by Jake Bible
“It is what it is,” Roak said. “Sorry to have bothered you. We’ll be leaving soon.”
“We?” the impound man asked.
“I mean me and my ship,” Roak said.
“Huh,” the impound man replied. “You and your ship…”
“There a problem?”
“Nope. No problem. Just need to know how you’re gonna pay, is all.”
The impound man smiled at Roak like a Gorborian shark. Nothing but teeth. And the teeth were not in the greatest shape.
“Pay?” Roak asked. “I said I didn’t need any parts. Just stopped to—”
“Feel some solid ground under your boots. Yeah. I heard ya,” the impound man interrupted. “The thing is, pally boy, that this is my ground. For as far as you can see and beyond, this is my ground. And once you’re on my ground, then I own you. Not like a slaver, but like the owner of an impound lot. Which is where you landed. By Galactic Fleet authority, you can’t leave until you pay the impound fee.”
Roak gripped the Flott a little tighter. The impound man’s smile widened.
“Wouldn’t get too confident,” he said to Roak as he hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I ain’t alone, pally boy.”
“I’m sure you’re not,” Roak replied. “Your friends faster than a Flott five-six concussion blaster with laser cluster spread? Because few beings are. I fire, you die. Maybe some of your friends die if this Flott has already locked onto their positions. It’s a damn fine Flott, so I’m guessing it has.”
“Yeah, well, see now, somehow we’ve gotten ourselves into a bit of a misunderstanding,” the impound man said, patting his belly. “You seem to be under the impression I’m an idiot and don’t know how to do my job. Why don’t I dispel that impression of yours by stating that I am, in fact, not an idiot, and I do know how to do my job.”
“Good for you and your mastery of your chosen profession,” Roak said. “I also am not an idiot and I also know how to do my job. I’m very good at doing my job.”
“Does that job include killing?”
“At times, it does.”
“Not very original. Plenty of killers come around here. Been dealing with them since I was knee-high to a terpig.” The impound man laughed again. “That’s why I make sure to stream a holo to the local Galactic Fleet outpost each and every time I interact with someone that has stepped foot on my land. Don’t matter none if they are here to deliver a package or here to steal a ship, the GF outpost gets a full holo of the entire interaction. Just like they are getting now. You and your ship are on watch, pally boy.”
“Stop calling me pally boy,” Roak snarled. “It’s pissing me off.”
“Uh oh, wouldn’t want that,” the impound man said. “So, back to payment, how would you like to pay? I give a discount for using chits. But I take credits as well as servitude debts. Short on money and you can work off what you owe me. Once we’re square, I let you and your ship fly right out of here.”
“Sorry, Roak,” Hessa said over the comm. Roak didn’t respond.
“There someone you need to talk it over with in your ship?” the impound man asked.
“I told you I’m alone,” Roak said. “How much we talking with the chit discount?”
“Two point five,” the impound man said. “A person that owns a beauty of a ship like that is a person that can certainly pay two point five.”
“Two point five what?” Roak asked. “Thousand? That’s fair. I’ll be right back.”
“Whoa ho ho, pally boy!” the impound man exclaimed. “Thousand? No, no, no. Now we’re back to misunderstanding each other.” The impound man jabbed a fat finger towards Roak’s ship. “That is one fine Borgon. I know exactly what they cost. Especially with stealth tech included. So, when I say two point five, I’m talking millions, pally boy.”
“I told you not to call me pally boy,” Roak said. “And I don’t have two point five million chits. I’m not that fortunate right now.”
“Well, how about we make it an even three in credits then?” The impound man swiped at his left wrist and brought up a holo interface. “Swipe me your bank info and we can handle the transfer right here, right now, so you can be on your way since you’ve had your boots on the ground and there’s no need for you to stick around even a second longer.”
“Don’t have three million credits either.”
“Come on, pally boy, you gotta work with me here. How much do you have?”
“What’s zero multiplied by zero?” Roak asked.
“That’d be zero. And I hope, for your sake, that is a joke and not an actual figure.”
“It’s the figure I plan on paying,” Roak said as he started walking towards the ship. He couldn’t see it, but he knew where it had landed. “And so you know, I lied. I’m not alone either and the plasma cannons on my ship are aimed right at you.” Roak holstered the Flott. “Wouldn’t want there to be a misunderstanding between us.”
“Yeah, well, I’m afraid there is,” the impound man and snapped his fingers.
Two laser bolts melted sand at Roak’s feet, turning small clumps of ground in to glinting glass. Roak stared down at the newly formed glass hunks then looked back up at the impound man.
“Hessa. Time for us to go,” Roak said. “How about you give our—?”
“Can’t,” Hessa replied. “Weapons systems are offline. There’s an override protocol on them that I can’t get through. It’s blanketing the entire ship’s system, but only affecting… Nope, it’s got the engines too.”
Roak glanced up at the shimmer and the impound man started laughing again.
“Little voice in your ear telling you that ship of yours is grounded?” the impound man asked. “Telling you your weapons are on lockdown and basically you have a giant hunk of metal there that’s good for eating and sleeping in, but not much else?”
“Something like that,” Roak responded.
“Now, how about you follow me to my roller around the corner here and we go back to my nice environmentally conditioned office to discuss your options? Sound good.”
“Can’t say that it does,” Roak replied. “Hessa? Any reason I’m not seeing a yellow blur helping me out?”
“I’ve been trying to figure that one out,” Hessa said. “He’s hiding in a cleaning closet right now and refuses to come out.”
“Hessa? That sounds like a sexy name. She your girl on that ship?” the impound man asked. “If you’d rather I negotiate with her, then I am all for it.”
“Hessa is a sentient AI that doesn’t like fat terpigs like you,” Roak said.
“Not making the situation better, Roak,” Hessa said.
“But feel free to go aboard,” Roak continued. “I doubt she’ll cook you alive in the cargo hold or have one of the bots rip your dick off when you use a side hatch. Then again, maybe she will.”
The impound man frowned deeply and jabbed another fat finger towards the ship. “You got a sentient AI in that ship? Oh, pally boy, that is such a no-no that I think the GF will give me a reward for simply alerting them to that. No idea what your deal is, but if you have a Borgon and a sentient AI, then I have for sure hit the jackpot.”
“Didn’t you say something about going to your office to negotiate?” Roak asked.
“You got six million chits or eight million credits?” the impound man asked. “Because that’s the going price now.”
“Yes,” Roak stated.
The impound man blinked several times then smiled as wide as his face would allow.
“Alright then,” he said. “Follow me. We’ll get comfortable in my office, maybe have a drink or two, and wait for that bank transfer to be certified.”
“If that’s how I get to leave this shithole,” Roak said.
“No need to name call, pally boy.”
24.
Roak should have waited to use the term “shithole” for when he saw the impound man’s office.
“Nice,” Roak said as he reluctantly sat in a chair the man offered h
im.
The seat was soft, very soft, but Roak doubted it was from the cushion. The amount of mildew stink that wafted up when he sat told him his ass was probably being held up by a billion layers of mold.
“You got a name?” Roak asked.
“I do,” the impound man replied, but left it at that.
“Good for you,” Roak said as he looked about the office. It was as rundown as the roller they’d used to navigate the mountains of junk and the impounded ships. And rundown was being kind.
The impound man brought up a holo in the center of his rickety desk and swiped through several protocols before he found what he was looking for.
“There we go,” the impound man said. “Gigs!”
The door to the office opened immediately and a Ferg holding a gas-powered slug chunker in each hand looked in, eyes wide and expectant. Being a Ferg, which was like a cross between a beaver and a praying mantis, the guy was only a meter tall and not very muscular. But the bug eyes told Roak he was jacked-up on enough stim to kill an Urvein, so Roak waited quietly in the moldy chair instead of jumping at the thing and taking the slug chunkers from him then inserting them in orifices that were not designed for large weapons to fit.
That and there were at least a dozen other armed beings outside the office with hard-ons to hurt Roak as soon as they were given an excuse. Roak needed to square a few things away first before he stirred up that moron nest.
“Gigs? What’s the password for the Mcher account?” the impound man asked.
“Oh, oh, you remember,” the Ferg, Gigs, said. “The date of that day when you did the thing you did where we thought it was jelly but it wasn’t jelly.”
“Perfect. Thanks, Gigs,” the impound man said and dismissed the Ferg with a wave.
Roak watched as the impound man swiped some more then stabbed his wrist directly into the holo while he typed at a tablet that had popped up from the desk. More like wheezed up from the desk, it moved so slow.
“You ever thought of updating your operation?” Roak asked. “Looks like your tech could use an upgrade? If you’re extorting millions of credits from beings, then you have to be able to afford some new interfaces.” Roak adjusted his ass. “At least one or two new chairs.”
“Extort,” the impound man said under his breath. “There’s that word. Always with that word.”
The tablet bleeped and the impound man removed his wrist. He spun the holo around so Roak could see it. Then he slid the tablet across the desk so Roak could reach.
“Stuff your arm into here and type your password into the screen and we are good to go,” the impound man said.
“No wrist implant,” Roak said.
“Excuse me, what?” The impound man chuckled then saw the look on Roak’s face and the chuckle died away. “You ain’t joking.”
“No, I’m not,” Roak said. “I’ll have to do it manually.”
“See, this is where you having more implants would come in handy,” Hessa said over the comm. “But I’ll do what I can. Grab the tablet. Please tell me there’s a tablet?”
“Nice tablet,” Roak said as he picked the device up. He grimaced as he touched the surface. It was extremely sticky. “Easy to hold.”
“If he has a bank interface up, then you should see two symbols towards the top right that look like Bverns kissing,” Hessa said.
Roak spun the tablet around to show the impound man. “Do these two symbols look like Bverns kissing? Or do they look like a pair of Klavs arguing over a barrel of whiskey? I think they look like Klavs?”
The impound man gave Roak a look like he’d lost his mind. “Fill out the info so we can get this done, pally boy,” he said with ice in his voice.
“Sure,” Roak said and flipped the tablet back around to him.
“Two Klavs? Even better,” Hessa said. “That means this guy’s security protocols are woefully out of date.”
“Not surprised,” Roak said.
“What was that?” the impound man asked.
“Not surprised my info isn’t logging. Haven’t transferred credits in a while. Give me a second to remember the right answers to the security questions.”
“You get exactly one second,” the impound man said. “Make good use of that second.”
“Oh, I will,” Roak replied.
“Hit the Klavs and scroll to the setting that says either security or restraint or something like that,” Hessa said.
Roak did as he was instructed.
“Almost done,” Roak said. “My bank has very strong security.”
“Security. Good. Tap that then look for something that would control the force field that’s covering the yard,” Hessa said.
“Almost got it,” Roak replied then looked up at the impound man. “You ever use PIN numbers for your security? I had to stop doing that because I would forget mine all the time.”
“PIN number?” Hessa asked. “Roak, is there any reason to think this guy would use anything other than four zeroes?”
“I started using four zeroes,” Roak said and watched the impound man’s eyes widen. Roak entered the PIN immediately then handed the tablet back to the impound man after swiping back to the banking screen. “All done there.”
The impound man yanked the tablet away from Roak and started going over it, his eyes shifting back and forth as he studied the logs. “You little shit.”
Roak stood up and clapped his hands together. “It’s been fun, but my ride will be here soon.”
“Oh, that what you think?” the impound man roared as he jumped up from behind the desk, a slug chunker of his own gripped in his fat hands. “Here! Let me help you on your way!”
Roak dove towards the desk and rammed his shoulder into the front as the slug chunker barked over him. He heard the door to the office blast apart as the huge projectile ripped it to pieces. The impound man’s desk suffered the same fate as Roak’s body demolished the old, mildewed material it was made from.
Roak was suddenly under the desk, a desk that was wobbling precariously over him, and he made his move. Roak’s right fist slammed into the impound man’s groin. Then he grabbed the slug chunker as the impound man fell into his chair, the breath knocked out of him.
The impound man looked down at Roak and started to scream, but Roak took off most of the man’s head with a shot from the chunker.
“Boss!” someone yelled.
Roak shoved the dead man out of the way and popped up from behind the desk. He racked the slide and fired again, destroying the Ferg’s midsection as the being rushed through the doorway that no longer had a door.
As Ferg blood sprayed everywhere, Roak saw the rest of the impound man’s guys standing there, all staring and slack-jawed at what had just occurred.
Roak had no intention of fighting a dozen armed beings. He emptied the slug chunker as he rushed at the office’s external wall. Roak threw himself at the wall, and as he thought would happen, the material it was made of shredded from the impact like tissue paper. Roak was flying, falling, landing hard, rolling, then getting back to his feet and running before anyone even knew they were supposed to pursue him.
He was racing through the mountains of parts and pieces then slid to a halt.
“Dammit,” he swore as he turned to look back in the direction of the impound man’s office. “Dammit!”
“Roak? We’re inbound. ETA is two minutes,” Hessa called over the comm. “I have a scan locked onto you and I’ll… Roak? Roak! Are you going back towards the office and the dozen armed beings? Are you really doing that?”
“I left my Flott there,” Roak said. “No way I let these assholes keep my Flott.”
“Forget the Flott, Roak!”
“You think I’m going to do that?”
“No, of course not,” Hessa snapped. “You and that stupid Flott…” She sighed heavily. “Changing course. We’ll pick you up at the office. Try to stay alive.”
“I always do,” Roak replied as he snagged a two-meter-long metal rod from
one of the piles as he ran. He tested its weight and smiled.
Roak reached the clearing where the office stood, but there was no one to be seen. No thugs, nothing.
“Hessa?” Roak called. “Scan my location.”
“Already scanning,” Hessa said. “You killed them fast.”
“I didn’t,” Roak said. “Yeah, I killed a couple of them, but not all of them. Where are they?”
“Cooling bodies inside the office,” Hessa said. “If you didn’t kill them…”
Roak slowed then stopped. He watched the office closely, hunting for signs of movement. Not even the nasty, stained drapes that hung across the grime-coated windows stirred.
“I’m going to forget the Flott,” Roak said, backing away from the office. “We’ll find another one at some point.”
“Good call, Roak,” Hessa said. “Almost to you.”
Roak turned around and swore.
“Hello,” Ms. Lika said as she held Roak’s Flott in one hand and a very sharp, curved blade in the other. Her body was coated in blood from the many races of the impound man’s thugs. “I found you. Again.”
“Shit,” Roak said then struck with the rod.
25.
Going on the offensive was the only thing that saved Roak’s life.
He hit Ms. Lika’s wrist, knocking the Flott to the ground. She laughed and went to pick the large pistol up, but Roak struck again and the rod hit her in the left shoulder, knocking her off balance. She landed on one knee and continued laughing.
“Not getting the joke,” Roak said as he went in for another hit.
But Ms. Lika was gone. The Flott was still there, but the woman that had dropped it wasn’t. Before Roak could spin around, he felt the sharp pains of a dozen pinpricks on the back of his neck. Literally.
“Shit,” he said as he fell to his knees, his spine turning into a loose rope of numbness. “Dammit.”
“Prick, prick, prick,” Ms. Lika said, her mouth almost touching Roak’s right ear. “Prick go my stickers.”
The curved blade appeared in front of his face and Roak stared at his own reflection then studied Ms. Lika’s as she remained next to him. Her tongue flicked out and licked his earlobe then she was gone, the curved blade withdrawn.
