by Kelly Gay
The Big Guy stepped in her path.
“Or we can use your crew for leverage,” Hahn continued as the Big Guy threw out his arm to block her from shoving around him. “We’d like to keep them out of this, as I’m sure you would too. I’d hate to have to expose them to interrogation.”
“Living up to your reputation,” Rion snarled, pushing away from the Big Guy’s grasp, glancing from him to Kip and back again. “This is who you’re siding with, Kip? People who threaten kids?”
“They’re hardly children,” Hahn said, moving closer once more. “Soldiers have been dying at a far younger age than your crew, losing more than you can possibly imagine. And they’ll continue to die if we don’t secure that site. Is this really what your father would have wanted, for you to lose everything you’ve worked for? Was this really worth getting Cade killed over?”
And that was it.
Rion lunged to the side of the Big Guy and swung a right with everything she had, landing a solid fist to the side of Hahn’s mouth. He stumbled and then dropped like a stone as the Big Guy grabbed her arms, putting his body between her and Hahn once more. But she wasn’t done, leaning around the soldier to yell, “No, it wasn’t worth it, and I don’t need a heartless bastard like you to point out the obvious!”
She shoved at the Big Guy, but it was like trying to move a bulkhead out of the way. He didn’t budge. She stepped back, furious, as he stared down from his lofty height with that stony expression, a small lift to his right eyebrow. Her fury hardly spent, she jabbed his solid chest. “Yeah, you stay behind your spook badge of dishonor while the rest of us out here in the real world bleed and hurt.”
The soldier’s expression darkened and he bent down until he was eye level, a retort on his lips, when Kip angled between them, clearly fearing for Rion’s life, and pushed her away.
“Get off me,” she growled, retreating as Kip held up his hands in a gesture of peace and then went over to help Hahn. Rion continued to stare daggers at the Big Guy.
“You got mixed up in something far bigger than what you’re capable of handling,” the Big Guy said in a low tone. “Salvage what’s left. That’s what you’re good at, right?”
“You don’t know anything about me,” she shot back.
“Well, if you’re as resourceful as they say,” he replied, looking her dead in the eye, voice even lower, “then suck it up. Do the right thing by your crew. And live to fight another day.”
He turned his back on her and helped Kip lift Hahn to his feet.
CHAPTER 8
* * *
UNSC Taurokado, hangar bay, an hour later
Agent Hahn and Fireteam Apollo leader Spartan Dylan Novak escorted Captain Forge to her ship. For the duration, she remained quiet and stiff between them, her anger simmering around her like a growing storm. Once they were well through the hangar-bay doors, Hahn slowed to a stop, intending to impart a few words of warning to the captain, but she continued past him without a glance or hesitation in her step, her head held high and her back straight.
Next to him, Novak let out a soft chuckle as he crossed his arms over his chest and watched Forge proceed to the Ace of Spades. Novak’s amusement erased Hahn’s sudden moment of shock, and he closed his mouth.
“Where I’m from, Walter, that’s what’s called a big ol’ middle finger,” Novak said, still grinning.
“I know what a middle finger is,” he snapped. He drew in a controlled breath, counseling himself to ignore the Spartan’s jab. Even back when they were both wet behind the ears and assigned to Borneo Station, Novak had had a warped sense of humor. “I’d expect nothing less from an Outer Colony salvager. They’re all one very short step up from outlaws and pirates.”
Rion Forge’s pride and independence had taken a major hit, and no doubt she was still reeling. ONI had rendered her helpless, and that was the one thing her type feared most. It also made her unpredictable. She was daring, tenacious, intelligent, passionate . . . but she was also a renegade, prideful, stubborn, and insolent. He was curious to see how she’d choose to move forward.
Hahn was a highly proficient handler, but in his experience, people like Rion Forge never really came around.
Too bad.
He rubbed his aching jaw and then worked it slowly, left to right, still tasting the iron tang of blood in his mouth. She’d gotten a hard sucker punch in, and Hahn suspected the highly trained Spartan-IV could easily have intervened and prevented the assault if he’d wanted to.
Novak hadn’t been pleased about being pulled from the combat deck during training, as he’d been smack in the middle of simulated war games with the two Spartans recently assigned to Fireteam Apollo. But Hahn had convinced Captain Karah that having the Spartans play special ops to Rion Forge and her crew down on Komoya was essential to their success. . . .
Or perhaps Novak had been caught by surprise, just as Hahn had been, neither one suspecting the salvager had it in her to dare strike an ONI officer.
Whatever the case, Hahn knew his old friend well enough to know that despite Novak’s surface amusement, the Spartan was in a foul mood—failing to apprehend a high-value target like Gek ‘Lhar could ruin any soldier’s day. From what Hahn had gathered, apprehending the Sangheili commander hadn’t originally been on Apollo’s mission agenda—they were stationed on the Taurokado for reasons above Hahn’s security clearance. And they, along with the entire ship, had been pulled off mission to pick up Kip Silas and then Hahn before taking measures to secure Rion Forge and her precious cargo.
‘Lhar appearing right beneath their noses was, as Rion indicated, a gift, one that didn’t happen often. Unfortunately, operating in stealth to capture Rion and her crew without raising any alarms on Komoya had worked against them in snagging the commander.
“Might want to put a pain patch on that,” Novak commented as they watched Forge walk up the ramp. She paused at the top, turned around, and leveled a death glare in their direction, slapping the panel to her right to close the ramp, not looking away as it slowly lifted. “You made an enemy today, Agent Hahn.”
“You mean we.”
Novak laughed. “Oh no. This one’s all on you, Walter.”
Hahn frowned. He could easily have thrown the captain in the brig for assault. “You think I was too harsh on her?”
The Spartan gave a slight shrug. “I think if you had left her the warehouses and accounts, she could have been an asset.”
“She never would’ve been an asset. I ran her personality profile three times. Besides, if we pandered to every salvager out here, we’d never get anywhere. Sometimes we have to play the bad guy so that the next one who comes along thinks twice.”
“Then you should’ve taken her ship too,” Novak said as the ramp closed on her figure. “She won’t let this go.”
Hahn laughed. “What, you think she’ll use it to engage? Rion Forge hasn’t gotten this far in life by being that stupid.”
As the ship powered up, Turk’s voice came over his comms. “The Ace of Spades is requesting permission to leave, Agent Hahn.”
“Ah. Turk,” he said with relief. “Glad to hear you’re back with us.” In the hour and a half that Rion Forge had been sequestered in the conference room, Turk had not only encountered an uncooperative Forerunner AI, but had been trapped for a time within the vast, jumbled, alien labyrinth of Little Bit’s fragmented framework.
Had he not ensured Rion’s cooperation, Turk might have been lost for good, and it would have been a disaster, costing Hahn his job at the very least.
“Permission granted,” he said.
In seconds, the clamps holding the ship released, and the Ace of Spades’s thrusters engaged.
Turk’s voice came over comms once more. “Spartan Novak, you’re wanted on the bridge.”
As Rion Forge directed her ship from the hangar, Hahn and Novak headed for the corridor.
Novak might question his methods, but Hahn had a track record to uphold. He always achieved his objective. He wor
ked the entire trade route to monitor and acquire Forerunner artifacts. He was one of the best counter-contraband operatives in the field, and he intended to maintain his position. “What matters is that we secured the AI and the coordinates to the debris field,” he said, more to himself than to Novak.
“And we know where Gek ‘Lhar will be,” Novak said. “The hinge-head is on borrowed time.”
CHAPTER 9
* * *
Ace of Spades
From the time Rion had left the conference room until now—guiding Ace out of the ONI ship, a prowler if she had to guess—she’d forced a high degree of detachment upon herself to stop from doing something irrevocable to the smug Agent Hahn, and then focused on putting space between them and ONI.
When she’d crossed the catwalk moments ago, she’d been met with the concerned faces of Lessa and Niko, accepting their hugs and fielding their questions and concerns with short responses. Once in her captain’s chair, she’d had to bite her tongue to keep from giving in and showing weakness when they still needed her strength. They weren’t out of the prowler’s range just yet.
But when they found out what they’d lost . . .
Ram swiveled in his station chair to face her. Their eyes met. He made no attempt to placate her and she appreciated it. He comprehended ONI’s reach as well as any salvager.
Using small directional bursts through the thrusters, Rion guided Ace out of the hangar bay, through the energy field separating the vacuum of space from the pressurized interior of the bay, and finally to freedom.
“We’re so sorry,” Lessa blurted as soon as they were away, her big eyes glassy. She was wringing her hands. “They separated us, and . . . they said they were going to ship you off to a black site and we’d never see you again. . . .” She drew in a deep breath.
Niko was staring down at his hands. When he lifted his head, her heart gave a painful pang at his misery. “They took Little Bit.”
“I know. We’ll talk about it later.”
Rion drew in a deep breath as Less and Niko went to their stations. “Less, plot a course for Venezia.”
Niko glanced over his shoulder and opened his mouth, a question hovering, but Rion put a finger to her lips and shook her head. Say nothing. Not now. Not while they could hear. Understanding dawned, and immediately he returned to his screen, fingers flying, running scans no doubt, trying to find out how much damage ONI had done and what they had left behind.
Once Ace was at a safe distance, the FTL spun up for the jump and they entered slipspace, heading back to their home base of New Tyne.
Slipspace always reminded Rion of the wee hours of night, when the energetic world faded into slumber . . . or a waiting room that stretched for light-years as the world went by without you. Niko called it the pause button. Less liked to say it was the time between time when they could pick up where they left off with old hobbies or tasks left for idle hours.
They’d reach Venezia in a couple of days, which was relatively quick in terms of space travel.
But right now, that seemed like an eternity.
Rion left the bridge with the eyes of her crew boring a hole in her back. There’d be time soon enough to talk. Now she just needed to be alone and process.
Back in her quarters, she sat on the end of her bed and tried to reason through what had just happened.
It wasn’t unheard of—ONI, the UNSC, giving salvagers the once-over. It happened. If they were working a site close to an exclusion zone or some other area of interest, they were routinely pulled, searched, and anything of military value seized. Everyone in her line of work knew the drill.
But this . . .
This was different. Extreme.
Every warehouse. Every bank account. Little Bit. Her projections. Her father.
They’d taken way more than they needed.
They damn well didn’t need to obliterate her livelihood and grab the video files of her father, but they’d taken them anyway—a crystal-clear message that they could have taken a lot more, that she was at their mercy, and not to forget it. And she never would forget it. They’d made sure of that.
And if they thought they’d scared her, they were sorely mistaken.
Scrutinizing her quarters, she noticed their touch everywhere—every drawer, surface, and nook had been tossed. Her gaze settled on the desk drawer where she kept her father’s images and the data chips, and every bit of intel she’d ever found in her long process of searching for the Spirit of Fire.
Part of her hoped that they’d left her with something. After all, John Forge himself wasn’t top secret. She had a right to keep her work, her memories. With a small thread of hope still clinging, Rion pushed to her feet, went to her desk, and pulled open the drawer.
A few images remained, but everything else was gone.
Including the haphazard, but curated, collection of files and chips and charts and notes.
Tears stung her eyes as a hollow well opened up inside her, leaving her as empty as the drawer she was looking into.
ONI had stolen twenty-six years’ worth of searching and hope. Her best shot at finding her father had vanished, and they had no intention of giving it back. It was loss on top of loss. Outrage and disbelief rose so swiftly that she had to grab the desk with both hands and squeeze her eyes closed, reminding herself to breathe, to be grateful the crew was unharmed and Ace hadn’t been confiscated along with everything else.
A mistake they’d regret later.
It took several minutes to regain her composure. When Rion finally opened her eyes, she zeroed in on her hands. On the gloves she still wore.
She straightened and slowly pulled them off, fingertip by fingertip. With each movement, an iron determination settled inside her, and the beginnings of a plan began to take shape.
CHAPTER 10
* * *
Nor’s clearinghouse, New Tyne outskirts, Venezia, Qab system, four days later
The pair of Kig-Yar always stationed outside the entrance to Nor Fel’s massive storage complex came to attention when Rion approached in her old truck and parked. Through the dirty windshield, she studied the clearinghouse and the high-voltage fence that surrounded the buildings.
Normally she met Nor on payment days, when the notorious Kig-Yar trader sat in her New Tyne office and doled out credits to salvagers. Only on occasion did Rion have reason to come here—mostly to deliver large salvage items for auction. But all that seemed like a lifetime ago now.
The dust picked up again, pinging against the windshield. Through the rearview mirror, she noticed Less and Niko in the bed of the truck pulling their jackets over their heads to avoid the grit as they hopped out.
“This should be fun,” Ram said as he got out of the passenger side.
“Fun but necessary,” she replied, and stepped outside into the cold.
The guards by the gate, a pair of Jackals in minimal armor with carbines slung over their shoulders, stared at the approaching party with round eyes over large beaks lined with sharp teeth. Rion could tell from the way their avian heads lifted that they were scenting the newcomers. Not really necessary, given that their eyesight was very good. Kig-Yar enjoyed scenting things to suss out weakness or illness—which they always reacted to aggressively—and sometimes they just liked to size up potential meals for kicks.
While Rion had a good working relationship with Nor, some of the guards the Kig-Yar female employed were far from being acclimated to dealing with a variety of species.
One of the males called in the newcomers through his comm unit as Rion glanced up at the many cameras stationed around the facility.
Upon approval, which was nothing more than unintelligible squawking through the comm system, the chain-link gate slid open. “Don’t touch the fence or the gate,” Rion reminded them as they entered.
On a normal day, the fence was dangerous enough; but on a really bad day, when some idiot radical thought he could raid the clearinghouse, the fence’s specially designed component
s emitted a high-frequency EMP charge—a handy little feature that rendered any attacks on Nor’s goods moot while the clearinghouse itself remained shielded from the pulse.
Rion never asked what happened to those unfortunate morons. All she knew was that they disappeared, and maybe the Jackal guards got their tasty meal after all.
They crossed the lot to the main building. The side entry door slid open and they stepped into another guard station, which blocked the entry and the hallway that led to Nor’s office.
Nor Fel was an extraordinary paranoid, keeping an arsenal of the finest surveillance sweepers in the sector, military-grade software that was constantly upgraded. She left nothing to chance—which was a necessity, considering her business as one of the Outer Colonies’ preeminent movers of postwar salvage. Everyone and everything entering her place of business got swept. And those entering her office at the clearing house got the spa treatment.
For the last few days, Rion had made sure she and the crew kept their talk to a bare minimum, while Niko and Ram had spent that time sweeping the ship for ONI surveillance. They did the best they could, but Nor could do far better. Rion was counting on the Kig-Yar’s equipment to remove any lingering ONI bugs that were hitching a ride on them and on her ship.
An initial sweep at the guard station revealed several tiny metallic sensors stuck to shoes and hidden in their clothing. They removed their jackets and footwear and were scanned again until they came up clean. First round complete. Halfway down the corridor leading to Nor’s private office were two additional guards, a human and a Kig-Yar engaged in a game of dice next to a Saffire Diagnostics bio-scanner, the same type used for entry into diplomatic headquarters or top secret military facilities. It was a freestanding white tunnel of bug-detecting technology.
The guards paused when they saw Rion and the crew. “Do you have an appointment, Captain?” a clean-cut young man in a lab coat asked.
