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Tales from the Edge
Copyright 2014 Sheryl Nantus
Cover Image: 30 Doradus: The Growing Tarantula Within
Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used factiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.
All rights reserved.
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This short story is an installment in the “Tales from the Edge” universe, joining two prior novels, IN THE BLACK and IN THE VOID.
Interlude 1.1
It didn’t take long after the Bonnie Belle settled herself in the landing bay that the last-minute requests started coming through from the courtesans.
More of this, less of that, can you find—
Jenny Bonaventure sighed as she slithered her way through the narrow maintenance shafts in the Belle’s undercarriage, her backpack tied to one leg. She didn’t mind going out to get supplies but she’d told the women and men over and over to have a list ready long before they made landfall so she could make arrangements with her underground connections to have the items ready and waiting for trade.
The black market wasn’t a huge shopping store she’d trip into and out with ease. There were people to contact, deals to be made and items to be acquired before she even got out of the ship. Contacting the local dealer wasn’t hard, this area being the property of the Bloody Dragons—one of the stronger and popular criminal organizations out here on the edge. Setting up a meet wasn’t difficult either. The hard part was getting to the meeting without breaking her back or worse, overpaying for something.
The courtesans were tough but the gangs were tougher on demanding deals.
The canvas backpack got caught on an edge just as she popped out of the shaft in the landing bay, the sudden tug of gravity on her body pulling her down toward the ground. The jarring tug on her foot gave her a second of panic as she hung there, unable to pull her feet fully out.
A shake of her foot pulled the pack free and she slid the few inches down to the floor, worried she’d torn the pack open. The last thing Jenny needed was to have items drifting down the shafts in the universe’s worst scavenger hunt. The gravity had been turned on already in the landing bay in order to receive the incoming customers but that didn’t include the shafts—if something had fallen out it could be floating quietly there or be wandering down a maintenance tube courtesy of a draft of wind.
Well there’s nothing I can do about that now.
Jenny got to her feet and brushed the dust off her coveralls. The backpack thudded to the floor behind her, hopefully still intact. It took a minute to untie the rope and put the pack on one of the tables she’d just set up an hour earlier, the chairs and tables ready to seat the men and women waiting to partake of the Belle’s unique services.
A minute rip in the side was all the damage. Not large enough for anything to escape but she’d have to put a patch on it when she got back from her meeting.
“Jenny?” The voice came from overhead, from one of the speakers. “Are you leaving the ship?”
The petite blonde smiled. “Yes Belle. I’ve got some business outside.” She waited for the computer AI to answer. They had a routine down pat and while Jenny didn’t know exactly how sentient the Belle was she knew the ship had rules set down in stone for the crew to follow.
The first and most important rule—no one left the ship for anything other than business. The captain would venture out once to make the official presentation, to advertise the courtesans’ services and then she’d return to hide in her quarters or the cockpit for two weeks until their stay was over.
The courtesans never left the ship, ever. All their business was conducted in their quarters.
As the lone mechanic Jenny was allowed to go into the main landing bay to supervise supplies being loaded and that was all. She wasn’t supposed to engage anyone at all other than to make bare bones conversation to get the dents and dings repaired on the Belle’s outside and make sure the ship was fueled up and ready to go. There was a running joke about how the Guild only sent out ugly mechanics to make sure there was as little appeal to the men as possible. Having seen some of her co-workers at Guild bases Jenny couldn’t dispute a possible bit of truth to it.
But it didn’t apply to her. She might be short and blonde but she knew she was good-looking enough to have more than a few fellows offer a free roll in the hay if she were interested.
She always turned them down, knowing one thing could lead to another and she’d be leaving with the ship in two weeks anyway and who needed the mental baggage of that short an affair?
Beside, her first and only love was the Bonnie Belle. The ship needed her and she needed the ship. It was a perfect union of mechanic and ship and Jenny wasn’t going to risk getting transferred or worse, fired ‘cause some hotshot shuttle jockey figured he’d score on the Belle’s mechanic instead of paying for an hour with one of the courtesans.
Those were the rules.
But rules were made to be broken. And one didn’t keep a Mercy ship running by following the rules.
“You are going to supervise the repairs on my hull, the refueling and loading of supplies,” Belle said. Jenny nodded, knowing the AI was watching her through one of the few cameras set on the ship. “See you later.”
Jenny shrugged the backpack onto her shoulders and grinned as she headed for the hatch to the outside.
Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.
The hatch led to a long corridor leading to the actual base. The temporary link allowed the captain and customers to travel back and forth with relative safety from the pitfalls of an active landing bay filled with mechanics and workmen running around welding and repairing the various ships and machines going in and out of the mining base. She knew there were dings and dents on the Belle’s hull and the repair crews would be going over the entire ship inch by inch during their stay—and sending a bill to the Guild for the services.
That she couldn’t do. But what she could do was make the lives of the courtesans inside the ship that much easier.
She felt the lack of gravity’s tug even more, the absence of the Belle’s temporary gravity making her load lighter. Her mag-boots clung to the metal tiles set in the floor, letting her walk as close to normal as possible.
A small door lay halfway down the corridor, marked EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY. Jenny noted the alarm connectors were already detached, the wires hanging free in the low gravity. She wasn’t the first to use this exit and not the last. The door swung open with ease and she stepped down onto the main floor.
No one noticed. Or, more likely, no one cared.
Around her the buzz of activity droned on with workers moving to load the heavy cargo ships with the raw ore dug out of the asteroid’s core, the heavy machines groaning under the weight despite the lack of full gravity. They ran back and forth to fill the ships and empty those coming in with supplies to maintain the base so far away from civilized space, out here on the edge.
Jenny spotted the striped bandana stuck in a door crack at the far end of the bay. She high tailed for it, ducking and weaving through the organized chaos to get to her contact. The metal tiles set at measured distances allowed her to move at a slow, steady pace toward the office.
There was no one else near the door and she knew why. Everyone who needed to know knew the striped flag signaled a safe place to discuss and exchange wares. If you didn’t need to be there you stayed away and let business happen without interference.
She paused at the door and glanced around, just to be sure no base security guard was nearby, looking to swoop down on her and earn himself a gold star. No one was paying attention to her and if they noticed she was there, they were studiously looking elsewhere.
No one wanted to stop a Mercy mechanic bringing goods to the table.
What she carried was gold, pure gold to a mining base with a crew made up primarily of men who loved and thrived on the visits from Mercy ships. They delivered not just sex although that was a valued commodity but also a skill set unmatched elsewhere. Which made their additions and requests that much more valuable.
Jenny walked through into the small office. The door swung shut behind her. The room was empty other than a generic wooden desk and a chair, both tethered to the floor in the light gravity. Otherwise they’d be floating all over the room and smashing into whoever walked in. She didn’t sit down. Instead she walked over to the phone set in the wall and picked up the old-fashioned receiver.
She hung up as soon a dial tone came on the line.
She did it a second time.
Jenny pulled