Ganked In Space

by N M Tatum

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sonic Shuttle

  Another job. Reggie couldn’t lie that he was ecstatic about that. It’s what he’d hoped for when he signed the Notches up for the first one. Short turnaround. It may not have been nearly as much pay as they should have gotten, but it was a promise. A promise of a reputation that would make it all worthwhile. They’d earn their bones.

  And they had. Sweet mother of god, they had. But he also couldn’t lie that he would have liked a little time to rest before jumping on to the next gig. They needed to unwind after the horror show they just went through. They needed to sleep. To eat a mountain of cheeseburgers. To game. To just do nothing. But that was the grind, now. They couldn’t afford to take time off.

  Also, there was the new addition to the crew; they needed to find out what was going on there. No doubt they wouldn’t have survived, let alone completed the job without Sam, but she was a subcontractor. Maybe a more formal arrangement is needed.

  Reggie couldn’t think about any of that at the moment. He needed to wash off the bug goo.

  “Dibs on the shower,” he said as they boarded Sonic.

  “Shit,” Joel muttered.

  “You guys only have one shower?” Sam asked.

  Reggie’s face grew hot. “Yeah, I guess I should have offered it to you, seeing as you’re a guest and all.”

  Sam punched him in the arm as she passed. “I’m not a guest. I’m an employee. Take your fucking shower. You stink.”

  “Dibs on next,” Joel said.

  “Fuck you,” Sam said.

  The laughter came easily between them. Even standing in the kitchen, still caked in bug slime, eating a box of stale crackers and waiting for the shower, they were able to laugh and joke and unwind. Over the next two hours, each of them showered, changed and ate. Joel put on a pot of celebratory coffee. He would have popped open a bottle of champagne or poured them all a shot of bourbon, but coffee was the only beverage aside from water that they had aboard.

  Sam produced a flask of whiskey from her boot. She poured a shot into her coffee and offered the flask to the others.

  “Not gonna say no to boot whiskey,” Joel said as he took it. He poured a shot and passed it on.

  Reggie did the same. Cody smelled the lip of the flask and winced; he wasn’t much for liquor, but he also wasn’t one to pass up a celebration.

  Reggie stood and raised his glass. “To our first job and the many more to come. And to Sam, for pulling our butts out of the fire.”

  “Cheers,” Cody said and sipped.

  “Hear, hear,” Joel said. Caught up in the moment, he threw back his entire cup of coffee, and then promptly spit it out. “Hot!” he yelled, his burnt tongue dangling from his mouth. “So hot.”

  Sam laughed and then sipped her spiked coffee. She savored the burn in the back of her throat. “Don’t mention it, guys. It was fun. Also, don’t forget to pay me.” She smiled and flashed a playful wink. She was serious about getting paid, but not serious enough yet that she needed to apply any real pressure. She had a sense that the ever-honorable Reggie was good for it.

  “Fun?” Joel said. “You thought that was fun? Do you also think walking across hot coals is fun? Or genital mutilation?”

  The guys all froze at Joel’s last comment, holding their breath like poison had just been pumped into the room.

  Sam cast Joel a death stare, and then shifted it around to the others. A tense silence hung between them.

  Then she cracked a smile and laughed. “It’s okay, guys. You can say ‘genitals’ in front of me.”

  The tension immediately dissolved.

  “But, if you don’t mind,” Joel said, “I’d prefer it if you didn’t say ‘genitals.’ It’s weird.”

  Sam playfully threw a rag at Joel, who swatted it away. “Why don’t you shotgun some more coffee?” she teased.

  Reggie and Cody joined in as they all traded barbs and ribbed each other. They laughed like they hadn’t in months. The pain of losing the VRE championships, the pressure to find a job, the tension between the three of them when Reggie signed them all up for the pest control business—it had all built up to an unspoken heaviness. It felt good to put it down for a while.

  It had always been the three of them, but now, with the addition of this stranger, things were changing. Reggie stood again, not for a toast, but for a proposal.

  “Guys, I have an idea,” he said.

  Joel groaned. “Is it another business idea? Because I’m still recovering from your last one.”

  “It is, actually,” Reggie said. “But I think you’ll like this one. I admit I got us in over our heads with that job. But we proved we can handle it. With a little help. Subcontracting Sam was the best business decision we’ve made so far.” He caught her eye and held it a moment. His face grew hot. “I think we should formalize the arrangement. I propose bringing Sam on board as a full member of the team.”

  Joel and Cody both pursed their lips in thoughtful expressions. Sam, however, seemed genuinely surprised—as much as she would allow another person to see. In their short time together, Reggie had figured out that she was the sort of person to keep her emotions hidden. She was not one to be vulnerable, especially in front of people she barely knew.

  Reggie himself was the most emotional of all of them. His voice cracked a bit as he spoke, and his cheeks flushed. “So?” he said, looking from one face to another to another. “What do you think?”

  Cody pushed his glasses up his nose. “I can only see positive outcomes from such a move.”

  Joel seemed more reserved in his judgment. He stroked his chin like a philosopher as he studied her.

  “I’m game,” Sam said unceremoniously. “I’m between gigs at the moment.”

  Joel finally nodded and stood. “I’ll make more coffee.” He walked back to the kitchen to prepare another round of celebratory drinks.

  “Do you wanna give her…?” Cody asked, a question in his eyes.

  Reggie nodded, swiping his hand through his hair to hide his nervousness. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too.”

  Without having to say it out loud, he knew they were thinking the same thing. It was really the only way to make the living arrangements work.

  Reggie proceeded to give Sam a tour of Sonic as the other two went to make room for Sam in the living quarters. It was a basic ship, and Reggie was apologetic about its shabby appearance and outdated systems. Not that Sam minded; she wasn’t the galactic high roller that the guys seemed to think she was. She’d seen the inside of more shit-can ships than she could remember. And she’d puked on the side of more dives than she could count.

  She didn’t need much to get by, and she certainly wasn’t one to put on airs. If anything, the state of the ship put her at ease. Every ship she’d been on recently was purely utilitarian. It got a person from point A to point B and didn’t much matter what it did in between. But Sonic was more than a tool: it was a home. And it felt like one.

  “Stop qualifying everything, Reggie,” she said to him as they left the cockpit. “The ship is perfect.”

  Reggie appreciated the sentiment. He just hoped she still believed it after she saw the living quarters.

  Joel and Cody were frantically cleaning when Reggie and Sam entered the room. Their efforts had only made the mess worse since they’d knocked over a garbage bin in their haste. The floor was littered with dirty clothes and food wrappers. Dirty dishes were stacked on every shelf. A musk hung in the air that could only be described as ‘guy.’

  Joel and Cody froze like they’d just been caught in the act of robbing the place.

  Reggie grew stiff next to Sam. “Okay, so, listen…here’s the thing.” Stiffly, he tried to smile. “I’ve been trying to find a way to bring this up. It’s just…not an easy topic to broach. But if you’re going to live here, you need to have a certain level of comfort around us. I don’t know how to put this, but...”

  Sam’s face grew hot. She’d been waiting f
or this to come up. It always did. The last regular gig she had, after four months of working security for some shipping bigwig, her co-workers finally asked her their burning question. “What’s the deal with the mask?”

  She had at least gotten the chance to start that job. There were others that never got off the ground because of it. Some people couldn’t look past it. Figuratively; she didn’t want them to literally look past it. That was one of the reasons she wore it.

  Joel had asked her once about the mask but didn’t press the matter. Only a few times in her past had she actually given a reason, but those who had asked for one never accepted it. They never believed her, and she never cared enough to fight to validate her own truth to strangers, so, as far as she cared, the sooner they could get it out of the way, the better.

  She liked these guys. She could see herself hanging around for a while. But if they didn’t want her to because of the mask, then she’d bounce as soon as they paid her.

  “Get it over with,” she told Reggie, who wobbled awkwardly from foot to foot. “Just say it.”

  “Your room doesn’t have a door.” He shut his eyes tight and winced like he was about to be punched.

  The heat left Sam’s cheeks. “What?”

  Reggie gestured to the whole of the room. Sam hadn’t seen past the dirty clothes before. There were three bunks in the long room. They were somewhat separated by dressers and end tables, informal barriers to give the illusion of separation. She followed Reggie’s finger to an open doorway at the far end of the space, which connected to a separate, very small room.

  “That’s the only proper bedroom on the ship,” he told her. “Every Sunday, we hold a PVP Return to Order tournament, and the winner gets the bedroom for the week. With you coming on, we sort of automatically agreed that we’d take this big room and give you the bedroom. Problem is, it doesn’t have a door. We can hang a sheet there as soon as we wash up some laundry, but still, the privacy will be minimal.”

  “Plus, Reggie farts in his sleep,” Joel said.

  “A lot,” Cody added.

  “Dude!” Reggie yelled.

  “And sheets do not provide an adequate smell or sound barrier,” Cody said.

  Reggie picked up a wad of dirty socks and threw them at Cody. “Shut up.”

  Sam laughed, partly because farts are funny, but mostly from relief. She knew they would ask someday about the mask, but that day wasn’t now. She didn’t need to exert the energy trying to explain herself.

  They spent the next hour making the room livable. It was in no way clean, but it would do for now. They strung a rope across Sam’s door and hung a sheet over it.

  For some reason, that simple gesture brought a tenderness to her throat.

  She had never had much. She could count on one hand the times she had a place to call her own. And really, only one of those places she’d actually considered a home. This sheet was more than just a stained garment (she vowed never to ask where the stains came from); it was like putting her name on the mailbox, claiming a home.

  Exhaustion finally claimed them. They climbed into their bunks, which were uncomfortable by conventional standards—Army surplus cots with ratty sheets, tattered blankets, and flat pillows. But it was all they had and, after the long job, the beds were enough. After everything, it felt good to be onboard the Sonic, the ship they called home.

  “Goodnight, Cody,” Reggie said in a rhythmic, sing-song voice. “Goodnight, Joel. Goodnight, Sam.”

  Joel rolled over and pulled his pillow over his ear. “Shut the fuck up, Reggie.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sonic Shuttle

  “Welcome to the first official briefing of Intergalactic Pest Control,” Reggie said proudly.

  Cody raised his hand. “Question: what the hell are you talking about?”

  Reggie paced the length of the kitchen, chomping on his breakfast bar. “The first job was rushed. We didn’t plan properly. Now that we’re successful professionals, we should act like it. Like holding briefings each morning. We can update each other on the day’s business. Make suggestions. Stuff like that.”

  “I have a suggestion,” Joel said. “We should not have official briefings if we’re not all wearing pants.”

  Reggie looked down. “I am wearing pants.”

  “I’m not,” Joel said, standing to reveal his boxers and bare legs. “I came in here for breakfast, not a meeting.”

  “I second that suggestion,” Sam said as she sat at the table. “We shouldn’t do anything until Joel has pants on.”

  Joel shrugged as he shoved a spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth. “I withdraw my suggestion on account of not wanting to walk all the way back to my room to get pants.”

  Cody poured himself a cup of coffee. “Enough about pants. What’s this new job?”

  Reggie bounced on his heels at the question. “Our second job. Feels like a real milestone, doesn’t it?”

  No one answered.

  “Well, it does to me. Anyway, the job is pretty much the same as the last one. An infested space station. The place has been abandoned. We get in, clean it up, get paid.”

  “Because history shows us that it’s just that simple,” Joel said through a mouthful of oatmeal.

  Sam leaned back in her chair and laced her fingers behind her head. “We’re going to need to stock up on weapons and supplies. We burned through all the stuff we got off Steady. Pulse rifles are dead. Grenades are gone. We need new batteries for the personal energy shields.”

  Reggie sat down, the celebratory nature of his first briefing having died on the vine. “You think Steady can hook us up again?”

  Sam shook her head. “Not likely. I burned the only favor I had with him. He’s just as likely to shoot us on sight if we step foot in his place again.” She scrolled through her mental Rolodex of lowlifes and back-alley arms dealers. “I know a place we can go. I have a few connections there. I at least know a guy who knows a guy who can get us what we need.”

  “Where is it?” Cody asked. “I can plug it into the nav computer.”

  Sam seemed reluctant to say. “Torex.”

  The name was like a bucket of ice water dumped over the guys’ heads.

  “Torex?” Cody said. “That place is a notorious hellhole. It’s got the highest murder rate of any planet in the quadrant. Fifty people were murdered on Torex just as I said that.”

  “No way,” Joel agreed. “We’ll get killed trying to resupply for the job that will probably get us killed. That just feels too sad. I can’t go out like that.”

  “We tried using black market goods before,” Reggie said, shaking his head. “It didn’t work out.”

  Sam leaned forward, planting her elbows on the table. “That’s because you didn’t have me. People like Steady and everyone on Torex can smell noobs like you a mile away. They’ll screw you and not think twice about it. But with me, they’ll watch themselves. They know me. Those who don’t know me know my reputation. I can get us a deal once we find the right people.” She stood, adopting a more cautious tone. “But you’re right to be wary of Torex. It’s one of the roughest planets in the galaxy. Even with my reputation, there will be people looking to stab us in the back just because they like stabbing backs. The market there changes regularly. Dealers worth knowing come and go, so it will take me a while to navigate the scene.”

  Reggie crossed his arms. His shoulders tensed. “Do we have any other options?”

  Sam shook her head. “In order to get the supplies, fuel, and repairs we need with the money we have from the last job, we need to go to Torex. Legitimate markets are too expensive.”

  “All right,” Reggie said reluctantly. “Program the nav computer for Torex, I guess.”

  Cody accessed the nav computer from his wristcom and inputted the coordinates. “All set. We should enter Torex’s orbit in about two hours.”

  They finished their breakfast, although the Notches weren’t as hungry as before as they prepared to touch down on the most d
angerous planet in the quadrant.

  Sonic trembled as it punched through Torex’s atmosphere. Even the color of its sky was uninviting—a pale yellow, like the cheeks of a man dying from cirrhosis. Torex was first settled as a mining colony two hundred years before. They dug deeply and quickly, nearly hollowing out the planet. So much mineral dust was kicked up into the air that they stained the sky this urine color.

  Once the mines dried up, the company funding the operation pulled out, leaving hundreds of thousands of people behind to sort out living on a dead planet. Torex descended into anarchy immediately. Thievery and rampant murder eventually leveled off when the Mother Lode started, and the economy became more formalized, but formalized in no way equated civilized. The economy on Torex was fueled by competition, which often took the form of murder.

  Sonic set down in a dusty airfield that bore a close resemblance to a junkyard. It was lined with a chain link fence, and most of the docked ships looked like they’d been there for years and could no longer be moved.

  Sam stopped the Notches at the top of exit ramp. “Listen, guys, this place is a real murder hole. You need to stick close to me, and,” she looked at Joel, “you need to keep your mouths shut. A wiseass comment is all it takes to get dead around here.” She jabbed her finger into his chest. “You hear me?”

  Joel threw his arms up defensively. “Why you singling me out? Cody’s the mouthy one.”

  Sam sighed as she marched down the ramp. “Let’s go.”

  The Notches followed in silence. Not so much because they were heeding her warning, but because they were too nervous to speak. They walked through the airfield casting cautious looks over their shoulders. Joel marveled at the ships they passed. Most were practically falling into pieces and begging to be tinkered with. He could spend months in the airfield alone, just taking those rusted heaps apart and building something magnificent.

  He caught himself falling behind and hurried to catch up, fearful of Sam’s scolding if she caught him dawdling.

  The airfield was secured with a barely standing gate, guarded by an old man in a tattered uniform. He appeared to be sleeping on his stool when the Notches approached him. Either that, or he was dead.