“Sharki can lick it,” said Marty.
The captive’s eyes bulged. Under the stringy hair plastered to his brow, sour sweat dripped. This captain’d resigned himself to a beating or a grungy death, but I saw pride in those glittering eyes, resentful at being sandbagged down on Tyrone City and his ship commandeered by what he could only assume were a couple of amateur opportunists. Pride amongst us males is a dangerous thing. He’d be in a shitload of grief when Sharki learned of his incompetence and negligence.
Thetis Station was fast looming up: a long spidery, gunmetal silver weave of steel, somewhat of a dove-tail shape with double docks mid center equipped with landing apparatus. The biggest ore refinery this side of Pegasus. Cargo bays swung to rear and port side. The honeycomb partitions stored vats of beryl. At each end of the station stood massive parabolic reflectors, a solar gun technology channeling the high intensity rays of Thetis’s sun for the hyperpolarization and ionization of the beryl that would make superior Varwol crystal for ship drives.
Not going to lose much sleep over Sharki’s loss of a shipment or two. Not over one who’s selling black market crystal to warlords out to build lethal weapons and warp drive engines to enslave worlds.
The plan was to rig some diversion in this beryl-processing station orbiting Thetis, steal one of the ore ships and pocket some serious cash. Whether we needed security codes was another matter. If worse came to worse, we’d have to squeeze the captain with knives and fire.
Gras radioed in and we made our approach. The bright crisp voice came over the com. “Captain Ganx, here. Algernon, transmit security code.”
Marty spat out a curse, “The code, fucker.” He jabbed our Captain in the ribs with the butt of his weapon.
The captain snarled. “Eat shit.”
Marty pushed the muzzle of his R4 into the man’s mouth. “We ain’t playing around here, smart boy. We die, you die, fucker, so I’ll ask you again.”
The man wheezed out a groan. At last he spat out a monosyllable. “A264. A264. Back the fuck off.”
“That’s better.” Marty retracted his weapon. He nodded to Gras.
Gras punched the code into the console.
“Get ready to abort and hightail it out of here if this gig goes sour,” I murmured to him.
The authoritarian voice spoke again over the com. “Maintenance 1 crew, you are cleared for dock at Hangar 6. Proceed to Bay 6. Drop your maintenance supplies there.”
“10-4, control.” Gras signed out.
I flashed Marty my dog-toothed grin. “See? All good to go.” They were falling for it. The docking port opened like a wide oval eye. A few feeder vessels shuttled in and out of starboard port, likely more maintenance craft like ours. We passed under the shadow of the conning tower and on through the main gate.
Algernon swept in and I saw the pressure lock aperture close behind us. We were floating under low impulse through the double bay protection screen past grey-black hypertensized steel walls. The chamber pressurized. Like dutiful soldiers, we headed over to dock at the dim-lit Bay 6 where three other vessels sat parked. Gras dimmed the landing lights. I nodded to Marty. We took our weapons and our makeshift gear: pry tools, portable scanners, compact explosives and a tin of flesh regen in case we got banged up. Gras sat tight to guard our trussed-up prisoners and signal us in case of trouble.
Thus far, the maintenance craft with its artificial grav and solar backup power was serving its purpose. The flight manifest roster had entries detailing the previous pickup of backup spare parts and supplies from Tyrone City proper. A good cover for us—maintenance men garbed in grey uniforms with our black service bags full of ‘repair gear’. Just a couple of M-men out for a service check on the power grid at G4.
I regretted we couldn’t use my ship Starrunner for this op. She was a fast ride that I’d pimped up pretty good and would get us out of here if it came to that. I’d debated camouflaging her to look something like Algernon to get inside Thetis Station, but the makeover convoluted what was essentially a simple plan.
We’d studied the schedule. Planned to come in on a shift just before launch of the cargo vessels to the hub world, Mixr. A little dodgy if the wrong people got suspicious, but what’s to gain without some risk?
I recalled the massive solar guns mounted half way below the parabolas and a shudder touched my spine. The power of reworked tech from the past centuries had fallen into the hands of gangsters like Sharki, accelerating his heating and refining operations and pumping out mega product. Good that some of that loot could go toward the Jet Rusco poverty fund.
Marty grumbled on and was toying with the prisoners again. A belligerent SOB, and mean as a snake, but plenty of iron-hard muscle when it came to nasty business. This was nasty business, kid nobody not. An op run by thugs who wouldn’t think twice of pulling out one’s entrails and wrapping them about one’s neck like a hangman’s noose. This heist idea was mostly mine. But feeling the sweat budding under my brow of purple-dyed hair had me wondering what compulsion had thrust me into this hare-brained scheme.
“Play it cool. No embellishments or sudden moves,” I said. “All by the book.” I swung my long legs down the companionway to the cargo hold. Marty trailed at my heels.
The ship’s engines glided us in and I felt a thrill of anticipation touch my spine. Showtime.
Gras parked the craft in as unobtrusive a spot as possible over at the farthest end of the landing depot. I’d studied the layouts on the 3D image. Marty and I hefted our black bags, the weight reassuring on my shoulder while Gras stayed put on armchair alert
