Drew was working as fast as she could when Van tapped her shoulder.
"You can slow down. I wasn't lying about the gas canister. They got maybe five minutes before the gas reaches them."
"You send a control beacon at the same time?"
"Well, of course," Van Gar said indignantly. "What do you think I am, a rank amateur?"
He saw the man on top of the stack of rubber tires.
"Fuck! Drew!"
He shoved her to the ground and opened fire on the man as blasts rained down all around them. The man flew back through the air, screaming all the way to the floor.
"You OK, Drew?" Van Gar asked, looking around carefully for any other attacker.
"Yeah," she groaned. She stood up and went back to work on the controls. "Keep an eye out. There should be one more."
"Hey! You little fucker! We know yer in here! Ya might as well come on out an make it easy on yerself," Van screamed.
Behind him he could hear the sound of the exterior doors closing, and Drew picking up her weapon. To the lone pirate, that sound must have been like hearing his own death screams. This guy had nothing to lose.
"I'll check this way," Drew said.
They split up. Ten minutes later, they met at the cargo bay doors.
"I counted seven bodies."
"Me, too," Van said, sounding disappointed. "We must have hit the last one with random fire."
"Too easy?" Drew asked.
"Yeah. I hate it when they finish before I do."
"I hate this." Facto hissed through clenched teeth.
He looked around the bridge and wished that he had any idea what any of the flashing lights or sirens were indicative of. He kept walking around, looking at various screens and trying to get any meaning out of the jumbled letters and symbols that looked back at him. Wishing that any of the data was in a familiar language, instead of code.
"We have no way of knowing what's going on. I should have gone with them. I should have."
"That's not going to change things one way or the other, Facto. Try to relax."
"Relax. This woman is a lunatic!" The words had barely cleared his lips when the doors opened and Drewcila Qwah strode onto the bridge.
"Now, now, Fatso." She knew that wasn't his name, but it wasn't much more stupid sounding. "Is that any way to talk to the people who just saved the Royal piece ah ass?"
She flopped into the control chair and leaned her weapon against the console beside her. Van Gar was not far behind her. He rushed in and sat in the navigator's chair directly across from Drewcila, and their fingers busily flew over their respective keyboards.
"Our coordinates have been re-established, and we are prepared to continue our course," Van Gar reported.
Drewcila just nodded, her fingers caressing the keyboard as if it were a lover she knew well. Finally she smiled.
"The beacon has been activated, and we now have full control of the Purple Cat."
"A purple cat?" Taralin asked.
"The pirate ship," Van Gar answered. Then he turned to Drew. "With the gas on board we don't have to worry about anyone stealing it."
"Stealing it? But it's . . . Isn't . . . Doesn't the Space Patrol have to make a report? Isn't that ship evidence?" Facto said.
"Hello! Hello!" Drew screamed. "Are we living in the same universe? According to Article twenty-six of the Salvagers' Code . . ." she cleared her throat and intoned: "'If you find it, it's yours.' And Article number Six of the Space Patrol Code states:" she cleared her throat again and quoted: "'Any derelict ship containing a Salvager's beacon shall be considered the property of said Salvager under Article Twenty-six of the Salvager's Code.'"
"So what just happened?" Facto demanded. "How were they able to board us in the first place?"
"A rat chewed through a circuit wire and fouled up our detection system. But how they board—now that is really quite ingenious. What they do is match your ship's speed exactly, then they shoot out this tendril and it grabs onto your ship like a huge suction cup, and . . ."
"I'm sure they can wait for the book, Van Gar," Drewcila said shaking her head. "Look at this shit." She transferred the data on her screen over to his.
He was going to take a glance at the screen and say "so what", no matter what she had transferred, just because she had pissed him off. But when he saw the read-out, he couldn't control his excitement.
"What is this? Most pirate ships are held together with baling wire and used gum," he said in disbelief.
"Yeah, well, not this one," Drew said. "Look at their weapons system. We're damn lucky they didn't fire on us."
"Look at the fucking third level. There's a fucking whirlpool on it . . ."
"If I might be so bold . . ." Facto started.
"I wouldn't, if I were you," Drew hissed back. She was checking out her new acquisition, and she didn't want to be bothered. Facto made a rude sound and stomped off the bridge, making as much noise as possible.
Taralin followed quietly behind him.
"I thought they'd never leave."
Drew went to the cooler, finding that it had slid all the way across the control room. She dragged it over to her chair, sat down, and started rifling through the contents. Soon she pulled out two beers and two cigars. Handing one of each to Van Gar, she leaned back in her chair, sniffed her cigar, and smiled.
"It's a whirlpool."
Van wiped an imaginary tear from his eye.
"I'm so proud."
"No, no, and no!" Drewcila shook her head furiously. "I got paid to bring you here. You're here, and my job is finished. I'm gonna dump my shipment and I'm outtah here."
"I was told by your boss . . ."
"I ain't got no boss." Drewcila grinned impishly. "No one ain't ever had that kindah money."
"The man you work for, then."
"Don't work for no man." Drewcila grinned back.
"Erik Rider said . . ."
"Why didn't you just say that bloated pile of shit."
"Qwah!" Facto took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "Erik Rider assured me that you and your friend would be giving us escort to the hotel. From there the King's guard will take over."
"Why ain't the guards here to meet her? I'm very busy here."
She watched as the crew of dock workers unloaded her scrap. One of the forklift drivers had just pulled out of the ship with a pallet load of generators. Sprawled across the top was the battered remains of a pirate. The driver was saying unhappy things about Salvagers who didn't dump their trash in space.
"Hey! Hey!" Drew screamed at the man till she got his attention.
"You're going to have to pay a disposal fee on these corpses, Qwah."
"Don't be looken for reasons to dock me on my scrap, bugger head. I know how much I had. And if you try and short me, you and him will be makin' butt-head book ends."
Facto breathed deeply again and tried to put himself into a kind of meditative state, but this wasn't such an easy task around the likes of Drewcila Qwah.
"So, Fuckto. What were ya saying?"
"Erik Rider assured me of an escort. It's part of what I paid for."
"Yeah, well he didn't tell me any such thing. I sure as hell didn't get paid to escort anyone anywhere, an I ain't stretching my neck out for nothin'."
Drew watched as some of the dock workers pulled the bodies off the top of the scrap. They knocked one of the generators off the pallet and it landed with a crash.
"Hey! Hey! I saw that shit! I'm gonna charge you if my scrap is damaged."
She saw that Facto was still standing there.
"You still here?"
"I'm not going without an escort."
"Then call up your lily-livered monarch and have him send you one. I can't leave these morons to unload my scrap. Surely you can see that. I'd lose a small fortune here."
"It's not that easy. We are trying to keep a low profile. The King didn't bring that many guards, and most of those are on the ship."
"Then go to the ship. Hell, I'll escort you there."
"But the King is in town!"
"So? He can come back to the ship. I don't get the big problem here." Drew motioned for Van Gar, and he nodded and started towards her.
"Our king has many enemies. He risked great danger in coming here in person. I shouldn't have to tell you how dangerous a spaceport is. Here there is no real law."
"The Galactic Police . . ."
"My point exactly. We wish for their reunion to go as smoothly as possible."
He looked to where Taralin stood, looking scared and lost. "She's been through so much already. Please just help us get her to the King safely. I'm not expecting any trouble, but you know what these spaceport towns can be like."
He saw Drew's outstretched hand. He looked at it and then at her face. She was grinning.
"Don't try to appeal to my better nature. I don't have one. Money talks; bullshit walks."
"But I've already paid."
"Erik. You paid Erik. I don't see him puttin' his ass on the line here, do you? You want me," Van Gar reached her then, and she put an arm around his waist, "and Van to escort you, then you need to pay us."
Drew looked up at Van Gar. "How's it going?"
"They say we're short on our load," he said.
"What!"
Drew threw a black look at the dock workers.
"Fucking space leeches! Dogs of the space ways!"
"You're supposed to have fifty converters!" a portly dock worker screamed back.
"Well, excuse me all the hell!" Drew screamed back. "The converters turned out to be shit, and he wanted twice what they were worth."
"Whatever the song and dance, Qwah, your load is still short and that means you lose ten percent."
"Screws! Roaches of the air-ways! Sphincter of the universe!"
Drew turned to Van Gar. "So, how much ahead did we come out?"
"Well, we paid a quarter of what we declared. So, with the ten percent docking, fuel, penalties, etc . . ." he punched the buttons on his wrist computer, then grinned ". . . we're 2,000 iggys up."
"Oh, how I do adore the free enterprise system, Van."
She glared at the dock worker taking inventory.
"Double-dealing, penny pinching . . ."
"You're crooked!" Facto hissed.
"I'm a good business woman."
Drew held out her hand again without looking at him. Facto dug deep into his pocket and dumped what was left of its contents into the Salvager's open hand. Drew looked at it, and seemed less than happy.
"That's all I have left," Facto said.
Drew turned up her nose.
"It ain't much."
"Maybe you can get the rest from your boss," Facto said shortly.
"Erik Rider is a lot of things, but he ain't my boss, Factoad."
Facto didn't want to have this conversation again."That's all the money I have left. If you don't want it . . ."
"OK, OK. But you'll have to wait till they finish unloading my scrap . . ."
"My King and Queen have waited to be reunited for five long years."
Drew smiled. "Then thirty minutes isn't going to make that much difference, is it?"
"You are . . ." Facto bit his tongue.
"Yes, and so much more." Drew grinned widely. "As soon as I'm unloaded, and I have my money, we'll go. Until then I suggest you go back in the ship and make yourselves comfortable."
"I want more money," Drew said in a whisper.
"Why? We're almost there and nothing has happened," Facto pointed out.
"My point exactly. I'm bored. I hate being bored."
Drew looked at Van Gar, who nodded in agreement.
"While we were escorting the Earl of Pedonia we got bored, and he paid us an extra seventy-five iggys."
"What kind of scam are you trying to run now, Qwah? You never got paid seventy-five IGD's for being bored, and I doubt very seriously you ever escorted any Pedonian Earl. How stupid do you think I am?"
Facto had come to the end of his rope. Drewcila Qwah held not a single redeeming characteristic that he could find.
"I think you'd get really pissed off if I answered that." Drewcila grinned.
Facto doubled his pace and was soon a good five feet in front of the others.