Drifters' Alliance, Book 2

  Back to business. I turn to the remaining crew and continue issuing my orders. “Everyone else, bag up any crap you don’t want anymore and bring it here.” I gesture to a spot off to the side of the empty area, next to the entrance to the airlock. “We’re going to use it as target practice.” I look over at Baebong. “You ready to get some things onto the hull?”

  “Ready? Hell, I’ve been ready for months. Years, maybe.”

  “Perfect. Bring it to the airlock.”

  He leaves in a hurry as I shift my focus to the old man.

  “Jeffers?”

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “I want an inventory of all the foodstuffs onboard. Things already harvested or dry-stored.”

  “All right. I can do that.”

  “Medical supplies and equipment as well.”

  “Would you like me to get started now?”

  “Yes.”

  “As you wish.” He bows at the remaining members of the group still present and then backs away toward the nearest corridor.

  Domesticant, my ass. He’s battle hardened, I know he is.

  I switch my focus to Lucinda, knowing that my confrontation with Jeffers and his real background will come in due time. “I need a complete inventory of every single plant you have growing in there.” She opens her mouth to argue, but I cut her off. “This is my ship and those are my plants. We’re either about to embark on a new partnership that functions through a system of bartering through the Alliance, or we’re about to start a trading and transport business on our own. I need to know what assets we have on the ship either way.”

  She looks down at the ground, her face twitching, but she’s saying nothing.

  “Make no mistake, Lucinda. I’m very appreciative of your efforts, and frankly, I think you’re some kind of mad genius … but at the end of the day, those assets are mine, and if you so much as hide a single plant from me, you’ll pay the price.”

  She finally looks up. “What price?”

  I stare her right in the eye so she knows I’m not kidding. “The ultimate one. You’ll float.”

  “But plants die in there every day! The total I give you one day might not be true the next!”

  “I know about the plantlife cycle, believe me. I also know when people are lying to me. It’s a special talent I have, so just be honest, do what I ask you to do, and we’ll be fine.” I shrug. “Don’t, and we won’t.” I hate to be so hardcore with her, but she’s pushed me to it. Besides, I don’t think she’d respect me if I went soft on her just because she’s a girl.

  She’s got mutiny written all over her face.

  Rollo raises his hand.

  “What?”

  “Rollo has a suggestion. An offer, actually.”

  I sigh, not even sure I want to hear it but knowing I’m going to anyway. “What’s that?”

  “Rollo will do the inventory. An impartial party, doing a job with no vested interest.”

  I don’t know this guy very well, but I know with every fiber of my being that the first thing he’ll do when he gets to the biogrid is try to strike an alternative deal with Lucinda. I smile at the idea of him thinking he can get away with that. When I catch both of them in the act, it’ll give me even more ammunition to use with them than I already have. Life is all about leverage, and I plan to always have more than anyone else. Any captain who doesn’t plan otherwise is asking for trouble.

  “An excellent idea, Rollo. I accept.”

  His expression goes sly. He thinks I’ve swallowed his gambit whole.

  “And would this job by any chance qualify Rollo for a fritter next time they’re on the menu?” he asks.

  I smile. “So long as you don’t try to screw me in the process, sure.”

  The outside corner of his right eye twitches, but his hesitation only lasts a second before he’s responding, and I’m sure he thinks I didn’t notice the delay or the tell. “Great. Can’t wait to get started.”

  I gesture toward the nearest corridor. “Have at it. The vacuum cycle obviously won’t include the biogrid.”

  Rollo looks at Lucinda, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. “Ready to get started?”

  She glares at him like she wants to stick a shiv between his third and fourth ribs and then walks off, leaving him to jog behind her.

  “Hey! Wait up! Rollo’s weak from eating nothing but dust for breakfast!”

  I’m chuckling all the way to the engine room. My plans are falling perfectly into place. I should probably worry about that more, because the universe does so love to slap me down when I start feeling comfortable with my life, but I’m going to let myself enjoy it for a little while. The boom will fall where the boom will fall, and I will be ready for it.

  Chapter Five

  I BANG ON THE PORTAL leading into the engine room before entering, partially out of courtesy and partially out of a sense of self-preservation. I don’t know what Baebong and the gingers are doing exactly, but I know it involves hot weaponry and inventions that have a tendency to fry random things.

  “Knock, knock! Anybody home?!” I yell at the door.

  A face appears in the portal window. “Oh, hey, Captain! You’re here!” Gus’s expression is way too animated. He glances over his shoulder for a second before looking back at me. “To what do we owe this privilege and honor?” He’s back to staring behind him in a flash. I’m pretty sure I saw about ten beads of sweat pop up on his forehead before he turned, too.

  God, he’d be horrible at givit. I remind myself to engage him in a game one day so I can earn a few IOUs from the engine room electronics master. Those are never bad things to have.

  “Open up,” I demand. My sense of foreboding is growing by the second.

  “Okay. Yeah. Sure. I’ll open the door.” His face disappears, but I still hear his voice. “I’m opening the door now! Letting the captain in! To the engine room!”

  I shove the door to the side as soon as it’s cracked and glare at my greeting party. Tam and Gus are both there, standing as close to one another as they can without being literally connected, and their faces are bright red.

  I cock my hip, trying to let them know from my stance that I’m not going to kill anyone. Not yet, anyway. “What’s up?” I ask, calm and casual.

  “Up? Nothing’s up? Why would anything be up?” Gus frowns at me like I’m crazy. He’s shrugging over and over like he can’t stop himself.

  “You guys have only been in here for fifteen minutes. What could you possibly have done in that period of time that has you so nervous?”

  “Who says we’re nervous?” Tam asks.

  I gesture at his brother. “The sweat stains growing under his arms, for one.”

  Tam leans over to check out the offending area as Gus tips his head down to look too. He lifts his arm to expose a giant dark stain. “Aww, man…”

  Tam sighs. “Well done, dipshit.”

  I gesture at Tam. “And the way your hair is standing out on the side, for another. You grab at it when you’re nervous.”

  Gus leans over to look at his brother, as Tam’s hand comes up slowly to touch the spikes growing sideways out of his head.

  Gus points as he laughs. “Dude, you look like you fell asleep leaning on the air intake.”

  Tam pushes him to the side, which gives me a great view of what’s behind them. Baebong looks up from the table in front of him that’s covered in weaponry.

  I move forward and shove the twins out of my way en route, stopping only when my thighs are touching the table’s edge. “What in the hell is all this?” When I told Baebong he could load his weapons, I was thinking two guns … three, max. But there are at least fifteen gadgets on this table, some I’ve never seen before.

  Gus runs over to stand at one end of the table and Tam goes to the other. I’ve got three idiots facing me now, each one looking more excited than the next. I focus my attention on Baebong, because this equipment has his touch written all over it. I’d be willing to bet every single one
of them is a one-of-a-kind, potential ship exploder.

  “Talk to me, Bae. Make me understand how this is a good idea.” When I told Lucinda we were going to have some weapons, I was thinking a short-range raybeamer or maybe even a signal blinder. But not … whatever the hell this is. I feel like I deceived her or something the way I reassured her all was going to be fine. I can already picture the hole accidentally punched into the cargo bay, sucking everything not bolted down out into the Dark, never to be seen again.

  Baebong has his serious look on as he gestures to the first item on his right. We could be in a boardroom full of investors, the way he’s presenting his products. “Here you’ll find a plasma ray cannon, with a range of five hundred meters and a kill diameter of five.” He pauses for me to drink in that fresh horror. “And just next to it you’ll find our de-animation blaster — I call it the de-animator.”

  “I’m afraid to ask,” I say, staring at it, hoping it doesn’t do what I think it does.

  “No need to be afraid.” Baebong grins and every single one of his teeth are showing. That’s never a good sign.

  “Unless it’s pointed at you,” Gus says, obviously very impressed and feeling quite badass. Apparently, anything invented by Baebong is now something he can claim for himself, being a fellow engineer. Not that Baebong is officially one of those. He never went to school for the things he does; he just knows this stuff like he knows how to put one foot in front of the other. He was born to do it.

  “The concept is simple,” Baebong says. “You point it at anything running electronic feeds, and it shuts it down. Interferes in the transference of signals from one point to another.”

  “It works on ships, you’re saying?”

  “Ships, stations, whatever. It might actually work on people, too, but I haven’t tested it.” He looks at Gus for several long seconds before Gus looks up and finds himself under scrutiny.

  “Hey, I ain’t no crash test dummy, man.” He points at the weapon and then backs away from the table a little. “You aren’t hitting me with that bad boy. No way. Use Rollo if you need a test dummy.”

  “Clones are expendable,” Baebong says. “No offense.”

  Tam’s mouth drops open. “Clones? You calling my brother a clone?”

  Baebong shrugs. “How else do you explain it? Two gingers? Twins? Gotta be clones. Come on, fess up. We won’t share your secret.”

  The twins look at me. “Tell him. Tell him we’re not clones.”

  I laugh. “How the hell do I know you’re not clones?”

  Tam points at his brother. “He showed you his neck.”

  I shrug. “All I saw was dirt. Like you said, he could be hiding a tattoo of a battleship on that thing.” I pause and narrow my eyes as it clicks with me. “I didn’t see you offering to show us your lack of a mark.”

  He tips his head back as he scowls. “Take a look, then.”

  I don’t see a blue cloning mark, but I do see a scar there. It looks like someone tried to cut his head off with a laser knife.

  “Damn, who hates you that much?” Baebong asks, seeing the same thing I did.

  Tam puts his head back down. “Shut up.”

  Gus lifts his hands. “Hey! Are we here to talk about weaponry or clones? Because I, for one, would prefer to get on with the process of loading these up. It’s going to take a while, and we’re going to be really vulnerable out there during the process.”

  He’s right. We can save the cloning and the someone-hates-you-enough-to-try-and-cut-your-stupid-ginger-head-off conversation for another day. “Fine. Talk to me about these other things.” I point to some flat objects resting next to some other cannon-type weapons that don’t need any special explanation; they’ve already blown some of my stuff up before.

  “Those are reflectors,” Baebong says, barely containing a smile.

  “And they reflect…?” I lift a brow, waiting for his coup de grace. He’s very proud of himself.

  “Rays. Plasma and otherwise. Bounces ‘em back.”

  I shake my head. “No way. You’re lying.” He’s trying to sell me the stuff of fairy tales. A weapon like that could revolutionize our universe. It would literally take away anyone’s firepower, making them just a transporter and nothing else. The OSG would hate it. No, not hate it … they’d confiscate it for themselves, making them even more dangerous than they already are. Just the idea makes me want to vomit.

  Baebong rushes to grab one and hold it up. It’s about the size of his face. “No, seriously. I’ve only been able to test it in limited circumstances, for obvious reasons, but I’m pretty sure it works.”

  “Pretty sure.” I look at all their faces. They’re like little boys standing in front of a huge pile of candy bobs. Not a single one of them sees the error of Baebong’s logic here.

  “Yeah, pretty sure,” he says. “In theory, it should work.”

  “Or, in theory, it could completely destroy our ship and everyone on it. Or it could become a weapon used against us in the future.”

  “How could it be used against us?” Gus asks, sounding mystified. “It would be on our ship. And no way would we sell it. This would be a DS Anarchy exclusive.” He nods, feeling every centimeter the genius he’s not.

  I look at Tam, hoping I have at least one functioning brain in the room.

  After I stare at him for about five seconds, he caves. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  I sigh, dropping my head and shaking it slowly. Here I thought being a captain was going to be all about the glory, the power, the satisfaction of running a smooth operation across the Dark, respected by many, admired by all … when in reality it actually means playing momma to a group of adolescent, idiot boys who want to blow shit up. Stupid me. Next thing you know, they’ll be trying to light their farts on fire with a plasma ray. And I might actually let them do something stupid like that, except for the fact that we don’t have enough MI equipment to rebuild a set of fried asscheeks.

  I press my hands together and place the tips of my fingers on my chin in an effort to control my temper. “Okay. So let me take you on a little tour of my world, okay?” I don’t wait for their approval before continuing. I point to the weapon with my pressed-together hands. “Let’s say we mount this weapon on our hull. And then let’s say that someone fires on us.” I shrug and stare at the ceiling as if I’m trying to come up with a good enemy to use for my story. “For example, hmmm, who would want to do that? Oh! Wait! I know.” I look at them again. “The OSG.” My grin is nasty. “And putting that weapon in use means that they’ll see their shot go out at us, and then bounce off, and hit them instead.” I drop my hands and wait. I wait for the math to add up and the glow orbs to go on above their heads, but I get nothing — nothing but a dim light in the form of man-electronics-boners.

  “Yeah! Exactly!” says Tam. “Boom goes the retribution.”

  Baebong smiles and points at him. “Hey, I like that. We’ll call it the retributor.”

  “No, we won’t,” I say, getting crankier by the second. “We’ll call it the annihilator of freedom because that’s exactly what it’ll be.”

  Baebong points to the weapon’s surface. “I paid a pretty price to get access to the lab that had the equipment to create this beast. And I had to work at night when everyone was off-shift. Trust me; it’s flawless. It took me two years to get it right.”

  Gus half laughs and half chokes on his admiration for my friend. “I don’t get it,” he says, looking at his cohorts. “Somebody explain to me why she’s not kissing your butt for being so awesome.”

  Baebong shrugs. “It’s a mystery to me. If I were her, I’d be puckering up.”

  “No, you wouldn’t, because if you were me, you’d have about a million more brain cells to function with, and you’d see the error of your ways.”

  “Here she goes,” Tam says sighing, “being a chick again.”

  My knife is out and pointed at the space between his eyes in about two seconds. He’s motionless,
save for his eyeballs that have crossed as they focus on the tip of my weapon.

  “First of all, do not identify me by my gender in a derogatory way ever again. And second, stop being an idiot.” I slowly lower my knife, but leave it out where he can see it. Everyone is dead silent as they wait for me to either explode again or explain. Even I’m not sure which I want to do right now. I hate having to battle stereotypes with people who should know better. Hell, these turds work with Lucinda. She’s living proof chicks know their shit.

  “I’m going to explain this to you real simply so there’ll be no mistake.” I look at the trio of droid heads, trying really hard not to yell. “This kind of weapon, if it works, could revolutionize our universe and how people get along inside it.”

  Gus and Baebong smile.

  “See? She gets it,” Gus says. “Finally.”

  Tam doesn’t look so happy. “Shut up, dickcheese. Let her finish.”

  I give him a tight smile. “Thank you. As I was saying, revolution. And not that really fun kind where the people rise up and stick it to The Man and hold hands singing in a frigging circle. I’m talking about where the OSG has enough power to push everyone under their thumbs and to force them to toe whatever line makes them happy.”

  “Not if they don’t have the weapon,” Gus says, but his bravado is fading fast. Now he sounds afraid of what I’ll say next, as well he should.

  I slide my knife into its holster as I speak. “And how long do you think it would be before the OSG got their hands on it?”

  He shrugs. “Maybe never. We could mount it behind a collapsible panel. Just bring it out when needed.”

  “The OSG has video feeds. Even if you annihilate them with one of their own reflected particle blasts, the feed would be captured and transmitted to the central defense station in a nanosecond. The one my father runs.” Even just saying that makes me shudder. Goosebumps jump out all over my skin.