by Jake Bible
He never heard his own second scream. Oblivion came back with a vengeance.
When he woke up, he could tell it was night out. The wind had picked up and was blowing hard, wailing against the shed’s thin walls. Night wind was part of the planetary cycle. Roak always made sure he knew the basics of each planet’s cycle before he stepped foot on it. Just in case.
There was always a just in case.
He was on a planet called Ligston, one of the many jungle planets in the Gorf System. Most crime lords in the galaxy preferred to base on Monia’Ja, a planet of noxious gasses and hard, rocky continents, but that planet was no longer considered secure after a Galactic Fleet SpecOps team took out one of the strongholds there a while back.
Not that Boss Teegg cared anything about Monia’Ja. He’d been based on Ligston for decades. It had a mild climate, always within acceptable temperatures that most races considered livable, and afforded multiple locations to set up a protected compound. It also didn’t hurt that the air was made almost entirely of oxygen, so anyone thinking of sneaking around had better do it in a vehicle that was not powered by anything combustible. And they sure as hell had better not be carrying blasters or any type of laser weapons. Certainly not old-school projectile shooters.
That was why Roak had gone in with only his blade and not his Blorta 65 laser pistol. That weapon was sitting in its holster, strung over the back of the pilot’s seat on his ship. Which was sitting useless up in orbit. Orbital grav elevator was the only way to get down to the surface of the planet. And there was only one of those, watched and guarded carefully by the station authority. You know, to protect the business interests of the planet’s entrepreneurs, legitimate or otherwise.
Ligston was the perfect place for a crime boss to hide out on. Kept armed assaults to a minimum.
It was the oxygen that Roak thought about as he slowly, excruciatingly, dragged himself over to the airlock. He wasn’t one hundred percent human, although there was no way to know by looking at him, but he still couldn’t breathe such oxygen-rich air for too long. He could handle about thirty minutes before his body was overcome by oxygen toxicity.
Been there, hated that.
That’s thirty minutes if he was in normal shape. Beaten to a pulp? Roak guessed he could do ten minutes before going into shock.
Maybe.
He reached the shed’s sliding door and saw the heavy rubber seal that was keeping him alive. It would have to be heavy rubber or the shed would go kaboom every time the trash was incinerated. That meant that to get the sliding door open it was going to take some strength and leverage. That seal was not going to be easy to break. Not in his shape.
He ignored the airlock for the moment. There was still the breathing issue.
He came close to frustration over that little issue then saw what was hanging on hooks right next to the door. Rebreathers. A few dozen, all in different configurations so they would fit as many races as possible. Rebreathers designed with Torkian moss inside so it cut the oxygen level in half. Hallelujah.
Except they were hanging a meter and a half off the ground. Well out of Roak’s reach.
Roak’s mind instantly went to one other thing well out of reach. His ship.
Even if he could manage to crawl out of the shed, make his way to the elevator port, find an elevator access hatch that wasn’t being guarded, get onto an empty grav car, he’d still be on security scanners for over an hour as the elevator ascended into space.
Exposed. An easy target. Even with the arrangements he’d made to get on and off the planet’s surface, he’d be caught before the elevator hit the stratosphere. His arrangements specifically excluded access if he looked like he looked. Appearances had to be kept.
He growled low and forced himself to think it all through. His beatdown-addled mind struggled to come up with a solution. He needed time and materials in every scenario, something he did not have.
His frustration returned and grew into a white-hot ball of rage in the pit of his stomach. He was screwed.
Roak realized it and knew he needed to switch gears and come up with another way to survive. He had to hide until his body healed up enough to come up with a better plan. That not-quite-human percentage meant he healed faster than normal. All he needed was time. Which he didn’t have.
He slowly turned himself around, leaning his back against the wall next to the airlock door. The shed was small. Very small. All that it contained was the incinerator bin and a side container where the carbon cubes made up of the incinerator’s waste ash were stored until someone came to dump them.
He could hide in there. Carbon cubes were ejected into space. It was possible he could catch a ride into orbit in that bin, then once off planet, he could improvise and figure out how to get to his ship. It was possible. Not likely, but possible.
Despite how not likely it was, Roak knew it was his only option.
He began to struggle his way to the cube container.
He was halfway across the shed when the airlock beeped and opened behind him. There was a mask-covered gasp then a few quiet curse words.
Roak just didn’t have the energy to turn and look at the source of the curse words. He lay his head on the plasticrete floor and closed his eyes.
It had been a good life as far as dangerously violent and brutal lives went. He’d miss it.
3.
The violet eyes that stared in at him hadn’t blinked in eight minutes. Roak knew, he’d been counting the seconds. It was annoying as hell.
“Go away,” he grumbled at the owner of the eyes.
He pounded his fist on the plastiglass lid to the med pod he’d been stuck in for the last week. Today was the day he was getting out, and he really didn’t want some little kid watching him stumble about as he struggled to get his balance back.
“Kid, I’ll snap your neck if you don’t get out of here now,” Roak snarled.
The kid shrugged, turned, and walked out of the small room the med pod was stored in, passing a woman in the doorway on the way out. Roak rolled his eyes when he saw the disapproving look on the woman’s face.
Deep indigo skin with the same violet eyes as the kid, the woman was an impossible-to- guess mix of galactic races. Humanoid in form, including all the female anatomy needed, the woman was tall, gracefully thin in the legs, muscled in the arms and torso, with wide, thick hips that almost completely filled the narrow doorway. She was dressed in a simple jumper with a small logo stitched above her left breast.
That logo had saved Roak’s life.
“You shout at my boy too much,” the woman said as she crossed the small space to the med pod. “I warn you about this. Do it again and I give you back to Boss Teegg.”
“Sorry,” Roak replied and settled his head back into the small pillow the med bay afforded. The scent of sweat poofed up around his head, but he ignored it. He’d smelled much worse. “He gets to me.”
“He gets to me too, but I don’t shout at him every five minutes,” the woman said. She was busy checking the readings on the med pod’s diagnostics screen, refusing to look Roak in the eyes. “You need another four days.”
“I don’t,” Roak replied. “I’m fine. I heal fast.”
She shrugged, a movement identical to the shrug her son had just given before leaving.
The med pod lid hissed then slowly opened, rising up into the ceiling as Roak stretched his arms high, a relieved grin on his face. The woman stepped back and watched as he sat up and took several deep breaths then swung his legs over the edge of the pod.
“You got some pants for me?” he asked as he eased his feet onto the ice-cold floor. “Shirt and socks would be good too.”
He locked eyes with the woman and waited. She broke the gaze and looked him up and down. He was completely naked, but Roak didn’t care. Let her look. His body was a roadmap of scars and ghosts of old wounds. Most folks only lasted a second or two before having to look away.
She didn’t.
She sighed fi
nally and left the room, returning in seconds with a folded pile of clothing. She handed it to Roak and stepped back to lean against the wall as he got dressed.
The clothes were warm and smelled faintly floral. Comfortable. He had to cinch up the waist of the pants to get them to fit, the hiss of the band the only sound in the room, filling the silence that was heavy with disapproval.
Once clad, he stretched again and nodded at the woman.
“Thanks,” he said. “I appreciate it.”
“I’d appreciate it if you stayed four days longer,” the woman said. She pulled at the collar of her jumper, a movement Roak had watched her do subconsciously a thousand times over the last week, and stepped away from the wall. “You are weak as a baby nuft.”
“I heal fast,” Roak said. “Just point me in the direction of Boss Teegg’s compound and I’ll be out of your hair by nightfall.”
“Ass,” she said and left the room.
Roak followed. Slowly. His balance was not intact enough for him to hurry after her.
“Veha, stop,” Roak said, leaning a hand on the hallway’s wall after only taking half a dozen steps. His lungs felt like fire. “I’m sorry.”
Almost to the end of the hall, Veha stopped. She didn’t turn back around. Just stopped and waited.
“Thanks for saving my ass,” Roak said. “Thanks for finding the med pod and getting me back on my feet.”
“But…?” she replied.
“But, I have work to do,” Roak said. “Work you don’t want any part of.”
“Is that so?” Veha snarled as she turned and glared at him. “Where did I find you?”
“What?” he asked. “You know where–”
“Say it,” Veha snapped. “I want to hear you say it.”
Roak sighed. “In the incinerator shed.”
“Whose incinerator shed?” she pushed.
“Boss Teegg’s incinerator shed,” Roak replied.
“Exactly,” she said. “You think I’m not already a part of this? You think whatever you have planned next is what will put me and Deha in danger?” She snorted and shook her head. “You’re an idiot.”
“You’ve made that clear every day I’ve been here,” Roak said. “Doesn’t change what I said. You don’t want any part of what I need to do.”
“Revenge,” she hissed, almost too quiet for Roak to hear. But he heard. “Men like you must always have revenge.”
“Not revenge,” Roak replied, his voice harder than he’d intended.
Dealing with people, no matter the race, wasn’t his strong suit. Hunting them was. But not dealing with their emotions and psyches and all the baggage that came with both. He cleared his throat.
“It’s not revenge, Veha,” he continued. “It’s getting what I’m owed. Once I have that then I’m gone from here. I won’t bother you or Deha again.”
“Idiot,” she said as she turned and left the hallway, lost from sight with two strides of those graceful legs.
“Veha, wait!” he called after her. “There’s more! You have to listen to me!”
Roak really didn’t have time for this crap. He needed supplies and transportation back to Boss Teegg’s compound. A weapon would be good too, but he could make do without one. There’d be plenty of weapons in the compound. All he’d have to do is pluck one from the dead grip of one of Boss Teegg’s guards.
Roak intended for there to be a lot of dead grips to pluck from.
He found Veha in the kitchen, busily shredding some leafy greens into a container.
“Food is in the fridge,” she said curtly. “I’m making my lunch then I have to go to work. Make yourself at home. Have a good life. Short as it will be.”
“Veha, stop,” Roak said. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
“Dramatic?” she shouted, shoving the greens away. They tumbled from the counter and spread across the plasticrete floor. “Dramatic? Are you kidding me? I found you half-dead in the incinerator shed, your body pulped, helpless because you got your ass handed to you by Boss Teegg’s guards for whatever reason, a reason you have not completely explained yet, and I’m the one being dramatic?”
She crossed the distance between them so fast that Roak didn’t have time to see the slap coming. His head rocked to the side, but he didn’t say a word in protest. He was damn impressed she got a slap in at all. Even weak, he should have been able to stop it.
“I’m a cleaner,” Veha continued. “I do a job that a bot should be doing. But no bots on Ligston.”
“Stray bot gets outside and things go boom,” Roak said.
“Yes. Don’t interrupt,” Veha agreed. “I clean Boss Teegg’s compound, which includes emptying the carbon cubes from the incinerator shed. My life, my job, my everything is about as boring as it gets on this planet. Then you show up. With your drama. Me being dramatic? Screw you.”
“You work for a crime boss, Veha, so don’t even–”
She slapped him again and went in for a third, but he caught her wrist before the palm could make contact. Roak was surprised again, but that time by the power in her arm. He was big, but a week in the med pod meant he probably wouldn’t be stopping her for long if she decided to fight hard. Not with that strength.
“Sorry,” he said quietly.
Some of the rage left her and Roak let go of her wrist when he felt the tension of violence in her muscles ease.
She sniffed with indignation and went about picking up the leafy greens from the floor.
“Veha, listen to me,” Roak said, “the man is a fat pig, but he’s not stupid.” Roak chuckled. “Stupid enough to mess with me, but not stupid enough to think I survived on my own. Once he realizes I’m alive, and he will realize it, he’ll know I had help.”
“So?” Veha said, tossing the greens into the disposal. “You’re going to kill him.”
“No, I’m going to get the chits I’m owed,” Roak said. “If I can do that without killing him then all the better. Better for my business if it’s known I let him live. I’m a bounty hunter, not an assassin. Bosses won’t hire me if they think they’ll die when things go wrong.”
Veha turned and stared at Roak, looking a lot like her son. She sputtered a couple of times before she said, “You’d leave him alive? He tried to have you killed. How is that good for business? Every boss in the galaxy will put a laser bolt between your eyes instead of paying you.”
“They wouldn’t be the first ones to try,” Roak said. “They won’t be the last. That’s my problem. I just want my chits and I’ll be on my way. When the syndicates hear about what he did to me, his business will dry up. No one will work for him or work with him. It’s the natural law of things. It always evens out in the end.”
“But if you don’t kill him then he’ll want to know why you’re alive,” Veha said. “He’ll send men to question everyone in town. He’ll send men to question me.”
“Probably,” Roak said. “That’s why I’m trying to talk to you. If you’d shut up and listen then maybe I can help you figure this out.”
Veha looked at the kitchen counter and the empty lunchbox that sat on top of it. She shoved the box off the counter and held her hands to her face.
“I should have let you die,” she whispered.
“Yeah, you probably should have,” Roak replied. “But you didn’t, so now you need to listen to me. You should pack up Deha and go stay somewhere else. As far away from here as possible. At least until you know what happens to me.”
“Leave? Have you lost your mind?” she growled. “This house is all I have. This and Deha.”
“Just until I get my payment and can come get you,” Roak said.
“What?”
“I owe you for your help,” Roak said. “I’ll give you a cut of my payment and you can take those chits and get off this planet. Go somewhere else.”
“Where?” Veha snapped.
“I don’t know,” Roak replied and shrugged. “Wherever you want. Just not here anymore. I’ll give you enough to change your nam
e and your IDs in the Grid. You’ll have plenty left over to settle down on some boring planet where crime bosses don’t set up shop.”
“You son of a bitch,” Veha said. “You could have told me all of this at any time. But you wait until you’re out of the med pod so I can’t turn you in. That’s it, isn’t it?”
Roak could have lied to save her feelings, but that wasn’t him. The truth was always safer than a lie, no matter how much it hurt.
“More or less,” Roak said. “First two days, I didn’t know if I’d live. Last few days, I kept waiting for you to turn me in anyway.”
“Idiot,” she hissed. Her eyes strayed to the handle of one of the kitchen knives sticking out of its recessed spot in the counter.
“Don’t,” Roak said. All trace of sympathy for the woman was gone. “Do not. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Oh, my Eight Million Gods!” Veha shouted. “This is madness!”
Roak rubbed his face. Words weren’t his specialty. Hunting down marks for their bounties was. He had no idea what else there was to say to Veha. His being in her life screwed it all up for her and her son. But he hadn’t asked her to help him. That he was certain of. It was a weak excuse, but still true.
“I need to get my payment,” Roak said. “I can give you a cut and help you get off planet or you can stay here and more than likely die. Or worse.”
“Or worse? What would be worse?” Veha asked.
“They kill your son, leave you alive, then sell you into the sex trade,” Roak said. “You’re a beautiful woman. You’d fetch a good price on one of the resort planets. Barring that, Boss Teegg is known for his appetites. He could keep you for himself.”
“Then kill him!” Veha yelled.
“Only if I have to,” Roak replied. He was done. “I need to go.”
“How?” Veha asked. “You have no grav roller.”
“I’ll walk,” Roak said. “I can use a rebreather. It’s what? Half a click? It’ll be good for me to stretch my legs before I have to get to work.”
