by C. G. Hatton
Duncan was still sleeping. LC settled quietly onto his own bunk and stretched out. Elliott had said Sean’s ship had an AI so going with her and stealing the ship was probably out of the question. Going with her and persuading her to take him somewhere else was a possibility. If she genuinely wasn’t interested in the bounty, he could start to work on her. Maybe she’d consider a diversion to Aston. He could introduce her to Pen and decide from there if he could go back to the guild.
It occurred to him that he hadn’t been able to confront her about Hil. If he owned up and admitted who he was, he could ask what the hell she’d done with Hilyer. She might know if he was still alive.
He didn’t realise he’d fallen asleep again until he became aware of a gentle nudging at his awareness.
“Elliott,” he replied without opening his eyes.
He felt the amusement in Elliott’s reply. “I thought you might like to see something interesting.”
LC sat up, opening his eyes and startled to see Elliott sitting there between the two bunks.
“Jesus, Elliott,” he whispered out loud, “why didn’t you just wake me up?”
The tech guy smiled and leaned across to hand over a data board. It was playing footage from security cameras on the dockside, something hacked from station security. LC watched a figure that was obviously Thom walk hands in pockets up to a guarded airlock, flash an ID at the guards there and wait while they cycled the door.
“So?”
“Listen to this.”
LC felt the connection switch and broaden as Elliott played back a recording through the link. He recognised Thom sounding defensive, “… I haven’t had a chance,” then a woman’s voice, “Lieutenant Garrett, don’t give me that. You’ve had plenty of time to corroborate the evidence. Find out where and find out how. Check in within the next hour and you’d better have something to report,” clipped tones and no humour, military.
“There’s more,” Elliott said, “but you get the idea.”
“Christ.”
“The ship he went onto is registered with Earth, some phoney corporation that doesn’t exist past some dubious documentation they filed with the station.”
“So Thom is Earth military?”
“So it would appear, attached to some covert spec ops unit by the look of it.”
“Why,” LC sent, keeping to the link so as not to disturb the big marine, “why the hell is Earth running a covert operation on a shit-hole like Sten’s World? There’s nothing here.”
“You know Gallagher’s story?”
“The aliens?”
Elliott nodded. “He was shot down returning from a routine supply run to one of the mining colonies. He swears blind it was an alien vessel, out of nowhere, faster than anything he’s ever seen, configured like nothing anyone has ever encountered before and it shot him down. Destroyed his ship and the AI he’d worked with for years. Gallagher was lucky to get away at all.”
“Elliott, we’ve all heard his story. Are you saying it’s true?”
He spread his arms with a little shrug. “Who knows? But it looks like Earth has a spec ops unit operating here in the Between and it looks like they’ve sent young Lieutenant Garret to check out Gallagher. Maybe they’re looking for aliens.”
LC couldn’t help the smile that snuck out. He’d been sent to retrieve enough ‘alien’ artefacts in his career. They were some of the most valuable items out there and the corporations didn’t believe such artefacts should languish in private collections unless it was their own. So if the owner refused to sell, the guild was sent in to acquire – all in the name of scientific progress. Most of it was junk. One piece had eaten through its hermetically-sealed container and then his backpack to give him second-degree burns before he’d realised something was wrong. God knows what that had been.
Elliott stood up. “I suppose they had to chase down Gallagher to see if there was anything in his story. He was making enough noise, telling anyone who’d listen. Lieutenant Thom Garrett is probably just here to confirm that it’s bunkum. More probably they suspect the Wintrans of developing some new technology out here.”
He patted LC’s leg briefly as he passed, heading towards the door. “This has been a most entertaining crew, I must admit. The best the Duck has seen in a long time.”
LC stared after him. “How many have you seen?”
Elliott walked out without answering.
“What’s your story, Elliott?” LC fired after him. “You know all about the rest of us. You can listen in to a tight wire between Senson Sixes. That’s hacking military grade shit.”
The man was a black void of nothing that LC couldn’t read or even sense. But that ability was at least one thing Elliott didn’t know about and not something LC would admit to.
He didn’t reply. LC rubbed the back of his neck. Whether Thom was here for Gallagher or not, he didn’t want to be anywhere near military of any sort. Sean’s offer was suddenly looking more and more tempting.
Chapter 20
“Garrett?” the Man said, picking up the jug and swirling gently. “Why do I know that name?”
NG drained the last of his wine and pushed the goblet across the desk. “Old Earth,” he said. “Military family. Generations of top brass. There’s been a high ranking Garrett involved in every major Imperial military action for the last five hundred years.”
“Same family?”
“As far as we can tell,” NG said. Legal had had a field day digging into the history files. “Their latest prodigy vanished from all records two years ago.”
“Are you sure it’s him?”
NG watched as the Man topped up both cups from the jug.
“Our military and government contacts on Earth deny all knowledge of a Thomas Garrett,” NG said. “But then they deny that they have a special operations unit nudging Wintran space out in the Between.”
White tendrils of vapour crept upwards, dissipating into the darkness.
The Man set the jug aside. “They lie and deceive while the real enemy circles. How close are they to finding out the truth?”
NG gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. There were always rumours of alien sightings on both sides of the line. Gallagher was no exception.
The Man stood up. He reached down to nudge a pawn. “Circumstances conspire to gather these individuals to us,” he said. “I understand Ms O’Brien came close to bringing Anderton back. What happened?”
•
Sean sat on the end of the bunk, cross-legged, holding a hand with two pairs, kings and fours, ace high. She was thinking she could raise the bet but decided to call instead. She was too cautious and way too impatient for poker; she had no feel for the finesse of it.
“What else did Hilyer say about me?” LC sent privately through the link. It was good to hear that Hil was safe, or at least had been safe when Sean left him at the guild. He didn’t care that Elliott was probably listening in – there wasn’t much the guy didn’t know anyway.
“He said never to play you at poker.”
LC grinned and laid out his hand of four queens.
Sean threw down her cards in disgust. “Why now?” she said. “What’s changed?”
LC gathered the cards and shuffled, hard and fast, lining them up the way he wanted as she looked straight at him, not his hands.
“You’re right,” he said. “It’s time to go but I need you to take me to Aston, not the Alsatia.”
She smiled and shook her head. “No deal. I get paid once you’re back at the guild. And I won’t be happy that you’re safe until I see you back there.”
LC paused with the deck poised to be dealt. “What did Hil tell you about the guild?”
Sean narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
LC bit his lip and squinted back at her. “Because it wasn’t just running an unauthorised tab that got us into trouble. We were set up. And someone at the guild must have been in on it.”
She started to shake her head but realised the precarious position she
was in. He could tell she absolutely appreciated the privilege he’d granted her in admitting who he was and she knew without any doubt that if he wanted to, he could lose her again. She was thinking that he could vanish into thin air if she so much as took her eyes off him.
He dealt the cards, four aces to Sean and a straight flush to himself.
She picked up the hand, stared at him for a moment than threw the cards face up onto the bunk. “Okay, I get it. You can do whatever the hell you want.” She smiled. “But I found you and I’m taking you back. Aston is too dangerous.”
LC laid his own hand out, five hearts from nine to king, and she laughed. “You know,” she said, “everything everyone told me about you is true. I should have asked for more money. NG isn’t paying me enough. Here, let me deal. And tell me why you think someone at the guild set you up. God, I need to know things like that if I’m going to keep you safe.”
She took the deck and they pretended to play cards while he told her the whole story. For some reason that he didn’t understand, once he started and she was sitting there listening, he couldn’t stop and he spilled everything, more than he’d ever told anyone. Even Hil.
Except when he got to the part about the lab, he faltered and skipped over the rest. She didn’t need to know about the virus and she didn’t ask why the bounty was so high.
She went back to the bridge with an hour left before they were due in at T72.
LC snoozed, any unease at the thought that she knew about his life cancelled out by the idea of a free ride out with a bounty hunter watching his back. She’d told him she was getting paid standard rates by the guild – half a mill plus expenses and that’s plenty, she’d said. If she had any intention of selling him out for the twenty six million, she was hiding it well.
He was woken up from deep sleep by an urgent call that broke through abruptly, no subtlety in getting his attention and a sharpness to Sean’s voice that set his nerves on edge. “Change of plan,” she said. “Get up to the bridge.”
He hadn’t meant to sleep and he sat up feeling rattled. He pulled his gun out from under the pillow and slid off the bed to see Hal Duncan watching, eyes open but bleary. The big ex-marine was cold and it looked like he had the shivers pretty badly. As LC watched, he tried to sit up. A vicious spike of pain shooting up his spine from the small of his back made the big man wince and made LC cringe in a physical manifestation of empathy that was eyewateringly real. He’d picked up on people’s pain before, bad when they were close, but nothing to this degree. And this was pain he’d thought he was done with. Going through it a second time, even by proxy, just sucked.
“Hey,” he said awkwardly.
“Hey,” Duncan whispered back hoarsely. “Where am I?”
LC tucked his pistol behind his back and grabbed his jacket. “On the Duck. What do you remember?”
“McCabe shooting his mouth off to Mal Donnelly. Not much after that,” he admitted. “I feel like shit. What happened?”
LC shrugged into his jacket and stuck his hands in his pockets, feeling uncomfortable. This guy would have died if they hadn’t infected him with god knows what – how the hell was he supposed to explain what had happened? Hey, you’ll live but the entire galaxy will be chasing after you to pin you down, liquidise your brain and inject it into rats.
“We left Sten’s World,” he said. “We probably won’t be going back.”
Duncan nodded, like he might have been remembering. “Jesus.”
LC picked up flashes of intense anger, and an edge of something he couldn’t fathom. A headache was starting to prickle behind his eyes.
“Where are we now?” Duncan asked, wincing as he tried to move again and thought better of it. He was pale, fighting an incredible amount of pain and pushing through it by sheer force of will. It was hard not to stare. LC had almost forgotten how bad it had been and his admiration for the man went up knowing what it must be taking for him to sit there not screaming in agony.
“Heading into some mining colony. We’ve got cargos to ditch and I suppose Gallagher will figure something out after that.”
“McCabe’s a son of a bitch,” Duncan murmured. “I tried to tell Donnelly but he wouldn’t listen.”
LC didn’t know what to say. Duncan was thinking that he should never have let Richardson go home. They’d fought together, the intense pain of loss going back a long way, memories of deafeningly heavy firepower and the punch of dust and shrapnel from explosions that were too close for comfort mingling with unyielding bonds of camaraderie that made the losses all the more painful.
Duncan closed his eyes and shivered. LC pulled the blanket from his own bunk and put it within reach.
“I have to go to the bridge,” he said quietly and backed away. “Shout if you need anything.”
The tension on the bridge was palpable. Thom was sitting in the engineer’s chair, seething, trying to hold in an anger that had more to do with the dressing down he’d had than anything that was happening on the bridge. Sean was tapping at her console like it had given her a personal insult and DiMarco was standing with Gallagher, a hand on the older man’s shoulder, reassuring him that it would be fine.
It didn’t look fine.
“What’s up?” LC said casually, walking up behind Thom and peering over his shoulder.
Thom shook his head. Sean didn’t look up but she answered through the wire, “DiMarco failed to mention that T72 doesn’t have an orbital. We’re taking the ship down onto the planet. Gallagher is fraught, Thom isn’t happy, Elliott reckons we’ll be fine.”
“And you?”
“My ship is going to meet us down there. We can switch when she lands. I’m not happy but it’s the best we’re going to be able to do.”
“Why did you want me up here? Thom looks like he’s got it under control.”
“I want you close by. I’ll explain to Gallagher as soon as we get there that we have to go. Elliott and Thom can cover for the rest of the trip.”
He could feel that she was worried. The sudden change in plan following his unexpected outpouring of honesty had made her reassess. Now she knew for definite that he was him and he wasn’t fighting her anymore, she wanted to go.
And she was uneasy about DiMarco, that was clear.
“We have a few minutes before we start to descend,” she said out loud. “You’d better all buckle in.”
Gallagher and DiMarco took their seats and LC slipped into one of the auxiliary chairs.
“It’s a great place,” the pilot said. “I’m sure I said there was no station. You must’ve not been listening to me, Seanie. Bill, I swear, you’ll love it. I’m surprised you haven’t been out here before. The people are great. They’re in the middle of nowhere and they’re always so chuffed to get a shipment, you can triple the price you ask and they’ll pay it. Believe me.”
“I know,” Gallagher said distractedly, “it’ll be fine.” He was thinking that he just wanted to get done and get to Erica.
They dipped into a steep descent. LC sat back and closed his eyes. The Duck was one hell of an old ship to be putting through the stresses of landing on a planet.
He squinted and dug sunglasses out of his inside jacket pocket. Sean was standing next to him and she put a hand on his back, the gentle gesture he’d seen her use before. It sent a shiver down his spine and not an unpleasant one.
“Don’t wander off,” she warned, speaking through the link, and squinting herself as she stared off into the distance. “I don’t like this.”
They’d got a message from the surface just as they hit the atmosphere, warning them that the designated airfield at the colony was too small and they’d have to land in the desert. No real problem except the ship was now surrounded by a dozen vehicles and they didn’t seem to be anywhere near the colony itself. DiMarco had shrugged it off as fine. “They’ll pay extra,” he’d said. “Trust me.” And he’d walked out to meet the colonists. Gallagher had looked uneasily at LC, not wanting to leave the ship himself but t
hinking more and more that this had been a bad idea and desperately needing someone to go with the pilot to hear what was said. It had been wrenching to overhear and before he’d realised it, LC had jumped up and volunteered to just go hang out with DiMarco because he needed to stretch his legs and get some fresh for-real air. Sean had glowered at him and followed but as much as she was unimpressed, he caught the feeling that she wasn’t trusting DiMarco either and thinking that it might be better to know first hand what was going on.
They followed the pilot down the ramp and watched as he waved, signalling to one of the vehicles. Its doors were thrown open and three guys got out, wearing desert gear but looking less like miners and more like mercenaries the closer they came.
The air was dry and hot and it reminded LC of Kheris. But it was good to walk on the soil of a planet, boots crunching on the uneven surface, even if it was a rocky dirt ball that brought back childhood nightmares.
DiMarco was greeted like a long-lost brother, lots of back slapping and hand shaking, and it was hard to tell if this was just a friendly meeting of business associates or something more. The pilot laughed and nodded to them. “Gentlemen, this is Luka Cole and Sean O’Brien, crew on the ship.” He waved back towards the Duck, which was a looming mass behind them and as much as it was huge, LC couldn’t help but feel that it was the vulnerable one there.
“The cargo’s ready for unload,” DiMarco said, rubbing his hands together. “Where’s Tierney?”
They were directed towards another vehicle, set back from the rest, and as they approached, a door opened and a huge guy stepped out, standing away from the car with one hand inside his bulky jacket.
DiMarco stopped and turned. “Might be best if you guys wait here. It’ll just take a minute but Tierney doesn’t like strangers.”
Sean stepped in close. “Don’t screw us over, DiMarco.”
He spread his hands with a smile. “Would I do that?”
LC looked back at the ship. Vehicles had backed up to the ramp and guys were trundling out loaders. Thom was back there with Gallagher to supervise from inside but whatever happened, they were outnumbered and he had a bad feeling this was looking less and less like a routine resupply.