*
Bruce stared at Flynn as though he was the craziest person he'd ever met. "You know that's never going to work."
"It might." Flynn stared back at the barkeeper, waiting for him to say no.
"Well, you’d have to get everything just right. And then you have to get Nika to cooperate. That man will only play ball if it's in his best financial interests... and I'm not sure we could argue that this is."
Putty leaned across the bar top, his hands in fists once more. "If Giuseppe gets his claws into this planet by taking hold of the mine, he's going to drive Nika out at the first opportunity. Men like Refuti don't share. If he wants this planet, he’s going to do whatever it takes to get a hold of it, and all of it. Nika surely understands that."
"I hope you're right about this," Bruce crossed to the doorway and locked up. “It’s not like anyone’s going to come in today….”
They crossed the dusty main street and walked the long road to the scrap yard. Most of the yard owner's business came from off world - though Flynn didn't understand how that could be more profitable than just living in one of the central zones first place – and the old man kept to himself. If Bruce was to be believed, he didn't have much in the way of love for the town's other inhabitants. To this point, he'd stayed firmly out of the fighting. Flynn hoped to change that.
"He calls this whole charade a 'quibble of the unenlightened masses.' I'd like to show him my unenlightened fist." Bruce pounded the aforementioned fist into his open palm.
Flynn couldn’t help but laugh. “That would probably only prove his point.”
“Yeah, but I’d feel damned good when I did it.”
The scrap yard offices were in a barn-like structure Flynn had passed a dozen times in the past two days. The painted metal roof mimicked the dirt on which it stood, and the wooden boards of its face were held together with iron and copper straps. Bruce shoved aside the heavy wooden door that served as the barn’s entrance and they stepped into the cool, dark interior.
Junk was piled high along the walls, and Flynn felt as though he’d entered some surreal maze. Putty on the other hand, looked like a kid in a candy store. He ran his fingers over a piece of machinery that looked like an oversized toaster with a trio of coils sprouting from its top. Flynn wouldn’t have been able to tell you if it had some sort of function or if it was the beginning of an art installation.
A boy who couldn’t have been over seventeen stepped out from behind the beehive like innards of a ship’s drive, wiping his greasy hands on his already stained coveralls. “What are you doing here?”
“Can it, Ned. Go find your boss before I take your head off with the nearest piece of jetsam.
Ned balked at that and hurried away.
Bruce turned back to Flynn, the suppressed curl of a smile on his lips. “You’ve got to know how to deal with those ones.”
When the scrap yard owner arrived, he was not what Flynn expected. Tall and lank, the old man looked like he should be at a fancy dinner party on Capo – though he’d need to be wearing more metallic colors to fit in on the Colarium’s central planet. He looked down at them all with distain in a crisp black and white suit.
Flynn blinked at him, wondering what someone dressed like that was doing in a war zone, in a facility that reminded him more of a pig sty.
“Nika.” Bruce nodded his greeting. The acknowledgement sounded more like an accusation. “What the hell are you wearing?”
"It’s called a tuxedo,” Nika responded proudly. “I know I look like a penguin in the desert. The daughter is getting married in a few months and she’s demanding it be a formal affair. That tailor woman seems to enjoy poking me with pins. I was in the middle of a fitting when Ned over there came to retrieve me. Now, what do you want?”
As if summoned by the reference to her, Henri came down the stairs from the second floor where it seemed as though a house had been bolted into the ceiling of the structure. Henri moved to Bruce’s side and Flynn looked quickly away before she squeezed the barkeeper’s arm. She inclined her head to Flynn and then gave his brother a quick smile before scowling at Ned.
“I’m sure you won’t demand my presence again for a while. Just send that over to the shop with one of your boys and I’ll have it ready in time.” She rolled her eyes and Flynn wondered if she didn’t want to tack “if we’re still alive” onto the end of that.
Flynn studied the man as he pulled at the sleeve of his tux and signed off on a clipboard of paperwork one of his goons brought to him. Nika was a businessman through and through, so Flynn decided to appeal to the man’s financial sense. “You’re not blind. You can see the Refuti corp is preparing for a hostile takeover of this whole planet. If we don’t stop him, everyone who calls Sukiyaki home will be run out, or they’ll die trying to stand against him. And they’ll not get any compensation for the things they leave behind.”
"Do you have a plan? I mean, you look like you just got out of diapers, but something that tells me you're not stupid enough to come to me unless you've got something devised."
"We hit them. Fast and hard. With a force he won't be expecting."
"And then?" Nika asked, his face stony.
"Then he runs for the hills," Bruce said, waved good bye as though Giuseppe was doing just that.
Nika looked at the bartender as if he was a toddler. "Only to come back with a bigger force of thugs. It's a vicious cycle this. I should know, I have many enemies of that sort."
"Then you don't want one more. We all know how Refuti operates. He's not going to let you sit on ‘his’ planet and continue to do your own thing. Sure, he might at first, but he'll tax the life out of your business until there’s no alternative left but to leave. Do you want to be driven out like a leper?"
"Some might say it's better to live as a beggar than die as a fool." Nika nodded toward Flynn's neck. "I'm guessing no one's ever driven that theory into your mind, boy. Tell me how you got that scar of yours and maybe I'll do what I can to help."
"This?” Flynn ran his knuckles over the scar. “This is nothing. I ran into a mean whore in a corrupt brothel. She decided she'd rather strangle me and take my cash than finish the job. She's no longer whoring... or doing anything for that matter."
Ned laughed in the background. “That’s why you always tie ‘em up.”
Flynn didn’t spare the man a glance, but he noted Henri’s death glare.
"You're a good liar... but you can’t fool me," Nika shrugged. "You don't want to tell me, that's fine. We've all got secrets. Who am I to begrudge you yours?"
"I suppose that means you aren't going to help us?" Bruce’s jaw twitched and Flynn put a hand on the bartender’s shoulder. There was no point in fighting about it now.
Nika smiled at them like a man holding a royal flush. "I don’t know. I may have taken a liking to you and your quick lies. I’ll think about it."
"Don't wait too long." Flynn turned, letting Nika mull over the possibilities.
As they left, Henri stared at Flynn’s neck. "How did you get that?"
"That is for me to know, and the rest of the galaxy to wonder."
"And here I thought we were getting to be friends." Henri rolled her eyes at him.
"He hasn't even told me,” Chadrick said as he joined them from where he leaned against the scrap yard’s wall. The disappointment obvious in his voice. “I'm his friend and a doctor. Technically, I’m his doctor since I treated the damned thing. He barely let me patch it up. And he’s as tight lipped as a Barnovian monk. He won’t say how he got it – even though I swore that patient doctor confidentiality applied." Chadrick studied it again. "I should do another cleaning... just so it doesn't get any worse."
"You’re the doctor." Flynn did not want to admit the ordeals of the night and morning had set it back on fire.
Chadrick led them back to the medical pod, and Bruce chuckled as he helped find the right supplies. "I think this place has seen more use since the three of you arrived than
it had in the last twenty years."
"That’s not a good thing," Chadrick said, pulling out the bottles and creams he’d determined necessary for Flynn’s healing process. “Flynn, my friend, I’m as good as they come when it comes to dressing wounds, but there’s just no way this isn’t going to leave a nasty scar. Whatever happened, you are going to have a reminder for the rest of your life.”
Flynn bit his tongue to keep from wincing as Chadrick swabbed a pine-scented antiseptic over the wound, He watched Chadrick’s face carefully. He wanted to know if it was getting worse, and he knew when a doctor worries, it was bad.
“You don’t have to play the tough guy all the time, you know,” Chadrick said.
“I know,” Flynn said through clenched teeth. “But it’s kind of difficult to let go of the mask you’ve worn for the last four years. In the Lazarai, weakness encouraged rank grabbing.”
“That doesn’t sound like fun.”
“Remember how I attacked Henri this morning? I’ve woken up by driving a man’s own knife into his chin too many times. I have no fond memories of my service with the Lazarai.”
Chadrick grimaced as he took a cotton swab and applied a salve that numbed as it healed.
The door clattered open and Seamus raced in, panting. He bent in half, hands on his knees as he choked out an exasperated gasp. Wheezing, he stared at them both as he tried to speak, but only sucked air in harder.
When he finally got out the words, they were caught in his throat and came out a jumble. "Mine… come… you've got to come. They won't tell me why everyone's freaking out. They need you."
Flynn realized he wasn’t talking to either of them, but to Henri, who stood immediately and followed the boy out of the med unit. He guessed being the town’s catch-all government official didn’t give her much down time.
Chadrick, swiped the last of the salve on Flynn's neck and he raced after the boy too. Going back into the mines wasn't Flynn's idea of a party, but he needed to get this town settled down before he could leave, and if that meant he had to go back underground, so be it. He skidded to a stop just before the mine’s elevator and hopped into the cage with Henri and Seamus. They waited until Putty, Chadrick, and Bruce were inside, then pulled the gate shut and dropped below the planet’s surface.
The rubble from the earlier explosion had been cleared away, and it looked like the miners had gotten back to work. They weren’t working now. Everything was lit, mine carts ran along the tracks under their own power, and there was a crush of people near the lift.
The miners pulled Henri and Flynn out of the lift as one miner took Henri by the arm and dragged her further into the shaft. “Thank God you’re here. None of us know how to diffuse it.”
“Another bomb?” Putty mumbled from behind Flynn as he followed them down the empty tunnel. “What is with this asshole and bombs?”
“They do seem to be effective. If you recall, you destroyed half a moon with one earlier today.” Flynn bit his tongue, even as he said it.
“Don’t remind me.” Putty pushed past him, a scowl forcing deep creases around his mouth. He joined up with Henri and the miner leading them toward the device.
Chadrick fell instep beside Flynn and shook his head, staring at Putty’s back. “He’s still tore up about all of it.”
“And there’s nothing I can do about that. Do you know how much I hate that?”
“If it’s any consolation, if a brother is willing to do something that heinous to his sister, it’s a sure bet he had no intention of letting her marry someone like Putty; someone he has no control over. I’d guess she really did love Putty, maybe she was planning to run away with him and her brother did the only thing he knew would keep her with him…. I’m not saying I approve, but it would explain why someone Putty says showed no signs of mad milk use two weeks ago, is so clearly a junkie now. You don’t get like she was that quick without someone pumping it into you.”
“I don’t think she’s the only thing he feels bad about.” Flynn cracked his knuckles and took an offered flashlight. “Destroying something as big as half a moon would be a downer for just about anyone. I think even our excited little friend Seamus here would feel bad if he’d pulled the trigger.”
“Well, sure. I mean, it’s really cool,” Seamus said excitedly latching on to Flynn’s wrist, “until you think about the people who probably died. I mean, yeah, the monkey suit who took you guys was a bad man, but I bet there were a lot of people up there who were good people, they just needed a job and maybe it was the only one they could find and it ended up being bad for them.”
“You’re rambling, kid.” Flynn said, finally shaking loose of the boy’s grip.
“Sorry. Mom tells… told me that annoys people” He stopped, and Flynn stopped with him.
The boys face contorted into a confused, grief stricken frown and he swallowed hard. He opened his mouth and then closed it again, looking everywhere but at Flynn’s face.
Stooping down beside the boy, Flynn looked him in the eye. “You have some good points. There’s a lot of senseless killing in war. And this is a war. A small one, but war none the less.”
“Wow. I’ve never been in a war before.” Seamus’s voice held too much quiet reverence for Flynn’s taste.
“Well, you’re in one now. But you’re a kid. Kid’s aren’t supposed to be in wars. It happens, but it shouldn’t.”
“I want to fight.” Seamus tugged hard on Flynn’s little finger pulling him to a stop again. “They killed my parents.”
Flynn reminded himself he’d been just as ready to throw his life away to fight a war four years ago. “I know how you feel, kid, but you need to let the rest of us handle it.”
Seamus screwed his mouth into a scowl and Flynn knew the boy was trying not to cry.
“Flynn!” Putty called out from in front of them. “We’ve got a serious problem.”
Flynn rushed forward and Putty grabbed him as he skidded to a stop. A huge bomb filled half the cavernous space. It had to have been brought in in pieces and assembled – that was the only explanation for how something so big could have slipped by everyone’s notice.
“How in the….” Flynn couldn’t begin to guess where Refuti had hidden it all this time.
Seamus’ eyes were big as dinner plates.
Chadrick let out a low whistle and turned to Flynn with a slack face, and disbelieving eyes. “This is going to make what he did to the moon look like a cosmic fart.”
In any other situation, Flynn might have laughed.
Henri sprang into action, and Flynn let her and the miner hurry past them and away. As the town’s leader, she’d know how to coordinate an evacuation and calm people. Flynn let her do her job.
“What does it say?” Seamus asked from Flynn’s side, and Flynn noticed the note left behind.
It was written neatly on top of one of the bomb’s segments. As if sprayed through a stencil. Flynn leaned over it and read it out loud for the boy.
“If I can’t have this planet. No one can. Leave or I’ll turn your home into a meteor cloud.”
Flynn swallowed, and shook his head. If it weren’t so serious, he’d laugh at the words. It sounded like something a fifth grader would say. He looked at the miner that had led them to the bomb. He was scared shitless as he looked down at the slowly ticking clock.
Flynn was scared, too. There was no way they would be able to disarm it.
If the clock was right… they didn’t have much time.