by S. J. Bryant
"Kari," Piper said. "I want to be free."
Kari's resolve cracked and she threw up her hands. "Fine. But you stay right by my side, and don't make eye contact with anyone. The people here are worse than dangerous. Wren, you'll take us to this acquaintance of yours?"
Wren nodded.
"And, Ryker, you'll run security."
Ryker patted the long rifle strapped over his chest. "Gladly."
"I'm coming too," Atticus said.
Kari failed to stifle a groan. "It's bad enough that I have to keep an eye on Piper, I can't watch you too."
"I never asked you to protect me. And I'm not staying here with him." Atticus waved at Rusty who was rambling on about fried circuits in the corner. He'd had at least two jugs of coolant since they left the facility and he looked bad. Still, that didn't give Atticus any reason to treat Rusty like he had the plague or something. He was just an addict.
"I won't be able to save you," Kari said. What did she care if the old man wanted to get himself shot?
"You won't have to," he said. "The whole reason I'm traveling with you is to see what you do, to see your part of the Universe. I can't do that from on board the ship."
"Fine." Kari holstered her pistol. After reaching Marama, they'd flown through an air-locking system and into a massive warehouse filled with ships. Some were giant, taking up huge swaths of floor space, while others were tiny, one-seat flyers that Kari wouldn't trust to get her to the other side of the moon, let alone another planet.
Marama drifted somewhere beyond Albion's orbit, a lost moon. The Imperium knew about it, but aside from the occasional raid, they left it to its own devices.
Ghost's door hissed open and the hot air of the warehouse washed inside, carrying the bitter smell of stale alcohol and illegal drugs, which made Kari's eyes water. She kept her hand on her gun and stepped out, letting Wren and Ryker fan out beside her, with Atticus, Ray, and Piper coming behind.
The area inside the warehouse buzzed with the noise of people haggling and shouting, and the raucous laughter from some of the drinking ships. There were no buildings as such, because no one slept on Marama, it was more that people parked, threw open the doors of their ships, and sold the goods directly out of the storage holds.
They hurried forward, but as they did, Kari found her feet leaving the ground too quickly, found her body floating in the air for a moment and then coming down with a gentle puff of dust beneath her boots. The gravity was off. She frowned and tried to adjust to the sense of weightlessness, but each step carried her a few inches off the ground. Her stomach twisted—if a fight started, she'd be at a disadvantage because she wasn't used to working in gravity like this. Why couldn't a place like Marama afford proper gravity generators? Then again, maybe they did it on purpose, to keep people on their toes.
Kari tried not to get distracted by the boxes of guns sprouting out of a nearby ship, and instead let Wren lead the way through the crowds. People jostled and bumped Kari but she kept her hand on her gun and kept moving. She didn't have anything worth stealing so any pickpocket was sure to leave disappointed.
They passed stalls selling NRG, and others with hundreds of vials—supposedly a cure for anything.
At the other side of the warehouse they came to a sleek, silver ship, mid-size, with room enough for a crew of twenty to live comfortably. A tarp stretched from the door to a pole which had been thrust into the ground. A broad desk filled the space beneath, and a ragged man with a thick, black beard sat behind, leering at them. Two beefy men stood behind him, both with guns held across their chests.
"Zerk," Wren said.
"Wren," the bearded man replied. "What can I do for you?"
Wren gestured to Kari and stepped back.
Kari took her place, straightened her shoulders, and did her best to look unintimidated. "I'm looking for new IDs for a Phantom Class Four."
Zerk leaned back in his chair and let out a low whistle. "That won't come cheap."
Kari stayed as still as she could manage.
"Three thousand tokens," Zerk said.
Kari almost lost her footing. She'd known that a new ID would be expensive, but she hadn't realized it would be that expensive.
Zerk's grin widened.
"That's robbery," Kari blustered. "Too much."
"Look," Zerk said, folding his hands over his stomach. "People only come to me for IDs when they're desperate. Desperate people can't afford to haggle. The price is three thousand."
Sweat sprouted on Kari's palms. Even if she sold everything inside Ghost she wouldn't have three thousand. "A trade," she said. "I'll transport cargo for you."
"Ha! I've got enough people on my payroll, people who aren't in trouble with the Imperium. You're in the wrong place, Captain. Better start running."
Heat crept across Kari's face. Zerk had guessed too much, but of course it wouldn't be hard. Why else would someone come to Marama looking for new IDs?
"A loan," she said, voice croaking in her tight throat. "I'll pay it back with interest."
Zerk's face darkened. "I'm not a damn charity. Now get out of here before I have one of my boys throw you out." He turned his attention to Wren. "I expected better from you. Next time you decide to introduce me to one of your friends, make sure they have tokens to pay with."
Desperate panic clawed at Kari's insides. She had to get that new ID. If she didn't then they were all as good as dead. Their only hope would be to try to make a run for the next system, with no money, limited fuel, and no resources.
Her thoughts raced. There had to be something she could trade with Zerk. She could try the information on the facility, although that was probably old news by now. She could—
"Is it because you're having trouble with your wife?" Piper said.
Her voice cut through the nearby hubbub, leaving behind a sharp silence.
Kari's heart jerked in her chest and her fingers tingled.
"What?" Zerk said, his voice low and quiet as he turned his attention to Piper.
"She's seeing someone else," Piper said.
Zerk erupted out of his chair so that he towered over the desk and Piper's thin figure. "What? Have you been spying on me? Do you think you can blackmail me?"
Kari tried to snatch Piper's arm, to drag her back, but Piper stepped out of the way and nodded to the bed set up behind Zerk's desk. "I thought no one slept on Marama, but you do. So you must be having trouble."
"Maybe I like naps," Zerk said. "Now I would suggest you get the hell out of here before I have you all killed."
"It's been going on a while, hasn't it?" Piper said.
Zerk looked just about ready to jump over his desk and tear Piper in half. Only Ray sidling in front of Piper made Zerk hesitate. He reached under his desk and pulled out a long shotgun which he aimed at Piper's chest. "Get the hell out of here."
"If you give us the ID, I'll tell you who it is," Piper said.
Zerk's face turned bright red, nostrils flaring. "You're bluffing. You couldn't possibly know that. I've had my people—"
"If you give us the ID and I'm lying, then you can report us to the Imperium."
Zerk's lips twisted but he didn't pull the trigger.
Kari's heart fluttered near her throat. If she could get across the desk, she might be able to knock the gun aside before Zerk shot Piper. But she couldn't do anything about the two goons, and they'd shoot them all dead before she could get back to her feet. Dammit! What was Piper doing?
"Fine," Zerk said. "But I warn you, if you're lying, I'll kill you myself."
He wrenched open a drawer in his desk, without taking the gun from Piper, and drew out a thin data chip which he tossed to Piper. She caught it.
Kari clutched Piper's shoulder, guiding her back several paces.
"Well?" Zerk said.
"It's him," Piper said, nodding to the beefy man on Zerk's right. The man's eyebrows shot up and his mouth dropped.
"What?" Zerk said. "You're lying. Clade has been with me for ye
ars. He would never—"
"Check his communicator," Piper said. "I think you'll find several calls to a familiar number."
Kari yanked Piper back further so that the first layers of the moving crowd swallowed them, breaking the view of Zerk and his men. Wren and the others followed, making their way through the pushing bodies.
Kari kept stepping backwards, unable to tear her gaze from Zerk and the scene unfolding beneath the tarp.
Zerk snatched Clade's communicator from his belt and flicked his thumb across it. He stared down, then his eyes popped as his head snapped up. Clade held up his hands and stepped back, shaking his head.
Zerk lifted the shotgun, blowing Clade's head across the side of the ship.
The press of bodies grew too thick and Kari lost sight of Zerk but the sudden loud bang broke through the noise of the warehouse and dulled it for a few moments. Moments later, the clamor resumed, even louder than before. The customers continued haggling as if nothing had happened.
Death was common on Marama.
Kari finally dragged her gaze away from Zerk's ship, and shoved her way through the moving crowd, dragging Piper behind her.
She had no idea what the hell had just happened, but somehow, miraculously, they'd got the ID chip.
And they'd survived.
CHAPTER 12
Kari gripped Ghost's controls with white knuckles as she steered them toward Zenith's surface. Atticus had installed the ID without much trouble—Rusty had refused to do it, citing a hangover—and Zerk hadn't come looking for them. But the real test would come as they entered Zenith's airspace and the eyes of the Imperium—which as far as Kari knew missed nothing—swept over them.
She had the scanners set to maximum sensitivity, so if anyone even so much as spat in their direction she'd know about it. Ghost wasn't the fastest, best armored, or best armed ship, but she'd got Kari out of trouble before. Still, the noose had never felt so tight. But she had no choice; they had to come back to Zenith to pick up more jobs, otherwise there'd be no money for fuel or food, plus there was Wren's job. She probably would have killed Kari herself if she'd refused to come back to Zenith.
Kari still wasn't sure what Piper had done back on Marama—how she'd known about Zerk's wife and his bodyguard. She'd risked a lot by blurting out her thoughts like that, and could have got them all killed, but it had paid off in the end. It sat uneasily in Kari's mind, Piper could see things that most ordinary people couldn't, but did that make her any less human?
Zenith grew beneath them to fill all of Ghost's front screen. It was night on this side of the planet and bright lights lit the landing area, broken by ships flying in and out and the press of bodies in the market that had sprung up around the newly arrived ships.
Kari had chosen this part of Zenith deliberately. At night it was one of the busiest public areas. There would be hundreds of eyes watching, they would have a lot of witnesses if the Imperium tried anything. Not that that guaranteed safety. It wasn't unheard of for the Imperium to kill hundreds of people to keep their dirty secrets hidden.
Kari clutched the controls tighter, bringing the ship in to land between a narrow star-jumper and a bulky transporter. "We're here," she said through the intercom.
Movement sounded from the rest of the ship and by the time she got to the entrance, Wren and Ryker were already there.
"I'm going to do the job," Wren said. "Don't know how long I'll be."
"Keep your communicator on," Kari said. "We may have to take off in a hurry."
Wren nodded, then slipped out of the ship and into the crowd. She melted amongst the bodies like a shadow and Kari lost track of her.
"Will you be alright here?" Ryker said. "We don't know what those bastards—"
"I'll be fine. You go and find us fuel and a decent job, preferably one with a lot of travel a long way from here."
"Aye, aye, Captain." Ryker turned to go down the ramp as two men in suits appeared at the open door.
"Captain Kari?" the taller said, pulling out a badge with the Imperium logo on it. "We'd like a few words."
Kari's stomach clenched and cold sweat broke out across her forehead. They hadn't even been on the ground for five minutes and Imperium agents were already at the door. What the hell was she supposed to do? "That's me," she said, managing to keep her voice steady.
"Can we come in?"
They wore guns at their waists and Kari had no doubt that there'd be other agents watching. If anything happened to these two, the whole market would likely be destroyed.
"We can talk here," Kari said. The watching eyes of the public were the only thing that offered her any kind of protection. Once hidden inside Ghost's walls, the men could do anything and the Imperium had plausible deniability. Plus, Piper and Ray were inside.
Ryker returned to Kari's side, his large shotgun slung casually across his torso. He might not like violent rebellion, but he wasn't one to be killed by a gun to the back of the head. Plus, he was determined to prove that the facility, and what had happened to Piper, was all some big conspiracy by a rogue group.
The two men stepped up the ramp. "We really think it would be better to talk in private."
Kari swallowed. She knew her rights, but the agents could just as easily claim that she'd threatened them and shoot her in the face. Would anyone in the crowd be brave—or stupid—enough to say otherwise?
"Here is fine," she said.
One of the agents leaned into Ghost and looked down the corridor, toward the sleeping pods. "I'm afraid I didn't make myself clear. We've got a warrant to search your ship." He pulled a screen from his belt and held it up in front of Kari's face. She didn't bother reading it; the agents could have got whatever they wanted from the Imperium. She should probably be grateful that it wasn't a warrant for her arrest.
Kari took a grudging step back. What if they found Piper and Ray? They had to have come here for a reason; they had to know what had happened. But then, why hadn't they shot Ghost out of the sky when they'd had the chance?
"I guess I'll go get some food," Ryker said.
"You'll stay here," the agent said.
Kari and Ryker shared a look. They used a hidden compartment in the floor of the dining room to smuggle contraband. It might be big enough to hide Piper and Ray, but neither they or Atticus knew about it. There had to be a way to get a signal to them or something. Kari's mind stayed blank, rendered useless by panic.
The agents sauntered down the corridor, past the yellow-painted letters that spelled Phantom and deeper into the ship.
"Nice place," one agent said. "What's that smell?"
"Cinnamon," Kari said.
"Hmm." They stopped at the door of the first sleeping pod—Kari's—and stepped inside without so much as an apology. They hurled her mattress and blankets to the floor. There weren't many other places for a person to hide but they tossed everything out of the drawers just the same.
Kari's clothes lay strewn across the floor, tangled with her sheets, and rage rose up inside her. "Are you going to clean that up?"
The older of the two agents paused mid-way through rifling through her underwear drawer. "Excuse me?"
Kari bit her lip, pushing her rage down deep inside her so that it sat like a sour stone in the bottom of her gut. She couldn't afford to do anything to aggravate them. She just had to hope that Ghost's open door onto the market was enough to stop them shooting her—and the rest of the crew—dead.
They moved from room to room doing the same thing; hurling everything to the floor and invading every inch of privacy that the small confines of the ship allowed.
After the sleeping pods, they moved to the dining room. Kari's hand fell to her gun. If they went in and saw Piper then there was no option. She'd just have to take off and hope to get away from whatever weapons the Imperium had read. Cold sweat trickled down her cheeks as she took three hurried steps forward, ready to kill the agents as they entered the dining room.
No sound of alarm. She slowed, faltere
d.
Atticus sat at the table with his tools laid out in front of him. Rusty sprawled in the corner, apparently sleeping. No sign of Piper or Ray.
The front-most agent grunted as he looked around the room. "Who are you?" he said to Atticus.
"Tinker," Atticus said.
Kari had to admire the fire that sparkled in his eyes. For an old man, he had guts. But where the hell were Piper and Ray? Perhaps they were hiding in the engine room, but that only delayed the inevitable.
They pulled open all the doors and rummaged through the stacks of vacuum-sealed food. Kari tried to keep her gaze away from the floor, away from the hidden compartment, just in case. The agents' boots clunked on the panel. Did it sound hollow?
Kari tried to keep her face expressionless but heat and panic crawled across her skin. If the agents found Piper, they had to die, but the two probably had life-sensors embedded in their chests and their supervisors would know as soon as they died.
The agents stalked out of the dining hall and into the engine room.
Kari hurried after, still expecting a shout of discovery. Empty engine room. No one in the pilot pod either.
"There are six beds made up," the first agent said.
"What?" Kari said, too anxious to listen.
"There are six beds, but only three of you, well, four if you count the skinny one that slipped away before we arrived. You got stowaways?"
"No," Kari said, too quickly. "We have passengers, they've already left for Zenith."
One of the agents raised his eyebrow. "We didn't see them."
"They're fast."
"They'd have to be. Tell me, Captain Kari, do you expect us to believe that it's a coincidence that a ship just like this was caught stealing Imperium property from a restricted facility?"
"I don't know anything about that."
"Really? And would you still expect us to believe that it's a coincidence when the stolen property was none other than your sister?"
Kari's blood ran cold. Of course they'd have that sort of information—they had files on everyone. It didn't take a genius to work out the connection. "My sister is dead," she managed to say between clenched teeth. "Your enforcers killed her years ago."