The Reaper Diaries: Fetch Job, Part 8
15 Dec 2015Michael Wolfe
Well, there it is. I’m either the biggest sucker in the ‘verse, or the luckiest. The ice planet in the LHS 3005 system was looming into view in the Lady Luck’s canopy. I shook my head at seeing it again. I swear, if you’d have told me a week ago that I would end up coming right back to this ice cube after what that purple-haired woman pulled…
Jobs like these tended to go either spectacularly well, or blow up in everybody’s face. I hadn’t accepted Kyndi’s proposal lightly, but the way I saw it, it was a calculated risk.
There ain’t no reason she would backstab you again. She needs a partner to move the goods. It’s in her interest that she play this one nice and straight.
The mocking look on Kyndi’s face just after she paralyzed me with the stunner device flashed before me.
Best keep an eye on her anyway.
Kyndi’s Diamondback surged ahead with its boosters glowing, heading toward the same crater as before.
And not just her ass this time.
“Home sweet, home, huh?”
We were both standing in the middle of the crater, having landed our ships in it. The Anaconda wreckage was still visible, though it was been buried a little more since we were last here. It was now virtually no trouble to climb up the rock and ice to the ruptured cargo bay.
Inside, the bay was starting to fill with ice and rock that had drifted in since we were last here. It extended down the corridor, settling in little piles. Kyndi stepped inside with one foot, shining her searchlight down the dark pathway.
“If you say so. Let’s hope the power still turns on like last time.”
I felt the ice and frozen snow crush under my boots. It was still around, even a ways down the corridor. “You know, for a planet with almost no atmo, there’s sure a lot of debris that gets blown around. It was like a damn hurricane last time.”
Kyndi didn’t nod or turn around, but just kept walking forward. “It wasn’t. I downloaded some info on this planet, and it turns out that it’s geologically active. The ice geysers put on a pretty good show, and the wreckage is right on top of one of the bigger ones.”
“I guess that explains that.”
“Yeah, but in a few years, this wreckage won’t even be visible.”
I moved my finger along the bulkhead wall, leaving a trail in the frost that had accumulated. “So, leave within a few years? Got it.”
We stopped near the same crew quarters that we had used as a makeshift lodging the first time we stayed here. Kyndi was looking down at her tablet in consternation. “I just don’t understand. According to this signal, the artifacts are close by, but I don’t see anything.”
She looked around in the darkness, searchlight illuminating different portions of the ship. “I just can’t get a good lock. They could be right under our feet, or ten clicks away.”
“What about both?”
Kyndi turned to face me, a confused look on her face. “What do you mean?”
I looked back down the corridor where we had come from. “The first time we were here, you mentioned that most of the excavations were underground. Given how fast things get covered up around here by that geyser, I’d say we’ve been missing something.”
We both looked down at our feet, and then each other. Kyndi screwed up her face. “Ok, so what now?”
I gestured toward the bow of the crashed Anaconda. “The whole front half of this ship is already buried at an angle into this crater. Maybe if we can cut through the wreckage, it’ll give us a place to start?”
“Can’t hurt.”
We had never explored very far forward onboard the crashed ship on account of finding the artifact so quickly. Before we started, we set up “camp”. Kyndi was able to get the power going from a terminal like a civilized person this time- no severed mummy thumb required.
There was no need to go back to our ships. We settled back into the same crew quarters as before, where there were still all the leftover rations and supplies that we had left. We wanted to be conservative with the power, so we only restored heat and life support to the section of the ship where we would stay. Other than that, it was pushing forward into the twisted bulkheads and equipment that needed to be cleared away.
It was slow going; collapsed decks and strewn modules were in our way, and our plasma cutters weren’t always as helpful as we would have liked.
I felt a tap on my shoulder. Kyndi was standing in the middle of a section that we opened up. “Does anything seem off to you?”
I shrugged. “Other than cutting though a derelict ship in hopes of reaching an excavation site full of doodads that make electronics shut down for no reason? Nothing at all.”
Turning back to the twisted door, I was trying to cut through, I could hear the uneasiness in Kyndi’s voice. “And don’t you think it’s strange that we’ve only found one body?”
Almost got it. “Not really. Even back in the day, these ships could be piloted by a single person. It wasn’t fun, but automation hasn’t really changed much in the last five centuries.”
There. On to another section. “Besides, it was a high-risk mission. You don’t use crew if you don’t have to. I guess even CIRG goes for broke sometimes.”
Kyndi sighed and helped me move aside a beam that was blocking the door. “I thought of that, too- but why so many rations? Why the stocked crew quarters? The ship had a crew when she set out. Where did they go?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, darlin’- but I’ve seen enough bad holo-movies that the answer probably ain’t pleasant.”
The beam landed with a thud, and slid down the floor a few inches. I took Kyndi by the hand and stepped into the unexplored section.
“Let’s just focus on the job.”
Though the place was pitch-black other than what our searchlight illuminated, it looked like we were in the main cargo bay. Almost immediately, the radiation counter started to spike, giving off rapid, staccato ticks. Kyndi checked her tablet.
“We’ve got plutonium. Lots of it.”
This had been the exact reason why I had bought the radiation-fortified atmo suit, but being around the stuff still made me nervous. All around us were cargo containers, some still locked into place by the sorting arms, and some that had been thrown across the room when the ship impacted. I shone my light on one ruptured container, which had spilled its contents all over the deck. Sure enough, there was the filler sand, and the small dark bars of the raw plutonium. There was something else peeking out, as well- something dark grey, with unfamiliar carvings.
Is that-?
I knelt down in front of the container, and brushed away the sand. Jesus Christ, it is.
“Kyndi? You’d better take a look at this.”
“I know what raw plutonium looks like. There were plenty of cargo containers that had spilled out the aft cargo bay, remember?”
I stood up and shone my light on the artifact. “Yeah, but I think I know why that signal was all around.”
Kyndi turned and looked where my light was shining. Her disinterested expression was almost instantly replaced by a sharp gasp.
“That was- in the container?”
I carefully picked the artifact up, radioactive sand falling from the sides. “Sure was.” I looked around. “Think there might be more?”
Kyndi walked over to another ruptured container, and carefully burned a hole open with her plasma cutter. A few layers into the container, sand started spilling out. We rolled the container over to empty it if its contents, and poking out of the sand were bars of plutonium- and the tip of another artifact.
She reached down and picked it up. “Looks like this is how CIRG was transporting them.”
We looked around us. There must have been dozens of containers, not counting the ones strewn around outside. I started mentally tallying what we could expect per artifact that we sold. Just the one netted us eighty grand each. And if each of these containers has one, well- I stopped counting after ten- that’s a hell of a payday in this room.
Kyndi must have been thinking the same thing. “I think we both know what to do.”
I nodded, pulling out my own plasma torch. “Let’s get to work.”
We worked the rest of the day, cutting open cargo containers and fishing out the artifacts from inside. Eventually, our plasma cutters ran out of fuel, and we had to call it a day. Still, we had a nice little pile of eighteen to load back up into the ships.
“So, what do you think? Head back to our ships, or rough it another night in the crew quarters?”
Kyndi looked toward the rear part of the ship. “I’m tired. Let’s just head back to the bunks and come back in the morning with some backpacks.”
I looked at the pile of artifacts. No way was I in the mood to make multiple trips back and forth through a wrecked Anaconda while carrying three or four of those things.
“Deal. “
“Home, sweet, home, huh?”
The crew quarters were just as we had left it. Kyndi and I had left our atmo suits in the corridor outside, and since we had had the systems running since we got here, the crew quarters had warmed to a downright civilized twenty-eight degrees centigrade.
Kyndi smiled. “Yeah, but this time we’re a little better prepared.”
She tossed a canister to me. I unsealed it, and-
“Really?”
Inside the container were a pair of honest-to-God T-bone steaks, chopped Portabella mushrooms, and what looked like a pouch of instant garlic mashed potatoes. Kyndi smiled and took the container back.
“Yeah. Really. I’m getting a little sick of rations on these trips.”
She reached back into her rucksack, and produced a hot plate, two plates, and silverware. Then, she brought out a bottle. She tossed it to me.
“That’s for you. I figured you wouldn’t mind.”
I turned over the bottle. Old Sol Private Reserve, ’78 vintage. Jesus. I held it up to her and raised my eyebrows.
“Now I’m absolutely expecting a trap. No one has been this good to me since I graduated Pilot’s Fed training.”
Kyndi smiled and retrieved a small canister from the backpack. “Well, maybe I’m still feeling a little guilty over how I treated you before.”
She cracked open the canister, and retrieved a small bag of Onionhead joints. “Besides, I find it difficult to believe that you haven’t spent any time with women in your time as a pilot.”
I sat down on one of the bunks and smiled. “Well, I’ve had female company, just…“ How do I explain this?
Kyndi’s eyes flashed, and her smile lessened slightly. “None you didn’t pay?”
I shrugged and looked down at my unopened bottle. “What do you want me to say? A man’s got needs, and I ain’t exactly got time for anything more than one-nighters.”
Across from me, my partner leaned against a wall and lit up a joint. She closed her eyes for a moment and tilted her head back against the wall, letting the drug into her system. Then she looked at me again.
“How do you treat ‘em?” Her voice was quieter and had taken on a serious edge.
I looked back up at her. The hell is it to you how I treat dock knockers? “Good, I guess. I pay well, and I’m decent and gentle to ‘em before and after the act.”
Kyndi took another drag. “And during?”
I chuckled. “It’s me, remember? I don’t abuse women, even women I hire. I try to just, I dunno, treat ‘em like folk. I guess it’s the Imperial in me- treating slaves with respect and dignity, you know?”
“Dock knockers ain’t slaves.”
“You know what I mean.” I tore the seal off of the bottle and took a swig. Damn, that’s good. “What’s got you so interested in the love life of a bounty hunter, anyway?”
She shook her head and looked away, a distant look in her face. “Nothing. I was just… curious.”
Kyndi continued staring for a few moments, and then looked back at me, smiling like her old self. “Well, I guess these steaks aren’t going to cook themselves, are they? Think you can handle slicing up some mushrooms?”
The steaks weren’t seasoned with anything more than salt and pepper, the mushrooms were a little burned, and the potatoes were just processed powder, with water and heat added. The disposable plates were flimsy, and the silverware seemed like it was in danger of breaking at any time.
It was perfect.
Kyndi and I ate in silence, not because there wasn’t anything to say, but because we were tired and people like us weren’t used to conversation with dinner anyway. I didn’t usually eat real food except when I was docked at a station, so the reality having a damn steak on a derelict Anaconda in the middle of a frozen, uninhabited wasteland was just a little much to take in. It was even more bizarre that I was eating it with a woman who was not only exotically beautiful with her purple hair and tattoos- but that we were peaceably dining together a mere week after she had done her best to strand me not far from where I was sat.
Situations like this give a man a lot to think about.
“How do you like it?”
I had been daydreaming, slightly tipsy after starting on the bottle of Old Sol before eating. I held up my fork, run through a strip of meat.
“Delicious. Hell of a lot better than last time.”
She smiled and looked down at her own plate. “I know it’s nothing like at a proper restaurant, but it was kind of a last-minute idea, you know?”
“It’s perfect, darlin’. Believe me when I say this means more to me than just another slab of synth meat at just another port.”
Kyndi giggled. “I’m pretty sure this is synth, too.”
I smiled and took another bite. “Well, of all the times I’ve spent the night in a centuries-old, crashed ship with a dead guy a few decks over and a crazy, purple-haired smuggler chick who may or may not strand my ass, this is the best meal I’ve ever had while doing so- synth or not.”
One brow on Kyndi’s face shot up as she cocked her head to the side. “You sure know how to compliment a lady, don’t you?”
That evening was about as relaxing as either of us could have hoped for. I was pleasantly mellow from the bottle Old Sol, and Kyndi was reclining in her chair, legs kicked up on the table.
“So, what are we looking at for a return?”
Kyndi was on her computer, taking hits of her Onionhead joint. I found myself minding the smell less and less as I got used to it.
“Depends. I’m going to try to sell ‘em piecemeal, one buyer at a time. I figure that by the time word gets out that it was us flooding the local market, we’ll have long since pocketed the credits. It won’t be as much as before, but I’m thinking forty or fifty a pop might be do-able.”
I took a sip. “Each?”
She let out a long exhale, sending the thick smoke into the air vent. “Each.”
Goddamn. “Well, that’s a payday if there ever was one.”
Kyndi closed her eyes and took a final, long hit of her joint. “Yeah. But first we’ve got to finish the job. And to do that, a good night’s sleep is going to come in handy. We’ve got a long day of back-and-forth tomorrow.”
I nodded and stood up. “I hear that. Top and bottom again?”
She turned off the lights and turned to me. All I could see was her body, silhouetted against a few system lights.
“Side-by-side seemed to work ok last time.” In the darkness, I heard the rustling sound of fabric being slipped off of skin.
“I reckon you’ve got that knife handy, too?”
“Always.”
In the darkness, I felt her hand wrap around mine. “You still fixed on impressing me with your gentlemanly restraint?”
“Always.”
Her hand guided mine over the swell of her breast as she nestled her body against mine. “Good.”
Once again, her backside was pressed against me, with no room to maneuver in the narrow space of the bunk. Only this time, she didn’t have those stupid flannel pajamas to preserve some shred of modesty between us. Kyndi shifted position, moving her hips up, down, and back up again, all while firmly pressed against-
“Of course, even my gentlemanliness has its limits.”
I couldn’t see, but I could hear the smile in her response.
“I know.”
Fortunately, we brought a couple giant duffle bags with us.
Finishing the entire cargo bay’s worth of cutting open cargo containers, fishing out the artifacts, and stuffing them inside the sacks was hard work, but we were driven on by camaraderie, respect, and the prospect of a substantial reward.
Mainly the reward.
Conversation revolved around what we would both do with our shares. Kyndi was looking at some upgrades to her Diamondback, and had been wanting to try out some exotic varieties of Onionhead. She was also- according to her- due for a long vacation, locked in a private suite on board an Orca liner, smoking and drinking herself silly, and staring at the pretty sights through her room’s picture window all the while.
I, on the other hand, had been in the market for something to fly other than The Professor. I liked it a lot, and it was fantastic for bounty hunting- but variety is the spice of life, right? My dream ship was one of the Zorgon-DeLacy partnership Fer-de-Lances, the kind that was every bit as deadly as the classic, but with the larger reactor space and luxury furnishings. It would be a long, long time before I had the kind of cash to buy one of those, much less get it outfitted to reaping spec, but a guy can dream, right?
There were also rumors floating around that Core Dynamics was putting the finishing touches on some kind of new ship dedicated to fighting. It was supposed to have absurdly strong shields, and skipped the finesse by just mounting two large weapon bays. It was also supposed to be comparable to an Eagle in terms of maneuverability. The reward from the job today would put me on the road towards owning one of those beauties, too- if the hype measured up. Yeah, right. Federation outfits’ll say anything to part you with your credits.
Finally, our work was done. Two large duffle bags, stuffed with alien artifacts that sold for eighty grand a pop. We both picked up a bag and took a look around. If the cargo bay didn’t look like it was in a crashed ship before, it sure as hell did now.
“I think we did real good today, darlin’.”
Kyndi hoisted the sack over her shoulder. “Say that when the credits hit our accounts, Matt. We still gotta move ‘em all, and the thought of flying with this many artifacts makes me a little nervous.”
“I hear you. Let’s get back to the ships.”
We made our way back through the ship, stopping by the- we had come to think of it as “our”- room, and packed up the remaining gear. Taken together with the artifacts, it was quite a lot to be carrying- but the ships were parked almost next to the wreckage, and the promise of that fat reward hitting our accounts lightened the load, even in an atmo suit. Kyndi tapped my shoulder.
“I’m powering down.”
I took a look around. This was the last time the lights in this old ship were going to shine. The last time its life support would run. The last time a person would call it home. It was an oddly sentimental feeling, watching Kyndi power down the faithful old auxiliary systems that had sustained us. I actually felt a wave of emotion at the thought of leaving the ship, knowing that the only fate left in store for it was slow, inevitable burial under layers of ice and rock.
Jesus, Matt. It’s just a powered down deck on a wrecked ship. Get ahold of yourself.
Kyndi noticed me staring down the soon-to-be-deserted corridor. “You ok?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I just hate goodbyes. She was pretty good to us, all things considered.”
She briefly squeezed my hand through our thick gloves. “Let’s head back.”
The rest of the trip was slow going due to the loads we were carrying, but soon enough, we both saw the white light bursting through the gash in the rear cargo bay. Just beyond it were our ships, and after that, our reward.
I took Kyndi’s hand as I helped her stand on the edge before the climb down. She surveyed the crater in which we were parked.
“Uh, Matt?”
I had been shifting the load around, trying to find a comfortable balance between the backpack and duffle bag.
“Yeah?”
“Why is there a Python parked next to our ships?”
What the-
I dropped the duffle bag and climbed as fast as I could to the cargo bay opening. Sure enough, there was a dark grey Python, dwarfing our two Diamondbacks.
We heard a new, strange voice come over the atmo suit’s comm system.
“Because some of us like doing things the easy way.”
We looked down, and below us were four men in military-grade atmo suits. They all had blaster rifles, and they were all pointing them at us.
Oh shit.
I raised my hands. Beside me, Kyndi did the same. One of the suited figures gestured with his rifle.
“Now, I believe that you have two bags stuffed full of those little trinkets all packed up for us. You know what to do.”
Cautiously, Kyndi lowered her arms and slipped the bag from her shoulders. “How did you find us here?”
“You didn’t really think that you could take a job from the boss and return empty-handed, did you?"
The figure shook his head under his atmo suit. “Word gets ‘round in a place like Novitski. You know that. Bad move, little girl.”
Kyndi set the bag down and cautiously stood back up. “Him and I settled all that. The job’s got nothing to do with him.”
The goon lowered his rifle and signaled two of his men to collect the bags. “That’s where you’re wrong. The two mil rented his patience, not purchased it. As far as he was concerned, you still owed him an artifact- and then you sold one to a rival not a week later."
The men picked up both bags, and roughly brushed by us as they went back down to the surface.
“That’s disrespect. And now you’re going to learn the cost of disrespect.”
We both braced for a barrage of weapons fire, but it never came. Instead, the man inspected both duffle bags to verify the contents, and whistled. “Thanks for the new ship, you two.”
With that, the four of them started back toward their ships. Kyndi and I just stood there, arms up, watching them leave- carrying a goddamn fortune’s worth of artifacts. Our artifacts.
One by one, they boarded the Python, and shortly after that, the thrusters came to life, and it lifted off.
I turned to Kyndi. “Well, I suppose as far as hold-ups go, that was pretty civilized.”
She didn’t say anything- she just started trudging down the path to the crater floor, eyes sweeping the sky.
I walked past her, backpack on my shoulders, making my way for the ships. “I mean, there was so much they could have done. Kill us, molest us, poke a hole in our suits and leave us to die-” Looking over my shoulder, Kyndi was still walking around cautiously, looking up.
“C’mon! We’re lucky to have gotten out of that still breathing! You want to get out of here, or what?”
I resumed my march toward the Lady Luck. “Look, we can still track ‘em down. You and me can take a Python if we work together. All we have to do is-“
Kyndi tackled me to the ground just as I started seeing the trail of little explosions make their way towards my ship. We landed hard and looked up just in time to see the Lady Luck shredded nearly in two, physically toppling over with the impacts of the cannon rounds. I was almost deafened when the Python swooped low overhead, autocannons still spinning.
“Son of a bitch!”
Ice and snow was blowing violently around us, and Kyndi helped me to my feet as we both dropped our backpacks and started sprinting back to the Anaconda wreckage. In the sky, I could see the Python circling around for another pass.
“Run!”
Kyndi was actually a faster runner than I was, and she grabbed my hand to pull me along. “No shit!”
This time, the Python used a trio of beam lasers to carve red-hot streaks across Kyndi’s hull. A small explosion from the port engine shook the vessel, making it skid across the ice and rest on one of the stubby black wings. A fire ignited, and thick, black smoke started erupting from the thruster.
Now it was Kyndi’s turn to mourn her ship. “God dammit!”
Again, the Python swooped low over us, causing a storm of ice and rock to batter our atmo suits. We scrambled to get to the safety of the Anaconda, franticly climbing up the path of loose rubble and snow to get to the ruptured hanger. We crawled inside, desperatly looking around for the Python.
Several minutes passed, neither Kyndi nor myself making any noise except hard breathing. I stood up, taking a few steps outside the wreckage, looking around in the sky.
“I think it’s gone.”
Kyndi stood up and stepped down with me. I felt her hand grip my arm, and the barely concealed fear in her voice.
“Well, Matty, I guess we’re spending a little more time down here, after all.”
