“You okay?” A dumb question that I wished I hadn’t asked.
He held up a quivering hand and grimaced through his pained, red-rimmed eyes. “Had better days.”
“Helluva ride.”
“Helluva ride. Didn’t by any chance snatch up that little phaso of his before Baer was grasping for pieces of his arm?”
“Not particularly.” Lies were easy to spill out of my mouth. The disc was a death curse and Marty wasn’t up for what was next.
“Uh huh. Guess we could end up with nothing then after all.”
“Guess so.”
Marty closed his eyes and lay back his slick head against the headrest as the air speeder sputtered along, trailing a stream of ugly black smoke. The engine growled and hiccupped. It wouldn’t stay airborne for long. Below us, the city came into view in all its grisly glory: broken water towers, bombed-over apartment complexes, crumbled buildings, checkerboard smokehouse slums.
“Listen, I have to set us down somewhere. We can’t be caught again.”
A long pause. Marty shook his head. “Ain’t leaving Hoath, Rusco. You’re bad luck to me. Don’t want anything to do with you.”
“Don’t blame you, Marty. I can get you fixed up on Starrunner.”
“Forget it.”
“Suit yourself.”
“Drop me at the nearest U-ground link,” he croaked. “I’ll catch a ride downtown.”
“Dammit Marty, let’s talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to say, Rusco.”
I shrugged. Marty was a proud man. I couldn’t blame him for despising me. The job was a cockup, we’d almost gotten killed, and in his mind, I’d screwed up and abandoned him. Perhaps that’s why I had ridden solo for so long.
Marty spat out a wad of blood on the floor at his feet. I veered down over a side street on the outskirts of the Jildaree district, milling with immigrants. One of the main streets would take Marty to the old market, downtown. He could disappear in the underground like a wisp of air. Part of me hated to leave him, but it was his choice.
In his lucid moments, he’d come to see the dark cloud hovering over me, the one that had shadowed my hide for so long now. The old, painful, rat-gnawing wound in my soul that drew danger and mishap like a moth to the flame.
“So long, Jet,” he muttered with a tired sigh. His crooked grin had gone cold and brittle.
As I landed in a disused equipment yard, I popped open the door and watched him ease off his seat, leaving a blood trail behind. “So long, Marty. Take care of yourself.”
He limped off into the yard, catching the blinking surprise of many ragged beggars and potheads warming their hands around their fires. I opened my mouth to say something, but thought better of it. I took off into the hazy sky, doubting that despite what Marty said, the poor bastard would make it through the night.
Chapter 5
I glided down to the refueling-docking station where I had left Starrunner, a big sun-bleached yard with two mid-size control towers and four rusty hangars. Glad I’d paid my twenty yols to secure it—safe for a little while at least. Anything over two days wasn’t guaranteed, neither here nor at any approved docks on this planet.
I set the stolen speeder down in a designated landing zone and hobbled up to the security guard at Hangar 3. I gave the gate security guard my most disarming smile. He gave me the once-over, frowning at my blackened and bruised appearance and tattered clothing, but after positive ID, he let me pass.
My ship, a sleek and gray Alpha 9 had a rough diamond shape at rear with ox horn-shaped prow at front—a balm for my soul. Many adventures we’d shared together. She’d gotten me out of jams before.
Several other ships were berthed nearby, from the dingiest rustbuckets this side of Vega, to a few Alpha retrofit models with double-flared ion thrusters, cigar fuselages and weapons defense to boot. I couldn’t help but admire these vessels despite my haggard state, beauties in their own right in this day and age. One fine morning I’d graduate to a Kepler 350 or a Hexler 410 A2.
Stay focused, Jet.
The hatch peeled back after I fumbled the controls at the side. I’d rewired the thumbprint ID-pad to bypass the scan, in case my thumbs were less than thumbs.
I ducked into the hatch and stumbled to the bridge, fired up my eagle. I reached below the console and took a bottle, downed a chug of Astra whiskey to loosen me up. Then another. I needed something to take the edge off my agony when I started to really come down off the Myscol. I patted the console with all her lit-up sensors and the extra upgrades I’d installed over the years. A better version of the battle hound older models. Self-refueling, drawing the radiant energy from suns when she came close to one, replenishing the Radium-Cesium ion thrusters and wafer cells. It had less range on impulse power and less speed at sub-warp, but it saved me a lot of grief, and yols, in risking refueling at some redneck, outer-planetary dock.
As the sallow sky grew flat, stars tinkled at the edge of my vision. I heard whispering voices in my head over the hum of the engines as Starrunner passed through the clouds. Hoath became a faraway memory. A stab of bright light licked out from the sun Tiga then disappeared as I arched into planetary shadow, then the blackness of space.
At this point I’m wondering what the hell am I doing? Why pursue this gig, Rusco? Are you a masochist?
Smartest thing would be to get out of the Phaedra sector as fast as I could. To where? Beleron 6? Mixraen? Both planets were safe—relatively speaking. Mixraen, one of the less shabby worlds where I could get this knee looked after without being
