Imposter's Gambit: A Space Opera Adventure (Delta Desperadoes Book 1), page 18
After looking around to ensure he was alone, he texted Julia on his mobile.
Her reply was better than he had hoped:
I can send two thousand credits into that account you’re still using. Money up front as always, I see. I’m hurt that you don’t trust me after all we’ve done together. I’ll be far more put out if you don’t fuck up Malvado’s gun drop-off. Get it done.
Two thousand credits. Maybe it would be enough to bribe Slushie.
As he strode back to the freighter, Malvado stopped him. “So, what did that modded puta say? Will she fly that rusted turd? I don’t like Ori Jo being in there with her kind. Or with you.”
Steelgrave smirked without humor. “Slushie will fly. Why would you care who Ori Jo associates with?”
Malvado spat. “I might be a mean bastardo, but that girl needs to be somewhere else. Like her madre, Dame Nyx spare her soul.”
“Is that how you ended up working for Karl Bauer?” Steelgrave asked. “Trying to help these farmers, until the credits changed that?”
“Fuck you, you don’t know shit about what it was like here,” Malvado said. “More people would have starved if Karl Bauer hadn’t gotten his way, when I helped ruin all those farms in the Shitter for him. Corps dislike competition.”
“Hell, at least you’re honest about it,” Steelgrave said.
“Secrets are useless out here, idiota,” Malvado said. “They don’t feed and clothe you unless you use them against everyone else. But you? Pah, you thrive off of secrets. You fuck Julia, you fuck over Bauer, and now you think you can fuck little Ori Jo? At least if I shoot her, it’ll be from the front, cabrón. We all know how you are.”
“We all play our little games,” Steelgrave said. “Is that why you hired Enitan to take me out?”
It was a blatant fishing question. Malvado chuckled.
“If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead, you fucking hombre sucio,” Malvado said. “A Veld hunter isn’t cheap. This somebody that wants you dead? They must be rich, but can’t fight. Now get out of here and play Julia’s lapdog for her Goldie money. Maybe Bauer will talk to you again if you don’t ruin this op.”
“We’ll take off near sundown,” Steelgrave said.
Malvado was already walking away, muttering curses.
The next hour passed without incident. The sounds from the module died down, meaning the Starrio had done its work. Bandits peered through the landing pad’s doorway from time to time, but Steelgrave stared back at them, leaning against Molly Zero’s hatch. He needed to ensure none of them bothered the ship, and he wanted Ori Jo to have time alone with another woman. Surely she was tired of his unshaven mug.
Wind tossed sand and dirt across the pad. It glittered the same way terraformed dirt gleamed on other Duster worlds: tiny glints of minerals that Earth-based crops needed to grow. The so-called cocktail contained the macronutrients of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, calcium, and sulfur. Then there were the micronutrients, like iron, chlorine, boron, zinc, molybdenum, manganese, cobalt, copper, and sodium. He was surprised he still remembered such things, since the last several years had turned his focus to gun calibers, recoil, cartridges, and velocities.
He was glad that Núria hadn’t seen what he had become.
The second hour, he caught sight of Enitan watching him from the landing pad’s doorway. Her mask and scarf were pulled down, revealing her calm gaze.
Steelgrave waited for her to speak.
“Malvado is correct,” Enitan said. “You were not previously known to handle yourself so well in a firefight.”
“Is that what your employer told you about me?” he asked.
Enitan smiled.
More wind tossed the sand between them. Enitan strode over to him, constantly measuring him with those cool, confident eyes of hers.
“You also weren’t known for charity,” she said. “I watched you clean up that town through my binoculars.”
He stiffened. “I’m not crazy about being spied on. What else did you see?”
“That girl is now your shadow,” Enitan said, leaning against Molly’s hull beside him. “I was not told that you cared for her, in your previous dealings on Pavo Dos.”
He faced her. “Is that why I’m still alive? You could’ve killed me at any time.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re not the same man I was sent to deal with.”
Steelgrave didn’t move, but he was all-too conscious of every move she made.
“Not here, not yet,” she said, flicking a glance at his holster. “My people only hunt those we deem worthy of death. That is why Malvado honors the Wajibu and allows me to remain here, since he knows I am impartial to his schemes. But you, marshal? You don’t act like a man who deserves an early demise. That complicates my contract.”
“So I’m not the piece of shit your employer said I was?” he asked.
Enitan headed for the landing pad’s exit.
Steelgrave released the breath he’d been holding.
“You’re not coming?” he asked. “I thought you needed to make sure I was doing what I’m supposed to.”
“Perhaps you’re not the only one I’m watching,” Enitan said and smiled, as if they were discussing cheap coffee in an even cheaper starport.
He tipped his hat at her and returned the smile. If he was going to die, he might as well be courteous.
When daylight faded, and the first stars winked above, he grunted in satisfaction.
It was time.
Back inside Molly Zero, Steelgrave stared as Ori Jo exited the washroom. Her hair had been fully cleaned of the red dye, showcasing dirty-blonde locks in fuller pigtails. Instead of the gaudy red lip gloss, she wore dark crimson lipstick and mascara, and none of the rouge she’d kept applying when she sweated the old layer off. Though he found makeup on women unnecessary, he had to admit that Slushie had transformed Ori Jo into a more confident person.
Her Zoe Zeta jumpsuit had armored elbow and knee guards, as well as scuffed forearm plates and a chest piece with two bullet holes in it. Still, Ori looked proud of it, and waited for him to react.
“You look great,” he mumbled, wishing he could say something more poetic.
Ori Jo’s face split in a wide grin. “Thank ya, marshal. I feel silly, though.”
“No, you look great,” he said.
She laughed. “You said that already.”
He smiled. “I know. I’m not good at this sort of thing.”
“Me neither, but…thank ya, marshal.”
Slushie walked between them, wearing a flight helmet and smoking a cig. “Get a cabin, you two. We ready? I’ve got Molly prepped and it just got dark out there. Fuck, I’m so ready to get off this rock. My joints are hurting worse now. You sure my shipmates are still out of it in that stupid module?”
“No,” Steelgrave said. ‘But I’ll worry about that when we return.”
“The hell you say,” Slushie said. “Now, let’s see some payment, Marshal Man.”
He shook his mobile like it was a magical talisman. “Two thousand, and I can send it to whatever account you want.”
Ori Jo whistled. “Wowzers, that’s a lotta credits.”
It was, but more awaited him once Fei Barentain returned.
Slushie took his mobile and swiped in the account number he should send the funds to. “Hells yeah! Now strap in. There’s turbulence on this planet that will make your asshole eat your underwear, and not in a good way.”
They all hurried to Molly’s cockpit, where Slushie buckled into the half-spherical piloting pod. He and Ori buckled into seats on either side of it. Slushie took hold of the manuals, settled back in the seat, and attached a jack into the back of her neck.
“Don’t that hurt?” Ori asked.
“Only if they don’t text you after you wake up,” Slushie said.
Ori Jo snorted, but smiled.
Molly Zero lifted off the mesa and ascended to a height of three thousand meters. Not very high, but more than enough to clear any cyclers or some random bandit that wanted to take a shot at them. Steelgrave watched the starry night outside the viewport, wondering about how many of those systems harbored worlds that now displayed his face and name on wanted holos. That was easily changed: surgery and an alias. But it was an infamy he had never sought. He had taken in people such as himself, dead or alive, wounded or whole. He’d even had sex with one of them, and promised her he’d try to get her out of prison—then had turned her over to the authorities without looking back. She’d probably rotted away in some Lineage labor camp.
He had done that. He had sentenced people to death or ruin for living the life he was now. The sad part was, he didn’t feel like a hypocrite. He felt alive.
“Marshal, you sure are smiling over there,” Ori Jo said. “You still get all excited to see stuff from the sky, even in the dark?”
“It never gets old,” he said.
“It ever gets easier, either,” Slushie said. “Here comes that fucking turbulence.”
Molly Zero shook, then rose up and down as if a giant hand clasped and shook it. Ori Jo gasped and clutched her armrests, face getting paler by the second. Steelgrave gritted his teeth and fought the nausea in his bowels. He’d never puked during a flight, and didn’t want to break that spotless record. Ori, though, was doubling over in her seat.
“Farm Gal, there’s a bag on—yeaaah, there you go,” Slushie said.
Ori had already grabbed the barf bag and unloaded her last meal into it.
“Sorry, marshal.”
Steelgrave shook his head. “It happens. I bet even Zoe Zeta puked--”
“You ain’t helping—ugh.”
Ori Jo vomited into the bag again.
“Nice one, Marshal Man,” Slushie said. “You’re a real hero with your lady.”
“ I ain’t his lady, I’m his deputy,” Ori Jo said.
“You sure as hell don’t look at him like that,” Slushie muttered, then snickered. “Here, Molly’s getting close to the drop site. No bogeys on radar. Heh, not that there would be, I just like saying that in the black, you know? There’s short-range radio chips under the console. You two should attach one to your masks so we can talk down there.”
“That flight was fast,” Steelgrave said.
“Pavo Dos is small,” Slushie said. “At least for my girl Molly.”
“What can we expect down there?” Ori Jo managed as she looked for a place to dispose of the full bag.
“Crazy addicts that wear skulls over their faces, that’s all,” Slushie said. “Sometimes they pay a little visit to the drop sites, the assholes. Oh, and take that bag with you, ummmkay? I haven’t had a vomit fetish since my teens.”
Ori Jo gulped, then grabbed a second bag and filled it.
“Now you’re the one not helping,” Steelgrave said.
Slushie shrugged. “It’s what I do, Marshal Man. I’ll dump you two and fly over to the nearest mesa. I’ll be watching for any trouble. Molly’s railgun will be ready.”
“A railgun, planetside?” he asked. “Isn’t that a bit of overkill?”
“Not when you’re trying not to die in the dark,” Slushie said.
Calamity Cliff was an imposing sight, even at night. The near-cylindrical butte jutted above the flatlands like a splinter protruding from a bull’s behind. He surmised it was at least two hundred and thirty meters tall. Erosion had chipped away at the caprock, exposing the weaker shale and sandstone beneath. Lila shone above it in a two-thirds crescent, its pocked, red-orange surface casting fiery highlights over the sands and rock formations. So bright it looked like twilight.
Twilight. Steelgrave couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen that on an actual planet. He usually didn’t stay long enough to enjoy such terrestrial phenomena. Hunt the target, capture or kill them, and leave. That had been his modus operandi for too long. Yet now, when he had an opportunity to enjoy it, he couldn’t, due to the danger of their mission, which was made even more dangerous by what he planned to do.
“Soooo, my lovely cunts, I’m going to drop the gun crates and then you two love birds can hop out and do whatever it is you’re gonna do,” Slushie said.
“I ain’t no—that bad word you just said,” Ori Jo said.
Slushie giggled. “It’s a term of endearment, Farm Gal. I’ll swing back by in half an hour. Faster, if you radio for help, but only do that if you’re really about to shit yourself down there. Sentiri and Bauer monitor every damn radio wave on this hellhole above 80 Hz.”
“Got it,” Steelgrave said. “How many bandits will be down there?”
“I don’t know,” Slushie said with shrug. “Just make sure you have a lot of bullets, or candy, or smokes, I guess?”
“Thanks,” he said.
Slushie grinned.
Molly Zero didn’t even touch the ground when Slushie opened the airlock. He and Ori Jo hopped from the opening with the vessel five meters off the ground. Its thrusters tossed sand and pebbles in tiny whirlwinds that scratched the Cliff in their fury. The fall was softened by the sand dune; Steelgrave dropped and rolled the way a cute MEC marine had showed him once. He’d explained it to Ori beforehand and was thankful to see that she’d picked up the move without breaking her legs or ankles.
Next, the freighter deposited the arms containers: five shatter-proof crates that could be easily opened once the restraining bars were slid out of place. The crates tumbled down a dune and landed in puffs of sand that were instantly dashed away by Molly Zero’s thrusters.
The ship was gone by the time he crept over to Ori Jo. She had righted herself into a crouch, like a huntress from an old Homesteader fairytale.
“You good?” he asked over the radio they’d attached to their masks. It operated on a low-band frequency, so hopefully no one in the vicinity would pick it up through the static that the radioactive storms produced farther northeast. He also hoped they would be gone in Molly Zero before those same storms washed over the flatlands. He had left his mobile on Molly to recharge, and he missed it for its meteorological tracking apps.
Ori Jo nodded, then seemed to recall she could answer via the radio. “Sure thing, marshal. We gonna wait up here?”
“No, Lila is lighting up this dune like a Sadisto dance party. Let’s head over to the foot of the Cliff and wait.”
As they hurried in a crouch to the rock formation, she continued over the radio.
“Whatcha hoping to find out here, marshal? The Necros might attack us again, since they’re all over the Shitter and flatlands here lately. Plus Slushie claimed they’re attracted to these smuggling shindigs. And if we mess with that drop, those bandits will do a lot more than just tan our hind ends.”
“Somebody’s giving the Necros drugs,” he said. “Somebody they’ll listen to.”
“Someone not on drugs, ya mean?” she asked.
“Something like that. Here, crouch lower, and keep your gun ready. Those bandits should be here soon.”
They waited in the shadow of Calamity Cliff, with Lila’s luminance spilling in crimson-hued rays on either side of them. The night’s chill made him shudder. It was the same on all desert worlds. Hotter than a hooker’s thighs during the day, and colder than a Freelancer’s heart at night.
“Marshal?” she asked after a few minutes.
“Yeah?”
“I liked the way you looked at me earlier. I felt…good. I really felt pretty.”
“Well, deputy, you are pretty,” he said, not looking at her as he scoured the darkness with eyes trying to adjust to the night.
“You don’t wanna like me, do ya, marshal? The way you called me deputy just now. That tone of voice. Like you’re trying to push me away faster than a cart of cow pats that’s been out in the sun all day.”
Had he pushed Núria away? The thought summoned an old, guilty anger.
Steelgrave sighed. “Ori Jo, I told you. You don’t want a man like me.”
“Ain’t that for me to decide?” she asked. “I ain’t no Homesteader woman, obeying their Pact to be just another baby maker. I’ll decide who and what I want.”
“I’m not a good person,” he blurted before he caught himself.
“I can make ya a better person, sure I can,” she said, her voice taking on a whimsical quality. “We’d be bigger legends than Annie Argent, or Ojos de Angel, or them other gunfighters that made parts of the Dust Systems worth living in. We could clean this up here planet up together, we could--”
“We could die out here, if we don’t pay attention,” he said.
“Hmpf,” she said. “So much for feeling pretty and all that.”
Steelgrave hated taking his anger out on her, but he didn’t need to be distracted. Maybe not afterward, either, if he hoped to get offworld. Ori Jo glared across the night, as if the man she wanted had already walked away into the darkness.
He touched her right arm and left his hand there for several moments before he faced her again. She sighed, then looked at him.
“Marshal, I’ve a right to know how ya feel about--”
Other voices carried on the air.
Steelgrave squeezed her arm, and she understood instantly. They fell silent and focused on the speakers’ direction.
“Ya dumb shit, it’s over near the base of this huge stone dick,” a woman said.
“Goddamn piratas,” a male voice said. “They fly like gnats up our asses, then ditch the goods down here? Mierda. Our fucking camp is up top!”
Three figures straggled into view, walking with the gait of those who’d sat most of the sol. They were dressed like the rabble he and Ori Jo had fought in Noi de la Flota, not the professionals Malvado kept at El Agujero Muerto.
“Shut it, gesu yarō,” a third, tinny voice said, like someone wearing a mask. “Grab that shit before that gang of Boners arrives.”
Boners? He wondered if the bandits meant Necros.
One of the bandits cried out. A ripping sound erupted in the darkness, followed by screams. Another bandit cursed. A gun fired: the short, high-pitched pop of a .380.
A second tearing noise, wet and brusque, like meat getting minced.
