Bianca D'Arc

by King of Clubs

  He and Alex might be retired on paper, but they were still both very much in the game. They just weren’t active participants on ops anymore. Now, as older men who’d survived active duty in the most secret game of all, they were running the younger operatives. They lived relatively normal lives but when the active duty guys needed to pass on information or get instruction or materials, they were the go-betweens that got the data where it needed to go.

  “I hate to ask you at this late date, but before I turn over the bar to you, I think it’s only right that I get the proper unlock codes from you. My predecessor was all too willing to give them to anyone who showed an interest, but it wouldn’t be right for me to be as cavalier as he was.”

  “Quite right,” Chip lifted to remove a data wand from one of his pants pockets. He handed it over with a flourish. “The unlock codes for the bar and attached private residence are on there. Where have you been living, if I might ask? I wouldn’t want to kick you out. I can always find accommodation on the station if you’re in Alex’s place behind the bar.”

  “Oh, no,” she was quick to answer even as she scanned the data wand through the reader behind the counter. “I’m bunking down in Della’s quarters. I had her codes, and she has mine. We’ve always made sure we could access each others’ places. It’s good to have one person you trust that can help you out in a pinch.”

  “Good policy,” Chip replied noncommittally. In his business, there were damn few people he could trust with that kind of information.

  She handed the data wand back to him. “Your codes check out. I’m happy to turn over The Rabbit Hole to your care.” She smiled at him and he felt like he’d won a treasured prize. He liked her smile and the way it reached all the way into her eyes. It was a genuine look that spoke of happiness and shared pleasure.

  And wouldn’t he like to share pleasure with this soft piece of feminine fluff? Whoo boy, he could live on dreams of making love to her. But she was still attached to the memory of her dead, civilian husband. She was too fragile for the likes of Chip Quartain. He’d have to throttle it back. They could work together – if she wanted to stay on now that he had arrived to take possession of the club—but he wouldn’t let his marked interest go any farther. His conscience wouldn’t let him. She was too good for him, or any other soldier for that matter.

  No, she needed a softer, gentler man. Another civilian. That was if—and it was a big if—she would let another man into her heart, or her bed. For all he knew, she was still hung up on her dead husband. He wouldn’t be surprised. A woman like her loved with her whole heart and when she gave it, she gave it for keeps.

  “You have any plans for the next few weeks?” Damn. He hadn’t meant to say it. After he’d just gotten through telling himself she wasn’t for him, here he was inviting her to stay.

  “Nothing that can’t wait,” she replied with a cautious smile. “Why?”

  Chapter Two

  “I could use some help with the bar. I could pay you. It wouldn’t be much, but it’d be a fair wage. As a matter of fact, I hope you’ve been taking a wage the past two weeks.”

  “Free food,” she shrugged. “Non-alcoholic drinks.”

  “You don’t drink alcohol?”

  “Occasionally. But it’s no fun to drink alone,” she said with surprising candor. Lila looked away as if embarrassed by what she’d divulged.

  Chip wanted to say he’d be her drinking partner. Hell, he’d be her partner in anything she had in mind. He’d show her what it meant to have fun.

  But he couldn’t.

  “I’d like to stay on,” she went on when he didn’t speak right away. “For a couple of weeks. The place has sort of grown on me.” She wiped down the counter unnecessarily. “It’s fun.”

  “Good.” Chip finished his ale and stood. “Then why don’t we start with a tour. Can you show me around the place?”

  They spent the next half hour going over the obvious parts of the bar and the behind the scenes stuff as well. Chip was impressed by the way she kept the books. It was clear Lila had a head for figures and wasn’t afraid of a little hard work—whether it was the physical work of tending bar or the mental work required behind the scenes.

  Chip noted the way the veterans at the bar treated her. They showed her respect, but also a sort of friendship he hadn’t expected. For some reason, they’d accepted her as one of their own. A member of a loose brotherhood formed by those who had seen the harsher side of life. That didn’t happen easily or often with civilians. Somehow, she’d earned their regard in the short time she’d been in charge of the bar.

  They were in the small office adjacent to the bar area when Lila surprised him by closing the door, sealing the two of them inside the windowless space, all alone. She held one finger to her lips in the universal sign to keep quiet. Chip waited, one eyebrow raised at her actions.

  She walked around the desk and touched a pressure plate she should not have known was there. Chip knew about it, but that was only because he’d been briefed on the design of the bar and the secret hidey-holes positioned all around the station for his use, now that he was the temporary manager of Alex’s network of spies.

  He watched her fingers fly over the small datapad that slid out of hiding when she’d touched the pressure plate in just the right way. His internal electronics—well hidden and top secret—noted when she switched on the privacy shield. She entered a few other commands and the wall that adjoined the club came to life.

  “They can’t see us,” she explained unnecessarily. He was very familiar with surveillance tech of all kinds. “This is a projected image, not a true window. There are a bunch of little audio and video pickups all over this place for some reason.” One of her eyebrows rose in challenge when she looked up at him, her hands stilling on the datapad.

  He didn’t comment, merely waited, wondering why she’d just revealed her knowledge of something she probably shouldn’t have noticed in only two weeks running the bar. Most civilians wouldn’t know how to operate such devices. Even most vets wouldn’t have noticed the hidden cameras. They were designed not to be seen, even by experts.

  “Della left me instructions. In code. In her quarters. Don’t worry. I didn’t figure all this out on my own.”

  “Why are you betraying your knowledge to me?”

  She paused, meeting his gaze for a moment that stretched. “You’re Charlemagne. King of Clubs. I saw your arrival in the cards and in here.” She touched her forehead in the third eye position he’d read about but wasn’t quite sure really existed.

  “I know you don’t believe me yet. But you will.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “The reason I showed you in here is because in the two weeks I’ve been tending bar, I’ve noticed something very disturbing. My gift tells me you’re the one to deal with the danger.”

  “Danger? To whom? Or what?” His interest piqued and he was suddenly all business. He didn’t understand the esoteric stuff, but give him a military problem—any military problem—and he was in his element.

  “Danger to all of us. The whole station.” She moved out from behind the desk toward the image of the bar’s interior being displayed on the wall. “I’ve heard things over the past two weeks. See this table here?” She pointed to a group of mech workers who were sitting quietly, talking.

  Chip stood and touched a control on the datapad, zooming in on the table. He made a note of the four men sitting at the table, committing their faces and name tags to his Enhanced memory.

  “What bothers you about these four?”

  “The things they say. The things they think,” she admitted softly.

  “Think?” That set him back. It was one thing for her to claim to be clairvoyant. It was quite another to imply she could read minds.

  “It’s a rare thing and it doesn’t happen often, but those men…” Her gaze drifted to the display and the men clearly seen by the bar’s hidden cameras. “That one in particular. Beezus is his name.” She shivered. “He broadcasts
so loud at times. I can’t help but pick up a flavor of what he’s thinking.”

  “You’re saying you can read minds.” Chip knew skepticism was clear in his tone, but he couldn’t help himself.

  “No. I’m not saying that. Normally I can’t pick up anything from anyone. Only my close family. People I’ve known for a long time. I suppose it’s a combination of reading their expressions and body language, but every once in a while, I’ll get words and images too. It’s a side effect of my primary talent, or so my mother told me when this ability first manifested.”

  “Can you read what I’m thinking?”

  “One doesn’t need to be psychic to know you don’t believe a word of what I’m saying,” she scoffed. “Frankly, I don’t care. I just want you to listen and then make your own observations. That man,” she pointed to the wall screen once more. “Jim Beezus. He’s a born and bred mech tech. He transferred to this station about a month ago and fell in quickly with this little group, plus a few others. The most notable member of their clique is this man,” she shifted the angle of the camera so they could see the man who sat on the far side of the table. He was taller than the others and his clothes were of better quality. “He’s an engineer who took a post in the mech section here about two months ago. His name is Bill Bjornson. Their group is planning something. Something bad.” She shivered and rubbed her arms as if cold.

  “Have you heard them say anything outright?”

  “Nothing actionable,” she replied.

  He was surprised by her use of the term and let it show in his expression.

  “I was a magistrate on Last Spiral Station for a while after I got out of school,” she explained with a graceful nod of her head.

  That news set him back on his heels. She wasn’t just a civ, but a civ with judicial experience on the most notorious of the rim stations. This woman just kept getting more and more interesting.

  “What exactly did you hear them say?” He listened even more closely to her words. This wasn’t just some loony tunes pretend psychic talking, but an officer of the court. She had to have something on the ball to have been given that kind of responsibility at such a young age.

  “They’re planning an event. On the surface, they make it sound like a party but when I offered catering services, they claimed they were using someone else. I’ve made discrete inquiries at the Station Business Owner’s Association and they haven’t employed any of the catering firms anywhere on the station. They also stopped talking about the supposed party except in the most general of terms.”

  “Did they indicate a time or place? Any details at all?”

  “No specific time or date, but it sounded imminent and it’s going to be somewhere in the mech section. I suspect they’re planning some kind of sabotage of station systems.”

  Chip didn’t like the sound of this at all.

  “To what end?”

  “That’s where the creepy feelings from Beezus come in. He hates someone enough to want to kill them. And he’s got greed shouting out at me every time I get near him. And he’s thinking about the jit’suku empire and the wealth someone has promised him.”

  “You believe the jit’suku have promised him wealth in return for turning traitor?”

  “No. I can’t go that far.” She seemed to think through her words carefully. “He’s thinking about jit’suku wealth, but not any specific jit’suku contact he’s had. I think it’s more likely that someone has promised him wealth and he suspects it’s coming from the jit’suku. Which it may well be, for all I know. My point is that he doesn’t know who he’s working for. Only that they’re going to make him rich and his greed overrides almost all his other basic personality traits.”

  “You can tell all this just from observing him?” Chip still didn’t buy it. He’d seen only one true clairvoyant in his life.

  Della, Lila’s sister, had warned him about a danger to a mission he’d been on years ago. She’d seen him in passing, just once, at a station bar on the other side of the galaxy. Della had stopped him with a hand on his arm and urgent words, telling him not to trust the rear stabilizers on the Falcon he appropriated.

  There was no way she could have known he would steal a Falcon to get off the planet he’d been on weeks later. Hell, he hadn’t even known his pickup would get blown and he’d have to find alternate transport off-planet. And there was absolutely no way she could know—out of all the ships he could have stolen—that the Falcon he chose would have a wonky rear stabilizer.

  The damn thing had almost gotten him killed. It would have—if he hadn’t remembered weird Della’s words and been watching the gauges as the thing crapped out. Only lightning fast reflexes had saved him—and Della’s urgent warning. At that point, Chip had to admit, Della had truly seen the future. He’d come to believe that clairvoyance did exist, in very rare circumstances. But he’d never seen anyone claiming to be telepathic or empathic that was for real, in his opinion.

  “Beezus…,” Lila said haltingly, as if pained by the words and the memories they evoked. “He grabbed me a couple of times when I first started here. It’s part of the reason why I started using the server bots for the outer tables.” She seemed hesitant to talk about it, but forced herself to say the words.

  Chip saw red. That big oaf had put his paws on Lila and it pissed Chip off big time. Perhaps more than it should, given their short acquaintance, but Chip couldn’t control the visceral reaction.

  “Did he hurt you?” His voice was gruff with anger, barely suppressed.

  “He didn’t hurt me.” She was quick to relieve his mind. “It was just… very unpleasant. When his hand touched mine… That’s when I received the impressions from his mind. A quick blast that ended as soon as I got free of his hold. It was a jumble at first, but as I puzzled it out, and pieced it together with their conversation, I realized something bad was going on over at that table. They had to be plotting something.” She moved back around the desk and brought up a list on the display that overlaid the continuing live feed. It was a list of dates and times, all over the last two weeks. “As a precaution, I began recording their table whenever I saw one of that group come in. I think you should review the files. Maybe then you’ll begin to believe me.”

  She moved around the desk and headed for the door, clearly a little upset with his skepticism, but Chip didn’t quite know how to play this out yet. He needed time to check his sources. And she was right about one thing—he did need to review those recordings as soon as possible.

  “I’ll watch the bar while you acquaint yourself with the systems.” She paused by the portal on her way out. “Where we go from there is up to you.”

  She left without another word being spoken. Chip sat motionless for a moment as he processed through everything he’d just learned.

  At length, he sighed and rubbed one hand over his face. It had been a long day of travel to get here, followed by a perplexing encounter with the most intriguing woman he’d ever met. Intriguing, sexy and downright smoking hot. One glance and he wanted to be inside her. One word and he wanted to know her better. One touch and he wanted to feel her warmth next to him for the rest of his life.

  Whoa. Where did that come from?

  Chip figured he must be more tired than he thought.

  Setting his highly classified internal electronics to do an external scan, he made sure the small office was truly secure before he set to work. He could scan the recordings the old fashioned way, but with the use of his top of the line cybernetic implants, he could check all the data for the past few months in less time than it would take him to listen to half those conversations Lila had segregated for him the old way.

  Chip jacked in to the system wirelessly, initializing the scan and download of selected files. It took only a few minutes to wade into the data stream and learn the normal patterns of the bar. A few minutes more and he noted the disturbances in the natural patterns. Most coincided with the men Lila had pointed out.

  Interesting. She might r
eally be on to something.

  The next thing he had to do was check her out. He sent a request for data to the top secret portal only he and a few, select others in the galaxy could access. The return ping was a download of the information he’d requested. He noted with some surprise that Lila’s file was tagged. In fact, there were additional files attached to hers that all had that same tag. It was one he’d never seen in actual use before.

  They were tagged with a seldom-used designation. It seemed all the ladies of the Senna family were tagged as psychic. Reliable psychics, the files stated, with unswerving loyalty to the human cause. Each of them had been tested at the highest levels and Chip noted that even he wasn’t given the full data set on all of them. The files on Adele Senna and her aunt, Della Senna—Lila’s daughter and sister, respectively—were short and contained only the bare bones of their profile information. Lila’s file was a bit meatier, but still had obvious sections that had been redacted.

  Chip wondered idly what those blank sections might have told him.

  What intrigued him even more was the personal recommendation from the head of the intelligence service. Lila—short for Delilah—Senna was given the full faith and trust of the commanding general and the file indicated he knew her personally.

  Now wasn’t that interesting? Even Chip had only met old man Winters a handful of times and he was one of the old man’s most active operatives. Could there be some personal connection between the Senna family and General Winters?

  Chip put that interesting thought aside and used the top secret cybernetic tech implanted in his brain to do a quick scan of station logs. Alex’s computer had backdoors into all station systems and more than a few galactic comm centers. Chip was interested in patterns that may have initiated or changed since the men Lila had pointed out had joined the station crew.

  Sure enough, after only a few minutes of digesting the information, Chip began to see a disturbing pattern. What it told him was if they were going to make a move on the station, it would be very soon indeed.