Venecia Read online

  "Always, Sir. Good luck."

  "Thanks, Mabel," Harm said as the door closed behind him.

  Twenty minutes later, Harm was on his motorcycle traveling down a nearly deserted freeway at 160 kph. It was a clear night with a star-filled, moonless sky. Since when did I become the worried father? Harm thought to himself as the landscape passed by in a blur. I know, since Marta and Aerith came back into my life. It doesn't help that I remember what I was doing when I was her age. Maybe Marta was right when she tried to get Aerith to join the military. Hell, look at how well Marta turned out.

  Harm exited the freeway and took the access road to the Skolls complex. A night hunter ran across the road in front of the motorcycle—a good omen. Moments later Harm heard a star freighter pass overhead. He looked up and saw the OffSec insignia on the underside of the atmo foils. Good, I should be ready to go, Harm thought as he drove up to the open door of Hangar Eighteen just as Glentar was sealing the Conquistador's forward cargo bay door.

  "Greetings, Harmon of House Aymar. Tonight has been profitable," Glentar said as he waved a transaction pad. "Fifteen thousand credits handling fee and not one eyebrow raised. A very good night indeed."

  "You old pirate, that's triple the going rate! Good for you. Listen, can you take care of Dulcinea while I'm gone," Harm asked as he patted the motorcycle's seat.

  "Aye, it would be my pleasure," Glentar said.

  "The tanks are full and she loves nice long drives," Harm called out with a wink as he headed up the ramp into the ship. He looked back and saw Glentar stroking the cycle like he was sizing up a third wife. Harm made a mental note to send the girls a special gift for keeping the old general happy.

  As the hatch closed, Harm walked into the cockpit and performed the final preflight while the engines spun up. He reached over and activated the singularity drive just in case he needed to leave town in a hurry. Normally, he would wait until he broke orbit before dropping into other-space, but this time he had a weird feeling he would need the singularity drive earlier in the flight.

  "Sir, incoming emergency call. It's your daughter," Roscoe said. Like Mabel, and the hacker balls, Roscoe was one of Harm’s creations.

  "Put her through. Contact Mabel and download Aerith's location," Harm said as he lifted Conquistador off the hangar floor and headed her out of the hanger. Once clear, he set course to intercept his daughter.

  "Here she is, sir," Roscoe said.

  "Daddy, I'm in a bit of a jam," she said with her voice on the verge of panic. Aerith never panicked.

  "What's wrong?" he asked as he pushed the throttles to full atmospheric power. He skimmed the treetops at over 400 kph. "Roscoe, contact City Flight Operations and declare an emergency, then get Agent Powell on the line."

  "Yes, sir," Roscoe said as he went to work.

  "It was supposed to be a simple caper. Get in, get the merch, get out. The guards showed up early. They caught Noto and Flern,” Aerith said. “I got away but now I've got two remote power suits tracking me."

  Shit. I hate suits, Harm thought referring to telepresence units remotely controlled by the operator's mind. "Do you know what kind?"

  "They look like old model Maulers. Daddy, I'm afraid."

  "You're doing fine, OK? Do you have your hacker ball?"

  "Of course."

  "Get into the open, someplace without people. When the suits catch up to you, press both ends of the ball until it starts to flash. It'll take about a second. When it flashes, throw it between the Maulers and run like hell."

  "It has two buttons? I thought it only had one," she said confused.

  "I designed it as a safety mechanism. Pressing the buttons turns the ball into a fairly powerful EMP grenade."

  "You designed it?"

  "I designed a lot of things. Where are you now?"

  "Kalista Station. I see them. Activating EMP..."

  A few seconds later Harm saw a flash of light outside the windshield. "Dad, got one, but the other is still coming."

  "OK, do you trust me?"

  "Of course," she replied winded.

  "I want you to head to OffSec Headquarters. It's three blocks east of your current position."

  "OffSec? Are you bat-shit crazy? If they find out I'm..."

  "How can they?" he said interrupting her. It was an open line after all. "You just destroyed your hacker ball."

  "Oh, right. I'm almost there..."

  "Sir, Agent Powell is on the line."

  "Powell, Harmon. I've got a small problem..." He told her a lengthy and somewhat half-truth-filled story. "I'll get your stuff to Venecia ahead of schedule and waive the bonus if you help me."

  "Keep your bonus," Powell said. "I've got kids of my own. Powell out."

  Harm was seconds away from the OffSec building when he had a thought, an odd one. "Roscoe, what's our cargo?"

  Roscoe brought up the manifest which Harm quickly read before breaking out in a smile. "Oh yeah!"

  ###

  Aerith was almost to the building when the Mauler chasing her broke out from between two buildings and leapt over her, landing between her and her destination. She could see several small power suits heading her way from the direction of the OffSec building, but they were no match for the behemoth facing her.

  "Aww, don't be afraid. I'll be quick," the thing said as a pair of .50 caliber Gatling guns emerged from the ends of its arms. The sound of a ship passing low overhead followed by a ground-shaking thump stopped it.

  "Hey, butt-ugly! Why don't you pick on someone your own size," a voice growled from behind the Mauler. The suit turned to find a ten-foot tall, state-of-the-art Minotaur suit walking toward it, the Minotaur's polished black armored skin gleaming in light from the streetlights.

  "Who the hell are you?" the Mauler growled.

  "Your worst nightmare," Harmon said as he watched one of the OffSec suits take Aerith to safety. "Who the hell do you work for, asshole? I can't believe you're behaving this stupid as a hobby."

  "Flox. The bitch and her two friends snatched a data drive which the boss wants back real bad. We got the lads but the girl scrammed."

  "I see," Harm said as he flicked the Minotaur's tail at a pair of nearby lampposts. They fell into his waiting hands as the tail's laser tip cut through their bases like a hot knife through butter. He looked at the two lampposts while he spun them like batons before tossing them to the befuddled Mauler.

  "None for you?" the Mauler asked as it clumsily held the posts like a pair of clubs. No one could accuse the mauler driver of having finesse.

  "Don't need them," Harm said as he shot forward and hit Mauler with a haymaker to end all haymakers. The Mauler flew twenty feet through the air before landing in a cloud of sparks and smoke, its clubs skidding down the street.

  Harm was on it immediately, tearing it into bite-sized pieces in less time than it takes to say "Stupid." The battle was over before it began as Harm stood up holding the Mauler's head at arm's length. "Had enough?" Harm asked the head.

  "Yeah, I'm done. Who the hell are you?"

  Ignoring the question, Harm replied, "Tell Flox that I'm very displeased. I want those boys delivered here unharmed in the next ten minutes, or I'll be paying him a visit. Understood?"

  "Understood. Your voice sounds familiar. Have we met before?" the head asked as its remaining power began to fail.

  "Yes, about eight years ago. I was Collette's partner. You remember Collette, don't you, Kobo?"

  "You! You're supposed to be dead. I promise, I will find you and kill you for real this time…” The head said before its power cell died. Harm threw it on the pile of what was left of the mauler suit. The Minotaur glanced at Aerith before walking back to the Conquistador parked at the edge of the park. On its way, it passed Harm who was running over to check on his daughter.

  "Aerith? Are you OK?" He asked as he ran up and hugged her. "My God, what were you thinking mixing it up with Flox?"

  "Dad... I’m sorry. We got in way over our heads…”
<
br />   "Give it up, young lady," Harm said while holding out his open hand palm up.

  "Oh, alright. Here!" she said while handing him a small flash drive.

  He looked at it for a moment before handing it to Agent Powell who had slid up next to Aerith with her weapons drawn. Powell took it with a smaller tentacle and stored it underneath the outer ones. No non-Alturan knew what was underneath all those limbs. "Agent, you have my word..." Harm said, but the agent would have none of it.

  "Go and take the young miss with you. I'll make sure her friends are OK and Flox gets his property back," she said. Harmon knew the flash drive would be downloaded and analyzed before it was allowed to leave OffSec custody.

  "Thanks," he said as he reached into a pocket and pulled out a nutribar. "In case I interrupted your dinner," he said while handing it to her with a smile.

  "Why yes, I think you did. By the way, your ship seems a little small for a medbed. How did you...?"

  Harm pulled a headset from around his neck and handed it to her. It had "Elven Industries, Ltd. hand-written on its side.

  "You're shitting me? This little thing?"

  "Yeah. I make things when I get bored," he said as she handed it back. He took Aerith by the arm and led her back to the Conquistador. "Have a good night, Agent."

  The ramp closed and the tiny freighter lifted off into the night, leaving an awestruck Powell munching her nutribar while pondering who could condense over a ton of medbed into a headset no bigger than a set of headphones.

  Chapter Three

  Harm piloted the Conquistador out of orbit before setting course for Venecia. He pushed the throttle levers past their stops, engaging the FTL drive and dropping the freighter into other-space. Satisfied that all was well, he pressed a button on the console which engaged the quantum singularity drive. In less than a microsecond, the Conquistador was traveling many times faster than any ship in the League.

  He unbuckled, got up, and grabbed two teas before joining his daughter in the ship's lounge. She was absentmindedly playing with one of the dancing hula girl statues scattered around the ship.

  He handed her a tea before taking a seat near her. He sat there, silent, as he watched her.

  "What?" she asked self-consciously.

  In lieu of an answer, he pulled out a med scanner and aimed it at her.

  "Hey! I'm fine," she said as she pulled away.

  "Roscoe?" he asked.

  "I concur, sir. All vital signs are normal. No injuries. No drugs, legal or otherwise. Miss Aerith is in tip-top shape."

  "Aren't you supposed to get my permission before giving me a physical?" she demanded.

  "League maritime law. I am God aboard this ship which means I can scan you, officiate at your wedding, or shove you out of an airlock," he said as he put down the scanner. Sipping his tea, he leaned back and continued to stare at his daughter.

  "Will you stop it already? Yell at me. Scold me. Hell, put me in the brig, but just stop that infernal staring!"

  "Do you know who Flox is?" He asked calmly.

  "Yeah, some hood..."

  "Flox is THE hood. He is responsible for over seven hundred assassination deaths across fifteen planets. Do you know what was on that drive you stole?"

  "Data. Data he would pay dearly for."

  "That drive is known as his Bucket List. It contains two files—a list of names of people he's had killed and a list of names of people he plans to kill."

  "How the hell could you possibly know that?"

  "I recognized the drive. My name is on the second list."

  "What?" Aerith asked as she went pale.

  "He is a high-ranking member of the Stego Crime Syndicate. Did your mother tell you how I came to be part of the rescue team sent to Maranta Five? I gave OffSec enough information to put most of the family behind bars. They really don't like me."

  "Oh my God. Dad, I didn't..."

  "OffSec went to a lot of trouble convincing the criminal elements of the League that I was dead. Now..."

  "What have I done?" she asked as tears welled up in her eyes.

  "It gets better. Did you notice that at no time did the Mauler driver identify himself?"

  "So," she asked as she wiped her tears with a tissue. She noticed the boxes of tissues were almost as numerous as the hula dolls.

  "He didn't identify himself because OffSec would have nuked Flox's residence if they even thought he was there. His name is Kobo. He's a malignant, psychotic, quadriplegic assassin whose only pleasure in life is killing people using power suits. He particularly likes to rip limbs off and beat the owners to death with them. If I hadn't stopped him, he would have killed you, hopefully before ripping your body apart to retrieve the drive."

  "Again, how can you possibly know this?"

  "I was the one who made him a quadriplegic eight years ago, while he and I were trying to kill each other. Missing that opportunity to relieve this universe of that creature is one of the few regrets I still carry."

  "You're just trying to scare me..."

  "Roscoe, photo one-one-seven-eight, main viewer. Authorization Harm alpha-three-six."

  Aerith screamed and covered her eyes when the image formed on the screen.

  "Roscoe, viewer off. That was my partner, Collette. She and I worked a number of hacking capers after Spindrift. She was good, almost as good as you. I found her on my front doorstep after a caper involving one of Kobo's clients. Kobo made it clear that someone was displeased with Collette and me, so I called the police before stealing an industrial demolition suit, one used to tear down concrete buildings. I went to his place and had words with him."

  "Why are you telling me this?"

  "Because your mother obviously failed to convince you not to follow in my footsteps. I'm hoping this will convince you to find another career choice or get smarter with this one. By the way, Powell called just after we broke orbit. Your companions are in OffSec custody. They're unharmed. I'm surprised. Kobo usually kills them and feeds them to his wombats within the first half-hour of capture. Either he's slipping, or I'm getting more intimidating. We arrive at Venecia in two hours. Get some rest."

  "Two hours?" Aerith said with a sniffle. "How the hell can you do that?"

  "Get some rest. You've had a trying day," Harm said, ignoring her question as he walked over and kissed his daughter gently on the head. "You are my life. Remember that, the next time you pull a stunt like this."

  He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge before sitting back down in the pilot's seat. He picked up a comic book from a nearby pile and opened it to the first page.

  ###

  Aerith woke up to the sound of a temple bell. Her head was on a pillow while a blanket kept her warm. "Where are we?" She asked, sitting up. In front of her was a steaming cup of tea and a scone. She grabbed the scone, suddenly realizing how hungry she was.

  "We're in orbit around Venecia and should be landing shortly. First stop is Melgassa Arcology for a passenger pick-up followed by a rendezvous with the submarine Deltafish out in the southern ocean."

  "Conquistador floats?" she asked past a mouthful of scone.

  "Conquistador can do many things," Harm said while handing her a banana, "but floating isn't one of them. The Deltafish is big enough to hold several Conquistadors inside two nice, dry hangers. Grab your tea and join me up front," he said as he tousled her hair.

  "I must look a fright," she said while trying to straighten her unruly mane.

  "The head is first door on the right," Harm said as he prepared the ship for reentry.

  "Thanks," Aerith said. She finished her banana and headed to the head with tea in hand. She emerged a few minutes later looking much happier. "Dad, sorry about all this."

  "I missed out being a part of your life for a very long ten years. Don't get me wrong, I kept track of you and your mother from afar, but it's not the same as being there. I can't and won't lose you again."

  "So, we're OK?" she asked with huge eyes and both ears tracking him lik
e radar dishes.

  "Always. Now, strap in and enjoy the ride," he said as he keyed the mic switch on the control yoke. "Venecia control, this is LTV Conquistador requesting landing clearance and vectors to Melgassa Arcology, over."

  "Welcome, Conquistador. You have permission to land. Vectors should be on your NAVComp."

  Harm looked at the console and saw the numbers appear on Roscoe's screen. "Roger that, Venecia Control. Vectors have arrived. Have a good day, Control. Conquistador out. Here we go."

  Harm fired the Conquistador's braking thrusters, sending the freighter into Venecia's atmosphere. The air around the ship glowed as the ship's kinetic energy turned to heat while the shields routed the superheated air safely around the hull. In minutes, the Conquistador was flying several hundred feet off the ocean's surface on a heading which would take it to Melgassa Arcology and their passenger.

  "Wow. That's a lot of water," Aerith observed as she craned her head for a better view.

  "Over ninety percent of the planet is under water. It suffered a bout of global warming a century and a half ago," Harm explained. "Arable land is now used for recreation and agriculture while everything else was moved to offshore arcologies."

  "Again, wow!" Aerith whispered. "How do you land on a submarine?"

  "Very carefully. They surface, the dorsal bay doors open, and you drop inside. Simple on paper, really."

  "What about reality?"

  "Lateral stability is key. Getting thrown into a wall by a wind gust can ruin your whole day."

  "So you've done this before?"

  "Land in a sub? No. Drop her down a fifty-story airshaft while being chased by hostile patrol craft? Sure. Ah, there it is," he said as his daughter stared at him in awe. "Melgassa control, this is LTV Conquistador approaching from one-seven-eight degrees true. Request landing clearance and vectors, over."