by Chris Fox
“Keep trying,” Carl snapped. He took the core from Roddy and shoved it back into Chip’s hands. “We’ve only got….” He looked to Tanny.
“Thirty-seven minutes,” Tanny said.
Chip whacked the case of the core against the organ cloner, drawing a wince from Tanny as the two expensive pieces of equipment produced a hard, plastic crack. He checked the display. “Still nothing.”
Tanny took Carl by the arm, pulling him away from Chip’s side. “We have another issue,” she said in a low voice.
Carl slumped in visible relief. “Great! Not enough was going wrong. I was beginning to think the universe had stopped hating us.”
“I saw Uncle Earl and Jimmy out in the concourse.”
“What are they—never mind. It’s Chip, isn’t it?”
“It has to be,” Tanny replied. “Why else would they be out here? This isn’t exactly the kind of thing my family does.”
“Earl and Jimmy, huh…?” Carl’s eyes drifted away from her, but not to anywhere in particular.
“Carl?” Tanny asked, waving a hand in front of him. “Carl… CARL?” She snapped her fingers in front of his face.
Carl blinked and focused, looking Tanny right in the eye. “New plan,” he said, including Roddy, Chip, and Mriy in what had been a private conversation a moment ago. “Chip, Roddy, get that piece of junk bolted up good as new—I don’t care if it’s scrap, just make it look right. When I send Mort back, let him box it up for you; Roddy, you’ll deliver a case to Lorstram, but leave it with his butler and get your ass out of there. Promise we’ll be back tomorrow for our cut once the heat dies down.”
“What’s going on?” Tanny asked. “I’m missing something.”
Carl surprised her with a quick kiss as he walked past. “Where were Earl and Jimmy?”
“We saw them head into a sushi bar on the concourse, second level, about twenty minutes ago. Carl, what’re you planning?”
“Killing two birds with one stone,” he replied. “I’ll be back by 21:30, 22:00 at the latest. If I’m not, come up with a Plan C, will ya? I’d ask you along, but your family’s always liked me better.”
Mort fell into step beside Carl as soon as Carl beckoned. It wasn’t that Mort was the obedient sort; he was just bored. There were reasons that the only wizards who felt at home in space were second-rate star-drive mechanics. The restriction of needing fully-functioning science all around to survive made any satisfying sort of magic potentially suicidal. Carl counted on his curiosity to drag him by the nose.
“Mort, we’re scrapping the plan,” Carl said as they walked. Mort’s long legs kept up easily with Carl’s manic pace. He always felt a bit more alive when his life was dangling by a thread between two groups prone to homicide when offended. Thoughts lined up in droves to come to the forefront of his brain, knowing it might be their last chance to be heard.
Mort grunted and tossed an empty soda in the waste reclaim. “Didn’t want to say anything, but it was a shit plan anyway. Too much rode on that nitwit cousin of Tanny’s and his techno-gizmo.”
“Which you zorched,” said Carl.
Mort shrugged.
“Intentionally?”
“Bah,” Mort replied, waving away the notion. “Who builds gizmos so delicate you can’t work a little incorporeal telekinetic defenestration around them?”
“Apparently ZettaTech,” Carl replied. “But that’s not important anymore. What I need is for you to find our target and get a good look at him.”
“Okay…” Mort said. “And then what?”
“Just get a good look at the case he’s carrying, then let him go on his way,” Carl said. “You go back to the med-bay and fake up one just like it. Use any magic you have to but… keep it away from Chip, just in case. Lock up Chip’s dead computer core inside, make sure no one can open it, and give it to Roddy.”
“… and then?” Mort asked.
Carl shrugged. “Then you’re done. Grab a beer, head back to the Mobius, go get laid… whatever.”
“Sounds easy enough,” Mort said.
“Two floors up, mark’s going to be headed for a transport departing from Dock Seven,” Carl said. “You’ve got about ten minutes to get there.”
Mort gave a sloppy imitation of a naval salute. “Aye, aye, captain.”
They parted ways at the door to the under-used stairwell that mainly saw use when the lifts were out of order. Mort probably needed the exercise, Carl figured, even if the lifts would have been less conspicuous. If station security was nitpicking for things to check out, they’d have their hands too full to follow up on them soon enough.
As it turned out, there were three places on the second level of the concourse that served sushi. There was, however, only one that was currently serving it to two members of the Rucker crime family. Earl and Jimmy stood out in a crowd—well, Earl did at least. Tanny’s uncle was getting on in years, but still had the same brick-wall silhouette that had made him a feared enforcer in his youth. His neck started just below the ears and headed straight for his shoulders. The chopsticks in his hands looked like sewing needles. Jimmy was a head taller than Carl and mostly muscle, but lacked the imposing width of his father. He didn’t even bother with utensils, popping little morsels of rice-packed fish substitute into his mouth in pairs.
A thin young man in a tidy suit greeted Carl at the entrance. “Just yourself today, sir?”
Carl pointed past him. “I’m with those guys.”
The quiet man interposed himself as Carl attempted to walk past. “I’m sorry, sir, but those gentlemen did not indicate they were expecting a guest.”
Carl stood on his toes and looked over the host. “Jimmy! Uncle Earl!”
“Carl!” a jovial voice boomed. “Hey, little guy, let my nephew by. He’s all right.”
Carl clapped the host on the back as he worked his way around the polite sushi sentry. “Thought I saw you guys earlier. Not like you two can hide in a crowd, am I right?”
“Hell you doing out here, Ramsey?” Jimmy asked as he reached and dragged a chair over from a nearby table.
Carl gave a nod and wink of apology to the couple at the table Jimmy had raided as he sat down. “I’m a working man. I get all over. What brings you guys out to this fuel depot? Little small-time for you guys, isn’t it?”
“Family matter,” Earl replied. “You know Sara and Bart’s youngest?”
Carl frowned a moment for show. “Charlie, right? That little pipsqueak who was hitting on my sister at the wedding.”
Earl and Jimmy both laughed and Carl joined in. “Trying to be a big man in his suit and all. What was he, thirteen, fourteen?” Earl asked. “Anyway, he ran off with something we gotta get back, pronto.”
“He in some sort of trouble?”
Earl made a sour face. “That princess? Don’ll dress him down a little, his parents might cut him off from the omni for a week or two. What’re ya gonna do? He’s still just a kid.”
“Why, you know where we can find him?” Jimmy asked, narrowing his gaze at Carl.
Carl grinned and pointed a finger back in Jimmy’s direction. “You got me. Charlie showed up out here calling himself ‘Chip.’ Tania called him in to help us on a job; guess he was looking for pocket money of his own. Can’t blame the kid for trying. Didn’t know he was lifting stuff from the family though.”
“Where’s he at right now?” Earl asked, the jovial tone faded from his voice.
“Med-bay,” Carl replied, popping a sushi roll from Jimmy’s plate into his mouth. “Got jacked practically the minute he set foot on the station. Kid’s gonna pull through, but he got messed up good. If this place didn’t have a modern med facility, he’d have bled out.”
“Shit,” said Jimmy. “They must have—”
“Yup,” Carl confirmed, choking down the pilfered bite. It was zero percent real food, near as he could tell. Leave it to Tanny’s family to blunder into a synthevore sushi place. “My crew took care of the small-timers that did the j
ob, but I can’t touch their boss. He’s the one who ended up with the rig Charlie borrowed.”
“This boss… he got a name?” Earl asked.
Carl smiled. “Lorstram.”
The butler scurried over, running on all fours with one hand clutching the case. Elliot Lorstram gave it a puzzled look, then transferred the same look to his butler. “Jopok, what’s this doing here?”
“Sir, the laaku from Captain Ramsey’s crew dropped this off just now,” Jopok replied, rising to stand erect and proper.
Lorstram spread his hands as he looked at the case on his coffee table. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Sir, I was given that there was an emergency alteration to Captain Ramsey’s plan,” Jopok replied, stepping back. “The courier was held over, so they switched cases with him. He’s sending his ship’s wizard by in the morning to unlock it.”
“In the morning?” Lorstram shouted. He jabbed a finger at Jopok. “Get on the comm to station security. Tell them to lock down Ramsey’s ship. I don’t want that—”
The lights went out. The ubiquitous hum of station life support that faded into the background was eerie in its absence.
“Jopok,” Lorstram snapped. “Find out what the hell just happened? I want maintenance up here in five minutes, or it’s someone’s ass out an airlock.”
There was a hollow thump. The subtle concussive blast passed through Lorstram’s chest and rapped against his feet through the floor. The UV and visible light filters on the windows were shut down, allowing the blue glare from Alnilam to wash over everything in the room. The reflection off all the glass surfaces in the room was blinding.
“You Elliot Lorstram?” an impossibly deep voice rumbled from the doorway.
“Who the hell do you—” his reply was cut off by a blast from a stun pistol. Lorstram fell to the floor convulsing.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’” the voice responded.
“Jopok,” Lorstram croaked as he struggled to his feet, pulling himself up by the cushion of his lounge chair. Another stun blast dropped him to the floor.
“Beat it, fuzzballs,” a second voice snapped. Jopok and his coworker did not need to be told twice, and the two laaku servants scrambled out into the halls. The door boomed shut behind them.
“What do you want with me?” Lorstram whined.
“You got something that don’t belong to you,” the deeper voice said. “A computer core that belongs to my brother.”
“Your… who?”
“Don Rucker.”
“Jesus, no!” Lorstram shouted. “I did not steal from the Ruckers! You’ve got the wrong—”
“Then what’s this?” the other one asked.
Though the muscles of his neck were still tingling, Lorstram turned enough to see a small, sleek computer core on the table. It was right in the spot where the case had been just a moment earlier. There was no sign of the case. “That’s not mine… I’ve never seen it before.”
“I hear that a lot in my line of work,” the deeper voice said. Lorstram was lifted from the floor by the back of his collar, pulling the front so close he couldn’t breathe. An anvil-sized fist slammed into his stomach. “But I heard about enough out of you. You’re gonna hurt before you stop hurtin’. Charlie Dyson ain’t blood, but he’s still family.”
There was no security lock preventing the Mobius from departing. They had traffic-control clearance to leave. Mort, Mriy, and Roddy were all inside, packed and ready to go, along with their newest crew member. Carl stood on the cargo ramp with Tanny, saying goodbye.
“It was good seeing you again, Tania,” Earl said, wrapping his arms around his niece. “You oughtta patch things up with your dad, come home once in a while.”
“Soon as he admits he’s wrong,” Tanny replied.
“Jimmy-boy,” said Carl. “You put a ring on that Zephra of yours, I’ll see if I can wrangle her home for the wedding.”
“Deal,” said Jimmy with a smirk.
“You guys get back to Mars; tell Don I’m still looking out for his little girl,” Carl said, holding up a hand in a wave as he reached for the button to close the ramp. There was a sharp pain in his ribs as Tanny elbowed him in the side. “I’m… being… polite,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Tell Bart and Sara I’ll look out for Chip,” Tanny shouted over the noise from the hydraulics.
“Best of luck, kids,” Earl shouted back just before the door thumped shut.
Tanny preceded Carl up the metal mesh stairway and into the ship’s common room. The whole crew was there.
“Well, that went about as well as a total bust can go,” said Carl. “Chip, we’re docking half your share and splitting it until you’ve paid off this job.”
Chip’s eyes went wide. “But… but I… Mort was the one who fried my rig.”
“And you’re lucky Uncle Earl’s blaming Lorstram for that,” Carl replied. “If you hadn’t gotten yourself opened like a hooked fish in some side corridor, Mort wouldn’t have needed to use magic getting it back.”
“No freakin’ way,” Chip said. “It’s going to take months to pay off twenty-five on a half-cut.”
Carl sighed. “Yeah. Can’t do it. If I docked someone every time they fucked up a job I’d need to hire an accountant full-time. We’ve got a spare bunk. Haven’t had a tech-wrangler on board since Davie screwed us and left.”
“He lasted longer than that cybernetic eye girl,” Roddy said.
“She gave me the willies,” Mort said. “Would have been nice to have kept Joshua around longer. Poor, poor Joshua…”
“You guys are just messing with me, right?” Chip asked.
Tanny shook her head.
“It’s okay,” Carl said. “I swear, Mort’s checked it out and everything: your new bunk isn’t cursed.”
“Well, aside from the fact that you’re one of us now,” Tanny said.
“Speaking of which,” said Carl. “Tanny, let’s get out of this backwater and go find something that pays.”
Find out more at www.jsmorin.com/js-morins-books/black-ocean/
Star Mage Exile
J.J. Green
1
Carina slung her Jensen 31 across her back and crawled beneath the remains of a desk. She had to bend low to avoid snagging the weapon on broken wood. The door to the room was slightly ajar, and from outside came the whispers and hisses of pulse slugs and the stamp of running, booted feet.
She hated hiding in the middle of a firefight but if she didn’t do something soon, it would be all over for her and her merc band, the Black Dogs.
Easing into a spot where she was hidden from view, she bit on the fingers of her silicon mesh glove, pulling it off. She dropped the glove and worked on the other until both her hands were free. Removing her protective gear was reckless, but she needed bare fingers to tell if the wood splinters from the desk were real. If they weren’t, the Cast would not work.
Of course, casting brought its own risks. She faced slavery and torture if anyone found out what she was about to do. Not for the first time, she wondered whether being a mage was more of a curse than a blessing. On the other hand, saving her and her merc buddies’ lives would be a definite benefit.
Someone burst in and the door banged against the wall as it flew open. Carina heard the fizz of a pulse round and a body hitting the floor. She peeked from underneath the desk. A fellow merc was lying flat on his stomach and facing away from her, a smoking hole in his neck at the weak point where his helmet connected to his armor. The man trembled once then was still.
Though she couldn’t see his face, she recognized the dead man. It was the latest recruit, his new career cut short by the suicide mission they’d been sent on.
Another figure ran in. Carina saw the calves and boots of one of the attackers. She shrank backward and lifted her Jensen, resting her finger on the trigger. If the soldier looked under the desk, he would receive a pulse round in his face. But the legs turned and left, and she heard his fo
otsteps running up the stairs to the next level. It was a lucky escape, but her luck wouldn’t last much longer.
She picked up a splinter of wood from the desk and rubbed it between her fingertips. She peered closely at the fibrous strands then closed her eyes to concentrate on their texture. The wood fibers were fine but not fine enough, and they were too smooth. The wood was fake. She threw down the splinter in disgust.
Her canister of base elixir was missing only one essential element: wood. The real stuff had proven hard to find on this desert planet. Of course, even if she found some natural wood to add to the elixir, it was no guarantee she would be successful. There had to be fifty or more enemy soldiers in the embassy. She’d never cast at so many, but she had to try.
Crawling out from under the desk, Carina scanned the room. Before it had been blown apart, the place had been luxurious. Some kind of animal skin buffed to a fine sheen had covered the walls, though now it hung in tatters. A delicate translucent mineral, intricately carved, had supplied the window lattices. Broken pieces of it were sprayed over the floor.
The room must have belonged to a high-up embassy official, maybe even the Matahman ambassador—the kind of official to own real wood artifacts.
The sounds of the struggle for possession of the embassy were growing louder. Fighting was going on in the stories above and below. Skirting the body of the fallen recruit, Carina closed the door and went over to a cabinet. The door was secured, but a single pulse from her Jensen melted the lock. She levered the door open with the muzzle.
Reaching inside, she riffled through bottles of the local liquor, beakers, hard copies of documents, expensive-looking jars of some kind of local food or ointment, and boxes of different sizes. Carina pulled out the boxes and tried to open them, but they were fastened shut in a way she couldn’t figure out—possibly DNA or electronic locks.
