"I don’t understand," Vel said. "What’s the big deal about a pirate being number one?"
"It changes things," Razia mumbled, chewing on her thumb. "It’s no longer about the game—catching others, getting a higher bounty. Once you’re number one, it becomes an exercise in keeping your ass out of jail."
"I mean, he’s bound to get caught eventually, right?"
"Yeah, but now it’s a lot harder to capture him." Razia frowned. "There are two types of pirates when they get to the top. Some go into hiding—create a bunch of new aliases and just disappear until their number goes down."
"I thought everyone wanted to be number one?"
"Some don’t," Razia said. "It’s a lot of pressure to be on your toes constantly."
"And what about the second type of pirate?"
She opened up his real account and pointed at the screen.
"He's not even trying to hide? Seems a bit brash."
"Yeah, but look at this guy," Razia said, searching for one of the men Relleck had very recently paid. His bounty was somewhere in the four hundreds, but he looked about the same size as Dal Jamus. "He's got six of these guys, from the looks of it," Razia said, looking earlier in the transaction history. "Now it's just a waiting game—until he runs out of money or his bounty goes down."
"How long could that take?"
"Weeks? Years?" Razia sighed, closing his profile.
"So what’s that mean for you?"
"Means I need to go find someone else to hunt until that happens." Razia pouted. She really wanted to take down Relleck. But she was gonna hear it soon if she didn't capture a decent pirate. She hadn’t turned anyone in since Jamus—over a week ago.
"Don’t sound too excited by it," Vel said.
"Meh." She opened up the intraweb to see if anyone piqued her interest. "I want to hunt someone who's going to be worth my time. My bounty needs to go up."
"How does that happen exactly?"
"For pirates, when they hijack or steal something, the person they stole from, or their insurance company, puts up some cash toward the capture of the pirate. But for bounty hunters, most of the funding for a bounty comes from other pirates in rival webs. So if I were to go out and capture a bunch of Contestant's pirates, he'd get pissed off and put a big bounty on my head to encourage someone to take me down."
"How did your bounty get so high?" Vel asked, looking at her curiously. "Did you ever look?"
"I assume most of it comes from pirates who were happy that I stuck it to Jukin." She shrugged.
"But did you ever look?"
"I can't—the bounty office numbers and transactions are off-limits," she replied. She began scrolling through the pirate intraweb.
"Needler is back, hm?" Razia smirked, pulling up her list of old bounty research.
"Who?" Vel asked.
"Waslow Needler," Razia said. "He was on my list of possible bounties to capture when I was on probation, but he got captured. Looks like he’s made his way back into the top twenty."
She clicked on each one.
"Any good?" Vel asked as she swiftly went through them.
"Active," she nodded, her lips still pursed. "But he's got a new alias, I think. There's too many gaps."
"So who is this guy?" Vel asked, as she closed all the windows.
"He's Insurgent's top bounty hunter. Pretty decent one, at that."
"So if he's a bounty hunter, why do you want to capture him?" Vel asked. "Isn't there some kind of bounty hunter code?"
"The only loyalty I have is to Dissident, unfortunately," Razia said with a grimace. "Bounty hunters are considered pirates like anyone else—fair game to hunt and capture. I mean, technically, someone out there should be hunting me too."
"So how does that work, anyway?" Vel asked. "Do you pay for everything with Lyssa or just certain things?"
"Parking, gas, anything that could give away my ship's location—or mine—gets paid with Lyssa," Razia explained. "If I'm out at a bar or somewhere a pirate could place me, I pay with Razia." She paused and smiled. "Well, until I establish myself as bounty hunter, that is."
"Then what?"
"Then I just create a bunch of new aliases and try to stay hidden. Like all the other pirates."
"If I were you, I would use your DSE as long as I could," Vel said. "Seems like it’s the perfect cover."
"Except I actually have to want to be Lyssa Peate in order for that charade to work," Razia replied, more heatedly than she'd expected. "And that’s kind of the point." She stood, heading toward the door.
"Where are you going?" Vel asked.
"I have a hunch that every pirate and bounty hunter this side of Leveman’s Vortex is standing by and waiting for Relleck to slip up," she said, pocketing her mini-computer. "So I’m just going to go to Relleck and I'll probably find Needler."
"Ah, well," Vel said, forcing himself to yawn. "If you don’t mind, I think I’m going to let you take care of this one by yourself."
"Why?" Razia snapped, turning to look at him sharply. Vel hadn’t been more than five feet from her since they'd been re-united at Dal Jamus’ bar. And now he was just going to…go to sleep?
"All this bounty hunting is exhausting," he said, following her down the ladder to the lower level of her ship. "Besides, I have to read some books for school."
"You don’t have to write your paper for another five months," Razia said, eyeing him as he walked back to the bedroom.
"Good luck!" Vel said, before closing the door behind him.
***
Razia didn’t trust Vel as far as she could throw him, but she also realized that there was very little trouble he could get into locked away on her ship. Still, she couldn't help but ponder what he might be up to as she sat in the shuttle from the far-off parking docks.
However, she forgot all about him when she walked into the bar where Relleck was making purchases. It was filled to the brim with pirates and bounty hunters. They were huddled around tables, crammed against the bar, sprawling out of doors and peering in through windows. Every eye in the joint was focused on a table in the center of the room, where Relleck was surrounded by four gorgeous women, and six big, burly men daring anyone in the room to come any closer.
He looked drunk, either from excitement, booze, or the women, and oblivious to the thousands of eyes staring at him. He obviously thought he was invincible—and he was, for now. But he wouldn't always be.
Razia folded her arms across her chest, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand. She scanned the room, pausing on each face to compare it with who she was looking for. Somewhere in this gaggle was—
"Sage?" His face lit up when he recognized her, and before she could react, he was happily walking over to her.
"What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same thing," she retorted. "Not really your scene…"
"I need a bounty," he said, not sounding enthused at the idea at all.
"What?" Razia said, not believing her ears. "You don't bounty hunt."
"Well, I'm tired of Dissident bitching at me. 'Sage, when are you going to bring in a good bounty?'" he said, mocking Dissident's hoarse voice. "When I'm damn good and ready, that's when."
"He never calls me to bitch about me not bringing in a bounty."
"So I figured," Sage said, waving at the room in front of them, "with half the pirate population here staking out Relleck, I could just take my pick."
"Guess we had the same idea."
"And who are you hunting?"
She gave him a look. "Like I'm going to tell you."
"Oh, come on." He nudged her. "I don't want you, what is it...fighting with me?"
She rolled her eyes and pursed her lips.
"What are the parameters of this 'fighting' situation anyway," Sage teased. "Does it mean you aren't talking to me, or does it mean you're just going to be mad at me, and what constitutes—"
"I'm after Needler," she said, just to shut him up.
"Good, I'm tota
lly going after Needler." Sage cackled, nudging her again.
"You're an ass," Razia said, but couldn't help but smile at him.
"Where's your bro?" Sage said, looking around. "Thought he was practically glued to your side."
"Finally able to shake him," Razia said, thinking back to his odd behavior. "Said all this piracy was wearing him out."
"That is just adorable," Sage cooed. "Your kid brother, following in your piracy footsteps. I wonder what your big brother would say…"
"Oh, yeah." Razia punched Sage hard in the shoulder.
"Ow!" Sage said, rubbing the spot. "What was that for?"
"Telling him how to blackmail me!"
"All right, so I can't capture Needler." Sage laughed. "Who, by the way, is right over there."
Razia immediately forgot about murdering Sage when she followed his gaze and saw Needler sitting in the corner. She huffed—she swore she'd checked out all those guys.
"So that leaves me. Who here is a big enough bounty to get Dissident off my back?"
"Relleck."
"Har har har. I'm not stupid."
"Well, Needler looks to be hanging out with Conboy Conrad over there," Razia said, quickly scrolling through the bounties to check how high Conrad was in the list. "I mean, he's not as high as Needler, but he's still one of Insurgent's top guys. Surprised he’s back here. Relleck captured him a few weeks ago."
"How do you remember these things?" Sage said, gawking at her.
"I pay attention."
Sage shrugged, looking at his bounty profile. "I guess he'll do." He grinned at her. "C'mon, let's go."
"What, now?"
"Yeah, like we used to do for Tauron, remember?" Sage said, grinning. "You and me against some guys twice our size and age?"
"As I recall, that didn't end well for both of us." Razia laughed. "Many times."
"Now, we're older and bigger," Sage said, before looking her up and down. "Well, some of us are bigger."
She paused then shrugged. "All right, fine."
***
Fifteen million credits.
It felt good to finally have some cash in her account. She gleefully trotted up to her ship, wondering, breathlessly, if it was time for her to create a new alias.
Perhaps, she thought, it's time to become Razia.
She started climbing up the ladder on her ship. To create a new alias, she'd have to get the name of Dissident's guy at the Universal Bank. Or, more realistically, she could probably ask Harms or Sage.
Her happy thoughts evaporated when she saw the faint light of her dashboard on the otherwise dark floor. Slowly, she pulled herself up, carefully peering into the open cabin to see who or what was on her screen.
To her surprise, it was Vel, staring intently at something on the dashboard. As her eyes focused, she realized he was looking at bank records.
Wait a minute, she thought. Why is he looking at bank records?
And that's when she saw the account most assuredly did not belong to a pirate.
"What in Leveman's Vortex do you think you're doing?" she growled, her voice low and dangerous, turning on the lights.
"Shit!" Vel cursed, quickly closing all the windows and turning around nervously. "I didn’t…uh…I was doing some research for my paper—"
"Right, because looking up Sostas Peate’s bank records will help you with your carbon analysis," she said, humorlessly.
"Fine," Vel said, folding his arms over his chest. "I wanted to see if he was still…still making transactions."
"I get it. That’s why you’ve been so interested in bounty hunting, huh? Is that why you decided to come back? So you can dig for more dirt for Pymus?"
"You know, I’m curious," Vel said, returning her icy glare. "Have you ever looked for him?"
"Excuse me?"
"You look for people for a living—and are pretty damned good at it too. Have you ever tried to look for him?"
"Why do I need to look when I know the answer? He left. And he doesn’t want to be found by me, or by you, or by anybody. So I suggest you drop it."
"What are you so afraid of?"
"I'm not afraid of anything," she said, her lip curling in anger. "But you will be if you don't quit running your mouth."
"Oh yeah, and why's that?"
"Because If I ever catch you touching my dashboard again, I'll leave you on a planet," she snarled, right in his face. "And this time, I might not come back."
"Whatever." He rolled his eyes and stormed off the bridge.
She sat down, the fight replaying over and over again in her head. To try and drown it out, she decided to look at her bounty to see if it had risen a little bit.
Not a single credit—and she’d even dropped two slots.
She kicked her console in frustration and sat back, rubbing her temples. She didn’t understand what was going on—Needler was worth over fifteen million credits, and he was one of Insurgent's best bounty hunters. That should've gotten the attention of somebody who wanted to put some money toward her bounty.
Well, she thought, trying to temper her frustration, perhaps it hasn't been updated yet.
She turned to the intraweb to see if the capture had been reported. To her annoyance, there were two brand new items:
Angrily, she closed the list. She and Sage had turned in their bounties at the exact same time—how come his had already been updated and his bounty had jumped two slots? Conrad was worth half of what Needler was!
Her immediate reaction was to start typing in Dissident's number, but then she thought better of it. Last time she'd spoken to him out of anger, she'd ended up hunting a retired pirate halfway across the galaxy.
The best thing to do would be to capture another bounty, and hope she'd soon start showing up in the intraweb.
She opened her hit list of pirates, and took a little pleasure in deleting Needler off the roster; it was bad form to capture the same pirate over and over again.
The others on her list were mildly interesting: Brendler, Burk, Lee. But her eyes kept drifting up to Relleck's name. Her ego getting the better of her, she clicked on one of the four aliases she'd uncovered for him—just to see what would come up.
Relleck had been active in the past few minutes using one of his secret aliases. Which meant he'd either decided to give away this identity (unlikely) or he'd found a way to escape the watchful eyes of all the bounty hunters and was hiding out somewhere.
And Razia knew exactly where that somewhere was.
***
Reckless excitement coursed through her as she walked along the dark city streets. Relleck had purchased three more drinks on his secret aliases, which meant he was definitely hiding somewhere. She approached the building where he was making purchases and quickly ducked out of the way.
He was sitting in plain sight with a beer in hand, looking dejectedly at the half-drunk bottle.
She looked around, expecting to see goons stationed at every corner. But she was the only person out.
Slowly, he rose to his feet and drunkenly pulled on his jacket. He'd obviously had a few, as he stumbled onto the street, oblivious to where he was. She slipped after him, keeping her distance. As far as she could tell, Relleck was completely alone.
Perhaps he’d gotten too fed up with being the top pirate in the universe and just wanted someone to catch him?
In that case, Razia would be more than happy to relieve him of that heavy burden.
She continued to walk behind him, keeping in the shadows and staying just far enough behind him not to raise his suspicions. But from the way he was stumbling, she probably could've been right behind him and he wouldn't have realized it.
She saw her opportunity when he turned and tripped into an alleyway. Picking up her pace, she jogged after him knowing that he was going to be trapped with no escape. A smile on her face, she appeared in the alleyway to see Relleck standing there, looking quite sober, his arms folded across his chest and a satisfied smile on his face.
That
was, Relleck and two of his largest goons.
"Uh oh," Razia breathed, twisting on her heel to dash away. Before she could take two steps, two sets of hands clamped down on her arms and tossed her backward. She slammed into the brick wall of the building. Dazed, thick hands wrapped around her arms and lifted her upright to face Relleck.
"Well, well, well," he said, neatly cuffing his shirt one sleeve at a time. "I have to say, I've been trying to get your attention for a couple of weeks now."
The world was slowly coming back into focus for Razia as she tried to figure out how she was going to get herself out of this mess.
"I’m hurt that you haven't been hunting me, Razia." Relleck sighed dramatically. "And here I thought you and I had a connection. A special bond."
"Your definition of bond is a little warped," Razia muttered, struggling to break free. The burly men had a vice grip on her arms.
"You know, as a general rule, I don’t beat up on the lesser pirates," he said, walking up to her. "And I really don’t feel right hitting a girl."
"Wonderful," Razia snapped, trying to keep her face emotionless, knowing exactly what was coming next. "So what are we doing here?"
Without warning, he punched her hard in the stomach. She winced, but didn't cry out, clenching her teeth hard together. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.
"Is this the only way you can ask a girl out, Relleck?" Razia gasped, her voice labored from the ache in her stomach. "Besides paying her, of course."
"You have spunk." Relleck chuckled, walking up to her. "I like that in my women."
He hit her again—this time in the face. She tasted blood.
"You know, if I wasn’t getting paid to—"
"Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?"
Furiously, Razia looked past Relleck to see Sage standing in the alleyway.
"Well, well, Razia, looks like your boyfriend has to come in and save you again!" Relleck laughed. "I should've known that wherever Razia is, Sage Teon isn’t too far behind."
Double Life Page 13
