The Pequod limped through the void, thrusters firing intermittently like a baby hiccupping blue flame into the dark. The crew, clustered on the bridge, winced in unison with every burp of fuel and tried to distract themselves with the news. The ICOMM newsfeed was cluttered with talk about a girl from House Vestal gone walkabout – a sub-princess, fourth-in-line to the throne, playacting at being normal. In Granté’s opinion, this was better than talk about the ICA inspection ship the Pequod had recently scuttled.
Paola half-spun in the captain’s chair, snapping off a command: “Peak, cut thrust to minimum and save it for the brakes. We’ll coast the rest of the way.”
Next to her, Granté scratched the thinning stubble crowning his head and fought back the urge to offer a suggestion.
Hiss shrugged and signed, they’ll have tugs ready, anyway.
“Already done, Captain,” the ship said. Pequod – affectionately called “Peak” by its crew – normally had its intelligence housed in a spiderlike marionette. Unfortunately, the crew – and, more relevantly, Peak itself – had recently survived an unpleasant entanglement with Interstellar Customs which ended with Peak’s marionette shot to hell and back. They’d also managed to lose their entire haul of karkinoi, literal tons of crabmeat splattered against the windshield of a soon-to-be-scuttled ICA ship.
Still, Customs hadn’t found the crates stored in the back of the storage bay, lashed up in the shadows beneath the observation gantry. Paola and Peak might have half an idea what was in there, but Granté and Hiss didn’t, despite their attempts to convince the captain to crack open the crates and see what was inside.
From a certain angle, Salvar Station looked like a hard-edged rose unfurling starward; the station’s central hub erupted from a narrow spindle, its circumference bordered by massive, interlocking solar panels. The Pequod made for the flower’s stem, which hosted the shipyard and docks.
“Salvar Station Control, this is Pequod,” Paola said, “Request permission to dock Spindleside.” She sighed and sat back in her chair.
“Permission gr- hold one moment, Pequod,” Control replied.
Hiss and Granté had been on their way off the bridge, but paused when the reply came in.
A breathy voice issued from the Pequod’s speakers. “Paola, my dear. Were you going to stop in and not say hello?”
Paola rubbed the bridge of her nose like she had a headache coming on. “Hello, Polk. How’s things?”
“Better now that you’re here,” Polk said, clearly not meaning it.
“We could use a thruster refit and a top-up on fuel.”
“Sure,” Polk said greasily. “I’m sure you’ve got some karkinoi to offload.”
“Tough season, I’m afraid,” Paola grated.
“Hmm. Sorry to hear that,” Polk drawled. “Prices have gone up since your last visit.”
“I’m sure we can work something out,” Paola said, teeth gritted so hard they might shatter.
“I’ll have an escort bring you in,” the station commander replied, smacking his lips.
“How gentlemanly of you.” Paola cut the comms.
“Two security skiffs en route,” Peak said. The ship had a twinge of nervousness in its voice.
Can we take them? Hiss signed.
“Probably,” Granté said. “But there’s more where that came from. Can’t scuttle ‘em all, right?”
“With the Icarus-9 units in the hold, we – ”
“Can it, Peak,” Paola said.
Granté frowned. “That sounds like military tech.”
Hiss stepped back and made the sound that lent him his name. Then he signed a sequence of expletives that didn’t bear repeating.
“So you looked,” Paola said, resting her hands on her hips. “Didn’t you, Pequod?”
The ship knew it was in trouble when she used its full name. “I’m sorry,” Peak whined. “My structural scans picked up the units during Granté and Hiss’ misadventure with those karkinoi…”
“We forgive you, Peak,” Granté said. He tended to excuse the ship’s foibles, but then, the ship had saved their lives more than once. To Paola, he inquired: “Did you know we were carrying that kind of artillery?” He already had the answer but needed to hear it.
“I suspected,” Paola said guiltily.
“How powerful are they, exactly? The Icarus-9’s?”
Navy-grade defense systems, Hiss signed, fingers dancing. Hailstorm launchers, rotary cannons, railguns, ‘wave cookers. The works.
Peak made an electric gulping noise.
Two of these will turn a cargo hauler into a battleship, Hiss signed rapidly.
Granté remembered the burn scars and bullet wounds stitching the other man’s flesh and decided to trust his expertise. An acid dread dawned in his stomach. “…and how many do we have?”
“Peak?” she said quietly.
“Eighteen.”
“Oh.”
“Peak,” Paola said quietly, “could you…?”
“I can utilize two units at maximum capacity while maintaining current functions,” Peak said. “It will take some time to synchronize – ”
“Do it. Granté?”
Granté did the math. “I can get two units connected by the time we dock. Like Peak says, it’ll take time to sync them.”
“Sooner is better.” Paola drew her pistol and checked the magazine. “Let’s fuckin’ do this.”
[later]
“Heard you ran into some ICA trouble.” Polk slurped at his drink like a fleshy oil derrick. Granté wanted to stuff the straw up his nose.
They all knew he was fishing, of course, so they kept their faces stony.
Paola and Polk had history, none of it good, and Granté wanted to step in and say something but knew the right thing to do was let his captain have the floor.
“You been keeping tabs on me?” Paola quirked an eyebrow. “There’s better ways to a woman’s heart.”
“You’re going to make me blush.” Polk wiped his mustache, succeeding only in smearing foam across his face, and drummed his mechanical fingertips on the tabletop, tik-tik-tik.
Granté risked a look around the room, playing like he was rolling out a crick in his neck.
Behind him, outlined by the starlight cutting through the broad rectangular voidports, were the rest of Polk’s heavies, arrayed in a rough line. Their armor, hair, and tattoos were a riot of color, neons clashing with matte greys, piercings punched through sun-starved skin, all of them younger than he’d expected. Cold attitudes, but their eyes hadn’t gone distant yet, not like Hiss’ and Paola’s and sometimes his own.
The rest of the room had cleared out – understandable, given the nature of the situation. Granté got the sense that most of Polk’s visitors came in standing up and left lying down.
At least the setting was nice: clean grey surfaces, blocky matte-black tables and chairs bolted to the floor, big voidports with a nice view of the closest nebula.
The Pequod’s crew sat at the biggest of the room’s tables, their backs to the voidports (and most of Polk’s henchmen). The stationmaster lounged opposite them, flanked by his favored enforcers. To his right stood a goliath of a woman, nearly two meters in height – the pit fighter, Danzer. Paola had mentioned her while Granté was loading the Icarus-9 units. She was prettier than he’d expected.
Danzer crossed her arms, the dragon tattoos looped around her biceps writhing in the light, the subdermal art reacting to her movements. She met Granté’s eyes and gave him a lecherous wink. He smiled back, half to stay alive and half because he was interested.
“So, if you’re not hauling crab, what’s got you in the sector?” Polk’s tone was casual, but his eyes glinted with suspicion.
“Work,” Paola said. Hiss grunted.
“How delightfully evasive,” Polk said, clearly not delighted. “I’ve got your ship locked down at the maintenance bays. We’ll hold onto it until you can pay for the repairs.” Granté noted the change in possessive but declined to comment.
“That true, Peak?” Paola asked.
“In a sense,” Peak murmured, voice slithering through their conduction units. “Once the Icarus-9 units are engaged, my entanglement will be…significantly shortened.”
“For what it’s worth, I hear your ship’s very cooperative.” Polk yawned theatrically.
“Oh, definitely,” Paola grinned, sharklike. “Peak’s a real soft touch.”
[Continued Soon]