They passed into downtown Rackeye and eventually pulled into a garage. Kayla and Thandi watched nervously as a small group rushed to the door to help the young girls out and lead them away. A woman turned to Kayla and reached for her leg.

“That looks terrible,” she said. “Let me take a look.”

“Uh uh, nope,” Kayla said sternly, and withdraw further back into the van.

“I only put a temporary bandage on it,” Gaz explained. “If you don’t get it properly treated it will get infected.”

“Give me your supplies,” Thandi said, “and I’ll take care of it. But nobody is touching my friend.”

Gaz nodded to the woman, who looked annoyed, but passed them a first aid kit. Thandi thanked her, then shut the van door in their faces.

Kayla made a face. “This is a bit of a pickle.”

“Nah,” Thandi said with a wide grin. “We got this. You had a through and through, so it’ll be fine in a couple of hours.”

“Lucky me, huh?”

“I am so joyful right now,” Thandi gushed. “The Lord has blessed us.”

They sat in a side room with Gaz and Sal, who had politely refrained from asking too many questions, while providing them with food and drink.

“He blessed your friend’s leg too?” Sal asked in bemusement.

Thandi waved a hand and her unceasing grin barely flickered. “She’s fine. The point is that we have saved these innocents, and made friends with righteous allies.”

“We’re not friends, much less allies,” Kayla said firmly. “We still don’t know who you guys are.”

“Straight back at ya,” Gaz said cooly. “It would be nice to get a little bit of background. It’s not every day you see two young women walk straight through one of the most heavily guarded cartel operations on Caldera.”

Kayla’s eyes widened. “The most heavily guarded…?”

She glanced at Thandi, who shrugged as if to say ‘whoops’.

“We’re private investigators too,” Thandi said airily. We heard about what was happening there and decided to intervene. I guess we just work a bit more efficiently than your organization.”

“So who contracted you?” Gaz asked. “We know everyone in those girl’s support networks and your names have never come up.”

“Oh,” Kayla shrugged as if the question had no importance whatsoever. “We just keep our ears to the ground. Check the pulse of the criminal underworld. Watch the comings and goings in Rackeye— that kind of thing.”

“God speaks to me and reveals his plans,” Thandi said confidently. “He speaks to Kayla too, but she doesn’t listen.”

Kayla flashed her a look of pained incredulity and was rewarded with a megawatt smile.

“I expect your friend is right,” Sal added. “Because otherwise you would not have been able to run rings around the starport’s entire security force.”

“Or else they’re just lying to us,” Gaz mused.

“Well, take it how you like,” Kayla said, a little more coldly. “You can get those poor girls back to their families and forget you ever saw us.”

“No,” Gaz said. “I don’t think I will. You are obviously very well trained and supported, so I’d rather you fill us in on whatever organization you represent. Whoever you are, you can’t be running around in the dark, kicking up trouble whenever you feel like it. That’s dangerous for everyone.”

“But it’s over now,” Thandi said earnestly. “We’re done with our er… operation, and we won’t bother you anymore.”

“You’re done?” Gaz raised his eyebrows. “Just like that you’re going to walk away? What about the last victim?”

“What?” Kayla said. “There’s more?”

“Okay, so you actually have no clue what I’m talking about, because you’re a bunch of amateurs making shit up as you go along,” Gaz snapped. “You’ve just walked into this thing, made a complete mess, and now you’re going to let me and my guys deal with the fallout, right?”

Kayla ground her teeth. “Who else was taken?” she demanded.

Gaz pulled out a photograph from his pocket. “This is Milani Mayosi, missing for more than a year now. I’d love to get you on a video call with her mother, so you can explain why she’s never going to see her daughter again.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Kayla snatched the photo out of his hand and stared at it.

“We didn’t see anyone else there,” Thandi said, her smile fading quickly.

“No, we think they took Milani somewhere else,” Sal added in a gentler tone. “She could be closer to—”

“Please stop talking, mate,” Gaz said sternly. “I don’t want to give these chuckleheads any more opportunities to screw this thing up. I mean, with the Larue cartel on high alert, we can expect a total lockdown on their activities for at least a month. I wouldn’t be surprised if they whisk Milani off the planet, leaving us no lead to follow.”

Sal nodded sadly.

“Okay, look,” Kayla said in exasperation. “I am really sorry if we have screwed up the opportunity to find this girl. That sucks, and I will find a way to make it right. But if what I’ve seen of your HQ is anything to go by, there was no chance you were going to get inside that compound.”

Gaz shrugged. “Maybe not, but there are other ways. You can buy off cartel members, play rivals against each other, create friction in the group and wait for them to change locations.”

“And that would have taken you how long?”

“Months or years, but—”

“Well, that’s completely unacceptable,” Kayla said. “And maybe you just want to light a fire under your ass to make sure you find this last victim sooner rather than later.”

“Well thanks for the tip, farm smell. I’ve only been doing this for five years, whilst you are obviously a dumb kid playing at action hero.”

Kayla seethed with anger. She struggled to fight the rising urge to put the upstart offworlder in his place. “Maybe,” she said with forced neutrality, “if you worked with Calderans, you would have an easier time.”

“Awesome—I’m all about that.” Gaz pulled a notepad and pen out of his jacket. “Just write whatever number I need to call on this piece of paper. But, of course, you can’t because there isn’t a colony law enforcement agency or militia that will come within a mile of Rackeye, while the Helvets are all completely corrupt.”

Ego burning like a thermal charge, Kayla nevertheless fought for rationality. He was obviously right. Her and Thandi’s reckless actions had potentially made a very difficult situation worse. She crossed her arms and scowled at nothing while she tried to ignore the pain in her leg, which had been getting worse since the conversation had turned sour.

“Let’s everyone take a breath,” Sal advised. “You too, Gaz, because we all know that you have gotten emotionally involved in this contract. We all want to find Milani, I know that. But a million kids are trafficked every year, and we can’t run straight into VennZech’s headquarters getting ourselves shot up for each one of them.”

“I just want these girls to understand that they need to be cooperative,” Gaz said. “Whatever went down tonight is not how things can get done.”

“Sure,” Sal replied, “But it’s in the past now, and we need to discuss the next steps. Can we solve this problem with the best interests of the victim in mind?”

There was a long silence.

Thandi cleared her throat. “Our employer is not going to get any more involved. For reasons I can’t disclose, tonight was a one-off opportunity which won’t be repeated. Your organization is on its own.”

“Okay, thanks for sharing,” Sal said. “But if you have intelligence on the cartel or their movements, or even just on the starport itself—”

Kayla looked up. “Why did you mention VennZech? Just now, you said ‘VennZech HQ’, why?”

Sal exchanged a glance with Gaz, who gently shook his head, then shrugged.

“Well,” Sal said, “everyone knows that VennZech is funding the traffickers, and moving them on their freighters.”

Kayla’s brow furrowed. “So?”

“Our investigation suggests that a senior executive is involved,” Sal said. “He may be holding Milani himself.”

Kayla shuddered. “Filthy scum,” she muttered.

“Yeah,” Gaz said, and they locked eyes.

Kayla’s mind raced as the connections began to make themselves clearer. But she had to be careful if she didn’t want to expose Valkyrie. “We—that is, our organization—is closely following VennZech activities,” she said slowly. “Maybe there is an opportunity for us to help each other.”

“Kayla,” Thandi said warningly.

“To put your mind at ease,” Gaz said. “Our guys don’t really care about anything outside of human trafficking. And we don’t work with the Helvet authorities because they’re worse than the cartels.”

Kayla nodded, and swallowed. She looked at Thandi and saw only deep alarm in her eyes that they were about to violate Valkyrie’s code of ethics for the second time that night.

“I wasn’t kidding earlier,” Gaz said. “If you have the number of someone in the colonies who can be a benefit to us, I want to contact them. The non-Helvet world is too fragmented to make connections easily.”

“And why would a Frontier Marine say something like that?”

“The Corps was dissolved by the Helvetic central committee,” Sal said. “Because after the frontier war we were on the verge of mutiny. If you read some of our history, you’ll understand why. We were always estranged from the League.”

Kayla let out a long breath. “Okay… VennZech has recently been moving some high-grade military hardware. We… were supposed to be tracking those movements. Since we were in the vicinity of the starport, we decided to engage in a little community service. I apologize for the difficulties this has caused your obviously valiant investigation.”

Gaz watched her thoughtfully before he responded. “A couple of weeks ago they moved a large group of top-secret shipments through the starport—destination unknown. They brought in old staff and paid high bonus rates to get it done as quickly and quietly as they could. Lots of containers moved in from a long-haul freighter.”

Kayla hoped her skin wasn’t going pale as she absorbed this information. She did her best to keep her cool, but her leg began to tremble. Once again, Rayker was scheming to bring death and destruction to her home world.

“That matches our information,” Thandi said calmly.

Kayla tried to steady her hand as she withdrew her phone from her pocket. “I’m going to send you a number,” she said, as she selected her dad’s contact information. “Jack Fenway, in Zula. He’s not in town for a few days, but if you contact him as soon as you can, and give him this information, he might be able to benefit your group.”

It was a selfish lie, but she had no choice. Caldera—maybe even humanity—was facing down an existential threat. This was the only way she had to alert her superiors to what was happening, without getting her and Thandi kicked out of the organization. With Rayker on Caldera once again, there was no way she would miss out on hunting her down.

But she also promised herself she would do whatever she could to find Milani, and free her. And if she could find a way to destroy VennZech in the process, so much the better.

“I hope this works out,” Gaz said sincerely.

Thandi slapped the table. “I told you,” she said, once again in a voice of pure happiness. “The Lord works in mysterious ways.”