That didn’t mean he wasn’t any good at it.
Hours had passed, and his crew bantered back and forth, the typical stuff crews tended to do after being together a while. Crude jokes, which initially started to see if Nat could hold her own with a mostly male crew up until she showed them she could put most men to shame on that account, coupled with discussions of what to do with each’s share of the payment. While he and Nat were the only ones who had actually done anything on this job, he always shared and shared alike.
While there would be occasional grumbling from newer members, it soon became apparent that not every job required every skill, so each was paid knowing that there would be a time when skill was the only one needed. It seemed to balance out well enough, and everyone was generally happy enough.
Some were far happier when they got their money for nothing, but he couldn’t possibly care less about that.
He’d barely completed his thought when the alarm on Grissom’s pad chirped. He’d expressly forbid anyone else from having a device in the safe house because they were all hackable. Grissom’s was encrypted to a degree that the EDC would envy, and since he was the tech expert, it seemed stupid not to permit him from having a data pad, which also meant it had to double as everyone’s pad.
“It’s time, boss,” Grissom said. It was redundant, but since he also discontinued the alarm, it was probably wise to make sure it was heard.
Atticus nodded and stood, stretching. “Got to call the toad,” he said, making no effort to hide his disdain for Wilson. He had no use for the Clans, but had even less use for their sycophants, and Wilson was one of the worst. He effectively offered himself up for a cut out in case things went south in an effort to protect his employer. The fact that said employer would likely never return the favor was irrelevant to Wilson, which made him a chump.
Still, his bits were as good as anyone else’s, so there was no reason not to provide his services to the man.
“I’ll be back.”
** ** **
Tommy and Michelle listened to the few words spoken by the man they’d identified only as “Atticus” and looked at one another.
“Deermo!” Tommy exclaimed. “I wish I’d left Harley and Cody in place.”
Michelle assumed an even cockier demeanor than normal, her eyes squinted and lips pursed together, then shook her head. “No need,” she said.
“Oh?”
She then nodded. “I have hacked the security camera network. I will be able to tell you where he goes.”
Tommy smiled. What Michelle could do should terrify him, but her skillset had been around for as long as computer networks had been around. The fact that she may well be the best alive was irrelevant. He was simply glad she was on his side.
It was that moment when the computer’s audio spouted a bit of conversation where the man who’d just left was called “Kane.”
“You get that?” Tommy asked.
The woman nodded.
“Atticus Kane, huh? Well, let’s see what we can find out about Mister Kane, shall we?”
** ** **
Kane stormed into the safe house. He already had more than enough going on with trying to make sure no one was tailing him, either person or drone, which had done nothing for his mood. The door slammed behind him as he flopped down into an empty chair.
“Problem?” Nat asked, a master of observation as usual.
“Our employer won’t be able to arrange for pick-up for another two bloody days,” he said, spitting the last word out. “It seems her local assets are busy with other things and won’t be able to arrange contact until then. Even then, there’s no bloody guarantee that the chafing navel pickers will actually get this damn chip from us then. That’s only to arrange pick-up.”
The blonde nodded her hair, but said nothing. It was a wise move. Atticus wanted nothing more than to lash out and hurt something, anything. This was why he didn’t like going jobs for the Clans. The pay was good, but they figured you needed them more than they needed you, and so had no problem keeping you dangling.
“Don’t suppose you arranged a bonus for us not being able to do any other jobs while we wait?” Grissom added.
Atticus smiled a grin that he didn’t really feel and said, “Of course I did. I’m not a complete idiot.”
The younger man ignored the rebuke in the statement and simply nodded.
He wasn’t sure what really bothered him the most. Was it sitting there, doing nothing—something that ordinarily annoyed him to no end—or that one of the heads of the Clans wanted it? He had no love for the Clans, though he did have a certain begrudging respect for how they’d gained the power to basically run humanity.
Regardless, he was still stuck here for two more days, but then his plan was to get off world as quickly as possible. Armstead, despite its gleaming facade, was a poor place. All the actual wealth on this planet existed within the church, and he’d had no luck getting his hands on any of it.
That means leaving atmo and taking to the black. At least for a little while. He needed to think, but was agitated.
Turning to Marcus, he said, “Be a good lad and fix me something?”
Despite his current career, Marcus hadn’t always been hired muscle. Well, he had, but the legal kind. He’d started as a bouncer in a bar, but had soon picked up some shifts as a backup bartender, which meant he was the designated point on the crew for a properly made Ice World. Nat botched it and Grissom was clueless what went into the drink, but the big man? He was a master of it.
A few minutes later, drink in hand, he began to ponder his options. Too bad he’d run into Dane at Marceaux’s apartment. He could have chartered the Sabercat to get off this rock, which would have been amusing for him. Unfortunately, the big first officer of that boat was unlikely to forget his face or the context of having seen it any time soon.
Sabercat. Atticus thought about the ship. A Harrison class transport. Harrison classes had originally been developed for the Earth Defense Command as a gunboat for antipiracy operations. They were designed to be armed, carry a platoon of Marines, and have room for cargo.
More importantly, however, it meant Sabercat had the ability to dock with a ship in the black and send boarders across.
Reilly had supposedly helped boost a load of gold on Ararat—that was the buzz in…certain circles, at least—which meant he didn’t necessarily intend to stay on the straight and narrow as Mommy might prefer. It also meant that if Reilly knew who any of them were, he might take something like this personally.
While it was unlikely Dane knew just who he was when they’d previously met, for all Atticus knew the other man had been studying mugshots since their encounter. He had to plan on them finding out who he was, and he needed to prevent Reilly from seeking retribution. The man might have turned his back on his family, but that didn’t mean the Reilly ruthlessness was absent in him.
“Grissom, lad? Do you still have that contact in Port Authority?”
“Yeah,” the younger man asked, sounding more than a bit confused.
“I need him to place a lock on a ship until forty-eight hours after we break atmo. Let him know we’ll make it worth his time.”
“I’m on it.”
** ** **
As Tommy entered the cargo bay, he spied his first officer diligently checking ramp seals. Tommy shook his head and grinned. No matter what the taciturn first mate approached, he did it as thoroughly as humanly possible. In a lot of ways, he was still the antithesis of Tommy, but that worked pretty well.
“Got a minute?” Tommy asked.
Harley nodded, his eyes still locked on the seals.
“We got good news and bad news. The good news is that we’ve got a two-day window to try and hit Kane’s crew and get the data.”
The big man turned his head and looked at him and said, “And the bad news?”
Tommy filled the other man in on how Michelle’s background check found that Kane was a master criminal wanted on six planets
, including Earth. His known associates matched what they were picking up as the other people in the house, which meant they were experienced crooks.
Then he delved into the fact that there was a lock on the ship.
When ships landed, they temporarily handed control over their lift systems over to whatever entity controlled the port. It was the reason lift systems were kept separate from all other systems on board the ship, to minimize the possibility of a virus being introduced accidentally by port control.
The system was designed to prevent ships from launching and crashing into one another. With the controlling agency not releasing a ship until it was time, this minimized the chance of such an accident. It didn’t account for pilot error, of course, but no system was perfect.
A “lock” was an administrative procedure in every port in the universe that basically prevented anyone without sufficient clearance from permitting a ship to take off.
Usually, this was done to prevent smugglers or fugitives from taking off, but could also be used to administratively punish ships that angered the wrong official.
This may or may not have happened to Sabercat a time or two.
“So now what?” Harley asked.
“Michelle’s digging around to see if she can do anything. Port Authority isn’t that big, so social engineering is probably out for the time being, but she’ll see what she can dig up.”
The big man nodded thoughtfully.
Tommy studied the other man for a long moment. “You alright?”
Harley considered for a bit, then reluctantly nodded.
“What is it?” Tommy asked.
“It’s just…well…we’re getting into some sketchy stuff. We’re doing it for good reasons, mind you, but still.”
Tommy was forced to nod. “This is the job.”
“But will it stay that way? Is this what we signed up for?”
He considered his friend’s words for several moments. The big man had a point. Since he’d reconnected with Dianne, he’d been shot at, helped steal billions in gold, dodged space fighters—and that had been a particular bit of fun, he had to admit—and set down on a world few with any real sense came to. Now he was considering how to steal a data chip from a group of what appeared to be professional thieves. Clearly, his life had gotten a new brand of interesting since then.
And this was still only technically one job. What would the next look like, or the one after that? Legitimate cargo jobs were scarce, at least for him and Sabercat, which meant he had to take what he could get. Going home was not an option.
That brought him back to Harley’s question. He really didn’t have a good answer, no matter how much he wanted to tell him everything would be fine. Instead, he simply replied, “I’ll have to see.”
Chapter 8
Tommy made his way into the passenger compartments, the first time he’d been this way in months despite his relationship with Dianne blossoming. Here, the shipyard had covered the bare metal that made up so much of the rest of the ship with a rich synthetic wood with a dark grain.
Dianne’s door was made up of the same synth-wood with bits of trim giving it an old world feel, like something from a European manor long before man had taken to the stars. He took a deep breath and knocked.
The door opened by sliding into a pocket, revealing the interior. Here too, the shipyard that had refit Sabercat had used rich wood tones and old world style furniture—Victorian style, if Tommy remembered correctly—though all were made within the last few years rather than being priceless antiques, all sitting in a room no bigger than his own, though with a much warmer feel.
Dianne looked at him, her mouth broadening into a smile. “Hey, you,” she said softly.
“Hey,” Tommy said, his concerns flowing away in an instant.
“I haven’t see you in a bit.”
Tommy nodded and sighed. “Yeah, it’s been…”
“I know. You’ve been busy. Any luck?”
“Yeah. Some good, some not so much.”
She reached out and took his hand, drawing him into her cabin. “What happened.”
He explained both about the lock and the delay.
“So, what’s next?”
“We’re focused on the lock right now. If we can’t dust off, there’s not a lot of use it trying to snatch the chip.”
She nodded her understanding.
No one said anything for what seemed like an eternity.
“What is it?” she asked.
“What?”
“Something’s bothering you. What is it?”
He shook his head and smiled. They hadn’t been together for all that long, and she already knew him well enough to know when something was scratching at his thinking. Then again, it’s not like they’d just met, either.
“It’s just…we’re getting pretty thick into the weeds on this stuff since you came onboard. Don’t get me wrong, I’m loving it, it’s just…”
“You’re worried that I’m using you?”
“No!” he exclaimed, reaching out to touch her arm as they sat down, him in the chair and her on the bed. “Nothing like that at all. I’m just worried that this is all we’re going to be able to line up going forward. We break the law on one planet, get away with it, then come to another planet where we’re going to be breaking the law.”
“But you’re not blaming me?” she asked, her concern obvious.
Tommy mentally kicked himself. He should have known she’d feel at least a little responsible for this. After all, she’d been the one to take them to Ararat, and she’d needed to come to Armstead. Further, with their earlier history of his tormenting her coupled with his new outlook on life, it’s hard not to see the potential for abuse.
“Of course not,” he answered, taking her hand in his. “Not in the least. I volunteered. Yeah, maybe a bit out of guilt, but that’s on me, not you.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay,” she finally said, her voice only slightly louder than a whisper.
“What I’m wondering has nothing to do with you. In fact, it has more to do with Harley and me talking just a bit ago, okay?”
She smiled again, this time weakly, and nodded again.
“In the meantime, I wanted to stop in and spend some time with you. I’ve been a little preoccupied,” he joked.
This time, her smile felt more real, more joyful. “Sounds good to me.”
Just then, the intercom chirped. “Captain?” asked Michelle. “I need to speak to you as soon as possible.”
Tommy sighed and Dianne chuckled. “Duty calls,” she quipped.
“Yes, it does,” he replied, “and always at the worst possible moment.”
** ** **
Tommy stepped into Michelle’s tiny workspace just a few feet from the bridge and looked at the tiny expert. “Whatcha got?”
“Mary Gilbert,” she replied.
“Okay...? What’s a Mary Gilbert?”
“She is the port authority employee who does not get along with the fils de pute who has us locked and may be willing to help us.”
Tommy nodded. Someone who dislikes Kane’s contact in the port authority could definitely be useful, assuming they could make contact somehow. Unless…
“Can you hack it to make it look like she overrode the lock?”
“No,” she replied. “The port authority system is entirely local. In order to hack it, I would have to be inside the building. Since the building is constantly manned, it is not a good idea. I only know who put the lock in place because the system sends the information.”
“Understood, but how did you find Gilbert?”
She looked up at him, a cocky little smirk on her mouth. “It was simple,” she said, playing up her accent more than usual. “Port Authority falls under the Interior Ministry here, so I hacked their personnel records, found who worked there, then searched their social media, emails, everything.”
Tommy stared at the woman, amazed. There was no way she had time to have searched it all, yet sh
e did.
As if reading his thoughts, she said, “I wrote a script to automate it. It took no time to speak of.”
Tommy nodded slowly and said, “So you know where to find her?”
“She is going to be at a bar called Foster’s here in the dock district, apparently.”
“That’s our in, then. Find out everything you can about here, see if we can find something to use to get her into helping us out.”
“You do not need to do that,” commented Adele.
Tommy and Michelle both turned their attention to the hatch where the pilot was standing. “Foster’s? It’s…well, it’s my kind of place.”
For a long moment, Tommy tried to figure out what the pilot meant. Then he remembered just what Adele had been locked up for, the kind of thing that wasn’t only legal in most places, but completely accepted.
“Seriously?” he asked. To say he was surprised would be an understatement, mostly because he was shocked Adele—who hadn’t left the ship except to get ID—knew where the local lesbian bar was. “How do you know that?”
“It’s an open secret among the community. Supposedly, the name is based on some ancient actress who was a lesbian, but didn’t talk about it so most people never knew. Foster’s is in the docks so they can claim any of us in the bar are from ships, while locals can claim they just wanted a drink,” the pilot replied.
Tommy shook his head. “Okay, so that’s our in. You’ll make contact and talk to her. See if you can get her to disable the lock.”
Adele nodded her understanding.
** ** **
Later that evening, a knock on Tommy’s door roused him awake. He and Dianne had been up late talking about things, much of it about his six months on a godforsaken island with no one but Harley with him. He didn’t want to, but she asked and he wasn’t about to begrudge her much of it.
Hostile Territory Page 6
