Easy Money, Part 5
"Skip ahead to the bit where Morg fucking shot people."
Odrida took a sip from her bulb of coffee; she'd been putting off this meeting -- or "After-Action Report," as Morg kept calling it -- for entirely too long. She hadn't meant to. Much. But their two passengers had been every bit the pain in the ass Morg had predicted, and then some.
They were pissed-off about their room -- it was too small, it smelled bad, the bunk was uncomfortable, it had neither an attached bathroom nor a massive hottub. The shower was too small for fucking in more than just a few positions. The toilet was too complicated. The food tasted like shit. They weren't allowed on the bridge, or in the engineering sections, or in anybody's private quarters. The ship was run by three stiffs who were too stuck-up to have sex with them and one creepy old guy who kept staring at Merideth's frequently-exposed tits.
And why was there still gravity?! None of this shit about two days acceleration followed by two more in free-fall -- they were paying for zero motherfucking gravity!!!
Despite doing their best to spend every waking moment in a state of either orgasm or drug-induced euphoria, they were the two most miserable assholes Odrida had ever met.
And as if that weren't enough, Mitch's purifier had chosen this trip to act-up, keeping Izzy and Ham busy trying to deal with a decidedly funky taste to the drinking water.
But Ham and Izzy deserved to know just what kind of trouble they'd gotten into back on Kane Micro. She was sitting at the small mess table with her engineering crew, Morg listening-in from the bridge via the intercom.
"There were three people waiting for us in our room -- some kind of middle-management-looking guy and a pair of thugs, already with guns out. I got their attention, Morg shot the guns out of their hands, I disabled and disarmed the boss."
"Gee, it all sounds so clean and bloodless when you put it that way," Ham scoffed.
"There was a bit of spurting," Odrida conceded. "But everybody left under their own power."
Odrida glanced at Izzy, who was staring at her in shocked silence.
"Bad fucking idea, Reeda," Ham said. "I mean ... bad fucking idea. Why the hell did you two have to go on the offensive? They weren't there to kill you! Throw a little scare into you, tops! Just get you candy-ass civilians to run off their turf with your tails between your legs."
"You don't know that," Morg said over the intercom. "Maybe the would have killed us, maybe not. Either way, leaving that decision to them was a bad idea. We took control of the situation."
"That situation," Ham said. "Next time? They'll show up with ten times the firepower and announce themselves by slamming a few thousand volts through you. These assholes have long memories and huge egos; you have not heard the last of this."
"This is not a gang turf war," Odrida said. "We're legit, and hell-holes like Kane are the exception, not the rule. These assholes wanna dance, I got no problem running for Johnny Law."
Ham snorted. "Girl, for somebody who likes to pretend she's all world-wise and cynical, you got some hard lessons to learn yet."
Odrida's face flushed with anger. "That's Captain Girl to you, jackass." Ham looked away, tossing up his hands in a gesture that may have been an apology, or may have been a lament on the intractability of women in general.
"Ham's made his opinion clear," she said, turning to Izzy. "Isambard? What's your take on all this?"
Izzy stared at his hands, wringing them. "Captain ... with all due respect, it is my belief that Mr. Scarpazzi is correct; I suspect that you and Mr. Morgan may have committed an error in judgment."
Odrida's heart sank; she'd though Izzy would have been all for standing up to the forces of evil or whatever. "How do you figure?" she asked.
"I cannot speak to the criminal mentality the way Mr. Scarpazzi can, but ... Captain, violence begets violence. The Bible teaches us that to live by the sword is to die by it; I fear that this altercation shall indeed escalate."
Ham clapped in triumph. "See? Even Jesus agrees with me! You two fucked up. Captain."
"Hard to turn the other cheek when somebody's put a bullet through both of them," Morg said.
"The path of righteousness is rarely the easy one, Mr. Morgan."
"What's done is done," Odrida said. "Nobody got killed. We may have to watch our backs if we have to put into any more 'lively' ports, but I think this is all going to just blow-over."
"The eternal optimism of youth," Ham said. "We adjourned?"
"We're adjourned."
"Good," Ham said, getting up. "I'm gonna hope the Queen of the Fake Orgasm shuts the fuck up long enough for me to catch some sleep."
"Strap in," Odrida said. "Engine burn terminates in just under two hours."
"Aren't you off-duty for a few more hours?" Morg asked as Odrida pulled herself through the hatch in what was currently the bridge's floor.
"Yup," she said, stepping around the co-pilot's acceleration couch to her own. "Just need to cool-off a bit after the big pow-wow."
She eased herself into the familiar contours of the pilot's acceleration couch, feeling the cool gel mold itself to support her legs, her hips, her shoulders, her neck, her head. Above her was a sky full of shining gems, so clear she felt like she should be able to reach out and grab them.
The tightness around her chest loosened. Some of the tension ebbed from her shoulders.
"How long until engine shutdown?"
"One hour, forty-two minutes."
"Any chance we could shut down now?" she asked, knowing the answer full well.
"Depends. This is a fairly significant lane, and that would represent a substantial deviation from our registered flight plan. How much do we want to piss-off the Trade Authority?"
Odrida sighed. She knew what the responsible course of action was, the sensible one, the one that would help her maintain her image as a completely professional, legitimate, competent starship captain.
And yet ...
She needed to fly. Just a little.
"How are those injectors holding up?" she asked. "The ones Ham was so hype to replace?"
A brief delay. "Doing okay," Morg said. "He's right, we don't wanna push 'em too hard, and they are running a little hot--"
"A little hot, you say?"
Another pause. "Yes." She could hear the grin in Morg's voice. "They are a little hot."
"Well, then. Maybe we should kill the engines for a bit. Let them cool off."
"And how long do you think it'll take them to cool off?"
"Oh, I think five minutes ought to do the trick."
Morg alerted the ship to the premature temporary shutdown while Odrida closed her eyes in anticipation, waiting like a kid on Christmas night. Waiting for the feeling of zero-G, waiting for the invisible shackles of gravity to vanish, waiting for the most perfect sensation of freedom she knew ...
Mitch's engines turned off, taking with them a hum so omnipresent Odrida only noticed it when it vanished. She floated free of the couch and opened her eyes to sparkling infinity.
She barely even heard Morg say "What the fuck?" next to her.
But the tone of his "Oh, shit!" brought her back to reality in a hurry.
"What is it?" she asked, grabbing behind her and pulling herself back into the couch.
"Company," he said. Red lights in the bridge and, presumably, throughout the ship turned on; Morg was about to initiate an emergency burn. "Captain, we have an unknown ship on an intercept course."
"Oh, hell," she said, pulling her Goggles out from under the couch and pulling them over her head. "Any chance that's just a commercial bird off-course?"
"Riding our engine blind spot dead-center and running without a transponder?"
"Fuck," she said, securing the strap across her waist. A full half-gravity of acceleration suddenly shoved her into the couch. "ID?"
"Not yet," he said as she laid down and fastened a strap across her chest. "Two or three times bigger than us, at least."
"Range?"
"Damn close; four-thousand clicks."
"Be a hell of a lot closer if we'd shut-down as scheduled." She tapped her Goggles into Pilot Mode, filling her field of view with a flood of information about her ship and its environment. "All right, I'm on-duty."
"Transferring control now."
And just like that, Mitch was back under her command.
She altered their course slightly to give their sensors a better look at their pursuit, without the interference from the engines that had hidden the other vessel in the first place.
A light in her Goggles informed her the other ship was hailing them. "Comm: accept incoming transmission."
A small square appeared, low in her field of vision, showing their caller.
"Captain Chan," said Tubby McAssface. "It was bad enough that you insulted me, though that could have been forgiven. It was bad enough that you and your first officer assaulted me and my business associates, though that, too, could have been written-off as an unfortunate misunderstanding.
"But you lied to me, Captain. You looked me square in the face and lied to me, with such conviction I am ashamed to confess that I almost believed you.
"For that, Captain, I am afraid you now must answer. Shut down your engines, and prepare to be boarded."
Odrida was at a loss for what to do. "Comm: end transmission."
Her face and hands suddenly felt very, very cold.
"Morg?"
"Captain?"
"Warm-up the railgun."
