A Fistful of Trouble (Outlaws of the Galaxy Book 2) Paul Tomlinson (reading strategies book .TXT) 📖

“What are we going to do between now and four o’clock?” Harmony asked. It was pretty clear that she wasn’t happy with me. I didn’t blame her. But I also didn’t trust her enough to tell her any of the stuff I was keeping from her – about Floyd or about my little chat with Agent Rodriguez.

“I’m going to go and have a look at the Colonel’s place and see if I can spring Floyd,” I said. “You really should think about high-tailing it. None of this is your fight.”

I felt pulled two ways on this. Part of me wanted her to tell me to go scrack myself. I’d have been relieved to see her march off so that she wouldn’t be in any more danger. And the other part wanted her at my side taking on the bad guys.

“I’m not letting you go up there on your own,” she said. “You’d just go and get yourself captured.”

“Then I hope you’re in the mood for a hike because I’m leaving the Trekker here.” I started walking up the dry stream bed.

“Shouldn’t we take our water canteens?” Harmony asked. She was holding hers.

I jogged back and fetched my water out of the Trekker.

*

The more planets you visit, the more similarities you spot between them. Like the fact that folk with millionaire levels of wealth seem to have a thing about old-fashioned architecture. Even if they won their stash at a race track last week, they want their homes to give the impression that they come from a long line of fat cats who have passed their dollars on down through the generations.

Colonel Hodge’s house was a case in point. Tall windows made up of dozens of smaller panes of glass; white-painted brickwork, and three columns holding up a sort of exaggerated porch. The garden at the front with its green lawn and rows of trees was another conspicuous display of wealth. In a desert environment, only the stupidly wealthy installed underground systems to water their grass. The emerald green lawn was probably the reason why the stream in front of the cave had dried up.

“I do feel that we should visit and take tea and scones,” Harmony mocked.

“You should have brought your posh frock,” I said.

We were both dusty and sweaty and not in any state to go visiting. Though I really would have liked to knock on the door and get a look at this Colonel that I had heard so much about.

“Let’s see what the back garden looks like,” I said. I was expecting a veranda, a croquet lawn, and an apple orchard at the very least.

Wrong.

From the back, the house looked like it had been requisitioned by the military for the duration of a war. There was a double line of chain-link fence around the whole compound with dogs patrolling the space between. And the fences were topped by coils of razor wire. Within the fenced zone, tents and huts occupied one area and military-style vehicles were lined up in another. Most of the activity in the compound was centred on the entrance to a concrete bunker that had been built into the hill behind the house.

The men I could see were a combination of the stooges I had already met and more serious-looking individuals who were almost certainly off-world mercenaries.

“Are they expecting the Gators to come back and invade?” Harmony whispered.

We were hiding in the bushes that bordered the Colonel’s property. We couldn’t get any closer because the ground had been cleared to create a dirt road all around the outside of the fences and from the tyre tracks it looked like this was patrolled regularly.

“I think they’re planning to start a war of their own,” I said.

“Can you see Floyd?”

“No,” I said. “I can’t see any of the Colonel’s robots. They’re probably in the underground bunker.”

“What are you going to do when you find him?” she asked. “You can’t just expect Floyd to disobey the orders of his new legal owner.”

I dug my fingers into the pocket of my jeans and pulled out the remote control. “With this I can regain control of him,” I said. I wasn’t about to tell her that the little box would re-engage the link between the big blue robot and the almost priceless artificial sentience hidden inside it. Any more than I was going to tell her that I still had ten thousand dollars that she hadn’t found that were stashed in the Trekker.

“What is the range on that thing?” Harmony asked.

“I’m not sure. I’ve never really tested that.” I pressed the button. The little red light flashed – but it stayed red.

“If Floyd is in that bunker, the signal probably can’t reach him,” Harmony said.

“We need to get closer.” I started to get up, but she put a hand on my arm to stop me.

“I’m not going in there,” she said.

“What? Why not?”

“How many women do you see in there?” she asked.

I looked back towards the Colonel’s compound. “Er... none.”

“Exactly. Do you know what men like that do to someone who looks like me?”

“The same thing they do to men who look like me and to goats,” I said. “I’m not planning to get caught.”

“Do you think you can get in there, find Floyd, get out again, and make it back to the cave – all in under two hours?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Why, do you have a date?”

“No, you do. With the sheriff. At four o’clock.”

“I’m not leaving without Floyd.”

“And I’m not going in there.”

“Then what do you suggest we do?”

“I suggest that we don’t try and take on a small army,” she said. “It would be much better if you could just blip your little gadget and have Floyd walk out of there.”

“I already tried that.”

“We need to boost the signal so it can penetrate inside the bunker.”

“How?”

“Ask Danny to build us a booster.”

“Okay, that might work,” I said. “But if it doesn’t, what’s your Plan B?”

“We wait for the Colonel to