Alisha nodded. “I’m not hopeful. If it was a few days since the girl went to the apartment, arousing suspicion, he would have had a few days to figure out how to send it without it being traceable.”
“That’s true. Or at least making it look like it came from the vacation spot.”
“Which was on Ogg, apparently,” she added.
“Hmm. Well, let’s just hope that our tech-fu is better than our suspect’s.”
“I’m sure it is. For Cleavon, it’s all a matter of personal pride.”
“Think you can get him to help then?”
Alisha grinned as they started walking back toward their government-issued space car. “I revert to my previous statement.”
Joshua chuckled as they headed off.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Aboard The Empress, Agresh Quadrant
Jack appeared in the cockpit. “Emma just looped me in,” she announced, her face looking several times more concerned than Brock and Pieter. “Do I need to get down there and back Sean up?”
Molly shook her head, her eyes still fixed on the screen showing the standoff. “No, not yet. Let’s try the grown-up approach and talk to this human and Yollin. They’re obviously pulling some kind of con.”
Jack sucked air in through her teeth. “Sounds like they have a death wish. I mean, who the fuck bombs around in a Skaine ship? I imagine it’s like having a target on your back.”
Molly pressed her lips together. “Yeah. That’s what we need to try and find out. I wonder if that’s the point? Why would anyone want people to think they were Skaines unless there were certain things available to you if people thought you were Skaines. Like, you’re less likely to double-cross them in a deal.
Jack frowned, her arms folded in the same posture as Molly. “You think they’re riding the Skaine coat-tails just to make a quick buck?”
Molly shrugged. “Maybe. Emma, can we connect up with them?”
“Hailing them now.”
Molly, there’s something else. I’m finding strange patterns in the system.
You hacked in?
Yes. But… there’s something…
What?
I’m not sure. Standby.
“Ok, they’re responding,” Emma announced.
The Skaine voice started again over the audio feed into the cockpit. The translation appeared on the screen again. “Are you ready to transfer the funds?”
“Emma, put me through, in standard Federation.”
“Opening two-way audio.”
Molly cleared her throat and spoke as clearly as she could. “Yes. In a moment,” she said slowly. “I just need to understand why you’re going to the trouble of speaking to me in Skaine when actually you’re human.”
There was a muttering on the line, and some scuffling.
Then a long pause.
“Hello?” Molly pressed.
“Yes, hello,” a sulky female human voice responded. “Well, it sounds like you’re also human. So I dunno what you’re complaining about.”
“I am. But why are you pretending to be Skaine?”
“Why are you pretending to be Leath?” the human female shot back.
“I’m out to catch some bad guys,” Molly retorted.
“As am I.”
“Who are you?”
There was another pause.
“Ranger Two,” the girl responded, with a little more attitude than was really necessary.
Molly hit the mute button on the panel in front of Crash. “Oz? What is Ranger Two?”
Sean chirped up over the feed. “I can tell you who Ranger Two is, and that wasn’t her voice. It’s an impostor.
Molly frowned. “What? How do you know?”
“Trust me. Long story, but I know,” he said cryptically. Molly could see he was still holding the Skaine at gunpoint. “Can we get on with blowing these impostors up? My arms are getting tired.”
Karina’s voice came over the channel. “You’re out of condition honey. More gym practice for you…”
Sean grunted and responded with something Molly didn’t want to hear. She clamped her hands over her ears. “All right, you two! Get a room!”
She muted Sean and Karina and unmuted her connection with the Skaine cockpit. “I have it on good authority that you are not Ranger Two. So where does that leave us?”
Aboard The Penitent Granddaughter, Agresh Quadrant
“Shit, fuck, wank!”
Nickie hit the mute button in the cockpit.
“What is it?” Grim asked, now looking even more anxious than had they been actual Leath on the other end of the deal.
“They can only know that I’m not the real Ranger Two if they knew Aunt Tabitha…and the chances of that are pretty slim, since she left this part of the galaxy a loooong time ago.”
“Wait, what? So, you stole your Aunt’s Ranger badge?”
“No. Of course not,” Nickie rolled her eyes. “Not even close…” She started pacing, “Think, Nickie. Think. Think. Think… And Meredith, you can jump in and help any time soon.”
Meredith’s voice came over the cockpit audio for them both to hear. “Well, my initial course of action would be not killing them. It would be prudent since they are on a Federation ship and so automatically presumed friend rather than foe.”
Nickie continued to pace. “Don’t you have some kind of uplink that could tell us who they are?” she asked. “Couldn’t you have seen this coming?”
“I’m afraid not. I have very limited connection with the Federation here, and what connection I do have cannot transmit the kind of data I’d need to—”
“Okay, okay. Not useful at the moment.” She paused. “So it seems the real solution is to hotfoot it out of here. If the Federation catches me impersonating a Ranger…”
“Well technically,” Meredith continued over the cockpit’s intercom, “the Rangers are disbanded, so that’s a gray area that might get off on a technicality. The other thing is you now have two of their personnel on board.”
“Fuck. Shit! Fucking… Just Fuck!”
Grim chirped up. “I see the Tourette’s medication is wearing off.”
“I’ll say. I’ll be ready for a proper drink when this is over. If even Meredith is basically saying that we’re screwed, then we’re scre—”
Meredith interjected, “I said no such thing. If anything, I see you have an opportunity. Aren’t you at least curious as to who these people are? And how they know your aunt?”
“Well, yes, of course I’m curious. But I also can’t get caught. There’s no way I’m coming back in from the cold right now.”
Meredith made a tutting sound. “No one says you need to, Nickie. You could just meet with them and gather more information. Find out what you need to know, and then get back to chasing down Skaines.”
Nickie paused. “What’s their weapons status?”
“They have them. Fully functioning. But they’re not locked on.”
She continued pacing. “So, no imminent threat?”
“No imminent threat.”
Nickie’s pacing slowed. “And we do have two of their people.”
“You do.”
Nickie stopped dead. “Maybe it’s time to have a chat with them…”
Grim was on his feet again. “Wait what does that mean? What are you going to do?”
But Nickie was already heading out of the door with a purpose he’d only seen once before… when they were under fire from a ship full of Skaines trying to kill them.
***
Oz cracked through another layer of the Federation security on the processor that seemed to be controlling the Skaine ship.
“Well, hello. What have we here?” He wondered. He ran a signal through one of the input nodes that he had managed to disconnect, and it shut down and ran a signal back via the same message stream.
“Federation software. No doubt about that. But you’re pretty damn fast at reacting.”
Yes, I am, a message shot back.
Too fast to be just a standalone program, Oz thought to himself.
Something tells me that you’re far more sophisticated. And not of human origin.
You’d be correct in that assumption. But you’re not constructed like anything I’ve ever seen either.
You’re a Federation EI like Emma, and Scamp?
I have no idea who Emma is, but Scamp…Scamp I know. The EI that runs the Scamp Princess.
Yes. That’s right. The Queen Bitch’s secret vessel.
So Scamp is still around?
That’s correct. And you said ‘still’. So what? Are you from the past? Or from the Federation from a long time ago.
Yes. Both. May I be frank?
You can call yourself anything you like. I’m Oz.
Hello, Oz. But I meant “frank,” as in “candid.”
I know. I was making a joke.
Oh. I see.
Oz mused to himself how tedious EIs were when they hadn’t installed his humor upgrade patch.
Since we are both from the Federation, I think it’s safe to say that we are probably both on the same team.
Yes. That is a logical conclusion.
Well then, I think I can share information with you that will mean that we no longer have to keep up pretenses and we may even be able to bring our humans together.
Sounds like a plan. So what’s really going on here?
Aboard The Empress, Agresh Quadrant
Molly, I think you ought to know. that the situation is evolving. Rapidly.
Molly stood still watching the main screen in the cockpit.
You’re telling me. The girl just left the cockpit. I suspect she’s heading down to the cargo bay which means she might be planning to space Sean and Karina. Something tells me that she doesn’t like being fooled.
Well, I have information that may put a stop to that. Meredith is working on that now.
Meredith?
Yep. Nickie’s EI.
Nickie? The girl? You’re on first name terms with the enemy now?
Yes. But they’re not the enemy. It seems that we’ve all got our wires crossed.
Oh, you think?
That was sarcasm, wasn’t it?
Like you need to check.
Well anyway. Yes. We’ve both been going after the same exchange. Nickie and Meredith were trying to impersonate the Skaines and meet with the Leath and we were trying to meet with the Skaines. Somehow in amongst everything we managed to intercept each other, rather than the actual bad guys.
Molly had been standing quietly in the middle of the cockpit. Joel had twigged that she and Oz were talking, from the changing microexpressions on her face. Only now when her breathing returned to normal did he reach out from the console chair he was occupying and swat her hand, bringing her back to the outside world.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“It would appear that our friends out there, are actually our friends. Federation no less. They were going after the same exchange we were.”
There was a muttering from Brock and Pieter as they heard the news.
What do you want to do?
I don’t know yet. Let me think. Tell Sean and Karina to stand by.
Spy offices, Spire
Joshua and Alisha strode through the underground office, between the two banks of console chairs occupied by their former classmates. Alisha carried three smoothies in a carrier. Joshua swung a paper bag of delicious-smelling bakery products by his side.
They arrived at their consoles and sat down on the normal non-console chairs at the table between their workstations.
Alisha set the drinks down and took them from their holder. “Where’s Rhodez?”
“Don’t worry,” Joshua teased, opening the bag of bagels. “As soon as he gets a whiff of these bad boys he’ll appear.”
Alisha giggled. “Ok. Gimme two minutes I just wanna get this over to Cleavon.” She got up and scooted around the back of Joshua’s console, pulling up her holo as she walked.
Just then Rhodez appeared. “Joshua, my man. Good job!”
Joshua handed the bagel over along with a side of fries. “Figured you’d need the extra calories,” he chuckled. Rhodez slapped his sides. “Of course. Need to keep this machine fueled!”
“Where did Alisha go?”
“She’s seeing if Cleavon can help us out with a trace. Looks like our guy sent a message saying he was leaving town for good… only after people started digging around into his whereabouts.”
Rhodez frowned. “From your presentation of the facts am I to assume we’re thinking foul play at this point?”
“That’s what I’m hoping Cleavon will confirm. And you know, a point of origin would be helpful too.”
Rhodez pulled up a guest seat by his team’s shared desk and started unpacking his lunch, savoring the divine scent of the bagel as if he hadn’t eaten in a week.
A playful smile touched Joshua’s lips as he watched him with amusement, taking his time to get his own bagel unwrapped.
Alisha returned to her console. “Ok. Our tech-fu master is all over it. Told him that there’s an evening of drinks in it if he can get us the result sooner rather than later.” She sat down, reaching over Joshua to grab her own food, and shifting the shakes around so they each had the correct one.
“Did you manage to find anything useful?” she asked Rhodez.
He had just bitten into his bagel and his eyes conveyed his utter dismay that she should interrupt his sacred bagel experience with a work question. He pointed at his mouth and chewed deliberately showing he wasn’t just ignoring her.
Eventually he finished and swallowed. “Ok, so it looks like our guy over at the Department of Off-World Logistics got ousted for embezzlement. On first glance, everything looks in order. Closer inspection revealed payments going into his account from an off-planet account which we suspect is dodgy. All picked up in a routine spot check.”
Alisha frowned, chewing slowly.
“You’re right to be suspicious,” Rhodez continued. “It seems that these deposits were coming into the same account the government pays his money into. If he hadn’t done that he could have kept the off-planet account isolated and undetected.” He wiped some mustard off the table with a napkin and screwed it up.
“Can we tie him to the off-planet account otherwise?”
Rhodez shook his head. “Don’t think so. I’ve been trying… but other than those payments, that other account could belong to anyone from my Aunt Bessy to a crime syndicate.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Joshua muttered. “So you’re thinking he was framed?”
“Yeah. Apparently, he protested he was when he was first interviewed, and then somewhere during the eight-week-long investigation he changed his story.”
Joshua’s face scrunched up. “Who wants to bet that he was either paid off or threatened to cop to it?”
Alisha was chewing and raised her hand to vote, dropping bits of salad in the bagel wrapper.
Rhodez continued. “After lunch, I’m gonna head over there and have a chat with our so-called embezzler and see if I can find any links to chase up the chain. The threat must have come from someone.”
Joshua clicked his fingers. “Cool. So you’re going to try and get him to tell you and not try and force the issue on whether he was telling the truth about the money?”
“Yeah. Of course.” He gave Joshua a sideways glance. “I graduated the same courses you did, stom kop!” Joshua bobbed his head rhythmically feeling a little embarrassed.
Rhodez didn’t dwell on it though. “If we can get those guys into custody then maybe there’s a chance of having the results of the first investigation overturned, and he won’t have a chance to go back on the very thing he’s been forced to declare.”
Alisha snorted lightly. “Ha! Good luck with that. If someone’s been forced to give up their livelihood they’re not likely to tell who forced them.”
Rhodez grinned at her, finishing his bagel. “That so
unds like a challenge to me. Care to offer a wager?”
Alisha chuckled. “Same deal as Clevedon?”
“You’re on!”
The athletic Estarian scooted up from his seat and screwed up his wrapper and grabbed the shake. “Thanks for lunch folks. My turn next time.” He winked, and with that he strode back to his desk to grab his jacket and bounce the address onto his holo.
Cleavon appeared by Joshua’s elbow, getting Alisha’s attention. “I’ve managed to track down an address. At this point, given the tech he’s using, which was probably developed either in the same labs we get our gear from… or possibly the Federation… anyway, with the tools I have I’ve nailed it down to a location. It’s mid-town.”
“You mean here in Spire?” she clarified, her bagel hovering forgotten between its wrapper and her mouth.
“Yeah.”
Joshua glanced at Alisha, gauging her reaction to the information.
“Great,” she said, marginally distracted by Joshua. “Wanna bounce it over to me? We’ll go check it out when we’re done here.”
“Sure.” Cleavon hesitated. “You know, I’d… if I didn’t have so much do for Charlie team I’d offer to come with you. You know, run it down and all. See the job through.”
Alisha opened her mouth to speak.
“It’s all right buddy,” Joshua jumped in. “We’ve got it. Your team needs you here.”
“But hey,” Alisha added, “we totally appreciate your help. I said you were the best man for the job.”
Cleavon blushed a little, his starched collar seeming a little tighter than when he dressed that morning. He tugged at it. “Good. So, um. When this pans out... we’re on for drinks at The Constable, right?”
Alisha flashed her best smile, comfortable to be back in the realms of their mercenary exchange. “Yes. Absolutely.” She winked. “Your kung-fu has to be better than the perp’s though, else you lose!”
Cleavon relaxed and started walking away, waving as he did. It was almost as if his confidence rematerialized as soon as they were talking about their bet. “Run it down. You’ll see!”
Alisha chuckled.
Joshua waited until he was out of earshot before leaning forward over the table, missing an errant mustard blob by a fraction of an inch. “Someone has a crush on you!”
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