by Rachel Aukes
“None taken. I’ll make it a priority not to get hacked.”
Throttle didn’t stop by her room to change. She wore the same clothes that she’d worn before becoming a marshal. The only difference was that she had a badge now. With two holsters and four sheaths, she looked like any other pirate. The funny thing about the Ross system: it could be hard to tell pirates and Peacekeepers apart.
As she walked, Punch joined her. She’d loaned him a chime suit that had belonged to Birk—she recognized every ding and scratch on the chest plate—and seeing it worn again brought back memories that tightened her throat. She shook them off by shooting Punch a look. “I’ll need that back when you’re done with it.”
“Of course. I can even send it back with your specialist as soon as the Spirit is up and running.”
She waved him off. “You’ll probably need it to return that ship back to its rightful owners.”
“What ship?”
“The one you left on Hiraeth.”
“Oh, that ship?” He chuckled. “That was just some wreck. If you think that thing could still fly, you’re crazier than me. Nah, I hitched a ride on a cargo hauler. The mechanic owed me a favor after I let him off a drug charge a while back.”
Throttle paused. “Why’d you lie?”
He shrugged. “I guess it’s just another old habit of mine.”
She wagged a finger at him. “Don’t.” Rather than continuing to scold him, she blew him off and walked away. Her temper simmered just below the surface. While she certainly didn’t trust Punch, knowing that lying came so naturally to him made her wonder what other stories he’d fed her.
At the airlock, she found Finn and Sylvian kissing. They broke when Throttle approached. Sylvian turned to leave, but Throttle grabbed her by the arm. “Be careful. He’s not one of us,” she said quietly.
Sylvian met her gaze for a brief moment before she gave a simple nod. “I will.” The specialist then walked off with Punch.
“Everything okay?” Finn asked while Throttle watched the pair head to the cargo bay.
“I’ll be okay once this whole thing is over, and East is no longer wreaking havoc on the Ross system.” She turned to face him and found him wearing even more weapons than her. “I see you’re ready.”
“I’d rather be overprepared, though I don’t anticipate this station has more than a skeleton crew. After all, it’s a chop shop. It’s not Jade-8.”
She gave a dry chuckle. “Sure. What could go wrong?”
Her hand hovered over the switch to open the door, even though the light above them flashed green, signaling that a secure connection had been made.
“Ready?” she asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” Finn said.
She inhaled deeply and pressed her hand to the panel. The door opened. At least a half-dozen Jaders stood before them, and every single one of them had a rifle aimed at the pair.
Chapter Seventeen
“Whoa there, people,” Throttle said while keeping her hands in the air. “We’re Jaders just like you. I’m Halit.” She used her first name in case these Jaders had heard of the trouble a ship captain named “Throttle” had caused on Jade-8. “And this is my partner, Finn. We work for Skully Pete.” The lie tasted salty, and she hoped the ragged men standing before her bought it.
A man at the center of the group stepped forward. A deep scar weaved across his face, giving him a permanent sneer. His teeth were so yellowed, they were brown. Like the others, he wore tattered clothing that looked damp with sweat. The temperature was so high, Throttle could feel droplets already forming on her forehead, though having rifles aimed at her and Finn didn’t help the atmosphere.
“You’re not one of the regulars,” the Jader said. “How do I know Skully Pete sent you?”
Throttle lowered her right hand glacially slow until she pointed to the marshal’s badge on her shoulder, and Finn followed suit. “We met Pete at Free Station. He dealt us in about a month back.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “If Pete didn’t send you, I’ll have you know that we don’t take kindly to Peacekeepers getting in the way of honest work, and we don’t like Jaders robbing other Jaders.”
Finn spoke. “If Pete didn’t send us, you think we’d be stupid enough to walk right into your shop?”
“How many you got back on that ship?” the man countered, dubious.
“None. It’s just the two of us,” Throttle said. When he continued to eye her, she sighed. “Scan it. You can see for yourself.”
“Scans can be blocked. I think we’ll manually check out that ship and see for ourselves,” he said.
Throttle noticed Finn shift to her left, and she knew he was getting antsy. She gave the man a hard smile. “Good luck with that. I locked it down tight when I docked. I don’t know you, which means I don’t trust you. If I give you access to that ship before I get paid, what’s to stop you from shoving my partner and me here out the airlock? I think I’ll keep it locked down until our business here is wrapped up. Trust me, there’s no way you’re getting into it without my codes.”
The man’s sneer seemed to grow. “We could cut our way on.”
“You could, but I know how much harder it is to strip a ship wearing suits in zero g than in a ship with working environmentals,” she said. “Trust me, these Peacekeeper ships have some good hardware on them, and I’ve flown this ship. I’m betting you’ll find this ship will be worth a whole lot more to you whole than chopped up.”
When the man continued to eye them warily, Finn said, “Why don’t you give Skully Pete a call? He’s the one sending these Peacekeeper ships your way. Though I warn you, he’s a bit busy with the whole Free Station business right now, and he might not appreciate having to deal with other problems. He might change his mind and start sending his business to another shop. Or, if you really piss him off, he might decide to add to his skull collection.”
He visibly paled, and Throttle knew they had him.
After another tense moment, the man motioned to the men on either side of him to lower their weapons before he turned back to Throttle and Finn. “Nah. We’re good here. You can call me Jack. This is my garage. We can talk more in my office. Follow me.”
She shot a quick glance at Finn, who seemed none too comfortable with the situation. Not that she could blame him. She wasn’t happy about it, either. Their task was to buy time for Eddy, Sylvian, and Punch, which had seemed much easier in her head before they’d stepped out to be greeted by seven armed Jaders. She’d expected one or two armed Jaders, with the rest of the station’s population working on ships. Finn and she were outnumbered and surrounded.
Jack led them from the dock and the dock controls, which were only a few feet away from the Javelin’s airlock. As long as Eddy could avoid being seen, he’d have an easy time unlocking both ships.
Seeing how the station was laid out made stealth a challenge.
The wide walkway wrapped around a cavernous center, with only a handrail to separate the two. They weaved around stacks of crates and parts that lined much of the walls. The open floor plan would make Eddy’s job harder and would make it nearly impossible for Throttle and Finn to escape without being noticed, which meant it was crucial plan B worked.
Because the closest thing Throttle had to a plan C was “run like hell.”
There were plenty of exits, but Throttle and Finn weren’t wearing their suits, which meant the only exit they could count on was the door to the Javelin.
Jack led them down a flight of stairs and through the center area, where workers welded, cut, and tinkered with two ships likely taken by Skully Pete’s crew. The temperature at the centermost part of the station was sweltering, where a massive cutter was being used to slice through a ship’s hull. Throttle wondered how many stolen ships had come through that shop. Then she wondered what had happened to the original crews, and her stomach soured. In a system still being colonized, hardware was far more valuable than human life. The healthiest crew members had li
kely been given an option to work on one of Anna East’s crews. Possibly, a few had even found work at the chop shop. All other crew members had likely met the cold end of an airlock.
She tried not to think about the lives she couldn’t help and instead focused on her and Finn’s current situation. He walked stiffly, looking straight ahead, but she had no doubt his trained eyes were taking in their surroundings even more entirely than Throttle was managing to.
Jack came up to an office that looked like it’d been built out of leftover plastic and glass parts. He opened the door and stepped inside. One of the guards motioned them to follow.
As Throttle stepped through the door, she paused at the sign on the window. ROD’S had been crossed out, and above it, a new name had been scrawled so that the revised sign read JACK’S REPAIR GARAGE.
“What happened to Rod?” she asked.
Jack took a seat behind a cluttered desk. “Rod fell out an airlock.” He spoke with a hint of humor behind his words that left little doubt of Jack’s role in Rod’s demise.
“He sounded like a clumsy fellow,” she said as she took one of the seats across from him.
Finn took a seat next to her. Jack’s henchman remained standing, and Throttle noticed they all still held rifles.
Jack leaned back. “Before we talk business, I want you to answer a question for me first.”
“And what’s that?” she asked.
He steepled his fingers. “Why’d you decide to hook up with Pete? Peacekeepers, and marshals especially, tend to have pretty inflated views of themselves and look down on us hardworking blue-collar folks.”
Throttle answered, “I’m no strait-laced Peacekeeper. I tend to have more…flexible views, and I liked the credits Pete offered. No one gets rich working for the GP. Hell, I can barely pay my bills with my GP paychecks. When Pete talked to me about the benefits of becoming an entrepreneur, I figured I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, especially since the GP doesn’t have much of a future in this system anymore.”
Jack belted out a laugh. His breath stank of rotten teeth and moonshine. “You’re right about that.” He sobered somewhat and nodded toward Finn. “Is that why you hooked up?”
“I joined up for the credits. Lots and lots of credits,” Finn replied.
“You don’t have much to say, do you,” Jack said.
“I do when I have something to say.”
“Ah, a tough guy. I’ve seen plenty of those come and go. Most don’t have any bite to back up their bark. You one of those?” Jack asked.
Finn leaned forward. “You want to find out?”
The pair eyed each other for a length before Jack leaned back and grinned, turning back to Throttle. “Maybe both of you are made out to be Jaders after all. I think I’ll let you live so we can do business.”
Throttle tried not to look surprised. “That’s good because I’d hate to have someone try to kill me. So are you ready to talk about buying my ship?”
“I am.” He went to a computer screen and pulled up an image of the Javelin.
Throttle’s breath hitched, and she exhaled when the video caught the side of the Javelin attached to the dock. Neither the cargo bay doors nor the airlock doors were in view.
“From what I can see, that ship you brought in looks like a custom job.”
“It is,” Throttle said.
“Custom is a good thing because I might be able to resell it as is without a lot of cosmetic work. But custom is also a bad thing because those kinds of jobs are more often than not a mishmash of duct tape and bad welds. I’ll need to take a look at it before I can offer you a number.”
Throttle’s and Finn’s comm-chips each clicked a single time. Finn bumped his foot against the desk, causing a loud clang.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
“Careful, you oaf,” Jack said, not seeming to notice the audible clicks that had come a split second before Finn’s diversionary tactic.
Relief loosened her muscles as the single click provided Eddy’s confirmation that he’d successfully completed his part of the plan. The ships would be unlocked. A double-click from Sylvian would be coming any minute now.
She placed her hands on the arms of the ragged chair and pushed off to stand. “How about that tour now?”
Jack stood. “I like that you don’t waste my time. I walked you all the way down here because I figured you would haggle me on everything before even letting me step on board. That’s what Pete always does.”
“Not our style,” Throttle said, and Finn stood next to her.
Jack led the way and his goons encircled Throttle and Finn as they had earlier.
“I’m not letting your goons on my ship,” she said.
“Where I go, they go,” Jack replied without looking back.
Throttle stopped. “Then there’s no tour. I still have the same worry that I had when I came here. What’s to stop you from taking my ship and drifting us out an airlock?”
Jack turned and faced her. “You have my word.”
“The word of a pirate?” Finn belted out a laugh. “Not good enough.”
Throttle spoke. “Only you are allowed on board to check it out, or else we’re going to start the haggling process like Pete does with you.”
Jack eyed her for a moment before speaking. “Randall will accompany me. Two of us, two of you. That’s fair, don’t you think?”
She gave a simple nod. “Fair enough.”
“Excellent.” He waved off the rest of his goons, leaving only a single burly man standing behind Throttle and Finn.
The four began to walk. Seven to two had been bad odds, and Throttle hated gambling. She found confidence in knowing Finn and she stood a good chance against any enemy one-on-one. Though, her confidence was quickly gelling into tension as she waited for Sylvian’s double-click. She glanced at Finn, who was visibly tense, no doubt wondering what was taking his wife so long. She’d said it would be a quick in-and-out. That Sylvian was taking longer than Eddy worried Throttle.
Eddy watched the screen, nervously shifting from one foot to the other, while Throttle and Finn spoke with the filthy-looking Jaders on the other side of the airlock. “Come on, come on, come on. Move it, people,” he muttered as what tiny semblance of patience he’d had bled away.
When they finally moved along, he hustled closer to the airlock door and froze. He was about to leave the ship into who knew what kind of danger. He was safe on the Javelin. Nowhere else.
But they needed him. Throttle and Sylvian were more than crew, they were the only people he’d ever considered friends in his entire life. And he supposed Finn wasn’t so bad, even though the man was always trying to get Eddy to exercise, learn self-defense, and—most annoyingly—learn how to shoot. But as long as Eddy stayed on the ship, he didn’t need any of those things.
He really didn’t want to leave the ship now. He’d thought about sending in a bot, but it would take far too long for Eddy to give Rusty the schematics to have one programmed.
It had to be Eddy. His team needed him.
He took a series of deep breaths, loudly inhaling and exhaling through tight, barely parted lips. He gripped his tool bag, not that he’d likely need it for this job, but he couldn’t imagine going anywhere without it. Finn needed to carry guns with him everywhere. Eddy needed his tools. Besides, tools were far more useful than guns. It wasn’t like Finn could fix an iterative array activator with a blaster. Well, it wasn’t like Finn would even know what an iterative array activator would look like. The hoorah soldier-type guy would probably mistake a reduction tensor for an activator.
Eddy giggled at the thought. He then shivered, remembering that he needed to focus on the unpleasant job at hand. He stood taller and sucked in a breath. “Wish me luck, Rusty.”
“Good luck, Eddy.”
Eddy pressed the panel, and the door opened. He stepped through the tiny transit tube and opened the station’s airlock door, unveiling a cacophony of noise, oppressive heat, and a potpourri
of bad smells. He scowled at the bombardment as he stepped through the doorway, nearly tripping over a stack of boxes.
In the station’s center, one worker was banging on metal with a sledgehammer while several other workers were running welders and cutters. The racket gave Eddy an instant headache, but the noise would mask his activities. The stench of burnt metal, sweat, and stale air stung his eyes and nostrils. The place not only looked like a criminal establishment, with crates stacked everywhere and no sense of cleanliness, but it also stank like one. He breathed through his mouth until he realized all the germs he was taking in, so he went back to breathing through his nose, forcing himself to deal with the unpleasantness of it all.
He rushed over to the large workstation that sat atop a pedestal near the wall. A keyboard and at least a dozen joysticks stood at attention just below a small screen. He set down his tool bag and stared blankly at the setup. Computer systems were Sylvian’s thing, and hardware was Eddy’s thing. He tapped the screen, but it remained blank. With a single finger, he pushed on the joystick nearest him. The computer beeped, and he jumped back. That left him with the keyboard. He’d used the things before but found them tedious and archaic. He searched the keys and settled on a green key with no label.
The screen came to life. On it were six boxes, with five displaying ship icons in green along with various abbreviations and codes. The sixth box was blank. “Finally, we’re getting somewhere,” he said under his breath.
He tapped the fifth box. Nothing happened. He clenched his fist but didn’t hit the screen. He’d never not had a touchscreen. Dealing with something so obsolete increased his frustration. It was bad enough he was out in the open. He furtively searched the keyboard again. All he needed was a key to unlock the Javelin and the High Spirit from their docks, but no keys had numbers on them.
“Hey. You there.”
Eddy froze, his hand still hovering over the keyboard. He pretended to ignore the gruff voice and resumed running his finger over the rows of keys.
