“Oh, that’s bad,” Cole said.
Nathan smiled. “Well, thousands of liters of unprocessed waste is never going to smell good.” He looked at Eldridge. “What do you think?”
The young man breathed hard from the excitement and the stress of running for their lives.
“I think it worked. We put the shaped charges right on the seam of the waste tank. Dodger and his boys ought to be swimming in sewage right now.”
“Good. Let’s get out of here.”
They ran, eager to put distance between themselves and the mess engulfing Dodger’s party. Nathan noticed the small, orange sun rising in the distance. After a few minutes, they came to the cargo bay. They stood there, exhausted and catching their breath in deep gulps. Even Cole showed signs of being winded.
He heard a cry from across the bay and saw Tricia, Marla and the others running toward them.
“Are you all right?” He said. “We tried to lead them away.”
Tricia hugged him and he winced. “We’re okay. A couple of them gave us a hard time and we had to fire at them. They took off running after that.” Then she stepped away from him and saw the look of pain on his face and the blood on his hand. “You’re shot? They shot you?”
“I think so. Good thing I brought a nurse, huh?”
“Let me have a look at that,” she ordered, steering him out of the cargo bay.
A few meters away, Marla kissed Duncan, the couple standing in the weak light of morning sunlight shining through the door. Nathan smiled as he and Tricia walked past them.
They hurried outside, and Nathan couldn’t remember the last time he had been so happy to see sunlight. He saw vehicles approaching from the access road. He turned back to Marla.
“Did you manage to get through to Chief Bell?”
“We did.” She paused for a breath. “He’s pretty upset. I think he’s going to have some choice words for you.”
“That’s okay. We gave him a huge gift today.”
Chapter 25
Nathan stood his ground against the onslaught of accusations and anger from Chief Don Bell while they stood outside the cargo bay of the Athena Star. Eldridge had the main doors open and Bell’s voice echoed around the large area.
“…and another thing, some sonuvabitch threw a truck through a building over on the Southside and damn near burned it down. Do you know anything about that?”
“Um… no, not really,” Nathan said, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. Tricia had his arm in a sling and it hurt whenever he moved it.
Bell paced around and his long black coat trailed him. “There was a lab in that building producing Diamond K. A lab we’ve been working very hard to find and then it gets served up to us by someone with the wherewithal to toss a truck from the street into a building. I can’t think of a whole lot of people who could do that. How about you?”
Nathan shook his head. “I wouldn’t even know how to begin doing something like that, Chief. It sounds damn complicated and we don’t even have a truck.”
The cop raised a finger and stuck it in his face. “If I find out you had anything to do with this, you could be facing a lot of jail time.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that. We were out here minding our own business when Dodger and a couple truckloads of his guys showed up to threaten us. Speaking of whom, we should probably let them out. I don’t think there’s a lot of air in that maintenance tunnel.”
The finger wagged at him again. “You better just watch your step, Teller. The last thing I need out here is a gang war over drugs.”
“Absolutely.”
They walked inside the cargo bay where a couple deputies stood by the hatch leading to the maintenance tunnel where they had left Dodger and his men. Eldridge had his hands on the wheel to open the hatch.
“What are you waiting for?” Chief Bell barked. “Get that thing open before I have to write reports describing how these chuckleheads drowned in a wave of crap.”
Eldridge spun the wheel and pulled the door open. A wave of stink so deep and foul rolled out of the tunnel that everyone took a step back, except for Chief Bell. He strode up to the hatch and stood off to one side.
“This is Chief Don Bell of the Bad Rock police. You all come out of there without your guns. If I see a gun I’m shooting the man carrying it. You understand?” He waved a hand in the air. “My God, that’s nasty. It smells just like the time the sewage plant had a pump fail during a rainstorm. The whole town smelled like this for a week.”
“I’ll see if I can get you a mask,” Eldridge said and moved toward the cargo bay door.
Dodger stumbled into the light first. Nathan took a step back when he got a good look at the crime boss covered head to toe in grime and filth. “Teller! You did this! I’m going to kill you!”
Chief Bell nodded at the deputy he had stationed on the other side of the door. Just as Dodger took a step toward Nathan the officer stepped forward with a stun wand and shocked him. His body stiffened and he collapsed, screaming and twitching in a puddle of waste. Bell leaned toward the hatch.
“Anyone else want to give me a problem? If you do, I’ll just lock up this hatch until you change your minds.”
A chorus of voices begged him not to and the men came out one at a time. Another deputy directed them to an area of the cargo bay cordoned off with plastic sheeting. Nathan saw ‘bots using hoses to rinse the men off before being offered jail uniforms.
He walked out into the sunlight and dropped down onto a dark green plastic shipping container. Tricia came over and sat beside him. He smiled at her. “How are you doing?”
She smiled back. “Pretty good, all things considered. This was a hell of a day.”
“Yeah. Can I tell you something crazy?”
She nodded.
“Despite everything we’ve been through, I’m glad you came.”
She squinted at him. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He took her in. She looked lovely with the morning sun in her green eyes. “I know, this isn’t what you signed on for and believe me, all of our jobs don’t go like this. Every once in a while, though, they go sideways. Having people around who can keep their head is a good thing.”
“Thank you.”
“It also doesn’t hurt that you can put us back together if we get hurt.”
“Sure.”
“And you’re ridiculously easy on the eyes.”
She blushed and shook her head. “You were doing really well right up to there, you know that?”
He shrugged. “I told you I’m terrible at talking to women.”
She laughed and slipped her hand in his. “I don’t really have anything else going on at the moment. Are you offering me a job?”
He shook his head and squeezed her hand. “Nope.”
Tricia let go of his hand, her eyes serious.
“I heard you have a rule against dating your boss,” said Nathan.
She turned back at him with a small smile. “I did say that.”
“I mean, you can have a permanent job here, if that’s what you want…”
“But?”
“But I was hoping you’d want something else instead.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Oh? And what’s that?”
He felt the heat in his cheeks rise. “You need me to say it?”
Tricia nodded, her smile widening.
“Well, me,” Nathan said. “I was hoping that we…”
She laughed and pulled him into a tight hug. “Hey, wait a minute. Do you even have a ship?”
“Oh, yeah. Well I have insurance and Duncan. That guy can fix anything. The Bandit will fly again.”
— «» —
The next morning, Nathan and his crew collected what little gear they had in Bad Rock and loaded it into Truck 12. He turned a
round and saw Cole grimacing at the shuttle. “I know you’re not crazy about flying in one of these things but it’s the only way up to the Corkscrew. Can you handle it?”
Cole sighed and held up his hands. “What else can I do? I want to go home and this is the way. Can we make the ride a little smoother?”
“Probably not,” he said and walked out of the truck, back toward the encampment.
Eldridge and Ari stood under the canopy holding hands. He wandered in and nodded to them. “Are we ready to go?”
“I think so,” Eldridge said. He turned back to Ari. “I still feel bad about leaving you here.”
She shrugged and nodded toward the wreck. “It’s all right. By the time you get back we’ll have tons of salvage ready to truck up. Without Turtle and Daryl slowing us down, we’ll get back on track.”
“That’s true but the mess from the waste tank is all over the inside of that thing.”
“Well, that’s for the ‘bots to worry about,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “It’s not like I’m heading in with a mop. They’ll decontaminate those sections. Just go back with Nathan and get this whole thing straightened out. We can still do this and get paid.”
“I’m worried about leaving you alone.”
“No need to worry. Fred is still here and you’re leaving me Scooter, right? Besides, Chief Bell said he’s going to have deputies stopping by. Dodger and his crew are all locked up and won’t be getting out anytime soon.”
“I guess.”
“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Nathan said, “but I’d like to be in the air in five.”
Eldridge gave him the stink eye. “Do you mind if we say goodbye?”
“I’ll leave you to it,” he said, smiling. “Wheels up in five, though, with or without you.”
“It’s my ship. I say when we leave.”
Nathan responded over his shoulder as he walked away. “It’s my ship now, at least until we get back to Earth. See you later, Ari.”
The Corkscrew broke orbit an hour later carrying Nathan, his crew, his ship and Eldridge. Marla stayed on the command deck with Bobby, one of Eldridge’s crew. Everyone else sat in the common room enjoying a rest.
“So what’s the plan when we get back home?” Cole said. He sat at the end of the large table.
Duncan held a hand up so Nathan wouldn’t answer and gestured to Eldridge. “This is your mess, kid. How are you going to fix it?”
Put on the spot, Eldridge leaned forward, putting his hands on the table. “The first thing I’m going to do is meet with Lewis and Molly and see how things got so screwed up. The guy doesn’t have a hard job. All he has to do is invoice the customer and make payments to the bank and the employees. I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding. Then I’m going to check in with Bao and see just how bad the situation is. I need to know that, so I can formulate a solution.”
“You should have a backup plan,” Nathan said. “If you do all that and find out things are bad, you’ll want to be prepared.”
“I’m sure Bao will be understanding. After all, the bank has a lot riding on this.”
“The bank seized your ship. That’s the first step toward making themselves whole. They’ll just sell it and leave you to go bankrupt.” The mood in the room became somber but Nathan continued. “You’re a nice guy Eldridge and you helped us out back in Bad Rock but there’s not a lot I can do for you. My ship is sitting in your cargo hold wrecked and unable to fly. I’ve got money problems of my own. I just want you to prepare yourself to hear bad news.”
Eldridge took the last swallow from his coffee. “We’ll figure something out.” He got up and walked over to the sink, dropping his mug in. “If you guys don’t need me for anything else, I’ve got some things below decks to take care of.”
They watched the young man walk away, shoulders slumped. Duncan turned back to Nathan. “That was good, what you said to him.”
“I might have been too hard on him.”
“No, he needed to hear it. He and Ari are smart but they’re too trusting. He needed a little dose of reality.”
— «» —
A couple hours later, Charlie found himself facing Eldridge down in the lower decks. “Anyway,” the boss said, “now we’re heading back to Earth to see what Lewis and Molly have been doing.” They leaned against a bin full of junk. The two of them were in one of the reclamation bays watching bits and pieces of the Athena Star feed into the big units that mashed them into steel or aluminum cubes. This section was for the common metals. The more exotic materials were dealt with in other bays.
“That’s quite a story,” Charlie said. The recycler toed a piece of aluminum trim that looked like it once adorned a flight of stairs back onto the conveyor belt leading to a compactor. “It’s hard to believe we could come out here to do something as simple as salvage a ship and end up involved with these organized crime guys.”
Eldridge came off the bin and circled the area. “You were down in Bad Rock those first few days when we arrived. Did you ever have any contact with those guys?”
“Who? The Syndicate guys? No, I don’t think so.”
“No one came around and offered you anything for some information? The union guys, maybe or Turtle and Daryl?”
Charlie shook his head and said, “No, I wasn’t down there long enough to really meet anyone. I just helped you guys set up the camp. Why? Did my name come up or something?”
Eldridge shook his head and kept circling the bay. He picked up a length of conduit and dropped it into the bin they had been leaning against. “No, nothing like that. I was just thinking, if I was Dodger, I would want some eyes up here keeping watch on things. You know, because they had the ground covered. Just makes sense.”
Charlie stared him in the eyes for a long moment and then broke his gaze. “Yeah, I get what you’re saying but no, I never spoke with anyone from Bad Rock. Like I said, I was busy.”
Eldridge nodded but fixed Charlie in his gaze. “Right, that’s what you said.” The air between them took on weight as they stared at one another. “I just remember you complaining on the trip out here about being stuck on the ship and then when we got to Bad Rock you had an opportunity to stay planetside but you let Fred do it and came back up here.”
“Are you accusing me of something?” Charlie felt himself heating up now, getting a little upset with the conversation.
Eldridge shook his head. “No, nothing like that Charlie. I just want to make sure I can trust everyone working for me. We’re part of a team out here, all on our own. We have to have each other’s back because no one else will. The temptation to take a couple credits for passing along information could be strong. I just want to make sure we’re all clear on that.”
Charlie swallowed hard and was silent for a moment before answering. “I understand what you’re saying but you don’t have to worry about me. I just want to do my job.”
Eldridge gave him one more glance and then nodded, holding out his hand. Charlie took it and they shook. “Thanks, Charlie. I’m glad I can count on you.” He looked around at the bins full of junk waiting for recycling. “Keep on this stuff. We’re going to need some cash when we get home so this is all getting sold in bulk when we arrive.”
“Will do.”
Eldridge walked around a big metal container and exited the recycling bay.
Charlie took out the mobi Eldridge had issued him when they had started out on this job. He called up its history and saw the calls he had made to Turtle. He sighed. Eldridge would fire him if he knew about them and the money he’d accepted from Turtle.
He walked over to the conveyor leading into the compactor, just past the final sensor that checked for non-aluminum metals, and dropped his mobi onto it. He watched as it rode the conveyor into the open maw and mixed in with the other pieces to be compacted into cubes.
Chapter 26
They arrived at a space station complex in Earth orbit a few days later. Eldridge complained about the fuel that had been burned making the trip and Nathan smiled. He had exactly the right attitude he should have as the owner of a business. The young man and Duncan had spent much of the journey talking and it seemed to be having a good effect.
They docked the Corkscrew at Hightower One, an orbital station capable of handling large vessels. Eldridge made arrangements to unload the scrap and put some coin in his pocket.
From the command deck, Nathan saw several freighters having their cargo containers removed by enormous ‘bots capable of gripping them and using thrusters to move them. The containers would be cross loaded to other freighters to move on to their final destinations or loaded onto shuttles for delivery to Earth bound destinations. It occurred to him that if he couldn’t get the Blue Moon Bandit repaired he would probably end up with a job flying one of those immense space trucks. The thought gave him a chill up his spine and he resolved to do whatever he had to in order to keep the business running.
“I’d hate being stuck on one of those,” Duncan said from over his shoulder. Nathan wondered if his engineer had developed the ability to read minds.
“Did you and Richie have a chance to complete the preliminary report on the Bandit?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m here for. I sent it to your contact link but I’ll give you the quick and dirty version.” They moved to the map table and sat down. “My estimate is about five-hundred and fifty-thousand credits and three months to get her flying again.”
Nathan almost dropped the mug of coffee in his hand. “Really? That much?”
Duncan nodded and sighed. “Yeah, that much. Really. There’s some structural damage we’re going to have to deal with.”
“I thought the runway arresting system prevented damage.”
“It did. The friable concrete at the end of the runway saved us a ton of credits by bleeding off most of the kinetic energy from the crash landing. The cost is pretty much due to the initial impact in the sky and the damage done by that ridiculous rescue ‘bot.”
Bad Rock Beat Down (The Milky Way Repo Series Book 2) Page 28
