Moonlight Is Trouble

JAZ JONES — SPACE DETECTIVE A retro space adventure Another dangerous assignment, another corner of the universe, and another woman Jaz Jones won’t forget. The message interrupted Jaz Jones’s breakfast at nine seventeen, replacing a weather girl in a yellow jumpsuit with a black screen and a voice that sounded like a woman who expected doors to open before she reached them. “Bring Space Commander Emmylou Hunter safely back from the Moon.” Jaz stopped buttering her toast. Outside her apartment window, a freight shuttle dragged its dirty shadow across the neighboring tower. “Who the hell is this?” Her wrist terminal chimed. Thirty thousand credits. Jaz looked at the figure, then at the toast. “Does that include expenses?” The weather girl returned, still smiling beneath a map of acid rain moving toward the coast. Jaz waited another moment before finishing her coffee. Then she opened the wardrobe. The silver flight suit had a repaired seam over the left hip, the white boots needed polishing, and her ray pistol had developed an irritating tendency to fire slightly to the right. She put them on anyway. The next lunar mission left at noon. At ten forty, a reservations clerk informed her that every berth aboard the Diana was occupied. At ten forty-two, Jaz offered him money. At ten forty-three, he threatened to call security. By eleven fifteen, she was crawling inside a geological equipment container while a loading supervisor argued with somebody about missing paperwork. The container smelled of rubber, machine oil, and a technician’s abandoned lunch. Jaz pushed a seismic drill away from her ribs. “Thirty thousand,” she whispered. “You cheap bastard.” The lid shut. Forty minutes later, the launch countdown reached zero, and several million pounds of thrust persuaded Jaz to reconsider her career. The cargo technician found her thirty hours later, after the lander had settled on the Moon. She was sitting on a packing case with his emergency biscuit tin between her knees. For several seconds, neither spoke. Then he pointed. “Those are mine.” Jaz swallowed. “You ought to complain. They’re bloody awful.” Captain Vera Holt had close-cropped hair, broad shoulders, and the exhausted patience of a woman whose mission had already gone wrong before Jaz arrived. “A stowaway,” she said. “Detective.” “A stowaway with a gun.” “Now you’re getting the picture.” Holt placed both palms on the briefing table. “Commander Hunter is missing. Two people have nearly died searching for her, we have a damaged survey vehicle, and somebody keeps interfering with our long-range communications. Give me one reason I shouldn’t lock you in the toilet until we get home.” Jaz set her wrist terminal on the table and played the message. Holt listened twice. “Who sent that?” “I was hoping you knew.” The captain looked at her for a long moment, then pulled a folder from the wall rack. “Sit down.” Emmylou Hunter’s official photograph showed a copper-haired woman in a blue command uniform, her collar open and her expression suggesting that the photographer had already wasted enough of her morning. Jaz liked the mouth. She liked the eyes more. “Thirty-eight,” Holt said. “Survey commander. Former military. She went out to inspect Relay Station Seven three days ago.” “Alone?” “Routine maintenance.” “Those are usually the words they put at the beginning of an accident report.” Holt slid over photographs of an abandoned rover. Jaz studied the scraped panels, the empty seat, the instrument console. Then she leaned closer. “Somebody cleaned this.” “We examined it.” “No. Before you found it.” Across one lower panel, pale dust had been rubbed away in broad strokes around a scratched red emblem. A dagger through a crescent moon. Jaz tapped it. “The Crescent Dogs.” Holt’s expression hardened. “Pirates?” “Smugglers, kidnappers, whatever pays. They’ve been stealing equipment off supply routes for years.” “Security says they operate beyond Mars.” “Security should get out more.” The buggy had enough oxygen for six hours, enough battery for eight, and a heater that worked when Jaz hit the dashboard. She drove alone across a wilderness of white ridges and black shadows, following the route recorded in Emmylou’s abandoned rover. Forty minutes out, Holt’s voice crackled in her helmet. “Jones, you’re approaching the communications dead zone.” “Then I’ll try to have all my clever thoughts now.” “Be careful.” Jaz glanced toward the distant Earth, blue and small above the horizon. “Captain, I’m on the Moon in a borrowed buggy, looking for pirates. Careful went home hours ago.” The radio dissolved into static. She found the tracks beyond a low ridge: broad transport treads pressed over the rover’s narrower marks. They led toward an abandoned mining excavation where an ore crane stood motionless above a cutting, its enormous bucket still loaded with rock. Below it, a squat transport ship rested beside an old processing building. Camouflage netting covered the hull. Fresh cables connected the ship to the building. Jaz parked behind a spoil heap and climbed the ridge on her stomach. Through a dirty observation window, she saw Emmylou Hunter. The commander sat beneath a work light with her wrists fastened to the arms of a metal chair. Her lip was split. One cheek carried a dark bruise. Her blue uniform had been torn at the shoulder, exposing pale skin beneath the copper fall of her hair. Two guards watched her while a woman in a gold jumpsuit read from a tablet. Jaz tuned through the local frequencies until their voices entered her helmet. “Your buyer has confirmed,” the woman said. “Private transport from Mars will collect you in eleven hours.” Emmylou looked up. “And here I was hoping you’d sell me somewhere with decent weather.” The woman lowered the tablet. “You still think this is a ransom job.” “I think you should choose your next words carefully.” “You’re going to a private pleasure house outside New Alexandria, where the customers pay enough that nobody asks where the women came from.” Emmylou’s expression changed. The captain noticed. “There we are. Finally getting through.” “My command will find me.” “Your command will receive photographs of a wrecked rover and a damaged pressure suit. By the time they finish the memorial service, you’ll have another name, forged employment papers, and a debt you can spend the rest of your life failing to pay.” Emmylou pulled against the restraints. “I won’t do it.” The captain stepped closer. “You won’t choose your customers, Commander. You won’t choose your hours, and you won’t leave the building. If you refuse, they’ll hurt you until you understand the arrangement.” For a moment, the only sound came from a loose ventilation grille rattling above the door. Emmylou looked from the captain to the guards, searching their faces. Neither looked away. “You filthy bastards.” One guard struck the chair with his rifle butt. The captain raised a hand to stop him. “Mind the merchandise. She’s worth more without broken teeth.” Outside the window, Jaz went very still. She had heard enough. She drew her pistol, checked the charge, and sighted along the barrel. “Slightly to the right,” she reminded herself. The building’s power cable lay across the excavation floor. Jaz shot it from behind a broken conveyor. The work light vanished. Emergency lamps came on. Inside, somebody swore. She reached the airlock before the guards decided who should investigate. The outer door closed, pressure climbed, and Jaz pulled off her helmet as the inner door opened. The first guard stared at her. “Who the—” Jaz shot his rifle. The weapon burst apart in his hands, throwing him backward against the wall. “Equipment inspection.” The second guard reached for a control panel. Her next shot melted it. He stopped reaching. “Good lad.” The pirate captain moved faster. She caught Emmylou by the hair, hauled her head back, and pressed a small pistol beneath her jaw. “Put it down.” Jaz stood very still. The commander’s eyes met hers across the room. Green, Jaz noticed. Definitely green. “I said put it down.” “You shoot her,” Jaz said, “and you’ve got nothing to bargain with.” “I’ll take my chances.” Emmylou shifted one boot beneath the chair. Jaz saw it. She let the muzzle of her pistol drop an inch. “All right. Easy.” The captain smiled. Emmylou drove her heel into the woman’s instep, shoved backward with both legs, and toppled the chair into her. The pistol fired into the ceiling. Jaz crossed the room in three strides and kicked it away. The captain reached for a knife. Jaz hit her with the butt of the ray pistol. Once. Hard. The woman folded beside the overturned chair. Emmylou looked up from the floor. “About bloody time.” Jaz crouched beside her. “Everyone keeps saying that.” The restraints had a mechanical release. Jaz found it while Emmylou watched the door. “Can you stand?” “Can you get these damned things off?” “That would help, yes.” The cuffs sprang open. Emmylou rose too quickly, staggered, and caught Jaz’s shoulder. For a moment, their bodies pressed together, the commander’s breath warm against Jaz’s cheek. Jaz steadied her with a hand at her waist. “Easy.” Emmylou looked down at the hand, then back at her. “Usually women buy me a drink first.” “Usually women don’t make me come to the Moon.” A shout came through the corridor. The second guard had decided to be brave. Jaz pushed Emmylou behind a steel workbench as a shot scorched the wall above them. “Persistent little shit,” she muttered. She fired low. The guard’s boots vanished behind a spray of broken flooring, and his rifle skidded into view. Emmylou snatched it up. “Now,” she said, “I feel better.” They sealed the guards and their unconscious captain inside a storage compartment. Then Jaz found Emmylou’s pressure suit hanging beside a row of lockers. The commander’s right shoulder had stiffened. She tried to lift her arm and hissed through her teeth. “Need a hand?” “I need a holiday.” “Arm first. Holiday later.” Jaz helped her into the suit, guiding the injured arm carefully through its sleeve. Emmylou stood close while Jaz fastened the chest seals, her bruised face suddenly stripped of its defiant performance. “They were taking me tonight,” she said quietly. “I heard.” “They had papers ready,” Emmylou said. “A different name. A contract with my signature on it, and I’d never seen the damned thing before.” Jaz’s hands paused over the chest seal. “I heard.” “I kept thinking somebody would come looking, but once they put me on that ship…” Her voice caught, and she looked away. “I don’t think anyone would ever have found me.” Jaz finished the seal and waited until Emmylou met her eyes. “You’re leaving with me.” Emmylou searched her face. “You sound very sure.” “I’m trying it out. Tell me if it catches on.” A small smile returned. Jaz lifted the commander’s helmet. Before she could lower it, Emmylou touched her wrist. “What’s your name?” “Jaz Jones.” “Emmylou.” “I know.” “Then stop calling me Commander.” They were halfway to the buggy when the transport ship’s floodlights came on. White glare washed across the excavation. A voice broke into their helmet radios. “Stop where you are.” Jaz kept running. A ray struck the ground beside her boot, throwing dust across her visor. Emmylou turned and fired toward the ship’s open hatch. A figure ducked out of sight. “Nice shooting,” Jaz said. “I was aiming at his head.” “Then we’ve got the same pistol.” They reached the buggy as another blast burned through its rear wheel housing. Jaz dropped behind the controls. Emmylou threw herself into the other seat. The motor whined. Nothing moved. “Come on, you miserable bucket.” Jaz slammed the selector forward. The damaged wheel jerked, caught, and dragged them away from the building. Behind them, the pirate ship’s engines brightened. Emmylou twisted around. “They’re lifting.” “Tell them we’re busy.” The buggy bounced across a ridge hard enough to lift both women against their restraints. A warning lamp flashed red. Battery damage. Jaz looked at the cutting ahead. At the crane above it. At the loaded bucket. Then she shoved the wheel toward Emmylou. “Keep us straight.” “What are you doing?” “Something stupid.” “That’s a narrow field?” Jaz released her harness and rose against the buggy’s jolting motion. She aimed at the crane’s release housing. Fired. Missed. A blast from the pirate ship struck the ridge behind them. The buggy slewed sideways. “Jaz!” She braced one boot against the seat, aimed slightly left, and fired again. The release housing flashed white. The bucket dropped. Several tonnes of broken lunar rock crashed down across the cutting as the transport rose beneath it. One engine vanished under the falling load. The ship lurched, struck the excavation wall, and settled crookedly into the dust. Jaz fell backward into her seat. For a few seconds, all she could hear was her own breathing. Then Emmylou began to laugh. It started shakily and became helpless, wonderful laughter that filled both their helmets. Jaz looked at her. “What?” “You shot a spaceship with a bloody bucket.” “It was a very good bucket.” The buggy died twelve kilometers from the lander. Its dashboard went dark. The heater stopped. Jaz stared at the controls. “Oh, don’t be a bastard.” She tried the ignition twice. Nothing. Emmylou checked their oxygen. Forty-three minutes. Walking would take longer. Jaz climbed out and opened the damaged battery housing, finding a blackened tangle of fused connections. Behind her, Emmylou stood silently beneath the enormous sky. Jaz wanted very badly to have something clever to say. She had nothing. Then static cracked in her helmet. “Jones?” She froze. “Jones, respond.” Jaz grabbed the side of her helmet. “Holt! Twelve kilometers southeast of your position. Dead buggy. Two passengers. Oxygen getting bloody unfashionable.” “Stay where you are.” Emmylou stepped beside her. Their helmet lamps caught each other’s faces. “You were worried,” the commander said. “Don’t spread it around.” Emmylou slipped her gloved hand around Jaz’s forearm and stayed there until the rescue rover’s lights appeared over the ridge. Captain Holt met them at the lander. Lunar Security had their report, the pirates had nowhere to go, and the Diana was leaving before anything else could happen. Holt handed Jaz a passenger authorization. “Commander Hunter requires an escort.” Jaz glanced at Emmylou. “Does she?” “She does,” Emmylou said. Holt pointed toward the hatch. “And Jones?” “Yes?” “Next time, buy a ticket.” After launch, the Moon slid slowly beneath the passenger compartment windows. Jaz unfastened her harness with stiff fingers. Across from her, Emmylou had opened the collar of her blue uniform and let her copper hair fall loose. There was a dressing on her shoulder, another above her eyebrow, and a look in her eyes that made Jaz forget the ache in her ribs. “Come here,” Emmylou said. Jaz pushed gently away from her seat. In the low gravity, she crossed the compartment almost gracefully, stopping with one hand on the rail beside the commander’s head. “Is that an order?” “It could be.” Emmylou caught the front of her silver suit. “Who hired you?” “No idea.” “Will you find out?” “Maybe.” “And if they send you somewhere else?” Jaz brushed a loose strand of copper hair away from the dressing. “They can wait until morning.” Emmylou’s fingers tightened in the silver fabric. She drew Jaz down, slowly enough to give her every chance to change her mind, and kissed her. Jaz’s hand settled against the warm curve of her neck. Beyond the window, sunlight caught the edge of the Moon, but Emmylou was closer, alive beneath her hands, kissing her with a hunger that made the little compartment feel suddenly private. When they finally parted, Jaz stayed close enough for their noses to touch. “I think it’s time for bed, Emmylou ...”