Alliances

by S. Usher Evans

  "Gentlemen, gentlemen," the bald man interrupted. "Let's put politics aside for a moment. This is more about money. We have a very lucrative deal that we'd like to cut you in on."

  This had the entire room, including Razia, quiet.

  "You see, we know how…adept you gentlemen are at rerouting materials while in transit," the bald one said. "We simply ask that you, perhaps, focus a little more on government transports."

  "Why?" Waslow Needler asked from the corner.

  "The government pays very handsomely for the materials that you will be stealing," the second man said. "So when they are stolen, we can file a claim with the insurance company and be repaid for the material that remains in our possession. We will then deliver the supposedly stolen material to the government, allowing us to be paid for the material twice. Of course, we would be more than happy to provide a healthy cut to our partners."

  Razia looked around. The pirates didn't seem too impressed. "You want us to steal some stuff?" That was Max Fried.

  "How much we talkin' here?" asked Conboy Conrad, his boots on the table and a cigarette in his mouth.

  "Depending on the shipment, you may receive upwards of fifty million per ship," the bald man said.

  A murmur arose from the group as they seemed to be on-board. No one was going to say no to fifty million free credits.

  "We've provided your runners with a list of ships and their expected routes," the black haired man said. "I trust the four runners will divvy it up fairly."

  Dissident and Contestant glared at each other, but nodded. Somehow Razia knew that Insurgent and Protestor weren't going to get even half of the ships.

  "Oh, and one last thing, of course." The bald man laughed. "We welcome your support to General State's campaign."

  Razia chuckled to herself. They wouldn’t have to twist Sage’s arm to give his support—

  Just as the thought crossed her mind, a cold hand snaked its way up her thigh. She turned to hit the Leveman’s out of whoever it was, but her fist was caught in mid-punch.

  "You know," Sage whispered into her ear, "I wondered if I was going to see you."

  She should have known. One hand was caught in his grip and the other squeezed his wrist down at her thigh. She whispered into his ear, "I will end you."

  Sage released her and leaned back against the wall and chuckled happily. "You aren’t supposed to be here."

  "You wouldn’t dare."

  "You’re right. I don’t want to imagine what you’d do to me later...or maybe I do." He winked at her. "Where'd you find this little get up?"

  "Get sucked."

  "You got an exit plan?"

  "Of course I do," she lied.

  "Might want to use it," he whispered, looking forward.

  Razia turned her eyes back to the center of the room and saw that the two men were conferring with one of the waitresses.

  They stood up slowly, looking around the room. "It appears as though we have an uninvited guest," the bald man said, motioning to the guards around the room. Razia dipped her head down and shuffled towards the door, when the low-hanging light over the table shone to the side of the room, to where Lizbeth was standing.

  Blessing this golden opportunity, Razia began scooting towards the door, although half of her wanted to stick around and watch Lizbeth try and dig herself out of this one. So far, she was stuttering and looking about wildly. Razia snorted; Lizbeth didn’t have an exit strategy either.

  Razia put her hand on the door, but it swung open towards her. She stepped back to get out of the way, but she found herself face-to-face with a belt buckle. She lifted her head up and met the eyes of a giant guard glaring down at her. Then, she felt the warm light shine on her.

  "And what do we have here?" the bald one said. "Two?"

  Her wig took that as a cue to slide off of her tilted head and her dark brown hair fell down her back.

  For a brief, glorious moment, she hoped perhaps no one would recognize her.

  Then, the catcalls began.

  "Well, well, well, look who it is…"

  "Nice legs there, cutie..."

  "Why weren’t you wearing that when you captured me last month? I would have gone willingly."

  Well, better to face it than slink away in shame. She turned around and folded her arms over her chest. The guard who was blocking her way out pushed her forward so that she was farther away from the door.

  "All right, you caught me," she said, fixing her glare around the room at the leering pirates. "I just thought it was odd that you invited Loeb over there who, by the way, I turned in last month. Yet I,"—she pointed to herself—"have been in the top twenty for the past six months and I have to sneak in. Funny how that works, isn’t it?"

  "You mean...this is a pirate?" The bald man asked Dissident who shifted, a bad taste in his mouth.

  "In a manner of speaking," he grumbled. "She wasn’t invited either way, so feel free to kick her out."

  "Thanks," Razia said sarcastically.

  "You heard the runner," the black-haired man said to his giant guards stationed around the room.

  "Oh come on," Razia whined. "I'm in a mini-skirt."

  That got the attention of all of the men in the room, who leaned forward to catch a glimpse.

  "You can all get sucked into Leveman's Vortex!" Razia hissed, looking around at the wall of beefy men who were slowly closing in on her. They weren't too smart, probably, based on their size. She could slip by them without much trouble. But with so many pirates in the room, all of whom were hostile to her, even if she were to fend off these giants, there was no telling if she'd be able to get to the door without five or six pirates grabbing her. She needed a distraction, she needed something to…

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sage motioning to her, his hand on the light switch. Her eyes swept to the kitchen door, taking a mental picture of the obstacles between her and her exit, and then she nodded to him.

  The room was bathed in darkness and she slipped between two of the men, who grunted loudly as they ran into each other, trying to grab her. She swung open the door to the kitchen, the bright light blinding the inhabitants of the dark room before it shut behind her.

  She found Lizbeth, struggling in the vice grip of the kitchen guard.

  "Seriously, I wasn't trying to leave," Lizbeth whimpered, tugging at his grip.

  "Oi, idiot," Razia said, hoisting one of the cast iron skillets from the wall and swinging it around with all her might. It hit the man's arm with a loud bang and he released Lizbeth. Howling, he gripped at his arm as Lizbeth gave her a thankful look.

  The door on the other side of the kitchen burst open and three more guards spilled out, snarling at them.

  "Get them!"

  "Exit?" Lizbeth offered to the open door.

  "By all means."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Razia and Lizbeth burst out into the dark street, running as fast as their legs would carry them, and not stopping until they were a good ten blocks away. With no sign of anyone following them, Lizbeth fell to her knees, wheezing and gasping for air, while Razia simply watched her superiorly with an eye on direction they'd come from. She was more winded from the panic of nearly being massacred, but wasn't going to let Lizbeth know that.

  "Are you gonna survive?" Razia asked, as sarcastically as she could muster. "Shall I call you a doctor?"

  "Get sucked," Lizbeth spat.

  "You're welcome, by the way, for saving your ass back there." Razia sniffed, folding her arms across her chest.

  "Yeah, thanks. I only wish my knight in shining armor wasn't such a complete bitch about saving me." Lizbeth paused, giving Razia a serious look. "But thank you. I wasn't quite sure how I was going to get out of that one."

  "Let that be a lesson to you, then," Razia said, peering around the corner for anyone who might be trailing them. "Stay out of pirate business."

  "Can't," Lizbeth said with a pleased smile. "I have a job to do."

  Razia couldn't bel
ieve it. "What in Leveman's Vortex does the government want with pirates? That's the U-POL's job."

  "It became our business when we got wind of possible kickbacks and insurance fraud. That's my area. You'd be surprised how many people fake pirate hijackings."

  "Well, you heard them," Razia said, looking back towards the direction of the bar. "They want pirates to hijack government transports so they can resell them. Go tell your bosses and stop meddling in pirate business."

  "There's more to it than that," Lizbeth replied. "Contestant's pirates have been hitting government ships for months. Why now include all the other pirates? Besides, did you not notice that there were pirates from every runner except Contestant?"

  Razia was about to answer with a sassy remark, but instead realized Lizbeth was telling the truth. She hadn't seen Relleck, or Cree Hardrict, or any of Contestant's favorite pirates. And if this woman was right, and his pirates had been hijacking government ships for months…

  "Contestant would never willingly share that kind of lucrative deal," Razia finished aloud. "Fifty million per ship?"

  "Which means that there's something more going on than just what they talked about tonight." Lizbeth paused as an oddly curious, yet smug expression formed on her face. "I looked you up, you know. Razia 'no name listed.' Hear you're a pretty good bounty hunter."

  "I'm a damned good bounty hunter."

  "Indeed. From what I've heard, you're a master at tracking pirates through their money transactions." Lizbeth said, a smug smile on her face that Razia did not think boded well for her.

  "Yeah, so?" Lizbeth wiggled her eyebrows, and Razia began shaking her head, laughing at the ridiculousness of the idea. "No way. I'm not helping you."

  "Oh, come on. I saw the way your brain was working there with Contestant! I need someone who knows all about these pirates to help me figure out when something isn't right!"

  "No way. I'm too busy."

  "Doing what? Excavating planets?" Lizbeth said with a sly smile.

  "No, I don't need to excavate…." Razia's face melted into a shocked scowl as the words sank in.

  Not again.

  "Son of a bitch," she swore. "How did you find out?"

  "It was pretty hard to miss you storming into your older brother's office the other day," Lizbeth noted, casually looking at her nails. "At first I thought, wow, what balls on this woman to march into the offices of the man who is trying to kill her and her friends. Then he called you 'Lyssandra' and I looked you up and…well…" Lizbeth motioned to Razia's outfit. "It's a pretty shitty disguise. You aren't even bothering with a wig? Though blonde really doesn't suit you."

  Razia said nothing, but glared icy daggers at the offending woman.

  "So, I take it you're going to help me now?" Lizbeth smiled. "We'll have to go on your ship, of course. I don't have one."

  Razia grunted as she stormed down the street.

  "I've got to stop by my hotel too!" Lizbeth called after her. "Don't worry. I can find you!"

  Razia responded with a middle finger.

  ***

  "Nice ship," Lizbeth said, standing in the lower level of Razia's ship with a set of matching luggage that appeared brand new. She had changed from her maid outfit to a smart business suit, her curly hair perfect with nary a wisp out of place. She had reapplied some makeup, it appeared, as her lips shone with gloss.

  "Took you long enough," Razia muttered, annoyed at the thought of this woman making her wait around for hours just so she could look pretty or something.

  "Sorry, but you did park way out in the middle of nowhere," Lizbeth said, rolling her luggage onto the ship. "Where should I put these?"

  With considerable effort, Razia stuck her thumb towards the back, where her bedroom door lay open.

  "Where am I going to sleep?" Lizbeth asked, standing in the doorway.

  "Why do you think you're going to sleep here?"

  "Because I don't think you want to let your mother know you're really a pirate. Might break her heart."

  "If I'm lucky," Razia grumbled. "Just put your crap in there and meet me upstairs. I doubt this is going to take very long."

  "Sure of yourself, are you?" Lizbeth emerged from the bedroom rolling an impeccable black leather bag.

  "Yeah, pretty damn sure," Razia said, hoisting herself up the ladder.

  "Um," Lizbeth said, looking up. "How am I supposed to get my bag up there?"

  "Figure it out," Razia snapped, marching over to her big squishy chair on her bridge. She wasn't going to be helpful; she was being blackmailed after all. She heard sounds of struggle, emphasized for effect, and then finally the sound of the bag rolling on her metal floors.

  Unfortunately, the woman appeared no less the same perfectly put together when she sat down in the jump seat Vel normally occupied and crossed her ankles daintily.

  "Well, you're here," Razia barked. "What do you want from me?"

  "As I said, these hijackings of government ships, they've been going on for months. Mostly with Contestant's pirates, which was why I was hunting Cree Hardrict before you…" She pursed her lips, giving Razia a look.

  "You can still go question him," Razia said with a smirk. "You know he only spent a night in jail. I'm sure he's out there somewhere."

  "Yes, well I doubt he's still doing the same thing he was doing before, thanks to you," Lizbeth snapped. "Which means that all the work that I put into tracking his movements is now moot."

  "Sorry," Razia said, not sounding sorry at all.

  "Which means that you get to help me find someone else," Lizbeth said. "I was able to track Cree Hardrict and the other pirates until he hijacked the cargo and then…" She sighed, pulling out a stack of papers and handing them to Razia. "Then I lose track."

  "Of course you do," Razia said, scanning the documents quickly.

  "This is going to go a lot easier if you cut out the sass," Lizbeth replied sweetly. "I need you to help me locate where the cargo is going, or who it's being sold to. After I get that…then… I have concrete proof of the insurance fraud and can begin making arrests."

  "Fine, who are you looking for next?"

  "Arpad Bernal?"

  "It's your lucky day." Razia smirked and opened her hit list.

  "Impressive list," Lizbeth noted.

  Razia grunted, displaying the four aliases for Arpad Bernal, and the transaction history from the Universal Bank.

  "Wait a minute," Razia said, her eyes hopping from one table to the next. "He hasn't made a purchase in over two days."

  "What does that mean?"

  "It means he's got a different alias?" Bernal already had six aliases—any more and it was verging on paranoia.

  "You look confused."

  "Bernal is a good pirate, but there's no good reason why he'd create a new alias all of a sudden."

  "Could it be something else?" Lizbeth offered. "Maybe somebody else paid for his meals for a few days? Or maybe he created a new alias to do this hijacking thing? Maybe he's getting hunted?"

  Razia chewed on her thumb. Something didn't sound right. She turned to the intraweb and looked at his recent activity.

  "Well, whatever he's doing, he's not hijacking government ships," Razia noted, looking back at Lizbeth. "Not recently, anyways."

  "He wasn't at the meeting either," Lizbeth said, shaking her head. "But I know he's been hijacking ships. I've seen him with stolen cargo."

  "Where is the government material coming from?" Razia asked, starting to doubt the abilities of her new government colleague. "And what is it, exactly?"

  "It's part of a big contract the government awarded two years ago. Mining ore from G-245, sending it through a processing plant, then transporting it to different military bases across the UBU," Lizbeth said. "It went to two large transport companies. They subbed out to other, smaller companies, who subbed out to other companies, and so on."

  "Do you have the entire chain of companies?"

  Lizbeth handed her the last thick stack of papers in her briefc
ase. "The full supply chain."

  Razia's eyes poured through the list, the words and names not making any sense or catching her eye. She wondered if she was going to have to search through all of these. There were at least a hundred companies per page. It was going to take some time, and most of these were going to result in a dead end. The whole process was mind-numbing.

  And then, on the sixth page, her eyes paused on one of the sub-, sub-, sub-, sub-contractors.

  Benson Zephyr Transport, Inc.

  "You….son of a bitch…" Razia shook her head. She never thought she'd see that name again.

  "Who is it?" Lizbeth asked.

  "Damned ass," Razia breathed, turning to her dashboard and searching for the data she had uncovered the year before.

  Razia could still see him tossing that infernal bag of chocolates at her. The way he gawked at her when she told him she was a bounty hunter.

  But, she thought happily, she still had all of her research—all of his transaction histories, his aliases. With a gleam in her eye, she set to retrieving it from the bowels of her hard drive. Oh, she'd show him chocolate fetcher this time. Oh yes, indeed.

  But to her annoyance, when she searched on the four aliases she'd found last year, none of them had been used since she'd discovered him.

  "Catch me up, genius," Lizbeth said, having been sitting in complete silence for the past five minutes.

  "Last year," Razia began, sitting back down, "Dissident had me hunt this guy. Turns out,—she snorted ruefully—"Dissident thought it would be funny to send me after some old guy and retrieve some candy for him."

  "Is that a euphemism for—"

  "No," Razia snapped, giving her an odd look. "Like chocolates or something. Anyway," she cleared her throat, "I found him at this diner, real out of the way place. He was shipping stuff between G-245 and S-6642, but never got hijacked. That's how I found him, actually, just looked for the transporters with the highest rating in the transport guild."

  Lizbeth fumbled through her papers. "I don't have any records of shipments going to S-6642."