Furnace (27 page)

“I guessed that,” I said.

“When I said my bosses got a hold of your file, well, that’s because someone leaked every file of every decorated ex-Marine onto the Grid,” she said. “Not a problem for the average spacehead, but for someone like you, with your gift, and those battle legs of yours, that is a problem.”

“How so?” I asked. “I’ve been out of the Fleet for nearly two years.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Hopsheer said, her hand tightening around her pistol’s grip. “Those guys are bounty hunters. They’ve been sent by someone to collect you so you can be used by whatever organization is paying them. All it takes is an AI chip in the back of your head and you are one controllable killing machine.”

“AI chips are illegal galactic wide,” I said. “Life in prison for anyone that uses them.”

“Which tells you that the organization that hired those two isn’t exactly the law abiding kind,” Hopsheer said. “Looks like I found you in the nick of time.”

“Galactic time or Sterli time?” I asked, smiling. I loosened my KL09 and eased it from its holster. “That’s a joke.”

“Funny,” Hopsheer said. Then the look in her eyes hardened. Literally, as her eyes turned to rock hard stone. “I need to know if you are interested in becoming a salvage merc.”

“Why?” I replied.

“Because my ticket was only to find you, not to claim you,” Hopsheer said. “You have to return with me of your own free will. That means, I legally cannot defend you with lethal force unless you specifically say you are interested in becoming a salvage merc. The second you do that then you are under the protection of the SMC and those two men are fair game.”

“I’d be a moron to refuse you,” I said. “I mean that in a sexy way, too.”

“Don’t be a terpig,” she said and frowned. “We’ve been having a good time until you said that.”

“Sorry,” I said and finished my pint. I slammed the empty glass down on the table and stood up. “I am officially interested in becoming a salvage merc. When do we leave?”

“Right now,” Hopsheer said as she stood and turned to face the two men that had pushed away from the bar and were slowly walking towards us. “Stay behind me.”

“I can take care of myself,” I said.

“Not with these foing Jirks,” she said.

“Jirks?” I gulped. “Skintakers? Okay, yeah, you take the lead.”

I could see her skin hardening under her clothes. The material tightened and her movements became more deliberate. Not stilted or clunky, just more deliberate. She was ready to get her fight on.

“No claim on him,” one of the Jirks said.

The skin he wore was a light purple which meant he’d recently killed someone from the Tersch system with that bright red sun. His eyes were sparkly gold and when he smiled, he showed finely sharpened teeth. He was of a low caste for a Jirk.

It’s the teeth that give away the lower skintakers. Jirks take on every aspect of their victims except the teeth. The high born ones can handle the teeth as well. Most Jirk assassins are high born which makes it hard to catch and convict the bastards. They get all the protection.

But not those guys. They were Jirk labor. Drones sent out to do the dirty work.

“He’s a free man,” Hopsheer said. “Hasn’t broken any laws, local or galactic, so no claim can be put on him.”

“I’m allergic to claims, anyway,” I said. That was the wubloov talking. I shouldn’t have said anything, but I get a smart mouth when I drink. I have a smart mouth when I don’t drink, but it usually stays closed in potentially violent situations. My gift doesn’t extend to my lips, unfortunately. “Sorry. Ignore me.”

“We’re leaving,” Hopsheer said and the second man, also purple skinned, stepped next to his buddy so our way was blocked.

“Come on, guys,” Hopsheer said. “I don’t want to kill you and I doubt either of you want to kill me. Jirks hate being halfers, right? You kill me and you’ll take my form unless you spend a lot of energy fighting the change.”

“I’d rather just take your form without killing you,” second Jirk said. “That means I want to fo you like a—”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Hopsheer replied.

I couldn’t see her stone eyes, since her back was to me, but I assumed she rolled them.

“You’ve punched your ticket, merc,” first Jirk said. “Your job is done. You found your guy, now walk away. Let us take it from here.”

“So much taking, so little giving,” I said. “I think there’s plenty of me to go around. Listen gentlemen, or whatever you really are, how about I go with this unbelievably beautiful woman to SMC headquarters, hear their pitch, then I come find you, go to your employer, hear that organization’s pitch, weigh my options, then make an informed decision. If the people that hired you have a better offer then I’ll gladly sign up with them. No one has to fight, no one has to die, no one loses their skin or anything nasty like that.”

“Why’d you have to call me beautiful?” Hopsheer asked without looking back at me. Her focus was locked onto the Jirks. “You could have just called me a woman, but you called me an unbelievably beautiful woman. There’s no need to bring up my looks. My attractiveness doesn’t define me.”

“Okay, sorry?” I said, really confused. Calling a woman beautiful had never backfired on me before. “You’re right? I should have just called you a woman?”

“Why are you talking in questions?” she snapped.

The two Jirks looked from her to me and both laughed. Their laughing ended when Hopsheer put a blast dead center in their chests. I didn’t even see her raise her pistol. The guys crumpled to the floor, nothing but piles of clothes and empty, dead skin. After that, the tavern turned into a screaming mess as the patrons bolted for less deadly environs outside.

Hopsheer flashed her SMC credentials to the bartender and he nodded at her as he pointed up at the vid camera in the corner.

“SMC badge or not,” the bartender said, “the authorities will decide what happened.”

“I know,” Hopsheer said. “But I wouldn’t mind if your story was leaning in my favor. We all know what direction that interaction was headed.”

“I’d like to go on record and say I felt my life was being threatened and Salvage Merc Eight here did the right thing by removing the threats,” I said as I looked directly into the camera. “If she hadn’t killed those Jirks, they probably would have kidnapped me and delivered me to Eight Million Gods knows what kind of evil criminal organization.”

“Don’t say things like that,” Hopsheer said. “It doesn’t help.”

Hopsheer didn’t move from her spot until the bartender gave her a slight nod.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll be sure and let my bosses know of your cooperation with this. That’ll be good for you and your business.”

“Better be,” the bartender said.

Hopsheer reached back and grabbed my shoulder, yanking me with her to the doors.

“Hold on,” I said and tried to pull free. Tried. “Uh, let go, okay? I need to pay my tab.”

“On the house,” the bartender said. “Just leave.”

“Nope, not gonna,” I said as Hopsheer let me go.

I walked to the terminal on the bar and placed my wrist against it. It brought up my bar tab and debited my account what I owed.

“I always pay for my tab,” I said. “Bad luck to stiff a place.”

“If you say so,” the bartender said, his eyes locked onto the bounty hunter mess on his floor. “Can you leave now? I have to clean up and close for the day once I call the authorities.”

“We’re leaving,” Hopsheer said. “Thank you again.”

“Yeah, thanks,” I said as I followed Hopsheer out into the pale yellow light of what was left of the day.

I glanced up at the two overlapping suns that shone down from the Xippeee sky and shook my head. I’d gone in that tavern for some pitchers of hard beer and came out a guest of a salvage merc, headed to SMC headquarters for what was maybe a job interview.

The galaxy is weird.

Salvage Merc One is available from Amazon
here