Who is the Sci­ence Fic­tion Moon Deputy?

Read Thun­der Moon Tus­sle and find out.

Avail­able on Ama­zon Kin­dle and where books are sold.

Y+33

Nils drove toward his home habitat.

“Hab 18?” Miller asked again, though Nils avoid­ed the sub­ject for the past half hour.

“Miller, how about I give you a big­ger cut with my job–”

“I’d always take a big­ger cut,” she grinned.

“–in exchange for you not going with me?”

“Out of the ques­tion,” Deputy Miller snapped back quick­ly. “I’ve got to look out for my investment.”

“What invest­ment?” Nils grumbled.

“The val­ue of my ten per­cent of the thir­ty-thou­sand, plus expens­es.” Miller stat­ed, then her voice soft­ened. “Plus, I think it will be a per­fect way to ask you for my favor.”

“What is it about, Miller?” Nils asked, his own voice soft­en­ing. “Can’t you give me a hint?”

“No,” she almost whis­pered. “Not yet.”

They sat silent­ly as the crawler nav­i­gat­ed the tracks, head­ing toward his habitat.

“We’re about three hours away from my hab,” Nils said, break­ing the awk­ward silence.

“Any sur­pris­es?” Deputy Miller asked.

“Like what?”

“Like let­ting me in on Hab 18?

“What will you give me for it?” Nils sparred, hop­ing to agi­tate her.

“Fine, keep your secret!” Miller snapped. She fur­rowed her brows.

“We’ll get to it,” Nils answered. He recon­sid­ered. Agi­tat­ing her seemed stu­pid. “I’ve got an idea.”

“What?” Miller asked.

“Let’s call a truce.” Nils suggested.

“What do you pro­pose?” Miller’s voice soft­ened again.

“We’ll set the dis­cus­sion about Hab 18 aside for a while. I’ll stop ask­ing you about the favor.”

“Fair enough,” she said.

“Thanks,” Nils smiled and checked the auto-dri­ve, ensur­ing that they were still on course.

“What should we talk about instead?”

“How about the Urubuan Marshal’s vis­it?” Nils asked, won­der­ing what they had been look­ing for.

“Most­ly infor­mal,” Deputy Miller answered. “They seemed con­cerned about how we orga­nized the Department.”

“How so? I mean, you han­dle things fair­ly well. We have no crime at Conrad.”

“Ha. Com­ing from one of its most upstand­ing citizens.”

“Yup, I’m plan­ning to run for Sta­tion Council.”

They both laughed at the joke.

“How so?” he said, ask­ing again.

“They want­ed to know how our juris­dic­tion fit with­in Amer­i­can law enforce­ment. It sur­prised him that we don’t.”

“Real­ly?”

“You’re sur­prised?” She asked, Nils noticed her face betrayed astonishment.

“Well—I mean, yeah,” Nils fum­bled. “I didn’t real­ize that you don’t have connections.”

“It’s sim­ple,” Miller answered. “The depart­ment is part of Luna­dyne secu­ri­ty. If we have an actu­al crime to report, we need to con­tact the what­ev­er agency we care to. It’s usu­al­ly the U. S. Marshal’s office since it’s easier.”

“You’re not a cop?” Nils challenged.

“So, if you assume that,” Miller growled. “I’ll put you in a body cast for sure.”

“No,” Nils steered away from the chal­lenge. “I meant that I don’t under­stand how Luna­dyne secu­ri­ty fits.”

“Hon­est­ly, that is what the Mar­shal was asking.”

“What did you explain that made sense to him?”

“I can arrest who­ev­er they need arrest­ed,” she answered. “If a major crime occurs, I need to report it to what­ev­er author­i­ty is con­ve­nient. I can arrest any­one and hold them until the Earth side author­i­ty picks them up. Also, I can act to pro­tect the com­pa­ny assets from destruction.”

“What does that mean?”

“Exact­ly what I said. If some ass­hole were attempt­ing to break open a door direct­ly to vac­u­um, I would stop him. I’d take him down if needed.”

Nils thought as he mon­i­tored the progress of the auto-drive.

Why is she being so open about it? She got pissed at me and kept it up for going on three years now. What has changed? She is almost being nice.

She knew about the smug­gling. He had told her in so many words. Obvi­ous­ly, she could have arrest­ed him fre­quent­ly, but she did not.

“Miller?”

“Yeah, prospec­tor?”

“What’s with the arrange­ment?” Nils asked.

“You mean the ten per­cent?” She grinned.

“Yup, that and the oth­er fees,” he said, won­der­ing about the cat-and-mouse game they played. She would find him about once a month and force him to pay some fee to have her look the oth­er way.

“So, you’re want­i­ng to rene­go­ti­ate our deal?”

“No.”

“Let me remind you, Nils,” She smiled. “Our arrange­ment is that you need to pay a ten per­cent fee for you to con­tin­ue doing busi­ness at the bar.”

“–payable before I leave the sta­tion. We’ve been through that.”

“Then what do you want?”

“For­get it,” he said. Nils declined to dig any fur­ther. Pay­ing Miller had become a cost of doing busi­ness, and he lacked the mon­ey to pay more. But it had nev­er gone beyond the occa­sion­al has­sle. Miller had nev­er asked him to dri­ve any­where. She had nev­er insert­ed her­self into any of his oth­er business.

Why now? He won­dered. What had changed?

Fabulae Lunae 1

Thunder Moon Tussle