by Kelly Gay
Laine set the glasses on the table and pulled out a chair. “Didn’t peg you for a wanted criminal, but here we are.”
Nice to see her mother’s comeback game was still going strong. Rion sat and tried the drink, finding it more sour than she expected.
Laine snorted. “You get used to it.”
“If you say so. I hope the authorities didn’t cause you too much trouble.”
“They were… thorough. Not like I had much to tell them.” Laine shrugged. “Barely know you anymore and said as much. So what did you do? They wouldn’t say.”
“They claim I took something that belonged to them.”
“Did you?”
“What I took was never theirs to begin with, so, no, not really.”
As Rion took another sip, Laine’s expression grew shrewd. “Why are you here now, after all this time? If you think I’m going to hide you or have the money to—”
The sip went down with a cough. “I have more than enough money. And the entire galaxy at my disposal. Believe me, there are better places to hide than this.”
Stay calm Don’t let her get to you. Rion eased her grip on the glass. She’d learned a long time ago how to let Laine’s comments bounce off—simply stop caring and the easier it was to exist in the same space as her mother. How stupid of her to hope things would be different, that time might have dulled the sharp edges.…
She steadied herself and got on with it. “I have some news. About Dad.”
Laine’s whole body stilled. Several seconds passed before she shifted back in her chair and let out a sharp, disappointed laugh, as though Rion had failed some test she hadn’t known she was taking. “Suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s the one to get you here. Always him…”
It didn’t have to be that way.
It was on the tip of her tongue to voice the thought, to remind her mother that, Yes, it was always him, because you chose to keep me at arm’s length.
“He’s dead then, I take it.”
A gasp escaped before Rion could stop it. Her heart gave a hard, painful bang. She stared straight ahead, in total disbelief, wondering if those words uttered so offhandedly had really just come out of her mother’s mouth.
Laine’s shoulders slacked and guilt clouded her eyes, showing a sliver of humanity at least. “I knew if I ever laid eyes on you again, it’d be one of two things. Either you found him, or he’s truly gone. And by the look on your face…” Abruptly Laine stood. “Is that all, then?”
“Isn’t that enough? Don’t you want to know what happened, how he died?”
“Lucy.” A tired expression crossed her mother’s face and seeped into her tone. “Your father died a long time ago. I’ve made my peace with it.”
“Yes, I know you have. You never believed he might have survived, never had the tiniest bit of hope.”
“Because I used it all up year after year when he was off on deployment, when I thought he’d change his ways.” Grief and emotion warred with anger, anger at admitting she felt anything at all. “I gave every last bit of hope I had to that man, so, no… I had nothing left after he went missing.”
And you had nothing left for me either.
“He died saving the crew.…”
“I don’t want to hear it. I’m plenty busy right n—”
Rion lurched to her feet, her chair scraping loudly. Her father deserved acknowledgment. He deserved to have everyone know of his sacrifice, not to have his memory cast aside so readily. And damned if she was going to stand by and say nothing.
“Your husband—my father—stayed behind on an alien world and manually detonated the Spirit of Fire’s fusion reactor to destroy a fleet of enemy warships that most likely would have led to our extinction. He saved you… me… and everyone else in this goddamn galaxy. You can hate him all you want, but it will never change the fact that he was a hero, and a good father.”
The bang of a side door echoed from down the hallway. Loud footsteps preceded a tall kid with disheveled sandy-brown hair and grease-stained overalls. He drew up short as he entered the kitchen. The easy half grin he wore died as he glanced from Laine to Rion. The pause lasted only a few seconds before he continued into the room, first going to Laine and kissing her cheek, then opening the refrigerator door and pulling out a can.
He popped his drink and drank deeply before eyeing them again.
Clarity snapped through Rion like lightning. Laine actually had the nerve to look irritated as the kid finished his drink in long, thirsty gulps. He swiped his forearm across his mouth, then regarded them both with curiosity.
A second later, he choked and coughed. “Oh, shit. Is this her?”
Laine’s frown worsened.
He moved closer and stared eye level at Rion, thoroughly and unabashedly. A wide smile spread across his face and into his eyes. “My big sister—we meet at last.”
It felt like the whole goddamn planet had flipped upside down, then right side up.
Laine went to the sink. “You might have known about it had you ever kept in touch.”
“Pretty sure it works both ways,” Rion responded without missing a beat. “Had I gotten married or had a child, I sure as hell would have shared that with you. Not waited you out to see if you’d ever contact me again so I could drop the news.”
“I think that’s my cue to leave,” the kid said slowly. “Nice to finally meet you. You’re taller than I thought you’d be.… I’ll be in the shed,” he told Laine as he left the kitchen.
The room went silent. The outside door banged. The birds’ relentless chatter beyond the kitchen window filled the space once more. Now that he was gone, the revelation, the betrayal, began to sink in. Rion’s emotional fortitude was shot, leaving her raw and exposed. How could one person be so unbelievably spiteful?
“So… how old is he?”
“Sixteen.”
The answer shouldn’t have hurt more than anything else that had transpired so far, but it did. “You were pregnant when I left home?”
“Ran away.”
“What?”
“You ran away from home. Don’t say left like you were going on some extended trip or off to college.”
“So what, this is payback? I ran away, so you cut me out of all the important events in your life?”
“You left me, Lucy. Just like your father did. And I don’t owe either of you anything.”
And there it was—the truth, settling hard and ugly right in those raw spots. “I was just a kid—your daughter…” Not some shrink who could’ve seen and understood her mother’s pain.
All this time, she’d thought she was alone, an only child. Maybe she would’ve kept in touch more if she’d known.…
Her mother seemed to read her mind. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Pretend you’d have been any different if you knew. You still would’ve stayed away. You think I wanted my son to pine for his big sister the way I did for your father? To know you, only to watch you go away over and over again and wonder why ‘up there’ meant more to you than the people down here?”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. And so do you, if you want to be honest with yourself.”
“I gave you my waypoint. You never once left a message in all these years, that you left Earth, that you had a new family—not once.” Not even the last time they’d spoke. Goddammit, now her eyes were starting to sting. “Dad is gone,” she said, suddenly overwhelmed and tired and not knowing what else to say. “I just wanted to let you know.” She made for the door, but hesitated. Her mother didn’t reply. “Take care, Mom.”
Every step out to the quad became a mantra. Stay calm Don’t let her get to you. One thing Rion knew for certain: she was never readier to get off solid ground.
Her new half-brother was pushing one of the old ag-carts she’d seen earlier from the shed into the driveway. He stopped when he saw her approach. “You leaving?”
She gestured to the vehicle
. “She’s seen better days.” The single operator’s seat was in the back left of the vehicle overlooking a wide flat bed in the front. Carts like this one were used all over the colonies, for a variety of purposes.
“Big on understatements, are we?” He grinned. “Your quad has some age on her too. Straight M247… guessing ’42 or ’43?”
One had to be a true wheel hound to know the variants down to the year. “Impressive. She’s a ’43. Can definitely take a beating.”
“I can tell.” He reached into the bed and pulled a toolbox to the edge. “Don’t mind her, okay? She’s always been a hard-ass.”
Even though he was young, he had an easy way about him that reminded her of Cade. Like her former first mate, he wasn’t afraid to really look at a person, to see past the clutter and to the heart of the matter.
“If you want to know,” he continued, “she did miss you. I mean, she’d die before admitting it, but it’s true. That’s how I found out about you—caught her looking at old photo logs a while back. Told me all about you and your dad, about how he went missing and you took off to find him.… Did you? Find him, I mean.”
A well of grief rose up, but Rion managed a weak smile. “Took a couple decades… but, yeah, I found him.” And in the process lost Cade, the man she might’ve spent the rest of her life with.
“So what you’re saying is you suck at finding things.”
Her laugh was instantaneous. If only the kid knew that’s how she made her living. “Yeah… you could say that.”
A sheepish grin tugged at his lips. “Sorry. You looked so sad.”
It was sweet of him to cheer her up.
“You gonna come back, now that you know about me?”
“I would like to.…”
“Well, if you do or you don’t…” He reached into his pocket and tossed her a cheap data chip. “Here’s my info. Message me sometime, if you want.” He tipped his gaze to the sky. “Always wanted to see what it’s like up there…”
“You’ve never been off world before? Even in orbit?”
“I wish. It’s not like we have a ship and fuel just lying around. No one around here has that kind of money.” I do, she wanted to say, gripped with the sudden desire to give the kid anything he asked for. “Who knows—maybe one day, she’ll let me go for a spin with you.…”
Their amusement ran parallel, both knowing Laine would never allow it.
“You should probably head off now,” he said with a slight wince. “And please don’t hold it against her. I think she thinks she’s doing you a favor.”
“What do you mean?”
“Those guys from ONI. They came by a while back; five or six months ago now, I guess it was, put the whole community through interrogation—no, no, it wasn’t like that,” he hurried to assure her. “It was the most interesting thing that’s ever happened around here, trust me. Well… except for today. They gave her a transponder to use if you ever showed up. I’m guessing she hit it the minute you came outside.”
“They have people nearby?”
“They used to, but gave up after a few months. No surprise—too boring out here. They have an office up in Lanchessa, so I’m guessing it’ll take them another fifteen, twenty minutes to get here, give or take.”
As Rion absorbed that bit of news, he reached across the quad and held out his hand. She took it, holding on for a moment, connecting. “Glad we finally met,” he said.
“So am I.”
They let go, and he went to grab a wrench from the toolbox when she realized something completely obvious had been forgotten. “Hey. I just realized I don’t even know your name.”
“Oh, yeah, sorry. It’s Cayce.”
“Cayce.” She gave him a smile and a nod. “See you around, kid.”
“Hope so.”
CHAPTER 3
ONI Axon Relay D-2713 / Lanchessa / Sonata / Helice-12 System
The alert blared from the comms console, waking Crewman Lowell from his afternoon nap with all the shock of a cold-water dousing. His entire body jerked, feet coming off the console so quickly it almost sent him backward in his chair.
The alarm never went off.
Shit!
The alarm never went off.
He steadied his shock. The moment had come. The very reason he’d been reassigned to this mind-numbingly boring outpost in the first place. He grabbed the console and pulled himself close to scan the data populating across the screen.
“Steady now, Lowell,” he muttered.
Damned if he’d mess up his chance at redemption. Not when Rion Forge was being served up on a silver platter. Quickly, he entered a command to connect the station with the closest orbiting GPS satellite and then followed up with coordinates to find his target. Real-time satellite images built on a second screen, and soon Lowell found the Mongoose parked in the farmhouse’s driveway, along with two individuals, one male and one female, standing with an old ag-cart between them.
Despite his shaky hands, his fingers flew across the panel, alerting the main office and then entering engagement codes to activate HIJACK Protocol. Once codes were entered, Lowell stilled and waited for Bullet to come online, his eyes glued to the screen, heart racing.
Green reception. Bullet was hot.
He entered coordinates to target the Mongoose.
The miniature stealth drone installed on the farmhouse’s roof—one of three placed around the community—had only one job: to tag whatever Lowell told it to.
As the female began to move toward the Mongoose, Lowell’s finger hovered over the firing command. “Not yet…” He zoomed in with Bullet’s targeting vector. A few steps more and the wanted salvage captain was throwing her leg over the vehicle. From the satellite’s position, he could only see one of her hands grip the handlebars, but that was all he needed—that and the puff of exhaust as she started the quad.
“Fire.”
Tag employed.
His heart was racing.
There seemed to be no reaction on the ground. The quad reversed and left the driveway. Adhesion was good. The tag had found its home.
Going dark in three… two… one.
And done.
“Holy hell.” With a resounding exhale, Lowell leaned back and linked his fingers behind his head. He’d played his part, and now it was up to the technology in orbit to do the rest.
The main Lanchessa office had already scrambled the one light prowler they had at their disposal. If it reached the Ace of Spades in time, it would be a miracle.
Not that it mattered. He knew the real miracle was HIJACK, specifically designed with that rogue salvaging ship in mind. The ins-and-outs were far above Lowell’s pay grade, but he did know ONI was playing the long game and deploying Bullet was only step one.
And he’d done his job perfectly.
Now maybe he could get the hell out of this crap assignment and back to doing something worthwhile.
CHAPTER 4
Bungalow 14 / Lapis Bay Resort / Emerald Cove / Alpha Imura System
Niko knew one day his past would come back to haunt him. He’d always had a feeling, a strange sense of knowing, or more to the point, he knew the odds. And every once in a while, it sucked being right.
His leaving Aleria hadn’t been forgotten. Courier guilds weren’t known for letting even the slightest snub go unpunished. One way or another, eventually, everyone paid their price. Cross Cut was especially diligent in that regard, and Niko had done more than simply snub his old guild; he’d left with unfinished business, unpaid debts, and unfulfilled contracts.
His absence had been a huge blow to the guild. Valuable folks with advanced tech experience like his were rare in a place like Aleria. There were no advantages for educated scientists and researchers and technicians to relocate to a drought-ridden, dying world with a collapsing government, abandoned by the Unified Earth Government, with no real prospects of rejuvenation. So the guilds recruited from the existing population to run the trade and manage their fleets of slips
pace-capable starships. If someone like Niko wasn’t there to maintain and repair drives and fusion engines, the guilds’ entire livelihood ground to a halt.
Lessa had just returned from shopping and was now in her room packing. Ram was on the wraparound balcony of their treetop bungalow, his rocker moving back and forth, his tanned bare feet propped on the railing, a fine tendril of cigarette smoke trailing up past his tattooed shoulder. The view beyond the balcony was holocard perfect—clear turquoise water as far as the eye could see, dotted by sails from a dozen leisure craft, and framed on both sides by steep forested slopes. Their unit had the best comms signal and the easiest escape route should they need it.
And they wouldn’t.
Still. It was hard to be relaxed and enjoy this last day in paradise because his heart was pounding and his knee wouldn’t quit bouncing. He’d already bitten all of his fingernails to the quick and couldn’t shake the agitated energy running through his body. They had an hour before meeting the Ace of Spades at the rendezvous point, and he needed to figure this out.
Three years ago, he and Lessa had left Aleria in a hurry following the promise of a better life, a freer life, one with prospects as part of Rion’s crew. They weren’t hustlers anymore or slaves to the mines or indentured to the guilds. They could leave Ace whenever they wanted and plot their destinies as they saw fit. In Triniel, they had an entire hidden and untouched Forerunner planet as a source of immeasurable wealth should ever they need it, and in Spark they had a nigh-invulnerable ally and a mind rich in Forerunner locations and information and technology.
Aleria had held no future for them. It never would. It was in its death throes, and everyone knew it. Yet here he was, being called back home. No, more like blackmailed back home, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it.
He ran a hand down his scruffy face and let out a troubled sigh. Less would worry her curls straight out if he told the truth. Rion and Spark would want to go fix things immediately. And Ram? He’d probably vote to take a hit out on the blackmailer and call it a day.