Settling a Grievance: Chapter 8
27 Jul 2016LordPsymon
Previous chapterSettling a Grievance: Chapter 8
Rolberto poked his head into the living area of White Pearl with the huge, cheesy, salesperson grin I had grown used to from him as I was kicking back, reading a holobook.
“Is done now! Your ship fly good as new!” he said, maintaining his grin.
I sat up slowly, stretching my arms out and put the holobook on the table.
Damn, just as things were getting interesting.
Benny and I followed him out of the cargo ramp of the Clipper and back to Rolberto’s shipyard.
“Thank you, sir,” I said as I exchanged the payment into his account.
“Please. We are friends. Friends call me Rolberto.”
He offered his hand, and we firmly shook.
“Alright,” I said. “Thank you, Rolberto.”
“That’s better! We do business again, yes?”
“No doubt.”
He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a photo, showing it to me. On it was a picture of him and an olive-skinned woman, presumably on their wedding day.
“You know what most fattening food for a woman is? Wedding cake. Consuela and I marry- a month later, she and I both fat. That was twenty- no, twenty two years ago.” Rolberto shrugged.
“But what can you do? She loves me, I love her, and her cooking. No more running around with bad people.”
I smiled and let off a small laugh. Rolberto winked.
“Too hard to run when living with her, so I set up shop.” He patted his belly lopsidedly.
The short, chubby man strolled away to greet a pair of potential customers, a husband and wife, greeting them with enthusiasm and a handshake.
I diverted my head to Benito. “This man loves his clients… More salespeople need to be like him.”
Benny shrugged and smiled. "Yeah, Rolberto used to be a little different back in the day though. He was never a hardcore criminal or anything- but he ran with some real bad dudes. Went by the name 'Berto’.” The man raised a cigarette to his mouth and lit. “Then he met Consuela and gave it all up. Been fat and happy ever since."
I looked over at the swarthy little man, introducing himself and his shipyard to the couple.
“Any stories you can share?” I asked.
He took a long drag of his cigarette and shook his head. “Nah. It was all before my time. He doesn’t really talk about it anyway. Just a few little things I have heard from cousins and a few of my contacts who knew him.”
I continued to watch as Rolberto upped the charm and focused his attention on the woman, guiding her and her husband around the corner to a row of Haulers.
“Don’t you worry about him? Like some old grudge might come back to haunt him one day?”
My friend took one last drag of the cigarette before tossing it in a nearby trashcan. He didn't answer at first, only watching as his older cousin and his customers disappeared from sight.
“I used to, but I've put some feelers out. Word on the street is that he's out of the game, and everyone knows it.”
“I find it impossible to imagine him being anything other than a jovial little salesman,” I said, grinning.
“Before he got married, he made peace with everyone he'd crossed. Told his old friends that he couldn't run with 'em any more. It was tough, because those people are like your family- but he did it. People leave him alone now.”
I nodded and turned to Benny. “Good to hear. I’d hate to see such a charming little fella get his ass handed to him.” I nudged him firmly in the arm. “So, when are you going to meet some pretty senorita and settle down, huh?”
Benny rolled his eyes and smiled a cocky smile. “What, and break the hearts of all the ladies in Kremainn and Eravate? Nah, mano. I’ve got so much love to give yet.”
He was gyrating his hips lewdly at the end of his statement, so I rolled my eyes and thought of Fiona.
Best hold off introducing her to Benny for a while, I thought. I do hope she’s doing alright, though.
I returned to the living area and slouched myself down on the sofa of White Pearl, ready to resume reading the holobook. There was a sudden thud as a heavy duffel bag hit the table, taking me by surprise. Benito stood above, glaring at me.
“What’s all this?” I queried.
The olive-skinned man sat on a chair on the opposite side of the table and carefully unzipped the bag.
“This is stuff we’re going to need for the job.” He remarked, pulling out a pistol. “Hope you’ve fired one of these, amigo.” He tossed the pistol at me and it landed on the cushion beside me. I picked it up, running my fingers down the short, dark grey barrel.
“Maybe not of this caliber, but I like to think I am a reasonable shot.” I replied.
Benny pulled out a small canister-shaped grenade. “And this is how we deal with the boarding party. Pull the pin, throw it at the raiders, then cover your eyes and ears.”
I held the grenade in my hand, which to my surprise was lighter than what I would have expected. I raised my eyebrow at Benny.
“Flash-bangs huh? How’d you get hold of these?”
The olive-skinned man sat back and smirked. “I have my sources, mano. We should have enough grenades and ammo to deal with a decent crew of slavers, as long as you remember to point the loud end of your gun at the bad guys.”
“Good to see we’re well equipped,” I said as I stood up, holstering the weapon underneath my vest. “I’ll get us ready for takeoff. Make yourself at home, Benny.”
“Gracias amigo.” He nodded.
A tightness started to manifest in my chest as I prepared White Pearl for launch toward the LPM 746 system. I was beginning to get nervous, I would be letting the man who robbed me of three years of my life board my own ship, and if I screwed up even slightly, Benny and I would end up dead, or worse. The prospect of lumbering a corpse into Pegasi space wasn’t exactly comforting either. But I hadn’t had any proper income in a few days and just paid Rolberto a fair bit to fix up the ship, meaning I wasn’t exactly in the position to be turning down credits.
As White Pearl cleared the mailslot, I noticed something on the dashboard. It was a small, round canister. Curiously, I picked up the canister and examined it closer. On it was a small, hand-written note:
To my customer, and new friend Simon,
It was a pleasure to work on your ship. It is not often I get to see one of these beauties up close, let alone work on one.
Please enjoy these tamales and salsa, prepared by my lovely wife Consuela.
I hope to do business again soon.
Your new friends,
Rolberto & Consuela
Gently, I pried open the canister, and the familiar smell of the tamales rushed to my nose.
Well, if I’m going to die any time soon, at least I’ll have had some amazing food first.
With the tamales were two small containers of salsa, both red and green. I decided to have two now, dipping one in the red salsa, and the other in the green. Both were amazing, nothing like I’d ever tasted before, but I gravitated toward the red. Spicy, but not too spicy, and plenty of flavour. I replaced the lid of the canister and put it away safely below the dash of the ship.
I’ll save the rest for once the job’s done, I thought as the ship entered hyperspace to the LPM 746 system. Benny was right though, Rolberto’s wife’s tamales are definitely worth writing home about.
The long range scanners were picking up very little traffic as we exited hyperspace near the dim red dwarf star.
“Do you really think he’s going to be here?” I asked Benny who was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat.
“Slavers like him always hunt in low population systems like this. Either they jump on distress signals, or swoop in on travellers they see as easy targets. They pick systems like this so they can snap up their prey and disappear without anyone noticing,” he responded, focusing on a holo display of the star system. “We should set down in orbit around that white gas giant and fire off the beacon.” He pointed at a milky coloured, ringed gas giant on the display.
I set the destination and maneuvered the ship toward a tiny dot among the backdrop of stars, marked as our destination by the heads up display.
“At least we will have a nice view while we wait,” I snidely remarked. “What happens if we pick up someone who genuinely wants to help us?”
Benny scoffed. “Not likely. People around here are generally suspicious of a distress beacon. Pirates often use them to spring traps, but slavers like Reck are equipped to deal with the risks, unlike your friendly merchant vessel. Even a pirate trap is lucrative for these people.”
“So we just sit back and wait once we get there huh?”
My friend smirked. “Hope you brought some books with you.”
We dropped from supercruise nearby the outer ring of the gas giant. The planet dominated the backdrop, dimly lit from the host star, giving it a more orange hue than what was rendered on the system map. I brought the ship to a relative stop, bringing it into a slow orbit around the behemoth of a planet. The ship was powered down and I fired up an emergency distress beacon.
“Now, we wait.” I sighed, gazing out at the gas giant.
Benny stood up from his seat. “The cougar always waits patiently for its prey, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.”
I shrugged, “yeah but a cougar normally knows where to find its prey, and it doesn’t have billions of square kilometers of space around him to search.”
The man rolled his eyes as he strode to the exit of the bridge. “My point, mano, is stop being so antsy. He’ll come to us in time. Just make sure you’re ready when he does.”
I tapped my vest, where my gun was holstered beneath. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
The minutes ticked by, slowly turning into hours. I was laying back on the sofa in the living area, reading more of my holobook, occasionally getting up to drink coffee or eat. Benny was off in the guest room, mostly keeping to himself, though occasionally returning to the bridge to check the sensors.
We’re going to die of old age before anything exciting happens out here. I thought as I drifted to sleep.
I woke up, still on the couch with my holobook resting on my face, to Benny standing above me.
“Wake up amigo! There’s something on the sensors!”
I squinted and sat up quickly, throwing the holobook off me in the process as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. The olive-skin man grabbed me by the collar of my shirt and hoisted me onto my feet.
“Come on mano, we don’t have time to mess around,” He remarked.
We dashed briskly to the bridge of my ship and I quickly pulled up the targeting console to see what ships are in the area. On the sensors was a Lakon Spaceways Keelback, the same ship Reck was said to be flying, ten kilometers out and closing distance rapidly.
“Did they hail us?” I questioned.
My friend slowly shook his head. “Nope. Nothing. Not even static. See if you can get the scanners to identify the ship.”
“Right.”
<Scanning…>
<Scan complete.>
Keelback
James “Reck” Harrison
Designation: Cattlerunner
I stood back slowly and drew my pistol from beneath the vest. I glanced at Benny, who just nodded without saying anything as we turned and made a rapid dash to the docking airlock. I felt my hands shake slightly as we took cover by the entryway to the airlock area. Benny firmly placed his hand on my shoulder, clearly sensing the nerves in me.
“Stay calm, amigo. Nerves will just make you miss your target.” He nodded slowly then returned to cover.
“Right,” I replied as I gulped, reaching into my pocket and pulling out a flashbang grenade with my free hand.
“Remember, loud end toward the bad guys.”
I laughed slightly. “Yeah yeah. I’ve fired a gun before… Just… Not while the stakes were as high as this.”
There was a muffled clunk as the Keelback docked with White Pearl. Through the window, the silhouettes of armed men could be seen grouping on the other end of the airlock.
“This is it, amigo. I hope you’re ready.”