Beyond the Edge Page 2

  Before the first ping finished ringing, she picked up, her pink eyes heavily lined with black charcoal in her chrome face on his tiny tab screen. She wiped ship grease off her chrome cheeks. “Do you want to meet for tea? I could really, really, really use a break. I’m stuck on this bucket with Kaesare because she can’t ready her own damned freighter. She yaps on ‘n on ‘n on, getting on my last nerves. ‘N my man does nothin’ about it. She shot him, ‘n he lets her do whatever she likes. It’s nuts. Just nuts.”

  Most of her words flitted past Craze’s ear holes like gnats. “Tea in an hour? I could stand the company of a friend. How long until the ship is ready to fly?”

  Sooner would be best. Captain Kaesare and Rainly together sizzled as volatile as he and Bast. Five months ago, Kaesare had sauntered in bringing fixtures for Craze’s new tavern, making herself as unpopular as a thieving Jix by shooting Rainly’s man, Dactyl, and putting him in stasis until Doc arrived, and by ripping Craze off with the wrong goods. Her devious contract required he pay exorbitant shipping charges whether the fancy tables for his new and improved tavern arrived as ordered or not. Despite her crimes, most of Craze’s friends had forgiven Kaesare in exchange for her help in locating Lepsi, all except Craze and Rainly.

  “Kaesare is all bothered like a hull missing bolts because I removed her traps ‘n snares, bellyaching to the moons how she’s defenseless ‘n any decent freighter needs its security. Well, you know, it’s not my problem. She almost killed Dactyl, ‘n she has to understand she has to pay for what she did.”

  Part of the sentence for Kaesare’s crime had given Rainly possession of the freighter and its cargo. The corridor leading to the holds had required disarming, littered with too many ways to die. Now Kaesare’s spacecraft sat as vulnerable as a pleasure cruiser, and he understood her complaints.

  He sided with Rainly’s, though. The poor gal had fretted the whole time her man remained in stasis, wishing for his full recovery, weeping, wasting away. The always chittering and jolly Rainly had quit talking and smiling, growing morose and bitter. Tears had chapped her cheeks and darkened her soul. The Edge had that effect on lots of folks, but Craze hoped she’d shrug it off.

  “Make her buy the death traps back. Make some chips ‘n better your life ‘n business. Problem solved, right? Now help me out. How long until her spacecraft is ready?”

  Rainly’s chrome lips pressed into a thin line. “So she’ll get her security returned on my terms. Great thinking, Craze. Next time I’ve a dilemma, I’ll come ask you instead o’ stewing myself into crossed wires. What’d you ask now? Oh yeah, about the freighter’s readiness to fly. It’ll be prepped by the end of the week. Our buddy, CaptainTalos, is setting launch in four days. He won’t consider delaying any longer to follow this hot lead on Lepsi. I understand that. He needs to be found. Why do they all have to go, though? Why does Dactyl have to?”

  Craze’s meaty palm ran over his wide face, distorting his vision. “We’ll talk about it over tea. OK? We’ll talk until you happy. But can you do me another favor?”

  The white strands of her plastic-like hair swished when she shifted her weight. “What?”

  “You have the passenger list from Siegna?”

  She swept her pale tresses behind her chrome ears. “Yes.”

  “Read them over the announcement system with leecher before each name. Can you do that?”

  Bast grabbed onto Craze’s wrist, crushing bone and muscle, growling. “Stop this. Why you doin’ this?”

  Craze snarled. “I just told you why. Either you Verkinns go where I send you, or you go off on your own. Either way, you not stayin’ here. You’ve got four days.” His mouth twitched upward, and he focused on his tab. “Rains?”

  A smirk slid over her lips, and she winked at Craze. “I’ll get it done.”

  Friends made annoying situations tolerable. A lesson not taught by Bast’s pathetic tongue. Nope. That was something Craze had learned on his own since leaving Siegna. “Great. See you at the bakery? I’ll buy you a cake.”

  Her face lit up with a smile worthy of her, and she nodded vigorously. “Can’t wait.”

  His thumb hovering over another icon, Craze met Bast’s glower. “Now I’m goin’ to ping Pauder to gather up a posse of hire-ons, arm them, ‘n clear the docks. Any Verkinns found beggin’ ‘n scoundralin’ will be taken to the prison cells on charges of leechin’. Then he’s goin’ after those behind on their rents. You ‘n the council can spend the next four days in lockup considerin’ your options.”

  Yerness stumbled from the bedroom, eyes glazed, naked. “You can’t do that.”

  Chapter 3

  Rainly

  The whole time on the tab with Craze, Rainly never wavered from staring at Kaesare. The drill in Rainly’s hand tightened a few loose rivets, screeching over the words she whispered. “One crack on the neck with this wrench ‘n that bitch will finally pay.” The skin between her eyes pinched, and rage built up in her gut until her heart hiccupped. The sight of Captain Kaesare grated on her worse than a ship full of Foreworlders, whom the Backworlders called Fo’wo’s.

  “Sweet one, you got the soldering iron?” Dactyl stood on a cargo trolley in front of an access panel that relayed power and data from the bridge to the propulsion system.

  Designed for functionality, this section of Captain Kaesare’s freighter, in a listless hue of gun metal, could put zeal to sleep. Deceptive. Because before Rainly had dismantled the booby traps, the corridor leading to the cargo holds had concealed twenty-seven ways to die, proving Kaesare as more unhinged than most freighter captains who believed a dozen or fewer ways to kill thieves adequate. The private areas of Kaesare’s ship contrasted with her paranoia, painted in blues and yellows, mimicking an idyllic world, the type of world most Backworlders had never seen.

  Resembling Craze with living hair, an imposing stature, and splayed cheeks, Kaesare toiled at another conduit down the corridor. Periodically she scowled at Rainly and cursed. Whether earned for disarming the freighter or beating Kaesare to a pulp after she’d shot Dactyl, Rainly didn’t care. They’d never be friends.

  The blistering glare she shot back at Kaesare lodged in Rainly’s attitude, spiraling, corkscrewing, heating her blood. Shaking her head, she tried to cease the dark thoughts creeping over her instincts, seeping in from the corners, taking over her joy, but they wouldn’t budge, making her wonder if someday she’d lose all control for good, making her cherish her free will. Maybe it wouldn’t last.

  Gulping, she caressed Dactyl’s hair, running her fingers through his long, silky waves. “You almost done? I’m meeting Craze in a bit. If I don’t get off this ship soon, I’ll go bwatshit. Yeah, I see a tantrum coming.” She handed her man the tool and leaned against the wall. “I can’t stand her,” she whispered as harsh as the coarsest sanding belt.

  Broad and strong, Dactyl set down his tools to caress her wrist with his powerful hands, sidling closer. Despite his strength, his touch fluttered like a gentle breeze, one she couldn’t get enough of. He stood two feet shorter than her, but as wide as three slim men. If he so chose, he could crush her cybernetic wrist with two fingers. She couldn’t imagine him ever choosing to, though, and the crease between her brows eased.

  “How can you forgive her, babe?” All those years spent serving others had created a rebellion where Rainly had ceased to censor herself. Her masters had suppressed her every thought and sentiment, dictating her proclivities and tempers, commanding her actions. At first she didn’t know herself enough to assert her ego, but within a year of activation, it bubbled to the surface. Now it poured out in rivers, and she did nothing to halt its flow. She knew it irked many folks, but she didn’t care what anyone else thought, and Dactyl never seemed to mind. Neither did most of her friends on Pardeep Station. “She shot you ‘n left you to bleed out on the floor. Not once did she worry over you. No, she ran to save her own wide ass. If Pauder ‘n Craze hadn’t caught her, she’d probably have put a bullet in all o’ us to get back in her ship ‘n go, abandoning us all in lakes o’ blood.”

  The trolley raised him a foot off the ground, the top of his head reaching her shoulder, and he leaned on the wall beside her. “That never would’ve happened. Kaesare has more sense than that… most like. How else could she have become a successful cargo captain? I was the one being an idiot. The gal merely defended herself, ‘n I’m OK. Forgiveness will give yous peace. Yous should try it.”

  She ran her fingers over the shorn beard edging his jaw line, peering deep into his brown eyes. Brown described Dactyl more than any other word. His clothes, hair, eyes, skin, and shoes were brown, everything but the tattoo on his left bicep and the bracelets on his wrists she had made for him out of ship parts too worn to be repaired. “Now you is going off with her ‘n leaving me behind. What if she shoots you again? What if she does worse? What if she shoots you ‘n Talos ‘n Pauder ‘n Dialhi? I’ll lose most o’ my friends all at once. It makes no sense that she gets to go with you.”

  His bronze-toned hand picked up her see-through one. “She’s not going anywhere with us. She’s only dropping us off on Nitera to pick up Dialhi’s ship. Then Captain Kaesare goes her own way.”

  The wires in her fingers sparked pink when she clutched onto him tighter. “Don’t lie to me. Talos is depending on her to help him get all o’ Lepsi’s messages out o’ Dialhi’s vessel, the Olvis Deluxe. Kaesare travels with you all the way to wherever that is. How far, Dactyl? How long?”

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. She’ll be piloting her ship ‘n we’ll all be on Diahli’s Olvis. Besides, what does it matter? I said I forgave her not that I’m courting her.”

  Rainly scratched at an imaginary itch on her nose. “I still don’t see why you have to go. I mean, I know you liked
Lepsi ‘n all, but Pauder’s going ‘n he has all the guns. Talos won’t be wanting anymore help than that. Craze ought to go before you. He ‘n the aviarmen go back before we bumped into them. You know that?”

  “I do. I met them shortly after Craze, ‘n I left Elstwhere with them, spent all that time with their schemings in that tiny little ship. This I know, Talos will go after Lepsi no matter what. There’s things about it all… things about who I was before meeting yous. If I let our friends go without me, they’ll surely die. With me, they have a chance.”

  “You arrested Craze when you first met them all, right? ‘N commandeered Talos ‘n Lepsi’s ship?” The idea of her scheming friends trying to bamboozle her man when they first met him amused her. She could imagine it as clearly as if she had stood beside them. A giggle blossomed in her throat and burst from her lips. “It had something to do with chocolate ‘n those dastardly Fo’wo weapons, frizzers, ‘n mealworms. Craze ‘n Talos still grumble about that sometimes.”

  “Yeah, the three of them was trying to steal chocolates. The chocolates covered up a shipment of frizzers they didn’t know about, ‘n the chocolate bars turned out to be mealworm cakes. It’s amazing they’ve made it this far… well, maybe not Lepsi. But what if his only chance is me, sweet one? I know things… tonight I’m inviting all our friends to dinner, ‘n I’ll say what needs saying.” He dropped her hand and returned to working on the guts of Kaesare’s ship.

  Suddenly cold and empty, Rainly rubbed her palm, hoping Dactyl’s need to prove whatever needed proving wouldn’t make the rest of her feel the same. In his presence she became whole and important. She mattered. She’d grown so used to it, she couldn’t imagine how she’d do without it. “What happened to you when you was in stasis, babe? You not the same man.”

  “I could say the same about yous. Yous sweetness is tarnished. Cheer up. Life is good… business is boomin’, we have a nice new home. We’ve great friends ‘n many of them is remaining on Pardeep. Craze ‘n Meelo is staying ‘n Eina ‘n Prezsha, too. Yous won’t be wanting for company or have a chance to get lonely.”

  Prezsha had been found under Pardeep’s oceans of dust ten months ago, a type of Backworlder called a Cytran like Rainly. It bothered Rainly how identical they behaved and looked. Did more like them exist? Were they clones or worse? One thing Rainly did know, she would rather not recall her life before self-awareness liberated her. She hoped to give her twin better formative memories. “But she doesn’t warm me at night ‘n kiss my nightmares away.”

  Dactyl regarded her as if she had dipped herself in chocolate — the most prized commodity in the Backworlds. “Yous do the same for me, sweet one. I won’t last long far from yous arms. That’s how yous know I’ll be home as fast as I can.”

  Closing the inches between them, Rainly clutched at the sides of his beautiful face and pressed her lips to his, absorbing his essence, drowning in his warmth, inhaling him into her hollow soul. She could never fill the emptiness. “I’ll be back in two hours, babe. Craze needs me, then he’s buying me tea.”

  He frowned slightly, but quicker than the mood quivered in his eyes he swallowed it down, forcing a smile in its place. “Later, yous all mine.”

  Chapter 4

  Faster than a chip left unattended could disappear, Bast’s fingers wrapped around Craze’s throat. “I thought she wasn’t here.” Some notes hissed, threatening to ignite and burn.

  Craze gasped, grabbing at his pa’s suffocating grip. “Don’t… know… where… she came… from.” He kicked at the older man’s knees, aiming to take him down.

  In a drug-induced oblivion, Yerness hugged Bast’s back, cooing. “Where you been, big man?”

  Jeez! Craze shut his ear holes. Using a maneuver his war veteran friend, Pauder, taught him, he plunged, snapped, then twisted out of the older man’s chokehold. He swung another kick at Bast’s gut for good measure and put the kitchen island between them. “You ‘n her get the frick out of here.”

  “We dueling, son. You not wheedling out of this one. You ‘n me in three hours out in the dust with rods.”

  Of all the stupid things… A duel? Rubbing at his neck, Craze glared at his father. “There’s no trees on Pardeep.”

  “Fine, clubs then.”

  “Castin’ me off wasn’t enough, now you want to bludgeon me to death?” From the moment Bast crossed Craze, this ultimate contest had been preordained. Bloody, brutal. Craze bared his teeth.

  So did Bast, pointing at Craze’s snarl. “That’s why. You’ve wanted to take me out from the minute you was born. Now we end it. The universe ain’t big enough for both of us. You bring the weapons. Don’t be late, or I’ll add coward to your leecher status.”

  “You a paranoid son of a bitch. I was never out to get you, not until you gave me the boot ‘n sent me off with nothin’. ‘N in other news, I don’t give two crapolas about what you call me. In case you forgot, the council revoked my leecher status. Or was you too busy schemin’ what else to steal from me?” Let his father think up a threat that mattered.

  “Your leecher status can change, boy.”

  Craze laughed. “I have more to bargain with than you do.” He had more chips than Bast, he had a growing business, and he had a home. He could offer his kin a new world, or yank it away. Despite all the whining about the leecher captain providing transportation and the difficulties of starting over, the elders had to accept Craze’s very generous offer. None better would come their way, and they knew it. They weren’t the types to choose muck over potential. “What you got to inspire them to change their minds with? Nothin’, that’s what.”

  The docking facility’s building-wide communications screeched. “Leecher Bast. Leecher Ocal. Leecher Yerness. Leecher Trancy…” Rainly’s chipper and melodious tones serenaded all the guests and residents on Pardeep.

  His pa’s face grew so red, Craze feared it would outshine a newborn star. Winding Bast up so tight caused Craze’s dimples to deepen, and his hair unwound, tumbling in breezy dark curls to his waist. “What you think about payback? You like being branded a leecher for no good reason? Well… there’s more of a reason to call you one than me. I don’t live in the mud.”

  Sputtering in a fit, Bast threw his empty mug at Craze’s head. Craze ducked. It hit the counter behind him, exploding into shards, nicking his cheek. He swiped at the sting, finding crimson smeared on his fingers. Obviously, Bast had no qualms about drawing blood.

  “You deserve that twelve hundred times over,” Pa said, pounding his fist on the counter. “She’s my woman. Git that through your dense head! The reason I booted you is because you held me back, dragged us all down.”

  Wow, he had a deluded sense of the facts. “You the one livnin’ in mud. Get out!”

  “After the duel, I don’t ever want to see you again.” Reeling about, Bast strode toward the door.

  His quick actions jerked Yerness. She fell, clutching onto his knees, giggling. “I need you, big man.” In an attempt at sexy, she sprawled on Craze’s floor. It came off as pathetic and gross.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, grimacing. “Now I’ve got to disinfect that rug.”

  Bast yanked her by the elbow and dragged her, shaking his fist at Craze. “We not through. Three hours. Clubs. I know you’ve never killed anybody with your bare hands, ‘n I doubt you’ve the guts to do it.”

  With anyone but Bast that would be true. “I’ve no qualms about rippin’ your head off.”

  His pa’s jaw squared. “Good.” He took out his tab and tapped an icon. “I’m pinging the council ‘n your planetlord.” His laugh echoed as irritating as a badly mixed drink, and he yelled out his plans to pulverize his son. The notes of glee in his words had no place in an honorable universe.

  Craze tried to slam the door on his father’s ass, but the entry refused. The sensors wouldn’t budge until the doorframe scanned clear. “Could this day get worse?” Straightening his shirt and putting on his platinum wrist bands, he prepared to meet Rainly, fussing, primping. The chirping ping from his tab stopped him. The planetlord, Pauder, showed on the tiny screen.