Fractured Families, Chapter 11 (Patreon)

The station was clean, the decorations understated, in blacks and yellow-orange to match the black hole and the sun orbiting it. The people walking along the corridor were mostly well-dressed tourists, and a few families. This was a vacation spot, after all. Here and there Victor came across people which triggered his “Law sense”—small groups of men and women who radiated danger, sometimes individuals. Even if he had the authority to do anything about them, he wouldn’t. Even criminals took vacations, and if they did anything, the station had to have its own security force.

As soon as he’d landed, he’d searched for Katherine’s Folly and found the ship had been here for a couple of weeks. He still didn’t go directly to it. It had been so long since he’d taken a vacation, he wanted to take a few minutes to enjoy Mobius’s main attraction. 

He reached the main concourse and joined the crowd looking up at the accretion disk formed by the sun’s plasma being ever so slowly pulled into the darkness that was the black hole. The idea that one day there would be nothing left of the sun, that there was something in the universe that was so hungry it would never stop, made him shiver.

And if he was determined, he could be there to watch the last wisps of the sun vanish into it; cryo and rejuvenation made that possible. Did he want that though? Did he want to stick around for so long he could watch this sun die? 

He had another shudder and found the image above him no longer inspired awe, but rather a bit of dread. This was an event that stretched in the millions of years, if not billions, and someone could be around that long. That wasn’t natural.

He left the concourse feeling chilled.

Each time he crossed a door, he worried about triggering an alarm. The reinforced clothing he wore wouldn’t be a problem, but even if the pack he’d bought at the military store was shielded, the gun in it, in its own shielded case, made him nervous. He’d have preferred leaving the pack and its content in his ship, but his berth was opposite the Folly, and he didn’t know how much time he’d have once he was there. He didn’t want to come across as entirely inexperienced to Alex, not after he was trusting Victor to help.

To his surprise, none of the security he came across even glanced at him. The people who did look at him were those who he knew were criminals of some sort. And he was realizing there were a lot of them. Even for a tourist station, which were known to attract thieves, this looked excessive.

He reached the numbered berth the system told him the Folly was at and buzzed the lock. He knew the Folly was a carrier ship from the little he’d been able to gather, once he’d found out Katherine wasn’t corporate like she’d claimed, but the ship had gone through so many owners and change of function, he hadn’t been able to work out if it was people or cargo.

He entered a room with chairs on either side of him as well as on the opposing wall, so people. This would have been the ship her mercs had used. Twenty-six seats. She’d had that many mercs, and it hadn’t been enough. Whatever her plan for Tristan had been, probably his death, she’d been the one to die.

“Finally!” The woman stood from the table she’d been at. “It’s about time you got here. What did you do? Circle the universe before joining us?”

Victor opened his mouth, but found he was stammering. She was a looker, tall, muscular, endowed. Her pants were green and gold, her shirt a darker green, and it all clung to her, leaving very little to the imagination, and Victor had trouble not seeing something he was sure no woman would want a stranger looking at, so he looked in the cockpit’s doorway, where he could see Alex at one of the consoles.

The older man who’d been sitting opposite her stood, and he offered Victor his hand. “Ignore her. Complaining is the only thing Miranda does.”

“Fuck you, Jake.”

The man gritted his teeth. “I told you before, It’s Jacoby. I’m definitely not letting you call me Jake.” He was wearing hull-metal gray pants with black stitching and a belt. His shirt was loose and also black.

Victor hesitated then shook the hand. “I’m Victor.”

“I know,” Jacoby said. “You’re the Lawman.”

“Not anymore he isn’t,” Miranda said, sitting back down. She leaned back in the seat which made her chest more obvious.

“I’m just on leave.” He focused on Jacoby, but they were still visible in his peripheral vision. “While I help Alex.”

“Sure you are.” She drained her glass and refilled it at the dispenser.

“Like I said, ignore her.”

Alex joined them. “Sit down, Victor.”

And a hello to you too, Victor thought as he sat.

“Are you finally going to tell us why our medic isn’t here? I get the locksmith needs to arrange transport, but medics tend to have more freedom to move.”

Alex tapped the table as he sat next to Miranda, not visually perturbed by her tone. A face appeared, floating about the surface, turning slowly. 

The woman had lightly tanned skin with dark freckles. Her brown eyes were bright and intelligent, and her black hair had red shimmers through it.

“This is,” Alex began.

“Mary Holiander?” Victor said in surprised. “That’s who is going to be our medic?”

“Yes.” Alex hesitated, surprised in return. “You know her?” The other two were looking from Alex to Victor.

“Are you kidding? Everyone at the precinct knows about her. She’s been arrested for drug fabrication multiple times; I even got to process her once. She has a few wealthy clients, so she never stayed in lockup long. I didn’t know she was a medic.”

Alex looked at the image, thoughtful. “How long ago did you process her? Before or after being ostracized? She doesn’t look to be older than forty. Has she had rejuv?”

“Not that I’m aware of. And forty’s about right. I don’t remember her file, just her and the corporate-looking lawyers that kept showing up to get her out.”

“Ostracized?” Miranda smiled. “No wonder you said they were happy to see you go. What’d you do? I thought Law had each other’s back no matter what?”

Alex glared at her. “That isn’t important.”

“I made a stupid choice,” Victor answered, not feeling any anger over it anymore. It was odd what getting to confront that mistake had done to all the anger he’d bottled up over the years. It had been stupid, but he’d been young and it had been Tristan. It wasn’t like he, or anyone else, would have been able to resist him. He hadn’t been weak; he’d been Tristan’s victim. “And not that I know of. She looks the age she is.”

“How long had she been on Bramolian Six?” Alex’s frown was deepening.

“How long? Her entire life.”

“She told me she moved there after getting in trouble in medical school.”

“No, she’s local. Now that you mention medical school, I sort of remember something about that in her file. A series of arrests in relation to that. I don’t remember the details.”

Alex ground his teeth. “I should have looked. Tristan would have; he’d have made sure. Fuck, it’s too late now.”

“Problem?” Miranda asked, but in a concerned tone.

“Nothing that can’t be handled,” Alex replied. “Mary Holiander is currently being held on Prian’s World.”

“Never heard of Prian’s World,” Jacoby said. “Where is it?”

“Mobile, currently about a hundred light years from here. It’s one of the reasons I picked Mobius to meet.”

“Oh shit,” Victor said. Alex couldn’t be serious.

Miranda grinned. “You’re talking about one of the sovereign families, aren’t you?”

“I’m not even going to ask how you worked that out from this, but yes.”

“Alex, you’re not getting her back,” Victor said.

“I have to agree with the Lawman,” Miranda said, and Victor glared at her. The way she’d said his title made it sound like he was pretending. “The sovereigns don’t give anything back.”

“So? They aren’t above the Law. If SpaceGov tells them to hand over a criminal, they’ll have to.”

Victor snorted. “Sure, on file that’s what they have to do, but in reality? The reason they got onto those ships in the first place is because they wanted nothing to do with SpaceGov and its laws. SpaceGov leaves them alone because of how big each of the families are, and because it’s terrified of what they can do if they decide to cooperate. Short of someone like Tristan, I can’t see SpaceGov ever bothering them over a criminal they’re holding, certainly not someone like Holiander.”

Alex looked at the image and fiddled with the earpiece in his hand. It looked brand new to Victor. “Would they be willing to honor a planetary request? Something that doesn’t go through SpaceGov?”

“Possibly. I don’t think we ever had to deal with any of them, but I know they need to interact with some people. I can tell you they wouldn’t for the kind of stuff she’s done. She’s never done anything the sovereigns consider illegal.”

“You know a lot about them,” Jacoby commented.

“The sovereigns are part of academy training. No one wants one of us lowly Lawman to piss them off by accident. I’ve had to take the refresher course every decade. And it amounts to basically this: don’t deal with them.”

“What would she have to do for them to recognize the claim?”

Victor thought back on what had been talked about the last time. “Murder’s still a crime, but since it isn’t the murder of one of theirs, it would depend on how useful she is to them. So it would have to be pretty big if you want any chance of them going along with it.”

“Have her blow up a city,” Miranda said, indicating the earpiece. “You can make her do anything with that, right?”

“Wouldn’t that bring every bounty hunter down on her?” Jacoby asked.

Miranda grinned. “Oh, yeah.”

Alex put the earpiece down and began typing. “So something big, but not so big as to show up on the bounty hunter’s boards.”

“You’d be surprised how small something can be and still show up there. Some people put up missing pets there, and not the big expensive kind.”

“How do you know that?” Victor asked. “You caught Tristan; I’d expect you don’t have to look that low.”

She made a face that told Victor she’d had to.

“She pissed off the bounty hunters,” Alex said, still typing.

“I didn’t do that. I never talked to the Law; how come no one believes me?” She glared at Victor.

“Hey, I believe you.”

“You took their money,” Alex said. “Then a bunch of people get taken in by the Law. Not much of a stretch.”

“That came from a job, not the Law.”

“Not what the payments show.”

“You think I’d be so stupid to not hide where the payment came from if I had taken the Law’s money?”

Alex looked at her as he slid the document to Victor. Victor could tell Alex knew it had been a setup, but he wasn’t telling her that. For whatever reason, he was letting her believe he didn’t buy her story.

“Tell me if this will do,” he told Victor.

The list of crimes was long: drug production and distribution. Death relating to those drugs. Extortion and destruction of property. Bodily damage, robberies, and more. Alex had taken a lowly drug maker and turned her into one of Bramolian Six’s crime lords.

“The wording isn’t right on some of them, and you need to provide names and properties on a few of those, but yes, this is the kind of list that would make the Bramolian Government work hard to make sure she didn’t escape prosecution.”

“So, when a Law officer shows up asking for her back, they’d believe it’s real?”

“With these crimes, they’d expect to see a whole team.”

“I don’t have a team to spare at the moment.”

“You can hire people off here,” Jacoby said. “All they’d have to do is look menacing, and even the cheapest merc can do that.”

“No. There’s no time to do a proper check on anyone here.” Alex looked at the floating face. “Not doing that again.” He looked at Victor. “Can you make it work with an extra person?”

“What do you mean, can I make it work?”

“You’re the only Lawman here. So it’d be you and Miranda.”

Victor looked at Miranda in reflex, to give himself time to think, but now he looked like he was ogling her. Closer he could tell the pants were reinforced, some type of armor; the gold patch might even be metal.

She grinned at him. “Look all you want, but don’t even think about touching. You’re not my type.”

Victor opened his mouth to let her know she was dreaming, but Jacoby spoke.

“I should be the one going; Vic’s green. You can’t throw him in this kind of job, not with someone like her.”

“You have a problem with me, old man?”

“I have a problem with how you chew up your partners. Everyone who’s worked with you is either dead or ‘retired’.”

She grinned. “Aren’t you worried I’ll do that to you?”

“I can handle you, girl.”

Miranda stood and leaned across the table to get in Jacoby’s face, which gave Victor a much too close view of her ample breasts. “If you think—”

“That’s enough.” Alex’s voice wasn’t loud, but it had the authority that caused the three of them to look at him. “Miranda, sit down, and erase that bad mood before I do it for you. I’m paying you for your knowledge and skills, not to deal with your attitude. Grow up. Jacoby, you can’t go. You don’t know the language of Lawmen, the expected behaviors, and anything else Victor knows.”

Victor stood a little straighter at having Alex acknowledge his expertise. 

“I also need you to stay here to keep an eye on the ship.”

Jacoby’s face hardened. “Alex, can I talk to you in private?”

Alex stood and indicated for Jacoby to lead the way. They went into the cockpit, and the older man looked for a door control, which he didn’t find. Victor didn’t see one on this side either, but he noticed the ladder by the opening, so there was a room up there. Where was the access to the hold? A ship like this had to have one.

“Alex.” Jacoby lowered his voice as he pulled him to the pilot’s chair. “You can’t seriously think of having me sit this out. At least send me with the two of them. He said it should be a team. Three is closer to that than two.” Victor had to strain to make every word out, but at least Miranda seemed as interested in listening in, so she didn’t distract him.

“Jacoby, I need you to stay here.”

“Why?” The man sounded pained. “Is your locksmith supposed to arrive in the next couple of months? Or is there someone you conveniently forgot to mention?”

“No.” Was that exasperation in Alex’s voice? “Will isn’t going to be here before we get back. I told you, I need you to keep an eye on the ship. I’m not leaving it unattended here.”

“Then take this ship. Why does it have to be another one?”

“Because Katherine pissed off a lot of people and they’re looking for it. Even Bramolian Six wants in on that action.” 

Victor sunk in his chair. He hadn’t realized his actions might make this more complicated. Miranda raised an eyebrow at him and he straightened. What was he, eighteen?

“I’ve made sure no one noticed it until now, but the more it flies, the harder it’s going to be. I don’t want any extra complications during the rescue.”

“Alex, this is Mobius.”

“Exactly. For all its shine and polish on the wall, and all the tourists, it’s still a merc station, and we both know that there’s no way to trust any of them not to poke their nose into a ship that’s been left alone. I can’t come back here and find the Folly gone. I need this ship to be here when we return with Mary.”

Merc station?

“Then lock it up tight.”

“You’re seriously telling me to trust a lock? You do remember what I can do, right? Have you ever seen how quickly Tristan can go through a lock? How many locksmiths are on the station? I need someone here, and you’re the only one available. My mission, Jacoby, my rules. You can’t deal with that, you can go home.”

“Fine,” the man grumbled. “But you’re making a mistake leaving me behind.” They came back and Victor had to hold his tongue to keep from asking about this merc station deal. So he went with an observation instead.

“I couldn’t help overhearing, but we can’t take my ship. The only thing I could afford was a one-person thing with no elbow room. The only thing that kept me from going insane is that it came with a top-notch cryo system. I was out for all but four hours of the trip.”

“We’re taking Miranda’s ship,” Alex said.

“Really? Were you going to run that by me?” she asked.

Alex shook his head.

“Well, fine, but you two are sleeping on the floor. I’m not sharing my bed.”

Alex frowned. “What’s the setup for cryo?”

“My bed and the pilot’s chair have a field system. There’s a fluid-replacement system on the other three chairs, but they haven’t been checked in a while.”

“We’ll do that, and we’ll be fine.”

Victor raised a hand and felt silly as Alex just looked at him. “I have a question, again, because I could overhear you. What’s this about Mobius being a merc station?”

“It’s a merc station,” Jacoby said.

“No, it’s a vacation spot. ‘Come watch the sun tail’, that’s what their advertising says.”

“And it can’t also be a mercenary base?” Miranda asked. “Just what do you think merc stations are? Rundown places? Inside asteroids? Around dead worlds?”

“Well, yeah. Where else would mercs hang out?”

“Here,” she replied.

“But why?” Victor looked at them like they held some sort of secret.

“Because,” Jacoby sighed, “unlike what you seem to think, mercs are people too, just like you.”

“Stop talking,” Alex said. “I certainly don’t have the time or patience for your assumptions. Whatever you want to think, this is a merc station, and there are a lot of others like it. Now, what else needs to be covered before we get going?”

“A lot,” Victor said, chastised. “You have a list of crimes to justify repatriating Holiander, but that isn’t all that’s needed. There needs to be a discussion between both sides, agreements need to be reached. Between planets it’s usually easy, but with the sovereigns I expect they’d want something in exchange.”

“Any ideas what that would be?”

“That would take place way over my head, like in a space station a few systems above it.”

“Then don’t worry about it. Tell me what forms are needed, where to find them, and I’ll handle the rest.”

Victor worked hard at not looking at the earpiece on the table. “And how are you going to do that?”

Alex picked it up and now Victor let himself look at it. “I’m a coercionist, Victor, or have you forgotten what I did to your precinct?” He raised an eyebrow.

Victor kept his mouth shut until he could trust his curiosity over what Alex was doing to stay silent. Whatever this was, it was his game. “Then,” he finally said, “the only thing that needs to be dealt with is the way she’s dressed.”

Miranda looked down at herself. “What’s wrong with it? It offers full protection.”

“No Law officers dress that provocatively.”

“How is this provocative?” she asked. “There isn’t any exposed skin below my neck.”

Jacoby chuckled. “You don’t need anything exposed when the clothing is tight enough I can count your abs through them.”

“Don’t even think of touching, old man.”

Jacoby raised an eyebrow. “Girl, I wouldn’t consider you even if the four of us were the last people in the universe.”

“I’m taken,” Alex said, “and Tristan isn’t the kind of man you poach from.”

Victor studied Jacoby while the older man stared at Alex with a “what the fuck” expression. With his gray hair and worn skin, he looked to be at least a hundred twenty, maybe thirty. In good shape for that age. Not bad-looking, but…

“I’m with Miranda; you’re a little old for me.”

Jacoby switched his expression to Victor. “I’m not interested in men, that’s the point I’m making. Even if you were the only ones available to take to bed, I still wouldn’t take her.”