The crew hustled to it.
Devon, First City, Residential Area
Sabine ended the call to their ops manager and turned to the others. “Did you get all that?”
Ricole shook her head. “I did, but I don’t understand. What did she mean by ‘we’ll get support info at a later date?’”
Jacqueline and Mark shared a gleeful glance. “It means we’re here with no instructions until the infrastructure is put in,” the Were told her.
Mark took over. “Until then, it’s just the other six teams and us, and all we have to do is get settled and work our way into society here.”
“And keep feeding the data back home,” Jacqueline finished.
Sabine’s face shone. “It is carte blanche, pretty much. Have any of you seen Demon today?” None of them had. She all but skipped out of the room. “I’m going to go call her. Devon is working out to be the most fun!”
Ricole was lost again. “What does ‘carte blanche’ mean?”
“Permission to do as we wish,” Jacqueline explained. “In other words, we cannot cross the line because there is no line to cross.”
“We have no rules?” Ricole scratched her cheek as she took that in.
Mark laughed. “It makes sense if we’re going to blend in here.”
Sabine returned to the room and started gathering her things to leave. “The question is what we’re going to do with the time. We need to find jobs.”
Mark rubbed his chin. “We have all the opportunity Michael afforded us. We just need to make the most of it. That means bringing this city in line with what Michael and Bethany Anne want for the planet as a whole.”
Ricole considered this. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this place supposed to be a den of thieves and fucknuts?”
Jacqueline grinned. “Fucknuts?”
Ricole shrugged. “I heard Tim call Ricky that word in the APA, and it seemed appropriate. My point is, do we really want to work for some shady criminal just to pay the bills?”
Sabine sat down. “That’s a good point. Why work for someone else when we have the wealth and skills between us to support ourselves?”
Mark pointed at her. “Exactly. So, suggestions?”
“We could open a trading company,” Jacqueline suggested.
Ricole grinned. “Black market? I have some experience with that.” She shrugged at the looks they gave her and inspected her claws. “What? I grew up on the real Devon. Did you think I got by on just my charm?”
Jacqueline chuckled. “Gray market should be deep enough for now. We just need to figure out the best way to set it up.” She grabbed a notepad and pen and narrowed her eyes in thought. Mark grinned when the tip of her tongue appeared as she jotted her thoughts down. A couple of minutes later she looked back up. “Okay, this is what we need. One of us to lead, one for intelligence and communications, and two for muscle. Three to do the job, and two to run it.”
Mark raised his hand. “I vote you for the lead.”
Jacqueline shook her head. “Nuh-uh. I want to be muscle.”
Ricole wasn’t being left out. “Me too. I’m all muscle.”
“What about me? I’m not staying behind while you two get all the action.” Sabine glared at her fellow females, daring them to challenge her.
Jacqueline slammed the pad down and met Sabine’s gaze with a slight growl, so Mark cut in before it degraded into something physical. “We can’t all be muscle. We’ll rotate through the roles so we all get a turn, how about that?” He raised his hands when they snapped their heads toward him. “That seems fair to me. I’ll take intelligence first, so that frees up one spot.”
Jacqueline shrugged and went back to taking notes. “I guess I can take lead first, but next rotation I get to kick some ass.”
They couldn’t argue with that. Sabine backed down and began to pace with her hands behind her back. “Okay, so we rotate. Next, how are we going to run this company? We need a place to run it from, and…do we need to find employees?”
Jacqueline looked up from her pad. “What for?”
Sabine shrugged. “I don’t know. Say we have a cargo that’s too big to move quickly or a client who needs more protection than the five of us can offer?”
Demon strolled through the door, her tail swishing. Who would need more protection than the five of us?
“What the cat said,” Ricole chipped in. “Besides, do we really want to involve unknowns? It could make maintaining our cover difficult.”
Mark made a face. “Ricole is right. We would be better off automating as much of the heavy lifting as we can. Then we can operate without worrying that one of the workers will make us.”
Sabine nodded, a sly smile forming. “We’ll keep ourselves to ourselves, then.”
Never let your prey see you approaching, Demon commented. She vaulted elegantly onto the window seat and tilted her face to the window to catch the sun. I’m sure that applies here as well.
Jacqueline picked up her pad again and started scribbling. “Right, Mark, you start searching for premises that we can keep bug-free. I’ll get started on ordering what we need for setup, to be delivered from High Tortuga.” She looked at Sabine, Ricole, and Demon. “You three get out into the city and start listening. We need to learn about this place, and how to take it over.” She rummaged in a drawer and pulled out a small package. “This arrived while you were all still asleep this morning.”
Ricole craned to see. “What is it?”
Jacqueline unwrapped the package and spread the contents out on the desk. “Our care package. We have a modified version of some of Tabitha’s balls.”
Mark snickered. “You said ‘balls.’”
Jacqueline gave him a look that would have melted steel. “You and Tabitha both need to grow up.”
Sabine snorted. “Are you going to tell Tabitha that to her face?”
“Fuck, no. I’m angry, not stupid.” Jacqueline rolled her eyes and threw the package of spheres to her. “Just take them to the bazaar and activate them. They’ll work their way through the city and acquire all the information we need to get ahead of the competition.”
Ricole tilted her head. “And by ‘acquire,’ you mean steal?”
Jacqueline shrugged. “All’s fair in business.”
Demon lifted her head. What are we supposed to do while the tiny machines are stealing for us?
Sabine clapped delightedly. “We get to go and take the temperature of the city.” Sabine grinned when Ricole looked at her blankly. “That means that we’re going bar-hopping, Ricole. I told you this place was going to be fun.”
Yollin Sector, QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Open Court
Gabrielle staggered toward the corridor under the weight of all her bags. “We should have gotten a few more carts,” she complained. “My hands are raw!”
Jean looked over the top of the large crate she was carrying. “Suck it up, buttercup. We’re nearly out of here now.”
The four ladies moved with the thinning crowd, heading out of the court. The moment the coast was clear, Bethany Anne grabbed Tabitha, who grabbed Jean and Gabrielle, and transferred the four of them and all their goodies to the Reynolds’ residence.
Patricia was waiting for them when they arrived. She took one look at the overly laden women and shook her head fondly. “Come on in, my dears. You can put your bags and things in the side room to the left there.” She pointed the door out as she made her way back into the house. “Your father is in the living room, Bethany Anne. I’ll be in the kitchen fixing drinks for you all, and I’ll join you shortly.”
They dumped their bags and went into the living room. Lance put his book down and stood up from the couch to greet them. “How was shopping?”
Tabitha laughed. “There’s not a pair of size sevens left to buy anywhere on the station.”
“That’s not true,” Bethany Anne protested. “I didn’t like those white shoes in the third store.”
Tabitha tilted her head. “I stand corre
cted. That one pair you didn’t like.”
Patricia came in with a large, icy pitcher and six glasses on a tray. She put the tray on the table and sat in the wingback chair beside Lance’s recliner. “What didn’t you like?”
Jean chuckled and reached for one of the glasses on the tray. “A pair of shoes.”
Patricia put a hand to her forehead and pretended to faint. “I never thought I’d see the day when you met a pair of shoes you didn’t like.”
Bethany Anne made a face and sipped her drink. “So, Dad, are you going to tell me about this issue you’re having or keep me in eternal suspense?”
Lance chuckled. He shifted in his chair to get comfortable and reached for a cigar that wasn’t there. “Dammit. Oh, well.” He shrugged and picked his drink up instead. “I had a visit from one of the Noel-ni delegates while I was at that conference.”
“Conference?” Bethany Anne asked.
Lance shrugged. “I’d have to ask Meredith which one it was. There are so many of the damn things these days they all just blur together. Anyway, Reia, the Noel-ni delegate…she came to me in my position as head of the Federation and asked me to intervene in a situation involving missing ships.” He held up a hand before Bethany Anne could interrupt. “Before you say a word, it’s not the Leath, Bethany Anne.”
Gabrielle and Patricia were polite enough to suppress their giggles. Bethany Anne narrowed her eyes at Tabitha and Jean, then sat back down. “So who do we like for it? You have someone looking into it, I presume.”
Lance lifted a shoulder. “That’s the rub. The politics on this are a complete pain in the ass. Reia also took the petition to the other leaders of the Federation, so I can’t exactly have a black-ops team make a run on it.”
Tabitha leaned back with a smirk and crossed her legs. “Well, you could.”
Gabrielle clapped her hands and turned to Lance. “You can’t send any of your teams, but we’re not one of your teams.”
Lance looked at them skeptically. “And what if you get caught? That shit will blow straight back in my face.”
Bethany Anne snorted. “Who exactly is going to catch one of my ships?”
Chapter Seventeen
Independent Trading Vessel Maiden’s Rage, Bridge
Einoch leaned over the console as he built a map of the secondary Noel-ni system they’d landed in, as was his standard practice whenever they hit an out-of-the-way system.
It passed the time while the engineering crew recharged the Gate drives, and he’d made a pretty penny over the years selling updates to places that were a little off the beaten path. The market for directions to these kinds of places never waned.
He reviewed the ship’s reports as the bridge crew forwarded them to him, and he worked on the chart. A skeleton bridge crew worked in silence under Brakely’s direction, and the atmosphere on the bridge was almost peaceful. It was as close to downtime as Einoch got.
The peace was shattered by a Gate proximity alert.
Einoch waved distractedly at Brakely, who gave the order. The unexpected Gate appeared on the viewscreen. “Who is it?”
Brakely leaned over the screen in front of him. “Looks like Noel-ni, five ships.”
Einoch was doubly glad he’d had them stay well back from the system’s core insert lines. “Are we secure?”
Brakely nodded. “I believe so, Captain.”
Einoch nodded and returned to examining the scene beyond the hull of his ship. The light from the Gate flooded the space around it, making the five ships’ progress easy to track. They cleared the Gate and changed course toward the planets in the distance. His eyes were drawn to a large, blank spot in the starry canvas some way away, between the ships and their destination. He pointed it out to the first mate. “What in the galaxy is that?”
Brakely had nothing.
Einoch turned back to the screen. “Are the Noel-ni aware they’re heading straight for it? Track them, Brakely. Let’s see what happens, but be careful not to reveal our position.”
“I think they’re going to miss it,” Brakely told him a few minutes later. He turned to the captain with concern written all over his ganglia. “What the hell is big enough to block out the stars?”
Many of the bridge crew were on their feet, watching the clueless ships pass within kilometers of the dark behemoth.
“Oh, fuck.”
Einoch snapped his attention to the source of the curse. “What?”
“We have incoming, and they don’t look too happy with us.” The officer tapped at her console and pointed at the viewscreen. “They’ve picked up on our active sensors.”
Einoch stared at the screen in alarm, seeing that some smaller ovoid object had broken away from the unidentified mass and was headed straight for them. “Get a boot up engineering’s ass!” he yelled. He turned to Brakely, who was running from station to station. “How long have we got?”
Brakely wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Approximately two hours, Captain.”
Einoch got on the comm. “All stations, you have two hours to get us the hell out of here.”
The officer at the com tugged on Brakely’s sleeve and pointed to her screen. Brakely looked down, and his ganglia went crazy. “Um… Einoch?”
Einoch’s eyes widened at his first mate’s lapse in protocol. “What is it, Brakely?”
“Make that an hour and a half. It just increased its speed.”
Einoch thumbed the comm again. “Make that ninety minutes to get as much charge in this ship as possible.” He put the ship on red alert.
“For all the good it’ll do us…”
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Queen’s Private Dock
The stateroom was stuffed with the bags they had returned to drop off. Bethany Anne picked her way across to hug Lance before he left for dinner with Patricia and they left for home. “It’s been so good to spend some time with you all, Dad.”
Lance squeezed her extra tight. “We owe you a visit next time, okay?”
Bethany Anne was about to reply when Meredith pinged them. “What’s up?”
Meredith’s smooth voice came over the speaker. “There is a situation at All Guns Blazing. AGB security has requested aid, but I pulled the request in case you wanted to deal with it personally before returning to High Tortuga, my Queen.”
Bethany Anne tilted her head and shrugged. “I’ll bite. What have we got?”
Meredith chuckled dryly. “I thought you might. There is an all-out brawl in progress, and the bouncers are having trouble containing it.”
Bethany Anne’s mouth twitched. “Why not? It’s not as if Baba Yaga left.”
Tabitha danced around the bags on the floor and punched the air. “Whoo! Bar fight!” She stopped mid-jump and looked at Gabrielle with all seriousness she could muster. “You know they’re my favorite, right?”
Jean grinned and excused herself, taking Gabrielle with her.
Bethany Anne turned to her father. “Love you, Dad.”
Lance cupped her chin and kissed the top of her head. “Love you too, pumpkin. Now go and have some fun.”
Jean and Gabrielle returned shortly after Lance had left, carrying a large crate between them.
“What’s in the crate?” Bethany Anne asked as they placed it on the table.
Jean pressed her hand to the lock. It read her DNA and clicked open. “Come and see.” She lifted the lid with a flourish and stood back while Bethany Anne examined the contents.
Bethany Anne pulled out the armored suit inside and held it up. “How do you always know what to get me?”
Jean grinned. “Not just you, all of us.” She lifted the tray the armor had been on to reveal another suit on the tray below. She handed it to Gabrielle, then pulled out another for Tabitha, and finally one for herself.
They quickly changed into the suits, and Bethany Anne made the switch to Baba Yaga. She looked the others over and pursed her lips. Below the neck, she couldn’t tell who was wearing the suits—male or female, human or just humanoi
d. However, three of the most famous faces in the galaxy looked back at her. “You’re all going to have to hide your faces somehow.”
Jean shook her head and pointed to a spot on her suit collar. “Just press here and your helmet will engage. Same again to retract it.” She demonstrated, and the collar extended to form an opaque helmet. “HUD, as you’d expect.”
Tabitha played with her helmet button. “Okay,” she stated as she looked at her HUD. “This is pretty fucking cool, Jean. Nobody will have a clue they’re getting their asses kicked by the FBB.”
“I’m probably going to regret this, but what does FBB mean?” Jean asked.
Tabitha paused, her helmet still off. “Four badass bitches!”
Gabrielle coughed. “Um…that title is already taken. By the guys and me.”
Baba Yaga narrowed her eyes for a second, then inspiration hit, and she cackled. “The Queen can have her Bitches, you three are now my Bastards.”
“Talk about reverse gender discrimination,” Tabitha muttered, but not loud enough to bug Bethany Anne’s alter-ego.
Baba Yaga ignored her. “Meredith, are the AGB offices clear?”
“They are,” came the reply.
She gave a sharp grin and held out her hands to the others. “Then what the hell are we waiting for?”
High Tortuga, Space Fleet Base, Immersive Recreation and Training Scenario, Dinosaur Island
The terrain had changed again in the hours since they’d left the river behind, the rolling grassland gradually morphing into a rough and rocky landscape that became increasingly difficult to navigate the closer they came to the long shadow of the mountain.
The land rose in jagged steps, which they had to climb to keep going toward the mountain.
Alexis kicked the rocky barrier. “This is ridiculous! Why can’t we talk to Phyrro? He would have gotten us out of here an hour ago!”
John examined the rock face for the best place to climb up to the next level. “How effective is it to have the solution handed to you in training, Alexis?”
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