Negative Return: A Durga System Novella (Durga System Series Book 2)

by Jessie Kwak

  “We need to tell the others,” Manu says. He’s on Jaxie’s heels as they jog to the back of the courier van. Kai and Oriol are securing a bulky crate in the back of Sarah’s van.

  “Driver’s down,” Manu shouts. “But we gotta go. He — ”

  He’s interrupted by screeching tires and whirls, pistols out. But it’s just Beni’s spinner, speeding away to the rendezvous like he didn’t have passengers he was supposed to take with him.

  Manu swears.

  “I guess we’re riding with you,” he says to Sarah, and she just glares at him and thumbs at the narrow, hard benches lining both walls of the van.

  Dammit, Manu hates this job.

  Sarah’s starting to pull away before Manu even has a chance to close the back door.

  “Drive!” Jaxie growls. “The driver had a fucking Alliance badge.”

  Well, Manu no longer needs to decide if he’s going to mention that or not. He manages to get one arm through a safety harness before Sarah lurches the van into her first corner. “Did you know we were hitting the Alliance?” Manu asks Oriol and Kai. Kai just ignores him.

  “I don’t ask,” Oriol says with a hint of impatience.

  Manu clicks his microphone on. “Tosh? Did you know we — ”

  Something clicks out on his feed. He frowns at Kai, but it’s Sarah who’s tapping something into her gauntlet.

  She hits a button and his earpiece comes back to life with a dry pop. He can hear Toshiyo on the other end: “Manu? Manu, what happened? Come in.”

  “Tosh, the courier was Alliance. Get out of there.” But he can tell his words aren’t getting through.

  “Manu?”

  “He’s good,” says Kai, and Manu can hear Toshiyo’s sharp intake of breath. “Communication troubles. Sandstorm.”

  Sarah clicks off the connection again.

  “What did you do?” Manu asks.

  “Time for radio silence,” Sarah says.

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  “New plan,” Kai says. “Alliance got told where the base was.”

  “Told by who?” Manu asks.

  Kai doesn’t answer. “Change of rendezvous. Beni, come in.” He taps at his earpiece. “Get me back with Beni,” he tells Sarah. “Chump took off too fast. And hail Gia. We need her to meet us.”

  Jaxie makes a face at Manu, but then just straps herself into the harness without a word. She’s game for anything.

  Oriol says nothing, but he meets Manu’s gaze with a small frown. This is all news to him, and he’s not happy about the change in plans.

  “Base needs to know,” Manu says. But Kai and Sarah have obviously hijacked this job — whether they’re going out on their own, or working with Coeur to double-cross Jaantzen. He wants to live, he needs to keep his mouth shut. “If the Alliance is on their way to the warehouse, we have to tell base.”

  “Not your problem,” Kai says.

  Oriol’s shaking his head, Shut up, kid written all over his face.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sarah says in answer to some call only she can hear. “We have the crate. Heading to the second rendezvous point.”

  Coeur it is, then. They’re heading to the second rendezvous to meet with Coeur, who has set Toshiyo and Jaantzen up to take the fall with the Alliance.

  And his first job as her new potential recruit is to let them.

  “You can’t leave them to get picked up,” Manu says, even though that’s clearly what Kai and Sarah intend to do.

  “We got orders,” Kai says, his voice barely more than a growl.

  Manu doesn’t care.

  “What the hell is in this box Coeur wants so bad?” he asks, slipping out of his harness.

  Kai lunges for him, but Manu’s already pried the lid off the box. It comes loose more easily than he expected, and he lurches back, spine cracking against the bench.

  “You guys knock it off back there,” Sarah yells, swerving — out of necessity or emphasis, Manu can’t tell which.

  Manu pulls himself gingerly into a crouch, but Kai isn’t coming after him — he’s staring at whatever’s in the box, his face a mask of fury. A flush of red seeps out from his collar and hairline, and Manu’ll bet he’s about to see real-life steam pouring out of the man’s cauliflower ears.

  “What the hell?” That’s Oriol, his professional expression fractured into confusion.

  Manu pushes himself up to see.

  What’s in the box is Beni: limp, but breathing, folded up like a rag doll, his neck cricked at an uncomfortable angle.

  And on that neck, two welts, about fifteen millimeters apart — like the marks Manu’s neural stunner just left on the neck of the courier driver.

  “I saw Beni driving away,” Jaxie says, brow furrowed in confusion.

  Manu also saw Beni’s spinner tearing away. He never for a minute thought Beni wasn’t at the controls.

  “So who was driving?” Jaxie asks.

  Kai lets out a deadly growl.

  “Gia.”

  13

  Backing up the Backup Plans

  “Which way did she go?” Sarah yells, and Manu grabs a handhold just as she swerves to the right. He tumbles onto a bench and grabs at the harness, trying three times to get the buckles to catch. Oriol’s done the same across the way.

  “Hail her!” Kai yells back.

  “I’m trying. She’s not answering.”

  “Of course she’s not answering,” Manu says, and for a split second he gets a face full of Kai’s red-eyed fury. Oriol’s giving him a warning look. “If she and Jaantzen were planning to double-cross the rest of us the whole time, you think she’ll answer now?”

  Sarah spits out a string of profanity and veers to the left.

  “She’ll have a backup plan with Toshiyo and Jaantzen,” Manu says. He’s staring down the bull; he can feel Kai’s breath hitting his cheek in hot, angry blasts, but he doesn’t care anymore: Cut me again, asshole, he thinks. He’s over these games.

  “They’re the only ones who can bring Gia in, now,” Manu says. “Unless they get taken by the Alliance.”

  Kai and Sarah share a glance.

  “Unless you think I’m wrong, and Gia’s actually working with Blackheart. You think Blackheart was planning to leave us all out to dry all along?”

  That gets results. Manu’s gratified to see righteous fury on Kai’s face, and can’t believe Jaantzen got taken for a sucker by this one. Everything about his body language screams traitor. He wishes now that he’d said something, but how could he have known?

  Thing is, it’s not a matter of whether or not he could have known — he knew the whole time. Knew by their body language that Kai was loyal to Coeur and that Coeur wouldn’t think twice about throwing Jaantzen to the wolves. Knew in his gut that Marisa would leave him the second she found out what he did. Knew by reputation that Siggy’s deadbeat boyfriend would kill her if she tried to leave.

  He just hadn’t done a damn thing about it. Just like his grandma’d never done a damn thing about what her sons did to either of her grandkids.

  Oriol’s trying his best to stay out of the argument. Checking his weapons, reloading a magazine. Jaxie’s hanging with one arm hooked through her harness, watching Kai and Manu like she’s at a boxing match but doesn’t have money on the line. Nobody’s paying any attention to Beni. Poor bastard’s gonna have a bad day when he wakes up.

  The Alliance is closing in on Toshiyo and Jaantzen, and nobody else is going to help them out.

  “You wanna get Blackheart her due, you better track down Gia,” Manu says. “And Jaantzen and Toshiyo are the only ones who can do that.”

  A long beat. Kai’s glare slowly morphs into frustration as he realizes Manu is right.

  “Pull over,” he barks at Sarah. “Base, you copy?”

  Sarah screeches to a halt in an alleyway, then taps something in her gauntlet. The maneuver makes Oriol drop a bullet. He gives Sarah a mild-mannered look that on another man might be fury, then reaches long golden fi
ngers to pick it back up, snap it into the magazine.

  “All right. You’re on,” Sarah says.

  “Base, you copy?” Kai asks again.

  Toshiyo’s voice crackles through all of their ears. “Kai! What happened?”

  “Target was Alliance — I think we got played. You two get out of there.”

  A faint hesitation. Manu shouts at Toshiyo in his mind: Listen! Get out of there!

  “Copy that,” Toshiyo says finally. “Rendezvous two.”

  “Good,” Kai says. “Gia, you copy? Rendezvous two.”

  “I’ll make sure she and Beni know. I’ll still be — shit — ”

  Toshiyo cuts out in a staccato of gunfire.

  Manu’s heart sinks.

  RENDEZVOUS TWO IS EVEN DINGIER and less impressive than the original warehouse, and about twenty minutes away. They pull into an oversized garage, the sort of place you could strip down and refurb an entire orbital cargo hauler. Given the stink of oil and jagged piles of thruster parts stacked haphazardly around the room, that’s probably exactly what it’s been used for.

  Manu’s the first one out of the van — he’s been having trouble breathing since they lost Toshiyo, but the stench of mechanics and dust in the garage isn’t making things any easier. He scans the room, sneezes. Scans the room.

  Sneezes.

  “What the fuck is this place,” he mutters. He’s aware how pissy he sounds. He needs to dial it back.

  Oriol steps out beside him, and Manu can feel his evaluating gaze. Oriol’s deciding if he needs to distance himself. They share a brief glance, but Oriol just goes back to scanning the room. He’s chosen sides from the beginning, and that side is Team Oriol. Manu shrugs it off.

  “Help me get this guy out,” he says to Jaxie. Beni’s still crowded into the box, and nobody’s thought to do a thing about it. Not even Manu, until just this second, so he doesn’t give himself any hero points, either.

  Beni wakes up as they pry him out, head lolling and muscles loose. “It’s okay, big guy,” Manu says. “You’re gonna be fine.”

  “Zheeee.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Manu and Jaxie stretch him awkwardly on the floor of the van, stand to go. Beni grabs for Jaxie’s arm, misses, grabs again and claws his fingers in her sleeve. She looks like she might hit him. “Zheee,” he says, his speech a blur of vowels on his stunned tongue. She tugs away and he lets out a desperate, frustrated moan.

  “It was Gia,” Manu tells him. “We know.”

  Beni slumps back, message delivered. He doesn’t try to move again as Manu and Jaxie leave him lie.

  “What now,” Manu snaps at Kai as he climbs back out of the van. He can’t keep the anger out of his voice, even though he knows he’ll be no help to Toshiyo and Jaantzen if he pisses Kai off so much the man shoots him before they even get here.

  If they’re even still alive.

  “Now we wait,” Kai says. He gives Manu a long, evaluating look. “You got a problem with that?”

  “No problems,” Oriol answers for him. Manu swings his head to meet the other man’s gaze, and those honey-gold eyes pierce sharp. “Do we?” Oriol says, quiet.

  “No problems,” Manu says.

  None that’ll do him any good to bring up now, at least. He shrugs on his jacket. “I’ll check out the perimeter,” he says, and walks away before anyone can stop him. Behind him, he can hear Oriol murmuring something to Kai, defusing the situation. Whatever it is, it makes Sarah laugh.

  Rendezvous Two is all fourth-wave architecture, around the era when prefab warehouse panels were first being constructed on New Sarjun instead of being slung across the void from Indira. Got that signature gray-yellow patina from the early industrial metal composites corroding over time. Replicas of this look are popular in bars in the tourist district — the more dedicated to colonist kitsch the bar, the pricier the shots of imported Indiran liquors.

  Nobody’s setting up a swanky bar in this place, though — not without some serious bribes paid to the Bulari health department. Manu slaps his palm on the cracked glass beside the door and feels it shift. It’s been covered over in a peeling, yellowing film. Probably the only thing keeping it together for now.

  Someone’s been living here, though they’re not home now. There’s a pile of trash in the corner, picked through and sorted into careful piles. A few moped frames stripped of their parts. Nothing to indicate that whoever normally lives here is into anything bigger than petty theft and dropping shard.

  Manu tries a light switch. The archaic electrical system doesn’t seem to be working, but Manu pats the side of a circuit box as he passes.

  “Anything to report?”

  He turns just as Jaxie exhales a cloud of cigarette smoke. It doesn’t improve the warehouse’s general eau de dusty oil fume.

  Manu points at the pile of blankets in the corner. “We have a fellow trespasser.”

  Jaxie’s pulse carbine snaps to hands, the cigarette dangling from her lips.

  “Relax, psycho. He’s not here.”

  She shoots him a dirty look and lowers the gun.

  “We just supposed to meet them here?” he asks, and Jaxie shrugs. He tries to ignore the elephant in the room, that Jaantzen and Toshiyo are probably in the custody of the Alliance as they speak. Best say your goodbyes, if that’s the case. Get caught stealing from the Alliance it’s a trip to Redrock, for sure — and Manu doesn’t know anyone who’s ever gotten out of Redrock.

  Except for Gia.

  He desperately hopes she’s out there doing something heroic.

  A glass sign over the door reads Office. Manu gives a little hop and slaps it as he walks past. Jaxie gives him a look. “For good luck,” he says.

  “I didn’t know you were superstitious.”

  “Learned it from Grannie.”

  “Grannies don’t always teach the best lessons,” says a man’s voice behind him. Rich baritone, and Manu spins with weapon in hand, not sure what sort of reception he’ll be receiving. Across the room he hears safeties clicking off, Kai’s grunt and swear. Beside his shoulder, the faint whine of Jaxie’s pulse carbine.

  It’s Jaantzen and Toshiyo; he’s carrying a briefcase in each hand, she’s clutching a backpack clunky with bulky angles. His expression is dark.

  “Nice to see you all, too,” he says.

  14

  Kill Shot

  Manu lowers his weapon a fraction, sees the others do the same. Guns don’t go back in holsters, though, and Manu doesn’t think anyone is fooled by the faux civility.

  He honestly didn’t expect Jaantzen to show up here — the fact that he’d been betrayed must have been painfully obvious, and he’s not an idiot. But here he is, playing right into Coeur’s hands. Manu has a sick feeling about this.

  Jaantzen walks slowly through the room, Toshiyo trailing behind him with wide eyes. Her grip slips on the awkward backpack and Manu has to stop himself from grabbing it from her and shouldering the load. He needs his hands free for whatever’s about to happen.

  He needs her out of here.

  “We’ve got to track down Gia,” he says. “She — ”

  “She knocked Beni out and took the goods,” Kai cuts in. His glare makes it clear he doesn’t trust Manu not to let something slip.

  Everything has slipped, asshole.

  “Why would she do that?” Jaantzen asks in mock surprise.

  “You told her to,” Kai growls, and Jaantzen doesn’t deny the obvious. “You double-crossing us?”

  The slight hint of amusement on Jaantzen’s face hardens. “I’m doing the job I was hired for, Kai. I’m not sure I can say the same for you.”

  The veins in Kai’s thick neck are pulsing hard. Manu clears his throat before speaking — he doesn’t want to get a bullet in the head.

  “There’s a table here where Tosh can set up her gear,” Manu says, pointing to a workbench away from the van, away from the action. Away from trouble. Kai and Jaantzen both glare at him.

  “
She can call Gia where she is,” Kai says. Toshiyo starts to set down the backpack, and Kai swings his gun back to cover her. “Slow,” he says.

  Manu sighs. “Seriously, man, she — ”

  “Shut up or I kill you,” Kai says.

  There’s an edge in Kai’s voice beyond the anger, and even Sarah’s glaring at him now, her mechanical eye scanning him independent of the biological one. Manu wonders what she sees.

  The edge in Kai’s voice is a sort of dizzy power that Manu has heard over and over in his life from people who believed they were finally throwing off some sort of imagined oppression. It’s the same sort of fever pitch his dad’s voice would take on when he’d been drinking, just before the blows began to land. But Manu doesn’t think Kai’s been drinking. And that just makes this moment even more dangerous.

  Toshiyo’s bag meets cement with a heavy clatter as the equipment inside shifts against itself. She slides her fingerprint along the seal and a faint heat trail follows behind. Unlocked.

  “Show me,” Kai says, and she looks confused for a second, starts to reach in.

  “Show him what’s in the bag,” Manu says. He’d like to say more, but Kai shoots him a dangerous look.

  Manu’s mind is racing. Everybody has triggers: say the right word and they’ll smile at a shared memory, laugh at a joke, or fly into a rage. It’s how he kept Marisa around for so much longer than she should have stayed, even though they were terrible for each other — knowing just how to defuse an argument, how to make her smile again. It’s how he worked his dad’s anger to shift his attention when all the body language screamed danger. How he knew exactly when to ask his grandma for a favor.

  And how he’s learned when to get the hell out of the way.

  Every cell of his body is screaming that now is one of those times.

  Manu doesn’t know Kai well enough to know his triggers, but he can tell he thinks he’s on the edge of something big. The way he’s peacocking on power, chest out and chin up, the lazy way he’s swinging the weapon back and forth, Manu guesses he’s been waiting to get the upper hand on Jaantzen a long time.