Wreckers: A Denver Boyd Novel by George Ellis (ebook reader ink .TXT) 📕

They were open about their disdain for the independents, but that still didn’t square with taking out crews like my father’s. Besides, I’d already looked into Silver Star and found no connection whatsoever. Even a whisper of a lead and I would’ve been all over it.

“Why now?” I asked, unconvinced. “The verse is a big place and even if they don’t like us stealing small pieces of the pie, the fact remains they’re still just small pieces. Hell, they’re crumbs.”

“I didn’t say I knew why they did it, just that they did,” she said. “Believe me. Don’t believe me. I don’t really give a damn.”

“Sure you do,” I corrected her.

“Really?”

“A smart person like you, you could’ve found a million ways to get to Jasper if you wanted to,” I said. “But blaming Silver Star is easy. First place I looked. So unless you tell me how you know it was them…”

She hesitated. For the first time, I saw a flicker of doubt in her eyes.

“Like I said, believe me, don’t believe me. It’s up to you.”

I realized then that she wasn’t bluffing. She also didn’t want to tell me the truth. But she didn’t have to — she already had me and she knew it.

“Okay, let’s say I did believe you, what then?” I asked, pulling Pirate into my lap. I didn’t like Batista having all the advantages. If she had the information, I was at least going to have the cat.

“What then is you take me to Jasper,” she repeated. “And if you get me there in less than two weeks, maybe we both get something out of it.”

I pride myself on driving a hard bargain, but in this instance my hands were tied.

“You don’t touch anything, especially the engines,” I warned.

She smiled and kicked her feet onto the galley table. “Damn boy, I’m retired. Good luck getting me to do anything besides sleep and catch up on all the movies I missed while I was in uniform.”

Like I said, she was holding all the cards.

“Well played,” Gary teased in my earpiece. “It’s always impressive to see your negotiating skills in action. Wanna know the deal you messed up with your little stunt?”

“Shut up,” I snapped.

Batista looked at me, eyebrows raised. “What did he say this time?”

Chapter 4

The trip to Jasper would take about 11 days, giving us a few days to spare if Batista’s two-week deadline actually mattered a damn. I still wasn’t sure it did. She could’ve just wanted a free ride to the station. Hell of a weird way to score that ride, but who was I to judge?

Jasper, though.

Jasper and Silver Star. I’d never heard the two names connected before. The Believers didn’t venture off station very often. Most of them were either born in the 13-square-mile city or spent their lives and fortunes traversing the galaxy to get to the central hub of Theism. It was a rigid, God-fearing society. The last bastion of the righteous, if you believed the Believers. I mostly thought they were loony zealots. Even if I was interested in what they were selling on a spiritual level, the fact that alcohol was forbidden by the religion made the prospect of conversion a non-starter for me.

“You know there’s a mandatory two-year sentence for anyone caught drinking booze on Jasper,” I told Batista as she took a nip of some cheap whiskey I’d found in the galley.

“Don’t plan on staying long,” she said, reclining in the co-pilot seat, Pirate perched above her shoulders in his usual spot.

She’d had a chance to shower and clean up, and I did my best not to let my thoughts wander. The way she talked about Avery left little doubt they’d been romantically involved. It was easy to see why. Looks. Attitude. And she was a mechanic. It was a damn trifecta.

I had showered too, but I got the distinct impression she was more interested in my food and drinks than anything else. A couple years in the service of the federation will do that to a person. Freeze-dried protein packs may be full of nutrients, but they had nothing on the junk food I lived on. Batista almost promised to clean the entire ship when I told her there was a bag of potato chips in it for her. The first few days of the journey went like that. Me adjusting to having a second person on board. Her adjusting to no longer being stuck on the 405 under the thumb of The Man. We took turns emptying trash into the incinerator until the ship was more liveable.

Gary was in heaven. He finally had another person to barrage with his trademark musings. At first I thought Batista would shut that down, but he made her laugh more often than not. Maybe it was the novelty or maybe he just tried harder with her, but there was no denying they were bonding faster than we were. Not that I was jealous. I mean, sure, even Pirate was going sweet on her, but new people are exciting out here in the void. On a ship like mine, they didn’t come around often.

* * *

I was sleeping when the first warrant went out. Gary woke me up with the news.

“You’ve done it this time,” he scolded. “A thousand credits.”

I’d been hoping Jeffries wouldn’t put out an official warrant on us. He was obviously trying to hide something about Batista and the sabotage, but that embarrassment had been trumped by his desire to track me down and make me pay for crossing him.

To do that, he’d issued a Binding Federation Warrant throughout the verse. A BFW basically meant every federation ship and soldier was required to detain Batista and I on sight. That part didn’t worry me. Of greater concern was the 1000-credit reward promised to any non-fed who happened to catch us. It wasn’t a kill warrant, but that was only because Jeffries wanted to make us suffer before we were executed.

“I give us one chance