“We’re in ping, someone messed with our identity profiles, we’re locked out of SWIS, and we were hacked while on their network. Ping out.” Mike disconnected the call.
“That was brief,” Keelan commented.
“A ping lasts seven seconds tops, and you can’t follow the ping because it moves, and we can’t move that fast. We’ll reach another ping in two minutes.” Mike fidgeted while waiting.
Lewis picked up immediately. “Looking into it. Keep in ping radius, I’ll call you in half an hour.”
The call disconnected, and Mike set his crono.
“We can spend this time figuring out what we’re supposed to do, and—”
“I have an idea,” Keelan said. “I don’t like it, you’ll hate it, and Misery... ”
“What?” Mike pressed.
“We need a new ID on a bounty hunter and a federal document... another prisoner transfer from Irgang.”
Mike gaped. “Are you insane? We’ll get napped! I told you I can’t make disguises—”
Keelan straightened and pulled his shoulders back. Then he shrank both in height and width, his hair got shorter and blonder, and his nose grew crooked.
“We need to get Danny, because only he can help us with that,” said a stranger’s voice, and the unknown man pointed toward the cockpit.
Mike half turned to look at Misery, who displayed a pretty unintelligent expression while staring at her dad. He couldn’t really blame her.
“Why can or would he help?” Mike asked.
“Because he’s a lifer who hacked the Senate. From Silliton, of all places.”
“That... can’t be done.”
“The colors can, and he told me about his dreams. He dreamed the colors exactly like Tommy and like... hold on, I’ll show you the files. I downloaded Danny’s profile to my pad. It’s not in the files that SWIS might have gotten to, because I deleted the logs.”
Keelan’s smaller and borrowed figure padded into his room and emerged less than a minute later to hand Mike a pad.
Mike eagerly read the information—much of which was too technical—and wondered why Keelan had never told him about this Danny person if he was willing to trust him during a skip. And especially while fleeing with his daughter.
Keelan straightened again and changed back to his own figure.
“Wow, that’s nifty,” Misery said in almost a whisper.
Mike glanced at her, then at Keelan. “Who’s the figure?”
“A guard at juvy, where I changed for the first time. You know, when Dorsey ran after a creature. I killed a guard, hurt a few others... must be one of them, because I don’t really remember him. Probably because his form is younger in my body. The crooked nose seems familiar, but I can’t place him. I just remember he was old. He’d be more than sixty today... unless he’s the one I chilled.”
“Didn’t you promise yourself never to shift again?”
“Yeah, but I had to break that promise to get you, and I’ve promised Alice to do anything it takes to secure Misery. But it’s still gross.” Keelan shivered and looked at his hands, as if wanting to make sure they were his again.”
Mike felt fortified in their friendship whenever he remembered that the man who held onto his morals as fiercely as Keelan had broken a promise to himself to save Mike. One thing was doing anything for his daughter, but Mike felt honored to be among the ones Keelan would go that far for.
“It’s nifty!” Misery exclaimed.
Mike actually enjoyed her outburst even though he’d side with Keelan on it. It was gross—especially to look at while he changed. He’d feared her reaction to that even more than the revealing of the Kaleb/Keelan identities.
“You better tell her the rest, and I’ll look this over.” Mike plopped onto the couch with the pad. Still a stupid fucking plan, but since they had absolutely nothing else at the moment, Mike would entertain it while waiting for Lewis to call back.
Keelan motioned for Misery to follow him into the kitchen. “Come on, and I’ll tell you. Mom doesn’t know about this, and I want to tell her myself, okay?”
“Sure.” She followed him from the common room.
After ending the call with Lewis, Mike went to the kitchen, where Keelan and Misery were still sitting and talking.
“Just finished talking with Lewis and told him a white lie. He’s gonna help with an ID for the ship and a person to go get Danny, but he doesn’t know what we’re gonna use it for. We’re a ghost ship now, and we have to find the triangle so Lewis can overlap the download of new id’s and log. He’s also managed to put in a digital trail in the satellite logs from Verion Four to where we’ll overlap.”
“Did he self-destruct?” Keelan asked.
“No, not entirely, but it’s gonna take more than a liter of glue to patch up his mood again. He talked about him planning a contingency plan. Which, I think, would be a good idea. Where are we supposed to hide? I mean, Misery and I while you’re off freeing Danny?”
“We have one cryo-coffin, right?”
“Yeah, which Danny has to be in for it to seem legit.”
“Fine.” Keelan pulled the pad closer and tapped at the screen. Then he looked up with that determined look on his face. “Teach me everything you know about prison transfers.”
“Okay.” Mike poured coffee and sat across from Keelan while Misery looked like she was ready to take notes, too. “Normally it’s not the bounty hunters who take care of prison to prison transfers—it’s too expensive. Often they use freighters that have routes going by the prisons, especially from local to solitude prison planets like Delta and Irgang where the prisoner is to serve his or her time. The most credible story would be that you normally only transport prisoners between local to low or medium security prisons but have never done so between two maxes. That would explain why they’ve never seen you before and why you’re not in their system as a civilian transport assistant.”
“Will my identity be logged?”
“Yeah, so you’d never be able to use it again unless there more prisoners you want to collect.”
“We could spring Rainer and jettison him into space.”
“Good plan!” Mike exclaimed, but the somber nature of their situation didn’t even leave room for a smile. “Let’s focus on the goal here. Our next problem is this ship. It’s been there before, and we can’t just step outside and paint it.”
Keelan gnawed on his lower lip, thinking. “When can we make calls again?”
“As soon as we’ve reached the triangle and our new ID is in place.”
“And according to this new id, the two of you are?”
“Misery and I will be disguised as... your slaves.”
Both Keelan and Misery looked skeptical.
“And how do we do that?” she asked.
“I have silver bracelets with rings. They don’t work—at least the display doesn’t, but no one will check up.”
“Wait, I might have a different idea for someone who can help us get Danny... now that you said freight captains and slaves.”
Mike stared at him expectantly.
“Saleek’s ship,” Keelan finished.
“No! We will not involve more people than absolutely necessary.”
“They’d do it for Misery,” Keelan argued. “They knew I was a mass murderer on the skip before they dropped me off, and they never reported me. Even you’ve talked with them.”
“Yes, but it can be too dangerous, since Danny won’t exactly be transferred.”
Silence dominated after that remark.
“Would it help if we found out whether I can change form or not?” Misery asked.
Keelan whimpered and rubbed his face before leaning back with a troubled expression. “You have to kill the one you borrow the form from, or there’d be two with that same identity. Could you kill a woman for that?”
Misery squirmed in her seat. “Well... would you help me with that?”
Keelan released another whimper and fell forward, his for
ehead hitting the table with a hollow thump.
“The guy you shifted into followed your body’s age, so why not just find some old lady?” Mike asked.
Keelan lifted his head enough to look at him. “So, according to the retina files, some eighty-year-old woman travels space and transfers convicts?”
“You’re not making it easy,” Mike grumbled and sat back with his arms crossed.
“Maybe we could just borrow Koolmok’s freighter?” Keelan mused out loud.
“Saleek’s pack? And recode their id... that could work, but what do we tell them?”
Keelan sighed and performed an epic eye-roll. “The truth!” he bellowed.
Mike jumped and glared at him before flipping him off.
Chapter Five
Keelan sat in the common room reading the latest news feeds. It still surprised him how little he knew about the Systems. Pilar he knew, and all news about Verion Four held his interest. Mike knew most of the Systems and planets, and Keelan had even noticed that he read about them all. During a skip from prison, it could be good to know what moved out there, so Keelan had downloaded both local and inter-system feeds. The downside was that he had no idea how the majority of it was connected or what the initial event to some follow-up articles had been about—especially in politics. But you had to start somewhere, and he did—right smack in the middle.
Finding the notes on Misery’s study plan, Keelan created a sub note and added what he, himself needed to learn.
The whole freight route debate Mike kept talking about had to do with the Pilar System. So far, Keelan had heard passing comments about the negotiations between the Balatana and the Husentar Systems, but since it had to do with politics and it was past his level, he’d never thought it would concern him. Unless the freight routes would be led around the Pilar System because that would set Verion Four back to the times of the civil war. Until then, it was just rich people sitting around a table and yelling at each other.
It had been almost thirty years since the civil war had ripped Verion Four apart, and it had never really recovered. That and the planet’s weak sun made it an attractive place for cons on the skip to hide. And for bounty hunters, because there was plenty to do.
Suddenly it hit Keelan how many times he’d sought his way back to Verion Four to hide. It was a good hiding place, but since he’d learned to think like a mercenary, he also recognized all the mistakes he’d made. Other than what he’d heard from Mike and Ratkins, he could almost certainly say that lawmen, in general, weren’t abstract enough in their way of thinking to look for someone like him, but he’d still made what lawmen considered classic fuckups.
Now he was on the skip with Misery, so going back to Verion Four was not the right solution. But where else? Even though he finally trusted Mike, he still wasn’t sure about trusting Mike’s general planetary knowledge with his and Misery’s safety.
How was Keelan to improvise if he had no idea whether a street ended in a blind alley before it was too late? Before he had his back to the wall and a team of armed idiots blocking the only way out? He could almost see their smug smiles. He’d rather disappear on Red Turf, because no bounty hunter or mercenary would venture in there. And Keelan didn’t blame them. Another important question was whether he’d bring his daughter there. On Mr. Rick’s territory.
An alarm went off in the cockpit, and Keelan jumped from his seat and ran in. Mike was coming the opposite way, and they collided in the door. Keelan managed to catch the doorframe, but Mike wasn’t so lucky, and he landed heavily on the floor, screaming from pain. Keelan hauled him up, and Mike held his wrist close.
“Colossus!” he groused and pushed past Keelan. He descended the stairs to the cargo hold.
Keelan followed. “What the hell is going on? What’s that noise?”
“It’s a ship-linking.” Mike punched commands into a small computer by the ramp which suddenly wheezed.
Keelan stared wide-eyed. “Is that gonna hold?”
“Yeah, that’s the sound of the link flaps.” Mike punched more commands into the computer before nodding satisfactorily and stepping back. The ramp had shaken before a vacuum threatened to make Keelan’s eardrums burst. Mike made an odd grimace as he opened and closed his mouth. Keelan tried the same, finding he could ease the discomfort in his ears by doing so. A final pop in one ear left him only partially deaf.
The ramp pulled away from the ship before opening in the middle like two doors. Keelan stepped closer and watched another ramp do the same. A tunnel covered the three-meter distance between the ships, and jumping excitedly at the end of it stood Saleek.
Keelan smiled. Saleek was given the good-to-go, and he ran to hug Keelan, who still had to remind himself that the being larger than himself was in fact just a youngling.
“I didn’t think you’d be here until tomorrow,” Keelan said, glancing at Mike who smiled.
“Well, I figured I’d jump at the chance to surprise you.”
“Can I see your girl?” Saleek asked.
“Yes, of course. Come on board, all of you.” Keelan held out his hand to the varanuides as they came through the tunnel.
The captain, Koolmok, looked particularly proud as he put his hand on Keelan’s shoulder. “See, even a lost childhood can bloom with the right support to become a good pack member. Congratulation on your future’s safety.”
“Thanks, Koolmok.”
“We brought provisions. Shall we move them first?” Koolmok asked and pointed.
“I’ll do it,” Mike said. “Show Saleek up, Keelan.”
“Be right back.” Keelan took Saleek upstairs to the common room. Keelan worried that the ruckus hadn’t made Misery come out of her room to see what was going on, so he knocked on her door and entered. She was listening to music and reading a book, not paying attention to them, so Keelan went to put a hand on her shoulder.
She jumped. “Dad!”
“Our guests have arrived.”
Misery hurried out of bed and ran into the hallway, where she stopped to look at Saleek shuffling his feet.
“Wanna play?” he asked. Misery smiled at Keelan, and Saleek finally came closer and smelled her.
“I’m gonna go down and help unload. We’ll be back up in a little while. You could make lunch.”
“Okay,” Misery said, but Saleek got more attention than his suggestion.
Once they’d all had lunch, Keelan watched the varanuides, relaxed and contented. Misery and Saleek had gone back into her room, and they could hear laughter and music through the door.
So far no one had mentioned anything about the ulterior motive for getting the varanuides to stop by, and Keelan was still looking for a way to open the subject.
“You have a good pack,” Saleek’s adé said.
“Yeah,” Keelan said, smiling. “I know you knew who I was before you dropped me off on Silliton.”
“We don’t judge on a past, we judge on the individual qualities we experience,” Koolmok said.
“My daughter’s in trouble. My pack is in danger,” Keelan said, feeling hopeful when he saw worried expressions on the scaly faces.
“Please, tell us. Have you called us to get help?” Saleek’s ada asked with such openness that Keelan was taken aback.
“Yes. They want to catch us and split us all up in different prisons. I can’t lose her.”
“If she’s raised in prison, then—” Mike said.
“The future is not given the best opportunities, yes, we understand,” Koolmok interrupted. “What kind of help do you need?”
“Can I borrow your ship?” Keelan asked, fearing he’d been too forward when he saw the gaping expression on the freight captain’s face. “I need to get someone who can help secure this pack, and I can’t do it alone. They know this ship, and I’ll be breaking a lot of laws.”
“Aha,” Koolmok said and sat back—the open and willing expression gone.
“The plan is good, listen.” Mike sat forward and went through it in deta
ils as Keelan had insisted upon. The varanuides listened and asked questions. Once Mike had been through everything but Keelan’s changing physical form, Koolmok finally sat back, sighing heavily.
“And while you are gone? Where will we be?”
“Here, with Misery and me.” Mike spread out his arms.
“Misery... don’t you have another name for her? Such pretty, witty, and smart little girl shouldn’t be named after... ”
“Rosita. Her mom and I would have named her Rosita.”
Koolmok smiled. “That’s much better.”
“There’s only one more thing,” Keelan said. “If the plan fails and I’m caught or killed. Will you take her with you and raise her?”
“And Mike?”
“I have to hide elsewhere. I’m wanted too. And worth a lot more than Mis—”
Koolmok winced.
“—Rosita,” Mike finished.
“We will protect her and take her into our pack if anything should happen to you. You are a brave man, Keelan. I hope your hard work at securing your future’s future will be fruitful.”
“So I can borrow your ship?”
Koolmok smiled. “Yes.”
Mike got up. “I’ll change the id.”
“And I’ll talk to Misery,” Keelan said.
Koolmok winced again before finally sighing.
“We will collect what we need from our ship so you can leave,” Saleek’s ada said.
“I have a question. Would it be more convincing if I joined you?” Koolmok asked.
“Yes, very, but I won’t put any of you in danger,” Keelan said.
“And we have to make it look like the ship gets destroyed afterward,” Mike said. “Both the ship, Keelan and Danny have to be registered as dead. Can’t have you declared dead, too, but still flying produce.”
“I see,” Koolmok said, nodding.
It didn’t take long to pack for the ride, but it was a long trip, and Keelan kept going over what he could have forgotten but would need on the twelve-week trip. Seeing Misery sit on the couch trying to look strong and brave didn’t help. The stubbornness of a street child paired with the mantra of never showing weakness were sides he knew only too well and roles he often fell back into himself—especially in prison. But she couldn’t hide the body language from him, as he was fluent in street, and the varanuides could smell it on her. The whole pack had gathered around her to show their support and be there for her if she made her needs vocal.
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