“Unbelievable,” Dallas said, rolling his eyes.
“Believe it, buckaroo. I’ll see you in ten minutes on the bridge. The crew needs orders, and we need to start making money!”
#
An hour later, Dallas sat in the mess hall that had been hastily repurposed to act as a meeting space for Dallas, Gareth, and Dagonet, the crewman with a rich, unplaceable accent that acted as the financial officer. Dagonet had propped up a small tablet for them to read, and Dallas had a smaller notepad he was tapping and scrolling on with his index finger.
“So…we owe…Dear Lord, how could a ship this small owe this much?” Dallas hadn’t traveled far or wide, but the number he saw before him was bigger than the annual GDP of some mid-size colonies adjacent to New Avalon.
“Iss naht haad, cap’n,” Dagonet said, “when yah don’t pay yah debts, and jess’ kep barrowin’ more ta make de pahroll.”
“How does he- how did he keep borrowing when he got this far in debt? Who’d lend to him?”
“Iss a track meeny captains use, sah. You in debt? Make sahm small purchases, gey yah credit up a bit, then bam, there’s someone at th’ door, ready to lend yah more money.”
“Dallas, Captain Orkney had no intention of paying anything back. Looking at these balance sheets, he wasn’t the kind of Captain that thinks much farther ahead than getting the next job to pay for the next tank of fuel and grub for the crew.”
“Is that accurate, Dagonet?”
“Yez,Captain. Orkney nevah thought much past teh weekend, much less payin’ his bills. I de only wan who knew jes’ how deep de hole was, ‘til now.”
“Do we have to worry about these folks coming by to collect?”
“Mebbe. Orkney was careful wit’ wan ting: ‘E nevah barrow’d from de type who’d send leg-breakahs after ‘im. Always men an’ women wit’ suits, ties an’ nice, shiny tablets inna briefcases, dat’s who he borrowed fram.”
“All right,” Dallas said. “Thank you, Dagonet. I’ll call you the next time I need you, and…: he looked again at the maze of bars, lines and charts on the tablet, all ending in an imposssibly high number, printed in large, dark numbers at the bottom right of the screen, “I’m sure we will, likely soon.”
“An’ I be ‘ere, Captain. De crew like you, and your frien’ ‘ere. Keep payin’ ‘em on time, an’ you’ll do jus’ fine.”
Dallas thanked him. After he left, he gave a deep sigh and looked again at Gareth. “What do we do about this, then?”
“There’s good news and bad news. The good news is that we could wipe out a little over half of that away in six months with a few, well-placed mercenary jobs.”
“Being a mercenary sounds a lot better than being a thief. The bounty pater put on me for stealing the Galatine would barely make a dent in this debt.
“Well, that’s another problem, at least for someone like you. The bad news is that jobs which pay that much often require a certain degree of what they call moral flexibility.”
Dallas paused. “Just how flexible?”
“As in, putting down rebellions of workers who want fair pay and safe conditions. Or blowing up research stations so a corporation won’t have competition for their latest skin-cream formulas.”
“That’s what’s out there?”
“That’s reality, Dallas. If a job pays well, it’s because someone wants it done, and no one wants to do it. They’re rarely the kind you can do without having to go to Confession afterwards.”
Dallas sat and thought for a second, and then gave a deep sigh. “Well, Saint Nicholas found me a crew. Maybe he’ll find us the jobs we need to keep this boat flying.”
“Maybe. You ready to go looking?”
“How do we do that?”
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“Glad you asked. I’ve been out of circulation for a while, but thankfully some things take a long time to change.”
#
“I sir, am shocked, shocked that you would make such an accusation!”
Viscount Moreded’s angry face filled the screen as he roared and pounded the podium in front of him, infranet journalists surrounding him on all sides. “To accuse me, the most loyal and supportive subject the House of Morgan has known in generations, of bankrolling an assassination attempt on one of the house’s heirs is beyond contemptible! Further…”
As Moreded spoke. The camera spun around to view him from behind. In a corner of the viewer, pictures of text and i-mails clipped and flipped by while the pants of Moreded’s expensive suit seemed to catch fire, flames licking upwards as his fist hit the podium again and again, an audible comma punctuating every few words in his increasingly volatile speech.
“Aaaaaaaand there you have it, folks! We’ve managed not only, to use the ancient phrase, call ‘liar, liar, pants on fire!’ We’ve also hacked a number of his recorded messages and i-mails used to order the clandestine death of the heir to the House of Morgan!”
Austin’s voice, disguised and encrypted so well that virtually no recognizer would be able to identify him, sounded like he was having the time of his life. His brow, however, was furrowed, and his normally perfect hair was matted with the sweat of a nervous man who’d slept little the night before.
“So, this begs the question: why is Viscount Moreded still breathing free air?” Huston’s voice chittered, distorted as well. “If he’s been party to a clandestine attempt to kill someone, especially the heir to the head of the most powerful family in New Avalon, why isn’t he seeing the inside of a jail cell? What reason would the Earl of New Avalon, Texas Morgan, have for not swearing out a warrant for this sleezeball’s arrest? We all wanna know!”
After Huston hit the button to stop recording, he looked across the table at his brother. “You okay?” he asked.
“The last week’s been a little rough, duh.”
“Well, did you have a combat team breach your house?”
“That’s what makes it rough-er,” Austin countered, tucking a sweaty lock of his dark hair behind his ear. “I keep looking over my shoulder, waiting to hear the ‘zing!’ of a poison dart, or maybe see some freak in black pajamas bust through my window attached to a roof-cable and start shooting up the place.”
“Frater, that’s why you gotta move in to my place. Safer than a wolf in its den.”
“I just might take you up on that. But isn’t Pater going to arrest this creep?”
“Hopefully, now that the documents I got from that hacker-guy are out for public use. Thing is, Pater says, he’s gotten so used to people trying to assassinate him over the years, he actually gives it secondary importance to making sure the price of foodstuffs stays low.”
“What?”
“He’s got so many systems in place to protect himself, and Chief Kai is so good at his job that no one’s attempts to take him down have even come close to succeeding since before you were born. That’s why second-raters like Moreded are trying to come after us.”
“Makes sense. We’re safe here, though? In your basement?”
“Unless the next team he sends are invulnerable to laser and proj fire. And…”
Huston was interrupted by the door to his basement blowing open.
Before either of them could stand from their table, a half-dozen black-clad men with auto-rifles poured down the stairs and into the lower room, taking positions and screaming at them to get down get down!
They got down, their right and left cheeks touching cold plascrete while the ugly muzzles of the invaders’ weapons pointed at their cheekbones.
“Palin?” Austin whispered.
“Safe,” Huston whispered back, “off planet.”
“Suddup!” Yelled the leader of the group.
Huston rolled his eyes. “No, clown,” he said, “You ‘shuddup.’ “
“Yes,” Austin chimed in. “I think you’re the one who needs silencing. If you were here to kill us you would’ve done it by now.”
“Astute as always,” said an older voice above him.
Huston didn’t bother to look up. Neither did Austin. Not only did they recognize the voice, a very expensive cowboy boot had filled their field of vision on the ground.
“Why, Viscount Moreded,” Austin said. “How good it is to see you. How’s your wife? Oh, forgive me. I forgot. No woman in this colony can stand your presence for longer than ten minutes unless they’re being paid or they’re following an A.I. script.”
“I think I’m going to enjoy making you regret that insult, young Austin.”
“I think you’re going to regret breaking into my house a second time, Viscount,” Huston said.
“Perhaps I would, Huston. If your precious pater were still alive.”
Huston and Austin’s eyes both went large at that, and looked at each other.
----
TO BE CONTINUED....