Satan's Forge (Star Sojourner Book 5) (10 page)

We met Big Sarge and his band of twenty mercenaries at
Two Sons and A Dad's Tavern
in Bolton Springs, not far from Sophia's secluded cabin.

I entered with Sophia, Joe, Huff, and Bat. Chancey was already there, drinking with some of the hired guns at the bar. I coughed on cigarette smoke and tried to wave away the bitter blue haze in the air.

The men sat at tables, drinking. They were about as tough-looking a bunch as I'd ever seen. There was enough leather and tattoos in the smoky bar to fill a room in the Smithsonian marked
Archaic Hell's Angels
.

A few local women sat on their laps or danced to a flickering old stage holo of imported Denebrian music. It sounded like the clang of metal bolts being shaken inside a drum. I glanced around. Twenty against a fifty guards at the mine? I hoped Chancey knew what he was doing.

“Hey, Superstar,” Chancey called and waved me to the bar. “C'mere, man.”

Sophia, Joe, and Bat sat at an empty table in a corner. Huff followed me.

As I approached the bar, Chancey gestured to a big tag next to him. “This is the man!” he told me and slapped the tag on his back. Chains on the tag's black leather vest, over a hairy chest, tinkled. “Just call him Big Sarge.” Chancey grinned.

Beefy-armed and thickset, Big Sarge looked more like the leader of a motorcycle pack, with his bald head, drooping mustache, and tattoos, than a former sergeant in Alpha's Black Strike Special Forces.

“This here's Superstar,” Chancey said and jabbed a thumb toward me. “He's the tag paying the bills.”

Big Sarge sipped his drink.

I looked around. Except for the clang of music, the room had grown quiet. I put out my hand to shake Sarge's. “Nice to meet you,” I said and smiled. “The real name's Jules.”

He put down his drink, leaned back against the bar and scanned me with an intimidating look. I glanced at Chancey and was lowering my arm when Big Sarge's hand shot out. He grabbed my wrist, swung me around, and had me in a headlock against his chest.

“You never shake hands with a man,” he said in my ear, “until you're sure he's on your side.” He licked my cheek and grabbed a bunch of my hair. “You go both ways, pretty boy?” He guffawed. The smell of liquor was rank on his breath.

“You crotemungering –” I squeezed out and tried to break the big man's grip.

Huff growled deep in his throat. I saw his shoulder muscles bunch, the fur on his neck rise.

“No, Huff. It's all right,” I gasped as Big Sarge lifted me to my toes. “He's a friend!”

Huff relaxed back to his haunches.

I struggled, but I still could not break his grip. The men chuckled and tapped the tables with their glasses.

“Now he's my butt buddy,” Big Sarge announced and squeezed my butt.

“You motherless bag of shit!” I tried to kick him but missed.

Chancey was laughing so hard he leaned on the bar and wiped tears. Joe had a hand to his lowered head.

Sophia stood up, but Bat grabbed her arm and shook his head. She sat back down.

I closed my eyes, relaxed, and imaged a red coil of tel. I spun it quickly into a tight fist of power as he nibbled on my ear.

“Uh oh,” I heard Chancey say. “Watch out, Sarge. He's going to nail you!”

I threw the tel-link at him with a message attached:
Hot crotch!

Big Sarge let go of me with a yelp, grabbed his crotch and danced around the floor. Chancey was laughing so hard, I thought he was going to fall over.

I spun around and pointed at Big Sarge. “Score One! You never get a man in a headlock until you're sure he's not a tel.”

The men laughed and pounded the tables. “Rouf, rouf,” they shouted like dogs.

Huff's ears went up and he looked around, then he peered under the tables.

Big Sarge's shocked expression relaxed into an amiable grin as the message faded. He slapped my back and sent me stumbling into the bar, then wrapped a meaty arm around my shoulders and lifted me. “C'mon, pretty boy, I'll buy you a drink. Then maybe I'll get you drunk and fuck you anyway.” He threw back his head and laughed. “What's your poison?”

“A white Russian,” I said.

“That's a girlie drink!” He raised two fingers. “Bartender, Scotch on the rocks.”

Joe had his head in his hand and was shaking it.

George, the short, plump, white-haired owner with bushy brows held a plastered grin on his face. I suppose he was happy to have the business of these hard-drinking tags.

“So, uh, what are you tags doing in Bolton Springs?” George asked Big Sarge. His hand shook as he poured our drinks. His son Adam, a short, red-haired tag of about forty, was briskly wiping the counter.

Big Sarge leaned across the bar. “We're on a hunting trip,” he said. “Big game.” He sucked a tooth.

“Oh.” George nodded and took a step back. “Big game.”

There was no big game in these mountains, just the small Earth deer species.

George's other son Ted, who must have taken after his mother, was a tall, skinny, dark-haired tag who hurried to serve drinks at the tables.

“C'mon. Let's talk,” Sarge said. He took my arm and guided me to a table with a solemn-looking tall, thin, sallow-complexioned tag with narrow shoulders, and a short, compact man who looked like a Native American, with a muscular build and black eyes that seemed to glow with vitality. Huff followed us to the table and sat on his haunches beside me.

“This here's Apache John Cross Bow,” Big Sarge said, and gestured toward the Native American. That happy-looking tag's The High Priest. Sit down," he told me.

I did and nodded at the two men, not knowing what the hell to call them. I sipped my drink. It was strong, and it burned going down. A bitter brew.

“Apache John comes from a long line of warriors,” Big Sarge said, and hiccupped. He leaned toward Apache John and winked. “He knows the ways of guerrilla warfare.”

Apache John nodded.

“And this here's The High Priest,” Sarge waved at the solemn tag and sat back. “We call him Priest for short.”

The tall sallow man nodded gravely.

“He started out as a priest,” Sarge said. “Bless me, Father.” He chuckled and blessed himself with his glass. “But the Church figured he sinned…picked the wrong vocation when he put another priest into intensive care.”

“Oh?” I said.

Priest shrugged. “Caught the shitbag diddling a choir boy.” His voice was deep and resonant. I pictured him preaching from a pulpit.

“Had to leave the church,” Sarge said. “Had to leave the planet! They want him for attempted murder. Can't go home no more, right, Priest?”

Priest shrugged. “Anywhere is home. God doesn't live on one planet.”

I thought of Great Mind and nodded.

“Are you among the faithful?” Priest asked me.

“Depends on the faith,” I said.

An Asian tag with the long, lean muscles of a runner, a shock of thick black hair, naked to the waist, strolled over with a cat-like walk, nodded to me and sat down.

“And this here's Attila,” Big Sarge said. “Our expert in the fine Asian art of killing without weapons.”

“Attila,” I said with a nod and wondered what his real name was.

Big Sarge sipped the last of his drink. “Attila talks with his hands.” He chuckled.

Attila took a Kung Fu stance with stiff fingers, then relaxed. “That thing you do with your mind,” he said to me, “how did you learn that?”

“It's pretty much inborn,” I told him. “But I find that I can keep developing it.”

“Your mother and father. Did they also possess it?” he asked.

“I don't know.” I stared at my drink. “My sister and I were abandoned at a pretty young age.”

I saw Ginny's face again, pleading as I stretched to grab her hand, then the look on her face, her nails scraping rock, as she slid off the boulder and into the canyon below.

Apache John sat back and was silent.

“This, uh –” I patted Huff's shoulder. “This is my buddy, Huff.”

Big Sarge gave him a scrutinizing look. “I guess we could use him in a fight, if we were chasing seals.”

“Huff's a good friend,” I said with an edge.

Big Sarge just smirked.

“There are no seals on my homeworld,” Huff said. “That is an Earth creature. But we chase Dire Flappers and eat the raw, fresh meat on ice floes.”

Big Sarge slid me a look.

I stared back.

“What you see here,” Sarge said and shifted in his chair, “is my core group. The other tags are all good men, but they sign up for one job, and then they're gone. They might come back for another job.” He shrugged. “And maybe not.” He nodded toward Joe, who was watching, with Sophia and Bat, from the table. “Your bossman gave me the down payment. I expect the rest of it after the contract is met.”

“It's in the credcount,” I said. “Safe and sound on Alpha.”

He put out his hand. “Then it's a done deal.”

I shook it. “Done deal.”

“Barkeep!” Big Sarge bellowed to Ted. “Drinks all around. On me.”

I bit my lip and wondered if I'd opened Pandora's Box.

* * *

Sophia's cabin became home base, with the men camped around it. Sophia and I slept on the sofa and gave Joe and Bat the one bedroom. Chancey preferred to be outside with the men anyway. Huff was always by my side, asleep or awake.

It was morning, two days after the barroom meeting.

I sat at the new table in the cabin. Bat had made it from a thick log for a base and some old planks for the table. He was examining the welts on my back. “It looks good, Jules. I think y'all are ready for some new skin. You'll never know you had these wounds.”

“I don't know about that, Bat.”

He pulled down my shirt. “I ordered some medical supplies from Alpha, including the skin. Just got a call that they've been delivered to Stel Parcel Express in Wydemont. Guess I'll take the cubair and go in today and pick them up.”

“Sophia went in for some groceries,” I said. “You tags should've teamed up.” I went to the coffee brewer and poured myself a cup. “Coffee?”

He shook his head. “Thanks. I'll be on my way. Need anything from town?”

I sipped the hot brew. “Can't think of a thing.”

Bat left and I sat on the sofa, facing the dead fireplace, and sipped the brew. My back felt sticky from the medication he had smeared over the welts, but the pain was gone. I put down the cup on the end table. I still slept more than usual, and I didn't have my endurance back yet, but I was getting there. I sighed and closed my eyes. What would we do without Bat?

The door slammed open and I jumped and fell off the sofa. “What the fuck?” Where did I leave my stingler?

I got up, tensed for a fight. Big Sarge barged into the room and threw a package on the table.

“Been in Wydemont,” he said. “You gonna be one of us, tag, you better look the part, or they'll pick you off like the radio man.”

I got up. “The radio man?”

“First tag gets beamed in a firefight, so he can't call in for reinforcements. Take off those ratty duds an' dress like a real man.” He laughed and slapped me on the back. “Bought them at”Boyz R Us."

I opened the package and took out a black leather vest, black leather pants, a plastic package of fake tattoos and a silver chain necklace with a bent arrow pendent.

“You sure about this?” I asked Sarge.

He grinned crookedly. “Unless you want the Love Mine guards to nail your ass first.”

“Maybe not.” I took off my boots and pants.

Sarge whistled.

I got into the leather pants, put on the boots, slipped the black leather vest over my blue shirt, and clipped it closed with the two silver chains.

“The necklace, too,” Sarge said.

“Oh, yeah.” I clamped it around my neck and opened the package of tattoos. “Any particular place?” I asked as I shook out the tattoos.

“Oh, let me.” Sarge kicked aside his chair. He covered my arms with the tattoos, then stood back and ran his tongue over his lips. “Now you look like a real man. Wanna sit on my lap, pretty boy?” He grabbed his crotch. “I got something for you.”

“Cut that shit out,” I told him.

Sophia opened the door and struggled inside with an armload of groceries. “I could use some help from you big brawny –” She saw me and her mouth opened.

“Here. I've got them.” I took the groceries from her arms and put them on the kitchen counter.

“Give me a fucking break,” she whispered.

I turned. “What? Oh, the clothes? Sarge says I –”

Sarge laughed and slapped the table so hard I jumped.

He got up. “I'm taking a squad on a reconnoiter mission.”

“To check out the mine?” I asked.

“Yeah. The boys have had time to acclimate to the planet.” He paused at the door. “Anyway, I think you two love doves just might need the place to yourselves.” He chuckled and went out the door.

“We'd better put this stuff in the refrig,” I said as Sophia approached me. There was a look in her eyes that almost scared me. I backed a step. “What?”

She pulled me toward her by my vest, unclasped the silver chains, and put her arms around me. “You look like a Nordic god. I could eat you up like a candy bar.” She pulled me toward her and kissed me hard, her tongue probing past my teeth. As sweet as chocolate." She rubbed herself against my crotch. “A god bar with nuts.”

I tried to pry her hands from around my neck. “Sophia. The front door doesn't lock, and there are twenty tags out there who walk in for brew any old time the mood strikes.”

“I know.” She unzipped my pants and pushed me backward down the short hall to the bedroom door. The pants fell to my ankles.

“Hold on a minute, woman!”

She reached behind me and opened the bedroom door. I stumbled on the pants and fell inside.

She fell on top of me. “I want you, baby,” she said, “like a kid wants an Easter bunny. I could eat you up alive.”

“OK, but shut the door before you start on dessert!”

She kicked it closed with a foot and kissed my neck, my chest, my stomach, then unbuttoned my shorts. “I'm going make you glad you're a man.”

“Can I get my pants off before you do?”

She pushed down my shorts and licked me. I felt myself swell even more.

“Damn, woman!” I helped her out of her clothes and tried to kick off the stiff leather pants, the shorts, the boots. But she was on me. I tried to roll on top of her to gain some control, but I couldn't make it. She took hold of me and pressed me inside her. “I give up. I'm yours, power bar,” I said and embraced her.