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

“It wasn’t exactly hidden.”

“You crashed it into an unmanned space station.”

“It was less a crash and more an uncontrolled landing.”

“We had to pay for the damage,” she said.

“Did they take it out of your bonus?”

“I didn’t get a bonus.”

“Oh, that’s right – because you didn’t catch me.”

“Not that time. Can we move on?”

“That’s exactly what I’m planning to do before your people get here,” I said. “I’m guessing you wanted to give me an update on their ETA, you owing me a favour and all.”

“Yes, Quincy, I’ve been sitting here waiting for your call so that I can tip you off and help you escape justice,” she said.

“You didn’t ask Sheriff Galton to give me an amnesty just so you could practice your sarcasm.”

“Sadly, you’re right. I need your help. I want you...”

“I’m sorry, can we just skip back there for a second? I didn’t hear what you just said.”

“I need your help.”

“No, I still didn’t quite get it.”

“Oh, for scrack’s sake – I NEED YOUR HELP, QUINCY!”

“I didn’t hear you say please.”

Agent Rodriguez sighed. “Please, Quincy, will you help me?”

“That wasn’t so hard, was it? Don’t grind your teeth, you’ll wear them down.”

“Can we take the smug part as read and get on?”

“Of course. I’m listening, Connie.”

There was more teeth-grinding before she spoke again. “The Army believes that the container with the robots in was transferred to a privately-registered vessel. They tracked this ship for about a week, but then it disappeared.”

“Dropped down a wormhole,” I said.

“That’s what we think. And that means there’s no way to follow them. They could pop up anywhere.”

“But we know they’re heading for Saphira, because the buyer is here.”

“I may have neglected to mention that to the Generals,” she said.

“Just tell them you thought I was an unreliable anonymous source,” I said.

“I will call you something like that in my report,” she said. “We’ve been checking out all of the flights scheduled to arrive on Saphira.”

“All of them?” I said. “That must have taken almost an hour. Think of the overtime bill.”

The planet Saphira had a total of six spaceports across its single inhabited continent, and four of them were for freight only. To call it a backwater is to exaggerate its status.

“We have identified three possible flight plans that might be used as cover for the incoming contraband,” she said.

“Your Interceptor shouldn’t have too much trouble doing the stop-and-search,” I said.

“That brings me back to the ‘I need your help’ part.”

“I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“The Interceptor is presently twenty-four hours away from Saphira,” she said.

“Did someone leave the handbrake on?”

“Not everyone flies a ship like you do. The problem is that the first of the flights we identified is due to set down on Saphira in a little over thirteen hours.”

“You’ll miss them by eleven hours,” I said, just to prove that I was paying attention. “They’ll have been and gone before your people get here.”

“That is where you come in.”

“You want me to intercept a shipload of stolen weapons – on my own?”

“I wouldn’t send you on a suicide mission like that,” she said. “Actually, I would. But my superiors won’t let me. I want you to go to the spaceport and act as our observer. You are to record what you see, but on no account are you to directly engage the perpetrators.”

“You’re reading that, aren’t you?”

“They said I had to.”

“Which spaceport?”

“North Cranston.”

This was a freight-only port a few hours north of Cicada City.

“How far away is it?” I asked, knowing the deadline was going to be tight.

“A little over two-hundred-and-sixty miles,” she said. “The way you drive – about five hours. Try not to crash.”

Five hours was optimistic. Even the highways on Saphira aren’t all paved.

“And I will be undertaking this mission out of the goodness of my heart, will I?” I asked.

“You’ll be doing it for the eleven-hour head start,” she said. Her tone said she thought even this was too generous. “And remember what I said...”

“Don’t engage the enemy. Let’s get together and have dinner sometime.”

I broke the connection so I didn’t have to hear her response. I’m sure it included the cute little pet name she had for me – squit-weasel – and the phrase ‘last man alive.’

*

I find myself drawn to submissive men and fiery women – I’m not sure what that says about me. If I ever find myself on a criminal psychologist’s couch I’ll have to ask them about it. Or maybe it’s better not to know. What set me thinking about this was the fact that Agent Connie Rodriguez and Harmony had a lot in common. Including the fact that they both thought I was an idiot.

“That’s the plan?” Harmony asked. “We’re going to help the authorities stop a crime being committed?”

“Have you got a better idea?”

“No, no. I was just thinking that it was ironic.”

“It’ll be okay,” I said, “as long as we don’t make a habit of it.”

Harmony nodded. “We have our reputations to think of.”

The short deadline for getting to the spaceport meant that we had to put the plan to rescue Floyd on hold. Danny had promised to have the signal booster finished by the time we got back. He and his parents had postponed their departure, for now at least. Harmony’s decision to join me on the trip north was based on the same logic she had used previously. I couldn’t be trusted to do it on my own.

I didn’t know how much Agent Rodriguez had told Sheriff Galton, but I thought he deserved to know the whole story. It was Cicada City that would be put at risk by the Colonel’s robot army and Galton was its sworn protector. He should at least be aware of the potential squit-storm that ACID and I were trying to avert.

The sheriff looked thoughtful after I’d told him what I knew.

“I reckon the Colonel is expecting to take delivery of those robots soon,” he said. “Maybe as early as