by M. D. Cooper
“All the couriers are being tracked visually and via the cases,” he said by way of greeting. “Almost had some fun with that second-to-last guy, though.”
I could tell it was a leading statement, and decided to tackle any doubts head-on. “Can you believe he was going to try to muscle his way in? I bet his plan was to bribe us to let him take a second core—at least, based on his parting remark.”
Fledge’s expression grew clouded for a moment, and then he nodded. “I guess that makes sense. We’ll keep an eye on him.”
I snorted a laugh. “Well, I mean, that’s the plan, right?”
The Intel man’s gaze grew distant for a moment, his tell that he was having a conversation over the Link.
“Shit…” he muttered, shaking his head. “We’ve got a problem. You’re going to need to come with me.”
I blinked at Fledge. “I’m not going anywhere with you. This ship is being watched by seven of Korinth’s goons out on the dock. I even saw Penny stroll by on the external monitors.”
His lips pressed into a thin line. “Well, we’ve been summoned to Command. How do you propose we handle that?”
I looked up to see Kallie approaching.
“I’ve got an idea, but you’re not going to like it, Fledge,” she admitted.
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “I haven’t liked much of anything during the past week, lay it on me.”
IV
Changing Tides
18
YOUR MOVE
“Shit,” I muttered aloud.
It occurred to me that the colonel might try to ‘liberate’ some of the other cores after we got the four Penny had promised. It made sense; they’d do more good in our hands—not to mention that the four promised cores were still at some as yet undisclosed location.
I could understand why Jacy would like even one core in hand instead of four in the black.
I sent a smile across the Link.
Flipping back to Jacy, I said,
The colonel signed off, and I rose from the couch. “I’ll miss you, opulence.”
I had a lingering suspicion that whatever ship Penny had rounded up wouldn’t be nearly as nice as the Spintzer Hotel.
Not by a long shot.
19
NEW ORDERS
“You see,” Kallie said as she wheeled the large cart with a thick steel tub on top into the cargo bay. “I like to be prepared, to have some additional low-output power generation just in case.”
“Radioisotope thermoelectric generators,” I said to Fledge, curious to see if someone so far up the food chain was familiar with the technology.
“Right, I know what an RTG is.” He nodded. “Stuff that heats up as it decays. As ancient as spaceflight itself.”
The engineer gave him an appreciative look. “Glad you know your shit, Intel Man. Normally, I like to run Curium-244, which has a nice long half-life, around eighteen years, but on our last run, we got 242, which only lasts a couple weeks. It’s still radioactive as fuck, but I want the good batts, so we’re getting this shit off the Kerrigan.”
I could see a look of disbelief form on Fledge’s face. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“You want me to get in that tub?”
She nodded, a wide grin on her lips. “Uh huh.”
“But that shit is still hot. Thermally and radioactively.”
Kallie nodded again. “Uh huh.”
“I’ll die.”
“Seriously, Intel Man, we don’t want that. I have a nice suit that will keep you safe—for half an hour or so. But all we need to do is get to a cargo lift, and you can get out while the lift is moving. Easy peasy.”
Fledge continued to stare at Kallie, finally turning his gaze toward the cart. “OK, but only because we’re in a rush.”
“Where do we meet?” I asked. He gave me a suspicious look, and I shrugged. “I’ve never escorted a vat of radioactive slag, it would be weird if I did. Since we’re likely under some scrutiny, it would be best if I don’t do anything too abnormal.”
“Meet me at Alma’s Amplitude,” Fledge said after a moment’s consideration. “I’ll be there by 16:20, station time.”
It seemed a bit long to me since it was only 15:15 at present, but the more time before I had to visit DSA command, the better, so far as I was concerned.
“I’ll leave first, then,” I said. “Run a few errands and then end up there.”
“Sounds good,” Fledge said. “I’ll just clean up my space and then we can go, Kallie.”
He walked out of the bay, and I turned to my engineer.
“You holler if anything goes sideways. I won’t be too far till after you leave with our garbage.”
“He can probably hear you,” she said. “He has all the feeds tapped.”
“Good.” I nodded. “I wanted him to hear it. Stay safe.”
Kallie only scowled at me as I turned and walked toward the airlock. I stepped inside, and as it was cycling, she finally replied.
I half expected to get a call from Kallie or one of the other crewmembers that some catastrophe had struck. From Fledge going on a tear, to DSA soldiers storming the Kerrigan, to Oln going on a drunken rampage.
Stop it, I chided myself. You always live on the edge. No safeties. Don’t get all soft and sentimental here.
Despite my internal rhetoric, I knew that wasn’t me anymore. I had people. People I cared about. Kallie and Tammy for sure, Oln on a good day, and I was warming up to Finn.
I was looking over stock at a food-service company I was considering using, only half paying attention to what I was looking at, when Kallie finally sent me the news I’d been waiting to hear.
I filed that away, wondering why we’d never used
rad disposal as a cover before.
Myka Station had a lot of sections devoted to commerce and pleasure. Alma’s was a place that did both. Frequented by independent captains like myself, as well as people looking to hire us, it was a favorite haunt of mine.
It also had a lot of offerings when it came to creative methods of relaxation after a long trip. I didn’t avail myself of those too often, but today would have been the perfect time to blow off some steam in the full-sensory VR rooms.
Instead, I took a seat at the bar, ordered a White Caesar, and waited for Fledge to arrive. When he did, I was glad that the man was smart enough to not sit right beside me. He wasn’t in any sort of disguise, and if I were seen with someone who was known to be a member of DSA’s Intel, I’d find the rest of my life to be rather unpleasant.
Luckily, there were a few other DSA officers in the bar, and Fledge sat with them.
I suppressed a groan. There goes that idea. Can’t believe we wasted it on this chucklehead.
I breathed a sigh of relief. I really liked Alma’s, I didn’t want to get banned from the place.
I meant it. My survival was hinging on Korinth crashing and burning—and no one fingering me for distributing four unaltered cores.
I paid for my drink and left the bar, threading the narrow corridors near Alma’s until I came to platform L17. The status boards showed the next train as two minutes out, with a destination of one of the outer service rings. It was a seven-day shift, and things were quiet. Only two other people were on the platform, and from the way they were pressing into each other, I doubted they were going to catch the next train.
Sure enough, when it stopped two minutes later, they didn’t even notice. As Fledge had indicated, only the rear door on the final car opened, and I stepped inside, taking a seat in the empty car.
The train passed through two more stations, barely slowing as it traversed each, finally coming to a stop in a stretch of dark tunnel.
I turned and looked at the doors, unsurprised to see them open and a pair of DSA soldiers step in. They looked me over and took up positions on either end of the car. Next in was a commander, followed by a two-star general.
The officers approached and then stood silently for a moment, clearly waiting for me to rise and acknowledge them in some sort of formal fashion.
“They aren’t going to get any more comfortable,” I said, gesturing to the seats across from me.
The general sighed and took one while the commander continued to stand.
“You’ve got an interesting reputation, Jax Bremen,” the general said. “Lots of little minor infractions, but nothing major.”
“Well.” I leant forward and interlaced my fingers. “Nothing at all, now. We did the op, we delivered the cores to Korinth’s buyers. It’s all a done deal.”
“Mostly,” the commander commented.
“Oh?” I cocked an eyebrow.
“We have to ensure that the cores make it where they’re going.”
I shook my head. “Nope, that’s not the deal. The agreement clearly states that our involvement ends with the handoff. That’s when we get our pardons.”
“So long as you didn’t try to double-cross us,” the commander continued.
The general raised a hand. “You’ll have to forgive Commander Mars. She’s a little…invested in this.”
It was clear they were doing good cop, bad cop. It wasn’t a terrible rendition, but clear to someone who had done the act more than once.
“I never caught your name,” I said to the general.
Neither he nor Mars wore any name tags, and the Link provided no idents on them, either.
“That’s correct,” the general replied. “Nor will you. The only thing you really need to know is that you work for DSA Intel now. Commander Mars is your handler, and she reports to me.”
“I’ll pass.” I made to stand. “I’m not really cut out for military life.”
“Please.” The general’s tone bore a clear threat, and he gestured for me to sit.
I complied. His response didn’t surprise me, but I had established the stakes. I did what they wanted, or they’d make me disappear.
“OK, let me hear it.”
The general glanced at the major, a slight smile on his lips. “See?”
Mars only shrugged in response, then turned her unblinking gaze back to me.
The general continued. “Fledge’s report of the cores he altered shows that they were part of a larger shipment, fifteen in total. We’ve also learned that Korinth plans to retrieve more of the cores from some sort of secret location to complete his transactions.”
“Not surprised,” I said with a shrug. “People move things via multiple couriers a lot.”
“True. And we want the Kerrigan to be that ship.”
I couldn’t help but give a derisive snort. “How do you propose that we make that happen? It’s not like I can reach out to Korinth and say, ‘Hey, you know those additional cores I’m not supposed to know you have? Well, want me to go get them for you?’ I’d be dead in an hour.”
“We could be so lucky,” Mars grunted.
“Really?” I turned to face her. “I haven’t known you for more than five minutes, and already, you’re the shittiest handler I’ve ever had.”
“You’ve had a lot?” she countered.
Wouldn’t you like to know. “No…I guess that makes you the best as well. Yay for me. I’m so lucky. Do I buy you flowers?”
“Shut up,” Mars muttered.
“You’re going to have to figure something out,” the general brought us back on track. “You’ll be meeting with Korinth for final payment. We’ve thrown up some administrative issues for a few of his ships. You can mention you’re ready to get off Myka and do a new job if he has any.”
“And you think that’ll be enough?” I asked.
“Like I said,” the general’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll figure something out.”
“You could—”
A connection activated over the Link, and I held up a finger. “It’s Penny, hold on.”
I wondered how I could have missed that. Alma’s hadn’t been too loud when I was in there. I guess I really was focused on getting to the maglev platform for the lovely meeting I was now having.
“Fuck,” I whispered as Penny closed the connection. “I have to get back to the Kerrigan.”
“Oh?” The general raised his brows. “Already tired of our company?”
“No—well, yes. But that’s not it. Penny’s aboard my ship. I just tapped the feeds, and she boarded with another woman. Not sure who she is.”
“Goes by Sherry,” Mars said in a neutral voice. “We think she’s a buyer for some of the other cores. This is good. I bet your job just got a lot easier. So much for all that complaining about having to ‘convince’ Korinth.”
“Yeah,” I rubbed a hand across my cheek. “Lucky me.”
“Excellent.” The general nodded enthusiastically. “We can get this wrapped up. I didn’t want to hit Korinth until we had an idea where the other cores were. If you’re going to get them, we’ll have no problem grabbing him.”
“Except Penny,” Mars said. “You know she won’t divulge the location to Jax here until they’re almost at the target.”
Close, just the other way around.
“Right,” the general nodded. “Which means we need to get someone in the crew with Jax.”
The commander pursed her lips. “I don’t know if that’ll be possible. I have a few operatives I could put on it, but I can’t be sure they’re not known to Penny. She has eyes everywhere.”
The general sighed and fixed me with a stern glare. “Mars will follow behind on a stealth ship. Not too close, but close enough. No funny business, Captain Bremen. You get the cores, then let Mars know. She’ll bring in the cavalry and take care of them and Penny and her buyer.”
I knew that there was no upside for me here; I was on the event horizon of a black hole with a neutron star directly above.
Still, as a smuggler captain, I had to ask, “What’s in it for me? Does Intel pay?”
“We’ll work something out,” Mars said.