She swallowed the lump in her throat.
"I think he'd be proud of you," Vel said, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"Yeah, whatever," Lyssa said, brushing his hand off her shoulder. "I have a stupid presentation to give in an hour, and I'm not even halfway done. So quit yapping and go sit over there."
Vel sighed, but left her alone to stare at the screen. It was a few minutes before she began typing again.
***
"The rock creatures do not appear sentient," Lyssa droned on, flipping through her presentation to the sparse audience. "They appear to migrate regularly—unable to determine the frequency."
She saw someone yawn in the audience and sighed. Giant moving rocks did not equal a highly priced planet. To make matters worse, she saw that smartly-dressed woman show up halfway through her presentation.
"In summary, A-2244245 has a plethora of key features—potable water with a small concentration of minerals, regular temperature regulation, and a sizable non-liquid surface—that make this planet an excellent purchase."
She looked around the room and saw minimal interest.
Annoyed, she pulled her mini-computer and walked off the stage. Vel, who was seated in the front row, popped up and followed her into the small buyer's room.
"So that's a planet selling presentation?" Vel asked, sitting down in one of the empty chairs across from her.
"Welcome to your future," Lyssa said, looking at her Lyssa Peate bank account. She really could've used some money this trip, but based on interest, it didn't look like she was going to get even five thousand credits for this planet.
"I don't remember testing the water for minerals," Vel said, raising his eyebrow at her.
She smirked and put her finger to her mouth as the door opened and a few prospectors filed into the room. Vel got up and moved to the back as more prospectors came in—more than Lyssa had expected, to be honest.
And then, to her chagrin, the smartly-dressed woman who weaseled her out of thousands of credits walked into the room, this time wearing a killer black dress, bright white pearls, and heels that clacked loudly against the tile floor. She had her mini-computer pressed to her ear as she stood next to Vel, obviously annoyed that she was there.
Lyssa quickly sent a message to Vel's mini-computer.
That bitch underbid on my planet—8k!
He jumped as his mini-computer buzzed with the incoming message. He read it then looked between Lyssa and the woman standing next to him. She watched him type back into his mini-computer.
I got this.
Lyssa, confused at his meaning, nonetheless realized she was wasting time and stood up, tapping on the table to get everyone's attention.
"So let's start the bidding at—"
"Fifteen," the woman in the back said, putting her hand over the speaker of her mini-computer then returning to her call.
"I was gonna say twenty-five," Lyssa grumbled, angrily.
Vel looked at the woman then motioned to Lyssa to fight back.
"Yeah, twenty five thousand credits," Lyssa repeated, louder.
"Ten," the woman said.
"Thirty."
Lyssa gaped at Vel, who'd just bid thirty thousand credits on a planet.
"Excuse me?" the woman said. "This planet is not worth thirty thousand—"
"I'll be the judge of that," Vel said, clearing his throat. "The offer stands—thirty thousand credits."
The prospectors buzzed amongst themselves, reviewing their paperwork and tablets.
"Thirty-one!" another said nervously, as if he was still unsure why he was paying so much money for this planet.
"Forty," Vel said, smiling as Lyssa's eyes bugged out of her head.
"This is ridiculous," the woman said, putting her mini-computer away and placing her perfectly manicured hand on her hip. "This planet isn't even worth the amount of money they're paying me to stand here—"
"Forty-five!" another prospector said from across the room.
"Fifty!" another piped up.
"Fifty-five!"
"Seventy-five!"
"One hundred thousand credits," Vel said, his voice clear.
"I am not bidding a hundred thousand credits for this planet." The woman exuded power as she turned to face Vel straight-on.
"Look, if you don't want to bid, get out of the room," Vel said, returning her ferocity with his own. "Frankly, I think one hundred thousand is an incredible underbid for such a useful planet—"
"Two hundred thousand!" one prospector said.
There was silence in the room as every eye turned to look at Lyssa. She snapped out of her shock when she realized no one else was bidding.
"Sold!" she said, laughing a little bit. She sat back, amazed at how much money she'd just made, as the prospectors filed out of the room.
All except one.
The smartly-dressed woman waited until all the other prospectors were out of the room and the door was closed before she turned to smile sharply at Lyssa. "That was an interesting trick," she said, walking slowly up to them. "Having your intern drive up the price of a perfectly pathetic—and barely excavated—planet."
Behind her, Vel's eyes widened.
"I needed to make back the eight grand you swindled me out of last month," Lyssa responded, returning her glare.
"I like you. You have spunk," she said, placing a business card on the table. "If you ever want to get out of the dirty business of excavating planets and make some real money, give me a call."
Speechless, Lyssa watched her saunter out of the room, the clack-clack of her heels echoing even after she'd closed the door behind her.
"Tell me this," Lyssa said, turning to Vel. "What were you gonna do if no one else bought the planet?"
"Ask Mother to give me an advance on my allowance?" Vel said, smiling.
"Oh well," Lyssa began, before stopping short. "Hang on, what allowance?"
***
"Can we please buy something other than meal bars?" Vel asked, standing next to Lyssa on the ship. With so much money in her account, Lyssa was stocking up on enough food and supplies to last her for a few weeks.
"What's wrong with meal bars?" Lyssa asked, adding another box to the request list, along with another box of toiletries and case of water.
Vel whined behind her.
"Quit being such a damned child," Lyssa said, adding a few frozen meals to the mix. "There. Happy?"
"Oh, not the mushroom—" Vel sighed, stopping when Lyssa turned to give him a look. "Yes, very happy."
"Now go downstairs and wait for them to deliver the goods," Lyssa barked, sending the order. "Should be here soon. Stick it in the cabinets down there."
Vel grumbled as he climbed down the stairs. "Why do I have to wait for it?"
"Because you're the intern," Lyssa responded to him from above.
"Glad to see you've finally embraced the internship, Dr. Peate!"
Lyssa groaned audibly. Pymus stood on the bottom level of her ship, looking up at her jovially.
"What do you want, Pymus?"
"That's Dr. Pymus, dear," he said sweetly. "I haven't checked in with the two of you in a while and I wanted to make sure adequate progress was being made."
Lyssa looked down at him and smiled. "Loads of progress. Ask Dorst."
"Oh yes, I had a chat with your dear brother!" She heard him opening her cabinets and groaned again, quickly sliding down the ladder to the lower level of her ship. She found him nose-deep in one of her cabinets, Vel helplessly and nervously glancing between her and Pymus.
"Can I help you with something?" Lyssa said, rudely shutting the cabinet door in Pymus' face.
"Yes, I'd like to see the first draft of your report on the internship."
"What report?"
"Dear, dear, dear." Pymus laughed, using his immaculately shined shoe to open one of the lower cabinets. "You have obligations with this internship as well. Lessons learned. Detailed reports from the planets you've been excavating."
&
nbsp; "Yeah." Lyssa smiled, using her hip to close the cabinet door he was opening. "Otherwise known as all my research on Leveman's Vortex."
"My dear, watch that tone," Pymus tutted, with a small warning in his voice. "I don't want to have to write another disciplinary note. And I believe that will be three of them. I will have no other choice but to put you in front of the committee—"
"Go ahead," Lyssa dared him, feeling rather in control since her victory over that woman prospector. "Because I'd like to see what the committee thinks about you putting a sixteen year old intern with a doctor barely two years out of the Academy."
"This internship was—"
"Probably paid for with a lot of money," Lyssa finished for him, feeling very much like Razia standing up against Dal Jamus. "And I would wager not everyone knew about or even signed off on it."
"My dear, you're making serious accusations," Pymus said, his eyes boring into her.
"Oh, I'm just getting started." Lyssa stepped toward him threateningly. "Because not only will the committee be very interested to know how you actually got approval on this poorly thought-out internship, but they might also be curious why you've been so focused on me these past few years."
"I'm your supervisor." He laughed, but she could tell that she'd cornered him.
"Supervisor, yeah," Lyssa continued, taking another step toward him. "A supervisor who's constantly trying to steal not only my intellectual property, but my father's, and has used an internship—some poor kid's education—to further your intent to, and I'm going out on a limb here, publish our work under your name."
Pymus cleared his throat, but said nothing.
"So, shall we go down that road? Or are you going to leave me alone?"
To her surprise, Pymus simply smiled at her. "My apologies, Dr. Peate. Until next time."
And with that, he sauntered off her ship.
'"Wait," Vel said, looking nervously at the doctor's retreating back.
"Don't worry about it," Lyssa said, watching him leave. "Goodbye and good riddance."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"I want to get Santos Journot," Razia said, sliding into Harms' booth. She was flying high—telling off Pymus, getting two hundred thousand credits for a planet—and she wanted to take all that ass-kicking energy toward some pirates.
"Hello to you too." Harms smiled. "Congratulations, by the way."
"Congratulations for what?"
"I don't know what you did, but your bounty just went up another five million."
"It did?" She knitted her brows together. "How? I didn't do anything."
"Well whatever it was, you're now in the top twenty," Harms said, flipping his tablet around and showing it to her.
"I'm surprised you haven't been paying more attention to your own bounty," Harms said, turning his tablet back to him.
"I've been too busy looking for Santos Journot," Razia lied, sitting back.
"You and everyone else in the universe," Harms said. "He's been picking off the top pirates for weeks now. Nobody knows anything about him..."
"So what can you tell me?"
Harms looked back at her.
"Oh, sorry," Razia said, whipping out her Razia C-card and handing it to Harms. "Never actually had to pay you before."
"Oh…you sure you want to use this one?" Harms asked, curiously, watching the transaction on his tablet. "No other C-cards you have in there?"
Razia smiled. She was sure the majority of Harms’ information came from the payment receipts of pirates who came to visit him.
"Can’t fool you, I guess." Harms shook his head. "You may want to let Sage know. You know, as a friend."
"If he’s too stupid to figure out he shouldn’t use his secret alias C-card when talking to you," Razia said. "Or that you’re in the business of selling people out, then he deserves to be caught."
"You’re still mad at him for saving you, aren’t you?" Harms teased, grinning.
Razia gasped. "He didn’t save me!"
"Sure he didn’t." Harms winked. "He didn’t swoop in, tell Relleck to leave you alone, carry you off into—"
"So, Journot."
Harms chuckled and pulled up his own file of Journot. "The reason nobody knows anything about him is that he doesn't actually do his own dirty work. Somehow, he finds all the secret alias information for all the top pirates, then hires some low-level goon to capture and turn them into the bounty office."
"What about those guys, any info?"
"Nope, they're all hired and given their marching orders electronically."
Razia furrowed her brow. "Why would anyone want to do that?"
"You know, one of these days, you’re going to be a top pirate, and you’ll be wishing for the days when you could saunter through D-882 without being bothered," Harms said, cocking his head to the side. "That little secret alias you have can’t stay secret for long."
"What secret alias?" Razia said with a pleased smile.
"I see every type of transaction here," Harms said, bringing up the file he had on Razia. "Except for parking receipts. Now I know you don’t just appear on planets by magic. And don’t even get me started on where you’ve been for the past week. Not a single transaction."
She shrugged, smiling. "I guess you’ll just have to wonder."
***
Razia rubbed her bleary eyes and sat back, feeling the beginnings of a migraine. She'd been staring at the same search results for an hour—the list of the last four pirates captured by Santos Journot:
"Any luck?" Vel asked, walking in and handing her a cup of coffee.
"No," she said, holding the cup between her hands and looking at the mess of windows and data splayed across her screen. "Not even one transaction. Not an alias, not an accomplice, nothing."
"Did you see about the pirates he's captured recently?" Vel offered. "Any commonalities?"
"Nothing—except they were all in the top ten most wanted," she said. "There's not a pattern to where they were caught or any other details, that I can find anyway." She opened the notes she took from Harms when she met with him. "A couple in D-882 and the rest scattered in refueling stations. He even found Jeam Bullock on vacation in A-326."
"That's interesting, isn't it?" Vel said. "You'd think he'd be more careful about using a known bank account on vacation."
"That's the thing," she said, cupping the warm mug between her hands again. "He had no idea it was coming. Bullock's getting up there in age, so he likes to take his vacations. He had this one alias just to be used at his vacation house. I looked it up once it became public."
She brought up his bank records for his account. All of them showed transactions on A-326.
"Did he get sloppy? Maybe someone stole his C-cards?"
"Maybe," Razia said, chewing on her thumb.
"Did you try comparing their purchase history?"
"Yeah," she said, bringing up a star map with a bunch of multi-colored pins on different stars. "The only commonality between all of the bounties was that they all spent time at Eamon's."
"What's that?"
"It's an exclusive bar for only the top pirates," she explained. "So it wouldn't be unusual for them to go there. There's crazy security there, and most of the pirates were caught weeks after they went there…"
"But maybe that's the point," Vel said. "If he's really that good, wouldn't he try to cover his tracks? If I was trying to pick off pirates, I'd definitely hit a bar where they all congregate. Maybe he somehow stole their aliases there?"
"Hm." Eamon's had been billing itself as a place for top pirates for months, even going as far as hiring huge bouncers to prevent anyone other than the top fifty pirates from gaining entry. She'd spend nights watching pirate after pirate stumble out, usually on the arm of some woman. They would be prime targets for anyone in that state.
"What are you doing?" Vel asked, as she plotted a course.
"Heading to Eamon's."
"So...I'm right?"
She turned to give him a du
bious look. "No."
"But it was my idea?"
"No, it wasn't."
***
She peered across the street and narrowed her eyes. The two Dal Jamus-sized bouncers were standing outside, denying entry to a slew of pirates who were milling around.
"So why don't you just go in?" Vel asked, leaning over beside her. "You're a top pirate, right?"
"I may be banned from the place," Razia muttered.
Vel whirled around. "What?"
"I snuck in through a window once."
"Why?"
"Because," she said, turning to look back at him. "What can I do to make you stay here?"
Vel frowned. "Why do I have to stay here?"
"Because it's going to be a lot easier for me to sneak in without having a tagalong," Razia snapped. "So just…hang out here, will ya? I won't be that long."
"Fine." Vel pouted.
Razia jogged past the entrance, careful to avoid the gaze of the bouncers. She quickly turned the corner, strolling through the alleyway, counting the number of doors until she reached the one that lead into the back kitchen of the bar.
Just as she was about to open the door, it swung inward and she froze. But not because she'd been caught, but because a pair of steely blue eyes—framed by a strong jawline and black, curly hair—were staring into hers.
"H-hi," she said lamely.
"The entrance is around the corner," he said, half-smiling in such a way that it made her blush. She dumbly moved out of the way as he walked out into the alleyway.
"I...um..." She began stammering like a moron.
"Wait, I remember you," he said, placing the garbage, which she just realized he was holding, in the bin. "You snuck in here a few weeks ago, didn't you?"
She frowned. "I also happen to be a pirate in the top twenty."
"Oh yeah, you kidnapped Jukin Peate's brother, right?"
"Yeah," she said, happy that somebody still remembered. Especially someone with such beautiful blue eyes.
"So, why don't you just go in the front door?" he asked, folding his arms over his chest. "Since you're in the top twenty."
"Your bouncers don't like me very much. Probably since I—"
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