Grand Cross

by Merethe Walther

  Grand Cross

  By Merethe Walther

  A Shot in the Dark #2

  Copyright Ⓒ 2019 by Merethe Walther. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address the contact page at http://MeretheWalther.com.

  “A strong woman stands up for herself.

  A stronger woman stands up for everyone else.”

  —Anonymous

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two 30

  Chapter Three 63

  Chapter Four 94

  Chapter Five 122

  Chapter Six 150

  Chapter Seven 182

  Chapter Eight 212

  Chapter Nine 231

  Chapter Ten 254

  Chapter Eleven 272

  Chapter Twelve 294

  Chapter Thirteen 318

  Chapter Fourteen 341

  Chapter Fifteen 350

  Chapter Sixteen 381

  Chapter Seventeen 385

  About the Author 391

  Chapter One

  Aralyn pressed her finger against the trigger guard of her modded handgun and listened, straining her ear closer to the corner. The darkness around her was oppressive, and even with electric lamps buzzing overhead on the warehouse’s dilapidated walls, she could hardly see five feet in front of her face. Inside her parka, beads of sweat slid down her back despite the light snowfall overhead and the frosting of her breath.

  “You’ll want to be careful,” Riordan’s stiff English voice buzzed over her earpiece. “I can’t get a signal on him, but your heat signature is blowing up the screen like a tiny volcano.”

  “Not helping,” Aralyn responded through gritted teeth. “I take it that means he’s inside?”

  “Could be,” Riordan answered. “It could also mean he’s already off-planet.”

  Aralyn rolled her eyes and stood to her feet, knees screaming in the unrepentant cold. “I doubt he got past Kita and Caden. Or you, for that matter.”

  She scooted over to the huge doors that signaled the opening of the abandoned warehouse and kicked one open with her foot, careful to stand back from the entrance, just out of sight. The angry sound of energy bolts striking metal greeted her, and she slipped her gun around the doorframe, returning fire blindly. When nothing came back, she frowned. It would be suicide to walk in front of the open door when the guy had a bird’s eye view of her and an overeager trigger finger.

  “Riordan―”

  “He’s out, he’s out! Go!” Riordan shouted, forcing her to cringe as his voice screeched through her ear. “The other door, headed north toward the docking bay!”

  Aralyn kicked the door open and ran flat out, pumping her legs as fast as she could. “You catch that, Kita?” she shouted into her wrist module.

  There was only the soft reply of static, which left her cursing up a breathless storm. She hoped both Caden and Kita were still in position, but there was no telling if her message had gotten through.

  “God, I hate trans-Neptunian stations,” she muttered.

  By the time she got across the empty room and through the other door, she could just barely catch sight of someone running beneath a weak streetlamp about fifteen yards away. She hurried after the shadowy form, her lungs fighting for oxygen in the thin air. On either side of her, empty buildings and ancient research facilities formed an even row.

  If it weren’t for the dark, the cold, and the fact that the structures had obviously been abandoned, it could have almost been idyllic. She supposed at one time, it had been. Even when she was a kid, people had talked about the once-great Eris station and its mega-dome―a huge feat when it had been built in the mid 2100s.

  Now, the formerly-proud deep space settlement that had once proven the virility of human perseverance was all but a ghost town.

  Beneath her, a thick layer of snow and ice had formed over the sheet-metal street, and her boots slammed into the surface with biting pressure. Each footfall sent a shock of icy spines through her numb feet, which were sweating inside thick socks. She panted as she ran, sliding every so often. Up ahead, the sound of other footsteps joined hers.

  “Please tell me that’s you, Caden,” she wheezed into the metallic module on her left arm.

  Riordan’s voice eased through the static. “I’ve got two markers up ahead, looks like they’re fighting―”

  The sound of a single bullet echoed through the dome chamber.

  A scream lit the otherwise quiet dome-sphere, followed by a huge thump as something heavy struck the ground.

  “Shit,” Aralyn whispered, quickening her pace. She passed the weak streetlamp and rounded the corner, facing down another short row of empty buildings.

  In front of an old medical facility, she could just make out Caden pressing his knee into the back of a squirming figure below him. She slowed and caught her breath, approaching the scene cautiously on the slippery road. As she drew closer, the familiar bouncing buns of Kita’s blonde hair swung into view as she stepped out of the old hospital, a gun in her hand and a grin on her face that crinkled the corners of her blue eyes.

  “I told you I was a good enough shot to get this dude,” Kita said triumphantly, resting the still-smoking rifle against her shoulder. With the other hand she pointed to the .22 caliber hole in his left calf, made a finger gun with her free hand, and mimed the shot, mouthing blam.

  Aralyn came to a stop not far from them and doubled over, gasping for air and pressing at a stitch in her side. “Yeah,” she wheezed. “That’s cool. I do the leg work, you take the prize.” She waved a hand. “I’ll just be over here, not breathing.”

  Caden rolled his eyes and pressed their prisoner’s wrists together, securing them with a snap tie in front of him and shoving him over on his back. There was a slight burn on the man’s shoulder from an energy shot, but nothing too severe. It probably wouldn’t even scar badly. But the bullet in his leg… Aralyn smiled. There was medigel in her jacket—something she’d come to rely on in their latest crazy turn of events and injuries, but she wouldn’t give it to him.

  …At least not yet.

  Let the slave trader squirm.

  He glared at all of them, fury in his face.

  “You sons’a bitches,” he muttered, spitting out a mouthful of blood from the scuffle. “What the hell do you want from me? You the ones been following me since Pluto?”

  Aralyn helped Caden to his feet and dusted the snow off of his pants. “You okay?” she asked. He grinned down at her.

  “He got a solid punch in, but I’ll live,” Caden replied, massaging his jaw.

  Kita made gagging noises from behind them and then declared, “I’m fine too, you know. Thanks for asking.”

  “You’ve been tucked up in the facility with a battery-powered heater for the last two standard hours while Aralyn and I hunted this scumbag down,” Caden reminded her. “I wouldn’t exactly call that ‘suffering.’”

  “Yeah,” Kita said with a sniff, “but I was bored.”

  Aralyn eyeballed her a moment and then turned back to the slave trader shivering on the snowy ground. They were smack dab in the middle of the abandoned city’s four-way intersection. Above the rise of the hill to their west was the main station and docking area for travelers, which was still lightly populated and only semi-deserted. The smaller city they found themselves in was
what was left of the housing section for permanent residents, which had been abandoned in favor of preserving energy to disused parts of the facility.

  “All this just for another piece of crap off Eladia’s list; hardly seems worth a trip past the Kuiper Belt,” Caden said, pointedly ignoring Kita’s protests.

  The partial list they’d managed to skim from Eladia’s datastick had provided little insight before her goons had destroyed it, but it was the only thing they had left to work from. Aralyn thought for certain they’d lost their mark in Eris’s station, but as luck would have it, his heat signature lit up the unused area like a super nova. No one lived or worked in these parts, and the only logical choice had been to investigate.

  “You should have just talked to us like we asked,” Aralyn said, crossing her arms over her chest.

  The trader glared, pushing snow from his wounded leg with angry swipes.

  Aralyn frowned. This guy wasn’t an ideal candidate from the list, but his was one of the only identities they had been able to decipher thus far. Fifteen names in, and they were still no closer to getting to Eladia than they were from the minute she ran from them on Mercury. If they couldn’t get something out of this d-bag, there was no telling when they’d be able to try again. Eladia was sure to already know they were coming for her and have covered her assets accordingly. Aralyn ground her teeth and faced the kingpin’s goon.

  “Where’s your boss?” Aralyn asked sweetly, the steel in her blue eyes belaying the gentle question.

  “Fuck off. You Interplanetary Alliance or something?” the man asked, fear radiating off of him. “Or spooks? You don’t look like spooks.” He panted, his limbs trembling. Fear or cold, Aralyn couldn’t tell.

  “We’re not IA,” Caden replied. “Or Spectors.”

  “Which shouldn’t make you feel any better,” Aralyn advised, holstering her weapon. “Because that means we don’t have any rules to follow, and no UDA supervisors to report to, no shitty paperwork to file. Now, I asked you a question.” She squatted down in front of him, forcing his gaze to level with hers. “Where’s Eladia?”

  He licked cracked and bleeding lips. “I don’t know who that is.”

  Aralyn smiled, a carefully selected, calculating smile that left no room for bullshit. “Wrong answer.” She reached for her gun and pulled it back out of the holster, then pressed the barrel against his neck.

  He squirmed beneath her intense look, the wide whites of his eyes betraying how afraid he really was.

  “One more chance,” she tried again.

  “Eladia?” he whispered, his voice quavering. “The psycho bitch. Yeah, I know of her, so what?”

  “You work for her,” Kita amended for him.

  “I know of her… I don’t work for her―”

  Aralyn pressed the barrel deeper into his throat until he choked and then eased off, but not by much.

  The slaver jerked his chin in tiny nods as best he could with a gun pointed at his throat. “Okay. I work for her. I don’t know where she is―I’m just a peon.” He kept his gaze trained in the direction of the gun, but looked up. “Honest. She doesn’t tell us anything.”

  “We’re almost there,” Aralyn said, increasing the pressure of the gun once more. She longed for her short sword. Something told her that the blade would be far more impressive at drawing out information when pressed against a throat.

  “Almost where?” he grunted, closing his eyes against the pressure.

  “The truth.” She stood and holstered the weapon, turning to Kita and pointing a finger at their captive. “If the next words out of his mouth aren’t ‘Eladia is somewhere on…’ then I want you to make a snowman and decorate it with his bits.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Kita said, pulling her rifle back into her arms and cocking it. “I’ve got just the place to put your pecker, too.” She winked.

  Kita’s ease with weapons had increased significantly since Mercury; that she got to try the “crazy bitch stuff” delighted her. Aralyn was glad to see that the Old Earth Remington wasn’t going to waste, either. Kragg would have been proud to see it put to use.

  Especially on a piece of crap slaver for the orachal trade.

  Aralyn’s chest constricted and hot tears prickled at her vision. She resisted the urge to reach into her pocket to touch the metal tag with Kragg’s name imprinted on it. What was Eladia doing to him? Pumping him full of orachal and forcing him to work under the haze? She hadn’t been able to bring herself to ask Kita what the drug was actually like. She got the impression that Kita hadn’t wanted to talk about it either, and that was fine by her. She had to focus on finding Eladia and getting her father back as soon as possible. As terrible as it seemed, understanding what pain he might be in came secondary to getting him free. If anything, it would only distract her. She tucked her guilt away and swallowed down the tears. Need to focus.

  Aralyn took several steps away from the trader, pacing just out of view behind his back until Caden came over and gently grabbed hold of her wrist.

  “You okay?” he asked, voice low, tawny eyes filled with concern.

  He looked about as tired as she was sure they all felt. His auburn hair had gotten shaggy, sticking out in tufts from beneath an over-stuffed cap and there were dark bags under his eyes. She grabbed his hand, pulling him a bit farther out of their captive’s hearing.

  “No. What do you think we should do?” she asked, her teeth chattering. The adrenaline of the chase had already abandoned her and left her feeling colder and more tired than ever. “He’s obviously lying. I mean, he’s part of the list of names with the highest profits, so he must know something, right? Even if he’s just a smuggler.”

  Caden shrugged, pinning her with a frustrated look. “I don’t know, to be honest. Out of the other fourteen, how much more willing is this guy going to be to break? Offering them IDs and the chance to get out of the game doesn’t seem to appeal. They’re in it because they want to be.” He paused, looking back over his shoulder to their prisoner. “He did give up that he worked for her a little quicker than the others. Who knows? Maybe he’s got a breaking point we can explore.”

  “Okay, so short of threatening his life, what can we do? I mean, if he’s out in the middle of B. F. Eris, then surely he’s got something out here… a stash maybe?”

  Caden nodded. “That’s a possibility. There’s no way they’d keep slaves here though, so what? Drugs? Stims? Guns? Creds maybe?”

  Aralyn bit her cheek to keep from groaning in frustration. This was the closest they had come to having the upper hand on any of Eladia’s men. Despite being run by a criminal and all-around unpleasant woman, the group was, much to Aralyn’s chagrin, well organized. The only misstep they had ever made, as far as she could tell, was getting Aralyn herself involved. Other than that, the slave trade had gone on without a hitch, and all drops, pick-ups, and payments had been made without Riordan’s knowledge, even though he had been actively looking for them in many different systems, included closed networks. And if the master hacker couldn’t trace them online, then it was down to good old-fashioned leg work.

  And so far, that hadn’t gotten them anywhere, either.

  The quietness of the slave trade operation was profoundly disturbing. There was no telling how many people were being sold every day, but it was going so well there weren’t even enough missing people reports to cover the number of slaves that the partial manifest they’d uncovered claimed to have trafficked. She wanted to beat the asshole until he spilled everything, but Eladia trained her people well and paid them even better. It was unlikely they’d manage to break anyone with physicality―and that was a lesson she knew from experience. Still, there was no denying it might make her feel better, at least.

  “I’m gonna go with the drugs angle then,” Aralyn tried. “We might be able to sweat him if we keep him out here―”

  “But what if he’s late for a shipment and they come looking for him?” Caden asked.

  Aralyn grinned. “That’s a gr
eat idea,” she said.

  “Ari, that’s not what I meant―”

  Aralyn marched back to the prisoner and yanked him to his feet, shoving him and nearly sending him careening toward the ground as she directed him to the old building just over to their right. “Walk,” she commanded.

  “Wait… wait a second,” said the slaver. “Where are you taking me?”

  Kita kept her gun trained as he limped by, mewling like a kitten, all bravado and chutzpah gone in the face of uncertainty.

  “Please,” he said as they approached the double glass doors of the darkened building. “People will know I’m missing. They’ll come looking for you.”

  “That’s what we’re hinging on,” Aralyn said as Caden opened the door for them.

  The squeak and whine of the cold metal echoed throughout the darkness of the building, and the captive shook his head.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice weak.

  Aralyn could have kissed him. He appeared to be exactly what she’d been hoping to find over a dozen people prior: A slimy coward with a strong will to live.

  Bingo, she thought triumphantly. She forced her face to remain a passive mask as she pushed him down the long, dark hallway that led to the old labs. Her wrist module’s weak beam was the only thing lighting their path, and it sent ghostly shadows stretching down the corridor in front of them. There were few things more terrifying than being held prisoner in an abandoned outpost at the ass-end of the solar system—unless you also added in an abandoned hospital or lab. Even though Aralyn was the one doing the imprisoning, she couldn’t help but be spooked by the old place, too.

  “They’re going to come for me,” said the smuggler, struggling to look back over his shoulder at her as he limped along.

  “I know.” Aralyn shoved him forward and he stumbled, but she grabbed him by the collar and held him upright.

  “Why would you want them to come?” he asked.

  “Because smugglers like you aren’t smart. Eventually, they’re going to come looking, all right. Not for you: For whatever it is you’re stashing out here as far away from the rest of the inner planets as you can get it.” Aralyn didn’t bother to cover the threat in her voice.