Waria settled back into the rich leather interior and flicked his forked tongue out, tasting the air.
Bad news hooman, he thought. All hoomans always news bad.
Murch was directed into the front side passenger seat of the convertible sled while navy chump slid onto the back bench of Waria’s flashy ride.
“What happened to Sully?” asked Waria more of the pig man than of Bowie.
“He broke him,” indicated Murch sullenly.
“I broke him,” confirmed Bowie, the powerful snub-nosed blaster now pointing at the Lahursian’s slender frame. Snake men were incredibly muscled across their midsection. But blasters went straight through them at this range. One of the side effects of their slender structure.
Bowie smiled.
You always get more with honey than vinegar, his grandma had once told him. Throughout his years, Grandma’s advice had been as valuable to Jack Bowie as all the most competent naval training in Escape and Evasion, Interrogation, Termination, and Demolition had been. Even the bits involving ultra-violence provided by hardened Legion NCO instructors.
“So what now?” asked Waria. “I tell you where party is and you kill us in back alley.”
“Nah,” said Bowie. “Deal’s still on. You’ll get your cut. But now you’re playing for percentages. What did we agree on?”
“Five percent.”
“Three percent,” replied Bowie.
“Three percent!” hissed the snake man. “Three percent is no credits for many. Why two percent less?”
“You tried to kill me,” replied Bowie good-naturedly.
The snake man thought about this.
“It’s true,” said Murch with a soft, almost sympathetic snort. His gaze remonstrating his boss for something he’d been told to do.
Waria shot his lieutenant a look of disgust. But unless you were Lahursian, you had no idea that such a look had been given. The narrowing of the iris within the slatted eye and the quick flick of the viper’s tongue in a specific direction would have led to an all-out fight with fangs bared back on that swampy world. But here, Waria could get away with such a dismissive gesture and not have to strike to the death. Its meaning was completely lost on the stupid swolly as well as the “hooman” pointing a blaster at his guts.
“So let’s get going to the party?” suggested Bowie, the briefcase on the rear bench next to him. Resting on rich red Ankalorian leather. A must-have when Waria had ordered this vehicle. That and the full weapons package that deployed from beneath at the press of a button.
Not now.
Maybe chances there will be, he thought in his snaky way of thinking, I will sink my fangs into great wealth.
Such thoughts of opportunistic violence to achieve wealth beyond imagining were common. But weren’t a reality yet.
“Easy not so much hurry,” announced Waria as he started the sled.
Jack Bowie leaned back, blaster still out, and put on his sunglasses. It was going to be a long, hot day in Soob City. That was for sure.
07
“Party at Cliffside,” said Waria over the drone of the convertible sled’s engine. “First off, not easy district to get into. Many former Republican diplomats and officials make their living now. Since boom go, Republic many have private armies there now. Weapons high tech. Killers professional. Legionnaires who serve no longer find work expensive to pay. Money free to keep powerful safe in holes.”
“And…” prompted Bowie as the sled hit the main transit through the heart of a protectorate that was turning into a city rising in all directions at once. Every corporation had set up an outpost here within the last two years. Whereas once Kublar had been some backwater legionnaires had been sent to die on for no real reason anyone outside Utopion could fathom, now it was an economic boomtown. At least here in the zone.
“And… Waria pay to reach Sustus Caul’s estate where party happening all the time… or we get pulled over and searched. Finding they will your briefcase. Which you will open. And then we all die quickly. Very much so with much screaming.”
“So how do I get in?”
“We. Words is we,” demanded Waria. “We partners, hooman. Three percent partners.”
Bowie looked off. The sun was beginning to climb over the top of the highest buildings. He had another plan. But… it involved playing high stakes poker. So… maybe there was another way today. But time was running out.
Maybe.
“Happy girls.”
Pig man’s eyes went wide, and then narrowed with delight.
“Happy girls?” asked Bowie.
“Happy girls,” replied the snake man. “Girls coming in on freighter today at noon. Landing at Qwamdolla star port out in Sundance. Fun time party girls coming in from the mid-core. We go in with them.”
“Fun time party girls?”
Murch nodded happily.
“What’s the catch?” asked Bowie.
The snake man hissed. “Catch there always is. I think in your profession… they call it a hijacking. Pull one you ever, hooman?”
“Yeah,” said Bowie.
Except in the Marines, they called it assault boarding.
08
The trick to Waria’s plan didn’t involve hijacking the freighter coming in from the mid-core, the Silver Koan out of Vanusia. That was the good part. The freighter would set down at Qwamdolla star port out in Sundance. It was a fringe field that was little more than a massive duracrete apron on the edge of a cyclopean sprawl of shipping and trade that had been set up to do business for Soob City.
Jacking an entire freighter while carrying a case full of Ice with two partners who might shoot you in the back at any moment was beyond anyone’s skill set, reasoned Bowie.
Now the three of them were parked on a side street beneath a ramshackle tower in downtown Soob City that offered berthing spots for the local dropship trade.
“Berth eight oh fourteen,” hissed Waria. “Dropship prepping with crew…”
“It’s not oh. It’s just eight fourteen,” said Bowie as he studied the building from behind his shades.
Waria stopped and swiveled his triangular head around to stare at Bowie in the back seat of his car. And
