The Lost Ship of the Tucker Rebellion - Marie Sexton Page 0,36
corridors, into a room that looked like it had once been used as a classroom, and finally, clambered through a broken window. They were the last of the group to exit, and Denver had to help Laramie up and over the window sill. They emerged into an alley outside the Eyrie. Denver could still hear screams and the sound of gunfire from inside, but out here, everything seemed peaceful.
“You okay?” he asked Laramie.
“Oh, yeah,” Laramie muttered. “Getting chased by gov cops after having a run-in with that fucking crazy Luny? I’m peachy.”
“Can we do this later?” Marit asked. “The longer we stay here, the more likely we are to get caught.”
She was right, although at this point, running would only make them look suspicious. At the end of the alley, they looked both ways, doing their best to appear as casual as possible. The coast seemed clear. Another block, and the hubbub of the raid was lost in the regular noise of the Titan X streets. Finally, they left behind the brittle gray monotone of the Scab, all of them breathing a sigh of relief.
“Jesus. That was way more excitement than I needed today,” Marit grumbled. “I don’t know about you guys, but I could use a drink.”
“Me too.”
“I think the adrenaline cured that.” Denver’s ID beeped. “Shit.” He checked the message. “Looks like that drink will have to wait. The ship inspection’s in an hour.”
“Great,” Laramie muttered as they turned toward the docks. “What’s that saying about out of the frying pan, into the fire?”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Laramie told him for what felt like the hundredth time as they sat in their small kitchen aboard the Jiminy, waiting for the inspector.
Denver wanted to believe him, but he couldn’t stop worrying about the pod hidden under the floor of the cargo bay. He should have found a better hiding place, but it was too late to move it now.
“Uh, guys?” Marit said over the comm system from her seat in the cockpit, where she’d been keeping watch. “The inspector’s here.”
But her tone told Denver there was something unusual going on. “And?” he asked.
“He brought company.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Laramie asked.
“It’s not just Gerald,” Marit answered. “He brought a whole team. I’m counting six extras with him.”
“Seven guys?” Denver said, more to Laramie than Marit. “He knows something.”
“He does.”
“Well?” The waver in Marit’s voice betrayed her own unease. “Do I let them in?”
Laramie shrugged, and Denver said what they were both thinking. “I don’t think we have much of a choice.”
Laramie followed his brother down the narrow ship corridor to the cargo bay, just as Gerald came through the exterior door. Gerald was barely over five feet tall, but he used his rank to bolster his status. As always, his uniform was impeccable, his boots so well polished, they reflected the overhead lights. They’d been dealing with Gerald’s oversized ego and his know-it-all attitude for years, but Denver didn’t think he was imagining the extra gleam of anticipation in the inspector’s eyes.
“Denver, Laramie, good to see you both,” he said, as if they were old friends and not united by nothing more than bureaucratic necessity. “I hear you had a profitable run.”
Denver’s heart skipped a beat before jumping into hyperdrive. He resisted the urge to glance toward his brother. “Nothing special. Scrap metal. A bit of electronics. It’ll buy us a few meals, but I don’t think I’d call it ‘profitable.’” He glanced behind Gerald, to the half-dozen uniformed men milling around the doorway. “Where’s the party?”
Gerald’s answered him with a tight-lipped smile. “It’s just routine.”
Denver hoped he sounded more casual than he felt as he gestured toward their cargo bins. “Let’s get started, then.”
It was standard procedure for at least one of them to monitor the inspection. Every salvaged bit of space junk had to be inventoried, and the inspectors could never be trusted to record things correctly. Small goods had a way of disappearing into pockets, and lowball estimates were almost the norm, allowing Gerald and his cohorts to skim a bit from every haul they checked. It was a tedious game, pretending they were friends even as they double-checked to make sure nobody was getting screwed—not too much at least—but it was the only option. Only a naive newbie would allow the inspection to happen unsupervised.