Farthest Reach Read online

  “What is it?” he asked, seeming eager to fix his mistake. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it.”

  I snorted a humorless laugh. He wouldn’t be so eager once I told him what we had to do.

  ***

  “What the hell is this?” Sergei Antonov demanded. He had this way of talking, like he was half-sloshed all the time, and the word came out “wut da hell izzis,” like he was putting on some sort of comedy skit, but there was nothing funny in those seething black eyes.

  “This” was Eddie and his two thugs. They were conscious, but they hadn’t been in any condition to walk, so I’d taken a powered cargo cart from the Lucky Bastard’s storage room and Deke had loaded the three men onto it and pushed them the kilometer back to the Antonov House. That was what everyone called it, like it was some historic landmark instead of just the biggest, nicest place in the neighborhood. Antonov had moved in on Thunderhead’s action less than twenty years before and only managed to seize power once Abuelito’s ranch outside town had mysteriously exploded and taken him with it. Some people thought Antonov had been behind it, but no one had claimed responsibility. All Antonov had claimed was the house. It had been Abuelito’s, but he was gone and most of his crew with him.

  “There was a little…incident, sir,” I told Antonov, standing in front of him on the front step of his house. He hadn’t come out right away. I actually had to knock on the door, and when his major domo had come to answer, his first words had also been “what the hell is this?”

  “It was my fault,” Deke put in. “I didn’t understand who your men here were.”

  Eddie and the others said nothing intelligible. They were curled up on the pallet resting across the forks of the cargo cart, whimpering. Eddie’s jaw was broken, dislocated too, and he’d finally have to get those damned teeth fixed. I hadn’t been able to tell the other two apart before Deke had turned their faces to hamburger, but one of them had a broken ankle and the other kept clutching at his lower back. I thought he might have cracked some vertebrae when Deke had smashed him against the bar.

  Antonov had one of those faces where he might have been forty or a hundred and forty, with deep creases beside his eyes and mouth and a perpetually skeptical expression. It grew even more skeptical at Deke’s words.

  “You’re telling me you did this by yourself.” He gestured, more a flexing of the fingers of one hand in Deke’s direction. “Just you and the three of them? No weapons?”

  More of Antonov’s muscle had come out behind him, guns in hand and outraged looks in their eyes, as if they were itching for payback and just waiting for their boss to give the word to deal it out. Antonov said nothing, waiting for Deke to answer.

  “Well, yeah.” Deke shrugged as if it were of little significance. “I just didn’t want to see three big men like this take advantage of one unarmed girl.”

  “Mr. Conner here,” I interjected, trying not to snarl after being referred to as a “girl,” and barely managing it, “was under the misimpression that Eddie was about to hit me.”

  “And why would Eddie want to hit you, Kiska?” Antonov seemed scandalized, his crinkled eyes going wider.

  Shit. Now all of them are calling me Kitten.

  “I was upset with him because he told me something crazy, something I knew never would have come from you, Mr. Antonov. He said you were going to take over my place and take seventy percent of the profits. I told him no, because I knew there was no way you would show disrespect to my father’s memory.” I shrugged. “He became very agitated and intimidating, and Mr. Conner here intervened without my permission or invitation.”

  Antonov frowned so deeply I thought his face was going to collapse in on itself and swallow everything around him including light.

  “Come inside,” he waved to me. His eyes flickered to Deke. “You too, but give the gun to Pavel. Leave your ‘link with him as well.”

  Pavel was one of an interchangeable group of guards clustered around the entrance, an oversized Gyroc pistol clutched in his oversized hand. Deke pulled the gun from his holster and reversed it, offering it butt-first to Pavel.

  “I should put a fucking bullet through your head for what you did to Eddie,” Pavel growled, grabbing the weapon and then taking the ’link when Deke handed it over as well.

  Deke, I’d noticed back in the bar, had a natural, charismatic smile, and when he was about to kick someone’s ass, it went bland and frozen. I saw it getting that way again and I reached over and grabbed his arm. It was like grabbing a steel I-beam, but it got his attention and he sniffed at Pavel and followed me inside.

  “And get Eddie and those other two jokers into a med unit!” Antonov called back over his shoulder. I saw Pavel motioning for a few of the guards outside the front door to help the injured men, and then we were through the door and into the belly of the beast.

  I’d been there once before as a little girl, back when Abuelito owned it. He had taste. Antonov had redecorated over the last couple months and now the interior looked like a cross between a cheap whorehouse and an eight-year-old boy’s bedroom.

  I followed the bratva boss through an entry hall appointed in blood red, from carpet to wallpaper, and into a study with furniture designed on a computer by an AI with only the vaguest concept of human anatomy. I accepted his invitation to sit on something that didn’t seem to have any flat surfaces and tried my best to keep from sliding off. Deke wisely stood, and it was perhaps the first wise thing I’d seen him do. Antonov’s bully boys surrounded him, hands on their guns, as if they thought he’d snap at any moment and try to dismember their boss.

  “You know I respected your father, Kiska,” Antonov said, leaning over and putting a hand on my knee. I stared at it, fighting hard to resist the urge to grab his middle finger and bend it back until it snapped. “I would never have told Eddie to come to you with the attitude of intimidation. I should have sent someone with more business acumen.”

  “But you do still intend to take seventy percent of my profits.” I very carefully didn’t raise my voice, but my tone was flat and to the point. I had no time for his oily bullshit. “You are talking about taking my father’s business from me.”

  “Things have changed in the city,” he responded, gesturing expansively. “This rivalry with the Sung Brothers has made many people nervous.” His expression darkened. “There have been reports of Sung Brothers employees in your establishment.”

  “I run a business. Their money still spends, as long as they keep their trouble to themselves and outside my doors.”

  “That was an admirable business model in your father’s day, little Kiska, but my associates and I are worried it may lead to conflict and violence inside the Lucky Bastard. And you, as competent and charming as you are, do not have the money to hire the sort of around-the-clock security it would take to control it.” He smiled beatifically. “And that’s where I come in.”

  “And that’s it?” I shook my head. “The decision is made?” I was getting angry enough to say something unwise, something that would only end with my body in a storm drain.

  “Maybe we can work something out,” Deke suggested with an optimism in his tone that told me he hadn’t been in this town very long. “I’m looking for work. Maybe I could provide security for Miss…” He looked blankly at me. “What was your name again?”

  “Just call me Kiska,” I snapped at him, the one person here I didn’t have to be polite to. “It seems like everyone else is.”

  “I could work for Kiska here,” Deke reiterated blandly, as if he had no clue what the word meant. “And then she could keep control of the club and you guys wouldn’t have to worry.”

  “Your handling of Eddie was very impressive, Mr…Conner, was it?” Antonov said. “However, there’s a qualitative difference between tossing around a muscle head who’s not expecting opposition and handling a squad of Sung Brothers enforcers with assault weapons.”

  That cocky grin spread over Deke’s face again, the one that made me want to punch h
im in the face.

  “I think you should ask a few dozen Tahni soldiers about the quality of my work, Mr. Antonov. Except you can’t because they’re dead.”

  I winced, wondering if he actually thought that sounded impressive. I wasn’t quite as pissed off at him as I had been, because it was becoming obvious nothing I could have said or done to Eddie would have changed anything. To hell with the big idiot, I was glad Douchie McBro-dude here had beaten him up.

  Antonov seemed amused by Deke’s bragging. Or maybe intrigued, it was hard to tell through the old man’s topographical map of a face. He leaned back—somehow, God knows how he managed it on the twisted and bendy sofa—and weaved his fingers together in consideration.

  “I’ll tell you what, Mr. Conner,” he said. “I would be willing to make you a bargain.” He offered me a smile. “And you too, Kiska.”

  “What sort of a bargain?” I asked him. I didn’t like it when Antonov smiled. It usually meant someone else was going to get hurt.

  “It seems to me our mutual problem is the Sung Brothers Cartel,” Antonov reasoned, somewhat dubiously in my opinion. He was my problem, not the Sung Brothers. “And if Mr. Conner here is as dangerous as he claims to be, then perhaps he can make that problem just…” He made a scattering gesture with his fingers. “…blow away.”

  I blinked, unsure I’d heard him correctly.

  “Are you saying,” I asked, slowly and carefully, “that you want him to assassinate the Sung Brothers?”

  He scoffed, waving a hand.

  “This is an ugly word, ‘assassinate.’ This is a rough place, a rough city. Things happen here and people simply have…accidents.”

  “Fuck it, I’ll do it,” Deke agreed immediately and I stared at him, eyes wide with disbelief at his stupidity. “Where do the assholes live?”

  “They live,” I told him, pounding him with a sledgehammer tone to try break through his thick skull, “in a heavily guarded compound outside of town, with Gatling laser turrets at every avenue of approach and about a hundred armed thugs patrolling it. I don’t care if you’re the deadliest soldier who ever lived, you are not getting with a hundred meters of that place unless they invite you in.”

  “Then get them to invite you in,” Antonov suggested. “The Lucky Bastard is as important to them as it is to us. You’re upset about my offer to share in the ownership of your bar…” He spread his hands expressively. “Use that. Tell them you want to make a deal with them instead, and would like to meet up. Mr. Conner here can be your bodyguard.”

  Shit. Shitshitshitshit. I said nothing, afraid no matter what I came up with, I’d just make it worse.

  “That works for me,” Deke said. He frowned, and I thought for just a second he might have two functioning brain cells to rub together, might have finally smelled the rotten core of this whole scheme. “You’re wanting me to pull off a pretty big job here, getting rid of your rivals, but what’s in it for me? What’s the payday?”

  And I was wrong.

  Shit!

  “I run half the take on this planet,” Antonov told him. “If you do this for me, I’ll run it all. A man in my position would need a good right-hand assistant, someone to play the stick to my carrot if you get me. You would be that man, and be paid twenty-five percent of the profits I would get from taking over the Sung Brothers’ territory.”

  “Now you’re talking.” Deke smacked gloved hands together and looked at me. “Sounds like a win for everyone. Let’s go get it on, Kiska.”

  ***

  “Has anybody ever told you that you’re a first-class moron?” I asked him once we were out of earshot of the house, our voices hidden by the rain. I was walking at what I’d intended to be a too-fast stalk, wanting to make him hurry to catch up and keep him off-balance, but damned if he didn’t match me stride for stride without the slightest hint it was an effort. The rain didn’t seem to bother him either, even though he wasn’t dressed for it.

  “I believe you have at least twice now,” he reminded me, not seeming to take offense. “What’s the problem? I get a great job, you get to keep your place. What’s the downside?”

  “The downside is we’re both going to fucking die!” I hadn’t meant to screech the words at him. I didn’t like to screech. It made me feel childish. “He’s sending me along so he can get rid of both of us at once, you brainless twit! Then he can have the whole club to himself, get rid of the guy who beat up his people and have plausible deniability when the Sung Brothers start asking around.” I imitated Antonov’s deep, muttering voice. “Ooh, so sorry to hear those crazy people attacked you, too, Sung Brothers. They beat up a couple of my guys earlier today. Must have thought they were players.”

  Again, maddeningly, Deke didn’t seem to be worried.

  “What the hell makes you think I can’t kill them both and then get us out alive?” he asked, an amused glint in his eye. “What do you think I did in the war, lady?”

  I was about to suggest he’d cleaned toilets, but I looked him up and down again, trying to be objective. His loose clothing hid muscle. A lot of it. More than should rightly be on someone his build and height. And yet somehow, he was also amazingly fast, which shouldn’t have been possible for how much he had to weigh with that much muscle.

  “Okay, you’re fast and strong and probably hard to kill. I’m not. Even if you kill the Sungs, which I kind of believe you could do, and get out alive, which I still think is doubtful, I’ll be dead.”

  He was about to object again, but I held up a hand to keep him quiet.

  “And let’s just say by some miracle you do get us both out alive, what then? Do you think Antonov is just going to move into their territory unopposed? My father died because someone killed the boss who ran this territory.” I gestured around at the rowhouses and bars and a brothel down the street. “There are still burned-out buildings with corpses buried inside from that turf war. If you eliminate the Sung Brothers, someone else will try to take over and innocent people will die. Maybe me. Maybe the Lucky Bastard is the next place to get burned down or bombed out.”

  I’d calmed down now. A bit. Maybe it was the muting effect of the rain, making everything else quieter, more subdued. It never seemed to stop raining here. I looked up at a crackling flare of lightning and saw the forks spreading a faint glow over the mountains to the east. I could remember a time before we lived here, when I’d lived with Mom and Dad both on a dry, warm world. And then the war had come along and Mom had died during the Tahni occupation and, afterward, Dad just couldn’t bring himself to stay.

  “Thing is,” Deke said, and I thought maybe there was finally some comprehension in his tone, “you make it sound like we got any other choice. I don’t see that we do. We either take our chances doing what Antonov wants, or you’re gonna lose your place and I may as well hop back on board my ship and try my luck somewhere else.” He shrugged and water spilled down his forehead. “And I ain’t got much money left, eh?”

  “You have your own ship?” I asked him, turning back from the far-off mountains to the world at hand. “Just yours and not part of a crew?”

  “It’s about all I have,” he said, something wistful in his voice. “I used everything I saved while I was in the service and every bit of money my parents would give me and borrowed the rest.” He snorted a bitter laugh. “And then I came out here so I wouldn’t ever have to pay it back…and because I never want to go back to the Commonwealth anyway.”

  I regarded him carefully, wondering if I’d been too hard on the man.

  “Was the war…,” I trailed off, shut my mouth and tried again. “Did you have it bad in the war? Is that why you don’t want to go back?”

  “Shit no. The war was the first time I ever really felt alive. It’s being back home that was killing me. Being back where they expect me to behave like nothing had changed. Like I hadn’t just spent eight years of my fucking life dropping behind enemy lines and killing until there wasn’t anyone left to kill.” The corner of his lip twisted.
“Then some fucking shitbag in a bar thinks he knows better than you how the war should have gone, how it was the military’s fault it lasted so long and held up his investment portfolio from its natural fucking growth.”

  He fell silent and I didn’t push it anymore.

  “Where are we going, anyway?” he wondered, his perpetual good mood finally vanished into the rain.

  “The Sungs are pretty far outside town,” I told him. “I have a hopper in a garage behind my place. We’ll fly in.”

  “Fuck that,” he said, waving a hand dismissively. “If we’re flying in, let’s do it in style.”

  ***

  The Flying Dutchman was a converted missile cutter, stripped of her weapons and sold surplus after the war. They were a dime a dozen out here in the Pirate Worlds, their bright silver delta wings a common sight at the landing field outside Freeport. I knew because I would stand out in the rain and watch them some mornings, following the ones leaving this place with envy burning deep in my chest.

  I realized I’d been staring when I noticed Deke hadn’t spoken in a few seconds, which seemed like a miracle. He was watching me with a knowing grin, watching me watch his ship.

  “She’s a beauty,” he said, favoring the wedge-shaped craft with a fondness to his eyes you usually saw between a parent and child. The belly ramp began to lower, but I hadn’t noticed him touch a control. Maybe he had a remote built into his ’link, though I hadn’t seen him touch a ’link either.

  “You have this,” I said, motioning up at the ship as lights flashed on inside the utility bay. “Why would you ever come here? Why would you want to stay?”

  “The ship is freedom,” he granted, leading me up the ramp. Our footsteps were hollow on the sheet metal lining. “But it’s a bit cramped for a home.”

  And it was. The utility bay had to be the largest compartment aboard and it was barely the size of my bedroom suite on the top floor of the Lucky Bastard, and most of that was taken up by lockers and storage bins. The passage from the utility bay to the cockpit was barely wide enough for two people who were very intimate to pass each other, and even then only if they’d both recently had a shower. A sliding door on each side probably led to the ship’s two cabins, and I was already feeling too claustrophobic to even ask to see them. Plus, Deke was probably obtuse enough to take it as a sign I was coming on to him.