Chapter 19
“I’m worried about my son,” said José as he, O’Riley and M’Elise crouched behind their palette. The offer to negotiate had gone off and, from the alley, they had watched many wide bodied crew depart the ships for the rendezvous point on the other side of the station. A few shekels persuaded a dockhand to wheel their cart out near the ship while they crept along beside it, out of view of the airlock monitor.
“Junior will be just fine,” said O’Riley distractedly. “We left him a message, he didn’t reply. You’ve got to cut the apron strings and let the kids grow up sometime.”
José continued to look worried. “That’s not like him.”
“Yes, highly unusual for him to miss any option for complaining bitterly about something.” He pointed down the dock. “But there’s Squirrel now. We don’t have time.”
Squirrel’s progress down the dockside was marked by a cessation of motion. She sashayed from side to side as she negotiated the clutter in platform grav skates. The highport was a ring station and the curvature of the dockside presented work stopping views of her cleavage from ahead of her and her short skirt held out the promise of riveting views from behind. She smiled professionally and pirouetted more than was probably necessary to evade the palettes and canisters along the way.
She gave a sidelong look at the palette of their stuff as she skidded to a stop in front of the José Fabuloso’s airlock and pressed the button. After a short time the doors opened and a large man with a confused look stood there. Even in her platform skates hovering a handbreadth above the ground he loomed over her. The timber of her sing-song voice could be heard across the dock as people stopped to watch. She presented something to him in a flourish.
He stood for a moment with a lopsided grin growing on his face. He looked guiltily over at the airlock for the 27A berth and took the parcel. Squirrel folded her arms under her breasts cocked her head to once side and started to chatter away at him. He became more animated and the two began chatting. Just as the onlooking dockworkers began to drift to their duty, one of his hands reached out for her and she screamed, high and piercing.
O’Riley stood up from behind the palette and cried out loudly “Hey you! Get your hands off of her!” and rushed forward. There was a pause along the dock until Squirrel screamed again, and with a roar dozens of nearby workers followed O’Riley’s lead and descended upon the bewildered man.
Chaos erupted as various workers fought to valiantly defend Squirrel from the goon who was quickly joined by several more from the 27A berth. Surreptitiously José and M’Elise edged the palette truck forward around the fracas which O’Riley kept directed away from the airlock door. Once inside the outer door Squirrel screamed again and one of the combatants suddenly found himself holding most of her ripped uniform in surprise. She screamed again and, although wearing full bodied underwear, covered herself modestly and ran for the closest cover, which happened to be the open airlock on Berth 27B. She swung the door shut with force as the crowd descended on the stunned man holding the remains of her uniform.
“That was damn impressive lass,” said O’Riley staring at what was left of her clothing.
“It would be more impressive if you had the door open by now,” she replied, short of breath. He grinned, and pushed it open. “OK. Now I’m impressed.”
“I’d love to take credit for it but José opened it. They didn’t change the pass code”. He winked and pushed the palette through the door.
They bundled into the ship which was a bit more disheveled than before and smelled of stale inhalants. “What a mess,” said Squirrel.
“Just leave it,” said O’Riley. “They’ll be at the pub by now and between being stood up and that little stunt outside they’ll be madder than a drunk at closing time.”
“You heard the man,” said Squirrel. “Up on the bridge with you. Let me get these skates off, find a bathrobe and I’ll be right up.”
By the time she got there O’Riley had the engines warmed up, José a course plotted, and M’Elise had put through a priority departure request. Squirrel grimaced at the lights on the incoming board. “I think they’ve worked it out.” She listened on an ear bud. “Wow. That is some inventive swearing.”
“Restraints off,” said José. “Here we go!” And with a roar they leapt from the dockside into the local traffic, pirouetting around the slower freighters even more than Squirrel had cargo containers on the dockside. Minutes passed and they cleared the immediate traffic.
“Traffic control is going apeshit,” reported Squirrel. José cheered. “Oddly enough, it’s not about us.” She listened more intently.
“The sloop broke dock,” said M’Elise, watching the system board.
“It broke the dock?” asked Squirrel.
“Launched without permission. Full thrusters. Worse than José” M'Elise said with no intonation. Alarms started sounding.
“What the hell?” asked Squirrel. “Who’s left to hit?”
“It’s not a proximity alert” said M’Elise tapping the screen. “It’s a weapon’s system locking onto us.”
Squirrel listened to the comm. “They’re calling a system wide alert. The Sloop Rash Dash is declared a hazard to shipping. The Navy has been notified.”
“Torpedo launch” reported M’Elise.
José stuck his tongue in the corner of his mouth and slewed the ship from side to side. “No chicken today. This is no junk.”
“So much for them wanting us intact,” said Squirrel. “Is that an asteroid over there,” she said pointing at the scan. “Can we distract it with that?”
“It’s the Rich Kingford,” said M’Elise. “Outbound to jump.”
José sped toward them. “Won’t make it” he said. “Too far.”
“Deploying countermeasures,” said M’Elise. The scan lit up as squealers were tossed into their wake, each one burning with a scan profile as bright as their own. There was another bright flash and the scan went dark. “Torpedo down” she reported.
“Whew!” said Squirrel. “José, I know we hate the Rich Kingford, but is it really fair to be leading the torpedoes towards a defenseless merchant?” M’Elise snorted. “They’re hailing us, I think they noticed.” She put it on the bridge speakers.
“José Fabuloso, this is the Rich Kingford. Are you in distress?” said the voice of Johnny-oh on comm.
“Yes! Yes!” cried Squirrel. “Lots of distress!”
“Two more torpedoes launched,” reported M’Elise.
A new voice came on the comm channel. “José Fabuloso. We copy that. Come alongside. We will escort you to transition under our point defenses.” Squirrel’s eyebrows merged with her hairline.
“Two triple turret point defense pulsers. Two more turrets of countermeasures. And four torpedo tubes. Standard on that class of ship,” said M’Elise.
“Th-th-thank you Lt. Oxyartes. I mean Rich Kingford” stuttered Squirrel. “We’re coming alongside.” Scan sparkled with counter measures around them. The two torpedoes exploded under the force of the pulsers.
José closed with the Rich Kingford as the Rash Dash angled to the side to get a clear shot past the deployed countermeasures. “Two more torpedoes inbound,” said M’Elise as two new blips separated from the Rash Dash.
“Where are the countermeasures?” said Squirrel with rising agitation. “Where are the counter measures?”
M’Elise smiled distantly and held up her fingers. Counting down from three, to two, to one. Several more blips appeared on the screen. “Four missiles in return fire closing in on the Rash Dash.” José cheered. The missile tracks crossed the screen deceptively slowly. They passed each other at the halfway point and then both sides began to light up. “Countermeasures being deployed by both sides.”
“I love fireworks” said José.
The Rich Kingford’s pulsers made quick work of the incoming torpedoes after which they fired another four torpedoes towards the Rash Dash.
“They’re running”
said M’Elise. Two torpedoes through the countermeasures. One hit. Four still inbound on their tail.”
“Thank you Rich Kingford,” said Squirrel with great relief. “Thank you so much!”
“Our compliments to your pilot” they called back. “Would you like to synchronize transitions? We’re bound for Mount Royal.”
Squirrel looked around the bridge. José was flying tight spirals around the Rich Kingford. M’Elise sat slumped in her chair. “M’Elise,” said Squirrel insistently. “Do we want to go to Mount Royal?”
“Whatever,” she said.
Squirrel pressed her lips together firmly and counted to three. Not feeling any better she spun M’Elise’s chair around to face her. “Look,” she said sternly. “Screw the beating. I know that’s not what’s got you. Going back to that ship with your tail between your legs is it.” M’Elise tried to look away but couldn’t. “Guess what. So sad, too bad. How did you think I felt back there popping my top off on dock to get us out of there? Shit happens. We do what we have to. We don’t have to be proud of it. Everyone works on this ship, right? Your job is to get us to where we have to go to make this ‘shiny roller-skate’ make money for us. Now do it!” She let go of the chair and continued to stare at her, breathing heavily.
M’Elise watched her for a long time, eyes watering, but not quite tearing. She nodded once. “Pittsmoon,” she said finally. “There are gem mines there. Sticking to their schedule would be as bad as staying on board. Too easy a target. Just tell them we’ll accompany them to transition point and jump from rest, not in synch. We’ll be harder to trace. Use a secure channel.”
Squirrel smiled at her and gave a thumb’s up. “That’s what I needed.” She flicked on the communication channel again. “Switching to secure Rich Kingford.”
Everyone staggered back to the galley after the jump to transitional space. “What a mess,” said Squirrel surveying the clutter of the palette with their belongings on it and the roughly handled contents of the galley.
“Oh,” said O’Riley. “I thought you were talking about the business back on Aravaca.”
“Par for the course,” said M’Elise. O’Riley looked started, and then grinned at her.
“Why don’t you check out the master cabin and have a bit of a lie down. We’ll start in here,” he said to her. She sighed and sloped off.
“Fabuloso!” cheered José, finding the fridge stocked with Solar Coronas.
“Later José,” said Squirrel. “Let’s get this in order first.” They had just barely divvied up their personal goods off the palette when they noticed M’Elise had returned.
“What’s up?” asked O’Riley.
“You’ve got to see this,” she said indicating over her shoulder with her thumb.
Curious they followed her into the master cabin. It was in a better state than the galley, but still a bit worse for the wear. But what their eyes were drawn to was a chair propped up against the bed in which there was a figure bound to it with adhesive tape. “Son!” shouted José, rushing forward. The rest showed less enthusiasm.
“He’s like a bad shekel. He keeps coming back,” said Squirrel.
O’Riley stepped forward and drew out a utility knife. José looked up alarmed, but he just bent and began to cut off the sticky tape. They hauled him to a sitting position on the bed. O’Riley reached for his face.
“Wait,” said Squirrel. “Can we leave the tape on his mouth.”
“May the blessed Midleton forgive me” muttered O’Riley and ripped the tape off.
“Arrrrrraaaaaghhh!” screamed the old man through toothless gums.
“Aaaahhhhhaaa!” screamed the rest seeing his lack of teeth.
“Here” said José, who had found his dentures in the detritus.
M’Elise laughed and headed back to the galley. The rest followed, José helping the old man. He sat him in a corner and let him rinse out his mouth with several glasses of water while the rest cleared their stuff and the rubbish out of the galley.
When his mouth was clear he started to cackle. “Fell for it then, did he? Oh, ha ha. The tyke has no imagination.”
“Fell for what, son?” asked José.
“I told him I had paid you guys off, that you were in my pocket, and that he’d have to deal through me. There was no way he’d get anything out of you.” He beamed at them. “So when you offered to negotiate he immediately seized on it to prove me wrong.”
“Nothing like preying on someone’s lack of self confidence” muttered Squirrel darkly, wiping down the counters in the kitchen.
“Well I’m glad you’ve had your giggles, old man,” said O’Riley, unboxing the espresso machine. “But it doesn’t get us out of our pickle.”
“He doesn’t have what he wants. We don’t have what he wants. But he thinks we have what he wants and is going to chase us to the galactic perimeter,” summarized M’Elise.
“Are you sure you don’t have what he wants?” asked the old man.
“José, help me with this,” said O’Riley. Together they lifted the espresso machine onto the countertop.
Squirrel leaned over while they manhandled it into position. “We didn’t have it when we got on this ship. And they’ve been through the ship with a fine toothed comb. If it was here, they would have found it.”
“Unless it wasn’t here when they looked,” said the old man.
“But where could it have been?” asked M’Elise.
O’Riley engaged the last of the power hookups and the espresso machine gave a ding as its self diagnostics passed. The all stopped and looked at it slowly. “No way!” said Squirrel.
José scratched his head. “Why would they put it in there?”
O’Riley had fished out a pocket light and was shinning it through the grill. “There are plenty of places to hide it in here.”
“Pull it back out,” said M’Elise. “Let’s have a look.”
“No wait!” said Squirrel. They all turned to look at her. “Not that I don’t trust your mechanical ingenuity O’Riley, but can we at least have one cup of espresso before you take it apart?”
“I’ll be damned to Hel,” swore M’Elise.
“It’s so pretty!” said Squirrel.
“Fabuloso,” whispered José in awe.
Espresso forgotten, they all started at a small blue spark O’Riley held aloft in a pair of narrow nosed pliers. It caught the light from the galley’s fixture and scintillated to the point that you almost could not see it as a shape in and of itself, but as a dancing fire trapped in physical space.
“It’s just a hunk of corundum,” said O’Riley. “Aluminum oxide.”
“You have no soul!” said Squirrel.
“That hunk of corundum is worth more than this entire ship,” cautioned the old man.
“Let alone our lives,” said M’Elise.
They looked for a while longer in awe.
“Is the espresso machine going to be OK?” asked José.
“Yes,” laughed O’Riley. And he went to put the sapphire down.
“No, no, no!” squealed Squirrel. “Gently!”
“Gently?” said O’Riley. “The bearings on the gimbals are made of corundum. It’s one of the hardest things around.”
“Those are synthetic,” said Squirrel contemptuously. “Perfect with no flaws. No character. If you drop a real gem just the wrong way, you can cleave a point off. That’s how they’re cut to begin with.”
“It would reduce its value by a couple of million talents,” said the old man.
“Oh really?” said O’Riley. “Where do you suggest I put this flawed yet precious commodity? Or should I just use my imagination?”
Squirrel rushed to the counter, pulled some soft tissue out, and came back with it folded into a cradle. O’Riley dropped it in without ceremony and she sank back into her chair looking at it reverently. M’Elise and José leaned in closer to look as well.
O’Riley shook his head and started reassembling the espresso machine. “So now w
e know we actually do have the swag these crooks are looking for. They really do have a reason to want our guts for garters. What do we do with it?”
They continued to stare at it. “Anytime,” he continued. “It’s just our lives hanging in the balance.”
“We could turn it into the authorities,” said M’Elise.
“Most of them are already in Pieter hands anyway,” said the old man. “That would just add the cost of a bribe onto what you’ve already cost him.”
“I don’t suppose we can keep it,” said Squirrel. “If we have to outrun them anyway.”
“And have the Navy after us as well?” said O’Riley.
“We should give it back,” said José.
“I think they’re a little angry with us,” said Squirrel. “They might want interest. Like, taken out of our hides.”
“We could mail it to them,” said M’Elise. “From a distance.”
“No,” said José. “They sole it. We should give it back. To the original owner.”
“That’s a novel approach,” said the old man.
“Who’s the owner?” asked M’Elise.
“Dame Xavia,” said the old man. “A notable philanthropist of Jopur. The pinnacle of the social scene. Lots of influence in government. And, of course, fabulously, fabulously wealthy. A bit of a shrew tough. Doesn’t take jokes too well but is free with giving them. Has driven people to suicide with her words alone.”
“Know her well, do you?” asked O’Riley.
“We’ve met a few times.”
“Sounds like a good person to owe us a favor,” said M’Elise. “But will it be enough to keep the Cooperative off our back after spoiling their heist?”
The old man pursed his lips. “You are forgetting the embarrassment factor. He didn’t get general approval for the Camelidae heist without resistance. To have been spoiled to the point where none of the expenses were recouped would be political death in the Cooperative.”
“Sounds like the best plan I’ve heard so far,” said Squirrel. “At least it has an end point in which we aren’t all dead. I vote for it.”
O’Riley shook his head. “I can’t believe all this trouble from a hunk of Aluminum Oxide with traces of titanium. I don’t like it. But it’s Captain’s orders.”
“Captain’s orders,” said M’Elise simply.
“Fabuloso!” cheered José.
The old man smiled to himself.