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  Smuggler

  Spacer, Smuggler, Pirate, Spy #2

  J.A. Sutherland

  Darkspace Press

  SMUGGLER

  Spacer, Smuggler, Pirate, Spy #2

  by J.A. Sutherland

  Copyright 2018 Sutherland. All rights reserved.

  Created with Vellum

  There are “nice” jobs that come my way, and there are profitable jobs that come my way. Now, these things do, on occasion, come along inside each other’s orbits — but it’s more of a cometary sort of thing, if you take my meaning.

  Avrel Dansby is troubled.

  He knew, going in, that the life of a smuggler would be filled with disreputable sorts — still, he’d like to imagine there are some jobs out there he can stomach without the desire to blow up his client.

  One

  Avrel Dansby was not, on the whole of it, fond of running.

  He understood some liked it for the dubious health benefits, but thought one could get very nearly the same effects from an hour or two of randiness between the sheets — and come out far ahead in the equation.

  He did not even like running aboard ship, where it consisted mostly of staying in one place within a nicely controlled environment.

  In-atmosphere on a planet, especially one like Keldworth Heath, he liked it even less.

  Keldworth Heath’s sun was low overhead, but already bright white and seemingly three times the size of any he’d seen before, baking the streets of this spaceport town to a temperature far from controlled.

  He was soaked in sweat and now, several kilometers into his run, covered in dust, both what his feet kicked up from the dry, dusty street and where he’d fallen more than once in the kilometer across uneven ground from his client’s compound in the nearby hills. Most of the dust from the fall when they shot his horse had since been shaken off and replaced with new, or ground straight through the material of his jumpsuit so as to mix with the sweat covering his skin beneath.

  His lungs felt like they might burst and he added Keldworth Heath’s decidedly low oxygen to his growing list of complaints about the world.

  But all those things would be moot in a mere half kilometer, when he reached his ship’s boat and lifted from this Dark-forsaken planet to return to space. Getting to that boat and returning to space was the whole purpose of this most uncomfortable and unpleasant bit of running.

  The sharp crack of ionizing air sounded beside his head and a barely visible bolt of laser light twinkled past to strike the corner of a building ahead of him. Bits of charred wood flew off and the people on the street, who’d been watching him curiously as he ran through their town, ducked back against buildings and into doorways.

  Well, there’s that, too, Dansby thought, luckily they’re —

  He turned to check on his pursuers who’d been nearly three hundred meters behind him since he’d shot the last of their horses back in the hills. They were now all piled into a cart drawn by a new horse and, with no further need to run themselves, found the leisure to engage in the other pastime they’d taken up.

  Another laser flashed past with crack of ionizing air.

  Where’d they get a bloody cart?

  He turned his attention back to his running, redoubling his efforts, despite the shortness of breath and burning legs.

  At least the cart was wheeled and not antigrav, else they’d have a stable platform to shoot from. Must have grabbed it from some townsperson — a shabby thing to do, but not unexpected for those louts, working as they did for his former client.

  Dansby didn’t consider himself to have worked for the man, not as an employee, at least, since it was a single commission for a single job he’d been hired for, and that by an intermediary.

  Ahead, nearly there, was the edge of the landing field, with just a few buildings fronting it to cater to the spacers off the occasional visiting ships.

  All his own crew were back aboard ship, revels, what they could make with the town’s single pub, a room upstairs to make due as a house of ease, and few other ships in-system for them to brawl with, at an end. They’d been nearly ready to sail after making their delivery when the client had called to ask if they might be interested in another job.

  So Dansby’d come down with —

  Another laser flashed by him, this one close enough to singe the arm of his shirt and sear the flesh beneath.

  “Kaycie!” Dansby yelled, knowing he was still too far from the boat, which was nearly a hundred meters away still and just become visible. Sound didn’t carry as far in Keldworth Heath’s thin atmosphere. He yelled again anyway, despite the protestations from his lungs, “Kaycie!”

  The boat’s ramp was down, so he had only to make these hundred meters — less, then up the ramp, and there were weapons racked inside. His own pistol was long-discarded, back in the hills when he’d run out of ammunition to fire at his pursuers and decided the weight was too much of a burden.

  He could hear the rumble of the cart horse’s hooves, a bad sign, but didn’t turn to check how close they were, merely put his head down and ran, screaming as much as he could.

  “Kaycie! Kaycie! Buggerit, get out here you daft —”

  Crack!

  That shot had more the sound of chemical propellants than ionized air and it jerked Dansby’s head up just as two more sounded quickly after.

  Crack! Crack!

  All at once the cart and horse, which had sounded nearly on his heels and, he saw now, had indeed been so, swerved by to his right, no longer trying to run him down now that the cart’s driver slumped in his seat and the reins draped loose. The shooter sprawled likewise, arms wide and draped over the cart’s seat.

  “Good shooting, lass,” Dansby panted, racing up the boat’s ramp and slapping the button to raise it behind him. “Now we must lift, I’m afraid!”

  “Jon! What’ve you gotten us into now?” Kaycie demanded, following him to the cockpit. “Why were they chasing you? Wanting to shoot you I can understand, but the chasing bit seems more effort than you’re generally worth.”

  Dansby did wish she’d use his alias and not so casually bandy about the name he’d been born to and which held so very much baggage for him.

  “A bit of a kerfuffle with that Wilmott and the job proposition,” Dansby said, ignoring her use of his former name. He slipped into the boat’s pilot seat and tapped the console. The ramp was nearly up, so he set the boat to lifting and silenced the ensuing alarms. There was nothing in the cargo compartment that might spew out — or nothing he’d wait another moment to save, in any case.

  Kaycie slid into the copilot’s seat to his right and glared at him. “And what are you about, calling me ‘daft’ and what was the next word you planned? I’ll not take your guff, Jon Bartlett.”

  Dansby winced. “I’m sorry. Heat of the moment — I was a bit excited. I do wish you’d not bandy that name about, though.”

  “In private, I’ll call you by your proper name and not —” She waved a hand at him. “— whoever you’ve become. Perhaps it will serve to remind you of who you really are.”

  Dansby turned back to his console, letting out a deep breath of the proper atmosphere that was filling the boat now it was sealed.

  “You’d best buckle up,” he said.

  Kaycie glanced from him, to the clear sky visible through the viewscreen, with not a storm in sight between them and orbit, then back to Dansby, who was busy buckling his own belts, though he rarely used them.

  She buckled her own straps, not taking her eyes from him.

  “Excitement is no reason to be calling me names, Jon. I’m not one of the crew and you’re no bosun — we’re captain and first officer, and —” She shook her head. “Never mind, you’d call your own mother a daft bint in the heat of the moment
these days.”

  Dansby winced, both from his mother being lost to him, sent to the Fringe worlds as an indenture over his family’s debts, and because Kaycie was likely right. He’d been acting more the bosun than the captain lately, with all the crew.

  “Sorry,” Kaycie said. “We’ll talk of this later. Why didn’t you just call me with your tablet?”

  “Wilmott took my tablet,” Dansby said.

  He checked the chronometer on his console and swung the boat about to face back up into the hills toward Wilmott’s compound. Now that they were aloft, Keldworth Heath had nothing that could stop his boat. Perhaps if they brought every aircraft they had to bear, but those were nearly all cargo haulers and no match for an armed ship’s boat. He could spare the few minutes to see his handiwork done.

  Kaycie took a deep breath.

  “If we’re going to hang about here all buckled up, would you at least tell me why?” she asked.

  Dansby cleared his throat.

  “Well, you recall we thought our cargo for Wilmott was a bit odd?”

  “Yes, such a large shipment of asteroid mining charges for such a new colony — they’ve no space industry to speak of yet, barely gotten their planetside mines started. And no hint of some resource valuable enough to rush it.”

  “Aye,” Dansby said, “but Wilmott wouldn’t be the first colonist to outgrow his britches and think he could turn a profit in vacuum before the infrastructure’s there. And so many charges … well, all the better to avoid duty and tax stamps on, yes? Especially if the mine output might not find its way to a proper, taxable, market.” He took another deep breath, relishing full lungs and wondering how the Keldworth Heath colonists managed with the thin air. “Well, Wilmott has other uses for them and for the next cargo he’s after.”

  Kaycie raised her brow to prompt him.

  “Arms,” Dansby said, “and ammunition. Quite a lot of both.”

  “Bugger it,” Kaycie muttered.

  “Aye. See Wilmott, and he was quite open with me at dinner last night, thinking I’m of like mind, you see, isn’t satisfied with the way things go on Keldworth Heath. He’s one of the largest shareholders, but hasn’t a large enough block — or those like-minded enough to vote with him — to see his will done on every issue, and that irks him to no end.”

  “I see.”

  Keldworth Heath was a new colony, with the first-generation settlers still in charge, and, like so many, wished little to do with the kingdom at large other than trade. They’d refused all Crown Services, and settled with the demand they be left alone to do as they will — which the New London Crown would honor, so long as they left neighboring systems alone and allowed their people to freely emigrate as they wished. Barring those two things, the owners of the world could do as they willed, including fighting amongst themselves over who ruled the planet and how.

  It was a not uncommon occurrence, with the colonists who’d thought they were of like-enough mind with their neighbors to purchase and settle their own world together, suddenly discovering that the fellow next door was prone to the rankest heresies and intolerable differences.

  People, it seems, quite like to hate each other.

  “So,” Dansby went on, “he began to suspect I was not quite onboard with his plan and had my tablet taken while I spent the night thinking on his offer of another commission.” He frowned. “Why ever do his sort think treating a fellow poorly will make him more likely to come around? Never mind. In any case, I managed to escape, but they found out and chased me.”

  “Being found out’s unlike you, Jon.”

  “Yes, well, the note might have had something to do with that.”

  “You left them a note?”

  “Seemed the humane thing to do.”

  “Jon,” Kaycie said warily, “what did the note say?”

  “Only that it would be best if Wilmott were to evacuate his compound this morning.”

  Dansby saw the chronometer tick over and tightened his grip on the boat’s controls.

  “Why would he —”

  The boat’s viewscreen flashed white before automatically darkening to adjust to the view outside, then brightened as the initial flash faded.

  Off in the distance, some five kilometers away, a massive column of smoke rose from the ground before roiling into a bulbous top as it interacted with higher atmosphere.

  The boat shuddered and jerked about as the shockwave hit, but stayed under Dansby’s control to ride it out.

  The town below was less lucky.

  They were far enough from the blast to survive it, but the buildings facing Wilmott’s compound were knocked over and their parts scattered like kindling. Those next were flattened, and those following that were left to lean precariously.

  Dansby grunted and began lifting for orbit.

  “Because he doesn’t have a shipload of mining charges anymore.”

  Two

  “No, I don’t believe it was an overreaction at all,” Dansby said as they reached orbit and he plotted a course for Elizabeth. Kaycie’d sat in shocked silence for a few minutes after the blast had gone off, which gave him time to set the boat’s course and relax, then she’d set on him like a terrier after a rat. “Look, Kaycie, you didn’t have dinner with the man. Wilmott sat there over the pudding and laid out exactly his plans for anyone on Keldworth Heath who might oppose him, and they were not pleasant to hear — over pudding or otherwise. He’s filled both his compound and that town there with the roughest sort of indentures and promised them both land and freedom if they’ll fight in his little civil war. If you think any of them were innocents, you’d be mistaken. These were not nice men.”

  Kaycie mumbled something under her breath.

  They were nearing the ship and Dansby set the boat to dock, easing it up beneath Elizabeth to nestle beside the keel.

  “What was that?” he asked, unbuckling.

  Kaycie followed him out of the cockpit. He undogged the hatch in the boat’s upper bulkhead and she pulled the retractable ladder down.

  “No, honestly,” he said, “I didn’t hear you.”

  Kaycie’s face went red and she looked down at the deck.

  “I told you so,” she murmured, then glared at him. “Look, I swore when I spent a dreadful summer listening to Aunt Charlotte and Uncle Jacob that I’d never become the sort who said, ‘I told you so,’ but, damn it, Jon, you can’t ignore what I warn you about and then complain over that very thing! ‘Not nice men?’ Bloody hell, man, who did you think was involved in smuggling? Cloistered monks?”

  “Those fellows on Saint Gummarus were quite happy to see their wines off without the tariff, if you’ll recall —”

  “Jon!”

  Dansby’s shoulders slumped. In general, Kaycie was right and he couldn’t argue her point. Perhaps if he’d stuck with cargoes of wine or some other innocuous goods, then they’d not have met the likes of Wilmott, but the pay had been so much better. Elizabeth had a decent carrying capacity, but he didn’t have the funds to fill her hold himself, and the major lines, the bloody Marchants prime among them, got nearly all of the strictly legitimate carrying contracts.

  It was either sit idle until someone with a cargo grew desperate enough to ship in an independent hull or take on a bit of less than legitimate work.

  “We needed the money,” Dansby said, starting up the ladder. “To pay the crew, to supply Elizabeth, to —”

  He climbed into the ship’s lock, that bit where the antigrav from neither the boat nor Elizabeth properly reached and was nearly zero-g, save for a bit of stomach tumbling. At least he blamed the stomach tumbling on the conflict between grav systems.

  “To search,” he finished lamely, hand on the final hatch to the ship.

  Damn it, Kaycie knew where the money went, as she did the ship’s books. What he could spare, which was little enough after the costs of keeping Elizabeth crewed and supplied and in space, went to searchers. Trolling for information about his mother, put aboard some inden
ture ship and then her debt sold to a colonist on one of a thousand or more worlds. Such a search didn’t come cheap.

  Kaycie tugged at his leg then eeled her way up to lay one hand over his on the hatch release and the other on his cheek. There was barely enough space for the two of them in the tubular lock, meant for spacers one at a time and not cargo.

  “I know, Jon,” she said, wrapping her arms around him, “and you’ll find her. But when you do, must you not be her son? And not some stranger who’s done …” She pressed her cheek to his chest. “She’d wish to be rescued by Jon Bartlett, and not welcome his replacement by Avrel Dansby, I think.”

  “I have —”

  “Shush. Only hold a bit of yourself that’s still my Jon, will you? For the future, when we’re done with all this and can rest?”

  Dansby nodded.

  “All right, then.”

  The hatch above them slid open, undogged from the ship side, and faces filled it.

  “All well, sir, is there —”

  The voice of Elizabeth’s bosun, Sheila Detheridge, broke off at the sight of him and Kaycie pressed together in the lock.

  “Er … a bit more time and privacy, sir?”

  “No,” Dansby said, trying to find some way for either himself or Kaycie to finish the climb into the ship without this bit passing that bit and turning even more embarrassing in front of the crew. “Break orbit and make for the L1 point, instanter. Before we start hearing from Keldworth Heath’s authorities, I think.”

  “Oh, they’re squawking a’ready, sir,” Detheridge said. “Do you want to stay?”

  “Up you go, captain — first on, first off,” Kaycie said, giving him a shove up the ladder, which ended his dilemma, if not his embarrassment, as she saw fit to give little surreptitious kisses and — ouch — a nip or two, to the bits that passed her on his way.