No Leverage - Part 3

The clean-gloved man smiled and gave a nod. “This man,” he said, his smile not moving, “this information broker took something from me. It’s in his head, and now I want it back.”

The Orion’s weapon came up first, smooth as breathing, and of course it did. The others followed with less grace but the same intent. One disruptor, two compact pistols, the pilot’s hand dropping beneath his coat. None of them aimed at the arrivals across the dust, where the clean-gloved man waited with all the patience in the quadrant. They aimed at the twitchy man.

Ragnar’s hand moved because not moving would have marked him apart. His rifle came up low, not quite centred, not yet, but enough. Enough that he was one more line in the cage.

The twitchy man saw it. Saw him. His eyes fixed on Ragnar with the terrible hope of someone who had mistaken understanding for mercy, and that was a bad mistake. “I can pay,” he said quickly, voice cracking around the words as his hands lifted slowly away from his sides. “I can pay more than whatever he offered. I have access. Accounts. Routes. Names. You think he’ll let you walk after this? You think any of you get to keep what he gives you?”

No one answered. The wind moved dust across the space between them, catching against boots and the edges of cargo cases, making a dry whispering sound beneath the silence. The clean-gloved man did not rush or speak. He only watched, and that was worse somehow, because it meant this part had already been bought.

The twitchy man swallowed, eyes darting over the weapons before landing on Ragnar again. “You were Starfleet,” he said, too fast, too desperate, and that made something in the air shift. “I know the look, the way you hold your rifle. I know it. You don’t have to do this.”

Ragnar’s jaw tightened. There it was...not a plea to the room, but something thrown at the one man he thought might still have a piece of his soul left. The old Starfleet part of him stirred under the ash, angry and useless and alive enough to hurt. But the rest of him counted weapons, counted the distance…the Nausicaan’s disruptor, the Orion’s easy grip, the pilot’s angle, the clean-gloved man’s smile, the fact that the transport was still powered and the road behind them had nowhere to hide a body that wanted to keep breathing.

He could draw for the broker. He could try to do something stupid and heroic and be vaporised as a result. A man who truly didn’t care about his own life would…but truth was, Ragnar’s self-destructive tendencies were more slow burn than a blaze of glory.

He didn’t owe the man anything, but he held his eyes regardless, letting the lie settle onto his face before he spoke. “Thing is, job’s a job.”

The twitchy man stared at him for a second, and Ragnar watched the hope go out of his face. It did not leave cleanly and that was the worst of it. Hope was stubborn in some people, stupidly so, caught under the ribs even when the room had already decided what it was going to do with you. The broker looked at Ragnar like he wanted to argue, like there might still be some combination of words that would unmake the rifles, the contract, the clean-gloved man smiling across the dust. But whatever he saw in Ragnar’s face must have answered him, because his mouth closed and something in him went very still.

The clean-gloved man lifted two fingers and that was all it took. The Nausicaan moved first, heavy boots scuffing through the dirt as he crossed the space between them. The broker backed up one step before the Orion’s disruptor shifted and stopped him without a word. Not aimed at his head. Lower than that. Belly, maybe. Somewhere slow if it went wrong. The broker saw it too, because of course he did, and the fear pushed out of him in a hard, sour wave that caught in Ragnar’s throat like he had swallowed bad drink too quickly.

“Please,” the broker said, and this time there was no bargaining in it. No accounts thrown out, no promise of routes, no names...just the bare ugly word, stripped of anything clever.

Ragnar kept the rifle steady, didn’t flinch, didn’t even allow that little better him than me feeling to rise. He was watching a dead man whose body hadn’t realised it was gone yet.

The Nausicaan caught the broker by the arm, fingers closing above the elbow with enough pressure to make him gasp. The smaller figure in the hood stepped in after him with a restraint band, efficient and almost gentle in the way people were when they were handling something valuable. That made it worse. If they had hit him, if they had dragged him, if they had laughed, Ragnar could have put them somewhere easier in his head. But they did not. They treated him like cargo that needed to arrive intact.

The broker looked at Ragnar again as they turned him, and Ragnar looked back. He did not owe the man comfort. He did not owe him apology. He did not owe him anything, and that was the sort of thing people told themselves when the truth had too much weight to carry bare-handed. The broker’s eyes were dark and wide, fixed on him with an accusation Ragnar did not think the man had enough air left to speak. Maybe not even accusation. Maybe just witness. Maybe just the human animal need to have one person see you before the dark took you…who knew. But it didn’t sit right with Ragnar...which was strange, after all this time.

Then the broker was across the dust, boots stumbling once before the Nausicaan corrected him. The clean-gloved man watched him come with that same patient smile, and when the broker reached him, he leaned in close enough to say something Ragnar could not hear. Whatever it was, the broker stopped fighting.

[To be Continued]