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With a dying whine, the tachyon generator cut out. The VM-84 dropped back down to sublight speed with a shudder, like one last kick in the ass on the way out the door. The color drained from the blueshifted stars and pooled into a cerulean puddle right in front of them.
Croshaw, Blaze thought. Back again.
Seated behind the console, he hammered its mechanical keyboard. The starnet browser popped up and linked to the ViaDUCT node orbiting the planet. Their gateway to the wide, wild galaxy. Below, in the pilot's seat, Rsh turned the control yoke and aligned the nose with the world's edge for their descent. The planet rotated around a fixed point in space, messing with Blaze's sense of balance.
"How's about we take a gander at what's going on in this here corner of the galaxy?" he said, a cowboy drawl in his voice.
The door behind his back opened. Since Philomena was already somewhere behind him, that must be Luci.
Status updates spilled down the browser, but a big red banner pinned to the top caught his eye.
"Hey, piracy alert for this system," he said.
Luci's feet stopped in their tracks. "P-Pirates?" she asked.
He turned the bucket seat halfway around so he could look at her. She stood stiff as a steel rod, her feet digging into the deck and her hands fidgeting at her sides. Her eye twitched as she stared at him. Because he was sitting down, she was taller than him … but only slightly.
"You feelin' yellow-bellied, Ramirex?" he drawled. "Well, don't you worry none." He lifted his thumb and pointed it as his chest. "Blaze Corvo, quickest draw in the galaxy, is here."
Philomena had been staring through the canopy, watching their descent. When Blaze spoke, she gave him a little sneery side-eye. He gave her one right back. Rolling her eyes, she glowered at the planet and pointedly ignored him.
Well, same to you, Blaze thought.
Luci cleared her throat. A flurry of motion went through her body. Raising her head to stare into the far corner of the flight deck, she cocked her hip and made a few clumsy, awkward attempts to put her hands on her hips in a way that displayed an air of confidence. After a few failures, she crossed her arms instead. But she dug in so tight, it looked like she was hugging herself for comfort instead.
"Pirates? Ha! I-I'm not scared. Not a bit. Who said I was scared?"
Chuckling, Blaze turned his chair back to the console and took a look at the piracy alert.
"That's a mighty big bounty they got on them," he said.
From past the console, Rsh said, "They have angered somebody."
Jokingly, Blaze asked, "Want to go pirate-hunting?"
Behind him, Luci sucked a sharp rush of air through her nostrils.
"They would look at us once … and fly on," Rsh said.
Blaze looked around at their dilapidated starship. "Suppose you're right. Let's see what else is going on."
He swept his eyes over the attention-grabbing status updates. It was like hunting for something valuable in a nebula full of garbage. Luci hovered behind his chair and peered at the monitor over his shoulder. After a little bit, he sensed Philomena inch up behind him too. He could just imagine the look on her face, peeking at the screen while trying to pretend she wasn't interested.
"Something happened on Calcephor," Luci said.
Blaze maximized the status update. "Looks like that planet baron who was hanging onto the place made a secret deal with the Altrax mining consortium."
"Altrax," Philomena spat under her breath.
"After all that fighting," Luci said, " he just gave it up …"
"Presumably …" Rsh said while he aligned the planet's rim with the lines on the HUD, "… he wished to spite GeoForce."
"GeoForce," Philomena spat under her breath.
Blaze pulled up a list of relevant status updates and breezed through them. "Altrax sent Lightning Strike in to counter Golden Guard. All the indie mercs got told to pack their bags and go home. Now Golden Guard and Lightning Strike are in a stalemate while Altrax and GeoForce fight it out in court."
Hey, my accent's slipping … He fumbled around his brains for something cowboy-ish to say, then he raised his voice up into a boisterous drawl.
"I bet they'd settle it quicker with pistols at dawn, I reckon—!"
"Unfortunate."
Even though Rsh didn't talk any louder than he normally did, his voice utterly ploughed through Blaze's. He shot a dirty look at the back of Rsh's head, despite the console blocking his line of sight.
"What's unfortunate?" Luci asked.
Blaze declared, "All those brave indie mercs without a battle to fight. It's a right shame—"
"Calcephor is nearby," Rsh explained, his voice ramming right through Blaze's again. "Out-of-work thugs … shady spaceport … large pirate bounty … It may get rowdy."
"We like rowdy, partner," Blaze said. "For a tough-talking, straight-shooting badass like me, 'rowdy' is the kind of shindig that I dig."
"Uh … yeah!" Luci chimed in. "Wh-What he said!"
Blaze's eyes swept over the status updates again, while he wondered how things were going to shake out on Calcephor.
The galactic government took a very hands-off approach to running the frontier. They had no military of their own. When it came to a dispute over a privately-owned planet, all the courts could do was issue a letter of marque authorizing one side to use mercenaries to enforce their claim. The winner still had to foot the bill for all the mercs they needed. In the end, only multiplanetaries had the deep pockets and the clout to come out on top.
Everybody else on the frontier settled their disputes by themselves, or with hired guns.
Indie mercs didn't give a crap about letters of marque unless they could make a buck off one, but rated outfits like Lightning Strike and Golden Guard were honor-bound to follow them. Mercenary rating agencies like Blibbitz & Boom's watched those hombres like hawks, making sure they played by the rules, so corporate clients knew what they were paying for. For a rated outfit, disobeying a letter of marque was the same as sticking a blaster in your mouth and pulling the trigger.
All the more reason to be your own gunslinger, Blaze thought. When you're an indie merc, all you need is your wits and a good blaster at your side.
But, as the status updates reminded him, the ruckus on Zantaura they recently blundered into might've caused the mercenary rating system to fray at the seams … but it hadn't come undone just yet. He wasn't thrilled about being reminded of what'd happened, so he scrolled past those updates as quick as he could.
Ahead, the horizon's curve flattened out. The VM-84 descended towards the cloud cover and the blue landmass beneath it.
"Ooh!" Philomena said, leaning over his shoulder. "A list of last year's most game-changing executive memos—!"
Blaze scrolled the page and made the status update, from some lame corporate culture magazine, slide off the screen.
"Moving on," he declared.
She unleashed a whirlwind of motion just outside his line of sight, but he didn't bother looking.
"Hey, bring that back! I wanted to read it!"
"You've got an omnitablet, don't you? Read it yourself."
"Hmph. Well, somebody seems to think I don't do any work around here—"
"That's not true."
"Oh, isn't it?"
"Yeah. Everybody thinks you don't do any work around here."
The lazy, incompetent woman who called herself a chief executive snorted bitterly.
Behind him, in his opposite ear, Luci's breathless voice said, "I think you do plenty of work around here."
"See?" Philomena tutted. "Ramirex knows how hard I work."
She's just sucking up to you so she can … He shook his and let Luci have her moment. She got pretty rattled when they descended into the crater, after all.
"Anyway," Philomena said. "I think you should read about what it's like to be a chief executive. That way, I can start getting the praise I deserve. My executive style adds so much to this company."
"When shall it start adding money … to our bank account?" Rsh asked.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
As an outraged squawk came from Philomena, Blaze put his fist in front of his mouth and snickered into it.
"Ugh," she said. "Corvo, pull the article up."
"No. It's my ship, and I don't care." He continued scrolling the list, ignoring the angry buzz of outrage he sensed behind his back. "Hey, I got something for you, Rsh. Mining company just went belly-up."
The pale, dark blue of the planet's atmosphere seeped upwards and covered the starfield.
"How?"
Blaze checked the related updates. "One of their dig sites got wiped out by local wildlife, so they … wiped out the wildlife right back." Then, realizing his accent was slipping again, he cleared his throat and spoke in a forceful drawl. "Ain't that just life on the frontier?"
Bluntly, Rsh said, "Why would that … put them out of business?"
"Looks like some of them animal rights activists raised a ruckus."
Rsh scoffed, "That would do nothing."
"Well, who cares? If their mining equipment goes on the market for cheap, does it really matter?"
"I prefer to know … all variables."
Blaze leaned back in the bucket seat and kicked his boots up on the console's edge. "You're the computer programmer, not me. I deal with things as they come. That's how gunslingers like me fly."
The starship sliced through the sky and headed for the sprawling settlement on the horizon. The sun had cleared the horizon but the sky hadn't brightened past the dark pale blue of predawn found on an Earthlike world. It was eerie to look at. Like a camera with its exposure cranked way down.
Heh, I ain't scared. Not one bit.
Then he remembered the last time he came here. His back chafed on the cushion. Sitting up, he cleared his throat. Kept it low and even, speaking slowly so it didn't have a chance to get away from him and waver. He didn't want people to think he was a coward or anything.
"Not that I'm yellow-bellied or anything … but this is the other side of the planet from where we landed last time, right?"
Rsh took so long to respond that it felt like he was taunting Blaze. Letting his voice carry around the flight deck, so everybody had a chance to examine it and laugh at it.
"Yes," Rsh finally replied.
"Good! Ahem, good. I-I-I just don't feel like having to mess up anybody's day, you know?"
"Of course."
Since he explained why he wasn't scared, he waited for the others to murmur, 'I see.' To show him they didn't think he was scared. But an awkward, cringe-riddled silence filled the flight deck.
"Blaze, clearance," Rsh declared.
I'm not scared! Blaze thought as he huffed to himself.
He used the starnet browser to connect to the starport's frontpage and request landing clearance. Unlike the outpost they'd landed at last time, the main settlement was larger and more permanent. Lots of rectangular concrete buildings at right angles to each other. Floodlamps mounted on poles blasted the grid of streets with harsh, glaring light. Beyond the buildings, a forest covered the ridged land. A jagged column towered above the tree trunks, issuing a steady stream of mist from its huge slats into the dim sky.
The atmosphere processor.
"Rsh, you got the list of parts I typed up, right?" Luci asked.
"Yes."
"Alright. So what's our budget for food look like?"
"We are only purchasing … the essentials."
A rush of air went between Philomena's lips as she got ready to unload her big mouth all over the flight deck.
"Galactic Swirlies are not essential," Rsh said.
"Hey, this is my company," Philomena whined.
As she gestured erratically, her jabbing hands poked into the corner of Blaze's eye like a swarm of hornets angry somebody had thrown rocks at their nest.
"Then you balance its books."
Rsh's blunt voice lobbed each word at her like an asteroid.
The hornets didn't stand a chance. They shriveled up limply and withdrew, while the woman herself smacked her useless lips so loudly Blaze could hear.
"I … Um … Ah … Ramirex!"
"Hai?!"
"Balance the books for me."
"I'm an engineer, not an accountant, but … I-I could take a look …"
"No," Rsh stated. "Do it yourself."
"Heh heh," Luci said weakly. "Guess that's that! Sorry, Philomena."
Even though he was facing the ship's nose, Rsh's voice was strong enough to brutally ram a few more words of wisdom in Philomena's direction.
"You wish to run 'your' company? Learn to add …"
Philomena yelled, "I know how to add!"
Rsh caught his breath. "… something of value to it."
"Hmph! Fine! I'm going to become the best book-balancer, faster than you can say ten times ten is, umm … ten thousand!"
Another awkward, cringe-riddled silence filled the flight deck, but it wasn't directed at Blaze this time. He smiled comfortably and eased down in his seat, stealing glances at the red-cheeked, flustered woman right behind him.
"I'll show you that I add so much value to this company," Philomena said. "Unlike somebody, who hasn't got any boom."
"I have plenty of 'boom,'" Blaze shot back. Then, he finished up with, "And at least I know ten times ten is one hundred."
She made a grunting snort, an ugly, disgusted sound that was somehow throaty and nasal at the same time.
"We're cleared to land, by the way," Blaze said. "Space #71. Hey, what's this? 'Due to circumstances beyond our control, an air purification fee will be charged upon landing.'"
"A what?" Rsh barked.
Blaze almost said, 'Beats me.' But he caught himself in time and instead drawled, "Ain't got a clue, partner."
"Does it state an amount?"
"No."
"They will surely try and scam us."
"Probably."
Stepping forward, past the console and to the edge of the short stairs down to the pilot's seat, Luci stared at the black spire sticking out of the forest.
"Think the atmosphere processor's broken?"
"Looks fine from here," Blaze replied.
"Then what …" She tilted her head and stared at the landing field they were flying towards. "What the hell is going on down there?"
Blaze followed her vision to what looked like a carnival on the concrete. Dozens of small and mid-sized ships were clustered together. At first, Blaze thought they were the indie mercs who'd wandered over from Calcephor. But all the ships were intricately detailed and customized. Their owners had put a lot of effort into keeping them looking nice. People milled on the field between the parked ships, chatting freely. Standing, sitting on crates and chairs … some even had barbeques going. It didn't look like they'd put a lot of care into where they'd landed — not a single ship was within the lines painted on the concrete.
"Ay, caray," Luci said. "I think those are sky-blasters."
"Huh?" Philomena asked.
"A roaming herd of jackasses. Cabrones who fly through space, pissing people off everywhere they go. Dealing with them is like pulling teeth. My family crossed paths with them a few times. They're bad news."
"How?"
"Well, they—"
A collision warning popped up on the console monitor. Blaze's heart started to pound against his ribcage. A rush of blood went to his head. His fingers fidgeted, ready to start throwing punches. Next to the console, Luci tensed up. She slid her feet apart to steady her posture and raised her arms to get better balance.
"Rsh—?!" he called.
"What is it?!" Rsh called back.
Blaze pulled up the radar. A line of contacts swept through the sky behind them. Are they birds, or …?! Whatever they are, they're right up our ass!
"Go down!" Blaze shouted. "Down—!"
Then a line of small starships screamed past their heads, flying in a sloppy formation. Their exhaust came so close it rattled the ship's hull and Blaze's nerves alike. But it wasn't any old exhaust. Thick black fumes shot out of their hyperion engines and filled the air around them with noxious plumes of smoke. It clung together with all the tenacity of slime and fell over the canopy like a veil. Within seconds, the ships that'd buzzed the VM-84 were lost in thick sheets of smog.
It's like being back on the rogue planet, Blaze thought.
"I cannot see!" Rsh roared.
Luci gripped the console so hard her knuckles went white. "That's what they do. They modify their engines to burn hot and spew out this crap."
The VM-84 sailed out of the black clouds. The wisps pulled away from the canopy like fingers uncovering somebody's eyes, revealing the dim blue sky of the planet again. The ships that'd buzzed them hovered over the carnival below. The people on the ground cheered up at them as they landed.
"Can't they just get them out of here?!" Philomena whined.
Blaze looked over and saw she'd wedged her flustered body against a support beam, clutching it for dear life.
"No," Luci said sadly. "They squatted on Asilo once. Even though everybody hated them, whenever we tried to get rid of them, they screamed about their rights being violated."
Since getting stranded in space without fuel was a death sentence, the Consumers' Bill of Rights gave people the right to land at any commercial starport, even on privately-owned planets.
Concerned, Rsh said, "There are limits to what is permitted …"
"They're also heavily armed," Luci added.
Rsh went silent for a moment, then replied, "Noted."
"The only thing you can do is ignore them and hope they go away on their own. Anything else is just asking for trouble. Back home, the news feed said that whenever a settlement hires mercenaries to kick them out, the sky-blasters sound the call and more just keep swarming out of the sky, day after day. Nobody knows how many sky-blasters are out there. The settlements end up going bankrupt from having to recruit so many mercenaries to keep order."
"I've heard of these hombres," Blaze said, "but I never understood what's with all the black smoke."
"It's some crazy religious thing," Luci said. "They think the universe was ejaculated by a stellar sperm whale. So if they ruin all the breathable air in the universe, this stupid whale will return and ejaculate enough breathable air that it'll fill up all of outer space. Oh, and that'll also incinerate everybody who doesn't believe in their religion."
"Huuuuuuuuuh," Blaze said, drawing that one syllable out while he tried — and failed — to figure out what to make of this piece of info.
"Yeah," Luci said, "they call it the Second Cumming."
"Huh. Uh, just so we're on the same page …"
Luci explained, "They think if they pollute everything, it'll make the Second Cumming happen."
"Heh heh, that's, uh …"
As Rsh maneuvered towards landing space #71, he grunted in disgust. "And humans think themselves above … Zantaurans."
"Hey, we ain't all this short on wits, partner," Blaze said. He turned to the two women with a cocky smile and drawled, "Anyway, don't you fret none. If them sidewinders down there try any funny stuff, I'll wrangle them under control."
Philomena's upper lip lifted in a sneer. "When they throw you to the ground and trample all over you, try and trip a few of them up so I have time to escape."
When she finished speaking, Luci's eyes widened as they flicked between her and Blaze. She rocked up onto her tiptoes, straightened her back, and raised her head like she was trying to add as many inches to her height as she could.
"I'll, um … trip a few of them up too! So … don't you worry, Philomena!"
Blaze and Philomena both turned to her. The longer they stared at her face, the more her cocky posturing fell to pieces like a starship shedding parts. Her blushing, twitching face gave one last feeble smile, then faced the corner.
The starship's landing legs touched down on the concrete with a shudder. It might've been in Blaze's head, but as the impact went through the hull, it seemed a little creakier than usual.
Pirates, mercenaries, sky-blasters … all in the same system at the same time …
Ah, whatever. I can handle it!
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