“Probably the Blue Hand Gang. Big operation, long stake out. Watched their every move, had people on the inside. Dangerous stuff. They were doing a deal, buying weapons. The whole thing was a mess from the start. We didn’t know how or with what they were paying or who they were dealing with. Never did find out what they exchanged for the weapons, it wasn’t space pounds, but I bet it was worth a lot of them. Unfortunately we found out too late that they were buying from the FTR. The Blue Hand Gang was big, but the FTR were out of our league. That was Naval stuff,” Grant went silent.
“What happened?” Kaskey asked.
“Well, I met Rainsford.”
“But with the FTR?”
“As far as I’m aware I’m still on their hitlist.”
“Which is how he met Stephen,” Gulch said.
“You don’t hear so much from the FTR these days.”
“Makes sense if you think about what he’s just told you,” Gulch said.
“Come on, let’s stop taking up a table,” Grant said and stood.
Kaskey led them to a bar down the street, still thinking about Grant and the FTR. Freedom Through Rebellion, a terrorist organisation that arose from the ashes of the Laikan War. People who agreed with the Laikans that the UTN held too much power. As he’d said, you didn’t hear much from them these days though he had heard rumours that they were building strength again. It didn’t seem likely though as the Laikans seemed happy with what they had. They pretty much owned the mining business, which was highly lucrative, and were now starting to rejoin UTN society as the suspicion of them waned. People were willing to forgive and forget as each new generation came through.
Had Grant really been the one to engineer the FTR’s downfall? Along with Tsyrker? Now that he’d seen them in action he thought it was entirely possible. Had Gulch been with them then? He knew Grant wouldn’t talk further on it, but Gulch might.
“Gothra is going to be livid,” Gulch said once they were seated with drinks.
“Pretty much, but what’s she going to do?” Grant asked. “Tell the police her slaves were stolen?”
“What about these Desards?” Kaskey asked.
“Gothra won’t want them to know. Makes her look weak,” Grant said.
“Who did these slaves belong to though?” Gulch asked. “From what we know it seems the Desards are using Gothra’s places to expand. If they paid for them…”
“Gothra’s in real trouble,” Kaskey finished. “And we know the guys that kidnapped them work for Cobroy.”
“Who works for the Desards,” Grant said.
“We should go,” Kaskey said urgently.
“And walk into the shabbus-storm? Might as well ring them up and tell ‘em what we did,” Grant said.
“You have their number?” Kaskey asked and Grant gave him a ‘ha-ha’ smile.
“Seriously though, Kaskey, we need a low profile. If Gothra goes then we find a new avenue,” Gulch explained.
“Or drop it. We’re not being hired to do this, remember?” Grant said.
“I’d suggest we give our info over to the InterG, but I get the feeling you don’t think so highly of them,” Kaskey said.
“Whatever gave you that idea?” Grant ironicalised.
“Well, I’ve been thinking,” Kaskey said. “I want to do it.”
“Really?” Gulch asked a little surprised.
“What?”
“Well not long ago you were trying to decide whether to join us.”
“Right. But I’ve been thinking. How do you walk away from it? I mean, those people we saved, how many more are out there?
“I had three choices: die, join one of the gangs or hustle to survive and I sure would’ve liked someone to come save me at that moment, y’know?”
Grant nodded in silence.
“We need to hear about the casino,” Gulch said. “Find out if anything is happening. Find out what, if anything, has happened to Gothra.”
“Agreed. We also need to know more about Maggie Desard; from all accounts she’s first point of contact,” Grant said.
“What about Regrette and Tsyrker?” Kaskey asked.
“They won’t be giving this up, don’t you worry.”
To be continued… (HERE)
If you enjoyed this free book, perhaps you would consider payment in the form of a rating or review and why not check out the following extracts by the same author:
The ADVENTURES IN SPACE series
The TSAR Trilogy
Book 1
The Trimedian
A NOT SO QUIET SATURDAY (extract)
“Jase? Where you been? I’ve been trying to call you,” It was Jason’s best friend Milk. Though he had no idea why he was called this and neither, seemingly, did Milk.
“Yes, that’s why I’ve had my phone off.”
“Well it’s not off now.”
“No, I can see that. I’m trying to have a peaceful Saturday.”
“Ahhh,” came Milk’s voice down the line, it was one of those ‘ahhh’s that says I’m about to ruin whatever it was that you were doing before I came along. “Well, we need to meet up and chat, well I say chat, more like incredibly long, serious conversation that is best taken place in a pub over a number of beers, the effect of which will help you to believe it was all a dream the next day until I turn up and say it again.”
“I’ve got a free Saturday,” said Jason frowning.
“Great, I’ll come over now.”
“No, I mean I have a free Saturday and I’m enjoying it that way.”
“Ahh, valkswagon. A free Saturday is hard to come by in this day and age.”
Milk was vexed, he had seriously life changing news for Jase, news that could not wait; but at the same time you don’t want to be the person to spoil a free Saturday.
“Weeeeelllll, why don’t we just go to the pub for a pint or two? That’s still regular fare for a free Saturday, is it not?”
“I guess…” said Jason feeling lured.
“Brilliant, see you at the ‘Horse’s Arse’ in thirty minutes,” and he hung up the phone.
Jason turned his phone off and got back to his sandwich. His phone promptly switched itself back on to pass on the information it had just heard, little did it know that this was the beginnings of the best piece of gossip in history, gossip that would make the phone famous across the globe, or at least as famous as phones can be.
As he ate, Jason thought about his friend, Milk. He had known him five years, which equated to his whole life as Jason had come out of a coma five years ago with no memory about anything before. The only thing or person he vaguely recognised was Milk who filled him in with everything and helped him get back to life.
Allegedly Jason had been in a car crash, though he had no knowledge of how to drive when he woke up. The doctors were quite frankly astounded that he could remember absolutely nothing and more astounded that despite this he made a full recovery. And even more astounded that said full recovery took him a mere ten minutes after he awoke. Jason Wellgood, they would say, was a strange case. Just how strange a case the man himself was about to find out over a pint of local bitter.
***
“Well,” said Milk once they were seated with a pint each, “where to begin? Hmm, I think I’ll begin with a drink.”
He began tipping the booze down his neck and Jason took the chance to peruse his friend. Milk was a quite frankly huge Indian guy who had a penchant for wearing a turban merely for the look. ‘Makes me feel like a real Indian’ he was want to say. Milk must have been seven foot if not a bit more and was built like a brick outhouse for want of a more polite turn of phrase. He also had an incredibly posh voice when they first met, though that had slowly included more London mockney as the years went by. He was dressed in a silver tracksuit that was beyond hideous, but how do you go about telling a seven foot Indian he looks like a nonce? Jason, himself, was wearing the classic American combination of white T shirt and jeans along with his standard faded red leather
jacket.
He took a deep drink of his own beer, which was logical, and asked, “So?”
“Right, yes, well. More beer?”
“No.”
“No, right, well, so, er… the accident, then, five years ago.”
Jason suddenly had a deep sense of unease, he also had a shallow sense of unease, but no one ever seems to care about them, do they? Did Milk know something that he wasn’t telling him?
“Do you know something you’re not telling me?”
“In a word, yes. That whole accident thing was a bit of a lie.”
Jason put his pint down a little too hard. “A bit of a lie? What the hell does that mean?”
“Well, basically, it never actually happened. We wiped your memory.”
“You… you what?”
“Wiped your memory.”
Jason sat in bewilderment. He’d never been there before and though it seemed an interesting place in a Jackson Pollock sort of way, it was not a place he wanted to stay in for more than a few minutes. Much like student poetry recitals.
“Wait a minute. We? You said ‘we’ wiped my memory; who’s we?”
“Well, I think we ought to come back to that later. There are more, er, puzzling things for you to discover first. Go and get us a pint each whilst I collect my thoughts.”
Jason could have argued, but there didn’t really seem any point, and he could do with more booze. Milk sat there staring at the back of his huge hands, he slowly turned them over and let his eyes follow the lines of his palms, more like crevasses than lines really. He sighed; he would miss Earth and this thought surprised him, he was disappointed to come here five years ago, hidden away from the rest of the Universe, but he really didn’t have much choice if he was honest with himself and it was a cushy gig. That was what he couldn’t work out, and still hadn’t, why those in charge had let him come, done something so, well, nice. It was out of character.
Still he’d grown to like the planet; it was famous for a number of reasons, despite its backwardness. For one, Earth seemed to have a regenerative effect on those who did not live there and so had many famous (and hidden from Earthens) spas. Just a week on Earth could have you looking and feeling a year younger.
Secondly, the thing with Earthens was that their backwardness meant they concentrated on things no one else did. Like perfecting a good pint, inventing the guitar, jokes, TV. No one else in the Universe bothered too much with TV because if they wanted to escape, wanted adventure, they just went out and found it rather than get it vicariously through a box. On the other hand, you’d never find Jimi Hendrix on any other planet as no one would spend that much concentration on a musical instrument. He was glad Earth was as it was for this reason; the Universe without Jimi wasn’t really a universe at all.
Jason plonked himself down with two pints and a packet of pork scratchings.
“So where were we? Ahh, yes, you were drivelling on about wiping my memory. I’d think you were joking, but you don’t really get jokes do you?”
Milk was aggrieved. “I think I’ve gotten a lot better at understanding them over the last five years, I even made that girl laugh last week at the Jamestown Club!”
“Well, I’ll give you that; it was pretty funny, though I can’t actually remember what you said.”
Milk sighed, no he couldn’t either, damn his penchant for vodka jellies. He just remembered the warm surge of pride as they all laughed and now he was glad he had got one good one in before they left.
“Anyway, we’re getting away from ourselves.”
“I’d like to be getting away from you.”
“Not going to happen anytime soon. Listen your name isn’t really Jason Wellgood, you’re not really a writer, and you don’t even really come from Earth.”
“Excuse me?” Jason didn’t really believe his ears, his friend had always been a bit odd, but it seemed he had finally snapped.
“Your name isn’t really Jason Wellgood, you’re not really a writer, and you don’t even really come from Earth.”
Best to take this calmly, don’t freak out, help your friend, listen to his delusions and then ever so gently suggest some help.
“So what is my name?” this was an ever so wrong moment to take a sip of his pint.
“Chase Darkstaar.”
Jason splat his pint across the table, gagged and coughed at the same time, belched and then laughed. “Chase Darkstaar? That’s ridiculous!”
“Yeah, I know,” said Milk somewhat gloomily.
“You’re serious aren’t you?” Jason frowned.
As previously mentioned Milk wasn’t the greatest punster and this kind of trickery would be beyond him even if he had gone mad. Jason didn’t know why, but something in his friend’s face convinced him that Milk was telling the truth. I guess that is what friendship is, isn’t it? Being willing to trust your friend on a look; believing the most farfetched truths.
“Your name is Chase Darkstaar and you are an intergalactic hitman. Basically you hid something very important and then came to Earth and had your memory wiped so that even if someone found you, you couldn’t tell them where it was.”
“Er… why?”
“That I have never been able to work out.”
“Right and so a/ where do you come into all this, b/ why are you telling me now and c/ what did I hide?”
Despite the obvious lunacy Jason kind of wanted it to be true so that he would not lose his friend to an asylum and so that his life might be somewhat more exciting.
“Well, c/ I don’t know; a/ I’m your friend and assistant in all things, when you chose this job I had to come and make sure everything was OK. Make sure you settled into Earth life etc. and b/ I’m telling you this now because there is an intergalactic WAR brewing and it is very possible that people will come looking for you to get whatever it is that you hid.”
“Right. Sooo…” He took a long gulp of beer. “What’s the plan?”
“Well, I have to prove all this to you I suppose.”
“Good place to start.”
“Then we need to try and get your memory back so that you can find whatever you hid and divert the WAR.”
“Right. So how come nobody on Earth knows about said intergalactic shenanigans?”
“It’s a long story best told in space, but you will quickly discover that Earth is a very backward planet, heck Earthens still war against themselves. Idiots.”
“But we are Earthlings.”
“Well yes and no. We are human, our ancestry is on Earth, but neither of us were born there. Again I will fill you in in space.”
“In space?”
“In space.” Milk got up and Jason followed suit.
“Tell me one thing.”
“OK”
“You say I was a hitman?”
“That’s right, the best.”
“Was I a nice guy?”
Milk blushed and looked at his canoe-esque feet. “Erm, no not really.”
“Oh.”
The Book of Five Worlds
Book I
The Foreshadow of Balance
CHAPTER I
It was a horrible day, not because it was cold, but because Brandon had taken his money again. He still had his secret money so that was OK, but Brandon hadn’t left it there. He had been teased through English for answering too many questions and then they had ruined his science experiment and he had been sent out by the teacher. By the time he came home he was miserable and went straight out into the garden. His Dad had some big talk coming up and was still busy in his study and that suited Dylan just fine. The evening was cold; his Dad had taught him that heat goes up from the ground and gets trapped by clouds keeping it warm when the Sun goes down. But there were no clouds this evening and it was still light outside though not for much longer.
He was playing with his plastic knights plus an evil wizard and a big stuffed toy dragon. He had gone through the portal in the shed and the red dragon was a lot bigger than him an
d his fellow knight and there was no way they were going to beat it unless they could convince the evil wizard to help.
He looked again at the shed; he hated school and studying and those stupid bullies. They thought he was stupid, but he wasn’t, he was smart and they didn’t like him for that. He wished he really could go through a portal; he wished he could find the magic on Earth and use it to go away. Take him and his Dad somewhere, bring his Mum back.
But she couldn’t come back, not even with magic. He didn’t really understand it, but his Dad said she had gone to a better place. If he could learn magic, maybe he could take him and his Dad to that better place to be with Mum.
And then the shed door exploded out and a great big grey pig ran out into the garden squealing, steam coming out of its nose, its snout, in great clouds and then it stopped suddenly. It looked left and then right and then straight at Dylan. He wanted to scream, but nothing would come out and then a huge man ran out of the shed.
He wore thick fur instead of a coat and Dylan could only think that he looked dirty. The man stopped just like the pig and looked around. He looked at Dylan and moved towards him and then stopped and looked at the pig which was looking between them. They both looked surprised.
And then Dylan screamed for his Dad.
The pig turned in a circle looking for somewhere to run, and the man moved again toward Dylan, who could now see he had long thick hair and a beard to match with some kind of dirty green trousers on and a metal shirt under the big fur coat thing. And on his back a big two bladed battle axe.
“Dad! Help!”
And then Dylan’s Dad ran into the garden with a cricket bat in his hand and stopped as suddenly as the pig and the man had.
“Who are you?” Dad demanded.
“How do we go?” the man asked back in a deep voice.
“Get out of my garden now.”
“Your garden?”
“Get out now or I’ll use this,” he held up the bat, but the man unslung the axe.
“And then I would have to use this. But I don’t want to,” at the sight of the axe the pig finally made up its mind and ran back to the shed and disappeared inside.
“Now I’ve lost my dinner,” the man said and seemed sad.
“Sorry,” said Dylan.
“It wasn’t your fault, I should have grabbed it. But where am I?”