Mission Pack 3: Missions 9-12 (Black Ocean Mission Pack)

by J. S. Morin

  But Samurai wasn’t as dazed as he’d let on. As soon as the Eyndar left his feet, Samurai shifted his weight. By the time the kick arrived, Samurai was already sweeping an arm under Gowra’s legs, upending his opponent. There were oohs from the crowd as the Eyndar’s head slammed to the canvas, his body driven down under the added force of Samurai’s palm on his chest.

  For a moment, the crowd went silent. The Eyndar lay unmoving.

  “Point, Yamamoto,” a loudspeaker announced.

  The access door to the cage sprang open, and a pair of human medics rushed in. Samurai backed away, clutching the cage for support as he fought to catch his breath. Under medical assistance, the Eyndar rolled and groaned. The crowd buzzed, assured that there hadn’t just been a death in the cage. One of the medics pulled out Gowra’s mouth guard, and the Eyndar muttered something in reply to a question. A brief exchange led to the medic straightening up to his knees and giving a cut-off gesture with one hand.

  “Match, Yamamoto,” the loudspeaker announced, followed by a rousing cheer from the human contingent.

  Carl, Amy, and Rachel found a table and waited for the medics to clear Samurai. In addition to their own drinks, they ordered sake and an EnerJuice. Samurai emerged from the prep room ten minutes later, dressed in civilian clothes and damp from a shower. One of his eyes was blackened.

  “Medics missed a spot,” Rachel said as Samurai took his seat.

  He shook his head. “Teaches a poor lesson. I only let them fuse the fracture.” He ignored the EnerJuice and titled back the sake.

  Carl clapped him on the shoulder. “Sorry I kept you waiting. If I’d known you were fighting for meals out here, I’d have found a way to shoot you a few terras.”

  Samurai didn’t look Carl in the eye. He stared off into the crowd, eyes unfocused. “You came to find me, remember? I wasn’t waiting.” He downed the rest of his sake and lifted the glass to attract a server’s attention.

  “Listen, if this is about that business with the Hatchet Job—”

  “It’s not.”

  “Well, I guess Hatchet’s death was—”

  “I can’t be a pirate, Ramsey.” Now Samurai did turn, and Carl saw disappointment in those eyes. “The galaxy has treated many of us badly. We all knew you’d gone out past the edge of law, and we were fine with that. None of us could stomach Hatchet’s path, though. There was a difference between scraping the veneer off law and regulations and murdering people for profit.”

  “You knew as well as I did that Hatchet—”

  “This isn’t about Hiroshi. I’ve had time to think.” Samurai paused as a server brought him a fresh sake. He’d apparently been around this place long enough that the staff knew his preferences. “I knew a man once, long ago. He was wise in ways I couldn’t understand, and I tried my best to follow his example. Try as I might, I could never capture the essence of that eccentric insight into the human soul.”

  “Listen, I—“ Carl began, but Amy slugged him in the shoulder.

  Samurai continued, heedless of the brief interruption. “When you first contacted me about your own syndicate, I imagined that gathering old comrades would recapture that essence. That I could try once more to find the sage hidden beneath the jester’s mask. But I was wrong. If there ever was such a sage, the jester’s mask is worn by another now, and I don’t know that person.”

  “Jesus, Toshiro,” Carl snapped. “If you’re trying to tell me you’re quitting, you could have saved us the trip.”

  Samurai looked him up and down. “I had to see again, for myself. And if I was correct that the Lieutenant Commander Ramsey I knew was gone, I could at least tell his replacement to his face.” Samurai raised his sake. “To Blackjack: a friend I will truly miss.” He downed the drink and stood.

  Carl sat there, not knowing what to say. There were things he wanted to say, and others that he needed to say. But something stopped him, and it wasn’t Amy’s fist.

  Amy got up and rounded the table, folding Samurai in a hug. Samurai’s eyes locked with Carl’s. When Amy released him, Samurai turned and walked away without another word.

  Rachel’s hand clasped his own and snagged Carl’s attention away from the departing Half-Devil. “I have something to say, too.”

  “Oh, no,” Amy said softly.

  “Sorry, love,” Rachel replied with a weak smile. “No place for kids in this line of work. Ithaca’s not safe, and we can’t raise them on the Mobius. This isn’t like you and your parents, Blackjack. Jax and I can’t keep them safe the way you want to fly.”

  “We can figure something out,” Carl said. The syndicate was slipping through his fingers. His most loyal allies should have been his old squadron. He couldn’t let them all drift back to the lives they used to have.

  “Already figured. Got a transport job lined up. Samurai’s coming with us.”

  “You knew,” Amy said. “You knew, and you didn’t say anything. After all we—”

  “No. Let her go.” Carl just didn’t have the energy to fight it. He was getting used to saying goodbye. Better with a handshake than over a grave. “Take care of yourselves out there. The galaxy’s a dangerous place.”

  Rachel cupped a hand to Carl’s cheek. “It’ll never stop being adorable how you think that little ship of yours is the safest place since your mum’s belly.” She turned to Amy. “You look after him, or I’ll have that pretty mop of yours for a washcloth. Got it?”

  Amy brushed her braids back over an ear. She nodded.

  When it was just the two of them, Amy sat back down across from Carl. She took one of his hands in both of hers. “Hey, want to get out of this place?”

  He heard the opening for him to finish the line of an old song. Instead, he downed the last of his drink and ordered another.

  # # #

  A holovid played in the common room. Projected photons struck Carl’s eyes and went straight out the back of his skull. Synthesized sound washed like waves against the rocky shores of his ears. There were people in the room. Coming. Going. Sitting. Staying. Eating. Drinking. It was a peripheral haze.

  “He’s not even watching,” a voice muttered.

  “Can we switch to something else then?” another voice asked.

  “Ah, just leave the big guy alone.”

  “And do what? Orbit this crapsack planet forever?”

  “We could just pick a system and go. What’ll he care?”

  “Hold on. I have an idea…”

  Carl felt breath on the side of his neck. A warm hand slid up under his shirt, possibly looking for abdominal muscles but only finding a repository for old beer. The hand altered course and ventured under his belt.

  He flinched. “Hey!”

  “See?” Amy announced proudly. “Not catatonic.” She was kneeling on the couch beside him. Hers was the hand he guided back to the outside of his clothing.

  “Want me to reset to the beginning?” Yomin asked. She had the remote for the holo-projector in hand.

  Carl rubbed his eyes. Amy collapsed back into a cross-legged position. “What’re we watching?”

  “Screw that,” Roddy snapped. “Heads up, flyboy.”

  Carl reacted just in time to catch the can of Earth’s Preferred as its arc ended in his lap.

  “Enough mollycoddling,” Mort said. The can in Carl’s hand jerked free, and the wizard popped the top himself. A long swig made the change of ownership official. “It was getting crowded in here anyway.”

  “Plus, Jax Jr. and Lisa were eating all my ice cream,” Esper added.

  Carl leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. As he spoke, he looked at the floor. “It’s… I mean, we don’t have a security officer now.”

  “Juggler was just a pilot,” Roddy said. “You gave him Mriy’s old job because you liked hanging around with him.”

  “He knew how to use a blaster.”

  “So does Amy,” Roddy countered.

  “He…” Carl fought for an argument, but even the lies couldn’t cover
him this time.

  “This might sound crazy,” Roddy said. “But I’ve got an idea.”

  # # #

  Roddy had been right. He was crazy. The comm ID was a send-and-toss. No one had probably monitored it for more than a day after the initial message. The laaku had been right not to bother him with it in the first place.

  But yet, here Carl was, staring at his datapad, waiting for a reply. Why had he sent that comm? Roddy’s logic held all the water of a sieve. Carl hardly recalled the stuunji captives at the Gologlex Menagerie. They’d stood out, of course. Two and a half meters of bulk and muscle was hard to ignore. But Carl hadn’t exchanged a word with the pair. Now he was hoping one of them would volunteer to fill Juggler’s shoes. What good would that do, when Juggler had barely been able to replace Mriy?

  GREETINGS HONORED CARL.

  HOW MAY I SERVE?

  With a glance at the routing info on the comm, Carl noted the message wasn’t even encrypted. How much could he dare transmit on an open connection?

  Yesterday, Carl would have gone looking for Yomin to advise him on data security. A month ago, Carl would have blown off the whole idea of letting down his guard on comm security. Today…

  “Fuck it.”

  Carl typed a reply message.

  “Hey, Rai Kub. Glad to hear you’re doing OK for yourself back in the real world. You sound like the sort of guy who wants to settle a debt that goes beyond money. I can completely understand that. If you’re interested in joining up with my crew, meet me in orbit around that planet where your friend rescued mine.”

  There. All clean and polished. Aside from using Rai Kub’s real name—which he’d announced in the transmission data of his own message anyway—it was completely innocuous. No mention of the type of work. No mention of the exact meeting place. Only Carl’s people and Rai Kub’s would know what was up.

  Carl jammed his hands into his jacket pockets and smiled to himself. Maybe he didn’t need his old flying buddies around. All they were going to do was tell him how bad his ideas were and what jobs he should or shouldn’t be running. Mort never complained about the work. Roddy either. Even Esper didn’t get her panties in a twist until they crossed some invisible moral line in her head between bad and evil.

  Yes. This was all going to be getting a whole lot easier real soon.

  # # #

  There was something about being in the presence of a wall made entirely of sentient meat that made Carl realize just how weak and puny humankind was on an individual basis. When Tuu Nau had returned Roddy to the Mobius, Carl had stayed on the cargo ramp, a dozen meters away and on higher ground. Now, with Rai Kub standing a meter in front of him, Carl was looking nearly straight up. Good God, did stuunji have enormous nostrils.

  “So, Rai Kub… how much experience do you have working security?” Carl asked as the rest of the crew looked on from a respectable distance.

  Rai Kub clasped a pair of hands in front of him big enough to hide a laaku completely from view. He looked from left to right but never straight down into Carl’s eyes. “Uh, none to speak of, savior.”

  “While I appreciate the sentiment, you can go ahead and call me Carl like everyone else. We’re not fancy people.”

  “Of course, Savior Carl.”

  “Much better… Anyhoo, what’s the ‘to speak of’ part of that? How little are we talking, here?” Carl had proven time and again that he was willing to wrangle an amateur into shape. The percentages might not have been worth playing in a casino, but shipboard, Esper and Yomin had more than paid off the loser bets on guys like Reebo St. Jardin, Lucas Lively, and Xanielle Alvez. Archie was still a roulette spin in progress.

  “I had… hoped not to speak of it, but as you insist. I was tasked by my parents with keeping my sister safe when we left home to find work offworld.”

  “OK. That’s a start.”

  Rai Kub raised a fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. Carl felt the rumble in his toes. “My sister and I were captured by the fiend, Gologlex. She was the other stuunji you and your companions rescued.”

  “Well, you kept her safe long enough to be rescued.”

  Rai Kub hung his head. “They made it clear they assumed us to be a mated pair. They were less observant in our claims of blood relation. Back then, neither of us had learned your spoken or written language.”

  Carl nodded to himself, impressed. “Nice. Picked up a new language in a year. Not bad. And the whole… you and your sister thing… anything under duress, I’m sure everyone understands.”

  Rai Kub cocked his head. A moment later his eyes went wide. The gray skin of his face darkened subtly. “Oh, no! Nothing of the sort. I have no mating interest in females, let alone my beloved sister. Even through beatings, they could never force me. But she was punished as well, and it was my fault.”

  “None of that business was your fault,” Carl assured him. Though he had read up on stuunji culture not all that long ago, the intricacies of micro-cultural exceptions to the general rules were beginning to sink in. Here was a guy who could probably tear the cargo bay door open with his bare hands, and he had the self-confidence of an incontinent Chihuahua.

  “I might make a good laborer,” Rai Kub said. “I can carry very heavy loads.”

  Carl spared a glance over his shoulder at the crew when Rai Kub was avoiding eye contact in the other direction. Mort stood with his arms folded, glaring down from the catwalk. Esper fidgeted as if unsure what to do with her hands. Yomin sat halfway up the stairs, fiddling with her datalens. Amy shrugged from the stair below when she caught Carl’s eye. On the floor at Mort’s feet, Roddy sat with his lower feet hanging over the edge of the catwalk as he slurped at a beer. There was no sign of Archie, which was probably a good thing, because between them, the crew had managed to look as unwelcoming and grumpy as possible. Carl shot them a quick, wild-eyed snarl in an effort to get them to shape up.

  “Look, Rai Kub—can I call you Rai or something for short?”

  “You can call me anything you like, Savior Carl.”

  “That… no… never mind. Rai Kub, listen up. I need a security officer on this ship, someone to protect us when we’re planetside or when people we don’t trust end up on board. Do you have any sort of background that might help? Did you ever work in law enforcement?”

  “No.”

  “Serve in a militia? Even the refugee version?”

  Rai Kub shook his head.

  “Ever been in a bar fight?”

  “No. It’s just… no one starts a fight with a stuunji.”

  “OK. There’s a little something, maybe. You’re intimidating.”

  Rai Kub shuffled a step back. “I’m sorry, Savior Carl.”

  Carl waved him back with both hands. “Not me. I mean other people. You can act tough and get thugs to back down. That’s a useful skill. Now let’s talk tactics. You ever… play team sports? Play in a marching band? Watch military holovids? Any good at Battle Minions?”

  Rai Kub kept up a steady shaking of his head until the end before perking up. “Oh, that game is fun. My grandfather bought us a used copy at the human castoff store on Garrelon.”

  Carl took a deep breath and shrugged some tension out of his shoulders. “OK. Great. Now I’d like to hire you on, but I need a little something more than a 500-kilo physique and experience at a kids’ strategy game. What else can you think of that would make you a potential bodyguard? Something. Anything.”

  Rai Kub stooped until he merely towered over Carl and looked him square in the eye. “If anyone wishes to shoot you, they will have to shoot through a meter’s worth of me to do it.”

  “You’re hired.”

  # # #

  Rai Kub sat on the common room floor, impeding foot traffic on the starboard side of the ship. But for the time being, it was the best way to fit him into the planning session. Even seated, he was as tall as anyone on the ship except for Mort. The stuunji kept still though, neither fidgeting nor moving around for a better view as Archie
settled in at the holo-projector to hold court. Rai Kub seemed fascinated by the robot.

  “Now that we’ve settled our personnel issue,” Archie said, casting a long look in Carl’s direction. “It’s high time we slapped together an actual plan for this vengeance of ours.”

  Rai Kub raised a hand.

  “Yes? You there, what is it?” Archie pointed to Rai Kub.

  “Who are we seeking vengeance on? What did they do? What sort of vengeance are we considering? Is this the sort of thing we do regularly?”

  If Archie was offended by the barrage, he didn’t show it. “Are you familiar with the Harmony Bay Corporation?”

  Rai Kub nodded.

  “Are you aware of the innumerable and devilishly concealed illicit operations through which they maintain technological superiority over their equally innumerable competitors?”

  Rai Kub froze, then shook his head.

  “I should think not. Harmony Bay has a fine reputation throughout civilized space as a megacorporation concerned primarily with progress in the medical sciences. However, peeling away the veneer of ethics and common decency, they allow a small segment of their research staff to run unchecked. They achieve breakthroughs decades ahead of their more conscientious competitors through means best described simply as villainy. They are, in sort, an incubator of evil at the heart of mankind.”

  “And what about the rest? What did they do, exactly?”

  Before Archie could launch into another longwinded diatribe, Carl stepped in. “First off, Archie here was human until they sucked his brain out and stuffed it into a robot. A while back, we ran into a scientist who’d done something similar with some poor clone of a kid, jamming his own brain into the kid’s. They’ve tried to kill us on multiple occasions. They even made us pay over market price for an illegal clone of me so I could fake my death in the Silde Slims race. Um… and I think they probably do some experiments on stuunji. Wouldn’t be the least bit surprised. You know?”