Jumper's Hope: Central Galactic Concordance Book 4

by Carol Van Natta

  “Slums?”

  She glanced at him. “Later. What does your Nordic pal say—hide in the dead end, or freeze our asses off outside?”

  He blinked with the realization she meant Jess-the-bomber, who of course had an opinion. “Airspace has options. Dead end doesn’t.”

  She nodded. “Good, we agree. Are you okay to go faster?”

  “Yes.” It seemed that for now, she’d decided not to leave him again, but since he didn’t know why she’d left the first time, he couldn’t count on it holding.

  They sped up to a fast trot and turned left. It looked no different from the main hallway, except it had no portal doors on the walls, and dust seemed to hang in the air. A quick glance behind showed faintly visible footsteps where they’d been. Couldn’t be helped.

  The corridor ended at doublewide doors that had once been clear permaglass, but had been etched by visible swirls of dust. Kerzanna ignored the biometric reader and instead punched a long sequence into the keypad. At Jess’s questioning look, she tapped her temple. “Gift from Neirra. I have a map, too.”

  She punched the bright blue bar, and the glass doors rose. A cloud of dust blew in and buffeted their pant legs. “We’re at the bottom level, but still about twenty meters from the bottom of the cavern. It’s a big oval. Left takes us back toward Neirra’s ship, right takes us toward the repair shops. Commercial transport hangars start about six levels up, and passenger terminals are at the top.”

  “We can’t blend in with passengers,” said Jess.

  “You mean I can’t.” She sealed her jacket and frowned at that burned and stained sleeve. “You could pass for a frontier homesteader. I look like a chemmer coming down from a three-day glide.” She stepped out into the wind. “The lower repair levels are more storage than shop. Maybe we can find a safe place to figure out how the hell we’re going to get off this planet, since according to my chrono, my paid ride just left orbit.”

  CHAPTER 9

  * Planet: Branimir * GDAT: 3242.003 *

  VAHAN CHECKED HER appearance one more time before keying the sequence to make the connection to the highly secure, highly expensive real-time conference with Dixon Davidro on Tajidin Farkani. Her unadorned black and red suit complemented her short black hair and walnut-brown skin. Serious, calm, and professional delivery of bad news usually blunted the blame game and made it easier to focus on solutions.

  “You’re looking formidable, Femme G.” The holo image of Davidro showed him in a swirl-patterned, gauzy caftan, lounging in what looked like the plush adaptive chair of a luxury spa. Renner had undoubtedly ensured that the endpoint connection was encrypted, but he couldn’t enforce endpoint privacy if Davidro didn’t cooperate.

  “Thank you, Mr. Davidro.” She ignored his empty flattery and attempt to irritate or ingratiate her with yet another nickname in badly pronounced French. The man had absolute zero abilities with languages beyond Standard English and barely adequate Mandarin. “I have two pieces of bad news.”

  “Nobody calls interstellar real-time with good news,” he said dryly. “Go.”

  “First, Subcaptain Nevarr is in the wind. It seems someone ordered a backup plan involving explosives on a flitter, a purchase she neglected to mention when you caught her.” Someone being Davidro’s special protégé, Senga Si’in Lai. Whatever secret procedures the CPS had done to the woman as part of the ultra-secret Charisma project gave her a magnetic personality, made her highly sexual, and gave her an uncanny understanding of political dynamics. However, she was also fracturing like a slow-motion maglev train wreck, and becoming increasingly jealous and vengeful over nonsensical things. The Branko Regional Council’s transgression had been withdrawing their endorsement of Si’in Lai’s candidacy for regional governor. Si’in Lai’s warped response had been to arrange the murders of everyone on the council. Nevarr apparently got special attention because she’d cast the deciding vote.

  Vahan laced her fingers. “I paid the kill fee on the other two contracts, and I delayed Nevarr so she missed the mine accident, but I didn’t find out about the flitter sabotage until too late. The only reason she survived was because instead of being over the water, she crash-landed in a small farm town, hundreds of kilometers off her known itinerary. She evidently had help from a local farm owner, who I believe is a retired CPS quartermaster named Jessperin Orowitz. He’s the only one in the area I can’t account for. She was injured, but she didn’t go to the medical center, she went from the local town clinic straight to the spaceport and vanished.”

  Davidro, who’d been looking merely irritated, frowned deeper and set his luminescent drink out of view. “Are you sure about Orowitz’s involvement?”

  Vahan shrugged. “As sure as I can be, without personal contact. Nevarr is smart enough to know a termination attempt when she survives one. I’m guessing here, because the locals won’t talk to strangers and Branimir’s records are sparse, but I think Nevarr somehow convinced Orowitz to rent a flitter and take her to the spaceport. Nevarr transferred business funds to a cashflow chip, bought a last-minute slot on an interstellar liner, but didn’t show, probably as a false trail. She could still be on Branimir, but smart money says she’s off-planet. Maybe he is, too. For some reason, I can’t get a line on his finances.”

  Davidro looked to his left and spoke louder. “Mr. Renner, get Georgie and Lamis in here.” He leaned forward to rest an elbow on his knee and put two fingers to his chin in thought. “I wonder what drew Orowitz out of his shell.”

  “Sir?” asked Vahan.

  “He was one of my Kams for a few years, right before he retired. He’s a loner. I’d completely forgotten he was on Branimir until Neirra decided she wanted to retire there, of all places, and Lamis reminded me.” His tone said he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to live on Branimir, and Vahan had to agree.

  Vahan tilted her head. “Orowitz was in the Kameleon Corps? Does that make him dangerous?” Davidro mentioned the Corps occasionally, but had been uncharacteristically cagey about details. Usually the man was happy to over-share, or at least boast.

  “Dangerous? More like zero-witted. The best Kam candidates are personality flatliners, and he was no exception. Kams are well paid, and he got a full-tour retirement bonus, too. He could’ve bought a fully furnished estate anywhere, but he holed up on a tiny farm on one of the most boring planets in the galaxy.”

  Vahan made a mental note to find out more about Kameleons. Maybe retired, wealthy veterans needed personal security managers.

  A sound on Davidro’s end had him looking up and to his right. “Lamis, do I have an official record of anyone named Kerzanna Nevarr?”

  Lamis bel Doro, Davidro’s only official CPS employee, was a minder of the general filer variety, with an eidetic memory for everything. She had a love-hate relationship with all the independent contractors, but especially with Georgie, Davidro’s brilliant but flawed, childlike forecaster, mostly because bel Doro got stuck with babysitting him most of the time. No one loved Renner, Davidro’s angry enforcer.

  After a long moment, bel Doro’s voice said, “A ‘Nevarr, K’ is on the initial Ridderth police action casualty list dated GDAT 3238.082. A list dated 3238.085 superseded it, and the name isn’t on it.”

  Davidro rolled his eyes. “As I recall, half the city was on that first list. What about our records? Any connection between her and Jessperin Orowitz? Friends? Known sex partners?”

  “Orowitz’s record lists none of either.” Davidro relied on bel Doro for detailed information because details bored him and his official records were deliberately vague and full of holes. He kept personal journals, too, but rarely referred to them in Vahan’s presence. She sometimes wondered how he ensured bel Doro’s loyalty, but wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  Davidro’s fingers drummed along the fashionable glowing studs highlighting his cheekbone. “I suppose it’s possible they met in Ridderth, but it’s more likely they met on Branimir.” He leaned forward and focused on Vahan again. “Send
me whatever local records you can extract on Orowitz and Nevarr, and I’ll ask sweet Georgie Pie to work his magic on them both.” He said the last with a loving smile and a blown kiss directed off-camera. Georgie, the often-drugged savant forecaster who was an idiot in everything else, fell for it every time.

  Vahan cleared her throat. “I have an idea on how to complete the Nevarr assignment if I act fast, but it will cost extra to stay anonymous, and Orowitz might be a casualty if he’s with her.”

  He pursed his lips and laced his fingers. “I’ll make the budget work. Do it.”

  Vahan hid her disdain that he cared more about money than his former special ops employee. No wonder Davidro had to make his contractors act like they were his friends; it was the only way he’d have any.

  “What’s the other bad news?”

  Vahan drew a deep breath. “Neirra Varemba is dead.”

  Davidro gasped in shock. “How?”

  “After Nevarr vanished at the spaceport, I figured I may as well check on Varemba again since I was there. I took one of the hired mercs with me, in case we spotted Nevarr along the way. Varemba took one look at the uniform and started screaming about an ‘orange fish of death.’ I’d have just left her alone to sleep off the bad chems, but she pulled a high-res beamer out of one of her crates of crap and pointed it at the merc. Before I could get to her, the merc hit her with a neurowhip. We didn’t know her back had that… appliance.” Davidro didn’t seem surprised, meaning he’d known about it. Probably installed it himself. Vahan’s mouth went dry. “Made her jitter like she’d been struck by lightning. Set the back of her dress on fire, and nearly took the ship interior down, too, until air filters and suppressor foam kicked in.”

  The horrific image haunted her thoughts, making the rest of her memory of what had happened seem vague by comparison. She suppressed a shudder and continued. “The merc and I, uhm, agreed that the age of her ship and the clutter she collected caused an unfortunate accident, and chose not to notify the authorities, rather than be detained for questioning.”

  “My beautiful, sweet Neirra.” Unexpectedly, tears welled in Davidro’s eyes. “She was the best pet I ever had. She deserved better.” One tear fell. “A peaceful death, surrounded by the people who cared for her.”

  Most of Davidro’s emotional displays seemed calculated, but this looked genuine. Her momentary sympathy was tempered by the suspicion that he meant he should have quietly killed Varemba instead of letting her retire. “I could have her remains made into a memory diamond, if you’d like.” She knew of a couple of no-questions-asked cremation services, but she’d have to ship Varemba’s body to them.

  He wiped at his tear with the back of his hand. “It’s a kind thought.” He sighed a little raggedly. “But her cover story there was as a fractured loner, and making family-style arrangements for her would draw too much attention.” He shook his head. “We’ll have to be satisfied with the fiery destruction of that junker ship of hers.” He gave her a sharp look. “See to it yourself. I don’t want any more mercs involved.”

  Vahan nodded. “Of course, sir.” She clamped her jaw to stop herself from testily reminding him she was a professional. If she aggravated him, he might make her stay on the stinking sinkhole of Branimir even longer. Time to focus on the positive.

  “So, here’s my idea for handling Nevarr…”

  CHAPTER 10

  * Interstellar: “Faraón Azul” Ship Day 03 * GDAT: 3242.006 *

  KERZANNA SMOOTHED THE front of the burgundy and silver uniform jacket over her stomach and hips and pulled the silver shiplink on the undertunic’s collar into position. Even though the ship’s fifty-one passengers would never see her and the commercial shipping company knew she was a temporary fill-in, the ship captain’s standing orders required all crew, regardless of position or status, to wear the company uniform. The ship’s part-time logistics officer grumbled about having to autotailor hers because the set sizes he had in supply wouldn’t fit, but she gathered he enjoyed complaining. She was pleased with the crown of variegated pale braids she’d fashioned for herself with some hastily added hair extenders. They kept her hair out of her way while hiding her skulljack nicely, and the opaque permaderm coating on her skin hid her Jumper tattoos. She straightened the nametag that proclaimed her to be Stellar Navigator Laraunte Kane.

  She stepped out of the cramped fresher and into the cramped quarters with the foldaway everything. She closed her bag and stowed it, then sent a quick message to “Cadroy”—Jess—that the room was all his.

  In the nav pod, situated in the upper center of the ship, she listened to the shift turnover briefing from Ritanjali Bhatta, a Commercial Class 3 navigator and the only other navigator on the ship, not counting the pilots. So far, the trip had been routine, but she only had two previous shifts to judge by.

  “The captain wants to make up some of the wait-time we lost on Branimir by making ultra-short packet drops from here on out,” said Bhatta, her English softly accented by her primary language of Hindi. “I preset the next plot and left it in the queue.”

  “Thanks,” Kerzanna said, trying to mean it. Class 1 navigators should be grateful when better trained and more experienced navigators handled challenging tasks, even though it left the Class 1 navigator with nothing to do for most of her upcoming shift.

  Bhatta stood and stretched. She was a round-faced, brown-skinned woman with narrow shoulders, dark wavy hair, and sparkling eyes. “I hope they’ve found us another navigator on Win-Prox. These long shifts are giving me a fat ass.”

  Kerzanna smiled sympathetically as she sat and manually adjusted the seat for her longer legs. As a Jumper, she’d worked a lot longer shifts, but they’d been a lot less dull, and rarely involved sitting. Her waster’s disease made it much easier to sit still for long periods, but she paid a price in all around stiffness later if she didn’t stretch and take a brisk walk during each of the allowed hourly breaks, and visit the utilitarian crew gym daily.

  Bhatta removed the wire from her skulljack and put it in a drawer that had several boxes of them, then sealed it with her biometric. For safety and security, pilot/nav wires were segregated from general ship jackwires. Instead of leaving, Bhatta sidled closer and spoke quietly. “Maybe it’s none of my business, but Cadroy spent your last sleep shift glued to his percomp and the public shipcomps. He was pretty intense about it.”

  Kerzanna rolled her eyes. “Probably working on a new algo to beat the house. This year, he thinks he’s a gambler.” She heaved an aggrieved sigh. “If my idiot fourth cousin spent half as much time and energy on a real job, he could buy his own casino and try out all the algorithms he could dream up.”

  Bhatta laughed. “Sounds like my uncle. Ran from work, but never ran into an avoid-work scheme he wouldn’t try.” She touched the side of her head in a mock Space Div salute. “See you in twelve.”

  Kerzanna was glad she and Jess had taken the time to come up with a layered story for their presence on the ship. Little details like that made it work.

  She formally checked in with Malámselah, the third-shift pilot on duty. He was a kindly older man with a potbelly, an infectious laugh, and a slight Arabic accent to his English. She liked him better than the second-shift pilot Liao, a supercilious, dark-skinned woman who liked to pretend she owned the nav pod unless the captain was present. Kerzanna only knew first-shift pilot Kreutz as a name and holo image on the crew roster.

  The Faraón Azul, a mid-sized, sphere-shaped passenger-freighter ship, ordinarily operated with a crew of twenty, but they’d lost two navigators, an engine tech, and two ship stewards on the last two planetary space station stops, for unrelated reasons. This segment of the scheduled run called for the ship’s modular interior to be configured for more cargo than passengers, but that would change once they hit the Mabingion Space Station. She felt mildly guilty that she and Jess would be disappearing there, meaning the shipping company would be needing yet another new navigator.

  Transport Estrellita co
mpany policy said she had to mostly stay in her seat in the nav pod, even though commercial navigators had few duties while the ship was in interstellar transit other than being another pair of eyes on transit space performance and logs. To keep busy, she ran a status check on all the ship’s systems she had access to and familiarized herself with the star charts for the upcoming packet drop that would happen toward the end of her shift. Ships in transit couldn’t send or receive communications, so they regularly dropped into real-time space at one of the millions of comm-and-position-reference buoys deployed throughout the explored galaxy to send and receive communications packets. If someone ever developed an interstellar comm system that worked from ship to ship in transit, or ship in transit to realspace, they could buy their own solar system with the first month’s profits.

  Keeping herself occupied with the navcomp was also good cover for exchanging messages with Jess, a.k.a. Cadroy Joffalk, her disgraced, flatline broke distant cousin who was shift-sharing her crew quarters on the trip back to their family’s home planet of Osapan. Back on Branimir, he’d created cover identities for them on the fly, using only his percomp and a hijacked hypercube in a ship repair company’s unattended office. He’d added a basic Class 1 commercial nav cert to her “Laraunte Kane” ID when she’d found a crew opening on a ship that had Mabingion on its itinerary. Luckily, the Faraón had been stuck at Branimir’s space station until they could find a second navigator, so they’d rushed through the background and credential checks, and sweetened the deal with the “family rides free” benefit. They hadn’t even run her or Jess through the security scanners, saving her from explaining away her cybernetic femur and hip. Civilians got vat-grown cloned replacements, not biometal.