“Who said anything about breaking in? We’re going to walk in through the front door. Or at least, you two are,” I jerk my chin to indicate Aurora.
“And where will you be in this suicide mission?”
“Waiting outside with the army.”
“You have the credits to hire that many mercs?”
“Something like that.” I nod to Aurora again. “Pick her up.”
“Are you kidding? She’s a bot! She’s got to weigh two hundred pounds.”
“Gravity’s light, so it’ll be one fifty.”
“Why don’t you do it, Dad? You’re the one with the exosuit.”
“Because I’m not ready to turn my back on you yet.”
Rama places a hand to her chest, pretending to be wounded by my distrust.
Rama snorts and shakes her head. “No honor among hunters, right?”
“We’re not in the same guild, so I’m fair game to you.”
“You’re also my biological father,” Rama points out as she rolls Aurora over and drapes the bot over her shoulder like Aurora did with her a few minutes ago.
“I’m the father you never knew you had,” I point out. “We don’t know each other. There is no relationship. Blood is blood, but nowadays, who cares about that? Half the galaxy is some type of synthetic. Aurora here is a fine example of that.”
Rama starts climbing the ladder to the weather deck of the yacht.
“But we’re not,” Rama says. “We’re both still meatbags.”
“Don’t jinx it. We still have to go see Mohinari.”
Chapter 48
“And people wonder why us meatbags aren’t in a hurry to transcend our physical bodies,” Rama whispers to me as she and I walk down the boarding tunnel to one of Aquaria Spaceport’s orbital shuttles. Aurora is walking along ahead of us, separated by two other groups of tourists. She’s not an obvious member of our party, but I’m mentally guiding her via my neuralink and the code that my bot jacker injected last night.
Aurora has become a mindless extension of me, nothing but a remote-piloted drone.
The AI-bot flight attendant standing at the entrance of the shuttle greets Aurora as she reaches the open door.
I mentally give Aurora the words for a reply. Aurora smiles and says, “Thank you.”
Then Rama and I reach the door, and I find myself echoing that reaction with my own face and voice.
Or rather, that of my new alias, Eristof Sarconi.
Soon we’re sitting two rows back from Aurora, looking just like the oddly-matched pair that I saw in that cafe yesterday.
Glancing out my window, I see Aquaria’s endless oceans just beyond the landing pad. A big, gleaming silver mirror.
By the time the real Eristof wakes up on that island and disables the jammer in his sub to call for help, I’ll be far, far away, probably in FTL space, already on my way to Eden and Terra Novus.
I take a moment to reflect ruefully on the stash of expensive gear that I had to leave behind with the real Eristof. Getting my exosuit and bag full of guns through Customs would have been impossible.
I’ll come back and dig it all up some day. For now, I still have plenty of guns on Aurora’s ship. No spare exosuits unfortunately, but I’m hoping that won’t make the difference between alive and dead.
Time will tell, I suppose.
* * *
The airlock of the Seraph opens, and Aurora greets us with a blank stare. There’s no one to pretend for anymore, so now she looks just like the lifeless drone that she is.
I wonder absently what that feels like for a bot—to be a prisoner in one’s own body. In theory her consciousness is disabled, so she’s not aware of anything.
“I can’t believe it worked,” Rama says as the airlock glides shut behind us. She drops her disguise and her features and skin blur and morph back into the pale-faced young girl whom I’ve come to associate as my daughter.
That still hits me like a sucker punch to the gut. She’s twenty-one years old. I can’t believe it.
“How’s your mother?” I ask. I’m still looking and sounding like Eristof, but I don’t drop the facade yet. I might need this disguise to get past Aquaria’s traffic controllers.
“She’s fine,” Rama says. “My dad too.”
Right. She already has a father. I’m just the sperm donor. A stranger. I’ll have to remember that before I make any dangerous assumptions about how much affection Rama might feel toward me.
“Good.” I nod noncommittally and head through the cargo bay to the doors on the far end. I leave Aurora where she stands. Rooted to the spot like a statue, and make sure to keep Rama in view with the rear cameras in my holoband. My back is turned to her, giving her the illusion that I’m starting to trust her, but I’m not.
She’s a deadly hunter without principles. I’d be a scrigg to trust her. Neither of us are armed, thanks to two separate security sweeps, but the cargo bay we’re walking through is still stacked with several crates full of the weapons I bought on Hades.
“What’s the plan?” Rama asks as I trigger the doors to the access corridor.
I hear a telltale crash from the mess hall, and turn left to let Bry out instead of going straight to the cockpit as I’d intended. Figures that Aurora would have locked her up in there rather than let a xeno run around loose aboard her ship.
I open the mess hall just in time for a metal knife to go sailing past my head. Bry is puffed up and looking pissed. The place is a total mess again. She’s been pulling out everything that isn’t clamped down and throwing it at the walls and door.
“Hey, calm down!” I cry as the sharp end of a fork bounces off my floral-patterned shirt.
Chirr!
Bry puts down her next projectile and comes hopping and waddling toward me.
“What is that?” Rama asks as she crowds into the open door behind me.
“I’m not exactly sure,” I admit.
Bry leaps into my arms and gives me a good lick with that sticky tongue of hers. This time it doesn’t leave a foul-smelling trail of milk. I guess she’s not lactating anymore. Thank Deus for that.
“He’s cute,” Rama says, coming alongside me and reaching out to stroke Bry’s head.
“It’s a she.” Bry starts chirring rhythmically, sounding a lot like a kitten when it purrs, and nuzzles into Rama’s hand for a scratch.
“Where did you find her?” Rama asks as she obliges and scratches Bry behind the ear.
“It’s a long story.”
“We’ve got time.”
“Here.” I hand Bry to Rama, and she takes the furball in her arms. That gives me a little more peace of mind. Now Rama has her hands full.
I turn to leave for the cockpit, but almost as an afterthought I stop to open one of the sealed cabinets in the mess hall. Grabbing half a dozen protein bars from my stash, I stuff them into my pockets and then waggle one of them in Bry’s face. “Is this what you were looking for?” I ask. Her eyes go round and her tongue snaps out to grab it. She almost snatches it from my grip. The little xeno is stronger than she looks.
But I hold fast to the bar. “Easy! I still have to open it.” I peel away the packaging, and then Bry’s tongue lances out again.
This time she grabs it and swallows it whole.
“Poor thing. She must have been starving,” Rama says.
“Yeah... somehow she always is.” I really hope she’s not capable of asexual reproduction. If she is, she could secretly be nursing another belly full of eggs.
Leaving the mess hall, I lead the way up to the cockpit and flop down into the pilot’s seat.
Rama quietly takes her seat beside me, still holding Bry.
I submit a request to traffic control to depart the transfer station. Aquaria TC grants the request, but takes remote control of the Seraph and does all of the work for me.
I hear docking clamps retract with a thunk, and watch as the view out the cockpit pans slowly away from the dark side of Aquaria below to the glittering
sea of stars behind us. The big, glowing blue circle of a jump gate swings into view, and I’m prompted to select a destination as the Seraph slots into the queue of ships waiting to leave Aquaria.
Populous, security-conscious planets like this one don’t take chances by letting people fly their own vessels this close to a planet or a station.
After scanning ships at the security checkpoints, they assume complete control of all incoming vessels—outgoing ones, too.
I’m actually surprised that they didn’t confiscate the weapons I have stashed in the hold for good measure.
“You may as well go find a bunk and get comfortable below. This could take a while.”
Rama nods. “Okay. You want me to leave...” she trails off, realizing she doesn’t know my furry friend’s name.
“Bry. Short for Brighten. Sure, leave her here.”
Rama plops Bry on the seat and goes to leave the cockpit. I watch her leave, then watch on the ship’s security system as she heads back through the ship to the bunkrooms in the back.
She doesn’t make any threatening moves toward the ship’s armory, or to the cargo bay where my weapons are stashed.
Granted, we both need to take out Mohinari at this point, so it makes some sense for her to go along with my plan to do that. But a part of me is still surprised that she’s not trying to escape. How does she know that she can trust me not to actually turn her in for the price on her head?
Not that I would, but she can’t possibly know that.
I watch as Rama enters one of the ship’s bunkrooms. She picked the one I shared with Violet slash Dreana. I guess that leaves the captain’s suite for me. I’m tempted to lock Rama in there, but she might have a door jacker or a cam jacker squirreled away somewhere. And even if she doesn’t, I still need her help to take down Mohinari, so I can’t make her feel like a prisoner.
I decide to lock the cockpit and the other sensitive areas of the ship instead—and then I disable the power to those doors. Let’s see her jack through that.
Now that I’m alone and I looks like Rama isn’t about to commandeer this ship, I have a few calls to make.
The first one goes to Omar. It’s time to cash in that favor he owes me.
But instead of him answering, I hear a deeply distorted voice say, “Eristof Sarconi!” as if the speaker knows who that is.
The location data for the signal is blocked, and there is no visual being transmitted. But the fact that this is Omar’s number and not his voice is enough evidence for me to figure out who I’m speaking with. I’m not transmitting my location or a visual of my face, either, so I linger on the comms long enough for a reply.
“Mohinari.”
A pause comes from the other end, followed by a crackle of static that might be a laugh. “Cade Korbin. It’s good to hear from you.”
“If you’ve hurt Omar or his family...”
“Why would I do that? People are always more valuable alive than dead. A bounty hunter like you should know that. Speaking of valuables, your ship has made a nice addition to my hangar—though I must say, it’s not nearly as pleasing to the eye as the rest of my fleet. You really should take better care of it. What was it called again? The Cleft Foot? The Hoof... no, the Anvil, right?” The connection dissolves into static as the speaker burst out laughing.
I kill the comms with a scowl. Mohinari knows I’m coming. He’s been goading me from more than one different angle. But he doesn’t know that I’ve uncovered Aurora’s involvement as the lure, or Rama’s role as the bait.
And that gives me the upper hand. But there are some preparations I need to make first. Rama’s right. Nothing short of an army is going to get us in and out of Mohinari’s fortress alive.
So I make another call. This one to Captain Ellie Thorn. Hopefully, she’s back on the grid by now. Last time we saw each other, she was rescuing me from Bry’s homeworld, and then having me stunned in that cell aboard her destroyer.
“Hello?” a female voice answers. “Who is this?”
Another unidentified speaker with the location data and the visual blocked.
“It’s Korbin,” I say, and then wait for Captain Thorn to acknowledge that we know each other.
“Mr. Korbin,” she says through a sigh. “If you want to know where to retrieve your ship, I’m afraid my location is still classified.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “I need to cash in that favor you owe me.”
“I believe we settled the score when I saved your life, Mr. Korbin.”
“Did you? I have a price on my head. I could have lived to a ripe old age on that uncharted planet, but now my days are numbered.”
There’s a pregnant pause on Captain Thorn’s end of the comms, followed by: “What’s the favor?”
“I need to borrow an army.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You’ll be taking down a notorious drug lord and smuggler.”
“In the Neutral Zone?” Captain Thorn ventures.
“Alliance Space. Terra Novus.”
“You’ve lost your mind! We’ll start a war.”
“Not if I deliver the army, and you have plausible deniability. Isn’t that how you fight all those proxy wars in the Neutral Zone? Come on, Captain. I know how you operate. I used to be one of you.”
Another pause, this one longer than the first.
“Look, after this, I’ll owe you, fair enough?”
“You’ll owe me big,” Thorn replies.
“Huge,” I add.
“Who is the target?”
“Rajesh Mohinari.”
Captain Thorn whistles softly. “Don’t get yourself killed. I fully intend to cash in on that favor, and sooner than you think.”
“Fine by me.”
“We’ll need to rendezvous to transfer the assets. I assume you’re in a secure location to receive coordinates?”
“I am.”
“Transmitting now.”
A data transfer request pops up on my holoband. I accept it, and say, “See you there, Captain.”
But she’s already ended the call from her end.
Now I just have one more call to make. Without Omar to help me out, I’m going to have to call someone else in the Coalition. Fortunately, I happen to know just such a person. She won’t have the same connections and know-how as Omar, but she has plenty of credits with which to buy them.
I mentally select Erin Thul from my available aliases and have my biomask and retinal implants do the work of changing my face from Eristof’s back to Erin’s. As soon as I feel the mask stop squirming around, I place the call.
“Hello?” Dreana Morgan answers from Arkania. She’s lying beside the pool with her synthetic clone, and I can hear at least two kids squealing and splashing in that pool.
This time I’m not blocking my visual, so Dreana’s pretty face quirks up in a smile.
“Erin. It’s good to see you again.”
“Likewise.”
Her synthetic copy rolls over and shades her matching blue eyes to peer up at the comm drone.
It’s only been a few days since we dropped Dreana off. I wonder how things are going in their unconventional marriage.
“Where’s your husband?” I ask.
“We divorced him,” the synthetic version of Dreana says.
“Already?” I feel my gaze sharpen with that.
It doesn’t seem fast enough for them to have modified their marital contract to include the original wife as a second wife, let alone for them both to have subsequently written Grant out of the picture.
“What she means is, it didn’t work,” the biological Dreana says.
Surprise surprise, I think to myself.
Synthetic Dreana adds, “We kicked him out. He filed for an annulment so he wouldn’t have to split his credits three ways, and we filed for a divorce so that he would.”
“Interesting... you didn’t have a pre-nup?”
Biological Dreana shakes her head. “We were poor when we g
ot married. We made the money together afterward. But then it changed him. There is evidence surfacing that he may have hired the Raiders that ransomed me.”
So I was right about that.
Synthetic Dreana reaches across the gap between their two pool chairs, and grabs biological Dreana’s hand in a gesture that looks more intimate than simply comforting.
Bio Dreana flashes her twin a tight smile, and I confirm my suspicions in the look that passes between them.
I can’t help it. My jaw drops. Grant created the perfect wife by resurrecting her as a bot, and now his original wife came back and stole her away.
Karma bit you right in the scrotum, didn’t it Grant?
The two Dreanas look away. The bio one shrugs when she sees the look on my face. “You know the old adage, you can’t love someone else until you learn to love yourself.”
Synthetic Dreana smirks at that.
And I shut my jaw.
Bio Dreana nods to me. “Was there something you needed, Erin? Or were you just calling to see how we’re doing?”
She’s as perceptive as ever. “Actually, I do need a favor.”
“Name it.”
So I do, and she agrees to look into it for me.
When the call is over, I’m left smiling wanly into the bright, shining void as the Seraph inches along at half a klick per second behind the cluttered line of ships headed for Aquaria’s jump gate.
I wonder what Dreana’s situation says about the state of relationships and marriage in the galaxy. In a rare turn of events, she’s actually married to herself.
Maybe it won’t be long before that actually becomes a thing.
I shake my head at that.
Remembering the rendezvous with Captain Thorn, I send a new destination to the gate to get me as close as possible.
My plan is really starting to come together. Now I’d better go explain it to Rama before she assumes I’m going to betray her for the bounty on her head.
If she thinks that, even for a second, she’ll find some way to betray me first, and that would really throw a crobbin in the works.
Chapter 49
Now that we’re safely away from Aquaria, Rama and I are standing in the Seraph’s VRRO center, otherwise known as the Virtual Reality and Remote Operations Center, or just the ROC as we called it in the military.
The Bounty Hunter (Cade Korbin Chronicles Book 1) Page 23
