Tyche's Chosen Page 3

  She caught an elbow in the chest — mind the boobs, asshole — and then almost wore one in the face. It wasn’t personal. It was just people being people. Trying, if they had any sense, to do the same thing she was: find a bar. Get a beer. Think about what to do next.

  As she pushed her way to the doors of the spaceport, something made her turn, a small pool of calm in the chaos around her. She took in a flying wing lifter, Empire design, skids on the deck. The back cargo bay airlock was open, ramp settled like it was waiting for something. Beside the ramp stood a pirate and a liar. She knew it by looking at him. Smooth good looks. Metal hand, made of gold or something even more expensive. Blaster and a sword, and he wore them like they weren’t just for show. Last time she’d seen someone wear a sword on their back was when she’d lucked out, the Emperor himself on the starship she crewed. He’d had a couple of personal guards. Emperor’s Black, they called themselves. El got to talking to one of them, a young woman who stalked the corridors of the ship like all the doors held mischief. The guardswoman hadn’t swapped words with the regular crew much, certainly not with someone like El, and El thought maybe she was being sized up for some transgression.

  Her captain of the time had said, no, Helm, they’re all like that. They’ve sworn to die for their Emperor. I tell you, Sol will go dark before they let harm come to that man. While they breathe, he lives.

  Anyway. They wore swords like that. They had the same attitude coming off them like rain from the clouds. That’s why El knew he was a pirate and a liar. Pirate, because of the hand. Liar, because the Black were gone. Had to be. Harm had definitely come looking for the Emperor, and here was this man still breathing. So, some kind of charlatan. She lifted her eyes from the pirate and took in the ship. Small, only three decks. A little worn, but then, who wasn’t after losing a war? The gold falcon had been scrubbed from the hull, and a hasty set of letters had been painted — painted! — on her hull. They claimed the ship was the Tyche, and any ship whose name you didn’t know how to pronounce was not a ship you wanted to crew on.

  Besides, she was too small. El flew destroyers. Not tugs.

  The pirate noticed her, despite the people streaming around El. He beckoned her over. Against her better judgment, El shouldered through the crowd to shore up beside him. The noise seemed to drop away as she got close, the heat abating in the shade of the ship. “Yeah?” she said.

  The pirate nodded to the emblem on her ship suit. “Helm?”

  “Was,” she said.

  “Want to be again?” he said.

  “On that?” El almost laughed. “That ship’s flying days are done. She’s dead, and you’re a fool if you think you’ll find anyone to touch her sticks again.”

  The man chewed that over for a while. Then he leaned closer, like he was sharing a secret. “The ship picks her Helm. I don’t. Not my job. And the Tyche picked you.”

  Ah. The ship’s name was pronounced tie-key. Good to know. “I didn’t see the ship doing anything like that,” said El. “I saw you lounging here like you owned the spaceport.”

  He gave her a small smile, not offended, like he was used to dealing with all manner of assholes and she was just the latest to wash up on this beach. “And I saw you looking at this ship. The Tyche wasn’t doing anything except waiting. In all these things you could look at, you chose my ship. Why?”

  “Empire design,” said El.

  “And here you are, an Empire Helm,” said the pirate.

  El felt her face freeze solid, like she’d just been spaced. “Was,” she hissed. “Don’t you get it? The Empire’s gone.”

  “Might be,” the man agreed, still not appearing to take offense. “Might be we carry those memories with us, hey?”

  That last didn’t help El’s face unfreeze any. She remembered Wadle’s speech to the crew of the Nostradamus.

  The Empire may not remember anymore, so it’s up to each of you. Do not ever forget.

  “You might,” said El. “You and any other fools.” She turned on her heel, ready to stalk away.

  “Hey,” called the pirate. “I’m Nate. Nathan Chevell.”

  “I don’t care,” she said, shouldering through the crowd. Last thing she needed was a pirate after her. A pirate with a death wish, and a broken down ship that was too small for any real flying. It was time to do what must be done. It was time to get drunk.

  • • •

  Outside the spaceport, things were still busy. El had found a machine that exchanged credits for coins. Coins, for fuck’s sake, like people needed more metal to weigh them down. But she’d grabbed her fistfuls of the Republic’s new currency, noting no particular visage of a leader stared at her from them. The Republic was equal, by all accounts. A faceless Senate, no one member greater than the others.

  Still. El would have preferred someone’s head on the coin. Flipping these suckers would be tricky. Tails or tails didn’t have the same ring to it. El kept some credits for luck, a bundle of the chits tucked into a pocket of her ship suit.

  She didn’t pay a huge amount of attention as she drifted free of the spaceport, just one more piece of flotsam in a sea of lost humanity. El ignored the tourism services, preferring the pace of her own feet. While she hadn’t been to San Francisco before, El figured on getting to know the city after she’d found her level. She had money, and free time, and a powerful thirst. A smart Helm knew the best way to chart a solution to those waters was inside a bar.

  Her feet had been making all the decisions for a good half hour, maybe forty-five minutes before she looked up. El had pulled up outside a place called Rummy’s, a picture of a cocktail glass on the holo outside. It had a certain honesty she could appreciate.

  The door to the bar was propped open with an empty beer crate, some Earth brand lager El didn’t recognize. If that didn’t say we welcome you to become drunk she didn’t know what did. El walked in through the open door, taking in the inside of Rummy’s. It was laid out like someone was trying to make a go for ye olde worlde vibes. No customers, because no one wanted to drink in a place like this. Wood everywhere. Brass spigots above the bar, ice clutching at them. There was an automated system that would spit whatever you wanted into a glass, but it was pushed to the side of the bar, wires and machinery hanging out of it. Prior to that, it would have looked like a humanoid jukebox. Now, it just looked pathetic. Behind the bar stood an actual human. The actual human was a young man, on the weedy side for El’s tastes. He had a T-shirt that promised The fun starts here with an arrow pointing down. So, ignore that guy, except for his ability to dispense drinks.

  She slipped onto a stool, holding up a couple of Republic coins. “How much can I get with this?”

  Fun Starts Here looked at the coins. “I don’t know.”

  They looked at the coins she held, then each other, before El tried again. “I want to buy a beer, and apparently this is the currency you Earthers use.”

  “Machine’s broken,” offered Fun Starts Here. He jerked a thumb at the automated system.

  “But you’re here,” suggested El.

  “Sure. Look, I can get you a beer while we work this out.” He looked past the coins, taking in El’s flight suit.

  “Great,” said El. She tried not to notice the way he looked at her clothes. It made her uncomfortable but that feeling faded as the beer arrived. It came in a tall glass, golden lager holding a festivity of bubbles. “What’s this?”

  “No idea,” said Fun Starts Here. “Machine’s—”

  “Broken, I know,” said El. She sighed, then sipped her beer. It was okay. It was better than being dead, that’s for sure. “Look, I can see you’re busy,” and here, she gestured at the empty bar, “but maybe you can set me up with another while you’re waiting.”

  “You want two beers?”

  “One won’t last long,” said El. “Apparently I lost a war.”

  “You in particular?”

  El thought about that for a while, and when the second beer joined her first on the
wood in front of her, she said, “I don’t think so. More of a team effort I reckon.”

  “Okay,” said Fun Starts Here, and went off to fiddle with a personal console.

  El ignored him, focusing on her beer. She held out her hands, noticing the slight trembling of her fingers. To be fair, it had been one of those days. Kicked off her starship, which was no doubt still in orbit with a huge hole in the side. Debriefed in a hurry by a bunch of Republic soldiers who didn’t seem to care. Amnesty. Free woman, and with skills to sell to whomever would take her on. It sure was a mix of events, and that led to the trembling. The beer would help. She finished her first glass, pulling the second one closer.

  A hand fell on her shoulder, spinning her around. Her beer fell to crash on the ground, lager and glass shards spraying in a rough circle. The hand belonged to a tall man, clean-shaven with a strong jaw, who El might have found handsome if he didn’t at that moment have a blaster pointed at her with his other hand. Behind Strong Jaw stood a thin man with a complexion that could only come from spending long weeks camped inside a whiskey bottle. He was wearing an Engineer’s rig, but all the arms bar one were dangling, useless. The one remaining arm sported a laser cutter, which didn’t promise good things from El’s perspective. Next to Whiskey Complexion stood, at a lower height, a woman who was short and ugly in equal measure. She held a device that looked like a civilian taser, also pointed at El.

  “Empire scum,” said Strong Jaw.

  El’s hand fell to her waist, grasping for a sidearm that wasn’t there. Being disarmed by the Republic seemed fine at the time. Earth was safe. The Republic’s Justice made it so, didn’t it? Since she had no weapon, she said, “There’s no Empire.”

  Strong Jaw released her shoulder, considering that. Then he curled his hand into a fist and rammed it into El’s gut. She curled over the punch, the pain knocking the air out of her, as she slid off her stool to kneel in the broken glass and beer at her feet. She was hoisted up again, still gasping, as Strong Jaw pulled her close. “But there are still Empire scum. I know the smell of your kind. Kept me locked in indentured servitude for ten years before the glory of the Republic set me free. You’ll pay for that.”

  El gave a quick look around. Fun Starts Here was gone. Still no one else in the bar. She said, “I’m sure I would have remembered having an indentured servant.” As she said it, she knew it was the wrong thing to say. Strong Jaw looked like he was trying to find another excuse to hit her, and she gave him one. This time, the punch hit her in the side of the head, and she fell to the ground — again — with her ears ringing. She tasted copper and her own fear.

  “I say we cut out a souvenir,” said Whiskey Complexion. “An ear. Or an eye.”

  Short and Ugly sniffed. “You hear that?”

  “Hear what?” said Whiskey Complexion.

  “Sounded like dogs,” said Short and Ugly. “I hate dogs.”

  “What you are is afraid of dogs,” said Whiskey Complexion.

  “Shut up, both of you,” said Strong Jaw. He stood above El, tall and confident, head cocked, listening. “I don’t know—”

  Four soldiers dressed in Republic colors, which was the same black as the Empire but without the Falcon, rattled in through the Rummy’s open door. They had blasters raised and pointed at everyone, including El. She thought that was unfair since she was on the floor, but at least it had a calming effect on her three assailants. One soldier stepped forward. “What’s going on here?”

  Strong Jaw nudged El with his boot. “This here is an Empire sympathizer,” he said. “We were figuring on—”

  “Ain’t no Empire,” said the soldier.

  “But she’s a sympa—”

  “No Empire,” repeated the soldier. “Just citizens of this fine Republic, under whose flag we all sail. Do you need reminding of that, citizen?”

  Strong Jaw considered that before holstering his blaster. “I guess I don’t,” he said.

  “Best be gone, then,” said the soldier.

  The three muggers made to leave, but not before Strong Jaw crouched next to El. He spoke low enough so only she could hear. “This isn’t over, you hear me?” Then he was gone in a flash of blocked sunlight as he left Rummy’s.

  The soldier who’d done all the talking offered El a hand up. She took it, swaying a little. “Thanks,” she said. “But. Uh.”

  “Why aren’t we arresting them?” said the soldier.

  “Was on my mind,” said El, working her jaw. Something in it popped.

  “Jails are full,” said the soldier. “Case like this, no evidence, just some hearsay, and it’d waste everyone’s time.”

  El didn’t say but my jaw and face are evidence, because she didn’t think this was that kind of conversation. She’d dealt with military police before. They weren’t the kind to be sympathetic. They were used to dealing with some tough motherfuckers who were causing a ruckus. As it was, she was alive, and on Earth, and she still had money and spare time. “Okay,” she said.

  “Glad you understand, citizen,” said the soldier. He gave her a nod, then left Rummy’s.

  El frowned at his passing, then at the lack of anyone left in the bar. Which was probably just as well. Her money — coins, not credits, mind — said Fun Starts Here had signaled his buddies on his console. They’d arrived to wreak vengeance for imagined sins. So, El would help herself to a little more beer, then she would find herself a change of clothes and a weapon. Because fuck all this shit. Empire was gone, but feelings about the Empire were still alive. Being boots down in hostile territory with nothing but a charming smile would get her dead.

  She checked her list, reordering it. Beer. Weapon. Then clothes. Satisfied, she walked behind the bar to find a clean glass.

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHINATOWN. EL DIDN’T know why she’d come here. Maybe it was the brightness of the place, the constant noise and bustle. No one here wanted to stick a shiv in her spine for wearing an Empire ship suit. They wanted to sell her all manner of other crap, including a guidance computer she was sure had been stripped from an Empire dropship. But no shivs to the spine. Just good honest commerce.

  She bought a soy dog, savoring the softness of the bread. Or the feeling of being alive. El wasn’t sure which, and didn’t have a problem with it being both. Her feet, wiser than her head, led her down a narrow street that was flirting with alley status. Sol, still watching from overhead, kept its vigil, but through a narrow crack of sky visible high above.

  El stopped outside a store that had a brightly lit holo. She couldn’t read the logograms on the stage, but the images of weapons were hard to confuse with anything else. El finished her soy dog, bunching up the napkin and tossing it into a nearby recycler. The store’s interior wasn’t brightly lit, but that felt like it was because of the shelves, stacked to the ceiling. Boxes of all shapes and sizes. Cardboard. Military. There, an old leather guitar case. Dust and lilacs were the scents in the air. She walked deeper into the shop, and found the source of the lilacs.

  Behind a counter overloaded with half-disassembled (or were they half-assembled?) weapons and electronics sat a small man. He was bald, and had a visor over his eyes while he worked with an Engineer’s rig on the components in front of him. The visor tilted up as she drew close, his eyes hidden, but his mouth broke into a grin of delight and missing teeth as she approached. “A customer! Welcome, welcome.”

  “Uh,” said El. “The sign—”

  “We have whatever you need,” said the man. He clicked the rig’s console, the visor sliding back off his face. Indeterminate age. A few crinkles around the eyes, plus the matter of the missing teeth, suggested someone north of fifty, but El didn’t want to put coins on that either way.

  “I need a weapon,” said El. “I need something to make people think twice.”

  “About what?” he said, then frowned. “I’m sorry. That is a very forward question between two people who don’t know each other.”

  “It is,” she agreed.

&nb
sp; “I’m Zou,” he said. “This is my shop.”

  She laughed, extending her hand. “I’m El.”

  He watched the tremble of her fingers before shaking her hand. His eyes went to her face where her eye was swelling shut, her broken lip. Zou sighed. “You have been in a fight.”

  “Wasn’t much of a fight,” said El.

  Zou looked at her ship suit. El still wore the Emperor’s flacon at her breast. “You are used to fighting for big things.”

  “Maybe,” said El. “I’m used to flying, anyway.”

  He laughed, clapping his hands. “You are a coward.”

  She wanted to be offended. El wanted to walk out of Zou’s shop and never turn back. But he wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t wrong at all. “Maybe,” she said again.

  “It’s good you came to me,” said Zou. “This shop,” and here, he extended an arm to the shelves around them, “carries many memories. I buy and sell. But I also make. I am a gunsmith.”

  “What?” said El. “You make guns? Without a fab?”

  “Sometimes I use a fab,” said Zou. “Sometimes I use a lathe. I use files, and tension wrenches. I used to be an Engineer.”

  “Engineers make bank,” said El.

  He shrugged. “Sometimes. Sometimes they are imprisoned.”

  “You ran away?”

  “Free men don’t run,” said Zou. “Remember, El. You aren’t running away. You might be a coward, but you are a wise coward. Wait here.” From El’s perspective, that was a pretty cryptic exchange, but whatever. The day was ramping up the weird levels, and she was just trying to hold on. Zou returned with an old chunky plastic box. It looked like it should hold someone’s lunch, not a weapon. He made space on the counter between them, placing the box down with more care than she felt the battered plastic deserved. “Please. Open it.”

  She unclipped the plastic with satisfying thunks, flipping the lid open. They both stared inside for a few moments, then El said, “It looks very nice.”