[04] Elite: Mostly Harmless (17 page)

Jack Nova’s hand dropped. He looked genuinely crestfallen.

‘Oh ... Really?’

‘Really.’

He seemed to mull this over for a moment.

‘I’m going to run the story anyway, you might as well make sure it’s accurate,’ he tried speculatively.

‘No, YOU had better make sure it’s accurate. Otherwise you’ll be seeing me with the magistrate.’

‘Oh. Okay, well, I suppose you’re right. But I do definitely have that PR-weasel bailing you out on company funds. What do you have to say about that?’

The pen-cam was poked at her again and she resisted the urge to grab it and shove it up his nose.

‘No. Fucking. Comment. Now leave me alone. Goodbye Jack.’

‘Meh. Okay, suit yourself I guess. It was just a spur of the moment thing anyway, when I saw you. Can’t blame a man for trying, right? Come on Angel, it’s just my job. Right?’

He punched her playfully in the top of her arm and then flinched when it looked momentarily like she might respond by throwing him headfirst into another courgette platter.

‘Hey … Okay, truce! I will continue on my merry way! I’m here to see Councillor de Laan anyway. Got a rather tasty kiss and tell from sixteen-year-old triplets called Marianne, Becky and Daniéll Harris-Homes and his lips are front and centre stage! You haven’t seen him have you? S’posed to be in one of these floaters but they’re all too misty to see.’

Angel’s heart leapt into her chest. Oh no! They hadn’t expected the councillor to stay unmissed for very long but they needed a few more hours at least before anyone started looking for him. Katherine and Admin would arrive down in the Salts any time now, and then they needed an hour or so to spring the prisoner. The return shuttle was about an hour too as it didn’t need to run the eight-hour hyper-gravity acclimatisation sequence coming back up to orbit.  Plus she still had another part of the contract to fulfil.

‘Yes! Yes I did see him. About ten minutes ago,’ Angel said, an idea suddenly springing to mind. ‘The creep tried to grope me over by the pool of reflection.’

‘Oooh, really?’

The reporter’s eyes lit up and he snapped the pen-cam back up to Angel’s face.

‘Care to comment?’

‘No. But you’ve missed him. He’s finished his treatments and found nothing else to tempt him to stay. So you might as well just go and find something useful to cover, like that dirty little bust up in the Prism system, or who’s trying to bump off the Emperor.’

‘Oh, bah again! Well, I’ll get shot if I go back to the desk with nothing to file in my column so I’ll just have to catch him at his office.’

‘Wait … err, listen. Okay. I don’t want you to get shot.’

‘You don’t?’

The rookie reporter looked genuinely surprised. Usually the people he was harrying for a comment ended up wanting him
more
shot, not less.

‘No, of course not. And there really is nothing bad about where I have been – which is NOT with Captain Riley, I hasten to make clear.’

‘Oh, really ...’ Jack Nova became suddenly, markedly less interested. His eyes flicked past Angel and he began scanning the steam chamber doors again. ‘He’s definitely left the spa then?’

‘Look, why don’t you let me buy you a drink? At least let me apologise for being so short with you. You’re right, we’re all just doing what “The Man” pays us to do, right?’

Jack Nova’s attention was focussed fully back on Angel, an edge of suspicion beginning to creep in around his surprise.

‘Let’s jump a shuttle to the station. I’ll buy you a drink in the Zen Garden and give you all the details of my recent adventures. You never know, it might even be better than a sordid affair between a station captain’s brat and a naval officer. Right?’

Scepticism suddenly stampeded across Jack Nova’s expression, wiping both surprise and suspicion out in the charge.

‘Are you pulling a fast one? Am I going to come out of the toilets after the first drink and find you’ve run off like everyone used to do in flight school?’

‘No! Did we …? Look, flight school was ages ago, water under the bridge, right? You’re a serious reporter now and I have a great story for you! All
exclusive
too!’

That magic word swung the balance in favour of Angel’s encouragements.

‘Well, I s’pose it is nearly lunchtime.’

Angel nodded.

‘One or two drinks wouldn’t hurt. Might as well hear what you have to say.’

‘Exactly!’

Angel slung her arm across Jack Nova’s shoulders and steered him towards the door, making desperate eyeball shrugging gestures at DORIS as the little bot hovered in the entrance to reception waiting for her.

Chapter 17

‘Sho … old Tailshpin … He finally learned how to control a ship, huh?’

‘S’riiight,’ slurred Angel in reply to the equally slurry question.

‘Pretty lucky though. I mean shaking off those evil Cypher Funks …’

‘Punks,’ Angel corrected, ‘and I would say it was more down to bravery than luck. Don’t forget Commander Kram gave his life keeping those pirates off my tail.’

‘Right. AND then you stumble into the trade deal of the millennium? A meal ticket worthy of the Naris Ellison saga …’

‘Okay, let’s not get carried away with the narrative here. The planet needed gold to fix up the power-grid. I had gold, and plenty of it. For once ‘the Lady’ was on my side, what I can say? If I hadn’t arrived when I did the whole nebula-sucking star system would have gone down; they were on the brink of civil war. It’s amazing how much the Imperial court of who-gives-a-fuck will pay in the face of total anarchy.’

‘Clearly. And
very
unlucky they caught a planet-wide virus shortly after so no diligent reporters can call them to verify the facts …’

‘Very…’

The reporter tapped a few wobbly notes into his tablet while he took some more deep chugs of his drink. Angel topped him up from the half-empty flagon of blue liquid they were sharing. He seemed to be thinking deeply about his notes.

‘Are you sure there wasn’t any sex though? I mean, a story always sells better if there is sex in it.’

Angel’s insides screwed up into a tight little ball. She wanted to slap the sleazy Trumble-head and his mind-in-the-gutter reporting style.

‘No sex. No. But it has everything else. Money, power, heroes and pirates! The underdogs win! David and Goliath! People love that stuff far better than a sleazy sex story. Trust me.’

The fog over Jack’s eyes was getting heavier. They were tucked into a booth in Anna and Roland’s Zen Garden and Angel had been plying him with as much alcohol as she could get into his glass since they’d hopped a shuttle just over an hour ago. For a small man he had an impressive capacity for booze, but it was only a matter of time before he passed out and Angel had been pacing herself well.

‘Yeah, that was REALLY impressive. Those pirates are pros! They gonna be sooo embarrassed when the galaxy hears how they were swatted off by a fly. They’ll be the laughing stock.’

The little reporter was starting to warm to a potentially juicy angle.

‘And KRAM will be a hero ... right? It’s not just about the bad side of everything,’ Angel couldn’t help getting up a head of steam since the gutter-loving gossip press was one of her personal hates. She despised it when so-called reporters did this.

‘Oh yeah, right … of course. A
total
hero … trust me, I’m a reporter. Right?’ He winked drunkenly. She topped him up to the brim again gritting her teeth to force a smile.

‘I’ll drink a toast to that,’ she said raising her glass into the air so he felt obliged to do the same.

‘To Kram!’

‘To reporters!’

They cried out of sync in unison and then swallowed more blue liquid together.

‘Uhm, Commander Rose … What is going on?’

Katherine was standing at the end of the table, legs planted wide and arms folded across her chest, glaring down at the apparent drunken revelry.

‘Katherine! Meet Jack Nova … he’s a
reporter
for the Observer's Observer,’ Angel said pointedly.

Katherine raised an eyebrow. ‘You are drinking with a
reporter
?’

Admin appeared behind her. Shooting a look between the two women he decided silence was the better part of valour.

‘Pleashure to meet you, Kathreeen.’ Jack stuck a wavy hand into the air in the general direction of the new arrivals and when Katherine didn’t grasp it he soon lost the will to keep holding it up and it went flopping back down on the table.

‘I am drinking with an old academy friend,’ Angel said, ‘who I ran into in the spa gardens looking for some dodgy politician.’

That was enough for the penny to drop.

‘Well, we need to get moving. The cargo you ordered from down below is on the way to the
Daisy Chain
and I’m guessing you didn’t get finished with the rest of the
digiwork
yet?’ the dread-headed pirate said emphatically.

‘One more contract to sign.’

Katherine glanced around. ‘Where’s that bothersome biscuit tin?’

 ‘Went back to the ship to make sure she’s all fuelled up and ready to roll.’

‘Well, you laydees clearly have work to do. I should get to the office and file this story anyway. Right? Pirates, intrigue, screw ups and shame … I might see if I can chase up Captain Riley again too, see what the navy has to say about the appalling amount of gangsters that seem to be marauding through this sector unchecked. Ashully, I have a man in the pilots fed. I should be able to tap him up for el capitan’s whereaboutsh.’

‘Oh, ho there little friend,’ Katherine had thwarted Jack’s attempt to stagger to his feet by sliding into the booth beside him, shunting him deeper with her arse. She signalled towards the bar for Anna to bring another glass. ‘How about you just stay put for one more drink? I might be able to add some detail to your story; give you the scoop on what it’s like working for Commander Rose here?’ Katherine winked at Jack.  ‘Is there sex?’ Jack asked seriously. ‘I could really do with some sex. I mean, it always sell a story better if there’s sex ….’

‘Oh for sure … the best kind.’

Angel started to protest as Katherine leant in close and whispered something in the reporter’s ear.

‘LESBIAN SEX?!’ he cried, eyes wide.

In his excitement he forgot to hold on to his tablet and it went clattering to the floor between his legs. The conversation at every table in this section of the bar ceased in an instant and all eyes turned towards them. Angel’s cheeks burned.

‘Katherine! Don’t you dare!’

‘You just go finish your business and leave me to finish up here. Admin, go with her to make sure she doesn’t run into any more
old friends
… I’ll meet you back at the ship in thirty minutes.’

With that Angel was tugged out of the booth by her arm as Jack struggled to reach between his thighs and blindly fumble around on the floor for the escaped tablet containing all his notes. Katherine filled a fresh glass with blue liquid and made sure Jack Nova’s was brimming over too.

* * *

Angel stomped through the corridors of the space station sucking on the flask of coffee Admin had picked up from one of the cabin vendors out in the main drag. They were making their way towards the Cheese Wheel, a wine bar famed for its variety of galactic cheeses served to accompany the interesting vintages of grape; but perhaps best known for being
the
place to go if you wanted to stock up on cheap narcs. The proprietor was Daniel Dennett, otherwise known as “Dennett the Cheese”, a long-time dealer for Mental Eddie’s narc crew and the man Angel had been contracted to make a terminal example of.

‘So, how’d you get the prisoner out of the Salts without the whole planet’s enforcement brigade after you?’ Angel asked as they trudged on.

‘A section of the mine collapsed. Terrible shame, lots of prisoners trapped. Crawf McVillan was one of them – at least that’s what they’ll think until they’ve worked their way through one hundred and twenty  metres of cave-in to discover otherwise. We’ll be long gone by then. Meanwhile the pallet of unworked alabaster we procured has a little something extra buried deep inside the stack. It should be delivered to the hold of the
Daisy Chain
any time now.’

‘You collapsed the mine on top of a load of prisoners?’

‘Yip.’

‘Are they dead?’

‘Yes; no; maybe; who cares?’ Admin shrugged noncommittally. ‘Space-cakes Angel, you really haven’t grasped the point of this pirating thing yet heave you?’

‘But ... surely there’s the whole ‘honour among thieves’ thing you’ve got going on? The convicts will mostly be thieves, so where is the honour in burying them alive to pull out one mate of Eddies?’

‘We didn’t set out to bury anyone.  They were working pretty deep and we only took out the access tunnel, but there are never any guarantees when you’re working with blast caps in high gravity. That’s some heavy shit down there. My legs could hardly support my body. There might be some collateral damage and I certainly wouldn’t want to be the prison wardens stuck down there with the prisoners. But in the end I refer you to my earlier point. Who really cares as long as we get the contract filled? There’s no reputation hit for making some extra fertiliser out of a few dozen cons… We are in Federation space after all.’

Angel took in his devil-may-care attitude, frowning. ‘And you call the robot ruthless? At least it can blame its programming. What happened to your humanity?’

Admin shrugged. ‘Got replaced with
piranicy?
’

A grin spread across his face as they wove through the rabble of hawkers and traders looking to do deals of varying levels of legality with anyone who had creds in their account and space in their cargo hold.

‘Like I said, I admire the robot, but it’s one of the key reasons to make sure A.I. stays outlawed if you ask me. The last thing we need is those flying calculators to grow a conscience – or worse yet start meting out justice by their own standards of logic.’

 ‘But it’s okay for you to decide who lives and dies, based on the terms of a contract?’