Hybrid (Tales of the Acheron Book 2)

by Rick Partlow

  “Honestly, ma’am,” Ash told her, “having been there and seen what I’ve seen…” He shook his head. “I’d have done it free.”

  “I wish,” Fontenot spoke up, a harsh, angry tone to her words, “that we could have gotten them all out.”

  “Ms. Breslov,” Sandi cut in, “we need to ask you something. Did anyone come around looking for us after we left here to go get your daughter?”

  The older woman’s face lost the soft, parental look and transformed quickly into the hardened businesswoman that she’d been for decades.

  “Yes. There was a bounty hunter,” she told them, “a man with cyborg replacements. His name was Singh and he and some flunkies I recognized as low-level La Sombra operatives arrived before your ship had even left the dock. They began spreading money and threats around, and eventually they found one of my employees whose mouth and greed were both too big.” She snarled. “I have dealt with the man, but the damage was done.”

  “It’s all right,” Sandi assured her. “We got out all right.” Barely.

  “Still,” Breslov insisted, “you will stay in one of my suites for as long as you are here, and you will pay for nothing. I will not hear of anything else.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Ash said, nodding gratefully. “And I hope your daughter is…” He trailed off and Sandi squeezed his arm, knowing what he meant and what a doofus he could be.

  “She is a strong woman,” Breslov said, keeping herself from breaking down, but only just. “She will get through this.”

  She left them, heading through the door to the back rooms where her daughter had preceded her. Sandi looked the others in the eye significantly.

  “He’s been right on our heels for months now,” she declared. “He’s a fucking mad dog, and he’s got Jordi Abdullah’s money backing him.”

  “We need help,” Ash agreed reluctantly. “We need to contact Fox.”

  “God help us,” Fontenot muttered.

  ***

  “You’re sure we haven’t done anything illegal on this planet?” Ash asked softly.

  Sandi snorted in dark amusement and nodded. It was a good question. They sure as hell couldn’t go back to Borealis, not after they’d helped the Rif cartel break into the Fleet weapons depot there, and they couldn’t really show up on Andalusia, not after stealing a shipment of proton cannons from La Sombra on that world. Honestly, they were running out of Periphery planets where they could show their face without getting arrested or shot.

  Sylvanus was still fairly safe territory, for now. And Dollabella, the capital, was actually a pleasant, bustling, mid-size city rather than a washed-out ghost town like some of the failed colonies on the Periphery. The buildings were restricted by code to a look that she thought of as a cross between early art deco and mid-Twentieth Century Western European, and the people seemed to revel in the anachronism as well, many going so far as dressing in throwback fashions. It looked, she thought, particularly pleasant and homey on a clear, summer night, and she was tempted to lean into Ash on her chair in the open-air café and sit back and look at the stars.

  But they were here on business, and she had to remind herself to be vigilant. Just because the place had seemed safe previously didn’t mean Singh couldn’t track them here. She felt the comforting weight of the pulse pistol holstered under her flight jacket and wondered if there’d ever be a day she didn’t have to carry a weapon and constantly look over her shoulder.

  “He’s here,” Fontenot’s voice said low and steady over her ear bud. “Heading your way.”

  She felt Ash shift his weight beside her as he heard the announcement, like he was instinctively getting ready for flight or fight.

  “Relax,” she whispered to him, putting a hand on his. “The worst that’ll happen is that he’ll be useless, just like every other spook we ever met.”

  That drew a chuckle, as she’d known it would, and Ash settled back in his chair, taking a sip of his espresso and waiting. It was another ten seconds before they saw him rounding the corner from the next street over, dressed inconspicuously in a brown formal coat and a narrow tie. Sandi couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen anyone wear a tie anywhere but Dollabella, except in remastered copies of old movies. He was an average man, average in looks, average in height, totally unremarkable in just about every way. His face was rounded but not fat, his hair the same shade of dark brown as his eyes, his skin a generic tan and his looks a multiethnic blend that could have put him from anywhere on Earth or off it. The only distinguishing characteristic that she could put to him was his build, which marked him as someone who’d grown up on a world with a gravity around Earth-normal. Other than that, he could have gunned someone down in the street and not one person would have remembered his face.

  “Hollande, Fontenot.” He nodded to them, pulling out the third chair at their small table and sitting down unbidden.

  “Good evening, Captain Fox,” Sandi returned, forcing herself to be calm and casual. “Can we order you a drink?”

  “Maybe later.” The Fleet Intelligence officer smiled thinly, glancing around. “Aren’t Kan-Ten and Ms. Fontenot going to join us?”

  “Last time they sat down with you here,” Ash reminded him, “you held them at gunpoint.”

  “Ah well, it was nothing personal.” He leaned forward, forearms resting on the metal latticework of the table. “You called me all the way from Belial for a meeting; I assume this is important.”

  “It’s Singh,” Ash told him. “The bounty hunter.”

  “Yes, Commander,” Fox interjected drily, “I assumed that was the Singh to which you were referring. Jagmeet Singh, former Fleet Marine Corps NCO, formerly married to another retired Marine NCO, Freya Rasmussen, until you, Commander Carpenter, shot her down over Borealis.”

  “It wasn’t as if I had much of a choice.”

  “No, she would have killed you if you hadn’t,” Fox admitted readily. “But apparently Mr. Singh isn’t quite as understanding as I am about the whole thing.”

  “He’s tracked us down three times in just the last four months,” Sandi cut in, trying to bring the conversation back to why they’d called him. “The last time, we jumped out about two seconds ahead of an assload of missiles. He’s got La Sombra’s snitches working for him, and we need some intelligence of our own working for us.”

  “If I recall our arrangement correctly,” Fox said with a smirk Sandi would very much have liked to slap off his face, “Intelligence doesn’t work for you, you work for us.”

  “How much work do you think we’ll be able to do for you if Singh kills us?” Ash pointed out. Sandi could see his jaw tightening, a sign he was getting angry but trying to control it. Ash, she thought, always tried to control himself; sometimes too much.

  “Point, Commander Carpenter,” Fox acknowledged. He waved at the human waiter and the man stepped over attentively. “Could I have a bourbon and soda?”

  “Umm, we don’t serve alcohol here, sir,” the waiter admitted.

  “Well, what the hell,” Fox muttered, scowling. “No wonder I don’t come here. Get me a coffee then, large and black.”

  “Yes, sir, we have the vente decaf blond roast, the Mountain High caramel…”

  “Coffee,” Fox repeated, his expression hardening. “Large and black.”

  “Of course, sir.” The waiter scurried away and Sandi suppressed a laugh.

  “All right.” The Intelligence officer steepled his fingers, staring thoughtfully ahead. “I can work on it. If we had many resources inside the cartels, we wouldn’t need you folks, would we? But I’ll do some digging. Would more money help?” He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe some weapons upgrades for the ship? I’m always happy to spend the taxpayer’s money.”

  Sandi shook her head. “We already have as much as we can fit onto a ship her size without attracting too much attention. And we appreciate it, honestly.”

  “It’s not a gift, Hollande. In fact, you’re about to earn it.” He paused to nod to the wai
ter as the young man brought him a steaming mug of coffee, watching the server until he was out of earshot. “You’re about to get a job offer from the Novya Moscva Bratva. I want you to take it.”

  “The bratva?” Sandi repeated, brow furling. “Aren’t they getting their asses kicked all over the Worlds by the Sung Brothers?”

  “Oh yeah,” Fox agreed readily. “They’re fucking desperate. Desperate enough to stick a spy in the Sung Brothers organization, and now desperate enough to hire someone the Sung Brothers won’t know so they can pull her out.”

  “You want the data she’s smuggling out,” Ash assumed, and Sandi could see the wheels turning behind his eyes as he’d already begun planning ahead for the mission.

  “Just one little bit of it,” Fox corrected him. His eyes danced around, making sure no one was within earshot. Sandi didn’t bother to ask, but she assumed he’d already taken precautions against electronic surveillance. “Have either of you ever heard of a ship called the Metaurus?”

  Sandi shook her head, but she saw Ash’s eyes narrow, searching for a memory.

  “She’s that cruiser that disappeared during the push to the Tahni homeworld,” he said, finally. “Back when we were retaking the colony worlds they’d invaded. She was assumed destroyed near Loki, I think?”

  “That was a cover story,” Fox informed him, awfully frank, she thought, about something that was undoubtedly top secret. “The reality is, she was tasked to the DSI.”

  Sandi grunted impolitely, sharing the universal military disdain for the civilian intelligence agency that had long competed with Fleet Intelligence for funding, influence and accolades. She didn’t have much use for Fleet spooks; she had none whatsoever for the stuffed shirts at the Department of Security and Intelligence.

  “Tasked for what?” she asked.

  “Well, that’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? It was top secret then, and by God, it’s top secret now, and the DSI just doesn’t like to fucking share. But…” He grinned. “We’ve heard rumors, I won’t say where from, that a mineral scout working for the Sung Brothers spotted a Fleet cruiser way the hell out on the edge of the Cluster. He didn’t stick around to figure out what she was doing there, but I happen to have a fairly good idea of the current locations of all the Fleet’s active cruisers, and way the fuck out there isn’t one of them.”

  “You think he found the Metaurus,” Ash mused, sounding intrigued by the mystery. “What the hell would it be doing out there?”

  “Well, that’s just what you’re going to find out for me.”

  “What?” Sandi snapped, blinking. “You want us to go way out there and do what, exactly? We’re not damned Spaceflight Safety investigators, what do you expect us to be able to tell you about it?”

  “Don’t you have more qualified people you could send on a mission like that?” Ash wondered, spreading his hands in a confused shrug.

  “Of course we do,” Fox agreed readily. “And do you know what they all have in common? The DSI would know the minute we ordered any of them out that far, and it wouldn’t take them too long to figure out why. You, on the other hand…” He trailed off, seeming confident they’d get the idea.

  “Shit,” Sandi hissed. At least the spook was being honest with them. That was something of a minor miracle in and of itself. She had a sudden thought that penetrated through everything else. “Hey, how the hell did the bratva hear about us, anyway?”

  “I told them, obviously.” Fox shrugged. “Well, not me personally, but it’s in our interest to have you gain access to as much of the Pirate World cartel structure as possible, so I’ve used the contacts I have on places like Belial and out here in the Periphery to make sure the right people know about the sort of work you specialize in.”

  “What sort of work is that?” Ash blurted.

  “Getting people out of trouble.” Fox took a long sip of the coffee and made a “not bad” face. “Look, I know this is quite the task I’m setting out for you, probably a bit more than you expected when you took this job. I’ll tell you what, if you do this and do it right, I’ll make sure this Singh asshole doesn’t bother you anymore.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Deal?”

  “Korri?” Sandi called over her ‘link’s pickup. “Kan-Ten?”

  “Sounds interesting,” Fontenot offered.

  “One place is as good as another,” the Tahni said. She couldn’t decide if he was happy about that or disgusted.

  She caught Ash’s eye and he tossed his head slightly as if he were weighing the situation, then finally nodded.

  “All right, then,” she said, shrugging her assent.

  Fox smiled, fishing in the pocket of his jacket and coming up with a crystalline dataspike. He handed it off to Sandi and she turned it over in her fingers, glancing back at him curiously.

  “That spike,” he explained, “will get you access to the Metaurus’ computer systems. I need you to download the ship’s log onto that and bring it back to me.”

  Sandi slipped the storage crystal into a pocket of her flight jacket.

  “If the ship’s really out there, we’ll find her.”

  “And figure out what’s so important about her,” Ash added. He frowned suddenly. “What do we do if we run across her crew?”

  “It’s been six years, Carpenter,” Fox reminded him grimly. “If any of her crew were alive when they got to that system, they’re certainly dead by now.”

  Chapter Three

  I spend, Sandi thought ruefully, way too much time in bars.

  The Winter’s Heart in Shakak wasn’t horrible as bars went, particularly bars in the Pirate Worlds; it was a bit impersonal, with automated drink dispensers and digital menus, but that was probably an affectation to make themselves seem more like the bars and restaurants in the Periphery, more modern and mainstream. The dance floor was psychedelic and perhaps overly busy, with multiple rotating platforms, some of them also moving vertically in ways that, when combined with the free-flowing drugs and alcohol, seemed like a recipe for broken bones.

  “She’s late,” Fontenot murmured over the earbud for her ‘link.

  From her table in the dining room, Sandi could see her cyborg crewmember leaning heavily on the plastic bar, pretending to fiddle with the drink menu. Fontenot was dressed in the leather duster she’d taken to wearing ever since she’d had her bionics covered with synthskin; prior to that, she’d leaned towards sleeveless vests that showed off the bare metal. She’d done that to keep people at arm’s length, to keep from having to deal with them, and Sandi liked to think that the change in styles represented more than just an attempt at greater anonymity and a need for something to conceal the pulse carbine hanging off her shoulder.

  “This is taking too long,” Sandi opined under her breath, sipping the beer that was all she’d ordered. It was hard being in a place like this and not drinking something stronger, but she was fighting a history of sinking a bit too far into the bottle. She reached under her jacket and shifted the pulse pistol in its holster, a nervous tick she’d picked up since she’d started carrying the gun.

  “I think I see her,” Kan-Ten announced from his position near their rental groundcar, out in the street and in the harsh winter of Peboan’s southern hemisphere.

  He definitely drew the short stick this time. It’s damned cold out there.

  “You think you see her?” Fontenot demanded critically.

  “You know you all look alike to me, sister.”

  Sandi had been taking a swallow of beer and she nearly shot it out her nose with a suppressed laugh. For someone who claimed to not understand their humor, the Tahni could play a damned good straight man.

  She surreptitiously glanced around the bar and dining room, checking the display screen of her ‘link one more time to compare the still photo they’d been given by their bratva contact to incoming customers. There were a half a dozen of them coming in from the airlock-style doorway, shaking stray clumps of snow off their jackets, most of them with the look of spacers.
One was dressed like a local, and a well-to-do local at that, her clothes pragmatic yet still stylish, even to the cut of her garnet cold-weather jacket.

  She threw back her hood and ran her hands through her long, jet-black hair, shaking off drops of melt-water, and Sandi immediately recognized her. The lean, narrow face, the amber skin, and the dark, hooded eyes matched the picture she’d been given exactly. Her hair was jet black and cut short, revealing a set of interface jacks implanted at her temples, similar to the ones Sandi and Ash had, though perhaps a bit larger and clunkier for being manufactured and installed out here in the Pirate Worlds.

  The woman’s gaze flitted around the bar to the dining room until Sandi caught her eye, nodding slightly, almost imperceptibly. She moved slowly and nonchalantly across the room, slipping off her coat and hanging it on the back of the chair opposite Sandi’s before sitting down.

  “Prya Shaw?” Sandi asked. At the woman’s silent nod, she went on. “I’m Sandi. Mr. Standish told me to say hi if I was ever in town.”

  At the pre-arranged code-phrase, Shaw’s eyes widened slightly for just a moment, but she managed to keep her reaction subdued.

  “It has been a long time since I spoke with Mr. Standish,” she responded, her accent clipped and hard, like some she’d heard from those born in the Periphery. “I did not expect to hear from him until he returned from his business trip next year.”

  More code phrases, and Sandi sighed inwardly as she mentally translated that Shaw had thought her assignment wasn’t going to be over until after the first of the year. She searched her memory for the right response.

  “He came home early because of a business opportunity.” In other words, the bratva think your cover’s blown, so stop screwing around so we can get out of here.

  Shaw did react to that; just a small gasp and a quick, paranoid sidelong glance.

  “They’re watching the spaceport,” she said, abandoning the charade and the code. “They keep track if anyone with access to sensitive materials tries to fly out unauthorized. I’m the senior netdiver, they’ll never let me leave.”