Wreckers: A Denver Boyd Novel

while my mind was wandering.
“The heat dampers? Are you sure?” I asked.
She bristled at the question. “Of course I’m sure.”
“And central engineering confirmed?” I pressed.
Central engineering was the federation’s tech support, an off-site team of specialists who could assist on-site mechanics and engineers with repairs via video and audio sessions.
Instead of answering, Harber remained silent. I waited, but she just stood there. Not. Talking. It got awkward.
“You did check with them, right?”
“Can you fix it or not?” she barked.
“Uh, well I at least have an idea of the problem now,” I offered, heading over to the panel where the heat dampers were located.
Another red flag: they either hadn’t reported the issue to central engineering or Harber couldn’t tell me what they said.
“We already checked them,” said Harber, growing impatient.
I stopped for a moment, as a possible piece of the puzzle fell into place. Of course she already checked the dampers. For an engineer like Harber, things were absolute. If a part failed, you checked that part.
But my mechanic brain was used to improvising. To tinkering. I had inherited my uncle’s curious nature. What could cause the damper to fail, I mused. The obvious answer was the wire coupling. A mechanic would know that. And Batista was a mechanic.
As I unscrewed the access panel to the wiring stack, I knew that someone wanted me on that ship. Before I removed the cover, I looked over my shoulder at Harber.
“This could take a while. You seriously gonna hover like that for the next two hours?”
Harber grumbled and retreated over to her workstation about 20 feet away. I waited an extra beat to be sure nobody else was around, then unscrewed and flipped back the cover.
Bingo.
The wires were crossed. On purpose, based on the precise way they had been twisted out of position. And placed right next to them was a security remote, not unlike the one Jeffries had been holding in the interrogation room.
A short note was taped to the device. I read it. Then I re-read it. Then I pressed the button on the remote.
For a few moments, nothing happened. It was kinda anti-climactic, to be honest.
Eventually, an alarm pierced the air: “Security 3 Alert.”
I hurried over to Harber and asked her what was going on, even though I already knew the answer. “Escaped prisoner,” she blurted. “Stay here, wrecker.”
Harber snatched her weapon from its holster and stalked out of the engine room. Good. Now all I had to do was figure out how I was going to find —
“Took you long enough,” said Batista, appearing in the doorway Harber just left. She had blood on her shirt and a gun in her hands. It wasn’t pointing in my direction, but it wasn’t far off. “I thought you’d find that remote a lot quicker.”
“Alright, first of all, it was pretty damn quick. I had the unibrow wonder over there watching my every move,” I said. “And get that gun out of my face. I just helped you escape.”
“We haven’t escaped shit,” she replied. But she did lower the gun.
“Before we go any further, tell me what you know about Missura,” I demanded, holding up the note she had taped to the security device.
“Once we’re on your ship, safely undocked from this one, I’ll tell you what I know. And not a moment before.”
I stared at her for a few seconds as the alarm continued to blare. There was no compromise in her eyes.
“Get me to the airlock and I’ll do the rest,” I told her.
“You better do a few things along the way,” she warned, tossing me her gun. I caught the weapon as she produced another one from the back of her waistband. “We’re outnumbered 28 to 2.”
I smiled and handed the gun back to her. “I’m more of a tool guy,” I explained, pulling a steel wrench and an air pistol from my kit.
Batista whirled, flashing out a leg at the soldier rushing through the door. Her boot connected cleanly with the young man’s jaw, sending him plummeting to the deck. He was unconscious before he landed.
Mental note: don’t mess with the escaped-not-escaped-yet prisoner lady.
The corridor was deserted, save for Harber, who was slumped on the floor, bleeding from a gut wound. She moaned angrily as we stepped over her like a pile of dirty clothes.
I easily sidestepped her feeble attempt to trip me with her foot. Batista suddenly jabbed her palm in my chest and shoved me into an alcove. She pressed against me in the shadows as a soldier ran past.
“When was the last time you showered?” she whispered.
I had no idea. Somehow, despite being stuck in the same clothes for days in a hot interrogation room, she still smelled better than I did.
“I usually travel alone,” I managed. She waited another beat, which was fine with me — it was the most physical contact with a female I’d had in more than a year — then she stepped back into the corridor. She motioned for me to follow.
A second later, all hell broke loose.
Three soldiers turned the corner just as we reached the end of the corridor, where it forked off toward the cargo area.
Batista shot one of the men in the shoulder, but before she could aim at the second, larger fed, he knocked into her, ramming her smaller frame into the metal walls lining the ship. The brute force of the impact left a dent in the wall and dazed Batista. Meanwhile, the third dude swung at me with a standard regulation federation knife. He caught my upper arm with the swipe and I felt a searing pain as he went in for a stab.
This time I was ready. I grabbed his arm and twisted it with a quick burst of strength he wasn’t expecting. He shrieked as his elbow bent entirely the wrong way.
I kicked his legs out from under him and he landed, hard, on the floor. Before I could deliver a blow with my wrench, two thick arms wrapped around me