By David C. Daoust
Dutch could never be considered a smart man, or a very good looking man. Dutch, however, could get things done. Sometimes it took pressure in the right place, or a little elbow grease if need be, other times just a hard stare. Mostly, it was a rundown of all three; if you were lucky, he would do it in reverse order, and if you were smart, it would only take the hard stare.
While others may not consider him a smart man, in Dutch’s opinion, he was the second smartest person in the Onion. The first of which was the man he’d hitched his fate to long ago, Bernard Vice. This act alone, made him the second smartest, as his life, which may have been lost to a labor force, getting shafted into mindless mediocrity, had been elevated to a life of riches and glamor.
All he need do- was the heavy lifting. The dirt jobs, the bloody jobs, the ones most couldn’t do, or wouldn’t, or, more still, couldn’t live with themselves thereafter. Dutch was strong, and mean, didn’t have much care for what was what, as long as his life continued to look the way it looked from the day he’d joined up with Bernard, and helped set into motion his plans for the ‘Organization’.
One of his first and most important jobs was merely hefting the stripped down ‘javelin’ they used to neutralize the massive bot that was standing in the way of Bernard’s start-up capital. Sometimes all you need- is a strong arm.
After that, Dutch was Bernard’s second for years and years, and when Bernard’s son Colin, got to the age where he could start learning the ins-and-outs of the business, it was Dutch and only Dutch, that Bernard trusted with his son.
Colin and Dutch spanned the Onion, from their dusky homes aboard the Organization’s refurbished Crucible, to the moons of the outer rim’s Gas Giants, the pair ran the gamut, not only illegal goods, but missions most would not want to believe happened outside of old violent-crime movies and books.
It was on Dutch’s watch that Colin had almost been lost; it was this fact that almost crushed the old thug. Truly, Colin was more than just a partner to Dutch, he was a son. When Colin found himself in a gun fight, not only unarmed, but without Dutch… well, Dutch never forgave himself and never will.
It was Dutch that stayed on that watery moon as the boys heart was replaced with that mechanical ticker. It was Dutch that sat up in the hospital as he went through rehabilitation.
Bernard knew the score, and never blamed Dutch. In fact, Bernard never said much of anything about the incident; he did however take the opportunity to install the cybernetic implants into his son’s body, cybernetics that would allow Colin access to whole new form of space travel.
Dutch was not surprised that the intelligent Bernard Vice turned this incident to his advantage, as the procedure to keep the boy’s body from rejecting the heart, involved a general genetic upgrade as well, thus making his body strong enough to survive the replacement heart.
This genetic upgrade would make his entire body stronger and faster than a normal man’s, though with the very great risk of rendering him not only sterile but significantly lower his life expectancy, IF he survived the upgrade to begin with.
All these risks were why the upgrades were only used to help save lives from the brink- or help those commissioned by the military to be equipped with said implants.
Lucky for Bernard, Colin was on the brink, thus made his son the perfect candidate for extremely expensive and illegal cybernetics, Ultimately, making Colin the fastest smuggler in the known universe; more importantly, the fastest smuggler in the known universe- on Bernard’s payroll.
Of it all, Dutch gave the young man the retractable gun and forced Colin to promise to never remove the weapon from up his sleeve.
Colin and Dutch returned to their business. The pair had always flown a Behemoth Class cargo ship known as the ‘Dirty Damsel’. It was a big ugly thing, like Dutch, and held a large crew.
Nowadays, much to Dutch’s dismay, Colin flew his personal ship most of the time, a light freighter known as the ‘Spectre’, a ship that was just as much a part of Colin, as the ticker clicking away in his chest.
The ship was smaller, more discrete; it could go places others couldn’t and in half the time.
Often times Colin’s ship sat within the Dirty Damsel’s hold. Now though, it was gone, and Dutch hadn’t heard a word since the boy had picked up his latest haul. Dutch was one of the only people, besides Bernard, that knew what was stowed away within its hold. They even went as far as to keep Colin in the dark; Safer that way.
Dutch had not heard a word ‘til one of Colin’s aliases came up through the wire, looking for bail on the small moon ‘Twin Crown’. He was familiar with this particular dust ball, it was close to the cargo’s destination, but not remotely ‘on the way’.
The thing about space travel… was that it took time. Dutch knew he was the closest to Twin Crown, and diverted course for Neo Vir’ees before Bernard was even made aware of his son’s supposed detour. While Dutch’s own mission could wait, the people that were expecting Colin’s load… were not to be trifled with.
