by M. D. Cooper
“Pretty sure our kinda place is a lot seedier than this,” Cargo replied as he sat beside her.
Cheeky pulled at the hem of her short skirt as she hooked her heels over the stool’s bottom ring. “Maybe for you, but I tend to go a bit upscale. I prefer to hang with people who wash more than the folks you circulate amongst.”
“Yeah, but my kind of people have the goods we want to trade in to make money,” Cargo said as the bartender—a human, not servitor—approached.
“Hey, what’ll it be?”
Cheeky eyed the black-haired woman, giving her slender arms and long neck a second glance. Anyone could have a great rack, or nice ass; but getting the arms toned just right, and having a kissable neck were harder to pull off. She appreciated the little things.
“Whisky. Rocks,” Cargo said.
“Your best vodka. Top shelf,” Cheeky added. “I have some celebrating to do.”
“Oh yeah?’ the bartender asked as she turned to pull a bottle off the shelf behind her. “Whatcha celebratin’?”
“Being alive,” Cheeky replied with a smile. “Had a close brush with death, not too long ago.”
“That why you got that plastic skin?” the woman asked as she poured out Cheeky’s drink and slid it over to her.
“Yeah, gotta wait for the next regen to get my own stuff back,” Cheeky said. The statement wasn’t quite true; the Intrepid’s rather impressive nanotech was growing her new skin beneath her artificial epidermis. Which itched like all fuck, but she would grin and bear it while working the bar crowd. Nothing less attractive than a grown woman scratching herself like a monkey in heat.
Piya noted.
“Sounds harsh,” the woman said as she slid Cargo his whisky. “Tab?”
“This should cover it,” Cargo said as he placed a two-hundred credit chit on the counter.
“Was wondering when we’d get to that part of the conversation,” the woman smiled.
Piya said as the bartender leaned over the counter, her face a dozen centimeters from the captain’s.
“I haven’t seen many men with skin like yours,” she said as she ran a hand through her long hair as it fell over her shoulders and pooled on the surface of the bar. “Is it true what they say?”
Cheeky watched out of the corner of her eye as the woman swung up over the bar and landed on Cargo’s lap. She proceeded to press her lips into his as a servitor emerged from a back door to take over.
The woman slid off Cargo and pulled him though another door around the side of the bar, and Cheeky took a sip of her vodka.
It wasn’t bad stuff, actually made from potatoes too, just like it should be.
“Hey, looks like you got abandoned by your friend there,” a voice came from her right.
Cheeky turned to see a slender man settle on the stool vacated by Cargo only moments earlier.
Piya replied.
“Clarissa’s like that. She’s more than happy to give people whatever info they want, but she likes to take her pound of flesh while she’s at it.”
“A whole pound, eh?” Cheeky asked.
“At least. I’m Misha, by the way,” the man said.
He held out his hand, and Cheeky shook it, her grip soft and light, but not limp. “I’m Cheeky.”
“Cheeky?” Misha asked. “That’s a funny name.”
Cheeky wiggled on her stool. “I came by it honestly.”
“Oh, I’ve noticed. I saw you leave your ship a few times. I gotta say, you and your crew are not what I’d expect to see aboard a ship named the Matron Tulip.”
Cheeky gave a bubbly laugh. “Yeah, we haven’t gotten the registry changed yet. But trust me, it’s gonna have a much better name. Something that starts with S, I think.”
“Dunno,” Misha said with a shake of his head. “That one woman—the purple one—seemed to be proudly wearing a tulip emblem.”
“Yeah, she lost a bet.”
Misha laughed as the servitor handed him a drink and he took a sip. “So, enough of all this small talk. What are you in the market for?”
“Market?” Cheeky asked innocently.
“Mizz Cheeky. I don’t run a stand on the dock because I like the view—mostly. I deal in info. Who’s moving what, where they’re moving it to, how long it takes. Out here a leg up on your competitor is make or break.”
“I’ll bet,” Cheeky said, her lips hidden behind the rim of her glass. “I bet breaking is a lot more common.”
Misha shrugged. “Everything tends toward entropy.”
“I’ll admit, we could use an edge—and better regional dark layer maps. The ones we have around here are way out of date. I’m the pilot aboard the Tulip, and if I slam her into some dark matter…well…I guess no one will be upset at me, because they’ll be dead.”
Misha smiled. “I can see how you’d like to avoid that. I might be able to help.”
Piya laughed.
“So you have DL maps for sale?”
Misha nodded. “And the best shipping routes in the area. Which are a bit sparse, I’ll admit, but like I said, if you have an edge….”
Misha took another sip of his drink, and Cheeky wondered about this mousy-haired man. He didn’t seem that smooth, and was obviously just a one-person operation. Normally the person selling the intel wasn’t the one who gathered it. Made it a bit difficult to gather it the next time.
“So, what’s the going rate?” she asked.
“I have a DL map that will show you all the best jump routes for forty parsecs—coreward, of course. There’s nothing rimward of here but a few miners scraping some valuable ores off asteroids.”
“That may do,” Cheeky said, adding a tone of disappointment to her voice. “Gives us some options, at least. How much?”
“Twenty-thousand.”
Cheeky was glad that she hadn’t taken a sip of her vodka, or she would have spat it out all over the man.
“You’ve got to be kidding!”
Misha gave Cheeky a knowing smile. “Look, you’re not legitimate traders. Everyone knows that. It’s why RHY extorted you with those crazy scoop fees, it’s why you�
��re selling produce no one anywhere near here grows—which is delicious, I might add. Mary’s inspection team couldn’t stop talking about how weird your engine compartment looks. If your ship didn’t have a legitimate registry you would have been kicked off the station by now.”
Even so, Cheeky did not alter her expression of disbelief and stared Misha down.
He gave in first. “OK, OK. I’ll tell you what, since I like you guys, and your man is taking his time with Clarissa, I’ll give you a deal. Fifteen thousand. If you give me a ride to your next stop.”
Movement near the door caught Misha’s eye and he slipped off the stool toward the back of the bar. “I’ll come by your ship tomorrow, thirteen hundred hours station time. I’ll have the maps.”
Cheeky looked in the mirror behind the bar and saw two tall women walk by the windows outside, and pass through the doorway a moment later.
One of the women was bald with writhing tattoos covering her head, while the other had long white hair that fell down her back in a single, loose braid.
Both were wearing matte black light combat armor, and though they were only carrying pulse pistols—per station law—Cheeky suspected that a few more weapons would be secreted away in their persons.
Cheeky couldn’t agree more, and rose from her stool, threading the tables in a circuitous route to reach the door without passing the newcomers, but Baldy-Tats spotted her and stepped into her path.
“Where you going, little girl?”
Cheeky saw that Whitey-Braids had taken another route moving around behind her.
“For a stroll on the sweep,” Cheeky said. “Getting a bit crowded in here.”
“But you didn’t finish your drink,” Baldy-Tats said, her tattoos changing from black to red as she spoke. “Why don’t you come back to the bar and sit with me for a bit?”
Baldy-Tats’ tone of voice made it clear that the statement was not a question. Cheeky glanced at the other patrons, and saw that no one so much as looked at the two women, though the volume of conversation had decreased noticeably.
“Umm…sure,” Cheeky agreed, giving Baldy-Tats a warm smile. She returned to her seat and grabbed her drink, downing most of it in a single gulp.
The two women sat on either side of her, and Cheeky wondered if the stools would support their large frames and armor. They held, but groaned loudly as the two women settled into place.
Baldy-Tats spoke again. “I’m Mandy, this is Jenn.”
Jenn didn’t speak, but blew Cheeky a kiss.
“Mind if I call you Baldy-Tats and Whitey-Braid?” Cheeky asked. “It’s what I’ve been thinking to myself as you came in, and I really think they suit you better than Mandy and Jenn.”
“Uh, yeah,” Baldy-Tats said. “We’d mind a lot.”
“Huh, too bad,” Cheeky replied.
“Look, we saw that you were talking to a friend of ours,” Baldy-Tats continued. “We were hoping to have a chat with him, but imagine our surprise when he ducked out. You wouldn’t happen to know where he was off to, would you?”
“Uhhh…maybe headed back to his stand? He runs a food stand down the sweep a ways.”
Whitey-Braid smiled and pulled her thick braid over her shoulder, fingers playing with the tuft of hair at the end. “He’s our friend, of course we know that.”
“What were the two of you talking about?” Badly-tats asked. “Hey, wait, you’re from that ship that showed up earlier, aren’t you, the Old Flower, right?”
“Matron Tulip,” Cheeky corrected with a sigh.
“Nothing matronly about you, that’s for sure,” Whitey-Braid said with a predatory grin.
“So, what were you talking about,” Baldy-Tats asked again.
Cheeky chuckled and released a dose of pheromones. “He was trying to convince me that if I let him sample my wares, he’d give me a discount on his and supply us for the first leg of our next trip.”
Baldy-Tats barked a laugh, and looked over at Whitey-Braid. “Sounds like Misha. Guy doesn’t catch much tail around here.”
“Why you so eager to talk to him?” Cheeky asked.
“Oh, we just want to check up on a little business venture,” Baldy-Tats said.
“But I think we could put that on hold for a bit and consider another sort of venture,” Whitey-Braid said as she reached out and stroked Cheeky’s thigh. “I mean…you’re the ship’s fuck puppet, right? Keep things fun on the long jumps. I think Mandy and I should make sure you’re up to the task.”
Cheeky laughed. “You’d be surprised what happens on the Tulip. Trust me.”
Baldy-Tats pressed up behind Cheeky and purred into her ear. “Oh, we don’t have to trust you, we’d like to find out for ourselves.”
Piya said.
Piya mused.
“Let’s go to our ship,” Baldy-Tats said as she reached around Cheeky’s shoulders to her chest, pinning her right arm.
“Well, you just got me back here to my Vodka, mind if I finish it?”
“You listening, Tulip Girl?” Baldy-Tats asked as she groped Cheeky’s breasts.
“It’s Cheeky,” she replied.
“She’s being more than just a bit cheeky,” Whitey-Braid chuckled as she picked up Cheeky’s glass and downed the last of the vodka.
“No, Cheeky’s my name. I’m Cheeky, not Tulip Girl.”
Baldy-Tats guffawed, her armor digging into Cheeky’s back. “Oh, that’s priceless. You really are the sex toy on that ship, aren’t you?”
“Well, we were talking about changing its name to the SS Fuck.” Cheeky smiled.
“Step back, and no, we are not naming the ship that,” a voice said from behind the bar.
Cheek’s eyes darted to her right, catching the welcome sight of Cargo rising from behind the bar with a handgun held high and near his face—the captain’s trademark close-quarters center axis position. Both of his eyes were wide open and locked on Baldy-Tats.
The woman laughed, her tattoos shifting to black once more as she rapped a fist on her head. “You think that toy scares me? This skull’s not stock anymore.”
Cargo grinned wickedly. “Looks like a pulse pistol, doesn’t it? Fools the guards on the sweep out there well enough too. I have nine programmable ballistic rounds in here. Right now, they’re set to hollow-point, and you’ll note that I’m aimed at your neck. I bet that fancy noggin of yours still needs blood to get up in it, right?”
“Put it down, pal” Whitey-Braid hissed.
Cheeky looked down to see Whitey-Braid holding a pistol on her, aimed low, up under her ribs. A focused pulse blast there could hit her heart and rip it apart.
“Jenn, how many times have I told you two fuck-heads that you’re not welcome in here,” Clarissa said from the door to the back room through which she and Cargo had disappeared. She held a kinetic rifle. Probably illegal on station, but apparently necessary at times.
“Clarissa!” Baldy-Tats chuckled. “Didn’t know you were in today. Keeping the patrons busy, I see.”
Cheeky realized that Cargo wasn’t wearing a shirt—and seemed to have dinosaur under
wear.
“Dino day?” she asked.
“Shut up, Cheeky,” Cargo grumbled.
“Time to go, bitches,” Clarissa said.
Whitey-Braid looked up at Baldy-Tats, and Cheeky suspected they were discussing options over the link.
“Nope!” Baldy-Tats shouted as she fell backward, her arm still wrapped around Cheeky, pulling them both to the ground as a shot rang out.
It sounded like Cargo’s weapon, and Cheeky couldn’t believe that he would fire with her that close.
As they fell to the ground, Cheeky twisted and landed facing Baldy-Tats. Above them, Clarissa’s kinetic rifle boomed and Whitey-Braids—at least Cheeky suspected it was Whitey-Braids—screamed.
Baldy-Tats was bringing her pistol up to fire into Cheeky’s abdomen, but this wasn’t Cheeky’s first bar fight, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be her last. She rose up and twisted to the side, narrowly avoiding Baldy-Tats’s shot, while rising up and drawing both arms back.
She swung them down, while letting her body fall, adding to the force of the strike. The fingers on her right hand were folded at the first knuckle and that hand struck Baldy-Tats’s throat.
The fingers on her left arm were extended, long nails flashing as they drove into the bald woman’s right eye.
Baldy-Tats gave a gargled shriek, and Cheeky pulled her right arm back, driving her knuckles into Baldy-Tats’s throat three more times until a strong hand caught Cheeky’s wrist and pulled her up off the other woman.
“Stop!” Cargo shouted.
Cheeky looked down and saw Baldy-Tats, one artificial eye dangling free on her cheek, and both hands clawing at her crushed throat, desperate for air.
Then a sucking gasp came from the woman, and Cheeky realized that Baldy-Tats’s armor must have punctured her lungs, directly feeding them air.
Her one eye was filled with a mixture of rage and awe, and she reached up to cup her other eye while struggling to her feet.
Cheeky turned to see Whitey-Braid bent over a chair, her armor cracked across the chest and blood seeping through.
“Last chance,” Clarissa spat out. “Now go!”
Baldy-Tats grabbed Whitey-Briad under the arms and the women slowly limped out of the bar—which contained far fewer patrons than it had a minute earlier.
