Double Sharpe (Raven Sharpe Chronicles Book 2)

by James David Victor

  She was too drowsy to argue with logic, so Raven got up and went to the processor to get food and a glass of water. “Is Blake awake?”

  If she didn’t know better, she would have thought there was amusement in her AI’s voice. “Nyx is attempting to wake him now. Alarms and flashing lights may be needed.”

  That perked Raven up and she smirked.

  “We have stationed ourselves at different points around the station to try to avoid looking out of place,” Silvanus went on with business. “We do not anticipate that it will be long before there is a pickup.”

  “That would be good,” Raven agreed as she ate. “The quicker we get this over with the happier I’ll be.”

  And, like usual, Silvanus was right.

  It was less than a half-hour before a smaller construction pod detached from the side of the station. Every station had at least one to conduct their outside repairs, and under normal circumstances, no one would have thought anything of it. Even as it floated from the station and approach Marlo’s ship, everything appeared normal. Sometimes, they did repairs on ships too.

  However, they were of course looking for it and they watched via their ships’ sensors and cameras as the little pod floated to the ship and opened the panel, removing the item with one of its little mechanical arms before returning to the station.

  Except it didn’t actually attach itself to the station. It floated into the open bay of another ship, and then that ship immediately took off.

  “Follow them,” Raven said unnecessarily.

  And they were off again. With an even higher risk if they were seen.

  26

  Raven paced around the small cabin, alternating between tugging on her hair and huffing without words.

  ‘I told you that you shouldn’t have had that last cup of coffee,’ Kyra said. ‘Now you’ve gone from your usual annoying to nearly intolerable.’

  “I don’t recall asking your opinion on anything,” she retorted, staring down at the cat.

  The cat stared impassively back. ‘You never do.’

  Raven rolled her eyes and kept pacing.

  “This is just all so…vague,” Raven said. “There must be some way to get an upper hand in this. I mean, we can follow them to the base, but there’ll be a big delay between them getting on board and us getting on there. We didn’t see who this guy was, so we need to get there faster…but we can’t get there faster without knowing where he’s going.”

  “Is there any way to figure out where they’re headed?”

  Blake’s voice nearly startled her to death. “How long have you been listening?!”

  It was Axel that replied. “Since Kyra told you that you should not have had that coffee.”

  Raven spun in a slow circle to glare at as much of the ship as she could, since that was the closest way to glare at Silvanus. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  There was no response.

  After biting back a few rude comments, she moved herself on from it. “It’s a good question. Is there an answer?”

  “Silvanus and I have been trying to do just that,” Nyx said, “since we left Marauder. When we first departed, there were a great many possibilities, but the further we travel, the more that narrows it down. We have isolated several candidates along this course of travel.”

  Silvanus was still conspicuously silent when the image popped up on her console. Raven took a seat and looked at it.

  She tapped each highlighted dot to see what location it was marking. There were seven possibilities, which was daunting to say the least. Then something caught her eye, and her instinct kicked in. She frowned thoughtfully. If she decided on that one and she was wrong, then this would all be wasted.

  If she was right…

  “What do you notice about these stations?” she asked out loud, still going over it all in her mind.

  “I…don’t know,” Blake replied uncertainly. “There’s too many of them, for my taste.”

  “Well, yes, there is that,” Raven had to agree. “But there’s one of them that stands out to me.” She tapped that dot again. “Starbase Orion. Does something sound familiar now?”

  There was a long pause, but she somehow knew it was not confusion. “There’s a satellite office of Halliwell there,” he finally said. “Do you think that’s where this guy is headed? I mean, at least one person from Halliwell is involved, but to bring it right to their doorstep?”

  Raven shrugged, although it was just a gesture for herself. “Why not? The whole thing is pretty brazen. What’s one more step?”

  “I guess you’re right about that,” he said with a sigh. “One of us should go ahead. That guy isn’t going too fast, probably can’t in that ship, so one of us should be able to get there early and set up in the docking area. The other one can trail and let the first know where the guy is docking, so the first can follow.”

  “Sounds good,” Raven said, smiling a little. “Nyx was always good at speed, so why don’t you guys go ahead? Make sure to bring a recording device. We want to document everything so when we turn this in, it’s not our butts on the hot seat.”

  “Right,” he agreed. “See you in a bit, Rave.”

  The channel chirped closed and Raven looked back at her console screen to see that Silvanus had shifted to an outside camera to show Nyx speeding off. Raven sighed a little to watch them go. “Good luck, Blake,” she said quietly.

  “I think that was with two minutes to spare,” Blake panted.

  “But you’re inside and at the docking ring?” Raven asked. She didn’t want to be unsympathetic to either his exhaustion or stress, but time was kind of an issue here.

  “Yes,” he replied. “I’m in a side corridor and can see the doors from the only empty docking ports left.”

  Raven immediately tensed. “You didn’t dock Nyx near there, did you?” She didn’t know if this person would recognize the AI ship, but it was a chance she didn’t really want to take.

  He replied just as quickly, “No. I took the last empty slot on the other side. It’s why I’m out of breath. I had to hurry to get around to this side.”

  She sighed slightly with relief. “It looks like they are getting ready to dock. I’ll wait until they’re positioned and then dock myself. Don’t lose him.”

  “I won’t,” he replied with slight exasperation.

  Raven got up to make herself another cup of coffee, but stopped herself and substituted a glass of water. She didn’t need the cat and the AI giving her more grief, and no, she probably didn’t really need more caffeine.

  A few minutes later, Blake came back. “A dock port door is opening. Someone is walking out with a bag… It’s a woman.” He sounded surprised by that. They had been assuming that it was a ‘he.’ “She’s kind of familiar… I think she might actually work for Halliwell?”

  Raven frowned. It wasn’t a surprise, and yet it was. All of it still was. “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “She’s just familiar.” He paused, then added, “She’s human, tall, blonde. Kinda looks like she’s been sucking on Earth lemons for too long.”

  “Natalia!” Raven said with a surprise. “She used to be a hunter, but paid off and went out on her own.”

  “She would know the ins and outs of the hunting life,” Blake pointed out. “Were you friends?”

  Raven shook her head absently. “No, but I knew her in passing. She was pretty good, but I guess not good enough to turn down the money from something like this. I remember her being reckless, which fits.”

  There was a pause, and then he went on, much more quietly, “We’re on the move. Get here quick, Rave.”

  27

  Silvanus docked as quickly as safety allowed. She had already done her station security checks as they got closer, so it was just a matter of the hard-lock and then Raven hurried off.

  Once she reached the corridor, she tried to walk fast without looking like she was walking fast. She knew that Blake and Natalia had a head start on her and
she needed to close that gap, but this wasn’t a backwater station in neutral space. People were less likely to turn a blind eye, and she didn’t need to get arrested in the middle of all of this.

  The docking ring let out into a foyer with multiple corridors off of it, leading into the different wings of this level. Blake hadn’t told her which way they’d gone, but she figured it had to be toward the business offices. She couldn’t imagine they would be dealing in the Halliwell office itself, but close, so any employees would be nearby as needed.

  So that was the way she turned. She passed by the various rooms, trying to look without looking.

  It was about to be more of the same when a hand reached out and grabbed her, yanking her into the office. She almost broke the nose belonging to the face belonging to that hand, but quickly realized it was Blake. She blew out a breath in relief.

  He pointed to the small window beside the door, and she peered through. The view wasn’t as clear as it could be, between two different windows, but it was clear enough to see Natalia standing and talking with Stillwell. She handed the bag to him and he looked around, suspicious for a moment, before taking the package out.

  It was clear enough for just about anyone to take an educated guess as to the contents before he put it in a locker inside the room. Natalia smiled faintly, and they both left.

  “We should get a few pictures of the stuff itself,” Raven said.

  “Don’t you think that’s going to be even riskier than this?” Blake returned, glancing uncertainly at her.

  “It’s going to be way riskier,” she agreed, “but we want this solid. Don’t we?”

  He nodded reluctantly. They gave it a few moments to make sure the two were gone, then opened the door and peeked out. The coast was clear, so they hurried across to find that the other door was locked.

  Raven took a chance and pressed her hand to the panel beside the door. To her half-shock, the door recognized her and opened.

  “This must belong to Halliwell then,” she said thoughtfully.

  “Won’t they be able to check that record and know it was you?” Blake asked.

  “Yes, but they’ll know I was here after all of this is over anyway,” she pointed out. “We might as well make use of what we have.”

  He shrugged and the pair of them entered. They shut the door behind them and hurried to the locker. It wasn’t locked, and all Raven could think was, ‘What idiots.’

  They started taking images of the package from various angles. She didn’t want to touch it, although she wondered if taking a sample would be a good idea. Then again, if they were caught with even a sample of Exotic K, the consequences would be dire. So, that choice was made pretty quickly.

  Just as they had finished taking pictures, she thought she heard voices approaching. She hurried to the door and realized that Natalia and Stillwell were coming back.

  She hissed a curse.

  “What?” Blake asked, oblivious to the sound and what she’d just seen.

  “They’re coming back!” she said.

  Raven turned and grabbed the bag, shoving it into Blake’s arms. “Once they see us in here, they’ll know we’re onto them and destroy it!” she explained hurriedly as she pulled her gun. “When they come in, I’m going to fire on them. You run through and get back to Nyx and get back to Earth! Go to the cops!”

  She knew they’d be to the door any moment now.

  “I’m not leaving you here,” Blake argued.

  “Yes, you are,” she argued right back. “We won’t get out from under this thing until we put them in the path of the law. We need evidence and it needs to not be here. I didn’t spend days being beaten, so I’ll fight them. You run!”

  He opened his mouth to say something, but the voices reached the door and they knew they were out of time.

  Blake settled into a pose ready to bolt, while she aimed the gun.

  The door slid open.

  She fired.

  Natalia shouted something incoherent that sounded highly graphic as she threw herself against the door, while Stillwell shrieked like a four-year-old and threw himself to the ground. Blake ran past her and over him before taking off into the corridor.

  “After him!” Stillwell called, but Natalia knew that the danger remained in the room.

  “Raven,” she spat. “I should have guessed.”

  Raven shot at the door just above her head. She had no desire to kill the woman, not really at least, because she didn’t want to add a murder charge to her career history, but she also wanted them to know that she meant business.

  Natalia shouted again and then jumped over Stillwell to rush at Raven.

  Reckless.

  Raven sidestepped the woman’s charge, and Natalia just barely managed to turn to avoid crashing into the open locker. The blonde took a swing, trying to knock the gun from Raven’s hand, but Raven turned in time to avoid that. When she turned back, she spun with her gun-hand out and cracked the metal-backed fist into Natalia’s face. There was a curse and a small flash of red as her cheek split.

  Turning toward the door, she saw Stillwell’s short, stocky body blocking the way.

  She ran at him.

  28

  Raven outright ran him over.

  He put his arms out to cover as much of the door as possible, but he wasn’t a man built for such things nor with the training of one. Raven, on the other hand, kept herself in shape and spent her life chasing people down. Actual chases on foot and physical wrestling matches were not uncommon.

  He was no match for her. When she lowered her shoulder, she drove it straight into his midsection and sent him flying out of the doorway and to the floor of the hall.

  She didn’t stop to make sure he was out before running over his legs and turning down the hall. She couldn’t afford to worry about appearances anymore, so she just sprinted down the halls toward the docking ring. The sound of Stillwell sputtering and Natalia shouting followed her, and she had a bad feeling that the latter would be after her in just a moment.

  ‘Did Blake get away?!’ Raven asked Silvanus. Even her mental voice sounded strained from all the effort.

  If she made it out of all this without being killed or incarcerated, she was going to sleep for a month.

  ‘He did,’ the AI assured her. ‘Nyx is on her way to Earth with Blake, Axel, and the evidence intact. Now, if we can just be certain you’ll end up in the same state, then we’ll be in good shape.’

  Raven would have laughed if she could have afforded the breath.

  ‘Doing my best,’ she replied instead.

  She could hear pounding steps in the corridor behind her. By now, her blood was pounding so hard in her ears that she was honestly shocked she could hear the other steps at all. Or maybe she was imagining them? She just didn’t know anymore. She just knew that she had to get back to her ship.

  The halls were more crowded now than they had been before, and everyone around her was shocked by the sight of a half-crazed, gun-toting woman bolting through the hallways of their orderly space station.

  After crashing into a couple of walls when she couldn’t make the turns in time, she reached her port’s door. She pressed the button and anxiously waited for the door to cycle open as she constantly looked down the corridor to see if anyone was following. More than once, she thought she saw Natalia’s blonde head.

  As soon as the door was open enough, she threw herself in and pressed the button to close it before dashing into Silvanus.

  “To Earth!” she ordered, collapsing into a panting heap on the cabin floor just as she felt the connector tunnel retracting into the ship. Once the small shudders that spoke of their departure began, she let out a breath she’d been half-holding.

  “I anticipate there will be pursuit,” Silvanus said. “I have plotted the fastest course to Earth. It will take approximately seven hours.”

  Raven laughed. “A headlong rush of seven hours,” she said wearily.

  She told herself to get off the f
loor, but it didn’t seem to be happening. Finally, Kyra just came and laid down beside her.

  “Open a channel to Nyx,” she asked.

  “Done.”

  “Blake?”

  “Rave!” The relief was clear in his voice. “You got away.”

  She smiled faintly. “I did,” she said. “Natalia can be a brute, but a broken nose gave her pause. Stillwell was nothing. You have everything for the authorities back on Earth?”

  Blake sighed. “I do. Do you think it will be enough?”

  “I hope so, Blake. I hope so.”

  By the end of the first hour, Raven fell asleep.

  Before the end of the second, Silvanus woke her up to tell her that it seemed fairly certain they were being followed, but with little chance of being caught.

  By the fourth hour, Raven was drinking too much coffee again.

  And by the end of the seventh, Silvanus and Nyx were requesting emergency landings at Earth Gamma Central Docking Ports. Which they were granted.

  As soon as they were on the ground, they turned themselves over to the emergency personnel on the landing pad.

  They sat on a bed in the medical center, where Blake had just received treatment for the remainder of his injuries. The Earth Governmental Police were on hand as soon as the doctors were done, and the two hunters told all.

  Raven knew their only chance was to be as honest as they could be, and let the fates decide.

  “Do you think they believed us?” Blake asked after the last officer left.

  They had told their stories more than once and answered about seven thousand questions, or so it felt. They’d been questioned separately and together, and asked the same things over and over to see if their stories changed. They didn’t. That was one of the many benefits of the truth.