The Elfor Drop, page 1
part #2 of The Code Trilogy Series
The Story So Far . . .
A fleet of forty worldships travelling through space searching for a new home.
Between them they carry the millions of survivors taken from Earth just before the meteor struck over one hundred and twenty years ago, destroying the planet and ending all life.
Our story takes places on the Worldship Humility, which also has the Elfors, a place never intended for human habitation but a certain shuttle captain tasked with ferrying survivors from the doomed planet Earth decided to break the rules, and instead of saving the rich and entitled he went to the poorest parts of Earth, scooped whoever would fit into his shuttle, took them up to the Humility and pushed them into the lower four levels.
By the time whoever was in charge realised what was going on it was too late to get rid of them. So instead they put control points on the stairwells and staffed them with violent guards armed with voltage sticks.
It turns out, however, that the poor are born survivors. They have to be, and generations later the lower four levels became known as the Elfors. One of the most densely packed places in the fleet. Plus, they’ve got Neon City. Imagine Las Vegas dosed on steroids and Elfor Juice and you’re not even close.
People across the fleet go to Neon City to get laid. Get high and get drunk, because all credits are good credits, no questions asked. And where there’s desire and money the rules can be bent, because although the paying punters can come and go freely, the unregistered Elforists who run Neon City cannot. That’s because Elforists are still classed as stowaways with no legal rights. Or, as everyone calls them, gutter rats and scum.
Unless you’re like master-thief Yasmine Emile Dufont who uses stealth and guile to slip through the guard stations – which normally means running through while there’s a big punch-up going on.
Yasmine’s mom was a prostitute who died in childbirth and left Yasmine to be raised by Colly in one of the far edges of Level 40. They ate rats and ran free. Wild Yassy, Pretty Penny. Karen Big Feet. Chatty Simon, Mad Eyes Ken, Guphy Gupherson and Dmitri.
They were close, too. They only had each other. Then, one day, Simon’s dad killed Simon’s mom and it all changed.
Simon and Dmitri attacked Simon’s dad. The others joined in and beat the guy to death. Apart from Yassy and Penny, who couldn’t do anything except watch on in horror.
Things changed after that. Dmitri changed. He became sick and twisted. He was Yasmine’s boyfriend up until that point, but as he got older he got more violent. The Elfors do that to people. You get tough or you die, and Dmitri got tough. Now he’s the top dog and controls a lot of the bouncers and hookers.
Most of the businesses operating on the fringes of Neon pay him for protection too. He rules with fear and he grooms kids so they’ll go to work as hookers and rent boys. He became a nasty piece of work, but the worse he got, the more Yasmine stood up to him. Wild Yassy. Fearless Yassy. She said no to his demands, but nobody says no to Dmitri. He took what he wanted, and he hurt her badly. He hurt her a lot.
Yassy changed after that too. She became even wilder. She drank a lot. She took drugs. She partied and stole and ran and kept running to stay away from Dmitri and his crew.
Except there’s only so much running you can do on a spaceship. Especially if you’re an unregistered gutter rat who isn’t allowed to live among the upper levels – and at the age of thirty Yasmine realised the partying had to end. She needed something bigger. Something that would get her away from the Elfors. Something big enough to pay for a trip to the Ab-Spa where Dmitri couldn’t get to her.
She needed to score big and get off the Humility.
Luckily, while hustling about, she bumped into Mahatma Goudier. A woman that looked just like her.
It was an offering from the Gods of Stealing and Yasmine was never going to turn that down.
She tracked Mahatma and found out she worked in the Fleet Finance offices on Level 25 – and boom. That was the big job right there. Yasmine was going to use her likeness to Mahatma Goudier to get inside the Finance offices and steal some credits.
But Yasmine couldn’t do that alone. She needed help, which is when she met Sam Gablinski.
Sam worked as an airlock operative. He was cute, too. Shy, but nice with it, and they teamed up. Sam even helped Yasmine when Dmitri sent his crew after her because she’d killed a Russian doctor who kept touching her up when she was hurt. She’d said no. She’d told him to stop. The doc carried on. She hit him once and he had a heart attack, but he’d paid for protection and that was all the motivation Dmitri needed to get revenge. He was still obsessed with Yasmine, and if he couldn’t have her, then nobody would.
Sam helped Yasmine get away from Dmitri. They ran through the Elfors together and Sam hacked the grav-drives, but they got caught in the Ritzy Ditzy nightclub by Dmitri and all hell broke loose.
Abdul Shariff, the Elfors’ only elected councillor, ended up stepping in with his security team – Colin, Pasha, Boris and Clara – to give Dmitri and his crew a hiding.
Sam and Yasmine got away, but that meant they owed Abdul a favour.
Yasmine then told Sam about her plans to steal credits. They were hanging around a café called Sven’s Eatery, but it wasn’t doing so well. Sven was losing his business. Then Sam, being the techy genius that he is, developed some adverts that went viral and pretty soon everyone in the fleet was hearing about Sven’s Porridge and Jam.
Sven got busy and Yasmine got a real job being a waitress, and if Yasmine were ever asked, she would say it was the best time of her life.
If only it had stayed that way.
Then Janey came into their lives. Janey also worked in the Finance offices and had spent years being bullied by Mahatma, and eventually, after some dramas, they all agreed to knock over the Finance offices.
Sven needed the cash for his café. Sam needed to break the sterile monotony of his life. Janey needed revenge. And Yassy? Well. This was the chance to score big and run free.
They planned the job by holding a closing down party in Sven’s Eatery. But Abdul called in his favour and said he wanted to host the event to boost his political career. Yasmine didn’t mind. It meant everyone would be watching Abdul and not her or the others.
Mahatma was invited and relished the chance to attend such a high-end event. They plied her with booze, and when the time was right Yasmine swiped Mahatma’s wristband which Sam biometrically cross-linked to Yasmine.
Yasmine slipped into the Finance offices pretending to be Mahatma, and with Janey’s help she got into the credit system and stole two nice big fat crypto-bonds, which are high-yield accounts worth about a million credits each – and boom! That was it. They’d scored big.
But that’s where their luck ran out because the manager, Randolph Simpson, caught Yasmine and started pawing at her, thinking her to be Mahatma. Yasmine was trapped. She had to get free. She lashed out and ran off, but it was too late. Randolph had seen it wasn’t Mahatma.
Yasmine ran to the café and told the others. Janey was angry. Sven was distraught. Sam was quiet. They’d been caught. The cops would come any minute, and they’d be sent to prison on the Ark.
That’s when Abdul stepped in - a man has a habit of being where he needs to be.
He offered Yasmine registration and said he’d pay for her and Sam to get on the overnight shuttle to the Beijing. Yasmine was suspicious but Abdul said he wanted Sam’s IT skills for his political campaign. They didn’t have a choice, so they took his offer and ran for it.
However, unbeknownst to Yasmine and the others, there was a whole other thing going on, which is how it all culminated in Dmitri trapping Yasmine and Sam by the stairwell.
Four captains of the little quartet of ships over on this side of the fleet had hidden a secret code within the long-range probe, the shuttle Gagarin, which had recently returned from a mission with data that suggested a habitable planet had been discovered.
That was great news, and those four captains then entrusted the vice-captain of the worldship Humility, Helga Sveinsson, to input a navigational code into the mainframe computer on the Ark, which would cause the whole fleet to change course without anyone else knowing.
Unfortunately, that went wrong, because the person Helga trusted to input the code tried to blackmail her. Helga then turned to her henchman, Detective Zhang Woo, to get the code back. Zhang accidentally killed the blackmailer, but only after finding out that the secret code was hidden within the Finance offices.
Zhang was then ordered, by Helga, to seduce and coerce one of the Finance office supervisors, the very same Mahatma Goudier, and get her to run an audit to retrieve the code.
Mahatma, however, was also having an affair with Randolph Simpson and, in turn, she blackmailed Randolph into running the audit. Randolph refused, and by the time of the porridge party being hosted on Friday evening, the captains of the quartet, headed by Captain Pierre Jefferson, told Helga she must get the code back that night or face the consequences.
Helga then gave the same threat to Zhang, who passed it on to Mahatma, who in turn told Randolph she would ruin his life if he didn’t run the audit. Which is why Randolph was working late when Yasmine broke in, pretending to be Mahatma.
I know, right.
There was a lot going on.
But what Yasmine didn’t realise was that one of the big fat juicy crypto-bonds she stole was, in fact, the missing code. And while Yasmine fled the scene and ran to the café, Helga panicked and, in desperation, reached out to Dmitri the gangster and his crew to force their wa y into the Finance offices and get the code back.
Dmitri did just that, with the promise that he would get reward and registration, which would ultimately lead him to Yasmine. Dmitri’s crew then killed Randolph after realising Yasmine had stolen the code.
Yasmine and Sam tried to run for the overnight shuttle to the Beijing but were intercepted by Dmitri who beat the hell out of them while demanding they give the code back.
Of course, Yasmine had no idea what he was going on about. She’d stolen crypto and didn’t know anything about a code. She even offered to hand it over, on seeing Dmitri was about to kill Sam.
However, our intrepid Detective, Zhang Woo, with a surge of moral courage, then launched a rescue to save Yasmine and Sam. Which failed dismally and resulted in him also getting beaten up. But guess who stepped in and saved them again?
Yep. You got it. Abdul ran in with his security team and once more beat Dmitri and his crew away.
Abdul’s PA, and Yasmine’s former best friend, Pretty Penny, then took Yasmine and Sam to Level 20 to get on the overnight shuttle, and by the time Yasmine and Sam took their seats within the VIP section, Yasmine was registered and legal with her own wristband.
That was it. They’d done it. They’d scored big and were running free with Yasmine and Sam on the Cross-Fleet Shuttle Service, ready for a new life but without any idea of the carnage they left behind. Without any idea that Randolph was dead, and without any idea that the code they stole contained the co-ordinates for a new planet.
One person did work it out though, but then he always was smart. Detective Zhang Woo connected the dots and chased after Sam and Yasmine. He had to get the code back. He knew Helga, or whoever else was behind it, would kill everyone to get it back. But he was too late, and by the time he reached Pretty Penny on Level 20 the shuttle was gone.
Zhang was in pieces. Beaten senseless and half-drunk on Elfor Juice. Penny offered comfort, holding him close, and right before he passed out Zhang uttered a few words that would come to change everything.
‘I think they’ve found a planet . . .’
That’s where we are now. With Sam and Yasmine on board the Cross-Fleet Shuttle Service heading to the worldship Beijing, and a whole heap of carnage left behind them with Zhang Woo still passed out on top of Pretty Penny.
Got all that?
Great stuff.
Enjoy the story . . .
1
The universe is filled with energy. From microscopic particles to more complex biological structures, coexisting within ecosystems upon planets caught in the gravitational orbits of burning suns alongside billions of other star systems, all within galaxies swirling towards the pull of supermassive black holes.
And there are billions of systems within each galaxy, and billions of galaxies within an ever-expanding universe where every single thing is in constant motion.
That means neither the universe, nor anything within it, is ever still. The power of such vast, complex systems, all affecting each other, is simply too great. Planets collide and star systems crash through galaxies meet as they swirl and move. But the time that takes relative to the distances involved means that – to an organic creature with a limited life-span – space can appear to be a cold, sterile and silent place where nothing ever seems to happen.
However, one tiny section of space within the Milky Way galaxy has been rather busy lately. First from a large meteor passing through, set on a collision course with the planet Earth, and then from a flurry of probes and sensors sent in the other direction as the people on Earth quickly tried to find somewhere else to live.
That was just over one hundred and twenty years ago, and now this tiny section of space once more fills with motion as the forty worldships making up the fleet zoom through on what feels like their never-ending mission to find another planet.
It’s quiet now, though. In the fleet, that is. Night has come. Albeit an artificially induced night where the lights are dimmed and the air is made cooler – and in a private room owned by Councillor Abdul Shariff within the Level 20 VIP docking port on board the worldship Humility, Detective Zhang Woo groans softly as he starts to wake. His mind filled with dreams and images. With ideas and words and places and people. The fight on Level 30. Yassy and Sam. He dreams of Alexei Scrabel, the technician from the Ark who stole the code and died after falling down a stairwell. He dreams of many things, all very quickly, as his mind surfaces towards consciousness. Pain starts to hit. Pain in his fists that tells him he’s been fighting. He shifts a little and in so doing becomes aware that he is nestled up against a woman and, in his sleepy state, he wonders who it is. He mumbles softly and reaches a hand up, patting here and there until he finds a breast and he starts assessing if it’s a breast belonging to Carla Big Lips, his favourite prostitute in Neon City, but Carla’s boobs are quite big and this one isn’t.
‘I take it you’re awake, then,’ Penny says softly.
‘Bit,’ he mumbles, still unsure who it is.
‘Great. Then get your hand off my boob.’
Zhang frowns, trying to work out what that means, as several people clear their throats behind him. He turns fast and gawks at the line of people staring at him. Abdul at one end next to Colin, an ex-investigations commander from the Ark and now Abdul’s head of security. Clara and Boris next to Colin. Pasha at the other end – and Zhang blinks again at the figures towering over him.
He sits up in shock as Penny gently pushes his hand from her chest, while he tries to remember where he is in time and space. He starts to speak but his voice comes out rough and broken. He swallows and tries again. ‘Where am I?’
‘You’re in my private suite in the VIP docking port on Level 20,’ Abdul says, holding out a glass filled with a thumb’s width of glowing yellow Elfor Juice. Zhang knocks it back with a gasp. ‘Take it easy,’ Abdul says. ‘You took a few blows.’
‘Blows?’
‘From Dmitri. In the fight,’ he adds at Zhang’s blank look.
‘More than a few blows,’ Penny says, remembering the beating Zhang took trying to rescue Sam and Yasmine.
It’s blank in Zhang’s mind. He just feels exhausted and strung out, with too many thoughts whirling through his mind.
‘He might have a concussion,’ Colin says, stepping front of Zhang. ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’ he asks, holding three up.
‘This many,’ Zhang says, flicking his middle finger.
‘Don’t get a smart mouth with me, Detective. Now switch on and get with it. You chased Sam and Yasmine up here then said something to Penny . . .’
‘Zhang?’ Penny says from his side. ‘You said something before you passed out. You said they’ve found a planet. . .’
It’s like a gut punch, and it’s all Zhang can do to not show a reaction. He thinks fast, realising the risks at hand, and inwardly cursing himself for blurting it out.
‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Where’s Yassy?’
‘Why?’ Penny asks.
Zhang tries to think as the adrenalin starts pumping again. As his mind starts spinning too fast once more. Yasmine thinks she stole crypto-bonds. She doesn’t know about the code. That means she’ll try and cash them in to a black-market dealer, but will get flagged and traced. They’ll find her. They’ll kill her and Sam. ‘She can’t cash it,’ he says quietly, looking up at Abdul.
‘What?’ Abdul asks, leaning in closer.
‘You tell her. You tell her that no matter what happens, she cannot try and cash in the crypto she stole. They’ll kill her for it. Where did she go?’
Penny blinks, sharing a quick look with Colin and Penny. ‘The Beijing.’
‘She can’t come back here,’ Zhang whispers and rises to his feet, feeling dizzy, and only staying upright through sheer grit.
‘Just sit down,’ Abdul says, trying to usher him back as Zhang knocks his arm aside and rushes from the VIP lounge into the darkness of Level 20. His mind racing. The Elfor Juice stirs his guts up, making his limbs jittery. He staggers into the deep shadows as his wristband beeps again with another call from his boss, Chief of Police Jorgey Raynor.
‘Zhang! Where the hell are you? I’ve got Kristi Carter telling me you were in a riot with Abdul and now this robbery and murder and—’
