Osdal (Harmony War Series Book 3) (13 page)

Tyler secured the barrel into place and tucked it back into his jacket just as the alley way darkened with the shadows of the trio of ladies.

The one that had winked at Tyler, and the clear boss, rubbed her fingers together in the universe-talk of money.

“You got something, I want something,” she said smiling, but there was a threat in those words.

Tyler pulled out a medium sized roll from his pocket and tossed it to her. “Just having a bit of fun.”

She opened the roll and looked over the tokens appreciatively, her smile not fake in any way as the money disappeared into her skimpy clothes.

“Well, you let me know anytime you want some more fun,” she said walking up to him, sashaying her hips and biting her lip.

“And if you need a hook up,” she tapped where the machine gun was suggestively, “Find me at the Pink Goose. My name’s Eliese.” She ran her finger over Tyler’s chest and cast a smoky look at Zukic.

If Tyler wasn’t married he would have been very interested in the first offer, but the second, a promise for weapons, was much more seductive.

With that she gave them a smile and sashayed back to her girls, her high heels doing a wonderful job of showing off her rear.

“I’m going to have to give that a look over later on,” Zukic said, watching her and her girls leave. “Damn. But first we need Moretti to check it out, so let’s go get some more beers and you can continue to make friends.” He stretched his fingers out. “It’s been a while since I’ve lifted people’s stuff.”

“Oh, it’s always more fun with a bit of competition,” Tyler smiled as they went back out of the alleyway and into the crowds.

***

Bobbie had woken up with Carly in his bed, and Yu shaking him to get up for work.

Carly and Bobbie threw stuff at Yu until he retreated. Finally, Bobbie had woken up and more got water, and told Carly he’d phone her later. He left her in his bed and viewed the room; it was a mess of clothes, beer bottles and sleeping people.

Bobbie pulled his space suit on, grabbed his helmet and downed some water.

“You coming?” Yu asked him.

“On my way.”

“Good, Young’s still stuck under Haas.”

“I would still have Carly draped over me if you hadn’t woken me up!” Bobbie complained.

Yu frowned. “Someone tried to access our freighter last night. It seems that we made quite the haul and people are trying to get our gear. I want to make sure that we’re set for fees and such, and try and get people’s tokens. Hopefully we’ll have enough. Then I want to check the freighter over to make sure no one got in.”

“Alright,” Bobbie said, heading to the next room, knowing that everyone in his room had spent all their credits.

His implants opened the door for him and he found Zukic with a hooker, Holm with two ladies and Ali with one on the floor; it looked like they’d fallen off the bed.

Bobbie wandered around, looking in pockets, and found that Zukic had a bunch, most of them tucked into jacket pockets.

Tyler’s jacket was buried under the bed with his gear bag, opening it, Bobbie found three different pistols and a submachine gun, and a wad of tokens. There were more tokens in his jacket pockets.

Bobbie stuffed them in his pockets and stood up to shake Tyler.

“What?” Tyler said into the pillow.

“Taking your tokens.”

“Sure, was a good game,” Tyler said, rolling over and going back to sleep.

It looked like Tyler had been doing some pick-pocketing; Bobbie piled the money together, using two paper clips to keep the stacks together.

Yu was waiting for him in the hall. “Tyler and Zukic seemed to be having quite the time last night,” Bobbie said, holding his leg pocket open.

“That should be enough to get us sorted out. Let’s go check on the freighter.”

The station was cleaning up after the night before, with morning food places doing a brisk business as people nursed hangovers or went to work.

The lights were slowly coming online across the station and they unclipped their helmets from their hips, securing them and walking out into the walkways. Bobbie’s hangover was in full effect as they made it out of the second air lock.

They checked over the freighter, and someone seemed to have tried to use a crowbar to get in the airlocks and the lock showed burn marks, probably from it electrocuting whatever tumbler had been put on it.

Yu went up to the cock pit and Bobbie checked the hold, confirming that no one had gotten in.

“Looks like they’re trying to find out where our asteroid is,” Yu said over their implants.

“How do you know?”

“They tried to hack our systems; they were looking for location data. Unless they know we’re EMF already, I’d say someone is trying to break in on our find. Oh, we’ve got company. Looks like station staff.”

“I’ll go deal with them,” Bobbie said, heaving himself to his feet and waiting for his head to stop spinning. “Thought my augments would have this hangover gone by now.”

“They probably would, but unless we’re in combat they’re in sleep mode. That was part of the whole implant experience,” Yu said.

“Ah fuck, those pricks,” Bobbie said, stepping out of the airlock.

Four station staff were approaching. “Good morning, my name is Alec, I’m the station’s docking master. I was hoping to talk to your cargo master.”

“Found him, name’s Bobbie, what can I do you for?” Bobbie said, letting the hangover color his words.

“It seems that there is a discrepancy in your paperwork. We are sorry for the inconvenience, but credit in the form of tokens for unrefined materials has gone up.”

He was good, Bobbie thought, he actually sounded sorry.

“It’s a thousand tokens for a hundred kilos of pre-refined materials,” the man said, and Bobbie could see the smile on the man’s face and the dark looks of the others.

“Let’s take this in to the station.” Bobbie muted the channel and sighed.

A thousand tokens for a hundred kilos. We took out a hundred and fifty thousand, making that fifteen thousand kilos, and I’m guessing he’ll pick it over, probably going right for the platinum, which is worth hundreds of thousands, maybe even a few mil, Fucking pricks.

“Certainly,” the docking master said.

Bobbie pulled out his surface, sending a message on his implants while opening up the docking fees and pay back rates of loans on the surface. There wasn’t a mention of unrefined material against a loan. The freighter had been put up as collateral, with its estimated worth set at 1.5 million.

These pricks were just trying to pull one over on someone with a killer hangover.

Bobbie took his helmet off, rubbing his forehead. Making a show of his hangover and making amenable noises as he looked through the information. Stalling for time.

The docking master’s helpfulness lessened as Bobbie found less things to ask questions about.

Bobbie could have kissed Moretti when he finally showed up.

He must have been running ever since he got the message.

“Hey Bobbie thought you were doing checks?” Moretti asked. Tyler and Jerome were rubbing sleep from their eyes, but Bobbie sensed that their act was more for the benefit of the docking master and his people than themselves.

“These people say that our agreement is all messed up,” Bobbie said, sitting on some pallets ready to watch Moretti at work.

“That’s correct, the rate of unrefined materials for docking charges and loan against it is one hundred kilos to a thousand tokens,” Alec said again, looking well fed and accommodating.

Fucking con artist.

“Bobbie, what have you got on you?” Moretti sighed, holding out a hand to Bobbie.

Bobbie pulled the stacks of tokens from his pockets.

Tyler looked pleased with himself, but Alec looked confused.

“Jerome count that would you?” Moretti tossed a stack to Jerome and held one himself. They went through slowly, making it look like they were counting, but using their implants to do the real work.

Then Moretti pulled out his surface, and Bobbie could see that he went to a banking interface and was sending a large deposit to someone. “I’ve deposited one hundred and six grand back to the docking authority, and I’ve got thirteen grand here. Jerome, how much do you have?”

“Twenty-two and change.” Jerome pulled off a few bills and pocketed them.

“So, with that, we then owe you 29 grand including docking fees, which we can get to you in a number of hours,” Moretti said, taking the bundle of cash from Jerome and holding it out to Alec.

The 29 still needs to be covered by retainer, coming out to 2900 kilos,” Alec said, his smile slipping as the docking toughs made themselves look mean.

Tyler and Jerome looked bored and tired, not a good sign for the toughs.

Moretti looked thoughtful. “See, I would agree, but we’re from Elekt Sector, and we give Harmony 20 percent of our materials for no tokens, in a measure of good faith. I wouldn’t want to take that tithe from them, I already promised it to them last night over beers,” Moretti said.

Alec’s demeanour changed. Moretti was basically paying the Chosen to make sure no one fucked about with small bullshit like this. Alec had obviously thought that with them being new to the station, they wouldn’t have protection, or know how things worked. They had a big haul and he’d thought they were easy pickings.

Moretti also mentioned they were having beers; Chosen didn’t like to drink with anyone but the hardiest Harmony supporters. Fanatics were scary, no matter if you were fighting them or doing a deal with them.

Alec’s affable smile returned. “Well, I hope you have a good stay and continue the patronage of our docks,”

“Ah, with the deposits we’ll be bringing in, we’re probably going to have to use the refinery’s direct docks,” Moretti said. This would cut out the docking authority completely.

Alec smiled to them, turned and left.

“Prick,” Jerome said as they disappeared through the airlock to the walkways.

“Let’s get on the freighter and go by the refinery. We can get our credits and move the ship before Alec and his buddies get any ideas,” Moretti said.

Bobbie sighed and got to his feet, heading for the freighter where Yu was already powering up the engines.

Onboard, the noise canceller was turned on as Tyler and Moretti talked about inactive implants and the weaponry in Osdal.

“Sealed and good to go,” Bobbie said, climbing up into the cockpit.

“Moving to refinery,” Yu said.

Bobbie slumped into what was usually Young’s seat usually and plotted a simple route, but Yu was already going in the right general direction.

There wasn’t much traffic, as most people were still nursing the aftereffects of the night before.

“I can’t believe that they do that every night,” Yu said.

“I can, I’m looking forward to doing it again,” Bobbie said.

“Sure you are, with that hangover.”

“Just need some water and to get my augments working to clear this crap out.”

“Alright, let’s go and see what the refinery has for us,” Yu said, powering down the freighter, bleeding heat and checking the locking mechanisms on the landing struts.

Bobbie grunted, getting up and heading into the cargo hold. The implant channel didn’t sound fuzzy any more as Jerome, Tyler and Moretti were up and walking through the open airlocks.

Bobbie followed them and looked around the craft making sure that it was good.

“Moretti see if you can wrangle up some fuel,” Yu said over the implants net.

The station had been built around the refinery to keep the workers who kept the refinery going close by. It was mostly operated with a few thousand people keeping up on maintenance and making sure the robots didn’t fuck up, which pretty much only happened due to human error.

Bobbie focused on going through his mental checklist, but being commando in his space suit was starting to rub his body weird. He needed a shower, a gallon of orange juice and probably a few hours with Carly under the sheets.

***

Jerome’s head wasn’t doing the best. Dashtund and Dominguez had been on a shot binge, taking any kind of liquor they could put into their glasses.

His breath tasted like alcohol and battery acid.

Tyler was looking better, he’d only had some casual beers, and pick pocketed half the population of the station.

“What the hell is this place called?” Jerome asked Tyler.

“I dunno. Hey, Moretti, what’s the station called?”

“Oort Cloud Refinery Seventy-Seven.”

“Hmm, thought it would be something cool. Companies take all the fun out of naming shit,” Jerome said as they entered the airlock into the refinery.

They were greeted by a thin man who seemed to be brimming with excitement. “Moretti!” He squealed. “You, my good friend, are a boon to Seventy-Seven! That’s the best load I’ve seen in three years! You Elekt Sector people sure do have luck on your side!”

“Thank you, Johnny,” Moretti said. “These are my friends, Tyler and Jerome.”