Chapter 9

Nissie and Sam were physical wrecks; Nissie had already been through this before with the attacks, explosions, threats, and general terror. Sam had just gotten her brother back after years of isolating himself from his family. To lose him this quickly was maddening to both women, especially as good as Mark was. Coughing from the dust and smoke, neither woman saw the shadowy outline of a man walking through it all toward them. Neither saw when it stopped nearby, watching them both for a moment. “I thought I told you two to go back to the room!” Mark said, a little irritated that neither of them had listened to him.

With a shout of relief and pure joy, both women threw themselves at Mark, clutching him tightly, kissing his entire face, the tears flowing freely now. “Mr. Mark, you scared the crap out of us when you said you might not be able to defuse the bomb. We thought you were caught in the blast; neither of us would know what to do if we lost you,” Nissie said, wiping tears away.

Gently caressing both their faces, he had to admit it had been close; even with the wrapping enshrouding shield, the bomb still had enough energy to take out the back wall and take his breath away from the concussion of the blast.

Kissing each woman, he took them back to the room, “Please stay here for a while. I have almost everything done, then I’ll be back; I’ll call you if I need you there.”

Mark said, still a little shaky.

Mark walked into the comp room more than pissed off. Obviously, the little bastard was starting to lose his mind; a maintenance man NEVER damaged good equipment NEVER. To Mark, Tantka had broken the first unwritten rule of the maintenance man credo. Checking all his equipment and running his scans again, he found no further charges of any kind; with the comp finally clean, he installed an anti-virus program 100 times better than what had been in place before. Finishing, Mark started back to his room, the look of anger on his face causing many who met him to slowly back away. Mark wasn’t caring. All he could think about was stopping the little ass before he hurt people that weren’t even concerned with this war between him and Mark.

Nissie and Sam, though visibly shaken, were actually calmer than they showed; they sat nearby in case Mark needed them after he came back in and pulled a multitude of machines out of his bag and case. Setting up a network interface, Mark began to scan the whole planet for anything remotely resembling Tantka and his tech. Moments later, there was a knock at their door; opening it, Mark was greeted by the sight of a slender, somewhat thin, almost wiry redhead. From behind him in the room, he heard Nissie squeal. “Assti!” at a full run, Nissie flung herself into the arms of the other woman. “Mr. Mark! I’d like you to meet my sister Assti!”

Mark looked her way and nodded, still scanning, trying to get a location on Tantka.

Assti stepped closer, her eyes suddenly wide in surprise; holy shit, she’d never seen a scanner as detailed as his! No wonder that little ass hadn’t got them yet. A newfound respect for Mark began to grow.

Sitting with her sister, she decided to wait for Mark to finish and maybe get him to upgrade her scanner. Mark had been at it for almost an hour when he started to get readings; smiling, he looked at Assti, “You’ve been after him with no let-up, good!” Assti looked at the readout. Holy shit! Bio readings, too? Who the hell was this guy? She’d heard he was good, but not this good!

“Yes, but I lost him when I landed here. My scanner can’t pierce his damping field,” Assti said. Mark took hers, removed the back, tweaked and added parts for half an hour, and then handed them back to her. Amazed, she turned it on and was amazed again that it clearly showed where he was, the weapons he had, and, best of all, his current physical condition. Damn, Mark was good; if her sister didn’t have a claim on him, she might go after him herself!

Mark sat and discussed what her plan was and filled her in on what he knew and had on Tantka to date. Though not as detailed as her info, his tech more than made up for it. Hugging and bidding her sister goodbye, Assti left with just a few words to Mark, and then Mark began to put his own plan up. Mark knew that as long as Tantka was on the planet, neither he nor the women were safe, so he considered that they had no choice but to remain, but with a few surprises of their own. Following Assti with a drone, he saw she was getting closer; damn it! Tantka started to move, not as fast as before, but fast enough to see two shots being fired. Neither went down, causing Mark to curse. The com he’d given Assti was working perfectly. He saw that Assti had a burn from where the bullet had skimmed her, but the comp was already healing that.

Watching, both shuttles departed Mark, knowing they had to be much more careful. After seeing the president letting him know what was done and that all was ready, plus the fact that the back wall was gone, they headed for the liner. Nissie and Sam took up their places as Mark went through the ship and programs with a toothcomb.

He updated everything he could, and he also added the new updated version of the image filter set to distribute to all ships that contacted this one. He also made a point to upload it to the company mainframe. Linking them to his comp, he figured he could also use the ship’s system throughout the empire to possibly keep an eye on Tantka. Releasing the ship, they were soon on their way to the next contract. Though this was only two days away, Mark didn’t want any surprises.

The first day, he worked on a new idea he had, something he was sure would come in handy very soon. The second day, he was so tired and worn out that he just slept and snuggled between Nissie and Sam; this made the women happy but to no end. Though still a little shaken from days before, the fact that Mark was there to hold them made them feel even more secure than before. Waking up as the ship landed, Mark felt rested for the first time in at least a week.

Looking under the covers, he saw that neither woman had resisted the urge to play with him. He must have been exhausted. He didn’t remember a thing. Departing the ship, Mark looked at the ramshackle spaceport; this place looked old, really old looking further, he saw that the repair bots were also old; holy shit! They were the Mark I was! The very first repair bots made! Slow and bulky but tough as they came, Mark felt he was almost in a museum of ancient machines.

Taking a cart to the presidential building, Mark again shook his head. Had no one ever wanted to learn how to fix anything? Out here, it appeared that everyone had given up and not even tried; what the fuck was wrong with these people? Mark just wanted to slap the shit out of all of them, really, people! To live in the dirt? Hell might as well live in caves and hunt with spears again. Mark just hoped that those he taught would continue on and not conveniently forget and let everything go straight to hell again. They were met by the president, who begged them to fix the place. “I’ve heard you’re good, but from what I saw from a world you were on for a whole month, you’re not that good,” the man sneered.

Mark though having been through this before, felt the rage build within him; grabbing the man by the throat, Mark lifted him off the floor, “Listen to me, you little shithead!” Mark shouted in his face, “I did what I could for them, and they were happy! Nothing I’ve seen here is unfixable, though, as you have machines over 150 years old on the street. I’ve had extremely bad times the last few months, piss me off more, and I’ll leave! Your whole damn planet can rot for all I care! So shove it up your ass. I can claim breach of contract and take this planet, so back off, you piss ant!”

Slamming the man to the floor, Mark turned to go, his face now red, the rage finally leaving his body. Nissie stayed with Sam to advise the man of the very few choices he had left; the man, quite shaken, had started to call his police force when Sam advised him not to if he wished to have a force after today. An hour later, they walked out to a small table. Mark was sitting at a table with food that had just arrived, smiling. The women told Mark all that had been discussed; Mark listened with rapt attention, smiling from time to time at what the women had said.

“So you suppose he might be more receptive now, huh?” Mark asked.

“Yes, Sam replied, “He has been advised of the two companies or planets that couldn’t pay also; I think that alone put him in a better mode, especially when we told him that you might trash the planet for a junk dump.” Sam laughed at that, which elicited a small laugh from Mark; both women stared at him. This was the first time Nissie had really ever heard him laugh for Sam. It had been far too long.

After eating, Mark decided to make the president sweat more and took a short tour of the city. However, it is not really interesting. Mark saw the potential in many good things located throughout. Finally, with the day starting to wind down, the three went back to the building. Mark was ready to call the president’s bluff but found that the man was more than ready to come to terms with Mark. That settled, Mark went to the planetary comp to assess the problems, walking in his heart sank once again. He could see that these people were idiots! Further proof that these idiots didn’t give a shit about their machines. Well, at least the comp was one of the newer models (it was only 20 years old) and hadn’t been opened or destroyed.