Two days later, it took me that long to recover from the lack of solid sleep, I was sitting at the bar and Eddie rolled up. “Hey John! What’s up?”
“Knocking back a few. How long do we sit here waiting?” I asked.
“Oh, they’ll be along in about four weeks.” Eddie commented, hailing the bartender and asking for a beer.
“Four weeks! Ouch, this place is gonna get pretty boring.” I remarked, staring at the television set over the bar already contemplating all the ways I could destroy the boredom box.
“That’s why Fred gives us a quarter of the expected haul. We’ve done about half the work, but he wants us to stay interested enough to come back when he shows back up again.” Eddie tossed back the entire beer in a single pull, placed the empty bottle on the bar and called for another.
“So why not let us go the whole way?” I asked, confused. “Doesn’t make much sense.”
“Oh, wait. You are new aren’t you. No, we haul the load back to the drop off. It isn’t back at Earth. We made a special trip down there for the other cargo. We’re the drop off crew. The other guys are the pickup crew. Fred doesn’t even trust the giant with the location and he doesn’t talk to anyone.” Eddie explained. I realized that Guido the wonder giant had been left here with us.
“So, he doesn’t want anyone on either crew getting the wrong idea and trying to muscle in on his action. And also, keep everyone just in the dark enough that he is the only one who knows the whole operation. Smart.” I smiled at the ingeniousness of it.
“Fred ain’t no dummy. That’s why we are such a skeleton crew. I need at least two more engineers and I know that you need at least one more pilot to make your life livable. Only thing that we know is we went to Earth, got loaded with a cargo and stopped off at the Aurora station. You don’t even know the actual drop off location yet so you are even more in the dark then the rest of us. Anyway, take it easy John. See you around.” Eddie smiled, gulped down another bottle and left.
I sat there pondering the fact that I hadn’t factored in a four week layover into my cost/benefit analysis of the job. Two to three weeks to get out here, maybe another two to get to the drop off was how it was explained. Counting the four week layover this was nothing more than just a little bit better pay then a regular job. And it was going to be incredibly boring waiting around on the station for four weeks.
At least until I found out the station’s casino didn’t have any rules against people with implants playing at the card tables. I found this out about a week after Fred dropped us off.
Space stations out in the middle of nowhere operate mostly on their own rules and were dock at your own risk. The Galactic security station out here was one guy that didn’t really do anything but collect a paycheck. There were customs forms that were handed to him regularly, and he filed them away neat as you please. Regardless of the fact that the customs agent never really did inspections.
Communications were light speed transmissions across really old relay stations. The quantum comms suites were available is you had millions to spend on them. Very few people out here had millions to spend on them. Pleasure cruises and high end corporate hauling rigs carried them, but no one really cared about space stations in the middle of nowhere that served no purpose other than a haven for exploratory crews and smugglers.
Exploratory crews were harder than just about anyone you have ever met. There are about two hundred or so billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy. We haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of what’s out here with us. Only reason we know about Klaxtons and Rakshasas is because they were so close to us. There could be another thousand alien species out there tooling around the galaxy that we have never met! The Jump gates were placed fairly close to each other in reference to location, so you would never find one that would lead to the other side of the galaxy. I personally think that the Engineers did this for a reason.
We use them because of reverse time dilation for the crews of ships. Who really wants to go on a run and come back only about six months older when your family has aged twenty years? Great if your family is with you, horrible if they aren’t.
Anyway, I spent that first week slowly building a feel for the poker pits. You don’t want to piss off someone running a casino on a space station or they may give you a tour of space via the air lock.
It didn’t take long to get familiar with how the operation ran. If you were a regular, they didn’t stop you from milking tourists. But you were required to spend some time at the roulette wheel. It would be recommended by a beautiful young lady or handsome young man according to your preference, but the recommendation would be something that you wouldn’t want to ignore. They did it beautifully too. The person that made the recommendation would stay with you until the casino got their extra cut. Once the cut was handed over via chance games, the person would wander away. Unless of course you wanted company for the evening.
I started by grinding. I didn’t really want to do cut work at a casino that was traveled by virtually the same tourists. Especially if I wanted to build up a positive relationship with the owners. I didn’t take a whole lot of money from the tourists, so they left with a frown instead of angry. That was until I met Jim.
I was currently five hands into a game that was running dry. Soon it would be time for me to cash out and move away and dump some money into the slots. I had mastered the concept of doing this shortly before the “escort” would arrive. One time when I hit a particularly large pay out on slots, I moved around and tipped a number of dealers or would randomly dump large bets on chance tables to burn through those winnings. Reason was I liked controlling the amount I gave the house, not the other way around. I didn’t pay as much as the guys that were escorted away regularly and the house didn’t treat me as harshly as they did some of them. There were even times I would be drinking and eating throughout the entire evening and when I went to settle my tab I would find it sitting at zero.
At the three and a half week mark of waiting for Fred to show up, I was taking Marissa out every night and not dipping at all into my savings. There were plenty of hot little numbers that would attempt to entice me, but I stuck to Marissa like glue. She was really good at keeping me grounded. If I ever did something that indicated to her some emotional tie, she would immediately shut me down so hard my head would be spinning. And make it clear to me our arrangement. She was arm candy. That was it.
Now this particular evening, we finished up the latest hand and I took in a substantial pot. Somewhere in the neighborhood of a few thousand credits. I was waiting for my chip carrier while talking to Marissa when a short, heavily muscled man came walking up with a polite smile on his face. It wasn’t forced, he looked genuinely happy to come and speak with me. Marissa and I exchanged pleasantries with him and he explained why he had come over.
“Mark would like your assistance.” The man informed me. Mark was the owner of the casino. Needless to say, Mark was going to get my assistance in anything short of taking a long walk out a short air lock.
“Of course! Anything I can do. What exactly would he like me to do for him?” I answered, smiling. Marissa put her hand on my leg. Our signal that she was uncomfortable about where this was going. I rested my hand over hers. My signal to her I understood and feel the same way.
“There is an old, ‘friend’ of Mark that just stopped off at the high rollers table. Seems he has just come into some money and was looking to strengthen his earnings.” About a week and a half ago, the confirmation of my funds came through so I had access to a total of about thirty-five thousand credits if I needed it. The last couple weeks of high rolling had treated me quite well. It is amazing how much money deep space personnel can make and be willing to throw around.
The short muscled gentleman continued. “Mark would like for you to offer a bit of ‘friendly’ competition to the mix.”
See, this is where I started realizing wha
t was going on. Mark wanted me to take the guy for all he was worth. That much was plain. The problem I had with that is that I hadn’t actually pulled out all the stops and showed my skill.
“Mark has been so pleased with your patronage and the respect you have shown your fellow customers by keeping yourself restrained. He wanted me to personally let you know that in this case, he was more than comfortable with you letting your hair down in this game. It is located in the High Roller pit, table four.” With that, the man left and a young lady brought over my chips. Plus about five thousand more.
“Obviously, you must have a reputation. Where oh where did you build up such a reputation?” Marissa asked, squeezing my leg and making sure I got a little bit of her nails. Her signal she was extremely uncomfortable.
“I’m guessing that Mark is aware of where I spent the past two years my dear. Why don’t you catch the show, you probably wouldn’t be comfortable watching us bore you to death with poker.” I explained my deeper meaning by patting her hand. The indicator that I was afraid if anything bad happened she would get stuck in the middle and I didn’t want her getting hurt.
“I would be delighted.” Marissa informed me. I handed her a thousand in chips. Wouldn’t do to have my girl running around having to pay for things out of her own pocket and didn’t do much for the illusion we had built about the two of us being an item.
Within seconds a young lady showed up to escort Marissa around. Mark’s promise to me that he would make sure he kept my woman entertained while I did his ‘favor.’ The concept was funny to me, even though Mark could tell a lot of things about me, he didn’t know that Marissa and I were nothing more than each other’s defense against unwanted advances. The act must have been quite convincing. Or we really were falling for each other and we didn’t even realize it. Either way, important to note.
I made my way over to the table and sat down. A guy who was roughly in his mid-thirties looked up and me and smiled a wolfish grin. “Ah look, a boy coming to play a man’s game.”
Right off the bat, my hackles were up. While his comment didn’t have the desired effect of pissing me off, it did tell me that this man knew what he was doing at a card table. In answer to the statement, a waitress walked over and set down a drink by my hand. “Compliments of Mr. Hilderman.” She remarked. I tipped her handsomely and picked up the drink for a sip.
“Ah, that makes it more interesting. Either my old buddy wants me to get my ass handed to me, or he wants you to get your ass handed to you. Way to go son, your now in the middle of a blood feud probably as old as you are.” He grinned and shook his head. Two other players immediately bowed their way out of the game.
“Where you guys going? Not wanting this action? Those chips he’s carrying around look mighty tasty and I’m willing to share.” The old enemy of Mark’s announced.
Within a minute of this statement, another stack of ten thousand in chips found its way to my pile via a special delivery. The man didn’t blanch at the financial backing. Actually if anything, the feral look of greed intensified ten fold. So I did what any sane card player would do. I lost the first three hands.
It wasn’t hard, the guy really was extremely skilled at poker. Five thousand in the pot gone in the matter of fifteen minutes though was a bit much for me. The five thousand was quickly replaced by another delivery.
“Son, I would quit while you’re behind. Keep up that pace and Mark will own you.” The man looked at least somewhat serious. In some ways I didn’t know if this meant the man actually cared, or if he just wanted to build up some sort of camaraderie. Whichever it was, it didn’t really work.
I allowed anger to show on my face. That wasn’t particularly hard either. The constant commentary, even though designed with the intent to irritate, was beginning to grate on my nerves. I had never seriously played with a shark before though. Two scientists used to play me at cards after they downloaded the training programs because hey, it was freaking Vegas. Of course they dabbled at the tables. Having a front row seat to a newly minted master poker player’s instruction was the perfect opportunity.
I lost the full five thousand on the next hand. That money wasn’t replaced. So ten thousand down. All ten thousand of someone else’s money. So I called in my cash advance. Ten thousand more chips were sitting at the table. Eighteen thousand now sitting in front of me. The ten that the man had won wasn’t even half my money. And that is a tip for all you poker players out there. Some sharks will only take a bite out of something, not eat the whole meal. It’s the same with card sharks. They take ten thousand out of someone that could quite possibly be a shark and there is only eight thousand sitting there left could lead them to the fact that they had milked enough of this cow. Showing them they hadn’t even scored a third of your money though, that just poured on the greed.
And boy did it ever. I’d never seen a flash of pure lust after a target that I saw across this guy’s face. I had him. And I had him cold. The next hand was dealt and we upped the ante to a hundred per hand. Yeah, I know, compared to a Vegas High Roller table this fifty and hundred credit ante didn’t seem like much but this casino wasn’t catering to the elite. Any place like that wouldn’t even allow me through the door just based on my clothing.
The pot was sitting at six thousand. I had a straight. This guy was dog food. Plus, I wasn’t smiling or cocky. I wasn’t aggressive. I was letting him control the bet and only drove it a little higher each time. Offering more and more of my throat. In the middle of this, Mark sent a stack of ten thousand in chips. The delivery came with the comment, compliments of the house. I kept playing like I had a pair of twos. The pot escalated to nine when the guy finally called. I took the pot.
Having a straight on a winning hand sets the impression in someone’s head that you got lucky. Amazingly lucky. The card decks were brand new every time and Jim, which turned out to be this guy’s name, checked them every time. Obviously he was quite experienced in gambling because he knew the accepted manufacturers and how to spot a fake. That data was part of my training set also and used by some of the heaviest hitters in the business of card sharking.
The nine thousand didn’t really hurt him. He still had a thousand that he had won off of me so far. Now here is where I take chances. Did the guy notice me driving the bet? Did he notice that I didn’t have any tells? Did he notice that I even manufactured tells to give him a false sense of security. Sitting in front of him, he had fifteen thousand in chips. At that moment I had forty-two thousand.
I knew in my gut I had to take Jim this next hand. If I didn’t, whatever he lost in the next hand he would walk away from without a blink. So I made a common rookie mistake. I got just a bit aggressive and a lot of bit cocky. Man, I was riding high! At least that was what I was allowing to show. The pot was at ten thousand before the last card was laid down. I had a Queen and a Nine. There was a Queen, Five, Six, Queen, and Nine showing in the spread.
I don’t know if it was the hand of some divine power that put a full house in my hand or what. But I do know that I had the best hand possible with the spread, with the sole exception of having a straight. He could have one. It was possible. And that was the only thing that seriously scared me because I could tell in his eyes he had something special sitting underneath his thumb.
Jim smiled, his teeth showing, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. “Let’s make this interesting.” He said.
“How so?” I asked.
“Well, disposable, I only got fifteen here. Back at the bank I got another twenty. Can’t get to it right now, but I will sign a marker.” He explained.
“No deal.” I shook my head. I wasn’t stupid, and I couldn’t even play it off like I was. That was a test to see if I had the hand to back up my attitude.
“Alright, hot shot. I’ll put the tub I rolled in here in on the line.” Jim said, smiling. He pulled out a small
owner’s ring. People generally carried them as well as the papers. Now if I had the ring, I could get the papers if the ring was engraved.
“But I’ll only do that if you got an extra twenty thousand lying around.” Jim commented. “I don’t think even Mark would front you that kind of money, so this’ll be personal. Just you and me like.”
Jim looked up at the dealer and the dealer shook his head. “Figured. Mark only goes so far. He likes the safe bet. I like to live dangerous.”
I thought about it. Even if I walked out of here broke and owing twenty thousand. (The other five that Mark gave me wasn’t part of the deal. That was a payment for agreeing to do it. He would have waited until I was sitting at the table to give it to me if it wasn’t.) I was good for another five even with losing twenty from my savings. Mark knew that. That meant I would only owe Mark fifteen. He also knew I could make that back in the three days it would be until Fred got there. And Fred was going to pay me roughly ten for the job when it was done. He wouldn’t front it, but he would allow the bet to go down. That way, Mark won either way he looked at it. Even if he got his twenty thousand back, it would mean I had cleaned out his old enemy. If I lost, he would have a card shark that owed him money and he owned a casino.
I waved the waitress over and told her to pull the twenty from my account. The short heavily muscled guy came over escorting a cashier. She took up all my chips with the exception of two thousand worth and laid down a single platinum chip. The words Fifty Thousand Credits was etched into the edge of the platinum chip. Jim pressed the ring into the property transfer scanner. Then placed his thumb onto the screen.
I glanced at the scan pad. The ship, even in non-working condition, was worth thirty thousand credits. Compliments of Kelly’s Blue Book for Spaceships of course. When I looked back up at Jim with a raised eyebrow, he smiled again.
“Look, kid, it runs or how do you think I got out here. Also, it has a trick cargo hold. I’ve been making runs with it for a year on this nice little contract I picked up recently out in the Orion cluster.” Jim leaned back.
“No crew to run it though.” I shot back.
“You win kid, and you can afford your own crew for a stint to earth or wherever. Come on, throw it down. I’m showing you mine, now you show me yours.” He chuckled at his own humor. I tossed the fifty thousand chip onto the pile. The property transfer scanner pad and ring was placed atop the entire pile. “Call.”
We simultaneously flipped our cards over. Ever see that look on someone’s face when they thought they just won really big, then lost everything? Yeah, that was plastered on Jim’s face. He had a queen and a six. There were only two hands that could have beaten him. Mine was one of those.
“You arrogant, lucky, son of a bitch!” Jim cried. He shot to his feet and there was a pistol in his hand faster than I could blink. A charge blast rang out and I reeled. I found myself lying on the ground staring at the underside of the poker table. You know, it is interesting that I have never actually looked at the bottom of one of these. I guess it never really mattered, but just something odd I thought about when I lay there waiting for my light switch to flip to off. That was a nerve blaster. They were incredibly nasty weapons that fired a pulse that disrupted all of the electrical impulses of your body by overloading them. Basically like sticking a set of jumper cables to each side of your head and throwing about a thousand volts through your brain. There was so little left of your neurons that even if they could resuscitate you, you would be a vegetable.
Why wasn’t I dead? This thought spun through my mind just before I saw the heavily muscled short gentleman offer his hand to me. I used his hand to heft myself up off the floor.
“I thought I was shot with a nerve blaster?” I asked him.
“Oh, no sir. You got caught in the backsplash from the pulse cannon of the guy behind the curtain over there.” I saw where he was pointing and a man with a rather large rifle was standing over what appeared to be the fresh corpse of Jim. “Mark says to tell you he got it all on tape. Everything is legal.”
“Legal? I’m sorry, huh? Please forgive me, I’m a bit lost right now.” I informed him.
“The bet, John.” A taller old guy with solid white hair and skin that looked like old shoe leather explained, walking up to the table with two security personnel on either side of him. “And that idiot’s death. Everything is legit. He was powering up the nerve blaster and was about to shoot you. My guy did the correct thing in regards to deadly force and killed him before he had a chance.”
“You’re Mark, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Yes I am. Pleasure to meet the man that helped me finally take care of this problem.” Mark stuck his hand out and I shook it.
“What was this all about?” I asked, staring down at the corpse.
“He took a contract out from under my nephew. Then came here and messed with my clientele by hitting up the poker tables and seriously raking them over the coals. He has some backing, though not really heavy backing, but just enough to make it hard to get rid of him without raising some eyebrows.” Mark smiled at me. I liked his smile even less than I liked Jim’s. See, there are some really evil people in this universe. Mark is one of those. Jim would have been one of those people that would have at least pissed on you if you were on fire. Mark is one of those people that would bring a can of gas and a bag of marshmallows.
“What about the Galactic security guy?” I asked.
“Out here there are frontier laws in effect. My security has the authority to dispatch lethal force if called upon to defend the life of another of my patrons. All the money is yours by the way. Seventy-seven thousand and the ship. Call it an apology for putting you in harm’s way if you will.” Mark smiled again and we both waited in relative silence while Galactic security was brought down to investigate. I filed my statement, which was I sat down to play poker, beat this guy and he tried to kill me. After that was done I left.
Having no desire to enjoy any further casino entertainment, I headed straight back to my room. Marissa was there waiting for me. I palmed the door lock and we both moved inside.
“My god, John, are you alright?” Marissa asked when the door shut, her eyes wide. I’m sure that my pale as milk complexion wasn’t helping her further the idea that I was all happy-go-lucky.
“I just became an accessory to pre-meditated murder. Not only have I unintentionally found my way into a slavery and smuggling ring, I’m also now the proud owner of a ship that cost a man his life. Albeit he was going to shoot me over the damn thing, no one can tell me Mark didn’t set that up!” I exclaimed, sitting down in the relatively new recliner in the living area of my suite.
“Hold up, explain that last part!” Marissa demanded, her cheeks flushing. I explained my evening after she left. By the time I got it all off my chest, I was able to actually breathe again without wanting to pass out.
Marissa listened as I laid it out for her, one event at a time, and when I was finished she started laughing. I nearly fell over. “Really Marissa? Laughing at me?”
“Not at you love. At how incredibly insane the luck is that landed you into this situation.” Marissa explained. “I mean really, wow. I would check myself into a padded room somewhere before it gets any worse.”
I wanted to be angry, but I couldn’t. I mean, the way she said it just made it impossible not to laugh at how crazy everything had become. I let loose and laughed for a good five minutes before it finally died away.
“That sounds like a good plan at this point. Maybe I can pray that the building I trap myself in won’t burn down and wind up with me being experimented on by the new alien species that orchestrated the catastrophe.” I responded.
“One could hope.” Marissa sighed and sat down on the end of my bed. I was lost in thought up until the moment I saw her beginning to slowly remove her clothes.
“What are you doing?
” I asked, now seriously confused.
“I’m finishing off your night by giving you something you can’t possibly complain about.” Marissa explained, removing her top in a languid motion that heightened the provocative quality of the gesture.
“Why now? Not that I’m complaining you understand, but why?” I asked her.
“John, anyone with half a brain knows that you have to leave. You can’t stay on with us. You think that I don’t see the gears grinding and the smoke pouring out of your ears when you contemplate freeing the slaves? Or trying to balance out the risks in your head? John, you work through things faster than most men I know, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t see you working through them.” Marissa casually laid the garment on the floor and began working apart the clasp for her skirt.
“I never really thought about it that way, but yeah, I’m sure it might have been noticeable to someone that was paying close attention. But what makes now any different than any other time I could have left in the past few weeks?” I asked, adjusting my seat in the chair to ease pressure.
Marissa stood up and let the skirt drop unceremoniously to the floor. The smile on her face quite inviting. “John, you didn’t have a ship and enough money to get a crew to get back to Earth or wherever you are going next. Now, you do.”
My ears perked up at what she said. “Is this you saying you’re coming with me?” I asked, my boyish eagerness so overwhelming I heard it in my own voice.
“I think I’m falling for you too, John. But, no. I’m not going with you. This is goodbye, John. I know you are leaving, possibly even as early as tomorrow. I’m not letting you get away without a proper send off.” Marissa twitched just so and her bra and panties drifted to the floor. “Like it? I bought them out of the lingerie shop here. I figured you should at least get something out of the money you have been showering me with lately.”
Okay people, I’m not going into detail about what happened next. Suffice it to say that Marissa showed me just how lazy she was the first time we enjoyed each other’s company. I mean, she was REALLY lazy people. That’s about all we are going to cover. Moving on.
Table of Contents
Chapter Four