“Never be a hero. Heroes die uncomfortable deaths.”
-Jack Noire
ONE
POLVO MEANT DUST.
Sand, to be being precise.
A backwater dustball in the corner of a no-name system with a no-name star. So far off the commercial shipping lanes it didn’t exist on a map. The calculations it took to locate Polvo were less like navigation and more like divination. No one deliberately visited this planet. Not unless they were looking to shorten their life.
There was no law enforcement or military to speak of. It was survival of the fittest— and the fittest were the most lethal. I sat in Darlex, one of the less violent clubs in the sector. My hand rested on my blaster as I watched the crowd. I was feeling twitchy and couldn’t focus on the show.
“You see that, Jack?” Frost asked, pointing at the dancer. “That’s what I call talent.”
I glanced at the dancer on the stage. “That’s what I call assault with a deadly weapon with intent to maim.”
Frost, my second- in-command, kept her eyes fixed on the stage. Behind me, Verb, my gunner, watched the door. Fargo, our contact, was late.
“I don’t know if I could arch my back like that without breaking something valuable, like the space-time continuum.” Frost cocked her head to one side and licked her lips as the dancer executed a move that would have severed my spine in three places. “She has skill. I wonder if she could teach me that move? Indio would love it.”
I turned my head to admire the dancer. “Only if he wants to wake up in the infirmary with broken parts.” I paid the tab, and we made our way to the exit.
“And a smile,” Frost added as we stepped outside with Verb bringing up the rear. “What do you think, Verb?”
Verb stood behind us and looked over his shoulder at the stage. He shook his bald head, eyeing the dancer’s gyrations. “Dangerous,” he said, his baritone voice echoing around us.
Strapped to his massive back, he carried the Scythe, a plasma rifle that was almost as long as I was tall. He had served in the MCorps as a sniper and was now a gunner on the Warlock. A man of few words, he preferred to let the Scythe do the talking.
“Fargo’s never late.” I looked around. “Especially when it comes to business. Something is off. My gut feels—”
“Hinky,” Frost finished. “I know. You and that gut are a miracle of science.”
“We never question the gut,” I said, looking down the street. “This was supposed to be an easy job.”
“It’s probably that spice broth you had that’s currently melting your gut.” Frost poked me in the stomach. “I don’t know how you eat that poison.”
“Acquired taste,” I muttered. “Watch the clock.”
“Always.” Frost touched her wrist and a small holodar—a holographic radar display—of the surrounding area appeared in front of her. “Nothing on our twelve, nine, or three. We have movement on our six.”
“Conglom?”
“Can’t tell,” she said, shaking her arm. “This planet interferes with everything.”
Our contact, Fargo, had gotten cold feet. Something had spooked him, and he didn’t spook easily. My gut was telling me we were standing in hostile territory. Polvo’s only claim to notoriety was the network of deutritium mines that crisscrossed its surface.
Aside from being a rare mineral, deutritium also effectively jammed most scanners, rendering the planet virtually invisible. It was the perfect place to meet Fargo, collect our credits and cargo, and conclude our business.
“Fargo’s a no-show,” I said. “I know he has a place here. Let’s pay him a visit.”
“He has a place?” Frost shook her head in disbelief. “On Polvo?”
I nodded. “Far side of town. Industrial district.”
“We’re already gone, then.” Frost tightened her holsters and checked the dusty street before looking back one last time. “She was good, though.”
“Didn’t realize you had such a discerning eye for talent, but I think you’re right, we need to go,” I said, jumping into the Growler parked outside Darlex. “Something tells me Fargo is playing” —a laser blast screamed by my head, nearly giving me a permanent haircut—“hard to get.”
“Shit!” She ducked, shoved me to one side, and took the Growler’s controls. “I told you not to take this job, Jack. Strap in.”
“Fargo said he needed a simple delivery. Easy five hundred thousand for us,” I said. “Point-to-point drop off, nothing more.”
“Easy just became hard.”
“Are they Conglom?” I asked, craning my neck to get a look behind us. “They don’t look like CI.”
She shook her head. “If it was, parts of your head would have been all over the Growler,” she said. “This is local merc trash trying to cash in. You don’t exactly blend in, you know.”
“Says the woman with blue skin.”
“And yet, they weren’t shooting at me,” she snapped, powering up the Growler. “How did they know we were here?”
“Good question. I wonder what the bounty is up to now?” I drew my blaster. The mercs were still out of range for my gun. Verb took a few shots with the Scythe, making them think twice about getting closer.
“If it’s high enough”—Frost flipped a few more switches, dropping the blast guards—“I’ll turn you in myself and take a vacation.”
“You do know yours is probably just as high.”
“Higher,” she said with a laugh. “I’m actually dangerous, and better looking. Any day now, Verb.”
Verb stopped shooting, jumped in the back of the Growler, and attached the Scythe to the rear mount, flipping the switch to maximum destruction.
“Better looking? Ouch,” I said, as she pushed the throttle and sped off, causing me to roll in my seat.
“I said strap in.”
“On it.” I holstered my blaster, attached the five-point harness, and glanced over at the compact distillation of skill and anger that was the Warlock’s second-in-command.
Frost, as my second, and lead pilot, handled getting us from point A to point B, usually in one piece. Hard on equipment and harder on herself, she was exacting and meticulous. A good friend, the best pilot I knew, and the worst enemy to face. Her small frame and youthful appearance only fooled you into thinking she was approachable and easy-going.
The dual blasters she wielded, along with her less-than-pleasant personality quickly dispelled that illusion. In all the time we’d been on the Warlock, I’d only seen her smile genuinely once—at Indio.
Her body armor creaked as she pushed the Growler to go faster. Her bioluminescent skin gave off a faint blue glow, which meant she was getting angry.
“I wasn’t going to give up five hundred thousand credits,” I said. “Are you insa”—she shot me a look—“out of your mind?”
No one called Frost insane. No one.
“Target closing,” Verb said from the back. “No shot.”
She pulled back on the flight controls and sent us into a spin, followed by a dive to a lower level off to the right.
“Are you trying to see what I had for dinner…again?”
A wicked smile crossed her lips. She was insane.
“Daisy, compensate for the atmosphere and the idiots on our tail,” Frost barked into the central com. “Plot a trajectory skirting the wall.”
“Calculating.” Daisy, our ship’s AI and prototype version of the defensive artificial intelligence systems, answered in her sultry voice. “New trajectory and course coordinates available.”
All the other Daisy AI models had been systematically recalled and deleted due to ‘attachment issues.’ Some of the Sentient-Class starships would even put themselves in harm’s way if the captain was in danger. The worst were the ones that exhibited ‘feelings’ of jealousy. Another reason most sentient starships had been decommissioned.
“Punch it in.” Frost flipped some switches and gripped the controls tighter. The Growler swerved and righted itself before shooting down another street. “They’re still on us, Daisy.”
“I am aware of the vehicle in pursuit. Perhaps using your firearms will dissuade them from following you?”
“You want me to pilot and shoot them?” Frost barked.
“Captain Jack is an excellent pilot,” Daisy purred. “He can maneuver me anywhere he wants.”
I smiled at Frost, who glared daggers at me.
“Thank you, Daisy.” I patted the console. “At least someone appreciates me around here.”
Frost stared at the console and looked ready to put her fist through the screen. “Engage evasive maneuvers,” —then lower—“you snooty bitch.”
“I heard that,” Daisy replied. “I may be snooty, but there’s only one bitch here, and she’s blue.”
“Jack, I swear if you don’t do something about your cyber wife, I’m going to unplug her—with a laser cannon.”
“You know she’s just fooling around. Right, Daisy?”
“I told her to engage evasive—”
The Growler began accelerating and jinking around obstacles to lose our welcoming committee.
“Thank you,” Frost said with a glare at the console. “Never should’ve taken this job. You can’t trust Fargo. Five hundred thousand meant he was desperate, or it was a suicide run. Probably both.”
“Not take the job? You’re joking. Five hundred thou can get the Warlock the new shielding she needs and upgrade her camo.”
“Thank you, Jack,” Daisy purred. “You take the best care of me.”
“According to Nil, Wada has a job for us,” I added quickly. “We can easily double our credits on this run. A cool million.”
Nil was what we called a job-runner. He was the local merc broker and connected mercenaries with clients.
“And you think that’s a coincidence?” Frost gave me a look. “Fargo’s gone. Nil probably fed him to Wada.”
Batata Wada ran Polvo’s underground. He was the main player on the planet involving work that needed to be kept off the radar. He was also a scheming, double-dealing killer.
Wada wouldn’t think twice about selling you goods, robbing you blind ten minutes later, and then attempting to sell you the same goods he stole from you—at a discount, of course. If you disagreed with his methods, he’d retire you…permanently.
“Fargo or Wada, doesn’t matter. We need those credits,” I said. “If we don’t get that shielding, the Warlock is toast.”
“We can’t spend it if we’re dead.” Frost pulled hard on the controls and cut into a side street as she punched the throttle forward and sped up. I looked behind us, and for the moment, we had lost our tail.
“The job was righteous,” I said, sitting back into the seat with a sigh. “I have a feeling Wada’s job will be a delivery of unspecified cargo.”
“Minus his fee, of course.”
“It’s Wada,” I said. “What do you think?”
“What do I think?” Frost asked, raising her voice. “I think we’re screwed.”
“Not necessarily. I mean, we could still make—” I started.
“Fargo not showing means he was dusted, or worse, Wada had him dusted. It means we aren’t getting paid.”
“I told Fargo to stay off the main routes,” I answered. “Hijacking commercial shipping lanes is a good way to get Conglom on your ass or worse. I had no way of knowing what he wanted us to deliver, just that it was urgent.”
“He didn’t tell you?”
“He just said that he hit an unmarked convoy and had a hot item to offload fast.”
“You didn’t ask what it was? Really?”
“For five hundred thousand credits? I’m not asking, only delivering. Besides, he said he would only discuss the package in person, not over coms. There was no way I could know.”
Frost let out a sigh of her own. “You’re the captain. It’s your job to know these details. Now we get to see the sights of Polvo. You really think this has nothing to do with Conglom?”
She was right. It was hard to get away from Conglom Industrial. They had their hand or influence in everything. It was a private military, terraforming corporation that had grown unchecked for decades. If it was dirty, illegal, or unsanctioned, it was probably Conglom.
“Wada wouldn’t dust Fargo for five hundred thousand credits,” I said. “That’s nothing to him.”
“We need to find out what Fargo hijacked from that convoy.” She adjusted the coms. “Before we meet with Wada.”
“Daisy, can you get me Nightingale?” I said. After a few seconds of silence, I heard a few coughs come across the coms. “Night?”
“Give me a sec, Captain,” Night answered. “Okay, what can I do you for?”
Nightingale was Warlock’s communications and SciTech master. He handled the electronic infrastructure of the ship. If it was a computer, Night knew how to speak to it. He was the one who’d managed to create the programs to stabilize Daisy and prevent her deletion.
“This is going to be a long shot.”
“My specialty,” Night answered with a chuckle. “What do you need?”
“An unmarked convoy was hijacked in commercial space not too long ago. See if you can pick up any chatter as to what they were transporting, and for whom.”
“A mystery?” I heard the crack of knuckles. “I’ll let you know as soon as I get anything.”
“Night, this may have Conglom all over it,” I warned. “Cover your tracks.”
“They won’t even know I’m there, Captain. I’m out.”
“I hate flying blind,” Frost said, her voice hard. “I like to know where I’m going. We’re going into this blind.”
“You know what I’d like to know?” I growled, noticing we’d reacquired our tail.
“What?” Frost swerved around a median, dodging blaster fire. “Verb, did you fall asleep?”
“No,” Verb said, returning fire.
“I’d like to know if we can go faster.” I pointed behind us. “They look like they want to end this chase violently.”
“Faster?” Frost scoffed. “This rust bucket is going to get us killed.”
“Crank said he boosted the engines,” I said, adjusting the com. “I’d better give him a heads-up.”
“Boosted?” Frost muttered. “If we go any slower we’ll be going in reverse. Get your ass ready, Verb. They’re going to close on us, and fast.”
“Ready,” Verb said, adjusting his rifle and taking aim behind us. “Say when.”
