"No? Well…good luck, sport. Oh, and maybe this will help." She pulled the Blazing Sun marker out of a pocket on her tactical vest and flipped to at Jacob. It hit him in the forehead and bounced off onto the deck.
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it. See ya, boys!"
"She's seriously going to leave us tied to the floor?" MG asked.
"She was stalling for time," Murph said. "She's going after Hollick but needed to let him get far enough away that he felt comfortable. Abiyah is probably out there somewhere, ready to intercept him. Right now, we're competitors looking for the same information. She was never going to help us."
"Which leaves us still screwed," Jacob said.
"I still like her," MG said, earning death stares from both his companions.
"This way," Mettler said, trusting that the information Sully had sent to his com unit was accurate. The lower engineering decks of Pinnacle Station were a labyrinth of pipes, cables, and nearly identical alloy bulkheads that went on and on. They'd gotten a short ping from MG's com unit over the public network, which allowed Taylor to get a general area, but it was still a daunting task considering all the places covered by that single public Nexus node.
"If we'd had more than just that single status ping, I might have been able to get a more precise location," Taylor lamented. "As it is, we're going to be— What the shit?"
"Taukkir," Mettler said. They'd had to stop at one of the junctions as a trio of the bulky aliens sprinted by them. "And they're in a big damn hurry to get somewhere."
"You think?" Taylor asked.
"Interesting," Mettler said. "Let's follow and see what's up." He drew his sidearm, a comparatively low-tech pistol that used gunpowder and bullets that wouldn't set off the station alarms if he fired it. Obsidian kept a few cases full of old-style Earth weapons since they seemed to be overlooked in a galaxy full of energy weapons and magnetic projectile drivers.
Taukkir were strong, but not particularly fast, so the humans were able to jog and keep up with them, trying to stay back enough so as not to be noticed. The aliens broke off the main corridor and made four turns back in what looked like a long-disused office complex before halting in front of an open door, where another Taukkir gestured wildly to a dead one on the ground.
"We had nothing to do with it! Why would I kill your buddy, and then come back in here and chain myself to the deck?"
"That's the LT," Mettler whispered. "They must have got themselves caught. Typical."
"Probably MG's fault…dude's an idiot," Taylor said softly.
"That's five of them and two of us," Mettler said. "Do we give them a warning or take out as many as we can before they get organized?"
"I like your enthusiasm, but I think it's still illegal to just murder someone here," Taylor said. "We'll have to talk to them first."
"Fine," Mettler sighed, holding his pistol down against his thigh. "Hey! You! What's going on here?" Given what he knew about Taukkir and their excitability, Mettler had been expecting them to act surprised and jumpy. Instead, they just calmly turned and regarded him.
"Who are you with? These humans, or the Hollick-human?"
"Hollick?" Taylor hissed. "What the hell is going on here?" Mettler waved him off, thinking fast about how best to answer.
"We're with the humans you've captured," Mettler said. "How can we go about getting them released?"
"You won't be," a voice said from behind the two Marines. "We'll be taking them, and you, with us."
"And who the hell are you?" Mettler demanded.
"We represent the Concordian Guild, and you will be coming with us to answer some questions."
"Oh, for fuck’s sake." Taylor threw his hands up in disgust. "Is there anyone else that's going to join this party?"
10
"This is your marker?"
"It is," Murph said. Taylor and Mettler had been hustled into the room the others had been held in and the interrogation began. Apparently, the guild rep had changed his mind about moving them. Jacob was in no shape to handle being questioned and had Murph take over for him while he lay on the floor with his eyes closed.
The alien took out a hand held device and placed the marker in the slot without any further questions. Murph's stomach dropped as he realized the marker wasn't just a fancy coin to flash but had an active data core that could be accessed. The guild leadership likely had the right decryption codes, and it was equally likely the information on the marker would expose their con. He sat silently while the alien looked through the information on the small golden disk.
"Which of you is Jacob Brown?"
"That'd be him." Murph pointed to Jacob. "He took a pretty good beating and isn't feeling too perky right now."
"I see you used to run cash loads for one of the Points…the one who was just recently killed. You freelancing or have you affiliated yourself with another Point?"
In the Blazing Sun syndicate, there was Saditava Mok at the top, and below him were twelve captains—Points—responsible for executing his orders. Each Point was responsible for a different aspect of the overall operation, but all reported back to Mok. The ship they'd stolen had been running money for a Point that had intended to try and overthrow Mok. Jacob had informed the crime boss of the plot, resulting in Jacob being allowed to continue breathing. The Point that had been intent on betrayal hadn't been so fortunate.
"Our captain has an understanding with Mok himself, if you can believe that, but we're operating independently at the moment," Murph said carefully.
"This doesn't say anything about working for Mok, but it does have a blanket protection clause attached to it," the alien tossed the marker back to Murph. "Not many people get that, not even some of Blazing Sun's leadership. We will honor it."
Murph wasn't entirely sure what was happening, but he saw the guild rep order his people to stow their weapons and release them, so he just went with it. He'd assumed the marker had information stored on it like a memory core, but from what he'd just seen, it seemed to be more like an encryption key that allowed access to information stored on a Blazing Sun server somewhere on the Nexus. It made more sense as it allowed the syndicate to edit information immediately rather than have markers with bad information floating around out there. Mok must have edited their marker to add Jacob as the owner/operator of the combat shuttle they jacked. Talk about dumb luck.
"If you'd like, we can have the Taukkir gang brought in and you can do with them as you see fit," the rep said. "I will point out that once they realized who you were, they did come and get us."
"I don't see any need to involve them further," Jacob said, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head. "Just a misunderstanding, and we're not trying to make any turbulence in your area here. Let's just leave well enough alone since nobody was permanently injured or killed."
"A wise and generous decision, Captain. The security manager here on Pinnacle has an understanding with us, but that doesn't extend to allowing bodies to start piling up for disposal even down here. Now, I suppose the only question I have is, what were you doing down here inquiring after us to begin with?"
"Just looking for some gainful employment. We stopped here for repairs, but right now our hold is empty, and we don't have anything else lined up."
"Preference of cargo?"
"No narcotics, no slaves," Jacob said. "We've had bad luck in that area before."
"If not slaves, how about passengers?" the alien asked.
"Passengers?"
"I'll explain further in a more appropriate setting," the alien said. "Please, take some time to get rested and seek medical attention. When you're ready to discuss work, just come back down to this level and my people will find and escort you to me."
Before Jacob could reply, the alien had turned and walked out of the room, his people falling in behind him. The Marines just looked at each other in confusion.
"Let's get you to the infirmary, LT," Mettler said after scanning Jacob's neural implant to take stock
of his injuries. "The damage isn't that bad. You probably feel bad enough, though, that you don't believe that."
"Sounds about right," Jacob said.
The pitiful group slunk back to the lifts, their first foray into the underbelly of Pinnacle Station a resounding failure. Jacob looked forward to being treated in one of the top-tier medical units in the upper decks, and his men wanted to go back to their suite and lick their wounds. Out of everybody, Jacob's injuries were by far the worst, and it didn't help he'd already been hurt before they even came down to the lower decks.
By the time they made it back to where their suite was, it felt like they'd been transported to another world, and their misadventures down below were just a dream. They drew some startled looks as they shuffled to their unit, but nobody called for security or tried to stop them. When the door to their suite opened with a soft sigh, the Marines all seemed to make the same noise…right up until they looked inside.
"Hello, boys." The Viper lounged on one of the couches while her partner, Abiyah, sat at the small bar.
"This day has to fucking end sometime," Mettler said. "It just can't keep going on and on."
"Obsidian has checked in, sir. No indication they got your abort orders."
"Of course," Webb sighed. "What other good tidings have you brought me?"
"We've identified two NIS agents and our first One World faction spy in the relocation crews, sir," Bennet said, then hesitated.
"What?" Webb snapped.
"Part of Lieutenant Brown's report said that Elton Hollick had been at the drop before them, looking for the same information," his aide said, flinching as Webb's face morphed through various expressions of pure rage.
“Why am I just hearing about this?”
“It hadn’t been filtered through the analysts yet to verify it was legit,” Bennet said, unflappable as always in the face of his boss’s barely contained temper. “They’d sent your office a heads up that they’d checked in and to expect the report once it had been processed.”
“Stupid mother—”
“There’s something else,” Bennet headed off another tirade. “You’ll like this even less.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“We’ve had independent verification that the Viper is working in the area, possibly on the same problem as Obsidian.” The news stopped Webb dead in his tracks. He’d met Carolyn Whitney back on the mission when he’d been sent to kill Jason Burke, Jacob’s father. In fact, her partner, Abiyah, had been on Webb’s kill team.
“Who verified it?” he asked.
“Filtered down through the shared intel reports with NIS,” Bennet said. “She was spotted in the Concordian Cluster, and an observational asset indicated she departed the area about the time Brown’s report says they were doing the same. The asset is through the Zadra Network, but it’s listed as a Class 1 informant.”
“So, the intel is clean,” Webb murmured. “If she’s chasing the same thing, we have to assume an outside source hired her. The Viper won’t work NIS or Naval contracts.”
“Orders?”
“We need to get in touch with Brown and warn him. Obsidian cannot handle Whitney. She’d tear through them like tissue paper and kill them all without remorse if they get in her way,” Webb said.
“No mean trick with all the spies around here,” Bennet said.
“I think we need to relocate for the time being,” Webb said after a few minutes. “Alert the Kentucky to prepare for our arrival. Just us, you and me. We’ll sneak up there and use her com suite to make sure nobody gets a good listen at what we’re doing.”
“Aye, sir.” Bennet spun and left the office, closing the door softly behind him.
“Chased out of my own damn office again,” Webb griped, turning back to the windows.
The UES Kentucky was one of two NAVSOC command and control ships Webb had available. She was a frigate-class vessel dressed up to look like an average, nondescript bulk freighter of the kind that littered the quadrant, but she had an incredibly sophisticated avionics and weapons package that made her able to sniff out intel, run operations from a remote location, or shoot her way out of trouble, if necessary. Webb had used the ship once before to escape the confines of Taurus Station when it became clear his base had too many security leaks. The fact that was still a problem galled him, but he had no time to deal with it at the moment.
A harsh banging at his door made him almost jump out of his skin, his thoughts flitting away as he turned, ready to defend himself if need be. What walked in was, hopefully, friendly.
“Captain Marcus Webb,” the bass voice rumbled from the towering figure. “Greetings.”
“707,” Webb said to the battlesynth that had stormed his office. “Is this a social call?”
“Of course not,” 707 said. Webb just sighed. It was easy to think they were all the same since they were machines that looked almost identical, but their personalities varied as much as humans’ did. That being said, he missed Lucky’s sense of humor and warmness. 707—who refused to take any sort of name other than his designation—was ramrod straight and did nothing that wasn’t in furtherance of his goals or mission.
“We alerted you that we would be coming.”
“Oh, shit…that’s right.” Webb snapped his fingers. “We’ve had a lot going on with the move and the— You know what? It’s not important. Is this something that can be done quickly? I have to catch a shuttle up to the Kentucky to handle my field ops remotely for the time being.”
“I will accompany you,” 707 said, just stating it as if there were no issues with a non-affiliated alien superweapon waltzing onto one of the most secret vessels in the entire United Earth Navy.
“I, uh…I suppose we could work that out,” Webb said. “You’re still technically working with us as an advisor, right?”
“I have not been notified of a change in status,” 707 said. “Unless you have revoked it, I still hold the assimilated rank of colonel when advising human military forces.”
“Then let’s go,” Webb said, standing up. “You can give me some advice on the ride up. Is it just you?”
“I have two others standing outside your door.” Webb suppressed a shudder at the sheer amount of firepower loitering around his command center. If they had a mind, three battlesynths could kill everyone in the building before anyone could be alerted to mount a defense that had a chance of stopping them.
“Plenty of room on the shuttle."
"We will be bringing our own ship. It is small."
"Okay, then…plenty of room in the hangar bay. Let’s go.”
“Whitney,” Jacob moaned. “We have to stop meeting like this. I feel like you’re stalking me…if you want a date, just ask.”
“Not bad,” the Viper said, smoothly rising to her feet. “Snappy, decent timing. Much more fun than most of the stuffy Navy types I meet out here since Earth started groping about blindly in the quadrant. But just so you know, I am stalking you.”
“Since I’m still breathing, I’m guessing Mok didn’t hire you to kill me?” Jacob asked hopefully.
“Mok has his own crews for that and, for the last damn time, I’m not an assassin,” she said. “Your benevolent crime lord also lacks the artistry or subtlety to hire someone like me. He likes to make a statement, sending a sledge hammer to do the work of a scalpel.”
“Whitney, I’m literally almost dead on my feet,” Jacob said. “What’s the deal here?”
“I missed Hollick,” she said. “Abiyah was staged up in the best place to ambush him as he fled back to his ship, but he slipped through somehow. His ship is already gone.”
“You’re after Hollick? Who hired you?”
“I’m not after him, but he’s my best bet to get the information I need since he seems to be a step ahead of you. I wanted to get him back on my ship where I could…encourage…his cooperation away from the prying eyes of Pinnacle Security,” she said. “After that, I’d probably sell him back to Michael Welford.”
“I’ll call a medic team from one of the infirmaries,” Mettler said, walking over to the panel by the entryway.
“I’m hunting the same thing you most likely are: the composite fleet that punched the ConFed in the nose with that attack on Miressa,” Whitney continued. “I thought I had an inside line since I heard of a certain merc crew I’m on okay terms with had been involved, but they’re not answering my calls through any of the usual channels.”
“Merc crew,” Jacob repeated numbly. “One that happens to have another human in it?” Whitney looked surprised for a moment.
“Ah,” she said. “I suppose Welford and Webb would make sure their forward observers were aware of Omega Force. Yes…the crew has a human captain, and rumor has it they took out a ConFed dreadnaught during the battle, so it stands to reason they’d be hiding along with the other ships.”
Jacob’s head swam, and not entirely from the brain trauma. Omega Force, his father’s crew, had been involved with this insurrection against the ConFed. Did Webb know this? His feelings about his father had recently shifted from a flat, blind hatred to something more…complicated. He was surprised at his own hesitancy when it came to reporting to NAVSOC that the old man might have been involved in something that could put Earth in danger. Would they send a kill team after him…again?
"So, you're looking for the Eagle's Talon, as well?" Jacob asked.
"Captain Edgar's ship," Abiyah provided when Whitney just looked confused. "Part of the escort force from the UEN."
"Oh." She shook her head. "My employer is looking for a different ship, but the two will likely be together still."
"You're after the Defiant," Murph said. "Seeladas Dalton hired you to find her missing strike force, likely asked you to either capture or kill Admiral Kellea Colleran."
"You're a sharp one." Whitney winked. "I can only confirm my target…and yes, it is a kill or capture contract. My employer was quite annoyed that her most trusted military officer took off with a whole strike force after trying to kick off an intergalactic civil war. The Cridal Cooperative is in no position to fend off the ConFed, so they'll probably offer Admiral Colleran on a platter to Miressa to smooth things over."
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