“Not the place I expected to find a good crew,”
Martin – André – remarked as he settled into the booth in the corner.
At least he was out of his old Merchant Marine
uniform. The crew of the Seven Seas had been in such a hurry to vacate the
place, once The Hawk had gotten it into his head that he wanted the ship for
himself, that they had left some of their personal belongings behind.
Now what was it with pirates – it was the only thing
they could have been, smugglers at least – and leather? At least he had found
something his size, and carrying a disruptor wasn’t bad. At least he was armed
now. Not that he felt very armed and dangerous.
No. Armed or not, in this place everyone was more
dangerous than André was, including the Orion sitting opposite him.
He had seen her pick up a small disruptor. She had
loaded it with a fresh power pack drawn from the Seven Seas’ armory and then
the small weapon had just vanished in a swift motion that would have made any
illusionist cry tears of bitter envy.
Before he found any more time to think about the
Orion’s talents she motioned one of the waitresses closer and whispered
something in her ear. Almost unnoticeably a small strip of latinum changed hands
and the waitress was on her way again across the room, her hips swinging
invitingly, her hands playfully slapping away various appendages that reached
out to touch her.
Another waitress came by and Shadira ordered food and
drink. André was willing to trust her choice, even after a steaming plate of
grubby... something had been placed in front of him. If Shadira had
wanted to kill him she would have taken a more direct approach than
food-poisoning.
He had just taken a bite of the fat-dripping meat and
decided that it wasn’t perhaps as bad as it looked, when someone pulled a
chair to his table and planted a set of scarred square hands on the table.
André looked up
and after a long way his eyes reached the man’s face. When his eyes had found
a way through the craggy scarred canyons of the chin and up a unexpectedly sharp
thin nose he arrived at a pair of cold gray eyes that stared down at him as if
he was nothing more than a bug in serious need of some squashing.
“Name’s
Tom. You guys wanted to see me?”
André drew a deep
breath. “I guess we did.” He shot a glance at Shadira, but her slightly
bemused expression was no help at all. “We are looking to hire a few capable
people to run a spaceship. Do you think you can help us with that?”
“I sure can. I am an engineer. The best one you’ll
find in this part of town.”
“Okay, let’s see if you know what you are talking
about. What do you know about Klingon system engineering, the way they did it
two hundred years ago?”
*****
“Which will short out half the EPS grid,” André
said while a sad frown took hold of his face.
“Not if I shunted the power surge through the
weapons grid it won’t!”
André took a deep breath, but before he had a chance
to say anything Shadira reached across the table and lightly touched his hand.
He looked down at her green-skinned fingers and fought
down a grin. He had almost been carried away, forgetting that this guy – Tom
– was pretty good at what he talked about.
“Truth or consequences,” André calmly said, still
looking down at the place Shadira’s hand had occupied a moment before,
“would you have done that if I hadn’t reminded you of the problems with the
EPS grid?”
Tom flexed his fingers and his knuckles made a
sickening creaking sound that seemed too unnatural, too mechanical, to be
produced by any part of a Human’s body. “No.”
André Lafayette’s head came up with a smile painted
on his face. “Okay, let’s discuss payment.”
“No need to. I heard an Orion chick with an old
Klingon scout ship was taking on The Hawk.” Tom’s cold gray eyes turned to
Shadira and he shrugged. “Sorry for the chick part, lady, but that’s what I
heard people say and hey I am just not a man of the world like your friend
here.”
André started to laugh our loud, but his laughter
quickly ended in a grunting snort as two things suddenly occurred to him: Tom
wouldn’t like the thought that he was laughed about and compared to most
people in this part of town André was really a man of the world. He had
received a good education, traveled a lot, picked up a few skills in several
languages, and while perhaps not an expert trader he knew enough about commerce
to make an honest living as a trader if given the chance.
But there was something else that he realized with a
sinking feeling. There was a fierce glint in Tom’s cold eyes. “What’s it
to you?”
“Well, if you are those guys going against The Hawk
I want in.” Tom rolled up his sleeves and exposed his burned and scarred arms.
“This came courtesy of that bloody Hawk bastard and if you have a score to
settle with him helping you do it is payment enough for me.”
“Uh, well, we are not looking for a fight with this
Hawk guy. All we want to do is get the ship back in shape and leave this sorry
world.”
Tom frowned and started to scratch his scarred chin.
“Whatever you say. Not that The Hawk will let you get off that easily, but he
wants that ship and you want to get it away from him. If you do it and I help
you with it it’s still a sort of payback.”
Tom reached out and André shook the offered hand.
“Not that we stand any chance,” Tom calmly
remarked as he squeezed his opposite’s hand. “But I’d rather die trying
than just rot in this hellhole.”
*****
André decided that Tom had been right when he had
called the suburbs of Chamra a hellhole.
Not that it resembled any of André’s ideas of what
hell might look like. Only a handful of locals had horns and none of them red
skin, which seemed an altogether wrong start for a hellhole. The sad absence of
burning fires and pits of boiling tar didn’t help the image either. And while
the smells did their best to compensate for the lack of hellish scenery they
lacked any sulphuric quality. It looked just like any other run-down
listlessly-gray suburbia on a dozen frontier worlds André had visited.
And yet it was a hellhole.
Everyone had a haggard hunted look to them that would
have guaranteed them a place as tortured spirits in any image of Dante’s hell
that featured lost souls from a dozen different worlds. What demons hunted them
André didn’t know and he wasn’t keen on finding out why he was surrounded
by an army of people who stared at him as if he was the only one among them who
might have a shot at the repentance they knew they would never be allowed to
find.
“Tell me a bit more about this guy we are looking
for,” he asked Tom, just to have something to talk about.
“Told you, he’s good with weapons, including
starship tactical systems. Knows them by the book. May have written a few
chapters in that book himself.” Tom shrugged in an elaborate gesture that
seemed impossible without a lot more shoulder joints than a human was supposed
to have. “What you should know is that he is also a bit crazy. Thing is he’s
some serious gun bunny. If it’s got one end with a trigger and another that
shoots out something – anything – he’s your man. Problem is he’s a bit
too eager to pull the trigger sometimes. Worked for one of The Hawk’s
enforcers and shot a guy dead despite orders. Not that The Hawk minds people
dead who owe him money for too long, but he’d rather have them pay first and
shot later, not the other way ‘round.”
“Wonderful,” André groaned. “And if you don’t
mind me asking, what’s it with this Hawk guy and The? Everyone makes it
sound like The was his first name.” He shot a glance at Shadira, but the Orion
just spread her hands in a helpless gesture.
“Dunno,” Tom replied in a thoroughly baffled
voice. “It’s what everybody calls him.”
“I see. He probably started that himself. A
mysterious extravagant name to add an air of danger to his person,” André
Lafayette replied and sadly shook his head. “Pretty cheesy, isn’t it?”
*****
Tom’s knock on the door went unanswered and André
took the opportunity to look around again.
It seemed the small squalid house was the only
occupied one on the street. Those houses next to it that hadn’t succumbed to
old age and gravity long ago stared down at the street from empty black windows
like the patients of some nightmarish retirement home who hopelessly looked
forward to their final release from all earthly burdens.
When Tom knocked again a
high-pitched reply penetrated the door and André’s bones, making his hair
stand on end. “Leave me alone before I send you packing in a plastic bag!”
“Spare that crap for the tourists. It’s me,
Tom!” The engineer’s voice sounded calm, but as he ducked away from the door
and sank down on a knee André noticed for the first time that his hand rested
on the disruptor holstered at his side. ‘Much good it will do me.’
His hands were so sweaty the gun would just slip from his fingers.
“What Tom? I know a lot of Tom’s, not counting
those I killed myself!”
“Oh Christ, Laszlo! I am the one Tom who is crazy
enough to speak with you.” He lowered his voice to a level that he hoped would
be heard on the other side of the door, but nowhere else in the street. “Tom
Jones.”
He looked around and shot an acrid glance at André
Lafayette’s slack-jawed face. “Don’t you ever mention this to no one,”
Tom whispered.
“Oh, that Tom! Why didn’t you say so right
away?” The voice on the far side of the door still was shrill, but had lost
just a little bit of the hair-raising quality. “What do you want?”
“I am here with two friends who have a business
proposition for you. The kind of business you don’t talk about on the
street.”
The ensuing silence was broken after a few seconds by
the clicking and hissing sounds of several look releases and the door slid to
the side under the groaning sound of heavy hydraulics at work.
When André risked peering around the doorframe he saw
only darkness, but after his eyes had started to adjust he could make out two
rifle barrels aimed at him and the reflection of outside light on a set of
wrap-around sunglasses.
“All right, you come on in, but leave all your
weapons on the table by the door.”
André Lafayette drew his disruptor very carefully and
held it between thumb and forefinger as he placed it on the table just inside
the door. He took a step inside the dark room, but was quickly ushered to the
side by the sharp motion of a gun barrel.
Shadira followed André’s example and carefully
placed her disruptor on the table, but before she could make any further move
the cutting sharpness was back in the voice of the man they only knew as Laszlo.
“I said all weapons, lady. Do you think I wear these glasses because they look so
cool? Best weapons detector on the market.”
As Shadira drew a stiletto from each of her boots and
placed them next to her small pistol the man hidden in the gloom snickered.
“And they look cool, too.”
*****
The table by the door aside, the only pieces of
furniture in the room where the chair Laszlo occupied and the upturned table
that served as a convenient rest for the two rifles still pointed at André and
his two companions.
Left with little alternative they settled on the floor
and André forced himself to cross his legs in an uncomfortable position that
would make it impossible for him to jump up suddenly even if he wanted to.
Laszlo’s small approving nod told him that he had made the right choice and he
allowed his eyes more time to adjust to the gloomy lighting.
Laszlo was a small wiry man, his dark hair kept so
short it looked like a five-o-clock shadow had lost its way and wandered from
the face to the top of the man’s head.
The next thing André noticed made him raise a
quizzical eyebrow. “Half-Vulcan?” He pointed his chin at Laszlo’s slightly
pointed ears.
“Half-Romulan. Not that it’s any of your
business.”
“Right.” That seemed to be about all the
conversation they would have for now and Lafayette took the time to study his
surroundings closer. The barred windows let in little light, but it was just
enough to produce a few glints of light reflected off metallic surfaces behind
the man and the guns André was still facing. ‘More guns.’
One of the barrels he was trying to avoid staring at
belonged to a Cardassian disruptor rifle, but the other one took a lot longer to
recognize...
When recognition happened it was swiftly pushed aside
by astonishment. “A slug thrower? You can’t be serious?”
“Oh, and why not?” the high-pitched voice shot
back. “Do you have any idea how many scanners are only set to look for weapons
based on power-packs and energy signatures?”
“Um, not sure, but I guess about eighty-five
percent, ninety percent maybe?”
“Ninety-two point three percent, but you are pretty
close.” The momentary trace of almost-congeniality told André he had an
opening and he was willing to risk a wild-assed guess to exploit that opening.
“That’s what they called an assault-rifle in the
old days, isn’t it.”
“Damn Right You Are!” Laszlo dropped the disruptor
and came around the upturned table, lovingly cradling the aforementioned weapon
in his arms. “It’s a G-36 assault rifle. Well it’s really just a replica,
but I built it myself to the exact specifications of the manufacturer –
Heckler and Koch. Fires a 5.56mm slug that will go right through any forcefield
designed to stop high-energy particle weapons. Standard magazine holds thirty
bullets, but I fitted a 100 round Beta C-mag. Do you have any idea how long it
took me to find the specs for this baby? Anyway...”
*****
When the door closed behind him André fingered his
gun and briefly thought about shooting himself. Right now it seemed like the
best way to get off Chamra, but Tom’s grating voice cut into his thoughts just
in time.
“You did damn well. I think he’ll really come.”
“I did nothing,” André tried to protest, but he
was too spent to manage more than a feeble attempt.
Tom grinned and slapped a large hand on Lafayette’s
shoulders. “Right. You let him talk longer than anyone ever managed. My brain
was crawling out my ears and you just sat there looking really cool. Haven’t
ever seen someone deal with Laszlo like he was anything but a freak. Trust me,
boss, he’ll come.”
‘Holy...’
Being called boss was good! He could get used to it! He shot a glance at Shadira,
then a longer more inquisitive look. The ship was hers, she knew her way around
this world. All he was was a frontman, the recruiting-poster look of roguish
independence that no one would believe an Orion woman to have.
All Shadira did was nod.
They had talked it over. She owned the ship but she
didn’t want all the responsibility. For several years she had been comfortable
being the XO and she didn’t want to change that – not as long as Martin
Alcott knew that he would only be André Lafayette as long as she supported him
or until he earned the right to be her captain.
*****
They stopped at a crossing where the dilapidated
houses met a jumbled stretch of brownfields.
They had been wandering aimlessly for half an hour,
but Tom was growing restless. “How many more do we need?”
André kneaded his face vigorously and was surprised
how rough his skin felt – no, not his skin. He hadn’t had a shave in days,
but perhaps that was for the best. It was only fitting for André Lafayette,
however wrong it might have felt for Martin Alcott. ‘Oh
crap! It’s not like I am developing a split personality – I hope.’
“Let’s see. Six or eight would be ideal, but
we’ll get by with three or four more in a pinch. Laszlo at tactical, you as
our engineer. Shadira and I can manage most of the bridge stations. What we
really need is someone who knows his way around those engines and at least two
people who know a little about everything, to take care of the bridge when no
one else is around.”
“Sounds about right.” Tom’s features split in a
wide grin. “Hey, we’ll be like the guys in that holonovel, ye know, the
Magnificent Seven.”
André almost groaned, but the realization that he was
now living a life he had previously know only from holonovels made him think
twice about it.
“Yeah, I know that holonovel. Trouble is only three
of the seven survived. Where are we supposed to find people who are willing to
run that risk?”
Both
men turned their heads in unison as Shadira cleared her throat and raised a
fist.
Her index finger shot up and she wiggled it in a
follow-me motion.
*****
“Shadira! What a pleasant surprise!” two voices
sang out in unison and André looked around for the walls that produced the
echo. In the middle of the small park walls were decidedly absent, so the pair
in front of him apparently shared not just their appearance, but their voice as
well.
In their dark suits the man and woman looked more like
middle-class wage-slaves than anything, but if they knew the Orion, their
appearance was far from telling him everything there was to know about them.
“We are sorry about Captain Dyson. If there is
anything we can do to help, please let us know.”
Shadira jerked her thumb at André and two heads
turned in complete unison.
He tried his very best to keep his brain from going on
a wild spin involving a lot of bright colors and all-too-happy thoughts as he
focused his eyes on a spot between the identical twins. Shoulder length
peroxide-blond hair, almost-white skin, perfect lips formed into two identical
noncommittal smiles – after an hour with Laszlo it was a welcome change in
craziness and it was more than he could take.
André jumped off the park bench and started to pace
restlessly. “We need a crew for Captain Dyson’s old ship. We need someone
who can take a shift and keep the ship running. Think you two can do that?”
“Yes!”
He couldn’t even tell
their voices apart. Their identical twin-ness extended to their tone of voice
and pitch. But if they would sign on they would run the night-shift, well out
off his sight. He stopped his pacing and shot a sullen glance over his shoulder.
“And what’s it to you?”
“Have you ever heard of Adigeon Prime?” two people
asked in one voice.
“Yes. They do some genetic engineering there that is
outlawed everywhere in the Federation. Is that where you’re from?”
“Yes. Captain Dyson liberated us from Adigeon. We
owe him for that. If we can’t repay him, we can at least do something for his
friends.”
*****
André slumped down on the park bench and filled his
lungs with fresh air. “Great. Now all we need is someone who knows his way
around one hundred year old engines and a lot of spare parts and we’ll be on
our way.”
“If you are looking for the best propulsion engineer
on this planet look no further,” a cheerful voice quipped.
With a lot more than a little satisfaction André
noticed the Andorian’s gulp and the sweat running down the boy’s face as he
beheld the three guns pointed at him. ‘Armed and dangerous – maybe not.
Armed and feeling good about it - yep!’
“Whoa, relax!” the young Andorian raised his hands
in a wide theatrical gesture of innocent defenselessness. “I want off this
world and you guys are my ticket.”
“This isn’t your business, kid.”
“Oh yeah? I’ve been looking for you most of the
day and if you are taking on The Hawk I want in. Can’t you see? This will be
great!”
“Yep,” a grunting voice replied and André turned
around to face an all too familiar Nausicaan facing him across the barrel of a
very big, very ugly gun.
“This
will be a really great way for all of you to die.”
Chapter
1 Chapter 2
Chapter 3 Chapter
4 Chapter 5
Chapter 6
