“The half-breed?” He gave a snort of contempt. “Hardly. You’d think someone like Gared Tomas would choose a better shot for his right-hand man. But I’m guessing our little firefight drew some attention…and the dead bodies will draw rather more.”
“Around here?” she scoffed, then amended, “Well, if it were anyone except a couple of Tomas’s goons, no one would bat an eye, but…”
“That’s what worries me.”
“No need to worry.” The nav-computer let out a chime, informing her that its calculations were complete. “We’re out of here.”
And she pulled back on the ignition lever, feeling the atmospheric propulsion system kick in, the ship vibrating ever so slightly beneath them. She pushed it further, and they shot straight up, through the shattered roof of the warehouse, lifting away from Aldis Nova, its dusty streets and shabby buildings spreading out beneath them, all painted orange and red with the colors of sunset. Farther still, and the city shrank to nothing, swallowed up by miles of ochre desert, until the desert itself became the color of the planet’s flat disc, and black space surrounded them on every side.
Still without speaking, she urged the Mistral forward, hurrying them away from the gravity well of the planet and its accompanying moons, sending them into open space where she could safely engage the subspace drive. Only after the odd flickering colors of subspace had surrounded them, and she knew they were safe from pursuit, did she turn to Rast.
“Well, you’ve got your ship,” she said. “What next?”
* * *
He enjoyed watching her fly, watching her slender fingers work the controls, her fine profile to him as she stared out the viewscreen and into the onrushing heavens. “Where are we headed?”
“Next system over, but I figured we had to go somewhere before I could plot our final destination. Tomas would never suspect us of stopping so close to Iradia, and anyway, it’s pretty dead space around there. We can hang for a while and decide on our next course of action.”
“And Tomas doesn’t have any way of tracking us?” Rast found this a little difficult to believe; if he’d owned a fine ship like this, he would have made sure it had some sort of tracking device secreted away on it.
“He did,” she admitted. “You’re sitting on it.”
“I’m what?” he demanded, halfway lifting himself off the seat before he realized the harness would keep him from getting very far. In exasperation, he began to undo the buckles.
“Relax.” Her voice held some of the first amusement he’d yet heard from her. “He had a tracker installed there, but I located it early on. It’s deactivated. But I also need to hack into the computer and change the Mistral’s I.D. signature and registry. Otherwise, they’ll still be able to find us eventually.”
Now free of the harness, Rast shifted in his seat so he could see her better. A small smile was playing about her full lips. “You can do that? Fine upstanding GDF captain that you are?”
“Former captain,” she reminded him, with only a faint edge to her voice. “No, it’s not something they exactly taught us at the academy, but a friend of mine showed me a few tricks back in the day.”
“A friend,” Rast said. He wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. Generally, those sorts of friends turned out to be a bit more than friends.
“All right, a former boyfriend. From my brief rebellious stage.”
Rast crossed his arms, waiting to hear the rest. At least, he assumed there was a rest.
“In fact, he might be the best person to help us now,” Lira continued. She didn’t give any indication of noticing that her words had sparked a reaction in Rast, but perhaps she didn’t much care. “Jackson Wyler. I met him my first year at the academy, but he didn’t last long. Not much of one for rules, Jackson.”
“Indeed.”
“Indeed,” she repeated, and this time she had a distinct glint in her blue eyes. “He decided that hacking computers was much more fun than taking orders, so he dropped out. But we kept in touch…that is, he kept in touch with me. He seemed to genuinely enjoy tracking me down wherever I ended up, sending me little notes, that sort of thing. It was more a game for him than anything else.”
“Hmm,” said Rast. He’d meant it to come out as a more or less noncommittal grunt, but what emerged from his throat sounded a bit too much like a growl.
“At any rate,” she continued, “since I have a pretty short list of questionable people who might be able to help us down the road to discovering who’s maneuvering behind the scenes, I can’t think of anyone better than Jackson to provide some assistance. Unless you’ve got some hacker contacts you haven’t told me about.”
Of course Rast didn’t. While he knew the Stacian military employed its own versions of what the Gaians referred to as “hackers,” his people did not find the same perverse joy in those sorts of activities as some Gaians seemed to. Sneaking around, searching for vulnerabilities in code, devising underhanded ways to suborn computer networks…none of that was anything close to what a Stacian would regard as honorable behavior.
However, he also knew that in their current situation, he and Lira would have to enlist the help of someone with that sort of background, or their investigation would be effectively ended before it had even begun. So he said, with a good deal of reluctance, “And where can we find this Jackson Wyler?”
“He likes to play at being respectable,” she replied.
That didn’t sound terribly promising. “Yes?”
“So right now he’s living on New Chicago.”
Rast tried not to groan. New Chicago. Only one of Gaia’s oldest and most settled colonies. Short of flying the Mistral straight through to Gaia itself, he couldn’t think of a worse place for a Stacian to be headed. He would stick out there like that strange aquatic creature known as a whale might if it were dropped in the middle of a Stacian desert. But there was no help for it. To New Chicago they must go.
And the gods help him if the GDF discovered an enemy combatant right in their midst…
* * *
Stacians couldn’t exactly go green, given the ruddy-gold hues of their complexions, but Lira could tell from Rast’s reaction that he was less than thrilled about heading to New Chicago. He’d probably be even less thrilled after she told him he’d have to remain aboard the ship while she went to go see Jackson, but really, they didn’t have many options. Maybe someone in MI7 might have been able to come up with a way to effectively disguise Rast sen Drenthan so he’d blend in with a population that was mostly Gaian, but short of cutting off all his hair, covering him in body makeup, and hoping no one would notice the ridges on his brows, Lira couldn’t quite think how. And she had a feeling that anyone who made a move to cut off those luxurious falls of dreadlocked hair would find their own throat cut in short order.
After a brief stop in the Corael system, just long enough to program in the new route, the Mistral continued on to New Chicago, which would take the better part of a standard day. Just as well, because she had work to do.
First a hack into the ship’s computer, following the logic path that led her to the subroutine that stored the transponder codes and the registry information. Once inside, she changed the starship’s name to Chinook and gave her registry as Jordarian. That was far enough off the beaten track that no one was probably going to investigate too closely; on the other hand, Jordares was known for its rich mineral deposits, and so no one would question an expensive ship like the Mistral…that is, the Chinook…coming from such a home base.
As she worked, she was conscious of Rast’s gaze on her, copper eyes keen, blinking just slightly less often than a Gaian would. His physical presence was more than a little distracting, but she couldn’t allow herself to get sidetracked.
And maybe at some point she’d have time to really stop and think about what she’d done, about how she’d allowed herself to become a fugitive, trapped in this ship with a man who should have been her enemy…and yet, strangely, was not.
; Crazy as it might sound, she thought she trusted Rast sen Drenthan. He’d said very little of how he’d managed to track her down, but she knew he must have walked away from a prestigious post in order to come on an insane mission that might never yield any useful fruit. He’d told her he wanted to know the truth about his superior officer’s actions, and she believed him.
However, one reason didn’t necessarily preclude another, more personal motivation. He didn’t try to hide the fact that he was watching her. From time to time, their eyes would meet, and a small shiver would go through her. Memories of him had been overwhelming enough. His physical presence, in the tight confines of the Sirocco-class ship, was something else altogether.
Time enough to worry about that later. In a few hours they’d be in New Chicago, and she’d be facing Jackson Wyler, a man she hadn’t seen in person for more than ten years. She’d never flattered herself that his occasional notes and vids meant anything except proving his cleverness, his ability to find her wherever she was posted, even if said posting was classified. Even when she had been orbiting Chlorae II, a planet few people even knew existed, those cheery little notes would surface from time to time, inquiring as to her health, inviting her to pop in for a drink if she were ever in the neighborhood.
Well, she was in the neighborhood now…
* * *
“So you expect me to sit here and cool my heels like some underage trenth, some useless appendage?”
Part of Rast’s outrage probably stemmed from the realization that he should have guessed she would propose such a thing. A Stacian could not walk down the streets of New Chicago’s largest city and not expect to attract some attention. Whereas Lira, though of course lovely enough to draw notice wherever she went, was typically Gaian in appearance, and her slim dark gray pants and short blue jacket were plain enough that they would not have stood out on any of the Gaian Consortium worlds.
She appeared coolly unconcerned by his apparent anger. “Actually, yes, I do. Jackson knows me, not you. He’s not going to let some unknown Stacian march into his house — if we could even get you there without drawing down every police officer within a kilometer’s radius. Or have you forgotten that the Gaian Consortium and the Stacian Federation are at war?”
“Not technically,” he replied, and wished he didn’t sound quite so much like a sulky adolescent.
“Technically, no, but for all intents and purposes…”
“I know.” He wished he could reach out to her, take her hands in his, but he guessed from her brisk no-nonsense manner that this was not the time for such things. Later, perhaps. He had no idea where their quest would take them, but he hoped the journey might be a lengthy one, so he would have plenty of time to soften that flinty exterior. Hardening his own voice, he said, “And you trust this Jackson Wyler?”
“‘Trust’?” she repeated, and lifted her shoulders. “Trust is a strong word. I wouldn’t say he’s a particularly trustworthy person. On the other hand, I think he’ll find it amusing to provide some assistance, especially since the parties involved are high-ranking members of the Stacian and Gaian militaries. Those are the sorts of people Jackson would just love to see brought low. So I think he’ll help me…and I don’t think he’ll tell anyone else.”
“But you don’t know for sure.”
A smile then, brittle as the ice crystals that sometimes formed on a ship’s viewscreen as it re-entered atmosphere. “If I’ve learned anything so far, Rast, it’s that nothing in this life is for sure.”
And with that she walked out of the cockpit, heading for her assignation with this Jackson Wyler.
* * *
It felt strange to be walking the streets of a large city again. The Gaian Defense Fleet Academy she’d attended had been on the outskirts of Rilsin, the biggest city on New Chicago’s sister planet of Nova Angeles, but after she’d graduated, Lira hadn’t spent much time in population centers. Aldis Nova was big enough in its own way, but Michende here on New Chicago could have swallowed the Iradian town in one of its suburbs.
Of course Jackson hadn’t responded to the news that she was here with anything more than an expression of simple pleasure and eagerness to see her again. With that he’d transmitted his home’s coordinates to her handheld, which automatically plotted the best route from the spaceport to her journey’s endpoint, providing helpful suggestions for which airbuses to take and offering to subtract the cost of the fares from her credit balance.
She knew better than to do that, of course; such transactions would immediately alert anyone who was looking for her as to her current whereabouts. No, she always carried some cash with her, mainly because it had turned into a habit during her academy days, and partly because most people on Aldis Nova didn’t want to engage in any commerce that didn’t involve hard currency.
All around her were people involved in their own affairs, heading to work, heading home from work, taking a break for the midday meal. A place as big as Michende never stopped, its streets filled twenty-two hours a day. At first Lira felt self-conscious as she moved among them, certain that something about her dress or her person proclaimed that she shouldn’t be here. Soon enough, though, she realized that none of these intent, hurrying people cared the slightest bit about who she was or why she was here. In that she found something strangely reassuring.
A little more than a standard half-hour after she left the spaceport, she arrived at Jackson’s building. It was located in a well-kept, high-end part of town, with skyscrapers of permaglass towering on all sides and carefully tended planters of both native and alien flora growing in the medians of the streets and in boxes along the sidewalks. Typical of Jackson to carry on his dubious business in such a respectable neighborhood.
The door opened as she approached it, and a mech stepped aside, saying, “He awaits you in the penthouse, Ms. Jannholm.”
How ostentatious, to have a mech playing doorman. But she only nodded and went on to the lifts, noting that one waited for her. Once she was inside, it shot upward immediately, without her having to voice her destination or press any buttons.
Trying to impress me, Jackson?
Making sure she wore her best poker face, she exited the lift on the fifteenth floor and found herself in an expansive foyer, decked out in expensive Menari travertine and with orchids she thought might have come all the way from Gaia blooming in spare black glass pots set on carefully arranged low columns of more travertine. Directly ahead of her was a door. It opened as she stepped forward, and Jackson Wyler came out to greet her.
“My dear Lira,” he said, spreading one hand back toward the apartment from which he’d just emerged. “Come in. So glad to see you!”
“It’s nice to see you, too,” she said, wondering what exactly his game was. Not that they’d split up under exactly acrimonious circumstances, but still, this sort of effusiveness wasn’t the sort of thing she expected from an ex-boyfriend. Yes, that seemed the proper term. They’d been physically intimate, of course, but neither one of them had had much idea what they were doing. Unlike Rast sen Drenthan.
A mental head shake then, even as she almost found herself wishing she’d brought a sidearm, but that was just foolish. You couldn’t go two steps on New Chicago carrying a gun without the scanners picking up on it and sending out the alarm to every law enforcement officer in the immediate vicinity. If a frontier world like Iradia let you walk around the streets with a pistol strapped to your belt, fine — after all, what else could you expect from places like that? — but they did things differently on New Chicago.
“Looks like you’re doing pretty well for yourself,” she commented, after taking a brief glance around the room and noting the expensive low couches of real leather, the floor of some kind of pale wood, the vertigo-inducing views of Michende from the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“I do all right,” he allowed, moving toward a table that held a pitcher of some pale green fizzy liquid and a couple of glasses. “Mileni mineral water?”
“Sure.” At least he wasn’t trying to get her drunk. That was a good sign…wasn’t it?
Lira approached him after he’d poured the water and took the proffered glass from his hand. Even though ten years had passed since she’d last seen him in person, he didn’t seem all that changed. Maybe a little broader through the shoulders and midsection, the even features more defined. A man now, definitely not a boy. But the piercing green eyes were the same, and the shock of blond air, artfully styled to fall into his face in a calculatedly careless manner.
In her mind’s eye she saw Rast, black hair pulled severely back from his face, bound in its barbaric rings of copper and gold. It was a style that did not forgive, but his features needed no softening, no tricks of the stylist to make them more attractive. She wondered then what he would think of Jackson Wyler and decided she really didn’t want to know.
“So…” Jackson began, and then paused, studying her. “Your message was customarily oblique, but I gather you’re in need of some assistance?”
“You could say that.” She swallowed some of the mineral water, feeling it fizz against her tongue and throat, leaving behind a mild aftertaste of lemon and mint. “I suppose you heard what happened.”
The green eyes had an amused glint. “I did. I have to say I was a little surprised.”
“Only a little?”
“All right, more than a little.” He drank from his own glass of water, then set it down. “A Stacian, Lira? I had no idea your tastes were that…exotic. No wonder you dumped me like a ship dropping its wastewater before it enters orbit.”
“As I recall, you were the one who did the dumping. Anyway, it’s…complicated.”
“I figured it must be. So what’s the real story?”
Although she didn’t much care to go over the whole sordid thing again, she knew she’d have to give Jackson enough details that he’d know she wasn’t holding out on him. His main love was information, so information she’d give him. In cool, terse sentences she outlined what had happened in the Chlorae system, and how she’d been summarily discharged for her actions.
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