Prisoner of Earthside: A Novella (STRYDER'S HORIZON Book 2) (4 page)

“You owe me,” Alice said as we were forced into Old Shepard.

The loophole in
Earthside law also allowed Alice to turn around and post my own bail.  Counselor Lewton was very helpful in giving her that information. But the act angered a few, and we were treated to a less than hospitable exit from Earthside. I might be taking it personally, but it seemed like they never wanted to see us again.

“How much more was it than yours?”

“You were worth double. I barely had enough. And I know we’re not going to the trial so we’re not going to get it back are we?”

No, we would not be going to trial. Which meant if we were found guilty of Grand Officer Nehalem’s murder we wouldn’t be safe in Burnside. By law the Colonial Officers could come after us with everything they had.

But it was a Burnsider’s right not to appear in court.

I was just hopeful that I could figure out why Nehalem was murdered before they gunned me down.

Old Shepard sputtered as we took off. I knew right away some one must’ve tampered with him. I tried to remind myself that I made a convincing murderer and the Colonial had every right to treat scum like that. Problem was, I’m rather particular about Old Shepard and it was taking every ounce of willpower not to turn around and wage war on the Colonial prick that messed with my ride.

We drove for an hour before I heard a tiny sniffle from Alice. Her eyes were pinned out the passenger side window. I didn’t have the right thing to tell her, but I spoke anyway. “Don’t worry. Thom will be fine.”

I opened a can of Can’t-Shut-The-Hell-Up.

Alice burst forth with so many questions it was hard to keep track of how an answer could be misconstrued if I did get a word in.

“…And how can he be a traitor. Even if they forced that information out of him to attack, it’s not like he meant to. The Red Empress would’ve tortured him. Done terrible things.  He has to hate her. Why would he come back and ask to see me? Why would he do that if he was just going to help lead the Red Empress here to destroy us all?”

I bit my tongue, but if Thom Crisp loved Alice, perhaps he would try and meet with her so that he could protect her during the attack.

“Now I’ll never see him. He’ll think I hate him. I have no way to tell him how hard we tried to see him.” Alice stopped for one whole second, then another, and another. And I realized that it would be quiet in Old Shepard for a while.

There was nothing we could accomplish back at the shack. I came to a stop and just let us sit there in silence for a minute. I had to make this right. I couldn’t just go back to Macy’s Pub and wait for it to sort itself out. I’d already made Alice give up on Thom Crisp once before. I didn’t have the heart to do it again.

“Why are we stopped? Come on. Take me back home already, what’s the point? He might as well be dead.”

“We have to figure out how to get back into Earthside.”

Alice scoffed at such an idea.

I nodded. That wasn’t likely. In fact, it was likely they were watching us. Ready for the final verdict to convict us so they could pounce like hungry wolves.

“We’re going to go back to Macy’s Pub,” I said even as Alice’s groans started to drown me out. “We have to look like we’re staying out of this. But we won’t. I’ve got some favors we can call on.” At least I thought I still did.

“Might as well,” Alice pouted.  She didn’t speak to me the rest of the ride.

Once we reached Macy’s, Alice said something indiscernible and slammed Old Shepard’s door. It sounded like she broke the hinges. I didn’t come after her. She sprinted into the pub and ordered herself a lot to drink, nothing to eat. She cursed and high-fived some of the regulars like nothing was wrong. She was trying too hard.

I found my normal seat taken and took the open one at the end of the bar.
Right under the news feeds. I heard a deep Russian laugh.

Gregor sat down next to me. “You are sitting somewhere different. This is why I have not found you all day.”

I wasn’t in the mood to tell the tale of our adventure in Earthside, so I just smiled back.

“Alice and you were on the newsfeed earlier. I thought that
can’t be true. They are here in Burnside somewhere. So I came looking for you,” Gregor said. “No one here had seen you since the opening of Workman’s Imperial Brown.  I get worried, I think my Kimmie has done something very foolish.” He paused when he saw what I was served. It wasn’t another Imperial Brown Ale. It was just a glass of sweet tea. He gasped, “Kimmie, did you kill a Colonial Officer?”

“A Grand Officer.”

Gregor buried his face in his hands and shook his ratty looking hair.

“Relax, it’ll work itself out.” I barely believed that. It wouldn’t work itself out without me working it out. I was in this whether or not I wanted to be. I should’ve just let Alice take Old Shepard yesterday. I should’ve kept drinking. That’ll be my new rule. Keep drinking until there’s nothing left to drink. Then find where there is something to drink and repeat.

The newsfeed popped on above us.

“More news on the murder that has all of us talking.”

I looked at the viewer and wondered which picture of me they were going to use.  I really hoped it wasn’t me all made up like some Earthsider. I’d never live that down.

But as the newsfeed continued, a different woman was shown.

“Historian Melinda Richards was found slain in her home this morning. It is a tragic death as she was set to publish her long awaited biography on Colonial’s Benjamin Reasonover.  Her publisher assures us the biography will be released in the near future. Richards was just twenty-eight years old. Her killer is still on the loose. Officers are interested in Randall Nehalem, son of recently murdered Grand Officer Nehalem. And it is believed there may be a connection between the two deaths. More after a word from the best Taco Shop in all of Earthside…”

Randall Nehalem was the teenager that hounded us in
Earthside, the one that ran from Grand Officer Nehalem’s room. I had hoped to keep the Colonials off his tail long enough to figure out what this had to do with Thom Crisp, but now they seemed to have a stronger reason to go after him.  What’s worse is that Alice and I should’ve had our faces plastered right alongside him. But there was no mention of us.

Had Officer Francis already figured it out? At the very least we should still be wanted to tampering with a crime scene.

“What does this have to do with you?” Gregor asked.

“The murder charge we got is because I tried to cover for Randall Nehalem.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because it looked like someone was trying to frame him for murdering his father.”

“And this woman, too?”

“I don’t know who the hell she is,” I said.

Gregor nodded. “And you’ve been forbidden to return to Earthside?”

“For now.”

“Best just leave it alone, let it sort itself out.”

I started to nod, then stopped. Wasn’t I just saying it wouldn’t sort itself out? I ran through a list of people I knew, I excluded Gregor since he was going to be stubborn and refuse to get involved. I can’t blame him. But I need to find someone just dumb enough to agree to go, who can actually get Randall Nehalem out of
Earthside. And pronto.

“
Kimmie, I think you are having bad thoughts. Whatever you are thinking, you stop it right now.”

I shook my head and smiled.

The thing everyone always forgets about Bill Pace is that he only pretends to be forgetful and busy. It took fifteen minutes for me to remind Pace why he owed me. But it only took him an hour to get Randall Nehalem out of Earthside. He didn’t even get up from his desk.

“I’ve got people,” Pace said.

“I know, and I’m one of them.”

“So you owe me one now.”

I said, “No, we’re even. This was the favor you owed me.”

“You right, you right.” He repeated and laughed.

Pace was actually an easy guy to work with. That’s why he had so many ‘people’ roaming the entire planet. If Pace called, you were genuinely happy to hear from him. When you didn’t hear from him, you started to wonder if the man was dead.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“He’ll be in my office in a few minutes. Why don’t you stop by for a beer or three? I’d like to hear what kind of trouble Kimmie Stryder has gotten herself into this time.”

Pace’s office was out in the middle of nowhere, almost the complete opposite direction of my shack. He liked living out where no one else was yet he always managed to throw parties that brought everyone out to his ‘office.’

I knew telling Alice to wait at Macy’s would be a bad idea. So I made Gregor do it and I snuck out the back.  I just hoped she didn’t recognize the sound of Old Shepard firing up.

In retrospect, I should’ve brought her.

And maybe a small army.

I owed Pace now. That was for certain. His home was chewed up by blaster fire, all we could do was keep cover against the big metal safe that had withstood the initial onslaught. I still couldn’t quite remember how it happened. I just remember getting there and shaking Pace’s hand. Then hell came.

Shots riddled the tethered walls around us as some one hollered.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

“Oh,
Kimmie, now you really owe me,” Bill said as we crouched ear-to-ear.

“I’ll get you a new shack. Don’t you worry about
that. Where did Randall go?”

“You know when the bang and boom comes I don’t have a straight head.  I’m here, they’re out there and you better figure out away to unscrew this situation. Fast.”

“Did you see who attacked?” I asked.

“What did I just say, woman?”

“Well do you have any damn blasters then?”

Pace shrugged. “Had a roommate a while back.
He disappeared, maybe he left something. I never got around to cleaning out his room upstairs.

I looked above us.

There was no upstairs anymore, just the blood-red afternoon sky of Burnside.

“Maybe you’d have been better off if they kept you locked up in
Earthside?” Pace suggested.

“When you phrase it that way, I’m dead anyway.” I left the crouch and ran along the Swiss cheese wall. Blaster shots traced my steps but failed to keep up.

I tried to remember why the hell I was doing all of this.

Love.

Not even my love. But love for Alice and Thom Crisp. Maybe some guilt too? Who knows? I’m a walking, talking snowball.

And blaster heat was no good for me.

Pace was right behind me. I know because I stopped before running straight into a blaster shot and he bumped into me.

“Keep moving, I’m following you!” he cried.

I had to get to Old Shepard. Then everything would be fine. I’d be flying down the landscape without a chance of any of those bastards catching up to me.  Of course I needed to do one thing before I tucked my tail and ran.

I needed to make sure Randall Nehalem was still alive. He took off as soon as the attack occurred. There wasn’t anywhere he could really have gone except…

Old Shepard roared.

“That punk ass kid!”

Pace had a hard time keeping up. I didn’t know how much time I had before Nehalem was going to toss Old Shepard into gear and leave us in the dust. I just hoped my rod was customized enough to confuse his Colonially educated brain.

There was a sound I never wanted to hear. The whole
transtar system over cranked. I became less concerned with my life and dodging blasters. Old Shepard was in trouble.

I split open my knuckle punching Randall and pushing him into the passenger seat. Pace scrambled around the front of Old Shepard hoping that the dazed young Nehalem would open the door for him. But he couldn’t. I was busy giving him an earful about knowing what he’s doing if he’s going to touch my ride. The snap of a blaster shot striking the fender panel quieted me. I popped the passenger door, kept Old Shepard in manual and threw the throttle to hell.

The blasters rained like hail as I attempted to out run them. I knew it was only a matter of moments that our attackers would man their transport and pursue us. A broken transtar wouldn’t sideline Old Shepard, but it didn’t do him any favors. It probably cost me five miles per hour off acceleration, that’s a pretty big deal since the roads in Pace’s neck of the woods were ragged, with sharp and unexplainable turns.

Pace screamed as he gripped the dashboard and door.

Randall found syllables to string together, but the sentences had little comprehension. “Who! You! Fuck! My forehead! Kill me!”

I wish I had a tranquilizer on me, for the pair of them.