Origins: The Complete Series

by J. N. Chaney

  “That’s good then,” I said tentatively. “The stick is gone, and so is he. There’s nothing left to tie things back to me or you. Right?”

  Ollie’s face darkened. “I wish I could say that was true, Jace. Part of the report left me with some questions. Namely, the way it mentioned that Kodak wasn’t operating alone, which we already knew. He had a partner, Warren Church, who disappeared the same time he did. They erased all of the servers with any reference to what was on that data stick, making it priceless.”

  He paused to let the implication of that settle in.

  It hit me then. The voice in the earpiece. That must have been Church.

  “Well, that’s a problem,” I remarked. “Because I only killed Kodak. That means his buddy is out there roaming free. I’d bet my ship that this Warren Church is the one tracking me. He had to know we’d probably uncover Kodak’s identity.”

  Ollie nodded. “I agree with you. You’re a loose end. People like him don’t like loose ends, Jace.”

  Now I really wished I had that damned cloak. Oh, well. I’d survived this long without it. “Thanks for the heads up,” I said, noting we were now mere minutes from the SG Point. “I’m headed back to Taurus with Calista now. We can pick things up when I get there.”

  “Alright. Try not to die before you get here.”

  I cut the transmission. With this new information, things were starting to make sense. Warren Church was tracking us, and there was also a good chance that he knew I still had the data stick. He probably had plans to kill me, too.

  I leaned my head back and let out a soft curse. “Siggy, cancel the fence. The last thing we need is this Church asshole to see it and come after us. Tell Oran that I came up empty.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  My own curiosity and greed had gotten the better of me. Why had I even bothered checking on a price for this thing if I was only going to destroy it or use it as leverage? I wanted to punch myself.

  It hardly mattered at this point, even if Church had been using the fence to track me, but still. The fewer contact points I had floating around, the better.

  “Fence canceled, Captain.”

  “Good,” I said, cracking my knuckles in frustration.

  Now I needed to figure out what to do with the damn stick that was turning out to be a real knife in my side. My first instinct was to get rid of it. Grind it underneath my boot and put the leftover pieces in the sewage system. Better yet, I could send it on a one way trip into a star, erasing all traces that it had ever existed in the first place.

  I had to wonder if screwing over the Sarkonians had really been the best choice on my part. By now, they had to know they’d been duped, and Sarkonians didn’t like that. Nor did anyone else, if I was being honest. For all I knew, they were looking for me too.

  During the handoff, my cargo hold had been dim, but not totally dark. At least not where I was concerned. The men who boarded my ship had at least seen my face. I wished that I had thought to cover my features or otherwise alter my appearance. It was too late to worry about it now, however.

  Granted, they didn’t know who I was, or the name of my ship, but there were other ways to track a man down. One thing I could take solace in was the Renegade Star. Much as I loved my ship, she wasn’t unique. Plenty of other cargo transports had been outfitted similarly and looked the same.

  Maybe I could use the stick as leverage if my enemies came knocking, an eventuality I had to be prepared for. But no, I couldn’t destroy it or use it to hold Church off. No threat would stop him from coming back for me, and I wasn’t keen on living the rest of my life looking over my shoulder for some Union deserter. He had to be taken care of sooner rather than later.

  I was in deep shit, and by my own design. All because I’d had a lapse in judgement by wanting to save the Deadlands from a Sarkonian takeover. I still had no plans to give it to them, but now I had to think of a clever way out of my predicament.

  “Sir, Calista is awake and headed toward the lounge,” Sigmond informed.

  I sighed. She was yet another problem. As long as people wanted me dead, her life hung in the balance too. Despite our earlier differences, she was still my client. She had hired me for a job, and I intended to see it through by getting her back to Taurus safe and sound.

  There was also the small matter that she had no idea that the data stick had never reached its final destination. At the time, it hadn’t been any of her business, but if we were attacked before getting home, she'd need the information.

  The comforting sounds of my ship went around me while I brooded in silence. Last night, the future had seemed bright. Today, a rogue operative was after me, Calista was still on my ship, and the Sarkonians wanted my head on a plate.

  What else could go wrong?

  23

  Given what I knew about the data stick and the operative known as Warren Church, there was a decent chance I’d placed a target on my back and would have to deal with the consequences soon.

  Hopefully I had time to secure Calista’s safety before things went sideways and I found myself staring down the wrong end of a quad cannon.

  The girl was in the lounge, watching a holo recording of a cooking show. Her focus was more on the pad in her lap, so she barely noticed when I turned the holo off and pulled up a chair. “I need to talk to you about something.”

  “Hm?” She swept a finger over the screen of her pad, barely hearing me.

  I reached across the table and slowly took the device, my eyes locked on hers so that when she raised them, she’d see the serious look on my face.

  Sure enough, she did, and she let the pad go. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s about the package you gave me, back in that cafe. You remember?”

  “Sure. What about it?” she asked.

  I shifted in my chair. “Did you ever figure out what you were carrying?”

  “What? No, that wasn’t part of the job. I was paid to not ask any questions, just like you.”

  I nodded. “And you made the right call.”

  “Wait a second,” she said, sitting up a little. “Did you look at it?”

  Her surprise was understandable. Renegades weren’t known for prying. Privacy was certainly part of the reason people hired us, and the quickest way to lose a client’s trust was to ask too many questions.

  Fact was, I usually didn’t bother looking into people too much, not when there was money on the line, but I was starting to rethink that strategy. In this instance, I just happened to be curious—and stupid—enough to break the rules. And I didn’t regret it, because a whole lot of people might have ended up dead if I hadn’t. And it would’ve been on my shoulders.

  “Yeah, I did, and you won’t believe what I found,” I told her.

  “Do I even want to know? Gods, Jace. Are you sure that was a good idea? They might have a way to see if someone looked at it. What if—"

  “It’s worse than that,” I broke in.

  “Worse than getting killed? What are you talking about? What did you do?” Her tone had changed from relaxed to concerned in a matter of seconds. I was probably a fool for even telling her this, but she had a right to know.

  “The stick had weapons on it. The kind that haven’t been built yet. It was a treasure trove of data from one of the Union’s R&D departments. Hell, you could probably build yourself a whole godsdamn military with that sort of shit. Conquer half or more of the Deadlands.”

  “If it had all of that on there—” She stopped. “I don’t understand. Why would they pass it through me?”

  “The people who stole it didn’t want it traced back to them, and you and I are just a couple of thugs running jobs and not asking questions. We’re both expendable.”

  “Expendable?” she repeated.

  “That’s the game. It’s how this works. You want to be a Renegade? You’d better get used to it.” I shook my head. “The real problem here is the client.”

  “And who was that?”


  “The Sarkonians.”

  “That’s not too surprising. Who else would have the money and need to build those weapons, aside from the Union?” she asked, nodding along. “And you made the hand-off, right? You delivered it to them?”

  “I delivered something, but it wasn’t what you gave me.”

  She nearly froze at the sound of that. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Exactly what I said. I didn’t give them the stick.”

  This wasn’t going to sit well with her. I’d broken the only two rules in this job. Don’t ask questions and don’t screw the client over. I’d done both and, as a result, placed us both in danger.

  “But… but what else would you have given them?” she asked. “And why would you even do that?”

  “It was a fake copy,” I told her. “They believed it was real when I handed it over. Chances are they’ve caught on by now, but it won’t matter. They don’t have my name and there’s no way for them to track me.” I cleared my throat. “As for the why. It’s simple. The more powerful either side becomes, the more dangerous they are to the rest of us. The files on that stick are priceless, but only because the original servers were wiped clean. They’re the only copies left, for better or worse.”

  “That can’t be true, though. You said there were weapons and ship designs. Wouldn’t there be copies of some of that elsewhere?”

  “Sure,” I agreed. “Some of it is probably backed up, but a few of those designs never made it out of research. No one ever built them. They didn’t have time. Whoever stole that stick knew exactly what they were doing too, because they deleted some of the servers containing the data. They knew how to get the data and they knew how to destroy it.”

  “Why are you even telling me this?” she asked, raising her voice. “There’s no reason to share what you did, especially when you’re saying you stole from the Sarkonian Empire. Unless—wait a second. Please, for the love of the gods, don’t tell me you sold it.”

  “No, and it’s still on this ship, stored away where no one will find it, but that’s why I’m telling you this. I would never have said a word about it if I didn’t think you had a right to know.”

  “And why do you think I have a right at all? What good will it do me?” she asked.

  “It’s too late for that. Ignorance won’t keep you safe. It never does.” I got to my feet, pushing the chair out. “There were two operatives involved in the original job. One stole the stick, the other destroyed the servers. They smuggled it out of Union space through a series of hand-to-hand exchanges, always paying well and making sure they hired desperate and scared people to carry and pass it along. You never stopped to look inside because you needed the money, and who the hell were you to take the chance? Better to make your money and be on your way, same as the others. Same as me.”

  “But you looked,” she said.

  “Not all the way. I just managed to see it had some weapon blueprints on it. But a friend of mine did some digging and found the whole story after one of the two operatives tried to kill me.”

  Her jaw dropped before she spoke again. “Tried to… kill you? When did that happen?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said, fanning my hand. “I took care of him. The second one is still out there, though, and he’s looking for me.”

  Her eyes drifted, losing focus for the first time since I came in. “I can’t believe this.”

  I walked closer and sat beside her on the couch. “Look, you’ll be fine. I’ve got a plan to get you out of this, but you’ll want to stay low for a while. Maybe use an alias. Ollie can help you get one, so you just need to reach out.”

  “An alias?” she muttered, staring at the floor. “No, I can’t do that.”

  “You don’t have a choice,” I emphasized. “That guy is—”

  “I have as much of a choice as you do,” she snapped. “Do you really expect me to go crawl off into a hole somewhere while you handle the situation? What do I look like to you? A child?”

  “I’m just trying to protect—”

  “I don’t need you to protect me!” she barked, standing up and flinging her hands sideways. “I’m just as capable as you are, and I can handle whatever scrape we get into.”

  I said nothing, just let her fume for a moment and watched her pace. She settled down after a minute, then she crossed her arms and stared at me.

  “Fine,” I said, placing my hand over the back of the couch and crossing my leg. “You can stay if you promise to follow my lead.”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep us both alive. How about that?”

  “That’ll work for now,” I said, half smiling.

  “Before we get started, can I ask a favor?”

  “What’s that?”

  She motioned to the ship with both her hands. “Let me see where you’ve been keeping it.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, getting to my feet. “Right this way.”

  The cargo bay was back to being empty, or as empty as it had been when I first brought Calista on board. With all of her goods delivered, there was far more room to move around, including the spot in front of the rear wall where I’d hidden the stick.

  “Siggy, open the door,” I said, standing beside Calista.

  She scratched the back of her ear, sliding two fingers down a single strand of hair. “This looks useful.”

  “More than you know.”

  “Opening now,” announced Sigmond. His voice came through the speakers, catching her by surprise.

  The door unlocked and began to rise, slowly revealing the darkened space between the walls where I had once stored a handful of jewels and a semi famous painting, and where I now stored the most valuable prize to ever grace my ship: the Union’s digitized arsenal, compiled in a little device that could fit in a child’s palm.

  I stepped inside and withdrew the stick from the nearby box, its lid clamping shut as I pulled back. “Here we go.” I handed the device to Calista, and she hesitantly took it. “There’s a failsafe that’s supposed to keep people out, but if you can break it, a signal goes out. That’s what my friend tells me, anyway.”

  “A signal? So you think the Union would know if we broke the encryption?” she asked, staring at the data stick.

  “I’m pretty sure, yeah,” I said.

  “So what’s your plan, then? How are you going to stop this—” she paused. “What was his name?”

  “Warren Church, and since he’s on his way, there’s a decent chance he’ll get here before the Union. Best case scenario is we fight him and run the hell away before their fleet shows up.”

  “How confident are you that we can win?” she asked.

  “That’s the part I’m not sure about,” I admitted. “We don’t know much about his ship or what he can do. He’s definitely not stupid, so we need to plan this out.”

  Calista ran her thumb along the data stick then turned it over in her palm. “Alright,” she said before giving it back to me. “Tell me what you need, Captain.”

  24

  “How about it?” I asked, sitting in the cockpit with the data stick in hand.

  I had instructed Sigmond on what to do, so now we just needed the numbers.

  “I estimate the data transfer will take approximately eight minutes,” he informed me.

  “That long, huh?” I muttered.

  Calista stood behind me, leaning against the open door frame. “Are you sure this will work?”

  “No,” I admitted, twisting around in my seat to look at her. “But we’re short on time and I don’t have any better ideas. Do you?”

  She sighed quietly and shook her head.

  I turned back to the holo and checked Sigmond’s notes. Eight minutes to transfer everything on the stick—over a petabyte of data—to the Star, totally wiping the old drive in the process. Depending on where Church was hiding, we might stand a chance at getting out of this alive, but I just wasn’t sure.

  It helped that we were close to one of the Union’s man
y territories. A short slip away, in fact, but I needed exact predictions here. According to the travel time inside the tunnel and the response window, Sigmond estimated the Union would be here in under ten minutes. That meant we had two minutes for the rest of the plan. The timer would start as soon as we began the transfer, which would in turn deactivate the scrambler and initiate the tracking device.

  “We don’t know where the agent is—well, former agent,” said Calista. “So how exactly do you plan to get the timing right?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I told her. “If Church arrives first, we can stall him long enough for the Union to show up. He won’t have time to escape.”

  “And if the Union shows first?” she asked.

  “Church will assume they’ve taken the data stick back, and he won’t have a reason to keep pursuing us.”

  “You hope,” she said, crossing her arms. “That’s pretty wishful thinking.”

  I leaned closer on the dash, observing the nearby star system. It contained a small handful of planets. Five worlds with thirty-seven moons between them. One mining rig, but otherwise no colonies. We were in the middle of nowhere, sitting inside a Slip Gap Point between two rarely used tunnels. The Union sat on one end, which meant we’d have to head in the opposite direction.

  I wanted to curse at my lack of foresight. If I had asked Fratley for a cloaking device when I first met the man, back when I had originally bought my ship, maybe I’d have a better shot at getting out of this in one piece. Instead, I was visible and vulnerable. Not exactly the best of circumstances.

  “Yeah, I hope,” I finally agreed. “There’s always a chance he figures out what we’re doing and chooses to track us down, but at least this scenario buys us some time. Remember, we’re the ones with the plan here, and if we don’t do this today, then we may not get a better shot.”

  “It just seems like a big risk. We could keep moving, stay on the run, or”—she paused— “I don’t know. Something.”

  I raised my eyes to her. “Aren’t you the one who volunteered to stay behind and help? I can still drop you off somewhere else, you know, if you’re that worried about getting caught or killed.”