by Sara King
“No!” Geo screamed. “It’s his cover. His cover. He was here to find David. The whole time. He came all the way out here to find David!”
Anna cocked her head. “You’re telling me that not only was my father worth fifty million in illicit goods, but he had a high-ranking Nephyr take a ten-year round-trip to come execute him?”
“He was also researching a kid. Jersey Brackett.”
Anna’s eyes sharpened. “What about him?”
“The kid had been approached by the leader of an organization that preys on Nephyrs. It’s like the counterpart to the Nephyr splinter-group. I think they’re at war.”
Anna squinted at him. “I’m sorry. An organization that preys on Nephyrs? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Then go ask a Nephyr,” Geo sobbed. “This guy’s their boogey-man.”
“Jersey Brackett’s their boogey-man?” Anna demanded, clearly disbelieving.
“No,” Geo sobbed, terrified she would think he was lying, “the leader of the AlphaGens. His name’s Sirius. The guy killed all three of Brackett’s Nephyr buddies in like two seconds in a confrontation in the Core, totally eviscerated them with a staff, but left Brackett alive. Spent like an hour just sitting there, talking to him. It was all on camera and everything. Steele was sent here to find out why. Please—that’s all I know. Steele skinned the spies I sent to watch him.”
Anna seemed to consider that a moment, then started pacing again. “So to summarize, Geo, you killed my adoptive father for what was essentially fifty million credits.”
“Yes,” Geo whimpered.
She nodded and continued pacing. “You made the kill contract with a Nephyr who seems to be hunting defective Nephyrs—and, for no apparent reason, my adoptive father.”
“Yes,” Geo whispered.
Anna glanced at Dobie. “He lying?”
“No, Anna,” Dobie responded, “though his biorhythms are spiking wildly due to my last extraction.”
Anna chuckled. “I’ll bet.” She continued pacing, a thoughtful frown on her face. Geo simply lowered his head to the floor and sobbed.
Eventually, Anna stopped. “So you’re telling me there’s a top-secret arm of the Nephyrs that hunts down defectors and kills them.”
“Yes,” Geo cried.
“But they were hoping Jersey would lead them to some bigger fish.” She cocked her head. “Did they think my adoptive father was that bigger fish? The big fish, maybe?”
“I don’t know,” Geo whined.
Anna grunted. “Where’s his body? I want to see it for myself.”
Geo froze. “I…” He had gone back to retrieve the body, to show it to Steele, but it wasn’t where Martin had left it. There hadn’t even been blood. Geo would have thought Steele was trying to cheat him if the ropes hadn’t still been dangling against the tree.
Anna narrowed her eyes and cocked her head expectantly.
“…couldn’t find it,” Geo whispered.
Anna waited.
“Steele wanted to buy the head afterwards, so I told him where it was. He came back pissed off, telling me the body was gone, so I went to look.” In actuality, Steele had told him to cut up Landborn’s corpse into sixty-one different pieces—he had been extremely specific—with each piece placed at least six hundred meters from the head, but Martin had confessed later that the smell had been too intense to carry out such a request and he had left Landborn tied to a tree with his guts hanging out, instead.
She blinked. “You…sold…the head of a dead man.” This seemed to confuse her. “Why?”
“Steele wanted it!” Geo cried. “Please.”
“Dobie, if he says the word ‘please’ again, cut off a hand.” Anna began pacing again. “So the body’s at large. How did you kill my adoptive father?”
“Eviscerated him,” Geo managed. Then, quickly, he added, “But my son did it. I had no part in his death.”
“Nice try,” Anna laughed. “Your beloved Martin did it on your orders.” But, to Geo’s overwhelming relief, she just continued pacing. Methodically, she asked, “Were there any metal parts inside the body that caught your son’s attention? Anything odd? Was David human?”
Her questions reminded Geo of the odd comment his son had made in passing, while laughing with Geo over a beer. Fucker smelled like formaldehyde on the inside, Martin had said, shaking his head. Like a damn preserved frog. Formaldehyde and ozone.
“He stank on the inside,” Geo said. “Like a frog.”
Anna frowned. “Like a what?”
“A preserved frog!” Geo sobbed. “Please!” Then, realizing what he had said, he just collapsed into despondent sobs.
But when the robot lunged forward to lop off a hand, Anna said, “Wait.” She was still scowling. “You mean like formaldehyde? He smelled like formaldehyde on the inside?”
“That’s what Martin said,” Geo whimpered. “When he pulled his intestines out, he had to stop gutting him and walk away to get air, it was so strong. Like formaldehyde mixed with ozone.”
“How inconvenient,” Anna replied. But she was scowling, now. She looked at him for much too long.
From his position sprawled on the floor, Geo saw a gun stashed under his bookshelf, one that he’d put there several years ago and forgotten about. His heart started to slam like acidic fire in his chest as he realized it was within reach.
“Geo,” Anna said finally, “I want you to keep in mind what you really are—a leech. You’re a throbbing parasite stuck to the back of some very smart people. People who can walk into your home and make you bleed, just by saying a few words. Because you are a leech, and because you can do nothing but sustain yourself on the glory of others, we didn’t invite you or your loser friends to the conquering of Rath. We took matters into our own hands, and we’re gonna have Rath in the course of an afternoon. Next time you think about betraying us, I want you to think really hard. Because I’ll kill you, Geo. And I’ll enjoy it.”
Coming from the mouth of a seven-year-old girl, the words left an icy stake in his heart, curdling his guts.
“Further,” Anna said, “we’ll be taking that fancy ship, as payment for the fact you betrayed my father.”
Geo’s breath caught, realizing he could use that to destroy the little bitch. Mustering as much of a whine as he could, he said, “But that ship is everything I have…”
Anna grinned. “Geo, from what little you know about me, do you honestly think I care?”
“No,” Geo whimpered, but he was laughing inside. All he had to do was give her the blue duckie, knock her out, then put a beam through the big guy’s brain. Then he’d have Anna Landborn to himself for years to come.
“So?” Anna said. “Where’s the peg?” Her eyes roved his office, obviously looking for the cylindrical key that came with every expensive boat, a way to prevent theft by adding an extra layer of protection and forcing users to have a physical object on hand in order to make changes to the ship’s register.
“Please don’t take my ship,” Geo whimpered, trying to sound as pathetic as possible—which actually wasn’t hard, considering what the bitch had done to him.
Anna sighed deeply. “Fine. Your nuts or your ship. Decide.”
“Ship!” Geo howled. “Ship, Aanaho the ship! Peg’s in the safe in my desk.”
“Dobie?” Anna asked. “Is there a safe in his desk?”
“Indeed, Anna,” the man said, without moving.
“Does it look unpleasant?” Anna asked.
“Very. Looks like it requires a key to access.”
“What else has it got in it?” Anna asked.
“Looks like refined Yolk, palladium ingots, and two dozen large crystals.”
Anna frowned at mention of Geo’s crystals. “He’s got crystals in a safe? What kind of crystals?”
Anna’s companion was silent.
Anna turned to look. “Dobie?”
Her companion was staring at the back of Geo’s desk, a tiny frown on his face.
“Dobie!”
“I’m…” He hesitated. “…Not sure.”
This time, Anna frowned and turned to face her friend. “What do you mean, you’re ‘not sure?’”
“I…don’t know, Anna,” Dobie replied. “Their composition is…unlike…anything I’ve…ever seen.”
“Heh. You can hear it frying his processors.” That seemed to excite her. “Where’s the key, Geo?” Anna prodded.
“Here,” Geo croaked, pulling the blue duckie and its trapped key-shaft from under his shirt. He tossed it to Anna.
Anna eagerly picked it up and started walking over around the desk, her companion still staring at Geo’s cache on the inside with a perplexed frown. She stopped when she saw the safe, then whistled. “Wow. That looks nasty. Dobie?”
Her companion did not respond.
“Dobie!”
The man jerked and looked at her. “Huh?”
“You wanna do the honors?”
Geo giggled inside. The man had to be a robot, so the blast would take him down like a ton of lead bricks. Then, while he rebooted, Geo would put a few rounds in his brainbox and that would be that.
“Of course, Anna,” Dobie said, walking around the desk. He took the blue duckie from Anna, then knelt and started to feed the key into the slot. Geo watched, enraptured, as his vengeance slid closer a millimeter at a time.
Anna glanced over her shoulder to give Geo a smug look, but frowned when she saw Geo’s face.
“Dobie stop.”
Dobie immediately stopped, key only half-inserted. Geo suddenly felt like acid was dousing the inside of his chest.
“Pull it out.”
Her companion obeyed.
“Give it to me.”
Still kneeling, he dropped it into Anna’s hand. Anna turned from him and tossed it to Geo, bouncing the key by his nose. “You do it.”
Geo swallowed, eying the key. He knew what would happen if he put that key into the slot—and he knew what would happen if he didn’t. He lunged for the gun he’d stuffed under his bookcase.
Dobie caught his hand before he could pull the weapon from under the bookcase and snapped his wrist. Then his forearm. Then his upper arm. As Geo was screaming, Dobie carefully picked up the weapon—a good Laserat he’d taken from one of his less productive smugglers before he killed him—and put it on the desk for Anna to look at.
“I see,” Anna said, her cold gaze on Geo. “Dobie, find the real key.”
The man glanced around the room and, in less than four seconds, he had located the pink duckie under Geo’s chair. He pulled it out of its secret compartment and handed it to her.
Then, giving Geo a smug look, Anna inserted the key in the lock and turned it. Geo sobbed as the safe door swung open, revealing his treasures.
Anna tossed the pink duckie aside and whistled at the softly glowing, sunset-orange hexagonal crystals. “Dobie, what are those?”
“I’m unable to make a comprehensive analysis at this time, Anna,” her companion said.
Anna turned to look at Geo. “Geo, pumpkin, what are those?”
“They call them spirit crystals,” Geo babbled.
“Who’s they?” Anna demanded.
“Treasure hunters,” Geo sobbed.
Anna stared at the softly-glowing, hand-length crystals for several minutes before she said, “Why have I never heard of them?”
“They’re rare,” Geo sobbed. “Too unstable.”
“Unstable for what?”
“I don’t know,” Geo whined. “I won them in a bet like thirty years ago. They’re pretty.”
“You’ve got alien power-cores locked away in your safe because you think they’re pretty?!” she demanded.
Geo could only nod, because none of the analyses he’d funded on them had actually produced any results.
Anna grunted. “Dobie, grab them. We’ll take the Yolk and the palladium, too.”
Geo was beyond caring what they took. He only wanted them to leave—preferably after putting a bullet in his brain. The idea that his people would see him like this was too much for him. He waited, crying into the floor as Anna and her companion emptied his safe into one of his wadded-up nodule sacks in the corner.
“Right,” Anna said, once his safe was empty. “Thanks for the stuff, Geo ol’ buddy. I think it even starts to pay back some of that blood money you owe me.” She grinned and squatted beside him to pat his cheek. “Next time I come, that safe better be full. None of this half-assed shit.”
Geo could only whimper his misery.
Standing up, Anna saluted. “So until next time, my corpulent friend!” She turned and walked out, allowing her companion to follow with most of Geo’s worldly assets. At the door, she paused and called back, “And remember—it better be full!” Then his tormentor was gone, leaving him alone with his severed body parts.
CHAPTER 26: Separation Anxiety
6th of June, 3006
Silver City
Fortune, Daytona 6 Cluster, Outer Bounds
“Like hell you’re taking my robot.” After her automatic jolt of panic, Anna was now experiencing a surge of anger that Panner would have the audacity to offer up her property to the rebels—who had built a plan of taking Rath tomorrow around Dobie’s participation—without even bothering to ask her first.
“They need him to access the secured areas,” Pan insisted.
“Maybe you didn’t hear me, Pan,” Anna growled. “Dobie’s not going anywhere.”
Pan cocked his head at her like the monkey was trying to work out a complicated connect-the-dots. “Anna, out of fifty-six locations on that base, twenty-four of them require a clearance that Jersey and Tatiana lost the moment they joined our cause. He’s the only way in.”
“Oh, don’t give me that crap, Panner,” Anna snapped. “I could hack them in with my eyes closed.”
“He also comes fully equipped with some unique weaponry,” Pan said, giving her a non-apologetic shrug. “His participation could save hundreds of our guys. Maybe thousands.”
“Like I give a shit,” Anna said. “He stays with me. End of discussion. Come on, Dobie. Let’s get back to those genetics experiments.” She turned to go.
For the first time in the short weeks that she’d known him, Panner seemed to lose his temper. “Anna, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you, but your pet could take out half that base in an afternoon. He’d be saving lives. Maybe even your sister’s.”
“I don’t care,” Anna said. “I’m not letting him go anywhere.”
“How long would I have to be gone?” Dobie asked. It was the first time he had spoken since the conversation started.
Anna froze and twisted. “Huh?”
Doberman was facing Panner. “How long would I need to leave her alone in the Orbital?”
“With your help, they could take Rath in sixteen hours,” Pan said to Dobie, as if Anna was no longer even part of the conversation. “Without it…” Pan grimaced. “Could be a month. Longer, if they get word back to the Orbital in time.”
Doberman nodded. “I’ll go.”
Anna felt a stab of fear cut through her chest and settle in her heart. It started to pound, until she could hear nothing but her own heartbeat. “No you won’t,” she blurted.
Doberman turned to her calmly. “Pan is convinced that my assistance would save lives. That’s not something that I can ignore in good conscience.”
“Screw your ‘conscience,’ Dobie,” Anna snapped. “You just cut off half a guy’s nut! You’re staying with me.”
“My conscience kept me from murdering you the first time we met,” Dobie replied. “I’d say it’s been working in your favor, on average.”
Oooh. He would bring that up. Anna lifted her head. “That…bomb…we’ve discussed. What if the signal gets delayed or corrupted because of the distance?”
Panner immediately straightened with nervous alertness. “Bomb? What bomb?”
“I never put a bomb in your brain, Anna,” Doberman replied, ignoring th
e rube. “I figured it was the only way to get you to avoid sabotaging me long enough for you to realize we could have similar goals.”
Anna narrowed her eyes at him, feeling both relieved and irritated that she’d fallen for it. “So similar you’re willing to just leave me up here, huh?” she demanded.
“For approximately eighteen hours, including travel time,” Dobie replied.
“Better make it twenty,” Pan said. “They’ll want to brief you before the fight.”
“I accounted for that,” Dobie said.
Pan raised an eyebrow. “We ran the attack models. The Rath incursion’s gonna take at least sixteen.”
“Your models didn’t account for modifications I have made to my person,” Dobie said.
“Now hold on,” Anna growled. “Dobie, maybe I should go with you.” The thought of being alone was startlingly nerve-wracking.
“This will be a combat operation,” Doberman said, “and you’re one of the most valuable resources that Fortune has to offer in its struggle against our mindless, sheep-fucking oppressors.”
“When you’re not being a demented shit,” Pan added.
“Thank you for that,” Anna snapped.
“Why did you maim him, anyway?” Pan demanded. “You had a bad morning?”
“He betrayed us,” Anna said. “I was making sure it wouldn’t happen again.”
“Oh,” Pan laughed. “You were carefully cultivating his loyalties by destroying a testicle and taking fingers.”
“Yes!” Anna snapped.
“Anna,” Pan said, looking totally serious, “next time you feel the urge to strike out on your own and make political alliances on our behalf, don’t.”
Anna felt a rush of rage at his words. “He needed to be taught a lesson.”
“I’d say that a lesson requiring plastic surgery is a bit extreme,” Pan replied. At her furious glare, he sighed. “Look, Anna. Without his smugglers, the guy’s basically a lame duck. You didn’t have to torture him. We could’ve wooed him to our side relatively easy, once he realized we took down his allies in the Coalition with the same blast that killed his men.”
“He killed my father,” Anna said.
“Adopted father,” Pan countered. “You said the DNA didn’t match.”
