Chaos Space - Marianne de Pierres [67]
‘We were on our way there when this shit happened. I guess that’s where we’ll go when the Captain clears things.’
She nodded again. ‘I want to go with you.’
Len tried to sit up straight and rub the exhaustion from his eyes. ‘Captain might take you.’ He looked at Mau. ‘Then again, he might not. Depends on the lucre.’ He crawled up out of his sink, his legs shaky. ‘Better go see if I can help out.’
‘Why there?’ Jo-Jo asked Beth when the kid had gone.
She hesitated. ‘I know someone who can help. Not OLOSS.’
‘A mercenary?’
‘Not exactly.’
There was silence again. Jo-Jo’s face throbbed and he felt a sudden powerful hunger, making it hard to concentrate. ‘Well, Beth, I’m sorry about your girl but I got no need to go back to Araldis.’
‘What do you need to do?’ she asked curiously.
‘I need to find someone.’ And then what?
‘You’ll want your own ship to do that, won’t you?’
He thought of Salacious and felt a surge of anger.
But Beth wasn’t giving up. ‘I can get you one on Akouedo if...’
‘If what?’
‘If you can convince Captain Loker to take us there.’
‘Us?’
Mau was sitting on the edge of Loker’s platform, looking like he wanted to say something but was waiting for permission.
‘It’s OK, Pet,’ Beth said.
Jo-Jo didn’t like the feeling he was getting. The one that meant he’d been left out of a secret.
‘Petalu is my guardian. My brother insists I have one,’ said Beth.
‘So all that Mama Petalu and Savvy stuff was crap?’ Jo-Jo turned on Beth. ‘Why do you need a guardian? And who’s your brother?’
She glanced at Mau again.
Jo-Jo realised what an idiot he’d been by not picking up on the protectiveness.
‘I c-can’t explain yet. When we get to Akouedo, Josef,’ she said. ‘Please can you convince Loker to take us there? He won’t listen to me.’
Please? She’d lied to him, yet she was also the reason he was still alive and feeling belligerent—he owed her this favour at least. ‘I’ll talk to Loker,’ he said.
Jo-Jo stepped out of the tiny bridge and straight into the slippery stink of blood and urine. People were spilling from the vibration cans into the corridors.
He forced his way along to where Captain Loker knelt over an injured woman. ‘Loker!’
The Captain glanced up at him, annoyed.
But Jo-Jo wouldn’t be deterred. ‘I don’t want to get off here.’
‘Station security is about to come aboard. Everyone’s off then.’
‘I want to go to Akouedo. I’ll pay,’ said Jo-Jo. ‘Me and my two friends.’
But Loker’s attention was drawn away from him to an eruption of shouts as the hatches opened.
Jo-Jo knelt down next to him ‘Loker!’
The man swung Jo-Jo another look. ‘Fee is ten thousand gals. Now get out of my hair unless you know something about this...’ He lifted his hand from the woman’s thigh and blood seeped down onto the floor. She moaned in a way that made Jo-Jo want to crap himself.
Loker clamped his hand over the wound again. ‘Crux, where are the fucking medics?’
Jo-Jo returned to the bridge and warned Beth and Mau not to leave. They crouched on the floor space around Loker’s platform, saying little to each other.
After a while Len appeared, looking haggard. He went straight into his sink without a word.
When the station security guards finally shouldered their way into the cramped bridge space Jo-Jo was first on his feet. Loker swayed in the door, well past exhausted. He pointed. ‘That’s my H-M and these ones are paying customers on their way to Akouedo,’ he said.
‘Smells like they’re going to the right place,’ said the station-sec guard closest to Petalu Mau.
‘Stand against the wall,’ ordered another.
‘Loker?’ said Jo-Jo sharply.
‘Station sec thinks some of the refugees might not be genuine.’ Loker’s stare met Jo-Jo’s. ‘Are you working for the nasties, Rasterovich?’
‘What’s your business in Akouedo?’ said the sec guard with the most stripes.
‘My ship was stolen from a berth on Dowl. I need a short-term replacement. Thought it might be the place to pick one up cheap.’
‘And these two?’
‘My crew,’ said Jo-Jo without hesitation.
The sec guard checked them all with his recog-ware.
‘So,