"Hope you have access to more of that," she said, pushing a door open into a crowded restaurant. The smells of garlic and other spices wafted out as did the noise of excited patrons.
"How are we going to find them?" Luc asked. The restaurant appeared to be over capacity.
"Follow your ears. Nothing subtle about Bit," Tali said.
"Tali Whacker!" The excited, brash alto voice carried over the crowd.
Chapter 26
Spy in the Ointment
Sweat poured from Luc's face as he accepted a bottle of water from Kane. True to her threat, Tali had not only taken tactical command of the team, but had insisted on constant training while Bit searched for Marek. Luc, along with Jimmy, Tali, and Gob had run through simulated breaching scenarios and clearing exercises almost non-stop. The week was a blur, but he felt like he'd learned more in that short amount of time than in the last fifteen stans at Nuage Security Service’s weekend training. He wasn’t sure just what he found more surprising; that he could actually survive eight hours of training each day or that there were facilities in Puskar Stellar that would rent out simulations for five thousand credits a run.
"Still sloppy on that corner, Gob," Jimmy admonished. "You have to give me room."
"Find another lane. Show us some of that legendary speed you keep bragging about," Gob snapped back.
Luc decided not to step in. The tension between the two had been building and he'd tried to play the intermediary, but everyone was tired — especially Gob, whose bulk worked against him. Luc admired how no one complained about the workouts, but he knew the bickering to be a result of trying to jam so much training into a compressed schedule.
"Don't be such a baby. I'm not asking for much," Jimmy said, tapping a finger onto Gob's chest, accenting each word. "Just do your job."
Jimmy started to turn away, but Gob's massive paw lashed out, striking Jimmy's chest, dead center. The lanky gunslinger sailed across the room and crashed into the wall. Before Jimmy was even back on his feet again, he'd drawn a long knife from a hidden sheath. "You wanna go a round?"
Luc stepped between the two men. "We're done here," Luc said. "We're all tired and we're pushing buttons. Jimmy, put the knife away. You put hands-on first. You know better."
"Damn right, we're done." Jimmy stepped toward Gob, but allowed Luc to hold them apart. "You really wanna be messing with a guy who has a gun at your back all day, big man?"
"Knock it off, Jimmy," Luc said. "Gob, he didn't mean it. We're just tired."
"Better not miss," Gob growled.
"Hey," Tali finally stepped in, grabbing Gob's hand. "Let's cool off over here."
"We’ll take tomorrow off," Luc said, pushing Jimmy toward the exit. "I'll call you a cab."
"Bunch of pussies," Jimmy said. "Can't take valid criticism."
"It's more than that," Luc said. "You've been pushing his buttons for the last two days. What gives?"
"He's slow."
"He's not that slow and he's carrying almost twice as much mass as you are, more if you count his loadout," Luc said, letting the door close behind them. They were standing outside on a platform a couple meters above the parking lot. A white cab descended from the busy skyline and settled onto the pavement next to the steel stairs.
"None of you get it," Jimmy said. "Marek isn't a rookie. There won't be do-overs. If I don't get a clear lane to shoot, Marek will put him down. It's that simple."
"Shit, Jimmy, then say that instead of crapping all over Gob. He's young and your badgering isn't helping."
"I did say that," Jimmy said.
"Cool off, Jimmy," Luc said. "And don't turn off your comms. If we get the call and you're not answering, I'm leaving you here."
"That'd be your funeral," Jimmy said.
"Just answer the comm."
Strapping his bokken to his back, Luc set off at an easy jog, headed for one of Puskar Stellar's famous Mag-Ls — pronounced mag-el by the locals and short for magnetic levitation train. The fact that Gob was expressing frustration by physically striking out was a good clue that he and Tali had pushed the team hard enough. A couple days of decompression would be good, but Luc knew no amount of down time would remove the pressure they all felt.
"Comm request, Bit Coffman," Luc's AI intoned, just as he stepped onto a northbound express Mag-L car from the platform.
So much for downtime, he complained inwardly. "Go ahead, Bit, what do you have?"
"Heya, Graystoke, how’s it hanging?" Bit's face appeared on his HUD. She wiped popcorn crumbles from her chin and took a loud slurp through a straw.
"Headed to the open-air market for dinner," he said. "Team is taking a break."
"Why don't you and your cute little buns grab a couple of burgers and bring 'em over to the house," she said.
"Not tonight, Bit," Luc answered. "I'm looking forward to some downtime."
"I’m not looking for a date, oh muscly one," she said, her voice pitched higher and the cadence faster than he recalled from the few conversations he'd witnessed between her and Tali. "I'm on to something and I think you might have the info I need."
"What kind of burgers you like?" he asked, wondering if he should correct how she addressed him.
"Let me see where you're at." She peered at the screen. "Oh. I know just the place. Hollenbeck Farms has something called a Craven burger. You good with blue-cheese, bacon and all that? Nah, don't answer, it's an experience you need since you've never been here. I'll call in the order. See you in twenty."
Luc stared through the train car's glass panel where Bit's face had just blinked out. He wasn't sure he could have understood what she'd said without the enhanced perception Dorian's surgery had provided. The enigmatic woman was equal parts inappropriate and frenetic.
A light rain was falling and big drops splattered against the window, slipping down the near-frictionless surface, only to be replaced by more. He couldn't imagine what Bit had found. An inkling of an idea took root, but he refused to give it any focus. Instead, he rested his weary shoulders against the stainless-steel post and watched the city zip by.
His life had turned into a jump from one urgent matter to the next. It helped that his body recovered from the physical pounding within hours instead of days, but he could feel the mental fatigue. Carrying the weight of his mission and the responsibility for his new crew was bearing down on him. To make matters worse, his comm queue was filled with urgent messages from Ethan and Alicia, his direct reports back on Joliot.
Knowing there was no escape, he started processing the messages, answering questions, providing direction and reviewing complaints the two seemed to constantly have against each other. As the train slowed to his stop, Luc realized he was falling into a common management trap of answering the questions asked. Scooping up the messages, he forwarded Ethan's to Alicia and Alicia's to Ethan and asked them to propose recommendations. He smiled tiredly as he considered the impact of Alicia or Ethan reading their complaints about each other. He suspected he'd be receiving significantly fewer grievances in the future.
Feeling a little lighter, Luc stepped from the train car onto a rain-soaked walkway. He'd been dropped into the center of Puskar Stellar's open air market. In that it was past 1800 local time, the market had been long closed. Brightly painted carts were pushed against brick buildings and colorful umbrellas had been retracted. Everything waited patiently for the next morning when tables would be stocked and umbrellas unfurled once again in all their glory. Luc hoped he'd have a chance to see the market in full swing, but he had a sinking feeling it wouldn't be on this trip.
He smiled as he followed a happy couple, holding hands, dressed for a fun evening. While the carts and vendors had closed for the day, the restaurants were just getting into full swing for the night. Music filtered out from open doors.
Hollenbeck Farms, while not large, bustled with activity. Long communal tables were filled with diners working through burgers and bottled drinks. True to her promise, Bit had ordered and as
soon as Luc scanned the credit terminal and forty credits was deducted, the server handed him a heavy bag.
"Did we order any beer with this?" Luc asked.
"Let me check," the server said. "Doesn't look like it. What would you like?"
"Any suggestions? I'm not from around here. Lighter grain, I don't love the bitter as much," Luc explained.
"Of course," she answered. "We have a local brewery, Thunderhead. They have a wheat called Golden Frau. Would you like me to add a carton of four hundreds?"
"Thanks. That'd be great," he said.
Glad that he had nothing else to carry, Luc called for a cab after exiting the restaurant. Public transportation was efficient, but the load he carried would be annoying with jostling bodies around him. Almost immediately, a silvered cab dropped onto the pavement and he slid inside, flicking Bit's address to the waiting AI.
A few minutes later, the cab deposited him outside a grouping of condominiums well into the University Hills district. He'd only met the woman for pizza and wasn't sure what to expect when he located the purple-painted door.
"Lucinator!" Bit swung the door open before Luc could even knock. "Daaumn son, that was fast. Get in here, I'm starving."
Bit grabbed the bag of burgers and stepped back into the home. Having only seen her sitting at a restaurant table, Luc was a bit surprised. The awkward woman wore a tight vac-suit that left little to the imagination.
"That's right," she said with a broad grin. Cradling the bag in one arm, she slapped her buttocks with her free hand. "Take it all in."
Luc followed her inside where she set the bag atop a cluttered countertop. The apartment looked to be a four-room arrangement. The kitchen/dining room area was separated from the living room only by a change in the flooring. Two doors opened into a short hallway on the left side of the room and probably went to the head and sleeping quarters. A large table filled the dining area and overflowed into the living room. Clutter was everywhere and electronic gear filled just about every horizontal surface.
"Let me get you a place to sit," she said, pulling a loose stack of books and papers from a chair and setting them on the floor, unperturbed when it toppled over. With zeal she opened the bag of burgers and pushed a foil-wrapped monstrosity toward Luc, followed by a paper carton of long rectangular vegetables that were covered in grease and what he expected was sodium. "What? Don't have potato fries on Grünholz? You know the rest of the universe calls 'em French fries, right? Although, I think the French really never accepted that, so, well, you know. You're not extra talkative, are you?" She looked at him expectantly.
Luc pulled a beer from the carton and popped the top. "Not quite sure how to break in."
Bit laughed. "Yeah, I get that. I do like to carry on. I've always said I could hold both sides of a conversation. You should really try those burgers. I got you two of them, but I doubt you can handle that. That big boy, Gabino, I bet he could though. And I bet he is delicious in a vac-suit."
"You have to stop saying stuff like that," Luc interjected. "It makes people uncomfortable."
"What? Delicious?" she asked. "So many social rules. It doesn't make sense. Tell me you haven't checked him out. He's everything that sweet little stick Jimmy Bang isn't." Bit stopped and exaggeratedly fanned her face.
"We'll work on it," Luc said, opening the burger's foil. Bit smiled at his interest in the food. She ripped her own burger from its package and took a big bite. Red and white sauce squirted from the burger, dripped over her fingers, and landed squarely on her right breast. Trying to ignore what had just happened, Luc took a bite of his own burger. His stomach complained loudly and Luc realized how hungry he was. He closed his eyes and enjoyed one of the best sandwiches he'd ever tasted.
"This is amazing." He finally set the burger back in its wrapper, having wolfed down half of it.
"You dribbled a little," Bit said, reaching for his face with a sanitary wipe.
Luc took the wipe before she could reach his face and cleaned a small dab of sauce from the side of his mouth. "Uh, thanks. You might have a little down there too."
Bit followed his eyes to her chest. "Oh, they get hungry too," she joked, wiping up the material in a single swipe.
"You know you make people uncomfortable, right?" Luc asked.
"I do," she admitted. "I just don't have the time or the interest to filter my mouth. You'll get used to it. Thing is, I know so much about you, I feel like we've known each other forever. You had an amazing career at Nuage. Still trying to figure out how you convinced Tali Whacker to join your merry little band. Did you know she wants me to come along once we figure out, you know, where that is?"
"What do you think about that?"
"We'll see," Bit said. "Makes me wonder if you brought Quentin to woo me."
"Doctor Wilder? He's a little old for you, don't you think?"
"Oh, my gas-loving planetoid! Pot call the kettle black much? Your girlfriend is four hundred stans older than you."
"You know about that?"
"Which, that the two of you have been secret lovers for the better part of a decade or that she's Thomas Phillipe Anino's mum?"
"You're a dangerous woman," Luc said drawing deeply on his beer.
"You have no idea. I know shite that would make you want to crawl back to Nuage and hide. And, no, don't ask, 'cause I won't tell you unless it's immediately relevant," she said. "Tell me what you know about Captain Breshev Festove and Admiral Louise Marsh."
"Louise Marsh is a true patriot," Luc said. "She has served Nuage for as long as I can remember. We didn’t always see eye-to-eye on things, but I never questioned her motivation. Captain Breshev Festove is another matter. He is a man of low character, but efficient at his job."
"Hold on to those ideas," Bit said, setting her partially-eaten burger aside and taking a quick drink from her soda by leaning forward, never taking her eyes off the vid screens in front of her.
"Do you think he suspects?" The voice coming from the screen belonged to Festove, although the picture showed the empty room where Luc had been initially questioned and then relieved from duty after an administrative action.
"You're pushing this too hard. He's a smart man and a patriot." The hushed, unseen voice belonged to Admiral Marsh. "If he gets wind of this, he'll keep coming until he uncovers the truth."
"And we'll throw him in a deep, dark hole," Festove replied. "Like we should have done this time."
"How can you even say that? He's done everything this nation has ever asked of him. His only crime is doing his job too well. Leonidovich had no reason to fire at our patrol and now we're ruining a good man's life."
"Are you ready to start a war over one man?" Festove asked. "Leonidovich has punished the men responsible for the breach. Remember, a war benefits Oberrhein more than Nuage. Don't think Leonidovich doesn't know that. We can't afford to have Gray's report make it into our permanent record. The United Council of Nations would get involved and Oberrhein will take that as an act of aggression."
"So you keep saying. I'm placing a lot of trust in your intelligence, Breshev," Marsh said.
"That's crap," Luc said. "I can't believe she's party to this."
"I could send the recording on to the UCN," Bit said. "It might raise a few eyebrows."
"I'm not sure there's a law being broken," Luc said. "Certainly not one outside of the sovereignty of Nuage. What is recorded permanently is absolutely at Nuage's discretion."
"I'm more interested in the subtext," Bit said. "I understand that conversation had direct impact on you, but why do they care about whether or not an incident is reported to the UCN. It's not like patrols don't find bad people doing bad things all the time."
"Ship identification," Luc said. "We pushed their fighter up out of the clouds. Our data-streams would have recorded the whole thing. Only thing I can think of is that someone might recognize that fighter. Why else would Marsh be worried about a conflict with Oberrhein?"
"You heard Festove. Leonidovich wants
a record of that ship destroyed."
"Why do I think you have more?" Luc asked.
Bit nodded. "I do. Using information from your personal data stores, I've identified that Sandlot Enterprise A12 fighter as belonging to a trader named Yakov Maximovich."
"That's not much of a stretch. And I won't ask how you got access to my data stores."
Bit waggled her eyebrows. "Would you be surprised to learn that same fighter showed up over Irène just before the attack on Anino's compound? And it entered Nuage airspace six days later enroute to Cauldron?"
"Marek’s hiding on Grünholz," Luc said. "It's perfect. The entire island city of Cauldron is blocked from network access. No data comes in or out without permission of King Leonidovich. Marek must have made him a deal for protection."
"That's a big leap," Bit said. "Are you sure you're not inferring this because they … you know …"
"Killed me?"
"Yeah, that."
"I agree, the payback would be poetic, but no, I'm not about to risk my team on a vendetta," Luc said. "What do you need to break into their systems?"
"Do you have eighty thousand credits?" Bit asked.
"For what?" Luc asked.
"I know this guy. He can get a hack-module into Cauldron's system. Best case is we’ll be active for five minutes before the Khanate finds it."
"Five minutes? What good is that?"
"I'd take thirty seconds," Bit said. "Give me the cashish then go back to your ship and get some rest. We'll know something in ten hours, give or take."
"It's like I woke up and everyone believes I'm made of money. Are you sure this'll work?"
"Not at all. Soft hacks like this fail all the time."
"Soft hacks?"
"People based. Computers are so much more reliable."
It was 0200 when Luc arrived at Arion, having taken a cab from Bit's apartment to the space elevator that doubled as the central hub for the spoked Mag-L system. If he hadn't been so tired, he might have been more impressed with the technology that tied the massive space station to the surface of Mars, whisking passengers effortlessly to and from orbit.
On a Pale Ship: A Privateer Tales Series Page 30
