by J. A. Clarke
Maegan studied the nav display. They were drawing inexorably closer. It wouldn't be long before they were within standard hailing distance. She had to lose them before then.
This trip was the result of a frantic request for immediate action. Most of such requests were urgent, but didn't usually give her so little time to prepare. Alerik Mariltar's intrusion today had forced her to rely on others. She had made the collection. She had made the drop-off. She just had to get home. Luckily, she had identified the possible new safe route through the moon cluster. She had to shake her pursuers there.
The two ships behind her were beginning to separate. Starpits! Ambush tactics. She had to do this now. The moon cluster was close enough. She took a deep breath and hoped the best nav charts credits could buy would substitute for her less than adequate preparation.
"All right, Lady Melia, let's see if your old body hangs together on this one." She set the nav course directly for the moon cluster and jammed the thruster control forward. The Lady Melia's brand new engines responded instantly and hurtled her ancient body toward the nearest moon. Maegan's fingers danced over the nav chart making some fine adjustments to the course. They would take the ship far closer to the moon than most pilots had balls for.
Passed it!
She made her next adjustment and checked for company. Sliek! Still there. Their speed had increased as well. Who were they?
The bedring creatures dancing in her stomach were a strong indication her growing suspicion was on target. She zipped around the next moon. Still there. It was like swatting at two annoying insects. Stronger tactics were called for. She had trained as a fighter pilot with the best.
These were the best--without a doubt.
Two of Alerik Mariltar's team.
She ground her teeth and tried to ignore the welling of hot anger as she made her next adjustments. Blazing starpits! She braced herself. Her stomach never did well on this maneuver. Good thing she didn't have anything in it.
The Lady Melia plunged--down, down, down--then caught herself and began a steep upward climb. Maegan's stomach roiled before settling. Thank Sortor for nutro tablets. She checked the chart.
One was still with her. She had one more chance. She zipped around the far side of the next to last moon and hit her ballast eject. On the nav chart, a film spread out and rolled in a wave over the one remaining vessel.
"And best of luck to you," she muttered. The magna cloud would scramble the pursuing vessel's nav equipment, making further pursuit virtually impossible. She had never had to use the tactic before. It was an expensive last resort. Alerik Mariltar had just doubled the chits against him.
She made a last set of adjustments and headed for home.
* * * *
"Balls of forged steel," Eduardo Corenna said gloomily. "Never seen anything like it."
Nathan Drakal, slumped in the chair beside him, shot back, "You didn't get caught in that magna cloud. I had to be towed to dock. Towed! And I'm grounded until my instruments are recalibrated."
"Been telling you for rotations to get that done." Corenna sounded smug. "Might improve your longevity with the ladies."
"Thereby leaving more for your pathetic a--"
"Gentlemen!" Sharm Foster, their commanding officer, looked up from his perusal of the official report. His gaze passed over Alerik with barely a flicker, where he stood unnoticed behind the two pilots. "And so the mighty are felled. One service class vessel, gentlemen? Of indeterminate age? And he kicked your asses."
"Magna cloud, engines powerful enough to perform fighter class maneuvers--the vessel must have been reinforced to withstand the pressure, yet left to look like a mere transporter. Why is that, I wonder? Stand down, boys." Alerik waved his hand as Corenna and Drakal leapt to attention. He strolled across the room and dropped his hand-held vid screen on the wide table in front of Sharm. "There are credits here, gentlemen, a lot of them. Magna is expensive and hard to obtain, not to mention being a controlled substance. And we have an unrecorded flight plan through the Grogon cluster."
Commander Foster nodded. "Unfortunately, sir, we have a lot of those. The previous governor didn't enforce Coalition regs."
Alerik placed his hands on the table and leaned forward to fix his gaze on the two fighter pilots. They were two of the youngest members of his team, but the best at what they did--arrogant, fearless, supremely confident. Now they squirmed in their seats and shot each other uncertain looks.
"She out-maneuvered you, boys. Hard to believe. Hard to believe that anyone can out-maneuver a pilot trained by the Seventh Fleet."
More looks, this time of comical horror. "She, sir?"
Alerik shrugged. "It's possible, isn't it?" He didn't know why he'd attached a female gender to the unknown pilot.
"Of course, sir," Corenna hastened to agree but, as Alerik turned away, he saw the skeptical grimace and head shake Corenna directed at Drakal.
"That's all for now, gentlemen," he said. "You'll receive new assignments later today."
"Your thoughts?" Sharm demanded as soon as the door closed behind the pilots.
Alerik stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked on the balls of his feet. "That the Grogon Asteroid Belt shields a host of unlawful activities behind a façade of ordinary commerce. There's a bigger web of conspiracy, graft and intrigue here than we first were led to believe, and this recent incident only reinforces my opinion. That vessel landed on one of the Pallas asteroids."
Sharm barked out a laugh. "But according to Governor Meelor, nothing ever happens here."
"Governor Meelor was a puppet of the large corporations. The welcome gifts I received from each corporate chief were only a fraction of what they're prepared to offer. Most made implications that came dangerously close to bribery."
"With the exception of Janas Corporation."
"With the exception of Janas Corporation," Alerik agreed. He gave a humorless grin. "Janas begrudged even the nans they were forced to give me. Gifts and bribery were the last things on Maegan Shale's mind."
Sharm shook his dark head and rose to his feet. He was tall and elegantly slender, without Alerik's muscled bulk. His facial features were perfectly sculpted, almost feminine in their beauty. But his looks were deceiving. Without hesitation, Alerik would choose Sharm to guard his back over anyone else in hand-to-hand combat. "Would have liked to have been there with you on that one for the entertainment factor alone. Maegan was such a fireball at the academy, constantly pushing at boundaries and challenging convention. Half the men in her class were in love with her. The other half was jealous of her. And the women always seemed exasperated with her."
"And her piloting skills?"
Headed for the refreshment bar, Sharm jerked to a halt. "Balls of Sortor," he swore. He pivoted to face Alerik and smoothed his already perfect hair. "She was exceptional. Near the top of her class. I had her for one rotation. She quite possibly would have been top of her class if she hadn't constantly resisted following orders."
"She dropped out," Alerik said.
On the heels of his quiet comment, realization dawned on Sharm's face. "She did, didn't she? I remember now. You don't think she's mixed up in any of this, do you?"
Alerik propped himself on the edge of the table and picked up a saga ball. He began to toss it idly from hand to hand. "We don't know what the extent of 'this' is yet, but for her parents' sake, I hope not."
"What a mess that would be." Sharm pulled two bottles of Mariltar blue ale from the cabinet.
More of a mess than Sharm could possibly know. Alerik accepted a bottle of ale and, once again, debated sharing a piece of information with the man who had had his back since they had met in pilot training at the academy. Not yet. Sharm would have to know soon and Sharm, being ever the conformist, would without a doubt have vociferous objections.
"Why did she drop out?"
"The transcripts don't give a reason, but her father says she left to come to Pallas Four to work with her uncle in Janas Corporation."
"Off on an extended tour of the Voton Galaxy, leaving his niece in charge." Alerik tipped the bottle back and took a long swallow of ale. It slid down his throat, smooth, familiar. He waited for the kick. "I want you to assign Corenna and Drakal to Pallas Four."
Sharm's brows shot up. "Yes?"
"Specifically to watch Maegan Shale. I want to know her every movement when she's not inside Janas Corporation."
"You think she was that pilot?"
"Maybe. Tell that to Corenna and Drakal. It'll give them some incentive. Nothing like a score to settle to improve attention to detail."
Sharm set his bottle down. "She's also an attractive woman, Alerik, and you know Corenna and Drakal. They should be made aware she's a hereditary candidate for your team, otherwise she'll pose a challenge for them in another way as well."
He was counting on it. "No, I don't want them to have that information yet. My Soron slice axe to your Taragon pike she'll squash them anyway." In a twisted sort of way, he was counting on that too.
* * * *
Maegan rubbed her eyes. This wasn't working. Numbers, symbols and letters were all running together. She was too tired. She had to take a break.
She closed off the vid screen and pushed herself to her feet, then had to hang on to the table edge as a familiar attack of dizziness seized her. When the world was normal again, she headed for the private room attached to her office. As she pulled off her dress tunic and reached for a pale green exercise suit, she reflected on the double bookkeeping system that Janas Corporation maintained. Its architect, Morgon Trion, her uncle, had set up a seemingly foolproof arrangement.
She sincerely hoped it was. So far, she hadn't been able to find a flaw, but she still had several more files to examine before she was satisfied. The deadline for turning the corporation's private financial records over to the audit committee was four days away.
Curse Alerik Mariltar!
Curse him for being appointed governor of Grogon and for his high and mighty rule-of-law-or-nothing policy.
The Coalition of the nine primary nations of the Crestar System had crafted an inflexible, stifling legal structure. Governor Meelor had his own loose way of interpreting it. Governor Mariltar wouldn't interpret it at all. He'd follow each directive with unshakeable tunnel vision.
Aargh! She was giving herself a headache.
She slipped her feet into padded exercise slippers and checked to make sure her hair was secure in its tight knot. Then she headed out of her office and down the stairs that would take her past Coryon's work station.
Coryon was on a vid conference, so she merely waved and pointed in the general direction of the beach. Her assistant widened her eyes and pretended to faint across her console. There was no reaction from the other participants on screen. Coryon must have placed herself on privacy screen. She was learning.
Maegan chuckled and stepped into the express lift tube to the outside entrance of the complex. She rarely used it, preferring instead to walk through the halls of the corporation to greet the people her uncle had gathered from across the galaxy to build the next generation of data communication technology. They were a young crew for the most part, many her own age and younger. In this one tiny slice of the universe, they represented not only a triumph of cultural integration, but of intellectual cooperation and knowledge sharing. For the first time in recent history, the technical skills and technology infrastructure of the multiple worlds of the Crestar System were being combined. Trials had already proven the prototypes developed thus far vastly superior to anything in existence.
She stepped outside and turned up her face to the warmth of Pallas Four's second sun. Tension immediately began to melt away. She didn't do this enough. Didn't have time to do this. She did some cursory stretching, before she took off on a slow jog down a path cushioned with grebiron shells and lined with thick vegetation.
She passed a calithorn shrub, whose leaves today were blood crimson spotted with gold. The path was deserted, typical for the area. The tourists all congregated at the lower end of the city where the entertainment clubs did a booming business.
The sea was audible now, a soft splash of thick liquid on a spongy shell shore. Pallas Four was almost entirely covered with a gel sea. The only land was the floating island upon which the city was built.
She hit the beach at a fast jog. It was hot today, hotter than she expected. Like the path, the beach was deserted. Halfway to the point where she usually turned around, she realized that despite her best intentions her thoughts had locked onto her biggest problem again.
Alerik Mariltar. What vindictive fate had brought him into her universe again? Two rotations older than she, he had stormed in and out of her childhood and adolescence, too busy becoming an anointed heir of the Mariltar Nation to pay much attention to the rebellious daughter of his father's right hand man. Too busy to notice that when she hit puberty, she had a searingly painful crush on him.
One day he had had the gall to chastise her publicly for some infraction long forgotten under the lingering weight of the public humiliation. Her crush was instantly erased and, to her father's dismay and her mother's acceptance, if not encouragement, her rebellious nature became more closely focused on all that she perceived to be wrong with rigid Mariltar doctrine.
She had avoided him entirely at the academy, which wasn't hard, as they'd only shared one rotation there before he had moved on from his stint as one of the most sought after instructors to enter the next phase of his heir training. But the boy of her memory had become a man. And what a man! A woman's fantasies come to life. Not that she cared. Arrogance and lust for power didn't do a thing for her. Her crush had long since vanished.
Now, as Counselor of Pallas Four, she had to report to him. Even worse, it seemed he might invoke his right to make her serve her hereditary term on his security team .
By all the gods of the Mariltar Nation, she would not! Her father had made a lifetime commitment to Alerik's father. She wouldn't give even a nan to the son. There had to be plenty of ways out of this.
She slowed to catch her breath. Anger had lent wings to her feet. Obviously rebellion wasn't enough. Something much more drastic--something that wouldn't get her incarcerated--was in order.
"Magnificent day, isn't it?" A half-naked man jogged by her. Black hair, tight ass, muscled back, young.
"No better for a vigorous run, yes?" Another half-naked man jogged by on the other side. Medium brown hair, tight ass, muscled back, young.
Blazing starpits! Where had they come from?
They turned simultaneously and began jogging backwards in front of her. Wonderful. Showoffs! Their skin-tight exercise shorts left little to the imagination.
They flashed identical white smiles. "Maegan Shale?" the black-haired one inquired.
"You obviously know, so why ask?" She had no interest in playing ritual mating preliminaries. Two nans left to her turnaround.
"Had to check," Brown-hair responded. "It's our job to be accurate."
Not a casual pick up then. In hand-to-hand combat, Maegan could hold her own and these men clearly weren't hiding weapons anywhere. Still, signals were going off like crazy in her head. The turnaround, a favorite spot, could wait for another day. She abruptly reversed course. "That's nice." She waved her hand high in the air. "Goodbye."
They appeared one on either side of her almost instantly. Neither one was panting yet.
"Don't leave so soon," Brown-hair pleaded.
"We just want to get to know you," Black-hair chimed in.
Blazing starpits! "Sorry, boys." She tried not to gasp for air. She was so out of shape. "I don't form relationships in the middle of exercising. It's not healthy. Be good and leave me alone."
"As you wish, lady," Black-hair said, too obediently. They both dropped back.
Too easy. Warning signals were still firing in her head. What was going on here? They had fallen back to a respectful distance. She could see them w
ith her peripheral vision when she turned her head slightly. They weren't talking. They just had their attention fixed on her as they loped along effortlessly. There was no way she could outrun them. In top shape, maybe, but exercise had gone the way of sleep lately.
Then it hit her. Sliek! She stopped and whirled to face them. "Alerik Mariltar sent you. Why?"
They halted in front of her, their breathing barely elevated, two young, hard male bodies about whom any woman should have at least a lustful thought or two. She didn't even get a twinge. What was wrong with her?
Brown-hair flashed his dazzling smile, and raised his hand in traditional Mariltar greeting. "Drakal, ma'am. Nathan Drakal." He gestured to his companion, who imitated the greeting. "He's Corenna. Eduardo. Our orders are to provide you with protection."
It was ludicrous. Maegan fought a rush of too familiar hot anger. "Protection? Against what?" She planted her fists on her hips. "Are you sure the directive didn't go more like this? 'Go spy on Counselor Shale. I want to make sure she's as clean as a ganbird before she so much as sets foot on my team.' Am I right?"
They didn't even blink. Smiles still firmly in place, they stared back at her.
"Actually, ma'am," Black-hair said, "we have concerns about the increased traffic on Pallas Seven, some of which is making its way over here. The counselor on Pallas Seven has received some nasty threats. The governor is just taking precautions."
News to her. And even if it were true, it was a leap to think that Pallas Seven's problems would spill over to Pallas Four. Everyone knew the gambling on Pallas Seven was way out of control. The legal dens were greatly outnumbered by unlicensed establishments. Grossly exaggerated rumors abounded. She had heard recent talk of illegal blood matches. She had even heard it suggested a death match between humans had taken place. Pallas Four was far removed from all that.
"Please thank the governor for his concern and generous gesture, but inform him that Janas Corporation provides me with all the security I need." Or would, if she allowed it.