by Robyn Bachar
They took a lift to the eleventh floor, and Jiang paused in front of the apartment’s door. They rang the announcer, but there was no response.
“I’ll hack the lock,” she said.
“I’ll loom.”
Jiang snorted and returned his tablet, and he used his good hand to slip it into his left pocket. She pried the access panel open with her multi-tool, and after crossing a few wires the door swung open. The stench of messy, violent death invaded the hallway, and she and Ryder exchanged a grim glance.
She drew her pistol as Ryder liberated his backup piece from his ankle holster. He wasn’t as good of a shot with his left hand, but it would do. They entered and cleared the room quickly, not that there was much room to clear. This place made his quarters on the Mombasa look spacious.
The scene was gory—poor bastard must have opened the door and taken a bullet right between the eyes. Local law enforcement would be agitated over a death like this, prying into the victim’s background and making all sorts of mess while they tried to calm the local populace. A decent pro would’ve been cleaner—caused a quiet death that could’ve looked like an accident to avoid drawing attention.
“Rookie hit,” Ryder murmured.
Jiang nodded. “It’s fresh. The guy who took a shot at us could have done this.”
“Maybe. Why take out a civilian if you’re after a bounty?”
“Maybe he meant to take his place at the meetup, try to trick us into going with him so he could turn us in for the live bounty. Then he saw an opportunity with the crowd and took it,” she said. “The main drive is missing from his data terminal.”
Missing was an understatement; someone had ripped the thing apart and left wires dangling in its wake. Jiang holstered her weapon and stepped around the body. She headed toward the kitchen, and Ryder knelt beside the corpse.
“Sorry, mate.” Ryder rifled through the man’s pockets and found his wallet. “Money’s all here, so it wasn’t a robbery. Though you’d have to be pretty damn desperate to grease a guy like this for a few credits.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time someone did, though. Got it.” Jiang pulled a data stick from the freezer. “Definitely a rookie hit. He took the drive but left the good stuff. People have been hiding shit in their kitchen since the dawn of time.”
“Well maybe not the dawn of time, per se,” Ryder said, and Jiang glared. “Sorry, boss.”
“Let’s get out of here. We need to be off world before they find him. We’re all over the security footage. Keep the wallet. We can use the cred chips to track his financials.”
“Got it.” Poor bastard.
This was not a good start to this mission. How much trouble were they in?
* * *
Ryder chucked the damaged prosthetic into his duffel bag and retrieved his backup. The quality wasn’t as good as his main prosthetic—the skin was a few shades too light, less lifelike, and he hadn’t taken the time to ink it, so his arm tattoos ended where the piece began. The mechanism whirred as it bonded to him and he sighed in relief as he flexed his fingers. He hated being without a prosthetic, which was why he always carried a backup. A one-armed security chief was fairly useless.
Ryder joined Jiang in the cockpit. She didn’t need his help to fly, but he felt more useful in the copilot’s chair than back in the cabin, and he needed to feel useful. According to the local newsfeed, the spectator who had been shot had died at the scene, so now this mission had two bodies and zero answers.
“Where we headed?” he asked.
“Away,” she said. “We’ll find a nice hole in space near a comm buoy and see what our friend the property manager was hiding.”
“We shouldn’t head out too far in case we need to return.”
“We won’t need to. There’s nothing left of the place I knew. It’s like an entirely different world.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. Her expression was calm, her tone even, but this had to be eating her up inside. This was the only lead they had on finding out about her past, and the home Jiang had known had been obliterated as much as her memories of it. “We could send the data to Maria...”
“No.”
“She’s better at this than either of us.” In fact, Chief Maria Watson was the best damn engineer Ryder had ever met. She would’ve been a hell of an asset during the war.
“No.” Jiang slapped a set of switches with more effort than necessary, and Ryder bit back a sigh. He understood her fear of endangering their crew, but refusing to ask for help would slow them down. She paused, her attention darting toward his hands as he strapped in. “Are you okay?”
“It’s not bad. Doesn’t match, but that can be a conversation starter.”
“You use your prosthetic to pick up women?” she asked, sounding appalled.
“And men, let’s be fair.”
Jiang cracked a smile. “You’re terrible.”
“Nah. I have it on good authority that I’m amazing.”
“Well then, Chief Amazing, you can help me with the preflight checklist.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
* * *
Jiang hunched over her data terminal and scowled at the encryption that thwarted her at every turn. She was determined to crack it herself, and Ryder used that laser-like focus to surreptitiously set up a direct comm link to Maria aboard the Mombasa.
How did it go?
It was a bust, he replied. Contact never showed. Turns out he was eliminated, and whoever did it took a few shots at us. Damaged my good hand.
The cursor blinked for several long moments before Maria’s reply scrolled across the screen. Wait, which one is your good hand?
The good prosthetic, he corrected. It’s got a bullet in it. You’ll have to do surgery when we get back.
Are you coming back?
Ryder glanced up at Jiang, who mumbled expletives in Cantonese. The Mombasa was their home—she’d want to go back when this was all sorted. Wouldn’t she?
Jury’s still out on that one. I have a data package for you. Contact was hiding it, so assume it has something valuable. Got time to look at it?
Maria’s reply stuck a tongue out at him. I have nothing but time. We’re going nowhere here. We’re buried under a mountain of Soviet data that needs decryption, and though we’ve uncovered a few dozen shady deals we haven’t found anything on the super weapon yet. So the impending doom of galactic war is still impending, and we have no new leads with which to stop it.
Good to know. Let me know what you find.
Ryder uploaded the data and then set his tablet aside. “Gonna make something to eat. You hungry?” Jiang waved him off, and he shrugged. “Right. Two cups of noodles, coming right up.”
The ship’s tiny galley looked as though it hadn’t been used since pirates stole the ship. Ryder assumed the pirates weren’t interested in the culinary arts, otherwise they would’ve recognized the top-notch equipment and looted it to sell on the black market. There weren’t many provisions stocked—another detail they should have thought of before leaving. He’d discovered a sad collection of “just add water” instant meals and drinks buried in the pantry. It wasn’t much—before they arrived at New Hong Kong, Ryder hadn’t worried about their supplies. It was supposed to be a simple meet-up that would point Jiang’s search in the right direction. Now they were almost out of food, fuel and cash, and they had no leads to follow.
Ryder grimaced as he grabbed two packets of noodles. It would be enough. It had to be.
Chapter Three
Jiang tapped her chopsticks against the metal cup, and the tinny, constant beat was loud in the cramped quarters. The thin broth had gone cold. After Ryder pressed the cup into her hands she had eaten half of the noodles without even realizing it, but then lost interest as she made a breakthrough in the decryption. What had seemed like
progress turned into just another frustrating dead end. Or multiple dead ends, as the case might be, considering that her investigation into the landlord’s financial history had turned up a shell corporation, and then another and another as she chased the money down a rabbit hole that seemed to have no end.
“Sleep on it,” Ryder said.
Jiang jumped at the sound of his voice, and she turned and spotted him sprawled across his bunk, a pillow scrunched over his head in a vain attempt to block out light and sound. Oops. She was a terrible roommate—she hadn’t shared quarters with anyone in years. She probably would have stabbed someone for interrupting her sleep by making the amount of annoying noise she had been causing for...far too long. An hour?
She set the cup down and rubbed her eyes. “Sorry. Can’t. I was getting somewhere. Sort of.”
“Oh?” Ryder rolled to his side and propped himself up on one arm. Jiang blinked and took a moment to appreciate the view of his shirtless chest. Ryder was a pleasure to look at, but her gaze faltered at the sight of his backup prosthetic. The synthetic skin was pale and plastic, like a doll hastily repaired with the arm from a completely different toy. He had gotten hurt—anyone else would have been seriously injured by a shot like that—and it was her fault. This was her mission, and she had placed him in danger. She couldn’t stand another friend’s death on her conscience. Erik should be enjoying his retirement on a tropical beach, but thanks to her he was spending it in a coffin.
“Boss? Progress?”
Jiang cleared her throat and focused. “Right. He received a series of regular payments from a corporation that doesn’t exist. Which is owned by another fictitious source, and so on. It could be...”
Ryder sat up. “Spit it out.”
“It’s an old espionage tactic. An agent creates shell corporations to pay informants so it can’t be tracked back to the agency. And I’m scared.” Jiang scowled and scrubbed her face. Idiot. She sounded like a whiny child.
“It’s okay to be scared.”
“No, it fucking isn’t.” She rose and began to pace. “I don’t know how I know these things. I’m a pilot, damn it. And a good one.” She stabbed a finger in his direction as though daring him to argue. “I’m not an intel agent.”
“You’re an excellent pilot, and you’re right, you’re not an intel agent. But you don’t know what you were before they pulled you out of that building. Maybe—”
“No. Just...no. This can’t be my life. I don’t want this.”
“It’s not your life. It’s your past.” Ryder rose and stood in front of her, refusing to move. “Your life is back aboard the Mombasa. Whatever you find won’t change that.”
“But what if...” Jiang gripped her head as though trying to hold her fractured brain together. “You saw Steele’s file. That’s what an intel agent does. What if I’ve done terrible things, too?”
After Erik died, Gabriel Steele had joined the Mombasa’s crew as their new intelligence officer. The captain had been flustered and distracted by the fact that she had romantic history with Steele, but it was his Alliance service record that was the real problem. He’d done terrible things in the name of duty.
Jiang’s own past was a great, empty abyss in her memory, and she had spent the past eight years mourning the loss of the color and light she assumed had once occupied that space. But what if she was wrong? What if that pit had been filled with awful truths that were best buried and forgotten?
Ryder quirked one dark, bushy eyebrow. “You know you live with a bunch of pirates, right?”
Jiang smacked him in the chest. “Privateers.”
“Semantics. Everyone on the Mombasa is a survivor. We’ve all done things we’re not proud of, but we’re family. Hell, the captain’s head over heels for Gabriel, and she read his file.” Ryder shrugged. “To each his own. What you do now is up to you. So what do you want to do?”
Jiang folded her arms and resisted the reflex to step back. He was close enough to touch—or throw, if need be. Not that she’d get the necessary leverage in this small space. Ryder radiated warmth like a walking space heater, and for one dizzy moment she imagined leaning in and letting him comfort her. But a hug wouldn’t solve this problem—in fact, embracing Ryder would cause an entirely new set of problems. She needed to decide what to do next, and she wasn’t willing to give up on her search for answers. She had no foundation—she couldn’t build a new life until she filled in the details of the old one.
She straightened and lifted her chin. “I want to find the source of the money. Someone killed the landlord to stop him from talking. I want to know why.”
“Good. If it helps, I may have ignored your order and sent the data to Maria. She probably has a reply by now.”
The deck seemed to drop out from beneath her boots. “You did what? I told you not to do that for a reason, Kalani.” Furious, she stepped closer and jabbed a finger into his chest. Ryder didn’t even blink—she might as well have been striking the shuttle’s hull.
“Yes, and I respectfully disagree with your reasoning. Your fear gave that order, not you. We need help, so I asked for it.”
“I don’t need help.” The lie was childish and she felt small for having said it.
“Everyone needs help. It’s what makes us human. We’re a social species.”
Jiang glowered up at him. He had a point that neither of them was a tech specialist. She’d exhausted her decryption knowledge in tracking the data they had, and Ryder wasn’t likely to get any further with it.
“You’re not listening,” she said. “Until we get this implant thing resolved I am a danger to the crew. There’s Soviet spy tech lurking inside my skull, and it’s just waiting to pull my strings like a marionette. Who knows what orders it’s given me? What if I was ordered to kill the captain? Or steal the ship?”
“The cap can take you in a fight. Probably. Or she’d last long enough for someone to rescue her. And someone would notice if you tried to steal the Mombasa.”
“That’s not good enough. There are a million ways I could betray the crew. I have to stay as far away from the Mombasa as possible.”
Ryder straightened and squared his shoulders as he returned her scowl. “I appreciate your concern, but I’m chief of security, not you. Risk assessment is part of my job, and I decided to contact Chief Watson. Deal with it. Now, do you want to see what she found or not?”
Jiang sighed in defeat. “Fine.”
Ryder retrieved his tablet and turned the screen so Jiang could see the new vid message indicator blinking in the corner of the display. He opened it, and Maria’s image popped into view. The chief’s face was dominated by her tortoiseshell eyeglasses, and her brow was creased with worry. Jiang noticed lines of sleepless stress around Maria’s eyes and wondered how things were faring aboard the Mombasa.
“Hey, guys,” Maria began. “I assume you’re both watching this, because Ryder has like thirty seconds of willpower when it comes to caving in to women in command. Shut up, Kalani, you know it’s true. So here’s the thing: I tracked the money through a dozen different shells before I finally found the source. Sort of. I included my findings in the attached data packet if you want to see for yourself. Anyway, the source is a research company on the Arzamas-16 colony. Yeah, I never heard of it either, because apparently it was abandoned a few years ago after their reactor melted down and contaminated the settlement. But wait, there’s more. This colony was also mentioned in the data we stole about the super weapon. Me and the rest of the rats are betting that Jiang is the super weapon in disguise and she’s going to go all enhanced badass on our enemies.” Maria grinned, and Jiang snorted. “But the captain doesn’t agree, and she’d like you to investigate the site in case there’s hard copy or undamaged data left behind. Have fun! Let us know if you find mutated aliens or something.”
The screen went dark. Have fun? T
hat was it? No lecture for stealing the shuttle? For deserting the crew during their time of need? One paranoid part of Jiang’s heart half expected that they’d tell her to go fuck herself for abandoning them. It would be the sensible thing to do—she was dangerous. She was a walking, talking threat to their security. The captain should have cut her loose and ordered Ryder home, but instead, she’d given them a mission. Maybe the captain meant to throw her in the brig when she returned—not that the Mombasa had a brig.
Ryder shrugged. “It’s possible,” he said. “The hard copy part, not the aliens. Everyone knows there’s no such thing.”
“Right. The Soviets never throw anything away that they might be able to use again. The colony’s structures should be intact.”
“You take me to the nicest places.”
“You’re welcome.”
She rubbed her hands over her face, suddenly weary as anxiety pinched the muscles between her shoulder blades. This mission had bad idea written all over it—they’d have to fly into Soviet space, dodging border patrols, minefields and a dozen other dangers, all to get to a colony contaminated by radiation. If they were caught they’d be interrogated, tortured and executed. But there were benefits to sending only two people on this mission, because a small ship had a better chance of slipping the Soviet navy’s net, and if things went sour there would only be two casualties.
Jiang peered up at Ryder. She was ready to die, but her stomach churned at the thought of being responsible for his death. Ryder should be back on the Mombasa, keeping the ship safe, instead of babysitting her while she hunted the ghosts of her past.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said. Her voice was low as she strained past a lump in her throat. Ryder’s expression softened and he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“I know,” he said. “But I want to do this. I’ve got your back, for as long as it takes.”
Jiang nodded and rose. “Thank you. Let’s go plot a course.”
Chapter Four
Ryder watched Jiang pace the confines of the shuttle’s main living area. Shuttle was somewhat of a misnomer. The ship had started out life as some poor sod’s personal yacht—not top-of-the-line luxury, but still, it was an extravagance to have your own personal starship. Pirates had stolen it, stripped it down and used it as a boarding shuttle, packing a few dozen unwashed pirates into a space meant for a sightseeing family of four. Ryder doubted that anything short of a flamethrower would ever completely remove that stench, but for now the space was livable enough. He’d been in worse places, and in worse company.
