“You say reactors, but you also said we only needed to deliver one to Nye. What about the others?” asked Kat.
“You will just be responsible for Nye. I already have other ships lined up for the other space stations.”
“And you came to us to do Nye… what’s wrong with Ceres?” Oden asked, his arms flexing as he glared at Morgan.
The executive smiled. “You’re a smart man. Nye is not exactly on track with this plan.”
“How are we…?” Jack trailed off, just as confused as everyone else.
“There is an underground movement in favor of the new reactor. They’ll meet you there and work with you to make it happen. Don’t get me wrong, it won’t be easy. That’s why I chose you for this space station.”
Jack glanced back at the slip of paper displaying their pay. “Well, that we can manage,” Jack said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Bit wasn’t exactly sure, but she suspected Macleef Shipping was one of the smallest cargo businesses still functioning in the solar system, and from what she’d seen she guessed they were on the verge of going under.
Jack closed the folder with a snap and eyed his crew. “As Mr. Morgan said, this would be an illegal run. I intend to do it, but no one here is required to participate. If you choose to forgo the run, your job will still be here waiting for you when we return to Mars.”
The packed space on the living level, crowded with bodies, fell silent. Bit could hear each person breathing as they considered their options.
“Hell, I’m in,” Reese said, breaking the tension.
Slowly, all but Dirk and Randal—the two oldest members of the crew—announced their intentions to join Jack on the run.
Randal, the head of the security team, stood on the steps leading up to the bridge. He crossed his arms and eyed each crewmember in turn. Finally he spoke.
“You don’t quit your team.”
Dirk let out a habitual grunt of disgust. “I say you’re all nuts, but if that’s what everyone wants to do, fine. I’ll do it. But I ain’t installin’ no nuclear reactors!”
“No, you wouldn’t need to, sir. I’ve done background checks on each of you, and I noticed one… umm,” Morgan checked the pad tucked up under his arm, “one Forrest Eleni has the proper qualifications. With a few lessons from our engineers, Mr. Eleni will be more than capable of leading a team to assemble and install the reactors.”
Dirk’s habitual glare settled onto Forrest. The assistant engineer ignored Dirk, keeping his attention on Morgan.
“Will that be a problem, Dirk?” Jack asked, easily noticing the tension forming between his three engineers.
Bit often wondered why they had three engineers, especially when they only had two pilots and one cook. Bit suspected he had three engineers because that was how many it took to keep the Lenore—an antiquated hunk of junk—flying.
“Course not, sir,” Dirk said, his dark eyes still focused on Forrest.
“Then it seems you have your ship,” Jack said, turning to shake Morgan’s hand.
“Excellent! There isn’t a moment to lose. I have employees up here in Ward Port. I’ll have them begin the transfer to your cargo bay. Mr. Macleef, can we meet somewhere privately to discuss the details of the contract?”
Jack let out a long sigh, mimicked by most of the crew. They were all tired and battered from their last run, which had put all their lives at risk. Bit knew she wasn’t the only one wanting nothing more than a long nap.
“Bit, show Kat to her quarters, then get Calen and Blaine settled in the infirmary. I’m sorry guys, I know we’re all tired, but if we want this pay,” he lifted the folder, “and trust me, we do, then we need to get moving. Oden, you have the bridge. I need necessary repair and supply lists from department heads in two hours. Mr. Morgan, follow me.”
Jack and Morgan weaved through the crowd and headed up the stairs. As they disappeared into the upper level of the ship, the group erupted into action.
“This way, ma’am,” Bit said, trying her best to sound polite.
“Hey, Bit,” Jack called two hours later, standing in the doorway of the infirmary. “How are they?”
Bit looked up from the outdated monitor. “Still asleep. I don’t really know what I’m doing here, but I’ve followed the instructions manual and hooked them up to the machines. Thankfully it had good diagrams,” she said, waving the thin manual Jack’s grandfather had made for the infirmary back when he bought the ship over a hundred years ago.
Jack walked over to where she stood and examined the monitor, his eyes running down the leads to the little patches attached to Calen’s chest. Blaine was hooked up to his own monitor two beds over.
“Looks good. I’ve got to go to the surface to file some paperwork. Why don’t you come along?”
“Who’s gonna watch them?”
“Vance is upstairs getting things sorted. He said he’ll pop down to check on them from time to time.”
Bit refrained from asking Jack why he wanted her along and reluctantly followed him out of the infirmary. On the main level, where the crews’ rooms were, they found the new XO standing near the airlock with a pad in her hands.
“Oh, Jack, I’ve got the requisition lists and have sent them to your pad. The crew is now in the dock, working with Mr. Morgan’s crews to prepare the load. And I think we…”
“Katrina,” Jack interjected, “I realized you and I have been friends for a long time, but aboard the ship I am your captain. Try and remember that.”
Bit turned her eyes to floor, though she noticed a pink blush working its way up Katrina’s long neck.
“Of course, Captain. I apologize,” she grunted before looking back at her pad and turning away.
Jack motioned for Bit to follow him. It took them another hour to reach the surface, during which time Jack remained focused on his pad, occasionally murmuring to himself.
Bit followed his lead, keeping her mouth shut despite the myriad of questions plaguing her mind. She couldn’t help but wonder what Jack and the reactor man talked about in private. Whatever it was, it had plunged Jack’s mood into nothing short of surly. She glanced at Jack, quickly pulling her eyes away before he could notice. Was he just tired and wishing they had a few days to recover?
Bit sure wanted a day or two of recreation, but she wasn’t about to ask for it, or anything like it. She was an indentured servant, after all. No matter how well they treated her—especially in comparison with her previous owners—she couldn’t forget her actual status among the crew. She wasn’t one of them, even if Jack’s little sister had given Bit her old crew jacket. No one else on the ship belonged to another crewmember.
She had no doubt the situation stressed Jack. He had said time and again that he didn’t know what to do with her or what role to give her on the ship. Bit often found herself cleaning or helping Vance, the ship’s steward.
I don’t mind, she chided herself. I don’t mind. They’re good to me. And at least this way I’m traveling the galaxy. I need to travel. I’ll never find him… or her… if I stayed on Earth my entire life.
Bit forced her mind off the sobering thoughts that would naturally follow, glancing at Jack once again as they worked their way through the Olympic Mons landing platform.
“So what are we doing on the surface?” Bit asked as she boarded the light-rail train that sped throughout the enormous city.
“I have to document our journey and cargo with the Merchant Commissioners office.”
“I thought we didn’t…” Bit began, trailing off as she realized it wasn’t appropriate for public discussion.
Jack sidled up to her, tilting his head down toward her ear. “I have to report some sort of cargo. We’re saying we’re transporting repair parts for the space station.”
“But won’t they realize that’s a lie when they see we are transporting for a reactor company?”
“All our paperwork is coming through a different company Mr. Morgan owns.”
“Oh.�
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“They’d have to dig deep to figure out our true plans, and that’s not likely considering the size of our company.”
Bit nodded, having come to a similar conclusion.
They climbed off the light-rail train into a part of the city she had never seen before.
“Where are we?” Bit asked, her eyes running up the enormous skyscrapers that blocked the rays of the sun.
Every portion of city had tall buildings. Jack’s mother lived on the forty-second story of her condo building, but even her home paled in comparison to the mammoths reaching up into the sky. The buildings were so tall, in fact, that many of them sported iron grid work linking them to the next building over for the sake of stability. The entire area was one enormous labyrinth of connected buildings. Bit squinted as she stared up at one patch of grid work, eventually spotting a glass-encased walkway bridging the gap between the buildings.
“Central Village. A lot of government agencies have their offices down here, as well as a number of business headquarters.” Jack pointed to their left as they walked down the sidewalk of a shaded street. “That over there is one of Mr. Morgan’s companies.”
Bit nodded as another pedestrian bumped into her, nearly shoving her off the sidewalk. Jack took her hand and wound it through his arm, resting it in the crook of his elbow.
“Stay close. Not a lot of polite people in the Village.”
Bit looked back at Morgan’s building. It was one of the tallest, with large black lines running up it, separating enormous panes of duroglass.
“What in the world do they need that many stories for?” she asked, craning her neck to see the top.
“A lot of these companies house their staff in the top half of the building, while others rent out the upper portions to agricultural companies.”
“What are those?”
“Remember the big towers with food growing inside them?”
Bit nodded.
“Those are owned by agricultural companies. With a city this big we can’t rely entirely on farms outside our borders. We have to grow food inside the city limits. That skyscraper, for example, probably houses twenty-five thousand people by itself.”
Bit’s eyes widened as she stared at the building, barely remembering to keep her feet moving.
“How many people live within the city limits?”
“I’m not sure what it is now, but about five years ago we topped one billion. It was a pretty big deal here in Tifton. They had a weeklong festival.”
Bit stumbled over her feet, too shocked to keep walking. “One billion? In one city?”
“Yep. But remember, Tifton makes up one tenth of the entire Martian population. So cities like Tifton are not the norm.”
“Oh. What other cities are there?”
Jack smiled down at her. “I’ll let you borrow a book on Mars. This is our stop.”
They climbed a set of enormous stone steps leading up to a grand entrance. Within the foyer, carved glass shone light onto the floor in a stunning array of rainbows. Bit’s eyes ran from the floor to the glass walls and back. She was the only one standing in awe of the sights before her. Crowds of people entered the foyer, rushing to the long row of elevators lining the far wall. Bit gave them a swift glance and guessed the building sported at least twenty high-speed elevators.
“C’mon, Bit,” Jack called from a few yards ahead of her.
She trotted to his side and followed him to a lift. They climbed aboard and spoke the floor number into the microphone, the automated system taking control of the lift. Bit clung to the railing as the elevator shot up, rising at breakneck speeds. All the while, Jack did his best to stifle his laughter. After a long climb, the elevator drifted to a stop and the door slid open.
Bit followed Jack out of the elevator into a wide hallway. They stopped at the directory for a moment, requesting directions from yet another automated system. With the needed directions, they headed off. Two left turns and they found the correct suite, slipping in behind another visitor.
Like the foyer down below, the entrance to the suite was enchanting. Artificial lights shown on the walls, lighting up large pictures of spaceships. Bit glanced from one end of the long row of images to the next, quickly realizing the images were aligned in a chronological order. The first image displayed the first merchant ship to travel a regular route between Earth and the moon. With each image, the ships grew in size and style until they reached the end. The last frame held a computer generated image of a sleek-looking vessel. The little card under it declared the ship to be under construction at the Lunar Shipyard.
“Bit, you coming?”
Chapter Two
Forty-five minutes later, Jack signed his last form and Bit glared at the floor, trying her best to hide her disgust for the Merchant Commission. They had asked a thousand and one different questions pertaining to their cargo, and Jack had lied with flawless ease. Only one question, near the end of the interrogation, seemed to give him pause.
“And your contact person within Stellar Repair?” the Commission employee asked.
Jack hesitated. “It’s on the form I filled out.”
The worker glanced down at the form for the first time and began to type. Thus far, she had asked Jack each question he had already answered on the form, completely negating the form’s usefulness.
Bit rolled her eyes and turned away from the employee’s desk, content to watch the other people trapped within the confines of bureaucracy. People hustled about, delivering pads to other people’s desks, stopping to ask questions, or just walking about as though to hide their inactivity.
One man, though, caught her attention. He stood near one of the entryway displays, his eyes mostly focused on a model ship encased in glass. Occasionally, though, his gaze would drift up to her or Jack before returning to the placard below the model ship.
Bit frowned at the man, her instincts telling her to be nervous though she couldn’t fathom why. While he didn’t appear familiar, with his broad, flat face and curly brown hair, something about him made her uncomfortable. Bit turned back to Jack as he finished signing his last document.
“Let’s go,” Jack said as he climbed to his feet and collected his pad.
Bit followed him out of the suite. As they turned the first corner, she eyed the nondescript picture of flowers decorating the wall, giving her a chance to glance over her shoulder in a discreet gesture. Her stomach twisted into knots as she spotted the man strolling a few feet behind them, half hidden by the crowd in the hallway.
They reached the long row of elevators and, to her consternation, the strange man elbowed his way onto their elevator, taking up a place near the door. The lift took off, plunging them toward the ground level. Bit ignored the way her stomach convulsed with the movement and sidled up to Jack, uncharacteristically taking his hand.
Jack stared down at her, his dark brows coming together in a frown. He opened his mouth to speak, but Bit quickly mouthed the shushing sound, and he obeyed. Using her eyes only, she shot a quick glance at the back of the curly-haired man. Jack frowned again but nodded, just as the elevator swooshed to a stop.
They followed the crowd out of the elevator and headed toward the door. The man in question stopped at the central directory, giving Bit and Jack the opportunity to walk past him. Jack stared straight ahead, acting as though nothing was wrong. At the doors he stopped to open a door for Bit, thereby turning his body.
Though she desperately wanted to, Bit didn’t look back. Instead, she watched Jack’s eyes narrow, suggesting the strange man had left the directory and was heading in their direction.
“When did you first notice him?” Jack whispered as he took her hand again and pressed his lips against her hair, still pretending to be her lover.
“In the Merchant Commissioner’s office…watching us.”
“Good eye. Stay natural,” he said as he released her hand and moved his arm to drape it over her shoulders.
They walked down the sprawling st
eps of the skyscraper. Bit smiled up at Jack, eyeing the man walking down the stairs to their right, two steps behind them.
A block away from the government building, Jack turned them down a narrow street.
“Where are the second story sidewalks like in your neighborhood?” Bit asked casually, trying her best to pretend they weren’t being followed.
“They only put those in the ratty sections of the city,” Jack replied as he tried to mess up her hair; her long tresses were bound up in dreadlocks and not easily mussed. “This is the fancy section. These people don’t want to bother walking up stairs.”
“Lazy asses.”
“Indeed,” Jack chuckled, kissing her head again.
Bit watched his eyes narrow as he casually eyed the space behind them. He gave her an infinitesimal nod before pushing her into a crowd preparing to cross the busy street filled with land-bound vehicles. The traffic came to a halt and the crowd took off.
Jack nudged her into a trot, delving deeper into the mob.
“Take off your jacket,” Jack ordered.
Bit obeyed, folding the red jacket inside out and draping it over her arm. She hoped Jack wouldn’t make her ditch it. Stained it might be, but it was still hers. They pushed forward through the crowd until they crossed the wide street. An equally large mob zig-zagged down the sidewalk—men and women dressed in their best as they battled their way to their high-rise offices.
They reached the far side of the street and made a quick dash down the side street before Jack pushed her into a tiny crevice between two skyscrapers. Jack squeezed in behind her, nudging her back until they were enveloped in dark shadows. Holding their breath, they waited until the man in question charged past, working hard not to draw attention to himself despite his rush.
Bit counted to thirty before Jack inched up to the edge of their hiding spot. He glanced down the street, searching for their pursuer, and finally stepped out, reaching for Bit. She placed her hand in his and stumbled out of the shadows. Jack dragged her back the way they had come, continually glancing over his shoulder.
Broken & Hunted Page 30
