Authors: David Welch
“Let’s hope so,” Chakrika spoke. “Slave or not, she’s just plain strange.”
“Watch the ship,” Rex spoke, nodding in agreement. Then he headed for the cargo bay.
* * *
“Nine hundred rounds thirty mil solid shot, got it,” the greasy-looking man behind the desk spoke. He worked maintenance in Helvetia’s spaceport and had an irritating habit of not looking at people while he talked to them. Lucius had only known of the man’s existence for about ninety seconds, but already disliked him.
“We have need of it immediately; our schedule is tight,” Lucius informed him.
“Eh, tight? Rush jobs got an ex-
poh
-diting fee. Gonna need two bits silver,” the greasy guy replied.
Lucius tossed him the coins, saying in a dark voice, “See that it’s done. Pad thirty-four.”
He moved from the desk, left the small room, and returned to a large corridor bored from the rock of the asteroid. A four-wheeled vehicle dragging a cart covered in engine parts zoomed by, nearly crushing his foot. He bit back the urge to swear at the driver and continued on.
The corridor opened up into a huge gallery, easily a quarter mile across and almost as high. A ramp spiraled up the height of the gallery, some fifty feet across, broad enough to act as a street. Studded along its length was a honeycomb of hollows carved from the rock. People infested them about half-way up the massive hollow, living and working alongside each other. There was no organization to it. The bottom of the gallery, or rather what the gravitational generators buried within the asteroid had
decided
was the floor of the gallery, was an open-market place jammed with people.
He squirmed through, turning every other second to avoid being hit by somebody. On his left a tent of thin fabric rose. Sounds of passion came from inside. Through the thin fabric, he could make out the shapes of a man on top of a rotund woman, thrusting furiously. Seconds later he noticed the entrance, where a line of men waited. He didn’t know what language the sign over the entrance was in, but didn’t need to. Brothels were brothels. Prostitutes not lucky enough to be working for such a
fine
establishment worked their way up and down the line, trying to pick off customers. Most were not particularly attractive, but Lucius still had to give this place some credit. At least half of the street-walkers here were women. Far better than the last asteroid they’d stopped at.
Next came a man with a push-cart selling rot-gut booze in opaque bottles, followed by a vendor selling the sort of white powders that
really
made your day better. After him was, of all things, a florist. Quite a busy one, too. A dozen people waited to buy the one type of flower he sold: a white-petalled thing with a bright, yellowish-red center. All of the people in line were grizzled, hard-looking men. Apparently months of staring at rock could bring out the soft spots in even the gruffest of people.
He finally came to the tent he was looking for. The simple drawing of a gun above the open flaps told him all he needed to know.
He went inside. Wooden racks filled to bursting with firearms met his eye. He figured it was time to arm himself. Rex had a lot of firepower for one person, but not for three. Lucius eyed an assault rifle and moved to pick it up.
“Eleven two five millimeter Kirbaclimac,” the salesman said in a thick accent, sidling up to him. “Straight from Iskendur. Real thing, no knock-off.”
“How much?” Lucius asked.
“Bit gold, two bits silver,” the man spoke.
“Eight bits silver,” Lucius replied.
“No, no. Not copy, real thing!” he insisted.
Lucius considered for a moment, before saying, “One bit gold.”
“One bit gold,” the salesmen repeated.
“Get me ten magazines for it,
loaded
,” Lucius stressed as the man scrambled away with the gun.
He drifted through the tent for another half-hour, picking up a nine millimeter pistol as well. The salesman returned with his assault rifle in a large plastic case. Lucius slipped the pistol inside the case after paying for all of it and then moved on through the bazaar. After about ten minutes of wandering and occasionally using the gun case as a plow, he stumbled upon the food vendors. Grabbing a large canvas bag from a pile of them near the entrance, he moved into the loud, crowded mass of humanity.
Unbeknownst to him, while he was buying a case of one hundred dehydrated meals, a pair of eyes spotted him. The owner of those eyes did a double-take and dashed off through the writhing mob of shoppers. Lucius spent another hour picking out items Chakrika had asked for, before struggling back toward the ship with his gun case tucked under one arm and a fifty-pound sack of food slung over his shoulder.
It took him a half-hour to find the tunnel he had taken to get here. A half-dozen other tunnels of equal size branched off from the bazaar, moving deeper into Helvetia. Last thing he needed was to wander into God knows what kind of neighborhood carrying eighty pounds of stuff. He finally recognized the tunnel he had taken and trudged his way back to
Long Haul.
Long Haul
’s pad was in a gallery similar to that of the bazaar, but much smaller. Behind the ship two massive doors separated them from space. A similar door would close off the entrance tunnel to create an airlock when time came to launch. Rex had brought the ship in backward, so that the cargo bay faced inward, toward the access tunnel.
Lucius silently thanked him for that and tromped slowly up the door-ramp. Once inside, he dropped the sacks and moved toward the winch.
He had barely gotten his hands on it when he heard footsteps behind him, the unmistakable sounds of boots hitting metal. He turned, expecting to see Rex.
Instead, he saw five men with guns.
“Count Baliol,” the leader of the bunch spoke in an accent identical to his own. He looked to be in his early thirties, with a barrel chest, wiry black hair, and a full beard. He stood only a few inches over five feet and was dressed in heavy coveralls and a scratchy-looking shirt, standard attire for this rock. Yet he carried himself like a king, shoulders back and chest held high. His eyes locked in on Lucius, almost to the point of squinting.
“I believe you have me mistaken,” Lucius spoke, raising his hands above his head. His gun was half-way across the cargo deck and unloaded.
“Your face is in every military database in the empire. I know who you are,” the leader replied, then nodded to one of his men. The man sprinted off, no doubt to send word back to Europa.
“Empire’s a long way from here,” Lucius replied.
“The empire is wherever its operatives are,” the man said with an evil smile.
And in that instant, Lucius knew what he was facing. Europan intelligence had long sent people into the Quarter to expand their influence. Nobles fought ferociously for the job. It brought promotion and reward from the emperor himself. It bought them an easy life once done and freedom from bloody skirmishing against the Commonwealth fleets along the frontier. Of course no noble would dare show cowardice and
say
they didn’t want to go off to the Commonwealth frontier, but such illusions didn’t stop them from killing for a clandestine post.
“And what part of the empire am I speaking to now?” Lucius asked.
“Viscount Gaius Karol Ingridson-Garibaldi,” the man replied.
“From the Strathclyde Garibaldis?” Lucius asked.
“The same,” Gaius replied.
“I didn’t know people from Strathclyde could piss straight, much less spy,” remarked Lucius with a sneer.
Gaius did not respond, holding his reserve as all good Europans did. He merely advanced slowly, motioning with his gun toward the metal staircase that led to the ship.
“Please lead. I should hate to be the first to die should your crew have any nasty ambushes awaiting,” he spoke.
Lucius moved slowly, taking advantage of the narrowness of the ladder. He prayed the computer had warned Chakrika. At the top of the stairs, he led them through the starboard corridor, past the reactor compartment, and into the common area.
It was empty, except for Second sitting stone-still at the table. A pot sat on the kitchen stove, still boiling. Quintus’s crib was empty as well.
“Girl, get on your feet, hands up!” snapped one of Gaius’s thugs.
Second looked at him strangely and then turned to Lucius.
“Get up,” Lucius said simply.
She stood, but it did her little good. Angered at being ignored, the thug rushed over to Second. He smashed the butt of his pistol into the back of her head. She flung forward, struck the table with her temple, then slid to the floor.
“There was no need for that,” Lucius spoke.
The thug dragged Second’s limp form across the room, tossing her against the wall. He leered at her for a long minute.
“Pretty little bitch,” he said with a laugh. “Might have some fun with her.”
“Fond of unconscious girls, are you?” Lucius spoke.
Gaius pushed him forward, into the room. Lucius moved to Second’s side, sitting her up against the wall as she slowly came to. The guns remained pointed at him.
“Taunting the help will not aid you or your woman,” Gaius explained. “It is only you that I have to return alive. Remember that.”
He turned to his thugs.
“Search the ship; see if anybody else is present.”
* * *
Something beeped as Rex made his way down one of Helvetia’s many corridors. The sound wouldn’t go away; it just kept repeating, annoying and shrill. Grumbling, Rex looked to a watch-like console on his wrist. A tiny speaker sat next to a simple LED, which flashed red. Red, as it had done throughout so much of history, meant that bad things were happening.
“What is it?” he spoke.
“
Four unidentified men have boarded the ship
,” his computer spoke. A small holographic projection shot up, hovering about his wrist. It displayed real-time camera images from his ship. He could see four men with assault rifles, waving them at Lucius.
“Who else is onboard?” he said with a sigh.
“
Chakrika, Quintus, and Second
.”
Rex groaned. The patch steel would have to wait.
Long Haul
would fly again riddled with holes.
Better that then your crew riddled with holes.
“OK, I’m on my way. This is what I want done…”
* * *
The thugs dispersed, moving down the hallway to the various rooms. Long minutes passed as they made their way through the ship.
“They’ve got a dead guy in here!” one shouted. “At least I
think
he’s a guy! He’s got a fucking pussy!”
“There’s some serious tech up here!” another shouted from the bridge.
A scream filled the ship. The third man emerged from one of the storage cabins, dragging a struggling Chakrika behind him. He threw her toward Lucius, who caught her in his arms before she could slam into the metal walls. She slumped to the ground, in tears. He held on tightly, crouching low beside her.
Gaius examined her closely, astonishment written across his face.
“Tiger stripes!” he said with a laugh. “You do have odd taste, Baliol. Any other members of your harem we should be on the lookout for?”
Lucius said nothing, noting to himself that Quintus was not with Chakrika. Hopefully, wherever she had stashed the boy, he was sleeping quietly.
The other thugs returned. One had cleaned out Rex’s closet and dropped a half-dozen guns on the ground at Gaius’s feet.
“That bridge has got good stuff. Could get a few hundred thousand for the computers alone,” one of the thugs spoke. Then he yawned.
Odd
, thought Lucius through his fear.
“After we deliver him, you three can have the ship and the women,” Gaius spoke. “He is wanted for treason. The emperor himself plans to throttle him personally so that all can see the price of betraying the Divine Order.”
“That’s like a month’s journey!” one of the thugs complained. “My wife’ll kill me if I’m gone that long!”
“You will be paid extra,” Gaius said, yawning himself. Lucius would have wondered why suddenly his captors seemed so tired, but he himself felt his eyelids squeezing shut. A thump next to him drew his attention. Chakrika lay on the floor, unconscious. Second’s eyes fluttered and closed.
“Boss…something’s…wrong,” one of the thugs said between yawns.
“Yeah…” Gaius spoke. “Something in the air…”
Gaius fell to the floor, out cold. Lucius would have loved to see it, but his eyes had already closed. Confusion was the last thing he felt before being enveloped by darkness.
* * *
He came to his senses on the floor of the common room. The metal ceiling filled his vision, followed by Rex’s face.
“Awake?” Rex asked.
“Clearly,” Lucius replied. “What happened?”
“The ship sent me a warning so I had it empty the carbon scrubbers into the cabin. All that carbon dioxide put you guys down for a little while,” Rex explained.
He extended an arm and helped Lucius to his feet. Lucius’s head swelled with pain as he stood. He flinched, massaging his forehead.
“Sorry ’bout that,” Rex spoke. “Side effect. Need your help getting this trash off my ship.”
Lucius fixed his gaze on his recent attackers. Their hands had been tied behind their backs, their weapons lying harmlessly on the floor. Lucius shook off his haze and picked up one of their guns. Gaius glowered at him.
“The empire will not stop hunting for you,” he declared.
Rex laughed, “They’ll have to get in line!”
* * *
Rather than stick around and wait for Gaius’s thugs to gather reinforcements, Rex launched
Long Haul
and maneuvered it to the uninhabited rear of the asteroid. They were in no way hidden, but being out of the spaceport meant that nothing short of another ship, or a bunch of brave idiots in spacesuits, could sneak up on them.
Refueled with local hydrogen, Rex fiddled in one of the maintenance closets with the engine settings. He hated being in these cramped spaces. On warships there were engine
rooms
, huge places where dozens of men crawled like ants over the most advanced technology a military budget could buy. On this bucket he had about twelve inches of room on any side.