Morning was coming all too soon, and then it’d be time to dance. Maverick was friend to no one. If he caught on that Kylie was snooping for information, she’d be the one who would need rescuing.
JERICHO
STELLAR DATE: 08.37.8947 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Salvage ship Dauntless
REGION: Near Jericho, Gedri System, Silstrand Alliance
“On final approach to Valhalla,” Rogers announced. “We’ll be at handoff in about twenty-five minutes.”
“Good job, Rogers,” Kylie replied. “Nadine, anyone raise a stink over how long we’ve been gone?”
Nadine nodded. “Yeah, Benny groused about it until he saw the hull we’re bringing in. Titan-1 is way bigger than our usual hauls. I told him it was way out past the heliposphere. He bought it and was all but salivating at the price he could get for it—even as scrap.”
“Not really a lie, either,” Kylie grinned. “We were way past Gedri’s heliosphere.”
“Yeah, in Trio,” Nadine chuckled.
“What the…” Rogers muttered as the ship lurched suddenly.
“What was that?” Kylie asked.
“Damn pirate scum,” Rogers replied. “Was a Mark ship. Dumb bastards can’t fly for shit.”
“Mark?” Kylie asked. “I heard they all buggered off after that Rebecca bitch took over and got half their ships blown up out at Bollam’s World.”
Nadine shivered. “Even where I grew up we heard stories about that woman.”
Kylie had never met anyone from The Mark during her time as Maverick’s…companion. But back in the SSF she had been on missions to hunt them down. No one ever did find their secret base, but word was it got destroyed almost twenty years ago.
“Yeah, well not all of them flew off to their deaths. Some new guy named Drew is trying to get them rolling again,” Rogers said. “Going to be a tough run, though. None of the guys they have left can even fly, let alone take out some ship in the dark.”
Kylie laughed at the thought of a bunch of incompetent pirates bungling their way through space, failing to take even one merchant ship, as she settled back in her seat, gazing up through the glass above her at Jericho.
“You could always work for them when you tire of us,” Nadine said with a grin. “I bet they’d pay top dollar for a decent pilot.”
Rogers laughed. “Not on your life, sister. This face is too handsome for the likes of those pirates.”
Her crew’s banter made for pleasant background noise as Kylie stared out through the bridge’s sphere at the world of Jericho.
Once, in the days before the Silstrand Alliance was little more than a twinkle in Peter Sil’s eye, someone had tried to terraform Jericho. She could see why—the planet was smaller than Earth-normal, but it was dense, giving it a surface gravity of 0.92g. There was even free water down there. Not enough to form oceans, but several large seas had pooled here and there.
As the stories would have it, the terraforming held for a while, almost a thousand years from what she had heard. Then something happened, no one seemed to know for sure—maybe it was a war, maybe the Big OJ had blasted more solar wind than normal, or maybe it was just mismanagement. Whatever the cause, the atmosphere had thinned, leaving only half the pressure an unaugmented human needed to survive.
She shifted her gaze to the Valhalla shipyard, which was only thirty-two thousand kilometers above the planet in geostationary orbit. From their approach, Kylie could make out the largest of the cities, Montral. Well, she saw the light reflecting off its dome more than anything else. Also visible was Laerdo Station, atop the world’s claim to fame, a functional space elevator that terminated in Montral.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Nadine asked.
“Just thinking about what Jericho must have been like, once. Someone must have really liked this place to build a space elevator…and to dome over the cities after the air thinned out.”
Nadine nodded. “Yeah, it’s a lot of effort for a world like this—but who knows, when it’s the only TP in the system, you try to keep it intact as long as possible.”
“I hear you can still go out and breathe the air in some of the deeper valleys,” Rogers said. “Though I don’t think I’d trust whatever the ruling families have dumped outside the cities not to eat my lungs.”
“Maverick always talks about cleaning the place up, getting terraforming processes going again to build up the atmosphere,” Kylie said.
“As if scum like him could pull that off,” Grayson said from the bridge’s entrance.
“Who knows,” Kylie shrugged. “People say a lot of the old CO2 generators are still out there in the wilds. If you could fix them and then get enough air for the plants to grow back, they’d make the oxygen, and it would be good to go.”
Grayson laughed. “Just like that?”
Kylie scowled. “No, I didn’t say it would be easy. I don’t know how long it would take, but it’s how they did it the first time.”
“And look how well that turned out,” Grayson said. “Now the world’s just a dumping ground for Silstrand’s garbage.”
“I think I resent that,” Rogers muttered.
“What did I say about playing nice?” Kylie asked Grayson with a raised eyebrow.
Grayson didn’t reply, just folded his arms and leaned against a console. He pouted like a child and Kylie wanted to needle him about it but let it pass.
No one spoke for the remaining twenty minutes to the handoff at Valhalla. When it occurred, Rogers released the hull into the tender care of a Valhalla Shipyard tug.
Kylie’s virtual presence smiled.
Benny laughed.
Kylie gave a parting smile and cut the connection.
“Standard arrangement?” Rogers asked.
“Yup,” Kylie replied. “Made sure there was a little something extra for him, just like always.”
“That’s how things go out here, is it?” Grayson asked.
Kylie cocked an eyebrow at her former lover. “Gray…that’s how things go everywhere. I did way more swapping and trading in the military than I’ve done out here in civilian life. If you weren’t such a straight arrow, you’d see how things really work.”
“Kylie I—” Grayson began, then stopped abruptly as he saw the broad smile on Kylie’s face and realized that she was goading him.
“She really got you going,” Rogers laughed.
“Yeah, I guess she did,” Grayson mumbled.
“How long to Laerdo?” Kylie asked Rogers. She could have looked it up on the nav systems, but she always liked to ask. The bridge was too quiet half the time as it was.
“Heavy traffic today,” Rogers replied as he brought up the reports on the bridge’s forward holoscreen. “Gonna take at least four hours to get down there.”
“No rush,” Nadine said. “I’ve been on the horn with Laerdo control. They won’t have a berth for us ’til then anyway. They’ll forward the bay number as soon as they have one ready.”
“Gotcha,” Rogers replied.
Grayson walked to the edge of the bridge and peered out at Valhalla Station and the rows of ships slated for salvage or up for sale.
“I never imagined Gedri had
this much going on,” he said. “I had always written it off as a backwater.”
Kylie rose and walked to his side, peering out into space, as well. “Rough, dirty, cutthroat, yes. Backwater, not so much. Gedri does just as much trade with the rest of the Silstrand Alliance as Trio. It does even more with the Scipio Federation. The Gedri System, especially Jericho here, represent the alliance a lot more than anyone would like to admit.”
Grayson shook his head. “What a first impression. A failed world run by old crime families.”
“It’s not so bad,” Kylie said with a grin as she slapped him on the shoulder. “You may even like it down there. You’ll find it’s one hell of a party.”
Grayson didn’t reply as he gazed out the window at the slowly growing world and Kylie looked into his eyes, trying to imagine what he was thinking before letting out a slight laugh.
“You’re enjoying this,” Grayson said with a slight growl to his voice.
Kylie shrugged. “Fine. I promise not to enjoy it too much.”
* * * * *
The Dauntless was on final approach to Laerdo Station, and Kylie had summoned the crew to the bridge so Rogers could join in the final mission briefing before they disembarked.
“Okay,” Kylie began, “everyone stays armed. And everyone stays on alert. Grayson, you better go put on the civvies I left for you.”
Grayson raised his eyebrows and then his mouth opened to argue.
Kylie knew the argument he’d make, and she didn’t want to hear it. She raised her hand to cut him off. “If you plan to survive, you need to blend in. Look as unmilitary as possible. Stay close to Rogers. He can show you around without looking like he’s showing you around.”
“I could just stay on the ship…”
Kylie shook her head. The last thing she wanted was for Grayson to be alone on the ship. She wasn’t ready to trust him that much. Instead, she wanted Rogers and Winter to keep an eye on him. “Too suspicious. Maverick’s boys will board and check over the ship after we dock. If they catch you on here, there will be too many questions. You’re going to need to blend in. Take in the sights. Have a few drinks.”
Rogers threw him a charming smile. “Don’t worry, I have a pretty nice pad here. Girls are pretty good, too—parts of them that are still girls, anyway.”
“Mods are big here,” Kylie explained. “The kinkier, the better.”
“Pretend it’s a holiday,” Nadine said with a giggle. “If you can.”
“Not sure how I feel about any of this,” Grayson muttered. Even if he liked it, he wouldn’t say.
“Don’t worry, kink and mods are Harken’s deal. Maverick prefers his girls pure,” Nadine added. “That’s where Kylie and I come in.”
Kylie didn’t want to think about Harken—Maverick’s second-in-command. The woman made her skin crawl. She was the one that ran all the drugs and modded sex boys and girls. Maverick liked to pretend he was above all that—as though he was a legitimate businessman.
“Like Lana.” Grayson’s voice softened with grief, and it surprised Kylie. They had both known Lana when she was a little girl, but Grayson had arguably seen her more recently, since Kylie had been away for eleven years.
The vein that ran down Grayson’s left temple pulsed. “I don’t like either of you getting that close to him. I’ve heard about how his tastes run.”
“Nice to see you still care, but we’ll be fine. We just need to walk around. Go about our business. The rest of it will fall into place. You’ll see. It’ll be easy.”
Nadine smiled. “Like riding a hover cycle.”
Grayson cringed. “I hope that bike is regularly sanitized.”
Kylie smirked. “And that’s the job. Don’t worry, neither of us will do anything we don’t have to.”
Outside the windows, Laerdo Station loomed large as Rogers brought the Dauntless over the outer ring and down toward their berth. Nadine had got them an external slot—better if they needed to make a fast getaway—and Rogers eased the ship’s starboard hatch up to the station umbilical with smooth precision. The station’s docking arms extended, made a solid grapple, and Rogers powered down the grav drive.
“Home sweet home,” he announced.
“Nice flying,” Kylie replied as she glanced out at the rows of ships around them. Many were independent freighters, salvagers, and mining rigs. Others belonged to one of Jericho’s ruling families, though most belonged to Maverick. He had really built up his empire over the past decade. He was king of the hill, and no one dared challenge him.
The thought made her blood run cold for a moment. She was planning on challenging him.
“I guess I better change, then,” Grayson grunted as he excused himself to get ready in his quarters. Like it or not, everyone would need to be on deck for this one. Kylie just hoped his stomach was strong enough for what was about to follow. Undercover wasn’t exactly his strength. Kind of like the military wasn’t hers.
“Make sure he doesn’t walk too much like a tin soldier,” Kylie said to Winter.
Winter snorted. “Does he walk any other way? Man was probably bred in a military tank.”
Inwardly, Kylie laughed. Based on the military family Grayson came from, it wasn’t too big a stretch. “Then you better get him drunk. Get him relaxed, but nothing too dangerous,” Kylie said.
“Don’t worry, I picked one of my best vacationing flowered print shirts just for him,” Rogers said.
Kylie groaned. “Rogers—”
“Don’t worry. I have everything under control.” Rogers gave her a pretend salute. “We’ll take good care of him and we’ll be monitoring your comm. We might not be too close, but you aren’t alone, Captain.”
Kylie knew, but it was good to hear. “I’m going to fill out the docking plaswork myself and make sure the right people see me. We’ll check in soon.” She walked off the bridge and took the side passage toward the starboard airlock. Nadine joined her as she cycled the lock, and they stepped out together into Sweep AC-121’s receiving and loading area.
A podium stood near the airlock, and Kylie approached it. She slipped her finger into a receptacle and winced as it took DNA samples. An IR scanner examined her eyes, and she Linked to the station’s net and passed her auth codes.
Kylie thought it over and stuck with the plan.
Nadine laughed nervously as Kylie pulled her finger from the podium’s DNA scanner. Everything was scheduled, and the AI confirmed the time for dinner.
Kylie took Nadine’s hand, and they walked through the sweep’s long, curving deck until they came to a maglev train station. Once aboard a train, Nadine relaxed against Kylie. Neither spoke; instead, they simply enjoyed the quiet time together with no demands and especially no Grayson.
The maglev stopped at the central hub, and the pair disembarked, queuing up for a ride down the strand to the planet’s surface and the domed city of Montral. A lift-car arrived, and they boarded and found a seat. It would be a forty minute ride down to the surface, and light music played around them while ads for just about everything imaginable danced on the walls.
“When we get down there, what do you think about some light shopping before we head to my quarters?” Kylie asked as part of the script they had agreed upon.
Nadine nodded, but her distracted eyes flitted about. “I could use a new scarf.”
“New shoes always hit the spot for me.”
Privately, Nadine sent a message across the Link,
Outwardly, Nadine shivered.
* * * * *
The elevator passed through the glass dome of Montral, and Kylie looked out over the city where she had spent many of her recent years. The reddish-orange light from the suns always gave the city a sinister look to her eyes. Though the dome shifted the light closer to pure white, it was not enough that they looked like G-spectrum stars.
Still, it was enough that green plants could grow inside the dome—unlike the scrub and lichen that survived outside, where photosynthesis required planet life to be more brown than green.
Light glinted off the lazy river that wound through the city. Once it had been lovely and sparkling blue—or so Kylie liked to imagine—now it was sluggish and brown, only enough impellers still ran to keep the waters from completely stagnating.
As the lift-car dropped closer to the ground, tall buildings—some nearly scraping the dome—obscured the view, and Kylie turned her attention to Nadine.
“Wake up, we’re down.”
Nadine’s beautiful blue eyes cracked open, and she looked up at Kylie with a sleepy love, and her heart melted. This woman was such a dream, and for some reason she was with Kylie, on her junker ship, snatching hulls out of the dark.
What had she done to deserve such a thing?
Just don’t screw it up.
The two women took another maglev to one of the more upscale shopping districts, and Nadine’s eyes lit up as she took in all the latest styles—many from Scipio—often available on Jericho before anywhere else in Silstrand space.
Nadine dragged Kylie up to the third level of the broad promenade, which was filled with high-end shops and boutiques. It was the perfect place to pick up a matching ensemble to wear for an elegant dinner.
Everyone, from the shoppers to those manning the doors, wore elaborate outfits consisting of complex polymers, elaborate lighting, and dazzling holoeffects. All the women’s—and many of the men’s—hair was done up in creative twists and gravity-defying shapes, their eyes dotted with all the colors of the rainbow. Even their multi-colored shoes and boots were extraordinary, many didn’t even touch the ground as their wearers drifted by.
Close Proximity - An Aeon14 Space Opera Adventure (Perilous Alliance) Page 9