by David Ryker
“And even more serious intentions,” Mac scoffed. “You either want it to build a hyperdrive engine, or—”
“A bomb, yeah.” Volchec nodded. “And considering that anyone who’s got the credit to buy raw Iskcara would be better off just getting hold of a pre-made engine, then it’s likely the latter.”
“But if he doesn’t have any, what does it matter?” I asked.
“Well, if he doesn’t get the drop on someone, and they get hold of him... Let’s just say I’d bet a guy like that’s not going to think twice about giving up his link to the actual stuff. And if that’s Fox, or someone who was there on Telmareen, or worse, someone else who actually has Iskcara, then…”
“He’s gone, however you spin it,” Everett sighed and sat back.
“And if he actually does have a link to someone with the missing Iskcara from Telmareen?” Mac asked.
“Then that’s even worse. But, whatever happens, it’s not good. He’s killing people, and that doesn’t go unnoticed forever. We’ve got a window here, but not a long one.”
“Could the Free be using him to sell the Iskcara?” I asked.
“He doesn’t have it,” Alice interjected, gesturing at the screen. “Volchec just said that—”
“I know he doesn’t have it,” I sighed, “but that doesn’t mean that he’s not a real middleman. He could be ripping both sides off, though.”
Volchec was watching me closely. “What do you mean?”
“Well, if he’s been put there to fence the Iskcara, and he’s having buyers sent to him, then maybe both the people going to buy it and the people selling it both think he’s legit. Hell, maybe he’s got the Iskcara stashed somewhere—”
“We’ve swept the station, top to bottom,” Volchec said, cutting the air with her hand. “There’s no Iskcara on board.”
“So he’s stashed it somewhere. Space is a big place, right? Look, all I’m saying is that maybe he’s working with the Free. I mean, why would they take him off Telmareen if they weren’t working together? Why wouldn’t they just leave him there? Their operation was a bust, right?”
“Why would they trust him?” Volchec wasn’t questioning the logic, she was just testing to see if it held up.
I shrugged. “Why does anyone trust a merc? Credits.”
“And he’s playing both sides? Meeting the buyers, killing them off, and telling his supplier that they never showed?” Volchec put it out there but no one weighed in to argue the other way.
“Maybe? It sounds like he’s got a raw deal however it goes. He’s taking these credit slabs, got a few saved up already.” I paused for a breath. “And when he thinks he’s got enough to disappear for good, he’s gone.” I said it with conviction, because it was probably the truth. I knew that urge. It’s what I’d do. It’s still what I wanted to do.
Volchec nodded slowly, processing. “It’s not out of the question, but we don’t have much more to go on than what we’ve got on the cameras, and a little bit of hearsay from around the station.” She rubbed her head. “The problem is that if he gets spooked, then he’s in the wind, and there’s nothing we can do. We need to get to him quietly, before he even knows we’re coming.”
“Why don’t the Federation just send in a battalion?” Alice held her hand up.
“Because it’s not a Federation station,” Volchec replied.
“What do you mean it’s not a Federation station?” I cocked an eyebrow. “I thought they all were.”
“Not always — this is a major trading hub. The Federation have over ten thousand planets annexed, but there’s a thousand times more out there that aren’t. The Federation impose taxation and laws on the places they own, so a lot of trading stations like this one want to stay independent. It’s a better environment for those bringing goods in and out. They get to keep more of what they make. It’s not like the Federation don’t operate there, they have an outpost, and an embassy — it’s how we got the scanning done, and how we got access to this footage, but the station’s governed by its own laws, its own municipality. We have an understanding with them — they definitely don’t want to make enemies of the Federation, but the Federation also don’t want to start a war with the Trading Collective. Believe it or not, the Federation doesn’t make money from its military. We need to keep our trade relations alive if we want to keep our guys armed and fed. We’ve got no jurisdiction there, it’s that simple. If we put the whole place on lockdown, stopped trade, made sure no one went in or out, then we’d be declaring war on a hundred planets and we’d lose a couple quadrillion in trading losses.” Volchec groaned under her breath. “But if we can get in there, grab him before the station municipality knows we’re conducting an operation, then it’s all good. They’ll be none the wiser.”
“Why haven’t they done anything about it themselves?” Alice asked.
Volchec shrugged. “He’s not causing any harm, they say. Anyone looking to buy Iskcara isn’t likely to be the good guy — if Smith is killing them off, then it’s one less criminal to cause trouble on their station. They’re turning a blind eye, calling it back-alley justice. They’re not as fond of order as we are, it turns out.”
“So it’s an extraction?” Mac asked.
Volchec nodded. “Yeah, it’s an extraction mission. The Federation wants him for interrogation.”
“And they’re sending us?” I asked, a little surprised.
“Why wouldn’t they?” Volchec cocked her head, a little defensive.
“I dunno — it’s just, with what happened on Telmareen, I thought—”
Volchec held her hand up and stopped me before she turned to Alice. “Kepler, can we have a minute? Would you mind stepping out?”
Alice looked quizzically at her, and then at me. She didn’t move, only laughed a little like it was a joke. “What? Why?”
Volchec cleared her throat. “This next part is… privileged.”
“But you’ve already said a bunch of stuff,” she said, kicking back and interlacing her hands on top of her head like she had no intention of going anywhere. “If it was privileged, you would have kicked me out first thing.”
“Well I’ve changed my mind.” She looked sternly at Alice, but she wasn’t backing down.
Alice didn’t move a muscle. “Is this because I’m not on the team anymore?”
“No, it’s not. Now please, if you wouldn’t mind—”
“I do mind,” Alice said with more sharpness than I’d expected her to muster in the face of an officer.
Volchec was shocked, but she wasn’t backing down. “Alice, this doesn’t concern you, and I don’t want you involved in it.”
I was confused — as confused as everyone else, by the look of it, but Alice wasn’t giving in. She gritted her teeth, swept the room with her eyes, and then came back to Volchec. “Why not?” she said coldly, taking a slow breath. “Is it because you all lied about what happened on Telmareen?”
I didn’t realize it was possible for a room to be that quiet.
10
Volchec was expressionless, like a sphinx. She was deciding what to do. I think half of her wanted to laugh and deny it all, but the other half wanted to slap the smirk off Alice’s face.
I swallowed, my mouth dry. Volchec’s eyes roved to me for a second, burned my skin, and then went back to Alice. “What did you say?” She said it coolly, but diplomatically. Maybe she was giving Alice a chance to say I misspoke, or maybe she was just daring her to say it again. Either way, Alice was here to get what she wanted, and she was playing her hand. Maybe a little sooner than she’d hoped, but this was it, and I knew at some point I was going to get dragged into it. I was hoping that Volchec would agree without me backing Alice, but it already didn’t look like it was going right.
Alice tried to look languid on the sofa, comfortable even, but it was easy to tell her heart was hammering in her chest, and I could see her fingers shaking as she pulled them off her head and spread them out on the seat cushion behind Fish’s head
. Even he looked surprised, and I didn’t think it was possible considering how few facial muscles Eshellites had.
She smiled casually and tried to play it off. “What? You all perjured yourself, it’s not a big deal.” She shrugged. “I know what went down on Telmareen.”
Volchec was seething. “How?” There was no point denying it, and Volchec needed to know what and how Alice knew, and especially whether anyone else did.
Alice sighed. “When they came to question me, I’d already been awake for a day. My father had me taken aboard the Kincaid, and by the time the investigators caught up with us after hearing the news I was awake… I already knew what had happened, sort of.”
“And what was that?” Everett cut in suddenly.
Alice cracked a smile. “That Kera and her cronies had turned up dead. That much made the news on Telmareen— something about the Free double-crossing them to cover their tracks while they escaped — of course, that was just the official story the Federation was going with. Anything else would be bad press.” She shrugged casually.
Volchec ground her teeth.
Alice went on. “Except we all know that didn’t happen — because why the hell would they? When I came to, my father was there — he told me what had happened — how I’d been rescued, and told me that I’d been in an induced coma, done to alleviate the bleeding and swelling on my brain. I asked about you guys, of course — the last thing I remembered was being in the Tilt-wing with Everett standing over me. My dad said that you were being investigated, let slip that Telmareen was crawling with investigators. When the doctors came in they checked me over, asked about memory loss and that sort of thing, I stayed quiet. If you guys were being investigated, then it meant something was up, that your story wasn’t checking out.” She looked at all of us in turn. I thought her eyes stayed with me the longest, but I couldn’t be sure.
Everyone else was a statue, waiting for her to finish whatever she was saying.
She cleared her throat and slapped her knees. “When the investigators arrived, they asked me to go on record, confirm that I was compos mentis, and then they asked me to recount what I remembered. They looked serious — I’d seen their sort before. The type of investigators that fuck with people’s lives. I remember my dad talking about them after my brother was—” She cut herself off, pretended to cough, and then went on. “My dad told me they were coming, and that I needed to be careful what I said — that I could just as easily end up implicating myself as I could you guys.”
Volchec looked grave, her features carved from stone.
“So,” Alice sighed, “when they showed and asked me to tell the story, I was afraid of saying the wrong thing. I didn’t want to risk contradicting whatever story you guys had spun, so I told them it was all… Fuzzy. That the damage must have screwed with things and I couldn’t place any events. They, of course, didn’t like that, so they started asking some questions. Did I know Kera? Where had we met Rase…” She smirked. “That was the one that threw me — because of course we never did. Rase was dead before we even got there. So, if they were asking where we met him, they were trying to corroborate or undercut your stories. Only, they banked on you lying about where you met him and what happened, rather than assuming that you never did at all.”
“And what did you say?” Volchec asked, her voice quiet.
“I said that I couldn’t remember — that we got to the city, I remembered being in a room with him, but not what was said, or where — that we met the mercs, and that we attacked a transport — they already had that much — they basically said as much, and there are about a thousand videos on the network of us trying to hit that transport.” She laughed. “Every species with fingers is snapping everything on their communicators these days — there’s no getting away with anything anymore!” She laughed a little, trying to make a joke, but no one joined in.
“And that was it?” Volchec asked.
Alice nodded. “Yep. Passed the rest off as memory loss.” She shrugged. “What else could I do without fucking you guys over? And I wasn’t about to do that. The Federation’s all I’ve ever known, but if there’s one thing I actually learned from my dad, it’s that your guys come first. Your family comes first. Your team comes first. You have to be prepared to lay down your life for them, on or off the battlefield.” She pointed involuntarily, no doubt mimicking the move her father had made when he instilled that in her.
Volchec wasn’t satisfied. “So you knowingly lied on an official record?”
Alice looked at her and pulled her mouth into a wide line, something near a smile. “The team comes first. If you guys put your heads together and thought it best to wipe out Kera and her gang, then I knew you were just trying to keep things going. It wasn’t our fault, what happened. We were doing what we thought was right — I know that — and it wouldn’t have been fair to be pulled apart for it.” She actually smiled now, and I caught Mac and Everett returning it, albeit with a little more restraint. “And I know now that you guys would have come out the other end with wreaths around your necks if you’d pulled off nabbing Fox.”
“But we didn’t,” Volchec said quietly.
“And them trying to put your heads on the block because you didn’t isn’t fair. And now, you want to chase her down, get back in their good books, right?” Alice asked. “And kill Smith, of course.”
Volchec paled a little.
“Oh, come on,” Alice snorted. “You really expect me to believe that you’d push so hard to get this assignment if that wasn’t what you wanted to do? And I know you did — because Red’s surprise was warranted — there’s no way they’d just hand us this assignment. You cashed in some favors, I’d say. That’s why you wanted me out, too, right? I remember exactly what happened on Telmareen — it wasn’t a success. Not by a long shot — and you guys killed Kera to cover your own asses, and mine. And you actually did save my ass. I’d be dead if you hadn’t hit the tower like you did. You risked a lot doing it, and I owe you guys my life. When it came to Kera and her guys, you were tying up loose ends, and now that Smith has surfaced… Kera was in contact with him, right?” She was staring dead at Volchec. “So there’s no saying how much he knows. If the Federation get hold of him, and he starts singing — which he will, like a damn songbird, for immunity, spilling everything he knows. Everything about Telmareen. Everything about Kera, who he no doubt knows is dead by now. And if what he says contradicts your story, well, then the investigation reopens, and none of us want that.” She held her hands up. “I’m not saying it’s a perfect situation, but I get it. I get it.” She swallowed and sighed, leaning back. “Smith has to go, same as Kera, and that’s all there is to it. All I’m saying is that I want in.”
Volchec moved her jaw from side to side. “You’re not cleared for active duty. I know, because I checked.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Alice grinned. “It’s not medical that won’t clear me.”
“Oh?”
“My father is blocking it.”
“Oh.”
“And I need you to unblock it.”
“Oh, is that all? And how do you propose I do that?” Volchec folded her arms. “Shall I just call Colonel Kepler up, and—”
“You speak to Medical, get me cleared for duty. Then we’re gone.”
Volchec scoffed. “Before he even notices, I suppose?”
“Exactly.”
“You may not be afraid of your father, Kepler, but I am.” She took a slow breath. “If he’s preventing you from going back on active duty, it’s because he doesn’t think you’re ready—”
“Bullshit,” Alice snapped. “It’s because he’s over-protective.”
“He has every reason to be,” Volchec said coldly. “Telmareen was the second time you came about this close—” she lifted her hand and squeezed her thumb and forefinger together “—to death in as many weeks. And considering what happened to your brother—”
“You don’t get to bring him into th
is—”
“You don’t get to decide that! Your father doesn’t want to lose you, and neither do I, and I almost did once. I’m not risking it again, and I’m sure as hell not going behind your father’s back to do it!” She was almost yelling now.
“It’s my life,” Alice growled, hitting herself in the chest with her fist. “And I don’t want to spend it rotting away on this piece of junk!”
“It’s your life, yeah, while you have it. But you know what the odds are—"
“So it’s good enough for these guys?” Her hand swept the room. “You’re happy to march them into the breach, but not me?” She scoffed. “Because of who my father is?”
Everyone was looking uneasy.
Volchec’s eyes twitched, her voice dropping. “No. But I’ve seen a lot of good soldiers not come back from less than what you went through.”
“I’m strong,” Alice said, her voice hoarse, fists curled into the trousers of her overalls. “I should be out there.”
“Volchec,” I said, trying to jump in. “Maybe if—”
Volchec slammed the door closed on me and kept talking to Alice like I wasn’t even there. “You’re lucky. You were lucky. And luck doesn’t hold out.”
It hurt to hear it. She was telling Alice she would die if she came back — but that applied to all of us. We couldn’t help but acknowledge it just then, that we were marching on borrowed time. That it could be tomorrow or the next day that we’d catch a bullet. Odds said it would be sooner rather than later.
Alice’s lip quivered as she drummed up the courage, or maybe the hatred to say what came out of her mouth next. “You leave me behind on this one, and maybe I make a call, say I remembered something about Telmareen.”
The emotion burnt off Volchec’s face like steam and her mouth parted, her teeth showing like a dog. “You’re going to blackmail us?”
“I didn’t want to — I don’t want to. But you’re forcing me. I can’t stay here. I won’t. I want to be out there, and you may hate me for doing this, but I’m a part of this team, and I’m here, and I’m as much a part of all of this as any of you, and I will not let you leave me out of this. I will not sit here to wither away.” She was on the verge of tears. The easy-going coolness, the verve she carried as Queen of the Arena was nothing but show, an eggshell over a deep pit of sadness. Of loneliness. Of lostness.