Like every freighter Kira had served on, Baile Fantasma was cramped in her living quarters. The mess, at least, was a decent size—but the corridors that Ramirez led them through to get there were barely two meters high.
Kira, who was petite by any standard, had no problem with the corridors. Konrad and Bertoli both seemed a bit perturbed by the low ceilings, but everyone was used to starships. It would be fine.
The mess was set up more like a large family kitchen than the traditional cafeteria style. One wall held two stoves and assorted other preparation spaces, and three decently sized tables with chairs took up the rest of the space.
While there were only a dozen chairs in the space, Kira could see it easily being increased to eighteen without much difficulty. Adding another table could get them to twenty-four, though it would be a bit cramped at that point.
She couldn’t see a sixteen-kilocubic freighter needing twenty-four crew—and neither, it seemed, could Captain Zamorano.
“I promised coffee,” that worthy said with a chuckle, laying out small cups on the counter by the kitchen. “Spanish-style espresso. If you haven’t had it, it’ll be a treat.”
“I’m always willing to try new things when it comes to coffee,” Kira said. The cups were definitely sized for just espresso with no fixings—and after the previous day, she wasn’t sure she wanted to see a latte again for a while.
Each of her companions accepted a tiny cup, as did Ramirez.
Ramirez shot back the contents of the cup in one swallow, passing the empty back to Zamorano.
“I need to get back to watching the lock,” he said. “Have a good meeting, folks.”
Kira took a careful sip of the espresso, then followed Ramirez’s example. There just wasn’t enough of the rich liquid for sipping.
“That’s different,” Konrad said. “I like it.”
“Old family tradition,” Zamorano told them. “Slight differences in pressure and temperature from most espresso machines; creates a richer brew.”
“Thank you for sharing,” Kira said. “I appreciate it.”
“Always. You are on my ship; I am your host. Can I get you anything more?”
“More espresso?” Konrad asked hopefully, and Zamorano chuckled.
“I’ll start another round,” he agreed. “It will take a few moments.”
There turned out to be a specialty machine with six spouts tucked into a cupboard in the kitchen. It folded out and Zamorano filled it with water, carefully turning off one of the spouts, and then set it to brewing with several spoonfuls of coffee.
“So, Em Riker, what do you want with the humble captain of a humble ship?” he asked.
“You saved my people’s lives, Captain,” she told him. “I’d like to repay that, if I can. I’m also here looking for transport and wondering if you can help.”
“Hence trawling your way through the bars and coffee shops of the dock district,” the captain observed. He saluted her with the espresso cup he was about to fill. “I did some poking after we met, Em Riker. You’re walking a careful line between avoiding attention and finding what you’re looking for.
“And we’ve already seen at least part of the reason demonstrated.”
“So we have,” Kira agreed. “Lieutenant Sanna said you’d be released from lockdown quickly enough?”
“It’s a formality and both she and I know it,” Zamorano told her. He brought a tray of espresso cups over to one of the tables, gesturing for everyone to sit. “I give it another day at most. It was pretty open-and-shut. You were there.”
“I was, and I appreciate your intervention,” she replied. His casualness about having killed two people, though, didn’t fit his intended image of a “humble captain of a humble ship.” “We all do. So…I know how you can help me, Captain, but I’m wondering how I can help you?”
“I can think of a few ways,” Baile Fantasma’s Captain said. “But my helping you may well incur additional favors, so why don’t you tell me what you want and I’ll assess if I should be upping my favor?”
Kira swallowed the second espresso, putting the tiny cup down and leaning back in the simple wooden chair, studying the man across the table from her. Like the two subordinates she had met, Zamorano was dark-skinned and sharp-featured. He had a ragged mostly-white beard and short-cropped, likely dyed, pure black hair, and his brown eyes danced with amusement at her.
He was utterly relaxed, as if the result of this conversation was utterly meaningless to him—which was either a fantastic negotiating trick or a sign that he was not a merchant captain.
Or both.
“I need transport for the four of us and a sixty-cubic-meter runabout shuttle,” she told him. “To the Crest, with all paperwork registered, clean, unquestionable. We want to avoid any kind of attention, official or otherwise.”
“And you want to do so quickly; otherwise, you’d have talked to the transport broker,” Zamorano observed. “They could book that for you, but you’d be looking at two, maybe three weeks. There aren’t a lot of slots for someone hauling both a shuttle and passengers.”
“Exactly.”
He smiled.
“I can do that,” he told them. “Let’s say…standard cubage and passenger rates per nova, plus fifty percent. It’s an awkward trip, hitting the Crest from here, and I might not be able to fill the rest of the cargo.
“We need to make it look good if you want to avoid those questions.”
That was pricey…but not unreasonable for the speed and oddity of her request. In hindsight, Kira should have just planned to dump the runabout—but she couldn’t do that with the shuttle full of armor and guns.
“That’s fine,” she told him.
“But that’s not my favor,” Zamorano said with a smile. “I’ll do that and I’ll fill the hold as best as I can. I’ll make a profit on that and I will be easily able to find work to get me out of the Crest.
“But even that is a favor to you, not me,” he continued. “So.”
“So.” Kira held his gaze levelly. Her companions were silent around her, though she drew support from Konrad’s presence—not least out of the certainty that if he did disagree with what she was doing, he’d have pinged her with a headware message by now.
“What do you want, Captain Zamorano?” she asked.
“Three things,” he told her. “The same thing, really, but to three people. I need letters of introduction.”
That was…dangerous. Kira Riker didn’t know anybody she could write useful letters to.
“He knows.” Konrad’s warning was unnecessary, but Kira appreciated it anyway and squeezed her lover’s thigh under the table.
“To whom?” she asked softly.
“Sonia Stewart. Jade Panosyan. Henry Killinger.”
The three names hung in the air like the Sword of Damocles. Konrad was right.
The Queen of Redward.
The Crown Zharang of the Royal Crest.
And…a dead Apollo nova combat group Commander?
“Henry Killinger is dead,” Kira pointed out rather than engaging with the fact that the person she was pretending to be wouldn’t know the other two.
“Henry Killinger would be very pleased to know you think that, Kira Demirci,” Zamorano said quietly. “He’s currently buried up to his neck in about eleven kinds of treason and isn’t talking to strangers.
“I really need him to talk to me. I also would very much like to have a conversation with Jade Panosyan.” He waved a hand in the air. “Sonia Stewart is more of an opportunity than anything else. I don’t think I’m going to have many encounters with people close to her inner circle this far away.”
“How long did it take you to work out who I am?” Kira asked softly.
“I haven’t trusted the name someone gave me in over forty years,” Zamorano said bluntly. “You should have done more to adjust your face, Em Demirci. My headware flagged you the moment you ducked into the bar. That death mark drew our attention.”
The mess was silent.
“You’re no merchant captain,” Konrad finally said as Kira was still thinking. “And this ship…What the fuck is SolFed Intelligence doing out here?”
“Oh, well done.”
The silence continued for a few more seconds, then Zamorano chuckled loudly.
“I am not fully up to date with events in the Syntactic Cluster,” he noted. “I was aware that K79-L had fallen into your hands, Em Demirci. I was not aware that Em Bueller had fallen into your hands with her. A good choice, it seems.
“I was aware of John Estanza’s death. You have my sympathies.” He shook his head.
“And yes, Em Bueller is correct. I, this ship and every member of her crew are operatives of the Solar Federation’s Interstellar Intelligence Service. The records on Baile Fantasma are correct, if you’re wondering. She is two hundred and eighty-six years old.”
The spy snorted.
“I’m a bit younger than she is, but I’ve come just about as far,” he told them. “I’m Earthborn, which makes being out here an…experience, let me tell you. But…”
He shrugged.
“SolFed tries to keep an eye on everything everywhere,” he noted. “With a three-thousand-light-year sphere of generally accepted civilized space and an unknown number of colonies beyond that sphere, believe me when I tell you the effort is futile.
“This ship represents a significant percentage of IIS’s assets in this region.”
“And you don’t mean the Crest Sector,” Kira murmured.
“No,” he agreed. “This IIS operation region is four degrees of the Rim. A little over one percent of a region of millions of cubic light-years. Apollo and Brisingr fall into the region. As does the Syntactic Cluster. We have… Let’s just go with ‘far too few’ assets to even maintain intelligence updates across the Rim.”
“Why are you telling us this?” Konrad challenged.
“Because you guessed,” Zamorano said with a chuckle. “And because you, Kira Demirci, can give me documents that will get me connections to those three people. I don’t think anyone else in the galaxy could get me all three—and I’ve been trying to find a way to connect to Killinger for a while.”
“But he’s dead,” Kira reiterated.
“He faked his death,” Zamorano told her. “Easy enough when a hostile intelligence service is doing their damnedest to kill every Apollo ace who isn’t directly related to a member of the Council of Principals. After faking his death, he went underground.
“I have reason to believe he is gathering a private fleet of warships as the various systems concede to Brisingr’s demands and officially decommission their nova fleets.
“But since he’s officially dead, he is being utterly paranoid about who he makes contact with. You don’t find Henry Killinger. His people find you.”
“And you think he’ll listen to a letter from me?” Kira asked. She’d flown with Colonel Henry Killinger. He’d been a close friend of Colonel Jay Moranis, her nova group’s commander and mentor.
“I think he owes you his life at least twice over,” Zamorano noted. “I think that might buy us a conversation he and I need to have.” He shrugged. “With both Stewart and Panosyan, I know a letter from you will open a door, but with Killinger, it’s only a chance—and at that, it’s still worth getting you into the Crest to me.
“So. I know who you are and can guess why you need to be in the Crest without anyone knowing. You now know who I am and what I want. We put money on it, so no one else asks questions, but it’s really down to whether you’re willing to write those letters or not.”
“You already saved my life,” Kira pointed out. “And if I can’t trust SolFed Intelligence to get me into a system without drawing attention, a whole bunch of urban legends and case studies I’ve read are wrong.
“So, let’s do it.”