by J. S. Morin
Of course. The day had probably come and long since gone, but it was still jarring to hear. Azrin’s hunted from childhood. It was part of Mriy’s cultural heritage, and a source of great personal pride, not being dependent on factories and starships to deliver food to her. But to think Kubu needed her hunting skills was foolhardy. The shock was that Kubu realized it so plainly.
“Maybe not for hunting food. But for hunting people, you still do. Finding them isn’t enough. Finding them without them finding you, that’s just the beginning. When we find Tanny and her new friends, we will be outnumbered in territory they know better than us. We will need a plan.”
Kubu emitted a high-pitched whine and flopped onto his side with a crash of small plants. “I don’t like plans. Can’t we just find Mommy and take her home?”
Crouching low and rubbing Kubu’s belly, Mriy offered a sigh. “I hate plans as well, but we need at least a small one if we want to bring Tanny back safely. OK?”
Mriy leaped out of the way as Kubu twisted upright and sprang to his feet. He shook a small garden’s worth of local vegetation loose from his fur and bounded into the jungle, pausing a dozen meters ahead to look back at her. “You coming? Plan while we hunt. I am hungry.”
# # #
The interior of the Mermaid smelled like engine lubricant and stale mustard. With priority on getting its systems up and running, it hadn’t taken long to put the smallest of the three crafts into spaceworthy shape. Little progress had been made in furthering the status of the Mobius or the Hatchet Job, but someone had to get to the Sokol before it crashed and turned their lottery payday into a fiery crater on some godforsaken planet. The engines and nav computer were online. Life support was patched together and functioning at 78 percent. Shields were gone and not coming back until they could hit up a supply depot for new parts, and the weapons were intact but had a non-repaired short draining main power any time they were turned on.
Amy Charlton’s ship was built for one human. It was getting a laaku first mate for this trip because it needed additional repairs en route, and because Roddy was the only one who could double without serious overcrowding. The fact that he was a mechanic was almost of secondary consideration.
Either way, Roddy felt an unclenching relief when the docking ring released and the Mermaid floated free under her own power. Everyone was saying the right things, but this had been a survival situation. Roddy’s actions had thrown a spanner in the works of a major deal Carl had cooked up. It was tough getting a read on who was pissed off about what and who really bought Roddy’s heroic near self-sacrifice as payment in full for the misstep. Hatchet thanked Roddy, but those eyes of his were hard as permacrete when he said it. Carl seemed genuinely happy that Roddy survived piloting the Mermaid into the line of fire to save the Mobius, but anyone assuming he could get a read on Carl was a class-A idiot. Roddy knew that as well as anyone. That guy Samurai seemed icy. He could have gone either way and Roddy wouldn’t have seen it coming. Of all of them, the only one he was dead certain had been happy to see him was Esper. She just didn’t have a malicious or greedy bone in her body.
Leaving aside the dregs of Hatchet’s crew left him with Amy. She still had the Scarecrow hairdo and the Telejack clamped around her forearm, but other than that, she was night-and-day different than when she’d come bearing intel on the Odysseus crash site. She seemed calmer, even after getting a ship nearly blasted out from around her. The nervous tics had subsided. She didn’t burst out in paranoid ramblings anymore. And it was a good thing, too.
“Looks like it’s just you and me for a few days,” Roddy commented as the Mermaid spun, leaving the Hatchet Job to disappear from view through the forward windows.
“You’ll get the comms up before we intercept.” Amy didn’t look up from the controls.
Roddy cleared his throat. “Um, yeah. Sure. I mean, I wasn’t saying it was a bad thing. It’s just… we never got to talk much.”
“I assume Carl’s already told you everything.”
“Huh? Why would he…?”
“You two are best friends. I assume that’s what guys talk about when the womenfolk aren’t around.”
“Not hardly.” Admittedly, Roddy’s close personal relationships with humans were limited in scope. Before joining the Mobius, he’d known a few humans but never considered himself friends with one. And Carl could hardly be considered a role model for normal human interaction.
“Oh.”
“I mean, don’t get me wrong. You’re keeping his pipes clean, and he’s never been in a better mood so long as I’ve known him. That puts you in the black on my balance sheet. But really, besides preferring hard liquor over beer, appreciating laaku-action holos, and having a knack for piloting, I hardly know a damn thing about you.”
“What’s there to know? I used to be a pilot. Then I spent years looking for the ship that cost me my commission. Now I’m here.”
Scratching behind an ear with one foot, Roddy puzzled over where to find an edge to pick at her story. “Well, I mean, you got family or anything?”
The scant attention she’d diverted in Roddy’s direction vaporized like coolant spilled into an engine core. “No.”
Roddy watched for a moment as she focused on the control console in front of her. They were in astral space. The Mermaid’s thrusters powered up with a grating rattle of patchwork repairs. From that point, there wasn’t much of anything to monitor or adjust. It was a straight shot for days to catch up with their target with not so much as a view to stare at out the windows. But Amy didn’t even glance back at him.
With a resigned sigh, Roddy got to work on repairing the comms.
# # #
The door to Mort’s quarters chimed. The brief electromogrified trill unmistakably heralded a visitor, but Mort harrumphed and deigned not to respond. It was a Sisyphean chore training the syndicate staff to knock like civilized beings. Were the little techno-drones afraid of bruising a knuckle? Served them right making knockerless doors out of steel.
The door chimed again, and Mort shook his head as he turned the page of the tome splayed across his lap. Genroe’s Incantrix was hardly light reading, but that was fine because Mort was hardly reading it. Just letting his eyes wander over the illuminations was enough to salve his raw nerves. But whoever was at his door was ruining his efforts.
Whoever occupied the adjacent hallway gave up on the chime and pounded on his door. It was a solid, meaty thump, no doubt made by the butt of a fist—one with a good deal of heft and frustration behind it. “Open the damn door, Mort. I know you’re in there.” Even through an inch of scienced-up steel, Don Rucker’s voice was unmistakable.
With a flick of his fingers that made the lights flicker, Mort dismissed the charm that held his door shut. Whatever device made the thing slide into the wall coughed and sputtered but pulled the door open, revealing the annoyed gangster in the hall. “Don… what a nice surprise. Come in and take a load off.”
“I don’t like to be kept waiting.” Don strode inside and loomed over Mort.
If it was meant to be intimidating, Don was going to need more than the two bodyguards in the hall and the blaster tucked away in the armpit of his suit coat. “And I don’t like the noise that little gizmo makes every time someone decides to bother me.”
Don punched a button on the door console, but nothing happened. He tried another, to equal effect. “Close the damn door. Enough of your magic tricks.”
“Pick one. I’m sure as hell not standing up to close it.” Mort chuckled in the face of Don Rucker’s scowl. He imagined the only ones who did that were just putting on a brave face for the Grim Reaper. But he relented and allowed the door to close them in. “Fine. Just you and me.”
With a long breath that bore the impression of a man consciously reigning in his temper, Don slumped into a chair across from Mort. “I want to know what’s going on around here. The natives of this rock are scared shitless of my boys, but still none of them will give up the time of day.
All I can figure out is the moon’s got rebel marines running 80 percent of the surface, and they answer to something that thinks it’s a god.”
“Everyone says that like it’s a bad thing,” Mort grumbled. “We’ve got the good parts of the moon. I’ve been out in that blasted jungle. Heat. Bugs. Odors like you wouldn’t believe. We’ve got those yahoos outnumbered five to one, and we’ve got them outgunned and outwizarded. If it weren’t for Devraa, we’d hardly bother worrying about them at all.”
Don aimed a finger at Mort the way most men aimed a blaster. “That. That’s what I’m talking about. You got a problem, and my people have a theory on where your alien god might be hiding out.”
“Don… let’s not dance around the maypole on this one. Your ‘boys’ are a bunch of hollow-skulled leg-breakers and silk-tongued bridge-peddlers. Not, I should say, relevant qualifications for deity locating.”
Don reclined, tipping the armchair onto its back legs. “So, that’s how you see it, huh? I’ve just got a bunch of goons and con men? You think I keep on top without whole law firms in my pocket? Without science and tech advisers? Without law enforcement—both active duty and retired? I own chefs trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris Prime. That bodyguard outside your door earned himself the Solar Cross for saving an outpost in the Gandt Cluster. And on that ship I’ve got orbiting this backwater moon, there’s a scientist with her grandmasterate from the Phabian Academy of Physical Sciences. And she figured out roughly where that god of yours is hiding.”
Mort snorted. “A laaku and a scientist? Sounds like the potential warden for my own personal hell. Well, what’s the four-handed she-devil got to say about Devraa?”
By the set of Don’s jaw and the shake of his head, Mort knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. “Not until I’ve spoken to my daughter. Something fishy’s going on around here, and for some reason, I can’t get to the bottom of it. Your buddy Roddy took off after the Mobius, but no one else seems to have the first clue where that ship is or how he knew where to look. No one’s heard from the Mobius or the ship Roddy took.” Don sat up and rested his elbows on his knees. “I’m gonna level with you, Mort. I get the distinct impression you’re covering something up and everyone around here’s more afraid of you than they are of me.”
What was there to say? Don couldn’t wrap his head around how right they were, even though they couldn’t explain it themselves. Mort just shrugged.
“You decide to wise up and tell me what’s going on, maybe I’ll give you the intel. Otherwise, you can sit in the dark until I see Tania.”
Mort spread his hands. “Wish I could help you.” He gestured to the door, and it slid open.
Don’s glare rolled off Mort like water from a duck’s back. Consequences worked both ways, which was a nice, friendly way of ensuring that both men left the room alive. The crime lord stood and shrugged his suit straight. “Somehow, I don’t think you do.”
# # #
The door slid open. The door slid closed. In between, a hearty, gray-haired comedian stumbled through. With a sigh, he slumped his shoulders and leaned back against the closed door.
His wife looked up from the suitcase she was unpacking. “Got your fill of small talk for the day?”
“Until dinner, at least,” Chuck Ramsey replied, his face twisting back into its accustomed grin. “Is it just me, or is this half starship bigger than most whole ones?”
Becky Ramsey popped the lid on Chuck’s suitcase and slid it across the bed. “You’re not the show here, so you can quit being the showman. This is the first time we’ve gotten to see Brad since that ridiculous wedding.”
“You gotta admit, it takes guts to marry your ex-wife.” With offhanded casualness, Chuck sauntered over and began removing his belongings. “Hope you didn’t carry all this stuff from the ship.”
“You think any of those strapping young navy lads was going to let an old lady carry her own luggage?”
Chuck gave her a wolfish grin. “There’s an old lady around here somewhere? I oughtta watch my language.”
Becky threw a pair of slacks at him.
“Hey! We’re not the ones getting old. The whole galaxy’s just getting younger around us.”
“Those eyes of yours aren’t getting any older, that’s for sure. I saw you with that officer last night at dinner.”
“She’s a key cog in Brad’s organization. This was her outfit until the rescue.”
“And the communications tech?”
Chuck waved a dismissive hand. “I wanted to know the instant we got word from Brad’s ship. Plus, it didn’t hurt checking on the comm security situation. Brad’s got enough holes in his so-called syndicate he’s lucky it hasn’t leaked across half the galaxy by now.”
“Two years as a side-job man for Don Rucker and now you’re supposed to be an expert in syndicate management?”
“Brad’s a con man, a thief, and apparently not half bad at faking his own death. He had us going for weeks. But he’s out of his orbit on this business. I figure the least I can do is tidy up a few loose ends before he gets back.”
“I don’t think Brad would want you interfering.”
Chuck snickered. “That’s the beauty of it. He left Mort in charge back here, and Mort said it was fine by him. When Brad gets back, he’ll barely recognize the place.”
# # #
Carl ducked as he entered the engine room of the Mobius. He hardly recognized the place. It wasn’t that he had any idea how most of the subsystems worked, but he had been there enough times to have a feel for how everything looked, the impression it gave upon first glance. Much as it was a birds’ nest of pipes and conduits, Roddy kept a path clear for walking. Now, with umbilicals and patch jobs stringing wires and struts every which way, he had to navigate a debris field. It reminded him of piloting through the wreck of a larger vessel, except this was the Mobius, and it wasn’t done just yet.
“How are you even coming up with all this stuff?” Carl asked. He shielded his eyes with a hand against the brilliant flare from a plasma torch at work. “I mean, did we still have three ships’ worth of working parts?”
The glare cut out, and Carl lowered his hand tentatively. Niang pushed up a pair of protective goggles, leaving an area around his eyes comically free of grime and sweat. “Not exactly. The engine cores were all salvageable, or none of the rest would have mattered. But the coolant system I stole from the meat locker you keep around for Mriy. Hatchet had spare power relays. I had to double up on a couple lines where Roddy over juices the systems, but there were enough. A couple control panels blew out, and I hooked in a few old datapads to serve as makeshift consoles. The gunnery turret’s short a couple servos that I needed for the waste system. To be honest, this boat’s in better shape than the Hatchet Job, and it took a lot more punishment in the firefight.”
“I was flying the Hatchet Job, or it might not have made it through.” The second he said it, Carl realized what a jerk comment it was, but at least Hiroshi wasn’t around to hear it. He was a good pilot; he just wasn’t Carl. “So how is Hatchet’s tub of guns?”
“It could use a couple extra sets of hands, to tell you the truth. You sure Amy couldn’t have gotten the comms up on her own? She’s always seemed pretty good with a multi-tool.” Carl raised an eyebrow at the veiled double-entendre he heard there. “Sorry. I just mean that—besides you—all the pilots I know can work their way around most subsystem repairs. The comms don’t need a guy like Roddy to fix them.”
A guy like Roddy? There were plenty of ways to take that, too. “Well, sure. But you do realize that Roddy’s half the reason our ships are in this sad-sack state. Hatchet got caught up in the moment when the dust settled. Remember, he wanted a fight in the first place, but if we’d done it his way, it would have been an ambush. If Amy and Roddy recover that contraband, we might still make a profit on this disaster, but Hatchet’s over there grumbling about the damage and how much it’s going to cost him to fix it right.”
“I mean, isn�
��t this a syndicate thing? You’ll cover repairs, won’t you?”
Carl furrowed his brow. Was the Hatchet Job his in a way? “Hm. Hadn’t really thought about that. Not sure Hiroshi’s gonna take the implication that his ship’s my responsibility now, but considering the money he’d save… maybe he’ll ease off on the talk of laaku shish-kebab.”
The wall panel comm squawked, but after a moment of ear-piercing shrieking, Yomin’s voice came through. “Comms are up. I’m going to signal Ithaca to send the freighter to pick us up.”
Carl rushed to the engine room’s comm panel and mashed the button. “Belay that. Status only. We’re not getting picked up.”
“What about delivering parts?”
“I’ll take an assessment from the repair crews, but I think we can get up and running on our own.” Carl removed his finger from the transmit button and raised an eyebrow at Niang.
“Won’t be pretty, but I’m pretty sure I can get us under sail.”
“If anything changes, let me know before calling it in to the Odysseus.” Carl gave Niang a curt, military nod, and departed the engine room.
It always made him uneasy hanging out down there. It was his ship, but that had always been the black box that drove it. Roddy knew what went on in there, and usually one or two other crewmen had enough of an idea to patch things up if something were to happen to Roddy. It had never been Carl’s to worry about.
On his way back to his quarters, he passed Reebo sorting and clearing debris in the cargo hold and Esper tidying the common room with the help of Juggler and Vixen’s kids. There was a cheerful, semi-educational holovid playing as they worked. The pastel colors and shrill character voices chased Carl all the way until the door shut behind him.
He collapsed against the door and let his head bang gently against the metal. There was a benign uselessness endemic to his existence aboard the Mobius. He did little work himself, couldn’t fix anything, left the fighting mainly to Mriy and Tanny, and wasn’t even allowed to fly. Carl was at peace with that. Arranging deals and dealing with authorities—both legitimate and otherwise—had always been his contribution. If Carl kissed the Blarney Stone, it would come out the smoother talker for it. But stuck in the shallow astral with two derelict ships, he was a liability.
