Easy Money, Part 3
"Ham's been on my ass for a new set of injection coils for months," Odrida said as she and Morg strode towards the small on-station quarters the two of them had been sharing with Izzy. "Head down to Star-X and score us some."
"Can we afford that?"
"We will when our two passengers pay us up-front."
"And if they sober-up and bail before that happens?" Morg asked.
"Keep the receipt."
"Right. What'll you be doing?"
"Plotting and registering our flight plan," Odrida said.
They were in the "hotel" area of deck 12, where Holiday Comfort Suites rented-out rooms. The carpet was threadbare, the jaunty red paint needed a fresh coat, and the doors tended to made ominous groaning noises when they slid open.
"Supplies?" Morg asked as they arrived at the door to their room.
Odrida shook her head. "Nah. We're in good shape for now." She pressed her thumb to the scanner. As though it were waking itself from a deep sleep and resented the interruption, the door opened.
"It's always a good--"
Three people were standing in front of the bunks embedded in the wall at the other side of the small room. Two of them were pointing guns at Odrida and Morg.
"Mr. Morgan," said the one without the gun, a jowly middle-aged man with a hard stare and a cheap blue suit. "Kindly keep your hands where I can see them. Ms. Chan, if you would be so kind, I'd rather we conduct our business behind closed doors."
Odrida felt a brief jolt of animal fear that vanished just as quickly as it had come. This was far from the most dangerous situation she'd ever been in. She looked at the two goons; one was a bulky woman who looked like she lifted a lot of weights, the other was a skinny, twitchy young man who looked like he took a lot of pills. Both were wearing SmartGoggles™, no doubt patched-in to the mismatched pistols in their hands.
Neither of these two assholes was the most dangerous person in the room. Odrida wasn't even sure they ranked in the top two.
She closed the door.
"Thank you Ms. Chan," Tubby McAssface said. "Now, if we could--"
"Who are you and what the fuck are you doing in my quarters?" She stepped around Morg, crossing her arms and glaring at Tubby.
He seemed taken aback for a moment, but recovered quickly. "Who I am is of no consequence, Ms. Chan. But my--"
"Really?" Odrida asked, stepping between his two goons -- She-Trog and Twitchy Trog -- and staring up into his face. "'Cuz in my mind you're named 'Tubby McAssface.' Sure you don't want to do better than that?"
"My employer," Tubby said, his face reddening with anger, "is already most displeased by your business dealings, Ms. Chan. It would behoove you to show some manners."
He nodded to She-Trog. That was the moment both goons turned their attention to Odrida. She could tell, even though her eyes never left Tubby's, because that was the moment Morg's gun exploded twice.
She-Trog yelped. Twitchy Trog screamed. Odrida kicked Tubby in the nuts, grabbed his tie, and slammed his head down into the nearby dresser.
Both goons were clutching their hands against themselves, Twitchy Trog howling obscenities at Morg who stood by the door, gun drawn. The goons' weapons were lying ruined on the floor.
Odrida gave the stunned Tubby a quick pat-down, found a small pulse-laser pistol under his left shoulder, and removed it before he'd recovered his wits enough to protest. She slid it under her belt and stepped past Morg into the bathroom.
"Here ya go," she said moments later, tossing each of the three wounded intruders a towel. "Now," she said, crouching down in front of Tubby, who was still curled and bleeding on the floor. "I believe you had something you wanted to tell us?"
Tubby coughed. "Listen, you little bitch--"
She pulled the pulser out of her belt and charged it. The brief high-pitched whine shut Tubby up very quickly.
"Let's try this again," she said, pistol pointed off to the side. "See, you've got your Bullshit Macho Posturing knob cranked-up to eleven. Dial it down to one. Two, tops. Now. My name's Odrida Chan, but you know that. What's your name? Or are you content with Tubby McAssface?"
He sighed and pressed the towel to his bleeding nose -- though it wasn't bleeding as much as she would have preferred. She'd been trying to break it. "Emil Hasegawa."
Odrida nodded in appreciation. "Thank you. Politeness demands I say it's a pleasure or something stupid, but we both know it's a lie, so let's just skip that bit."
"Captain," Morg said. "Keep it brief. I nicked his artery."
Odrida glanced at Twitchy Trog, who just now seemed to be noticing the small bright-red spurts coming from his right wrist. "Oh, you shit-munching cock-breathed piece of--"
"Blade!" Emil barked. "Shut the fuck up and press the towel over it! The towel in your other hand, smacktard!"
Odrida glanced at She-Trog, who looked poised to leap on her, but Morg swung his gun around.
"Careful," he said to She-Trog in a calm voice. "No more warning shots. The next round goes through your skull."
She settled back on her heels.
"Your guy needs an ER," Odrida said. "So, gimme the short version. Who do you represent, what'd I do to piss him off, and why do I give a rat's ass?"
"Ms. Chan," Emil said, blinking tears of pain out of his eyes, "this station is not as lawless as you might suspect. It is governed by its own set of rules, which may not be written but must be respected nevertheless. In particular, those governing the transport--"
"Jesus, this is the short version?"
"Smugglers," Morg said. "Mr. Hasegawa represents the smuggling cartel."
"We prefer 'independent traders,'" he said. "And it's not one monolithic cartel, as you imply, but rather a collection of--"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Odrida said, making "get on with it" motions with his gun. "Skip ahead to the point where I pissed you off."
"You see," Emil said, still trying to hid his discomfort behind a wall of words, "the people I represent are particularly interested in the transport of certain chemical substances--"
"Drug smugglers," Odrida said, realization settling-in. "You're pissed off because you think we're muscling in on your action, right?"
"Not to say that we don't sometimes entertain the possibility of inviting new associates to our ranks, but there are certain procedures--"
"Well, I got good news for ya, sparky," she said. "You win. You scared us off. No drug smuggling for us."
Emil stared at her, baffled.
"At least," she continued, "that's what you can tell your bosses. You know, tough fight, 'You oughta see the other guy,' all that crap, capped off by a big fat 'Mission accomplished!'
"But ya see," she said, dropping into hushed tones, "just between us, we were never doing the drug-smuggler thing in the first place."
"But--"
"I know," she said. "We've been meeting all kinds of shady characters with all sorts of nifty 'spices' and 'dietary supplements' and 'precious stones' and 'teddy bears' they want transported somewhere else, probably at cheaper rates than what you're trying to charge them. I told all of them the same thing I'm about to tell you:
"Go fuck yourself. We're legit."
"Surely you don't expect me to believe--"
"We're shipping out of here with a rich stoner idiot and his skanky stoner girlfriend, who will spend a very long trip complaining about our food and finding inappropriate places to screw. Go and check with all those douchebags looking for somebody to haul their euphemisms; none of them are doing business with us."
Emil stared at her, anger and confusion etched into his face. "I see," he finally said. "Perhaps there has been a misunderstanding."
"Glad to hear you say that!" she said, standing and offering Emil a hand to help him get to his feet. He refused it, getting off the floor under his own power.
Emil glowered at Odrida and Morg, but the bloody white towel he held to his nose spoiled whatever intimidating effect this might have had. Morg stepped aside as Emil slunk to the exit, motioning for his two wounded henchmen to follow. They recovered their wrecked guns and strode after him, Twitchy Trog leaving a trail of little red droplets on the floor.
"Mr. Hasegawa?" Odrida said while the door grudgingly opened.
Emil turned around.
She made a show of admiring his pulser, a petite Stephenson Firearms model that looked expensive as hell. "Nice piece," she said. She popped-out the battery and tossed it and then the weapon back to him. "We're not thieves, either."
Emil nodded curtly, then stormed off down the hall.
The door grumbled shut. She and Morg stood in silence for a moment. She shivered from a delayed blast of adrenaline.
"How long before the cops get here, you think?" she asked.
"Probably a week or two."
"And how long before Tubby comes back with heavily-armed reinforcements?"
"Any time between two hours and two minutes."
They thought for another long moment.
"Run for our fuckin' lives?" she asked.
"Works for me."
