The Space Pirate 1 (15 page)

Charley stifled a sob as she considered the situation. The Night Runners had struck quickly and decisively. And Harry had protected her in the end. There was no reason to believe that they knew - or cared - they she had been in the office with Harry. It was too late to give pursuit. Those goons were long gone by now. Charley felt a strong emotion well deep within her. It wasn’t something she was used to feeling. It was hatred. Hatred for these thugs who had muscled their way into the pirate fleet’s whole way of life and taken control of the entire illegal space trade.

At least Charley now had a name to go with - the Beluga Run. She knew it was a famous run between two star systems and it would require more research.

The students behind her started whispering nervously. Charley realized she was now the center of attention. She backtracked into the corridor and took a drop shaft before Security could arrive to investigate.

Tears were still welling in her eyes as she found a quiet alcove in the Academy grounds. If she hung around too long she would be detained for questioning, that was certain. She might even be accused of murdering Harry, especially with the weapons she carried around.

With great regret and a heavy heart she made her way to the shuttle bay. She didn’t care where she went next. She assumed it would be somewhere on Danderly. Charley made sure she was in the next shuttle that arrived. It was headed for Galveston, a city in Danderly’s northern hemisphere. The CabinBot accepted Charley’s very last credits. She literally had nothing in her pockets.

The shuttle filled quickly and before long that familiar chime sounded and it had been catapulted towards the port gate at the top of the Academy dome.

Charley barely noticed as the shuttle soared in the face of the brown planet and sought orbit over the northern hemisphere.

What could she possibly do next? She was penniless and her only contact in this part of the galaxy was now dead. Worse still, there wasn’t a pirate culture, or even a guild, to speak of. All the old pirates were dead and it appeared there were no younger apprentices coming through the ranks. Except for her.

What she really needed was a place she could hole up and think. Things were moving too quickly. If she really had to she could fence once of her blasters for a few hundred credits. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. She considered FIGJAM hanging at her belt. She couldn’t bring herself to sell the PalBot. After all, the annoying robot had been the one to allow her to leave Abeyas in the first place.

The shuttle broke orbit as Charley was deep in thought. The vessel soared over mountainous terrain with deep valleys choked with tall trees. At length it reached a wide basin with mountains to all sides. Charley was surprised to find a city spreading out in this cauldron. A bustling, teeming city far larger than Spacetown. The shuttle settled into an air lane thick with all manner of private craft. She marveled at how the crazy traffic seemed synchronous somehow. She noticed air traffic control towers rising above the general skyline. There were several large buildings, most of them adorned with huge neon corporate logos. Charley’s wrist pad told her the local time was 1530 hours. She found she was extremely hungry and couldn’t wait to get her hands on a few credits somehow.

The shuttle cruised low, joining one of the busier air lanes. A chime sounded and the vessel dipped into a huge building that looked to be Galveston’s main shuttle terminal. It was an elegant structure with some kind of flowery creeper covering the transparent walls. An old, mechanical clock face beamed over the various shuttle tracks. With the sun shining through the effect was very pleasant indeed.

Feeling a little more hopeful than she had when she climbed aboard the shuttle, Charley disembarked and wandered the crowded terminal. She found the main entrance and emerged onto a packed concourse that spanned two tall office buildings. Various bars and drinking holes lined the concourse to either side. Charley selected a particularly edgy looking place and settled into a shadowy booth in the corner. She ordered a glass of water from the ServiceBot, wondering how long it would take for the proprietor to kick her non-paying ass from the place. For the first time since she’d met Silverton outside Sandflower Downs, Charley had no money to speak of.

22

Galveston seemed much more prosperous than any place on Abeyas. Charley wondered if the job situation was any better. Did Galveston have a job center or anything like that? She consulted her wrist pad, trying not to think about Harry Teks. Her passionate and ultimately violent encounter with the older man had left a strong impression on her. She felt saddened that yet another old pirate had died. At this rate there’d be no one left to teach her the old ways.

Nex told her that Galveston did indeed have a job center. Charley hated the idea of a regular paying job, but just a few days might be enough to rent a room somewhere and consider her next move.

As Charley finished her water, she activated FIGJAM, thinking the PalBot might just have something to contribute on her current situation.

“Man, you are the sexiest piece of ass I’ve ever laid eyes on,” FIGJAM immediately gushed. “The way you nailed that old man was enough to have me leaking oil.”

“Wait,” Charley said, thoroughly disgusted. “You were still watching? I thought I killed your power.”

“You just muted me,” said FIGJAM through a shrill laugh. “I can’t actually be deactivated unless I do it myself.”

“Great,” said Charley sarcastically. “I can’t believe you saw all that.”

“Did I ever,” said FIGJAM. “You’re smokin’. Prime slab of meat.”

“Such a sweet talker,” Charley muttered, but she could barely contain a smile. “What do you make of this place, FJ?”

FIGJAM snorted. “This place is stuffed full of cash for the taking. I talked to Nex while you thought I was deactivated. Galveston is flush with educated professional types. Has a great art scene. One of Danderly’s most livable cities apparently.”

“That’s great Figgy, but it doesn’t really help us.”

“Hang on, I’m getting to that,” FIGJAM said irritably. “I’m couldn’t help but notice you talking to that Teks character about being a pirate or some mumbo jumbo. Well, I listened in between oogling your superb tits. Anyway, I think visiting the job center is a waste of your fucking time. You might get a job cleaning excrement off hotel walls for a few days and get paid barely enough to survive. You might as well have stayed in Sandflower Downs.”

“No, I don’t want that,” Charley said with a vigorous nod.

“So here’s the deal,” FIGJAM said earnestly. “I did some diggin’. Seems there was once a Pirate Guild. All its members are presumed dead, but ten years rent on a guild hall in Galveston was paid eight years ago.”

Charley took a moment to absorb the information. “I wonder if there’s anyone there?”

“Squatters, probably,” warned FIGJAM. “I haven’t found any records of pirate activity on Danderly for several years.”

Charley beamed at the PalBot. “Then let’s go check it out,” she said. “Good work, Figgy.”

“Figgy,” FIGJAM repeated. “I like it. It sounds like you’re about to suck my cock.”

“You don’t have a cock, FIGJAM,” said Charley, rolling her eyes.

“Killjoy.”

Charley went back to the concourse and headed east on foot, following FIGJAM’s directions. Neither of them were familiar with the city and frequently needed to double back and head down a level. Before long they were in one of Galveston’s less salubrious areas, a ghetto-like slum under a huge, arching concourse. Groups of homeless men huddled around tin drum bonfires. The wind blew spiraling dust devils in the air. FIGJAM directed Charley to a rundown street lined with old, crumbling buildings. Charley saw shadowy figures passing lobing starter kits to each other and resolved to keep her eyes firmly on the road ahead. Lobing was the practice of recalibrating the neurons in the frontal lobe that somehow triggered a flood of dopamine. A neural field generator was required for the task and was easily available in little fold out packs. No research had been conducted into the phenomenon but there rumors that several ‘lobers’ had been found dead in a ‘ghost house’ in Ulia, another city on Danderly. Or so Nex informed her, anyway.

Charley quickened her pace and picked her way through a number of prone bodies. She couldn’t tell if they were asleep or dead. FIGJAM told her to stop outside a nondescript concrete bunker. A skull and crossbones had been painted on the metal door. Charley smiled at the retro humor.

At first she couldn’t see a way in. She was about to head round the back when a projection spewed from a tiny aperture in the door.

“DNA scanner,” FIGJAM muttered. “You’re not related to Silverton even thought you have his name now.”

Charley felt a wave of frustration. “Now what?” she asked. “We didn’t come all this way to be held back by a fucking door.”

“Let’s head round the back,” FIGJAM suggested.

Charley had to backtrack around the entire block to get at the back of the bunker. Luckily there was an abandoned lot on the next street over but it was piled with trash. Charley climbed over the stinking garbage and saw a ragged hole in one the steel panels to the rear of the bunker.

“We def got squatters, hot stuff,” FIGJAM observed. “Get your blaster out. Whatever you do, don’t listen to this scum.”

Charley held her right blaster ready as she climbed through the hole and let herself fall a couple of meters to a decrepit, trash-filled room. It was almost completely dark in the foul-smelling bunker.

She padded through a central hallway and into a larger room. Wrinkling her nose, she noted the feces on the floor and smeared on the walls. An even worse smell came from the corner, where a muted yellow light suggested human presence. There were two divina junkies there, wide-eyed and paranoid.

“The fuck?” one of them said, rising quickly. He was tall, gaunt and covered in scabs. “We got no juice for you, motherfucker.”

The man reached for his weapon, a rusty knife hidden in his oversized boots. Charley squeezed her trigger without hesitation, sending the junkie against the wall with a hole through his heart. The other junkie yelped and reached for a sawn-off shotgun. Charley’s targeting computer made things easy. She fired at the red graticule and the junkie’s hand disappeared in a puff of red mist. Her next shot struck him flush on the forehead and finished him off good.

The smell in the old Guild Hall was fearsomely bad, and adding two corpses to that wasn’t gonna make it any better.

“I need access to the generator,” FIGJAM said. “These pirates wouldn’t have depended on mains supply.”

“Let me sweep the place first,” Charley said. “We don’t know how many more there are.”

The Guild Hall was actually quite large. Most of it was underground, which explained the modest appearance at ground level. Apart from the main Hall, there were adjoining rooms that had been looted long ago. Once Charley was satisfied the place was secure, she allowed FIGJAM to access the generator contained in the cob-webbed basement.

Charley stood over the PalBot as it spoke to the generator and coaxed it back to life. The light tubes in the basement flickered, then settled with a hum. The harsh light disturbed a nest of corpse spiders in the corner. They were fast and deadly. Charley stood in front of FIGJAM and burned all of them with multiple plasma blasts.

“Oooh,” said the robot. “I love it when you protect me.”

“Steady on, Casanova,” said Charley. “Can you climb steps?”

“How dare you,” said FIGJAM with mock outrage. “Of course I fucking can.”

“Then you’ve got full run of the place,” Charley said. “I’m gonna sweep for more bugs. It’s gonna take us days to clean this joint.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” said the robot.

Charley couldn’t help but smile. It actually seemed as though they had a place to stay. It was run down and disgusting, and she couldn’t even access the front door, but it was a genuine pirate den. All they had to do was restore it. Without money or resources of any kind, that was easier said than done.

Charley completed her sweep of the other rooms, burning off three more corpse spider nests and finding two decaying corpses. Pirates or junkies, the decay was so advanced she couldn’t tell. There were no weapons at hand, but they could’ve been looted long ago. Two things interested Charley - first was the row of lockers along the wall in the Hall. Several had been blown to pieces and ransacked, but three actually remained intact. Of course, they were code-shielded and for the moment inaccessible. She made a mental note to set FIGJAM to the problem. The second notable discovery was the data jack on a great, circular desk in the center of the Hall. The desk itself seemed like some kind of reception, while the data jack suggested an internal AI program, long dead or deactivated. That was another thing FIGJAM might be able to help with.

“Figgy,” she called out. “Figgy, here boy!”

The whir of the PalBot could be heard at the back of the Hall before it appeared on top of the circular desk.

“Yeah, Fido has arrived, Your Highness,” said the robot with disdain.

“Stow the attitude,” Charley said crisply. “I need you to try and jack the AI that used to live here.”

“No fucking problem,” FIGJAM said confidently. He really was turning out to be a helpful pain in the ass. FIGJAM’s diodes whirred as he tried to stir a long-dead ghost. Charley flinched when a voice crackled over the Guild’s com system.