Arnie had been drinking and Celeste knew what was on his mind the minute he looked at her in the elevator.
“You look good tonight, honey.”
“Cap, I think you should go to bed.”
“Me too. I think you should go to bed. My bed.”
Celeste didn’t know whether she should be insulted more by his clumsy audacity or the lame pick up line. She decided on simply being insulted. She pressed the button for the next deck.
“You’re drunk, Arnie. I’m going to get off here and we’ll pretend nothing ever happened when we see each other tomorrow. Okay?”
He pressed the stop button. “Don’t be like that, Celeste. You think I haven’t noticed you?” His hand came up and stroked her arm. “You look pretty good in that uniform. We’ve all noticed.”
Ugh. She could just imagine what he said to the rest of the male wheelhouse crew when she wasn’t around. She pulled her arm away from him and reached for the door open button.
“Goodnight, Captain.”
He moved between her and the door. His hands wrapped around her and groped her. She responded exactly as Cole Seger had taught her back when she was married to Nathan. She lifted her knee hard into his groin and delivered a quick right jab to his face. She might have kept her job if the doors had opened on a crowded corridor right then, spilling Arnie Mulligan into a gaggle of passengers in all his pain wracked glory. Witnesses would have worked to Celeste’s advantage.
Instead he collapsed in the elevator and Celeste stepped out into an empty hall and continued to her cabin by way of the stairs. She reported off her shift the next morning and by two in the afternoon the fix was in.
She was terminated for attempted extortion. Mulligan admitted to making an improper advance on her but only so he could produce an email from Celeste wherein she said she would keep the whole incident under wraps for 25,000 credits. Celeste didn’t know how her account had been hacked or who composed the message but she was out of a job and blacklisted while Arnie received a letter of reprimand. The only job she could get after that was steering the body barge on its endless journey from pick up to cemetery. The job switch meant a sixty percent pay cut and a cabin that smelled like old socks.
The Charon’s proximity alarm went off and she leaned forward to check it out. This area was littered with asteroids and other debris caught up in Hubbard’s gravity. On their trip through last month their hull had been penetrated by a micro-meteorite. No one in the cargo hold had complained but this trip through she was running slow, trying to give herself enough time to avoid anything in their path.
Celeste pulled up the controls for the rear cameras and scanned the area of space in question. Nothing. It had probably been an asteroid whipping by at 18,000 miles per hour on its way to burning up in Hubbard’s atmosphere.
She reached into a plastic container and picked up a carrot stick. Munching unhappily, she reviewed the schedule. They would arrive at Port Solitude later in the day, docking at an orbital space station. The facility had sent up an advanced shipping notice, letting the Charon know what they would be picking up. There was a consignment of mail, packages being sent back to Earth and four bodies. Four more souls for the slow boat home.
After being fired by Great Star lines, she could have gone back to Nathan. Back to hunting down deadbeats and their forfeited boats; back to living on that flying locker room with Nathan, Duncan and Cole. Chasing after people who owed and hid, who lied and obfuscated, who perpetually needed just one more month to come up with the payment. Flying around with dead people had seemed like a better idea at the time. Now she wasn’t sure.
She found a celery stick next and bit into it. The captain of the Charon, Arno Geechy, had a nice little garden on one of the lower decks. He also grew tomatoes, lettuce, peppers and onions so she could at least have a decent salad. That was about the only perk she had on the body barge; a damn salad.
An alarm sounded, high pitched and squealing and then the lights went out. Celeste sat up straight and then floated out of her chair as the gravity cut out. She had the sense to grab both sides of the chair and pull herself down. She belted in and felt around under the flight control panel for the main breaker. It should have been easy to find but like everything else on this bucket, it was difficult to work with. She remembered it being on the right but she had to reach so far that the seat restraint bit into her shoulder. She got the panel open and cycled the breaker. The lights should have come on but they didn’t. She flipped it up and down again but the lights and control panel stayed dark. The emergency lamps finally clicked on, illuminating the wheelhouse with a weak yellowish light.
It would be ten minutes before anyone else realized something was wrong and made their way to her. The rest of the crew were probably floating around the ceiling of their cabins. By the time they fumbled their way down their walls and got into a pair of zero-g boots the batteries in the emergency lights would probably be out.
“So it’s up to me, of course,” she said to no one.
She reached down to her boots and flicked a switch on each. Her feet got heavy and she released her seat restraint. The equipment locker at the rear of the wheelhouse was supposed to be well stocked for this kind of situation. It hadn’t been when she was hired but she had taken care of that.
The locker door was a little stiff. She put one hand on the locker’s frame and pulled hard on the handle. The door popped open with a squeal. The light from the emergency lamps hit the open locker door and cast a deep shadow inside. She felt around on the top shelf, pushing a pressure suit helmet out of the way and finally found what she wanted. The flashlight flooded the wheelhouse with bluish-white light. At least she could see properly.
She played the light over the locking mechanism and saw the pressure gauge built into the door was deep in the red instead of the atmosphere friendly green. That meant the corridor outside was open to vacuum.
She lifted the growler phone mounted next to the door and spoke. “Attention Charon crew, this is Celeste in the wheelhouse. We appear to have lost power and may have a hull breach. Please give me your location and status.”
The phone was sound powered so it should have been unaffected by the loss of power. Charon’s crew should have reported to her as soon as the power and gravity switched off but since they hadn’t she figured her earlier assessment of their status was correct. They were probably floating around their cabins trying to find their zero-g shoes. That was if the yo-yo’s on this crew actually kept a pair in their quarters like they were supposed to. Those two deckhands Chuck and Jeff were just as likely to have traded them for booze at their last port of call.
No one answered her call on the growler phone.
Something banged against the wheelhouse door. She took a step back and noticed the needle on the pressure gauge rising back into the green. The needle came to rest at the top of the gauge, showing a full atmosphere outside the wheelhouse door.
The lock rotated and door swung open. Celeste watched as two men entered wearing pressure suits she had never seen before. These two were not from the Charon. They removed their helmets.
One was tall, dirty blonde and not bad looking. The other was shorter than his companion and bald. Shaved, she thought, as she looked at the dark stubble on his head. He shaves his head but he isn’t really bald. The guy with the dirty blonde hair stepped in front of her.
“You’re Celeste Bezzle?”
“I am. Who are you?”
“My name is Randy. Come with me.”
She followed him into the corridor. The bald guy stayed in the wheelhouse, sitting down at the flight controls as she walked out. He led her down the corridor to the forward hatch. She could see it was open and connected to another vessel.
He motioned for her to walk through the hatch. Answers were not forthcoming.
The new ship was small, a shuttle for sure she thought. Randy directed her through an opening and she saw the crew of the Charon seated in the passenger compartment and
restrained with plastic wire ties.
Captain Greechy nodded to her. “It appears we’re being hijacked, Celeste. Best to do as the man asks.”
“Please,” Randy said, “Sit down.” He gestured toward an unoccupied seat.
Celeste fell into the offered chair with no resistance. She bristled when Randy strapped her in. After examining the restraints she saw they had been altered so she could not release them herself.
“I can’t imagine what anyone wants with three hundred dead bodies,” Captain Geechy said.
Randy stepped out of the passenger compartment but turned before he closed the door. “Captain, as long as you and your crewmates remain calm, no one will be harmed. We’re not interested in you. It’s your ship we’re after.”
Celeste sized him up. “I’m not going to believe anything a criminal has to say.”
Randy looked at her and closed the door without answering.
“Did anyone try to stop them?” Celeste asked. “Did anyone get hurt?”
The captain shook his head. “They took us one by one,” he said. “I assume they used an electro magnetic pulse to kill our power and boarded us. They worked too quickly to stop.”
Celeste nodded. “They bled the atmosphere out of the corridors to lock us in our compartments.”
“Well,” the captain said. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens.”
Celeste settled into her seat and closed her eyes.
4.
Nathan made his way up Ternan Boulevard, past the strip malls and restaurants that catered to tourists, out to where the warehouses sat, feeding parts to the starship industry. Large automated trucks hustled parts from the squat gray and brown buildings to the assembly plants where thrusters, gauges, seats and a thousand other components were made.
He pulled into the parking lot of a non-descript warehouse, dodged a truck pulling away from a dock and parked his float bike outside the business office. The bike had been bought in better times, when money had flowed a little more freely. If he had to replace it any time soon he’d be calling taxis to get where he had to go.
The sign out front read Amalgamated Logistics but they did more than shipping and receiving here. Nathan swallowed his pride, something he did every time he came here, and walked up to the front desk. The receptionist looked up. She was a live person, not one of the hologram greeters you got at the bigger outfits.
“Can I help you?”
“Yeah, I’m here to see Lucy.”
“Your name?”
“Nathan Teller. She’ll be expecting me.”
The girl made a quick call and waved him through. He walked through a heavy door and heard a magnetic lock reengage after he passed. Lucy Bega believed in tight security.
The office was old and the décor hadn’t been updated in the fifteen years Nathan had known Lucy. She had blonde hair littered with gray. She was sixty-ish, overweight and partial to smoking some kind of smelly herb concoction. Today she wore a man’s work shirt and faded jeans. A picture of her last husband adorned the wall to her right but Nathan knew the man had cut and run almost four years prior. Lucy was married to her work and it had taken three husbands to convince her of that.
She was on a call and waved him to a worn chair. He flopped into it and looked out the window behind her. The woman was worth at least seven figures and the view out her window consisted of loading docks. She finished her call.
“Good trip?” She said.
“We got the Martha Tooey back, cargo intact.”
“Anybody hurt?”
“Not on our team.”
“I suppose that’s good enough. Did Saji’s guys take possession?”
“We parked it in orbit yesterday. Payment should have come through.”
“Let me check.” Lucy said.
Lucy ran a factoring company. She loaned money up front to freight haulers and anyone else who ran a starship. For a percentage of their payment she gave them money to buy fuel and provisions or make repairs so they could make their runs. The problem was, once you started borrowing the money you were perpetually in hock. Many times the run didn’t pay well enough to leave a starship captain any money once they paid back the loan and the factoring company’s fee. There was a long line of captains who had sat in this very office who had practically begged Lucy to take a smaller percentage just so they could go out of business with some small amount of dignity.
“We’re good,” she said. “We invoiced Saji yesterday and payment was made this morning.” The factoring company invoiced the customer and collected payment. That way no one could “forget” to pay them back.
“Good. I’m glad we’re square.”
“You actually made a little on this run,” she said, looking at the settlement sheet on her terminal. “There was a bonus for recovering the cargo intact and another for getting the Martha Tooey back less than two weeks after taking the assignment.”
“It was a good score,” he said. “I’m looking for more like it.”
“That was a gift. You’ll chase down a hundred deadbeats with personal yachts and small freight haulers before you see a big steak like that again.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, I’ve got to run to a meeting. Call me when you get another job and we’ll hook you up. I’ll shave a point or two off your next fee.”
“Actually Lucy, I think it may be a while before you see me again. Recovering the Martha Tooey gets Milky Way Repossessions solvent again.” Nathan was doing the math in his head. Every time the Blue Moon Bandit broke orbit it cost about twenty-five thousand in fuel, provisions, fees and permits. He thought he was pretty close to that figure.
Lucy got up from her chair. “Honey, we both know you mean well and you do a hell of a job but money goes through your hands like shit through a goose.”
Nathan followed her out of the office. “I’m serious, Lucy. Things are starting to look up.”
She walked down the hall and without looking back said, “We’ll see.”
Lucy walked into a conference room in her warehouse. It was large, more than capable of accommodating the eight chairs around the granite meeting table. As nice as the table was the rest of the room was run down. The paint on the walls was a dull orange, the carpet had seen better days and the ceiling was unfinished. Pipes and duct work crawled over one another. The table was bought cheap at a going out of business sale.
Duncan sat at the table looking out the only window in the room. He watched as Nathan mounted his float bike and left the parking lot. Lucy sat down at the head of the table.
“I’ve got the statements here,” she said. “We’ve had a good quarter. Fees are up and it looks like more freight haulers are feeling the rising cost of fuel. The solid hydrogen mines on Ceres had some trouble which is really pushing up the cost of refined fuel. I’ve cut our rates to be more attractive and starship owners are taking advantage. I think we’ll see this growth through the end of the year.”
“Was that Nathan Teller I just saw leaving?” He said.
“What’s that?” She said, playing like she didn’t know Duncan ran with Nathan. “Oh yeah, we were just settling up on your last run.”
“I didn’t realize he was financing with you.”
“You mean with us, right?”
“I guess.”
“Look,” she said, “you invest with me all right? You need to see quarterly reports, not details of who we’re loaning money to. If you start getting involved with our customers we’ll be out of business in a month. You’re too nice. You would listen to every sob story and loan at a loss. I’m the bad guy. I’m good at saying no and good at twisting arms when they need twisting. I’m also extremely good at making sure your money works hard for you. Leave it alone.”
“It’s just, it could be a conflict. Loaning money to my captain.”
“Not if he doesn’t know about it,” she said. “Besides, he says Milky Way has enough to self-finance your next run. I don’t see this as a big problem f
or you.”
Duncan considered it. He had been investing with Lucy for a little over two years which meant he had partially financed dozens of runs for Milky Way Repossessions. And no harm had been done as far as he could tell. In fact, Nathan made good money. Duncan couldn’t understand why he would need financing. What was he doing with his money?
Lucy held up the quarterly report. “Are we still doing this? I have meetings with three other investors this morning.”
“How long has Nathan been financing Milky Way with you?”
She thought about it. “About fifteen years on and off but pretty steadily over the last couple years.”
The divorce, Duncan thought. He’s been financing since shortly after Celeste left him. Was it the settlement? Was he paying her some outrageous alimony or was it something else?
“If it hasn’t been a problem yet, it probably won’t be. Let’s get back to the reports.”
5.
A week since they’d returned and no job yet. Nathan glanced around Steel Eye Jack’s. The bar was crowded tonight, full of Go City tourists getting ready to ride up to star liners for cruises to the colonies and other solar systems. The locals liked the tourists, generally. They brought money, pretty girls and a carefree attitude that could put the first in your pocket and the second in your bed if you gave it a little effort.
There was a pretty brunette at the bar beside him. Bonnie something. They’d chatted and she was from New York, here with a banker who was in the back playing games with friends. Nathan sipped his bourbon.
“So you’re in marketing?” He said.
She nodded and swayed to the music. “Mmm-hmm. I specialize in social networking and event planning.”
Milky Way Repo Page 4
