Grace frowned at that. “So Elizabeth isn’t going with you?”
“Not yet,” Elizabeth said. “The farm is gone, it’s well past planting season, and I’d just be a liability until this is dealt with. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
“As long as you’re cooking,” she said, “you’re welcome to stay as long as you like. Or forever.”
Elizabeth hummed softly at that but didn’t say anything. With plans made, everyone went back to eating as if the conversation had never happened. Grace stared at her bowl, appetite completely out the airlock. So that really was it. They were splitting up after one crummy job. She grabbed her spoon and forced herself to eat. Things used to be simpler. Back before Ceres. Before Villa María even. When it was just the five of them and the Sparrow. No guild or government officials, and the only miracles were the ones on her wrists. She kicked herself for sounding so much like a boring adult. When had she gotten old enough to even have good old days in her past?
“When are you guys leaving?” she finally asked.
“As soon as we can,” Matthew said. “We have to catch a shuttle to Freeport 36, and then it’ll be a commercial flight to Mars. Yvonne is in charge. If there’s a security threat on the ground, Davey, you take the lead.”
Not an hour later, Grace watched Matthew and Abigail march down the ramp into the snow and disappear. She stared after them for a few minutes before closing the ramp. “Bad things happen when we split up,” she muttered under her breath.
THE TRIP TO MARS WAS as delightful as Abigail expected. She tried rolling over in the pitiful little shelf that passed for a bed, knowing it was a lost cause. The last time she’d taken a commercial liner was before she’d met Matthew, a trip to Ceres to have Ivan do repairs. After a few fitful attempts at sleep, she groaned, pushed aside the privacy curtain, and pulled herself to the edge of the bed, being careful not to hit her head on the bunk above her. She grasped the edge of her kneeling exo-suit and, with some difficulty, swung her legs through the open back.
It took her some time to get situated and close up her armor. She stood, careful not to bump the walls of what amounted to little more than a closet. Since traveling between planets took days, most passengers were assigned sleeping periods in tiny bunkrooms. Given that Abigail had a secret to protect, Matthew had paid for a private one. He had generously opted to use the public bunkroom. She looked at the clock. It was still an hour until their sleep period was over, after which a steward would come clean the room for the next shift of sleepers, though she doubted there would be anyone even scheduled for this room.
The commercial liner was at least half empty. The canteen always had plenty of room, the walking track felt half deserted, and the general seating area lacked the usual buzz of conversation. Which was fine with Abigail since it made getting around the tight corridors easier than normal in her bulky suit. She found her locker and grabbed her bag, making her way to the washrooms. Thankfully, the line for a private one was short.
Twenty minutes later, feeling much cleaner and with more manageable hair, she made her way to the canteen to find Matthew already nursing a cup of coffee. “You’re up early,” he said as she sat across from him.
She began tearing open sugar packets to dump into her coffee. “A slab of granite would be more comfortable to sleep on. You?”
“Had a snorer a few bunks over.”
“Ugh. Sorry about that. The sooner we get to port, the better.”
He glanced at his watch. “You’ll have to wait about thirteen hours. If we’re on schedule.”
“Which I doubt.”
Unfortunately, she was right. Fifteen hours later, they were required to strap into their seats as the liner entered Martian space in preparation for deorbiting. She caused some minor fuss for the attendants, since there wasn’t any possible way for her to strap into one of the tiny chairs. Ultimately, they settled for her sitting in the aisle by Matthew, something he thought was hilarious.
“Laugh it up, Gaucho,” she grumbled.
“I said nothing and will refrain from doing anything of the sort.” She could see the way the corners of his mouth creased ever so slightly upward. Jerk. “We should be in Martian network range,” he said, picking up his tablet. “I’m going to grab the most recent newspaper out of Arizona. I feel like I’ve been out of the loop since, well, my injury.”
“Last I heard, the occupation continues but life goes on. Kyoto isn’t happy, but what are they going to do about it? On the plus side, it doesn’t look like Logan’s going to be able to hit the factory with that much firepower around it.”
“I wonder about that,” he said. She watched as he thumbed through articles, doing little more than scanning headlines and glancing at photos. “Editorials aren’t giving Barclay a good time these days,” he said. “It’s still a year from the next election, but I wager this will be a hot topic of debate.”
“Do you vote still?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Not every election. It’s a hassle to get a ballot, but I’ll make the effort this time. Barclay has made my bad list.”
There was a rumble through the decks as the retrorockets fired. The captain’s voice droned for a few minutes about the upcoming landing, but Abigail tuned her out. When it was finally over, Matthew passed her the tablet. She read the article title aloud. “Guild of Lanterns Heroes Defend Diner from Armed Gang. Hey, it’s the Ongkara Crew. Those guys were great.”
Matthew frowned. “I feel I missed a lot. They operate out of Thebe if I recall?”
She nodded. “A group of cousins. The locals already adored them, but now it looks like the rest of the solar system is going to hear about them too.” She passed him his tablet back. “And for some reason, you don’t look too happy about that.”
“Oh, you know me,” he said. “I’m a glory hound.”
She coughed a short laugh in her throat. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have volunteered to be a figurehead whose sole purpose is to give the colonies a shining symbol of hope.”
“Don’t remind me. I wasn’t actually counting on this little gambit to be successful.”
Abigail shook her head, wondering if Matthew was actually that dense or was just playing at it. Most likely an unconscious mixture of the two. Less than an hour later, they walked off the passenger liner into the main terminal of the Arizona spaceport, each with a small bag in tow. Unfortunately, it was around noon local time, which meant this was going to be one long day. Spaceport security raised their hackles at Abigail, but a quick flash of her ID as a freelancer settled things. Nothing out of the ordinary.
As they stepped out onto the street, she glanced upward. It always felt good coming back to Mars. While it would never be home, it was as close as she could ever get. Far above, Phobos trailed across the pale sky. Despite being little more than a captured asteroid at roughly twelve kilometers across, its precariously low orbit made it easily visible as it circled Mars at high speed. Now, it was a heavily guarded Highland Treaty Organization military site. Her gaze lingered on the moon for a moment before turning away. They had business to attend to, and thankfully it didn’t involve the mad schemes of nations and their quest for power.
By midafternoon, they’d reclaimed her bike, stashed away in a dusty old storage facility on the far side of town. “At least you get yours back,” Matthew grumbled. “I had that bike for nearly ten years.”
“At least you’re alive,” she countered as she mounted the bike.
Matthew rubbed at his chest where the bullet had pierced him and climbed on behind her. She’d noticed him doing that anytime the subject was breached, and she wondered if he was even aware of it. “Okay, I’ll grant that,” he said. “Let’s go see our favorite politician.”
The meeting was to take place that evening, on an abandoned floor of a crumbling old office building a few blocks off of downtown. They arrived a few minutes early and cautiously crept up the stairs. “I still think it’s weird to meet a government official somewher
e so unofficial,” Abigail whispered as they reached their floor.
Matthew shrugged. “Thompson has gone off the books with us before. I suspect this is going to be the same.” He pushed the door open and entered the boarded-up remnants of an office. What little furniture was left was draped with tarps. It looked like the office had more spiders hard at work than employees if the cobwebbed corners were anything to go by. “Well,” he called out. “Are you here?”
To Abigail’s utter surprise, her friend Milena Drugova stepped from around a corner, looking as trendy as ever with a hand planted firmly on her hip. “It’s my lucky day,” she said. “Looks like I finally get to meet the famous Matthew Cole. I’ve heard so much about you. Mostly from Abigail.”
Abigail’s mouth went dry. Matthew chuckled and adjusted his hat. “I hope it’s good things she’s told you. And who, may I ask, are you?”
She offered him a hand. “Milena Drugova. Surveillance specialist and part of the Guild of Lanterns.”
Matthew shook her hand. “I should have guessed. Sadly, I only know your general resume, as Abigail seems to have been more chatty with you than about you.”
He gave Abigail a lopsided smile, which made her want to dive out the nearest window. “Very funny,” she said, turning back to Milena, “What exactly are you doing here? We were expecting someone else. Are you working for Thompson?”
Her friend gave her a wry smile. “It’s a bit more complicated, I’m afraid.”
“And we’re hoping you’ll be able to help sort it out,” came a new voice from behind them. Ryan Thompson stepped into the room, and Abigail thought he looked even more irritated with the world than usual.
Matthew looked between the two of them. “I don’t think you care about my well-being enough to track down my would-be killer, Thompson, not without there being something in it for you as well. So tell me. What kind of mess are we getting ourselves into?”
Thompson gave them a weak and tired smile, and it was genuine enough that it made worry itch at the back of Abigail’s mind. “Hopefully,” he said slowly, “one that you and the Shield Maiden are going to help get us all out of.”
MATTHEW SCRATCHED HIS chin after it was all laid out. “Let’s walk through the sequence one more time. Three months ago, Damon Stein was at the Gilgamesh grav plate factory, in some capacity.”
Milena nodded from where she sat by a window, arms crossed. They’d scrounged a couple chairs, but Abigail would crush them, and Matthew was a pacer anyway. Thompson had accepted a seat and sipped thoughtfully at a coffee. Matthew was beginning to regret turning down the offer of a cup of his own.
“He wasn’t at our production line,” he said, pushing the thought of caffeine aside. “We were thorough. And he wasn’t at the one that the Abrogationists successfully hit, because he would have been on that freighter when Gebre’elwa’s interceptors took it down.”
“You said the factory’s air defenses were disabled,” Abigail said. “Maybe he was involved in infiltration and sabotage.”
“Sabotage and assassination are his specialties,” Thompson said quietly. “Since I’ve been digging into Stein’s past, I’ve discovered his resume is a little more extensive in that regard than the administration realizes.”
“But is he an Abrogationist?” Milena asked, “Has the Arizonan government been infiltrated, because if it has...” She glanced at the ceiling, and they got her drift. There was a moon in orbit that would make an awfully tempting target for a terrorist within the system.
“No, I don’t think so,” Thompson said. “Not counting his actual work for the Arizonan government, it’s hard to find a pattern for his personal contracts. You’ve seen it yourself. He has business ties with nearly every organization in the solar system.”
“Are we going to operate on the hope that he’s just a mercenary then?” Abigail asked. “A well connected one with a dangerous set of skills?”
“For now,” Thompson said.
“A few weeks after Gilgamesh,” Matthew said, “he shows up in Warszawa and shuts down what appears to have been a long-running scheme to source grav plates. As near as I can tell, it’s a complete coincidence that Davey was there to see that.”
“One that nearly got him killed,” Abigail agreed.
“I’m not a big fan of writing things off to chance,” Thompson said. “That’s how you miss connections and get nasty surprises that come back to bite you. You sure there’s no way that client could be connected to either Stein or Logan?”
Matthew stopped midstride. “Not a chance. I’ve worked with him before. Even saved him from slavery on Europa. Vicente Luna is as harmless a man as they come. I think the bigger question here isn’t how my crew became entangled, but what you’re going to do about the implications that your administration was involved in a very illegal carjacking ring.”
Thompson sipped his coffee. “I can’t do anything until we have Stein. If I so much as breathe a word about the Warszawa ring, I’ll either end up in a body bag or, at best, out of a job. If I’m going to mire the administration with a scandal of that size, I’ll need proof in hand.”
Matthew nodded and went back to pacing. It bothered him that Thompson had seen the pictures that Davey had taken that night. Outside of the crew, Whitaker was the only one that had laid eyes on them. That definitely confirmed a theory that Matthew had been entertaining about who Whitaker’s contact in the Arizonan government was.
“The day after the car-jacking ring was shut down,” Abigail continued, “Stein puts a bullet through Matthew.”
“I have secondary evidence on that,” Thompson said, “based on movements of a team under Stein’s command and forensics at what was most likely the sniper nest.”
“And I can provide corroboration,” Milena said, “based on the conversation between Stein and Logan.”
“But the problem,” Matthew said. “Is that we have no idea who hired him.”
“Logan wasn’t happy about it,” she agreed. She narrowed her eyes at Matthew. “Just what is his relationship to you?”
Matthew opened his mouth to answer, but Abigail beat him to it. “Complicated. Matthew attracts psychopaths that like games. He duped us at Ceres. And we almost didn’t recover from it.”
He clenched his fists at the memory. “And then goaded us at Gilgamesh, having us pass on the threat to the Kyoto factory to the Martian governments.”
Milena actually laughed at that, her fingers worrying the hem of her coat. “Trouble comes to you, doesn’t it?”
“You’ve no idea,” Abigail said.
Thompson grunted and turned back to Matthew. Do you know who might have paid Stein to go after you? If so, we can work the other end.”
“How long do you have?” Abigail asked. “Matthew’s a saint. We’ve managed to make enemies of crime syndicates, slave cartels, even a few governments. The shorter list is who doesn’t want him dead.”
Matthew gave her a brief look, but then slumped his shoulders. “No leads. No suspicions.”
“Helpful,” Thompson said, “as always. And finally, we have Ms. Drugova’s testimony on the conversation between Stein and Logan. Not only does it tie several of these events together, but it also brings up one last disturbing detail.”
“He knew I was watching,” Milena said, gripping the arms of her chair. “Further he wanted me to know that he knew I was watching, and he wanted me to positively identify him.”
The room went silent, save for the sound of Matthew’s footfalls across the creaking floor. This really was the crux of the matter. The game that Logan was playing. He frowned. Or maybe this time it wasn’t a game. “I think that was the whole point of the conversation,” he said slowly.
“That’s the conclusion I’ve drawn as well,” Milena agreed.
Thompson tried to take a sip of coffee but frowned at the empty cup. He set it aside. “Explain.”
“The only thing he really said to Stein was a warning to watch his back, that it would be dangerous for him if i
t were known that Logan was one of his clients.”
“I see,” Abigail said. “And then he turns to the camera and more or less gives you a wink.”
The light from the window began to dim as twilight set in. Abigail gave a yawn, and though Matthew agreed with the sentiment, he had the self-control to resist its infectious influence. “Milena, I’ll take you up on that caffeine offer now, if you don’t mind.”
“And I’ll have a second,” Thompson said. Milena disappeared into the side room she’d emerged from, what she had called her nest. Abigail followed her, though she remained hovering outside the door.
Matthew just continued to pace, though he stopped when Thompson caught his eye. But then the lawman looked away. Well, if he wouldn’t bite, Matthew would. “Why not just arrest him yourself? We both know I’m not on your list of favorite citizens to work with.”
“Because there are some things I have to do by the book. To arrest Stein, I’d have to get a warrant issued. He’d get wind of it and bolt, never to be seen in Arizona again. He’s got ties to an Abrogationist, one that’s already dropped hints about the connection being blown. He’s going to be skittish.” Thompson made eye contact again. “I may not like you, Cole, but I do trust you. I’d be a fool not to at this point. I’ll help you capture the man that tried to kill you, and then I’ll issue a warrant for his arrest. You get to be the hero. You and your guild prosper, and I get a star witness to figure out what’s going on in the Office of Colonial Intelligence and the Defense Department.”
Matthew held his gaze. “Is the man that once helped prop up a gang of outlaws in the name of a supposed greater good really going to clean house in his boss’s administration?”
“I’m not going to try to justify my decisions. Not to you. But I think it’s appropriate to keep in mind a matter of scale. Allowing a small-time outlaw to fill up space so White Void didn’t move in is a different matter entirely than widespread government corruption facilitating the construction of a weapon of mass destruction threatening an entire planet.”
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