Page 35 of Devin (Warriors of Etlon #5)
Val
“ G et in the box.”
“Pardon,” Val said as she looked at the box in question.
Bright lowered the force field to the cell. “There’s not a lot of time. Get in the box.”
The dimensions of the box were about a cubic meter, and while it would be a tight squeeze for one, it seemed that Bright intended both of them to climb into the same box.
“Don’t worry, I’m flexible,” Grena said, giving Val a little push.
“There are forty-five seconds before the cameras come back on rotation and then we’re all locked in the cell,” Bright said. “Get in the box.”
Val scrambled over the top and curled up in the bottom, with Grena following quickly behind.
Bright closed the box top with a hiss and activated the hover lift.
Grena had managed to put most of her weight in the space next to Val, but they were a tangle of limbs and hair that was quickly becoming more claustrophobic by the second.
Val couldn’t see anything, but she could hear the whir of the hover lift as they slid out of the prison and out into the main part of the ship.
If Val could hear the noises of crew members arguing with one another, then she couldn’t risk asking Grena a question. Had they done the right thing trusting Bright? Or were they just going from one bad problem to another?
The box jerked to a halt.
“Lysh. You’re in the way,” Val heard Bright say.
“Where you going with that?” A voice that must have been Lysh asked.
“None of your business,” Bright answered. The box jolted.
“What’s in the box?” He asked.
“None of your business,” she said again.
“What about the Captain? Is he going to want to know?”
“Now, Lysh, you know the captain’s busy right now with other matters.”
“You don’t want him to know what’s in the box?”
Bright sighed. “You want a cut to keep your trap shut.” It wasn’t a question.
“Well, if you’re doing some side deals, it’s only right that the captain knows about it. He has to pay so many expenses, like feeding you, giving you a nice place to sleep at night. Just the cost of alcohol alone-”
“Five percent.”
“Ten.”
“Seven,” Bright countered.
“Done. So what’s in the box? Just so you won’t cheat me out of my seven percent.”
“Mahdfel stem bolts, see?” Bright hit a button and the box whirred open, except the light didn’t pour in on them like Val expected. There must have been some sort of false top that was full of stem bolts, whatever those were. Bright closed the box again.
“That’s not very exciting.”
“I know. But I’ve had this box cluttering up my spot in the hold for almost six months and I finally found a buyer. Do you know how hard it is to offload Mahdfel stem bolts to anyone who isn’t Mahdfel?”
“Then why did you acquire them in the first place?”
“They were part of a bundle. I think the asshole that sold it to me was trying to get rid of them too. I wouldn’t be surprised if this same box has been traded around half the system without anyone using a single bolt.”
Lysh laughed and must have stepped aside, because soon they were on their way again.
A few minutes later and the box tilted to one side. Val bit her lip to keep from groaning as Grena’s weight shifted into her. It was only for a moment, but when the box righted itself, Grena was still pressing against her, not willing to risk shifting her weight and creating a jiggle or noise.
“Shargo, what are you-”
“You think Rutra doesn’t have an eye on every ship in his hold?” A voice interrupted. “Plus you got your timings wrong. The cameras went off five minutes ago.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“You, trying to sneak off the ship, with your cargo. Without giving Rutra his cut,” Shargo said.
“It’s just some stem bolts. I didn’t think he’d be interested.
Honestly, there’s only enough here to pay for fuel costs and a nice bottle of Benuvian whisky.
This is more about clearing out space than the actual deal, now that I finally found someone to offload this crap on,” Bright said, not sounding the least bit panicked at getting caught.
“The captain always gets his cut,” Shargo said.
“Can’t blame a girl for trying. But you know, Rutra wouldn’t respect me if I didn’t try,” Bright said.
“Which is why he’s sending me and a few other guys along with you instead of shoving you out an airlock. If the score is as small as you say it is, then we won’t have a problem.”
“If you’re banking on me making a ton of cash off these stem bolts, you are going to be disappointed. But it’s your time to waste. I hope Rutra’s paying you out of his cut, because I’m not paying you out of mine.”
The box came to a stop and Val heard the sound of thrusters being fired up.
Whatever ship they were in was leaving the bigger pirate ship.
That was a relief at least. Even if they weren’t out of the box, there were far fewer aliens here if there was going to be a fight.
Bright sounded like she hadn’t been expecting guests, which meant she’d most likely didn’t expect them to spend so much time in the box.
And Val’s muscles were cramping. It was getting harder to breathe and worst of all, she had to pee.
She was pretty sure the aliens would know something was up if the container of metal bolts started to smell like urine.
Minutes passed and Val could vaguely hear Bright making small talk with the aliens. Val searched for any indication that they would be let out of the box soon. To pee, or not to pee, that was the question. Just as she was about to let loose her bladder, Grena started snoring.
How could she be sleeping at a time like this? Honestly, if Val hadn’t been ready to explode, she might have been tempted if it would pass the time more quickly, but she was cramped, and every joint in her body was aching to be flexed.
“What’s that?” A voice called.
Val prodded Grena, but her snoring just increased its intensity.
“I don’t hear anything,” Bright called. “Are you guys hungry yet? I was going to break open my special surprise. I might be willing to share it if you ask nicely.”
The top of the box whirred off, but it was dark, just like before.
The pirate had to be staring at the stem bolts.
He wasn’t satisfied with that, however, and after a few shakes and rattles, light poured in and a dark orange alien peered in.
He was ugly. His face was circular but flat, kinda like one of those cartoon characters that you see after someone hits them in the face with a frying pan.
“Okay, fine, you caught me. I wasn’t selling stem bolts,” Bright said with all the coolness of a child being caught in a white lie.
Figuring the game was up, Val squirmed out of the box and stood up, a bit shaky on her feet.
“I’ve got to pee. Like now. Where’s the bathroom?”
“Over there,” Bright pointed to a cubicle to the left. Val turned and strode toward it.
“Now wait just a-”
“Unless you want to be cleaning up a little puddle, get out of my way.”
He backed out of her way and turned his attention to Bright.
Val didn’t care. She headed straight to the little spaceship bathroom and closed the privacy door, which wasn’t so much a door as a button that fuzzed a low frequency opaque force field.
It wouldn’t stop anyone who really wanted to come in, but it gave quite a zap if you tried to pass through it.
She’d seen them advertised on Earth as one of those new and trendy fads that only the rich could afford.
As far as the toilet was concerned, there was little to figure out there.
A little triangular bowl extended and matched her height.
She pulled down her shorts and let fly. When she was done, the little device beeped a few times, and then she felt a flush of fluid.
Apparently on this ship they didn’t have a toilet so much as a space bidet, but her bladder was empty and that immediacy left her as she searched around, looking for something that she could use as a weapon.
Unfortunately there didn’t seem to be anything that wasn’t nailed down to the ship.
Val pushed the button and the force field went away revealing a second orange dude that was shorter than the first, but the way he was looking at her made her feel dirty.
Without much thinking, she slipped into waitress mode, as if he was a drunk or nasty patron that was looking to put his hands where they didn’t belong.
Val moved past him without a word and moved into the main compartment.
This ship was definitely small, more like the size of an RV than a spaceship.
And it felt even more crowded when a third pan-faced alien followed them.
So the odds were even. Three against three, except she didn’t have a weapon, and these guys were much bigger and stronger than the three women. That’s if they could count on Bright, who was currently spinning yet another story.
“Princesses. Rutra doesn’t know what he’s got here.
I heard he was planning on offering 5 million for their return.
I got a contact that will give me twice that.
Imagine if we come back with ten. Each of us keep a million, and give him six.
He can’t argue with that. Of course we could always tell him it was nine, and then give him five and split that extra million between us. ”
“He might shove you out of an airlock just on the principle of the thing,” Shargo said.
“Which is why I’m currently considering keeping a million for myself and letting you all split the extra million three ways to tell him I met my demise,” Bright said.
There was something in Creepy’s eyes that said he thought actually killing her was a better option, but Bright didn’t notice, or just pretended not to notice. It was hard to tell.
“How’d you get them into that box without a fight?” Shargo asked, eyes squinting at Bright suspiciously.
“I just told them I was going to rescue them. They bought it and climbed in themselves.”
The orange aliens all laughed and Bright joined them. Val didn’t have time to be offended, as something beeped over by the pilot’s chair.
Shargo turned and looked at the console. “We’re here!”
Here looked like a deserted brown rock in the middle of nowhere. There was a haze of clouds around it, but Val couldn’t see any water or vegetation at all. It was a dead planet. Shargo pointed the shuttle down and it shook a bit as it entered the atmosphere.
They settled down in a dusty brown crater full of rocks. Almost immediately the viewscreen developed a hazy film, making everything look just that much more sepia toned, like an old photograph.
“Is it even breathable out there?” Val asked.
“Not for long. There’s enough atmosphere so that you won’t explode the minute you step out, but I find inhospitable planetoids make for a quick business transfer,” Shargo said. He handed his fellow flat face a laser rifle and a thin circular collar. “Take the high ground,” Shargo said.
“Get in the box,” Bright said.
“That line worked once,” Val said. “I don’t think it’s going to work again.”
Bright trained her laser pistol on Val. “Get in the box,” she repeated.
“Are you going to shoot me? Because unless you plan to-” Val was interrupted by Shargo, who didn’t feel like arguing. He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her toward the box. Val let out a yelp of pain and followed along, rather than have her hair pulled out by the roots.
“Fine! Seriously!”
Val climbed into the box, narrowly missing Grena, who had stopped snoring but appeared to still be sleeping.
Val doubted very much that this was the case.
She hunkered back down into the box, and Bright swung the lid shut.
Except this time, Val didn’t hear the little whir of the box locking.
They could, if needed, spring right back out of this box.
It was too dark to see Grena’s face, but she felt Grena’s hand reaching around and searching for hers.
A silent squeeze. Bright was hopefully telling the truth about trying to rescue them, rather than sell them to the highest bidder.
The more transactions they went through before being handed over to Takalia, the harder it would be for the Mahdfel to track them, and the more chances there were for things to go badly.
The door hissed open and Val could hear the wind whipping the dust around. Shargo shouted above it.
“Remember, shoot first and well, there’s fewer to split the share.”
Wait, did he just decide to kill people on his own team? Was he planning to shoot Bright in the back? Or did that mean kill the people they were trading with, the Mahdfel? Devin.
She didn’t have much time to mull over that thought, because there was a muffled roar that was the unmistakable sound of another ship landing.