Milky Way Repo

by Michael Prelee

  Milky Way Repossessions had its corporate office located in a Go City strip plaza. The firm’s only office employee was seated at a reception desk when Nathan walked in. Dinah was his administrative assistant. He greeted her, tossed her a memory stick and told her to process the Martha Tooey repossession. He wanted paid quickly.

  His small office was neat and sparsely furnished. He fell into a worn leather chair and checked for messages. Nothing. Usually the banks he dealt with had so many ships with loans in default he could pick and choose what he wanted. People must have gotten into the habit of paying their bills. He picked up the phone on his desk and speed dialed a contact at a bank. Nothing. He dialed five more numbers and came up empty each time. With a sigh he got up, grunted a goodbye to Dinah, who was on the phone with her mom and wandered in the general direction of home and Kathy.

  Duncan grabbed Richie and Marla and headed below decks on the Blue Moon Bandit, down where the crawl drive and jump initiator were installed. The party came to a complex piece of machinery mounted in a steel frame. The metal tubing making up the frame was cracked and had been welded several times. Duncan pointed at it.

  “You’re a machinist’s mate, right?” He asked Richie.

  “That’s right,” he said and looked over the frame. “And you aren’t much of a fabricator, are you?”

  Duncan nodded. “I’m good at designing things but sometimes the execution leaves a little to be desired. Can you fix it?”

  Richie pulled on the mount and it wobbled. “Yeah, I think so. Let me guess, you go out for a couple weeks, come back and this mount is loose. You weld it, you add some steel to it and it holds for a little while but it always breaks free. Am I right?”

  Duncan nodded.

  “This end of the crawl drive exerts tremendous force on the mounting bracket,” Richie said. “Mounting to these beams is okay but you need to step up to thicker steel or titanium channel in the same dimension, which is what I recommend.”

  “Titanium’s a bitch to work with,” Duncan said.

  “Not if you have the right tools,” Richie said. “I’ve done it before. You hire me on to fix this and you’ll never have to mess with it again.”

  “Look, I don’t know about a long term billet but I can definitely convince Nathan to bring you on for a short time. I need some help and I think having you on crew would be cheaper than having the work done in the yard.”

  “Is there anything we should know?” Marla asked. “You on anything? Any narcotics? You drink too much? You like stims or downers?”

  “I’m clean. You can check down at the union hall,” he said.

  “All right,” Duncan said. “Let’s go up to my shop. You can let me know if you need anything we don’t have.”

  An hour later they were wandering Go City, home to engine factories, part suppliers and blue collar bars. Richie led them through narrow winding streets, in and out of mom and pop shops looking for tools and equipment. Duncan had a credit line for the Bandit, set up by Nathan, to do refit and repair work in port. He made arrangements for a small load of titanium to be shipped to their hangar and the three of them hit the street again.

  “That should do it,” Richie said. “We’ll rip out that old mount and build the new one up from scratch. It shouldn’t take more than a day.”

  “Good”, Marla said. “Nathan won’t keep the ship down for long.”

  “He promised a week,” Duncan said.

  “Yeah, but he’ll get a hot job and we’ll have to get airborne sooner than that.”

  Duncan slipped an arm around her waist. “I was hoping to get you all to myself for a few days in the apartment. Maybe play house, forget that we spend most of our time in a tin can.”

  She smiled. “I want it too, baby, but a whole week? When’s the last time that happened?”

  Richie got shoved into an alley while they were talking, stumbling as he tried to keep his balance. A large guy in a leather coat grabbed him by the shirt collar and dragged him further between the buildings, finally slamming him against a wall hard enough to bounce his head off it. Marla and Duncan followed.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Duncan asked.

  Leather Coat spun Richie around and went through his pockets, ignoring Duncan. “You screwed up, kid. Atomic Jack is pissed in a big way.”

  Richie turned around. “I have it, okay? It’s all good.”

  “Then pay up.”

  “What I mean to say,” Richie said, “is that I will have it. I just got hired on a new ship. I can make a payment soon.”

  “We heard this same claim not three months ago,” a voice said through a speaker behind Duncan and Marla. They backed away instinctively, moving them closer to Richie and the man accosting him.

  The owner of the voice advanced on them with another figure behind him. Duncan saw that he was encased in some sort of pressure suit. It was silver, pockmarked and streaked with grime. The helmet was angular, coming to a narrow flat spot above the head. Duncan had a hard time looking at the figure; his skin was pulled tight over his skull. A dull orange glow emanated from his bones.

  “Jack…” Richie said.

  “Don’t lie to me, Richie,” Atomic Jack said.

  Duncan backed away another step, bumping into Marla as he did so.

  “Look, I told you the truth three months ago. I signed on the Martha Tooey but the ship got locked into the dock on Barrigan Three and I didn’t get back until this morning. I haven’t even been paid yet.”

  “I know all about the Tooey, Richie. The rest of the crew came home weeks ago. Why didn’t you come see me?”

  “No, Jack, I just got back. I was hiding on the ship and it just got repo’d yesterday. Everyone else came back early because they got found by the guys who seized the ship.”

  “You owe fifty thousand, Richie.”

  “And I’m going to pay at the rate we worked out. Jack, it’s not my fault the ship got seized.”

  “The juice has been running for three months, Richie. You owe sixty now.”

  “What? Jack, come on. I was living in the engine room. It’s not like I wanted to be there. Besides, I’ll be getting back pay. I’ll be able to give you a big chunk.”

  The orange glow flared from behind his skin and eyes. “I hear nothing but excuses.”

  “Jack…”

  “Maybe if I take my glove off you’ll figure out a better story.”

  Duncan’s eyes widened involuntarily. He most definitely did not want to see this man take off his glove. He kept trying to back up but Marla was pushing against him. What did she expect him to do?

  “Aw, Jack,” Richie said. “I’ll square this. You know I will. I’ve never not paid before.”

  “No one ever does, Richie,” he said. “Because I never give them the chance.” He started fussing with the glove assembly on his containment suit.

  Marla poked Duncan. He stepped forward. “Maybe I can help.”

  Atomic Jack looked at him, his eyes glowed a sickening shade of radioactive orange. “I really don’t see how.” He slipped off his glove and his hand burst into small flames. The guy didn’t yell though, or make out like he was in pain. He just grinned and showed a mouthful of orange teeth.

  Duncan swallowed hard. “We just hired Richie as a machinist mate. He’s not lying about that. And we really did find him on the Martha Tooey after we reclaimed her yesterday, so if he was a member of the crew he should have his pay for the trip plus back pay and hazard pay for the ship being seized illegally.”

  “It won’t be enough to cover the sixty large he owes,” Atomic Jack said, moving his hand closer to Richie’s face.

  “Something is better than nothing. He’s on our crew. He’ll be drawing good pay as long as he works hard.”

  “And what is it you do?” The orange gaze was focused on him now.

  “Milky Way Repossessions. We recover vessels. You know, in foreclosure or if they’re seized illegally.”

  “He bets on the dogs,” Atomic Jack
said. “And he loses. Big.” He slapped Richie lightly across the cheek, leaving a smoking red handprint. Richie yelped and pushed back against the brick wall.

  “What’s going on here?” a voice asked from the mouth of the alley. Duncan looked up and saw Cole walking toward them.

  Leather Coat stepped in front of him, blocking his path. “Take a walk,” he said. “This doesn’t concern you.” The other thug stepped up beside his partner.

  “Duncan? You guys okay? I thought we were meeting for a drink.”

  “Apparently Richie owes this guy some money,” Duncan said. “I think he’s planning on burning it out of him.”

  Atomic Jack waved his flaming hand at Cole. “Leave,” he said. “Now.”

  “Is Richie on the crew, Duncan?”

  “Yeah, Cole. He’s on the crew.”

  Cole made a quick movement with his right hand and a metal rod snapped into the air beside his leg. The two bodyguards moved to block him. He flicked his wrist up and struck the one on the right in the head, ripping open a gash on his forehead. The second got as far as drawing his gun before Cole brought the rod down and slammed it into his wrist. It cracked with a sound like dry kindling and his gun skittered off into the alley. Cole advanced on Atomic Jack.

  The burning man pulled his glove back on, snapping it to the pressure suit. “No problem here, friend. It’s just business.” He turned back to Duncan who was holding a hand up to Cole. “Your man has ten days to collect his back pay and make a sizable payment or I’m going to come looking for him again. You understand?”

  “You really think you’re in a position to threaten anyone, Pumpkin?” Cole said.

  “I do. If I have to come looking for him again, I’ll bring more guys. A lot more.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  Jack moved around him, eyeing him the whole time. “He owes, he pays. Those are the rules.” His two goons got to their feet, rocking unsteadily. “He knows the rules.”

  They backed out to the street, leaving the four of them alone in the alley.

  Duncan grabbed Richie. “Who’s the jack o’lantern?”

  “Atomic Jack.”

  “What’s his story?”

  “He was an engineer or something. Got caught in a reactor accident. If he doesn’t stay in the suit he ignites on contact with air.”

  “That is just fascinating.”

  Marla slipped an arm around him. “Not now, sweetie.”

  Richie touched his face where he had been slapped. It was red. “Damn this hurts.”

  “And now he’s what? A bookie?”

  Richie shook his head. “An enforcer for Jimmy Bago.”

  “Even I know who Jimmy Bago is,” Marla said. “You’re into him for sixty thousand?”

  “I like to bet the dogs and didn’t do so well.”

  “How does he do that trick with his hand?” Duncan asked.

  “His nerve endings are all burned off so he doesn’t feel any pain and his suit has some kind of regeneration built in. It’s actually what keeps him alive because of all the radioactivity. Of course, most people don’t get that far. The glowing orange skin usually induces enough fear to make people pay.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  Nathan let himself into his apartment and immediately noticed that Kathy’s stuff was gone. The jade vase she had set up on the small table by the window, the pictures of her mother and grandmother and even the ugly blue tablecloth Nathan had never liked. His stuff, however, was right where he left it.

  “Huh,” he said.

  He wandered into the small living room and looked around. The recliner was there but the sofa and tables were gone. The small wooden end table he rested his drinks on was beside the chair but the rest of it, all the things they had bought together and the things she had moved in and arranged were gone. The only thing decorating the walls was a gigantic entertainment screen, which he had bought before they started seeing each other.

  It was like hitting the big reset button and returning his life to the way it had been eighteen months ago.

  The bedroom was the same but he checked it just to confirm what he already knew. Her closet was empty, her dresser and lingerie chest gone. There was a note on the bed. She had taken the time to write him rather than recording a holo. He picked up the single piece of paper and saw that an entertainment disc lay underneath. He recognized it at once and understood exactly what had happened. He didn’t even need to read the note but he did anyway.

  “I can’t compete with the past,” her neat cursive writing said, “You want me to fill a hole in your life but it’s too large. And I didn’t make it. I’ll carry my own weight but hers is too much. I’m getting on with my life. You should do the same.”

  He looked at the note, noticed it went on for another three paragraphs and dropped it on the bed without reading them.

  “Thank God.”

  He wasn’t good at getting people out of his life and Nathan hadn’t been any happier with Kathy than she had been with him. At first it had been fun but lately the fun had been non-existent. He hoped she would be the one to make the decision to leave.

  As long as she hadn’t left anything behind.

  He took a quick look around the apartment but didn’t come across anything she owned. Other women had done that, left behind some random, insignificant item to give themselves a way back in if they changed their mind. That wasn’t Kathy, though. He admired the way she made decisions. She had a way of thinking about a problem from all sides, picking a solution and sticking with it. She had smoked when they met and one day, out of the blue, had decided to quit. Just like that she was off the cancer sticks.

  And now she was off him. The lock code would need changed but he could take care of it later. He went into the kitchen and poured himself a double bourbon, carried it back to the living room and collapsed in his chair.

  “Henry, any messages?”

  The apartment’s artificial intelligence came to life in the holographic form of a portly, middle aged man. Kathy had convinced him to spring for the AI system because he worked so much and she was left home alone. Almost constant spaceflight had not been her thing. So he dropped a few thousand on a holographic info-entertainment system with an interactive AI. Henry was the perfect assistant and companion; knowledgeable, detail oriented and accommodating. Kathy had loved him immediately because he could be everything Nathan wasn’t. Nathan regarded the AI as nothing more than one more gadget that needed to pay for itself.

  “You have several hundred advertisements.”

  “Dump ‘em. What else?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No personal messages? From anyone?”

  “No, sir.”

  The circle of friends was indeed shrinking.

  3.

  Celeste Bezzle had the night duty as pilot of the Charon. The cargo vessel was making its way to Earth toward the end of a month long circuit among the human colonies of the Sol and Alpha Centauri solar systems. The ship collected the remains of deceased colonists who wanted to be buried on Earth. They may have left to explore or colonize but many people wanted to be entombed in the comforting ground of the mother world.

  The “body barge”, as it was known throughout flight circles, was among the least glamorous jobs available to interstellar pilots. Celeste was capable of more than piloting stiffs on the slowest boat in space but this was where she was. She considered her life, something she did often to pass the time on the night shift when things were quiet. She was pretty, a redhead still on the good side of forty with a figure that still got second glances when she wore something nicer than a flight suit. Duty on the Charon wasn’t a resume builder. It was the kind of gig you took to pay bills; the sort of job that kept you from sleeping in an alley.

  There were four other crew members aboard and a few hundred non-breathing passengers. At the moment the rest of the crew was asleep. Celeste kept the lights up in the pilot house. Carting dead bodies between planets and stars was just
as creepy as it sounded.

  The ship was near a gas giant called Hubbard in the Alpha system. They were coming up on one of the planet’s moons to a colony named Port Solitude. The dirty little colony was anything but a place of refuge. There were pirates here, Celeste knew, and she kept an eye on the sensors. Earth had exported its criminals to the stars as well as its explorers. The security forces kept an eye on things but they were spread thin and colonists always had some emergency demanding the attention of the authorities. More than one cargo vessel had been boarded and stripped among the moons of Hubbard though the crews were usually left alone. The pirates wanted cargo and wouldn’t hurt anyone unless someone resisted forcefully. Hurting crew members would bring heat down ten times faster than just grabbing booty.

  Celeste sighed and rested a boot on the flight console. She’d had a good job just a year ago piloting a luxury liner for the Great Star line. The Kimberly was a large starliner that toured the Alpha system. Jump out from Earth, show the tourists a system with two suns, some brightly colored gas giants and let them get the thrill of being far from home. That job paid premium wages and let her go to the sunnier side of the colonies. There were casinos and clubs in different colonies and parties to go to. The body barge only made stops for sadness. The crew only visited gloomy faced families saying farewell to their loved ones.

  Piloting the Kimberly had been a sweet job, especially for the pilots. Six hour shifts, six days a week, and a little glad-handing with the passengers had been the sum total of her duties. The rest of her time had been spent partying, lying by the pool and getting more sleep than she had ever known chasing down deadbeats with Nathan on the Blue Moon Bandit. Then Arnie Mulligan had ruined everything.

  Mulligan was the captain of the Kimberly and a well known womanizer. While stewards and wait staff were reprimanded for flirting with passengers, Arnie was known for carrying on affairs for the length of whole cruises. He had done so with singles who had taken a cruise with friends, divorcees looking for a little excitement and even straying wives who let themselves get carried away while on vacation. Celeste could see why. Arnie was about fifty but he was in very good shape. He spent hours in the gym working out and had indulged in some cosmetic procedures, Celeste was sure. After one dinner at the captain’s table they had been walking up to the wheelhouse to make a final check of things before turning in.