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

me yet more wisdom I’d never forget: greedy people prey on the weak.

Eventually, however, I picked up some tricks. I learned strategy. According to my brother, I became an even better bluffer than him. I realized that the worst thing you could do was give away too much. It was fine to overplay or underplay your hand, but you never wanted to fall into a pattern. It (literally) paid to keep your opponents guessing.

So I didn’t just tell Slay I knew she was working for Jack Largent. I had to tease it out a bit.

“What problem is that?” she asked, concerned where the conversation was going.

“Good news is we got Marcum and the device,” I said. “Bad news is the device, which I should probably admit that I now know is a warp drive, was damaged during the getaway.”

“How extensive is the damage?”

“It’s hard to say. It’s not brand new anymore, I can tell you that. Romy and Marcum are currently looking at it.”

“That’s fine. We’ll assess the device when we pick it up at the rendezvous point. As I’m sure you saw, the Rox has been destroyed and we should have no trouble transferring the drive to the Burnett.”

“I did see that. Good work dealing with the Rox. In fact, the Burnett is probably the only ship in the fed fleet that could’ve done it.”

Slay accepted the compliment with a wary nod.

“Oh, there is one more thing,” I said. “The matter of the federation warrant on me and my crew. Gonna need you to kill that before we hand over the drive. I assume that’s not a problem.”

“Once we have the device, I will have the warrant rescinded,” Slay countered.

I pretended to understand. “Right, because you wouldn’t want me taking off with the goods once the bounty is removed. I get it. Maybe a fair compromise would be that you get the warrant reduced, even by just one credit, so I know you have sway over those guys at the top of the food chain over there. I’m not exactly on the best terms with them.”

Slay didn’t respond verbally. Instead, she let her ship do it for her. One second our scan was clean, the next thing I knew there was the Burnett, bouncing into frame thanks to semi-warp capabilities. The ship’s weapons weren’t hot, though that wasn’t surprising; they couldn’t risk firing at us with the warp drive on board.

“Oh, hi there,” I said, noting the Burnett’s appearance. “So what do you say about the compromise?”

“Our deal was simple. The bounty is lifted once we have the device,” she said.

I sighed and put my hands wide, palms up. “Hey, I had to try. Alright, how do you want to do this?”

Slay said she’d be sending a boarding party over to retrieve the drive, along with Marcum and Romy. I told her I’d have to check with Marcum, as we hadn’t discussed him being transferred to the Burnett, and I didn’t want to assume he was willing to go without asking him first. Slay agreed.

* * *

“She knew. Of course she knew!” Edgar shouted. He was pointing at Romy, who cowered at the other end of the kitchen.

“That’s enough,” I said. “Even if she did know, would you trust us if you were her?”

Edgar had no good response for that. Batista continued looking at Avery, who was now sedated and on a gurney she’d wheeled in for the crew meeting. “It doesn’t matter now. All that matters is what we do in the next 15 minutes before the boarding team gets here.”

“Easy,” Edgar said. “We kill the first batch. Then they send over another batch and we kill them. Eventually, Desmond shows up and takes care of the rest. Now that we know they’re not federation, the captain here doesn’t have to worry about his delicate conscience being injured. He hates Silver Star more than any of us.”

“Speaking of that, where is Desmond? I thought he had this all taken care of,” Batista sniped at Edgar.

“I said that’s enough, damnit!” I yelled. “I’d rather not waste the entire time the transport shuttle is flying here arguing with each other. Like it or not, we’re all a crew now…even if it’s just for the next few minutes. So let’s at least act like it.”

Batista folded her arms. “Fine, Captain Boyd, what do you propose we do?”

All the faces in the room turned to me for the answer. I didn’t have it, of course, and was starting to regret drawing so much attention to myself in front of my crew. I mean, it was kind of a no-win scenario.

We couldn’t run.

The Burnett had more manpower than us. It was also backed by Silver Star.

And Desmond was nowhere to be found.

“Perhaps this admiral or whatever she is has other ideas,” Marcum said, breaking the silence. “Just because she isn’t federation doesn’t mean she wants to destroy us. She could be sincere in her desire to let us go.”

I sighed. Marcum was an academic. He had a brilliant mind for the abstract and the scientific, but when it came to simple logic he had the same problem many geniuses had: no common sense.

“How many people were killed when the warp drive was stolen from your lab?” I asked.

“Six,” Marcum answered, grimly.

“That woman is the one who stole it. And she works for an even worse human being. If she had no problem killing six engineers, I doubt she’ll lose any sleep over taking us out in deep space,” I explained.

“Ah, right you are,” he said, then sat back down, realizing he was out of his depth.

“What about Desmond?” I asked Edgar. “You think he’ll let us go if we somehow get the drive to him?”

Edgar nodded and said Desmond was a man of his word. “If he says you can walk, you can walk. Nothing I’ve seen over the past year makes me think otherwise. Besides, you cross him, you’ll be running the rest of your very short life.”

“So what’s in this