting to recognize as the equivalent of a human shifting uncomfortably.
“You are less vulnerable to that than another new Captain would be,” the A!Tol admitted. “My history and standing with Tortuga are…complicated, but it buys you social credit you would not otherwise have.
“But Ondu is correct. It will make your life and your human crews’ life much easier—but it is also not somewhere you could have approached without money. We needed that transfer to get things set up.”
“You…you had no money at all.” Ondu stared at the humans and their companion for several moments, his beak hanging wide open, and then started laughing again. “Much to sell, but no cash of your own. Well played, Captain. But yes. Go to the bank, then, now that you have money. Set up accounts for your crew, pay them all their share of that sale—it may be pathetic when compared to the cost of a ship, but it will buy many luxuries here.
“I will let you know when I have buyers for the rest of your cargo.”
#
One surprisingly prosaic and familiar bank appointment later, Annette had ship’s credit accounts set up for her three ships’ maintenance and supplies, a general flotilla account set up (that the money would actually flow into from the sales), and personal accounts set up for herself and every human member of her crew.
There was even money in every one of the personal accounts, including her own. The funds were denominated in A!Tol Imperial marks, of course, so she had almost no idea what the amounts really meant, but she had at least paid her crew—including the aliens—by the time she returned to Tornado.
Pat Kurzman was waiting with apparent patience as she and her escort returned aboard. She very carefully did not notice him and Wellesley quickly embracing while everyone happened to be looking the other way, and waited for her XO to join her.
“Who left?” she asked without preamble, gesturing toward the airlock with her chin.
“The Rekiki, obviously,” Kurzman said. “Some of the others. Fewer than I expected—other than Tellaki and his people, we’re only down twenty-six so far of the crew who came aboard with Ki!Tana.”
“You are successful, Captain,” that worthy inserted into the conversation. “Some may not trust your promise to pay them regardless and will remain until they are paid out for all three prizes and cargos. Many think you are lucky and will stay. I will check in with my people and let you know if any significant number still plan on leaving.”
The A!Tol left along the corridor, trailed by the two members of Wellesley’s escort detail. They’d been unneeded this time, though Annette had no intention of leaving Tornado without them.
“We’ve set up accounts for all of the human crew,” she told Kurzman and passed him the data crystal. “We’ll be getting a shipment of glorified charge cards shortly; I’ll leave distributing them in your capable hands.”
“We got the agent Ki!Tana wanted?”
“Yeah.”
“Can we trust him?” her XO asked.
“I think so,” Annette sighed. “It’s in his interests to do well for us. His commission is going to be painful, but we’ll get the money we need for the upgra
des.”
“Do we need them this badly, ma’am?” Kurzman said quietly. “You’re talking about putting our ship—our only warship—into the hands of pirates. We’ve stood up to everything we’ve faced so far.”
“We can’t fight the A!Tol Navy on even ground yet, Pat,” she pointed out. “It’s a risk, I don’t deny that. We’re leveraging Ki!Tana’s contacts to try and upgrade Tornado into something that can go toe-to-toe with bigger ships.” She shook her head. “Ki!Tana seems to trust them. We have no choice—we’re not going to free Earth by robbing freighters.”
“Fair.” He paused. The corridors around them were empty for the moment, but it wouldn’t be long before the inevitable grind pulled them back to work. “Are we trusting her too much?” Kurzman asked finally. “We know nothing about her. Nothing.”
“Yes, we’re trusting her too much,” Annette said flatly. “I just don’t see an alternative. Do you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Once the charge cards are distributed, we can start doing shore leave,” she told him. “You know the rules I want. Everyone watches their back. This place feels like Mos Eisley.”
“That bad?” Kurzman asked.
She thought about it for a moment.
“Actually, no. It’s worse.”
Chapter 32
“So, can we drink it?” one of the Service Troop Captains asked.
James ran the small scanner he’d been issued over the mugs of what looked like beer. It blinked for a few seconds and settled on green.
“It’s alcoholic and it won’t poison you,” he told his junior officer as he gestured his people to the table they’d picked out in the “open-air” bar. “I don’t know if I would say that means you can drink it; no one knows what it will taste like to humans.”
“Someone has to go first,” Pat Kurzman noted, grabbing one of the mugs and taking a swallow. The XO coughed, blinking rapidly as he tried processed just what he’d put in his mouth, and then shook himself.
The Terran Privateer Page 22
