Destiny's Song (The Fixers, book #1: A KarmaCorp Novel)

by Audrey Faye

  That was the kind of crap I couldn’t take lying down, even if I didn’t have the foggiest idea what a winnower was. “I’m a wisp of a girl who could spend the next ten seconds convincing you to strip naked and poop golden eggs.” Or I could if KarmaCorp’s ethics weren’t quite so pesky.

  Tameka nearly choked on her cider.

  Evgenia just raised an eyebrow. “Got some spunk in there, do you?”

  “My mother had some other names for it.”

  That almost got a smile. “I imagine.”

  I was exhausted, but not enough to miss the data she was sending me. She might not like my presence here, but it didn’t sound like she objected to my mission’s endpoint. Which might well mean she had caused its necessity—I imagined that her son was well-squished under his mother’s thumb, but maybe Janelle Brooker didn’t like getting pushed around.

  Smart women had dug in their feet with far less cause.

  My job might well be to get Evgenia out of the way. I took a sip of my cider and carefully bounced a subsonic pitch at the immense woman who was currently sizing me up. When the resonances returned, even my Talent had the sense to wince. The lowest base note I’d ever heard, and rock solid to boot.

  Evgenia would be about as easy to influence as an intergalactic battle cruiser. Doable, but painful as hell. I watched as she turned to make small talk with my host and hoped like heck it wouldn’t come to that.

  9

  In an act of morning obstinance that my mother would have recognized well, I’d decided to go meet Janelle Brooker first, rather than do the politically prudent thing and introduce myself to the Lovatts’ doormat of a son.

  That bit of fun could wait for later.

  I rolled Tameka’s bubblepod in a sweet lefthand bank, happy as sin to be driving. Most Fixers could barely manage the basics of flying a private vehicle, but I’d grown up on a digger rock, and a pilot’s daughter to boot. I’d handled our old and jangly b-pod before I’d lost my front teeth. I took one last three-sixty for fun and because I could, and then headed toward the sprawling angles of the building that, according to my host’s directions, housed the woman who’d so far managed to evade the wishes of both the man who ran her planet and his gladiator wife.

  Three or four people looked up and waved in friendly fashion, and all of them seemed to be pointing me toward a stand of trees left of the house. I spied a landing circle just past the trees and dropped the hover feet. The b-pod floated into an effortless landing that would hopefully impress the natives and keep Tameka from revoking my flying privileges. It had taken some fast talking and a quick demo to get her to lend me Nijinsky at all.

  By the time I’d put the b-pod into stationary, a young woman had made her way over to the edge of the landing circle. She watched me steadily as I climbed out and planted my feet on the ground. I waved what I hoped looked like a friendly hello. She had lots of reasons not to like me. “Good morning—you must be Janelle Brooker.”

  “Am.” She smiled. “And you must be Lakisha Drinkwater, the quadrant’s most talked-about Singer at the ripe old age of twenty-five.”

  Apparently, the GooglePlex had been forthcoming—and full of the usual lies and half-truths. “People need more to talk about. And everyone calls me Kish.”

  She smiled again. “I’m guessing most call you Singer, but Kish will do just fine.” She held up her hand, two red fruits on her palm. “Ever had an apple?”

  My mouth was already watering. “I have, but it’s an experience I’m really happy to repeat.” Assuming it wasn’t poisoned—I knew my fairy tales well enough, and it was positively weird that Janelle was being so friendly. “Why are you being so nice?”

  Her laugh was friendly and open, and teased at my Talent as she tossed an apple my way. “I’m nice to most people. We’ve got a whole orchard of apples that are ripe and ready, so help yourself any time you like.”

  Generosity was obviously a way of life here. I tried to respond in kind as best as I could. “My roommate back on Stardust Prime likes to bake pies.”

  Janelle’s eyes lit up. “Any chance you could get a recipe? Dad’s got plenty of good ones to trade.”

  Recipes were often better galactic currency than money—and if pie instructions would buy me some Brooker goodwill, I’d deliver them by the tablet full. “I’d be happy to hook the two of them up.”

  “It’ll have to be in a few days. My parents are on Andromethius visiting my brother and my new baby niece. I’m holding down the fort.”

  Andromethius was an outpost colony on the other side of the quadrant. I debated, and then raised an eyebrow at the woman walking under the trees beside me. “That sounds like pretty convenient timing.”

  She offered a small smile up at a tree. “I wondered if you’d pick that up.”

  It wasn’t the only thing I was picking up. My Talent was in gear and collecting first impressions—and underneath Janelle’s bright and friendly exterior rode some serious steel. I’d found at least some of the spine I’d been sent to bend. “I would imagine the Inheritor invited me here at a time when he thought my work would be most likely to succeed.” Even strong people wither faster in isolation.

  Her shoulders hitched upward a fraction. “Emelio Lovatt is a smart man.”

  There was a really loud thought she wasn’t saying. “But?”

  Janelle chuckled and took a bite of her apple. “But he doesn’t understand family nearly as well as he thinks he does.”

  I contemplated that for a while as I made sure not a drop of the sharp and sweet apple juice missed my mouth. “His family isn’t exactly typical.”

  She raised a quirky eyebrow and grinned. “I take it you’ve met Evgenia.”

  To put it mildly. “She flew into Tameka’s place last evening for a visit.”

  A second eyebrow quirk. “Interesting.”

  That word could mean a thousand different things.

  Janelle hesitated a moment. “Don’t underestimate her. She’s more than just her bluster—some of her best moves are the ones she makes quietly while everyone’s watching the dust of whatever drama she’s just created.”

  That was also interesting, especially considering the source—and not a vibe I’d picked up from my first short encounter with Evgenia. “Not as straightforward as she appears?”

  “She’s married to an Inheritor.”

  That could make her anything from arm decoration to the power behind the throne. “Does she wear the pants in the family?”

  Janelle nearly choked on her apple. “I take it you haven’t met Emelio yet.”

  I was going to stuff the KarmaCorp briefing file up Yesenia’s compost valve when I got back to Stardust Prime. “I take it he’s interesting too.”

  She made a wry face. “Very. They’re a hell of a couple.”

  I wasn’t at all sure of Janelle’s motives at the moment, but I appreciated the data. “They’re a couple who want you married to their only son.”

  She took a bite of her apple. “Yes.”

  The friendly vibe was still there—but it walked beside a wary one. “I assume you try to stay out of their way?”

  “No.”

  In that one word, I finally saw on the surface what my Talent had sensed underneath. Steel, and not so hidden anymore. I raised an eyebrow of my own. “Why not?” I looked around at the sweeping grasslands that bordered the apple orchard. “It’s a big planet.”

  “It is.” Janelle gazed out at the horizon for a while, a woman entirely comfortable with what was hers. “But I don’t ever intend to give those two the impression I might be herdable.”

  My own Song resonated, loudly. If my mission had been collecting friends on backwater planets, I’d be set. Instead, I’d been sent to bend the will of this smart, articulate, independent woman to what the StarReaders had decided was her appropriate destiny.

  Which I wasn’t exactly feeling inclined to do. She’d fed me an apple, dammit.

  She glanced over at me. “I assume you got sent to
see if I could be persuaded to drop my knickers and hop into Devan’s lap.”

  I nearly snorted apple juice out my nose. BroThree didn’t grow people who beat around the bush. Fortunately, neither did digger rocks. “Yeah, I was.”

  She was looking at me straight on now. “Could you do it?”

  That was one of those questions we weren’t supposed to answer. “Yeah.” I shrugged. “I could get you in his lap, anyhow. The knicker dropping would be up to you.” KarmaCorp had their ethical lines, and I had mine, and at least in Yesenia’s corner of the galaxy, the two were pretty much in agreement.

  “Good to know.”

  One kind of honesty deserved another. “Is there a reason you aren’t already in his lap?”

  Her chuckle was melodic, light, and wry. “You mean besides my general objection to being a cog in someone else’s plans?”

  I winced. Fixers were often accused of being cog greasers, and our accusers weren’t wrong. “Yeah, besides that.” I needed the more personal objections, whatever they were. “Is he ugly, obnoxious, weak, short?”

  “No.” She smiled. “Devan’s not any of those things.”

  I was surprised at the clear affection in her tone and in her eyes. “You like him.”

  “I do.” Janelle was back to watching her grasslands, voice flat and calm. “But I don’t love him in any kind of romantic sense, I don’t imagine that will change, and I’m not some feudal princess who can be ordered to marry a guy to save the empire.”

  There were worlds like that in the Federation, ones that pampered their royals thoroughly and gave them very little in the way of choices. That seemed at deep odds with what I saw when I looked out at the grasslands, though. This planet had been shaped by souls who knew freedom well.

  She shrugged and tossed her apple core into a patch of curly fronds. “Besides, I’m in no hurry to pair up with anyone. I have a good life and a busy one, and from what I can gather, men are a lot of work.”

  Amen to that. Her words rang true with my Talent, too—it wasn’t Devan in particular she objected to, but the plan to marry her off in general. Which raised an obvious question that I still didn’t have a satisfactory answer to. It was time to figure out more of why I’d really been sent to BroThree. “So there’s one thing I’m not at all clear on.”

  She glanced at me, amused. “Only one?”

  Smart and funny. “For the moment. Why are some people so determined that the two of you get hitched?” It was the politest way I could think of to ask why KarmaCorp was sticking their nose into the internal politics of some backwater planet. She wouldn’t know all the answers—but she likely knew more than I did.

  She snorted. “You should ask them.”

  I intended to. “You’re smart, you have your eyes open, and you’ve lived here your whole life. I’ve been here sixteen hours. Help me out.”

  “Only if you promise not to mess with my knickers.”

  That much I could promise—and only that much. “Done.”

  “How much do you know about colony planets?”

  Enough to know they all had a different story. “Assume I’m a dumb flatlander from one of the inner worlds.”

  She grinned. “They don’t call themselves dumb flatlanders.”

  Not usually. “I grew up on a digger rock.”

  “Huh.” Her head tilted to the side, thinking. “I don’t know much about mining asteroids—how do they get started?”

  A lot more simply than most colonies. “Some poor schmucks get shipped to a cold rock with a bunch of digging tools. The ones who figure out how to use the tools fastest usually end up in charge. If you’re lucky, they’re good people.”

  “Was your rock lucky?” Janelle stuck her hands in her pockets, voice carefully casual.

  I wondered what she’d heard. “Close enough.”

  “Good.” She nodded, back to watching her grasslands. It seemed like a fairly major occupation here. “It’s not all that different on a colony planet. A few extended families get shipped in to get things started.”

  That much they taught even in digger grade school. “The Founders.” Seeds of a new society.

  “Yeah.” She shrugged. “If you’re lucky, they’re good people.”

  Ah. “Things got sticky here?”

  “A nasty virus cropped up, killed a quarter of the colonists before the medicals found a cure.” Her lips pursed. “And a couple of families on the rampage killed another quarter before they got stopped.”

  The fear of imminent death on a lonely rock didn’t bring out the best in everyone. “What happened?”

  “My grandfather led the colonists who stopped the rampage. He was also the guy who found the cure—he was just a tech, but the virus had wiped out most of the medical team.”

  That was the kind of thing that would inspire some pretty solid loyalty. “Interesting blood running in your veins.” She hadn’t been picked at random for this marriage deal.

  She smiled wryly. “It gets more interesting. My grandfather convinced my grandmother to run off with him to settle here. Her father was Jackson Douglas’s youngest brother.”

  The Saskatchewan farming clan that had explored and mapped half the quadrant. Galactic royalty, and another reason the power structure on this planet was a lot less straightforward than it seemed. I looked over at Janelle, feeling my way through the shifting melody line of the words she’d said, and the ones she hadn’t. “So who really runs this place?” Inheritors were supposed to rule their planets—but I was looking at the bright, ambitious, driven granddaughter of the man who had pulled BroThree out of self-destruct.

  Janelle smiled and shrugged. “That depends a lot on who you ask. The Lovatts have the ear of the Federation Council.”

  Galactic royalty had thumbed their noses at local rulers before, and at the Commonwealth Council for that matter. Competing seats of power were inherently messy and could send ripples far out into the galaxy. That was the kind of reason that could easily mobilize KarmaCorp troops. This mission wasn’t about a marriage—it was about a merger. “So people figure you and Devan marrying each other stabilizes things here.”

  She made a face. “Do things seem unstable to you?”

  They didn’t, but I’d only been here sixteen hours. And KarmaCorp often targeted latent instability—ripples that hadn’t happened yet. “If it would help your planet, would you marry him?” That was walking awfully close to unbendable lines with an Ears Only file, but I needed to know what levers I had to work with. What mattered to Janelle Brooker.

  She was watching me carefully. “You’re very good at your job, aren’t you?”

  I was, but I didn’t think she was handing me a compliment. “I’m just saying that there might be more than your personal happiness at stake.” And colonists were carefully selected to put the greater good first, even on a planet that seemed as freedom bound as this one.

  “There might be.” She shrugged. “There often is. But I can only go with what I know, and right now, nobody’s making a convincing case for changing my mind.”

  I could hear her steadiness. Her solid trust in her own skills and her own choices, her belief that her destiny was her own to drive. I closed my eyes and sighed. Given the right data, Janelle Brooker would probably do what it was that StarReaders wanted. And for reasons only they knew—they’d decided not to provide it.

  They’d sent me to do their dirty work instead.

  10

  After Tameka’s tiny cabin and the Brookers’ comfortable, sprawling ranch, I’d somehow expected the Lovatts to live in something resembling an actual house.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong. The Lovatt compound was something out of an old-school fantasy novel, complete with turrets, stone walls, and the kinds of weapons sticking out windows that were banned by at least a dozen kinds of Federation law.

  “They’re none of them armed,” said a smiling woman passing by, her arms full of linens. “At least that’s what the Inheritor tells anyone who comes to i
nspect them.”

  I watched her go, clad in a dress that looked like it came from the same era as the weapons.

  “Someone will be here to greet you in a moment.” The guard who had waylaid me at the gate was most decidedly from this century, as was the blaster at his hip.

  I decided to see how good security was. “This place looks like three vid sets got sucked up by a tornado and spit back out.”

  He managed not to laugh, but just barely. “The Inheritor’s residence never fails to impress guests.”

  I bet.

  “Singer.” A young man with a slight build and quick eyes had materialized at my left shoulder. “If you’ll come this way, your presence is requested in the Rose courtyard.”

  Roses had thorns. First message delivered, by whoever had sent it. I had my suspicions.

  “Are you sure, Jordi?” The guard raised a quiet eyebrow that managed to communicate uncertainty and calm reassurance at the same time.

  “Quite sure.” The slender man spared an extra glance at the guard before gesturing toward a left-curving path.

  I sent out a quiet ping as I fell in behind him—he moved gracefully enough that I wouldn’t have been surprised to discover he was a Dancer. Nothing came back. Just a guy with some fluid moves on a backwater planet, walking me to my doom.

  I grinned—apparently the gothic ambience was catching me up in its web, but I was nobody’s prey. I was a Singer here to gauge the lay of the land and get a closer look at the other half of the Brooker-Lovatt merger.

  “Singer.”

  The path had abruptly ended in a courtyard straight out of a creepy fairy tale. Roses climbed tall walls, creating the instant impression of a very fragrant prison. I studied the woman seated on a dais in the center. She certainly knew how to make an impression. “Hello again, Evgenia.”

  She glanced around the thorny cage she’d fetched me to. “You’ll be shown to your rooms in a moment, and I trust they will be comfortable. I wanted to speak with you first.”