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

security, I entered the main thoroughfare and was greeted by a six-pack of windows featuring eager and beautiful companions. Normally, I didn’t have the credits to even consider such debauchery, but thanks to Desmond’s advance, the thought at least crossed my mind. A brunette with slender legs and a positively wicked smile beckoned me toward her window. I didn’t even want to calculate how long it had been since I’d been with a woman.

Maybe later, I told myself.

First, business.

I’d been on Titan a few times before, so I knew the usual Silver Star haunts. The unimaginatively named Beerverse was one of them. The black doors slid open as I approached, and I stepped from the bright thoroughfare into the dimly lit pub. It was one of the smaller bars on Titan, and not one of the nicest, in decor or clientele. It had the vibe of a place that was always teetering on the edge of a brawl. I’d seen a couple there, only one of which I’d started. Security hadn’t been beefed up, however, unless you counted the half-drunk bouncer in the corner who was chatting up a companion wearing the silver lycra one-piece all men and women in the profession were required to wear. The large, bald-headed man gave me a cursory glance, decided I wasn’t a threat, and went back to negotiating with the girl, who seemed to be driving a hard bargain. I couldn’t blame her.

The rest of the pub was a collection of seedy folk who didn’t have enough credits to waste at one of the nicer establishments on the station. Tracers and feds mixed, along with men in grease-stained orange jumpsuits and the odd business exec who felt like slumming it. The ratio of patrons to working girls was about three to one. There was also a working guy who was making eyes at the bartender, an attractive woman my age who had no business working in a place like this.

“Hi Chandra,” I said, settling into a stool at the bar. She immediately popped open a can of grape soda for me and handed it over.

“Every time I see you, you get older,” she said with a smile.

“That’s the nature of only seeing me once every six months,” I replied.

I took a swig of the grape soda and was rewarded with amazing bubbly goodness. “That is the best grape I’ve ever had,” I told her. “You know just what I like.”

Chandra was good people. I don’t use that phrase lightly, either. I met her back when my uncle and I were hauling the Exemplar, a dead ship, back to Titan for repairs. The irony of a ship named the Exemplar being stalled was not lost on me. Anyway, Chandra was 17 at the time (same age as me) and happened to be a stowaway on the Exemplar. Somehow, and she never divulged her secret, Chandra was able to sneak from that ship onto the Stang and stay hidden from us for three days before I found her trying to sneak some of my junk food from the kitchen while she thought we were sleeping. Long story short, the girl had spunk and we decided not to turn her in when we reached Titan on the condition she got a real job. This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but it was honest work.

“So what brings you to the T?” she asked, ignoring another customer who was trying to get her attention.

“Thought I’d stop in and say hi to my favorite stowaway.” I smiled and took a swig of my drink as I eyed the clientele.

She noticed my roving eyes.

“Looking for companionship, Denver? I can recommend a clean one.”

I frowned. She was only 19, but Chandra was a full-fledged adult with all the qualities you could ask for. To me, however, she’d always be that hollow-eyed, rail-thin teen that desperately needed a meal and a break. So it still seemed weird when she casually offered to recommend the safest sex partner in the pub.

“No, I’m looking for a Silver Star captain,” I replied.

“Whatever tickles your fancy.”

I frowned again. “Can you recommend any particularly disgruntled ones? Don’t ask why, please.”

She gave me a look and shrugged, then motioned to a corner table where a gruff, overweight man with graying hair nursed a bright red drink. He watched the soccer feed on his handheld device, cursing as one of the teams scored.

“That’s Hendricks,” she said. ““That’s Hendricks,” Chandra said. “A special kind of asshole. Even the prosties won’t touch him. He’s a regular.”

“How regular?”

“Here most nights. I don’t get the impression he works much these days.” Chandra stepped away to pour a drink for a clean-cut guy at the end of the bar. I watched him give her a sly smile as she delivered the glass. Chandra returned it with a wink.

“Hendricks is no good. I need someone who Silver Star might actually miss,” I told her as she returned. That got another eyebrow raise from Chandra. I nodded toward clean-cut. “What about him?”

“Cute, huh?” she remarked. “Only see him a few times a year. Name’s Selzo.”

“First or last?” I asked.

“Just Selzo,” she shrugged. “What do you need him for?”

“I’m looking to franchise.” I rapped my knuckles on the bar, gave Chandra a wink of my own, and walked over to the stool next to Selzo. He was a good-looking guy and at first glance, had a boyish charm to him. But a closer look revealed hard eyes.

“Mind if I sit?” I asked, motioning to the seat next to his.

Selzo regarded the various empty spots in the pub. He tilted his head.

“Depends what you have to say, I suppose,” he said.

I nodded in understanding and sat down. I flashed Chandra a sign, prompting her to bring another soda for me and another drink for Selzo. He accepted it by downing the rest of his other glass, which Chandra cleared.

“You know him?” he asked her.

“He’s okay,” she said with a smile, then walked away.

“Well if Chandy says