Fringe Campaign

by Rachel Aukes

  “Just in case,” she echoed.

  Turbulence bumped the ship around as it descended through the planet’s thin atmosphere, and the gravity pulled at the Gryphon like it’d been weighted down with lead. The young pilot handled the controls deftly, entering minute directional changes to minimize atmo burn.

  “Here comes the moment of truth. Let’s see if Devil Town is still an equal opportunity colony,” she said before transmitting. “Dock Control, this is Phantom Cruiser Specter-Seven-Five-Five-One-Bravo. Request approval for docking sequence.”

  “Phantom Five-One-Bravo, docking approved. Proceed to Dock Hilo-Two. Notice to airmen, Docks Alpha through Charlie are in use by the Collective Unified Forces.”

  Throttle exhaled. “Sweet Sabra, the docks are still under Spaten control.”

  Reyne could see the tension relax from Throttle’s shoulders, but he didn’t share her relief. The CUF was using three docks, each with twenty slips, which meant there could be up to sixty ships docked at Devil Town. He may have drastically underestimated how many dromadiers were patrolling the fringe station. Too many.

  Throttle replied to the dock control operator. “Phantom Five-One-Bravo acknowledged. Thanks for the notice. Proceeding to Dock Hilo-Two.”

  The Gryphon broke through the cloud layer, and the space dock came into view.

  Reyne tapped the ship’s comm. “Boden, prepare for docking.”

  “Aye, aye, Captain,” came the mechanic’s reply.

  As Throttle ran the ship through its docking procedures, Reyne found his attention drawn to the larger docks, where the CUF ships sat, and he had to remind himself that no one on the ground could see the torrent symbol—the outline of a teardrop—painted on the side of his ship.

  Dock Hilo was the smallest of the docks, and set apart from the other docks for privacy. Hilo was generally reserved for private ships and the colony’s elite customers—the wealthy or famous who didn’t want to be seen or have to walk through the crowds on the main docks. Recently, thanks to a generously large contribution to the dock control station operators, Hilo had been set aside for use by torrent ships. The CUF had no idea enemy ships were docking mere kilometers away from their own ships.

  Throttle settled the Gryphon into its landing bay as gently as a mother placing her baby in a crib. Next to them sat the Nighthawk, a pirate ship with the torrent teardrop emblazoned across its side.

  Throttle’s brow rose. “If Five B’s wanted to make a statement, I think he did. The CUF could’ve seen that paint job from a hundred miles away.”

  Humor tugged at Reyne’s lip as he remembered the last time he drank with the Nighthawk’s captain—he’d yet to drink with Five B’s and not end up in the middle of a brawl. “It’s Five B’s. For some reason, I’m not surprised.” He thought for a moment. “It’s good news for us. No CUF patrols have come through this dock, or else the Nighthawk would have been publicly demolished by now.”

  “Let’s hope it stays that way,” Throttle said.

  The constant thrum of the Gryphon fell silent as Throttle shut down the ship’s systems. Reyne unbuckled from his seat and pushed to his feet. His arthritic joints protested the quick movement after sitting for several hours. He clenched his jaw to hide any outward sign of pain.

  “Did you take a pill today?” Throttle asked.

  Reyne grimaced. His daughter knew him too well. “I’ll pick up more on the way back from Gin’s.”

  She unlocked her wheelchair and pushed back from the instrument panel. “You’d better. I’ll have the Gryph refueled and ready to go by the time you get back.” She tacked on, “I don’t like hanging around this close to the CUF, so try not to window-shop, okay?”

  “Trust me, I don’t plan to hang out in Devil Town any longer than I have to.”

  Throttle chuckled. “That’d be a different story if Sixx were along. He’d have us on the ground for half a day while he caught up with all his old girlfriends.”

  Reyne’s grin faded when he thought of his friend. The handsome kleptomaniac was a personal favorite of Devil Town’s red-light district. But Sixx had changed when he’d learned his wife could still be alive. He’d become obsessed with finding her to the point of leaving Reyne’s crew to join Seda on a trip to Myr to find her.

  He clasped Throttle’s shoulder. “Keep an eye out for trouble. At the first sign of dromadiers, head to Gin’s. With the new order to destroy every torrent ship on sight, the last place you’ll want to be is on board this ship if it falls into CUF hands.”

  “Aye, aye Captain Obvious,” she said wryly, and then wheeled off the bridge.

  Reyne sighed and headed to his bunk to grab the satchel he needed to deliver, and to load up on extra weapons and credits. Devil Town had a knack for offering surprises, and Reyne couldn’t be too prepared. When he stepped into the hallway, Boden was already there, armed comparably to Reyne, with two photon guns in a chest holster and two knives strapped to his belt.

  Reyne patted the bag he’d slung across his shoulders. “It’ll be a quick in-and-out. Just a drop-off and then back to Playa.” He paused to give his mechanic a once-over. “You ready for this?”

  Boden’s lips thinned. “I’m good.”

  They both knew Reyne’s question had nothing to do with Boden being prepared for their mission, and everything to do with Boden being a recovering sweet soy addict about to step foot into the galaxy’s sweet soy capital.

  “You’d better be. Without Sixx, I’m counting on you.”

  “I won’t let you down,” he said quickly.

  The older man wanted to believe Boden. “Okay. Let’s head out. Throttle gave us strict orders to get back fast, and I don’t want to be on her bad side.”

  Boden chuckled. “Me neither. I’d better say goodbye.” He started to head to her bunk.

  “She’s already outside with dock control to refuel the ship.”

  “Oh,” Boden stopped, a tinge of disappointment in his voice.

  Boden had saved Reyne’s life more than once, but the mechanic also had more than one personality flaw. One of them was his warm-and-cold treatment of Throttle. She had feelings for the handsome Alluvian, and he had feelings for her…sometimes. Other times, when he was deep into the sweet soy, he barely acknowledged her existence. For the past few months, he’d been openly flirting with her. Reyne suspected the display of affection had something to do with Birk, a member of Critch’s crew, who spent every planetside leave—and even the occasional spaceside rendezvous—with her.

  The only thing Reyne cared about was that lately, she’d been the happiest he remembered.

  Reyne grabbed two breather masks and handed one to Boden. They headed off the ship, down the ramp, and onto the dock’s composite walkways.

  As they traversed the ramp, Reyne noticed several cargo ships brandishing the blue crest of Myr. The colony, currently absent a stationmaster, was a wildcard. While the CUF had established martial law on Spate, the Collective had not yet assigned a new stationmaster. He suspected the delay came from the Fringe Liberation Campaign distracting Parliament. Regardless of the reason, no stationmaster was good news for Reyne. The colony would be too volatile for any Myrad or Alluvian businessmen to be approved to come here on their own. At least, that’s what Reyne figured. These ships posed a quandary. “Maybe the economy’s worse than I thought,” he said to himself.

  “What’s that?” Boden asked.

  “Nothing really,” he replied. “I’m surprised at seeing Myrad haulers here. There’s no way insurance would cover their ships and cargo on Spate right now. Not without a stationmaster in place.”

  “I guess the Myrad recession is bad enough for some citizens to buck the odds in coming here for trade,” Boden said.

  “I suppose so.” Reyne remained dubious.

  They strolled past the Myrad ships without any outward signs of stress. Inside, Reyne’s every muscle was taut as he constantly scanned for dromadiers.

  Since Reyne’s old, black mug topped every CUF’
s most-wanted list, he was thankful the breather mask hid his face. Boden was unknown to the CUF, but being an Alluvian, he tended to stick out in the colonies, so the breather masks benefited both men.

  Once they were safely clear of the docks, the tension eased slightly from Reyne’s shoulders. They could blend into the multitudes of people in Devil Town, Spate’s largest colony and the only one with a fringe station. They stood on a corner while Boden tapped his wrist comm to hail a cab.

  Something nudged the back of Reyne’s leg. He spun around to find a scrawny vig trying to eat through his boot. He kicked it, and it went flying for several feet with a squeal.

  “Damn rodents,” Reyne muttered. Vigs were everywhere on Spate, and would eat anything. They looked like a cross between a rat and a small pig, minus the hair. And they tasted awful. For being carbon-based life-forms, one would think they’d taste better. Vigs were originally created to be food for colonists, but instead, they were the ultimate example of how biome kits didn’t always establish biological colonies as expected.

  A cab pulled up and an older woman stepped out. She tugged on a leash, and a wombie stumbled out, carrying her luggage. Reyne cringed at seeing a human treated in such a fashion, but the wombie—a Spaten mutant—didn’t seem the least bothered.

  Spate was the Collective’s largest producer of blue tea, a drink that enabled humans to survive on far less water than normal. It had enabled colonies on desolate rocks to thrive, and it reduced the water cargo weight in space travel, making room for more food, which meant much greater distances.

  Blue tea didn’t come without costs. The second-generation humans whose parents survived only on blue tea were born with reduced intelligence. After several generations, those who subsisted off blue tea developed physical mutations as well. Small bumps for storing water appeared on their bodies, similar to the humps camels on Earth developed. These colonists’ intelligence had degraded enough that they were no longer referred to as colonists. Instead, they’d become water-deficient zombies, or wombies, good for manual labor and not much else.

  Every planet had changed its colonists in unique ways. On Reyne’s home planet of Playa, those who embraced the planet’s low gravity for generations produced stretches. Myrads all had bluish skin from severe argyria due to the massive amounts of silver found everywhere on the planet.

  Reyne leaned back in his seat while Boden entered their destination in the automated cab system. The cab had breathable air, but the pair left their masks on to avoid being scanned by the facial recognition system Reyne knew was installed in every cab in the Collective.

  Neither spoke due to the likelihood the cab was also running a voice recognition program. Spate had remained relatively free of CUF oversight until the past year. Reyne had been one of the masterminds behind the Fringe Liberation Campaign—a rebellion against the oppressive control and taxation by the Collective that was run by the system’s two founding planets, Myr and Alluvia.

  Reyne had expected the CUF to come down hard on the torrents on Terra, where the Campaign was taking place. He hadn’t expected colonists to rise up across the fringe and join the cause. Protests had erupted in every large colony, and one-off attacks against dromadiers became daily news. In response, the CUF initiated martial law across all colonies in the Collective, attempting to quell the rebellion by putting the colonists in a stranglehold.

  The CUF had never understood the colonies’ power, and they were about to find out just how strong the colonies had become.

  He gazed out the window as the cab drove them to the grittier downtown area of Devil Town, where the red-light district stood. Built to replicate an old Earth scene, strippers danced in windows, and prostitutes stood outside trying to woo passersby into their brothel.

  At the end of the district, a three-story mansion stood over the red-light district like a stern father watching over his unruly children. Reyne found humor in the thought, as the comparison wasn’t far from the truth. Gin James was Devil Town’s wealthiest pimp now that Lincoln Finn was out of the picture. Everyone assumed he’d become Devil Town’s next stationmaster, but he had yet to publicly side with the CUF or the torrents. Reyne had traveled to Spate to gain Gin’s support through money. And lots of it.

  The cab’s whirring engine slowed as the vehicle pulled to a stop outside Gin’s estate.

  Reyne looked at the front yard and grimaced.

  Boden broke the silence. “Is that…”

  “Yeah,” Reyne said. “Ah, hell.”

  Gin was in his front yard. He hung from a noose a few feet above the ground. By the looks of his purple, puffy face and bulging eyes, he’d hung there for at least a day. Since Spate’s air had negligible levels of oxygen and carbon, the easiest way to kill someone was to lock them outside without a breather mask. Someone was clearly making a statement in Gin’s case.

  Reyne noticed the execution order posted near the body:

  This colonist has been found guilty of disobedience and has been sentenced to hang by the neck until dead. Sentence to be carried out immediately upon the order of Stationmaster Axos Wintsel.

  His body went cold. Wintsel.

  “Wintsel? Hey, isn’t that—”

  “Get us back to the docks now,” Reyne said. There was no way the name was a coincidence.

  An alarm in the cab sounded. Both tried to open the doors to no avail.

  “The vehicle is under lockdown. Remain calm until the lockdown has concluded,” the cab’s voice system announced.

  “We’ve got droms,” Boden said.

  Reyne looked in the direction of Boden’s focus and saw a squad headed toward them. He pulled out his gun and blasted the door several times before it fell outward. Reyne jumped outside, quickly followed by Boden.

  Reyne pointed. “Alley!”

  They took off running. The door they’d escaped through was on the opposite side of the cab to the incoming dromadiers, so the soldiers didn’t notice anything until Reyne and Boden sprinted out beyond the cab.

  “Stop!” someone yelled, though the command was somewhat muffled through his mask.

  Neither man slowed down. Photon blasts pounded the ground around them. Reyne shielded his face from debris kicking up from the street.

  Boden reached the alley first and was opening a door by the time Reyne caught up. They ran inside and locked the door behind them. They turned to find a woman wearing nothing but a bustier and thong, and incredibly high heels. She gave Boden an appraising look. Her sultry smile hinted her approval of what she saw.

  “Is there another exit?” Boden asked.

  Her brows rose. “Why would you want to leave? We haven’t even met yet.”

  Reyne fished out a hundred-credit and tossed it to her.

  She caught it with a deft hand. Her expression turned all business, and she nodded to the hallway behind her. “Turn right at the end of the hall. Through the kitchen.”

  They took off down the hallway when a pounding on the back door ensued.

  “CUF. Let us in!”

  Reyne glanced back briefly to see the woman saunter ever so slowly toward the back door. She looked over her shoulder long enough to give Reyne a wink, and he gave her a small nod. Her delay would buy them a few seconds, though he suspected it wouldn’t be enough.

  The other door was exactly where she’d said it would be, and they barreled through the doorway and found themselves in another alley. They ran onto a side street and down the sidewalk, which was nearly empty of pedestrians, making it impossible for them to blend into a crowd.

  Boden was faster, and began to put distance between them. Reyne bit through the pain in his joints and pushed himself to keep up with the Alluvian one-third his age. Boden continued leading them down streets and through alleys as though winding them through a maze. He ran into a diminutive grocery store, and Reyne followed, panting.

  Boden put both hands on the counter and spoke quietly to the clerk. “I’m looking for a 2720-year Terran whiskey.”

  Th
e clerk nodded. His hand slipped under the counter, and the back door of the small store opened.

  Boden motioned for Reyne to follow, and the mechanic headed through the back doorway, which led them to a dark stairway.

  As they descended, Reyne said, “I’m curious. The Terrans didn’t start making whiskey until 2725.”

  “This place isn’t technically legal,” Boden replied. “Which means we should be safe here until the droms quit looking for us.”

  Reyne frowned. If Boden was familiar with this place, then it wasn’t much safer than being on the streets.

  He really could’ve used Sixx on this mission. His friend knew every brothel around Devil Town. Where Boden turned to drugs to escape his problems, Sixx turned to companionship.

  At the bottom of the stairs, a short woman stood in the dim light. She was nearly as round as she was tall. A dozen chaises lined the walls. Several beds had occupants lounging as though boneless. The sweetness to the air left no doubt in Reyne’s mind they’d entered a sweet soy lounge. The last place Boden should be.

  The woman scowled. “There’s a hefty surcharge for bringing droms to my store.”

  “We lost them a couple blocks back,” Boden said.

  She guffawed. “There’s a camera on every corner of every street. They’ll see you entered my store but never left. There will be a squad here in under five minutes.” She walked over to a comm panel on the wall. “Luis, you’re about to have company looking for our customers. Take care of it.”

  “You got it, Mother.”

  The woman turned back to Reyne and Boden. “Off with your masks. Let me get a good look at my customers.”