by Debra Jess
They helped you.
They distracted me.
You should have kept up with the therapy.
I didn't have time. I still don't. I don't need therapy.
If you don't need therapy, why are you talking to yourself?
Because I'm the only one I can trust.
The shuttle detached from its tethers and floated out of the slip. The view pane showcased a view of Station Five in the distance, slowly spinning against a black field of an endless universe. If all went according to plan, Hart would meet her on that station in four and half hours. She didn't have time for introspection or doubts.
With that thought, she slapped her conscience hard, before boxing it up and slamming closed the lid.
Unlike Station Six, disembarking at Station Seven had the aura of one of her nightmares. The scraping of metal and the sizzle of plasma echoed across the huge landing bay, punctuated by a comm system that barked reassignments, messages, and warnings. The noise rattled her nerves as she made her way toward the compressor window to stand behind several people who had disembarked with her. Half of them looked as if they worked with the construction crews, the other half appeared to be here for the same reason she was.
No one talked or made eye contact.
At least she had an idea of where she needed to go. Only three rings were open and populated. The highest ring was open to guests but issued a warning about the lack of security and the necessity of watching one’s step.
The few who joined her at this level disbursed as soon as the window disgorged them into another cavernous landing bay, still under construction. Low light filtered through dust floating in thick, unfiltered air cold enough to make her shiver. Empty storage bins of all sizes scattered across the floor, with cushioning material spilling over the edges. Along one wall, recesses formed what might eventually become offices that had no doors. Inside, she could see shadows shifting about. She counted down the numbers etched into the wall until she found the one she needed.
Double-checking to make sure she could pull her knife out from under her belt without difficulty, she entered the room. Filthy shelves lined all three walls, stacked with dirty boxes overflowing with bricks of various drugs, but also half-built construction equipment and weapons. From the far corner, blocked by shelving, she heard the slight ping of a door dissolving. There was more than one person in this office, and if they returned, they would be at her back. Not her biggest problem for the moment, but knowing it could become a problem had her changing her stance to avoid any surprises.
In front of her, behind a cluttered desk, sat a stringy-looking man with a thin mustache, disheveled hair, squinty eyes, and clothing so worn she could see his pale skin through the threads. He glared at her but said nothing as she approached. Instinct told her she wasn't alone with him, but she kept her hands at her sides until she stood in front of his desk.
"Folks just don't wander into my office." His nasally voice held an accent she didn't recognize. "Who sent you?"
It was a test question. "Garros."
"Garros is dead." His left hand flicked, giving someone a signal.
"I know." She returned his glare with one of her own. "I killed him when a deal we had went sour on the sixth ring of Risa Station two years ago. That's how I got your name, rifling through his pockets and finding your product. Quality stuff. Much better than anything I found on the Unity Homeport."
The guy snorted, relaxing now that he believed her based on the details she'd read in a file. "That's not hard. How much are you looking for?"
She shook her head. "I don't want Black Wave. Too unstable for my needs. What I'm looking for is Z-nips."
She expected disbelief, but not a laugh. From this guy, hilarity sounded more like a honking ave. "That's it? Stuff's so easy to come by, it's hardly worth my time."
"I'll make it worth your time if you can get it to me in sixteen hours."
"How much do you need?" He signaled whoever stood behind her to stand down.
"Twenty-five bricks." That much would fit into one box that she could carry on to the Queen of Hearts with no one noticing.
"Sixteen hours, though…" He rubbed his chin "That makes things a little bit harder and a lot more expensive."
"How expensive?" She had an upper limit but also a small credit line with the banks.
"Twenty-five grand, one grand per brick."
"Twenty-five is ridiculous, especially for Z-nips.”
“Like I said—it’s not the product, it’s the time frame. If you gave me another two days, I might be inclined to halve the price.”
No, he wouldn’t, but she wasn’t going to walk away with him thinking she was that easy either. “Seventeen.”
“Twenty-one.”
It was probably the best she could get without having to deal with him pulling a stunt at pickup. “Done."
"I'll require full payment…"
"You'll get half now and the rest on delivery." She wasn't going to risk nondelivery either.
He nodded in thought, probably considering how much he was going to get regardless of whether he came through for her. "Deal."
She activated the bank chip and transferred half the money.
"All right. Meet me in sixteen hours." He motioned her toward the exit.
Before she made it to the compression gate, she swerved right and ducked into one of the containers, squatting down to make herself small.
A lumbering shadow paused so close to where she hid she could smell his sweat. Trust but verify, and she'd just confirmed that her seller tried to have her followed, probably to see if she had a partner waiting in the wings, someone who could help her rip off the dealer.
Son-of-a-beast, but at least now she had a portrait of whom to keep an eye out for. The man moved on after a minute of looking around for her. Scooting out of the container, she turned back to the compression gate, evading the shadow easily.
For now.
Chapter Twenty
"She'll be fine. We all need some downtime."
Darvik stopped drumming his fingers on the table. Across from him, Johza sat calm and composed, the model of a young fatherly type thanks to his mask. The two of them engaged in nothing more suspicious than a heated discussion over which spheres team would win the championship this year, until they were sure no one was listening to them.
To keep up the physical charade, Darvik shifted his gaze to the holo broadcasting overhead. "If she were healthy, I would agree."
Johza shrugged. "If she runs into trouble, she'll call you."
"Which could burn this entire operation to ground."
"It wouldn't be the first time we've aborted a job."
True. "It would be the first time we've aborted because someone got careless."
"Shade isn't careless."
He knew that. Deep down, he knew that Shade had an agenda all her own, so he had to stay prepared for the worst. For the sake of his crew, he couldn't let his guard down. Despite her talk about aliens killing her parents, her instincts about how to handle the Silt and the Shadows were on target.
Why would someone who could outthink her opponents believe in aliens? How could he work so well with her, yet still have the feeling she was holding something back? Maybe the alien thing was part of her ruse. Why couldn't he fight his attraction to dig deep enough to figure out what she was hiding?
Johza gave him a look. "All couples keep secrets from each other. That slag about trusting enough to be honest all the time? It's just slag, and it doesn't mean they don't love each other."
What? Darvik choked on his drink but managed to hold back a cough, which would attract attention. "Are you talking from experience? Because in all the decades I've known you, you've never had a relationship last more than a month. What do you know about love?"
Johza rubbed his fingers along his gray stubble. "True, I don’t have vast experience with long-term commitments, but I knew your parents. I know the secrets they kept from one another. I also know they
would have died for each other."
Darvik gave up the pretense of watching the game. "They stayed by each other's side right up until Manitac killed them."
"Cool your blood, youngster." Johza turned away from the holo above to watch station guests rushing past them on their way to the nearest compression gate. "I'm not talking about straying. I'm talking about secrets. We all have them. Big, small, it doesn't matter. Everyone deserves to keep a couple of secrets to themselves. It doesn't mean your parents cared about each other any less. It just means that each of them had something that belonged only to them. It's normal, and deserved, and should be respected."
Darvik tried to put what Johza was saying into perspective and figure out how it applied to Shade. First, he had to get past the memory of his parents. He hadn't planned on drinking his ale, preferring to stay stone-cold sober when he met Johza's contact, but now he needed to drain his anger, and ale would handle that just fine.
"Showtime." Johza sat up straighter as a shorter man with a round face, large eyes, neatly trimmed beard, and a jaunty white hat, which matched his clothes, sauntered over to them. Looking closer, Darvik decided this guy was using a higher quality holo-mask, like the ones he and Johza wore.
"Johza, so good to see you again." The man turned the stool around so he could hug the seat back to his chest. "Who's your friend?"
"Sorinestro, meet Darvik Hart, captain of the—"
"Queen of Hearts." Sorinestro tightened his grip on the seat back, just enough for Darvik to notice his knuckles turn white. "I had no idea my friend Johza served on the infamous Queen of Hearts. I'm honored, Captain, truly I am."
"And I am pleased to finally meet Johza's supplier. Our cannons haven't run dry since you sold us those energy slicers." Hart tipped an invisible hat toward Sorinestro.
"I'm pleased to hear this." Sorinestro appeared to relax a little with the casual bantering, but Hart couldn't miss his tell, a subtle glance off to the left—someone else lurked nearby. It was not unexpected, but annoying nonetheless. "Regretfully, there are no more to be sold. The company we…acquired them from has shut down, and its remaining inventory has disappeared."
"Manitac?" Johza asked.
"Who else?" Sorinestro opened the menu grid and selected his own drink. "There are two rumors: one says the board of directors wants to produce the product for Manitac ships alone, the other says they want to kill the product all together."
"Which do you believe?" Hart asked.
Sorinestro shrugged. "Doesn't matter to me if I can't get my hands on it. Though, it appears to happen more and more often."
"Does this mean you don't have the items on our shopping list?" He cut short the last question when the servo brought Sorinestro his drink. Call him paranoid, but just because no one recognized them didn't mean they weren't listening to every conversation in the pub.
The servo trundled away while Sorinestro sampled his wine. "No, I have enough inventory at the moment to fulfill your requests."
"But…" Johza could hear the excuse coming just as well as Darvik.
Sorinestro lowered his glass. "I've had to make some tough decisions. The expansion of Manitac into Calypso has everyone either investing or running away."
Everyone knew this. By the Stars, Manitac advertised it. "Which means what?"
Sorinestro sighed. "Most folks want to live their lives and not have to think beyond their own comfort. That's fair, but with Manitac's expansion into Calypso, I'm seeing a pattern I don't like."
"Which is?"
"Joiners and fighters, folks who don't want to have to think about anything beyond their own comfort join the Manitac brigade. I don't mean their navy. I mean the company in general. They figure they're picking the winning team, which will protect them from the boogeymen who are—according to rumor—turning regular folks, not just prisoners, into puppets."
"How does that affect you?" Darvik had heard the same rumors while he'd bought information on Shade from her ex-lovers. He even paid extra for it.
"In every way. At least half my inventory used to come from non-Manitac producers. All those companies have been taken over or forced into bankruptcy. The employees I’d been bribing for access codes and transport information, I can't find them, any of them. As for the inventory I normally got from Manitac, my last supplier sold me out. Told me that there's too much money being offered to fill the prisons. I almost didn't get out of that trap."
Darvik met Johza's eyes, communicating a need to keep Sorinestro talking. Free information was invaluable. "We had no idea it was so bad."
"How could you?" Sorinestro picked up his glass again, examining the liquid before gulping it down. "On the far edge of Calypso, you're isolated for the most part. But that's going to change, my friends. It's at the point where someone like me can't supply the fine folks like yourself with what you need."
"So what are you going to do?" Johza asked.
Sorinestro motioned for a server to retrieve his empty glass. "The way I see it I have two choices: retire to an out-of-the-way resort and hope that Manitac never figures out where I've disappeared to, or change my business practices become more proactive in my future."
The hairs on the back of Darvik's head stood on end. "Proactive meaning…"
"I'm joining the Shadows." Sorinestro pulled his cap off to run his fingers through this thin, dark hair as if he couldn't believe his own announcement. "They need someone like to me to get them what they want. I'll have a larger crew at hand and the equipment to take back what's mine."
"You mean take back from Manitac what Manitac stole from someone else before you could steal it," Darvik clarified. "Interesting choice."
Sorinestro nodded, but with his gaze looking for the servo, not at either Darvik or Johza. "If you can't live with them, you either have to beat them or get out of the way. I'm too young to get out of the way."
Darvik waited while the servo brought Sorinestro a second glass of wine. "So about our shopping list…"
"Not a problem," Sorinestro insisted, a little more cheer animating his face. "I can't say I noticed any destroyers docking at the station though."
"And you never will." Darvik pushed away from the table but didn't stand. Time to bring this enlightening discussion to an end. "If you could arrange for the products to be delivered right here, in sixteen hours, we'll handle it from there."
Sorinestro raised his glass in a final salute before pushing his own chair back and walking away, his gait appearing straighter, more confident. From another table, a woman joined him before he headed out the door.
"We have a problem." Johza grumbled as he curled his hands around his own drink while Darvik pulled his chair back into place.
"Our world is getting smaller and more desperate. How bad could things have gotten on Unity Homeport?"
Johza shook his head. "I don't know, but for someone like Sorinestro to sign on with the Shadows…not something I ever would have suspected. He's a thief, not a revolutionary. I could see him supplying the Shadows so long as they could pay, but to join them? I just can't imagine it."
Something clicked about this whole situation, bringing Darvik back to his earlier discussion with Johza. "Isn't that what my parents did? They turned to pirating well before Manitac was even born. They didn't want to live under Unity's laws, never mind a corporate monster. There were no Shadows then, just a bunch of disaffected families who set out to make their own way through life on the edge of Andromeda. Pirating kept them going, moving too fast for Unity to catch, but not fast enough to get out of Manitac's way." Hart paused, staring into his drink like Sorinestro had. "Not nearly fast enough."
"Yeah," Johza agreed but didn't elaborate. "Without Sorinestro, our options for munitions just narrowed to a few others I trust less than I do Sorinestro."
"How much can we make on our own?"
Johza shook his head before Darvik had finished the question. "Not as much as we'd need. The amount of components required for a typical raid is minimal, but we'd
have most of the crew working day and night for the next two months. If we have to tangle with the Silt…"
"We have a good crew," Darvik said, but even he knew it wasn't enough. "But they didn't sign on to labor on munitions for months on end."
"We have the puppets…"
"Not for this. I wouldn't trust them with something as complicated as munitions."
Silence kept both men from making eye contact.
"We'll have enough from Sorinestro this time to get us to the haunted nebula." Another servo approached, but Johza waved it away. "If we can evade the Silt, we'll be fine."
"Let's not take chances. We still have Ezick. He'll get access to the wider 'cast net here. If anyone can find out if the science station is occupied and receiving materials, he can."
"If it is, and they are, we could be here for months waiting for a supply run."
"Then we wait." Darvik shrugged for lack of a better reply. "The Queen's shift is our ace in the hole. No one will find her now."
"I don't have a few months."
Damn the Guardians. He knew Johza's time was ticking down, but not this fast. "What can I do to make this better for you?"
"Nothing you can do. I never wanted to retire and settle somewhere, but I'll be damned if I'll slow down this crew while I waste away."
He realized what Johza was asking of him. "Whatever you decide, I'll support you. If Naz won't take care of you, I will."
Johza nodded.
"How about heading back to the Queen of Hearts and joining me for game a of autodam?" They used to play the game while Naz was in med school. "It's been a while and we've never—"
"How about you shut up and get your ass to the nearest florist and buy your woman a bouquet big enough to make a princess weep?"
His woman? Really? From Johza, that was almost romantic. "What is it with you and matchmaking? You've been on my back about Shade since before she boarded."
Johza shrugged. "Your folks wanted you to be happy, maybe find someone you would be happy with. If they put you through what Naz did to get permission to go to medical school…your mom and dad didn't want to tear you apart like that, so when you asked to visit Naz on the Unity Homeport, they let you go without an argument. They knew there was no one on board the Iron Heart who would suit you."
