Sabercat (Tommy Reilly Chronicles Book 1)

by T. L. Knighton

  "So, we work it out. SolTech's had more than enough crap stolen from them through the years that I can't believe any place is completely secure. We had a security guy once tell me that it wasn't really about keeping everyone out, because that was impossible. What he tried to do is make it so whoever wanted it would decide to hit someone else instead because we were just too much trouble."

  Cody nodded. "That's what old Pete used to say."

  "Who?" Tommy asked.

  "One of the guys I had in my cell. He did breaking and entering for a living."

  Tommy nodded his understanding. That was the kind of information they needed "What would he say?"

  Cody chuckled mirthlessly. "Find an easier place."

  "Not an option," Tommy groaned. He didn't need unhelpful crap like that right now.

  "You asked."

  "Alright, back on task here. Michelle, can we jam the quancom signal or something?"

  She shook her head negative. "No. Not possible. Quancoms use a quirk of quantum mechanics to create instantaneous communications. The signal? It just sort of appears at the receiving quancom."

  "That makes no sense."

  "Now you see why Einstein called it spooky action at a distance, oui?"

  Tommy nodded. She, and Einstein, had a point.

  "Okay, so the quancom is a non-starter. What about the rest of the system?"

  Michelle snorted. "As if that could be a challenge."

  She was cocky, but it wasn't arrogance if you really were that good, and Michelle was. He'd looked into her background, not because he cared about her time in prison, but because he wanted to know if she could do what she said she could do.

  She'd actually understated her skills, believe it or not.

  Tommy looked at the crew and nodded. "Okay, that's something we can work with. Let's start thinking around what we know we have."

  Everyone nodded their understanding.

  From behind them, someone cleared their throat. All eyes swung to the passageway.

  Dianne stood there, pointedly not looking at Tommy. She looked at everyone else, her guilty expression from earlier back. "Hey," she said.

  No one said anything.

  "Look," she said, clearly searching for the right way to phrase things. "I'm really sorry about last night. I just…I thought I was better than that."

  Adele glared at her. "You had no right to judge us. We have all been judged before, and we are tired of it. Understood?"

  The other woman nodded, making no attempt to justify her behavior. "Completely."

  "You want to make it up to us? That's going to take a long time, but there's something you can do for a start," Cody interjected.

  "Anything," Dianne said.

  "Three words. Chicken. Cordon. Bleu," he said, then grinned as Adele smiled. Michelle continued lost in the world of her pad.

  "Deal," Dianne replied, finally seeming to relax.

  "Captain," Michelle said, eyes still glued to her pad. "We have company coming this way." She tapped a few spots on her screen and threw up a different hologram, this one of a man in a business suit walking toward Sabercat.

  "That's Hatcher," Dianne offered. "I've seen him a few times."

  Tommy smiled. "Well, in that case, let me go meet our guest," he said and left the galley and headed down the passageway toward the cargo bay, where Hatcher was most likely to enter. He picked up his pace as he made his way down the stairs into the hold and toward the door.

  As he stepped toward the door, a figure darkened the opening. An older man, Hatcher was still powerfully built, like a football star from ages gone by and dressed in one of the best business suits Tommy had seen since his break with the family. Based on the look of his face, and assuming he was the same age as Max Wyatt, then he had some of the regen treatments usually reserved for the rich and powerful. And on Ararat? He was the rich and powerful.

  Which might have also explained the expanding midsection.

  "Captain Reilly?" Hatcher asked.

  "That's me," Tommy replied, donning his most easygoing and charming smile.

  "Simon Hatcher," the other man said, holding out his hand.

  Tommy shook it and asked, "What can I do for you?"

  "Well, I understand you wanted a cargo of mine?"

  Peering at the other man quizzically, Tommy replied, "Not that I'm aware of. Are you sure?"

  Uncertainty crept onto Hatcher's face as he said, "No, I'm not. But the supervisor at the warehouse swears it was you."

  "Well, what did your cameras tell you?" Tommy said, hoping plain bluster would win him through.

  "That's the problem. There was a glitch with them, so…"

  Tommy nodded knowingly. He wasn't paying Michelle enough. "Ah, which is why you're here. You have a supervisor saying I tried to pick up a load, but no confirmation, right?"

  "Something like that," Hatcher said, his voice taking on a smugness that made Tommy want to deck him on principle.

  "I can assure you, Mister Hatcher, I have no intention of loading any cargo of yours onto this ship. Without your permission, I mean," Tommy said, flashing his smile again.

  Hatcher nodded slowly, but never took his eyes off of Tommy. "I understand you've been spending some time with Max Wyatt."

  "A bit. He's a friend of a friend."

  "You might want to rethink who your friends are, then. Ararat can be a bad place under the wrong circumstances."

  Tommy dropped his smile. He knew a threat when he heard one. "Yeah, it can be. But I handled it once. I can handle it again."

  Hatcher put on a sly smile of his own and said, "Oh, that's right. You spent some time on Hochiba Island, didn't you? Well, the deserts on this part of the planet are a bit different."

  "I'll keep that in mind."

  The other man stepped forward until he was close enough that Tommy almost gagged on Hatcher's choice of cologne. "You do that. Max Wyatt isn't a good man to know on this planet. He's a troublemaker. I think you're a troublemaker, but you're special, aren't you? Your crew and that pretty young thing you've got onboard though? They're not. Understood?"

  Tommy glared back in defiance. He wanted to yell, to hit, anything. Silent as death, he stood his ground though. He knew nothing he would say would do any good.

  No one threatened his crew and got away with it, however. Now, it was personal. Come hell or high water, he was going to get that load off this planet.

  Hatcher smiled and turned, then left.

  ** ** **

  Just a few dozen meters from the broken-down hulk of a spacecraft, Hatcher turned to his right-hand man. "Keep an eye on them. If I know the Reilly clan worth a damn, it's that none of them like being told what to do. I want someone watching them all day, all night. Understood?"

  The man nodded his head with the slicked-back hair.

  "Oh, and Rathman?"

  "Yes sir?" the man replied.

  Hatcher stopped, forcing Rathman to stop as well. "I damn sure want to know if they talk to Wyatt. Don't do anything, but I want to know. I want to know everyone they talk to. You understand? If they so much as fart, I want to know what it smelled like."

  "Of course," Rathman replied. "I'm going to need more people though. I know a guy who is perfect for this kind of work. I'd like to have him take this and his team…assuming we can get them."

  Hatcher started walking again, his pace rapid. "Then damn well get them. That shipment doesn't leave this planet, is that understood?"

  "Yes sir. I understand completely."

  "Good."

  ** ** **

  Tommy watched as Hatcher stormed off, then returned to the galley. Everyone, now including Harley, sat and watched as he entered. "You were watching?"

  Every head nodded.

  "So now we have a new wrinkle. Michelle, the cameras. That was you?"

  "Oui," she replied. "You were rather stupid to just walk right up. You realize that, right?"

  Oh how he loved having competent people around him. "Yeah, but I figu
red it was worth a shot. Thanks for having my back."

  "Idiots shouldn't have their security system accessible from outside," she replied, more to herself than anyone else.

  Harley said, "You know he's going to have people watching us, right?"

  Tommy nodded slowly, his mind trying to figure the angles of this new obstacle.

  "How do we handle it?" Cody asked.

  Every fiber of Tommy's being wanted to scream. They already lacked the skills to pull off a job like this one, and now they were going to be watched constantly? He'd managed to foul the whole thing up to a point where there was no way they could pull off the job. They'd almost need to get someone else…

  It was at that moment when an idea clicked into place. "Oh, we're going to have a lot of fun now."

  Chapter 8

  Roscoe Harris hated jobs like this. Sure, the work was easy, but days like this made him wonder. Standing in the burning sun, trying to keep the Ararat dust from infiltrating his lungs, all just in case some people left their ship and wandered around. A quick calculation of how much he made doing this, as opposed to breathing in crap down in the mine put his concerns to rest quickly.

  Motion from the ship's hatch pulled him from his woolgathering. Mentally, he did a quick count. Everyone was accounted for. He grinned.

  "Well boys," Roscoe said, "looks like it's time to go to work."

  Half of the team split off and followed the crew on foot. Their job was simple. Follow them and let the boss know who they talked to. Roscoe had something more important to do.

  As he approached the ship, the Port Control officer in charge of the port looked at him and nodded. Roscoe returned it and made a mental note to have the appropriate payment made to the appropriate account. In theory, Port Control existed to make sure that no one did what they were about to do. In reality, everyone had a price and Hatcher and company could afford a lot of people's.

  Stepping into the ship was like moving into another world. While Ararat was the rear end of the universe, this ship was something else. Roscoe felt like he needed a tetanus shot just by being here. The metal was old and dingy, with the metal pitted from rust long since obliterated.

  Upon more careful consideration, this crew wasn't half bad. There's just only so much you can do when a ship was ignored somewhere along the line. Doesn't matter, he thought. I'm not here for an inspection, so get focused on your job, Roscoe.

  Roscoe slipped into the galley, slipping a bug under the table. This was thin enough to wedge between the slats in the rough wooden table. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to purge the image from his mind. Opening his eyes, the view was fresh to him. A quick scan showed no sign of the bug. A smirk crossed his mouth as he moved on to the cabins.

  The captain's cabin was the only place he worried himself with, so he opened the hatch and slipped inside. Normally, he'd slip the bug under the mattress, but here it was piled on the floor. It looked more like a nest rather than a bed.

  Instead, he placed it under the more worn of the two seats, assuming that would be the Reilly kid's chair. Satisfied that everything looked the same as when he entered, he nodded to himself and eased out the hatch.

  Roscoe made his way to the common room. His gut told him that people would talk here easily enough, and being a fairly interior compartment, feel secure. Even if they didn't, the expense for the bugs wasn't the issue. Knowing what was going on with these butt nuggets until they left atmo was.

  He attached the bug to the underside of one of the tables, then pushed himself to his feet and walked out of the ship like he belonged there. Years of practice told him that you usually only get caught when you freaked about being caught. Folks picked up on those things and acted accordingly. If you looked like you belonged, they assumed you did. The only one who knew better was the one he should have been most worried about. Luckily, he was in Hatcher's back pocket, so Roscoe had nothing to worry about.

  ** ** **

  Ringo's Tavern was bustling. Adele found herself at the bar, the blonde from the other night joining her. Cody and Harley sat at one table, leaving Tommy alone with Dianne.

  Tommy looked at her, feelings warring within him. He should still be upset about what she'd said. Hypocrisy was something he hated more than most anything else, mostly because it was something he constantly battled. But this was Dianne. He couldn't stay mad at her.

  As if sensing his thoughts, Dianne looked at him and smiled softly. "What are you thinking about," she asked.

  Tommy pursed his lips momentarily, then answered, "You."

  Her eyebrows shot up as she feigned surprise. "Really now. Something better than you were last night, I hope."

  He chuckled briefly. "Yeah, pretty much. I can't seem to stay mad."

  "Too bad you didn't feel that way back in the day," she said, but there wasn't a hint of animosity there.

  Tommy found himself nodding. "Yeah, I really was an ass to you back then," he confessed.

  "Can I ask why?"

  "Excuse me?"

  She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table, and said, "I'm curious why you were like that. Don't get me wrong, I'm over it and all that. I'm just curious why."

  Tommy sighed. He'd kind of figured this was coming from the moment he agreed to make the run. "Well," he started, then paused as he struggled for the words. "You were different. Not in a bad way, but in a way that, I think, made us all feel awful for being who we were. Almost all of us had the same opportunities and resources you had, but you really wanted to help people."

  "I didn't judge you for what you did or didn't do though," she stated.

  "Yeah, I know, but…well, you held up a mirror to our faces. You didn't mean to, but you did, and we didn't like what we saw. It was just easier to try and break the mirror than to change the reflection."

  He knew it wasn't a good explanation, but it was an honest one.

  Her head slowly bobbed up and down a couple of times, then she said, "But what about you?"

  "When you first walked into class, I saw you, and I had a whole future planned out. Everything. Wedding, kids, retirement, the works. Then you started talking about these things you were passionate about, and none of that was the stuff I wanted for us. Since I was a spoiled twit, I lashed out."

  Her ruby lips stretched out into a massive smile. "Really?"

  "Well, yeah. I thought me being a twit wouldn't exactly be a revelation to you," he said. Yeah, he knew what she meant, but he couldn't resist.

  "No, not that. About what you saw with me."

  "Oh," he said while doing a pretty good impression of a deer in front of a ground car. He hadn't meant to be that honest, especially not at this point in their…whatever it was they had. He continued, "Um, yeah. Yeah, it is."

  "And now?"

  "Now?"

  She nodded, a look of satisfaction or contentment—Tommy couldn't tell which—on her face.

  "I'll be honest. Now? I don't know, but not because I think that would be a bad idea necessarily. It's just that I've been around long enough to know that might not be how things work out."

  Her hand stretched out and rested on Tommy's. She then asked, "Are you willing to find out?"

  Tommy smiled. There wasn't any cockiness, or bravado, or anything else in his smile for the first time in a long time. Instead, it was nothing but pure happiness, pure joy. "Absolutely," he said.

  "But if I told you that you'd have to turn your back on your crew?"

  He glared at her, fury starting to rise within him. How dare she?

  Tommy realized that his poker face might well be the worst on the planet when she smiled and said, "Good. Honestly, I think that loyalty to them is one of the things I like best about this new you."

  He breathed a sigh of relief and thought for a moment. He may not have been crazy about the idea of her playing games with him, but the truth is that she genuinely seemed to like that side of him. Now, if only he could get the crew on board with it.

  ** ** **
r />   In dribs and drabs, the crew returned to the ship. All except Adele, who had other plans for the evening. Tommy waited until Cody staggered in and raised an eyebrow in question, "You drunk?"

  "Depends on your definition of 'drunk'," he said, a mischievous grin on his face.

  The engineer staggered past toward his cabin. A short time later, he returned with a pad-like device. A thick antenna about six centimeters long jutted out of the top. Cody made no effort to appear intoxicated any longer.

  Cody flashed a quick “thumbs up”. Tommy nodded. No cameras. They hadn't expected any. There wasn't much reason for images so long as they knew what was being said. Still, Tommy wasn't accrediting Hatcher an overabundance of sense, so caution made sense.

  He stood and walked over to look on the screen. The app was easy enough to understand. A series of arrows flashed around a central circle that also pulsed red. The closer the device got to a signal source, the faster the light would flash. The arrows would indicate where the signal was coming from.

  One of the arrows pointed toward the table, so the two men eased over, letting the arrows inform them where to look. Eventually, they were able to find the bug, wedged between boards. There was no way to get it out quietly.

  Cody flashed Tommy a look. He was thinking the same thing.

  Tommy nodded and jerked his head toward the common room. Nodding, Cody headed in that direction. Sure enough, the lights shifted from the galley toward the room. "It's going to be a long night. You know that, right?"

  "Yeah," Tommy said, "but it'll be worth it in the long run. In theory."

  "Yeah, in theory. Rock me to sleep tonight with that crap."

  Tommy couldn't help but agree. While scientific theories had their basis in evidence, often becoming theories because there was no way to actually prove via experimentation, people and their "theories" were usually a different animal. Intellectually, Tommy knew that. On the other hand everyone had their "theories", it was amazing how many of those were complete bollocks.