Steal the Demon: A Science-Fiction Novella by Robert Roth (free novels to read txt) 📕

Flamin’ Ramen. The noodle shop was also easy to find, since the familiar storefront, with its bright, backlit, red kanji and rotating ramen bowl bathed in holographic flames, was nearly the same as the one next to the old Hitomi Shipping ports. The memory brought her a moment of pause, but she shook it away. It would be difficult enough to see her old friend again, so she needed to be in a smooth orbit.

She spotted Ernesto as soon as she walked in. He was sitting at a table near the back. She waved when he looked up, and he smiled and waved back as she walked up to the ordering station and requested a bowl of udon with vat-grown mushrooms and station-farmed greens from the real-life person behind the counter. That was another difference being on a station with money. The one she frequented in Motherlode was fully automated.

She grabbed her tray and went over to Ernesto’s table. He stood up as she set her tray down and offered her a friendly, warm embrace. “I’m happy to see you, Kimiko.”

“It’s nice to see you, too,” she replied, then sat down across from him. It had been many years since Kimiko last saw him. Ernesto’s thick hair had thinned some and, along with his bushy mustache, had gone from a rich black to a mix of mostly silver and gray. His midsection had thickened a bit with age, and there were crow’s feet and other wrinkles in his russet brown face that hadn’t been there before. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“I wish I could say the same, but only because I know why you’re here.”

She sighed quietly. “If you don’t want to go through with this, Ernesto, then–”

He held a hand up to stop her. “Of course, I’ll go through with this, Kimiko. I owe your family, and it’s the least I can do. You know you’ll always be Ichiko’s little girl in my eyes.” A look of sadness shadowed across his face. “Shame what happened to him. He was always good to me. He deserved better.”

Ernesto Montes had once been a pilot for Hitomi Shipping. He’d always been trustworthy and dependable, and her father grew to trust him as much as his own family. But after a few close calls with the CSG, and the loss of some precious cargo in a mishap over Saturn, Kimiko’s father offered Ernesto the chance to retire from the rigors of intersystem shipping and smuggling, using one of his connections to get Ernesto the position at Al-Zamani.

“Yeah, he did,” Kimiko agreed. “But it was always the risk. He knew the game.”

“And so should you,” Ernesto chided her, lightly.

She laughed. “Like father, like daughter, right? But I’m glad for your help. I know it puts you in a difficult position.”

He shook his head. “No, it doesn’t. Sure, Al-Zamani has been decent to me, but I’m just another gear in their corporate machine. They’ve got no love for me, not the way old Ichiko did for us, certainly. And I’ve got no love for them. This is just a job to me, and it’s one that I’m delighted to walk away from, if necessary.”

She nodded, pulling a credit chip out of her pocket and holding it out to him. “Speaking of which, this is for you.”

He took it, then smiled, and suddenly she saw him as the old man he really was. She felt a moment’s doubt, then squashed it. Maybe he was helping her out of loyalty to her father, or her. Perhaps he wanted to briefly relive his glory days. It was his business, not hers. He shoved the chip into a jacket pocket. “Thank you, Mx. Hitomi.”

“It’s Yanaka now, actually.”

Ernesto raised an eyebrow. “After your mother?” She nodded. “I like it. It suits you.”

She smiled, then slurped up a mouthful of noodles while Ernesto laid out what she needed to know about the next day’s run. He worked the third shift, he explained, and would be starting his final run over to Al-Zamani around the time first-shifters were just waking up. Even though both Davida and Al-Zamani operated around the clock, the shift change between third and first was still the perfect time to catch people with their guard down. He would have an extra crate waiting in the loading zone that would be just big enough to fit her and all of her gear. He would help sneak her into the loading zone and into the crate.

“Remember, this place is strictly BYOB,” Ernesto added. As in bring-your-own-bottle, but in that case, the bottle referred to an air tank. The cargo container would be airtight, so she’d need to have her own air-supply in there.

“I’ve got it covered.”

“I never doubted you would,” he replied.

Once she was sealed inside, Ernesto told her, he would add the extra container to his manifest and have it loaded aboard. That would get her as far as the transfer zone in the Shipyard’s shuttle bay, where she would have ten to fifteen minutes while the manifest was processed before anyone would notice the change and check on the crate.

“Is that enough time?” he asked her.

“It’s more than enough, yes.”

“And you know where you’re going once you get there?”

“I do.”

He nodded. “As long as you’re sure. I don’t really orbit outside of the shuttle dock, transfer bay, and the pilot’s lounge. I don’t have the clearance for it.”

“It’s handled, Ernesto. But thank you.”

He nodded again, then pulled out his hand terminal and tapped on the input pad. There was a chirp in her pocket, so Kimiko pulled out her own terminal to see that she’d received a data file. “I just sent you the location info. Be there, and be on time, and it’ll be smooth flying.”

She opened up the data file. It contained station coordinates and their meetup time. “Got it. That works for me.”

“Stellar. Do you have any questions?”

“How are you going to sneak me into the loading zone?”

He smiled, then picked up a small shopping bag