October 28, 2361 AIA
P41
The Golondrina’s landing on P41 had been as uneventful as Ciro had predicted. It took only a second for the ATC to double-check the codes and assign the ship a dock. As Adan cut the last engine, he instructed Lynx to finish powering down the ship while he got ready.
Reyer already had her knife secured at her back. When Vas saw her pick up an e-pistol, he shook his head.
“Why not?” she asked.
“You look really good in those clothes,” he said. “Have I ever told you that?”
“Adan.” She sounded reproachful.
He took the weapon out of her hand and tucked it into his holster. “They’re also cut a little too close to your body to get away with hiding a gun.”
“That’s what my vest is for.”
“Oh, you mean the one you’re not going to be wearing?” He nodded to her kit bag. “Take the jacket. It’ll still hide your knife, but it looks moderately more respectable.”
“I thought I was supposed to be undercover.”
Ciro’s abrupt laugh drew her attention.
When she looked at him, he said, “Sorry.”
“What’s so funny?” she demanded.
“Alix, you’re supposed to be undercover, as in, trying not to look like someone in the Supremacy military. You’re not supposed to be undercover as a member of the Rising who’s owned the same vest for over a decade.”
She shook her head, but there was a subtle smile on her lips. Then she saw the look Adan was giving his brother.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Vas didn’t stop what he was doing, as he spoke: “How come he gets to call you Alix?”
Reyer made an exasperated noise.
“I assumed it was because she was dating my brother,” Ciro said. “You know—commiseration.”
“Oh, no! It shouldn’t be that easy! Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to get that privilege?”
“Does it really matter?” Reyer asked.
There was a short silence.
“No.”
When Ciro and Reyer glanced at each other, they both saw the other trying to hide a smile.
“Come on,” Vas said. “We’ve got places to be and people to lie to. Is someone going to be waiting for us, Ciro?”
“They let us land, didn’t they?” Ciro said. “They got the message hours ago.”
Vas came around the bench as Reyer finished putting on her jacket. He made sure her knife didn’t show, fixed the lapels, and refolded her collar. Alix patiently allowed him to fuss over her without comment. Out of affection for him, she also refrained from rolling her eyes.
“You remember the story?” Adan said.
“Yes, Captain,” she said. “What little there is, I remember.”
“All right. And for Christmas, I’ll get you a concealed holster.”
Reyer was about to object but hesitated.
Adan smiled. “Yeah, I thought you’d like that.”
Now she did roll her eyes.
“Kiss me,” he said.
“Captain—”
“We’re about to go out on a dangerous mission. This might be our last chance. I’m the captain, and I’m telling you to kiss me.”
“I don’t take orders from you.”
“Kiss me or you don’t come on the next mission.”
“I don’t respond well to threats either.”
“Please?”
She relented. When the kiss was done, the captain turned to where his brother was sitting, buried in his pile of technology.
“Ciro!”
“I’m not kissing you.”
It was a good thing the ship was sound proof, otherwise whoever was waiting for them would’ve heard Reyer’s laugh.
“You’ll stay here on the ship?” Vas asked.
“Yes, sir,” Ciro said.
“Good. Considering how well this planet is monitored, I’m only going to be in contact over the com if there’s an emergency.”
“Understood.”
When Vas went to make sure Lynx had his orders, Reyer stayed by the ramp. Ciro saw her looking at him and tried to avoid meeting her eyes.
“Ciro.” She spoke quietly enough Adan couldn’t overhear.
Ciro stared at his computer. “If you’re going to try to talk to me again, I heard you fine the first ten times.”
“You’re worried.”
He finally looked at her. “So are you.”
He fixed his attention back on his screens. Reyer was about to say something else, but then Vas was beside her and the ramp was lowering.
[https://i.imgur.com/6iM8gcI.png]
Staff Sergeant Frank Gross still had to drink a minimum of two beers at the end of each shift. Only then could he unwind from the dismal certainty that something would go horribly wrong while he was in charge. Nothing ever had gone wrong, but his anxiety was enough of a burden, he didn’t need anything else to add to his stress.
And now this.
It had been the middle of his shift when he received a signal announcing that he should expect an arrival. The codes were all proper, but the fact the woman in charge was presented as non-military personnel caught his attention. A short system search later, he knew the following things: Miss Alice Bellerose was not in the military, she was not associated with a highly classified branch of MI, and you were not supposed to ask why she was there. You did what she asked, then you got out of the way.
As he watched the runner land, Gross discovered his hands had wandered behind his back and were trying to wring each other to death. He forced them back to his sides.
When the woman came down the ramp, the sergeant had to fight the urge to step back. She exuded a miasma of confidence, and her eyes passed over him as if he was only another object to note in her casual inspection of the hangar.
The elaborate greeting he’d spent an hour composing withered away in his throat. All he could manage was, “Miss Bellerose, welcome to P41. I’m Gross—I’m Frank Gross. Gross is my last name.”
Without any preamble, she said, “This hangar is generally secure and quiet, correct, Sergeant?”
“Yes, ma’am.” To his relief, he managed to not stutter.
“No one will board the ship without a specific warrant or my own authorization?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I have two men with me.”
One of them was already disembarking. He also scanned the hangar before taking his place at her elbow.
“Mr. Banderas will come with me,” she said.
Gross noted how the man was standing and decided he must be a bodyguard. The sergeant’s attempt to see whether or not Mr. Banderas was carrying a concealed weapon resulted in him staring at the man until Banderas cleared his throat. When Gross looked up, the bodyguard was glaring at him.
Miss Bellerose continued, “The other Banderas will stay back on board to look after…the ship.”
The ship. Frank noted her hesitation and wondered what kind of sensitive material would be so covert she wasn’t even willing to mention its existence. Then he berated himself for wondering. If she wasn’t allowed to mention its existence, he could probably be court-martialed for wondering about it.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“I also have a bot. He’ll remain on board as well, unless I need him. If I’m gone longer than five hours, please leave a note so someone remembers to feed my retainer.”
“I’ll do that, ma’am.”
“Do you have any questions, Sergeant?”
“No, ma’am. I—” He cleared his throat. “I only need your scan and ID.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What system is it kept on?”
“Gray only, ma’am. Verified and then destroyed.”
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She nodded. Then she and Mr. Banderas submitted to the retinal scan.
Sergeant Gross tried to give her a polite smile. His lips twitched into a straighter line. “There, Miss Bellerose. If you’d care to come this way, I can show you out.”
When he got them to the back door, he used his own ID to open it and gestured to the gaping portal with a slightly manic flourish. “Best of luck on your mission, ma’am.”
“My mission.” The two words were uttered in such a cold voice they could have been used as ice cubes.
“Yes. I mean—uh. Not that you…not that you have a mission. I mean, if you had a mission.” He forced a laugh. “Of course you don’t.” He gave an exaggerated wink. He didn’t want her thinking his eye was twitching. Which it was.
“Are you being flippant, Sergeant?”
“Uh, no. No, ma’am. I apologize.”
“Good.” She stopped beside him as she was going through the door. “And don’t call me ma’am, Sergeant Gross. I’m not in the military.”
“Yes, ma’—of course, Miss Bellerose.”
When the door shut behind them, Frank leaned up against the wall and did some deep breathing exercises.
Down the street, Vas turned around to check if anyone was behind them.
“No one,” he said, turning back.
“You thought someone would dare follow me?” Reyer asked.
Vas smiled at her. “You do pompous very well.”
“All I have to do is pretend to be every officer I’ve ever met.”
“I’m telling Ito you said that.”
“I’m still a little confused why you wanted me to be the officer—or, the former officer. You didn’t think you could pull it off, Captain?”
Adan tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. “Not half as well as you. But I also thought they’d be more likely to keep an injured officer in an undisclosed position, rather than give a captain a gimpy assistant. And I knew you’d be good at it because of all the practice you had as a sergeant.”
Reyer knew she couldn’t deny it, so she didn’t bother trying.
There was a half-smile on the captain’s face when he said, “It’s probably a good thing you weren’t my trainer.”
“Oh?” Alix looked at him out of the corner of her eye.
“I can’t even imagine how much trouble I’d have gotten into. You’re so unbearably sexy when you’re being intimidating.”
“I would’ve cured you of that sentiment quickly.”
“How? By being more intimidating? Please, anything but that!”
“Aren’t we supposed to be doing something, Mr. Banderas?”
“Yes, Miss Bellerose.”
Vas pulled out a phone. Reyer had to resist the urge to ask if she could play with it. She’d seen them before, but she’d never used one. Adan seemed indifferent to it. But then, he’d been born and raised on a Supremacy planet where technological luxuries were taken for granted.
Adan said, “Antonio should have downloaded the map system for the planet—yes. Here we are.” He pointed to the small screen. “We have the coordinates for Gardner’s last hiding place.”
“And we’re sure he’s still there?”
“As sure as we can be. The signal is over a week old, but unless he had to move, he wouldn’t update it. If he did move, you can bet he would’ve found a way to let us know.”
From the military designation included on the map, Alix could tell the building they were headed to had something to do with supply, but she couldn’t tell anything specific. They’d have to learn more about it when they arrived.
But when they got there, it revealed nothing. They stared up at the stark walls of the three-story building, searching for any sign of what it might be. All they could see was the address numbers, confirming they’d found the right place.
With nothing else to go on, they decided to use a direct approach.
They mounted the four steps to get to the front entrance. Reyer reached out and knocked on the door.
A man opened it partway and leaned against the frame, blocking their view of the interior. He was wearing a white coat and had a crumpled set of disposable gloves in one hand.
“Yes?” he said.
Reyer wished there’d been any other way. “I’m Alice Bellerose, and this is Mr. Banderas.”
“Good afternoon,” the man said. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“We’re looking for a man named Gardner.”
“Gardner is it?” He turned his head to look back into the room behind him. It was a moment or two before he turned back.
“Older man. Fat. Has a dry sense of humor,” Vas prompted. “He’s expecting us.”
The man lowered his eyes. “Yes, he is.” He stepped away from the door so he could open it wider.
Something about the man’s demeanor made Vas uneasy. He held Alix back and went inside first. She could only pass through after he stepped further in.
The room looked like the public waiting room of an office. It was devoid of any personal touch. The furniture was bland but functional, and the pictures on the walls were completely unable to offend or appeal to anyone, but there were signs the room was used—a small scrap of paper that escaped the cleaning, a chair pulled slightly away from the wall, a magazine folded back.
The man who’d admitted them gave off the same air. He seemed professional and impersonal, as if his lab coat was acting as a shield to keep everything at bay. But there were signs that he was a real person—the patches of gray in his short hair, the lines around his eyes, the way his cheeks were pulled down by his slight frown.
“Excuse me, sir,” Reyer said.
“I’m sorry. It’s Daghar. Nourie Daghar.” Mr. Daghar didn’t stop to shake hands. He led them past the waiting room, toward the interior of the building.
“Mr. Daghar,” Reyer said, “may I ask what you do?”
The man stopped and turned toward them when he answered. “I’m an apothecary and drug supplier for the Supremacy here on 41.”
“Apothecary? That’s an archaic term.”
Mr. Daghar didn’t smile, but for a moment, he stopped frowning. “I hope to bring it back.” He continued toward the main work room. “You see, I’m not only a pharmacist, I’m a chemist. I do more than sell my medicines—I can make them as well.”
“Ah. An apothecary. How appropriate.”
Daghar glance back at Reyer. Vas tried to read what he could from the man’s face. The apothecary seemed pleased by Alix’s approval, but there was another subtle emotion hidden in the expression.
“General Gardner has some interesting friends,” Vas said, watching Daghar closely.
“He most certainly does.”
Was it frustration?
Since he was at the back of the group, Vas had no trouble pulling his e-pistol without being seen.
“Here we are,” Daghar announced as he passed through the doorway into the main room.
There were six men. They attacked immediately.
By the time the short fight was over, one of the men was dead. Vas had Mr. Daghar in a choke hold, his gun pressed into his temple. The apothecary could feel white spots popping around the edge of his vision. The captain was unaware of how tight his grip was or how hard he was crushing the e-pistol against his hostage’s head. Vas was staring at the two men kneeling over Reyer.
Alix didn’t notice the weapons aimed at her. She was trying to stop herself from whimpering. When they had jerked her to the ground, they pulled her back without realizing how crippling it would be. She curled up, trying to will away the pain.
“Let her go.” In the strained silence, each word of Adan’s command rang out with a hard edge.
No one moved.
“Let her go, or I’ll put a hole in Mr. Daghar’s skull and murder every one of you!”
Vas was distracted by the rhythmic clicking of heels moving over the concrete floor. A woman stepped out from behind the boxes where she’d been hiding and crossed the room toward them.
“Ah, no-no-no,” she said. “This can’t happen. That ain’t right. You’ll have to ease up on my sweetie Nourie or you won’t have to shoot him.”
The woman seemed to fill the room with movement. Her loud voice rose and fell through different octaves as she spoke. Between her skin-tight, bright blue mini-skirt and her electric pink hair, it was hard to tell what stood out most about her.
The captain relaxed his arm. Daghar greedily sucked in as much air as he could before a cough rattled his chest.
“Thank you,” the woman said. “Now we gotta deal with the ugly of all of this. Hmmm.” She crossed her arms and put a neon nail next to her mouth. She also glanced at the bloody wreck of a body on the floor, but she didn’t seem concerned by it. A second passed, then she fluttered her hand in front of her face. “All right. Sure. Let her go.”
“What?” one of the men demanded.
“He’s got Goldie. And Goldie is worth a lot more than she is. We’re gonna give him what he wants. Let her go.”
“The bitch stabbed me! She stabbed me!”
The woman walked over to her underling and leaned down until one of the pink ringlets fell between them. “You mean she was attacked by six men and managed to defend herself? Yeah. What a bitch, huh? Let her up, Donny. I’m not sure you wanna find out whether I think you’re worth more than Goldie.”
Donny and the other man stood up and backed away from Reyer.
“And I’d look after that wound,” the woman added. She turned to Vas. “Now, please, let little Nourie go. He shouldn’t be involved in this. A nicer man you couldn’t meet.”
The captain looked around. One of their attackers was dead. One was preoccupied with the wound in his leg. But four men were still watching him, guns drawn. He let the apothecary go. Mr. Daghar dropped to his knees, then scuttled away from the corpse. Vas holstered his weapon and went over to Reyer. When he helped her to her feet, she clutched at him, steadying herself until she could stand on her own.
The woman clapped twice. “Ah! Much better. This was where we were supposed to be. Introduction time!” She put a hand to her ample chest. “Helena Melo. I’m the boss around here—at least, I’m the boss of these boys. Now—” Her smile seemed to grow more ferocious than friendly. “Who are you?”
When Vas didn’t answer, Melo nodded to two of her boys. “Search ‘em. They’ll have ID.”
As they approached, Vas reached into his own and Reyer’s back pockets to remove their wallets. He held them out. “Francisco Banderas and Alice Bellerose.”
When her boys brought them over, Helena Melo looked at the IDs, then up at their faces. “Hey!” she shouted while still gazing at her captives. “Temo!” Another man came out from behind the boxes, where he’d been staying away from the action. “Let’s find out who they really are.”
Keeping his eyes averted from his fallen comrade, Temo held up the tablet he had kept tucked under his arm. He trained the small camera on Vas, then turned it toward Reyer.
With his task done, he scurried back to Ms. Melo, muttering something as he approached. There was a soft beep from the computer. He handed it to her.
Melo glanced down at the screen. “Oh! A captain.” She returned the tablet to Temo. “Captain Adan Vas, wanted for various crimes against the Supremacy, including being a traitor in the service of the Uprising.”
She strolled over to him and looked him up and down. “Wanna know how much your bounty is?”
“Not really.”
“Oh, come on.” She winked at him. “You might like it.”
“Nah. It’ll either hurt my feelings or make my ego an even bigger problem. I’ll pass.”
“Suit yourself.” She took a step to stand in front of Reyer. “And what about this cutie?”
From behind her, Temo said, “Nothing, Boss. She’s not in the system.”
Vas and Reyer managed to hold still, betraying none of the surprise they both felt.
“Nada?” Melo looked at Alix with narrowed eyes. “You new to the Uprising, sweetie? No. You fight too well to be new. But maybe that’s not it. Hmm.” She jerked her head toward the captain. “What’re you doin’ with this guy?”
“I’m here to help pick up Gardner,” Reyer said.
“What do you want with that pudgy old crank?”
“Ah! So you do know him.”
Helena Melo grinned. “Oh, yeah. I know him.”
“Can we see him?”
“No. I don’t think so. Not yet, anyway.”
“I don’t suppose you’re going to let us pick him up and walk away?” Vas asked.
Melo whistled. “Aren’t you an optimist? What do you think, Captain?”
“What happens now?” Reyer asked.
“Well, if Supreme don’t know you, they won’t pay for you.” Melo walked away. “Why don’t two of you boys show her out?”
“Melo!” Daghar said.
“What’s she gonna do?” Melo said. “Go to the Supremacy for help? Good! Spare us a phone call. Or maybe you’d rather I kill her for no reason? I think she’s smart enough to know she can’t take us all alone.”
The apothecary lowered his eyes.
Helena cooed when she saw his expression. “Awww, Nourie-sweetie.” She took the tablet out of Temo’s hands and passed it over. “I told you it’d be worth the trouble. This is gonna work out great. You wait and see.”
“We’re going to get caught.” The apothecary’s voice was strained.
“Trust me, Nourie. I’ll make sure nothin’ ever happens to you.” To the others she said, “Go on. Get her out of here. And take care of the captain.”
“Wait!” Reyer yelled.
The room all looked at her.
She inclined her head toward Vas. “I want to know how much his bounty is.”
Melo put a hand on her hip. “Why? He mean somethin’ to you?”
“He’s my ride,” Reyer said. “I won’t be able to get out of here without him.”
“Oh, honey. You’d be able to buy your own ship and rent a gold-plated pilot before you could get him back.”
“He means something to the Rising too. Maybe they’d be willing to pay.”
“Sorry, no.” Melo ticked her index finger back and forth. “Dealing with the Rising would bring the Supremacy down on us. I can’t let that happen. Kill the goose that lays the golden egg? No.”
Two of the men grabbed Reyer by the arms.
Before they could turn her around, their boss called out, “Hey, cutie!” She tossed Reyer her fake ID. Then she snapped her fingers and pointed down at the knife still laying on the floor. One of her boys picked it up and handed it to Melo. Helena walked over and held it out so Reyer could take it. “You be careful out there. It can be a harsh universe.”
As they took Alix back through the waiting room, Vas kept his eyes averted so they wouldn’t see any emotion.
The last two men searched him. They took away his e-pistol and knife and crushed his com. When they were done, they cuffed his hands in front of him. As they led him from the room, Ms. Melo shouted, “Enjoy your stay, Captain Vas.”
Adan tried to take in as much of the building as possible as they shoved him through the hallways. They took him down two flights of stairs and stopped in front of a heavily secured metal door. After they pushed him inside, the locks made an audible clank as they fastened behind him.
The room was small, airless, and lit by nothing more than a thin strip of window at the top of one wall. It was also occupied.
Emery Gardner was sitting at the edge of a small cot. His hands were cuffed in front of him.
“Captain Vas,” he said, “thank you for coming. I’m afraid I have to apologize for our current predicament. Things did not quite turn out the way I had planned.”
Adan stared at the former general for a moment, then he began to laugh.
“Hello, Gardner,” he said. “You’re the luckiest bastard alive, you know that?”
“They let Miss Reyer go, didn’t they?”
The captain nodded.