Section 99 - A Good Man, Chapter 2

They scraped Weller up and carried him off. Telin tried to flag them down a hack twice, and neither were interested in stopping for a grim-eyed guy with heavy hands, carrying a half-beat to death faux dandy over his shoulders whose vocabulary had devolved to ‘slurs for Rhidlings’ and ‘gurgled pleas for help.’ Van told her to not bother. He held off on the part where this wasn’t the first time he’d had to carry a mostly-limp body long distance. They took Weller back to the launchfield Telin had her lander parked at. She and her extended family operated a cargo ship out of the port, and their lockup was a secure home away from home when they docked. They shot Weller up with a dose of medregen and stowed him in a storage locker with survival supplies for a few days at least. Van stole his phone, and his wallet. The phone was cracked and none of the numbers on the recent list had names assigned, but that was workable enough intel for Van. One of them even seemed familiar. If it wasn’t, he could always come back and have a face to face with Weller, once he realized what kind of trouble having an entire Rhidling clan all “stole the First Son” kinda angry at you. 

The wallet was for his troubles.

They took a moment to figure out what they were doing, an important and commonly overlooked part of any sort of community vigilante action, which they both quickly realized they both had experience with. Van was the field issuing agent for the Sendra bounty, which in turn made him an element under Section 99, the Freelands Community Defense framework- bodyguards, bounty hunters, militia forces, insurgent spec-ops, and even the people who register and serve contracts and payends. By his authority, he could send Weller off packing with Telin and her kin, and the most any legit governing body in the Freelands could say about it was “who ordered this?” Then Van could walk them down to a post office and show them, and unless someone had forgotten to cross a T or carry a one somewhere, their response would have to be “oh, okay.”

The problem was that Weller was functionally nobody, except for a slavemongering Dickhead. If illicit labor had a big box store, he’d be the guy with the nametag and the “I work on commission” smile. What he did have was the ability to confirm co-conspirators, which meant he could build a case for the local marshall service to mobilize in force, which was what Van was looking for. At the very least, he was looking at taking on a kidnap crew, and at worst, he was going to be dealing with the end distributors they sold to, all but guaranteed to have even more muscle than a group of armed and mobile jerks-for-hire. He needed muscle of his own if he was going to stand a chance at getting Taino back healthy.

He had a course of action, a place to go, and a person, perhaps people, to see. He just had one question left for now:

“You have a deeper drive in this than the reward?” he said to Telin.

“My father got shot by a cop when we were setting up for our last push to the Freelands.” she said. “While I dragged him aboard to safety, the Sendra volunteers running our security returned fire, sent them packing.”

Van made a sound like “hm” and nodded.

“The Sendra like to cause the right sort of trouble, and they protect what’s good, what needs helping. I think you know this.” she said.

Van paused. Then he made a sound like “hm” and nodded.

“You want to tell me about that?” she asked.

“If I get the time, sure,” he said. She smiled, and her tail flicked.

Telin took him by a two story heavy-shed on a warehouse row, sat beneath a huge break in the outer shell of the rock that opened into the “bay” of the debris belt. She dropped him at the corner of the next intersection, and he exited her car with a fake “okay, seeya later” and a smile that actually felt real. 

Starlight filtered between mineral-stippled space rocks and driller drones darted between them, schools of neon minnows directed by the control ships holding station nearby, giving the Port of St. Joseph its secondary industry. Big void-whales of cargo starships blinked proximity lights as groups or in sequence, pointing the comparatively tiny can-pushers to designated container slots on their hold racks, like tiny symbiote fish. Periodically one would leave station, and blink to FTL as its displacement jump fired, leaving a momentary rippling corona of redshift. A flaring of blueshift from off in the distance meant someone new was going to be pulling into port in the next half hour or so. It was pretty, but the sounds of shipping and the smell of ozone coming off the hot batteries of forklifts and haulers made it hard to appreciate.

He found the place, nothing special at first glance. But then he saw the sign over the door, and it made the anger rise in his guts: Safari Exotic Animal Cartage. He took a moment to swallow, and stop himself. He stowed the images of kicking doors and ripping throats until he could confirm he wasn’t about to butcher a bunch of innocent animal handlers.

So he waited, and blended in, waiting for the nature of the place to reveal itself. There were warehousers on break across the road, so he made himself useful with his lighter, and for a short time, he was a union guy among family. 

15 minutes passed. The building sat, lifeless, except for one lit window on the second floor. Haulers went up and down the street, and it was invisible to all of them. This was a busy place overall, a lot of resources and goods being received and shipped and stored, and exotic animals were not exactly the most in-demand thing in the Freelands, so this alone wasn’t a flag. And beyond that, what was 15 minutes in a stakeout?

At minute 20, he lit a spliff, and felt his aches and annoyances fade to the background. A big Cogitoi dude who looked like he could asteroid mine with his empty hands smirked and said “so I’m gonna guess you don’t work any heavy machinery?”

“Nothing except me,” he said.

The Cogitoi eyed him for a second, then gave him a hah, and said “You know what, fair enough.”

Minute 30, everyone that needed a smoke had one and went back to their shifts, and the warehouse yard started moving again. This was when Van began to feel distinctly angry at that stupid little building. Not because nothing was happening yet, he was still barely even there enough to count for casing the joint. No, it was because where once stood a multi-species throng of warehousers, in jumpsuits colour coded to role and hardhats either worn or hung on belts, it was now just him, wearing a long brown leather jacket, tacti-pants and shitkickers, smoking a blunt. He did not belong in this picture to an extreme degree. But if that was the case, why didn’t he feel eyes on him? There was no feeling that if he stayed leaned back, foot up on the yard wall like he was, someone was about to pick him off or drive by him. Why?

Telin told him: She and cousin Keeda were driving back from checking the warehouse prep on their next load out of port, and this was at around 10 midday on the local Metric time. From their position coming up the road that she had just driven him down, she and Keeda, who confirmed vociferously with functionally every word and phrase she knew in the English she was still in the early stages of learning, saw Kurt Weller step out of the back of a delivery van with a Rhidling teenager. They both said that he looked out of it, like he was hypnotized by the space traffic above, and that it looked like Weller was trying to drag him by the wrist. He had no reason to believe either were lying. It was obvious now that the building was lying to him. You’re a node in a slaving operation, he thought. Why don’t you hink me off?

He pulled Weller’s phone, and started looking for numbers from just before midday. He made three calls before 10. Van thumbed the first number.

One ring, automatic pickup. “Thanks for calling the Cascadian Astro Travel teleservice hub. To book interstellar passage, press 1.” He hung up. Weller was leaving town. Good to know, nothing he needed right now though.

Second number, the one that seemed familiar, go- two rings, sound of a handset being lifted. “Agnelli’s, this is Tommy, what can I get for you?”

“Sorry Tommy, pocket dialed!” Van said, his surprise forcing a smile before he hung up. Inwardly, Van felt a twinge of anger, realizing the Dickhead had a much better lunch than he did. He resolved to not let it slip to any of the good folks at Agnelli’s Pizza that they’d unwittingly served a slaver.

Third number, two rings, and the slightest feeling of movement nearby.

“Safari Exotic Animal Cartage.”

Hello, asshole, Van thought.

“Hey Tommy, it’s Alex. I’m gonna get a large Sicilian Pepperoni and a six pack of Dominguez lemon lime, let me send you my coordinates,” said Van, throwing a nonchalant cover over his voice. He looked in the lit window of the building. He thought he saw movement, but it could have been nothing.

“Sir, I think you have the wrong number,” said the voice on the other end, flat, dispassionate, but something else beneath it. Nervousness? Duress?

“Don’t call me sir, I work for a living.” Van snapped.

The light shifted in the lit window. Someone jerked, hand to head.

“Sir, excuse me?”

“I dialed Agnelli’s off my speed dial, how is it you got the pizza place’s number?”

“Sir, I don’t know what you’re talking about…” The figure in the window shifted again. Van began to cross the street. He eyed a side door around the corner from the two loading dock doors. The windows on the second floor were fitted with emergency releases onto the dock overhang, with an emergency ladder leading down. These were the emergency exits, and Van was willing to bet there was no back door.

“This a cloned phone? Don’t lie to me, I know how shit runs in these parts, everyone wants a number but nobody wants to do a proper setup and registry.” He noted on the door: keep clear- entrance/exit.

“Sir, this is an exotic animals shipping warehouse, not a pizza place,” Van peered back up to the window; the figure jerked, twisted, hand still to ear. Agitation hiding nerves, that’s what it was.

“So I go down to Agnelli’s and tell them I dial their number and got you instead, you think you’re ready to explain to them when they come down here that this is just a mistake?”

“Sir, hang up now, you have the wrong number,” The figure stood and barked into the phone. 

Van pulled his magnum and drew an outline around the figure in bullets, blowing the window over them in shards. In three sprinting steps, he’d stacked himself next to the exit door. He changed his magnum’s magazine for a fresh one and waited, for the sound of shouts, of feet coming down stairs, of backs of knees to stomp apart and heads to put his gun to. He heard wheezing coming from upstairs, through the wreckage, but only that. Then he saw the yardworkers he’d just been palling with poking heads around the corner of the gate. The big Cogitoi guy was standing in the open, his steel skull and mechanical anatomy significantly less afraid of bullets than most folk. Van read his face as a distinct The fuck are you doing?

Van gave him his own face back. I know what this looks like, you have no reason to trust me, but trust me.

The Cogitoi sneered and shook his head. 

Well shit, Van said to himself, and wrenched the door open.

The stairwell was clear from every angle. His footsteps were the only he could hear, and he was moving quiet. But he did hear movement, from two locations. One frantic, vibrating, near the window, the kind of energy that marked a threat if there was any sort of weaponry at hand- asshole on the phone. The second was quiet, shivery, someone that wanted to get loose but who was also afraid to to be heard or seen- a hostage? Taino?

It opened up into a big room, with cages more fit for veterinary restraint than healthy enclosure. They were empty, except one with a black sheet draped over the front, one that was shaking just slightly, against the wall. Van walked in a crouch, covering the door that he assumed led to what was the office. He drew the curtain back.

Slate gray, long ears, long silver hair and copper eyes. Arissyan. Pretty. Young adult. Their full length cramped up in a cage too small for a Terran, let alone a taller species on average. Not Taino, in need all the same. Van felt his anger rise again, and he swallowed it down.

“Nesima,” they said, voice half a whisper. Help me.

Van signed with Three Fingers, index and fore up, thumb folded- the peace sign, folded into a formalized interspecies nonverbal language as “I come in peace.” She looked at his gun, then looked at his eyes through his fingers. She thought for a split second, before nodding in a distinct “yes, okay, that’s what this means, right?” sort of way.

Pulled the curtain down and threw it across the room. He stacked by the office door. He heard wheezing through the door, muffled, frightened. 

Fuck it, he thought, and kicked it in.

---

The hump he dragged out of the office got it soft compared to Weller, on a count of the glass only pocking him slightly and the fact one good cuff to the side of the head made him drop to his hands and knees and plead for his life. So instead Van rolled him down the stairs, out the door the hard way and punted his ass into the street. The union folk across the road had apparently knocked heads together and decided to storm the castle after the gunman in the dark coat. When Van came out, they were mid-march across the street with their sleeves rolled up, and looked giga-scale pissed. Instead, the Arissiyan met them, shouting in Ieos, standing between them and Van with arms outstretched. Another Arissiyan from the yard, a slim stilt at least 2 meters tall dressed in the green jumper of a lifter operator, called back in loud whisper that came out more like a hiss. They locked hands to elbows and spoke closely for a tense moment, Arissiyan-quiet.

Then the one in green turned and said, “We’re helping the one in jacket now.”

The Hump was utterly subordinate, a clammy, squishy man named Kelso who had trouble speaking or even lifting his eyes off the pavement. He ran over and over the fact that he was leveraged into participation by debt like a dirty record, a man having a panic attack over all the people mistaking him for a slaver just because he had a pretty femme Arissiyan in a cage, awaiting transport.

Van poked him in the eye with his knuckle. “I’m going to go get your phone. You’re going to call the crew that brought in that Arissiyan. You’re going to bring them here, and you have no choice in the matter.” He leaned in and growled, “you manage to outrun these folks here, all of them? You still got me after you.”

That’s why the building failed to hink him off: a complete wimp ran the place, a dead body that could still snivel, someone so much an empty shirt and pants that nobody would ever expect him to have people locked in pet taxis inside his shitty little heavy shed.

When he came back down, the Arissiyan in green, a raspy but gentle soul named Pheron, told him he’d called an ambulance for the hostage. She was called Erys, and she preferred She rather than They.

“It’s here in 2 minutes,” Pheron said, their voice sounding like they’d been smoking Nichal reeds since age 6.

“You and the family here want to help put the rest of these assholes down?” Van asked them.

“Ah, most likely,” they said, like their breath would spread frost on a window.

Kelso spoke softly, in a voice that quavered. “I just nearly got knocked over, I need you to move up your schedule.”

The voice on the other end shouted. Kelso said, “I know.” The voice on the other end shouted a lot more. “I know, I know, but we are compromised here.” Van tuned his ears, and heard distinctly from the other end: “YOU ARE THE COMPROMISED ONE, FUCKER.”

“I know, but,” Kelso said. Curt shouting, with period points. “Okay, thank you, sir.”

Kelso let his arm go slack, and his phone clattered beside him. “Fifteen minutes,” he said, a voice like his own life force was draining out his open mouth.

The crew that showed up was Terran, three men, one woman, all of them doing their best to blend in with a panel van and courier uniforms. They paid no mind to the hauler that backed out from the neighboring warehouse, nor the forklifts that left the yard and blocked the other way down the street. When they knocked, the rolling loading doors opened and a mob of warehouse jumpsuits gave them the full-court press. One tried to pull a gun; from nowhere, the big Cogitoi was behind him, who sheared apart his gunhand shoulder with a single sledgehammer shot. This bought the rest of the crew a beatdown by apeshit-angry warehousers armed with steeltoes and pipe wrenches.

They bound them with zap straps, gagged them and shoved them into more of the vet cages they found on the first floor- Safari Exotic Animal Cartage had a lot of cartage, and absolutely zero exotic animals.

The big Cogitoi found Van in the mix. His name was Strydom

“I don’t know what to say to you, because I’m not the sort to be experienced with shit like this,” Strydom said, “so I guess what I’ll say is, goddamn, man, you need to learn how to ask better.”

“I’ll admit that,” Van said, shrugging. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, why not?”

“How does someone as big and as metal as you sneak up on someone like that?”

“I take dance class, it’s fun and good cross training,” Strydom said, totally forthright.

“No shit?”

“Mostly jazz and ballroom. Poise is important when you do heavy lifting.”

Despite everything, Van smiled at the guy. Port of St. Joseph was home to hard people, but good people all the same.