***
Late that evening, Keera had almost put the museum incident completely out of her mind when she was abruptly reminded of it by an incoming call from Associate Secretary Mendieta in one of his full-blown dictatorial moods.
“Keera? Mendieta here.”
“Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”
Mendieta snorted. “You can put all those brains of yours to work to help avert a diplomatic crisis. Have you seen anything about this mess with this damn robbery?”
“Lawinson filled me in,” Keera replied. “He said something about the Assembly throwing some heat about it?”
Mendieta barked a sardonic laugh. “Oh yes. Like you wouldn’t believe. The shit is really raining down on this one. Between the Templars making threats left right and centre, the Guardians demanding full disclosure of investigations and access to the evidence and the suspects, and the Ercineans making snide little remarks about children with toys, you’d think that someone had uncovered a goddamn Orb of Destiny with its timer ticking down. Christ, they’re even sending a delegation to Berlin to discuss the ramifications.” Mendieta sighed. “And of course, with these idiot thieves being Marauders, there’s as much blame being apportioned to us as to the Terrans. So the long and short of it is, I need you to stay on the ground there and help the embassy out.”
“Lawinson already asked if I’d endorse the embassy’s handling,” Keera told him in as short a tone as she dared. “I said I’d rubber-stamp it as a formality before I left.” She really didn’t want to get stuck on Earth; if the Assembly were sending a delegation the situation would take weeks to clear up. She couldn’t keep shifting twice a day indefinitely, and the more tired she got, the more likely it was that she’d slip up and get herself killed, or give herself away and create an even worse diplomatic scandal.
Mendieta, however, had worked himself up to a full head of steam. “Formalities aren’t going to cut it,” he said in a tone even shorter than hers. “So you’re not leaving. Someone has to have oversight and control of this, and our Ambassador’s a moron, as you very well know. He was given the Terran post because it was where he could do the least damage when he opens his mouth to stick his foot in it.”
Keera grimaced. She’d forgotten about that. Oh, perfect. The one time I actually need Mendieta to think I’m surplus to requirement, there’s only an idiot as an alternative.
“Besides, you outrank our Ambassador,” Mendieta bulled on, oblivious to her predicament, “and the decree from the Office of the Consul is that we need to be seen to be co-operating fully.” He huffed an exasperated sigh. “This Marauder woman they have in custody—have you spoken to her?”
“No, not yet,” Keera admitted. “I wasn’t planning to, to be honest. If we set a precedent with this, we’ll open the floodgates to extradition requests for every idiot who gets caught doing class-C drugs on holiday.”
“Ordinarily I’d agree with that assessment, but this is an exceptional circumstance. I’ve cancelled Chanderpaul’s trip, and you should cancel your return ticket.” Regret flickered briefly over his stern expression. “I know you wanted to be home for Mahmoud’s funeral, but the job comes first. I need you working on this as your number one priority. You’re on the scene and you’ve got a route into the Terrans’ approach through your collaboration with Lawinson. This is your chance to prove to me, and to the Secretary, that you’re as good as you think you are.” He frowned at her. “Make sure we come out of this looking like virtuous galactic citizens.”
Keera nodded reluctantly. If her only way out was through this potential quagmire, then so be it. She would just have to find another way to protect herself. “I’ll get it done, sir.”
“I hope so,” Mendieta said gruffly. “Keep me posted. I want a daily report. If you can manage more than that I won’t complain.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then get cracking, Miss Naraymis. Mendieta out.”
“Jackass,’ Keera muttered at the blank screen, yawning as fatigue settled over her like a blanket. Her stims were starting to wear off. Shutting her terminal down, she packed up and headed back to her hotel suite. Once there, she replenished her stims and shifted to the less conspicuous skin she’d copied from a local woman while out running in the park, a close enough match in body size to fit all of Keera’s clothes but practically her regular skin’s polar opposite in colouring, with platinum blonde hair and pale ivory skin. It was also unremarkable in terms of features and not what most humans would find pretty. Keera was aware that her normal alter ego was considered attractive—it was one of the reasons she’d selected it in the first place. Even if she’d rarely had occasion to deploy them, the skin’s looks were just one more weapon in her armoury to be used in the appropriate situation.
Completing the shift, she changed clothes, repacked her kit, and headed out. She stopped at a hole-in-the-wall snack bar to pick up some dinner (a random choice, as it had been for the past three nights) and wolfed it down as she walked, finishing the extra-large portion by the time she reached the hotel. She was still hungry, but there were no food outlets in the immediate vicinity and she was too tired to go foraging. Resignedly, she raided the vending machine in the hotel foyer for snacks and something to drink, then hauled herself up the stairs to her dingy little hideout.
Turning on the holoviewer above the bed to provide a little ambient noise, she set up her terminal and opened up the files from Lawinson. She skipped through the luridly graphic crime scene photos—the deceased might have been a thief, but that was no reason for voyeurism—to the incident report. She read the details closely several times, cross-checking a few references as she went. If she was going to be saddled with this ludicrous exercise in politicking, she was damned if she’d give Mendieta the satisfaction of messing it up.
Satisfied that she was conversant with the events and the associated Terran laws, she turned her attention to the personnel files, spotting out of the corner of her eye that the late night news digest had started on the holoviewer. She turned the volume up slightly—if there was a news report on the case she wanted to catch it—then opened the first dossier, that of the principal suspect and their extradition case, a woman with a wealth of vibrant red hair, brilliant blue eyes, and a peculiar tattoo stencilled on her left cheek. Bringing up the detail screen, Keera frowned as she read the name.
Jennifer Bronwen. Where have I come across that before?
She’d heard it recently, she was sure. Not the forename, but she remembered hearing or seeing Bronwen mentioned, and not in relation to the star system.
As she sat back to think about it, she caught sight of the image of the museum building on the holoviewer, and focused her attention on the news report. “New evidence has been uncovered in the investigation into the attempted robbery at the Pergamon Museum,” the anchor announced. “In a grisly twist to an already complex case, the body of the museum’s Chief of Security, Logan Baines, was discovered by investigating officers yesterday evening.” The image beside the anchor shifted to a picture of the victim, and Keera froze.
The man in the image was the one who had attacked her, she was certain of it.
Logan Baines.
Chief of Security of the Pergamon Museum, the man who’d raised the alarm about the theft in progress, by all accounts a hero. And now a murder victim, seemingly found dead in the basement of his own house with his throat slit.
She turned the volume up further. “… Mr. Baines alerted the authorities to the gang’s attempt to steal a priceless museum artefact, resulting in a deadly standoff between the criminals and the police that left one gang member dead. The deceased has been named as Thaddeus Jones, a former sergeant in the Marauder Marine Corps. Two suspects were remanded into police custody. Jennifer Bronwen and Wai-Mei Xox have been charged with armed robbery, conspiracy to commit theft, resisting arrest, and assault, and will potentially face further charges if Logan Baines’ murder is found to be related. Two further gang members are known to have ev
aded the authorities thus far. Inquiries are continuing…”
Keera grabbed her kit bag and dumped the contents on the bed, sorting feverishly through the various gadgets until she found the comm unit she’d wrested from her attacker. Seizing the wristband, she activated it and interfaced it to her own console.
She opened the comm unit’s contacts list.
There it was.
Bronwen.
Jennifer Bronwen, her Marauder criminal in need of extradition, was an associate of the man who’d tried to kill her. The changeling had presumably adopted the security chief’s skin to facilitate the theft. Jones and Xox were also on the contacts list, as well as two other names, Dolos and Honold—presumably those were the gang members who had escaped.
Keera stared absently through the display, mind racing. If her would-be killer had been involved with the theft, why would he sabotage it? Or had he been the Security Chief all along, embedded in the museum? Why was the museum even of interest? There were plenty of templar weapons in antiquities collections all across the galaxy. And how was any of this connected to her? Why would he have jeopardized his position to try to kill her?
She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. Speculating wasn’t going to answer any questions, and now, sadly, neither would Mr. Baines. Her only route to uncovering the truth began with Jennifer Bronwen.
It was worth looking into, for certain. If her attacker knew she was going after his associate, maybe he could be lured into the open. It was risky and far from foolproof, but if she could get him to show his beak, maybe she could figure out who had sent him. If he really was a Sentinel, she could call Estris for back-up, and maybe use the opportunity to boost the Terran’s support for new legislation. If he was a termination agent from the Service, well, she would still have a problem, but at least she would know for sure where she stood.
Mind made up, she grabbed her own comm band and set up a new call.
“Lawinson.”
“Lau? It’s Keera.”
“Keera… good evening. What can I do for you?”
“I’m sorry for calling so late, but I’ve had a change of plans. I’ve received some new information and spoken to Secretary Mendieta, and it’s apparent that this mess with the robbery is going to need a lot more smoothing over than I first thought.”
“Welcome to the suck, my dear,” Lawinson chuckled. “My commiserations on your inevitable epiphany.”
Keera forced a wry laugh. “Thank you. At any rate, I’d like to speak to your suspect, Miss Bronwen, in person if that’s still possible?”
“Of course,” Lau agreed immediately. “I’ll set it up for tomorrow morning, if that suits?”
“Perfect, thank you.”
“Very well. Did you need anything else?”
“No, that was it. Again, I’m sorry to bother you after hours—please give your wife my regards, and my apologies if I interrupted your evening.”
“I’ll do that, but you weren’t interrupting, so no need to apologize. And thank you again, Keera. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Of course. Good night, Lau.”
“Good night.” Lawinson rang off, and Keera settled back on the unyielding bed with her terminal, the display fixed on Bronwen’s photograph from her arrest record.
“All right, Jennifer Bronwen,” Keera said softly as she studied the photograph, “it’s time to find out what you know.”
JENNIFER
Berlin, Earth, Modeus System, Assembly Space
“Bronwen!”
Officer Krieger’s now-familiar, surly shout echoed through the detention unit as he lumbered into the room, shadowed as usual by Koch and her mocking grin. “Get your ass up, you’ve got a visitor.”
Jen abandoned her contemplation of the ceiling, rolling slowly to a sitting position and rubbing a hand over her face. God, I’m tired. She hadn’t slept at all well. “Is he cute?” she asked, yawning.
“She, not he,” Koch corrected amiably as Krieger glared at Jen. “And she’s not a movie star, but I suppose she’s pretty, yeah. In an expensive, high-class kind of way.” She threw a sidelong smirk at her partner. “Out of Krieger’s league, that’s for sure.”
“I think not,” Krieger retorted, sticking his chest out. “Girls love a uniform, remember?”
“Yeah, sure we do. That’s why I got my own,” Koch chuckled. “Come on, Bronwen, let’s go.”
Jen got up and walked obediently across to the door, permitting Koch to cuff her before Krieger led her out of the cell. Koch fell in behind, and they proceeded through the warren of corridors to a different interview room from the day before, a considerably brighter, cleaner one that was not equipped with a mirrored window. There were force-field emitters fitted half-way along each pair of opposing walls, and Jen guessed this was more of a visitor’s room than an actual interrogation area.
Krieger stepped back out, presumably to fetch the woman who’d come to speak to her, while Koch took her elbow and guided her over to the table in the centre of the room. “Have a seat,” the cop instructed, pulling the chair out for her. “I’ll uncuff you just before we put the force field up.”
The door hissed open as Jen obeyed, and Krieger re-entered with a woman she didn’t recognise in tow. Jen studied her intently as she advanced across the room. Short and slender, she had a thick shock of short, curly black hair, fierce raven-wing eyebrows, a blunt hatchet of a nose, and piercing blue eyes made startlingly vivid by their contrast with her dark complexion. Not classically beautiful, as Koch had said, but strikingly pretty nonetheless. She carried herself confidently, with an air of self-assurance that screamed lawyer, or maybe politician. Her charcoal-grey trouser suit was immaculately tailored, teamed with a pale pink and white high-collared shirt, and the coat she carried slung over her arm looked like it was made of genuine natural fibres rather than synthetics. High-class indeed.
“Now you behave yourself, Bronwen,” Koch warned as she unlocked the cuffs and stepped away.
“I will if she does,” Jen promised as Krieger activated the force field between them.
The stranger rolled her eyes in apparent exasperation as she folded her coat over the chair back then hung her suit jacket on top with fussy precision. “Thank you, officers, that’ll be all,” she said curtly, her speech accented with the crisp, clipped inflection of Oceanhill. Marauder, then. That’s a good start.
“You don’t want us to wait with you, ma’am?” Krieger asked doubtfully.
The woman nodded to the shimmering blue curtain. “Can she break through that?” she asked sardonically.
“Well… no, ma’am.” Krieger blushed a little at the admission.
“Then I don’t see the need to have you standing about, thanks. And make sure you turn off any recording equipment, please. This is a confidential diplomatic conversation, not a criminal interrogation.”
Krieger puffed up, clearly offended by the woman’s condescending tone, but Koch gripped his elbow discreetly. “Just hit the call button if you need anything, ma’am,” she advised, throwing Jen a look that clearly said good luck trying the charm offensive with this one.
The stranger waited until the door had hissed shut behind the cops, then settled neatly into the chair opposite Jen’s. “Miss Bronwen?”
“Captain,” Jen corrected.
“Captain,” the woman amended equably. “My name is Keera Naraymis. I’m the Assistant Secretary of State to the Exterior Department.”
Jen blinked. “Wow. Didn’t think I was that important.”
“Under normal circumstances, that would be a safe assumption,” Naraymis replied coolly.
“Well, consider my ego punctured,” Jen drawled.
Naraymis’ impassive expression didn’t so much as flicker. “Normally, for a situation like this, your request would be handled through our embassy in Hong Kong, and normally, it would be rejected instantly—for obvious reasons we’re happy to let the Terrans deal with crimes committed in their jurisdiction.” She pau
sed to let Jen comment, and when no remark was forthcoming, she nodded in satisfaction. “I don’t want to get your hopes up, so I’ll tell you up front that there’s almost zero chance that we’ll grant your extradition.”
“So why even bother coming to visit?” Jen asked irritably. “You could have just sent a comm—Dear Jennifer, fuck off, love the Marauder establishment. PS, we knew you’d end up like this. We told you so when we fired your ass.”
Naraymis rolled her eyes again. “Oh, please, don’t play dumb with me, Captain. You know why I’m here.”
“I really don’t, Madam Secretary,” Jen shot back, aping the other woman’s condescending sneer. “Enlighten me.”
“You were apprehended attempting to steal a templar artefact that’s been identified as a weapon,” Naraymis explained with measured patience. “The nature of your target means that the Assembly has taken an interest in the case and is sending a delegation of their members to investigate the matter in person.”
“So your lords and masters sent you trotting down here to talk to me to make it look like they’d made an effort to co-operate?” Jen guessed.
To her surprise, Naraymis chuckled. “I couldn’t possibly confirm or deny that. But, hypothetically, you might be correct. Hence why your situation is not quite normal.”
“How come the cops didn’t tell me this?”
Naraymis shrugged disdainfully. “It’s somewhat above their pay grade. However, politics and the look of the thing notwithstanding, there’s also the matter of your changeling associate. If he was a Sentinel—you’ve heard of them, I assume?”
“I do watch the news now and again,” Jen said snarkily.
“Well then, if you’re half as smart as that mouth of yours, I’m sure you can envisage how serious this situation will become if we—instead of deciding this was a basic smash and grab—take the view that you were involved in a terrorist conspiracy to acquire a weapon of mass destruction.” Naraymis leaned forward, folding her arms on the table, her electric blue eyes made icy by the threat. “So really, Captain Bronwen, it’s entirely in your power to decide how long you’d prefer your cryoprison sentence to be. All you have to do is convince me that you’re not a terrorist.”
Jen stared back at her, momentarily dumbstruck. Terrorism charges carried the harshest sentencing guidelines in Assembly space; if she were to be convicted on those grounds, she’d be doing ten C in the freezer without shadow of doubt. If Solinas had double-crossed her to facilitate a Sentinel operation of some sort, she was utterly, totally fucked. Shit. Could this situation get any worse? How the fuck could I have been so stupid?
There being no real choice, it was an easy enough decision to make. “Listen, as far as I know there was no terrorist angle,” she confessed, tamping down her suddenly surging fear. “It was my job. I hired the crew. It was a straight-up commission to steal the weapon for a private collector, and I’ll tell you everything. I’m not a terrorist, and I wouldn’t knowingly work with anyone who was.” She shook her head for emphasis. “Look, I served in the Corps for a couple of years.”
“I know. And you were dishonourably discharged,” Naraymis observed.
“Yeah, well, that was a personal issue, not a moral one. The point I was making was, I saw the aftermath of the Yokosuka bombing—y’know, when those separatist nut-jobs took a pop at the naval base?” At Naraymis’ impatient nod of recollection, Jen continued, “I was involved in the clean-up afterward, and it was a brush and shovel job.” She glared at the other woman defiantly. “I’ve seen the damage those chicken-shit bastards can do, and I’d never stoop to that level.”
Naraymis studied her intently for a moment. “I believe you, Captain,” she said softly. “So help me out. Tell me everything, and then I can help you. Start with the changeling.”
“Why are you so interested in him?” Jen wondered aloud.
“Because Secretary Naraymis has a personal stake in this that she’s not telling you about.” Officer Krieger stepped into the room and favoured Jen with an uncharacteristic, cocky smile. “Haven’t you, Keera, my dear?” he continued, transferring his attention to the diplomat, who had risen from her seat, her whole body suddenly strung taut with tension. “It’s so nice to see you again.”
“The feeling’s not mutual. I wondered if getting close to your associate here would draw you out,” Naraymis replied cryptically.
The cop shrugged. “I don’t know that I’d describe Jen here as an associate. A dupe, maybe, or a patsy, but she’s never been privy to the true nature of my operations.”
The credit dropped in Jen’s brain. “Solinas.”
The changeling winked at her. “At your service, Captain Bronwen. Small world, ain’t it?”
Naraymis threw Jen a dubious glance, then looked back at Solinas. “She isn’t your back-up?” she persisted with her obscure line of enquiry.
“Of course not,” Solinas scoffed. “Why would I need help to deal with you?”
“Why indeed,” Naraymis drawled, “since you managed to deal with me so well the other night.”
Solinas scowled. “You surprised me, I’ll admit it, but you won’t get another opportunity.”
“How’s your beak?” the diplomat asked in a taunting tone. “Not too bent out of shape, I hope?”
Jen stared at her. “You can tell he’s a changeling?”
Naraymis turned to answer, but before she could speak, Solinas struck, darting forward and lashing out with a fist to catch the petite woman with a powerful right hook to the jaw. She staggered backwards, bounced off the force field and went down in a tangle of limbs.
“My beak really fucking hurts,” Solinas snarled, applying a solid kick to her midriff that jack-knifed her body and drove the breath from her lungs in a wheezing gasp. “One more reason I’ll enjoy finishing this job.” He drew back his foot for another kick.
“Hey, Shifty!” Jen bellowed, and he paused, turning to look at her. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Shutting her little operation down,” Solinas replied. “Miss Naraymis here is a little too clever for her own good.” He bent, grabbed a handful of the diplomat’s hair, and jerked her head up. “Truth to tell, I wasn’t expecting you to show up here, Keera,” he said, almost pleasantly. “That’s an unexpected bonus for me.” He tugged her to her feet, eliciting a yelp of pain. Naraymis, clearly still winded, didn’t resist him, instead locking her gaze with Jen’s in a desperate plea for assistance.
“Listen, I don’t care what you do to that stuck-up bitch,” Jen heard herself declare before she could think about it too hard. Solinas had payback coming, and she’d take the opportunity any way it was offered. The longer she kept him talking, the better the chance someone would catch him out. “I’ll even help you if like, just let me loose. You’ve got Krieger’s skin.” She pushed down the chilling realization that Krieger and Koch were therefore likely dead. “You can get me out, and I can get you out of Modeus. They won’t have found the ship yet. It’s a win-win.”
Naraymis closed her eyes in defeat, tears leaking down her face, and Solinas grinned at her. “Aw, did you think Bronwen was going to help you? Lesson number one in dealing with real-life criminals—you can’t trust anyone.” He shoved her away and she dropped to the floor again. Whether the collapse was real or fake, Jen couldn’t tell.
“Please, Solinas, be reasonable,” she pleaded. “We’re both professionals, and I can help you.” C’mon, you bastard, take the bait.
He shook his head. “I wish it was that simple, Bronwen, I really do. But you’ve seen too much and you know too much, and I can’t afford to have you wandering around the galaxy in that rust-bucket you call a ship, blabbing to anyone who’ll listen. You were a smokescreen—you being human and having independent transport were the two things I needed to cover my entry into Modeus. And now you’ve outlived your usefulness.”
Jen glared at him, her ire only half-faked. “But why sell us out?” she asked. “It can’t have been for money. Nobody
would pay you that much for me.”
“Oh, you’re right about that,” Solinas chuckled.
“So why? You could have walked when I told you to piss off, no harm, no foul.” Jen waved a hand at the prone Marauder diplomat on the floor. “And what’s so important about her?”
“Nothing you need to worry about,” Solinas replied curtly as he crossed the room to the control console. “For what it’s worth, Bronwen, I do regret that things worked out this way. You’re smart and resourceful, and you run a good, tight operation. Chances are I would have wanted to work with you again. But you picked the wrong job and I didn’t have a lot of time for finesse.”
“Oh, that’s supposed to make me feel better, is it?” Jen spat. “Thud getting killed for nothing was just unfortunate, and my being left to rot here is just collateral damage?”
“Not quite.” Solinas drew Krieger’s sidearm. “Jones got himself killed by being an idiot. If he’d listened to you, he wouldn’t have gotten his head blown off. As for you… well, I just can’t leave you alive as a witness, especially not now. You know my motto.”
“Dolos knows about you, and so does Honold,” Jen blustered, fear clamping an icy hand around her guts as the changeling lifted the weapon and aimed it. She glanced around desperately, but there was no cover and no way to attract attention from outside.
“Dolos is long gone,” Solinas sneered, “and she won’t care what happens to you. It’s not in her programming. As for Honold…” He snickered as he stretched out his free hand to deactivate the force field. “That moron isn’t bright enough to tie his shoelaces without instructions. Besides which, he isn’t going to voluntarily get within a light year of the authorities. No, they’re both irrelevant, and...”
Naraymis lashed out suddenly with one leg, her foot catching Solinas in the back of the knee. As he overbalanced and fell, the diplomat jumped up and scrambled for the control panel. She got her hand to it milliseconds before Solinas caught her, knocking her to the floor once more with a vicious backhand to the face.
“I’ve had enough of you, bitch,” he grated, turning away from Jen as he hauled the stunned woman up by the throat.
Jen didn’t hesitate. She’d seen the secure status light flick from green to red, seen the pale blue curtain of the force field vanish, and his inattention was the opening she needed. Rounding the table, she stepped up behind him and hooked her left arm around his neck. She grabbed her upper right arm with her left hand, slid her right hand behind his head and pushed forward, locking the chokehold.
Solinas released Naraymis immediately, thrashing violently to try and break Jen’s grip, but her close-quarters-combat training hadn’t deserted her and her hold was solid. She pushed her elbows together, inexorably increasing the pressure, ignoring the pain in her shoulder from the exertion. “This is for Thud, you two-faced mother-fucker,” she snarled. He scrabbled desperately at her arms, but he couldn’t get a good grip and slowly, his fingers fluttered weakly to a stop and his body sagged. Jen let herself fall backwards, dragging him down on top of her. She held the choke until she was sure he was dead, then rolled his body onto the floor, panting from the effort.
“Thank you,” Naraymis gasped, rising carefully to her knees. “You saved my life.”
“I saved my own,” Jen corrected, sitting up and sucking in a deep breath. “Call yours a serendipitous bonus.”
“Let’s not argue semantics. We’re both still alive. I thought for a moment…” Naraymis bit her lip apprehensively.
“That I was going to let him kill you?” Jen finished. “Nope. I have no problem with you—other than your snotty attitude—but that bastard had this coming. He got my friend killed, and I owed him that.” For a moment, she felt righteous, but she deflated just as quickly as reality reasserted itself. “But if I was in a shitstorm of trouble before, I can’t imagine there’s a word for what I’m neck deep in now. Those cops are gonna be dead, aren’t they?”
“Probably,” Naraymis agreed grimly, darting a glance toward the door.
“And I suppose you have that fancy diplomatic immunity thing to protect you,” Jen groaned. “Which leaves all of this on me. Fuckin’ perfect.”
Naraymis turned to reply, and as she did, Jen noticed that she had a cut on her cheek, just below her eye, doubtless from where Solinas had struck her. She was about to mention it when she saw that a few drops of blood had oozed out of the wound and dripped onto Naraymis’ shirt.
The blood was purple.
“Oh, fuck me,” Jen breathed, driving to her feet and backing off a few steps. “You’re one of them too?”
Naraymis stared at her, brow furrowed with confusion. “What?”
Jen pointed at her shirt, and she looked down. When she looked back up, her eyes were very wide, apprehension and no little fear roiling in her gaze.
“That’s why you were so interested in that fucker,” Jen realised. “You were tracking him. And you used me as bait. Mind telling me why?”
“We don’t have time for this,” Naraymis hissed.
“Oh, I’ve got plenty of time,” Jen corrected tartly as inspiration struck. Sitting down, she put her feet up on the table, legs crossed at the ankles. It was a risky bluff, but she figured she held the cards to make good on it. “Since the only place I’m going from here is the freezer, I’m in no rush. But hey, good news, it looks like you’ll be coming along to keep me company, because I’m sure the Marauders won’t be too happy when they find out you’ve been pretending to be one of their diplomats.”
Naraymis shot another nervous look at the door, and Jen smirked, satisfied that she’d read the situation right. Naraymis took a deep breath. “I did use you as bait, yes. Your friend here tried to kill me three days ago, and I wanted to know why.”
“He’s not my friend. So, he knew you were one of his own kind?”
“I don’t know that for sure,” Naraymis admitted. “All I know is that he wanted me dead.”
“Why?”
“I really don’t know. Look,” Naraymis was clearly starting to panic, “I can help get you out of the station, if you like, but I need to go.”
“What good will getting out of the station do me?” Jen shrugged. “Every cop from here to Kyzar knows my name. Even if I make it out of Berlin, I’m not real keen on making a break for free space with a cop-killer sign around my neck. And if I run and get caught again, I’ll spend even longer in the freezer than I will if I just stay put. And if I give you up into the bargain, well, maybe that cuts a century or so off my sentence.”
Naraymis stared at her in disbelief. “You’ve got no idea how important what I’m doing is,” she half-pleaded.
“Don’t care.” Jen shrugged for emphasis. “Whatever you’re doing is in the best interests of your people, not mine. I may have been a shitty soldier, but I do have some residual cultural loyalties here and there.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Assuming of course that you’re not some kind of terrorist, like the Sentinels—you’ve heard of them, I assume?”
Naraymis closed her eyes for a moment, pinched the bridge of her nose, then looked out at Jen over her knuckles. “What do you want?” she asked in a resigned tone.
“You owe me one for saving your life.”
“I thought that was just serendipity?”
“Well, now it’s an opportunity. You’re some kind of secret agent, right? You must have contacts and an escape route. I want you to get me off Earth, to Ganymede, so I can pick up my ship and get the fuck out of Dodge. Do that for me and we’re all square. Leave me here and I sing like a canary, then we find out just how important what you’re doing is to the Marauders.” She dropped her feet to the floor, sat forward, and placed her left hand over the call button at about six inches clearance. “Or I could just end this discussion, right here, right now.”
Naraymis stared at her, indecision in her eyes, and Jen drummed a slow beat on the table. “Tick tock, secret agent. The longer you wait, the more likely you’ll get caught.”
r /> “All right!” Naraymis surrendered, glaring. “Yes, I can get you to Ganymede. But I want to go with you after that. I need you to get me out of Modeus. I’m no more keen to spend time in Lord’s Assembly than you are.”
“Well, that’s a separate business transaction, Madam Secretary. That’ll cost you twenty thousand credits.”
“Done.” Naraymis’ eyes were sparking with fury, but the agreement came without hesitation.
Jen whistled. “Christ, you must be fuckin’ desperate.”
“I’m getting there,” Naraymis replied curtly. “Do we have a deal?”
“We do.”
“Good. Help me with this body then, would you?”
Together, they dragged the dead changeling across to the prisoner’s side of the room. The changeling agent knelt beside him, relieving him of Krieger’s ID card. Then she unpinned his badge and used the sharp point of the pin to score a couple of deep, even scratches along his cheek. The wounds slowly began to ooze blood, the tell-tale bright purple of a changeling. “That should keep them confused,” Naraymis muttered as she pinned his badge back. “OK, now we reactivate the field.”
Jen walked over to the console to do so as Naraymis opened the door and stepped out. She reappeared a moment later dragging Officer Koch’s lifeless body. “Get her uniform on,” she instructed, dropping the body at Jen’s feet. “If we’re quick, we should be able to just walk out the back door.”
Jen nodded, stripping off her jumpsuit and making a start on Koch’s clothing as the agent dragged the real Krieger in as well. While she changed, Naraymis opened her briefcase and retrieved a comm tool, interfacing it with the control console and typing in a series of commands. By the time Jen was dressed—Koch was more heavily built than she was, so the uniform was a bit loose but not obviously so once the gear was belted over the top—Naraymis was done with her hack.
“All right. That’ll set off a data mine in three minutes and completely fry their systems and all stored information. I can’t hack the central records from here—I’ll do that later.” She raised her eyebrows enquiringly as she donned her jacket. “Let’s get going, shall we?”
KEERA
999 ATA - Ganymede Approach Vector, Modeus System, Assembly Space
It didn’t take long to get off Earth.
As soon as they’d cleared the police station, Keera had risked a quick stop in a nearby department store to buy a combat-style jacket and some cosmetics for Bronwen, then they’d headed back to her hotel. Her unwanted new associate had concealed her tattoo, braided her hair into a tight, tidy plait, and donned the jacket over her purloined uniform, turning her into a respectable facsimile of a personal security officer. Meanwhile, Keera treated the cut on her face, sealing it with dermal regeneration gel and masking the wound with make-up to hide the tell-tale colour of her blood.
Disguises and personal appearance attended to, Keera had turned her attention to their escape route. Accessing the Marauder government network, she’d pulled Bronwen’s military record, using the biometrics to fake a new identity for the human, setting her up as a member of the Exterior Department’s security service, assigned to Keera as her personal detail. Then she’d used her expense account to book two tickets on the next sub-orbital express from Berlin to Hong Kong and reserve a private shuttle from the Marauder enclave to the commercial docks on Ganymede. It was an abuse of her position that would flag up in the accounting systems within a few hours, but by that point she had to hope that Bronwen would have made good on her promise of a ship and an independent route out of Terran space.
She’d collected everything she thought she might need, then they’d left the hotel, making a quick detour to a cheaper establishment in the eastern part of the city to pick up Bronwen’s gear. The Marauder woman had been bright enough to rent the room under an assumed name, and her kit was untouched. She’d gathered it up in silence, pausing to run one hand gently over the heavy leather bomber jacket hanging from the desk chair, then they’d locked the room and left to catch their flight.
Keera then spent most of the flight to Jupiter’s moon painstakingly erasing any reference to Bronwen she could find in official communications and records, as well as deleting her own name from the police visitor’s log. There was no way to completely expunge the information with the case being in the public domain through numerous news reports and the associated media chatter, but the longer it took the Terran authorities to reconstruct the formal data, the better their odds of a clean getaway.
Now, with the shuttle on final approach to Ganymede and nothing left to do, Keera studied the human slouched in the seat across from her. Although the oversized uniform hid much of her body shape, Bronwen was clearly in good physical condition. Her hair was a rich, dark shade of red, and with her fair skin, straight nose, and high cheekbones, she was rather attractive by human standards. Her dark blue eyes were lidded, half-closed, but Keera was certain that very little had escaped Bronwen’s notice over the course of the short trip.
Not least, she reflected, her own simmering agitation, blatantly telegraphed by her inability to sit still. Her anxiety was increasing with every minute that passed, every moment that took her further and further from everything she knew, and being trapped in the confines of the shuttle meant that all she could do was fidget, constantly shifting her weight and drumming an arrhythmic tattoo on her thighs with her fingers. What in the name of God and all the Creators am I doing?
For the first time she could remember, she had absolutely no idea.
Throughout her training, throughout her career, the lesson that had been driven home again and again by her instructors and by experience was that careful planning engendered success. Luck, as the saying went, favoured the prepared. Impulse and instinct were reaction, not action, to be avoided unless absolutely necessary. And if they did become necessary, it was because you hadn’t prepared correctly, a truth she’d just unequivocally proven. She’d lost focus, shaken by Mahmoud’s death and then by the attack in the hotel; made sloppy mistakes by reacting emotionally to the situation. Then, she’d deliberately broken tradecraft, and worse, done so to secure the freedom of a wanted criminal whose motives and involvement in this whole mess were still abundantly unclear. She’d put herself into a position where Bronwen had been able to blackmail her into this course of action, and she could hardly blame the human for making the most of the opportunity.
She wanted to, though. It was more palatable than acknowledging she’d panicked, and in so doing had set a diplomatic catastrophe in motion.
Well, what were you supposed to do, let yourself get killed?
Isn’t that what was expected of you? a cynical little voice in her mind demanded. The individual is expendable for the good of the mission, remember? Aren’t you prepared to die for the cause?
It would seem that she wasn’t, when it really came down to it. She pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a long, slow breath, trying to control the slosh of worry, shame, and fear in her guts.
“Secretary Naraymis,” the pilot’s voice sounded over the comms, disrupting her fretting, “we’re beginning our approach. Will you and your colleague please secure your restraints and remain seated until we land? We’ll be entering atmosphere, so there will be some bumps.”
“Of course,” Keera replied. “Thank you.”
“No problem, ma’am. We’ll have you on the ground in a few moments.”
It was no use second-guessing the situation now, she decided as she tightened her belt. The only way out was to follow through with this escape. Then, she could figure out what had gone so spectacularly wrong, and, if possible, how to fix it.
The atmospheric entry proved to be a boneshaker; Keera only avoided biting her tongue by dint of clenching her jaw so tightly it almost cramped. The landing was even worse, the shuttle hitting the ground with such a jolt that Keera barely avoided hitting her head as she bounced in her seat. A grunt of pain from across the cabin informed her that the significantly talle
r Captain Bronwen hadn’t been as lucky.
Eventually, mercifully, the shuttle settled on the runway and rolled to a halt. As soon as they stopped, Bronwen flicked off her restraints and got out of her seat, opening the refreshment cupboard, retrieving all of the liquor bottles, and dumping them into her bag. “Waste not, want not,” she remarked with a grin.
Keera cocked her head, conceding the point. She had no idea what supplies the human’s ship had. Quickly, she stuffed the remaining snacks and drinks into her own holdall, and looked around for anything else that might be handy, but nothing obvious presented itself. “All right, let’s go.”
The pilot met them at the hatch. “Thank you,” Keera bade him.
“My pleasure,” he replied with a smile. “Have a good day, Madam Secretary.”
Certain this was the last time anyone would call her by that title, Keera mustered a bright, professional smile and nod as she stepped off the shuttle. Bronwen followed, offering a laconic farewell, and fell into step with her as they exited to the main concourse. “Well, here we are. I really didn’t think we were going to make it for a moment back there,” she confessed in a relieved tone, her shoulders slackening as she relaxed a little.
“We should still have a few hours’ grace before the bolo advisory really takes effect,” Keera replied. “I was as thorough as I could be about clearing your record.”
Bronwen snorted. “Not that. Captain Kangaroo, our so-called pilot. Some bumps? I bit my tongue three times. Jesus, I haven’t hit a runway that hard since… you know what, actually, I’ve never landed a bird that hard, not even the time I had my engines shot out and had to do a controlled crash onto a carrier deck. I’m amazed he didn’t completely fuck the landing gear.” She rubbed at her temple with the heel of her hand. “I already had a goddamn concussion,” she complained irritably. “I didn’t need the top-up.”
Her professional outrage was so genuine, so palpable, that Keera couldn’t help but laugh. “Well, how about you drive for the next leg?” she suggested.
“Damn straight,” Bronwen agreed. She looked around, getting her bearings. “All right, secret agent, this way. All we have to do is get to the Fortune, and we can get out of here. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty damn sick of Terra right now.”
“Lead on,” Keera invited. The feeling was most definitely mutual.
The walk to the industrial docking bays was short. Ganymede’s space port existed primarily to handle worker transfers and specialist shipments of equipment or non-standard supplies—the giant gas mining platforms that tapped Jupiter’s immense resources had their own dockyards for regular cargo. Bronwen led Keera to one of the smaller docks, and the changeling couldn’t help but hold her breath as the door slid open. Now she’d find out whether she’d made a good call, or just the last mistake in a series of errors that would culminate in her body being dumped someplace discreet.
There was a ship.
Keera let out a heartfelt sigh of relief as Bronwen practically bounded through the gate. “Oh, baby, are you ever a sight for sore eyes,” the human cooed happily. She gave the hull a quick but thorough once-over then turned to Keera with a triumphant smirk. “Well, Madam Secretary, here you go. The Bronwen’s Fortune.”
Keera wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting of Bronwen’s alleged ship, but it certainly wasn’t the vessel before her, all sleek lines and graceful curves that suggested speed, agility, and elegance. Most cargo freighters had boxy, squared-off hulls to maximise their shipping capacity, being less concerned with aesthetics than profits. “She’s, uh… pretty.”
Bronwen gave her a surprised but genuine smile. “Thank you. Her hull’s a beauty, but she’s a working ship, so she’s pretty functional inside. I hope you can manage without all of your creature comforts.”
“I’m tougher than I look,” Keera retorted.
“I didn’t realise being a spy could be so cushy,” Bronwen goaded as she set off down the dock. “Makes me think maybe I was in the wrong line of government work.”
Keera ignored the jibe, pointing at the motif stencilled on the hull, just below the pilot’s canopy. “Isn’t that the same pattern as your tattoo?” she asked.
“It is,” Bronwen confirmed, but she offered no further explanation. “C’mon, secret agent. We’re supposed to be making a getaway, not discussing the finer points of hull decals. The quicker we clear dock control, the happier I’ll be.”