Science Fiction Series

The Wreck of the Esperance. Part One.

The Adventures of Kalyn Deere.

Welcome to a new series,

For the premise, read this:-

My dad was a pretty good father. I’m only saying was because I don’t know where he is just now. I suppose I have to accept the possibility that he might not be alive. But I’m as sure as I can be that Erikson Deere is still around. In my mind, he’s always been an indestructible sort of fellow.

Anyhow, I’m getting ahead of myself. Dad was, is, a private investigator and sometime bounty hunter, which sounds like a lot more fun than the reality. He used to say it was ninety-nine per cent boredom and one per cent blind panic.

And that it wasn’t an option for me — I should go and get myself a proper job.

I hated that thought; I wanted to travel. Of course I did, my dad crossed space. He even had his own ship, the Esperance. It was a source of envy at college, people wanted free trips and it probably made me more popular than I would have otherwise been. If he hadn’t wanted me to do it, he shouldn’t have taken so many pictures, told me all those stories and made it sound like such a fun way to make a living.

It was a big argument and we had it on and off since I was about thirteen, when I first told him that I wanted to be a pilot. I quickly discovered that didn’t suit his ideas for my adult life.

When I was sixteen, I left school and because there was nothing he could do about it, I signed up for the Navy, on a five-year commission. I knew they’d teach me to fly, even pay me to do it. And I sneaked away, only sending him a message after I’d gone. That made me feel bad, especially when I compared it to the way some of my fellow cadets had joined up.

And now I was back. I was twenty-one. I had my pilot’s licence, plus a few other qualifications and a whole wealth of experience. And I wanted to make it all right with Dad. Because one thing that five years away had taught me was that you couldn’t swap anything for family. After five years where I’d never taken any leave, I’d been given an early discharge. It had taken a week to get myself home. I’d caught a lift with a trader, which was another story and now, here I was, a day early. That made it my birthday. I wondered what he would say when he saw me. Would he approve of the grown-up me? In my mind, I’d rehearsed our meeting and what I was going to say so many times.

Dad’s office was still in one of the slightly less salubrious buildings in the business district of Premex City. Wallowing in nostalgia, with my stomach in knots, I walked down the worn lino-floored corridor. With its peeling green paint on the walls, it was no different to the last time I’d been there. There was a light on behind the door. Deere and Partners, Private Investigators and Bounty Hunters, it said in black letters on the frosted glass. That meant just him. For a long time, since the day I was born and my mother died in the process, there had been no partners in the business. There was just Silva, his secretary.

Silva had been the mother I’d never known and had become Dad’s partner in his personal life. The person who knew where everything was and kept the business running smoothly. In the message I’d had from her, after I’d told her I was coming home, she’d told me in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t happy with the way I’d behaved.

I took a deep breath and pushed the door open, ready to face her wrath. She wasn’t at her desk, but someone else was.

“What are you doing?” I shouted. He straightened up and spun around. That made him about two feet taller than me and twice as wide. He had a scarred face, his head was as bald as an eggshell with piggy blue eyes.

“Don’t mess with me, girlie,” he suggested.

“Why not? You’re in my office,” I said.

He laughed at me. “Your office? don’t be stupid. I’m looking for something of Erikson’s. Perhaps you know where it is?”

“Where’s Silva?” I asked him, stalling for time. Surely, she’d be back in a minute, and between the two of us, we could get rid of him. Dad was probably away somewhere at some meeting. If he was here, he’d have heard the commotion and come out of his office.

“She’s a little tied up,” Man Mountain said. “Erik’s not here. It’s just you and me. And I haven’t got what I came for yet.”

“I’d like you to go,” I said, moving towards the phone. He made a grab for it, pushing me aside. There was power in his arms, I cannoned into a chair and sprawled on the floor. As I fell, I saw him pull the connection out of the wall. That got me annoyed.

I got straight back up and went for him. I might not have been able to reach his face, but I could certainly manage to do enough to slow him down. The Navy had taught me a few tricks. I got inside the reach of his swinging fists and grabbed him, dragging him to the floor. Bouncing off the furniture, we wrestled for a while. Then there was a shout from outside.

“Erik, are you OK?” I recognised that voice, it was one of our neighbours. My assailant must have figured out his odds had worsened, he thought better of trying to kill me and decided instead to make a run for it. I grabbed at his jacket as he shoved past me and heard the material rip as he bulldozed his way through the door. I saw him disappear down the corridor, swatting Greg Connor, the man who had called out, against the wall. He went around the corner and I heard the street door open and shut.

“Are you OK?” Greg shouted.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine. I caught him trying to steal something.”

“Hey, if it isn’t Kalyn,” he said. “It’s been a long time. Erik said you went into the service.”

“I did,” I said, “and I’m out now, thought I’d surprise him.”

Greg came into the office and between us, we looked at the filing cabinet. It was still locked, he hadn’t got in there, but some of Silva’s desk drawers were open. It was impossible to tell if anything was missing, where was she? Surely all the noise would have got her running, Greg had heard from the suite next door but one.

“Can you manage?” asked Greg.

“I can and thanks.”

“Good to see you,” he said. “Erik will be pleased. I’ll have to catch you both for a beer sometime?”

I agreed that we would have to do that. “Great,” he said as he wandered back to his office.

Dad’s office door was locked. The spare key was still where it always had been, when I opened it up and peered inside, I could see that nothing in there had been disturbed.

I locked it back up, stowed the key and checked the bathroom. That’s where I found Silva. Her hands were zip-tied behind her, anchoring her to the sink’s waste pipe and there was brown parcel tape wound around her head, across her mouth. She was awake but looked a little groggy, there was a thin line of blood across her temple.

“Are you all right?” I asked. She nodded, “Wait there,” I told her. “I’ll get some scissors and set you free.”

It only took a minute to free her arms. She tried to stand. Failed miserably. Her ankles were also tied together. Once I released them there was only the tape to remove.

“Get ready,” I said. “This is gonna hurt.” I pulled this tape in one, it was the only way to do it. “Thanks,” she said, rubbing her wrists. She gave me a hug, which was surprising, I’d been expecting a slap. “Kalyn, I wasn’t expecting to see you till tomorrow. Where have you sprung from?”

“I’ll tell you in a moment. What was all that about?”

“I have no idea,” she said, looking around in case the man was lurking.

“It’s OK, I’ve got rid of him. Greg heard us wrestling on the floor and came in. He ran for it.”

“He was asking for one of your father’s old case files,” she told me. “He said he’d been sent to collect it by one of the legal services from downtown. He showed me an official letter too. When I swung around to open the filing cabinet, he must have hit me over the head. And that’s the last thing I remember.”

“He never got the cabinet open, I got here in time.”

She nodded. “Good thing you did, but you picked a hell of a day to come back.”

“It’s a good day. It’s my birthday and my service is over,” I said. “But you knew that anyway. How is the old fella?”

“He was OK this morning, he went out for lunch. There was nothing on his schedule for today, of all days. It usually means lots of beer and me picking him up later and getting him home. Your birthday isn’t the only anniversary today. He misses you terribly, although he’d never let on. Why are you back?”

“Because I was a bad daughter for five years and I’ve finally realised it. I couldn’t come to see him before today, this is my first chance to try to say how sorry I was.”

“And,” she said, “if your time’s up, you need a job and a billet?”

There was that to it. Silva had never been anything if not pragmatic.

“Will he give me a job?”

She smiled, “I couldn’t say — you’ll have to ask him.”

I couldn’t see him saying yes but we’d have to see. Silva hadn’t reacted how I’d expected. “Can I just sit here till he turns up?”

“Why don’t you head on down to the Still? He’ll be there. You remember where that is, don’t you? He might even buy you a beer.”

“Will you be OK?”

“I don’t suppose he’ll be around again. Anyway, I won’t turn my back on him this time. If I’m in doubt, I’ll just use Albert. We can argue about it afterwards.”

I was laughing at that idea as I headed for the branch office, as Dad had always referred to The Still, a bar and diner just around the corner. Dad had a semi-reserved booth in the corner, unofficially of course. It was where he did a lot of business with the clients who wished for a little anonymity.

As I walked the familiar route, I kept my eyes peeled for our recent visitor. The streets were busy but he would have stood out. I never spotted him, either he’d gone back to his boss or they’d sent someone else. Walking inside the bar was like stepping back in time, I remembered the faded sports posters and pennants, even the tables and chairs looked the same.

It was lunchtime, the place was quiet, I went over to the booth where Dad did a lot of his business, there were two empty glasses on the table, a half-empty bowl of salted nuts and nothing else. I wandered over to the bar and sat on a stool.

“What can I get you?” asked the girl, she must have been about my age but there was a world of difference between us. Where I was tall and lean, with cropped hair, she was shorter, more rounded. Dressed in a short, low-cut red gingham outfit with Dusty, Staff printed on the lapel, leading your eye downwards, she had long blonde hair in braids over blue eyes and freckles.

“Beer, please,” I said, she nodded and turned. The outfit had Staff printed on the back as well.

“That ones on the house, Dusty,” shouted a man from the other end of the bar. “Well, there’s a face I never thought I’d see again,” he added, walking towards me with a big grin on his face.

“Mal Tilyard,” I said, “hello.” I leaned over and shook his hand. He grabbed me and pulled me across the bar. We hugged. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, Kayln,” he said. “It’s so good to see you. “How long has it been?”

“Five years,” I said. The beer arrived. The girl looked at me. “So you’re Kalyn,” she said. “Erik’s told us so much about you. About all that you’ve been up to, he’s one proud father.”

That was a surprise. I reckoned he’d have been cursing me for running away and disobeying him. “Where is he?” I asked.

“He left about an hour ago,” Mal said. “With a man. He said to keep the seat warm, he wouldn’t be long.”

Typical, I’d travelled halfway across the sector and missed him by an hour. “Any idea where he went or who the man was?”

“No idea. But it was a job, not a buddy thing. He came in and told me a man was looking for him and I had to send him over when he turned up.”

“Do you know who the man was?”

“No, sorry,” he said. “He was dressed in working gear, covered in sawdust. But like I said, Erik told me it was a job. Silva should know.”

Then why hadn’t she mentioned it? While I pondered an obvious answer or two, a customer called Mal and he wandered away. “Good to have you back,” he said as he left.

I sipped my beer and tried to decide on my next move. If he had said he wouldn’t be long, maybe it was best to wait here? The girl was hanging around. I wanted to know a bit more about Dad’s unexpected attitude.

“Does my dad really talk about me all the time?” I asked her. “Oh yeah,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “He’s got some stories as well. He’s kept a file somewhere of all that you’ve been up to, your postings, the ships, everything. In his pocket, on its own player. It never leaves him. He’s always showing it to people. This is my girl, he says. She’s a pilot in the Navy, he keeps saying it. I feel like I know you already.”

That was great to know, perhaps my coming back was gonna be OK after all.

“Great to meet you, Dusty.” I drained my beer. I’d decided that Silva was the one I needed to talk to. “I’ll certainly be back. Right now, I need to find Erik. Ask him to call if he comes back.”

“Sure,” she said, “see you around.”

I headed back to the office. Silva would know who the man was, but why hadn’t she mentioned him, ‘there’s nothing in his schedule, today of all days’, she had said.

As I pushed the office door open, I heard a click. I knew what that meant, Albert was ready. I stood still, outside the doorway.

To be continued…

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