Crescent (5 page)

“What? No!” Vegan protested. “Standard beacon picked up by a scout.”

“Right.
That’s why raiders were taking potshots at the poor bastard.”

Gerald glanced between Vegan and the two other men who were now posturing to intervene; the redhead’s hand disappeared into the folds of his jacket. Not a good sign. Gerald removed his hand from Vegan, wiped it on his pants, and took a single step back.

“Who are your friends, Walter?” he asked.

“They’re the mayor’s boys, Gerald. This is
Albin
Catlier
,” Vegan said, and pointed at the taller of his two companions, “and this is Jacob Raney.” Raney hawked another black wad of tobacco spit onto the deck and grinned with stained teeth. “Mr.
Catlier
and Mr. Raney are here to make sure you go directly to his office.”

“Uh huh,” Gerald said.

Catlier’s
hand came out from beneath his coat. Gerald felt himself about to flinch, but eased as
Catlier
perched a smoke between his lips. He struck a match on his boot heel and lit the cigarette.

“Whenever you’re ready, Mr. Evans,”
Catlier
said around the filter.

(•••)

Taylor stood—as intimidating as ever—beside the door to Mayor Kendall’s office. The man-mountain’s gargantuan frame dwarfed Gerald, Raney, and even
Catlier
. Taylor’s arms were crossed over his keg of a chest. The bulging biceps created the appearance that the tribal-tattooed limbs were, in actuality, recently fed pythons. Surely, the cords of muscle that stood out under the bodyguard’s decorated flesh were fiber-reinforced. His girth blocked the closed office door. He wore a strange little smile on his remarkably disproportionate and pug-like face. Raney stepped within centimeters of the man’s barrel chest and looked up into Taylor’s small eyes. Gerald surmised that the hulk could crush Raney with just a little finger. Taylor dropped his eyes to Gerald.

“Mayor Kendall is expecting you,” he said, ignoring Raney and sounding bored. Taylor shoved Raney out of the way and opened the door. Gerald stepped into the office and the door was closed behind him. Mayor Kendall sat behind his desk, fingers twined together atop the
LCDs
. The blue glow of the monitors lit the mayor’s face unevenly, creating menacing slashes of shadow on his cheeks. Kendall did not look pleased.

“Gerald,” he said in a calm voice. “Your first job for me and already you’ve let me down.
How disappointing for the both of us.”

“Look, Kendall.
Mayor.
That mining barge was a fresh kill. It would’ve been suicide for me to try to haul it out. The raiders were still there when I showed up.” Gerald was pissed. He tried to keep his voice even and his temper low, but his hands began to tremble.

“I know Mr. Vegan provided you with a mission brief. I had expected you’d read it. But maybe you’re not capable of perceiving letter-combinations as these meaningful things we learned folks call words. The raiders, they’re from the Stronghold clan. They hit, take what they can fit in their cargo holds, and then don’t come back.”

“They were still there!” Gerald felt himself slipping.

“Sit down, Gerald, please.”

“I don’t want to sit.”

“Son, do not get into the habit of making me repeat myself.” Kendall’s tone did not waver.

Gerald sat.

“Here’s what you’re going to do to remedy this situation: You are going to go back to that belt and you are going to pray that derelict is still floating out there and that it hasn’t been smashed to pieces by the rocks. You’re going to haul it back here and that will be that. We will never have a repeat of this conversation.”

Gerald found the calm in Kendall’s voice unnerving. He almost wished the Mayor would lash out at him.

“Believe me when I tell you, Gerald, I will cause you far more pain than these raiders are capable of. Let me down again and you’ll learn firsthand. Now go.”

Gerald did not argue. He left Kendall’s office and headed back to the hangar.

Gerald found Walter Vegan leaning against Bean when he returned to the flight deck. Vegan smiled a gap-toothed grin and Gerald felt the urge to knock the horse-head right off the man’s slumped shoulders. Instead, he brushed passed him.

“You’re dirtying my hull, Vegan,” Gerald said and climbed back into the ship.

The computer chimed as Gerald harnessed
himself
into the control couch.

“Captain, you still have your arms,” the computer said. “I take it things went well?”

“Bean,” Gerald said, “I’m starting to think this contract was a big mistake.”

(•••)

Bean glided back into the asteroid field. The ship rolled and yawed to avoid the floating rocks. The mining vessel drifted in a mess of its own debris. Each bit had to be scooped up individually. The process would take some time. Gerald scanned for life signs and saw right off there was no point in hailing the barge. Life support was offline. The pilot was dead.

“Bean.
Flag all the debris and we’ll scoop it.”

Gerald looked at that radar overlay. Amoebic masses of color filled the glowing hologram. He swept his eyes over the ever-changing patches of stars. He was alone.

For now.

(Part III)

Grinding, pumping, thumping. The cacophony blaring from Heathen’s speaker system sounded less like music and more like something you’d hear in the heart of a refinery. The sounds blended with the din of conversation to fill the bar with the sort of aural stew that makes you feel
more drunk
than you actually are. Gerald had only been at Heathen’s for an hour, but he already felt the hem of his consciousness tugging itself closer to the floor. He sat at the far end of the bar with several spent bottles of beer at his elbow and watched a group of mercenaries at the opposite end of the bar, his interest shifting from wary to
amused
and back to wary every five minutes or so. For one thing, the meatheads were clearly not shy about their vocation—they still wore their empty holsters at their hips, over their backs, chests, ankles, and thighs. You name a body part, and there was a spot for a weapon, a vacant home for something meant to blow your head off or slit your throat. The mercenaries weren’t paid to pick
flowers, that was
for goddamn sure. They huddled over Heathen’s juke-core, their bearded and dirty faces lit up by pinks, purples, yellows, and blues. The colors oscillated madly to the beat of the music.

“This used to be such a nice place,” Gerald grumbled.

“What’s that?”
Maerl
, the owner and bartender, happened to be standing right in front of him. Gerald lifted his gaze. Based on
Maerl’s
sour look, he must’ve thought the comment was directed at him. Gerald gestured to the mercenaries with a cock of his head.

“Ah.”
Maerl
nodded.
“Just got here today.
Rumor has it they’re off to one of
Darros
Stronghold’s newly…
 
acquired colonies in the
Habeos
system to settle some sort of border dispute. Apparently, the crime lord offers great benefits.”
Maerl
grunted. “Here’s to hoping they don’t stay on Crescent much longer. If have to take a second night of this…
 
music…
 
I’ll put lit cigarettes out in my ears.”

“No shit,” Gerald said.
Maerl
pointed at Gerald’s empty bottle; Gerald nodded.

“Sometimes, Gerald, I can’t wait to sell Heathen’s and move off to New Juno.”

“Yeah?”
Gerald said.

“I’m building my nest egg. That’s why I opened Heathen’s in the first place.” A few more patrons bellied up to the bar, and
Maerl
winked and moved off to take care of them.

Gerald turned his attention to the widescreen LCD above the bar. It showed some poor news correspondent getting pounded by a blizzard and looking completely miserable about it. From what Gerald could pick up over the noise, there had been a colonial uprising in
Habeos
system—two jumps away. According to the report, the rub was that no one could figure out how the colonists got so many guns so fast. A lot of people had died in the violence. It was presumed that
Darros
Stronghold, local raider warlord, had had some involvement. Stronghold was always involved.

One of
Maerl’s
bartenders switched the channel to a pre-recorded
vatter
concert.
Vatters
were a special breed of musician. Decorated head to toe with metal studs called
trodes
,
vatters
splashed around in bio-conductive
goo
to make their music. The combination of the liquid and the
trodes
enabled the
vatter
to communicate with their gear, resulting in the display of noise, color, and light that filled the screen above the bar. Even though Gerald wasn’t a fan of the
vatter
currently on the LCD, he would have taken anything over the news. It was always so sensationalized and depressing.

“How was the first day on the job?” Marisa sidled up next to Gerald. Her uniform jacket was unbuttoned, exposing the taut white tee shirt beneath. The shirt was blank, save for a black stencil between the swell of her breasts that depicted a hand with the middle finger extended.

“It was work.” Gerald didn’t care to elaborate. He was drinking to forget about his
first day on the job
, not so that he could relive it. He looked away from Marisa to watch two of the mercenaries punch each other in the chest. They yelled the word “bro” at the top of their lungs with each successive blow. Marisa glanced in their direction and rolled her eyes.

“I think those wastes of flesh were drunk when they landed their spider a few hours ago.”

“Spider.”
Gerald looked her. He thought of mentioning his little encounter. Glancing back at the testosterone-fest, he thought better of it.

“Not a fun weapons inspection,” she said and shuddered.
“Grab-asses.”
She wrapped her long fingers around the neck of Gerald’s beer bottle and took an exaggerated pull. She smiled and licked her lips. “Thanks, hon.
Been
a long day for me, too.” She waved
Maerl
over.
“Shots.
Stat.”

“House special, Officer Griffin?”
Maerl
inquired.

“I’m off duty.
Somethin
’ stronger than that.
I think Gerry’s had a bad day.”

“Marisa. I really don’t want to…
 
”

“Be a man?” She rubbed his thigh. The full line of her lips curved into a grin that spelled disaster. “You’re under my care now. You’ll feel swarthy again before this is all said and done.”

Two steaming shot glasses were placed before them.
Maerl
crossed his arms over his chest. His blue eyes swam with sympathy and no small amount of concern.

“I don’t care what trouble you two get into. Just don’t get into it here. Understand?”

Marisa looked up at
Maerl
and batted her lashes, her lips pursing into an innocent pout that belied the glimmer in her green eyes.

“I’m not a bad girl,
Maerlie
. You know that,” she said as she hefted a shot glass; Gerald took his own and they clinked them together. “May we find your balls again by the end of the
night!
”

Gerald laughed. He tossed the steaming liquid into his mouth. It splashed against his throat and burned like holy hell. He set the glass down hard and slapped the bar with his other hand.

“Sweet merciful crap!” he managed.

Marisa nearly gagged and then sat up straight, as if she had just had a brilliant idea. She raised her hand and pointed a finger skyward.

“Another round, executioner!”

An hour later, Gerald could no longer recall why he’d been having a bad day.

“I’m going to have to check the grounding because that damn panel keeps shorting out, no matter what I do. It doesn’t happen all the time. It only seems to happen when I’m in a bad mood. I can only take so much voltage in my finger. I swear.” He looked around conspiratorially. “Bean is messing with me.
Goddamned bucket of scrap.”
He looked at Marisa, who was no longer paying attention. Instead, her eyes were directed down to the far end of the bar and locked with a mercenary’s narrowed gaze.

“Gerry,” she whispered sidelong, “this fuck won’t stop staring at me.”

“Maybe because you’re staring at him.”

She turned and looked directly at Gerald, and shook her head.

“Don’t get jealous on me, Gerry. Just letting him
know
who the alpha is.”

“Great,” Gerald said and moaned.

The mercenary walked an uneven line in their direction. His cracked lips were set into an ear-to-ear grin. Some green, mystery juice stained his crooked teeth. His eyes didn’t
so
much as blink in Gerald’s direction. No, the mercenary’s sights were one hundred percent fixed on Marisa’s exposed skin.

“Hello,
darlin
’,” the mercenary said in a thick and slurred voice. He leaned against the bar. A tingling sensation rose from the base of Gerald’s beanbag, up the length of his spine, and settled in at the back of his neck, causing the hairs to stand up there. Honor-defending time was fast approaching.

“Can I buy you a
…
 
.
?” the mercenary began.

“Drink?
I already have one. Thanks anyway, love.”

“How about a screw?”
He reached over and grabbed her crotch. Gerald was too stunned to engage in any kind of chivalrous act—his inability to react was moot. Marisa already had a handful of the mercenary’s hair. She slammed his dirty, bearded face nose first into the bar. Cartilage and bone flattened with an audible crack.

“I’ve already got one of those, too.” She let go of his hair and he slid to the ground with his hands on his face. He was too drunk and in too much pain to do anything other than repeat “my nose, my nose” over and over. The mercenary’s
compadres
, dumb and dumber, were already on their feet at the other end of the bar and coming in fast. Gerald slid off his stool and looked to
Maerl
, who shrugged almost apologetically. Gerald looked to Marisa and she winked. She was enjoying this; the crazy bitch actually looked happy. A nasty, scar-faced bastard was the first to reach them. Gerald stepped right in front of him, fists raised. The mercenary reached into his furry overcoat. Gerald’s eye caught a glimpse of something disturbingly similar to the butt of a gun.

“He’s packing,” Gerald spat at Marisa. She dropped her hand to her waist for the stunner that usually rode there, but holster and stunner were back in her locker at HQ.

The lights went out and the music died.

The bar-goers yelled in protest.

Then it got loud—real loud. A grinding, shrieking noise erupted from all around, immediately overwhelming the yells of the half-drunk crowd. It sounded like the metal ceiling was being sheared in two. Gerald put his hands to his ears. There was a bright flash of blue light—like high voltage electricity. Gerald thought he saw a black shape seeping through the crowd, ink dropped in a bucket of water.

Another flash.

Silver stalks—
no, not stalks, spikes,
Gerald thought—sprouted from the floor. The spikes overturned tables and impaled a handful of unfortunate souls through the chest and other less savory spots before the people could even scream.

Black.

Another flash.

Limp bodies slid down the length of the strange metal protrusions. Blood snaked down the shafts in glistening, slithering veins. The flashes of light that illuminated the horrific events lasted for no more than an eye-blink. So fast, in fact, that Gerald wasn’t sure that he had seen any of it.

There were screams as the darkness held them captive. He reached out and grabbed Marisa’s hand. It was ice cold.

“Marisa, did you see…
 
”

“No,” she said. “No. I didn’t see a goddamned thing. I didn’t see a goddamned thing.”

And like that, Heathen’s light panels flickered to life. Marisa’s eyes were on him. For an instant, her eyes were like polished onyx—but when she blinked, the green reappeared. The music was back up. The metal shafts Gerald had glimpsed were gone, but there were bodies. They lay in growing pools of dark red with arms and legs contorted. Gerald counted at least five of them. Two of the cadavers belonged to the mercenaries that had been ready to brawl no more than sixty seconds earlier. The scar-faced one had a slab gun clutched in a bloodied hand. His friend gripped an identical ceramic, snub-nosed weapon. Grapefruit-sized holes bloodied their torsos. Had they shot each other in the chaos?

The batwing doors slammed open.

Blue uniforms began to flood into the room.
Maerl
mopped at his brow with a bar rag. He looked like he was about to have a coronary. Marisa gaped at the dead mercenaries where they lay, her slender hand at her throat.

“They shot each other,” Marisa said. Gerald looked at her; she was still staring.

“You saw what I saw.” He grabbed her arm. “You did, didn’t you?”

“They shot each other.” She pointed at the guns and tore her green eyes away to meet Gerald’s. She waved her hand in an arc to indicate the rest of the barroom. “And they shot those innocent people. I did the weapons check myself. How could I have missed slab guns? This is bad.” Gerald rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands—a gesture that was becoming way too familiar. Maybe Marisa hadn’t seen anything. Maybe it was another hallucination. Her skin was positively blanched, though—like she had seen a ghost. He wasn’t going to push the issue. Security ushered them out of Heathen’s and onto Main Street.

Marisa was talking to a security officer just out of earshot. She no longer wore the terrified look, but surveyed the area with a sweep of her eyes that did not make eye contact with Gerald. She looked in control of herself again. Gerald wished he felt the same, but he was so goddamn tired. He felt like he was going out of his mind with exhaustion. Three-quarters of the bar crowd milled around in the vicinity of the pub like lost souls. They peered into the windows of the neighboring dark shops, talking in low voices and hoping that Heathen’s would reopen soon. The meat wagon rolled up, treads creaking. The coroner followed behind the body-hauling cart with a data-pad tucked underneath one arm and a cigarette burning low between two spindly fingers. He went into the tavern.