Broken Episode One (11 page)

“Why
would we want to get all the way to the edge of the city?” Mimi
asked, careful to keep her voice low so she didn’t disturb any of
the few people she passed. Then again, her soft voice was unlikely
to disturb anyone in these parts
– a hit to the head with a sledgehammer likely wouldn’t
disturb these guys.

“So we can find transportation to cross it,” Klutzo
now informed her.

“Wait … what? When were you going to tell me this? I
thought the plan was to find transport off this planet, not around
it?”

“I have altered my plan.”

“Why?”

“…
I do not believe it is safe to
procure interstellar transport in this city. Having observed
everyone I have passed, I can confirm they are all unsavory
characters.”

“…
Yeah. But how is it safer to
travel across the freaking desert? I mean, we were just out there.
It’s not a nice place. And apparently temperatures can get as high
as 100 degrees during the day, and as low as minus 50 at night,”
she pointed out with a frightened squeak.

“Though the terrain may be extreme, I have
calculated it is less likely to kill us.”

“You might be able to survive that, buddy, but I
sure as hell can’t.”

“I will procure us a shielded sand slider. If it
fails, I’ll fix it,” he stated flatly.

Though her mouth was open as she readied another
protest, her lips slowly pressed together.

She was forgetting something, wasn’t she? Klutzo
would be better at reading this situation than she was; her father
had programmed him to be one of the best security drones on the
market. Even if technically he wasn’t on the market, and he was a
one-off piece. Still, the point stood: she shouldn’t second-guess
him. She should do exactly as he said, even if, on the face of it,
going into the desert sounded like suicide.

Though
it was hard, she took a breath, squeezed her lips and cheeks
together in a wince, and nodded. “Okay, say I believe you, and
going into the desert really is our best option
– how the heck are we going to procure a sand
slider?”

“We will procure one,” he answered.

“Yeah, that doesn’t answer my question. You mean
steal, don’t you?”

Klutzo became conspicuously silent.

Mimi blew a frustrated breath of air through her
puckered lips and winced once more.

So much for finding a story on this planet; soon,
she was going to become the story.

The galactic headlines would read: daughter of
renowned inventor and businessman, Theodore Francis Chester III,
steals sand slider off pirates while dressed as a punk.

Yeah, that would be a great way to start her career,
or rather end it before it had even begun.

“Trust me, Mimi; I’m programmed to do this.”

Again she winced, though it was a lighter move.
Trust him? Could she do that? Yeah, she could. Because there was no
one else. For a long time now, it had just been him and her. Her
so-called friends had abandoned her years ago, and even if they
hadn’t, they weren’t on this planet. The only person she knew here
was Josh Cook, and she’d rather stab herself in the eye with a fuse
than trust that guy.

So Mimi nodded. “I trust you.”

“Then follow me.”

With dusk giving way to a dark night, the desert
beyond the city looked like so many piles of shadows. Above, a
swathe of glittering stars sparkled, but their light could not
penetrate the murk. With that much darkness, who knew what secrets
lay hidden amongst the dunes and lonely rocky ranges.

Where the hell had she gotten to? He was starting to
get worried now. Not for her safety, but for his. If word spread
that he abandoned the daughter of Theodore Chester on a hostile
planet, he’d be a goner.

His hands were slicked with sweat, and the damn
stuff was pooling between his shoulder blades, making his top stick
to his skin. Even though night had set in, and that familiar icy
cold you always found in deserts like this ate into his exposed
skin, nothing dried the sweat.

He was nervous. He’d given up a lot to get to where
he was now, and he wasn’t going to lose it on a girl like her.

A while
ago he’d ditched his casual clothes for something more fitting: a
vest, pants, a top, and heavy desert boots. Oh, and guns. Lots of
guns. As a special commander, he had access to an unlimited supply
of Coalition credits, meaning he could buy his way out of any
problem, if it came to that. Okay, it didn’t work that way
– the credits were there when he
needed emergency supplies or transport – but sometimes it felt like
he’d been given a blank check, as the old humans used to say. He
had an unlimited credit chip in his pocket, and today it had come
in real handy.

He had a desert rifle strapped to his back, and two
short-range rock razors on his hips. Both types of guns were
optimized to work on planets like this. From the heat to the
constant abrasive sand, they were designed to last for years, with
proper care.

He’d also invested in a scanner. A certain type of
illegal scanner. Or at least illegal if you didn’t work for the
Coalition Army. Strapped to his wrist was a gene tracker. Give it
the right data, and it could track someone for thousands of
kilometers. While it was a crime for an ordinary punter to procure
one, they were used in the Academy and the Army, but even then you
had to justify their use.

Well, he was a special commander, and the word
“special” was there for a reason. Not only would the Coalition not
give a hoot that he bought one, they’d probably never question what
he used it for. He had a lot of freedom, but it came with a lot of
responsibility.

“You better not have wandered far,” he muttered
under his breath. He’d been repeating that same statement for about
a half hour now. He still hadn’t found her, though, hence the
sweaty fingers.

Gripping his chin and letting his dirty fingers dig
into his stubble, he shifted his jaw from side to side as he tried
to eke out the tension.

It didn’t work.

Only getting off this hellhole would.

He tried
to manipulate the scanner as he walked. It was tricky
– considering it was a sophisticated
piece of equipment – but he managed it.

It
wasn’t too hard to find a few fragments of Mimi’s DNA
– she’d grabbed his arm just before
wandering off, and this scanner was sophisticated enough to detect
whatever minute fractions of skin cells she’d left behind. It took
all of half a minute to confirm the DNA had to be hers; it was
human, and apart from him, she was the only human he’d come
across.

He started to follow, keeping the scanner held close
to his chest so he could hide it with the bulk of his sleeve. It
was an expensive piece of equipment, and he wouldn’t put it past
some random alien to make a grab for it. Nor would he put it past
the guy who sold it to him to try to nick it back.

When Josh had crash-landed on a planet like this 7
years ago, he’d run the same scheme. He’d sold sophisticated tech
to the dull-witted, then stolen it back, ensuring a steady stream
of income without the bother of having to procure more stock.

The
memory made him smile, then he caught himself
– he was a different man now. God dammit, he was
a different man.

Ideally a DNA scanner could be used to track a laced
target. You’d get close to your prey in a bar or transport station,
sidle up to them, and bump into their arm or neck, transferring a
sophisticated but undetectable chemical tracer onto their skin. The
DNA scanner would use the tracer to keep a lock on the target for
up to hundreds of kilometers, depending on the terrain.

He hadn’t laced Mimi, so his only hope was to
carefully retrace her steps using the weak DNA signature the
scanner was picking up. Tracing whatever tiny fractions of skin or
hair she’d left behind as she’d travelled through this city, the
DNA scanner could ascertain her path, but only within a few
meters.

Josh
hated slow work. He lived for action, not details, and work like
this had to be damn precise. If he hurried ahead, the scanner could
lose its link, and he’d have to search for it again. When you
thought about it, it was trying to sift through the enormous
mountain of DNA in this city
– from live beings to dead hair cells – to zero in on one
target.

The more he walked, the further his brow compressed,
as the irritation of having to track Mimi flickered into worry.

His path was taking him to the outskirts of
town.

When she’d first wandered off, he’d assumed she’d be
dumb enough to walk up to the first rickety old transport hub she
saw and try to buy a lift off this planet.

All the transport hubs were in the center of
town.

The only thing on the outskirts of this trash heap
of a city was sand. Sand and the kind of pirates desperate enough
to try to make a living off the desert.

Over the
thousands of years of space travel the Milky Way had seen, there’d
been untold accidents. For every successful space voyage
– especially in the early days –
there were ten or so disasters. Space, after all, was an
exceedingly dangerous place. If the temperature didn’t kill you,
the vacuum would.

So planets like this were littered with junk. From
transport carcasses to old cargo satellites, if you were brave
enough to face the desert, it could be a rewarding place.

Or it could kill you. The extra fine particles of
sand on this planet were known to clog guns, stuff up scanners, and
kill engines. They were also known to cut people to death if the
winds picked up.

“Where the hell are you?” Josh asked under his
breath as his heart skipped a few beats. Turning around a corner,
he faced the last few buildings right at the edge of the city.
Beyond was nothing but sand. Though it was dark, he could see the
dunes connected together like mountain ranges. Mountain ranges that
could change in a night if the wind took to them.

He sucked in a calming breath. It didn’t work. It
made him tenser.

Either the scanner was wrong, or Mimi had … what?
Gone back into the desert? He liked to think she was stupid, but he
had to admit this was insane even for her. She may not have
finished her tenure at the Academy, but surely she’d managed to
figure out that deserts like this one could kill you. They weren’t
pleasant places for midnight strolls; they were death wrapped in
sand, wind, and heat.

“Looking for someone?”

Josh jolted as surprise ripped through him. He’d
been so transfixed on the scanner and Mimi’s possible whereabouts
that he hadn’t been paying attention to his surroundings.

Big mistake.

A planet like this was full of desperate brutal
people just waiting for a chance to kill you if it could earn them
a buck or two.

Thankfully Josh wasn’t immediately shot down in a
hail of bright white laser fire. Instead, a small figure pulled
itself out of the shadows of a low building to his left. Josh
didn’t jump for joy, thinking it was Mimi. While the size was
right, the voice wasn’t. Unless she’d done nothing but drink space
whiskey for the past four hours while trying her hand at slitting
her own throat, it wasn’t her.

Sure
enough, as the figure resolved out of the darkness, he saw it was
an Arkba
– a short but lithe
alien from the Arkba Crescent – a system a long way from
here.

Arkbas
had a reputation for creating trouble. Not ordinary trouble,
though. They didn’t go into bars and punch the first pirate they
saw
– they just … started
things. They enjoyed mischief. They liked setting in motion
unstoppable events, kicking back, and watching the show.

“Looking
for someone?” The alien licked its chin. It had a long black tongue
with a red tip, which it constantly used to moisten the sense organ
protruding from its chin. Unlike humans, Arkba’s had a third
eye
– one lodged into their
jaw. It was pretty disgusting, or at least it would be if Josh
hadn’t seen worse.

“I can’t say I am, no,” Josh answered. He was lying,
but he wasn’t about to engage an Arkba in conversation. Either the
guy would try to sell him a faulty cruiser stolen from a pirate
king, or he’d find some other way of embroiling Josh in
trouble.

And Josh already had plenty of trouble as it was
without adding to it.

“Human is looking for someone, because someone was
looking for human.”

Though he tried to hide it, Josh stiffened.

Mimi?

The Arkba licked his third eye again. He had green
scaly skin with deep purple hands and feet. Now, as he likely
sensed Josh’s tension, he shuffled forward a few steps.

The
alien came into a shaft of light reflecting from a building to his
right. He was naked
– like
all Arkbas – except for a top pulled over his torso.

Mimi’s
top, to be exact. Josh didn’t need his DNA scanner to blip
excitedly
– he recognized it
on his own.

His heart tumbled into his chest, as if someone had
shaken it loose from his rib cage.

“Human interested. I see human interested.” The
alien’s third eye shifted back and forth as it surveyed Josh. “Now,
want to know other human’s whereabouts?”

Josh tried to think quickly. The Arkba had Mimi’s
top. It was clear it had come in contact with her. Did it know who
she was? Had it run a simple identity scan to confirm she was the
only child of Theodore Chester? Was it about to bargain for her
release?

Though Josh’s heart kept pounding in his ears, he
realized it was unlikely the Arkba had kidnapped her. While they
loved to start trouble, they were never that direct.