Destiny nodded. “That’s him. The gang is a tight knit group, and the brother will probably take over.”
Hawkins was in planning mode now. The recent past had been dealt with and it was now time to consider future actions and consequences. Facts had to be gathered and decisions made. He continued to address Destiny. “I guess we can assume they will not just fade away and lick their wounds.”
“No way. They will get as many of the gang together as quickly as possible and come looking. If they don’t find any of the people involved in the incident in the alley, they will probably start slapping around locals they have a grudge against. From their point of view there is no point in getting everyone together and not creating some trouble.”
“Anybody around here know their gathering place?”
Destiny kept up her information flow. “I can tell you that. Old warehouse over on State and Seventh Street. Been empty for years and has been their clubhouse for the last several months.”
“Any collateral-damage potential there?”
“No. Bunch of old warehouses with homeless living there. They will go to ground at the first hint of trouble and not get in the way. One of my security guys can get you there with minimum fuss and exposure.”
Raferty turned from Destiny and looked beyond the three standing in front of the table and also past Baby Doll in her chair. Blondie, Eli, and Preacher looked puzzled as their Captain seemed to be regarding the wall behind them with a quiet intensity. The three turned to follow his gaze and saw Tactical leaning against the wall in the shadows. She may have come from behind the curtains or been there the whole time. Like their captain, she had the ability to come and go unnoticed. The two of them looked at each other for another five seconds and then Tactical pushed off the wall. “I’ll take Logan and Team One with me. Give me an hour to clean this up.”
She moved toward the door as Rafe turned back to Destiny. “We work hard to stay out of trouble here and not give the authorities any reason to regret letting us into orbit. Last thing I want is to kick up a dust cloud over a damn alley fight. Will there be any blowback from taking out this gang?”
“Only a bunch of people wanting to buy you drinks. You’d be doing a further public service.”
Rafe nodded to her and then to Tactical as she passed in front of the desk. Destiny spoke in a comm unit and called after Tactical. “Pope will meet you at the hallway entrance.” Tactical didn’t turn around but raised her hand in acknowledgement as the other hand reached for the door. In one more moment she was gone, and the door closed quickly behind her. She would know where Logan and Team One were drinking, pull them together, and put a quick end to this.
Hawkins watched Tactical depart and then turned back to his crewmembers. He pointed at Eli and Preacher. “You two go drink at the main bar, but keep your mouths shut. For the next hour Baby Doll is buying your liquor.” The two men smiled at the unexpected turn of events. “Thank you, Captain.” They sounded off in unison as they headed toward the door. “And thank you, Baby Doll!” added Eli as the door opened and then closed behind them. Baby Doll stared after them with a frown on her face, but figured to let this ride. She knew it could have ended much worse for her.
Raferty turned to Blondie and gestured to a chair. “Have a seat.”
She sat down next to Baby Doll. Destiny ordered drinks for Blondie and Baby Doll. After a moment Blondie spoke, “Captain, I’m sorry I started all this. I just wanted to get the sound calibrators and come back.”
Rafe nodded in understanding. “I get that. A short side trip. No big deal. Blondie, we are always a target. We don’t travel alone. Never. We are both hunter and hunted. The Badlands is one giant Serengeti. You don’t want to be a gazelle here, especially not a slow gazelle all alone. A slow lone gazelle quickly turns into a dead gazelle here and everywhere else in the Badlands. We travel together and we watch everything around us.”
Blondie nodded, somewhat amazed he knew about the African plain on Old Earth. She assumed it must be all the book reading.
Blondie spoke softly. “My little side trip set in motion a chain of events. A person is dead already and several more will die, maybe even some of us. My fault.”
Hawkins shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. There are people in this universe who are always going to be who they are. They won’t change and can’t be reformed. If you want things to improve, you have to kill them. If it had not been you as the target, it would have been somebody else at some other time and place. Might as well solve this thing here and now.”
“Hear, hear,” Destiny agreed. She looked at Blondie. “This type of ambushing that you went through has been going on here forever, and this gang has been doing their share of it for a long time. Putting them out of business permanently is a step forward. Trust me on that.”
Hawkins eyed her, “Where was your weapon?”
“On the ship,” Blondie replied quietly.
Hawkins eyes darted to Baby Doll, but Blondie quickly continued, “My fault. Baby Doll has told me more than once to carry my weapon but I forgot.”
“Forgetting is going to get you killed, Blondie,” Rafe’s voice was kind.
“Yes, Captain. Never again.”
The four sat quietly working on their drinks as they waited. Tactical walked in seventy minutes later. She looked a bit tired but none the worse for wear. She flopped down in an easy chair. Immediately a waiter entered and left another round of drinks. Destiny must have ordered drinks to be brought when the hit squad returned.
“You’re late,” Hawkins stated. His tone was not accusatory but merely an observation.
Tactical downed most of one bottle of beer in a single swallow. “We doubled back twice on the way back to ensure we weren’t being followed but the job is done.” She pointedly said nothing more.
“Problems?” Hawkins was calm and relaxed despite the obvious potential for bad news.
Tactical shook her head. “Nope.” Again nothing more.
Several seconds passed in silence until Raferty lazily waved with his hand at Tactical in a go-ahead motion. “You take a vow of silence? Tell the damn story.”
Tactical smiled. She had outlasted him. “There were fourteen of them gathered in the warehouse. They were in a group in the center of the ground floor going over a plan when we went in. Hit them from two sides so they had no place to hide. Took about ten seconds. No casualties. I think they only got off four or five shots and nothing came close. No witnesses we could see. Saw a few homeless as we approached but they vanished in a hurry. The guide brought us back by a different route. I’m sure we were not followed.”
Destiny spoke up. “There won’t be any investigation. Authorities will be glad they’re dead. In fact if they found out it was you, a couple of the bureaucrats might search you out to see if you could arrange a similar fate for a few other groups of the same ilk.”
“No. We don’t want to get into that business.”
Destiny nodded in agreement. “If it is okay with you, after your departure, I’ll make a quiet comm call and tell a well-placed friend all about it, but not who did it. They will figure it out because they know you are here, but we’ll all pretend not to know. It will give them peace of mind that this is not the beginning of a gang war. Also, this is the type of friend who keeps score, so he will owe you one. Not a bad favor to have in your pocket.”
“Sounds good to me.” Raferty smiled and lifted his beer. “Another crisis brought to a successful conclusion.” He took a deep drink and everyone in the room followed suit.
Chapter 17
The large woman walked down the street with a burly man on each side. The trio entered Destiny’s and was met at the door by the same young woman who had met the pirates earlier. They moved into the main bar area and the large woman motioned to the bar itself.
“Grab something there,” the woman ordered.
The two men silently broke off and ambled to the long platform. The woman continued to follow the guide throug
h curtains, and along the route the pirates had taken. The guide stopped at a door, knocked, opened it, and stepped aside. The woman entered and approached the group seated around a long table as the door closed quietly behind her.
Raferty rose, extended his hand, and smiled. “Good to see you, Kit.”
The woman returned the smile and grasped the hand. “Been a long time between FTFs, Rafe. Started thinking you were just a space legend to scare little kids into eating their vegetables.”
Hawkins laughed. “Vegetables! That’s pretty much what we want to talk about.” He turned to the group. “I think you know everyone except Blondie. She’s a new member of the good ship Predator.”
Kit regarded Blondie for a long second as she shook her hand. “Been awhile since Raferty added a new member to his inner circle. You must be good at what you do. Something big is coming for Flot 1. I can hardly wait. Things have been real dull lately.”
Blondie looked perplexed. “I’m not in the inner circle.”
Kit laughed and leaned close to Blondie. “Honey, if you weren’t in the inner circle, you wouldn’t be in this room right now.” She finished the handshake and exchanged greetings with Tactical, Baby Doll, and Destiny before taking a seat at the table.
Blondie noticed nobody contradicted Kit’s evaluation. She smiled to herself as she sat down.
Raferty slid a bottle of scotch and a glass full of ice across the table to Kinkaid. She smiled appreciatively. “Rafe, you know how to treat a woman.” She uncapped the bottle and filled the glass. She took a long drink and savored it on her tongue before turning to the others.
“Let’s see if I got the gist of this. You want an old tub for two runs. Crew will make the first run and be paid accordingly. Only the captain is needed for the second run. No ties to you, and no questions asked. You need it soonest.”
Rafe nodded. He loved doing business with Kincaid. She was straight to the point, always did what she said she would do, and never asked questions. Most importantly, she could keep her mouth shut.
Kit smiled. “I got just the flying wreck you want. Name is Cat’s Eye. Captain and owner is Mather Lake. Ship needs work. He has no money and even less desire to fix it. He’ll sell and keep his mouth shut. He will also do the two runs.”
“We want the sale to stay off the books so his name will still be on the papers.”
Kit smiled again. “I’ll tell Lake that. He is getting out of the system as soon as he can, so he’ll have no problem with it. He can vanish with the best of them so nobody will be able to track him.”
Hawkins nodded and grinned. He raised his glass. “Looks like we’re in the foodstuff business.”
Everyone smiled and also raised their glasses.
Chapter 18
Dylan Whitlock leaned back in the pilot’s seat. Boredom had overtaken him several hours ago, but he couldn’t leave his station. The situation could go to hell in a heartbeat, and he would have to get Flicker spun up and gone within a heartbeat after that. He glanced around the small compartment. Scarecrow was on the sensors ensuring every sound was being recorded. His head was cocked to one side as he continually monitored the sounds in his headphones and occasionally adjusted the sensor instruments in front of him to make sure the recorders were getting the manmade noise of the ships and base, but, more importantly, they were also recording the pulsing waves of all the surrounding celestial bodies.
This was their second series of insertions into this base. Several weeks prior, they had been here gathering intel for Hawkins’ sales brief to the Zekes at Wanderlust. Then they had withdrawn and joined the supply ship Dragon in a neutral system while awaiting word on the mission. Now Flicker was back at it.
Dylan glanced at the other two crewmembers in the compartment. Gabrielle was in the copilot’s seat reading a book on her floating screen as she had been doing for hours. Jasmine, adorned in her ever-present headphones, was curled up on the couch watching a video of some sort. She had just come off of sensor watch and was winding down before getting some sleep. Dylan was not worried about those two. They both had the patience of a rock when it came to situations as this. Everyone knew what was at stake and what the mission demands would be. This small crew could sit like this for hours on end. There was absolute silence in the compartment.
This was their fifth subspace insertion into the secret OrCon base codenamed Murmansk. Each time they advanced further into the base defenses, they recorded everything. They saw nothing. Sound would have to suffice to paint a picture of the base and its activities. The sensors recorded everything within range. The ship slowly moved through subspace and probed deeper into the restricted area.
Raferty Hawkins had captured the little spy ship when he had taken six Edinburgh naval ships two years ago during the Goth overthrow of the Edinburgh government. The taking of the three destroyers and three corvettes was well known. The spy ship seizure was not publicized by the pirates or by the ship’s former owners, the Goth Navy, because spy ships did not officially exist. Spy ships had presented their own unique problems to the three major empires and other governments with large navies and larger interests. Spy ships were difficult to find and destroy in war and difficult to monitor in peace. So if a military solution could not be achieved, then it was best to come up with a political answer. There was precedence for this. The three empires and other large independent solar systems might be rivals in most areas, but they could be practical when faced with a problem none of them could solve to get an advantage over the others. The players had already done similar treaties concerning nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. All were outlawed, and first use of these types of weapons by one political entity would bring the wrath of all the other signees down on them. So spy ships were outlawed by the articles of war signed by the three major empires and numerous smaller political entities. Of course, the three empires and several of the major solar systems still had nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in small numbers. So it was with spy ships. None of the governments really trusted each other. But having them and using them were two entirely different things. Nukes, chems, and bios never saw the light of day, and spy ships rarely did. It showed the Goths considered the taking of the Edinburgh system to be very important to them if they employed a spy ship. However, losing the spy ship was never part of the plan.
After taking the ship, Hawkins was faced with crewing it. He wanted four people who would be able to live and move in the shadows throughout the universe. These had to be people with no ties to any particular place or anybody, could function independently, endure long periods in subspace, and keep their mouths shut. They also would have to handle the maintenance requirements for the small vessel. This was especially important as the vessel had no backup systems and no escape pods. Given the nature of the missions to be undertaken by Flicker, any maintenance casualty would be far from home with little prospect of nearby friendly assistance. Air runs out quickly in a small ship.
Hawkins had given the crew problem considerable thought. Normally he would have had this worked out before he had seized the ship but he had not known the spy ship was at the Edinburgh naval base until two days prior to his raid to take the six combat ships. He then moved his attack up twenty-four hours to capture the small ship along with the six original targets. The seven ships were taken away into the Badlands and hidden out while new crews were assembled and familiarization training began. The spy ship was placed at the pirate hideout known as the Fort, an old mining complex adrift in a manmade debris field left over from strip mining an entire planet. There the vessel lay hidden as Hawkins grappled with the immediate problems of getting six new combat ships prepared for operations. Once these concerns had been addressed, he turned his attention to the spy craft.
A former officer in the Edinburgh Navy, Dylan Whitlock, had been cashiered out just prior to the Goth takeover of the Edinburgh System, as he was known to be an intensely loyal officer who would have opposed the incoming change. He had immediately joined the pira
tes and was made the assistant operations officer in the pirate vessel Outlaw, then under the command of Killian O’Hare. Due to his knowledge of the Edinburgh Navy and the targeted base, he had been a key planner in the raid to take the Burgh ships. After the raid, he was hoping to become the operations officer of Outlaw as the current operations officer would move to the new ship Nemesis along with O’Hare. But while the Edinburgh raid was being planned, Whitlock’s attention to detail, thoughtful analysis, and quiet confidence had caught the attention of Hawkins. He had noticed Whitlock’s ability to be a major contributor while never bringing much attention to himself. As Hawkins dwelled on his crewing problem for the spy ship, he kept returning to the young man. Whitlock had no family, no ties to his former life, and had not made a reputation for himself in the Badlands, so if he dropped from sight it would not be noticed. After talking with Tactical, Baby Doll, and O’Hare, he offered the captaincy of the newly named Flicker to Dylan.
Dylan accepted on the contingency he would have input on his small crew. Hawkins agreed; after all, he had final say on all his crewmembers for his own ship and believed any captain should have the same authority. Whitlock had suggested a friend of his who had also left the Edinburgh Navy as a protest over the cashiering of Whitlock and many other officers. This young man, tall, gangly, with a mop of unruly red hair, had been given the nickname of Scarecrow while in the Burgh Navy. Whitlock would handle the operational aspects of the ship while Scarecrow would serve as the engineer. Dylan now went out on a limb and revealed he and Scarecrow had one tie to their old lives, but it could be easily turned to their advantage. He suggested rounding out the crew with the two men’s girlfriends, a pair of intimates he had known from his Navy days. Intimates were the highest class of prostitutes in the Edinburgh System. Well versed in all aspects of companionship and social graces, an intimate was the epitome of the pleasure giving industry within the system.
Payback Is a Given: Pirates of the Badlands Series Book 2 Page 14
