by Jake Bible
He’d woken up in that situation too many times.
Also, he was glad just to be waking up, but he hardly expected not to. The commander of the station was an old friend.
“You finally awake?” a voice asked from across the room. “Good. We need to talk about how much trouble you’re in and why I’m not going to do a damn thing about it.”
“You’re mad because I don’t have the chits I promised you,” Roak said as he rolled over onto his side so he could see the commander. She sat at her desk across the office, her hands folded on top of a small, but extremely deadly, flechette pistol. “Listen, Nimm, I can explain.”
“Commander Nimm,” the woman said.
She was a Lipian, a genetically engineered race designed to serve as prostitutes. Even after millennia of freedom from their designers, the Lipians still held to their purpose. Except for a few rogues that refused to submit to their predetermined careers. Nimm was one of those.
The woman channeled her hormonal boosts into becoming a Marine for the Galactic Fleet then as a private contractor for whoever would hire her. Eventually, the job caught up to her and she lost both of her legs and her right arm. Forced to replace them with synthetics, she retired from the contracting game and called in some favors to get a job as Commander of Ligston Station.
It was the only way Roak was able to get down to the surface of the planet without Boss Teegg being alerted. He knew Nimm from a job way back in both their pasts. She’d owed him one. Well, not so much owed him as felt obligated not to ruin his bounty. The fact Roak offered her a good deal of chits upon his return didn’t hurt, either.
“I know you don’t have the chits, Roak,” Nimm said. “When there’s one way off and one way on the planet, not much escapes my attention. Boss Teegg fled this place so fast that I felt obligated to grease some palms and get some answers. I will admit I was sad to hear he was running because he’d thought he’d killed you and that didn’t turn out to be true.”
“Hold on, were you sad because he was running from me or because I turned out not to be dead?” Roak asked.
“A little of both,” Nimm said. “I was sad he was running because that meant you never got your chits. Which means I don’t get my chits. I was also sad because if that slug was running from you, despite having the resources of his compound at his fingertips, then he was never as strong as I thought he was. I’d ignored the rumors of his disgrace within the syndicate, thinking they were just gossip meant to undermine him, which happens too often, but turns out he doesn’t have anywhere near the pull he liked to say he did.”
“Most of those assheads don’t,” Roak said. “They talk the talk, but never have the balls to walk the walk. If they did, I’d have been dead years ago.”
“That’s true,” Nimm said. “You always shot me straight, Roak. I appreciate that. So I’m going to shoot you straight. I gotta hand you over to the GF.”
“GF? Why the hell would you hand me over to them?” Roak snapped. “What does the GF have to do with any of this?”
“Absolutely nothing,” Nimm said. “Except that you made so much noise breaking your way onto my station that half the passengers aboard noticed. You walked up the side of the elevator car, you moron!”
“What was I supposed to do? Leapfrog up it?” Roak asked. Nimm didn’t laugh. “Come on, Nimm, give me a break. You hand me to the GF and I’ll be lost in their bureaucracy for months, maybe years. Don’t do that to me. We have history, sister.”
“I know, I know,” Nimm said. “Which is why this really hurts. You do know that when I hand you to the GF, it’s not the GF that will take custody of you, right?”
“What? Then who…will… Oh, right, the syndicate that Boss Teegg works for,” Roak said. “They’ll have paid off the GF guards and I’ll be on a shuttle heading to some deep, dark hole where I’ll slowly lose body parts until the syndicate gets whatever intel they want from me.”
“Pretty much,” Nimm said.
Roak shook his bonds. “So, you probably aren’t going to let me free from this crap, are you?”
“Definitely not,” Nimm said. “The only reason you’re on my couch is because you were disoriented from your fun time outside. Don’t think I don’t know you could have taken all of my security personnel with one hand tied behind your back if you’d been in a normal state.”
When she mentioned one hand tied behind his back, Roak realized he could feel his left hand again. Phew. There was some residual discomfort, and slight numbness, but overall the hand felt normal. Luck was on his side with that one, at least.
“I had my medic take care of that hand,” Nimm said.
“Thanks,” Roak said.
“Don’t thank me,” Nimm replied. “It’ll just make me feel bad for what you’re about to go through.”
“Nimm, you don’t have to do this,” Roak said. “I can make it worth your while if you let me go.”
“Gonna offer me chits you don’t have?” Nimm asked and laughed. “Sorry, Roak.”
“Nope, not gonna offer you chits,” Roak said. “I’ve already failed on that. What if I could get you a gig better than this one?”
“You can’t,” Nimm replied.
“But what if I could?” Roak insisted.
“But, you can’t,” Nimm growled. “So stop wasting my time.”
“You like it here? Stuck inside this can in the galactic backwoods?” Roak asked.
“Better than dying as a contractor,” Nimm said.
“True, true, but what if I could get you a better position? Commander of one of the stations closer in to the galactic center?” Roak asked. “Those jobs open up more than you know. I have some pull with a guy in the placement corporation that vets candidates.”
“Roak? Are you so desperate you’d try blowing smoke up my ass?” Nimm asked. She shook her head. “You really must be. Come on. It won’t be so bad. Odds are the syndicate I hand you over to will make you work for them instead of chopping you up for intel.”
“Yeah, well, we both know what that means,” Roak said and made a small explosion noise. “Behavior mod in the middle of my brain. I step in line, stay in line, be a mindless robot hunter for them or my skull goes pop. No thanks.”
“I don’t have a choice,” Nimm said.
“You do,” Roak said. “All you have to do is set it up so I have a chance to get free before the GF lackeys get here. I can make my way to my ship and I’ll be out of your hair before any trouble can rain down on you.”
“You being on my couch is the trouble that can rain down on me, Roak,” Nimm said. “You aren’t listening.”
She cleared her throat.
“And, even if I did make things convenient for you, you don’t have a ship to get on,” Nimm said quietly. “That part I’m really sorry for. Despite what you may think, I do pride myself on doing a damn good job running this station. How was I supposed to know that Boss Teegg would figure out which ship was yours?”
“Shit, Nimm, what happened to my ship?” Roak asked. “You know I love that ship. It’s about as close to a home as I have.”
“It’s still in dock,” Nimm said. “But it’s not leaving anytime soon. Engines, nav system, trans-space coupler, gravity stabilizers, well, you name it and Boss Teegg had his men trash it. They were real pros about it. You don’t even notice it’s been messed with if you look at it from the outside. You would have gotten onboard, tried to start it up, and it would have disintegrated right out from under you.”
“Then how’d you find out?” Roak asked, barely able to take in what Nimm was saying to him.
“One of my engineers was doing a routine maintenance check of the docks and detected an ion leak from your starboard engine,” Nimm said. “He went onboard and did a full work-up. I’m sorry, Roak, but it’s going to be a long time before you have enough chits to fix your ship.”
Roak groaned and closed his eyes. His ship. Eight Million Gods dammit, they could mess with him, but not his ship.
“
Hey,” Nimm said and Roak’s eyes shot open as he realized she was crouched right in front of him. “Maybe you’re not hearing what I’m saying.”
“Oh, I’m hearing you loud and clear,” Roak said.
“No, you’re not,” Nimm said and locked eyes with him. Her voice dropped to an almost inaudible level. “You can’t leave here in your ship. That means you have to leave here in another ship. Maybe, I don’t know, like the GF ship that is on its way to pick you up right now and deliver you to the syndicate Boss Teegg works for.”
Roak finally heard what she was saying. She couldn’t let him go, or let him escape, because that would damage her job. It also was the dumb move to make. He needed to get off the station and on the trail of Boss Teegg. She was literally handing him the solution.
“Oh,” he said. “So there’s nothing you can do.”
“There’s nothing I can do,” Nimm said in a much louder voice as she stood up. The station’s recorders wouldn’t have picked up her close in words. “Once you’re on that GF ship, you’re on your own. How you handle your situation is completely up to you.”
“Any advice on how I should handle it?” Roak asked.
“Just relax,” Nimm said. “Understand?”
Roak smiled at her. “I understand.”
“Good,” Nimm said. “Now, because I’m not a cruel bitch and we do have history, I’m going to hand you over to my guards so you can get a bite to eat in the cafeteria and maybe wash some of that stink off you. Why the hell do you smell like sex and smoke?”
“Oh, you know me,” Roak said.
“Don’t tell me you set that fire down there?” Nimm said then waved a hand. “No, really, don’t tell me. It’ll only complicate things.”
“Not saying a word,” Roak replied.
She tapped at her comm and barked a quick command. The door to her office opened immediately and eight guards, armed to the teeth, came inside.
“Take the restraints off his feet, but do not take them off his hands,” Nimm ordered. “He never leaves your sight and you never engage him one on one. Understood?”
The guards nodded and hauled him off the couch. One of them undid the restraints around his ankles and Roak hissed as the blood flow in his legs began to normalize. He took a couple tentative steps then nodded.
“Hey, Nimm, can I ask a favor?” Roak asked.
“Are you joking?” Nimm snapped.
“Nope,” Roak said. “Can these guys take me to see my ship? I just want to say goodbye.”
“You can’t go inside it,” Nimm said.
“I know,” Roak said. “No tricks. I really want to say goodbye.”
“Swear on our history?” Nimm asked.
“Swear on our history,” Roak said. “I’m being sincere. Laugh all you want, but I need to say goodbye.”
“Fine,” Nimm said and nodded to the guards. “Take him to get cleaned up and fed first, then he can go to the dock where his ship is. Better hurry. The GF transport is scheduled to arrive later today and his ship is scheduled to go to a scrap dealer not long after that.”
“What? Scrap dealer?” Roak barked. “Oh, come on, Nimm!”
Nimm glared at him and Roak stopped protesting. Of course it was scheduled to go to a scrap dealer. He was being handed over to GF idiots then the syndicate. As far as everyone was concerned, he’d never have need of his ship again. In order to give him a chance, Nimm needed everything to look like it was on the up and up. That meant his inoperative ship was only worth the functioning parts it had left.
“Guess I really will be saying goodbye,” Roak said.
“Sorry,” Nimm replied. “You know I am.”
Roak nodded to the guards and they escorted him out of Nimm’s office.
16.
The guards led him to the brig showers where he was unceremoniously hosed down until his skin was raw. He shivered under a cold air blower for several minutes until he was dry enough to get dressed. It wasn’t easy with his hands still restrained, they’d simply cut his clothes off to get him undressed, but putting clothes on took four guards getting way too intimate with his anatomy. In the end, he finally had fresh clothes on, didn’t stink like a forest fire, and suddenly realized he was starving.
“What’s for lunch?” he asked as he was marched through the station’s passageways to the general cafeteria. “Or is it dinner? I have no idea what time you keep up here.”
“Dinner,” one of the guards said. “But doesn’t matter. Prisoners all get mush.”
Roak should have known. The station wasn’t going to waste resources on him. He would get a bowl of lukewarm mush that had been reconstituted from a coarse powder of carbohydrates and proteins. Wasn’t the first time he’d had to choke the stuff down. He hoped it wouldn’t be the last. Well, he hoped it would be the last, but not because he was dead.
The bowl was plopped down in front of him, a large straw sticking out of it. He glanced at the guards, but none looked like they were going to move his hands to the front. He shrugged and sucked at the straw.
He sucked the mush slow enough that he could study the other people in the cafeteria. They had taken him to the general cafeteria, not the security mess hall. Roak wasn’t sure of Nimm’s motivation except that maybe she wanted to use him as an example to the others onboard the station. Stay in line or end up like the sad sack eating the mush through a straw.
There were about thirty men and women, all from various races, seated in the cafeteria. Some in groups, some alone. Most were talking, but there were three or four that were watching holo vid entertainment. There was no one of any significance and only a couple of people even glanced in his direction. The stop in the cafeteria was just so he could eat some mush; there was no ulterior motive on Nimm’s part that Roak could see.
When he had his fill of mush, which was about six swallows, he pushed the bowl away with his chin and nodded at his guards.
“Time to see my ship,” Roak said.
One of the guards checked the time and nodded.
“We should be able to get you to the dock then handed over to the GF in time,” the guard said. “As long as you cooperate and don’t try anything. You make trouble and we’ll be handing you to the GF in specimen bags.”
“Not gonna make trouble,” Roak said. “The sooner I get off this station and away from Ligston the better. This trip hasn’t exactly gone my way.”
He was once again marched through the station’s passageways, down several levels, until he was standing in a circular room with nothing but airlocks to ship docks around him.
“Fourteen,” Roak said. “I parked it in Dock Fourteen.”
“We know,” the guard snapped. “We work here, diphead.”
“Just trying to be helpful,” Roak said as he was shoved towards the airlock that was slowly sliding open.
“Don’t be. Just move,” the guard barked. “You have five minutes to say goodbye to your precious ship.”
Roak didn’t respond. No point. The guards didn’t care what he had to say. They wanted this to be done so they could march him up to the level set aside for Galactic Fleet ships only. The GF didn’t like their ships being close to civilian ships. They especially didn’t like their ships to possibly be anywhere near Skrang ships, despite the fact the War was over and the treaty in effect forbid any conflict between the two factions. Wars could end, but grudges would always be held.
Roak walked onto the dock and stared at his ship. It was a Borgon 714 Light Fighter. Two-seat cockpit with a head, small kitchen, two bunk cabins, and a small cargo hold. Despite the two-seated cockpit, the fighter was really only designed for one person. Two made it uncomfortable quick unless the two were on intimate terms.
“Say goodbye,” a guard barked. “Clock is ticking.”
“Sure thing,” Roak said and cleared his throat. “Hey, ship. Thanks for everything. Too bad about the Gornoka Nebula. Goodbye.”
He frowned and looked back at the guards.
“I guess that’s
all,” Roak said. “Ready to meet my fate.”
“You wish it was that poetic,” one of the guards said and laughed. “Buddy, all you’re going to do is meet a whole lot of pain.”
“That’s what you all keep telling me,” Roak said. “So how about you shut the hell up and we get this over with, okay?”
He received a hard jab to his belly from the butt of the guard’s carbine. Roak took the blow and forced himself not to double over. He wanted to crap himself, but he held it in check. The woman really knew how to deliver a good hit.
More passageways, two lifts, and a long, protracted security sweep, then Roak was standing on a shielded platform in the Galactic Fleet docking bay. He watched as a modified Grabal 31 Personnel Carrier slowly maneuvered its way into the bay before the station’s outer hull closed and the shield was lifted.
Roak always hated it when the shimmer in the air disappeared. He figured that at some point that shield would go down and he’d be met with empty vacuum. Instead, he was met with the mirrored faceplates of four GF troopers. Certainly not Marines by the slack way they held their plasma rifles. Marines had a certain swagger that was unmistakable. These were general infantry, promoted for some reason or other to prisoner transport and security detail.
“Not even MPs,” Roak said.
“What was that, prisoner?” one of the GF troopers snarled, his face hidden behind his suit’s faceplate. “You got something to say to me?”
Roak only smiled then looked down at his feet.
“That’s what I thought,” the trooper said. “Who’s got the transfer orders?”
One of the station guards stepped forward and presented a tablet. A slim holo of Roak’s face hovered in the air, spinning slowly. Roak couldn’t help himself and glanced over. He tried not to smile when he saw the name “Bex Klo” flashing underneath his mugshot. His eyes were closed and mouth slack. They must have taken that after knocking him out.
No MPs to receive him and not his real name on the transfer orders. He owed Nimm. Big time.
