“We’re not friends Jetaar,” Ethan said.
“But we’re not enemies either. That’s progress. All the rest is just details.”
Chapter Ten
“We need to tell Kaycee,” Ammo said as soon as Jetaar had left the building with his entourage.
Ethan shook his head, grabbing the bottle that he’d left on the table and pouring himself another shot. “Not until we make sure.” He offered the bottle to her, and she took it but set it down.
Angel and Quinn both slipped through the curtain and took the seats across the table. Angel held the drape open slightly and kept her eyes out on the room rather than watching them.
“What flipped you?” Quinn asked as he settled into his chair.
“Marti, who did you say the last ship to contact Tamilis was?” Ethan said.
The Humanform automech came to life. Its face lit up, settling on an expression of concern. “The Argos.”
Angel glanced at Ethan and scowled. “Captain Coldwater and his bunch of shitgaskets.”
“And who did you say was the stakeholder in the colony?”
“The Shan Takhu Institute holds fifty-seven percent of the colony charter. The rest is FleetCom. There are several other minor parties as well.”
“That could be a coincidence,” Ammo said. “But it does point at an uncomfortable trend in the data, doesn’t it?”
He nodded. “Yah, one I’m not liking much.”
“Why would STI be a problem?” Quinn said. “Isn’t the doc still on their payroll?”
“For the time being,” Ethan said. “When she and the rest of them get back from their underwater safari, she might be reconsidering that.”
“Why?”
“We think it’s STI watching us,” Ammo said, tilting her head at Ethan.
“Why again?” he asked.
The Captain looked over at Ammo and shrugged. Not having all his crew with their heads in alignment was damned inconvenient. “I’ll let you fill them in. I think it’s time we get everyone swinging together.”
She nodded.
“For now, let’s say there’s a lot you don’t scan about what happened to get us here,” he explained. “Things on our last run didn’t go like you remember. Unfortunately, the reality of what happened seems to have attracted the Institute’s attention.”
Angel shot Quinn a glance and the two of them nodded. Apparently, they’d already realized something was out of spec.
Ethan pulled out his thinpad and glanced at the chrono as he set it on the table. “According to what Nuko told me, the three of them are due back in about thirty-six hours. That gives us some time to see if we can dig up some stink on Tamilis before we have to discuss it with her.
“Without getting more bad eyeballs pointed at us.” Angel said, frowning.
“That too,” he said. He leaned back in his seat and chewed on his lip as he worked over how to attack the problem. “I think we should break this up into manageable pieces.”
“The first thing has to be to confirm the colony really is missing,” Ammo said. “Nothing says Jetaar isn’t jerking us sidewise.”
“He’s got no gain in that.” Ethan shrugged.
Angel snorted. “He’s wanting us to deliver a cargo to his pirate base. Seems to me that implies we’re delivering ourselves and the Dawn along with the cargo.”
“She’s right, Cap’n,” Quinn agreed. “My first reaction was that he could take the ship and all of us without risking his eggs.”
Ammo wobbled her head back and forth. She’d been eyeballs on with Jetaar too and was the expert at reading people. She didn’t seem too convinced that he was angling for the ship.
“I don’t read it that way, but you both might be right,” Ethan said, drumming his fingers on the table beside his thinpad. “I’m not to the point yet where we’re considering taking his run, so we’ve still got limited exposure, but when we get there, I’ll want to have an exit strategy.”
“Simplest plan is to just say no,” the handler said.
Angel nodded.
“Right now, that’s the likely way this will land, but we need to track down what we can. That means there’s some advantage in keeping him on the line,” he said. “Marti can join Rene on the Dawn and they can focus on trying to dig anything out about Tamilis that might be running below the grid.”
“He wasn’t into this whole tourist vacation thing anyway,” Ammo said. “Giving him something to sink his teeth into would be good for his happiness index.”
“I should remind you that I am still on the Olympus Dawn,” Marti said. “However, returning my Humanform automech to the ship will give me a chance to begin fabrication work on my personal project.”
“That also gives us someone stationed out of the local jurisdiction in case things go ugly,” Angel added.
Ethan nodded. “Good point.”
“Where do you want us boss?” Quinn asked.
“Once Ammo brings you up to speed, I want the three of you to try to confirm who’s on us,” he said. “We know we’re being tailed, and we suspect who it is, but we need to confirm some hard facts.”
He stood up and put the stopper back into the rum bottle. Picking it up, he looked again at the cartoon pirate on the label and chuckled before he handed it to Angel. “You’ll need this more than me. Once you two get Marti’s body back through the kitchen, head to the cabana and let Ammo fill you in.”
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I want to see if I can find out any more on Brendan Pierce. If he’s running two lives, and I can catch Advisor Darvelle before she calls it an evening, maybe I can squeeze her a bit to see if she can turn me on to something we need to know.”
“I’m sure if you squeeze her right, she can turn you on to something, but it probably won’t have anything to do with Jetaar.” Ammo said with a very obvious wink.
“Innuendo aside, I agree,” Marti said. “To get where he is, he must be very good at covering his covert operations, However, she would be the logical entry point for you to probe.”
Ammo snapped a wide eye at Marti, and her projected face smirked. “It is not like he needs our permission to explore her—”
“Hush, you,” Ethan said, waggling a finger in both their directions. He scooped up his thinpad and sighed.
“We’ve got thirty-six hours until Kaycee gets back to decide how, or even if, we want to go forward on this.”
Chapter Eleven
So far none of the crew had been inside the Larcossa Royale, since even by Escabosan standards it was rare air. That made it a perfect spot to see if they could draw out whoever it was who thought they were worth following. Nobody on the staff knew them, and if Ammo’s plan worked, probably no one there would want to know them either.
She’d proposed that if Angel and Quinn could create a chaotic enough public spectacle, they might be able to force their tail out into the open by leveraging the chaos of a public spectacle.
The three of them sat at a table on the Grand Palazzo outside the hotel, detailing out their scheme. The swirling noise of the morning crowds meant that no one could be close enough to overhear their planning session, and it also gave Marti a chance to make some observations of those that seemed to linger too long or pay too much attention as they passed by.
During the night, Marti had returned to the Dawn with her Humanform automech and had two of her minimech bodies delivered back to the surface to serve as autonomous comm systems. The burst comm channels that she used to control the bodies had industrial level encryption and were far outside commercial frequencies, so it provided an extra layer of security, if they needed it.
While they talked out their strategy, Marti stood between Ammo and Quinn surveying the people passing by. The half meter tall, metal mannequin had no face and two large hands, but otherwise looked like a chrome plated child’s toy. Though, in reality, it was a sophisticated remote extension of Marti’s awareness designed for maintenance and repairs in confined spac
es. It had exceptional hand dexterity and optics.
When they went into the Royale’s Gaming Parlor, Marti should be able to compare the visual records of people it flagged outside to the ones inside. This should let them narrow down the list of possible people tailing them.
“It isn’t important what kind of distraction you cause,” Ammo said, leaning in and lowering her voice just in case a stray ear pointed her way. “It isn’t our tail we want to distract. Your objective is to get as many people as possible into the mix so the chaos of the gaper block will knock the watchers off balance.”
“Stir up the hornets and the bear will dance,” Quinn said.
“If you say so.” She raised an eyebrow and Angel shrugged. Quinn had a way of speaking that sometimes bore little resemblance to their reality. “I’m just hoping the public reaction will amplify the stink enough to push them out into the open. Once Marti gives me an idea who to focus on, I’ll try to confirm if it’s the Institute or someone else using plussers as agents.”
“Either option is bad enough to be a real problem,” Angel said. Both she and Quinn had accepted the real story of their last mission without a stumble, so accepting who might be after them didn’t slow the handler’s assessment in the slightest.
“Agreed, but how we manage the two possibilities will be substantially different.”
“I have completed my initial survey of the people who appear to be recurrent presences in our immediate environment,” Marti interrupted. “There are thirty-one individuals who we will need to watch for once we proceed inside.”
“That many?” Quinn asked, shaking his head.
“Yes. Although comparing the potential commonalities of both data sets should reduce the difficulty. Unfortunately, none of them appear to be the female I detected in the LEO dive lounge.”
“That would have made it too easy,” Angel said.
“I guess that means we get to make a scene,” he grinned. “I really should have taken acting classes in school.”
“Because they won’t allow me onto the wagering floor, we’ll need to make sure this happens as close to the lounge as possible,” Marti said. “The diagrams of the building interior that I have scanned indicate that there are several suitable areas where any incident will have maximum impact with minimum potential for security intervention. This will optimize the effective chaos and focus the attention of witnesses tightly.”
“If you two can make a big enough splash, I should be able to watch the watchers without them catching me doing it,” Ammo said, looking around at the people swirling past. There were so many that could be listening, but none seemed to be paying them any attention.
“Let’s get inside,” she said, bouncing her hand on the table to punctuate her decision to proceed. “Angel, give Marti and me a couple minutes to get into position in the observation lounge, and then you should head for the casino and sit at a wager table near the door. Make sure you attract attention if you can.”
“I’d whip my tattys out, but around here nobody’d notice,” she said, tilting her head as a woman in a suggestive coat of paint walked by. “But I’ll figure something out.”
Ammo grinned. It was true, other than Quinn’s gargantuan proportions, extraordinarily little attracted attention on a planet with perfect weather and lots of skin. She shook her head and pulled open the front of her wrap a bit. “That’s my job, and only so we can get as far inside with Marti as possible.”
“I could always whip mine out,” Quinn said, batting his eyes and smiling.
“I bought this stupid expensive outfit just to be a distraction,” Ammo said. “Let’s just stick to the plan for now.”
“Yes mom,” he said, sticking his lower lip out and pouting like a teenager.
She sighed. “Once Marti has the best target identified, Quinn comes in and sits with me a couple minutes before he heads to the wager floor,” she said. “When you see him start moving, you intercept him at the door and go all jealous partner on him. Just make sure you tie up the choke point for as long as possible. The more you can stir it up, the better my chances of catching them by the skinnies.”
“Got it,” Quinn said. “I let Angel scream at me until somebody comes to my rescue.”
“Something like that,” she said, standing up and turning toward the hotel.
“I think it’d be simpler if we just started a bar fight,” Angel muttered.
Ammo stopped and shook her head. Easier, but a lot more likely to get us bound and carted off, she thought as the crowd carried her away with Marti clinging to her hand like a little child. Fortunately, it had fast legs, so it didn’t slow her down.
As she bounded up the marble stairs toward the open foyer of the Royale, she let her translucent wrap fall open to her waist, and her reactive polychrome thinskin activated. It was the fashion trend du jour and resembled moving body paint that reacted to the environment to provide changing patterns of complementary colors. Usually the sensors calibrated the thinskin for evening wear, and only the upper edge of the elite dared to wear one in daylight. There was more than a fair chance that the controls would overload in bright light. In a most embarrassing way.
While the thinskin itself was expensive, it was unbelievably costly to get the adaptive systems recalibrated. Marti had suggested that she could control the outfit to prevent it from burning out, and to optimize its psychological weaponization if needed. Ammo only had to trust that she wouldn’t end up looking like an elephant in a tuxedo before she got inside.
The fact that she walked through the front door with her outfit dancing through its colors was enough to make sure she was doing her part to slow down the serving staff. Even people working far below the rare air knew how risky a maneuver it was.
In truth, her purpose was to keep some of the attention off Marti since gambling halls had a strict policy against AA or robotic companions near the casino wagering floor. They needed to get in position as close as they could before someone tried to turn them around. They’d made it as far as the inner lounge and within a dozen meters of the Larcossa Wagering Parlor door before a rather large, and overly dressed, security attendant blocked their progress.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we do not allow automated companions in the casino,” he said politely. “Your assistant will have to return to the lobby.”
“I was just wanting something to drink,” she said, smiling and glancing down. “I promise I’ll stay off the wager floor. It’s just so hot outside.” She let her wrap fall open further and realized Marti was pushing the patterns on her thinskin to make them as distracting as possible. Skin itself was so common, even in the high tier world, that it took something unique to get attention. Apparently, it was working as his eyes lingered exactly where they should to keep him from thinking with his upper brain.
She pointed at a nearby table. “Please? Right here where you can keep your eyes on me?” She winked and flogged her pheromone charms for all they were worth. She watched him begin to melt.
He tugged at his collar with a fingertip and clearing his throat, nodded. “Just try to keep your companion out of sight.”
“Of course,” She smiled at him and put her hand on his chest. “I will keep my little friend under the table and right between my knees where it belongs.”
He blinked several times as he glanced down at the minimech, clearly trying to figure out what to think of her comment. He sighed and shook his head. “Enjoy… your drink, ma’am.” Turning, he walked over to take up a position against a railing where he had a good line of sight on her table.
“Exactly where we need him to be,” she whispered as she slid into the booth and Marti eased under the table between her legs. It let the minimech have an almost unrestricted view of the lounge without attracting too much attention.
“I will let them know that we’re in position and that you have already functionally incapacitated one of the security attendants,” Marti said.
Several minutes later, when Angel walked in, h
e barely glanced in her direction and Quinn’s arrival only caught his eye because he landed at the table with Ammo.
“At this point I have narrowed the list of potential tails to two,” the minimech reported. “The blonde female sitting at the bar investigating the contents of her hand-pouch, and the small man by the door to the casino with the red hat.”
“He’s close enough to the choke point for me to keep an eye on when the party starts,” the handler said as he leaned back in his seat and looked around casually, “but you’ll have to be right on top of the blonde to see what’s she’s packing.”
“Timing is everything,” Ammo said. “I’ll go talk to my fan over there and ask him where the facilities are. I’ll make sure I wind him up some more if I can, and then he’ll track me as I walk along the bar in her direction. Try to start the dance just as I pass her. Make sure it’s loud, and when she swings to check you out maybe I can get an eyeball on what she’s got in her bag.”
“And what should I do while you are gone?” Marti asked.
“Hide under the table and try not to get crushed?” Quinn suggested.
“And keep your eyes open,” she said as she stood up to put the plan in motion. It would still be a lot more risk than she figured Ethan would swallow easily.
Chapter Twelve
The cabana was empty by the time Ethan hauled himself out of his room and across to the coffee urn. Glancing back toward the room where Ammo slept, he saw the door was open and the hospitality services robot was tidying things up. It must have been later than he realized since that never happened before midday.
He’d spent the evening talking to Sinthya Darvelle. Other than sharing some powerful drinks and staring at her kneecaps, nothing had come of it. She was as professional as any advisor he’d ever met, and no amount of fancy-dancing could get around her exterior. Either that, or she didn’t know anything about her client beyond his Brendan Pierce persona.
In any case, his evening’s efforts had left him with nothing but frustration, and a pounding brainache. “Escabosa dark, double strong,” he said, sliding onto a stool and putting his face into his hands as he leaned his elbows on the counter. He waited for the VAT to brew his coffee in silence. After what felt like an eternity, the chime announced the coffee was ready and he pulled the mug out of the urn, turning to give the room a serious visual inspection.
Wings of Earth- Season One Page 90