The Star Pirate's Folly

Chapter 5: Dreadstar

It took about forty minutes for the emergency workers to arrive and get them out of the elevator. By that time the rest of the hotel had been evacuated. The explosion was in 302, Slack Dog's room. It was loud, but not very damaging—both the bathroom door and the door to the room were shut, so the damage was contained to just one casualty. They said the bomb had been placed at the victim's feet when he was on the toilet. All of Slack Dog's stuff except his missing suitcases had been thrown into the bathroom with him, as had all of the room's computer equipment.

While Hargrove dealt with the police, Buttercup slipped up the stairs to her room and sat at her desk in front of her viewscreen. It woke at her presence and projected a keyboard onto the desk. Buttercup ticked her passcode into the keyboard with a familiar flurry and opened the Hotel Employee Portal program. It presented her with a username and password, and she typed in Hargrove's administrator credentials—Buttercup learned long ago that he never bothered changing anything.

She clicked through some files and folders until she found the security footage from the camera outside room 302. She sped past her confrontation with Lee and watched herself walk into the elevator. When the doors closed Lee used some kind of device on the lock to open the door to 302. A few minutes went by and he emerged from the room with Slack Dog's luggage, took the stairs down to the ground floor, and made his exit.

Buttercup thought again of Lee's bounty, and cursed herself for not recognizing him. He was wanted for piracy, kidnapping, murder, and a plethora of smaller charges in the outer rim. And now this. Slack Dog must have had something valuable in those cases for Lee to have come all that way, but what? More of those black coins? And why the bomb?

She'd heard from various patrons recently that the pirates were growing stronger and bolder every year, but Hargrove usually dismissed such talk and said it's bad for business. This was different. Brazen. They'd never come to Surface before.

It was always quick strikes on the shipping lanes, one or two vessels captured or looted, and then they would vanish before anyone could respond. Or they'd blockade some outlying moon base and ransack it. Why a bomb? He could have just shot, stabbed, or strangled Slack Dog—the old fool was in no state to defend himself. It didn't make sense for Lee to broadcast his presence when he still had to get off-planet.

But then, Lee hadn't been expecting anyone to see him. And certainly not anyone who would recognize him. A bounty hunter wouldn't be looking for him where they weren't expecting him—most of them stuck to the outer rim, where the biggest bounties were. Maybe the bomb was supposed to be a distraction, to allow him to escape.

If that was his intention, it backfired. There was no way he had time to get back up to the station where his ship was docked. They'd probably flag it and alert the station's guards that Lee was headed their way.Most likely, if he hadn't been caught already trying to get offworld, Jensen Lee was stuck in the city somewhere—her city, she thought fiercely—with his stolen suitcases.

And he'd just kicked the hornet's nest. Half the police force would be after him. With its domed roof and airlocks, the city was practically a prison already. The police would post guards at all the exits and comb the city for him. It would only be a matter of time until Lee was caught. Buttercup opened a browser window and searched for news on the incident.

The local media was having a field day—this was the biggest story in years, even bigger than the Fated Lovers. Buttercup swiped through news video after news video, talking head after talking head, and learned nothing more than she already knew. Then she landed on a live feed where the reporter was standing with his back to one of the sealed-off airlocks. Two Capitol City officers leaned against the airlock in the background, protected from the gathering crowd by police barriers.