by Adam Drake
“Are you okay?” I was worried for him, perhaps in more ways than I wanted to admit.
He blinked at me and said, “I think it knocked some sense into me.” He smiled, and I nearly fainted with relief.
“Can you walk?” I asked.
“I'll walk out of here,” he said and pulled himself up to his feet, favoring his left arm. He looked around. “Took care of it did you?”
I laughed. “Well, I had help.”
“Let me guess. Your animal circus made an appearance.”
“You have no idea. I'm now of the firm belief that there is no such thing as too many cats! Let's get out of here and fix you up.”
“There is no real fix for me, Mayra,” he said. “I am who I am after all.”
“I wouldn't have you any other way,” I said. And we hobbled back to the sewer tunnels.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I regarded the statues of Elicia Ipthorn and Radley Oswall beneath the awning of the back lot of the Constabulary. Elicia sitting on her stone chair drinking from her stone teacup. Oswall with one hand outstretched, the other reaching for his pistol. A sense of excitement I had not felt for a long time filled my heart. In my hand I held the Stone Talon. Bound to me now with the help of the multicolored cat, or whatever that being was.
“You're going to have to rename that now,” Fairfax said from beside me. One arm was in a sling and a mottled bruise on one side of his face. I found him to be as handsome as ever.
“How do you figure that?”
“Well, first it was Gunther's Stone Talon. Then it was Blythe's Stone Talon. Then it was Archambault's Stone Talon. So, Beeweather's Stone Talon? Does that have a good ring to it?”
I chuckled. “It is none of those, I'm happy to say. Once done we'll give it back to the Capital Museum. They can name it whatever they like.”
Constables crowded about the parking lot anxious to see what was about to happen.
Chief Constable Kyrill approached us. “Trying to decide which one should have the honor of going first?”
“Not at all,” I said. “Ladies always go first.”
I pointed the Talon at Elicia and, from a secret place within my soul, called forth the magical incantation.
And like a rock light being touched on, Elicia went from completely stone to completely real. She slurped at her tea for a moment before she realized where she was. Her eyes went wide and sputtered out her tea.
“What?” Elicia said. “What is this? Where am I?” She nearly fell out of her chair. “By the Gods!”
A pair of constables hurried to her side and gently guided her toward the Constabulary's back door. “What happened?” she said before she disappeared inside.
“It will take her time to adjust. From her point of view she hasn't missed a few days. Only moments,” Fairfax said.
I asked Chief Kyrill, “So Rousset will not press charges for the book's theft?”
The Chief shook his head. “No, he thought being turned to stone was punishment enough. As for the book, it will be sent to the Capital Museum along with all the other items the mayor and Blythe had hoarded in their sewer lair.”
“That was kind of him,” I said and turned my attention to Oswall.
Fairfax asked, “You are certain this will work again so soon? Doesn't it need hours to recharge its magic?”
I grinned. “For this task the Talon has been given a brief reprieve. Once Oswall is transformed it will go inert again.” I thought of the Ancient cat and the unfathomable knowledge behind its glowing white eyes.
“It appears a lot of rules were broken for you,” Fairfax said with a grin.
“Who else should the rules be broken for?” I said and pointed the Talon at Oswall.
As with Elicia it was instantaneous. One moment solid stone, the next a real man again.
Oswall was shouting, “No! Don't!” He pulled out his pistol.
“Stop Detective!” Chief Kyrill said. “Hold your fire! You are safe now!”
The detective, bewildered, was looking about in utter confusion. But he had the mind to holster his pistol much to everyone's relief.
“What the devil is going on?” Detective Oswall said.
“Allow me to explain inside, Detective,” Chief Kyrill said as he led the confused man into the Constabulary.
My heart thumped with joy at the sight of him whole again.
Fairfax was smiling from ear to ear which stretched out his walrus mustache to comical proportions. “Now that business is taken care of.” He held out a narrow little box, its lid open.
I frowned and glanced at the Talon. So much harm had been done with it. I hoped it would finally be put in a safe place back at the Capital.
With a thunk, I dropped it into the box which Fairfax snapped shut.
I said, “I just realized something. Remember when I put the case files on the ground and asked the cat to point out the one that led to Oswall's killer?”
“Yes,” Fairfax said.
“Well, Oswall wasn't dead. Just transformed. So the cat did not move until I changed my wording from killer to attacker.”
“Ah, very good,” Fairfax said with a smile. “So, what now, Miss Beeweather? Another case, perhaps?” There was a glint in his eye.
I chuckled. “Not at all, Constable. Now I will take my leave. There are newspapers to be read and I am behind on them.”
“Would you like me to drive you?”
I looked up at the morning sky, bright and happy. “No. I think I will walk, thank you. Spent too much time in dark, dank places. I need the light to help with my complexion.”
I turned and walked toward the road.
Fairfax called after me, “What if we need your help on a case? Can I call on you?”
I turned and gave Fairfax my most mischievous grin. “You can call on me any time, Fairfax. But only on one condition.”
“Name it.”
“Next time,” I said “bring biscuits.” And with the satchel over my shoulder I walked off into the morning sunshine.
END.
Escape to the Fringe
When Ash and Femke Quinly decide to steal a transport ship from the local criminal syndicate, their troubles are just beginning. With enemies in relentless pursuit, and their options dwindling, an already dangerous situation becomes more futile.
But when the universe is gunning for you, there is one insane option only the truly desperate can take:
They must escape to the Fringe!
PART ONE
“Speed up, he's getting away!”
Ash Quinly did as his wife commanded and sped the hoverbike up, throwing a huge plume of orange dust behind them. The foliage of Jorduss Three whipped past them in a blur of purple.
“I have to keep a safe distance,” Ash said as he swerved around a giant boulder. “No point trying to be sneaky if the guy spots us because you wanted to go faster.”
From the passenger seat behind him, Femke poked him in the ribs. “The tracker's range is too limited. No point following him if we can't keep up.” She was watching the tracker's blip blink across a map on her goggle's HUD. As Ash swerved around another boulder, she slipped her arm around his waist. “Hey, take it easy!”
“Fast or safe, which do you want?” Ash said. “You can't have both.” The terrain of the moon was a veritable nightmare to navigate through with its deep crevices and wide ranges of jagged hills. Even on foot it gave Ash a headache, but to do so at high speed on a hoverbike was pure madness. This, of course, did not dissuade Femke from expecting him to push the hoverbike to its limit.
“I'll take whichever version gets us to his stash,” she said, eyes locked on the little red blip.
They'd finally managed to get a tracker on their mark's bike back in Karro. After weeks of watching his comings and goings from the trader town, the husband and wife team managed to discern his habits, which were frustratingly random. The guy loved to gamble, as most people with free credits did after an off-load, and frequented the gambling de
ns. The problem was there were dozens of places to throw away hard stolen credits across Karro and he almost never went to the same location twice in a row.
“Okay, I'm matching his speed,” Ash said. “This guy drives like a lunatic.” He gripped the handlebars of the hoverbike tighter, feeling the strange sensation of his recycling suit soaking up the sweat from his back. Maintaining a chase like this over such a whacked out landscape was intense.
“He's just trying to lose any tails he might have,” Femke said.
“Smart,” Ash said with a wry grin. “Why'd we have to pick a smart mark to rob? Why can't we find some rich dumb ones for a change? They'd drive a lot slower.”
“Because dumb marks don't have anything worth stealing,” Femke offered as she adjusted the grip on her scatter-pistol. Her legs squeezed the seat beneath her as they dropped into a gulley. “And we've been robbing too many dumb ones, lately. Which explains why were so poor.”
“Well, then I hope Stacks here is the smartest mark of all. We need to get off this moon before I lose my mind. There's only so much orange dust a man can take. Whoa!” A large spiraled branch hung low across their path and Ash nearly bottomed out the bike flying beneath it. They skidded along the ground for several moments, the terrifying sound of metal on rock overwhelming their comms.
Ash brought the bike up to a safe level, again. “Sorry!” he said.
Femke shook her head, but refrained from saying anything. Safety was secondary at the moment. If they lost this guy, there was no telling if he'd even be returning to Karro after this trip.
For nearly three weeks they stalked their mark, which Ash had taken to naming Stacks. As in Big-Fat-Stacks of credits which the guy liked to spend every night he was out on the town. Following Stacks had been a challenge. Nervous and twitchy, Stacks kept an eye on his surroundings where ever he went. A common trait for any denizen of crime-ridden Karro, but even more-so when you're loaded with money to spend. It was at one of the largest gambling halls that they found the chance to slip a tracker onto his hoverbike.
The tracker was the most expensive item they had, even worth more than their bike. But it needed to pass a scan which any smuggler worth his salt would do on their transport before heading out of town.
Ash and Femke had used the tracker to follow Stacks three other times, with each chase heading in different directions. And each time they fell out of the tracker's range and lost him.
This was attempt four and without any more credits left to even buy a meal, they needed to keep up with Stacks and pray he led them to his stash.
“I wish we could use drones,” Ash said and not for the first time. They banked hard around a long bend. High craggy hills lined with purple plants and huge spiky pods slipped by. “We could be sitting in a tavern right now enjoying a drink while we watched this guy.”
“There is no such thing as easy money,” Femke said. She looked up at the sky. Jorduss Three possessed a near perpetual cloud cover that hung low enough to graze the top of the hills. Carried along by ferocious winds the clouds created the effect of a moving ceiling. Sending a drone up into that mess was futile. Pursuits had to be done at ground level.
Stacks had left Karro in a similar direction he'd gone previously, giving Ash and Femke hope he was heading to a stash. But shortly after leaving the town's monitoring limits, Stacks took a detour and was now leading them in an entirely different area of the Karro Wastes.
“I'm guessing illegal hardware,” Ash said. “That's what he's got in his stash.” He carefully used one hand to wipe away orange dust from his goggles.
Femke had heard this from Ash before. “We've never even seen him carry anything larger than a rider's pack,” she said. “My guess is narcotics. Spacer or Dust.”
“A mule?”
“Or a synth-tech. The Wastes are the perfect place to set up a lab.”
Ash circumvented a field of spiky pods. “Well, whatever he has, we're going to take. We got bills to pay!”
“Forget the bills,” Femke said as they both ducked beneath a canopy of spiky vines. “We need to leave this moon. Or better yet, the entire system. Bill collectors lose enthusiasm if they have to go interstellar.”
Leaving a trail of debts had become a hallmark of their lives, whether owed as a couple, or individually. Running from those that demanded payment was part of the reason why Ash and Femke had gotten themselves stuck on Jorduss Three. Now, with no more credits to their name, stealing from the local criminal element became the obvious means to an end.
Stacks's blip suddenly slowed to a crawl.
“He's stopping!” Femke said.
“I see it,” Ash said and slowed down in kind. The blip came to a complete stop and Ash did the same.
Femke watched the map for several seconds. The blip did not move. “Why'd he stop here?” She widened the map overlay in her HUD to show the surrounding area. “This is too close to town for a stash. Isn't it?”
Ash stared at the map. “I don't know, honey. Could be he needed a rest.”
Femke said, “He does have a recycler suit on, yeah?”
“Unless it's broken, but he had one on when I saw him earlier.”
“So, maybe a bio-break,” Femke said. She didn't like this at all.
Frustrated, Ash got off the bike and unclamped his rifle from its side.
Femke said, “What are you doing?”
“I'm going to see if I can get sights on him from up there,” he said, pointing up to a low shoulder of rock a short distance away.
Femke looked at the map, again. “You might get line-of-sight from there, but be careful. If you can see him, he can see you.”
Ash began running up the hillside. “You know me, honey, I'm always careful.”
Uh-huh, she thought. She gazed at the static blip. That spot was far too close to the town limits to be deemed safe, at least as far as she was concerned. If she had a stash, placing it several more kilometers further out would be more prudent.
Ash huffed and puffed his way up the steep shoulder of the hill, his booted feet sinking into the loose orange gravel with each step. His progress was hampered by the freaky purple plants which looked more like trippy artwork than actual foliage.
Femke looked behind the bike. A large orange cloud of dust they'd been kicking up was dissipating in the wind, but still hung thickly in the air. “Maybe he saw our dust trail?” Wouldn't that be just perfect? Go through this entire process of stalking their prey only to be outed by their hoverbike's wake.
“Nah, there's dust everywhere,” Ash said sidestepping a spiky pod bigger than a shuttlecraft. “I think his recycler is on the fritz and he's forced to stop and water the plants. Much to his detriment.”
“Maybe,” Femke said with growing confusion. She didn't like this at all. During all their previous pursuits of Stacks, he'd never once stopped while in range of the tracker.
Ash approached the rocky edge near the top of the shoulder. He dropped into a crouch and then crawled the rest of the way. Above him, the clouds appeared menacing as they streaked by.
Once he was as close as he could get he eased the rifle's scope over the edge. A screen appeared on his HUD. As he moved the scope, it relayed what it was seeing.
Orange rock and purple plants dominated the landscape.
Ash panned around until he spotted a hoverbike at the end of a small valley, near a turn. No Stacks.
“I don't like this,” Femke said, watching the same feed on her HUD. “Where is he?”
“I don't know,” Ash said as he scanned the valley. Purple plants choked every available bare patch of ground. He followed a ledge of rock which led up from where the bike was parked. Then he saw Stacks, crouched down near a rocky overhang.
“Got him!” Ash said.
“What's he doing? Setting up for an ambush?” Femke looked in Ash's direction with concern. “Watch yourself up there.”
“No, not an ambush, at least not really.” Ash watched the other man with intensity. He was dr
essed similarly to Ash and Femke; recycler suit, light armor and oversized goggles with a breather which covered his entire face.
Stacks looked over the valley, obviously looking for signs of pursuit. Then he reached into a side pack and brought out some binocs and placed them against his goggles.
Ash pulled the rifle down out of sight. “He's a nervous one, ain't he?”
“Yeah, just checking his six,” Femke said.
