Sean chuckled. Karina immediately slapped him with the back of her hand, shutting him up.
“Paige,” Joel explained, smirking himself, “these are our new friends. This is Durq and Grim,” he indicated to one then the other.
Paige collected herself and caught her breath. “I’m so sorry. Greetings of the day upon you. I’m Paige,” she said, stepping forward again to shake Grim’s hand. When Durq didn’t offer his she resorted to a shallow, awkward bow in his direction, unintentionally avoiding eye contact.
Maya joined them, and immediately had a similar reaction to the new species. Paige helped steady her by grabbing her arm, and making the introductions, albeit still somewhat nervously.
Joel intervened quickly. “Paige, would you like to take our guests upstairs and arrange some food and refreshments for them? Molly would like some beer and pizza in the conference room for her and our other guest, too, if you don’t mind.”
Paige peeled her eyes away from Grim and Durq. “Of course. No problem at all,” she confirmed. She turned back to the newbies. “So, Durq and Grim.” She smiled, making a concerted effort to learn and use their names. “Would you like to follow me? We’ll get something fixed up for you.”
“Thank you,” Grim replied for the both of them. “That’s very gracious of you.”
Paige flashed another lopsided smile and then ushered the two across the hangar deck and out of the base. Maya wandered alongside them, curious to know more about their visitors. She’d never seen a Yollin or Skaine in the flesh.
Neither had many of the others.
Brock and Crash had been watching from a short distance, casually obscured by The Empress. As the visitor party disappeared across the hangar deck, they collected in a group with Sean and Karina.
“Well, this is certainly a turn out for the books!” Brock commented excitedly.
“You’re telling me,” Sean agreed. “Back in my day we’d be ass-whooping Skaines left, right, and center.
Karina glared at him.
“Oh, they’d be returning fire,” he protested. “They were badasses. The group of them.” He paused, watching the party ascend the stairs to head back to the safe house. “That Skaine doesn’t look right in the head though. They’re normally more…”
“Aggressive?” Joel offered.
“Annoyingly so,” Sean finished, his head cocked in curiosity.
“Looked like a scared pussycat to me,” Karina commented. At that exact moment Neechie showed up, appearing a yard in front of them. He walked a few paces to where the strangers had been standing and then disappeared again.
Karina and Joel glanced at each other, eyes wide in both amazement, and amusement.
Brock scratched his head and rejigged the pack on his back. “Okay, well, we’ve got shit to do,” he announced, changing the subject. “No doubt we’ll have to try this mission again in a few hours. I for one want to have eaten, rested and have the ship ready when we do”
Crash mumbled something in agreement and the group broke away in pairs going about their business.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Meeting room, Special Task Force Offices, Undisclosed location, Estaria
“So, what did we find?”
Carol Bates was on the case this morning. Her crisp white blouse was tucked elegantly into the atmosuit pants she wore. She was ready for either a mission or a meeting and judging by the hands on her hips the team suspected she was shooting for both right now.
Alisha raised her hand, drawing the go-ahead to report in.
“We’ve got eyes on Sloth. Agents are following him at a safe distance. As soon as we can pinpoint his routine we’ll be bugging his living and workspace. We still like him for the disappearance of Califray and we’re looking for further evidence of his involvement.”
Rhodez raised his hand and waited for the nod from Carol. “I’ve been thinking about this. He could easily have given instructions to Scarlet to sway his plea. Can we keep a patch running in the data to look for any links between Sloth and Scarlet?”
Alisha made a note. “Sure. Just get us all the known addresses and facial images and we’ll add them into the analysis.”
Carol sat down, clearly mulling the situation. “Rhodez, are the money trails telling you anything?”
Rhodez shook his head. “We’re not sure yet. We’re letting the system do the heavy lifting to figure that out. It’s offline at the moment but the minute it comes back on our request is in the queue. The overnight sequence we ran on our local servers though showed that in terms of his cases, he had a good closure rate… but a much higher percentage of his cases are closed by them pleading down higher charges.”
Carol pressed her lips together. “Which would suggest that this is a strategy our attorney uses to close a case.”
Rhodez tilted his head thoughtfully. “Yeah, the only problem is that his defendants end up getting charged, even if they didn’t do anything.”
There were the usual check-ins about the surveillance operations and some mundane updates about details that were coming to light as they watch the two innocent government workers and the shady Arnold Sloth. It didn’t take long for Carol to wrap up what they needed to talk about and what could be put into a download for their daytime reading. Then she dismissed everyone. “Thanks, people,” she told them. “Good work so far.”
She sat down at the table again, clearly not in a rush to go anywhere. Hans Duo hovered, interpreting it as a sign that they needed to continue their conversation.
Hans waited for everyone to leave before getting the door.
“So, you heard all that about Charlie team thinking that Sloth is involved in the disappearance of their Califray?”
“Yes, ma’am. But you’re not buying it.”
“No. I’m not. This is classic Sneaky Steve.” Vindication arose in Carol’s steely eyes.
“What would you like me to do?”
“Well, we have agents on Sloth, so there is nothing for you to do right now. But at some point, Sloth is going to slip up and give us a lead. I’m hoping that it’s one that’s going to let us locate Sneaky Steve… And then you’ll be back in play.”
Hans nodded and got up. He didn’t need any more explanation. He knew what his role was. “We’ll bide our time then,” he concluded. Carol nodded, and he headed out of the door.
Base conference room, Gaitune-67
Molly paced in front of the table. There was a heavy atmosphere of seething resentment hanging over the conference room. Molly tried her best to ignore it, but there was something within Nickie that reminded her of herself not so long ago. She felt bad for her, but there was still an urgent mission that needed fixing. And fast.
“So what were you doing out there?” she asked simply.
Nickie sat at the table looking straight ahead, avoiding eye contact with Molly. “Same thing you were no doubt.”
“Which was?”
The young woman met Molly’s eyes with a flash of fire in her own. “Trying to stop those scumbags from doing a deal. Maybe even taking them out of the game. One less ship of mercenaries out there terrorizing the frontier.”
Molly halted at the other end of the room. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to understand where all the hatred and anger was coming from.
She attempted a clarification. “You don’t like Leath?”
“Not particularly, but I really have an annoyance for the Skaines,” Nickie shrugged. “Evil creatures. Only out for themselves, completely happy with enslaving any race they come across.”
Molly pulled out one of the antigrav chairs and sat down. “I can agree with the sentiment that they need to be stopped. But tell me, what was your plan?”
Nickie had been free-flowing sanctimony but suddenly stopped. She regarded Molly carefully. “Why do you need to know?”
“So we can figure out our next steps. Both those ships are still out there, and they have the weapons. The very weapons I’ve been charged to take out of circulation.”<
br />
“On orders from Reynolds?”
Molly paused before answering. “Yeah, that’s right. Which brings us back to how you know so much about the Federation.”
Nickie rolled her eyes. “I just do, all right? As for our game plan, we need to find a way to track those fucktards. I need to get back on my ship to look at some data.”
Molly put her hand up in a stopping motion. “Okay. In a minute. Just right now, tell me what your plan was. You were going to meet with the Leath and pretend to be making the exchange. Then what?”
“Well, obviously I don’t have the weapons, but once I knew for certain they were after them then I could pass judgment and take their asses out.”
Molly reacted internally to the idea of someone passing judgment but tried to put it aside. She regarded the slightly built adolescent, who clearly wasn’t that much younger than her. “The three of you?”
“No, those two are pretty useless when it comes to dishing out ass-kickings, even if Grim has more heart to help than ability. So just me.”
Molly didn’t take her eyes from Nickie. It was as if she were waiting for Nickie to reveal something else to her. Something that would explain how one human female thought she could go up against a ship full of Leath.
She’s enhanced.
How do you know?
I’m talking with her on board EI.
Molly leaned closer, as if trying to see the EI peering out from behind Nickie’s eyes. Nickie shifted uncomfortably and started pacing to avoid the scrutiny.
Fascinating.
Yeah. Seems it’s pretty normal for that core group of friends and family.
So it’s not a Federation thing?
More of a Bethany Anne thing, by the sounds of it. Something like a reward for those who took a chance on her to save her old world, against all odds.
Hmm.
Nickie had moved on from the past moments and responded with outright anger. “If you hadn’t shown up I’d have handled the Leath and been on my way to rain carnage down on the Skaines by now.” Her eyes darted around the room, giving her the look of a caged animal.
Molly shook her head definitely. “Nope. Sorry. I can’t let you go after the Leath now. They’re wanted by their government, so I can’t risk their authorities getting hold of them. Federation orders. Got to play nice when inter-civilization relations are involved.”
“Well, if you hadn’t been interfering in the first place.”
Molly put her hand up. “Acting on behalf of the Federation is hardly interfering.”
“I disagree. You don’t think that the Federation is all about interfering in other peoples’ business?”
“Fighting your own personal vendettas and going vigilante on the sector isn’t interfering?” Molly shot back.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re just all high and mighty with a stick up your ass because Uncle Lance left you in charge of a fucking asteroid base in the middle of nowhe—”
“Young lady!”
Molly froze, immediately wishing she could take back her last words.
Shit. I just became my mother.
Young adults will do that to you.
But I’m barely older than that myself.
Somehow, I think you’ve grown up without realizing it. You’ve become your Mom.
Oh, fuck me. Don’t say that.
Molly could feel Oz chuckling away in the back of her cortex. It tingled. She tried scratching her head.
Knock it off, Oz. This is serious.
Nickie had stopped ranting.
Well, seems to have had some effect at least.
Maybe there’s hope for your parenting skills after all.
Please don’t jinx me.
“Okay,” Molly began again, more composed now. “As I see it, you want to take both parties out, and I need to get those weapons back.”
Nickie seemed to be making an effort to cooperate. “Yeah,” she said slowly. “How about I go after the Skaines then? My preference is kicking Skaine ass anyway…”
“Fine,” Molly agreed. “And we’ll go after the Leath ship. We just need to figure out where our respective targets have gone.”
Kitchen, Safehouse, Gaitune-67
Paige moved ahead of her new group of guests, leading the way through the safe house into the kitchen. “Do you guys like pizza?” she asked over her shoulder. “I’ve got the best place in the system on speed dial. It’s one of two pizza joints on this forsaken rock, but it even does a mean meat-free veggie stuffed crust.”
“Actually,” Grim cut in as he followed her into the kitchen. “If you have the supplies, then I could probably rustle us up something.”
She frowned, thinking. “I don’t know what we’ve got. But you’re our guest. We should be looking after you, not having you slave away cooking for us.”
“Oh please,” he chuffed. “It’s no bother. In fact,” he confided conspiratorially, “I find it rather relaxing. It would be nice to take my mind off the life on a ship and all the intrigue for a while.”
Paige strode over to the larder as the others filed into the kitchen, she opened the door. “We have a ton of stuff in here.” She pointed to one of the big silver fridges at the other end of the kitchen. “The cold stuff is in there.”
Grim inspected the oven, tracing his fingers over the dials and knobs on the top surface. “Looks good,” he said, satisfied. He turned to Maya and Durq. “Is everyone good with pizza?”
There was a resounding ‘yes’ from the group, including Maya whose enthusiasm had just picked up.
Durq nodded excitedly. “Oh yes indeed.”
Grim rubbed his hands together and clapped a couple of times. “Great. I’m going to need a mixing bowl or two. Paige, perhaps you can find me some utensils. Maya, I’ll need flour and butter first of all, and see if you get the cheese out so it can start acclimating to room temperature. Actually, I feel like making an iron-rich soup as an appetizer, so any vegetation you have, let’s get that out too…”
The kitchen suddenly became a hive of activity as the two girls played sous-chef to Grim’s instructions. It wasn’t long before mouth-watering aromas filled the common room.
Paige washed the remaining dough from her hands. “Hey, I should go and catch up with the rest of the team,” she announced. “You guys gonna be okay in here for a bit?”
Grim nodded, stirring his soup. “We’re great here,” he confirmed, beaming.
“Excellent!” Paige took her apron off, throwing it over the back of a chair as she left.
Maya had been sitting at the kitchen table, chopping vegetables. She scraped her chair back. “I guess with an impending mission, margaritas are out of the question, but how about some virgin ones?”
Paige chuckled to herself as she heard Maya taking over the role of hostess, seamlessly.
Base workshop, Gaitune-67
Paige clip-clopped down the last few stairs into the workshop. “Ah, here you all are!” she announced.
Sean and Karina were working on some weapons. Sean appeared to be cleaning one and reassembling it. Karina was loading something that Paige didn’t even recognize.
Brock had his back to everyone, working away at one of the consoles and Crash seemed to be studying some maps of the sector they had been in. “I guess this is the most likely station,” he said to Brock. Brock acknowledged it, but it didn’t look like any surprising revelations were happening.
Paige stood with one hand on her hip and looked at the crew. “So? Is anyone going to explain to me what’s going on? Who are our new guests?”
Karina smiled. “Thought you got the introductions?”
Paige returned a sardonic half-smile. “I did. But I still don’t know what happened or what they’re doing here.”
Brock wheeled around. “We’re still trying to figure out what happened, and who these folks really are.” He grabbed a seat and offered one to Paige at the same workbench. “Here’s what we know so far. We went in to inter
cept the Skaine ship before the exchange. But so did they, posing as Skaines and trying to intercept the Leath, pretending to have the weapons.”
Paige tipped her head forward. “You’re kidding?”
Brock shook his head grimly. “Not even slightly. Couldn’t make this shit up… Anyway, turns out the girl, their leader, has some kind of EI bot in her head. Bit like Molly, but not. Apparently put there by the Federation.”
Paige put a hand to her chest to steady herself. “You’re kidding? Why?”
Brock shrugged. “Not entirely sure but reading between the lines of what Oz is picking up from their discussion she is some kind of Etheric Empire baby.”
“A what now?”
“I dunno. Something to do with the Empress’s nearest and dearest getting special treatment. They get certain enhancements and tech implanted to keep them safe and allow them certain advantages. In exchange for helping her, she looked after their children who could become a target by providing them a bonus. We aren’t too sure if those are the right details, but it’s probably close I’m thinking.”
Paige was speechless. Her mouth hung slightly open as she parsed the information.
“Anyway,” Brock continued, “the details are vague, but essentially we’re kind of on the same side.”
Joel wandered back into the workshop from the hangar deck, followed by Pieter. They both looked weary. Joel’s uniform had oil on it. He loitered, listening to the conversation, and Pieter took the kit he was carrying and shoved it back into one of the cabinets.
“All ok?” Brock checked with Pieter.
“Yeah. We just got done recalibrating the shield appearance. I’ve diverted full power back to the protection frequencies. No more pretending to be Leath.”
Joel sat down on a stool on the opposite side of the bench to Paige. “Yeah. Let’s hope we don’t need to disguise ourselves again. That was a bitch to reset.”
Brock turned to him. “Well, if it’s any consolation, while you guys were doing that we’ve managed to recheck all the cloaking systems.”
“And?” Joel asked.
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