Gambler (3 page)

"Acknowledged," said Cal, lifting up from
Nova's hands and gliding through the storeroom.

Nova got to her feet with a groan as her
cramped muscles straightened out. She hobbled from the storeroom to
the tiny alcove which served as a bedroom. She tapped the button in
the wall and the bed folded down. She wrinkled her nose at the
obviously used sheets and pulled them from the bed, throwing them
to the floor before collapsing onto the bare mattress.

It took almost a week with Nova and Cal
working full days before the ship was flight-ready. It had required
a lot of negotiations with the old mechanic for parts, but
eventually they got everything they needed.

"Reports show a less than 60% chance of a
successful flight. I recommend further repairs," said Cal as Nova
took the pilot's seat.

"No-can-do I'm afraid, Cal. We've run out of
money and it's time to move on."

A sequence of beeps emanated from Cal's
centre which over their week together Nova had come to recognise as
his version of a sigh of frustration. It was a very human
expression; she suspected that some of his inner circuits had been
affected when the ship crashed.

"Ready, Crusader?" Nova asked with a
grin.

"As you know, I share the same circuits as
the Class Four Labourbot and strongly recommend further repairs,"
the soothing female voice emanated from the central control panel.
Nova understood that in the past, marketing research had indicated
this voice template was the most preferred by all drivers, and the
same research had also shown it improved pilot mood and reduced
moments of rage while flying.

Nova rolled her eyes. "Let's go!" she
commanded.

She sat back in the pilot seat and watched
as numbers flashed over the front screen. The engine was running as
well as could be expected. It whirred into standby mode, before
gradually lifting up from the planet's surface.

"Where to, Captain?" the ship's voice asked,
with a hint of sarcasm.

"Away from here," Nova said. "Take us to the
nicest planet you can, with the fuel we have. We'll work it out
from there."

The ship's engines hummed louder and the
interior began to vibrate. Nova clutched the arms of her chair and
held her breath as the gauges climbed higher. The needles flicked
in and out of the red zone as steam hissed from the control
board.

The ship rocked as it climbed higher and
reached the edge of the atmosphere. Metal panels squealed in
protest as they strained against each other. A part of Nova wanted
to close her eyes, sure that she was about to burn up in a grizzly
fireball, but another part of her didn't want to miss any part of
this moment.

Crusader's engines choked as the ship
blasted higher. Nova bounced in her chair and was almost thrown
out. She braced her feet on the metal floor as the ship burst
through the clouds and soared into space.

The wild shaking stopped and she let her
breath out. Crusader's front screen showed Tabryn as it shrunk
behind them. Nova watched her childhood planet disappear, a smile
playing at the corner of her lips. Her heart burst in her chest and
adrenalin surged through her veins; for the first time in her life
she felt truly free.

From there, Nova travelled from planet to
planet, getting work where she could. Finally, she found herself
where she was always going to end up: The Jagged Maw; home to all
of the bounty hunters and adventurers worthy of the name.

CHAPTER FOUR

Nova sat up on the bed and yawned. She shook
her head to remove the memories of her past. She hadn't thought of
Caila in a very long time.

She stood and hit the button at the side of
the wall, causing the bed to spring back into the side of the ship.
She marched, now fully awake, to the control room.

"Show me the view," she requested as she
settled into the pilot's seat.

The front screen changed from readings of
the engine to the view outside the ship. They were still a way out
from the planet and Nova could see the bright lights of Inner
Tabryn lighting up the night like the beacons of a siren. Outside
the brightly lit capital there was only darkness, hiding the
squalor that spread out through the desert.

Thanks to the tilt and rotation of Tabryn
around its sun, Inner Tabryn experienced nights almost twice the
length of its days, but of course that suited the citizenry just
fine.

The lights of Inner Tabryn got brighter,
until they filled the entire view screen. They flashed neon
colours, promising happiness and fortune with their cold glow.

Usually Crusader wouldn't land on a planet,
as the energy cost of landing and take-off was massive. But Nova
would never be able to afford a room in one of the casinos and
she'd be damned if she ever spent another night on the streets of
Tabryn.

Crusader slowed its decent as they neared
Tabryn's biggest casino, The Lucky Coin. All around the main
building, ships were parking and taking off. The entrance to the
casino surged with fresh cash. Crusader's rusty bulk rumbled until
it came to a screeching halt on the ground next to a sleek red
ship. Nova recognised it immediately. She had drooled over the new
Sunstar 3000 only days earlier when an ad for it appeared on her
screen. It must have cost the owner a fortune.

"Now, Cal, remember what happened last time
we were near a casino? Stay away from the roulette tables," Nova
said, pulling her thick black trench-coat from the back of her
chair.

"If I recall correctly, it was in fact your
poor gambling strategy that lost us that game," Cal said, his voice
condescending.

"Well then your memory chips have been
fried, my friend," Nova said, sauntering away from the command
pod.

She yanked out her 'mission bag' from a wall
compartment and slung it over her shoulder, and clipped a stunner
onto her belt. Her trench-coat fell back into place, hiding both
the gun and the stunner.

The gun laws on Tabryn were loose at best
but it could be a dangerous place and Nova would never be caught
unprepared.

Cal floated behind her. "A technical scan
reveals no faults in my memory chips."

Nova rolled her eyes and smiled as she
reached Crusader's main exit door. She had upgraded the security
system since she first bought the craft. It was one thing that she
had refused to skimp on and it had saved her and her cargo more
than once.

"You two stay here and monitor as usual,"
Nova said, stepping out of the craft. The door slid shut behind
her.

She took a moment to survey her
surroundings. As expected, the rest of the ships parked around hers
were the latest models and gleamed in the casino lights. Crusader
stood out like a rotten apple in a pile of jewels. She stood on the
footpath and watched, as all about her milled the beautiful people
of the world, with their expensive clothes and store-bought
bodies.

Cosmetic surgery had taken off in the last
hundred years and those that could afford it rarely kept any of
their original selves. Noses, chins, arms, eyes. All were
replaceable either with human parts or engineered parts; it was
personal preference which you preferred.

Nova frowned at the long forgotten, but
still familiar smells of Tabryn. Here at the casino there was an
overwhelming scent of perfume but even that couldn't hide the
underlying odours; the desert sand, the squalor of Outer Tabryn,
the smoke from the cheap factories running in the slums.

She turned her head from the bright lights
running down the footpath and instead focused on following the
milling crowd through the gold-painted doors of The Lucky Coin. She
was almost past the entrance and into the cacophony of noise and
lights beyond when a firm hand grabbed hold of her arm and jerked
her out of the flowing crowd.

The bouncer's hand tightened around her
wrist as he sneered down at her. "I'm afraid you don't meet our
dress standards, sweetheart." His voice was rough and thick with a
Tabryn accent.

Nova glared at him before twisting her wrist
and yanking it out of his hold. Before he could recover she whipped
a thin knife out of her belt and pressed it against his throat.
"Hands off, sweetie. I'm just here to see the boss." She held out
her bounty hunter ID.

"Take it easy, you crazy bitch," he said,
shoving her away. "This way."

He led the way through the crowds and slot
machines, past the many tables and up the marble steps which
separated the main floor of the casino from the high-roller rooms.
Nova moved as fast as she could to keep up with the large steps of
the bouncer.

At the top of the stairs they stopped in
front of a broad wooden door and the bouncer knocked three times.
It swung slowly open to reveal the lavish room beyond. Gilded
chairs with plump cushions sat about the room. Ancient paper books,
the likes of which Nova had seen on only one other occasion, lined
the walls along with ornaments and paintings. Commanding it all was
a sturdy wooden desk and the man standing behind it.

The man turned from the huge glass windows
which looked down on the casino floor. He pulled a thick cigar from
his mouth and stamped it out in a glass ashtray on the corner of
his desk. A plume of smoke floated out of his mouth as he nodded to
Nova and sat on the large chair behind his desk.

Nova took a seat opposite but stayed on
guard. She took note of the two big men who stood with their arms
crossed at each side of the room and casually placed her left hand
near her waist, where her gun was within easy reach.

"No need for that, Hunter," said the man
with the cigar.

Nova tried not to inhale as his smoky breath
blew across the table to her. All of his features seemed
proportionally large to his body; from his thick lips, to the big
nose, to the beefy hands. He wore a white shirt and black pants but
on top of these he wore a purple velvet coat that reflected the
neon lights from the casino floor. Nova didn't respond, keeping her
hand near her gun.

The man shrugged as he leant back in his
chair. "I'm Cracos, owner of The Lucky Coin. If you take the job,
you'll be working for me."

Nova nodded, but said nothing. Her violet
eyes stared straight at Cracos as she waited for him to
continue.

"Here's our problem, bounty hunter. There's
money disappearing from our casino, but we don't know where it's
going. The books match at the end of the night but somehow we're
leaking cash."

Nova nodded, behind her expressionless mask
her mind raced. Casinos were known for having the best security
systems money could buy. For them to be bleeding money like this
meant a professional was involved, probably an inside job.

"How long's this been happening?" she
asked.

"Month or so."

"Two thousand credits when I catch the
thief?"

"That's the deal, but I should warn you,
we've got others working the case. Whoever catches the thief gets
the money. There are no free rides on Tabryn." Cracos smiled as he
pulled a new cigar from the top draw of his desk.

"Ain't that the truth," said Nova, standing
and heading for the door. She stopped with her hand against the
wooden panel and turned back to Cracos. "I'll need full access to
the casino and your staff."

"Of course. I'll have Brick get you an ID,"
Cracos said with a greasy smile and waved his hand at the large
security officer who had brought her to the office.

Nova nodded and pushed open the large door.
Brick led her to a small room further down the hallway. He went to
work updating her ID chip to include access to the casino. She
placed her arm under the scanner and the computer added the extra
files to the microchip hidden just below her skin's surface.

The chips had been introduced almost a
century before. Initially it was a means of ID but now they housed
almost every piece of information about a person, and could be
updated at will. They were embedded directly after birth and began
collecting information from there. They were designed to
continually measure chemical levels to detect disease, to act as
keys, and as a form of ID, and eventually to act as a biography
after a person's death.

The more recent models had a major advantage
over the old fashioned ones. The older ones could be cut out and
inserted into someone else, making it too easy for security
breaches and identity theft. The new models, released in the last
fifty years, were intimately integrated with a person's immune
system. The change meant that if a chip was inserted into someone
else it would immediately be rejected. The thief's immune system
would effectively destroy the chip, rendering it useless.

"There we go," said Brick. "I recommend you
come back in better clothes. Cracos won't hesitate to throw you out
if he feels you're wrecking his casino's vibe."

Nova rolled her eyes and pulled her arm out
from under the scanner. She let him lead her back down the marble
stairs to the casino's main entrance. She nodded at Brick as he
took his position at the door and sauntered away from the flashing
lights to where Crusader sat, untouched amongst the shiny
rides.

CHAPTER FIVE

"How was it?" asked Cal as he came hovering
out of the storeroom to stop by Nova's shoulder.

"He didn't have much more information. Money
is disappearing but they don't know how or where." Nova frowned,
deep in thought. "Crusader, start searching the Cloud for
unexplained casino robberies. I want to know if something like this
has happened anywhere else."

Images and text appeared on the screen,
whirring past as Crusader scanned the content for something that
would prove useful.

Nova nodded and headed to the food
generator. She stared at the device for a few moments before
deciding.