by Jucha, S. H.
“Save this cloth,” Terese said, easing back and handing it to Alex. “That fool who put our children in jeopardy will need it when I make them cry.” With that, Terese left the cabin in her usual fashion — in a whirlwind of energy.
* * *
“Fortune is with us, Mr. President,” Julien said. The Rêveur was entering the ice fields that lay beyond Seda, the system’s outermost planet. “If we make for New Terra, our adversaries will not confuse our trajectory with any intent to approach Ganymede, which is more the 85 degrees spinward of our vector for the home world.”
“Good,” Alex agreed. He didn’t want to panic Toyo and his people. “Time to say hello to an old friend, Julien.”
Julien smiled and a pair of ancient headphones, the type with a metal band that connected over-sized ear pads, appeared on his head.
“Really, Julien,” Maria Gonzalez, the ex-president of New Terra, said when she answered the comm call on her reader. She had one of the newest reader versions with supposedly the latest encryption. Yet a call without a contact ID swept her security program aside and displayed the SADE’s face wearing a pair of silly, antique headphones. “So you’re playing comm operator now.”
“Greetings, ex-Madam President,” Julien said. “I’m pleased by the transmission quality of your FTL comms. Your people have done well.”
“Thank you, Julien. But it’s just Ser Gonzalez now, and it appears we still have a ways to go with our security apps. Is there a purpose to your call?”
In response to her question, Alex’s face replaced Julien’s. “Greetings, Maria, although you will always be my favorite president.”
“Flatterer,” Maria said, laughing. “So should I be worried … aliens chasing you … an apocalyptic storm headed our way?”
“No, just saying hello. I’m on vacation.”
Now Maria really laughed. She laughed so hard she had to hold her stomach to lessen the cry of abdominal muscles.
The vid pickup widened on Alex’s desk to show Renée perched on the edge. “Greetings, Maria, I told him he shouldn’t try to sell that ruse to you.”
“Oh, Alex and Renée, I’ve missed you people. Life has been too dull around here …” Maria suddenly stopped and eyed the two Harakens. “On second thought, maybe dull is good. So what’s really up, Alex?”
“I wish to hire your security firm to locate someone … a biochemist.”
Maria Gonzalez had completed her second and final term as New Terra’s president. She was now owner and president of a well-respected, security-consultancy business, which supported the requests of the government and small businesses. Offers from large corporations were refused.
“You don’t need my firm to contact a New Terran. Your SADEs could just comm them. You do have their name?”
“Afraid not.”
“An image? A New Terran ID number?”
“No, to those two items as well.”
“Okay, other than the fact they’re a biochemist, do you have anything else.”
“Yes, your reader has just received a group of basic compounds and the type of apparatus this individual would need to manufacture their drug. It’s a complex psychedelic with an addictive quality, quite sophisticated, according to Terese.”
“What would you want with a New Terran who is making an illegal drug, Alex?’ Maria asked, leaning closer to her reader’s pickup.
“It’s important that you do not let this individual or individuals know that you are seeking them. I’m hiring your security firm to surreptiously locate them and their manufacturing location, then send me this information.”
“And when you meet up with these people, then what?”
“Why, I intend to hire them, Maria,” Alex replied, grinning.
“Going into the illegal drug business, are you, Alex?”
“Just for a short while. Will you accept the contract?”
Maria didn’t need to think about it. Whatever was going on, this was Alex asking. “Yes, but I have two questions. Time sensitivity?”
“Immediate, as in yesterday. Put as many people on it as you need. If the manufacturing location isn’t on New Terra, I don’t want to waste time coming to the home world. Credits are not a problem … open contract.”
Open contract, Maria thought. “Tell me, Alex, that you aren’t aboard one of your carriers, inbound into Oistos.”
“Inbound, yes, but aboard the Rêveur,” Alex replied, winking slyly at Maria.
“I see … traveling under the guise of a simple vacationer. You do know that no one is going to believe that.”
“They don’t have to believe it, Maria. The cover story just has to create doubt long enough for me to accomplish my purpose here.”
“And that’s another question. When are you going to tell me what you’re really doing here?’
“When I can, Maria, I will. Right now, it’s better that you have deniability.”
“I see … well, Alex, my people and I appreciate the business, especially an open contract. Julien, how do I get in touch? Oh, I see.” Maria belatedly noticed the little icon of a robot’s face, who was wearing headphones, that was placed on her screen.
“Tap, slap, or punch the icon, Ser Gonzalez, and I will be at your disposal,” Julien replied.
“Be careful, Julien, you’re sounding more like Alex each time we meet,” Maria said.
A compliment indeed, Julien thought.
“Always a pleasure, you three … disaster or not,” Maria said, closing the comm.
* * *
“We need your decision, dear President. The window is closing for a stealthy departure,” Miranda Leyton said to Alex.
In order to make their plan work, Z had transferred to his femme fatale avatar, given a complex set of instructions to the Miranda persona, and then let her subsume his kernel. No triggers were embedded to return control to Z. Instead Z placed that option with Julien, since he had no idea when Miranda might complete her tasks.
Expectant faces were arrayed around Alex, and he was torn with indecision. The strategy his people had crafted was plagued with so many holes that Alex couldn’t count them all. What bothered him the most was that he didn’t have an alternate suggestion. His people, including him, knew too little about their adversaries.
The SADEs had managed to accumulate some crucial information. Researching government records, they had located Toyo’s mining operations, if that was the right word. Hacking into the orbital station overhead of Jolares, they had a close-up view of a huge dome, brilliantly lit, the light glowing from inside its transparent shell.
The plan, devised by the SADEs, Svetlana, and Deirdre Canaan, was to exit the liner in a traveler while still hidden in the ice fields and make for Jolares to attempt to locate the kidnapped girls. The group would appear as vacationers, with the SADEs setting up reservations at Toyo’s establishment, which obviously was a resort not a mining concern. It was a point that caused Alex to make a note to discuss this with the New Terran president. What lent credence to his crew’s plan was the freighter Bountiful was still docked at the orbital station above Jolares.
“Grab your bags. Then again, you’re probably already packed,” Alex said, relenting. “I’ll meet you in the bay.”
Alex was waiting in the bay with those who would stay behind — Julien, Cordelia, Tatia and Alain, Terese, Mickey and Pia, Cordova and Lumley, and Étienne and Ellie. Many of his people were too well-known by New Terrans to risk being identified.
The airlock disgorged a group of New Terran–built crew members, flamboyantly dressed, laughing, and chatting. When they saw their audience, they cheered loudly and climbed aboard the waiting traveler.
Svetlana and Deirdre were in the next group to come through the airlock, and Alex almost failed to recognize his wing commanders. Gone were the flight suits, severe hair styles, and unadorned faces. While the cheers of the crew, climbing aboard and celebrating their vacation opportunity, echoed throughout the bay, the commanders paused in front of Alex an
d Renée.
Svetlana and Deirdre, one light and one dark, stood with arms around each other and hips cocked together. Sheer wraps left little to the imagination; faces were gaily painted; and hair was coiffed in exotic patterns.
“Oh, he’s cute,” Svetlana smirked at Alex.
“Want to join us on some fun time, big boy?” Deirdre asked, her eyes smoldering.
“Remarkable disguises,” Alex stammered. “Forgive me if I must decline your lovely invitation.”
Alex watched as the two women simpered at the rebuff, turned, and dropped a hand onto each other’s derrières as they sauntered off to board the traveler.
As the last group cycled through the airlock, the reason for the extra crew, which boarded the traveler at Haraken, dawned on Alex. Someone had the foresight to plan this deception far enough in advance to draft people to hide those who would be leading the search. Word was it that it was Svetlana Valenko — she with the reputation for doing the unexpected. Alex was just hoping her streak of fortune would hold up and not get his sister and friends killed.
More lively cheers and hand waves accompanied the commanders’ climb into the traveler. Miranda followed them, hanging on the arms of two of the biggest New Terran crew members the Rêveur possessed. They paused in front of Alex, and the men smiled and tipped their hats, as a pair of miners might.
Miranda released the arms of her escorts and stepped close to Alex. “Do not frown, dear,” Miranda said, running her fingers across Alex’s forehead, as if she could wipe away his concerns. “We will do our best to bring the girls home safely.”
“You be safe too, Miranda,” Alex replied, almost calling her Z.
“And what do you think these two are for?” Miranda said, stepping back to link arms with her escorts. “They’re the largest specimens aboard.” She winked at Alex and said, “Come, boys, I’m anxious for a little fun.”
Alex and company cleared the airlock, most of them shaking their heads at what they had just witnessed. It was a tremendous display of well-acted roles, designed to show their audience that they could play their parts.
Little did Alex realize how much time Svetlana had spent with her entourage, drilling them on how to act their parts. It was Deirdre who was dying to ask how Svetlana knew the roles so well that they were supposed to be playing, but she never gathered the courage. She was still wondering when Svetlana made up both their faces and hair in a manner Deirdre had never seen before.
-11-
Barber took his time figuring out how to take on Boker and Jessie. Moving too fast was a stupid play. Jessie wasn’t quick but he was a big man and a brawler. If he closed on you, you’d likely suffer a broken jaw and then a snapped neck in quick succession. But Boker was the deadly one. He was a survivor and could sense trouble coming.
The major problem for Barber was that the two men were inseparable. It wasn’t that they liked each other, but having found that their skills complemented each other as protection against the dangers of their profession, they stayed in close proximity.
Barber tasked three individuals to help him, but the moment he defined the targets, two men tried to back out. He was forced to offer all three of them a bonus from his own reserves. The only individual not intimidated by taking on Boker and Jessie was a woman, who had a reputation for her work with poisoned blades. That was not uncommon in the domes. Weapons that threw slugs of any kind were prohibited in the domes by Toyo himself. A few people had paid the ultimate price for disobeying that decree. So, Toyo’s crew carried blades, some more blades than others and some with poison.
Barber’s plan was to trap the two men is a narrow utility corridor, where their defense options would be limited. Barber and the woman waited at the front of the trap.
Late that night, Jessie was the first one down the corridor, lumbering along and nearly filling the tight corridor all by himself. Boker brought up the rear and Barber’s men, who were behind them, made the mistake of moving too soon and making a little noise.
“Jessie, trap,” Boker said clearly and calmly, not even a shout.
The woman stepped out of her hiding place and attacked Jessie in a crouch. With a couple of fast fakes, she buried a knife deep in Jessie’s gut, but she was stuck. Jessie’s huge, meaty hand trapped her knife hand. The giant grinned, reached out with his other hand and grabbed the woman’s ship suit, yanking her forward. She flew at Jessie, who slammed his forehead into her nose, driving slender cartilage and bone fragments deep into her brain.
Jessie let go of the woman, who slid to the floor. Watching Barber turn to run, Jessie pulled the knife from his gut with a grunt, and threw the long, slender blade at Barber, burying it deep in his shoulder. Barber screamed in pain and rage, knowing that it was a poisoned blade that had struck him.
A smile crossed Jessie’s face, even as a numbing sensation crept through his limbs. He knew the woman who had attacked him and knew he was a dead man. But as he fell to the floor on his knees, the poison racing through his body, Jessie knew one other thing — Barber was a dead man too.
Behind Jessie, Boker and the other two attackers were in a protracted dance with their own blades. Slowly, Barber’s men backed Boker down the corridor, eyeing the bodies on the floor behind him. When Boker neared Jessie’s body, they rushed him, expecting him to trip, but Boker leapt up and to the side, shoving off against the wall with a foot and driving his blade into the side of an attacker’s neck.
Unfortunately for Boker, the man’s sudden collapse twisted the knife out of his grip. The second attacker seized the opportunity and dove forward, managing to stab Boker in the side, just below the rib cage. But that brought the attacker too close to Boker, who punched the man in the throat with the curled knuckles of his hand, crushing the attacker’s windpipe. While the man gasped for breath, Boker pulled the knife from his side and drove it deep into his attacker’s right eye.
* * *
Soon after the girls had been locked in the suite, they had been surprised when Scar and Jessie had returned with food trays and clothes. Regarding the clothes, it was obvious their abductors were unprepared for Méridien frames. Amelia and Eloise made do by wrapping the limbs and cinching the waist’s excess material with a belt. However, by their chronometer apps, the two men had last visited them over nineteen hours ago, and the girls were getting nervous, not to mention hungry.
Eloise sent and immediately regretted sharing the thought.
It was a running joke between the girls — Christie teasing the Librans about the need to put on some weight and, in turn, Christie being teased about the value of fasting to lose some weight, when in fact all three young women were striking specimens of their people.
This time Christie didn’t reply to the barb. For hours, she searched for weak points in the suite and was disappointed to discover that Haraken materials and techniques were employed in its construction. Short of a plasma rifle, the only exit from the suite was going to be through the front door.
“Hello, in the suite,” a youthful voice said over the door comm.
Amelia leapt over to the door, stared at the comm unit, and found the button she needed to push to talk. “Yes, we’re here.”
“Please, fem, I need you and your friends to go into the washroom before I can deliver your food.”
Amelia looked at the other girls. Eloise nodded toward the washroom, but Christie sent,
“Have to wake up one of my friends. Hold
on. Where are the other two men?”
“Don’t know anything about any other two men. I’ve just been told to bring trays of food to this suite but not to enter until you’re in the washroom.”
The girls could tell the boy was confused by his orders but was intent on following them nonetheless.
“Just count to ten and we’ll be in the washroom,” Amelia said.
The count ended and nothing happened. The boy’s voice came through the intercom again. “Fem, I have a thermal scanner. Why are you still in the salon?”
Christie didn’t bother to reply but walked into the bathroom to join the other two girls. The moment she closed the door, the snick of the door lock closing could be heard.
The girls could hear a cart pushed into the salon and movement of someone going around the room before they heard footsteps and then the suite’s door closing. A second snick of the bathroom’s door lock told them they were free.
Conversation ceased while the three hungry young women devoured everything on the trays. Eloise’s belch seemed to signal the end of the meal.
Amelia sent.