“Where is this scrapyard?” Dawn said while she scanned the distant piers for Wagner and other faces she knew. According to the last dredger she’d met with, their graveyard of old machines was the only place she could get her hands on a combination chamber for the Arcadia’s Chrysum processor.
“Down Triton Street,” the dredger told her. Dawn turned to find his thick fingers pointing at a branch from the main pier. It ran through a narrow gap between Nereid’s Slushpit and a thermal outfitter. From outside, Dawn couldn’t see a thing down the path.
“Alright. Think I’ll wait for the rest of my crew to get here, so we can carry it together,” she said.
“Deal happens now, while our supervisor is out. You can imagine he doesn’t like us salvaging company parts to sell to offworlders,” the dredger insisted. Dawn’s mind already lingered uncomfortably on the story Miller had told her in the gym. When the dredger put a hand on her, she knew she was living it. He was an enormous statue of a man - his fingers easily outsizing Dawn’s entire shoulder. He was accompanied by a pony-tailed woman about Dawn’s size, and two men that made up for their lack in mass with crooked, hungry smiles. Dawn spun to slap the man’s hand away. “You don’t want the part?”
“I want all of my parts, thank you,” Dawn bit, “We can afford to wait a minute for my crew to get here.” The dredger reached again, this time with both hands. Dawn tried to shuffle away, but he grasped the outsides of her arms.
“Go,” he said, “Go in the alleyway.” He and Dawn both knew what he meant. Go where no one will hear us kill you. She took a deep, shaky breath to channel the real fear in her heart. They had to believe it. Dawn turned for the narrow walkway that was Triton Street, and began to walk.
“Do most people actually buy it... after you build rapport by handing over smaller merchandise they pay for inside?” she asked. Her jacket was heavy with devices she’d already paid them for. And they’ll get it all back to sell again, Dawn realized. She felt the grip of the dredger’s fingers with the bulging muscle in her arms. It felt like strength with no technique. The huge dredger waited until Dawn was at the mouth of the alley to answer.
“Anything going through that brain of yours right now is wasted knowledge. It’ll be gone soon,” he said. Around the middle of the sentence, Dawn lifted her foot in front of her. At the end of the word soon, she swung it back. Her heel traveled in a visceral arc, up behind her, straight into the dredger’s groin. Dawn caught him off guard; he buckled. She kicked her head back. The back of Dawn’s skull collided with the front of the dredger’s so hard, he collapsed. She wheeled on the draw of her fuse-gun.
“He-he-help!” one of the other dredgers screamed for the street. Dawn put a Chrysum bolt through his thigh. Light and blood poured through the steel planks of the pier. He went down.
“Acting Captain of the SS Arcadia and WCC Admiral Dawn Redding. I am the help!” Dawn shouted. She froze just a second too long when the remaining pair of Dredgers charged, rather than fled. Dawn seared a hole in the gut of the last man standing. He tumbled. The woman got to her just too quickly. She seized Dawn’s wrists to jerk her gun up.
“About time!” said the woman. Dawn didn’t have time to figure out who she was talking to before she felt arms around her waist. A fifth, hidden member of their robbing contingent had come from the back door of the outfitter. The arms jerked Dawn backwards, away from the ponytailed woman. She slapped Dawn’s fuse-gun hard enough to dislodge it from her grip. It clattered across the steel planks into the slush.
“Just finish her!” the unseen captor shouted from behind.
“Didn’t you hear the ransom she’d fetch?” the ponytailed woman smirked, “Captain and Admiral! Just hold her still while I…” she reached into her belt for a handheld Chrysum rod. The woman snapped it out and flicked a switch on its handle. White sparks jumped from its tip.
“Dawn!” she hardly believed the voice that filled the alley, even less the action that followed. Wagner. He drove a fist into the side of the ponytailed woman’s head. One bloody strike folded her over the railing like a wet towel. Wagner took an instinctual step around her, towards Dawn. The final assailant yanked her in front of him as a shield. Stunned as she was by Wagner’s display of raw strength, Dawn thought to thrash.
She swung her body so violently, she managed to turn her captor sideways. She got her shoes up on the railing and kicked. She and her attacker crashed into the one behind them. It squeezed the air out of him. She never even saw what he looked like, and knew it was a man only by voice. As soon as his arms loosened, Dawn reached over her shoulders to grab him. She folded to hurl the man over the rails, into the slush. In seconds, his body-shaped impression had already sealed with melting crystals. His screams were buried along with him. The man was frozen solid long before he reached the icy crust.
“Are you alright?” Dawn spun to strike. She stayed her fist an inch from Wagner’s face. A shaky sigh untensed her knuckles.
“Thanks to you,” she said.
“Thanks to… Dawn, you took out four of those five dredgers just now. Alone. I’m not sure if I’m more impressed or frightened,” Wagner said through an uncomfortable smile. “What in the hell were you doing back here alone, anyway?” Dawn took a few heaves to compose herself in the semblance of an Admiral-turned-Captain. She made it about halfway before she gave up and said,
“Those guys sold me some of the smaller stuff we needed. Said they had a combination chamber back here, at the dredger scrapyard. I tried to wait for you and the others, but… they knew I was onto them.” Wagner nodded throughout, though he looked anything but accepting.
“Geez, Dawn… be more careful, will you? Not exactly interested in a promotion myself, if anything happens to you,” he said.
“I will,” Dawn chuckled, “Hey, where are the others?”
“On their way, I’d bet. We were in the bar looking for you. I just happened to take a look outside,” said Wagner, “You’ve done… too much, Dawn. I know Miller made you Captain even though you just joined us, but part of that is delegating. The crew will respect what you did here. Now go back to the Arcadia and rest. We’ll take care of the scrapyard deal. I’ll talk to their manager about what they’re doing, and hold them to it.”
“But-
“Dawn, enough. Go,” said Wagner. Dawn was just tired enough to listen.
Wagner never went to the scrapyard. The man that came to Dawn’s aid on Triton Street, she found when she returned to the Arcadia, wasn’t Wagner at all.
“Thanks for saving my ass back there,” Dawn said to him.
“Back where?” was Wagner’s answer. He told her then that he’d never left the ship.
Wagner hadn’t joined the party that went down to the planet that backed her up. The man with his face left the alley as soon as Dawn did. He vanished into the dingiest bathroom of the most distant building he could find. He popped the colored contacts from his eyes and blinked them back to their true yellow. When Drogan saw Dawn on the deck of the Arcadia, he thought he recognized her from somewhere. Now he was sure.
Chapter Eleven: Anchors
“You don’t have to do this,” Howard’s voice bounced down a corridor of circuits and steel. He fixed conductor posts inside the walls. His fusion rod sparked hot enough to solder the loose cables. Each mechanical patch Howard pulled back from the walls of the Arcadia revealed another scorched connection in need of repair. Each part he replaced spread the healing blue light of Alice further.