“This is not a safe place,” Liam
warned as they passed another leaking pipe. “I’ve counted sixteen major
structural integrity issues since we boarded the station.”
“Studied up on your engineering
while you were vacationing on the intellectually bristling New Sahara, did
you?” Markov chuckled.
“Har har,” Liam grumbled. “Anyone
with half a brain can tell that this space station is one forceful sneeze from
a large nosed man away from complete collapse and everyone inside’s death.
Including our own, I might add.”
“Noted,” the captain said as he led
them deeper into the grimy corridors of Praxis VII.
“Why are we here, anyway?” Liam
asked, delicately stepping around a pool of human urine.
“I told you, we’re recruiting
Jameson. If your recruitment is any indication of how the rest of them will go,
I want some more muscle on our side. No offense,” Markov added.
Liam rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t
going to take any until you said that. I know we’re here for Jameson. I just
don’t know why we’re not getting Ursula first. She’s worth five Jamesons. He’s
a complete and utter idiot, remember?”
“I do indeed.”
“Then why not get Ursula first?”
Liam asked again.
“Ursula is territorial. She can,
with difficulty, be integrated into an established group, but if she’s there
first then it’s a no go. She’ll fry everyone who pisses her off because she
thinks the whole ship is her turf.”
Liam sighed. “Yes, I’d forgotten
just how crazy your pseudo-daughter was.”
“She’s a good girl. Deep down.”
“That’s what you said about Irene,”
Liam muttered under his breath.
“What was that?” Markov asked.
“Nothing!” Liam answered quickly.
The captain snorted. “It was not
nothing, I heard you say Irene’s name. Are you never going to let that go? I’ve
moved on!”
Liam couldn’t quite keep down a
sharp bark of laughter. “No, my friend, because you have used up your three
strikes. She has made a proper fool of you three times now, and by extension me. So if you think that I am ever going to let that go, you are
sorely mistaken.”
“Fair, I suppose,” Markov admitted.
“Now quit griping and come along. Jameson should be just a little further down
this way.”
*
Former Corporal Nicolas T. Jameson
enjoyed this part of his job. Mercenary work just allowed certain latitudes
that military life did not. For example, he had a smaller man hoisted up over
his head and was in the process of hurling him into the mirror behind the bar.
Back in the AI Wars, behavior like that would have earned him a court martial,
but in his current line of work he was being an exceptionally vigorous
employee.
Once the other man hit the mirror,
two of his friends came at Jameson with knives. He took a long scratch along a
forearm while he broke the one on his left’s nose and kicked the one on the
right in the balls. Jameson grabbed the poor bastard he’d kicked by the ears
and spun him around, hurling him over the bar to join to join his friend. The
man with the broken nose came at him again, so Jameson grabbed a bar stool and
broke it over his assailant’s head.
“Who wants a piece of me now?”
Jameson asked the bar, his hands raised triumphantly. Silence answered him,
bringing a grin to his square face. That grin curdled into a sneer when he
realized the silent bar had nothing to do with him. Everyone was staring at the
door, slowly making way for whoever had entered while he was fighting. The
crowd eventually parted to reveal a tiny woman with horn rimmed glasses and her
brown hair up in a tight bun. She had a respectably long skirt on, wore
matching heeled boots, and a sharp looking suit jacket. “Who the fuck are you?”
Jameson asked with all his usual grace.
The little librarian pulled a gun
out of her extra-large purse and fired a shot directly into Jameson’s groin.
When the small caliber bullet hit his pelvis he felt it explode into a thousand
tiny pieces of shrapnel and go flying up into his torso and down his left
thigh. Groaning, Jameson toppled over sideways. This was why the captain always
nagged him about wearing body armor at all times, especially when he planned on
getting into bar fights, Jameson’s subconscious reminded him. He reached for
the gun strapped to his hip. Miss Sexy Glasses fired another exploding round
into his elbow, leaving him with a bloody stump for his right arm.
“This is Izo’s territory now,” the
librarian said calmly as she slid her gun back into her purse. “Shenanigans
like this will no longer be tolerated. All of you go back to your drinks or go
home.” She turned and left while Jameson continued to bleed.
*
Markov drew his gun and tried to
follow the woman with the glasses, but she just winked at him and then
disappeared into the crowd. Liam grabbed his arm and tugged him back.
“Dammit, I need your help getting
him back to the Mako Rising if I’m
going to have a chance in hell of saving him! Revenge can wait!”
Grinding his teeth, Markov listened
to his first officer. Liam was right, saving Jameson came first. But if only
they had arrived thirty seconds sooner! They had entered the bar just in time
to see that woman slide a gun back into her purse and then turn to leave.
“Captain! Doc!” Jameson gasped when
they knelt beside him. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Why does everyone ask me that?”
Markov asked with a smile as he held Jameson’s one remaining hand.
“This is not good,” Liam whispered.
“Listen Jameson, we need to get you
back to the Mako, alright?” Markov
asked, scooping Jameson up into his arms. It was difficult because Jameson was
heavier than Markov with all his muscles, but he dug deep and found the
strength for his old war buddy.
Jameson winced. “Whatever you say,
captain.”
Markov ran as fast as he could with
Jameson in his arms and Liam providing first aid along the way, but Jameson
bled out halfway back to the ship.
“He’s gone,” Liam said solemnly.
“The shrapnel tore open just about every artery down there. He never had a
chance.”
Markov set his dumbest, bravest
friend down gently. Jameson’s blood was all over his clothes and he was
breathing heavily from running with that much weight in his arms. “He’s got
family at the Saturn shipyard, doesn’t he?”
Doctor Lafayette nodded. “A sister.
Married to a welder, I think. He never mentioned any other relatives.”
Markov sighed. “Then that will be
our next stop. Qadira is a test pilot there now. We’ll take Jameson home and
pick up your little buddy.”
*
“Hah! I told you she could make
that sharp of a turn! Thomas? Hey!” Qadira Jones, test pilot, shouted at her
ride-a-long engineer.
Thomas was unconscious, strapped
into his seat beside her. Qadira rolled her brown eyes. While she didn’t really
consider it a successful test flight until a passenger passed out, having her
only victim lose it this early in the route was hardly any fun at all. She
hadn’t even gotten to the really scary part yet!
Qadira flew the rest of her test
run without incident. This model was the smallest and cheapest starship she had
ever flown, other than short range fighters that didn’t have FTL drives, of
course. It was nothing like the Mako
Rising, but at least it wasn’t a big, clunky cargo ship. Those were so boring to fly! Qadira turned the as yet
nameless little ship back and headed for the shipyard.
An explosion somewhere down in the
engine room threw the ship into a gut-wrenching spiral. Qadira cursed, kept a
firm hand on the tiller, and evacuated the oxygen from the engine room to
prevent a fire. A second, much closer but smaller explosion destroyed the
escape pod and Qadira cursed again. Still spinning out of control, Qadira
checked the engine readings. They were completely dead, adrift with no
thrusters. The reactor had not been damaged though, just the conventional
drive. Unfortunately, she was hurtling directly for one of Saturn’s moons.
“Mayday, mayday. This is Qadira
Jones, test pilot on vessel 715B. An explosion has disabled my thrusters and I
am drifting uncontrollably on a collision course with Titan. Our escape pod was
damaged in the explosion and we require immediate assistance,” Qadira added,
but she knew there was no chance of anyone reaching her before she hit the
moon.
Taking a deep breath before she
tried something truly drastic, Qadira took a final moment to consider spacing
herself and Thomas with a couple extra oxygen tanks and praying that the rescue
team found them before they ran out of air. If Thomas weren’t unconscious, she
might have tried it, but as it was she would basically be sentencing the poor
engineer to death.
“Well shit. I always wanted to try
this.” Qadira warmed up the FTL drive while she calculated the exact position
they would be in thirty seconds from now. The computer started the calculations
and Qadira held her breath. As far as she knew, no one had ever performed a
moving FTL jump and lived, but there were no other options given her predicament
in this very obvious yet thorough act of sabotage. If they were even an inch
out of position when the FTL went off they would most likely end up inside a
sun or an asteroid if they even came out of the jump at all. Qadira shivered.
The Quran didn’t offer any specifics on what happened to people trapped inside
the cracks of the universe.
“Are you doing what I think you’re
doing?” a familiar voice broadcasted over an open channel.
“Captain?” Qadira gasped. “I…what…?”
“Finally got you speechless. It’s
about damn time. Power down your FTL and prepare for mag-tow, you maniac,”
Captain Markov ordered.
“Yes, sir!” Qadira answered
happily. “Saved by your flying, I
never thought I’d see the day, sir!”
“Well remember this the next time
you open your big mouth about my piloting skills,” Markov said.
“What in the hell are you doing
here, anyway? And when did you develop such a fantastic sense of timing?”
Qadira asked as the Mako Rising’s mag-tow
grabbed her ship and pulled it away from Titan.
“It’s a bit of a long story, but I’ll
fill you in when we dock. Liam and I jumped into orbit just in time to hear
your distress call,” Markov explained.
“Liam is with you? Hi, Liam! Irene’s
not there, is she?”
“No, thank God!” Liam shouted over
the comm.
“You’re sure? Did you check all the
secret compartments? Last time she hid in one of the compartments!” Qadira
insisted.
“Irene is not on board, nor have I
had any contact with her since we last saw her,” Markov growled.
“You mean when she stole all your
money and broke up your crew? That time?” Qadira asked cheekily.
“Yes, that time.” Qadira could hear
the captain clenching his teeth on the other side of the comm.
Qadira wanted to laugh, but Irene
Ackley was not a woman to be trifled with, as they had learned to their
misfortune several times already. “Well if she’s not there with you then she is
sure as hell close by. Having my ship sabotaged right as you jump into orbit
has her name written all over it!”
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