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  “Am I to understand that to be a job application?”

  The Miner shrugged. She felt dozens of stares, but didn’t take her eyes off him, either. “Not my best work. I let them get too close, even if I did need to borrow a weapon. I’d have been better off sticking closer to the pillar to use that as cover.” She gave him a lopsided grin. “Looked cool, though.”

  “Looked cool,” he said thoughtfully. “Why don’t you come up and have a drink. Thirsty work, fighting.”

  JOB INTERVIEW

  “There are some good fighters,” the man who introduced himself as Liam John Feeney said almost apologetically as they entered his sumptuously-appointed office. Real leather chairs, plush. The big banker’s desk was real wood, and the walls were lined with cabinets full of books – or at least the spines of books – and fronted with glass doors. The Miner stopped trying to calculate the cost of hauling that out to a backwater station.

  A big window overlooked the galleria; they must have been up against the outer hull. This had probably been the commandant’s office once upon a time, maybe even the original furnishings. It had sure come down in the world.

  “Most of them are shite,” Feeney continued, “but a few are good. I had one who was really something, but… Ah well, spilt milk, crying, et cetera. Whiskey?” He held up a crystal decanter, probably shaped-diamond by the way it caught the light. He seemed to be holding it expressly so that it would catch the light that way.

  “Don’t mind if I do,” said the Miner, and received a glass that fit neatly in her hand. No ice or water was offered or asked for. She sipped and suppressed the burning sensation in her throat. It tasted of smoke and malt, a clean sting. It’d been years. “Nice stuff.”

  “From home. I bring it out for special occasions.”

  He put it back on the sideboard and pulled another decanter closer to the front. The next drink would be the cheap stuff, apparently.

  “Is this a special occasion?”

  “I hope so.” He took a longer drink from his own glass, seemed to have to stop himself from draining it. He wasn’t a drunk, the Miner decided, but he wasn’t far from it. “You’re strong,” he said. “Talented. I need someone like you.”

  “That so?”

  “Yes, it’s so. I’ve had some setbacks lately, it’s no secret. That backstabbing witch Angelica, and Rat Bastard McMasters. I was here before them and I’ll be here after them, you hear me? This is my station.”

  His face grew red as he talked, and she wasn’t sure if it was the booze or the speech.

  “I don’t come cheap,” she said. “What do you need me for? Seems pretty quiet around here, I thought there’d be more action.”

  He gave her a sly look. “I knew you’d come looking for an opportunity. Preston said you shut him down, not to bother, but I had a feeling you just wanted the lay of the land.” He slapped his hand on his chair arm. “Well, by damn I’m just glad you came to me first. I’ll pay you ten thousand credits, and I’d like to see that troll squatting in my casino match it.”

  “Ten thousand…” she said, swirling the whiskey in her glass and watching it drain to the bottom in little columns.

  “To start,” he added when she’d been quiet too long. “That’s just the salary, you see. There are benefits. A man like me has lots of resources, not just money. You want to enjoy yourself, I can make sure that happens.” He studied her bored expression, and she pretended not to notice.

  “Hmm,” she said, and took a sip from her glass. It was very good stuff. She breathed in over the sip and felt the numbing smoky sensation roll over her tongue.

  “They’ll need a new chief of security when we’ve pushed McMasters out,” he added. “Nice cushy job, that, if you’re loyal.”

  “I’m not keen on cushy.”

  He slapped his armrest again and made a little fist-pump gesture. “I like that. By God I do. You remind me of me when I was younger. It’s money you want, it’s money you’ll get. You’ll swim in it. There’ll be profits like you’ve never seen when we take down the traitors, mark my words.”

  “So you want me to fight? I didn’t come here to cool my heels and talk about jam tomorrow.”

  He actually rubbed his hands together. She’d never seen anyone do that before. “Oh, yes, I want you to fight. My boys and girls downstairs have heart, but not much skill. Someone like you can rouse them, maybe teach them.”

  “Teaching’s boring. An open fight sounds better.”

  “Well…” He stopped rubbing his hands and picked up his whiskey glass for a tiny sip. “That’s delicate. If we push too hard, McMasters will take the traitor’s side. Even with you on board, I can’t afford that. We’re in a good position. We can be subtle.”

  The Miner scratched behind her ear. “Subtle sounds boring, too. I’d rather bust heads.”

  “Oho! Plenty of that, plenty of that, I promise you. Little fights, what you did just now, as often as you want to do that, I’ll be pleased as punch.”

  “McMasters won’t give you trouble over it?”

  He waved that away in a grand gesture. “I’ll handle him. You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”

  She pretended to mull it over. She swirled the remaining whiskey in the glass, enjoying the sharp earthy aroma that stung her nose. “The ten thousand’s up front, of course.”

  His face went wooden, and he struggled visibly to smile before he succeeded. “Yes, of course. You won’t see the traitor pay up front, by the way.”

  She wagged her head back and forth like listening to music. “All right.”

  Feeney slapped his thigh hard. “Splendid! Fantastic!” His enthusiasm dampened when she pushed her bank chip across the desk to him, but he took it in stride. He pulled from the top drawer a pad clad in brass and black leather, and did a double-take when he saw what came up.

  “Hah!” he said, then repeated it. “Cagey to the end, eh? Well, from one mick to another, I like it. What do I call you, anyhow?”

  She lazily scanned the titles on the shelf, and didn’t bother to hide it. “Jane works.”

  He smirked. “Austen or Eyre?”

  “Suit yourself.” He handed back the bank chip, holding it carefully like it contained the money he’d just transferred, marked “services to be rendered”. She put the chip in her pocket. “So who all works for you here? Whose heads shouldn’t I bash?”

  “Well, stay away from the Company Rep, of course. She’s expensive enough as it is, and she can cause more harm than I care to think about if she got bloody-minded about it. She’s not even on the station much these days anymore, just orbiting in her yacht. Mr Shine’s neutral–” He said the word like it was painful. The Miner perked up at the name, but he just continued on, “and I’d prefer him that way than teaming up with the witch. Most of the station employees are hiding under his petticoats, so leave them be. The dockmaster’s mine, though. That’s Preston, you met him. And Gordonson, the ore buyer, he’s mine.”

  The Miner looked up. “Gordonson? Really?”

  “Oh. You’ve met him too, eh? That’s right, they said you showed up with a shipful of ore. He didn’t drive too hard a bargain, I hope?”

  The Miner forced herself to laugh. “Nah, the miner I stole it all from might have objected to the price I got, but he’s in no position to complain.” Feeney joined her in another laugh, and she didn’t punch him. Instead she leaned forward, with her best worried expression. “No, the thing is… One of those kids I taught a lesson to just now, the one with the brass knuckles, I recognized her. She was hanging out in Gordonson’s office. I don’t mean to criticize, if you let him do business with Angelica, that’s your call. It just seems strange to me.”

  Feeney’s face went hard. “You sure about that?”

  The Miner was all surprise and fluster. “Seeing the kid you mean? Yeah. She was playing with a switchblade, though, not knuckles–”

  “That was her,” he said curtly. He struck the chair arm with his fist and swore. “Wh
ip, she’s called. My grandson used to walk out with her. It’s her grandmother’s blade.” He cursed again under his breath, then hit the armrest twice more, his face getting bright red, even showing red on his scalp beneath his thinning white hair.

  The Miner gave him a thoughtful look. “How fast does word get around here?”

  “Fast.”

  “You think he knows you’ve hired me yet?” She continued on without waiting for a response. “Only, I could go back and suss him out. Pretend I’m threatening to rat him out to you. See what he does. If he’s on the level he’ll just throw me out, right?”

  Feeney started nodded before she’d finished talking.

  “Do it. Go see him. If he’s dirty, then by God I want to know it.”

  The Miner tossed back the rest of the whiskey and coughed. It’d been too long since she’d been a serious drinker; she couldn’t do that anymore. She grimaced and slammed the glass down onto the big wooden banker’s desk. Her voice came out husky. “Consider it done.”

  ANGELICA’S CREW HAVE A PLAN

  “We’re gonna grab ’em and we’re gonna kick their asses, that’s what ‘the plan’ is.” Carter was still pissed off, as he’d repeatedly told everyone in the casino until Bex was ready to strangle him. That crazy chick who joined Feeney had broken his collarbone, and his attempts to make his sling look badass with black faux-leather and metal studs and a skull imprint all mostly just made it look stupid, which pissed him off even more. Bex was sick of listening to him whine, and anyway she’d got hurt too; she had this giant bruise on her stomach where that chick had hit her, so that it hurt to stand up or sit down. But Raj was off doing God-knows-what, and Angelica was sulking in her office overlooking the casino floor after yelling at them, so in Carter’s tiny little brain he figured that meant he was kind of in charge.

  “That’s not a plan,” Whip retorted, playing with her new brass knuckles by twirling them on her pinky. She sat cross-legged on her stool in front of one of the working slot machines. “That’s just a goal, right. The plan’s how you make the goal happen.” She’d been embarrassed to not have gotten beat up with Chuckie, Carter, and Bex – as well she should have been, cutting and running like that – so Bex figured all this “I’m so smart” shit was just bravado to keep them from ragging on her. Carter glared at her and she rolled her eyes.

  “We’ll play it by ear,” Carter said, jutting his chin like it substituted for an actual argument.

  Whip rolled her eyes again on cue. “What about you, Chuckie? Are you in on this ‘play it by ear and magically kick their asses’ plan?”

  Chuckie took the ice pack away from his swollen bottom lip and its ugly new black stitches with the ends sticking out like cactus spines. “I’m good,” he said, his voice thick and hard to understand. He didn’t look at them when he talked, just kept staring out the front windows into the galleria. “I got my own plan.”

  He didn’t elaborate, just got up and left by the back. The others silently watched him weave through the short rows of slot machines and the roulette tables covered in junk.

  “Jesus fuck, that had to hurt,” Bex said, craning her head around the machines to make sure he couldn’t hear. “She just fucking ripped it out, man.”

  “That’s why we gotta get revenge,” Carter said, warming again to his favorite topic. “We let Feeney’s feebs roll us like that, they’re gonna think they can do that whenever they want.”

  “This new one’s not so feeble,” Whip said. “I met her right off the ship, right? And she took my grandma’s knife right off me.”

  “You never said,” Bex accused.

  “Well I wouldn’t, would I? Fucking Raj…” She glanced up at Angelica’s office overhead, but didn’t see the black-clad woman in her usual window. She lowered her voice anyway. “Fucking Raj abandoned me, right? What was I supposed to do?”

  “Guys, guys, guys,” Carter talked over her before she got going on that again. “Shut up. We’re not going after the new chick. Whoever she is, she’s actually good. We go after the morons, and make it clear that she’s why. Let them deal with her.”

  Silence descended on the three of them, leaving only the faint binging and whirring of the slot machines. Bex and Whip looked thoughtful.

  “That’s not,” Bex said slowly, “actually, if you think about it, completely fucking stupid.”

  “Gee,” Carter started to say, when he was cut off.

  “No, it isn’t stupid.”

  All three of them jumped at the sound of Angelica’s voice. Whip cursed herself for being surprised; this was a casino after all, and casinos were always rigged for surveillance.

  “Just be careful,” Angelica continued. “McMasters is already angry at the old man for that little display, and I would like him to stay angry. At the old man. Use the back passages. Stay away from Mr Shine.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” they said together.

  “Have fun. And Whip, dear? My brother did not ‘abandon’ you. If you can’t be trusted to do a job alone, just say so.”

  Whip flushed, and hurried out.

  PORCUPINE

  The Miner found her own way back down from Feeney’s office. It wasn’t hard – the upper level was small and connected to the rest of the hotel by the top of the grand staircase. The hotel was wide and squat rather than tall, with curved hallways stretching out either way from the lobby. The staircase continued down to the big space behind the storefronts. The galley had already been pointed out to her, and she was lured by the sound of voices from the hotel bar.

  She knew the tone of gossip when she heard it, and figured – rightly – that she knew the topic too. Walking softly, she took up a spot outside the door where she could hear but not be seen.

  “Still, that was something else!” someone was saying. “I’ve never seen anybody fight like that, not even Nuke!”

  “Nuke didn’t have to fight.”

  “Whatever. You don’t have to lick his ass anymore, he’s long gone. This chick is amazing. That was some serious special forces shit she pulled out there!”

  “Who’s licking whose ass now?”

  Someone else grumbled loud enough to be heard over their ensuing argument, “You ask me, she should have killed them.”

  A drunk kid stumbled out of the door. She wobbled, straightened up, and then stared at the Miner, first in incomprehension and then with wide panicked eyes. The Miner lifted a finger to her lips and said, “Shhh!” The drunk giggled and crouched behind the wall on the other side of the door. They both leaned in to listen.

  “And those scars,” said a female voice dripping scorn. “What’s up with those? It’s gross.”

  “She looks like she was fucking tortured or something,” said a male voice.

  “She looks like she went down on a porcupine.”

  The drunk went wide-eyed again, and gave the Miner a panicked look. Then she mashed her finger to her own lips and lurched away down the hall toward the galley. The Miner herself chose that moment to make her entrance, enjoying the abrupt halt in laughter and the flustered looks and hurried attempts to seem to be talking and laughing about anything but her. The eight or so hired toughs filling the tiny bar looked rangy and stringy instead of lean and hungry. Most of the faces were adorned with tattoos, spikes, rings, or genemods, all mostly the work of lesser artists, though the mod behind the spiral horns on the guy in the back must have had some talent. Dozens of weapons littered tables, bar, and belts, outnumbering the toughs: knives, mostly, some tasers, and stun batons. A couple rods and pipes, some with printed heads to make maces. A few more interesting weapons, like the cutlass-looking thing on the bar, or the pair of metal nunchucks nestled in cloth loops on that guy’s belt. The Miner had yet to see anyone successfully use nunchucks to hurt anyone but themselves, and she didn’t expect that weedy-looking bruised punk to break her streak.

  She talked to nobody in particular, and they stared into glasses of pale liquor, but the hush that descended on the room made it clear they
were listening. “This one’s a bullet wound,” she said, pointing to the faint groove dug into the side of her right cheek where the cheekbone wasn’t as prominent as on the other side. “Incendiary round, hurt like a sonofabitch. This one’s where my lower jaw was broken in six places and replaced pretty much whole.” She brushed her fingers against the left side, still not looking at anyone, just out into space like she was reminiscing out loud. Her hand went up to her left temple. “These are from buckshot, which got the eye, too.” She made the iris dilate and contract.

  “These were a flamethrower accident,” she said, flexing her left hand so that it was obvious that the pinky and ring fingers didn’t move much. She moved her right hand back up to her face and pointed with the middle finger at a spot on her left cheekbone, aimed at a trio of beet-red faces.

  “And that was the porcupine.”

  Dead silence loomed as the faces reddened further, their owners looking like they wanted to shrivel up and die. The Miner twitched the corner of her mouth up, and the room erupted in raucous, relieved laughter.

  SUPPLIES

  The Miner strolled back to the dock, taking the rear exit from the hotel. The back passage looked about the same as the one she’d taken before, but with more random trash and a stronger urine smell. She nodded politely to the dockmaster sitting staring at something in his shack; even if she hadn’t guessed what he was so absorbed by, the fact he leapt from his chair and stood at a ridiculous semblance of attention clued her in that he’d gained a newfound respect for her.

  “Afternoon,” she said nonchalantly. “Thanks for the tip.”

  When he looked at sea for a moment she added, “Feeney. Looking for people. Thanks. It turned out all right for me.”

  “Oh, uh. Yeah! Any time, ma’am.”

  Ma’am. Wasn’t that something. She turned to go, but he cleared his throat. He glanced down at his hands. “Uh… Just thought you should know, Mr Feeney asked me to make sure the docking clamps were nice and tight on your ship. Make sure your, uh, property doesn’t get damaged if there’s a gravity glitch or something.”