Zeta Hack: A Paranormal Space Opera Adventure (Star Justice Book 3)

by Michael-Scott Earle

  “Couldn’t we get there as fast through the tube system?” I asked.

  “No, or else we’d just take the tube. Let’s go.”

  “You have our money?” Z said. I noticed the blonde woman was clutching her computer, and I guessed she was relieved to have it again.

  “When we get back. Let’s go, scum.” She gestured into Persephone’s bay.

  Z and I looked at each other, and then the woman followed us inside.

  “You all have handguns on board?” she asked as we rode the elevator to the bridge.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Bring them when we leave,” the woman ordered.

  “It’s illegal to have weapons on the--” Z began, but the other woman shot her a dead stare.

  “You should just focus on being pretty instead of thinking. It will work better for you.”

  Z’s mouth opened, and I saw her arms tense at her side.

  “That’s enough,” I growled at the redhead.

  “The problem with scum like you is--” the woman started to say, but I was sick of hearing this woman insult my friend, and my left hand circled her throat a second before I lifted her into the air and slammed her back into the metal panel of the elevator.

  I half expected my throttle to knock the wind out of the woman, but the cop grabbed my left wrist with her left hand and kicked me in the chest while she fished in her coat for her pistol with her right hand. The toe of her boot did hurt when she kicked me, but the pain was fleeting, and I managed to pull her hand out of her coat with my right hand, and then pinch it against the wall of the elevator with my left elbow.

  “Adam!” Z shouted, but it was taking most of my willpower to keep the monster from taking over my body.

  “Stop,” I growled at the cop as I dug through her coat and pulled out her semi-automatic pistol. It was a little too small for my hand, but I found the safety easily enough, flipped it off, and then rested the open barrel against the woman’s forehead.

  “Adam!” Z’s hands were on my back, but it sounded like she was shouting at me from a hundred meters away.

  “I killed the robbers in the bank because they hurt my woman. Save your insults for me, not her.” I felt the tiger trying to push out into my spine, and I took a deep breath to calm myself before I continued. “My two friends are good people, that just want to help others. You’ve been unfair to us. Perhaps you have your reasons, but we aren’t your enemy. We hate slavery. You don’t need to strong arm us, insult us, or threaten us. We’ll help you. Just stop being a fucking bitch.”

  Her green eyes were wide open, and she gasped for air. I could feel her pulse rush through my fingers, and the beast wanted revenge.

  “Got it?” I asked as the first parts of the transformation tickled my spine. I needed to let her go, or I was going to change. I was too angry and holding her by the neck was triggering all sorts of primal urges in my mutated DNA.

  “Yeee,” she whispered.

  “Good.” I dropped her down to her feet and released my fingers from her neck. She wore a second gun in her holster, but I still had the one in my hand pointed at her.

  “We aren’t your enemy. We aren’t scum. We came here to buy food for a mining colony that desperately needs it. They gave us the last of their rhodium to buy the supplies, and we were converting it to R-credits when the robbers came. I didn’t want to kill them, but they murdered one of the tellers right away, and I felt confident they were going to kill us next.”

  The redhead rubbed her neck as she looked at me, but I couldn’t read the expression on her face. The elevator door had opened when I had first picked her up, and I now heard it slide closed behind me.

  “You broke our--” she started to say, but I interrupted her.

  “The lives of thousand of people are at stake here. They need food. They only have a month or so left. If your laws value the lives of criminals over the lives of good folk trying to survive, then your laws are shit, and your role in the machine means nothing,” I said. “The police are supposed to protect the innocent, not enforce bullshit bureaucracy.”

  “I didn’t make them. It’s just my job to--”

  “Fuck your job,” I growled at her. “Where is your uniform? I’m going to guess you aren’t wearing it because you aren’t supposed to be working in District E, but you know bad shit is going down, and you are willing to go against regulations to make sure bad people are brought to justice.”

  The redhead crossed her arms and looked away from me for a second.

  “There is a lot of corruption right now. I don’t know who to trust,” she admitted, but she still didn’t look at me. “I’ve been trying to do everything by the books, but it’s like pushing a boulder up a muddy hill.”

  “Are they dealing in slaves?” I asked.

  “Yes, or at least, that is what my sources tell me. They are using District H as an avenue to move them between the other districts. It has been under repair for more than fifty years, and I think the government is dragging their ass because most of the officials are involved in the trade.” The woman finally looked at me, and her eyes lacked the animosity they once held.

  “Here,” I said as I flicked the safety of her pistol back on and handed it to her. “We’ll help with this. We’ll help with Huyan, Byron, and Izetta also.”

  “Uhhh, Adam, you sure?” Z asked when I held the cop’s gun out to her.

  “Yeah,” I said as I looked into the woman’s green eyes. “I know her type. They begin to think everyone is a criminal. They think no one has their backs and they are the only people who give a fuck.”

  “That’s not it,” the redhead said as she took her pistol.

  “Yeah, you’re tough. I get it. Just know that you aren’t alone. You said you were a pilot once?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she answered as she slipped her pistol back into her jacket.

  “You like being in control. You probably took the security gig because you thought you’d be good at it, and get to atone for some things. You rose through the ranks quickly because you didn’t burn out like the others. Then you got to the top and realized you were all alone.”

  “I don’t know where you are getting this from, but you are wrong.” She shook her head.

  “Yeah. That’s why you are here on our ship, alone, in street clothes, asking us to help you apprehend a bunch of slave traders.”

  I held her eyes for a few more moments, and then she let out a long breath. “We are wasting time. I’ll trust you both for now, but this doesn’t mean we are friends. I need to stop these people. You both better pull your fucking weight.”

  I heard Z shuffle behind me, and the doors to the elevator opened again. The three of us walked over the bridge, and I gestured to the set of five seats in the center behind the two pilot cockpits.

  “This is your ship?” the woman asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Yeah. She’s ours, and we are hers,” Z said as she wiggled into her seat. Then the blonde woman ran her hand across the controls, and I heard her whisper “Hey Persephone, I missed you a bunch. How you feeling?”

  “How?” the woman asked. “This is obviously military. You two look as if you haven’t eaten in a month, and I’ve seen nicer clothes on beggars.”

  “If you want our life story, you should start with yours. I thought you had to be somewhere?” Z sneered at the redhead.

  “Fine, but I’m sitting here,” the cop said as she slid into the copilot’s seat.

  “That’s Eve’s seat,” Z spat.

  “You friend isn’t here. She’s in my jail, remember? I feel as if our peace treaty was a little short lived.”

  “Fine, but I’m flying,” Z said as she pressed the control buttons.

  “We need an approval to launch and land again. I’ve got it,” the redhead said to us before she glanced at her controls. “Can you open the communications? I don’t know your controls.”

  “Yeah,” Z agreed as she pressed a few buttons. Then she pointed to the other wo
man.

  “Queen’s Hat, this is…” The woman turned to look at Z.

  “Persephone!” my friend hissed.

  “Persephone,” the redhead continued. “I’ve got docking approval for 347 - B. Code is FTU - Y8733.”

  “Copy that Persephone,” a man’s voice said over the bridge speakers. “You have clear trajectory at heading .80 and 345. We’ll hold 458-B for you for a few hours.”

  “Thanks. We’ll prompt when we leave,” the woman said as she gestured for Z to cut the communication.

  “Pulling away from the docks,” Z said as I felt Persephone’s gravity tech adjust to the initial movement.

  The redhead sat up in her chair and leaned over the wide console that separated her and Z so she could look at the hacker’s movements. Z noticed her proximity and turned to glare at the other woman.

  “You mind?”

  “Not at all,” the cop said with a smile.

  “No. For real. I’m working here. Don’t need you breathing down my neck. I bet you think you’re just so much better than I am.”

  “Yep,” the other woman answered. “Did you even train?”

  “I’m about to smack a bitch.”

  “Yeah, I bet you feel all sorts of confident with your man sitting behind you,” the redhead turned to look at me.

  “Focus on the task,” I growled at the woman, and she shifted back to sit in the other pilot seat.

  “Just get us over there without flying this nice ship into the station. okay, Blondie?” The cop reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a pack of smokes.

  “No smoking on my bridge,” I said. The woman turned to look at me, realized I was serious, and then let out a long sigh as she put the pack back in her pocket.

  Z moved Persephone a few kilometers away from the harbor, then she angled our nose upward before engaging the forward thrust. It only took us ten minutes to fly to the other side, and the three of us didn’t speak during the time.

  “I’m docking,” Z said after she angled us into the correct location.

  There was a bit of a shudder when Persephone attached to the dock, and the redhead let out a long and noticeable sigh.

  “What?” Z said.

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “Look. I’m not a pilot okay. I had to teach myself how to do all of this.”

  “That’s obvious enough.” The other woman shrugged.

  Z looked like smoke was about to pour out of her ears, so I cleared my throat and got the attention of the cop.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t really matter,” the woman said with a shrug.

  “No. It matters. I’m Adam. This is Z. We’d like to know your name.”

  The woman looked at me and then back at Z. The hacker’s face looked like she’d just kissed a toad, and the redhead’s mouth twisted.

  “Juliette,” she answered as her eyes met mine. There was a challenge there, and in some ways, the woman’s intense eyes reminded me of the blonde woman sitting next to her.

  “That wasn’t so hard. Let’s get this done.” I stood, and the women followed me.

  “Where do you keep your guns?” Juliette asked as we walked past the holographic map.

  “We have an armory. It’s by the hold,” I answered.

  “How are we going to get it by the first security checkpoint?” Z asked.

  “The code I gave control bypasses the clerk check,” Juliette said. “Unfortunately, it will show up on my colleague's personal monitoring system since I issued the code. As I said before, I think he is involved with this trade so he might not be watching his terminals. Even if he does see it, he’ll probably think it is a mix-up and call me first. I doubt he’ll know what I have planned.”

  “Hmmm.” Z shook her head at the other woman.

  “What?” Juliette asked.

  “Oh, nothing. I’m just thinking you aren’t very good with computers.”

  “Leave it alone,” I said to Z before Juliette could reply.

  “Fine.” The hacker crossed her arms, and the two women glared at each other for the length of the elevator ride.

  This was going to be a long stakeout.

  I didn’t blame Z for hating the other woman, but if there actually were slavers Juliette knew about, I wanted to help put a stop to the practice. I also thought that assisting the woman would help lubricate some of our future dealings. If the woman decided to give us Eve and our money back now, we could begin looking for an engineer while we investigated Byron, Huyan, and Izzeta. I didn’t want to take too long to return to Jatal, but I also wasn’t going to fly back into Gliese 876 without a second drive ready in case Elaka Nota was still there.

  “Here is the armory,” I told Juliette as I opened the door to the place.

  “Not a lot in here,” she remarked as she looked at the wall of eight assault rifles.

  “We are a small crew,” I said as I grabbed the holder for my revolver and twin pistols. The get up was bulky, but I’d left one of the jackets Eve bought for me on Trappist-1e in here when I first tested out the armor plates, and I was able to cover the holsters with it.

  “I see that. How did you come to possess this ship again?” The woman smirked.

  Z looked at me as she put one of our smaller pistols in a holster inside her jacket. I handed her two clips, and she slipped these into the pockets of her jeans. I almost considered gearing us with our tight jumpsuits and military armor, but we would have stuck out in the crowd of the station, and it seemed as if Juliette wanted to observe our targets from concealment first.

  “Fine. Don’t tell me,” Juliette said with a huff as Z and I walked out of the armory.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as we approached the hold exit.

  “About two kilometers into the district. There is a bar owned by a man named Ian Van Toreg. He’s like the Byron Jacobs of this place. A real piece of work. I’ve suspected that he’s working with my counterpart to trade flesh.”

  “How do you know this deal is going down?” Z asked as she opened the hatch for us to enter the port transfer tube.

  “All the districts have an issue with girls disappearing.”

  “Girls disappearing? What do you mean?” the blonde hacker asked.

  “What don’t you understand? I don’t know how to make it clearer,” Juliette said.

  “How the fuck are they disappearing? Where are they disappearing from? What do their parents say?” Z moaned the questions, but the other woman just chuckled.

  “We’ve got some orphanage programs and after school programs for kids with parents who are rhodium miners. Public service stuff to make sure we don’t have kids begging in the station. The girls are disappearing from either the homes we’ve placed them in, or from the schools.”

  We walked out into the harbor, and Z pressed the button behind us to close the end of the tube. Juliette nodded to the far side of the platform, and we walked in that direction. The harbor of District E looked similar to District B’s except there were fewer people, lights, and sanitation. I actually saw a rat scurry down the sides of the platform a few meters away from where we walked, but Z didn’t notice.

  “Tell us more,” I prompted the redhead as we approached the tube station.

  “Been going on for a few years, but it's been escalating in the last month. I was putting a lot of manpower on it, and then I got an order from Congressman Baccala to stop. I didn’t listen to him, and then I was told that if I didn’t stop wasting resources on a bunch of poor girls no one gave a fuck about, he’d find someone to replace me. I started getting pressure from my peers in the other districts.”

  We stepped into the tube and moved toward the back where there were no other passengers. The train had walls of screens advertising various products, but nearly a third of the screens were bashed in.

  Some of them even had what looked like dried blood on them.

  “How do you know this is going on tonight?” I asked.

  “I suspec
ted Baccala and his wife were involved as soon as he gave me the ultimatum. I realized I’d have to step outside of my procedures if I really wanted to catch these guys, so I began spending my nights in disguise, visiting the various orphanages and afterschool programs. I picked ten girls who were pretty, but had no real family connections. Then I began to monitor them. Four days ago six of them were kidnapped. The girls didn’t know this, but I always brought them sweets filled with trackers. They were all being kept under one of Huyan Kar’s clubs.”

  “Why didn’t you raid them?” Z asked.

  “Are you not paying attention? I’ve got one chance to catch this asshole, his wife, and every other congressperson on the station. I don’t know who I can trust, and if I go through the usual security avenues, I’ll probably get fired, and these fucks will go free.” Juliette’s voice was a whispered hiss.

  “Then we killed the robbers,” I said, and the redhead turned to me.

  “Yes,” she said. “It was a long shot, but what I said about my counterparts in the other districts is true. They are starting to use mercenaries or convicted criminals within their operations. Meanwhile, I’m getting pressure to see better results, but look at this shithole,” Juliette gestured to the tube train. “My district is running smoothly, and I’m the youngest captain by a good twenty Earth years. They know I don’t want to buy into their corruption, so they are pushing to get me fired by falsifying their reports and trying to tell me I’m the under performer.”

  “If you can’t trust any of your bosses, or any of your peers, or any of your own employees, how in the hell are you going to use any proof you have to make a change?” Z asked.

  “I have access to all of the video feeds in the station through the back door. I’ll put together a video and blast it to every citizen.” The woman shrugged as the train stopped and pointed to the door. “It’s all I can do.”

  “Uhh. Speaking of video feeds, isn’t someone going to be able to watch this footage and know that you are here?” Z asked.

  “I’ve got access to all the backup storage for all the feeds. I can delete all of it, or save it, when I get back to my office. They won’t even know it is me, since I stole the logins for one of the other security captains.”