“Crash, you stay here and run point.”
Crash responded from the doorway and not over the intercom as Molly had expected. “Yes, sir!” he called.
She turned, smiled at him, and then followed the rest of the team off the boat.
There was a muddle of activity as everyone got their bearings. The docking bay was quiet, but there seemed to be many doors and nothing was signposted. It took a few moments for them to find their way to the main corridor that would let them out and onto the station, and then deliberately, they broke up into small teams.
Joel stuck with Molly. “I’ve got your six,” he told her definitively.
Molly was about to argue and then had a better idea. “How about you follow Pieter and me at a distance, in case we run into trouble? Then you’re not already accounted for in an attack.”
Joel bobbed his head. “Yeah. Good thinking.”
She smiled, wanting to tell him how grateful she was for his extra care and attention. But she didn’t know what to say. Particularly since Pieter was still in earshot. “Okay,” she managed. “Let’s move out, Pieter!”
Pieter scrambled to fold away a holoscreen he had been checking and fidgeted with the pack on his back. No doubt he was carrying all kinds of tech they wouldn’t need. But Molly was glad that he came prepared.
She strode out along the corridor, following the thoroughfare that the others had already disappeared down. Pieter hurried after her. Joel waited a short time and then followed at a safe distance.
“I managed to take a peek at the general layout,” Pieter told Molly, his voice as low as he could make it but still have her hear him. “If I had to guess, I’d say their central hub was going to be on one of the top floors, but near the center of the base.”
Molly nodded. “Let’s see what Oz can find.”
Oz responded almost immediately in their implants. “Pieter was pretty accurate. They’re one corridor over from the central concourse. Floor Twenty.”
Molly kept walking, following the flow of people into the main living spaces of the ship. Her eyes darted discreetly, looking for signposts and clues to help them get to their destination.
“Don’t suppose you can just tap them from where we are? Over their XtraNet?”
“I could. But it will take more time to get to the video footage. I’d be much quicker if you can get one of Pieter’s hacking dongles into a port in one of the servers.”
Molly sighed. “Nothing can ever be easy.”
Pieter smiled. “It will be once we get this bit out of the way. Promise.”
Molly shook her head. “Don’t jinx it, dude.”
Pieter chuckled. “You never struck me as the superstitious kind!”
“I wasn’t… until I started falling through realms and realized that nothing is within my control.”
Pieter stopped laughing and went quiet, processing the implications of what she’d been through. “I, erm… I’d never thought of it like that.”
Molly shrugged. “It’s okay. Come on, I think that’s an elevator over there.” She pointed to an area where people were milling. There were all kinds of species around. She noticed a couple of Zyhn and a whole bunch she didn’t recognize. There were even a few humans, which surprised her, them being this far out from what she assumed was human civilization.
They approached the knot of activity and confirmed there was a bay of anti-grav elevators taking people between floors. They waited their turn and eventually got into one that would take them to Floor Twenty. Squishing in next to some rather indelicate creatures that smelled like sewage, they held their breath and tried to avoid eye contact in case anyone noticed their reaction.
Finally, it was their floor. The bad-smelling guys had gotten off the stop before them, but Pieter and Molly still tried not to communicate until they were off the elevator and away into the concourse.
“Ahh, man, there are some weird-ass creatures out here!” Pieter hissed.
Molly smirked discreetly. Though she agreed about the uncomfortable smell, it wasn’t time for a debate on tolerance and acceptance. “This way,” she muttered, moving off in the direction Oz had told her.
Pieter scurried after her, realizing how long her legs were. I’ve never noticed that before, he mused to himself, completely distracted from the mission briefly.
There weren’t quite as many people on this floor, and it seemed like it might hold offices rather than the high streets and trading markets these space stations were normally known for. Molly guessed it was probably a station administration floor.
She made a beeline for a set of double doors which took them onto an even quieter corridor. She walked quickly but as stealthily as she could. Arriving at their destination, she leaned gently against the third door along, pressing down on the handle. It was locked.
Oz. Bit of help here? Can you override the door lock?
One sec.
She glanced furtively down the corridor. Pieter knelt down and pretended to be fixing his boot strap.
Something clicked in the door, and Molly pushed again. The door opened, and she slipped inside, followed by Pieter.
Pieter watched, everything happening in slow motion. He hadn’t considered that there would be guards in a server room. But then, as he took in the scene, it was obvious that it was also the control room. One of the guards was Skaine. He only guessed this from some pictures in a Federation presentation he’d flicked through during his induction. He was tall and mean-looking, with full body armor and blue skin.
The other two were human, but enhanced with robotic attachments and overpumped muscles. Cyborgs. Pieter’s mind told him to reach for his weapon. But his arms were slow to obey. He felt his muscles freeze up.
As he fought his own paralysis, he also watched Molly react effortlessly and rapidly. Not only had she already slipped her guns from her holsters, but she’d bumped them on each of her arms. He guessed she was knocking the safeties off.
Then she fired.
Pop. Pop. Bang.
Graceful. Quiet.
The three guards went down.
All in the same stride, she moved forward and busied herself with the panels. She was talking to him, but he couldn’t hear her. His hearing was muffled, and everything was still happening in slow motion. Except his thinking.
She needed something from him.
She was looking directly at him now. Asking him a question. Suddenly, time snapped back to normal.
“Are you okay, Pieter?”
“Yeah… sorry. Yeah, I’m fine… I…”
“I need the dongle for Oz,” Molly said. Pieter got the sense this wasn’t the first time she had asked.
“Oh, right.” He rummaged in his backpack, remembering he’d put it somewhere safe and accessible. A second later, he realized it was in his pants pocket. He pulled it out and handed it over to her, fumbling every move.
Molly took the drive and plugged it into the computer, hitting holoscreens and moving the code to help Oz.
A moment later, she pulled the drive out again and got up. “Time to go.”
Pieter was still dazed. “Don’t we want to look at the footage?”
Molly was already halfway to the door. “Not here. Oz is into the system now and can work over the XtraNet.”
Pieter mouthed “Oh” and then realized he needed to get the hell out of there, too. He turned on his heels and followed Molly’s atmosuit down to the elevators again.
“What’s going on with you?” she whispered under her breath as they awaited the anti-grav cart’s arrival.
“Sorry. I erm… I think the technical term is I lost my shit.”
Molly smiled at him and threw her arm around his shoulders. “You did great, fella. Field work is always a bit intense.”
There was no one about. Pieter blurted out what was on his mind. “Those guards. You took them out without even pausing. Before I even knew what was happening!” Despite his whisper,
his voice was about two octaves higher than normal.
Molly shrugged. “Training. Plus, I’ve been under fire a lot more than you have.”
Pieter watched the cart arrive at their level. “Did you… kill them?”
Molly shook her head and showed him the settings on the gun. He bobbed his head, understanding now what she’d done when she whacked them on her arms before firing. It wasn’t the safety she was knocking off. She was adjusting the settings down to stun.
“Hang on then,” he whispered, suddenly putting it all together. “How long have we got before they wake up?”
Molly stuck her bottom lip out. “Dunno… maybe… ten minutes?”
Pieter’s mouth dropped open.
Molly chuckled and closed it again for him with a gentle finger under his chin.
The elevator arrived, and the doors opened to reveal Joel standing there, looking amused with a holo up as if he were reading something. “Everything okay?” he asked casually.
Molly nodded. “All fine. We need to get out of here soon, though.” She and Pieter stepped into the cart.
Joel noticed Pieter’s normally pale complexion was positively gray. He put a hand on his shoulder in support, and the elevator doors closed behind them to whisk them back down to the market concourse.
“Guess we better hope the others found something then,” Joel said wryly. He narrowed his eyes at Molly. “Did you just kill someone?”
“No, that’s the hurry,” she explained. “They’re going to wake up.”
Joel shrugged. “If you had, then all hell would break loose trying to find a killer on base. Good call.”
Molly tilted her head and then watched out of the window as the elevator descended.
Base conference room, Gaitune-67
Maya flicked excitedly between one holoscreen to another, comparing results. The audio in the conference room was playing an archived news report about the Newstainment takeover. She lifted her gaze from the screens only when she heard Paige’s high heels announcing her arrival at the door.
Maya grinned. “How you doing?” she asked brightly.
Paige shook her head. “Not as well as you, it seems.” She was carrying two mocha cups. She headed over to Maya’s side of the table and placed one down in front of her. “Extra frothy, extra hot.” She smiled.
“Thanks, hon!” Maya pulled the lid off and poked her nose into the cup, savoring the aroma. Remembering the recording playing in the background, she poked at a screen and paused it.
“What you listening to?” Paige asked.
“Newstainment takeover,” Maya explained, realizing the mocha was too hot to drink straight away. “Turns out, it was a hostile takeover. Info Corp bought up just shy of fifteen percent of the shares in the open market before they made the approach. Timing was bad too. The Newstainment group released a bad earnings report, and then a series of really bad news reports dropped their share price. Made it easy for Info Corp to swoop in and pick up the company for a song.”
Paige pulled out one of the anti-grav chairs. Her skin was gray again, despite taking the previous night off. “Well, mine isn’t a publicly owned company, so they can’t try any of that shit with me.”
Maya could tell that Paige was thinking about the other ways someone with money and power might be able to get to her. It wasn’t going to be productive to contemplate that right now, though. She stayed on track. “So, I did some more digging on Info Corp.”
Paige seemed to gather her focus and looked directly at Maya, giving her her full attention. “What did you find?”
“Well, it looks like Info Corp is indeed a shelf company, as I suspected.”
“You mean a shell company?”
Maya shook her head decisively. “Nope. A shelf company, my non-criminally-minded friend. It’s a company that has history but no traceable activity. Cultivated and filed for years and years until it’s sold to someone dodgy for dodgy activities. Criminals use them to make a company look legit to anyone who isn’t looking too carefully. But there are telltale signs. Add into the mix that apart from funding the accounts and a few spurious transactions, Info Corp only started buying up shares in other companies months ago.”
Paige frowned. “How could you possibly know that? They won’t have filed any accounts yet, if that’s the case… and how did you see their transactions?”
Maya waved her hand. “Ways. You don’t need to know the details. But,” she added, the investigative journalist glint back in her eyes, “the most interesting bit is where I traced the source of the funds to.”
Paige leaned forward, clearly moved by Maya’s enthusiasm. “Tell me,” she pressed.
Maya grinned. “It’s a privately held fund called the Northern Clan of Cambodian.”
“Sounds Ogg.”
“It is,” Maya confirmed. “Money from a few of the wealthiest clans out there.”
Paige frowned. “So, we’ve got Ogg money wanting to influence affairs in Estaria?”
Maya nodded. “Seems so.”
“What do we know about them?”
“Not much. Their site is sparse. Vague even.”
“You think you might be able to get some real intel on these guys?”
Maya tilted her head and looked back at her screen as if assessing the problem. “I can give it a good try.”
“Okay great.” Paige pulled up her own holoscreens. “I’ll see what I can find out about the other acquisitions in the group.”
The pair were quiet as they worked away for a few minutes. Paige took a sip of her mocha and then seemed to have a thought. “Hey, Maya?”
“Yeah?” Maya didn’t look up right away. Then she did.
Paige’s face looked taut with stress again. “You know, your guy at Newstainment might have some theories. Think we can reach out to him?”
Maya bit her bottom lip. “It’s risky. I mean, I’m not meant to be around anymore.” She thought for a moment more. “But if anyone is going to have an inside beat on it, he would. Lemme think about how to loop him in. It might be a case of having to show up on his doorstep to avoid raising any flags in the comms.”
Paige nodded. “Yeah. Of course. And I can do the door-stepping if that’s safer, too.”
Maya bobbed her head, and the pair fell silent again, poking at their holoscreens, trying to figure out what they’d stumbled upon.
Glom Space station, Kirox Quadrant
Jack sat in the bar across the street from the barber’s shop. Legs crossed in a ladylike way and her hair down, she could almost pass as a civilian.
Almost.
The waitress put her beer on the table, along with the bill.
“What happened over there?” Jack asked, nodding at a broken table shoved in one corner.
The waitress rolled her eyes. “Some kind of kidnapping.”
Jack frowned. “Someone was kidnapped?”
“Yeah. Some girl. Cyborgs. Wasn’t my shift, though.” She walked away, completely disinterested in sharing the story.
Jack hit her comm and reported it to Joel.
“Okay, be ready to leave in a few,” he responded into her audio implant. “Molly and Pieter are on their way back down with me now. Where’s Brock?”
“Well, he’s in the middle of an edge up,” she said, peering out the window across the street and into the barber’s shop.
“A what?”
“An edge up.”
“Come again?”
“He’s in the barber shop. He’s almost done.”
“Can you get word to him that we need to leave?”
“Not without being suspicious. I can tell him through his comm, but if he’s talking to someone, he won’t be able to answer. And we kinda don’t want to spook whomever he’s pumping for intel.”
“Okay. Do what you can. Meet us back at the newsstand before the dock corridor.”
“Roger that,” Jack said quietly, clicking the bill against her holo
scanner to pay it.
She sat for another few moments, drinking her beer, before she surreptitiously hit her implant to speak with Brock.
* * *
Brock heard the call coming in. He pretended to scratch an itch behind his ear.
“Molly and Pieter have what they need. We need to move soon.”
Brock double clicked the implant, still pretending to scratch and then disconnected the call. He knew out of anyone on the team, Jack was most likely to understand the acknowledgment.
“So, what do you think happened to him?” Brock asked, continuing his conversation with the barber as he tidied up the last bit of hair from his neck.
“I don’t know for sure. Word on the street is that he’s not going to get away from the Don that easily. Not again.”
“Where is he now, then?”
The barber sucked air through his teeth, grimacing. “Well, if he’s not in shackles, he’ll be dead. That’s for sure. Once the boss sets his mind to something, that’s it. Game over.”
Brock tried not to let his concern show. “So, you think he’s got him holed up somewhere then?”
“Well, we know the big event is going to be happening at the weekend. And it will happen at the big church over on the trading post.”
Brock carefully took mental notes, putting together the clues. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” the barber continued talking. “I hear it’s all going down at high noon. It’s going to be quite the occasion. All the local criminal families are being invited to see it.”
“To see what?”
“You know…” The barber drew his finger across his throat. “Like I said. Game over.”
Brock’s eyes widened. “Where do you think he’s being held until then?”
“Not sure. Probably on the same outpost, though. I mean, there are all the preparations to do, and frankly, when you’ve got something like that coming up, there isn’t much else you should be doing elsewhere, right?” He chuckled, slapping Brock on the shoulder as if he’d just cracked the funniest joke in the world. Then, he reached up to his collar, peeled off the gown, and allowed his customer out of his seat.
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