Post by Pyromaniac275 on Aug 11, 2023 3:00:27 GMT
The sky over Port Altacar glowed orange in the winter chill. It was the color of a hundred different halogen lamps reflecting off a fresh layer of snow, and then in turn being reflected by the low hanging clouds. An unsettling silence accompanied the dull glow. The cadence of distant traffic was carried on irregular winds that rattled barren tree branches and stirred newly fallen drifts upward into icy squalls. Then the wind died off, the soundscape of metropolitan roadways receded, and in their place was the familiar wintery silence, and halogen lights buzzing atop obelisks of metal and concrete.
The cigarette fell from her fingers, hit the ground, and was promptly snuffed out beneath an old combat boot before Caroline began walking. The snow had done little to dissuade the usual crowds of revelers roaming the streets of Port Altacar. They laughed, or cheered as they traveled between seedy venues. Gaggles of merchant spacers mingled with port workers, prostitutes, and various corporate wage slaves taking a break from the sanitized safety of towering arcologies to roll in the dirt with the underclasses.
She arrived at her first destination, descending a set of stairs into a dimly lit basement. A bouncer instructed her to hold her arms out to her side and frisked her for weapons, first with a metal detecting wand of some type, and then again with his hands before finally he waved her out of the stairwell and into the bar proper. A handful of patrons were present, a quartet of bearded merchant spacemen in company coveralls crowded around an old pinball machine, the stage was abuzz with hands moving equipment as one band left and another took their place, and flitting between tables, pinball wizards, and bargoers were the prostitutes complete with too much makeup, too few clothes, and pockets full of party drugs.
“You look tired sweet thing,” One of them, a woman with blonde hair that looked like it had come from a cheap bottle said when she took a place at the bar. “Looking to share a bed with anyone tonight?”
“Not really,” She answered waving to the bartender who acknowledged her with a nod without looking up from the pitcher he was filling with beer.
“Not into girls?”
“Not looking for love,”
“Looking for anything else?”
She sighed and rubbed her eyes.
“Do you have something else?”
The blonde flashed a too-perfect smile and opened her purse for Caroline. She scanned the array of individually packaged colorful pills until she saw one she recognized, a purple tablet. She handed the prostitute a cred stick, took the pill dry, and then waved away her next pitch with an apathetic grunt. The whore went looking for customers elsewhere, and finally the bartender made his way over to Caroline.
He was an Auraxii expat the locals referred to as Dragon. She was sure that wasn’t his real name, but he liked Dragon enough he never bothered correcting anyone. He towered over everyone else around him leaning on the bar heavily as he took in Caroline with reptilian eyes.“You look shit,” He said finally as way of a greeting. “Sleeping?”
“Not when the drugs work,”
He made a rumbling noise she recognized as disapproval before pushing off the bar top to begin clearing empty glasses.
“See Vlad tonight?”
The Auraxii shook his head, depositing the dirty dishes in a grey plastic bin which he promptly shoved into the arms of a passing waitress before once more turning his yellow gaze on the human and settling on the bar top in front of her.
“Dex look for you,” He said, his English as broken and accent as thick as ever. “Says important,”
“Actually important or Dex important?”
“Said important,” The Auraxii repeated, the true meaning of her question seemingly lost in translation.
“I don’t have time for Dex’s melodrama tonight,” She muttered. “Would you give me a call if Vlad comes by?”
The Auraxii nodded.
“See Dex,” He said. “Said important,”
“It’s probably nothing…”
“Said important,” He repeated again with a shrug. “See Dex or don’t. Not Dragon’s problem.”
She lit another cigarette once she was out of the basement, the door swinging closed behind her. A pair of the merchant spacemen had moved outside to indulge their own vices but she paid them no mind and began walking. The hallucinogen was already starting to work, shadows and butterflies dancing ballets out of the corner of her eye. She walked up the street, stopping at a public call terminal. She put out the cigarette, tucked it behind her ear and slipped inside. She plugged in a cred stick and picked up the receiver dialing a number and waiting for the call to connect half a galaxy away.
“Engel and Associates,” A woman answered.
“Looking for Vaughn,”
“Can I get a name?”
“Caroline,”
“Thanks Julia, I’ve got it,” A male voice interrupted. The woman gave an acknowledgement and with a crackle of static left the line. “I’ve been expecting your call,”
“Your commission is done,”
“Alright, I can wire you three now, four when I receive it,”
“We agreed on ten,”
“My associates and I are having a minor liquidity problem, we can do the other three in trade,”
She scuffed a boot against the concrete underfoot, grinding her teeth together while a butterfly and a war hound did pirouettes amid the snowfall.
“I really need the cash like we agreed…” There was a crackle, silence, and then a dial tone as the man disconnected the call.
“Asshole,”
She set the receiver back in place with a scowl and relit the cigarette. Half of it had burned away before she picked up the receiver again, dialing in a second set of numbers. The line rang three times before someone picked up.
“Hello?” She recognized the tone. It was the way he sounded when he’d just woken up, voice all rough and gravelly, acid green mohawk no longer standing of its own volition, blinking and bleary eyed.
“Dex,” She murmured. “What do you want?”
“Hold on,” He grumbled stifling a yawn. She could hear fabric shifting. “You strapped?”
“Yes,” She lied. She hadn’t been carrying a gun much recently. She told herself it was because of the hassle involved with constantly checking and unchecking a weapon as she went about her rounds, but a deeper less acknowledged part of her mind knew that wasn’t the reason. Part of her wanted something to go wrong, wanted to end up gutshot in a gutter bleeding to death under a halogen sky.
“Heard Vlad’s put out a hit on you,”
Funny how an unspoken desire to die could so quickly be replaced with the panic of trying to stay alive. She was glad there was no vidscreen on this call box, it saved her having to listen to Dex analyze her shifting facial expression. There was a buzzing behind her eyes and a sound like amplifier feedback in her ears. Her heartbeat quickened and she plucked the cigarette from her lips, rubbing it between thumb and forefinger.
“Where’d you hear that?”
“People,”
“People got a name?”
“People,” Dex repeated.
“Come on,” She said with an exasperated sigh. “Vlad’s going to ice me over a couple grand? How does he get his money if I’m dead?”
“I’m just telling you what I heard Caroline,” Dex answered after a pregnant pause in the conversation. “Can you pay him?”
Easier said than done.
“I’m having some issues with cash flow,” She answered. “So, he’ll need to cool his tits,”
“Job go bad?”
“Guy got cold feet,” She muttered. “So now I’ve got a duffle full of hot mods and no buyer,”
Another prolonged pause. There was a crackle as Dex shifted his receiver, fabric rustling as he moved.
“You ever think we should hook back up?”
She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against the glass encircling the call terminal. She thought about it a lot, more so when she felt lonely and vulnerable. Thought about Dex. Thought about Jade. Thought about all the people who had come and gone before them. She thought about them all the time, when she was alone, awake, and trying to chainsmoke her way to sleep. She wondered if she’d been too sensitive, if she should have been more forgiving, if there was something more she should have done…
“Do you?” She answered, avoiding the question.
“Sure,” Dex replied. She bit her tongue, willing away memories of Dex. The shape of the tattoos on his back, the chemical scent of his hair, the roughness of his fingertips. “…but I mean…”
“What?”
“I dunno,” Dex said. “Some people are movers and shakers destined to change the world with their talent, like you… and some people are… well… me,”
She wanted to correct him, to point out the many errors in his self deprecation. He was overvaluing her skills and undervaluing his own. If she was such a mover, why was she stuck running errands for pocket change on a backwater in winter? She wasn’t destined to be a mover at all… But Dex was a person best left on the outer edges of her life. He wasn’t good for her. She held back her response, letting silence fill the airwaves. She let the silence say she didn’t want to be with him, because she didn’t trust her mouth to get the job done.
“Yeah,” Dex said, finally breaking the silence.
“Was that it?” Caroline asked.
“That was it,” Dex confirmed.
“Goodbye Dex,”
“Peace ou-…”
She slammed the receiver down before he finished speaking.
Colors and music assailed her as she stepped out of the call box to a ballroom of butterflies, war hounds, and irradiated corpses dancing under a halogen disco ball. She finished the cigarette, tossing the remnants into the snow before she was on the move again.
There was no clear destination in mind when she set out. Her blood was pumping, synapses were firing, and she couldn’t stand still. Her mind occupied itself at first with combing through memories for someone she could offload several grand worth of hot parts too. It wasn’t a long list. The underworld in Altacar was divided among rival, often warring factions, all competing for favor with the Syndicate’s local distributor. She held a certain amount of disdain for those rival factions (who failed to see the ridiculousness in spilling blood in the name of currying favor with what was effectively middle management in the Organization) and most of the local fences had picked up on that. She didn’t like them, and they didn’t like her… They’d give her morsels and make her beg if they gave her anything at all. That left what few Organization contacts she still had. Normally she’d go to Vlad… but if he was gunning for her.
Fuck! Why would Vlad be gunning for her? She didn’t owe him that much and if it really came to it he could strip her ship for parts. Why gun for her? Why? Why? WHY?!
“SHIT!”
Three people were looking at her, glancing up from some shared experience on a mobile device to stare at her quizzically.
She ducked down an alley, heading for the Starport proper. There was a new Syndicate heavy in town smuggling arms and crossing names off a list. If Vlad was out to kill her someone like him would have to know right? And he had no reason to hate her or refuse to deal with her. He didn’t even know her.
Unless her name was on his list.
She slipped in the snow and steadied herself against a wall, clutching at her head. She was getting the spins. Cheap imitation drugs’ll do that… She took a deep breath and left the alley.
She took a shortcut to the starport, hopping a fence and trudging across a field through knee deep snow to a subdivision patrolled by only the occasional rent-a-cop goonsquad. This time of night, most of the houses were dark, their occupants already fast asleep. The snow plows hadn’t been here yet, and so with exasperation she continued trudging her way across unplowed streets.
All the music and the disco dancing stopped the moment an ice cold wetness soaked through her sock and stabbed into her feet. Hissing, she fell backward into the snow, holding her foot aloft. Her boot had come off, and her sock was now encrusted in snow.
“Fuck!” She cursed, brushing the snow from her foot and grabbing the discarded boot. One of her laces had snapped, causing the subsequent malfunction, and two more steps in her now loose boot and it was filled with snow again.
“Damn it!” She didn’t have time for this. She dug through the pockets of her coat for something of use but came up empty handed.
She heard a crash somewhere behind her and spun around, one hand reaching for a gun she didn’t have while the other pressed into the snow to steady her as she fell onto her stomach. She searched the empty streets for some sign of the source of the crash. A scavenger animal perhaps? Maybe a gust of wind? But she didn’t feel a breeze, nor did she spot any wildlife. She pushed herself up and continued walking, making it another dozen meters before she paused again.
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She was sure she’d heard footsteps crunching in the snow. She turned back… but no one was there. She moved forward again and once more she heard footsteps.
She didn’t look back this time, just took off at… well… as fast as one can run through deep snow. She lost her boot again, but didn’t stop to retrieve it. By the time she made it to the Starport she was struggling to suck down freezing cold breaths, trying to ignore a sharp pain and stiffness in her bootless foot, and promising herself that she would never smoke again.
The Starport was made to look abandoned this time of night. The only light on was in the security office and the handful of men on shift had been handsomely compensated to ignore the comings and goings at this hour of the night.
But past the outer fences the Port was abuzz. Freighters descended from orbit under cover of darkness, following auto-pilots slaved to a choir of neuromancers working in cyberspace. On the ground they were unloaded by men with cybernetic enhancements to whom the dark posed no real inconvenience.Haggard and shivering, she was accosted by a pair of overzealous thugs and held in a painful restraint until a superior could be found to confirm her identity. Only then was she brought to a windowless room inside a warehouse where two dozen men were unloading crates onto folding tables.
The room revolved around the man at the head of the table, who inspected the contents of the crates with a practiced eye, testing the weight of each weapon in both hands before setting it down on the table.
“Tito Nick,” The superior said, instantly drawing every pair of eyes in the room to him.
“Mhm?”
“Caroline McTavish for you,” Every pair of eyes instantly shifted to her.
“You look tired. Long night?” He motioned with the hatchet he was holding and the men holding her arms let go. “And what does the Grim Reaper desire of Tito Nick today, hmm?”
“Vlad trying to kill me?”
“Come again?”
“Vlad,” She said. “Big, Russian-…”
“Psssst! I know who Vlad is,” He said with a scowl tossing the hatchet down on the table. He folded his arms across his chest. “What makes you think he’s trying to kill you?”
“I heard,”
“You heard.”
“There an echo?”
“Ha!” Tito Nick said. “I laughed once. Next time…”
“Is he or isn’t he?”
Tito Nick shrugged.
“I haven’t seen Vlad,”
“Come on,” She said. “Someone was following me on the way over. Couldn’t see them but I heard them in the snow. Vlad got his Subjugator after me?”
“I don’t know,” Nick answered, unfolding his arms. “I don’t see why Vlad would send a Subjugator after you over a couple grand,”
“You know about the debt?”
“He’s mentioned it,”
“You talked to Vlad?!”
“Calm down,” He said, waving his arms. “Not recently.”
“So he’s not trying to kill me?” She pressed.
“I didn’t say that,” He answered, resuming his inspections.
“Well which is it!?”
“Vlad’s making moves,” He said with a sigh. “Trying to be the next big man in the Syndicate. Heir apparent should Wolfgang ever get got. Taking out an indie with a reputation…”
He sucked on his teeth but let the implication hang in the air. It was the kind of move that might make Vlad a big man.
“So he is trying to kill me?”
“Not last I heard,”
“But?”
He sighed.
“But I haven’t talked to Vlad recently,”
“So then who was following me?!”
He put down the hatchet he was holding with a resounding bang.
“Are you high?”
“What?”
He motioned with one hand to his eyes and she instinctively rubbed hers.
“You’re being paranoid,”
There wasn’t much she could really say to argue with that. He gave her one of the hatchets at least. A lightweight weapon made from some synthetic she couldn’t identify. It was sharp, and just small enough for her to awkwardly put the head down in an inside pocket of her jacket.
“Won’t set off scanners,” He assured her.
“What about pat downs?”
“Get creative,”
She stole a pair of sneakers out of the lost and found on her way out and began trudging on to her next destination. She kept to the main roads, forsaking any more shortcuts in favor of at least partially plowed urban streets. Try as she might, she couldn’t shake the feeling she was being followed and kept changing her route, doubling back and weaving through alleyways until she was sure she’d lost her imaginary pursuers. By the time she made it to the storage complex the drugs had worn off, leaving in their wake a fogginess that clouded her mind, nausea in the pit of her stomach, and an uncomfortable buzzing behind her eyes.
She pressed her forehead against the smooth concrete of the complex wall, resting her eyes and letting warmth of the building interior wash over her. Deep breaths Caroline. You’re just being paranoid. You’re being paranoid because of the drugs. No one’s out to get you, you’re headed back to your ship to change and then you’ll go see Vlad…
She opened her eyes and began walking, stolen sneakers squeaking with each step along deserted corridors to the security checkpoint. The man at the checkpoint couldn’t have been much more than a teenager, sipping a strong smelling cup of coffee and reading from a thick hardcover textbook on trading stock options.
He held out a hand without looking up from his book, scanned her keycard and then pressed a button to admit her into the complex without a word. She walked away quickly, squelching across the floor and into the storage facility. Rows of spacecraft were parked, dark and dormant in tightly packed rows. Skim racers gathered dust alongside opulent pleasure yachts and her footsteps echoed in the large open space as she paced past row after row…
“Q… R… S,” She muttered aloud finding her aisle and walking down it until she found her ship… or what was left of it anyway. She’d barely managed to land it several months earlier and taking off again was out of the question… didn’t help she’d pawned her engine to cover a gambling debt.
She shook her head and climbed a ladder up to the cockpit. Settling into the seat she peeled off her wet clothing and replaced them with dirty, but dry garments from a knapsack. She put on a different set of boots, albeit nowhere near as nice as the ones they replaced, tossed her stolen sneakers in the nearest trash and left the storage complex, on the move back to the Coffin House where she could either straighten things out with Vlad or figure out how to get off world.
The snow had let up a bit by now, the fat flakes falling in languid spirals having transitioned to smaller flakes mixed with pinhead sized ice pellets and rain. The wind whipped the unpleasant combination of snow, ice, and frigid water into her face every time it picked up, leaving her walking with a perpetual grimace and turning away from the wind every time it picked up.
It was on one such occasion, turning away from the wind, that she noticed a second set of footprints in the snow. They were in the snow, alongside hers, and she was sure there hadn’t been any footprints in the snow before she’d walked this way. She blinked twice, following the prints from the corner to where they abruptly stopped about ten meters away from her.
She turned and ran. In the wintry silence, she knew she heard someone pursuing her. She was already winded, after only a few short seconds of sprinting, and ducked down an alley, half tripping, half sliding into place behind a foul smelling dumpster. She grabbed the haft of the hatchet, struggling to get it out of the pocket it barely fit in, and to no one’s surprise it did not come free easily.
In the end, she yanked, her coat tore, and she stood up, holding the hatchet above her head. She scanned the alley but there was no one. Not even a homeless drunk sleeping in a makeshift shelter… just snowfall.
She watched the flakes for a moment, noticed the way they seemed to bend in the halogen lights at about chest height…
Shit.
She threw the hatchet, it wasn’t even close to what she was aiming at, and was running again. Fucking Tito Nick. She asked for a gun and he gave her a goddamn hatchet. She burst from the alley and into the street without looking for traffic. A horn sounded, she narrowly avoided a skidding vehicle, and made it to the other side of the street.
She couldn’t see her pursuer, but she could feel them growing closer. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and she searched for any escape at all with frantic bloodshot eyes. Nothing stood out to her, and in an act of pure desperation she crashed through a window into a liquor store. Alarms began sounding instantly and she pushed herself off the floor. The glass shards bit into her flesh but she ignored it, sprinting through the store, and out a back door, and into another alley. The ground was thick with salt and what little snow had managed to find its way into the alley melted amid it. She glanced left, then right, and then jumped into a dumpster as the door swung closed behind her. She lay still amidst the trash, covering her mouth with one bleeding hand and counting the seconds. By the time she reached two hundred she was starting to believe she had imagined the entire thing. Then, she heard the door open again and her blood froze. The door closed, and she heard the salt crystals crunch underfoot.
“Shit,” A feminine voice with a lilting accent murmured. Then the steadily receding sound of more salt crunching underfoot as her pursuer left the alley. She vomited at that point, though whether it was the smell or her own anxiety she couldn’t say.
Her new appearance, that of a woman stinking of trash, covered in unidentifiable stains, with smeared blood on her face, and glass in her hands earned her a quizzical look and a ‘you good?’ from the bouncer at the bottom of the stairs when she returned to the Coffin House.
She nodded and he glanced over his shoulder at Dragon, who had moved from the bar to a seat in front of a space heater. The chair creaked in protest as the hulking Auraxii beckoned her over. She found Auraxii hard to read at the best of times, and hadn’t the slightest idea what emotions were playing across the Auraxii’s face as she approached. He didn’t say anything, just held her gaze with his own until at last she spoke.
“Vlad’s trying to kill me,”
He turned in his chair to face her.
“Someone tried to chase me down in the street. Subjugator I think…”
“Hurt you?” The Auraxii rumbled.
“No, I dove through a window,”
He didn’t say anything.
“Look, I just need a way to get off world before Vlad…”
“Caroline,” Vlad’s accented voice called from the bottom of the stairs, flanked by two of his thugs. “Just the woman I was…”
Dragon made a quiet clicking noise which was followed shortly by the sound of a plasma capacitor charging. The band on stage abruptly fell silent mid-lyric, leaving the singer to awkwardly trail off as the surrounding music faded to a halt. In the ensuing silence one could hear the buzz of the amplifiers and the hum of the plasma thrower the waitress by the bar was holding.
“You decide to do it yourself?”
“Do what myself?”
“Have me killed,”
“Who’s having you killed Caroline?” Vlad said with a sigh.
“You!”
“And who told you that?”
“Dex…”
Can you pay him?
That suddenly struck her as a strange question. If Vlad was having her killed, would it even matter if she could pay him at that point? There was a buzzing behind her eyes again, and a knot of anxiety and existential dread settling in the pit of her stomach.
“Nyet, I’m not,” Vlad said. “And if I were, I certainly wouldn’t do it here,”
There were a few more tense moments before the Auraxii waved a hand and the plasma thrower went back under the bar. The tension leaked out of the room and the band began playing again. Vlad strolled over, offering Caroline a cigarette she declined.
“You look tired,” He commented. “Are you getting much sleep?”
“Why do people keep asking me that?”
“Look like shit,” Dragon commented, rising from his chair and returning to the bar, leaving the two alone.
“Drugs are messing with your head Caroline,” Vlad said, claiming the chair the Auraxii had vacated. “You’re getting skittish, acting stupid…”
“I really don’t need a lecture,”
“Suit yourself. Money?”
“I’ve got a duffel full of mods,”
“What kind?”
“Arms mostly, a few neurochips, some eyes… but mostly arms,”
Vlad let out a low chuckle.
“And you can’t move them because…?”
“Buyer bailed,”
“Mhm,”
He plucked a cigarette from the pack, sticking it between his lips and lighting it. You couldn’t smoke inside, but she doubted anyone in this basement had the balls to tell Vlad that.
“How much?”
“Ten,”
“Five,” Vlad countered.
“Come on Vlad, the guy I had…”
“I don’t care about the guy you had,” He said, folding his arms. “The guy you have now is me, and I’ll give you five. That’ll cover your debt and leave you with some pocket change. Aren’t I nice? Yuri, tell her how nice I am,”
“He’s nice.” One of his shadows grumbled.
“Five,” She grumbled. “If you’re not trying to have me killed then who was following me?”
“I don’t know Caroline, I just move contraband. Speaking of which…”
“Yeah… yeah, I’ll go get it,”
Back out in the winter chill, and another walk back to the storage complex. Same security guard, same lack of interest in the comings and goings at this hour of the night. She walked through the rows of disused ships, back to her scrap heap, up the ladder and…
When she reached the top she found the barrel of a flechette gun waiting for her.
“Fuck,” She breathed.
The Subjugator’s expression was hidden behind the mirror of her helmet visor but when several heartbeats passed without a hail of flechettes ending her life she began to step down the ladder.
“Don’t make me chase you,” The Subjugator said as she began moving, voice crackling quietly from a helmet speaker. “Get in and start the ship,”
“If you’re gonna kill me just do it here, you think buddy at the security desk is gonna come running in with camo-killers and AP rounds?”
The Subjugator sighed.
“You’re absolutely right. If I was going to kill you I’d do it. But I’m not, I haven’t, and I won’t. Now get in the ship,”
“I can’t,” Caroline answered, bloodshot eyes following every micrometer the barrel moved.
“Explain.”
“The starter is shot, there’s a couple ruptured fuel lines that could catch fire and the engine is gone,”
The Subjugator moved, uncrossing her legs and shifting the barrel from her knee to her off hand, all the while keeping it trained on Caroline.
“Perfect,” She mumbled finally. “Then I guess we’re walking,”
“Walking where?”
“To see Cooper,”
“Who the fuck is Cooper?”
The Subjugator gave no answer, standing from the pilot’s chair and stepping out of the cockpit onto the ship’s chassis.
“Doesn’t matter,” She said finally. “You are going to see Cooper. You can walk, or I can stick you with a sedative and drag you.”
They stared at each other in silence for what felt like an eternity before the Subjugator spoke again.
“Walk or drag?”
“Walk,” She conceded dejectedly.
“Then let’s go,”
“Hang on…” She took the Subjugator’s place, digging through the cockpit for the duffel bag full of…
Oh.
The bag was gone. She doubted the Subjugator took it, and the only other person who knew she was sitting on hot mods was…
Dex.
Of course.
“Fucking Dex,” She muttered. “You lowlife punk bitch,”
“What?”
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
The sky had begun to glow faintly with signs of an impending dawn. The Subjugator kept her camouflage up most of the way but made sure Caroline knew she was still behind her and still had a gun on her. The occasional whispered direction, or touch of the weapon against her back was enough to dissuade her from any thoughts of escape. Her legs were sore, her head was pounding, and her thoughts were a jumbled mess by the time they reached their destination.
The warehouse hadn’t been used in who knew how long, and it was much the same story in the surrounding industrial wasteland. Once upon a time this had probably been a cornerstone of a sprawling manufacturing plant. But the plants moved elsewhere, and nothing was left but cracked asphalt, and rusting spires of metal and brick.
With an electrical crack the Subjugator’s camouflage dropped. She stepped up to the warehouse door, banging a fist against it twice. The door opened, a man wearing a bored expression and clutching a rifle glanced between the two of them and then motioned them into the warehouse. There was a finality to the bang of the metal door behind them, and Caroline couldn’t shake the feeling that something bad was just a few moments away.
The interior of the warehouse was sparse. Whomever it was that occupied it hadn’t bothered to do much cleaning, nor much decorating. A few hard plastic chairs were scattered around the dusty disused space, old work benches serving as tables and desks. There were a handful of armed men inside, she recognized some of them and could place them in one of the smaller gangs that had orbited the Reaper Crew before their luck had turned, but most were strangers.
The apparent leader was easy enough to spot, sitting against one wall with a tablet in one hand and a lit cigarette and a coffee in the other. He had short hair, a neatly trimmed beard, glasses and a forgettable face. The room seemed to move with him at its center, thugs and lowlives occasionally glanced in his direction for approval or acknowledgement as they went about their tasks. He glanced up from the tablet when the door closed and caught sight of her over the rims of his glasses. He met her eyes briefly, shifted his gaze to the Subjugator behind her, took a drag on his cigarette and dropped it in the coffee.
He stood, set down the now ruined coffee and the tablet, straightened his long coat, and crossed the space that separated them, one hand extending toward her.
“Caroline McTavish, I’m Cooper we’ve not met before. I’m a contract broker,”
She rolled her eyes.
“All this so you can offer me a contract?”
He didn’t respond immediately, hazel eyes scanning across her features with an unreadable expression. She held his gaze momentarily, searching his expression and body language for any hint, any tell… but there wasn’t any. Every expression was carefully chosen, each movement scripted. Everything about the man in front of her seemed phony and manufactured. A carefully practiced act.
Cop or spy? She wondered.
“No,” He said, finally letting his hand fall to his side. “Not in the usual sense. You’ve met Senor Vasquez before?”
“Wannabe big shot? Psychopath?”
“Not so much a wannabe anymore,” Cooper commented, folding his arms. “He’s made a name for himself. When the Auraxii fell apart he pulled in a heap of profit for the Organization,”
“How much?”
Cooper shrugged.
“All the indies want to be him, and he’s gunning for a seat at the table,”
She scowled. Nothing Cooper was saying was particularly surprising. There was always someone on a hot streak thinking they could be the next big thing. But being the next big thing was far easier said than done. The people already at the table weren’t keen to give up their seats. Indies that got too big tended to run into… problems.
“So?”
“So. If you wanted to be the big dick indie, how would you do it?”
The warehouse felt eerily silent, and she swallowed hard. She already knew the answer to that question didn’t she? Maybe Dex wasn’t totally full of shit after all. She shook her head. No. Dex was full of shit. He’d probably decided to rip her off the moment she’d mentioned she had a bag of hot parts. Always did say he wanted to get off this shithole and get back home…
Guess he got his wish.
“I’d kill me,” She said finally.
“Precisely,” Cooper said. “Easier to do when you run away from a loyal posse of Russian hard cases after losing your back up band. Posse? Angel, what do you call a group of Russians? A posse? A flock? A murder?”
“A gulag?” The Subjugator quipped.
“Ha!” He chuckled.
“They’re not Russian…”
“Restevian, whatever,” He said with a shrug. “They speak Russian, they come from a different Earth’s Russia. They’re Russian. Point is you’ve made yourself an easy target.”
“Didn’t even have a weapon on her,” The Subjugator added.
“It’s like you’re trying to get killed,”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out as one protracted sigh.
“If there’s a point, let's skip to it,” She said finally.
A flicker of emotion broke the contract broker’s neutral expression. It was there one instant and gone the next before she had the chance to place what it may have betrayed. He cleared his throat.
“I would prefer Vasquez not end up in a dominant position among the independents,” Cooper said finally. “Vasquez gets big, he could rally the Indies around him.”
“He do that good in Auraxii space?”
Another flash of an unplaceable emotion.
“He did,” He said finally. “He’s got money, friends, and a lot of Captains willing to spill blood for him. None of the other indies can hold a candle to him. None except you. Twice the reason to kill you.”
She rubbed her eyes. Seemed a lot of people had a lot of reasons to want her dead recently.
“So why get involved?” She asked finally. “Since when do Wolfgang’s precious contract brokers care about the petty politics of indie crews?”
“Like I said. He wants a seat at the table. With the indies behind him he’ll make another move. He’s already made overtures to Alistair. Once you’re out of the way those two are liable to make a move on the Raider Clans.”
“That’d start a war,” Caroline said incredulously. “Besides, Raiders and Exiles are tight. United or no, the two of them aren’t going to be able to take out the Raiders and the Exiles. That’s too many ships and too many gene modded death squads.”
“Fenrir has other priorities,” Cooper said vaguely. “And the Raiders are being run by a handful of strong personalities vaguely following an idea set out by a woman who disappeared. There’s no clear leader there anymore. Makes them uncoordinated and slow to react, plus you know damn well Wolfgang won’t take sides so long as whoever comes out on top pays him his cut like good little minions,”
“And why do you care?”
There was a long pause, the barest hint of emotion playing at Cooper’s features. She could place the expression now, subtle though it was. He was picking his words, going over the facts in his head and trying to decide what he should allow her to know.
“A large-scale war would be bad for everyone,” He answered finally.
“And yet Wolfgang wouldn’t get off his ass to put a stop to it?”
“Wolfgang has an idea of the direction the Organization ought to go. Push more drugs, traffic more slaves, move away from flashy shows of force like piracy, colony raids and picking fights with military taskforces. Some of us are… not so enthusiastic about a closer relationship with slavers,”
“Honor among thieves? Perish the thought,”
“And I suppose you’d be a-okay working with slavers?” He said, folding his arms. “Funny, when I read your dossier you struck me as someone with more character than that.”
“What part of ‘scoured a planet of life’ made you think that?”
“The parts the Coalition had buried to hide their own fuck ups,” He answered evenly. Definitely a spook. “Enough. Let’s be clear on where we stand here Caroline. Your days are numbered and you may not care if you live or die but you have two dozen Russian warships who very much do.”
“I’m sure they’ll land on their feet,” She said with a shrug.
“Then you misjudge them,” He folded his arms. “Yamikov hasn’t stopped looking for you since you pulled your disappearing act,”
Goddamn Restevian loyalty. Couldn’t Yamikov just leave her to wallow and die in peace? Why’d he have to go looking for her? Any contract broker in the Organization could have found them someone else willing to vouch for them. He didn’t need her.
“Well tell him to fuck off, and find him another has-been to orbit.” She said, “I’m not interested in another war. I’ve had enough of wars.”
She turned, the Subjugator was still standing behind her and she didn’t move out of her way when she started for the door.
“I can give you the one thing you want,” Cooper called finally.
“Sure,” She said. “I don’t want money Cooper,”
“How about an out?”
She stopped.
“You won’t do it for yourself, you won’t do it for your men, so how about for an out?”
“How?”
“I’ve cultivated a network,” Cooper said with a shrug. “I can get you a new identity, citizenship papers for any nation you want to live in. Wipe away your past just like that,”
He snapped his fingers to emphasize the final point. She didn’t say anything. She watched her distorted reflection in the Subjugator’s mask. Her eyebrows knit together, bloodshot eyes wandering around the warehouse as though something or someone would tell her if it was a lie. There was nothing of course. The world never held easy answers. It was always muddy. Mired in lies and misdirection.
“What would I have to do?” She asked finally.
“Settle whatever business you have left on this shithole,” Cooper answered. “Then link back up with Yamikov and get your shit together. I’ve pulled some strings and got your name on a list for the Greyline,”
“This is a long way to go to put me in a race I’m not likely to win,”
He shrugged.
“Winning is largely irrelevant,” He said. “You’ll be the only pilot in the Organization even participating. It will remind people why they used to say you were the best. Even if you lose it will still serve as an announcement and an exhibition of your skills. I’ll have things positioned for you after the race,”
She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.
“And what is it you’re going to make me do afterward?”
“I play my cards close to the chest Ms. McTavish. Should ill-fortune befall you before the race is over then you can’t betray the details of plans you don’t know the specifics of.” He motioned to the Subjugator. “Angel will accompany you. Do try not to get killed,”
“I haven’t agreed yet,”
Cooper raised an eyebrow
“Haven’t you?”
She scowled. He was right. How much would she give for even a chance at being someone else?
“Fine.” She conceded, turning to leave.
“Oh, Ms. McTavish,” She glanced over her shoulder, Cooper was holding a credstick between his fingers. “This should cover your debts to Mr. Vladirovich. Consider it the first incentive to attend the race.”
She contemplated walking out, leaving the money on the table and going back to another miserable night in an increasingly miserable life… but she knew herself well enough to know she would regret it. He was offering her an out, and willing to front a couple grand just to get her in some race…
She took the credstick, and Cooper had one of his lackeys drive her back to the storage complex. Angel rode with her, the two sitting side by side. At the very least the Subjugator had put away the flechette thrower. The night was dying, the halogen sky giving way to a dismal grey twilight. The landscape was brightening, the street lights turning off as the night came to an end. Caroline watched them pass through streaks of melting snow before shifting her gaze to the Subjugator.
“How long did it take him to find me?”
“Couple months,” She answered with a shrug. “Yamikov was very accommodating or it would have taken longer,”
“Accommodating?”
“He was looking for you too,” Angel said, shifting her own gaze to her window. “He just didn’t have all the tools Cooper did,”
“Why was Yamikov looking for me?”
The Subjugator sighed.
“You’re his Captain. Why do you think?”
“He should just find a better Captain,” Caroline murmured, turning her gaze to the window and the cityscape flashing by as they sped along deserted highways.
“Yeah well, he thinks he owes you. You know how that goes…”
The security guard was conspicuously absent when they returned to the storage complex, she raised an eyebrow, but Angel seemed nonplussed, motioning for her to swipe her keycard. She did so, and the pair entered the complex, passing by the rows of ships for the third time this evening. The reason for the security guard’s absence became apparent as she approached her ship. A trio of men in Restevian fatigues were standing around, passing a flask back and forth and cradling Kalashnikovs like newborns. All eyes were on her as she approached, and one of the men gave a low whistle.
The familiar face of Lieutenant-Commander Alexie Yamikov peeked out from the cockpit and she inwardly cursed.
“He’s here?” She hissed to Angel.
“Did I forget to mention that?” The Subjugator quipped innocently.
“You look,” He said, eyebrows furrowing as he searched for a nice way to say ‘like shit’. “A bit rough around the edges,”
“What are you doing here,” She said, folding her arms and standing at the bottom of the ladder.
“Assessing this,” He said motioning to her ship. “Fuel lines are shot. Starter’s burnt out. Hydraulics are leaking and… did your engine get stolen?”
“Pawned,”
“You pawned it?” He said incredulously.
“I owed people money,”
A silent glare.
“They had machetes,”
“And the rest of the damage?”
She dug through her pockets and pulled out her cigarettes, lighting one as Yamikov climbed down the ladder from the cockpit. She took a long drag, the end of the cigarette flaring orange before she exhaled the smoke in one long sigh. So much for quitting.
“Why are you here?” She asked again.
“Looking for you,”
“Why?”
He let out a deep rumbling chuckle.
“Because I am cursed with loyalty, and you are cursed with me. Dmitri!”
One of the men glanced his direction and there was a brief exchange in Restevian… Restevian? Maybe Cooper was right. They were Russians from a different earth’s Russia. Maybe it was just Russian? She took another drag.
“We’ll have to tow her up to orbit,” Yamikov said finally. “We’ll get her fixed up on the way to Greyline. Nicked some goodies to put in her too,”
She didn’t answer and Yamikov didn’t immediately have anything else to say. They just stood in a circle, all eyes on her, waiting for a word or a speech or… something. She didn’t know what they were waiting for, or what they wanted her to say or even what she should say. She was tired. She was sore. She still felt sick. She wanted to sleep and never wake up.“The rest of them didn’t make it out?” Yamikov asked, breaking the silence after it had dragged on for an awkwardly long period.
“Nope,”
Another awkwardly long pause.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really,”
“You know talking about it could…”
“I know,”
“Okay…” Yamikov rubbed the back of his neck. “Dmitri, can you wrap this up?”
“Da,”
“Good,” He glanced at her again. “Shall we?”
“I need to pay Vlad,”
“I’ll take care of it,” Angel said, a hand slipping into her pocket and taking the credstick. A featherlight touch. Caroline wondered idly if Angel had been a pickpocket in another life. “You want me to ice the guy who stole your mods?”
Dex. She’d almost forgotten about him. She thought of him, face down in a gutter. Dead over a couple grand in hot parts. It would be a fitting end for him… but try as she might she couldn’t muster up any sense of anger. Maybe she was just burnt out by everything. Maybe it was all her mixed up lingering feelings. Maybe it was the drugs.Maybe she just couldn’t fault him for wanting to get off this rock bad enough to rip her off.
“No,” She said finally. “I don’t care about Dex,”
Another lie.
“Suit yourself,” The Subjugator said, sauntering away, shimmering out of the visual spectrum as she went.
“What did you do to the security guard?” She said, glancing at Yamikov.
“Bought him a coffee,” He answered. “Well, gave him a credstick to go buy a coffee,”
Ah.
“How much was on the credstick?”
“More than enough for a coffee.”
It was hard to stay awake now. The city was stirring to life as another day of commerce and crime began, rays of sunshine occasionally breaking through the thinning cloud cover. Yamikov for his part seemed to pick up on her mood, and the walk to his lander and the ride to a battered carrier in high orbit was a blissfully silent one.
“Anyone else still waiting for me to turn up?” She asked when the noise of their launch had faded away in the vacuum of space.
“Your lane pirate,” He said. “I did what I could to keep people around. I spread the credits around as much as I could. Managed to keep a couple dozen around out of your original numbers. All of my guys are still around too but everyone else…”
“Fucked off,”
“They looked for work elsewhere,” He confirmed. “You didn’t expect they’d wait forever did you?”
“I didn’t expect they’d wait at all.” She answered truthfully, lighting up another cigarette and filling the confined space of the lander with a swirling haze of tobacco smoke. If Yamikov was at all bothered, he made no show of it.
“We’re a jump away from the rest of the ships,” Yamikov said as he received an exit vector away from the planet. “We’ll meet up with them once Dmitri has your fighter towed up and move together,”
“Sure,” She said with a dismissive wave of her hand. He gave her a sideways glance, but turned his attention away, focusing on piloting the lander out of the traffic surrounding the planet.
“I’ll send over Sevchenko and Agnel as well. Angel will want to keep eyes on you and Sevchenko…”
“Why would she want eyes on me?” She interrupted.
“Cooper views you as an… investment,” Yamikov said with a telling glance sideways. “He’ll want to make sure his investment isn’t burning holes in her brain with hard drugs,”
“Sure,” She muttered, sinking into her seat. Part of her was already regretting agreeing to any of this… but it was too late to back out now. By the time the cigarette had burned down she was dead to the world, lulled to sleep by the hum of lander engines and the exhaustion of a sleepless night.