The Space Pirate 1 (7 page)

Simply stealing a vehicle crossed her mind, but to pull that off was extremely difficult. A good jacker could do it in half a minute, but she didn’t have those skills. She did have her pistols, and might have been able to commandeer a speeder at gunpoint, but to try that in a crowded place was fraught with danger. Charley would need to run a little reconnaissance on this town and wait for the right opportunity. Above all, she didn’t want to panic. If she went down that road she would make rash decisions and wind up dead in the gutter. No, she was a strong woman alone in a strange town and needed her wits about her to survive.

The first thing Charley did was spend her remaining credits on a hot balakash roll from a street stall. It was delicious. She didn’t know where the meat was from and didn’t really want to know. Meat was not something she was used to having back at Sandflower and she relished the experience. The meal would set her up for the entire day. Not knowing where the next meal was coming from set Charley’s nerves on edge and made her alive to the sights and sounds of the waking day market.

For one or two hours she simply sat on the dirty curb and watched the comings and goings of the famous Zeba markets. All kinds of locals passed through here to source supplies and trade items. Charley wondered if one of the larger trade companies would take her on as a facilitator. With her looks and fresh appeal she might just be able to make a career in that line. She even made a couple of polite inquiries, only to be rebuffed in no uncertain terms. She was told there were no paying jobs in Zeba. The market was a chaos of trade but no one had the extra coin to take on new staff. It was just the way things were. Charley accepted the news with determined grace - she was very familiar with the idea of unemployment. She would need to make her own way and that suited her fine.

Studying the milling crowd intently, Charley looked for an opening she might be able to exploit in some way. She moved herself under the shade of an abandoned tarpaulin for a better view. At length she noticed a bora pod seller weaving in and out of the crowd. She was an old woman carrying a tray of the steaming pods, expertly taking credit bits in exchange for a single pod. Bora pods were bitter if taken raw, but cooked over hot coals they had a sticky sweetness that was appealing, particularly for breakfast. The woman had a noticeable limp, and struggled to waddle her way through the crowd. Charley waited until her tray was empty and followed her into an alleyway. The woman looked over her shoulder with suspicion but Charley was able to find cover before she was detected. Within minutes the old woman had located her cooking pit. She had covered it with a lattice of palm fronds so no one else could find it. Charley approached and called out softly. The old woman spun around, brandishing a rusted knife. Charley could see she was half-blind as well as lame.

“I’m sorry,” Charley murmured. “I’m not here to steal from you. I need work.”

The old woman shook her head angrily before sitting on an upturned fuel drum. She looked very tired. At length she gave in, realizing she didn’t have too many runs left in her.

“I can help you,” Charley promised. “You can wait here and fill the tray while I make runs to the street.”

The woman lifted her arms in the air with a resigned sigh. “One run, one credit bit,” she croaked. “I can’t pay more.”

Charley nodded. It was a terrible wage for what was actually demanding physical work but she had no choice for the moment. Running the bora pods would allow her to penetrate the market network and look for further opportunities. Besides, she had to start somewhere. And she was determined not to sell her body.

Charley panted through the next few hours as she sold bora pods to rude, indifferent traders. Well, not completely indifferent. On more than one occasion she felt a hand on her buttocks and one plucky merchant decided he wanted a feel between her legs also. Charley slipped away quickly, not wanting to cause a scene. The truth was most of these people carried proper weapons, unlike the thugs out at Sandflower Downs. Charley had no doubt they knew how to use them. Her targeting computer would only help her up to a certain point. At some stage she was going to need lessons in guncraft.

For the moment, though, mere survival was the main focus. Charley was sweating profusely by the time a large sandstone watchtower chimed for noonday. She’d done seventeen runs in four hours - enough credit to procure some food for dinner and almost enough to stay one or two nights at a two star hotel. The one star option was out of the question - from what Charley had heard, dives like that were where you either got murdered or picked up a foul disease.

The old pod seller saw Charley’s exhaustion and allowed her to sit for a few minutes in the shade of the alleyway. Charley learned that she hadn’t always been a lowly pod seller. Several years ago she and her husband had run a moderately successful water supply business. The secret was discovering a pure well far out in the pans. Naturally, they’d kept the well’s location a secret, but eventually that was their downfall. An enterprising competitor murdered her husband for his wrist pad and thus the location of the well. The woman was left destitute and vulnerable, her only option to gather bora pods from one of the valleys to the north and make the daily journey into Zeba’s day bazaar. She began her walk at three in the morning to find the freshest pods.

Charley nodded in recognition, knowing the hardship of living day to day. It was just the way of Abeyas. Most people didn’t have the luxury of stockpiling resources for when times were tough. There simply wasn’t enough to go around. And so people like this pod seller suffered through their lives until they were physically unable to go any further. Charley admired the woman’s strength, but found herself hoping she never ended up like that. There was a better way and unfortunately it involved taking what she wanted from this galaxy. Staking her claim. Just because she was a woman didn’t mean she was going to give up and accept her station in life.

By the end of a long, tiring day Charley had earned 32 credit bits. The old woman’s total profit was still quite substantial considering she hadn’t needed to move a muscle. Charley thanked her for the opportunity and walked out into the sunshine of the street, feeling the almost pleasant ache of an honest day’s work.

Weaving in and out of the traders had been an interesting experience. For starters, she got an introduction into how Zebans conducted business. They haggled until both parties were almost amused with the result. It seemed to be the tradition here. Despite the plentiful smiles, this was a deadly serious market. People’s livelihoods were on the line. Not only that, most of these folk had families to feed. The bustle of the market masked a desperate struggle to survive.

Charley had learned a few other bits and pieces of information. It seemed the governor was under increasing pressure to install a garrison in Zeba. Rumor had it that a new political party was forming over in the core worlds, people that wanted to form a new republic out of the old empire. That meant more organization, more pressure on Abeyas to act like a powerful nation even if it had never operated that way. The arid planet had always been a ramshackle den of thieves and poor people. Charley couldn’t imagine what a new galactic republic would mean for the sleepy place.

In fact, Charley had noticed troopers she’d never seen before. Well, certainly not in Sandflower Downs. No, these soldiers were dressed in creamy yellow armor and carried state of the art rifles. One of the traders muttered something about Spacetown marines. Charley wasn’t particularly concerned about the show of force. She was just worried about keeping a roof over her head. Still, the traders seemed worried that a crackdown was imminent. That the old laws, for so long ignored, were about to come back with a vengeance.

Charley was oblivious to such concerns as she nodded to the concierge and headed up to her room. She was so tired all she could do was interact with Nex for a little while. She’d seen Nex once or twice in Sandflower Downs but it was always over someone else’s shoulder. She enjoyed scrolling through a mass of information, free to go wherever she wanted. She flicked through a fashion gallery, dreaming about what she would buy when she finally came into some money.

11

After a few quiet, peaceful hours Charley’s stomach rumbled. She wandered out into the cool street and found a noodle bar away from the bustle of the night market. The tarbor noodles were delicious and she washed it down with one of the watery local beers.

Feeling a little light-headed, Charley made her way back to the hotel and went to sleep wondering where she’d be resting this time the next night.

Bright light through the window woke Charley just after dawn. Like Sandflower Downs, Zeba only really had two seasons - unbearably hot and just hot. The current season would soon come to an end and Zeba would bake under the sun for six months. Hopefully she would be off-planet by then. Well, a girl could dream. After a simple breakfast of pork and fresh bread Charley headed back into the day bazaar with the confidence of someone who already had some experience there.

Apart from gleaning a little more information on the political front, there seemed to be nothing in the way of available work. Charley slumped in the shade of an alleyway as the noonday chime resounded across the crowded streets of the bazaar. On impulse she went to see the old bora pod seller, but the hot coal pit had been extinguished by water. The woman was nowhere to be seen. Charley hoped she had taken the extra money they had both made yesterday and treated herself to something nice. Closer to the street, though, Charley saw a suspicious object lying behind a foul-smelling skip. It was the old woman’s body. She had telltale silver residue around her nostrils. She used the extra money alright - to trip to a better place, perhaps to meet up with her long lost husband.

Blinking back tears, Charley considered what she should do. In the end she heaped a pile of oily rages together and started a bonfire with one of her blasters. She watched as the old woman burned, thinking of the hardships had led her to live such a desperate, solitary life in Zeba. At length a window opened a few storeys above and a thuggish man complained about the black smoke. Charley ignored him, sending a little prayer to Inness that the old woman find peace in the afterlife.

As Charley rejoined the street her mind felt heavy and contemplative. Human life was next to worthless on Abeyas. Death was such a daily occurrence that people had grown numb to it. Right there and then Charley decided that life was too short to try and play ‘the right way’. Zeba demanded that she start at the bottom, to work her bones to the ground just to earn her daily bread. Fuck that. Charley wanted to prove what she could really do if only she was given a chance. As she walked among the various stalls and kiosks selling all manner of exotic equipment she couldn’t hope to afford, Charley shook her head clear. She felt confident and optimistic all of a sudden. Didn’t she have a deadly array of weapons on her person? Wasn’t she both smart and pretty? That should be one hell of a combination.

Charley walked a long way. She knew her time at La Bonita had come to an end, but that was OK - she had no possessions to go back and collect. Silverton’s body was safely stashed away in her rented gear locker.

Charley headed west on foot, threading her way through an interlocking series of markets. Some of them were in the open air, shaded by huge sail cloths and cooled by huge industrial fans. Others were housed in ancient, crumbling buildings inlaid with beautiful, yet faded mosaics. Abeyas had once been a noble and dignified society of desert artisans and explorer nomads. Over-population had since become an issue and the cities were inundated with scumbags from all over the galaxy. Some of the old architecture was intact, particularly in Zeba and Spacetown. Charley enjoyed the cool arcades she wandered through, even if she could only window shop the various items on display.

As Charley walked, a plan slowly formed in her mind. It was relatively risky but there was no way she was gonna reach Silverton’s loot cache without a daring plan. One of the things she could hear from her room at La Bonita was the heavy throb of drag racing late at night. There was some serious racing going on somewhere in town. Charley had no interest in the racing itself, having no experience with powerful speeders of any kind, but she was attracted to the money that was inevitably drawn and funneled through such activities. If street racing was what the rich young elite of Zeba happened to do, then that’s where Charley needed to be.

Assuming there would be another street race late that night, the first thing Charley needed was a sexy look. She hated to do it, but at length Charley decided to sell the heavy saber Silverton had given her. It didn’t take long to find a melee weapons trader in a cool nook of the Southern Palm Trade Villa. The owner, a small, bespectacled man, hefted the blade and swung it several times. It sang through the air.

“So well balanced,” Charley enthused, hoping to raise the price. “A genuine pirate’s sword.”

The weapons dealer nodded gently as he weighed the sword.

“430,” he said flatly. Charley almost felt guilty at selling the thing. Clearly it was a valuable weapon! She was hoping Silverton had another just like it in his loot cache. If not she could always return to buy it back. She snapped herself back to the present - it was just a sword! Why did she feel so guilty?

“500 or no deal,” she said firmly.

“You got it,” the dealer murmured with a faint smile. He counted out the credit bits. Charley wondered if she’d done the whole bartering thing right. No matter. She still had lethal weapons and a pocket full of cred. As the afternoon became dark and gloomy she perused an arcade that specialized in female clothing.