Milky Way Repo

by Michael Prelee

  The old man smiled. “Welcome back, my friends. I understand your journey was successful?”

  Kimiyo nodded. “Very much so, sir. Captain Teller and his people recovered the Charon and its crew intact. The vessel is in orbit and its cargo is being delivered. All personnel are safe and accounted for. I’ve transmitted my report with the details for your review.”

  “Yes, of course, Kimiyo. I’ve reviewed your report. Very thorough, thank you. Top notch work as always. Tell me, how is Arulio?”

  “He’s right there,” Nathan said. “Why don’t you ask him?”

  Kimiyo turned her head and shot him a look but spoke to Saji Vy. “Arulio is fine, sir. He’s 100% operational although he does need to be debriefed and have his logs downloaded.”

  “You can take care of that when we’re finished, Kimiyo.” He turned his gaze to Nathan. “Captain Teller, I trust all is well with you? Your ship and crew are fine as well?”

  “They are,” Nathan said.

  “You were somewhat reluctant to take on this particular assignment, Captain Teller.”

  “I was.”

  “Was it as bad as you thought?”

  “The job went about as well as could be expected which is to say it was probably the worst job we’ve ever accepted.”

  “The worst? Surely not.”

  “Mr. Vy, there are a couple of dead Syndicate hit men back at Port Solitude who would disagree with you. There are probably officials on Olympus who want to speak with us regarding a shooting outside a diner. Oh, and the Syndicate will probably want to talk to all of us regarding the theft of twenty-three million credits that were stolen with Arulio’s assistance. Believe me, sir, when I tell you this was our worst job ever.”

  Saji sat back in his chair and put his hands together, steepling his fingers. “Captain Teller, we knew this was going to be a difficult assignment when I offered it to you. That’s why the payment is so generous. If you are unsatisfied, now is not the time to re-negotiate.”

  Nathan looked at Duncan and the two men smiled at each other. Nathan turned back to Saji. “I’m not negotiating, sir. The job is done and the invoice has been submitted. I’m sure you’ll pay. I’m just letting you know that there could be trouble from the authorities and from the Syndicate. I’m sorry about that but it couldn’t be helped.”

  Saji leaned forward again and the smile fell off his face. His eyes were hard and Nathan understood what it must be like sitting across from him, negotiating some deal and how hard of a task that must be. “Captain Teller, I deal with the authorities every day. I’m not worried about them. As for the Syndicate, well, you don’t grow the business I have without running into them once or twice. If they become a problem, I’ll deal with them as well.”

  Nathan stood up and Duncan rose behind him. “Then I suppose we’re done.” He held out his hand and Saji took it. “Nice doing business with you, sir.”

  “And you. Can you find your way out?”

  “We can,” Nathan said.

  Duncan shook Kimiyo’s hand, “Nice to meet you. Stay in touch.”

  “I will.”

  The two men made their way to the door and Saji spoke. “Captain? One more thing.”

  Nathan turned. “Yes?”

  “If you run into trouble with the authorities or the Syndicate, trouble you can’t handle, because of this assignment, please get in touch. I have resources for dealing with these kinds of problems.”

  “Thank you. I’ll remember that.”

  Nathan and Duncan made their way out of the building and walked into the afternoon desert sunshine.

  29.

  Three months after returning the Charon to Saji Vy, Nathan and his crew walked into a restaurant on the Moon, in a settlement on the eastern slope on Mons Huygens. The mountain offered fantastic views of the impact craters of Mare Imbrium and the attendant lava flows. Tourists flocked to the settlement to hike and explore the local geography. Nathan was here for a different reason.

  The rest of his crew, Duncan, Marla, Cole and Richie took a round booth in a corner while Nathan moved to the bar. He ordered bourbon on the rocks and sipped his drink. He saw Celeste sitting on the other side of the bar. She was playing with her phone and looked thoroughly annoyed.

  The bartender walked over and refilled her glass with white wine. She took a sip and then spotted Nathan sitting in the corner. Her eyes fell. He got up, walked over and took the stool next to her.

  “What are you doing here?” She asked.

  “Oh, you know how I like this place,” he said. “It’s nice, quiet and the food is great. Remember how we used to come here?”

  She sipped her wine. “I remember.”

  He swirled the drink in his glass. “See, what I remember is that we used to come here for meetings with people who needed a bit of privacy. You remember? Those couple times when a client would want privacy or was off Earth? This place was great for that.”

  “Is that why you’re here? You’re meeting with someone?”

  “No. That’s why you’re here.”

  She looked around.

  “He’s late, isn’t he?”

  “Who?”

  “Oh, come on. How long are you going to keep this up?”

  She gave him a smirk. “Keep what up?”

  “He isn’t coming.”

  That stopped her. Her face grew serious and she drank a little more. “You don’t know anything about anything.”

  “I know you’re sitting here waiting your half of twenty three million and I know it isn’t coming. He used you Celeste. You trusted him and he used you.”

  “Have you heard something or are you guessing?”

  “I feel for you, Celeste, I really do. I know how things went bad for you on the cruise line, about the captain of that ship and what he did to you but this nonsense you’ve involved yourself in put us all in danger.”

  “You don’t know anything,” she said in a small voice.

  “I don’t know how you hooked up with him but Montario Dawson is a con man with a record as long as my arm. From what I’ve been able to piece together he was working a scam on those kids belonging to the Children of the Apocalyptic Rainbow. He was grifting off them and somehow figured out they were money laundering for the Syndicate. The two of you got together and cooked up a scheme to grab the Charon and get your hands on a wetjack so you could hack the account.”

  “You’ve been asking questions.”

  He nodded. “I have. What tripped you up is that the Charon was traveling too slowly for that section of space. We saw in your logs that you had trouble there on prior runs with micro meteorites but you were moving way too slow. Just slow enough that a shuttle could overtake you. It was brilliant of you to keep working. I mean, it’s so heroic after your hostage ordeal. You’ve made two more runs in the Charon and now you’ve taken some vacation time. I have friends in the travel industry. As soon as you booked a flight to this settlement on the Moon I knew you would be meeting Montario. I also knew he wouldn’t show up.”

  She had tears in her eyes now, big wet ones that were only now beginning to flow. She spoke in a whisper. “He should have been here an hour ago.”

  “What was the plan? You keep up appearances and meet later on? Let him establish new lives for both of you and then you just disappear?”

  She nodded.

  “That was a terrible plan.”

  “Why?”

  “You can’t trust guys like Montario. As soon as he had the money he was gone in the wind. Hell, he took that guy Caleb with him but only because he had to. You were just a means to an end.”

  She was sobbing now, quietly and into a napkin.

  “Don’t feel too bad about it. This is what these guys do. They use people until they don’t need them anymore.”

  “I really thought I could trust him.”

  “Let me tell you something. I had a very hard time getting over you after you left. I mean, a really hard time. I haven’t had a decent relationship sin
ce you and for a while I obsessed over you pretty hard. I’ve been seeing a therapist and I think I have my head on straight.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Well, as long as you’re alright I guess everything is okay.”

  “What I’m trying to tell you is that you are a very remarkable woman. You just need to get yourself sorted out.”

  “You’re offering to help?”

  “Only with advice. I’ve learned that I can’t be around you. If I start helping you now out of kindness it will turn into something toxic down the road. I just wanted to see you this last time, let you know that Saji’s people have probably figured out what Duncan and I did. If you keep everything quiet like you have I think you’ll be alright. If you quit your job and start looking for Montario I think you’ll be in a world of trouble.”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “Saji will punish you for using him and his ship and his wetjack. The authorities will throw you in jail and the Syndicate will make you wish you’d been arrested. This is my advice; keep your job, keep your head down and don’t look for Montario. Living a straight life is the only thing keeping you out of trouble right now.”

  “It’s not that easy to give up half of twenty-three million credits,” she hissed.

  Nathan got off his stool. “That’s my advice, Celeste. As always, you’ll do what you like.”

  He walked over to the booth in the corner and joined his crew.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Michael Prelee is an author from Northeast Ohio who enjoys good stories of any genre, sci-fi in any medium and rooting for the Cleveland Browns