Summer's End, page 11
When we got to the end of the cargo corridor, we passed through a large airlock into the main hallway for the installation. There were a surprising amount of people who really didn’t look like they were working. As they were all men, I could understand why Dot didn’t want to be alone, ever, while we were here. I could hear some muttered comments and a few muted conversations that were obviously about the new woman and how nice and clean she was.
Most of them went fairly south after that, and I could see that Dot was studiously ignoring them. The corridor we were walking down was lined with shops that were mainly for repairs, but a few of them appeared to sell clothing or other supplies. Most of the men we saw here were actually working. The men lounging around and not doing anything appeared to be the most unkempt and scraggly looking.
“Don’t they work?” I asked in a low voice.
“Maybe. Maybe not,” Chaz replied. “Some folks get ‘stranded’ here. They’re involved in some sort of illicit operation or other, and keep from being kicked off by bribing the right company manager. Others are just lazy assholes who do whatever they can to shirk their jobs, or they’re off shift and just looking for whatever trouble they can get into.”
“You got these types at Ceres?”
Chaz snorted. “Hell, no. You don’t pull your own weight, we toss your ass out the front door.”
“You live in a hab. How the hell can you toss them out the front door?”
“Hence why anybody with a lick of sense or half a brain doesn’t do shit like this,” Chaz said looking around.
“You kill them?” I said, amazed.
“No, we don’t kill them.”
“But you just said . . . ”
“The vacuum of space kills them,” he said with a smirk.
“Stations and habs don’t have much in the way of resources to waste on layabouts,” Dot said. “And the really nice ones don’t have much truck with people whose only goal seems to be pulling everyone else down with them.”
“Wait, you can’t be telling me there’s no crime. I’ve already run into two people who were being paid to off me.”
“There’s always crime, Dave. But even the criminals pull their own weight and aren’t trying to make things worse for everybody else. But in a place like this, as long as nothing cuts into the profits, the bosses don’t care. They don’t live here, after all.”
“Hell, I bet they don’t even visit,” Chaz said. “I can tell you, when they finally do pull out, somebody will pop this place with a missile and make sure it’s completely vented to space, to deal with any ‘vermin issues’ that got left behind.”
I thought about that while we walked, making sure to keep my eyes open. This was almost as bad as when we used to raid Doler territory back when I was in the gang.
“Okay, we’re here,” Dot said, turning down a narrow corridor and pressing the buzzer on the door at the end of it. The door had a sign saying HYDROMATIC PARTS SIX and there were several cameras set up to see us.
“What’s your business?” a voice asked from a hidden speaker.
“We’re here from the Iowa Hill to pick up a pump we ordered.”
“You can come in, the two guys wait outside.”
“Oh, fuck no!” Dot swore loudly. “I’m not going anywhere without my assistants, and I’m sure as hell not gonna carry that thing by myself. Now open up or you don’t get paid!”
I heard some grumbling, but then the door buzzed and we all stepped through, Chaz leading and me bringing up the rear. We came into a small waiting area with a counter across the far wall and a man standing behind it.
“Where is it?” Dot asked.
“Let me see your money first.”
Dot growled. “Do you want me to tell my boys to kill you? ’Cause they will kill you. Show me the part first, and then, if it’s what we ordered, then you’ll see some money. If not, my captain and your boss are going to have a conversation about why we left your dead corpse nailed to that wall over there.”
I kept my face passive, but internally I was shocked! Dot was always cheerful and always smiled. But she was ripping into this guy with an attitude like some of the nastier heavies we used to deal with every once in a while. I didn’t know if it was just posturing or what, but I had my hand on the handle of my pick, figuring out the quickest way to get over that counter and ice the guy behind it.
“Look I make the —” he started saying, but then his eyes met mine and suddenly he shut up. Because I was looking through him. I’d learned a long time ago that you never make eye contact with a target, it distracts you. I guess he’d seen that look before.
“Let me go get it.”
“We’ll go with you,” I said.
“It’s okay, wait right —”
I was over the counter without even thinking about it, and Chaz was right behind me.
“We’ll go with you,” I said.
“What, don’t you trust me?” he said, with his hands held up and away from his body.
“Not anymore,” Dot said, sliding over the counter as well. “Me and my boys don’t like it when somebody tries to shake us down. You deal fair, no chop, and we’ll pay you and take what’s ours and go. Now, you know what we’re here for, let’s go.”
I followed the guy, almost on his heels, while Dot and Chaz hung back. It wasn’t all that far back in the supply racks; obviously it’d been brought up from some other supply room for us. Chaz stood by the guy, looking menacing, which considering that Chaz was pretty well built wasn’t all that hard, while Dot and I quickly went over the pump. I checked the connections and the sensors on it, then the threads on the fittings. Dot was checking the flanges for trueness across their surface, then she ran a small camera up inside to do a quick inspection of the pump vanes. After that she took a small hammer and tapped all over it. That last one would tell you if there were any major cracks or flaws in the case from the sound.
“It’s good. Got a dolly we can borrow?” she asked, looking up at the guy.
He pointed over to a corner. “What about the money?”
Dot unzipped a pocket and pulled out a rather thick wad of credits and started to count them off while Chaz went and got the dolly. There turned out to be quite a lot there, two thousand.
“What about for the dolly?” he asked.
“We’ll leave it at the lock. You can pick it up later.”
He nodded slowly. Chaz moved the dolly over and then the two of us picked up the pump and set it on the dolly, securing it with a strap.
“Now, be a nice man and show us to the exit,” Dot said with a smile that wasn’t as kind or friendly as they ones I was used to.
“Yeah, I like that idea. Follow me,” he said.
When we got to the door, Chaz went out first, followed by Dot. I stopped in the doorway and looked back at the guy.
“If we run into any surprises, I know what you look like and I know where you are,” I said to him, then held up my tablet and took his picture. “Have a nice day.”
Letting the door close I took a couple of quick strides to catch up with Dot and Chaz.
“What’d you do that for?” Chaz asked.
“General principles,” I said and smiled. “You saw how afraid of me he was.”
“And fear is a great motivator,” Dot agreed. “Now, let’s see if we can get back to the ship without any problems.”
The trip back down the main corridor was about the same as the trip in, though I thought the comments were a bit ruder and perhaps a bit louder. The expression on Dot’s face was pretty stoic, though her lips seemed to be pressed together rather tightly.
“Turn left here,” Dot said suddenly as we drew close to the airlock to the cargo corridor. Chaz didn’t question, and turned down the large side corridor just before the doors. I saw several surprised expressions on a couple of the guys standing near the doorway.
“I hope you know where you’re going,” I whispered to Dot as I kept an eye on the two guys, one of whom was starting to follow us.
“I’m the only woman without a price tag on this rock. Yeah, I know where I’m going,” she whispered back.
“Right, Chaz,” she said in a voice loud enough for him to hear.
As soon as we went around the corner, I flattened myself against the wall.
“I’ll catch up,” I said and Dot just nodded as they continued on ahead.
I got my pick out and waited. The guy following us dashed around the corner and didn’t even realize I was there. I got him in the kidney with my ice pick as my hand hit him in his Adam’s apple, cutting off his voice. Looking around, I dragged him into a dark spot just inside one of the shops that looked deserted and dumped him on the floor.
A quick once-over and I found the comm he was using. I grabbed it and fled out the door. As I left, a couple of locals ran in and started stripping the body of whatever I’d left behind.
Ignoring them, I rushed to catch up with the others.
I passed the comm to Dot just as she directed Chaz to turn right again.
“Thanks. Any problems?”
“’Course not.” I smiled.
She looked around; the corridor we were in was a short one and empty. It ended in an airlock.
“Okay, this is a side passage to the cargo dock. You’re gonna have to carry the pump from here on out, though. I don’t think that dolly is gonna fit.”
“You think there was an ambush on the other side of the main lock?” Chaz asked.
“Yup. And they’re still gonna be in the cargo hall waiting for us. Just now they’re not between us and the ship.”
“Let me message Hank,” Chaz said.
Dot nodded and cut the strap holding the pump down with her knife. “Get that side, Dave,” she said with a nod and then the two of us picked it up, while Chaz brought up the rear.
We all crammed in the lock; it was a tight fit with the pump.
“Chaz, you and I will take the pump, Dave will be rear guard.”
“What? I know how to fight with a knife! Dave’s only got that little ice pick.”
“Don’t argue with me, Chaz, okay?” Dot said in a voice that was so happy and sweet you just knew that if you did argue, you’d count it as one of life’s great mistakes.
“Yes, ma’am!” Chaz said and he took hold of the pump and I let go, then cycled the lock open and stepped out first. I walked out slowly into the hallway and glanced back toward where our ship was. It was clear. Then I turned to look back at the lock we were supposed to have gone through, a good fifty yards away, as Chaz and Dot passed behind me, carrying the pump between them and going as fast as they could without dropping it or tripping over their own feet.
There were four of them, and it took them almost a minute to realize that we were behind them. I just stood there, arms out, with my pick in my right hand, and acted like I didn’t have a care in the world.
“The bitch is getting away!” one of them suddenly yelled and took off running toward me. The other three followed behind him, but only one was at all close to him. I gave a small shake of my head. Here I was, a billion kilometers from home, and I might as well been back running with the Howlers.
The leader had his knife out and was pointing it at me as he charged. I dodged left at the last moment and his own momentum drove my pick right into his chest and between the ribs. This was the real reason I used the Newtonian grip tape. He died instantly and his legs and lower body pivoted around my arm as the life went out of him. The sheer force and shock of it would have ripped the pick out of my grasp, but now it was as good as welded to my hand.
I let the force of the collision spin me around like a top, ripping my pick out of his chest. I spun around so fast the second guy didn’t even know I’d driven my pick into his skull.
He went right down on top of his buddy, his body twitching because his brain just had the equivalent of a small firecracker go off inside it.
Numbers three and four came to a stop so fast their soft-soled shoes made a screeching noise on the floor.
“Not the party you were expecting, is it?” I said with a big-ass smile, and lunged at the closer of the two.
He dropped his knife and started backing up as the other one just flat-out ran and left his buddy.
“Tell you what, if you can get to the airlock before I can, you get to live.” Damned if he didn’t turn and hightail it out of there.
“You okay?” Hank yelled, coming up behind me.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I said and bent over to wipe my pick off on the jumpsuit of the guy I’d gotten in the head.
Hank eyed the bodies. “Get the one on top; I’ll get the one on the bottom.”
“You might want to flip him over, I got him in the chest,” I told him as I grabbed the leg of the other guy and started to drag him down the corridor toward the ship.
“Dot told me you left one back in the station?”
I nodded. “But the rats were already stripping him, so I don’t think they’ll pin it on us.”
“Rats?”
“The other lowlifes.”
“Ah.” Hank was quiet a moment, then he laughed as he dragged the other guy’s body behind me. “‘Reign of terror,’ indeed.”
I shrugged. “I was a very angry kid and I fell in with a bad crowd.”
“You mean they fell in with you,” he said with a chuckle. “Thanks, by the way.”
“For what?”
“Protecting Chaz and, yes, Dot too. Chaz is a good kid, but no way could he have taken these guys on. He hasn’t got a mean bone in his body.”
“Like my dad said, you gotta take care of family, and you’re all the family I got these days.”
“Think I’d like to meet him someday.”
I just shook my head at that. Dot met us at the hatch with two plastic bags and we wrapped the guys up and then dumped them in the garbage chute.
When all was said and done, we locked the hatch and disconnected the docking tube, then immediately went to work on replacing the bad pump.
“How’d you know?” I asked Dot as I started undoing the bolts on the pump.
“You picked a weapon whose main purpose is killing, and you custom-made it to fit your hand.” She shrugged. “You’ve seen my pistol, now you know why I have such an expensive custom job, when I could make something almost as good.”
I nodded and then I looked at her. “Oh, there’s one thing you’re wrong about.”
“And that is?”
“You have one friend.”
She grinned, and then she smiled and laughed. “Hi, friend!”
NINE
Ceres
I was really looking forward to docking at Ceres again. When we’d been here last, four months ago, I don’t think I’d spent more than twelve hours off the ship, as Dot and I had to replace both recirculation pumps, and then test everything involved until she was satisfied. Then the captain had a local company come in and test everything again, and both of us watched everything they did, just to be safe —because it was our asses on the line if they broke again.
In the last four months we’d been to Saturn’s L4, then the L5 again. After that we then swung through the asteroids once more to again make deliveries as well as pick up shipments for the Ceres Habitat Company.
At least we’d taken another three-day leave at the Coyote Ranch, and while my bank account may have been lighter for it, I know I enjoyed it.
The biggest reason I was looking forward to leave this time around was that we’d be here almost a week —we were getting a lot of special equipment loaded aboard for a new habitat that was being built out past Uranus, none of which would fit in a TEU container. Getting that loaded had to be done by hand, by specialists, so it was going to take a while. After almost a year of living onboard the ship, the idea of not coming back to it for a few days was truly something special.
The second biggest reason was that I now had enough time in to test for my third engineer’s rating, and as soon as I got off the ship, that’s what I was going to do. Then after that I was going to take the test for the gravity panel rebuilder certification.
The third-class rating would get me another raise in pay. The rebuilder certification would make both Dot’s life and mine easier —we’d be able to take turns on the panel inspections and rebuilds, instead of her having to do it all the time.
And after all of that I was either going to get falling down drunk or blow a fortune in a bordello.
Unless, of course, Chaz caught up with me first and dragged me off to show me the sights and meet some of his family and friends. All of which sounded like fun; I really needed some time to unwind. But that last one would definitely cost a lot less money than the other two.
Ceres was kinda weird in that it was built like an onion. Not all of the surface was covered with habitats but just about every square kilometer of the surface was being used by somebody for something, which was nearly three million square kilometers. Several thousand of that was habs, which was a lot.
But when they’d started mining, they’d decided to do it in uniform levels for the most part, or at least it looked that way now. Each of the first three levels added over a million square kilometers in area to the colony. Chaz had told me once that by the time they were finished they’d have more usable area than the surface of all of Earth’s landmasses combined. I hadn’t bothered to do the math, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he was right.
All I knew was each of the levels were huge, the ceilings a good ten meters high in most places and even higher in the town centers. The buildings weren’t built into the walls; they all stood separately along the wide avenues. It really felt like you were on a planet and all that open space was a nice change after spending almost a year on the ship, where the only large spaces were in the cargo bay.
Given the size of the place they had to have a mass transit system, and it, like all things on Ceres apparently, was fairly efficient. So getting to the test wasn’t terribly hard. The place I ended up at was similar to the last testing center I’d been to. This one was a lot busier, however, but then again, considering the population and the number of ships that came through here, I wasn’t all that surprised.
