Planet Eaters (Galaxy Mavericks Book 8) Page 8

  They waved.

  “Mission’s a go, now,” Grayson said.

  Eddie watched the ship twinkle into the stars.

  Hard to believe the people he’d known for the last few days were gone now.

  Gone to Gargantua.

  And the plan.

  It was in motion now, and he was playing a part in it.

  He looked around the space port. The interior was shaped like a giant clamshell, with spaceships taking off and landing every few minutes. Icicles hung from the ceiling where the airlock doors opened and shut into space. Port workers in spacesuits maneuvered around, directing the ships into parking spaces. Brutal blasts of cold air rushed through the port every time an airlock door opened.

  “Ever been here before?” Grayson asked.

  Eddie shook his head.

  “That makes two of us,” Grayson said.

  They walked into the terminal. Despite the number of ships in the airlock, it was surprisingly quiet. Wall-to-wall screens listed arrivals and departures for domestic and commercial flights. There was no music, just the humming of cleaning bots and the mechanical rumblings of the cargo drones loading and unloading cargo. A few travelers in thick overcoats and earmuffs passed by.

  They walked onto an escalator and it fed them out of the space port and into the city. A grid of domes stretched for miles, with red and orange beaded highways intersecting them. The stars twinkled above—far, far, above, through the city’s semi-transparent living dome.

  Eddie wondered what it would have been like to live on a planet like this, a place of eternal winter with no sunlight. Wouldn’t it get old? Wouldn’t your skin get pale? Weren’t humans designed to live in the warmth and comfort of a star?

  But then again, he lived on a moon that no one wanted. Half of Refugio’s sky was taken up by Reader IV, so he didn’t always get to see starry skies. Trade off.

  They came to a bus station. A driverless bus was parked next to the curb. The streets were covered in icy slush, and the exterior of the bus was covered in a sheet of ice. The windows were foggy.

  “Keltie said to take the bus to the Frozen Park,” Grayson said. “At that point, she said there is a spaceship dealer not too far from the bus stop.”

  Eddie had forgotten the directions already.

  “Oh yeah,” he said. “Almost forgot.”

  “Thank God for Keltie,” Grayson said. “Let’s just hope we can follow directions.”

  13

  “I never thought I’d say this, but I’m starting to get used to handcuffs.”

  Florian held out his wrists as two soldiers unlocked his cell door and pulled him out. They slapped handcuffs on his wrist.

  The Zachary ship was equipped with a jail section—not surprising for an imperial galactic empire that paid no respect to the rights of anyone, let alone its citizens. Florian spent the last few hours scheming in a closet-sized cell, all by himself, under a solitary, blood-red light.

  As the guards pushed him down the hallway, Hux and Tatiana emerged from their cells, in handcuffs and guided by guards.

  “Glad to see you two are still alive,” Florian said.

  “You okay, boss?” Hux asked.

  “Aside from a stiff neck and a lot of wasted time, I’m fabulous,” Florian said.

  He spit in the eye of one of the guards, and the man punched him in the stomach.

  The blow hurt and Florian keeled over. Then he looked up, grinning.

  “Assault and battery,” Florian said. “Add that to the long, long list of grievances in which I’m going to destroy you and your boss.”

  “We don’t submit to your courts,” the guard said.

  “But you do submit to the court of public opinion, you idiot,” Florian said.

  Jax was waiting for them at the end of the hallway.

  “Where is Miloschenko?” she asked.

  “Fuck you,” Florian said.

  “Just checking to see if you wanted to change your story,” she said. “This is your last chance.”

  “And this is your last chance, beautiful.”

  Jax’s face hardened. She turned and walked through an automatic sliding door. The guards made Florian, Tatiana and Hux follow.

  They entered the ship’s bridge, a wide oval filled with dashboards and screens.

  A black man sat on a black throne. He wore burgundy robes and had a golden, triangular crown. Metal tethers extended from his back and moved behind him like octopus tentacles. Each tether had a metal, red eye at the end. The man’s face was covered with swirling tattoos, with two lightning strikes under his eyes.

  “Mr. Macalestern,” the emperor said. “It is not a pleasure to see you again.”

  “Likewise,” Florian said. “Why don’t we get this over with. Here’s the deal—”

  WHAM!

  Jax hit him with the butt of her handcoil.

  “The emperor speaks first, and you will speak only if he asks you to,” Jax said.

  Florian growled as he tried to catch his breath. That hit was going to leave a nasty bruise.

  “Tavin Miloschenko was an indispensable part of the empire,” the emperor said. “With all of his responsibilities and…inventions, he is desperately needed. Surely you understand this?”

  “You bet,” Florian said. “And I have nothing to do with his disappearance, if that’s what you’re insinuating.”

  “You lie,” the emperor said. “You’re a rotten, spoiled scoundrel. We’ve done our homework on you. You think that you can get away with anything. You’ve never been told no. You’ve never felt true pain.”

  The words stung him.

  True pain…

  True pain.

  True pain!

  What did this bastard know about true pain? Did he ever see his mother die in front of his eyes from a stranger just looking for money? Did he know what it felt like to be an orphan, to grow up with no parents?

  Rage boiled deep within him, and he wanted to explode.

  “You have gone through life bullying to get what you want,” the emperor said. “Much like our empire. But what would you do if, for example, we took away one of your indispensables?”

  Jax pointed her handcoil at Tatiana’s head.

  Tatiana whimpered.

  “Leave her alone,” Florian said.

  “Ah, we’ve hit a nerve, Specialist Jax,” the emperor said. “The nanny! The friend! The right-hand accomplice! Such a death would cause him true pain. Very well. Kill her.”

  Hux struggled against his handcuffs but the guards held him back.

  “No!” Hux cried. “Don’t kill her!”

  Jax disengaged her safety, and her handcoil clicked. She grinned.

  “Wait,” Florian said quietly.

  Silence spread across the room.

  The emperor clasped his hands together, satisfied.

  Jax looked over at Florian.

  “Out with it.”

  “I wish I could offer you what you’re looking for,” Florian said. “But regretfully, I cannot. However, I have something else that I think you’ll appreciate. If I may, it will give you back something terribly indispensable that you cannot afford to lose.”

  “He’s tricking you, Your Highness,” Jax said.

  “Ah, but I would be remiss not to hear his proposition,” the emperor said. “The proposition of a fool. What is so indispensable that I lost so long ago?”

  “How about your pride, for starters?” Florian asked.

  The guards aimed their handcoils at him.

  “I’m kidding,” he said. “But not really.”

  Awkward silence. Florian grinned, let the silence linger just a little longer.

  “In case sweet little Jax here didn't tell you, Miloschenko lost one of his super soldiers on Coppice.”

  “It was our only super soldier,” the emperor said.

  “All because Jax didn't believe in teamwork,” Florian said.

  “I had no choice,” Jax said. “I wasn't going to wait around for the aut
horities to arrest me, too.”

  “And arrest him they did,” Florian said. “Speedy trial. What a media circus! You should have seen how the courts wrestled with how to handle the poor bastard. Too bad the death penalty was outlawed hundreds of years ago. If it were up to me, I would have put him in the guillotine.”

  “The cyborg is lost,” the emperor said. “He no longer has value for us.”

  “But he's not injured,” Florian said. “In fact, I hear they sent him to the prison planet, Defestus. He's there, ready for you if you want to take him back.”

  “I didn't know that,” the emperor said. “But your advice is useless. We will not violate the Rah Accord over a secret experiment.”

  “Oh, I forgot the part about how they scanned his brain,” Florian said. “Minor detail that will perhaps make you a little uncomfortable, Mr. Emperor. You see, they just couldn't figure out any of that weird shit you put in his brain. The false memories, the weird commands that make him freaky as hell. But I suspect the government programmers will, sooner or later. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if they try to test him on Defestus again, just to take a second crack at the data…”

  Complete lie. The government was going to leave Smoke to die on Defestus. But the Zachary Empire wouldn't know that.

  “If you were to retrieve him, you would salvage the chance of a fallout,” Florian said. “And trust me, Mr. Emperor, there would be a fallout. Like the bottom falling out of a man with food poisoning. I'd hate to imagine your position then!”

  “Your Highness, may I kill them?” Jax asked. “I don't want to listen to his lies anymore.”

  The emperor held up his hand and silenced her.

  “Specialist Jax, is this true?” the emperor asked.

  “About the data being exposed?” Jax asked. “I-I-I don't know…”

  The emperor looked at Florian, who maintained his silence.

  The emperor harrumphed.

  “I'm a man of my word,” Florian said, bowing. “As I told Miloschenko, I benefit from a strong Zachary Empire. I benefit from the fear you provide. When I become CEO, I will not forget our relationship.”

  “And who's to say you get the position?” the emperor asked.

  “I'm rich, and I'm my aunt’s nephew,” Florian said. “Who's to say I don't?”

  The emperor stroked his chin.

  “What is it that you recommend, Mr. Macalestern?”

  Florian grinned.

  “Miloschenko had those terrible aliens with him,” Florian said. “They're the reason I fled. I don't want anything to do with them. But perhaps you can use them to devour Defestus and make off with your little cyborg…”

  The emperor regarded the statement and turned his back, clearly deep in thought.

  Florian wished he had a knife so he could stick it in the emperor’s gut, just like he did with Miloschenko.

  But what would come next would be even more fun to watch.

  “And then what?” the emperor asked.

  “You let me go, you get your cyborg, and I can go on with my life.”

  The emperor turned. He did not speak for almost a minute.

  “Very well,” he said. “We will agree to your plan. But if you betray us, you will die.”

  Florian bowed again as Jax scowled.

  “That sounds reasonable enough to me.”

  14

  Eddie shivered as he and Grayson stepped off the bus, onto the lot of a spacecraft dealership.

  There were hundreds of spaceships ranged across the lot, each covered in a layer of frost.

  They walked along a row of shiny, purple corsairs.

  Grayson shook his head.

  “Too expensive,” he said.

  Eddie’s heart sank. He hadn't thought about the price.

  He felt his pockets.

  He didn't have his wallet. He didn't even know the last time he’d had it. Probably on Refugio.

  He gulped.

  He started to tell Grayson that he didn't have any money, but a drone bot with a video screen appeared from between two ships and beeped at them. A Latina woman in a white dress appeared on the screen.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Looking for the cheapest ship you got,” Grayson said.

  The woman looked down, as if she were looking through a directory.

  “Okay. A toboggan will come to your location in a minute.”

  She disconnected and the drone flew away.

  Then they heard something sliding across the ice.

  A green toboggan on a track appeared.

  Grayson and Eddie looked at each other.

  “Now I've seen everything,” Grayson said.

  They sat on the toboggan and it zipped across the dealership parking lot, under and between ships.

  Eddie turned his head away as the cold wind blew against his cheek.

  God, it was cold!

  Then the toboggan stopped at a row of used spaceships.

  The Latina woman was waiting for them. She wore a fur coat and a wool cap, and she hugged her hands to her chest.

  “How are you today?” she asked.

  “Fantastic,” Grayson said, shaking her hand.

  “My name is Zelda,” she said. “What are your names?”

  “Xander,” Grayson said. “And this here's my buddy, Cristobal.”

  Eddie choked.

  “Go on, say hi, Cristobal,” Grayson said, patting Eddie on the back.

  Eddie reluctantly shook the woman’s hand.

  “Mucho gusto,” she said.

  “Mucho gusto,” Eddie mumbled.

  “Come with me, gentlemen,” Zelda said. “I have just the selection for you.”

  She walked ahead.

  Eddie grabbed Grayson.

  “What the heck are you doing?” he asked.

  “Discretion, man,” Grayson said. “Not smart to give out our real names.”

  “Okay, but Cristobal? Come on. I don't even look like a Cristobal, let alone a Christopher.”

  Grayson laughed. “My name’s worse. Did you know my mom almost named me Xander? Never gonna let her live that one down. Just be cool, man.”

  “Okay. But listen, I don't have any m—”

  Zelda stopped at a blue corsair and gestured to it.

  “This one is brand new to us. Pre-owned model about six years old. Salon is in excellent condition, and from our records, the owner was a light user. Retired gentleman with a beach house in Kavios Two, so it was only used for domestic errands.”

  Grayson walked around the ship, patted it on the wing. It wasn't as shiny as the new ships, and it clearly had seen some wear and tear. The wings were worn from re-entry. But aside from that, cosmetically it looked good.

  “What's the price?” Grayson asked.

  “Today's your lucky day,” Zelda said. “I can give this to you for…” Zelda said.

  Grayson whistled.

  Eddie’s stomach knotted up. He didn't hear the woman. Well, he'd heard her but he couldn't believe it.

  Good god, where was he going to come up with that kind of money?

  “Hmm,” Grayson said. “That's pretty high. But maybe I can work with you. Let's take a look at the interior.”

  Zelda opened the bay doors and they took a tour of the ship.

  Standard corsair. Nothing unusual. Salon with worn furniture, small bedroom, cockpit with instruments in good condition.

  “Mind if I take a look at the engine room?” Eddie asked.

  “Be my guest,” Zelda said.

  Eddie opened the door to the engine room and entered.

  He nodded with satisfaction.

  Dual core engine with a hypercore. This ship could cruise with the best of them—2.5 FTL, clean handling, advanced autopilot, and patented silk steering. This was the ship to buy, all right.

  He checked the fuel levels, which were topped off. The fuel was just the color he liked it—viscous and without color, which signaled a clean engine and no unseen problems.

&nb
sp; Bellows was a little worn and would probably tear at some point, but that was an easy fix.

  A few racks and pinions would need replacing, and they were probably the most immediate problem, but he'd replaced those in his garbage ships many times. Would only cost a small sum at a local auto parts store; maybe they could even stop at one on the way off the planet.

  He liked it.

  “How does she look, Cris?” Grayson asked.

  “Looks good to me, Xander,” Eddie said.

  Zelda pulled out a tablet and began taking notes.

  “May I ask what you gentlemen plan to do with the spaceship?”

  “Fight crime,” Grayson said, smiling.

  “No, really,” Zelda said, frowning. “I'm required by law to get an honest answer.”

  “My buddy and I just got hired at a job in the Orion Galaxy,” Grayson said. “It's a long job for an asteroid mining company. We’re splitting the cost of the ship.”

  “Smart idea,” Zelda said. “We get asteroid miners that come through here quite a bit. How's the price of iridium these days?”

  “Iridium,” Grayson said, wagging his finger at her. “Now look: don't get me started on iridium. We could be here all night talkin’ about iridium. Cristobal here can tell you all about some iridium stories. Ain't that right, Cris?”

  “Damn iridium,” Eddie said. “Don't want to talk about it.”

  “There you have it,” Grayson said. “I rest my case.”

  Zelda finished taking a note.

  “Totally understand. How will you be paying for this ship today?”

  “The only way to pay for a ship,” Grayson said. “With cash. But I'm gonna need you to knock a few thousand off that baby, and maybe we’ll have a deal, know what I mean? We’re working hombres, Zelda.”

  “Perhaps we can make arrangements,” Zelda said.

  Eddie's eyes widened as they haggled.

  Grayson and Eddie walked out of the dealership office. Grayson tossed the keys to the spaceship and caught them, whistling.

  “I would say I owe you,” Eddie said, “but I don't exactly have the money.”

  “Don't sweat it,” Grayson said. “I don't really have it either, but I consider the safety of the galaxy a cause worth spending some money on. Besides, that sucker was dirt-cheap.”