Книга: Double Sharpe



Double Sharpe




Double Sharpe Raven Sharpe Chronicles, Book 2


James David Victor

Fairfield Publishing




Copyright © 2018 Fairfield Publishing

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Except for review quotes, this book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the author.

This story is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, or events is purely coincidental.



Contents


Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Epilogue

Thank You

Bonus Content: Story Preview


1

Raven, please. You have to help me.

“What?!”

Raven Sharpe stared at the image of her ex-husband in the small console screen in front of her. He looked like someone had worked him over good, with dark circles under his eyes and black bruising around them. His lip was cut and bleeding, and there was a matching cut on one eyebrow.

She gripped the side of the console, willing herself to breathe deeply and evenly because it would do no good to pass out.

“Blake, what’s going on?” she demanded in as level a voice as she could manage.

“I’m in deep shit this time, Rave,” he said, using a nickname for her that he hadn’t dared to utter since they separated. “Just look at me to get an idea how bad it is, and it could have gotten a lot worse.”

Swallowing hard, she tried to not look at his injuries again or let her mind get lost in imagining what other injuries he might have. “Tell me what happened and where you are, and where is Nyx?” He had his own ship, she knew, so if he wasn’t just getting on board and flying away, something had happened to her.

His eyes were glistening. “They took her! And Axel too, but at least I know where he is.”

Raven blinked. “Silvanus, record this,” she said, the idea finally dawning on her that she might need to.

“I’m already doing so, Raven.”

Once again, Raven was reminded that she would be lost without her ship’s AI, which brought her sharply back around to Blake. He had to be losing his mind without his two companions. She had been cut off from hers for a short period recently, and it had almost killed her.

“Tell me where you are, Blake,” she said firmly. She knew he had to be going crazy, so she needed to keep it together. That was something of a challenge, given the past few days she’d already had. Her adrenaline was still living close to the surface and it reared up in her mind again with frightening intensity.

“I don’t…” he began, then hesitated and took a visible breath. He opened his mouth to start again, but something caught his attention. His head whipped to one side and his eyes widened as much as the bruising would allow. The image shook like they were losing reception. He turned back to her. “I don’t know where I am!” He spoke fast, almost too fast for her to follow. “They grabbed me right out of Banny’s Bar and then kept me out of it until I woke up to them beating me and asking questions. I’ve managed to escape, but—”

The image blinked away.

Raven gasped. “Silvanus, get him back!”

“I’m sorry, Raven, but I am unable to do so. The transmission was cut off at the source and I cannot reinitialize the link.”

Raven pounded a fist on the side of her console.

You just fixed that. Do you really want to break it again?’ Kyra asked from where she laid on the floor just behind her human.

“How can you be so calm?!” she snapped at the big cat.

Does my being upset really help anyone?’ the cougar said pragmatically.

Raven took a breath to reply to that, but stopped the words and blew the air out forcefully. She straightened up and ran both hands through her hair, gripping it at the scalp and pulling slightly. It hurt and helped to ground her as she forced another deep breath, in and out, trying to calm her racing thoughts.

“Who would want to take Blake like that?” she asked out loud, not really expecting any answer from AI or feline companion. “I know that he was paid off at Halliwell and they stopped looking for him, but even if that weren’t the case, they wouldn’t take him, hold him captive, and beat him up. They’re not a back-alley business like that. He’s been worked over and that looks like definite underworld activity.”

She started pacing, although the main cabin of her ship was not very large and she could only take a few steps before she had to turn and walk the other way. One of those steps had to be oversized to get her over the cat that refused to move.

“I’ve never known him to be involved in any sort of criminal acts, though,” she said.

It has been some years since you two were together, or even particularly friendly,’ Kyra pointed out. ‘How much do you really know him now?

“Granted,” Raven admitted, “but I was married to him for several years and I don’t think people change their fundamental natures that fast. If he’s into anything shady, he can’t be in too deep, and I still struggle to imagine him knowingly being a part of anything like that.”

Forcing herself to stop pacing, she sat down on the small couch in the main cabin.

“Silvanus, can you try to trace the call back to where it came from?” The question had to be asked, even though she knew it was very unlikely to be possible.

“I have been attempting to do so since the call terminated,” the AI replied. “However, as I’m sure you are already aware, it was a signal bounced through many ‘back alley’ channels, as you would call it. That makes it difficult to trace, if it’s possible at all. He didn’t want anyone knowing he was making the call but you.”

“That would make sense,” Raven said unhappily.

You are more emotional than I would have expected,’ Kyra chimed in after a few moments of silence passed.

“What do you mean?” Raven asked.

The cat didn’t reply right away, which was not uncommon when she was searching the proper words to describe something she felt. Although the cat had been enhanced with a neurological regimen and computer chip, sometimes it still took some time to put pieces together. ‘He is your ex-husband, and you were quite angry when you two split. You’ve all but hated him during the time between. Now he calls you for help and you seem…almost panicked.

Raven sighed, gripping her hair again and leaning her head back against the top of the little sofa. “We can’t just turn off our emotions, Kyra,” she said. “I loved him, very much, when we were married. I thought he and I would be together forever, and I was happy for that. Yes, I was angry. I even hated him, but the opposite of love isn’t hate, you know.”

Then what is it?

“It’s indifference,” the human said softly. “And no matter what I feel about him, I won’t ever be indifferent. He’s hurt, and he’s in trouble, and he’s asked me for help. Of course I’m going to help him. I can’t do anything else.”


2

It had taken over fifteen minutes for Silvanus to follow the digital trail of Blake’s distress call, and by the end of it all they had to show for the effort was a very large, generalized area.

Worse yet, it was also a densely populated area with many inhabited planets and moons, and any one of them could be the place they needed.

“We have to narrow this down,” Raven muttered as she looked at the map Silvanus had produced on her screen. There had to be well over a dozen possible locations and she just didn’t have the time to check out that many, even if some of them were smaller colonies and not full-planet inhabitation. It was too much. They had to cut that number down.

“I am pulling up my recording of Blake’s call,” Silvanus said, jumping two steps ahead of her human. “Isolating frames.”

“Okay,” Raven groaned. “What if he’s on a ship? We’ll never find him then!”

Relax,’ Kyra said laconically.

Raven rubbed the back of her neck as she looked at the enhanced image that Silvanus had put on the screen instead of the overwhelming map. Without being asked, the AI zoomed in on a spot in the background of the image.

“A window,” Raven said out loud, leaning closer to peer at the screen. “With sky behind it and not stars. Not a ship. That’s a relief.” However, she looked closer and saw that the sky in that window wasn’t blue. It was…green. “What produces a green sky?”

“Typically, high levels of industrial pollution from plants powered by Etanium Four-Two-Two,” Silvanus replied.

Raven’s brows raised. “Well, that has to narrow some things down, right?”

There was a pause. “Not as much as you would hope. There is an industrial corridor in our search area and the majority of them are powered by that substance in their, well, semi-primitive industries. It narrows it down to approximately thirteen possible locations.”

The human groaned. “Alright, well, we can at least narrow it down to those.” She rubbed her eyes. “Am I crazy or did I hear a mechanical noise in the background of his call? I couldn’t make it out very well, but I’m sure that I heard it.

“You are not crazy, Raven.”

At least not about that,’ Kyra interjected.

“Thanks, Kyra.”

“There was a noise in the background.”

Raven tried to ignore her cat as she focused on the video as Silvanus isolated a segment of her recording where the noise could be heard, and then isolated that sound from Blake’s talking. She replayed that and Raven listened. She closed her eyes and listened again. It sounded like any generic manufacturing plant.

“Presently searching my audio files,” the AI reported. “I’m trying to see if I can find a match to anything already known to me.”

“Good, because I know I can’t. It sounds just like any sort of plant that makes stuff,” Raven said, leaning back in her seat.

While Silvanus processed her information, Raven again attempted to settle her mental chaos so she could properly focus on the task at hand, but even as she tried to do so, Kyra’s comments jumped into her brain and joined the melee. She was reacting very strongly to all this, and she wanted to say that it was perfectly natural. Raven had meant what she had said to Kyra about love, hate, and indifference. Just because Blake had gone full-tilt idiot didn’t mean the feelings she’d had for him when they fell in love and got married had just vanished.

She had just stuffed them down deep, jumping up and down on them with both feet until they couldn’t be seen anymore. But when Halliwell Bounty Hunters Service had hired her to find him because he had just vanished before paying off his debt… Well, he hadn’t seemed like quite the idiot he had before.

What had happened?

“I have it,” Silvanus announced, interrupting Raven’s journey down memory lane. “The sound is unique to machines that produce tri-processor main chips for the engine of the marauder-class small shuttle.”

Raven blinked, pausing as she took in the extreme specificity of that answer. “And, um, how many plants in that industrial corridor produce the tri-processor…thing?”

“Four.”

“Four!” Raven sat up straight and clapped her hands. “That’s a big improvement over thirteen. Show me the map again and highlight those four locations.” She looked at her console and watched as Blake’s poor, battered face vanished and the map returned, this time with the region dimmed and four bright spots.

Four was still a lot to go to, however, especially when there was a definite feeling of urgency. Whoever had taken him was undoubtedly looking for him now, and judging by the way his call had ended, they may have already found him.

“Please highlight Banny’s on this map,” she said, referring to where Blake had been when he was abducted.

The map zoomed out slightly to show the location of the bar on one of the seedier planets in the area. She looked at that spot and then the other four. Two were much closer than the others, and she decided that those were the best to try. With an abducted man and his wolf, not to mention the AI controlled ship that they had to be towing because leaving it behind would be stupid, she imagined they’d want to go to the closest places.

“Alright, we’re down to these two,” she declared as she tapped the screen.

“That would be Kona IV and the Caltos Moon Colony,” Silvanus said. The map zoomed in closer and showed those two. A short list of facts appeared on either side of the screen to tell her that Kona IV was a planet with a native population, and Caltos Moon Colony was—obviously—a colonized moon, the colony having been founded by a human expedition some time back.

She idly wondered why a human colony based off a group advanced enough for space travel ended up sliding back to that sort of industry, but it didn’t matter just then.

So, how do we decide which one we go to first?’ Kyra asked.

“Flip a coin?”


3

Caltos was a moon orbiting Ultor Prime that did absolutely nothing but make stuff and support the lives of those people who made the stuff.

The “stuff” varied greatly. A quick glance at the list Silvanus brought up on the console screen was enough to give Raven the general impression that the answer to the ‘what do they make there’ question was, ‘basically everything.’ She really didn’t need to know any more than that. All she needed to know was that it made that one thing that they had identified.

They chose to head to Caltos first for the simple reason that it was closer to their present location, since there wasn’t another factor to make one more likely than the other.

“We are entering orbit of Caltos,” Silvanus announced as they arrived. It had been a long transit to get there from where they were, but Raven knew that it had felt even longer than it really had been.

“Are we landing or do they have a transit down?” Raven asked, rubbing her eyes. She should have slept while they were traveling, but she hadn’t been able to. Her brain wouldn’t stay quiet long enough.

“We will be landing,” the AI replied. “I’m communicating with Caltos Air Control now.”

Raven thought she detected a hint of “don’t be so impatient, because I’ve got it under control” in Silvanus’s voice. The human knew better than to doubt her AI, but she couldn’t seem to stop second-guessing and double-checking everything.

Calm down,’ Kyra said. The big cat stretched out in her usual corner, looking like she was asleep although she obviously wasn’t. ‘Your mental static is giving me a headache.

“Sorry,” Raven murmured. “But you’ve noticed that humans don’t flip switches on their emotions very well to just turn them on and off. You’re stuck with them because you’re stuck with me.”

That can change, you know.’ The cougar still didn’t open her eyes.

As she waited for Silvanus to do her thing, Raven leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. Part of her still wanted to sleep, but the rest of her disagreed with it.

“We have clearance to land.”

Silvanus’s voice startled her out of her half-dazed state and she jolted upright. Her head felt like it swam for a few moments from the sudden blood shift and she grabbed the side of it, squinting one eye.

“Your vital signs are not ideal, Raven,” the AI went on.

“I’m fine, Silvanus. I’m just tired and anxious,” she said. “Let’s just get this ship on the ground so I can start looking around. The sooner I find him, the better I’ll feel.” She pushed herself to her feet and walked to the food processor, pressing buttons until a glass of water appeared that she drank in one go.

“I am beginning the landing sequence,” Silvanus announced. “It would be better for you to be seated for this, Raven. We have those restraints on the end seat for a reason.”

“Yes, Mother,” the human muttered as she moved to the end seat of the sofa and pressed a button on the side. Small panels opened so she could pull out the straps and buckles. She fastened herself to the sofa for the bumpy descent through the atmosphere. Her ship’s stabilizers tended to keep her from feeling the worst of it so the restraints were just a precaution, but she took it.

The ship began shuddering as it started down toward the moon’s surface. In theory, Raven would be able to direct the craft herself, but Silvanus had it all in her not-actually-existent hands. She guided the vessel better than any corporeal hands could, directing the ship like she would if it was her body, since it basically was. Raven just leaned her head back against the top of the couch and waited.

The shaking began to ease up and then stopped. A few moments later, she felt the ship shift and bump against the ground.

“We have landed,” Silvanus announced, even though Raven already knew that. “I’m processing us through security. You’ll be able to disembark shortly. Standby.”

Raven unhooked the straps and stood up. She walked over to where the cat pretended to be asleep, or maybe was really asleep now. It was pretty much impossible to tell if Kyra didn’t want her to know. Raven stared down at her, trying to guess if she was awake, but gave up after a few moments and nudged the cat’s belly with the toe of her boot.

Kyra moved in an instant, curling around her leg and pretending to bite her ankle. She knew it was carefully-crafted pretense, since if it was anything else, Raven would have sharp teeth piercing her leg at that very moment.

“We’re going to leave the ship soon,” Raven said, staring down at the hundreds of pounds of feline curling around her and pretending to maul her ankle-high boots. “We have to go looking for my idiot of an ex.”

Just what I wanted to do today,’ Kyra drawled, releasing her light grip and then staring up at Raven until she stepped back. The cougar then stood and stretched, yawning wide and letting her big teeth glint in the light.

“While waiting for security protocols to complete,” the AI chimed in, interrupting any further ‘banter,’ “I am searching the local area and abandoned buildings in the sections we are most interested in, those containing plants that match the sound we heard on the video. By the time you depart the ship, you should have a few target areas to start with.”

“You’re beautiful, Silvanus. Have I ever told you that?” Raven said with a half-grin.

“Once or twice, and I know it doesn’t really apply, but I’m happy to hear it,” Silvanus said.

Raven laughed quietly and shook her head. Her companions certainly kept things interesting.


4

The door opened and Raven strode out before it was even fully open. Kyra was right on her heels as they walked out into the spaceport’s foot traffic lanes. Ships were docked all along the straightaway, some passengers embarking and others disembarking. There were a few just setting up shop at the end of their ramps, though Raven didn’t bother to stop and find out what any of them were doing there.

She had the map of the area in her mind and knew where she needed to go. Kyra got several odd looks, but no one said anything. That was one of the beauties of running around with a cat weighing several hundred pounds and a perma-snarl. Few people were brave enough to give into their curiosity with Kyra looking at them.

Raven had to resist the urge to move faster than was smart. She might have run, but she knew that it would be stupid to draw that much attention to herself. No one ran through a spaceport unless they had the law behind them. If Blake was hiding from someone, she didn’t need to make a scene that would lead them to her and then to him…and so despite all emotional instinct to do otherwise, she kept her pace reasonable and measured.

Fortunately, she had a long stride and with just a little effort, it ate up quite a bit of ground without looking like she was trying.

This place smells weird,’ Kyra declared with an audible sneer.

We don’t usually visit worlds with this type of industrial air pollution,’ Raven pointed out, using her neural chip to reply so the people around them couldn’t hear their conversation. ‘I’m sure that’s what makes it smell strange.

Well. I don’t like it.

Raven sighed, looking to either side of her to remain aware of her surroundings as they headed toward the edge of the spaceport and into the city surrounding it. ‘I don’t like it much either, but if it helps, I plan to be here for as little time as possible.

It will still be too long.

Raven wasn’t going to bother arguing with the cat. She had found it a terrible proposition to argue with Kyra, especially when she actually agreed with her. Even Raven’s human senses could pick up on the smell of the air quality. True, she was slightly enhanced by the neural chip that had been implanted when she began her bounty hunter service, but she didn’t think anyone could miss the air pollution.

They walked down the ramp that led into the city, and Raven paused to gather her sense of direction before heading off again.

You do know where you’re going, right?’ Kyra asked.

Yes. Shut up.

Touchy.

“I’m scared, okay!” Raven snapped, whirling on the cat.

Passersby stopped and stared at her, then looked at the cat and back to Raven. If they knew about bounty hunters and their allied animals, they apparently had forgotten because they looked at Raven like she had lost her mind. Their looks quickly turned to nervousness as they looked at Kyra, and then hurried on about their business.

Raven huffed at herself for losing her composure and started walking again.

I’m worried, okay?’ she said, using the proper method this time.

Afraid that we won’t find Blake?

That was one possible bad scenario. ‘Or that we’ll find him and it’ll be too late. That he’ll be…

They walked past several businesses that catered to port traffic—inns and restaurant, mostly, as well as shops to stock up on supplies for long space voyages. She checked out every shopfront out of habit, but didn’t really expect to see anything important.

Human emotions confuse me.

What do you mean?

If it was possibly to hear thinking, Raven would have heard it from Kyra. ‘Didn’t you yourself threatened to kill Blake, just one year ago? Or at least expressed some desire to do so.

Raven sighed. ‘Hyperbole, Kyra,’ she said. ‘I never really meant it. I was just upset and venting that in words.

Which I suspected, but even if you didn’t mean it literally, it seems to suggest a high level of distaste for the man, but now you’re worried about his well-being?

I thought I explained this to you before,’ Raven said as she turned down a side street that would lead them to the outskirts of this rough city. As they moved further away from the “downtown” area, Raven forced herself to become more aware of everything around her, because she certainly didn’t feel like getting mugged today.

You did,’ Kyra granted. The low set of her front half suggested she felt the same way as Raven about their vigilance. ‘But even your explanation simply plays into the fact that I don’t understand human emotions, and the choices and actions it leads you to.

To be fair, Kyra, I’m not sure anyone really understands human emotions. Even—well, especially, we humans.

Kyra made a strange noise that Raven didn’t even bother trying to figure out. If there was anything that she understood even less than her own human emotions, it was trying to figure out the mental and emotional state of a cat. Kyra might act like her emotions were simple and thus figuring out everyone else’s was a chore, but Raven knew from experience that it wasn’t like that at all. Kyra’s emotional state was just as complicated as Raven’s, and perhaps in need of even more care.

The cat didn’t really seem to have much to reply to that, and Raven figured that Kyra had decided the same thing: don’t argue when you agree with someone. Kyra knew just as well that humans rarely understood themselves.

Soon, the buildings began to thin out and the air began to thicken. There were fewer people in the streets alongside them, and those that were seemed to care even less about them as they walked by. These were clearly the people who worked in the factories and they just wanted to get to work and then home again.

It got harder to breathe, but Raven fought back her urge to flee.

This was the industrial area, and so this was where she needed to be.

This was where she hoped Blake was.




5

There were three buildings in the industrial sector of Caltos that Silvanus had identified as possible locations that matched all the clues seen in the video.

The first one was a bust without even seeing the inside. Every door and window was covered with sheets of metal and bolted fast. From every possible angle, none of it had been touched in a very long time. There was a thin layer of dusty grime clinging to every surface without a single clean spot or streak to evidence panels being removed or put back into place. While she might suspect that the “bad guys” could have made it look like this, she knew Blake would have been in too much of a rush without any tools to do it.

She spent only as much time as it took to be sure of every wall and corner before moving on to location two.

This building was a better candidate. There had been panels, but they looked like they’d been removed just as long ago as the other building’s had been in place. The same dust and grime covered them, but they sat on the ground or half-leaning against the structures around it. Kyra paced the length of the perimeter with her nose pressed to the ground. She was no bloodhound, but still did better than Raven could have.

It was also a lot easier for Kyra to do that than Raven. Just the image of her trying to put her nose to the ground and walk around like that was comical.

I can’t tell if Blake has been here or not,’ Kyra said. ‘Too many people come and go through this building and the scents are too distorted.

Then we’ll just have to go inside to look around and see what’s there,’ Raven said, hoping that she didn’t find other people who were there. She just didn’t want the hassle.

Once Kyra had finished her circuit of the building, they entered through the broken doors. Raven pulled her weapon, just in case, as they stepped into the dim light of the abandoned factory.

Inside, it was one large room. There were places where it was clear that large machinery had been but the room had long since been gutted. A few columns and bolts remained, but that was about it. There were windows lining the top that hadn’t been covered over, and that was where the only light inside came from. It made searching difficult, but her eyes eventually adjusted and Kyra was as good in low light as regular light.

They cautiously walked the interior of the building, looking inside the shadowy recesses of the few side rooms and checking behind the small number of things big enough to hide a body.

Raven didn’t want to call out, just in case someone or something else was in there. She wanted to hurry, but forced herself to be thorough. And yet, with each step it seemed less likely that he was there. It seemed less likely that anyone was there at that moment. While she was okay not finding hostile strangers, she felt her frustration rise at the fact that she wasn’t finding Blake either.

She reminded herself, however, that she wasn’t finding a body either, and so that was a good thing.

He’s not here,’ Kyra declared, already moving toward the door.

Raven hesitated, wondering if there was something in here that she had missed and would regret later…but she knew she couldn’t waste time on second guessing herself. She could spend all day trying to scour every nook and cranny but still come up with the same results.

Meanwhile, Blake was hiding somewhere else, in fear for his life.

“Yeah,” she said quietly, forcing herself to turn and follow Kyra out.

Two for two on false leads. That left one more possible building, and if that proved to be a bust as well…

Well. She wouldn’t let herself suffer future pain. One thing at a time.

While the first two had been fairly close together, the last one was, of course, on the other side of the considerably large industrial sector. There was no public transit and she didn’t have her own, so they just had to hoof it to the other side. Not wanting to trust she could navigate any path but the most direct, they were led through the heart of the district where most of the factories were still functioning.

This meant nonstop complaints from Kyra about the air and the smell. Raven wasn’t any happier about it, but she also knew that she couldn’t change it.

Your ex-husband is going to owe us for this,’ Kyra grumped as they hurried onward, hoping that when they started moving toward the outer edge, it would start to clear up again.

They reached the third building and the air was at least a little better. It wasn’t much, just enough to get Kyra to stop complaining. They found the structure in a similar shape to the second one and did the same routine. Kyra made her scent-circuit. There weren’t as many scents but still too many to be sure.

I’m not feeling much confidence in the foundation of the building,’ Kyra reported once she returned. ‘It doesn’t look to be in great shape. Let’s make this fast.

Raven nodded. The cat wasn’t exactly an expert in architecture, so if it was bad enough for her to say so, then it had to be pretty bad. Raven didn’t want to spend any longer than absolutely necessary in this building anyway, but she did have to go in and search it to make sure Blake wasn’t there.

They entered the broken building through a similarly broken door. She had to stifle a sneeze as a small puff of dust blew up at them, but at least this building was smaller with more windows. Light flooded in and made it easier to look around, although there were also more abandoned machines that took away the advantage gained.

Halfway through the search, all they had found was a few birds, startled out of an open window. Raven was beginning to lose heart of finding him here, when—

Creak.

Both human and cat froze. Eyes were wide as they looked around for the source of the sound. It had sounded like the building, although she hoped maybe it was just machinery…or something else altogether…

Creak.

That’s bad,’ Kyra needlessly commented. Her ears flicked forward and back, trying to pinpoint just where the bad was coming from.

’Wait!’ Raven cried inwardly. ‘We’re only half done!

Kyra was already backing up slowly, eyeing the building like she might an enemy about to attack. ‘We have to go…

Raven took a step, but hesitated. “Blake!” she called, knowing she wouldn’t have the time to search like before, so she had to take the risk.

Whether it was her shout or just coincidence, they felt a rumble from the floor. Raven still hesitated, cursing hotly until Kyra swiped at her leg—claws retracted, thankfully—and that knocked her out of her stupor. They turned and ran for the door, just as they heard something cracking from inside the wall.


6

The building tried to eat us,’ Kyra declared angrily as they sat in a small tangle of human and feline limbs on the far side of the street from the building that had partially collapsed while they were inside. Big clouds of dust were still floating around them and Raven hacked half of it out of her lungs.

Yeah, it did,’ she agreed, even as she stared at it and wondered if Blake had been in there… She would never know, she realized, although she couldn’t imagine that he had been. Kyra would have smelled him, or they would’ve found him, or he would have replied to her call…

She hoped.

He wasn’t in there.’ Kyra’s voice, suddenly less angry, intruded on her thoughts of returning to the building. She knew she shouldn’t—couldn’t—go back in, but she stared at and thought about it.

Are you sure?’ she asked.

Yes.

Kyra’s confidence soothed Raven somewhat, although she still had doubts. However, her rational voice broke through and she knew that there wasn’t anything else she could do. They had done all that they could. Every possible building had been checked to the best of their ability, so all they could do was keep trying…

That part didn’t help so much.

Kyra hauled herself to her feet and bumped her big furry head into Raven’s shoulder as she said, ‘We need to get back to the ship.

Double Sharpe

“I agree with Kyra, Raven,” the AI said once the pair of them made it back to the ship. “I do not believe that Blake was in that last building.”

There was a bowl on the floor and a glass in Raven’s hand as she and the cat drank lots of water to try to flush out the taste of the air. Raven also felt like she needed to take a shower and clean it all off, but she wouldn’t do so until she knew she had time to. And this moment was not that time, no matter how disgusting her body felt.

“Alright,” she said, putting the glass back in the processor for more water. “I won’t argue with you.” Although she really wanted to. “He’s not here. That means we go to the next planet, right? The next likely place?”

“Yes,” Silvanus agreed. She sounded like she was trying to be soothing. She was a computer, but she emulated it fairly well. She had been Raven’s ship and AI for long enough to know how best to react to her human. “That is Kona IV. I will admit that there is not a great deal of information in my databases about the planet aside from industrial classifications. I will perhaps be able to gain more information once we are in sensor range.”

Raven nodded, if only to herself. “How long will it take to get there?”

There was a pause as the AI calculated. “Nine hours.”

“Set course and let’s get going,” Raven said.

“Doing so now.” There was a long pause. “You should get some rest.”

After finishing another glass of water, she put the glass back into the processor to be recycled back into the system. She rubbed the back of her neck and closed her eyes. “Yeah, I should,” she agreed quietly. “I’m going to shower first.”

She left the main cabin for the small side room attached to it.

The ship of a bounty hunter, at least in service out of Halliwell Bounty Hunters Company, was not a big one. They were designed for a single human and a single large animal. The companions were always bigger than the average house pet, though never huge. They had to fit in the ship, after all. Big cats and wolves were the most common, although some had birds of prey or other sorts of wild dogs. Raven even knew of one who had a hyena.

The hunter, the companion, and the AI made a trio that was hard to stop. The intelligence enhancements to the companions and the neural chips that linked them all bonded them in ways that no other pair or group could hope to replicate.

This small, utilitarian-grey room was her private living space. She spent much of her time in the main cabin, but slept in here. There was a compartment on floor level where Kyra could crawl in to sleep and then a bunk bed cut out just above that where Raven slept. An attached cubicle had the bathroom and a particle-wave shower. Whenever she stayed in rooms on colonies and starbases, she always took baths. She missed a tub, and water, but had learned to live with this.

It was more efficient, after all.

She felt like she was peeling her clothing off, almost as if they were stuck to her by the grime she’d waded through on the colony. It was beyond her how people could live there, although she realized that—just like her and the shower—you could get used to anything over time.

Kicking the pile of clothing into a corner, where she’d eventually get it into the laundry processor, she stepped into the shower and activated it. She heard the familiar hum and felt the tiny vibrations run along her skin, peeling and pushing away the dirt on top. She pressed her hands against the side of the shower stall and let her head drop, just breathing and feeling.

Uncalled for and definitely unwanted, a memory popped up in her mind.

She and Blake had already been married when they decided to try their hands at bounty hunting as a career. Perhaps ironically, it had been his idea, but she was the one to excel at it. That had been a major factor in their breakup. She remembered how daunting it had been, to a married couple, to realize that the ships were really only made for one person.

Somehow, they had made it work, at first. She remembered that they used to sleep on the couch in the main cabin together—sometimes on Silvanus and sometimes on Nyx, while the AI of the other ship kept the two ships in sync. They sometimes went off on their own missions, but would come back together again for downtime or sharing hunts.

Although as time went on and she got more solo contracts, and he got less, they drifted further apart…but now she was remembering the time before that. She was thinking about the fact that they had been happy. That they didn’t mind sharing the small couch, since it was bigger than the bunk in the little bedroom.

She thought about how she still preferred the couch and main cabin, even though she was alone now.


7

After her shower, Raven crawled into her bunk and fell into a fitful sleep that she intended to remain in until they reached Kona IV.

Silvanus woke her about an hour out from the planet.

Dressed, somewhat awake, and holding a cup of strong coffee, she stood in the main cabin and stared down at the screen of her primary computer console. There really wasn’t all that much to see, but she needed to look at something, so she stared at a satellite image of Kona IV.

The planet that was about to cause her a massive headache.

“How did we not know this sooner?” Raven asked with a sigh.

“Governments are not known for helping make things convenient for others,” Silvanus replied. If a computer could sound frustrated, she did. “The most they apparently chose to do in this case was put beacons on an outer perimeter to alert any ships coming into the area.”

The alert broadcasting from those beacons let ships know that the United Earth Government had qualified Kona IV as Primitive Four. Which Raven thought sounded stupid as a qualification, but there it was. A “Primitive Four Planet” was one deemed too primitive for space traffic. Which meant they didn’t think any ships should land or otherwise make contact with the persons of the planet, although the planet was not so primitive as to not know others existed out there.

Otherwise, it was a governmental terminology mess with a side of bureaucratic nonsense.

Raven took a long drink of coffee, rubbing the back of her neck with her other hand.

“Okay, so, they don’t think people should land there and show off shiny spaceships,” she thought out loud. “Have they put any sort of protection or policing measures in place to stop people from actually doing so?”

“There are no records of any protections, and the beacon broadcast does not refer to any. My sensor scans so far cannot see anything of that sort either,” the AI replied. “I believe we could land, if we chose to do so. However, should it be discovered, there may be repercussions later.”

Raven rolled her eyes, feeling like a teenager even as she did so. “I don’t really care about what they say, now or later.” She hesitated. “However, we probably should try to do this as covertly as possible.”

The AI said, “I would agree. We don’t need to aggravate the matter.” After a moment, she went on. “There are surveillance satellites in orbit. I can tap into them and get an idea of the planet below.”

“Good,” Raven said with a nod, finishing her coffee. “Locate the area we need and see if there is somewhere we can land, a big field or forest clearing or something. Also what the populace looks like. I need to try to blend in.”

I suppose that means I’m staying with the ship,’ Kyra commented dryly.

“Unfortunately yes, my friend. Although you may be able to help distract anyone who comes near so they don’t see the ship and get us in deeper trouble than I think we already are, thanks to Blake,” Raven said with a sigh. She hadn’t wanted to let herself think about that part too much.

What the hell had Blake gotten himself into? And what was she now getting herself into by helping him?

Kyra made a disgruntled noise in her throat. ‘So. Pest control.

“Somehow, I think you’ll survive,” Raven muttered, getting another cup of coffee.

Double Sharpe

In what seemed, perhaps, like the only good luck she’d had, Raven’s normal utilitarian, rough-and-ready wardrobe was pretty much just what she needed to look like she belonged on Kona IV.

The bad luck, however, was that she was human. The natives of Kona IV were not.

However, the pollution levels were also very bad on this planet, particularly in the area that she needed to go, so almost everyone wore masks over their face to be able to breathe as close to normally as possible. She had to hope that the mask would be enough to hide her humanity from the populace.

It had to be. If Blake was here—and it was actually a good place to stow someone—then both he and his captors had to come here, and at least one of them was human and had to get down there somehow.

Once they had arrived in orbit, it had taken a while for Silvanus to use the satellite to not just gain an image of what the natives looked like, but also where they could put the ship down that would be close to where they needed to go and unlikely to be spotted. That was a pretty tricky task, but Silvanus figured it out.

“Are there going to be news stories about flying saucers and bizarre lights in the sky after we land?” Raven asked as she strapped herself into the seat.

“Chances are good,” the AI replied simply.

“That’s great,” her human murmured, leaning her head back. “I always wanted to be famous.”

No, you haven’t.

Considering how much sarcasm you use, I would think you’d be better at recognizing it,’ Raven retorted.

The cat made an odd chortling-like noise. ‘Perhaps you’re just not that good at it.

Raven sighed, trying to figure out if the cat was honestly being this much of a jerk or was trying to take her mind off of things. It was a fifty-fifty chance, she figured, but she wasn’t going to ask. She wanted to think it was the latter and she didn’t want to find out that she was wrong.

She had enough problems to deal with.


8

‘Close’ to where she needed to go was a relative concept.

The only viable option for what they needed was on the far side of a hill trying to be a mountain, where the hill would obscure the ship from the city beyond and there wasn’t any population close enough on the other side to be a concern. The hill and forest around it would be good enough cover for what they needed.

The downside to the good hiding place was that it was going to be a long walk into the town. Although calling it either town or city was also a relative concept, since from everything they could see, it was a sprawl of buildings—factories with a few domiciles and businesses in between. Standard living for these manufacturing cities were big multi-person dwellings.

Raven hung her filter-mask around her neck while she climbed over rocky parts of the hill and wound her way through the trees. It wasn’t pleasant to wear, and she intended to wait as long as possible before putting it on.

The terrain was uneven at best, and even though she was trying to go as quickly as possible, she moved slow. A broken ankle wouldn’t help anyone, and getting back to the ship might well be impossible.

Eventually, the land began to even out as she crossed onto a plain. The town was in sight, and she was able to see small crowds of pedestrians following roads toward the outskirts. She knew she needed to put her mask on, and she needed to be careful.

“Blake,” she murmured to the open air as she pulled on the filter-mask, “I hope I find you alive so I can kill you for putting me through this.”

Part of her still wondered why she was doing all of this…but she also knew that complicated history aside, she wasn’t the type of person to turn down a call for help like that. Her heart wasn’t that cold, no matter how she might want it to be sometimes. She did think life would be easier if she didn’t feel so much.

She picked a section of road that she’d been able to see from the distance was less populated. Walking along the street, she blended in with the people coming and going, all of them wearing masks like hers. She saw immediately that she stood out a little because her clothing looked a bit too…unused compared to everyone else’s, but she couldn’t do anything about that.

On this planet, there were three different cities that could have potential buildings, and she knew this was going to be a long day.

Silvanus had been able to identify two buildings in this city that matched their various criteria.

Raven found a building she recognized from the satellite imagery, and oriented herself to it. She thought back to the map that Silvanus had constructed and then started heading that way. This path led her through one population-dense area, but then it thinned back out as she headed into a darker section.

It was darker both figuratively and literally. There seemed to be less light filtering into it, but it also just had that feeling. It was a feeling she had known a time or two and it usually meant trouble was likely. It put her on her guard and she rolled her shoulders anxiously.

She had her weapon concealed under her jacket, but she resisted the urge to put her hand on it.

A clicking sound behind her told her she’d been found, and she sighed. She wished her paranoia wasn’t right.

“Hold it right there,” a muffled male voice said. “Hands up.”

Of course, Raven heard his native language first and then her neural chip processed and translated a half-step behind. For one inane moment, she was amazed they had studied the planet enough to put the language into the database. She assumed it was accurate, since the words made sense to the situation.

Slowly, she lifted her hands.

Your heart rate is elevated,’ Silvanus said.

I’m hardly surprised,’ Raven replied tightly. ‘I’m getting mugged, after all.

This is why you shouldn’t go anywhere without me!’ Kyra barged into the conversation just to snap at Raven.

Raven didn’t bother to reply to that.

She heard a footstep and tried to calculate just how far behind her this person was, and she tried to identify if she heard any other steps or noises to indicate whether he was working alone or there was a group. She was, of course, acutely aware of the gun where it sat against her ribs and not in her hand.

“Give me all your—” The final word came through as a combination of static and whatever those native sounds were. She would have assumed it was “money,” but realized she couldn’t actually assume that here, and since she had no idea what he said, he was about to be sorely disappointed by the ignorance of his victim.

It took a lot of will power to not reply. She knew that he wouldn’t understand her since he didn’t have the neural chip.

“What?! Are you just a dumb—” Another static-gibberish word. “—or what?!”

Or what…

She felt the hard end of some sort of weapon press against her lower back, and she smiled darkly.

“You know, you shouldn’t press your gun right against someone’s back like that,” she said, knowing that he wouldn’t understand her, but also knowing that it would work in her favor. His confusion was almost audible, and it made him hesitate.

The hesitation was just what she needed.

Spinning around, the man didn’t have time to react before her gloved hand was wrapping around the barrel of his weapon. She ripped it out of his surprised grip, seeing his startling red eyes over the edge of his filter-mask. The weapon itself didn’t feel like any she had ever used, and she couldn’t spare the time to look it over and figure it out.

Her would-be mugger recovered faster than she anticipated and took a swing at her head. He caught the side of her face and she felt the skin over her cheekbone split, a trace of wet warmth slipping down her skin. Instead of letting herself feel the pain too much, she used it to fuel her anger.

She brought her hands up and returned the swing. He blocked with his arm, and she reflected for a split-second that fighting was apparently fighting anywhere.

They traded a few more hits until—

“Raven! Duck!”


9

The voice was familiar, but she almost didn’t believe it.

Raven jumped back a step and then dropped to her knees. She felt the reverberation of her impact with the hard ground as it raced from her kneecaps to her hips, but she ignored the pain as she heard weapons fire over her head. It had a sound somewhere between an old-fashioned bullet and a high-energy electro-weapon, but she didn’t look up to see just what it was.

She did look up when she heard the man hit the ground. Whether he was dead or just unconscious, she didn’t know, and she wasn’t sure she cared. She stared at him a moment to be sure he wasn’t getting up too soon and then she got to her feet and looked behind her.

There, after all the searching and worry, was a battered, bloodied Blake with the mugger’s weapon in his hand.

“Come on!” he hissed, waving at her to follow him as he turned and sprinted away.

“What the—” she began, but then gave up and just followed.

The building he ran to was very, very close. He pulled back a thin, weathered piece of wood and ushered her inside. He followed almost before she was all the way in and then replaced the board.

“You came!” he exclaimed, sounding choked with emotion as he threw his arms around her and pulling her into the tightest hug she’d ever experienced. He loosened his grip when she started coughing, but he didn’t let her go.

She pulled off her filter-mask. “Of course I came,” she said, looking up at him almost incredulously. “Did you really think I’d just let you languish out here? Die?”

He smiled weakly, the expression made even more feeble by the bruise and cut at the corner of his mouth. “I’m not sure I wouldn’t have deserved it, to be honest,” he said. “I mean… I don’t know that I deserve to die, really, but I don’t know I deserve you riding to my rescue. Of all people. I just… I didn’t know who else to call.”

I found him!’ she reported back even as she reached up and took his face gingerly in her hands, turning his head this way and that to survey the damage. The wounds seemed to be of varying ages, although none too fresh since he had been in hiding while she searched for him and they’d healed somewhat. Still, the varying colors spoke of his having been held for some time.

Someone had really done a number on him, and it hurt her almost physically just to look at it.

He put his hands over hers and gently pulled them away. “I’m okay,” he said. “At least, I don’t think there’s any serious damage. Everything will heal. Didn’t you always say I had a pretty hard head?”

Raven laughed softly. “I did.” She sighed. “We’ve gotta get back to Silvanus and out of this place—”

“I can’t,” he interrupted her. “Not yet.”

She just blinked at him. “What do you mean, not yet?!”

His brown eyes pleaded with her through their shadows. “Raven, of course not yet! Do you see Axel here anywhere?”

Her brain came into focus and she didn’t need to look around. “Right,” she said, shaking her head slightly to clear it. “Of course. Do you know where he is? Is he even still on the planet? What about Nyx?”

“One thing at a time, honey,” he said.

She didn’t correct him on the affectionate terminology. It wasn’t the time.

Finally, he released their embrace but immediately took her hand. “I do know where Axel is,” he said. “They’re keeping him where they kept me, but in a separate area. I couldn’t get him out when I escaped, but I knew if I survived, I’d get him. He’s still alive. He’s been talking to me.”

“That’s a relief,” she said sincerely. She couldn’t talk to Blake’s wolf, just like he couldn’t talk to her mountain lion, but she’d always liked the scruffy canine. “I presume you remember how to get back there?”

“My skills may be limited, but my memory is still sharp,” he said, the weak smile returning.

She didn’t recall him being so self-deprecating, but maybe being abducted and having the crap beaten out of you did something to a person. She didn’t mind the lack of wounded ego, but she missed his confidence.

“What else do you remember about the building?” she asked. “What are we going to face when we try to go in there? Do you know where in the building Axel is being held?”

His face took on an expression that she struggled to read, balancing somewhere between pride and ruefulness. If it had been any other time, she might have asked, but she knew this wasn’t that time.

Then he sighed, and led her by the hand to a large upturned crate. “I need to sit,” he said quietly. “I’m still feeling pretty rough.” He sat and she sat beside him. “It was a factory building, like they all are around here, but not a big one. Smaller than the building we’re in now, so I’m thinking maybe two or three entrances.”

Raven listened intently, looking around the building they sat in and trying to make a mental image. “Is it a functional factory?”

“I don’t think so,” he said, shaking his head. “At least, I never heard any machinery working. Axel hasn’t said anything about it. When he wakes up again, I can ask him.”

“You should,” he said. “It will be important to know.”

“Right,” he agreed with a distracted nod. “There didn’t seem to be many guards. There were a couple of guys when I was taken from that bar, although…that memory is kind of fuzzy right now, to be honest.” His brows knit as he rubbed his head. “I don’t recall seeing or hearing many others. I mean, it was one guy and one wolf. How many guards did they need? I’m not sure how many will be at the building or if they’ll be out looking for me.”



“If they know anything about bounty hunters coming out of Halliwell then they’ll know about the bond between hunter and companion. They will likely guess that you’ll be coming for Axel and will try to trap you,” Raven pointed out.

“Unfortunately true,” he agreed sadly, “but we have to try.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “We have to try.”


10

Raven and Blake pulled their filter-masks on. Blake’s looked like it had been half run over by some sort of wheeled vehicle, but so long as it worked, looks were hardly important. Together, they slipped out of the building and back into the street. He was carrying the weapon off the mugger while she still had her own gun.

“Be careful if you need to fire that,” he told her as they walked, trying to move quickly but not draw any undue attention to themselves. “That sort of energy weapon can light the air on fire if the ratio of particles is too high.”

“That’s comforting,” she murmured. Suddenly, she was grateful that she hadn’t had a chance to take a shot at that guy.

Speaking of her would-be mugger, he was still on the ground when they re-emerged. He could be unconscious, or he could be dead. She wasn’t going to stop to find out. She’d never taken kindly to having weapons pulled on her or having her stuff taken away. Maybe she was cold-hearted, but she had other things on her mind.

Raven felt an urge to talk as they made their way along the street, but she told herself this wasn’t the best time. Plus, she wasn’t really sure what she wanted to talk about. It was something like an urge toward nervous chatter, even though that wasn’t usually a problem she had. This just felt…different.

“Just ahead,” Blake said, cutting through her thoughts and study of their surroundings.

They slowed and casually shifted toward the side of a building and then into an alley where they could watch for a little while. Raven studied everything she could see.

“I don’t see any guards outside,” she said, brows knitting as she looked around for any.

“I gather that most people don’t go outside unless they absolutely have to,” Blake replied, “and then not for any longer than they have to. They probably don’t think the outside needs to be guarded. Besides, it would look suspicious.”

“Fair point,” she agreed.

They stood and watched for several long minutes. As far as she could see, there was no one coming and going. There were a couple low windows, but they were shaded so she couldn’t see inside very well.

“Is Axel awake yet?” she asked. He hadn’t responded to Blake when they’d first set out, but the wolf’s insights would be useful.

Blake was silent for a moment, his eyes losing focus slightly as he turned inward and tried to contact his animal companion. She switched her own focus back and forth between him and the building, catching his dark brows knitting. He looked frustrated, and then concerned. She was about to ask when relief suddenly took over his expression.

“He is now,” he said.

“I’m glad,” she said, and she meant it. Although she hadn’t said as much to Blake, she had really been starting to worry that Axel was dead. Without Nyx to interface the neural chips’ for information, Blake wouldn’t know if Axel was alive or not. “What’s he saying?”

“He’s hungry.”

Raven stifled a laugh. “Sounds like Kyra. But not really useful.”

Blake tilted his head slightly as he listened. “He says he’s in a cage with a metal lock, and he remembers being carried up a flight of stairs.”

Looking back at the building, Raven tried to estimate the size. She didn’t think it was bigger than two stories, so that narrowed down his location to the second floor. If he was conscious enough to speak with Blake, then he wasn’t totally sedated. That meant they ran the risk of his making noise, so they would want to keep him away from windows.

“Does he have any idea about how many people there may be inside the building?” she asked.

“He says that he’s only seen two different people, but he thinks he may have heard one or two others outside who never come into the room he’s in,” Blake reported. “But I’ll have to say that he’s not always the best with distinguishing human voices.”

“That’s got to be an animal thing,” she said idly. “Kyra isn’t either. But it’s safer to assume that he’s right and there’s at least four people in that building.”

Blake nodded once. “Right…right. I only recall two or three myself, but I know there could have been others. There wasn’t a lot of noise while I was there, though, so I’m betting there aren’t many more than that.”

She took a deep breath, but then regretted it. Even through the filter, she could pick up the smell when she did that. Blinking away the faint tearing of her eyes, she went on, “I don’t suppose either you or Axel noticed anything about weapons they were carrying?”

Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he squeezed his eyes shut. She imagined he wasn’t feeling too great, after all he’d been through and being separated from Nyx and Axel like he’d been. She recognized the face he made when he was thinking and had to work at it.

He made that face more often than he realized, and she didn’t plan to tell him.

“I remember a lot of fists,” he finally said with a long, ragged sigh. “I think one of the bigger brutes had a gun like the one I’m carrying now, just nicer, but that was the only thing I noticed.”

“What about Axel?” she asked. “Has he seen any guns? Or even any knives or other blades?”

Another long pause. “He thinks he saw a couple of guns and a knife, but that’s as much as he knows. He can’t recognize different guns, so he doesn’t know if they were like yours or like the one I got off that guy.”

She considered this. “So we don’t know if it’s a properly working weapon or one that’s going to set the air on fire?” Her eyes shifted over to him, their incredulity matching the dryness in her tone. She didn’t really like the lack of intel, but there wasn’t much to be done about it. The wolf would only recognize what it was he recognized.

“Pretty much.”

“So…it’s possibly four or more guards against the two of us. They are healthy, likely rested, and with a better knowledge of the lay of the land. They have weapons that may shoot us or immolate us, and we won’t know which until it happens. And we just have to get in, get upstairs, grab a hundred and fifty-pound wolf, and get out.” She snorted and shook her head. “No problem.”


11

There was only one door they could get to without drawing too much attention, or possibly being spotted through the sparse number of windows. Sadly, that door was the front door.

So, basically, their plan was crap, and it was the only one she could think of. They didn’t have time or resources to make anything better.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Raven asked Blake as they stood in the alley, getting ready to run across the street. He was looking exhausted and definitely worse for wear. The shadows under his eyes seemed to have worsened just in the short time since she’d found him, or he found her. Either way, he looked awful.

“There’s not a lot of choice, Rave,” he said, but he even sounded awful.

“I could go in myself,” she suggested.

He shook his head. “Axel is pretty heavy. I don’t think you can carry him and fight whoever tries to stop you on the way out.”

With a shrug, she smirked a little, but he couldn’t see that from behind the mask. “I don’t know. I’m pretty tough.” She held her arms up, like she was flexing for a strongman contest.

Blake laughed weakly and shook his head. “Yeah, you are that.”

She felt like there was more to that than just their current situation, but she didn’t say anything about it. “You’re right, though. I guess we don’t have much of a choice. Just try not to get yourself killed, okay? It would make my hard work in trying to rescue you go all to waste.”

“Ha, soul of compassion, you are,” he returned and she shrugged. “Alright. Let’s get going before I collapse in the street.”

“My confidence is buoyed, thank you.”

She moved forward first, looking down either side of the street before deciding that the way was indeed clear. Not seeing anyone, the pair hurried from their place in the alley to the building across the street. The windows remained shadowed and looked like they were covered with something. Raven had no idea if it was intentional or incidental, but it didn’t matter. The result was the same. She couldn’t see inside, and could only hope that it meant no one could see outside either.

They reached the door and paused. Blake panted for a moment while Raven slowly, carefully tried the handle and mentally crossed her fingers that her head wasn’t about to get shot off.

The handle turned, which told her that it wasn’t locked. A moment later, the door slid up into the wall. Being used to side-to-side doors, that surprised her, but it didn’t last for long. She had situated herself to the side, waiting to see if anyone shot at her, but she didn’t hear any weapons, or voices, or footsteps.

Before they moved in, she stopped and looked at Blake. “Give me your gun,” she said.

“What?” he asked, blinking.

“I’m the one who’s going to be taking out guards, if you’re carrying Axel. My gun might set the building on fire.”

“Oh. Right.” He handed it over.

She kept it in her hand while she left the other one holstered. Peering through the doorway into the darkened corridor beyond, she still didn’t hear anything. Either there was no one there…or there were some very quiet, patient guards. Or maybe they were asleep. Really, almost anything was possible at this point.

Raven stepped in first and took a better look down either side of the hallway before Blake followed her, taking the lead at that point since he had been inside the building before.

Unlike the previous buildings she had been in, this one didn’t empty into a main room right away. It was probably the smarter layout, but she knew nothing about the natives of this planet.

Blake led her through the building, but hesitantly. She didn’t know if he was nervous or having trouble remembering, but she didn’t ask. Instead, she focused on looking around every corner and down every hallway or open door. With every moment that passed without some sort of incident, her tension rose.

Perhaps they were all out looking for Blake?

“Staircase,” he whispered, gesturing at a set of grey metal stairs against the wall.

She started to wonder why they used stairs instead of a lift, but then she remembered that this planet was classified against people like them being on it because of the “primitive” nature of the inhabitants.

Slipping around him, she peered at the open space between them and the staircase and then up the stairs. Coming from the top, she saw a man walking down. It was, in fact, almost a relief. She considered just shooting him from where he was, but she wasn’t familiar with this alien weapon and she didn’t want to discover it would screw up the whole stealth thing.

Without saying anything, she pointed and drew Blake’s attention to the guy. She watched his eyes recognize him and shudder, and she wondered if this was the guy who’d done the hard-hitting. It made her want to do some hard-hitting of her own, but she knew she had to wait for the right moment.

“Stay here,” she whispered, sliding away from Blake. He made a sound like he wanted to argue, but stopped himself.

Without taking her eyes off the guy coming down the stairs, she slid along the wall that brought her away from the first step and to under the open staircase. She was glad the guard sucked at his job because he wasn’t expecting trouble. He started down the stairs, looking at a data-pad in his hand.

She positioned herself to get her hand into the gaps between the metal steps. When he was on the right step, she reached through and grabbed his pant leg.

“Whoa!” he said, but that was it before he was falling head first down the last few steps. He landed with a hard thud. Raven took just a moment to look around and see if anyone else would respond to the sound. Just for an instant, though, before she was hurrying around the steps.

He was disoriented but not unconscious, which was something she fixed when she grabbed the front of his jacket and rammed her fist into his face a couple of times.


12

Once she was assured that the guard wasn’t getting up again—although the rise and fall of his chest told her she hadn’t killed him—she gestured for Blake to hurry across to the stairs while she looked around for any more trouble. She didn’t see any, so the two of them began to climb upward.

They moved as quickly as they could without causing noise, though the metal made a strange creak with their steps that she hadn’t noticed when the guard was walking down.

“Axel is up here,” Blake whispered, somewhat unnecessarily since Raven figured this was where he was. “He says… He says someone is coming into the room. He thinks they’re going to drug him again.”

“Crap,” Raven spat. She didn’t know how much sedation the poor animal’s body could take, or just how close to that line he already was.

They picked up their pace, which also picked up their noise. By the creak of the final step, the tension was so strong in her body that she felt like her spine was vibrating. They reached the top of the landing and found they could go straight or take an immediate left, and Blake’s head swung from one to the other.

Then, they heard a weak sounding bark coming from the left.

“Axel!” Blake cried, turning and running headlong down the hallway, with Raven at his heels. She didn’t bother trying to tell him to stay quiet. She knew that once he felt like Axel’s trouble was more imminent, there would be no caution.

The corridor was far longer than she would have expected, with several doors off to either side. They followed the noise until it stopped, and Raven feared the worst.

“He’s going in and out of consciousness,” Blake panted. He stopped suddenly and she skidded to a stop to not run into him.

Without the sound, they had to start looking into every room. They were getting near the end of the hallway, so there weren’t many choices yet. Many of the doors were locked, however, and they couldn’t get in. Raven considered trying to use one of the guns, or both, on a lock…but she couldn’t take the chance that it would do more harm than good.

Not yet, at least. They weren’t that desperate yet.

Then, the very last door opened and a human woman stepped out. She wasn’t looking at either of them, instead adjusting a bag hanging over her shoulder. They had to silence her before she saw them, but Blake set upon her in a way that seemed to say he knew that was where Axel was and she had been the one to do something bad.

Blake lunged at her. The woman let out a cry, but it was cut short when her head hit the wall. The two fell into a small heap as the dazed woman fought back against the weakened man. Raven might have found it morbidly comical in any other moment, but for this one, she jumped in and ripped Blake off her. She didn’t think, in his state, he was going to be very effective.

He fought her at first but as she’d suspected, his strength was limited. He moved back and she grabbed the woman.

“What are—” she began to say, until a backhand from Raven—using the hand with the gun in it—knocked the consciousness out of her and she slumped back against the wall, sliding down to the floor.

“You’re too good at that,” Blake said, but he wasn’t even looking at her. Instead, he was turning to the door and opening it.

She followed him.

Immediately, they saw Axel laying in a cage that was a too small to be comfortable. He was half curled up, with shaggy dark grey fur sticking out of the bars of the cage. His chest was rising and falling, though his audible breathing sounded a little like a wheeze and Raven wondered how much more the animal could take.

“Check her for a key,” Raven said, gesturing Blake to the unconscious woman while she hurried to the wolf. She knew Blake would be in a panic over him, while she would have a cooler head. She checked him over as best she could through the bars. His breathing sounded unhealthy, but it was steady, and she could feel his heart, although it felt fast.

There were a few injuries visible from where she stood, and she felt anger rise.

“What did they do to him?” she asked tightly.

“That happened when they came to take him,” Blake said, sounding choked up. “He fought back.” He fumbled with the old-fashioned style but strange-looking keys as he searched for the right one for Axel’s cage.

“Take it easy, Blake,” Raven said gently. “Axel is okay. We just need to get him out of here.”

Blake nodded shakily, finally finding the key he needed. He stuck it in the lock and opened the gate, reaching in and gently pulling his companion out. He staggered slightly under the weight, but held his unconscious friend like he would a large child. “We gotta go,” he said, voice strained.

She nodded once and led the way back out of the room. Pausing at the door, she made sure the way was clear. The woman was still unconscious, so Raven just stepped over her and began down the hallway.

She tried to hurry, but she didn’t want her concern for the pair behind her to make her rush headlong into danger. And she was almost as tense about striking the balance as she was about finding more guards or problems.

They reached the end of the corridor and Raven held up her hand, slowly moving her head around the edge of the doorway to look down the stairs—

A bullet flew past her, just barely missing her head. She worried she’d lost a few eyebrow hairs even, as she threw herself back into the corridor. “Back!” she hissed, backing up a few steps because she knew they’d be coming in shortly.

Two short, stocky men in general work jumpsuits came around the corner. One of them had a gun that looked like the one from the mugger while the other had a long knife. It didn’t take a genius to figure out which one was the immediate threat, so she aimed her own alien weapon—or native, depending on your perspective—and pulled the trigger.

Click.

Empty or jammed.

“I got held up with a useless weapon!” she snapped, almost angrier about that than anything.

The other man was aiming his gun.

She threw herself against the wall, registering that Blake had done the same. Raven pulled her own weapon, took a chance, and fired.


13

“That…was just dumb…stupid luck…” Blake panted as he collapsed on the rocky soil in front of Silvanus, Axel an unconscious pile of wolf on top of him.

“Dumb and stupid are the same word,” Raven shot back, collapsing on her back beside him where he’d fallen on his stomach. “You’re being redundant.” Her whole body felt like it was about to fall apart and become one with the rocks.

“Oh, shut up, woman,” Blake groaned.

She chuckled hoarsely.

The good news was that the air had not lit on fire when she’d taken a shot at that guy, and that she’d hit him, and that the other guard had run… The bad news was that they had then run, and run, and run…until they reached the ship. Now, they both felt like they were about to die. If she felt this bad, she could only imagine how bad Blake felt.

After a few moments of deep breaths, she pushed herself up onto her knees. Her legs were burning, but she ignored it as she put her arms under Axel and pulled him off Blake. Of course, the wolf seemed to weigh almost as much as she did and she couldn’t dead lift that in her current condition, so what really happened was she switched positions with Blake and was the one with the limp canine on her chest.

“Oh, geez, Rave,” Blake said, pushing himself up as soon as Axel was off—or, at least, starting to. The process took longer than usual.

Between the two of them, they were able to get Axel and them both off the ground and all up into Silvanus. They laid the wolf on the floor in front of the couch and Kyra, who normally seemed at odds with Axel, padded over and gently bumped her head against his before laying down beside him.

Raven didn’t comment about it. She knew the cat’s response would not be nice.

It took her a moment to realize that Blake was sitting in the middle of the floor behind her. She turned and knelt beside him, taking off his filter-mask and then hers and tossing them aside. She took his face in her hands and looked over his various injuries. Once mentally inventoried, she found the ship’s first aid kit and began taking care of him.

“Well, this is familiar,” he said with a weary smile.

“You never could manage to avoid a hit,” she teased with a faint smile of her own as she worked.

“At least this time, I have a good excuse. I was kind of tied to a chair.”

She winced sympathetically at just the image, hating to even think of it. Okay, perhaps in the days (or longer) immediately after their separation and divorce, she had thought of doing the same thing to him…but this was different.

“Okay, so, tell me about all of this mess,” she said, gently cleaning dried blood away from the worst of his facial cuts. “What do you remember?”

“It’s pretty foggy,” he admitted, wincing. “They hit me with something, and then when I got disconnected from Nyx… You can imagine how it goes. It makes you feel like you might be losing your mind.”

She could imagine. In fact, she pretty much had lost her mind not too long ago when she’d been cut off from Silvanus.

“I’ve been able to access Axel’s vital signs from his neural chip,” Silvanus chimed in quietly, as if afraid of being rude. For an AI, she was very polite. “I can’t access anything else, but I can tell you that he’s stable. He should wake up on his own within the hour and I don’t believe will suffer long-term effects. Perhaps some short-term ones.”

“Thank you, Silvanus,” Raven said sincerely.

“Thank you,” Blake echoed. Even though Raven had his head tilted up so she could clean and treat his face, his dark eyes drifted over to his sleeping wolf.

“So…back to what you remember,” she prodded gently.

Blake sighed heavily and closed his eyes. “The guy who questioned me was familiar, although I didn’t figure out who he was at first. I mean, it was pretty distracting to be hit repeatedly and all.”

Raven put some sealant over one cut before moving to the next. “Did you figure out who he was?” she asked, trying to focus on what was relevant rather than her emotional reactions.

“He works for Halliwell.”

That brought her up short and she froze, sealant tube hovering in place over his eyebrow as she looked down at him. “Someone from Halliwell?”

He sighed again. “Yes, although I don’t know his name. He was one of those guys you interact with sometimes, but not that much. At least, I didn’t. You may have.” Pausing, he opened his eyes and peered up at her. “He’s human. A little taller than you. Dark hair but balding, and he apparently doesn’t care. Hasn’t gotten the hair treatments to get it back. Dark eyes. Little eyes. Made me think of a rat.”

Raven had to think about that one. While she did, she forced herself to get back to treating his injuries. She had met a lot of people during her time working for Halliwell.

“Jason Stillwell,” she finally said. “He worked in logistics and assignments.”

“Well, he and his goons—neither of whom I recognized—just kept wanting to know about where I went after I illegally took off and all. They asked over and over, wanting to know every little thing. Then they just kept asking if I knew… Did I know. Did I know. But they would never tell me what it was they wanted to know if I knew.”

“Not the most effective interrogation,” Raven said with a sigh. She sat back and looked at his face before going to her processor and getting him a glass of water and something to eat. Her mind reeled from the idea of someone in Halliwell being involved in… Well, she didn’t yet know what this was, but it was enough to abduct Blake and beat him up, so it definitely wasn’t anything legal.

“They took Nyx somewhere too,” Blake said miserably. “I don’t know what they’ve done to her either. Unlike Axel, she hasn’t answered at all.”

“Well,” Raven sighed, “I guess we’re going to have to find her too.”


14

After making sure that Blake had food and water, and Axel’s vital signs were still stable, Raven made herself a cup of coffee and some painkillers for the headache that was trying to drill its way from one temple to the other.

Blake sat on the floor next to Axel and Kyra. He leaned back against the sofa, and Raven wasn’t sure if he was even still awake.

“I’m alive,” he mumbled without opening his eyes.

“Good, because Nyx will kill me if you’re dead by the time I find her,” Raven said. “We need to figure out where she is so we can get your brain ironed out.”

“Sounds painful.”

“Shut up and help,” she snapped, then sighed. “Come on, Blake. Help me out here. She’s your ship.”

He sighed heavily and lifted his head back up. “You’re right. Okay. Where do we start?”

Raven drank half of her coffee. “Jason Stillwell. I didn’t really know him well while I worked in Halliwell. I think he worked in finance before transferring to logistics and assignments. He wasn’t usually the one who handled my assignments.”

“I think he handled mine,” Blake said, “although I didn’t usually talk to the people in the department. I just got the notice.”

She nodded. Raven had tended to deal with more of the people within the organization than he had.

“I really don’t remember much about him, though,” she went on. “He was always kind of weaselly, though. I never liked him, but I never thought he was into something illegal.” She sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. It felt like it was made out of steel, none of the tension having gone anywhere. “You were abducted out of a public place, which sounds kind of dumb…although it did work. But then they chose this planet, which was really kind of smart. People get warned off, and it’s not the most pleasant of places. Not a dumb thug but not a criminal mastermind either.”

“Sounds about right,” Blake agreed. “So where would someone not a total moron and not a total genius take an AI ship?”

Silvanus entered the conversation. “They wouldn’t be able to take her anywhere if she was still conscious, such as we are. They would have had to disengage her entirely and then slave her to another ship. That means they would be towing her, although they could make it appear that she was flying with them by choice.”

Raven nodded slowly as she tried to prod her brain into working through the problem. “It would make it a little more of an ordeal, and it might limit some of the places they want to go,” she theorized out loud. They wouldn’t want to go anywhere that would examine the ships too closely. If someone saw that an AI ship was being towed, they might start to ask questions. There could be legit reasons, but since their’s wasn’t, would they want to take the chance of being found out by going somewhere too populated?

That could narrow down their search.

“I think…” Blake began uncertainly.

She turned her head to look at him, seeing his brows knit and eyes focused on nothingness. “You think what?” she prompted gently.

His brows drew further down. “I think I can remember landing… I wasn’t totally coherent and they had my eyes covered, but I remember landing and then…a vehicle ride. It took a while to get to the building and city. I think the guys stayed in the building while I was there. I mean, most of them usually seemed to be involved in harassing me, and that happened often.”

“So they landed here and carted you off to town and then stuck around…” She thought it through. “It sounds possible that Nyx is still on the planet. Silvanus, can you look for her?”

“The transponder is off,” Blake said wryly. “We torched it when we ran away because we didn’t want anyone from Halliwell using it to find us.”

Raven stood and stretched. “We know,” she said. “Because we tried to use it to find you.” She walked the few steps to the console and took a seat, watching the screen as Silvanus began showing satellite imagery.

She heard a groan behind her as Blake stood up and came to stand behind her. “So how can you find her?”

“This is a primitive planet,” Silvanus answered.

“The elements in your ship aren’t going to be naturally occurring on this planet, nor will there be other similar ships. That means if we can scan deeply enough to find one of the substances in the ship then we can find her,” Raven further explained.

She heard him sigh overhead. “No wonder you were always better at this job than I was.”


15

“On the upside,” Raven said as she looked her gun over, “the ship is parked in an area with somewhat clearer air, so less chance of lighting it all on fire.” She holstered it and then crossed the cabin to her small weapons locker. “On the downside,” she went on, looking at Blake over her shoulder, “you still look like a corpse that was run over by a ground forces tank.”

“As always, your compassion is astounding,” Blake said dryly. “Although I can’t be too annoyed, since I feel like a corpse run over by a tank.”

Pulling out a second gun, she turned to face him fully. “Are you sure you’re up for this?”

He stepped forward and held his hand out for the weapon. “I’m sure,” he said. “Just like before, there’s no choice. Even with Kyra, you still need me for Nyx. They obviously have done something to her, so you need me to get her running again. No one knows her like I do.”

Raven blew out a breath as she sat down to pull her boots back on. Axel remained asleep beside the couch. Until that moment, Kyra had been watching over him, but now she stood up and peered at Raven with a nearly defiant expression. It was one that said Raven better not even try to leave her behind again.

“I’m about to partially ascend into the atmosphere,” Silvanus announced. “We will not get near to spaceborne again, but we’ll be able to quickly reach the clearing where I believe Nyx is located.”

“Will the natives be able to see us?” Raven asked as she sat down on the sofa, careful to watch her feet around the wolf.

“There’s a good chance that any looking at the sky will catch sight of us, but they will not be able to distinguish what we are. They should disregard us as something odd but not worth noting. Perhaps considered to be a bird, if they have birds on this planet,” the AI responded.

Blake sat beside her. They didn’t buckle in, because her ship only had one set of restraints since it wasn’t meant for multiple people, and they weren’t going spaceborne anyway. “I can live with that,” he said. “We’ll just get to be some UFO lore for Kona IV.”

Raven snorted a laugh. “Just what I always aspired to.”

She could feel the engines engage, and the ship shuddered slightly. As it did, she felt Blake’s hand wrap around hers. Her head snapped down to look at it, but she didn’t say anything in her surprise.

“Thank you, Raven,” he said without looking at her. “Thank you for coming to get me, and for helping me find Axel and Nyx. I probably would have died in that warehouse without you.”

Raven wasn’t really sure what to say to him. She swallowed down the emotion in her throat. “Well,” she said, a touch hoarsely, “you know me. I figure if anyone gets to kill you, it really should be me.” She smiled slightly at him.

He laughed quietly. “Fair enough.”

Neither spoke again until Silvanus had landed the ship. To avoid detection—at least easy detection—the AI had chosen an area to land that was a bit of a walk away from where they believed Nyx to be, but not too far. Raven was worried about Blake’s stamina, but he had been right that they didn’t have many options.

The ship touched down with a gentle thud and the door hissed as it depressurized and opened.

“Come on,” Raven said, just now letting go of his hand as she didn’t hesitate in moving to the door.

“Guard Axel, Silvanus,” Blake said as he followed.

Kyra made sure that Blake knew his place as she curved her body quickly between the two humans on their way out.

“I promise, Blake,” the AI replied.

They stepped off the short ramp out of the ship and immediately felt their boots sink slightly into semi-muddy dirt. Raven grumbled, looking back at the ship and hoping Silvanus didn’t have trouble taking off later.

Please tell Blake that I hate him,’ Kyra complained as they made their way along the squishy ground.

Raven was glad Blake couldn’t hear the cat. ‘I’m not going to tell him that. Besides, judging by the looks you’re giving him, he probably already knows.

There was a brief growl from low in the cat’s throat. Blake looked down at her with open concern. ‘Good,’ Kyra griped. ‘I hate you too, by the way. But I’m still willing to get my paws muddy for you.

Your dedication is touching, Kyra,’ Raven replied dryly.

One of those “looks” came her way, but she just stared back, unimpressed.

They left the clearing and entered a dense forest. Oversized roots rose up from every conceivable angle, desperately trying to break an ankle or two, or eight. They tread as quickly as they could while staying cautious. Kyra’s audible grumbling was nearly constant, and Raven wondered when she was going to stop to breathe.

“She hates me, doesn’t she?” Blake asked as he reached up and grabbed a low-hanging branch, pulling it back for Raven to pass.

“Pretty much,” she admitted. “She hasn’t really been a fan of yours for a while.”

He didn’t reply to that, just sighed and let the branch drop after he passed beneath it.

Somehow, the forest seemed to become denser the further they went. On the upside, though, the ground became dry and rocky, so there was less squishing to deal with and less Kyra-grumbles. Until she found that the small stones hurt her paws, and then they started up again.

Raven thought her big cat was tougher than that, but just wanted to torment her.

When they finally reached the edge of the forest, Raven held up a hand that brought them up short. She approached the tree line cautiously, peering out to see a shallow valley just ahead of them.

And there, sitting in the center, was the BHS Nyx.


16

“I can see two guards from here,” Raven said as they observed the ship and her captors from the safety of the trees and shadows. “I would guess at least one will be inside, monitoring the AI.”

“That would make sense,” Blake agreed. “Although it makes me want to lose my mind to think of their grubby hands and feet in my ship.”

She put her hand on his shoulder. “I know, but we’re going to fix that.”

He just nodded.

I think I can get down there without them noticing,’ Kyra said. ‘I can take at least one, but not the one in the ship.

Raven repeated what the cat said, then added, “The one in the ship is the one to be worried about. If there is one there, but let’s act like there is. If there is, though, we don’t want them to hear us coming. They may be able to do any number of things against us.”

They watched for a few minutes more to see that one guard remained stationed in front of the door, while the other one paced around the ship. Neither of them seemed particularly energetic in their jobs, and if there was one inside, they never saw them, but she still planned to act like there was.

Kyra slunk out of the trees and skirted a wide circle toward the ship. She tried to time it so she and the moving guard would reach the backside at the same time, out of sight of the guard at the door.

Raven watched her cat for as long as she could, until Kyra dipped and turned out of sight. There was an anxious pit in her stomach, worrying about what might have been on the other side of the ship that they hadn’t seen.

She waited as long as she could tolerate before, ‘Kyra?

I’m fine,’ the cat replied impatiently, as if annoyed by Raven’s hovering, but she still answered her and didn’t just let her sit and worry. ‘This guard won’t be a problem anymore.

“Kyra’s done,” was all Raven said, pulling her gun and starting down the same wide path that the cat had taken.

“Promise you’re still a crack-shot?” Raven asked quietly.

“Yes,” he said. “I may not have many skills, but that is still one.”

She rolled her eyes slightly. “The self-deprecation routine is getting old.”

“Sorry.”

“Just stop talking.”

She walked them to the edge of their weapons’ range, her eyes on the guard in front of the ship most of the time. The closer they got, the more she decided he really wasn’t guarding anything. In fact, he might have been sleeping standing up. She’d heard that some people could do that, but she still found it hard to believe.

They stopped and Blake brought up his gun. He straightened his stance and looked down the line of the shot, then pulled the trigger.

She watched the energy bolt fly across the long space in between, just as the guard seemed to shift slightly to one side. The bolt hit his shoulder, which yanked him immediately out of his stupor. His eyes went wide and he shouted with surprise, bringing his gun to bear although he clearly had no clue where the shot had come from.

Blake cursed aloud and fired another shot. This one took the guard down, but the damage was done.

By the time he pulled the trigger that second time, Raven was already sprinting a wide arc toward the ship—bringing her nearer to the vessel without putting herself in the line of fire. She was halfway to Nyx when the guard dropped, and she knew the path was clear for her now.

Raven leaped over the body of the guard and raced up to the sealed door. She yanked down the override pad and punched in the code, which she remembered from when she and Blake had been together.

The door opened but the ramp did not descend. It was one of the backup protections the ship offered, but right now, it was just a pain in the ass.

The edge of the door was roughly level with the top of her head. She gripped it and began to pull herself up, but as she did, an energy bolt sizzled through the air overhead and she released with a curse. Apparently, there was someone inside.

After a moment, she could hear his voice. The words ‘attack’ and ‘send help’ were pretty clear.

“Damn it all,” she hissed.

She again gripped the edge of the door and began pulling herself up, hoping that the distress call he was making was enough to keep him distracted. The tone of his voice was pretty panicked, so that worked in her favor…until the call ended and then he was likely to shoot her in the head rather than try to talk to her.

After a moment of struggling, she chastised herself for not working out more, but she managed to pull herself up.

She saw the third man and his gun, ready to fire, and rolled out of the way just barely in time. The energy weapon left a burn scar on poor Nyx’s deck plates.

Raven rolled back to her back and lashed out with one leg. The guard screamed as her boot connected with his knee and he fell to the floor. With the same foot, she kicked the gun away from his hand, but he managed to grab her ankle in the process. He started pulled her closer and she kicked at his face and hands with her other foot.

He let go when her heel caught him between the eyes, and he gripped his face with both hands while she scrambled back.

She got to her feet before he did and lunged forward, grabbing his hair and ramming her knee into his face. She then manhandled him across the small space and threw him out the door.

“Almost got me,” Blake said a moment later as his hands gripped the ledge and he tried to pull himself up.

His struggle was obvious, though, and she reached down to take his hand and help him up.

“Get your ship working,” she said. “That guy called for help, and I don’t know how long we have.”


17

“Oh, what did they do to you, girl?” Raven heard Blake wail from below deck where he was checking over the AI core. What followed after that, while Raven and Kyra either stood tensely or paced the small upper cabin, was a long string of colorful language that Raven was frankly shocked Blake even knew.

“You better hope I don’t tell your mother,” she called down.

She knew how upset he was, but she wanted to somehow break the tension and maybe make him laugh a little. The man couldn’t focus that well when he was so upset, and she knew that.

“You better not tell my mother!” he shouted back. “I think I’ve upset her enough lately. She’s threatened to rip my ear right off my head.”

Raven smirked at the image as she moved back to the open door, peering out over the low valley to the trees and hills beyond. There was only one road, which was little more than a wide dirt path, so if they were coming by land vehicle, that was their only way in. Of course, it did not escape her thoughts that there was another ship that had towed Nyx here so that might somehow appear…but one problem at a time.

So far, the coast was still clear.

“They were effective but unskilled,” Blake shouted through the ship’s floor and the narrow open corridor that led down to the core maintenance area. “Basically, they reached in and yanked out wires, or what passes for wires. That Stillwell bastard had a code to let them into it.”

That sounded...really bad. “Can you fix it?”

There was a pause long enough to make her sick with nerves. “Yeah,” he finally said. “But I don’t know if I can do it fast. This is a big mess.”

She gripped her hair and tugged with frustration. “We can’t stay here forever,” she said more hotly than she meant to. She glanced back out the door, which was when she saw two land vehicles coming down the road and into the valley.

They didn’t have long at all.

“Even less now!” she shouted, watching the vehicles roll slowly toward her. “What CAN you do? We’re about to have company!”

Again, an uncomfortably long pause. She was calculating when the cars would be in range and how effective her gun would be on vehicles like that.

“Call Silvanus!” Blake finally said.

“What?!”

“Call Silvanus! Get her shiny silver butt over here,” he shouted, speaking so fast that she almost had trouble understanding him. “The only thing I can do is put her back into the state she was in when she was flown here. Silvanus needs to hack into that tap and slave Nyx to her own systems, and fly her by remote out of here!”

Silvanus, did you hear that?

I’m already on my way.

“She’s on her way!”

There was the sound of clanking and then a small crash before Blake came bolting up the stairs. “We’re going to have to get onto Silvanus before we fly out of here. I can’t guarantee that Nyx will have life support while flying remote.”

“Of course not,” Raven muttered, looking at the approaching cars.

They were close enough now, so she lifted her gun and took aim. She dialed the shot up to high. It weakened the impact, but gave her more of a chance to hit something with the wide bolt dispersion. She fired at the front vehicle. It hit and slowed the car, though it didn’t stop, so she fired again.

The energy bolt hit one of the tires and it blew out, sending the vehicle half-spinning before grounding to a halt.

“There’s one,” she said, but even as she did, the men from inside were getting out and rushing toward them. “Where did they even get these guys?!”

“They were probably the search parties out looking for me,” Blake said, taking aim and taking one out.

I am connecting with Nyx now,’ Silvanus reported. ‘Be ready to jump.

“Jump?” Raven wondered out loud.

“What?” Blake asked, looking at her briefly.

The ship around them began to shake and she realized that Silvanus was coming in for a landing almost on top of them. At least the mud hadn’t held on, she reflected. They had enough troubles as it was.

The other AI ship seemed so close, she could almost touch it as it lowered itself for a landing directly between them and the incoming hostiles. She effectively provided a big shiny shield between them, but already Raven could hear weapons hitting her outer hull and she knew that they didn’t have long.

Silvanus fired the thrusters in a sequence, Raven could hear them go on and off, and spun the ship just enough that the door roughly lined up with the door out of Nyx.

“Right,” Raven said. “Jump.”

Kyra didn’t waste any time with talking. She just backed up toward the wall and then took off at a run, vaulting over the gap with all the grace that a cat possessed, and that was considerable when it needed to be. Raven didn’t feel nearly as much confidence that she and Blake would look half as good.

“Go,” Raven all but ordered Blake, knowing him the more injured of the two and wanting him to have the first chance.

He looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn’t. Instead, he repeated what the cat had done—backing up to the wall and then starting to run. The cabin didn’t give them much room to work, but he got up just enough steam for a graceless crash landing on the other side. He rolled into the far wall, nearly wedging himself under the sofa.

Then it was Raven’s turn. The sound of weapons fire was getting closer and Silvanus was starting to sway under the assault and trying to hold perfectly steady in atmospheric flight, which she wasn’t ideal for.

Raven backed up to the wall, took a deep breath, ran, and jumped—

—and collided with the very edge of the open door. Her hands and part of her chest were inside, but since Silvanus had shifted at the last moment, the rest of her was outside and she shouted her dismay.

Kyra jumped forward and grabbed the back of Raven’s jacket. Her teeth nearly cut Raven’s skin, but the human didn’t complain as the big cat strained against gravity and a lack of traction to help pull her human up. Moments later, human hands joined in, and between the three of them, Raven collapsed onto the deck.

The door shut, and Silvanus took off into the atmosphere once again, heading for space with the sound of energy bolts hitting her from below.


18

“I think I bruised a rib,” Blake groaned as he pulled himself onto the sofa.

Raven held her own ribcage as she leaned back against the wall. “I think I dented my sternum,” she muttered, feeling exactly where she had impacted the ledge of the door. Kyra gently bumped her head against Raven’s and then laid down next to her. Raven didn’t pet the intelligent cat, because she had been sharply informed that that was insulting, but she did rest her arm over Kyra’s back.

Silvanus shuddered all around them, and it jostled Raven until she groaned again.

At least it didn’t take long for them to get out of range of the guys on the surface. And soon, although not soon enough for bruised ribs, the shaking stopped as they breached the final layer of the planet’s atmosphere and reached space.

“I continue to maintain control over Nyx and we are now in clear space. I do not presently see any other ships in range,” Silvanus reported.

“Let’s hope it stays that way,” Raven opined optimistically. She groaned again as she pushed herself to her feet and sat at the console. “We need to find a place to hide from any prying eyes so we can repair Nyx. Let’s take a look at what’s around us.”

“Analyzing,” the AI announced. “I have also disabled our transponder code.”

This brought Blake’s attention to them. “You can just disable it like that? Nyx had to fry ours.”

Raven smiled wryly at him. “That’s because you ditched while still under contract. When you get paid off and go solo, you get the ability.”

“Huh.”

That was the end of it, apparently.

Raven slumped back in her chair. At least some of the ache from her midsection was easing. She didn’t think she’d actually damaged anything, just had been sore from the collision and the adrenaline was receding.

A few moments later, she heard an animal’s groan and instantly knew that it wasn’t Kyra.

“Axel!” Blake exclaimed.

Raven turned to see the wolf lifting his shaggy head. After looking around, he lowered it to the floor again but with his eyes open and looking around.

“Hey, Axel,” Raven said.

Even though the space was exactly the same, having Axel awake suddenly made the small cabin seem even smaller.

“He says hi,” Blake said with a relieved smile, sitting on the floor next to his companion. If he was still in any pain, it didn’t show.

Kyra pulled herself to her feet and padded over, head-butting the wolf. He lifted his head and licked her lazily, which she accepted with surprising graciousness before laying down next to him.

“Silvanus, can you run the processor for something for Axel to eat?” Raven asked, letting the pile of creature just…be a pile.

“Some, yes,” the AI replied, “but I would keep the meal small. The drugs in his system may make him nauseated as it clears his system. I don’t imagine he wants to vomit, nor do you want to clean it up.”

Raven pursed her lips. “Good call.”

A few moments later, Raven pulled a small bowl of chicken and brown rice from the processor port. She carried it over and handed it to Blake, before the AI chirped for Raven’s attention.

“I have located somewhere I think suitable,” she announced. Raven sat at the console and watched a map of the space around them pop up. There was a colorful blob highlighted toward the top left. “This is the Navari Nebula. It will limit our thruster power, but little else aside from obscuring sensors trying to pierce into it.”

“Are we going to find any other ships in there?” Raven asked with a wry smirk. “It’ll be like when there’s one great hiding spot and every kid goes for it during hide-and-seek.” It was not surprising, in retrospect, that Raven had always been really good at being the seeker.

Now she had to play the other role.

“I wouldn’t know, Raven,” the AI replied. If she hadn’t been a computer, Raven would’ve said she deadpanned. “I can’t see inside.”

“I guess we’ll just have to go and find out, won’t we?”

“I guess so.”


19

Silvanus found a place within the nebula for both ships. If there was anyone else hiding here, they couldn’t see them.

“Alright, Silvanus. What’s the status of Nyx’s systems now?” Raven asked, running her hands through her hair. She needed a shower, but wasn’t sure when the right time to do that would come back around. “Blake is gonna need to get over there to work on fixing her, but I am sure he would like to breathe while he’s doing it.”

“Yes, I would imagine so,” Silvanus agreed. “Her systems are limited, but I’ve managed to restore artificial gravity and essential life support. That’s roughly it until she is in better working order.”

“It’s enough,” Blake said. “I just need to get over.” He turned to Axel, idly scratching the wiry grey fur of his neck. “You need to stay here, my friend. You still have some recovering to do and don’t need to be dealing with a half-functioning ship.”

The wolf seemed accepting of the idea, settling back down on the floor.

Blake pushed himself to his feet with a short grunt, then dusted himself off. Of course, there wasn’t much dust on the ship thanks to its self-cleaning process, but it was habit when you often had animal hair clinging to you.

“Do you need help?” Raven offered, getting to her feet.

“No, I can handle it,” he said with a tired smile. “My ship, after all. I know her best.”

Raven nodded. “Of course,” she said. “Silvanus, our connector port wasn’t damaged on the planet, right?”

“No, Raven. It is functional. I’m in the process of connecting to Nyx now.”

“Silvanus, you’re beautiful,” Blake said.

Looking at him with surprise, Raven started laughing. He looked at his ex-wife with a confused half-smile until the AI explained, “Raven has a habit of saying that as well.”

He chuckled once he understood.

“Connection secured, but possibly transient. There is a current in this nebula that may move the ships, so be quick,” Silvanus informed him.

“Confidence-inspiring, thank you.”

The door opened to reveal the retractable tunnel from Silvanus that connected one ship to the other. The tunnel was not ideal for ship-to-ship movements, usually being used just for ship-to-station docking.

He took an audible deep breath and then dashed through the small tunnel. Raven heard the hissing of Nyx’s door opening, and then closing again. She assumed he was inside once Silvanus closed her own door.

“Are there communications?” Raven asked. “Will we know how it’s going?”

“I’m afraid communications are not working on Nyx’s side, so I cannot provide that,” Silvanus said, sounding apologetic. “However, because of my connection to the ship, I will be able to tell you the progress he is making.”

Raven nodded. She didn’t understand why, but she felt disappointed about that first part. She tried not to think about it.

“How’s Axel doing, Kyra?” she asked instead, slouching down in her chair with her head against the back. She closed her eyes, feeling weariness sinking deep into her bones.

He is recovering,’ the cat reported. They couldn’t talk to each other using their chips, but they still managed that magical animal communication. ‘He is working very hard to not vomit all over your floor.

“Well… I definitely appreciate that.” Raven blew out a breath. Too many references to vomit in her ship had come up. “I’m going to take a shower. Call me if anything changes.” She got up from the chair and went into her little bedroom and then her little bathroom, wondering how long it had been since she was in here last.

It didn’t really seem long enough to need another shower, and yet it also seemed like it had been a decade or two. She felt older, after a day like this.

The pollution, the sweat from the adrenaline, mucking through the mud… The fighting and the running for her life, jumping between spaceships…

Yeah, it had been a crazy day.

She stripped off her dirty clothes and tossed them in the corner, briefly considering just burning them. She didn’t know if she would ever be able to get Kona IV out of them. For now, she’d just do her best to get it off herself.

You need to eat and drink some water,’ Silvanus intruded on Raven’s solitude. ‘Your blood pressure is above its normal range because you’re dehydrated, and you are greatly fatigued, partly because you haven’t given your body enough fuel.

I’m just not hungry,’ Raven replied, even though she knew the AI was right. Sometimes the computer was more like her mother than the ship’s computer consciousness.

I’m afraid that’s irrelevant,’ the AI responded evenly. ‘Your body requires the fuel to continue functioning properly. You wouldn’t let me avoid a re-fuel if I said I didn’t feel like it, would you?

Raven grunted by way of reply, scrubbing her hands through her hair and cleaning it of the sweat and grime. She hated it when Silvanus was right.

There will be a meal and a ten-ounce glass of water waiting for you after your shower,’ Silvanus went on. ‘Finish them both, please.

“Yes, mother,” Raven muttered.

Silvanus didn’t reply to that.


20

By the time Raven was done eating and drinking her water, Silvanus announced that Blake had repaired Nyx and the other AI ship was running through its startup sequence.

Once life support was back to full capacity, Blake got Axel and they loaded up onto Nyx so everyone could have some space, but they weren’t going anywhere. The two ships remained side by side in the cover of the nebula. Silvanus and Nyx connected so communications could be open between everyone.

“Nyx, how are you doing?” Raven asked. She was stretched out on her couch, staring at the cabin’s ceiling while Kyra lay sprawled on the floor beside her.

“I am better. Thank you, Raven,” Nyx’s more lilting, musical voice returned. Silvanus had a rather deep, no-nonsense tone, especially in comparison. “They did a hurried sabotage job, which meant it did take me out but not deeply enough to permanently incapacitate me in any way.”

“And we are all grateful for that,” Raven said. “How about you, Axel?”

Nyx’s translated his response from the neural chip into a masculine digital voice. “I am also better, although still a little wobbly on my feet. I do not like this drug.”

No one could blame him for that.

“And you, Blake?” she asked last, her voice a little softer. “Are you better now that you’ve got them both back in your head?”

He laughed. “I am.”

“Good. Well, let’s figure out what’s going on then.”

“I’ve been trying to remember more,” Blake jumped in. “As time passes, I feel like some other pieces are coming back to me, and having Nyx and Axel okay again has definitely helped.” He paused. “But even remembering more, I don’t feel like I know much of anything.”

“Tell me what you remember,” Raven said.

He sighed loudly enough for the speakers to pick up on. “They asked me a lot about where I went and what I did after I ran away from Halliwell,” he said. He had already told her that, but she didn’t interrupt. “Now I recall that I thought, at the time, that they seemed really…upset about it? They seemed angry, almost. Like I had personally offended them. I tried to apologize for taking off on the company and pointing out that I was paid off now—which I think I have you to thank for, I’m guessing—but they didn’t seem to care. It wasn’t about that, but about me taking off.”

Raven tried to think through that one, but it didn’t really seem to make a lot of sense. Why would they care so much? She got why it had been a problem and they wanted him back, he had basically committed theft without being paid off, but that was something different than such a personal investment.

“They also,” he was going on, “asked me…something about the ‘others’. I asked what others, but they wouldn’t explain. They just kept asking the same questions, as if my answer would change.”

“They didn’t ask me anything,” Axel jumped in, “but I could overhear some stuff. I think they forgot, at times, that I was more than a big dog.”

How they forget is beyond me, but people so often do,’ Kyra said, and her voice was repeated aloud in Nyx’s cabin.

“What did you hear, Axel?” Raven asked.

“I didn’t really understand the context, but they were worried about an item. It sounded like some possession of theirs had gone missing, and they believed that Blake was somehow to blame.”

Raven frowned. “Well, technically, that was true. He’d taken you guys.”

There was a strange grunt and then, “I’m aware, but it didn’t sound like that was what they meant. It was something that was supposed to be a secret.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Raven said. “They are obviously up to something illegal.”

She closed her eyes and let out a heavy sigh, resting her elbow over her head. That weariness was still deep in her bones. The food and water had helped, though, despite a reluctance to admit it.

This somehow involved Blake. Did it involve his ship too?

There was something that they thought he’d taken.

It involved “others” of some sort.

Illegal activities. Halliwell involvement, at least one employee. Halliwell was a bounty hunter company. What sort of illegal activities could you best make use of there?

Illegal use of ships…or illegal items…items on ships…

“Smuggling.”

She said the word rather suddenly and apparently loudly, judging by the dirty look she got from her cat. She just gave Kyra a dirty look back.

“They were smuggling something,” Raven clarified. “I’m not sure what or how, but it’s what makes sense, right? Something illegal, involving an item of some type, and ships, and all the different places a bounty hunter goes. Places that they’re allowed to go that others aren’t!”

“It is a logical conclusion,” Silvanus agreed, “although it’s not proof until we have evidence of such. We need to know what they were smuggling.”

Everyone was quiet as they thought through the possibilities.

“It can’t be people,” Blake said. “Not unless they’re tiny. Bounty hunter ships are too small to carry anyone else without noticing, and I think that would be too hard to get on and off without the hunter or ship knowing.”

“I’m sure they were able to put programs into the ship systems to help hide it from the AI,” Silvanus pointed out.

Raven thought. “It has to be small… Drugs or guns, right? There are plenty of either that’s outlawed in Earth space, and many of those from Earth-Allied space as well.”

“I think I might be able to help with figuring that out,” Nyx announced.


21

“Before I fully lost consciousness, you could say,” Nyx explained, “I became aware of them doing something in my lower cabin. They were accessing an area that doesn’t house anything, as far as I’m aware. Once they had accessed the space, I realized that I was unable to use my internal sensors in that area. However, I lost awareness at that point.”

“How would someone be able to get onto you to access this area without you knowing about it, though?”

“I believe this compartment can be accessed from the outside and I am sensor blind in that area, then they could get to it.”

Blake snorted. “Most of the time, they’d have to be in a space-suit to get there,” he said. “That’s dedication.”

Raven smiled wryly, but the feeling all over was tight. “We need to get into that compartment and fix Nyx’s sensors so she can examine it. I’m sure whatever was there isn’t there now, but maybe there’s a clue left behind.”

“I’m on it,” Blake said.

Tension got the better of Raven as she waited, and she got off the couch to start pacing her small cabin. Every other step had her lifting her feet to cross over Kyra, who refused to move.

It seemed to take forever before she heard from him again. “I’ve got it!”

“I’m scanning the compartment now,” Nyx said. A few moments later, she continued, “I am finding traces of a substance. Running analysis. Comparing to database.” Another long pause, and she said, “The common name of this substance is Exotic K.”

Raven’s head snapped up. “Exotic K?!”

Kyra also lifted her head, a little slower. ‘I take it this name means something to you?

“It’s been all over the news wires for months now,” she said. “It’s outlawed in every corner of Earth and Earth-Allied space, with pretty big penalties if you’re caught with it,” she explained. “But that’s stopping, you know, no one. It has a high, high mortality rate, but that’s not stopping anyone either.”

“And they had that stuff on my ship?!” Blake almost screamed.

“That explains a lot, though,” Raven said, “about their reaction to it all. The others they talked about… It must be other hunters they’re using as unwitting mules?”

There was a long pause, then she heard from Blake, Kyra, and Axel. “As what?”

She sighed. “Don’t you guys ever watch the old movies or shows? Anything? No? Okay. It’s just an old term for someone who carried drugs. Usually in ways a lot less pleasant than this.”

“Okay…” Blake said uncertainly. “Anyways. Yes. I’m betting they have way more than just me, but, I mean, that’s kind of risky too, isn’t it?” He paused. “I mean, in more than just the obvious way. I mean, like, hunters can be a transient bunch.”

A thought popped into Raven’s head…and she instantly didn’t want to say it.

So, no one said anything for a while.

“This is a suspiciously long silence,” Blake said.

“I really don’t want to say this…”

“You? Are afraid to say something?”

She groaned and winced, rubbing the back of her neck. “What if…they are just using the hunters who aren’t as good as some others?”

Knowing she had brought up a sore subject, she was waiting for an angry retort, but instead, he just sounded tired. “That makes sense,” he said. “I bet it was in my ship when I ran off, and they got really worried. Then angry…” He sighed. “Oh, crap… Rave…” He sounded pretty emotional, and she had no idea how to make it better.

“It is a logical assumption,” Silvanus began, “that someone at Halliwell could be adjusting the financial numbers against you as well. For those hunters not making great deals of money, it is likely easy to adjust those numbers in small ways and keep you in debt longer.”

“Son of a bitch,” Blake groaned. “That would make sense, too.”

“We’ve got to talk to some of the others,” Raven said. She didn’t want to let Blake go off on some pity-party. They couldn’t really afford it while they were playing hide-and-seek in a nebula. She needed to figure this out and figure out how to fix it so they didn’t have to both go on the run forever. “I’m willing to bet that none of them know they’re participating, because that sets things up well for the group running it. They may still be able to help, though, and we can try to confirm our suspicions.”

“So…we have to look for the bad hunters,” Blake said.

“The ones who have been at the company the longest without paying off,” Raven replied dryly. She tried to put a top on her irritation, but she didn’t have much spare energy to do that with. “We need to find them without alerting Halliwell to the fact that we’re tracking any of them.”

“I believe we can do that,” Nyx said. “I think with the computing link between Silvanus and I, we can penetrate some of Halliwell’s systems behind an information wall that will keep them from knowing it’s us.”

“I have not done this before, but I believe that Nyx is correct,” Silvanus agreed. “This will not, however, be a swift process. You’ll need to give us some time, but we will keep you apprised of our progress, as always.”

“Then, ladies, get to it. Do your magic.” Raven smiled tiredly, thinking about how grateful she was for her companions. Then she thought about the man on the other ship and said, “Blake?”

“Yeah?”

“Get some rest.”


22

They found Marlo Kye sitting in a booth at one of the seediest bars in existence on Starbase Marauder.

Once both ships were back to full capacity, they were able to fly out of the nebula and very carefully fly on course for the nearest hunter that met their criteria. Marlo had said he was available to chat with them. Since he had met them both before, and Blake was almost a friend, the call from them was less strange than it could have seemed.

Still looking over their shoulders, Raven and Blake sat in the booth across from him and Raven gestured for the server. He came over and took their orders, then Raven paid to cover the tab for all three of them.

“Thanks,” Marlo said, nodding his hairless, pale green head. “Quite the honor, Miz Sharpe. I read about you in the news recently.”

Blake looked at her with surprise. It took her a moment to recall that he had been somewhat busy of late and wouldn’t have seen the news. She didn’t really want to talk about it, since ending up in the news was never her favorite thing to do.

“You didn’t hear?” Marlo said with surprise. “She caught the shapeshifter assassin.”

“You did?” He blinked at her, brows up.

“Yeah,” she said simply. “It sucked, if you want to know, but she’s in jail again. I think they’re keeping her in a medical coma until they can be sure of their means of keeping her confined.”

“Wow,” was all Blake said.

“Anyway.” Raven turned to Marlo. “That’s not what we’re here to talk about it, as I’m sure you figured.”

He nodded again. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”

Although they had discussed the best ways to approach this on the way to the star base, Raven still didn’t feel confident. Mostly, she didn’t know if there was a good way to approach this.

“We have pretty strong reason to believe that at least one person inside Halliwell, possibly more, are up to illegal activities and are using their hunters to do it,” Raven said, playing it straight.

Marlo didn’t reply right away. His copper-colored eyes (all three of them) shifted from Raven to Blake and back again before he lowered his gaze to the table. For the next couple of minutes, he sat so still that someone might have thought he’d died. Fortunately, they knew him well enough to recognize a trait of his species.

Blake and Raven exchanged a gaze, then waited to see what Marlo had to say…assuming he had anything to say. One could rarely ever predict an Aloan.

Finally, Marlo blinked and looked up at them again. “I think you’re right.”

Raven’s dark brows rose with surprise. She had expected more shock, and to have to make a case. She waited for him to elaborate, then prodded him a little when he didn’t. “You do?”

“Yes,” he said. “I have had suspicions that something was going on for a while now, but I didn’t have anything to go on.” His eyes shifted between them again. “What do you think is going on?”

It was time to go all-in now. “Drug smuggling.”

Marlo made a strange noise in his throat that wasn’t close enough to a word for their neural chips to translate. “That would make sense.”

“People are saying that a lot lately,” Raven murmured, mostly to herself but Blake smirked.

“What was that?” Marlo asked.

Raven shook her head and moved them on. “What made you suspicious?”

He went still again for a little while before answering. “My assignments,” he said. “Not the assignments themselves, they’d always been pretty standard work, but it seemed that I was always being dispatched to stations and colonies not in Earth-Allied space. I’m used to not being put to work in Earth space, but I always used to be in Allied space. Then for the past several months, that has not been the case. My first ports are always in neutral space, before my hunts take me back to Allied space.”

“Neutral stations…” Raven repeated thoughtfully.

“I never noticed that,” Blake said, his brows knitting. “But yeah, for those last months, all of mine were too.”

Marlo inclined his head.

“The drug is only illegal in Earth and Allied areas. They would be free and clear at a non-allied station. They just needed you guys to get it into those areas, where someone would be able to pick it up,” Raven theorized out loud.

“How are they doing it on an AI ship, though? Without hunter or AI knowing?” Marlo asked.

Raven and Blake filled him in on what they had found on Blake’s ship. Without saying anything else, the Aloan stood and left the bar. The humans looked at each other and then followed, since Raven had already given enough money to cover these drinks and a few more. The server would have a good tip.

They followed Marlo to the docking ring. He never looked back or acknowledged them until they reached his port.

“You were able to fix your ship’s sensors to read the compartment?” Marlo asked Blake without looking back.

“Yes,” Blake answered and gave him a quick explanation.

“Then let us see what Kavi can find.” The port doors opened and let them into the tunnel, closing behind them and letting them through into the ship.

Marlo’s ship looked similar in the interior, although the furniture was slightly altered for his Aloan body. On the floor was a six-legged animal that looked like a combination of a dog and a fish, which Raven knew to be native to Aloa.

“That’s Fanar,” Marlo introduced on his way to the lower cabin. The dog-fish lifted his head, looked at them, then went back to sleep…or Raven thought that’s what was happening.

Neither of them left the upper cabin, since they knew that Marlo wouldn’t appreciate them being in his ship’s core. However, they knew that things were going to get very crowded in the upper cabin when Marlo came back. It felt crowded with just the two of them standing there.

They didn’t speak, just stood there and waited anxiously.

The Aloan finally returned. “Kavi, tell me what you see,” he said.

After a moment, the ship’s voice came over its speakers. Just like with Marlo, the language was first Aloan, but translated almost instantly into their minds.

“There is a small block of a substance,” she reported. “I am analyzing. Substance has been identified. Common name of Exotic K.”

Marlo had apparently heard about this just like they had, because all three of his eyes started to spin before stopping after a moment. “I cannot believe they would put such a thing in my ship. Do you know what could have happened to me?”

“You could have been arrested and put in prison,” Blake said.

“At best!” Marlo said, his voice rising in agitation. “If a raider had learned there was Exotic K in my hold?”

That hadn’t even occurred to Raven, and suddenly, she felt a hole open in her stomach that threatened to swallow her. “They would kill you.”


23

Although it left a bad taste in all of their mouths, they agreed that Marlo should go on to his scheduled port. It would put him soundly back in Allied space and give the smugglers the chance to get the substance off his ship. They thought this best so that it took the danger off him, and also kept the people in Halliwell from knowing that he knew.

It bought them all some time.

They decided he’d have some sudden ship repairs needed when Halliwell called with the next assignment that sent him to neutral space, however.

“What do we do now?” Blake asked with a long sigh as they walked around the docking ring, away from Marlo’s ship and toward their own.

“How should I know?” Raven retorted, managing to pull back some of the edge to her voice at the last minute, if just barely.

“Well, I have no clue either!” he replied with similar aggravation, stopping and turning toward her. “I’m the one who was in the middle of all this…and nearly got bones broken because of it. Now people I know are in danger too!”

She also stopped and faced him. “Do you really think now is the t—”

A gunshot interrupted her.

The old-fashioned metal round whizzed through the air between them and ricocheted off a bulkhead. They both gasped and spun to see where it had come from, which turned out to be a man standing at the end of the corridor. Raven knew in an instant that she didn’t recognize him, but he had to be associated with Halliwell.

He was also standing in the way of where they needed to go.

They spun on their heels and sprinted in the opposite direction just as another bullet just barely missed them.

Silvanus!’ Raven shouted in her mind, just as she was sure Blake was calling to Nyx. ‘Get the ship ready to take off, and fast! We’ve got a guy trying to kill us!

Raven!’ Kyra said with irritation. ‘I just can’t leave you alone for one minute, can I?

Apparently not…

They rushed around a curve in the corridor, and Raven spotted an open access corridor along the floor. She grabbed Blake by the shirt and shoved him bodily down toward it. Raven followed so close, she was nearly on his back, but they crawled inside and then back enough that they hoped the man wouldn’t see them.

A moment later—barely—they heard the heavy pounding footsteps of their pursuer, and Raven bit her lip. The steps got closer and closer until they saw the very edge of a pair of boots thunder past the vent, and keep going.

Neither moved right away, of course. Raven breathed out and counted in her mind, waiting to hear if the steps returned. They didn’t, at least not immediately, so they crawled back out of the access tunnel and sprinted back the other way. She knew the sounds of their steps might alert their pursuer, but at least they were now running in the right direction.

Fortunately, there wasn’t anyone else in the corridor as they rushed through it, looking for their docking ports.

As the ports came into sight, Raven could hear the sound of their pursuer once again and she made an angry noise in her throat. They put on what speed they could for the last of it, just barely making their turns into the tunnels that would lead them to their ships. A bullet hit the wall just beside Blake as he made the turn and yelped.

Rushing down the corridors, the doors shut behind them. The man reached Raven’s door just as it was almost closed. He stuck the barrel of the gun inside the crack and tried to fire, but the door squished the weapon before he could pull the trigger.

Raven threw herself into her ship and the door shut.

“Silvanus! Go!”


24

They were hiding again.

It was another nebula, but the game was the same. Someone from their old company had it out for them and they had to find somewhere to lay low until they could figure out how to evade this next round of bad guys.

Raven sat at the edge of her sofa with her head on her hands. She had roughly one nerve left, and it was wearing thing.

“I’m concerned about your blood pressure, Raven,” Silvanus said.

“So am I,” Raven groaned.

What was it they said? No good deed goes unpunished? She had only gotten into this infernal mess because she couldn’t leave Blake stranded. Why did he have to call on her? He knew other people out in the big universe, surely.

She tried to think of how long it had been, and how long she’d been awake…

When she couldn’t, she got up and made a cup of coffee.

The speakers chirped, and Blake’s voice followed. The moment she heard him, she had to stifle a groan. She allowed herself the grimace, though, since it was audio-only.

“What are we going to do, Rave?”

“How should I know?” she snapped, then took a long drink of coffee. “You keep acting like I somehow know the right thing to do about everything, and you know what? I really freaking don’t!”

“Well, you’re the big hotshot who gets her name in the papers! Why don’t you know everything?!”

“Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me!” she shouted, glaring angrily at the air. “Your ego is still just as fragile as ever. Can’t handle having your wife do better than you at something so you have to go boohoo and take your toys home! And you know what? I end up having to do everything alone!”

“You were always so good at it, why would you even NEED help?”

“Maybe I needed my husband,” she snapped back. “Maybe I needed some freaking support! Maybe I needed to not be abandoned!” She threw her coffee cup at the bulkhead, where the cup shattered and the hot liquid ran down the metal as her large cat shot out of the missile’s way. “Maybe I needed to be left alone once I was and not dragged into your damn mess, running for my life, and STILL having to deal with your childish self!”

“Maybe it’s kind of hard to live with the idea that you and I are only in this mess because I suck at my job, you know? I got you into this mess, and every mess. You know how that makes me feel, knowing that?” He paused and she heard a sigh. When he started talking again, he wasn’t shouting. “I’m sorry, Rave, okay? I’m sorry I left you, and I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I’m just a selfish jerk, okay?”

Raven took a breath and rubbed her hands over her face. “Not all the time,” she finally said. “I wouldn’t have married you if that was the case.” Sighing heavily herself, she looked at the shattered cup and realized what she’d done. She went to the maintenance locker and pulled out some cleaning supplies, starting to clean up. “When you left me, it hurt. Really bad.”

“You may not believe this, but it hurt me too,” he said, sounding defeated. “I knew I made a mistake almost the instant I made it, but I couldn’t come back. I had to prove something to myself and not just become a bitter. You deserved better than to deal with me like that. I hoped I could sort myself out and then grovel and we could try again, but you started divorce proceedings and were…really angry.”

“Were you surprised?” she returned as she got to her knees and started cleaning.

“No,” he said. “I wasn’t.”

“Your ego doesn’t seem to have changed much, though,” she pointed out, but the rancor had already fled fast.

He grunted softly. “I thought I’d changed. And I think I had…but I feel so unbelievably bad for getting us into this mess…and so inadequate to get us out of it. This is a serious mess, Rave. After what Marlo brought up, about if raiders had found out, I realize how close I could have come to getting killed, and now the people that know us best are trying to kill us both. I could get you killed, Rave! If that happens, I hope they get me too, because I don’t think I could live with that.”

Raven swallowed hard, sitting back on her heels for a moment. “You’re not, like, an idiot, you know? Just because you weren’t stellar at the job, don’t use that as an excuse to not try to do things.”

There was a long pause. “You’re right,” he finally said quietly.

“I can’t do this all alone. I can’t figure everything out by myself,” she went on. “I don’t really care who is to blame for how we got here. We’re here, and tossing around blame doesn’t help anything. What will help is if we work together and you stop acting like an idiot.”

“You always could get straight to the point,” he said, laughing softly. “But you’re not wrong.”

She snorted and resisted the urge to say something that wasn’t helpful.

He sighed again. “We could just run away together,” he said quietly.

“What?” she asked as she got up to throw out the remains of the cup and put the cleaning supplies away. “What are you talking about?”

“I was just thinking… I mean. We can’t take on guys like this, can we? So what if we just take off? We could find somewhere away from all this and just…” He trailed off, like he either didn’t know how to finish that or wasn’t sure he should.

For a moment, she was tempted.

It only lasted that moment, though. She shook her head, despite the fact that he wouldn’t be able to see it. “We can’t, Blake. I do see the appeal, really I do, but we can’t run away. You ran away from me. You ran away from Halliwell. You can’t keep running from things. We gotta figure out what to do about this, then do it.”

“You’re right,” he said quietly. “I kinda like the idea, though, and not just because of running from this.”

“I know,” she said just as quietly. The truth was, she liked it too, but she didn’t know if she wanted to tell him that.

The silence stretched out between them for a while. Raven though that the animals and AIs were being remarkably quiet during all this, when Kyra was usually the type to butt right in to everything.

Raven was the one to break the silence.

“We need to get proof of Halliwell’s involvement, or at least Stillwell’s. Right now, we have drugs in cargo compartments, but that’s evidence against the hunters with those ships and not against the person who put it there.”

“We need to find the one who is either putting the drugs in or taking the drugs out,” Blake said, audibly trying to help more. “No, that’s not right. We need to find the people who are taking the drugs out, because the ones putting them in are not technically committing a crime while in neutral space.”

“That’s right,” Raven said thoughtfully. “We need to find the people who are taking the drugs out, and find out where they take them.”

Blake was quiet for a moment. “We could tail Marlo? He was leaving tomorrow, he said, and would be taking his ship with the drugs back to Allied space…”

She smiled slowly. “You’re right. He was.”


25

They stayed a little while longer in the nebula, just to help dissuade anyone from looking for them. The time was hardly a guarantee of that, of course, but it had to help. Somehow, Raven doubted their pursuers were paragons of patience.

“How do we know that we’re not just going to draw their attention again the moment we get back to the station?” Blake asked as the AIs prepared the ships to head back out of the nebula.

“We don’t,” Raven replied matter-of-factly as she drank another cup of coffee. She had lost count. “We can just hope. We will not, however, be docking with the station, and I think that will help. If they have active sensors running with details of our ships, then we’re screwed, but if not, we have a chance.”

There was a long pause. “I’m not full of confidence.”

She laughed mirthlessly over the edge of her cup. “Join the club.”

“We’re ready to depart, Raven,” Silvanus announced. “We will be leaving the nebula in one minute. Our scans out are just about as limited as anyone’s scans in, but from what we can see, there are no other ships in our vicinity.”

“At least that’s one positive,” Raven said, leaning back in her seat.

The ships left the nebula one minute later, down to the second. At least without atmospheric travel, everything went pretty smoothly. Raven closed her eyes and tried not to think about everything that could go wrong…that likely would go wrong. This was potentially the dumbest plan she’d ever had or agreed to, but it wasn’t like they had much time to come up with something better.

Kyra,’ she began wearily, not even wanting to hear the sound of her own voice, ‘what am I doing?

The only thing we can do at this point,’ the cat replied without even opening her eyes as she lay stretched out on the floor. ‘You can be all…human and spend lots of time going back over things to see where you could have made a different choice, but considering your lack of ability to bend time, you can’t do anything about it so why bother? This is the choice we have now, so we take the best option we can. We can’t live on the run. We can’t roll over and die. We can’t join the corruption. So, we do this. Stop questioning it.

It was perhaps the longest speech that Kyra had ever made, but at least it was still made with all her usual annoyed pragmatism.

Thanks,’ Raven said with tired amusement.

Kyra didn’t reply.

The AI ships cruised back into the space around Starbase Marauder, cautiously watching for any sign of trouble. So far, the trouble that had found them had always been in person and not in space, but that could change at any moment. They didn’t need to add mistakes to the list of chances being taken.

“Is Marlo’s ship still here?” Raven asked.

“Yes. Kavi is still docked with the star base. We are approaching on the opposite side of the station to avoid any passive scans,” Silvanus replied.

Raven nodded slowly. “Let’s stay as far away as we can while still keeping an eye on them. I really don’t want to be spotted.”

“Of course.”

The AI made sure Nyx was still on the same page, and then…they waited.

After about twenty minutes, there hadn’t been any trouble, but there also weren’t any signs of Marlo’s imminent departure. Raven ended up falling asleep on her sofa.

Double Sharpe

RAVEN!

“What?!” Raven cried, sitting up so fast that her blood dropped out of her head and she nearly blacked out. She grabbed her head with both hands and a groan. “What? I’m awake. What’s going on?”

“You wouldn’t wake up,” Silvanus explained in a much quieter volume. “If shouting didn’t work, we were moving on to alarms and flashing lights next.”

Raven grimaced.

“We have been following Marlo’s ship for four and a half hours, and he is heading to a station to dock. We are back in Earth-Allied space,” the AI reported.

“Why didn’t you wake me sooner?” Raven asked, rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands as she tried to push the grogginess out of her brain. She worried that she had been asleep too long, and yet it felt like it wasn’t nearly enough.

“There was no need,” the AI replied. “I attempted to when we departed, but you did not rouse easily. I knew you needed the rest. You should get something to eat and some water now before you drink any more coffee. Nyx and I will be monitoring Marlo’s ship and the section with the compartment.”

She was too drowsy to argue with logic, so Raven got up and went to the processor to get food and a glass of water. “Is Blake awake?”

If she didn’t know better, she would have thought there was amusement in her AI’s voice. “Nyx is attempting to wake him now. Alarms and flashing lights may be needed.”

That perked Raven up and she smirked.

“We have stationed ourselves at different points around the station to try to avoid looking out of place,” Silvanus went on with business. “We do not anticipate that it will be long before there is a pickup.”

“That would be good,” Raven agreed as she ate. “The quicker we get this over with the happier I’ll be.”

And, like usual, Silvanus was right.

It was less than a half-hour before a smaller construction pod detached from the side of the station. Every station had at least one to conduct their outside repairs, and under normal circumstances, no one would have thought anything of it. Even as it floated from the station and approach Marlo’s ship, everything appeared normal. Sometimes, they did repairs on ships too.

However, they were of course looking for it and they watched via their ships’ sensors and cameras as the little pod floated to the ship and opened the panel, removing the item with one of its little mechanical arms before returning to the station.

Except it didn’t actually attach itself to the station. It floated into the open bay of another ship, and then that ship immediately took off.

“Follow them,” Raven said unnecessarily.

And they were off again. With an even higher risk if they were seen.


26

Raven paced around the small cabin, alternating between tugging on her hair and huffing without words.

I told you that you shouldn’t have had that last cup of coffee,’ Kyra said. ‘Now you’ve gone from your usual annoying to nearly intolerable.

“I don’t recall asking your opinion on anything,” she retorted, staring down at the cat.

The cat stared impassively back. ‘You never do.

Raven rolled her eyes and kept pacing.

“This is just all so…vague,” Raven said. “There must be some way to get an upper hand in this. I mean, we can follow them to the base, but there’ll be a big delay between them getting on board and us getting on there. We didn’t see who this guy was, so we need to get there faster…but we can’t get there faster without knowing where he’s going.”

“Is there any way to figure out where they’re headed?”

Blake’s voice nearly startled her to death. “How long have you been listening?!”

It was Axel that replied. “Since Kyra told you that you should not have had that coffee.”

Raven spun in a slow circle to glare at as much of the ship as she could, since that was the closest way to glare at Silvanus. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

There was no response.

After biting back a few rude comments, she moved herself on from it. “It’s a good question. Is there an answer?”

“Silvanus and I have been trying to do just that,” Nyx said, “since we left Marauder. When we first departed, there were a great many possibilities, but the further we travel, the more that narrows it down. We have isolated several candidates along this course of travel.”

Silvanus was still conspicuously silent when the image popped up on her console. Raven took a seat and looked at it.

She tapped each highlighted dot to see what location it was marking. There were seven possibilities, which was daunting to say the least. Then something caught her eye, and her instinct kicked in. She frowned thoughtfully. If she decided on that one and she was wrong, then this would all be wasted.

If she was right…

“What do you notice about these stations?” she asked out loud, still going over it all in her mind.

“I…don’t know,” Blake replied uncertainly. “There’s too many of them, for my taste.”

“Well, yes, there is that,” Raven had to agree. “But there’s one of them that stands out to me.” She tapped that dot again. “Starbase Orion. Does something sound familiar now?”

There was a long pause, but she somehow knew it was not confusion. “There’s a satellite office of Halliwell there,” he finally said. “Do you think that’s where this guy is headed? I mean, at least one person from Halliwell is involved, but to bring it right to their doorstep?”

Raven shrugged, although it was just a gesture for herself. “Why not? The whole thing is pretty brazen. What’s one more step?”

“I guess you’re right about that,” he said with a sigh. “One of us should go ahead. That guy isn’t going too fast, probably can’t in that ship, so one of us should be able to get there early and set up in the docking area. The other one can trail and let the first know where the guy is docking, so the first can follow.”

“Sounds good,” Raven said, smiling a little. “Nyx was always good at speed, so why don’t you guys go ahead? Make sure to bring a recording device. We want to document everything so when we turn this in, it’s not our butts on the hot seat.”

“Right,” he agreed. “See you in a bit, Rave.”

The channel chirped closed and Raven looked back at her console screen to see that Silvanus had shifted to an outside camera to show Nyx speeding off. Raven sighed a little to watch them go. “Good luck, Blake,” she said quietly.

Double Sharpe

“I think that was with two minutes to spare,” Blake panted.

“But you’re inside and at the docking ring?” Raven asked. She didn’t want to be unsympathetic to either his exhaustion or stress, but time was kind of an issue here.

“Yes,” he replied. “I’m in a side corridor and can see the doors from the only empty docking ports left.”

Raven immediately tensed. “You didn’t dock Nyx near there, did you?” She didn’t know if this person would recognize the AI ship, but it was a chance she didn’t really want to take.

He replied just as quickly, “No. I took the last empty slot on the other side. It’s why I’m out of breath. I had to hurry to get around to this side.”

She sighed slightly with relief. “It looks like they are getting ready to dock. I’ll wait until they’re positioned and then dock myself. Don’t lose him.”

“I won’t,” he replied with slight exasperation.

Raven got up to make herself another cup of coffee, but stopped herself and substituted a glass of water. She didn’t need the cat and the AI giving her more grief, and no, she probably didn’t really need more caffeine.

A few minutes later, Blake came back. “A dock port door is opening. Someone is walking out with a bag… It’s a woman.” He sounded surprised by that. They had been assuming that it was a ‘he.’ “She’s kind of familiar… I think she might actually work for Halliwell?”

Raven frowned. It wasn’t a surprise, and yet it was. All of it still was. “Who is it?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “She’s just familiar.” He paused, then added, “She’s human, tall, blonde. Kinda looks like she’s been sucking on Earth lemons for too long.”

“Natalia!” Raven said with a surprise. “She used to be a hunter, but paid off and went out on her own.”

“She would know the ins and outs of the hunting life,” Blake pointed out. “Were you friends?”

Raven shook her head absently. “No, but I knew her in passing. She was pretty good, but I guess not good enough to turn down the money from something like this. I remember her being reckless, which fits.”

There was a pause, and then he went on, much more quietly, “We’re on the move. Get here quick, Rave.”


27

Silvanus docked as quickly as safety allowed. She had already done her station security checks as they got closer, so it was just a matter of the hard-lock and then Raven hurried off.

Once she reached the corridor, she tried to walk fast without looking like she was walking fast. She knew that Blake and Natalia had a head start on her and she needed to close that gap, but this wasn’t a backwater station in neutral space. People were less likely to turn a blind eye, and she didn’t need to get arrested in the middle of all of this.

The docking ring let out into a foyer with multiple corridors off of it, leading into the different wings of this level. Blake hadn’t told her which way they’d gone, but she figured it had to be toward the business offices. She couldn’t imagine they would be dealing in the Halliwell office itself, but close, so any employees would be nearby as needed.

So that was the way she turned. She passed by the various rooms, trying to look without looking.

It was about to be more of the same when a hand reached out and grabbed her, yanking her into the office. She almost broke the nose belonging to the face belonging to that hand, but quickly realized it was Blake. She blew out a breath in relief.

He pointed to the small window beside the door, and she peered through. The view wasn’t as clear as it could be, between two different windows, but it was clear enough to see Natalia standing and talking with Stillwell. She handed the bag to him and he looked around, suspicious for a moment, before taking the package out.

It was clear enough for just about anyone to take an educated guess as to the contents before he put it in a locker inside the room. Natalia smiled faintly, and they both left.

“We should get a few pictures of the stuff itself,” Raven said.

“Don’t you think that’s going to be even riskier than this?” Blake returned, glancing uncertainly at her.

“It’s going to be way riskier,” she agreed, “but we want this solid. Don’t we?”

He nodded reluctantly. They gave it a few moments to make sure the two were gone, then opened the door and peeked out. The coast was clear, so they hurried across to find that the other door was locked.

Raven took a chance and pressed her hand to the panel beside the door. To her half-shock, the door recognized her and opened.

“This must belong to Halliwell then,” she said thoughtfully.

“Won’t they be able to check that record and know it was you?” Blake asked.

“Yes, but they’ll know I was here after all of this is over anyway,” she pointed out. “We might as well make use of what we have.”

He shrugged and the pair of them entered. They shut the door behind them and hurried to the locker. It wasn’t locked, and all Raven could think was, ‘What idiots.’

They started taking images of the package from various angles. She didn’t want to touch it, although she wondered if taking a sample would be a good idea. Then again, if they were caught with even a sample of Exotic K, the consequences would be dire. So, that choice was made pretty quickly.

Just as they had finished taking pictures, she thought she heard voices approaching. She hurried to the door and realized that Natalia and Stillwell were coming back.

She hissed a curse.

“What?” Blake asked, oblivious to the sound and what she’d just seen.

“They’re coming back!” she said.

Raven turned and grabbed the bag, shoving it into Blake’s arms. “Once they see us in here, they’ll know we’re onto them and destroy it!” she explained hurriedly as she pulled her gun. “When they come in, I’m going to fire on them. You run through and get back to Nyx and get back to Earth! Go to the cops!”

She knew they’d be to the door any moment now.

“I’m not leaving you here,” Blake argued.

“Yes, you are,” she argued right back. “We won’t get out from under this thing until we put them in the path of the law. We need evidence and it needs to not be here. I didn’t spend days being beaten, so I’ll fight them. You run!”

He opened his mouth to say something, but the voices reached the door and they knew they were out of time.

Blake settled into a pose ready to bolt, while she aimed the gun.

The door slid open.

She fired.

Natalia shouted something incoherent that sounded highly graphic as she threw herself against the door, while Stillwell shrieked like a four-year-old and threw himself to the ground. Blake ran past her and over him before taking off into the corridor.

“After him!” Stillwell called, but Natalia knew that the danger remained in the room.

“Raven,” she spat. “I should have guessed.”

Raven shot at the door just above her head. She had no desire to kill the woman, not really at least, because she didn’t want to add a murder charge to her career history, but she also wanted them to know that she meant business.

Natalia shouted again and then jumped over Stillwell to rush at Raven.

Reckless.

Raven sidestepped the woman’s charge, and Natalia just barely managed to turn to avoid crashing into the open locker. The blonde took a swing, trying to knock the gun from Raven’s hand, but Raven turned in time to avoid that. When she turned back, she spun with her gun-hand out and cracked the metal-backed fist into Natalia’s face. There was a curse and a small flash of red as her cheek split.

Turning toward the door, she saw Stillwell’s short, stocky body blocking the way.

She ran at him.


28

Raven outright ran him over.

He put his arms out to cover as much of the door as possible, but he wasn’t a man built for such things nor with the training of one. Raven, on the other hand, kept herself in shape and spent her life chasing people down. Actual chases on foot and physical wrestling matches were not uncommon.

He was no match for her. When she lowered her shoulder, she drove it straight into his midsection and sent him flying out of the doorway and to the floor of the hall.

She didn’t stop to make sure he was out before running over his legs and turning down the hall. She couldn’t afford to worry about appearances anymore, so she just sprinted down the halls toward the docking ring. The sound of Stillwell sputtering and Natalia shouting followed her, and she had a bad feeling that the latter would be after her in just a moment.

Did Blake get away?!’ Raven asked Silvanus. Even her mental voice sounded strained from all the effort.

If she made it out of all this without being killed or incarcerated, she was going to sleep for a month.

He did,’ the AI assured her. ‘Nyx is on her way to Earth with Blake, Axel, and the evidence intact. Now, if we can just be certain you’ll end up in the same state, then we’ll be in good shape.

Raven would have laughed if she could have afforded the breath.

Doing my best,’ she replied instead.

She could hear pounding steps in the corridor behind her. By now, her blood was pounding so hard in her ears that she was honestly shocked she could hear the other steps at all. Or maybe she was imagining them? She just didn’t know anymore. She just knew that she had to get back to her ship.

The halls were more crowded now than they had been before, and everyone around her was shocked by the sight of a half-crazed, gun-toting woman bolting through the hallways of their orderly space station.

After crashing into a couple of walls when she couldn’t make the turns in time, she reached her port’s door. She pressed the button and anxiously waited for the door to cycle open as she constantly looked down the corridor to see if anyone was following. More than once, she thought she saw Natalia’s blonde head.

As soon as the door was open enough, she threw herself in and pressed the button to close it before dashing into Silvanus.

“To Earth!” she ordered, collapsing into a panting heap on the cabin floor just as she felt the connector tunnel retracting into the ship. Once the small shudders that spoke of their departure began, she let out a breath she’d been half-holding.

“I anticipate there will be pursuit,” Silvanus said. “I have plotted the fastest course to Earth. It will take approximately seven hours.”

Raven laughed. “A headlong rush of seven hours,” she said wearily.

She told herself to get off the floor, but it didn’t seem to be happening. Finally, Kyra just came and laid down beside her.

“Open a channel to Nyx,” she asked.

“Done.”

“Blake?”

“Rave!” The relief was clear in his voice. “You got away.”

She smiled faintly. “I did,” she said. “Natalia can be a brute, but a broken nose gave her pause. Stillwell was nothing. You have everything for the authorities back on Earth?”

Blake sighed. “I do. Do you think it will be enough?”

“I hope so, Blake. I hope so.”

Double Sharpe

By the end of the first hour, Raven fell asleep.

Before the end of the second, Silvanus woke her up to tell her that it seemed fairly certain they were being followed, but with little chance of being caught.

By the fourth hour, Raven was drinking too much coffee again.

And by the end of the seventh, Silvanus and Nyx were requesting emergency landings at Earth Gamma Central Docking Ports. Which they were granted.

As soon as they were on the ground, they turned themselves over to the emergency personnel on the landing pad.

Double Sharpe

They sat on a bed in the medical center, where Blake had just received treatment for the remainder of his injuries. The Earth Governmental Police were on hand as soon as the doctors were done, and the two hunters told all.

Raven knew their only chance was to be as honest as they could be, and let the fates decide.

“Do you think they believed us?” Blake asked after the last officer left.

They had told their stories more than once and answered about seven thousand questions, or so it felt. They’d been questioned separately and together, and asked the same things over and over to see if their stories changed. They didn’t. That was one of the many benefits of the truth.

“I think so,” Raven said.

The pair sat on a medical bed, side by side, leaning back against the wall. Blake took her hand, and Raven let him. “I hope so,” he said. “I’m not really keen on going to a penal colony or something. I also don’t like the idea of being on the run from a company I used to trust.”

She closed her eyes and leaned against his shoulder. “Me neither,” she agreed quietly.

Raven was only drowsily aware of when he kissed the top of her head and whispered, “Thank you, Rave, for everything,” before she fell asleep yet again. This time hoping to be allowed to actually sleep for a time, and not be woken up for another emergency.


29

Three Days Later

“Glad to be setting off again?”

Raven turned around to see Blake standing behind her. He looked much better now that his wounds had been treated, and he’d been able to take a shower and change into fresh clothes. His short dark hair was back to its usual messy-on-purpose look rather than messy because I got the crap kicked out of me look. His eyes were bright, and he was smiling.

She smiled back, feeling pretty good after three days of rest.

The pair hadn’t seen each other very much over those days, between talking to the police, being treated in the medical facility, and sleeping. There were also repairs to be made on each of their ships, since both had been pushed well beyond their limits.

However, the days had passed and now they all—hunter, AI, and animal companion alike—were hale and whole again, ready to go.

“I am,” she said.

The news had come down the wires just that morning: Jason Stillwell, Natalia Rhodes, and two other employees of Halliwell Bounty Hunters Services—neither of them current hunters—had been arrested on charges of smuggling illegal narcotics into Earth-Allied space. Stillwell had been further charged with abduction and assault for what he’d done to Blake and Axel, as well assault and, finally, property damage for Nyx.

Raven and Blake knew they would be called to testify if it came to trial, and they were pretty sure that the police were still eyeing them sideways, but they hadn’t been arrested and it hadn’t been hinted at that they would be.

It was enough for her.

They were both free to go. After this long stretch of chaos, they could get back to their lives. The police were taking care of bringing in all the hunters still under contract so their ships could be searched and they could be questioned, but Raven was willing to bet they were all as ignorant as Blake and Marlo had been.

“Where are you going?” he asked, walking closer to her so he stood right in front of her as they spoke.

“First, I’m going to Stala Colony. I have a little piece of business there. Then I’ll go through my contact calls and see what job suits me, then I’ll be off to that,” she replied easily. It was all so “normal” sounding, and she loved it.

“Sounds good,” he said, but as he stuffed his hands in his pockets and stared at his shoes, she knew he had more to say.

“Well?”

“Well what?”

She tried not to roll her eyes. “I know there’s something else on your mind. You forget that I can always tell when you’re up to something. So spit it out before we stand here until some other mess finds us.”

Blake chuckled. “I always do forget,” he agreed. “I’ve just…liked being a team again, Rave. I liked working together.”

Raven held his gaze, her own curious. “I kinda have too,” she said, suddenly feeling alert and cautious. She wondered where he was going with this, although she was pretty sure that she already knew. What she didn’t know was how she wanted to respond, or how she felt about it.

“Do you…think we could be a team again?”

“As in being hunters together?” she began, tilting her head slightly. “Or more?”

It was a blunt way of going about it, but she didn’t have the time or patience to dance around things anymore. Not driving straight at an issue was what led to their divorce, and she had no desire for a lack of communication to end up with such pain again.

“Either? Both?” His answer was a little sheepish, but honest.

“I don’t know, Blake,” she told him, just as honestly. “You really hurt me, and it’s hard to just let that go, but I liked working with you too, even if it was a pretty bad situation overall. I liked being around you again, but it’s hard to trust that you won’t bail on me again.”

He nodded, pressing his lips together. “I deserve that.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“I made a really big mistake,” he said. “I’m hoping that maybe I can get a second chance. If I screw it up again, you can shoot me. How’s that?” He tilted his head with a small, crooked smile.

She laughed in spite of herself and shook her head. “I think it’s more likely that you’ll be the death of me.” Raven rubbed the back of her neck with a sigh. “We can work together,” she said carefully. “Let’s start there and see how it goes. I don’t promise anything, professional or personal. I’m just willing to give it a start, and see.”

Blake’s small smile grew until it was full-on, and then he took her hand. He squeezed it briefly, then let it go. “It’s a deal.”

“Well, board up. We’re on our way to Stala,” she said, gesturing for him to get Nyx ready to go.

He took a step back like he was going to do that, but then leaned in at the last minute and kissed her cheek. “You really are the best, Rave,” he said quietly, then turned and walked back to his ship.

Her gaze followed him until he was up the ramp, and then she laughed at herself and shook her head.

What had she just gotten herself into?


Epilogue

In a small café on Earth that sold coffee from various alien worlds, or at least what was coffee-like on that world, sat a woman.

She appeared to be human, although she was a little more than that. She appeared to be a businesswoman, although she was a little more than that too. The woman was, simply put, far more than she looked to be.

As she sat and sipped her Aloan calla-drink, a very spicy drink reminiscent of Earth’s hot chocolate but far less sweet, she scrolled through the news on her tablet. She saw the headline about the drug smuggling organization that had been taken down inside the most renowned bounty hunter service in the galaxy.

Sighing, she shook her head. She’d always known that Stillwell would turn out to be a buffoon, but his connections inside the company had been too valuable to turn down.

He was the only one who had ever met with her. He didn’t have her real name, but he had seen her enough. She made a mental note to reach out to one of her contacts and make sure that Stillwell was silenced before he had a chance to get too far in the legal process. Would he actually turn on her? She didn’t know, but it wasn’t a risk she was interested in.

Besides, he was an idiot. It would be no great loss to the universe.

Toward the end of the article, two hunters from within the organization—or formerly so, now paid off—were referenced in being “critical” to the breaking open of the case and exposing the smuggling ring to the authorities.

She tapped the face of her tablet with a long fingernail.

“Raven and Blake Sharpe,” she said softly to herself, cold and intent, “that was a very big mistake.”

Double Sharpe


THANK YOU

Thank you so much for reading Double Sharpe, the second story in the Raven Sharpe Chronicles. She might not know it yet, or maybe she does, but she has stepped into a big mess which is going to require all of her skills to get out of.

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Bonus Content: Story Preview


Preview: Mercury Blade

If there is one thing you’re not supposed to do, it’s lie to Trader Hogan, Eliard Martin, Captain of the Mercury Blade thought as he stared into the small, fierce eyes of the man in front of him.

Trader Hogan was only a small man, barely over five feet, and clad in the goldish-red robes of the Traders’ Belt. He had the sort of head that made the thin and rakish-looking Eliard think of rats—but this would have to have been a bald one, save for the black nodules of implants across the trader’s cranium. Hogan was surrounded by four very large mercenaries, who all dwarfed the captain in his green duster and form-fitting encounter suit. They had the sort of shoulders that could play pro-SpinBall even before the heavy layers of exo-suit armor were added on top. They weren’t carrying guns, but instead, steel grey stunclubs that would certainly put a dent in Eliard’s already terrible day.

Frack. The captain took a deep breath.

Eliard—or ‘El’ to those that knew him—knew that he was making a bad choice. But when he thought about his career, the man thought that he had never made anything but bad choices. He pulled his duster coat closer around his shoulders, making sure that at least the gold pips on the high collar were visible.

“I can’t pay, Hogan. You know my last run was unsuccessful,” Eliard said, managing a tight-lipped smile. Eliard wondered if he could make it back to the door behind him before Hogan’s goons got to him. He wondered if he could make it off the Trader Base of Charylla before Hogan had the ports shut down. Hogan was a big cheese in the Traders’ Belt. A senior member of the council, if only because he had blackmailed, bribed, or threatened every other councilor. The station of Charylla was his.

The little man did not return the smile. “You want to repeat what you just said to me, El?”

Double-frack. “Didn’t you hear? There are Armcore customs ships up and down the Delta Sector, I couldn’t get through. No one can.”

Trader Hogan pursed his lips. A bad sign, Eliard thought. “So, you are telling me that the fearless Captain Eliard, on one of the fastest ships in this sector, couldn’t make it past some lazy Armcore officials, sipping their coffee and eating daze-cakes all shift?”

No, what I am telling you is that I still have your loot stashed in one of my aft lockers, and I’m going to sell it myself! Eliard tried not to betray a flicker of emotion. He was through working all these terrible jobs for Hogan and getting paid next to nothing for it. Not even a cut off the top of the deal—and Hogan always gave him the furthest, most dangerous jobs.

Maybe because he knows that the Mercury can do it, a sarcastic thought crept into Eliard’s head. Of course the Mercury could do it, just not for creeps like Hogan and his goons anymore.

It was time that we started making some real money, Eliard had thought. Time that we strike out on our own…

“Hm.” The little man reached up to very slowly and very carefully scratch at one of the nodes on his head. Rumor has it that he had quantum receivers in there, wired straight to the Coalition data-space, so that Hogan could read, in real-time, just what the galactic stock markets were doing, which was also why he was so fabulously wealthy.

“Then the next thing that I have to ask is…where is the cargo that I entrusted to you?” Hogan glared at Eliard and there was a shift in the four guards around him, from ‘look threatening’ to ‘let’s paint the walls with this guy’s face.’ Hogan was like that, Eliard knew. He was famed throughout the Traders’ Belt of non-aligned asteroids and habitats for his means of ‘settling up’ with those who lied to, stole from, or cheated him. Usually, that meant a long walk out of a very short airlock—without your suit. Or else it could mean that you and your crew found yourselves in the fertilizer vats and pumped back into the synthetic food or sprayed across terraform projects as a fine particulate mist.

Eliard felt the heavy iron of the bulkhead lock behind him. He stood in one of the many octagonal corridors that wormed its way through Charylla. On the other side of that bulkhead, it was a short sprint to the Charylla Markets—a chaos of neon and noise. Surely, he could lose them in there, right?

“If you’re thinking about opening that door, I wouldn’t advise it,” Hogan said in clipped tones, as the nearest of the thugs—surprisingly quickly, Eliard thought—reached forward to prod him, hard, in the shoulder with the stunclub. Luckily it wasn’t turned on, but it still hurt.

“Get off me!” Eliard batted it away, which only caused the guard to grin even wider, and raise the stunclub as if he were baiting a wild animal.

“Where is my cargo, Captain?” Hogan repeated.

“Armcore customs were on to me. I had to jettison it out by the Betel 9 transponder. Heaven knows who’s got it now.” Eliard had had his story ready of course. The Betel 9 transponder was just one of the many routine deep-space signaling devices that ships could use to navigate by, and that meant that a lot of traffic passed by. A bit of space flotsam out there could easily be picked up by a passing vessel or burned up in the passing warp signatures.

Had to jettison it,” Hogan repeated in a tone that could slice steel. This time, the other guards rolled their shoulders.

“Well, normally in this kind of situation, Eliard, I would have you and your crew cleaning my boat without spacesuits, but then I would be down ten thousand credits.”

That cargo was worth ten thousand? The captain of the Mercury Blade was shocked. It had been a small cargo box. Barely big enough to hold a pair of gloves. Oh, frack.

“I can make it up next run,” Eliard said through gritted teeth, whilst on the inside, he was berating himself for trying to cheat the most powerful crook in the Belt. What had Hogan put in there, diamonds?

“If I let you live, you mean,” Hogan said sourly. “I don’t think you could earn that much in a year, Eliard. How much is the Mercury Blade worth again?” Hogan gave him a quizzical look.

Much more than that! “She’s not a part of this deal,” Eliard said quickly.

“The deal? Deal?” The trader betrayed a momentary flash of anger. “And who are you to tell me what is and isn’t in the deal? This isn’t even a deal, you dimwit. This is recompense.” The thugs flexed their muscles and took a step forward.

“Wait.” The trader held up a hand. “I can see the advantage of having you owe me, Captain Eliard. Here, then, is the ‘deal,’ as you so eloquently put it: you get me my ten thousand, or I take your boat.”

Where am I going to come up with that kind of money? You just want the Mercury as your personal slave-galley. Eliard looked at the guards. Could he take them? He would rather give it a go than have to tell his crew they were going to lose their money and their ship and their home. That was the kind of thing that made a crew very angry indeed, and then made them think about words like ‘mutiny’ and ‘lynching.’

I am so fracked. “I’ll get you your money, and then we’re clear.”

“Really?” Hogan said.

“Really. I promise. Ten thousand credits,” Eliard heard himself say.

“I changed my mind.” Hogan smiled. “Twenty thousand, due in one Sol week.”

One week! Eliard could have spat. That was an awful lot of money in a very short time, but he was being allowed to live, and to fly. He wondered if he could convince the rest of the crew to leave near Coalition space and never return to the Traders’ Belt.

Unlikely.

“You got a problem with that, El?” Hogan’s eyes were scouring his like a spider, waiting for a fly to land. “Because you know, I can just have my boys push you out of the nearest airlock and take your boat instead, if you’d prefer?”

“No, a week sounds just about fine, Trader,” Eliard was forced to say.

Now all I have to do is to find some well-paying work, very fast.

Double Sharpe

“You owe how much?” Irie, the Mercury’s mechanic, looked at Eliard from between her long braids of dark hair. They stood at the side of one of Charylla’s many bars, where he had managed to track down the leather-clad engineer as she had been routinely acing everyone at darts.

Irie Hanson was a marvel of the engineering world, or so Eliard thought, anyway. If only she didn’t know it at the same time, too, he had thought on many occasions. She was a little shorter than he was, with skin like burnt umber and a home-made set of goggles permanently slid halfway up her forehead. From her utility belts she could produce, almost at any given moment, an array of tools and spare parts from spanners to circuit boards. She was the reason that the Mercury was still flying after all of the misuse that Eliard put it through.

“Twenty thousand credits. For Trader Hogan’s cargo,” Eliard said.

“Wasn’t that the box that we were supposed to drop off at Kavon 3?” Irie squinted at him over the top of her bright green drink. They had been in space for a long time this run, and even the usually humanity-hating engineer had decided to venture into society for a change of faces.

“Yeah, uh, about that…” Eliard shrugged, before a nervous grin spread slowly across his features. “It’s still sitting in one of the aft lockers.”

“What!?” The woman coughed her drink over the bar. “We now owe twenty thousand because you decided to double-cross…” She looked around quickly and turned her angry shout into a fierce hiss. “You decided to double-cross the most feared smuggler on this side of Andromeda!? Eliard! What in the blue were you thinking?”

“Oh, I don’t know…That we could make some money, maybe?” he said. “Which we can, now. We can sell the cargo ourselves somewhere, make a profit maybe, do a few other little jobs while we’re at it, and return to pay off Hogan…”

“Why don’t you just give it back?” she hissed at him. “No harm, no foul, right?”

The captain winced. “I don’t think Hogan sees it quite like that. I told him I jettisoned it past the Betel 9.” The captain licked his lips nervously. “And uh, the original cargo is only worth ten K. Hogan added another ten because he’s a fan of my sparkling personality.”

“Urgh.” Irie slammed her drink down on the counter and signaled for two more.

“Thanks, I could do with a stiff drink after today…” Eliard started to say when they arrived.

“Uh-huh, fly-boy. They’re not for you.” The woman downed one immediately, then picked up the other to sip more slowly. “I will not be buying you a drink for a looong time, Captain.” She scowled at him. “You know that we can’t sell whatever it is on Charylla, right? Hogan will only find out about it…”

“We’ll get the money, I promise,” Eliard said, before wondering just how many promises he had made already today. It had been a water-tight plan. It shouldn’t have backfired like this.

You’d better get the money, you mean.” Irie finished her drink with another disgruntled shake of her head and reached for her patched leather jacket.

“Hey. Where are you going?” the captain said. Is she walking out on me? On the Mercury? I need my engineer!

“I’ve got a guy searching for parts in Level 9,” Irie flung over her shoulder. “I want to get those parts and get them stashed away before you do anything else stupid, and maybe get my home taken away from me!”

Eliard watched her storm off into the crowd and groaned. Well, at least it hadn’t been our gunner that I ran into first.

Double Sharpe

“Do you want to die!?” roared the very large, blue-skinned Duergar, with a broad, wedge-shaped head and tusks emerging from his lower jaw. He was the Mercury Blade’s gunner.

Val Pathok was large even by Duergar standards. His shoulders were broad and thickly corded with visible muscle—Duergars, thanks to their greater body mass and double-layer of thickened skin, rarely wore much more than part-armor and trousers—and his long arms would reach down almost all the way to his knees, were they not currently grabbing the lapels of Captain Eliard’s green duster and shaking him violently.

“Did you not hear me, human!” the Duergar roared again. El could clearly see the row of large, grinding fangs in the big mouth. “You gamble with all of our lives! You clearly want to die!”

“Uh… I think the whole bar heard you?” Eliard managed.

“Fool. Typical human.” The Duergar released him with a shove, causing Eliard to crash into the nearest table, much to the annoyance of the patrons there. When Eliard had finished apologizing and wiping spilled drinks from himself, he had to run after the Duergar making his way through the bar and out into the Charylla Markets beyond.

“Hey, Val, wait up!”

The markets were a dazzle of light and noise. Instantly, the captain was surrounded by the bustle of traders and smugglers, and even worse types, pushing and shoving as they fought their way to their preferred shop. There were neon-lit stalls selling every manner of street food imaginable, as well as booths that specialized in rare nuts and bolts and wire-mesh storefronts who specialized in guns and ammunition.

There was a flash of light as a drone passed by overheard, blaring its advertising messages for some particular trader or another. Higher balconies of the market displayed more shops, and more consumers laughing, shouting, or haggling.

“Val!” Eliard shouted again, struggling through the crowd to him. “I can explain!”

The Duergar were not known for their forgiving nature, it had to be said. As one of the many up-lifted races, they had entered the arena of universal politics much earlier than the self-made humans had—only to find that they were the lowest of the heap, and expected to work as slaves for the ‘higher’ ancient life forms once known as the Valyien. Some claimed that this made them (rightly) distrustful of everyone.

“You can explain, can you?” Val Pathok, one of the largest blue-skinned Duergar you might ever see, stopped and turned in the river of bustling traffic, which parted around him like a rock. He never had to worry about being offered space in a transport. The smaller humans just naturally moved away from him at the nearest opportunity.

“Yes!” Eliard caught up with him, enjoying the momentary eddy in the street that the large blue-skin made for a moment. “You see, it was a water-tight plan…”

“I do see, El,” Val thundered. “I see only too well. You were stupid, and greedy—just like always—and you thought that you could gamble the lives of your crew for profit. So, you must have a death wish.”

“I was doing it for us, Val! For the Mercury!” the captain pleaded with his gunner. Which was basically true, he thought. It was supposed to be their chance to start afresh. To stop being the heel on everyone else’s boot and start wearing the shoes for once!

“Don’t be mad, Val. We need a good gunner like you,” Eliard said. “The best damn gunner in the galaxy.”

“Flattery will not help you, Captain,” the blue-skinned monolith stated heavily, furrowing his heavy brows. For a dizzying moment, Eliard thought that the Duergar was going to hit him—it would be like getting hit by a building, he was sure, but then the heavy brows slowly unknit, and the gunner just sighed. “But you are my captain, and I took an oath.”

Oh, thank the stars that the Duergar have that weird hang-up about honor, Eliard thought.

“And besides which, where will Mister Nosbert live?” the giant creature grumbled.

“Your cat?” Eliard thought of the white fluffy thing that seemed to do nothing but hiss and spit at him. You would rather risk your neck for your cat than me? he thought in alarm, before he said, “Of course, your cat. Precisely. Where is that beautiful animal going to live if you leave the Mercury? You know that Charylla is no place for a cat!”

“Hmm,” Val agreed, fixing his austere glare on the tides of people around him. “Yes, you are right. This is no place for Mister Nosbert.”

“Excuse me, gentleman? But it seems to me that you may be in a spot of bother?” It was just at that very moment that a third person joined their negotiation—a woman, with rich and luxuriant silks wrapped around her form, but around whose head stretched the many radials of a data-halo, and on her arms were the many nodules and nodes of not-so-discrete implants, some glowing faintly.

Oh great, a Data Smith. Eliard rolled his eyes. In official Coalition space, they were a well-respected and commonplace member of society—able to mine the floating data sphere for information at request, and to offer their research, translation, and advice for a small fee.

Out here in the Traders’ Belt, however, the Data Smiths took on a different role. As information smugglers, they could be asked for leads on profitable sales or the movements of Armcore patrols. People used them as a way of finding out about their rivals, or as means to impress their lovers, but as the quantum network out there was erratic to say the least, their information was often unreliable and sometimes several Sol months, if not years, out of date.

“We don’t need your help, ma’am,” Eliard said.

“You do, Captain El,” the woman said smoothly, inclining her gold and steel halo at him. “You’re not such a nobody as you think, Captain. Half of Charylla has already heard that you messed up with Trader Hogan.” The woman fluttered her hand over the forearm nodes of her other hand. Her eyes started to look far away, but she kept talking. “And desperate men need desperate opportunities, Captain El. Cross my palm with a hundred credits and I may have some data that you need to hear right now.”

“Or you could be about to tell me what the weather was like on Jupiter last Tuesday.” Eliard rolled his eyes at Val beside him. “C’mon, big guy. We don’t need to listen to mumbling soothsayers…”

“No. I want to hear.” Val’s clawed hand moved to his belt, where he produced a roll of gold-shining coins. “One hundred, madam.”

“Thank you,” the Data Smith said graciously, her hands interrogating her controls and her eyes starting to glow an eerie blue. “You are in desperate times, with many men after you…” she began in her sing-song voice.

Tell me something I don’t know, right?” Eliard muttered.

“…but there is great profit ahead of you, just around the corner,” she said dreamily. “A little piece of data came to my attention just recently, gentlemen. Of an archaeological survey very recently completed in the Tritho System, Epsilon Sector. On the moon of Tritho Prime, there has been discovered ruins. Vast ruins of an unknown origin, although all the evidence points to it being some sort of outpost of the Valyien, before their fall.”

Valyien tech? Eliard’s ears pricked up. And it hasn’t been claimed by the Noble Houses of the Coalition yet? That could be worth a lot of money. That could worth a whole heck of a lot more than twenty thousand credits.

“Okay… I’m listening,” the captain said. “What else?”

“That’s it, I’m afraid, gentlemen. The survey filed their report just this last week, and they have been filtering through the approval and verification process of the academic journals.” The Data Smith shrugged, her eyes slowly losing their shine and returning to normal. “Of course, by the time this data goes public…”

Every noble, military, smuggler, and mercenary will be on their way there… Eliard nodded. It was lucky that he had the fastest ship in the sector, and a crew of two (and a cat) who were no strangers to perilous situations.

“Get your shopping done, Val, because it looks like we got a new job!” The captain suddenly felt a whole lot better.

Double Sharpe

Read the rest of the story here:

amazon.com/dp/B07D63BQPF

Double Sharpe


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