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Chapter Twelve

Chalmers looked around the tarmac just beyond the perimeter fencing of R’Bak Island’s downport, too keyed up to enjoy the play of cool air on his painted skin while they waited to be seen by the customs official. The terminal building of the airport was half underground but had all the modern conveniences—like air-conditioning—Chalmers hadn’t seen anywhere but SpinDog habs since waking up. The facility also had a number of security and civilian officials in a variety of uniforms and face paint. At least the camera mounts for the surveillance system sat empty on the walls. The reavers were, according to Umaren, tasked with getting such tech up and running. But the destruction of all their space-side assets and the wide scattering of those on the planet had rendered such tasks not only impossible, but pointless.

Umaren had said the customs official they were required to meet with would be easy enough to get past, but Chalmers didn’t like being this reliant on Umaren, let alone the seaplane captain’s assessment of security.

The customs situation was unlike any he’d had to navigate, too. The downport required that any change in ownership or crew be reported to the authorities, but Umaren said they didn’t bother to keep all that close a record of the comings and goings of the crews afterward. Indeed, they rarely checked incoming cargoes for contraband, which made sense in an odd sort of way. They had to be far more interested in outgoing traffic that might carry off some of the all-important drugs and medicines they were here to collect.

“Next!” the customs guy barked.

Umaren stepped forward and presented the customs officer with his documents, pretending a calm he didn’t feel. Not from the sweat-slick fists he twined together behind his back, at any rate. Chalmers sidled closer, Jackson and Vizzel behind him.

“You never used to carry so many crew,” the official said, thumbing through Loklis’ manifest with one hand while he ran an eye over the men standing behind Umaren.

“The new owners wanted them aboard.” Umaren leaned forward and added in a stage whisper meant to be heard by the crew, “I think to get rid of them. The owners have too many daughters who married men without other prospects.” Chalmers and Jackson grumbled and tried to look more uncomfortable, playing their parts. Umaren continued, “They even said they’re sending along another one in a few weeks.”

“Well, if they want to cut down on the cargo you can carry, then that’s their poor decision.”

Umaren shrugged. “With the Searing nearly upon us, the new owners said they want to be sure we didn’t look like an easy prize for pirates. Things are…not so stable as they usually are.”

The official nodded. “Your new owners, what brokerage?”

Umaren pointed at the paperwork. “Twin Star Trading, out of Kanjoor.”

The official nodded, noting the name. “We’ve had a few new operations appear recently, what with the takeover of Whikmari Global Transport.”

Umaren shrugged. “As you say. I just want to fly, and they pay on time.”

The officer’s condescending smile eased the knot of worry in Chalmers’s gut. No one looked down that way on someone they considered a credible threat. It eased even further as the officer reached into a desk drawer and withdrew a stamp, which he then brought down on several successive pages of Umaren’s paperwork.

“Next!” the official shouted as he gave Umaren a dismissive wave.


R’Bak’s star Shex had begun to send its last brass and orange rays wider across and above the horizon when Chalmers peered over the rim of an earthenware cup. He toasted the other three men lounging in the belly of the seaplane. “Well, the basics are in place.”

Jackson was staring into his own watered-down drink with a scowl. “Yeah, but now comes the hard part: manipulating the manipulators of the local black market. That’s certain to get hairy. Hairier than the bullshit with Umaren’s old boss.”

“Well, then tomorrow isn’t a moment too soon to pick up our extra security.” Chalmers resisted the urge to drain the cup. “It’s crazy we had to wait this long. Sure could have used some professional muscle against Maktim.”

“I agree with Chalmers,” Umaren announced. “That battle was too narrowly won. As much by luck as by skill.”

Chalmers tried not to hear the last sentence as a reminder of his fumbling during the combat.

Happily, Jacks kept the uncomfortable silence from lasting more than a second. “The new guy wasn’t ready until now,” he said with a shake of his head. “He’s been acclimating—y’know, getting the feel of R’Bak—in an area we control.”

“Where?”

Jackson frowned—probably weighing whether or not that information should be shared, Chalmers guessed. “Near the Ashbands. Getting the hang of their habits and dialects before he inserts with us. No one up there would ever take him for a native, but he’ll pass here on the island.”

“So,” Vizzel prompted, “you have been told he is ready, now?”

“No,” Jacks answered. “But we haven’t been waved off, so we just pick him up at the appointed time and place.”

Umaren’s grumbling didn’t become words, but he clearly was not happy with the arrangement.

Chalmers’s own displeasure was focused on the thirty-hour flight the pickup would require. “Christ, Jacks, what the hell is the rush? The surveyors aren’t even here yet.”

“No, but we have to start acting as though they were. If we teach ourselves—and the new meat—the right habits now, then we won’t fuck ourselves with slips later on. When the real players come to town.”

Chambers shrugged, tossed back the rest of his drink anyway, and silently admitted that his friend was not just right; he was goddamned, motherfucking right.

* * *

“You didn’t tell me he’d be a giant. I’ll need to off-load some cargo just to carry his vastness,” Umaren said quietly into the night wind.

Chalmers peered up the dock. A large man had entered the pool of light shed by the lantern at the seaplane’s cargo hatch. Jackson and Vizzel had left it hanging there while they crammed the last few legitimate packages into the hold.

Chalmers recognized the “security specialist” from the photo included in the redacted files Murphy had furnished. Maximiliano Messina was certainly larger than most men but moved with the easy confidence Chalmers associated with dangerous people.

“Not with the lightweight parts we’ve been swapping into your plane these last weeks,” Chalmers said. The replacement parts, mostly manufactured of ultralight and durable alloys, had been furnished by the SpinDogs. An old bootlegger’s trick, that: removing and replacing all parts that weren’t essential to a vehicle’s speed and endurance and then tricking out the engines for maximum performance. Chalmers had insisted they dirty up the parts to make them look locally built, but any experienced mechanic who held one of the fuel pumps would know something was up. The work had freed up something on the order of five percent of the bulky, over-built seaplane’s weight. More free weight meant either more product or better range per kilo of fuel.

Messina must have fixed their location before stepping into the light, as he walked straight toward Chalmers and Umaren, who stood in the deep darkness beside the crew door of Loklis.

“Messina,” Chalmers said, extending his hand.

“Call me Moose, brother,” the big man said, engulfing Chalmers’s hand in one large paw. “Sounds more like an indig name than my own.”

“Sure, Moose,” Chalmers said, wondering if he should have done something similar. Jackson easily got away with using his own name, as the locals took one look at him and assumed he was foreign to these parts.

Moose let his hand go without squeezing the life out of it and went to clasp Umaren’s in turn.

There was a moment’s fumbling as the local missed his first attempt at a grip, too busy looking up, and then up again, into Moose’s eyes.

“Greetings, Captain Umaren. It is my honor to help protect you and your cargo on the ground.”

“As I pledge to keep you safe in the air, Moose,” Umaren said.

Umaren smiled and retreated into his beloved aircraft. He left the hatch open, the lights inside casting a wedge of light across the two Lost Soldiers.

“Damn,” Chalmers said.

“What’s that, Chief?” Moose asked, dropping into English for a moment.

“You sounded a lot more formal with the captain than I expected. According to your file, this is your first time on the surface. You do some research before coming down?”

“You bet. Pays to know your cultural cues. You know, in case someone wants to put a bullet in your—or my—head. Worked in-country, worked up there.” He pointed skyward. “Should work here, too.”

Chalmers started to laugh but was brought up short on recognizing the utter sincerity in the other man’s eyes.

“Good point,” he said. Looking for something to do to cover his awkwardness, he stooped to pick up the other man’s bag. Or to try to. The thing was far heavier than Moose had made it seem.

Moose brushed his hand away without apparent effort. “I’ll carry my weight and cover your six, Chalmers. You and the rest of the crew, that is.”

“Good deal, Moose. I’ll show you aboard. Not much elbow room, I’m afraid.”

“Used to that after being up there,” Moose said, following Chalmers through the hatch.

The plane dipped noticeably to the side as the big Lost Soldier climbed aboard.


“I do not like flying again so soon,” Umaren groused. “And so close to the last place. It could look suspicious.”

“Look suspicious to who?” Chalmers asked, suddenly regretting his decision to head for the cockpit. Moose was grabbing a meal, Jacks was sleeping, and someone had to put eyeballs on the destination before landing, so that meant him. But damned if Umaren hadn’t started fussing like a wet hen as they neared the rendezvous coordinates. “Do you think anyone is watching us out here?” Chalmers tried to sound casual but was certain that some of his annoyance had bled through.

“Out here? No. But back at R’Bak Island?” Umaren shrugged. “It is always a possibility. And if they are any good at ‘watching,’ then we would never know it. And if they speak to the fuel merchants about how much we are purchasing after each of these two flights, they could begin asking awkward questions.”

Chalmers had to allow that there was a certain inescapable logic in that.

“Besides, I do not like these rendezvous that are based solely on a time and map coordinates. Out here, we depend upon prior relationships as the assurance of our safety.”

“You mean reliable relationships like the one you had with Maktim?” Chalmers had not meant to sound like a smart-ass, but it had come out that way, all the same.

“Yes,” Umaren snapped with an undertone of self-recrimination, “who I betrayed at your bidding.”

Oh, so we’re to blame for the blood on your hands? “You could have said no. And stayed poor.”

Umaren seemed to chew on his own teeth. “Even if he was a vicious bastard, he was at least a known quantity. Out here, we do not know anyone. So how can we determine if we might be flying into an ambush?”

“We can’t, but it’s a lot less likely than if we were sending signals all the time, maybe attracting attention we don’t want. So a blind pickup is best.” Chalmers almost sold himself on that claim. “Besides, no one has landed in this bay for a long time.” At least that was what the locals had told the friendlies who had scouted it out. “And now it’s being set up for our trade. Just ours.”

That seemed to mollify Umaren. “And this fellow we are picking up, he is another, eh, Lost Soldier who went to the Hamain to become familiar with our ways?”

“No, he already knows the locals well enough. But he had some…er, old business to attend to. And while he was at it, he made the rounds in a few coastal cities where he had some contacts who could clue him in to how the local markets work.”

Umaren sniffed. “We know the markets well enough.”

Chalmers nodded, made noises of agreement, but thought, You know the markets on the level of barter, buy, sell, smuggle. He’s got the knowledge of the power players, the folks whose movements send out the ripples that keep little fish like you dancing and jumping. Movers and shakers, not fighters and traders.

Chalmers peered out the cockpit windscreen over Umaren’s shoulder. “Is that it?” He pointed toward the mostly brown horizon where the blue ocean was ruffled by white risers rolling in toward a greener patch of coast.

“I believe so,” the pilot muttered. “Strap in. We will need to make several passes to assess the water.”

“Worried about the chop?”

“I am worried about the depth—as in, possibly not enough for our floats. Now, sit down and let me fly the plane.”


Chalmers stepped out of the waist-hatch of the seaplane onto a brand-new dock built expressly for Loklis. Made of fresh-sawn timbers that were already warping in the heat of the suns, it creaked in counterpoint to the gentle lapping of the waves on shore. Behind him, in no hurry to exit, Moose and Jackson were still arguing over the perfect BBQ technique: cut, spice, sugar, fat—the pair could argue for hours without coming close to a joint resolution. All they ever succeeded at was to either make Chalmers hungry or irritate him to no end. It was like the Student United Nations but less fun for Chalmers.

Chalmers stretched, enjoying the heat for a moment. What with the humidity off the sea, late afternoons at this latitude and with this wind were like a really, really hot day in Cabo. Finished stretching, he waved at the man reclining in the shade of a rather large pile of trade goods where the dock met the shore.

“Waiting long?” Chalmers called.

“Only since yesterday.” The Lost Soldier’s reply was in very, very good R’Bakuun. The coastal dialect Umaren and Vizzel had grown up speaking, no less. The man sat up, brushed sand from his robes, and waited for Chalmers to join him in the shade.

The protective face paint made it hard to lock down, but something about the man struck Chalmers as familiar. Not since making planetfall, but something else. Somewhere else. No, that wasn’t it, either.

“You made good time, then,” Chalmers said, extending his hand as he entered the shade.

The man took his hand in a firm, if slightly sweat-damp grip. “There are still a few technicals kicking around, even though most of them have been hidden away, now. Murphy saw to it my goods and I were given priority. Lots to do and not much time to do it in.”

“Right.” Chalmers released the hand and waved at the crates, which were marked with the brokerage’s twin stars. “To the efficient worker bee, more work.”

“You calling me a drone?” the man asked, smiling under his paint.

Chalmers chuckled, shaking his head. “What should I call you?”

“Vat will do.”

A cold thrill of recognition went through Chalmers, like ice water on hot pavement. He shivered. This was the same fucker CID had tasked Jackson and him with investigating when things went sideways in the Mog. The same fucker who’d been on the ill-fated Blackhawk with them. He’d had a single, blurry photo to work from back then, and, to be honest, his own problems had kept him from recognizing the former lieutenant of the US Army turned international arms dealer.

Fuck. That’s where I recognize you from. You were on my book.

“You all right?” Vat asked.

“Yeah, just a little strung out from the flight,” Chalmers said, hearing Jackson’s and Moose’s heavier tread on the dock behind him.

“No, you ain’t. You recognized my name.” Vat’s eyes glittered with reflected light off the shallow lagoon.

Chalmers slowly rolled his shoulders, then cracked his neck. Finally decided, he said, “I was two steps behind you, back in the Mog.”

“Oh?” The man’s lips thinned, but he otherwise appeared relaxed, ready for anything. Butter wouldn’t melt in this guy’s mouth.

“Made a fair bit of trouble for me, you did.”

Jackson walked up, did a double take. Moose had stopped somewhere out of sight.

“FBI sent over a team to get you,” Chalmers said. “While they were with us, they got wind of some…irregularities in certain cases I had worked in the past.”

“No shit?” Vat said.

“No shit.”

“Well, sounds like you fucked up and got caught.”

Chalmers bristled. Then, thinking of promises made and of the mission at hand, he reconsidered. A short, barking laugh escaped his lips. The humor came a bit more honestly after that first braying sputter—so much so that he folded over, hands on knees, to catch his breath when it was over. It was only then he realized that one of Vat’s hands was concealed behind his thigh, holding something dark and metallic.

“Do we have a problem, Chalmers?” Vat asked, a feral look in his eyes.

“No, Vat, we don’t. Not at all.” He raised one finger. “I can’t think of anyone better suited to this than the guy who kept ahead of us”—he moved the finger in a circle to include Jackson and himself—“as well as the feebs for as long as you did.”

The dangerous light dimmed. “Friend of mine stateside warned me they had me cold, were searching my home and business. That’s why I was on the Blackhawk with you two. Trying to get out of Dodge before they caught me up. I had no idea the feds were already in Somalia.”

“We good, Chalmers?” Moose asked.

Chalmers glanced at Jackson, who thought things through a moment, then nodded.

“We’re good, Moose. Just discussing a bit of shared history with our new friend Vat.”

“Good deal. When do we eat?”

“They’ve got something barbecuing. Smells amazing,” Vat said, gesturing up the beach. “They’ve been smoking it all morning.”

“Jesus, don’t get them started on that,” Chalmers said, smiling. He hadn’t missed how, with the one hand distracting the viewer, Vat had used the other to make the pistol disappear into his clothing.

Jackson bought it, looked back from the cluster of low buildings on the foreshore only after Vat had empty hands.

“Nice pistol,” Moose said.

“What pistol?” Vat asked, his hands as empty as his smile.

Chalmers snorted. “You’re gonna fit right in, Vat.”


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