Crash rented a van—not a hovering one, though—with eight seats in the back and enough luggage room for a small horse. The seats were handy, I guess, but I had a suspicion she’d only picked it because her other options were rattling ex-military jeeps and frustratingly gutless electrics.
Saint-Marc, or San-Mak in the local Creole, was a bustling, sweaty port near the equator of Haiti-Nouveau. With Crash at the wheel, the van slid to a stop by the curb, near Admiral Morgan’s Tavern and Grill. Danny, Crash and I walked inside and quickly found Joey Pak sitting with young Jace. We greeted them and squeezed into the booth.
“I’ll tell you straight up, put your mind at ease and all,” said Joey, “Veraa’s doing fine. Doc’s got her under observation, but she’s made a swift recovery. Last I checked she was still a bit groggy, but she’s walking and talking.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back against the vinyl seat. “Great. Thanks for taking care of her.”
“Our pleasure. Now what became of those parachutes? Got them aboard the Raven?”
Danny and I glanced at each other a little uneasily. “Uh, yeah, about that…” I began.
Five minutes later, the five of us walked out to the van. Jace sat up front with Crash and navigated for her, taking us to the Argos’ dock. We had to park outside the concrete blast shields around the heavy freighter dock, so we walked through to the ship and found Veraa sitting on the cargo ramp. She had her knees tucked up to her chest and a little bandaid on the side of her neck, and when she saw us approaching she jumped to her feet and ran toward us. She sprang into my arms and kissed me, and I hoisted her into the air. Danny clapped me on the back and Crash made an uncharacteristic, un-ironic ‘dawwwww’ noise. They kept walking, heading up into the ship with Jace and Joey, to fetch our bags and gear.
“I missed you,” she whispered, with her arms still wrapped around my neck.
“Missed you too. I was worried as hell.”
“I’m tough,” she said simply, leaning back to smile at me. “Wasn’t going to let a little poison take me out.”
“You’d make a good Marine.”
“Funny you should mention that. Seeing as I had about two days to lie on my back and do nothing, I did some thinking. I figure joining the Marines is a great way to do something useful and earn good money doing it.”
“Well, an enlisted term of service is only four years, including your training, and in that time you’d earn about a hundred thousand plat after taxes. Sounds like a sensible option.”
She gave me a smile that almost showed disappointment. “I was expecting a whole lecture about how dangerous it would be, seeing as we’re in the middle of a war.”
“Not my place to say. Sure, military life is dangerous, but you’re trained well. If you want to join the Marine Corps, who am I to stop you? You’re an adult, and you should make the choice yourself.”
She grinned. “Thanks, Sam. I wasn’t expecting that kind of answer, but now that I’ve heard it I appreciate that more.”
Forty minutes later, things were finally winding down. We’d found Vig, and for that I was glad. We spent a few minutes getting our stories straight, before we went down to the hold, both of us armed with pistols. O’Maera was still cuffed to the Longline, under the watchful eye of one of Vaughn’s sailors. Once the sailor had shown himself out, the girl got to her feet and eyed the weapons strapped to our thighs. Her left arm was still cuffed securely to the roll cage.
“So, what’s it going to be, Miss Scarlett?” I began.
She heaved a sigh. “I tell you what, Kelly, I’ll make you a deal.”
“I’m amenable.”
“I’ll do as ye say, go along with yer story, for the modest sum of a thousand Platinum.”
“Five hundred.”
“One grand, or nowt.”
I pretended to think for a moment. We both knew we were just playing games now: me buying her cooperation might give her a little more credibility with the judge. Confederate JAGs were notorious for their stringent suspicion of Socialist defectors. “Full cooperation?”
“Aye.”
“Deal. One thousand. I’ll have the ship’s captain hold it in escrow for you, seeing as he’s the closest thing to a neutral party around here. If this all goes to plan, you’ll be a grand richer in as little as a week.”
“Deal. Okay, cut me loose of this dune buggy and we can go get arrested.”
I cut the flex-cuff, and she rubbed her wrist.
“Saddens me to know I’ll be back in cuffs shortly,” she said chuckled, brushing her dark hair out of her eyes. “I’ll no get much time to enjoy the use of both me ‘ands.”
Soon enough, O’Maera, Vig and I got ready to climb out of the van as it parked across the road from a police station. Crash’s eyes were red as she turned around in the driver’s seat.
“See you guys later, eh?” she said hoarsely.
I smiled warmly at her. “Yeah, we’ll see you again real soon.”
Danny shook my hand vigourously. “You stay safe, y’here me? All of you. And don’t drop the soap.”
“What’ll you two do now?” Vig asked. He had slept for most of the trip back to Confederate space, and was now clean and fresh. “I mean, Sammy said you guys owed some money to some guy.”
“We’re headed for Port-au-Prince, to meet up with Fraz,” said Danny. “We’ll try begging for another extension, and if that fails we’ll work for him until we pay him off.”
Crash and Vig looked at each other for a moment.
“How much—“ began Vig.
“Don’t even think it,” said Crash. “Sam already offered. We’ll do fine on our own. We want to do it right, and get on the straight and narrow again. Thank you, though.”
Vig nodded. “You keep safe, Ash.”
Veraa, sitting beside me, suddenly burst into tears. I hugged her and stroked her hair.
“It’s okay, honey, we’ll all be fine. I got this all figured, and I’ve got a friend backing me up. You just focus on becoming a Marine, yeah?”
She nodded, sniffling. “Yep. I’ll see you soon, Sam.”
Vig, O’Maera and I stepped out onto the street.
“See you guys on the flip side,” said Vig with a grin. “It was nice working with you, albeit only for a little while.”
The van door slid closed, and Crash drove off. They were going to drop Veraa directly at the recruiting office, and we’d scraped together enough money for food and a hotel room until her ship-out date. Vaughn had promised to stay in-system until then, just a phonecall away.
O’Maera shrugged off her uniform blazer and loosened her tie. “Bloody hot down here.”
“Hotter than Ispania, at any rate,” I shrugged.
“Pfah. Hotter than Hades, to be sure.”
“Don’t worry, this place looks air-conditioned,” said Vig.
We crossed the street and stepped into the police station. The officer at the desk looked up and spied O’Maera’s uniform, and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. I held my ID card—my real one—up against the glass, while Vig tugged his dogtags out from under his shirt.
“Lieutenant Kelly, Navy. We’re turning ourselves in.”
“Uh, I, wait,” he said, reaching for an intercom set, “who’s… Sorry, can we start again?”
He looked to be native Haitian, but had a London accent with a slight speech impediment. His crisp, khaki uniform shirt had a name badge on the pocket that identified him as ‘R. Préval’.
“Lieutenant Kelly, Confederate Navy. Look me up, there’s an eight-month-old BOLO on me, and my brother as well.”
“Hi,” said Vig, with a wave. “Staff Sergeant Kelly, CMC Marine Recon. I’m a felon too,” he added cheerfully.
“And you?” the cop asked O’Maera.
She grinned. “Lieutenant Junior Grade O’Maera. I’m a Socialist defector, I am. Come on, show me what ya got.”
Five minutes later, we were in the drunk tank out back with a hobo and a nervous-looking junior sailor. I prowled back and forth at the bars, trying to keep my nerves under control.
“Eyah, yo mekkin’ me dizzy, mon,” slurred the hobo. “All yo walkin’, always be walkin’, mon.”
I paused and leaned up against the bars. “Sorry, mate.”
“No worries, mon,” he grinned, showing yellowed buck teeth through his scrubby beard.
Vig nodded at the junior sailor. “Hey, what’s your story?”
“Me? Oh, uh, nothing much.”
Vig and I glanced at each other at this slightly offbeat answer. O’Maera suppressed a chuckle. “You drunk, lad?” she asked.
“What? Surely not,” I laughed. “Kid’s way too straight-laced for that. Go on, sunshine, what you done?”
“Hey man, I’ll have you know, I’m not some… some, uh, I dunno, nerd or something,” he said unsteadily, and I realised just how unfocussed his eyes were.
“First shore leave, huh?” asked Vig kindly.
The kid grinned sheepishly. “Heh, yeah.”
“You waiting for the screws to come get you?”
“Yeah, I’m s’posed be aboard th-the Curtin,” he said, and hiccupped. “Got picked up for being a little drunk.”
“It’s almost lunchtime and you’re still hammered,” I chuckled. “More than a little drunk, I’d say.”
“Hey man, well, you can… I dunno, get stuffed or something. That girl said yes, and I got witnesses and stuff, nothing funny going on, so they can just go to hell. And you can too.”
Vig cleared his throat softly. “Check yourself, sailor. That’s an officer you’re addressing.”
“Yeah, well, officers can go to hell too.”
Vig glanced at me, but I just shrugged. “Do what you want.”
He gave me a small smile and got up from his bench and walked over to stand in front of the sailor. The kid looked up at Vig smugly, thinking himself a genius. I had a suspicion that the kid would be reluctant to touch a bottle again after Vig was done.
“On your feet, sailor!” barked Vig, using his command voice. I wouldn’t be surprised if it could be heard from the street.
The kid jerked to his feet.
“Stand to attention!”
The kid stood straight and stiff as a board, albeit a slightly tilty, wobbly board about to fall over.
Vig put his face directly in line with the sailor’s, their noses a few inches apart. “Pull yourself together, sailor. You may be a drunken mess, but that’s no excuse to forget doctrine or regulations. It’s no excuse to disrespect an officer, either. Now, fix your uniform and straighten up. You can stand to until the Masters come for you.”
Vig turned away and sat down again. He’d always been a by-the-book Marine, and I liked that about him, but I still felt a little sorry for the kid.
Soon enough, a pair of Masters-at-Arms arrived outside the cell, wearing blue shore duty uniforms and with holsters on their hips.
“Seaman Fredricks,” said the leader, a Petty Officer.
“Here, PO,” said the sailor at once, still standing to attention.
The two MAs took the sailor, leaving the rest of us chuckling. No more than a minute later, seven people arrived outside the cell: Constable Préval, four Marine MPs, a Marine Lieutenant with the collar tabs of a legal officer, and John Casey in a dark business suit.
“G’day, Sam, Vig,” he said, his tone downbeat and somber. He gestured to the Lieutenant. “This is Pete Carson, your new lawyer.”
Préval unlocked the cell, and the MPs stepped inside. Vig, O’Maera and I were handcuffed and led out to a troop truck.
Vig and I were on our way to a court-martial, facing a trial that could determine the next twenty-five years of our lives. Needless to say, I was less than thrilled.
Life on the Fringes 