The captain turned to look at her. “And you are?”
“Sofie Erdo.” Sofie watched him without wavering.
Erdo was her mother's name, an Arkhoran name, and his attention sharpened. “I cannot comment on the position of Arkhoran warships.”
“Why were you so interested in meeting, and in such a hurry?” Leo drew the captain's attention back to him.
“You're a hard man to get hold of,” Carep said.
“I was out of town with no comms.” Leo kept his stance and his gaze steady. “You must know interplanetary comms are limited here.”
The captain gave a nod. “I wanted to know what you can tell me about Veld and Garde, and anything else you might know about what's going on here.”
“And why would we do that?” Leo asked.
The captain was quiet for a moment. “Because you're obviously working against the Cores. We've intercepted a few messages between some of your clients, and they lead us to believe you're not following the rules.”
Leo smiled. “Maybe I'm just a greedy, cheating bastard.”
Carep barked out a laugh. “Maybe you are. But you're a greedy, cheating bastard who is interested in Garde and Veld, and so are we.”
Leo hesitated. “Sofie's the one to tell you about Veld and Garde, I never met them personally.”
Once again, she had the captain's full attention. “You knew them?”
“Knew? They're dead?” Sofie heard her own breathlessness.
Carep's eyes widened a little. “I'm sorry, I thought you knew that.”
“No interplanetary comms,” Leo repeated, his voice dry.
“I--” For the first time, the captain looked flummoxed, as if he'd stepped into something he didn't know how to handle.
“How did they die?” Sofie asked.
“Their allies killed them.”
“How did they do that?” She held Carep's gaze.
“Are you sure--?”
“Yes.” She felt Leo's hand on her back.
“They were buried in the rubble of the ruins of Cepi, when a warship obliterated it with laser cannons.”
“You're sure they're dead?” Buried in ruins probably meant no one had seen the bodies.
“We did a full life-scan afterward. They're dead.” Carep sounded more and more uncomfortable.
Sofie took a deep, cleansing breath, and then blew it out. She shrugged her shoulders a few times to loosen them, and then lifted her gaze back to Carep. “Thank you,” she said, seriously. “That means a lot to me.”
His eyes widened even more.
“Veld used to be the head of the Garmen resistance,” she told him. “But then he was involved in sending my sister to her death, and questions were asked by other resistance members, me, most of all, and he was ousted. Once someone else got into his files, it became apparent that he had never been the leader of the resistance, but a Cores stooge from the start, and his side-kick Garde along with him. After they were kicked out, they disappeared, some said to do a big job for the Cores.”
“Do you have sources who would be prepared to testify to that?” Carep was trying to keep his voice from sounding too eager.
“Testify where?” Sofie gave him a cold look. “To the VSC, who's abandoned us here, and watches from the sidelines, doing nothing?”
Carep was silent again. “What do you mean, abandoned you?”
She narrowed her eyes. “I was brought here when I was ten. Do you honestly think I should be living under a contract my parents signed that stops me leaving the planet? That restricts my rights and forces me to live in a place with no system of justice, crime prevention, workplace safety or environmental protections? Not to mention education.” She waved at the strange, bullet-shaped vehicle he'd come down in. “You can obviously get here unobserved, are you telling me you've never sent someone in to see what the conditions are like for the people here?”
“I can't comment on the operations of Arkhor Special Forces.” Carep's voice was stiff.
“Of course.” Sofie didn't hide her sarcasm. She glared at him, playing with her bracelet as she did so.
Leo's hand ran down her back, as if she were a child needing soothing, and she sent him a glare, too.
He dropped his hand. “Moving on. We didn't, in fact, agree to this meeting to tell you what you wanted to know about Veld and Garde.”
Sofie thought, with some satisfaction, that Carep turned to Leo with alacrity. She obviously made the Arkhoran captain uncomfortable.
“Then why did you?”
“If you've got a warship nearby, you might have noticed the Caruso are coming and going from here, but what you might not know is they are currently fitting a warship that looks a lot like the one I saw on the footage from the Cepi incident with as many of their weapons as can fit on it.”
“How sure is this intel?” Carep asked carefully.
“All three of us have seen it with our own eyes.” Leo twirled a finger to include them all.
“And how did you do that?” Carep lifted both hands in question. “If they were doing it openly on the Deck, we would know about it.”
“We have access to the Cores warehouse on the north end of the Deck.” Leo crossed his arms over his chest. “We've been watching them for the last week.”
Carep looked like he wanted to take a running jump on his flying machine and race off to share the news.
“There's more.” Leo obviously had the same impression.
Carep's hands fisted. “I'm listening.”
“The Caruso and the Cores have an agreement to invade Lassa. The Caruso are providing weapons and troops, in return for fifty percent of Lassa's mineral rights.”
“When?” Carep breathed it out.
“We haven't managed to find out. We think less than a month.”
“And the Cores think the Caruso will be happy with fifty percent at the end of it?” Carep's tone was incredulous.
“Some don't. Some worry where it will all lead, but most can only see the shining prize of Lassa and don't want to think about it too much.” Finkle spoke for the first time.
“We can't fight the Caruso.” Leo's voice was level, but implacable. “I hoped we could fight the Cores, one day, but we can't fight the Caruso. The only way we can win is if the VSC, or at least Arkhor, help us.”
“Any other revelations?” Carep took a step toward his stealth flyer.
“What's going to happen now?” Sofie took a step closer to him.
“Happen?” The captain tilted his head.
“If the Caruso and the Cores are getting into bed, threatening Lassa, what's going to happen? What will the VSC do?” Because if they did nothing, it was over. She agreed with Leo, the outcome was clear. They could not fight head to head with the Cores and the Caruso. They would be obliterated.
“Damned if I know.” Carep looked straight at her. “You sound like you think they should have done something before now.”
“My father was Halatian,” she said, and saw him start at that. “I know the VSC has a bad reputation for ignoring their own, but haven't they learned their lessons from before? There are children down here right now, as well as people like me who never chose to come but are trapped. The VSC doesn't seem to have asked after them, or checked that they're all right, but they are VSC citizens.”
Carep was quiet for a long time. “I happen to love someone who's Halatian, so I have very strong views when it comes to these things. Probably the VSC should have done what you say. As the closest planet to Garmen, probably Arkhor should have done more--they like to interfere, so I don't know why they haven't here.”
“The thing that turned the Halatian Incident around was the images and footage taken by Darline Xan.” She hesitated, looked down at her bracelet.
“That's what did it,” Carep agreed.
“If I had something like that, I wouldn't want it to go to the Arkhor Special Forces.” She looked up at him. “No offense, but I don't trust the leaders. They have to know what's going
on here, and they've done nothing.”
Carep sighed. “Maybe they do know, and they want to do something, and the politics of the VSC is stopping them.”
“Maybe. But that still means their hands are tied.” She looked him in the eye. “Captain Carep--”
She hesitated.
“Call me Mak.” For the first time, his voice was gentle.
She nodded. “Mak. If I handed you something like that, would you be able to pass it on to someone else? Like the Halatian that you love? So he or she can share it, like Darline Xan did?”
He went still. Then held out his hand. “I would.”
She unclipped Rach's bracelet, and placed it in the palm of his glove.
He looked at it thoughtfully, then put it away in one of the many little pockets that seemed to be built into his suit.
Carep swung himself into his chair and turned to Leo. “If there's a change in what's happening with that warship and the Caruso's plans, can you send me another message? I'll keep our channel clear. And if you can't get a message out, I'll be here anyway in two days' time.”
“Two days?” Leo asked. “We might not have anything to give you that soon.”
“Maybe not.” Carep raised a hand, gripping what looked like a lever. “But I might have something to give you.”
He pulled the lever down, and it seemed like he was sucked up into the sky.
“What did you give him?” Leo asked in the silence that followed.
Sofie closed her eyes, almost wishing she could take it back. “My sister's life's work.”
Chapter 33
Leo was grateful for the length of time it took to ride home.
He was still feeling the little reverberations of shock at Sofie's confrontation with the Arkhoran captain. And the negotiation she'd made with him.
Far more than the information that was given and received between the Arkhoran captain and himself, what Sofie had brought to the meeting was on another level altogether.
If he guessed correctly, she'd given him a bracelet full of crystal data stores, and it sounded as if what was on them was footage similar to what Darline Xan had risked her life to get fifteen years ago during the Halatian Incident.
Xan's images of the Halatians' desperate straights had spurred the VSC into action, where before they'd simply been arguing amongst themselves and wringing their hands.
If her sister's secrets were what he thought they were, it was exactly what they needed. A solid reason for the VSC to swoop in and, as Captain Mak Carep had put it, interfere.
They could use a little interference, because while he had the money, he didn't have access to the weapons or the staff to launch an offensive against a military state like the Caruso.
And that's where this current path was leading. The Cores had taken the first step toward their own demise, and they would take the people of Garmen with them.
But Sofie's conversation with Mak Carep had thrown up a brand new problem.
Because it sounded like his lover wanted to leave Garmen.
And Leo had always planned to stay and fight.
The idea of her wanting to escape made his stomach sink and his heart heavy.
When they reached the garage, dawn was only moments away, and neither of them spoke as they put the hovers away and made their way back to the bedroom.
Sofie undressed with her back to him, carefully setting each item of clothing over the chair beside what had quickly become her side of the bed.
He heard her climb in, and when he turned from tossing his own clothes in a pile, she was watching him, her big, gray eyes serious.
“Where would you go if you could get away?” he forced himself to ask. “Arkhor?”
She frowned at him. “Leaving used to be my goal,” she said. She looked down at her now bare wrist, and circled it with her forefinger and thumb. “I went along with Rach's plans to sneak off Garmen while she was alive, and after she was killed, I wanted to leave because I didn't think there was anything here for me. But it used to weigh on me.”
“It did?” He cleared his throat.
“I knew I had an advantage. If anyone could find a way off Garmen, it was me, with my access to secret places. But I never believed anyone in the VSC would care about the interviews Rach had done. I didn't think seeing them would change anything. So I would just be leaving because my life would be better, and to hell with everyone else left behind.” She wriggled lower under the covers. Gave a wry laugh. “Then when I made the decision to stay, not getting out the information Rach had risked her life for started weighing on me almost as much.”
“And now you've given it to Arkhor Special Forces?” He was at last able to move. He got into bed, and she snuggled close.
“The captain seemed to be telling the truth. I think he will pass it on. And whoever the Halatian in his life is, when they see the interviews Rach did with people on the streets of Tether Town they might recognize parallels with what happened to them. And do something about it.” She was silent for a while. “It's not certain, but I think it's the best I could ever have done. Even if I had left Garmen.”
He kissed the top of her head. “When did you decide to stay?”
She nuzzled him, and he felt a smile curve on her lips. “After I met you, of course.”
He was suddenly above her, arms on either side of her head. “Is that so?”
“Well,” she grinned up at him. “Not entirely so, but certainly, twenty percent or more of the decision was as a result of meeting you.”
He laughed before he dived in, tickling her mercilessly. He suddenly realized, since he'd been around her, he'd been doing that a lot.
Morning came too quickly. The round trip out to the lake had taken two hours, and they'd had a hard day's ride before that as it was.
But Sofie forced herself into the shower, and then down to the kitchen, bumping delightfully into Leo in various states of wakefulness and undress as they got ready together.
She could get used to it.
Zyr was sitting at the counter, still slightly puffy-eyed, but she put that down to tiredness, not so much the last fading proof of the beating he'd fought off.
Fallia paced beside the massive window that looked out over the plain beyond, fiddling with her comm set.
Dee and Carver were also standing by the window, Dee with a cup of jah, which she sipped calmly, Carver with his hands behind his back.
Finkle leaned back against the wall, arms folded, and watched them all.
“I assume Sam's ready to go off duty?” Sofie looked over at him.
“He is. Carver will replace him.”
“I want to come, too.” Zyr tossed a tiny crystal bead in the air, and caught it. “I'd like to see if I can pass this on. Fallia checked the logs, and there's a Lassian ship coming in that has someone onboard who's passed a few messages back and forth to us before.”
“How did they do that?” Carver asked.
“They requested maintenance on a Deck power supply. We've got a few members who work the Deck, although we've been careful with them, because Veld used to work up there, and we worried they'd been exposed by him to the execs.”
“How did they go from requesting tech support to exchanging messages?” Dee's eyes were narrowed suspiciously.
“They didn't right away. It took about four visits, where the questions got more and more pointed, before both sides acknowledged there was nothing wrong with the power supply, and we opened a dialogue.”
“What Lassian ship is coming in?” Finkle had his screen out.
“The Verden.” Fallia paused in her pacing.
“That's a pleasure cruiser.” Finkle frowned. “What's its business on the Deck?”
Sofie looked at him in surprise. “Has to be false trade.”
She was shocked when Dee, Carver, Fink and Leo stared at her.
“What's false trade?” Leo asked.
“You haven't heard of it?” Zyr leaned back on the counter with both elbows. “It's when
two ships want to trade something illegal, but they don't have the inter-ship connection capabilities of a bigger craft, so they have to land somewhere with a grav and enviro system. The Felicitos Deck is a good place for that. They trade something they're bringing in, not something coming from Garmen. They'll stock up with food or something small from Garmen as a pretext for their arrival, but their real acquisition is with another ship.”
“How come I don't know about this?” Leo looked at his security people.
Finkle looked a little sick as he shook his head.
“I know because I worked for the Cores,” Sofie said. “The Cores know what's going on with false trade. They let it happen, because it sometimes leads to legitimate business, and they try to record what goes down as much as possible. They've got a library of feed that can be used to blackmail certain individuals.”
“The maintenance crews up on the Deck see it happening right in front of them.” Zyr shrugged. “If you're dealing with legitimate customers, I don't suppose you'd know about it.”
“Huh.” Leo slid his hands in his pockets. “Well, it looks like word has gotten out to our customers about the problems at Phansi, so I'll be spending the day on the comm set giving them the good news its already fixed.”
“I'll be up on the Deck, too.” Dee finished her jah. “The schedule Eunice sent me shows one of Ruanne's big carriers is coming in in a couple of hours' time, so I'll go up and inspect the inventory, and find someone to pass along our warning that Lassa is about to be attacked.”
“What are you going to do?” Sofie asked Fallia.
Fallia snorted out a laugh. “Believe it or not, I actually have a job, one I've been missing from for the last six days.”
Sofie gave a nod of acknowledgment. “Will there be trouble?”
Fallia sighed. “Probably not. The others have been covering for us. And now that Sunny's out of the picture . . .”
Sofie blinked. She'd completely forgotten about Sunny. About how his body was still lying out of sight on the road to Phansi.
“How will you explain him not turning up to work?”
Zyr shrugged, but there was no regret or sadness on his face. “T-Town is a dangerous place,” he said, his voice a rumble. “People disappear all the time.”
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