Planet Hustlers: Mission 15 (Black Ocean) Read online

  A monster.

  It was such an easy path. Out here, with innocent victims in short supply, Esper could even have justified most of her actions. But this was a war she would wage for the rest of her days. Her moral code had shifted and flowed, evolving as she discovered more of the wide universe she inhabited. But it was still a moral code. Sexual mores and chemical experimentation came nowhere near the sort of murderous, mentally cannibalistic impulses that tempted her from the Tome of Bleeding Thoughts.

  Please, Emily. Don’t make me force your hand.

  Perhaps there was something in Esper’s manner. Maybe her words had carried more heft and eloquence than they’d sounded spilling from her lips. But Emily broke.

  “Very well. I’ll hear him out. But I’ll be on my guard for deceit. Do what you will to me, but I’ll not be made a laughingstock. I have as my solace the very limits of my imagination that I cannot conceive what you might be able to inflict upon my most precious possession—my mind. But I would fain never know that answer and tempt not the capriciousness of your ire.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  # # #

  Rai Kub stared at his datapad. It stared back, blank face accusing, camera waiting for his command to begin transmitting his image.

  They’d left him alone in his quarters. Privacy. That was the term they’d used for his imprisonment. The implication had been clear: Rai Kub wasn’t to emerge without having made the comm.

  He cleared his throat.

  Rai Kub set the datapad down and looked away. Lives were on the line. Savior Carl was an idiot. This whole plan was going to get a lot of people killed. Criminals didn’t play by rules. Someone wouldn’t like the result, and there would be bloodshed. It was inevitable. There was no way this plan could work. The more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that this was the rumble of the coming stampede.

  Three-fingered hands rubbed together, fretting for lack of any productive purpose to apply them. Rai Kub picked up the datapad for something to hold onto. Squeezing shut his eyes, he pretended it wasn’t there in his grasp.

  The datapad chimed. Startled, Rai Kub dropped it to the floor. He scooted away from it as if it were rabid.

  He was being childish. The datapad didn’t know who he was planning to comm. There was no way it could have anticipated.

  Reaching a trembling hand down, he flipped the datapad over. There was a message waiting for him.

  “Just make the damn comm.”

  It was from Carl.

  The comm had traveled light-years to the nearest astral relay and bounced back, traveling a net distance of just the few meters to the common room. Rai Kub cast baleful eyes at the door, as if it would take pity on him and keep him safe from his friends.

  It was too big a responsibility. Even if Carl took credit for the plan, it was still Rai Kub making the request.

  But if the plan failed, could things get any worse for his people? What if it worked after all? Didn’t he owe the stuunji exiles the chance?

  He should have quashed the poker idea the moment it came up. Caught up in the moment. That’s what he’d been. Herd insanity. That might stand up in court. Rai Kub cast his eyes downward in shame.

  On the left hand, he had the safe and pliant path. Let the pirates win. Leave New Garrelon subject to their mercy and pray that they were more benevolent masters than Earth Navy had proved.

  On the right hand, the poker game. Carl’s ludicrous plan reduced New Garrelon to a prize to be won over cards. Or lost. That was important. The Poet Fleet already had New Garrelon, and if the stuunji were to get it back, they needed the pirates to lose it. Driving them out, even if by miracle the stuunji had the means by which to do it, would involve untold bloodshed.

  The right hand of the scale tipped low, and Rai Kub knew he had talked himself into a decision. Tapping slowly, he entered the comm ID for Wen Luu.

  A minute later, it connected. “Ah, Rai Kub. Good news, I pray?”

  The voice of Captain Wen Luu was high by stuunji reckoning. He was a tiny man, barely larger than some humans. But for all his lack of stature, he was one of the few stuunji with real fight in him. For centuries, the best and most successful among his people had been priests and community-builders, not warriors. When Carl had sold the Harmony Bay ship to his people, they had needed a captain with that kind of spirit.

  That had been Wen Luu.

  Now, it was Rai Kub’s turn to show some fraction of that determination, that willingness to risk the safety of his people to secure their liberty. “I need to ask a favor.”

  “We’re not in a strong position here, my friend,” Wen Luu said with a slow shake of his head. “I wish it were otherwise. However, I will hear your request, and if it is in my power, I will lend what meager aid I can.”

  “Savior Carl has a risky plan to secure the liberation of New Garrelon,” Rai Kub said, hoping that his nerves didn’t come through in his voice.

  “Savior Carl has gathered a fleet to retake the homeworld? My ship is yours!”

  Rai Kub cringed, only remembering belatedly that it was a video comm. “I’m sorry, Captain Wen Luu. That’s not how I meant it. Savior Carl’s plan calls for no bloodshed.”

  Wen Luu tugged at his uniform collar. “We all are familiar with Savior Carl’s background. I know how my ship was obtained. If Savior Carl expects us to be of aid, we’ll do what we can, but my skills aren’t—”

  “No! Not that either,” Rai Kub blurted. He was sweating just having this conversation. “Savior Carl needs your ship for a neutral site. He intends to gamble for the fate of New Garrelon.”

  “How are we a neutral site? We’re clearly aligned with New Garrelon and with Savior Carl.”

  Rai Kub had been sketchy on that detail as well. He had already asked that very same question of Carl and gotten an answer he would not stoop to conveying to the stuunji exiles’ greatest living hero.

  “It was through that verbal trickery that I imagine none of our kind will ever understand. Savior Carl knows the human mind all too well and convinced both sides. He has a stake in another planet that he will offer up on our behalf. We risk nothing but the safety of the Clapton by this gesture. New Garrelon has already been taken from us. We have just one last bastion of hope left between us and complete domination once again.”

  “Us.”

  “Yes, Wen Luu. You. Savior Carl’s record of results is impressive, but this plan sounds foolhardy to me. I would understand if you refused his request.”

  “Never!”

  Rai Kub recoiled. He hadn’t expected such a vociferous response.

  “I would sooner die in the attempt than to walk away and allow the blockade of New Garrelon to persist. The high council put their faith in Carl Ramsey, and he has sent you to request my aid. You shall have it. I consider this to be a request on behalf of all the stuunji exiles. If Savior Carl has twisted the logic of these pirates to accept the Clapton as a neutral site, I couldn’t live with myself knowing that effort on our behalf had gone unharvested in the fields. Just send coordinates and a time for a rendezvous, and the Clapton will be there.”

  The comm ended.

  Rai Kub breathed a sigh of relief. He should have thought of it earlier, shuffling responsibility off on Wen Luu. He was responsible for the safety of his ship and crew, not Rai Kub. It was the captain’s call to make.

  He was just glad that he hadn’t been forced to tell Wen Luu that he’d been deemed a neutral site because neither the poets nor the Ruckers considered them a threat.

  # # #

  Carl cracked his knuckles. This was his domain. He was the boss here. No one was going to push him around or get the better of him.

  He looked over his shoulder. He was alone in his quarters.

  Amy was up in the cockpit, watching the countdown tick away until realspace. It was still hours away, but it was never a good idea to leave the cockpit unattended when the destination was hostile territory.

  Carl propped up his d
atapad and joined the two waiting participants in the virtual meeting room.

  “Good evening, ladies,” Carl said graciously, sketching an abbreviated bow.

  Tanny was seated in a darkened room with no hint to where she might have been. It could have been a cabin on a battleship or an underground bunker on Carousel for all he knew. She was still rocking that all black hard-ass businesswoman look, and if he could forget the Tanny he knew, it even worked.

  Chisholm sat in a high-backed chair with hints of activity in the background. Clearly, she was on the bridge of her flagship, the Too Many Words to Remember for Carl’s Liking. He wasn’t going to memorize poems just to keep a damn ship’s name in his head. The pirate admiral glared lasers through a pair of antique glasses that made her look older than she really was.

  “So. We’re really going to do this?” Tanny asked. Looking left and right just slightly indicating where Carl and Chisholm resided relative to her screen.

  “So it would seem,” Chisholm replied with an arched eyebrow.

  “I’ve secured the Clapton for the venue,” Carl said. “Stuunji waitstaff will take care of all the refreshments. If you have any dietary requirements, just forward—”

  “Drop it out of astral, Carl,” Tanny snapped. “I’ve got actual issues I want to hammer out here.”

  “As do I,” Chisholm added.

  “This is a three-way game, right?” Tanny asked. “Well, I want to be able to appoint a player from my organization to represent me.”

  Carl chuckled. “Aww. What’s the matter? Afraid to get your planet yanked out from under you playing your own cards? Geez. You’d think the pharma was helping your cognitive skills.”

  He could see the blood vessels heating beneath her skin. With a tentative agreement already in place, Tanny couldn’t afford to back out now. Carl could needle her all he liked without her walking away.

  “I’ll make you eat those words,” Tanny promised.

  Chisholm sniffed in imitation of a chuckle. “‘If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.’ Katherine Hepburn.”

  “Whatever,” Carl said, not wanting to get into a philosophical debate at the moment. “Bring whatever ringer you want. Both of you.”

  “Oh, I intend to play my own hand,” Chisholm replied. “I wouldn’t ask another to command my fleet, nor would I shirk my duty to my crew and captains by delegating such an important task to a lesser player. A captain must go down with his ship; so must an admiral go down with her cards.”

  “Well, then. I’m going to put forth Amy as my champion,” Carl said with a smirk.

  Tanny’s face fell. “No.”

  “Huh?” Carl replied.

  “You did just appear to condone proxies,” Chisholm agreed.

  In her darkened room, Tanny leaned in toward her camera. Her face grew on screen. “No. Carl plays, or this deal is off. This is his bullshit scheme. I want to watch him implode and give away his stake in Ithaca.”

  Chisholm held up a delicate finger. “Point of order, that was one item I wished to verify. We need to confirm Captain Ramsey’s stake in this clandestine venture.”

  Tanny threw her head back and scoffed. “This oughta be good. Me too. I want to hear it straight from Chuck that you’re good for half his planet.”

  Carl shrugged, making sure to raise his shoulders high enough for the camera to catch the gesture. “Sure. I’ll get you ladies patched through to him once we’re done here.”

  # # #

  Roddy was flipping through the holovid library when Carl burst into the common room. Their esteemed captain was panting for breath.

  “I just got off the comm with Tanny and that poet admiral,” Carl gasped out with hardly a pause between words. “I need some tech help, NOW.”

  Passing his beer off to Shoni, Roddy put up his upper hands. “OK. Slow down. What the hell did you just promise them?”

  This was classic Carl, except usually it wasn’t a panic job while they were still in astral. Usually, someone had to start shooting at them first. Then again, the Mobius crew’s crisis threshold was almost always outside of their comfort zone.

  “They want to check with Chuck that I actually have a claim on half of Ithaca.”

  Roddy’s shoulders shook. He turned to Shoni. “See? Told ya they’d want evidence.”

  Shoni nodded sadly.

  Carl’s mouth hung open. “You told her? What about telling me? I could have used some time to, you know, prepare.”

  Roddy slid off the couch. “You did your part, peach-fuzz. I’ve got this under control.” He ambled over and pounded on Yomin’s door. “You in the middle of anyone?”

  An irate Yomin shouted back through the door. “Not funny, little man. You and I are gonna have a long talk after this about omni relay protocols.”

  Roddy leaned against the wall beside her door. “Wouldn’t be a security system if the book solution worked on it. All the pieces mesh.”

  “What’s going on?” Carl asked. His furrowed ape brow showed that realization was dawning on him. The rest of the crew hadn’t been sitting idly by, hoping that he would have everything under control. The next time Carl pulled off a mission all on his own would be the first. The captain of the Mobius didn’t know one tenth what went on aboard his ship.

  “Remember that astral relay we set up for the syndicate?” Roddy asked, leading Carl down a path to where he should have been able to see the final answer for himself.

  “You gonna threaten to blow it up unless Chuck plays along?” Carl guessed.

  Roddy covered his face with a palm. “Why is your species so successful?”

  “Forward the logs to ARGO?”

  Roddy’s lower feet clenched.

  “Steal it?”

  “We’re going to intercept comm traffic on it and impersonate Chuck!” Roddy shouted. “Holy. Bloody. Hell. You’re dense enough to stop alpha radiation.”

  Carl cringed. “I can do a decent Chuck, I guess. Can you guys rig it up to get the voice on—”

  “Way ahead of you,” Roddy assured him. “Actually, we’ve lapped you and passed you a second time.” He banged a fist on Yomin’s door. “C’mon. Hurry up in there. Sanitizing a jump relay can only take so long. They’ll get suspicious soon.” Roddy paused. “Suspicious-er. Dealing with Carl and knowing his history, they’re plenty suspicious to start with.”

  The door opened. “Just finishing up,” Yomin said. She looked over to Carl. “Gimme your datapad.”

  Carl handed it over. The look of bewilderment changed, but the result was just a different, equally puzzled, expression. This was all clearly going right through his air circulator without catching in the filter.

  Yomin tapped away, plugging the device into her datalens briefly before unplugging it and handing it back.

  “What’d you just do?” Carl asked.

  “No time to get into it. Just call your playmates back and give them the IDs listed there for the comm relay and Chuck’s personal account. Let them know we’ve disguised it so they can’t trace Ithaca’s location from the relay.”

  “Did you?” Carl asked.

  Roddy kicked him in the shin. “Just go! The longer you wait the less likely they are to buy it.”

  Yomin disappeared back into her quarters as Carl headed for his. Figuring he’d rather be where the action was, Roddy chose to follow Yomin.

  Inside, Archie sat there, fiber cables dangling out of his torso, ready for action. Roddy pulled out his own datapad and tapped into a non-broadcast link only available aboard the Mobius.

  “Hey there, little lady,” Archie said in Chuck’s melodious baritone. He was answering a comm from Tanny. “How can I be of service?” Alongside the voice broadcast was an out-of-sync video feed of the sort that cheap or distant astral relays were prone to. It showed digitally generated footage of the senior Ramsey that looked plenty convincing to Roddy.

  “What’s the real estate situation on Ithaca?” Tanny asked. Ro
ddy bobbed his head approvingly. She wasn’t going to ask leading questions and give Chuck the ammo to play along in case Carl hadn’t forewarned him. Smart. Basic, but smart. Typical Tanny.

  But fake Chuck had to act like the real thing. There was no such thing as a straight answer, especially not if he sniffed out a motive. He flashed that used starship salesman grin of his. “We’re a burgeoning market. Haight-Ashbury, Notting Hill, Zott Ridge, Back Bay, then Ithaca Southern Hemisphere. I think we’ll overtake Luna as a tourist spot by next fall. I might be able to cut you a deal on some prime ancient ruins if you’re looking to buy in. You know, favor for a family friend, if not a daughter-in-law.”

  “What if I wanted to buy from Carl instead?” Tanny asked.

  “Nah,” Chuck replied without missing a beat. “I’ll give you a better deal than he would. Couple of his cities took heavy damage in Mort’s purge—God rest his crusty old soul. I can guarantee you one with nothing leveled but that magic-killing tower. I’ll throw in a few hundred square kilometers of jungle for modern development—you know, star port, restaurants, and such.”

  Before Tanny’s reply, a second comm routed through the relay. This time it was Admiral Chisholm.

  “Brush her off,” Roddy whispered, even though neither of the conversations was taking place over an open line. “Tell her you’ll get back to her once you conclude other business.”

  Archie held up a hand. One glowing eye blinked off in a robotic wink. He replied in his own voice. “I’ve got this under control. My mind isn’t single-threaded or as slow as yours.”

  Weird, thinking this techo-human was once a wizard. Guess being made of tech can dry out a lot of soggy old arguments against it.

  “Am I speaking to Charles Chaplin Ramsey?” Chisholm asked in that prissy, phony accent of hers.

  “One and the same,” Archie replied on Chisholm’s comm line.

  “What if I were already in possession of Carl’s share?” Tanny asked.

  “I’d like to inquire as to the asking price of one half share of Ithaca,” Chisholm said, inclining her head to peer down her nose at the screen.