Orbital Claims Adjuster Read online

  “Turn toward the ship! Get your feet out. Brace with them. Brace!” Jake yelled.

  BANG.

  The whole shambling mass impacted with the cutter. Jake easily stopped himself on a grab bar, and Suzanne had landed with a foot in front of her. She grunted over the radio as she banged into a crouch, but the magnets on her other boot caught her.

  Zeke was not so lucky. He hit shoulder first and bounced off with a grunt, but he had lost most of his velocity.

  “Zeke, give me that mop! Give it to me!” Jake yelled on the channel.

  Zeke nodded his head. He had hit hard, but he understood enough to extend the mop. Jake braced himself on the bar and began to pull the mop in hand over hand, until Zeke was able to lock onto the ship.

  “Okay, we’re all here. Is ever body okay?”

  “That was excellent.” Suzanne giggled.

  “It was. But my shoulder hurts,” Zeke said.

  “Can we do it again?” Suzanne asked.

  “Let’s just get inside,” Jake said. He led the way as they trooped across the outer hull of the cutter to the airlock.

  After cycling out of the airlock, Jake had Zeke strip his suit off so he could inspect his shoulder. Zeke was going to have a giant bruise, but it didn’t look like anything was broken. Suzanne had hit hard as well. Jake hoped for an opportunity to inspect her shoulders, but she seemed unaffected by all the tumbling.

  “Zeke, Suzanne, you could both have been killed. If you had hit wrong or bounced improperly, you could have broken an arm or you neck or something,” Jake said.

  “Yes, papa. Sorry, papa,” Suzanne teased. Then she looked at Zeke, and they both burst out laughing.

  Sergeant Russell came through the airlock. “Most incompetent boarding I have ever seen! But, I said you had to board not how to do it. So, I guess that counts. Good thing Stewart was there to catch you, though. And Stewart?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “You lost your weapon.” He handed Jake a broom. “Don’t make a habit of that. Take fifteen, then follow me.” He stripped his helmet off and stepped over the hatch coaming.

  Zeke watched him go, then turned to Jake. “Thank you very much, Jake Stewart. That was very well done. We could have got in a bit of trouble there.”

  “More than a bit of trouble. That could have been a lot of trouble. If you missed the cutter you would have ended up circling the Dragon for a few thousand years until your obit decayed and you burned up.”

  “Well, I don’t mind a bit of trouble, as long as there was a bit of fun,” Zeke said. He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Actually, a space burial around a planet doesn’t sound bad. I think I would like that.”

  “It would be better than our coffins getting drenched in rabbit pee every day on the Verge,” Suzanne said.

  “Rabbit pee?” queried Jake

  “Yes, the cemetery at Mont Lapin is full of rabbits. They eat the grass and pee on the graves.” She shook her hair out, snapped it over her shoulder, and smiled at Jake. He blinked. She looked very alive right then. “But that will not happen to us. We will go some other way. But not soon.” She stepped toward Jake who was sitting next to Zeke. “Not soon, not with Jake to look after us.” Suzanne leaned forward and gave Jake a chaste kiss on the forehead. “Thank you for saving us, ma petit chou-fleur,” she said.

  Jake watched her as she sauntered off, her helmet swinging saucily at her side. Jake turned to Zeke. Zeke winked, then began to pull his suit back on.

  “Zeke?”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s a ‘chou-fleur?’”

  ***

  By dinner on the fifth day, they were all somewhat more human. The LaFleurs moved more easily, and Jake seemed marginally more likely to kill the person he was shooting at, rather than himself. Provided that person stood still and Jake was using a shotgun. Their conversation, which had been desultory, became somewhat more animated.

  “Sergeant Russell, do you have a first name?” asked Zeke.

  “Of course, I do. Why?”

  “I would like to know it. I like to call people I am eating with by their first name. It seems friendly.”

  “You would like that, huh. I’ll tell you what I like. I like to take people who call me by my first name and hammer them over the head with my food tray until they pass out.” Sergeant Russel swallowed the last of his red-green-blue tray, licked his spoon clean, and pushed it into what was clearly a cutlery pocket on his skinsuit. Jake had a similar pocket on his suit, all Belter’s did, but it was unusual for close orbit folks to have it. He wondered about the sergeant’s background.

  “Then,” said the sergeant, “I like to kick them in the ribs a few times, maybe breaking one, until they learn that whatever they like, I don’t like people I don’t know using my first name.” He stood up, stretched, and looked back. “But I think neither of us will get what we like, LaFleur. You three are dismissed until tomorrow.” He stalked away.

  “He is tough, that one,” said Suzanne.

  “Agreed,” said Zeke. “But he is a good teacher. He yells a lot, but he knows his stuff. He showed me things with the rifle I never would have thought of, and he is very patient with us in the skinsuit drills.”

  “He said he just doesn’t want to do the paperwork if we are killed,” said Suzanne. “But we are done for the day now. I feel more energetic. What should we do? Should we go somewhere?”

  Jake perked up. She was a pretty girl, and since the other male at the table was her brother, there was no competition.

  “We could go to the bar and get a beer,” Jake offered.

  “Aren’t we in jail? Jails don’t have bars,” Suzanne said.

  “Not really,” Jake said. “We’re on a militia base. It’s its own ring on the bottom of the station. They use it for docking their cutters and training and suchlike. We can’t go up to the rest of the station, true, but according to what I read in the training manual we can move around the base itself, as long as we don’t go to the restricted areas, and they are pretty clearly marked.”

  “And there is a bar?” asked Zeke.

  “Of sorts.”

  Suzanne looked thoughtful. “We have never been in space before. You say we are attached to a larger station? Could we get there? Could we escape this training if we wanted?”

  Jake shrugged. He was starting to pick up the habit from the two LaFleurs. “We couldn’t go through the core, that’s guarded. I suppose we could do a jump from this ring to one of the upper rings, but that’s very far, and you’d need to time it exactly. It would be extremely difficult. And we’re escorted when we’re outside the base. They would notice if we jumped away. And if we got there, we’d just be, well, we’d just be on a different part of the station. We’d need a ship to get off…”

  “Can we sneak onto a ship?”

  “Not usually. There is only one entrance, and it’s usually guarded, or you need a code. And if you aren’t strapped down, you’ll get hurt very badly when the ship starts accelerating. And there are only a limited number of couches.”

  “We don’t know these things,” Zeke said.

  “You seem very good in zero-G,” Suzanne said. “Could you jump to these other rings?”

  “Yes,” Jake said. “I’ve done longer before, when I was working at my old station.”

  “So, why don’t you? You could get away. I’ll bet you know how to drive a ship.”

  “Well, I…” Jake stopped. He could jump away, probably. And he did know how to get on ships. And he could pilot it enough to get away. He didn’t need to be here. Was it worth it, staying?

  Zeke and Suzanne silently watched the emotions play out on his face.

  Jake shook his head. “I’m not sure. I could. But I won’t. Not yet.” He changed the subject. “Let’s go to the bar and have a drink.”

  “We don’t have any money,” Zeke said.

  “No money?”

  “None at all, we are criminals, are we not.”

  “Oh,” said Jake. �
�Well, I’m not rich but I can afford a pitcher of beer for us.”

  “Let us go then, and Zeke and I will tell you of our history as criminal masterminds,” said Suzanne.

  ***

  Jake led the way. It only took ten minutes to find the inevitable spacer bar that served cheap beer.

  “How did you know this was here?” Zeke asked.

  “All stations have a bar with just beer for spacers, usually they’re close to the docks. Most ships don’t allow alcohol or drugs on board, so spacers drink as long as possible before reporting back onboard. A few bars inevitably pop up around docks. I figured it’d be similar for the Militia. Since you can’t leave base without a pass, there’s bound to be a bar on base,” said Jake.

  “You said you came from a belt station. Are all the bars like this? Where are the chairs?” Zeke gestured around—there were no chairs or tables, just a bar along one wall and high ledges on the others.

  “Chairs and tables cost money. Nobody is here for the décor. They want beer and lots of it. Plus, there is less to fight with and to break.”

  “All about money, then?”

  “Well, mass mostly. If you have to boost it to the station, it costs a lot. Anything heavy is expensive. But you guys don’t care about that. Tell me about your ‘history as criminal masterminds.’”

  Zeke laughed, drained his cup, and leaned toward Jake. “It was a farce. Suzanne and I, we come from a small northern Verge settlement, Mont Lapin. We grow potatoes, carrots, onions, things like that. There are some buffalo in the hills and lots of the rabbits.”

  “What’s a rabbit?” Jake asked.

  “Small furry animal, about this big.” Zeke held his hands twenty centimeters apart. “They have been modified to eat the native grasses, to keep them from overgrowing, and they don’t taste too bad if you catch them and cook them. There is a food processing factory on site, and lots of picking machines. Not much work, and only at the plant. We were bored, doing piece work, still in mama’s apartment.”

  Jake was trying to figure out how you cooked an animal. He’d only ever eaten different types of food trays, and the occasional apple or pear. Zeke tapped his glass, lightly. Jake refilled it.

  “So, I wanted to go out, see the world. Get away, that sort of thing. So did Suzanne. She is the smart one in the family, she came up with a plan.”

  “We decided to enlist in the Militia. They turned us down,” Suzanne said.

  “Turned you down? Why?”

  “No education. No technical skills. No space skills. They wanted spacers. I could have joined the corporate police, they take anybody, but then I’d just be beating up people like my friends, just in different crappy towns. That is no life.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “Well, we have an uncle in town, Landing. A great uncle actually, but he was smart, went to the university and got a finance degree. He keeps in touch with the family. He set things up. He told us to get arrested,” Suzanne said.

  “What?” Jake sat up straight. “He told you to get arrested.”

  Zeke laughed. “Yes. He is my favorite uncle. Nothing major, he said. Just disorderly. So, we started a bar fight.”

  “Started a bar fight?” Jake asked.

  “Yes. Actually, it was Suzanne who started it.”

  Jake turned to her. “You started a bar fight.”

  Suzanne smiled. “Yes. We came in with a few friends. I picked a couple, a young woman and a man, and walked up to them. I slapped the girl and poured beer over her and told her to stop sleeping with my boyfriend. Then I turned to the man and said he was horrible in bed and why was he with this slut. Then I threw his beer over another man. The girl went at me, of course, so I dumped her onto a table. Then Zeke came up and pushed the man into his friends, who joined in, and so did our friends. Then it started rolling around the bar. It was great fun.” Her eyes danced.

  “Who was the girl?” Jake asked.

  Suzanne shrugged. “No idea. I did not hit her hard. She should be okay.”

  “Was she sleeping with your boyfriend?”

  “I do not think so. She could have been.” Suzanne grinned. “I had many boyfriends.”

  “So, the police broke up the fight and sent you to militia?” Jake asked.

  Suzanne looked a bit guilty. “Well, there was more. There was a birthday group at the other table, and they had candles.”

  Zeke interrupted. “Suzanne burned the bar down.”

  “What?” said Jake.

  “It was not just me. You helped. But yes, there was a fire. Then a lot of shoving and running. Nobody was hurt, but the bar was damaged.”

  “Destroyed,” said Zeke.

  “Damaged,” said Suzanne firmly.

  “So, what happened next? How did you get up here?” Jake asked.

  “Well, the plan was we would get thirty days in jail, then our uncle would arrange for us to offer to volunteer for the Militia instead. Young people, just learning, not bad kids, need a second chance, all that. We would have no record and we would get trained, get paid, see some of the planet, get an education, get our teeth fixed.”

  “Your teeth fixed?” Jake asked.

  “The whole family has problems with wisdom teeth. By the time we are mid-20’s they impact very painfully. We all end up with either huge dental bills or lots of pain. We tried to time it so we’d be in the Militia long enough to get our teeth pulled,” Zeke said.

  Suzanne shrugged. “Instead, we got four years for inciting a riot, plus we have to pay restitution, which we don’t have. Our uncle pulled a few strings, and TGI bought us out as indentured servants, then loaned us to the Militia. After TGI paid our bill, they own us for four years. Apparently, TGI has to supply people to the Militia at their own expense, so they took us in and gave us to the Militia. So now we are criminals. But if we go to space for four years, it’s forgotten. It’s not so bad.”

  Jake shook his head. “I haven’t heard of indentured servants before.”

  “It’s a new thing,” said Zeke. “But enough about us. Tell us about your station. We have never met somebody from space before.”

  Jake told them something of Rim-37. Living at the edge of the rings, just getting by. Being poor. Eating the same food trays for weeks at a time. Mining for nickel and iron and aluminum. His scholarship to TGI. Going to the merchant’s academy. They were particularly interested in how he made his way to militia training.

  “It all sounds very interesting. You had a scholarship to the merchant’s academy,” said Zeke, “You must be very smart.” He poured them both another beer.

  “I’m smart about some things but pretty dumb about others,” said Jake, thinking of all the stupid things that he had done. “But I graduated and here I am.”

  “So, why are you here, at this training,” asked Zeke.

  “Like you, I got in trouble in a bar. I owe some money. So, it was the Militia or jail.”

  Zeke looked at Suzanne and they both laughed.

  “What?” Jake said.

  “There has to be more to it than that,” Zeke said. “They do not send you here unless you really screwed up. ‘Trouble in a bar’ is pretty vague. You must have a better story.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Jake said.

  “You might as well. We are all here together for now. Did you kill somebody?”

  “No. They would have sent me to south continent for that.”

  “So. Hurt somebody?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bad?”

  “He’s still in the hospital, I think.”

  “Huh. You are lucky they didn’t send you south. But there’s more, is there not?”

  Jake drained his beer and stared at his glass for a moment. He looked at Zeke. “I had graduated from school with a merchant officer’s degree. I had a great job working for one of the corps. My boss trusted me with an important job. It was simple. It was easy. And it was my first one. All I had to do was meet a guy in a bar and take a chip from him.”
Jake reached over and took the pitcher of beer and poured the remainder into his glass. He signaled for a new one.

  “Instead, I tried to impress some girls, got drunk, got my money stolen, got in a fight, and got sent to jail. When they fired me and sent me to the Militia, I was sitting with a busted face and vomit in my hair. So, here I am. If I screw this up, its back to jail, and then after jail they’ll dump me on some out system transport and I’ll end up back at Rim-37 working on the loading dock, which is what I tried to get away from. That is, if they don’t drop me off on a beach on the south continent somewhere with seven days food and a knife.”

  “Huh,” Zeke said, draining his glass. “Drunk, bar fight, jail. Did you at least get the girl?”

  “No.”

  Zeke helped himself to more beer. “Then it was definitely not worth it.”

  ***

  Jake stopped shooting the revolver and carbine completely and concentrated on the shotgun and the boarding course.

  “There are two ways to pass,” Sergeant Russell said. “Target shooting with all three weapons, getting an 80% average score over all three, or running the course with a weapon of your choice and getting an 80% score. There is no chance of you getting 80% target shooting, Stewart, so you’re going to run the course with a shotgun.”

  The boarding course was a long hallway to a simulated airlock, followed by a simulated breaching, then another hallway, a turn, through two compartments, ending in a simulated engine room. Targets appeared behind doors, around corners, across halls. Some targets had to be shot, some had to not be shot. Points were deducted for hitting equipment or bystanders.

  Jake went through the course at least twenty times. He was a disaster. Twice he got zero points. Once, he got negative points because he somehow shot all the bystanders but none of the targets. That had never happened before, and they had to call in a technician to reset the computer before the next person ran through. Zeke and Suzanne were running on the course behind Jake, but luckily they couldn’t see his run or his shooting. He was mortified.