Out of the Soylent Planet (A Rex Nihilo Adventure) (Starship Grifters Book 0)

by Robert Kroese

  “I’m pretty sure it’s –” I started.

  “Not asking you, Sasha,” Rex growled. “Clamp it.”

  “I don’t know what it’s called,” said Svetlana, “but I don’t think it’s valuable. The creek bed near the separatist camp is littered with them. They look nice, but they crumble in your hands if you squeeze them too hard.”

  “Too bad,” said Rex. “Still, I might be able to sell them to a costume jewelry supplier. I’ll burn nearly as much in fuel trying to transport them as I’ll get for the stones, but it’s better than leaving Chicolini empty-handed.”

  “But why don’t you just sell the guns somewhere else?” asked Svetlana.

  Rex sighed. “To be completely honest with you,” he began – a sure sign that what was to follow was a real whopper – “I’ve got to unload these guns as soon as I can. I’m supposed to be halfway across the galaxy in three days to pick up a load of Cyrinni java powder. If I’m not there on time, I’ll lose a multimillion credit contract. I’ll give these guns away if I have to, but maybe I can mitigate my losses somewhat with a load of those rhinestones.”

  “Well, you’re welcome to take as many as you can,” said Svetlana. “But I can’t vouch for your safety if you venture into the hills. That’s separatist territory.”

  “Not for long,” said Rex. “Let’s get you some lazepistols and teach those separatists what’s what.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Rex and I crept up the hill toward the separatist camp. We were bringing up the rear of the Trentino City contingent, which was made up of twenty-eight villagers, mostly young men. The bearded man who had met us at the village – whose name we learned was Glenn – was leading the group. Each of them carried one of Rex’s snub-nosed lazepistols. We had started out with an even thirty men, but two of them had accidentally blinded themselves on the way over and had to be left behind. The settlers weren’t what you’d call experienced military men.

  I had tried to convince Rex that it was unwise for us to accompany the expedition, but he had insisted. I had a pretty good idea why: he wanted to get a better look at those azure stones. Svetlana was right, they weren’t worth much as precious stones. That’s because they were pure zontonium ore. Zontonium was the compound used as fuel by most of the newer ships in the galaxy. There probably weren’t a lot of zontonium-powered ships in this sector, and in any case hardly anybody knew what zontonium ore looked like in its raw form. Apparently Rex did. A handful of that stuff could send a starship halfway across the galaxy. If Rex were able to trade five thousand lazepistols for a load of zontonium, he’d make out very well indeed – even if it meant not being able to sell Gavin Larviton’s guns three or four more times.

  The men in front had paused at the crest of the hill, and Rex crept up toward them. I followed reluctantly. Crouched in the tall grass at the crest of the hill, we could see the separatist camp down below. It wasn’t much: just a few dozen tents set up near a dry creek bed.

  We were momentarily startled by the roaring of thrusters behind us. A small craft was landing at the spaceport.

  “You expecting someone?” Rex asked Glenn.

  “That’s just Javier,” said Glenn. “He’s our ambassador to Chicolini City. Just got back from one of his trips.”

  Rex nodded. As long as Javier didn’t interfere with Rex’s plan to get his hands on those azure stones, Rex couldn’t care less. He turned his attention back to the valley ahead of us. Rex had borrowed a pair of binoculars from Glenn to get a better look.

  “Whoa,” he said.

  “What?” said Glenn, puzzled by Rex’s exclamation.

  “Huh?” said Rex. “Oh, just… those are some nice tents. Check it out, Sasha.” He handed me the binoculars.

  I scanned the tents, but saw nothing remarkable. But then I noticed something blue and sparkly in the river bed. It wasn’t water.

  “Impressive, right?” said Rex.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “Those are some impressive… tents.” I was looking at a hundred million credits worth of zontonium, easy. All we had to do is wait for the men with the lazepistols to overwhelm the separatists in the tents, unload the rest of the guns, and then land the cargo ship right on that riverbed. We could fill the cargo hold in a couple of hours and trade the zontonium for a fortune in Malarchian Standard Credits at the nearest orbiting zontonium refinery. It was almost too easy.

  “Alright, people,” said Glenn. “Here’s the plan: we’re going to run down the hillside into the valley and start shooting.”

  There were nods and murmurs of approval.

  “Hang on,” said Rex. “That’s a terrible plan.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” asked Glenn.

  “All of it, starting with the running down the hillside. New plan: we walk down the hillside and have a nice chat with those separatist bastards about how we have lazepistols and they don’t.”

  Enthusiastic nods and murmurs of approval. Glenn seemed unconvinced, though.

  “I’m not much of a talker,” he said.

  Rex sighed. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

  “Sir,” I began. “I strongly recommend…”

  But Rex had already stood up and started down the hill. Shouts of alarm arose from the camp and several of the separatists rallied together, grabbing spears and clubs. Glenn and the others followed Rex down the hill, and I reluctantly brought up the rear.

  “Hi there!” Rex called to the group. “Check this out.” He stopped a few yards in front of them and fired his lazepistol at a small rock. The rock exploded into fragments and something skittered away into the weeds. “That lizard hates me,” said Rex, watching it scurry away.

  “What do you want?” demanded the man at the head of the separatist group. He was tall and awkward-looking, with a pair of weirdly prominent cheekbones that seemed to be trying to escape from his face.

  “We want…” Rex started. He turned to Glenn, who was coming up from behind. “Actually, I’m not sure what we want. What do we want, Glenn?”

  “We want all our stuff back,” said Glenn. “Also, we want them to stop stealing our stuff.”

  “Got that?” said Rex to Cheekbones. “Trentino City has lazepistols now, and they’re not taking any more of your crap.”

  Cheekbones seemed confused. “I thought you wanted us to stop taking their crap.”

  “No, no,” said Rex. “You stop taking their stuff; they stop taking your crap.” He held up the lazepistol for emphasis. “Also, I’m going to land my ship on that riverbed and take some of those blue shiny stones. Do we have an agreement?”

  Cheekbones scowled, but he kept looking at the lazepistols our group was carrying. He seemed to realize he didn’t have much of a choice. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could say anything he was interrupted by somebody yelling from the hilltop behind us.

  We turned around to see a young man running down the hill. About halfway down he tripped and went tumbling head over heels, rolling to the bottom of the hill, where he lay unmoving for some time.

  “See?” said Rex. “Bad idea.”

  Eventually the man pulled himself to his feet, limped the rest of the way to our group, and then collapsed on the ground again.

  “What is it, Javier?” asked Glenn. “What’s wrong?”

  Javier lay on his back, clutching his ankle. “Salmon Brigade,” he gasped through gritted teeth.

  “What in Space is Salmon Brigade?” asked Rex.

  “Paramilitary outfit in Chicolini City,” said Glenn. “They’re plotting the overthrow of the Chicolini government.”

  “So?” asked Rex. “What does that have to do with us?”

  “The Chicolini government has been ruthless in weeding out elements of Salmon Brigade in Chicolini City,” replied Glenn. “We’ve heard rumors that the leadership of Salmon Brigade is looking for a new place to set up shop.”

  “You think they’re coming here?” I asked.

  “There aren’t many other places on Chicolini to go,” sai
d Glenn.

  “Guns,” gasped Javier. “Five thousand lazepistols… be here any minute.”

  “What are you talking about, Javier?” asked Glenn.

  “Overheard some talk at… Chicolini Spaceport. Salmon Brigade bought five thousand lazepistols. Planning on using them to take over Trentino.”

  “I can see how that would be a problem for you,” said Rex. “But can we conclude our current negotiations before embarking on new business? If I’m remembering correctly, Cheekbones here was about to agree to all our demands and help me load up my ship with those blue rocks.”

  Glenn shook his head. “Our petty quarrels can wait,” he said.

  “Can they?” asked Rex. “People always say that about petty quarrels, but I always say the best time for a petty quarrel is right now.”

  “Glenn’s right,” said Cheekbones. “If we’re going to fight off Salmon Brigade, we need to cooperate.”

  “No!” cried Rex. “Cooperation never solves anything. Violence, that’s the answer!”

  “We’re going to need more of those lazepistols,” said Glenn. “We need to arm everybody on Trentino.” Cheekbones nodded.

  Rex looked like he was about to cry. “OK, look,” he said. “This Salmon Brigade? Not as dangerous as you think. Glenn, your people can easily handle them without resorting to cooperation with this separatist scum. No offense, Cheekbones.”

  Cheekbones shrugged.

  “What do you know of Salmon Brigade?” asked Glenn skeptically.

  “Sir,” I began. “Maybe it isn’t a good idea –”

  “Stow it, Sasha,” Rex growled. “OK, I’m going to level with you guys. Before I came to Trentino, we made a deal to sell guns to these guys in Chicolini City. I didn’t know much about them at the time, but I suspect they’re your Salmon Brigade. When I realized what a dangerous group they were, I refused to sell them the lazepistols. So you see, Salmon Brigade is no threat. They never got the guns.”

  Glenn and Cheekbones stared at Rex, and then turned to face each other.

  “Alright,” Rex went on. “Now that we’ve settled that, can we get back to our petty quarrel?”

  A puzzled look came over Glenn’s face. “So you agreed to sell guns to Salmon Brigade and then backed out?”

  “Yep,” said Rex. “Out of principle.”

  “And how is it you’re still alive?” asked Cheekbones. “Salmon Brigade wouldn’t take kindly to someone reneging on an agreement.”

  “Well,” said Rex. “They might not have been immediately aware that we had backed out of the deal.”

  “Did you get paid?” asked Glenn.

  “In a manner of speaking,” said Rex.

  “So,” Glenn said, “you screwed Salmon Brigade out of a shipment of weapons and then tried to sell those same weapons to us?”

  “I did sell them to you,” said Rex. “We had an agreement, remember?”

  Glenn shook his head. “The agreement was that you would give us the guns, and we would let you have as many of those blue stones as you want, once we took over the separatists’ territory. But until we take over the separatists’ territory, you get nothing.”

  “That’s a violation of the spirit of the agreement!” Rex howled. “Tell ‘em, Sasha!”

  “Rex feels that you are violating the spirit of the agreement,” I said.

  Glenn shrugged.

  “Then Sasha and I will take the creek bed by force!” exclaimed Rex.

  Glenn handed his lazepistol to Cheekbones. “Good luck with that,” he said.

  Cheekbones held up the gun, looking down the barrel at something in the grass. He fired, scattering lizard parts in all directions.

  “Hey, that’s my lizard!” cried Rex. “You son of a –”

  Cheekbones aimed the gun at Rex, who stopped talking.

  Cheekbones moved the gun to his left hand and held out his right to Glenn. “Sorry about taking your stuff,” he said. “We’ll give it back.”

  Glenn shook his hand. “It’s alright. Just ask next time, OK? We don’t have a lot of stuff to spare.”

  “Will do,” said Cheekbones. “Thanks for the lazepistol.”

  “That’s mine!” Cried Rex. “Give me back my guns!”

  “Try and take them,” said Glenn. He turned to his men. “Alright, let’s go home.”

  “Wait, what?” exclaimed Rex. “That’s it? That’s the big fight? You no longer have a common enemy! Get back to your petty quarrel!”

  But nobody seemed particularly interested in fighting anymore. The possibility of having to fend off an invasion by Salmon Brigade had soured them on the whole idea. Glenn helped Javier to his feet and they made their way back up the hill. Cheekbones and his people returned to their camp.

  Rex stood for a moment, muttering to himself. “Let’s get out of here, Sasha,” he growled, and began stomping up the hill.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Get us in the air,” commanded Rex, fixing himself a martini in Serendipity’s cockpit. I have no idea where he found the vodka; he had either procured a bottle at the spaceport or found one he had forgotten about earlier.

  “Where to now, sir?” I asked.

  “Back to Chicolini City,” said Rex.

  I thought he must have been confused. “Sir? We still have a cargo bay full of guns. We don’t have room for our money.”

  “We’re going to sell the guns,” said Rex.

  “To whom, sir?”

  “Salmon Brigade.”

  “Again?”

  “For real this time.”

  “What if they kill us?”

  “Then they won’t get their guns. We’ll unload the container at the spaceport, remove the label, and then contact the Salmon guys. There are hundreds of containers like that at the spaceport. If they kill us, they’ll never find the guns.”

  “What if they want to kill us more than they want the guns?”

  “Those guys seemed pretty reasonable,” said Rex. “We’ll just explain that it was a big misunderstanding. Somebody switched the labels and we ended up accidentally picking up the guns and handing them a big pile of nuclear waste. That kind of stuff happens all the time at spaceports.”

  I’d never heard of anything like that happening at a spaceport.

  “It sounds very risky, sir,” I said. “Frankly, I’d feel a lot better at this point if we just dumped the container in the ocean and got out of here. We can make up the rental fees some other way. Those guns all have the Larviton Energy Weapons logo on them, and I’m worried that somebody is going to figure out that –”

  “No one’s figuring out anything,” snapped Rex. “We’re a long way from Larviton’s sphere of influence, and there’s nothing to trace those guns back to us. We’re not dumping the guns, so get that out of your tin-plated brain.”

  I sighed. “So we’re going to give Salmon Brigade the guns and take the container with the money?”

  Rex shook his head. “I don’t want that damn Chicolinian money,” said Rex. “We’re just going to give them the guns.”

  “Give them the guns, sir?”

  “They’re going to use them to take over Trentino, right? Well, when they’re done, we’ll just land, express our hearty congratulations, and pick up a shipload of zontonium on our way out. We’ll be light-years away before they realize what those blue stones are.”

  “That plan didn’t work out so well last time, sir,” I pointed out.

  “That was just bad luck,” snapped Rex. “The plan itself was perfect.”

  I wasn’t nearly as confident about this plan as Rex was, but I could see there was no dissuading him. I set a course for Chicolini City.

  We landed a few hours later and Rex paid off one of the crane workers to hide the container of guns in a remote corner, behind several other containers. Then we sent a message to the Salmon Brigade guys through the same secure Hypernet channel Rex had first used to contact them and waited at the ship for them.

  It didn’t take long for them to show up. The tr
uck pulled up and screeched to a halt in front of Serendipity. Moustache and Salmon Beret got out and walked toward us. They didn’t look happy.

  “You sons of bitches,” Moustache growled. “What’s the big idea, selling us a load of radioactive waste? We were supposed to be taking over an island today, and instead we spent most of the day decontaminating the truck. It cost us 8,000 credits to have that stuff shipped to the sun.”

  “Honest mistake,” said Rex. “Somehow the labels got switched. We came back as soon as we realized what happened.”

  “Just tell us where the guns are,” said Moustache.

  “They’re nearby,” said Rex. “We just need to work out the terms of the transfer.”

  “Listen to me, you little weasel –” Salmon Beret snarled.

  “Now, now,” said Rex. “Losing your temper isn’t going to get you your guns any faster. Here’s the deal: because I value your business and want to make this situation right, we’re going to give you the guns and let you keep your money.”

  “What’s the catch?” asked Moustache dubiously.

  “No catch,” said Rex. “Although Sasha and I would like to stop by after your island takeover and make sure everything went OK with the guns. No misfires or anything, you know. We want you to be happy customers.”

  The two men regarded Rex dubiously. They obviously expected Rex to pull another trick on them somehow.

  “Alright,” Moustache said at last. “If you give us the guns, let us keep the money, and don’t try any more funny business, then we’re square.”

  “Deal,” said Rex, shaking Moustache’s hand. “Alright, let’s go get your guns.”

  Rex walked to the corner of the spaceport where the container with the guns was hidden, the rest of us following close behind.

  “Voila!” exclaimed Rex, opening the container door. He immediately slammed it shut again and spun around, his back against the door. “You know,” he said, “I feel like we should drink to our new partnership before we get down to business. Sasha, could you get the bottle of champagne I left in Serendipity’s cockpit.”

  “Sir?” I asked. If there was a bottle of champagne anywhere in Serendipity, I hadn’t seen it.