stepped back into the hall and slammed the closet door shut. He made a few feeble protests as I barricaded him in with a trash barrel. He’d get out eventually, but right now I had to lose as much deadweight as possible.
I blinked up the queue again, and there it was, an hour from hitting orbit: the Rose of Tralee , a WalWa colony seeder fresh in from Goodluck, bound for someplace in the Beyond. Now Bloombeck’s story made sense; Santee wasn’t popular for local traffic, but it was one of the last fuel stops before jumping past the boundaries of Occupied Space. Leaving Santee was, essentially, a one-way trip. That, plus all that travel time (two years out of Goodluck to jump, then two years to here, then two more years to the Red Line and Beyond) gave the crew plenty of time to contemplate how long and shitty the voyage ahead could be.
Plus, forty Breaches. That would easily put me over the top, give me a few Breaches to pass on to other recruiters to put them in my debt. I’d always have a need for labor, Union or otherwise, and it would go a long way toward helping the distillery succeed.
Still, Jesus! Just like Bloombeck to get his timing messed up. This would have been great news a week ago. Now, it was just a potential pain in my ass.
I slipped outside the main building, smiling and waving to the stone-faced receptionist as I ran to the tuk-tuk.
“Padma, I been thinking,” said Bloombeck, climbing out of the tuk-tuk. “It’s not fair, the price we agreed on. I want to up it to three fifty–”
I grabbed him by the shoulder and flipped him out to the ground. “Drive,” I said. Bloombeck howled in protest as Jilly stomped on the gas. “Head for the coast.”
“Anywhere in particular, boss?” asked Jilly as she dodged a caravan of WalWa Indentures biking toward the main office. I heard the cry of Union parasite! before we skidded around a corner.
“Sou’s Reach,” I said, “and go faster than you did before.”
Jilly nodded and steered us onto the sidewalk. We passed the line of vehicles at the exit cordon, and I waved to the still-naked goon as we bounced onto Brapati Causeway. The tuk-tuk’s engine protested, but she didn’t let up until the first whiffs of rotting sugar hit us thirty-six minutes later.
Chapter 5
The Recovery launches weren’t so much boats as they were planks with delusions of seaworthiness, and the sailors lounging around were in danger of being overrun by empty rum jugs. None of them looked competent or sober enough to do anything, which made things that much easier when a black-and-yellow police bumblecar screeched to a halt in front of the Recovery office and disgorged six cops who proceeded to arrest their way in. As soon as the cops cleared the dock, I tore a blue boy in half and gave one piece to Jilly. “Find me something big enough to haul forty people and you get the other half.”
She protested until I held up two more C-notes. As she scurried away to steal something appropriate, I bounced to the launches. They were even more terrifying up close, less ships than collections of scabby paint and rusted parts. I hopped onto the least cancerous of the boats, fired up the cane diesel engines, and hoped for the best as I cast off. The launch gurgled and creaked as it hit wake, and the noises only got worse once I turned into open water.
No one else in the harbor made a move toward the smoke columns, now turning white from steam. That was encouraging: no one from another Ward had managed to get the jump on me, and the lack of WalWa traffic meant I just might pull this off. I cranked the throttle up to maximum, despite the engine’s whining protests. The smell of heated saltwater filled my nose, along with boiled fish. Hot drops were hell on sea life.
Soon, the cans were in sight: four gray cylinders, each thirty meters long bobbling along the swell, their heat shields acting as ballast. Scorch marks from the re-entry scored their sides, and I wondered if they were
I blinked up the queue again, and there it was, an hour from hitting orbit: the Rose of Tralee , a WalWa colony seeder fresh in from Goodluck, bound for someplace in the Beyond. Now Bloombeck’s story made sense; Santee wasn’t popular for local traffic, but it was one of the last fuel stops before jumping past the boundaries of Occupied Space. Leaving Santee was, essentially, a one-way trip. That, plus all that travel time (two years out of Goodluck to jump, then two years to here, then two more years to the Red Line and Beyond) gave the crew plenty of time to contemplate how long and shitty the voyage ahead could be.
Plus, forty Breaches. That would easily put me over the top, give me a few Breaches to pass on to other recruiters to put them in my debt. I’d always have a need for labor, Union or otherwise, and it would go a long way toward helping the distillery succeed.
Still, Jesus! Just like Bloombeck to get his timing messed up. This would have been great news a week ago. Now, it was just a potential pain in my ass.
I slipped outside the main building, smiling and waving to the stone-faced receptionist as I ran to the tuk-tuk.
“Padma, I been thinking,” said Bloombeck, climbing out of the tuk-tuk. “It’s not fair, the price we agreed on. I want to up it to three fifty–”
I grabbed him by the shoulder and flipped him out to the ground. “Drive,” I said. Bloombeck howled in protest as Jilly stomped on the gas. “Head for the coast.”
“Anywhere in particular, boss?” asked Jilly as she dodged a caravan of WalWa Indentures biking toward the main office. I heard the cry of Union parasite! before we skidded around a corner.
“Sou’s Reach,” I said, “and go faster than you did before.”
Jilly nodded and steered us onto the sidewalk. We passed the line of vehicles at the exit cordon, and I waved to the still-naked goon as we bounced onto Brapati Causeway. The tuk-tuk’s engine protested, but she didn’t let up until the first whiffs of rotting sugar hit us thirty-six minutes later.
Chapter 5
The Recovery launches weren’t so much boats as they were planks with delusions of seaworthiness, and the sailors lounging around were in danger of being overrun by empty rum jugs. None of them looked competent or sober enough to do anything, which made things that much easier when a black-and-yellow police bumblecar screeched to a halt in front of the Recovery office and disgorged six cops who proceeded to arrest their way in. As soon as the cops cleared the dock, I tore a blue boy in half and gave one piece to Jilly. “Find me something big enough to haul forty people and you get the other half.”
She protested until I held up two more C-notes. As she scurried away to steal something appropriate, I bounced to the launches. They were even more terrifying up close, less ships than collections of scabby paint and rusted parts. I hopped onto the least cancerous of the boats, fired up the cane diesel engines, and hoped for the best as I cast off. The launch gurgled and creaked as it hit wake, and the noises only got worse once I turned into open water.
No one else in the harbor made a move toward the smoke columns, now turning white from steam. That was encouraging: no one from another Ward had managed to get the jump on me, and the lack of WalWa traffic meant I just might pull this off. I cranked the throttle up to maximum, despite the engine’s whining protests. The smell of heated saltwater filled my nose, along with boiled fish. Hot drops were hell on sea life.
Soon, the cans were in sight: four gray cylinders, each thirty meters long bobbling along the swell, their heat shields acting as ballast. Scorch marks from the re-entry scored their sides, and I wondered if they were
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