E.S. Raye

With the holidays quickly approaching, and hopefully the pre-order of Gas Giant Gambit going live shortly thereafter, I thought this might be a good time to give any readers I may have something of a gift:

The first chapter of Gas Giant Gambit: A Tale From Beyond the Cygnus Rift!

Here, you’ll meet Gus (before the borrows the name), Tilly (her faithful and loyal steed/spaceship), and Tuco (her impulsive and rough-around-the-edges bounty hunting partner).

A word about Tuco: he’s based on Tuco from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and is not a good person. And while he is the only Latino character to appear in this chapter, he is not the only one in the story. Rancher and farmer Oscar Vega and his family make their appearance in chapter 3, and are the very heart and soul of the entire book.

This content includes mild gun use.

Without further ado; Gas Giant Gambit: Chapter 1 – A Fistful of Spoons

1

A Fistful of Spoons

In a flash of white light, Matilda dropped from her Faster-Than-Light sprint into a lazy, subluminal canter. Alone in the void between stars, the three rings of her engine gimbal slowed and locked into their flat, standby position. She was a small pony-mount, built for one, with a long horseshoe-shaped body that wrapped around her engine. Old, beat-up, and with more than a few custom parts, she wasn’t much to look at, but she served her master well. Aesthetics didn’t count for much to drifters on the Orion Arm.

The young woman at the yoke reins—one such drifter—leaned back in her saddle and stretched. Her gloved fingers sunk deep into her dark curls as she massaged light-years of tension from her scalp.

“Hey, hermana, why’d we stop?” Tuco called from the engine room just behind her. “We ain’t there yet,” 

Matilda forced air through her ventilation system in a series of dissatisfied grunts. With a roll of her dark eyes, the drifter sighed and tied her hair back into a bushy ponytail. “I know, girl. I know,” she said as she patted the controls affectionately. “Tilly needs a break,” she called back to her passenger. “We’ve been riding her too hard; I don’t want to bake ‘er.” She unhooked her spurred boots from Tilly’s yaw stirrups and slid from the drive saddle.

The drifter stepped into the engine room without needing to duck under the low hatch. She crossed her arms over the chest of her ancient, patched flight suit and eyed her partner. “Alright Tuco, let’s have it. Why have you dragged me all the way out here? What’s at these coordinates?” The dusty pink stains on her left glove stood out against the faded green of the coveralls.

Tuco was a small, sweaty, middle-aged man with an unkempt goatee and a mop of greasy black hair. He wore his pistol, an old Cepheid 2248, in a cross-draw holster at his belt buckle and had a bandolier of coolant capsules slung across his barrel chest. The two had worked together before, and while she didn’t always like Tuco’s methods, she always got her fair share. “The Hippotes System,” he said. “It’s a red giant with only one world. A gas ball called Aeolus.” A long, black, hooded duster covered his overweight frame as he stood from Tilly’s guest bunk, jammed into the corner of the small engine room.

“Great,” she leaned against the bulkhead, “what’s there?” Tuco always had a hard time getting to the point. She pulled a small tin from one of her flight suit’s many pockets and popped it open. The deep, earthy aroma of ground tobacco filled the small mount.

“Las Ráfagas Outpost. An old rubidium-87 mining and refinement depot inside the gas giant’s atmo. It supplies fuel to all the Cygnus Trail waystations this side o’ the Rift.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” she said. She took fresh leaves from the tin and rolled a pair of tight cigars with the confidence of a well practiced routine. “The San Juan-Paul fuel clerk mentioned it. Said they never got their last shipment from Las Ráfagas and couldn’t top me up. Tilly’s running low. Bounty job?” She lit both cigars with the flick of an old silver lighter and handed one to Tuco.

“Si,” he grunted and took the cigar. Tuco shuffled to a window and peered into the void. “Bounty-head’s a rob.” Tilly’s environmental control console beeped gently before exhaust fans in the floor and ceiling spun up and whisked the acrid smoke away.

She frowned and took a long drag. “A rob? Don’t tell me we’re working for the copperheads.”

“Hey.” Tuco looked up from his window and glanced around the messy engine room for an ashtray. “It may not be for me to say, hermana, but it looks like you’re almost down to the blanket around here. Ain’t that why you took the job? Just take the spoons and be glad for it. Besides,” he turned back to the window, “no, it ain’t for the CCO. But the bounty was posted by a family that lives in the Orion Colonies, si.”

He was anxious about something and she didn’t like it. She narrowed her eyes and handed him a cracked ceramic bowl littered with old butts. “What aren’t you telling me, Tuco?”

This time he couldn’t even be bothered to pull his eyes from the window. “Nada, hermana. Besides, you know the deal.”

She sighed and nodded at the back of his head.

He was right. This was how they operated. Tuco showed up with a job and she provided the transport. That way there could be no double-cross. The details he had already given her were more than she usually got. And he wasn’t wrong about the state of her financial situation, either. Credit spoons meant fuel for Tilly, and a full fuel cell meant freedom. Everything else that wasn’t helping her stay alive—and stay free—was just dust in the void.

And this was a big payday. A rob from the CCO. It couldn’t just be a runaway. The bounty was way too big for that. The damn thing must have killed someone when it ran. The United Colonies of Earth and her Territories and the Confederate Colonies of Orion may have been at war, but returning wayward property was still a lucrative—and legal—endeavor. It was a solid job.

Still, something was off. Tuco was oddly anxious. Even for Tuco.

Turning back to the saddle, the drifter took her own gun belt down from its hook and strapped it on her left hip. There was a satisfying click as the pitted U.S. Army buckle latched. When she turned back, Tuco was looking at her. His cigar cherry glowed brightly against the black beyond his window. “That pistola; you ready to sell it to me yet? Never seen anything like it. It’s a collector’s dream.”

She pulled Delilah from her holster and held it in her pink-dusted glove. The gun looked like something from an Old Earth sci-fi serial, but with more industrial elements—like a row of exhaust ports running along its left side. The colors had faded and chipped over the years, but someone had once painted a shark’s grin on the side opposite the exhaust.

“Name your price,” Tuco said. He’d been obsessed with Delilah since the first time he laid eyes on her; this was only his latest effort. The drifter turned the heavy gun over in her hands, then dropped it back in its holster.

“Not a chance Tuco. There’s no price. Call it a family heirloom.”

Tuco harrumphed and turned back to the window. “One day I’m going to get that gun,” he muttered. “Can we get moving? I want to get this bounty-head and get out of there as fast as we can.”

“Gotta give Tilly a little while longer to cool off. Then it’s just two more sprints to the coordinates—your Las Ráfagas.”

“Podríamos hacerlo en uno si no mima su nave,” Tuco mumbled.

“Yeah, we probably could do it in one if we pushed hard. But even with a full fuel cell Tilly’s engine gimbal would be too burned out to leave the system, let alone sprint us the kiloparsec back to CCO controlled space. What’s your rush?”

He waved his hand dismissively and kept his eyes on the stars.

Her brow furrowed. “Seriously Tuco, what’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing, I—” Tilly’s proximity alarms cut him off with a squeal.

Alarms went off in the drifter’s head too. “What did you do?” she shouted as she shoved Tuco out of the way to peer out the window. Flashes of light, like fireworks, went off all around Tilly. A dozen mounts had sprinted in, and more came with every flicker of light. Another flash lit the hide of one and showed off a five-pointed star. “Tunk,” she spat. The San Juan-Paul Waystation bulls—law enforcement out here on the Cygnus Trail. Their ponies were small, smaller even than Tilly, and well beyond their recommended range. Damn bulls must have pushed hard to catch up. No way they could give chase if she ran. Especially if she gave them something to do.

She turned on Tuco and grabbed him by his duster. “What did you do?”

Tilly’s communications array crackled as the bulls hacked in. “Attention: Steeldust Class-A Transport 94517, by the authority of the San Juan-Paul Marshal’s Office you are hereby ordered to cut all engines and prepare to be boarded. You are under arrest for the murder of Abraham Wallis and the robbery of the Cygnus Union Coach. Comply or be fired upon.”

Tuco shrugged. “I couldn’t help it,” he said with a smile. “He was just begging me to take it from him.”

“Oh, you impulsive son of a—” She pulled his gun from his holster before he could reach for it and pointed it at him. “Where is it? Where’s the damn spoon?” She turned over his bunk, careful to keep one eye on him. A mess of dirty clothes and tack fell from the cot. She kicked through it with the toe of her boot until she found what she was looking for: a small metallic credit spoon marked with the Cygnus Union logo.

“Now, let’s not do anything too hasty,” Tuco said. “You and I have been in worse scraps than this. We can fight our way out!”

“Not this time, pendejo. Tilly’s rifle turret is stuck 17 degrees off-center, we’re halfway to the middle of nowhere with low fuel reserves, and I’m not risking my neck because you can’t keep this,” she waggled his gun at him, “in your damn pants. Into the pod.” She waved the pistol at the escape pod bulging from the wall.

“Come on now, hermana. Be reasonable.”

“Reasonable? Reasonable? Oh, I can be reasonable.” She walked him backwards towards the pod and grabbed an empty spoon and transfer pad from a shelf. The spoons clicked into their ports on the pad with magnetic ease. “Thumb. In the spoon. Now.”

“Hermana…” Tuco’s voice had turned dark.

“Don’t think I won’t end you with your own beam-shooter. Thumb. Now.”

“Attention: Steeldust Class-A Transport 94517,” the hacked comms squawked again. “Shut down all engines and prepare to be boarded.”

Reluctantly, Tuco put his thumb in the hollow of the Cygnus Union spoon. A cheerful ding sounded and the transfer started. “Puta, how much are you taking?” Another ding. Transfer complete. The drifter slammed the heel of her boot into Tuco’s chest, hard. With an “Ooph,” that was half-surprise, he fell back into the waiting escape pod. After a moment’s consideration, she tossed his gun in after him just as the hatch sealed.

“Since you rutted up the deal I agreed to, I’ve taken half what you stole,” she said and pressed the transfer pad against the pod’s window for Tuco to see. “I’d say that’s only fair, since it’s less than half what you promised me for this trip.”

“Why you—”

“I’m also charging you for parts and labor on the pod. Which, by the way, I bought on the cheap and had to modify extensively to fit Tilly. I’d button up if I were you. I can’t promise all the seals’ll hold.”

Tuco’s face fell into naked panic. “Manflor loca,” he spat and scrambled to seal up his duster. He dropped his still burning cigar on his chest, but managed to close up the coat and pull its wide hood over his head.

The drifter watched him with something akin to amusement. “Happy trails, Tuco.”

His sweaty face twisted with rage as the life support systems woven into his clothes engaged. In the next instant the pod was jettisoned, trailing his curses into the black.

Her traitorous partner seen to, the drifter sprinted back to the saddleroom and launched herself into Tilly’s drive saddle. She clicked her spurs into the yaw stirrups, warmed up Tilly’s FTL engine, and flipped the comms transmitter on to hail the approaching bulls. “Hi there, this is Steeldust Class-A Transport 94517,” she said with the sweetest voice she could muster. “You’ll find the party responsible for the charges you’ve laid out in the escape pod in my dust. Turn your sensors to the object 0.47 kilometers off my right-rear quarter. That’s your man.”

“Attention: Steeldust Class-A Transport 94517. All parties onboard are under arrest. You have five seconds to shut down your engine or you will be destroyed. I ain’t gonna warn ya again, little lady.”

“That’s right officers, Tuco Benedicto Ramírez. That’s your man. No need for a reward, I’m just happy to do my civic duty. Safe travels!” With one practiced motion, she flipped off the comms and kicked Tilly into an FTL sprint.

#

Tunk!

She slammed her fist down on the saddle horn. Tuco had been an impulsive bastard for as long as she’d known him. Christ’s blood, they met when he tried to steal from her. He thought he saw an easy mark and got a broken wrist for his efforts.

He had approached her with this job back on Gateway Station, fifty parsecs from Earth and on the edge of the Old Colonies of the UCET and CCO. She had hesitated then. Under normal circumstances the bounty would have been worth the trip, but crossing the Cygnus Rift with Tuco was enough to give her pause. At over a thousand parsecs to the target coordinates, it would take Tilly more than a month to get there. That was a lot of time for Tuco to do something stupid.

But the money had been too good. So, she had convinced herself she could keep Tuco in line long enough to get paid. It was his job after all; she didn’t think he’d want to sabotage it. She had been stupid. Worse still, she hadn’t thought to get the bounty information off Tuco before dumping him for the bulls. Without those details she’d never find the right rob—free robs were a dime a dozen on this side of the Rift. So now, here she was, stuck out in the middle of nowhere, low on rubidium and spoons, with the bulls on her trail and her job prospects gone. 

Outside the saddleroom canopy, rivers of light flowed past Tilly as the engine gimbal warped the fabric of spacetime around her.

Turning around was out of the question. If she headed back to San Juan-Paul, she’d be arrested as soon as Tilly was spotted. But the bulls’ smaller and slower ponies had no chance of catching up if she ran Tilly hard. Communication was still limited by the speed of the mount carrying the message, so the bigger the head start she got, the longer she could stay ahead of the law.

As far as she could see, that left her with only two options:

She could turn back towards the Cygnus Trail and try to double back across the Rift by sprinting past San Juan-Paul Station—dubious, given how low Tilly was on rubidium.

Or she could head on to Las Ráfagas and try to refuel at the mining depot. If she pushed Tilly to the point of exhaustion she could make it in one sprint, like Tuco had suggested.

She didn’t like her choices. If she pressed on, the bulls had to know where she was going. There were only so many places to hide out here. But with a full fuel cell she could lose them in the void. It was risky, but better than turning around to play ha-ha-Herman with the law.

Air rushed through Tilly’s environmental system like a complaint. The drifter patted the control panel. “I know, girl. I’m sorry. But we don’t have much choice, do we? Just hold on for me and I’ll get you fixed up and fed. Then we can plan our next move.” Which would likely involve the frontier colonies in the Cygnus X star cluster. Not her preferred place to settle, but laying low on some backwater frontier-world for a few months while the heat blew over would be a vacation compared to one of the UCET’s “rehabilitation” programs.

She squeezed her spurs to make a minor course correction, then slipped from the saddle and headed for her bunk. It was going to be a long sprint this time. The engine was going to need some babying. Better to get a nap in now while Tilly was fresh.

#

Blaring alarms woke her an instant before Tilly was violently rocked and she was thrown from her bunk.

What the tunk?

Tilly had been sprinting for days and had, so far, handled the stress of the sprint well. But her endurance was wearing thin. The drifter had expected some resonance vibration and high gimbal axis temperatures, but this was something else. Something much worse.

She found the engine room quickly filling with a foul-smelling vapor that poured from a broken seal on a coolant pipe. Coughing against the caustic gas, she found the system’s shut-off valve and threw her weight against it. The hissing leak slowed and the fans in the floor and ceiling spun up to gale force and vented the gas into space. Breathing easier, she ran a system diagnostic. It only confirmed her fears. Something had been weakened when she launched Tuco’s pod, and then ruptured under the strain of the prolonged FTL sprint.

She wiped sweat from her brow and dropped into the saddle, exhausted. That had been close. She was going to have enough problems with the engine as it was, the last thing she needed was to lose any more coolant. But it hadn’t been too bad—she still had plenty of the critical gas, and this was a repair she could make on the fly. She leaned forward and rested her head against the control console.

As if on cue, the moment her forehead touched the console the pony was rocked again, and she was thrown from the saddle. “What now?” she spat and scrambled back into the seat.

They were coming up on Las Ráfagas’s coordinates, but the center ring of the engine gimbal had seized and locked into position. This was going to be a rough reentry.

#

The bubble of light cocooning Tilly through her FTL sprint burst, exploding white brilliance throughout the sector as she tumbled—uncontrolled, powerless, and dark—back across the light barrier. Even through the savage tailspin, the drifter couldn’t help but notice Aeolus. The gas giant’s bands of yellow, red, and rust-orange dominated the view through the canopy.

By the light of the planet, she flipped open an access panel behind the main control console and tried to hotwire the backup power. Sparks flew, but the lights came back on, and with them, a whole new set of proximity alarms—Tilly was awake again, and unhappy to find herself about to burn up over Aeolus. The drifter climbed back into the saddle and fought to reclaim control as they screamed through the planet’s upper atmosphere. Turbulence shook Tilly again and another warning light blinked in angry scarlet. Hide breach.

She reached for an old, dirty-gray poncho hanging from a pressure valve, draped it over her shoulders, and pulled the hood up. “Dangerous atmospheric change detected,” a cheerful voice said into her ear. “Enacting emergency protocols. Please prepare for pressurization and life support initialization.” She braced as her flight suit inflated and an energy field came down across the front of her hood.

Her hands flew across the controls, flipping switches, slamming buttons, and rerouting power. Tilly’s atmospheric thrusters finally kicked in, but by then they were falling too fast and too steep to pull out of the dive. Always knew I’d die alone, the drifter thought. At least Tilly’s with me.

In spite of the thought she dug her spurs in, pulled back on the yoke reins with all her might, and prayed.