Star Risk - 01 Star Risk, Ltd (9 page)

"But the Alliance is not at war with anyone that �

A speaker came on.

"All passengers," a voice said calmly. "We are approaching Boyington, preparing to make planetfall. As is usual, various freelance fliers are practicing their tactics on this ship. Do not be alarmed. I say again, do not be alarmed. We are in no danger." The speaker should have keyed his mike off then. Instead, it stayed on for a moment, long enough for "unless the silly bastards go and ram�"

Then the speaker went dead.

Jasmine started laughing.

"I cannot protect you, even though I am of a size," Grok said, "against spaceships."

"You're not expected to."

"Then�?" Grok let his voice trail off.

"Never mind. You'll see once we're on the ground.

"You have dealt with the people of this world before?"

"Never," Jasmine said. "I just assume all pilots are the same."

Boyington might have been designed for pilots. Or not designed at all. A young planet, its central continent was mostly flat, weather temperate, seasons not particularly variable. The settlements were scattered here and there, with plenty of room for landing fields, firing grounds, and the like.

More important for fliers and their support teams, the citizens of Boyington were very aware of whom they ultimately worked for.

This didn't mean there was any evidence of civic planning�the streets were broad, but a house might have a bordello on one side and an engine-building shop on the other.

King and Grok unloaded, picked up their luggage, went through a most casual customs, and waved to a lifter.

It was noisy�half a dozen small spitkit scouts were practicing what were still called touch-and-goes, in a time of antigravity, on a field just away from the main landing ground.

"A good hotel," King said to the lifter pilot. "After we check in, we'll need transport to the, uh, Bishop Suites."

"Yes'm."

"A quiet one," Grok asked.

The pilot raised her eyebrow.

"Mister, you better get back on that liner if you want that."

Grok grunted, clambered inside. The lifter wobbled mightily, then stabilized.

"Very well then," he said. "Damn the torpedoes and on to bedlam."

"Wittgenstein on a pogo stick," Grok exclaimed. "You weren't jesting."

King nodded, sidestepped a staggering drunk, went on into the hotel's lobby. Grok was behind her. He wore a full weapons belt, with grenade pouches and a holster. King appeared unarmed.

"We might be making a mistake," she said, over the roar of half a thousand drunks and fiends, and two bands, each playing a totally different kind of music. "Today's the day the Alliance disability and pension checks arrive, so everyone's celebrating. But at least I'm pretty sure we can find our man here."

"They do this every time they receive a check?" Grok said, watching a half-naked blond woman chase a completely naked blond man, pursued by a baying pack of men and women in flight coveralls.

Scattered around the room were other, nonhuman fliers, evidently content to watch mankind make an ass of itself.

"Every E-month," King said, "from what I heard."

"How can their livers and eardrums stand up to it?"

A man roared up to her, shouting, "And now, my lovely, you've met your dream match." His flight suit was unzipped to his waist.

King sidestepped him, and nodded to Grok. The alien grabbed the man by neck of his suit, whirled him twice overhead, and let go. Man and suit parted ways along his trajectory, and he vanished, screaming, into a knot of swirling pilots.

"As to your question" King shouted, "they don't worry about the future. Evidently the Alliance tests people for imagination before they let them into flight school. If you can envision flying into a cement cloud, or running out of fuel a thousand meters above your destination� you're out.

"Come on. Surely someone at the bar will know our man."

She pushed her way toward the long bar, where at least fifteen octopoidal barkeeps were kept at a frenzied pace.

A man she'd pushed turned around, fists coming up. He saw King, and his eyes widened, and he extended his arms.

King ducked under them, was at the bar. A bartender came over, and she asked him something Grok couldn't make out over the din. He scratched his chin, then pointed.

She nodded thanks, passed a bill across, fought her way back out to Grok.

"He's in the Quiet Bar," she said. "Over there. On the other side of those idiots."

Those idiots were a gauntlet of pilots of various sexes. Non-fliers were being ramrodded through the line, being groped, fondled, propositioned, and such. A few of them seemed to be enjoying it.

"I don't like that," King said. "Ask them to mind their manners."

Grok moved a head up and down, growled, growl rising to a maniacal scream louder even than the bands, and he charged the line, arms windmilling.

It may not have been pretty, but it worked. Fliers scrambled or were knocked away. Others went down and were trampled.

The gauntleteers suddenly decided their sport wasn't that interesting, and scrambled for safety.

King strolled through the momentary open space, and into the Quiet Bar, Grok following.

"You notice," he rumbled, "I did not have to reach for a single weapon?"

"How pacifistic of you," King said.

The Quiet Bar at least had no band. But it was a roar of conversations:

"�came down like owl shit from thirty grand, and they were still getting into their damned interceptors, so I double-launched, climbed back up, and�"

"�heard for certain the new McG Destructor'll be picked up by the Alliance as the standard light fighting ship, as soon as it quits blowing drives�"

"�I guess you could go for the contract, if you don't mind a quiet life. Nothing but bandits in the hills, they say�"

"�so the first thing you'd better do if you end up in one of those beasts is make sure the goddamned escape mechanism's set for humans. Otherwise, it'll blow you sideways through the frigging bulkhead, which'll sure as hell ruin the rest of your day�"

"�it's a sure buy, my friend. Specified right here no humans need apply, which means for you and me that�"

Grok noticed that, as in Jasmine's koan, everyone, indeed, was moving his hands around, as if they were aircraft.

King leaned over the bar, and the barkeep swiveled one of his heads toward her.

"Looking for Redon Spada."

"Over there," and the barkeep waved a tentacle.

Grok peered through the crowd to see what this perihelion of pilots might look like.

He'd expected some tall human, blond-haired, square of jaw, whose flight suit would be blazoned with dozens of unit patches, and mementoes of obscure, near-suicidal missions. She or he would be drinking in heroic fashion, perhaps yards of real Earth ale, shooting them back with raw alk boiling in dry ice.

Instead there was a slender, dark-haired man, wearing old-fashioned glasses. He wore a dark blue set of coveralls, and there were no patches on it. He was drinking what appeared to be a cup of tea, and carefully reading a sheaf of printouts.

"Uh� Mr. Spada?" King asked.

The man rose politely.

"I am he," he said. "Would you care to join me?"

Jasmine introduced herself and Grok, and sat down. Grok saw a heavy bar stool that looked as if might bear his weight, lifted it over, and sat, towering over the two humans.

"I must assume you're not here because you're attracted by my devilishly handsome features," Spada said.

King smiled, passed a business card across.

He studied it, nodded thoughtfully.

"You know, three E-months ago, I was so broke I was afraid I'd have to do something suicidal, such as reenlist, or take a job at a flight school.

"Now I have an offer from some police force somewhere to head up their skyspy program, another from some rather desperate rebels somewhere, and now you. Might I have the details?"

"I have eighteen Pyrrhus-class patrol craft," King said. "I need pilots and the rest to go with them."

"P-boats, eh?" Spada said. "Perhaps not my first choice to use when looking for trouble� but I've flown worse. Far worse.

"Perhaps you'll give me a sitrep on your troubles?"

King obeyed, telling him abut the Foley System.

"Interesting," Spada said. "Quite interesting. What's the pay?"

"Five thousand an E-month. Cash. Not reported to any Alliance officials. Good for six months minimum. Bonuses when we win. Full insurance, and death benefits."

"When you win. Not if. I like that approach," Spada said.

"About these bandits. You've no idea what they want? Assuming they're not just plain gun-in-the-guts-for-your-credits types."

"We don't know anything about them yet. Grok here is our Siglnt specialist, so he'll be setting up various monitors.

"You'll be charged with keeping the miners and Transkootenay Mining as safe as you can, and finding out where these bandits base themselves out of.

"When you do, we'll launch a full strike against them."

"I like the way you put that 'as safe as you can,' " Spada said. "That would suggest you know the realities of being able to patrol an entire asteroid belt with only eighteen ships.

"Since you don't know much about these bandits, may I assume they most likely look like everybody else in the Foley System?"

"They are human," King said positively. "At least all reports of contact say mat."

"Which means," Spada said, "we also must worry about infiltrators, spies, saboteurs, double agents and such."

"That brings me to the second item," King said. "We'll need crews for these ships besides the pilots. Plus we'll need ground support�maintenance, supply, logistics, security, and the rest.

"We can't afford the fat an Alliance squadron would have. You have a budget of seven hundred and fifty thousand credits a day."

Spada nodded. "That's not much, these days," he said. "But on the other hand, these days there's a welter of ramp rats to be had. There's no problem with that.

"You sound like you're most experienced, Miss King. I suppose there's little benefit to be gained by bargaining."

"You can try," King said. "But I truly think you'll be wasting your time.

"And there are others here on Boyington who have the Galactic Cross."

"There are," Spada said. "But none of them are as pretty as I am."

He was about to say more when a flier stumbled, fell toward the table.

Grok didn't see Spada move. But the drunk was somehow caught, and pitched sideways, to thud down on the floor.

"I do despise policemen," Spada said, as if the incident hadn't happened. "And rebels have a terrible tendency to not meet the payroll on time.

"Give me a day to consider. Then I'll be in touch, either way. I see you put your hotel's com number on your card.

"It might just be a pleasure doing business."

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FOURTEEN � ^ � The man backflipped out of the door, skidded on the rough aggregate that made up sort of a street, sat up groggily. He wore moccasins, the bottom half of an orbital spacesuit, nothing else.

"I told you once," the voice from inside the Dew Drop Inn boomed, "I on'y drink with people I like. There ain't no second warning."

The voice was deep, resounding, but quite female.

The miner bleared at the door to the bar, blinked twice, then sighed and curled up for a nap in midstreet.

Riss and Baldur looked at each other doubtfully.

"Perhaps we should have brought Grok," Baldur said. "I am definitely opposed to combat as a recreational pastime."

"You and me both," Riss agreed. "So don't stand in my way when I start running."

"It might well be the other way around," Baldur suggested, and they went in.

The bar was pretty standard for any workingman's joint: There were beer pumps every three meters; alk dispensers between them, the alcohol and beer reserves safely stowed somewhere beyond brawling range; and half a dozen barkeeps, all chosen for size, combativeness, and ability to talk away a fight, or be the first to swing a meter-long club as a last resort.

The only nonstandard item was an animated panel overhead, showing the asteroid belt, and blinking lights for settlements or mines.

The Inn had half a dozen men and women peaceably playing chess, either conventional or three-dee in the back, and one woman at the long bar.

She was a little less than a meter and two-thirds, in any direction. She wore her hair cropped short, as did most miners for convenience, a one-piece ship's coverall, and heavy boots.

In front of her was a plas bottle, half-full of a clear alcohol, a small vial with a tiny spoon, half a dozen twisted cheroots, and a glass of water.

Riss and Baldur bellied up, ordered brandy, water back, were served.

M'chel glanced at the woman.

"You wouldn't be L.C. Doe, by chance?"

"I am� and not by chance. A damned fine name I picked myself."

"Buy you a drink?"

"Sure. Buy you a snort?" Doe rolled the small vial down the bar.

Riss hesitated, then opened the jar, took out a spoonful, inhaled.

She jerked a little.

"Pure quill," Doe said. "I'm tight with th' quack that makes it."

Riss blinked, took a deep breath.

"Makes your heart go."

"Makes everyt'ing go," Doe said. "At least, until you run out, and then everyt'ing is real, real slow."

"Maybe I'll just stick to the one," Riss decided. She passed the vial to Baldur.

"I better not," Baldur said. "I get nosebleeds quite easily."

"Well, hooty-tooty," Doe said, and took a noseful of the drug. "I assume you came in looking for me."

"We did."

"Did you see that buttbreath I pitched out into the street?"

"We did."

"When I'm on a toot, I generally don't like to deal with anybody. So, meaning no offense, unless you want to talk inconsequentials, take a hike."

"It's about the Miner's Aid. Which you're president of."

"Aw, shit!" Doe snarled. "Goddamned business. But�" She looked down the bar. "Bennie, gimme a sober."