Between me and Ron my suit had been scrubbed out to the point where I didn’t smell like a week-old corpse and, as he led me down to Cargo 3, I was mulling over what he had told me about there being “ways to make credits on the side.” The whole idea seemed risky to me, swiping stuff from cargo and selling it, but he claimed everyone did it – at least with the less valuable cargo. If I was going to escape this place, credits would be necessary, but was it worth the risk? Then again Ron wasn’t that bright, if he was getting away with it, it might bear looking into.
Cargo 3 was the largest bay in Montaigne’s hanger complex. It had, Ron told me, two levels, each with eight docking airlocks, each about 100 meters long, 40 high and 40 wide. Not big enough for the freighters I was used to, Diamanté had been over 400 meters and she wasn’t the biggest ship on the trade lanes by any means. Still, it made sense that smugglers would favor smaller ships and Montaigne obviously had enough of them to keep the cargo bays full.
The airlocks lined one side of the bay, the other side was workshops for ship repair. In between, it was stacked with crates. One airlock was closed and I could hear the sound of air being purged, obviously an outgoing ship. The rest of the bays had their inner doors open and a number of freighters were being loaded, or unloaded. It was busy, noisy and smelled of hot metal, spilled fuel and lubricants. Nobody paid any attention to us as he led me over to a desk.
The guy behind it looked bored and had day old stubble that could have sanded down a rusty hull plate in nothing flat. Dark eyes blinked under heavy brows.
“New one for y’ ‘iggins,” Ron said, “Calls ’erself ‘JD’.”
Higgins grunted and looked me over. I could see that I was being sized up in terms of what kind of work he could get out of me. “Marcoli’s a bit slow today, give her to him.”
Before Ron could take me away Higgins turned and looked behind him. Up on a stack of crates, watching everything that was going on was a young Anyuvin. I’d seen Anyuvin before, but there was something different about this one. It’s hard to read their expressions, but just the way they held themself, that set them apart from the other survivors of the Anyuvin war – the ones that had settled for being second class citizens rather than die of old age in POW camps.
“Hey, Djani!” He yelled. “New worker. Got it?”
The Anyuvin nodded. “Vaš ižyova.”
“That’s good,” Higgins said, back to sounding bored. He turned to Ron. “Well, off with her.”
Ron led me over to the ship and introduced me to Marcoli, who snickered. Marcoli was another one of the hygienically challenged. Only, with him, you’d swear he liked himself that way.
“What am I supposed to do with a punk kid?” He asked. “I doubt she can lift ten kilos.”
“Twenty five, actually,” I said, “Or, at least I could before I got splattered all over the inside of an escape pod.” This guy was already pissing me off.
“Really.” Marcoli didn’t sound convinced.
“Of course that’s with proper weights,” I went on, shifting into sarcastic lecture mode. “Clumsy things like crates, well…”
“Uh, huh. Right. OK, super kid, jump into The Bastard’s Pride and help Carlos shift those crates back to the loading ramp.”
Which I did. Carlos looked a tad older than me. Pretty good looking too, about my height with dark hair and impish eyes. He was silent at first, but once he saw I could do my share, he loosened up.
“So, chica, what does ‘JD’ stand for?”
I hate this question. Did it ever occur to people that if I wanted to discuss my real name I wouldn’t go by ‘JD”? Still, in the interests of camaraderie…
“You tell anyone and I’ll gut you, comprende?” He smiled, but nodded.
“OK, it’s Jasmine Dolores Bane. Jasmine was my grandmother on Dad’s side, Dolores was my Mom. She wanted to name me after her mother, Carlotta, but Dad insisted. He said when they had a son he was gonna name him Franklin and why shouldn’t she have her name passed on too?”
“So what’s wrong with Dolores? And Jasmine’s kind of exotic.”
“Do I look like a Jasmine to you?” I stood my full 184 centimeters and glared at him. Yeah, I have great hair, or did, before Doc shaved it all off, but I’m a little too tall and angular to be the delicate little girl. Hell, I didn’t want to. I had more fun with Mom in the engine room than I ever did when she dressed me up to go ‘visiting’. I just don’t have Mom’s talent – or her body, to be honest. I… well, I look more like my Dad, which is fine by me.
Carlos relented. “Um. OK, no? I guess?” But those eyes were smiling. We went back to work and got the rest of the crates in position just as Higgins signaled break. Which was good because I was exhausted and I’d sweated out whatever water I’d had in me. I stepped out of the hold and walked down the ramp towards the water keg. The people that hadn’t seen me come in stared for a bit, then went back to whatever they were doing. I was filling a cup when I felt someone grab my ass.
Sadly, this was not my first time. I reached around with my right hand and grabbed his, wrapping my fingers around it, digging the knuckle of my thumb into the back of his hand. Then I stepped forward, turned and pulled his arm out and put my left hand on his elbow, bending him forward. It was Marcoli. Great. My team leader is a perv.
“Six years of Jiu Jitsu, cabrón,” I whispered in his ear. I looked around as I let him go and said, “I trust I’ve made my point?” The assorted sniggers answered my question. Marcoli was rubbing his arm and glaring. I knew this wasn’t going to be the end of it.
“You them enemy make,” came a voice from behind me and I nearly jumped out of my skin.
The Anyuvin, ‘Djani’, was right behind me and I hadn’t heard anything at all. And the fact that they had gotten down here so fast amazed me.
“I didn’t make him my enemy.” I said, trying to calm myself down, “He always was my enemy. I just didn’t know it until now.”
The Anyuvin laughed that strange, barking laugh of theirs. “Cavi,” they said, then pushed my right shoulder. I twisted to let the arm go past, but they never lost their balance. I tried to push back, but Djani was wicked fast and hooked my hand behind their own and pulled. So I twisted mine around theirs and pushed. I knew this game. They were playing “sticky hands” with me. For ten minutes we went back and forth, each trying to make the other take a step – backward or forward, it didn’t matter. I got into it so much the whole break went by and it wasn’t until Higgins came up that I lost my concentration and Djani pushed me back a step.
“Right you two, stop screwing around.” He looked around. “Break’s over, people. Back to work!”
Djani glared at Higgins for a minute, as if they’d been cheated of something. To be honest, I was right there with them. I hadn’t cared which of us would have ‘won’ in the end, but it wasn’t supposed to end like that. And now Higgins was glaring at me. I knew better than to ask what else could go wrong.