Hostile Territory (The Tommy Reilly Chronicals Book 2)

by T. L. Knighton

  With a shrug, Tommy replied, “Well, I’m the captain and all that, so I’m responsible for everything that happens on this boat, and I don’t plan on dying in the black because we’re not prepared.”

  Adele chuckled mirthlessly. “You will not be the one dying. If they know who you are, they will be sure to take you hostage.”

  Any humor evaporated from Tommy in the instant before he spoke. “That assumes I’ll let them take me alive.”

  The pilot considered for a moment, then nodded.

  He wasn’t sure if she believed him or not, but they should at this point. He’d already put his life on the line at least once for the crew, making a critical outside repair in dangerous space, and almost lost his life in the process.

  Still, they hadn’t been together all that long. Loyalty like that wasn’t the norm, not in this day and age. Much to Tommy’s disappointment.

  “Okay, captain,” Cody replied, now up and checking on Michelle who nodded that she was fine, “more drills?”

  Tommy shook his head. “No point. We’ve run them before when you know they’re coming; you know what to do. What matters now is making it automatic, and that requires you not knowing what’s coming.”

  “So, what do we do now?” Michelle asked, rubbing her stomach where it had made abrupt contact with the counter.

  In reality, Tommy did feel pretty awful about that, but she was fine and that was a good thing. He expected a certain amount of chaos. He didn’t expect the violent chaos he’d just witnessed by any stretch of the imagination.

  “Anyone got any cards?” Tommy asked.

  ** ** **

  As Harley and Dianne entered the galley, those who remained continued the game of spades they’d started after the failed drill. At Tommy’s insistence, they rotated partners, so each played with the other. He’d figured it might make a hell of a teambuilding exercise, but mostly it was because Cody sucked as a partner and he was tired of losing.

  “Get it?” he asked, looking at Dianne, but by the look on her face, he already knew the answer.

  Still, his heart dropped when she shook her head. They’d committed a handful of felonies, transported a few billion bits worth of gold—more than enough to set he and the crew up for life, even if maybe not to his old standards—then landed on a beautiful planet with the least inviting government humanly imaginable, and for nothing?

  He couldn’t be mad at Dianne, though. He already knew it wasn’t her fault. She wanted that data as much, if not more, than he did. If she didn’t get it, it was because she couldn’t get it.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Dianne appeared to be on the verge of tears, the frustration of having come so close only to have it snatched away chiseling its presence on her expression.

  Harley replied, “Her contact got nabbed by someone he called ‘blackboots.’ I guess it’s the secret police or something around here. The guy who came to us told us he doesn’t think they have the data, though.”

  “So, some guy shows up, tells you all this, and you just believed him?”

  The first officer shook his head. “No, we also waited for over an hour for the contact. Since he never showed…”

  Tommy put his cards face down on the table. “Yeah, it’s a reasonable assumption. We need to know more before we can do anything. Michelle? Can you get on the local net and verify somehow?”

  The computer expert look at him in a complete deadpan. “They firewall the net here, doing what they can to keep outsiders from learning too much about what happens here.”

  He was stunned. It wasn’t like Michelle to admit defeat. “You mean you can’t do it?”

  “I did not say this,” she said, the corners of her mouth turning up and her French accent thickening with glee. “It merely gives me more incentive to try.”

  “That’s my girl,” Tommy said. He then turned to everyone else. “We’ll need a way into the city itself. Any suggestions?”

  Dianne nodded. “I’ve got the name of someone who can do fake IDs to get us into the city. Apparently, smugglers use them a fair bit to pick up smaller items and transport them on board personally. We just get the IDs, use a dock district exit point well away from our ship, and we’re into the town.”

  He couldn’t resist smiling at her. “Aren’t you the adept little criminal,” he teased, a fair bit of pride also leaking into his voice.

  She smiled demurely. It was a far cry from her reaction when she’d learned the crew had a…colorful past.

  This wasn’t the first crew of Sabercat. In fact, it was the third. The first crew was very good at their jobs, and they expected to be compensated thusly. Nothing wrong with that, after all, but loads were lean and he couldn’t really afford them. Once they figured that out, they all bolted for greener pastures.

  His next crew were a few rungs down on the skill ladder. They were solid, but nothing exceptional. They didn’t mind the pay he could afford, but they didn’t like the increased pirate activity that seemed to center on their ship. No one got hurt, but they all figured it was just a matter of time, so they bailed too.

  That meant Tommy had to hire a crew that would work for what he could afford to pay, deal with the increased danger, and stick around. Not a reasonable request, all things considered. That meant he had to take people who couldn’t get jobs anywhere else.

  During his hiring process, most of them he talked to were simply screw-ups. Everything about them screamed it. They were castoffs from other crews, the people no one trusted to even turn a wrench. A crew like that would eventually get everyone killed and Tommy was partial to breathing.

  However, when Tommy got the first resume from someone who might actually know what they were doing, he knew it sounded too good to be true. Cody Chang had studied transport engineering at MIT, and while he hadn’t graduated, he had several certifications for transport diagnostics and repair.

  It was then that Tommy learned about where Cody had finished his technical training, courtesy of the North American Confederation penal system.

  Slowly but surely, a crew began coming together, all with criminal records that made them darn near untouchable by other captains, but they all seemed capable enough, even if the crimes were crap. History since then has shown that they were. All of them.

  When Dianne Caldwell had first learned about the criminal past of the crew, she freaked. Despite a long history of advocating exactly what Tommy had done—give a second chance to people out of prison, trying to live right—she found that she had more than a bit of hypocrisy.

  For the most part, the crew had forgiven her. Part of it was that the woman not only could cook gourmet feasts, but that she was willing to do so. A few meals, and the crew was happy as little clams.

  Now, she was taking a step down the criminal side herself. Apparently, she’d moved past her hypocritical thoughts from only a few weeks earlier. Tommy Reilly, he thought to himself, you’re a bad influence. You know that?

  Of course, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

  Chapter 4

  Michelle Garnier had learned at an early age that she had a way with computers. A prodigy, they’d called her. Unfortunately, that skill had led to plenty of heartache for her. She’d ended the worst of it by her own hand, and spent time in a French prison for her trouble. In her opinion, however, it wasn’t an entirely unfair exchange. At least the son of a sooka was dead and couldn’t hurt her or her sister any more.

  The thing that had given her so many problems—namely her skill with a computer—was now her salvation. Desperate to find her way in the world, she’d signed on with Sabercat as their in-house IT expert.

  She had fully expected to live out the rest of her life making sure things like the computerized navigational systems were fully functional, any hacking she would do would be on her own time, but opportunity had dropped in her lap in such a way that this was now part of her job.

  While that might have given her trepidation in many cases, the captain’s backgr
ound actually alleviated her concerns. She knew for a fact that he was no longer in communication with his Clan’s matriarch, and that he really had turned his back on the insane piles of money he had at his disposal.

  All of that meant he was unlikely to use her skills to fatten his own pockets. Instead, he simply asked for help on jobs where he stood to lose as much, if not more, than the rest of them. If that continued, she would be as happy here as she could be anywhere.

  Her current “challenge,” and it was laughable, was to crack her way through the firewall that limited access to Armstead’s information network. She could use the quancom lines to communicate with anyone outside the system, but that wasn’t the job. Not at this moment at least.

  A few keystrokes and she began probing for weaknesses. Every system had one, it was just a matter of finding it and exploiting it. There was always a way.

  No one had reported hacking Armstead’s net, so this was virgin territory, and that made it fun.

  It didn’t take long. She knew how most programmers would build a firewall like this, and so she had an idea where to look. The easy routes don’t last long, because some halfwit invariably not only used it, but then mucked things up so badly that a patch was needed to fix the exploit.

  Rather than even bother with that route, Michelle knew an often-missed hole in the network, and careful probed through there until she was in. With just a keystroke, the firewall effectively vanished.

  Now that the easy part was over, she decided it was time for the real fun to begin. First she had to find the place to look for someone who had been picked up by the secret police, then verify that Dianne’s contact had, indeed, been arrested.

  She smiled to herself and cranked up Chaos de la Nouvelle Nuit, one of her favorite bands from the 22nd century metal revival. Now was when the real fun began.

  ** ** **

  The entire crew plus Dianne surrounded the table, a scenario that was become far more familiar than Tommy intended when he first bought Sabercat. He glanced at each one before beginning. “Alright, Michelle has confirmed that Dianne’s contact, one Gabriel Marceaux, was picked up two days ago by the Armstead Homeland Security Force. That’s the group commonly called ‘blackboots’ by the locals. There’s no mention of any data chips on his person or in his personal effects, and none are mentioned as evidence either, so it’s probably safe to assume they don’t have them.”

  “What was the charge?” Adele asked.

  “Sedition,” Michelle replied before Tommy could speak.

  Dianne nodded. “Stands to reason. He’s not a fan of the government. While he’s ostensibly a member of the church, he’s not a believer from what I understand, and he’s been trying to force the government to allow free travel.”

  Harley grunted. “For a planet run by a chafing cult, it’s a miracle he’s only been arrested.”

  He didn’t like it, but his first officer was right. However, Tommy knew the church’s modus operandi pretty well. They’d even tried to convert him a couple years ago, though the women they’d thrown at him spent more time talking than the old him fancied.

  “What they’re probably doing is more of a reeducation kind of thing,” Tommy said. “They’ll try to convince him that he was led astray, get him to tell them who is responsible, and so on. This group is big on people telling all about the sins of others, after all, so I suspect he’s alive and simply being taught the error of his ways or some other such nonsense.

  “At least that’s the norm for groups like this, and from what I can tell, they have an underground place where they do just that,” he added. Then, he muttered, “I hate these chafing sookas.”

  Adele nodded. In her West African accent, she asked, “So, do we try to retrieve him, or just the information?”

  “The information,” Harley answered. “If we can find his contacts, then maybe we can give them some information to get him out, but we don’t have the manpower for a job like this.”

  “So, you’re going to leave him in there?” Cody asked, his tone somewhat noncommittal about the possibility.

  Tommy replied, “No choice. There’s no way we can assault a secret police headquarters to spring him. Even if we were so inclined, that’s not the job. We find the data, then get off this rock and make sail.”

  “Sounds kind of harsh, don’t it?” the mechanic asked.

  The captain found himself forced to nod. “Yeah, it is. Whatever’s happening to him probably isn’t particularly pleasant. They get prickly down this way about anyone not wanting to toe the line, and there isn’t exactly anyone to tell them what they can’t do. I don’t reckon we’re in any position to start, though.”

  Cody nodded. “Just checking.”

  “First thing we need to do,” Tommy started, “is get the IDs to access the rest of the city. Dianne’s got the name and locale for someone who can provide.”

  He looked at Dianne, “No offense, but I’d prefer you stayed either on the boat, or the dock district. It’s best you stay clean on this, and the moment you cross through whatever gateways they have, you’re a felon. Not the best way for you to help your cause.”

  “Uh, boss?” Cody interjected. “You might need to join her. No offense, but you don’t really have many skills to bring to the table. The rest of us at least picked up some things in lockup. Even Harley knows some stuff from his previous line of work,” the last said with a bit of joviality thrown in.

  Tommy didn’t like it. He didn’t want his crew going where he couldn’t go, and this was the second job he’d be forced to sit out the most dangerous parts. On Ararat, he’d been nothing more than a distraction. He didn’t want to be even more useless this time around. Still, the engineer had a point.

  “Alright,” Tommy finally relented, “but I want trackers on everyone and Michelle?”

  The hacker raised her eyebrow to beckon him to continue.

  “Set it up so I can monitor the trackers from my pad, okay?”

  She nodded her understanding.

  “I’ll stand by for response. At least one other person besides me and Dianne need to be on board at all times in case we’re needed. We probably won’t be doing much more than watching my pad, but I can’t completely sit this one out again.”

  All around the tables, heads bobbed their understanding, though some were more reluctant than others.

  “Okay, then,” Tommy said once he had everyone’s acceptance, “let’s go get some IDs.”

  ** ** **

  Wilson knocked on the door frame in an attempt to gain his employer’s attention. “Madam?”

  “What is it?” she asked, never removing her eyes from the data pad in front of her. Her home office was extravagantly decorated, with her desk alone being enough to feed a small third-world village for a year or two. The wallpaper was a deep, rich green with a Victorianesque pattern on it, but she was oblivious to it all.

  He swallowed hard before speaking. “Mister Reilly has reached Armstead, and while we know they were unable to retrieve the information, they have not left the planet yet. It appears Miss Caldwell’s contact was arrested by the church’s secret police on an unrelated charge.”

  At that, she looked up and glared at him. Her eyes were dead, like a shark’s, and he suppressed a shiver. While this woman couldn’t touch him physically, she was terrifying in her own way. There were worse things that death, and she knew how to make all of them happen to her enemies.

  “Get the data. You and I both know that this contact has the information hidden. Do you have contacts on that God forsaken world?”

  Wilson nodded. “Yes, madam. I do.”

  She sighed and turned her attention back to her pad. “Then see to it. The best crew you can contract needs to obtain that data. They get a bonus if they can arrange for his crew to be…incapacitated in some way. Understood?”

  He nodded again. “Absolute, madam. I’ll quancom my man on Armstead immediately.”

  “You do that, Mister Wilson. You do that.”

/>   ** ** **

  Atticus Kane looked at the smarmy little toad on the other side of the quancom and suppressed a smirk. Wilson annoyed him to no end, in part because he was such a little toad, always skulking around the Clans, doing their dirty work, keeping their hands nice and clean when Kane knew better.

  Kane was the perfect man for so many tasks needing to be done. Average height, a build just on the stocky side of average, but nothing that would stand out of a crowd, a slightly receding hairline that helped him look even less assuming than he had, he was just another face in the crowd.

  For a career criminal mastermind, that was just perfect.

  It didn’t help that the man wouldn’t come out and say what he wanted. Then again, since he was forced to use a public quancom…

  “So,” Atticus began in his London drawl, “you want me and my crew to inhibit the actions of your employer’s…competition? Any specific methods you’d prefer to have used?”

  “My employer is willing to leave that to your discretion, so long as Mister Reilly is…available for further negotiations with my employer and the data is in her hand,” Wilson replied.

  “Oh, well, of course,” he said, no longer trying to suppress the smirk. “Can’t have a member of one of the Clans get his hair mussed up, now can we?”

  Wilson grimaced slightly and answered, “No, we cannot.” Clearly the other man was less than pleased with the implication of violence against a member of the Clans.

  After a few moments, Wilson continued, “I will send you the relevant data via more secure lines in a few moments. You should have them within the day.”

  Kane bowed his head slightly, a mocking gesture rather than one of respect. Of course, there weren’t many people he actually did respect, and all of them had actually earned it.

  If the other man took offense, he showed no signs of it has he nodded his head in return and the quancom blinked dark.