Ghost Jumper (Interstellar Getaway Pilot Book 2) by A. A. Warren

Author:A. A. Warren [Warren, A. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackwing Books
Published: 2024-06-11T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Come on, Trev, you drogo or something?” Joven Kosik asked between puffs of a cigar the size of a baby’s arm. Its trail of pungent smoke tainted the air in the cluttered shop. He’d put on weight since I’d last seen him, and Joven was never exactly a small guy. He was at least six foot three and built like a Vrell hover-tank. His round face and tiny eyes peered out from under a scuffed, battered flight helmet. It still had our old squadron symbol painted on the side. He must have kept it from the war.

He wore a black tank top and camo pants, and his belt was fighting a losing war against his belly. Some new tattoos decorated his massive biceps. Unit insignias, battle markings, and old Earth tribal designs covered the exposed skin of his arms.

Joven worked out of a secure bunker underneath an alien strip club. I could never pronounce the name of the place, but in Galacom, it was called Gold Excavators. I think it was supposed to be a play on old Earth slang, which was weird, since most humans avoided the place. The club was just a front for Joven’s real money-maker: stolen synths and a variety of other black-market tech.

The workshop we were standing in sat fifty meters beneath the club, and the lift car was only accessible through a security door that Joven had salvaged from the vault on a Dranth treasury ship. The thing’s armor plating was at least a meter thick and covered with a synthetic crystal film to diffuse bolters. And it was guarded 24/7 by a pair of synth bouncers. No one was getting in to see Joven without an invitation.

“Trev, you listening to me?” he continued as I looked around the place. A few worker drones cut into other deactivated synths, while others yanked chips from salvaged credit terminals. It was kind of creepy, seeing them tear apart technical bodies that looked just like them, no trace of emotion on their metal-and-polymer faces.

“You know I love ya, mate,” Joven said, taking the cigar out of his mouth. “But you coming here… that's bad for business. I thought we had an agreement.”

I poked his chest with my finger. Despite his girth, his muscles felt like slabs of iron underneath his shirt. Guess he worked out.

“Yeah, Joven, we had a deal. The deal was, I don’t cross the Syndicate. Ever.”

He actually looked hurt. The helmet jammed on his head made his face even rounder, like that of a cherubic baby. I almost wanted to laugh, but I was still pissed that he had gotten me into this mess.

He held up his hands. “Trev, you know me. I don’t deal with Syndicate stuff! I swear, I⁠—”

I pointed to Lynara. “Do you know who this is, Joven? Do you have any damn idea?”

The blue woman stood next to Xiri, a few meters behind me. She smiled and waved at us. Xiri seemed entranced by the workbenches covered with scavenged tech.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.