“And earned an extra twenty percent royalty free on those, too?” she asked.
“On those, too.” He smiled.
“So someone came running from Phansi to let you know the scheme has come crashing down?”
Leo stroked a hand down her back. “Eight years to the day after your father set it up.”
“So, he put in a timer.” She wondered what else he'd put a timer in. Was there something in Felicitos that was going to suddenly fall over?
It was not a good thought.
“I wondered if you could take a look at the weigh station. See if there is anything there your father left as a clue. Something on the floor or walls to read that only you'd understand.”
She sighed, and he felt her head shake. “Don't hold out any hope. He never intended me to go to Phansi. Said it was too dangerous.”
“I understand. If there's nothing, we're no worse off. But if there's even a small chance . . .”
She lifted her head again. “What's the end game here, Leo? Just for you and the prospectors to make money at the Cores expense?”
He held her gaze. “Not that I don't think that's worthwhile in itself, but no. I use some of the money for projects that make a positive impact in Phansi and in Tether Town, but the real danger is the Cores are about to be presented with figures that make no sense. The output of the mines are supposed to be declining, not suddenly jumping twenty percent. If they take a look, they're going to find they've been robbed for years, and they will lay waste to Phansi. At the very least, they'll use it as an excuse to reclaim the mines, something they've been trying to do for months because trade with the VSC has started falling off.”
“They've been trying to get the rights back?” She sounded surprised.
“They've sent me three offers in the last three months, all a tenth of what my holdings are worth. Everyone else in Phansi has gotten the same offers. The time is coming soon that we'll have to fight them openly, because things are reaching a tipping point.”
“That's why they're trying to kill you?”
“They're trying to kill me because with me gone, they'll get my businesses.”
“You really think the VSC is easing away from dealing with them on moral grounds?”
Leo shrugged. “Part of it has to be that whatever Zyr and the resistance has been doing is working, pitting them against each other. They've also made a mistake with their attacks on the Verdant String. The VSC was never thrilled with the Breakaways, and since the attack on Cepi and Parn, they're even less inclined to deal with Garmen and Lassa, because they're sure the Breakaways are responsible. The trade with the VSC is definitely drying up.”
“Why do you think they even went there, poked at the VSC in such an obvious way?”
Leo sat up, taking her with him, as the rock got too uncomfortable. “I think the attack on Cepi was a genuine attempt to grab the alien enviro and grav tech, to try to replicate it and sell it. When that went wrong, they tried to create a diversion on Parn. My guess is that the VSC suspected the Breakaways were behind the attack on Cepi from the start. Maybe they were making noises about it. So someone came up with the bright idea of distracting them with trouble on Parn. From what I saw on the interplanetary comms, the person they sent to create the distraction was a Halatian motivated by revenge. I think they gave a madman with an agenda the money and equipment he needed to wreak havoc and sent him off to do his worst, hoping it would take the pressure off them and make the VSC look in another direction.”
“Except, the VSC caught them, found out the truth.” There was a thoughtful tone in her voice.
Leo dropped lightly off the rock, and held out his arms to her.
She slid down a little way, then pushed off, and he caught her, swung her down beside him.
“And now they're getting in bed with Caruso.” Sofie toyed with the charm bracelet on her wrist. “And if that doesn't tell you greed has blinded them, I don't know what will.”
Leo agreed. Caruso would chew the Cores up and spit them out. If they continued down this path, Garmen would be a vassal of Caruso within the year.
That was not acceptable to him.
The time really had come to stop the secret games and make a stand.
A shout rang out from the camp, and then they both heard the sound of a hover.
“Stay here.” Leo didn't wait to see if Sofie obeyed him. He ran toward the camp.
Someone had found them. Chances were, it wasn't a friend.
Sofie watched Leo disappear into the darkness, running toward the faint glow of the fire.
She just caught a glimpse of him pulling out his laz from one of the many pockets of his pants as he went.
She didn't have a laz herself.
In the Verdant String they were banned except for use by the military and the security services, which meant they were rare and expensive.
The same rule didn't apply on Garmen. They were still expensive but they weren't rare. If you had the money, you could have a laz. But not many had the money.
She didn't have a light, either.
Leo had taken it with him, so she was forced to go slower than she'd have liked, making her way to Leo's right, looping around, so she would come at the camp site from a different angle.
She could hear raised voices, and something about one of them was familiar. She sped up a little and stubbed her toe on a rock for her trouble.
She was forced to stop, close her eyes to squeeze back tears of pain, and then limped forward again, teeth gritted.
Someone ran toward her through the bushes, but to her right, and she slowed even more, moving cautiously in the darkness. The shouting had cut off and there was an unnerving silence coming from the camp.
She bent down and felt around for a rock, picking one up that had what felt like a clump of grass attached to it.
She moved forward again, straining to hear where the person who'd run past her was, but the sound of the stream coming over the rock was louder now, and she had the bad feeling she wouldn't hear anyone even if they were right behind her.
The thought stopped her in her tracks, and she looked over her shoulder, but there was no one there.
She shook her head and turned back, edging around the last bush, and stopping just short of the fire's glow.
A hover lay, abandoned, on its side. It wasn't a sleek, silver machine like Leo's or Dee's, there was graffiti scrawled across it and there were dents and scrapes along the side.
One person lay just beyond the fire, a large, slumped figure, and she could just make out someone crouched over them, laz in hand.
It looked like Dee.
The person groaned, and Sofie frowned at the sound of it and took a step closer, coming into the light.
Grass from the rock she was carrying brushed her hand, and she shook it away. When it tickled her again, she looked down and screamed, throwing the rock off to the right, and holding her hand out in panic.
She didn't know what order things happened in next. She didn't much care. Her interest was focused on getting the spider that was almost the size of her palm off her.
Everyone else seemed to have other plans.
Someone grabbed her from behind and jammed a laz against her temple. Leo and Carver stepped toward her into the light on the other side of the fire, and Dee took a step away from the person at her feet, laz raised to point straight at her.
“Get it off!” Sofie tried to flick the spider again, but she felt tiny claws sink into her skin when she tried.
“Don't shake it. If it feels threatened, it'll bite.” Leo's voice was steady.
She couldn't form a coherent response, couldn't tell if he was moving closer to her or not, her full focus was on the brown and green spider, with long, frond-like legs and antenna looking at her with shiny black eyes.
“Sofie-girl?” The lump on the ground half rose up, and Dee moved her arm to aim her laz back at her prisoner.
“Zyr?” Leo turned.
As he did, the
spider ran over Sofie's wrist and up her arm. She screamed again, flicked her arm back, and spun out of the hold of whoever was behind her.
There was a curse, and wild brushing, and the spider seemed to disappear into the dark.
“Fallia?”
The person who'd held the laz to her head was dressed in black from head to toe and their face was covered, but the curse had given it away.
Fallia pulled her mask up off her face, but her laz was pointed at Sofie again, and she held it steady.
There was no chance she hadn't known it was Sofie before.
Sofie had had the hood of her jacket down, so she could see better as she crept toward the camp fire, and Fallia would have recognized her voice since then.
It hurt to know she had still gone ahead and set a weapon against her temple.
“Fallia, stand down.” Zyr's voice was weak.
“Dee.” Leo make a gesture, but Dee hesitated a moment before she pointed her laz at the ground.
“Did you do that to him?” Sofie asked Dee, because now she could concentrate on other matters, she saw someone had beaten Zyr. His cheek was swollen and the eye above it was almost swollen shut. His lip had been split, and there was a cut across his forehead.
He'd been her childhood friend; the steady, calm refuge from the storm of her life with her erratic father. When he and Rach had fallen into a relationship, she had pictured them all as a family, had wished for it so hard.
She knew she had been more upset than either of them when they had drifted apart.
But in all the years she'd known him, never once had she seen him like this.
He was tall, strong. Invincible. No one had ever been stupid enough to give him trouble. Not even Veld.
“No.” Dee's voice was cool.
“They came down the hill fast, like they didn't know we were here.” Carver stepped into the light. “When we jumped up, it gave them a shock, and their hover cut out and hit the ground.”
“Except, it's a bit much to think they came on us by accident.” Dee kept her voice flat.
“Not by accident. Thought you were further away.” Fallia spoke at last.
There was silence for a moment.
Sofie wondered how many had noticed that Sofie had in fact been a bit further away. Out on the rock with Leo, not in the camp.
She had some questions about that for both Zyr and Fallia--who hadn't lowered her laz, Sofie realized, despite Zyr's order.
She decided to pretend that her old friend had done it anyway.
She turned her back and walked over to Zyr, knelt down, and gently took his face between her hands.
“Sorry for the dramatics. You know how I hate spiders.”
He chuckled, and the movement must have split his lip again, because his teeth became coated in blood. “I remember. But that was sure some top flight screaming.”
“That was a top flight spider.” She shuddered.
“That little thing?” He struggled up to his elbows.
“You can barely see, so how would you know?” She kept her voice light, but now that he'd moved more into the light, she could see how bad it was.
It shocked her.
“What happened?”
Dee, who was still standing just behind Zyr, suddenly lifted her laz and fired, lighting up the night. Sofie had to close her eyes against it.
Someone fell in the darkness just beyond the circle of light, and Fallia, who'd returned fire in Dee's direction, went still and lowered her laz. She held a light in her other hand, and she engaged it and pointed it to where the body had fallen.
“The fucking fucker,” she murmured.
Sofie turned back to Dee, but she was unharmed.
“Fallia shot over our heads,” Zyr said quietly. “Couldn't hit that guard of Leo's without hitting us.”
Dee grinned, a nasty, satisfied grin, but Sofie didn't begrudge her. She'd hit whoever had been sneaking around in the dark, and if she'd positioned herself so that Zyr and Sofie were her shields, that just said she knew her stuff.
“How did he get here, and is he alone?” Leo asked. He walked over to the body, laz still in his hand.
“I'll check.” Carver slid past him, and disappeared into the night.
“Might be two of them,” Fallia called. “Although not likely.”
Carver didn't answer.
“Who is it?” Zyr's voice was a little stronger, and Sofie held out a hand and helped him sit up a bit more.
“Sunny.”
Sofie rose up, heart thumping. She walked over to the body, came to a stop between Leo and Fallia.
“That woman does not mess around.” Fallia glanced at Dee, then crouched down to feel Sunny's pulse, then stepped back, hands on her hips.
“He's dead?” Sofie knelt to see for herself.
“We don't believe in the niceties out here,” Leo said. “It's shoot to kill. No room for prisoners on the hover.”
She nodded in acceptance. Garmen was what it was. There was a better way, but until someone other than the Cores had control, that wasn't going to happen.
She'd long ago accepted reality.
“I see you're not waiting for me back at the rock.” Leo's voice was low and deep.
She looked over at him, eyebrows raised. “No. I thought you might need me and my creepy spider to perform a bit of a distraction for you.”
He stared at her, grim faced and she smiled back.
His hands curled into fists. “I'll go help Carver,” he said, and stalked off into the night.
Dee made a sound, and Sofie looked over at her.
She seemed exasperated.
She'd been left with three potential enemies, in her eyes.
Sofie threw her hands up in annoyance. “Oh, for goodness sake, Dee, we're all harmless. Even Zyr, at the moment.” She glanced at Fallia, still unwilling to forgive the laz to the temple. “So, if Dee didn't kick Zyr's ass, who did?”
“Some friends of Sunny's here, I'm guessing.” Fallia toed him with her boot.
“And your finding us like this, and overshooting the mark because I was a little way from camp talking to Leo, points to you having some kind of tracker on me.” She made it a statement.
Zyr winced, and she didn't know if it was because he hurt or because he heard the sense of betrayal in her voice.
“I've been tracking you since Rach died.” He coughed as he sat up, and couldn't speak at all for a minute.
She didn't go help him this time.
“Don't give him shit about this, Sofie.” Fallia's voice was hard. “He's watched you like a guardian angel for years. Took out more than one person who was getting too close to figuring out who you were.”
She ignored Fallia, looked over at Zyr.
“You have to understand, Sofe. I promised Rach I'd protect you both. But Veld got the jump on me with Rach. I wasn't going to let him get you, too. And he would have, a couple of times, before he got a better offer and left. But I couldn't be sure he hadn't hedged his bets, set someone to keep an eye on you.” He shrugged. “You are the only key to Felicitos now.”
She drew in a breath. “You know about that?”
“Rach told me, long ago.”
Rach had known? And never said anything?
Now she really felt like an idiot, only figuring it out so recently. And even then, with Leo's help.
There was a quiet hum in the air, and Dee's focus snapped from them to the darkness behind her and Fallia.
Fallia turned as well, laz out, but it was Leo and Carver, sharing a small, one-person hover.
“Looks like he was following you on his own.” Leo jumped down, and Carver carried on, parking the hover with the others.
“So, where's the tracker?” Sofie asked. As the words came out of her mouth, she knew. She lifted the bracelet. “That's really ...” She shook her head. “Which one is it?”
“The cloud.”
She spent a moment unclipping the delicate clasp. The cloud was the first charm, and she pull
ed it off. Threw it at Fallia, as Zyr was in no state to catch it.
“What if she'd taken it off?” Dee asked.
“She never would. It was her sister's.” Zyr coughed again, lumbered up to his hands and knees, and then slowly stood.
“What are you doing here, Zyr?” Leo motioned to Carver, and he hauled up the beat-up hover and put it with the others.
They had quite a little collection now.
“After that warning you and Sofie gave me, I was a little forceful in my quest to find out who'd sold Sofie out.” Zyr walked gingerly to the fire and lowered himself down in front of it. “I made out I had a suspicion who it was, and while I was walking home from Felicitos, I got jumped by five oppos.”
“Real oppos?” Sofie asked.
He paused. Shrugged. “They didn't talk, which isn't like oppos, and they were big, well fed. My guess is Core guards, but it doesn't matter, we know the Cores are behind it, whoever they sent.”
That was true.
“So you decided to lead them straight to Sofie?” Leo asked him.
“No, we decided it might be wise to get out of Tether Town for a bit. We saw from the tracker that Sofie was heading off to Phansi at speed, and as no one had said anything to us about it, we decided it made sense to go after her.” Fallia walked to the fire as well, and sat, and Sofie saw the strain on her face for the first time.
“We did three loop backs to check for followers,” Zyr said. “I guess the transport route really only goes to one place, so Sunny waited long enough to put some serious distance between us at the start, and then spent the day catching us up.”
“But how did he know to come over the hill?” Carver asked.
Dee snorted. “If the crash bang these two made when they wrecked their hover didn't do it, Nature Girl here screaming blue murder over a grass spider certainly did.”
There was silence for a moment, and then everyone except Sofie started to laugh.
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