"Oh what, him?"
"Yeah him," Lizbeth said, nudging her and noticing the flush on her cheeks. "You like him, don't you?"
"I mean, he's whatever."
"Whatever to me means you are interested in getting in his pants, because that's how you described the one sexual encounter—"
Lyssa cut her off with a wave of her hand. "Why are you so interested in my sex life?"
"Or lack thereof?" Lizbeth taunted. "Because you need to have more fun in your life."
"I have plenty of fun," Lyssa replied. "And why do you care?"
"Excavating planets and hunting pirates? That's not fun; it's work. Leveman's, even when you went to Eamon's, you were working!"
"Yes, and that's fun enough for me."
"I think you're just lonely."
"I'm not lonely," Lyssa gasped and stared at Lizbeth as if she had two heads. Two of the planet prospectors looked at her curiously. "I'm happy being alone."
"If you were happy being alone, you would have been happy for Vel that he had a new girlfriend instead of being jealous," Lizbeth said. "Ergo: lonely."
"No, I'm angry because the little shit lied to me."
"I have a feeling that you would have reacted the same way if he'd told you the truth immediately," Lizbeth said. "He obviously cares a lot about you, and I don't think he'd ever do anything to intentionally hurt you."
"I'm not…having this conversation with you right now," Lyssa said, annoyed that the planet buyers weren't sitting down so she could start the auction.
"Seriously," Lizbeth said, leaning over her shoulder. "If you were to go over to that guy right now and tell him to take you out tonight, he would do it."
"No, he wouldn't, because he's married."
"Aha!" Lizbeth exclaimed loud enough for the planet buyers to glance over again. "Thank you for proving my point. You're interested."
"How does me noticing he's married prove that I'm interested?" Lyssa asked uncomfortably.
"Because if you weren't interested, you wouldn't have noticed he was married."
"I'm gonna sell this planet now," Lyssa said, standing up so she could get away from Lizbeth's prying questions.
"Suit yourself," Lizbeth winked flirtatiously at the handsome man.
Lyssa cleared her throat loudly. "Let's start the bidding at one hundred…"
"One hundred five."
"One hundred ten!"
"One hundred twenty!"
***
The planet sold for two hundred thousand credits to a young buyer who clearly had no idea what he was doing, as the planet was barely worth fifteen thousand. Still, he happily handed over his C-card to pay for his purchase, and Lyssa was happy to receive two hundred thousand credits. The handsome prospector had stopped bidding at one hundred fifty and promptly left the moment the planet was sold.
Lyssa thought about the handsome man on the way back to her ship, mulling over what Lizbeth had said about her being lonely. Sure, he was gorgeous and smelled like she wanted to go somewhere private with him, but he seemed to be a real asshole from the ten minutes they'd spent in the same room together. Besides, he was married, and he was probably too handsome for her anyway. Everyone in that company seemed to come from the same well-dressed, planet snatching stock like Antica Mikaelsson.
She thought about the stern, heel-clacking, pearl-wearing woman who had been such a formidable foe the year before. From their limited interactions, Lyssa was sure that Antica wouldn't be happy unless she were in the thick of things, barking orders at subordinates. So why would she—knowingly and seemingly happily—take a job out on a desolate planet where the only person she could bark orders to was a sweet secretary? Even if the money were good, there seemed to be no good reason why she would willingly give up such a fast-paced lifestyle.
Along that same thought, why would a company, Wedekind Planetary Services, construct only one building on a planet? Antica had said they were in contracts for fifteen more, but there were no cranes, no building materials left on the planet. It was as if they finished the one tower and decided that was enough. If they were planning to build more, wouldn't they have at least left the equipment? Moving that number of cranes, tools—it would have been less expensive to just leave it there, even if they never returned.
She slowed her walking, pondering this idea for a moment as another popped into her head.
What if the one tower was all they intended to build?
After all, Delmur had been delivering cargo to S-6642 for months when she caught up with him. She had assumed she spooked him enough to create new aliases, explaining why the four she had discovered when hunting him the first time now lay dormant. Thinking back on the actual encounter, he seemed relatively unconcerned with her, definitely not worried enough to go through the trouble of creating new aliases.
"What are you thinking about?" Lizbeth asked.
"Delmur," Lyssa said slowly. "What if he stopped delivering cargo to S-6642 because his job was done?"
"But we didn't see any cargo there?" Lizbeth replied. "It was just an empty building?"
"What if the building was it?"
"Okay, yes, but…why? Why go through all that trouble to build a single tower on an uninhabited planet? And if you're going to do that, why go through the trouble of hiring a new executive vice president for operations to leave her all by herself?"
"All good questions, and I think I know someone who can answer them for us."
"Who? Delmur? You said you couldn't find him again. You said all of his accounts were dormant since you captured him?"
"Yeah, but I know someone who knows exactly where Delmur is," Lyssa said. "Because he knows everything."
CHAPTER TWELVE
"Hi Harms!" Razia chirped as she and Lizbeth slid into Harms' booth.
"Leveman's Vortex, Razia, you scared me!" Harms said, one hand over his heart. He quickly turned off the tablet that he had been looking at. She thought she saw the pirate intraweb, but couldn't get a good look at it before the screen went blank.
Harms, however, had taken notice of the second woman in the booth.
"I'd heard you were running around with a new friend." Harms reached across the table to shake Lizbeth's hand. "The name's John Harms, pleasure to meet you."
"Lizbeth Carter." She shook his hand firmly.
"And you, little missy, are in a lot of trouble," Harms said, suddenly pointing his finger at Razia. "Dissident is not pleased that you're poking your nose into all of this stuff. Said it was much easier when you were just bounty hunting."
"Yeah, well he's never happy with me anyways, so what does it matter?" Razia shrugged.
"It matters because you've pissed off some very wealthy benefactors," Harms said, "who have threatened to cut everyone off from the millions of credits they were promised."
"What can you tell us about them?" Lizbeth asked.
"Oh no. No way. I'm not helping you dig your own grave. These men are serious and you could get hurt," Harms said, looking at Razia. "And by hurt, I mean killed."
"We know," Razia said. "Trust me, I've already been threatened with a gun more than once during this little fiasco."
"Then why are you still digging?" Harms asked incredulously.
"Because I have a job to do," Lizbeth said.
"And I can't find any pirates anyways. They've all created new aliases," Razia said. "That, or they've completely disappeared."
"What with nosy bounty hunters breaking into their supposedly secret pirate meetings, perhaps they don't want you two showing up," Harms said.
"Can you tell us what they've been contracted to do?" Lizbeth asked.
"You didn't hear in the meeting?" Harms asked, a smile twitching at his mouth. "Or did that happen after you were thrown out in your mini-skirts?"
"Oh, get sucked," Razia huffed. "We know they're hijacking government ships, we just don't know where."
"All over really," Harms said. "N-42653, S-4296, and N-38324 are the three main ones though. The gu
ys are intercepting the cargo nearby and dropping it off on the planet. Once the insurance company completes their investigation and the company gets paid for their supposedly missing cargo, they'll pay the pirates."
"Has anyone been paid yet?" Lizbeth asked.
"Conboy Conrad said he got paid, but I think he's bluffing, I didn't see any money in his accounts," Harms said.
"Do you know of any of the aliases they're using?" Razia asked. To Harms' curious face, she replied, "I only want to talk to them."
"Unfortunately, no," Harms said. "Everybody has been so wrapped up in this thing that nobody's had time to stop by and talk to me about what's going on. So your guess is as good as mine. I can't even figure out why the runners aren't announcing the hijackings in the pirate intraweb."
"Do you think they're just pulling the records or…" Razia trailed off. "Do you think the insurance companies aren't getting notified?"
Harms cocked his head. "What makes you say that?"
"If no one's getting paid for the jobs, maybe it's because the insurance companies haven't been notified."
"I'm sure they are," Harms said. "Otherwise, why else would they have asked the pirates to go through all this trouble?"
"That's what we're trying to figure out," Lizbeth said. "Did you know about Relleck?"
"Relleck?" Harms shook his head. "What's he got to do with this?"
"He's got his own special deal," Razia said. "Transporting guns from G-279 to S-864."
"What?" Harms said, sounding genuinely surprised. "I haven't heard anything about anyone transporting guns!"
"And we saw one of the two guys from the secret pirate meeting in Relleck's gun hideout," Razia said. "Which means that the rest of the pirates might also be transporting guns."
Harms' brows furrowed. "Did Relleck know what he was transporting?"
"He didn't seem too surprised when a box of them cracked open," Razia said.
"Contestant's pirates have been hitting a specific set of government ships for months," Lizbeth said with a nod. "It's how I originally got involved. Cree Hardrict was another one acting strangely."
"Evet Delmur as well," Razia said, watching Harms' reaction.
"Oh, your old buddy Delmur?" Harms laughed. "Haven't heard his name in a few months."
"Yeah, so where is he?" Razia asked.
"He's retired—"
"Yeah that's what you told me last year, and we both know that's a lie," Razia said plainly.
Harms sighed. "Okay fine, I wasn't truthful to you last year. But now I am. Delmur really retired. He's out on R-3633, bought a huge house and hasn't left."
"R-3633?" Razia smiled to Lizbeth who tapped out the planet name in her mini-computer. "Thanks for that."
"God in Leveman's, I can see why you two are friends," Harms said, looking between the two of them helplessly. "I can't handle two of you. Leveman's, I can barely handle one."
Razia grinned and stood up behind Lizbeth.
"Razia, wait," Harms said, sliding out of the booth and grabbing Razia's hand. "If Relleck's transporting guns, that's something to be worried about."
"No kidding," Razia deadpanned. "Why do you think we're still looking?"
"Fine, well be careful," Harms pleaded. As Razia's face screwed up into what was sure to be another rant, he tugged on her hand. "Don't you dare get mad at me for worrying about you."
"Aw," Lizbeth cooed. "Don't worry, Harms, we'll be careful."
"Thanks for your help," Razia said, and followed Lizbeth out of the bar.
***
R-planets were some of the most expensive residential planets sold in the Academy. Equal parts water and ground, there was usually something unique about them that drove the price out of a general D-planet. R-3633, it turned out, had become somewhat of a retirement community. Razia was painstakingly identifying each of the inhabitants, not hard as there were only about five hundred plots of land on the entire planet. What was presently giving her trouble was most everyone on this planet had been a pirate at one point, and so they had plenty of aliases for her to sort through until she found one associated with a real person. With someone as paranoid as Delmur, she would have to definitively identify the real name of each of the inhabitants before confirming that they were not, in fact, the old pirate.
"I remember him," Razia said, finding the pirate history for Neno Hajas. "He was one of Contestant's first pirates."
"Why are they still using their aliases?" Lizbeth asked.
"A bunch of the older pirates retired after Tauron…" she trailed off. "Worried it was getting too dangerous, and they didn't want Jukin to come calling if they slipped out of the web. Most of them haven't paid dues in years, but they're still considered members. But even so, they worry that the runners don't have the kind of pull that they once did, if Jukin could do what he did and get away with it."
"I still can't figure out why Jukin would go out on a limb like that to capture Tauron. It seemed very brash, you know, especially because there are other, less deadly ways of getting stuff done in the UBU."
"He's an idiot, that's why," Razia said, hoping that would be the end of the conversation as she looked through another set of transactions.
"Did you find him yet?"
"Having a hard time," Razia said, slowly scrolling through transactions. "Half these guys get a month's worth of food shipped to their mansions, so there's not a lot of transaction history to go on."
"How are you trying to find Delmur?"
"Narrowing down the list to anyone who bought their land in the past eight months," Lyssa said, closing out another transaction history. "Checking to see if they've got any other transactions around D-882 or anything else odd. Pirates can't stay away from the city for long, even if they're retired—or any other odd transactions."
"How many do you have left?"
"Right now, about fifty unknowns," Razia said, opening the transaction history for Ahenobarbus Cruz and scrolling through the transactions. When she saw nothing out of the ordinary, she smiled. "Found him."
"What?" Lizbeth jerked upward. "How? Are you sure?"
"Evet Delmur was one of the most paranoid pirates in recent history," Razia said, standing to locate his exact location on the planet. "So he's the only one I've come across that hasn't appeared to even leave the planet since he bought it six months ago."
"He could be an invalid or—"
"No, it's him. I'm sure of it. I was right before, and I'm right now."
***
R-3633 was covered in some of the tallest trees that Razia had ever seen, thick-trunked with huge canopies. She was able to find a spot to land near a pond, hoping that the foliage would buffer the sound of her landing ship. She wasn't sure what to expect with Delmur, and she didn't want to give him an opportunity to leave the planet if he thought he had company. Lucky for her, as an Academy-sanctioned research vessel, she could turn on the engine dampeners that she was technically supposed to use on every planet she landed on.
"How far away are we from his house?" Lizbeth asked, as Razia joined her on the lower level of her ship.
"About ten miles."
"What?"
"Oh, what?" Razia chuckled at her panicked expression.
"You're joking."
"Nope."
"Come on, Lyss," Lizbeth whined, desperation in her voice. "I thought I was going to die when you and I were on that planet—"
"Oh, you did fine," Razia scoffed, strapping her utility belt around her waist and walking out the open hatch.
"I didn't. I'm not built for these long distance…" Lizbeth trailed off, following Razia off the ship and seeing the mansion rising out of the distance, less than two miles away.
Razia began to chuckle meanly.
"You are a foul creature, Lyssandra Peate."
"Couldn't resist a little fun," Razia laughed, taking two steps in front of the ship. Suddenly, something snapped around her ankle and the world turned upside-down.
As Lizbeth laughed heartily below h
er, Razia realized she had been caught in a trap and was dangling at least twenty feet from the ground by her ankle.
"Who's laughing now?" Lizbeth asked, standing on the open hatch. "Having a little problem hanging there, Lyss?"
"Get sucked," Razia growled. Booby-trapped front gate—she'd expect nothing less from Evet Delmur. The fence was probably electrified as well, knowing him. She reached up to her utility belt and located her knife, but then paused, realizing that she could use the rope to give herself a good vantage point.
She swung herself upright, grabbing onto the rope and pulling herself up to where it was tied around a tree branch. She hoisted herself on top of the branch, but not before realizing how far up she was.
A chill ran down her spine and she pressed her back against the trunk. Shaking slightly, she clawed at the trunk and pulled herself to a standing position, trying to overpower her fear of heights to get her bearings on Delmur's house.
Through the tree trunks, she spied it, surrounded by a high metal gate. It was decorated in the same style as the Manor, but seemed a bit too new. Whereas the Manor had been built hundreds of years before and upgraded as time and gravity took its toll, this five story monstrosity seemed to be built simply to look ornate.
"When you're quite done!" Lizbeth called up to her.
Lyssa looked down for a moment and felt a surge of panic again. She was really, really high up—higher than she felt when she'd climbed up the rope. Her mind started to sway a bit, as she struggled to get a grip on her panic until…
"Oi! I found the trap!"
Three men emerged from the thick canopy, each with a gun slung around his back. Razia crouched down on the branch, thankful that her black clothes kept her out of sight. Curiously, the men appeared to be wearing camouflage. And their guns weren't security guns, but hunting rifles. It was hard to see, but she could definitely make out that one of them was Delmur.
"Whose ship is this?"
"Looks like one of them Academy ships. Do you think they're here on a tip?"
"That stupid Van de Vliert. He wasn't careful enough. Bet he blabbed last week when he was on '882."
So now Razia was curious why three pirates were concerned about the Academy coming to…
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