HEAD CASE

  STARSHIP FOR SALE, BOOK TWO

  M.R. FORBES

  Published by Quirky Algorithms

  Seattle, Washington

  This novel is a work of fiction and a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2022 by Quirky Algorithms

  All rights reserved.

  Cover illustration by Tom Edwards

  Edited by Merrylee Lanehart

  CHAPTER 1

  “What?” I said, staring at Keep like he had four heads.

  “You got cotton in your ears or something, kid?” Keep replied. “The galaxy. I’m trying to save it. Are you in?”

  I knew my face had to be twisted into something horrible. The equal measure of anger, frustration, and confusion left me unsure of how to react, and I cycled between the three too quickly to say anything at all.

  “I’ll wait,” Keep said in response to my silence. “I mean, it’s not like I just committed murder in a crowded spaceport or anything. By the way, can you stop aiming that thing at me? I know you aren’t going to use it.”

  His last statement knocked me out of my stupor. I brought the gun up into a more prominent position to emphasize my intentions. “No? Why wouldn’t I? You left us a massive parking bill on Caprum, one you knew we couldn’t pay. We barely escaped, and they put a bounty on the ship.”

  “I doubt you barely escaped, drama queen. Caprum security is no match for that ship.”

  “That’s not the point. You lied to us, stole our money, and forced us to—”

  “Hold up,” he interrupted. “I didn’t steal your money. You bought the ship. I still have the contract on my phone.” He reached toward the inner pocket of his jacket.

  “Don’t,” I said, stepping forward. “You’re the reason I know how to use this. You’re the reason I’m here.”

  “Here as in the Quad, or here as in the spaceport?”

  “Both,” I growled, getting annoyed with his condescending attitude. “We had a contract to deliver that slab to that courier.” I waved the gun at Lurch’s corpse behind Keep. “A job. So we could make some money.” My voice rose to a shout, echoing through the dark tunnels. “So we wouldn’t have to eat any more freaking reassembled elves!”

  “Okay, kid,” Keep replied. “I can tell you’re a little upset.”

  “A little?” I snapped. “A little? You just cost us the contract. You just cost us our payday. Do you know what I was going to do with my share of that money?”

  “Nope.”

  “Alter knows a doctor who might be able to remove the tumor from my brain. The thing’s growing like a damned facehugger, sucking the life out of me, and he’s the only guy with the skills to remove it. Which makes him expensive as hell.”

  Keep pursed his lips, a hint of mirth playing at the edges. “Ahhhh. I get it.” He put up his hand. “Will you humor me and lower the blaster for a second? I promise you can aim it at me again if you want after I show you something.”

  I kept staring at him, wild-eyed and furious. Why was it that I couldn’t help giving in to him? I lowered the gun.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Just give me a sec.” He turned toward Lurch.

  “No bullshit,” I rasped.

  “Nope,” he replied, digging in the dead man’s pocket. He pulled out a smaller personal slab, activated it, and held it up to me. “Your contract was satisfied the moment this glass and that glass got within half a meter of one another. Congrats, kid, you’re rich. Badabing badaboom.”

  All of the anger drained from me in an instant as I stared at the screen. The contract was still visible on it, with PAID IN FULL marked in red across the top.

  “Oh,” I said sheepishly. “Well…”

  Keep looked at the contract, quickly scrolling through it. He glanced up at me, an eyebrow raised. “Hondo?”

  “I couldn’t think of anything else,” I replied.

  He shook his head in response, continuing to the end. That’s when he whistled. “Eighteen million smackers? That’s a serious haul for a rookie.”

  “Alter,” I said.

  “Yeah, I figured. Enigma. She’s that desperate to stay on board. But she opened a can of worms putting that name on a contract again after all this time.”

  “What kind of can of worms?”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about it. Sedaya’s your biggest threat, am I right?”

  That brought some of the anger back. “You knew he wouldn’t buy the Star from us. You knew we’d have to run from him and his goons.”

  He shrugged. “I told you the deal wouldn’t be without risk. But I also believed in your ability to navigate through it. I didn’t just pick you out of a hat, kid. You’re the end result of a long search for just the right individual. I need a hero. You’re it. The fact that you just completed a level five contract on your first try only proves I was right.”

  I shook my head. “I’m not a hero. And I don’t want to be a hero. I want to go to Alter’s contact and get the cancer out.”

  “Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive. To be fair, I didn’t expect our paths to cross again so soon. Yes, I knew you would have some hardship out of the gate, but hardship builds character and gives you nuts of steel. You ever hear the expression `whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?’”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard it.”

  “Well, there you go. Badabing badaboom!”

  “This isn’t the kind of strength I was looking for when I answered your text.”

  “I bet you don’t even know what you were looking for, kid. My opinion? You wanted to feel like your life meant something, as short as it appeared it was going to be. Well, here’s your chance.”

  “To save the galaxy?” I asked.

  “Bingo.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite. How?”

  “That’s a long story.”

  “What’s the summary?”

  “Sedaya’s angling to overthrow the Empress and claim the entire Hegemony for himself.”

  I laughed. “Bullshit. I might be a rookie, but I wasn’t born yesterday. Even Sedaya can’t stand up to the Royal Sentries.”

  Every hint of amusement faded from Keep’s face. All of a sudden, he looked old and pained. “He captured Caprum and forced the Duchess into exile with barely a shot fired. He’s as slimeball as they come, and he’s working to undermine the Empress from the inside out. By the time she knows what’s happening, the Royal Sentries will be under Sedaya’s flag.”

  “So what?” I said, shrugging. “Even if he does, I’m from Earth. Once I’m cured, Matt and I can go back and chalk all of this up to a fun memory. Why should we care what happens here?”

  “Do you really think someone like Sedaya will stop at the Spiral? The Hegemony was built by the original Earthians who arrived here. They know present day Earth is no match for anything we have. The Empress and her line keep the two galaxies separate. Without them? Who knows.”

  “How would Sedaya benefit from controlling Earth?” I asked.

  “He wouldn’t. Except he doesn’t like you, and you’re from Earth.”

  “You can’t be serious. That’s like five-year-old thinking.”

  “Sedaya’s about as complex as a five-year-old. And just as manipulative.”

  I stared at him again, my anger rebuilding. “You set this whole thing up.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Bullshit. You knew Sedaya wouldn’t trade for the Star. That even if we tried to sell it to him—”

  “Which you apparently did, despite my warning,” Keep interrupted.

  “That even if we tried to sell it to him, he would move to take it instead. If we survived, we would make an enemy of him, and he would, from then on, hate Earth. And that’s how you dragged us into your half-baked plot.”

  “It’s called motivation. And what’s half-baked about it?”

  I didn’t answer his question. “But there was still a chance we wouldn’t survive.”

  “There’s no reward without risk, kid. But I believed in you. Everything I saw during your Star Squadron match was aces.”

  “I’ve seen the Last Starfighter, you know.”

  “You’re too young to have seen the Last Starfighter. But anyway, it’s not like that.”

  “How is it not like that?”

  Keep smirked. “Okay, maybe it inspired me to turn to video games to search for talent, but that’s where it begins and ends.”

  “What about the part where I’m the hero who saves the galaxy?”

  “Don’t get too high on yourself already. For one thing, you aren’t the last or only hope I have of stopping Sedaya. For another, it’s all a lot more subtle than a straight up invasion. And for a third thing, it’s real, not a movie. You’re going to need to do a lot more than fly your robot head around if we’re going to stop him. But that doesn’t mean you can’t participate. Heroes are made, not born.”

  “Wait. So am I the hero you need or is this just another sales pitch? You hate Sedaya for taking Caprum. How do I know you aren’t trying to set me up to do your dirty work for you? Maybe you convince me he’s trying to take over the entire Hegemony, when in fact you just want to settle the score. You haven’t exactly given me any reason to trust you.”

  “You’ve sharpened up since our first meeting. I’m impressed. You’re right, you have no reason to trust me. And maybe I’m lying to
you. But Sedaya’s your enemy too. That makes us friends.”

  “No it doesn’t.”

  “Sure it does. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. You’ve heard that one, right?”

  “You can’t just ignore the context. I don’t believe you’re my friend. I believe Avelus Keep looks out for the best interests of Avelus Keep, and that’s where that begins and ends.”

  Keep laughed. “I like your moxie. You’ve grown up a lot in the last two weeks.”

  “You didn’t leave me much choice.”

  “You’re welcome.” Keep sighed. “So, what’s it going to be, kid? One more time. Saving the galaxy. In or out?”

  “Out,” I said firmly. “It’s your problem. You figure it out.”

  His smirk left me feeling like I had made the wrong decision, despite the fact that I was pretty sure I had made the right one. Sedaya was an asshole, but I couldn’t begin to fathom how he might gain sway over the entire Hegemony. No, Keep had been playing Matt and me before we even knew we were being played. And he would keep playing us until we quit the game. He claimed Sedaya was manipulative, but the Duke had nothing on him.

  “Fine, kid. I get it. You don’t trust me. Fair enough.” He held out the slab. “Word of advice. Take this. Give the contents a gander. When you change your mind, you can reach me here.” He stuck his other hand back in his inner pocket and produced a simple cardboard business card, which he proceeded to shove in my coat pocket. “Nice style, by the way. It would look better with knee-high boots.”

  “I won’t call you,” I said.

  “Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. I guess we’ll see. Here.”

  He pushed the slab toward me. I didn’t see a good reason to take it, but I figured the slab was better off in my hands than his, considering he had killed the courier to get ahold of it. So I took it.

  “Great to see you again, Bennie,” Keep said, patting me on the shoulder as he moved away. “Say hello to Mattie and Alter for me. Until next time.”

  He went to the end of the passage and vanished into the darkness while I watched dumbstruck. What the hell had just happened?

  I glanced back at the courier, dead on the floor in front of me. A splash in a nearby puddle opposite the direction Keep had gone clued me in to the fact that I wasn’t in here alone.

  A bright light followed before I could move, blinding me.

  “Don’t move,” a rough male voice said. “Drop your weapon and keep your hands where I can see them.”

  I froze, heart racing as I made a trio of realizations. One, the guard wasn’t Alter. Two, standing there in front of a dead body with a blaster in my hand made me look guilty as hell. Three, Keep had heard the guards coming and didn’t warn me. Instead, he set me up.

  And beat a hasty retreat.

  Again.

  CHAPTER 2

  A pair of security guards moved in from behind the light, coming toward me with rifles ready. When they reached me, one of them put the gun to my back while the other kicked my blaster away and snatched the slab from my hand before attaching something to the back of my neck.

  “You’re under arrest for suspected murder, possession of a firearm in a restricted area, and disruption of the public peace,” the guard said. “I’ve attached a proximity detonator to your neck, paired to my wrist computer. I highly recommend staying within three meters of me unless you want to lose your head.”

  “What if I try to remove it?” I asked.

  “You’ll lose your head,” he replied flatly.

  “Got it. I’ll be good.”

  The jab of the rifle ceased. That guard frisked me before recovering my blaster, all while the third guard kept his light on me.

  “Kassu, stay behind to set up a crime scene. And call in to HQ and tell them we need forensics down here.”

  “Yes sir,” the guard behind the light replied. I recognized his voice. That one was Alter. She had helped buy me time to chase down Keep, but she couldn’t keep the rest of security off my back indefinitely.

  Still, it gave me comfort knowing she was close. Would she turn on the other two guards to get me out of this mess? At first, I hoped she would. But I reconsidered as they walked past her, confident I would rather follow than lose my head to the explosive in my neck. These people had families and friends, and they were just doing their jobs.

  Just like the guard she had obviously killed to capture his essence.

  The thought made me sick to my stomach. I knew she had done it to help Matt and me, and in the frenzy of the moment I had accepted it without thought. But there had to be a line in the sand somewhere. I didn’t want her hurting innocent people because of me. Which left me to wonder something else. As an Aleal, did she truly understand morality or even the nuance of it?

  I lost sight of her as I followed the other two guards through the maze of passageways, all the way back to where I had started. We emerged from the maintenance area back onto the ground floor of the concourse, which had been hastily evacuated and cordoned off by a much larger contingent of guards. I found Matt sitting on the edge of the pool next to the surviving thug, both of them docile enough I assumed they had detonators stuck to the backs of their necks too.

  Did the thugs know Keep, or were they from a different faction trying to get their hands on the slab?

  “Go join the other detainees by the waterfall,” the guard said.

  “That’s more than three meters away,” I replied.

  “I expanded the distance to ten meters.” He paused. “Maybe.”

  A security guard with a sense of humor? Or was he not joking? I eyed him suspiciously, unable to see his face.

  “Over there,” he ordered more sharply. “Now.”

  I walked over to where Matt and the thug sat, making eye contact with the bad guy first. Now that the fate of the slab had been decided, he didn’t look all that thuggish to me. In fact, he even smiled and nodded respectfully. I returned the gesture before sitting next to Matt.

  “Well, this sucks,” he said.

  I leaned in close to whisper. “Where’s Shaq?”

  “Bro, you don’t even want to know,” he whispered back. “But they won’t find him unless they strip search me.”

  I tried not to laugh. “Was that your idea or his?”

  “He didn’t ask, if that’s what you mean. He better send me chocolates or flowers or something after getting this down and dirty with me. Where’s the slab?”

  “Security took it. But it doesn’t matter. The courier sent the payment. The funds have been transferred.”

  His face brightened. “Really?”

  “I saw the receipt.”

  “Not that we’ll be able to spend it,” he added, expression falling again. “We’re going to be gulaged for the rest of our lives.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  I lowered my voice again. “Because Alter is one of the guards. As long as they don’t have her, they don’t really have us.”

  “I hope you’re right about that. If I wanted to go to prison, I could have stolen a lambo or something for a joyride and had a much better time of it. And I’m pretty sure I don’t want to go to outer space prison.”

  “It’s not that bad,” the thug said, listening in on our conversation.

  We both looked at him. “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Prison here. It’s not that bad. Three squares a day. Full access to the hypernet. Team sports.” He shrugged. “I mean, if you aren’t affiliated with one of the Families you’re probably going to take a few beatings, but guys like you must be in good.”

  I remembered Lo had mentioned Family when he was talking to Alter. I had assumed he meant occupational family, in their case assassins, like a guild or a union or something. It made sense that criminals and below-the-board operatives would organize, especially for protection inside a given prison system.

  That wasn’t us. We were unaffiliated across the board.

  “We’re not worried,” Matt said, despite the fact that I was sure we were both worried stiff. Alter needed to do something sooner rather than later.

  “I figured you wouldn’t be. Me, I’ll probably be out on bail in the next couple of hours. The charges will be dropped by tomorrow night at the latest.”

  “Hey, that’s great,” I lied. “So happy for you.”