A Deal with the Devil's Broker Read online

  Noemi grinned. “Lilia!”

  Lilia unzipped her hood, revealing her dark hair and broad smile.

  “Hey, lifter.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “We got a distress call from the comm panel in here. The other nurses sent me and a gurney bot to check it out.” She looked around at the bodies, shaking her head. “Did you send the call?”

  “Yeah, I hit the button.” Noemi pointed to the mess of wires and punctured metal. “But I didn’t think it was working. The panel was shot up pretty bad.”

  “That explains why we couldn’t bring this room up on the monitors.” She bent over one of the bodies. “All of them … purple. Had we known it was a massacre, they would have locked this area down and I’d have been stuck outside. But when I came in, I heard Mayve talking to you, and saw she had you trapped. I left my gurney bot outside and snuck up behind her. When it looked like she was going to shoot you, I grabbed the closest thing I could and hit her with it.”

  Mayve’s helmet had rolled across the floor, but the gun remained in her hand. Noemi quickly grabbed both of them.

  “Jeral’s the murderer here. He and the rest of my so-called teammates. They’re inside cargo now, moving a load of platinum onto another ship. Looks like Mayve was about to join them.”

  “Platinum?”

  “Yeah. Apparently, we’re hauling tons of it. That’s why we’ve been attacked.”

  “That explains it. One of the techs from Engineering section came into Medical just as I was leaving. Bad burns all over, most of his techsuit was cooked. Said the engine had been hit from outside. They had to shut it down. The Broker is dead in the water until ExoRok sends someone to tow us in. We won’t fly again without major repairs. And there’s been no response from the Helm. We’re not even sure if Captain Hunt and the officers are alive.”

  At that moment, Mayve groaned, putting her hands over her head and opening her eyes. Noemi knelt, pinning her down.

  “Were you planning to kill us all? Or just make our lives more miserable than they already are?”

  A faint smirk crossed Mayve’s face, which Noemi removed with a smack from the back of her hand. Mayve’s jaw went slack, and blood trickled from her swelling lips. For the first time, there was a look of fear in her eyes.

  “Did you kill the captain?”

  Mayve turned away, clamping her mouth shut.

  Noemi raised her hand to hit her again, but Lilia said, “Wait.”

  The nurse tapped on her wrist pad, and a moment later, a long, flat-topped bot rolled in from the corridor, its blue lights flashing and rubber wheels humming over the cold floor. Making a wide arc around the scattered bodies, it came to a stop next to them. Lilia tapped a button, and a drawer full of medical equipment slid out from one side of the bot.

  “Remember how that analgesic I gave you earlier made you all chatty?”

  “Uh, yeah. Sorry about that. But can’t we talk about it later … oh, right!” She smiled.

  Lilia selected a tiny spray bottle from the gurney bot’s drawer. “This one tastes even worse than the stuff I gave you in Medical.”

  “Good,” Noemi said. “Open wide, Mayve.”

  When the woman refused, Noemi forced her mouth open by squeezing her cheeks. Lilia squirted the analgesic in Mayve’s mouth, and they both held her down as she choked and squirmed. After a moment, she relaxed, and her eyes lost focus.

  “She’s under now.”

  “Did you kill the captain?” Noemi asked again.

  “No.” Mayve’s voice was distant but clear. “He and the officers are alive. I used company security codes to lock them into the Helm, took their guns from the officers’ armory, and shut down their comms.”

  “What about our external armaments? Doesn’t the Broker have at least a few external pulse cannon?”

  “Destroyed. OZ Geo sent a Q-ship to knock out the Broker’s guns and get the platinum—and me.”

  Noemi remembered the first explosions. Those must have been the shockwaves from the OZ Geo ship’s guns.

  “A Q-ship?” Lilia asked.

  “A freighter that’s been retrofitted as a warship. I’ve seen a few of them up close when they docked at Tiber. From a distance, it looks like a freighter … until it starts firing on you. No wonder we got hit so hard—if the captain saw it on the scanners when we stopped, he probably didn’t even think twice about it. Just another nearby freighter making the approach to Cassius. Did we get off a distress signal, Lilia?”

  Lilia thought for a second. “An S.O.S. should have gone out at the first impact. Unless Mayve shut that off, too.”

  “Did you disable our distress beacon, Mayve?”

  “No,” Mayve said, eyes moving sluggishly between Noemi and Lilia. “Even corporate officers … can’t override …”

  Noemi turned to Lilia. “That’s some good news, at least. We’re not far from Cassius Station. A distress call will automatically alert nearby sector police. They might already be on their way.”

  Lilia scowled down at Mayve. “I bet they planned to be long gone by then.”

  Mayve scowled, and started to struggle.

  “It’s wearing off,” Noemi said. “Does your gurney bot have sedatives on it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “Why?”

  “Sedate Mayve and take her to Medical. Don’t let anyone in until the sector police arrive.”

  Lilia grinned and selected a long syringe, holding it up in the dim light. She removed a clear, slender cap from the needle. Noemi noted with satisfaction that the needle was particularly long. Lilia stepped toward her, pushing the plunger so that a small stream of fluid arced out and spattered on the floor next to them.

  Mayve’s eyes widened.

  “Hold her tightly, Noemi,” Lilia said. “This may hurt. A lot.”

  As the needle pierced her exposed neck, Mayve’s agonized shriek echoed through the Garage.

  After they loaded Mayve’s squat body onto the bot, Noemi unzipped the snoring woman’s zero-atmo suit from the collar down.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to go in there.” Noemi indicted the cargo bay. “And I need this suit.”

  “Are you sure? Shouldn’t we wait for the sector police?”

  “That could take hours. I need to try to stop Jeral now.”

  “There’s three of them and one of you.”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  Lilia helped Noemi get into the zero-atmo suit.

  “How’s it look?” Noemi asked as she slid Mayve’s flechette gun into a pocket on one of the suit’s legs.

  “Much better on you than her,” Lilia said, helping her adjust the narrow air tanks at the back. The helmet’s visor was still up. “Still a bit big. What’s your plan?”

  Noemi put her hand to the visor.

  “I’m going to become SCO of the Devil’s Broker.”

  Then she flicked the visor down, and oxygen filled the helmet.

  10

  Excess Baggage

  The inside of Braddock’s zero-atmo suit still reeked of Mayve’s perfume. There was nothing feminine about the scent, unless one’s idea of femininity involved being suffocated by rotting flowers. Frankly, it smelled like the stuff the cleaning bots used to mask the odors in the latrines, and it gave Noemi a headache. She turned up the suit’s air scrubbers and stepped toward the cargo bay doors.

  After Lilia had taken Mayve away, Noemi removed Mayve’s luggage from the transport bot and lined up the fancy bags in front of the closed cargo doors.

  She took a deep breath, ignoring the lingering stench of perfume, and pressed the touchpad.

  The access light went green, and the doors slid open. Noemi felt a rush of air ripple past as the Garage depressurized. When docked with another ship in open space, the cargo bay was always depressurized: it was easier to simply pull the air back into the Broker’s tanks and have the lifters wear their zero-atmo suits. So now the b
ay was freezing and airless, but Noemi could at least walk along the floor without the fear of being sucked out into the vacuum of space.

  At the far end of the bay’s wide, metal floor, she saw her teammates in their mechs, yellow running lights spinning and casting reflections on the distant walls. The mechs moved sluggishly. It was obvious Jeral, Mackie, and Kett had been working hard, and were tired.

  She activated her suit’s comm system, but muted her own internal mic.

  The drivers of all three mechs turned when she entered, their suit comms no doubt alerting them that the cargo doors had been opened and someone had entered the bay. They were all in the middle of moving crates from the Broker into the hold of the OZ Geo Q-ship.

  None of them seemed surprised to see her walk in. As if they had been expecting her.

  Expecting Mayve.

  Smiling inside her suit, Noemi waddled into the cargo bay, doing her best to imitate Mayve’s gait. She carried the makeup bag in one hand, and when she saw that she had their attention, Noemi made an elaborate show of pulling the rest of Mayve’s luggage, one bag at a time, inside the bay. When she had finished, she pressed the interior touchpad, and the wide doors closed behind her.

  Her ruse was convincing—she watched as the three mechs turned away and disappeared into the OZ Geo ship to deposit more crates. Clearly, Mayve’s arrival was part of their plan.

  Noemi’s empty mech stood silently nearby, next to a stack of long iron bars waiting to be bundled and loaded into delivery crates. Seeing it made her smile. It stood unmoving, as if patiently waiting for her to climb inside its open torso, put her hands and feet into the controls, and begin her shift. She edged closer to it and waited.

  Soon, from the far end of the bay, one of the mechs came out of the OZ Geo ship, its driver piloting the machine in a rapid and unbalanced way toward her.

  She could tell by the jerking walk. Jeral. He pivoted his mech at the knees instead of the hips, making the machine’s long, claw-tipped arms swing erratically.

  When the mech finally stopped in front of her, Jeral took his arms out of the machine’s controls and raised his hands, palms up, in a shrug. The universal gesture for, What’s wrong?

  She shrugged back. What do you mean?

  He raised three fingers on one gloved hand, then tapped his helmet.

  She switched her suit’s comms to channel three and gave him a thumbs up.

  “—hear me now, Aunt Mayve?”

  Noemi nodded, and breathed a sigh of relief. Good. He thinks I’m her. But Aunt Mayve? Maybe they’re closer than I thought.

  She gesticulated arbitrarily for a few seconds, as if she were talking, then stopped and looked at him.

  “What? I can’t hear you, Mayve. Turn on your mic.”

  Noemi shook her head and shrugged.

  “Like we talked about. The button at the base of the helmet, right side.” He sounded hurried, stressed.

  She shook her head and took a few pretend stabs at her helmet’s mic button.

  “The suit’s comms aren’t working?”

  Noemi nodded.

  “Damnit. It’s Braddock’s. He probably has a security code for it. No matter, as long as it keeps you alive. Can you use the wrist pad to text me?”

  The wrist pad—she’d forgotten about that. Zero-atmo suits also had wrist pads for data display and non-verbal comms. She nodded, thinking fast. Texting could work to her advantage.

  She traced letters one after the other with her fingertip, watching them appear inside her own visor. Then she flicked her finger, sending her message.

  U RECEIVE?

  He nodded. “On my visor’s internal screen. Are Captain Hunt and the officers out of our hair?”

  She tapped. LOCKED IN HELM.

  “Good. We’re almost done transferring the crates. Did the Broker get off a distress call?”

  YES.

  “Damn. They’re gonna know someone’s after their platinum. We need to hurry.”

  QUITE A MESS U LEFT BACK THERE.

  “It was easier just to kill them all. I didn’t want to waste time tying them up in the locker room, or risk one of them getting loose and coming after us in one of the Beta team’s mechs.”

  Noemi fought hard to keep her cool. Revenge could come later. Right now, she needed information.

  WHAT HAPPENS NOW?

  “The Q-ship will take us to the dark side of a large asteroid to hide for a week or two. When things cool off, we’ll transfer to an OZ Geo team pretending to be on a survey mission. Wasn’t that your plan?”

  YES. ONLY CONFIRMING. NOW HELP ME WITH MY LUGGAGE.

  “What?”

  Noemi turned and pointed at Mayve’s bags.

  “Are you kidding me?” Jeral was incredulous. “Couldn’t you have used a bot to carry that stuff? I can’t pick up all those dainty little handles with my mech’s claws.”

  She shrugged again. NOT LEAVING THEM HERE. ALL MY THINGS INSIDE.

  “I told you, Mayve—only bring the essentials!”

  THESE R THE ESSENTIALS.

  “Okay, okay. But only after we’ve moved the last of the platinum.”

  Noemi put her hands on her hips and stomped one foot, then flicked a quick text. This was a gamble, but acting like a diva seemed to be in character.

  NOW!

  Jeral sighed, his exasperation audible. “But Aunt Mayve—”

  DON’T MAKE ME ANGRY.

  “But—”

  I WANT BAGS MOVED NOW!

  Another sigh; this time, submissive. “Yes, Aunt Mayve.”

  Noemi sniggered, glad her mic was on mute. Jeral was just as spineless as she’d always thought. She traced her finger once more over the pad.

  THANK U, J. ALWAYS SAID U WERE A GOOD EGG :)

  She could practically hear him blush. “Aww, you’re welcome, Auntie.”

  Auntie? Noemi gagged.

  The sight of three cargo mechs carrying pieces of expensive luggage in each of their industrial-sized pincers was hilarious. It took everything Noemi had to not double over in laughter as they stomped off down the cargo bay toward the OZ Geo ship.

  There were twelve bags, and Noemi had insisted each mech take no more than two bags per trip.

  SO U DON’T DAMAGE THEM. THEY R EXPENSIVE.

  She didn’t hear Kett and Mackie over the comm, and assumed Jeral had them on a different channel. But she could feel the vibrations of their mechs’ heavy feet slamming the metal floor, heard the muffled clang-clang-clang of the impacts through her helmet.

  After they finished moving the luggage and resumed transferring the final crates of platinum, she texted Jeral.

  YOU FORGOT MY HANDBAG.

  “What?”

  COME GET MY HANDBAG, J.

  “Can’t you bring it yourself? We have got to get out of here. Sector police could arrive any minute.”

  STOP ARGUING! COME GET IT NOW!

  “We need to finish the platinum!”

  KETT AND MACKIE CAN DO IT.

  She was trying Jeral’s patience, but it was her only chance. She had already annoyed him in order to throw him off his game. Now she needed to isolate him. If the Q-ship escaped, so be it. She could tell the sector police where it planned to hide. More than anything, she wanted to take Jeral down, and she needed him away from Mackie and Kett to do it.

  “Fine, Auntie Mayve.”

  Jeral’s mech stomped her way, his frustration evident in its furious, ungainly walk. He stopped in front of her and extended his mech’s long metallic arm as if he was going to shake her hand. Its claw-like grips, designed for grabbing the thick handles of ore crates or bundles of metal bars, opened a few narrow centimeters.

  Noemi slowly slid Mayve’s handbag off her arm and held it between the machine’s massive pincers. With a nearly imperceptible movement of his own fingers, Jeral carefully closed the pincers until the bag dangled between them. The mech looked like a giant grasping a toy teacup. In the distance, she saw Kett and Mackie disappearing inside the OZ Geo ship
.

  Perfect.

  Her helmet filled with Jeral’s grumbling voice. “Is that everything now?”

  She nodded and tapped. THANK U.

  “Good. Now please follow me to the other ship. Quickly. All the creates are loaded.”

  He turned his mech around and stalked back down the length of the bay. As soon as he did, she moved.

  Fast.

  She leapt into the unoccupied mech nearby. The machine came alive almost instantly when the copper contacts on the surface of her suit met the conductive pads built into the mech’s torso. Systems powered up, servos spun, yellow running lights came on. She tugged the harness straps around her legs and chest in a fluid, practiced motion, then slipped her hands into the machine’s haptic controls.

  In less than ten seconds, she was stomping toward the nearby stack of iron bars, her mech’s right arm out, claw open. The ice that had formed on the mech’s limbs in the cold of the bay flaked off like scales from some molting monster just woken from hibernation.

  Twenty seconds after Jeral had told her to follow him, she jogged her mech right up behind his and turned on the mic of her suit.

  “Hey, Jeral!”

  His mech stumbled as Jeral jerked in surprise. “Noemi? What—where—?”

  “Right behind you, asshole.”

  11

  Hell and Starlight

  Jeral’s mech pivoted erratically as he turned. “Aunt Mayve? What are you doing in a mech? I thought I heard Noemi!”

  Noemi wished she could see Jeral’s face behind his copper-tinted visor as she swung her mech’s arm, the iron bar in its claw slamming into the side of his already off-balance mech.

  His mech’s gyro-stabilizers were unable to compensate for the force of the blow or Jeral’s own incompetence as a pilot, and the machine teetered for a moment before tipping backward and falling with a deafening clang onto the floor.

  Mayve’s purse, still in the mech’s grip, tore open. Tubes of lipstick, gold-plated compacts, and perfume atomizers skittered away.

  Noemi stepped forward, ready to hit Jeral’s mech again. But as she did, he kicked out and up, his mech’s wide metal foot catching hers on its hip, just to the left of where she was strapped inside. She felt the impact of metal on metal in her very teeth and fell back, her mech’s servos working madly to help her maintain balance. At the last second, she brought her right arm down, using the iron bar like a crutch, backpedaling a few meters until her mech could right itself. The iron bar sent up a shower of sparks as it scraped across the floor of the bay.