Sydney Chambers

by B. T. Jaybush

  Saands didn’t respond, instead acquiring the look of someone listening to voices in his headset. That impression was confirmed an instant later when the Marine squelched his microphone. “Ah, sir....”

  “That ground control on the horn, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir. They’re not happy about our flight path.”

  Garvey grinned. “I didn’t expect that they would be. I’ll take the call.” The commander touched a control that would route control of the signal to his own headset, then grimaced as he caught the caller in mid-rant. He let the rant continue while he took a moment to lower the volume to his earpiece.

  “... UNKNOWN SHUTTLE TALK TO ME!” The ground controller was literally shouting now. “IDENTIFY YOURSELF BEFORE WE —”

  “Calm down, control,” Garvey interrupted the near threat, adopting the “sailor on leave” attitude that his captain had directed. “This is the shuttle 7B35Zulu, off the TSM Cahan Morrigan. You may have heard of us, we’re the new sheriff in town.” The description earned Garvey a quick side-long glance from Saands; the XO merely shrugged in reply.

  “The new ... what?” To Garvey’s relief the ground controller was no longer shouting. The voice in his ears, though tinny-sounding from what had to be sub-standard ’casting equipment, still held a heavy overtone of hostility as the caller sputtered, “TSM Morrigan? What are you people up to? What do you mean, coming here unannounced? We need time to prepare for your visit, time to....”

  “Like I said before, calm down, control,” Garvey repeated, determined to have fun with his assumed attitude. “This ain’t no official visit, son, this is just a bunch of boys and girls who haven’t had a decent drink since our ship set out. Figured a place like this ought to have a good bar or saloon or something where we can solve that problem. And don’t you worry,” he added, smiling evilly as he did so, “the only thing we’re armed with is enough credits to keep us in liquor for a week.”

  “Bar? Saloon?” The controller hesitated. “You’re not here for an inspection tour?”

  “Why in blazes would we want to do that?” Garvey made it a point to sound insulted. “What, do we need to check to make sure the glasses are clean before we can drink out of them?”

  “Ah, no ... no, of course not, nothing like that,” the controller answered, still sputtering as though Garvey’s question had caught him off guard. “We’ve got, ah, plenty of saloons — well, the folks here mostly call them pubs, but it’s pretty much the same thing. There’s plenty of beer and whiskey that’s every bit as good as your money.”

  “Perfect!” Garvey laughed and gave a double thumbs-up at winning the point. “We’ll be setting down in just a minute or two.”

  “A minute or — wait, hold on! I’ve got to arrange a spot for you, we can’t have you just land anywhere. We wouldn’t want your vehicle, ah, vandalized while you’re away having ... uh, fun.”

  “Oh, no worries there,” Garvey assured the ground, now grinning at the man’s discomfiture. “This is a TSM shuttle, my friend — it defends itself. We’ll just park wherever we can find a good spot, and then spread out to find some of those saloons that you mentioned. Or pubs, or whatever you want to call them.”

  “No, wait, wait! You really can’t land just anywhere, the Company execs would kill me if I let you do that! Hold on a moment, let me check....” The link went silent; Garvey threw a grin at Saands, who raised his eyebrows in response but kept his eyes glued to the navigation screen that dominated the shuttle’s right-hand station. Soon enough the controller’s voice came back.

  “OK there, 7B35Zulu, sorry for the delay. We do not have a spot for you at Spaceport ... heck, even the two VIP slots are full right now. You just caught us at a really busy time.”

  “Well, like I said, we’ll just find a spot —”

  “No! Keep your shirt on, TSM. I have a designated spot for you. Now, there are no facilities anywhere close for fueling or anything like that —”

  “Not a problem,” Garvey interjected.

  “ — but otherwise you can set down with no problems, and we can have people out there to greet you by tomorrow morning. To, ah, give you a tour, you understand. I’m sending coordinates to you now —”

  Garvey glanced at Saands, who nodded. “Got ’em.”

  “Fine, Control,” the commander said, “we copy those coordinates. But no need to send anyone to give us a tour. We just want something to drink.”

  The controller’s voice gained an edge. “The request is already in process, 7B35Zulu. You will be met in the morning.”

  “Fine,” Garvey finally acknowledged, grimacing at the surrender. “Just not too early in the morning, OK? Y’know, we might not be at our best after a day of drinking.”

  For the first time there was a laugh from the controller. “Understood, TSM. I will forward that, er, request, to the execs. Beyond that, though, it’s out of my control. They really need to talk....”

  “They can talk to our Captain when she’s got the time. Right now we’re just ten thirsty people in desperate need of decent booze. 7B35Zulu, out.” Garvey cut the connection and sat back, his grin no longer easy-going but of a more predatory variety. “Sounds to me, Sergeant, like the powers that be down here have something to hide.”

  “I would have to agree with that assessment, sir,” said Saands, whose headset had fed him the whole conversation. He then touched a control to activate the intercom function of that headset. “Marines, be aware. Status gamma is in effect once we’re down,” he said, knowing the words would be broadcast in the crew cabin behind them. “Be sure your designated navy buddy knows his or her position.” He de-activated the intercom and focused his attention on his navigational screen.

  “Status gamma?”

  “Yes, sir,” the marine answered, eyes still on the trip data.

  Garvey frowned. “Ah ... you mind filling me in? That’s not a description I’m familiar with.”

  Saands glanced at the commander. “No, sir, you wouldn’t be,” he said. “It’s something the lieutenant and I cooked up special for this trip, given that the nature of our presence is ... somewhat unorthodox.”

  “Right.”

  “Status alpha is, essentially, piece of cake — no trouble anticipated. Beta means no obvious threat, but there might be hostiles in the background. Gamma is just the next step up from that, sir — hostility is likely, but no specific threat is readily identifiable.”

  “Huh.” The exec considered. “I like it. It’s a particularly cagy approach to what we’re heading into.” Then a thought occurred to him. “Is there a level beyond gamma, Sergeant?”

  “Of course, sir,” Saands replied. “Lieutenant Briscoe and I outlined five scenarios, including delta and epsilon.”

  Garvey felt his eyebrows raise. “And those are?”

  “Status delta would mean we have identified hostiles but unidentified locations, sir.”

  “Ah,” Garvey grunted. “And epsilon?”

  “Lock and load, sir,” the sergeant replied, his face the picture of innocence.

  The exec was speechless for a moment, then gusted a sigh and turned his full attention back to the shuttle controls. “I had to ask,” he muttered.

  “The designated landing coordinates are directly ahead, sir,” Saands said, attention back on the navigation display. “That large open area. Looks like a park.” The Marine frowned at that thought even as Garvey began to smoothly swing the shuttle into a landing vector.

  3

  It did look like a sad sort of park where they landed; there was even some ramshackle playground equipment, but no children in sight — or anyone else, for that matter. Garvey felt a brief shiver run through him at the desolation of the place, but shook it off and sent his people off to survey their surroundings: Four navy swabs and four Marines, men and women knotted in pairs that would hopefully not look as threatening and well-armed as they really were.

  “Remember. Anyone stops you, anyone asks, you’re looking for bars. Pubs, the local
s call them. It’ll help keep your cover if you go ahead and stop into any that you find, have a drink, then move on. Tell everyone you see that you want to check out as many, uh, pubs, as you can.”

  “What are we really looking for, sir,” asked an ensign from Morrigan’s weapons crew, Stacy Francis.

  “Everything. Anything.” The XO grimaced. “The captain’s looking for your impressions as much as anything. If any of the locals will talk with you, though, what they say might be helpful as well.” He glanced at each of his people. “Something has the pirates in this system acting very un-pirate-like, and Captain Chambers wants to know what it is before we just go blasting them out of space.”

  “What’s our time-line, sir?” Lieutenant j.g. Ky Nguyen was assigned to Morrigan’s hydroponics bay. Garvey glanced at his portable comm before answering.

  “Looks like it’s close to noon, local time,” he said. “Meet back here by six. At that point we’ll head for whichever pub looks most promising for an in-depth visit.”

  Dusk was closing in by the time everyone made it back to the shuttle, all ten of them more disheartened than weary — most of what they’d seen had been desolation, decay, and streets lined with houses that few of them would willingly enter, let alone live in. Garvey had taken Saands suggestion, based on his incoming nav readings, and headed for what passed as a commercial center in the so-called city — a bare half-dozen buildings, sturdier than the houses, two-storied and built of cement blocks rather than unpainted wood. There they had found Aerieland’s version of “the company store”: Gloomy suppliers of food, clothing, household goods, and pharmaceuticals. The last had proven to be particularly depressing; apparently no resident on the mining world was expected to ever require more in the way of health care than iodine, bandages and an aspirin.

  The final pair of store fronts were clearly there less for the convenience of the people and more for that of the Company. One sold mining equipment — surprisingly good gear with no prices showing, for the obvious reason that no miner could do without the stuff and the cost would merely be charged against their wages. The final storefront had been an “employee relations center.” Garvey’s brief inquiry had told him it was a combination front office and bank: All communications to and from the Company went through it, and employees went there to claim whatever credit chits remained after “living expenses” were deducted from their pay.

  Nowhere was there anything even faintly resembling a hotel or inn — or a restaurant, for that matter. Each pair did manage to visit several pubs during their wanderings, though — there seemed to be an unusually high number of pubs in relation to the size of the city.

  “Sir,” Saands said as the last of the group arrived back at the shuttle, “does our mission brief have directions about what we need to do overnight, or....”

  “The captain wasn’t real specific about that, Sergeant,” Garvey answered, glancing between the Marine and the shuttle — he understood the underlying question was, Do we eat travel rations and sleep on the shuttle, or what? “I certainly want to get more information from the locals than we have so far. We talked to, what, three people?” He raised his eyes to the group as a whole. “Anyone do better than that, get to talk with a lot of residents?”

  “Outside of the bars we barely even saw another person, sir,” Marine private Sonia Gonzales told him. “The streets seem deserted.”

  Garvey nodded. “My guess is the only place we’re going to be able to interact with people is in one of those pubs,” he said. “The whole group of us together should be enough to pique even the curiosities of the ghosts around here. So the question is, which one?”

  “I’d recommend givin’ the Pick and Shovel a go, sir.” Garvey looked around at the familiar burr of j.g. engineering lieutenant Angus MacCreedle, throwing the engineer a questioning glance. “It looked to be a wee bit like one of the pubs back home, sir,” the man said in response to the unspoken question. “They’ll have food and rooms available along with the grog.”

  Now Garvey stared at the engineer. “Really?”

  “Aye, sir,” the Scotsman replied. “Of course, I cannae guarantee hospitality, but I’d say it’s worth givin’ it a go.”

  The exec nodded, then glanced around at the rest of the group. “Anyone have a problem with that idea? Assuming, of course, this place really is like the pubs Mr. MacCreedle is familiar with.”

  “Sounds good, sir.” “Fine with me.” “Let’s find out,” came the quick replies. Garvey nodded once more.

  “OK then, Mr. MacCreedle,” he said. “Lead us to the Pick and Shovel.”

  Garvey could only think of one word to describe the dimly-lit cave that greeted him and his crew as they passed through the Pick and Shovel’s unpainted entry: Creepy. Whether the locals considered it to be a pub or a bar or a saloon or a hole in the wall, the place simply creeped him out. Not only was it dim — no, dark within the crude, rough-hewn, wooden space, it was overly-warm, dank, and smelled of old booze and the press of too many bodies for too long a time.

  And it was quiet. Garvey had always been suspicious of quiet bars. When people gathered to drink they were supposed to enjoy themselves, to talk and laugh, to blow off steam minute by minute. Noisily. That was simply not happening in this place. Here, the steam was in the air. The off-duty miners simply sat, silently drinking while they either sulked or moped, he couldn’t quite decide which.

  Creepy.

  Despite the sweat that began to run down his spine, seemingly hell-bent on intercepting the chill running up that same bundle of nerves, Garvey headed across the room to the bar. Saans and the eight others followed close behind. A disheveled-looking woman tended the bar, holding a bar towel as though she depended on it for her sense of identity. A look of caution grew on her features as she watched the group approach.

  “What’ll you be havin’,” she asked in a flat voice as the exec bellied up in front of her.

  “I’ll have whatever’s on tap,” Garvey answered, keeping his voice light. “My friends can pick their own poison, but whatever it is the first round’s on me.” He pulled a good-sized credit marker from a pants pocket and dropped it on the bar, causing the woman’s eyebrows to rise in speculation.

  “It must be good friends you’re bringin’ with you,” she told Garvey, her voice low enough not to carry even in the quiet of the room. “There’s enough in that marker to stand ’em to three or four rounds, dependin’.”

  Garvey gave the woman a smile and shrugged. “I guess I’m so used to getting overcharged that I’ve started to consider it normal,” he said. “Besides, we’re also looking for food as well as drink. Maybe a place to stay for the night.”

  “There’s stew, on the house, to go with the drinks. As for beds, we’ll be talkin’ about that later, when most of the lads and lassies have headed to home.” The bartender made the chit disappear and eyed Garvey appraisingly. “I’ll be interested in hearin’ where it is you get yourself cheated so, once I pull your pint and get your friends all fixed up.”

  Garvey nodded, now adding a grin. “I’ll be happy to tell you the whole sad tale,” he said, trying to sound mournful.

  She nodded once, then set about taking orders from the rest of the crew. All but one opted for pulls from the tap, following Garvey’s lead — the exception being Angus MacCreedle, who asked for two fingers of Scotch and was severely bummed when the bartender laughed in his face.

  “Ye’ll nae be findin’ Scotch anywhere in Aerieland,” she told him, still chuckling at the very idea. “I’ll gladly be servin’ you as much good Irish whiskey as you can drink, but you are on the wrong world for a highlands pour.”

  “Ye dinnae have Scotch!” MacCreedle gazed at the barkeeper, his eyes filling with sadness. “Aye, I should have known.”

  “You never know until you ask,” said the barkeep, a surprising note of empathy in her voice. “Besides, laddy, Irish whiskey might nae be remindin’ ye of home, but don’t you know it’ll get you just as drunk.”
>
  “Aye,” MacCreedle said, brightening a bit at the thought. “I suppose that it will.”

  Garvey turned his back to the bar, the better to survey the room as he waited for his drink and stew. A slight buzz of conversation began to rise as sailors and marines, drinks in hand, began to mingle with the locals. The natives, who’d been so silently nursing their drinks when the TSM group had arrived, now began to watch the newcomers with hooded curiosity, throwing veiled looks their way while talking quietly with those around them. The commander grinned inwardly, pleased that the first bits of communication were already beginning — after all, communication was the reason they were there.

  He came back to himself at the sound of something being placed on the bar behind him. Turning around he found the bartender leaning on the counter, a pair of very curious Irish eyes staring at him over a glass of dark brown beer and a steaming bowl of savory-smelling gumbo.

  “So, mister rich traveler,” she began, “tell me this sad tale of yours, and don’t be sparin’ me any of the details.”

  Garvey smiled. “I’ll never be rich, not on what TSM pays me. I will be happy to tell you anything you want to know,” he offered, “if you’ll do me the honor of telling me your name.”

  The offer drew a brief smile from the barkeep. “TSM, is it?” After a moment of thought she added, “Aye. I’m Shanna, Shanna MacRae. And what should a girl be callin’ you?”

  “Steve Garvey.”

  Shanna studied the exec speculatively. “So even a TSM man can be havin’ a wee bit of the old sod in him.”

  Garvey grinned, the bartender’s words eliciting memories he hadn’t pondered since he’d been a child. “A long way back, yes. My mother always said the O’Garveys took a lot of pecks at the blarney stone before the family name became just plain Garvey.”

  “Hmmm.” The woman began idly wiping at the bar top with the towel she still clutched. “Your heart could maybe find a place in Aerieland,” she said after a minute of thoughtful consideration, “even if your TSM ways might nae be so welcome. So where would these pubs be that overcharge you so?”