Pelquin's Comet (7 page)

Of course not. Soul of discretion, you know me.

Only too well, Drake reflected, while pondering Pelquin’s extreme reaction and wondering what exactly the
Comet
’s captain had against genpets in any case.

Monkey interrupted his thoughts, calling out, “Hey, does the T
really
stand for Thadeus?”

“It does,” Drake confirmed. “Still, it could have been worse. People might call me ‘Monkey’.”

Bren guffawed. The mechanic merely looked puzzled, as if trying to decide whether or not he’d just been insulted. Drake smiled to rob the words of any malice, and followed Pelquin inside.

They were joined by a waiflike, ebony-skinned girl who was presumably older than she looked. “Hi, I’m Anna,” the newcomer said. “I’m the
Comet’s
pilot… at least I am when the captain’s hands can be prised off the helm.”

Drake didn’t recognise her from the infofiles, which meant that either she was a comparatively new addition to the crew or the bank’s records were incomplete. Both possibilities struck him as equally plausible. He didn’t especially like this sort of variable, but with the way the crew rosters shifted and changed aboard fringe traders it was inevitable. He smiled and gave a curt nod in greeting.

Anna tagged along as the captain showed him to his quarters – a recessed alcove just deep enough to contain the width of a bed and just long enough to squeeze in a small cabinet and table at the foot of a crewcot. Quite where Bren and Monkey were going to stow his trunk was anyone’s guess. Drake was glad his suits were crease resistant, since any hanging space was going to have to be well and truly improvised.

“You can leave the furball here,” Pelquin said, “and I’ll show you the bridge.”

It’s Mudball
, a voice seethed in Drake’s head.

“I will if you insist, but I wouldn’t advise it,” Drake said, pulling at the flimsy curtain which was the booth’s token gesture towards privacy. “There’s no way of securing anything in here. Mudball’s obedient enough, but I can’t guarantee he won’t wander off if left alone for too long. Now, if he were to stay with me, I could ensure he behaves himself.”

“Ooh, he’s cute!” Anna said, evidently spotting Mudball for the first time.

I like her
, said the voice in Drake’s head.

Pelquin scowled. “We agreed you were going to keep him in your quarters.”

“True, but I was assuming I could lock him in.”

If he suggests putting me in a cupboard…!

For a split second the captain looked as if he might indeed suggest something along those lines, but in the end his need to keep First Solar’s representative happy must have won out. “Very well, but this is the
last
concession you get. He stays put in that little papoose thing of yours at all times. No exceptions. Give me any excuse to lock him away somewhere and I will.”

Drake nodded his acceptance. “That’s fair. Thank you.” He suppressed a smile, noting that already Pelquin had inadvertently slipped from referring to Mudball as an ‘it’ to ‘him’. The alien had a way of winning folk round, but this was swifter progress than he’d anticipated.

Internally, the
Comet
held few surprises, conforming to standard layout for the class, with fitments better maintained than on a few ships Drake had seen, though here and there they showed their age – handholds worn smooth with use, lettering partially rubbed away. Nothing critical, just an indication of how worn a few elements of the ship’s interior had become. On the whole décor was functional and neutral, as he’d expect; which was why the 3D image fixed to the wall beside the final gantry leading to the bridge came as such a surprise: it served no practical purpose whatsoever – at least none that the banker could fathom.

He paused to study the picture, taking in the image of a ship which looked to be racing out of the wall and about to shoot over the observer’s left shoulder. Both the ship and the dramatic starscape behind it were vividly depicted, and the observer in question might have been forgiven for thinking that this was the very vessel they were standing in,
Pelquin’s Comet
, but they would have been wrong. It was the same class, certainly, but a very different ship.

“That’s the
Ion Raider
,” Pelquin supplied without being asked. “The greatest freebooter ever to have roamed the stars.”

“Apart from
Pelquin’s Comet
, of course,” Anna added.

“Including
Pelquin’s Comet
,” her captain corrected.

The captain moved on but Drake delayed for a second, lingering over the image. It was a long enough pause for Anna to whisper, “Pel sees himself as the natural successor to Captain Cornische, the
Ion Raider
’s commander, or at least that’s what he’d like to be.”

Did he now? Drake mulled that over as he followed after Pelquin. Aspirations were all well and good but he mistrusted the whole concept of hero worship, and this titbit of information made him uneasy. Trying to emulate anyone was a fool’s pastime and an open invitation to poor decision making. Precious seconds spent wondering ‘What would so-and-so do?’ took attention away from the real question: ‘What the hell should
I
do now?’

Not the most encouraging of starts; he’d barely stepped on board and already he’d aggravated the captain and found cause to question the man’s competence.

On the brighter side
, said a familiar voice,
things can only get better
.

He fervently hoped so.

Drake didn’t get a chance to meet the two remaining members of the
Comet
’s crew until much later in the day. Neither was aboard when he arrived. Nathaniel ‘Nate’ Almont, who was the first to turn up, scowled at him in greeting. Almont was a seasoned spacer from a long line of spacers. No strong family ties.

Almont and Pelquin, though, went way back, their association predating the latter’s acquisition of the
Comet
. They appeared to have been inseparable for many years, right up to the point where they had fallen out so spectacularly and Almont had left, disappearing for over a year. The bank had no information at all on that missing period, which worried Drake, since Almont and the knowledge he carried were so pivotal to this expedition. Cache hunts could be divisive; greed putting a strain on even the strongest of friendships.

Drake had no idea what Almont had been up to while at large in New Sparta either, but nothing pleasant judging by the sight of him. The man looked shabby, grimy – as if he had been sleeping rough – which suggested some subterfuge or other and instantly piqued Drake’s curiosity.

Pelquin seemed equally in the dark regarding his friend’s recent whereabouts, at least to judge by the heated exchange which Drake caught the start of when Almont appeared. They quickly moved out of earshot, but the exchange suggested that some degree of tension still lingered between them.

The final crewmember, Ahmed Bariha, was in town somewhere replenishing the ship’s medical supplies, or so Drake was told. Judging by the dilated state of the man’s pupils and the distracted air he displayed on his return, the good doctor had been extremely diligent in his duties, to the extent of sampling a few of the products before buying. The bank’s files had less to say about Bariha than anyone else – apart from Anna, about whom they said nothing at all. Having a medic on a ship this size struck Drake as something of a luxury, but Bren put him straight on that score.

“He only calls himself the medic because it makes him feel superior,” she explained. “The doc likes to think he’s a cut above the rest of us,”

“He’s not a real doctor, then?”

“Oh sure, he’s a doctor all right, qualified and everything, but that doesn’t count for beans around here. Unless somebody gets ill or injured, of course. Other than that, he’s just regular crew like the rest of us, whatever he likes to pretend.”

None of which explained why a qualified doctor would be working as crew aboard a small independent trader like this.

Bren clearly guessed the nature of his thoughts. “Everyone’s got a history,” she said. “While they’re on the
Comet
, a person can talk about it or keep things tight, whichever they choose. Long as they do their job, we’re happy to let whatever happened in the past remain in the past; their business and no one else’s.”

This was perhaps as polite a way of telling him to keep his nose out of things as he’d ever heard.

Drake spent the next couple of days on the
Comet
, doing his best to stay in the background and determined not to get in anyone’s way, as he monitored the equipment being brought on board and did his own discreet calculations. The front of the ship’s voluminous cargo hold – the area furthest from the main hatch – swiftly filled up, with departure fast approaching. He wasn’t privy to the actual purchase negotiations Pelquin had conducted, but he did know how much the bank had lent the man and had a pretty good idea of what most of the equipment arriving ought to have cost, and by his estimate there ought to be a good chunk of the bank’s money left over… which was curious given most folk’s aversion to accruing interest.

One thing these early days provided was a chance to assess the crew’s reaction to him, and he wasn’t displeased on the whole. Pelquin didn’t like his being aboard but accepted the necessity and had settled on being polite. Monkey felt much the same but seemed incapable of being polite to anyone. Doctor Bariha occupied his own cocoon of space aboard the ship and, since Drake didn’t impinge on this, largely ignored him. Bren was happy to treat him as a fellow human being and give him the benefit of the doubt, while Anna was positively friendly. Out of all of them, only Nate Almont gave him any real cause for concern. The big man clearly didn’t like him and displayed the sort of resentment that might fester unless Drake could bring it into the open sooner rather than later.

He tried the reasoned approach first. “Mr Almont, I appreciate you might not like my being on board but I’m here for the duration, so we might as well make the best of it.” Almont had grunted and walked away.

Things came to a head one time in the hold, where Drake was busy doing another quick tot-up. The last of the equipment had finally arrived and Nate and Monkey were busy stowing it in preparation for departure. Despite his attempts at discretion, Drake’s habit of running his eye over each new delivery irritated the hell out of Nate, who seemed on a particularly short fuse that day, but Drake felt it essential that the crew should get used to his presence as soon as possible.

He’s taking something,
Mudball concluded.

Something provided by Bariha?

Probably. Performance rather than recreational, judging by his vitals.

If Nate was taking stimulants, that might explain his being so tense.

Just how tense soon became apparent. With a growl of frustration, Nate yanked tight a final strap and then abandoned what he was doing to turn and face the banker. “You don’t have to come down here every friggin’ time there’s a delivery, you know.”

“Merely doing my job, Mr Almont.”

“Leave it, Nate,” Bren advised.

“No, I want to know what it’s like to spend your life looking over other people’s shoulders? Get a kick out of it, do you?”

Drake smiled, watching Nate closely, waiting for the narrowing of eyes, the tensing of muscles that would telegraph the lunge or the swipe of a fist that he felt certain was imminent. “Oh, you’d be amazed at what I learn.”

The screech of tyres from outside distracted him. Just beyond the foot of the cargo ramp a car had pulled up and doors sprang open. As a result, Drake missed the tell-tales he’d been looking for.

Nate’s fist came powering forward before he realised it, giving him little chance to react. He was only just beginning to jerk his head out of the way when the clenched ridge of bone and knuckle flew narrowly past his nose to smash into the wooden crate beside him.

A deliberate miss
,
a bluff
, he realised belatedly.

“Nate!” Bren yelled. And was that someone laughing? Monkey, he was sure of it.

“There’s a lot of heavy machinery down here,” Nate said. “Accidents can happen when inexperienced people start nosing around and getting under our feet. It would be better for all our sakes if you stayed well out the fucking way from now on.”

Drake barely heard him. He was trying to look past the crates and the others, to see what was happening at the loading ramp.

The car had disgorged half a dozen men. They weren’t uniformed in the strictest sense of the word, though they might as well have been. All were clad from head to toe in black clothing of various sorts and all wore tight-fitting hoods and tinted visors – guaranteeing anonymity should they be picked up on any security cameras. The ensemble seemed unlikely to win any fashion awards but as a statement of intent it was pretty hard to fault. And if their get-up didn’t give the game away, the guns they were sporting did the job nicely.

“Look out!” Drake yelled to the trio of
Comet
crew, who were so focused on the confrontation before them that they hadn’t noticed what was happening behind them.

“Oh shit!” was Bren’s take on the situation when she spun around.

The black-clad figures had spread out. There was no subtlety here, no attempt to negotiate or to board the
Comet
. Two of the men were kneeling, while the others brazenly planted their feet, forming a crescent-shaped cordon across the ship’s entrance.

Monkey darted to the left, towards the controls that would retract the ramp and close the hatch, just as the men raised their guns and opened up, spraying the
Comet
’s hold with automatic fire.

Drake took cover behind the nearest group of crates, getting safely behind them even as the first slugs thudded into the opposite side. Bren joined him an instant later and in the corner of his eye he saw Nate dive for another crate. He didn’t see where Monkey had gone, but presumed he’d found his own refuge.