by Nick Webb
She shot him another dirty look, but Jake interrupted her retort. “And how much are you asking, ma’am?”
“Fifty thousand. No less. I have regular customers, so don’t try to low-ball me.” She glared at him, and he stroked his chin. They would give them a leg up if Trajan ever tracked them down. A few of those sent surreptitiously floating towards the Imperial ships and any fight would soon be over.
“Fine. We’ll take five.”
One thick eyebrow rode high on her forehead, and she smiled—the first time she did anything besides frown. “Really? Well then, I had you pegged as no-good window shoppers. Very well, Five it is. Cash? I don’t take no filthy Imperial credits.”
Jake nodded. “Yes, of course cash. Though we’ll be picking up a large shipment of goods here later today, and I think we’ll take these then. No sense in carrying them around with us all day. Is that fine with you?”
She grinned, and yellow-stained teeth peered through her parted lips. “Very fine. Come back when you’re ready.”
They continued walking down the narrow aisle, looking at the various goods displayed, and Jake could definitely tell they had entered the contraband section of the warehouse. Besides the mines, several tables displayed glittering heaps of cocraina, the latest drug craze sweeping the Thousand Worlds, which the Empire had sensibly banned. Others held weapons that could be disassembled into constituent parts so innocuous and discrete that they could be smuggled into just about any location, including, presumably, detention facilities and penal colonies.
Out of the corner of his eye, behind them, Jake saw an urgent movement. He glanced around and looked into Ben’s serious eyes, followed by Corporal Suarez.
“What is it, Ben?” he asked as his friend came in close to his ear.
“We’ve got tails,” he said, nodding his head behind him, and to the side, towards the next aisle over. Jake looked up and saw a man in a heavy coat peer at them, walking slowly towards them. Two more men in the next aisle over stared at them as well, and as Jake turned, he saw that just further down their same aisle another pair of men in similar thick coats slowly approached. Jake didn’t need to ask Ben what he thought they carried underneath.
“What do you think, Avery?” said Jake, leaning into the sergeant. The man had extensive spec-ops training, and might have some insight.
“Tight, confined, public space. They’re not likely to pull guns on us, but then again, this isn’t some market on the east coast of North America, this is Destiny. They might not feel so inhibited here.” He glanced to the next aisle over, the one closer to the wall they had entered from. “That aisle looks clear. Lets jump the table and get outside.”
Jake furrowed his brow. He didn’t want to leave without their guide. He looked up and down the aisles for Velar, but didn’t immediately see her.
“Fine. Let’s move. Get to the vehicles,” he said finally. And the moment they hopped the nearest table to get to the wall, the heavy-coated men sprang into action, all simultaneously revealing their assault rifles.
***
Senator Galba was used to acting. He’d spent his entire Senate career putting on a good show for the people, for the Emperor, for his aides, for his fellow senators, and for all the myriad of women he’d conquered. He knew how to say just the right thing for the right ears. How to ingratiate himself, or make others cower in fear, or covet his attention. Usually, just a simple touch on the elbow, a wink, and a sly smile was enough to get him whatever he wanted from just about anyone.
“No, sir, just doing a quick inventory of some critical supplies. On the XO’s order.” He tried to stare straight ahead, like a good soldier, without looking the officer in the eyes.
“I wasn’t informed. Which department did you say you’re in?” The Chief Petty Officer looked him up and down. At least, that was the rank Galba interpreted from the insignia on the man’s shoulder. He really had no idea. The man could be a private, for all he knew.
“Operations, sir. But I was, err, requisitioned to repair duty after all the craziness the other day. Damn Imperials.” He knew how to talk like a commoner. Gods knew he grew up with enough of them. Of course, even the commoners in the seaside resort of Capricus on Corsica were gods among men in comparison with the riffraff on Old Earth, or any other backward world in the Empire. He scratched his balls for good measure.
The other man paused, but nodded, then looked closer at Galba’s bandage covering half his face. “You ok there? Lose the eye?”
“No, thank the gods. Doc says it’ll be fine in a few weeks.” He froze on the inside, though, as he realized he just slipped in a reference to the gods. The Roman gods—the gods of the Empire. But to his relief the man gave him a sly smile.
“Oh, you’re a believer, huh? Don’t run into to many others like us in the Resistance. Gods, I hate the Empire, but at least they know their stuff with religion. Hey, don’t I know you? Did you serve down on Earth? In the North American Brigades?” The officer squinted, waving a finger at him as if trying to pull at a distant memory.
He was obviously just remembering Galba’s face from the news broadcasts. The Senator weighed his next move carefully. “Huh, no actually I was in the Euro Brigades. Just as a tech. But our division saw some action over in D.C. during D-day. Were you there?” It was only partly a lie. He knew from his studies of the Old Earth Resistance movement that there was a lot of shuffling around of Rebel divisions in the days leading up to D-day, including several European brigades seeing some intense action at the Imperial Government Satellite offices in Washington. Of course, he was safely light years away at the time.
Thankfully, the man nodded. “Yeah, that’s it. I was stationed in Baltimore, but we saw some action down south. Man, the fuckers sure don’t know when to stop, do they? We’ll have to chase them all the way back down to that rat infested shithole of a world they call home. Corsica? Fuck. More like Forsica. Ha ha—get it?”
Galba did not get it, but guessed at the man’s meaning, and cringed inwardly at the crude lower-class attempt at humor. His friends at the Capricus Beach Club would howl with laughter at him for getting himself into such a … detestably common conversation. “Right, sir. Very good, very good. Well, I should be getting back to work. Can I help you with anything while you’re here?”
The officer glanced at the shelves. “Yeah. I’m looking for some spanners and a few omni-gauges.”
Galba stepped over to a shelf and opened a box—one he’d already rifled through an hour ago. Hefting out a few spanners he held them out to the man. “These work? And I think we’ve got some omni-gauges over here.…”
A minute later the man had gone, leaving Galba to his work. He breathed a sigh of relief and sat back down at the computer terminal he’d managed to hack into from the access port on the wall. Apparently, his secret diplomatic codes hadn’t been locked out yet, and hopefully no one on board knew to look for them yet in the security reports. They’d find out eventually, of course, unless he could hide his tracks.
But hopefully it wouldn’t matter.
With a few more keystrokes he initiated the coolant build-up. Even after hundreds of years of engine technology, the damn things still needed cooling, and the most reliable source was still water.
Main engineering would never even know what hit it.
With a grin, he slipped out of the room, tool bag firmly in hand, and melted into the stream of crew members who rushed down the corridor towards some new emergency.
Time to find Willow and establish an alibi. His groin clenched—with any luck, an alibi with a happy ending.
***
Gavin Ashdown could hardly believe what he was doing. Overhead, through the transparent composite viewport, wheeled a field of brilliant stars, and to his side, the polar region of the planet Destiny. He almost giggled—he never giggled, but he couldn’t wipe the grin off of his face as he pulled up on the controls and spun the fighter around to face the direction he had just come from, and punched the accelerator.
“Dammit, Ashdown, is that all you’ve got?” came Lieutenant Grace’s angry voice over the speaker. “My great-granny Meredith could pull a tighter turn than that. And she’s dead. Pull your head out of your ass and get in the game!”
“Yes, sir,” he said, and attempted the 180 degree flip again, setting his nose towards the horizon and then simultaneously firing his forward dorsal thrusters and his rear ventral thrusters: with a flip of the wings, spun the craft around in as tight a radius he could manage, and gunned the gravitic drive when his orientation righted itself.
“Better, but still pretty shitty. Keep at it for the next few minutes while I tell your friend how awful she is.”
Gavin chuckled. He supposed Jet Xing had it worse than him—she was good at the videogames, but never like Gavin. She just didn’t have the feel for the three dimensional space, nor the reflexes. And furthermore, she didn’t take well to people yelling at her. Threw off her groove, she claimed. He could imagine the sneer on her face as Lieutenant Grace shrieked at her over the comm, and how it would only aggravate her and make her lose concentration. And the callsign that Gavin had tagged her with hadn’t helped.
“How’s it going over there, Floppychop?” he murmured into his comm.
“Up yours, dipshit,” came Jet’s annoyed voice. Gavin smiled at himself. She’d get used to the name eventually, and talk to him again.
He performed five more 180 degree flips before Grace’s voice thundered over the speaker again. “Ashdown! Get your ass to the flight deck!”
At first, the hairs on the back of his neck prickled, and he looked all around at each viewport, peering out to see the cause of her yelling. “Why? Is something wrong?”
“You’re wrong, newbie! You’re all wrong. Get your ass in the conference room within five minutes, or you’ll be scrubbing galley floors again so fast your head will explode. Literally. All over the floor. And then you’ll have to clean that shit off the floor too. Move!”
With a sigh, he pulled on the controls until the nose pointed towards the maw of the flight deck on the rear of the Phoenix, and received his instructions from the deck chief concerning his landing order. At least he remembered that. The first time he came in for a landing, he forgot to check with the chief, and nearly crashed into another fighter making its own approach.
When the bird came to rest, he wrenched the cockpit door open and hopped out and dashed towards the still scorched and pockmarked door to the anteroom.
“Gavin! Wait up!” He glanced back and saw Jet Xing. His competitor. He threw her an insincere, thin-lipped smile. No need to play nice with the enemy.
“What do you want, Floppychop?”
“Looks like you pissed off Lieutenant Grace again. You keep this up and I’ve got this thing in the bag,” Jet said as they walked through the entryway to the anteroom.
“Screw you, Jet,” said Gavin. He wiped his sweaty forehead, making his blonde hair stick out from his head at an awkward angle. “The day Grace gives that spot to you is the day I kiss your ass.”
“That oughta be fun,” Jet quipped, and hung up her helmet in the bullet-strafed locker in the anteroom. “Get ready to pucker up, dickhead. You’ve got about as much chance of landing that spot as landing your dick in Lieutenant Grace’s runway.”
“Yeah, screw you.” Gavin shut his locker and ambled towards the door to the conference room, Jet close behind. He noticed the deep pockmarks in the doors and walls of the conference room, which left him with a pit in his stomach every time he saw them.
“What, you offering?” Jet laughed in her high-pitched, whiny voice, and Gavin rolled his eyes. Whereas before they’d been tentative friends, playing videogames together for long hours into the night, now the kid seemed to Gavin like a petulant little cocky douchebag who needed to be put in her place. As he sat down in the stadium seating of the conference room and glanced up at a glaring Lieutenant Grace, he hoped she might provide it.
“Come on, newbies, sit your asses down and shut the hell up.” She glanced at her watch. “Four minutes, thirty seconds. That was cutting it kind of close, dontcha think?” She stared at the lot of them: three marines who occasionally glanced down at their rippling arm muscles, two shuttle pilots who in Gavin’s opinion probably had the fighter pilot positions in the bag, and of course Jet and Gavin, who both still had a few lingering pimples.
Jet raised her hand. “Lieutenant, I think I can safely speak for all of us when I say tha—”
“Floppychop, when I want to hear you talk, I will ask you a question. Until then, shut your pie-hole.” She stared at her with her fiery eyes until she looked down. Gavin grinned. Grace turned to him. “And what the fuck are you smiling at, Ashdown? You think I’m funny?”
“No, sir,” said Gavin, sitting up straighter in his chair.
“Damn right. I’m the least funny thing you newbies have to worry about right now. There’s far funnier things. Exploding propellant tanks, miscalculated gravitic coordinates, misfired torpedoes, enemy railgun fire, friendly railgun fire, ion beam cannon fire that can literally boil the shit out of you, burning up in the atmosphere, colliding with suicidal bogeys, psychotically insane Imperial admirals, Commander Jemez’s luscious lips, Doc Nichols’s scalpel, unexpected depressurization, electrical overloads, and last but not least, the incompetence of the people seated next to you.” She took a deep breath.
“Corporal Taylor,” she addressed one of the marines in the front row, “we’re back in here because of you. Tell me what you did wrong.”
Taylor, a burly, crew-cut marine in his mid-twenties or so, stiffened in his seat. He hesitated. “Uh, sir, I think I—”
“Wrong answer. Can anyone else tell Macho here what his problem is?”
Silence. Gavin had no idea—at the time of Taylor’s supposed mistake, he’d been practicing his own 180s.
“You said ‘I think I—.’ I gave you specific instructions out there that I expected you to follow to the letter. You will think when I tell you to, and that will only happen when I’m convinced that you have the capacity to do so. I said to do five 180s. You did seven. A little thing, right? Wrong. The Wing Commander—me—gives the orders for training exercises. If you’re out there doing some crazy shit that I don’t know about, at this stage you’re likely to slam into another fighter who actually is carrying out my orders.” She folded her arms and rested her gaze back on Corporal Taylor, who shrunk a little further into his chair. “Let me be clear. You do what I say, when I say it, exactly how I say it, with no stunts, bravado, or any dicking around, period. If this happens again, you’re out. No second chances. You’re out. Gone. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir,” said Corporal Taylor.
“I said,” she repeated, looking around at the rest of them, “do I make myself CLEAR?”
“Yes, sir!” they all shouted.
“Good.” She returned to her podium and examined the console on top. “Next up, we’ve got basic target locking and pursuit maneuvers. We’ll be using dummy rounds, but lucky for you, the likelihood that you will actually need dummy rounds is vanishingly small, given that you all probably have the targeting skills of a virgin in a whorehouse.”
They all chuckled.
“Did I tell you to LAUGH?” Lieutenant Grace shouted again.
“No, sir!” they all shouted back at her.
Gavin started to feel like he was back in basic training, only better—this time, someone was actually expecting him to perform. Back in basic, the drill instructor, a lazy, petulant Imperial wanker who looked as if he’d rather be back on Corsica getting ready for retirement than training a bunch of Terran miscreants, didn’t seem to have the heart or the urgency that Anya Grace now injected into the pilot training. This seemed to matter more, and it excited him. A few months ago, when he signed up at the recruiter’s office, he’d only dreamed of a free ride to tour the galaxy, paying his way by cooking slop for soldiers. Now, after surviving the battle at the shipyards and getting his f
irst taste of piloting a fighter, he dreamed of something more.
To matter.
Gavin listened to Lieutenant Grace explain the procedure for getting a target lock, and even practiced maneuvering the imaginary controls in front of him.
“Ashdown, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Grace had stopped talking and now bore her eyes down on him.
“Uh, practicing what you’re teaching us, sir.”
“With what, newbie?” She folded her arms.
“With … uh, with my imaginary controls, sir.”
The room erupted in laughter, and even Lieutenant Grace smirked for a moment. She glanced down at Corporal Taylor and, smiling, remarked, “Funny, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir,” the boar of a man said, turning back to grin at Gavin, who shrunk a little lower into his seat.
“Yes, funny,” she repeated. “Funny how, at this point, it seems newbie Ashdown might be the only one to make it through this training program.” She let the words mingle with the dying laughter, which faded away to silence. “People, if you don’t breathe being a pilot, if you don’t dream of it every night, if you don’t shit, fart, and drink being a fighter, if you don’t think about this every waking hour, you’re going to fail. And then you will die.”
The room was so silent Gavin could hear the fighter deck work crews through the two sets of doors that separated them from the bay. Grace continued, pointing straight at Gavin, “Take a page from newbie here, and start getting your heads out of your asses and into the game. Do that, and you just might be joining him with an officer’s commission in a few days.” Gavin could feel Jet glare at him, from two seats over.
Corporal Taylor cautiously raised his hand, and Grace nodded once to him, permitting him to speak. “Uh, sir, did you just say a few days?”
