The Space Pirate 1 (11 page)

Charley wasn’t planning on getting so close to the enemy any time soon. She took the boots and pauldrons for salvage but the rest was too heavy.

Finally, the weapons. Silverton kept a weapons rack at the rear of his cache. Unsurprisingly for a man with so much battle armor, the pirate favored short range weapons. High-powered quantum pistols, very expensive. Snub-nosed shotguns. Flamethrowers. The only medium range weapon was a murderous looking RD47 assault rifle with rotating ammo chamber. Charley slung that over her shoulder.

Dragging the bag back through the crawl space wasn’t easy but she wasn’t about to leave any loot behind. After stowing the bag in the back of the D23, she had a promise to keep. She dragged Silverton’s corpse rather unceremoniously over the boulders to the cave entrance. By that stage she was baking in the sun and needed more of the water trickle. It took about twenty minutes of awkward pulling and dragging to get Silverton into the loot cache. Luckily the leviathan bats seemed to have retreated for good.

Charley laid Silverton to rest on a bed of credit chips, just like he would’ve wanted. A tear squeezed itself from her eye and she brushed it away. She didn’t really know him after all. But a life so well lived was something to be respected.

“Thanks, Silverton,” she said softly as she shut the cache door, probably forever.

She was still feeling a little vulnerable as she made her way back to the rock crawler. FIGJAM seemed to sense her mood and had the good sense to keep quiet.

Sitting behind the wheel of the throbbing D23, Charley considered the journey ahead. She more than likely had the means to buy a ticket on one of the long haul cargo freighters that left from Spacetown. She didn’t really care where she went at this stage, just that it was away from Abeyas. Silverton had mentioned something about a man who could possibly teach her a few things. That seemed a reasonable way to start. She wasn’t going to get anywhere if she didn’t have a particular survival skill. Besides, she was armed to the teeth. It would be such a waste if she didn’t at least learn how to protect herself properly.

And as for a becoming a pirate? Well, she would at least visit Silverton’s friend and see what happened from there. Seeing the old pirate laid out in his chosen resting place had made her feel strangely flat. Did she
really
want to be a pirate? What kind of life saw a person feel the need to entomb themselves with their unspent riches? It just seemed like a lonely existence. Then again, Charley didn’t have to follow Silverton’s example to the letter. She could put her own stamp on what it meant to be a pirate. Feeling a little better, she turned on some music and threaded her way north through the gorge. Her nav map suggested there were a string of settlements on the far side of the Dusty Mountains. From there she could swing east in a wide loop to reach Spacetown. Or so she hoped.

The gorge thinned into a tricky descent. The path was jagged and perilous as it spiraled back down to the northern plains. Charley took the road carefully, glad that the D23 was built for exactly this type of terrain. Within three hours she had negotiated the worst of the downward run and was cruising through rolling foothills once more.

“You need fuel, baby,” cooed FIGJAM from his position on the backseat. “This desert has sucked your titties dry.”

“Thanks for the report, asshole,” Charley muttered, but the PalBot was right. One of these northern outputs had
better
have some fuel or she was toast. She couldn’t bear the thought of trying to scrounge another transport.

The first of the settlements she encountered was just a fineli transfer station. Fineli were large birds that ran the salt pans in this part of the world. They were farmed for their rather dry and stringy meat.

Charley pressed on, hoping to have more luck at the next town. Ondego had what looked to be a fuel depot, but it was manned by a bunch of men with the predatory look of gangers. No thanks. Since Charley wasn’t able to switch off the D23 without losing Tando’s activation, she didn’t want to turn her back on the thing with men like that hanging around. With fuel running desperately low, Charley rolled into a small fuel depot that looked abandoned. It turned out to be a family operation. An elderly lady with a freakish set of teeth loaded a few rusty looking fuel cells while her husband assaulted Charley with his breath. Charley passed on one of Silverton’s jade trinkets for the fuel. It was overs but she was keen to be on the road again. She also bought a drum of water and some tarbor jerky. It was a concentrated protein that would keep her going until she got to Spacetown.

Charley drove until dusk settled. It was well known that driving on the salt pans at night was a dangerous activity. Too many bandits and sand skinks.

Charley rolled to a halt under a lonely mesa and killed her lights.

“Is this where we fuck?” FIGJAM asked solemnly as Charley pushed the driver’s seat back and prepared to sleep.

“Play your cards right and you won’t be left in pieces on the fucking salt pan,” she snarled, tempted to simply turn the thing off.

“Fine, have it your way,” the robot muttered.

Charley closed her eyes and dreamed of what she would find once she finally lifted off this hellhole. Presently a rustling sound drew her attention. It was rhythmic and close.

“FIGJAM?” she asked nervously. “Are you trying to jerk off!?”

“Just getting comfortable,” came the defensive reply.

“You do know you don’t have any sexual organs, right?”

The PalBot snorted. “Semantics,” it said with a sad tone.

Charley shook her head in wonder and rolled over. Amazingly, the throb of the prop bulb felt comforting and she was asleep within a minute.

The dawn sun woke her, bright and piercing through the D23’s broken windshield. And the cabin was cold. Damn cold. Rubbing her arms, Charley prepared to continue on her way.

“Morning, gorgeous,” said the PalBot brightly. “I feel we got off on the wrong foot. Can we start again?”

Charley eyed the little robot warily. “Sure,” she said. “Why the sudden change?”

“Ah, nuttin’” came the cagey reply. “I like it when you’re facing me. I like the way your nipples poke through that smokin’ jumpsuit.”

Charley gasped and checked herself out. It was true - the jumpsuit was extremely good quality but the sheer material didn’t leave anything to the imagination. She realized the idea was to wear protective underwear underneath the utility suit. But the sun was climbing and there were hundreds of miles to travel today. She could change at Spacetown. Glaring at FIGJAM, she took a mouthful of water from the drum.

“I totally wish that nozzle was my penis,” it said in a serious tone.

It took Charley less than a second to shut the infuriating PalBot down. In blissful silence she continued on her way, tackling the shimmering salt pans with renewed determination.

17

The journey southeast was long yet uneventful. Charley stopped at a small settlement right out the front of a street hawker selling delicious meat sticks. Charley had no idea whether it was scavenge meat or something more palatable but it tasted wonderful nonetheless. Or maybe she was just damned hungry.

The next two hours saw her pass increasingly inhabited terrain. There seemed to be a number of moisture farms north of Spacetown. The city itself rose in the distance like a mirage. First, the port dome shimmering like a magic sphere. It looked huge even from this distance. The rest of the city lay further to the east, a hazy skyline of minarets and towers. Someone once told her that Spacetown held close to half a million people. Charley couldn’t imagine so many people crowded into one location. She felt nervous just thinking about it.

Before long the port dome loomed to her right as she took a thoroughfare through the city’s northern limits. The road was thick with speeders and utility haulers, most of them heading away from the city. Charley checked her wrist pad - early afternoon. The rental on her wrist pad was about to expire, so she made a mental note to have her access replenished once in town.

The low garages and farm supply dealerships to either side gave way to larger tenements. Before long Charley was traveling down a busy street right into the center of Spacetown. She felt intimidated by the neon billboards and the towering res blocks on all sides. The sidewalks were awash with all kinds of people. Hookers, pimps, hustlers, dealers, cryjacks, lurkers, borgs, monks, urchins, runners, mercs. All manner of scum available for hire or rent. As the capitol of Abeyas, and the door through which all interstellar travel flowed, Spacetown had a particularly dirty reputation for sin. Sex and violence were both bought and sold on a regular basis. Charley drove slowly through the milling traffic, awed at the various sights and sounds of the city. She saw large bands of patrolmen wandering the streets and remembered the gossip of Zeba. Maybe it was true that the planetary authorities were cracking down on crime and poverty? Charley had no idea how they planned to do that but she was hoping to be gone before it became a potential issue for her.

Exhausted, Charley looked for a hotel symbol and pulled into the shadowy garage underneath a three star building. She killed the D23 when she found a place to park. It had served her extremely well but she had to let it go. She figured she’d be able to reach the port dome by shuttle when the time came. Hauling her water and gear with some difficulty, Charley checked in and slumped to the queen size bed with immense relief. She’d made it to Spacetown!

There was a metallic thunk and then a whirring sound across the floor.

“Where you going, FIGJAM?” she asked with irritation. The fucker had crawled out of her treasure bag.

“Just scopin’ the joint …” came the reply. The robot stopped at the window that overlooked the street.

“What are you looking for?” Charley asked.

“My previous owner, may he rest in peace, had the good habit of checking the street every hour or so. Important when the place you live in is overflowing with people who would kill for a single credit bit.”

“True,” Charley said, conceding that the PalBot was making a very solid point. Just because they were in the big city didn’t mean they should drop their guard. The opposite, in fact. In the city you often couldn’t see your attacker before it was too late.

Charley walked over to the window and studied the street.

All she saw was a throng of people going about their business.

“So many ways to die,” FIGJAM mused with uncharacteristic gravity.

“OK …” Charley said, moving to assemble all the treasures she was about to sell.

“There’s a dealer in the Metro Arcade,” FIGJAM said. “Yasker. Mid tier, desperate to build stock but not too desperate.”

“Right …” Charley said. “And the D23?”

“Tando never sold his cars,” FIGJAM replied.

At the door, Charley turned. “Thanks, FIGJAM. You might be useful after all.”

“Geez, thanks mom.”

Charley smiled and locked the door behind her.

Her first mission was to sell the rock crawler. It was useless to her now. She found a likely dealer across from the hotel.

“I got a car that needs special attention,” she said discreetly.

“You locked out?” asked the fat man behind the counter.

“I need it shifted quickly, if you know what I mean.”

“I understand, ma’am.”

The fat man nodded to someone in the back room. Within seconds two runners were across the street and into the underground car lot. A cold feeling gripped Charley’s spine.

“How did you know where to go?”

The fat man regarded her with blank eyes.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” he said with a hint of menace.

Charley understood. She’d made the mistake of dealing too close to her hotel. These guys had seen her enter the car lot on her own. Now that they also knew her vehicle was stolen, they saw her as an easy mark. The D23 was being stripped as she stood dumbly in the kiosk.

Charley resisted an impulse to burn the fat fuck down with her blasters. She laid a hand on one of them to indicate she was thinking about it. The fat man gulped nervously. He was banking on the fact that she was obviously alone in the city and inexperienced in the ways of a busy crime zone. She could waste this guy and bring an entire cartel down on her head.

“Fine,” she said with a sigh. “I’m done with it anyway.”

Charley cursed herself as she strode down to the Metro Arcade. She had no one else to blame. At least she still had a bulging sack over her shoulder. She literally couldn’t wait to fence Silverton’s idols - booking the hotel for one night had exhausted the last of her credit chips. She need cash flow and she needed it now.

It took her ten minutes to find the right kiosk in the chaos of the Metro Arcade. Yasker’s storefront consisted of a dirty plastic overhang and a window so grimy she could barely see through it.

The arcade was alive with borgs in various stages of excited chatter. It seemed an implant salon was running a firesale down the far end of the thoroughfare.

Yasker himself was behind the counter, a hunch-backed Asiatic bear of a man with a blinking optical array.

“What you want, girl?” he asked irritably.

“To sell you some exotic shit,” Charley, said, taken aback. What was wrong with people anyway?