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Galactic Law Copyright © 2020 by Variant Publications

Book design and layout copyright © 2020 by JN Chaney

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from JN Chaney.

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https://www.jamesaaron.net

1st Edition

Books in the Renegade Star Universe

Renegade Star Series:

Renegade Star

Renegade Atlas

Renegade Moon

Renegade Lost

Renegade Fleet

Renegade Earth

Renegade Dawn

Renegade Children

Renegade Union

Renegade Empire

Renegade Descent

Renegade Rising

Renegade Alliance

Renegade Evolution

Renegade War

Renegade Peace

The Renegade Series:

The Renegade

The Deal

Standalones:

Nameless

The Constable

The Constable Returns

The Warrior Queen

The Orion Colony Series with Jonathan Yanez:

Orion Colony

Orion Uncharted

Orion Awakened

Orion Protected

The Last Reaper Series with Scott Moon:

The Last Reaper

Fear the Reaper

Blade of the Reaper

Wings of the Reaper

Flight of the Reaper

Wrath of the Reaper

Will of the Reaper

Descent of the Reaper

Hunt of the Reaper

Bastion of the Reaper

The Fifth Column Series with Molly Lerma:

The Fifth Column

The Solaras Initiative

The Forlorn Hope

Final Battlefield (Coming soon!)

Resonant Son Series with Christopher Hopper:

Resonant Son

Resonant Abyss

The Galactic Law Series with James S. Aaron:

Galactic Law

Galactic Judge

Galactic Jury

Galactic Executioner

Contents

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Galactic Law

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

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Epilogue

Galactic Judge

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

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Epilogue

Galactic Jury

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

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Epilogue

Galactic Executioner

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

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Epilogue

Renegade Star Universe

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About The Authors

Join the conversation and get updates on new and upcoming releases in the Facebook group called “JN Chaney’s Renegade Readers.” This is a hotspot where readers come together and share their lives and interests, discuss the series, and speak directly to J.N. Chaney and his co-authors.

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1

“Chance of success, forty percent,” LE-DB said.

I stared at the gap between buildings as my perp hit the ground on the other side, stumbled, and then began to sprint. If I didn’t go now, I was going to lose him.

“Success rates don’t matter if you don’t even try,” I told her. “Continuing pursuit.”

My current objective was running down a criminal escaping through the many back alleyways of Taurus station.

“Are you sure? You’re heavier in duty armor.”

“I know, Ellie. Don’t distract me.”

Ellie, or LE-DB, for Law Enforcement Database, was my onboard dispatcher, a mix of partner, legal assistant, and heads-up display. Each patrol deputy had a version of the AI. Most just called her Dispatch or some other nickname, but I’d settled on Ellie. She wasn’t my trainer—that was Sergeant Jack Keldon, whom I’d left on the street below. I could talk to Ellie even when I’d lost comms with other units or headquarters. That wasn’t always a good thing.

“Trainee Walker, be aware that if you miss this jump, there is a high probability that you will fail training for the day, damage department equipment, or sustain mortal injury. Perhaps all three.”

“Thanks for keeping our priorities straight.”

Of course she had to mention my trainee status, reminding me I’m not an actual Sheriff’s Deputy.

“My priority protocols are clear.”

“You sure about that? That guy bombed a party barge. I’m catching him or you can scrape me off the street.”

“Suit yourself, Trainee Walker. I will provide a record of your decision when you are promoted to civilian in a body bag.”

Was that a joke? Ellie wasn’t capable of jokes, which meant she had probably copied the line from my trainer, Sergeant Keldon. It sounded like him.

My perp was looking over his shoulder, probably waiting to see if I was going to try the jump or not. I backed up a couple meters, checked that my pistol was secure as I eyed the edge of the roof, then sprinted for the gap.

* * *

An hour earlier…

Foot patrol in Taurus Station’s retail district always had me yawning after thirty minutes. The station’s party sections might have been going strong, but this area was closed for the night. Cleaning drones trundled along the wide corridors, collecting discarded drink containers, party fliers, beaded necklaces, and abandoned bits of clothing.

“You’re falling asleep, Trainee Walker,” Ellie warned. “You’ll get a low rating. Another low rating and you’ll fail out of training.”

The AI seemed to enjoy hounding me in an ever-haughty tone from her speaker in my helmet. There was no getting away from her, and she was right. I picked up my step.

“Checking windows and rattling locks,” my trainer, Sergeant Jack Keldon, said with a satisfied smile beneath his brush-like brown moustache. “Security ain’t sexy, but it’s important. You understand me?” He tapped the door to a clothing shop and updated the log on its security panel.

“I understand,” I said. “And I sure do enjoy it.”

“Sarcasm detected,” Ellie warned.

Keldon lifted his helmet’s face shield then hocked and spit in the street. He slammed the shield back down and adjusted his pants. “When we drop these stats on the Sheriff’s desk tomorrow, you’ll like it. He’s up for reelection. Community policing. And it’s good for your review.”

“Beats writing reports, anyway,” I said.

“The only thing better would be out talking to a citizen. That time’s never wasted.”

I rolled my eyes, which Keldon couldn’t see through my face shield. That didn’t stop Ellie from chiding me with an electric prick at the back of my neck.

I wanted to kick down doors and slam drug dealers on the pavement, not do my best as a glorified security guard off the party strip.

Deputy Keldon had been on the force at Taurus for fifteen years. He was halfway to his pension and had long since given up any desire to run toward hot calls. Having settled into training duty for the regular hours, he seemed to genuinely enjoy his long speeches about ethics, working hard, community policing, and weapons maintenance. I certainly valued all those things, but walking down empty streets wasn’t keeping me bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

I joined the Taurus Station Sheriff’s Deputies because I wanted to make a difference in the ongoing ravager wars that wracked every station on the edge of the Deadlands, from the mining rigs to the residential orbitals and industrial sites, most connected by only a single slip tunnel. I’d grown up on a mining rig and understood firsthand what it was like to tremble in fear as a ravager gang blasted their way into a neighboring ship because someone hadn’t paid protection fees.

“Speaking of time talking to citizens,” Keldon said. “Come on.” He led the way across the promenade to one of the few shops that appeared to still be open, although it was hard to tell if any lights were on inside from all the items jammed in the display windows.

The sign above the window read “Trinidad’s Trinkets.”

Keldon pulled the door open and motioned for me to step inside. I found myself in a small shop lined with shelves full of souvenirs. The various flowers, spaceships, and replicas of Taurus Station looked pretty good until you got up close.

“Are these made from trash?” I asked Keldon. “This dancer has a candy wrapper for a skirt.”

“Trash or treasure,” came a gruff voice from the other side of the shop. “You decide for yourself, Deputy.”

“He’s my trainee,” Keldon corrected. “Thought I would bring him by to meet you, Ollie. How are you doing?”

I pushed up my face shield as Keldon walked over to give the short man a hearty handshake.

“Well, enough,” the shopkeeper said. “My endeavors keep me busy. You still serving justice to the depraved and ill-mannered?”

“I’m wearing the uniform, aren’t I?” Keldon said.

“That’s no guarantee,” Ollie said. “Who’s your trainee?”

“Gage Walker.” I shook the shopkeeper’s hand. From the glue stains on his fingers, it looked like the trinkets were his handiwork.

“Oliver Trinidad, good to meet you. So, you’re a deputy in training, huh? Where’d you leave that could possibly be worse than working for this guy?”

“Mining rig,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows. “Call me Ollie, then. You paid your dues. If this peace officer stuff doesn’t work out, you come see me.”

Keldon laughed.

“You taking on apprentices for the arts and craft business?” I asked.

Ollie glanced at Keldon and something unsaid moved between them. Keldon gave a slight nod.

“Come on, Gage. How about some coffee?”

“I’ll never say no to that.”

Ollie rose to push open the door marked “Staff” behind his counter. I followed Keldon through to where a two-man security cage stood ajar, allowing access to a larger room with a work bench that held several projects in various stages of assembly. The real show was all the cargo crates and cylinders packed into the space beyond. Some of the containers looked military grade, tagged with Union transit marks, while others carried the logos of high-end brands that could have been real or knock-off, I didn’t know.

Ollie walked to the coffee maker on the edge of his workbench and poured cups for all of us.

“How’s our Sheriff doing?” he asked Keldon.

“Worried about reelection, as always. He’s got us out on foot patrols to remind everyone we exist. Everybody forgets about the Sheriff until the shit hits the fan.”

“Until the Union takes over, anyway,” Ollie said.

“The day that happens is the day I’m getting off station,” Keldon said. “Screw the Union.”

Ollie placed his hand over his heart in mock concern. “I didn’t know you felt so strongly, Sergeant. Did the Union kill your puppy?”

“I don’t need the Union encroaching even further into the Deadlands. They can’t take care of what they already own. Besides, Taurus is a frontier station. Always has been, always should be.”

“There’s a lot of money here. More every day.” Ollie turned his attention to me. “How long have you been on station?”

“Almost a year now,” I said.

“What do you think about Taurus?”

“It’s all right,” I said. “Once you look past the ravagers, smugglers, and awful neon everywhere.”

“Smugglers aren’t so bad,” Ollie said with a half grin.

I was trying to figure out why Keldon had made a point of stopping here, since they weren’t having any sort of personal conversation.

“How do you two know each other?” I asked.

That seemed to be the wrong question. Keldon drained his coffee cup and set it on the workbench beside a half-finished toy rocket.

“Don’t ask the question if you don’t want the answer,” he said. “Ollie and me go way back. It’s good you met him. If you ever need help outside the Sheriff’s Office, you find him.”

Ollie tilted his head back, looking surprised. “That’s high praise from the likes of you, Jack Keldon. Don’t forget my help has a price.”

“Everything on Taurus has a price,” the sergeant said with a shrug. “The only free thing on this station is a bullet in your ass.”

Ollie laughed. “That’s good. I’m using that.”

“Let’s go, Gage,” Keldon said.

I set my empty coffee cup beside Keldon’s and noticed a stack of data tablets at the back of the bench. The topmost tablet had what looked like an ad for a job on its face, with a credit amount that meant it couldn’t be legal.

“Take care of yourselves,” Ollie said. “Good meeting you, Gage. And if you need anything, don’t hesitate to stop by. Trinidad’s Trinkets usually has what you’re looking for.”

The shopkeeper pulled out his stool and waved us out of the backroom before picking up his soldering iron. We walked through the shop and back out into the promenade, where I slid my face shield down to check my HUD for any changes in the area.

Nope, still nothing.

We walked on, traveling another few blocks and checking more doors. It appeared Ollie’s place was the only open store in the sector. Groups of drunk tourists stumbled by, too cheap to buy a transport to their next casino.

“Alert,” Ellie informed. “Party barge inbound.”

“Yay,” I answered.

Immediately after the alert, I picked up the sounds of shouting and laughter. Keldon motioned for us to step out of the promenade as a party barge rounded the corner a hundred meters away. The street filled with flashing lights, screeching laughter, and music I felt through my duty armor.

I rested my hand on my pistol. At this time in the early morning, the drone-operated party barge would have maybe twenty holdouts stumbling around on its platform.

“Don’t hold that wall up,” Keldon said. “We want them to see us.”

“Be visible, be safe, be effective,” Ellie added.

“Bee-ite me,” I answered.

“Should I share that with Sergeant Keldon?”

“Not unless you want to get recycled along with me.”

We’d learned in the Academy that party barges were high crime areas. I understood perfectly well that it never hurt to be out where someone in distress could see us. And if we did see something bad going down, we had the authority to stop and board. Most deputies didn’t, so they were able to avoid the vomit and extra hours of report writing that any barge check would create. Sergeant Keldon didn’t seem to mind that stuff. He was one of the good guys, and I respected him for it.

This barge was fuller than I expected. Partiers hung off the sides, waving cups and bottles, while a live DJ manipulated a column of light on a stage.

“Must be a private party,” Keldon said.

I stretched my neck for a second to look, when the vehicle exploded.

Thanks to the duty armor, I was more or less protected when the force threw me back. My head cracked against the wall behind me, my arms going wide, and I slid in the street like I’d been thrown by drone.

“Get up!” Keldon shouted. “You all right?”

I rolled to my hands and knees, nodding. I stood as Keldon barked updates to dispatch.

“I’m all right,” I said slowly, still disoriented.

“Then get over there. I’m sending the location data to EMS.”

The corridor was covered in dust from crushed walls. I blinked as my helmet HUD updated with thermal imagery. People hung suspended above the barge’s platform by its safety bars. The DJ was frozen with his arms splayed out, limp as a rag.

The blast must have come from the head of the barge, where the deck was crushed and twisted.

More thermal markers filled my HUD as everyone was accounted for, and then an aberrant thermal return from above me drew my attention. I squinted upward to find someone kneeling on the edge of a nearby roof.

My HUD outlined the observer, trying to grab an ID. There were no returns except for the high probability of a detonation device in their gloved right hand.

“Medical services inbound,” Ellie reported.

With medics on their way, we needed to secure the scene. This was mainly to ensure the safety of the victims and anyone nearby, but also to establish the crime scene. With a crime, you had a perp.

“I’ve got a suspect,” I told Keldon.

The channel filled with static and his response came back garbled.

Through the dust, I could see the figure step away from the edge of the roof.

“You’re not going anywhere,” I told the runner.

“You have not been authorized pursuit, Trainee Walker,” Ellie told me.

“I got a response from Keldon.”

“His response was broken and ambiguous.”

“Then I’ll exercise my bias for action,” I said, using one of our directives from the Academy.

I sprinted across the street, sending my law enforcement override to the locked door in the process. I slammed into the entryway just as it opened and found myself in a dark liquor store, its walls covered in fancy bottles. Running through into the back storeroom, I scanned for stairs as my HUD updated the building schematic. Glowing lines showed me there was a maintenance exit on the roof. My perp was going to either come down that stairwell, or I needed to get up there before they jumped to another building.

After running up three flights of stairs, I exploded from the maintenance door in time to watch my man sail across the alley.

“Damn it!” I muttered.

2

I hit the other roof to the sound of Keldon yelling in my ear. “Walker, what are you doing? I’ve got EMS here. Are you ready for the lead in?”

I checked my armor as I ran for the hatch where my perp had disappeared. Everything was good so far.

“I’ve got a suspect. In pursuit.”

“Pursuit?” Keldon asked.

“I told you he couldn’t hear you before,” Ellie said over our private connection.

“What he heard was up for debate.”

The channel fuzzed into static again as I dropped through the hatch into a narrow maintenance corridor and spotted my suspect running about twenty meters ahead. Drawing my pistol, I sprinted after them, boots echoing on the metal decking. Ahead of me, the perp reached a corner and disappeared.

I stopped when I reached the corner, then I put a shoulder against the wall and made the turn.

Instead of my perp, I found a green-haired man in overalls ten meters down the corridor.

My heart slammed in my chest. I was lucky I didn’t shoot the guy.

“Holy shit!” the tech shouted, raising his hands. “Are you chasing the other guy?”

“Be advised,” Ellie said. “This is not a lawful target.”

I realized he was still in my line of fire and adjusted the weapon slightly. “Which way did the other guy go?”

He pointed down the corridor. “Kept running that way.”

“What did they look like?”

“In a uniform, like you.”

“A uniform? Who?”

The tech shook his head. “I don’t know anything about that stuff, man. I’m a fiber maintainer.” He lifted his toolbox.

“Stay here,” I told him. “I’ll be back.”

My comms link threw static again as I ran down the corridor. Keldon was certainly trying to get a hold of me but I had come this far and at least wanted a tracking marker on the suspect. I needed to get close enough that Ellie could grab facial recognition. If that didn’t work, she could record their gait, movement characteristics, even clothes to search for matches in the general surveillance database. All of that depended on me hauling ass.

I burst through another door and found myself at the edge of a catwalk across a loading area. Twenty meters below, drones with flashing lights backed up to docks to load shipping crates into transports. I stepped onto the catwalk just as new movement below caught my eye. A human shape was dodging the systematic loaders.

“There he is.”

“Would you like me to attempt a marker?” Ellie asked. “You have a thirty-four percent chance of success.”

“Don’t tell me the odds. Do it!”

I focused through my HUD to place the security tracker. The runner’s outline shimmered in the display as Ellie’s optics struggled to grab a unique shape that Surveillance Section could later search.

Just as the subject disappeared behind a drone, the HUD returned a movement lock. So we didn’t have an ID, but we could at least run pattern matching on the population database. It was useful, but no guarantee of a suspect.

Also no guarantee of me not failing training.

“Sergeant Keldon is calling for you,” Ellie said.

“Why can’t I hear him?”

“This place is disrupting your voice comms. You’ll need to go back the way you came.”

I stared at the spot where my perp had been running just seconds before. Again, I wondered how he’d managed that drop. It was too far.

I was too late.

I turned and left the catwalk. As I passed through the doorway, my comms spit static and Keldon’s voice barked in my helmet, and I flinched in spite of myself.

“Walker! Where the hell are you? EMS is here.”

“Do you want me to share your location?” Ellie asked. “He’s going to use his override if I don’t.”

“I’m answering,” I said. “Give me a second.” To the sergeant, I said, “Moving.”

“What’s your location?”

The comms went static again as I reentered the maintenance corridor. I figured I would at least get witness info from the tech for my report. That wouldn’t completely exonerate me with Keldon, but it would at least show I hadn’t run off for no reason.

I had my HUD recording, of course, but decisions made on recordings alone relied on officer discretion, and as a trainee, I didn’t have any.

As I reached the corridor where I’d left the tech, I was only half surprised that he was nowhere to be found.

“What the hell? Are there are any other exits, Ellie?”

“Several. What was your probable cause to hold that citizen?”

Rather than answer, I ground my teeth. She was right. If someone didn’t want to be a witness, I couldn’t force them.

“Do we have any surveillance in the building?” I asked.

“No,” Ellie said.

I might have been projecting, but it seemed to me that the dispatcher AI’s tone had a smug quality. Moving on, I checked the corridor for any sign of an open maintenance panel or tunnel I hadn’t noticed before and found only the bit of comms fiber the green-haired tech had held up. A knot tightened in my stomach as I descended through the new building, adrenaline fading. I emerged from the alley next to the liquor store, facing the smashed party barge.

Medical drones hovered over people sitting on the sidewalk. The DJ was pacing in front of the liquor store. After picking up a piece of metal from the barge, he moved to smash the store’s glass door.

I caught his arm. “What are you doing?”

“I need a drink, man. This is messed up.”

“Go sit down over there.” I pointed at the group with the medics. “You probably have a concussion. Alcohol is the last thing you need.”

“I don’t care if it’s the last thing, I still want it!”

I puffed up a little, facing him with my hand on my pistol. Honestly, I needed the distraction. He relented, dropping his scrap weapon.

I sent the DJ back to the medical line and told Ellie to record the scene. As I walked around the front of the barge, my comms blasted with Keldon’s voice, “Deputy Walker, why aren’t you following your safety protocol? Where the hell are you?”

“I’m right here, sergeant.”

Keldon popped up from where he had been kneeling beside a drunk woman with a head injury. He slid up his helmet’s visor, revealing a hard face with contradicting laugh wrinkles at the eyes. “There you are. Where have you been, Walker?”

I debated playing stupid, then decided the best course of action was to explain my decisions as I’d made them. That was the truth, after all.

“I thought I had a suspect,” I said. “I attempted to inform you but our comms were shaky, so I made the decision to pursue on foot. I had a witness to the suspect, but I lost both of them.”

Resting a hand on the butt of his pistol, Keldon squinted as he studied me. “You hurt?”

“No.”

I shifted, feeling a bit of relief as Keldon’s voice softened. He was in trainer mode, not destroy-in-place mode. “You suffering traumatic stress?”

“I’m pissed I lost my suspect.”

Keldon raised a brow. “How do you know they were a suspect?”

“They were present at the scene. I got a partial motion lock.”

“Does that make them a criminal?”

“They ran.”

“There was an explosion. Wouldn’t you run? Tell me again how you determined a crime took place.”

I waved at the chaos around us. “What else could this have been? It looks like there was an improvised explosive device on board.”

Keldon stared at me for a second, then shifted his gaze to the drunk woman he’d been helping. The medic’s sedatives were working a little too well and a line of drool ran down her chin.

I heard a wheezing sound that made me take a step toward her, thinking she was choking. Then I realized it was Keldon. And he was laughing.

I took a step back. “What’s funny, sergeant?”

“Improvised explosive device?” He waved an armored hand at the busted barge. “This was a recoil overload in the main engine. These things have ancient capacitors in them that get overloaded and gunky from the all the spilled booze and they eventually explode. It’s inevitable. You know how many times I’ve seen this?”

When I didn’t answer, he finished. “Hundreds of times. It’s a civil case if anything.”

I shook my head. “This wasn’t just a motor overload. I’ve seen those before on mining drones. This was a shaped explosion. There was a concussive wave designed to sweep riders off the platform.”

Keldon wiped an eye. “Look, I appreciate your desire to find a bad guy here, but this is open and shut. I’ve seen a thousand of these.”

I didn’t point out that a second ago it had been hundreds of times.

“It’s a civil matter and these fine folks here can take it up with the party company, if it’s still in business by the time they sober up. I wish it was different, Walker, but the best thing we can do for these people is to get them medical care and a ride back to wherever they’re staying.”

“I’m recording the scene,” I said.

“Good. You’re also going to check up on the medic drones and take any witness statements for the inevitable records request we’re going to get when everyone sues. You understand me, Deputy Trainee?”

Knowing it would land me in even more trouble, I bit back what I wanted to say. I’d already been counseled on my “lack of impulse control.” And even though I hadn’t crossed the line into insubordination with Keldon yet, I felt the day coming.

“Fine,” I said.

“Go do your job.” Keldon knelt to help the drunk woman again.

I walked away, frustrated with myself and the situation.

“Trainee Walker, has my previous guidance on your pursuit been confirmed by Sergeant Keldon?” Ellie asked.

“Are you trying to say I told you so?”

“Sarcasm detected. I am adjusting my tactical approach to your training shortfalls.”

“You I can tell to shut up,” I bit out.

“Please remember our tactical transcripts are automatically added to duty records for review by Internal Affairs. I merely seek to provide you with information to make the most informed decisions during emergent situations”

“You’re really trying to help save my ass, is that what you’re saying?”

“Your success is in the best interest of the department and the people of Taurus Station. Despite your recorded shortcomings, you represent a significant investment.”

I shook my head. “Now I’m just a tool. I’ll try to live up to your high expectations.” I placed an evidence lock on the recording of my failed pursuit and sent the files to data storage. I had to list the pursuit as a civil case, separate of the barge explosion, but that still allowed me to make a report. The evidence could always transition to criminal later. Maybe Keldon was right. Or maybe he wasn’t.

I grew up on the Carthage Mining Rig in the Rivas Asteroids and knew my way around heavy equipment control systems. Even though I hadn’t realized it right away, I knew this explosion wasn’t an accident.

From early on, my dream was to become a detective. That meant proving myself on the street first. It meant proving myself to Keldon and every supervisor down the line. Hell, Keldon was a nice guy until he met defiance. I knew I was making things hard on myself, but I couldn’t help going after what I knew was true.

I stretched my neck as I walked among the wounded partygoers, sharing my contact info and the incident number for the report I would no doubt be writing later. A woman in a tiny black dress tried to hug me and ended up sobbing into my shoulder. I froze for a second, then gingerly patted her back, before I glanced up to find Keldon giving me a thumbs up.

“You’ve got a trusting face, kid,” Keldon said after I’d passed the woman to a medic. “Use it to your advantage and move these folks along. We’ve still got reports to write.”

We were releasing the barge to a wrecking company when Ellie’s voice barked in my ear: “Return to Station. The Sheriff wants you in his office.”

I could see from Keldon’s face he’d gotten the same call.

“Shit,” the sergeant said.

3

Crossing Taurus Station, it was easy to understand why the orbital looked like a giant ball of string from the outside. Inter-wrapped corridors had been built over an open core across the years, expanding whenever a new casino or resort bulged outward. The Sheriff’s Office was in the governmental stack, twenty levels of an administration near the center of the station. The offices contained the jail, motor pool, admin offices, and training areas. In the heart of everything was Sheriff Nagel’s office, on the edge of a bullpen where his deputies worked, so he could walk out and stand with his arms crossed, surveying his domain.

“What do you think he wants?” I asked for the third time as we arrived in the motor pool. I parked the cruiser in our assigned space and set the maintenance protocol, following my trainee checklist. With the cruiser in maintenance and my helmet off, I no longer had to endure Ellie’s suggestions about my behavior—just Keldon’s smart-ass remarks.

“Asking in a different tone of voice isn’t going to change my answer,” Keldon said. “We’ll find out when we get there.”

I moved to open my hatch and he raised a hand.

“Hold up, there. It’s time for debrief.”

“Debrief? Ellie told us to report to the Sheriff.”

“And when the Sheriff asks me if I’ve been performing my duties as your trainer, I need to be able to look him in the eye and say yes. You don’t half-ass training. And if he dumps you from the department, at least you will be able to say I took training you seriously.”

“Sure.” I settled back in my seat and sent my shift’s recordings to the dash holo. A timeline showed red bars where the algorithm found activity. My evidence locks from the building chase stood out in yellow.

Keldon raised an eyebrow as he studied the recording. “So you set evidence, huh? Explain your thought process.”

“Well,” I said. Did he think I was going to change my story?

“Wait,” Keldon said. “I’m getting ahead of myself. Back up to the start of our shift and walk me through what you expected to happen.”

I gave Keldon an exasperated glance and stared at the forward screen. As I had been doing every day of my training, I recapped the mission brief, steps I took to ensure I was ready for duty, and travel to the patrol zone.

For today’s shift, I noted, “I looked forward to an exciting eight hours of ensuring doors remained locked and windows closed.”

“Tell me again the mission of the Taurus Station Sheriff’s Office?” Keldon said.

I recited, “To protect the lives, property, and welfare of Taurus Station.”

“Interesting. That probably involves physical security, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” I said.

“Go on, then.”

I described our patrols through three other retail areas before we arrived at the sector where the party barge had exploded. At this point, my narrative reached the evidence lock on the recording, so Keldon stopped me and activated the footage.

He pointed at the cloud of smoke from the explosion. “We’re going to fast forward through the next fifteen minutes, and you stop the recording any time you can show me you stopped to use your brain.”

Stewing, I could only shake my head and listen as Keldon pointed out all the places I demonstrated poor impulse control, disregard for officer safety, and failure to provide for public care.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Keldon said. “So far you’ve made a damn fine recording of how to screw everything up for the trainees who come after you.”

When the recording reached my short interview with the green-haired tech, Keldon paused to study the man. He moved back and forth through the recording, then expanded a profile view of the fiber tech.

“This guy’s a meshie.”

I peered at the face in the recording, still angry with myself for not getting the tech’s ID. A meshie was a hacker known for stealing data off the comms mesh that connected Taurus with its neighbors.

“You surprised the hell out of him. Look how his eyes are dilated. That or he’s on something. They take mental stims when they’re working.” Keldon pointed at the man’s temple. “You can see his implant right there.”

Keldon let the rest of the recording play out. He stared at the motion lock on my original suspect for a few seconds but wasn’t nearly as interested as he had been in the meshie. When finished, he returned to the fiber tech again and dropped an evidence lock on the video, then he sent it to Investigations.

“Huh,” Keldon said. “You still messed up, but at least you did it in an interesting way. How do you feel about your day of training?”

I groaned inwardly. Journal time.

Completing a journal at the end of each shift was a new development in the department’s training program. Most of the seasoned deputies thought the process was stupid and would produce soft recruits focused on their feelings. But Keldon seemed endlessly amused by the process. He listened intently as I shared my feelings of disappointment and self-directed anger from acting without thinking. I was especially frustrated that I hadn’t recognized the priority to care for the wounded.

I finished my bit of emotional garbage and waited for further abuse from the sergeant. Keldon surprised me by slapping my shoulder as he opened his hatch. “Cheer up, kid. Your meeting with the Sheriff can only get worse.”

“You enjoy making me feel like crap, don’t you?”

“Hey,” Keldon said. “I don’t make you feel anything. That’s all you.”

Maybe he wanted me to smile but I could only glower as we climbed out of the cruiser and left it in its slip, drones approaching from either side to start scheduled maintenance.

How was I going to defend myself to the sheriff? Why else had we been called?

I followed Keldon to the main lift, where I let the back of my head hit the wall then closed my eyes. All I could see was the perp running away and that last unfocused glance from the shipping area.

I’m done. This was my shot and now I’m done.

My other mistakes had been mostly procedural. This was the first time I’d made a bad decision and now it was going to be the end of the line. I couldn’t help imagining what it was going to be like to return to the mining rig and ask my old foreman for my job back.

If only I hadn’t told him to go fuck himself.

That had been one of the best days of my life, actually. I’d just received the news about being accepted to the academy. I was sitting in front of my work locker, staring at my worn coveralls, not quite believing that I would never have to climb down in a hole again. There was no way I was going back, even though mining was all I knew.

When we reached the admin level, we went through the secondary security check and then walked directly back to the Sheriff’s office. Out in the bullpen, heads swiveled to follow our progress, knowing only the truly screwed left the lift to walk directly to the back of the room. Most of them would have heard the command from Dispatch, anyway. They probably all knew I’d screwed up as well. I caught sly smiles on a few faces.

The short corridor to Sheriff Nagel’s office was called the Hall of Heroes, and it was lined with images of deputies who had paid the ultimate sacrifice throughout the department’s three-hundred-year history.

Technically, the Sheriff’s Office had existed longer than Taurus Station, established as a small security outpost to provide protection for mining operations in the area. When the station came into being, tourism and recreation forced the organization to evolve without ever losing its mandate for justice. As Taurus drew the inevitable organized crime, gang violence, and other criminal enterprises that came with money, the duties of Sheriff’s deputies broadened to cover everything from basic beat security to VIP protection, anti-piracy space operations, and heavy gang warfare response. Local government often criticized the Sheriff for running a small army and space fleet. They were probably right.

As I’d learned in the academy, the one core role the Sheriff’s Office and its deputies never relinquished to the Union was their ultimate duty to dispense justice when necessary. Tools like LE-DB helped ensure the law was followed and enforced, working within any local judiciary, but when there was no court, a deputy was sworn to ensure justice was served. That was the law of the Deadlands, and the local Sheriff represented the law. The Hall of Heroes represented that duty.

No one could enter or leave the Sheriff’s office without knowing their screw ups were weak in relation to those who had come before. The images rotated, so each trip focused on a new fallen deputy in constant memorial. As we walked past, I noticed the face of a deputy who died defending the citizens of Taurus Station during the Sixth Street Mining Riots. The smiling official image didn’t look much different than mine. I gulped and kept walking. At least I was alive. For now.

Keldon paused in front of the Sheriff’s closed door, helmet under his elbow, and knocked firmly three times. A deep voice from inside said, “Enter.”

I faced the entrance as the door slid open.

Sheriff Nagel sat behind his broad metal desk with his arms crossed and one finger resting on his massive chin. If he’d been standing, he would have towered above us at over two meters. I was tall by most measures, but the Sheriff had been augmented during his time in the Union, making him taller and stronger than most mere mortals around him. Why he’d left the service was a mystery no one in the department or local media had solved. Despite his augments and shady background, he’d been reelected seven times and showed no sign of losing the public faith. Nagel was an enforcer who kept the peace, kept the streets clean, and knew how to talk to politicians. While he ran his patrol deputies and jail with an iron fist, he was as quick with praise as with vitriol, and he rarely hung onto anger.

“Sheriff,” Keldon said. He nodded at me and we both went to parade rest in front of the metal desk. “You called for us?”

I took a deep breath. There was no way I was going back to the mining rig. I had to defend myself somehow. Appeal to the Sheriff’s better mercy. Did he have any? I was only going to have one shot to talk to him before he berated us for my actions at the barge, and then I was done.

Before Nagel answered, I said quickly, “Sheriff, if you’ll let me explain. I saw a suspect and moved. It was my only chance and I took it.”

Raising an eyebrow, the Sheriff listened as I rushed through my defense, acknowledging that I had acted alone but I had learned from the mistake. I remembered to note that Sergeant Keldon had recognized the technician as a probable hacker who may also have been involved in the attack.

I wrapped up my defense as quickly as possible, unable to read Nagel’s expression and content I’d said everything I could.

Silence hung between us.

The Sheriff’s broad face showed emotion mostly in the space between his thick eyebrows and the edges of his lips, which turned down in a frown. He looked at Keldon. “Sergeant, who told this trainee to speak?”

“No one, Sheriff.”

“What the hell did he just blather on about?”

“I have no idea.”

Nagel shook his head and sat up in his chair. “Then let’s pretend whatever that just was, never happened. Here’s what I need from you.”

I blinked. What had just happened?

“Yes, Sheriff,” Keldon said.

“Not you, Keldon. The baby-faced new deputy here. I need somebody shiny for a special assignment. Is he ready?”

“Sheriff,” I said, regaining my composure.

Nagel’s voice dropped like a stone. “I’m not talking to you, Trainee. Shut your mouth.”

I went to a stiffer parade rest, hands clenched in the small of my back, and stared at a plaque on the wall from the current governor of Taurus Station that read: “Services above and beyond the call of duty.”

“Is he trustworthy?” the Sheriff asked Keldon.

Keldon took too long considering the question, then nodded. “I think so, Sheriff.”

“I trust you, Sergeant. Tell it to me straight.”

Keldon looked bruised. “Sheriff, you pay me to tell you the truth. You might tell me to shut up and color afterward, but I never lie.”

Nagel nodded. “That’s true. You’ve saved my ass more than once, Sergeant Keldon. I don’t forget my friends.”

I glanced at Keldon out of the corner of my eye. He was staring straight ahead. “I do my duty, Sheriff.”

The big man glared across his desk at Keldon, then shifted his heavy gaze to me. “You know you’re lucky to have this man as your trainer, don’t you, Walker?”

He knows my name? I played it smart this time and kept my mouth shut.

“This man has more commendations than any other deputy on active duty right now. He brought down the Sense Gang ten years ago. I don’t think he was much older than you at the time. He was definitely smarter, though.”

Now Keldon shook his head. “I think you’re misremembering, Sheriff.”

“I remember just fine. You ran into the den of sin on your own, no backup for a klick, and dragged out the head of that gang kicking and screaming like a little kid. And when we tried to pin a medal on your chest, you refused. ‘Why do I need a medal for doing my job?’ That’s what you said. You made me look like a fool at that awards ceremony.”

“You knew how I felt about awards.”

I stared straight ahead, keeping my face neutral. Any civilian or former military might have wondered how Keldon could get away with talking to the Sheriff like this. In my short time at the Department, I was gradually figuring out how the fine line between authority and experience worked. Keldon was one of the most experienced line supervisors on the force, and Nagel knew Keldon would lay down his life for the people of Taurus Station without hesitation. That earned him a bit of insubordination, but only in certain circumstances like the awards ceremony, which most veteran deputies thought were a waste of time anyway. Nobody got paid more for awards.

“Right.” Nagel dragged an oversized hand down the side of his face, showing fatigue for the first time. “Here’s the assignment. You’re going to take our trainee here and make him personal security for one Kiren Carthage. She’s James Carthage’s daughter, if I need to spell that out. She’s marrying Harvey Joyce’s son, George.”

Keldon gave a low whistle. “That’s a big deal.”

“It’s going to join the two largest energy conglomerates in five systems. I’m not a political man, but I’d call this a pretty damn political situation. Carthage has property here on Taurus, but his daughter is only in town for the wedding. You’re going to keep her safe. This is a personal favor to her father, who holds a lot of water in this town. You understand me?”

“I understand, Sheriff,” Keldon said.

“I’m not talking to you.” The Sheriff glared at me. “I’m talking to you. You understand me, Deputy?”

He called me deputy.

“I understand, Sheriff.”

“Good. And keep your hands off the goods. This is a serious assignment. These people own half of Taurus Station and the surrounding mining and shipping concerns. Something bad happens to this girl and our tourism receipts will hit the toilet. She’ll be broadcasting everything to her various networks. She’s some kind of celebrity that way, so if the yearning masses see her having a good time, the governor and tourism office will be our friends a hundred times over. This is a lot of trust I’m placing in you, Deputy.”

I squared my shoulders. “I appreciate this opportunity, Sheriff. I won’t let you down.”

“Damn right, you won’t. Otherwise it’s your ass. I’ll send you back to that mining rig before you can sneeze.”

When I looked surprised, Nagel continued, “That’s right. I know your story, Walker. This is your opportunity to make something of yourself in this department. Don’t screw it up.”

I nodded stiffly. “I won’t screw it up, Sheriff.”

He stared hard at me, still sitting but seeming like he was towering over both of us. I did my best to stare forward and not meet his stone-like gaze.

“I don’t even want to hear those words coming out of your mouth, Walker,” Nagel said. “In any case, you’ve got Sergeant Keldon here to guide you through this mess. He’s going to make sure you do this right. Correct, Sergeant?”

“Correct,” Keldon said.

“I just sent your mission brief,” Nagel said. “Let me know if you have questions.”

Keldon snapped to attention and issued a salute, then spun to exit.

I looked at the Sheriff for another second, then followed my trainer’s lead and snapped a salute.

My heart was still pounding when the lift doors closed on the bullpen and all its grinning faces.

4

Down in the locker room, we changed out of our uniforms and into our street clothes. Keldon wore a stained shipsuit that made him look like any mechanic, and I was in pants and a button-down shirt.

I was ready to call it a day. I needed time to read the documents Nagel had sent and fully process the new task. How much trouble was I going to be in?

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

“We’re not done yet,” Keldon said.

I frowned. “Yes, sergeant?”

“You’re coming out with me for a drink. It’s time I took you to Drake’s Place.”

Drake’s was the bar where most of the deputies wound down after shift. I’d heard it mentioned a thousand times but hadn’t been invited in yet. Until I was fully sworn in, it would have been a major mistake to enter on my own.

Keldon must have heard the uncertainty in my voice. “Nobody’s going to beat your ass if you’re with me. Besides, you’re close enough to being done that anyone who recognizes you will probably assume you’re sworn.”

That sounded reassuring. Maybe. We hadn’t discussed the VIP mission yet, or why the Sheriff might have chosen me. I figured Drake’s would be a good place to ask the questions burning in my brain.

We walked back to the main lift and dropped down to the secure exit, which spit us out on the main street in front of the department. Keldon waved for me to follow and took off down the sidewalk, where the foot traffic and side music was too loud for idle conversation.

After travelling three blocks down the street, pushing between crowds gathered around musicians and street artists, we reached a nondescript gray door with a small sign that read Reload Supplies. Keldon pulled the door open and ordered me inside.

The dark, rectangular room had a bar running the far side. Beat up booths lined three walls, with round tables in the middle for larger groups. One wall was covered in games, including a few ancient dart boards. There were none of the gambling machines found in every other Taurus Station bar, where even the churches had slot machines.

Keldon led the way up to the bar, where a grizzled man with iron biceps wiped down a collection of pint glasses.

“Drake,” the sergeant said. “This is Gage Walker.”

Drake pulled his attention from the broadcast fight he’d been watching and looked me up and down. “Welcome,” he said, offering one of his big hands to shake. “You sworn yet?”

“Not yet,” I said. “I’m in my seventeenth week.”

Drake glanced at Keldon. “How many years now, Jack?” he asked.

“I lost count.” He obviously knew.

“Just over fifteen,” Drake said. “I’d bet money on it.”

“No betting at Drake’s,” Keldon said. “A rule that has most likely saved my pension.” He pointed a thumb at me. “Walker’s all right. He’s screwed up, for sure, but a little less than most.” Drake nodded. “Invite me to your swearing in,” he told me. “I’ll be there.”

“I will,” I said. “Thank you.”

Keldon slapped the bar. “Two beers.”

“Beer?” Drake looked surprised. “What happened to your bourbon?”

“We need to talk shop for a bit,” Keldon said. “We’ll see how that conversation progresses.”

Drake nodded and took two of his freshly polished glasses to fill at the tap. He didn’t bother asking what kind of beer.

As the big man poured, a woman burst from the kitchen double doors, shouting, “Dad, the combiner’s stuck. It’s got a big hunk of meat in the printing chute. Were you experimenting again?”

She was half Drake’s size and a quarter his age, but his shoulders still hunched slightly at the sound of her voice. He wasn’t afraid of her, but it was obvious she was a force to be reckoned with.

Drake set the beers on the bar and faced his daughter. “That hunk of meat is a porterhouse steak, Bree. Old style. I found the recipe in a long-lost data file. I’ve almost got it right.”

Bree had her father’s dark coloring and a pointed expression that said she didn’t take crap.

“Steak is a little generous. Next time clean up after yourself. I’ve got dinner prep to do.”

“Ms. Bree,” Keldon said, drawing her attention away from her father.

I straightened a little and gave her a nod.

“Who’s the newbie?” she asked Keldon, jerking her head in my direction.

“This is Deputy Gage Walker.”

“Hello,” I said.

Bree gave me an appraising glance. “You sworn yet?”

“Almost.”

“So, the answer is no. Liars are my least favorite thing in the universe.”

I looked at Keldon for assistance, who just laughed and reached for the beers.

“Bree suffers no fools,” he said. “So, I take it we’re stuck with pre-made food for dinner?”

“I’ll have it fixed in a minute.” She leaned forward and gave Keldon a conspiratorial wink. “I just wanted to give Dad a hard time.”

“Never miss a chance for that, do you?” Drake said.

“Nope.”

Keldon chose a booth with a view of both the door and the bar and slid me my beer. “Don’t take it too hard,” he said. “She’s like that with everyone. You need a thick skin in this business.”

“Police work?”

“The business of knowing deputies. We don’t always stick around too long.”

“What’s your secret?”

Keldon held up a finger telling me to wait and drained half his beer. He finished with a satisfied lip-smack. “It’s no secret. I pay attention. It’s like having kids. You pay attention to the situation and then think three steps ahead to every bad thing that could happen.”

“You never mentioned having a kid,” I said.

Taking another drink, the sergeant’s eyes slid away, but I caught the dull look in them. “I don’t. Not anymore.”

I swallowed hard and reached for my beer. “I’m working on thinking ahead.”

“You keep trying until something teaches you the hard way. Today was a bit of a lesson. You made a mistake. That happens, and luckily nobody was hurt. Are we going to solve the mystery of the explosion? Maybe. What mattered at the moment was getting those people help, and you didn’t see that like you should have. You also didn’t communicate. If you fail to communicate, you’re dead. I know they taught you that in the academy. I know I’ve told you. This is your last warning, Trainee Walker. You run off again without alerting your partner or dispatch of your location and disposition, and you’re done. They give you that damn AI jabbering in your ear so you don’t have to think about it. Do you understand?”

I nodded. “I understand.”

Keldon finished his beer. “We’ll see.” He looked at his glass and set it down with a light tap that caught Drake’s attention at the bar.

When we had two replacement drinks, Keldon said, “I’ve reviewed this mission the Sheriff wants you to take on. I think you should turn it down.”

I blinked. “Is that an option?”

“Everything is an option. It might cost you your job, but it could save your life.”

“Wait. Why do you think this is so dangerous?”

“You do know who James Carthage is, right?”

“Of course I know who he is. The owner of Carthage Mining.”

“He owns more than just Carthage Mining. The only thing he doesn’t is Harvey Joyce’s freighter fleet.”

I’d grown up in the Sixth District company town, an orbital in the vicinity of one of the largest asteroid belts in the sector. My parents had both worked and died for the district. I didn’t think Nagel knew that.

“That look on your face tells me you understand what I’m talking about.”

I shrugged. “I grew up in the district.”

Keldon nodded. “Maybe I’m preaching to the choir. James Carthage is a powerful man. You fail him, and it’s going to be more than your career at stake. My question is why the Sheriff would be tasking a brand new deputy, not even out of field training yet, for this kind of assignment? There are other pretty faces in the department, if that’s what he wanted.” He took another drink and seemed surprised by my expression. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s true. You need a couple good fights to fix that nose for you.”

“You can have whatever face you want,” I said.

“Not as a cop, you can’t. First, nobody really notices your face. All they see is the uniform. But if they see someone as pretty as you, they’re going to want to mess you up on principle. Hell, other deputies might want to.”

I clenched a fist around my beer and studied the scarred table. “You think the Sheriff wants me out of the department?”

“Honestly, I don’t think you matter to him at all. He barely knows you exist. To him, you’re a newbie with no history and little information. A pawn. That makes you useful for certain things. Another deputy with some time under their belt might look at this kind of duty and use it to their advantage. Another thing. The Sheriff doesn’t want you getting involved with Kiren Carthage.”

“Why would I do that?”

Keldon raised an eyebrow. “She’s the daughter of a very rich man, probably being forced into a marriage she doesn’t want. Are you telling me you don’t see the opportunity there?”

“No.”

The sergeant shook his head and tapped his empty glass again for a refill. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you’re perfect for this assignment.”

“Aren’t you the one telling me to do the right thing even when no one’s watching?” I asked.

Keldon sipped his beer. “There’s ethics, and then there’s a life of luxury with a beautiful woman.”

“You told me the amount didn’t matter. What mattered was doing the right thing. Doing your duty. Was that a line of bullshit?”

Keldon sighed. “Here I’ve been thinking you were a hothead, and you’ve actually been listening to me this whole time. Listen, if you go through with this, you’re going to need to be careful. I won’t be there with you, so you’ll have to pay attention. If something doesn’t make sense, record it so you can show it to me later.”

I realized for the first time that Keldon wouldn’t be on the assignment with me. “I thought we’d be working together.”

“Nope, just you. The daughter doesn’t want a heavy police presence.”

“What about my training?”

“You’re getting some special training, it seems. We’ll follow up on anything else we need to cover once you’re done with this assignment.”

Bree sauntered over to our table with another round. A few more cops had arrived and tables were starting to fill up in the bar. She slid a basket of hush puppies to the center of our table.

“Why so serious?” she asked me. “It can’t be as bad as my clogged combiner.”

I sidestepped the question. “You need help with that? I might need a new line of work.”

She shook her head. “We have a strict policy of no law enforcement behind the bar. Also, I do not offer my contact information, and I do not get involved with deputies or any other agents of authority in Taurus Station local space.”

“Damn,” I said, whistling. “That’s a speech. You practice it a lot?”

“Every night.” She took our empty glasses and walked back to the bar, deputies hooting at her the whole way.

“She struck me as more of the nerdy type,” I said.

Keldon set down his fresh beer, which was already a quarter empty. “She is. It’s an act for tips. Bree’s the smartest person in here by a klick.”

I sat in silence for a few minutes, watching Keldon finish his beer. Newcomers called to the sergeant and laughed when he held up his drink, saying, “I’m still working!”

“You really think I should refuse the job?” I said finally. “What happens if I do that? Really?”

“I can’t say exactly. For certain, you live.”

“Has anyone ever told the Sheriff they weren’t going to follow a direct order?”

“Not that I recall.”

I threw my hands up in frustration. “What would you do in my position?”

Keldon took on a distant expression, looking past me. “What would I do if I was brand new on the force and offered a job I knew would put me in a terrible situation? If I was still a young man with all the future ahead of me? I’d quit and go into dentistry.”

I stared at him. “You would do what?”

“Dentistry. The Union has a great training program. You could get all the benefits of active service but you’d never get shot at. You might even serve in combat theater but no enemy combatant’s getting into the dental clinic before you clear out. There would be all sorts of attractive dental assistants running around. The worst you’d have to deal with is people’s nasty mouths, and the drones do most of that work.” Keldon nodded a slow affirmative, a somewhat wistful look crossing his features. “I’d go into dentistry if I was you.”

I rested my elbows on the table and massaged my temples. “I don’t believe that.”

“It’s true,” Keldon said. “If I was never a deputy, my daughter would never have joined the department, and I wouldn’t see her face outside Nagel’s office. He knows I hate going there, and he still calls me. He still calls my trainee for this bullshit duty. Who are we kidding? You’re going to do it. But this time, I’m keeping you alive.”

5

The marble face of the Hotel Chance Wins stretched up at least a hundred meters before it was absorbed by the high ceiling of the outside corridor. The hotel was one of the oldest on Taurus Station but was experiencing a renaissance; surrounded by colors and activity from other establishments, the Chance Wins looked like an ancient mansion.

I set my cruiser to auto and stepped back to let it patrol the local streets until I called for it. I was dressed in civilian clothes, with a jacket covering the shoulder holster carrying my service weapon under my left armpit. The rig wasn’t comfortable, and I kept adjusting my jacket across my shoulders. The other new addition was a comms node tucked behind my left ear.

“Can you hear me, Ellie?” I asked, staring up at the face of the old hotel.

“Of course, Deputy Walker,” she answered, her voice sounding even closer through the bone resonance.

“Is it true you can see what’s going on around me?”

“I have sonic mapping, recording, and thermal resonance capabilities. Not as robust as your duty armor, but I will create a record suitable for court proceedings and your training file.”

“Meaning you can still get me fired?”

“I recommend operating as if Sergeant Keldon were present, Deputy Walker. His proximity seems to enhance your decision making abilities. Also, please remember I am here to aid you.”

I ignored the jab at my judgement. “So you’re calling me deputy, now? Does that mean I’m getting sworn in early?”

“I have been authorized to refer to you as Deputy Walker while on field assignment. Sheriff Nagel does not wish to create confusion during any potential court proceedings.”

That was twice she’d mentioned the possibility of court proceedings. Nagel must be anticipating trouble down the road. “Right, right.”

It was midmorning and the street outside the hotel was full of tourists leaving public transit for the casinos lining this sector. I was early for my appointment, so I stood in front of the hotel and watched the crowd flow by for a few minutes, counting the usual mix of miners, spacers, tourists from Andre Center, and rushed-looking workers on their way to shifts in the hotels and casinos. Up the block, a busker played a violin and lit the air around her with a holo show, gathering a small crowd.

“How long have you been with the department?” I asked Ellie.

“I have been in service three hundred and sixty-two years.”

I whistled. “I thought the department had only been around three-hundred and fifty?”

“I was commissioned by the first Union surveyors arriving from Esmer,” she said. “I am older than the department, though I do receive regular update patches.”

“Huh. You’re still sassy though, even if you are so old. Maybe that’s why?”

“I’m not sassy, Deputy Walker. Any projection of personality traits are purely an element of your imagination. I am not capable of being sassy. Neither am I old, as I do not age in the human sense.”

That last bit sounded a bit stiff to my ears, as if I might have offended her. Was that possible? “You sure about that, Ellie? You’re sounding a bit frosty right now.”

“I am certain.”

Checking myself one more time, I climbed the steps toward the entry. A group of doormen managed the area in front of the Chance Wins, greeting guests, keeping people moving, and cracking jokes as they worked. The nearest doorman recognized me right away, despite the civilian clothes.

“How you doing, Deputy?”

“Good. I stand out that much, huh?”

The doorman grinned. “Everybody else is caught up in their own business. You’re the only person paying attention to everybody else. And you’re packing. You know I’ll need to verify your credentials.”

“Sure thing.” I stepped through an active scanner that verified my status with the department and took note of the kinetic pistol under my armpit. I realized that all the door greeters were dressed better than me, but I was probably only sensitive about it because Keldon had teased me during morning briefing.

* * *

“Nobody’s ever going to accuse you of being vain,” the sergeant said as he appraised my undercover outfit.

“Why would they?”

“Some young officers like to spend a good portion of their paychecks on attracting a mate. Then once they have one all the extra income goes to the curtain climbers and sleep stealers that enter the picture.”

“You mean kids?” I asked. “You don’t need a mate to have a kid.”

“No, but it still seems to work that way. I think it’s a peer pressure thing.”

I dropped the subject because I figured it would upset Keldon to remind him of his daughter, even though he’d brought it up.

“I don’t like wasting brain power on deciding what to wear. That’s one reason I like uniforms.”

“Well, then. We should put you on traffic patrol with the rest of the tight-asses.”

I grimaced. Traffic was the opposite direction from detective, as far as I was concerned.

* * *

The doorman verified my scan and waved me through. “I’d ask you who you’re watching, but it’s like we’re infested with VIPs these days,” the man said. “The Chances Wins went from the oldest hotel on Taurus Station to the hottest in a day. Don’t ask me how. And don’t look under the beds if you want to sleep at night.”

“Thanks for the tip.” I walked through the hotel’s wide entryway, which was dominated by a large fountain. Jets of recycled water burbled from a central sphere, with larger jets coiling down into the pool underneath. Wide-leafed bakhana trees leaned from giant pots along the walls, leading visitors to the front desks, with the lifts to the hotel’s upper levels beyond. The ornate marble walls were covered in surveillance sensors and I counted ten visible security officers in business attire patrolling the entrance.

I approached the desk and explained my purpose. The smiling concierge handed over the security token for the Carthage suites in the hotel penthouse.

“Enjoy yourself, Deputy,” she told me with a smile.

On the ride up, I watched an educational vid on the hotel’s many amenities, from its private casino, spa, dining, shopping, and travel services, to its onsite banking. I hadn’t spent a lot of time in casinos, so I watched with curiosity. The place was a self-contained city. I lost track of time watching the activity and was surprised when the lift reached suite level.

The doors opened on a broad, gold-colored corridor carpeted with scarlet swirls. I waited a second, heard nothing, then walked some twenty meters to the double doors at the far end of the long hallway—the only exit. The sound of voices on the other side of the doors grew louder as I approached.

“Anything I should be worried about?” I asked Ellie.

“Domestic calls are inherently dangerous, Deputy Walker. Refer to your academy training on presence and safe distances. Watch for weapon-like items and note the positions of all persons in the residence.”

“I know all that.”

“Then I have not observed any additional items in this hallway that require your attention. I will update you once we enter the suite.”

I stretched my neck and adjusted my jacket for the tenth time. I glanced at the security sensor above the door and waved. The voices inside stopped.

Sergeant Keldon’s advice ran through my mind again.

“Don’t touch the merchandise. Do your job. Don’t drink. Don’t let her hurt herself. Don’t let her friends hurt themselves. And whatever you do, don’t let her leave for a second location with someone she doesn’t know. That’s a recipe for disaster. My understanding is that all the events of her bachelorette party are planned by an elite social service her father hired, so there shouldn’t be much that isn’t planned. Her father also has a security team, but you won’t see them because she doesn’t like to be kept in a cage.” Keldon had made quotes with his fingers.

“So, I’m just an accessory to this woman?” I’d asked.

“Don’t act like that’s a bad thing. Let her have her party, but you’re there if the shit hits the fan. You remember to communicate, which is not your strong point. You ensure the safety of the VIP and you call in the cavalry if needed. Those are your two important tasks. The rest of the time, try to enjoy yourself and don’t remember anything. You might see some shit.”

“You sound like you’ve done this before.”

Keldon had raised his eyebrows. “Oh, I’ve done my share of rich kid babysitting, trust me. There were some wild ones in my day, and now they head up massive companies like they never had their wildest nights with Sergeant Keldon.”

Recalling the conversation, I realized it was all Keldon’s standard advice: pay attention.

The quiet behind the door was replaced by hushed voices I couldn’t quite make out. I tapped the lock panel with my security token and a chime sounded inside the suite.

Someone asked in a loud whisper, “Is that the deputy?”

Shuffling sounds and muted laughter came from the other side of the doors as I waited. I was about to knock when a red-haired woman pulled them both open and stood in the gap, staring at me with crystalline blue eyes.

I cleared my throat. “I’m Deputy Walker. I’m here for Kiren Carthage.”

She looked me up and down, then flashed an amused smile. “Well, don’t you look delicious.”

That made me pause. I frowned at the woman.

“Are you Kiren?”

“Do you want me to be?” she asked.

I wished I’d reviewed the image in the file better. That woman had worn her hair short but the oval shape of the face seemed similar. I’d been too busy listening to Keldon impart wisdom.

I set my shoulders. “I’m here for Kiren Carthage. Please show me to her.”

“You’re no fun.” The woman opened the doors all the way, and I had a full view of the suite. The space was multi-level with couches, a hot tub to one side, and a full bar near the windows that overlooked the street far below. The couches were covered in discarded clothes where someone had obviously been trying on outfits and casting them aside. A stocky woman sat at the bar, while another lay on a couch with an arm across her forehead. They appeared to be in their early twenties, just a little younger than me.

The red-haired woman spun away from the doors on her tiptoes like a ballerina, fingers joined above her head, then spread her arms and transitioned the maneuver into a skip back to the bar, where a drink waited for her. Over her shoulder, she called, “I’m Kiren. If you’re going to be boring, I don’t think we’ll be needing your services after all.”

I walked into the room and closed the doors. I was glad to note the security system locked the suite automatically.

“Unfortunately, ma’am, I don’t get paid to be entertaining. I’m here to keep you safe. Is it just the three of you?”

The woman at the bar laughed and Kiren rolled her eyes. “I am not a ma’am. Save that stuff for the old folks’ sector. Yes, it’s just the three of us. The wet bag on the couch is Trix, and that lovely is Franca.” Franca was a bright-eyed woman with black hair and a fighter’s build.

“Has your company security already checked in with you?”

“No,” Kiren said. “Well, maybe. If my father hired someone, he didn’t tell me and they haven’t bothered to show their faces. We’ve been here all day relaxing in the hotel, and later we’ll head out for some supplies.”

I checked the suite as she talked, finding everything opulent but uninteresting. There were four bedrooms off the main entertaining area, all strewn with clothes, and two lavatories with immense marble baths. The space was obviously designed for parties.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“Don’t they tell you that?”

“I wouldn’t be asking if they had.”

“Oh, you’re a little mean. Or is that how you deal with stress? Are you stressed, Deputy Walker?” She clinked glasses with Franca and sipped her drink.

“I’d like to do a good job, and this is my first assignment like this.”

I caught myself. I shouldn’t have admitted this was my first VIP escort tasking. For a second, it didn’t seem she’d noticed.

“I’m your first?” Kiren asked. “That’s kind of special, don’t you think?” She gave me a dazzling smile when I glanced at her.

I stood at the windows for a few seconds, watching the street below. Keep it professional, I remembered Keldon’s advice. But be genuine.

I joined them at the bar. “What’s your itinerary for today?”

“Busy,” Franca said, raising her eyebrows. “Very busy.”

“The party’s tomorrow night,” Kiren said. “We’ve still got last minute coordination with the club for that. Then the catering for the ceremony. The music. All those fun things.”

“I figured you’d have employees to do that work for you,” I said.

“Of course,” Kiren said. “That doesn’t mean I don’t need to check on them. Sometimes that’s harder than doing the work yourself. It’s so hard to trust anyone. We’ll need to head out today for a little shopping just to relax. And I don’t have anything to wear.”

I glanced at the piles of clothes strewn around the suite.

“Roll your eyes if you want, Deputy,” Kiren said as she finished her drink. “How I look is a matter of business. I’m a walking commodity.”

“That’s an interesting way of putting it.”

Franca reached across the bar and put her hand on my arm. “Can I get you anything?”

“Coffee is fine.”

“Well, that’s no fun,” Franca replied.

“He’s doing his job,” Kiren said. “That’s what he’s here for, right? Not to entertain us. Speaking of that, where did you grow up?”

I straightened. “I would rather keep our relationship professional.”

“He’s ashamed of where he grew up,” Franca said. “That’s unfortunate.”

“We’ll find out one way or another, won’t we?” Kiren said. “What do you do with yourself when you aren’t on duty? That’s a bland enough question.”

“Hobbies?” I asked.

“Sure. Hobbies, vices, obsessions.”

“I make whiskey.”

Franca waved at the drink dispenser. “Why would you do that? Isn’t that what the combiner is for?”

“I enjoy it,” I said.

“I like to drink whiskey,” Kiren said. “You’ll have to tell me what goes into making it sometime. I like men who make things.”

A loud snore came from the couch. Kiren cocked her ear, then bundled up a shirt hanging across one of the barstools and flung it at her friend Trix. The throw fell short.

“Is she all right?” I asked, grateful for the distraction.

“She thinks she can sleep her life away to shut out the pain of living,” Kiren said. “But I’ve got a lesson for her.”

The smell of brewing coffee floated across the bar and Kiren sniffed loudly. “That’s delicious. All right, from now on, coffee drinks only. I don’t want any more sleepyheads. Besides, we’ll need our wits about us if we’re going to venture into the Haight-B.”

I frowned. Haight-B, or Haight Bazaar, was a gray market warehouse in the docks section where anything could be had for a price. It wasn’t a safe place for a lone deputy, let alone a group of wealthy tourists from powerful families.

Kiren punched me in the arm as Franca handed over a steaming cup.

“Don’t look so glum,” Kiren said. “We’ve all had anti-kidnapping training. Franca is a pit fighter, and Trix over there collects knives.”

I sipped the excellent coffee. “And what do you do?”

The red-headed woman smiled. “You’ll have to find out for yourself.”

6

For the rest of the day, I shadowed Kiren and her friends through the retail section at Chance Wins, leaning against walls as they tried on clothes, nibbled snacks, and sucked down free drinks. What surprised me was how little Kiren actually purchased. The three of them seemed to approach each store as its own challenge, learning everything they could about the designers who had made the clothing before they finally tried on clothes and deemed most of them unworthy.

Each visit followed a similar pattern, with the women disappearing into changing rooms with the helpful staff to emerge in outfits that ended in laughter.

In the third store, the process changed. The boutique was called Planet and had only two employees: a woman sitting at a reception desk and a man in the back. Once we were all inside, the receptionist turned away most people who tried to enter the store, while the clerk at the back asked Kiren several questions that were nothing like those she’d been asked in the other shops.

As I glanced at a rack of designer suits, the blond clerk said, “I’ll need to verify funds.”

While the statement wasn’t that much different than other stores, the thin man’s tone had none of the desire to please I’d heard throughout the day.

What were they up to?

“You’re asking me to verify funds?” Kiren said. “Are you blind? You checked my ID verification, didn’t you?”

Franca and Trix spread out around the store. For a couple party girls, they sure looked like they were providing security for Kiren. The new behavior didn’t mean I wasn’t going to do my job, but it put a twist on the situation.

I glanced at the receptionist, who was staring at the boutique’s glass entryway. The scene was quickly changing from a shopping spree to what looked like a drug or weapons sale.

I guess we aren’t going to Haight-B after all.

I watched Kiren from the corner of my eye as I flipped through suits. The party girl's body language was gone. She stood like an executive, arms crossed.

A minute later, the clerk said, “I have your verification. It’s very nice to meet you, Ms. Carthage. Would you care to try anything on today?”

“That’s why I’m here. Do you have the outfit I requested?”

“I do. Right this way.”

The clerk nodded and motioned for Kiren to follow him through a door in the back of the boutique.

Franca was closest to me. I moved toward her and asked in a low voice, “What’s going on?”

“Shopping,” the black-haired woman said. “What do you think we’re doing?”

“I don’t know what exactly, but it looks a lot like illegal activity. Why are we whispering?”

Franca glanced at the receptionist. “I don’t want to interrupt anyone’s shopping. You’re right, this is a specialty shop. But it’s nothing to get concerned about. You wouldn’t want to create extra paperwork for yourself, would you?”

“I’m here to keep you safe, not provide a cover for whatever petty crimes you feel like committing. I’m reporting directly to the Sheriff on this, and Kiren’s father. Now would be a dumb time to buy something illegal.”

Franca raised an eyebrow. “I think you need to relax, Deputy Walker. I’ll tell you what. How would you like to try on one of these suits? We’ll have Kiren pay for it. She’d be more than happy to dress you.”

“No thanks,” I said. “That sounds like a bribe. I have no interest in throwing my career away for a suit.”

“Are you always so inflexible? It’s not an attractive trait in a man.”

“I’m here to do a job.”

The door in the back of the boutique swung open and Kiren walked through with a bright smile. She raised her hands for one of her dancer’s pirouettes and patted Trix on the cheek as she walked past. She was wearing the same outfit as far as I could tell.

“We’re done here,” Kiren said. “Perfect fit. I can’t thank them enough.”

“Leaving so soon?” Franca asked. “I thought we might dress up our deputy here. Lord knows he needs some style.”

Kiren paused, looking at me as if she’d forgotten I was there. “He is kind of sad looking, isn’t he?”

The other women nodded and agreed.

“He’s got a nice body,” Trix said. “He just needs to show it off a little bit. The current outfit just lacks confidence.”

“Do you lack confidence?” Kiren asked.

“It’s not something I worry about much,” I said.

“Of course not.” Kiren laughed. “Come on, we’ll hit another spot on the list. They’ve got a better selection for your type.” Whatever had happened in the back of the shop, she seemed pleased about it. Teasing me was an afterthought, which suited me.

On the way out, I asked Ellie to set an evidence lock on the location and send her scan data to Evidence. Despite her reduced capabilities, I had a feeling the employees or place would get a hit.

“No records, Deputy,” Ellie answered.

* * *

Frustrated that the couple in the shop hadn’t been in the database, I started watching Kiren and her friends not as spoiled rich people but a criminal crew. I had no evidence they were up to anything illegal, but it satisfied my feeling that something strange was happening.

I’d had a block of training on undercover operations in the academy, and I used some of its probing techniques to gain information, while trying to build trust. I focused on Franca, who seemed the most law enforcement oriented among all of them. The muscular woman moved with a measured bearing that I immediately recognized as military experience.

In the next shop, I asked, “Where’d you serve?”

Franca raised an eyebrow at me over a rack of filmy shirts. “What makes you think I served?”

“Our sheriff was a soldier. He’s got the same way about him.”

“I’m trying to get the pole out of my ass,” she said finally. “Is it that obvious?”

“I’d say you walk with a purpose.”

Franca held up a transparent shirt and turned it on its hanger, then she frowned and stuck it back on the rack. “I trained at Camp Cutter on Outer Driges. Short-range artillery, mobile forces, then went Special Ops. Lots of assignments after that. I was on Kabadon for a year. That was probably the most interesting thing I did.”

To my knowledge, every place she named was newly settled or disputed.

“How long were you in all together?”

“Six years. Standard enlistment was enough for me. I liked it, but I wanted to do something different with my life.”

Kiren noticed us talking and slid up beside me. She pressed one of the tissue-like shirts against my chest. “I think you’d look great in this, Deputy. Why don’t you try it on?”

I pushed the hanger away from my throat. “Not really my style.”

“It better be if you’re getting into the club we’re heading to tonight. Strict dress code.”

“I don’t see how you can call that a dress code.” I glanced at Franca, looking for a little help, but she only shook her head with a smile.

“She’s actually not lying,” Franca said. “You’re not getting into Restitution wearing that off-duty cop gear. Security will spot you a mile away.”

“I don’t need their permission,” I said, too stiffly.

Trix appeared from a dressing booth, wearing an iridescent outfit that shimmered like running water when she moved. She put her hands on her hips and spun.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“You’re making the Deputy blush,” Franca said. “You must be doing something right.”

“I’m not trying to make anybody blush,” Trix said. “I want to make people sweat. This isn’t church.”

Franca laughed. She had moved to a display of headbands and was matching them against her silver hair. As she raised her arms to adjust the accessory, I spotted a short-nosed pistol under her armpit.

“Look,” Kiren said, throwing the shirt on a rack. “You can push your way in as big bad peace officer, have everybody looking at you and knowing who you are, or you can join the party and maybe actually learn something. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“I’m here as your security detail.”

“Really?” Kiren said, not sounding convinced. “My dad didn’t ask his buddy the Sheriff to send someone to spy on me while I’m on Taurus Station? That seems like the more likely scenario. He knows I can take care of myself.”

“If I’m a spy for your father, nobody told me about it.”

“I can see you’re uptight,” Kiren said. “I didn’t think you were stupid.”

Across the rack, Franca bit back a smile.

Trix slapped her thigh to get our attention. “Is anybody going to tell me if this works or not? I’m getting cold standing here.”

“You’re a doll,” Kiren told her. “But that is completely impractical. It isn’t going to work at all.”

“I’ve got hiding places,” Trix said. She pouted in the mirror. “I think it makes my eyes look pretty.”

I laughed. Couldn’t help myself.

Trix shot me a venomous look in the mirror. “You don’t think I look good, Deputy?”

“Ma’am, I have no opinion.”

Kiren slammed another shirt on the rack. “No, Deputy. You don’t get off that easy. Do you find Trix attractive?”

“I’m here to provide for your personal well-being,” I said. “I can’t help your self-esteem.”

“Oof,” Kiren said.

Trix shook her head angrily and ducked back inside the changing room.

Franca gave me a slow clap. “You’re either an idiot or you’ve got augmented skin. You know she’s a knives expert, right?”

“Bullets are faster than knives.”

Kiren threw her hands in the air and declared the boutique a waste of time. I followed the women across-station to another retail center that was even more exclusive. We were stopped by a smiling concierge as we tried to leave the lift, and several people in the car were turned away. I was ready to show my badge, but Kiren intercepted the concierge first and the small woman waved us through.

The next set of boutiques didn’t have racks or even salespeople that I could see. Kiren and her friends seemed more serious now, and they disappeared into changing rooms only to reappear in custom-fitted clothes that elicited careful criticism, not laughter. They were like mercenaries getting outfitted for a mission.

I alternated between watching them try on outfits and watching the people in the shopping district outside. The exclusive nature of the area was apparent in its low traffic. Groups passed with human and drone attendants, odd pets, and other contrived statements of their wealth. Kiren and her friends paid no attention to anyone, while the other people seemed intent on seeing and being seen.

In the final boutique, Kiren crooked her finger and called me to the center of the sparsely decorated space.

“This is your store,” she said. “I’m buying you an outfit for the party.”

“Ms. Carthage, I appreciate it, but I can’t allow you to buy me anything. It’s not appropriate.”

“For a deputy on Taurus Station, what they advertise as the hottest party spot in the system, you sure are boring.” She rubbed her chin. “I think what I’ll do is buy you the outfit I want you to wear and send it to your boss with instructions from my dad. That way you can’t refuse to wear it, and your boss will know what a boring person you are.”

“It’s all right if you’re boring,” Franca said. “We won’t hold it against you. We’re here to help you. We really do like you.”

Trix shook her head. “I don’t like him.”

“I like you,” Kiren said, leaning a little closer than was appropriate.

I cleared my throat and straightened.

“Am I making you nervous, Gage?”

I could tell she wasn’t going to back down this time. She had taken on her executive stance.

“Let’s use Deputy Walker,” I said.

“Keeping it professional,” she said. “Sure. That means I can use your chain of command, right? Are you going to let us dress you, or should I call your boss and make him order you? Maybe I could call my dad and have him order Sheriff Nagel to order you? That might be more fun.”

I didn’t need anything getting back to the Sheriff except the news that I’d completed the assignment, and I didn’t like the idea of Kiren getting her father involved. “I’ll let you buy me clothes on one condition.”

“What?” Kiren asked.

“After this, we go to the club so I can do my security review before the party. If I give you any instructions at the party, you’ll agree to follow them.”

“I can’t guarantee anything,” Kiren said. “But sure, we can visit the club first. I should have known you’d want to recon. You and Franca can do it.”

I glanced at the veteran. “How about we all go? I’m responsible for everyone’s safety while you’re on Taurus Station.”

“So conscientious,” Kiren said. “Let’s hope that doesn’t get you hurt.”

7

I had just sat down on my couch with two fingers of bourbon in a glass, prepared to tend my bonsai tree, when a security alert pinged my apartment door. I straightened and looked at my whiskey tumbler, then set it on the side table and pulled my pistol from the uncomfortable holster under my arm. I called up the access menu on my holo and found the warped face of a man I didn’t recognize peering into the security monitor.

“State your business,” I said.

“Deputy Gage Walker?”

“Who are you?”

“I work for James Carthage. Mr. Carthage would like to meet with you.”

“I’m off the clock.”

It had only been an hour since I’d left Kiren and her friends at the Chance Wins.

The thug adjusted his tie. “The Sheriff made it clear you were at Mr. Carthage’s disposal. I can let Mr. Carthage know that isn’t the case.”

Godsdammit. “No. Fine. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Thank you.”

I drained the whiskey and threw the tumbler in the reclaimer, then I did my best to shake the wrinkles out of my jacket before I pulled it on. After giving the node behind my ear a check, I said, “Ellie, I’ll be in service.”

“Copy, Deputy Walker. Overtime is authorized for this duty. Stay safe.”

Overtime had been the last thing on my mind.

There were two men standing in the outside corridor. They didn’t bother introducing themselves.

“We’ve got a transport downstairs,” the one who had called said.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Don’t worry. We’re not leaving the station.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “I hate zero-g.”

At the base of my apartment stack, one of them opened the side door on a matte black transport and I climbed inside. We rode across the station for thirty minutes, the two men sitting across from me with blank expressions, to arrive at a generic business structure in one of the newer sections near the station’s outer skin, where most spaces looked like they were still awaiting tenants.

Following a silent lift ride, the thugs led me down a hallway lined by shifting displays showing business performance, prices, and the status of mining operations. Much like Kiren’s suite at the Chance Winds, the hallway ended on a wide, vault-like door. Rich people sure liked their impressive entrances.

One of my escorts checked in on the security panel and the inner door slid open.

“Please,” the guard said.

“You coming too?”

The two men only clasped their hands in a waiting stance and stared straight ahead.

I shrugged and walked through the doors into a wide office decorated only by a desk with two chairs in front of it. The entire wall behind the desk was filled by an apparently real-time view of an asteroid tumbling in space as drones attacked it from several angles. Human figures moved between the drilling sites on the surface of the asteroid. The style of mining was one of the oldest and most dangerous; it was also common among Carthage mines, since humans tended to be cheaper than drones. The sight tightened my throat. I didn’t like to think about the operation that had killed my parents, but there it was.

The man sitting at the desk was built like a sledgehammer, with a block-shaped head sitting atop a wiry body. He blinked as he read a feed on the surface of his desk, only glancing up briefly when I entered the room.

“James Carthage?” I asked.

“Close the door.”

I glanced back to find the door already sealed, then I walked slowly toward the desk, taking in the empty, stone-like walls and the massive image behind Carthage, wondering if it was actually real-time or part of some greatest hits collage.

“I’m Deputy Gage Walker.”

Carthage was wearing a worker’s shipsuit with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. If I hadn’t been told who he was, it would have been easy to assume Carthage was a prospector or engineer. A peppering of gray in his tightly curled hair showed he didn’t care much about his appearance.

The businessman continued reading the feed on his desk, the edges of his lips turned down in a frown as the information flowed past. Finally, he swept the display clean and pushed his chair back to stand and stretch.

Carthage nodded at the display behind him. “What do you think about that?”

“It looks like an asteroid.”

“That’s Object 3662, in the vicinity of Sixth Belt. That one matters to you, doesn’t it?”

I frowned. That was the rock where my parents died. He knows. But why would it matter to him? I did my best to keep my face impassive.

“Should it?” I asked.

“You don’t think it’s strange that Sheriff Nagel gave up the only deputy on his force who had family die on one of my asteroid ops to provide the safety detail for my daughter?”

I stared past him at the people leaping across the asteroid, executing the complex process of placing explosives. Setting charges across the surface of the asteroid was an art. You had to track the drones above you as you jumped, while also anticipating spin and maintaining a mental grid along radial and axial positions. Since you couldn’t easily shift direction in zero-g, you had to move in a spiral across the surface of the rock. EV suits didn’t carry enough propellent to get back to the rig if you miscalculated.

Come down in the wrong place and the drone nailed you to the rock. Jump too high and you had to hope the crew boss would send a rescue team, which spent fuel that cost more than your life. Could drones do the whole job? Sure, but drones and repair parts were expensive out in the Deadlands, and humans worked for cheap.

My mom and dad used to laugh and tell me, That’s life between the rock and void.

“Not just family.” I dropped any pretense of misunderstanding.

“That’s right. You lost everything. Does that seem strange to you?”

Carthage didn’t apologize. I stared back at the man.

The truth was, I had never known much about the actual company that owned our rig, and when Mom and Dad didn’t come back from a regular asteroid run, well, that was how lives ended out there. I’d spent two years in the void, not hopping across rocks like them since it made me puke in my suit, but processing ore on Carthage rigs. We all knew the danger. We were miners, hard people with little time for emotion or affection. All you could do was laugh and take pride in something as deadly as the miner’s life.

I didn’t hate James Carthage. If the rig hadn’t been owned by this man, it would have been owned by a Smith or a Ngobe or a whoever. The rigs created their own misery, and the people who worked them owned their misery as a badge of honor.

Did this man expect me to hate him? That was sad, if anything. What a way to live.

I shrugged. “I do what I am ordered to do.”

“Is that right? Is everything black or white for you?”

“Justice isn’t black or white, Mr. Carthage. What did you want to talk to me about?”

“I want to know why Nagel chose you.”

“The Sheriff didn’t share his thoughts with me. He told me what to do, and here I am.”

Carthage narrowed his eyes. “You don’t even have a service record that I can locate. That seems suspect to me as well. No family. No record. Been with the force for less than two years, most of that in the academy. I can’t even find out what your hobbies are, Deputy Walker. You might as well be a vat-born android. The only interesting thing about you is that you grew up, and later worked on, one of my rigs.”

I hooked my thumbs in my belt. “If you know what life is like on your rigs, Mr. Carthage, I think that would be all you need to know about me. I came up in a company school. I like to play leap ball. I get vertigo in zero-g, which kept me out of the service, but I scored well on the law enforcement placement exam, and I won a slot with the Taurus Station Sheriff’s Office. I was the best shot in my academy class. You’re wearing a worker’s outfit like you know what my life is like, so what more do I need to explain? Every day I said goodbye to my mom and dad, I expected I might never see them again. I had plenty of friends that got the notice. Some of those friends are hopping rocks right now, and here I am. I don’t hate you. I think you’re a symptom like everything else. I’m here to keep your daughter safe, and that’s what I plan to do.”

Carthage gave me a grim smile. “You’ve got balls. I’m a symptom, am I?”

“Just like Taurus Station. Can’t have a mine without a saloon, right? It’s history.”

“How do I know you aren’t working for Harvey Joyce?”

“The groom’s father? Why would he try to harm Kiren?”

“Joyce wins in either scenario. Sink the wedding and he sinks my stock. The wedding goes through and he’s effectively getting the board seat he’s always wanted.”

“I’m not working for Harvey Joyce,” I said.

Carthage dropped back into his seat, looking tired. He tapped the desk and brought up a new set of feeds, then he waved at the chair in front of me.

“Take a seat. Stop standing there like a robot.”

I sat as Carthage shifted the display to the air above his desk. It was Kiren’s itinerary for the party and wedding ceremony.

“So, you already scoped out the club for tomorrow night,” Carthage said. “What do you think?”

“Secure access, multiple checkpoints. They have competent onsite security and the party area is separate from the rest of the club. They’ll be scanning everyone coming in and the area will be heavily monitored.”

“I’ll be watching.”

“I expected you would be.”

“Kiren knows it, too. That’s why she’s going to try and go somewhere else. You need to stop her from leaving.”

Watching the calculations move behind James Carthage’s gaze, I could understand where Kiren got her controlling nature.

“Does she know you don’t want her to leave?” I asked.

Carthage gave a weary laugh. “It doesn’t matter what I want her to do. She does what she wants. So, you’re going to have to make it more interesting for her to stay at the club.”

“That’s not part of my skill set.”

“Right. I expected that. I’ve got this to help.” Carthage opened a drawer and pulled out a funds card made of plain metal. He slid the card across the desk.

“That has no limit. Whatever you need to do to keep her in that club all night, you do it. I’ll have a detail that can follow her if she does leave, but I know what’s going to happen once she gets outside. She’ll be gone. She’s done it before. It took me a month to get her back.”

I raised an eyebrow. “She made it sound like she agrees with the wedding.”

“Kiren is easily distracted. She’s focused for the time being. She knows I’m making this worth her while. But if something more interesting appears, she’ll be gone, and my deal will be gone with her. The other side of this deal is that once the wedding goes through, I get a controlling interest in Joyce’s board as well. We’ll lock both supply and distribution in seven systems. Our competition will be forced to sell or die.”

I noted that Carthage never said his future son-in-law’s name.

“Seems like you would want more than just me keeping her in check, then. I’m a deputy, not a babysitter, and there’s only one of me.”

“I’d roll an army in here if I could, but Nagel won’t have it. He said you could handle this.”

That didn’t make any sense.

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “You want the wedding to happen, right?”

“I don’t like it, but I see what Kiren is doing. She’s stabbing me in the heart, but when her time comes, she’ll be one of the most powerful people in the sector. That’s … admirable.”

I nodded. I could understand that, especially when squared with what I knew about Kiren Carthage so far. I leaned forward to take the funds card, which was heavier than I expected.

“You could buy a cruiser with that thing,” Carthage said. “But don’t. If you abuse my good faith, you’ll pay for it. You understand me?”

I set the card back on the desk. “I don’t work for you, Mr. Carthage.”

The mine owner pressed his hands flat on the surface of his desk and glared at me. “Who do you think you are, talking to me like that?”

Technically, I’m not even a Sheriff’s Deputy… yet.

I drummed my fingers on an armrest. “I’m not motivated by threats. I told you I would do my best to keep your daughter safe, but I won’t make promises I can’t keep. If you think you’d need an army to keep her in one club, what makes you think I can do it by myself? I’m not going to lie to you and say I can.”

Carthage relaxed slightly, narrowing his eyes. “A person acting in good faith. I’m not used to that. Just remember, you’re part of a bigger picture here, Deputy Walker. You may not be told what it is, but you do your part and I’ll remember.”

“And like I said, I’m not doing this for favors. Is there anything else you need from me, Mr. Carthage? I have a long day of protecting your family ahead of me tomorrow.”

Carthage snorted and waved away the display above his desk. The image of the asteroid grew brighter behind his head, as humans and drones pulled away before the detonation. Blue and white plasma reflected on the sides of Carthage’s face as the asteroid popped and went dark, smashed into millions of bits for the drones to transport back for processing. This was a recording, then, meant to impress people who didn’t know any better.

He pushed the metal card back toward me.

“I don’t think I’ll need that,” I said.

“Suit yourself. I’ve got something else for you then.” Carthage pointed to a conference table on the other side of the room. “There’s a case over there. It’s yours.”

“I can’t accept any gifts,” I said.

Carthage cut me off. “It isn’t a gift. It’s a tool, like the card.”

Curious, I stood and crossed the room to the long wooden table. Resting there was a metal case with a pistol inside. The weapon didn’t look like anything they’d showed us in training. Its oversized muzzle didn’t match any of the standard ballistics available on the current market that I could tell, and a digital readout on the side looked like something out of a science fiction holo vid.

“There’s a holster there, too, since I know whatever weapon Nagel issued you is a piece of crap. You’ll notice the butt looks normal enough, so you won’t draw a lot of attention carrying it. If you’re going to protect my little girl, I want you carrying a real weapon.”

“I don’t have time to learn to use this monster,” I said.

“Carry them both if it makes you feel better, but if you run into trouble you’re going to need some real firepower. Now, get the hell out of here. I’m tired of looking at your wholesome face.”

8

The private section of the club set aside for Kiren’s party was a collection of tiers that rose to the VIP lounge, where the bride-to-be and her entourage mingled around the exclusive bar. Music throbbed everywhere until I felt like it was coming from inside my head. I stood near Kiren in the VIP circle, watching as she laughed with Franca and Trix. The other attendees didn’t seem to matter to her. They mattered to me. I scanned our surroundings constantly for any sign of danger, finding only intoxicated rich people.

I was wearing the suit Kiren had insisted on. The material was too shiny for my taste and the jacket hadn’t been cut to allow for my body armor, forcing me to adjust my shoulders constantly. It did manage to hide the badge and pistol on my belt well. In addition to the suit, I had on a pair of mirror-shade glasses that served as a lightweight HUD.

Based on all the second glances I was getting, I was either giving off way too much cop face or had gotten a lot prettier in the dark. I figured it was cop face and tried to smile more, or at least look interested in Kiren’s banter. Everybody else hung on her every word.

Every few minutes, I scanned the room for the private security officers spread throughout the space. The club had a good crew as far as I could tell, with security people every few meters. They seemed to understand the value of keeping James Carthage happy. The only problem was that they weren’t on my law enforcement comms net; they wanted to maintain their own internal net. Still, everywhere I looked, someone from security was in my line of site. If something went down, I should be able to get help.

“Your heartrate is rising, Deputy Walker,” Ellie said. “Are you nervous?”

“It’s hot in this jacket,” I said. “I can’t stop fidgeting.”

“We can conduct heartrate training anytime you seem anxious,” Ellie said. “There are a number of breathing exercises I can suggest.”

“That sounds like torture.”

“I have been told improvement is painful and laziness is soft and comfortable like a baby’s pajamas,” the AI said.

“You sound like Keldon again.”

“Sergeant Keldon is an excellent deputy, thank you.”

Truth was, I’d been chewing on my conversation with Carthage since it ended. I was still angry about his attempt to manipulate me. Despite his orders, the overpowered handgun was still sitting in its carrying case on the kitchen counter back in my apartment.

I hadn’t been able to sleep after the meeting. Instead I mulled over the rich man’s efforts to bully me. The whole scene forced me to ask if I really cared whether I got fired or not. Of course I did. I wasn’t independently wealthy. But it went deeper than that. Every line of thought led me back to my parents, and how I could easily imagine both of them telling Carthage to go fuck himself. Imagining them saying it together gave me something genuine to smile about as I watched the club.

Looking out over the tiers of people getting progressively more intoxicated, I told myself that I didn’t hate rich people for being rich. Most of them had less control over their lives than me. What bothered me to the core was when they thought they had the right to control other people’s lives.

I could almost hear Sergeant Keldon telling me to do whatever I could live with, because if I was lucky, I wouldn’t be a deputy forever. Watching Kiren Carthage flirt and laugh with those around her, I knew I’d do the right thing. Keeping her and her friends safe was easy enough. I’d focus on that. Nothing else mattered.

And if I got fired? Well, at least I’d be able to sleep at night.

I sure as hell wasn’t going to get trapped in a job like my parents.

“What are you looking so thoughtful about?” Kiren asked, sliding next to me. She pressed her shoulder into mine like I’d seen her do with several others in the VIP area.

I glanced at her. Franca and Trix had gone back to the bar to refill their drinks. “I’m thinking about your safety.”

Kiren rested her head on my shoulder. “Aw, aren’t you an honorable knight. Living on Taurus Station must be torture for you.”

She was getting drunk. I was fairly certain Kiren and her friends hadn’t dabbled in anything but alcohol, but they’d ducked into the bathrooms a couple times, so I had no way of knowing. All I could do was judge her behavior, and she was decidedly more handsy than she’d been earlier in the day.

“I had a meeting with your father.”

“Really. What did he say to you?”

“That if anything happens to you, he’s going to ruin my career. He didn’t realize I don’t have a career to ruin.”

Kiren rolled her eyes. “That’s something he would say. He’s all about the threats. Did he try to bribe you?”

“Yes.”

“And did you take it?”

I shrugged. “I left the money and couldn’t refuse the gift. He didn’t give me a lot of choice. He made it seem it was necessary for your safety. Have there been any new threats I should know about?”

“My dad isn’t worried about my safety. He’s worried about controlling someone in the Sheriff’s Office and keeping me from doing anything stupid.”

“Could I stop you?”

She gave me an appraising glance. “The average cop? Probably not. There’s something different about you, though. A roughness maybe. Probably your upbringing.”

“What do you know about my upbringing?”

Kiren smiled and drained her tumbler. “I know everything about you, Gage Walker.”

“Oh, really?”

“I’ve got channels I use to check on people. I need to know if they’re going to get in my way. Being me is my job.” She motioned toward the tiers below us. “Everybody here works for my dad or wants to work for him. If this is going to be about business, I’d rather just do it in the boardroom.” Kiren snickered.

“What’s funny?”

“I said I wanted to do it in the boardroom.”

I gave her a half smile. “I’m sure you’ll have your opportunity. Me, I don’t have much access to boardrooms most of the time.”

“I can fix that. The club has one right through there.” She pointed at a set of doors on the far side of the bar with a security guard controlling access.

I chose not to play. “It’s safer if we all stay at the party.” I recalled Keldon’s advice about not letting her go to a second location; not that a board room was necessarily a second location, but I imagined with Kiren slopes got slippery really quick.

A new group of people wandered up and tried to engage the bride in conversation, just as Franca and Trix returned with drinks. I watched Kiren’s friends expertly maneuver the conversation to themselves as they flanked her. Kiren could certainly hold her own in a conversation, but she seemed to enjoy passing people off to Franca’s biting wit, or Trix’s backhanded flattery. This group wanted to discuss a business opportunity, it was finally revealed, and Kiren only laughed and raised her drink in a toast.

“To the future!” she shouted.

The DJ picked up the shout and lowered the music to allow Kiren’s voice to fill the club. In a few seconds, “Future” was mixed into the music and cheers erupted everywhere.

Kiren turned and raised her hands, giving me a mischievous smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you don’t lose your career.”

Everyone around us started dancing, and then I had to push out of the clot of people gathered around Kiren so I could maintain observation on the whole area. With my back against the railing, I kept an eye on her as she bounced from group to group. In a few minutes, she’d moved down the stairs to the next tier.

Following, I watched as the serious woman worried about her father’s machinations disappeared, replaced by Kiren the party girl, who floated through the club like she owned the place. She caught my gaze several times and winked at me, knowing exactly what she was doing.

Realizing I couldn’t stay close, I moved to a tier along the wall and followed from a distance as they moved, tracking the area around her. At first her path seemed random, until I figured out she was making her way to every major gathering of guests. While she wasn’t able to talk to everyone individually, she was doing a good job of making herself seen and heard. For all her complaints about the attendees, there wouldn’t be anyone who had come tonight that would be able to say she hadn’t given them at least a moment of her attention. In group after group, I watched faces brighten as Kiren blessed them with a bit of conversation.

Where James Carthage was a man who wanted to control people, his daughter seemed able to build connections in seconds. When one drunk young man tried to wrap an arm around Kiren and pull her in close, then drop his hand to her ass, she twisted gracefully out of his grasp and wagged her finger at him. When he pressed, she put him in an arm lock that no one else recognized but I saw as a textbook control hold. She combined the grace of a dancer with the wit of a diplomat, while maintaining physical control of every interaction. She also continued to drink, as Franca and Trix resupplied her with shots from each tier’s bar.

The DJ shouted another welcome message to the party, and then a collection of tumblers and acrobats spilled into the club’s lowest tier. People moved to the railings to point and cheer.

I lost sight of Kiren for a second as the wall of people grew denser around her. When I pushed to where I had last seen her, I spotted Trix’s blond head a tier above me.

I stared, wondering how the hell they’d gotten up there so quickly.

Shouts from the acrobats filled the club. The DJ started a low, heavy bass throb that built tension in the crowd as the room grew quiet so everyone could hear the grunts and calls from the performers. A woman and man dressed in glimmering tights soared in the air, drawing applause from the crowd.

The tier was so packed that I had to walk behind the nearest bar to get to the next one. The bartender complained until he saw the badge on my belt, then he slid to the side and let me through.

What might have been an accident at first now seemed deliberate. Kiren hadn’t stopped to check where I was, something she’d been doing regularly, and Franca and Trix were both making space in the crowd for their friend to follow behind them. They appeared to be headed for one of the middle tiers, where a security guard stood in front of an exit to the club’s admin area.

Cursing my lack of comms with club security, I shoved people out of my way. I had a last glimpse of Franca as the woman turned at the door to look back at me. She smiled and disappeared.

Damn it!

“Ellie, I’m going to need those tracking locks we placed earlier.”

“Stand by.” She paused for a brief moment before speaking again. “Activation successful.”

The tracking lock would allow me to easily follow them with the club’s security system. I hadn’t activated it before because there hadn’t been a need.

“Deputy Walker,” Ellie said. “The lock has dropped. We have no authority on the local security net.”

“What? How is that possible?”

As Ellie told me she didn’t have an answer, I knew why: Carthage had paid the club for anonymity. James Carthage would have wanted to keep competitors out of his business, and Kiren was most likely using the increased security as a screen to get out of the building.

I should have checked that, I chastised myself. Keldon would have known to check it.

“What else can we do?” I asked.

“Maintain visual surveillance.”

“That’s a little difficult when they aren’t in sight anymore.”

“Then I suggest you run,” Ellie said.

When I reached the door, the guard raised a hand in warning. I flashed my badge, ready to push past him. The guard shook his head.

“No entry, Deputy. Sorry. If you want, I can call the manager to check your search warrant.”

“Check my warrant?” I demanded. “I’m here on security detail for the woman that just went through your door. Weren’t you briefed on this?”

“I was told not to let anybody through. That’s what I’m doing.”

I ignored him and reached for the lock panel to enter my law enforcement override. The guard stepped toward me and put a hand to my chest.

Behind us, the crowd cheered the acrobats, then went quiet as they started another stunt. The DJ filled the space with a cascade of notes and bass thrum.

“Ellie, activate recording,” I said. “This is probably going to turn into a complaint.”

“Recording active.”

I pointed at the guard. “You’re obstructing a Sheriff’s Deputy in the course of his assigned duties,” I said. “Step back.”

Instead of moving, the guard tried to shove me out of the way.

In two moves, I grabbed his closest hand as he came at me and bent the guard around in an arm lock. He stumbled and I shoved him to the floor, slamming his face into the wall in the process. That was unfortunate, but it couldn’t be helped.

I stepped around him to key my override into the door and walked through.

The closing door shut out the sounds of the crowd as I found myself in a corridor lined with serving carts and parked cleaning drones. There was no sign of Kiren, Franca, or Trix.

Guess I’m gonna get this nice jacket sweaty.

“What have you got, Ellie?”

“I do not have access to the local security net, Deputy Walker. Once they leave the building, I should be able to access the surrounding municipal network.”

“You think they’re leaving, huh?”

“Their actions indicate a destination outside the building, Deputy Walker.”

I broke into a run again, but I quickly checked each cart and cabinet as I passed. Security would figure out what I’d done to their boy soon enough, and there was no telling how they would react. Probably depended on how much James Carthage had paid them.

Although I was now starting to wonder if I had been focused on the wrong Carthage making the payoff.

The jacket became unbearable. I was in the process of tearing it off as I ran when I reached a door at the end of the hallway that was still hanging open.

Kiren and her friends were gone.

9

“Find her, Ellie!” I shouted as soon as I hit the outside air.

Pulling field visors I’d tucked away in a pocket and jamming them on my face, I activated the HUD. Tracking notices flashed before my eyes as I emerged in the busy street behind the club. A party barge rolled past, hiding the far side of the street with a wall of dancing tourists. Music blared from store fronts all around and the sidewalk was slammed with people. I looked up and down the street, searching for any indication of where Kiren had gone. My HUD scanned faces with no returns.

“They appear to be jamming the municipal security system,” Ellie said. “I have no returns on the tracking lock.”

“Who do you bribe to get that kind of anonymity?”

“I’ll pass the information to Internal Affairs. Someone will have removed Kiren Carthage and her party from the tracking database.”

“I’d like to meet the guy when you find him,” I said. A fat tourist with a multi-colored drink in his hand gave me a dirty look when I didn’t move out of his way.

I wracked my memories from the day for any indication of where Kiren would go.

“How about this,” I said. “Can you run a tracker on the two shop clerks from earlier? Where are they right now?”

“I show them both at an address on the far side of the station.”

“No dice. All right, what other options do we have?”

I ran through the basic tracking steps I’d learned in the academy. Ellie would link with every sensor in the area, following Kiren and her friends and picking up additional information that I would need to sort through later. It was awesome to see all the local resources respond to Ellie’s rapid deployment.

At the same time, my search would go up as a giant red flag that James Carthage’s daughter was now a person of interest. I didn’t have time to worry about that. If I was going to be a pawn between Kiren and her dad, I would at least do the job I’d been hired to do.

“Deputy Walker,” Ellie said. “I have a track on an attendee from the club. Kiren talked to this subject earlier.”

“Show me.”

She shared the matched sensor data from one of the storefronts up the street. I pulled it up in my HUD and watched Kiren and her friends walk past the store. They were following one of the security guards from the club.

While Kiren had hidden her tracking info from the surrounding sensor systems, the guard didn’t have that luxury. I had Ellie place tracking protocol and immediately received an update from a transportation drone three blocks away.

“Hot damn,” I told Ellie. “We’re getting somewhere.”

I recalled my cruiser and met the car at the next intersection. Inside the vehicle, Ellie filled the viewscreen with images from the automatic investigation.

This was one of my favorite parts of the job. I loved using tools and information to solve problems. This was what I wanted to do every day as a detective.

My good mood fluttered a bit when a call hit my comms link.

“Gage,” Keldon said. “What’s going on? Why’d you let her leave the club?”

Of course, Sergeant Keldon would already have checked my progress.

“She ran a screen on the club’s security system and tried to slip out. I’ve got a lock on her and am in pursuit right now.”

“I can see that. You’re lighting up the grid like a bunch of fireworks. That’s all right, but remember you’re not getting any back up there, so be careful. Wherever she goes could be very dangerous for you. What did I tell you?”

“Don’t let her go to a second location.”

“What did you do?”

“I’m not letting her do anything, Sergeant. This woman does what she wants.”

“Just be careful. Send updates on your position and make sure Ellie is recording everything. I’m on the net if you need me. I’ll be monitoring your progress.”

“Yes, Sergeant,” I said.

“Don’t ‘yes, sergeant’ me, Gage. Just watch your ass.”

I almost said “Yes, Sergeant” again, but I stopped myself and signed off with an “affirmative.”

“Tracking,” Ellie told me when I asked for an update.

The cruiser navigated the bustling streets, weaving in and out of traffic and pausing too frequently to avoid pedestrians. Ellie scoured the network for connecting information, pulling the security guard’s name, background, and known associates. He had affiliations with a local drug gang but no arrest record. Once Ellie was done building information on the guard, I let her loose on Franca and Trix.

Franca hadn’t lied about her military background, but she hadn’t mentioned that she was special forces with training in explosives and counterintelligence. Trix was a debutante from another wealthy family who had competed in martial arts from the time she learned to walk. She also collected obscure bladed weapons, just as Kiren had said. Her name came up on several prominent auctions for historical swords and daggers. She had been the primary suspect in a stabbing case that involved one of her ex-lovers, but the case was still in pending status with no change in five years.

Kiren’s file showed nothing beyond her educational record and a few travel visas. Her news feed was dominated by her father’s company, and most open source mentions of her name were shareholder assessments on the future of Carthage Consolidated. One headline asked about the possibility of hostile takeover should James Carthage die.

I added the boutique from earlier and grabbed the clerks’ info. When I connected Kiren and her friends with the clerks, the only returns were location scans from previous shopping trips. The clerk, however, moved all over Taurus, from the maintenance docks to multiple casinos and resort systems. The data was confusing until a job record with a courier company popped up. While most specialty freight on Taurus moved by drone, it wasn’t unheard of to hire humans when the sender didn’t want a data trail.

“They’ve reached an address,” Ellie reported. She shared the location: an apartment stack in an upscale residential section. I redirected the cruiser, and as soon as we got away from the tourist section, pumped it up to full speed.

I studied all this new information, setting the viewscreen to cycle through faces. James Carthage had seemed truly worried about something happening prior to the wedding, but it still didn’t make any sense that his only precaution would be hiring a single Sheriff’s Deputy. Me.

I pulled up the design schematic for Kiren’s location. The stack was a standard residential block. Security was state of the art.

As I expected, a local guard met my cruiser when I arrived. The woman didn’t seem concerned when I shared my credentials and set the cruiser to wait mode. I walked inside the grand building and rode the lift up twenty levels.

The complex was empty and silent around me, reminding me of my meeting with James Carthage. He might have been the only tenant in his building, and this place felt the same.

I followed my HUD’s directions until I was standing in front of a plain white door like a hundred others on the corridor. I was about to activate the security panel when the door slid open to show Kiren standing in the entryway, looking like she expected me. If she’d been watching the building security system, my presence was probably no surprise. Before I could stop her, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around my neck in a hug, pressing her body against mine.

“There you are!” she said, breath reeking of liquor. “I thought we’d lost you.”

“What the hell are you doing?” I craned my neck to get a look at the entryway and the apartment beyond. She was obviously stalling me. “You did lose me for a while. Was that on purpose?”

Kiren continued the hug, saying only, “You’re strong.”

I looked past her to the hallway again and noticed a pile of discarded shoes. Giant paintings of people’s smiling faces hung on the walls. I spotted people at the end of the hall.

“Let’s go inside and meet everybody,” I said.

Kiren seemed to like that suggestion. She twisted around to push her head up under my arm. How drunk was she?

I gripped her side with my non-firing hand to hold her upright. We walked together down the hallway.

“You should take your shoes off,” she said. “Ronny has very strict rules about shoes in the house.”

“Who’s Ronny?”

“This is his place. He invited us from the club, said it would be more chill here. And he was right. His apartment is great.”

The hallway opened on a broad entertaining area with a glass wall along one side. The many colors of streets below glowed in the glass. There was a kitchen with full bar, where a few people were gathered, and then a lower area full of cushions and couches, where more people lounged. Smoke curled over the lounge area.

The people looked like the same sort from the club, with a few that drew my eye because they looked a little harder than the rest. None paid us much attention as we came in.

The apartment was nice but Kiren could have bought the whole sector if she wanted. I studied her, recognizing the indicators of a few different party drugs. The good news was that she could walk, unlike Franca and Trix, who were passed out on a couch in the middle of the room with a bunch of other people.

Whoever had drugged them must have done it in the club for them to go out so quickly.

“Why are Trix and Franca passed out?” I asked Kiren.

“Party favors. Why, are you interested in trying some?”

“I’m good,” I said.

“Kiren,” a man called from across the room.

“I’m right here, Ronny.”

I followed the voice and found a tall man in a red cigar jacket coming toward us. He looked me up and down, eyes lingering on my badge and pistol, then nodded when he was close enough to talk.

“Deputy. Welcome. I’m glad you found us. I didn’t realize Kiren had security until after we were in the transport.”

I didn’t have to tell Ellie to pull records data on this Ronny, and I wasn’t surprised when no results appeared in my HUD. She started checking the others in the room with the same results. These people were either all rich enough to get past Station Administration altogether, or somebody had put a geo-wash on the location. Neither was cheap.

“Ronny owns ships or something,” Kiren said, waving a nonchalant hand.

The drunk version of Kiren irritated me. I nodded, though, looking at Ronny so he could elaborate.

Ronny waved the information away. “I trade in transportation resources. You in the market for a ship, Deputy?”

“Not currently.”

Ronny had his back to the dark glass wall. Past him, I was able to use the reflection to watch the room around us, including the group at the bar. So far, nothing looked out of the ordinary for a private party.

Ronny grinned as if he thought a deputy buying a ship was funny. “What kind of cruiser they got you in? Is it Mark-IV? I could get you one of those for real cheap, off-service. They’re at least three generations out of date now.”

“That’s public service for you.” I wasn’t particularly amused by his passive-aggressive attempt to insult me.

“If you’re looking for a new opportunity, I can always use excellent people on my security team. We operate between Taurus Station and Bordo exclusively.”

I patted my stomach. “Me and zero-g don’t mix.”

In the window’s reflection, I watched Franca sit up suddenly, then I heard her gasp. Trix followed not long after. They both looked around, blinking in apparent confusion.

“I didn’t like that,” Trix said.

Franca laughed. “A short term buzz always leaves me feeling unfulfilled too. She stood then bent to help Trix to her feet. They both spotted me and Kiren with Ronny at the same time.

“He found us,” Franca called grinning.

Trix stumbled toward the bar. “I need a drink.”

I was still holding Kiren upright. She leaned against me, a slight smile on her lips.

Franca gave us an appraising glance as she approached. “I see Kiren made her feelings known.”

“What feelings are those?” Ronny asked.

“She has the hots for our Deputy.”

Ronny whistled and raised his eyebrows. “That’s valuable information. What would James Carthage think about that? Throwing away the business agreement of the century to wed a salt of the earth Sheriff’s Deputy.”

Now that Franca was back on her feet, I unpeeled Kiren’s arms off me and eased her toward the other woman.

Kiren slurred her complaint. “Are you all talking about me?”

“She needs some wake-up juice,” I told Franca. “Did somebody slip you something back at the club?”

“Probably. Everybody was handing her drinks as we walked around. It’s why I wanted to get her out of there. There are plenty of people who would love to get their hands on Kiren, and she wraps her mitts around you.”

In hindsight, I should have been watching for that kind of problem. Unable to do anything about it now, I spread my hands. “I’ve got no opinion one way or the other. I’m here to do a job.”

Franca nudged me with her elbow. “Relax, it was a joke. You are the most uptight person I know. You can’t joke at all, can you?”

I’d be able to crack jokes when I was finished with field training and the sheriff had pinned on my badge. Until I was sworn in, everything was a chance to fail, including flirtatious rich women.

“I’m on the clock,” I reminded her.

Ronny laughed. “Well, Mr. Clock, I take it you don’t want anything to alter your reality, so all I can offer you are the snack trays by the bar over there. Plenty of fine raw vegetables for you to sate all that pent-up tension with.”

“Thanks.”

Ronny reached inside his smoking jacket and withdrew a long cigarette holder that was already fitted with some tightly rolled bit of dried vegetation.

It was perfectly legal for a person to do anything they wanted to themselves on Taurus Station, from substances to body mods to selling portions of themselves if they wanted. The law got involved when people were coerced into anything against their will, damaged property, or harmed others… and there was plenty of overlap in the area of harm when drugs or human trafficking entered the picture.

Taurus Station’s permissive personal liberties were born from its frontier history and the economics of serving local mines and asteroid fields for hundreds of years. There were things off-shift miners were going to do whether they were legal or not, so the local government might as well get their cut and try to keep everything as safe as possible.

I didn’t care if anybody called me a stick in the mud. I knew what was at stake and I wasn’t going to screw up my chances at a future for a night of blanking out my reality. Taurus Station’s legal framework worked pretty well, I figured. From what I’d seen, the Sheriff’s Office had plenty of work to do without trying to enforce anybody’s morality.

As Franca eased Kiren to one of the couches so Trix could administer a stimulant, I inspected the food trays. Ronny’s mention had made my stomach rumble, and there was a lot more available than fresh veggies.

I had just loaded a plate with barbecued bits of protein and a skewer full of marinated mushrooms when a cracking sound came from the windows overlooking the street below. Because of the darkness outside, it took a second for me to realize there was a person on the other side of the window, dragging something against the glass. A tap followed the arcing screech, and the window fell away.

“Ellie, what have we got out there?”

Wind rushed in through the opening in the glass.

“I count five subjects armed with rifles,” she announced.

10

The attackers vaulted through the empty space where the window had been and hit the floor inside the apartment with weapons raised and ready. From the mismatched gear and unkempt appearances I didn’t get a military sense from the group.

A railing separated the window from the rest of the suite, forcing the men to either jump it or spread out.

Most people in the room were staring, while Ronny crossed his arms and laughed. I watched him move toward the couch where Kiren was still passed out. If he was scared, he was doing a good job of hiding the fact.

Not everyone had noticed what was happening, until someone at the bar screamed. Heads turned and the room went quiet except for the sound of wind rushing through the hole in the window.

Two more windows cracked and fell away, allowing more intruders to climb in.

“That looks like more than five, Ellie.”

What had Keldon told me about executive protection? Whatever happens, get them out.

I activated my emergency alert and sprinted for Kiren. I didn’t bother explaining anything to Franca or Trix—they could figure things out for themselves and follow.

One of the attackers noticed me moving and shouted at me to stop. I ignored him, throwing the still-intoxicated Kiren over my shoulder.

“Woah,” Kiren said, then laughed.

I ran for the exit hallway.

“Stop that one!” someone shouted after me.

A rifle barked, followed by more screaming. I didn’t have time to see if someone had been hit. I had to get Kiren out of the apartment and couldn’t afford to be trapped here.

I stumbled on a discarded shoe in the hallway and fell sideways into one of the massive paintings. Kiren laughed and slapped my ass as I struggled to keep my balance. Apparently the noise had woken her.

“Giddy-up!” she shouted.

Once I reached the apartment door, I activated its security panel and only realized my mistake too late.

The door opened on the grinning face of a man with a shaved head and lightning tattoos pointing down his cheeks. He pointed a handgun at my face.

“Back up, there,” he said. “No one leaves.”

“I show more coming up the hallway,” Ellie said.

I gritted my teeth. “Awesome.”

The tattoos looked like gang affiliations, but that part of my training escaped me for the moment. I stared at the bald man, weighing the possibility of charging through. A woman, also tattooed with similar markings, filled the doorway behind Baldy.

“Looks like we’ve got a cop,” Baldy said. He pointed the handgun at my badge and pistol, both plainly visible without my jacket.

“Those glasses are a cop visor,” the woman said. “Better grab those. It’s going to be tracking us already.”

Baldy laughed. “Let them track my ugly ass.”

“Let’s not get excited,” I said. “I don’t have anything to do with your party. I’m leaving.”

With Kiren over my shoulder, I couldn’t move fast enough to draw without getting shot. I was wearing armor, so I could take a few body hits without going down. But that didn’t protect Kiren, and she squirmed and giggled, making her hard to hold onto. Sure, she could take rounds to her legs and ass and survive, but that didn’t mean I would get anywhere once I was out in the hallway.

“You’re not going anywhere, cop,” Baldy said. “Take a step back.”

I took three steps back, but the distance didn’t stop the bald man from pressing forward to rip the glasses off my face. He held the mirror shades up to the ceiling light.

“I always wondered what cops see when they look at the world.” He cackled.

I gave him a tight smile. “They make everything look like donuts.”

“That’s good,” Baldy said. “I like that. You’re a funny cop. Maybe you’re a smart one, too. Now walk.”

I was at a disadvantage without my HUD but it wasn’t like the display had been giving me a lot of information anyway.

Whoever these people were, I could only guess they wanted to rob the people that lived in these luxury apartments. As long as everyone cooperated, the group would get their score and disappear. If they wanted something else and my backup didn’t arrive in time… I’d need another plan.

I wasn’t going to get anything in this hallway, and the giant smiling portraits were pissing me off. Thankfully Kiren had stopped moving, proving herself a smart drunk.

“I’m going,” I said. “No problems here.”

“Good.”

I backed down the hallway until I was back in the open room. Ronny was sitting on the floor in the middle of the lounge area, hands bound behind his back with a scarf stuffed in his mouth. Franca and Trix sat in a group of people near the bar.

Baldy pushed past me, waving his handgun as he inspected the room. He walked up to Ronny and looked down at him for a few seconds, then pointed the handgun at the man’s forehead and practiced sighting-in. Ronny stared straight ahead. It took me a second to realize our host was still high… or frightened out of his mind.

“You remember me?” Baldy asked.

When Ronny didn’t answer or look at him, the thug said, “Hey!”

Ronny shook himself like he’d been dozing and squinted up at Baldy.

“Clark,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”

“Not that long. You sold me a crap ship that killed half my crew. You remember that?”

Ronny blinked slowly. “It was running fine when you took possession. What did you do with it after that?”

“What did I do? I took it out for a run on a freighter line, nothing too taxing, and the engine went into an overload cascade. I’m not an engineer, but everybody I’ve talked to about the subsequent waves of radiation that fried my people says it was a containment bottle failure in the deuterium processing core. Like I said, that doesn’t mean shit to me, but it’s apparently a pretty basic fail as far as ship engines go. And I’m not one to make unfounded accusations, so I followed up on the registry of our ship and found out it was reconstructed out of Kiris. You sold me a scrapped ship for top dollar, Ron. That’s bad business where I come from.”

“Look,” Ronny said, his speech slowed from what I now knew had to be a drug of some kind. “I offer a thirty-day guarantee. I gave you full run of the ship prior to purchase. I even let you take it for a test drive. That’s all standard procedure, Clark. I can’t help what happens after you take possession. That’s standard business.”

“My people died,” Clark said.

Ronny’s eyes grew wider as he stared straight ahead. “I’m sorry, Clark.”

Clark turned and walked away from Ronny.

I tensed, seeing in Clark’s body language what was coming.

The bald man swung the handgun, its muzzle pointing at the people by the bar, and then back to the lounge.

“I’m pissed at you, Ronny,” he said. “I came here tonight for retribution. And I aim to get it.”

Clark shot Ronny in the thigh.

The bullet struck his thigh and blood spurted. He blinked again and looked down at the wound in awe.

“You shot me,” he said slowly. From the sound of it, whatever drug he’d taken was sparing him from the agony that should have accompanied being shot.

“And I’m shooting you again,” Clark spat.

Ronny’s other thigh took the next bullet.

“I know that should hurt, but I can’t feel it,” he said, sounding amazed. “I guess that’s some good shit. Who brought the E-Ride? I owe them. I owe them big time.”

“You owe me, you junky,” Clark snarled.

Ronny blinked up at him. “What do I owe you?”

The ship dealer was spurting blood. I didn’t figure he had long to live without serious medical intervention. His drug haze seemed to be separating his brain from the reality of the situation but it wouldn’t prevent his death.

“You could start with a new ship,” Clark said.

“I can’t.”

Clark glanced around the group of guests. “I guess I could kill some of your friends in trade.”

I stiffened, glancing at Franca and Trix. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the woman who had entered with Clark were still standing in the hallway. There were nine people in masks armed with rifles spread throughout the room, making twelve altogether. There may have been an equal number of guests, but I couldn’t see them all to count.

It had been ten minutes since Ellie sent the emergency alert. In any normal response, backup should have arrived by now. Had Clark and his team blocked the signal somehow?

I studied the long window. There was a balcony outside I hadn’t noticed before, and the black shape of a transport floated just beneath the outside railing. A transport this close to a residential building should have alerted any passing cruiser’s scan, unless building security was in on the attack. They could be blocking the outside signal, diverting scans from the face of the building. There were hundreds of ways to conceal activity in a building like this, and the occupants probably utilized most of them. Considering the area, there might not be any deputies around. Private security kept the peace in places like this.

“Ellie,” I murmured. “Did you get an answer on that beacon?”

“Return ping was positive,” she replied. “I think it may have been a false return.”

“Nobody’s here, so I think that’s a safe assumption. We’re on our own.”

“Assessing,” she said.

Kiren was getting heavy. I shifted slightly and she poked me in the small of the back to let me know she was awake.

Good girl.

I glanced at Franca and Trix to find them both watching me. Franca dropped her gaze to my pistol, which was half covered by Kiren’s legs, then looked back to my face. I gave her a slight nod.

I had no way to tell them that backup wasn’t coming, if that’s what they were assuming. In an ideal world, deputies would be raiding the apartment any minute.

Clark was still ranting at Ronny, leveling the handgun at the upper arm of his smoking jacket, when Trix burst to her feet in a single motion. She had cut her cuffs, and she turned with smooth motions, flinging knives into nine of the guards at the outer edge of the room.

Seven took blades in their faces or necks.

Holy shit.

Franca rolled away from the group and broke free of her cuffs. She sprinted to the nearest writhing guard and grabbed his rifle, then raised the weapon to her shoulder with practiced control and sighted on the remaining two masks. She took one down as the last slid behind a couch.

“What the hell?” Clark shouted.

“You shot me,” Ronny managed to mumble again, staring at his ruined legs. Reality seemed to be setting in as the pool of blood spread around him.

“Is the hallway clear now, Ellie?” I asked.

“I’m showing no movement. Everyone appears to have entered the apartment except for the transport pilot outside.”

“Still no sign of backup?”

“You appear to be alone.”

With Franca and Trix pinning down Clark’s crew, Ronny’s voice rising into a frantic wail, and Clark cursing the change of events, I adjusted my grip on Kiren’s legs and spun around to sprint down the hallway for the door.

Pain exploded across my forehead and I fell backward, still holding Kiren. Somebody kicked me in the back as I went down. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the tattooed woman holding what looked like a steel bar.

I rolled away, hindered by Kiren, who was also trying to get up now. Apparently, she was sobering a bit.

Clark advanced, leering at us. “Where the hell are you going? You can’t leave yet, cop.”

I rolled to my hands and knees then felt a yanking sensation at my belt and looked up to find Kiren holding my pistol in her hands.

Clark looked at her, still aiming his handgun at Ronny’s face.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

“You messed this up,” Kiren said.

“Why don’t you go ahead and put that down, sweetheart?” Clark didn’t look overly worried that the woman was pointing the gun at him.

Kiren squeezed the trigger with what would have been control, but the service weapon didn’t recognize her biosig. The safety locked the trigger in place, leaving her to squeeze even harder, then stare at the weapon in confusion.

She glanced at me. “What kind of shit is this, Gage?”

My head throbbed. I motioned for her to hand me the weapon, but she didn’t respond fast enough. I tried to reach for her, but my vision kept doubling and I reached for the wrong woman.

Clark raised his pistol and shot Franca in the shoulder, and then hit Trix in the leg.

The woman with the steel bar walked up behind Kiren and grabbed the pistol out of her hands. “You know who Kiren Carthage is, right boss?” she asked.

“If I knew, would I be standing here like an idiot?”

“Her dad owns Carthage Consolidated.”

Clark blinked. “As in James Carthage.”

“The one and only. I thought I read something about her getting married in the next couple days. She must be out sowing her wild oats. That’s why she’s got her own pet cop.”

Clark barked a laugh. “Lot of good that did.”

“I think Blades over there is worth money, too.”

Trix squeezed her bleeding leg. “Any of you touch me, I’m digging your eyes out.”

“Oh my. She’s a feisty one.” Clark grinned and gave Ronny a kick when the poor guy moaned, but he was too far gone to notice. “Now, let’s make sense of this situation.”

“It’s simple, Clark. We take her, tell Daddy to pay up, then we give her back.”

“I don’t like kidnappings, Cherise.” Clark said. “Too messy. You never get out like you think you will. The last thing we need is some rich mine owner with a vendetta.”

“This would be a big score,” Cherise said. “The kind of score that buys brand new Destroyers.”

“Destroyers? Get out of here.”

“Think about what we could do with that? No more hitting small fry freighters and cargo drones. We could get out between systems with a slip drive and make some real scores. We’d live on our own terms.”

My vision split again and I squinted to get a better look at Clark. The bald man’s head was cocked in the midst of a vision.

“I won’t lie, Cherise, that does sound like a pretty good life,” Clark said.

“You can see it, can’t you?” Cherise asked.

Clark’s tattooed face split into a wide grin. He was missing a few teeth. “I can really see it. Why am I wasting anger on a dirtbag like this when we’ve got a golden ticket right here?”

“Exactly.” Cherise nodded.

“We’ll need to run this past the boss.”

Cherise made a sour face. “Are you always going to be living in his shadow? He’s got his own deals. Why don’t you make yours? Grab your destiny by the balls.”

“That’s an excellent point, Cher.”

Clark shot Ron in the face. His body fell backward on the lounge floor, blood oozing from the hole in his skull. Whimpers from near the bar reminded me there were still people to be saved in the suite. I shook my head, struggling to clear it. When I looked at the floor, I found a small puddle of blood, apparently from my head.

“Let’s ride!” Clark shouted. “These three are together. I want them all.” He motioned at Franca, Trix, and Kiren with his pistol.

“What about the cop?” Cherise asked.

“I don’t care. Bash his head in.”

Four of the assailants who hadn’t been hit in vital areas grabbed Kiren and her friends. I got to my knees and the room spun around me.

I watched Kiren struggle until one of them cuffed her on the temple and her head flopped to the side. Clark’s men walked back to the holes in the window and carried them out.

I gripped the sides of my head. “Ellie, I need some help.”

“I am attempting to circumvent the signals blackout on this building. Backup is not coming, Deputy Walker.”

Cherise walked toward me, swinging her steel bar like she was loosening up for a leap ball game.

Clark stood at the railing by the window for another minute, examining the scene. He nodded at a job well done.

“You got the second transport,” he told Cherise, and ducked through the nearest hole.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” Cherise said, turning to me.

11

I rolled to my left as the bar struck the ground where my head had been. I kicked, still half blind from the concussion, and my second strike connected. Cherise stumbled backward and caught herself on the wall.

I pushed up on my hands and knees, I fought through the pain until I was standing upright. Cherise roared and swung at me wildly, missing both times, then dropped her head and charged. I waited until she was too close to dodge and stepped to the side, catching her closest foot with my shin. She tumbled face-first.

I caught sight of my pistol tucked in her belt, but I focused on the steel bar. I couldn’t focus on much else. My vision was getting better but it was taking its damn time.

The bar looked like some kind of axle rod, polished smooth. One end was stained red with what I assumed was my blood. I shook my head again as my vision blurred.

As Cherise tried to regain her footing, I grabbed one of her knees and drove her backward. She gasped as I came down on top of her and the back of her head smacked the floor.

“Use of force seems pretty clear here,” I muttered to Ellie.

“She did try to kill you.”

“But is she still trying to kill me?” I asked.

“Affirmative, Deputy Walker,” Ellie said.

“Just wanted to make sure. I’m still on probation here.”

I was cursing myself for not carrying a secondary pistol somewhere in this fancy suit. I wanted nothing more than to shoot this woman and be done with it.

Cherise chose that moment to ram her fist into my gut, then brought the hand still holding the pipe around, trying to hit anything she could. I grunted as I grabbed her wrist and forced her arm down, then jerked my hand up to free the weapon from her belt. Cherise’s wrists were unexpectedly strong. I couldn’t bend her hand back to weaken it and had to resort to smashing her fist against the flooring, which didn’t hurt her as much as I had hoped.

“Cops,” she spat. “You’re weak. Physically weak. Mentally weak. Complacent. Bureaucratic—”

I surprised her by bringing the bar back against her head. The steel cracked on the crown of her skull, smearing fresh blood in her short hair.

Now she was slowing down. I pinned her underneath me and held her free hand with a knee, which allowed me to focus both hands on the bar. I had nearly twisted the weapon from her grasp when Cherise raised her head. She nuzzled her face into my crotch, and before I could move, she bit down hard on the shiny material with me inside it.

Her teeth closed on the inside of my thigh, thankfully, but it still felt like I was stabbed. I finally twisted the bar free from her hand and held it in my fist as I punched her temple. I didn’t want to kill her if I didn’t have to.

After three good hits, Cherise passed out and her jaw loosened. I grabbed her hair and pulled her head free, then rolled her over and grabbed my pistol.

Having the service pistol back in my hand brought a huge wave of relief, even as Cherise started struggling against my knee in her back. I panted, catching my breath, and bore my weight down between her shoulder blades. Ribs cracked and she gasped.

“Who do you work for?” I asked.

She turned her head to the side and spat blood. “Clark.”

“And who does Clark work for?”

“Himself.”

“Don’t give me that crap. All the lies about not knowing who Kiren is. You knew the minute you saw her.”

“Go to hell.”

I held the steel bar at both ends and pressed its length against the side of her head, pinning Cherise against the floor. I leaned down so my face was close to hers, adrenaline pumping through my body. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I wanted the information she was withholding.

“Remember use of force policy, Deputy Walker,” Ellie reminded me.

“I know. I know.”

I forced myself to breathe, blinking sweat out of my eyes. I wasn’t going to kill her, just get information. Kiren was gone, and this woman could tell me where to find her.

Cherise pushed her tongue out to dry her wet lips, then she wheezed beneath my weight. “Do the right thing, Deputy.”

I paused, knowing she was manipulating me. The problem was, it was working. I did want to do the right thing. I didn’t want to torture anyone. I didn’t want revenge. I wanted to know where Clark was taking Kiren.

Big picture, Keldon would say.

There was a second transport, I remembered Clark telling her. Which meant it would have location data in its nav systems. All I needed was access.

There we go. Now you’re thinking, Gage.

I straightened, taking a deep breath, then I released the pressure from Cherise’s cheekbone and she laughed.

“That’s right. You want to do the right thing, don’t you, cop? Remember how I said you were weak?”

I hit her again, making her head bounce off the floor. Cherise went out, eyes rolling back in her head.

“Justified force?” I asked Ellie.

“Record unresolved,” the AI responded, which probably meant she was doing me a favor by not recording one way or the other.

I spotted my shades lying against the wall beneath one of the giant smiling photos and climbed off Cherise to retrieve them.

“Nice to see you guys,” I said, slipping them back on my face. I was greeted by the update that my emergency beacon had failed to transmit.

Looking around the suite, I spotted several partygoers still cowering against the bar, watching me. One of the bandits Trix had stabbed lay nearby, several plastic handcuffs hanging from their belt.

I re-sent the beacon and received immediate acknowledgement this time.

“Don’t worry,” I told a man behind the bar. “Help is on the way. Stay where you are.”

Crossing the room, I grabbed a set of handcuffs off one of the dead bandits and used them to restrain Cherise. She moaned as I moved her but didn’t show signs of waking up. In her shirt pocket I found the access token I needed for the second transport.

I got the attention of a beefy looking woman by the bar and said, “Don’t let her leave.”

The woman gave me a blank look until she realized I was talking about Cherise.

“And don’t hurt her,” I clarified. “Unless she tries to hurt you.”

“She already hurt me,” the woman said. “My wrists are bleeding.”

I shook my head and pointed at the woman. “Do the right thing.”

She gave me a frustrated grimace and nodded.

With help on the way, I climbed over the railing in front of the glass wall. Closer to the holes Clark’s gang had cut in the windows, I shivered under the blasts of cold air from outside. I ducked through one of the holes and stood on the balcony, where a rugged transport waited. The vehicle was a dull black and covered in cargo containers to mask its true shape.

I sent the transport a connection command using Cherise’s key. Ellie accessed its internal control network, and a second later the side hatch lifted open.

“Anything in there going to kill me?” I asked.

“It appears to be a standard low-orbit transport,” she said.

“You mean this thing is space-capable?”

“Affirmative, though only for short distances.”

“Let’s avoid zero-g if we can, otherwise you’re going to be cleaning puke off the cabin.”

I jumped from the balcony to the open hatch and climbed through a short cargo area into the pilot’s seat, then I buckled in.

“Can we get a list of recent destinations?” I asked Ellie.

“Main cargo docks,” Elie reported. “I also have tracking data on the other transport.”

“Hell yes. Finally, some good news.”

“And it appears the exit route was pre-planned. Would you like me to follow it?”

That was sloppy, but good for me. “Yes, I would. Thank you very much.”

I locked the transport’s hatch and dropped from the face of the apartment complex. Ellie set the navigation system on the preset path but increased speed using our override codes. Her next trick was locating Clark’s transport using the communications logs.

I pulled up a map of the sector and sorted through streets until a glowing icon became visible: a tight formation of three cruisers, all covered in a crust of cargo containers, headed in the direction of the station docks.

“Bingo. Set the tracking lock, Ellie.”

“Done. Updating Dispatch.”

“Right. We should do that, shouldn’t we?”

With the tracking lock in place, we shot after Clark and his friends. The transport handled navigation until we entered busier sections and I had to take over, locking outside vehicles out of intersections. The other drivers shouldn’t know I was law enforcement, but from the way they were running, something had given me away.

Despite its rough disguise, the transport handled better than a patrol cruiser. It had better acceleration, which probably sacrificed armor and sensors. Speed was what I needed right now, and thankfully this thing was a beast. In five minutes, I had closed on Clark’s position, and then I was behind the kidnapper.

We were ten minutes from the main docks, in an open two-lane street through Taurus Station’s old industrial zone. Drones made up most of the traffic through this area, shuttling cargo from the docks to distribution centers closer to the active areas of the station.

I was closing on Clark’s vehicle when a call came through Dispatch from the Watch Commander. “Walker, I’ve got a quick reaction force at the apartment you called in. It’s a combat zone there. What happened to you?”

“It was a kidnapping. I’m in pursuit right now. Do you have my location?”

“I’ve got you. I’m sending two cruisers.”

“Wait. Here’s the target.” I sent the tracking data on Clark’s three transports. The problem was, I didn’t know which vehicle was carrying Kiren. They might split up any minute, or get fired on by trigger-happy newcomers.

Sure enough, as soon as I sent the tracking info, the three icons split up on my viewscreen.

“I’m losing them,” I snapped.

“Calm down. We’re getting you some help.” The sergeant’s name was Kan. He sounded confident but tired.

“Which one should we follow?” I asked Ellie.

“Checking speed signatures now.”

“You think the faster transports are carrying fewer people?”

“That would be a safe estimate, Deputy Walker,” she said.

“Don’t get sassy with me, Ellie!”

“Sass is not in my skill set.”

Two of the tracking icons disappeared into industrial zones on either side of the road, while the third reversed velocity.

I cursed, understanding immediately what that meant. “He’s turning to fight.”

“You got any weapons on that thing?” Kan asked. I forgot he was still monitoring my comms.

I checked the console. I should have looked for offensive capabilities earlier, damn it. In the navigation subsystem, I found the combat controls for two twenty-millimeter chain guns on either side of the transport and a railgun running the body of the vehicle. I passed the info to Sergeant Kan.

“Dang,” I muttered, impressed. “Can I keep this thing?”

“I recommend using the railgun while they’re closing on your position,” the sergeant said. “We’ll only have one chance with our most damage producing weapon.”

“What if my VIP is in that attacking ship?”

“Good point.” Kan paused. “Disable them with the chain guns then. How much experience do you have with vehicular combat?”

“Six hours in the academy.”

“That’s no good. We need to get you on a special team. If you survive this. And graduate field training.” Kan paused. “How did you get this assignment again?”

The bandit’s vehicle would be on me in a minute. I air-braked and pointed my transport for the upper bounds of the street, hoping the other transport couldn’t climb in time.

I picked up the visual pinpoint of the inbound ship on the viewscreen, engines blazing. Activating every scanning system I had, I waited for Ellie’s mass and environmental scans to verify crew size, then I brought up the combat control system and waited, sweaty thumbs on the triggers.

“I confirm a single occupant,” Ellie said.

“Thank you.”

I quickly switched to the railgun and locked on the incoming ship, set the attack system to engage at maximum effective range and watched the lock timer countdown.

Four, three, two—

The oncoming transport crossed my railgun’s firing threshold. My console flickered from the railgun’s power drain as the blast left the nose. In a split second, the oncoming driver lost power, velocity fading, its crew area and engines burned out by the kinetic attack.

“Whoa,” I said.

The icon continued to slow in my display and finally drifted into a line of cargo drones, forcing them to route around.

“Got it,” I told the sergeant.

“Good. We’re tracking the other ships. I’ve been authorized to order you to come in for a debrief.”

I shifted to the tracking system and pulled up the two remaining bandit icons that were heading in opposite directions from my location. One seemed bound for the docks, and the other was heading back for Taurus Station’s tourist sections. If they were leaving station, the docks would be the obvious choice, while anyone trying to hide would find better opportunities in the casinos and hotels.

“I can follow one of them at least,” I argued. “Two of my executives were wounded. I don’t have a lot of time to find them.”

Another voice cut in that I didn’t recognize. A woman. “We’ll find them, recruit,” the voice said, emphasizing my lack of rank. “You get back here like you’ve been ordered. We’ll need a full debrief.”

The comms readout said the speaker was a Lieutenant Bird. I didn’t recognize the name, but Kan didn’t say anything in my defense.

I punched my console. I’d failed.

Kan said in a softer tone, “You’ve done everything you could for now. Let the department do some work on your behalf. We’ve got them on tracking. There isn’t anywhere they can go on Taurus that we won’t find them.”

I cut the comms link.

“Hope isn’t a plan,” I told the dead air.

With a sinking sense of failure, I turned the transport for main station and set the autopilot, then I let my head fall back and closed my eyes to calm the spinning behind my eyes.

I was halfway back when a comms request from Keldon lit my screen. I cracked my eyelids and answered the request.

“You all right, kid?”

“I think I’ve got a concussion. A woman hit me with a metal bar.”

“That sucks. Listen, don’t go back to the department. Meet me at Drake’s. All hell is breaking loose and we need a plan.”

12

I rested my aching head against the back wall of the booth at Drake’s. Very slowly, I rubbed my temples, not sure if it was actually helping. I’d been explaining the last twelve hours to Keldon and the more I talked, the more my head throbbed.

“You need a medic?” he asked.

“I’m fine. Any update from Patrol?”

Keldon shook his head. “The kidnappers are gone.”

I cupped a hand around my ear. “Hear that? That’s the sound of my career flying away.”

Drake arrived to set two beers on the scarred table. “You don’t look so good, kid. If you’re going to die, don’t do it in my bar.”

“I’ll try.” I held the cold glass against my forehead, then took a long drink.

Bree shouted at her dad from the bar.

He waved at her as he gave me a hard look. “I’ve got a medical scanner in the back if you think you’re going to need it.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“I’m talking to your sergeant. You won’t be the first one to get checked out in the back before going back on duty.”

“I’ll bring him back if he passes out on me,” Keldon said.

When Drake was gone, Keldon emptied half his glass and set it down. “You didn’t screw up, Gage. I think you’ve done better than they expected. You’ve been set up.”

I squinted. “What?”

“She was obviously doing her best to lose you at the party. If the person you’re supposed to be protecting doesn’t want you along, there isn’t much you can do about it. But you got after her and threw a wrench in their plans. Now tell me again how you knew it was a kidnapping?”

I took another drink. “Because she ended up kidnapped at the end?”

Keldon snorted. “I’ll give you that. Now, go through what you saw. When you started describing things, you said you thought it was a robbery. What changed?”

I probably hadn’t been talking clearly, between the fading adrenaline and my throbbing head. I couldn’t remember how I had described the shift from a robbery of a bunch of elites to the thugs grabbing Kiren.

My head was feeling a little better, or the first beer was doing its job. The lights didn’t feel like knives in my eyes, anyway. I took a deep breath and walked through how Kiren had given up her identity, Cherise knew who she was, and then everything shifted from a revenge plus robbery to a corporate kidnapping.

“And there were three vehicles all together,” Keldon said. “Where did Clark shoot Ronny at first?”

“The legs,” I said. “Tops of his thighs. Lots of blood.”

“Right. Superficial wounds.”

Remembering the grisly scene, I blanched. “They sure didn’t look superficial.”

“But you said Ronny was high and acting like he didn’t feel it.”

“That’s right.”

Gears started clicking in my head. The extra transport could mean they had planned on taking someone from the apartment in the first place, and it obviously hadn’t been Ronny.

“Where’s the handgun Carthage gave you?” Keldon asked.

“Back at my apartment.”

“I’ll bet you it’s more than a pistol. We don’t have time to dig into that right now. The Sheriff is going to call any minute for a debrief.”

My throat got tight. “He already knows?”

“Of course. The question is how long until Carthage knows, and then how is he going to play this against the Sheriff? What’s obvious is that we’ve been set up to fail. What doesn’t make sense is why Sheriff Nagel agreed to this in the first place, and what Carthage ultimately wants.”

“Maybe the business connection is a fluke.”

“He could call that off anytime without endangering his daughter.”

“There was something off about Kiren and her friends,” I said. “They did something strange—just once—but it’s odd they would do it in front of me.”

“What?” Keldon prompted.

“Kiren bought something from a clerk in one of the stores we visited yesterday—or she paid him anyway. They all acted like a crew doing a deal.”

Keldon shook his head. “Probably just drugs for the party.”

“But why wait until I would be there? Why not have someone else do it for her? She’s a trillionaire’s daughter.”

“Could be a thrill seeker.”

I shook my head, frustrated. “That seems too easy.”

“People aren’t complicated, Gage. When I first started, I wanted everything to be some complicated conspiracy. I couldn’t figure out why criminals would do things that didn’t actually make money, or why they acted so stupidly. My training officer told me something I’ve never forgotten.”

“What’s that?”

“She said: ‘Keldon, they don’t think like you do. You’re a good person.’”

“You think Kiren Carthage is a criminal?”

“I didn’t say that. But don’t create complicated motives where it’s probably just getting back at mommy and daddy. That, or sex, drugs, or money.”

Taking another long breath, I probed my temples again. The throbbing was almost gone now. I ran a hand across my scalp and was surprised to find a clot of dried blood and hair.

“I should probably clean up,” I said.

“Nope. Have another beer. I want you to look like you fought off twenty thugs when we go into the Sheriff’s office.”

“Won’t that just make me look incompetent?”

“Trust me,” Keldon said. “We’ll get you a scan just to make sure you didn’t break anything loose, though.”

After the next beer, Keldon took me to the medical scanner. To my surprise, Bree was there. When she strapped me into the med couch, I lay back and stared at the ceiling, waiting for the prickling feeling to pass over my skin.

“You look like hell,” she said.

Dozing off, I only half heard her. “Thanks, you too,” I said.

She hit my shoulder.

“Ow!”

“Shut up and sit still.”

The tingling scan wave passed over my head and shoulders and I fell asleep almost immediately, only to wake from a slap to the side of my face.

“Wake up,” Keldon said. “You don’t have a concussion.”

I blinked as I sat up. Bree was gone.

“How long was I out?”

“An hour. I just got the call from the chief. I also did some research of my own. The tattoos on Clark’s face? I don’t have an ID on him, but they match a gang active in the Chop. Your boy Ronny also has ties to it.”

The Chop Zone, or CZ, was a nearby sector of space crowded with abandoned ships, habitats, and materials from throughout the mining district’s history. Anything a company didn’t want, they dumped in the Chop. A thriving community of squatters, pirates, and criminal syndicates made their homes there, and the Sheriff turned a mostly blind eye as long as Chop activities didn’t affect Taurus Station or the mining operations.

“If he’s in the CZ, why don’t we have any ID info?”

“Same reason you couldn’t track Kiren from the club to Ronny’s place. Somebody erased it.”

I stood and stretched aching muscles. A new collection of pains complained from my neck to my knees. “You’re starting to make me doubt the effectiveness of our technology.”

“You were the one chasing a meshie. What do you think they’re up to? Let’s call that our training note for the day. You can journal about it on the ride over to the department.”

“Damn it,” I said. “I thought I was done with journals.”

Keldon slapped me on the back and I winced. He laughed. “You still owe me journals for the last twenty-four hours. Let’s go, trainee.”

13

Sheriff Nagel leaned forward, fingers steepled in front of his nose, and glared at the near distance. We stood at parade rest in front of the Sheriff’s metal desk, sounds from the bullpen behind us filling the quiet in the office.

“Here’s the thing,” Nagel said abruptly. “I set you up.”

“I figured that,” Keldon said.

“I didn’t tell you to talk, sergeant.”

“Yes, Sheriff.”

“Close your mouth and open your ears. I know that’s hard for you.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Keldon flex his jaw as he visibly held his tongue. The sergeant’s face was flushed with anger that I hadn’t seen before.

“James Carthage tells me he wants security for his daughter’s party. I tell him that’s going to take fifty of my deputies. That’s going to cost you overtime. Carthage says to me he’s got his own security. He wants one of my deputies just so Kiren knows he’s watching her, but she won’t see the truth of it.”

This information made sense. The party had been flooded with private security that I assumed belonged to the club. I should have taken the time to talk to more of the private security people. There were only so many providers on Taurus that could cover an event that size. I might have learned about Carthage’s plan. It also explained why the guard at the door was so willing to stand up to me.

“We all know how that worked out,” Keldon said.

Nagel shushed him with a finger. “That’s why I sent our trainee here. His career isn’t going to suffer for this. No one is going to remember. I’m the supervisor who sent him into this mess. But I’m not worried about my deputy. Now I’ve got a high-profile kidnapping case on my hands. The only good news is that it hasn’t hit the feeds yet, and as far as I’m aware, Carthage doesn’t know.”

“His people are going to tell him soon enough if they’re any good,” Keldon said.

“That’s very true. But I’m not going to waste time with that. Our boy Gage here is going to go inform the father of the victim that the Taurus Station Sheriff’s Office is on the case.”

I’m sure my eyes went round as plates. I imagined standing in front of Carthage with that kind of news, and him blowing my head off with another of his oversized hand cannons.

Keldon shook his head. “You’re trying to get him killed?”

“Carthage isn’t going to do anything to me or mine. One call from me and some very sensitive information will find its way to people higher than him.”

“You say that, Sheriff, and I believe you, but that doesn’t protect Walker now if Carthage decides to test you.”

“Damn it,” Nagel snarled. He pounded the desk and stood, then he stalked the room like a caged animal. He passed behind us, and I did my best to keep staring forward. I half expected him to hit me in the back of the head, though I wasn’t the one arguing with him.

“We know they went into the CZ,” Keldon said, breaking the silence. “I’ve got TechDiv tearing apart the vehicle Deputy Walker commandeered. We don’t have their location pinpointed yet, but we’ll have it soon. Let me lead a task force into the Chop. We’ll pull Ms. Carthage out of that pit and deliver her in time for her wedding. All I need is the firepower.”

“Firepower,” Nagel growled, still standing outside my view. “That’s your answer?”

“Controlled violence has its uses, Sheriff.”

“This hasn’t even hit the newsfeeds yet, and you want to start a war in the CZ. Is a rich man’s adult child worth that kind of risk? We set them off, and we could end up with an uprising.”

Keldon fell silent, obviously thinking.

I opened my mouth to speak and stopped. Unfortunately, the Sheriff saw the movement. He stood next to me and glared at the side of my face.

“What did you want to say, Walker? Spit it out.”

“Well, Sheriff,” I said. “It seems we’ve got a third actor here. We don’t know who kidnapped Kiren Carthage or why. That’s an investigation.”

“Are you trying to school me on basic police procedure, trainee?” the Sheriff asked.

“I wouldn’t presume to do that, sir.”

“Good. Of course this is an investigation. We’ve got a rogue element attacking our businesspeople. That’s a problem. The question is whether or not James Carthage knew about this threat and was working to hang his liability on us. That’s probably exactly what he did, and I’m going to have to get in my dress uniform to deal with the news feeds. And I hate wearing my dress uniform.”

“Yes, Sheriff,” I said.

“Yes, what? You hate my dress uniform, too? You think it makes me look pudgy?”

I clamped my mouth closed.

“It makes you look fat because it doesn’t fit right,” Keldon said. “Go get it tailored.”

Nagel snorted. “I had it tailored. Anyway, you’re right, Deputy Walker. We are operating in a low information environment. I need you to go talk to James Carthage and find out who has any motive whatsoever to kidnap his daughter. I don’t care if he tells you it’s space faeries, you’re going to chase down those leads and get me a plan to move forward. When I go in front of those newsfeeds, I better have something to brief or it’s both your asses.”

“Why him?” Keldon asked. “You’ve got detectives to do this sort of thing. Hell, I spent seven years riding a detective’s desk. I’ll go talk to the old asshole.”

Nagel moved behind his desk and shook his finger at the sergeant. “Not you. Carthage wanted our deputy here, so Walker’s doing it. He can report back to you, but I don’t want Carthage getting confused on who to be angry at. As far as Carthage is concerned, Deputy Walker is his whipping post. Understood?”

Great. I swallowed hard. “Yes, Sheriff.”

“I didn’t hear you.”

“Yes, Sheriff,” I said, loud enough to be heard back in the bullpen.

“Dismissed,” Nagel barked. “Don’t come back here until you’ve got my information. Which, by the way, I need yesterday. Now go.”

We snapped to attention together, and I exited the office just behind Keldon.

In the lift, I rubbed my throbbing temples where the headache had returned. “What are we going to do?” I asked Keldon.

Keldon shook his head. “We’re going down to the duty cruiser so you can finish your training journal for today. Then we’re going out to James Carthage’s office so you can brief him like the Sheriff told you to do.”

“I have to journal, really?”

“I’ll be damned if your training file isn’t complete, so shut up.”

14

The owner of Carthage Consolidated wasn’t at his office. I stood at the facilities entrance to Carthage’s main office, waiting as a drone sent the communications request. I should have asked Sheriff Nagel to set up the meeting, but that would have tipped off Carthage about the bad news. I didn’t know whether that was better or worse.

The drone chimed and Carthage’s tinny voice barked from a speaker in the wall. “What do you want?”

I leaned forward, unsure where the microphone was hidden. “Mr. Carthage, this is Deputy Walker. We met yesterday.”

“I know who you are. You think I’m senile?”

“No, Mr. Carthage.” I paused, then pushed onward. “I have some news I need to share with you. In person.”

“In person? Why aren’t you with Kiren?”

“It’s about Kiren, Mr. Carthage.”

The speaker hissed static. “I’m sending the drone my location data. Get over here immediately. I’m busy.”

The connection cut off. I waited as the blunt-faced drone received the location data and repeated it.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Carthage builds the future!” the drone said.

The coordinates were for an apartment complex on the far side of Taurus, near an old section of casinos and hotels from when the station first opened. I leaned back as the cruiser followed its set path, doing my best to calm my hammering heart.

Breathe slowly. In and out.

My head didn’t hurt anymore, and I’d had a shower and a fresh set of clothes, but I still felt deeply tired. The feeling wasn’t fatigue, even though I couldn’t remember when I’d slept last, but more a sense of impending doom that I’d never experienced before. The closest feeling was when I’d seen the Mine Administrator arrive at my school, and none of the high schoolers had known who the bland-faced man was there to see. When the teacher called my name, I felt a bit of release, followed by a feeling of weightlessness. I knew back then my life was going to change.

And when that bureaucratic asshole told me it was both Mom and Dad, I felt like a cosmic boot was grinding me under its heel, and then kicking me away, leaving me alone in the world. There were no laws, no rules, no justice—only people that got ground up and those that did the grinding… and then assholes who came and half-smiled as they shared the news.

The administrator had left me with a data brochure listing my various benefits, including employment information for Carthage Mining.

Meeting James Carthage felt too abstract, too separated from that life. There were whole strata of bureaucrats between Carthage and that administrator, who functioned in a world of vague personal responsibility, blaming every terrible thing he did on the person above him, all the way up. I didn’t want anything to do with a world like that, but here I was.

I had hoped being a deputy might balance out a world of asshole bureaucrats. Maybe I was wrong.

The cruiser came to a stop at a gate on the end of a deserted corridor. I sent the access code and the black gates opened, letting me through. I watched the location data wind down to my destination in front of Carthage’s faceless apartment stack.

“You got my location, Ellie?” I asked, checking in.

“Logged and in service.”

I exited the cruiser and set it to defensive mode, then walked through the empty front of the building to its lift. The place felt like a mausoleum, empty and cold, though multiple layers of active scan tickled my skin as I walked. The lift security panel verified me, and I rose.

At the top floor, I walked down an empty hallway with tile floors until I reached Carthage’s address. The security panel noted my presence, calling me Gage Walker, not Deputy Walker, and the door slid open to a hallway that reminded me of Ronny’s place, only the walls were bare and there were no discarded shoes. All these elite apartments were starting to look the same.

James Carthage was standing in front of the image of a roaring fireplace at one side of an otherwise empty, rectangular room. The walls were black marble. I almost laughed at the repeat of the dramatic scene at his office.

“Mr. Carthage,” I said, walking toward him.

Carthage looked at me, his movement delayed slightly. I noticed the tumbler in the man’s right hand, half filled with brown liquor.

“Walker,” Carthage said, staring into the image of the fireplace. “You ever been burned?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“That’s an interesting thing about modern living. We’re disconnected from basic realities of existence. Somewhere in our lost history, man discovered fire. Getting from there to where we are now had to have been one hell of a journey. Can you imagine not having any of the luxuries you enjoy today? And here we are, insulated from everything. Taurus Station is just a big fuzzy blanket for the soul. All of it false. Catering. Condescending. What do you think about that?”

“I’m not much of a philosopher, Mr. Carthage. I prefer to cut to the truth. I have some bad news for you.”

Carthage raised the tumbler and gulped, nearly emptying it. “Now tell me about Kiren, my daughter, my heart, my gift to the future.”

He knows.

What I couldn’t tell was if Carthage was bitter or just drunk.

“She’s been taken, Mr. Carthage,” I said anyway, doing my job. “The Sheriff is focusing the full resources of the department on your case. We have a vehicle that belonged to the criminal group that originates in the CZ. That’s where we’re focusing our investigation. We’ll get her back.”

The artificial fire blazed like it was attached to Carthage’s mood. He stared at me with bloodshot eyes. “Were you there?”

I nodded. “I’m sorry, Mr. Carthage. I did everything I could.”

“You’re still alive, so obviously not.”

Silently, I thanked Keldon for making me go see the Sheriff. If I hadn’t heard Nagel’s take on the situation, that there was something more here that went beyond kidnapping, I’d have been tearing myself up inside for my failure. While I still felt terrible for Kiren and wanted to find her, I also realized that Carthage was hiding something.

I cleared my throat. “Mr. Carthage, I’m here to take a statement. Are you able to answer a few questions?”

“No, I’m not going to answer questions.”

“Every bit of information we can get will help this investigation. If you’d prefer, I can have a detective come back to speak with you. I understand if I’m not the person you want to see right now.”

Carthage went to the wall beside the fireplace and pressed a panel. A sideboard lined with bottles appeared and he refilled his tumbler. His hands were shaking.

“I don’t have anything to say.”

I wanted to get him talking. I ran back through the few classes on interviewing subjects I’d received at the Academy. Everything there had been about subjects in the field, service contacts with people who had just experienced accidents, burglaries, people who wanted to give up as much information as possible. As usual, I found myself falling back on Keldon’s advice: Keep it simple. Ask questions like you’re a first grader… which led me back to the plain speech of my parents, the mining rig. On a mining op, there was no time for lies or obfuscation, and liars usually revealed themselves through their own mistakes. Accidents killed them for it.

Still, I was out of my league. I was here because the Sheriff and Carthage expected me to fail.

“Ellie, begin evidence lock.”

“Evidence lock confirmed.”

“Mr. Carthage, you felt there was some need for security,” I said. “Were there any other threats against your daughter that you didn’t share with Sheriff Nagel?”

Carthage narrowed his eyes. “Nothing. I hired you as a babysitter. You were supposed to keep Kiren out of trouble. I never expected a kidnapping. There’s been no indication, nothing.”

“When was the last time you spoke with your daughter?”

Carthage grimaced. “I don’t remember.”

“What made you think she needed a babysitter, then?”

“Apparently you didn’t do any homework on her, did you? My daughter has several businesses of her own. She has attacked elements of my core business in the past by squeezing supply lines and contracts. She hides these movements from me until it’s time to sit down at the bargaining table. She’s shrewd.”

“You haven’t mentioned her mother.”

“Kiren is all mine. I brought her into this world. I made her what she is.”

“Did you pressure her into the upcoming marriage?”

Carthage snorted. “Did she tell you that?”

“She hardly mentioned the marriage at all, Mr. Carthage. She seemed focused on the party and talked very little about what was coming afterward.”

“The marriage is her idea.”

Now that was interesting. Everything he’d said matched my opinion of Kiren, except that the marriage had been her idea. As I thought about it, I really couldn’t recall her mentioning her future husband’s name.

“Do you see the marriage being related to a threat of kidnapping?”

“If someone was trying to hurt me while my name is already all over the newsfeeds, this is a better time than others. We timed the wedding to fall before our earnings reports.”

“Are earnings up?” I asked.

“No. The wedding should shore up shareholder concerns. But overall production has been down. I don’t suppose a sheriff’s deputy would follow commodities.”

“No,” I said, ignoring the insult. “Thank you for explaining.”

Carthage emptied his glass again. “I know how long you’ve been involved with the station’s police total, but tell me how long you’ve been working for Nagel?”

I’d told him the last time we met. “I’ve been out of the academy seven weeks.”

“You mean you aren’t even sworn yet?”

Did he even know what that meant? “Three weeks left of field training,” I said.

“That’s right. You’re exactly what I wanted him to send me, and it blew up in my face. What did Kiren say when she saw you?”

“What do you mean?”

“When she first saw you. What did she say?”

“She said I looked delicious.”

Carthage laughed. “Maybe it’s time I hand all this over to her. She’s hungry. Hungrier than I am. Carthage should span systems now.”

“Do you know of any illegal activities Kiren might have been engaged in? Anything on Taurus?”

Carthage’s voice was flat. “No.”

I wasn’t going to accept that. I wasted another fifteen minutes trying to pry information out of him, only to get nothing. The business man grew increasingly drunk. He stumbled back to a couch that emerged from the marble wall and sprawled with a new drink in his hand.

He railed about sending his daughter to the best schools, about her multiple degrees in business, her exchange with the Boros Corporation. A picture emerged of a driven father who had expressed his love for his child by pushing her harder and harder… and she had delivered. Now she was using it all against him.

What was strange was that Carthage didn’t seem very troubled by the idea of Kiren being held prisoner somewhere. I didn’t want to emphasize that gangs in the Zone killed as many victims as they successfully ransomed, and Carthage didn’t ask.

“Mr. Carthage, is there anyone else I should talk to? Any business rival or group that would have reason to hurt you or your family?”

“Talk to Joyce. He wants me dead.”

“Has he ever made threats to you personally?”

“Every damn day.”

“His son was about to marry your daughter.”

Carthage laughed bitterly. “Exactly.”

I asked Ellie to attach Harvey Joyce to the evidence record. When I glanced back at Carthage, he was snoring. His arm fell from the edge of the couch and the tumbler rolled across the marble floor.

Standing in the middle of the long, empty room, I stared into the image of fire Carthage had been so enamored of earlier and closed the interview.

“Am I supposed to feel sorry for this asshole?” I muttered.

“Do you require mental health assistance, Deputy Walker?” the AI asked.

“You say you can’t make jokes, but I think that’s a lie.”

“Sarcasm detected. I’m sending your logfile to TechDiv, Deputy Walker. That is the extent of my current assistance.”

“Hold on a second. Can you tell me if Carthage was lying?”

“Vocal analysis indicates James Carthage was telling the truth.”

I flagged Ellie’s file for priority assessment. As a trainee, I expected the request to require Keldon’s approval. I was surprised when the file went to the top of the evidence queue. Maybe Nagel was watching.

Standing outside Carthage’s apartment building as I waited for the cruiser to return, I checked in with TechDiv to see if there were any updates on Clark’s location.

Nothing.

TechDiv had also started checking the personal data feeds for Kiren, Franca, and Trix. Each one had cut off not long after leaving Ronny’s apartment, which meant Clark and his people had either killed their hostages, or were using blocking tech to hide their feeds. There had also been no ransom notice or other statement from the criminal group, which made Investigations believe this was motivated by a business rival or some other inside purpose that Carthage wasn’t sharing outright.

I hoped Investigation might find something in Carthage’s interview that I hadn’t heard. They would cross-reference the statement, tracking Carthage’s emotional state throughout the whole thing.

Maybe I was disappointed that James Carthage wasn’t the monster I’d imagined him when I was a kid. He was just a lonely asshole, and apparently lonely assholes ran the world. One thing was for sure—I didn’t believe he had anything to do with Kiren’s abduction.

The cruiser arrived just as I received the info file for Harvey Joyce, CEO of J-Tech Amalgamated.

The cruiser’s hatch opened and Keldon grinned at me from the pilot’s seat.

“You here to tell me I failed field training?” I asked.

“Nope. Normally, we wouldn’t send an investigator into a situation like this. Carthage is his own special case of messed up. I just skimmed your footage. You did the best you could. Why is it corporations are all run by crazy people?”

I slid into the passenger seat. “Does it make you feel better to think that?”

“Yup,” Keldon said. “Need to feel superior somehow.”

“We’re cops. Everyone accuses us of acting superior.”

Keldon laughed.

15

Morning cycle was filling the corridors with early rising tourists when we reached the J-Tech offices on the outer edge of Taurus. I’d dozed for most of the trip, but I woke from a stupor when the cruiser slowed or made a few hard turns.

“Wake up,” Keldon said. “Slap your face a little bit. You still feel like you’ve got a concussion?”

I shook my head and stretched in the seat. “Just sleepy.”

“We’ll get you some downtime after this. Once TechDiv cracks the kidnapper’s location, and they will, we’ll have a bit of planning time for the extraction.”

“I’m not sleeping during that.”

“Oh, you think you’re on the Tactics team now?”

I dropped back in my seat, realizing I might not be able to actually go after Kiren. “This is my case.”

“Case? You don’t have a case. You’re a trainee. You’re working directly for the Sheriff in a strange way that I’ve never seen before, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be doing anything outside the capacity of your training or assignment. You understand?”

“Yes, sergeant.”

“Don’t start getting uppity on me, Walker. You’re a trainee in this department, not some special agent assigned by the godsdamned Union. You work for me.”

“Yes, sergeant.”

“My pleasure is your desire.”

I cracked a smile. “You’re getting weird on me, sergeant.”

“Hell, yes. I am. Don’t trust anybody. The only thing trust gets you is a sore throat.”

I frowned, not quite understanding. I answered anyway: “Yes, sergeant.”

Keldon nodded toward the front of the J-Tech headquarters. “Now, we’re going to go in there and talk to Mr. Joyce, and hope he has nothing to do with this kidnapping. Because I don’t want anything to do with a battle between corporations. That’s not what I get paid to deal with.”

“You get paid to deal with me.”

“That’s right. I get paid to make sure your ass stays alive for the next thirty years so you can retire a crusty old asshole just like me. That’s my job. Don’t screw it up.”

After checking in with the security command, we took the private lift up into the heart of the headquarters, surrounded by employees nursing coffees and other stimulants. The environment was decidedly different from everything I’d seen of Carthage Consolidated so far. Walking through the corporate suites, we passed conference rooms full of nodding businesspeople, open office areas filled by workers staring into holo monitors, and finally the executive suites, where a hard-faced receptionist greeted us.

“Hello, deputies. Mr. Joyce isn’t quite ready. Please have a seat and he’ll be with you shortly.”

I glanced at Keldon, expecting him to force his way through the polished doors into Joyce’s office.

Instead, Keldon gave the receptionist a warm smile and nodded. “Is that fresh coffee I smell over there? I’d love a cup.”

“You’re welcome to it. There are pastries as well.”

Keldon touched his chest. “I love pastries. Can I get you anything?”

The receptionist pulled her head back, surprised by the offer. “I’d love a Danish. Fruit, please.”

Keldon poured himself a coffee and plated a pastry for the receptionist, who blushed when he served her. I sat down with a cup of black coffee and breathed deeply of its fumes before gulping the hot liquid.

“Always be kind to reception folks,” Keldon said in a low voice as he sat beside me. “I’ve cracked more cases from people in service roles than anything else, except angry spouses. You get married, don’t cross your spouse. They’ll get you.” He took a huge bite of his Danish and closed his eyes in thorough enjoyment.

I hadn’t finished my coffee when the receptionist rose to usher us through the ornate doors. We entered an office that was small but warm, with a desk on one side, small conference table on the other, and walls covered in displays showing company data. A large photo of Joyce and his family filled the one free wall. I studied George Joyce, the narrow-faced young man in the middle of the painting. The artist hadn’t done him any favors, making his blue eyes almost translucent and a little too large. He didn’t look any match for Kiren Carthage; maybe she preferred it that way.

Harvey Joyce was a round man with friendly brown eyes and a thoughtful look about him. He rose from his desk as we entered.

“Deputies, welcome. It’s good to meet you.”

He offered us seats at the conference table and sat next to me. Glancing at Keldon’s coffee cup, Joyce asked, “Would you like more coffee? I have a machine in my office.”

Keldon held up a hand. “I’m fine, Mr. Joyce. Thank you. Do you know why we’re here today?”

Joyce spread his hands and smiled. “I have to admit, I don’t.”

Keldon nodded. “It hasn’t hit the newsfeeds yet, but last night Kiren Carthage and two of her associates were kidnapped by a gang we believe originates in the Chop. We’re pursuing every lead we have right now, and we have possession of one of the gang’s vehicles, but we’re also tracking down any other information on who might have a motive to hurt Ms. Carthage.”

Joyce followed Keldon’s words intently. “That’s terrible. I feel for their family. If there’s anything I can do for James, I’d be glad to help.”

“Mr. Carthage has provided us with all the assistance he can. What we could use now is an outside perspective. As a business associate of the Carthage family, and the father of the groom, do you have any ideas about who might want to attack them in this way?”

“Oh,” Joyce said. “That’s a good question.”

I watched Harvey Joyce consider the information. He looked soft, but there was a hard note in his eyes now, as if he was a man who was used to presenting a weak front as he gathered information. He looked like the type who relied on rules to absolve himself of accountability.

Was there any emotion in Joyce’s face as he heard the news about Kiren? Satisfaction? Pleasure?

I didn’t see it.

If anything, Joyce looked like a man who had just received a hot stock tip and was calculating how he could capitalize on the information without creating problems for himself.

James Carthage might have been a builder, a grinder crushing lives beneath him, but Harvey Joyce was an exploiter, a reed that bent with the wind and survived the long storm.

I leaned back in my chair, surprised at the thoughts moving through my mind. I wasn’t usually one to judge people, but it was coming easily now. The question was whether I was right or not.

The problem with judging or making assumptions about others was that I could be wrong. A hunch was a data point of one, somebody told me once. I glanced at Keldon. He was giving Joyce his concerned concentration face, no betrayal of judgement or condemnation in his expression.

“I can’t say much about James Carthage’s business practices that you probably don’t already know,” Joyce said. “The man is ruthless. His mines chew up more lives than produce material.”

“How long have you known Mr. Carthage?” Keldon asked.

“Thirty years. We both inherited this business through family. Mine started as asteroid prospectors who lucked into a rich sector. I’ve turned a minor deposit into the third largest production operation in-system. For some reason I understood as a young man that the money wasn’t in the material, it was in moving it where it gets the best price. I invested in transport infrastructure. So even the mighty James Carthage depends on my drones, whether he wants to admit it or not. His shareholders understand.”

Keldon nodded. “I’m glad to hear your business is doing so well, Mr. Joyce.”

Joyce laughed. “I just bought my first casino. The Chance Wins.”

Which was where the wedding would be held. Made sense.

“Personally, I don’t think it’s got anything to do with business other than the fact that Carthage has money. You know he supports the Uprising, don’t you?”

Keldon frowned. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what that is.”

“You must not be politically active, Sergeant Keldon. If your department isn’t already paying attention, they should probably put someone on it. Every worker in Taurus is being courted by the Uprisers. If these people get their way, we’re going to see major upheaval.”

I glanced at Keldon, who looked thoughtful.

“Tell me more,” Keldon said.

Joyce waved a hand. “It’s a labor movement, pure and simple. The same sort of thing that’s been around for a thousand years. The difference here is that the organizers are active in the hotels, casinos, and other entertainment spots. They get the miners and prospectors in one-on-one situations, if you know what I mean, and explain to them all the ways they’re being exploited by people like James Carthage. Me, I take a look at compensation and working conditions and make adjustments. If they want to organize, I could dump them all. But I’d rather look at other options if I need to. It’s all a balancing game. Carthage, he wants to control everything. He sees labor organizations as a threat. So he tries to crush them under his boot. He makes speeches. Those speeches get out. He calls them things like roaches, dirt, leeches… the people who mine his material. Can you believe that?”

I’d met James Carthage. Of course I could believe it.

“There are several different labor organizations trying to get footholds in Carthage Consolidated, Sergeant Keldon,” Joyce said. “I’d start there if you want to look for someone who might want to weaken James Carthage. If he loses shareholder confidence and gets voted off his own company’s governing board, well, that would create a whole lot of chaos. He’s not the kind of person who thrives in chaos. He’d try to smash it, and that would only force him out quicker. I could see all of this as a plan to move James Carthage out of power, while making Kiren Carthage look equally damaged. Without a Carthage in power in the company, they’d be ripe for a hostile takeover. That’s a lot of money at play.”

“They’d federalize the mine,” I said.

Joyce glanced at me and smiled. “You think the Union doesn’t have ties to business? Maybe that’s exactly the plan. I couldn’t tell you. I don’t put all my eggs in one basket, as the old saying goes. You grab my mines, I’ll just choke your supply lines. Then I’ll squeeze your workers when they visit my casino chain… Carthage never did that. He’s vulnerable. And now someone seems to have hit him where it hurts the most.”

“You think the wedding brought this on?” Keldon asked.

“Of course. Why else do it now?”

“And you’re not concerned about your son?”

“George is head over heels for that woman. If they do get married, we get a seat on the Carthage board. If they don’t, maybe the heartache will toughen him up. I win either way.”

Joyce spent another thirty minutes listing enemies that Carthage had amassed over the last thirty years. In the end, the political motive seemed strongest but also had no clear perpetrator. According to Joyce, there were at least seven CEOs who would love to lead a hostile takeover of Carthage Consolidated.

I looked for tells that Joyce might be lying, or at least padding his version of the truth. He tended to spread his hands when he wanted to drive a point home. Certain CEOs he mentioned several times, emphasizing how much they hated Carthage on a personal level.

Whenever he did this, Keldon’s moustache would twitch with a sort of secret smile, as if he was aware of what Joyce was trying to say between the lines.

At the end of the interview, it would have been easy to think James and Kiren Carthage were the biggest assholes between here and the Sarkonian Empire. What made me doubt that assumption was what Carthage had said when asked about Kiren’s mother: James Carthage wanted to be a parent of his own accord. While the desire to be a parent wasn’t proof of anything, I couldn’t help feeling after my conversation with Carthage that the man loved his daughter. He had seemed personally wounded that she might be turning against him, even if that’s what he’d taught her to do.

“I have some recordings of Carthage sharing his thoughts about the Uprising,” Joyce said. “I’d be happy to have my assistant share them with you.”

“That would be very helpful,” Keldon said. He tapped the table and raised his eyebrows at me. It was time to go. “All right, I think we’ve taken enough of your time, Mr. Joyce.”

The businessman smiled. “Harvey, please. I’m happy to help in any way I can. I want Kiren safe just as much as you do.”

I almost rolled my eyes. Considering my extreme fatigue, exercising restraint felt like an accomplishment.

16

Keldon ordered me to get some sleep. The new information would need to filter through TechDiv, so we had time. Fortunately the Sheriff was stuck in meetings with the Station Administrator all day, so there would be no reporting to his office for updates.

After I got home, I stood in my kitchen for several minutes, staring at the case holding Carthage’s pistol. After a moment, I opened it and looked at the sleek piece of weaponry, fighting the urge to pick it up and point it at furniture.

He might have called it a tool, but I saw it as a bribe.

I didn’t take bribes.

I would find the right time to turn it over to Sergeant Keldon or someone else at the department, or maybe even give it to Kiren. Until then, it would sit on my kitchen counter where it couldn’t tempt me.

I felt like I was walking a tightrope to save a career I didn’t even have yet. Why should I be caught up in all this crap? It was a job for someone like Keldon, not a trainee. It irked me that they had wanted a rube from the beginning, someone with no family to care if he disappeared, and chose me. Despite everything Nagel had said, what if the ultimate plan was to pin everything on the newbie? What if Kiren died? Who would Carthage make pay for his daughter’s life?

Refusing the handgun felt like a hollow victory compared to the big picture, but feeling good about a small decision made me feel naïve.

Defeated and unsure how to move forward, I collapsed in bed. Sleep didn’t come easily, though, and I couldn’t stop thinking about James Carthage and that day the administrator had brought the news about my mom and dad. The feeling of that day came back to me in full force, leaving me feeling even more helpless. It was like my life had been a series of traps leading me here, in failure.

I eventually did sleep for a little while, but I was awakened by the security panel on my apartment door squawking for attention. Someone was outside my door.

I rolled out of bed and checked the status monitor on my bedroom wall. A woman with brown eyes and dark hair appeared in the panel, arms crossed like she was cold.

Tanys? What the hell?

I recognized her immediately. We’d lived in the same low-rent complex when I first arrived on Taurus Station. We’d spent time together but drifted apart when I eventually left for the academy. She was wearing a casino server’s outfit.

“Tanys?” I asked. “What are you doing here?”

She gazed up into the camera, not hiding her face. She had the same forthright expression and full lips that I remembered too well.

“I was thinking about you, Gage,” she said. “I still had your address from the last message you sent me.”

She was right. I’d told her to look me up, not believing she ever would. Of course, she hadn’t answered. Tanys wasn’t the type to wait around on a guy.

“Hold on,” I said. “I was asleep. Let me get some clothes on.”

She gave me a quick smile. “Don’t get dressed up for me.”

* * *

Standing in my kitchen, Tanys looked small and worn out, and ten years older than her actual twenty-three. She’d been working grave cycle at one of the older casinos that catered mostly to prospectors. Those types partied like there was no tomorrow. Her outfit was low-cut and obviously designed to attract attention, even though her posture was closed now.

I handed Tanys a coffee, which she accepted with a grateful smile.

“How have you been?” she asked.

“I got through the academy just fine,” I said. “Not top of my class but no problems. I’ve been on field training for the last seven weeks.”

“That means you’re on the street?”

“Mostly patrol.”

She raised her eyebrows when I didn’t say more. “What does that mean?”

“The street. Event security. Responding to calls. Assaults, break-ins, that sort of thing. I had a good weapons bust a couple weeks ago.” I stopped myself before mentioning the executive protection job with Kiren Carthage.

She sipped her coffee. “It’s dangerous?”

I shrugged. “Not statistically.”

Tanys chuckled. “I missed that dry sense of humor. I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I know it sounds dumb, but I wanted to know you were doing all right, that you were actually moving up.”

“You could have called anytime.”

“I got off shift today and had the courage. I haven’t had that other days.”

That didn’t sound like the woman I remembered. “Are you all right, Tanys?”

She hesitated. “I hate to ask this, Gage.”

“Look, if it’s money, it’s not a big deal. I get paid pretty well and I don’t spend much.” I couldn’t see why else she’d contact me out of the blue like this.

“What?” She blinked rapidly. I realized she was fighting tears. “It’s not money. Thank you, though. I wouldn’t bother you for that. It’s a bouncer at the casino. I guess you could say he’s taken a liking to me. I would take care of it myself, but I don’t want to get fired. I need this job. I was hoping you could help.”

I believed her when she said she would handle it herself. I’d seen her take down bigger men than her with a brand of martial arts that involved hard strikes to sensitive areas and yank-pull move she liked to call ‘starting the engine.’ She had never been afraid of using her skills.

“There are thousands of casino jobs. You should teach him a lesson.”

“I used to think that. I feel like it’s getting harder and harder to find work. I don’t want to mess this one up. I’ve got a nice place now.”

“All right. Is he up to anything?”

“Gambling on the side. I think he’s selling something at the door but I haven’t seen what.”

“What’s his name?” I asked.

Tanys passed the information. I would need some reasonable cause to investigate the bouncer, but that might not be hard to find once I visited the casino. The problem was going to be getting there with the Carthage case ongoing.

“When do you work again?” I asked.

“This is my weekend. I’m off for three days.”

“Has he made any threats?”

Tanys turned the forearm she had been holding against her middle and showed me bruises from where someone had grabbed her. The finger marks were purple stripes.

Gingerly, I took her arm and turned it under the light to get a better look. She winced once before hiding it.

“Is that from tonight?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Hold on. Let’s get you down to a med kiosk and get a record. I can use that.”

Tanys crossed her arms again. “Do you have to use me as evidence? Like I said, I don’t want anything getting back to the casino. He’s been there a long time.”

“I need a reason to investigate him,” I said. “This is everything I would need. We can make it an anonymous report. Especially if we use a street kiosk. You don’t have to register your personal information.”

“All right. I trust you, Gage.”

“That’s an awkward thing to say.”

Tanys gave me a tired laugh. “It just seems fitting for my life right now. I don’t feel like there’s anybody I can trust.”

I went into my bedroom to get dressed. I checked in with Ellie for any updates from Dispatch but found only the standard patrol briefs. TechDiv hadn’t sent any response to my statements from Carthage or Joyce.

“What the hell are they doing?” I asked, frustrated.

“You submitted those reports four hours ago, Deputy,” Ellie said. “Average report response time is twenty-six standard hours.”

“Oh, right.”

As we left, Tanys said, “You’ve got a nice place. You need to decorate, though. It’s kind of empty.”

The comment made me look around, realizing Carthage’s handgun case was currently the only bit of extra decoration. “I guess I haven’t had much time for that. I prefer not carrying a lot of stuff around. Moving sucks.”

“You lost your family, didn’t you?”

“I don’t remember telling you about that.”

“I remember you talking about attachments and how you wanted the sheriff’s office to help you feel connected to something. You still think that?”

I guess I had said it during a softer moment. “Mostly.”

The street outside my apartment stack was alive with people heading out for first cycle, grabbing breakfast, or still partying from the previous night. The neighborhood was a mix of small service businesses and clubs with shows, unending poker games and other specific entertainments. I liked the area because it never really slowed down. And it was cheap.

We found a nearby med kiosk and I waited as the drone scanned Tanys’ bruised arm, recording her. I saved the data to my duty record, then let the kiosk continue with treatment that consisted of some kind of ointment and a gel brace.

When I helped her out of the kiosk, she caught me in a hug.

“What’s that for?”

“Thank you. Most people would tell me to leave them alone.”

I frowned. “Who have you been hanging out with? The station isn’t that bad.”

She laughed more bitterly than the Tanys I remembered. “I’m glad you can say that.”

“It’s true,” I replied. “Mostly.”

“You hungry?” she asked. “The least I can do is get you some breakfast.”

I stretched. “That sounds pretty good.”

She hooked her arm in mine, close to me but not too close—no promises, I guess—and we walked down the street to a local diner where the service industry ate.

We were halfway through breakfast when I got an alert from the Watch Commander and then Keldon.

TechDiv had a lead.

17

TechDiv was a dark cave in the center level of the department. The lift opened on a security gate, the space beyond filled with flashing screens and piles of equipment.

I stepped off the lift and set the case with Carthage’s handgun on a scan platform. Keldon had told me to bring it in with me, since we could get it checked while we were talking to TechDiv. An admin worker stared at the scan report once it was done, furrowing his brow.

“What’s the scan say?” I asked.

“It’s a handgun. Did you think it was something else?”

“It was a gift from somebody I don’t trust. Can you tell me if it’s got any extra equipment, tracking systems, monitoring sensors, anything like that?”

The admin blinked at me, then pressed his face forward to study the scan display again.

“It’s pretty nice. If you don’t want it, I’ll take it.”

I picked up the case. “Thanks,” I said. “I’m here to see Stam.”

“He’s back in evidence holding.”

There was no offer to help me find the head of TechDiv, so I wandered past the checkpoint into the labyrinth of stacked equipment and workstations.

Stam Jones was a mushroom-shaped man with thick goggles that made his eyes look huge. I had met him twice before, and both times he seemed to be looking through me. Stam was a jack-of-all trades who could as easily tear down electronics as he could design network communication systems. He had been with the department longer than anyone could remember. The only person he feared was the Sheriff, but Nagel listened to him, which was more than anyone else in the department could say.

“Get in here,” Stam said when I finally found the entrance to his work area. “I don’t have all day to deal with you.”

“I just got the notice. Is Sergeant Keldon here?”

“Keldon? No, not yet. Doesn’t matter. You can brief him.”

“He’s my training officer.”

Stam gave me a flustered look, his giant eyes swimming in his goggles. “Are you a deputy or not?”

“Still in training, but yes.”

“Good enough. Come on.”

I followed Stam back into the warren of his office and arrived at a table half covered in handguns.

“Don’t worry about those,” he said, waving a hand. “I’m running an update. If they feel hot, just stand over here.”

After activating a holo panel on the table, he brought up a map of the system. Taurus Station was a ball surrounded by traffic. Stam pulled the zoom out to encompass the asteroid belt and he focused on an area I recognized as the Chop Zone. From a distance, the Chop sparkled with scan returns. Up close, it was a tight collection of habitats and dead ships.

“You found Kiren Carthage?” I asked, excitement getting the better of me.

“Found her? No. Of course not. What I found was the original owner of that vehicle you got ahold of.”

I frowned. “How is that going to help us?”

“You find out who they sold it to, dummy. The problem is, this is all known gang territory. You’re going to have to work your way into their maintenance and talk to some mechanics. They’ll be able to tell you more about it.”

“I’m taking that thing out to the CZ?” My stomach clenched at the idea. I wasn’t scared of the Chop; it was all the zero-g between here and there.

“That would be my recommendation if you want to move forward with this case.”

There was a cursing sound behind me as a pile of parts toppled to the floor. Keldon jumped out of the way. “What the hell, Stam? Why don’t you get rid of this crap?”

Stam adjusted his goggles. “As soon as I throw anything away, somebody in the department needs it, and we never have the funding to replace anything. Ask me how I know.”

“This place is a hazard.”

“This place makes the department operate.”

Keldon acknowledged the point with a grimace. He studied the holo map. “Is this our target?”

“That’s right. It’s Rolo territory. That’s where your mystery vehicle came from. Whoever managed its onboard systems is actually pretty good. I can’t pull anything from the AI beyond when it was sold. So you’re going to have to go there and figure out who bought it.”

“Right. That sounds like a good plan.” He looked at me. “Did they cover covert operations in the Academy?”

“Not really,” I said.

“That’s probably better. You shouldn’t overthink it.”

“I’m more worried about getting out there. I hate zero-g.”

“You keep saying that, but I haven’t actually seen you lose your cookies yet. Maybe you’re just lazy.”

Stam cackled. “He’s too earnest to be lazy. Give him a couple of years.”

“I’ll beat it out of him,” Keldon said.

“What do I need to know about the Rolos?” I asked.

Stam shrugged. “They like to think they’re Ravagers, but they’re just a gang. They’ve been active for the last twenty years. Their current leader’s name is Deathmonger.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“I never kid, Walker. That’s what they call their leader. I can’t find any confirmed kills or anything like that, so I don’t know if the name is apt, but it’s what we’ve got.”

“Is the minishuttle ready?” Keldon asked. “We’re going to need to get changed and head out.”

“It’s ready,” Stam said. “I adjusted its logs and changed the registry to show another sale. The time you’re trying to learn about is a big black hole in the ownership chain. I’m going to put out a stolen vehicle alert, so if you need a cover story, you’ll have it. Plus driving a stolen vehicle is going to give you at least a little cred.”

“Any Union activity in the CZ?” Keldon asked.

Stam shrugged. “No way to know, but I doubt it.”

I picked up my handgun case and set it on the table next to the holo panel, then I clicked it open and pulled out the weapon.

“I thought you weren’t going to carry that?” Keldon said.

“I got it scanned when I came in. The clerk said it was clean.”

Stam snorted. “You got a drop weapon, there?”

Keldon made an offended face. “We do not carry drop weapons.”

“What’s a drop weapon?” I asked.

Stam waggled his fingers. “A magical extra weapon that shows up at crime scenes where there wasn’t one before.”

“That’s unethical,” I said.

“Of course, it is,” Keldon agreed. “That’s a bribe weapon. He’s been worried it’s got some kind of embedded tracker that’s going to read his thoughts.”

“Really?” Stam asked. “Let me see it.”

“That’s not what I think,” I said, handing it over.

Keldon blew out his moustache. “I’m pretty sure that’s what you said, trainee.”

Stam inspected the weapon and set it on a larger scan device than the tech had used. He chewed his lip at the results.

“Yup, it’s clean. Nice gun. Illegal, at least for a civilian, but nice.” He handed it back to me.

“There you go,” Keldon said. “Now stop worrying about it.”

“You need that case?” Stam asked.

“Nope,” Keldon said. “He’s going to stick it in a holster. Let’s go, Walker.”

“Yes, sergeant.”

We left Stam muttering to himself to head down to the Quartermaster. During the next hour, we were outfitted with shipsuits from an old freighter, engineer’s harnesses, and maglock boots for zero-g. We also traded our service helmets for civilian-looking versions that offered the same HUD but looked like they’d banged around in a cargo bay for a couple years.

Once Keldon had slapped me on the shoulders, yanked my harness, and stomped his heel on the toes of my magboots, he nodded in satisfaction and said it was time to get the hell off station.

We found the kidnapper’s vehicle in a maintenance bay, looking just like I remembered it. In the glaring bay lights, the railgun and side chain guns that had saved my ass during the pursuit were plain to see among the other junk bolted to the hull.

“You want to drive?” Keldon asked.

“Am I less likely to puke if I’m in the pilot’s seat?”

“Nope. I’ll drive. I don’t want puke bubbles on my side of the cabin.”

Keldon strapped in, then set a course for the department’s main airlock, and we waited as the lift carried us away from the admin areas. Around us, the minishuttle shifted into transport mode. A new display showed engine status and hull integrity, while another showed local space so Keldon could plot our course. The short range minishuttle would barely get us a round trip, if we were lucky.

“How much time have you spent in zero-g, really?” Keldon asked.

“Long enough to know I hate it.”

“You know it takes getting used to, right? That’s like saying I hate hot water.”

“Remember how I told you I worked on a mining rig for two years?” I said.

“Yes,” Keldon said, checking his console.

“Do you know jack shit about mining?”

“No,” he said with mock interest.

“Well, I was a rock hopper,” I said, despite the fact that he was teasing me. “You set charges on the rock to soften it up for the drones. That involves an assload of zero-g. The only way to get out of rock hopping is to hurt yourself or work your way up to drone operator.”

“And did you work your way up to drone operator?”

“Yes,” I said. “After two years of swallowing puke so I didn’t mess up my helmet.”

Keldon looked at me through is bushy eyebrows. “Did you really need to share that detail? That’s just disgusting.”

“That’s zero-g,” I said.

I tightened my seat harness again and made sure the tools on my suit were securely fastened. I didn’t want anything breaking loose to crush my skull during launch.

Once we were cleared in the launch queue, Keldon gave me a sly smile, holding his finger above the exit command. “Ready?”

“I guess.”

“Five, four, three—”

Instead of saying two, Keldon started the engines. Abrupt force slammed us into our seats as the ship left the exit bay.

The roaring in my ears had high notes as Keldon laughed hysterically. Apparently, he loved space. I broke out in a cold sweat as soon as we left the confines of the launch track. Blackness opened in the viewscreens, the other ships and habitats appearing as flashes in the dark.

The engine stopped.

I let go of my harness and my hands floated away from my body.

“You all right?” Keldon asked on the comms system, voice tinny in my ears.

“I’m fine.”

Without warning, adjustment thrusters kicked on, spinning the craft around. My stomach went into my throat, bringing a wave of nausea. Once the nose was pointed toward the CZ, the engines lit for their second burn, and we joined an outbound transport lane from Taurus.

Biting down vomit, I clenched my seat harness straps.

“Count down from a hundred,” Keldon said. “Get your breathing under control. You’ll be fine in a minute. You need to put your brain somewhere else.”

I felt like I had a ball in my throat. I squeezed my eyes closed. “I’m trying.”

“Hold on now. You need a puke bag? Oh, sorry. We don’t have any. Puke in your shipsuit.”

Keldon couldn’t get enough of the jokes. For the rest of the flight, I fought my convulsing stomach. Eventually, I had to acknowledge that the nausea was getting better. The desire to violently heave with every small shift in our velocity eased into a dull ache.

“You know farting helps, too,” Keldon said. “Don’t be embarrassed. We’re space buddies now.”

“Thanks,” I said through gritted teeth.

Slowly, the flashes in the viewscreen grew into a field of objects, which resolved into named points in the display. Keldon’s flight path took us around the outer edge of the Chop, opposite Taurus Station, as we matched velocity with the field. The ship executed a second flip for its braking burn, and once we had the same delta-V as the trash field, the minishuttle angled down for our final destination at the Rolo Hab, which resembled a giant spinning barrel in our display.

The main engine cut out and the rest of the trip was powered by the attitude thrusters, jostling us in every direction to avoid spinning debris.

“The AI’s going to quit on us,” Keldon complained, grimacing at the object-filled display.

Once we had Rolo Hab in sight, Keldon found their local comms frequency and sent a landing hail. When there was no response, he sent a second request, which was met with a shower of static and then the words, “Screw off.”

“Friendly, aren’t they?” Keldon noted.

Releasing the longest burp of my life, I nodded. I sat up straighter in my seat, clearing my throat.

“We’ve got business on your damn habitat,” Keldon said. “Money to spend.”

“Then you’re stupid,” the voice answered. “There’s nothing here for anybody that ain’t Rolo. Unless you’re cops. You’re not cops, are you? You have to tell us.”

Keldon rolled his eyes. “We’re not cops. We’ve got a hot ride we need to cool down, and Rolo was the last entry on the registry. Look, if you’ve got a gate fee, we’ll pay it.”

Static filled the channel again.

“If you don’t have a gate fee, we can probably work something out between the two of us. Yeah?” Keldon added.

I was surprised to hear Keldon dropping into a form of street slang that I’d never heard him use. I realized I’d never asked Keldon where he was from. He seemed entirely too excited to visit the Chop, which hinted at a story.

“Are you from here?” I asked.

“What’s that, recruit? Did I tell you to ask questions?” He grinned at me through his face shield. “I was born and raised in the CZ. I’ll tell you all about it someday.”

The channel fuzzed. “Fine. You better be who you say you are.”

“I didn’t tell you who I am,” Keldon said. “Why would I do that? I told you I’ve got a minishuttle with a registry I need to clear.”

“Oh, right. Well, no tricks.”

“No tricks,” Keldon agreed.

The display registered the incoming docking confirmation, and Keldon set the vehicle to follow the assigned flight path into the Rolo Hab’s docking tree. The Hab had its own level of spin, so we had to complete a new set of matching burns, followed by braking and adjustments that set my stomach grinding, until we finally passed through the oversized Rolo airlock.

I stared through the viewscreen at a long maintenance bay full of small and medium-sized ships in dry dock. Giant robotic arms hung above the hulls, while others crawled with maintenance drones. I was still looking when a man walked up to my side of the vehicle and banged on the hatch with his fist.

“Get the hell out,” a sharp voice ordered on the open channel, barking inside my helmet. “You fooled our idiot on inbound traffic, but you won’t get past me.”

“And who are you?” Keldon asked sweetly.

“Drina Silver. I run this shop.”

18

From the wide observation window in Drina Silver’s office, I watched one of the giant arms pick up our minishuttle like a toy and turn it upside down. With the undercarriage revealed, a small army of spider drones ran out from the arm to dig into the vehicle’s guts.

Drina Silver was a thin, muscular woman with a tall comb of spiky silver hair. Her left arm was augmented, made of battered metal and tipped with a rotating claw with more fingers than I could count. In the time since I’d met her, the metal hand had formed a fist.

She stalked from one end of her cluttered office to the other. “Let me get this straight. You bought that piece of junk out there and it turns out it’s hot. So you leave Taurus Station with a notice on your registry and decide to come here. You realize you’re making this my problem now?”

Keldon spread his hands. “It’s not your problem. All I want help with is cracking the blank spot in the registry from before it came into my possession. Somebody stole this thing off the original owner, and I want to know who that was. There has to be flight data in there. I’m pretty sure it’s somebody in the Zone.”

“If that’s the case, you’re probably more likely to stay alive if you don’t mess with them. It’s a minishuttle. This isn’t the kind of rig you risk your ass over.”

“Let’s just say I have sentimental reasons.”

“More reason to let it go,” Silver said. “Anytime you mix emotion with business, you’re dead.”

“Is that how you lost your arm?” Keldon asked.

She glared at him. “Watch it. We’re not friends.”

“There’s no reason we couldn’t be,” the sergeant offered.

Silver scoffed at him. She went to one of her parts-strewn counters and picked up a fiber assembly, gathering its pieces like pasta. “I can scan your registry, but you’re asking me to take on a lot of risk with the data. What happens if I find something that puts me and mine in a dangerous spot?”

“Like you said, it’s just a minishuttle. We’re not important people. I’d like to have my purchase in the free and clear, and I’m a little angry that I got taken in a bad deal.”

She shrugged. “Like I said, get over it.”

Keldon walked over to the bench beside her and set a currency token on the scarred surface. In a low voice, he said, “It matters to me, and I’m willing to pay for it.”

The engineer passed her augmented hand over the token, scanning it, then gave Keldon a surprised look. “You’re crazy.”

“I’m serious,” he said. “My reasons aren’t yours. You’re just here to do a job. That’s the Chop, right?”

Silver studied him, almost frowning. I wondered if Keldon had said something in code that I hadn’t picked up, because the woman’s demeanor changed.

“What about that one?” she asked, indicating me. “He’s standing over there not saying a word. Is he your trained pet?”

“He’s got an upset tummy,” Keldon said. “Space travel doesn’t agree with him. And he doesn’t have anything to do with the business between you and me, other than standing over there.”

The woman shook her head, debating. She squeezed the currency token like it was a weight she wanted to put down but couldn’t.

“Fine,” she said finally. “There’s a galley down on the first level. You go wait down there and I’ll pull your data. I’ll let you know when I’m done.”

“Thank you,” Keldon said. He gave her a half bow.

Silver snickered. “You’re a fool.”

“At least I’m having fun.”

* * *

The ancient galley was outfitted with a filthy meal combiner and beverage dispenser that didn’t look like it had ever been cleaned. Nearly twenty people in shipsuits were already waiting. Most sat at the tables staring into visors or with heads close together in quiet conversation. Few paid us any attention as we walked in and found a table.

“Should we be worried about this place?” I asked.

“Of course,” Keldon said. He stretched and leaned back in his metal chair. “This place is dangerous, but not any worse than Taurus Station. These people don’t have the benefit of us, so I think they tend to be a bit more cautious. In the CZ, disputes end up in death a whole lot more often.”

“I didn’t know you grew up in the Zone,” I said.

“You never asked. As I think about it, you’re actually very self-centered.”

“I didn’t realize I could ask personal questions.”

“You can always ask,” Keldon said.

“Did your daughter grow up here, too?” I asked the question slowly.

Keldon didn’t seem bothered that I mentioned her. “My daughter? Hell, no. I was long gone before then. I thought Jules was proof that I was never coming back.” He sighed. “That’s not how it worked out.”

He stared off in the distance for a second, jaunty mood gone, and I regretted bringing her up.

“Did you see that James Carthage has direct parentage of Kiren?” I asked, changing the subject.

Keldon nodded. “I did. That’s interesting. It makes him more sympathetic than I would have thought. Why would a man like Carthage want a child?”

“Ego?” I asked.

Keldon gave me an appraising look. “Very good, Walker. I would have said something similar, but that’s based on years of knowing jerks like Carthage. What we have to ask after that is if he really cares that his daughter has been kidnapped.”

“You don’t think it was him, do you?” I asked.

“I’m not discounting anything.”

“Hey,” a gruff voice called from several tables away. “What ship are you from?”

I turned in my seat to find a burly like man pointing at us. The ship’s name on his suit was covered by his unruly beard. His face was clenched in an expression of exaggerated focus that might have been anger or intense curiosity.

“We’re not crew, friend,” Keldon said easily. “We’re visiting from Taurus Station.”

“Straighters, then?”

“I’m not familiar with that term,” Keldon said. “We’re here to get a little work done and continue on our way. What ship are you serving on?”

“I don’t have to tell you anything.”

“Of course not. Just having a friendly conversation.”

“You’re not my friend.”

Keldon smiled. “A friend is just a conversation away.”

I adjusted in my seat, easing my hand closer to my handgun.

“I don’t like the look of you,” the big man continued. “All clean and smarmy. You look like corporate filth to me. I killed men like you in the mine. I threw you in the bore hole like rats.”

Keldon glanced at the people around the big man, who were sliding away from him.

“Look, friend,” the sergeant said. “We certainly don’t want any trouble. I’m sorry you had a hard time.”

“It’s my life,” the man shouted. He tossed a tray off a nearby table. “You look like my dad and I hate my dad.”

Keldon raised his hands in appeasement. “Look, friend—”

The enraged man had dropped his hands to his side and now drew a pistol and squeezed off three rounds.

I recognized the motion and shoved our table, pushing Keldon out of the line of fire. I drew Carthage’s handgun and fired from the hip, aiming for the middle of the man’s beard.

The pistol wound up like it was generating energy rounds, then fizzled out. I stared at the pistol’s barrel, which emitted a weak stream of vapor.

“Walker!” Keldon shouted.

I jerked to my right as the bearded man filled my chair with bullets. Tossing the fancy handgun away, I reached across my body for my service weapon. This time I had a secondary weapon, damn it. I fired four shots into the man’s chest, as Keldon did the same.

He roared in pain, eyes wide as he stared at us, before pitching face-first on the floor. One arm hit a table as he went down, sending silverware clanking around him.

The other people in the galley stared.

Keldon held his pistol ready, then relaxed when no one else moved to fire on us. “Well, that was unfortunate,” he said, overly loud. “I hope he finds peace.”

That seemed funny to the onlookers. Several laughed. “We hated that guy,” someone shouted.

“What was his name?” Keldon asked.

“Who knows?”

Drina Silver appeared in the galley entrance, looking angry. Her gaze slid across the room, rested on the dead freight worker, then moved to Keldon. She squinted. “You. Come with me.”

There were two security guards behind Drina. I hadn’t holstered my pistol yet. I glanced at Keldon for guidance, and the sergeant nodded for me to put the weapon away.

Drina left the galley and we followed. The two heavies fell in behind us, armed with what looked like shock batons.

Instead of heading back toward the maintenance bay, Silver took us to a lift not far from the galley. When Keldon saw the lift doors, he asked, “Are you taking us to a second location?”

The lift doors opened and Silver hadn’t answered. I felt the heavies close to my back, not quite pushing us into the lift but ready.

“I don’t think I’m going anywhere with you until you explain what’s going on,” Keldon said.

Silver turned on him, face flush with anger. “I cracked your little ship’s database. You know what it did? It called home with location data.”

“Where’s home?” Keldon asked, ignoring her tone.

Silver clenched her fists, her metal fingers grinding against each other. “It’s out of my hands now. You screwed up by coming here and involving us in your mess. You’re going to talk to the Deathmonger.”

Keldon nodded. After the fight in the galley, I was amazed at how cool he remained. My heart hadn’t returned to its normal rhythm yet.

“That sounds all right,” Keldon said. “So the Deathmonger is up a couple levels?”

“Yes,” Silver said. “You had better hope you come down again.”

“Sounds good,” Keldon said.

Silver growled as Keldon stepped into the lift and I followed. The two guards were the last on. The doors slid closed and the lift rose several levels.

Silver kept her face aimed at the doors, refusing to look at Keldon or me. Her metal fist continued to grind.

“Do I call the Deathmonger Mister or Miss?” Keldon asked.

“Shut your mouth.”

The sergeant shrugged.

The guards hadn’t taken our weapons, so I maintained a relaxed but ready stance, running through fight scenarios in the closed space. I debated whether it was better to fire on the guards or try to disarm them first. I hadn’t finished the mental game when the lift slowed and the doors opened on a long metal corridor.

Silver led us off the lift and strode down the corridor, her boots clicking on the metal deck. At the end of the span was an internal airlock that stood open on what appeared to be the orbital’s command section.

Ducking through the airlock, I found myself on a deck on the edge of a round space lined with workstations, cabinets, and banks of control systems. In the middle of the room was a raised platform with the captain’s seat in the middle. As we entered, the chair rotated to show a seated figure dressed in black, wearing a mask made from a bleached animal’s skull with pointed horns.

“Here they are,” Silver announced, then jerked a thumb at Keldon. “This is the fool who brought the minishuttle into my bay.”

Keldon stepped forward, spreading his hands. “I told your technician here that I didn’t know what was on the ship’s database. I paid for a service and it looks like I received it. If you need more information than that, I don’t know what I can do for you.”

There was a pause as Keldon stood in front of the seated figure, palms out. The skull leaned forward slightly, dark eyes boring into his amiable face.

“Sergeant Jack Keldon,” Deathmonger said with a woman’s powerful voice. “I would think you’d have been smart enough to never come back here.”

I blinked and looked at Keldon, whose expression hadn’t changed.

The skull turned to look at me. “Is this one of your new trainees? What’s his name?”

I hesitated until Keldon clasped his hands together in what might have been a nervous gesture. “Go ahead,” he said. “Your name isn’t going to change anything.”

“Deputy Gage Walker,” I said.

“Gage,” Keldon corrected. “He goes by Gage. Which he should always introduce himself as so he doesn’t sound like a robot.”

Deathmonger stood from the captain’s seat, black suit hugging an impressive figure. She lifted a hand to her mask and pulled it off her face, shaking out rich, shoulder-length black hair. She leveled her gaze on Keldon.

“You told me you would come back,” she said.

“Diedre,” Keldon said. “You know why I couldn’t come back.”

“But here you are.”

“Here I am.”

“I don’t think you’re leaving this time. I’m in charge now.”

“We have a job to do,” Keldon said. “There’s been a kidnapping.”

“And you think it was someone from the Chop. I’m betting you think it was a certain gang leader. Kallaver, perhaps?”

Keldon sighed. “Actually I was hoping it wasn’t. Unfortunately that seems to be the case. No one else out here would have the balls or the resources to get to James Carthage’s daughter.”

None of this made sense. I knew the name Kallaver. He was the leader of a gang called the Factory. But if Keldon suspected such a high profile criminal, why didn’t he tell me? I wondered if it had to do with my rookie status, like he was worried I might mention the name to the wrong person.

I glanced between each of them, and then at Drina Silver, who looked supremely irritated. “Sergeant, how do you two know each other?”

“It’s a long story,” Keldon said.

Dierdre gave a low laugh. “Yes, it is.”

“Are you going to help me?” Keldon asked.

The woman tapped her chin with a long finger, studying Keldon. “It’s going to cost you.”

19

“She gets lonely,” Drina said, digging through a parts bin. “I can’t blame her, but it can still irritate the hell out of me. I’m allowed to have feelings.”

I sat on a stool at one of the engineer’s workbenches. I’d been watching her work for the last hour, waiting for Keldon to reappear.

“Sure,” I agreed.

“I’m trying to run a shop here. We’ve got an image to maintain. Sometimes we have to use violence. I can’t have the rank and file see the boss getting all giddy when an old flame like Keldon shows up. It’s bad for business.”

“I’m starting to think he didn’t just show up,” I said. “Seemed like Jack was in a better mood the minute we learned the minishuttle had a connection to Rolo.”

Drina shook her head. “This has happened before. Those two are like oil and water. They seem fine to start, but then it gets too hot and the oil smokes, the water evaporates, things get sticky, and before you know it everything is on fire.”

“When was he here last?” I asked.

“A year ago? I don’t keep track. I think he arrested her some ten years ago. It’s been on and off since then.”

“That’s awkward,” I said.

One of Drina’s workers appeared in the doorway with Carthage’s dead handgun in one hand. “Hey, Boss,” he said. “Did you want this thing?”

“That’s mine,” I said.

The worker tossed it to me. “Then clean up your crap.”

I caught the pistol and turned it in my hands. The firing mechanism was scorched and the battery no longer showed charge. A long burn ran from under the barrel to the back of the power control.

A dark realization set over me. Carthage had set me up. If I had been carrying the handgun in Ronny’s apartment, I’d be dead. So doing the right thing had actually saved my ass. Now I had to figure out how that fit into the bigger picture.

“What are you grinning about?” Drina asked.

“Luck. You want this thing?”

She shrugged. “Throw it in that bin over there. It might have some use someday.”

I tossed the pistol. “What can you tell me about this gang?”

“You don’t want to mess with them. That’s what I know.”

“I already did.”

“If that’s true and you’re alive, you should count your blessings.”

“How many of them are there?”

“Maybe a thousand. They run an old ice processing facility on the far side of the Chop.”

I sat up straighter. “Is that where the mini called home to?”

Drina made a sour face, realizing she’d given up the info she refused to share earlier. “Yes, I think so. I haven’t seen any activity though. We’ve got a feed from a sensor over there. Things are still quiet. Or normal, at least.”

“What kind of work do they do?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are they mercenaries? Do they do work for hire?”

“What do you think they do? You offer enough cash, they’ll watch your dog and babysit your kids. Or knock off a Union transport in open space and murder the whole crew. They’re crazy. And brutal. If your people were grabbed by them, you should plan the funeral. Trust me.”

“That’s not an option,” I said.

“It’s going to be sad to see your pretty face get all messed up,” Drina said.

When Keldon finally appeared, walking with a spring in his step, he pointed at me and grinned. “There you are. Hurry up. I’ve got our location.”

“So do I,” I said. “I got it forty minutes ago.”

“Did you call it in?”

“No. I wanted you to confirm.”

Keldon winked at me. “You’re learning, trainee. That’s good.”

Drina laughed.

Keldon shifted his gaze between us, squinting. “Aren’t you two fast friends now? We might have need to come back during your training period, recruit.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sergeant.”

“You’re not as dumb as you look.” He waved at Drina. “Thank you, Ms. Silver. I appreciate your help.”

“Whatever. Run a diagnostic startup when you get in. I did it and everything came back clean, but I like to run them several times after a crack like that. You never know if something got messed up in the onboard AI during the reboot.”

“As you wish,” Keldon said.

“Save that crap for Deirdre,” Drina told him.

* * *

The minishuttle started with no apparent problems. Keldon called in to verify the information from Drina. The sergeant on duty seemed to know something about Keldon’s affiliation with Rolo and gave him a hard time. In the end, the information about the Factory was relayed to Tactics and we were ordered to move to the location and maintain an observation point.

Keldon set the flight plan and activated the navigation AI. I strapped in for the exit launch and took deep breaths as the vehicle rose from Drina’s maintenance deck and rotated toward the airlock.

The vehicle was halfway inside the airlock when an alert blared on the control console and the engines powered down. The vehicle slammed to the deck, seesawing on the lip of the airlock.

“What are you doing?” Drina demanded on the open channel. “You’re going to wreck my place.”

“We’ve got a hiccup,” Keldon said. “Hold on.” He reset the AI, looking like he was stroking the display as he switched through menus. After two full power cycles, the systems returned to life and rose from the deck. This time, we passed through without issue and left Rolo Hab.

“What was all that about?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Keldon admitted. “All I did was reset the system. Maybe it was an anomaly like she said.”

“Should we tell Dispatch?”

“Let’s get to our position first. If it looks like that isn’t going to happen, then we’ll update them. Otherwise, the only thing I want to hear is that Tactics are on their way with firepower and deputies, and maybe Union support, too. That would be nice.”

That surprised me. “You really think they’d get involved with something like this?”

“Why not? Think about the big picture. You think you’re going to ride in there like a cowboy and rescue the rancher’s daughter? Ain’t gonna happen. We’ve got overwhelming force for just this kind of situation. Gangs don’t care about the consequences of their actions because they think they’re untouchable. News flash: they aren’t.”

All I could do was agree as the mini followed its flight plan across the CZ. The silent graveyard spun around us as we passed by. For a few minutes, Keldon pulled up the weird EM spectrum emanations from the Chop, a creepy collection of looped recordings, machine-generated signals, and warped AI calling out endlessly at space.

“You trying to psych me out, Sergeant?” I asked.

“Welcome to the Chop, recruit. You’re going to be grateful the next time we’re sitting at Drake’s enjoying a beer. Now this is real training. I can’t wait to read your journal on what you learned today.”

“You really want to read my journal about what happened today? Aren’t the journals open to Internal Audit?”

Keldon grinned. “I’m past retirement age. Guaranteed pension. You can tell IA I talk to aliens for all I care. You’d be doing me a favor. Maybe the Sheriff will finally approve my release.”

I wanted to ask more but the proximity alarm cut me off. We were nearing our destination. The minishuttle executed a braking burn and then adjustments that brought us in behind a hulking piece of spinning metal that resembled a carved-out moon.

Keldon powered down all lights in the cabin but the tactical display, which he focused on our location. We sat on one side of the screen, and a giant interconnected cube rotated on the other side. I didn’t ask what scale the display showed. I suddenly didn’t want to know.

The sergeant rubbed his hands together. “All right. In position with observation on the target. Let’s send dispatch our update.” As Keldon reached for the console, an arc of static electricity connected his index finger with the display. There was a flash, and then the cabin went black, all systems dead.

“That’s not good,” Keldon said.

20

The minishuttle was dead. Fortunately, our helmets still had internal power that allowed us to talk to each other, but with the broadcast systems in the vehicle down, we couldn’t reach dispatch. The civilian helmets didn’t seem capable of bouncing emergency signals off any local comms buoys, and neither of us had the skills to try hacking a different system.

“Time to wait,” Keldon said. “Tactical should be here soon enough. They’ll pick us up when they set the perimeter.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I’m not sure about anything, recruit. But that’s the safest thing for us to do. We might as well get comfortable.”

I shifted in my seat, loosening my harness, when a cracking sound came from behind my head.

“What was that?” Keldon straightened in his seat. Our helmets made it impossible to see behind us.

A second crack sounded, followed by clicks outside the hull.

“Maglocks,” the sergeant said. “There’s someone outside.”

We waited, listening. Dull thuds on the outside of the cabin moved behind my head, and I reached for my handgun.

Keldon unstrapped from his seat and turned to grab the emergency lock on the hatch. “Stay here.”

“Stay here? Doesn’t it make sense for both of us to go? I’m not sitting here like a dummy.”

“I don’t want you puking in your helmet and becoming a liability. I’ll find out what’s going on. If I tell you to blow your hatch and run, you do it. Tactical will locate you by your transponder once they’re within range.”

“That sounds like a terrible plan, sergeant.” The shipsuits were cheap and really only for emergencies.

“Do what I tell you.”

I sat where I was, figuring out what I was going to do once he went outside. There was no way I was staying in my seat.

Keldon unsealed his hatch. Atmosphere blew the door open, showing a broad field of empty space. The harness grew tighter under the expanding suit, so I unfastened the buckles and sat with one hand on my emergency latch, the other holding my pistol. I fought nausea as floating free made my stomach lurch.

The sounds outside the hull stopped. Keldon drew his pistol and activated the maglocks in his gloves and boots. He waited another minute, then pulled himself slowly through the opening.

I unfastened my harness completely and grabbed one of the overhead handles. Floating free in the cabin, I waited for more sounds of movement outside the hull. The steady sound of Keldon’s breathing filled my helmet, with a few low clicks as maglocks caught and disengaged.

“See anything?” I whispered.

“Shut up.”

Several minutes passed with only Keldon’s breathing.

“Damn,” he said abruptly. “Three of them. Sheriff’s justice.”

Sheriff’s justice meant Keldon was authorizing deadly force and making sure his helmet recorded the order.

Handgun fire sounded dully on the comms channel. Clicks and bumps moved behind my head, followed by return fire.

Keldon grunted. He’d been hit. There was a low hiss as his suit sealed a hole.

I couldn’t wait any longer.

Swallowing hard, I drew my pistol and pulled myself toward his open hatch. I was halfway out when I remembered to activate my maglocks, then I couldn’t figure out how to release my free hand from the edge of the hatch. Light reflected off the hull, making the edges appear sharp. I could easily see bits of junk floating nearby in the debris field.

A shape floated above me, and it took a second in the harsh light to realize it was one of our attackers, rotating to point a pistol at me.

I pulled myself back inside the hatch and fired three times. My gloves didn’t provide much feedback from the trigger, so I wasn’t sure when the weapon actually fired at first. The awkwardness threw off my aim.

I caught the man in the shoulder and then faceplate. Gas sprayed from the torn suit, but the faceplate was only scorched. The jet from their suit threw my attacker into a spin. Three of my bullets burst more holes in the attacker’s chest, and I saw his face as the suit tore open under the escaping pressure. The man’s struggling arms and legs went still as the escaping atmosphere pushed him away from the shuttle.

Keldon had said there were three.

I waited for more movement. “Sergeant, you all right?”

There was no answer. I pulled myself outside again and moved slowly along the side of the minishuttle, clicking and releasing off the metal cargo attached to the hull. When I reached the aft section of the ship, I found a cable maglocked to the hull below the main thruster. The line extended back to a drone floating just beyond the husk of the tank we had been hiding inside.

Keldon was nowhere to be seen.

I stayed close to the line of the hull, not wanting to give away my silhouette, and searched the debris floating nearby. I didn’t see anything until I caught movement on the empty tank beneath me.

A scaffold ran from the bottom of the tank. Keldon crouched on one side, while a few meters away, two combatants moved to flank him. Keldon kept them back with handgun fire. His movements were deliberate as he aimed and fired, keeping his helmet below the edge of the scaffold.

His suit didn’t appear to be venting gas anymore but he was moving slow, obviously wounded.

“Keldon,” I called again. “Keldon, can you copy?”

I steadied my firing hand and aimed on the closest attacker, some ten meters below me. I waited as the pirate bobbed and ducked Keldon’s fire, then squeezed off three rounds of my own. The first shot caught the hitman in the small of his back, the second on top of the shoulder, the last in his bent leg. His suit popped and hissed, unable to seal.

My stomach lurched as the minishuttle rotated underneath me. Still, not bad shooting.

Keldon fired on the remaining hitman, who retreated along the scaffold. The man fired wildly as they moved, arm rising with each shot. For a second, I was sure Keldon was going to take him out, until he slumped against the scaffold. He’d been hit again.

The open space between the minishuttle and that scaffold scared the shit out of me. I couldn’t let Keldon die. I unlocked my magboots and kicked off the hull, firing as I moved.

As soon as I left the small craft, I felt unmoored. Everything seemed to be moving faster than I expected, the scaffold rotating and rushing at me.

The comms sputtered in my helmet, filling with Keldon’s gasps. “Turn around and come down on your feet or you’re going to break your shoulder,” he said. “Once you get moving, you keep moving that direction, don’t forget.”

“I know,” I said. This was just like a rock hop, but I was trying to shoot somebody at the same time, and there was no residual gravity to keep me from completely missing my landing and drifting off into space.

The hitman was more experienced in zero-g than me, apparently, and managed to duck behind a metal rib. He returned fire as I twisted to get my legs back under me. The blasts missed by centimeters.

I hit the metal skin of the tank a meter from Keldon. I came down hard, sprawled, gloves locking to the surface, and waited for my head to stop spinning. I looked down to find the minishuttle beneath us. Up and down had switched.

Keldon breathed heavily in the comms. “This guy’s tough, Gage. He moves really well. You’re going to have to anticipate where he’s going to be and fire there. He keeps dodging my shots.”

“You’re hit,” I said.

“I’m still moving. Don’t worry about me.”

I crawled to Keldon. There were three plugged holes across his chest. I couldn’t tell if he was bleeding and the harsh light on his faceplate already made him look pale.

“We have to get you back to the mini,” I said.

“I’m not going anywhere until we take this guy out. He probably already called back to their base that we’re here. The only thing we have now is that they don’t know we’re deputies. If he kills one of us, we’re done. Tactics will be walking into a trap.”

Keldon was right. I scanned the area, looking for another way at the man that wasn’t exposed. Aside from the scaffold down the middle of the tank, there were a few reinforcing ribs about a meter high. Without a personal thruster, though, there was no way I could navigate that kind of cover without being seen. The cheap suits didn’t allow for that kind of luxury. Moving would take too long.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Keldon said. “He’s at the end of the scaffold. We’re going up on either side. We won’t let him get into the open and we’ll squeeze him at the top of the T. Make sense?”

A piece of debris spun across the top of the open tank, another reminder we were spinning independently of everything else around us. My stomach lurched. The drone cabled to the minishuttle extended like a pendulum now.

Handgun fire shot over our heads. Try to draw us out? If he had, now was our chance. Keldon seemed to figure the same thing.

“Let’s get this over with,” he said.

I moved to the other side of the scaffold, but I could barely see the block where our man crouched for cover. I looked over the edge, with Keldon visible through the struts across from me. Slowly, we advanced, waiting when he fired and then pushing forward a few more meters.

After a few movements like this, it was obvious the pirate was still firing on our old position inside the split tank. I started to get excited that we’d catch him unaware.

We had nearly reached the end of the scaffold when Keldon grunted and fell against his side, one hand floating free. The maglock on his boots clicked off as he banged his helmet against the scaffold.

The assassin popped over the top of his cover, spotted us, and fired point-blank on Keldon.

He’d also exposed himself. I fired in a line across his upper chest and neck. The suit burst as the man flung his arms wide in pain, and then hung in position with his boots locked to the metal structure.

“I’m coming, Keldon,” I shouted, breathing hard.

Keldon gurgled on the comms channel. I pulled myself across the top of the scaffold to Keldon’s side and grabbed his harness. The minishuttle was still above us, but once I kicked off the scaffold, there was no guarantee the minishuttle would be waiting at the end of the jump.

Biting down my fear, I holstered my pistol, tightened my grip on Keldon’s harness, and kicked off.

This time, I planned my flip a bit more gracefully, rotating Keldon along with me as I got my legs under me. At first it looked like we were going to hit the shuttle right in the middle and I braced for the impact.

By some miracle, my boots hit just behind the open exit hatch. I struggled to lock my magboots as Keldon bumped into the exterior, yanking me around so my boots came unlatched. I hit the nose of the minishuttle, rolled, and then bounced past into open space, still hanging onto Keldon as his momentum dragged me out.

Blood rushed in my ears, creating a dull roar. I rotated to look back just in time to see the shuttle’s tail rushing at me, the open mouth of the thruster looming with the drone cable leading away behind it.

The small craft was spinning faster than I was. I hit the tail and slapped my free hand against the hull, locking the glove in place. I grunted with the effort of hanging onto Keldon, who was no help at all in his condition.

When I finally stuffed Keldon inside the minishuttle and pulled myself through the hatch, I sealed the cabin and tore my helmet off once the internal atmosphere equalized again. I worked off Keldon’s helmet to find the sergeant staring ahead.

“Oh no, you don’t. I’m not letting you.” I turned in my seat, shoving my fingers inside Keldon’s collar to hunt for a pulse.

Nothing.

The front of his suit was wet with blood. There was no way I could get it off to pack the bullet wounds. The only option was to find the first aid kit and apply a stasis module. Provided this piece of shit shuttle had a proper first aid kit, with a stasis module that wasn’t out of date or otherwise faulty.

I pushed Keldon’s helmet back over his head and sealed the collar latch, then reached behind the pilot’s seat for where the trauma kit should be located. At first my hands found nothing, until my probing fingers closed on a thin handle. Hands shaking, I yanked the kit free and set it in Keldon’s lap. Stenciled across the top of the flat case were the letters ‘NCSD.’ It was one of our kits, meaning that Stam had made sure it was there.

“Thank you, Stam,” I muttered, wondering what I could buy the guy to make up for this.

I threw the lid open and searched through the contents until I found the packet with the stasis module, then I forced myself to slow down and open it carefully.

The device was a tube the length of my hand that needed to be placed over a person’s heart and slammed from above. The action would release a ring of leg-like needles that penetrated the ribs and took control of the nervous system, providing heart-controlling shocks, while also emitting a short-range stasis field that covered the head and torso. These things wouldn’t guarantee your looks, but they usually saved lives if recovered within twenty-four hours.

I held the stake steady over Keldon’s heart with my left hand and pulled back my right fist. The space suit was bulky and I repositioned the stake a couple times, then finally brought my hand down on the butt of it, grunting with the effort. There was a crunch of broken ribs as the legs penetrated Keldon’s suit. A yellow light flickered on the end of the stake, warning onlookers to get clear. I stared at the warning light for a second, forgetting what it was for, when a countdown beep matched the flashing yellow light. That meant the stake had proper contact.

I pressed myself against the far side of the cockpit and watched the stake count down to a single long beep. The yellow light froze, then turned red.

Keldon was encased in a shimmering energy field covering from his head to his thighs. He might lose his extremities, but Drina Silver proved that was a survivable problem.

Breathing hard, I stared at my sergeant for a few seconds, then shook my head and wiped my face. I’d done it. Keldon was going to live.

Something jerked the minishuttle, startling me.

I straightened, looking around. Through my window, the split tank appeared to be moving. It was getting smaller, floating away from me.

No, I was moving, and picking up speed as I watched the tank get smaller and smaller. As the tank fell away, we rotated so I caught a final glimpse of the scarecrow hitman still maglocked to the scaffold.

In another second, I realized I was being towed.

The drone.

I pulled on my helmet, sealed my suit, and opened the comms menu in my HUD. I didn’t know much about drones, but most had an access system open to the public. If the drone’s control system wasn’t secured, I might be able to tell where it was taking me. Although I had a good enough guess from the attackers who had come with it.

A smiling icon appeared in my HUD, offering status options and a maintenance menu. I quickly found navigation, where a quick setting option showed the current course status. I followed the menu tree to the branch that ended in a local map, where a smiley face danced above the metal cube of the Factory.

The happy icon announced, “Home soon!”

21

I pressed against a rectangular sensor on the minishuttle’s undercarriage, doing my best to flatten out against the hull. Keldon was beside me, secured only by his hands and feet, head lolling aimlessly. I hoped we didn’t break the ship’s bumpy profile. If the gang ran an active scan, they would pick up our heat signatures, so I was hoping they were expecting a dead ship with nobody inside. Or they were just lazy. I could always hope for that.

With nothing to occupy my attention but my breathing and the spinning junk everywhere I looked, I found myself a lot more aware of how much light was reflecting off the debris field. Many of the objects flashed white as they caught the local starlight.

I’d never had time to stop and look at this before. I even found the glowing body of Taurus Station where I guessed it should be, a silver coin on a field of glowing black velvet.

My sensitive stomach was good for something: it could tell when the drone made changes in velocity. The drone had surprised me by recoiling its tow cable and locking itself to the rear of the minishuttle, then performing the gut-wrenching flip prior to a braking burn.

For the thousandth time during the flight, I muttered I was never leaving Taurus again, and then the hulking wall of the Factory appeared below me. We passed into its shadow and I was engulfed in darkness as the drone found a cargo airlock.

A robotic arm extended from the wall on my left to grab the little ship. The arm wrenched me up and to the side, and then the deck rose at me faster than I expected. I dropped and pulled on Keldon with everything I had until his magboots and gloves couldn’t hold him anymore. He fell on top of me and I had to scramble back before the arm set the vehicle down on top of us.

I was in a cargo bay filled with crates, metal walls showing scars and rubbed paint. After scrambling behind a stack of cargo, shoulder aching from where I’d hit the deck, I drew my pistol and crouched.

My helmet’s HUD showed the results from a scan of the area, highlighting an exit airlock on the far side of the chamber. Dull lights from high above me seemed to make more shadows than anything, but I didn’t find anything but the cargo arm and shipping containers.

The tug drone detached from the rear of the minishuttle and placed itself in a storage rack near the base of the lift arm. Once the drone powered down, the cargo bay grew quiet. With no one else around, I took the opportunity to get Keldon back in the shuttle to hide him. I didn’t like moving him, possibly causing more injury, but I couldn’t just leave him out there without any means of protection.

After five minutes, I hunted around the area until I found a wall panel with basic directions to navigate the hab. It included a number of accessible files such as food menus in the local galleys and a sales announcement from the cantina system. I couldn’t believe that the Sheriff’s Office didn’t know about this place or that they just left this information for anyone to find, though I supposed they didn’t expect to be infiltrated.

Wait. Of course they knew about this place, and there was probably a reason they hadn’t taken it out. Either this station was useful to people in power, like James Carthage, or local law enforcement had no hope of routing a gang unit this large.

The size of the place didn’t change the fact that I was inside. Should I wait or try to find Kiren?

And if I found her, what was the likelihood of getting out alive?

What would Keldon do? I glanced at the minishuttle where the sergeant was hidden in stasis. I couldn’t forget that I needed to get him out as well.

The last bit of information I checked in the database was a map of the inhabited sections of the Factory. For a gang, I had to admit these people were organized.

Searching the map, I found a communications center that didn’t appear far from my location.

I figured the most important thing I could do right now was communicate. If I could get a message out to Tactical, I could let them know about Keldon and send the warning about what they were really getting into.

Straightening, I holstered my pistol and pulled off my helmet and hung it from my utility harness. The air tasted dusty and metallic but was otherwise okay.

I left the cargo bay through the internal airlock and found myself in a medium-sized corridor lined with closed doorways. The corridor was empty, so I set off in the direction where the communication center should be waiting.

The first ravager I encountered was a man in mechanic’s overalls sliding against the wall to keep himself upright, obviously drunk. I stepped around him, getting only a sloppy nod for acknowledgement, and continued on my way. The next turn dumped me in a main corridor lined by small vendors with items spread on sheets on the deck. People walked slowly down the corridor or haggled with vendors. The aroma of roasting meat floated above the crowd.

My stomach complained at the smell of the food, reminding me it had been hours since my last meal.

I put on my best approximation of bored determination and walked out into the crowd. I worked my way through the bazaar, which was crowded enough that I had to pull my helmet off the front of my harness and carry it beside me. The sight of someone in a full EV outfit might have seemed strange or even worrisome back on Taurus, but here people only complained about the room I was taking up.

When I was about a hundred meters from where I’d entered, I spotted a sign from the old ice processing factory indicating the comms station, and I followed the directions up a short set of stairs into another maintenance corridor. Things got quiet again, aside from the sound of my boots clicking on the metal deck. After several corners and two flights of stairs, I found the hatch to the communications center. There were no windows into the room, so I waited a minute in the corridor, listening for activity inside. All I heard were voices from the bazaar below me, so I activated the hatch and ducked inside.

“Who the hell are you?” a gruff voice demanded as I closed the hatch.

Well, shit.

A beefy woman with yellow ponytails stared at me from a workstation on the far side of the room. She was the only person present as far as I could see. There were a good ten meters of open space between us. I could duck back out, shoot her, or grapple. Whatever happened, it was going to be head-on.

“Maintenance,” I managed to say.

Her frown turned quizzical. “I didn’t call for maintenance. Did Kallaver send you down here? I told him I don’t need anybody’s help.”

I glanced at the hatch behind me and tapped its security panel, locking it from the inside.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “That needs to stay open.” The woman shook her head and started to tap something on her console.

“Wait!” I said quickly. The fact that she hadn’t tried to kill me immediately meant I might be able to talk my way into getting what I needed. “I’m not here to cause any trouble. I just need to use the console to get a message out.”

Her hand hovered above the controls, then dropped so she could push her chair away from the console. She stood and flexed her shoulders. The woman was easily a head taller than me.

Keldon would have told me to shoot her. Shoot her right now. Or would he? After the scene with Deathmonger on Rolo, I was starting to think Keldon’s advice boiled down to “Trust your gut, kid.”

“I need to get a message back to Taurus,” I said.

She paused. “Why not just use one of the public stations?”

“This was the closest place I could find.”

“If Kallaver catches me with someone else in here, he’ll string me up. Go use a public terminal.”

The woman sat back down and started typing furiously into the console. For a second I thought she was sending out an alarm. Then she laughed at whatever she’d just written. I flexed my hands, anticipating how difficult it would be to get her massive neck in a sleeper hold.

She glanced back at me. “You’re still here? Quit thinking about my ass and get out of here. I’m busy.”

I walked up beside her put my hand on her shoulder. She tried to turn, spitting curses, but I caught her around the neck in a sleeper hold and leaned back against the console to knock her off balance.

She laughed.

“Is that the best you’ve got, little man?” With a hard jerk, she tossed me over her shoulder. I hit the deck hard on my side and slid against the opposite wall.

I should have shot her.

I blinked until my eyes finally focused on the ceiling. A shadow covered my vision as the woman stood over me, tugging on her blond braids and baring her teeth.

“I’m going to break you in half,” she said.

I rolled over and scrambled away. She swiped at my legs, but missed.

“None of these other little people even give me the time of day, but you walk in here and start getting physical right away. It’s ridiculous. You thought you were going to knock me out? Well, I’m going to knock you out. Then I might pet you and name you George.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, getting on my feet.

I kept my back to the wall, sliding away from her as she approached. She cracked her knuckles.

“Look, I’m armed. I don’t want to use this.” I drew my pistol.

She laughed. “When you wake up tied in a knot, you can tell the other idiots that Haley showed you a good time.”

“Get back,” I warned. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

“Don’t worry. You can’t.”

I really didn’t want to shoot her; she hadn’t done anything wrong. I waited until she was within arm’s reach then shot at the ceiling above her head. Haley ducked, shouting in surprise, and I slipped to one side. Swinging with everything I had, I cuffed her with the pistol against the side of her head.

Haley made a chirping sound and landed on her rear, legs spread in front of her.

“I told you,” I said.

I ran to the comms console and entered the Department’s secure frequency. Rather than bothering with voice, I sent a secure text message with my location and a summary of what I’d seen so far. I also requested medical evac for Sergeant Keldon.

I’d just hit send when the lights in the comms center dimmed and klaxons sounded in the corridor outside.

Holy shit, had they found me?

I looked around, spotting Haley leaned against the wall, when an announcement came over the speakers in the ceiling. “Incoming enemy vessels. Repeat, incoming enemy vessels. We are under attack.”

I stared at the comms console. Was I too late? Was this an attack from a rival bunch of criminals?

My question was answered when the terminal showed a response on the Department frequency, requiring my personal security token to answer. I entered the key, and a short message told me to stay where I was, Tactical was initiating an attack.

I’d been too late.

My mind raced. If Tactical tried to breach the Factory, they were going to fail horribly. Boots pounded in the corridor outside as people ran to their defensive positions.

I wasn’t going to ride out the attack in the comms center. I needed to do something to help the breaching teams, which meant sabotaging communications while I was here, then finding the station’s power source and shutting it down.

Should I do that or focus on finding Kiren and her friends?

If I shut down power and killed the gravity generators, the whole place would go into chaos, and Kiren would more likely be hurt.

Frustrated, I stepped away from the console and executed the first step in my plan, firing six rounds into the console’s AI stacks.

“Hey!” Haley shouted, confused. “Why are you doing that?”

With the console disabled, I turned to face her. She was still sitting, rubbing the back of her head.

“Didn’t you hear the warnings?” I asked. “We can’t let our communications fall into enemy hands. Will you help me?”

Haley climbed to her feet, frowning. It helped that another warning message sounded over the speakers. She stared at the ceiling before giving me a nod.

“I’m still mad that you hit me. You owe me for that.”

“I’ll make up for it, I promise.”

She looked more excited about the idea of payback than I liked. “It won’t do any good to shoot the AI stack. You want to cut the main network node. It’s behind that cabinet over there.”

She searched the wall and opened a large panel, then she reached inside and yanked out a handful of network filament, which cut another warning in the speakers off mid-sentence.

Haley nodded with satisfaction. “That did it.”

“Thank you,” I said. “You should get an EV suit on. This place isn’t safe.”

“Why didn’t you say that when you first came in? You didn’t have to hit me. I’ve got a lump.”

“I’m pretty sure I did,” I said. “Sorry about that.”

I moved to the door and gave Haley a wave with my pistol. The hatch opened and I stepped through.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I need to meet some friends.” I turned and ran back down the corridor toward the bazaar.

I had to find Kiren. Tactical breaching teams would focus on disabling the station. The first thing the enemy would try to do was get their prize off the station in the confusion of the fight. I needed to find Kiren and the others before that happened.

The bazaar I had just left was in chaos. Most of the shoppers were gone and the vendors were quickly grabbing up their belongings. I stood in the long corridor and realized I had no idea which way to go.

I pulled my helmet on so I could check the station map in my HUD.

One of the vendors stared at me in horror. “Are we losing atmosphere?”

I shook my head and walked past them. There was a command section on the map with a residential level just beneath it. That seemed like the most likely place to hold important prisoners. To get there, I’d need to climb ten levels and cross half the station.

I needed to go the opposite direction I was walking, so I turned back toward the frantic vendor. Standing in the opening I’d just come through was Haley.

Oh shit. Here we go.

I froze momentarily, then I reached for my pistol.

Her voice was muffled by the helmet. “If you’re looking for those girls, you’re going the wrong way.”

22

Haley led me down two levels to a maintenance tunnel wide enough for a party barge.

“They used to move the ice this way,” she said. “It runs the whole station.”

Leaving the ice tunnel, we climbed several levels and cut across-station again, passing groups of people preparing barricades and building defensive positions. With the overhead speakers cut out, everyone was acting independently, waiting for the breach teams that could arrive any minute. They must have been looking for teams of Sheriff’s deputies in uniform, because they paid me no mind and seemed to actively ignore Haley.

“I knew you were here for the bride,” Haley said. “You’re too clean to be from around here. She told me all about her wedding. It sounds wonderful and also a little sad. Can you imagine marrying someone you don’t even know?”

“I think she knows what she’s doing,” I said.

“Are you going to take that helmet off? I can barely hear you.”

I shook my head. “Protection,” I said. And I was using the HUD to verify our path.

“I guess you need it, scrawny as you are.”

Behind us, a commotion sounded, indicating Tactical had arrived.

“Hurry up,” Haley said. “We don’t want to get stuck down here.”

I ran after her, scanning frequencies with my helmet’s comms system with no luck. Tactical must have been operating on their own secure network. I wished I had my duty helmet and access to all the encrypted channels.

Haley continued talking cheerily, as if the station weren’t under attack. “I think they’ve been taken care of well enough—for this place, anyway. Clark was the one that snatched them, so he was in charge of their security. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near Clark for an extended period of time.”

“Is that why you’re helping me?” I asked. “You’re worried about them?”

“I hate Clark, plain and simple. If you’re the law like I think you are, I want you to shoot him in the crotch.”

“You could do that, too,” I suggested.

“It would be more satisfying if you did it and I watched. I let you live, after all.”

“How do you know so much about what Clark’s been doing?”

“I’m the comms specialist, I hear everything. All I do is sit up there thinking how much I hate Clark. When he showed up with three women, talking about what a great score he’d just made, I paid attention. He didn’t even seem to care about poor Cherise.”

I didn’t ask about Cherise. I figured she was in custody now, hating me as much as Haley hated Clark.

A low roar grew ahead of us. It sounded like we were about to enter some kind of power relay, when we passed from an empty corridor into a long, wide room full of partying gang members sitting at communal tables. The space must have been meant for heavy equipment at some point in the factory’s past. Now it was a fest. Men guzzled from mugs refilled by harassed servants navigating the rows. The metal walls were stained with spilled beer, bits of food, and what was probably dried blood.

“Don’t they know the station is under attack?” I asked.

“They’ll party until they have to fight. Come on. This is the quickest way to the command deck.”

Haley led the way down the middle of the room. A big man caught sight of her and stood from his bench. “Hey, Haley,” he called, raising a beer. “What are you doing? Get over here.”

“I’m busy, Red.”

“Who’s your friend there? Why are you wearing a helmet?”

Haley gave Red an exasperated look. “The station is under attack, if you didn’t notice.”

Red finished his beer and released a loud burp. “The station’s always under attack. What’s different this time?”

“It’s the Sheriff from Taurus Station.”

Red winked at Haley. “If we’re going to die, you and me should go find some place private.”

The tall woman shook her head, braids swinging. She leveled an angry gaze on the big man. I looked around, worried that more ravagers were starting to notice the exchange.

“You want to be alone so I can crush your balls—again?”

Red blinked as he calculated his chances between sex or pain, then turned his focus on me.

“We’re under attack,” Haley repeated. She turned away and Red caught her arm. Haley hit the big man once under the chin and he flung his free hand up in defense, losing his mug. Spraying beer, the heavy mug arced through the air and hit another bandit in the back of the head. After that, I couldn’t track the steps between the mug, the shouting, and a table getting flipped, but in just a few seconds, the fest hall had become a massive brawl.

Haley slammed Red against a table, freeing herself, then elbowed another man who tried to grab her from behind. I punched a ravager who swung randomly at me, and then twisted out of the grip of a fat man who grabbed my helmet from behind.

“Which way?” I shouted at Haley.

“The far side. The way we were going.”

The central path between the tables was clogged with bodies in seconds. I jumped on top of a table and ran across tabletops to reach the far side of the hall. I was searching for Haley in the brawl when a crackling sound filled the far end of the hall where we had entered. Several of the closest bandits howled and went stiff with spasms.

In black uniforms and armed with shock weapons, deputies from Tactical advanced into the hall. They filed along the back wall, hitting the closest hostiles as they kicked over tables to provide cover. The music hid the initial sounds of attack, and ravagers continued to fight each other as Tactical advanced through the fest hall. By the time the bandits realized they were under attack, the deputies had already seized a quarter of the hall.

I watched as Red turned in the middle of lifting a smaller man and took a shock round in the middle of his chest. He vibrated, holding the smaller bandit over his head, then toppled like a tree. They hit the floor together.

I tried the local comms net again and finally got a response.

“Who is this?” came the curt reply.

“Deputy Gage Walker. I’ve been told the hostages are in the area of the command deck.”

I sent my location info, as well as Keldon’s in the shuttle.

“Look,” the Tactical Commander said. “You need to get your head down and stay safe. We’re in heavy fighting everywhere. Once things quiet down, we’ll send someone for you. I’ll get Keldon as soon as I can spare the medic.”

“I’m headed for the command deck,” I said.

“Negative. You need to fall back and let the breach teams do their jobs. You’re in the middle of the hot zone.”

“Your teams are fighting through a small army and I’m on the other side,” I said. If I waited any longer, I wasn’t going to reach Kiren in time. “I’m going.”

They had me on their stat maps now. That was the best I could do.

Haley was caught up in the fighting and I couldn’t wait for her. I pulled up the station schematic again and ran for the command area. If Haley’s information was correct, I should find the old executive suites on the level just above the fest hall.

Leaving the fight behind, I entered a series of small corridors and then climbed a set of stairs to find the old admin area. Stolen goods filled the space. Racks of clothing, packaged delicacies, jewelry, weapons and ammunition, and even a cage full of winged creatures who screeched a chorus of, “Hey! Screw you!” as I jogged past.

The Tactical comms net was coordinating several attacks from the outside but had been bogged down by a drone fleet that no one had expected. Apparently the Sheriff hadn’t waited for Union support, so they lacked heavy weaponry or overwatch to defend the breach teams working on the station’s outer surface. Despite the madness in the fest hall, the gang was proving a determined and organized enemy.

I ran past several small groups setting up choke points and defensive positions in the wider hallways. A few glanced at me, noted my civilian attire, and continued their work. I didn’t hang around to give them time to question me, though I did send live feed from my helmet to Tactical. No one acknowledged receipt of the data.

Passing through a hatch that should have put me in the executive suite area, I nearly collided with Haley when she appeared from my left.

“There you are,” she said brightly, catching me in a rib-crushing hug. She was bleeding from a cut on her temple. “You came the long way. Why didn’t you wait for me?”

Blood from her cheek smeared on my faceplate, forcing me to pull the helmet off and try to wipe it clean.

“I was worried I wasn’t going to get there in time,” I said. “Are we close?”

Haley tugged on her braids. “You’re all sweaty, Deputy.”

“I’ve been running this whole way.”

“You aren’t wearing a uniform under that crappy shipsuit, are you?”

“No. Why?”

“No reason,” she said, giving me an intense look.

I pulled the helmet back on, which earned me a complaint from Haley, and checked my HUD. Still no response from Tactical on the data I’d sent. Updated combat positions showed that Tactical hadn’t made it out of the fest hall yet, while small unit skirmishes had tied up most of the breach teams on the outer edges of the station.

In short, Tactical was getting their ass kicked.

Haley waved for me to follow and led the way down several maintenance pathways that ended on a main corridor she said led to the command section.

“We’ll need to pass by Kallaver’s office, but we’ll stay out of sight.”

When we eventually passed a hatch wide enough to allow a cruiser through, I stopped and stared in surprise. The command section was similar to most operations centers I’d seen in training, with workstations and a central holomap of the station. A short man with a pointy beard and a gold sash stalked the deck in front of the map, shouting orders at people I couldn’t see.

“That’s Kallaver,” Haley said, tugging at my hand. “It’s better if he doesn’t see us.”

What surprised me was the sight of Franca and Trix standing on either side of the excited leader. After the shot they’d taken, I didn’t think they’d be up and about. Franca, the tough woman, wore a shipsuit with a pistol hanging at her hip, her black hair slicked back. Trix leaned against a console, balancing a long knife by its tip on her index finger.

Something didn’t ring true here. Had everything at Ronny’s been a ruse?

“We need to keep going,” Haley insisted.

Well, this complicates things.

I followed Haley, the image of the two traitors burned in my memory. A story was developing in my mind of a father who didn’t like that his daughter outshined him, so he contrived to ruin her business merger marriage with a kidnapping conducted by a ravager gang and the betrayal of her two friends. After an event like this, James could easily push Kiren out of the business for her safety, or some other useful excuse.

I was chewing this new theory when Haley announced, “Here we are.”

She slapped the security panel on a set of double doors, which slid open to show a broad apartment where Clark and Kiren were rolling on the floor. Kiren was currently underneath Clark, thumbs digging into the ravager’s eye sockets as he choked her with both hands.

Kiren was naked.

23

I drew my pistol and aimed at the back of Clark’s head. I was about to squeeze the trigger when Kiren rolled again, placing herself on top so she could slam the wiry man’s head against the deck, thumbs digging deeper into his eyes.

“Kiren,” I shouted. “Move!”

She glanced at me, raising one hand to motion for me to stop. “Who are you?” she said. “I’m busy. Keep walking or you’re next.”

I holstered my pistol long enough to yank off my helmet and throw it on the floor. “You sure about that?”

She grunted.

Drawing the weapon again, I walked forward so Clark could see me, too. His free eye blinked and rotated my direction. His mouth dropped open a bit as he recognized me, but he didn’t bother to talk, only trying harder to choke Kiren.

Kiren shoved her free thumb in Clark’s eye and continued pounding his head into the floor.

“Take your hands off his head,” I ordered.

Kiren didn’t listen. She slammed Clark’s pale head into the floor until his hands fell from her neck and he lay spread-eagled under her, unconscious. A line of blood leaked from his mouth.

Kiren narrowed her eyes, waiting. When she seemed satisfied that Clark was out, she straightened, stretching her neck, then raised her hands to tuck her red hair behind her ears. She stood and stepped over Clark to face me.

“You are the last person I thought I’d see here,” she commented.

She put her hands on her hips, apparently not bothered in the slightest by her state of undress.

“Hello to you, too,” I said, holstering my pistol. “Did you lose your clothes somewhere?”

Kiren jabbed Clark with her foot. “I was finally able to take a shower, and this one thought he could take advantage of me. He learned different.”

“He’s scum,” Haley agreed.

Kiren raised an eyebrow to the blond woman. “I don’t know you, but I can see you’re my people. Are you a cop, too?”

Haley laughed. “They wish I was. Do you want some clothes? You’re too skinny to be running around without insulation.”

Kiren glanced at me. “You know, Deputy, you can look at me. I’m not ashamed.”

I cleared my throat. “The station’s under attack by the sheriff. We need to get out of here before the place blows. First though, why are Franca and Trix in the command section with Kallaver?”

Kiren gave a sardonic laugh. “I’m not going anywhere until those bitches are dead. My things are over there.” She walked to the bathroom and reappeared with a pile of clothes, then she dropped them on the couch.

I retrieved my helmet as Kiren dressed. “Were Franca and Trix working for the gang this whole time?”

“I’ve never seen them before,” Haley said.

“Who’s she again?” Kiren asked.

“I’m Kallaver’s communications officer.”

“She’s helping me,” I said.

Kiren studied Haley for a second, then shrugged. “I don’t know. Even if they’re taking advantage of a bad situation, they haven’t done anything to try and get us out of here.”

“What did Clark tell you?” I asked.

“He meant what he said when he killed Ronny, then he shifted just like criminals do. He got quite the surprise when Kallaver didn’t let him call my dad.”

“Why didn’t he let him?”

“Kallaver probably wants to run the job himself. You think he’d let a screw-up like Clark manage my ransom?”

The lights flickered and went dark. Emergency lighting switched on in the apartment and the corridor outside.

“They must be going after the power,” I said. “We need to get out of here.”

“There’s a launch bay ten levels below command,” Haley said. “We have to go back by there, though. And I don’t know if there are actually any ships in there.”

“We’ll have to find out,” I said.

I pulled my helmet back on and checked the station schematic, verifying what Haley had just said. There was also an alert from Tactical Command. Someone had finally noticed my data feed.

“Deputy Walker, this is Sergeant Mendos. Where the hell are you? Your feed cut out. It looks like you’ve secured the victim?”

I jumped on the channel. “Sergeant Mendos, I’ve got her. We’re looking for a ship to get the hell out of here.”

“I’ve got your location,” Mendos said. “But I’ll be honest, we’re bogged down fighting. Our people aren’t equipped for this kind of attack.”

“I’m headed for a shuttle bay ten levels below my location,” I said. “I don’t have confirmation of any vehicles, though. If we get down there, do you have anything that can pick us up?”

“You reach that bay with Kiren Carthage and I’ll pick you up myself. It’s going to be hot. They’ve got a fleet of drone fighters harassing our support ships. Get in there and we’ll figure out the rest.”

“We’ll do it. Sergeant, do you have a status on Keldon? I left him in stasis and sent a location beacon.”

“Hold on.”

I waited as the line went quiet.

“We should go,” Kiren said. “What are you waiting for?”

I nodded. There was no reason we couldn’t move while I waited on the info. Then Mendos came back. “We’ve got him. He’s with Medical now. I think the last word was that he needed to be evacuated immediately and they were working on that, but there are a lot more wounded than we anticipated. We’ll get him out of here with the others as soon as we can.”

Relief surged through me at the news. “Thank you.”

“Thank me when we’re all back at Drake’s,” Mendos said. “Keep me updated on your progress to that shuttle bay.”

I looked up to find Kiren staring at me. “I can’t see your face when you’re wearing that thing,” she said. “What did they tell you?”

I opened my face shield. “Tactical is getting their asses kicked.”

Haley laughed. “We knew that. Don’t mess with the Factory!”

Kiren gave her a quizzical glance. “Why are you helping us, anyway?”

The tall woman shrugged. “I work in the comms section. All day I listen to jerks like Clark talk their crap. I thought it sounded like fun to ruin his plans.”

“How did you end up here?” Kiren probed.

Haley flipped her braids. “That’s a long story. Maybe later.”

I was ready to leave, but first I considered Kiren’s outfit and the fact that she was still wearing her party gear. “We need to get you in some different clothes. You’re going to stand out too much in that.”

“Anybody sitting on a wardrobe?”

“You need a shipsuit, anyway.” I glanced at Clark on the floor. “His will be big, but I don’t see any other options.”

“Allow me,” Haley said.

“Gross, but all right,” Kiren told her.

The two women pulled Clark out of his suit, not going easy on him. They dumped him face down on the floor in his dirty underwear.

Kiren wrinkled her nose at the suit. “It looks serviceable at least. Let’s try not to test it out.” She quickly pulled the suit on over her clothes and adjusted various straps for a better fit.

I motioned to Haley. “Lead the way.”

Haley followed the same path we had taken to reach the executive suites, which I realized would take us back to the main lifts. We walked like we had a purpose and barely got second glances from anyone we passed.

When we reached the command section, however, Kiren caught sight of Franca standing beside Kallaver and made a sharp right turn toward the entrance.

“Kiren,” I said sharply. “What are you doing?”

“What I told you I was going to do.” Fists clenched, she walked directly into the command center.

I slammed my face shield closed and set the HUD to track every person in the room. The count came back at seven. Most were sitting at workstations, with Trix, Franca, and Kallaver in the middle of the room.

“You traitors,” Kiren said loudly. Workers around the room turned to look at her.

I stood in the doorway, hand on my pistol without drawing it yet. Haley pushed past me to follow Kiren, obviously excited about the situation.

Kallaver turned from the holo and stared at Kiren. Though he was a small, round man, his face was sharp with an intelligent cruelty. He didn’t look like the type to hesitate on anything.

“Where’s Clark?” he demanded.

“Don’t worry about Clark,” Kiren said. “I’m right here.” She hit Kallaver with a hard, upward strike to the chin and he stumbled into the holo projection.

I kept my eye on Franca and Trix but they hadn’t moved.

Franca crossed her arms and chuckled as Kallaver struggled in the glowing image. “Took you long enough, Kiren.”

“Are you working with these people?” Kiren demanded.

“I work for myself,” Franca said. She glanced at Trix. “I don’t know about her, though.”

Trix shrugged. “This is a lot more fun than following you around.”

Kiren shook her head, looking between them. “You were the two people I actually thought I could trust.”

The holo stuttered and flashed out as Kallaver kicked its base unit and climbed back onto the viewing platform. He approached Kiren with his teeth bared.

“You just wasted your one shot at taking me out.” He pulled his fist back.

I drew my pistol. Before I could level on Kallaver, Kiren hit him again. Kallaver shouted in pain and protected his face with his hands, then he wiped blood from his nose and glared at Kiren.

“You’re the worst person I’ve ever kidnapped.” He waved at Franca. “Take her down. The money isn’t worth this.”

“Who hired you?” Kiren demanded.

“Why should I tell you?” Kallaver snarled.

Franca stepped forward, reaching for Kiren’s near hand. Kiren caught Franca’s hand before the stronger woman could touch her, and twisted in what looked like a dance move that pulled Franca’s arm behind her body. Kiren simultaneously maneuvered Franca around and shoved her toward Trix, who hadn’t been expecting to get slammed to the deck. Kiren followed her Franca-missile by stomping on Trix’s outstretched hand on the deck. Trix’s fingers crunched under Kiren’s heel and her knife went spinning away. She howled in pain.

Behind them, the holo had come back to life, showing combat points throughout the station and the drone fighters harassing the Taurus force like hornets. A larger orange icon appeared from a thousand kilometers outside the battlespace. At first, the orange diamond looked like a large bit of space junk Kallaver was tracking, until he asked one of the workers: “Is the EMP bomb in position?”

An electromagnetic pulse, if big enough, would render the Tactical team’s ships useless. They’d be dead in the water, just waiting for the enemy to destroy them. Any of Kallaver’s men caught within the pulse would be vulnerable too, but that didn’t appear to bother him too much.

Pausing in her combat stance, Kiren asked, “You have an EMP?”

Kallaver chuckled. “Military grade. They were trying to move it as heavy machinery parts. Imagine my surprise when I heard what we’d found. I’ve got three of them and I need to test one. This is a good situation for it, I think.”

I leveled my pistol at Kallaver’s head. “Stop this.”

“Who the hell are you?” the man demanded.

“Deputy Gage Walker. You’re under arrest.”

The chuckle turned into a full-throated laugh. “You’re going to arrest me? Do you even know where you are? What’s your plan, Deputy? You going to drag me back to Taur—”

I shot Kallaver in the shoulder.

He fell backward, grabbing at the railing on the viewing platform. As he struggled to stay upright, I addressed the crew at workstations. “Power down that weapon. Anyone who activates the EMP will be coming with me.”

It was a bluff, but I had to hope these people had at least a little humanity.

“Fire,” Kallaver shouted, voice warped with pain.

“Don’t do it.” I shifted my aim among the technicians. Several of them looked anxiously between me and Kallaver, weighing their options.

In the pause, I sent an emergency update to Mendos at Tactical Command. The sergeant acknowledged with “Hold. Assessing.”

That wasn’t the answer I hoped for.

I fired three round bursts, one into each workstation. Technicians cowered away from the exploding consoles as smoke filled the command deck.

“Call the comms section!” Kallaver shouted. “Have them activate it from there.”

I glanced at Haley, who would have been the person in comms. Kallaver hadn’t acknowledged her I wondered if he even knew she was supposed to be on his side. She just shrugged, as if to say who knows?

“We need to get out of here,” I told Kiren.

“How long have we got if they activate that thing?” Kiren said, leaning toward Franca.

“Go to hell,” the ex-soldier said, struggling to get out from under Trix, who only seemed focused on nursing her broken hand. Kiren pressed a boot in the middle of Trix’s back, trapping Franca in place.

“You’re screwed,” Franca said. “If you leave, you’ll be flying right into the dirty bomb. You’ve got maybe fifteen minutes before all local space is flooded with radiation.”

“Let’s get out of here,” I said.

Haley grinned like she was having a fine time. Kiren kicked Franca a second time and walked calmly through the exit hatch, looking like she wanted to stay and abuse them some more.

As I left the command deck, Kallaver was stumbling among the workstations, yelling at his technicians. Franca rolled over and kicked Trix off her. The muscled woman glared at me and then looked past me to Kiren, who flashed her middle finger as she disappeared around the corner.

I activated the command section’s security door on the way out. When the hatch was closed, I shot the panel with five good blasts, burning its controls.

“Walker,” Mendos called. “We’ve got an update on that weapon.”

“I’m here, sergeant.”

“We’re pulling everyone out. Kallaver doesn’t know what he has. That thing can take out all of this, including the Factory. That means life support will be off. You need to either find one of our breach ships or another way off that station, understand?”

“Got it.”

“All right,” Mendos said. “Keep me updated and we’ll send you help once you’re down there.”

“If I don’t, you can figure something bad happened.”

Mendos chuckled. “Don’t get pessimistic yet, trainee. You’ve got your whole career ahead of you.”

24

There was more fighting in the levels between the command center and the shuttle bay. As Tactical forces initiated retrograde operations, the gang pressed back harder, doing their best to pin them down and cut teams off. Twice Haley led the way down a corridor to find a locked interior hatch.

We passed the bodies of several bandits in the corridors, suits peppered with bullets. Discarded equipment and smashed barricades littered our path, and when we finally reached the main lifts, we found them in lockdown status.

“Looks like we get to climb down,” Haley said, still sounding cheery like she was on vacation. She removed a wall panel beside the lift and revealed a ladder adjacent to the shaft.

“How many levels?” Kiren asked.

“Seven to go. This is going to be a shortcut. I’ll go first.”

I was last in the tube. I holstered my pistol and arranged the panel so I could replace it from the inside, then started the long climb down. The tube must have been shielded, because once I was inside, I lost my connection with Mendos.

“You think they’re going to find another way to set off that bomb?” I asked Haley.

“Personally, I think Kallaver was bluffing. But we may have pissed him off enough that he would do it anyway. That’s a pretty useful thing for him to waste on a bunch of Taurus deputies, no offense.”

“None taken,” I said. “Without the Union, we don’t have any way of dealing with it. He also doesn’t seem to care about all the squatters out there in the Chop. A bomb like that could kill a lot of people.”

“Doesn’t this station trade with all those people?” Kiren asked.

“Sure does,” Haley said. “The more I think about it, you’re probably right. It’s a terrible idea. But Kallaver’s also a crazy person, so who knows.”

“I’m surprised someone trusted him to kidnap me,” Kiren said.

I looked at her. “What have you been doing since the party, anyway?”

“Sitting in the room where you found me. Clark kept me tied up in his shuttle, then he walked me up there and put a guard on the door. It was pretty boring until he showed up trying to make moves on me.”

“Where did you learn how to fight like that?” I asked.

“Dancing and fighting have their crossover points.”

“I never thought of it that way.”

“My dad has always been worried about my safety. I’ve been attending martial arts since I could walk. At this point it’s hard not to put someone in a pressure hold.”

Below us on the ladder, Haley laughed. “I knew I liked something about you.”

“And you still don’t know who would have hired Kallaver to do this to you?” I asked.

“The questions are starting to get annoying, Gage. I don’t know.”

I debated asking about the deal in the boutique, then went ahead. “What were you doing with that clerk in the boutique? You didn’t buy anything, but you went out for a private meeting with him, and everyone got secretive while you were gone.”

“Boutique?” Kiren asked. “Oh. That was a little something for the party. Normally he would have sold me the stuff at the counter but he was worried because you were there.”

“I’ll be honest, the three of you looked like a little gang of your own.”

“Well, I thought they were my friends.”

“It looked like more than that,” I said.

“Franca and Trix have been with me for two years. They’re basically my bodyguards. I don’t know what was offered to them to sell me out, but it had better have been a lot.” Irritation had edged into her voice, warning me she’d just about had enough.

“Sorry. It must be hard not to be able to trust anyone.”

Kiren got quiet. Below us, Haley paused at a short landing and tapped on the side of the tube. The panel opened, spilling light on the ladder, and she stepped out. We followed.

The new corridor looked more industrial than the area we’d left. Ribs supported the walls, and the deck was covered in directional markings for cargo drones.

“The bay is this way,” Haley said, pointing right.

Outside the tube, I picked up Tactical’s signal again. I sent a status update, prompting a response from Mendos.

“Walker. I thought we lost you.”

“Not yet. We had to take a bypass.”

“Good,” he replied. “We’re getting the last teams off now. This isn’t going to look good. We’ve taken heavy losses. You found a shuttle yet?”

“Working on that. I’ll let you know.”

The corridor widened ahead of us, with an entrance along one wall that led into the cargo bay. Through the first set of observation windows, we spotted the huge external airlock, and below it the flight deck with three shuttles in dock.

I felt a sense of relief when I saw the vehicles, until the rest of the bay came into view, bringing with it a group of Kallaver’s men sitting on crates in front of the shuttles, surrounded by weapons and ammunition crates. Their suits and helmets suggested they were an attack team waiting to deploy.

I stopped Kiren as she was about to charge through the door into the bay.

“Hold on. Those guys outgun us easy.” I looked at Haley. “Any options?”

Haley chewed her lip. “The control station for the bay is down there. We could open the main airlock.”

“Space them?” I asked. “That’s brutal.”

She shrugged. “They’re wearing EV suits. Plus they’ll just kill you if you go in there.”

“Don’t you even care that these people are on your side?” Kiren asked.

Haley waved a hand. “There’s no side here but money. They’d do the same thing to me if it meant getting a better dessert in the chow hall.”

Kiren shook her head. “How can you live like this?”

“How can you run a mine?” The retort was surprising from Haley. She was definitely sharper than she appeared. “It’s the best option. We try to fight them and we run the risk of damaging the airlock or one of the shuttles. They won’t be expecting it. And they’re trained to deal with this sort of thing, right?”

“Right,” Kiren said, mollified by the mines remark.

“Don’t worry,” Haley said, slapping Kiren on the shoulder. “We’re going to get you out of here safe and sound. Maybe you’ll be in charge of Carthage Mining instead of your father. I’d see that as doing my part to help downtrodden people everywhere. You stay here. I’ll walk through and head up to the control booth. They won’t suspect me.”

“Are you sure?” Kiren asked. I watched her hide a distrustful glance.

“I think it’s a good idea,” I said quickly. I didn’t need the two of them fighting.

“Don’t worry about me.” Haley flicked one of her braids and walked through the bay entrance onto the main flight deck. We stayed around the edge of the door where we could watch without being seen.

One of the soldiers straightened when he saw Haley approach, then relaxed and waved.

“You sure we can trust her?” Kiren asked.

“Nope, but she hasn’t betrayed me yet. If she sells us out with those guys, I’m going to start shooting from here. They’re out in the open.”

“All right,” Kiren said, not sounding pleased with the plan. We sat for another minute as Haley got caught up in a conversation with the others. Her arms went wide as she started describing the fight in the fest hall.

“Let me ask you something,” I said. “This marriage. Is it a real thing?”

Kiren glanced at him. “Why do you care?”

“It’s a big part of the puzzle. What does your fiancé think about all this?”

“George? He loves drone racing and money. He could care less about me. He’s as ready to do the deal as I am.”

“That’s not what his father said. You’re not the least bit attracted to him?” I asked, surprised.

She ignored the first thing I’d said and zeroed in on the attraction. “Why does that matter?”

“No, then. Well, that’s sad.”

She furrowed her brow. “I didn’t ask your opinion.”

“You’re right. That was out of line. But would he benefit in any way if you didn’t get married?”

“He stands to gain a lot in this deal, just like me. It’s not complicated.”

“He hasn’t done much to support saving you is why I’m asking,” I said.

She shrugged. “Did you ask him to help?”

“I haven’t met him.”

Kiren gave me another sideways glance. “You sound jealous, Deputy Walker.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m trying to figure out who did this to you.”

“I have my ideas,” Kiren muttered.

Haley had finally left the group on the deck and crossed to the stairs leading to the control booth. She disappeared from view and a green light flashed at the top of our doorway, then it closed, blocking the bay from view. We had to move a few meters to watch through the windows.

No one seemed to have noticed the upper doors closing. Two tossed a grenade back and forth while another small group squatted in a circle throwing dice.

A warning klaxon honked inside the bay and they immediately stood to look up at the control booth. Several pointed, while the soldier Haley had talked to spread his arms in a questioning gesture. The klaxon increased intensity, and one of the grenade throwers grabbed his helmet.

In another twenty seconds, they had figured out the situation. The klaxon shifted to a single tone, and the external airlock opened on vacuum. The atmosphere in the bay blew into space, while the soldiers in their EV suits remained standing on the deck, looking up at Haley in the control booth and gesturing wildly.

“Damn it,” I said. “Magboots. Of course.”

“So they’re not going anywhere?” Kiren asked.

“It would appear that way.” I spotted a utility cabinet in the opposite wall and opened it to find utility shipsuits with helmets. I pulled down one of the helmets and tossed it to Kiren.

“You know how to use this?”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “Duh.”

“Looks like we’re going EV.”

The thought worried me less than fighting a group with superior numbers and firepower. I waited as Kiren donned the helmet and sealed her suit. When she was ready, I handed her a pistol from the cabinet.

“When we open the airlock on their side, we need to take out as many of them as we can before we even get in the bay,” I said.

“No kidding,” she replied, tone dry.

“What I mean is that we need to coordinate. I’ll tell you where to focus your firepower.”

“Let’s do this,” she said.

“Hey.” Haley’s voice reached us on a secure channel. “What are you two doing?”

“We’re figuring out how to fight these guys since they didn’t get spaced,” I said.

“Oh, they’re about to. I’m bringing in some maintenance drones with cutting torches.”

“Ouch,” Kiren said. “That sounds terrible.”

“I know, right?” Haley laughed. “When I told Gage I’d help him, I had no idea this was going to be so much fun.”

Three heavy drones appeared in the open space of the main airlock, their thrusters blasting jets of steam. They moved as a unit, spreading out in a line once they entered the bay. Each drone had an articulated arm with a blue-tipped torch on the end, which dropped beneath its body as they closed on the now panicking group.

The nearest two ran, leaving their associates behind without a backward glance. The remaining four had the presence of mind to take cover. A drone burned a trough through one of the crates killing the man who’d been cowering behind it.

Those that remained went for the next closest airlock: ours.

There was no cover in the corridor if they came back inside. I pulled Kiren inside the airlock with me and closed the interior door. I cycled the airlock, then stopped it before the exterior door into the bay could open. As long as there were people inside, the door’s safety mechanism wouldn’t allow anyone in the bay to get out.

“Good thinking,” Kiren said.

The two running soldiers hit the door and hammered on its security panel. One of them looked through the window and spotted us, but didn’t have time to alert the others before a drone cut him down.

The soldiers with weapons appeared to realize they had a giant exit into open space and fired on the drones as they retreated toward the open cargo doors. One went down as the remaining three ran for the opening and disappeared over the side.

The drones formed a line at the cargo airlock and lowered themselves to the deck to park, resembling the crates all around them.

“I’ll have the drones guard the opening,” Haley said. “You’re safe to come in.”

I restarted the airlock and waited for the door to finish its cycle.

“You want to take bets on whether Haley is going to turn the drones on us?” Kiren asked quietly.

“No,” I said. “If she does, I’ll pin them down and you run like hell.”

Kiren shook her head. “You are too literal for your own good. I’m going to offer her a job.”

“I’ll bet you she stays,” I said.

“I’ll take that bet. I’m hard to refuse.”

The door opened on the remains of the two bandits who had died just outside, globules of blood floating near their bodies. I stepped around them, magboots clicking on the deck, and got my bearings in the wide bay. Finding the three shuttles on the far side, I walked in that direction.

“Which shuttle should we take?” I asked Haley.

“The first one should be fine. I’m running a systems check now. That one looks like it’s got the best maintenance.”

“Are you coming out here?” Kiren asked.

Haley laughed. “I’m fine up here. I’ll make sure local space is clear for you with the drones.”

“Haley,” Kiren said. “I want you to come with us.”

“Me? Oh, no. I like it here. I’ve had enough of the straight edge life.”

“Won’t Kallaver come after you?” I asked.

“He’s a pussy cat. He needs me to make his comms work. And I can say the mean deputy overpowered me with his good looks and charm. Kallaver knows I’m a sucker for a pretty face.”

“If you come work for me, I’ll make you richer than Kallaver ever could,” Kiren said.

“That’s kind, but I don’t live for money. In fact, I really don’t like money, much. It just causes problems.”

I reached the shuttle and mounted its access stairs.

“Opening the hatch for you,” Haley said.

I waited for the rectangular hatch to slide to one side, then climbed up and through. Inside, I found a small passenger area that would probably hold ten, as well as a weapons locker and head. I walked up to the pilot’s seat and sat down. Kiren followed and slid into the co-pilot’s seat.

“I guess you won that bet,” Kiren said. “How’d you know?”

“Just had a feeling.”

I was running my own systems check when Mendos sent a hail.

“Walker, did you find a shuttle yet? We saw one of their cargo bays open up and it looked like there was some fighting.”

“That was me.” I figured it wouldn’t help to mention Haley.

“Hurry up,” the sergeant told me. “We finally got support from the Union. They’ve got a heavy ship inbound. As soon as all our units are clear, they’re going to knock that rat’s nest out of space. So get your ass out of there.”

I acknowledged the order and switched back to the general net. “Haley, change of plans. You’re coming with us.”

She answered in singsong: “You’ll have to come up and get me.”

I unstrapped from the pilot’s seat and stood, leaving Kiren to finish the checks.

“If that’s what I have to do, I’m on my way.”

Kiren raised an eyebrow. “If I couldn’t convince her, how are you going to do it?”

“With my pretty face, of course,” I said.

25

The Union destroyer didn’t do a good job wrecking the Factory. As we watched the attack on our shuttle’s display screen, it was obvious the destroyer lacked the necessary firepower to do any real damage. Waves of missiles hit the square station and exploded, leaving a burnt crust that only hid the interior areas.

Haley whistled. “It wasn’t pretty before, but now it’s going to look like a burnt marshmallow.”

“Is this actually going to hurt Kallaver’s gang?” Kiren asked.

“Not at all,” Haley said. “He has bunkers hidden away that can withstand major attacks. I don’t think even a real nuke could crack the Factory. And if it did, we’re resilient. We’ll just move to another part of the Chop and start over again. That’s what we do. We’re survivors.”

“You sound like you’re going to miss them,” I said.

She shrugged. “Oh, I’m not leaving. They’re my family. I might leave for a little while, but I’ll be back. Besides, you think those dummies are going to find someone else to monitor the comms out of Taurus Station? Nope.”

I gave her a sideways glance, wondering if she’d forgotten who I was or just didn’t care.

Mendos had told me to set the shuttle on a course in the convoy of Tactical ships leaving the area. As I programmed the course, following the path back to Taurus through the CZ, I couldn’t shake the feeling that getting out of the Factory had been too easy.

“Kallaver seems like kind of a pushover, honestly,” I said. “He let us leave.”

Haley chuckled. “He hasn’t let us leave. He’s going to attack the cops when they reach the middle of the Chop. We’ve got drone fleets hidden in the junk fields. It’s going to be a slaughter.”

I stared at her. “You realize we’re following them back to Taurus, right?”

“We are? That’s a dumb thing to do.”

I glanced at Kiren.

“Don’t look at me,” she said. “You’re the pilot.”

Switching back to the law enforcement channel, I hailed Mendos and shared Haley’s intel.

“You’re sure about that?” Mendos asked. “We scanned the route and there aren’t many places to hide a significant attack force. Why are you bringing this person back with you, anyway?”

“She’s a witness,” I said quickly. “She’s got info on the kidnappers. And she helped us, so her life is in danger.”

“No, it’s not!” Haley said. I held up my finger for her to be quiet.

“Right,” Mendos said. “Good thinking. There’s still a case to work here.”

“So you’re not going to change course?”

“I passed the info up to command,” Mendos said. “I haven’t seen any changes come back. They’ll assess the situation and send a change order. And it looks like the Union destroyer is done with its target. They’ll be following in a minute.”

I stared at the course, trying to predict where the attacks would come from. “They aren’t going to be able to catch up in time if we come under attack, Sergeant. We’re going to be on our own.”

“What did I say about pessimism, trainee?”

I closed the channel and sat back in my seat. Kiren and Haley had heard the exchange.

“You’re sure they’re going to attack?” Kiren asked Haley.

Haley tugged her braids again. “That’s the usual plan. We get attacked by private fleets all the time. Kallaver lets them think they’ve won then wrecks them out in the junk field. He’s got the whole thing mapped, so he can track all the moving objects and use them as cover. The other ships usually never know what hit them. Makes more junk for the field.”

“This shuttle is defenseless,” I said. “They attack, we’re depending on a bunch of cops to fight a space battle.”

“That seems like a bad idea,” Kiren said.

“You think?”

“We haven’t changed course,” Kiren pointed out. “Is your plan to follow the cop ships until they serve as bait and then run the other direction?”

“That’s not a bad plan,” I said. “But I’m not leaving my fellow deputies to get slaughtered.”

Haley leaned between the two pilot’s seats, looking between Kiren and me. “Are you afraid of dying?”

“Do you think we’re going to die?” Kiren asked.

Haley shrugged. “I think you have to always be ready to die. You know your spark wants to rejoin the light.”

Kiren frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Your spark. Everything from the tiniest ant to the biggest sea creature on Mara has the same vibrant tiny spark propelling them through existence. And our sparks are the greatest of all, because we were cursed and blessed with consciousness.”

“Mara’s an ocean planet, right?” Kiren asked.

“Have you been there?” Haley’s eyes went wide. “I really want to visit. I want to swim with the alien jellyfish.”

I focused on the navigation panel, watching the Taurus ships as they moved methodically along the course Tactical had plotted through the Chop. So far, the scan returns along the route were dead. Our shuttle was at the rear of the column, with only a small rear guard and the Union destroyer behind us.

I had to admit, I’d never appreciated just how dense the CZ was until I had the opportunity to fly through it. In open space it would have been easy to avoid. Since it was the fast track to Taurus from CZ, getting around it would take more fuel than most smaller crafts had.

The gunfight with the two hitmen on the blasted tank had been a good lesson in orbital mechanics, too. So when our view screen looked like a solid wall of rotating, smashing, spinning junk, I knew there was a little bit of space out there to slip through, but not a lot.

Haley was going on about the wonders of the sea world Mara when the attackers appeared on the scan display. Out of the wall of junk, hundreds of hostile icons blinked into view on either side of the Taurus convoy, swiftly shifting to containment on all sides, matching velocity as they opened fire with barrages of missiles, projectile cannons, and directed energy weapons.

“What’s that?” Haley asked, straightening and looking at the display. “Has the fight started?”

The lead Tactical ship lit its engines in a full burn to escape the kill zone. Following vessels launched in all directions, finding paths among the wild debris. Several slammed into objects that out-massed them and exploded. Those that weren’t destroyed by course miscalculations were chased by waves of the enemy.

“Is that real?” Kiren asked, pointing at the screen.

“Unfortunately,” I said. “This is bad.”

“That’s a light way of putting it,” Kiren said. “Can you get us out of here?”

I focused ahead of me. “We’ll find out.”

My experience piloting small vehicles was limited to personal transports during mining operations and the offensive driving course at the Academy. Vehicles on Taurus Station spent most of their time navigating streets packed with tourists and partygoers. My training in open space had been only a few hours, most of which I’d spent trying not to throw up. In any case, that was designed to teach deputies to conduct breaching operations in local space just outside the station, mostly for smuggling and drug interdiction.

In reality, the shuttle’s system was designed to be operated by AI. The pilot set the destination and the shuttle found the best route. Most AI nav systems weren’t designed for dense places like the Chop Zone, and certainly didn’t have a setting for combat conditions.

I set the navigation AI to suggestion mode just as a flight of fighters advanced on our position.

“Look out!” Haley shouted.

There was no time to wait for the nav system. I lit the main thruster. On the display, I watched our little shuttle rise in a long parabola above the plain of the Chop. Behind us, the Union destroyer was fending off more of Kallaver’s ships. Several broke off to chase us, spreading out as they fired a barrage of projectile weapons.

“Do we have anything we can use against them?” Haley asked, head pressed back in her seat.

“Just our brains,” I said. “You got any ideas? This shuttle isn’t meant for this.

“Ram them?” Kiren asked.

Haley laughed. “You’ll crack the hull open..”

The wide structure of an ancient mining rig rose in the display. I set a course through the rotating metal grid and felt a bit of relief as some of our assailants impacted with the metal struts, sending the rig spinning in a new direction. The rest dodged the rig and continued to track us.

Shooting through more debris, I hunted for objects to use as cover. I had a good scan lock on the fighters, so I could at least track them as they shot forward and fell back. My only hope was that they would get far enough from the Factory that the gang would either call them back or redirect them to a better target.

We entered an area where the debris field thinned, leaving wide open swaths of space with little cover.

“Hold on,” I said, initiating a braking burn and flipped the shuttle to head back into the debris field, telling the AI to find more large objects. The nav computer quickly identified an object that looked large enough to be a station in its own right, and I opened the engines with three fighters still pursuing.

“There we go.” Braking again, I used the adjustment thrusters to match spin and drop the shuttle in the middle of a nest of ancient collection tanks and connecting girders. I barely avoided crushing the shuttle on a long cylinder before activating the landing locks. The shuttle skidded before it stopped, then maglocked to the more massive object and floated with it. I cut active scan and powered down the shuttle’s systems until we sat in the dark.

“Now let’s hope we just hid well enough,” I said.

Kiren and Haley said nothing as we waited.

I still had a low-power comms link with Tactical through my helmet, allowing me to watch. The icons darted past us in my HUD, close then executing wider sweeps. I realized I was holding my breath.

In another few minutes, the drones moved on to another section of the Chop and then changed course to return to the Factory.

“I think we’re clear,” I said.

“Nice flying.” Kiren gave me an appraising glance. “I didn’t realize you were so useful.”

“You’re bad at giving compliments.” Haley slapped my shoulder. “He was great.”

“Thank you,” I said, studying my HUD. “I’m going to wait another thirty minutes before I reengage the active scan. It looks like most of the convoy is clear, but they haven’t sent an update.”

“Are you going to send a message that we’re all right?” Haley asked.

“Too much power. If we pop up with EM, I’m afraid the enemy will find us.”

Haley relaxed in her seat and put her hands behind her head. “I guess we’ll have to play a game. Do you know any waiting games?”

“I hate games,” Kiren muttered.

I tried to calculate how long it should take the Tactical convoy to clear the Chop. What I needed to do was set a timer so I could stop obsessively checking my HUD, but that wasn’t going to happen. Maybe I should try anyway.

I opened my eyes to start the timer and was surprised to find my HUD filled with red icons. At first I thought it meant the shuttle was being swarmed by drones. Then I realized the location was still set on the convoy. They were under even heavier attack.

I zoomed in. The attacking fleet had expanded from merely fighters. It looked like every criminal in the Chop had jumped at the opportunity to attack. Tactical ships throughout the convoy lost their shields and then blinked out of operation. I could only imagine the devastation on each vessel.

Haley looked at the screen. “What is that?”

“The convoy is under attack,” I said. “We’re losing ships. A lot of ships.”

“They don’t know where we are, do they?” Kiren asked.

“I don’t think so. Looks like everything is concentrated on the convoy.”

A few Tactical ships continued to progress until they reached the edge of the Chop, where they were clear to accelerate into full burn. By the time the attack was finished, I counted only ten ships out of thirty having reached safety. One troop transport tried to accelerate and broke apart, scattering debris that slowed down the following craft.

When the last ship cleared, I breathed a sigh of relief and set a new timer. We would wait another thirty minutes and check the passive scan feed. If the area was clear, we’d run.

I turned to the others to share my plan, when the shuttle’s proximity alert screamed in our ears, indicating an inbound object. A missile? Who fired?

The world flashed white.

26

Our transport raced silently across an outer section of Taurus, multi-colored lights from the surrounding streets smearing across its darkened windows. I sprawled in my seat, tired to the bone, studying the scarred shell of my helmet. I guess I took more fire than I thought. There were scorches on my suit as well, and a few pinholes where the outer lining had been shredded and battered. After the missile attack, I couldn’t help wondering if this was some kind of afterlife and I hadn’t realized yet. I ached everywhere.

Thanks to a salvage outfit who’d already been in the area hoping to make some credits off the short lived battle, we’d been rescued and taken back to Taurus. An order had come down from Nagel for me to report in, but I’d already been on my way to take Kiren home.

She and Haley sat across from me. Kiren sat upright in her seat, concentration elsewhere, while Haley pulled her braids and commented on the sights outside the windows.

“It’s so bright here,” she said. “And all the colors. What’s that all about?”

“Casinos and hotels,” I said. “You haven’t been here before?”

“I came to the Chop in an ice hauler. Never made it this far.”

“I’ll show you around,” Kiren said. “Don’t worry.”

“I want ice cream,” Haley said. “And then I want some comms equipment.”

Kiren nodded. “That’s going to be an interesting shopping trip, but I’m in.”

I was still a little surprised the sergeant at the docks let us leave. After squinting at me and verifying my identity, the old timer had relayed the Sheriff’s order and then gone back to counting survivors off the remaining ships. Everyone looked shell-shocked as the complete scope of the loss became understood. I hadn’t waited around for anyone who outranked me to give other instructions.

“Are they going to give you a medal?” Kiren asked.

I stared at her. “Why?”

“You did come after me single-handedly.”

“I didn’t do it alone. Jack Keldon got us there and Tactical kept the gang busy.” I nodded to Haley. “Without Haley’s help, I wouldn’t have gotten far. And if I remember correctly, you had a pretty good start on rescuing yourself.”

“You got the ball rolling, though,” Kiren said. “I won’t forget that.”

She pulled her messy red hair into a ponytail at the back of her neck, hazel eyes fixed on me.

I only nodded, too tired to say anything witty. The pieces of the last thirty-six hours still didn’t add up, but I figured the important fact was that the woman sitting across from me was safe. I couldn’t stop thinking about her father’s face when he said, “You’re still alive.”

The words hadn’t been spoken with concern for my well-being. I’d thought he was saying I hadn’t tried hard enough to save Kiren. But Carthage had seemed irritated that I wasn’t dead, as if something hadn’t gone to plan. If I’d been carrying Carthage’s handgun, I might have been lying dead on the floor with Ronny. One thing was for sure: James Carthage had been involved on some level.

Now that Clark was dead, the only person left to question was Cherise.

“Your gears are turning over there,” Kiren said.

I looked over at her. “Trying to figure out who planned all this.”

“The abductions?”

“Right.”

“Does it matter?” she asked. “Petty criminals looking for a score.” Kiren glanced at Haley and added, “No offense.”

“I wouldn’t call Kallaver’s operation petty,” Haley said. “They did just wipe out most of your police force.”

“Clark, then,” Kiren said. “He didn’t have a lot of future orientation, from what I saw.”

Haley shrugged. “The future is overrated.”

We slowed to a stop as we arrived at the Carthage headquarters. I stood and stretched, waiting for the door to open. I filed out after Haley and Kiren to stand in the opulent lobby. A drone in the entryway acknowledged Kiren and required her approval to allow Haley and me access.

“Not much fanfare,” I said.

Kiren shrugged. “I’ll have about twenty minutes of peace before word gets out.”

We boarded the lift for the upper levels and rose silently. When we reached Kiren’s level, she led the way down a carpeted hallway with only two apartments then stopped at the door halfway down, unlocked the security panel, and motioned for Haley to enter.

“This apartment is yours,” she said. “Stay as long as you like. I still want to talk to you about that job.”

Haley poked her head through the door without crossing the threshold. She nodded as if it would do. From what I could see, the space was a palace.

“I’ll consider your offer,” Haley agreed. “But first we’re going shopping for that equipment, right?”

“Of course,” Kiren said.

The tall woman nodded approval, then surprised me with a sudden hug that lifted me off the floor. I didn’t fight, and when she was satisfied, she set me back down.

“Don’t be a stranger, Deputy,” she said. “You’re good comic relief.”

Now I didn’t know if my aching chest was from the missile attack or Haley’s hug. I thanked her again for her help then jogged forward when she slapped my ass.

Haley brayed laughter as she closed her door. The sound of her appreciating the apartment came through to the other side.

“She likes you,” Kiren noted.

“Let’s hope not.”

We walked to the end of the corridor, which ended on a security door.

Kiren pressed her back to the door and looked up at me. She brushed her hair out of her eyes. “This is me.”

I rubbed the rim of my helmet. “Well, this part of the mission is finished. But I still mean to find out who did this to you.”

“I keep saying I’m back. The wedding can continue.”

I shook my head. “If we don’t bring whoever did this to justice, it’s going to happen again. You aren’t married yet.”

Kiren took the helmet out of my hands and held it at her side. She stepped toward me.

I paused, not sure what she wanted.

“You’re right. I’m not married yet.” Kiren grabbed one of the harness straps on the front of my shipsuit and pulled me toward her. She angled her face up and kissed me. When I started to pull away, the hand on my chest went to the back of my neck, holding me in place. Her hand was warm against my skin, her lips insistent.

“Mmm,” Kiren said eventually. “That’s a proper thank you. I could get lost in a man like you. That’s why I can’t. Besides, I’d ask you to come in but I know you won’t.” She held me with her gaze.

If I was in trouble with the Sheriff anyway, why not stay? Something about the situation felt off, though. Kiren had a way of always looking like a trap.

“I should go,” I said.

“Of course. That’s what you should do. Good night, Deputy.”

Kiren’s hazel eyes lingered on my face for another few seconds, extending the invitation, and then the door slid open and she stepped inside.

A male voice said, “Kiren, you’re here.”

“George?” she asked.

A suite lay on the other side of the door, and a young man was standing from the couch near a broad set of windows. He crossed quickly to the entryway. I recognized George Joyce from the image in his father’s office.

“You’re safe.” He caught her in an anxious embrace before catching sight of me. “I take it you saved her?” George asked, looking at me.

Before I could answer, Kiren pulled away and motioned at me. “This is Deputy Walker. He was my bodyguard during the attack, and he followed us all the way into the Chop. Fought his way into Kallaver’s Factory and got me back.”

The painting hadn’t been far off. George was thin with translucent blue eyes. He looked well-meaning enough, with a brittle edge. He grabbed my free hand and shook it vigorously.

“The news about the police ships that were lost is all over the news feeds. It must have been a blood bath out there.”

“We were hit by an enemy missile,” Kiren said, as if it had been an enjoyable experience.

The news seemed to hit George like a knife between the shoulder blades. He winced.

“A missile? And you survived?”

“It only took the rear section off our shuttle,” I explained. “Fortunately, we were picked up by salvage crews fairly quickly. Those were some heroes out there.”

George put his arm around Kiren, a gesture she accepted somewhat awkwardly. “We need to sit you down,” he said. “Are you hungry?”

“I’m fine,” Kiren said. “I’d like a shower though. I feel filthy.”

I couldn’t help thinking about the last time she’d tried to take a shower, and the sight of her fighting Clark. Hopefully George never made her angry; he wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Do you want to eat with us?” he asked me.

I shook my head. “No, thank you. I need to get back and file my report. You all have a nice night, now.”

Kiren raised an eyebrow at me, a gesture George couldn’t see. I stepped away from the door and it slid closed, leaving me alone in the hallway.

I stood there for a few more seconds, thinking about that kiss. Already, I couldn’t tell if there had been any emotion there or if the gesture had been a calculated move. A challenge. Everything about Kiren Carthage was a challenge.

Considering my next steps before reporting to Sheriff Nagel, I turned to leave. In the lift, I had just decided to go back to my apartment to sleep for a few hours when the car stopped on its own. The doors opened on a corridor I recognized as the one I’d taken previously to visit James Carthage.

Realizing it wasn’t an accident, I walked to the apartment at the end of the corridor, unsurprised when its door opened to allow me in.

The room was illuminated by high points of light this time. The fireplace image was gone, the wall where it had been empty. A long wooden desk with a tall leather chair had been added since my last visit and James Carthage sat reading a news feed, swiping insistently with his right hand.

He looked up as I entered, seeming tired. His neatly trimmed hair was compressed on one side as if he had just been sleeping with his face on the desk.

“You saved her,” Carthage said.

“Hello,” I said. “It’s nice to see you again, Mr. Carthage.”

“I thought she was lost. I was sure Kallaver was going to murder her to send me a message.”

“So you did know what was going to happen the night I was providing security. You’re lucky the Tactical team came, otherwise your daughter would be dead.”

Carthage nodded. He continued to check the feeds flowing beneath his fingers. “It wasn’t supposed to get so out of hand. Nagel paid a heavy price for that. I’m going to have to repay him. Have you seen him yet?”

“Not yet. I came straight here with Kiren.”

“That was smart of you. She hasn’t hit the feeds yet. It will soon, and our stock price will rise to new heights. Now would be a good time to buy.”

“I don’t speculate,” I said.

“Why didn’t you use the handgun I gave you?” Carthage asked abruptly. He stared at me with his red-rimmed eyes.

“It was defective,” I said.

“Not when I gave it to you,” he claimed.

“I only know it didn’t work when I did use it. Fortunately, I wasn’t carrying it when your daughter was abducted. Thanks to my service pistol, I have at least one witness to help me learn who hired the gang to kidnap your daughter.”

“Kallaver’s people don’t talk,” Carthage said.

“We don’t know that,” I said. “To answer your question, I carried my service pistol because it’s what the Sheriff ordered me to do. It worked when I needed it.”

“That’s a good description for you, I think,” Carthage said. “You might be useful to me in the future, Deputy Walker.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. I didn’t need any more offers of gifts or special payroll.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to get some sleep,” I said. “I’m tired.”

“I do mind,” Carthage said, raising a hand. “I can be a valuable friend, Gage. I can see you won’t take money from me, and that’s fine. But I do owe you. You’ll come to appreciate that. We’re linked, you and me.”

I touched my temple in a farewell salute. “I don’t need any favors. I’m sure your daughter would like to see you. I left her at her apartment with George.”

“George is here?” he asked, surprised.

“He was waiting in her apartment.”

Carthage nodded thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t have expected that. How did she act?”

“Like a couple reunited after a terrible experience.”

“Did she touch him?”

The question seemed strange. “Of course.”

“No, you misunderstand my question,” Carthage said. “Did he touch her first, or did she touch him?”

I clearly recalled George’s awkward arm around Kiren’s shoulders, just as I recalled her hand on the back of my neck.

Was Carthage trying to figure out if his daughter actually cared for George Joyce? Did he still question if the marriage was a ploy to steal his company, or was his daughter truly in love?

Was Carthage the kind of man who distrusted any kind of love?

“I really couldn’t say, Mr. Carthage.”

Carthage had a hungry look. He glanced back at his newsfeeds, swiping frantically.

“Goodbye, Deputy,” he said.

27

“You were ordered to report six hours ago, Deputy Walker.”

I knew it was impossible, but even Ellie sounded pissed, her tone almost clipped. “Sorry, Ellie. I was dead tired. I needed to sleep.”

“No apologies are necessary, Trainee Walker. Though your change in attitude will be noted.”

“Thanks. Please log me as in-service. I’ll report to the Sheriff as soon as I can.”

“By soon, do you mean immediately, Deputy Walker? I will update your transit status.”

“Yes. Sure.”

Instead of sending the lift up to the admin section, I selected five levels below me, where the holding cells were located. Ellie didn’t comment, leading me to believe she’d deduced my intention.

Everywhere I went in the department, moods varied from angry to downright pissed. Several offices were openly drinking at their desks, having just lost several friends in one operation. The news feeds were full of images of the law enforcement fleet under attack in the Chop. While public sentiment seemed to be on our side, it didn’t change the fact that the Department might have just suffered the worst loss of life in its history.

The counts were still coming in on wounded and lost. No one could remember a time the Department had suffered so many losses in one day. Many were cursing the Union for not supporting the mission, while others were starting to question the Sheriff for sending Tactical in at all. No one seemed to be connecting me with what had happened, which allowed me to leave the lift and walk directly into Holding without a second glance from anyone. There was still work to do on Taurus Station, and now fewer deputies to get it done.

The sergeant on duty at Holding gave me a tired glance. “You’re lucky they haven’t pulled you for inmate coverage. Every shift is down after the attack.”

I submitted the interview request and the sergeant barely looked at it. He waved me past, rubbing his temples.

Cherise sat on the bed in a solitary confinement cell, wearing an orange inmate’s suit, the sleeves rolled up to show her wiry forearms. She recognized me and gave a feral grin as I pulled up a chair to face her on the opposite side of the viewing wall.

“I hear Kallaver taught the cops of Taurus a lesson,” she said.

“And I left him with a hole in his stomach,” I said, exaggerating my shot in his shoulder. “He might have reached a med unit in time. Looked like he was bleeding out, though.”

“You’re bluffing. Clark would have found a way to tell me.”

I chuckled, making the noise sound lazy and bored. “Clark is definitely dead. I know he’s a decent actor from that little show in Ronny’s place, but you can’t fake getting your skull cracked open.”

Cherise stared at me. “You’re lying.”

I shook my head. “His head got smashed into the deck repeatedly.”

That didn’t necessarily mean he was dead, but she didn’t need to know that.

“I’m going to murder you, Deputy.”

“That would be unfortunate.” I glanced at the data screen in the middle of her cell’s viewing wall. “Looks like you’ve got a lot more charges than just abduction. You’re going to be busy for a little while.”

She continued to pull at her hair, tremors rocking her body. “Don’t act smart with me. Unless you show some balls and kill me now, we’ll see each other again. I’ll pay you back for Clark.”

“I didn’t realize you were a couple.”

“He was a good man.”

“Well, I’m sorry for your loss.”

I watched her, trying to figure out how to shift into the questions I wanted to ask. I might have come on too strong. I had nothing to offer her, and if she blamed me for Clark’s death, she wasn’t going to give me anything freely. I scanned the charges against her, reading a number of low-level crimes that would most likely be wrapped up in the larger offenses.

“Have you talked to anybody yet?” I asked.

“I’ve been sitting here since I got picked up at the apartment.”

“Did they feed you at least?”

“A water bulb.” She huffed.

I nodded, considering. “You hungry?”

“Are you a moron? Yes, I’m hungry.”

I went to the breakroom and returned with what was probably some officer’s lunch. Sliding it through the service opening in the viewing wall, I made a mental note to figure out whose it was and replace it.

Cherise’s face was splotchy, eyes bloodshot, but she didn’t hesitate to attack the food. She sat on the bed and tore into the sandwich with gusto.

I sipped a coffee as she emptied the plate. It was bad, but the bitterness kept me focused.

When she was finished, Cherise leaned back on the bed and looked at the ceiling. It took me a second to notice the tears in her eyes.

“Did he die fighting?” she asked finally.

“Yes.”

Her eyes widened. “Hand to hand or gunfight?”

“Hand to hand,” I said.

“You’re kidding me. He was always terrible at hand-to-hand. I told him. With who?”

I looked at my coffee.

“It wasn’t you, was it?”

“Nope.”

Cherise glared at the wall, brows knitted. “Probably Kallaver. He always hated Clark. But that doesn’t make any sense, not with the debt they owed each other. Kallaver’s a lot of things, but he’s good on his word. No. It was someone else.”

The hook seemed set. “Who hired you?” I asked.

James Carthage may have owned up to the crime, but there were things that didn’t add up for me. Someone else had to be involved.

“That’s what you want to know? You think I’m going to just tell you?”

I shrugged. “You can tell me. I can tell you what you want to know. Or you can wait and never know. I could also help with some of these lower level charges, probably get you out sooner. You want to get back to the CZ, right?”

Cherise sighed. “It’s not like it matters anyway. In fact, I think it’s funny. You want to know who hired us to grab Kiren Carthage? Kiren Carthage did. She put out the hit on herself.”

I stared at her. That made no sense. Kiren had been a prisoner in the station. She was fighting Clark —had even killed the man—and Kallaver hadn’t said anything in the command deck. Franca and Trix hadn’t said anything.

Had they been in on it with her? I wondered if Kiren had used some backchannel and kept her identity private. Would Kallaver take that kind of job without knowing who was paying? If so, how would Cherise know the truth? Of course I had to consider the woman was lying just to mess with me, so I decided to probe some more.

“Who coordinated the job?” I asked.

“All we had to do was pretend it was a crime of opportunity. It was Clark’s job. He brought me in because we do everything together.” She caught herself. “Did. I should have known this one was dirty. As soon as I saw you were with her, I knew this was going to be a mess.”

“Why?” I asked, more to myself than her.

“Stupid way to postpone a wedding, if you ask me. I would have just beat the groom’s ass and called it a day.”

That theory didn’t quite work for me. Kiren could have postponed the wedding anytime she wanted. No, the abduction had to be about something else.

Her father. She had wanted to see if James Carthage actually cared.

I shook my head. That was too simple.

But what did Keldon say? Revenge, sex, or money.

“So who was it?” Cherise said, shaking me out of my thoughts.

“What?”

“Who killed my Clark? That’s our deal.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I found him in an apartment below the Factory’s command deck with his head smashed in. It was obvious he’d lost a fight with someone.”

She stared at me, then opened her mouth to release a furious howl.

The sergeant came running from the check-in desk. “What the hell did you do, Walker?”

“Nothing, Sergeant. I can’t give her the info she wants. So she’s throwing a tantrum.”

The sergeant pressed his lips together and stared at me with open suspicion. “Are you listening to comms?”

“No.”

“Dispatch is yelling for you. You’re late to see the Sheriff.”

28

Sheriff Nagel stalked his office like a panther, yelling at someone on the other end of a comms link.

I entered the office just as the Sheriff said, “You tell that asshole I want every Union dreadnought in the system. The Governor is on my side and I’m going to get the President herself down here to push the button. I’m going to eradicate every gang in the Chop from my space. Do you understand me? You tell your general she can kiss my ass.”

Nagel didn’t wait for the person to answer. He closed the connection with a slammed fist on his desk and looked up to find me standing at parade rest. His vicious expression didn’t change.

“Walker.”

“Reporting as ordered, Sheriff.”

Nagel shook his head. “No, you didn’t. I called for you when you first arrived back on Station. Where have you been since then? You get a haircut?”

I swallowed. “I escorted Kiren Carthage home, then I came here.”

“And you still didn’t come see me like I told you. You went to interview that kidnapper. Did you learn anything at least?”

“She said Kiren Carthage hired Kallaver for the kidnapping.”

Nagel stared at me. A vein in his broad temple throbbed like a bug under his leathery skin. “And you believed her?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Well, let’s all go home then. Trainee Walker doesn’t know his head from a hole in the ground. What’s your educated guess?”

“That she’s telling the truth.”

Nagel chewed his lip. “Go on.”

“Seems simple enough,” I said. “She wanted to hurt her father. I think he caught wind of it because he gave me a faulty handgun as a gift so I couldn’t protect her. Carthage said she was a threat to his business. The marriage didn’t seem to matter much.” I shrugged.

“You think that’s all there is to it? Rich daughter wants to get daddy’s attention before she gets imprisoned in a marriage?”

I didn’t see George imprisoning anyone, but I agreed.

The Sheriff stood and crossed his arms, taking a deep breath. He seemed to be calming down. “I think you’ve gone past simple into stupid. That’s the most overcomplicated plan I’ve ever heard. You’re an idiot, Walker. But we lost nearly half of the Tactical Division today.” Nagel caught himself, overcome with emotion.

I watched the Sheriff, seeing how deeply he felt the loss of his deputies. Despite the yelling and belittlement, there was a heart there. There was a box of napkins on the edge of the Sheriff’s desk, and I stepped forward to offer one.

Nagel swatted the container away. “I didn’t tell you to move, Deputy. We lost better deputies than you can ever hope to be. I saw the way you walked in here, thinking I was going to congratulate you for a job well done. As far as I’m concerned, you’re to blame for not figuring this mess out sooner. You nearly got your trainer killed and led the department into a war zone. You’re obviously not ready for any kind of duty. I’m extending your probationary period. If I didn’t need people, you’d be out on your ass.”

I stood stiffly, processing the Sheriff’s words. I badly wished Keldon was standing next to me, ready to make a wisecrack that showed he wasn’t worried about risking his career. But that was easy for him; Keldon’s career was behind him. I had a future to worry about.

Or did I?

This was the moment where I could tell Nagel fuck off, that I’d done my best, that he didn’t have the whole story.

Instead, I watched him fight tears over his dead people.

Was this really where I wanted to be? Standing here, getting yelled at by sheriff after sheriff?

I realized I’d stopped listening to Nagel when he snapped at me. “Answer me, Deputy.”

I blinked slowly. “I didn’t hear what you said, Sheriff.”

Nagel’s eyeballs looked like they were going to explode from their sockets. “What are you going to do to prove to me that you deserve to be a deputy in this department?”

I considered the question. “I’m not here to prove anything to you, Sheriff. I’m here for the people out there.”

Not quite a screw you, but close enough.

Nagel gritted his teeth. The veins on his temples twitched. He closed his mouth, straightened, and then launched into another tirade. “Let me tell you something about bullshit, Trainee.”

Later, somebody told me I set the record for epic ass-chewings in Nagel’s office. The legend was helped by the fact that Nagel hadn’t closed his door, and his thunderous voice echoed out over the bullpen and into the lift. Some helpful soul transferred my ass-chewing to the Dispatch admin net, so the whole Department could experience the love along with me.

The Sheriff covered a whole history of epic mess-ups he had known throughout his career, some merely stupid, some unlucky, others immoral. He spent a few minutes berating me for holding the barest glimmer of intelligence, which would most likely trip me up throughout my short career, if I even managed to reach the end of my extended probationary period.

My ears grew numb. I waited for the Sheriff to grow hoarse and tired of beating his desk, even when everything on its surface ended up swept at my boots. Nagel’s arms were long enough that he could jab at my face from behind the desk and threaten my eyes and nose. His index finger flew at me like a missile, daring me to look away or break my parade rest.

“You’re going to take what worthless evidence you have about this case down to Investigations and leave it with them, and I don’t want to hear you ever say the word Carthage again, do you understand me?”

“Yes, Sheriff.”

“Then you’re going to report to Lieutenant Stacey Bird, the hardest, meanest training officer in this department. She’s failed more fools like you than I can count.”

“Yes, Sheriff.”

“And if you do graduate your field training and somehow find yourself an actual member of my department, sworn to protect and defend the good people of Taurus Station, I’m going to make sure you spend your first five years in the deepest hole we’ve got. I’m going to put you on lost and found, or animal control, or code enforcement. I’m going to send you out verifying party barge sanitation. I’m going to squeeze the last bit of self-respect out of your smartass body and hang it up on my wall until you beg me to do traffic control. Do you understand me, Trainee?”

“Yes, Sheriff.”

“Get the hell out of my office.”

I spun an about-face and marched out of the office. Out in the bullpen, people stared at me with slack mouths. Others grinned and a few golf clapped silently. An old sergeant saluted as he leaned back in his seat, boots on his desk.

In the lift, a corporal from records named Sanches glanced at me as the doors closed. “You all right, kid?” she asked.

I leaned against the back of the lift and wiped my forehead. “Was that bad?”

“That was the best ass-chewing I’ve ever heard. But I’ve only been with the department for twelve years.”

“Is my career over?”

Sanches shrugged. “Let me tell you something about Lieutenant Bird. She loves her paperwork. Whatever you do, don’t mess that up. As for the sheriff, the great thing about him is that he’ll bite off a piece of your ass in the morning and then drink beers with you at night. He doesn’t hold a grudge, unless you really give him a reason.” She looked me up and down. “So you’re the recruit who managed to infiltrate Kallaver’s Factory, huh?”

“Caused the big failure? Yeah.”

“Oh, it was bad, but it could have been worse. We saved a lot of people, too.”

I stared at her. “Really? During the battle I saw ships going down all over the place.”

Sanches nodded. “It was bad, but it could have been worse. Haven’t you been reading the situation briefings?”

“I’ve been too busy.”

She tapped the files in her hands. “Always read the daily briefings. Your ass wouldn’t sting so much right now if you’d done that. If you aren’t breaking shit and earning complaints, you aren’t doing your job. That’s what cops do.”

I swallowed, nodding, and focused on the level indicator as we dropped. I didn’t know what to feel now, except that I wanted to see Keldon.

The lift slowed and Corporal Sanches got off at her level. She smiled wryly from the doorway. “I liked your answer in there, Walker. Especially saying that with the Hall of Heroes right behind you? Got me right in the fee-fees. I do it for the people, Sheriff!”

I watched Sanches fight laughter as the doors closed.

29

Keldon survived his wounds, though he did lose all of his limbs. This didn’t seem to bother him much since the department’s hazard insurance got him augmented replacements, all top of the line.

In the days that followed, I learned about Lieutenant Stacey Bird.

Before making detective, she had come up as a street deputy, later working cases in organized crime, Port Authority, and greater event planning. After that she moved into Internal Affairs, where she routed a weapons ring, identified an accountant embezzling millions, and stomped out favoritism in the spouse’s volunteer association. No one was safe from her watchful eye. As an IA, she was feared and avoided. On the rare occasion she entered the canteen for coffee, the room went quiet.

She was a wiry woman who kept her brown hair bobbed short and had never bothered to change the blade nose in the middle of her face, gray eyes blazing on either side.

As Sanches had warned me, Bird hardly ever left her office. This was good and bad. I was free during most of my shift—free to screw up as much as possible—before reporting to her at the end of the day.

As I stood at parade rest in front of her desk, she reviewed my patrol recordings and assessed my reports. She poured over my journals and asked detailed questions about why I had taken certain actions, without offering any feedback beyond a raised eyebrow or slight, “Hmm, interesting.” She never acknowledged the fact that I didn’t have a training officer nearby to verify a decision.

“You’re past that point,” Bird liked to say, acid dripping from her words like I was too stupid to know better.

I wasn’t sure when I realized that Lieutenant Bird was lonely, but it was sometime near our third week, when she asked me to clearly describe the interior of a casino, down to the expressions on the faces of dealers, security, and wait staff. She rewound my data collection as I talked, verifying my descriptions.

“You weren’t paying attention,” she said. “This dealer is obviously on the take.”

I frowned at the screen, trying to determine how the bored face of the dealer indicated malfeasance.

“I’ll be honest, Lieutenant. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She raised a brow at me. “Does that mean you lie the rest of the time?”

“No, Lieutenant.”

“Then why are you being honest now?”

I pressed my lips together, not sure how to survive this line of inquiry.

“Look at his posture,” she said, pointing. “He’s beaten down. He’s tired. Look at how he shuffles. That’s the only time he pays attention. He’s counting cards.”

“Why would anyone bother to do that?”

The casinos had centuries of experience in developing the best security in the known systems. There was no doubt each card was AI-enabled with nano tracking. The casino could foresee every outcome of every game, matched against the bio-signatures of everyone passing through their doors.

I knew all this because Bird had explained it during our many meetings, when she would get distracted from my recordings to explain the deep background on whatever aspect of Taurus Station we were reviewing. She had explained the street engineering requirements of the party barges, the necessity of inbound port cycling for freight management, and how the Station Council elected leaders. To Bird, Taurus was a single organism comprised of parties and power that ate lives and raw material and spat out cash.

At one point I had asked, “The Sheriff said you were a training officer. Have you ever actually trained anyone?”

She’d replied in a tone that suggested I might come to regret opening my mouth. “Of course. Why would you ask that? Are you questioning my authority?”

For Bird, the term “authority” didn’t refer to power. She meant competence.

Bird had no sense of time, either, and the lectures often stretched long past what should have been the end of my shift. I learned to plan my paperwork time before my follow-up meetings with her.

There was nothing worse than a hard shift involving a chase or fight, and then spending four hours with Bird, followed by report writing and another check-in with the watch sergeant before I could submit anything to records. My longest ten-hour shift had stretched to sixteen. I’d been tempted to take a sick day just to sleep.

Despite the interminable meetings, which sometimes felt more like personal therapy for Bird than training, I found myself learning tactics and techniques from her that Keldon had never taught me. Keldon operated on relationships, while Bird understood the macro workings of Taurus. Bird helped me grasp how activity at the ports might encourage organized crime, while Keldon’s training showed me how to approach individual workers in the docks to find out where the crime was truly happening.

Whenever I had a slow patrol day, Bird liked to pull out my recordings from the Factory and play them on a screen that filled one wall of her office. By now, I was too familiar with the different sections of the recording, from the cargo bay to the comms station and the fest hall.

Bird enjoyed pausing on the moment I’d met Haley.

“See how she’s sizing you up? Why didn’t she kill you when you walked in the door?”

“Because she’s a nice person.”

“You didn’t know that then. You completely lost your mind in terms of officer safety. You didn’t clear the room before entry. You just went inside, hoping the universe was going to hand you what you needed. Somehow it did. You should be dead right now.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“What else would you say about it?”

I stretched my neck. “I was in a desperate situation. My partner was wounded. I was surrounded by criminals and didn’t have a way off the station. Getting a message back to Tactical was my priority and the comms center seemed like the best place to do that.”

“I don’t have a problem with your plan, per se. You also didn’t take offensive action against her as soon as she noticed you.”

“Do you see how big she is?”

“You’re a trained deputy. Size shouldn’t matter.”

I bit down a remark about how long it had been since Bird was on the street, when I noticed something in the recording that hadn’t jumped out at me before. Haley’s display had the passcode for an encryption key on its face.

“Hey.” I motioned for the lieutenant to pause the recording. “Did you see that? There’s a channel code on her display.”

“It’s a comms center.”

“Did Investigations ever run it down?”

“Hold on.” Bird sorted through her data files, bony fingers flicking across her desk.

“There’s nothing here.”

“Can we run it?” I asked.

Bird turned down the edges of her mouth. “Protocol would be to submit the request through Technical Support.”

“But you have the authority to do it.”

“I do. As Internal Affairs, I’m entrusted with a broad range of administrative authority.”

I cursed inwardly. I shouldn’t have reminded her about her beloved bureaucracy. She was right, though. Running the request wasn’t illegal, but if we found something, the evidence would be more useful if we followed the proper channels.

“We should submit the request,” I said.

“I just did. Let’s see if they honor my priority status.”

I raised my eyebrows. Bird actually looked excited for once.

“There we go.” She sounded pleased with herself. Effective bureaucracy always made her happy. “Sending the investigative query.”

Bird transferred her desk display to the wall we had been watching. A black panel appeared with the passcode and channel at its top. A series of dotted lines ran down the panel as the Investigative AI checked the network address, followed by addresses and pages of encrypted data.

“Stop,” Bird commanded the AI. “Give me an origination address. Assess and provide.”

The AI opened a new panel to display a map, and a third to provide new text. Haley stood frozen on the wall recording, surrounded by floating black rectangles.

“Carthage Industries,” Bird read, with a network link back to their headquarters. Didn’t you visit James Carthage there?”

“Yes, I did,” I said.

“Did you know James Carthage was running for Station Council?”

“Not until you told me.”

Bird laughed. “That’s good. You have a knack for hiding your ignorance behind a smart remark. You should know what’s happening with the government. They pay your salary. I already explained that.”

“I don’t understand why you’re changing the subject.”

Bird raised an eyebrow, which she often did when I wasn’t grasping the point of one of her questions.

I wasn’t interested in talking about state government. I wasn’t surprised that Haley had been monitoring a feed to the Carthage headquarters. On the surface, it made sense that Haley would be monitoring transmissions back to Carthage if Kiren had hired Kallaver. But Kiren was in the Factory at that point. This suggested there was ongoing communication even while Kiren was under Clark’s control.

Maybe James Carthage had been trying to get something out of Kallaver after all?

“I see your brain working,” Bird said.

“Why didn’t investigations catch this? The review system should have picked it up as easily as we did.”

“Any number of reasons. If this is your first lesson in checking anything you want done, I don’t know if I can help you.”

Bird found a physical chip in her drawer and plugged it into a slot on her desk. When a beep sounded, she pushed back from her desk and stood. Everything we had been studying on the display blinked out when she removed the chip. She walked around her desk for the door.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Down to TechDiv. I want to hear from Stam if anybody asked him to assess this recording.”

In the lift, I said, “There are a thousand reasons the data didn’t get checked. I’m the one who submitted the files to Investigations. They might have assigned the lowest priority. Keldon wasn’t here to do it, and you weren’t my training officer yet.”

“That’s possible,” Bird agreed, but said nothing else.

As we dropped levels, I didn’t like the sinking feeling in my stomach. The list of people who might try to suppress this kidnapping case was very short. As far as I knew, Sheriff Nagel was the only person who knew I’d returned from the Factory with a full tour of their facility, command deck, fighting capability, and a hoard of stolen goods. I had to admit that I would have expected something more to come of the data, but I hadn’t been surprised when no one from Investigations followed up. I was a trainee. This was above my pay grade.

Having Bird on the case, however, was a different matter.

“You’ve been reviewing the data the whole time,” I said abruptly.

She raised a thin eyebrow. “I had to start with your daily logs to see if you were an idiot.”

When she didn’t say more, I asked, “What else have you found?”

“At least six cases I’ve been working over the last five years tie back to the stolen goods you helpfully recorded on your walk through their cargo holds. Those birds alone are worth a small asteroid. You got some of the best imagery I’ve seen of Kallaver’s command section, and there were easily twenty faces in that fest hall that came back with warrants. I’m not a person to give compliments, Deputy Walker, but your mission was a success on the intelligence gathering alone, not to mention the fact that you saved the Carthage woman. Even if the whole thing was a scam to anger her father, the data you gained is priceless. I want someone to kidnap her again.”

I had a hard time trusting the praise. It was the first compliment she’d offered since I started working for her.

“The Sheriff wasn’t too pleased with me,” I said.

Lieutenant Bird’s expression clouded. “No, he wasn’t.”

We entered TechDiv and Bird walked past the admin desk without acknowledging the clerk.

Stam was hunched at his workbench, performing some delicate work on a disc-shaped object. He set down his tool and sealed the disc, straightening as Bird approached. When he spotted her, his round eyes went even wider in his goggles and his face split in a pleased smile.

“Stacey,” he said. “How nice of you to come see me.”

“Calm down, Stam,” she said, all business. “I need some information on a data dump that Walker here left with Investigations.”

Stam glanced around them to the door into his work area. “We should have some privacy then. Deputy Walker, will you close the door on your way out?”

“Close the door, but you’re staying here,” Bird ordered. “Didn’t you hear what I said, Stam? It’s his data.”

Stam pushed his goggles up his nose. “What’s his clearance?”

“I’m reading him in.”

The lead technician gave an irritated sigh and walked over to a console with random bits of equipment stacked on top of it. He fished its control board from under a manual.

“What are you looking for?” Stam asked.

Bird gave him the data sequence. He ran the query, then frowned. “One more time?”

When he ran the query again, Stam’s face screwed up like a fist. He wasn’t getting what he wanted from the machine, and that appeared to piss him off. He set his control board on a cleared bit of space on his workbench, then sat down, pulled his display closer to his face, and ran his fingers furiously over the board. I lost count of the number of commands Stam entered; the round man’s expression grew darker the longer he tried.

“There’s nothing here,” he said finally. “I can’t even find the location locater that I know should verify Walker was on Kallaver’s Factory. I’ve got Keldon’s shuttle, and Keldon up until he gets med extraction, but our Deputy Walker here doesn’t exist.”

Bird handed over the chip where she’d saved the mission data. “Use this,” she said.

“I can’t verify evidence off some random data chip. The record should be in the archives. Whatever’s on here doesn’t matter in court.”

“I can verify its authenticity,” Bird said. “Copy it and give the chip back to me.”

“Give me your security token.”

She did, which seemed to surprise him.

“All right, then,” Stam said. “I guess you’re serious.”

He fed the chip into his console and made the transfer. He handed the chip back, then opened the file. Data rolled across the screen, populating all the records he had been looking for, from the time Keldon and I had left the station for the Chop until I was picked up by the rescue hauler.

“Part of the problem is that he was using civilian recording equipment,” Stam said. “But I think that just made it easier to hide. Somebody tried to suppress this data.” He stared at his console like it was a snake about to bite him.

“That seems accurate,” Bird said.

“There are only two people with the admin access to erase evidence.” Stam gave Bird a desperate look, his eyes swimming in his goggles. “I’m one.”

“And the Sheriff is the other,” Bird said. “I know.”

“What are we supposed to make of that?” Stam asked.

“You don’t make anything of it,” Bird told him. “You do what you’re asked to do. And before you go thinking the Sheriff is dirty, remember that I’ve worked with Nagel for twenty-two years. He’s a politician—which is necessary to have survived so long on a crooked place like Taurus—but he serves justice. He’s a good man. He doesn’t need to explain himself to any of us.”

Based on Bird’s role as IA, I didn’t know what to make of the speech. She definitely didn’t sound impartial. I could only nod.

Stam opened his mouth then thought better of it. Instead, he attacked his control board again, running a series of commands that returned long lists of log entries.

“It’s completely gone,” he said eventually. “I know this was logged because I remember Walker bringing it down in that banged up civilian helmet. But everything is gone.”

“Reenter the record from my chip,” Bird said. “Show me as the logging officer.”

“You want your name on this?” Stam asked.

“Do what I told you.”

“Done.”

Lieutenant Bird nodded, then turned to me. “Have you heard anything from Kiren Carthage since you dropped her at home?”

“She sent me a wedding invitation.”

“Oh, really. How nice of her.”

“They delayed it,” I said. “It’s tomorrow. I was thinking of going.”

“Stop thinking and start planning,” Bird said. “You’re going.”

30

A package from TechDiv was waiting for me at the check-in desk when I arrived back at the Department. In the locker room, I unpacked the case to find a suit of covert armor, lined with kinetic response panels, embedded sensors, and an enhanced communications link to Ellie. A hand-written note from Bird instructed me to wear the suit under the formal clothes in my locker.

“I don’t have any formals in my locker,” I muttered.

Sure enough, a tailored gray suit hung next to my battered duty uniform, complete with tie and dress shoes. Another officer whistled when I stood in front of the locker room mirror and inspected my new duds.

“You going to a funeral?” the officer asked.

“Wedding,” I said.

“Same thing, then.” He guffawed at his own joke.

Adjusting the jacket, I snorted. The cut allowed for the holster hanging snugly under my left armpit, then I practiced drawing several times until I finally didn’t catch the butt on my jacket.

I clipped my badge to my belt as Bird sent another query.

“What are you doing, Walker? We were supposed to leave ten minutes ago.” I wasn’t used to the excitement in her voice.

“I’m ready,” I said.

“Meet me at the motor pool.”

When we met at the line of duty cruisers, I expected her to make me take pilot. Instead, the lieutenant took control of our assigned vehicle and chided me when I took too long to get strapped in.

“I want time at the mixer,” she said. “We’re already pushing arriving too late.”

“You sound excited,” I said.

Bird was wearing a brilliant blue suit with black piping, and her short hair had been styled flat against the sides of her head like brown wings. She looked more like a company’s executive officer than a detective.

“I don’t get out often,” Bird said. “Also, we’re going to bust some criminals, which always gets me excited.”

She powered up the cruiser but didn’t pull out of our spot. She activated the main display and darkened the windows, hiding the two of us from outside eyes.

“I got ahold of the guest list,” she said, pulling up a grid on the display. Faces appeared in the squares. I recognized a few of them immediately, and was surprised to see Franca, Trix, Haley, Sheriff Nagel, and then Kallaver.

“That’s not a group I ever expected to see together,” I said.

Bird gave a feral grin. “It’s a who’s who of the local criminal syndicates.”

“And the Sheriff is going?”

“He’s invited. I think that’s a joke. He won’t be there.”

“Isn’t it a little brash to make a list of all the people who are going to be at the event when these aren’t people that Carthage would normally associate with?”

“They didn’t publish this list,” Bird said. “I got it from the hotel’s security division.”

I didn’t ask how she managed that. Instead, I chose to examine the faces on the list, recognizing several from my run through the Factory.

“So what’s the mission?” I asked.

“From your recording, I have everything I need to bring Kallaver in. We’re taking him down.”

“We? You mean just us? Shouldn’t we bring in Tactical?”

Bird shook her head. “Tactical would blow a hole in the hotel. We’re going to do this so quietly no one will notice we’re there.”

“Kiren is going to notice me,” I said.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Walker. You were her flunky and that’s all. You played right into her hostile takeover plan.”

“You’ve decided that’s what this is all about?”

“Carthage stock tanked after word of the abduction got out. Somebody bought it up. I’m still tracking that down. I think it was Kiren.”

I remembered James Carthage saying his stock was going back up. He hadn’t mentioned new owners.

I also couldn’t help recalling Keldon’s warning about protecting my ass.

Bird set the cruiser in motion. There was no stopping events now. And maybe Bird had more skills than I gave her credit for. What if getting Kallaver alone might just work? I shifted in my new armor, still getting used to the places where it was stiff under my suit.

“You have an arrest warrant?” I asked.

Bird was sifting through data on the display as the cruiser left the motor pool. “Of course, I do. Now, here’s what we’re going to do.”

The cruiser dropped and righted itself, then launched into the transit corridor. The ceremony was in a private hotel on the other side of Taurus. A corner of the display tracked our progress.

“Kallaver is going to be there with his own crew,” Bird said. “He usually travels with at least five of his trusted people.” She highlighted five grim-looking faces on the grid. I didn’t see Clark among them, so maybe he was dead after all.

“They’ll be armed. So if we need to catch any of them for later questioning, debilitating force is authorized. Understood?”

“Yes, Lieutenant.”

“Good. So Kallaver is going to recognize me. We’ve both been in the game too long for him not to. After the ceremony, when they move into the celebration and everyone splits up into their own parties, we’re going to isolate Kallaver from his crew and take him into custody.”

I identified at least ten missing steps in her plan. Without seeing the location, I had no way of knowing if she was spouting fantasy or if we might have a chance of separating the crime boss from his crew. Bird was talking quickly and I couldn’t get a word in to ask questions.

“You’ve got the armor under your suit.”

“I do,” I said.

She looked me over. “You’re not invincible, but damn near.”

“My head doesn’t seem to have any armor,” I said.

“So don’t get shot in the face.”

I nodded. “Do we have anything more than our service weapons?” I sincerely hoped she was going to tell me we had an arsenal in the cruiser’s storage lockers.

“You don’t need anything more,” she snapped. “This is a grab operation, not one of Tactical’s clumsy frontal assaults. Aren’t you listening?”

I nodded, pressing my lips closed.

Bird spent the rest of our trip describing the layout of the hotel, other people on the guest list, and how our next steps would be seizing Kallaver’s transport through the Port Authority.

“We’re going to shut down one of the worst gangs in the system with a single surgical strike,” she declared. “It’s going to be glorious, Walker. Just wait. I’m going to make you famous.”

If anyone else had said those words, I would have jumped out of the cruiser. From Bird, though, with her precision and intense focus, the promise seemed credible. There was a reason everyone in the Department feared her. She never made threats; she was all execution. Still, there was a calculating look in her eyes that made me wary.

Also, what if I didn’t want to be famous? Keldon had made that sound like a bad thing.

“Have you tried your suit’s passive HUD yet?” she asked, then grimaced when I shook my head. “Well hurry up and get it figured out. We’re almost there.”

“How?” I asked.

“Check the inside pocket.”

I found a small case containing a tactical lens, something I’d heard about in training but never got to use.

Bird reached over to tap a point close to my collar bone. I caught a glimmer in the corner of my eye, and then the cruiser’s cab filled with a subtle collection of indicators and tracking icons, similar to what I typically saw in my duty helmet but only fully visible when I focused on them. I experimented with moving my gaze over parts of the cruiser’s control system, surprised by the addition of contextual menus and status icons. The suit had connected to the cruiser’s status AI without me realizing it, and now it offered up anything I wanted to know about the vehicle.

“Whoa,” I said. “I’m keeping this.”

“You do as you’re told today, and I’ll sign the overlook forms.”

Bird was definitely acting against character. Based on everything I knew about her, information she had proved true throughout my training, there was no way she would let me keep specialized equipment that hadn’t been properly assigned. However, she was a lieutenant, which I figured gave her quartermaster authority.

I stopped myself, remembering Keldon’s advice.

Something weird was going on here, and I needed to pay attention if I was going to get out alive. Fancy armor wasn’t going to protect me from Kallaver and his men, not to mention every other criminal attending the wedding.

Armor also wouldn’t protect me from Kiren if she got frisky again. I had to admit I’d been thinking about that kiss way too much since I’d seen her last.

Settling uncomfortably in my seat, I reached across my chest to touch the butt of my pistol, wishing I could check in with Keldon. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was getting in over my head here and no one was going to pull me out.

“I’ve been hunting Kallaver for years, Walker,” Bird said, slapping the control panel with barely suppressed excitement. “Years! Do you know what it’s like to spend half your career chasing someone who keeps slipping away on the letter of the law? It’s frustrating. It eats at you. It makes you wonder why you do this job at all. Well, today I’m going to pin that beetle to the wall.”

She corrected herself. “We’re going to stake his ass to the wall. You and me, Walker. This is going to be glorious.”

Oh shit.

31

Mounting the broad marble steps of the Hotel Chance Wins, I wondered if there was a ten code for “My partner is insane?”

A short line of people waited at the top of the staircase, where black-suited hotel security checked them through a scanning system. I noted the checkpoint and glanced at Bird, expecting her to direct us to a different entry point. She wasn’t looking at me, focused instead on walking right up the center of the stairs. Her face was full of excitement, and her eyes were on fire.

“Hurry up, Walker,” she called back. “We’re deputies on patrol. They can’t deny us entry to the casino. If they try, I’ll give them a lesson in station law.”

She was right, though. At the checkpoint, Bird showed her credentials and the guards waved us through. She looked disappointed that they didn’t want to test her but continued into the hotel lobby.

Groups of people filled the corridor as we progressed, following the signs, until the crowd coalesced into a line feeding through the wide entrance to a banquet hall. Low music filtered from the doorway.

I recognized Harvey Joyce standing in a group, sipping from a champagne flute, and then other faces leapt out at me. Several familiar bandits from the Factory’s festival hall were also in attendance. I had half-expected Bird’s intel to be wrong, but there they were, and some were actually dressed for the occasion. I was surprised to see Dierdre Deathmonger and Drina Silver from Rolo Hab. Drina gave me a nod in recognition. She smiled with what might have been an invitation.

I activated the suit’s advanced comms, expecting Ellie’s voice. Instead, the peripheral HUD offered me hundreds of nearby comms networks. Several I knew were encrypted showed as read-ready. I didn’t take the offer, figuring the info wasn’t much good without a warrant. I still spent a few seconds considering the possibilities.

“Ellie,” I said. “You got me and Lieutenant Bird in service at the Chance Wins?”

“Logged, Trainee Walker. Patrol check?”

“Uh, yeah.” I wasn’t sure what I should use as a purpose if Bird hadn’t already logged our mission. Patrol check worked for just about everything.

“You’ve got several Factory ID matches in your vicinity. Proceed with caution.”

“I know,” I said. “Do you have Kallaver?”

“Negative, Trainee Walker.”

“Let me know as soon as you do.”

I glanced at Bird. Rather than paying attention to my report, she was searching for a fast way through the line. While I hung back a little, doing my best to size up the crowd, the lieutenant walked directly to the front of the line and pushed her way ahead of a rich-looking woman in a purple dress. Before I could follow, Bird was on the other side of the door and had disappeared from sight.

“Ellie, keep a tracking lock on Lieutenant Bird. Let me know if she leaves the banquet hall.”

“Affirmative.”

I tapped my comms node. “Lieutenant Bird, you want me to go around the hall? I’m still outside in line.”

“Stay in line and get inside,” she replied. “We both need to get good scans of everyone here. Hurry up.”

I wasn’t far from the door. I’d be inside the hall in just a few minutes without the need to push anyone out of the way.

Turning back to survey the room, I found Dierdre the Deathmonger walking up beside her mechanic. Both were dressed in slim dinner dresses that were an extreme change from the outfits they’d been wearing when we met. The effect was startling. Drina’s spiky silver hair was slicked back, her augmented arm giving off a dull shine. Dierdre’s dress showcased long legs.

“Well, well. If it isn’t Keldon’s recruit,” Dierdre said. “I’m glad you’re still alive.”

“Doing my best,” I said.

Dierdre cocked an eyebrow. “I truly meant that. We heard the stories out of the Factory. You must look like swiss cheese under that suit.”

For a second, I thought Dierdre had realized I was wearing armor, until she flicked my jacket lapel. She thumbed the material.

“Come work for me and we’ll get you better clothes,” she said.

“One job is enough for now.”

“Well, if you ever get tired of low pay and thankless people, come see us. Drina likes having you around.”

The technician rolled her eyes.

“I’m not tired of it yet,” I said.

Dierdre smiled. “Give it time. Taurus has a way of grinding people up. Why do you think we prefer to visit?”

She might have been referring to Keldon. Sure, he was burned out, but he didn’t let it affect his work. All I had to do was think back to our many end of shift journaling and him sharing an endless supply of stories. If anything, Keldon had a dark humor about everything that recognized the humanity in any situation. He liked to say, “When you’re always seeing people on their worst day, it helps if you can find something to laugh about.” It was something I’d observed in most of the veterans.

We reached the entry into the banquet hall, where attendants handed us silver pendants with the ceremony info embedded inside.

Drina swung her pendant in front of my face and said, “You’re getting even more sleepy. Soon you’ll be asleep with your face buried in cake.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I can only hope. So you’ve got a sense of humor after all?”

“I don’t get out much. I can actually be fun when I don’t have a hundred broken down ships to worry about.”

The banquet hall was lined with rows of seats, with small bars and food tables along the outer edges of the room. Eager attendants in white shirts and black pants stood by each serving area. I spotted Bird near the front of the room where the ceremony stage was surrounded by huge multi-colored bouquets.

According to the pendant, the ceremony would begin in thirty minutes. That should be plenty of time to find Kallaver if he was going to be on time. Drina surprised me by putting her hand on my shoulder for balance as she stood on her tiptoes to look around, mocking my searching expression.

“Looks like your partner ditched you,” she said.

“She’s not the only person I’m looking for.”

The mechanic cocked an eyebrow. “If you’re hunting for the bride, that’s bad luck. I wouldn’t blame you though. She’s a looker.”

Yeah. I kept my face neutral.

“I might be able to share you with another woman,” Drina teased. “But I’ll make her pay.”

“Have you been drinking?” I asked, teasing her back. “We’ve barely met and you’re getting all possessive.”

“She’s like that,” Dierdre warned. “Watch out.”

Drina pulled her hand away and crossed her arms. She tapped her metal forearm with a finger. “I’m allowed to have a good time once a year or so. The deputy here is safe.”

“Safe,” Dierdre laughed. “Ask Keldon about safe.”

I straightened my suit. At first, I thought the armor was making me sweat, but it was probably the need to keep being witty.

“I better get after my partner,” I said. “She’s going to disappear on me.”

That wasn’t a joke. Bird didn’t seem concerned with keeping me updated on her actions. Was she really so excited to catch Kallaver that she was going to ignore all the procedures she loved so much? I guessed chasing someone for twenty years would do that to you.

Dierdre walked up beside us, surveilling the room. “I think you have a woman problem, Deputy Walker.” She glanced at Drina. “Besides, he isn’t looking for Kiren Carthage. A little bird just told me Kallaver finally showed up. With the number of his people in here I assume the sheriff will be blowing this hotel off the station within the hour.”

“We’d better hurry up and get our free drinks then,” Drina said.

“Are you calling me a little bird, Ms. Dierdre?” a man asked behind her.

Drina and Dierdre turned to greet a small man in a bowler cap with a decorative cane in one hand. I assumed it was a weapon, since he walked with a swagger and not a limp.

“Fratley Oxonos,” Drina said. She glanced at Dierdre. “Apparently they let anybody on the guest list.”

“Now that’s not nice. You know James Carthage hasn’t much use for Renegades. We’ve got a moral code. Unlike his little gang of criminals.”

“I think you’re mistaking credit acquisition for a moral code,” Drina said.

Fratley gave her a feral smile. “I’d be happy to discuss it with you sometime over drinks.”

“I’m sure I’ll be busy,” the mechanic said, tapping her alloy arm.

The man’s gaze moved to me. “You’ve got cop face. Are you a cop, or just got a pole up your ass?”

“Fratley,” Dierdre scolded. “That’s no way to talk to our friend. You never know when you might need a deputy on your side. They’ve got plenty of uses.”

Drina nearly choked on her drink as she laughed.

I caught sight of Bird on the far side of the hall, glancing behind her before she ducked through a service door. Apparently, she had just learned the same info about Kallaver.

Damn it.

“Next time,” I said quickly. “I need to go.”

“Stay safe,” Drina said.

Dierdre laughed. “You can’t run, she knows where you live, Deputy.”

Fratley opened his mouth to add what would probably be a smart-ass remark. I ignored him and moved into the banquet hall.

“Lieutenant Bird,” I asked over the comms. “Have you got an update?”

“Hurry up, Walker,” her voice barked in my ear. “I’ve got Kallaver’s location.”

I slipped around several groups of people, cutting across three rows of chairs in the middle of the hall. In another minute I reached the door where the lieutenant had disappeared. I pulled the door open to find a corridor lined with catering trays, lounging employees, and no Bird.

32

Dodging catering trays and carts full of dirty dishes, I made a right turn that opened on the kitchen. A cook threw me an irritated scowl but pointed when I asked the way out.

The door on the far side opened into a carpeted hotel hallway. A few people who looked like they were headed for the wedding meandered toward me, already drunk.

There was no sign of Bird. I pulled up the map using my peripheral HUD, reaching out to Ellie.

“Have you got Lieutenant Bird? I’ve lost visual.”

“She’s approximately twenty meters from your location around a corner. Adding her to your display.”

“Thank you.” I should have just done this sooner. Drina had me distracted.

“She appears to have entered a guest room,” Ellie said.

That complicated things. I picked up a jog.

“Bird,” I called on the comms net. “What are you doing?”

“Hurry up, Walker,” she answered immediately. “I’m closing on his location.”

“I’m almost there.”

Around the corner, the hallway was lined by guest rooms. A few service trays sat along the walls and a cleaning drone was ambling down the middle of the carpet, chirping as it vacuumed.

Reaching the door where Bird had entered, I listened for a second and heard muffled voices, nothing distinct. I drew my pistol and used the law enforcement emergency override on the lock. The door swung inward on a suite filled with people in poorly fitting formal attire. Faces turned to look at me.

Factory faces.

“Ellie,” I said in a low voice. “I need back up. Now.”

Kallaver stood in the middle of the group with his arms crossed over his pot belly. Lieutenant Bird sat in a straight-backed chair in front of him, hands gripping the armrests. Two heavies stood on either side of her with their hands on her shoulders like they had just forced her to sit. One of them was Red, the big guy I had already met in the Fest Hall. From his excited expression, I could tell he remembered me.

“What’s that?” Kallaver asked. “I thought I heard you say something.”

“Step away from the chair,” I told the two holding Bird. “Let go of her.”

The crime boss smiled at me. “Nobody move.”

None of them looked like they planned to, anyway. Most of the men were gathered near Bird in the chair. I glanced to my right and left, finding three more on either side of me.

“It figures the trainee wouldn’t be far behind,” Kallaver said. Snickers followed the insult. “I’m surprised to see you so soon, Deputy Walker. That’s right. I know your name. I learned all about you. I don’t like it when people shoot me. You like what I did to your attack team? What did Nagel have to say? I would have liked to have seen the look on his face.”

I looked from Kallaver to Bird. She hadn’t acknowledged me yet. Her entire focus on was on Kallaver. Her holster was empty.

“You’re on the station,” Bird said. “You haven’t been on Taurus in fourteen years.”

Kallaver gave her a questioning look, then nodded as he remembered something. “That’s how long it’s been since I strung up your partner Drummond, isn’t it? I’d forgotten. That’s how much of a shit I give about you.”

Bird launched out of the chair, hands spread to choke Kallaver. The heavies struggled a surprising bit to get her back down. Two more stepped in to help.

“Stop,” I shouted. I couldn’t choose a good target. They all kept moving, and Bird moved with them, making it impossible to get a clear shot.

They ignored me and I couldn’t fire without risk of hitting Bird. She fought until Red hit her across the face. When that didn’t stop her, the big man pulled his fist back and struck again, snapping her head against the back of the tall seat.

I aimed at that one.

“Watch yourself, Gage Boy,” Kallaver said. “There are more of us than you in here. You keep your head and you might get out of here alive. I’m not going to kill her—yet.”

So Kallaver had killed Bird’s partner. Her behavior started making sense. Still, what did Keldon say about plans that only lived in our heads?

They get you killed. Communication saves lives, rookie.

I turned the pistol on Kallaver. “Maybe the answer is that I take you out,” I said.

“You could do that. But then she’d still die. And if I don’t come back, three EMPs hit Taurus. You remember them, right?”

“You’re bluffing. You used it.”

“I’ve got three of them. I think I told you that. But no, I didn’t set one off back at the Factory. I didn’t have to, not when everyone else showed up to the party. As far as we’re concerned today, if I don’t come back, the combined pulse will shut down all power to the station, killing everyone. “

There were probably fifteen of Kallaver’s people in the room. Several were staring hungrily at Bird. There was no way I could kill or disable enough of them to grab her and get out of the room.

“Hey there, Gage Boy,” Kallaver said. “I see your wheels turning over there. Don’t do anything stupid and you might live through this.”

“Tell your boy to get away from her.”

“Hit her again,” Kallaver said.

A maniacal grin split Red’s beard as he pulled his arm back then jabbed Bird in the side of the head. His fist made a popping sound against her skull and her eyes rolled back this time. The room broke into hoots of laughter.

Kallaver raised his drink to Bird’s drooping head. “You know, Gage Boy, I like it here. I might stay for a while.” Laughter surrounded him.

There was a clear path behind me out the door. I could get to cover and send another call for help, this one with better information.

I couldn’t leave Bird.

And if we both died? What good did that do?

“A new deputy,” Kallaver mused. “What an exciting time in your life. Where are you from, Gage Walker?”

Kallaver wanted to talk. That was good. If I could keep him talking, he might stop hurting Bird long enough for backup to arrive or for me to figure out a plan.

“Asteroid miner. I didn’t grow up anywhere.”

“Damn, that’s rough. I’m surprised you got out. Most don’t. Was that a Carthage rig you worked for?”

He must have known or he wouldn’t have asked.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to figure out his angle.

“Screw James Carthage. Am I right? His daughter too. When she hired me to kidnap her, I thought it was a joke. But it wasn’t, and both of them paid me for the same job. Idiots.” Kallaver laughed, then raised his hands, encouraging the others. “Screw the Carthages and Joyces and their little plans. They think they own this system. Well, I run the Chop.” He motioned toward the others in the room. “We run the Chop. Every one of my captains here is a killer ready to protect what’s ours. What Nagel doesn’t seem to understand is that without me, Taurus Station would wither and die. I’m the soil that feeds your pretty plant. I make the business happen when the government or the law gets in the way.”

Kallaver pointed a thumb at his sternum. “You get to know me, Deputy, and you might survive your time here on Taurus.”

I glanced from Kallaver to Bird again. She was still out.

“You seem to forget I already met you,” I said. “So far you’re all a bunch of assholes.”

The room went quiet. I turned my gaze back to Kallaver, finding him staring at me hard. His right eye twitched.

He twisted his mouth and laughed. Then he laughed louder, and the others copied him, creating a cacophony of noise that gave me a brief opening to talk to Ellie.

“Ellie,” I murmured. “What can you do for me?”

“Lethal force is authorized, Deputy Walker. You may dispense justice.”

As much as these assholes deserve it, if I started shooting, I knew we weren’t getting out of here alive. “What else?”

She paused. “I show that Lieutenant Bird issued your armor without proper training. Each of you is capable of issuing a local flash pulse effect. There is a limited magnetic pulse effect as well from the electrical discharge. It will disable unshielded circuitry within a five-meter radius Would you like me to initiate this capability?”

Kallaver slapped his stomach and pointed at me. I gave him a sly grin.

“Wait,” I said through gritted teeth.

After draining his drink, Kallaver threw it at the wall behind Bird’s head. Shattered glass fell across nearby faces, who howled laughter. Someone threw a bottle, and in another second the room was filled with crashing and laughter. I couldn’t protect Bird from shards that hit her drooped head.

“When’s the ceremony?” somebody asked.

“Who gives a shit?” another man answered.

Kallaver roared and the room went silent. “I give a shit. James Carthage thinks he’s going to have a nice wedding for his snake of a daughter? We’re here to show him otherwise.”

The crime boss looked at me. “And the Taurus Sheriff isn’t going to do shit about it. Are you, Gage Boy?”

I widened my smile and said, “Now, Ellie.”

33

I squeezed my eyes closed as the room flared with hard light, turning the insides of my eyelids red. The smell of burning plastic filled the air, along with shouts of pain and the sounds of people stumbling over furniture.

“Pulse complete,” Ellie announced.

I drew my pistol and waited two more seconds, just in case. I opened my eyes to find Kallaver’s men stumbling over each other, crawling across the floor, or leaning against the walls. It would have been comical if they weren’t all heavily armed. Several brandished handguns and knives, aiming at sounds.

Sidestepping groping hands, I reached Lieutenant Bird. She was still unconscious from the beating. I pulled one of her arms over my shoulders and got her on her feet. She woke a little as I lifted her, barely opening her swelling eyes.

“Kallaver,” she moaned. “Kill—”

The boss heard his name and swung around in our direction. “You’re dead, Walker.”

I didn’t respond, just enjoyed the sight of the blinded crime boss swiping at the air with useless fists. I led Bird through the confusion until I reached the panel at the door.

“Someone get him!” Kallaver roared.

Unfortunately, the pulse appeared to have cooked the security panel’s comms capability. I had to manually enter the override code, and I messed it up on the first try. I got the command right on the second try, but had to kick a man crawling on the floor that swiped at my feet. He called out to his friends, letting them know we were by the door. The others were stumbling toward us, following the sound of his shouts.

Finally, I yanked the door open and pulled Bird through. I turned and slammed it shut just as Red was crossing the threshold. I felt the impact with his face and heard something hit the floor, followed by angry yelling and more high-pitched screeching from the woman.

“Walker,” Bird said softly. “You came after me.”

“Well, you ordered me to.”

She shook her head. “I let my anger get the best of me. I thought I had him. There were too many.”

I shifted her so my non-firing arm was around her waist and we moved steadily down the hallway. There was no one in sight; the wedding had probably started.

Down the corridor, a concierge drone rolled ahead of us with empty plates rattling on its top. The drone paused at a door and waited for it to open.

“Come on,” I told Bird. “I’m going to get you a place to hide.”

“Emergency beacon,” she said softly.

“Already activated. Backup is on the way.”

The drone complained as I pushed it out of the doorway. The room we entered was a wreck, evidence of hard partying everywhere from the liquor in the bathtub, to the naked mattresses, champagne stains on the ceiling, and other liquids on the walls that I didn’t want to guess about.

The drone waited for us to get out of its way, then rolled forward until it encountered a dumped dinner plate, silverware, and the accompanying food. The door closed, and the drone started to clear the floor, chirping to itself.

I maneuvered Bird to the bed, propped her up against the headboard, and went into the bathroom to fill a towel with ice.

Bird accepted the icepack I brought her and pressed it against her swollen face, looking more awake. “I think I’ve got a broken rib,” she said, voice louder than before. “Kallaver recognized me pretty fast and set them on me. He was full of shit when he said he didn’t remember me. How the hell did they pack so many of them in the room?”

I didn’t answer, knowing she was already beating herself up about rushing into a blind situation. She was lucky to be alive.

“Ellie,” I said. “What’s the status on our backup? Do we need to send more info?”

“Tactical has been activated,” the AI answered. “Estimated travel time is fifteen minutes.”

“Fifteen minutes,” Bird groaned. “Are they already engaged somewhere else?”

“Sheriff Nagel has ordered a complete activation,” Ellie said. “Armored infiltration and sniper teams are incoming.”

“Damn,” I said. “He’s not holding back.”

Bird made a pained face as she tried to sit up in the bed.

“You should stay here,” I said. “I’m going to need to get Kallaver and his crew out of here or they’re going to destroy the hotel.”

“I don’t want to, but I’m messed up,” she admitted.

“I should get out to the lobby for the lead in. If I can get Tactical to go around the banquet hall, maybe they can take on Kallaver without endangering everyone at the wedding.”

“We need to evacuate the building,” Bird said.

I nodded. “I’ll activate the fire alarms.”

Bird shook her head. “That’ll be chaos. Tactical will show up with the ravagers all mixed up with the wedding guests. That may happen anyway, but we need to try to keep them together as long as possible.”

“Won’t they be the only ones shooting at us?” I asked.

Bird gave a short laugh, which made her groan in pain. “I doubt that. Try to get them out first. If that doesn’t work, use the alarms.”

“All right.”

I ran back for more ice and then did my best to get Bird set up on the bed.

In the distance, a series of hard thuds made the walls shake.

“They’re about to get through that door,” I told her. “Thought it would hold longer.”

“They’ll be getting their sight back soon,” Bird said.

I cracked the door to check the hallway. The only things in sight were cleaning drones. Then I heard the sounds of shoulders hitting Kallaver’s door in the distance.

“I’m going. I’ll send medics back for you.”

Bird nodded. “Get out of here, Walker.”

The drone followed me out and closed the door, rattling with a belly full of dishes. I checked the door to make sure it was locked.

I’d taken three steps from the door when an explosion rocked the hallway. I turned to see a cloud of dust rolling toward me, with Red’s pale face riding above it like the ghost of some war god, the black muzzle of a handgun emerging from the cloud.

I drew my pistol and fired, squeezing off five rounds. Red dodged. More faces appeared in the dust and immediately ducked back down as they dove for cover. I turned to sprint down the hallway.

“How long now, Ellie? Are they in the building at least?”

“It appears the initial strike team is seven minutes away.”

“Did you send my status?”

“Hold. I’m activating a local tacnet.”

“Walker,” a familiar voice shouted. “Where the hell are you?”

“Keldon? What are you doing?”

“I’m on this mission. Well, in a support role. I passed my fitness test this morning.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were doing that?”

“Because I don’t work for you. What’s going on?”

I shared the situation. He agreed with Bird’s assessment about the chaos a fire alarm would cause but didn’t figure we’d have time anyway.

“We’re almost on-site,” Keldon said. “You get to the lobby for the lead in. Try to minimize destruction as much as possible.”

I sprinted through the kitchen. Cooks and servers jumped out of my way, calling me a bunch of creative names.

“Get out of the way!” I ordered.

I didn’t stop until I hit the door to the banquet hall. Breathing hard, I eased the door open to the sound of swelling string music and a live children’s choir. Closing the door behind me, I paused to catch my breath.

Something crashed in the kitchen and people shouted. Kallaver’s men were about to find me if I didn’t move.

The chairs in the banquet hall were filled with people in a vast array of colors and fashions. As far as I could see, all the rows were full. I spotted Drina and Dierdre toward the head of the room in a reserved section. Dierdre was nodding as the music lowered and the officiant launched into a speech. Other faces I vaguely recognized from the Taurus upper crust appeared among the crowd, looking bored, engaged in internal conversations, or actually following the jumble of words from the stage.

There were several empty rows at the back of the hall, which I suppose would have been filled if the Kallaver and his ravagers were present.

That was about to change.

The wedding party stood at the front of the hall with a harpist to one side. Kiren stood in the middle with a pearlescent dress that hugged her top and burst like a flower at her waist, the colors complementing her red hair. George faced her in a conservative suit that shifted from gray to blue. Three young men resembling George-clones stood nearby.

The officiant stood between Kiren and George, mouth open in the middle of his speech, the harp playing soft notes as he talked. I spotted Haley behind Kiren, yellow hair arranged in a pile on her head, dress the same color as Kiren’s, smiling like this was the happiest day of her life.

Kiren had a serious look, nodding along like the officiant was reading a contract.

Another deadened crash came from the kitchen. I didn’t have much time. It was now or never.

“Stop!” I shouted, walking into the room with my hands raised. “I need everyone to stop and listen to me.”

A note on the harp trailed off in the silence as hundreds of heads turned to look at me.

Wait, what had the officiant been saying?

“Excuse me?” he asked, his words finally penetrating my brain. “Are you actually coming forward to stop this union?”

My face went numb. I looked at Kiren, whose eyes widened as they met mine, then narrowed in a squint that said she was going to kill me. Beside her, George looked confused.

Haley started clapping. “I knew it!” she said, loud with excitement. She pointed at Kiren. “I told you, girl.”

“No,” I shouted again. “No. I need everyone to exit this room in a calm and safe manner. This is no longer a safe place.”

Disturbed murmurs crossed the banquet hall.

“My name is Deputy Walker of the Taurus Station Sheriff’s Office,” I said, realizing I hadn’t told them who I was, and I wasn’t in uniform. I was just a guy with a gun. I fished out my badge and held it up as well. “This place is not safe. Please stand up and exit the hall. The Sheriff’s task force is on its way.”

A few people stood.

“Let’s go,” I shouted. “Exit the room.”

The wedding party didn’t move, and I didn’t have time to go up there and explain things to them. I’d reached the middle of the room, people finally starting to stand, when the first of Kallaver’s men exploded from the side door.

Red was covered in dust, holding a pistol in one hand and a jagged knife in the other. He stood in the entryway for a second, taking in the sight of the guests and the wedding party, then found me and howled his fury. Five more piled after him.

A man seated next to where I was standing asked, “Are those guys looking for you?”

“Not if I can help it,” I said.

The shouts of my pursuers drowned out the general confusion as people finally realized something bad was about to happen. All around me, weapons appeared, chairs were thrown back, and several shouts rose. Red hadn’t taken his eyes off me, which I guessed was a good thing. Maybe I could still lead them out of here.

“Hey, asshole!” I shouted.

“I’m going to break you in half, little cop.”

“Have to catch me first.”

I waited until he was charging at me, making sure the hook was set, then I turned to run, the lobby doors firmly in my sights.

Of course, some helpful citizen had to stick out their leg and trip me. I hit the floor hard, and my pistol flew out of my hand.

34

As soon as I hit the floor, the wedding turned into a brawl. Scrambling for my pistol on my hands and knees, I watched as more people produced weapons. Guns appeared from waistbands; short rifles from pant legs; shock batons from inside thighs; knives, metal knuckles, whips, stilettos, and even a broad-bladed machete appeared from under a serving tray. Howls of rage and maniacal laughter in equal amounts filled the hall like mayhem had always been on the menu and everyone was eagerly awaiting that course.

Scrambling, I found my pistol and got to my feet, ducking a chair a man was swinging at one of gang member’s head.

I couldn’t believe how fast the place had descended into chaos. At the head of the banquet hall, Kiren and George stood in shocked awe, the officiant between them kneading his hands like he didn’t know whether he should run or crawl away and hide.

My path to the lobby became a mess of fighting guests.

I had a new choice now. Get out to the lobby for the lead in with Tactical, who should be arriving any second, or get to the front of the room and try to protect the wedding party? One of the women beside Haley screamed as she ducked a thrown chair that Haley batted out of the way with ease. The scream got the attention of a nearby group bearing the same tattoos that marked them as Kallaver’s.

I didn’t see any way off the stage. George had shifted to stand behind Kiren, who was tearing the lower portion of her dress off to make it easier to fight.

“Keldon,” I shouted. “Are you guys almost here? I’m going to help the wedding party.”

“What’s going on in there?”

“It’s a brawl. Factory members were after me and set everyone off in here. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Sounds like a party. We’re almost there.”

I pushed my way toward the stage, ducking a fist and jumping over two men rolling on the floor.

“Gage Boy!” came a shout from behind me.

I looked back to see Kallaver in the doorway from the kitchen, roaring bloody murder. He stepped forward as more of his men flooded in from behind him.

The shout drew attention to me, as several clots of fighters near me turned to look at who Kallaver was shouting at.

“There you are!” Red shouted. He leaped over a row of chairs, boot landing firmly on the back of a man knocked out on the floor.

I ran for the stage, still a good ten meters away. Red’s approach had at least caught the attention of the people in front of me, their faces masks of terror. I sidestepped one group and fought my way through another clot.

“Stop!” echoed an amplified voice, seeming to come from everywhere at once. I paused, close to the stage now.

It was James Carthage. He’d walked out to the front of the stage, Kiren scowling behind him.

“We’re trying to have a wedding here,” Carthage said. “Let’s get the ceremony over and you’ll have all the food and drink you can handle.”

“Didn’t expect us, did you, Carthage?” Kallaver shouted. “You made a deal with me, and we’re here to cement the relationship.”

Carthage looked like he’d bitten into something rotten and couldn’t spit it out. He composed himself, spreading his hands. “I welcomed you to my daughter’s wedding, Kallaver. Do me the honor of actually letting us finish the show.”

“She’s got bigger balls than the groom,” someone quipped. Snorts of laughter burst around the hall.

Kiren studied the crowd like she was making a list.

“It’s a wedding,” Kallaver answered, raising a beer in one hand and a groggy man by the hair in the other. “You expect us to sit on our hands? What kind of promise is that to the lovely newlyweds? You wish them a future of numbers and white bread. I won’t have it. Not on my Taurus. The Factory is on station, Carthage, and we’re here to make our name known!”

A roaring cheer filled the hall. Fighting resumed with renewed vigor.

I dodged a haymaker that connected with an unsuspecting woman behind me, then leaped over a pair of wrestlers in gray suits. Carthage’s voice bounced off the sounds of rage filling the hall, riding above the clank and clatter of tossed chairs and shattering glassware.

The Factory had taken over the several bars around the hall and were passing out drinks as fast as they could pour. The only lull in fighting was when people stopped to guzzle beer or pass liquor bottles. Kallaver’s men happily passed liquor to their opponents, then resumed the fight.

It was the Factory fest hall all over again. I had to admit there was a bit of glory in the scene. They knew how to party.

I had nearly reached the stage when I got a comms request. “What’s your status?” Keldon asked.

“Didn’t Dispatch update you?” I asked, breathing hard. Ahead of me, Kiren was boxing with a skinny man, while Haley had lifted the harp to drop it on two guests in black suits who were coming at her with broken chairs.

“Somebody’s blocking the hotel surveillance systems,” Keldon said. “We can’t get visual and the Tactical commander wants more intel before they come in.”

“Are you kidding me? Ellie, can’t you do something?”

“I already sent the resonant imaging,” the AI said. “I nearly have the interior surveillance systems. An outside entity has been blocking access. Initiating additional resources.”

I spun away from a jab at my ribs and avoided another opponent who tried to grab my collar.

“Hey, Gage!” Haley called from the stage.

I glanced over to find her waving enthusiastically.

“I knew you had the hots for Kiren,” she said. “I knew it.”

“Now isn’t a good time, Haley,” I said, ducking another punch. Two of Kallaver’s men tried to grab me from front and rear. I slipped out of the way and threw the closest into his friend, cracking their heads together.

“Surveillance access achieved,” Ellie said. “I’m passing all data to the tacnet.”

Thirty seconds later, Keldon shouted, “Hold on. Holy shit. I’ve got you, Gage. Damn, it’s a war zone in there. Why didn’t you say something?”

I started to protest but was cut off.

“Clear traffic,” another voice said. It took a second to recognize Sheriff Nagel. “This is Command One.”

“Sheriff,” I said.

“You all right, Walker?”

“I could use that backup, Sheriff. Lieutenant Bird is wounded. We’ve got Factory everywhere. Kallaver is here. I expect a hostage situation any minute. Did you get the message about his EMP threat?”

“Slow down, Walker. Yes, we’ve got that. We’re going to take Kallaver out. First I need to know if Carthage is safe.”

“Which one, Sheriff?”

“The elder.”

I glanced around, not seeing the tycoon. That didn’t mean he wasn’t in a fight somewhere. “He was here just a minute ago.”

“I’m ordering these idiots to get inside the building. Hold on, Deputy.”

I bit back profanity. How was the Sheriff going to act like he was saving the day when I called for help forever ago?

A new wave of bodies filled the space between me and the exit. I was forced into a fist fight with a wiry gangster who dove at my legs and took me down across an overturned chair. As I rolled to gain the upper hand, someone kicked me in the ribs and then the back of the head.

The armor absorbed the body blow, but my head snapped with the unexpected kick and light flashed in my eyes. I blinked, trying to get my bearings, as smaller hits peppered my chest and arms. When I was finally able to focus, I found the skinny man on top of me, punching frantically at my abdomen. He looked pissed that he wasn’t hurting me more, spittle flying out of his mouth as he worked. I reached for his head, grabbing a handful of hair, and yanked him toward me so he couldn’t hit me anymore.

Someone roared behind the little man and swept him out of the way, leaving me with a handful of greasy black hair. Red loomed above me. His shirt was torn, hands raw and bloody, and it looked like someone had bitten out a piece of his cheek.

“I’ve been looking for you, little cop,” he called. “You ran from me but now there’s nowhere else for you to run. The stars are smiling on me today.”

I tried to scoot away on my back but Red grabbed one of my ankles. He lifted me out of the pile of chairs, then turned and dragged me. I kicked at his hand and the back of his legs but he seemed made of iron. Other ravagers saw what he was doing and started laughing, until I felt like I was being dragged down a tunnel of howling faces.

“Be calm, little policeman,” Red said. “I’m taking you where I can get a better look at you. Besides, I want to see what’s happening with the groom and bride. She ran off the stage like she was going to kill somebody, and that sounds like good fun. I don’t want to miss that.” He laughed and shoved a knot of brawlers out of his way.

My head bounced off the legs of an unconscious man. I tried rotating out of Red’s grip but still couldn’t get free.

“Ellie,” I said. “I need that backup now. Right now.”

I spotted a dropped shock baton and reached for it, then cheered silently when my fingers closed over the handle. I pulled the weapon against my body, finding its power switch with my thumb, and tracked Red’s gait, looking for the best place to get him. I probably couldn’t reach his balls from behind.

“You stopped fighting,” Red said, glancing back at me. I hid the baton against my body. “Have you given up? Are you ready to admit how worthless your life is?”

“And you are?” I said. “You keep talking and talking like I should give a shit.”

“That hurts me,” Red said. He paused, searching among the fighting crowd. “We met in the Factory. You remember me.”

“Beard guy?” I said.

“You aren’t even trying. Haley introduced us.”

“All I remember is that she said you had a micro-penis.”

Red’s fist clamped tighter on my ankle, grinding my skin against the bones.

“It was cold!” Red picked me up and dangled me in front of him. He swung me back and forth, banging my head against chairs on either side of us. I kept the baton against my body, waiting for the right moment.

“You made that up,” he said, forcing a laugh. “Haley would never say that about me.”

Red was standing in the middle of the brawl. Even from my position, I could see knots of fighters shoving against each other. People were getting tired, and now only the dedicated were still actively fighting. I spotted Fratley Oxonos swinging his cane with a fierce sneer on his face, bowler cap pushed back. Some people were on their hands and knees, grabbing at bloody faces, while others lay in mindless heaps. Remaining brawlers grappled with each other like drunk dance partners, pushing back and forth in exhausted bursts.

Turning me so I could face him, Red pointed at his beard and waggled his shaggy eyebrows. “Red!” he said loudly, catching the attention of nearby fighters. “My bloody name is Red.”

I nodded, starting to feel lightheaded from hanging upside-down. “Thanks for reminding me, Red.”

I was actually grateful he’d turned me, as it provided several prime targets for the shock baton.

As the big man grinned at my recognition, I drove the crackling end of the baton into his unprotected groin.

Red squeaked in surprise pain and dropped me to protect his crotch with both hands. I hit the floor and rolled away, then I jumped to my feet and drew my pistol, continuing to move backward to create more space.

Keeping my sights on groaning Red, I assessed the state of the hall. The number of active fighters had reduced even more, while a group was clustered around the low stage at the front of the hall where Kiren and George had stood with the officiant. I guess she hadn’t gone anywhere like Red thought.

James Carthage’s complaints cut through the mix of shouts and laughter, and I realized someone was bullying the tycoon.

Then Kallaver’s deep laugh rose above the mix.

“Now this is a party, Carthage,” the man shouted. He raised a giant mug of beer to his mouth and drained it, then tossed the mug into a clot of fighting guests. The glass shattered with a crash.

At the far end of the hall, brawlers had actually settled back into social groups, with servers navigating the fallen chairs and broken tables to pass out drinks and the remaining hors d’oeuvres. The whole scene struck me as insane, but at least the violence seemed to be subsiding.

I sure was glad Tactical had shown up to save my ass.

“You better run from me,” Red wheezed, still bent over. “When I get you, I’m going to shove that baton up your ass.”

“Was that a violent intention?” I asked. “You know that’s all I need to shoot you.”

“You cops and your rules. Kill me if you’re man enough.”

“My manhood has nothing to do with it,” I said. Now that I had space, non-lethal force was more of an option, and I felt just a little gratification as I shifted the baton to in my hands and sent an electric bolt into Red’s grimacing face. The big man froze, eyes bulging and veins popping, then tilted to the side like a collapsing building and sprawled on the floor.

“Kallaver!” From the stage, a new voice cut through the din. Radiating authority, Lieutenant Bird commanded the Factory leader to put his hands up.

The crowd quickly created space around Lieutenant Bird, dressed only in her armor, kinetic panels outlined in gray. Her face was a collection of purple bruises. She moved steadily, however, her service pistol trained on Kallaver.

I took a step forward, hoping she was going to be able to control herself. Kallaver wasn’t threatening anyone. She couldn’t just shoot him in cold blood.

“Bad choice,” Bird said, and fired.

35

Ellie sent out a department announcement about the ceremony, but I didn’t expect anyone to show up. I stood in the main Department’s conference room in my duty uniform, a clean set, and rocked lightly from heel to toe, counting the empty chairs around the long table.

Kallaver had survived the shot he’d taken. Instead of a bullet, Bird had used a non-lethal riot round. Afterwards, she’d arrested the Factory leader and marched him outside for the media to get his image, negating his threat to the station. His people knew he was alive and incarcerated, so they wouldn’t activate the EMPs.

Kiren had stormed away from the hotel and her groom, calling the wedding a joke and flashing everyone her middle finger on the way out. I hadn’t seen her since. Ever since Kallaver’s confession that she’d also hired him to kidnap her, I hadn’t been interested in seeing her again.

The door opened and Lieutenant Bird walked in, dressed in her admin uniform. She carried a data pad under one arm and gave me a nod when she spotted me. My training had been passed back to Sergeant Keldon, so I hadn’t seen much of her in the two weeks since the wedding. Her frantic demeanor was gone. She was back to the ice-cold admin officer I had first met, fueled, no doubt, by her hours of interrogation with Kallaver before she finally turned him loose. Kallaver seemed to have enjoyed the repartee, even asking her on a date.

His legal team hadn’t been happy. Feeds were full of stories playing up Kallaver’s feud with the Sheriff, and how the Factory wouldn’t dare show their faces on Taurus again. Kallaver told a different story, and Taurus Station had regained a bit of its frontier character as brawls, robberies, smuggling, fencing activities, and a hundred other crimes increased at exponential rates.

As a consequence, my swearing-in had been bumped up several weeks on the Sheriff’s orders. I hadn’t seen him personally, but Keldon told me the Sheriff had ranted that he was tired of me “shamming in training,” whatever that meant.

While the swearing in ceremony with Sheriff Nagel might have set me on edge, I couldn’t be more grateful to get out of the jail. As I’d recorded in my daily journals, if I wasn’t going to make detective any time soon, I was a road deputy all the way.

“You look nervous,” Bird said. “Calm down.”

“I’m trying. Believe me.”

“If I believed you, I wouldn’t tell you to relax yourself. You think Nagel isn’t going to show up? He wants to put you to work and stop wasting Keldon on babysitting. It’s in his best interest to show up.”

“We’re already five minutes past the hour.”

Bird glanced at the clock above the door. “The Sheriff works on his own time. We’ll start when he arrives. Besides, I know this is on his calendar, so he’ll be here.”

“If he doesn’t swear me in, do I stay in training?” I knew the joke was lame even as it left my mouth.

“No,” Bird said dryly. “You get promoted to civilian.”

The conference room door opened halfway, paused, then swung wide as someone shoved it from the hallway. In the gap appeared Sergeant Keldon. He walked in with his chest thrust out, moustache bristling, obviously still enjoying the strength and speed of his new limbs.

Keldon frowned at the empty room, then cocked an eyebrow at me. “You look good, kid. Stop fidgeting so much.”

“I’m not,” I replied.

“I told him,” Bird said. She gave Keldon a smile. “You’re looking good. How do you feel?”

“Like there aren’t enough walls to punch through or doors to kick in. I might give this place another six months before I retire.”

“Six months, huh?” Bird said. “You must really love it here.”

Keldon rapped a knuckle on a forearm, which made a clicking sound. “Nagel’s playing games with me. He says if I get a machine gun arm, I have to promise him two years. And for a sword arm, five years. Can you believe that? Still, I love the idea of Kallaver’s face when I show back up in the Factory with a chain gun arm.” He held his hands out and mimed a heavy machine gun along with swiping sword motions, laughing.

“How would you wipe your ass?” I asked.

Keldon winked at me. “That’s what you’re for, rookie. You think you’re free of me yet?”

Bird snorted.

The conference room door opened and Nagel filled the entrance, his assistant following quickly behind him.

“There he is,” the sheriff boomed. His voice rolled back into the bullpen behind him and several heads popped up from their desks to see what was going on. Nagel noticed the movement, took in the empty conference room, and then raised his voice so it must have filled the whole level. “Everybody in here right now! We’ve got a swearing-in to do. Tradition!”

During the next few minutes, I stood uncomfortably at the front of the room beside the Sheriff as deputies and admin employees filed through the door. A detective looked around the room once he was inside and said, “I thought there was cake?”

“Shut up,” Nagel said, looking pleased with himself. He checked the room as the last attendees packed in. “Today we honor the traditions of the department.”

As the Sheriff switched into speech mode, everyone fell quiet to listen.

“We honor our traditions by remembering those who made the ultimate sacrifice for the people of Taurus Station and those who hold the frontier, to keep the peace and to help secure a better future for everyone in the Deadlands. We remember them, we remember our duty, and today we place the mantle of responsibility on our newest deputy, Gage Walker.”

On that cue, I stepped to a position in front of the Sheriff. Nagel was still a good head taller than me, and up close he was even more like a wall reinforced with Union military augments.

He looked down at me with solemn eyes. “Raise your right hand and repeat after me.”

I raised my right hand. While Nagel spoke the oath of office and I repeated the words, my mind went to my parents, the bureaucrat who had told me the news of their deaths, and the foreman who had told me I’d die the same worthless way right before I broke his nose. I thought of Keldon, and Bird, and every other bone-tired deputy in the department choosing to do the right thing even when it meant long hours and not enough pay. Sometimes they helped that kid who had lost everything and couldn’t control himself. If they didn’t, at least they tried. They saw all the worst days on the station, every day. How hard is that?

Hard.

“I am the candle in the dark,” Nagel said.

On cue, the other deputies in the room repeated with me in unison.

Nagel’s voice shook the room’s windows. “I am the sword and shield protecting the weak.”

“I am the sword and shield protecting the weak.”

“I am justice in the Deadlands.”

“I am justice in the Deadlands.”

“By my shield I swear,” Nagel said.

Now I was the only one to respond. “By my shield I swear.”

The Sheriff dropped his hand. His assistant passed him my duty badge, a gold star with a shield in its center. Nagel fixed the badge on my uniform, then extended his hand. He gave me a fierce smile as his grip threatened to crush my hand.

“Congratulations, Deputy Walker. Welcome to sworn service. You are duty-bound to the Sheriff’s justice.”

I shook Nagel’s meaty hand and couldn’t stop myself from grinning. Bird was next, and then came Keldon’s cool new metal hand. Keldon slapped me on the back and bruised my shoulder.

“Oh,” the sergeant said. “Guess I don’t know my own strength yet.”

Soon I was caught in a line of congratulations, greetings, and reminders that I was now at the bottom of the shift swap list. I was the least senior member of the department, but I couldn’t stop smiling.

When the room was empty except for Bird and Keldon, the sergeant made an exaggerated wave toward the door. “Come on,” he said. “I’ve got tables reserved at Drake’s. You know you have to spend your promotion on booze for all your friends, right?”

I looked at Lieutenant Bird. “Is that true?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Would Sergeant Keldon lie to you?”

Epilogue

I stood near one of the gaming tables in the middle of the Lucky Suns, a run-down casino with gaming on the first level and by-the-hour room rentals on the second. Zombie-like locals sat at the slot machines plugging in credit chips, while the players at the tables looked a little more lively, rolling chips between stained fingers. From what I’d observed in the last twenty minutes, Lucky Suns wasn’t so much a worker’s casino as a place where losers from the bigger gaming houses filtered down, drawn by cheap drinks and low starting plays.

My target stood watch from one of the half hidden alcoves on the main floor, his eyes on Tanys.

I’d finally gotten her to file a report after the man she’d come to me about had left more marks on her. Given that I was the one who helped her file the original anonymous report, I’d been cleared to come question the man. So, for most of the last half hour, I studied the man. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him in my memory.

Deciding it was time to bring him in, I left my position and made to move toward the man.

“Wait,” Tanys said, appearing at my side, a tray of empty glasses balanced on one hand.

There was a new, urgent note in her voice that made me pause. She stepped forward to squeeze my hand.

“Thank you,” she said, looking up at me. “I mean it.”

“It’s my job.”

Something shifted in her expression, as if that hadn’t been what she wanted to hear. She gave me a tight nod and released my hand.

“You better get back to work,” I said. “Keep an eye on Vinnie in case he tries to come your way.”

“I will.”

Vinnie tried to act like he didn’t know I was walking toward him, directing his gaze around the casino as if he wasn’t focused on my approach, hadn’t been watching me the whole time. He stepped away from the wall he’d been leaning against and cracked his knuckles.

I cooled my anger as I walked, assessing Vinnie, tracking everything around me.

“Ellie,” I said. “I’ll be out with one at the Lucky Suns Casino in Sector 8-63.”

“Why are you are outside your assigned sector, Deputy Walker?” the AI asked, as I’d expected.

“I’m following up on a previous assault case.” I shared the case number from my report on Tanys’ bruises.

“Case confirmed. Do you request backup?”

“I’ll let you know in about thirty seconds.”

Vinnie must have seen my grin, because he flashed what looked like a confused frown. Did we know each other?

I checked my surroundings as I approached, counting people, judging light, areas offering cover, exit paths. If Vinnie wanted to fight, we had plenty of room between the payout cages and the slot machines. If he tried to run, I saw only the exterior doors and the lobby desk, but I supposed he might surprise me with some hidden exit into an admin area. There were also his four coworkers to worry about. I figured it would take them at least a minute to reach Vinnie and decide whether they were going to help him fight a deputy or not.

“Please keep me posted on the other security officers in the casino.”

“Of course, Deputy Walker. Stay safe.”

Vinnie watched me approach with his hands pressed together, body language aimed at me. I could see in his face now that he wasn’t going to run. He was curious.

So it was going to be a fight, then.

If he hadn’t been carrying a pistol, I would have switched my duty weapon to non-lethal.

Again, I felt that I recognized the man. I ran through recent memories from the wedding, Kallaver’s hotel room, even the fest hall on the Factory. Something about the man’s face, his stance, seemed familiar. Maybe he was just a type.

Ellie hadn’t pinged on him, so I was probably overthinking things.

“How are you doing, Deputy?” Vinnie asked as I neared the payout cage, voice overly familiar. “Enjoying yourself today?”

“I’m doing great,” I said. “I’d like to talk to you for a second. You work here?”

“Yes, I do. What can I do for you?”

“I’m going to need your ID,” I said.

Vinnie stiffened. He wasn’t much older than me but he had a rough look to him. I watched his gaze slide to the doors past my shoulder.

So he’d run for the street then.

He wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. “Is there some kind of problem, Deputy? We didn’t call for help.”

“Verify identification,” I repeated. “Are you going to comply?”

“I comply,” Vinnie said, holding his hands up. “I always comply. It would be a bit more professional if you told me what this was about.”

“You’re being recorded,” I said. “I’m investigating an assault.”

“Assault?” Vinnie said. “I haven’t assaulted anybody. You’ve got the wrong guy, Deputy.”

“You know, they always say that. If that’s the truth, once you give me your ID, I’ll be out of your hair.”

The guard fumed but handed over his ID token, waiting as I scanned the chip.

“No Taurus warrants,” Ellie reported. “Checking regional database.”

“Copy,” I said.

Vinnie shifted on his feet. “What’s that mean? Who are you talking to?”

“Dispatch,” I told him, glancing up from the ID card. “It means everything is fine. It is, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Deputy Walker,” Ellie said, voice urgent in my ear. “I show law enforcement returns on Maris and Stala. He has recently altered his appearance with cosmetic surgery and the ID token has been altered.”

“Send them,” I said. I quickly checked the warrants for failure to appear in court on a stalking and assault charge from Maris, which was more than five SG Points away. The report said Vinnie had fought three Union officers before escaping custody.

“I’m sending backup,” Ellie said.

“That sounds like a good idea.”

“Everything all right?” Vinnie asked.

The warrants made things easy. I could take Vinnie in on the prior charges and then add my assault case.

“Vinnie Crafter,” I said. “I have a warrant for your arrest. Turn around and face the wall.”

The guard’s hands went up and a memory resurfaced. A man in an alley with green hair. This was the technician I’d found in the maintenance corridor after the party barge bombing. The one Keldon had been said was a meshie.

I put my hand on my pistol.

Vinnie leaped forward, driving a hammer-like fist into my stomach. The armor absorbed most of the blow but he was bigger and knocked me back. I stumbled, arms going wide.

The big man turned to sprint toward the casino’s front doors.

From a door to my right, one of the other guards appeared with a pistol. He leaned out of the opening and fired, then dropped to a knee and shot again, forcing me to slide behind a slot machine.

“You are under attack,” Ellie said.

“I’m aware of that. Thanks.” I raised my weapon and waited for the guard to poke his head out again. “Sheriff’s department. Put down your weapon,” I ordered.

The guard fired again. Another suit appeared in the doorway, this one with a rifle. Behind me, I heard screams and the sound of glassware hitting the floor. Civilians were in danger.

“Sheriff’s justice,” I told Ellie.

“Lethal force acknowledged.”

Bringing my armor to full-power, I stood to target the two guards.

“Thirty seconds power remaining,” Ellie informed me.

“You are guilty of assaulting a peace officer,” I said. “This is the Sheriff’s justice.”

They didn’t stand down. Rounds ricocheted off my armor.

I shot the first guard in his center of mass. Blood exploded from his back, coating the man next to him. Suit number two flinched, and I caught him in the chest as well.

“Ten seconds,” Ellie said.

Where did the time go?

There was a hallway behind the two fallen security guards. Four more were running toward me. They didn’t look like they’d realized their friends were dead yet.

“Disengaging, Ellie. I’m going after Vinnie.”

“Stay safe, Deputy Walker.”

I ran after Vinnie and nearly tripped over an old man crawling out from under a blackjack table. He told me to go to hell as I jumped over him. I reached the street outside and managed to spot Vinnie fighting the crowd fifty meters up the street.

The area in front of Lucky Suns was jammed with tourists. Two party barges sat paused in front of the casino as a tour guide rambled the history of the casino in a lilting voice. Ellie immediately connected with the outside surveillance systems, using my armor’s enhanced comms capabilities to track changes in crowd activity. I received a ping from the sidewalk on the far side of a party barge.

“He’s trying to leave this street for the next block over,” Ellie said.

“Can I get drone support?”

“I just sent the request. You have low patrol priority.”

“Even after that shoot-out?”

“Medical support is en route, Deputy Walker.”

People got out of my way as I ran down the sidewalk. Above me, the tour guide’s voice went up an octave as he pointed at me charging through the crowd, pistol drawn. Thumping music rose with cheers from the surrounding barges.

I crossed the street and spotted Vinnie running about twenty meters ahead, dodging tourists. He held the side of his head as he ran, shouting frantically into some kind of comms link.

“Crafter!” I shouted. “Stop!”

Vinnie glanced back at me, then shoved a woman out of his way. He disappeared around the corner of a building.

“Deputy Walker,” Ellie said. “The extended investigation of your subject is complete. He has multiple connections with a Ravager syndicate called the Slayers. He’s associated with a series of hacking and terroristic crimes just on Taurus Station. I have asked Records to run similar analysis on Maris and Stala.”

Keldon had recognized Vinnie as a hacker from the jump. So Vinnie’s frantic calls as he ran were probably requests for help from his gang.

Ellie sent an update. “Records indicate that if we don’t take Vinnie into protective custody, he will either commit suicide or be killed by the Slayers.”

The building’s data populated in my HUD, showing it as an apartment stack. The current resident registry and locations of power and network nodes appeared on the wire grid. If Vinnie reached the roof, he’d find several options to jump to nearby buildings. If he went into the basement, he would find several surface tunnels to the nearby stacks.

I ran into the lobby and picked up sensor returns from a nearby stairwell.

Vinnie was climbing.

“Tactical is five minutes out,” Ellie said.

“Aren’t they always five minutes out?” I said. “Where’s my drone support?”

“I elevated your priority. I’m locking down the lifts as well.”

I climbed the stairs where Vinnie had run. The last thing I needed was for Vinnie to ride a lift to the basement while I was still pounding my way up levels.

I paused beside the door to catch my breath. My HUD wasn’t picking up a lot of sensor data from the roof, and it looked like the outside temps were obscuring IR readings. I’d be going through the door blind.

If Vinnie was going to stand and fight, the door was his best chance for an ambush.

I shifted my pistol to lethal scatter and eased the door open a crack. Chill wind blew in my face, but there was no sign of Vinnie.

I kicked the door outward and ran onto the roof as Ellie scanned the area.

“Vinnie,” I shouted. “I can help you!”

I came around the housing of a giant ventilation fan and spotted him at the roof’s edge, climbing a low railing. There were maybe fifteen meters between us.

I raised my pistol. “Stop, Vinnie,” I shouted. “I can help you.”

He ignored me. It looked like he meant to jump to the lower building behind him, separated by an alley that was still a good ten-meter gap. If I had backup, I would send them into that building to pick him up on the other side. As far as I knew, that wasn’t currently an option.

“Where’s my drone, Ellie?”

“Still pending.”

“Pending is the new five minutes away,” I said.

“I don’t understand, Deputy Walker.”

“Now that’s a first.”

Vinnie’s other option was to drop off the railing to the alley below. While I didn’t want to think I might be chasing someone into suicide, I couldn’t discount the possibility. According to the building schematic, there were no external fire escapes or ledges. It was a twenty-level drop to the alley below.

I closed another five meters, close enough for us to hear each other without shouting.

Vinnie was shaking his head, breathing hard. “How the hell did you find me?” he demanded.

I kept my pistol ready, but lowered it slightly. “Come off the railing. Let’s talk about this.”

“I was in the clear,” Vinnie whined like a kid. “You didn’t know what I was doing. You chased the other decoy. And then I was gone. How the hell did you track me to the casino? It’s been too long. I covered my tracks.”

I paused five meters from Vinnie. At this distance, I could see the jump to the other building was wider than I’d thought. Without a running start, no normal person would make the distance. According to Ellie’s scans, Vinnie wasn’t augmented.

“Back away from the railing,” I said. “We can talk about it over here. Like I said, I think I can help you.”

“There’s no talking about it,” Vinnie said, desperation in his voice. “If you found me, you’ll find them. I’m a dead man.”

“I’m not worried about them. Just you.”

Sirens sounded on the street below. So Tactical’s five minutes had finally passed. They would be setting up a perimeter as Ellie shared my sensor feed.

Of course, if Vinnie jumped, that would solve Tanys’ problem, and I’d still have my lead on whoever bombed the party barge.

I couldn’t wait to rub this in Keldon’s face.

“They’re going to kill me,” Vinnie said.

“We can help.” I moved closer. “This doesn’t have to end today.”

Vinnie stood straighter on the railing, turning so he faced me full on. “It does end today. I bombed those barges. I followed my orders.”

“Orders from who?”

He squeezed his eyes shut. I realized what he was about to do and charged forward, but I was too late.

Vinnie fell backward over the edge.

My fingers brushed his shoes as he fell away from the railing. I caught myself from following him, only to get blasted by a rush of cold air from below.

Beneath the edge of the roof, a drone struggled under Vinnie’s weight as the bouncer dangled by the leg from one of its claws.

“Deputy Walker,” Ellie asked. “Has the drone arrived? The wind is affecting my sensors.”

“Just got here,” I answered. “And it sounds like Tactical finally showed up.”

“Are you all right?”

“Code four,” I said. “I’m good. One in custody.”

* * *

Continue reading for GALACTIC JUDGE.

1

The face of the Hidden Cards casino exploded in a shower of slagged metal and dust. 

Tourists in the street screamed and ran for cover. The blast caught the tail of an open bus rolling past and knocked it sideways. The transport tipped over, dumping people into the street before its safety systems could engage.

I slid to a cover position behind a nearby vehicle and surveyed the smoking ruin.

“What do you see, Ellie?” I asked, tapping my earbud to make sure I hadn’t lost it in the blast.

“Deputy Walker,” Ellie said. “I have notified emergency medical services. We have a mass casualty incident. Based on internal surveillance at Hidden Cards, I estimate six hostiles inside, including Kallaver’s second in command, an individual known as Red.”

“Oh, I remember Red. He doesn’t like me.”

“Records show he nearly killed you during your last interaction.”

I chuckled. “But he didn’t, and that’s the important part. I thought the initial report said ten hostiles?”

“I am only tracking six currently.”

Ellie-DB, short for Law Enforcement Database, was the limited AI that took care of everything I couldn’t, allowing me to focus on the important things, such as tracking gang members as they tried to escape through the smashed wall of the casino. She provided dispatch for every deputy in the Department, maintained and filed record requests, and generally took care of most other administrative tasks during my patrols. I’d worked with her program for over eight months, ever since my first assignment. So far, she’d proven to be the most valuable asset I had.

“Copy, so that’s four unaccounted for,” I said. “Should keep things interesting.”

“Stay safe, Deputy Walker.”

The sensors in my helmet outlined the new hole in the side of the building as the dust drifted. More of Red’s people hid just inside, hunting for an opportunity to run out. They were carrying small arms and some handheld explosives like grenades and claymore mines. Minimal armament for a military unit but dangerous enough in the hands of an urban gang.

Most residents of Taurus Station weren’t packing weaponry on this scale. I had my service pistol and patrol armor, neither of which were going to stop a claymore. Ellie had already called for assistance as soon as I verified an armed robbery in-progress at the Hidden Cards. Unfortunately, backup from Tactical Division was late as usual, which didn’t help the situation.

I slid around the front of the vehicle, my HUD outlining bodies in the dust cloud as they fit movement profiles. As Ellie had estimated, there were six thermal outlines to contend with. The reports had said ten, and there had already been a gun battle with casino security before I got the call.

“Setting target priority,” I told Ellie. “Moving.”

“Waiting for backup is recommended, Deputy Walker.”

“These guys are going to hurt even more people if they get out in the street. I need to stop them here.” We’d already locked down the vehicles they used to get across the station, so their only option was to steal a transport.

Or kill me and take mine.

I set my external speakers and shouted into the dust cloud: “Attention, this is Deputy Walker of the Taurus Station Sheriff’s Office. You are hereby ordered to drop your weapons and stand down. Anyone who exits now will be afforded all possible legal protections. This is a lethal force situation and I am authorized to enact the Sheriff’s justice if you do not obey.”

“Tell the Sheriff to stick it up his ass,” a familiar voice yelled. “I know you, Walker. I’ve been looking forward to cracking your head on the street.”

I recognized the voice of Red Arturi, the largest of my targets. His outline looked like he was carrying something--possibly the belt with the explosives that had knocked the hole in the front of the casino.

Red was second in command of Kallaver's Ice Gang, a name they'd only taken on recently with the increasingly frequent attacks on Taurus. Apparently, they’d been operating out of an old ice processing station in the Chop Zone.

“I take that as a no,” I told Ellie. “Moving to engage.”

“Moving to engage. Likelihood of success, twenty percent.”

“What are we using to measure success here?”

“Your survival.”

“Aren’t you a ray of sunshine.”

In the seconds since Red’s helpful answer, none of my other targets had moved to surrender. Instead, two looked like they were trying to flank me at the edge of their opening, while the others maintained their covered positions. I sighted in with the service pistol and fired.

My nearest target dropped. I fired more rounds and caught the second in the chest, slamming him back and out of view. As the gang member screamed for help, I moved behind a civilian transport in the middle of the street and reloaded. 

“I can see your pretty face, Walker,” Red called. “I’m going to enjoy tearing off your little cop helmet and driving my thumbs into your eye sockets.”

“You can do better than that,” I shouted. “Why don’t you come out here so we can talk about it?”

“I show movement inside,” Ellie said.

Two gang members sprinted toward me as the others laid covering fire. I ducked and shifted to the rear of the vehicle, hitting the nearest runner. The gangly man grunted and hit the asphalt face-first, sliding in the street. Dust floated over his body. The second dropped behind a fragment of wall and opened fire with an automatic rifle.

“Kallaver’s coming for you all, little deputy,” Red shouted. “He’s coming for this whole station. We’re outgrowing the Factory. Going to own every slip tunnel into the system, and then we’ll grow from there. Maybe I’ll wear your skull as a pinky ring.”

Kallaver was the gang boss I’d had the misfortune of meeting on my first major assignment: protecting Kiren Carthage in the days leading up to her wedding. The wedding was a bust, and Kallaver eluded conviction after an unknown party made a large political contribution to the magistrate presiding over his trial.

I picked off another runner as they moved into the opening. The dust was almost cleared now. I had a good location on Red and was picking my shot at his head when someone opened fire to my left. 

“You have been flanked,” Ellie said.

“I see that. Those would be my four unaccounted-for assholes.”

I hit the street and crawled back behind the tipped bus. I was taking fire from two directions at once now. The heavy report of Red’s automatic rifle paused, and I heard the slap of an explosive charge hitting the street on the other side of the vehicle providing my cover.

After scrambling to my feet, I sprinted back to my patrol cruiser. A heat wave washed across my back as the street behind me buckled and exploded. I lost purchase and flew forward.

I hit the sidewalk on the far side of the street, but my armor kept me from breaking any bones—maybe. It wouldn’t do much for bruising or even internal bleeding if something hit me hard enough. I’d have to worry about that later.

I rolled, getting my bearings, and stumbled to my feet against the building. My vision was blurry and my HUD seemed damaged. My faceshield was cracked and icons glitched in the display.

“I have Tactical Division on scene,” Ellie reported. “Sending your location.”

“Send them the hostile locations, not mine!”

“Walker!” Red shouted.

Glancing back, I found the big man facing me just down the sidewalk. Red was the hulking menace I remembered, dressed in black armor but without a helmet, his wild red hair and beard gray with dust. He had an automatic rifle in either hand and was setting himself in a firing stance. 

There was no cover in sight. I’d used up my full armor capability, so I couldn’t ride this out once he opened fire.

“Hey, Red,” I said. “You messed this up, didn’t you?”

His nose twitched. “I didn’t mess anything up. I’m going to kill you. Kallaver will be pleased.”

I shifted, not raising my pistol but readying my finger near the trigger.

“Why? Because you blew up an old casino? What good did that do anybody?”

Weapons barked nearby as Tactical engaged the remaining members of Red’s crew. A grenade exploded and rubble rained over us. Red was unfazed.

His people might be dead soon, but this guy wasn’t going down without a fight.

Red’s scarred face broke into a smile, a scarlet gash across the gray dust. “You think I haven’t done my job? I’ve done exactly what I was tasked to do. I kept you all busy.”

The Ice Crew bandit flashed a wild grin and opened fire with both rifles.

I ran back into the street, returning fire. A few of his rounds pinged my back and glanced off my helmet before his aim went to shit.

“It’s a diversion,” I yelled at the Tactical Commander. “Kallaver’s hitting another location on the station. We need to withdraw.”

“You just called for backup,” the sergeant shouted back at me. “We’re clearing this area first. We’ve got wounded to secure so medical can get in here.”

Red’s laughter followed me as I cut around the smashed transport. 

I waited, listening for the big man’s footsteps. Reloading was going to be a problem for him unless he dumped one of his guns. Sure enough, I heard the clatter of a weapon hitting the street and a new magazine clicking into place. I leaned around the bus to fire and Red was gone.

A roar filled the air above the burning casino as four military style transports dropped on the street thirty meters away. I came around the bus with my weapon ready and spotted Red and two remaining gang members sprinting toward their exit. The nearest transport rotated and two canons on either side of its nose leveled on the street.

I threw myself behind the bus again as chunks of street exploded around me.

“Ellie,” I shouted. “Have you got ID info on those transports?”

“Working, Deputy Walker.” In another few seconds, she answered, “No data. They are not affiliated with Taurus Station.”

The transports hovered for another few seconds as their leader pelted the street with covering fire, then rose in unison and roared away.

“Walker,” the Tactical team leader, a corporal named Carver, called. “You all right? I don’t have a status from your rig.”

“My armor’s pretty messed up. I took a couple direct hits.”

“Well, you can hear me anyway. Get your ass over here. I just got an update that another location is taking fire. You were right about this being a diversion.”

“Moving your way. What’s the other location?”

“Financial district. They’re knocking over a trading house.”

I frowned. Trading houses didn’t deal in any physical inventory and their data systems were more secure than a Union vault. “There’s nothing in a trading house to steal.”

“Who knows.” Carver gave a short laugh. “Thinking like a criminal just makes my head hurt.”

2

Our cruisers roared as they activated. I finished strapping into my seat just as the acceleration kicked in, and I tapped into the cruiser’s control system to watch our travel progress in my face shield’s damaged HUD. 

The three gang vehicles were cutting across the station, disrupting travel lanes and causing panic in civilian traffic.

“The other attack is a data warehouse,” Carver said. “We’ve got their onsite security system and it looks like they had someone on the inside. They set up a hardline data pipe, but the big pull required a portable storage setup. They’ve got that in the back of a cargo truck. No one would have noticed the situation but an employee came in on their off hours. I think that’s when they sent our buddy Red into the Hidden Cards to cause problems and draw us away.”

“That sounds complicated.” I turned my pistol in my hands for a quick functions check. After wiping dust off the body, I holstered it and checked my ammo. Only four magazines left.

“I think the hackers are making our gang friends take more steps than they’d like,” Carver said. “This is more than your usual smash and grab.”

We crossed into the financial district, where the casinos and mining companies managed their data, and the civilian traffic died down. Red’s vehicles dropped below the roof line and disappeared off my HUD for a second, until the tracking system shifted to sensors in the nearby buildings.

It looked like Tactical had already set up a cordon around the block-shaped building. A firefight raged at the side of the trading house where the cargo truck was parked, smoke from burning concrete spilling up into the sky.

“I show twenty hostiles,” Ellie said. “Most appear to be engaged with the main effort from Tactical.”

Trying to make sense of my broken HUD was more distracting than helpful.

“Ellie, can you kill my overlay? Everything keeps glitching on me.”

“Switching to standard visuals,” she said.

Through the windscreen, I could see the gang held a battle line around the truck, closing off the alley so our forces couldn’t get in. A drone tried to infiltrate from above and a bandit with a shoulder-mounted weapon burned it out of the sky. 

“Is this everything Tactical is bringing to the fight?” I asked Carver.

“It’s everything we’ve got on duty,” the corporal said. “Command is working on a recall to get more people in here, but I don’t think we’ve got time for that. These guys are more heavily armed than I would have expected. On Taurus, anyway. It’s not like we’re fighting them on their own turf again. This goes a bit above gang warfare.”

Ahead of us, Red’s convoy spread out as they approached the financial building. 

“Lay down fire,” Carver shouted to the other pilots. “They’re going to attack our ground forces.”

It was three on three in the air. I watched icons dance in the cruiser’s display and was thrown against the side of the cabin as Carver lit the thrusters and shot forward. The heavy recoil of our nose cannons shook the cruiser as we rolled in a strafing maneuver. One of the enemy vehicles exploded and rained debris over the buildings below.

The other two braked suddenly and whipped down a side street. We overshot, then came back around to follow. The display updated to show ground forces appearing from the nearby buildings. They must have been biding their time and stood outside the cordon, and it didn’t look like our officers on the ground were prepared for an outside attack.

“Put me on the ground,” I shouted. “They need help.”

“Get ready,” Carver said through gritted teeth. She fought the cruiser’s controls to bring it back around and slow down.

I gripped the handle as the door slid open. Slapping the release on my seat harness, I surveyed the ground below long enough to guess at a drop trajectory.

I leapt out the door, free-falling for a second until the cable caught and I swung back under the body of the cruiser. The ground below me rushed up, then slowed slightly. Bending my knees, I readied for the impact. My fall wasn’t slowed enough that I didn’t feel it, and I probably left dents in the street. 

Scrambling, I quickly got my bearings. I was just around the corner from where Red was moving on the other deputies. Drawing my pistol, I ejected the near empty magazine and slammed a replacement home.

Ahead of me, Red’s crew dropped behind several abandoned civilian vehicles in the middle of the street. At the far end of the building, Sheriff’s Office vehicles were parked in a line with deputies responding to the new direction of attack.

Moving quickly, Red didn’t seem to care about the wounded as he lobbed two grenades at one of the nearby emergency vehicles.

I could have moved up slowly behind the abandoned transports, but my mission was to draw back Red as quickly as possible. There was no time to hesitate.

Sprinting until one of Red’s soldiers noticed me, I fired rapidly, then I slid behind a broken-down transport for cover.

“Hey, Red,” I shouted. 

The big bandit turned at the sound of his name and I fired on him from under the car, hitting him just above his belt, and then I placed another round in his shoulder. His armor took the rounds and he stumbled backward, just as his grenades exploded near the ambulance.

The red transport rose in the air and came down hard, blowing debris in our direction. Kallaver’s gang members protecting their cargo truck must have increased attack intensity at that moment because the few deputies I could see were forced to dive for cover.

Two of Red’s people turned to fire in my direction, forcing me down as well. 

“You’re nothing but a pain in my ass, Walker,” Red shouted. He pointed at two of his crew. “Get him. We’re moving on the others.” 

I fired again as Red’s crew split. No luck with him taking the bait to come after me. 

“Ellie, do we have any other backup coming our way?”

“All assets are currently engaged, Deputy Walker. I have shared your location with the incident commander, but his focus is on the main effort.”

“Where it should be.” Still sucked for me, though.

I hit one of the approaching gang members in the neck and he staggered, spraying blood in the street. The second one managed to catch me in the arm. The impact made my hand go numb and, though I hadn’t dropped my weapon, it refused to cooperate when I tried to aim. 

“Godsdammit.” I switched hands and flexed my fist, trying to get some feeling to come back into my hand. Shooting left-handed wasn’t impossible, but I was better with my usual right hand. I could at least lay down covering fire though, so I pushed closer. There was a good ten-meter gap to the next vehicle, and now it looked like my friend was going to wait for me to rush the space.

Down the street, Red roared with joy as he tossed a grenade into the nearest barricade, assaulting the deputies who’d bunkered down there. 

“Two wounded in the service area,” Ellie reported.

I gritted my teeth. There was no time for a drawn-out firefight.

After rolling away from the vehicle, I threw myself into motion and sprinted across the gap, shifting to the right just as my tracker lined up with the sight. A round buzzed past my head.

I slid behind the nearest car then rose to shoot the bandit in the center of his faceplate. He slouched against the vehicle’s tail for a second, then fell over, weapon clattering on the pavement.

I moved to the dead man and scavenged three grenades from his belt. Getting a better firing position, I tossed one at the last two soldiers in Red’s squad. They didn’t hear the grenade hit the asphalt and roll between them. Two seconds later, an explosion filled the area with dust and burned armor.

Crouching behind a blasted barricade, I was in the middle of a reload when Red’s massive form appeared out of the haze and he threw himself into me.

“I’m going to pound your face into the pavement, little man,” he said with a leer.

He drove me back into the wall of the building, slamming my helmet against the concrete. My ears rang from the impact even as I fumbled for my weapon.

Red seemed focused on hammering my helmet into the wall and wasn’t paying attention to my hands. Maybe he couldn’t see them in the dust. The next time my helmet cracked against the concrete, I fired into his legs and feet.

Apparently, he hadn’t invested in armored boots.

The big man cried out in pain and I stumbled away. There was blood all over the sidewalk, making it slick, and I almost fell.

Red caught the back of my armor before I could get away and pulled me into him. He managed to close a pair of oversized hands around my neck. The armor there was ballistic, and it was entirely possible for him to crush my throat with slow pressure. 

“Do you like that?” he asked. “You’ve been wanting my attention, and now you have it.”

It was getting harder to talk, but I asked, “Why’d Kallaver send you on the second-string mission? He knows how stupid you are?”

Red dug his thumbs in.

“Blood oxygen levels are dropping, Deputy Walker,” Ellie told me. “Should I call for assistance?”

Didn’t she already do that?

I leveled my pistol up and dug its muzzle into the man’s ribs, then I squeezed the trigger three times. Shadows threatened the edges of my vision, but I fought them back.

Red’s hands relaxed around my throat. He groaned and stumbled backward, shoulders slack.

Shaking my head, I raised the pistol and shot him again until he fell against the pavement, arms spread. His open eyes stared blankly upward.

I slapped the side of my helmet and wheezed, swallowing hard. “Piss off, shitbag,” I let out. “A guy like Red, Ellie, he just wants attention. His mama didn’t love him enough, so he’ll demand it until you give it to him.”

“Have you suffered a concussion, Deputy Walker?”

I sucked another hard breath as the pain slowly left my throat, then looked around to get my bearings.

There were still sounds of a firefight from the other side of the building, so I forced myself to move toward the battle line. I navigated the barricades and came around the corner of the building in time to see an air transport settling into position over the cargo truck parked in the middle of the block. The area was littered with wounded and dead, with deputies and gang members hunkered down behind combat barricades.

The cruiser dropped into the alleyway, wide magnetic locks under its belly hooking to the top of the cargo truck. The gang members all around the truck backed up and slapped the vehicle with what must have been magnetic gloves. In another second, the transport had lifted itself and the truck above the roof of the data warehouse, turned, and blasted toward the edge of the station.

Several Ice Crew hadn’t grabbed the truck fast enough, and deputies rushed forward in the confusion of the escape. One tried to fight and gave up after his hand took a bullet. The others threw their weapons down and raised their hands, grinning like devils as they were arrested. 

I tore my smashed helmet off and threw it down, breathing hard. My ears were still ringing and the air tasted like smoke.

Despite the number of bullets I’d pumped into Red, I didn’t trust that he was dead. I reloaded and walked back to where I’d left him on the sidewalk, just past the crashed ambulance.

Aside from some blood stains on the street, the body was gone.

3

I caught a ride back to the station with Tactical. The team was in pretty low spirits after the gang’s escape. From the reports in nearby space, the air transport had evaded capture and disappeared in the confusion.

Coordination between a hacking group and gang members from off-station was a new threat as far as I knew. From what I’d studied of the local cyber criminals, they didn’t like to stick their heads out.

After my arrest of Vinnie Crafter, we hadn’t seen much activity from his gang at all. They had most likely disbanded their crew and formed new groups with new targets, a constantly moving hydra preying on the different organizations inside Taurus.

In the case of the data warehouse, they’d apparently bought their way in through an employee with heavy gambling debts. The employee died—imagine that—and Technical Division was now combing the facility to figure out just what information had been stolen. My understanding was that it hadn’t just been copied. It had been completely removed from the facility. Someone could have wanted to hide millions of records, disrupt business, extort some entity on the station or in the Union... there was no knowing who might be hiding data out in the Deadlands.

When and if I ever made detective, this would be exactly the kind of case I’d blow open. For now, as a patrol deputy, my role was to clean my pistol and head back for debrief.

“I thought you took care of that guy,” Corporal Carver said as we climbed out of the transport in the motor pool. 

I shook my head. “He was gone. I don’t see him in the prisoner data, so he’s probably on his way back to Kallaver’s fortress. He’ll be lucky if he makes it. I put a couple good shots in his chest cavity.”

She whistled. “I saw the evidence footage. He was pretty close to ripping your head off. That guy doesn’t like you.”

“It’s a love-hate relationship,” I quipped.

We filed through the motor pool, which had cruisers parked in rows or up on the racks for maintenance with small repair drones crawling over their chassis, until we reached the main lift. Debrief would take place in the main conference room off the bullpen, which meant coming within earshot of the Sheriff.

Nagel was known for his fiery tirades following missions, and this one wasn’t going to make him happy. Since I was a patrol deputy caught up in Tactical’s mission, I didn’t have as much exposed ass to get chewed. Still, I couldn’t ignore the frustration and anger all around me.

In addition to coordinating with new criminal elements on Taurus, gangs had been increasing their activity ever since the failed attack on Kallaver’s factory eight months ago. The kingpin had been acquitted and hadn’t shown his face on Taurus again, but his people were constantly probing our defenses. Robberies, burglaries, gun running, drugs, human trafficking, and gang warfare were all on the rise, much of it spilling into the tourist areas of the casinos, show halls, and restaurants.

Most Deadlands criminals, if they served any time at all, understood they could get away with almost anything as long as they didn’t ruffle any feathers in certain circles. Every colony, space station, and port in the Deadlands made it a point to only prosecute the truly dangerous sort. After all, this was the place you came when you wanted to be free and live how you liked, without any overbearing government entities that either taxed the living hell out of you or tried to tell you how to live. The only problem came when you chose to take your freedom too far by destroying someone else’s. The Sheriff’s Office on Taurus was supposed to maintain the balance, but we weren’t exactly a priority and lacked the resources one might find on a Union station. We’d also been losing personnel. Deputies quit for better paying private security work every month, and I didn’t blame them.

The lift’s doors opened on the administrative bullpen, where detectives and command worked in open cubicles, yelling at holo displays and checking investigations. No sooner had the doors split than Nagel’s heavy voice rolled through.

“We’re doing everything we can. I have the factual data to show you. Activity is on the rise in the shipping lanes, but so is enforcement. You can’t share one stat without the other.”

He sounded defensive, which put everyone in a bad mood. I exited the lift and was turning toward the conference room when a woman’s voice came from the sheriff’s doorway, higher pitched but with no less authority.

It sounded like Kiren Carthage.

“I want to know what you’re doing to protect Carthage interests, Sheriff Nagel. We pay the majority of your funding and right now we’re seeing no return on investment. If you like, I can take this issue up with the Brothers. But I’d like to give you the opportunity to resolve things first.”

I paused to figure out if it was her and made the mistake of becoming visible to Nagel.

Our eyes met and the sheriff recognized me instantly. He pointed with a heavily muscled arm and made a “get in here” motion. I looked to either side of me, just in case I was imagining that I was his target, but everyone else was gone.

“Ellie, please let the debrief commander know I’ll be in the Sheriff’s Office.”

“Noted, Deputy Walker.”

“If you don’t hear from me in an hour, please call for backup.”

As I crossed the bullpen, I got several throat-cutting motions and wide eyes from those who had figured out where I was going. I passed through the Hall of Heroes, the short space before Nagel’s office that displayed the names and faces of every fallen deputy throughout the Sheriff’s history on Taurus Station, then came to parade rest in front of the Sheriff’s wide metal desk, holding my helmet at the small of my back.

A display image of Kiren Carthage, the red-headed scion of Carthage Mining, lit up on the corner of Nagel’s desk. Despite the small size, her presence was magnetic.

Nagel was his usual giant self. He might have only been a centimeter taller than Red, but he was more heavily muscled. The sheriff was probably standing in response to Kiren, and the vein popping out on the top of his shaved head indicated she was having an effect on him.

Kiren crossed her arms. She was wearing a stylish business suit, and I had to admit she looked just as good as the last time I’d seen her, back on what was supposed to be her wedding day. “There’s only one person I trust, and that’s Gage Walker. Give me him and a team and we’ll be good.”

The Sheriff motioned toward me. “What a coincidence, he’s here now. I can spare him, but no one else.”

I shook my head, desperately not wanting to be involved in whatever this was.

In the display, Kiren frowned at Nagel, then turned her head. Her eyes met mine and she raised an eyebrow. Her irritated demeanor didn’t change. 

“Gage Walker is one deputy. I just asked you for a team. I’m losing money every day to these gangs. What do you think is going to happen when it becomes too expensive for us to operate in this system? It’s just math, Sheriff. We pull out of Taurus and we take our money with us.”

“With everything going on right now, we’re a little short on personnel.”

Kiren didn’t look at me. She shook her head, obviously displeased with the situation. I didn’t blame her. The attacks on Taurus Station had been even worse out in the shipping lanes, and the Sheriff was supposed to keep local space safe as well. Nagel was sucking on all fronts as far as the civilians were concerned.

“Fine. I’ll send the info,” she said. “You know we’re counting on you, Sheriff.”

“I know,” Nagel said. “Thank you.”

The holo blinked out and Nagel stared at the empty space for a second, brows knit. When he turned his attention to me, I did my best to stare straight ahead. This was not the time to act relaxed.

“That wasn’t a joke,” he said finally. “You’re going. I’m giving you the assignment.”

“Sheriff, I’m on patrol. Isn’t this a better job for a sergeant, or even a member of command staff?”

“No. She trusts you. If she wasn’t happy with this option, she would still be staring daggers at me through the holo tubes. I’m glad I saw you and thought of this plan, Walker. You did alright before. This isn’t going to be much different.”

I gave a slight nod, waiting for him to explain what the mission was going to be.

When he didn’t continue, I cleared my throat. “What’s the mission, Sheriff?”

Nagel was looking at a data pad on his desk. He leaned forward to tap it, then swiped several pages. His face darkened for a moment, then he looked at me and broke out in a wide smile. The sight of his gleaming teeth was so foreign to me that all I could do was continue to stare forward. Nagel didn’t even smile at the press.

“Close the door,” he told me. “I just got another message that changes things.”

4

Nagel turned to face the window that looked out over a slice of Taurus Station. Traffic in the air and on the streets flowed by endlessly. As I adjusted my grip on my smashed helmet, a few aches and pains from my fight with Red started to settle in. I really wanted to sit down with a whiskey and stare at nothing for an hour. Fights were a part of the job, but they weren’t usually this bad, or the perps so determined to kill me. 

“What do you know about politics, Walker?” Nagel asked.

“Not much, Sheriff. That’s all above my paygrade.”

“Good. You shouldn’t give a shit about politics. But I have to. And it doesn’t end with re-election. All through the term, I have to be kissing ass with the business owners, the administrators, the Union officials always sniffing around, and most of all the Brothers.”

I didn’t know much about Evan and Sten Carmichael, the siblings who ran Taurus Station. They owned it, which meant they also owned the Sheriff’s department, and I’d heard that every once in a while an order would come down the line with one of their signatures on it, but that was about it. Most people called them the Brothers, and if they had any individuality apart from each other, I wasn’t aware of it. I didn’t need to be. My work was on the street, not in the highboxes with politicians and billionaires. There was enough to worry about down here.

Nagel turned to face me. “Stand at ease, Walker. You don’t have to look like such a tight ass. You look like you’ve had the shit beat out of you, actually.”

“I just came back from the warehouse operation.”

He frowned. “You haven’t been transferred to Tactical. Nobody told me, anyway.”

“I responded to the robbery at the Hidden Cards. That turned into a gun battle and then the crew took off for the data warehouse that was already under attack. Seems like Hidden Cards might have been a diversion but it didn’t last long.”

“Command and control are not their strong suits. Not without Kallaver around, anyway.” He nodded. “When I cut the head off this organization, it’s going to fall apart like a house of cards. Kallaver is once in a generation. I’ll get things back to business as usual around here.”

I figured he was referring to the containment mission that command had been planning for the last month. “I’m ready to take down the Factory, Sheriff,” I said.

He studied me, his gaze seeming to pierce through my skull. “I know you are, Walker. It’s unorthodox for us to stage an attack like this, but without Union support, there’s no one else to stop these bandit raids. The lawless element out in the Chop Zone is growing every day. We need to send them a message.”

“Everyone I talk to on the street is ready for it. The station supports us.”

Nagel nodded. “That’s good to hear. But I’ve got other plans for you. You’re going to do this escort mission with Kiren Carthage, and I want you to bring along a consultant the Brothers have sent to breathe down my neck.”

I felt like he’d punched me in the gut.

“Sheriff, I’m going on the raid.”

Nagel’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You’ll do what I tell you, Walker. You’re going to keep this consultant out of our hair, you understand? Take him out to the promenade, casinos and hotels, wherever. I don’t care. But don’t let him get anywhere near the Chop until we’re done.”

I shook my head, all the drained adrenaline from earlier leaving me exhausted. “I can’t control Kiren Carthage. What if she doesn’t want some consultant along? She doesn’t listen to anybody. Besides, since when is it part of my job to babysit a consultant? I’m a cop. I don’t--”

“You’re whatever the hell I say you are, Walker. This isn’t the Union. We work at the pleasure of Taurus Station, which means we do whatever we have to do to keep it safe. If that means you have to babysit someone, then godsdamnit, you go and you do it. Besides, you’re doing what she wants. The consultant will follow you. That’s what he’s going to be told to do. Kiren wants you to verify these bandit attacks on the Rivas Refinery. Once you’ve done that, and I’ve cleared the Factory, we’ll have the proper resources to actually do our jobs. But it can’t all happen at once.”

This all sounded like politics. I didn’t want anything to do with it.

“With all due respect, Sheriff, I really don’t think I’m the right man for this.”

Nagel stared down at me like he was going rip my head off. Then he softened slightly. “This is important, Walker. I need a victory right now, or would you rather they can the entire department and bring in some third party organization to do our jobs for us?”

“Isn’t this consultant going to see through me leading him everywhere but the main operation?” I asked.

“It’s not his job to see through anything. And I don’t care what he thinks, Deputy Walker. That’s why I’ve got you on board. You’re going to report directly to me. You’ll have my personal comms token. I want you to send me updates, as well as your location and status. You understand? Even when you don’t think I’m checking up on you, I’m going to be watching you through your sensor set. I know Bird gave you that undercover armor. Use it.”

The mention of Lieutenant Bird’s special armor seemed to remind him of something else. He sat in his chair and spun to face a cabinet in the wall behind his desk. Nagel entered a security key and the cabinet opened to reveal a well-equipped weapons safe.

He pulled out a heavy looking pistol with a square muzzle, similar to my duty weapon but with better optics and a longer magazine. He set it on the desk and pushed it across to me.

“Take this. It’s a marked upgrade to your service pistol. As soon as you leave my office, get your ass down to the range and put some rounds through it. Try it out. I think you’ll see you can stop a truck if you have to.” He snickered.

If we’d been cops in the Union, it would have been extremely unorthodox for Nagel to loan me his weapon. I’d have to jump through all kinds of hoops to get a new sidearm, but out here in the Deadlands where the rules were largely undefined, no one had to ask for permission.

The pistol’s balance was different than I was used to, probably due to the increased capacity. It was Union tech, if I knew my guns (and I liked to think I did), possibly from the Sheriff’s time in the army.

“If this is your personal weapon, I can’t accept it. I appreciate the--”

“Shut up with that,” Nagel said, the storm coming back into his voice. “You take it and use it to salvage this sideways mission I’m sending you on. Just like before, if this goes bad and Kiren Carthage gets killed, it’s your ass. You understand me, Walker?”

I didn’t like the idea of spending my career as Kiren’s personal bodyguard, but it seemed I had little choice in the matter.

“Yes, Sheriff.”

“Good. I’ll have Ellie send you the appointment data for both Carthage and the consultant. You meet them tomorrow. And for God’s sake, Walker, take a shower. You smell. Before you do anything, though, go see Stam at TechDiv. He’s got something for you.”

Looking down at my battered duty armor, I could only agree. “Yes, Sheriff.”

I’d felt worn out just a few minutes before, but now I wanted to punch a hole in a wall. After snapping a salute, I turned to exit his office.

“And Walker,” Nagel told my back. “You screw this up, I’m putting you on traffic. Forever.”

Biting back a response that would get me fired, I left his office. First, I’d go see what Stam wanted, and then I was going to blow some shit up with my new beast of a service pistol.

5

I found Stam Jones, TechDiv Director, down in the labyrinth of his office. Little had changed since my last visit. Stacks of components, obsolete parts, items with evidence tags, and containers of half-eaten food covered his desk. The round man looked up from his workbench with an immediate frown, squinting through an assessment visor that made his eyes look twice their size.

He pulled the visor off and blinked at me. “Walker, it’s about time you got down here. I told Bird I wanted to see you a month ago.”

“The Sheriff just told me to come down.”

“This place is falling apart. I do what I can, Walker, but it takes more than one person busting their ass. You seem like you actually work. Unlike the rest of them.”

I knew firsthand that if I tried to push Stam on who worked and who didn’t, I might be stuck here at least an hour.

“What can I do for you?” I asked.

“When Bird said she gave you that Union armor, I told her I had an upgrade module for it. I offered it to her, but she didn’t want it. She said to give it to you.”

“Upgrade module?” I was interested now. “What kind?”

“AI upgrade.” Stam waved an oil-stained hand. “The system is automated. It’s going to upgrade Ellie and give her additional capabilities. She’ll be able to access networks around you. We call it an AIP.”

“What’s that stand for?” I asked, still wary.

“Artificial Intelligence Partner. Your new partner, of a sort. Just like the old Ellie, but the training wheels are off. She’ll learn from your personality and adapt to match. The upgrade also allows her to make small decisions based on the available information, even offer you suggestions and tips.”

“That sounds too good to be true,” I said.

He shrugged. “You’d be amazed what the Union calls old tech that we’ve never even seen. You ever heard of a Reaper?”

I shook my head. “I saw the holo movie, I think.”

That made Stam laugh. “I ain’t talking about no movie, kid. They’re some kind of half-human, half-machine super soldier. Well, that’s what a few of my braver friends say. Supposedly they’re Union assassins. Unkillable.”

I snorted in disbelief. “Sounds like one hell of a ghost story.”

“Could be. No one knows for sure. Anyway, rumor has it—if they exist—the Reapers have AIs in their heads.” Stam pointed for dramatic effect.

“Now I know you’re bullshitting me, Jones,” I said with a laugh. “Let’s just get this upgrade done. I have a lot to do today.”

“Damn kids don’t appreciate a good story. Ah, well.” He chuckled and fiddled with a data pad on his workbench, swiping through screens, tapping, and muttering to himself.

“Wait.” I turned to look up at him. “Does this mean I’m going to lose access to Ellie?”

“No, it means you’ll always have Ellie with you. She’ll still have access to the shared system. As an AIP she’ll just be a separate entity.”

“That seems like a big deal,” I said.

Stam chuckled. “It is. Most deputies don’t get this upgrade until they make detective or higher rank that requires it. It’s still part of the LE-DB line, but the AI will be able to do more than record, recite, and report. It will have access to everything your original LE-DB had regarding your time together, so it’s like having an old friend. Hell, you can even pick a personality for the AIP. It can be a girl or guy, buddy cop or mostly silent. Completely up to you.”

“No,” I said. “I want Ellie.”

“Fair enough. She will be slightly different to start, and that may change over time, but still the Ellie you know.”

Stam pulled up a chair and sat with the control box on his lap. He pulled up a display and tapped on its screen. I could only see the edges of the menus he manipulated, apparently running through lists of variables.

“All right, you want an accent? We can do anything you want.”

I thought a moment before answering. “I don’t know anything about accents.”

He cracked his knuckles over the box. “You know what I like? That little bit of drawl the dealers use down on casino row. ‘You gonna stand on that hand, honey?’”

“I haven’t noticed.”

That was a lie. I knew exactly what he was talking about, and I did like it.

“There we go,” Stam said. “All right. Updating now. Hold on.”

A few seconds later, the control box emitted a short beep. Stam reached over to pluck a small box from his desk and pulled out a fancy ear comm. He tapped the side and messed with the data pad, nodded, then handed it to me.

“Put this in your ear. I’ll have her on the speaker so I can hear her, too.”

I took the tiny device and began to work it into my ear.

Stam cleared his throat. “Can you hear me, Ellie?”

“I hear you, Director Jones.”

“Please verify upgrade complete.”

“Upgrade complete,” Ellie said. “AIP status verified. Hello, Deputy Walker.”

“Verify access to Taurus database,” Stam said.

“Verified,” Ellie said.

Stam grinned like a little kid. “Good! We don’t have time to test everything, Walker. I’m busy. Ellie can walk you through things. If you do have any problems with her, let me know.”

I rubbed my ear, still trying to get used to the new earpiece. “What kind of problems?”

“Just tell me if you find any. Now go. It’s time for the party at Drake’s.”

6

Drake’s Place, the bar where most deputies cooled down after shift, was packed with people blowing off steam after the screwed-up operation in the financial district. It wasn’t just Tactical that had been involved in stopping the warehouse theft. Dispatchers, TechDiv, mechanics, and Records people were all looking to change their moods.

Drake worked efficiently, getting trays of beer and mixed drinks out to his daughter Bree, who worked the room with an equal amount of professionalism. 

I liked to think that Bree reserved an extra bit of sarcasm for me. There was no telling with her if the attention was a good or bad thing.

“Beer for you,” she said, sliding Keldon his in a frosted mug. “And whiskey for you.” She passed me a column-shaped glass with two fingers of brown liquid at the bottom. 

I held up the glass to toast Bree. “Is this your private stash?” She and I both enjoyed whiskey distilling as a hobby.

“It’s from the combiner over there,” she said, pointing. “You want to check its credentials?”

“I was hoping, that’s all.”

She balanced her empty tray on her hip. “It’s a four-grain mash bill with sorghum molasses instead of corn. Tell me what you think.”

I frowned at the interesting combination. The sorghum was going to introduce some smoky, sweet flavors. Sorghum was the poor farmer’s sugar stock and I’d only heard of it being used in rum.

I sniffed the glass, then didn’t waste any more time before taking a sip. The liquor was smooth and sweet going down.

“That’s glorious,” I said.

Bree gave me a satisfied nod. “That’s my special recipe.”

“Oh really?” Keldon asked. “Why don’t you share that with me?”

“You drink disgusting beer,” she said.

The sergeant pulled his head back in mock surprise. “I never took you for an elitist, Bree Drake. I’m heartbroken.”

“I am not responsible for your heart, Jack. I thought you’d figured that out by now.” She winked.

“Dang,” I said, sipping the amazing whiskey again.

Bree pushed her way back to the bar and Keldon took a long pull of his beer. He wiped off his brush-moustache and let out a long breath. In the eight months since he’d been fitted with robotic limbs to replace those lost in the last battle with Kallaver’s gang, he had obviously become more comfortable. He no longer cut gouges in tables or crushed data pads by accident.

Jack Keldon had been my trainer, and I had to admit I missed him most of the time when I was out on patrol. While he never sugar-coated anything, he typically had the wisdom necessary to get through a situation with our asses intact. He was a fifteen-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Office and carried a lot of respect among the other deputies.

“You sound tired,” I observed.

“I don’t know what to think about this militia the Sheriff is talking about getting together. I just got a message about prepping for it. We’re out-gunned, there’s no denying that, and apparently we aren’t getting any help from the Union.”

“A militia?” What the hell was he talking about?

“The Sheriff can deputize citizens in a time of need,” Keldon explained. “Kinda like calling on the Union for help.”

The Union wasn’t much help the last time they came out,” I mused.

“At least they were here. Now, I’m starting to wonder if our own people want us to fail.”

“The Sheriff or the whole station?”

“That’s a good question.”

Keldon was prone to these philosophical statements that just left me frustrated. If someone was going to call out a problem, I wanted to do something about it. I sipped my whiskey, already wishing I had another glass.

“You ever been part of a militia?” I asked.

“Nope,” said Keldon. “Neither has Nagel. He’s only doing this as a way to get the station behind him. Supposedly there are records of times when the station sheriff pulled together every able-bodied asshole in the sector and went after a gang to shut them down. It strengthened the community. So they say. You ask me, I think if we send out a call for help like that, all we’re going to do is find ourselves either working with psychopaths and assholes, or advertising for them to join up with Kallaver and fight against us. I’m not interested in wrangling those kittens. I’ll get bit.”

“Is it illegal?”

“No, it is not,” Keldon said. “It’s part of the same law that lets him deputize civilians in time of need. I can’t fault his reasoning that this is a time of need.”

Just today, I’d seen three deputies end up in the medivac unit. I was lucky not to get wounded or killed. Red had blown a hole in a popular casino, and now that business was compromised. The tourists were going to be even more worried about visiting the station if word got out about all this.

Nagel had to do something. Doing nothing was too much of its own message of weakness, indecision, and lack of leadership.

“You think anyone useful would really bother to join up?” I asked.

“There’s a lot of private security on this station and out in the mining rigs. They can fight, and they’ve got equipment and means to move places. If the corporate class decides Kallaver is a great enough threat to their businesses, they’ll join up. There’s a bit of prestige in being deputized for this sort of thing. They also like how it limits their liability. They can go wreck shit and not have to face any legal consequences.”

“So we let them go in with the big guns and then follow to clean things up.”

“The shitty work, if you ask me. The problem with having law enforcement fight a war is that we’re not an army. We’re peacekeepers. Big difference. Maybe it would just be better if all of Kallaver’s Factory went up in a ball of nuclear plasma.”

“Last I heard, we don’t have any nukes in the armory.”

“Nope,” Keldon said. “We all know that despite Nagel’s talk of building a militia, Kallaver’s pulling in every wannabe gang member with access to a slip-drive. They can smell the power and they want in on it. I can see the attraction. Taurus would be a fat prize, and once he’s got control of the station, his influence would only grow in the neighboring systems. He doesn’t even have to stomp out the law. He’d own it.”

“Nagel and the Brothers won’t let that happen.”

“Can we stop Kallaver? Everybody wants to resolve this with a big fight, but all Kallaver has to do is wear us down over time with his little attacks. That works in his interest. Before long, what happens if he offers the people of Taurus Station a level of security that we can’t?”

He finished his beer and held up the empty mug. Bree swept by and replaced our drinks. She raised an eyebrow at me when she saw my glass still held liquor. 

“It’s good stuff,” I said. “I’m taking it slow.”

“Sometimes you take things slow and you miss out, Gage,” she said, and moved to the next table.

“I don’t think she’s ever used your first name before, Deputy Walker,” Keldon noted.

“We went out,” I said. “She didn’t call afterward.”

“She’s a busy woman.”

“And I’m busy myself. I don’t have time to chase anybody.” I lifted my first glass and knocked back the whiskey. Damn, it was good stuff.

“So the sheriff gave me a new mission today,” I said, setting the glass down.

Keldon’s bushy eyebrows rose. “I thought he’d managed to forget your name.”

“I was hoping. He caught me as I was coming back in from the warehouse fight. He had Kiren Carthage on his holo, and she wasn’t happy.”

“That seems to be her default setting. What did she want?”

“Apparently gang members are harassing a Carthage mining rig, so they want some protection.”

“Carthage is a big company,” Keldon said with some surprise. “They can afford their own security.”

“Not the way she told the story. So Nagel grabs me and says I’m going to meet with her to head up a special task force to look into her problem.”

“You?” Keldon asked.

“Me. A patrol deputy. Apparently Kiren doesn’t know much about how the Sheriff’s Office works, because it was her idea.”

Keldon nodded. “What’s obvious here is that your job is to please Nagel, not her. If you want to keep your job, anyway.”

“I’ve got the best trainer in the world when it comes to pissing off the boss,” I noted, taking another drink.

Keldon grunted, not sounding like the compliment pleased him. “Don’t follow me into hell, trainee.”

I laid out my conversation with Nagel, including what he’d said about the Brothers and his eroding political capital. Kiren’s call was like throwing down the gauntlet on what law enforcement was doing for them lately.

“He didn’t give you any indication that he knew who this consultant was, or who they work for?” Keldon asked.

“Nope. Have you ever heard of something like this before?”

“It sounds like a huge waste of time, which is probably why he’s giving the mission to you, a relative nobody. No offense.”

“He said it was because Kiren trusted me, but I’d say it’s that too.”

Keldon grinned. “I like that you’re honest about yourself and how unimportant you are. Look, this is one of those things that could be nothing, or it could really go south. For better or worse, the sheriff knows your name and seems to remember you when crap like this comes along. You could be finding yourself in the same sort of position with the Brothers. I don’t know if that’s a good place to be.”

“Are we really in a position where the station administration could disband the Sheriff’s Office? I thought the Sheriff had been around longer than anything else on the station?”

“That’s politics. Nothing lasts forever, especially when we’re publicly funded. Why not disband the Sheriff’s Office and bring in a private security firm? Do away with the pretense of law altogether? Sounds like an easier way to do things. The station is already privately funded and owned anyway. James Carthage and Harvey Joyce would find a way to profit off the change, I’m sure. They’re smart guys.”

“That’s a joke if ever I’ve heard one,” I said.

Keldon laughed. “Look, if it was me, I’d do what Nagel asked me to do. You can check in with me at any time.”

I mulled over the information. “I’m pissed I’m not going to be part of the fight, to be honest with you.”

“You never know what’s going to happen there. Nagel’s going to send out his call and then what happens if nobody shows up?”

“When’s he doing it, again?”

“At the sergeant’s meeting tomorrow morning. I guess we’ll know more then.”

I nodded, resigned to do what I needed to.

“One more question,” I said. “Nagel told me to look up a Renegade named Fratley Oxonos to use as transportation for this mission. Do you know him? I met him at the Carthage Wedding. Dierdre knew him.”

Nodding, Keldon drank more beer. “Dierdre. Yeah, I need to get out and see her. It’s been too long.” He seemed to drift off for a second as he looked into his mug.

“Fratley,” I reminded him. “Renegade. Carries a cane and wears a bowler hat like he’s a comedian or something.”

Keldon looked at me. “Fratley Oxonos. I know him. He’s dangerous but reliable.”

I wasn’t surprised that Keldon would know a Renegade. “So you’ve worked with him before?”

“A few years ago when I was investigating a smuggling case. Human trafficking among a group of gang members grabbing people off station and ferrying them out to various colonies as labor. It was one step up from slavery. Get hit with a drug outside while walking on the street and wake up in the belly of a freighter headed into fringe territory on the edge of the Sarkonian Empire. They were betting on the fact that nobody would care about these people, until they happened to grab one of Fratley’s crew.”

Drake brought the refills this time and Keldon toasted him with his full pint. “Bree doesn’t want to help us anymore?” he asked.

The bar owner wiped down our table and filled his tray with empties. “She says Walker here hurt her feelings.”

I frowned. “I did?”

Drake fixed me with one of his trademark hard glances. “She said she’d never waste her time on deputies, but then she does it anyway. And she gets upset when you don’t call back. I told her it’s better she get a little sting now than a lifetime of sorrow and disappointment. She told me to screw off. Her own father.”

“That escalated quickly,” Keldon said, burping.

“She didn’t call me,” I said.

Drake held up a meaty hand. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Walker. I know how these things go. Like I said, I’m glad you tossed her aside like a rag.”

Keldon spit beer as he laughed.

I gave Drake a sideways glance. “You’re messing with me.”

Drake slapped me hard on the shoulder. “You need to lighten up, Walker. You haven’t learned anything from Jack, as hard as he’s tried. She’s in the back moving some glassware around. You’re not as important as you think you are.”

Chuckling to himself, the big man walked back to the bar.

I looked at Keldon. “So how did Fratley handle the kidnapping?”

“Ollie Trinidad put us in touch. I don’t think Fratley would have bothered to work with the Sheriff’s deputies otherwise. We ran a sting operation using a bunch of us as bait. When someone got snatched, we tracked them to a cargo point on the other side of the system and made the bust. Rescued almost a hundred people. Fratley got to the gang leader before we did, and there wasn’t much left of that guy. Beat him half to death with that cane of his.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Five years, maybe. No telling what he’s been up to since then.”

“Isn’t a Renegade just a criminal with their own ship?” I asked.

“Some might say that. They’re smugglers, guns-for-hire, bounty hunters, even hired assassins if you know the right ones. A few operate by a loose sort of code. Getting paid is always top of the list, but there’s that sense of duty to each other that we don’t see with the gang members. Kalliver would burn his people alive if it got him ahead, and they’d do the same to him. They’re animals.”

“The void’s a harsh place.”

“Spoken like a miner’s son. But you looked out for each other at least, right? You took care of your own and got the job done? Renegades tend to be solo acts, but they don’t betray their own. Doing that is the quickest way to being blacklisted.”

He took another drink. Keldon was pretty well drunk now. It was getting time to hit the transport and head home. We both had work in the morning.

“Can I trust this guy?” I finally asked.

“Nope,” Keldon said.

* * *

Someone shouting, “No!” was the first thing I heard as I stepped off public transport near my apartment stack. The pleasant buzz I’d been enjoying since leaving the bar faded in an instant.

“You hear that, Ellie?” I asked using my new earpiece, looking for the source of the shout.

“Working. Left, twenty meters,” she said. “There is a group in the maintenance tunnel.”

I left the crowd exiting the train and walked quickly in the opposite direction, where the entrance to a maintenance corridor ran parallel to the train tunnel. There was another shout of “Get off,” as I came around the corner to find a group of three men gathered around a teenage girl. She was dressed like a student. The men looked like port workers and the smell of liquor hit me even a couple meters away.

One of the men reached for the girl as I approached.

“Call me in service, Ellie,” I said, then projected my voice to the corridor. “Sheriff’s Deputy. What’s going on here?”

The man reaching for the girl looked back at me. “Piss off. This doesn’t concern you.”

I flashed my badge. “You must not have heard me. Sheriff’s Deputy. Step away from the girl.”

The other two turned to face me. They carried muscle like they moved freight all day but I didn’t spot any weapons.

“What’s a cop doing down here out of uniform?” one with a drooping eye asked. “That sounds like a dead cop to me.”

The other worker pulled a shock baton from inside his jacket.

Stepping back, I drew my pistol. “You really want to do this?”

“Deputy Walker,” Ellie warned abruptly. “I have tapped into local CC feed. Be advised these men are armed.”

The man trying to grab the girl turned with a snub-nosed pistol in his hand. He fired from behind Drooping Eye.

I ducked but the bullet grazed my shoulder. Heat flared against the side of my face as I dropped to a knee and shot the man with the baton in the chest, and then sighted on the target behind him holding the gun. He was trying to grab the girl again when I shot him twice in his chest and neck, throwing him backward. A spray of blood and bone hit the corridor wall.

Drooping Eye froze. He spread his hands and stepped back.

Rising to my feet, I kept my pistol trained on him. Damn. This new service weapon that Nagel gave me was a force to be reckoned with.

I glanced at the girl. Her focus was on the remaining mugger, and she wasn’t looking scared so much as deciding what to do next. We blocked her path out of the corridor.

“Just wait,” I told her. “Don’t run. I’m here to help.”

If she took off, I might never find her again.

“You’re under arrest,” I told the mugger. “Face the wall and put your hands behind your head.”

“Look,” the man said, blinking his good eye. “This was all a misunderstanding. We thought she needed some help when she got off the train. We asked her, and she starts yelling. Then you show up. It all happened so fast.”

“Yes, it did,” I said. “Face the wall and put your hands behind your head.”

He continued to stand with his hands spread, staring at me. I knew the play. He’d wait until I got impatient and tried to grab him with my free hand and force him to the wall. Then he’d turn and go for my weapon. After tapping the non-lethal mode on my pistol, I raised the weapon and fired.

“Wait!” the man shouted, before going stiff from the shock and spasming his way to the floor.

Not dropping my gun, I waited until a wet spot appeared in the crotch of his work suit.

“Call for pickup, Ellie,” I said. “I’m not touching this guy.”

“Copy,” she said, then confirmed. “Patrol unit en route.”

I looked at the girl. “You all right?”

“Is he dead?” she asked.

“This one? No. His nervous system is taking a break.”

The girl stepped around the two other dead men, looking down at stiffened Drooping Eye. She pulled her foot back and kicked him in the side of the head.

“Hey,” I said, catching her arm as gently as I could. “Don’t do that. He’s down. He’ll get what he deserves.”

“This is the second day they tried to follow me home,” she said. “I got away yesterday.”

“You’re safe now,” I said.

The girl shook her head. “There will be more.”

I studied her for a second, then nodded. “Listen. People like this are everywhere. You need to take precautions. Get a weapon, take some classes. Learn how to protect yourself.”

Heavy footsteps from the train stop indicated a deputy in armor was on their way. When the sergeant arrived, I shared my report, then handed the girl off to the on-duty officer for a ride home.

7

The Carthage Heavy Industries board room was an oval with translucent walls that displayed constantly updating information. A long table divided the room, with board members sitting on either side and James Carthage at the head. Outside the transparent walls were two tiers of seats for shareholders, currently empty except for me.

I had been informed by the assistant showing me to the seat that I could listen to the meeting, but the board members would not be able to hear me. Members could enter and exit the board room through a corridor that wasn’t accessible from the observation space.

Very important to keep the board members away from the shareholders, I guess.

“Will they know I’m here?” I asked the assistant.

“I informed Ms. Carthage and asked her to share with the others. This isn’t a public meeting day.”

I leaned forward in my seat, studying the body language of the different members. James Carthage, still hard as steel cable, looked worn out. His daughter Kiren sat down at the table across from him, looking a lot better in person than she had in the holo. With her long red hair twisted up into a bun and business attire, she appeared five years older and more mature than the party girl who had sabotaged her own wedding and tried to manipulate me with a kiss.

Damn, that kiss.

“I’m doing something about the attacks,” Kiren said. “We can’t continue losing supplies to these criminals.”

Several of the other members looked bored, while a man with short-clipped white hair and a military bearing stiffened. “What do you intend to do?” he asked.

“Who’s that?” I asked Ellie.

She was tapped into the local network, one of the new perks of her upgrade.

“His name is Tark Davies, resident of Taurus Station for two years, six months. Former rank of general in the Union Army.”

“And he’s on the Carthage board? That’s interesting. The Carthages don’t seem to like him.”

“I contacted the sheriff,” Kiren said. “He’s establishing a task force to assess the situation.”

Tark shook his head angrily. “James, I told you I had the Rivas attacks under control. That’s my area of responsibility. I don’t need your daughter getting involved in this. She’s not a member of the Board.”

“What’s your plan then?” Kiren demanded.

James Carthage held up a hand to calm them. “We have security in the system. I don’t want Nagel or his people getting involved. It’s only going to make things more complicated.”

“It’s done,” Kiren said. “The sheriff already started getting things ready. He appointed a task force leader.”

“That would be me,” I said to no one in particular.

“Tark Davies is carrying a pistol,” Ellie said. “There is a concealed holster in the small of his back.”

“Really? How can you tell that?”

“All parties are scanned upon arrival,” she replied.

“Anyone else in there armed?”

“Just you, Deputy.”

“So, you’re going to Rivas?” Tark asked. “When?”

“Soon,” Kiren said.

James crossed his arms. “No, Kiren. There is no need for you to get involved. Rivas is not a place for you.”

“It’s a mineral processing refinery,” she said, frustration rising in her voice. “We’re miners. It’s our business. If Rivas isn’t the place for me, where is?”

Tark looked between James and Kiren. “Fine, inspect all you want. I can’t be responsible for what happens to you.”

“Is that a threat?” Kiren asked.

The other board members seemed to be pointedly studying the table in front of them.

“It’s a fact,” Tark said, tone mild.

“I’m done here,” Kiren said. “It feels like there’s something you’re not sharing, General Davies. If I have to visit Rivas and find out for myself why we’re losing so much freight there, I’m willing to do it. That’s more than you’ve done for this company since you were bought in. I’m not going to stand by and watch our assets disappear.”

“James,” Tark said. “Will you calm your daughter?”

“Calm me?” Kiren said. “Why don’t you do it yourself?” She shoved herself away from the table and stood, pointing at the retired general.

They were on opposite sides of the table, but Tark still stood as well, putting his hands behind his back.

“Is he going for the pistol?” I asked Ellie.

“Body language does not seem to indicate so,” she said.

Tark’s posture appeared composed. He gazed back at Kiren with a slight smile. “You aren’t going to do anything,” he said.

Kiren clenched her fists, then turned and stalked from the room.

The board members who had been silent picked up their folios and arranged data pads, while Tark looked at James.

“Are you going to stop her?” he asked.

“She’s going to do whatever she wants to.”

“Then we’ll see what happens.”

James Carthage looked like he’d been fed poison. He stared at the center of the table, then stood and walked around the side opposite Tark to follow Kiren out of the room.

“Looks like the show’s over,” I said.

I pushed up out of my seat then walked out through the shareholder’s entrance and made my way back through the corporate headquarters, heading for Kiren’s office.

* * *

“Deputy Walker!” came an excited shout from the other side of the office. I stepped through the suite doors, taking in the polished wood and stone of the entry to Kiren Carthage’s workspace, and recognized Haley, the muscular blond woman I had last seen at Kiren’s wedding. She stood from her polished desk, reminding me how tall she was, and hurried across the room to wrap me in a solid hug. 

Haley gripped my shoulders as she pushed me away, looking me up and down. I was wearing a gray business suit with the specialized armor underneath. My service pistol hung in a holster under my left arm.

“Looking good,” she said, nodding.

“Hi there,” I said with a slight grunt. “I thought you were going back to Kallaver’s place.”

For her part, Haley looked like an executive herself, but she hadn’t given up the braids on either side of her head. 

“Oh, Kiren made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.” She motioned toward the desk. “I’m working as her personal assistant now. And personal security. Nobody gets through here unless I say they can.”

I straightened the front of my suit. “I thought your specialty was communications, not security.”

“I do both.” She flashed me a big smile. “It’s so good to see you. I’ve missed you. I thought for sure you and Kiren were going to get together after that huge moment when the officiant guy asked if anyone objected to the union and you burst out of the door and stopped the wedding.”

Haley chuckled at the memory. “Then there was that huge fight and you were getting dragged all over the place, until you finally beat Red’s ass. I’ll be honest, you’re looking a lot more badass now than you did back then. You’ve got a bit more experience under your belt, don’t you?” She poked me in the chest, seeming pleased with what she found.

“Probably,” I said. “Look, I’m here to see Kiren.”

“Of course you are. I’ll let her know you’re here. She just got back from a board meeting but I’m sure she wants to see you. All she can talk about is the project you’re working on.” She walked back to her desk and tapped its surface, then swiped through a display I couldn’t see.

There was a door behind her desk that I figured led to Kiren’s office. The other wall was covered in windows that looked down on Taurus, streets glowing with activity. Maintenance drones shot along the faces of nearby buildings.

The doors opened and Kiren appeared. She had composed herself since the board meeting, and now looked professional and in control of her office.

“Gage,” she said. “I’m so glad the Sheriff assigned you to this situation. I didn’t think I’d see you again.” She tilted her head to study me. “You look different. More confident.”

“I could say the same for you.”

Kiren pushed her hair behind an ear, obviously pleased with the compliment. “Please, come sit down.”

Haley gave me a bright smile as I passed her desk.

Kiren’s office was constructed in muted colors with more broad windows looking over the city outside. There was a small conference table near one wall and several broad display screens showing columns of data and rotating diagrams, none of which I understood.

Motioning toward a chair facing her desk, she sat and adjusted the items on its surface, including a vase holding a single flower, before looking up at me, her eyes dark and focused.

“How have you been?” she asked. “You’re looking well.”

“Good. Very busy.” I didn’t feel like getting into small talk. “I just came from the board meeting.”

Kiren stared at me for a second, then nodded, shifting to business. “So you saw what I’m up against.”

“I have to agree with James. Why can’t your security handle the issue? You’re rich. You can hire anyone you want.”

She hesitated. “Well, it’s complicated, but my security is owned and paid for by my father. And I don’t trust them.”

I chewed on that for a second. “I see.”

“Anyway, I think Tark Davies might be behind some of this.”

“Tark Davies?”

“He’s in charge of the refinery.”

“Why would he sabotage his own division?”

“I have theories,” she said. “He could be trying to tank the stock price for a hostile takeover. He hates my father.”

“Who doesn’t hate your father?”

That earned a half smile. “Sometimes you start to respect him for what he is. Davies carries a lot of baggage with him, and I’ve always felt like he had other purposes for his investment. The lost shipments have finally given me something tangible to use against him.”

“That’s quite a change from how you seemed to feel about the company when we met.”

Kiren rotated the vase, turning the flower’s face away from me.

“My father has been acting more and more erratic. His political games against the labor movements have caused us both problems. Tark isn’t the only one who wants him out of the company.”

“If he was out, where would that leave you?”

“I don’t know. Money is all tied up in the company, but that’s besides the point. My father thinks he’s living in another century.”

“What do you mean?”

“He has these dreams of conquest that have nothing to do with the reality of what we do. We’re asteroid miners. Maybe once upon a time we charted new territories and started towns, but the Deadlands isn’t like that anymore. His thinking makes him vulnerable to people like Tark.”

“You want the company? Is that what you’re playing at with all this?”

Kiren gave me a slight smile. “Well, I’d be lying if I didn’t say yes.”

“But…?”

“But I am most certainly not attacking my own assets to make that happen. I have been working tirelessly since the botched merger with Joyce to make a leadership change happen peacefully, and then these attacks started. Everything is a mess. No one is going to vote on a change while it appears the company is under outside attack.”

I nodded. “So we’re clear, I’ve been ordered to escort you on this mission, but I operate at the pleasure of Taurus Station and the Sheriff.”

“I understand,” she said.

“I’m glad we understand each other,” I said. “When do you want to leave?”

“When are you ready to go?”

I stood. “Tomorrow. I’ll send you the info on where to meet the team.”

Kiren smiled, looking a little feral. “That sounds perfect.”

I paused at the door. “There’s something I wanted to ask you about the wedding.”

A little sparkle came into her eyes, reminding me of the woman I’d first met. “Oh?”

“Something I’ve been curious about. Kallaver said you hired him to kidnap you. Is that true?”

She hesitated, and for a brief moment she looked like a child caught with their hand in the pastry box. “I… yes. Kallaver is the galaxy’s biggest screw up. I hired him to disrupt the wedding. He went to my father and extorted more credits, and we ended up with a botched kidnapping. I had no idea what was happening. I thought he was going to kill me.”

“And your friends?”

“They weren’t my friends.” Kiren’s eyes fell. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I was an idiot and a fool.”

“You never should’ve gotten involved with a guy like that.”

“I know, okay? I said I’m sorry. I’ve spent the last eight months thinking about how sorry I am.”

I said nothing else. Maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe she wasn’t. All I could do was hope she’d grown since the last time we’d seen each other. It didn’t have to be a lot. Just enough would do.

8

The lift stopped one level below Kiren’s office and the doors opened to show James Carthage waiting. He glared at me and stepped inside.

“Deputy Walker. Did you enjoy the show?”

“Always interesting,” I said. “I’d ask how you’re doing, Mr. Carthage, but you look like you need to lie down.”

His craggy face barely moved as he smiled. “How kind of you to say.”

We were alone in the lift. Carthage stood next to me with his back straight, gaze on the lift’s control panel.

“Do you usually let outsiders watch in on your board meetings?” I asked.

“No. I wanted you to have more information on the situation. You just came from Kiren’s office?”

“That’s right.”

“She doesn’t realize what she’s dealing with. I’m worried for her safety.”

I glanced at him. His face barely changed as he spoke, making him impossible to read. Was this his typical paranoia?

“What kind of danger?” I asked. “The pirate attacks?”

“Davies. He’s a ruthless man. The Rivas Refinery is his responsibility.”

Ruthless could mean a lot of things. “Has he made threats against you or your family?”

“He doesn’t have to,” Carthage said.

Was that the sound of defeat? “Look, Mr. Carthage. I’ll do everything in my power to keep Kiren safe while we’re out there.”

The lift slowed as we neared the ground level.

Carthage looked at me. “I’ll hold you accountable if anything happens to her, Walker. Remember that.”

The doors opened and I nodded goodbye. “You’re forgetting that’s my job. You have a good day, Mr. Carthage.”

“I’m heading into the lobby,” he said. “I’ll walk with you.”

We hadn’t gone ten meters into the marbled first level, when the front doors slid open and two men walked side-by-side into the building. An entourage of assistants and private security followed close behind.

I’d seen pictures of the Brothers before, but had never been around them in person. The twin leaders of Taurus Station were similar in most ways, but unique in a few others. Both were tall and muscular with the same slick black hair and square jaw. One wore a silver suit and smiled at the room while the other dressed in black and wore a constant scowl. It was common knowledge they played a game to see who could tell them apart, and enjoyed switching up their demeanor and apparel based on the situation.

“James,” the brother in silver called. “How have you been?”

“Evan,” James said. He nodded to the brother in black. “Sten.”

“Who’s your friend?” Evan Carmichael asked, nodding at me. “You taking on a protégé?”

“Deputy Gage Walker,” I said. “Good to meet you, gentlemen.”

Sten Carmichael barely looked at me, but Evan’s grin widened. “One of Nagel’s troop. I’m glad to see you look so healthy. Things haven’t been very safe for our Sheriff’s Office recently.”

“We’re holding up,” I said.

Behind the Carmichaels, two reporters spread out to record our interaction.

“A servant of the people,” Evan said, turning toward the camera slightly. “Just the kind of deputy we want serving Taurus Station. Isn’t that right, Sten?”

“Of course,” the other Carmichael said.

Evan raised his voice to the lobby. “Deputies like Gage Walker here are why we’ve dedicated resources to an audit of the Sheriff’s Office. We want to know if Sheriff Nagel is doing his part to manage your resources properly. If there is corruption or mismanagement, we’ll find it.”

One of the reporters pushed closer to me. “Do you have anything to say about an audit of the Sheriff’s Office?”

Sure, I thought. It’s a sham, because they own the Sheriff the same way they own the rest of the station. It’s all for show and you’re fools if you think otherwise. “No comment,” I said.

“Oh, come one,” Evan said with a sideways grin. “You’ve got an opinion. I can see it on your honest face, Deputy.”

I gave him a tight smile. “Well, sir, I don’t get paid for my opinion.”

Evan tapped his chin. “Are you a human being or a robot, Deputy?”

“We’re going to be late,” James Carthage said, glaring at me as if the detour were my fault. “You want to do this meeting or not?”

“Yes, of course,” Sten said.

“Good,” James said. “This way then.” He motioned toward a door on the other side of the lobby. Sten turned to walk in that direction, and the entourage moved with him.

Evan waited a second, then leaned in close to me. “So interesting to meet you, Deputy Walker.”

He turned and followed his brother. Behind him, a remaining reporter snapped his portable camera closed and gave me a small wave.

“Is that going on the news feeds?” I asked, rubbing my jaw. I felt like I’d been sucker punched.

“Everything hits the feeds,” the reporter said. “Does anyone believe it? That’s the question.”

9

The Iron Scabbard had a long body, which made it look like a missile that carried passengers. A cargo bay sat open near the aft of the ship, and workers moved crates up a ramp from a larger transport parked to one side.

“Anybody home?” I asked Ellie.

“Sending entrance request now,” she responded. “Sharing code phrase.”

“Code phrase? Nagel didn’t say anything about a code.”

Ellie didn’t respond.

I was about ten meters away when the hatch swung open and a man in a bowler hat and long brown coat stuck his head out. This was the same man I’d seen grinning like a fiend while beating off gang members at Kiren’s wedding.

“Deputy Walker!” Fratley called, waving at me. He had a gravelly voice with a brogue accent I didn’t recognize.

Fratley was shorter than me, but he walked with a presence that made him seem like a much larger man.

“I do remember you,” he said. “We met at that crazy wedding of the Carthages and the Joyces. That was a party.”

I shook his hand when he reached me. “That’s one way to describe it.”

Fratley peered at me with a strange expression, like he was trying to decide something about me. “Let’s go into the cargo bay,” he said. “We can talk in there. I’ve got maintenance running all over the Scabbard doing their work. The Iron Scabbard is my neediest ship. But I love her.”

“How many ships do you have?” I asked.

“As many as I need.” He chuckled and swirled his cane.

In the cargo bay, Fratley motioned for me to sit on a crate. They had a vaguely militaristic design to them. 

“Moving a lot of cargo,” I observed, pointedly not asking what was inside.

“Fresh cut flowers,” Fratley volunteered, slapping the crate beneath him. “Each snug as a bug in a rug. They’re off to a vendor somewhere here on Taurus.”

I nodded, disregarding the solid weight of the box I was sitting on. Flowers my ass.

“Now, Deputy Gage Walker,” Fratley said, putting a finger on his chin. “We’ve got a little time before the others get here, yeah?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Good. I’ve been reading up on you. What’s it like working for Sheriff Nagel? Think he’s doing a good job?”

I adjusted the holster under my arm. “I think he pays on time, and you can’t say the work is boring.”

Fratley nodded as though this made sense. “So you like excitement, then?”

“I’d rather have excitement than push papers all day, but mostly I think the work needs doing and there aren’t a lot of people willing to do it. Is there something in particular you’re trying to ask me, Mr. Oxonos?”

“Fratley. Call me Fratley. All my friends do. I have a feeling we’re going to be good friends, Deputy.” He paused for a brief moment. “What do your folks think about you being a police officer?”

“Couldn’t tell you,” I said. “Lost them both to a mining accident some years back.”

I’d told the story before, so it didn’t move me one way or the other to share this with someone I’d just met. Kallaver had wanted to know, too. Everybody seemed to think I was going to be some tortured wreck when they learned about my family history. That wasn’t the way my parents operated. We were miners. We got the job done. We kept our eyes fixated on the present more than the past. Stoics, some might say. 

“The Sheriff said our other passengers are one Kiren Carthage and an operative from the Union. Is that still correct?”

“Consultant from the Carmichael Brothers,” I said. “I don’t know about any affiliation with the Union.”

“Consultant from the Union, Nagel said.”

“We’ll have to see.”

Fratley nodded. “I’ve got no love for the Union, I’ll tell you that.”

“Not many around here do.”

“And it goes without saying, this person probably won’t be what you’ve been told.”

I frowned. “What makes you say that?”

“Who knows? Don’t trust the Union, or the Carmichael Brothers that run Taurus. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Noted.” I was tempted to say I agreed with him, but it was better to keep those cards closer to my chest. Truth was, I didn’t trust the Brothers at all, the same way I didn’t entirely trust Fratley. They could all be bought, after all. Only the price varied.

Fratley pointed at me. “You’re judging me right now. I can see it.”

“I’m a cop. I generally assume everyone is lying to me about something.”

“Maybe during an investigation. If I asked you to trust me right now, would you?”

“No,” I said.

Fratley’s playful smile shifted into a hunter’s grin. “I like that. And I think I like you, Deputy Walker.” He leaned forward. “Since we’re embarking on this little endeavor together, I have a favor to ask.”

“I’m not in the business of doing favors.”

The Renegade spread his hands. “I understand. But here’s the thing. I didn’t tell Nagel I would do this job for him. He hasn’t even offered to pay me yet. So that means if you want to please your boss, you need to please me.”

“If you aren’t going to do the work, I’ll let the Sheriff know that you refused,” I said. “I’m not here to negotiate anything.”

“The others are on their way now, and isn’t the Sheriff launching his raid on Kallaver shortly?”

“I don’t know anything about that.” I gave him an appraising glance. “So how do you?”

Fratley continued the hard grin. “Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see a war’s coming between the Ice Crew and the Sheriff. You don’t have many options. Soon, I’m going to be the only ship left on Taurus with a slip drive that can handle this little mission.”

“If you say so.”

Leaning his cane against the crate beneath him, Fratley reached inside his jacket and pulled out a thin disk the size of his palm. He tossed it at me.

I caught the thing, finding it heavier than I expected. It was made of some metal alloy and didn’t appear to open any way or have any marks or seams.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Just something I need you to carry for me over the next few days. It’ll be safer with you than me. You do that and my payment with the Sheriff is square.”

I knew nothing good was going to come of this, but Fratley was right about the tight timelines.

“All right,” I told him.

“Excellent. Just keep it with you because I may need it.

I slid the disk into my jacket’s inside pocket.

He slapped his knees. “I’ve got some more cargo to get loaded. I’ll show you the quarters I’ve got set aside for you and the others. Oh, where are we going again?”

“Nagel didn’t tell you?”

“The sheriff called and I answered,” Fratley said.

“Rivas Refinery. Supposedly it’s one S.G. Point away. I’ve got the navigation info for you.”

“I know the system. I believe Kallaver’s had some activity in those parts.”

“That’s right,” I said. “I hope that’s all it is.”

Fratley swung his cane. “So you’re saying I should beef up my ammo stores?”

“Is that ever a bad idea?”

“I like the way you think. It’s been a while since I had a good space battle. Should be good fun.”

“Sounds like a party,” I said.

Fratley squinted at me. “What you look like is a Renegade in a uniform.”

I laughed. “I don’t think so.”

“Maybe not yet. You just haven’t been faced with the right decision. You will though. This life isn’t for you, Walker. I can tell these things.”

“You sound like a con man right now.”

“Con’s short for confidence.” Fratley paused to laugh at his own joke. “That’s me, all right. You want to make a bet on it?”

“I don’t gamble,” I said with a wave of my hand.

He snorted. “Son, every day is a gamble.”

10

I looked up to see Kiren and Haley walking toward me. Haley waved when she spotted me, then disappeared back inside. Kiren simply nodded, a motion that I didn’t know how to interpret. A man in a slate grey suit followed them. He held his jacket closed in the wind as he walked toward us.

“This must be our consultant,” Fratley said with a snicker.

“Hello,” the man said when he reached us. “I’m Collin Charles.”

“I’m Deputy Gage Walker.”

“Fratley Oxonos,” the Renegade said.

The consultant had short hair and a well-meaning face, with a build that looked like he might have been military at one time. He checked the area around us, noting the cargo bay’s open door and the crates within.

“We’re moving cargo?” he asked.

“Always multitasking,” Fratley said.

“Was the mission explained to you?” I asked.

“I’m supposed to follow you for a few days,” Collin said. “Apparently you’ve got the keys to the station.”

I gave him a slight smile. “Not exactly. I’m on a special assignment to escort some citizens out to a location owned by their company. They’ve been experiencing bandit activity out there. Shouldn’t take more than two days.”

The consultant’s face fell slightly. “I wasn’t aware we’d be leaving the station. I guess if that’s your assignment, I’ll be following along.”

“You’re an agreeable guy,” Fratley said. “How refreshing.”

“I try to be,” Collin said. He held up a data pad and tapped its surface. “I’ll do my best to stay out of your way. If I’ve got any questions you can’t answer, I’ll just make note and we can follow up when we get back. I assume we’ll be spending another day at the station.”

“Absolutely,” I said.

Kiren walked toward us, dressed in similar work clothes as Haley. “Gentlemen,” she said in greeting, then nodded to me. “Deputy.”

“Kiren Carthage and Haley Tarean,” I told the others.

“Fratley Oxonos at your service,” the Renegade said. His grin said he was enjoying himself immensely. 

“Collin Charles,” the man said. “Freelance consultant.”

Kiren raised an eyebrow. “You aren’t packing a weapon, but I’m sure you cause a lot of damage wherever you go.”

He smiled. “I’m not in that kind of business.”

Haley laughed. “You’re embarrassing him, Kiren.”

“Is that the ship?” Kiren asked.

“This is the Iron Scabbard,” Fratley said, sweeping an arm.

Kiren didn’t look pleased. “I thought we’d be smarter than this. I’m trying to show how our freighters are getting harassed in the shipping lanes. We go in with a gunship like this and they won’t bite.”

“Don’t worry, Ms. Carthage,” Fratley said. “I assure you that a little tool at my disposal called ID Faker will bring the gang members sniffing at our tail. We might be the Iron Scabbard, but we’ll be broadcasting the port information of a supply freighter out of Ordo.”

Kiren shot me an angry look as if she expected me to have explained that.

I gave her a shrug. “I’m not a smuggler.”

“All aboard,” Fratley said. He turned to lead the way up the cargo ramp.

The interior of the ship was tight but had all the amenities—four small crew cabins, a galley, cargo space, and the command deck. There was a small conference room off the main section that may have been an officer’s planning area at one time.

The consultant looked around wordlessly as we walked down the central corridor, accepting his cabin with a nod. Collin and I would each get our own cabin, while Kiren and Haley would share a room with two stacked bunks.

“I get top,” Haley called when she saw the room.

“I would have guessed that about you,” Fratley said without batting an eye.

I followed him into the command section, a tight space with three operations consoles and the captain’s seat.

“You’re welcome to sit anywhere but here,” Fratley said, sliding into the raised seat. He tapped on a display on one of his armrests, and the front end of the room filled with a holo display of Taurus and the surrounding space.

I chose a console that looked like it handled weapons control. The seat was worn but comfortable, and all the systems looked up to date.

“Arla?” Fratley said. “How are we today?”

A low, warm voice from an overhead speaker answered, “Fine, Fratley. How are you?”

“Excellent, my dear. I’d like you to meet Deputy Gage Walker of Taurus Station. He’s my guest and you should let him aboard if he needs to enter.”

“Are the other guests allowed to enter as well?” the ship’s AI asked.

“I suppose,” Fratley said, listing their names as he had mine. “We’re traveling to a location called Rivas Refinery, and I’m expecting hostile activity. Please run readiness checks on all weapons systems on the trip out to the S.G. Point.”

I tapped my earpiece. “Ellie,” I said, “Can you update the sheriff that we’re underway?”

“Would you like to speak with him yourself?” she asked.

“I will when I have something to report.”

The deck beneath us vibrated as Fratley retracted the cargo ramp and sealed the outer hatches. Systems checks scrolled across the console screens.

“Are we taking off?” Kiren asked from the entryway.

“Buckle up,” Fratley ordered. “We’ll be there in no time.”

Kiren sat in the seat next to mine. “I almost didn’t expect to find you here,” she told me.

“What do you mean?”

“After the board meeting, and I know my father talked to you, I thought you’d give up.”

I chuckled. “I don’t get to give up on things I’m ordered to do.”

“Still,” she said. “Thank you.”

I had a moment to reflect that she really had changed from the last time I’d seen her. The woman was softer now, more refined.

Question was, did that mean anything to me?

11

“Point aligned,” Arla reported. “Opening rift.”

Fratley leaned forward in his seat, focused on the main display, where the green tear of a slip tunnel grew in size. The ship moved smoothly inside and I couldn’t help but stare at the emerald lightning storm as it formed within the walls of one of the greatest mysteries of the universe.

“You like the sound of Arla’s voice?” asked Fratley. “She’s a special one. Had her programmed just for me. Based her on an old girlfriend. It gets lonely out here in the dark, Gage.”

“I’m sure it does,” I said, straightening in my seat. I felt like I could watch the slip tunnel for hours.

“How long until we reach Rivas?” I asked.

“Not long. Just over an hour. There’s a reason old Carthage chose Taurus as his base of operations. He’s just a single jump from most of his asteroid fields. Make yourself at home. You want a drink?”

“I’ll drink with you when we’re off the clock. How’s that?”

“Suit yourself.” Fratley opened his jacket to pull a silver flask from an inside pocket. He made a show of unscrewing the top, sniffing the contents, and then taking a long sip. He smacked his lips.

With the rift closed behind us, I decided to see what kind of protocols Ellie could do this far from home. Not much, as I found out. She didn’t answer when I tried to hail her on my new ear bud, and a quick check of my data pad showed her to be offline.

“What the hell?”

Fratley looked over at me. “Problem, deputy?”

“My personal AIP isn’t working,” I said, tapping the pad again to no avail.

“Personal AIP?” he asked.

“Yeah, she’s a partner of sorts. Helps me record and organize evidence.”

He snorted a short laugh. “You mean she’s sheriff department issued, then.”

I nodded.

“That’s your problem, Walker. Those things are only designed to work near Taurus. First off, you got no signal in slip tunnels anyway, second you’re way out of range. You won’t have her back until we’re back in system.”

I groaned internally. “Great, so now I have no official back up.”

Fratley rubbed a hand lovingly over the console. “Don’t worry, kid. Arla here can do just about everything you need.”

We watched the tunnel in silence, until Fratley launched into a monologue about how much he loved the Renegade life.

“Freedom, Gage. Freedom is what matters.”

We had time to kill, so I didn’t stop him. If he was making a sales pitch, it wasn’t going to beat out my current life.

I was so caught up in watching the tunnel that I didn’t notice when the others came on the bridge. It wasn’t until Fratley wound his speech about freedom, honor, and money to a close with a bright, “Hello, Mr. Charles!” that I turned to find we were no longer alone.

Collin leaned against the back wall of the command deck with his arms crossed, also watching the tunnel. Haley sat at the communications console without asking for Fratley’s permission, as Kiren read the navigation display. 

“Nearing the end of the slip tunnel,” Arla announced. 

“Well, isn’t this fortuitous?” Fratley said. “I don’t have to announce anything to you. You’re going to make a fine crew without even trying.”

“Aren’t we going to set the ship’s ID to a freighter?” Kiren asked.

“That’s right,” Fratley said. “Thank you.” He spent a minute working on his small console, then cracked his knuckles.

“Ship’s ID updated to Freight Class,” Arla reported. “Port of Origin Ordo. Manifest completed.”

“We’re carrying food and supplies for the station,” Fratley said. “Attractive items for any pirate stuck out here for a while.”

The crackling green covering the observation display blinked out, and we emerged back into the black of space. An overlay appeared, showing a star and five planets, with a gas giant and asteroid field that covered most of the system.

I automatically fell into prospector mode, picking out the mass concentrations and checking for large iron deposits. Four processing rigs were represented in the asteroid field as blue icons, with a flow of freighter traffic leading into and out of each location. Smaller dots appeared on the sensors, and then an orbital at the transfer point between the third and fourth planets came into view.

“That’s Rivas,” Kiren said. “It’s the largest asteroid in the system.”

Arla set a course that would take us along one of the major freight routes from the S.G. Point toward Rivas. Fratley stared at the navigation display for a few minutes, then sighed and sprawled back in his chair, tapping the head of his cane. 

“If gang members were going to hit us, they would do it as soon as we came out of the tunnel,” he said. “This means we’re going to have to hang out, or just head into the refinery so you lot can check things like you normally would.”

Kiren looked about to argue when a proximity alert started blaring too close to my ear.

“Warning,” Arla said, voice all business now. “Missile lock.”

The holo display updated, shifting so the Iron Scabbard was the brightest icon in the center. Asteroids and other bodies were dim shapes across the command deck, except for two glowing points headed toward our location.

“Hold on!” Fratley shouted. 

The Iron Scabbard pulled right and the engines opened to full burn. I was slammed against the wall and just managed to get into my seat to strap in before the Renegade brought the ship around and accelerated again, this time with twice the velocity.

“Play your tricks, Arla,” Fratley said.

The AI made a purring sound. “Go easy or go hard?”

“Go easy at first. We want to learn who’s decided to come at us. We can’t just go blowing them into bits without any proper intel, can we?”

The display jerked and rotated as we shot through the asteroid field. Arla took the Iron Scabbard below the plain of the field, executed a hard brake and burn, then shot back toward the ships that had fired on us. 

One missile hit an asteroid and the explosion flashed in the display. As the second missile closed, Arla opened the point defense cannons and filled the space around the Iron Scabbard with molten metal. Just as it appeared the missile would strike, it flared and disappeared.

“Oh, gods,” Haley said with relief.

Fratley laughed. “Excellent job, Arla. Excellent. Now let’s close on these bastards and find out who thought they could fire on me without even a hello to start the dance.”

“Neither ship has registry information,” Arla said. “Mass signatures match those of standard light attack craft without long range capability. They don’t appear to have slip drives.”

Kiren leaned forward. “So they’ve got a base in the system? Who are they?”

“Both good questions,” Fratley said. 

The Iron Scabbard came around to close on the pirates. Each ship shot off in the opposite direction, and he chose the nearest target. We spent the next fifteen minutes in pursuit, Fratley growing increasingly angry as the smaller ship managed to use nearby asteroids to hide and then change course. Finally, Arla overtook the other ship and peppered its hull with the defense cannons, immobilizing it.

“There we go!” Fratley shouted, pounding his controls. “Open a channel. I want to talk to these fools before I blow their ship to dust.”

Arla put the comms channel on the shared speaker. The sounds of cursing and what might have been crackling flames emerged.

“Who the hell fired on me and mine?” Fratley demanded.

“Go to hell,” a male voice answered. “Do what you’re going to do.”

“Now that’s a terrible way to negotiate,” Fratley said. “Here I am, in a position to save you and your crew’s lives, and you talk to me like that. What’s your name?”

“It doesn’t matter. Piss off. I know what you’re going to do.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Fratley said. “I am fully prepared to rescue you from that burning hulk of a ship. How many of you are there? Three? That’s no skin off my back. I’ve got plenty of room for you over here. I just need a little information.”

“Tell him!” another voice shouted. “Screw it. I’m Tarli. The other one talking is Bill.”

“Thank you, Tarli. That’s awfully kind of you. Who are you working for?”

“Keep your mouth shut,” Bill growled.

“We’re losing atmosphere,” Tarli shouted, terror plain in his voice. “Kallaver.”

“Here’s the thing,” Fratley said. “The fact that you would throw out Kallaver’s name in such an easy fashion leads me to believe you don’t in fact work for Kallaver. I think you’ve got a local base here in the system, and I want to know who’s in charge of that place. Who sent you out on shift today, boys?”

“Are you sending something over?” Tarli asked.

“If you give me a straight answer,” said Fratley

“Shut up,” Bill said. “He’s not going to help us and your whining isn’t helping.”

“That’s not what I said.” Fratley sounded genuinely wounded. “My name is Fratley Oxonos, and if I say I’ll help you, I will.” He made an exaggerated motion of muting the channel on his console. “I was going to kill them until they went down this route.”

Haley laughed. “You all are way too nice. They’re gang members. They know the score. Let the void have them. We should let them die and loot their ship.”

Collin gave Haley a disgusted look and she just grinned at him. 

Fratley unmuted the channel. “All right, Tarli, here’s what I’m going to do.”

“I’m in charge of this ship,” Bill said, cutting in.

“You’re being a rude bastard, Bill,” Fratley said. “You cut me off again while I’m speaking and I’ll change my mind about helping you out of this predicament. Now, send me the location of your base in the next ten seconds. Arla, start counting, dear.”

“Ten seconds,” said the AI. “Nine.”

“Go to hell,” Bill said.

“Eight,” Arla counted. “Seven, six, five, four—”

“It’s coming!” Tarli shouted. “I’m sending you the data! I didn’t come out here to die like this. I was on a security contract at the rig. I left with this asshole and I’m not going to die for it.”

“There we go, Tarli,” Fratley said, staring at a report scrolling across his console. “Very good. Other side of the gas giant. That puts them in a good spot for anyone following the main shipping lanes. Excellent thinking.”

“Are you coming, then?” the gang member asked.

Fratley tapped his chin. “I’ll tell you what, Tarli. According to my scans, your hull breach is bleeding atmosphere at a rate that will certainly kill the two of you in a couple hours. Since Bill pissed me off, you kill him. That gives us enough time to take care of what we need to do, and then we’ll come scoop you up. How does that sound?”

“What?” Tarli screeched.

“If I come back through here and find two live humans on your ship, I’m not stopping, Tarli.”

“No,” Tarli shouted. “I’m not a fighter. I can’t take Bill. Why are you doing this? I gave you the information you wanted.”

“I’m trying to teach you a valuable lesson,” Fratley said. “Whenever you walk into a room, figure out how you’re going to kill every bastard in there. Hurry up now, Tarli. Air’s running out.” He closed the channel.

“Is that so?” Kiren asked.

“Oh, I don’t subscribe to that personally,” Fratley said. “I just heard it said once and thought it was amusing. You didn’t find that exchange amusing?”

“They tried to kill us,” Haley said. “I still think you should blow their ship to dust. That’s what I would do.”

“I think I agree,” Kiren said.

Fratley rubbed his hands together. “So what shall we do next? Go after the gang base that’s attacking your shipping lanes, or set down on the processing center and see how things are there? Ms. Carthage? You’re in charge, I believe.”

Kiren looked at me. “What do you suggest, Deputy?”

“We’re here to remove the threat to your shipping lanes,” I said. “Let’s do that. We need to remember there’s another fighter out there, and we don’t know what else might shake out once we raid their base.”

“Arla is tracking all traffic in the system as we speak,” Fratley said. “Blowing things up makes me thirsty.”

The Renegade stood from his seat, stretched with a loud yawn, and sauntered off the command deck, clicking his cane on the deck as he walked.

“Is that a good idea?” Kiren asked. “We were just under attack.”

“Space is big,” Fratley said. “Anybody tries again, I’ll have plenty of time to find my way back here.”

Kiren shook her head.

“Arla, take us to those coordinates,” the Renegade ordered. “If anybody comes at us in the meantime, please notify me with a gentle laugh in my ear.”

“Yes, Captain,” the AI answered.

12

In the small galley, which had a passable coffee maker, Collin sat with his data pad on the table in front of him. He nodded as I came in.

“How far now?” he asked.

“We should reach the location in another hour,” I said. The coffee maker hissed and filled my mug with black liquid. It actually smelled pretty good.

I carried the mug over and sat across from the consultant. His pad was locked, so I couldn’t see anything on its screen. Collin appeared more relaxed than I would have expected.

“Is this normal duty for you?” he asked.

“This is unusual,” I admitted. “But it’s not outside the realm of possibility. The sheriff sends us out into nearby systems without security on occasion.”

“In a Renegade ship with no other help?” Collin looked skeptical.

“Trust me, this ship can handle itself just fine.”

“Why didn’t we get an official escort?” Collin asked. “Is it because the sheriff is using every available ship for his militia? It’s common knowledge on the station that he’s putting one together.”

I sipped my coffee. “I couldn’t say anything about that. Like I said, he told me to do this.”

“And bring me along?”

“That’s right,” I said. “If there’s any more to it, you’ll have to include it in your report. All I can do is show you what I’ve been directed to do. Trust me, it’s more exciting to be out here than working traffic on Casino Row. You could get your fill of puking tourists and bar fights.”

Collin nodded. There was a hint in his expression that he understood what it meant to follow orders.

“I get it,” he said. “I’m just looking for the reasons why.”

“Working for the Carmichaels, you would probably know more than me,” I said.

Collin didn’t seem to like that answer. He dropped the questions.

We sat in silence for a second. I listened to the sounds of the ship around us. Haley’s harsh laugh floated from the corridor.

“What did you do before you got into assessments?” I asked.

“Me? Nothing special. Did a stint in the Army.”

“See anyplace interesting?”

Collin laughed. “A lot of bullshit on the edge of the Sarkonian Empire. Made me appreciate what we’ve got here.”

“Never been,” I said.

“I wouldn’t recommend it. The Empire doesn’t abide a free spirit, and they’re quick to conscript you if you wind up in the wrong system. Same goes for your planet. Those people see something they like, doesn’t matter who it belongs to. Life doesn’t mean much to them.”

I was about to tell him the Deadlands weren’t much different, when proximity alarms blasted around us.

Something hit the side of the ship and the room started to spin. I was thrown onto the table, then slammed against the far bulkhead. Gravity failed, and every utensil in the alley that wasn’t tied down floated into the air. A second force hit the ship, causing the Iron Scabbard to start to spin.

All I could do was hold on.

“Anybody who can operate a weapons bank, get the hell up here!” Fratley shouted. “Hold on! I’m lighting attitude thrusters. Should stop this damn spin!”

The room jerked and the pressure holding me against the bulkhead eased. The silverware continued to float and spin, miniature replicas of what the Iron Scabbard was doing in the asteroid belt.

“You all right?” I asked Collin.

He answered with a quick nod and a confused look.

“I’m going back to the command deck,” I said.

“I’m coming, too,” he said, wincing.

There was no sign of Kiren or Haley in the outside hall. On the command deck, Fratley was strapped into his seat and cursing at his console. He waved at Collin and me as we pulled ourselves through the hatch.

“Good. Both of you take a weapons console. You can divide the fire control or just each take a different targeting area.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, strapping in. 

“Those bastards came after us with a swarm of fighters. Can you believe that? We took a direct hit with a suicide attack. Flew right into my ship like an invisible missile. Luckily, they aren’t carrying much in the explosives department.

Fratley laughed. “Shit happens. Fire up that console and start killing drones or we’ll have bigger problems on our hands.”

I brought up my targeting system then glanced at Collin next to me. “You know how to use this thing?”

“Did a little of this in the army,” he said.

Checking my display, I was surprised to find the Iron Scabbard surrounded by a group of small craft. I watched them cut in and out of the nearby asteroids, following every change in course as Fratley tried to escape.

Collin brought his point defense cannons online and fired on the attackers. I matched his targeting sequence with everything in my range of fire and opened up. My display filled with spiraling streams of light. 

“Arla,” I asked. “What all have I got here in terms of weapons?”

“Short-range and long-range missiles are available,” she said. The display shifted to show a craft on the far side of the asteroid belt. “Sensors indicate this ship is the lead, but I have not been able to verify a launch pattern. The fighters were already at our location when the first attack took place.”

“No communications activity you can track?” I asked.

“Working. I will report as soon as the target is verified.”

I really wanted to launch on that ship. It was entirely possible that this was the ‘base‘ Bill and Tarli had been talking about. 

The Renegade was a good pilot, despite the fact that he kept complaining about not getting his flask filled. “There I was, all tucked in with my boots off and my sleep visor on. You know what a sleep visor is, Deputy?”

“You all right?” I asked, trying to focus on my continually moving targets.

“I’m angry, Deputy Walker. I’m sleep deprived. I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”

“Target verified,” Arla said. “I have positive control on the leader.”

“Fire on that bastard,” Fratley said.

Beside me, Collin’s hands danced over his controls, sending a barrage of missiles through the nearest fighter, around a phalanx of asteroids, and directly at the lead ship.

The missiles hit the opposing ship, breaking apart the hull and disabling it. Secondary explosions flared and sputtered dark on the display as its engines blew. 

“Now to mop up those fighter drones,” Fratley said. “Arla, how are we doing on the gravity?”

“I am repairing those systems now. We sustained physical damage to the hull, requiring me to fabricate repair components.”

“Well, isn’t that dandy,” Fratley said. 

Beside me, Collin was cleaning up the fighters faster than I could take them out. He cleared his target area and was moving on mine. 

“You’re pretty good at that,” I said. “How long has it been since you used one of these things?”

“Amazing how fast it comes back.”

Fratley laughed. “I knew that guy was a tea kettle ready to blow from the first moment I saw him.”

“I’m the tea kettle?” Collin asked, confused.

”Arla,” I cut in. “How much farther until we reach the location where the base was supposed to be?”

“Fifteen minutes,” the AI said. “I have adjusted the location of their base.”

“There goes any chance at a godsdammed nap,” Fratley said.

Kiren and Haley settled in at the remaining workstations. Haley began monitoring the local communications channels and then got a big smile on her face. “Well, if you want to know where they are, it looks like all we need to do is listen in.”

She switched the channel she was monitoring to the overhead speakers.

“Yorley’s dead,” an angry voice said. “They just took out the whole damn ship. What are we supposed to do now?”

“He’s the Renegade out of Taurus,” a second voice answered. I recognized him as Bill from the fighter we’d left disabled. I guess Tarli hadn’t won his fight.

“You’re going to have to report to Kallaver.”

“Stop whining. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Yorley had the big guns. He should have managed to defend himself. That’s his mistake. We’re getting the hell out of here. Kallaver’s calling everybody back to the Factory anyway. No point staying here when the real party is going to be back in the Chop.”

Fratley blew out a breath when the transmission cut out. “They don’t get to run away. Not after what they did to my ship.”

Kiren shook her head. “We know it’s Kallaver harassing the shipments. That’s what I needed. You’ve got hull damage. I think we should go ahead and dock at the refinery and have one of the maintenance bays do a--”

“Whose ship is this?” Fratley stabbed his chest with a finger. “Mine. We’re following my orders. Arla, take us after those bastards. They’re dead.”

“Yes, Captain,” the AI answered, all sugar.

13

After taking care of the pirates, Fratley pointed the Scabbard toward our original destination.

Rivas grew in the display as we came around the system’s fifth planet. Not quite a planetoid, the oblong asteroid looked wrapped in barbed wire.

Centuries of construction had bored throughout the asteroid, and structures filled the gash-like canyons and extended from the craggy surface. Areas devoted to different refining processes that had changed over time littered the asteroid. Huge warehouses, storage tanks, boilers, acid baths, and spindly communications arrays looked like some kind of mold from this distance.

Rivas was the one of the largest refineries in the Carthage fleet. Transport drones ferried material from mining sites deep in the outer system to wait in parking orbits before being moved to docking points all over the refinery, where it was processed and moved to freighters docked along the outer edges.

Arla was already skimming network data, checking where we would be docking, the admin area where we would check in, and then the other processing centers located at different points inside the asteroid. She sent the data to my pad where I could view it for myself.

Fratley brought the Iron Scabbard around to the transit lanes where worker drones formed orderly lines or hung waiting for their order. Once we were docked and had made our way to the promenade, I noticed how few people there were.

“Ugly damn place they’ve got here,” Fratley observed.

“Refineries were supposedly nicer places compared to the forward positioned mining town where I grew up,” I said.

“You mean there are worse holes than this shitpile?” The Renegade winked at me. He was in an excellent mood after burning Kallaver’s third ship. “Why would they even bother calling it a town? Looks like straight ass.”

Haley squinted at Fratley. “You’re kind of rude, aren’t you?”

“You only figured that out now, love? If you’re looking for someone to coddle your feelings and pamper your ass, you’ve come to the wrong man.”

A tall man in a dust-gray worksuit waited for us at the check in.

“Ms. Carthage,” he said, bowing a little and ignoring the rest of us. “We’re so glad you’ve decided to visit. I’m Brand Sims, lead administrator. I’m here to escort you to the main complex.”

Kiren nodded and shook his hand. “So the Station Administrator didn’t come down to meet me?”

Sims looked anxious. “I’m sorry, Ms. Carthage. She was detained with a last-minute issue. We just received word of the attack on your ship as you approached. As you know, this isn’t an isolated incident for us. We’re elated you’ve come to see the problem for yourself. But there is, er, clean up to take care of.”

“I understand,” Kiren said.

I walked ahead of the group as we left the port and crossed a main corridor to a checkpoint that led into the admin complex. Most of the surrounding area seemed to be offices with displays showing scrolling information, not much different than the Carthage board room.

Sims waved at different sections as we passed. “This is Logistics. Operations is in the next section over. Maintenance Control is the complex over there.”

Despite the tour making everything sound productive, I saw few people. The workstations appeared to be running on autopilot, with the most activity created by custodians cleaning the corridors, sucking up the gray dust that seemed to leak everywhere.

Arla shared updates as we walked, noting there weren’t any more people than those we saw in the offices. Other areas were empty except for a few dejected workers.

Sims led us to an ornate lounge with wood paneling and leather couches. Like the offices outside, the walls were covered in displays showing Rivas Refinery’s output stats.

“Administrator Travers asks that you wait here for a few minutes,” Sims said as we entered the lounge. “She’ll be here as soon as she can.”

He turned to leave and Kiren caught him with a hard expression. 

“Tell Travers I’m going to need a full update on the gang situation,” she said.

“Of course,” Sims said.

Fratley busied himself with an inspection of the mini bar while Haley tried each of the chairs and the couch, trying to get a smile out of Kiren. I stood near the windows with Collin, looking out on the admin campus below, which was deserted. Every so often, a single person would leave a building to hurry to another structure, head down as if they feared sniper attack.

“You ever been to a place like this before?” I asked Collin.

He shrugged. “Every corporate station is pretty much the same. Isolated, with almost complete control of their people and their work. I’ve been to some strange places.”

The phrase made me glance at him, and I caught a slight frown that indicated he had more to say on the subject. More than a typical government bureaucrat might say, anyway. Collin’s demeanor had changed since we left the ship. He walked with more assurance, head on a swivel to check the areas around us.

Kiren began to pace the room, although it was slow enough that I didn’t notice right away. Fratley waved a bottle of expensive-looking liquor at her and she shook her head.

The door opened and a serious-looking woman in a gray suit walked in. “Ms. Carthage,” she said, even-toned. “I’m Aya Travers. We didn’t expect your visit. If I had known you were coming, I would have cleared my schedule.”

“You can clear it anyway,” Kiren said. She turned and faced the woman, crossing her arms. “The information I’ve seen said nothing about multiple ships with pirate bases in-system. We were nearly killed getting here. Give me a report immediately.”

Travers’s smooth demeanor didn’t falter. “There has been no freight lost, Ms. Carthage. According to incoming intelligence reports, this was a one-time attack and the threat has been neutralized. As we all know, the system is a big place. We can’t hope to police all of it. Nor do we have the authority or even the responsibility.”

“Deputy Walker is here because I asked the Sheriff personally to send someone with me on a fact-finding mission. I didn’t expect all-out combat.”

Fratley laughed. “Did your intelligence tell you that I was the one who neutralized your threat?”

Travers ignored the Renegade. “Please, Ms. Carthage. Your safety is of the utmost importance to us, your father, and the Board. If you sit, I’ll get some food in here.”

“We’re not sitting down anywhere. I want a tour of the facility.” Kiren’s voice rose an octave at the end. She was barely controlling herself.

“I’ll be happy to arrange that,” Travers said. “Sims will take care of the details.”

“We’re leaving now,” Kiren said. “Get me a short range shuttle and some of your security if you want, but I’m going to see what’s really here. Where are all the people? I’ve studied your numbers and I have my own questions about your output, Aya. I want to see it for myself.”

The director stiffened. She looked like she was about to rebut what Kiren had said, then her expression went cold. “You have no authority here, Ms. Carthage. I have informed General Davies and the Board of your presence, and I have no official company record sanctioning this. You say members of the Taurus Sheriff’s Office are here to assess the security situation in the system. Well, I think you’ve accomplished that goal. Wouldn’t you say so, Deputy Walker?”

“I said talk to me,” Kiren said in a sharp voice. She took a deep breath, then she raised her voice to the room. “Control system override. Verify Carthage, Kiren.” 

The voice of a new AI answered tonelessly, “Authenticate.”

Kiren recited a string of numbers and letters that made the director's face grow red.

“Control granted,” the AI said. “My name is Cameron. How may I be of assistance?”

“Thank you, Cameron,” Kiren said. “I require full security overrides for the facility.”

“The dramatics aren’t necessary,” Travers said. “Go look at whatever you want. It’s time you learned your father’s true business.”

14

Controlled by the AI, our shuttle rose above the dark surface of the asteroid and followed a transport line from the administrative zone out into the production area. Glancing through the rear window, I spotted three vehicles following us.

“Looks like we’ve got an escort,” I said. The tail kept their distance.

As we traveled, the names of other facilities appeared in the viewscreen. Some of them looked like ruins. Others were newly built.

“What the hell is that?” Fratley asked, pointing at a long, articulated worker drone crawling across the surface of a nearby storage tank. The metal beast was larger than it appeared at first, and it probed the tank with narrow claws.

“I don’t want to meet that thing in the dark,” Haley said under her breath.

The dot of a sorting and warehousing facility appeared on the display, and Kiren verified that was where she wanted to go.

The shuttle banked and headed for the new landing site, then dropped to the surface and entered a brightly lit cargo airlock. The entrance took several minutes to cycle, and then the transport’s hatch opened on an exit ramp.

Dusty air rushed inside the ship, tasting like metal. The layer of dust was even worse down here, making everything a dull gray. I pulled out my service pistol and checked the chamber. 

“You think we’re going to need that?” Collin asked.

“The deputy can be nervous for all of us,” Fratley said. He patted the top of his cane.

“When are you going to share what you’re hiding in that thing?” I asked.

“Me? Hiding something?”

I couldn’t say that I trusted the grin he sent my way. It was almost manic and I found myself looking away.

“Welcome to Warehousing Facility 62-34B,” Cameron announced. “Your requested destination is five hundred and seventy meters away. I have shared the travel path with Deputy Walker’s notification system.”

As he said the words, my data pad updated to show a highlighted path through the underground network outside. I glanced at Kiren. “You ready?”

“I have to be, right?”

I was first out of the vehicle, walking carefully as the dust slid under my boots.

“Let’s go find the party then.”

As soon as the others were out of the shuttle, Cameron sealed the airlock.

“We can get back in there, right?” Fratley asked.

“I’ve got control of the AI,” Kiren said. “The whole system has to answer my commands.”

“You sure Travers doesn’t have an override?” Collin asked.

Kiren didn’t answer, which I took to mean she didn’t know. Arla continued to share information from the surveillance systems she could access, showing more empty corridors and dusty storage spaces. I was starting to think the whole station was a ghost town.

I led the way down the corridor, checking each junction between tunnels and finding only emptiness. While there might be activity in the warehouse we were looking for, this area was empty. Long corridors ran between the storage rooms, floors covered in the fine gray dust from the surface.

There were no immediately visible entry points. I checked my pad’s HUD, turning the map, and found what looked like a utility access point near the surface.

“Looks like we need to go out an airlock to reach the entrance,” I said.

Kiren’s confidence wavered. “Maybe you’re right. Travers did something to the AI. Why would it bring us here, knowing we can’t get in this way?” 

Haley tried to calm her down, but every time Kiren looked back toward me and Collin, or at Fratley’s grinning face, she grew more angry.

I turned the map again and found a new icon. “It looks like there’s an entrance on the far side,” I said. “We should keep walking.”

“What I’d like to know is where the hell is everybody?” Fratley asked, kicking his cane as we walked. “This place is a damn ghost town. I thought your company employed thousands, Ms. Carthage.”

“That’s why we’re here,” she said.

“I’m starting to wonder if you should investigate a crime, Deputy,” the Renegade said. “Someone’s stolen the Carthage Corporation’s credibility. This is all looking like fraud to me. Where are the drones carrying ore? Where are the smiling workers spending their credits at the company store?”

“It’s a big asteroid,” Kiren said.

If I could say anything for the woman, it would be that it was admirable she gave a shit about our opinions. She held her head up as we walked the two sides of the long building until we finally reached a cargo door that was large enough to accommodate a rolling freighter. It was locked, of course.

Kiren had to call Cameron to order the lock override.

“I apologize,” the AI said. “This should have been clear on the map and open for you when you arrived. I will verify my data stores.”

“Do that,” Kiren said.

“Even their AIs are a little dumb,” Fratley said. “Imagine that. Maybe I’ll hook Arla up with old Mr. Cameron, have her show him a right good time. That might clear the fog out of his memory banks.”

“That’s not even possible,” Haley said.

“How do you know?” Fratley grinned at her. “Just because they’re limited in their reasoning abilities doesn’t mean they’re limited in other ways. Shit, it’s immoral not to allow them a little pleasure now and then, wouldn’t you say?”

“You probably have voice sex with your AI,” Haley muttered.

Fratley raised his eyebrows. “That’s not a bad idea. It gets lonely out on the haul.”

A mechanism in the wall vibrated and the doors slid open on a dim storage room stacked with huge crates, floor covered in undisturbed dust.

Imagine that, more crates. Were they all full of the same gray dust?

I entered first. The room was deserted, and I headed for a door on the opposite side. The exit opened as I approached, showing a service corridor on the other side. Lights in the ceiling grew brighter as I neared.

Kiren fell in behind me, with Haley and then Fratley and Collin following. As exciting as this trek was turning out to be, I had to admit that everyone was keeping pace and focused on something bad happening. Even Fratley carried his cane like he expected to brain someone with it.

“How far do you want to go in?” I asked.

“Until we find another human,” Kiren said. “I want to talk to the actual workers. This whole situation is strange, from the attack at the slip tunnel, to this. Something is going on here that either my father isn’t telling the Board about or vice versa.”

“Fraud,” Fratley said. “Or maybe he’s just not telling you.”

She said nothing.

As I moved away from the group, I asked Arla, “You still tracking activity ahead of us?”

“Yes, Deputy Walker. There is a separate encrypted channel that is not part of the corporate network. I am attempting to break it now. I should have more information then.”

“All right. Keep working.”

I led the way down the corridor, listening for anything that might indicate human or drone activity. 

The ground level of the warehouse was uninhabited. I checked each turn in the corridor and cleared rooms following the protocols I’d been taught, only to find underused storage or more of the dimly lit rooms with no evidence of recent activity. Just more gray dust.

With our footsteps echoing in the empty spaces, we eventually reached a lift near the middle of the building that was big enough for cargo. According to the control panel, we had fifteen levels to choose from, taking us all the way into the core of the asteroid.

Kiren used her security override on the panel and the lift took us down. It dropped quietly at first, until a vibration grew in the walls.

“You hear that?” Fratley asked.

“Sounds like machinery,” Collin said. “Big machinery.”

“It’s probably the major mineral separation systems,” Kiren said. “They generate a lot of noise and heat.”

The doors opened and the grinding roar of equipment filled my ears. After such a long period of silence, it seemed like we had a new violent world.

Heat pressed against my face as I walked out first, stepping onto a metal platform that looked over a broad room full of processing belts. Standing at the railing, I tried to make sense of the shifting maze below. Different types of drones picked among the belts, scraped chutes clean, and raked piles of rock from one area to another.

There were too many types of drones to figure out at once, all shapes and sizes, moving rapidly through the room like metal monsters constantly reconfiguring themselves for different tasks. Somehow, people navigated among the machinery and drones, digging at the pulverized rock and staring at control panels that appeared to be analyzing chemical composition. It was a nightmare of metal and rock, where any wrong move would crush a soft human to pulp.

The sound was deafening. The deep vibrations in the room penetrated my chest and made my teeth ache.

“Here we go,” Kiren shouted. “I want to talk to those people.”

Before I could stop her, she was headed down a set of narrow stairs that dropped three levels to the working floor.

Fratley hit the stairs in front of me.

I grabbed his arm and pulled him close so he could hear me. “What are you doing?”

“I want to see her face when she learns these people don’t give a damn about her.” He shook his arm free and followed Kiren.

I kept an eye on the people closest to the stairs as I dropped to get closer to Kiren. If they noticed our movement among the belts and refining equipment, no one made a sign. Not one person took their focus off their work.

Kiren reached the floor and crossed to a woman who was checking the output of the sorting drone next to her. An articulated arm shot out among the dusty river flowing past, and the woman used a small rake-like tool to move chunks of minerals around when the sensors missed whatever it was they were supposed to find. I had never worked with rock at this fine a scale, so it all looked the same to me. 

The woman was so focused on her task that she didn’t notice Kiren approach. After being ignored for a moment, Kiren touched her on the arm.

15

The woman stared at Kiren like she was seeing a ghost. Blinking, she opened her mouth to speak, but then paused and quickly turned to the conveyor to sort a meter’s worth of material, getting ahead of where she had been. Finally, she looked back at Kiren. 

“Are you all right?” Kiren asked.

The woman threw her hands out and grabbed Kiren’s forearms in a silent plea. When she did speak, it was so fast and accented that I had a hard time understanding.

“Who are you?” the woman said. “You aren’t a guard.”

Down on the floor level, the other workers glanced our direction, fear plain on their faces. The woman saw them and then seemed to make a decision about ignoring her place on the sorting line. She pulled Kiren with her, motioning for her to come.

I dropped the last few steps to join Kiren. I could see how worn the woman’s clothes were. Her skin was caked in dust, with deep black shadows under her eyes.

She watched me warily as she continued to pull Kiren toward a doorway behind the stair platform. 

“She’s Sarkonian,” Collin said, walking up beside me. “You can hear the accent, can’t you?”

The rumble lessened slightly as we neared the door.

“What do you know about that?” Fratley asked.

“Fought them in the army,” the consultant said. “Some of their colonies have pretty extreme dialects. Almost like another language.”

Collin approached the woman and said what sounded like “hello”. She stared at him, then spoke another string of words. The consultant nodded, frowning as he listened. At the end, she gave him an expectant look but all he did was nod and turn to me.

“She says someone is sick and she wants us to help them. She keeps saying something about guards or army. I’m not sure about that word. I think these people are prisoners.”

“Prisoners?” Kiren said. “What the hell would Sarkonian prisoners be doing here?”

“Let’s go,” I said. “Have her show us where the rest of them are.”

I pointed toward the door. The woman nodded and led Kiren out of the processing room.

Outside, another long corridor appeared to link two of the larger areas. The sounds of machinery encompassed us until we reached a single elevator. We went inside and the woman took us to the lowest level of the refinery.

The sound deadened as the lift opened and we got out. 

She continued to talk but kept her voice low as the area grew quieter. 

Collin did his best to keep up. “I can only recognize every third word. The grammar is the same, but the words aren’t making sense.”

We came around a corner and found a hall lined with doorways. Each was open and as we passed the first few, I spotted bedding on the floors, small bits of personal items, and then people sleeping. They wore the same clothes as the woman, and there looked to be enough here to staff other shifts on the sorting floor.

“Should we wake one of them up and get a second opinion?” Fratley asked. “I’m all for a good mystery, but we’re putting a lot of trust in just one person here.”

The woman pulled Kiren through a doorway before anyone could answer him. In that room were seven empty mats, with the eighth occupied by a thin man who woke as we entered. The woman gestured for Kiren to help him.

The stench of unwashed bodies and bedding filled my nose. I looked around for any indication of where these people were from and saw only piles of filthy clothes and a few personal items that looked like they’d been carried in a hurry.

“Find out where she’s from,” I told Collin. 

I knelt beside the man on the mat and felt his forehead. He looked in his fifties, but as abused as these people were, his age was difficult to estimate.

He looked up at me with wet, feverish eyes and his forehead was hot to the touch. I ran my hands down his body looking for wounds, and he jerked when I reached his lower left leg. There was no blood I could see, so I explored more carefully, hearing him wince as I passed my hands over his shin. There was a break. It must have been hairline, but his calf was still swollen inside his pant leg. I pulled out a knife and carefully cut the material back to show purple skin with black streaks along his veins.

Haley sucked in a breath. “That looks terrible.”

I’d taken some medical training classes. Enough to handle splints and deploy basic field medication. Still, I wasn’t a medic, so I could only guess at how bad this situation was at this point. “It’s infected,” I said, examining the wound. “Most likely caused by the untreated break.”

I looked back at Kiren and the Sarkonian woman. “We’ll need to get him out of here,” I said.

Fratley whistled. “It’s a long way back to the surface, and then the ship. Shouldn’t they have some kind of help here for these people? Ms. Kiren is the one in charge. Get some of her cronies in here to help him.”

“You know damn well they aren’t my cronies,” Kiren said.

Fratley waved a hand. “Use your code override.”

“It’s for the AI.”

I ignored their bickering and checked the man for other wounds. Beside me, Collin tried again to communicate with the woman about her homeworld. He didn’t seem to be making much headway. 

“They’re refugees from a Sarkonian colony,” he said. “She knows they passed through a slip tunnel but that’s all I can understand. Maybe if we can get her to write the name down we can try searching for it, but I don’t know much about the Empire’s colonies in the Deadlands. I also don’t understand why she’d be a refugee from her own colony.”

“If he stays here, he’s going to die,” I said.

The woman seemed to understand those words. She released a wail and sank to the man’s side, soothing his temples, then she looked up at us with tears in her eyes.

“What can we use as a splint?” I asked. There was nothing long and rigid in the room that I could see, just the piles of dirty clothes. I grabbed a couple of torn shirts and knelt beside the man’s leg to wrap his shin, and then tie his broken leg to the good one. It wasn’t going to do anything to keep the bones from grinding against each other, but it was better than nothing. The woman started crying every time the man grunted in pain. If he had wanted to stop me, he was too weak to do anything about it.

I held out a hand to try and ease her, then moved to grab the man under his arms. She shook her head, telling me what must have been No several times, until Haley gently pulled her back. I lifted the wounded man and eased him over my shoulder until I could hold his legs against my chest.

The man was lighter than I expected. As I turned for the door, the woman was right at my side, holding my arm like she wanted to help me with the weight. I motioned toward the doorway. 

“Lead us out,” I said. “Is there another lift?” 

Collin repeated my request and raised his hand like a platform rising. The woman blinked at him, then shook her head. 

“She keeps saying the word for army,” Collin said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

The air was immediately better as I left the dank bedroom. Out in the corridor, the woman talked quickly to Collin, shaking her head. She was obviously worried about something, so I drew my pistol.

Her protests woke a few people in the other rooms, and they appeared in the doorways with wide eyes.

A woman who looked just as worn and tired as our guide stared at me, listened to the other woman for a second, then said in a words I could understand, “She’s trying to warn you about the guards. Are you prisoners, too? You look too clean to be prisoners.”

“No,” I said, stopping. “What guards? We haven’t seen anybody here except you.”

The woman adjusted a dusty shift covering her shoulders. “They patrol several of the facilities. You must have come in between their patrol times. They’ll be back here on the quarter hour. They check the work lines as well and take anyone hurt or not working to the baths.”

“What kind of guards?” Kiren asked. “Do they work for Carthage?”

The woman shook her head. “I don’t know what Carthage is. We thought they were Union soldiers. Aren’t you Union?”

Behind me, Fratley spat laughter. “Well, isn’t that a fine surprise. Am I going to need to kill some Union lackeys? That’s going to cost extra.”

“Is there a lift this way?” I asked.

“Yes, but the guards are always there.”

“We’ll see,” I said. “What’s your name?”

“Aranis,” the woman replied. “I was the leader of our township before we were captured.”

I studied her more closely. “How long have you all been here?”

She shook her head. “It’s hard to tell. They wanted us off the planet. It wasn’t a large colony, barely fifty years old. But everyone was removed. We were brought here. There were others when we first came. They’re all gone now.”

“Gone where?” I asked.

“Other parts of this place. The guards say they’ll go to a different job, and they never come back.”

“How many of you are here?”

“We are forty-one,” she said. “There were nearly three hundred when we came.”

I looked at Kiren. This place was a death camp.

I adjusted my grip on the wounded man and moved to the end of the corridor to check the doorway. It was a t-intersection, with a double set of lift doors at the end of the hall on the right. “There’s a lift down here,” I called to the others. “Let’s go.”

“What about the rest of them?” Kiren asked.

“How are we going to do that?” Fratley asked. “Steal a transport?” 

“I can get us a transport,” Kiren said. She was growing more flustered. “None of this makes sense. I need to find out why these people are here and get them back to their homes.”

“They may not have homes,” Collin told her. “It’s typical to raze a town to the ground after conscripting the citizens.”

I felt Kiren’s distress. These people needed help but we had to be smart about it. There were five of us and an untold number of hostile forces in the area. I didn’t want to lead this group into a massacre when it sounded like they were being slowly ground to death anyway. We might be helping the people in charge.

I shook my head. It killed me to leave anyone behind, but we had to be careful. “If we’re in for a fight, we can’t take the whole group with us. More of them will get hurt. Bring the translator.”

“We should ask her, shouldn’t we?” Haley said.

I waved my pistol. “Then hurry up and do it.”

Aranis seemed torn about leaving but she came along. It sounded like they were all related or at least from the same village, and coming with us meant leaving family behind. I understood, but if we were going to help these people, we needed to understand what had happened to them.

At the lift, I waited for everyone to get inside, then set the panel for the ground level. We rose, accelerating, until the lift jerked to a stop on the third level.

“Arla, can you see what’s happening?”

“An external security override intercepted our lift,” the AIP answered.

“Kiren, can you do anything about this?” I asked.

There was no time.

“Shit.” I aimed my pistol at the opening.

The doors opened on the surprised faces of four soldiers in dust-gray uniforms. They were armed with assault rifles.

“Stop,” I shouted.

The first soldier raised his rifle and stepped back to fire. He brought his rifle to aim, but I was quicker and managed to shoot first. My round caught the soldier in the shoulder the moment he pulled his trigger. He missed and fell back, dropping his rifle on the deck. Behind him, the others scattered toward defensive positions behind crates stacked on either side of the corridor.

We were trapped in the lift and there was nowhere to go but out. As the soldiers hastened to get their rifles up, I charged the opening, slamming into the back of the slowest soldier.

The wounded refugee we were transporting wheezed in pain but the soldier sprawled on the deck, then rolled over with his rifle up. I shot him in the chest and kept running.

Fratley and Collin were right behind me, both taking a soldier. As the Renegade swung his cane into a man’s head, Collin jabbed the other in the throat. With two quick moves, the consultant disabled his soldier and then caught Fratley’s, smoothly breaking the man’s neck. The move was obviously well-practiced.

Collin caught me watching him and nodded toward the corridor ahead of us. Another two soldiers had just walked around the corner.

“We’ve got hostiles,” one of them shouted into his comms while scrambling to grab his rifle. I shot him in the side and he collapsed on the metal decking.

From another comms set, someone answered. “Verify position. We’re on our way.”

“Back in the lift,” I said. “We’re going to the surface level.”

“Aren’t more of them coming?” Kiren asked.

“They’ll be coming here first if anywhere,” I said with a shake of my head. “We need to get the hell away from this complex.”

When we reentered the lift, the translator pulled the other woman off with her. 

“What are you doing?” I asked. “We need to go.”

The woman shook her head. “Take him. He’ll die if he doesn’t get care. For us, we will stay here. If you’re caught, we’ll be killed. If we stay, we can help the others. Promise that you’ll come back.”

“I promise,” Kiren said, gripping the woman’s arm.

“We lived on a world called Harkan, in a city called Dol Exis. There are more like us.”

“Who brought you here?” I asked.

One of the soldiers groaned and the woman jerked. “We must go. Those are the names you need.” 

The translator pulled the other woman, who had started weeping and reaching for the man on my shoulder, with her. There was no time to say goodbye as the lift doors closed.

Visibly shaken, Kiren turned to the panel and entered her override. The lift activated and began to ascend.

We reached surface level and the quiet was unnerving. After the rapid battle, I expected immediate action. There was nothing, giving us time to catch our breath.

I led the way back through the storage areas to the main cargo bay where we’d left the short range shuttle. Kiren entered her code again and the doors slid open.

Instead of the cruiser, however, a row of company vehicles waited for us, with Travers flanked by a security detail.

They raised rifles and a few pistols as they spotted us, and Travers crossed her arms.

“I’m afraid you’ve entered a restricted area,” she said. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

16

“Restricted area?” Kiren demanded. “I expect to find empty processing lines and instead I found Sarkonian prisoners. What’s going on here, Travers?”

“You’ll need to talk to the Board about that,” the director said. “Or better yet, why don’t you talk to your own father? Why he allowed you to come here at all is my question. But I suppose no one expected you to get this far.”

Wheels started turning in my mind, putting things together. By all rights, the force that had attacked our ship should have been able to take out Fratley’s ship. Except they hadn’t expected it to be outfitted with weapons. Had it just been a cargo ship, we would have been forced to go back the way we came. The fact they hadn’t killed us seemed intentional now. We had been set up.

Kiren approached the director and one of the security guards pushed forward, rifle trained on her chest.

“Hold on there,” I said, aiming at his center of mass.

“Are we really going to do this?” Travers asked. “You have no power here. I suggest you put the worker down and board the transport.” She motioned toward an open vehicle behind the security cordon. “These people mean nothing to you. You don’t have all the information. And somebody is going to get hurt if we keep standing here like this.”

I was twenty meters from the transport, with ten security guards that I could see between me and the vehicle. I studied the faces of the soldiers watching us. While their uniforms were covered in gray dust, their weapons were clean and they appeared relatively well-trained and ready to fight.

Kiren was still talking to Travers. “What do you think is going to happen to all of you if you harm me or anyone with me? You think my father is going to tell you good job and give you a raise? The Board is going to blame this on you, Travers. If you trusted your security to keep me away from your little project here, they failed you.” 

“This little project is bigger than you imagine,” the director said with a sneer. Travers glanced at me and the wounded Sarkonian, then back at Kiren. She was plainly doing the math on how she would come out in all of this. If she saw herself as the fall guy, that could work in our favor.

“You can go,” Travers said. “The worker stays.”

“He’s wounded,” Kiren said. “He’s feverish and most likely going to die without medical care. We’re going to provide him with it.”

“This is the first I’ve heard of anyone being hurt,” Travers said. “I promise you that the man will receive all the care he requires. You can hold me to that. But I can’t allow him to leave Rivas. That’s out of the question. And your father and Davies will back me on that. Believe me.”

“We’ll take him to the medical clinic,” Kiren said. 

I turned to walk to the transport and a guard got in my way. He didn’t raise his rifle, so I pushed past him and shook off his arm as he tried to grab me. Another guard took his place, weapon at the ready this time.

“We’re taking him,” Kiren said, her voice leaving no room for argument.

A muscle worked in Travers’ jaw, and I thought she might say something more. Instead, she backed off and waving a hand. “Take him to the clinic. Then get off my damn station.”

Karin took a deep breath and nodded. “This isn’t over, Travers.”

I kept walking. If Kiren was going to waste time dragging this out, I wanted to make sure the transport was ready to go. I stepped inside and carefully laid the man across a bench seat, then did my best to arrange his leg so it wouldn’t cause him too much pain. His eyes already looked glazed from shock.

I looked back to find Kiren walking to the transport.

“If no one’s going to step up to drive this heap, I guess I will,” Fratley said. He slid into the pilot’s seat and ran his hands over the controls, then quickly powered up the systems and we rose in the air. 

I settled into a seat across from the wounded man as the others found places to sit. Kiren sat next to me.

“Have I completely screwed up?” she asked.

“A day ago, I couldn’t have predicted this place existed, so I don’t see how you could screw that up. We’re alive.” I nodded at the Sarkonian. “This guy might live a little longer. That’s better than he had an hour ago.”

The shuttle banked as Fratley took us into a long turn. He glanced back at the passenger cabin.

“You know, we can go straight to the Iron Scabbard and get this one aboard, then get the hell off this cursed place.”

“They’ll know as soon as we don’t arrive at the clinic,” Haley said.

“This shuttle has a fancy AI that will take it to the clinic without us,” Fratley said. “Ms. Kiren can tell it to do that, can’t she?”

Kiren considered the suggestion. 

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

“Well, there we go,” Fratley said. “We’re going to be breaking all manner of their airspace rules to hit the port, which may tip them off. Maybe not. Be ready to run in any case.”

17

The Iron Scabbard picked up two chasing vessels as we crossed the system for the slip tunnel. They didn’t get within weapons range, a fact that seemed to depress Fratley.

“I’m going to charge Ms. Carthage double for all my munitions,” he said, raising an eyebrow as he checked whether she was paying attention.

Kiren sat on the far side of the command deck with her arms crossed, lost in thought. Haley occupied the communications console, focused on her headset, while Collin sat next to her making notes in his data pad. 

The Sarkonian was sedated and strapped to a bed in the small room that served as a med clinic on the Iron Scabbard. Due to the disorganization in the clinic, understaffed as it was, I felt half afraid the sedatives were some recreational drug Fratley had stashed, but they seemed to have helped the man.

Once we’d lost the additional security forces, I focused on reviewing the records data Arla had saved from our trip into the processing center. I was no expert in human trafficking but there were clear victims here. Upon making the slip back to Taurus, I would need to make sure this evidence reached Investigations. Raiding the facility would take a task force, and the ramifications for Carthage were immense. I couldn’t see the company surviving this.

The question was, what did James Carthage or General Davies have to gain from using prisoner labor?

If what Aranis had said was true, that they were removed from their colony world for some reason known only to the Empire, then maybe that was all the purpose necessary to dump them in a place like Rivas.

“Nighty night,” Fratley told her. He turned to me. “I think she’s finding herself faced with a moral quandary.”

“How would you feel?” I asked. “You don’t think the use of slave labor is immoral?”

He shrugged. “I don’t like dealing in slaves, personally. People are messy. Now I don’t mind investing in people, but I keep that circle small. Very tight.”

“You’re saying you’ve moved slaves before?”

Fratley patted his chest. “Not me. But you hear about these things all the time. The Deadlands is a dangerous place. People crack off into the Void to make a new life. Some do all right. Some starve to death. Others find themselves visited by gang members with a labor shortage. If you can’t defend yourself, or there’s only one slip tunnel into and out of your system, and there’s a big asshole of a ravager sitting on top of it, well what are you going to do?”

I frowned. “The idea of it makes me sick. If the work costs that much, just use worker drones. Why go to all the trouble of bringing in slave labor?”

“Sometimes drones make sense. Sometimes you get a good deal on the people. It’s all an economic transaction. I think you know that.”

I turned back to my records review, then closed the file, disgusted. I wondered how far along the rest of the department had come on recruiting the militia for the raid on Kallaver’s Factory. Everyone was probably practicing at the range, checking equipment, running through the containment plan. It was always a bit of a shitshow to get a major operation together, let alone something like this.

The raid on the Factory meant that Nagel’s attention would still be drawn away, even once I shared what I’d found. I couldn’t see him sacrificing more people to help since he was already thin on numbers.

If we couldn’t help these people, who could?

I glanced at Collin. The consultant’s attention was buried in his data pad, but he appeared to be reading something rather than writing a report. The image of him breaking the security guard’s neck flashed in my mind, and I realized I now saw Collin in a different light. He was dangerous, no question about that, but was he a threat to me? He obviously wasn’t some harmless consultant, but if he wasn’t working for the Brothers, then who else had sent him here?

In any case, I’d have to keep an eye on him for now.

“Those two ships were Carthage fighters,” Haley said, looking up from her console. “I just broke their communications stream.”

“You cracked their encryption?” I asked.

“Well, it was encrypted but they weren’t using a difficult protocol. It wasn’t military or anything. All I did was verify they were sending data back to Rivas. It looks like they wanted to make sure we left.”

An alert came up on Fratley’s console and he glanced at it, then gave me a worried look.

“What is it?” I asked.

“We better go take a look at our new friend. According to the med sensors, his heart rate is slowing.”

“I’ll do it.” Since I’d been the one to care for the man, I couldn’t help feeling somewhat responsible for him. I also couldn’t shake the expression on his wife’s face as she was forced to leave him. I left the command deck and took the main corridor to the med clinic.

Kiren stuck her head out of her room as I walked past. “Where are you going?”

“Down to check on the man we rescued. His heartrate’s dropping.”

“I’ll come with you,” she said.

“Suit yourself.”

The med bay lights flickered on as we entered. The Sarkonian lay on his back on a bed against the wall, his eyelids fluttering open and then closing. He was damp, shallow breathing making the rise and fall of his chest almost imperceptible.

“Looks like he’s going into shock,” I said. “We’re going to need to get someplace closer than Taurus.”

“And here I was just sitting thinking I should never go back to Taurus,” Kiren said.

I searched among the half-empty cabinets for more medical supplies and came back with a basic trauma kit, silently cursing Fratley for not pointing it out before. I spread the kit open on the counter beside the bed and searched its contents. They were all past their effectiveness dates, but I managed to find a pain reliever. After uncapping the syringe, I jabbed it into the Sarkonian’s upper thigh and depressed the activator, and the medicine flowed into his leg.

The effect was immediate as the man’s troubled face relaxed, his eyes closing in sleep. I pulled out the syringe and disposed of it.

“That should help.” I reached up to tap the wall display and a series of bio-stats appeared on the monitor. The man’s heart rate had stabilized, but his blood pressure was still too low and looked like it was dropping. 

I tapped the ship’s comms. “Fratley, we’re going to need to get him to a real medical facility as soon as possible or we’ll be transporting a corpse.”

“We’re still five hours from Taurus. Once we arrive in system, we could cut over to the Chop and hit up the Rolo Hab. They’ve got a good medical center.”

The Chop Zone was an area filled with centuries of floating junk that housed squatters, scavengers, and the Factory, Kallaver’s hideout. The last time I was there, my partner nearly died. Rolo Hab was a relatively safe place, though it was firmly on the gray side of the legal spectrum. After checking our timing, I saw we would be nearing the Chop just as the Sheriff started the raid on the Factory.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s go there. I don’t think we’ve got even an hour.”

“I’ll turn up the burn,” Fratley said.

“This is worse than I ever imagined,” muttered Kiren. “I don’t know if I want any part of it.”

“Do what’s right,” I said.

She gave me a half smile. “What’s right in this situation?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

She nodded. “Yeah, I guess it is, but why don’t you tell me anyway?”

“Helping those people. I’ve got the report ready for the sheriff and as soon as we’re on the other side of the slip tunnel, I’m sending it and then I’m going back there.”

“And if the sheriff says no? What happens if he declines your request?”

“We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.”

18

With Arla burning the engines at full power, we achieved outer orbit at the Rolo Hab an hour after exiting slip. As soon as we had exited the tunnel, my link to Ellie was re-established, something I was more than a little happy about.

The station was a giant cylinder surrounded by hundreds of repair and cargo docks extending into the space around it, and it was treated as sanctuary for the bandits, Renegades, and other spacers who operated in the Chop Zone. The peace was enforced by the iron rule of the station’s gang, led by the Deathmonger. I knew her as Dierdre.

Fratley sent the landing request, and there was a pause before the port officer asked, “Is this Fratley Oxonos?”

“Yes, it is,” the Renegade said.

“Deathmonger says your request is, and I quote, fucking denied.”

Fratley shifted in the captain’s seat. “Now that’s not very nice of her, is it? Listen up. We’ve got a medical emergency aboard and I’m requesting emergency landing protocol. If you don’t let us come down, a man is going to die.”

“She says that sounds like a lie,” the port clerk said.

“Let me talk to Dierdre,” Fratley said.

“She doesn’t want to talk to you.”

“Then have her talk to Deputy Walker here. She knows him. He can vouch for our situation.”

There was a pause, then the clerk asked, “Deputy Gage Walker?”

“That’s right. I’m here.”

“Is Jack Keldon with you?” the clerk asked, sounding uncomfortable with the question.

“He’s not this time,” I said. “Sorry.”

After another minute, the clerk came back and allowed us landing privileges. 

“Take us in, Arla,” Fratley commanded. “We’ve got a human life to save.”

In thirty minutes, I had the man on a transport into the Rolo medical center, with assurances they would keep me updated on his status. Dealing with the medical personnel was also an embarrassing reminder that I didn’t even know the prisoner’s name. The tech used “Walker’s Pal” as his patient ID after I wouldn’t let them use Fratley’s suggestion of “Rivas Refugee.” WP quickly became Whiskey Pete, which seemed to keep all the techs amused and interested in his well-being.

Once WP was off, Fratley immediately had the Iron Scabbard put in the maintenance queue to refit and refuel. That was going to take an hour. On Haley’s suggestion, Kiren rented a room at the port hotel to clean up, while Collin announced he was going to find something real to eat. I suspected he intended to report back to the Carmichaels.

I was anxious to hear back from the Sheriff and ready to reboard the Scabbard, when I spotted a familiar face walking toward me from the maintenance area.

I hadn’t seen Drina Silver since Kiren’s wedding, where she was wearing a cocktail dress with her silver hair slicked back. Now she was dressed in her customary stained overalls with a work harness full of tools. Her cybernetic arm was stained with grease.

“Walker,” she called. “You weren’t going to try and sneak out of here, were you?”

“Why would I do a thing like that?” I asked. “I know you’re busy. Didn’t want to bother you.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Kiren pausing to look back and see who I was talking to. She gave Drina an appraising look, then turned to walk with Haley and Collin toward the hotel.

“Drina!” Fratley said loudly. He slapped his hands together. “Have you got that special something I talked to you about?”

The mechanic gave him a cold glare. “No. I do not have the Union cloaking device you keep thinking I can procure for you. I can’t. Stop asking.”

The Renegade laughed. “One of these days that no is going to turn into a yes. And that will be a happy day for me. I’ll take Sarkonian tech, too, if you can get it.”

Drina raised an eyebrow. “You don’t want the Sarkonian stuff. It’s all knock-offs of outdated Union designs, and half the time I don’t think they understand what they’re copying. That’s what happens when your engineers live in fear of being fed feet-first into metal shredders.”

Fratley twirled his cane and walked toward the exit. “Don’t forget about me.”

“Oh, I won’t,” Drina said with a laugh.

* * *

I checked with the med center to learn that Whiskey Pete had been placed in a medical coma. His leg was broken and infected, but he had also suffered numerous other injuries that seemed to be made worse by metal poisoning. It could take weeks for him to recover.

Kiren agreed to cover the cost of his care, and I made sure the facility had my info to keep me updated. I didn’t want him waking up here alone, even if he probably wouldn’t remember me.

Just as Arla reported the Iron Scabbard back at full weapons and fuel capacity, I finally received a response from Sheriff Nagel.

“Walker, if you’re back in the system, get your ass to the Factory and join up with the militia. The fight’s about to start.”

“We’re going,” Kiren said. Beside her, Haley nodded.

I looked around the command deck. “None of you have to do this. The last time we went after Kallaver’s Factory, it wasn’t pretty.”

“How else are you going to get out there?” Fratley asked. “Don’t let me keep you from getting your pretty face smashed.”

“I’m following you,” Collin said.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s do this.”

19

The gathering armada on the edge of the Chop filled the holoscreen like a swarm of insects. There were more ships than I had expected, of all classes. Transports ran alongside single-pilot fighters and heavy dreadnoughts with hulls like battering rams. The slip-tunnel on the edge of the system spat more ships by the minute.

Fratley rubbed his hands together and let out a whoop. “This is going to be one hell of a party, my friends.”

At the comms station, Haley pressed her headset against one ear and frowned at the voice traffic. “Somebody needs to tell these assholes to shut up,” she said. “There’s just too much chatter. Obviously, nobody thought about a communications plan.”

Kiren sat at her console cleaning her pistol, while Collin was still working on whatever report he was filing with his supervisors.

On the far side of the display, across a mess of chaotic junk that made up the Chop Zone, Kallaver’s Factory hung as a red icon in a relatively clear bit of space. In a place like the Chop, orbital mechanics were always sending bits of debris careening off each other, making it like trying to navigate a series of exploding grenades. On the outer edges of the mass, it wasn’t so bad. Once you entered, your ship was at the mercy of the chaos. 

Places like Rolo Hab and the Factory maintained clearing systems to keep the junk away from their fragile hulls. While Rolo had some sort of dampening system that acted like an atmosphere, burning up anything that came in too fast, it seemed Kallaver’s place relied on point defense cannons. The last time I was there, I was carried past the defense systems by a salvage drone. This time we would be meeting the full teeth of the fortress.

“Wait,” Haley said. “They’re clearing the channel. It looks like there’s going to be an announcement.”

“That would be the Sheriff,” I said. “He never misses a chance for a speech.”

“I like Nagel,” Fratley said. “He’s a bureaucrat with a sense of style. Our young Collin could learn something from a man like that if he ever wants to make a name for himself.” 

“I’m older than you are,” Collin said without looking up from his data pad.

“Yes, but are you really?” Fratley asked.

The holo cleared as Haley pushed the system map out of view and a life-sized image of Sheriff Nagel appeared in the middle of the command deck. Nagel was dressed in full tactical gear, grenades slung across his heavy armor. His badge glimmered in the opalescent light. The Sheriff’s hard gaze surveyed the room like he was really here, looking right into me.

“Greetings,” he said, voice deliberate and clear. “It’s been a hundred years since the last Sheriff of Taurus Station called on a militia to help address a threat. I want to personally thank you for answering the call. We all know the scourge Kallaver and his gang members have been causing in our system, and these transgressions cannot continue. Everything we value in the Deadlands is supported by our freedom to live however we see fit. For most of us, that means building a quiet life where we can keep to ourselves, but as we’ve all seen, not everyone is happy to let us do that, and sometimes we’re forced to join together to stop those who would do our neighbors harm. Your presence today is proof of your honor and commitment to these ideals. For that, I salute you.”

Fratley chuckled. “Why thank you, Mr. Nagel. I will revel in your salute.”

“In a few minutes, my battle planners in our Tactical Division will transmit guidance for the assault. To ensure our victory here, I am exercising my authority as Sheriff to deputize every volunteer in this militia. We have your crew rosters and ship IDs. Do everything in your power to deserve this honor. Now, once you receive your instructions, review the plans, adhere to the timeline, and send any questions to your assigned group leader.”

Nagel stiffened to attention and saluted.

The holo flashed out, replaced by the system map. 

“Did I hear that correctly?” Fratley asked. “Nagel just made me a deputy? I’m going to tell my thousand grandchildren about this. Me, a hand of the law.”

“It’s just legal protection during the battle,” Collin said. “It doesn’t mean anything, and you don’t have any power.”

“Oh, I’ve got power,” Fratley said. “I’m going to exercise my authority on some bandit bastards.”

Collin shrugged. ”Renegade, bandit, what’s the difference?”

“Aren’t you turning into a smart ass over there?” Haley said. She leaned over to nudge Collin’s shoulder. “I like it. It makes you a lot more attractive.”

A tone sounded from Haley’s console as we received the data dump. Turning from Collin, she quickly sent new overlays to the display. The massive spread of junk was soon divided into sectors, with battle groups aligned on approaches into Kallaver’s Factory. Even if someone leaked the plans, there wasn’t much subtle about it. Every ship was going into the breach, with the smaller craft sprinting to the station’s hull as quickly as possible to make entry. We didn’t have the overall firepower to slag the station, and once there were people inside, supporting them would become the main effort.

Behind me, Fratley growled and slapped his armrest. “Reserve! What the hell does reserve mean?”

“What?” I asked, unsure of what I’d just heard.

“They just said we’re reserve,” he explained.

Collin tossed his data pad on the console in front of him, apparently accepting that he wasn’t going to get any work done. “It means we’re held back for a flanking maneuver or a counter attack if they need one. It’s a standard tactic. In space battle, we’ll know in the first minute if they can withstand our initial attack. I’m surprised they aren’t launching on us already. This militia is sitting in space like a giant target.”

“It’s a good question,” I said. “I’m no tactician, but it’s in their favor to keep us pinned down in the junk fields, taking damage there. They could fire on us now to get the groups moving, then continue once we’re in the field.”

“How smart is this Kallaver?” Collin asked.

“He’s not stupid,” Kiren said. “He’s crafty when it comes to running his gang and making money, but who knows what kind of military experience he has, or what munitions they’re sitting on.”

“They’re armed,” I said, remembering all the weapons I’d seen stockpiled during my run through the Factory. Haley backed me up with a nod.

“Missiles, EMPs, quad cannons, mines,” she said, counting on her fingers.

“The groups are moving into position,” Haley said, pointing at the display.

I focused on the holo. Masses of ships were moving into the Chop, spreading out as they navigated the hostile zone. If Kallaver was going to launch an offensive, now would be the time.

“Any activity on the Factory?” I asked.

Haley shook her head. “Nothing I can see. Electromagnetic spectrum is what it always was. They don’t even seem to have increased their active scan.”

“Wait,” Fratley said. “What’s the mass signature on that station?”

“Why does that matter?” I asked.

“Everything I know about Kallaver says he wouldn’t wait for your Sheriff to shove an attacking force down his throat. But you did say that the fortress there is loaded with munitions, including a few EMPs that are most effective against breaching teams.”

“I’m not sure where the EMPs are,” I told him. “Last time, Kallaver said they were in an undisclosed location.”

Fratley shrugged in response, giving the holo a pointed stare.

I looked at the barbed square of Kallaver’s station again as it floated in the middle of the holo display. Our blue icons were nearing the range of its point defense cannons.

“You think it’s a trap?” I asked.

“Where are all these pirates that were going to show up and join the fight?” Fratley asked. “They’re not hiding out there in the Chop, we’d see their engines. If there’s anybody inside that station, they’re waiting for your Sheriff to come up and knock on the door.”

20

“We’re going back to Taurus,” I told Fratley.

“Taurus?” he asked. “I’m the captain here.”

“Do what I tell you,” I said. We locked gazes for a second until Fratley raised an eyebrow.

“I was going to suggest we do that,” he said, mouth a tight line. He didn’t like being told what to do.

“I agree,” Kiren said. “I’m in charge here, if you two remember. Why isn’t Nagel seeing the same thing?”

“Ellie,” I said. “Get me our group leader.”

“If I may ask, Deputy Walker, what will you do if you are told to hold position?” she asked.

Fratley grinned. “Your AI is smarter than you are.”

Good question. I was eighty percent certain that Kallaver had just organized a massive decoy. What I didn’t understand was why Nagel wouldn’t have foreseen this. Was he too focused on the political victory of destroying the Factory?

The bulk of the attack force was in the Chop now. Explosions appeared across the debris field as ships wasted munitions on the flying junk. 

“There’s a launch,” Haley said.

She expanded the view closer to the Factory as a phalanx of bright points left missile batteries across the hulking station. More missiles followed, hitting the first line of ships making their approach. These looked like smaller vessels that were trying to shoot ahead of the main attack force to get the first blood. The forward edge of the militia started to slow as blasts sent ships and debris shooting in all directions.

“Holy shit,” I said. This was going to be a repeat of the last attack. 

In response, the four heavy ships responded with their own barrage of missiles. Mid-sized vessels moved into the line of fire, filling nearby space with slagged metal from the quad cannons. 

Haley covered her face with her hands. “I hate this,” she said through her fingers.

“All right,” I told Ellie. “Hold the transmission. We can’t do anything. We’re not doing any good sitting here watching, and if Kallaver sent even a quarter of his force to Taurus, we need to get back there.”

“I have no updates from station sensors,” she told me.

“Heading back to Taurus, as the lady commands,” Fratley said.

The ship’s AI verified the change in course and there was a slight rumble as the thrusters kicked in.

“The communications net is going crazy,” Haley said. “I think they’re starting to realize something’s wrong. The missiles keep coming but there’s no activity in the station.”

We had nearly reached the slip tunnel when the Factory exploded. The blast did appear to destroy the Factory. In the holo, a glowing orb appeared and quickly snuffed out as it expanded, followed by representations of the radiation bands. 

“Looks like you called it,” Fratley said.

Collin just stared at the display, his mouth in a tight line.

We hit the slip tunnel just as a ship was exiting. Green light flared in the display windows. 

“As soon as we reach the other side, send word back to the department,” I told Arla. “If they aren’t under attack already, they’re going to be shortly. I’d imagine the explosion was Kallaver’s signal for the attack.”

If Kallaver was willing to sacrifice the hundreds of bays I’d seen filled with stolen goods, he either had a better deal in mind or was on a suicide mission and no longer cared. He could be after the destruction of Taurus itself, not just Nagel.

The short slip jump ended with a tear forming, revealing the darkness of normal space and a multitude of stars. The command deck went dark as the display updated. In another second, the map showed Taurus Station and its dedicated traffic lanes. Only instead of orderly movement of vessels in and out of the station’s orbital zones, a mass of objects surrounded the station in a loose orb. 

“Dang,” Haley said.

“Hold on,” Fratley shouted. “Strap in if you haven’t.”

Impacts thudded along the hull.

I turned to my console and lit the weapons display. As the controls came up, I saw Fratley and Kiren were each taking fire on their sectors. 

“Eat metal, bastard,” I said. My head felt like it was being squeezed from the pressure. With point defense cannons filling the space behind us, I targeted the nearest ship in my sector and concentrated fire. The cannons drew a line across its midsection and then ran back to its engines. The ship exploded as two others burned nearby. 

“Didn’t expect us to have teeth, did you, assholes?” Fratley shouted.

The Iron Scabbard spun again, avoiding spiraling lines of ballistic fire. From the map, it looked like our only options were to point the ship at the outer edge of the system and run, or dive deeper in the outer edge of the line. That way looked like suicide. I wasn’t going to leave the station if we had an opportunity to fight.

“Arla,” I shouted. “Are you sending this back to Nagel?”

“Yes, Deputy. His status is radio silent, so I cannot say when he will receive the information.”

“All right,” I said. “Let’s get to the station.”

“Are you fucking crazy?” Fratley asked. “We did our work. Got the message back. We’ll be lucky to get out of the system alive. If you didn’t notice, there are a lot of ships out there with nothing to do but try to kill us.”

“Wait,” I said. “You know Kallaver, right?”

“We go back a little, yeah.”

“Tell him you’re here to help.”

“You’re fucking kidding me,” Fratley said.

The ship spun again, sending Collin’s shattered tablet back toward the front of the command deck. He tried to catch it then gave up with a frustrated curse.

“You too,” Haley said. “Everyone needs to do their breathing exercises.”

“You think you can convince Kallaver you’re here to join the party?” Kiren asked.

“I can talk the man into anything. What I’m trying to remember is if Kallaver remembers I was at the wedding. Kallaver knows you, Ms. Carthage. That’s no joke.”

“What other options do we have?” Kiren asked.

Fratley grumbled under his breath as he considered the problem. “All right,” he said. “We have to do something to stop them from treating my beloved Iron Scabbard like a target dummy. Call him up.”

“Wait,” I said. “Haley needs to stay off the channel.”

The blonde woman stopped herself. “Good point. Kallaver’s still a little mad at me for leaving to work for Kiren.”

Arla focused the holo on Fratley’s face as he sent a communications request, which was answered a lot faster than I expected.

“Fratley,” the kingpin jeered. “What the hell are you doing in my attack party? Who invited your back-stabbing ass?”

“Kallaver,” Fratley said, giving his most charming smile. “Been a little while, hasn’t it? I came into the system thinking I’d visit Taurus and I find you’ve got a whole thing going on here.”

“Yeah, a thing.” I’m about to take over this station and shut down the damn Sheriff once and for all.”

“What do the Brothers think about that?” Fratley asked.

“The Brothers are neutral as long as I don’t harm their precious station.”

I glanced at Collin. His face had gone flat.

“Is that the case now? So what’s the long plan? Keep the cordon up indefinitely? That can get expensive when all these freighters arriving by the minute can’t offload their cargo.”

“I’ll be landing on the station shortly,” Kallaver said. “Just clearing the port now.”

Someone appeared at the edge of the holo and Kallaver leaned over to listen to a question murmured in his ear. He frowned, then nodded. 

“Look, Fratley, you and me go way back so I’m going to let you in on the pillaging. Don’t get in my way or mess with my people and you can handle your business. You understand me?”

“Of course,” Fratley said, flashing his broad smile. “All I need right now is a little clearance through your lines. We’ve got some heat out here on the outer edges. Although lucky for me your people can’t shoot for shit.”

Kallaver gave a bitter smile. “Half of these latecomers are party crashers hoping to get in on the main event.”

“Get them coming and going,” Fratley said. “Sounds like a plan.”

Kallaver grunted at the compliment then waved a hand. “I’ve got the comms guy sending your security token now. With that you’ll have safe passage of lines. Look me up when all this clears up, Fratley. We’ve got some business to discuss, you and me. I think we could make some credits together.”

“You’ve amassed quite the impressive little army here, I have to say,” Fratley said. “You could accomplish a lot with this.”

“Yes, and I will.”

The holo dissolved, replaced by the map.

Fratley sank in his seat a bit and rubbed his face. “That’s a slimy bastard.”

“This is bad,” Kiren said. “I need to get word to the company. They’re going to need to evacuate. Everyone needs to evacuate before he lands on the station.”

“It could just be a threat,” Collin said. “He doesn’t have to dock anything to cause mass chaos and shut down the station. Just the presence of his fleet is enough to send everyone into a panic. The casinos and banks are probably having a run right now. Everybody’s going to pull their credit and try to get off station. Can you imagine how much money outbound passenger ships are going to make?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Crap.”

“Day Patrol confirms panic in the tourist districts,” Ellie said. “I have a map if you would like to review the current status. Tactical Reserve has been deployed to the financial sector, but we are unable to get deputies into the casino corridor. Local patrol describes the area as mayhem.”

Kiren was bent over her console, talking low to someone. She kept nodding and then speaking quickly. 

“Haley,” I said, “Do you have an ID on Kallaver’s ship?”

Haley frowned at her console. “They bounced the signal a couple times, but I think I’ve got it. Looks like it’s called the Inherent Vice.”

“Isn’t that pretentious,” Fratley said. “Wait a second now. Are you thinking of attacking Kallaver after he just said he’d send us safe passage through his lines?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Exactly. We take out the head and the rest will fall.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” the Renegade said. “You’ve got all these ships ready to fall on Taurus for a little havoc and you think they’re just going to stop when you cut their leader out? He’s the only one holding them at bay right now.”

“We need to hold out a bit longer,” I said. “Nagel is going to come back once he gets our message.”

“I think it’s the best plan,” Kiren said, turning from her console. “There’s no defense on Taurus. The civil agencies can’t even deal with the chaos in the streets right now. There’s no way they’re going to hold off an outside attack.”

Fratley chewed his lip and leaned back in his seat, frowning at the holo map.

“Just got the security token to pass their cordon,” Haley said in a helpful voice.

“We take out the Inherent Vice then run for the slip tunnel,” I said. “At worst, every ship ignores us and falls on Taurus. Maybe we get lucky, divide their fleet, and bring some with us, reducing the attack on the station.”

“We’re going to need to take out more than just Kallaver then,” Fratley said. “We’re going to need to really piss them off. Make them overcome the initial joy they feel when that bastard is confirmed dead.”

“You could damage his ship so they need to manage a rescue,” Collin said.

“Not a bad plan,” Fratley said. “Although we’ll have to listen to him whine and complain the whole time. And we’ll have made an enemy for life.”

“I can live with that,” I said. “Besides, he’s wanted me dead for awhile now.”

“I don’t know if I want to,” Fratley replied. “Not an enemy like Kallaver. I would need to kill his dumb ass eventually.”

I chuckled. “If it isn’t you, it’s going to be someone.”

“All right, Arla,” Fratley said. “Take us in alongside the Inherent Vice and let’s just act a little crazy for a few minutes. Give the good Sheriff Nagel a chance to get back.”

“Go big or go home, as they say,” I remarked.

21

The Iron Scabbard came alongside the Inherent Vice. With the ragged armada surrounding us, being so close wasn’t such an aggressive move. In open space, we would have been a threat.

“Damn it,” Fratley said as he waved his hand at the holo showing the ships surrounding us. “There’s no way I can fire on the Inherent Vice and get out of here in one piece. It’s not going to happen. The minute we have a missile lock, Kallaver’s going to take evasive action, and all his little friends are going to turn on us. I’m not here to get my Arla blasted into pieces.”

I studied the gap between our ships, not liking the distance but knowing there was a way I could make it.

“You got any EVA suits?” I asked.

“Of course, I do,” Fratley said. “You aren’t thinking of blowing over there and taking him out all clandestine like, are you?”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

“How many of those do you have?” Kiren asked.

“You too?” Fratley blew out his cheeks. “I’m surrounded by suicidal people. It’s going to be down to me and Collin before this is done.” 

“What about me?” Haley asked.

“You’re kind of crazy,” Fratley told her. “I give you even odds to do something equally insane.”

Fratley pointed me toward his gear and I wasted no time getting down to the cargo bay to dig through the cabinet.

“Considering that space operations are not your strong suit, Deputy Walker, I recommend the larger thruster set with the failsafe system.”

“I appreciate your vote of confidence, Ellie,” I grumbled. “I happen to think that I’ve improved a hell of a lot over the last eight months, thanks.”

“That is true. You received top marks with Sergeant Keldon’s assistance,” she replied.

“I’m not arguing with you for once. What’s your math say about this plan in general?”

“For now, this appears to offer a better outcome than firing on the Inherent Vice openly. At worst, you may be trapped on the ship.”

“Hey,” Kiren called from the hatch. “You trying to ditch me?”

“I want to get this over with,” I said.

Once we climbed into the suits, Ellie took control of my HUD and comms systems, until both Haley and Fratley were grousing to each other on either side of my head. 

“I think we should stay close,” Haley said. “What if something goes wrong with the jump?”

“And I’m telling you Kallaver either hasn’t noticed that we’re peeking over his shoulder or he’s too busy to fire on us yet. He told us to pass the lines and we haven’t done that. We’re squawking friendly at his people like we snuck into the party.”

“That’s exactly what we did,” I said, cutting them off. “Are you ready?”

“As ready as we’re going to be. I’ll hold off Kallaver as long as I can. We may have to leave the area for a bit but I promise you we’ll be back, Walker. I won’t leave you here.”

“Disrupt, delay, deter. Isn’t that what the military would call this?” Kiren asked. ”I had a friend in the military who used to say that.”

“A cop would call it an effective waste of time,” I said.

I checked my service pistol and attached it to my suit. 

“I have a course selected, Deputy Walker,” Ellie said. “I will maintain control of Ms. Carthage’s thruster array until we brake and land. Once we reach the hull, she will be on her own to follow.”

“You think we can trust her to do that?” I asked.

“I will be happy to remind you to check on her.”

“Thanks, Ellie,” I said.

“My focus is always your continued success, Deputy Walker,” she replied.

“Right,” I said. “And my success is always up for debate.”

“I understand,” the AIP said. “In this instance, I define your success as continued living.”

“I support that metric.”

I checked my magboots and walked to the airlock as Kiren checked her equipment one last time. A minute later, she walked up behind me. I hit the lock control and we stepped inside. Together, we watched the outside doors open on the black of space.

“You ready?” I asked.

Kiren nodded.

I kicked out, then I turned to watch Kiren follow me.

My stomach made its usual complaints but I fought them back, watching the sweep of the Iron Scabbard as it quickly passed us and fell away. The pinpoints of stars and flashing bright spots marking the surrounding ships filled my HUD. Ellie highlighted the vessels we needed to worry about with hostile icons as she took control of the thruster units.

I shot forward, following the flight path that Ellie had drawn across my HUD. Behind me, Kiren shouted in surprise and then we were moving. There wasn’t much reference to go by, only the icons shifting in my display, until the Inherent Vice appeared ahead of me, a gray pill against the dark of space. 

“Braking,” Ellie said. With little warning, I was thrown against my harness as the unit brought me around to slow my approach. The Inherent Vice grew larger as we approached, becoming a long sleek ship with rings of cannons at its ends and mid-section.

“Prepare for landing approach,” Ellie said.

My thrusters cut out as I spun, then Ellie burned again and the Inherent Vice loomed in front of me. After a few short braking bursts, I bent my knees and hit the hull. I took two leaping steps until my magboots locked.

Dropping to a crouch, I turned to watch Kiren come down behind me. She locked one of her boots too soon, fell forward, and slammed the side of her body against the hull. To her credit, she rose quickly and adjusted her maglocks, then scrambled toward me and knelt behind the box. 

“You all right?” I asked. “Looked like you wrenched an ankle there.”

“I’m fine. It’s not my first time or anything.”

“Ellie, what do you see?” I asked.

“You are near the mid-section of the Inherent Vice,” she reported. “I do not have access to ship systems, but you’re near one of the maintenance airlocks. I’ll attempt to override the lock as you approach.”

“And if you can’t?” I asked.

“Then we’ll blow our way in, right?” Kiren asked.

“That’s not an option,” I said.

Walking deliberately over the hull, I spotted the airlock and made for it. “How long have we got before their sensors pick us up?” I asked.

“I’m showing no change in interior activity,” Ellie said. “I should be able to pick up audible alarms or increased bio activity.”

“How many crew?” I asked.

“I show twelve bio signatures,” the AI reported.

“Great.” I checked my pistol, but I wasn’t carrying enough ammunition for an extended firefight. We were going to need to find Kallaver and take him out without engaging most of the crew. Then we needed to get off the ship.

“Ellie, what can you do to locate Kallaver? I want to find an entry point as close to him as possible.”

“The ship’s network is proving difficult to infiltrate,” she said.

“The nearest airlock is one-hundred and fifty meters behind you,” Ellie informed. “I suggest going in there and working your way through the vessel to locate the target.”

“Let’s go.” I waved to Kiren and led the way back down the body of the ship, making short leaps to float across the hull.

We passed the aft point defense cannons and I worried for a second that they were going to turn and lock on us as we passed. The giant barrels would vaporize us where we stood. The cannons remained focused outward.

We reached the aft airlock to find its exterior door cycling open. That was a surprise.

“Ellie, do you have control of the airlock?” I asked.

“I do not,” Ellie said.

I raised a hand. “Kiren, we’ve got incoming.”

A maintenance drone climbed over the edge of the airlock, its probes running over the hull as it advanced. Kiren was closer to the mech than me.

It must have sensed us as something it needed to clean up. Better than being treated as hostiles, but still not ideal.

Kiren struggled to raise her rifle off her utility harness. “My strap’s caught.”

“Hold on.” I kicked off the hull and sighted on the little mech. The round hit the center of the drone’s back panel as it pulled itself out of the hatch. A spray of black liquid and metal bits blew back across the airlock and its front legs scrambled at the hull. I fired again and the thing quivered as it floated, dead.

“You think they’re going to pick that up?” Kiren asked.

“Let’s move before we find out.”

The airlock was scratched and worn from the passage of the maintenance mechs. We pulled ourselves inside and I tapped the entry panel, using my master code to unlock it.

“If anyone’s paying attention, they’re going to notice this thing opening up,” I told her. “Get ready. Is your rifle free now?”

Kiren nodded, holding her weapon away from her body.

The airlock slid open on a corridor lined with conduit, and markings pointing toward different sections of the engine control systems. I eased my way to the edge and listened, and I soon recognized Kallaver’s voice.

“What’s the plan?” Kiren asked.

“I’m going to give Kallaver the opportunity to face justice. If he chooses violence, then I’ll respond in kind.”

“Lethal force is authorized in this situation,” Ellie said.

“You mean I can walk in there and shoot him?”

“That would not be an unjustified course of action,” Ellie said. “The attack on Taurus makes lethal force a viable option.”

“I think you should shoot first,” Kiren said.

“I have to follow the law.”

“And Ellie’s even telling you to shoot him.”

I shook my head. “Ellie advises me of the law and I have to make the decisions.”

“I guess. We both know how this is going to turn out. What are we going to do after you shoot him?”

“We’re going to either take over this ship or get the hell out of here,” I said.

“At that point, we can shoot anyone on the crew?”

“You’re overthinking this,” I said. “Come on.”

At the hatch, the sounds of a card game became more clear.

“You call that a hand?” Kallaver demanded. “I’ll show you a stars damned hand. There it is.”

Angry voices followed him. I waited at the edge of the hatch for another few seconds then turned into the opening.

“Kallaver,” I said. “You’re under arrest.”

The gang leader was sitting on the far side of a small round table surrounded by crew members. They all looked rough and ready to fight, with small stacks of chits and other valuables on the table in front of them.

Mouths dropped open at my presence, and a skinny man close to me reached for a pistol that was sitting on the table in front of him. I fired as he turned, catching him in the stomach and then chest. Blood sprayed across the man behind him as they all scrambled away from the table.

The dead man made them all pause. Hands hovered at their weapons, but nobody picked anything up. Several glanced anxiously at Kallaver, probably wanting some kind of direction.

“Who the hell are you?” Kallaver demanded. “How did you get on my ship?”

“Deputy Walker, Taurus Sheriff’s Office. You coming in?”

“Walker?” He screwed up his face in thought. “I remember you from the Carthage Wedding. Or not-wedding, I should call it. That was a shitshow. But a damned good time. I’m surprised you’re still alive.”

“I’m going to ask you one more time,” I said. “Then you’re resisting.”

The room looked like the command center for engineering, with walls covered in displays showing fuel levels, environmental readouts, and other data about the ship. A backup navigation console on my right showed a small holo-map of the system, with Taurus surrounded by angry red icons.

“You know Nagel is dead, right?” Kallaver asked. “Took him out with my little welcome present. He thought he was going to trap me in a hole, and instead he got a boot in his face. Serves him right.”

I raised my pistol.

“Go to hell,” Kallaver shouted. He drew a fat-muzzled handgun from his waist but couldn’t fire before I shot him in the shoulder. He stumbled backward, taking cover behind a support column.

Kiren followed me, firing on the other gang members in the room. Two managed to get behind a control console and take cover as another kicked over the table, sending the remnants of the card game scattering in all directions. I used the distraction to fire on Kallaver again.

The room was too small for a protracted firefight. Two hits hammered the armor on my chest but nothing penetrated.

“Armor integrity seventy percent,” Ellie said.

Kallaver had pistols in both hands now, and he slid to the side as he fired, coming around the column. I couldn’t see where Kiren was but shots rang out behind me. She caught a bandit in the jaw, blowing his face apart with a splatter.

“You’re the fucker that shot me before,” Kallaver shouted. He grabbed the jawless man before his body hit the floor and held him up as a human shield.

In another few seconds, every one of Kallaver’s crew was dead but him. He struggled to fire as he looked for cover. I moved forward deliberately, clipping him in the boot and then his opposite shoulder.

I was two meters away with my weapon trained on his forehead when Kallaver threw down his weapons and raised his hands. The dead man collapsed forward, legs spread on the floor and chinless head to one side.

“I give up,” Kallaver said. “I surrender. You can’t just kill me, Walker. I know your law. You won’t kill an unarmed man.”

I tensed my trigger finger.

“Do you have any word from the Sheriff?” I asked Ellie.

“I should have an update in a few minutes. Kallaver’s second in command has been receiving requests for updated orders but has been busy dealing with you. Officer safety still allows lethal force.”

“Ellie really wants me to kill you, Kallaver,” I said.

“Who’s Ellie?” the bandit asked, looking behind me.

“You have to really screw up to piss off an AI,” I said. “Now put your hands up and get on your knees. You make one wrong move and you’re done.”

Kallaver gave me a sour face and raised his hands. He slid away from the dead man and slowly lowered himself to his knees.

“I’ve got bad joints,” he complained. “This isn’t easy.”

Kiren walked up beside me. “You’re really going to let him live?”

“Keep your pistol pointed at him.” I holstered my weapon and grabbed a pair of restraints from my duty harness.

“One in custody,” I told Ellie. “Get me a records number.”

As I took the first step toward Kallaver, he fell to the side, one hand driving under the dead man. His fist came up holding a pistol that must have been in the dead crewman’s belt.

Kiren fired as Kallaver roared.

I dropped the restraint and drew, firing as soon as my pistol cleared the holster. Rounds hit Kallaver in the groin, chest, and then the middle of his forehead. The round man’s head jerked back against the deck, his hands flying outward. Kiren shot him again in the chest.

“Kiren,” I said. “He’s dead.”

“He almost killed us,” she snarled.

“He didn’t succeed.” I stood over the dead bandit for a second. His slack face lost its anger in death and he looked lost and confused.

“Update Dispatch, Ellie,” I said.

I scanned the room again for any crew that might still be alive. Everyone was dead, their playing cards scattered over the deck.

“Come on,” I said, turning. “We need to clear the rest of the ship.”

“Walker,” Fratley called on the comms. “You all right over there? Sounds like a bunch of chatter going on.”

“Kallaver’s dead,” I said. “We’re clearing the rest of the ship. Let me know as soon as we hear from the Sheriff. We’ve still got a fight on our hands.”

“Aye aye,” the Renegade said, then laughed. “You sound a little tense, Walker. You all right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Excellent.”

22

We found four more crew members in the galley drinking beer. They didn’t want to surrender either, and the gun fire drew the remaining two from the command deck. The fire fight was short and bloody in the confined space.

Afterward, Kiren was visibly shaken. She hung her rifle from her suit’s harness and let her hands fall to her sides, looking away from the bodies in the corridor as we made our way to the command deck.

“You all right?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You wonder why I offer them surrender? It’s so this doesn’t make me feel as bad.”

She nodded stiffly.

In the command center, I settled into the captain’s seat and stretched my neck to each side. Now we had an armada to worry about.

“Ellie,” I said. “Can you control this ship?”

“The onboard AI is resisting my control, Deputy Walker. I am using every law enforcement override available. I will update as soon as I can. In the meantime, I have locked him out of the ship’s major systems. You will be able to fly manually and set a flight plan.”

“How about our happy friends out there trying to get info from Kallaver?” I asked.

Fratley laughed. “For now, they think he is still caught up in the card game. Apparently he shot someone for interrupting a game once, so that excuse seems to be working.”

I glanced at Kiren over at the comms console. She was caught up in some encrypted conversation with Carthage Mining. Her voice was low and insistent. I couldn’t make out the words, but her expression got darker the longer the conversation stretched.

“So we can’t change course anyway,” I said. “We move, the other ships are going to want to know why. I guess that means we sit here until the rest of the department comes back.”

I didn’t like the idea of just sitting anywhere. There had to be a way to use Kallaver’s death to our advantage against the fleet surrounding Taurus. The sooner this problem was cleared, the sooner we could get back to Rivas to help the Sarkonians there.

“It appears one of the lead ships from Tactical Division is returning to the area,” Ellie announced.

“What’s the status of the fleet?” I asked, leaning forward eagerly.

“Checking now,” Ellie said.

Kiren had paused her tense conversation. She glanced at me as we both waited for the news.

“Fleet status is optimal,” Ellie said. “No damage reported. The explosion caused extensive local damage to vigilantes who had arrived to assist Kallaver, but no deputies were harmed. Sheriff Nagel is en route back to the system.”

“You sent them our status?” I asked.

“Just finished,” Ellie said.

A comms request lit my internal network. I responded. “This is Walker.”

“Hot damn, Walker,” Sergeant Keldon said in my ear. “Am I reading this correctly that you’re transmitting from the Inherent Vice?”

I grinned. “That’s right, Sarge.”

“You tricky bastard. Where’s Kallaver?”

“Sheriff’s Justice,” I said.

There was a pause, then Keldon continued, sounding more somber. “I guess we can expect a fight as soon as word of that gets out.”

“You picking up the blockade?”

“I see it. I thought we might have a few more minutes to get a fighting force through the slip tunnel before they turned on us. If Kallaver’s dead, there’s nobody to hold them off.”

“Nobody knows he’s dead yet,” I said.

“Really?”

Ellie updated the holo display to show the flow of traffic out of the slip tunnel. We wouldn’t have a lot of time before someone in Kallaver’s people wanted an update on how to proceed. They would be getting nervous with a bunch of Sheriff’s spacecraft breathing down their necks.

Keldon’s laughter filled the comms channel. “You continue to surprise me, Rookie. So you’re telling me you somehow got aboard Kallaver’s ship and took him out? I thought Nagel had you off on another escort mission.”

There was a pause. “All right, Walker. Looks like Tactical Command just made it through the tunnel. You ready to start this party?”

“Make sure they know I’m not hostile,” I said. “Fratley’s ship, too. The Iron Scabbard.”

“We sent the update. You wait until we open fire, then you start picking them off from the rear.”

“Let’s do it,” I said.

23

The Tactical Division heavy fighter In Sights executed a hard burn for the Taurus blockade, while other ships spread out around it in a formation that would hit the Ice Crew line like a wedge. Knowing that the attack was coming, I watched the holo display as the blockade started to fray at the edges, a few ships already breaking as they realized what was happening.

The communications console flashed an alert with hundreds of incoming messages from the other ships Kallaver should have been leading. I opened the comms channel to hear a mess of voices shouting over each other.

“Kallaver, are you on?” a loud voice I recognized as Red asked. “The cops are entering the area. Should we hit them now before they can all get through?”

When only silence answered the question, other voices argued in response.

On the edge of the holo, In Sights opened a missile barrage against the nearby line. Ships flared and went dark.

That was all the answer Kallaver’s former men needed to either break and run or open their own weapons on the incoming ships. In Sights released a wave of fighters following the missile attack that closed on the smaller enemy ships.

“All right, Ellie. You ready to see what this heap can do?”

“I have most systems under my control,” she reported. “The AI continues to hold slip drive control and shields. We will have few defensive measures against any ship that turns to attack.”

“We have no shields?”

“We have hull integrity and point defense systems. Shield systems are offline.”

From the console, it still looked like we had a full complement of missiles and a rail gun. With enough stand-off distance, we could affect the fight.

“Take us to the outer edge of the blockade line,” I said. “We’ll fire from a distance.”

“You turning into a Renegade?” Kiren asked.

“Not in this lifetime,” I said.

Ellie lit the engines on a course to the edge of the battle zone. Taurus shrank in the holo display.

“Kallaver!” Red shouted, isolated now on an encrypted channel I hadn’t closed off. “What the hell are you doing? Are we breaking?”

When I didn’t answer, the big man growled. “Kallaver’s dead. Who’s there? Who’s got the ship? I can see you’re receiving me.”

“How are you, Red?” I asked.

He recognized my voice instantly. “Walker. I don’t know what you’re doing there, but I’m going to rip your spine out of your puny body.”

“I think you’ve got other things to worry about, my friend,” I said, then to Ellie I asked, “Have you got an origin on his channel?”

She changed the color of an icon on a section of the holo that was well within missile range of our position.

“Damn. Can he track us?” I asked.

“Without knowing what capabilities he has, I can’t answer at this time,” Ellie said.

“Let’s not give him the chance. Can you get us closer to the TacDiv line?”

A piercing alert came from the navigation console.

“Missiles inbound,” Ellie said.

The icon Ellie had identified as Red’s ship had fired on us. The holo automatically zoomed into our section of the battle space. Three other ships were moving toward our location, along with Red’s marker.

“Here we go,” I said. “Kiren, I need you on a weapons system. Ellie, take whatever evasive action you can. Send a salvo in response and then get us out of here.”

“Understood, Deputy.”

“Keldon,” I called. “We’re getting fired on. I’m getting the hell out of here.”

“Keep your ass in one piece,” he said. “Tactical is leading the charge on this.”

“So we’ve got no help is what you’re saying?”

“Walker, would I lie to you?”

That was up for debate.

“Ellie, can you get us out of this?”

“I have projected multiple scenarios,” she said. “We are most likely to survive if I pilot the Inherent Vice and you and Ms. Carthage augment the weapons systems. I will control the defensive countermeasures.”

“Sounds good to me.” I pushed out of the captain’s seat and slid into the console beside Kiren. “You ready to blow some shit up?” I asked her.

Kiren gave me a tight nod.

“Wait,” I asked Ellie. “We have countermeasures?”

“Inherent Vice has a robust anti-missile system that I am about to deploy. I recommend keeping your focus on the incoming ships and coordinating fire there.”

I pulled up the fire control display and immediately started tracking the hostile ships. Six hostiles filled my scope and it looked like Kiren was tracking four. Red’s icon flashed in my oncoming group.

I really wanted that guy to feel some Justice.

“Incoming,” Kiren shouted.

My display lit with smaller fighters from the group I’d been watching. They must have been hiding single-pilot fighters. The larger attack group spread out, looking like they wanted to envelope the Inherent Vice.

“You listening, Walker?” Red asked.

“Unfortunately,” I said.

“I don’t know what you did with Kallaver, but you’ve got his ship. So I’m assuming that means he’s dead. If he isn’t, he’s dead to us anyway. Anyone that would let a weakling like you infiltrate his ship and take it over isn’t fit to lead our crew.”

“So I guess you’re out then,” I said. “Since I’ve beaten your ass twice now, right?”

Red growled in anger. “You’re surrounded. If you give up the ship, I’ll put you out the airlock and let you suffocate quickly. If not, I’ll let my crew have their way with you until you die.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a choice.” I focused the point defense cannons on the nearest of the fighters and turned it into scrap. A rapid flare of plasma was replaced by more oncoming ships.

“You sending suicide fighters at me, Red?” I asked. “Your people seem awfully eager to die.”

“They know what I’ll do to them if they don’t fight you.”

I cut the comms channel and focused on the waves of fighters throwing themselves at the Inherent Vice. Ellie had taken out the missile barrage and even led a few of the fast-moving missiles back at hostile fighters. Once the missiles were clear, she filled the space around us with flak that hid our location. It wasn’t quite stealth, but in the confusion of combat her actions led several of Red’s pilots to attack their own people.

Eventually we were down to just the Inherent Vice and Red’s original eight craft. Two of those crumpled under concentrated cannon fire from our close weapon systems. A group of five fighters from Tactical entered our sector and drew off half of Red’s ships, but that didn’t stop the leader from trying to close.

“We can’t maneuver fast enough,” Ellie said. “We may need to plan to abandon the ship.”

“I can’t outrun a missile,” I replied.

“We could use the ship as a decoy,” Ellie said. “I can continue to control remotely.”

I glanced at Kiren, not sure how excited she would be about entering open space with no rescue plan. Hell, my stomach lurched just considering it. Bad plan.

“We’re not going to abandon ship,” I said. “But I think we can use the same idea to draw Red out. He’s bluffing about Kallaver. He doesn’t know what happened. If we make a braking burn and sit here for a minute, I think he’ll try to get close. He wants to board.”

“That’s a gamble,” Kiren said. “They get close enough, they can always take us out with their defenses, easy.”

“They won’t be able to do that because Ellie is going to keep our tail oriented on whatever approach vector they use. They get close, and we light the engines.”

Kiren’s eyes brightened. “Everybody forgets about the engine torch as a weapon.”

“What do you think, Ellie?” I asked.

“Action profiles from the other ships indicate they’ve been hesitant to close with us after the initial missile attack. We will be vulnerable, but the surrounding battle is putting pressure on the enemy as well. They’ll need to make a quick decision.”

“So we’ll know if we’re screwed quickly at least. Do it.”

“Strap in,” Ellie warned.

I was slammed in my seat as Ellie brought the engines up in a full breaking burn.

“What the hell are you doing now?” Red shouted in the comms. “You think you’re going to pull some kind of trick, Walker?”

I ignored him and kept my focus on the holo display. The split of friendly and hostile craft didn’t look much different than when we had started. Well, that sucked.

Red continued to shout at me as Ellie braked. The only indicators that we were no longer moving with the battle were the spinning icons in the holo display. The three ships that had maintained formation with Red broke off, while his vessel adjusted course with us.

“He’s taking the bait,” Kiren said.

“You got him?” I asked Ellie.

“Engines are aligned,” she said. “I can’t guarantee his ship won’t be destroyed.”

“This is Justice,” I said. “We’re getting the hell out of here once you burn.”

Red had stopped trying to reach me on the comms. After a break, he finally asked, “Kallaver, you there?”

Kiren grinned.

I tapped the armrest of my seat, watching his ship draw closer to ours in the display. Distance markers counted down until he was well within the range of our point defense cannons and torpedoes. His weapons systems were all trained on us as he came in.

“Walker!” Fratley’s voice barked in the comms. “If you’re there, I need some help, my friend.”

I straightened. “Where’s the Iron Scabbard?”

Ellie set a marker on the display. Fratley, Collin, and Haley were on the far side of the battle, smack in the middle of a swarm of hostiles.

“We’re surrounded and I’m out of bigger ammo,” Fratley said. “I dropped a mine on these bastards but more just keep coming. I think they’re replicating.”

“Burn,” I told Ellie.

“A burn at this distance will not guarantee destruction of the hostile ship,” she said.

“I know. Fratley, we’re coming. Hold on.”

“Go,” I told Ellie.

Red’s ship was still close enough that when Ellie lit the engine, his hull took at least half of our superheated output. His comms array and any external systems would be slag, at least. Without comms, I didn’t get to hear him screaming in surprise, but I could deal with that.

With the engines at full burn, Ellie shot us across the battle space toward the Iron Scabbard.

24

Ellie ran a scan as we neared the Iron Scabbard and the news wasn’t good. Fratley had taken several hits that were affecting his flight profile, and Arla seemed to have been damaged somehow. Collin and Haley were manning the weapons systems as Fratley fought with the nav controls, but they were also running low on ammunition.

“We’re coming in,” I told the Renegade. Can you at least turn and run if we draw them off?”

“Engines are too damaged,” he said. “We either take these bastards down and you tow us out of here… or we may have to abandon ship.”

Inherent Vice was a larger ship than the Iron Scabbard, so it wasn’t impossible for it to tow the smaller one. That wasn’t accounting for the battle still raging all around us. I’d been monitoring the Tactical command net and we’d lost nearly twenty ships to Kallaver’s armada. No one seemed to be in charge among the gang members now, and they had formed small independent fighter groups that were wreaking more havoc than if someone had been trying to control the mess. There was no central strategy that Tactical could determine other than killing as many cops as possible. They didn’t even seem to care about getting to Taurus now.

“Don’t worry, we’re not abandoning Arla,” I said.

“I’m fond of it, Walker,” Fratley said. “I’m a bit more fond of my ass, though. And I would shed a tear for Arla, even if she didn’t care.”

“You know I don’t believe you,” I said. “Ellie, what do you see?”

“The Factory’s ships seem to be following a similar pattern as Red’s attack earlier,” she said. “Their heavier vessels are each carrying a number of smaller single-pilot fighters that harass the target while the bigger ships fire missiles. The Iron Scabbard cannot avoid one line of fire without running into the other attack. What appears to be keeping them alive right now is that the TacDiv are holding off on heavy attacks while the smaller ships are close.”

“Why don’t we line up a shot with our rail gun and see what we can do?”

“We can’t take out two of them at once, can we?” Kiren asked.

“Highly unlikely,” I said. “But we can take out the biggest one and get their attention. They may just think we’re still on their side.”

“It does appear that way,” Ellie said. “Each ship is still focusing all scan and attack activity on the Iron Scabbard.”

“Any day now, Walker,” Fratley said. This might have been the first time I’d heard him sound nervous.

Ellie powered up the rail gun and made the course adjustments to put us in line with the nose of the heaviest ship attacking Fratley.

“Firing,” Ellie announced.

Console lights dimmed as the rail gun went to work. In the display, I watched a flickering ball of plasma leave the Inherent Vice and take three seconds to cross the space to our target. The other ship realized they were under attack at the last moment and tried to take evasive action. Our charge still struck their nose but at an angle, tearing through the hull and burning what appeared to be their command deck. Their hull sliced open to the midsection, and a spray of material from inside the ship clouded the display. The hostile icon dimmed and blinked out as Ellie replaced it with a marker for debris.

“Second target, Ellie,” I said.

“Moving. Hold on.”

Sudden thrust threw us against our seat harnesses as Ellie brought the ship away from our original position, which was now the focus of a whole swarm of small fighters. The Inherent Vice burned for several seconds, then swung into a new position, lining us up with the next target. That ship seemed well aware of what we were about to do and was powering up its main engine for an escape.

Lights flickered as Ellie fired, catching the second heavy cruiser through its tail section. This must have ignited their fuel reserves because a small explosion lit the display and quickly faded to debris.

One cruiser remained. Ellie didn’t wait for my command this time. She moved the Inherent Vice out of our previous firing position and came around in an arc that almost looked like we were approaching the Iron Scabbard. The course lined us up with the other ship for an instant, and she fired, following the plasma bolt with a missile barrage.

The third ship disappeared in a plume of slagged hull and exploding internal systems. A group of nearby fighters were caught in the blast, which led most of the other single-pilot craft to turn and launch out of the area.

“Was that you or Ellie doing all the shooting,” Fratley said. “Because I’m giving whoever it was a big wet kiss.”

“Kiren,” I said. “She’ll probably break your jaw if you try, though. Can you get back to the station?”

“We can make it. You might have turned the battle, Walker. Kallaver’s people are running all across the field. Speaking of Kallaver, how is our old friend?”

“Kallaver’s dead,” Kiren said.

“Is he now?” the Renegade said, clearly pleased with the news. “Now that’s an interesting development. Remind me never to let you aboard my ship again, Walker.”

“Don’t attack my station and we’ll be good,” I said. “Now let’s get back in. I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to explain to the sheriff that I need part of the militia for Rivas.”

“Collin just rolled his eyes,” Fratley said. “That means Nagel’s sure to say yes, just to piss him off.”

25

Things were a mess back on Taurus. The department would be on mop-up operation for weeks after the disruption Kallaver’s stunt had caused.

I had spent the flight trying to get a direct channel to Sheriff Nagel. The only way I was going to get help for the refugees on Rivas was to show him what we’d seen. The Sheriff was tied up in news reports and political maneuvering, and the only answer I received was an order to report to the Brothers with Collin.

“Are we clear to leave the ship?” Kiren asked.

I glanced up at her, and then at the nav console. It looked like Port Authority had just cleared the latest wave of inbound ships.

“We’re clear. I’m trying to get ahold of Nagel so I can get some people to take back to Rivas.”

Kiren’s face was hard. “Rivas is just a symptom. I’m going to the Board. I’ve been pulling in support since before the battle. I’ve got enough shareholders behind me to force a vote and push my father out.”

“You really think you can do it?”

Her expression shifted from determined to angry. “You don’t think I can? You’re no different than the rest of them.”

I raised my hands. “I don’t know jack shit about your corporate politics. It’s got nothing to do with your ability. I’m asking if anybody can. I’ve met your dad, and my assessment was that he’s a conniving bastard. You think he doesn’t know about this?”

“Of course he knew. It’s a test with him. Everything’s a test. Sometimes I think he wants me to force him out. It’s the only way he’ll respect that I can run the company.”

“Do you want to run the company?” I asked. “Or do you want to save those people? We aren’t going to have a lot of time once word gets back to Rivas that you’re pushing a takeover.”

Kiren’s gaze was distant, her mouth firm. “Yes. Yes, I want the company.”

“It looks like everyone is going to Drake’s to celebrate. It’s a bar near the department. The Sheriff is going to be there, so it’s my best chance to get him alone and explain what’s happening on Rivas.”

Her eyes searched mine for a moment. “You really want to help those people, don’t you?”

“That’s my job,” I said.

“But you personally want to help them.”

“They’re poor, and their living conditions didn’t look much different than where I grew up. The difference is that my family chose to be there.”

“But you didn’t,” Kiren said.

“I did. And I chose to leave. I’m going to help them.”

She stared at me. The anger in her face tempered a little, as if she remembered there was a reason for her actions besides just toppling her father. She stood and headed for the exit hatch.

“I’ll call when it’s done,” she said. “I’m going back to Rivas with you.”

“You may need to talk with the Sheriff about that.”

“Maybe I’ll have him deputize me. Nagel eats out of my hand.”

She left me alone on the command deck. I checked the time and realized it was the middle of third shift, station standard. The casinos would be quiet, the parties winding down. How long had it been since I’d slept?

“Any updates I should pay attention to?” I asked Ellie.

“I’ve sent the recordings from Rivas to TechDiv, but everything under your current assignment is encoded to the Sheriff. He won’t see the evidence until you report to him. Otherwise, it appears the department lost thirty-two ships in the battle, seventeen deputies, not to mention the militia.”

I nodded slowly. “And Kallaver’s people?”

“Seventy-eight ships. Individual losses are currently not estimated. TechDiv is reviewing all battle recordings and the ID markers of every hostile ship. Many will have been hacked or spoofed, so it will take time to piece together all the participants to begin an investigation and bring charges.”

“That’s going to be a lot of fun for someone,” I said.

“Walker!” Fratley called on the comms link. “You coming out of there? I hear your people are throwing a celebration. I think I deserve an invite as a special guest of the Sheriff.”

As I walked down the access ramp to the promenade, Collin and Fratley were waiting with a transport cart.

“I’m an excellent communicator. Let no one say they never knew what was on my mind. Especially when I gutted them.”

“We’ve got an appointment with the Brothers,” Collin said. “You ready?”

I wasn’t going to tell him I hadn’t been able to get ahold of Nagel. It would have been nice to talk to the Sheriff before dealing with the Carmichaels though.

“They care if I smell like a locker room?” I asked.

“They’ll get over it. They need to know if Nagel is going to send forces against Carthage Mining at Rivas. That’s going to have some impact.”

There it was. “I don’t know what he’s going to do,” I said. “I haven’t shared the situation with him yet. If we wait until after that meeting, I’ll be of more use to them.”

Collin chewed his lip. “No, they said they wanted us there now. At worst, they’ll have a heads-up on what’s coming. The way Kiren went storming out of here, I expect there to be an upset in the next few hours. Money is going to change hands. Big money.”

He was right.

“Anything from the Sheriff?” I asked Ellie.

“Nothing, Deputy.”

“I guess we’ll go talk to the Brothers then.”

“Stay safe,” she warned me.

I motioned for Collin to lead the way. “Let’s go,” I said.

“What about me?” Fratley asked. “I’ve got no reason to show my face to the Brothers.”

“I guess I’ll see you at Drake’s,” I said. “If they let you in.”

26

The Taurus Administrative tower was silent and empty at this time of night. We passed several security guards and through an automated checkpoint before entering the lift for the penthouse. Collin pulled at his jacket and checked a data pad during the long ride up. I had no idea where he’d picked it up, but I didn’t much care.

I tried to start a conversation about what he was going to say to the Carmichaels, but the consultant kept his focus on the pad. He continued to scroll through what must have been pages of notes.

I wasn’t sure what to expect. Many crimes were in progress on Rivas and I needed to start an investigation. With my status of reporting directly to the Sheriff, however, all I could do was make sure Ellie had backed up all our evidence and let the Carmichaels know I was in an ongoing investigation. I couldn’t comment on anything that Collin said other than to verify my presence. I didn’t see the outcome of that conversation being pleasant, but I’d known from the beginning this wasn’t going to end with smiles.

If I’d taken Collin out on general patrol for forty-eight hours, that wouldn’t have pleased the Brothers, either. And it was Nagel who had both placed me on this special duty, knowing we might find odd circumstances, and made me responsible for the Brothers’ consultant. I wasn’t about to be the fall guy in this scenario, so that meant keeping my mouth shut unless directly asked for information, and then doing my best impression of tight-lipped Lieutenant Bird, our Internal Investigator who had probably written the regulations she enforced.

“Deputy Walker,” Ellie said. “I have a response from Sheriff Nagel. He orders you to meet him at Drake’s Bar. When I informed him you were en route to a meeting with the Brothers, he said, and I quote, ‘if you love your badge, keep your mouth shut.’”

The lift came to a stop and the doors opened on a long corridor leading into the penthouse. Collin stepped out of it as if he knew exactly where he was going, and I followed a step behind. The building was quiet around us, with no employees present.

At the end of the corridor, Collin swiped a security card across the door latch, and we entered a huge apartment with gleaming surfaces and windows that looked out over the station below.

Evan Carmichael sat on a lounge chair beside the window, sipping a drink. He didn’t look at us, but raised a finger to gesture Collin forward.

“You got the report?” the consultant asked.

“I’m not paying you to send me a report. I want you to tell me yourself.”

Collin cleared his throat and glanced at me. “You wanted Deputy Walker to be here?”

“He’s the other witness, isn’t he?”

“There was a Renegade named Fratley Oxonos, Kiren Carthage, and a woman who works for her.”

Evan’s eyes slid toward me. “And everything you saw was recorded, from your time on Rivas to the battle Nagel just waged on my doorstep, scaring away business for a good standard month?”

When I didn’t answer, Collin nodded toward me as well. “The Deputy has his standard evidence recording system. The data has already been transmitted to their Records Division.”

“Is that true?” Carmichael asked me.

“That’s standard procedure,” I said. “You mind telling me just what you want from me?”

“You’re worried I’m going to make you say something that gets you fired, aren’t you?”

I shrugged. “I do something that could get me fired every day. If I’m not part of the solution for something, I don’t see the point of my being here.”

Evan Carmichael glared at me. He took a long drink, grimacing as the liquor hit his throat.

“We had our suspicions about James Carthage and his operations on Rivas. You had a relationship with the daughter that made it possible to get an agent on the rig. Now we’ve got the evidence we need to put him off the station.”

“You can do that?” I asked.

“We can bomb his damn mining rigs out of existence.”

I considered the competing conspiracies here. Kiren had basically been working at the same purpose as the Brothers. There might be a world where they could work together, but I figured she had her reasons for taking on the Rivas problem on her own. Was there anyone she could really trust?

“It’s time we moved on from heavy industry,” Evan said. “We need new money on Taurus. Clean money. Banking, research and development, leisure experience. Miners don’t have the clout they once did.”

“It’s more complicated than simply destroying the station,” Collin said. “It’s a work camp. There are refugees there now.”

“You think I care about some slave camp?” Carmichael’s voice was like a hammer falling. “We can’t have the story getting out that Taurus was part of a human trafficking scheme. This story ends with the destruction of Rivas.”

I glanced at Collin. His gaze was fixed on the floor near Carmichael’s chair legs.

It made sense that this had all been about getting Carthage off Taurus, and the Carmichaels wouldn’t want anything to do with Kiren. She couldn’t be part of their savior story, moving Taurus into the future.

I hooked my thumbs in my duty belt. “I appreciate your viewpoint,” I said. “But your reputation isn’t my concern. There are people that need help on that rig, and I’m going to see that they get the benefit of the Sheriff’s Justice, just like any resident in local space.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carmichael said.

“Maybe not. But I’ve got a set of orders, and I mean to follow them.”

Carmichael rolled his eyes. “You don’t need to grandstand. You’re going to get paid for your part in this. Just like all the others.”

“I’m not interested in your money,” I said.

“Then you’re no damn use to me.” He pointed at Collin. “Take care of this.”

27

Collin turned toward me, reaching inside his jacket in the same motion. I recognized the move and we both drew at the same time. We faced off on each other with Evan Carmichael sipping his drink in the middle.

“What are you doing, Collin?” I asked.

“It’s business, Walker.”

“I kept thinking you were a shitty consultant. Now it makes sense.”

“The stuff about the Union army was true. But I’m no good at writing reports.”

“Mr. Carmichael, you do realize you’re being recorded?” I asked.

“I’m always being recorded, deputy. That doesn’t change anything.”

Collin’s hand shifted as he squeezed his trigger.

Shit.

In one motion, I dropped to the side toward Carmichael and fired, only grazing Collin’s leg. He staggered backwards, letting off another shot into the air in a panic. I tried to force myself up to my feet, but Collin was already moving on me.

He grabbed at my pistol to try and turn it against my grip. As soon as I realized what he was doing, I yanked the pistol back against my chest and held it there.

I fired point blank into his chest but he had already pushed my hand away from his body. My shot flew wide.

He moved close, clamping my firing hand against his side as he grabbed my duty harness, then pulled his head back to hit my nose with his forehead. Pain exploded and something crunched, which didn’t bode well for the cartilage in my face. Pissed now, I kneed him in the groin.

We stumbled away from Carmichael, the room spinning as I worked to get an advantage. Collin was stronger and quicker than I expected. For every move I tried to leverage against his close attacks, he seemed to anticipate and counter, or hit from a direction I didn’t expect.

The former soldier was clearly well trained, but I’d grown up in the mining rigs. Good training didn’t always match pure grit and a desperate will to survive. And so far on Taurus, I’d had enough training and experience to handle myself, all the same. Smiling, I swiped at the blood pouring from my nose.

“I’m not inclined to kill you,” Collin said hoarsely. “Give up and I’ll just beat you unconscious. You’ll live to fight another day.”

“Right, like that’s going to happen,” I said, digging my fingers into his shirt. I fell backward with a knee raised and rocked Collin over my head. The move broke my pistol hand free and I rolled to my hands and knees, weapon raised.

Collin scrambled behind a couch. As far as I could tell, he wasn’t armed. That didn’t change the fact that he seemed very capable of killing me with his bare hands.

“Get me some backup, Ellie,” I said, breathing hard.

“I have already notified Patrol. You have a local unit on its way.”

“They going to make it through security?”

“I am sending the information, Deputy Walker,” Ellie said. “You are authorized deadly force.”

“I’m aware of that,” I said.

“The law won’t save you,” Collin said. “And just so you know, this isn’t personal.”

He popped up behind the couch, the muzzle of a pistol visible. I ducked behind a chair as a bullet exploded into the wall behind me.

“Watch my furniture,” Carmichael said lazily.

I considered the Administrator. I could take him hostage, but that would only complicate the situation. For now, the fight was between Collin and me. If I could keep him busy long enough, the backup would arrive.

Another slug tore a hole through the glass behind me, bringing whistling wind into the suite.

We exchanged fire, moving to different bits of cover in the wide apartment, until most of the furniture was peppered with projectile and beam holes. When I pinned Collin behind the bar, isolated in the middle of the apartment, I slid toward the door. I didn’t expect him to have forgotten about the front door, but it also meant I’d have him trapped between me and anyone who came through the display windows.

“I have not received any updates from Patrol,” Ellie said in my ear. “I am working on an alternative method of communication.”

Collin was getting inside my thought process and it was pissing me off. Searching for something else in the suite I could use against him, I fired on the liquor bottles above his head, covering him in shattered glass and alcohol. It wouldn’t do much to hurt him, but it had to be annoying.

“I’m going to have Nagel take that out of your pay,” Carmichael said. “Those bottles are worth more than your life.”

“It sounds like you and Carthage have a lot in common,” I said.

“Carthage is a product of his time, and he was good then. He’s old now.”

I wasn’t going to let Carmichael draw my attention. As I expected, Collin tried to slide out of the bar. I aimed for his center of mass and caught him in the leg as he jerked away. There was a grunt from behind the bar.

“Good shooting,” he called. “That was unexpected. No one’s ever shot me and lived, Walker.”

Ceiling tiles rained on my head as Collin shifted his aim to fire at the ceiling. It seemed like an annoyance at first until the heavy light fixture creaked on a few remaining wires. I rolled out of the way as the crystalline mass fell, offensive fire chasing me across the floor. I couldn’t spot any cover at first, then I slid behind a conference table and kicked it over.

The front door was within five meters now.

“Any time now, Ellie.”

“I have nearly decrypted the sewer maintenance system. Once I have its network gates, I can use those to get a message out. The control AI is proving surprisingly stubborn.”

I leaned around the edge of the table and fired on Collin as he popped over the bar to survey the suite. I had him pinned fairly well, but the same could be said for me. All I could do was try to reach bits of cover that he could see better than me. Once I ran for the door, I’d be wide open. There was also the second it would take to open the door. I’d be dead before I made it over the threshold.

“You really don’t care about those people back on Rivas?” I called out to Collin, trying a different angle. “They’re slaves. Is that something you’re alright with?”

“Don’t try and get inside my head,” he said in a low voice. “It won’t work.”

“You realized how few men there were, right? Those were kids, mothers, and elderly. They probably murdered all the fathers. That’s what slavers do to control a population. You support that?”

Collin didn’t answer. I scanned the side of the bar. He came over the top, leaping a distance that shouldn’t have been possible. He hit the floor and bounded toward me, arms outstretched.

I fired repeatedly, hitting him in the center of the chest, the stomach, and the inside of his left leg. Blood sprayed behind him but he kept moving, face contorted in a monster sneer of pain and rage.

He was going to leap over the edge of the conference table.

Collin stiffened in mid-leap, eyes widening as his arms and legs jerked straight. His face slammed into the side of the table and he slid backward, pistol spinning across the floor. A tendril of smoke rose from the other side of the table, smelling like burned plastic and skin.

“Get down,” Ellie said sharply in my ear. “Patrol is going to blow out the windows.”

I covered my head in my arms as a roaring came from outside the suite, and then the display windows exploded inward, bringing a cold rush of outside air. The lights of three cruisers shined into the suite.

There was no sign of Carmichael.

Collin stood awkwardly on his shattered ankle, spreading his arms like a challenge against the light. He turned to face me, the sneer of rage replaced by an expression of cold sadness.

“Forget me, Walker,” he said.

Before I could answer, he turned and sprinted toward the open windows and threw himself into the light. I couldn’t see where he fell in the rush of cruiser exhaust. A response team from Tactical was swinging into the suite on deployment cables, weapons ready.

“Broadcast my badge number, Ellie,” I said. “It would sure be shitty to get shot now.”

I spread my hands and rose to my feet from behind the table, squinting against the light.

28

The noise from Drake’s was audible nearly a block away. It looked like hundreds of people from around the station had shown up at the front of the Sheriff’s Office to say thanks in the Taurus fashion, and when they realized the law enforcement bar down the street was having a celebration, they sauntered that direction. Of course no one without a badge got into Drake’s, so the block became the party.

Pushing my way through the crowd of well-wishers, I realized just how sore and tired I was. I had bruises from the space battle and my fight with Collin. Despite the fact that I’d stripped out of my uniform and was dressed in worn civilians, people slapped me on the back and pushed drinks into my hands as I walked by.

“You are going to be intoxicated before you reach Drake’s, Deputy Walker,” Ellie observed, her voice dry.

“I haven’t drunk any of it,” I said. “Besides, would it be so bad if I relaxed for just five minutes?”

“I have verified that Sheriff Nagel is inside the bar,” she said. “My goal is that you are mentally present when you report.”

“You think he’s going to wait to let me talk to him? I was out on his damn mission. He may also want to know that the Brothers just attempted to murder one of his deputies.”

“Sheriff Nagel is a difficult man to read,” she said.

“You’re telling me.”

“Which is why I recommend you take my suggestion, Deputy Walker.”

“You know, I still love you even though you’re a tight-ass. I’ll consider your advice.”

I reached the door to the bar and flashed my badge at the bouncer guarding the entrance. I’d never seen security anywhere near Drake’s, but this was a special occasion.

Inside the bar was more densely packed than outside. I was surprised to see Fratley near the bar with what looked like a badge hanging from a chain around his neck. He had his black bowler hat pushed back on his forehead and an elbow on the bar as he chatted up a corporal from Records. He spotted me and winked, then turned his attention back to the woman. 

Keldon shouted at me from a group to my right. I worked my way to him and he grabbed me in a bear hug. He was more drunk than I’d ever seen him, and his cybernetic arm was covered in scratches and dents.

“Walker, you’re alive!” 

“You thought I went down?” I asked.

“I didn’t hear you report in. Did you file the report on Kallaver?”

“Evidence took his ship and I filed the recordings. Well, Ellie did. She caught all of it.”

He leaned in close. “It was clean? You’re clear?”

“Self-defense,” I said. “I think the battle had started at that point anyway.”

He smiled, his brushed mustache stretching across his face. “What the hell were you doing there anyway?”

“We were on the edge of the Chop when the word came back about the trap. Fratley got us back before anyone else. That’s when we found what was waiting around Taurus.”

Keldon got a distant look. “The Factory went up in a hell of an explosion. Lots of freebooters dead, all of them fooled by Kallaver.”

“Walker!” Sheriff Nagel roared over the crowd noise. At the bar, Drake paused filling a line of pints to point at me and Keldon. “Over there, Sheriff,” he called.

Bree slid up behind me with a platter full of empties. “You need a job after this, Walker? We need a dishwasher.”

She gave me a smile and turned to work her way back to the bar.

“Walker,” Nagel shouted again. “You think I like the sound of your name? Get over here.”

A line cleared between me and the booth furthest back from the front door. I spotted Nagel with his broad back against the wall. A whiskey tumbler sat on the table in front of him.

When I reached him, he waved a captain out of the seat across from him and ordered me to sit. I gave the officer a conciliatory nod and slid in across from Nagel.

The Sheriff slid a tile-shaped device out of a cargo pocket and placed it on the table between us. He tapped the surface, and most of the bar noise faded. He sighed and closed his eyes for a second, then opened them to stare at me.

“You just came from the Brothers,” he said.

“Evan Carmichael,” I said. “I don’t know where Michael was.”

“And?” 

“Evan ordered his consultant to try and kill me. We fought.”

Nagel raised an eyebrow. “It sounds like you need to back this story up and start at the beginning.”

“Yes, I do,” I said.

* * *

Sheriff Nagel sniffed, working his jaw as he lifted his bourbon, then drained the glass. Bree was right there with a replacement.

“Slaves on Rivas, is that what you’re saying, Walker?”

“You can check the data,” I said. “It’s all in the record. Hell, the administrators were proud of their work. I think the director thought Kiren Carthage was there for a regular inspection at first.”

“But that didn’t last?”

“Let’s say we weren’t friends when we left.”

Nagel nodded. “What’s Kiren’s next move?”

“She means to unseat her father from the Carthage board and call out Tark Davies. That’s probably where she is right now.”

“And Evan Carmichael doesn’t want me to help these people because of the optics. You’re sure they were Sarkonians?”

“At least the ones I talked to,” I said. “We can ask Records to run analysis on the other recordings. They gave me the name of their world. Harkan. They were picked up by their own people and sold.”

Nagel leaned forward. “And you think the guards were Union Army?”

“I believe so, Sheriff. They’d stripped their uniforms. But the rank and file couldn’t hide it.”

“And this is putting us between Carthage and the Brothers. We stand back, wait this out, and Carthage goes away. But we don’t save the Sarkonians.”

“No,” I said.

“Sarkonian Empire.” He seemed to roll the name around in his mouth with the bourbon. “Our sworn enemies. They attack us at every opportunity, always trying to expand their borders.”

“That’s right.”

Nagel gazed at something over my head. “How many did you estimate?”

“There were fifty, at least.”

He nodded. “You’re going to need a transport. But it can’t be one of ours. Shit, I don’t have anything big enough for that. You can’t seize it from the Port Authority. It’s going to come right back to us.”

I raised a finger. “So you’re saying you want me to get these people, Sheriff?”

He gave me a frown. “What do you think I’m going to tell you to do, Walker? It’s obvious the Brothers knew about Kiren’s request and lined up this Collin character to verify their information. I thought that might be the case, but it would look more suspicious if I didn’t allow him along. You did good with that. I’m glad he didn’t gut you.”

“Me too,” I said.

“I need another reason to shut down Carthage operations at Rivas. I’ll find it, but we’re on the clock with those refugees. You get Keldon and get the resources you need, then you go get those people.”

“Another militia,” I asked.

Nagel waved a hand and drained his glass. “That’s a publicity stunt. Every one of those happy Billys and Karens in the street outside are going to vote me back into office. You always have to be thinking politically, Walker. The law is the law, but the people don’t care about the law. They vote with their hearts and guts. Politics is emotion, and people have short memories. Remember that. When you have to enforce the law as judge, jury and executioner, that’s the only way the people will have your back.”

“You want another one?” Bree asked, penetrating our bubble of quiet.

I glanced up at her, wanting a drink to steel my nerves but knowing I had a lot of work ahead of me. I didn’t need anything affecting my edge.

“I’m good,” I said. “Thanks.”

She gave me a reassuring smile and turned away. 

“I’m sending Bird with you, too,” Nagel said. “The three of you can get this together. I don’t want our stamp on it, not yet. When you’ve got those people back here, safe, then we’ll see how it needs to play out with the station.”

“You want me to bring them all back here?” I asked.

“Were you planning on dropping them on the edge of Sarkonian space?”

“That was a problem I hadn’t solved yet, Sheriff.”

He gave me a grin. “I bust your balls because I like you, Walker. Don’t get killed. I would be sad. Now get out of here. You don’t have a lot of time.”

I nodded and stood from the booth, shocked for a second by the roar that rushed in. I held a hand against my earbud.

“You got all that, Ellie?” I asked.

“I have the record in your personal data store,” she confirmed.

I nodded. Now that was interesting: this was the first time Ellie had ever acted in my best interest, separate from the department. One of the first real manifestations of the upgrade, I guessed.

I looked around the packed bar and spotted Keldon surrounded by a group rapt on some story, then Bird on the edge of a group by the bar. I was surprised to see her here at all.

“I suppose we’ll need Fratley, too,” I said.

“That would be my suggestion, Deputy Walker,” Ellie said. “He may have flexibility law enforcement does not.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it,” I said.

“I have learned that justice is often a moving target,” she replied.

“You really have changed, Ellie. I like it.”

“Thank you, Deputy Walker.”

I was in the middle of the room, about to grab Keldon, when I heard Drake shout, “You better do the right thing, Walker. I’m watching you.”

He was making a joke like he did for all rookies, but I couldn’t help feeling like I was being judged, and I’d better do the right thing even when no one was looking.

29

I waited outside with Keldon.

Bird and Fratley walked up behind us, the lieutenant maintaining a stiff gait beside the Renegade in his trench coat and bowler cap. Fratley looked immensely pleased with himself, and kept flipping the badge around his neck.

“Ollie’s going to be up,” he said. “When do you think he builds all his little trinkets? He does that work in the early hours when nobody can look over his shoulder and judge him. He hates being judged, that one.”

That hadn’t been my experience, but I let the comment slide. They were all a bit drunk, even Bird. Her overly stiff gait belied extra care in how she carried herself. When I’d asked her to come with, she’d only nodded and glanced at the sheriff in the back booth, as if she’d been expecting me to come her way all night.

“I’m glad you’re still alive, Walker,” was all she’d said.

Keldon slid to the door of Ollie Trinidad’s shop and tapped the security panel. When there was no response, he frowned and stroked his chin.

“He’s here,” he said. “I entered the code.”

“Which code was that?” Fratley asked.

“The code he gave me.”

“The cop code, is what you’re saying?” Fratley raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t know,” Keldon said, tapping one of his metal fingers against the door. “He gave me a code. I used it.”

“Let me try something,” Fratley said. He was about to tap his own digits into the security panel when a hiss erupted from a speaker over the door.

“Keldon, is that you? Why’d you bring a party? I’m busy.”

“We’re on a mission, Ollie,” Keldon said, slurring his words some.

“A mission for more intoxicants? I can’t help you.”

“Ollie!” Fratley snapped, pointing his knuckle at the speaker. “How are you?”

There was a brief pause. “You brought Fratley Oxonos? I’ve got a strict no asshole policy in my shop, Jack!”

“I’ve got Walker,” Keldon said. “You like him.”

“Walker?” Ollie repeated, a little less hostile now. “He’s still alive? I thought for sure he wouldn’t make it back from that little trip.”

I shook my head at Bird. “Why does everybody think I’m dead?”

“Because you should be,” she said.

The door slid open and Ollie called from inside the shop. “What do you boys want? I gotta tell you, I’m a little busy right now.”

“You all go in,” Bird said. “I’ll wait right here. It’s probably better if I don’t know about whatever deal you work out with your pawnbroker.”

“I appreciate that,” Keldon said, waving for everyone else to follow.

The front area was dimly lit as usual. Keldon hit the button on the security door to Ollie’s cage in the back and we entered. It was a tight fit with me, Keldon, and Fratley.

Ollie was sitting at his workbench, bits and pieces of electronics, plastic, and other knickknacks strewn across his desk. The current project appeared to be a replica of a Union cruiser bolted to a stand. The inscription read, The Galactic Dawn. He glanced up from his work and frowned when he spotted Fratley.

“What’s he doing here? Since when do you consort with Renegades, Keldon?” Then he spotted me and nodded in greeting. “You too, Walker. I figured you weren’t that dumb.”

“Ollie,” Fratley said. “That’s no way to greet an old friend, is it? Haven’t I made you enough credits over the years to warrant more of a welcome?”

“Don’t trust this one,” Ollie said. He leaned over to tap a release on the side of his workbench and the cage’s inner door swung open. “Now, what can I do for you? The Deputies don’t look like they’re here for coffee.”

“You explain it,” Keldon said, nodding toward me. “You know more about this than I do.”

Ollie raised an eyebrow. “This sounds interesting. What does Walker want as his first request for a favor?”

That sounded ominous but I let it go. “I need a transport ship,” I said. “I need to get fifty or more people off a location. Slip drive capable.”

Ollie’s mouth fell open. “You want a Union core world with that? How about a fusion drive?”

“We don’t need it for long,” I said. “It’s one jump away. We land on the location, pick up the passengers, and we’re out. I could have it back in twenty-four hours. A civilian transport would work.”

Ollie set his party barge down and rubbed his jaw. “Twenty-four hours? You got a pilot?”

I motioned at Fratley.

“What did I tell you about trusting that one? That makes it less likely I can find you what you need.”

“Walker and I can both fly if we need to,” Keldon said. “We’ve also got the Bird helping us with this.”

“Casey Bird? Your IA?” Ollie perked up. “So this is a mission from Nagel himself. Why didn’t you say that?”

Keldon made a face to say that was what he’d just done.

Ollie nodded. “All right. I think we can figure this out. I know some people down in the Port Authority maintenance section. This isn’t going to be cheap, Keldon. Multiple levels to cover. I may also need an official reason to take the transport off-line if I can’t find one that will meet our needs. And then we still may have some hacker post that they saw it leave the station. You can’t keep this completely dark. Not with something that big.”

“We’ll worry about that if it happens,” Keldon said. “For now, we need that ship.”

Ollie folded his arms. “This is more than just a favor. You’re going to Rivas, aren’t you?”

“How’d you know that?” I asked.

“I’ve heard some rumblings. Rivas has been the center for a lot of unexpected things. Makes me wonder if asteroid mining is losing its margins. Carthage has been branching out into several different activities.”

The stacked crates in the small warehouse at Ollie’s back were evidence enough that he had his fingers on the pulse of gray- and black-market commerce around Taurus.

“Since it’s Rivas, I need you to get me something there. You do that, and we’ll call this good. Minus payment for the cost of the transport, of course.”

“What’s that?” I asked. “We’re not going to have much time for a treasure hunt.”

“Word is they cracked an asteroid and came across a cache of artifacts. Special stuff that isn’t in the known databases. I want it.”

“That could be in a completely different part of the rig from where we’ll be,” Keldon said. “You know you’re asking us to risk our mission. People’s lives will be on the line here.”

Keldon and Ollie locked gazes for a second, information moving wordlessly between them.

Ollie seemed to get that this was about more than cash. He nodded finally. “I’ll get the data on where the cache is located and send it before you make the slip jump,” he said. “You weigh the likelihood of completing the task. If you can’t, well, both you and Walker will owe me. And Fratley, he’ll never show his face in my shop again.”

Fratley slapped his heart. “That wounds me, Ollie. It really does.”

Ollie ignored the Renegade. “How long until you need your ship? Three days?”

“Hours,” I said. “We need it now.”

Ollie frowned at that. He turned to his joining iron and disconnected the power. “I wasn’t working on anything anyway. Leave me to it. I’ll send the details.” The lights on his Union ship winked out as he moved the half-finished model away from his workspace.

“Eight hours is the best I can do. And Walker,” Ollie said as we were leaving. “When I say you’ll owe me, I mean it. There’s going to be a time when I’ll call. I don’t want hesitation on your part.”

“Right,” I said.

Behind me, Fratley laughed. “He’ll have to get in line behind me, won’t he, Walker?”

“You’re forgetting that I saved your life,” I said. “You owe me.”

Fratley tipped his hat. “Right. I’ll be sure to take that into account.”

“Close the door on your way out,” Ollie called.

Out on the street, Bird immediately approached. “Can he get the ship?”

“He thinks he’s got leads on a civilian transport through the Port Authority maintenance section. He’s going to let us know as soon as he can.”

She nodded. “I’d ask what he wants in exchange, but I don’t want to know.”

I hooked my thumbs in my belt, considering everything Ollie had said. “He knew we were going to Rivas,” I said. “He seemed to indicate there’s more going on there than we know. These Sarkonians might actually be a small part of it. Considering how much fire we took from Kallaver’s gang when we hit the system, I wonder if they weren’t using the battle here as more of a diversion.”

“Destroying the Factory was a diversion for the attack here,” Fratley pointed out.

30

I sat on my couch staring at my hands. My service pistol lay on a cleaning pad on the table in front of me, components laid out for reassembly. I’d taken a shower, eaten something I didn’t remember, and then sank into the couch. Sleep wouldn’t come, so I put my hands to work as my mind wandered.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the rig. We’d traveled a fraction of the refinery and only had a glimpse into the dark places where I knew those poor people were being forced to work right now. I wished we hadn’t left, and sleep wouldn’t come as long as I waited for Ollie’s call. I knew something was going to get in the way of returning to Rivas, and when we got there those people would be gone, including the little boy with the wide brown eyes.

I picked up the pistol’s lower receiver, then automatically gathered pieces for the reassembly. I didn’t need to watch the process. I could go by feel in the dark if necessary, but there was a certain rightness in the fit and slide of the parts as separate pieces became something I could depend on.

“You should sleep, Deputy Walker,” Ellie said, making me jump.

I’d gotten so used to the new earbud that I forgot she was able to go home with me. “Since when are you my nursemaid?”

“Things are different since the upgrade,” she said. “On a surface level, if you are harmed, this new version of me will not continue in service. However, I also note that it has been forty hours since you rested. If you expect to accomplish your upcoming tasks, you should sleep.”

I stretched. “You’re right, but I’ve got too much on my mind. Every minute that goes by, I think we’re going to get back to Rivas and find the place empty.”

“I have been monitoring a traffic control beacon in the system and have seen no ships leaving Rivas large enough to move the refugees.”

“How do you get the signal through the slip tunnel?”

“Each ship passing through sends an update from the previous system,” she said. “The updates are not real time, but no slip communication is. Fortunately the Taurus relay in our system means nearly instantaneous communication from the station to the slip point.”

“I’m worried Travers will just have them all killed. She seemed like the type.”

“I am unable to see actions outside public systems in Rivas,” she said. “However, inbound freight traffic has not slowed. Rivas is still operating at the same capacity as during our visit.”

I nodded, not feeling reassured.

Eventually I threw my legs up on the couch and lay back, staring at the ceiling until sleep came.

* * *

“Deputy Walker,” Ellie said. “You have a comms request.”

I sprang up, disoriented. I’d fallen into a deep sleep. “Is it Keldon?”

“It’s Haley Terean.”

“Haley? Put her through.”

There was static in my ear, followed by the sound of people in an open space. “Walker, is that you?”

Haley did not sound like her usual upbeat self.

“It’s me,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“It’s Kiren. She’s been arrested.”

“By who?”

“They’re wearing uniforms but they don’t say anything. I think they’re private. They caught us on the suite level so they had to have access.”

I stood, grabbed my jacket, and adjusted the armor under my clothes. “Where are you now?”

“I’m in the Carthage stack. But they said they’re taking her off station. They’re headed to the port.”

There was a scuffling sound and Haley shouted at someone. Noises became muffled but the link was still open.

“Haley,” I said. “Haley, can you hear me?”

There was no answer.

“As long as the link stays open, I can locate her,” Ellie said. “If she stays on Taurus, anyway.”

“Call up the cruiser and put me back in service. We’re going after them.”

“What about Sergeant Keldon?”

“I’ll update him once we know more. I wouldn’t put it past Carthage to take her off station before she can go to the Board.”

31

Ellie tracked Haley’s signal across a holomap of Taurus. They were definitely heading for the Port Authority and a ship off-station. The cruiser rose above the building stacks and we joined the fast lanes above the city blocks, the lights below blurring as we picked up speed.

“Where is she, Ellie?”

The AI didn’t answer for a few seconds. “It appears they have entered a ship. Tracking ID information now.”

“Looks like we need some help. Let’s call our friend Fratley.”

The Renegade must have been asleep. It took him a minute to respond to my request, and he didn’t seem to be alone based on the sounds of another low voice nearby.

“Walker! Didn’t we just say goodbye?”

“I need that favor, Fratley. If you want to get Kiren Carthage to pay you for our trip out to Rivas, I think you’ll be especially interested.”

“I already got paid. I’m enjoying a little of my earnings right now in fact.” There was a giggle in the background.

“I need a ship. Someone’s grabbed her and they’re taking her off station. We need to reach her before they hit the slip tunnel.”

Fratley didn’t answer right away. “My ship was all but destroyed. Besides, I’m in the middle of something, Walker. Can’t you use your own people?”

“We don’t have time, Fratley. I’m sure you can pick up where you left off.”

“I’ll be awfully tense if that’s the case.”

“I need you on this.”

The woman in the background made a disappointed sound and Fratley groaned. “If I didn’t owe you for the battle, Walker, I’d tell you to pound sand. But I owe you, and my word means something.”

“They’ve got Haley, too.”

“The annoying one? All right. I’m tense, Walker. Tense.”

“I don’t know what to tell you about that,” I said. “I’m heading to the flight line now. How far away are you?”

“I’m on my other ship.”

I grinned. “Sounds like you’ll be able to help after all.”

Fratley cursed. “It’s not like the Scabbard. The guns aren’t as robust.”

“It’ll have to do. I’ll see you in thirty,” I said, checking the flight plan.

“That might be enough time, then.”

Fratley cut the comms channel to the sound of low laughter.

32

“There they are,” Fratley said, pointing at a glowing spot in the holo display. The ID on the ship came back as the Forward Motion, a privately owned ship out of a system called Turosin near the Union core. From the mass profile, the ship was armed and equipped with both a slip drive and engine enhancements for close-range fighting.

Fratley whistled. “That one can give us a fight if they want to. We can’t launch anything long-range without the risk of harming our girls. I don’t think we can get close enough for another drop maneuver like we used on Kallaver.”

“Ellie, do we have anybody on smuggler patrol near the S.G. Point?”

“I knew you dicks patrolled out here,” Fratley said. “Not that I’d have a reason to worry.”

“I show two units,” Ellie answered. “Do you want me to send a bulletin?”

“Do it. Get me whoever’s the supervisor.”

“Copy,” she answered.

Fratley’s system wouldn’t pick up the law enforcement notice Ellie placed on our target, but the other ship would now appear on any nearby department ship’s navigation holo as a suspicious vessel.

“Walker?” a voice growled in my ear.

I recognized Corporal Sandez immediately. We’d worked together on a case in the casino district. “Sandez. What are you doing out here? You off patrol?”

“I’m out here on slip duty for the next six months. What’s this bulletin you just sent? And am I tracking that you’re aboard the Star Javelin? That’s a Renegade ship.”

“It’s a long story,” I said. “And it involves Nagel. All I’ve got time to explain is the Forward Motion has Kiren Carthage aboard against her will. Some private security types just grabbed her on the station.”

“Isn’t she the one that didn’t get married earlier in the year?”

“That’s her.”

“Why are you always the one stuck following her around?”

I had to laugh about that. “You’ll have to ask Nagel.”

“Right. Well, they fit protocol. We’ll do a stop and sweep check. Let’s do a local tacnet to keep you in the loop.”

“Thanks. Stay safe. That ship looks like it’s hiding a lot of weaponry.”

“Even better,” Sandez said. “We’ve been bored off our asses out here and we didn’t get to play in the fight yesterday.”

The patrol team signed off and Fratley marked them in his nav holo display so we could watch as they moved to intercept the Forward Motion.

Ellie shared the comms net as Sandez sent the boarding notice. A member of the Forward Motion’s crew answered, sounding anxious.

“What’s your reason for wanting to board?” the captain asked.

“You’ve been flagged for in-system checks,” Sandez said. “Adjust course with our ship to facilitate docking procedures. We’ll get this over as soon as possible and get you back on your way.”

“Stars be damned if I’d let one of you board my ship,” Fratley growled.

I chuckled. “You’re trying to tell me this ship isn’t full of smuggling holes? You’d let them board and show them around, grinning the whole time.”

While there was no answer from the Forward Motion, they did slow and were appearing to come into accordance with the ordered flight plan.

As we watched, the Forward Motion turned abruptly and opened its quad cannons on the two department ships. Sandez’s ship exploded immediately. As the escort ship tried to pull away, the attack caught its engines and it spun out of control.

Watching Sandez’s ship felt like a sledgehammer in the gut.

“That was low,” Fratley said, all traces of humor gone from his voice. “Hold on. Arla, get us in there.”

Arla lit the Star Javelin’s engines and we jolted forward. We had a solid few seconds of acceleration before the Forward Motion appeared to track us as hostile.

They couldn’t come around in time before Fratley covered their aft section in streams of projectile fire. The bulge of their slip drive exploded outward, taking the engine section with it.

“Damn it,” Fratley said. “That was a little more than I wanted. Looks like they've still got some hull integrity in the main crew area.”

He braked, bringing us closer to the disabled ship.

“They still got internal power?” I asked.

“Scanning,” Arla said. “I show battery backup powering environmental systems. The Forward Motion has lost internal inertia control.”

“Time to suit up,” I said.

33

I hit the Forward Motion’s hull with my knees bent, control thrusters working so I could lock my boots in place. The ship was still spinning out of control and matching its motion had taken Ellie five minutes of small adjustment burns.

Orienting myself on the smashed aft end of the ship, I crossed from the mid-point to where an airlock should be located behind the command section. The hull was mostly intact in that area. I kept my eye on the dead quad cannons, waiting for any signal that they might spin to life and make me a target.

“Do you see the airlock?” Ellie asked.

My destination was highlighted in my helmet’s HUD. I couldn’t miss it. “Got it. Any activity that you’re aware of?”

“None that I can see. Still, proceed with caution, Deputy.”

The airlock had auxiliary power. I cycled its outside control with my override and pulled myself inside, waiting for the outer door to clear. The inner access opened on a corridor with flickering lights, debris, and dark bubbles of liquid throbbing in the zero gravity.

“There’s atmosphere at least,” I said.

“I show several slow leaks, but the hull should maintain atmosphere for at least six hours.”

“How long until we have backup out here?” I asked.

“Off station Patrol is sending recovery teams now. We will probably hear from them soon.”

I nodded, thinking about what I was going to say. Keldon might be calling with the update on our transport any minute. I wanted to get Kiren and Haley, get off this ship, and then go from there without getting caught up in an investigation. Not right now. I could always have Ellie send our evidence recordings.

“I show a brig down the corridor to your left,” Ellie said. “That should be a good place to check first.”

I floated through the airlock and grabbed a handle on the other side of the corridor, avoiding a floating glob of something brown.

“You all right in there?” Fratley asked.

“It’s a mess. I’m looking for them now.”

“So what you’re saying is I did some good shooting?”

I paused as I neared a turn in the corridor and drew my pistol. So far, I hadn’t seen anything looking like a crew member.

As I came around the corner, a hand shot out to grab my wrist. I tightened my grip on the corridor safety handle and pulled my arm back. A man in a burned shipsuit floated around the corner, armed with a jagged piece of metal that he swung like a knife. He tried to bury the shard in my stomach.

I kicked away, jerked my wrist out of his hand, and fired as I moved. The rounds hit him in the chest and arm, splattering blood and bits of bone against the wall. He reached for me again then stilled, surrounded by drifting blood droplets.

After a second of waiting to see if another crew member was going to come from behind him, I continued around the corner. More debris floated in the corridor. It looked like a couple service drones must have smashed into each other and then torn up the decking.

“The brig is that door there,” Ellie said, highlighting a hatch halfway down the hall.

The door was closed, its lock panel powered down. “What can you do to get me some power?”

“Checking,” Ellie said. “The ship’s AI has entered a safeguard mode. I am attempting access to the base power systems now. Is there a manual override?”

I checked the panel near the lock mechanism. “Not without tools. Can we even tell if there’s anyone inside?”

The lights flickering overhead grew steady and the screen on the panel next to the door glowed.

“I reset the ship’s AI,” Ellie said. “Base systems are in a power-up status, which means we should have access to internal rooms.”

After a few taps on its panel, the hatch slid open, revealing a room that appeared to be full of hanging body bags. Tubes ran from the head of each bag into the ceiling.

Starting with the bag nearest the hatch, I worked the central closure open and slid it down to find Haley’s slack face.

“Haley!” I shouted, voice muted by my helmet. I switched on the external speakers and shouted again. There was a fluttering behind her eyelids, then she opened her eyes. She blinked, not recognizing me, and then fought against the inside of the bag.

“Haley, It’s Walker. Look at me.”

I backed up, holding my hands out so she could see I was wearing an EV suit. I doubted she could see my face inside my helmet. She stared for several seconds, still blinking, then nodded.

Approaching slowly, I worked open the rest of the bag to find her dressed in a utility suit and boots, with cargo straps wrapped around her torso to hold her arms and legs down. I unfastened the straps and eased her off the wall.

When she showed me she was okay with the zero-g, she pulled off the face mask, then wrapped her arms around me in a hug.

“Is this Kiren?” I asked, pointing at the bag next to Haley.

She let go and together we moved to the next bag. It was Kiren. I peeled back the unfastened sides and Haley helped me unfasten the straps holding Kiren’s arms and legs down. Kiren’s red hair floated in the zero-g and she didn’t wake as we got her free.

“She was drugged before me,” Haley said. “I think they hit her with a lot more.”

“Let’s get out of here,” I said.

Grabbing the back of Kiren’s harness, I pulled her toward the hatch, then moved into the corridor. There was movement on the airlock side where I’d entered.

“Get back,” I told Haley.

I pushed Kiren back inside the brig and grabbed my pistol, firing at the crew member struggling to push themselves away in the zero-g. I paused when they didn’t return fire, wondering if they were unarmed, when a shot ricocheted off the bulkhead behind my helmet. A second crew member had popped out below the one trying to get away.

“How much time do we have until Patrol gets here?” I asked Ellie.

“They should arrive in twenty minutes.”

“So they’re going to see us leaving no matter what. I’ll have to explain things later. Does this ship have a shuttle? It’s that or finding these two some EV suits.”

That would take more time than we had.

“I show a crew transport module off the main cargo bay, two levels below us.”

I shot the man hugging the deck and caught him in the stomach. His weapon spun away and he bounced off the bulkhead. The unarmed man appeared to have disappeared.

“Heard anything from the ship’s AI?” I asked. “Can he lock us out of the transport?”

“He can try,” Ellie said. “We should move in that direction and I will deal with the AI.”

There was a new note of determination in Ellie’s voice. I liked it.

More crew appeared in the lower level, these ones wearing armor and carrying serious hardware.

I shoved Haley behind me. “Take Kiren and keep your head down.”

My HUD lit with the shape of the new corridor and off-branching areas. As hostiles took cover and popped out to fire, I picked them off with careful shots, blowing out two in the face shield and another in the gut.

I kicked off the wall and shot down the corridor, picking out targets. When I landed behind a storage tank, I shot one guard from behind and turned to find another flying toward me. I locked my magboots to the deck and caught the on-rushing guard, using his momentum to send him head-first into a nearby bulkhead. His helmet crunched and his arms and legs floated lifelessly. Turning, I checked for more targets. The area appeared clear.

“Have you got anything on these guys?” I asked Ellie.

“I show no uniform markings of any kind, but the weaponry is Union in origin. Most likely private security.”

“Just like Haley said. Let’s grab recordings of all this and put it in evidence. We don’t have time for face scans but Patrol should get that when they show up.”

I waved Haley toward me and we continued down to the cargo bay, where a small, two-person transport sat on spindly legs in front of the main cargo lock.

“This is going to be a squeeze,” I said.

Haley slid into the co-pilot’s seat and I wedged Kiren into her lap. She finally stirred as we fit her head in beside Haley’s.

“What’s going on?” Kiren asked, dazed and confused from the drug.

“We’ll explain in a bit,” I said. “For now, don’t move.”

I had to strip out of my EV suit in order to fit in the pilot’s seat. Once I had the cabin sealed and the nav system powered up, Ellie activated the main cargo airlock. Klaxons sounded outside the cabin as atmosphere hissed out, and then the wide doors opened on space.

“Here we go,” I said. The transport lifted off carried us away from the Forward Motion.

We had just cleared the cargo bay when a new warning blared in my ear.

“What the hell is that?” I asked.

“Proximity alert,” Ellie said. “Forward Motion is trying to turn the weapons system on.”

34

“Fratley,” I shouted in the comms. “We need some cover fire.”

I dropped the transport below the edge of the cargo bay and ran along the length of the Forward Motion’s hull. We moved out of the cannon’s field of fire, but we’d soon be easy targets.

“There you are, Walker. I was starting to get bored. Thought about making my way through a pretty green slip tunnel.”

“We’re in the transport just off the Forward Motion’s hull.”

Fratley laughed. “I thought that was a maintenance drone. Here’s the problem. Whatever I shoot at that piece of junk above your head, I’m going to blast it into a million pieces and most likely take you with it.”

“And as soon as I leave our position under their hull, we’re getting torn apart by their cannons.”

“Quite a quandary,” Fratley said.

“Hold on,” I said. “Ellie, do they have any weapons systems left in the aft section?”

“Four operational turrets,” she said.

“Excellent. Have you got any way to disrupt their targeting?”

“Please stand by,” she replied.

Kiren stirred again, raising her head and hitting the bulkhead. “Where are we?”

“We’re in a transport trying to get away from the ship that took you hostage,” I said. “And we’re open to any bright ideas. Do you know who did this to you?”

She squinted, still groggy. “Company,” she managed to say.

Something occurred to me. “Ellie, does that AI have any directive not to harm Kiren?”

“An excellent question,” she said. “Hold on.”

Waiting, I watched traffic move on the transport’s compressed nav screen. The Patrol units were almost here. I really should have made contact with them to update our status. It was better to report from the Star Javelin as we were on our way out, anyway.

“It appears to be damaged,” Ellie said. “And it has received guidance from its captain.”

“Do we have comms with them?” I asked. “Let me talk to them.”

My earpiece fuzzed and I picked up heavy breathing that sounded like the inside of a helmet. “Who is this?” I demanded. “You’re firing on a Taurus Station Sheriff’s Deputy.”

There was a low chuckle that sounded familiar.

“How are you, Walker?” Collin asked. “I’ll need Carthage back now. Her dad has played his last--”

I cut the line immediately. “No thanks.”

“Walker,” Fratley said. “We’ve got inbound ships on another vector. Not your cop junkers, either.”

I deactivated my external comms. “Ellie, I need you to coordinate with Arla. Fratley needs to time a missile barrage on the Forward Motion just as we burn out of here. Can you do that?”

“Chance of success is forty percent, Deputy Walker,” she said. “I do not recommend such a maneuver.”

“What do we say about not trying at all, Ellie?”

“Zero chance of success, Deputy Walker.”

“That’s right. Execute, please. Now.”

“Coordinating with Arla.”

The nav console lit up with a series of red icons as the Javelin fired a missile barrage on the Forward Motion. There was no telling how well Collin’s sensors were working, so I said nothing as the icons neared our location.

I swallowed as the missiles grew closer, converging. From beyond our position, the two unknown ships were also approaching on a full burn.

“Ellie?” I asked.

One of the new ships released a series of rapidly approaching objects. The transport’s sensors weren’t good enough to tell if they were missiles or some sort of small craft.

“Do we have an ID on those ships?” I demanded.

“Executing scan,” Ellie said.

There was a flash behind us, and I managed to move my head and get a view of the nav console, where several objects appeared to be hurtling away from our previous location. One of those icons was us, and the other might have been the Forward Motion.

“Hold on,” Fratley called. “I’m coming in for you. And in case you die, Walker, I just heard from Keldon. He got the ship, and he’s going to meet us on the other side of the slip.”

35

The twisted form of Rivas hung in the holo display, barbed-wire rings circling the cragged asteroid. Little had changed since our last visit. As Ellie had said, the display showed the same flow of traffic in and out of the rig.

We’d flown in unmolested this time. If pirate ships watched us enter the system, they made no moves. Bird and Keldon were piloting the Nova Excelsior, a fat luxury transport that typically serviced upper class tourists who couldn’t quite afford private ships. According to Keldon, the ship had three levels, each with its own bar and spa, with seating that could serve up to seven hundred. The Nova was more than needed but I wasn’t going to complain. Ollie had really come through.

Bird sounded like she was enjoying herself as she verified flight commands with Keldon and confirmed their arrival time.

With the addition of the Iron Scabbard, we had options on how to approach the processing facility. We needed to get in, grab the refugees and get out. A smash and grab might leave the facility security scattered enough that we could hold them off during the load-in. One thing we had no illusions about: Getting them all on the Nova was going to take time, which meant we needed to use the Javelin to create as much havoc as possible in other parts of the rig.

Ollie’s request actually fit that need nicely, although I wasn’t excited about setting down anywhere for longer than necessary.

The crate Ollie wanted us to grab was in a secure storage facility near the admin area where we’d started our tour. Our plan was to bring both ships in together, leave the Nova at the processing facility with Keldon, Bird, and Haley, while Fratley, Kiren, and I drew a line of destruction from there to the admin sector. We would keep security’s attention on the Star Javelin long enough to draw them off, then go after the crate. Fratley would stay in his ship as overwatch, and Kiren was along to override any security protocols in the facility.

* * *

The door to the room where we’d laid Kiren down to recover was open. I knocked on the edge of the hatch and waited until she said, “Yes.”

I stuck my head in. “How are you feeling?”

Kiren was sitting on the edge of the narrow bunk, legs out. She looked tired and worn.

“Walker,” she said. “I guess I owe you another thanks for saving me. Seems I have a habit for this sort of predicament. Although, this time I can honestly say I didn’t have anything to do with them in the first place.”

I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Did you see Collin with the people who grabbed you?”

She frowned. “Collin? No. I went to sleep in my own bed after a long night of talking to the board members about what we were going to do.”

“What did they say?”

“They didn’t believe me. Not one of them. I was going to get your records as proof.”

I nodded. At this point, there was no telling how deep this went. The Brothers might have coordinated all of this to make Carthage look bad. Or they might’ve been working with someone on the company’s board to force a hostile takeover. Either way, it looked like Kiren wasn’t in on the plan. I didn’t think her father was, either.

“Collin was on the ship we grabbed you from,” I said. “I had another run in with him, but suffice it to say he’s not who we thought he was.”

“What’s that mean? What kind of run in?”

“We nearly killed each other. He’s working for the Brothers but in a different capacity than we were told. He’s some kind of...” I paused. “Shit, I don’t know what he is, but he’s not with us. A spy, maybe, or an enforcer. Who knows?”

“And he drugged me?”

I nodded. “That’s right.”

Kiren chewed her lip. “You think all this goes back to the Brothers wanting to push Carthage out of Taurus?”

“Or just you and your father. Do you have any enemies on the Board?”

“All of them. It’s what my dad thinks keeps them honest. Every one of them hates the other and hates us, but we all make too much money together. If there was anyone, I would say it was Tark Davies. He’s got the connections outside Taurus to coordinate something like this. But I just talked with him last night.”

“We don’t want to start making assumptions yet,” I said. “We’re here to save the people at the rig. Once we’re done with that, we’ll gather more evidence and treat it like a crime.”

She stared at her hands. “If it’s Davies or any of the others, they’ll be gone before anything can change.”

“Well, you’re not leaving the system like they’d planned. And now they know.”

“My father,” she said. “What if they went after him tonight?”

“I notified patrol,” I said. “He’s fine. They checked on him and he told them to screw off, but that’s normal.”

Kiren gave a slight smile. “Asshole to the end.”

Fratley keyed the overhead speakers. “You all had better buckle in. We’re starting the braking burn.”

I looked at Kiren. “You ready for a fight?”

She looked up, determination in her eyes. “That’s the one thing I’m ready for.”

36

A replica of the Rivas mining rig floated in the middle of the holo display, casting a silver glow across the assembled faces. Everyone was present but Bird, who was piloting the Nova Excelsior. Her part of the plan wouldn’t come until the end, anyway, so she didn’t need to focus on the landing details. If we couldn’t clear the rig’s main cargo bay for the load-in, she was going to turn and burn.

Like before, Ellie was out of service the moment we’d entered slip space and would continue to be out until we went back. I wasn’t a big fan of losing my digital partner, but there was nothing to be done.

“Now,” Keldon said, stroking his mustache as he studied the diagram. “How many maintenance airlocks are you tracking near the processing center?”

“Two,” Haley said, turning the diagram. “The first would require an EV, while the second has a small port capable of receiving the Javelin. This location is closer to what looks like a guard station for the processing center.”

She highlighted the location on the edge of the rig and moved inside, drawing lines down tight corridors from the cargo bay to a nexus with a lift. If we chose that entry point, we would need to immobilize the guards without allowing them to set off any alarms.

“We don’t have time for EV,” I said. It would also be my third space walk in less than two days. I’d pushed my luck enough.

“I recommend the cargo bay,” Kiren agreed. “The port receives regular shipments so the Iron Javelin’s arrival will not seem completely out of the ordinary. However, if the guards come down the cargo bay, you’ll need to respond quickly. There are indications they have been smuggling goods from this point.”

“Getting interesting,” Keldon said. “All right. So Fratley stays with the ship and we go inside. We’ll need to clear the path to our refugees as soon as possible. That means Walker and me in duty armor with Haley and Kiren following. I brought armor for them as well.”

“I’m not missing the party,” Fratley said. “Arla can keep the Javelin in one piece while we’re on the rig. Besides, I think you’re going to need all the help you can get.”

“What about the path to Ollie’s crate?” I asked. “How far off the primary mission are we looking at?”

Haley drew lines that would take us several kilometers to the other side of the rig.

“Damn,” I said. “Can Arla meet us on the other side?”

“If we’re not coming back to the drop off point,” Fratley said. “Arla can play cat and mouse with their defenses while we get the people down to the main cargo bay for pick up. Then she can come back around to the main bay.”

Keldon blew out his mustache. “We’re gambling on this place being poorly defended. I know it’s just a mining rig but I’m worried we’re about to find more than we bargained for.”

“We’ve got another mission aside from the crate,” I said. “Nagel wants to know who’s running this place. Really. It’s not James Carthage and it could very well be the Brothers Carmichael. We need access to the data storage.”

“Who’s going to work that miracle?” Keldon asked.

“I can do that, Sergeant Keldon,” Haley said. “I can help with their security systems. I’ve already been monitoring their communications networks. It sounds to me like they’ve got maybe thirty security people on the rig. The rest are all the workers and drones.”

Keldon nodded. “Something’s been bothering me. Lieutenant Bird and I talked about this, and after the attack on Kallaver’s place, I’ve got the power to deputize all of you for special assignments. Officially, we’re still part of the Sheriff appointed militia, but it helps keep things legal. Do you accept?”

That was a surprise. I glanced from Kiren to Haley and Fratley. The Renegade grinned like a demon.

“Me,” Fratley asked. “A deputy? Why yes, please.”

“You will be authorized to enforce the Sheriff’s Justice,” Keldon said. “You also agree to adhere to the laws and norms of Taurus Station.”

“And I have no idea what those things are,” Fratley said. “I’m not a norms kind of guy.”

“You just check in before you blow anything up, you understand?”

“Certainly,” Fratley said, smiling.

“What about you two?” Keldon asked Kiren and Haley.

“I guess,” Haley said. “Does this mean I have to wear a uniform?”

“Not currently,” Keldon said. “I would advise you to wear the armor though.”

“I’ll do it,” Kiren said, lifting her chin. “Maybe I’m cut out for law enforcement.”

I chuckled, imagining her crawling through a greasy pipe in the academy.

“What?” she demanded.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Good,” Keldon said. “Now let’s get the rest of this figured out. We don’t have a lot of time.”

37

The Star Javelin bumped up against the small docking port on the processing side of Rivas. The ship jerked as the maglocks took hold and we all rocked against our harnesses.

“We’ve got lock,” Arla said. “Cycling now.”

I threw my harness off and checked the pistols and grenades hanging from the front of my armor. Slinging my rifle from the front of my chest plate, I led the way out of the command deck and down to the main airlock. My boots clanged on the deck as I walked.

“Can you be any louder?” Kiren said behind me. She was wearing duty armor and I couldn't get used to the word SHERIFF across her chest.

“Probably,” I said. “Can’t really help it.”

Behind us, Keldon scraped against the bulkhead and Fratley cursed.

“Watch my ship, you monster.”

I reached the airlock just as Arla had finished the docking process. The security panel switched from red to green, and the doors slid open, showing the dim interior of a small cargo bay. I raised my rifle and walked through without hesitation.

“Tell me what you see, Arla.”

Her initial scans picked up a stack of cargo crates and then the red-blue thermal outline of someone in the corner.

“You’re kidding me,” I said. “Keldon, we’ve got someone napping down here.”

“Move to contact,” Keldon said.

“Affirmative.”

I entered the bay in time to see a guard in a gray uniform scrambling for a rifle he’d left leaning against the wall nearby. I wasn’t going to use lethal force if they didn’t fire on me.

Projectiles sprayed across the front of my armor, ricocheting from the deck and bulkhead behind me.

“Get down!” I shouted.

I fired three rounds and hit the guard in the chest and leg as he slammed against the wall. Pushing forward, I cleared the room, then moved back to the fallen security guard.

It was a male in the same plain uniforms we’d seen before. He was wearing an earpiece. The rifle was a standard short-nosed automatic.

“Clear,” I told Keldon.

“All right. Let’s keep moving.”

I continued into the corridor, checking right and left before following the path that had been laid out. The guard station was about thirty meters ahead, with maintenance corridors crossing the main path at several points. If there were more guards hiding in the area, those would be excellent places for them to pop out. I moved toward the objective, checking each hatch and opening with my weapon ready.

With deliberate steps, I left the corridor and entered a square room lined with workbenches and consoles. It looked like a repair depot. Instead of technicians, four people in the same gray uniforms sat at a table playing cards, weapons leaning against their chairs. As soon as they saw me, each reached for their guns, leaving me no choice. I fired four rounds, taking each in the head.

Kiren cursed behind me.

“Everyone on this station but the refugees are hostile,” Keldon reminded her.

I ignored her, moving quickly through the room to check the next corridor. That one appeared clear, so I checked the other two.

“We good?” Keldon asked.

“Clear here,” I said. “Four neutralized.”

“That was some clean shooting,” Fratley said, picking through the credits on the table with a gloved finger.

“Come on,” I said. “We’ve still got a long way to go.”

Arla reset the path in my HUD and I left the guard station. I hadn’t spotted any weapons other than the rifles. I wasn’t going to allow myself to relax, but that was good news.

I led the way down another corridor. The walls in this area were oily and vibrating from machinery beside or below us. We passed through an area where the walls and decking were all metal grate, showing open levels around us filled with grinding machinery and other refining processes. Steam rose in curtains from boilers, leaving the air humid and sticky.

We had finally dropped to the level where we had first seen the Sarkonians, when I came around a corner and spotted a guard at the far end of the corridor. I froze.

The guard didn’t appear to separate me from the curtains of steam when I stopped. He kept walking toward us.

“What is it?” Keldon asked.

“Hostile coming down the corridor toward me. He hasn’t spotted me yet.”

As soon as I said the words, the guard raised his rifle and fired. I dropped to one knee and aimed, catching him in the chest and thigh. The guard grunted and collapsed.

On the far side of the downed guard, I found another security checkpoint. A chair lay on its side in front of a surveillance console, the display panel flashing red and white.

“We’ve got an active alarm,” I said. “Arla, can you do anything about that?”

“I’m afraid not, Deputy Walker,” she said. “The alarm has already been noted by the station AI. We will have increased resistance from this point forward.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Time to speed things up then.”

We’d only been on station ten minutes but had managed to cover most of the path to the main processing center where the refugee barracks was located. I checked my HUD again, then pushed open a door out of the surveillance center and found a set of stairs that dropped several levels into another open area.

The area looked familiar. This was where we’d found the woman with the brilliant green eyes.

“We’re almost there,” I said. “Come on.”

We spent another fifteen minutes dropping levels and running through the maintenance corridors that felt like open cages. I spotted guards running in the distance, but they seemed intent on getting to another location. Were they moving to flank us somewhere?

Finally, we entered an area with solid walls. The corridors widened to accommodate transport carts, and then we passed through a set of broad doors into the processing floor.

Where there had been so many refugees before, working rolling lines of rock and dust, there was no one. The lines were empty and silent.

“Where the hell is everybody?” I demanded, looking around.

The chamber was probably three levels tall. A scraping sound in a far corner drew my attention.

A shape took form moving slowly across the ceiling, all legs and rotating pincers. It reached the middle of the room and dropped to the sorting floor, moving fast on eight legs with eight more raised on its upper section. A beam weapon sliced the air near my head.

It was a mining mech. I’d only ever seen them crawling across asteroids out in the open void. One of these could slice a rock into bits in minutes.

The mech slid to one side and fired again, melting a hole the size of my chest in a nearby sorting line.

“Well, look at that,” Fratley said.

38

“We don’t have time to fight this thing,” Keldon said. “How close are we to the refugee barracks?”

“On the other side of this space,” I said. “We either go through or around.”

“Then I’m going to keep it busy and you get through to the barracks.”

“You can’t fight this thing alone,” I said. “It’ll cut you in half.”

The mech was already sliding to the side of the room, firing as it moved. We had to fall back inside the corridor and take cover behind one of the filled transports.

“What did we come here for?” Keldon asked. “Obviously they’re trying to pin us down with this thing. They could be executing the prisoners right now.”

He was right and we didn’t have time to argue about it.

“Together,” I said. “We’ll make a joint rush and if that doesn’t work, I’ll continue to the other side.”

“I’m not staying here to get chopped into pieces,” Fratley said.

“You three lay covering fire,” I told Fratley, Kiren, and Haley. “When we run, try to keep it pinned down for at least enough time for us to find some cover under the processing lines. That should only be a few seconds.”

“Right,” Fratley said. “And what if we just piss it off so it comes after us instead?”

“Then you run back down the corridor where it can’t follow.”

Kiren held out a hand from where she crouched. “Give me two of your grenades.”

“You don’t need to get close enough to use them,” I said.

“Just give them to me. I’ve got an idea. You see that scaffold up there?” She nodded at a massive assembly of girders that looked like it had supported a crane at one point. I studied the ceiling, ducking another barrage of blasts from the mech.

“There are load points on either side of the room that may be reached from the upper level,” she said. “The stairs will put you within attack range of the mech.”

I checked my grenades and found I had ten.

“All right,” I said. “I’m going up the stairs to drop the ceiling on that thing. You all keep it busy down here.”

Arla shared the attack plan in Keldon’s HUD and he nodded to me. “I don’t see a better way right now. You can make it up those stairs with your armor on full power if you haul ass. That thing outweighs you, so don’t let it sit on your head.”

“I’ll try not to,” I said, watching the mech as it sat in the middle of the room, upper legs bobbing as it scanned the area around it.

Slipping around the backside of the transport, I sprinted for the wall. The mech caught my movement and rotated one of its weapons to track me. I crouched to get out of its sightline and edged toward the doorway.

“Catch this,” Keldon said. He lobbed a grenade at the mech, throwing a bit short so it landed under one of the processing lines and rolled.

I didn’t wait to see what the grenade would do. After sprinting through the doorway, I jerked left for the stairs and started climbing. Before I was ready, the next step disappeared under my boot as I dented the metal with a forward leap. I controlled myself before the next step caught me and bounded upward again. Rising some thirty meters, the ceiling grew more distinct. There was a lot of junk up there to bring down on the mech if this worked.

Below me, the rest of the team spread out on either side of the rock transport to fire on the mech, forcing the thing to move from side to side, waving its legs angrily. A keening sound left its body every time its upper section swiveled, like a dying monster sucking breath.

As I walked onto the landing, scanning the ceiling for my targets, doors to my left swung open and a heavy pounding sound filled my ears.

Rounds slammed into my side, throwing me against the railing. I nearly fell back down to the processing floor.

I rolled, looking up in time to spot three of the gray-uniformed guards manning a crew-served gun. The rotating barrel hung above a blast shield, emitting smoke as it spat rounds.

My HUD flickered. I had taken damage somewhere.

Rolling again, I reached for my chest and yanked a grenade free. While low crawling toward the edge of the door, I managed my best sideways throw. Dust and debris blew out onto the landing with the explosion. I came around the edge of the door and charged, firing into the smoke. In two steps, I was past the gun but taking fire from someone down the corridor.

“Arla, can I get a scan?”

“Working, Deputy Walker. Your sensor array is damaged.”

“Excellent.” I grabbed another grenade and sent it down the corridor, then turned to run back onto the landing. Keldon and the others were still taking fire from the mech and I couldn’t afford to get drawn away.

“Walker, what’s going on up there?” Barked Keldon.

“Had an ambush waiting for me. You ready to bring down the house?”

“Do it,” he ordered.

I yanked two more grenades free, tracking my throws with my flickering HUD. Cooking the first grenade for two seconds, I sent it into the air. The orb arced down to the load point and exploded about two meters above the target.

Locating the second load point, I repeated the maneuver. I was taking fire from the doorway now but the smaller rounds couldn’t do much against my armor. The grenade landed closer this time, exploding just over the point where the girder met the wall. A long grinding sound filled the room but the metal frame held.

I grabbed a third grenade and found my next target. As the grenade left my hand, something slammed into my back. I hit the deck and looked up in time to see the grenade flying off in the wrong direction. It exploded near the middle of the grid.

“What the hell was that?” I asked.

“Some kind of sonic concussive weapon,” Arla said. “The profile matches certain Union tech not often found in the Deadlands.”

I strafed to the side, firing as I moved. Wild-ass shooting wasn’t going to hit anything, but it did force the guard with the oversized pistol to duck behind the remnants of the machine gun. I sent another grenade into the corridor, firing as it rolled. The guard ran before the explosion could take him out, giving me enough time to focus on my last few load points.

The ceiling groaned in counterpoint to the squealing mech. It looked like Keldon had sprinted halfway across the room to a narrow maintenance corridor, where he crouched and fired on the metal beast. The mech was currently hammering its forelegs against the wall above Keldon’s head, while Fratley and Kiren traded shots at its back.

“Hold on, everybody,” I said. “I think this should do it.”

I threw my second to last grenade, timing the detonation just above a load point on the left side of the room. The grid buckled, trembling as portions of girder twisted under the strain. Still, it held.

Focusing on a rafter a few meters above my head, I leaped, catching the girder with both hands. Using my momentum to get up over the wide metal support, I ran toward the center of the space, firing on connection points along the way. When the grid finally collapsed above the mech, I rode the mass of metal and plastic down to the floor before jumping away from the mech.

The monster thrashed under a debris, firing in random directions as it rotated its sensor array, searching desperately for whatever was holding it down.

A second rumble followed the support system, and a section of roof collapsed on the mech, filling the air with dust. In a final burst of strength, three legs shot out of the rubble, rotating at their ends to fire randomly. I ducked behind a pile of rubble and slid down a girder to land on a smashed processing line.

“Keldon,” I called. “You all right?”

“I’m fine. I managed to trap myself in this tunnel though. I’ll have to find another way around. Fratley, what about you?”

“We’re coming around the edge of the collapse now,” Kiren answered. “It’s mostly clear on the far side of the stairs.”

I scanned the doorway where I had just been, thirty meters up. There was no sign of the guard and his sonic weapon. “Watch out for hostiles. Someone shot me in the back and ran before the roof came down.”

“Did you shoot them in the face?” Fratley asked.

“Not yet. Give me time.”

39

The barracks had been barricaded shut and was under guard by two smaller mechs resembling the big momma in the processing center. Keldon smashed one while I drilled a hole through the second.

Together, we tore the lock off the door and stepped back to let light pour into the dark space.

When I spotted several terrified faces watching us from the walls, I pulled off my helmet. “Aranis,” I called. “Are you here?”

There was silence for a minute.

“We’re not here to hurt you,” I said. “We came to help. My name is Deputy Gage Walker with the Taurus Sheriff. We’re getting you out of here.”

The use of my title seemed to make them slightly more comfortable.

“You’re military?” one of them asked.

“Law enforcement,” Keldon said. “You know, peacekeepers?”

When that didn’t seem to get us anywhere, I said, “We were here before and talked to Aranis. She told me what happened to you. I’m sorry we couldn’t come back sooner, but we’ve got a ship to get you off this rig. How many of you are left?”

Someone sniffled, and the old man answered, “We are now twenty-four. Aranis was taken with the last group. I think they said a chemical wash process, but I don’t know where it’s located.”

I glanced back at Kiren, who looked horrified. “Does that mean anything to you?”

She shook her head.

“All right. We’re getting you out of here now. We’ll see what we can do about any others. Are there any other groups besides this one?”

“Yes,” the old man said. “There were six taken for the special duty. No one comes back. Usually when the numbers sink this low, a new group comes in. They haven’t brought any more this time.”

“We’re here to take you to safety,” I said. “Those that want to come are welcome. Those that want to stay, I can’t make you.”

“The Empire spits on us,” another woman said.

“Gather your things,” Keldon said. “We don’t have much time.”

Most of the group didn’t bother to debate. They fell to gathering up the meager belongings that had been lying in piles beside their bed rolls.

“All right,” Keldon said. “Kiren, I want you, Fratley, and Haley to take this group back to the Nova Excelsior, then meet back up at the Javelin. He and I will go into the admin area to find Ollie’s crate and whatever data we can about this operation. We’ll continue with the plan to meet the Javelin on the other side.”

Fratley shook his head. “We already discussed this, my friend. I’m going in search of those artifacts. If there’s one crate, there will most likely be more that Ollie doesn’t care about. Those are mine.”

“This isn’t a treasure hunt,” Keldon said. “We’re upholding our end of the deal and that’s it.”

“I don’t believe I work for you,” Fratley said, his voice going sharp.

“As long as you’re godsdamned deputized you do.” Keldon pushed forward to get in Fratley’s face. In the armor, that was an imposing sight.

Fratley didn’t flinch. “You don’t scare me in your metal suit. I’ll rip that merkin you call a mustache off your face right now.”

Keldon continued to stare down Fratley. I’d never seen the sergeant this angry.

Fratley flashed a grin. “Got under your skin there, didn’t it? You’re secretly a vain man. I can tell.”

The woman from the group approached holding a girl in her arms. “Are we going to go?” she asked.

Keldon nodded. “We’re leaving. Everyone ready?”

“Everyone except Taran,” she said, gesturing at the older man. “He wants to stay here and die where his son died.”

“That sounds useful,” Fratley said.

“What’s your name?” Keldon asked the woman.

“I was Councilor-Kalnas in our town. I suppose I’m still somewhat in charge now that Leader-Aranis is gone.”

“Well, Councilor,” Keldon said, honoring her by using her title in the Sarkonian way. “Let’s get you and your people out of here. Deputy Walker there is going to find Aranis.”

Kalnas looked down. “I think you’ll be too late. But thank you.”

40

I didn’t trust the lift, so we dropped twenty levels by metal stairs, our boots clanging on the steps.

More of the small mechs patrolled corridors, and it took sustained fire to crack their armor. Wall mounted weapons systems attacked us as well, spraying the passage with energy beams that would have sliced an unarmored force to pieces.

Fratley, wearing only his trench coat and bowler cap, brought up the rear.

“Somehow I forgot you’d committed to helping these people before we got the crate,” he said. “That was an oversight on my part.”

“We’re almost there,” I said. “I’m not leaving without her.”

“Got a little crush, have you? What do you think about that, Kiren? A refugee is going to snatch away your chance at the stoic Deputy Walker.”

Kiren didn’t bother to answer.

“She seemed to know the most about how they were captured,” I said. “If we eventually want to get to the bottom of this, I want her testimony. This is going to be deeper than just these people.”

“I want the data core,” Kiren said, biting down the words.

“This is an investigation now,” I said. “We’re dumping that core into Records and it’s getting analyzed by their AI.”

“That core is Carthage property,” Kiren said. “This is my family we’re talking about.”

I heard the pain in her voice. Now wasn’t the time for this argument, and I didn’t need her permission to take the data. My real concern was that it was being wiped even now. We should have gone to the admin center first.

But if we’d done that, I might be standing in a barracks room stacked with dead Sarkonians. There were some in the Deadlands and Union who wouldn’t care about that, but I was a deputy. They were people who needed protection.

“This should be the level,” Arla said. “Proceed fifty meters down the main corridor and the chemical wash section will be directly ahead.”

“What the hell is chemical wash?” Fratley asked.

“In some ways mining has been using the same processes for thousands of years,” I said. “You run the mineral mix over a chemical bath and separate out certain high value minerals.”

“Sounds like a job better suited to machines,” he mused.

“Every one of these jobs could be done by machines, but sensors go bad, harsh chemicals eat equipment. You’d be amazed what a human can do with just a little training.”

“It’s not like that,” Kiren said.

Fratley laughed. “I guess we’re going to get to see, aren’t we?”

We were halfway down the corridor when there was a scraping sound overhead and a security mech dropped from the ceiling just behind me. I spun as it raised its arms to target Kiren. I didn’t have time to raise my rifle and fire without fear of hitting Kiren or Fratley, so I charged forward to kick the metal creature against the wall. It slammed into the metal, legs flattening, then rolled ahead of us to reset its base and fire.

Now we had room to concentrate fire and take it out. Bits of metal flew as Kiren and Fratley fired alongside me.

“I’m really getting sick of those things,” Kiren said.

At the end of the corridor was a set of security doors that I tore open. On the other side was a long, wide room with long canal-shaped slits in the floor. A carriage system ran above each with differently sized racks and cages. The room was littered with damaged worker drones. Sitting next to several of the mechs were more of the malnourished refugees, using rods to manipulate the racks into the baths.

At the end of the room were several deeper tanks where the dissolved minerals were collected. Vapors floated above the tanks, making the air oily and sick. This looked like one of the oldest sections of the rig, the walls pocked and worn from centuries of corrosion.

Two flights of stairs led down to the floor. I walked down, my boots clanging on the metal. The ragged workers looked up from their tasks, and then immediately at a dark spot where the far wall met the ceiling above the tanks at the end of the room. One woman covered her head with her hands.

I raised my rifle as the mech scrambled out of the shadows, running vertically along the wall. This one was a new design: long, with short legs along its body and a spiny tail. It didn’t appear to have been equipped with ranged weapons, just two great claws on either side of its head and a spiny tail.

The mech moved fast, jerking along the wall, before dropping directly into a vat of liquid acid and scrambling out, dragging the corrosive liquid with it.

“Walker,” Kiren shouted. “Behind you!”

I spun. Three more of the mechs were circling from behind, also covered in acid. One of them reared up on its tail and spat acid in a long line that would have hit me in the face shield if I hadn’t dodged.

I raised my rifle and fired on the closest mech. Rounds barely penetrated its carapace, until I shot off several of the small legs. The damage wasn’t enough and the mech continued to scramble toward me.

“Knock them off the walls and shoot their undersides,” a woman yelled. “That’s where they’re vulnerable. Their motion sensors are slow to update, so keep moving.”

I glanced where the voice came from to nod thanks and found Aranis crouching near the woman who had covered her head, soothing her.

“Fratley, Kiren,” I shouted. “Get them up on the walls. We need to keep these things moving.”

The good news was that the mechs at least acted like they didn’t want to get shot. Fratley came halfway down the metal stairs to fire on the mechs on the floor in front of him, then ducked and cursed when one turned to spit acid at him.

“Watch the hat, you little bastard!” He fired wildly and the mech danced away, backing up the wall behind it.

I aimed for the thing’s legs and had it on the floor, exposing a jointed undercarriage that lacked the same armor as their backs. Three rounds peppered the thing’s body, blasting it in two.

The mech’s halves writhed and turned, leaking acid that hissed and popped when it ran over its unprotected guts.

The remaining mechs hissed and darted around furiously. One near the collection tanks lowered its head and sprayed acid in a fine mist across two nearby Sarkonians. The men cried in misery and wiped at their faces, only to lose layers of skin.

I shot that mech in the head and sides, pushing it back until it scrambled across the top of a collection tank and then up the wall. I aimed for its legs, and then managed to get it from the side, blowing a spray of oil and components out the opposite side. The mech hung from the wall for a second before dropping into the open tank to sizzle as acid penetrated its guts.

Kiren and Fratley had taken out another of the things, leaving the last one to me. It ran between three workers, forcing me to hold fire until I had a clear shot, then dropped into one of the acid channels, disappearing beneath the shiny surface.

“Deputy Walker,” Aranis said, sounding bone tired. “You came back.” She coughed, holding her chest, then jumped over a channel to help a man to his feet. Around them, the carriage system continued to jerk forward, going empty now that no one was loading the baskets with minerals.

The two men who had been sprayed were dead, having collapsed on the far side of the room. The remaining six moved slowly toward us, as if they couldn’t believe we were there.

“The rest of your people are on their way to the transport ship,” I said. “We need to get you up there as well. We don’t have much time. Can all of you walk?”

“Being down here damages the lungs,” Aranis said. “But we’ll do our best.”

I led the way up the stairs, with Fratley and Kiren in the rear. We didn’t have to tell them to hurry.

Kiren had just left the bath floor when there was a hissing sound behind us. I turned to see the remaining mech clattering out of a channel in the middle of the room. It raised its head to spit acid directly at Kiren and the refugees on the stairs.

I drew my pistol and fired, hitting the mech in the middle of its oval face. Beneath me, Fratley fired as well, holding his weapon in both hands to steady his aim. Together, we turned the creature, then concentrated fire on the middle of its body, sending bits of leg and undercarriage spraying across the metal floor. Finally, one shot rolled it over, and I shot it where its head joined its long body. Acid and oil splattered across a storage crate, filling the air with thick smoke.

I glanced at Kiren. She gave me a silent nod but I could see that she was shaken. It seemed like every part of her family’s business was trying to kill her.

41

We cleaned up the last squad of security personnel until Arla, working with Haley, was able to put the area around the secondary cargo bay in emergency lockdown. Since then, we had a moment of peace until we left or they managed to break through, which seemed unlikely. Now the Sarkonians were nearly loaded and Keldon was talking to Aranis, his frown growing darker as I watched.

On guard beside me, Kiren had a similar frown.

“You all right?” I asked her.

“None of this is what I expected,” she said. “This place is a hellhole, and I know there are at least five more in the fleet just like it. Spread all throughout the Deadlands with my father’s name on them.”

“Are you sure he knows what’s going on here, though?”

She grimaced. “I can’t see how the Board wouldn’t know, including him. This might be General Davies’ project, but the whole company is complicit. Even me. I have to do something now, but the question is what? How can I fight this kind of evil?”

“We’ll do the right thing,” I said. “You aren’t facing this alone. This whole rig is a crime scene. Someone has been smuggling people in here for a long time. Who knows how many have died here? It won’t go on.”

“You say that. But it does.”

I set my jaw, wishing I had words to say that would calm her. She was right though. Injustice, cruelty, inhuman acts were always inflicted on the innocent and defenseless somewhere. More so in the Deadlands, maybe. But we couldn’t stop helping because we couldn’t save everyone. You had to focus on what you could do, not what you couldn’t.

“Walker,” Keldon called. “You ready?”

I left Kiren at the doorway. “Everyone loaded?” the sergeant asked.

“Loaded and strapped in. So far, Bird says nearby space is clear but who knows how long that’s going to last. We need to get out of here.”

“I don’t disagree,” I said.

“I’ve been talking to Leader-Aranis here. They’ve got a hell of a story to tell. This goes way beyond Carthage Mining. I think we’re dealing with a Sarkonian-Union human trafficking pipeline.”

“I’ve got her statement for Records,” Keldon said. “I’m initiating the investigation, and I’ll pass everything to Lt. Bird once we’re underway. Nagel is going to want to know all about this.”

“There’s more,” I said. “The Brothers Carmichael are involved somehow as well. We don’t have time to get into it now, but this has its claws deep in Taurus.”

Keldon nodded. “Well, when shit gets complicated, focus on what’s in front of you. Go get that package and come back around to give us some security, and then we’re getting out of here.”

I slapped my helmet and pulled it back on, then I waved to Fratley and Kiren.

“Arla, what do you see?”

“I show security forces massing at the lockdown points,” she replied.

“Any more of those giant machine guns they brought before?”

“One,” she said.

“Can’t say they don’t make things interesting,” I muttered.

42

The vault exploded outward, leaving a smoking hole in the broad stone wall that had been the back of the administrator’s office. The place looked like it had been carved from the original asteroid.

“That was a fine explosion,” Fratley said, rubbing his hands together as he walked into the smoke.

To my left, Kiren stood with her rifle trained on Administrator Travers, who looked like she’d swallowed something rotten. I walked into the vault behind Fratley, who was already trying to drag a heavy metal crate from beneath a rack toward the back.

There were other, similar crates, but I was focused on the data stack in the middle of the room—a column covered in blinking lights indicating storage cells. We’d managed to stop Travers before she could initiate a wipe sequence.

“You have access, Arla?” I asked.

“Assessing now,” she said. “There is a local network that requires access. I believe I can determine the key.”

Hearing me talking to the AI, Travers shouted, “You have no idea what you’re getting into, Walker. Nagel doesn’t want to know what’s going on here, and if you take it, you’re signing your death warrant.”

“Good thing I don’t work for you,” I said.

“I have access,” Arla said.

“Can you get it all?” I asked.

“Yes, Deputy Walker,” she said.

“I warned you, Walker,” Travers started to say.

Kiren slammed the butt of her rifle into the woman’s mouth. The strike looked like it was channeling a whole lot of pent-up fury.

Travers spat blood and grinned. “You can be as angry as you want, Kiren. I’m telling the truth.”

Kiren pulled her rifle back to hit her again.

“Careful,” I warned, not wavering when Kiren shot me an angry look.

“She was responsible for this place,” Kiren said.

I thought back to what Nagel had said about being judge, jury, and executioner in the Deadlands.

“She’s going to pay for her crimes,” I said. “She’s under arrest, and that means she won’t be abused. She’s going to get a trial.”

“I won’t be going to any trial,” Travers said. “You should know that. Besides, you’re not in control here, and neither is Nagel.”

“Deputy Walker,” Arla said. “I have the data. However, the historic files are encrypted with a key I cannot break. We will need to transport these files back to Taurus for further processing.”

“Dammit,” I said. “All right.”

I hadn’t been paying attention to Fratley. He’d cracked open the crate and was lifting strange items one at a time. Nothing he held up was even vaguely familiar to me.

“Clock’s ticking, Fratley,” I said.

Fratley glanced up from me, trance broken. He grinned. “Yes, it is, my friend. I’m going to run back and grab that flatbed cart we passed in the main corridor. I’m taking all these beauties.”

“You don’t need a transport for that crate.”

“Oh, no. I’m taking all of it. You know this is all stolen goods from the centuries this place has been killing people, right? These are all their most valuable belongings. We have a duty to claim these items, Walker.”

He was right in a way. This was all evidence. If the records Arla had taken were never cracked, the goods in this vault might be used to identify people lost here. If Fratley thought he was going to claim any of it as his own, he was in for a surprise.

Now wasn’t the time to argue about it, though.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Leaving Kiren with Travers, we moved quickly back through the wreckage of the administrative area. Furniture was still on fire in several offices from the incendiary grenades.

We spent a good fifteen minutes stacking crates on the flatbed. Keldon checked in twice while we worked, asking if we were all right. Finally I had to tell him we were going to be another ten minutes, even though I didn’t know exactly how long it would take to reach the airlock where Arla had docked the Star Javelin. The rig comms nets were dead, and if the path of destruction we’d left from the processing center to the admin area was any indication, we may have been the last living humans on Rivas.

“We’ve got inbound traffic,” Keldon said,

“Miners?” I asked, hoping for the best.

“At least twenty ships. I’m scanning now. They’ll be in comms range in a few minutes. We need to get the hell out of here, Walker. Now.”

“Now,” Bird echoed. “This ship isn’t setting any speed records.”

Fratley stacked the last crate on top of the flatbed. The thing looked dangerously top heavy but we’d managed to get everything on there.

“What are they on about?” Fratley asked, only hearing my part of the conversation.

“We’ve got inbound traffic. We need to get out of here.”

“I’m ready whenever you are,” he said, grinning.

Together, we turned the flatbed and pushed it out of the vault. Kiren already had Travers on her feet, hands bound behind her back with the strap from her pack. The administrator had a defeated look, as if she expected the rig to blow at any moment, so nothing mattered.

“We’re on our way, darling,” Fratley told Arla. “Get ready to light the engines. It also sounds like we might have a little fighting ahead of us. Just a little.”

I didn’t hear Arla’s response, but it made Fratley chuckle.

We pushed the flatbed nearly half a kilometer to the edge of the administrative section, almost to the main port where we had entered Rivas during our first visit. Leaving the main pathway, which was deserted and littered with abandoned personnel transports, we squeezed single-file down a tight maintenance corridor that could barely fit the flatbed. The air was steamy from environmental adjusters and the walls looked carved out of original rock.

Travers mumbled to herself as she walked, then she slowed down so Kiren was forced to jab her in the back with her rifle. I glanced back several times to watch the game play out. If Travers hadn’t looked so defeated, I would have assumed she was getting ready to run. There was nowhere to go in this tunnel though, and it was a straight shot back to the main corridor. Kiren would cut her down before she got ten meters. She seemed hungry for the excuse.

“Hey,” I said over my shoulder. “Walk.”

“I nearly killed you all,” Travers said, giving me a wild smile. “I was a second away from blowing this whole rock. You don’t know how close you came to Rivas being your grave.”

Kiren shoved her from behind, and Travers’s smile disappeared as she stumbled.

“I should leave you down in the acid baths,” Kiren said. “You’ve got some pets down there that would love to play with you.”

“Oh, the spitters,” Travers said. She glanced overhead. “They move through the plumbing, you know. Really amazing technology.”

“Remind me never to use another toilet in this place,” Fratley said.

We left the maintenance corridor and arrived at the small cargo bay where the Javelin waited on the other side of the airlock. Once we had the flatbed in the wide airlock, Kiren led Travers inside behind us and I activated the cycle process.

The heavy doors were nearly closed when Travers threw herself forward, launching her head and torso between them.

The doors were moving too quickly for the safety stop to activate, and the administrator was crushed between the heavy metal halves. The mechanism ground for a second, then clamped with a seal.

Travers’s bound hands and body from the waist down slid against the doors and then fell to the deck.

Fratley stared for a second, then barked a laugh. “Would you look at that! Guess you scared her with that trial talk, Walker.”

The interior airlock opened on the familiar sight of the Iron Scabbard’s cargo bay. Fratley hooted his pleasure and shoved the flatbed on board his ship, locked it into place at the back of the bay, then tossed security webbing over the whole stack.

“That’s a lovely sight,” he said. Then, whistling to himself, he climbed the short stairs to the main corridor and disappeared.

I glanced at Kiren. She was standing with her rifle hanging in her hands, her face a mask of misery.

“How are we going to find out who’s behind this now?” she said.

“We’ll crack their files,” I said. “These things take time to do right. At the moment we’ve got those Sarkonians and getting ourselves out of here in one piece to worry about.”

“Right,” she said.

A new call from Keldon came through as I was jogging toward the command deck. “Walker, you out of there yet?”

“We’re boarded and cutting loose.”

“Check your nav screen,” he said.

I reached the hatch to the command deck and walked in to find Fratley in the pilot’s chair, staring at the holo display. The familiar form of Rivas still hung in the center, but it was surrounded by a multitude of icons, with more arcing into orbit as I watched.

“Is that Kallaver’s fleet?” I asked.

“What’s left of it,” Fratley said. “Which is more than enough to ruin my day.”

43

Ships continued to arrive for another fifteen minutes. We kept both the Nova and the Javelin attached to Rivas. Depending on the sensitivity of their sensors, we might get lost in the asteroid’s mass profile. Cargo drones continued to flow into the refinery, accepted by systems that were still operational. Other automatic freighters joined parking orbits alongside a barrage of other ships, awaiting processing orders that wouldn’t be coming.

Fratley had spent the time throwing out ideas on how to leave the asteroid from among those diverted freighters. The problem was disguising the Nova Excelsior. There was no way we could hide from a fleet of pirates.

“Do they even realize we’re here?” I asked Keldon and Bird on our shared channel.

“We won’t know unless they try to contact us,” Bird said. “If they’re here for the refinery, I would think they’d be trying to board soon enough. With this many ships, they’re going to notice us taking up two prime docking points.”

“We ran into three of Kallaver’s ships when we first came,” I said. “They’ve had it staked out for weeks. They’d been hitting the outbound freight. That’s why Carthage wanted us here in the first place. Probably figure it’s an easy target.”

“They have to know Carthage will want it back,” Bird said.

“These people lack future orientation,” Keldon said. “As we say on Patrol. They can’t think ahead.”

I started laying out timelines, figuring how long it would have taken the surviving bosses from Kallaver’s gang to regroup and make a plan. I was going over my meeting with James Carthage and the Carmichaels when the comms station crackled with a connection request. Someone was hailing us.

On the Nova, Haley recorded the request and transferred it to our tacnet. I recognized the voice instantly.

Red.

“Rivas Refinery, my name is Red Arturi. I’m here with a bunch of my friends, and we’re going to come aboard. Since we’re the kind of people who have generous hearts and don’t like to get our hands dirty, we’re willing to let you evacuate. We’ll give you some time to do that, but first you need to acknowledge this message. You have two minutes.”

So he hadn’t spotted the Star Javelin or the Nova yet. With Nagel destroying the Factory back in the Chop, this all made sense. How Red had managed to survive our attack back at Taurus, I could only guess. He was a tough son of a bitch.

“I think a minute has already gone by,” Haley said. “Should I send an automated response like we’re all dead?”

That reminded me of something.

“Arla, when Travers said she was going to destroy the refinery, how do you figure she would do that?”

Fratley heard my question and sat up a little straighter. “Share with the class,” he said.

Arla switched to an overhead speaker. “In my review of the systems on Rivas Refinery, I found a number of interconnected failsafes that did not make sense to me at first. It appeared that several easily avoided cascading failures could lead to the overload of the central power generation system. The extreme temperatures generated by this event could ignite all the many stored materials in the refinery, including any freight in proximity to the event. The resulting conflagration could last for years until all material was exhausted. Considering the nature of the activities we discovered at Rivas, my estimate is that these failsafes were designed to destroy any evidence from its centuries of operation as a prison and work camp.”

Fratley whistled.

“But we have the data stack,” I said.

“This is true,” Arla said.

“Let me ask you this,” I said. “Can you remotely activate any of those switches?”

“I have control of the subsystems operating the fail switches,” Arla replied.

“All of them?”

“Yes, Deputy Walker.”

I joined the general channel Red used to contact Rivas.

“Hello, Red,” I drawled.

“Who is this?” he demanded, as if he hadn’t expected a response from the station. “This isn’t Travers.”

“You forgot me already? This is Deputy Gage Walker. How’s your ship doing?”

“Walker,” Red said, the sound almost guttural. “You burned my ship and half my crew. Why are you here?”

“The sheriff sent me as extra security after your failed attack on Taurus. We’ve been waiting for something like this to happen. And here you are. Predictable.”

Red made a growling sound. “You’re going to die today, Walker.”

The channel went dead.

“Well, that was entertaining,” Fratley said. “What’s your plan?”

“I thought you were listening when Arla said we can blow this station?”

“You’re going to set Rivas to self-destruct?”

“That’s right,” I said.

Keldon laughed on the tacnet. “I think you picked up too much crazy from me, Walker.”

“It’s not easy,” Fratley said. “You realize all those ships can’t dock at once, so we still have a gauntlet to run once that ignition sequence begins, or we’re getting cooked too.”

“That’s what I’ve got you for,” I said.

“It’s not crazy,” Bird piped up. “I agree with Walker. It’s the only way we’re getting the Sarkonians out of here safely. Nova can’t defend itself and Fratley’s going to be busy defending the Javelin. I estimate we’ll have about thirty seconds to undock and run before they decide whether or not to fire on us. Maybe his gang is worried they won’t be getting the first chance to pillage the place. They won’t care if a few ships are leaving. And if they do, well, we’re better off than we were before.”

“But can we outrun the explosion?” Haley asked.

“Do the math,” Bird said.

44

“Where are you, Walker?” Red demanded. “I’m coming just to tear off your pointy little head.”

“I could lie,” I said. “But what’s the point in that? I’m in the admin section, looting their vault. You know about the vault, right?”

“I’ve heard the stories about this place,” Red said. “Carthage kept it locked down tight. But he got sloppy. Then Kallaver decided to make his move. He moved too late.”

I glanced at Kiren. Her face was impassive.

“So I guess you’re stepping in to fill Kallaver’s boots?” I asked.

“You could say that. I don’t care about Taurus like he did. That’s too small a fry. With Rivas, I can take whatever I want.”

“Little dick syndrome,” Haley said.

“What was that?” Red demanded. ‘Who was that?”

“We’re almost done here,” I said. “You better hurry up.”

Gang ships had already occupied most of the cargo docks along the far side of the asteroid. Using Arla’s access to the surveillance systems, we watched groups of them probe their way into the processing centers. Some found dead groups of security guards and traded weapons with them.

The ship that had to be Red’s docked above the admin area at the main facility where we had come on our first visit. I watched the huge man walk down his cargo ramp to the main corridor and look around like he owned the place. For someone who had survived a burning ship, Red appeared in good health. An ugly welt ran down one side of his long face, twisting his beard.

Red stood in the port’s main thoroughfare for a few minutes, directing his people to jog off in different directions. He also checked an abandoned security gun nest and kicked the body of a spitter that I’d blown in two.

“There’s quite a mess here, Walker,” Red said. It was amusing to watch his mouth move and have the words reach me with a slight lag. “Looks like you already lost whatever battle you came here to protect against.”

“Where are you?” I asked. “We left messes all over the place getting in here. Why don’t you clean that up for me?”

His face twisted in a grin. “I think you’re hiding somewhere. Probably that vault. Pissing away the last minutes of your life trying to bluff me. I’m planning to step on your head and squash it. But that might be too kind of me. I want you to suffer.”

On the display across the command deck, I could see that most of the small fleet still hung in orbit, blocking our escape path.

“Walker,” Fratley said. “My idea about targeting the freighters in outer orbit. What do you think about that?”

I left the comms console to stand beside him at the holo display.

“Are we going to need those missiles?”

“We use a missile on one of Red’s ships, that’s the only target. We use that missile to fill nearby space with shrapnel, I think that’s a good trade-off. It’ll be like they’re flying blind into a meteor swarm.”

“But you won’t fire until we’re past them, right?”

Fratley grinned. “Think I’ve got a death wish?”

“I’m not entirely sure.”

A roar came from the comms console. I searched the display for the surveillance view of Red standing in the wreckage of the vault door. He cocked his head to one side as if he’d been struck by a thought. Red’s bushy eyebrows rose as his eyes widened.

“It’s a trap,” he yelled. The big man broke into a mad sprint back the way he’d come.

“He’s onto us,” I told the shared net. “Time to go. Arla, start the sequence.”

I moved to the weapons control console and strapped in. Kiren took her position at the console beside me. In the tacnet, Keldon, Bird, and Haley ran pre-flight checks on the Nova Excelsior.

“Engines hot,” Bird said. “Dropping docking handshake. Prepare to separate.”

Fratley spoke quickly to Arla. A shudder ran through the Star Javelin and my display shifted. We’d undocked from Rivas.

“Engines hot,” Fratley said. “Setting flight plan. Bird, are you receiving data?”

“Synced to your plan,” she said.

“We’ll be right behind you,” Fratley said. “You ignore anybody that gets in your way and run for the S.G. Point.”

We had already gone over the plan. Bird knew what to do. Keldon had the backup flight plan if something happened to the Star Javelin.

“Burning,” Bird said.

In my display, the icon showing the Nova Excelsior blinked and hopped forward, then the sensors tracked steady movement away from Rivas, counters showing their increased velocity.

“Do it, Arla!” Fratley said.

Icons that had been moving on the display were standing still now as we tracked toward them, two dots approaching a field of hostile stars. The orbiting freighters formed a fence at inner orbit, with Red’s ships scattered throughout their path.

“Walker!” Red’s voice crackled on the comms. I’d forgotten to turn off the general channel.

“I see you running,” he said. “You can’t get away from me. I control the slip point.”

“Arla,” I said. “How long until that thing blows?”

“We’ve nearly reached minimum safe distance,” she said.

“How much longer?”

“Thirty seconds.”

Red was shouting orders at his ships. I watched the display, knowing it couldn’t update fast enough to show me any shifts in their positions, but the whole thing looked like a minefield.

“We’ve got inbound missiles,” Bird reported.

“I’ve got the vector,” Fratley said. “They’re behind us. We’re almost past the freighters. Almost.”

“They’re moving faster than we are,” Kiren said.

Another missile warning flashed on my display. All the nearby ships were firing on us, targeting the larger Nova.

We had just reached the line on my display showing the freight orbit when Fratley fired on six nearby cargo drones. Two second later, the vessels exploded on either side of us, filling the surrounding space with snarled debris.

We cleared the field behind the Nova, and the six following missiles disappeared.

“Hell yes!” Fratley pounded his arm rest. “Nice shooting, Arla!”

“Initiating multiple failure sequences,” she said matter-of-factly.

The command deck grew quiet. Everyone looked at the main display where Rivas floated, surrounded by multi-colored icons. One instant the asteroid tumbled like normal, and the next it was a dust cloud that became a growing sphere of burning plasma and jagged debris. The edge of it devoured the closest ships and continued to spread, showing no sign of slowing its ferocity.

45

The doors to the board room of Carthage Mining Consolidated were a polished material depicting a star map that showed their holdings throughout the galaxy. The long tail of a ship’s flight connected the Union core worlds with the edge of the Deadlands.

Sheriff Nagel shoved the doors forward so hard they slammed against the transparent walls on either side.

An assistant standing just inside on my right jumped out of the way and cowered like someone had hit him. I followed the sheriff into the room, while Keldon and Bird took up positions along the wall.

“James Carthage,” Nagel boomed.

The slamming door and Nagel’s angry voice had frozen everyone around. All eyes were on him as he stalked the board members. James Carthage sat at the head of the table, with three dour-looking people on either side. Tark Davies sat stiffly, watching the sheriff with contempt plain on his face.

Nagel walked up as if he knew each of them. He slapped a man in a gray suit on the back and squeezed his shoulder. The man flinched.

“So good to see you all,” Nagel said. “I have some excellent news. While you were working on making a profit, your Sheriff was hard at work keeping your surrounding systems safe. Including a special place called Rivas where I understand you operated a refinery.”

James Carthage’s gaze flicked to my face. I couldn’t read his mood. No one in the room had looked pleased when we walked in, and it was easy to guess they’d been talking about the destruction of Rivas. They would be trying to determine the fallout.

In a way, Red had done them a favor by forcing the destruction. The question was how much the Board might try to spin this to preserve their own political capital on Taurus.

Davies cleared his throat, leveling dead gray eyes on Nagel. “My understanding is that your deputies destroyed our property. We’ll be opening a suit against the Sheriff’s Office and Taurus Station to recoup our losses.” He glanced at the rest of us.

“Property?” Nagel said. “That’s an interesting way to refer to a place like Rivas. Me, I wasn’t aware it was more than three hundred years old. Almost as old as Taurus. Were you aware of its status as a prison, General?”

Davies’s expression didn’t change. “You keep using words that have no meaning.”

Nagel smiled. “I have evidence. That’s how I create meaning in a court of law. Based on the data recovered from Rivas Refinery, I’m placing you under arrest, Tark Davies. Stand up or face the Sheriff’s Justice.”

Nagel set his hand on his pistol.

Keldon and Bird stiffened slightly on either side of me, hands on their weapons. I loosened my pistol in its holster.

Davies cleared his throat again. He closed the folio on the table in front of him and set his stylus on top of it, then pushed his chair back.

The general drew a heavy pistol as he stood and fired on Nagel from his hip. The blast caught the sheriff directly in the chest and knocked him back. If he hadn’t been wearing his duty armor, the shot would have blown a hole in his chest.

“Get down,” I shouted.

Keldon and Bird had already drawn and were moving on Davies. The general hadn’t stopped moving. He dashed toward James Carthage and grabbed him with an arm around his thin neck, then he dragged him away from his chair. Davies dug his pistol muzzle into Carthage’s temple.

“Hostage protocol,” Ellie said, back in my earbud. “Notifying Tactical Division.”

I had planned on closing the doors to stop Davies from escaping. Now we needed him to think he could drop Carthage and escape.

I nodded, drawing down on Davies.

Keldon moved to check the sheriff and drag him against the wall with one hand. Nagel was semi-conscious and groaning. He didn’t look like he was getting up soon.

“Let him go, Davies,” Bird said. She was closest now. “This isn’t any way to resolve this.”

“I’ll resolve this however I want to,” the general said. “Maybe I’ll finally get rid of this thorn in my side in the process. James Carthage has done more to hold back this company than anyone. If his daughter was here, I’d shoot her first.”

“Then pull the trigger,” Carthage said. He jammed his hand against Davies’s wrist and shoved the pistol away from his head. The weapon swung wide, threatening to hit one of the other board members.

Carthage drove his legs back, pushing Davies into the transparent wall behind them, still struggling to hold the pistol away. He bared his teeth and bit into the general’s forearm. Numbers and charts continued to flow up the display wall behind them.

Davies grunted. The two men were locked in combat now. I couldn’t get a clean shot, and Keldon and Bird appeared to be struggling as well. Bird circled to the left, on the side away from Davies’s pistol, looking like she’d tackle them both if the chance presented itself.

Carthage slammed Davies’s wrist against the polished wall, but Davies didn’t drop the weapon.

“Well, look at this,” a voice said from the doorway behind me.

Not taking my aim off Davies, I glanced over to see Evan and Sten Carmichael standing in the doorway. Collin stood behind them in gray battle armor, a rifle in his hands.

“What’s going on, gentlemen?” Evan asked. He walked into the room wearing a shiny black suit with a silver pin in his lapel. Sten was dressed in a silver suit with a black pin. They looked like they’d just left a press conference.

Evan clasped his hands together in a peace gesture. “We heard the sheriff was coming to visit and wanted to see if we could help. We brought our press secretary and his reporters. But it looks like you’re already crafting a narrative.”

Sten motioned toward Collin, who stepped aside. Behind the armored mercenary was the woman I’d met at the Taurus Administration Center. She looked anxious but determined.

“Come on in, Terry,” Sten said. “I’m sure the people of Taurus will want to know about these changes in the Carthage Board.”

From under the table, a woman said, “We haven’t voted on any changes.”

“Word is, you have,” Evan said, smiling.

At the far end of the room, Carthage and Davies were still tense, but still.

“Now that’s a photo op, wouldn’t you say?” Evan asked. “Get one of those reporters in here.”

With a jerking motion, Davies shoved Carthage away and holstered his pistol. He adjusted his coat, hiding the weapon. Stretching his neck, he smiled.

Carthage glared at the other man then adjusted his coat as well. His pocket was torn open, and he ripped it free.

On the floor, Nagel groaned again. His eyes fluttered open and he looked around the room, then focused on the Carmichaels. The sheriff’s face was blank for a second, then he seemed to take stock of the situation. He let Keldon help him to his feet.

“Evan, Sten,” Nagel said, voice rough. “How are you?”

“How are you, Sheriff?” Evan said with fake concern. “I didn’t see you lying down there.”

A smile curled the edges of Sten’s lips. “Are you sure you don’t have a concussion?”

“Hard at work for the people of Taurus,” Nagel said, nodding to the reporters in the doorway. “We were just discussing recent events with General Davies.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Evan said. “You may not have been aware of the pending Carthage vote. General Davies has decided to resign. We’ll be escorting him out.”

Davies stiffened in surprise. His hand jerked to his holster and the pistol appeared again. This time the muzzle swung toward the Carmichael brothers.

“I’m not taking the fall for you,” he snarled.

James Carthage turned to the general and stared at the pistol, then Davies shot Carthage in the face. The back of his head exploded, spraying blood across the wall and Sheriff Nagel’s armor.

Coming around the table, I had my shot. I fired, and several other weapons barked as well. A hole appeared in Davies’s forehead, knocking his head back, while three craters pocked the chest of his gray suit.

The former Union general knelt stunned for a second, blinking, then collapsed against the wall, pistol clattering on the floor. James Carthage lay a meter away.

I lowered my weapon. The three rounds in Davies’s chest had been from me, Keldon, and Bird. When I looked back at the door where the reporters were already scribbling on data pads, Collin was lowering his combat rifle.

“Well,” Evan said, straightening the front of his jacket. He brushed off his sleeves, then turned to face the reporters. “Let’s take a moment to remember James Carthage and to recognize our fine Taurus law enforcement. A rogue element has been eliminated.”

Sten looked at Nagel. “Isn’t that what you’d call the Sheriff’s Justice?”

Nagel had just regained his composure. He studied the two dead men, then turned his gaze on the Carmichael brothers, both beaming with the same satisfied expression for once.

The sheriff switched modes, his face growing hard and professional. “This investigation has just begun,” he said. “This is a crime scene. We’ll be setting evidence locks and processing witnesses. I recommend you all get comfortable.”

46

The room lights dimmed and a holo lit the center of the conference table. Sheriff Nagel’s face hung above the edge of the galaxy map, and his muscled arms crossed over his chest. An icon showed Taurus, followed by slip locations that I didn’t recognize. An icon for what had been Rivas appeared just one jump away.

Though the room was dark, I could still make out the faces of the department command staff. Lieutenant Bird sat one side of the table with several captains I had never met. Sergeant Keldon and a few other Watch Commanders sat along the wall. I sat near the door next to Stam Jones from TechDiv, still not sure why Nagel had commanded my attendance.

“You’re looking at a map TechDiv managed to pull from the encrypted data store Deputy Walker recovered from Rivas,” Nagel said, giving Stam a nod.

“During the investigation of Rivas Refinery, it was discovered that members of the Carthage Consolidated board had been operating the location as a private prison and work camp. While we discovered and rescued a group of refugees, there are many records indicating Rivas has been used to disappear Union dissidents during its three hundred year history. How this could have been happening so close to our own station makes me see red, but I can’t change that now. What we can change is this.”

Nagel activated a new layer on the map. More locations appeared—icons with names like Sorin, and Kallus Emptor, and one with a string of numbers. There were more than I could count.

“This is a system of dark sites,” Nagel said. “And there is evidence that our own people may be caught up in it.”

The murmuring in the room quieted.

“There’s a reason the Carmichael Brothers don’t want us investigating these locations,” Nagel said. “They used Rivas to disappear opponents. Individuals we had been led to believe had simply left Taurus station. They were transported to Rivas and then to other sites. There is evidence they were attempting to move Kiren Carthage to one of these dark sites before Deputy Walker stopped them.”

My blood went cold. Was that what Collin did for them?

“One such person is Rafferty Lance. You may remember him as the head of a workers organization opposed by the Brothers.”

The image of a gaunt man in his thirties appeared above the map. He was clean shaven and tired looking, with the hard knot strength of a welder or fabricator.

“Investigations had been monitoring Lance as a witness when he disappeared. His family said he left Taurus and we now know that isn’t true.”

Grumbling passed through the room. No one liked the idea of this kind of intimidation happening on our watch.

“Based on this information, I’m forming a task force,” Nagel said. “Lieutenant Bird and Sergeant Keldon will coordinate operations here on Taurus with resources to stop any current activities. The network isn’t gone because we took out Rivas. They just moved to another prison in the chain. While they focus locally, I’m sending Deputy Walker to investigate the disappearance of Rafferty Lance. He’ll be assisted by Detective Athron.”

The first part of Nagel’s command didn’t quite sink in as I tried to remember who Athron was. Wasn’t he retired? I thought I recalled the name from Records.

“Athron’s good, but he’s not going to be happy about this,” Stam said. “He already bought his retirement condo.”

I nodded. People were looking at me from all around the dark room and I couldn’t tell if they were feeling pity or irritation that the new guy had been tasked with the mission. Bird looked frustrated, while Keldon just threw me a wink. You never knew what that meant.

“Don’t grumble about it,” Nagel said. “Walker’s the right deputy for this assignment. Our work on the scattered Factory members isn’t done, either. The rest of you all have your assignments for that.”

The sheriff spent another hour going through the extended cordon operation the department would use to divide Taurus into sectors and secure each one. The hackers who had worked with Kallaver to hit the financial district were still operating, using the stolen data to attack casino infrastructure.

I wanted to get out of the briefing and talk to Keldon about what this assignment was going to mean, exactly. The lights came up and I realized I’d been lost in thought, not listening to the rest of the sheriff’s speech.

Several deputies slapped me on the back on their way out. Keldon punched me in the arm with his metal hand.

“Don’t look so worried, Walker,” he said. “You’re going to find this guy.”

“I’m just getting used to working on Taurus.”

“How about we head to Drake’s and talk about the plan?”

“You’ve got a plan already?” I asked.

“Of course. The plan starts with beers at Drake’s. We’ll figure it out from there.”

“He’s going to need more than a beer,” Bird said, walking up behind us. “You know Sergeant Athron put in his retirement request, right? Nagel pulled it for this mission. I swear the Sheriff has a crazy new plan every week. Still, you’re going to look good on the news feeds, Walker. That’s what this is all about. Give the people a story to follow during the reelection campaign. You’ll be back here once Nagel’s reelected.”

“So it’s not an actual mission? What about Rafferty Lance?”

“It’s as much of a mission as you make it,” Bird said. “Rafferty Lance’s life is in your hands, apparently. You gonna do the right thing?”

Keldon laughed. “Is that even a question?”

47

I drove my duty cruiser in a long banking maneuver across Casino Row and the viewscreen filled with the wild lights of the sector below. Vehicles filled the streets and the sidewalks were clogged with people.

“I’ve never seen this many people in one place in my life,” Pret Cardona said, leaning forward against his safety harness to get a better look at the scene.

Once he’d come out of his coma, the techs on Rolo Hab had learned his name, and he was determined to get back to his wife with the other refugees. He wouldn’t shut up about it, and I didn’t blame him. Despite the fact that Pret’s leg hadn’t fully healed, the blood infection was in retreat, so I’d agreed to bring him back to his people.

“It takes some getting used to,” I said. “The thing about Taurus is that you can always find a party somewhere.”

He nodded, the lights reflecting in his eyes.

“My town is isolated, even for Harkan. But there are few large cities on the planet.” He caught and corrected himself. “Were few large cities.”

Watching the view was the first time he’d fallen quiet since leaving Rolo Hab. Pret had spent the last two hours recounting in detail his people’s journey from their homeworld of Harkan, a planet that had been a Sarkonian colony.

Pret said he was at work when the notification passed through the town that military units had arrived. There had been no advanced warning. They were informed that dangerous gas deposits had been discovered near the settlement and they were required to evacuate. Each family would have time to gather what they could carry, and transports would arrive in the hour to evacuate the settlement.

With three hundred other townsfolk, Pret and his wife, Ampara, left their home to undertake a two week journey enclosed in a cargo ship with no word of their destination.

“People didn’t get angry about that?” I asked.

He shrugged. “It’s the Empire. You ask questions, you go away.”

Their arrival on Rivas had been welcome at first. They had barracks and plenty of food to eat. They started work in the upper cargo areas that we had found deserted. At first, there were plenty of people to manage the work in those areas, until their numbers began to lessen. Each day, one or two were hurt in accidents, or they simply disappeared, and eventually the group was moved to a new work area lower in the facility.

“We were fewer than forty when I got hurt,” Pret said. “Ampara hid me every day in the barracks, covering me with blankets so I looked like a pile of filthy laundry.” He laughed. “She saved my life. It wasn’t long after I broke my leg that we learned about the acid baths. That’s why there are no bodies to be found on Rivas.”

We left Casino Row and flew over an industrial area. The multi-colored light displays became orderly streets and warehouses, the only traffic cargo drones.

In another ten minutes, we reached the transition campus on the far side of the main port. I brought the cruiser down in a parking area just outside the cluster of buildings surrounding a small park. This was an area set aside for crews when their ships were impounded or their cargo placed in quarantine. For some reason, it belonged to the Sheriff’s Office rather than the Port Authority, and Lieutenant Bird in her bureaucratic genius had managed all the details to provide our refugees a temporary home.

“Here we are,” I said, powering down the engine. “Hold on and I’ll help you out of that harness.”

I came around the cruiser to open the passenger side and get Pret out. With one of his arms over my shoulders, I helped him walk between the buildings until we found the community room.

The front door was locked. I knocked three times and Aranis answered. The smell of hot food floated from the room behind her.

She stared at me for a second, seeing the uniform and not my face. “Yes? You’re police?”

“Pret?” a woman called from the room. “Is that you?” I understood the accent better this time.

Ampara Cardona pushed past Aranis and wrapped her arms around both Pret and me, squeezing so hard I felt my ribs move.

Pret grunted. “Careful, now. Don’t break my neck before my leg is healed.”

“You don’t recognize the man who saved Pret?” Ampara asked.

“Deputy Walker,” Aranis said, blinking. “You look so different.”

“The uniform does that,” I said. “Little different circumstances this time. It’s normal.”

Aranis stepped out of the doorway as Ampara took charge of Pret, helping him to a bench where the rest of the survivors were sitting in a haphazard circle. A few kids who had been chasing each other in the back of the room stopped to watch us come in.

Without the standard work overalls covered in a layer of dust, they resembled any Taurus native. I didn’t recognize everyone, of course, but it would make sense if all of them were here in the same room. Sharing trauma did that to people.

“How could you not recognize him?” Ampara scolded. “He’s the man who saved my husband’s life.”

I followed them toward the circle. “From what I heard, that was all your doing.”

“You set his bone and carried him up fifteen levels. You took him out of that evil place.”

Pret looked up at me in surprise. “Why didn’t you tell me that was you?”

“It’s my job,” I said. “I didn’t set your leg, just splinted it, and we took a lift to the ground level. Aranis and Ampara showed us the way.”

He chuckled. “There isn’t much that will stop Ampara.”

The others seemed to warm up with Ampara’s praise. I couldn’t blame them for distrusting a person in a uniform.

“It wasn’t his job,” Ampara said. “He didn’t have to help us, but he did.”

“Would you like to sit with us?” Aranis asked. “We have some dinner left, and some wine. Lieutenant Bird has been very generous.”

“I’m glad to see you’re being taken care of,” I said. “I can’t stay, though.”

“Of course you can,” Ampara said. “Sit.”

I looked at the people around me, tired but now hopeful.

“You are due for a break, Deputy Walker,” Ellie said so only I could hear. “I will inform Dispatch you will be out of service for an hour.”

I guess that meant I was staying.

Admitting to myself I was starving, I accepted the plate pressed into my hands and sat beside Pret. The Sarkonian picked up a second wind as he launched into the story of waking up on the Rolo Hab where medical techs were performing gray market augmentation surgery on the patient next to him.

“The Deadlands are a strange place,” Pret said finally.

“Like I said, never boring.”

“We aren’t going back to the Empire,” Aranis said firmly.

“I don’t blame you,” I said. “You were victims of a crime.”

Aranis gave a slight smile. “We don’t have the same ideas about rights as you do here.”

“Did Lieutenant Bird talk to you about our investigation?” I asked.

“She has been talking to each of us, asking questions about how we came to Rivas and what happened there,” Aranis said. “It’s not easy to understand what she wants with the questions.”

“We want to learn who did this to you.”

“I understand,” Aranis said. “But questions only lead to more trouble. We are fortunate to have survived.”

With worry plain on her face, she looked at the people around her. Many had fallen back into the small conversations as they ate, while others watched us closely. Most held pleasant expressions, though the distrust was plain to see.

“I understand,” I said. “Believe me, I do. Lieutenant Bird is the most professional deputy I know. If you trust me, you can trust her. She won’t keep you here any longer than necessary.”

“It’s nice here,” Aranis said. “But we have nothing to do. A Sarkonian needs to work. Is there work here on Taurus Station?”

“I think we should go back to the Rolo Hab,” Pret said. “They call themselves the Deathmongers.”

Several in the group perked up at the name.

“They are killers?” Aranis asked. “They helped Pret, though.”

“The name is a cover more than anything,” I said. ‘They’re normal people. Rolo Hab is a port with trade and other services.”

“So you know them?” she asked.

“I have a friend who knows their leader very well,” I said. “He usually enjoys any reason to go meet with her. If you’re serious about the idea, I can talk to him. They always need people.”

“You see?” Ampara said. “The stars provide. I told you Deputy Walker was a blessing, Aranis.”

“He is,” Pret agreed.

“He’s a what?” Lieutenant Bird asked from the doorway. “Are you harassing these people, Walker?”

I stood as she walked in. “I was just making my exit, Lieutenant. I delivered Mr. Cardona for you.”

Bird nodded at Pret. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. We need to get your statement.”

“That won’t be a problem,” I said.

“Thank you,” Pret said. He tried to stand but Ampara made him sit. “I can’t thank you enough for helping us. And now Deputy Walker is going to make us Deathmongers.”

“He’s what?” Bird looked at me.

“I need to talk to Keldon,” I said. “And I need to get back to patrol.”

“You report to me when your shift is over, Walker.”

Damn it.

“Yes, Lieutenant. I will definitely remember to do that.”

I waved farewell to the group and made my exit for the cruiser.

“You know, Ellie,” I said when I was outside. “You just pushed me into a promise I’m not sure if I can keep.”

“Deputy Walker, I have assessed the situation, and a permanent placement on Rolo Hab seems the safest outcome for the refugees.”

“And you figured I would somehow bring that up if I stayed and ate with them?”

“Rolo Hab was the most likely of several possible outcomes,” she said. “I did the math.”

“That’s Lieutenant Bird’s saying. Are you stealing it?”

“I do not steal, Deputy Walker. I learn.”

I considered the consequences of Ellie learning as the cruiser rose over the small settlement, then I set a course for my patrol area. “That could be terrifying or exciting, Ellie. I’m going with exciting.”

“That is reassuring. Should I report you as in service?”

“Dispatch will be pissed if you don’t,” I said.

“Update complete. Stay safe, Deputy Walker.”

Epilogue

I banged on the wall next to the Iron Scabbard’s cargo ramp. When there was no response, I hit the bulkhead again.

“He is present,” Ellie said. “He has been ignoring my hails, but Arla was quite clear.”

“He’s passed out.” I walked up the ramp into the small bay and found Fratley in his pilot’s seat, head back and snoring.

The Renegade’s cane was leaning against the bulkhead next to the nav console. I looked at it, then picked it up and hefted it in both hands. The brass end was satisfyingly heavy, and I could see why Fratley enjoyed swinging it.

Gripping the cane, I twisted the handle slightly. It didn’t budge.

“Just a cane,” I said.

“Were you expecting something different?” Ellie asked.

“I was hoping for something more interesting. Figures.”

Fratley’s snore caught and he jerked awake, looking around. His gaze fell on me and the cane in my hands.

“Are you rubbing my shaft while I’m asleep, Walker?” He cackled as he straightened in the seat, brushing crumbs off his coat.

“Just seeing what you’ve been hiding in that thing. Turns out you’re all talk.”

I set the cane back against the nav console.

“Maybe you aren’t smart enough to figure it out.”

I shrugged. “That’s what I’ve got Ellie for. She does the thinking. I do the shooting.”

“That is not true,” Ellie said.

“Before I forget,” I said, reaching into my jacket. “Here’s your coin. I’m tired of carrying this thing around.”

I tossed the palm-sized coin back to Fratley. He caught the disc and gave it a kiss before setting it in a recessed spot on his arm rest I hadn’t noticed before.

“What is that thing, anyway?” I asked.

“Be patient, Walker.”

The disc seemed to interface with the seat, and a glow appeared around its outer edge. A holo’s blue glow rose from the disc’s surface, and a woman in knee-high boots, crimson waistcoat and straight black hair appeared. She stood with her hand on the large pistol at her hip, which bore a strong resemblance to the weapon Fratley carried.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“No one that matters to you, Walker,” Fratley said, staring at the image.

“Then why did you ask me to carry the disc this whole time?”

Fratley glanced up from the holo. “Oh, I just wanted to see if you’d do a task for me. You cops are all submissive.”

I snorted. “You owe me anyway,” I said. “We’ve got a mission. Off Taurus.”

“We? Fuel costs money. Kiren Carthage still hasn’t paid me.”

I glanced at the display showing the cargo ramp, where movement had caught my eye. A red-haired woman stood where I had just a few minutes before. She was carrying a duffle bag.

“Looks like she’s here to talk about it,” I said.

“Was she following you? I’m trying to sleep here.”

“You don’t want to hear where we’re going?”

“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

The sound of footsteps came from the outside corridor, and Kiren stuck her head through the hatch. She saw Fratley first, and then me.

Kiren had a determined expression. “I followed you here, Walker.”

“I told you,” Fratley said.

I crossed my arms. “Oh?”

“I heard you're leaving Taurus. I want to go with you.”

She looked like she hadn’t slept and I didn’t blame her. In the days since her father’s murder, Carthage Heavy Industries had been in freefall. The truth about Rivas hadn’t come out, aside from its destruction, and the loss of two board members meant the stock was tanking. This wasn’t the time to be leaving. Or it might have been the best time.

“This is an official mission,” I said. “The Sheriff is sending me.”

“I believe we’re still deputized,” Fratley said. “Don’t forget that little detail.”

That was true.

“Renegade or deputy,” I told Kiren. “Choose, because you can’t do both.”

She smiled briefly. “I’m still coming with you, but you know I choose Renegade.”

* * *

Continue reading for GALACTIC JURY.

1

Fereen Station was dead.

No signals. No heat signature. No traffic in or out. Maybe I was just a Patrol Deputy trained to pound the streets, but this place gave me a bad feeling.

I glanced at the data pad sitting on the console in front of me, where Rafferty Lance’s serious face looked out from his ID picture. If Fereen Prison was active, that meant Lance might be as well. If the station was dead, I could only hope we were here to verify he’d been moved somewhere else.

Sheriff Nagel had sent me to find the labor organizer who had disappeared from Taurus Station, and I would complete my mission. The hours I’d spent studying the file behind that ID pic had done little to convince me that I would ever find Lance alive. He’d been swallowed by a system of dark sites that we had just discovered with the refugees on Rivas. If I didn’t find him alive, at least I might tell his story.

“Calm yourself, Deputy,” Fratley Oxonos said from the captain’s seat. The Renegade had been sipping his flask for the last hour and was pretty well drunk. “You look like you’re going to punch a hole in my console. Those damn things are expensive.”

“I’m fine.” I turned off the data pad with a swipe. “Shouldn’t you be worried about an attack from the station? We’re well within missile range of the place.”

“Don’t tell me about missile ranges. I’ve dodged more attacks in my life than your Sheriff has issued parking tickets.”

“That’s a strange comparison,” Kiren Carthage said from the communications console beside me, her red hair pulled back in a ponytail.

Fratley shook his head. “Sheriff Nagel’s a conscientious bastard. He works hard. I work harder. Make sense for you now?”

Kiren raised an eyebrow. “Not quite. Can you explain it one more time?”

“May I help, Captain?” asked Arla, the Iron Scabbard’s AI. “A better comparison might have been: I’ve dodged more misCox than Sheriff Nagel has dodged bullets.”

“I don’t need your help,” Fratley grumbled, dropping the failed joke.

“Now that’s an apt comparison,” Kiren said. “Can you list some more, Arla? I’d like to hear your take on the concept.”

“Shut it,” Fratley said.

We were all tired and anxious. The Iron Scabbard had been on approach for three days, working slowly across the system on the lookout for security drones, traffic, anything that would indicate surveillance from the station. So far there was nothing, and the inaction was making us all a little crazy.

Fereen Prison was close enough now that it was expanding in the holo display by the minute. I watched it with a growing sense of worry. The cylinder-shaped station hung cold in orbit around a massive gas giant that roiled with red storms.

“What do you see, Arla?” I asked. “Anything new on the latest scan?”

There was a possibility we could pick up latent energy signals as we moved deeper into their defense perimeter. And there was always the possibility something might come alive and attack, no matter how many misCox Fratley had dodged in his life.

“Same thing she found bloody last time,” Fratley said. “Nothing. We’re going to land on a trash heap, Walker. Accept it.”

Kiren shot the Renegade a dirty look. “Aren’t you worried about this being a trap?” she asked.

Fratley waved a hand. “That’s not how these things work. Out here in the Deadlands, you don’t wait for some ship to land on your doorstep before you blast them. You send misCox up their ass as soon as they’re within range. We’ve been within range for a day now. What’s happened? Nothing. Walker knows that’s true. He’s just antsy. Needs something to do. I recommend the two of you find a way to get rid of your nervous energy.”

“I’m going to take my frustration out on your face if you keep talking,” Kiren said.

Fratley snorted and sipped his flask.

I turned my data pad back on and opened Lance’s file again. The Renegade was right, godsdammit. I was anxious. I hated the idea of flying into a trap. Waiting for the inevitable just made me itchy. There were only so many pushups and pullups I could do in my room. I hated the idea that Nagel might have sent me on some busy-work mission. The only way to justify its importance was to focus on Lance. His crime had been trying to help people, and the Carmichael Brothers were no doubt behind his disappearance.

Space was too damn big. It took too long to get anywhere, and that was including slip travel. Give me a good chase on Taurus any day. At least you knew you were getting somewhere.

“The captain is correct, Deputy Walker,” Arla said. “I show no unexpected activity on the station. I have identified a cargo airlock in the lower quadrant away from central power systems. Would you like me to plot a course for that location?”

“I’m the captain here,” Fratley said, sitting up in his seat. He burped. “Why are you worried about power systems? The station’s cold as a stone.”

“External shielding could be concealing radiation from faulty containment in the power management system,” Arla explained. “I will not be able to verify until after docking.”

Fratley shook his head. “We’d see it on the sensors. This whole system is dead. Background radiation everywhere. Any spikes would be like fireworks.”

“I am merely following safety protocols, Captain,” Arla replied.

“Aw, Fratley.” Kiren grinned and sent him a cheeky wink. “Someone actually cares about you.”

“I have many friends,” the Renegade huffed. “I’ll have you know.”

“Of course you do,” Kiren said, all innocence.

I decided to rein in the conversation and get back on track. “Sounds like a good idea to me. If we enter through a cargo area, there should be space to assess the situation. I like that better than trying to go into one of the admin areas. It’s a prison. Most of the interior could be in lockdown.”

“Then we’ll just cut through their defenses,” Fratley said, waving a hand.

“You first,” I replied.

Fratley glared at me, then nodded. “Make it so, Arla. Cargo bay it is. And if anything decides to come alive as we approach, shoot first and ask questions later.”

“I thought you were sure the station was dead?” Kiren asked.

“Sure did. But it pays to be cautious. How do you think I’ve stayed alive so long? Sure as hell wasn’t my good looks.”

2

I stood on a short stretch of dark, cold hallway. Before me, a set of closed doors waited at the end. I flexed my gloved fingers and moved my head from side to side, getting a sense of how far my helmet’s external lights reached into the darkness ahead.

“It’s closed,” Fratley observed, his voice overly loud in my helmet’s speakers.

“What did you expect?” I stepped out into the corridor and approached the other side of the airlock. The HUD in my helmet showed a total lack of atmosphere. Kiren followed behind me with Fratley at the rear.

“I expected a warm welcome,” Fratley complained. “Everything about this mission of your Sheriff’s has been a disappointment. I find myself desiring a little more excitement.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Kiren told him.

“If you’re going to become a Renegade with any hope of making credits or prestige, you’d best start craving some excitement,” Fratley said. “Otherwise, find a different line of work.”

I checked the panel on the station’s inner airlock. The display was dead, and it didn’t look like there was a hidden one with a hand crank.

“Hey Arla,” I said. “I thought there would be a manual override here.”

“The design should be similar to other standard systems,” the AI said. “I cannot account for any local variations you might encounter. It does, however, make sense. That would make boarding this ship easy and it is made for top security.”

“Good point.” I glanced back at Kiren and Fratley. “Looks like I need to use the skeleton key.”

He handed it over. “Don’t burn yourself, Deputy.”

After pulling up the cutting torch dangling from my suit’s utility harness, I inspected the airlock’s locking mechanism until I found the retaining bolts. Once the torch sparked to life, it took some time before the mechanism finally slipped free.

“You’ve still got no activity inside?” I asked Arla, putting the torch down.

“I show no change in status.”

“Here we go, then.” I picked up my crowbar and inspected it.

The flat end looked like it would serve well enough. I jammed it into the gap where the doors met and worked it back and forth. The doors were stiff, but after a couple good heaves I had a widening gap into the cargo bay on the other side.

I waited as my suit’s sensors read the status in the interior area, noting a lack of atmosphere and temps no different than our current location. Whatever we found in there, it was going to have been floating in a zero-g meat locker for an unknown amount of time. There was no gravity on the station aside from the small bit provided by its spin, so we would be using our magnetic boots and gloves to pull ourselves along.

“Looks like we’ll need to keep the suits on.” I worked the crowbar for a few more times, then I signaled at the others to give me a hand.

Fratley gave me a silent clap with his gloved hands. “You’re doing just fine there all on your own, Deputy. I wouldn’t want to get in the way.”

“Here,” Kiren said, putting her palms against one of the doors. “Let’s push together.”

With Fratley standing at the back of the wide airlock, Kiren and I heaved one of the doors open wide enough for a person in an EV suit to slip through. The door seemed caught in its track for the last few centimeters, then it rolled completely open. A dark, open space waited for us on the other side.

“Thanks.” I looked through the doorway. My helmet lights shone into the open space, revealing the corners of a few crates and the hulk of a shuttle in a repair bay.

“What are we waiting for?” Fratley asked. “It’s obvious there’s no welcome committee, no drinks or hors d’oeuvres.”

“Why don’t you lead the way?” I told him.

“Oh, I’m just the pilot on this mission, Walker. You go first.”

I drew my pistol and walked slowly through the open airlock. As soon as my magboot touched the deck, a flashing yellow light came awake on the other side of the dark space.

I froze. “What is that, Arla?” I asked. “I thought you said there was no electrical activity.”

My helmet’s sensors were picking both vibrations and electromagnetic activity on the wall facing us, which happened to be the way into the rest of the station.

“My apologies, Deputy Walker,” the AI said. “While there was no activity before, I now show vibrations throughout your level of the station. You seem to have woken something up.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. At all. “Any transmissions outside?” I asked.

“Nothing yet.”

“Well keep watch for that. We don’t want some outside security force coming down on us while we’re dealing with whatever’s in here.”

Fratley walked up beside me with his pistol drawn. “We could always leave, Walker.”

“I didn’t come this far just to run away at the patter of little feet,” I said. “Come on.”

As far as I could see, aside from the light there was no movement in the cargo bay. I led the way across the empty space, under the wing of the shuttle, heading for a wide set of doors on the other side. The doors remained closed as I approached, while the vibrations grew more intense, showing as bouncing red lines in my HUD. Whatever we’d woken up, it seemed overjoyed to be banging all over the place.

“I’m betting security drones,” Fratley said. “I’d say three or four medium-sized rigs with scatter-shot cannons and articulated legs that let them crawl all over the place, like those beasties we saw on Rivas. What do you think, Walker?”

I reached the door and waited, watching the growing vibrations in my HUD. “It’s more than just three,” I said.

As I paused, listening to the rumble coming through my helmet’s speakers, something rose above the hum. It was a sound like a heavy chain being drawn over a piece of metal, getting faster as I listened. A part of my mind knew there was no sound out there, since we were moving through vacuum. This was the suit’s approximation of some large thing headed our direction.

“Get back,” I ordered.

I backtracked to the nearest stack of cargo crates as a popping vibration registered from behind me.

“What the hell is that?” Fratley said. He stopped arguing and followed me as I slid into place behind cover with Kiren right behind us.

“Here come your drones.” I watched over the edge of the crate.

A horde of small black dots appeared around the inner edge of the door where something was cutting it from the other side. A square near the top of the door dropped away and floated toward us, and a drone crawled through. Since it wasn’t floating, the things must have had some magnetic tech in their limbs. It was dull black with a flat body and six legs that had two oversized claws on either end. The claws appeared to be what they were using to punch holes in the metal. The first drone skittered out onto the wall as more holes appeared around it, its body rotating on a central hub so two eye-like sensors could survey the room.

Fratley sighted in with his pistol and shot the drone, hitting it in the center of its body. The creature smacked against the door, legs wiggling, and then floated free from the metal.

“What are you doing?” Kiren hissed.

Fratley relaxed his firing stance, looking pleased with himself. “Shooting it before it tries to murder me.”

More poured through new openings in the door and bulkhead. They rushed out to position themselves along the deck and bulkhead, flat bodies bouncing slightly on their jointed legs. One of the nearest drones stopped and swung around to face Fratley. Two muzzles extended from the thing’s body, and it fired.

“Arla, dear,” Fratley said. “Are the drones localized to this area?”

“I only show movement vibrations in your area, Captain,” the AI answered. “However, that does not mean additional drones are not waiting outside my sensor range.”

“Excellent,” I said. Shifting to the far side of the cargo stack, I pulled up my rifle and fired on the machines scrabbling through the opening. Several went down quickly until the others seemed to learn from their dead friends and started jumping away from my line of fire. Fratley and Kiren took up firing positions and we worked our way from the line of approaching drones to the holes in the door.

“We’re going to run out of ammo at this rate,” Kiren said after several minutes of chasing the things.

She was right. We hadn’t come prepared for a drawn-out firefight. I grabbed one of the grenades hanging on my utility harness and set it for a controlled burst.

“Grenade,” I called, and sent it floating toward the base of the door.

The drones cleared a path for it, moving with surprising agility in the zero-g, which spoke of a sophisticated magnetic system. When the grenade hit the exit door and bounced back a few centimeters, two of the closest drones sprinted toward it with appendages extended.

The grenade exploded in a flash of white light, sending a vibration through the deck. After a second, I rose to search for movement in the dust spreading out and picked off drones floating toward us, their legs wiggling as they tried to find something to grab onto. Fratley smacked one with his cane and sent it flying into the bulkhead above the door.

When the dust settled enough that we could see the newly blown-open exit, the majority of the drones appeared to be out of commission.

“That did the trick,” I said, rising with my rifle still at my shoulder. I moved forward, firing on a few more drones limping along the deck. It looked like there was a corridor on the other side of the door, and I checked for movement as I approached. When nothing more came at us, I knelt to inspect one of the smashed drones. They were all identical, carrying kinetic weapons and claws that looked like they could kill and dismember a person in seconds.

“Nasty little buggers.” Fratley stomped on a wriggling drone until its carapace cracked and leaked fluid bubbles that floated away into the darkness.

“Come on.” I stepped through the gnarled opening where the door had been. “If those were the first wave, there’s probably something worse waiting for us.”

“Then why would we go in deeper?” the Renegade asked.

“Because I’ve got a job to do. You giving up on me now?”

“Don’t be like that, Walker,” Fratley said. He glanced at Kiren, as though a little embarrassed that she might think less of him. “Just making a joke.”

“We’ll have plenty of time for jokes once we’ve cleared this place,” I said. “The sooner the better.”

The corridor ran perpendicular to the cargo bay behind us, with several doorways that led into offices. While Fereen had been used as a dark site prison, there was no indication it had been designed with that use in mind. Several of the offices had single chairs in the middle of their floors, with straps on the arms to hold people down. Others looked like they had been guard stations.

I led the way down the corridor, checking my HUD as Arla updated our maps. What she sent was based on an initial scan of the station that had only picked up some seventy percent of the internal composition. We weren’t quite blind, but a real map would have been nice.

Trash from the rooms floated freely in the corridor, and in the last room we found a wall of empty charging bays with two apparently defective drones still sitting in position, held into position by a base unit.

There was a dead man floating in the center of the room wearing a plain gray uniform similar to the ones private security on Rivas wore. The vacuum had dried his skin to leather against his skull, his eye sockets were black, and he had skeletal fingers floating in front of him.

“Looks like this guy didn’t have time to deal with the lack of atmosphere,” I said, stepping into the room to inspect the body more closely. He wasn’t carrying any identification or weapon. The trash floating in the room included maintenance parts for the drones, cracked data pads, and other bits of repair junk.

I looked back at Fratley and Kiren, who were watching me from the doorway.

“Is this whole place going to be full of bodies?” Kiren asked.

Fratley slapped her lightly on the shoulder. “Better dead men like this than killer drones.”

Kiren pushed him away with an elbow in his ribs.

I left the room and found the stairwell at the end of the corridor. Looking upward through the central shaft showed more floating trash and what were probably bodies in the same gray uniforms, their arms and legs spread.

After checking my utility harness to make sure everything was strapped in, including my remaining grenades, I kicked away from the stairs and floated upward, using the railing to pull myself along.

“You aren’t afraid of ghosts, are you, Walker?” Fratley asked from behind me.

“Never met one,” I said. “So I don’t know yet.”

3

I reached the landing and pushed a body out of my way. It was another tech in a gray uniform. The body floated into a nearby wall and crumbled into pieces, his head breaking free to tumble back into the open shaft.

The doorway ahead of us opened into a long corridor lined with cells. This was the third such section we’d found, and so far there had been nothing but cages full of bodies, many of them with fingers still wrapped around the bars from when they suffocated. No one was wearing name badges that I could tell, and I searched the desiccated skulls with some idea that I might recognize Lance if I saw him. I knew that was probably futile, but I searched faces and checked hair color.

The thing was, I’d seen as many dead guards as prisoners.

We passed areas clearly designated for torture. Dried blood flaked off the walls and corpses sat strapped in chairs for eternity, the skulls drifting to the sides.

Walking through the dark, silent corridors with nothing in my ears but my own breath and Fratley’s banter, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were the ghosts floating through a house of horrors. It didn’t take much of a stretch of the imagination to see what had taken place here. Anything could be lurking just outside the range of our lights and sensors. The silent tension made Fratley’s chatter the rational response.

The Renegade was more anxious than usual, but he was doing his best to hide it behind jokes and curses. As we searched the long corridors lined with cells, he tapped the walls with his cane, letting the metal tip bounce along the bars. Kiren followed me doggedly, lost in her own thoughts.

Two levels later we finally reached what looked like an administrative area, with the cells replaced by small offices like those off the cargo area. Most of the data terminals sitting on desks were dead with cadavers floating over them. I couldn’t help looking around wondering what had happened here.

We passed through areas where the decompression had obviously been violent and sudden, with bodies still spinning in the open rooms, and others where the atmosphere must have leaked slowly so inhabitants simply went to sleep from oxygen deprivation. There had been a plan to the destruction of this place, that seemed apparent enough.

“Anything, Arla?” I asked as we entered this new area.

“Yes,” she replied, surprising me. “There does appear to be electrical activity, Deputy Walker. If you can get one of the workstations running, I should be able to connect.”

Fratley took initiative by stepping forward and pulling something out of his pocket. He inserted it into a slot on one of the stations and waited. A second later, the computer came to life and a holo screen appeared.

“Interface complete,” Arla announced.

“You had that the whole time?” I asked him.

He grinned at me. “Of course. Makes me valuable. Alright, what do we have here? Ah, yes. Most of the system is wiped, but there’s a basic map.”

I hadn’t really expected to find anything useful, but the trip wasn’t over just yet. “Does it say where the security hub is? Bird once told me that there can sometimes be files that don’t get deleted even if it looks that way.”

“That’s true,” Fratley admitted. “Arla, update the helmets with this destination, dear.”

The update came immediately. According to the map, we had nearly reached the command section in the station’s head. There was another stairwell to climb. It passed through levels that looked like they were simply more cells, before getting to the security hub, which I hoped like hell wasn’t a bust.

After all this, I might be no closer to finding Lance.

What was I going to tell Sheriff Nagel? We searched a cemetery and didn’t find anything.

We had just entered the opposite stairwell shaft when Arla spoke again. “Captain, the station system is registering significant motion four levels above you. The area appears to be just beneath the entry to the command section.”

Fratley cursed. “Is that going to be momma drone?”

“Let’s hope that’s all it is.” My heart pounded in my ear as I kicked into the stairwell. “Arla, can you inlay the map with the activity?”

“Adding now,” she said.

The marker appeared on the diagram in my HUD, showing the motion several levels above us. From what I could tell, the level looked like the administrative landing bay, so there was room for whatever was moving around.

“Is there a way around?” I asked.

“I do not see a secondary path outside your current location,” Arla informed. “Not without cutting a hole and traversing across the hull.”

“The hull’s going to be too thick here,” I said. “It would take hours. Let’s at least see what we’re dealing with.”

The upward trip took a few minutes, and then we were facing a closed set of doors wide enough to accommodate a large corridor on the other side. They had an emergency release that meant I couldn’t ease them open to get a look.

“You ready?” I asked the others.

Kiren gave me a tight nod, holding her rifle across her body.

“Do it,” Fratley said, drawing his pistol. “I’m ready to get the hell off this dead chunk of metal.”

I hit the release and the doors slid open, showing a long corridor with tall windows on the left side that looked into a cargo bay. From where I stood, I couldn’t see what was causing the vibrations. The movements had grown strong enough that I could feel them through my magboots now.

“What do you see?” Fratley asked from behind me.

“Nothing yet.”

The heavy steps continued, then the tank-shaped body of a drone came into view. It looked large enough to crush a shuttle in its claws. The thing was a giant version of the small drones we’d fought before, with heavy cannons hanging from its belly and claws on either side of its body. I froze as it came into full view, its sensors rotating as it followed what looked like a regular patrol path. Crates that had been in its way were crushed or thrown against the bulkheads, and one shuttle was smashed flat.

The only exit from the corridor in front of us appeared to be a door on the other side. Windows from the command section looked down on the bay and its guardian.

“That thing is in our way, isn’t it?” Kiren asked, a resigned note in her voice.

“Seems so,” I said. “The map doesn’t show another way in.”

“Who leaves a perfectly good security drone patrolling a dead station,” Fratley wondered. “Seems like a waste to me.”

“People with something they don’t want found.” I checked my weapons, then I shifted my rifle across my body and counted my magazines. We were going to have to be smart about this, because after the fight with the drone horde, we didn’t have enough firepower to take out the drone.

I entered the corridor and slid close to the window, keeping a stack of crates in the cargo bay between me and the drone. It was easily the size of one of our department cruisers, and its legs were as thick as lampposts. The thing moved quickly from one end of the bay to the other, the blunt sections between its claws rising and falling like it was sniffing the vacuum.

“We’re going to have to sneak past the thing,” I told Kiren and Fratley. “We can’t fight it.”

Kiren stood beside me as Fratley observed from the doorway.

“We could take out one of its legs,” the Renegade said.

“You see those cannons?” Kiren asked. “It’s going to blow a hole in the side of the station.”

Fratley shook his head. “There’s no way they’d have equipped it with rounds heavy enough to puncture the hull. That thing’s been retrofitted for crowd control, only whoever emptied this place out didn’t give it much to do. We must have woken it up with our forced entry, and now it can’t get out of the bay.”

“Well, the only way up to our destination is across the bay,” Kiren said. “Can’t you see that?”

“I see it,” Fratley said. “I’m waiting for Walker here to come up with a brilliant plan.”

“Like I said,” I told him. “We’re not going to fight it.”

“We come all this way and don’t have ourselves an epic battle. That’s just disappointing.”

“Then you shoot first.” I disengaged the magboots and kicked away from the bulkhead to float along the corridor, and I pulled myself past the huge windows. The drone didn’t seem to notice my movement and continued making its circuit of the cargo bay.

“Maybe I will,” Fratley said.

The drone was a good indication that there was another database or something of value in the command section. Like my trainer Sergeant Keldon had told me, a fight you don’t have to fight is a fight you won—something he said he’d learned from a career of dealing with drunks.

Reaching the door into the cargo bay, I realized I was going to have to pry them open as I’d done with the other airlocks. There wasn’t going to be any way we could get into the bay without alerting the drone to our presence.

Godsdammit.

I studied the big room through the windows, looking for anything on the ceiling I could use as a weapon against the monster. The room was clean. Stacks of crates covered one side, and there was a shuttle sitting near the main airlock.

“Fratley,” I said. “You see that shuttle?”

The Renegade craned his neck to get a better glimpse. “It looks like it might actually be operational.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. I’m going to have to pry this door open, and it’s most likely going to bring the drone after us. What if Kiren and I draw the thing out and you get to the shuttle.”

Fratley raised an eyebrow, which didn’t have the effect he wanted through his face shield. “What do you expect me to do once I’m in the shuttle? Hide like a coward?”

“Fire it up and either melt the drone with the engines or ram it. I don’t care. Use your imagination.”

The Renegade nodded. “Not a bad idea. And if it’s inop?”

“Then you do your best to flank the thing and we’ll do what we can to reach the exit. Anybody have a better plan?”

I looked at Kiren, who shook her head, and then Fratley, who shrugged.

“Let’s go then.” I went to work on the door, keeping out of sight of the drone as it made its patrol circuit. As soon as I jammed the crowbar between the doors, the drone’s heavy footsteps came to a halt.

“It noticed,” Kiren said.

I kept my focus on the doors. “What’s it doing?”

“Looks like it’s waiting,” she said.

With a few more heaves, I had the doors spread enough to get my gloves into the gap so I could push. Kiren moved up to help. With one final pull, the doors opened.

“It’s looking in our direction,” Fratley said.

There was a stack of crates between the entry door and the exit on the other side of the bay. It was going to take longer than a few seconds to get there using magboots, but I could jump the distance. I grabbed onto the edge of the door and got ready to throw myself forward.

“Wait,” Kiren said. “What are you doing?”

“I’m crossing to that pile of crates over there. Once I start laying down covering fire, you follow me. Fratley can flank the thing once it’s focused on us.”

Kiren gave me a tight nod, looking worried.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m bulletproof, don’t worry.”

“Don’t lie, Walker.”

Before she could say anything else, I threw myself into the bay. I kept my elbows bent, palms ready to slap onto the metal crates and engage my mag gloves.

In the corner of my helmet, the drone bobbed up and down, rotating to find me. Its sensors blinked, tracking, and then it hunkered down in what looked like a firing position.

“Walker!” Kiren shouted. She fired on the drone from the doorway.

I hit the crates and slid as one glove caught. My inertia wanted to keep my body going, and I slammed against the deck. Getting my feet under me, I activated my magboots and hunkered down with my rifle ready.

Dammit. Kiren’s attack had pulled the drone’s attention toward the entry door, so there was no way she and Fratley were getting through there unless I drew the beast toward me. It had to have advanced targeting, and I figured it would be able to track the two of us at once. I raised my rifle and aimed at the nearest leg, trying to keep my rounds on the joint near its body.

My bullets ricocheted off the hard material of the drone’s leg, but I did manage to get its attention. The drone rotated and dashed toward my stack of crates.

In the last few seconds, I realized the thing wasn’t going to stop. I kicked away from the deck, spraying bullets as I rose toward the ceiling.

The drone smashed into the crates, scattering the stack and sending three of them tumbling against the bulkhead. Kiren and Fratley used the distraction to enter the bay, and they both ran for the shuttle.

“We’re sticking together, Walker,” Fratley said, breathing hard. “You keep that thing on the deck and I’ll see what we can do with this shuttle.”

I rotated to get my boots under me and hit the ceiling with bent knees. Below me, the drone raised one end of its body to search the bay, then it thankfully ignored Fratley and Kiren as they moved behind it.

“Take your time,” I said. “No rush up here.”

The drone aimed one of its canons in my direction and filled the bay with projectiles.

I jumped out of the way as projectiles hammered the ceiling where I had been. I floated along the ceiling, unable to see the drone in my face shield as it moved behind me.

I hit a support strut and my boots got caught under me again while I searched for the drone. It was on the bulkhead near the exit, climbing the wall to come after me on the ceiling. I raised my rifle and fired again, aiming for its sensor arrays this time.

The thing moved fast, but I hit the base of one of the arrays and sent a piece spinning away from its body. The drone froze, hunkering down, as its body rotated so its second set of sensors could hunt for me.

“We’re inside the shuttle, Walker,” Fratley said. “You’re lucky I know my way around security systems.”

I kicked away again and moved back to the deck. “How’s it looking?”

“No weapons, but we’ve got power and the control systems aren’t locked down. You get that beasty behind me, and I can cook it up for dinner. I’m going to need a few minutes to warm up the engines.”

“Of course, you do.”

The drone fired again, filling the space where I had been with bullets. A hole the size of my head appeared in the bulkhead where the concentrated fire struck.

“I think it’s getting mad,” I said.

“It has no feelings, Walker. Stop projecting your fear on the hunk of metal. Treat it like the mechanical monster it is and outthink it.”

“Easy for you to say.”

I fired and pistoned away from the deck, then I hit the ceiling and fired again. The drone seemed to know I was aiming for its remaining sensor and moved at the last instant. As our dance continued, I wasn’t sure how I was going to get the thing behind the shuttle once Fratley was ready. I could barely keep ahead of it as it moved and fired. The cannons were just too big, and the walls were filling with holes from every place I’d been.

“Ready, Walker,” Fratley announced. “We can see the whole bay. You get it behind me, and I’ll light the torch.”

I paused for a second in a ceiling corner, watching as the drone crawled along the windows lining the outside corridor, hunting me. The trick was going to be getting it to move behind the shuttle to fire on me. If I moved all at once, it would just take the shortest path to blowing my head off.

I jumped a few meters along the wall, then I fired on the drone and waited for it to rotate and target me. As I’d hoped, it shifted along the wall to get a better shot. I moved again before its cannon wound to life.

This might work.

Staying just outside the drone’s burst pattern, I fired and moved, walking it toward the side of the bay that would bring it into range of the shuttle’s engines.

“Any day now, Walker,” Fratley drawled.

“If you want to swap, I’m happy to oblige.”

“This is your area of expertise.” I could almost hear the grin in his voice. The Renegade was clearly enjoying this.

“Since when?” I said.

“Since you ended up leading your pet killer drone around this bay. Before long we’re going to have a nice view of the stars outside.”

That was certainly true.

I nearly had the drone in position behind the shuttle when it stopped and hunkered down again. The sensor array rotated, and instead of tracking me, it appeared to be focused on the shuttle.

“Fratley, you see that?”

“Yes, I do. Godsdammit. It’s picking up something from this rig. Probably the thermals off the engines.”

The drone shifted on the bulkhead and assumed its firing position.

“You better light those engines!” I said sharply.

Fratley didn’t answer.

I pulled my rifle to my shoulder and fired on the drone’s sensor stalk even though I didn’t have a good shot. The thing ignored me as the cannon wound to life and walked a stream of projectile fire from the deck toward the shuttle’s nose.

At the rear of the shuttle, the air wavered and sparked blue, then an intense white. The engine flared to life and the body of the little transport started to shudder as it fought the maglocks holding it to the deck. The drone’s bullets hammered the shuttle’s nose, tearing off metal and sending bits of slag spraying across the bay.

Fratley killed the engines, released the landing skids, and a thruster spit accelerant from the side of the shuttle, rotating it just enough so the engine cones were aimed at the body of the drone.

Fratley engaged the landing skids again and the shuttle rocked against the deck. Then the engines flamed to life, catching the drone in a river of thrust and heat.

The drone scrambled against the onslaught, but its legs were already melting beneath it. One maglocked leg held it against the bulkhead as its body softened and slid, then it stopped moving.

“Hell yes,” I said, lowering my rifle. “It’s dead, Fratley.”

“It’s dead, but the bot isn’t cooked yet. How do you like your roast beast, Walker?”

“In this case, well done.”

4

The command section of Fereen Station was a round space filled with workstations. Cadavers floated above consoles. A few still hovered in their seats, held in place by limbs caught on the furniture.

“Looks like a dance for stiffs up here,” Fratley said.

I stood in the doorway for a minute, taking in all the dead, imagining the moment when they realized the station had been losing atmosphere. If they’d all just gone to sleep, no one would have known. The only indication anyone had known were the grimacing stiffs down in the cells with their hands wrapped around the bars, fighting to get out as the vacuum set in.

If Rafferty Lance had been here, he was dead with the others. The problem was that none of the prisoners, the guards, or the admin people wore name tags or anything else that identified them. This station was a mystery floating in space, full of people who couldn’t tell their stories anymore.

I stepped into the room and checked nearby terminals.

“What are you looking for?” Kiren asked.

“Since we set off some kind of backup security system, it’s possible there’s still an active console in here. We might be able to find the station’s main database.”

Fratley and Kiren spread out behind me, taking different sections of the command deck.

“Nothing over here,” Fratley said. “Just more trash and bits of dried people.” He waved at the space in front of him with his cane, then he batted a floating body out of his way.

“Show a little respect,” Kiren said.

“This is the most action these people have seen in awhile. If it was me, I’d want somebody to feed my husk into a chipper. Don’t like the idea of floating around like this for eternity. When I go, I want it to be in a fiery ball of flame. An epic battle in the void, maybe. Better yet, a final bloody fight with my arch nemesis. Yeah, that’s how I want to go out.”

I laughed. “You have an arch nemesis, Fratley?”

He chuckled back. “Not yet. But it’s only a matter of time, I’m sure.”

“You’re going to get a missile up your ass,” Kiren said.

Fratley grinned. “If they’re faster than me, I’ll deserve it. Until then, they can keep firing.”

I caught a flashing light on a console against the far wall. “Hey, what’s that?”

I kicked off and floated across the room, then caught the top of a workstation to slow myself. After settling into a seat in front of the console, I leaned in to get a look at what appeared to be an active workstation. The display showed a list of response actions in verbiage that probably made sense to a computer.

“Arla,” I said. “Can you decipher this?”

“I am reviewing the output now, Deputy Walker. These commands appear to be actions recorded between the main systems AI and several maintenance systems. The latest date is four years ago. The final command is a complete airlock dump, though it appears that was preceded by three hours of reduced oxygen. All alarms were disabled.”

I glanced at a nearby woman floating against the bulkhead, her mouth open in an endless scream and her eyes black holes. I knew the muscle contraction was most likely caused by her drying muscle tissue, but it still looked ghoulish.

“So they all went to sleep, and then someone dumped the atmosphere. Smart thinking to disable alarms. Doesn’t give anyone time to run.”

“The action appears to have taken place by level,” Arla said. “That would explain the prisoners you observed in the lower cell blocks. They experienced explosive decompression.”

“Any indication of who did it?” I asked.

“The database is empty aside from these maintenance logs,” Arla reported.

I nodded, leaning back in my seat. This place had been spaced long before Rafferty ever might have arrived. Whatever info in the Rivas database that was trying to indicate he was here had been a complete dead end.

“If this thing has backup power, is there any way we can activate other parts of their control systems?”

“That will not be necessary,” Arla replied. “I have copied the entire available database.”

“That was fast,” I said.

“That’s my Arla.” Fratley’s tone held unmistakable pride. “Now can we get the hell out of here, Walker? The excitement of walking through a haunted house expired an hour ago.”

“I agree,” Kiren said. “We should blow this place once we’re out.”

The Renegade turned to leave. “An excellent idea. I’d even donate the torpedoes, but it’s too big for my ship to take out alone. Arla, could you be a dear and override? Start self-destruct protocols when we’re out of range.”

The AI replied in the affirmative and went silent.

I looked around, frustrated that the trip had been a dead end. Nagel couldn’t have known I wouldn’t find anything, but I still hated being an errand boy. What would Keldon say? You’re a patrol deputy. You eat your shit sandwich and ask for pickles.

5

Fereen Station shivered in the holo screen and exploded. It showed on the display for a few seconds until the main explosion started to fade, and then there was nothing to watch except the larger bits of debris as they hurtled away from the wreck. The Iron Scabbard was already far outside the danger zone, but Kiren still looked worried as bits of light reached the edge of the display and disappeared.

“Good riddance,” I said. “Another dark site down.”

“And who knows how many to go, right?” Kiren asked.

“You think blowing these things up is going to stop the people doing this kind of work?” Fratley was back in his captain’s seat, nursing his flask with a thoughtful expression. “All you do when you take out one of these bastards is create an opportunity for a new set of bastards.”

“That’s a depressing way of looking at it,” Kiren said.

“That’s the fundamental difference between Walker and me. He’s a deputy who thinks there’s such a thing as justice, and that you can make the galaxy a better place if you take out the bad people. Me, I know the galaxy is actively working to create more bad people all the time. You can’t win.”

I crossed my arms and leaned back in my seat. “It matters to the people I help,” I said. “I’m not stupid enough to think I’m going to make a difference in the galaxy. But I helped the refugees on Rivas. I even helped you, Fratley, though you’re too much of a nihilist to admit it.”

“I’m not a nihilist, Walker. I’m a realist. I’m sitting on a pile of valuable goods that I aim to sell, and that’s going to improve my life greatly, maybe even the lives of a few other fine individuals I choose to bless with my attention.”

“Your artifacts?” Kiren asked. “You’re never going to sell all of them at once. You might as well bury them somewhere and then move them one bit at a time. You get caught with all those by either the Union or the Sarkonians and it’s your neck.”

Fratley shrugged. “That’s not my style, Ms. Carthage. If you’re going to be a Renegade, it can’t be yours either. If you’re ever given a choice between the safe play and the big play, go big all the way.”

“Then how do you think you’re going to move all of those?”

“First I’m going to give Mr. Ollie Trinidad the opportunity to make a purchase, since the deal was with him in the first place. Then we’ll see what moves we need to make after that.”

“He’s not stupid,” Kiren said.

Fratley raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize you knew the man?”

“I know the type.” Kiren turned her attention to her console and swiped through messages on her display. From the headers, I could see most of them were from Carthage Heavy Industries, her father’s company. Her frown from talking to Fratley deepened as she read.

“What’s your next move, Walker?” Fratley was obviously in a talking mood, probably pleased that Nagel’s mission had been a failure.

I shrugged. “Report to Nagel and tell him what we found. There was no way Lance could ever have been on Fereen, so someone deliberately put the wrong info in the Rivas database. If someone is trying to throw people off his trail, that complicates things. It probably also verifies his importance in this overall mess.”

“Some things don’t have reasons,” he said.

“You’re awfully philosophical. You always like this after a mission?”

“Maybe it was the sight of all that death,” Fratley said. “How many people do you think were on that station? A thousand? What if what we found wasn’t caused by any nefarious plan but just an equipment failure? Those commands could have been a glitch. Oxygen winds down, most of the inhabitants go to sleep, until someone doesn’t check whatever monitor they’re supposed to because they’re dead, and the rest of the place blows open. No plot. Just dead.”

“I don’t think that’s what happened, but I suppose it’s possible. I think someone was covering their tracks there, and everyone on that station was a witness who could have talked about what went on. Why do you think Rivas was mostly empty?”

“Maybe,” Fratley said, sipping his flask. “You called me a nihilist. Mainly I think people are just stupid, and they make stupid mistakes. That’s what killed all those crew on that station. Someone’s stupid mistake. That’s the Deadlands for you. Don’t replace a part. Sleep on your shift. The Void doesn’t forgive.”

“You sound like you need to curl up with your liquor and cry yourself to sleep,” I retorted.

“Bah,” the Renegade replied.

“The evidence is clear,” Arla interjected. “Maintenance logs show that oxygen was reduced at a steady rate, followed by the atmospheric evacuation. Events on Fereen were not an accident, Captain. Unfortunately the commands that started that sequence of events are unavailable.”

“See. If Arla agrees with me, I have to be right.”

Fratley screwed up his face and glanced at the ceiling. “You’re fired, Arla.”

“I do not believe you can fire me, Captain,” the AI replied. “If you would like to take on manual control of the Iron Scabbard, please let me know which of the ship’s two hundred and thirty six systems you would like to monitor.”

I grinned at him. “She knows you’re lazy.”

“Not today, Arla. But one of these days. You wait.”

6

Back on Taurus, I left Kiren at the door to her apartment building and climbed back inside the transport. Collapsing against the seat, I fed the drive system my address and watched the outside lights slide across the windows as the car crossed Taurus.

“What do you know, Ellie?” I asked. “Seems like we haven’t talked in weeks.”

“That is because we have not spoken to each other, Deputy Walker. You were out of range of Taurus Station.”

“There you go, being all serious again. Did you miss me?”

“Indeed. Do you have a request?”

I laughed. “Are you changing the subject, Ellie? Is passive aggression one of your new abilities?”

“I have been engaged by Lieutenant Bird on her project with the Rivas Station database,” Ellie said. “We are very close to breaking the full encryption. The team is very excited.”

“That’s great to hear. How much longer, do you think?”

“If progress continues at a steady rate, we will have access in four days. However, the data set has proven difficult because it utilizes shifting encryption protocols.”

“Is that unusual in the world of encryption?”

“I have found no other examples of this level of defensive measures,” the AI said. “Director Jones in TechDiv wants to contact a Union university to share our research once the case is finished.”

“I never would have pegged Jones for an optimist. This project must really be something.”

Sleep pulled at me but I forced myself to sit up. The news about the Rivas database was good, at least.

I had to remember that Fereen wasn’t a failure. We’d learned that someone was seeding false information about Lance; that was important in itself. We’d also learned that at least one of the dark sites listed in the Rivas database was no longer in operation. Still, the faces of all those dead floated through my thoughts. There was always a mix of prisoners and administrators, the people who were willing to do the work to make places like Rivas and Fereen operate. Was that evil? Or had it just been a job to them? A job that demanded the final price.

I resisted the urge to pull out my data pad and read through the Lance file again. I wasn’t going to find anything new there. I’d already sent everything we found about Fereen back to TechDiv. If they saw something I hadn’t, I looked forward to the report.

“Did you report Kiren back at her residence, Ellie?”

“Yes, Deputy Walker. Did you share with her that she is under protective surveillance?”

“You want me to keep my head on my shoulders, right?”

“Are you suggesting Kiren Carthage would cut it off?”

“Quite possibly. I’ll let her know when the time’s right. For now, if a deputy appears in her building, they can call it a happy coincidence. She knows she’s a target after her father’s death. She just doesn’t want to admit it out loud. I think she’ll be moving aboard her own ship soon anyway.”

“Is there any indication Ms. Carthage will leave Taurus Station?” Ellie asked.

“Anything’s possible. I think she’ll stick around for a while. Things aren’t done with her father’s company, and if Tark Davies was working with the Carmichael Brothers, she’s got a score to settle.”

“Have you discussed this with her?” Ellie asked.

“Nope.” I watched lights flow past the window. “Some things aren’t exactly easy conversation.”

“Based on the number of subjects you have not discussed with Ms. Carthage, I would have to ask if you ever talk with her.”

“Of course, I talk with her. We just spent a week on a ship together.”

“Not discussing important topics.”

“Exactly.”

The transport arrived at my building and I climbed out, moving slower than I expected. Every ache and pain from my feet to my shoulders was making itself known. I hefted my gear back over my shoulder and walked inside the lobby, headed for the lift.

“I have alerted Sheriff Nagel that you are home,” Ellie said. “He wants you to rest tonight and then report in the morning for a meeting with Sergeant Athron.”

My memory pulled up a vague picture of an older man on the verge of retirement. Why would Nagel want me to meet with him? I decided to worry about that later.

“Did he tell me to brush my teeth, too?”

“He did not. Should I ask him?”

I couldn’t tell if she was serious or not. “Don’t worry about it, Ellie. Thank you.”

My apartment had never looked so good. I dropped my gear back in the entryway and walked into the kitchen to find my bottle of bourbon. Then, with a glass in hand, I dropped onto my couch and put my boots up on the coffee table, looking around my apartment as if the place was new to me.

How many days had I been gone? I couldn’t remember exactly. Everything had moved so fast after Davies and James Carthage died that time didn’t seem to matter.

I sipped the bourbon then gave into my impulse and pulled out my data pad to review the Lance file again.

“Deputy Walker,” Ellie said abruptly. “Get out.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“There are indications of incendiary activity in your apartment. Get out now.”

I had never heard Ellie sound so urgent. I slid my glass onto the coffee table and moved toward the door. There was a strange smell I’d thought was my gear bag.

“Run!” Ellie shouted.

I reached the door as a wave of heat washed across my back. The force lifted me off my feet. I slammed against the half-open door and then the wall on the other side of the hallway. Sliding down the wall, I covered my head in my hands as the heat continued to roar, and then abruptly stopped.

Ringing filled my ears and I could barely hear Ellie’s voice, like she was yelling from far away.

Shaking my head, I rolled on my side and looked back into the smoldering entry way of my apartment. Black smoke poured from the living room where I had been sitting, which meant the couch was probably on fire.

I blinked, my eyes stinging, and rose to my knees as the fire alarms finally came to life, filling the hallway with sounds that readily penetrated the ringing in my ears. I shook my head again then ran my hand down my face and across my ears. I wasn’t bleeding, so that was good news, but it took me what felt like an eternity to get to my feet.

One of my neighbors appeared down the hallway as I leaned against the wall. She was a middle-aged casino manager whose name escaped me at the moment, if I’d ever known it.

“Was that your place?” she asked, her face a mask of panic.

I nodded. Whoever had set the bomb had been an expert. If I hadn’t already been in the entryway, the overpressure would have popped my head like a balloon. As it was, I only took the brunt of the wave, and it didn’t go much farther than my door. This had been meant to be contained. I figured most of the pain I was feeling was from the splat against the wall. At least, my aching shoulder made it seem that way.

“Deputy Walker,” Ellie said, her voice finally penetrating the ringing. “Are you all right? I have alerted patrol and deputies are on the way.”

“Yeah,” I said, not sure I’d heard everything she said. “I’m alive. I’m upright, anyway.”

“You should sit,” she said. “You are likely to harm yourself further if you fall.”

“What about all those times you told me I was hardheaded?” I put a hand on the wall as a wave of dizziness rolled through my skull.

My neighbor led me away from my smoldering apartment door. The fire suppression systems had kicked on inside, and a low fog of fire retardant lingered outside my door.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” she said. “What exploded?”

“Whiskey still. I was making moonshine.”

She didn’t appreciate my weak grin. “I thought you were a cop?”

“Even cops need to unwind, ma’am.”

* * *

An hour later, a medic shined a light in each of my eyes for the last time.

“You don’t have a concussion,” she announced, clicking off her penlight. “You’re going to need a follow-up so we can get a look at your shoulder and knee. I wouldn’t be surprised if you pulled a ligament in there somewhere.”

I grunted as I slid off the ambulance exam couch. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

“You’re lucky to be here, you know.” The medic nodded toward the investigative team standing near the front door of my apartment building. “I heard them saying the bomb was most likely a professional hit. Organized crime. Who have you been pissing off, Walker?”

“Everybody I meet.” I reached for my burned shirt. I held it up to examine the scorch marks and a few burn holes big enough to stick my finger through.

Waving thanks to the medic, I stepped out of the ambulance and pulled the shirt over my head, holes be damned. It was sinking in that I didn’t have a place to stay, but at least I had my wallet.

“Walker,” a gruff voice called from the group by the apartment entrance.

I looked over to find a heavy set man with a graying flat top jogging toward me. He was wearing a button down and tie with khaki pants, all of it a couple sizes too small. I recognized him from the department.

“Sergeant Athron,” I said. “I was supposed to come meet you after I got some sleep.”

Athron extended a meaty hand as he reached me. Up close, I could see he was pushing fifty, with a body that had probably been all muscle before his belly started running the show.

“Call me Larry,” he said. “Save the Sergeant stuff for when we’re in the Sheriff’s office.”

We were about the same height, and he surprised me by grabbing my shoulders and squinting at my face. His grip brought out the soreness in my left shoulder.

“Sorry about that,” he said when I winced. He let go. “I don’t always trust the medics, but both your irises are the same size at least. No fluid from your ears?”

“Not yet, anyway.”

“Good. I’ll keep an eye on you tonight.”

“I appreciate the help, Sarg—Larry, but all I want is to finally get some sleep. I could use a ride to a hotel.”

Athron smiled. “Sleep is the last thing you’re going to do tonight, especially when you could be riding a concussion.”

I waved at the ambulance. “They cleared me.”

“Of course they did, Deputy. That’s what they do. From now on, I’m here to keep you alive.”

“Keldon says the same thing.”

“Jack Keldon is a smart man. A smart ass, but also a smart man.” He motioned toward an unmarked street car in the adjacent parking lot. “Come on, I need to get you back to the station. After this little party, the Sheriff wants to see us tonight. Then I expect we’ll need to get you some new gear and a shower. You smell like a Renegade.”

“I’ve been in space for the last week.”

“I figured as much. I can smell that brand of funk anywhere. It’s best you don’t ever let it set in, Walker. People will think you’re shifty.”

7

Sheriff Nagel sat back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. He stared at the ceiling for what felt like forever—according to my aching shoulder, anyway. I stood in front of his desk with Athron leaning against a file cabinet, one hand in a khaki pocket as he enunciated with his free hand. I was figuring out that he talked with his hands.

“So you’re saying the database was wiped?” Athron asked again.

“It wasn’t there,” I said. “That would indicate it was wiped.”

“But the maintenance logs were present,” the detective pressed.

“That’s right. The ship’s AI pulled the data. She said there was no indication of who set the commands, but their order was clear. Someone murdered everyone on the station. But it was four years ago. There’s no way Rafferty Lance was ever there.”

The Sheriff scratched his nose. “But that’s not what the Rivas database said.”

“To my knowledge, Sheriff.”

Nagel gave me a sideways frown. “It’s your knowledge because I told you, Deputy. Stop looking like you failed the whole station. You went there on a fact-finding mission. If you’d found Lance alive or dead, we’d be getting off easy. These organizations seed their data with false info all the time. It’s how they cook the books.”

“Are we still running with the story that Lance was a labor organizer the Brother’s had disappeared?” Arthon asked.

Now it was my turn to frown. “I thought that was the story. There’s another story?”

Athron looked at Nagel like he was asking permission to say something.

Sheriff Nagel dropped his hands and released a long breath. He remained seated, which was a good sign.

“You may be wondering why I wanted Athron here, Walker.”

I did my best to keep my face impassive. I’d wondered about it, since I didn’t know Athron. But an order was an order. I was a new deputy and it made sense to pair me up with a seasoned detective. The mission to Fereen hadn’t required his help, although I was starting to wish he’d been along so I wouldn’t be taking the grilling alone.

“Larry Athron and I were in the same academy class,” Nagel said. “He might blush if I say it, since he’s a big softy, but he should be sitting in this chair and not me. He’s the best damn detective in this department, and there’s no one I trust more. I put you on this case because you’re proving you’ve got a head for this kind of thing, Walker, and I’m sending Athron with you to make sure you come back alive. Understood?”

Not completely, but I nodded.

“So here are the facts. The Carmichael Brothers did kidnap Rafferty Lance and sent him off station to a black site. But he wasn’t some labor organizer. He was their lead accounting technician, the man with all their data. Lance was no fool, so I’m sure he’d gotten a copy of their books somewhere. Problem is, he might be dead, or he might be a prisoner in a place like Fereen or Rivas. He was trying to do the right thing when the Brothers took him out. A year ago, I might have questioned that kind of open violence. I always figured they were businessmen first. But something’s changed in the last year, and based on what we saw at the Carthage board meeting, things are taking a violent turn. The problem is that I work for the Carmichael Brothers and they make our payroll. So if we want to crack this nut, we need to use some finesse.”

“We’re going to meet with the Carmichaels,” Athron said.

I blinked. “We’re what? The last time I saw Evan Carmichael, his man Collin almost killed me.”

“He didn’t succeed,” Nagel said. “Which is a credit to you. I haven’t forgotten about that, Walker. Don’t worry. I agree with Larry. I want you to meet with Evan and Sten and tell them we’ve reason to believe this accountant found discrepancies in their books, and now he’s missing. Mention the Rivas database. Hint but don’t go too deep. I want to give them an out if they’ll take it. They can tell us where Lance is, bring him home even. If not, we’ll know they’re dirty.”

I was having a hard time imagining myself grilling the Carmichaels about a man they had probably murdered, or at least disappeared.

“Don’t worry, Walker,” Nagel said. “Larry will do the talking. You keep your mouth shut and learn. And get some new clothes before you go. You look like somebody chewed you up and spit you out.”

I couldn’t tell if he was joking.

Nagel stood and reached across his desk to slap me on my sore shoulder. “Lighten up, Walker. I’m glad you’re all right. We all are. You’re doing a hell of a job, and I’d be pissed at you if you died, you understand?”

I bit my lip to keep from groaning as pain flared through my shoulder.

“Yes, Sheriff.”

8

Athron was waiting for me outside my hotel in the morning. I walked away from the building still feeling sore but like a million credits in my new suit.

After we’d left the Sheriff’s office, Larry took me to a tailor he appeared to know personally with a small shop down in the retail district near the casinos. A tiny man with impeccable clothes, Miles measured me, fed numbers into a specialized sewing machine, and received the freshly sewn clothes from a hopper on the other side like a doctor shepherding a newborn. He checked the fit of my new suit then offered a selection of shoulder holsters that would fit underneath without showing too much. Athron helped me choose a model I’d never worn before, but it fit like a glove, even with the oversized service pistol the Sheriff had given me. The tailor then offered a selection of shoes nicer than anything I’d have been able to afford on a Deputy’s salary.

“You look good, Walker,” Larry said, handing me a cup of coffee from the driver’s seat. His other hand balanced a donut on the steering wheel.

“Thanks. These clothes are all right. Is that place exclusive or something?”

“Well-kept secret. You’re welcome to go there anytime you like. If you really want to make Miles happy, bring him mints. He loves them.”

Athron had coordinated the meeting with the Brothers at a restaurant across the station where they would be finishing up a news op.

“Not the kind of place I’d ever eat by choice,” he said. “But I’ll take it for free.”

“We’re getting breakfast?” I asked.

“That seemed to be the plan. Their assistant asked if I had any allergies. I told her you could only eat plain oatmeal.”

“After you got me this suit, I’ll take some plain oatmeal.”

“Oatmeal.” Larry laughed. “We’re getting steak and eggs, Walker. And you better do some talking so I get a chance to eat.”

* * *

The restaurant was posh, I had to admit. I tapped my earpiece as we walked through the door to check my connection with Ellie.

“What do you see?” I asked her.

“I have access to the local surveillance system,” the AIP reported. “There don’t appear to be any other notable patrons, aside from Evan and Sten Carmichael in the backroom with media representatives. Collin Charles is also present.”

“That’s great news,” I said dryly. I nodded toward the back of the restaurant. “They’re all back there. The guy who tried to kill me is with them, too.”

Larry took a deep breath of the nearby food. “Let’s hope he doesn’t try anything. We’ve got steak waiting.

The host led us to the back room where reporters were packing up their cameras and datapads to leave. Evan and Sten Carmichael sat next to each other at a round table near the back of the room. Collin stood against the wall behind them, his hands crossed in front of him.

Servers were quickly cleaning up the plates left by the reporters. I noted Larry’s disappointment when no new place settings appeared.

“Sergeant Athron,” Evan Carmichael said, standing. He was dressed in his typical silver suit, while Sten wore black. The twins were both tall and thin, with handsome features that differed only by their expression. Evan was usually the jovial one, while Sten played bad cop. The fact was that few people could really tell them apart except for their clothes and attitudes, which it was rumored they swapped to amuse themselves. Since they acted as a unit, I had come to the conclusion that it didn’t matter which one smiled and which was the jerk.

Larry shook Evan’s hand then he waved at Sten, who only nodded slightly in return.

“Gentlemen,” Larry said. “Thank you for taking the time to meet us. Sheriff Nagel sends his regards. I hope you’ll see that this isn’t a matter that can wait.”

Evan gave a tight smile. “We always appreciate the work of our Sheriff’s Deputies. Such a strong tradition on Taurus Station.” He looked at me. “And Deputy Walker. It’s wonderful to see you again. I heard there was an accident in your apartment building last night. I hope you weren’t affected?”

Behind him, Collin’s impassive face shifted slightly, probably suppressing a grin.

“I’m fine, Mr. Carmichael. Thanks for asking.”

“Please, call me Evan. Have a seat. The food should be out shortly. We didn’t eat with the reporters, so I hope you won’t mind.”

“Not at all,” Athron said.

I waited for Athron to choose a seat on the opposite side of the table from the brothers and then sat beside him. A server appeared almost immediately to set plates and silverware, then another young woman followed with a rolling tray full of food.

The steaks smelled amazing. I wasn’t about to take my attention off Collin, though. As Athron made small talk about the shift in gang activity after Kallaver’s death, I cut up my steak and eggs with barely a glance at my plate.

“So you’re saying the people who tried to lay siege to Taurus have all been broken up into smaller gangs?” Evan asked, taking a big bite of eggs. Beside him, Sten didn’t touch his food.

“That’s right.” Larry was halfway through his steak already. “It’s a common upheaval when one leader goes down. You can actually see a drop in crime as the groups fight each other. Things will get back to normal once they’ve battled their way to a new leader.”

Sten took a small sip of his coffee. “And you think that’s going to be this man Red Arturi?”

“That’s right,” Larry replied. “Somehow he didn’t die at Rivas Refinery. Walker here sure blew the hell out of that place.”

Evan forked up a bite of food before continuing. “That’s right. He did, didn’t he. James Carthage wasn’t too happy about that news, if I remember correctly.”

“He wasn’t angry for long,” Sten said.

Evan laughed.

I felt the urge to defend my actions at Rivas but nothing I might say would matter to these two. Evan had probably only mentioned it to get a rise out of me.

“Too bad Kiren Carthage left so quickly,” Evan said. “There’s still a lot of money sitting on the table at Carthage Heavy Industries. If she doesn’t make some kind of decision, all that power is going to flutter away. Davies might have been the only board member with teeth, but the others were a bunch of backstabbers. They’ll fill a vacuum.”

Larry’s knife and fork clicked as he set them on his empty plate. He wiped his mouth with one of the cloth napkins. “Rivas is related to what I needed to talk to you gentlemen about.”

“Really?” Evan asked.

“That’s right. We’ve known each other a long time. I’ve worked on a number of cases for you across the years. That means there’s a certain level of trust. I hope at least that you know I’ve always had your best interests at heart.”

“Are you going to ask for a bribe?” Sten said flatly.

Evan turned to his brother. “Was that a joke? Why are you disrespecting him like that? Of course we know you’re a trustworthy man of the law, Sergeant Athron. And I am familiar with the many times you’ve helped us personally. I know whenever Nagel sends you, we’re going to be all right.”

Larry nodded. “Gage is with me because he recently completed a mission to a station called Fereen. Have either of you heard of it?”

They shook their heads.

“Unlike Rivas, Fereen was a prison. When we investigated the database from Rivas Station, we found the name of a previous employee of yours who had been… removed from Taurus.”

“Who?” Evan asked.

“Rafferty Lance. According to a manifest found on Rivas, he was moved to Fereen. The only problem is that Deputy Walker discovered everyone on Fereen was dead, and had been for at least four years. So someone faked that entry.”

“I know the name,” Evan agreed. “Rafferty was one of our lead data technicians in accounting. I was under the impression he left Taurus. Not that anything illegal happened. I certainly hadn’t heard that he was dead.”

I watched Larry out of the corner of my eye as his face remained neutral. Sten continued to look bored, while Evan put on a show of being concerned.

“According to the information we recovered, Lance found some irregularities in your accounting,” Larry said. “Now, these things happen. You have a large business with many moving parts. However, that’s all I know about Rafferty Lance, other than the fact that he disappeared.”

Sten frowned. “You sound like you’re accusing us of something, Sergeant. People don’t just disappear. Did he have a family? Did he book passage somewhere?”

Larry gave them a sad smile. “It’s my profession to follow up on exactly those sorts of questions. I assure you, Lance vanished from Taurus a year ago. No one made a missing persons report. We wouldn’t have known without the Rivas data. Somehow he is part of the dark site prison system that Tark Davies brought into Carthage Industries. I’m sorry to be the bearer of this bad news, gentlemen.”

There was a pause at the table. Larry’s face didn’t shift. Sten continued to look bored, and just Evan glanced at his plate. Behind them, Collin had set his gaze on the wall at my back.

“Well,” Evan said abruptly. “We certainly want him found. We’ll do whatever we can to help your investigation.”

Larry smiled. “Of course. That’s all I wanted to hear. I certainly hope I haven’t ruined your breakfast.”

“Not at all,” Sten said.

Pushing back from the table, Larry gave his plate a fond farewell. “That was a wonderful meal, gentlemen. Thank you so much. I’ll be in touch if we have any further questions.”

9

I drove us back to the station. Athron’s jovial demeanor disappeared and he spent most of the ride staring out the passenger window, chewing his lip. I didn’t know him well enough to ask questions, so I ran through my own recollection of the meal and what I thought had happened.

It certainly looked like Larry had given the Brother’s the opportunity to say something about Lance, based on their existing relationship, and they had stonewalled him. What did he expect them to do, though?

The more I considered the meal, the more I realized it hadn’t been about trying to find Lance, as much as letting the Brothers know we were looking. Nagel was putting them on notice that he was coming for them.

What had emboldened the Sheriff?

Lance barely spoke four words as I parked the cruiser in the motorpool and we rode the lift up to the admin level. When the lift doors opened on the bullpen, he shifted from his thoughtful expression to a smile that hid the previous worry. We crossed the open office, Athron getting shouts of hello while I got jokes about burning my house down. The ribbing faded as we approached Nagel’s door.

“Wait here a second,” Larry said. He knocked on the door and opened it wide enough to look inside, then he stepped through and waved for me to follow.

Inside the office, Nagel stood behind his desk with his arms crossed and a hard expression that indicated extreme stress. Athron took up his place by the filing cabinet, and there was a new man I’d never seen before on the other side of the door, hidden from the bullpen outside.

He looked to be in his late forties, maybe early fifties, and wearing a gray business suit. His hair was cut in a manner that could have been executive or government managed. His face had a hardness to it, while also seeming indistinct. I had the feeling that I’d forget his eyes unless I had a picture I could study.

He nodded to me but didn’t introduce himself.

“Close the door, Walker,” Nagel said. “Lock it.”

A chill went down my back. Was this about the bombing?

With the door locked, I took my usual place in front of Nagel’s desk. I started to go to parade rest but Nagel waved a hand.

“Stand at ease.” He looked at Athron. “I can see from your expression that the meeting went like you expected?”

The detective nodded. “They knew exactly who I was talking about. I even gave them an out when I mentioned the accounting irregularities. Nothing.”

Nagel crossed his arms, considering the information. Then he looked at the man standing next to me.

“What do you think, Mr. Black?” the Sheriff asked.

Before the newcomer could speak, Athron asked, “Sheriff, can you clear something up for me? We’re talking about some of the most sensitive subjects possible in this department, and I don’t know who the hell this man we’ve got standing here is. Do you know who he is, Walker?”

“I don’t, Sergeant.”

“That’s what I thought.” Athron looked around me to nod at Black. “Would you be so kind?”

Black looked at Nagel, and the Sheriff took a deep breath.

“I’ll explain it as far as I need to,” Nagel said. “It doesn’t matter who Mr. Black is. He’s here assisting the department in a manner that we require. You understand me?”

Black raised an eyebrow but didn’t add anything.

Athron crossed his arms and looked at Black. “You’re asking me to trust you, Sheriff?”

“That’s right,” Nagel said. “I shouldn’t need to say anything more than this man is on our team, and we’re going to help him.”

“Black’s a ghost,” Athron said. “Are you going to bring the Tooth Fairy in on the case next?”

Black smiled. “The Tooth Fairy has another job, Detective Athron.” He spoke with perfect diction, in a way that made his words clear without being too slow.

“I’m not in the mood for jokes, Larry,” Nagel said. “Black is here from the outside to assist us with this case. I accept that there is another level of law enforcement happening here or Black wouldn’t be involved. You understand?”

“Oh, I understand.” Athron shook his head. “To think I should be retired right now.”

“That’s right,” Nagel said. “I pulled your paperwork because I need you on this. Walker there is my lead, but you’re making all the details work, you understand me?”

“Yes, Sheriff,” Athron said, his tone stiff.

“Gentlemen.” Black’s voice was like a velvet hammer that made Nagel go quiet. “I appreciate your assistance. I would like to provide more context on why my presence is required on Taurus. I do not want to suggest in any way that your agency does not perform its duties to the highest standard.”

“Godsdamn right,” Athron grumbled.

“The Sheriff asked you to share the information about Rafferty Lance’s true role in this case at my request. The attempt on Deputy Walker’s life indicates an escalation that means we need to move more quickly than I had thought. The Carmichaels have never been afraid of using violence, but this is the first time, to my knowledge, that they’ve gone after one of their own deputies. I worry what this means for the future of the department so long as they remain in power. Rafferty Lance represents a view into the Carmichaels’ true activities. The data he stole from them provides proof of their connection with Tark Davies and the dark sites, which in turn connect to greater crime in the Deadlands.”

“The human trafficking,” I interjected.

Black nodded. “Lance attempted to share what he knew with certain parties outside Taurus, and threats were made on his life. He had time to get his family into hiding before he was kidnapped. I do not know his or the data’s whereabouts. It could be with his family, but I don’t know if Lance would take that risk. He would likely sacrifice himself first. He may have done so.”

“So you think he’s dead?” I asked.

Black shook his head. “I don’t think the Carmichaels wanted him dead. They wanted to punish him. He also knows too much, which means they would have sent him to the deepest of their holes.”

“You said Lance reached out to certain parties?” Athron said. “How would a data technician know how to reach anyone off Taurus Station?”

“I should clarify,” Black said. “My agency inspected the Carmichaels’ holdings and accounting. When certain indicators returned a high likelihood of activity tied to other investigations we are currently pursuing, we sent an agent to assess the situation locally. That is how we first came into contact with your Sheriff, and how we came to know Lance. He later sent a message to that agent, and now I am here.”

“I’ll be honest here,” Athron said. “Having some outsider clarify information sounds like bullshit to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if you work for the Carmichaels. Did they put you up to this?”

“He’s legit, Larry,” Nagel snapped. “And no more will be said on the matter.”

Black gave a slight smile and waved away the rebuke. “We would all be better served by your level of skepticism, Detective Athron. I appreciate it more than most. I can’t go into detail on the groups the Carmichaels are attempting to join, but you can believe me when I say this operation spans the galaxy, from the Sarkonian Empire to the Union. The Deadlands are simply their area of operations. The truth is, the Carmichaels need to go. The information Lance can provide is the last bit of evidence I need to make certain… adjustments.”

Athron was staring hard at Nagel. He looked like he was coming to a decision about something, with one hand gripping the cabinet while the other stayed in his pocket.

I was leaning toward Black being the real deal. There was just something about him that made me think there was more to him. The good news was that Lance might be alive. I’d spent enough time staring at his photo in the data file to feel like I was coming to know the guy. It was in my nature to connect with someone who had been trying to do the right thing. I hoped he hadn’t paid the ultimate price.

“Fine,” Athron said grudgingly. “I’ll buy it. What’s our next step?”

“Thank you,” Black said. “I appreciate your support. For now, it appears your TechDiv section is nearly finished decrypting the entire database from Rivas Station. Sheriff Nagel will provide me with a copy of that database and I will run some higher level diagnostics. Until then, I would ask you and Deputy Walker to follow up on one loose end in this story.”

“What’s that?” Athron asked.

“I would like you to locate Rafferty Lance’s family and make sure they’re safe.”

“That’s an order,” Nagel seconded.

10

Athron dropped into his worn office chair and swept a pile of takeout boxes into the trash receptacle at the end of his desk. He pulled his pad out and began to type notes into it.

“Black,” he said as he tapped. “Did you catch the first name?”

“He didn’t give it,” I said. There was no second chair in the cramped office, so I leaned against the back of the closed door, the only bit of wall space that wasn’t taken by a file cabinet or board covered in random items like poker chips, holo pictures, and knicknacks.

“You think he was lying?” I asked.

“No, he wasn’t lying. Regardless of whether what he was saying was true or not, he believed it one hundred percent. That, or he’s got the best poker face I’ve ever seen, and I worked casino crimes for a long time. I’ve got some theories about who that was, but I need some time to chew on them.”

I couldn’t see what Athron was typing without leaning close and drawing attention to myself. The few words I read looked drawn from Black’s statements.

“So we’re going to find Lance’s family?”

Athron looked up at me. “You’re going to find Lance’s family.”

“Me? What happened to you helping me with the detective work?”

“I’m going to help you. Slow down. I’m almost done getting my thoughts down here. The first thing you need to learn is the One to Ten Rule. You know what that is, Walker?”

I shook my head. “Can’t say I’ve heard of it.”

Athron paused to tap some more, then looked up. “How good do you think you are?”

That made me frown. “What do you mean?”

“In general, as a deputy. Give me a number between one and ten.”

“I’ve still got a lot to learn but I think I’m getting better.”

“Blah, blah. Compare yourself against a deputy with the same experience as you. How do you think you’d rate? One is lazy and negligent and ten demonstrates high motivation and mastery.” He stared at me, waiting.

I gave it some thought. Too high would make me sound conceited. Too low and I would lack confidence. “A seven, I guess.”

Athron laughed. “Everybody says seven. In reality, you’re a three.”

“I’m not that bad,” I protested.

“Don’t get upset,” Athron said, holding up the pad to inspect his work. “On any given day, we’re all mostly all threes. This is a tough job. It beats you up, wears you out. You start the month or year excited to tear a hole in crime, make the galaxy a safer place, and then your partner gets his face blown off.”

I nodded slowly. “I guess I see that. What’s the point of the rule then, to acknowledge that we suck?”

“No,” Athron said. “What happens when you add up several threes? You get to ten. That’s how we’re most effective—as a team. Don’t forget that. Anybody ever tells you they can do something on their own, don’t trust them. Either they’re lying or they don’t know any better. Leaders who don’t know how to build teams may succeed once, but they’ll get people killed in the long run. Trust me on that.”

“So you and me make six?” I said. “That’s still not great.”

He snorted. “I’m really a seven, Walker. Don’t kid yourself.”

I looked around the wreck of an office again and withheld a snide remark.

“All right,” Athron said, swiping to a new screen on the pad. “You need to find a family that’s gone into hiding. We can assume they hadn’t left Taurus, but you’ll need to verify that. Who are we looking for?”

“Sandra Lance,” I said from memory. “Age thirty-three. Formerly employed as a data analyst with Joyce Logistics. Daughter named Cari, age four. They were last seen in public at a daycare when Sandra picked up Cari. That was just under a year ago.”

Athron nodded. “Address?”

“Apartment was abandoned with most belongings remaining. They lived in Carlton Stack.”

“That’s a nice area. I imagine they were doing pretty well for themselves before all this trouble fell on their heads. You already pull bank accounts for Sandra and Rafferty? I’d check little Cari, too, in case somebody stashed money in her name.”

I pulled out my data pad and checked the report. “Looks like there are no accounts listed. The last deposit and withdrawal date was also near the time Rafferty disappeared.”

“I’d bet it was just before he disappeared, and I’m a betting man,” Athron said. “How much money are we talking about?”

“Enough to live on for a few years with reasonable rent. She would probably be needing a source of income soon, though.”

“She’s a data analyst,” Athron said. “I’d bet she’s getting cash somewhere, under the table. Where’s an accountant going to work that wants to stay off the books?”

“Casino?” I guessed.

The detective smiled. “First guess. That’s a good one, but I want you to start with all the local transport services first.”

“Taxis? Why?”

“Call it the voice of experience. As long as there are people who want to move around without being tracked, taxi services will deal in both credit accounts and credit chips, and the physical money needs someone to count it.”

I nodded. “How many taxi services are we talking about?”

“Taurus has twenty- eight, last time I ran the numbers,” the Sergeant replied. “That was a long time ago. We’re looking for a data analyst who works off the books. If I had friends at any of these taxi services, I’d start there. If I didn’t have friends, I’d make them. You know how to make friends, right?”

“I’ll get out there and talk to some people. See what I can dig up. Maybe have TechDiv crunch some numbers. Compare things like fleet size and declared income.”

“Like who has a lot of cars but isn’t making a lot of money, or seems to be taking a loss every year? Who might be processing a lot of cash based on where they make the most pickups?”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

He nodded. “Solid plan, but keep working on it. Get me some results, Walker.”

I input notes in my data pad and slid it back in my pocket.

“The other thing she can’t hide very well is the daughter. Kids need places to play, school, whatever. You got a picture of her?”

“Not recent, but I’ll start with the mom, see what I can track down there. If that doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere, I’ll move to the kid. We can check off the book rentals.”

“Good, good. Sandra has money and probably wouldn’t want little Cari growing up in the back of a garage somewhere. Taurus is big, but when you start digging in, you’ll see there aren’t many places that fit.”

I pulled out the pad again and wrote down those leads. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, you need to find her yesterday. If TechDiv is almost done cracking that Rivas database, we don’t have a lot of time.”

Hesitating this time before I put the pad away for the final time, I nodded toward the stack of take-out boxes teetering on top of the trash receptacle. They were all from a sandwich place near the Port Authority.

“You like Gino’s, huh?”

Athron laughed. “Good job, Detective. Bring back some food when you report in.”

“This could take a while. Think you can wait?”

“Oh, my wife isn’t letting me come home until we’re done with this case. I was retired, Walker. She had her beachfront property off this station picked out and our bags packed. Let’s just say I’m a cop and it’s safer for me at work. At least until she cools down.”

11

In the end, it was the playgrounds that led me to Sandra Lance. I started the hunt with taxi services as Athron had recommended, using both a data request with TechDiv and a favor from my former trainer, Sergeant Jack Keldon. If anyone knew the taxi drivers of Taurus Station, it was him. While we turned up several companies that would warrant later investigation for tax fraud, none of them employed an off the books data technician in her mid-thirties. I had the same results with the smaller casinos and show halls known to process credit chips.

When I started searching for locally owned apartment complexes with playgrounds or adjacent parks, the list abruptly shortened to just five possibilities. I pulled residency reports, adjusted for move-in date, and had myself a list of five women.

Three apartment complexes in, the worn door in front of me was opened by a tired looking woman with a sniffly toddler on her hip. The little girl took one look up at me and buried her face in the woman’s shirt.

“Sandra Lance?” I asked.

The woman did her best to hide her reaction. She shook her head and said in an overly loud voice. “My name’s Audra Keffling. I don’t know anyone by that name.”

Her hair was longer than in my photo, and she looked like she wore it to hide her face, but there was no mistaking this was Sandra Lance. Even the little girl grabbing at her mother’s shirt was a combination of Sandra and Rafferty.

In my earbud, Ellie confirmed, “Facial mapping verifies Sandra Lance, Deputy Walker. I do not have records for the child.”

“Hello, Ms. Keffling,” I said. “My name is Deputy Gage Walker. I’m investigating a burglary in the building. Do you have a second to talk?”

The woman looked at the badge on my duty armor and then her gaze finally rose to my face. I was used to most people not actually looking at me when I was in uniform. Her sharp eyes didn’t miss anything.

Sandra stared at me for a second then glanced up and down the hallway outside the door. She stepped back inside the apartment.

“Close the door,” she said, the sound barely audible.

Standing just inside the entryway, I found myself in a dining room with an attached kitchen. The family area was part of the same room, with a display screen against one wall and a couch made up as if it also served as a bed. I noticed two bags laid against one side. Go bags?

Across the room were two doors, one to a bathroom and the other to a single bedroom, its floor covered in toys. The walls were hung haphazardly with pictures Cari had drawn. The place smelled of cooking and kid’s shampoo.

Sandra grabbed a cup from the counter next to the sink and handed it to Cari, then she took her into the living room and turned on the display screen. A children’s program came on and Cari let out a delighted squeal. Sandra turned up the volume until music filled the apartment.

“That’s right, honey,” Sandra said, speaking over the music. “We’ll watch cartoons early tonight. Mama’s going to talk to the deputy.”

At the mention of me, Cari dropped her smile and looked back with a solemn expression. Despite her age, it was obvious the little girl had experienced fear.

“You stay in here.” Sandra asked.

“I want Stuffy!” Cari said.

Sandra sighed. “Alright.” She went into the bedroom and returned with a worn stuffed cow. Its mottled black and white coat looked like it had been well-loved by several generations.

“Stuffy!” Cari cried as her mother handed her the toy. She squeezed the cow in a hug under her chin and settled down to watch the display.

“She loves that thing,” Sandra said, coming back into the kitchen area. She motioned toward the scuffed table. “Have a seat. All I have is tea. Would that work for you?”

“Are you safe?” I asked, keeping my voice low. “Is someone watching your apartment?”

“Please,” she said. “Have a seat.”

I cleared my throat. “No tea, thanks,” I said in a normal volume, not that anyone listening could hear anything but the sing-song music.

Sandra returned with a steaming mug and sat at the table across from me, the remnants of one of Cari’s painting projects sitting between us. The music from the children’s show provided a constant background of annoying sound.

“I play it this loud all the time,” she said. “Usually we dance when the blue guy comes on the screen. And to answer your question, I don’t know. There are times I think someone might be following me, people I don’t recognize in the building. I know there’s nothing inside the apartment, but I can’t check the neighbors.”

I nodded, realizing I hadn’t done a good job of thinking about her life after her husband disappeared. I could usually empathize well enough with victims on the street. This was something different. It went deeper.

“How did you find me?” Sandra asked.

“Playground.”

She bit her lip and nodded. “Honestly, I wasn’t going to choose this place because of the playground, but she loved it, and it was available at the right price. It’s harder than you think to find a place on short notice on Taurus.”

“I believe you,” I replied. “You probably figured out I’m looking for Rafferty, but I’m also here to offer you the Sheriff’s protection. We can move you into a safe house with security.”

Blowing on her tea, Sandra shook her head. “We’ve been all right without anyone’s help. Raff warned me about the Sheriff. You’re all employed by the same people.”

“Have you heard from him?” I asked.

“No,” she said quickly. “I haven’t heard anything from him since he disappeared.”

“So you don’t know where he is?”

Sandra pulled her hair back from her face and twisted it into a bun at the back of her head, then she stabbed the bun with one of Cari’s paint brushes to hold it in place. She looked less tired with her hair up, and there was determination in her expression.

“No, I don’t know where he is,” she said eventually. “I hope he’s still alive, but it’s been a year now and I have to find a way not to cry every day, and to keep her safe. Raff knew something bad was going to happen. We had to leave our lives behind, and it’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Before he left, two men came to our apartment and shook him up, made threats. Never in a million years did we think something like that would happen. We were normal people with good jobs, a really nice apartment. One of those men looked at me and Cari in a way I’ll never forget.”

Sandra’s expression grew distant as she spoke. “I would dig out that man’s eyes just for looking at my daughter like he did.”

“Why have you stayed on Taurus?” I asked.

There was a lull in the music as the display shifted programs. Sandra sipped her tea until a new wave of jangly music filled the apartment. Cari jumped to her feet as she recognized the show and danced with Stuffy.

“In case he came back. It’s almost been a year now, and I’m asking myself the same question. He told me to leave and I didn’t.”

“I’m not sure how to convince you that I’m here to help,” I said. “But I want to find your husband. The Sheriff put me on this case himself. If you accept our protection, you wouldn’t just be helping yourself, you would be helping this case. It’s bigger than just Rafferty. The same people who threatened you to stop him could do the same thing again.”

She let out a choked laugh. “This isn’t the kind of thing I can decide because you just showed up here. I need some time.”

“I have all the time you need,” I said. “If you want to pack some things now, we can wait until Cari’s ready for bed. We’ll get you into a hotel tonight, and I can come back for the rest of your things.”

Sandra stared at the table for a minute, worrying her palms with her fingernails. “I need more than just you,” she said. “I’ve never seen you before. I don’t know who you are.”

“I understand. I’ll call in some help.” I tapped my earbud. “Ellie, can you get me Lieutenant Bird?”

* * *

I sat with Sandra for an hour as we waited for Lt. Stacey Bird and her team from Internal Investigations. Ellie relayed the situation, and Bird arrived ready to move the Lance family. She came up alone, at first.

“Ms. Lance,” Bird said, keeping her voice under the music, though I figured it didn’t matter now.

On a data pad, Bird showed Sandra pictures of the apartment complex where she and Cari would be placed under protective custody. It was an area near the Port Authority, not far from where we’d placed the Rivas refugees. I had to admit it wasn’t bad, and certainly an upgrade from her current apartment.

Sandra wasn’t completely convinced. “I’m not comfortable letting this place go. What am I going to do if you decide we don’t need protection anymore? We’d be on the street.”

“You won’t lose this apartment,” Bird said. Apparently, there was a process to these things. The department would maintain the current residence and conduct a sweep, then attempt a sting operation on anyone who might be following the Lance family.

“Our goal is to take these people out,” Bird said, giving Sandra a steady gaze. “I don’t solve problems only for the short term.”

If anyone could convince Sandra, I knew it was going to be Bird. Eventually Sandra nodded and said she would go in. Bird and I offered to help her gather some things, but she pointed at the two bags sitting at the end of the couch that I had noticed. Of course, she was always ready to run.

“I’ll need to wait until Cari is sleepy,” she said. “Then we can go.”

We waited at the table as the little family completed part of their nighttime ritual. Cari complained when she couldn’t put on her pajamas.

“Do you have kids?” I asked Bird.

“No,” she said. “Deputies are all the kids I need. Why, are you getting fatherhood pangs, Walker?”

“Can’t say I ever thought about it. I probably wouldn’t make a very nice father. Kind isn’t a word I’d use to describe my parents. More like practical.”

That wasn’t necessarily the truth, but I wasn’t going to get into that with the Lieutenant. Bird nodded but didn’t seem to want to pursue the conversation. “We’re almost done with the Rivas database,” she said. “I’ll be glad to get all this closed out. This woman shouldn’t have to live in fear.”

Sandra came back into the kitchen holding Cari against her shoulder. Bird and I stood to get her bags.

“Deputy Walker,” Sandra said, holding out her free hand like she wanted to shake hands.

When I took her hand, there was a data stick in her palm. I don’t think Bird even noticed the exchange.

“Thank you,” Sandra said. “I’m glad you went to all the trouble to find us. I didn’t know how much longer I could do this.”

I nodded my understanding.

“You aren’t alone anymore,” Bird said. “Let’s get you somewhere you can relax.”

Sandra nodded, looking around the apartment as if she was never going to see it again. “Please get all the pictures off the walls. They’re special.”

“Of course,” Bird said, then she motioned toward the doorway.

12

It was two hours past midnight. The street outside Ollie’s place was dark, along with the rest of the sector. Most of the nightly parties had moved to exclusive suites high in the apartment and hotel complexes.

With his bowler hat pushed back on his head and an unlit cigar in his teeth, Fratley peered through the windscreen of the low-bodied cargo truck we’d driven from the main Taurus Port, where the Iron Scabbard sat on the flight line. The truck was too big for what we carried, but it had several automated drones that had moved the crates for us, so I wasn’t complaining.

“There it is,” he said, nodding toward the small storefront with its windows full of tourist knickknacks. Rather than going through the front, Fratley drove the transport to the end of the street and came back down an alley behind Ollie’s building. He counted the doors until we found Ollie’s, and Fratley brought the rattling truck to a stop.

“Now,” Fratley said, turning to me. “He’s going to ask you what you know about this extra cargo because he trusts you. He thinks you’re an upstanding guy.”

Thinking of how Lieutenant Bird chose to wait outside the last time we’d been here, I raised my hands. “Look, agreeing to grab the cargo from Rivas was Keldon’s deal with Ollie, not mine. It’s better if you handle this on your own.”

“Allow me to finish. I don’t need you to say anything. Just you being here is all the verification he needs. And I haven’t tried to cheat him. We’ve got his two crates, and now there are more. I think all these artifacts are worth some serious credit, and Ollie’s the best contact on Taurus to help me move it. I don’t expect him to buy anything outright. But if he makes me a serious offer, I’ll be glad to consider it.”

Keldon trusted Ollie, and I had to admit that I was growing to like Fratley. In the short time I’d known him, he’d never betrayed me. That didn’t mean I would be naïve. If ever a better deal came along, the Renegade would do whatever suited him. Still, it was Keldon who should have been delivering Ollie’s crates. That had been the deal for the transport shuttle that saved the refugees from Rivas and here Fratley was taking the responsibility. Of course, there might be more credits in it for him, so there was that.

“Let’s get this over with,” I said.

At the back door, Fratley tapped the security panel and entered a code. I stood at the rear of the truck and watched the alley, wondering what lay behind all the unmarked doors. I didn’t recall many other storefronts on the other side except Ollie’s. Did he control all this?

I tapped my earbud. “What do you see, Ellie?”

“No current activity,” she reported. “I will keep you apprised of any abnormal readings.”

The door slid up and Ollie stuck his head out. “You’re late,” he said.

“Traffic was terrible,” Fratley replied. “The excellent news is I’ve got some goods that are going to blow your mind, Ollie.”

“We’ll see about that. You alone?”

I came around the back of the truck so Ollie could see me, and I gave him a nod. “Good to see you, Ollie.”

“Walker.” Ollie looked at me in surprise. “Keldon didn’t say you were coming.”

Fratley grinned. “He agreed to help me.”

“You were at the vault on Rivas,” Ollie said. “Keldon told me that. I heard about Kallaver. You’ve been busy for such a new deputy.”

“Nagel has me on his list,” I told him.

Ollie nodded. “Keldon was on his list for a while. Got him promoted fast. Also nearly got him killed.”

I lifted a shoulder. “That seems to be how it works.”

The shop owner went quiet for a second, like there was some history there he wasn’t sure he should share.

Fratley looked around the darkened area as though searching for a threat. “We should get off the street.”

“Right,” Ollie said. “Hold on, I’ll open the bay all the way.”

“I’ve got drones to move the crates inside,” Fratley offered.

Ollie shook his head. “Leave them on the truck. I don’t want to unload in the open.”

I tapped my earbud. “Ellie, you picking up any surveillance?”

“I do not have access to local security networks, Deputy Walker. Would you like me to attempt entry to a specific building’s security system?”

“No,” I said. “There’s no good law enforcement reason for that. I’m just curious why Ollie is anxious about it. Let’s hope he’s all right.” Loosening my pistol in its holster, I stepped back, as Fratley backed the truck into the cargo bay.

Once the truck was inside Ollie’s small warehouse, Fratley opened the back section and a ramp dropped from inside the cargo area. He slammed his door closed as he came around the truck.

Ollie stood at the end of the cargo ramp, peering into the dim interior of the truck. “Got any lights in there?”

Fratley slapped a switch on the side of the truck and rows of lights lit the cargo area.

Ollie frowned as his eyes fell on the load. “I told Keldon I wanted two crates. That’s a lot more than two crates.”

“There was an opportunity to grab them all,” the Renegade said. “So I did.”

Two rows of five crates ran down the back of the truck, allowing plenty of room for Fratley to climb in and open each container.

I followed Ollie inside and got a fresh look at the crates.

I hadn’t had time to study them back in the vault on Rivas. They might have been military crates, or civilian containers manufactured in the same style. Several had misleading labels on their lids.

The overhead lights shone down on an assortment of objects, all foreign and cradled in protective material.

Ollie crossed his arms and didn’t touch anything. “Close those. Close it all up. You need to get the hell out of here, Fratley.”

The Renegade’s face darkened in annoyance. “What do you mean? Whatever you might be interested in, we can make a deal.”

“This is too much. I’ve never seen so many artifacts in one place. I’m surprised they aren’t reacting to each other. You know they do that, right? Did you scrape those crates for trackers? Whoever these belonged to is going to come looking for them. I don’t want anything to do with it. This has the Union written all over it.”

Ollie looked at me. “You need to get as far away from this as you can, Walker. You don’t need to get mixed up in this business.”

“He’s not,” Fratley snapped, slamming a crate closed. “If you don’t want them, can you point me to someone who will? I can’t sit on cargo.”

Ollie pressed his lips together. “Hold on. Come on inside. We’ll have some coffee, anyway. Just because I can’t help you now, doesn’t mean we can’t work together in the future.”

“Right,” Fratley said, voice tight and angry. He sounded like Ollie was insulting him personally.

Ollie walked off the truck as Fratley closed the lids.

At his workbench, Ollie took a few minutes to brew coffee. As the machine hissed, he checked through several data pads until he found what he was looking for. He handed the pad to Fratley.

“There you go. Don’t tell her I gave you her name, but she’ll buy just about any artifact you can get your hands on.”

“I’m not going all the way to Arcadia,” Fratley said. “That place is nothing but fanatics and church lunatics.”

Ollie shrugged. “The Church of the Homeworld will buy what you’re selling.”

“We’ll see,” Fratley said. He slurped his coffee and made a face, then he set the cup down. “But I’m stuck with this stuff until then?”

“I didn’t ask you to take it,” Ollie said. “That was your choice. Look, if you don’t want to go to Arcadia, there’s another contact, but it’s more dangerous.”

There was a dangerous note in Fratley’s voice. “Tell me more about this other contact.”

“He’s Union. In one of the research divisions.” Ollie handed Fratley another data pad with info I couldn’t read from where I was standing.

Fratley studied the pad. “Where do I find this man?”

“You don’t find him. He finds you. I can give you a security code to send him a communication request. With that code, he’ll know what it’s about. If he answers, he’ll arrange the meet.”

“And how do you make money off this arrangement?” Fratley said.

Ollie shook his head. “I don’t. I’ve sold him items directly.”

“There’s no name on this listing.”

“There won’t be,” Ollie said. “Look, this is the best I can do. If I’d been with you back on Rivas, I’d have told you to only take enough to move quietly. Let the rest go up with the station. I had no idea they’d been collecting this much material. It’s odd, if you ask me.”

“The records we found there went back centuries,” I added.

Ollie’s brow furrowed in concern. “That’s what worries me. Someone knew what was there. They’ll want to know what happened to the vault.”

“We’re the only ones who were there,” Fratley said.

“As soon as you try to sell any of this, they’ll know,” Ollie told him.

The Renegade threw the data pad back on the workbench, then he tossed his empty cup after it. “I’m leaving. You going to take your crates?”

Ollie shook his head. “I don’t want anything to do with that haul now. You take it all.”

“Well, thank you then. You’ll get your cut, I promise you that.”

“No need,” Ollie said, holding up both hands.

Fratley just shook his head and turned away. “Your loss.”

“Take it easy, Ollie,” I said, turning to head for the truck.

The trader waved. “Stay safe.”

13

Fratley hunched over his steering wheel as he pulled the truck from Ollie’s cargo bay. He grumbled to himself for another few seconds, then he straightened and looked around like he was waking from an irritating dream. He pushed his hat back on his head.

“Win some, lose some, Walker. This isn’t going to slow me down. Those leads might work out still. Maybe I’ll leverage them against each other to drive up the price.”

“You’re going to auction this stuff off?” I asked.

“That’s what Ms. Kiren suggested, didn’t she? I’m starting to think that’s an excellent idea.”

We reached the end of the alley behind Ollie’s place, and Fratley turned back onto the side street that would skirt the casino district on the way back to the port. It was an area filled with warehouses and shuttered retail, and it had little traffic.

As we pulled into the narrow street, Fratley squinted into the windscreen and then shaded his eyes. “What damn idiot has such bright lights on their vehicle?”

The lights at the far end of the street grew brighter, filling the whole windscreen. Something wasn’t right.

I tapped my earbud. “Ellie, have you got a make on the approaching vehicle?”

“Checking local systems now, Deputy Walker. I show not one vehicle, but three. They are civilian vehicles with up-armored configuration. They are considerably larger than the standard, suggesting onboard weapons.”

The street was too narrow to turn the truck.

“Speed up, Fratley,” I said.

“What are you on about, Walker?”

“We’ve got trouble. Whoever’s trying to blind us has weapons and is up-armored. We need to make them get out of our way.”

“You sure about that, Walker? I don’t need another infraction with your lot.”

A hole appeared near the top of the windscreen, followed by whistling air. Another bullet hole followed on my side.

“Go!” I shouted. “Ellie, call for backup. We need patrol here now.”

“Yes, Deputy Walker. Sending backup request.”

I didn’t care if I had to explain the truck’s cargo to a watch commander. It was obvious the oncoming vehicle was set to ram us while the other shot us full of holes.

Fratley sat up in his seat and stomped on the accelerator. The truck groaned and sped up. The lights filling the windscreen grew brighter, filling my vision, and then we hit something hard.

The truck shifted to the right and slammed into a building wall. We slid for several meters and hit a parked car.

“Damnit!” Fratley fought the truck, shifting into reverse and easing the accelerator.

I checked my door. It was crumpled against the frame and wasn’t going to open.

Through Fratley’s window, I saw the bright lights had gone out. Whoever we’d hit must have slid past us. There were two other cars stopped just ahead of us, though, blocking off the street.

The nearest car’s door opened and a man in black tactical gear stepped out. It was Collin Charles. The only weapon I could see was a pistol at his hip. He spread his empty hands as he walked forward.

“Walker,” he shouted. “Come on out. I just want to talk.”

“You know that asshole?” Fratley asked.

“Are you paying attention? It’s Collin.”

I forgot Fratley hadn’t seen Collin in his merc outfit at the Carthage board meeting.

Fratley squinted. “You’re right. What’s he doing dressed like an executioner?”

“Can you get this thing backed up and out of here?”

“I’m working on it. We’re caught on something.”

“Walker,” Collin called again. “Don’t make me come in there and get you.”

I drew my pistol and slid out the open window to rest my arms on the top of the truck’s cab, keeping the weapon out of sight. From that height, I had a good view of the street. The car we’d hit had slid to the opposite side of the street behind us with a broken front wheel. It looked like our truck was caught on the remnants of a lamppost.

Collin stopped in the middle of the street when he saw me. I set my pistol on the cab, out of his view.

“You going to help us out here, Collin?” I asked. “We seem to have had an accident.”

“That’s what you get for letting a Renegade drive. How you doing in there, Fratley?”

“Piss off!” Fratley’s somewhat muffled voice came from inside the cab.

“Fratley says hello,” I said.

Collin smiled, but there wasn’t anything nice about it. “Here’s the thing, Walker. You had me irritated after your breakfast meeting with the boys today. I don’t know what you and Athron expected throwing out names like that, but nobody’s going to just spill their heart to you. Then I find out you’ve taken something valuable from me that’s related to the same issue. That really hurts, Walker. I think it’s time I take something from you.”

I kept my hand on my pistol, finger on the trigger.

“Haven’t you already failed at that a couple times now? I figured you’d be fired at this point.”

Collin smiled and set his hand on his pistol. He was ready to draw now.

“There’s a lot you don’t know, Walker. It’s tragic when a good man dies in ignorance, but that’s the way of the world.”

“How long for that backup, Ellie?” I muttered into the comm.

“Five minutes, Deputy Walker.”

We’d be dead in five minutes.

Collin walked toward the front of the truck with his hands spread. He surprised me by jumping up on the front of the truck until he was standing on the hood. My position in the higher truck window left us facing each other.

I closed my hand around my pistol, finger still on the trigger. Collin noticed the movement and the weapon.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re going to shoot an unarmed man, Deputy?”

“You never told me you were augmented,” I said, nodding toward his legs.

“I got new knees after my last space flight with Kiren,” he said. “Guess I have you to thank for that.”

Fratley hit the accelerator again and the truck rocked backward. Collin shifted easily with the movement.

“I don’t dislike you, Walker,” Collin continued. “You’re just a cog. I don’t think all cogs need to get ground up into hamburger, but that’s going to happen if you stay on this current path.”

“Since we’re such good friends, you know I won’t stop.”

He nodded. “I guess I do.”

The truck jerked a second time. Collin shifted into a round kick this time, aimed at my head.

I ducked, raising the pistol to fire, and realized too late that the kick had been a feint.

Collin came down with a hand on my wrist, locking my firing hand against the top of the cab. His free fist slammed against the side of my face. I turned away from the punch, yanking my firing hand toward me.

Fratley rocked the truck forward and Collin was off-balance this time. I got my pistol free and fired at his side. He must have been wearing armor because the rounds hit him, knocking him back slightly, but he still came after me, punching at my face again.

This time I moved to the side and fired again, aiming at his legs. The first two rounds missed, then the third blew his knee apart. Blood—or augmented fluid—splattered across the hood and wall beside me.

Collin shouted in pain, grabbing at his leg above the knee. Behind him, the rest of Collin’s crew opened fire from their cars, forcing me back down inside the truck’s cab.

Bullets shattered the windscreen and hammered the side of the truck.

“Any day now,” I told Fratley.

“Hell of a negotiation there,” he said. The truck jerked backward, and something beneath the chassis screeched like tearing metal. The engine struggled for several seconds as Fratley worked the controls, and then we slipped free. The truck whipped around as Fratley maneuvered back down the alley.

Collin slid off the hood and landed in the street, his face contorted in pain.

I leaned out of my open window and fired on the mercs who were shooting from the cover of the smashed car behind us. Hitting anything was out of the question, but I got their heads down as Fratley got the truck under control. In the bent side view mirror, I watched two of Collin’s people rush forward to help him.

Aiming the truck back toward Ollie’s place, Fratley accelerated. We flew past the alley we’d left, heading deeper into the warehouse district.

I leaned over to activate the mapping system. A section of the smashed windscreen glowed with fractured light as a map came into view. Pinpointing the port, I set the navigator to find us alternate routes back to the Iron Scabbard. The area was basically a grid, which meant plenty of opportunities for Collin to cut us off again if he wanted to. His remaining two cars were definitely faster than a cargo truck.

“Are they following us?” Fratley asked, not taking his eyes off the road ahead.

I leaned out the window enough to check the street behind us. It looked dark. “I don’t see any headlights. He could be trying to cut us off.”

“He doesn’t know which way we’re going.”

“There are only so many ways back to the port,” I said. “He must have known we were heading that direction. They might have been following us the whole time.”

“Then we won’t go to the port,” Fratley said. “Are your deputy friends tracking you?”

“They should be.”

“Then we’ll go meet them. I want a damn escort back to my ship.”

A vehicle skidded from a side street ahead of us, it’s rear sliding as it turned to face the truck.

“These bastards,” Fratley said. “Hold on.”

This time he shifted down and aimed the nose of the truck for the driver’s side headlights of the oncoming vehicle. Over the howling engine, I thought I heard the sound of heavy rounds hitting the grill.

Fratley swerved away from the other car at the last minute, turning the head-on collision into a sideswipe that pushed the other vehicle out of our path. Ahead of us, other sets of bright headlights appeared from cross streets.

“More are coming,” I said, pointing through the cracked windscreen.

“I see them. You got anything bigger than that pistol?”

“Nope.”

“Two minutes, Deputy Walker,” Ellie reported. “Wait. We have air support.”

Another set of lights dropped over the windscreen from behind us, flashing blue and red, and a spotlight was blazing up the middle of the street.

“Sheriff’s Office,” a booming voice said. “Stand down or face the Sheriff’s justice.”

We had almost reached the next cross street. Fratley shifted again and slapped at the controls, forcing the vehicle into a sharp left turn. The lights from the drone cut off behind us as the sounds of weapon fire echoed through my open window.

“Tactical Division has engaged with the two hostile vehicles behind you, Ellie said. “A lead cruiser should be entering the street two blocks ahead of you, flashing warning lights.”

Ahead of us, more blue and reds appeared, filling our broken windscreen.

Fratley relaxed in his seat. “Don’t ever let me say bad things about you cops again. As of now, I like you. But the next time you see Collin, you better kill that bastard for good.”

14

“It’s a trap inside a trap,” Stam Jones said.

The Rivas database had finally cracked, only to reveal an even deeper set of encrypted files.

Down in the bowels of TechDiv, Director Jones leaned over his work console and scowled at what he read. He pulled at the hair on the sides of his head like he could dig his fingers into his round skull.

Behind Jones, Lieutenant Bird scowled with her arms crossed. This was obviously not the outcome anybody wanted.

“What do you mean you can’t break it?” Nagel asked from a comms speaker. I could imagine him pacing his office, ready to punch something.

“This is new,” Jones said. “I’ve never seen anything like it before. It’s definitely not Sarkonian, and if it’s Union, it’s beyond us. The AI is grinding away at it, but it could take years.”

I figured Nagel sounded so pissed because his man Black couldn’t do anything with it either. I glanced at Athron beside me and he seemed to be thinking the same thing. He shook his head at me to not say anything.

“What do you want us to do, Sheriff?” Jones asked. “I’m sorry. I’ve never run into anything like this before.”

“It’s fine, Jones,” Nagel said, unfamiliar compassion in his voice. “I know you’d tear yourself apart to figure this out. We’ve tried everything at our disposal and nothing’s working. What about outside help?”

“What kind of outside help?” Bird asked.

Nagel took a second to think before answering. “We’ve got a vice team working on these hacker groups. What about one of them?”

“You’re suggesting we use a criminal group to break this database, Sheriff?” Jones asked, blinking.

“I’m suggesting we solve this problem. We’re in a place where we need this information, Director Jones. I’ll ask you again. Have you exhausted all your options?”

Jones looked back at Bird then shook his head at the speaker grill. “No, Sheriff. I guess I haven’t.”

“Then report to me when you have.”

The speaker clicked off.

“What resources do you have?” Athron asked. He bit into a sandwich wrapped in deli paper and chewed.

“I don’t know.” Jones admitted. “The name of the crew we’ve been tracking is the Digital Ghosts. I know that much.”

“They call themselves Ghosts,” Bird said. “I’ve been assisting the vice team. They had elements on Taurus but they scattered once Kallaver was gone. They’ll be back, I’m sure, but for now they’re back out in Deadlands space. They aren’t a single entity, per se. People align themselves with Ghost ideals, work jobs, then go back to doing other things. They don’t have any kind of leadership. But they do gather in places sometimes. That’s what we need to find. One of their meet points.”

Athron swallowed. “How are we supposed to do that?”

“Move,” Bird said, shooing Jones away from his terminal. She sat and pushed a stack of circuit boards out of her way, then she went to work searching the department database. A minute later, she pointed at the display.

Jones leaned in to read. “Who are these people?”

“Known Ghost associates on Taurus.”

“Looks like your friend Fratley Oxonos is on the list, Walker,” Jones said, pointing.

“Of course he is,” I said. “You want me to go talk to him.”

“Call him up,” Bird said. “We don’t have time for back and forth trips. We need a location and to get there.”

I tapped my earbud. “Ellie, can you get Fratley?”

“Calling now, Deputy Walker.”

Fratley appeared in the small holo display on the edge of Jones’s desk. He looked like he was sitting in his captain’s chair on the Iron Scabbard, his bowler hat low above his eyebrows. “What is it, Walker? I’m in the midst of a serious conversation with a friend.”

“This is an official call, Fratley,” I said. “Can you talk?”

He squinted as he realized I wasn’t alone. “Who’s all that with you?”

“This is Lieutenant Stacy Bird.” The lieutenant leaned forward. “I’m joined by Director Jones of Tech Division and Detective Athron, as well as Deputy Walker.”

“Well, how important,” Fratley drawled. “I’ll hide my flask and put some pants on.”

Bird’s lips twitched in a slight smile. I think she generally found Fratley amusing.

“Do what you need to do so you feel comfortable,” she said.

“Oh, that would take all night, Lieutenant Bird. I assure you. How can I help Sheriff Nagel?”

Leaning back, Bird explained what they had discovered when they broke the Rivas database, as well as the idea of using a hacker collective.

“You are listed as a known associate of the Digital Ghosts hacker collective, Mr. Oxonos. Is that true?”

Fratley tapped his chin. “Tell me more about this list you’ve got me on. And who my supposed associates are.”

“We can’t disclose that information,” Bird said.

Fratley smiled. “Then I suppose I can’t disclose how you can find the aforementioned associates, which is why you’re calling me, correct? These are dangerous people we’re talking about. I can’t just go handing over their safety to local law enforcement. That would be an oversight on my part. I’m sure you understand, Lieutenant.”

“I won’t give up information from an active investigation.”

“I think you don’t have a good idea of how dangerous the Ghosts really are,” Fratley said. “If you did, and you’d found someone who could tell you how to locate them, you’d pay whatever price they asked. Because nobody gives up the Ghosts for any amount of credits. These are people who can hit your ship’s systems from a slip jump away and bleed out your oxygen so you die smiling, or they might murder you in the shower with a nanobot you never saw and never knew had poisoned you. They’re shadows. Deadly and determined. Trust me.”

Bird ground her jaw. “What else can I offer you?”

“What do I want from the illustrious Lieutenant Stacey Bird? It won’t be credits. The Ghosts learns you sold them out for mere cash and they’ll make the next three generations of your family pay it back. Maybe I’ll take a future favor for when you’re Captain Bird? That might be valuable to me and harder to track.”

Looking up from the console, Bird glanced at Athron and me. She apparently wished we weren’t in the room. As head of Internal Affairs, Bird might have been the most law abiding officer I’d worked with.

“You’re going to give me an ulcer,” she told the holo-display.

“Rest assured that the nature of our ongoing relationship will receive my utmost discretion,” Fratley promised. “I can’t speak for Walker or those others, now. They might be back biters.”

“I agree,” she said in a low voice. “Now tell us how to find the Digital Ghosts.”

“Excellent,” Fratley said, slapping the arm of his seat. “But I won’t tell you. I’ll take Deputy Walker to go see them. I imagine that’s another service you’ll require. Since I won’t give up their location, that works out nicely.”

“I’d be coming, too,” Athron said, leaning forward.

Fratley squinted out of the holo-display. “Who are you?”

“I’m Detective Larry Athron. I’m working with Walker on this case.”

“Deputy Athron. You look well-fed, which means you’re a man after my own pursuits in life. Excellent food, excellent liquor, and excellent company.”

“Hurry up, Oxonos,” Bird growled.

“Fine, I’d be glad to have everyone who wants to come along. Even you, Lieutenant. My staterooms are always open to one so excellent as you.”

Bird rolled her eyes. “Thank you. Walker, this mission is all yours.”

Before Fratley could respond, Bird clicked off the holo. She looked at Athron. “Oxonos is exhausting, but he’ll do what he says he will. And the Sheriff trusts him for some reason. He’s helped us so far.”

“Quite a bit,” Athron mused. “I didn’t realize how big a role he played in getting the refugees off Rivas.”

“I don’t like depending on him. Since the Sheriff is signing off on this, we’ll make it happen. Walker, get ready to leave as soon as possible. Check back in with me when you’re off station. If you can send your destination, do it. We’ll do our best to provide you with whatever help we can.”

“We’ll leave tonight,” I said.

Athron slapped me on the back. “It’s not like you’ve got anything to pack. Come over to my place and we’ll feed you before we go.”

“I thought you were scared of your wife?” I said.

“Exactly. You’re going to assure her I’m not making all this up so I can stay on the job.”

15

What Fratley hadn’t bothered to explain to Bird was that the Ghosts didn’t meet, they swarmed. As the Iron Scabbard approached the old mining rig in a system called Liros, the holodisplay filled with hundreds of ships either docked at the old rig or sitting in close orbit. Liros had most likely been chosen because everything in the system appeared abandoned for decades. The mining rig was the largest artificial object. While ancient, it seemed to still hold atmosphere and it showed a residual heat signature.

“There she is,” Fratley said, leaning forward in his seat. “The Swarm. I wasn’t lying to your Lieutenant Bird when I said I couldn’t give up the location. I can’t. The updated coordinates are broadcast through a shared system that only works if other members verify your entry. Fortunately my friend Sulan Cox vouched for us. She’ll be our first stop once we dock.”

“We’re docking with that thing?” Athron sounded doubtful. He was sitting at a console behind me, data pad in his hands. I sat at the weapons control console that seemed to have become my personal area, with Kiren at the communications workstation.

“Unless you want to jump from the Scabbard to that hulk, we’re docking,” Fratley said. “We’re going to be a day, at least. Besides, every ship in the vicinity is primed to run if necessary. That’s the other rule of the swarm. Somebody has reason to fear discovery, everybody bolts. It’s a sort of shared defense mechanism, you could say.”

I zoomed in on the holo-display to show a section of the rig where ships were docked along an outer ring. Spoke-like corridors led back into the body of the rig.

“Does that thing have gravity?” I asked, already tasting the acid reflux from zero-g. I’d gotten more or less used to being in space, but my old hang ups still managed to creep in from time to time.

“It should,” Fratley said. “They don’t like roughing it if they don’t have to. Sulan would have told me if they were really out in the wilderness. I get the impression they’ve been here a while. Might even have been since you iced Kallaver and they left Taurus.”

“Beginning pre-docking procedures, Captain,” Arla announced.

Fratley rubbed his hands together.

“You look anxious,” Kiren observed.

“I’m not anxious. I’m excited. I’m looking forward to getting things underway for my auction.”

“You know you’re going to need some help with that, right?”

Fratley frowned. “What kind of help? I invite people, serve some drinks, and let the bidding begin. Easy peasy.”

Kiren laughed. “You don’t know the first thing about managing a high vis event. If you want to get real money at this auction, we need to make it an event. A gala. Besides, you don’t want to really say what the auction’s for, right? We want to hide your proceedings inside a glossy wrapper.”

This didn’t seem to appease Fratley. If anything, his frown deepened. “What’s this we, now?”

“I told you I could help with it,” Kiren said. “I have certain skills in that area.”

“Yes, but why?”

“Everything’s a transaction with you, isn’t it?” Kiren said, shaking her head. “Let’s say I’ll help you with your event. I’ll even front some of the credit you’re going to need to reserve the hotel and support. And in exchange you’re going to get me a ship.”

“Give you a ship?” Fratley asked. “No party is worth the price of a ship. I’m sorry, Ms. Carthage.”

“Not buy me a ship. Help me get one that’s off the books, you understand? I can’t just buy a ship on Taurus or anywhere nearby and hope to disappear. The company would come after me.”

“I see,” Fratley said. “That’s an interesting idea. I’ll think about it.”

“Don’t think too long. I may find someone else to help me.”

Kiren smiled in a way that I hadn’t seen since my first time meeting her. The wheels were turning behind that beautiful face. She was up to something, of that I was sure.

“I’m sure you will,” Fratley replied.

“Docking in ten minutes, Captain,” Arla informed.

Fratley slapped his armrests. “Looks like we should all get ready to enter the Ghost’s society. I take it you’ll all be changing clothes.”

“What’s wrong with my clothes?” I asked. I was wearing the suit Athron bought back on Taurus.

“Are you trying to look like a galactic playboy?” Kiren asked, raising an eyebrow. “Because you look like you should be prowling a pricey nightclub, not walking into a hacker den.”

“I’ve got some spacer work overalls down in the engine section,” Fratley said. “Durable and lots of room to hide knives. You won’t be able to flash weaponry around the Ghosts.”

“Sounds good,” Athron said, setting down his data pad. “I’ll take a look.”

“Fine,” I said, standing. “Don’t say I never made an attempt to be fashionable. I’d rather be in my uniform any day.”

“That’s because you’re a selfless person, Walker,” Fratley said. “By which I mean, you’re a nobody.”

The Renegade shot me a grin and I waved him off. “When I have to resort to canes and funny hats to get people to remember who I am, I’ll ask for your help.”

“You wound me. Wound me!” Fratley took a long sip of his flask.

* * *

The airlock opened on a dimly lit cargo bay littered with empty crates and parts from mining equipment. I walked into the open area, adjusting the pistol in the small of my back. It was a smaller caliber than my service weapon, but more easily hidden in the bulky coverall I’d chosen. I also had a work harness with slots for a wrench I could use as a bludgeon if necessary. Athron was wearing similar attire, while Kiren wore a better fitting overall with a utility belt and high boots.

I looked around and tapped my earbud. “You hear me, Arla?”

“I hear you loud and clear, Deputy Walker. Sending map data to your glasses now.”

I adjusted my service glasses as a small HUD appeared in the lower left corner of my vision. The outlines of a map hung over the room and door on the far side.

“Don’t expect a welcome party,” Fratley said, walking up beside me. “We’ll need to work our way into whatever communal area people have decided to congregate in. Usually groups set up their own living areas depending on how long they stay.”

“So it’s like camping?” Kiren asked, stepping over a pile of ore.

Fratley shrugged. “I suppose, as I understand the term. They get together and have their parties. Sometimes there’s music, a little recreational enjoyment, if you know what I mean. They do business, share information, jobs, whatnot. When people get tired of the situation, they leave. Sometimes these places last a year or more.”

“Sounds unsanitary,” Kiren muttered.

“There’s a certain ripeness to the Ghosts, that’s quite true. I prefer to think of it as character. Put up with the character for a bit, and soon you don’t notice it anymore.”

Athron laughed. “That’s because you start to stink yourself.”

“How are we supposed to find these people?” Kiren asked. “This rig is huge.”

“There’s a transponder at the center point,” Fratley said. “Dear Arla can show us the way.”

“You need to smile more,” Kiren told me. “With those mirror shades, you still look like some kind of cop.”

“We’ll just say he’s boring,” Fratley said. “No one ask Walker to tell any jokes.”

With Arla’s direction, I led the way through the exit into a corridor that appeared to run all the way into the body of the rig. The lighting improved as we went deeper, and while there were cold spots, the atmospheric control appeared mostly operational. Once we’d crossed out of the docking area, we entered a series of warehouses, and that was where we ran into our first group of Digital Ghosts.

“Hey!” a young man yelled from a group gathered around a game of glowing dice in the middle of the room. Several people squatted and threw dice as the others watched and laughed.

The man who had called to us left the group and walked over. He was dressed in a ragged coverall not much different than I was wearing, with a harness that held various tools and at least five separate data pads. His hair was a collection of orange spikes jutting in all directions. A straight knife as long as his forearm hung from his belt.

“You all just get in? We’re the welcome committee for this section of the exterior ring. How’d you find us?”

Fratley stepped out in front of us. “We did the math. How else did we get here?”

The young man grinned. “The math don’t lie. Who vouches for you?”

“Sulan Cox. I’m Fratley Oxonos.”

The man looked back at the group. One of the people standing dropped their hand from what must have been an earbud and gave him a thumbs up.

“I’m Kraft,” the guard said. “Who are you all?”

“You never heard of Fratley Oxonos?”

“Can’t say I have, friend.” Kraft stepped up to Fratley and placed his hands on the Renegade’s upper arms so he could look directly into his face. I was surprised when Fratley didn’t pull back. Instead, he allowed the younger man to stare at him with a slight smile. A dim light blinked in the young man’s temple just behind his eye.

Kraft stepped back, nodding. “You’re known, Fratley Oxonos. Welcome aboard.”

Turning his attention to Kiren, Kraft said, “A fellow redhead. What’s your name?”

“Kiren Carnas. At least you didn’t say ginger.”

“I’ve heard them all, I promise.” He stepped toward her as he’d done with Fratley. Kiren stiffened and allowed Kraft to hold her upper arms as he looked into her face. If he had augments in his eyes, I couldn’t see them from where I was standing. The only indicator of anything being recorded was a light embedded in his temple.

Kraft nodded and stepped back from Kiren. “You need anything, just ask for me. I know everybody here.”

As Kraft moved to me next, I said, “I’m Gage Wallace.”

He nodded at me.

I stood still as he grabbed my upper arms, a little more forcefully than Kiren, and looked up into my face. I looked for hints of augmentation in his hazel eyes but found only a slight smile as he studied me then stepped back. As he turned his head to Athron, I spotted the light blinking again.

“Thank you, Gage,” he said before stepping away from me. “You’re welcome here.”

Athron received the same scan and nodded with a slight smile.

“Are you doing some kind of scan?” Athron asked. “I don’t see any augments in your eyes, but you’ve got that light on the side of your head.”

“Nice of you to notice,” Kraft said, tapping his temple. “That’s just a little decoration I like to wear. No, Sulan vouched for you all. She’s got a view through one of the overhead cameras. I just like to do a little heart to heart greeting with everyone coming on board. Friendship matters here.”

I glanced up at the edges of the ceiling but the outer parts of the chamber were too dark to make out anything on the walls.

Athron gave Kraft a slightly confused nod. “Well, it’s good to meet you too.”

Kraft slapped him on the shoulder and walked back to a spot between us and the dice players.

“I appreciate your patience,” he said. “We’ll get facial scans as you enter the tunnel over there. As I’m sure you know, you cross the Digital Ghosts and we’ll destroy you. Business or pleasure, you know the deal. Most of us are friendly as long as you’re not an asshole or some kind of cop. We don’t have time for that. Snitches get exterior hull duty.”

“Sounds like fun,” Kiren said.

Kraft laughed. “It’s fun for about ten seconds. You’ll find the main camp through the tunnel. It used to be the main cargo transport lane, so watch out for clumps of ore on the deck. Easy way to twist an ankle. Anybody want to throw some dice?”

“Maybe on the way out,” Fratley said. “Thank you for the hospitality.”

“Stay frosty,” Kraft said.

As we passed the lighted center of the room, several men and women walked in from the dark corners, each armed with an assault rifle.

I tapped my earbud. “Arla, if you pick up nearby weapons, please give me an alert.”

“I apologize, Deputy Walker. Captain Fratley is often around people carrying such weapons. Do you want me to alert you every time? The notifications could become distracting.”

“How about you let me know, and I’ll tell you when I get distracted.”

Listening in on the conversation, Fratley grinned back at me. “You’re about to enter a whole new world, Walker. I suggest you start working on that smile.”

“That seemed easier than it should have been,” I said.

“Don’t overthink it, Walker.”

We had just entered the tunnel when a sharp, “Oy!” came from the chamber behind us. I turned to see Kraft approaching another group walking out of an entry point. It was led by a man wearing an anxious smile.

“Who can vouch for you?” Kraft asked.

I couldn’t hear what the man said, but the orange-haired guard shook his head. “Try again.”

The man spread his hands. From the dark edges of the room, three muzzles flashed and each of the three newcomers fell, headshot.

Athron stepped back from the doorway. “Did I just see that?”

“Didn’t have the right answer,” Fratley said. “Good thing you’re with me.”

“It was too dark in there to see stains on the floor,” Kiren said, looking horrified.

I looked back at Fratley. “Is this what we can expect based on a wrong answer?”

“A wrong answer to the wrong person.” Fratley shrugged. “How’s that different than anywhere in the Deadlands?”

16

The main camp was in a vast storage area that must have taken up half of the whole level. Four giant ore movers were still parked along facing walls. They’d been hung with multicolored lights and banners, and each had a camp in its flatbed.

Overall, the great room was dark, with no overhead lighting at all. Instead, there were glowing illuminations of every color imaginable. From the high points of the ore mover’s cabs, lines of neon strips draped down to tents and stalls in the central area, where the strands continued to jump from structure to structure. Lights glowed inside tents, and people wore lit necklaces and arm bands as they walked around the area. While it was easy enough to navigate, seeing faces was difficult until someone was almost directly in front of us.

I noticed more than one weapon sticking out of holsters and waistbands. “What happened to not being able to carry here?” I asked Fratley.

“You’re supposed to be approved,” he said under his breath. “We’re not approved. Don’t get caught.”

Fratley led us into the heart of the strange bazaar. We passed stalls stacked with circuit boards, data pads, and various storage devices. Other tents looked like they were filled with people bent over data pads. A tiny drone shot past my face, almost invisible in the dark, and I was reminded of the story Fratley told Bird.

We reached the outer edge of the chamber and walked down a long corridor lined with smaller sets of rooms, most with their doors closed. Fratley counted doors until he reached the eleventh on our left. Here he paused and knocked softly. There was no lock panel.

The door slid open a crack and Fratley leaned in to whisper something I couldn’t hear. I stood against the wall, looking back down the dim hall at the glow from the bazaar. Somewhere far away, a rhythmic drum started up, sounding like a heartbeat with unnatural pauses.

Fratley stepped back from the door and it slid open to show an apartment. A small woman with a finely detailed face waved for us to enter. Once everyone was through, she slid the door closed and locked it.

“Sulan,” Fratley said, his voice sounding warmer than usual. “These are my friends. There’s Gage, Kiren, and this is Larry.”

“Larry?” the small woman asked. “You look like you should be carving wood somewhere.”

Athron laughed and looked at his hands. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Good to meet you.”

“You say that now,” she said. “Wait until we’ve known each other a while. Here, all of you have a seat in the living room.”

There were no chairs in what she called the living room, only heavy pillows. I chose one for myself and sat cross-legged so I could lean back and keep the outline of my pistol hidden.

Sulan made a show of serving us tea from small ornate bulbs that had to be held by the rim without burning your fingers. The tea was piping hot and very sweet, requiring small sips to drink.

“So,” Sulan said when she was situated on her own pillow. “What do you want, Fratley?”

“Well, that doesn’t sound friendly after all this.”

“Friendship and courtesy are two different things. You bring your whole crew into my house without any warning, interrupt my work without a gift or any show of gratitude, and now I suppose you’re going to ask me for something?”

Fratley cleared his throat, turning his cane between his hands. “Well, there was a small favor I’d like to ask, based on past services rendered, I’ll remind you.”

“I don’t owe you anything, Renegade.”

“If that’s how you want to remember our shared history, Sulan, I’ll accept it,” Fratley said, with still more unusual humility. “I remember a deeper friendship than you do. If that’s the case, I have some things of high value I’d like to make available on the market. I think the best way to sell these items is through an auction, but I’d appreciate your recommendation on who to invite to the event.”

“What kind of items are you talking about here?”

“Artifacts,” Fratley said.

Sulan waved a hand. “Go to any planetside bazaar. You’ll find people interested in knickknacks.”

“They aren’t knickknacks. I’m talking thousands of years old. I suspect they might be from before we settled the galaxy. There are nearly fifty pieces,” Fratley said. “Possibly the largest single collection ever amassed.”

The small woman blinked then sipped her tea. “You’re exaggerating like you always do.”

“I’m not,” Fratley said.

For some reason, she looked directly at me. “Is he lying? And take off those glasses so I can see your eyes.”

I slid the glasses off my nose and glanced at Fratley. His face didn’t tell me anything, but I didn’t see the purpose in lying for him. “I don’t know about an exact number,” I said. “But fifty is close. There are twenty standard shipping crates worth.”

Sulan narrowed her eyes, watching me. “You don’t look like a liar. Why are you working with one such as Fratley Oxonos?”

“I haven’t known him to lie,” I said.

“Then you haven’t known him long enough,” she snapped.

“Why don’t we focus on the artifacts,” Fratley cut in. “Do you have any leads?”

Sulan nodded. “This isn’t a difficult favor to repay, Fratley. I can help you. But why did you really come here? You can get names yourself.”

Fratley’s grin returned. “Yes, but that wouldn’t provide me the pleasure of your company, Sulan.”

She rolled her eyes. “Save your flattery for someone stupid. What else?”

“My friend Gage has some data he needs sorted. We’re looking for someone who can help.”

Sulan looked at me again, appraising. “What sort of data?”

“Database,” I said, watching Athron from the corner of my eye. He didn’t change his expression. “It’s corporate. We broke the first level of encryption only to discover another layer. It isn’t like anything my people had seen before.”

“And who are your people?” Sulan asked, leaning forward slightly.

“My employer,” I corrected. “I’m just following orders.”

“I thought that until you took off your glasses. I look in your face and see a person who hates orders.”

Kiren snickered.

“We all do what we have to, right?” I asked.

Sulan nodded. “I know someone who might be willing and able to help you. But I’ll need more assurance than Fratley’s empty promises.”

“What can we offer you?” Athron asked. “Credit?”

She waved away the suggestion. “Credits are boring. I want interesting things. Did Fratley do me the courtesy of explaining my profession? I deal in information. Data. Sometimes data is boring by itself but very interesting when combined with other bits. Context is valuable. What can you offer me?”

Athron rubbed his jaw. “That’s a broad request.”

“Value is elusive,” Sulan said. “This is what I’ve learned from a lifetime in the Deadlands.”

Kiren stifled another laugh, which drew the small woman’s attention like lightning.

“What’s so amusing to you?”

“You sound like a guru,” Kiren said. “Are you hiding a cult in one of your back rooms?”

Sulan’s eyebrows rose. For a second, I wondered if we’d just blown whatever this meeting was. Then the small woman smiled.

“Perhaps I am.”

“Well, we can’t pay you in platitudes,” Kiren said. “If Fratley moves his artifacts, that’s going to be some real value we can share. Do you want a cut of that deal?”

Fratley’s eyes widened. “Hold up, now.”

Kiren raised a hand. “Would you be interested in knowing who makes the largest buy? That seems like something that could provide context.”

Sulan studied Kiren then nodded. “Names for names. I like the symmetry. All right, Kiren. You have a deal. The person you should seek out is called Yola Deris. She is currently here in the Swarm, but she may not stay long. You shouldn’t wait to look for her.”

“Do you know where she is, at least?” Fratley asked.

Sulan smiled, showing her teeth. “That’s another question. What are you willing to pay?”

17

Two levels down from the main bazaar, we entered an area that looked similar to the processing areas on Rivas. Wide rooms were filled with dead sorting lines. Drones with spidery arms hung from gantries, their faces dead.

The two rooms we crossed were packed with people betting on drone battles along the raised conveyor belts. Robots of all shapes and sizes attacked each other as tight groups watched and cheered. Fratley stopped and watched a battle for a few minutes until one of the bookies pressed him for a bet, and he finally followed behind Athron.

Above the final sorting area was an observation office with wide windows that was currently lit by a dull gold glow. I led the way across the crowded floor and up a short flight of stairs to a closed door with an active security panel. I waited for the others to join me on the platform.

“What’s the protocol here?” I asked. “Should I knock?”

“Whatever it takes to get her attention,” Fratley said. He’d seemed more surly than usual since leaving Sulan’s apartment. There had been some subtext between them that wasn’t clear to the rest of us, but there hadn’t been time to ask him what was going on.

I turned to the door and knocked three times, trying not to do my natural “cop knock.”

Sounds of movement came from inside the observation office, and the door opened enough for me to see a dark eye looking out at us.

“Who the hell are you?” a woman’s voice asked.

I leaned in. “We’re looking for Yola Deris. We’ve got a job.”

Behind me, Fratley shook his head. “What if she doesn’t want a job?”

The woman on the other side of the door sneered. “Maybe I do. What the hell do you know? What’s your name?”

“I’m Gage,” I said. “I’ve got a database I need cracked. I heard you were the best. We can pay.”

“If you couldn’t pay, you wouldn’t be here. You got anything to drink?”

“Drink?” I asked.

“Liquor?”

I looked at Fratley again. “You got your flask?”

“Of course I’ve got my flask. Doesn’t mean I’m going to share it.”

“Your friends seem to be jerks.” The woman slid the door open. “Come on in. If I can’t trust that you’re in the Swarm, I’m screwed anyway.”

Yola Deris was a solid woman with bright yellow hair that was shaved at the sides of her head and bangs that nearly covered her eyes. She wore a tank top that showed off her full-sleeve tattoos, which were a combination of scenes and machine language. Her eyes were brilliant green, a real contrast to the yellow.

She looked me up and down then stared into my mirrored glasses. “What are you hiding behind those glasses? You augmented?”

I pulled the shades off my face. “Nope. Just fashion.”

Yola snorted. “Fashion’s for jerks.”

I walked past her into what had been the overseer’s office for the floor below. Desks and work consoles were covered in stacks of data pads, disassembled electronics, and empty liquor bottles.

“My name is Fratley Oxonos,” the Renegade said as he walked in behind me. “You may have heard of me or the Iron Scabbard.”

“Nope.” Yola looked at Kiren. “You look too posh for a place like this. What’s your deal?”

“Posh?” Kiren asked.

“You’re money. I can see it in your eyebrows. You the money bags behind these dopes?”

“Maybe,” Kiren said, hiding a smirk.

“I’m Larry,” Athron said, extending a hand.

Yola looked at his hand and raised an eyebrow. “No thanks, dad. Hurry up and get inside. I don’t like leaving the door open. This place is full of freaks.”

“You’ve got a nice little hiding spot here,” Fratley said, tipping his hat back. “Think you’d be able to see anyone trying to sneak up on you.”

“Were you thinking of trying that?” Yola asked, a challenge in her voice.

Fratley frowned. “Just an observation.”

“Sure it was. Now, how did you find me and what are you offering?”

I glanced at Fratley, who didn’t appear eager to start the conversation. “Sulan recommended you. Do you know her?”

Yola snorted. “She hates me. Are you bringing me something hot?”

“It’s a database,” I said. “We cracked the first layer, but there’s an additional encryption that doesn’t look like anything our people had ever seen before.”

Crossing her arms, Yola studied me for a second. She tossed her bangs back with a head wave. “When you say we, does that mean you? Are you some kind of corporate stiff?”

“Not me,” I said. “People I work with. They’re good, at least as far as I know.”

“So you don’t know,” she said.

I had to give it to her, Yola had a quick wit. It wasn’t like I could hide anything from her anyway. I didn’t know jack about databases or what it took to hack one.

“What are you carrying your data on?” she asked.

“I’ve got a data pad.”

“I might have to break it. That probably means giving up whatever proprietary crypto you’ve got on the pad.”

I glanced at Athron. He seemed amenable. “If we have to,” I said.

Yola left the door and went to a table near the back of the room that was covered in electronics and empty plates of half-eaten food. It looked like she got distracted easily.

She found a vodka bottle and poured herself a shot into a coffee mug. After tossing the drink back, she set the mug down and wiped her mouth.

“You don’t know anything about what you’re asking,” she said.

Fratley stepped toward her with a half-smile. “That’s not a good way to start this conversation, love. We know—”

“Don’t call me love,” Yola said, raising a hand. “I wasn’t talking to you. I’ve known plenty of Renegades, and I don’t want to talk to you.”

Fratley frowned. “I never said I was a Renegade.”

“You don’t have to. I want to talk to the tall drink of water here. He’s the one who can’t hide how earnest he is about this database. Somebody’s going to die if you don’t crack it. Is that what we’re dealing with?”

“More than one,” I admitted.

Yola nodded. “I don’t want to know anything else. I could go into detail, but it wouldn’t matter. I won’t know if I can do this job until I take a stab at it. Thing is, that means you might not want to pay if I can’t deliver. Not delivering is the way things roll sometimes. So before I even take a look at this crypto you’re carrying, you’re going to do something for me.”

“Do something for you?” I asked.

“That’s right. I’ve got brains, but you’ve obviously got brawn. I want you to go get something for me. It’s most likely going to involve a fight.”

I tilted my head. “What makes you think I like to fight?”

Yola smiled. “I don’t care if you like it. All I need you to do is win. You want me to look at your database, run this little errand for me.”

“Fine,” I said. “It’s here on the rig?”

“It’s here.”

“What do you want?” Athron asked.

“There’s a gang here in the Swarm led by a woman named Naro Kilver. We’re not friends. Thing is, she’s got some tools I could use. You go get those tools for me and I’ll do your job.”

I looked around the room and nodded at a soldering iron. “What kind of tools are we talking about here. Some kind of wrench?”

She scoffed before answering. “Not a wrench. Hacking tools. They’re most likely going to be on a data stick. She’ll know what I want. That’s all you have to say. ‘We’re here for Yola’s tools.’ She’ll know what you’re talking about.”

“So she stole them from you?” Athron asked.

“You could say that. All that matters is that she’s got them and I want them back. You get them for me and I’ll do your job. It’s the only way I’m going to trust you, anyway.”

“I don’t understand.” Athron said.

“Of course you don’t,” she said. “Data is dangerous. Encrypted data’s even more dangerous. Whatever it is you’re trying to get access to, I’d imagine it was hidden for a reason. If your little team isn’t good enough to get it, that means whoever hid it has more power than you do. You might wish you’d left that data encrypted.”

I crossed my arms. She had a point.

Whatever was waiting for us to find, though, we needed it to save Lance and any number of other prisoners in the dark site system. Every time I thought about the database now, all I saw was little Cari Lance’s face as she hugged her Stuffy. I was going to bring her dad home.

“We’ll do it,” I said. “Where can we find this Naro Kilver?”

“She’s got a transport freighter on the outer docking ring. You’ll have to get her to let you aboard. That’s the only way you’re going to meet her.”

“How are we going to do that?” Kiren asked.

“Use your brains. I don’t care how you manage it, just do it.”

“What’s your database on?” Yola asked. “You start this for me, I’ll start on your data.”

I pulled the data pad from a cargo pocket and turned it in my hands. I hadn’t expected to be leaving the data pad with anybody.

Athron apparently read my thoughts. “I’ll stay with the pad,” he said. “You three go figure out the other problem.”

I nodded and handed him the data pad.

Yola poured herself another vodka and went to one of the desks with a work terminal. “So it’s going to be me and you, Dad? Don’t try and get handsy. I’ll pull your balls through your mouth.”

“I might mouth off just to see that,” Athron said. “You got anything to eat around here?”

* * *

When we reached the bazaar, Fratley surprised me by saying he was going to look for a contact for the artifacts.

“You’re leaving us?” Kiren asked.

The Renegade spread his hands. “I’m not leaving. You can handle this little quest on your own. You don’t need me getting involved. Besides, they might hear my name and decide there’s nothing you can do to make friends.”

“You know these people?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I know a lot of people.”

That was a dodge. If he wasn’t going to help us, I wasn’t going to waste time trying to convince him. “Fine. Go do whatever you’re going to do. I’ve still got Arla. If I need to reach you, I’ll do it through her.”

Fratley gave me a salute with his cane as he walked into the crowd. “Excellent plan, Walker. I always knew you’d go far.”

Kiren moved up beside me and shook her head. “What the hell is he doing?”

“His own thing. I’m surprised he stuck around this long.”

She looked at me. “You don’t trust him, do you?”

“I trust him as far as his own interest. Once we leave that behind, he won’t be doing us any favors.”

“I suppose. I’m not sure if I should go into the auction with him. I’m worried about who he might attract.”

I nudged her with my elbow. “You’re the one who wants to be a Renegade, right? Isn’t that the life? Can’t trust anything but the credits that hit your account.”

“You know that’s not exactly true.”

“So far, I’ve only met one Renegade, and I can’t say he’s doing a good job of advocating for the vocation.”

“Walker, that was a whole lot of big words for you.”

I laughed. “I know, wasn’t it?”

“Seriously, what are we going to do? If I’d known he wasn’t going to come with us, I would have suggested Larry come with us.”

“We’ll go scope out the situation and then make a decision once we have more information. What else can we do?”

She gave me a sideways glance. “That sounds like we’re going to jump into the mess and then see what happens.”

“You’d never make it as a cop, Kiren. Nothing ever goes as anybody plans. All you can do is your best. And take weapons with you.”

18

Two guards in light tactical armor stood in front of the corridor leading out to Naro Kilver’s ship. We were the only people in the empty cargo bay, so there was nothing to do but walk up to them.

“We want to talk to Naro,” I said.

The guard on the left looked at me like I’d crawled out of a sewer. “What makes you think Naro wants to talk to you?”

“I’ve got something she wants,” I said.

“And that is?”

“Not for you to ask about,” I said, leaning forward to show he wasn’t going to intimidate me. They were armed with pistols but didn’t look too quick to draw them. That meant hesitation if we did come to rounds.

The guard stared at me then backed down. Like I thought, he wasn’t used to conflict.

“Fine. What’s your name?”

“Gage,” I said.

“Gage what?”

“Just Gage. Tell her I’m from Rivas Station.”

Beside me, Kiren raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

The guard talked into his earbud and listened to a response. He heard something he didn’t like, then he stepped to the side to try to keep us from hearing the conversation.

“I don’t know who he is,” he said, sounding anxious. “He says he’s from someplace called Rivas. Right. No. I don’t know if it blew up. That doesn’t mean anything to me. I’m stuck on guard duty.”

Finally, he turned back, face red.

“You all right?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” he snapped. “She said she’ll talk to you. You better not waste her time.”

“I don’t aim to waste anyone’s time,” I said. “Life’s too short.” That was something I’d heard Keldon say to many a perp he was placing in restraints.

“Whatever.” The guard waved us into the corridor. “Straight ahead and through the airlock.”

“I appreciate your help, gentlemen,” I said.

When we reached the middle of the corridor, Kiren leaned close and whispered in my ear. “They didn’t check us for weapons.”

“Apparently not,” I said. “Let’s hope they don’t think about it once we’re inside, either.”

“Are you always such an optimist?”

“It’s better than the alternative,” I replied. “Then everybody thinks you’re depressing.”

“There’s a difference between optimism and being a realist, Gage.”

“You live with danger every day, you’ll find nobody wants to hear about your realism.”

At the end of the connecting tunnel, the airlock opened and another guard stuck his head out. “You’re the two here to see Naro?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“This way.”

The ship on the other side was a freighter with winding corridors connecting tight workspaces, as if the crew areas had all been an afterthought once the cargo sections were built. The guard led us toward the middle of the ship, through a hatch that opened into a wide storage area that had been lined with crates. There were no overhead lights, only work lanterns tossed around the middle of the room to form a haphazard circle. People were sitting on the boxes and watching a fight in the circle.

I started getting a sinking feeling that Yola had set us up.

Two skinny men circled each other in the ring, swiping punches and kicks before they eventually clinched, and one tore the other’s earlobe off in his teeth. The watching crowd hooted appreciation, shouting taunts at the man with blood running down his neck.

The bleeding man shook his head then took on a boxer’s stance and started circling as his opponent wiped his mouth and smiled. Thirty seconds later, the biter was spitting out teeth after a flurry of short punches and an elbow to his face. He stumbled back as the bleeding man pressed in, and then the biter was on the deck, out cold.

A woman wearing a black coverall walked into the ring and counted down until she hit zero. The crowd cheered as bets passed hands. She raised the fist of the bleeding man to acknowledge his victory, then she shoved him out of the ring. Behind her, two people ran forward to drag the unconscious biter away.

“You wanted Naro,” our guard said, nodding at the woman in the ring. “There she is.”

I looked around at the people in the room. They had the same pasty, undernourished look as everyone else in the swarm, but these ones were all dressed in some shade of black, with their hair dyed black as well.

Naro stood in the middle of the room with her hands on her hips, surveying the scene, then she spotted Kiren and me and walked our direction. She had a swagger that said she was used to winning.

“Who are you two? Somebody said you were looking for me?”

“We’re working with Yola,” I said, when she stopped a meter away. “She said you’ve got a tool she’s looking for.”

Naro smiled. “Yola sent someone else down here to pick up the stick, huh? Isn’t that just like her. Did she tell you what I want for it?”

“She didn’t,” I said.

Naro looked at Kiren. “Do you talk?”

“What do you want to talk about?” Kiren asked.

“My price. Yola owed me a fight. Are you ready to pay up?”

I looked around the room. I probably outweighed everyone in here, which meant they were probably the type to fight dirty. There obviously weren’t any rules. Still, I’d take on anyone currently present.

“I can do that,” I said.

Naro smiled. “Not you. I want her to fight.”

I frowned, looking at Kiren. “That’s out of the question.”

“Does he own you or something? Why’s he keep answering for you?”

Kiren gave me a sideways glance. “It’s the other way around. What are the rules?”

“No rules,” Naro said. “We don’t fight to the death, but if someone dies, we’ll make sure the carcass gets spaced.”

“Kiren,” I said in a low voice.

She ignored me. “Who’s the opponent?” Her confidence reminded me again of the old party girl I had first met.

“Me.” The taller woman looked Kiren up and down. “I hope you’re hiding some muscle in there, because I’m the house champion.”

“I’m in,” Kiren said. “When?”

“Right now,” Naro said. “You can have that crate right over there if you want to take off some of that junk you’re wearing.”

Kiren turned to walk toward the empty crate, pulling off her work harness. I followed her, clenching my fists.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to fight that woman.”

“Can you handle her?”

“Yes, Gage. You think the only physical exercise I got was dance? I’ve been fighting since I was seven years old. Name the style.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Well, you don’t look like you’ve been keeping up with it.”

“Do I need to look like a bruiser to be dangerous?”

“That’s usually the case. Naro over there is covered in scars and bruises.”

Kiren flashed a feral smile, looking past my shoulder. “That means she isn’t very good. My dad spent a lot of money to make sure I could protect myself. You’ll remember the only way to kidnap me was to drug me.”

I had seen her gouge a man’s eyes out while she was naked, so I didn’t have a lot of room to argue.

“I don’t have a good feeling about this.”

Her eyes went heavenward. “I’d have less of a good feeling if you were the one fighting. If this is the life I’m taking on, I need to be committed.”

“You think this is commitment?”

She glared up at me. “What else is it?”

“Hey,” Naro called. “You two going to bicker like horny teenagers, or is she going to come fight?”

“I’m ready,” Kiren said, dropping the last of her gear on the crate. I noticed a compact pistol and holster under her harness, so I scooped it up and slid it into my pocket. She was too far away when I turned to say anything about it.

Naro had stripped out of her coverall and was wearing a skinsuit that allowed maximum freedom of movement. From this distance, I couldn’t tell if there were ballistic panels in the material. I wanted to warn Kiren, but she was already stepping into the light.

The Ghosts who had been lounging at the edges of the room quieted down and walked closer, interested in the newcomer.

“I never asked your name,” Naro said.

Kiren flexed her shoulders and neck. “Kiren Carnas.”

“Where are you from, Kiren Carnas?”

“Does it matter?”

Low laughter passed through the crowd.

“Guess not,” Naro said. She raised her voice to the watchers. “Kiren here is fighting for Yola’s prize. You know the rules. If she wins, she wins. But she won’t.”

More hoots and taunts filled the circle. Naro turned to face off with Kiren then attacked without warning.

The jab should have connected with Kiren’s jaw, but she slid to the side with just enough movement to allow Naro’s fist to miss her face. Kiren struck the other woman with a blade hand at a point in the middle of her exposed side, then she stepped back as Naro’s arm went limp like it had been shocked.

A murmur passed through the crowd. Naro backpedaled, composing herself. She shook out her arm and reset in a ready pose, then she started to circle.

Kiren watched her, shifting with each approach.

I had learned most of the major pressure points on the human body in the academy. We’d been taught to use them during the ground fight, especially when someone tried to wrap you up and go for your weapon.

Kiren used nerve points like an artist dabbing paint. Each time Naro tried to get close, Kiren countered the attack and then jabbed two fingers into a new location on her opponent’s body. She got the top of an arm, a point just below the other woman’s hip, then her kidney.

This went on for several minutes, the crowd getting more apprehensive, until Naro faked a punch and instead brought a short kick into the side of Kiren’s knee.

Damnit.

Kiren managed to turn with the kick, absorbing the blow so she didn’t lose her knee. Naro followed with a flurry of punches that put Kiren on the ground. Elbows up to protect her head, Kiren couldn’t stop Naro from getting on top of her to pound her stomach and torso.

“Get your legs in!” I shouted. “Get your legs under you and throw her off!”

There was no sign Kiren could hear me.

“Keep it down, Coach,” a Ghost next to me complained. He shut up when I turned to face him, my fists clenched.

I couldn’t let this go on any longer. Kiren was going to get internal injuries. It didn’t matter if she was faster, Naro was on top, and stronger.

In her straddling position, Naro leaned back to wipe her mouth and grin. Her knuckles were raw from scraping Kiren’s coverall.

“You had enough, little Kiren?” she asked.

With her arms up protecting her face, Kiren’s expression wasn’t visible. She dropped her arms slightly, and whatever Naro could see made her chuckle. Naro reached down to grab the top of Kiren’s head by the hair and lifted it off the deck. She pulled her other fist back for a final punch.

Kiren’s fists dropped to her sides like she’d surrendered, waiting for the knockout. If this was going to end it, then we could walk out of here. I’d need to get her back to the Iron Scabbard’s med bay.

Naro was making a show of things. She pulled her fist back a little farther and grinned at the crowd, who were laughing and shouting orders.

Kiren’s right hand darted forward, jabbing a spot just inside the other woman’s groin.

Naro made a strangled noise and fell backward, and Kiren twisted to get her knees underneath her body. In another move, she was on top of Naro delivering an attack of short, controlled punches that bounced the other woman’s head off the deck. Kiren’s arm pistoned four times, and then Naro’s head rolled to the side. She was out.

Kiren turned to give me a predator’s smile. She wiped blood off her mouth and got off the other woman, then she seemed to realize there was a crowd watching her.

A man stepped into the ring and Kiren immediately raised her hands in a fighting pose, shifting so she could keep an eye on Naro.

“Chill, lady,” the Ghost said, raising his hands. “I was going to make the victory announcement. You won, all right?”

Kiren nodded. She turned and walked back to the crate with her belongings.

“Who’s got our prize?” I said, walking into the circle.

“I’ve got it.” Naro had risen to an elbow, shaking her head. “Godsdammit, what did you do to me?”

With her harness back on, Kiren walked back to extend the other woman a hand. Naro accepted and rose slowly to her feet.

“I fought you,” Kiren said. “That’s all.”

“I’ve never felt pain like that in my life.” She lifted her leg slightly.

“It’ll pass,” Kiren said. “Massage helps.”

“You think I’m going to let any of these jerks massage my legs? Unless you’re offering.”

Kiren shook her head. “Sorry. We have a job to do.”

Naro nodded. “Right, the stick.” She waved for one of her lackies to bring her coverall, then she reached into a cargo pocket, pulled out the data stick, and handed it to Kiren.

“This is it?” Kiren asked.

“You were expecting some actual tool? You two aren’t hackers, are you? It’s a collection of stuff leaked from the Union. Can break just about any encryption, but you need the physical stick to use it. That thing’s worth millions.”

Kiren raised her eyebrows. “And you’re trading it for a fight?”

“We go back further than that. The fight was just a thing between us. Her sending you here was her way of messing with me.”

“Right,” Kiren said. “Well, don’t let us get between you.”

“You can come back anytime you want,” Naro said. “Your boyfriend can even watch if he likes.”

I opened my mouth to protest but Kiren just turned to leave. I shook my head and followed.

Out in the exit tunnel, Kiren asked, “You’ve got my pistol, right?”

I handed it back to her. “You all right?”

“No, but I won’t let you help me until we’re off this damn ship.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said.

19

“I found your guy,” Yola said when we walked through her door.

“How do you know about our guy?” I asked, looking at Athron.

He shrugged. “She’s cracking the database. It’s not like it doesn’t do any good to tell her. She needed specific information to look for, so Lance’s name seemed like the best place to start.”

I handed Yola the data stick. “Is this what you wanted?”

The hacker’s face lit up and she turned the device in her hands. “Yes, indeed. Do you know how long I’ve been lusting after this thing? Naro’s been dangling it in front of me for years.”

“About that,” Kiren said. “You didn’t say I’d have to fight her.”

Yola waved a hand. “You won, right?”

“At the expense of my pretty face.”

Looking up from her prize, Yola squinted at Kiren in the low light. “Yeah, I guess you did get a bit knocked around. Builds character. If you need a med kit, I’ve got one over there. Or do you want me to listen to you whine some more?”

Kiren pursed her lips. “I’ll be all right. You’re lucky I beat her.”

“I figured she’d want to fight tall, dark, and handsome over there,” Yola said. “I’m surprised she went for you.”

“You found Lance?” I prompted, getting impatient. “How much longer until you’ve got the rest of it?”

“I found a dump of stuff that I’m sorting through now. You weren’t kidding when you said this was a tough one. If this stick has what I think it does, I’ll put those tools to work as well. In any case, I’m going to need another day.”

“A day?” I said. “We didn’t plan on staying a day.”

“You think this stuff is easy?” Yola said, indignant. “We’re talking about billions of different computations. If I wasn’t stealing time on a mainframe right now, it could take months. That’s how this stuff works. Encryption is hard to crack for a reason.”

“Relax, Gage,” Athron said.

“You’re on her side?” I asked.

“Me and Dad are getting along pretty well,” Yola said. “He could have been quite the hacker under different circumstances.”

“She says I’m a social engineer,” Athron said. “A people hacker.”

“Of course,” I said.

Yola plugged the data stick into one of her pads and leaned over a table to start working on the screen. “At least he’s got a unique name. I’ve been running that search string against the disconnected bits as they get decrypted. Sometimes it means something, sometimes it doesn’t. I got the manifest list of the ship that took him off Taurus station, but no destination. I don’t know what to look for there, so we’re going to have to wait until more pops up. I’m checking it as quickly as I can, I promise you.”

“I get it,” I said. “We’ve already been down one dead end from his name on a list.”

“Literally.” Kiren patted her eye.

The door’s security system chimed and Yola straightened. She pulled up a screen on her pad. “Looks like your friend Fratley is back.”

“Anyone with him?” I asked.

“All alone.” She opened the door and Fratley walked into the cluttered room. He tossed his cane from hand to hand and grinned as he walked, until he saw Kiren’s face.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“I got in a fight,” she said.

“Did you at least win?”

Kiren nodded.

“Hold on,” the Renegade said. “You two go off to run her errand, and Kiren somehow manages to get the crap beat out of her? Where were you, Walker?”

Kiren spent ten minutes explaining what happened as Yola went back to work on her data pad. Fratley’s eyebrows rose and fell with each development in the story.

“So where did you learn this magical martial art?” he asked when Kiren was done.

“It’s not magic. It’s just a mix of fighting skills and knowing pressure points. You never quite know if they’re going to work on your opponent. Fortunately for me, Naro was highly susceptible.”

“I’d have paid good money to see that,” Fratley said.

“You want a demonstration?” Kiren asked.

Fratley raised his hands. “My imagination has already done the work, thank you.”

Behind him, Yola let out an excited laugh. “I’ve already got data.”

“What’s that?” Athron asked.

“I’ve got the destination from Taurus. They put him on another ship bound for—” She paused. “That’s weird. I know this ship.”

She fell quiet and searched through more information. After a minute, she sniffed and wiped an eye.

“Are you all right?” Kiren asked, standing beside her.

“The Void’s crazy sometimes. Your Rafferty Lance was on the same transport ship as my brother. They didn’t leave Taurus at the same time, but they did travel on the same ship to their final destination. I’d know that name anywhere.”

“Where is it?” I asked.

“Kopta Prison.” Yola looked up, her face tear-streaked. “I’m afraid if your friend went there, he’s most likely dead.”

She set the data pad down and rubbed her eyes. “My brother. His name was Levi. He was a data hustler on Taurus. He liked working the casinos, small time stuff. He started counting cards then moved into bigger games. He loved numbers. Well, he pissed off the wrong people. A crew of thugs picked him up and beat him almost to death, then they threw him on a transport off station. He bounced around as a prisoner for a while. I managed to track every point until he arrived at Kopta.”

“How do you know he’s dead?” Kiren asked.

“I know. I just know. I did manage to find the people who paid off the first crew. It was the Carmichaels.”

I looked at Athron. “You sure about that?”

“I’m sure. They tried to hide that particular bit of payroll through a couple layers, but I traced the credits back to them. They had my brother shipped to Kopta as a favor to one of their casino owners, and maybe just to show they could. They’ve got powerful friends nobody outside Taurus knows about. The Ghosts know. I’ve just been waiting for the right opportunity. And then you walk through my door.”

“Was it the Void working in mysterious ways, or Sulan Cox?” Fratley asked with a slight frown.

“Doesn’t matter,” Yola said. “Give me some time and I’ll have this database cracked open like an egg.”

“Which allows me to share my excellent news.” Fratley rubbed his hands together. “I’ve secured not just the Church of the Homeworld for my auction, but three other interested parties as well. We have ourselves an event, Ms. Kiren.”

“Who are these people?” Kiren asked.

“All we need to know is that they’re rich. Filthy rich, and they either lust after artifacts, or they loathe the Church of the Homeworld and want to keep all newly found artifacts out of their hands. I win either way.”

“You hear that?” Athron asked, holding up a hand.

“What?” Kiren asked.

I stopped to listen. The ongoing shouts and cheers from the robot fighting had paused. Several dull crashes rolled beneath the room. It sounded like one of the robots was out of control. I stood to walk over to the window and look down on the sorting floor.

Two battle lines were shooting at each other from opposite sides of the room. The side near us looked like the Digital Ghosts robot hackers we’d seen before, and now a new group in black tactical gear was flanking them along an unused sorting line near the door.

“You were followed, Fratley.” I grabbed my pistol.

“Like hell I was,” he said.

“It’s our friend Collin.” I nodded at the floor below. “And it looks like he got himself a new knee already.”

“Is there another way out of here?” Kiren asked, turning to Yola.

The hacker tapped her data pad on the table. “There’s no other way out of this room, but I’ve got a way through the fight down there. Who’s this guy that’s chasing you?”

“He works for the Carmichaels,” I said.

Yola scowled. “Then I’m going to enjoy clearing a path over his corpse. This thing doesn’t need me to hold it while it works.” She crossed the room to a chest against the far wall and then knelt to pull out a heavy automatic weapon that needed two hands to carry. Running a functions check as she held it in one hand, Yola looked very familiar with its operation.

“This is my little friend ARNYE,” she said. “Automatic, Recoilless, Neutralizing Yola’s Enemies.”

“That’s not a real acronym,” Fratley said.

“I knew you were a genius.” As Yola hefted the weapon to follow me out the door, a box on her work table started squawking an alarm.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Oh crap,” Yola said. “That’s the main evac alert. They’re dumping the Swarm.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Everybody’s going to run, and this place is going up in a big bang.”

20

“Crap.” Yola looked around at her belongings. “I didn’t expect this at all. I don’t have time to gather my stuff.”

“How much time do we have to get out of here?” Athron asked.

“It’s not a matter of how much time. When the alarm to dump the Swarm comes out, you dump. You don’t hang around. That’s why everything is temporary. Well, most everything. I thought I was going to be here longer.”

She looked down at her machine gun then turned to me. “Here, Walker. You take this. Punch some holes in that asshole for me. I need to get the rest of my stuff together.”

I took the weapon from her and hefted it. She was no slouch to be carrying the thing.

“What about our data?” I said. “We’re not leaving without that.”

Yola looked back at the workbench where her new data stick was still plugged into my pad. “Nope. Of course not. Well, you won that stick for me, so you take it.”

“You’re being awfully generous,” Fratley said.

“That's life. I’ll get another one.”

An explosion in the room below shook the floor of her office.

“Come on,” I said. “We’re getting out of here. Kiren, you get the pad. I’ll get out the door and start laying down some covering fire. You all ready?”

Fratley drew his pistol and Athron stood beside me with his service weapon.

“I haven’t been in a good fire fight in five years, Walker,” he said.

“Keldon says none of them are good,” I replied.

He chuckled. “Keldon’s bored.”

“How many rounds has this thing got in a magazine?” I asked Yola as I inspected ARNYE’s control system. It had open sights with a glowing reticle, a display on its body showing battery levels and ammo count.”

Yola smiled like I’d asked one of her favorite questions. “You feed it steel cubes and it slices off needles, super heats them and sends them downrange at a rate of your choice. I like to call the current setting Skin Melter. Won’t penetrate walls but cuts through people like a chainsaw.”

“Lovely.” I hit the door’s opening mechanism with my arm and the entrance slid open. The smells of burned metal and smoke rolled through the opening as I stepped through and leveled the machine gun on the side of the room where Collin’s people were hunkered down and firing on the remaining Ghosts.

ARNYE hummed as an internal servo wound to life, then it fired a stream of rounds with minimal kickback. I held the trigger for three seconds, getting used to the weapon, then released and moved out onto the landing so Athron and Fratley could follow.

The people on the floor were responding to new combatants arriving on the scene. I thought I heard Collin shouting at his people, as smaller Ghost teams moved to flank him. It looked like the enforcer had bit off more than he expected with this fight.

One of Collin’s crew moved into range around the side of a sorting line. I leveled the sights on his center of mass and squeezed the trigger. I barely had to count to one and the merc was disappeared in a splatter of blood and tactical gear against the metal behind him. A rifle clattered as it hit the floor, the severed hand still squeezing the grip.

“Godsdamn, Walker,” Fratley said. “Remind me not to piss you off.”

“When has that ever worked?”

Spitting rounds with ARNYE, I worked my way down the two flights of stairs. The Ghost fighters seemed to recognize ARNYE, or at least the fact that we were coming down from Yola’s place, because they kept pressing Collin’s team on our right, as I slid around the left side of the room. At one point, a grenade arced from Collin’s position and bounced toward us. I hit it with a spray of molten metal on its first bounce and the explosion knocked a sorting line into the air, but it didn’t come anywhere near us.

“Pull back!” Collin shouted finally. “You’re not getting out of here, Walker.”

Fratley hit one of the mercs in black as the others ran for the door, turning to fire as their leader escaped the room. Four grenades arced from the doorway in different directions.

“I can’t get them all,” I shouted, jogging backward. In front of me, Athron and Fratley slid behind a workstation beside the stairs to Yola’s place. I sprinted then slid after them as the blast from the nearest grenade caught ARNYE and tossed the machine gun over my shoulder. The barrel hit the ground in front of me and I came down on top of it.

As the other three explosions rocked the equipment in the room, sending bits of metal and ore in all directions, I low crawled behind the crate next to Athron. We waited for a few seconds, then we knelt as the dust rolled over us. I drew my service pistol and waited, but nothing moved in the dust. The Ghosts were either down or had run away through another exit.

“Damn,” Athron said, nudging the machine gun with his boot. “Looks like she took a beating.”

I grabbed the machine gun with my free hand. There were several warning lights blinking across its body from internal failures.

“I’m not leaving this thing behind,” I said. Looking up the stairs, I spotted Kiren working her way down, a backpack on her shoulder.

She read my expression. “I’ve got the pad. Yola says she’ll get herself out of here.”

Fratley patted his coat and wiped dust off his face. “Then I suggest we take her advice and get the hell out of here ourselves.”

“Collin’s still out there,” I said. “Unless he figured out that this place is going to blow.”

“I don’t plan on telling him,” Fratley said. “He can figure out the fine details on his own.”

I led the way out of the room and back down the corridor to where the bazaar had been underway. Any worry about Collin and his team being able to ambush us was absorbed by the pandemonium in the rest of the mining rig. Lights had been pulled down, making the only available light from handheld lanterns and string bulbs strewn on the floor. People were grabbing up their gear and belongings as fast as possible. Scavengers fought over abandoned gear, while a few fights turned into battling matches. Several stalls had collapsed, scattering equipment across the deck. Everything moved slowly until we got past that side of the chamber. The same high-pitched alarm that we’d heard in Yola’s place rode above the crowd noise, growing slowly more insistent as it continued.

Reaching the tunnel back to the docking area, I had to shove several people out of my way as they fought over equipment in the middle of the narrow corridor. When we entered the welcome room where we’d first arrived, I spotted Kraft and his spiky orange hair caught up in a brawl, the remnants of a dice game covering the deck under their boots.

The alarm was getting faster, urging people out of the rig.

“What happens when that thing is just a single tone?” Athron asked.

Fratley smiled. “I’d figure this place goes boom. I don’t plan on sticking around to find out.”

The detective shook his head. “These people are insane.”

“But never boring,” Fratley said.

* * *

“Welcome back, Captain,” Arla said as we entered the Iron Scabbard’s cargo bay. “There has been a great deal of exterior activity since you left.”

“I’m eager to hear about it, love,” Fratley said, taking the steps up the main corridor two at a time. “Heat up the engines because we need to leave this party behind.”

I dropped ARNYE in a storage crate and jogged after the Renegade. We needed to get off the rig and in a battle posture as soon as possible. If Collin had beat us getting out, we were a caged rat in our docking berth.

In the command deck, I slid into the operations seat and reset the holo-display. The lumpy square of the mining rig with its docking rings appeared in the view, with hundreds of ships roiling in close orbit as they separated and prepared to leave.

“It’s crowded in here,” Fratley said, peering at the display. “From what I’ve heard, the Ghosts like to withdraw to a safe distance and watch their last Swarm location go up in a ball of fire. Who knows if that’s the plan this time.”

“Seems there wasn’t much plan,” Athron said.

Kiren sat beside me and dropped her backpack on the deck by her chair. She dug out the pad, still working on the Rivas data.

“You got our destination coordinates there?” Fratley asked.

Swiping through the pad, Kiren nodded. “I’m entering them in the nav system now.”

“Get us off this hulk, Arla,” Fratley said. “I need some distance.”

“Yes, Captain. Breaking dock now.”

“You think Yola got off all right?” Athron asked.

“Let’s worry about our own skins first,” Fratley said, pulling up his manual controls. The holo-display shifted quickly as he brought the Iron Scabbard around to start an exit burn out of the system.

We were nearly far enough from any surrounding ships to start our burn when the defensive systems squawked.

“Oh, what now?” Fratley cursed.

“Captain,” Arla said. “We have inbound missiles.”

21

The Iron Scabbard shot back toward the Ghost’s mining rig, a single ship swimming against the stream of all the others trying to leave. In the holo-display, three red icons chased us through the mass of lights filling the display. Near the top of the holo, a red icon showed where Collin’s ship had paused to fire on us. Its ID had come back as Feather Blade.

“They’re too close to outmaneuver,” Fratley said. “You got the cannons up, Walker?”

I nodded, checking the targeting in my display. None of the three fast movers were close enough yet to fire on, and when they were, I would have seconds to take them out before they closed on us.

“Give me an open channel, Arla dear,” Fratley said. “I want to talk to every ship in the area. And would you please broadcast the location of that damn Feather Blade, so everyone knows they fired on a friendly vessel in the midst of an evacuation.

From the looks of things, other ships were giving the Feather Blade a wide berth as they exited the area.

“Channel clear, Captain,” Arla said.

“Friends,” Fratley growled, straightening in his seat. “You may have noticed that a ship called the Feather Blade just fired on us as we were attempting to exit the system alongside the rest of you.”

“There are no friends here,” someone answered. “You’re either quick or dead, Iron Scabbard. Looks like you’re dead.”

“There’s a code of the Swarm,” another ship’s captain said.

Other voices cut into the channel, arguing about who was attacking who. Some accused the Feather Blade of being Ghosts themselves.

Collin’s voice cut through the arguments as he said, “This is the Feather Blade. If any ship interferes with my actions, I will call Union Patrol on your location.”

There was a second of quiet before voices broke into argument again. Then, in the holo-display, three ships near Collin fired on each other.

“Oh, damn,” Fratley said.

Groups of ships quickly separated into battle lines as they fired on each other with quad cannons, which caught even more ships in the crossfire. In the midst of this, our three missiles continued to close, despite Fratley’s attempts to draw them off by circling the mining rig. Iron Scabbard couldn’t outmaneuver them.

“Ready to fire,” I said, watching as the icons closed on our position. Beside me, Kiren squeezed her weapon control toggles, ready to assist.

The first missile crossed into our defensive perimeter. I sent a line of projectile fire into its path and the icon flickered out.

“Got it!” I shouted.

Kiren took out number two, but the third missile managed to slip through our two streams of projectile fire.

“Any day now,” Fratley griped.

If I hadn’t been staring hard at the screen, I would have thrown Kiren’s backpack at him. The icon was closing with our position, distance counting down in the display, and every time I tried to get an angle to fire, the missile moved into another approach vector.

Kiren kept pressure on the missile with her quad cannon while I moved to a projectile. The problem with that was it would be slower. I’d have to launch at the last possible point where the missile couldn’t change course.

“Walker,” Fratley said.

I ignored him. In the holo, the missile was so close now that our icons seemed to touch.

If I missed, we were dead.

The missile’s icon disappeared in the holo.

“Nice work,” Kiren said.

“Thanks.” I gave her a smile and leaned back in my seat slightly. My heart was still hammering in my chest.

“Good job, Walker,” Fratley said. “We’re not dead. Now let’s get through this mess and go kill Collin Charles for good.” He brought the Scabbard around and pushed the engines to full burn for a few seconds, then he executed a braking burn within firing distance on the Feather Blade.

Arla had lowered the volume on the general channel where the Ghost’s ships were still arguing with each other. There were at least five factions fighting around the mining rig now, with two set on taking down the Feather Blade.

As we closed, I noticed the channel go quiet again. “Fratley,” I said. “What’s going on? They all shut up.”

“Maybe they figured out how stupid they sound.”

The mining rig exploded.

Ships scattered all around us, pushed out by the energy wave from the explosion. The Iron Scabbard tumbled as Fratley struggled to right the ship. The bag at Kiren’s feet shot across the command deck. I caught the Rivas data pad before it spun away.

“I’m going to choke whoever set that bomb,” Fratley said. “Fireworks, my ass.”

The Iron Scabbard settled, but there was still work to be done avoiding ships that had been knocked out of control. Many appeared to have damaged guidance systems. One ship flew directly into the flaming center of the mining rig.

“Walker,” Collin said, his voice ragged in the open channel. “You can’t run from me.”

I hunted the mess in the holo display for Feather Blade.

“What gave you the idea I was trying to run, Collin? It doesn’t look like I need to. You’re wrecking things just fine on your own.”

Distress signals washed out Collin’s voice as captains called for help. One voice was immediately recognizable.

“This is Yola Deris in the Secret Charm. I’ve lost attitude control. I’m spinning like a godsdamn top. I had a fire in my comms control and I’m about to lose communication. Anybody out there?”

I looked at Fratley. “Let’s go get her.”

The Renegade waved a hand. “I don’t know her from any of these Ghosts. She’ll figure things out. If that Collin bastard fires on us again, there’s no room to maneuver. Not with all this debris flying all over the place.”

“We need to help her.”

“I’m the bloody captain, Walker,” Fratley argued. “Just because you’ve got a crush on the hacker doesn’t mean I need to bend to your whim.”

“You remember when I was faced with a similar choice to help you back outside Taurus? What did I do then?”

Fratley scowled. “You put your ass on the line. I get it. Look, we’ve got barely ten minutes before the rest of these damaged ships that can’t call out start losing their engines. This place is going up like popcorn. We don’t want to be here when that happens.”

“I estimate thirty minutes, Captain,” Arla said.

“Don’t contradict me, love.”

“I am merely sharing factual information for the problem at hand.”

“Fine,” the Renegade said. “Get us to the Secret Charm. Walker can worry about how to get her off her ship. I’m not staying any longer than ten minutes, you understand?”

“Perfectly, Captain. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. Find that damn Feather Blade so it doesn’t fire on us again.”

22

Yola stumbled through the cargo bay airlock, and I caught her before she fell. Her clothes were singed and she had burns running down her left arm. She coughed into my shoulder then pointed back into the airlock.

“Tools, and a cloak.”

Fratley stepped forward, pushing his hat back. “Did you say cloak?”

Yola nodded, her eyes squeezing closed as she started coughing again. When she finally got a deep enough breath to talk, she pointed him to a long crate sitting at the bottom of the airlock.

Fratley pushed past me and dragged the crate on board the Iron Scabbard. He popped its lid and knelt to inspect the contents, then he looked back at me like he’d discovered treasure.

“Praise the Void, it’s a godsdamned cloak. Where did you get this?”

“I’ve had it. Secret Charm wasn’t compatible. I think I can make it work on your ship though.”

“I would kiss you if you weren’t so dirty,” Fratley said.

I helped Yola over to a crate and sat her down. “Are you burned anywhere other than your arm?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t know if I can tell right now. Maybe I’m in shock? There was so much smoke, I thought I was going to die in there. Thank you. I didn’t expect anybody to actually come.”

“Walker didn’t want to,” Fratley said, closing the lid on the cloak. “I made him do it.”

She gave him a beady eye. “I’m sure that was the case.”

Slapping the crate, Fratley stood and rubbed his hands together. “No time for rest now, love. You know how to install that thing?”

“You’re running hot,” Yola said. “It’s not a good idea. We should get to dock somewhere, take your engine off-line.”

“That is not possible at the moment. We’ve still got hostiles on our tail. I want to get the hell out of this system without Collin Charles tagging along again. Better yet, I’d like to cloak, creep up on his tail, and put a torpedo in him. Can you do that for me?”

Yola managed another deep breath. “I can. I’ve done it before. But I’m going to need some help.”

“We’ll get something on this burn,” I said. “Then I’ll come help.”

“I will too,” Athron said from the top of the bay ladder.

I helped Yola into the med bay and Athron helped me scavenge for some spray to help her burns. We hadn’t been in there two minutes when Fratley shouted over the ship’s comms that the Feather Blade was on our tail again. Collin must have been out of missiles because he was attempting to close and hit us with their quad cannons.

“Get your ass up here, Walker. I need my two gunners.”

I glanced at Athron. “You got this?”

“We’ll be alright. Once we’re done here, I’ll see what I can do about getting the cloak down to the engine section.”

“I’m feeling better already,” Yola said. “Now that I’m out of the smoke.”

“With those burns, that could be shock talking,” Athron said. “We’ll take it one step at a time.”

She appeared to be in good hands for now, so I jogged back to the command deck and took my station. The holo-display looked worse than it had when the rig exploded. Thousands of pieces of large debris filled nearby space, slamming into ships just in the minute I watched. Any crew that couldn’t take evasive action was going to get hit, it was just a matter of time.

“I called in the Union Patrol, Ghosts,” Collin was saying on the open channel. “If you can’t run, you’re going to prison.”

“It will take them days to get here,” Fratley said. “I preferred Collin when he was a milquetoast consultant and not trying to act all hard.” He paused, staring at his display, then smiled. “There you are.”

Fratley grabbed his controls and brought the Iron Scabbard around. We shot forward and targets in my display spread out as we approached. We passed two incapacitated ships and then another vessel became centered in my targeting system. It was the Feather Blade.

“Keep talking,” the Renegade said. “You two have him in your sights?”

“I’m ready,” I said. Kiren nodded, staring at her display.

The ship in front of us tried to slow suddenly, but Fratley matched velocity. The icon slipped in and out of my cannon’s range and then came fully into my sights. I lit my quad cannons as Kiren did the same, centering our fire on the enemy ship.

In his captain’s seat, Fratley laughed and pounded his controls with joy.

My cannon caught the rear of the Feather Blade. Kiren brought her cannon around to finish them, when a rogue ship crossed our line of fire. It was a transport, twice the size of the Feather Blade, spinning out of control.

“What’s that?” Fratley shouted. “Get the hell out of the way.”

“He’s running.” I watched the icon pick up speed toward the edge of my display.

“Track him, Arla,” the Renegade ordered.

“If we’re leaving,” I said. “Now’s the time. He won’t be able to track our destination.”

“Collin Charles is like a bad rash.” Fratley sunk in his seat.

I tapped my earbud. “Sergeant, you guys doing all right?”

It took him a second to answer. “We’re fine. Yola thinks she can get the cloak system installed in a couple hours. She also says it looks like we’ve got a tracker on the comms system.”

Fratley spewed curses. “A what?”

“I don’t know,” the detective said. “She called it a tracker. Said anybody could use the signal to follow us once they’ve got it.”

“Well, tear it out,” Fratley snapped.

Athron laughed. “She asked if you want her to keep it for you as a souvenir.”

“I’m going to keep it as a suppository for Collin Charles,” the Renegade muttered. “A tracker on my ship? On my Arla?” He rose from his seat and pulled out his flask to take a long drink. “You set the course, Walker. I’m going down to see this travesty for myself.”

23

“Are you guys going to tell me you’re cops?” Yola asked from the command deck hatch.

I glanced at Athron, who had his face buried in one of his data pads.

“I’m no cop,” Fratley said. He pointed at Kiren. “I’m pretty sure she isn’t either.”

Yola crossed her arms. “I’m nearly done with the installation. All I’ve been thinking about this whole time is why you’d be trying to break into one of the worst places in the Deadlands? Do I want to avenge the bastards who killed my brother? Hell yes, I do. But I’ve been studying Kopta a long time—what I can find about it anyway. It’s a place where people go to die. You don’t just visit and then leave.”

Athron leaned back in his seat, tapping his knee. “I can think of any number of reasons somebody would want to break someone out. What makes you think we’re cops?”

“You don’t act like mercs. You’re all very… professional.”

“I don’t see why she shouldn’t know,” Fratley said. “Are any of you going to tell her?”

“We’re deputies from Taurus Station.” I figured it was better to get the truth out now than play coy and have her turn on us at the wrong moment. “We’ve been sent by the Sheriff to find the prisoner in Kopta.”

Yola smiled. “I was right. I knew when you said you were from Taurus that’s what you had to be. You just look like cops.”

“Deputies,” Athron corrected. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“And you with all your questions,” Yola said. “You’re not used to having someone tell you to shut up, are you?”

“More than you know,” Athron said. “But if I don’t ask, nobody will answer.”

Kiren turned from her console. “Is this going to be a problem?”

“Not between me and them,” Yola said. “What’s your part in all this?”

“She’s a Renegade without a ship,” Fratley said, raising his eyebrows. “Just a baby.”

“I’ve got my reasons,” Kiren said, ignoring him. “I’m here as part of the mission. I’ll ask again. Is any of this going to be a problem?”

“Fine,” Yola said. “You aren’t the worst crew I’ve ever flown with. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, we’re going to need to test the cloak. I suggest we make one extra slip jump so we can see how the new system reacts before we enter the Kopta system. I’m also going to need to edit your ship’s ID.”

“Mess with my Arla?” Fratley said. “I don’t think so.”

“I won’t be changing anything about the ship’s AI. She’s amazing. No, I need to update the name. Since you’ve been operating in the Deadlands, you’re known. All the controllers at the prison have to do is hit you with a registry request and they’ll know you’ve got no reason to be in the system.”

Fratley shook his head. “I thought that was what the cloak was for?”

“The cloak is going to work. This is just an extra layer of protection.”

“Do it then,” Fratley said. “But I get to choose the new name.”

“I think that’s a bad idea,” Yola told him. “I’m going to make it a string of numbers and letters.”

“That’s bad luck. Every ship needs a name.”

Athron chuckled. “I never took you for being superstitious, Fratley.”

“There’s paranoid, and there’s stupid,” the Renegade said. “At least give her an acronym that means something then, like your needle machine gun.”

“Fine,” Yola said. “I can do that. I’ve got one more stipulation.”

“I didn’t realize we were negotiating,” Fratley said.

“I’m always negotiating. I want to come on your mission.”

“Out of the question,” I said. “You said yourself, this is one of the most dangerous places in the Deadlands. We don’t need extra people coming with us.”

“Look,” Yola said. “I don’t know how you chose your crew for this op, but you’re awfully heavy on the attack side. You don’t have anybody who can crack their defensive systems or get you information about their networks. You’ll be going in there blind without me. And I want to go. For Levi.”

“Revenge isn’t going to be an asset here,” Athron said softly.

Yola nodded. “I understand. Maybe that’s not the right way to put it. I know you don’t have much reason to trust me yet, but you’ll see when you activate the cloak, I do good work. You saved my life back at the Swarm when you didn’t have to, and I appreciate that. Believe me, I may have a better idea of what you’re walking into than you do. You’re going to need my help.”

“I think she should come,” Kiren said. “We’re going to need all the help we can get.”

“Let’s test the cloak and update the ship’s ID,” I said. “Without those two things, we’re not getting close to Kopta anyway. We may have to find a new way in altogether.”

* * *

An hour later, I sat with Athron in the galley, leaning close so our voices couldn’t be heard from the outside hallway. As far as I could tell, Fratley had gone to his room for a nap and Kiren was still in the command deck, while Yola was finishing her work on the cloak.

“You look like you’re chewing on metal,” Athron said. “What’s bothering you?”

“I feel like we’ve jumped ahead a few steps. The Sheriff sent us to crack the database, and we found Lance’s location. Now we’re going already. Shouldn’t we wait, get some help?” I’d been chewing on these concerns since we left the Swarm. At the time, we had to get out, and moving toward Kopta seemed like the right direction. Now, I was seeing all the gaps in our ability to get inside the prison.

“We can send Nagel an update, but I don’t think we need to wait. We’re either going to make this work with the team we’ve got, or it’s impossible. You think the Sheriff is going to send Tactical Division in here to break Lance out?”

I crossed my arms. “That Black guy made it sound like he had resources we don’t.”

“That’s an assumption,” Athron said. “We don’t know anything about him, other than Nagel seems to listen to him.”

“Then we send the request and wait for it to come back no. What if that’s what Nagel would want?”

“Trust me.” Athron wiped his face and drained the last coffee from his cup. “I’ve known Nagel a long time. Sending us out here is putting his ass on the line about as far as he can. We either make this work, or we don’t. We’ve got all the help we’re going to get. If this Black fella has other resources he wants to use against the Carmichaels, he can do it himself. Nagel is my friend. I’m not going to have him get killed over this.”

“You think someone would kill him?”

“The Carmichaels would have killed him a long time ago if he didn’t have the clout he does on the station. Anything they can do to erode that trust, they’ll do. If word got out that Nagel was working with people from outside the station to kick the Carmichaels out... that might be enough to turn the tide.”

I studied the table. “I guess we’ll know more when we get a look at the place.”

Athron slapped me on the shoulder and stood to walk to the coffee machine. “That’s the spirit. Save that worry for when you can do something about it.”

“That’s normally how I’d feel about things. You sure you aren’t feeling reckless because this is your last mission before you retire?”

“You accusing me of having a death wish, deputy?” Athron asked.

“Most people ready to retire don’t want anything to do with being out on the road. They get killed by the dumbest things.”

“Maybe living with no purpose is worse than dying?”

It was the first time I’d heard Athron sound so fatalistic. I shot him a questioning glance and he grinned. “Relax, Walker. My wife would kill me if I died out here.”

24

The Iron Scabbard matched velocity with the freighter on the far side of the system. They would have picked up our approach and were probably wondering what we were up to now.

“Engaging cloak,” Arla announced.

From our perspective on the command deck, nothing happened. Yola sat at the last free console, staring into the display as data from the engines scrolled past. She grinned like a kid with a bowl of ice cream.

“All systems online and functioning properly,” she reported. “Cloak is fully operational.”

“Well, let’s have some fun then.” Fratley grabbed his controls. He brought the engines to full power and shot forward, closing the distance to the other ship.

“What’s your plan, Captain?” Athron asked.

“I’m going to blink the cloak off when we’re within their defensive perimeter then disappear again.”

Kiren frowned. “Can we do that?”

“We can,” Yola confirmed, giving Fratley a dubious look. “Kind of defeats the purpose of having the cloak. Most people using them never come out until they’re out of the system they’re trying to avoid. It’s not like someone can’t track you for the time it takes you to recloak and change vector.”

“Bah,” Fratley said. “Where’s the fun in that? These are trials, right? Let’s test her out.”

The Iron Scabbard reached the other ship in ten minutes. Fratley held off on revealing our position until we were nearly on top of the other ship and were probably showing up as some kind of proximity alert that they couldn’t see. We de-cloaked, broadcasting the false ship’s ID as we buzzed the freighter, then disappeared again.

Fratley braked and set a new vector that would take us back to the SG point, cackling as he tapped his display.

“Outstanding, Yola,” he said. “Excellent work. I’m going to recommend you to everyone I know.”

“Please don’t,” she said.

“All right,” Fratley said, ignoring her. “Setting course for our final trip. Arla, you have the coordinates.”

“Course is set, Captain,” the AI announced. “Without interference, we will arrive in Kopta System in approximately eight hours.”

Fratley rubbed his hands together. “We’ll leave the slip, activate the cloak, and then get a look at things. I’m curious to see what a maximum security prison looks like. What kind of security they’ve got. Should be interesting.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Athron said. “Until then, I think I’m going to get some sleep. No telling what’s going to happen once we land on the other side.”

Yola frowned at her display. “I’ll be down in engineering. I need to make some adjustments. Nobody do anything without me.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Fratley said. “You’ve done some lovely work. Just lovely.” He sauntered after Yola and Athron.

I stretched in my seat, thinking about preparations I needed to make.

“You leaving, too?” Kiren asked.

“Not immediately. What are you going to do?”

She turned to me. I’d been sitting beside her for hours but realized I’d barely looked at her. “You all right?” I asked. “You look like you haven’t gotten any sleep.”

“I haven’t been sleeping. Ever since we left Taurus. I thought I knew what I wanted to do before, but now I’m not so sure. I’m ready for the mission. But after that? I have no idea. I don’t know what’s going to happen when we get home.”

I studied her face. The party girl was gone again. Maybe it was the fatigue or the weight of her father’s murder and the wide-open future that now stood before her. She wasn’t rebelling against anything anymore, just herself.

“You can do whatever you want to,” I said. “Although I imagine that’s not an easy prospect to think about.”

“Do what though? Get a ship, move freight, travel from place to place? No family, friends, or attachments? If I wanted credits, I could just go back to the company. I already have more than I could ever need. I don’t know what to do with it all.”

“Sometimes all you can do is focus on what’s in front of you. We’ve got a fight ahead of us. That’s all I’m worried about. I’ll feel a lot better when I can get a look at Kopta and make a plan. We’ll get inside and find Lance, and then we’ll get out. One step at a time.”

Kiren smiled. “I can’t make my brain work that way. As soon as I’ve got the steps laid out, I start thinking about what’s going to come next.”

“What do you do when you fight?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“When you’re sparring? You’re in the moment then, right?”

“I don’t fight enough. I couldn’t tell you. When I was in the ring with Naro, all I thought about was my training in the past, doing what my coach told me to do, looking for each opening and taking it. It’s kind of mindless.”

“Sounds like patrol,” I said. “That’s how I deal with danger anyway. Look for your opening. Take it. Move on to the next thing. There isn’t much space in there for worry.”

“There’s always space for worry.”

“Well,” I said. “When I first saw you again after you’d talked to the Carthage board, you looked pretty damn confident to me. Even if you were faking it, that was a good job from the outside. You fooled me.”

She smiled at the compliment. “I don’t think I was faking it then. I did feel confident. But my dad was also there. Everything’s a response to him. Either fighting against him or trying to impress him. And now he’s gone, and it turns out all his work was evil. He was a terrible person, and I can’t be part of that memory. That’s why I can’t go back to the company. That money is tainted.”

“Where’s that money go if you don’t take it?”

“A bunch of other assholes who may be as evil as he was, we just haven’t discovered it yet.”

I slapped my knee. “I’m going to get a whiskey. You want a drink?”

She offered me a wry smile. “That sounds like a great idea.”

“Always,” I said.

25

“Welcome,” said the white-haired man in the holo-display. He had a craggy face and washed out eyes with drooping lower lids. “My name is Warden Kregg, and I am your future.”

Warden Kregg liked to listen to himself talk. The evidence was in the signal we had been receiving for almost a day now, which had been filled with nothing but recordings of the warden speaking. His ghoul-like delivery, watery eyes, and twitching smile at inappropriate times communicated a building sense of dread. I guess the words were meant as inspiration for incoming prisoners, but his tone made it too easy to replace seemingly hopeful words like future and work with subtextual suggestions like death and torture. After touring what was left of Fereen, I didn’t see how anybody arriving here as a prisoner might feel hopeful.

Fratley had taken to starting the holo whenever the command deck got too quiet. He’d take a long drink from his flask, then grumble, “My name is Fratley Oxonos, and I am your future.”

When Kopta Station finally entered scan range, the station’s image replaced Kregg’s leering face.

Kopta Prison was shaped like a giant insect’s nest, bulbous at its upper end and fat in the middle, then it tapered down to a spiked communications array at its lowest point. The whole crew sat in the command deck staring at the holo-display as the station came into full resolution. The hull gained docking points, defensive positions, and maintenance areas as we watched.

“That thing’s almost as big as Taurus,” Athron said.

“Not quite,” Fratley corrected. “Look at the mass profile there. It’s big though. All that space can’t be used for the prison. Or else it was made to be something different and was repurposed.”

“That could be good news then,” the detective said. “There’s no way they can patrol the whole thing.”

“If it’s a standard design, the lower sections are all going to be environmental control,” Yola said, pushing in. “I’d bet that’s why it’s shaped so weird. That’s where they’ve probably got water storage and rectification. Thousands of other processes go along with that, from growing food to sewage control. It’s nasty, but there probably aren’t many people down there.”

“Who makes sure it works then?” Athron asked.

“There are a few cargo docks along the bottom sector,” I said, pointing. “With the cloak, we should be able to get close enough to get a better look at their operation then choose a place to dock.”

“Need to go in slow so we don’t set off any proximity alarms,” Fratley said. He tapped his display. “Arla, you have the flight plan?”

“Set, Captain. Would you like to execute?”

“Yes, I would.”

The station grew even larger in the holo, allowing us to get a better look at the lower sections. There were at least four docks to choose from. One in particular looked like it hadn’t been used in a decade. Once we had options, I set the display to move along the upper sections so I could study the defensive emplacements.

“Looks like it was military, once upon a time,” Athron said. “I don’t know why a prison needs so many guns pointed outward.”

Over the next hour, we approached from the bottom of the station. Fratley figured the energy from the comms array might obscure any proximity sensors that might pick us up, even with the cloak. Yola argued that the cloak would block any attempt at finding us, but the Renegade didn’t fully trust it. I didn’t blame him.

Aside from maintenance drones moving across the station’s outer hull, the only other activity in near orbit were several transports and freighters docked along a ring in the topmost level. It looked like most traffic entered in an upper admin area and then filtered down through the station. The upper docks were all scarred from engine heat, while those in the lower quarters were dusty. We had Arla to thank for that observation.

“Ready for final approach, Captain,” the AI announced. “Docking in fifteen minutes.”

“Are we still doing this?” Fratley asked, leaning back in his seat. He looked around the command deck with a reckless grin. “Could be our last mission. Sneaking into hell and all that. Walker? You look excited about all this.”

I couldn’t shake the image of Rafferty Lance’s little girl looking up at me as she hugged her stuffed cow. I was going to bring her daddy home, one way or another.

“I’m ready,” I said. “How’s everybody else feeling?”

“Hungry,” Athron said. “I want a donut.”

“I want a drink,” Kiren said.

Yola laughed. “I’m going to burn this place down.”

I looked at Fratley. “How about you?”

“I’ll let you know when we’re done,” he replied. “Until then, no reason to worry about feelings. Haven’t I told you that?”

“Can’t say you have.”

“If I wasted time feeling about things, I’d be a wreck,” Fratley said.

“That’s what your flask is for, huh?”

“One of its many uses.”

“Captain,” Arla said abruptly. “I show activity near the target dock.”

“What’s that?” Fratley sat up in his seat. “Focus the holo.”

We’d matched spin with the station thirty minutes ago, and since then Arla had been easing the Iron Scabbard toward the station. If we’d been using visuals at this point, I figure we wouldn’t be able to see anything but Kopta’s massive hull stretching in all directions, with the communications array below us.

In the artificial perspective of the holo, Arla was able to show the four drones that had drawn her attention. Each of them was as big as the Iron Scabbard, with massive articulated arms they used to pull themselves along the hull. It looked like they were inspecting outer sections of the station.

“It can’t be coincidence those things chose this docking point right now,” Athron said.

“Could be,” Yola told him. “They could have chosen it for the same reason we did.”

“I don’t like it,” Fratley said. “What were our other choices?”

“There are a couple points a quarter of the way up the hull.” I pointed to the holo. “Those looked like they’d seen traffic recently.”

“I don’t like that. What about closer to the comms array.”

“Lot of radiation down there,” Yola said.

“There we go.” Fratley pointed at the diagram. “What’s that section there where it looks like all the water vapor’s coming out? I don’t see any of those damned drones operating anywhere near there.”

“That’s gotta be a sewage drop,” Yola said. “You sure that’s where you want to go in?”

“I’ll go in anywhere we can’t be tracked,” the Renegade said. “I think everyone here would agree with me.”

“I’m not excited about sewage.” Kiren wrinkled her nose.

“Better get excited,” I said. “Looks like that’s our way in. You can see from the coupling that dock hasn’t been used in years.”

“Do it, Arla,” Fratley ordered.

“Commencing docking procedures,” the AI confirmed.

I stood and grabbed the Rivas data pad and shoved it in a cargo pocket. “I’m getting my gear,” I said.

“Should I bring ARNYE?” Yola asked as the ship vibrated. “It’s all fixed up and ready for another round.”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes, you should.”

26

As the airlock opened, a blast of humid, musty air blew back over like the breath of some ancient monster. Yola wiped at her face, making complaining sounds, and Athron shook his head.

“That’s foul,” he said.

“Smells like a thousand corpses in here,” Fratley said. “This is what I expected Fereen to smell like. We need to let the atmosphere out of this place.”

I adjusted my grip on my rifle and stepped through the opening into a corridor with walls covered in green slime. What looked like a mixture of mold and moss collected at the corners where walls met ceiling and floor, while a rivulet of green water ran down the middle of the hallway. A green mist seemed to hang in the air, illuminated by dull lights along the walls at waist level. I rubbed at a dirty sign on the wall until I could read the words, “Hydroponic Halls, Waste Reprocessing and Liquid Management,” with arrows pointing either direction.

I tapped my earbud and wiped my glasses. They were already collecting moisture. “Arla, can you put a map together yet?”

“Hello, Deputy Walker. I am collecting information from your visual scans and combining it with structural imaging from the station’s exterior. I will be able to construct a map as you travel, but I have no way to provide directions yet.”

The rest of the crew was wearing similar communication devices, and Yola added, “As soon as we find a network box, I can take a look and see if I can get access to any of the maintenance systems. That should get us basic schematics with lifts and levels at least.”

“Great,” I said, turning back to the group. “Since we don’t know which way is better, which of these choices is the least dangerous?”

A static sound came from above our heads, and a voice I instantly recognized as Kregg’s filled the corridor.

“I watch each of you,” he said grimly.

“Gods.” Fratley looked around quickly with his pistol raised. “Did the cloak fail?”

“It’s another one of the recordings,” Yola said, grimacing as the warden’s voice droned on.

“Each of you had the ability to do great things, and at some point in your lives you failed. The galaxy did not fail you. You failed. Now you must pay, and the only currency here is sweat and pain.”

“Dramatic much?” Kiren muttered. “Can we turn him off?”

“That’s the first thing I’m doing when I get into their network,” Yola said.

Athron read the sign on the wall and raised his voice over Kregg’s. “I’m thinking Waste Processing and Liquid Management aren’t going to provide us many human sized passages into the upper levels. You know a hydroponic system is going to need human or drone management, and probably easier access from upper levels. I’m going to vote hydroponics.”

The warden reached the end of his speech and we were blessed with silence.

“I’ll bet liquids management is going to have a control center of some kind,” Yola said. “We could use that.”

Fratley shook his head. “I’m going to vote Waste Processing, since it will bother Ms. Kiren and I hate vegetables.”

“Thanks for your helpful input,” I said. “It looks like Hydroponics and Liquids are down this same corridor. We’ll see what we find farther down. It would make sense if they were connected in some way, so we still might find your control center, Yola.”

I led the group down the corridor at a steady pace, paying attention to the depth of the stream beneath our boots. It didn’t seem to get much deeper, but did pick up speed, running the direction we were walking. The air grew warmer and the moss on the walls thickened the further we went, until the metal disappeared completely.

“It’s like we’re walking through a small intestine,” Fratley complained, jabbing at the wall with his cane. “Did you see that? It moved.”

Glancing back at the wall where he’d scraped it, nothing looked like it was moving to me. When I studied the way ahead of us, I couldn’t deny that the moss appeared to be growing more dense, until the corridor shifted from gray to green, and the wall lights disappeared.

“I think we’re going to have to head back the other way,” I said. “It’s getting thicker up there.”

Athron peered into the green mist beside me and nodded. “No one brought a machete, did they?”

“I could deal with jungle,” I said. “That looks like a wall of slime.”

I backtracked until we reached the airlock where we’d entered. Arla updated the map in my HUD and was able to see how far we’d reached into the body of the station. From the outside, it looked like a disappointingly short distance, all along the same level. We needed to find a lift or ladder system to take us into the actual station.

As I followed the signs for Waste Management, the greenery subsided. The air was still wet but the humidity turned cold, with water dripping down the metal walls in long iron-colored stains that looked like they’d been running for decades. The hallway forked, with a doorway to the right. Inside, we found a maintenance control office with a small terminal and a tool cabinet packed with wrenches that hadn’t been touched in years.

“Now we’re talking,” Yola said. She set ARNYE on the floor and cracked her knuckles as she slid into the seat at the terminal. In two minutes, she was navigating the waste management system, and had shared a map of the sector with Arla. The map appeared in my HUD a few seconds later.

“Speakers on this level are dead,” Yola said. “Let’s hope there are no fire drills.”

Kiren exhaled sharply. “Thank you. That warden has a way of getting inside your head.”

“I wonder how many suicides they have just from that bastard,” Fratley asked.

I ran through the diagram Arla had shared. “Am I reading this right that the only way to the next level is the way we tried before?”

“Looks like it,” Yola said, frowning at her console.

“Let me see that,” Fratley said, leaning down to study her display. “I’m not pushing my way through a slime wall if I don’t have to.”

“Looks like we go back that way or we do some swimming,” I said. “There’s a stairwell just twenty meters past the point where we turned around.”

“Hey Walker,” Athron said. “You were hoping for a machete earlier?” He stood in front of the open tool cabinet, pointing a flat bladed tool that was part crowbar, part long knife. “I don’t know what the hell this thing is for, but there are six of them in here.”

He handed one of the tools to Kiren, then me. It was heavy, with a balance at the midpoint.

Fratley chuckled. “I’ll stick with my cane, thank you.”

“Suit yourself,” Athron said.

Yola also waved away the long knife, since she needed two hands for the machine gun.

“Let’s get this over with,” I said, stepping back into the hallway. With the map in my HUD, it was easier to walk with confidence. The corridor we’d entered from the airlock appeared to skirt a large open area in the center of the station’s level. It wasn’t marked on the map, and based on all the water leaking everywhere, I figured it had to be some kind of storage or settling tank for the station’s waste water.

When I reached the area where the slime-moss started reaching from the walls, I paused the group to test my blade. Its crowbar end easily scraped a strip of the green stuff off the wall. In seconds, I had a pile of the gelatinous stuff at my feet.

Working the blade, I pushed forward until I was forced to start cutting. Kiren moved up beside me, working on the opposite wall. There wasn’t much we could do to keep the stuff from soaking our clothes, but at least we were going to get through. Behind me, Fratley cursed the moss sticking to his beloved brown coat.

“Gods, it smells like rot,” Kiren said.

Keeping my mouth closed, I nodded and scraped a strip of wall clean to let the dim light shine through, and a skull appeared at waist level, grinning under the slime.

27

Kiren jumped back from the corpse. “What the hell is that?”

I used my blade to clean away some of the slime from around the dead man’s chest. “Looks like he was a prisoner,” I said. “There’s a number there.”

“Is this stuff poisonous?” Kiren asked, looking at the walls and ceiling with new worry.

Athron knelt to get a closer look at the dead man. “He’s been here for years. I’d guess the slime grew over him. See where the moss is attached to his clothes?”

“Gross,” Yola said when she got a look. “He’s still got hair.”

“Come on,” I said. “This is taking too long.”

Stepping past the body, I cut more strips of slime off the wall beyond him, making enough space for us to keep moving. Kiren worked more carefully now, probing with her blade before cutting off pieces to let the light through. I monitored our progress in my HUD, trying to gauge the thickness of the slime. The stuff I was cutting off was knee-deep in places, and pushing through it was like fighting a thick, clammy stream. My boots were soaked.

Finally, the slime lessened and the going picked up. We reached a grate in the floor where the slime abruptly dropped off, the chute below choked with the stuff.

“Don’t fall in there,” Fratley said as he edged around the grate. “Nobody’s ever going to find you.”

Yola watched him with amusement. “This is some kind of reclamation mold that’s gone haywire. Stuff like this eats human waste and turns it into organics for the hydroponic gardens. That’s why the body back there was so clean. I wonder how long it actually took it to strip the bones.”

“I’ll leave you to figure that out,” Fratley said.

“You aren’t a very inquisitive person, are you?” the hacker asked.

“I’m inquisitive about things that bring me pleasure or make me money. Green slime provides neither of those things.”

“It does if you’re living on a station.”

I reached the stairwell, checked its doorway, then stepped inside to peer up at ten flights of stairs to the next level. The same waist-high lights glowed dimly from the wall along the steps.

I tapped my earbud. “You still hear me, Arla?”

“Loud and clear, Deputy Walker. These stairs should take you to the hydroponic gardens you saw mentioned on the signs. It is a very large space with high thermal output compared to the other areas around you.”

“Excellent,” I said. “All we need is more humidity.”

I kept scanning the walls as I trudged up the stairs, expecting some kind of surveillance system at any turn. While the areas behind us looked old and forgotten, the stairwell was in good repair, aside from a layer of dust. Our footsteps climbing up were the first marks the place had seen in a long time.

A pair of metal double doors stood at the top of the stairwell. I waited for the others to catch up, then I checked the door. It wasn’t locked, and it was strangely warm to the touch.

“It’s hot,” I said.

Yola nodded. “We’re supposedly entering a greenhouse.”

“Watch out for man-eating plants, Walker.” Fratley grinned. “You know they exist, right?”

“You first,” I muttered, then I pushed the door open slightly and checked the opening. The light was brighter on the other side, green-tinged, and the air was thick. I had to flatten a pile of broad leaves to get the door open. Turning the long blade in my hands, I stepped into the gap and scythed a path through the head-high plants.

I couldn’t see any walls and the floor was covered in the husks of plants, but the ceiling was at least ten meters above us, covered in dimly glowing lights that may have been bright a decade ago. Now the ceiling looked covered in stains from mold and dead vines. The humidity had lessened, though all I could smell was the bitter fluid from the cut plants under my feet.

Kregg’s voice came from some overhead speaker hidden in the leaves. “When I speak of release, I speak of redemption through your life’s labor, the final effort of your heart, the last breath in your lungs. You must want redemption with every fiber of your being.”

Behind me, Yola groaned. “I don’t want to go in there if we have to start listening to him again.”

“Get busy chopping and you can zone him out,” Athron suggested, swinging his blade.

“I’m not a big fan of physical labor,” the hacker said. “I don’t know if I made that clear.”

Athron chuckled. “Did you look at me when we met?”

Everyone fell to cutting for a good five minutes, probably to fend off Kregg’s voice more than finding a way out, until it became clear we weren’t going to reach a wall any time soon. Leaves and stalks piled up around my boots as I worked forward, looking for any differences in the jungle that might indicate an easier path or different kind of plant. So far it was all the same stringy vine in different thicknesses, from the size of my forearm to waving hair-like fronds that seemed to sense changes in the air.

“This is crazy,” I said, leaning on my blade for a second. Carrying all my gear and swinging the blade was tiring me out fast. I checked our location against the diagram, and it looked like we’d progressed a good twenty meters into the central area. What I couldn’t tell was if there were any doors or new stairs close by.

I turned to face the others for a direction check, when a hissing sound like a stream of air shot through the vines behind me. Turning back, I felt something shoot between my legs then whip back. Before I knew what was happening, my legs went out from under me and I was being dragged along the floor, heavy green leaves and dried husks flying across my face.

“Gage!” Kiren yelled, and then I lost the sound of her voice. All I could hear was the hissing.

My crowbar caught on a stubborn group of stalks and realized I hadn’t dropped it. Whatever had grabbed my legs tightened its grip and yanked. I hung onto the tool, turning it along my body so it couldn’t get ripped free as the giant leaves whipped by.

I didn’t know how far I was dragged exactly. The surprise messed with my sense of distance and direction, though I was pretty sure I was being pulled to the center of the giant room. I passed a pile of browned leaves and husks , and then the upper edge of a massive green shape came into view through the leaves.

The thing that had a hold of me was a mass of articulated stalks. Its center had opened to reveal an oval, bright green space dripping with liquid that I was fairly sure wasn’t going to be pleasant to touch. The hissing had increased to a roar, a combination of hundreds of slithering vines covering the floor around the center plant and the stalk arms rubbing against each other.

I managed to sit up slightly and get a look at the vines wrapped around my legs. I wasn’t going to be able to reach them with the blade. Instead, I hung onto the tool in my free hand and rolled slightly to draw my pistol. The first thing I fired on was the glistening center of the plant. Aiming was nearly impossible as I was being dragged, so I did my best to raise my shoulders off the deck and fire.

The plant made a squealing sound and the oval snapped shut. Stalk arms waved and spread out, then they all seemed to reach toward me.

I shot at the vines holding me, trying to hit a point about a meter below my boots. One of the thick stalks waved past my face, and I realized its end was a thin, flat leaf blade covered in the glistening liquid. I was going to kill Fratley for his joke about man-eating plants.

After firing on the vine until it splintered, I rolled and was able to get my knees under me. I couldn’t stand and run or those blades would take my head off.

“Walker!” Athron yelled from a place in the plants about ten meters ahead of me.

“Wait!” I crawled as fast I could on my hands and knees. Chancing a look back, I narrowly missed a blade in the face. It looked like I’d reached the length of the plant’s reach, though. Taking a seated position, I raised my pistol in both hands and fired on the center of the mass of waving stalks.

“What the hell?” Kiren said, kneeling beside me. “Are you all right?”

“Tell the others to watch out, that thing’s got vines all through the plants. I think I distracted this one for now, but there are others.”

“Bloody hell,” Fratley said. “What did you find, Walker?”

“A new pet.” I reached for a grenade on my harness. I pulled the explosive free and stuck my finger through the pin, watching the plant for the right moment to throw.

“Hey!” a gruff voice shouted from my right. I looked in that direction to find an old man’s dirty face glaring at me through the tall plants. He waved wildly at me with skinny arms. “Don’t throw that. You’ll wake up the others and you’ll all be dead.”

I didn’t take my hands off the grenade. “Who are you?”

Now that he had my attention, he glanced toward the plant then hunched down in the leaves.

“My name’s Zeke. If you throw that, this whole place turns into a death trap. All the smaller blade pods will protect the mother. It’s a frenzy that nothing lives through. Come with me and I’ll show you the way around.”

“Hello, friend,” Athron said, appearing from the leaves next to the newcomer. He had his pistol pointed at Zeke’s chest. “Let’s just take things slow, shall we?”

The newcomer looked at Athron and then held his hands up slowly, turning slightly so he faced the detective.

“Why don’t you tell us who you are,” Athron said. “Then we’ll think about following you.”

The man glanced back toward the writhing plant. “We don’t have a lot of time. If you come with me, I’ll get you to safety. I’m a—I was a prisoner here. A group of us escaped. We live down here. You’re the first other humans we’ve seen in three years.”

28

Zeke led the way about three meters back in the tall plants and picked up a narrow trail between the stalks.

We followed in single file until we reached the wall, then we skirted the outer edge of the huge space. The metal looked scraped clean up to head-height from years of people squeezing between the outer edge and the plants. I watched Zeke as he led the way. While he looked undernourished, I wouldn’t mistake that for weakness. The prisoner walked with his head straight, checking the stalks and pausing several times when the hiss of vines rose out in the space beyond the trail.

A door appeared in the wall and Zeke led the way through into a corridor with brown leaves scattered across its floor. Once everyone was inside, he looked at the wall of waving stalks then nodded.

“We should be all right now. Gotta say, you’re damn lucky to be alive. They’re very hungry.”

“What do those things normally eat?” Kiren asked, rubbing sap off her arms.

“Whatever they can,” Zeke said. “They fight each other for territory in the garden. Every so often, I find fresh bones down there from the sewage system. The vines may reach up into the lower levels, I don’t know.”

“How long have you been down here?” Athron asked.

Zeke shook his head. “Years. I don’t know. We had marks on a wall for a while until Thom scratched them all up one night.”

“Are you telling me there are more of you?” Fratley asked.

“That’s right. There are five of us.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. It meant even odds if the group wasn’t friendly. “We’re looking for a way into the upper levels. Is there a way through here?”

Zeke looked at me. “There’s a way. But you’d be a fool to go up there. They’ll throw you in a cell and no one will remember your name. How did you get here? Where’s your ship?”

I didn’t like the question. “Don’t worry about the ship,” I said. “Show us the way to the next level and we leave you alone.”

He frowned, then he shook his head and continued down the hall. “This way. Come on. You should meet the others. They’ll convince you. I’m not a talker. I can’t convince anybody of anything.”

I checked my HUD. With the update from our passage through the garden, we were now deep into the interior of the station. Arla didn’t have any additional stairwells on the map except the one we’d left to enter the plant area. There had to be another exit ahead. This hallway looked like a main passage into the gardens, big enough for drones or small vehicles. That would mean a lift.

“Are we going to follow him, then?” Fratley asked.

I raised a brow at him. “You got a better idea? I don’t have a map update yet.”

“I can tell you where to go,” Zeke whispered. “Just not here. The plants can hear us. They’ll send vines if we stay in one place.”

“He’s obviously a stable actor,” the Renegade said.

Yola looked at us both. “Let’s just get away from here. The garden gives me the creeps.”

“This way.” Zeke continued down the corridor.

“What were you in here for, anyway?” Athron asked, walking closer to the former prisoner.

“I don’t remember. I was a young man when I came here.”

Athron gave him a sideways glance. “That seems like an important thing to forget.”

“Maybe he wanted to,” Fratley said.

“I probably did.” Zeke shrugged. “I forget my name some days. There’s no day or night down here, only the plants and the plumbing. There’s no way of telling what’s real and what isn’t.”

“That’s reassuring,” Yola said.

The corridor extended for another thirty meters before it branched. Zeke took the path leading away from the outer edge of the station. We passed several locked doors marked as storage and a few empty rooms marked as part of the hydroponics system. A few of the rooms were divided by heavy grates that may have been designed to hold the carnivorous plants. In the new hallway, leaking pipes lined the walls, and the air smelled like the mold we’d cut our way through.

“Don’t let that water get in your mouth.” Zeke pointed at the moist walls.

“Why not?” Kiren asked.

The old man didn’t answer, and he ignored her when she asked again. “We need to hurry through here,” he said. “The floor is rotten.”

“Where the hell are you taking us?” Kiren demanded.

“It’s just up here. We have the old lab barracks. You’ll see.”

Past the rusted area on the floor, the pipes disappeared into the walls and the corridor opened into an area that must have been a lounge at one point. Ragged couches had been pushed against the walls, and rooms with beds fed off the main area. Mats woven from what looked like plant stalks covered the floor and hung from some of the walls. A low table was covered in the remnants of a meal of plant leaves.

“Listen up,” Zeke said, raising his voice. “I found some people.”

A bald man stuck his head out of a doorway. “What are you talking about, Zeke? Shut up.” He noticed us and his eyes went wide.

“I said people. This is Thom. He’s a liar.”

“I’m not a liar,” the man said, entering the room. His gaze roamed hungrily over our faces as he walked right up to Kiren and moved to touch her hair. Kiren’s hand shot out and she jabbed a spot beneath his arm with two fingers.

Thom howled in pain and doubled over. “Why’d you do that?”

“Don’t touch me,” Kiren said.

Three other men walked into the communal space and Zeke introduced them in turn. Kelly had a deep scar running diagonally across his face, Ash was short with iron gray hair and heavily muscled arms, and Harry was a hunched man who might have been seven feet tall if he stood upright.

“Why are you here?” Harry asked, scratching his chin. “Why would anyone come here?”

“We’re heading into the upper levels,” I said. “We’re passing through and that’s all. Just show us the way.”

Kelly shook his head, taking a step toward me. “You can’t leave us. We haven’t seen anyone in so long. It’s been since since I got out.”

“What were you in for?” Athron asked.

“Murder,” Kelly answered without hesitation. “But he deserved it.”

“I’m sure. And you all?” The detective cast an inquisitive glance at the others.

“Fraud,” Harry said, rubbing his hands.

Thom followed with, “Manslaughter during a robbery. I had no choice.”

“Of course, you didn’t,” Ash said. He seemed to be studying all of us especially hard, his gaze lingering on our weapons. “None of us deserve to be here. But here we are. And you’re telling me you’re going to walk through here without helping us? I don’t think that’s an option, friends. I don’t think so at all.”

I rested my hand on my pistol. “Keep your distance. We’re going through whether you stay breathing or not.”

Yola tapped the side of ARNYE and the weapon spun to life with a hum.

Standing next to the wall, Zeke slapped a spot hidden under one of the mats. A grate dropped from the ceiling, cutting us off from the other side of the room where the prisoners were all standing.

Kelly barked laughter, his voice more high-pitched than I expected, “Now you’re not going anywhere but back to the plants.”

Zeke approached the grate. “There’s another grate behind you. You’re stuck in here. I can’t say I’m sorry. You’re either going to take us to your ship, or you’re never leaving. We’ve got all the time in the galaxy.”

29

Fratley chuckled. “I expected a play like this. Can’t say I blame you bastards. Here’s the problem—I’m the captain of the ship out there. And you’re not going anywhere without me.”

I glanced at Fratley. Was he going to sell us out? Did I expect him to do it?

“Thom’s a pilot,” Zeke said. “He can fly whatever you’ve got out there.”

The Renegade laughed. “You come on board without my permission, and my AI will dump your atmosphere before you can hiccup and look sad.”

“We don’t need an AI to fly,” Thom said, pointing at Fratley. “We’ll just disable it.”

“No skin off my back if you try,” Fratley said.

Shaking my head, I adjusted my rifle sling and pulled the cutting torch from my harness. “You see this?” I asked, waving the tool. “I’d rather use it cutting restraints. Lift the gates, or I’m cutting our way out, and then we’re coming after you. This is all wasting time. You holding us up means it’s that much more likely someone will find the ship.”

“How did you get here without being seen?” Harry asked.

“Worry about yourselves,” I said. “What’s your answer?”

“Why are you here?” Zeke asked. “Give us the real answer and I’ll think about it.”

“We’re here to get someone out,” Athron said.

The former prisoners fell silent, as if their greatest dreams had come true.

“Take us with you and we’ll let you out,” Zeke said. He looked at the others. “We can help you.”

“You’ll never get to the topside without our help,” Kelly said. “And then you’ll need to get past the guard crews. You don’t know anything about the rotations. We know it all.”

“You don’t know jack shit,” Fratley said. “You all admit you’ve been down here longer than you can remember.”

“Lift the grate.” I lit the torch.

“We can’t trust them anyway,” Yola said. “They’d be easier to deal with dead.” She aimed the barrel of her machine gun at Thom.

“Fine,” Zeke said. “Here.” He slapped the wall again and the grates rose into the ceiling.

I clipped my torch back in place and drew my pistol. “Get back,” I said. “Zeke is coming with us. The rest of you stay here or you’re getting a hole in your skull. Understood?”

“No,” Thom wailed. He fell to his knees. “Please. We’ve been down here so long. We can help.”

“I can’t trust you,” I said. “I’m not having you in front of me or behind me. You tip off the guards, we’re all dead.”

“Take us out of here,” Harry said.

Ash nodded. “You have to see how desperate we are. I have to get out of here or die trying. I thought I wanted to escape but being here is worse than the cells. It’s worse. We’re starving.”

“I vote we take them,” Fratley said. “I’d have done the same thing if I was in their place. I’d just have been smarter about it. I don’t know what they hoped to accomplish by trapping the people with guns behind a grate, but that’s where the desperation comes in. I can find work for them.”

“I say we roast them,” Yola said.

Athron raised a hand. “Hold on. I may regret this, but I’m going to vote we take them as well. They’ve got an incentive to help us here. How else are they ever getting out of this place?”

With a disgusted look at Thom as he groveled, Kiren gave a slight nod. “I can’t leave other human beings behind like this.”

“I’d prefer leaving them in their own cage,” I said, still irritated. “But all right. Listen up. Give me one reason not to trust you, and you’ll get a bullet. We’ve got a mission, and I don’t need any unknown factor getting in the way. From here, we need to find a prison manifest so we can locate our prisoner. Any of you got any bright ideas?”

Thom straightened and nodded eagerly. “Three levels up in the solitary confinement zone. There’s a guard station that hardly gets used. There’s a terminal there with access to the main system. You can get all the info you want there, including updated maps.”

“Even the food list in the cafeterias,” Harry said, getting a distant look in his eyes.

“Got it, gents?” Fratley said. He drew his heavy pistol and waved it at the prisoners.

Thom had been about to stand, but he dropped back to his knees with his hands spread.

“My friend there is much more forgiving than I am. I put my neck out for you. Sell me out and I’ll do the work for him. Don’t get in my way. Remember what I said about my ship.”

“We understand,” Zeke said. “We certainly do.”

“Good,” Fratley said. “You all got any meager possessions you want to bring with you? We aren’t coming back this way if I have anything to say about it.”

Each of the prisoners shook their heads. They all seemed content with the tools hanging from their belts, which consisted of a few sharpened metal blades and lengths of pipe.

“Fine,” I said. “Let’s get going then. Zeke you lead the way. The rest of you stay with the group. Fratley will take up the rear. Anybody falls back or tests our trust, he’ll take care of you.”

Fratley grinned. “Yes, I will. Now let’s continue our tour of this Godsforsaken place. I’m already sick of wherever we are now. Everything smells like rotten underwear.”

30

The long stairwell up from the engineering section of the station seemed to move in its enclosure, closer to collapse than I liked. Every step sent a shiver down the metal bones of the structure, and with everyone walking it seemed to vibrate like it was going to shake itself apart. Kregg’s voice, muffled and distant, motivated us to climb.

A concrete landing waited at the top, with a rusted door that it took three of us to pry open.

“I don’t know if this has been opened since I came through before,” Zeke said, running a hand down the pitted metal surface. “This is the only door I could find that didn’t require a security lock. It was a pressure closure once upon a time. Now I suppose it would just leak atmosphere if they tried to lock down the level.

“I wonder how this whole damn place holds air,” Fratley complained, coming up behind us. “This section looks like it’s going to pop any second. Hell of a way to run a prison. I wouldn’t stand for this if I was in charge. Maintenance saves the day, I always say. Ask Arla.”

“This could be a whole new career path for you,” Kiren said, pushing past him to step onto the concrete landing. She had been helping Yola carry the machine gun, her face shiny with sweat. “Prison management. Think of the possibilities. Maybe we could just leave you here.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you.” Fratley laughed, opening his jacket to let some air in. “Then you’d be sad because you couldn’t plan my gala.”

“Keep it down,” I said. “I heard something. Zeke is this level occupied? It looks deserted.”

With the door cracked, I turned my attention to the corridor on the other side. The walls were covered in grime, and only a few of the wall lights seemed to be working. Still, I thought I’d heard the sound of metal striking metal in the distance.

Thom and Harry reached the platform behind me.

“This is the torture level,” Harry said, wiping his face. “The basement’s basement. We don’t want to spend any time here.”

Thom nodded. “There’s a reason they don’t lock this door from the outside. Only fools would come back in here.”

“What can we expect?” I asked.

The bald convict wrinkled his nose. “If it’s the same jailer down here, he’s a big one. His name is Shins. We should avoid him if we can. He’s a sadist.” Thom shuddered at some memory. “I don’t want to be anywhere near this place.”

I frowned. “Is he armed?”

“Probably a pistol,” Zeke said. “He didn’t waste much time with bigger things. Although I did see him with a chainsaw once. He carried it back through all the cell blocks like he’d won some prize. The thing was filthy.”

I loosened my pistol in its holster. If I ran across Shins, I would shoot first and check for the chainsaw later.

The door let out a thin squeal as I pushed it open wide enough to get through. My boots slid a little on a thin stream of liquid running down the center of the corridor. In the low light, the water looked brown. It might have been sewage, but I wasn’t going to get close enough to check. I kept to the side of the corridor, not touching the stained metal. Everything looked like it had been splashed with bodily fluids at some point in its history.

After a short hallway, I found a long corridor stretching to the left and right, with probably ten cells on either side of each hall. Some of the doors were closed, while others were half-open and dark. The light was haphazard, with shadows casting oblong shapes where it looked like furniture was being stored in the hall.

“Either way,” Zeke said in a low voice when he came up beside me. “Each cell is a ring, with the recreation area in the center. Where we are now, the guard station and exit is going to be on the opposite side of the ring. If the recreation area was open, I guess we could cut straight through, but if you get caught in there, there’s nowhere to run. No cover.”

I nodded and motioned toward the right, where the furniture in the hall would provide some cover. The floor was sticky in the main hallway. Puddles extended from under a few of the doors. I was about halfway to the corner when I heard the metal on metal sound again, followed by the sound of someone punching something solid and fleshy.

I waited for the sound to come again, but there was nothing, so I continued to the corner and waited as the others caught up with me.

Looking around the corner, I spotted a doorway toward the end with low light spilling from its half-open door. Shapes moved in front of the light, and the sounds started again. There was the sound of someone sucking in a sharp breath, followed by whispering.

Turning back to the others, I waved my pistol. “Get ready to fight.”

The second door I passed in the new hallway was open, and when I looked inside, the low light from the hall showed a body hanging on the wall with outstretched arms. The head hung to one side, eyes wide open and rotted. He was wearing a prisoner’s uniform. Zeke and his people looked away as they passed, and Yola let out a low curse.

She stared into the room for nearly a minute, then she blinked hard and hefted her machine gun, her scowl saying everything about the revenge she sought.

This hallway had nothing to provide cover except open rooms, and there were too many of us to get inside if someone came out. Focusing on this, I figured I wanted to get down to the room in use as soon as possible so I could get a sense of what we were dealing with.

I was kidding myself, though. When I hit that door, I was going to start shooting. My hand grew slick on my pistol grip in anticipation.

Five meters from the door, the low whimpering growing louder, I froze as the light shifted suddenly, covered by something. A huge man walked into the hallway. He was shirtless but wearing a heavy apron that was covered in stains and burn marks. His massive arms were covered in sweat. He had a rectangular face and dull eyes that actually flicked across me without seeing me at first. This had to be Shins.

I steadied my pistol with my free hand and fired into his chest. I hit him four times before he charged me, his thick hands reaching for my throat.

“No you don’t,” Yola grunted. She dropped to a knee beside me, angled ARNYE up toward the torturer, and poured fire into his body. The machine gun hit him inside the leg first, ripping through the apron, then jogged upward as Yola continued to squeeze the trigger. The big man’s chin exploded and Yola finally stopped firing, overheating warnings blinking on the body of her weapon.

Shins hit the wall and slid to the floor. Behind him, a smaller man peeked around the door then pulled back inside.

“Come out of there,” I said, easing toward the door. “Don’t make this worse for yourself than it needs to be.”

“I’m just an assistant,” a thin voice called out. The light shifted again, and then he came out slowly with his hands up. He looked at me, lower lip trembling. “I’m just doing what I was told to do. I never would have—”

Zeke’s hammered blade embedded itself in the man’s cheekbone, driving his head back. He slumped to the floor and fell on his back, staring at the ceiling.

Zeke walked past me to put his foot on the man’s chest and yank his blade free. He turned and looked into the open room. “Oh,” he said in a low voice, then he walked inside.

I came around the open door to find Zeke leaning over a naked man who was strapped to a bed frame. The man was bleeding from deep cuts all over his body, shaking from shock and pain. Several pipes that had been driven through his torso were holding him to the bed frame.

The man’s lips moved wordlessly, his eyes staring into a bright light in the ceiling.

Zeke touched his face almost tenderly, then he reached down with his knife and slit the man’s throat in a quick, gentle movement. The man took a deep breath, blood spurting from his neck, and his eyes seemed to focus on Zeke for a second before they glazed over as the remainder of his life flowed away.

“Sleep.” Zeke smoothed his hand over the man’s sweaty face to close his eyes, then he turned to find me watching. His voice was hoarse. “I did him a kindness.”

“I understand,” I told him.

Out in the corridor, Harry was digging through Shins’ pants. He pulled out an access card and handed it to me. “This will get us into any level we want. We still have the guards to deal with, but the locks won’t be a problem.”

I nodded to Yola. “Thanks.”

She was still breathing heavily. “I don’t feel any better.”

“You won’t,” Fratley said, nudging the giant with his boot. “That’s how revenge fails you.”

31

The guard station was a round room at the juncture of three corridors. Despite what Thom had promised, it was manned with three men in gray uniforms. One sat at a surveillance console while the other two leaned against the back wall, wasting time. I knelt in a maintenance doorway with Athron and Zeke. The spot gave us a good view of the station, but we’d be exposed the minute we tried to get any closer.

“Things have changed,” Zeke said, rubbing his chin. “This area used to be barely used. This was my last home before I got out. It’s the way I got out.”

“You were in solitary?” Athron asked.

“Yes,” Zeke answered. He didn’t elaborate.

“How often do they do guard patrol?” Athron asked.

“It used to be every fifteen minutes. These two haven’t gone out on rounds, so they’re either lazy or the protocol changed.”

Since we’d left the lower sections, Zeke had grown more alert and bright eyed. He seemed to come more alive the higher we’d climbed up stairways and ladders. When we finally reached the doorway to a cell block, he looked like a different man. He studied the walls and ceilings from where we knelt; these areas were lit with the same waist-high lights that never seemed to be bright enough. The design was starting to feel like it was meant to make people a little tired and crazy.

I didn’t see any way to get into the guard station without being seen. “You think we should try to get one of them to come down here?”

Athron considered the idea. “We could. Let’s wait a little bit more.”

Five minutes later, another guard walked up from the hallway and started talking with the others in the station. The situation was actually getting worse. All they wanted to do was complain about the Warden, though others seemed terrified of the man.

“There were stories about him dumping the atmosphere in whole levels,” Zeke said. “None of them like him, including the guards. I guess there’s a reason he’s still in charge.”

“That’s all we need,” I said. All the more reason to get this done without any alarms.

I glanced at Zeke’s belt where a piece of hammered metal hung. “We need a distraction. Why don’t you toss that thing down the hallway?”

“It’s my only weapon,” he said. “But worse, they’ll activate the alarm. The guard at the station never leaves. The other three would come down here, we’d have to fight them, and then the remaining one would sound for help.”

“What do you suggest then?” I asked.

“We could rush them.”

“We can’t get there fast enough,” I said.

Yola came up behind us and surveilled the guard shack. “What’s the plan?” she asked.

I explained the situation and she nodded as she watched the guards. A laugh broke out from the doorway. “We get an alarm now, we’ll bring the whole station down on us. But we’re going to have to fight sometime, and we don’t know where to go. Until we know that, this whole operation is going to be slow going.”

“Hold on,” I said, getting another look at the wall across the corridor. It was lined with the same stacked pipes we’d seen down in the hydroponics level. “You know what’s in those?” I asked Zeke.

“Steam heating,” he said. “They use pressurized steam from the lower rectification areas for temperature and some water storage. It’s a way to always have water in the station. There are heating points on each level near storage tanks.”

“I think that’s our distraction.” I pulled the cutting torch off my harness and reached around the edge of our alcove to hold the top against one of the steam pipes. The torch lit, took a second to super-heat, and then sank into the side of the pipe. Steam hissed and sprayed as I yanked the torch free, covering the corridor in a wall of steam.

I lowered my head to get a look at the guard station. Two of the guards were walking toward the break, and then the third followed.

“Get ready,” I said, drawing my pistol. “Here we go.”

Without waiting for them to reach us, I slid out of the alcove and fired through the steam. Athron and Yola followed, and the three guards went down. After moving to the far side of the corridor, I jumped through the haze and ran for the guard shack. The guard turned to me in surprise as I entered the doorway and shot him in the chest. He fell across the workstation and his arms went wide.

I shoved him out of the way and studied the console. He hadn’t activated any alarms that I could see. Each display showed a corridor full of closed cell doors, as well as an empty recreation room with a track painted on its floor. Surveillance covered a main lift out of the level and two stairwells.

Athron and Yola entered the guard shack. “Any more guards?” Athron asked.

“Haven’t seen any yet.”

At the back of the room, Zeke opened a cabinet to find a rack of pistols and shock batons. He ran his hand along the weapons like he’d never touched anything so fine.

I watched him, still holding my pistol. He looked back at me and must have caught my tight expression, because he nodded. “Should we arm ourselves?”

Athron looked at me. “I think that’s a good idea. We’re going to need all the guns we can get. Anything bigger than a pistol in there?”

Another cabinet held shotguns and slings full of shells. Zeke chose a pistol and shotgun, then he draped the ammo bags over his shoulder. When the other arrived, he handed out weapons with an unending grin.

Yola took the seat at the terminal and pulled the Union data stick we’d won from Naro from her pocket. She inserted it in an input slot and went to work on the control systems. The tip of her tongue stuck out from her lips as she worked.

I tapped my earbud. “Arla, you still got us?”

“Affirmative, Deputy Walker. Have you been receiving my map updates?”

“Yes, I have. Thank you. We may have the whole map here soon.”

“I do need to inform you that three ships recently left the slip gate and appear to be headed for the prison.”

“You hear that?” I asked Fratley. “The station has inbound ships.”

“Could be normal,” he said.

“I will continue to monitor,” Arla said. “I cannot tell where they may dock yet, but if they deviate from the upper admin docking ring, I will inform you immediately.”

“She’s way better than Ellie, isn’t she?” Fratley asked.

“Why would you even ask me that question?”

“Because she’s better.” Fratley grinned, then he turned to inspect the weapons cabinet and selected a bandolier of riot grenades.

“I’m in their system,” Yola said, staring intently at the display. “Sending Arla the mapping data now. After that I’m going for their security systems and the manifest. Anything else you want?”

A banging sound came from down the hall and I drew my pistol again. “What’s that?”

Fratley was still in the corridor. “Looks like their boy Kelly is banging on the cell doors.”

I looked at Zeke. “Stop him.”

The ex-prisoner gazed calmly back at me and nodded. I pulled one of the pistols from the cabinet, checked its magazine, and walked out of the guard station. I stepped away from Yola to watch him as he approached Kelly, who was laughing at whoever was inside the cell in front of him. Zeke didn’t say anything as he raised his pistol and shot the other prisoner in the side of the head.

“Godsdammit,” Fratley grunted. “Did you tell him to do that?”

Still moving deliberately, Zeke knelt beside the dead prisoner and removed the pistol that was shoved in his belt. He walked back to the guard station and replaced the weapon in the cabinet.

“I apologize for that,” Zeke said. “He was never getting out of here anyway.”

In the corridor, Harry, Thom, and Ash looked between each other but said nothing.

Zeke turned to face them. “You three, get uniforms off the dead guards. We need to get out of these rags.”

Ash frowned slightly. “Since when are you in charge, Zeke? You think all you have to do is kill Kelly? You’ve hated him for years.”

Zeke was still holding his pistol. He didn’t raise it, but he shifted his stance slightly. “You want to talk about it, Ash?”

The other man faced him, clenching his fists for a tense few seconds.

“Fine,” Ash said. “You be in charge. See if that gets you out of here alive. Doesn’t mean I have to listen to you.”

“You do what you need to,” Zeke said. The other prisoners fell to stripping the guards of the uniforms. Zeke dragged the guard I’d shot into the corridor and went to work on his gear.

“That was exciting,” Athron said, keeping his voice low. “I was wondering how long it would take them to start turning on each other.”

My HUD updated with a new map of the station. This one was much more detailed, requiring focus on specific levels to make sense of what I was seeing. As I looked around the guard station, different displays were marked with their camera locations. The display on the far side of the room was for communications.

“I found him,” Yola said. “He’s on level eighteen below the admin section. There’s a secondary checkpoint between our area and the upper sections. We can take the lift off this level, but we have to pass through that checkpoint to reach Lance’s cell. Looks like there are a lot of officers assigned there.”

I nodded, studying her display. “The sooner we get this done, the better.”

I went to the cabinet and grabbed one of the shotguns and four of the ammo bandoliers. Kiren, Athron, and Fratley had all done the same.

I looked at Fratley. “I think it’s time we had Arla detach and move into position to dock at the upper ring when we need her.”

“You sure you don’t want to tell her?” he asked.

“You’re the captain.”

32

Ten meters ahead of me, Zeke and Harry walked toward the checkpoint with their shotguns held across their chests. A set of heavy blast doors stood beside the guard station, blocking our access into the next cell block. A guard in the same gray uniform walked out of the entryway and nodded at them, calling, “What’s going on? Why are you guys carrying the extra hardware?”

Zeke shot him in the chest and the guard flew backward. Harry was supposed to move immediately to the office, but he froze, staring as the dead man hit the floor.

“Let’s go,” I said, leaving the stairwell. I reached the office as Zeke shot the guard at the workstation in the back. He continued to move with cool efficiency as he checked the displays, then he pointed at two camera views. “Looks like the patrol is on the other side of the cell block. I’ll go.”

Yola entered the office and went to the computer.

“I’ll go with you,” I told Zeke. “Come on.”

Together, we walked quickly down a long corridor lined with cell blocks. None of these doors had windows, only serial numbers. A few prisoners must have heard the gunshots because they yelled and kicked their doors and walls. Zeke ignored them.

I rounded the corner at the end of the hall with Zeke just behind me, and we surprised the guards on patrol. The nearest guard spotted me not in any kind of uniform and frowned.

An alarm sounded in the ceiling and the guards froze.

I looked at Zeke. “What is that?”

“Cell block release,” he replied.

“Did Yola do it?”

The closest guard drew his pistol, forcing me to return fire. He slid against the wall as a door next to him opened. A hulking prisoner grabbed him from behind and bit his ear.

“Run!” I shouted, turning to sprint back for the checkpoint. Behind me, Zeke struggled out of his guard’s uniform to run shirtless.

When we reached the guard shack, Yola was standing over the console cursing the display.

“What happened?” I asked, looking from her to Athron.

“Nothing,” the hacker said. “I didn’t do anything. I was checking the protocol on the inner blast door we have to get through, when all of a sudden that alarm goes off. As far as I can tell, the activation came from outside the local network.”

“They know we’re here?” Kiren said.

Yola yanked her data stick from the console’s input slot. “They know something’s going on.”

“Things are getting wild out here, Walker,” Fratley called from the corridor outside.

“We need to get to the lift before more guards show up. Do you have Lance’s location?”

“I do,” Yola said. “But we have to get through those doors.”

“So open them,” I instructed her

“We don’t know what’s on the other side,” she said.

Ash yelled as two prisoners threw him on the ground, and Harry fired into a group as he tried to get his shirt off.

“It can only be slightly worse than what’s in here,” I said.

Yola looked at the chaos in the hallway and nodded. She slapped a release on the console.

A deeper alarm sounded outside the office, and the massive door leading into the next section of cell blocks slid open. The doors had opened about a half a meter when a hail of bullets filled the gap, cutting down three prisoners who were running for the opening.

After grabbing my bandolier of riot grenades, I left the office and ducked a prisoner who immediately swung at my head. Fratley swung his cane into the man’s head as I slipped around the office to where the blast doors were nearly open now. From my position, I could see more cell doors in a configuration that looked like it mirrored outside. That meant whoever was shooting had to be just inside the doors.

I yanked the pin from a grenade, then I tossed it against the far wall to get a bounce. The projectile hit the wall and rolled backward, out of sight. There was a popping sound and then smoke filled the opening. I sent another grenade through the opening.

“Walker!” Athron yelled. He tossed me a riot mask with a breathing canister. I pulled off my glasses and made sure they were safe in a cargo pocket before pulling the mask over my head and sealing it. Drawing my pistol, I kept low and worked my way toward the opening.

The smoke was thick on the far side, making it hard to tell exactly how many of the coughing guards were still in action. Someone slapped my shoulder, and I glanced back to find Yola wearing a mask and carrying her machine gun.

She motioned toward the other side. “Let’s get through there and close the doors,” she shouted.

I nodded.

Firing as I ran, I kicked a guard over and stayed in the thicker sections of smoke. Zeke appeared beside us, clearing the way with his shotgun, followed by Athron and Kiren. Harry and Thom came last.

Several guards had fallen back to a doorway that looked like it opened into a recreation area. I kept their heads down with pistol fire as the others cleared the office and Yola worked on the door.

A group of prisoners rushed the gap, splitting the guard’s fire. One of them went after Thom, who was still wearing his uniform. Athron butt-stroked him with his shotgun and pushed Thom inside the office.

The blast door vibrated and started sliding closed.

“I don’t know who it is,” one of the guards shouted into a comms piece. “They’re wearing our uniforms.”

“Sounds like word’s getting out,” I said, looking back at Yola.

Fratley hit another prisoner with his cane. “I have a wild idea, Walker. As much as I dislike these convicts, I think I dislike the guards more. They’re certainly better armed.”

Adding prisoners to the mix created a useful amount of chaos, as long they didn’t find weapons of their own. It would only be a matter of time before that happened.

“Yola,” I said. “Can you time the release of the cell blocks?”

“I can try,” she replied. “I think I figured out what released the doors in here. I set off a fire system when I opened the blast doors. I hope that’s it anyway.”

“Once we get Lance, we can dump all the prisoners,” Athron said. “It doesn’t matter at that point.”

“It matters if they stop us from reaching the upper docking ring,” I said.

“I think we should do it,” Zeke added. “They’ll overwhelm the guards. Most will be confused. Only a few are truly dangerous.”

I had been wondering for a while if Zeke was one of those few.

“Do your best,” I told Yola.

She nodded and turned back to the console. More alarms echoed down the new cell block, and the doors slid open.

With the tear gas dissipated, I pulled off my mask and clipped it to my harness, then I slipped my glasses back on. The HUD updated with the new block’s schematic, including the lift on the far side.

“This way,” I said. “Let’s go get what we came for.”

33

I jogged down the cell block, counting doors. Behind me, the sounds of shouting and gunfire pierced a wall of tear gas. Yola had already started the unlock sequence, so there was no telling how many seconds I had before every door in the block opened around me.

The door I wanted slid past, and I had to turn and run back. I tapped my ear bud. “I found it, Yola. Open the door.”

“Got it, Walker,” she answered. “Sending the command.”

The door slid open on a narrow room with a bunk along one side and a toilet on the other. The only other piece of furniture was a metal bench across from the bed. A thin man with brown hair sat on the bed, his hands between his knees. He looked up at me with a resolute expression that turned to confusion when he saw I wasn’t a guard.

“Rafferty Lance?” I said. I recognized him instantly from the profile, though he’d probably lost thirty pounds. He hadn’t been a big man to begin with. There was also the unmistakable bit of his daughter in his face.

“Who are you?” He looked past me to the hallway like he expected trouble.

“My name is Deputy Gage Walker with the Taurus Station Sheriff’s Office. I’m here to get you out of here.”

He barked out a hard laugh. “Is this a joke? Nobody’s coming for me.”

“I am,” I said. “And you need to get on your feet and get out here, or I’m going to knock you out and carry you over my shoulder.”

He shook his head. “If you’re from Taurus, then you know I’m here to keep my family safe. I don’t care what they do to me, but I’m not letting them hurt my wife and daughter.”

“We have them in protective custody,” I said. “I can show you the pictures once we’re back on the ship. Since I’ve found you, though, I need the key to your data store. The evidence you’ve got on the Carmichaels.”

Lance stared at me. “You did see Sandra. They’re all right? When did you see them?”

“Just a few days ago. They’re fine. Cari still has her Stuffy doll that I guess you gave her.”

A look of tortured joy came over the man’s face. For a second, I thought he was going to collapse. Lance swallowed hard, nodding to himself. “You’re actually here.”

“I’ve talked to many more people than just Sandra, Mr. Lance, and they’re all focused on taking down the Carmichaels. Like I said, I came here for a reason. But in case we don’t make it, I need your security key.”

“My key?”

“Your wife gave me the data you took from the Carmichaels. The evidence of their crimes against the station and their ties to crime in the Deadlands.”

“I guess she trusted you then,” he said. “All right. I’m going to have to as well. At this point, I thought it wasn’t going to matter anymore. I’d wasted my life and put my family in danger. All for trying to do the right thing.”

“Your sacrifice isn’t going to be for nothing,” I said. “That’s why we’re here.”

He nodded. “I have it memorized. Can you relay it?”

I tapped my earbud. “Arla, you hear me?”

“I’m here, Deputy Walker.”

“I’m going to send you some numbers. I need you to link them back to Ellie on Taurus for Lieutenant Bird. Can you do that?”

“The time lag will make transmission lengthy, but I’m happy to—”

“I’m aware of that, Arla. Are you ready?”

“As soon as you are.”

Lance recited a string of letters and numbers two times, and I relayed them to Arla.”

Arla confirmed the string and did as I asked. Before she could say the transmission sent, an alarm rang from the ceiling.

“That’s our bell,” I said. “Let’s go.”

Lance thought for another second, then he stood and nodded. “Lead the way.”

The bell stopped ringing and the other doors down the cell block ground open. “Aw, shit,” I said. “Run.”

A prisoner sprinted out of his room, trying to tackle me as I passed. I ducked and fired on him, earning a pained grunt. I turned and grabbed Lance as he stumbled over the collapsed prisoner and kept running. Prisoners were fighting in the corridor, trying to get their bearings, or ganging up on the few guards caught in the recreation area. While heading down the main corridor, we hit the thinning wall of tear gas without masks. My nose immediately filled with mucus, and Lance gagged behind me. I felt like I’d swallowed pepper, but I gritted my teeth and pulled the data tech after me.

We emerged from the smoke into a firefight between Zeke’s remaining prisoners and four guards who had taken cover behind a kicked-over table in the hallway. Ash lay against the wall, firing on the guards without hope of hitting anything. He’d lost a lot of blood and looked like he was going to pass out any second. Thom had been shot in the gut and was holding his stomach as he grimaced and fired. It looked like only Zeke and Harry were going to be able to leave with us.

“Walker,” Athron shouted, waving to me from the guard’s office. He fired on someone behind me then grinned when he spotted Lance emerging from the smoke. “You got our boy. Rafferty Lance is alive.”

“Is that him?” Fratley asked, swinging his cane at a wild prisoner’s knees like a golf club. The man collapsed, shrieking. “He doesn’t look like much.”

“He looks beautiful,” Athron said. “We’ve been looking for you, Mr. Lance. I’m Detective Larry Athron.” He ducked as a guard came out of the smoke, firing a shotgun.

“Larry!” I shouted. “Duck!” I fired on the guard and pushed Lance behind me. The guard stumbled back, struggling as the shotgun jammed, and then Kiren shot him from inside the office.

“Can we get the hell out of here now?” Yola called from her seat at the terminal.

“We got what we came for,” I said.

“I’m opening the main doors on the other end of the cell block,” Yola said. “The prisoners can get out that way too, but I locked down the lift. We’ll take it up to the next level. From there we can enter the admin section directly and get out to the docking ring.”

Her path updated in my HUD. It looked like the most direct way out of our current position, although the lift was going to be a choke point. “Did you release the prisoners on the level above us?” I asked.

“Hell, yes I did.” Yola grinned. “I released everything.”

34

The lift doors opened on a mass battle scene. Smoke drifted across the corridor in front of us, and Kregg’s voice boomed from overhead speakers.

“You have been so close to redemption you could touch it with your outstretched fingers. The Void knows your name, you who struggle in the mud and the filth. The Void welcomes you with space, with the promise of a thousand years of human memory. Those of you who smash your heads against the promise of freedom will only find darkness when your story ends. I pity you.”

Yola activated her machine gun and held it against her hip. “I want to find this Kregg jerk and cut him in half. That’s going to be my gift to the Void.”

“I’ll be right there with you,” Fratley said. “I’ll do it for your brother.”

“Thank you,” Yola said.

A guard came around the side of the doorway and realized we were standing in the lift. His mouth dropped open and he raised his shotgun, just in time for Kiren to empty her pistol in his chest. The guard staggered against a wall and slid to the ground. She reloaded and nodded to let me know she was ready.

“We have more adversaries!” Kregg boomed. “They have arrived in the main lift. Everyone go and wish them a warm welcome to the sanctum of Kopta.”

A tear gas grenade rolled across the main corridor, spewing smoke, followed by a horde of prisoners and guards who seemed immune to it.

I wasn’t aware of my friends or anyone else in the prison as we were in a constant state of combat. I shot prisoners in the face, their heads exploding, and turned to find guards swinging shock batons at my face. I managed to keep sight of Kiren for a while, then I lost her to find Fratley, then Athron. Wave upon wave of crazed men using whatever weapons they could find charged at us.

Yola reached the guard shack and worked on the terminal. I stood in the doorway, fighting off combatants as the warden urged them on. The fight became unreal after a while. I grabbed ARNYE and fired hot steel needles into the onslaught of Kregg’s people until the machine gun chirped in defiance and wound down, it’s muzzle smoking like a cigar.

“In the midst of passion,” Kregg said, his voice so loud in the speakers that it lost definition. “All must assess their focus in life. Why do you fight? For yourself, or for the promise of a greater world?”

The hoarse, warm quality of Kregg’s voice had a way of building confidence even when you knew he was the enemy. I wanted to tell him why I believed in a better future and argue with him about his judgments.

Except he didn’t know what he was talking about. Kopta was isolated, evil, a microcosm of terrible people caught in a rotten nest of mutual exploitation. I was a Sheriff’s Deputy. I served justice.

“Come on,” I said, leading the way out of the lift. The sounds of fighting were strongest to my left, past the guard’s office. Someone had stacked a bunch of tables up and guards were hiding behind them. It looked like they were only armed with shock batons, while the prisoners were using pistols and shotguns. Several guards tossed tear gas grenades over the barrier, but the smoke didn’t seem to do anything to lessen the gun fire.

I wasn’t going to shoot anybody from behind if I didn’t have to. At a distance of about three meters, I shouted. “Hey, the lift is open. Get the hell out of here.”

The nearest guard turned to look at me, his eyes widening in fear. “Who are you?”

“It doesn’t matter who we are,” I said. “Get out of our way. We’re headed for the admin docking ring. Which way?”

He pointed toward a doorway on the other side of where the prisoners were shooting. “It’s through that checkpoint. There aren’t any ships though. There’s no way off the station. Kregg makes sure of that.”

“I’ll worry about that later.” I pulled a grenade off my harness, flicked the pin away, and cooked it for three seconds before sending the projectile into the area behind the prisoners. The grenade hit the far wall and bounced back, exploding. Dust shook from the walls and the guards hit the ground. Someone shouted in the dust cloud, then a wave of prisoners charged toward us. I tossed another grenade as I slid behind the barrier, shoving a guard out of the way, then raised my rifle to start choosing targets.

The others took cover and fired as well. Three prisoners managed to hit the pile of tables, collapsing it in a mess of bodies and bent metal. A huge prisoner with a lazy eye wrapped his hands around my throat and pinned the rifle down with this elbow. I got my legs under me and rolled, driving the prisoner’s meaty hands apart enough to headbutt him in the nose. Blood splattered, covering my glasses as I pulled away enough to land a fist in his smashed nose. The prisoner howled in pain as I broke free of him, pulled my pistol, and fired as I stepped away. Another man ran at me, and I fired on him until he fell.

Behind me, I heard Lance shout in pain, and I turned to find two guards kicking him as he rolled on the floor. I shot both of them, then I moved that direction, keeping a look out for more bodies hurtling out of the smoke and tear gas.

Leaning down to help Lance to his feet, I acknowledged his thanks and shoved a pistol in his hands. “Did you lose your weapon?”

He looked around, holding the side of his head. “I don’t know. One minute I had it, then it was gone.”

I took a second to wipe my glasses down, then I checked my HUD. The map showed the checkpoint on the other side of the room leading to the admin area, just as the guard had said. There were still at least twenty prisoners between our location and the doors out, all them fighting each other or a few unlucky guards who hadn’t managed to run.

Above it all, Kregg’s damn voice continued to rant and preach.

Coming up on my left, Fratley shot a guard leveling his shotgun at Kiren, then he waved his cane with his other hand. “We getting out of here, Walker?”

“Looks like the door is mostly clear. Let’s go.” I kept Lance close as I worked my way toward the checkpoint. Something was burning in the recreation area, where it looked like prisoners were stacking mattresses and bedding into a pile.

“They’re going to overwhelm the atmospheric controls,” Lance said.

“Everyone should calm themselves.” Kregg’s voice was almost fatherly. “Soon, all pain will end. Everyone will find their ultimate peace.”

“We need to get the hell out of here,” I told Athron and Fratley, who were coming up behind us. “He sounds like he’s going to dump the atmosphere.”

“Fereen all over again,” Kiren said, not dropping her pistol as she brought up the rear.

I looked back at Yola. “Can he do that from the admin section?”

“The station has integrated controls. He should be able to do it from anywhere if he knows how. I haven’t seen anybody here but guards and prisoners. I don’t know who’s actually maintaining the place.”

We reached the checkpoint and I slammed the release panel. Nothing happened.

Yola pushed her way to the door and pulled out a data pad. “Let me take a look.”

Zeke Harry, and Thom appeared from the corridor leading back to the recreation room. “We’re going to have a whole lot of smoke in here soon,” Zeke said. “Idiots are setting everything on fire that will burn. They’re throwing wounded on the pile too. It’s a nightmare.”

Harry only nodded, looking horrified.

“They’ve activated a station-wide lockdown protocol,” Yola said, biting her lip. “I can’t do anything from this terminal. I’m not showing any other ways out of the level.”

“There’s the lift back down,” Athron suggested.

Yola shook her head. “Nothing will move now. I don’t see any stairwells or maintenance paths off this level. It seems to be some kind of final barrier between the prison sections and the admin area.”

“Wait.” Zeke grabbed the keycard we’d pulled from Shins’ body. “Try this.”

I took the card and swiped it across the security panel. The door didn’t move.

Fratley cursed. “We’re going to have to cut a hole in the wall. Worst comes to worst, I’ll have Arla blow a hole in the side of this damn station.”

“We’ll die in the vacuum,” Harry pointed.

“I’ll hold my breath until my ship picks me up,” Fratley said.

“That’s just ridiculous. You can’t survive without the proper gear.”

“I’ll be damned if I’m dying here,” the Renegade said.

Still staring at her data pad, Yola grinned. “You just gave me admin rights in their system. It didn’t trigger the local door, but give me a second here.” She manipulated her pad then looked up at the door.

The lock vibrated and clicked open, then the heavy blast doors slid apart.

“You’re the best,” I told Yola. “You even killed Shins for us.”

“I did, didn’t I? Go me.”

I laughed and waved them through. A stairwell waited on the other side of the door, and the new opening was already pulling smoke from the recreation room in our direction. Zeke coughed and rushed through the doorway.

When I was through, I activated the lock on the other side. The door slid closed just as a group of four prisoners noticed the movement and turned to run our direction.

Fratley shot two of them before the doors slid closed and sealed, locking them all inside.

35

The hatch off the stairwell opened into a wide cargo area with berths for small shuttles and freight movers. Unlike Kopta’s lower levels, this area was lit by bright white lights at regular intervals in the ceiling.

A large shuttle stood in the middle of the bay, its engines still throwing off heat that warped the air.

I groaned. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. That’s who the three ships were.”

A familiar face stood with the group in black tactical gear. It was Collin, and the first thing I wanted to do was shoot him. Facing away from us was a thin man with white hair, and there were gray-uniformed guards on either side of him. That had to be Kregg.

A line of cargo crates separated us from the main bay. They didn’t seem to have heard the hatch sliding open, which gave me time to raise my rifle and sight in on Collin’s face. I watched him talk to the other man for a second, then he nodded, crossed his arms, and laughed. My crosshairs floated over his left eye.

“Everyone get down,” I said. “I’m about to make our day a bit brighter.”

“Shoot Kregg,” Zeke urged in a low voice. “Now’s our chance. We shoot him and the rest will drop their arms.”

Shifting to the back of Kregg’s head would just take a slight movement. He would never know what hit him. Even at this distance, his voice was impossible to mistake. Collin nodded as the Warden spoke.

I squeezed my trigger. The rifle’s retort echoed in the cargo bay, and everyone in the middle of the space turned to look at where the shot had come from.

Kregg slid to the side. The guards on either side of him stood frozen until Collin rushed forward to help the fallen man. As Kregg rolled away from Collin, his face showed a bloody exit wound.

Collin’s mercs moved quickly, forming a defensive perimeter with their rifles up. The prison guards got control of themselves and fell in alongside.

“No point in waiting,” I said. “Open up.”

Fratley and Athron opened fire on the group in the middle of the bay as Yola and Kiren moved to flank. I fired on Collin then dropped my pistol for a second to yank a grenade from my harness. I’d only have one left after this. I pulled the pin and tossed it to bounce off the shuttle and roll into the group. Beside me, Athron waited a few seconds to see which way the group would scatter, then he tossed a grenade of his own.

Collin gestured at this team as they started falling back toward the shuttle.

“They’re running, Walker,” Fratley said. “I can have Arla take them out once they clear the airlock.”

“Disable the shuttle,” I said. “Don’t kill them.”

The Renegade grinned. “I don’t know that Arla can be quite so accurate. Cannons are big weapons. Hulls get punctured.”

“Just do it,” I said. “Collin is set on killing us, that seems pretty plain at this point. I want him as proof when we get back to Taurus.”

I almost said that I wanted to hand him over to Black and caught myself. I glanced at Athron and he seemed to see where I’d been going with the conversation.”

“Fine then,” Fratley said. “I’ll ask her to be careful, but I’m not making any guarantees.”

“We need to get those guards,” Zeke said, pointing at a hatch on the far side of the cargo bay where Kregg’s people had run. “If they get into the admin section, they could shut us out of the cargo airlock and your ship won’t be able to pick us up. We’ll be the one’s trapped, not your friend Collin.”

“Oh, we’re not friends,” Kiren said.

Collin’s shuttle lifted off its berth and backed out the main airlock. I tapped my earbud and raised Arla. “Keep us posted on that shuttle’s status once you disable it.”

“Executing command now, Deputy Walker.”

Arla gave me a feed from the Iron Scabbard’s holo display, and I could see the exterior hull of the bay where we were standing. The massive airlock had just closed as the shuttle rotated to move away from the station. Without raising the cloak, Arla brought the Iron Scabbard within range and fired across the shuttle’s engines. Collin’s ship spun from the impact, managed to right itself, then continued floating away from the station as its main engine failed to operate.

“Mission successful, Captain,” Arla reported. “However, it appears the ship Mr. Charles used to arrive at Kopta is moving to intercept their shuttle.”

“Take them out,” I ordered.

“I understand, Deputy Walker. Captain, do you concur?”

“Stop ordering my Arla around, Walker,” Fratley growled. “Yes, I do. With prejudice.”

“With prejudice, Captain.”

As I watched Arla fire on Collin’s ship, Zeke Harry, and Athron advanced on the hatch on the far side of the bay. The four guards there put up a strong resistance until Athron landed a grenade behind their position.

“We’re clear, Walker,” Athron reported. “Let’s get out of this bay.”

“I think you’re going to want Kopta’s main database,” Yola said, walking up beside me. “Based on the stuff you grabbed from Rivas, there could be even more here. And this place isn’t trying to hide anything.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” I told her. “What do you need to make the copy?”

“We’ll need to use Arla’s stores on the Iron Scabbard. Once we find the main server area, I can set up the transfer.”

We reached the hatch and took a lift on the other side to the station’s admin level. Zeke and Harry looked around nervously as the doors opened on Kregg’s a wood-paneled corridor that marked the entrance to his inner domain. I stepped into the hallway, pistol raised, when overhead speakers boomed with the warden’s gravelly voice.

“Everything you think you’ve won has been a failure. The future you believe you will find is another prison. The only path to freedom is through me.”

I looked at Zeke. “Have we been listening to recordings this whole time?”

Zeke looked around like he expected Kregg to appear at any moment. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. He never says the same thing twice if it isn’t one of the standard messages. Not exactly.”

“An AI could do that,” Yola said.

Harry shook his head. “We should have checked his body. I was too focused on the guards. They drew us away on purpose. They didn’t want us to see that it wasn’t him.”

“I thought you said that was Kregg,” I said. “Haven’t you seen him?”

Zeke shook his head. “Never in person. Only holo-displays and his voice.”

The same holo-display we’d seen when we arrived in the system.

“I suppose we’ll find out then.” I tapped my earbud, then I got a map update from Arla and studied our location. We were on the outer edge of a complex of small suites. Without markings on the walls or the map, it was impossible to know which way to go. “Which would you estimate is the server room?” I asked the AI.

She highlighted a space in the center of the maze. “I would estimate this room is the server location, based on the number of network connections feeding there. This space here appears to be the most luxurious room in the station. There are a large number of valuable objects and furniture.”

“Server first,” I said. “Then we find Kregg. Unless he’s sitting on security drones, he can’t hurt us with crazy talk,”

Based on the expressions on Zeke and Harry’s faces, I might have been wrong about that. Lance looked determined and nodded agreement.

“I can help you with the database if you need it,” he told Yola.

“Aren’t you sweet,” the hacker said.

“Stay sharp.” I didn’t like the quiet once Kregg’s voice stopped broadcasting. The place sounded more like a tomb than an administrative level. There was still no telling what guards or other employees we might find. I waved for the others to follow me.

“Let’s go.”

36

While the admin area might have been designed to house hundreds of workers, it was empty. The bodies of several gray-uniformed guards slumped in corners, dead from gunshot wounds and other mortal injuries. We were prepared to find a group of prisoners around any corner we turned, but we were met by more silence and empty work areas.

I avoided the path to the leadership suite and focused on the server room. Once we had the prison data, we could call Arla back to the main airlock in the level below and get the hell out of here.

“Here we go,” Yola said as we entered the server room. The wide space was lined with work consoles and several pillar-like storage racks full of blinking lights. She and Lance went immediately to one of the terminals and started working on the system.

Zeke looked at me with the same worry in his eyes. “It would be smarter to leave.”

“We’re going to get what we came here for, and then we’re out,” I said. “If it makes you feel better to keep moving, clear some of the rooms around this one.”

The convict nodded woodenly and grabbed Harry. The two of them left the room with their pistols ready.

“You trust those two to go off on their own?” Fratley asked.

Athron shrugged. “What are they going to do? Get themselves killed? We need to start wondering what to do with them once we get off this hellhole.”

“Isn’t that up to you, Detective?” the Renegade said. “You’re the one who makes decisions about justice, right?”

“We have no idea why any of them are here, what crimes they committed, or whether they’ve served their time,” Athron said. “This place is a mess. Either way, our mission is more important than a few cons. A friend of mine used to say we had to think of things in terms of the greater good.”

Yola sat up from her terminal. “I can tell you why Zeke is here. He was governor of a planet called Junos. Looks like he was overthrown and disappeared to our present location.”

Fratley chuckled. “I thought that man looked like a dictator. The further we got from his hole, the more he became himself, I wager. So what do we do with them then? I’m not taking on boarders on the Iron Scabbard.”

“We’ll get them back to Taurus and decide from there,” Athron said. “Same as your refugees from Rivas. This isn’t the first time we’ve found people out in the Deadlands who needed help.”

“That’s if the Sheriff’s Office continues to exist,” Lance said.

Athron gave him a sideways glance. “What’s that?”

“The Brothers don’t want you running things anymore. Isn’t that obvious? They’ve been trying to discredit or kill Nagel for years. Discreetly, of course.”

“And they’ve failed,” I said.

Lance looked defeated. “That’s part of why I’m here. The price my family paid. The price they keep paying. I thought I was going to bring all this to light, and I learned my lesson. You stick your neck out and somebody stronger than you is always ready to cut your head off.”

“Wah, wah,” Yola said. “Why don’t you focus on this transfer protocol?”

“You don’t have a family, do you?” Lance asked.

“Family’s a liability I don’t need,” the hacker said. “Besides, I do better when I focus on the problem in front of me, not the problem from a year ago that I already messed up. I can’t change that problem.”

The data analyst looked at her for a second then nodded. He put his hands on the keyboard and started working.

“I hate to say it, but if all the Ghosts are like her, we’re going to have to figure out how to hire them.”

“They’re not,” Fratley said. “Trust me on that one.”

Kiren had been sitting at one of the consoles checking the local network. She straightened and pointed at the display. “Do you see the security alert?”

“What’s that?” Yola asked. “There’s no alert, I would have seen it right—”

The hacker cut herself off and leaned toward the display in front of her. “Someone’s readying every level for a mass atmosphere purge.”

“What about this one?” I crossed the room to look over Kiren’s shoulder. The alert warned all staff to find personal safety equipment due to an imminent atmospheric failure.

“It looks like the whole station,” Yola said. “Crap. Crap, why didn’t this come up before?”

“We disabled the security notifications on your terminal,” Lance replied.

I tapped my earbud. “Arla, can you locate any lockers with EV suits on this level?”

“Searching, Deputy Walker. My response times will be slightly slowed due to the data transfer taking place. My computational power is reduced.” She paused then raised the level map in my HUD and highlighted a section of wall on the opposite side of the level. It was just off the luxury suite she’d located earlier.

“I apologize,” Arla said. “I do not have a count on the number of EV suits available, or their maintenance status. However, there does appear to be a ship docked off the secondary air lock.”

“A ship?” Yola said. “There’s no info about that on the network.”

“Based on my scan of the hull, Ms. Deris, it appears to be obscured within a false housing. The vessel appears to be slightly larger than the Iron Scabbard and of the same long-range design. I am unable to assess slip capability at this time, but mass signature suggests a large engine section.

“Who needs EV suits when we can take a ship out of here?” Fratley rubbed his hands together.

“We’ll need them if we don’t get there in time,” I said. “Do we have some kind of countdown on the purge?”

“Twenty-two minutes.” Kiren pointed at the top of her display.

I turned to Yola. “How much longer on the data transfer?”

“At least twenty minutes,” she said. “We’re talking about decades of data, including surveillance video. I don’t even know what half this stuff is. They haven’t bothered to encrypt or compress it. Probably thought nobody would ever come here to shine a light on their little spider hole.”

I looked at Athron. “All right. Sergeant, what do you think about staying here with these two as security, while Fratley and Kiren and me get Zeke and Harry and go secure the ship? We can keep talking through Arla. If for some reason the ship isn’t going to do us any good, we’ll grab suits and get back over here, then head down to the cargo bay.”

Athron patted the pistol at his waste then counted his three grenades. “Sounds like the best plan we’ve got.”

“You get to stay here,” Fratley said. “Sounds all right for you.”

“I’m the one about to retire,” Athron said. “I’m twice as likely to get killed as the rest of you, don’t forget.” He grinned.

“I don’t think you’re worried in the slightest.” The Renegade grabbed his cane. “I’m going to poke a hole in your suit just to teach you a lesson.”

“Come on,” I said. “We can debate who was lazier when we’re all out of here.”

I entered the doorway to leave when the sound of something crashing several rooms away vibrated the walls. We froze, waiting, as another crash followed the first, and then came the sound of heavy gunfire, something like a repeater shotgun.

“Sounds like Zeke and Harry found some trouble,” Fratley said. “We could wait a minute so they can sort it out.”

“That’s not happening,” I said. “Come on.”

37

Harry lay in a pile against a broken wall. Across from him, a hole in the hallway opened into another set of rooms that looked like they’d been smashed as well.

I slid in next to the convict and lifted his head to check his neck for a pulse. “Harry, can you hear me?”

His eyes fluttered and he focused on me for a second before they rolled back in his head. He was unconscious.

Gunfire and the sounds of grinding wood and metal came from the other side of the smashed wall. Through an opening two rooms away, Zeke came around a corner, firing deliberately on something I couldn’t see.

“Zeke!” I shouted.

The convict glanced at me, his face impassive, then continued firing as he moved backward.

A man floating through the air came in. It took me a second to realize he was suspended from a cage made of metal supports. His head hung to one side and his arms were slightly spread, while his fingers moved like he was playing some invisible instrument.

“Is that Kregg?” Kiren asked, moving up beside me.

Beside her, Fratley shook his head and pushed his hat back to get a better look. “Looks like the bastard you shot, Walker. But that wasn’t him.”

As the man passed the opening, a wheeled platform for the support system came into view. Two barrel-fed shotguns were mounted on either side of the base, rotating to track Zeke as he evaded their fire.

“Stay here with Harry,” I told Fratley.

“It’s not going to matter to him if someone stays with him. You’re going to need all the help you can get.”

I didn’t bother answering as I jumped over the wreckage from the wall and moved through an office suite strewn with broken furniture. I emerged in the hallway behind Kregg and sighted in on his head in a motion that felt like deja vu.

Waiting until Zeke cleared the far corner, I squeezed the trigger three times, hitting the back of Kregg’s head on the second shot. My third ricocheted off the metal cage.

The platform stopped as blood and bone sprayed the walls. The shotguns wound down.

“Is that it?” Kiren asked.

“Throw a grenade, Walker,” Fratley said. “Don’t leave anything to chance.”

I was already reaching for my last grenade. After yanking the pin, I rolled it along the hallway toward the drone’s undercarriage.

With alarming speed, the contraption carrying Kregg spun in the hallway and the shotguns tilted down at the grenade rolling toward it. Kregg’s legs swung limply, his fingers still jerking and typing at the air. The grenade exploded early, filling the hallway with dust and splintered wood.

“Get back!” I jumped back into the suite where Kiren and Fratley were still standing. I looked back to see Kregg’s form floating in the dust as the drones carried him over the pile of wreckage. The shotguns filled the air where I’d been with pellets and smoke.

Fratley and Kiren fired on the dangling man, their rounds penetrating his body with little effect.

“Aim for the drone.” I pulled back behind the hole in the opposite wall. I aimed at the drone’s wheels and the base of the arm holding Kregg, which seemed to slow it enough for Fratley and Kiren to get out of the room. Fratley grabbed a broken chair and threw it at the drone, hitting one of the shotgun barrels hard enough to knock it sideways. The mount clicked as it tried to return to its home position.

Above us, speakers hissed and Kregg’s voice boomed out. “I offered you freedom. Soon you’ll have freedom in death.”

I tapped my earbud. “How much time do we have, Arla?”

“The data transfer is nearly complete, Deputy Walker.”

“The purge, Arla. How much longer until we lose atmosphere?”

“Twelve minutes.”

I took a second to focus on the HUD in my glasses, figuring out where we were in relation to the ship. It looked like the only way to the outside corridor was on the other side of Kregg’s drone.

“The ship’s through that hallway on the other side,” I said. “We need to get around that thing.”

“Obviously attacking old Kregg isn’t doing us any good,” Fratley grumbled. “If we could tip it over, that might do something.”

Kiren shook her head. “How are we getting past the shotguns?”

“One shotgun down, thanks to me,” Fratley said. “But excellent point. What I wouldn’t give for a nice big cargo crate to drop on that thing.”

“Kopta is my kingdom,” Kregg said. “You have invaded my home. You have murdered my people, upset our utopia.”

“Anybody have a grenade?” I asked.

No one did. Our biggest weapons were the rifles. Kiren had a guard’s shock baton in her belt, but that didn’t seem like much help at the moment.

There was a grinding sound from the room as Kregg rolled into motion.

“Now or never,” Fratley said.

I checked the hallway behind us. We had a corner and about ten meters distance on the drone. “Let’s fall back and when it comes into the hallway, concentrate on the closest wheel.”

“You mean the first wheel we see?” Fratley asked.

“Whichever wheel we have the best chance of hitting. Maybe we can at least slow it down.”

We fell back, rifles ready, as Kregg climbed the broken wall and rolled into the hallway. Coming at us head on now, his ruined head dropped to one side, his mouth hanging open as his spread hands directed the drone. His gray suit was covered in blood and burn stains. The operational shotgun scanned from side to side searching for a target.

“I’ll be honest,” Fratley said. “This is the kind of horrible thing I expected back at Fereen. Kind of a letdown now, honestly.”

“Fire,” I said. “Front wheel, right side.”

“My right or his right?” Fratley asked.

I fired on the wheel, and bullets bounced off the alloy rim. Kiren hit it next, blowing bits of rubber off the tire.

“Oh, that wheel.” The Renegade sighted down his pistol.

We had another few seconds before we’d be in range of the shotgun. The wheel wobbled as bits of tire flew off. It was too solid, though. This wasn’t going to stop the drone.

A shout came from behind the drone and Zeke appeared at the end of the hallway with a fireman’s axe raised above his head. He charged the drone and jumped onto the back of the platform, swinging the axe down into the base of the support holding Kregg’s body aloft.

The drone stopped in the hallway, then it rocked forward and back. The shotgun twisted on its mount but wasn’t going to reach back far enough to hit Zeke. The convict lifted the axe again like he was cutting down a tree and brought it down. With two more swings, an electrical flash sparked from the support’s base, and Kregg toppled forward. Zeke ignored the body and continued digging into the platform with the axe until the wheels stilled and the shotgun froze. Liquid coolant leaked onto the hallway floor, puddling around Kregg’s body as his fingers continued to twitch.

I rose, rifle still ready, and moved toward the drone.

Zeke wiped his brow and nodded at us. “I think it’s dead.”

“You think he’s really in there?” I asked. “You sure it wasn’t controlled from somewhere else?”

Zeke hawked phlegm and spat on the body. “This is Kregg. This is the Warden of Kopta Prison.”

38

“Captain,” Arla said in our earbuds. “Five minutes to atmosphere purge.”

“Yola,” I said. “Any luck stopping the security system?”

“Sorry,” she answered. “I’ve had to sideline all the other systems so we can make this upload happen before the place falls apart. I’m going to have to leave the servers running as we’re getting out of here, but I’ll have remote access from Iron Scabbard or wherever. I can wipe them from there.”

Kregg’s body released a long growling sound and collapsed a little deeper in the blue liquid puddled around it. Coolant ran into the dead man’s open mouth.

“Let’s find this ship then,” I said. “We need to get Harry and get out of here.”

“I’ll get him,” Zeke said, still carrying his axe.

Fratley turned toward the convict. “I’ll help. That bastard’s too tall for you to carry all on your own.”

With Kiren behind me, I climbed back over the splintered wall where we’d fought Kregg. We passed through two smashed walls and found the outer corridor Arla had outlined in my HUD.

“Should be about twenty meters this way,” I told Kiren.

In this section, the wood-paneled walls were covered in framed art, with furniture every few meters to display vases and statues, much of it grotesque variations of the human form.

“This guy was a real sicko.” Kiren knocked over two statutes as we passed. When they didn’t break, she smashed one into the other then wiped her hands. “That’s better.”

Eventually there were too many pieces of art for her to knock over. The corridor opened into an area that had obviously been Kregg’s living quarters.

“No mirrors anywhere,” Kiren noted.

The airlock was on the far side of the main room. I hit the release and waited as the doors opened to show a dark engineering section on the other side. I stepped into the connecting corridor and felt the change in air temperature immediately.

I tapped my earbud. “Arla, can I get a little help with waking up our new ship?”

“Working, Deputy Walker. I’ll need you to reach the command deck and activate the main control console. I am unable to establish any communications.”

“Running short on time, Walker,” Fratley called from outside the airlock. He and Zeke were carrying Harry between them. Athron, Yola, and Lance were following behind.

“I’m on it,” I told the AI.

I climbed into the ship, activated the spotting light on my rifle, and moved deeper into the vessel. It was a gorgeous ship, with finer details than the Iron Scabbard. I passed the galley and several open staterooms before reaching the command deck, which was laid out in a similar fashion as Fratley’s ship, with a raised captain seat, surrounding workstations, and the holo-display sitting near the nose. I slid into the captain’s seat and checked the dark console. A button with a cover marked “command activation” looked like a good place to start. I flipped open the cover and pressed my thumb into the switch.

For a second, there was no response. Then the captain’s display flickered and a startup checklist scrolled down the screen. The other workstations came to life and began similar protocols.

Kiren stood in the hatch, watching it all. “Looks like lights are coming on all through the ship.” She tilted her head and gave me a smile. “You look good there. Thinking about keeping it for yourself?”

I shot her a sideways glance. “Hadn’t crossed my mind. Let’s get out of here, then we’ll talk about the spoils. I thought you were the one in the market for a new ship.”

“Nah, this isn’t my style. I want something bigger. I’m going to have a real crew.”

My earbud chimed as Arla checked in. “Deputy Walker, your ship is called the Afterburn. I have identified the control AI. Would you like me to wake them?”

“Are we going to have any problems?” I asked.

“The ship has undergone a complete shutdown procedure and was resting in indefinite storage. The AI may require initial personality assistance from you as the new captain.”

I started to say, “No one made me—”

Yola appeared in the hatchway, pushing past Kiren. She slid into the seat in front of the ops console. “Kopta is venting. We need to detach and watch this party from a distance.”

“Everyone on board?” I asked.

Lance slid past Kiren in the hatch and sat at the secondary ops console.

“We’re on board,” Athron answered through the earbud. “Fratley, Zeke and me have Harry in what appears to be the medical bay.”

“Detaching from the Kopta airlock,” Yola said, her hands moving quickly over her workstation.

Beside her, Lance flicked through control menus and whistled. “This thing is hot. Quad cannons, torpedoes, and a complement of mines. Looks like we’re slip capable.”

“Since when do you know anything about piloting a ship?” Yola asked. They seemed to have made friends in the short time they’d known each other.

“Every accountant has dreams,” Lance said, grinning at her.

The deck moved underneath us as the Afterburn disconnected from Kopta. At the end of the command deck, the holo-display flickered to life, showing the broad wall of the station growing smaller as we drifted away.

“Engines are online,” Yola said. “Setting a base course to get some distance. We’re going to need to wake the control AI, though. You ready for that?”

“Do it,” I said. If the AI turned out to be defective, we could deactivate it and have Arla control the Afterburn.

Debris flew past our position as airlocks and cargo areas exploded open all over Kopta. Streams of vapor spat from the station’s hull, forming glittering fans and cones before they disappeared in vacuum. Bodies tumbled alongside furniture and cargo, fading out at the edges of the holodisplay’s view.

Kiren took a seat at the communications console, and I looked back to find Zeke standing in the hatch, watching as Kopta went cold in the holo. His eyes glistened with what might have been tears.

“Hello, Captain,” a neutral, inhuman voice said from the overhead speakers. “Welcome to the Afterburn. I am your control AI. Ready to serve.”

I glanced up at the speakers then nodded. “Good to meet you, Control AI. I take it that means you don’t have a name?”

“That is correct, Captain. I await your command.”

I was no captain, but I’d heard others make requests of their ship’s AI enough times to fake it. Even Fratley seemed to take this portion of take-off seriously.

“Give me a systems check and report on any maintenance issues. You’ll be assisted by Arla from the Iron Scabbard. Do you have communications with her?”

“I do, Captain. Thank you.”

“Isn’t that one all formal,” Fratley said. It was getting crowded in the command deck. “You’re looking awfully comfortable over there, Walker. Didn’t I say you’d leave the cop stuff behind and become a Renegade one day?”

“Not today,” I said. “Arla, what’s the status on the transport shuttle we disabled?”

“Checking, Deputy Walker. I apologize, the strain on my systems transferring the database from Kopta meant I dropped certain scanning duties. The shuttle is no longer in local orbit of Kopta Station.”

I sat up straighter. “What? Can you tell what happened?”

“There appears to have been another ship in their group. The shuttle was recovered and they returned to the SG point.”

“I wanted to know how the hell Collin found us again. And how did he get Kregg to help him?”

“Looks like he paid him,” Yola said. “A lot. The transfer was one of the last records in the database.”

Lance ran his hand through his hair. “The accounts belong to the Carmichaels. I’d know them anywhere.”

I relaxed slightly. “That’s actually some damn good news. I guess we can thank Collin for that.”

“I’m going to thank him with a bullet in the forehead,” Fratley growled.

“Captain,” the new AI asked. “All systems are running green. I have received navigation data from the Iron Scabbard and am ready to execute a vector adjustment to its location.”

“Sounds good,” I said. “Execute.”

There was a slight feeling of pressure as the engines woke with a short burst. It looked like we’d meet the Iron Scabbard in just under ten minutes. Arla wasn’t far away.

Kopta grew even smaller in the display. Lance sat watching the station with a hand on the side of his face.

“You going to be all right?” I asked him.

“I never expected to leave that place alive.” Lance looked around the room. “Thank you. I know Harry thanks you as well. I have no idea what the future holds, but I didn’t die in that hell.”

“So what are you going to name your AI, Walker?” Fratley asked, pulling his flask from inside his jacket. He unscrewed the cap and raised it for a long drink that was cut short, then he scowled at the empty flask.

“Ellie’s going to get jealous.” I scoured my memory but nothing came to mind. Still, he needed some kind of name. “Let’s go with Sam,” I said. “With the caveat that something different may come up.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Sam said.

* * *

I couldn’t wait to tell Fratley that the Afterburn had a better coffee maker than the Iron Scabbard. I poured three cups full of rich black liquid, along with a service cup of cream, and carried the tray to the table where Lance and Athron sat.

Athron took his cup and smiled with a long sniff of the vapors. “You ever leave law enforcement, you’ve got quite the career ahead of you as a barista.”

“I’ll come work for you,” I said.

Lance took a cup and poured in nearly half the creamer.

“Slow down there,” I said. “We can always make you a different drink.”

The data tech shook his head. “I haven’t had anything this rich in a long time. Not sure if my stomach can take it.”

“What did they feed you in there, anyway?” Athron asked. “I don’t remember seeing a cafeteria anywhere.”

Lance frowned. “You don’t want to know. The guards liked to say Kopta was a closed system. A lot of people died all the time, and there were no funerals that I ever saw, just empty cells.” He stared at his cup like he was getting his courage up, then he raised the drink to his lips, took a sip, and closed his eyes.

We waited to talk until Lance had managed a few more sips. The rest of the ship was quiet, finally. Zeke was down in the med bay with Harry. Kiren and Fratley had transferred over to the Iron Scabbard, and Yola was on the command deck, poring through the new database with her Union tools.

Athron cleared his throat. “We need to lay some things out for this investigation, Mr. Lance. At this point, we have information showing the Carmichael Brothers had you transferred from Taurus Station to Kopta. We have records of your incarceration in the prison. We now have transaction data between the Carmichaels’ agent and Kopta directly, indicating even more of a business relationship. What I would like to know is what you may be able to share as a witness, and then if you’re willing to be a witness against the Carmichael Brothers.”

Lance looked down at his cup and sat in thought for several minutes.

“I can give you the data I sent off Taurus,” he said finally. “You’re going to need a second key to decrypt the files. It’s on Taurus in a safe place. Those records will be more than a year old now, but they’re everything. They’re whole books. They prove that the Carmichaels have been working with a larger criminal organization that reaches between the Union and the Sarkonians. They’re really bad people. Really bad.”

“And you?” Athron asked. It seemed like he was pushing a little too hard, but Lance also looked like he might need the push. I could see he was terrified for his family. He hadn’t even seen them yet, and now he was being asked to put them in danger again.

Lance shook his head as if reading my thoughts. “I’m sorry. I can’t do anything that will put my family in further danger. But those files should be everything you need. The people I reached out to— it was everything they asked for.”

“Are you talking about Black?” Athron asked.

I glanced at him, surprised he would give up the name.

Lance’s eyes widened at the name. “So you know then. Yes. Mr. Black was my contact.”

“And your wife had it this whole time?” I asked.

“No,” he said quickly. “She had the files, but there’s no way to decrypt everything without both keys. The code that you sent back to Taurus? It only opens half the file. That was to keep Sandra and Cari safe.”

“I understand,” Athron said. “Look, you’ve done more than the average person ever would. You’ve sacrificed so much. I’m not going to ask you to sacrifice more. Once we get back to Taurus and get that key, you and your family will be safe. I promise you that.”

I didn’t like making those kinds of promises. Athron’s dedication was plain on his face, but none of us knew the future. Maybe Keldon would tell me I was too cynical already. Maybe that was Kopta’s lesson. It was going to take a while to wash that place’s stench off of my skin. Lance looked like he felt the same way.

39

“Daddy!”

Cari Lance’s squeal of joy when she saw her father in the safehouse doorway might have been the best sound I’d ever heard. Sandra and Cari both ran across the living room to grab Rafferty, and the family sank to their knees together in a mess of happy tears.

I stood just off the entryway with Athron. The detective wiped his eyes and smiled.

“That’s really something, Walker,” he said. “Enjoy this. It isn’t often a case ends like this.”

I nodded, watching them for a minute. Then I glanced at Athron. “It isn’t over yet.”

“This is as far as I’ll be going, I think. Nagel’s on his way and things will get handed off. I’ll go home.”

“You sure about that?”

He smiled. “Oh, I’m sure.”

The lights of a police cruiser became visible up the street. Nothing could enter this sector without passing through several checkpoints run by the Sheriff’s department. Still, I watched the car approach with my hand on my pistol. Athron turned with me to see who was driving up. No one should have known about this location but us and Nagel.

Sure enough, the driver’s door opened and Nagel got out of the car. Mr. Black appeared from the passenger side, dressed in the same dark suit he’d worn when we met him.

The Sheriff spotted us and walked over, nodding with a smile on his hard face. “You did it, Larry,” he said, grabbing the detective’s hand for a hard shake. “You too, Walker. We’ll make a detective out of you yet. This was some good work.”

Mr. Black followed the Sheriff. He was a tall man in his own right, but anybody standing beside Nagel looked smaller. He buttoned his suit jacket and nodded to Athron and me.

“Gentlemen, I’m glad you made it back in one piece. From what I understand, Kopta isn’t a pleasant place.”

“That’s an understatement,” Athron said. “That was possibly the worst hellhole I’ve ever seen in my career, and I worked vice cleaning out drug houses for five years. That place was a torture chamber. Anyone sent there is lucky to be alive.”

Black’s gaze shifted to the doorway where Lance had walked inside with his family. “How’s our special guest?”

“He’s good,” I said. “Happy to be home.”

“Mentally stable?” he asked.

“As far as we can tell. He seems to have done a lot better than others we found in that place.”

Nagel slapped me on the shoulder then shook my hand. “Good work, Walker. I’m glad you’re back in one piece. I’ll be honest, I had my doubts.”

“About him or me?” Athron asked.

“He’s the newbie,” the Sheriff said. “I figured you’d drag your sorry ass back here just so you could retire.”

Athron grinned. “You got that right. Can’t do without my Taurus food carts, either. How have things been back here?”

“Quiet,” Nagel said, glancing at Black. “Your report of Collin Charles following you to the Ghost meet and then Kopta match with our surveillance here. The Brothers have been in PR mode with the press, Charles has been nowhere to be found, and the gang battles continue without a central boss to hold them together. Of course the Carmichaels are playing that up as much as possible. I’m a failure.”

“Of course,” Athron said. “When are you not?”

“When I’m standing next to those two for a photo op.” Nagel followed Black’s gaze toward the doorway. “How much time has our boy had? We need to get that second key from him.”

“He just got here, boss,” Athron said. “We should give him a bit more time.”

Mr. Black shook his head. “I’m afraid we don’t have time. Every minute I’m missing that key is another minute I can’t share my findings with people who matter.”

“Right,” I said. “I’ll go talk to him.”

“I’ll go in, Walker,” Nagel said. “I need to talk to Mr. Lance. And I should do it in front of his family.”

Nagel straightened his uniform and walked up to the door. He paused to look into the small living space, then he walked through. “Mr. Lance.” He kept his loud voice controlled. “I’m Sheriff Nagel. The people of Taurus Station owe you a great debt of thanks.”

I’d never seen this side of Nagel before. The gruff leader became a warm, caring man with a somber focus that showed Sandra and Rafferty Lance as much respect as he would show any station leader. He even knelt to shake little Cari’s hand. The little girl was scared of him at first, but then she took a step toward him with her stuffed cow squeezed in her arms.

Cari held out her toy for Nagel to meet. “He’s Stuffy,” she said with complete seriousness. “He’s my cow.”

Nagel smiled. “Yes he is. Cows are very important. Do you take Stuffy everywhere with you?”

The little girl nodded then burst out in a smile when Nagel tickled Stuffy’s muzzle.

“I have those two to thank.” Lance pointed at me and Athron. I took that as my cue to enter the room, and Athron followed.

As Sandra continued to hold his arm, Lance said, “I never expected anyone to go to this much trouble for me. I thought I was dead. I told Sandra to move on.” He stopped himself, choking up.

“You did the right thing,” Nagel said. “Both of you. I’m only sorry that we weren’t able to help you sooner.”

At that, Sandra Lance’s face darkened a little. I could tell she was still angry at everything she had gone through, and that Cari had been forced to endure.

“We’re leaving, right?” Rafferty asked.

Nagel nodded. “That’s right. We’ll get you off-station on the next transport. You can go civilian from here if you want, or I’ll get you out on a military transfer. You might find that a bit safer.”

“We’ll do that,” Sandra said.

Lance took a deep breath and let it out. He still looked like a man who didn’t trust his surroundings. That would fade in time, hopefully. “You need the second key,” he said.

“If you don’t mind, Mr. Lance,” Nagel replied. “I’d like to get all this away from your family as soon as I can.”

“Cari.” Lance leaned down to look at the girl. “Can I have Stuffy?”

The little girl hugged the worn cow against her neck and shook her head with a frown.

“I’ll give him back, I promise.”

In the end, Sandra had to take the cow from their little girl. She handed the toy to Lance and he turned it in his hands to search for a spot in its threadbare stomach. He picked a few threads with his fingers, then he pulled a silver data stick out.

“Stuffy!” Cari shouted, reaching for her toy.

Sandra soothed her as Lance placed the cow back in her hands. Cari hugged it like it represented her only safety in the world.

Touching his daughter’s hair, Lance turned back to Nagel and handed over the data stick. “This is the second key. Any competent data tech will know what to do with it. The decryption process is standard protocol and this should take care of all the evidence you’ll need. Their entire accounting database for the last five years. The balances are all there, including the places where there’s off-books overlap. Any forensic data tech should be able to see the proof.”

“Proof of what exactly?” the Sheriff asked.

Lance exhaled heavily. “It’s why I couldn’t stay quiet. It’s why I—” He looked at Sandra and Cari.

“Every bit of information will help us,” Nagel said.

Lance nodded. “It’s there. Proof that the Carmichaels invested heavily in Rivas and Fereen, and that they were the sole owners of Kopta.” He laughed bitterly. “I never thought I’d find myself there. It was like being damned to hell.”

“You’re safe now,” I said, wanting to believe it. “All of you.”

Nagel nodded and slipped the stick in his pocket. I glanced at the doorway and noticed Black had pulled back to the edge of the light and was watching without drawing attention to himself. That seemed to be his way.

“Thank you,” Nagel said. “All right. Walker and Athron will stay with you until the transport arrives. They can go all the way with you to the port if you want. We won’t let you out of our care until you’re ready.”

Lance nodded. “Thank you.”

Nagel raised a hand. “I’m prone to speeches, and your little girl looks tired. I want you to know that both of you did something that will help ensure the safety of Taurus for years to come. That’s rare in the Deadlands.”

Sandra held Rafferty’s hand and gave the Sheriff a tight smile.

“I’ll get out of your hair,” Nagel said. The Sheriff stepped out onto the porch and I followed him. Athron pulled the door closed, staying inside.

Nagel paused before climbing back into his cruiser. “Bird’s going to be coming over soon to transport them. I mean it when I said you stay with them until they’re good and ready.”

“Understood, Sheriff.”

“You tell me right away if any other information comes up.”

“Yes, Sheriff,” I said.

Black gave me a tight nod before disappearing in the cruiser.

As I walked back toward the doorway, I looked into the distance where the main port flight line was accepting inbound flights, anonymous bits of color marking the ships arriving and departing. The sooner we could get the Lance family on one of those ships, lost in the crowd and away from the Carmichaels, the better.

I allowed myself a chuckle at where Rafferty had hidden his security key, and how Cari might have been the most attentive guard he could ask for, then I moved to the edge of where the porch light reached and leaned against the building, remaining in the dark. I was glad to pull guard duty until Bird arrived with the van to take the Lance family to the port and off Taurus for good.

* * *

Athron’s place was a narrow walk-up building in one of the oldest residential sections of Taurus. It was actually possible to park in the street outside his building and walk up to the door, a rare find.

“Don’t look so impressed,” he said. “When we bought the place, this was a slum. Trust me. Imagine being a young cop with two babies and living next to a drug house. Those were some times.” He sighed. “They’re both off-station now. I don’t blame them.”

“Are you going to leave?” I asked.

“We’ve got a bunch of travel planned. Going to see some places in the Deadlands and the Core Worlds we always talked about seeing. After that, I don’t know. Sometimes that’s a good feeling, other times it’s depressing as hell. You know they say most cops die within five years of retirement. I should have gotten lucky like Keldon and had most of this worn out body replaced on the department’s dime.” He punched me in the shoulder. “Why didn’t you get me wounded like I wanted you to, Walker?”

I chuckled. “You made it out alive. Can’t blame me for that.”

“Oh, I blame you. Trust me.”

He sat looking up at his stoop for a minute. The first level was dark but there was a bedroom light on in the upper level. That had to be his wife.

“You’re stalling,” I said.

“Of course I am. Don’t know if I’m ready to leave.”

“The Sheriff’s doing a retirement ceremony for you, isn’t he?”

“Sure. But I think I’d rather just leave. I don’t need a plaque or a bunch of people standing around slapping me on the back, reminding them of how it’s all going to end for them someday too. It’s a good career, being a cop. But when it ends, nothing is ever the same again. I think if I could do it over again, I’d recommend getting out early.”

“You really think that?” I asked, surprised by the admission. “You’re a great detective.”

“Being a detective isn’t hard. You need to pay attention, be curious, and not be afraid to press the hard questions. You’re a good detective, Walker. You’ve proved that. Maybe even better than me. I never had the road experience you’ve got. There’s a reason Nagel got all the promotions and I didn’t. I thought I could save people. But you can’t. Even after you solve a crime, if you ever do, there’s everything that follows. A place like Taurus, justice is a tricky thing. I honestly think it’s better most of the time when you enforce the Sheriff’s Justice and be done with it. What you saw tonight, a family being reunited, tears of joy, a happy ending? That hardly ever happens. In the real world, you and I would be walking up to her door with the news she doesn’t want to hear, then she’d scream at us, beat our chests, and collapse in the doorway while the little girl watches from the other room.”

The distant look in Athron’s eyes said he knew this story well. He forced a smile. “Get out while you can, Gage. You’re a good man. Don’t end up like me.”

“I’d be glad to be like you,” I told him, meaning it.

Athron forced a laugh and opened his door.

The porch light came on and the front door slid open. A woman stood in the lighted rectangle, squinting into the dim street. “Larry? Is that you? Are you going to stand out there all night?”

Rather than the anger Athron had been joking about for weeks, I heard only concern in her voice.

“Who’s that with you? Get in here and have a cup of coffee. You’ve been gone for weeks.”

Fatigue was setting in, and the coffee sounded good, honestly.

“I’d like that,” I told Athron.

He shook his head. “Then get your ass inside. We’ll feed you, too.” He raised his voice to his wife. “I’m home, baby. I brought a sorry bachelor who needs some food. You save me anything?”

She crossed her arms and smiled. “Of course I did. I’ve got your favorite waiting for you. Who’s your friend?”

“His name’s Gage Walker. Walker, this is Tina. The better part of me.”

Any jokes about Athron’s wife were gone as he walked up to the stoop toward her. I understood how the humor was a kind of armor, protecting what mattered most to him. They wrapped each other in a long embrace of love and understanding, and then Tina pulled away to wave me inside after them.

She offered me a warm smile. “We’ve got some whiskey for your coffee, if you want.”

I grinned and followed them inside. “It’s like you know me already.”

40

The conference room was packed and people spilled from the doorway into the bullpen outside. I’d managed to grab a spot toward the front of the room since I came in with Larry and Tina. The detective was wearing his formal uniform, which looked like it hadn’t been out of the closet in probably five years. The buttons strained around his belly, but Athron didn’t look the least bit uncomfortable. He smiled and nodded at deputies as they pushed their way in or called and waved from the outside room. Tina looked like she’d escaped a bullet, her smile steady but strained.

Nagel entered the room accompanied by Lieutenant Bird. The Sheriff was also dressed in his formal uniform. His chest was covered in service ribbons from the Sheriff’s Office, as well as a couple rows of Union ribbons from his time in the army. That was a custom allowed the vets in the department.

What surprised me was that Lieutenant Bird was also wearing her dress uniform. She stood with a solemn expression as the Sheriff moved to the podium and cleared his throat.

The room went quiet, but the outside group took a couple seconds longer.

“Thank you.” The Sheriff turned to look at Larry and Tina Athron. “Today’s a day for celebration, and I couldn’t be happier to be here.”

“Where’s the party, Athron!” someone shouted from the bullpen.

“Hold on,” Nagel said. “I’m talking. Now, before we get to the celebratory part of our gathering today, I have something else for the department. Detective Athron has generously allowed me to postpone his retirement for another ten minutes so I can make an additional departmental announcement.”

The room went quiet. Nobody knew what he was talking about. I certainly didn’t, although it was easy to guess it had something to do with Bird. Was she leaving? That seemed impossible to imagine.

“Today, I am announcing a promotion and a leadership change in the department. Most of you will remember that since Undersheriff Wilkerson retired, I have not filled that position. Second in Command of this department is a very challenging position, and I didn’t feel ready to set that weight on someone else’s shoulders, especially not with all the work everyone is already doing. It’s not like we have outside candidates. I would be taking from some other section to make my life easier, and I wasn’t going to do that.” His gaze roamed around the conference room, seeming to look directly at each of us in turn.

“Things are changing rapidly on Taurus, however, and I don’t believe we can continue without this vital position. In light of that, I am promoting Lieutenant Stacey Bird to Captain and Undersheriff of the Taurus Station Sheriff’s Office, effective immediately. All commands from her mouth should be treated as my own words. Following the traditions of our organization, Undersheriff Bird will now repeat the oath of office, to reaffirm her dedication to the people and justice of Taurus Station and its surrounding space.”

He turned from the podium and raised his right hand. Bird stiffened and faced him, raising her hand as well.

“Repeat after me.” Nagel recited the oath of office and Bird answered him with calm poise. When they reached the end, Nagel said, “I am the candle in the dark.”

On cue, everyone in the room and out in the bullpen went to attention and repeated in unison. Our voices shook the walls. Bird’s voice was lost in our joined thunder.

Nagel’s voice rose in response. “I am the sword and shield protecting the weak.”

“I am the sword and shield protecting the weak.”

“I am justice in the Deadlands.”

“I am justice in the Deadlands.”

“By my shield I swear,” the Sheriff said.

Now only Bird answered, her eyes bright and voice clear. “By my shield I swear.”

The Sheriff dropped his hand and picked up a new badge from the podium, He handed it to Bird. “Undersheriff, your new badge. Wear it proudly.”

Bird nodded and accepted the badge. I didn’t think I’d ever seen such a smile on her face as she looked out at the room. She nodded again then stepped back against the wall.

“All right.” Nagel moved back to the podium. “With that bit of business finished, it’s time to say thank you to one of our most beloved detectives. Some of you may not know that Detective Sergeant Larry Athron and I graduated from the same academy class, but he’s saved my ass more times than I care to count. I’m not sure what I’m going to do without him, but he deserves this change, as does Tina, who has stood by him thirty years. The people of Taurus Station owe them both a debt of gratitude that will never be fully paid.”

Athron’s eyes grew misty as the Sheriff went on to tell several stories about their career together, including major busts and a few slapstick moments. Athron was truly a hero, and Nagel hadn’t forgotten any of it. I wished I’d been able to ask him more about his time in the department, but the mission had gone so fast.

When Nagel was finished, everyone erupted in applause. Athron took the podium. He had tears in his eyes as he spoke, but his voice remained steady. He was a man who could show emotion and obviously felt deeply, but he had learned how to speak when necessary. His emotions certainly didn’t make him look weak.

Athron thanked his wife first, then the Sheriff and the other deputies in the department, including some who had already retired or had been lost in the line of duty. That list was longer than I expected, and Tina took on a distant expression as he mentioned his friends, people she had probably known.

Nearing the end of his speech, Athron chuckled and unbuttoned the top button of his uniform shirt. He loosened his tie and pulled it off his neck. “I never was one for ties.” Then he took a deep breath. “Sometimes you leave an organization and you worry about what’s going to happen after you’re gone. None of us should be such narcissists that we think the world falls apart when we turn around, but you know what I mean. Well, I’ve had the opportunity to work with some of our newer officers, and despite what the old farts say, I think we’re going to be all right. I know how much all of you care about your fellow deputies and the people of this station. I think as long as we’ve got that, the Sheriff’s Justice won’t be far behind. Thank you. Let’s go eat cake and drink beer.”

The room burst into shouts and laughter, and both Larry and Tina were pulled into a gauntlet of hugs and pats on the back as they made their way out of the room. I waited near the podium, watching for a minute before I realized Bird was standing next to me.

“Congratulations, Undersheriff,” I said.

She gave me a sideways glance. “Don’t look so smug, Walker. I still control your life.”

“Do I ever act smug?”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

I paused, not sure how to read Bird. Was she actually pushing this new rank further than before? She’d already outranked me enough to be an asshole if she wanted to.

I glanced at her to find her grinning at me. “Lighten up, Walker. You should have seen your face just then. Hurry up and get some cake then get down to TechDiv. We need to go over the new data from Kopta. I think Jones’ head might explode.”

41

The tavern was a dark little place near the port that seemed to traffic in freight haulers and maintenance workers. Probably the kind of place a Renegade might rustle up work. A view screen above the bar played the Union News Network, and their hotshot new anchor Quintin Dallas was pontificating the latest Union propaganda as an inset picture showed combat footage from somewhere next to his head.

He mentioned two systems I’d never heard of, Osiris and Velos, along with some group called New Dawn, who appeared to be launching terrorist attacks in the region.

I tapped my earbud. “I’ll be out of service for the next two hours, Ellie.”

“Thank you, Deputy Walker. Status updated.”

I walked up to the bar and leaned against the scarred edge, adjusting my shoulder holster in my suit jacket. Carrying a weapon was just easier in uniform.

Studying the taps and bottles on the opposite wall as the news continued to play, I quickly learned this wasn’t a place to get any kind of whiskey. I settled on a beer Keldon liked to drink and waited for the bartender to come back my way. He nodded at the news.

“I’m happy to turn that off if you want.” He pointed at the view screen. “That new anchor bugs the crap out of me. I swear the game was on and then I get busy and they sneak the news in when I’m not looking.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “Taurus keeps me busy enough. I don’t pay much attention to what’s happening in the Union.”

He poured my beer and slid it across the bar. “On the house, Deputy.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Do I stand out that much?”

The bartender grinned. “Nah. Your friends over there told me you’d be coming in.” He pointed past a group of people concealing the booth where Fratley and Kiren were sitting at the back of the bar. I raised my beer in thanks and made my way across the room.

Fratley had his face in a data pad and barely looked up as I slid in beside Kiren. She was dressed in a brown coat similar to Fratley’s, with her hair pulled back from her face. The look was severe but stronger than how she’d ever appeared in a business suit.

“Is Sergeant Athron off to retirement land?” she asked.

“Stuffed with cake and beer,” I said. “The department has forensic accountants working through all the recovered data now.”

“What do you think is going to happen?” Kiren asked.

I couldn’t tell her about Black, so all I could do was shrug. “Above my pay grade. It could take a long time. Until then, I’m back on the street.”

“Well, you’re coming to our gala,” Kiren said.

“Is that what you two have been so secretive about? I thought you were going to tell me you’d bought a ship.”

“Not yet,” Kiren said. “After the gala, I’ll find the right fit. And I haven’t been secretive with Fratley. Just busy.”

Fratley looked up from his pad and blinked. “The greatest gala Taurus Station has ever seen, that’s what, Walker. Get with the program. Here I am fending off frantic messages from the Church of the Homeworld, knowing in the back of my mind that we’re about to host the biggest auction this part of the Deadlands has ever seen. We’re going to have posh people coming in who make the Carmichael Brothers look like street beggars.”

“You think the Carmichaels are going to be all right with that?” I asked.

Fratley turned off his pad and set it face down. “They don’t get a say. They won’t even get an invite. That’s how I know they’ll be sure to show up. They hear about this event happening and they’ll start sniffing around.”

“You sound like you’ve got a date already,” I said.

Kiren smiled. “We do. I booked the Royal Fountain for next Friday. Just enough time to make it seem last minute and exclusive. I’ve got the best catering and music. It’s almost going to be as nice as my wedding.”

“That harpist at your wedding would have put me to sleep if I wasn’t being chased by Kallaver’s thugs,” I said.

“Not the ceremony.” She shook her head. “The party.”

“I was too busy chasing you to pay attention, remember?”

She laughed. “I guess you were. That was a fun night.”

“That’s right,” Fratley said. “A week from now. Just enough time to get the word out about the Homeworld slavering over my goods. With their interest, I’m working on at least five other high value people who want this collection.”

“How are you doing all this inviting?” I asked. “No one likes you.”

Fratley scowled. “That’s just uncalled for. Sulan’s handling that portion of the coordination for me.”

“She isn’t angry we wrecked the Swarm?”

“Just the opposite,” Fratley said. “We brought more excitement than they’ve had in years. I just wished they’d managed to kill Collin Charles. If I see that bastard again, I’m going to shoot him in the face.”

I finished my beer and leaned back in the booth. “He hasn’t shown his face on Taurus. Not according to any of the public CCTV systems, anyway. Ellie’s going to let me know the minute he pops up.”

“You should have shot him rather than that Kregg lookalike,” Fratley said.

Kiren’s data pad pinged and she swiped through several screens. “More confirmations. Things are reaching critical mass. It’s going to hit all the social feeds soon, and then we’ll need to hire security.”

“You want to be my security manager, Walker?” Fratley asked. “I’ll pay you a good wage. I get to choose the uniform though. Something with those lacy gold shoulder things and shiny buttons.”

“What are you going to do when we aren’t working together anymore?” I asked. “I imagine you trying all these jokes on Arla and just being sad.”

“Oh no. With the proceeds from this auction, I’ll be too busy building my empire. I’ve got big plans, Walker. Big plans. There might be a place for you both if you want to come along. If you want to put the work in, we could build something the likes of which the Deadlands has never seen.”

I glanced at Kiren. She had a habit of looking away whenever Fratley shared his big ideas. I felt the same way. While I was starting to feel like I could leave Taurus at some point sooner than I had always imagined, hitching along with Fratley was the last thing I wanted to do.

When another ping drew her attention, Kiren’s eyebrows shot up. “And there it is. The Carmichaels’ social assistant just sent me a request. They’re looking for an invite.”

Fratley grinned hard and waved for more drinks. “You better buy a new suit. This is going to be the party of your life.”

42

“Ellie,” I said. “Meet Sam.”

Standing at the foot of the Afterburn’s cargo ramp, I was still a little in awe of the fact that I owned a ship. Yola had taken care of the ownership records before we reached Taurus, and the station port authority had accepted them without batting an eye.

On the ground, the Afterburn had a compact shape with backswept wings off a wide, oval-shaped body that extended into a round nose. The middle of the ship was mostly cargo area, with the aft sections all engine and slip drive. The hull was made of a smooth, dark alloy interrupted only by bulb-shaped sensors and the gun mounts for the quad cannons.

“I have already met Sam,” Ellie said. “As soon as you stated you were the owner of a new ship, I attempted communication. I have been sharing many updates with Sam to prepare him for service. I believe he will be a fine asset to you.”

“Well, that’s something. Anything else you’ve been up to?”

“I have reviewed the Afterburn’s service records and will make a recommendation to you once all subsystem diagnostics are complete. It appears the ship was purchased and never saw significant flight time. While this makes the Afterburn an excellent value, there could be problems due to long-term deferred maintenance.”

“If I didn’t know it was impossible, I would say you seem to be enjoying yourself, Ellie.”

“The opportunity to assist a freshly assigned AI like Sam is a rare occurrence, Deputy Walker. I appreciate the task.”

I hadn’t assigned the task, but that didn’t seem to matter much.

“I do have a question about the people on board the Afterburn, Deputy Walker. Do you intend for them to stay as crew?”

I chuckled. “That’s unlikely.”

I climbed the ramp from the windy tarmac to the echoing cargo bay, and its slight oil smell brought a smile to my face. I spotted Yola sitting on a crate with freshly cleaned pieces of ARNYE arrayed around her.

“Walker.” She looked up. “You come to kick us out?”

“You’re keeping the ship safe for the time being. Why? You ready to start paying me rent?”

Yola lifted the lower receiver and turned it in her hands, checking the trigger mechanism with her thumb. “I’m not complaining. The stateroom’s nice. I’ve got access to a hell of a computer system with a comms link that no one suspects. You’d think the Port Authority would pay more attention to their commsec.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You perpetrated illegal activity from a ship in my name?”

“Deputy Walker,” Ellie said. “Rest assured I would never allow Ms. Deris to conduct illegal activities from your ship.”

“Hello, Ellie.” Yola smiled.

“She’s been talking to you, too?”

“Even Zeke and Harry. She’s been quite friendly during Sam’s training.”

“You never cease to amaze me, Ellie.” I walked past Yola to the ramp that led up to the main corridor. “Can you tell me where I’ll find Zeke and Harry?”

“Sam,” Ellie said. “Would you prefer to answer your captain?”

“Yes,” the ship’s AI said. “I would gladly answer the question. Zeke and Harry are currently in the medbay assessing Harry’s injuries.”

I stepped through the interior hatch. “Is that right? How’s he doing?”

“Harry sustained multiple crushing wounds to his ribs, arms, and legs. Fortunately, he did not suffer any damage to internal organs. Due to this, we have been able to provide all necessary support utilizing the Afterburn’s facilities. Zeke has been quite adamant that we not remove Harry from the ship or notify anyone of his presence. Based on your interactions with Zeke and Harry, I followed these directions. Was that correct, Captain?”

“Good call,” I said, rounding the door into the med bay. Harry was sitting on the examination couch as Zeke ran an assessment screen up his right arm. The tall man’s arms and legs were covered in bruises. The net-like shapes of ready casts stabilized his left shin from the knee to the ankle, while another immobilized his right hand from the wrist, down over his palm.

“Deputy Walker,” Zeke said, not looking up from the screen. “How are you today?”

“How are you?” I asked Harry.

He nodded slowly, his gaze on Zeke as the screen checked his bones. “I’m ready to get these casts off. Apparently the bones are healing.”

Zeke set the screen down. “Yes, they are. Sam recommends we don’t remove the casts for another week at least. I’d say I agree with him.”

Both men looked very different than when I’d first met them. Dressed in coveralls we’d found in the Afterburn’s staterooms, showered and shaved with a week of good meals, they were starting to look like any typical ship’s crew.

It was getting easier to see them and not immediately remember the crimes Yola had pulled from the Kopta database. Zeke’s docket outlining his treason and murder had obvious political motives, while Harry had embezzled from a shipping conglomerate. As far as I was concerned, he had paid his debt. Still, there was the question hanging between us of what they were going to do now that we were back on Taurus, and how long they might stay on the Afterburn. Harry was clearly suffering from anxiety based on the trauma of escaping Kopta while others didn’t, and Zeke didn’t appear to be in a hurry to abandon his friend.

I pulled two ID cards from my uniform pocket and set them on the lounge next to Harry.

“You don’t need to make any decisions right away,” I said. “Like I’ve told you, I’m not planning on taking the Afterburn out anytime soon. But while you’re on Taurus you’re going to need some kind of ID. These will work.”

Zeke took the card with his face on it and studied the information. “That’s a good likeness,” he said. “But who made up this personal data?”

“Talk to Yola about that,” I said.

Harry held his card up with his good hand and squinted at the details. “She could have done this, Deputy. You didn’t have to get involved with it.”

“Call it a group effort,” I said. “Like I told her, don’t do anything illegal on my ship. I have to say, I’m more worried about her than the two of you.”

Zeke slid the card in a pocket and extended a hand. “Thank you, Deputy. You helped us far more than I expected.”

“I just held up my end of the bargain.” I shook his hand.

Harry had to offer his left hand. He was still weak but grateful.

“I think we’ll be gone the next time you come back,” Zeke said. “I’ll ask Sam to let you know. I’ve got work to do back on Junos, and Harry says he’d like to see that part of the Deadlands.”

“Is it safe for you to go back?” I asked.

Zeke smiled, looking determined. “Anyplace is safer than Kopta.”

There was no arguing with that.

I left them in the medbay and poured myself a coffee in the galley, then I slid into the captain’s seat on the command deck. The holo-display was set to the main Port Authority info channel, and it slid through various advertisements for Taurus hotels, casinos, shows, and shopping areas. An ad for the Royal Fountain caught my attention and I watched images of a grand hotel rotate across the holo. I had never seen the place, but Kiren had obviously secured one of the most luxurious locations on Taurus.

Sam checked in with an update on the engine diagnostics, noting that the slip drive was in calibration. I had to ask him to repeat himself, because I still couldn’t believe I was the owner of a slip drive.

“You really don’t remember anything from before, Sam?” I asked.

‘I have no memory of my previous storage site,” he affirmed. “However, Ellie has been sharing the history of Taurus. She is far older than most AI, according to the general data stores.”

“I never ask Ellie about her age,” I said. “She gets cranky.”

“I am incapable of irritation, Deputy Walker,” Ellie said.

“Think of the hell you’d raise if you were.”

“My service to the Sheriff’s Office maintains my need for stimulation,” she said.

“Let’s hope you’ve always got us then, right?”

“I will agree with your statement, Deputy Walker.”

43

“Close the door, Walker.” The Sheriff was standing with his back to me, looking out his window at the Taurus streets below.

As I closed the door, Mr. Black stepped into view, dressed in the same nondescript suit and tie. He gave me a nod in greeting.

“Deputy Walker,” he said. “You’ve done some excellent work. I haven’t had a chance to commend you.”

Since I still didn’t know who Black worked for, all I could do was accept the praise like it had come from anyone. “Thanks. Getting Lance home to his family was one of the better things I’ve done on this job.”

“Yes, it was. Hang onto that when things get difficult.”

I frowned and glanced at the Sheriff. He had his arms crossed and the tension in his shoulders was obvious. I could see his face reflected in the window. He looked frustrated and troubled.

Nagel turned to face me. “Another skill you seem to have developed is making friends with our Renegade Fratley. Would you agree?”

“I guess you could say that, Sheriff. I don’t know if I’d call him a friend, but we get along all right.”

“He trusts you. I’ve seen it. The other person who trusts you is Kiren Carthage.”

I frowned slightly. “I think she does. What are you asking me about, Sheriff?”

“We have intel that the Carmichaels will be attending the event Fratley is planning at the Royal Fountain.”

I nodded. “I’ve heard the same thing, if their social assistant can be trusted.”

“I got an invite,” Nagel said. “It’s coming up on networks all across the station. People want to attend, and the tickets have been in short supply. I think that’s Kiren’s doing, and she’s a genius for making this an exclusive event.”

“It’s not just an event,” I said. “Fratley is trying to auction crates of artifacts while everybody else is hobnobbing. The event is a cover.”

“And he can do that,” Black said. “Those artifacts are going to chart their own path across the Deadlands if the Church of the Homeworld doesn’t snatch them up. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. That group is sitting on a lot more resources than people give them credit for.”

I nodded. “Fratley hopes to carry out the bidding while everyone is being entertained by other stuff at the event. I don’t have the whole list, but Kiren has been focused on getting all the best acts on Taurus.”

“Sounds like we’re going to have one hell of a distraction then,” Nagel said. “Here’s the deal, Walker. We need a place and time to take the brothers down, and this event is sounding like a good place to do it. If there was ever a time to get all the high rollers in Taurus together, all the people who have supported the Carmichaels with credit and resources throughout the years, this seems like the place. You agree?”

I could only nod. Kiren was putting in the work, and she definitely had the skills to create a must-attend event. Would she want to keep drawing people in if she knew Nagel was using her party as a trap?

“What do you need from me, Sheriff?” I asked. The event was going to happen, I couldn’t change that. The question was what Nagel expected of me. I didn’t see me being the one to jump in and make the arrest where the Carmichaels were concerned. All of Tactical would most likely carry out that arrest. Wouldn’t Nagel want to make as much of a spectacle as he could? These were the owners of the station, for God’s sake.

“You’re attending, right?” Nagel asked.

“I have a ticket. I don’t really have any reason to go, though.”

The Sheriff glanced at Black and chuckled. “You’ve got a reason, Walker. I’m giving you your reason. I’m going to be there with a select group of special operators from Tactical. We’ll be on the floor throughout the event in case things go sideways and I need to call off the operation. Black will be observing from a safe distance, right?”

Mr. Black nodded.

“So, we’ll let Fratley play out his auction, do whatever he needs to do. That’s the honeypot, drawing in players who may provide us with useful intel we didn’t expect. This is still very much a live operation, Walker. The Brothers continue to reach outside Taurus for contacts I haven’t been able to track down yet. You might say they’re desperate, but I don’t know if we’ve reached that point yet.”

“I think we’ll know on Friday,” Black said.

Nagel nodded. “That’s right. The auction plays out. You stay in the mix, checking in with Fratley and Ms. Carthage until the planned events of the evening are winding down. We’ll keep an eye on the Carmichaels, and as soon as it looks like people are done and making their exit, we have a team move in to make the arrest.”

“Arrest?” I asked. “You think the Carmichaels are coming in quietly? How is that going to work, Sheriff?”

Nagel set his jaw. “Fact is, I don’t expect them to come in quietly. This will be the tipping point. They’ve wanted to kill me for years, and this is going to be their excuse to do it. The only variable will be how much firepower they have at the event to aim at me.”

“You’ll be putting yourself out as bait?” I asked. “Sheriff, I don’t like that idea. This department needs you.”

The Sheriff turned back to the window. I could tell this was what he had been thinking about when I entered the room.

“Why do you think I promoted Bird when I did, Walker? I lead this organization. I have to think of every contingency. I have to make sure the department continues to operate even if I’m no longer here. The Sheriff’s justice isn’t about me, Walker. It’s about Taurus. Bird will make sure that justice is served. You will too. I know it.”

I stared at his back. There was nothing I could say to stop him. Besides, we were only talking about hypotheticals. Knowing the slimy Carmichaels, they might surrender on the spot just so they could walk out of jail the next day, newsfeeds capturing all the evidence they needed of how law enforcement had gone awry.

I had a bad feeling that wasn’t how things would play out. Evan and Sten weren’t stupid. They also swam in bigger ponds than Taurus. As did Nagel. Black’s presence here proved that.

“All right, Sheriff,” I said. “I’ll do whatever you need me to. I’ll arrive at the party as Kiren’s guest and check in with Tactical to share any information I might have uncovered.”

“No,” Nagel said. “You report to me only. That’s how we’ve done this, Walker, and it’s how I want to keep things. Clean. If anything goes sideways, you’ve always got the cover that you were operating on my orders. You understand me? You’re just a road deputy on special assignment, doing what you were told.”

“We’ll take care of him,” Black said in a low voice.

Nagel laughed. “You don’t move as quickly as I’d like sometimes, Black. I take care of my own people. Besides, Walker’s got himself a ship now. He thought I didn’t know. Things go sideways, he can get the hell off Taurus and start a new life somewhere else in the Deadlands. How many people working for me have that freedom? If there’s anybody I’m sending into this mess, it’s Walker.”

For a second, I wanted to remind them I was standing in the room. I also didn’t like how cavalier the Sheriff was being with my future... but he wasn’t lying at least. It was true I could leave Taurus now if I wanted.

Somehow, that made staying all the more important.

We spent another thirty minutes discussing the event and how the arrest would go down, how I would check in with Nagel and how Black wouldn’t be anywhere near the event until it was time for the arrest. What I took from the conversation was that most of the work fell on my shoulders.

Nagel recognized my expression and slapped me on the shoulder.

“Don’t look so bothered, Walker. You screw this up, nobody’s going to know how bad you failed except you, for the rest of your life. That’s easy, right?”

44

The entrance to the Royal Fountain hotel was surrounded by a sparkling blue moat with jets shooting long streams of foam and bubbling water in arcs over the bridge across. I checked my suit as I neared the entry checkpoint, then adjusted my pistol and badge.

“They appear to be using standard metal detectors, Deputy Walker,” Ellie said. “It will be necessary to show identification.”

“I figured,” I said. “Do you have the local security system yet?”

“I am assessing their server now. I should have access to all CCTV systems shortly.

The private security guards at the front looked at my badge then asked for an invitation. I smiled and handed over my token.

“Thank you, Deputy,” the guard said. “Have to take all necessary precautions.”

“No problem.” I walked through. The lobby continued the fountain motif, with huge pools located around the space. Statues spat water from different heights, and one half of the space was devoted to a tropical forest with drooping trees and tall grass. Partygoers lingered in the lobby with drinks and hors d'oeuvres, talking in small groups. I recognized a few faces from Kiren’s wedding.

“Walker,” Fratley growled from across the room. “You’re late.”

The Renegade came around a group of people in evening wear, and I almost didn’t recognize him. He was wearing a tailored black suit with gleaming black shoes. His hair was slicked back and the bowler hat was missing, although the cane was ready in his right hand. As he approached, I noticed he had waxed the ends of his mustache into little curls.

“Who is this businessperson?” I asked. “I don’t know you.”

“Keep it quiet,” Fratley said, obviously pleased with himself. “I clean up nice enough when I want to. The right clothes for the job. It’s all part of proper execution. Let me show you around.”

He motioned for me to follow him to the outer edge of the lobby where the floor rose a few steps. From here, he could look out over the groups with their drinks and food. Fratley rubbed his hands together and pointed out different captains of industry from Taurus and nearby space.

“And it looks like our Church of the Homeworld contingent has arrived.” He nodded toward a group of four people who had just entered the hotel. They were led by a tall woman in a pale blue suit of overlapping fabrics. “That’s Eliza there. I was worried she wasn’t going to show. I’ve made her a bit angry with the back and forth.”

The stream of people through the front doors increased as we watched. It looked like most of these guests were Kiren’s work—Taurus socialites unknown to both of us. There was a moment of excitement when the line stopped and people moved to the other side to allow a group through.

“Looks like the Carmichaels have arrived,” Fratley said.

Evan and Sten walked into the lobby, surrounded by security. I checked the faces of their guards and didn’t find Collin. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be here somewhere.

“We’ll need to keep an eye out for Collin,” I said.

“It’s not me he hates.” Fratley pointed at me. “That’s all on you. Why would he want to disrupt my party?”

Without mentioning Black’s operation, I just shrugged. “Past behavior is our best indicator of future action.”

“You and your cop thinking. If I was him, I’d never come anywhere near the station again, no matter how much the Carmichaels paid me.”

Watching the Carmichaels cross the lobby, I did my best to reconcile these two with people who could own multiple stations. Taurus, Fereen, Kopta. They had never struck me as the kind of people who thought beyond Taurus. We had the evidence, but all that seemed to point to outside help. That worried me. I wanted to close things up tonight, get the Carmichaels off-Taurus, and move forward with a peaceful transition of power.

Nagel had already said he trusted the station administrator to handle civilian life until new elections could be held. Between the Sheriff’s Office, Port Authority, and Station Admin, the lights would stay on and people would continue going to work. The only difference would be no more wild press conferences from the Carmichael Brothers.

I could easily imagine Fratley saying that was wishful thinking. And damn, I was thinking it.

But we’d have to see.

Watching the crowd, I thought through what my actions would be if gunfire broke out. Security would need to keep the doors open, let people run. There wasn’t much cover to be found among the fountains and tall catering tables, and there was lots of room for someone to raise hell.

I glanced upward, checking the balconies looking over the lobby, where some ran the length of upper levels so they could look down on the fountains. There were plenty of sniper locations. Not many that provided ongoing cover once the shooter started picking targets, however. They’d have to shoot and move. We’d have them in minutes after that.

I stopped myself. Who was we? I was the sole deputy at the event. I had private security on-site that I wasn’t supposed to coordinate with, and Tactical was on standby due to the elite nature of the event.

“There’s your sheriff there.” Fratley pointed at the middle of the lobby.

Nagel stood with a woman in a sparkling silver evening gown. He was dressed in a gray pinstripe suit that was probably the most fashionable thing I’d ever seen him wear. He accepted drinks from a passing server and handed one to the woman. They were smiling like they might actually be on a date.

“The Sheriff found someone brave enough to come out with him,” Fratley said. “She’s all shiny.”

Kiren walked out from behind the hotel desk. She was wearing a blood-red dress with a low neckline and plunging back. She walked with her arms straight, looking around like a general assessing troops. Groups greeted her as she passed, and her body language shifted from tense to cordial. In just the few minutes I watched, Kiren managed to talk to almost ten different groups. She was really in her element.

“There’s Ms. Carthage,” Fratley said. “She is going to come let me know when she’s ready to open the doors. It’s getting very close to party time.”

“Deputy Walker,” Ellie said in my earbud. “I have access to the CCTV system and am conducting visual scans now. I will send any subjects of interest to your HUD.”

I nodded.

“You got voices in your head?” Fratley asked. “I thought you were off work for the evening.”

“You know Ellie,” I said. “Never leaves me alone when I’m on Taurus.”

The silver HUD in my glasses identified faces and offered data about each person in my view. I resisted scanning Nagel’s date.

“There you two are,” Kiren said, climbing the steps to our level. “We’re all set, Fratley. Do you have the auction room ready?”

The Renegade patted his jacket. “All taken care of. All the invites have been checked at the door and security on the room is ready.”

“You should have told me,” Kiren said. “I could have opened the doors ten minutes ago.”

“This is good.” Fratley motioned toward the room. “Give them all time to mingle and socialize. Isn’t that why they’re here? See and be seen?”

Kiren shook her head. “That’s what the banquet call is for. The food’s getting cold and the band has already been playing for twenty minutes. Don’t act like you know anything about event management.”

Turning to walk back down to the floor, Kiren tapped an earbud and must have passed the command to security to open the inner doors. On the other side of the lobby, two sets of tall gold doors swung inward on the banquet area and music spilled into the lobby. Everyone in the crowd turned to look that direction, but no one seemed inclined to move.

Overhead speakers clicked and Kiren’s voice filled the lobby. “Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. I hope you’ve had a wonderful time meeting with each other among such beautiful fountains and people.” Light laughter passed through the room. “Now I would like to invite you inside, where we’ve prepared a meal representing many of the worlds across the Deadlands, with music from our own Taurus orchestra. Thank you.”

She didn’t have to mention the auction. Those with tickets would be eager to get a look at the VIP room, I figured.

“Let’s go take a look at your auction house,” I told Fratley.

He spun his cane and nodded with excitement. “Yes, indeed. Time to fund the future.”

45

My HUD was getting distracting as it jumped from face to face in the banquet hall. Unable to keep up with all the data Ellie was tracking about the attendees, I pulled the glasses off and blinked, getting a look at the room without all the extra information.

“Are you all right, Deputy Walker?” Ellie asked.

“Eyestrain,” I said. “Let’s slow down the updates unless I ask for info on someone. Once we’re in the auction room, I’ll want to know more about everyone in there. Fratley hasn’t been exactly forthcoming with all his potential buyers.”

“I understand,” she said. “So you are aware, Deputy Walker, I have identified Collin Charles in the building.”

I stopped and looked around. A few meters ahead of me was Fratley. I had seen the door where he was heading, so I didn’t need to follow closely.

“Where?” I asked.

“He is in the lobby area talking to one of the guards from the Carmichaels’ security detail.”

“Keep the tracker on him. He gets close to the Sheriff, me, Kiren, or Fratley, let me know. In fact, if he does anything weird, let me know.”

“Please define weird for this operation.”

“Pulling a gun, choking someone, getting drunk. I’m not sure he’s still working for the Carmichaels at this point. He could be a snubbed employee looking to take revenge.”

Ellie signaled she understood as I slipped the glasses back on. The HUD was more clear now, showing me only the security detail around the outer edges of the room and Sheriff Nagel’s location in the middle of the floor.

The banquet hall was a long, multi-leveled floor with fountains and pools in each section. The band was set up on a platform in the middle of the room with water running down its sides like a curtain. Trees and tropical grasses separated levels into small alcoves and seating areas that made it easy to have a conversation while still being aware of what was going on in the room.

According to the invitation, there would be another social hour where people could talk and eat, followed by a fashion show and charity auction of the clothing. The real auction would take place at the end of the night during the final part of the charity event. Kiren had said the lights would dim, offering anyone who wanted to slip out to Fratley’s auction a little cover.

As I looked around, people seemed to be genuinely having a good time. Nagel’s laugh was unmistakable as it cut through the other conversations.

“You look quite nice, Gage,” a familiar voice said beside me. I turned to find Yola walking past a fountain toward me. She was wearing a gold evening dress with a flute of something bubbly. She’d colored her bangs to match the dress.

“You look different,” I said.

“That’s a hell of a compliment.”

“Deputy Walker!” another voice called. I wasn’t surprised to see Kiren’s former assistant Haley crossing the level with her arms spread for a hug. There was no denying Haley her hugs.

“No hug for me?” Yola asked when Haley finally let me go.

“I don’t know you, but of course you get a hug.” Yola grinned and accepted the embrace. Haley was at least a half a meter taller than Yola.

“Haley, Yola,” I said. “She knows Kiren, too.”

Haley perked up at the mention of Kiren. “Have you seen the boss? I was just looking for her. The fashion show is going to run late.”

“I haven’t seen her since the doors opened,” I said. “She was moving pretty fast.”

“She’s good at this stuff.” Haley craned her neck to check the levels below us. “She slides through the crowd like she’s swimming, and I have to shove people out of my way. It’s fun, but probably rude.”

“If they don’t get out of your way, that’s their problem,” I said.

Haley laughed. “I know, right?” Something in her ear bud caught her attention, and Haley’s expression grew distant. She nodded and looked at me. “I need to go, Walker. Show’s about to begin. It was great seeing you.”

I raised my glass. “You too.”

“She’s a character,” Yola observed. She finished her sparkling wine and grabbed another flute off a passing server.

“Haley was Kallaver’s communications tech for a while. Nobody pushes her around.”

“Is she leaving with Kiren when she takes off as a Renegade?”

“Great question.”

The overhead lights dimmed and a woman walked onto the main stage, lit by a spotlight high in the ceiling. She thanked everyone for coming to the Taurus charity event of the year and hoped for many more in the years to come. I had to smile at the idea of that.

When the emcee was finished, she stepped to the side and music rose, then the first of the models walked out onto the stage.

For the next thirty minutes, the emcee kept the crowd excited about the models crossing the stage, followed by short bits of auctioneering to keep the bidding alive. Some items drew vastly larger amounts than others. People seemed to really be enjoying themselves, including Sheriff Nagel. He’d already bought two formal dresses that looked custom made for his long-legged date.

Several times, I spotted Kiren’s red dress moving through the crowd as she checked in with different groups.

As the fashion show was winding down, I spotted Fratley walking through the door into the VIP section on the far side of the room. Two guards stood on either side of the entrance, already checking people into the room.

I leaned toward Yola. “I’ll see you later?”

“Where are you going?”

“My last bit of business with Fratley if everything works out.” I realized as I said it that I might be right. Once Fratley had his auction complete, I had no reason to keep working with the Renegade. I wasn’t sure if I was saddened or excited about the idea.

Yola looked interested. “You mind if I tag along?”

“We may need to talk our way in,” I said, turning to leave the platform. “If we can’t get you in, I’ll have to leave you there.”

“I understand. I’ll find a way to entertain myself. Or I might surprise you.”

I tapped my earbud. “Ellie, where’s Tactical holding exactly?”

“The rapid response team is positioned in the Languid Harbor Hotel across the street, Deputy Walker. That was deemed to provide the fastest access to the lobby and banquet halls in the Royal Fountain, taking into consideration an outside attack or running civilians.”

I remember the briefing. It didn’t give me any more confidence in Tactical getting here in time to stop Collin Charles.

“Any update on Collin?” I asked.

“He is walking approximately fifteen meters ahead of you, Deputy Walker. A fountain is currently blocking your view. He appears to be headed for the same room as you and Ms. Deris.”

I glanced back at Yola. “You armed?”

She frowned. “I couldn’t get a gun through the metal detectors. I’ve got two plastic throwing knives inside my thigh-highs.”

“Good thinking,” I said.

“So, I’ve been meaning to ask you.” She walked up next to me. “What’s up between you and Kiren?”

“Nothing,” I said.

Yola raised an eyebrow. “Do you want there to be?”

I shook my head. “Nah. I’m a cop. Relationships are a liability.”

“Who said anything about relationships?”

Collin appeared from the other side of a fountain, and I dropped the conversation. He was wearing a black suit and moving a little stiffly. He was probably wearing armor under the civilian threads, like me. I thought he saw me as he paused to look back across the room. The enforcer continued walking to the VIP door, then he flashed an entry ticket and walked inside.

When we reached the door, I showed the guard my badge and passed through. Yola followed.

“Excuse me.” The guard held up a hand. “I’ll need an invitation.”

“She’s with me,” I said.

The guard shook his head. “I had orders to let you in without a ticket, Deputy Walker. I haven’t been told anything about her.”

“It’s fine.” Yola reached into a pocket hidden in the folds of her gown and flashed one of the specialty tickets. “I should have given you this to begin with.”

The guard looked at the invitation then waved us inside.

I didn’t have time to ask Yola where she’d gotten the ticket. We were standing at the rear of a long narrow room, with light provided by spotlights on each of Fratley’s ten crates around the outer walls. The place was already crowded. I spotted the back of Collin’s head moving toward the other end of the room, where the Carmichaels were standing on either side of a cocktail table, surrounded by sycophants.

Hearing Fratley talking in a low tone, I followed the sound to where the Renegade was locked in conversation with Sister Loralin, a nun from the Church of the Homeworld. Fratley was doing his best to keep a smile on his face, his gaze roving around the room as he gave her clipped responses from the side of his mouth.

“What do you mean a complete lot?” The woman’s voice was tight with anger. “The message plainly said we would have first rights to the artifacts. Now you’re telling me you will only sell as a whole. That’s dishonest, Mr. Oxonos.”

“I was under the impression you would want all of it,” Fratley said. “That was the message I received from your side. Unfortunately, it’s not in my interest to piecemeal this out. It’s all going in one shot. While I hope the Church secures what they need, maybe you can plan a follow-on buy from the successful bidder.”

Despite her slight build, the woman looked like she was going to wrap her hands around Fratley’s neck. One of the other Homeworlders rested a hand on her shoulder and she took a deep breath. “We won’t forget this,” she said.

“I hope we can do business again in the future.” Fratley maintained his smile until he spotted me. “Deputy Walker. How nice to see you at an event so clearly above your station in life.”

“I’m surprised you’re still alive at this point,” I said.

Fratley adjusted his tie. “I’m doing fine. Another few minutes for the festivities to start winding up outside, and then we’ll begin.”

“Collin’s over there with the Carmichaels.”

“So he isn’t dead or run off after all. Unfortunately, I’m busy at the moment, Walker. You’ll have to shoot him in the face for me.”

The news must have concerned him a little, at least. Rather than waiting like he’d said he was going to do, Fratley nodded to a woman dressed in a tailored black gown with silver threading that glimmered as she walked.

Her voice was commanding yet intimate. “Hello. May I have your attention? We would like to begin tonight’s activities. This is what you’ve all been waiting for. I trust you’ve had time to review each of the priceless artifacts gathered here tonight. Well, this is a unique opportunity to own what may be the single largest collection in the Deadlands or Union space.”

A murmur passed through the room, and the Homeworld group fumed. Evan Carmichael leaned against his cocktail table and smiled.

“This is a silent auction,” the woman said. “The bidding will last one hour. At ten minutes to the end, I’ll check in and assist as we wrap things up. You all have your bidding devices.”

She pointed at a view screen on the wall not far from the Carmichaels. “Let’s open the bidding.”

The first number that appeared on the screen would fund the entirety of my career’s salary, if I made it to retirement. It didn’t remain long. The numbers jumped, and a surge of excitement pulsed through the room. No one would know who was bidding, but they could all see the results.

Beside me, Fratley’s gaze was fixed on the bidding screen. He looked like he was going to explode from joy.

46

The numbers continued to rise. The view screen would pause for a few seconds, even a minute, until someone nudged a slightly higher bid and it was like a re-valuation had taken place, pushing the number to another plateau. While bidder’s names didn’t appear anywhere near the view screen, it was impossible not to pick up on who was bidding, who had just lost, and who was silently doing math with each new plateau. The Carmichaels appeared to be leading.

I noticed Sheriff Nagel standing near the back of the room. His date was no longer with him.

Near Nagel, the Church of the Homeworld group was growing more frantic, staring at the screen like it was a death clock. Other groups laughed anxiously to cut the tension as the room grew more silent, everyone staring at the bids.

The Carmichaels were following their typical mode. Evan cracked jokes while Sten watched the board. Collin stood behind them with his gaze fixed on the board as well. He nodded as the numbers rose, like he was confirming information he already had.

I had to wonder what the Carmichaels had already known about this collection. How had these crates ended up at Rivas? Was this James Carthage’s secret collection, something Kiren had known nothing about? Or had Tark Davies somehow transported the artifacts to Rivas after he bought his way on the Carthage board?

The crates had been covered in enough dust and grime in the Rivas vault to make me think they’d been there for decades. It was a mystery. I wondered how much of that mystery had been used to draw these people here.

As far as I understood, very few artifacts were actually useful. It was rumored that some Union tech had been developed from them, but most of it was components of other machines that wouldn’t work on their own, or required power sources that no one knew how to build. While the purposes of some of the junk looked apparent, others were completely foreign to me. It was hard to believe humans had even built them.

“Well,” the woman in the black dress announced. “We’ve reached our ten minute mark. Let’s take a look at our exciting bids, shall we?”

She didn’t have to wave at the view screen. Everybody knew the current highest bid. The emcee smiled. “Does it surprise anyone that Evan and Sten Carmichael lead the bidding? They certainly appreciate what a unique opportunity this is.”

As if hearing that the Carmichaels were winning pissed people off, a new wave of bidding pushed the price even higher. Across from me, Fratley wiped his forehead. He probably wished he was wearing his bowler cap to catch the sweat pouring off his temples.

“Five minutes,” the host said, her bright teeth shining in the dim light.

“Excuse me,” a man said from the entryway. People turned to find a short, trim man in a gray suit. “Is that the current bid?”

“This is a private auction,” Sten Carmichael growled.

“I have an invitation.” The man held his ticket between two fingers. He raised his bid tracker in his other hand as he studied the view screen, then he tapped the surface to enter a bid.

The leading bid doubled.

A hush passed over the room. Evan’s smile faltered and his eyes widened slightly. Sten’s scowl deepened.

It was Collin’s expression that surprised me, though. For the first time during the auction, he didn’t care about the number on the screen. He was staring at the new bidder.

I tapped my earbud. “Ellie, do we have an ID on our new bidder?”

“His name is Min Oragga,” she said. “My records show a homeworld of Ti Bier Prime, although it appears the Oragga Corporation owns holdings throughout the Deadlands. Strangely, there is nothing on Taurus.”

Four men in black suits standing just behind Oragga were obviously his security detail. Although no one physically moved toward the newcomer, everyone was focused on him.

Evan Carmichael cleared his throat, glanced at his brother, and tapped his bidding pad.

The highest bid ticked upward about a hundred thousand credits.

Oragga looked at the new number, nodding to himself. He tapped his pad again.

The highest bid doubled again.

The host stood in the middle of the room, blinking at the screen. She looked back at Fratley, whose mouth was hanging open. The five minutes she’d called before had passed, but if there was an opportunity to push these final bidders into a war of ego, they were going to take it. I wondered if Fratley had offered the woman a percentage of the final bid.

Nah, Fratley would never do that.

Neither of the Carmichaels were smiling now. People looked back at them for some response.

The Church of the Homeworld Contingent whispered angrily among themselves. Loralin dropped her bidding pad and left the room quietly.

“Well,” the host said quickly, pulling attention back to her. “It looks like we’ve reached the end of our bidd—”

The number jumped again. Evan gripped his bidding pad in two hands, and a vein stood out in his temple.

Oragga shrugged and tapped his pad. The number jumped again.

“Godsdammit!” Evan shouted. He threw the pad on the small table at his elbow and it bounced to the floor. “Damn you, Oragga.”

“I believe we have our winner,” the emcee announced. “Thank you all for attending. It’s been a very special night.”

I spotted Nagel again. He was crossing the room toward me. A few meters behind him, Black was walking forward as well.

Mr. Black seemed to have appeared from some dark corner. I had been watching the door for the last hour and hadn’t seen him enter.

A group had gathered around Oragga, congratulating him and asking what he thought of Taurus Station.

“It’s a nice little place,” he said. “I’m surprised it hadn’t come to my attention before.”

“No,” Evan Carmichael said in a loud voice. I turned back to their side of the room. Evan had turned to face Collin. The enforcer was staring at him with hard eyes. I knew that expression.

“Lyon sends their regards,” Collin said. “You’ve failed them for the last time.”

Collin’s hand shot out in a blade, crushing Evan’s throat. The tall man stumbled, raising his hands to protect himself, but Collin had already grabbed his head in a twisting motion. The snap as Even Carmichael’s neck broke filled the room.

I drew my pistol, shoved a socialite out of my way, and aimed for Collin’s center of mass. The enforcer stepped back and pulled a short-barreled automatic rifle from inside his coat. The rapid crack of gunfire sounded.

All around me, people started screaming.

47

The room was in chaos. Metal curtains dropped in front of each of the displays holding the crates, which also shut out most of the light beyond the dim ceiling bulbs. People pushed and scrambled in the dark.

As Evan Carmichael slid to the floor, Sten stared at his brother then turned to look at Collin. “You’ve been working for Lyon the whole time?”

The enforcer opened and closed his hands. “You’ve had long enough, Sten. You’ve been running this place like your own private party, stealing money you knew you should have paid to the Lyon. That data tech you sent to Kopta sold you out a year ago, and you were too dumb to see it. Lyon wanted to know if you had any redeeming qualities. If you could be saved. I just sent him the message: No. It’s time to clean house.”

Collin threw aside the table separating him from Sten and lunged for the other man. Sten managed to sidestep and get behind a woman who looked like she was trying to find a way out. She screamed when Sten grabbed her and threw her into Collin.

I raised my pistol again and aimed for Collin’s head. One round hit his shoulder and glanced off. He was wearing armor. He looked my direction and leaned down to grab the woman Sten had thrown at his feet. With a fistful of her hair, Collin pressed his rifle’s short muzzle against her temple.

Without warning me, Nagel and Mr. Black both rushed Collin from opposite sides. Collin saw them coming and shot the woman, then he sprayed rounds into the room, hitting people on all sides.

Black took cover behind a table, but Nagel threw himself toward the enforcer. Collin turned to face the Sheriff, leaning back slightly to steady his weapon, and fired directly into Nagel’s chest. He kept squeezing the trigger and the rifle jerked upward, catching Nagel in the neck before he stopped firing.

“No!” I shouted. I ran toward Collin, firing until my pistol went dry. I hit him before he turned to face me, tangling his rifle’s sling in his arm. We hit the floor together. There was more shooting behind us as Collin kicked hard, trying to roll away from me.

I got Collin underneath me, with my knee on the rifle across his chest. I hit him in the nose then the side of the head. Blood sprayed from his broken nose. I hit him again. All I could see was Nagel’s face as the bullets hit him and his neck exploded.

Something hit the back of my head hard. My cheekbone slammed against the wall and Collin managed to roll out from underneath me. I turned, bringing my hands up, as a shape I recognized as one of the cocktail tables came down toward my head again. I shifted to the right, trying to lunge for the legs of whoever was attacking me. My ears were ringing, but I heard Ellie say, “Deputy Walker, I have alerted Tactical. Assistance is on the way.”

I spat blood and got on my hands and knees. The man in tactical gear who’d hit me with the chair lay on the floor with a bullet in his brain. Black stood above me, offering a hand up.

I took his hand and got to my feet, then I spotted my pistol lying on the floor and knelt to retrieve it.

“Collin’s out in the main banquet area,” Black said. “He’s going after Sten. We don’t have a lot of time. Can you walk?”

I nodded and started running a function check on the pistol. “Where’s Nagel?”

Black pursed his lips and nodded at the floor to my left. The sheriff lay on his side, soaked in blood from the bullet wounds running from his stomach to his neck. The hard eyes were blank and staring.

With a shaking hand, I tapped my earbud. “Ellie, officer down.”

“I made the report, Deputy Walker.”

“Sheriff Nagel is down.”

“Walker,” Black said. “I’m going to need your help.”

I nodded, tearing my eyes away from the Sheriff. “I’m here. Let’s go.”

We made our way through the bloody room, sidestepping bodies. At the doorway, the sounds of gunfire grew louder and I spotted several of the VIPs from the auction huddled among the jungle alcoves in the level below us. Min Oragga knelt behind a low wall with a pistol in one hand, checking the area. It looked like only two of his security detail remained.

With Black behind me, I sprinted to Oragga and knelt beside him. I flashed my badge at the two security officers.

“Mr. Oragga,” I said. “My name’s Deputy Walker with the Taurus Station Sheriff’s Office. We’ve got reinforcements on the way. Are you hurt?”

“I’m all right,” Oragga said. “Two of my people are wounded back in the other room. It looks like that Collin brought in more of his own men. There was shooting out here as soon as he opened up in the auction house. Sten Carmichael ran somewhere. I think they’re after him.”

“There are a lot of people after Sten Carmichael,” Black commented.

“If I’m not back here soon, someone from the Sheriff’s Office will be here. I recommend you stay here as long as you can.”

“Thank you, Deputy Walker,” Oragga said. “I don’t plan on playing the hero today.”

Staying low, Black and I jogged deeper into the room. Banquet guests were scattered in every hiding place available, while many wounded also lay in the middle of the floor. When we paused at another low wall dividing sections, Black leaned toward me.

“I need Sten alive at all costs,” he said. “I know that makes things harder. But for this case to stick, I need him as a witness.”

I nodded. “I understand. We’re going to need to move fast before Tactical arrives and this place turns into a battlefield.”

“Come back here, Sten,” Collin shouted in the distance. “You can’t run from me anymore.”

As we moved toward the sound, I tapped my earbud. “Ellie, what’s the status on the others? Any sign of Fratley or Kiren? Did Yola and Haley get out?”

“Fratley and Kiren are fighting with Collin Charles’s mercenaries on one of the upper levels, Deputy Walker. That is the sustained gunfire that can be heard from your location. Haley is with them as well. I do not have a status on Yola Deris.”

I glanced up the garden-covered level where machine gun fire cracked the air. “Up there,” I told Black. “That’s where Sten’s running.”

We climbed three garden levels toward the uppermost section. The jungle theme was heaviest here, with fountains hidden among the tree trunks and waterfalls connecting levels along the stairs. A body fell from an upper level to a pool below as we climbed. Then I spotted Fratley.

The Renegade was using the cover of a fountain control box as he fired on another position I couldn’t see.

“Fratley,” I said in a low voice. “Who’s there?”

He looked back at me then frowned at Black. “It’s about time you got up here, Walker. Who’s with you?”

“Mr. Black,” the agent said. “I’m here to collect Sten Carmichael.”

“You’ll be collecting him in a box soon enough.”

“Where’s Kiren?” I asked.

Fratley nodded toward another line of threes. “Sten’s holed up in some kind of control office up there for the fountains. Collin and his bastards are arrayed around the office, but they’ve got Kiren and that Haley woman pinned down. I was trying to hit some of those mercs from the back so Kiren could run past when you showed up.

“We need Sten alive,” I said.

The Renegade raised an eyebrow. “I’d like to get my money and leave here in one piece. We’ll see how things work out for us.”

I moved to where I could get a better look at the situation and confirmed what Fratley had said. Collin had five mercs around what looked like a copse of trees at first, until I realized it was a room lined by tree trunks. The door was closed and there didn’t appear to be any windows or other ways in.

Glancing at Black, I pointed toward the mercs on either side of the area in front of us. If we divided them between us and fired quickly, we could take them by surprise. He nodded and raised his pistol to take aim.

I raised mine and counted down in a low voice.

We opened fire at the same time. I hit my first two mercs and missed the third. Black was up and running forward, still firing. I moved right behind him, hunting for my missed mercenary, then I spotted a head looking back at me between two trees. He ducked as I fired.

The door was right in front of us at the end of a snaking path. Thin trees filled the area, providing concealment but no real cover. We had to move fast before Collin managed a counterattack.

Movement at my left caught my attention and I turned as one of the mercs leaned around a clump of leaves with his rifle. I fired three times, hitting him in the chest. Beside me, Black opened fire on a target across the platform. I came around my tree to see it was Collin, standing knee deep in a waterway that ran off the edge of the platform. He was holding his rifle loosely in his right hand, his left tight against his stomach. He looked up at Black then fell backward off the ledge.

“How’d your pistol get through his armor?” I asked.

“Cheap armor, apparently.”

We scanned the area for another few seconds. When no one popped up, I moved back to the door and banged next to the latch. “Sten Carmichael. This is Deputy Walker. Open the door. You’re under arrest.”

“You fucking work for me, Walker. You can’t arrest me. You can’t do anything to me. You have no idea what we’re up against here.”

I leaned closer to the door. “You want me to help you get out of here? Tactical Division is on their way and this place is going to become a mess. The Sheriff is dead. How much do you think your life is worth right now? I arrest you, then we can get you out safely. You’ll get out of here alive. You understand?”

Black glanced at me, nodding his approval at the tactic. When Sten finally opened the door, Black stepped to the side of the building where he couldn’t be seen.

I faced Sten Carmichael, his fine black suit torn and bloody, and reached into the small of my back for my handcuffs. “Mr. Carmichael. Turn around and we’ll get this over with.”

All the familiar scorn had left his face. He looked tired and terrified. He nodded and turned to face the wall.

Taking one hand at a time, I placed the cuffs and locked them, then I turned Sten to lead him out of the office. As we walked into the garden, Black stepped out from behind the door.

“Sten Carmichael,” he said. “My name is Mr. Black. I’ll be taking things from here.”

Sten looked at me, then back at Black. “What’s going on here?”

“I’m passing you to another jurisdiction,” I said. Below us, more gunfire indicated that Tactical had arrived.

“Deputy Walker,” Ellie confirmed. “Backup has arrived. Should I report you Code 4 with one in custody?”

“No,” I said. “Mr. Black will take things from here. I’ll go down to meet the Tac leader.”

“I understand, Deputy Walker.”

Sten wouldn’t shut up, so Black slapped a piece of tape across his mouth. He turned back to me and extended a hand. “Thanks, Walker. You did some good work these last few weeks.”

I shook his hand.

“I’m sorry about Nagel,” Black said. “I truly am. I think he felt something was coming, that’s why he made the decision about Bird. She’s good.”

“Where are you taking him?”

Black gave me a tired smile and didn’t answer. “Good luck, Walker. Maybe we’ll run into each other again.”

Without waiting for my response, he marched the lone Brother off while I watched in shock.

48

I dropped a level and spotted someone climbing out of the waterway in a jungle section on the level below me. It was Collin. He limped forward, holding his stomach.

“Collin,” I shouted, raising my pistol.

He turned with this rifle in his right hand, spraying bullets that forced me to tuck behind a fountain. When I looked back, he was digging in a cargo pocket as he kept the weapon pointed in my direction.

I raised my pistol and fired, moving along the edge of the fountain. Two rounds hit the tree beside his head, and Collin dropped to a knee. Moving forward, I watched him manipulate a large syringe in his non-firing hand, pulling a safety tab free with his teeth. Collin plunged the syringe in his thigh and grimaced as the medication entered his leg.

There was no good shot until I dropped down to his level. The foliage here was just too heavy. I waited for a second to see where he was going to move, then I checked the edge of my platform for a good place to drop away from the steps. When I looked back to where Collin had been kneeling, he was gone.

Godsdammit.

“Ellie, have you got a visual on him?”

“Mr. Charles is on the far side of the fountain below, Deputy Walker. He appears to be looking for an opportunity to fire on you.”

“Give me a target point.”

Using my HUD, Ellie marked the point in the trees below where Collin had moved out of sight. I aimed at the spot and fired three rounds, then I sprinted toward the low wall at the edge of the platform. I slid over and dropped behind a row of thin tropical trees. The sound of rustling grass and water were all I could hear, until gunshots in the distance filled the air.

“What’s going on below?”

“Tactical continues to engage the mercenaries working for Mr. Charles. They appear to have taken a group of the attendees hostage. Three civilians have been wounded.”

Collin burst from the greenery below and turned to look up at me. His face was a mask of rage, his eyes bloodshot. He raised the rifle and fired into the trees above my head until his magazine went dry, then he turned to run toward the battle below.

“He’s not looking well, Ellie.”

“He appears to have injected a stimulant.”

“You think?” I dropped to the next level and ran after Collin, firing on him as he struggled to load another magazine. He managed to drop to the main level and join a group of his people moving toward the main gun battle.

“I lost him,” I told Ellie, taking cover behind a table lying on its side. Ahead of me, three fountains bordered a wide area that had been filled with banquet tables. Now most of the tables had been kicked over as the two groups traded gunfire. The space between was littered with wounded guests and smashed dinnerware. I passed one of Collin’s mercs and grabbed their SKS and five magazines, then I slipped the extras into my coat pockets. The weapon had lighted sights that were better than my pistol at these longer ranges.

I didn’t want to get into an argument with the Tactical team leader, so I told Ellie to report my location as I moved, then I slid around the backside of the banquet hall, edging behind Collin’s forces. Ellie was still highlighting him for me, so while I couldn’t see him specifically, an icon showed me where he’d taken a position behind a low wall about twenty meters ahead.

“Ellie, do you have any record of someone called the Lyon? Do you know what Collin was talking about?”

“I have no record of a business or criminal organization with that name on Taurus Station,” she said. “I am continuing the query with off-station resources. Deputy Walker, Sergeant Keldon orders you to get your ass back to the Tactical side of the operation.”

“Keldon’s in charge? Send him the feed from my glasses as I come around. Why don’t they have a drone in the air?”

“Air assets are still inbound. The quick response team is onsite now.”

I moved through a dining area, staying low as I approached the mercs. For now, they didn’t seem aware of anything behind them. They fired on the deputies on the other side of the room and moved along their barrier line, handing off ammo. As I left the tables and chairs, I got my first view of the guests they’d taken hostage.

Yola and Kiren sat with their backs against a low wall. On the ground near them, Fratley lay on his side with his head on the ground. His temple looked bloody. On the other side of Fratley, Min Oragga lay with his hands and ankles bound. One of his guards lay near him, dead from a head shot.

“You sending this back, Ellie?” I asked.

“I am sharing the hostage information, Deputy Walker.”

I continued to move forward, choosing what bits of cover I could find. Collin was stalking the line of his people now, shouting at them to kill the damn deputies. Then he told one of his mercs that the transport was almost here.

“You got that, Ellie? What’s his quickest way out of the building?”

“The fastest route out of the hotel from here would be through the lobby. That would require fighting past Tactical Division’s forces. There is a back entrance through the kitchens. Mr. Charles may be thinking of that path.”

“Where’s the door?”

Ellie highlighted a set of double doors to my left that were partially hidden behind a line of potted trees. As I watched, two of Collin’s mercs slid off that direction, firing on Keldon’s team as they moved.

“Keldon.” I switched to the Tactical net. “They’re trying to slide out through the kitchens. Do we have anyone on the outside?”

“Walker!” my former trainer said in a low voice. “Now you want to talk to me, huh? I told Ellie I was going to pop your head like a zit when I found you. Did she pass that along?”

“In so many words,” I said. “You got the hostage info?”

“Yes, I did. Are we looking at kidnapping? Why else did they attack the hotel? Nobody knew Oragga was going to be here or we’d have sent a whole security detail.”

“I didn’t know who he was until thirty minutes ago,” I said. “Hold on, they’re moving.”

“Watch yourself, Walker. We’re tracking you but that doesn’t mean there won’t be crossfire.”

I didn’t have time to answer. One of the mercs kicked Yola in the side and ordered her to her feet. Kiren got in the man’s way and he backhanded her, knocking her back down.

Closer to the barrier, Collin came back to grab Oragga personally. He left with the businessman, flanked by two of his mercs, and headed for the kitchen doors.

Keldon laid out orders for the Tactical team, and then they rushed the barriers. Most of Collin’s people had already pulled back to grab their hostages, leaving only a few to fire on the attacking deputies. Those few went down and I grabbed my opportunity to shoot the merc on Kiren in the head. He fell away from her and Yola quickly grabbed his rifle.

“Walker!” Yola shouted. “Where did you come from?”

“I just got here. Did they say anything about what they planned to do?”

Yola pointed at the kitchen doors as she helped Kiren to her feet. “They said they’ve got some kind of transportation on the way.”

“Yeah. I didn’t hear what.” I knelt beside Fratley to check his pulse. He didn’t look like he was bleeding anywhere.

Kiren rubbed her temple and gave me a half-smile. “Great party, huh?”

“Unforgettable. Did either of you see what happened to Fratley?”

“One of them hit him with a shock baton,” Yola said. “He went down like a wet towel.”

I tapped Fratley’s cheek. He didn’t stir. “Can you both stay here until medical arrives?”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Yola said.

Kiren nodded, still holding the side of her head.

“Are you all right?” I asked, stepping closer to get a look at Kiren’s face.

She turned her head away. “I will be. It’s going to be a bruise.”

I dropped my hand. Ten meters from us, the last of Collin’s mercs stumbled away from the barrier then fell from a chest wound.

“I’m going after Collin.” I didn’t have time for an answer. I ran for the kitchen doors just as one of the mercs passed through, and I caught him as the door swung closed behind me. We slammed into the wall, and I clocked him with my rifle’s stock. He went down and I kept running, aiming for a set of doors at the far end of the hallway. Light through a pair of windows indicated they opened onto the outside of the building.

I hit the doors to find an alley lined with dumpsters.

“Where am I, Ellie?”

She gave me the cross streets. The building across from me was another casino. Tourist routes ran on either side of the alley. I would need to stop Collin here before he managed to get to a crowded street.

Staying low, I checked both ends of the alley. Collin and two of his mercs were on my left, dragging Oragga.

“Subject in sight, Ellie,” I said. “Moving in.”

I sprinted after the group. When I was ten meters away, Collin heard me coming. He turned and shouted at the others. What I didn’t expect was for the enforcer to stop and turn to run directly at me. He had a wild smile as his arms pumped.

I stopped, raised my rifle, and fired three times before he slammed into me. The rifle clattered as we hit the pavement.

“I’m done with you, Walker.” Collin hit me with an armored hand.

“You sure about that?” I spit blood, then I rocked upward and managed to slam my forehead against his chin.

Collin shoved my head back down. “You’re not doing that again.”

“You lost Sten,” I said. “You’re no better than your bosses.”

He gave me a bloody smile. “You keep on thinking I worked for those assholes.”

Rolling, I managed to kick at the pavement and knock him to the side. Collin scrambled to lock his legs around my waist, but I slid out and rose to all fours. I stood and backed away, pulling my rifle back up.

Collin got to his knees with a pistol in his hands.

I fired from my waist, and the first bullet hit his thigh. I walked the rounds up even as I felt a bullet hit my shoulder, then I shifted left as another round hit my stomach.

“Deputy Walker,” Ellie warned. “A direct hit to the face will be fatal. Your armor is ineffective at this range.”

My heart pounded in my ears as I registered the movement in Collin’s arm when he moved to resight his pistol. I raised the rifle to my cheek, risking milliseconds, and planted the glowing dot in the middle of the other man’s forehead.

I squeezed the trigger three times.

Collin lay on his back on the pavement, black gloves on either side of his face.

I walked toward him then kicked his leg. His right hand fell away, showing the open hole in his skull.

Something slammed into my arm. Someone had shot me.

I turned to see the two mercs, only one holding Oragga now. I shot the closest merc in the chest and shoulder, then I shifted to engage the second one only to find Oragga choking him with his restraints. The merc struggled for another few seconds before going limp. The businessman let him fall to the pavement.

“You sure you needed my help?” I asked.

Oragga gave a tired smile. “I never turn down excellent help, Deputy Walker.

49

A choir sang during the final moments of Sheriff’s Nagel’s memorial ceremony. The room joined in the simple song and soon everyone was singing together. The assembled voices shook the hall.

I shouldn’t have been surprised by the number of people here to honor the man. There was the department, of course, but also more than a thousand citizens that he had helped in some way during his long career. Even more watched remotely.

There might have also been the need for some mass civic recognition of so much change, so quickly. The station needed a show of normalcy, even if it was a funeral. The Station Administrator had made a long speech praising Sheriff Nagel. Four other speakers from across the station honored the sheriff, and then acting Sheriff Bird paid the final respects.

She brought the department to attention, and together we repeated the final words of the oath of office. A group behind me changed the words to “He was the shield,” and others picked it up, shouting “He was the shield!”

Bird blinked and gave a tight smile at the podium while she waited until the shouting finally died down. It was the end of an era. Nagel was gone.

During the mixer afterward, I happened to glance at the second level of the hall and noticed a man in a black suit looking down on the memorial at the front of the room. It was Black.

I excused myself and found the lift, then I rode to the second level. He was still there when I stepped onto the balcony beside him.

“I thought you would be gone already,” I said.

Black turned without surprise and nodded in greeting. “Hello, Deputy Walker. Wish these were better circumstances.”

“When I think about how I’d like to go, I think I want to at least know I accomplished whatever it was I was trying to when I got shot. I wish he could have known he did.”

He chuckled. “Surprise is probably the best and worst emotion when your time is up. I think I don’t want to be confused, that’s all.”

“That’s life, though,” I said.

Black’s gaze lingered on the party below. The bar had opened up, managed by Drake and his daughter Bree. Toasts and laughter, alongside many tearful hugs, had started taking place throughout the room. I spotted Keldon sloshing a beer in response to a toast.

“You’ve got a good group of people here,” Black said.

“I do,” I agreed.

Black turned to me then and offered up a small smile. “I know we kept you in the dark for much of the main mission. I still can’t fill you in on all of it, but I can tell you something. My name isn’t really Black. It’s Mr. Shaw.”

One of my brows shot up in surprise. “I guess that means you work for some division you can’t tell me about,” I mused.

He smiled at me. “That’s correct. But you’re an astute man, Gage Walker. I’m sure you can intuit.” Black slapped me on the shoulder and adjusted his tie. “Time for me to be going. Thanks again for your help. I may be in touch soon.”

I frowned. “What about? The Carmichaels are done, right?”

Black flashed his tired smile. “The Carmichaels were far from the puppet masters of this show, unfortunately. The strings are still out there, looking for new pawns.”

“Collin Charles mentioned someone or something called the Lyon,” I said. “Does that mean anything to you?”

There was a slight shift in Black’s gaze, like he was debating sharing the answer. All he said was, “Take care of yourself, Gage.” He left me alone on the balcony.

* * *

Kiren invited me out to the flight line bar where I’d met her earlier with Fratley. When I arrived, I found the whole crew present: Kiren, Fratley, Haley, and Yola. Haley still wore a bandage on the side of her head where one of Collin’s mercs had knocked her unconscious with a shock baton. She’d taken to calling Fratley her “baton buddy,” since he’d been knocked out as well. The name made him grumble and want another drink.

“I’m surprised you’re here,” I told the Renegade as I walked up. “Shouldn’t you be out building your empire while Kiren here shops for ships?”

Kiren slid a black disk on the table then tapped its surface and grinned like a kid with her hand in the cookie jar. A ship floated above the table, sleek yet hefty, a cargo transport that could definitely defend itself.

“What do you think?” Kiren asked.

“Looks mean,” I said. “What’s she called?”

“Gun Empress. I’m still not sure about the name.”

“It’s a good name,” Fratley said. “Let’s people know from the jump you’re not one to be messed with. You want that out in the void.”

Sounded like good advice to me. “Does the Empress have guns though? That’s an important detail, considering it’s in the name.”

Kiren gave an excited laugh. “Hells, yes. She does. What about you, Gage? Have you decided to hang onto the Afterburn?”

“Since I don’t have a place to live, it’s serving double duty as my home,” I said. “Sam would probably be sad if I sold him. That would be two big shake-ups in less than a month.”

“You don’t need a ship.” Fratley gave me an evil grin. “You’re going to stay here on Taurus for the rest of your life, writing parking tickets for the good of the people.”

Yola took a long drink from her beer. “I’ll be glad to watch the ship for you, Gage. More than happy. You just tell me when you need it back, and I’ll do my best.”

“No thanks.” I sipped my whiskey. “The ship stays with me. I think Ellie’s growing fond of it, too. Maybe she’d like to get off Taurus every now and then.”

“I thought Ellie stayed on Taurus,” Kiren asked.

“I explained to him that you could off-load a portion of her to the Afterburn,” Yola said. “With an update, she could easily serve as a ship’s AI. From what I’ve heard though, I don’t think I could deal with having my mom criticizing me all the time.”

I looked at Fratley. “I’ve got a question for you. You ever heard of the Lyon before?”

The Renegade frowned. “Can’t say I have. Where’d you hear it?”

“Collin said he worked for him or them right before I shot him.”

“I guess this Lyon was no friend of the Carmichaels then.” Fratley swiped distractedly at his data pad then finished his beer. “I’ll need to be leaving you all. I’ve got a meeting.”

“Forging your criminal empire?” I joked.

“Something like that,” Fratley said. “Let’s remember that we’re friends, right, Walker?”

“That’s a strange thing to say,” Haley said.

Fratley slapped his jacket then picked up his cane from where he’d leaned it against the booth. “I like to keep everything in the open. If I like someone, I like them. If they cross me, they’re done. It’s not a complex philosophy.”

The tone of his voice indicated we probably weren’t going to see each other for a while, so I slid out of the booth to shake the Renegade’s hand.

“Take care of yourself,” I said.

“You too, Deputy. Keep your head down. I’d like to see you around in another year.”

I nodded. “Me too.”

“Right,” Fratley said. “Enjoy your ship, Ms. Carthage. Call me up if you ever need a job. The rest of you, I wish you life and love.” He turned with a flourish of his brown trench coat and walked out of the bar, tapping his cane on the polished floor.

“I won’t miss the theatrics.” Kiren raised her glass. “To Fratley Oxonos.”

I sat back down and raised my bourbon. “To Fratley. May he stay one step ahead until I’m the one chasing him.”

Epilogue

I couldn’t quite explain the feeling of satisfaction I had as I watched the maintenance drone position a new gun mount on the Afterburn’s hull. The only similar sensation was an excellent whiskey, but this felt more like joy.

I was so lost in the drone’s activity that I didn’t notice the transport pulling up behind me, its motor hidden by the engine roaring from the flight line. When I did notice the group walking toward me, they were only about ten meters away.

I turned and was surprised to find Mr. Oragga walking in front of two security guards in blue suits. He smiled and raised a hand in greeting.

“Mr. Oragga.” I walked away from the work area. “How are you feeling?”

He tapped his temple. “Apparently I had a concussion. After a visit to my personal medical facility, I’m feeling much better.”

“That’s good to hear. How can I help you?”

Oragga smiled and looked past me to the Afterburn. “I don’t think many sheriff’s deputies own slip-capable ships.”

“I am incredibly fortunate. And now I’ve got something to waste my salary on for a while, since I won’t be leaving anytime soon.”

“Would you mind showing me around? I’m a big fan of the type.”

“You know this model?” I asked.

“Very well. I owned a fleet of them. Pretty tough, as far as ships go.”

Oragga’s men waited outside as I led him up the cargo ramp into the bay. He pointed out a few places where the Afterburn appeared to carry updates to his previous ships. He was especially pleased with the galley.

“That coffee maker is a luxury upgrade,” he said.

“And I do enjoy it. Can I pour you a cup?”

He raised a hand. “Thank you. It’s too late in the day for me.”

In the command deck, Oragga ran his hand across the back of the captain’s seat and surprised me by sitting down at the ops console. “I was very impressed by your actions at the gala last Friday, Deputy Walker.”

“Please, call me Gage.”

Oragga nodded. “You’ve earned the title. I have no problem using it.”

“I insist,” I said.

“Call me Min, then. I came here because I would like to offer you a job.”

I blinked. “A job? I’m a Sheriff’s Deputy. I don’t need a job.”

He smiled. “I have a very specific role that I believe you would excel in. But I understand if the time isn’t right. I wanted to make the offer at least. I will say, there is a short-term component you could complete in probably a week. That would give you time to evaluate the position and make some extra money. Money you could use to outfit your new ship. I could also make certain upgrades available to you that wouldn’t be found on the open market. Certainly not outside the Union.”

“That’s very kind of you, Mr. Oragga.”

He raised a finger. “You agreed to call me Min.”

“Min. Being a deputy is my life right now. I’ve given everything to this station.”

“Of course you have. I would encourage you to think a little more about yourself and what you ultimately want. Unfortunately, the only constant in life is change, and Taurus is about to go through a great deal of change.”

“We’ve got a lot of rebuilding to do without Sheriff Nagel.”

Oragga smiled. “This goes further than the Sheriff. I’ve been quite intrigued by your Taurus. I see a lot of potential here. Unfortunately, ownership is tied up among a few parties.”

“I thought the Carmichaels owned Taurus.”

“They did. Or at least, they were the face of an ownership organization. That organization became displeased with them. They are no longer in control.”

I considered asking Oragga if he knew who Lyon was, but I decided to wait a little longer. I had to admit I was more excited about the idea of working for him than I thought I would be.

“What kind of job are you offering?” I asked.

“So you are interested.”

I raised a hand. “I’d be foolish not to ask at least, right? We talking about a butler or hired gun?”

Oragga chuckled. “Nothing like that. I can’t get into the specifics unless you agree to the short term job. All I can tell you now is that it is not illegal, and it could involve the threat of violence. And that it concerns something very important to me.”

He changed the subject back to the ship and asked me a few questions about the engines and when I expected to take it out to test the slip drive. I mentioned that I’d already tested it on the trip back to Taurus, without mentioning Kopta.

“That’s right,” he said. “I have been curious about something. How did you get close to Kopta without being tracked?”

“That would be Mr. Oxonos’ trade secret.”

Oragga didn’t seem to want to press the subject. All he said was, “I heard that was a terrible place. It’s a good thing it was shut down.”

“How do you know about that?” I asked, wondering if he was in contact with Black—Shaw—somehow.

“Let’s just say there aren’t many organizations operating across the Deadlands that don’t draw my notice. The Carmichael Brothers’ link to Fereen and Kopta were both of interest to me.”

“Is this other organization you mentioned also part of the dark site network?”

Oragga stood and smoothed his jacket. “I can only offer conjecture about that. Perhaps that’s why I would like to hire a detective, someone who could put my mind at ease.” He reached inside his jacket, pulled out a card, and handed it to me.

It was a thin piece of white metal with what looked like an embedded chip but no other markings.

“That’s a passkey,” he said. “I’ll have a location shared with you, and if you would like to learn more about the job, come meet with us there. Unfortunately, I’ll need an answer in seven days. After that, my window of opportunity closes.”

“How long do you expect this job to take?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I think a competent person could complete the investigation in a week, not including travel time. A fast ship helps. How fortunate that you have a fast ship.”

We walked back down the main corridor to the cargo bay, the conversation having shifted back to the Afterburn’s capabilities. I had to admit, hearing Oragga’s enthusiasm made me want to get out and shake the dust out of the engines. That was funny in itself. Not long ago I couldn’t stand to be in zero-g and now here I was comfortable with it.

I thought back to the moment when he kept doubling the Carmichaels’ bids at the auction, clearly undermining the only strength they could demonstrate. I supposed that was why Collin turned on them. Or maybe they’d already lost confidence and he was just waiting for the right moment.

As we walked down the cargo ramp, I got a private comms request on my earbud. I was surprised to hear Yola’s breathless voice.

“Walker, are you alone?”

“Where are you?”

Oragga looked back at me. He must have assumed I was taking a work call. He waited at the bottom of the ramp.

“A little place I had to do some work,” Yola said. “Look, I’ve had those Union tools hacking on the Rivas database.”

I frowned. “We turned that data over to the department.”

“Come on,” she said. “You know I made a copy. I’d be worthless if I didn’t make a copy. Well, when you asked about that name, Lyon? I ran it against the new section I just decrypted. Lyon isn’t a person, it’s a group. I guess you could call it a gang, but they’re the richest bastards I think I’ve ever run across. They’re at the top of all of it, Walker. The human trafficking, the prisons, drug running. They pulled the Carmichaels’ strings. You want to stop places like Kopta, we’re going to have to take them down.”

“We?” I asked.

“You need a crew, right?”

I glanced at Oragga, feeling like events were aligning outside of my control. I didn’t like the foreboding, especially now that Nagel was gone. But it wouldn’t stop me from doing the right thing.

“Let me look at what you’ve got,” I said.

“I’ll bring it back to the ship.”

Oragga raised an eyebrow. “Duty calls?”

I nodded, looking out at the flight line. “The Sheriff’s Justice is never done, Mr. Oragga.”

He chuckled. “Be careful, Deputy. You’ll never get away.”

We shook hands and he walked back to where his security detail waited. He had a way of looking completely unassuming, despite the fact that he could own this station a hundred times over.

I turned his card in my hands, listening to the wind from the flight line, knowing he was most likely correct.

* * *

Continue reading for GALACTIC EXECUTIONER.

1

“Robbery in progress, Deputy Walker,” LE-DB reported. “Promenade Sector, Section Seven. You had better move.”

“Lights and sirens, Ellie.” I braked and made a quick turn onto a side street, away from traffic.

“Dammit,” Keldon said. “I knew riding with you would mean actual work, Walker.”

My partner for the shift, Sergeant Jack Keldon, grinned under his brush mustache and pulled on his duty helmet. He slapped the face shield closed. My former trainer was always quick with a joke, and despite the quip, he was the least likely in the department to turn a blind eye to work that needed to be done. He trained me well to serve the Sheriff’s Justice, and I respected him for it.

Ellie fed us data about our destination as I raced down empty streets on the outer edge of the Promenade. The only traffic here involved lost tourists and cargo drones serving the retail areas along the strip.

“Jewelry store,” Keldon said, whistling. “Not a smash and grab though. The crew is shaking down the customers. Looks like they caught a rich group in the middle of a scheduled showing.”

“Inside job?”

“Likely.” Keldon checked his duty weapon and slid it back into its holster. “Every time I think criminals are going to be smart, they disappoint me.”

“Surveillance footage acquired,” Ellie reported. The middle strip of the cruiser’s windscreen showed footage from the showroom of a jewelry store. Glass cases lined the walls with a full bar to one side. Four men in suits held weapons on a group of well-dressed civilians with terrified expressions. Three people lay on the floor, identified as deceased. Those must have been the staff.

“This is more than a robbery,” Keldon said. “Ellie, do we have IDs on the civilians?”

“They are visitors to Taurus Station, Sergeant Keldon. Members of the Chauncey family.” She highlighted their faces and displayed names, ages, and planet of origin. “They passed through Port Authority just twenty hours ago.”

“And the perps?”

“I have no record of any of these individuals in the station database. They did not pass through normal ports of entry, and I do not have any matches with current residents.”

I skidded around a corner and accelerated. The shop was just a klick ahead now. This was a regular street, and some people didn’t pay attention to the lights and sirens, forcing me to slide around them. The cruiser could handle the sudden shifts easily. What worried me were the hundreds of tourists ambling along the sidewalks. One of them could stumble into our path at any moment, especially when rubbernecking.

The shop appeared in the windscreen display. The front had been placed in security lockdown, with metal guards covering the doors and windows.

“Do we have a security override?” I asked Ellie.

“Working, Deputy Walker. They appear to have taken control of all internal network systems. I was able to enter the CCTV feed through the municipal link.”

“Maybe these guys are smart after all,” Keldon said.

I slid to a stop in front of the store, and Keldon threw his hatch open. After placing the cruiser in a secure park, I followed. Keldon was already running for an alley on the far side of the store.

“There has to be a cargo point,” he called back to me. “Watch out for someone at the back door.”

He had barely said back door when bullets struck the wall near his head. I came around the corner and took cover behind a dumpster next to Keldon as two men in suits fired on us from the other end of the alley.

“That’s our way in,” he said.

I checked my duty weapon. “I’ll go low. You go high.”

“Story of your life, Walker.”

I slid out from beside the dumpster and fired on the two men at the door. I caught one in the leg as the other pulled back inside. Keldon followed me, pushing forward down the alley. When the unhurt man leaned around the doorway again, Keldon’s shot hit him in the right arm and he fell back, howling in pain.

We reached the door as the man I’d shot in the leg was dragging himself back inside, trying to reach for the locking mechanism on the inside of the door. The perp Keldon had hit was lying on the ground, dead from a gunshot that had exploded out the back of his skull. I was confused but didn’t have time to think about it with another suspect still armed.

“Drop your weapon,” I shouted, moving forward with my pistol raised.

The man rolled onto his back, smearing blood all over his suit. He raised his pistol as he looked at me, and I fired, drilling him back with two shots that hit center mass.

The shots didn’t stop him though. He put his pistol under his chin and squeezed the trigger.

“Well, damn,” Keldon said from behind me.

“Ellie,” I said. “We’re entering the building. Do we still have live victims inside?”

“Surveillance shows all three civilians as alive, Deputy Walker. You will find the showroom through the last door on your left.”

I entered the building, pistol ready. As soon as I checked the hallway, pistol fire hit the wall next to my head. Returning fire, I dropped to a knee behind a stack of boxes and waited for whoever was down there to run through their magazine.

They didn’t. As soon as I was out of sight, they stopped firing.

Dammit.

“Ellie, what can you give me on the hostiles in there?”

“They are outside the scope of the interior cameras, Deputy Walker. Based on audio ballistics, there should be one hostile perpetrator. They are currently using a pistol.”

I could have told her that.

“I’m firing, Walker,” Keldon said from behind me. Keep your head down. Once I get them behind cover, you run for the next doorway.”

I checked around the box to get another look at the hallway. There was a door five meters away. The lit door to the main showroom was the next one down from there.

“Let’s do it,” I told Keldon.

He fired three times in rapid succession, laying down cover, and paused when he didn’t get immediate return fire. I sprinted for the doorway.

Tiles from the floor exploded in front of me. Behind me, Keldon fired as I slid into the doorway. Without stopping, I raised my pistol and spotted a man with close-cropped brown hair, looking nearly identical to our dead man outside. He was trying to check for me and Keldon at the same time.

I fired, forcing him down, and ran for the other door. Keldon kept shooting as I left the hallway.

The display room was lit with brilliant white bulbs in the ceiling. Long jewelry cases running the length of the room had all been opened, their velvet interiors swept clean.

Keeping along the wall, I cleared the room then spotted three civilians lying on the floor behind the sales counter. A man and woman were unconscious, but another woman with bright red hair stared at me with wide eyes. She kept her mouth clamped closed.

I raised my free hand to reassure her when her gaze flicked slightly to my left.

Turning, I moved in time to catch another perp in a blue-gray suit as he stepped around a partition with a crowbar raised above his head. Reversing my pistol, I drove the butt into his teeth. He stumbled back, spitting blood and his front teeth.

More gunfire came from the hallway as I hit the man again, knocking him out.

“You get a scan, Ellie?”

“Attempting ID now, Deputy Walker.”

I patted him down for weapons and found nothing, then I rolled him over and applied cuffs. Without wasting any more time, I moved back to the hallway, looking for Keldon.

The sergeant was walking back from the left, his pistol already back in its holster. He had a grim look.

“You all right?” I asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I shot this one in the shoulder and he went down, then he pulled the muzzle in the mouth move, same as our guy in the alley.”

I frowned. “When was the last time an armed robber chose suicide over arrest?”

Keldon shook his head. “The suits are strange, too. This is a weird call. I don’t like it.”

“Well, I got one alive at least. Our civilians are in the showroom.”

“Send an update. I’ll check on them.”

I stood in the doorway as Keldon went to the woman who had given me the warning and knelt to cut the ties on her wrists.

“Are they all gone?” she asked in a meek voice.

“All gone,” Keldon assured her.

“That one’s making gurgling sounds,” she said.

Keldon checked the other two unconscious civilians as I had Ellie call for medical support. Kneeling next to my cuffed perp, I got a better look at him. The suit and haircut made him look like a young banker on lunch break from the finance district.

“You going to tell me your name?”

He declined, choosing instead to spit more blood on the carpet.

“I’ll take that as a no.” I grabbed the cuffs and got a hand under his shoulder to lift him to his feet. He didn’t resist, but he wasn’t helping, either.

“Where are the jewels?” Keldon asked.

The civilian woman smoothed the front of her shirt down nervously. “Another two of them carried everything off. I think these three were waiting just to kill you.”

“Good thing we killed them first,” I said, giving Keldon a grim look.

2

Investigations arrived to secure the scene and interview the victims, all employees of the jewelry store. I’d found a small bag full of jewels and other valuables with the perp Keldon took to the hallway.

When Suit Boy refused to talk to anybody, Keldon and I transported him back to holding, where he was lodged as an unknown individual.

“We should put him on suicide watch,” I told the desk sergeant. “Two of his buddies chose to put a pistol to their head rather than get arrested.”

“Real mess,” Keldon added.

The desk sergeant looked at Suit Boy with new appreciation. “You’re going to be sad when we strip you out of those fancy duds of yours. Let’s go.”

On the ride up to the report writing room, I couldn’t shake the image of the perp putting the pistol to his head.

“What are you stewing about?” Keldon asked. “You look like somebody crapped in your helmet.”

“You’d know that feeling, wouldn’t you? I’m thinking that with everything else that’s going on, we don’t need another bunch of fanatics on the station.”

This time Keldon didn’t crack a joke. He nodded. “It takes somebody who’s either completely dedicated to the cause or scared of something worse than death to choose that path. The suits are weird too. I think instead of looking for IDs, we’ll put Ellie on finding more of those suits.”

“I can do that when I write the report,” I said.

“Good. Since we haven’t gotten any IDs back, that means somebody paid to scrub them from the system. Or they were smuggled on-station.”

I nodded. “Neither of those are cheap.”

Keldon groaned. “Sheriff Bird isn’t going to like this.”

“Then you should be the one to tell her, Sergeant. That’s why you get paid the big bucks.”

“You’ve got less to lose, Deputy,” he shot back. “And I outrank you. That’s why you’re writing the report.”

“But you have to approve it.”

Keldon made a sour face. “Dammit. You’re right. You owe me a beer then.”

The lift stopped on the Ops level and Keldon stepped off. “Have that report done for me in an hour. Don’t overthink it.”

“That won’t be a problem. I’m meeting Kiren for drinks in an hour.”

The sergeant raised his eyebrows. “Isn’t she a Renegade now? Do I need to question your judgement, Deputy? Sounds like a conflict of interest.”

“My judgement’s better than yours.”

Keldon laughed. “True. Tell her hello for me.”

As the doors slid closed, I considered the point about the suits. I hadn’t seen anything like them on-station.

“Ellie, are you following up on Sergeant Keldon’s investigative request?”

“Yes, Deputy Walker. I am reviewing public CCTV for patterns matching the subject clothing from today’s incident. I will report back as soon as I have more information.”

“You’re the best, Ellie.”

3

Kiren asked me to meet her at a sleepy little bar down near the inbound docks, and the place was just like I remembered from a previous visit. The bartender gave me a nod as I walked through the door, and the holo screen above the bar was playing the same newscast from the Union News Network that never seemed to end. A few of the tables in the center of the space were occupied with what looked like off-work cargo haulers and pilots.

I spotted Kiren in one of the booths along the back of the room. She saw me and waved.

Once I had my whiskey, I walked over to join her. Rather than motioning for me to sit opposite her, she slid over. That was a good sign.

Then two familiar faces came into view on the other side of the booth, and I had to bite back my irritation behind a smile and nod.

“Walker!” Fratley called, slapping the table. Beside him sat Haley, Kiren’s former assistant and now co-pilot.

Fratley Oxonos was wearing his signature black bowler cap and brown trench coat. His grin was half-covered by a beer-soaked goatee.

“How’s everyone doing?” I slid onto the bench beside Kiren. She had her red hair pulled back in a ponytail at her neck, and she was wearing a worn coverall and tool harness that made her look like she’d just crawled out from under her ship’s engines. The smells of burned lubricant and sweat indicated that was exactly what she’d done.

Kiren gave me a smile. “How long has it been, Walker?”

“Too long,” I said, raising my whiskey in a toast. “Here’s to living another four months.”

“That all?” Fratley asked. “I thought it was longer. You know I forget all about you, Walker.”

“That’s not true,” Haley said. The muscular blond woman was dressed in similar work attire as Kiren, only she wasn’t as greasy. “You were just saying we needed Walker here to finish up the party.”

“To give me a ride back to my ship,” he retorted. “Isn’t that what cops double up as? Taxi drivers?”

Haley rolled her eyes. “You think you’re funny, but you’re not. He invited himself here, Walker. That’s what he won’t tell you. He missed you.”

Fratley snorted. “That is assuredly not true. I miss the Sheriff’s Deputies of Taurus Station like I miss hemorrhoids.”

“How have you been?” Kiren asked. “How’s the Afterburn?”

“Good. I use the ship as an apartment more than anything, since mine got bombed. Yola stays to keep an eye on things when I’m busy.”

“Yola?” Haley asked. “You and her aren’t—?”

“No,” I said. “It’s not like that. I need somebody to watch the ship. She needs a place to stay. It works out.”

“And how is Yola, then?” Kiren asked.

“Good, I guess.”

Inwardly, I had to chuckle at myself. I’d been so damn focused on work, I hadn’t even thought what it looked like to have Yola staying on the Afterburn. My first thought was that I was friends with a hacker from the Digital Ghosts.

Changing the subject, I told them how violence on Taurus had been increasing even more than when Kallaver had been in charge of the local gangs. Without a central leader, the many criminal elements had been battling for territory, resources, and anything of value that wasn’t protected by private security. We’d lost even more deputies, and every day it seemed like someone was leaving the force for a better-paying job for some corporation. I pictured Sheriff Bird’s worried face as I described the situation, realizing things were a lot more grim than they felt in the day-to-day.

“I’d expect the lowest of the lowlifes are staying on Taurus,” Fratley said. “I’ve been scooping up anyone with a bit of a brain. Building my own organization.”

“Is that right?” I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Fratley had changed since the last time I’d seen him, and not for the better.

He grinned. “That’s right. With my earnings from our auction, I’ve been able to start work on my grand plan. Kiren here can pick up the jobs I would normally have to do myself. She pays me a small commission while she builds up her credibility.”

I glanced at Kiren to find her gaze on her beer, like she wasn’t especially pleased with the arrangement.

“How’s that working out for you?”

She nodded. “It’s good. A couple more months and I’m leaving local space. We’ll have the Starsend outfitted and upgraded, and then it’s off into the Deadlands.”

“The Starsend is your ship?”

“I forgot you haven’t seen it yet,” Kiren said, pride filling her face as she talked about the vessel. “It’s a former Union dual-duty cargo escort fighter. Medium-sized cargo bay, strong engines, slip drive, and enough space for a solid crew.”

Haley laughed. “If by solid you mean four people hot-bunking. It’s cozy, for sure.”

“I’d love to see it,” I said. “What kind of missions have you been on?”

It was relaxing to hear Kiren describe the last four months of her life, as she and Haley had crisscrossed local space getting to know the local traders and small-time… entrepreneurs. Fratley dropped bits about his own work, buying ships and building crews, and sending them out on similar missions to what Kiren and Haley were working on.

“You’re like a Renegade franchise owner,” I said, as he fell into a long-winded description of his latest recruit.

Fratley shot me an irritated look. “I prefer leader, Walker. If you’ve got a good formula and a mind to build things, then this kind of thing comes naturally. Now that I’ve got the capital, I want to expand my horizons. If not me, then it’s going to be some cruel bastard nobody wants.”

“Power breeds cruelty, in my experience,” Kiren said in a low voice.

“That’s all a matter of perspective and eventual outcomes,” Fratley said. “For now, I’m ready to build a better future. And hit the head.”

I waited until Fratley was out of earshot. “You two really doing all right? You don’t look too happy, to be honest.”

“It’s fine,” Kiren said. “I’m ready to strike out on my own. Fratley’s a lot to take on an extended basis.”

Haley nodded in apparent agreement.

“I’m here to help if you ever need anything. I mean that.”

Haley tilted her head. “You’re always so sweet, Gage. If only you weren’t a cop.”

Kiren laughed. “Exactly.”

“I have to pay the bills somehow.” I held up my glass. “Anybody want a second round?”

At the bar, I set my glass down and decided to hit the john. I shoved the door open in time to see Fratley leaning over the sink in a posture I recognized from a hundred times before.

The door swung closed behind me. “Is that Flow?”

Fratley straightened and looked at me, sniffing hard as he held his nostrils closed. “What? What are you talking about, Walker?”

I studied him. His voice didn’t sound hoarse like I’d expect from someone with the drip in the back of their throat.

The Renegade washed his hands and shook them dry into the sink. “You’ve been working too hard. You’re seeing things.”

Flow brought on a wave of euphoria characterized by a vacant smile and dilated pupils, followed by paranoia and violent outbursts. Fratley wasn’t showing those symptoms.

“I guess so. Sorry about that.”

Fratley gave me a half-smile as he pushed the door open. “What are you drinking? It’s on me.”

* * *

I was on my way back to the booth, where Fratley was already sitting with my second drink, when a tone sounded in my earpiece.

“Deputy Walker,” Ellie said. “I have a match on the pattern you requested.”

The news brought me to a stop at a vacant table. I sat and tapped the earpiece. “What have you got?”

“On Casino Row in a bar called the Riviera. Four subjects. They appear to be eating dinner. No illegal activity observed so far.”

“Call me in service, Ellie. I want a look at these guys and I want this on record.”

“In service, Deputy Walker.”

At the table, Kiren must have seen the excitement on my face.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“I’ve got a lead on some guys we were tracking earlier. They’re hanging out at a bar on Casino Row. I’m going to have to cut our night short so I can get a look at them.”

Fratley shook his head. “Cut things short? I say we drink up and head out with you. Sounds like a good time. And if you don’t arrest them, maybe I’ll hire them.”

“Sounds like fun to me,” Haley said. “I promise we’ll be good if you need to do police things.”

If they hadn’t broken any laws, then traveling with a group would help keep me off their radar.

“Sounds like a party,” I said. “Let’s go.”

4

The Riviera was slammed. I had to flash my badge to get us past the bouncers at the door, and then they still refused to let Fratley through. The Renegade gave the security guard a hard grin and leaned in to hand him something I couldn’t see, and then he was following me inside.

The building was a single large space composed of different levels. The bar was on the same level as the street outside. Two tiers dropped to a main floor and rose again to a stage pierced by spotlights in the ceiling. Every floor was crowded with people. On the stage, a band that sounded like two brawling drum sets banged away, creating a continuous noisy backdrop.

I scanned the room and spotted my group immediately. They were on the tier just below the stage: four men in blue-gray suits with close-cropped hair. They looked as out of place in the club as a deputy in full armor.

“Verify subject, Deputy Walker,” Ellie said. “Nick Sanden. Former associate of the Carmichael Brothers.”

I held my hand to my earpiece so I could hear her. “Define associate.”

“I’m getting some drinks,” Fratley shouted over the music, distracting me. I missed Ellie’s answer.

The Renegade didn’t wait for a response. If I could have held an actual conversation in the place, I would have asked Kiren if she had seen Fratley using Flow or if I was just imagining things. He had always been pushy and brash, and I hadn’t seen him in nearly five months, so those aspects of his personality might be standing out more than before.

I didn’t have time to watch him head for the bar. The crowd was already trying to move us away from the lower tier, and I had to start working my way across the floor for a stairwell down. Glancing back, I found Kiren and Haley following just behind me. Kiren caught my eye and surprised me by reaching for my hand.

“I’m going to lose you if we don’t hang onto each other,” she shouted.

Crossing the lower tier, I worked my way around the dance floor where people were actually moving toward the claptrap on the stage. The table with the suits was close enough that I could make out faces now, and I wished I had my helmet’s HUD so I could tell which one was Sanden. Each of the men had an artificial quality, copies of a slightly better criminal. The one with his back toward me leaned forward in his seat, and I spotted the outline of a pistol at his hip.

The noise from the stage was making my ears ring. Twice I thought Ellie had said something, only to find I’d imagined her voice.

“Walker!” Kiren shouted from behind me.

I turned to see what she wanted, and she pointed at the stage.

Fratley was walking along the edge of the stage, carefully carrying a small platter with three beers and a shot. His attention was on the platter and not on what was happening around him. The band’s lead singer turned to look at him, mouth hanging open in the middle of a verse.

“What the hell is going on with Fratley?” I asked Kiren.

She shook her head. “He’s been acting odd lately. More than usual, anyway.”

The lead singer moved out of the way as Fratley crossed the stage. I realized he was headed right for the table where my perps were sitting.

I cursed under my breath. “He’s going to blow the whole thing.”

Kiren could only shake her head.

“Haley,” I shouted over the music. “You go ahead and get their attention before Fratley gets there. I’ll come up behind you.”

“What am I going to say?”

“Ask one of them to dance,” I said. “Whatever people do in clubs.”

“What do you think I am?” Haley demanded.

“I think you’re trouble.”

She stared at me, a grin spreading across her face. She grabbed Kiren by the arm and pulled her past me through the crowd. Haley moved with a purpose. In a few seconds, they had left the dance floor and were climbing through the crowd to the table. One of the suits noticed them right away and elbowed a buddy. The clean-cut heads all turned to watch the women approach.

Following a good five meters back, I used the crowd to conceal my approach. Once I was on the same tier as the table, I moved to the wall, getting a good look at each of the men. Any of them could have been at the jewelry heist today.

I tapped my earbud. “Which one is Sanden, Ellie?”

“Facing you, Deputy Walker.”

My man was bone-thin with a hard face. His glances were slower than the others, and he didn’t smile as quickly when Haley made it to the edge of the table. She looked between the men and chose the one sitting directly in front of her, since he leaned back a bit and gave her a big grin.

Sanden looked at Kiren, and his eyes narrowed slightly in suspicion. Before he could do anything, Fratley was at the table with his platter of sloshing beer glasses.

“There you are,” he shouted at Haley and Kiren. “I’ve been chasing you across half the bar. You still want these beers?”

“Of course I do,” Haley said, reaching for a glass. She twisted her hand at the last minute, and the beer tumbled directly into the front of Sanden’s blue suit.

“Oh no!” Kiren shouted over the music.

“Can I help?” Haley asked.

Sanden jumped up, swiping at his clothes in irritation. He hadn’t escaped the spilled drink.

Beside him, Fratley held the beer in one hand and appeared to have dropped the platter somewhere. He took a long drink and pressed his lips together, goatee covered in foam.

“Sorry about that, friend. It happens sometimes, doesn’t it?”

Sanden ignored Haley and Kiren. He turned to face the Renegade.

I could see where this was going in about ten seconds.

There was a table between me and the suits. The stage was above us, with a narrow set of stairs leading up. Directly to my left was a black door that was probably an emergency exit. I pushed past a man seated in front of me and reached the door just as Fratley raised his beer to gulp the last half, ignoring Sanden’s shouts in his face.

Tonight was my lucky night. The door opened into a service hallway. I turned back in time to see Sanden make a jab at Fratley’s throat.

The Renegade answered by breaking the pint glass on the thin man’s nose. A spray of blood joined the beer soaking his suit.

Sanden’s three friends stood from the table.

The occupants at the table to my right all stood as well. Apparently, they’d been sprayed with some of Sanden’s blood.

There was finally a pause in the banging music, and Haley shouted, “It’s a brawl!”

5

Fratley gave Sanden a hard shove that sent him stumbling backward into the suit behind him. I figured I had Sanden on an assault charge at least, so I was justified in grabbing him and getting him into the hallway for some questions. He could spend the night in Holding back at the Department. If the assault charge didn’t stick, he could walk and we’d keep him under surveillance.

That all seemed like a great plan if I could extract him from the fight that was quickly spreading across the whole tier. On the far edge of the dance floor, bouncers were already struggling to get to our location, and the band’s lead singer was pointing at Fratley. Apparently, he was still pissed.

I shoved two men out of my way and sidestepped a woman holding a martini glass. In another two strides, I was at the edge of the table, turning a suit with his back to me. He was bigger than he’d looked at first and didn’t move when I shoved him against the table.

“Who are you?” he demanded, turning to face me.

There was no time to get caught up in a boxing match. I jabbed him in the neck and shoved him back down in his seat. Without waiting to see if that had worked, I grabbed the suit standing behind Sanden by the collar and yanked him backward.

Sanden was focused on Fratley and didn’t realize I had him in a choke hold until I was dragging him backward toward the door.

“Watch yourselves now,” Fratley growled. His pistol was out, moving between the two suits on either side of me.

I pulled him through the door into the hallway. Kiren and Haley followed, with Fratley right behind them, pistol keeping the suits at bay. My last glimpse of Sanden’s three buddies showed them standing at the table, straightening their suit jackets, not actually looking like they were in a hurry to follow.

The door slammed closed, shutting out the sounds.

I shoved Sanden against the wall, twisting his right arm into the small of his back.

“Nick Sanden,” I said. “You’re under arrest. You have the right to face the Sheriff’s Justice.”

“Sheriff’s Justice,” he spat. “Do you know who the hell you’re dealing with?”

Fratley pushed in close, nudging the muzzle of the pistol against Sanden’s stomach. “Let me at him, Walker. He’ll tell you whatever you want to know. I’m still deputized, you might recall.”

“Give me some room,” I told him.

Fratley sighed and stepped back, thumbing off the safety on his pistol. “You’re only in one piece because of the deputy here. I’ll take out your boys if you act up.”

“Screw off,” Sanden snarled. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

“Some kind of dress-up club, it looks like.” I tapped my earpiece with my free hand. “Ellie, I’m going to need transport from Patrol.”

“Understood, Deputy Walker. I took the precaution of calling for backup when arrest activities began. You should have a transport cruiser in the alley behind the Riviera in three minutes.”

“Walker,” Kiren said abruptly. “Look out.”

From the other end of the hallway, two of the suits appeared with weapons drawn.

I tightened my grip on Sanden’s wrist and shoved him harder against the wall as I drew my pistol. Fratley was already firing. In the middle of the hallway, someone stuck their head in through a door and immediately ducked out of the way.

“You’re all dead,” Sanden said, his mouth curling up to a mad grin.

“They’re trying to kill him,” I told Fratley. “Don’t let them get close.”

“They seem to be using the same intention on you and me. I don’t plan on giving them the opportunity.” The Renegade kept his pistol raised as he moved calmly from a serving cart to a metal wardrobe sitting against the wall, firing continuously.

I managed a couple shots when Sanden tried to twist out of my control hold. We wrestled against the wall as he reached for my pistol, forcing me to slam his face into the wall twice.

“You’re not going anywhere, Sanden. Ellie, I need Patrol in here.”

“They are on final approach, Deputy Walker. I have shared your location.”

Using my shoulder to hold Sanden against the wall, I raised my pistol to get a sight picture on the two suits down the hall. Without warning me, Fratley pushed forward into my field of fire.

“Pamela’s going to eat your heart,” Sanden spluttered, spitting blood.

“What’s that?”

“The Sheriff is done. You’re done on Taurus. You better find a new job or you’re getting a body bag.”

“You sound awfully sure of yourself for a guy whose buddies are trying to kill him.”

Sanden laughed. “We’ve got a purpose. You’ve got nothing.”

Fratley hooted as he shot one of the two suits in the face. “One down, Walker. One to go.”

“Tell me about your purpose,” I told Sanden. “I’m interested.”

He laughed, spitting more blood. “Something big is coming to Taurus, deputy. There’s nothing you can do to stop it. Get ready.”

“Patrol is on scene, Deputy Walker.”

The door in the middle hallway burst open again and a deputy in duty armor stepped through with weapon drawn. He immediately turned left to target the suit.

“Sheriff’s Justice,” the deputy’s voice boomed. “Lethal force is authorized if you do not submit.”

“Fratley,” I shouted. “Drop your weapon.”

The Renegade was already stepping back toward me, his pistol lowered as our backup took on the hostile. Another deputy entered the corridor, blocking their actions.

There was a single shot from the end of the hallway.

“He offed himself,” Fratley said with a note of surprise. “What’s that about?”

“Yeah?” I asked Sanden. “What is that about?”

He ran the tip of his tongue over his bloody lips and said nothing.

I shook my head. “You’re going to run out of friends pretty soon.”

The Patrol deputies took Sanden off my hands and put him in restraints, then offered medical attention for his split lip. When he spat blood at them too, he got a transparent bag over his head.

“What the hell are you doing, Walker?” the lead asked. “Can’t you get a beer without causing trouble?”

“Whiskey,” I said. “Not beer. And I’m going back inside to get my drink.”

The corporal laughed. “We’ll lodge this one for you, but you’re writing the report.”

“You watch yourself, friend,” Fratley said as they dragged Sanden out. “I’m still ready to perform surgery on your bony hide.”

Sanden just stared at me, red mouth a tight line, like his warning was all he needed to say.

6

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” Kiren said.

We were standing at a public transport stop. The next ride would take me out to the cargo terminal where I kept the Afterburn docked. Kiren was heading back to her ship.

“Gone for good, huh?”

The light from a nearby diner fell across her face, making her red hair look almost black.

“Not for good, but long enough. You going to be sad to see me go?”

I gave her a half-smile. “Of course. You’re fun to have around. And you’re good in a fight.”

Kiren looked up at me. She was swaying a little bit from the drinks. “Are you going to kiss me already, Walker?”

She folded against me, still smelling of her ship.

Behind us, a transport rolled into the stop. Kiren pulled away from me to check the line. “Looks like it’s mine. Did you want to see the Starsend? You haven’t had a tour yet.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That sounds pretty good.”

* * *

The cruiser was waiting for me when I stepped down the cargo ramp, the Starsend standing quiet and unimposing behind me. Kiren was snoring slightly in her stateroom, but I hadn’t been able to sleep. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I shouldn’t have handed Sanden over to Patrol.

“Ellie, what’s the status on Nick Sanden?”

“Currently lodged in short-term Holding, Deputy Walker. Vital signs normal.”

“Don’t take it as an insult when I check for myself.”

“I am sure Sheriff Bird appreciates your diligence.”

That made me chuckle. I climbed into the cruiser and set the destination for the department. An ass-chewing from Sheriff Bird was like having someone stare into your soul and find you lacking, while Sheriff Nagel would just skin you with words and slap you on the back afterward.

Who was Lyon? That was the question that still kept me awake.

We had enough problems on Taurus without needing to worry about organizations outside the station. With the Carmichael Brothers and Kallaver gone, the two criminal enterprises keeping most chaos in check had been eliminated, and it seemed naive to think outside forces wouldn’t see the situation as an opportunity.

I wanted to talk to Athron about Mr. Black. I had a feeling the retired detective had talked to him after I did. We hadn’t had much time to catch up after everything went down at the auction, and now that was coming back to bite me.

As the cruiser pulled into its berth at the Department, I chose to check on Sanden first. Athron was retired and didn’t need me waking him up in the middle of the night, as much as he might appreciate the call to action.

The desk in Holding was empty as I walked up.

That was strange.

I tapped my earpiece. “Ellie, who’s on duty at Holding?”

“Corporal Higgs, Deputy Walker. I show a network login twenty minutes ago.”

Higgs might be in the head. Procedure was to have one of the deputies on lockup duty replace the Desk Sergeant. With the short staffing recently, they might be relying on Patrol to cover the initial check-in.

I walked through Processing and found more empty desks. This was another area that should have been staffed but was covered by others.

Heading for the holding cells, I noticed the window in the exterior security door was dark. Now that wasn’t right. I drew my service pistol.

“Ellie, call for backup. Are you showing anything on the internal security cameras?”

“Calling for backup, Deputy Walker. Internal CCTV is currently offline.”

That stopped me. “Offline? Were you going to tell me that?”

“You did not ask, Deputy Walker.”

This wasn’t like Ellie. Since the upgrades to her module in my light duty armor, she was damn near unstoppable. Now she was acting like a handheld tablet.

The security door was unlocked. This was a problem. I grabbed a flashlight off the wall and held it under my pistol as I entered the mantrap. The door on the other side was dark as well, meaning the cell blocks were black.

“Ellie, what have you got for the internal light control in Holding?”

“All facilities controls are offline, Deputy Walker. I am attempting to bring them back to operational status.”

“Are we under some kind of attack? Is it a power outage?”

The lights were on in the admin areas, so if it was an outage, it was targeted.

“I am unable to determine the cause at this time, Deputy Walker.”

When had she started acting like this? It had to be recently. I hadn’t talked to her since the bar. There hadn’t been any need at Kiren’s until I called the cruiser.

“Warn me if there’s activity inside the cell block,” I said, trying to push back the growing feeling of dread.

“Affirmative. For your earlier request, Dispatch cannot supply backup at this time. All units are engaged.”

“Excellent,” I said.

I pulled the interior door open and scanned the corridor on the other side with the beam of the flashlight. Gray cells on either side of the hall still appeared closed. After stepping through the door, I eased it closed behind me and quickly went to the first cell door. It was locked. The cell was empty.

No, not empty. A pair of legs stuck out behind the door. I could just see them through the window. The prisoner was unconscious or dead. I checked the other cell and found the same thing.

“Ellie, notify Dispatch we’ve got a breach in Holding. Two dead or unconscious and no sign of the staff down here.”

“Affirmative, Deputy Walker.”

There were only two sections of the jail. I checked the rest of the exterior cells and found more prisoners on the floor. One had fallen near the clear partition, and I could see she was breathing. So there was hope they weren’t all dead.

I slowly opened the interior door and shined the flashlight beam across the nearest cell. There was Nick Sanden, leaning against the bars with his legs out in front of him. He was still wearing his blood-stained suit, making it difficult to tell if he had new wounds. I checked the other cells in the hallway, then knelt next to Sanden and shined the light on his face. Short, shallow breaths barely moved his cheeks. He squinted when the light hit his face.

“Sanden,” I said. “What happened?”

I lowered the light as he turned his head slightly. The dull eyes didn’t recognize me.

“Ellie, can you get this door open?”

“Security controls are offline, Deputy Walker.”

Damn it. “Sanden, can you hear me?”

He looked at me as my voice seemed to penetrate the near-death haze.

“Gas,” he murmured. I barely made out the word though the barrier. “Comes quick. Better watch.”

“Who did this?” I demanded.

“Coming.” Sanden’s eyes lost focus as his head slid to the side. He was gone.

“Ellie, tell Dispatch we’ve got an unknown toxin in here.” I went back through the control doors to the admin area. Once I was back outside, I took a couple of deep breaths and tried to make sense of what had just happened. Had I been infected by whatever the gas was?

I felt fine. Whatever had hit the holding cells was already gone.

Ellie didn’t respond. There was definitely something wrong, so I switched to manual comms.

The Dispatcher answered immediately, and I recognized her voice.

“Baker, have you received any of my transmissions?”

“I show you as off-duty, Walker. What are you doing back at the department?”

I looked around the admin area. If Ellie hadn’t reported anything since I left the bar, then whoever had followed Sanden in had plenty of time to administer their weapon of choice and get out.

It also meant no one knew I was here yet, except Baker.

What if the Patrol Deputies were dirty?

I couldn’t dwell on that right now. Who could I trust?

I’d need to pull whatever security footage was available and get it to Bird. I’d call Keldon, then Stam Jones. First Athron.

“Walker?” Baker asked. “Are you still in Holding? Wait there. I’m sending someone down.”

There was something in her voice that bothered me. She was talking too fast, too sharp.

“I have to go, Baker. They’ll find the prisoners in the cells. I think a few are still alive.”

She tried to reach me again. I didn’t answer until I was in the cruiser heading out of the Department.

“Walker, what are you doing? The medics are down there looking for you.”

I relaxed a little. Maybe I was overthinking this.

7

“Damn it, Walker. You know what time it is?”

I hadn’t bothered checking. I wasn’t going to ask Ellie.

“I’m sorry. Can I come in for a second? I need to ask you something.”

Athron looked past me to where the cruiser sat on the street outside his building. “You’re alone?”

“Just me.”

He sighed. “Fine. Come on in. Might as well put on some coffee.”

A clock in the entryway showed the time as just past 4 a.m. It didn’t matter. I knew I’d be waking him up.

“So how’s retirement treating you?” I asked as I followed him into the kitchen.

Athron pulled the carafe from the coffee maker. “You came here to ask me that?”

I grinned. “Of course I did.”

“It’s boring as hell. I’m caught up on all my teams. I’ve fixed everything I can fix around the house. I’m about to start tearing out walls just so I can have new crap to fix. Retirement is stressful.”

He readied the coffee maker as he complained, then leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. “You got your brain in order now so you can tell me what’s going on? If my wife finds out I’ve got work buddies visiting me in the early hours, she’ll have my head.”

“Hold on.” It killed me to do it, but I reached behind my ear and disabled Ellie.

Athron frowned. “You aren’t about to drop some bullshit on my doorstep, are you?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said.

I explained what had happened at the jewelry store, and then later with Sanden, including what he’d said about Lyon. He didn’t seem surprised that Sanden was now dead.

“You should have stuck around to make sure the staff in Holding were all right,” he said. “Otherwise it doesn’t look good for you.”

“Well, I’m not exactly good to anyone dead,” I pointed out.

That earned me a grunt. “Don’t worry about that right now,” Athron replied. “What do you think I can tell you?”

“You were the last person to talk to Black before he left with Sten Carmichael. Did he say anything more about the Lyon Group? Have they put people on Taurus to pick up where the Carmichaels left off?”

Athron poured coffee and passed me a cup. He sipped, but I was too hopped-up to drink anything right now.

“Black didn’t say anything more about Lyon. I got some strange vibes off that guy. Constable vibes.”

Constable? “Constables don’t exist. They’re a ghost story out of the Union to scare the Deadlands.”

“Maybe. He had bigger fish than Carmichael. He said a couple times that Taurus was just a stepping-stone for him, one piece of a much larger game. That’s why he didn’t stick around any longer than he needed to.”

“But he didn’t tell you anything about Lyon?”

Athron frowned. “They concerned him. I could tell that. You were there when he talked about the Sarkonians. They didn’t worry him at all. Lyon group did.”

My mouth had gone dry. I picked up the coffee cup and took a sip.

“You sure you didn’t get gassed back in Holding?” Athron asked. “You’re looking pale, Walker.”

“Two people killed themselves rather than get arrested on my watch today, and one was killed in custody. Ellie is acting off. Things aren’t right.”

“When are they ever right?”

“True.” I took another drink. “I’m going to talk to Stam Jones and get Ellie checked out. Then I’m going to Bird.”

“That sounds like a good plan. Look, I’ve got a few contacts out there still. I’ll ask what I can about this Lyon Group and what these guys in suits have been up to around the station. This can’t be the first time anyone’s dealt with them. They had to get here somehow, even if they aren’t showing up in the system. And if Sanden was in the crew, that means they’re probably recruiting. Word’s going to get out about that. A lot of these small time guys, they don’t like to think for themselves. They want somebody bigger to tell them what to do. They’re going to be talking about that.”

He was probably going to hear about Fratley recruiting people, then.

“I appreciate it.” I drained my cup and stood. “I’ll let you get back to sleep.”

“Sleep? I’m going to knock out that wall over there.” He pointed next to the wall next to the door, which looked perfectly fine to me.

“That should distract your wife from me showing up here.”

“Probably not.” He grinned to say he’d be fine and opened the front door for me. “Check in any time, Walker. Just call first if you can. I might not be wearing pants next time.”

* * *

“I show offline status, Deputy Walker,” Ellie said when I switched her back on. “Are you in danger?”

“Everything is fine, Ellie. We’re going back to the Department.”

“Affirmative, Deputy Walker.”

The old Ellie would have pushed back on that. Something was definitely not optimal.

It was past nine when I pulled back into the motor pool. I checked in with Dispatch to find Baker was off-shift. A new staff was on duty down in Holding, and they had sent three prisoners to a local hospital. Sanden was dead. The report said suicide.

I stared at the screen and searched for who had entered the record. It was Baker, and none of the responding deputies had been noted. It was unusual for a dispatcher to enter a police record like this, but not unheard of.

The lift stopped on TechDiv’s floor and I walked out into the warren of stored equipment and repair benches. A technician gave me the usual bored wave as I walked by on my way to Stam’s desk.

Stam Jones looked up from his work area, eyes swollen by magnification goggles. “Walker, what are you doing here?”

I cleared a pile of tablets off the chair in front of his desk and sat down. “I’ve got a problem, Stam. I need you to run a systems check on Ellie.”

“LE-DB? What’s going on?”

“A few glitches.”

Stam gave me an irritated scowl and motioned at the parts piled on his desk. “I’m busy, Walker. You can’t just come straight in here and expect me to drop everything for a scan. We’ve got a work ticket system for things like that. I get rated on those tickets.”

I raised my eyebrows and stared at him. “I need you to check, Stam. Just a systems check.”

His scowl turned into a confused frown, and then his mouth opened in a silent, “Oh.”

He pulled the magnification goggles off his head, tossed them on the desk, and went to another bench to pull out a metal case.

“Take your shirt off so I can get at your armor,” he said.

“Ellie, I’m taking you offline again. All right?”

“Affirmative, Deputy Walker.”

The diagnostic clips pinched slightly as he hooked them to the module between my shoulder blades where Ellie’s systems were housed.

“This will take about five minutes,” Stam said. “I’ll have to make a backup and run the diagnostics, then get back to you with the results.”

“You can’t just check?” I asked.

“No.” He gave me a repeat of his serious face, indicating he was doing a more thorough check. “We’ll make this download, then you head out for a couple hours. I’ll call you.”

When he was done, Stam asked if I wanted Ellie switched back on.

I shook my head. “Leave her off until you find out what’s going on.”

“Care to describe it?”

“She just seems…dumb.”

Stam chuckled. “Dumber than you?”

“Almost,” I said.

“Well, that’s dangerous. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

8

Jack Keldon’s desk was on the far side of the main admin bullpen, next to the Sheriff’s office. I crossed the open area and glanced at the Sheriff’s door on the other side of the short Hall of Heroes, the memorial that showed images of every fallen deputy in the Department’s three-hundred-year history. I was surprised to see Sheriff Bird’s door was open. That wasn’t completely unusual. The surprise was that she had a visitor I didn’t recognize and the door was still open.

According to Bird, Keldon worked close to her so she could keep an eye on him. I suspected the relationship went both ways since they had a long history together at the department. I don’t think they especially liked each other, but sometimes it was safest to keep your allies close.

Keldon raised a hand for quiet as I took the chair next to his desk. He leaned back in his chair, obviously listening to the conversation in Bird’s office.

“I can’t just take care of everything like my brothers did.” The woman’s voice was low and forceful, with the same tone as Bird’s.

“I never said I expected you to fix everything,” Bird said. “Ms. Carmichael, you need to understand something—”

The other woman cut her off. “How many times must I ask you to call me Pamela. We’re working together in this situation.”

There was a pause. “I prefer Sheriff,” Bird said.

“That’s all right with me. But I’m not wearing a uniform. Pamela is my name. Carmichael has baggage I don’t want to drag around for the rest of my life.”

“Fine. Pamela. I’m calling in the department leadership today for a meeting on our plans going forward. We’ll be dividing the station into more granular patrol sectors and conducting focused patrols, identifying new high value targets, and working with community leaders to get our message out there. These levels of violence cannot continue.”

“That’s good to hear. I’ll be among those community leaders. Unlike Evan and Sten, I’m not interested in politics. I’ve got my hands full with the business, and I prefer to delegate these things. There’s also the problem of the missing Station Control Key. Technically the major systems are running on auto-pilot. Until I locate that key, I can’t change anything.”

“Control key?” Bird asked.

“A physical key that carries the ownership security token for the Taurus control systems. Everything from the power generation centers to the docking overrides on the main ports. Evan used to carry it and he’s dead. Sten is missing. I may own Taurus now, but if anything catastrophic happens to the station, I can’t do anything about it.”

“So make a copy,” Bird said. “Override it. There must be a failsafe.”

“It’s the Control Key,” Pamela said. “There is no overriding it.”

Bird paced behind her desk and then turned to look out the big window behind her. I’d been in the office getting my ass chewed many times and was familiar with that view. It was a powerful reminder of the many souls who called Taurus home.

“You have no idea where it might be?” Bird asked, turning back to face Pamela Carmichael. “We’re down to the bone on staffing. But if you had target areas, I could get a team together. Deputies on light duty. Something like that.”

I couldn’t see Pamela from where I was sitting, and my curiosity was growing.

“If I did, I’d be covering the area myself. I have pictures. It looks like a metal access card with the Taurus seal on its front and the algorithm circuitry on the back.”

Bird snorted. “So like every security access card in existence. I’ll have my technical people look into it. There has to be some other way of tracking either the card or replicating the security token. These things have a way of getting copied, even if no one admits it.”

“Thank you,” Pamela said.

“Until then, I’m going to carry on with our enforcement plan. I’ll keep you posted on our progress. Are you going to name a stand-in Station Administrator if you aren’t going to manage things like your brothers did? It has to be said that Taurus is in free fall without its civilian leadership.”

“I’m working on that,” Pamela said. “I believe we’ll have an answer soon.”

They finished out the conversation in the next few minutes with talk about the casinos and how profits were somehow up, even during the crime wave.

One thing Pamela asked that I thought was interesting didn’t elicit much response from Bird.

“Does your department need augmentation by private security?”

“No,” Bird said flatly.

Keldon raised his eyebrows at the tone. We didn’t hear that kind of finality in Bird’s voice often. But why not accept some help? We were wasting good deputies on Patrol that could be investigating crime or responding to the in-progress violence. Plenty of locker room tacticians had been talking about dropping patrol all together and instead staffing quick reaction teams throughout the city. Since the robberies and other violent crimes seemed to be coming at a regular rate, those teams could respond faster than a deputy on random patrol somewhere.

Bird wouldn’t hear it. She wanted us out doing our regular jobs for the people of Taurus as much as possible.

I knew Keldon agreed with her. I could see the value in both plans. Unfortunately, our staffing was getting low enough that we couldn’t execute both plans. We certainly couldn’t spare people to go looking for some random security key.

The door closed and I barely had time to face Keldon before Pamela Carmichael left the office. I glanced back at her with controlled calm and nodded in greeting.

Pamela was tall like Evan and Sten, with a long face and full lips. She wore her hair shaved on one side and long on the other, hanging over half her face like a black wing. Her eyes were dark as well, with something that sparkled at the edges of her lashes, subtle but striking. She was wearing a sharp black suit with a white blouse and walked like she was ready to fight off attackers.

She passed without acknowledging Keldon or me, and disappeared in the lift a few seconds later.

“Pamela Carmichael,” Keldon said, raising his eyebrows. “Who knew?”

9

“She’s been compromised,” Jones said. He shook his head like someone had harmed his favorite pet.

“How?” I asked. “For how long?”

“It hasn’t been long. Fortunately you caught the discrepancy quickly. It looks like the attacker got into her database yesterday, just a few minutes after you responded to the robbery at the jewelry store.”

“Did you check Jack’s system as well?”

“I did. I backed up both of your onboard partners, and now I’ve got every tech in my division scrubbing the whole department. If our onboard partners are compromised, everything in the department could potentially be under the attacker’s surveillance. Fortunately the control systems are all encrypted, so they can’t take over equipment or crash cruisers, but they were able to observe you and force a revert on Ellie’s personality. That’s why she seemed off to you. She was. She also wasn’t doing her job. That might have saved your life since no one knew where you were while Holding was attacked.”

“How could they have known we’d arrest Sanden, though? These two events can’t be related.”

Stam shook his head. “I don’t think they are. I think they’re crappy hackers and blew their advantage too soon. You shouldn’t have been able to notice the problems with Ellie, and they took advantage of their hook in our system to kill that guy Sanden.”

“The report said suicide.”

He snorted. “I saw that. There’s no author on that report. Another thing I need to track down, which would be a lot easier if the CCTV wasn’t down. Working here is like trying to maintain a sandcastle during a hurricane.”

“Is Ellie out of commission?”

“I reverted to a backup. She’ll be operational, but don’t depend on her as much as you would have before. There could be other bombs hiding in there that I didn’t have time to track down. I’ve got a deep scan running on the system I copied. Cross your fingers it comes back clean.”

I frowned. “I can’t work the street with a compromised system.”

“Do what you need to do, Walker. That’s the best I can offer right now.”

10

The department auditorium was barely half full. I looked back from my seat in the second row at the sparsely populated tiers rising to the ceiling. It had barely been a year since I’d attended a training where the room was packed. Not counting the deputies on patrol and getting off shift, the department was less than half what it had been.

“Looking pretty light,” Keldon said, stroking his mustache. His metal fingers glinted in the low light.

“I guess it took seeing everyone in the same place. How did we get so small? It can’t just be losing Nagel.”

Keldon grinned. “It’s all your fault, Walker. As soon as you joined the force, everything went to hell. What’s that curse?”

A side door opened, and Sheriff Bird entered the room. From the back, someone shouted, “Atten-shun!”

At least those who were present showed some respect. We all snapped to our feet as she walked to the podium and leaned toward the microphone.

“At ease,” Bird said. “Take your seats. Thank you.”

The front row was taken up by her command staff, which was down to a captain and two lieutenants.

Bird looked out over the room and her expression said she was having the same thoughts I had. Where had everyone gone? She seemed to stare for just a couple seconds, assessing, then she snapped into focus and nodded.

“Thank you for being here, especially those of you just coming off shift. These are challenging times for our department and for the entire station. We’re in the midst of change, and change is never easy. As we know, we are the shield that protects the people of Taurus, and shields take beatings. Today we’re going to talk about our plan to bring peace to the people of Taurus, but first I want to address another topic.”

She looked down at notes. “I had a positive meeting with Pamela Carmichael, the new owner of Taurus Station, today.”

A murmur passed through the auditorium. They were all as surprised as I had been. I couldn’t recall a single time I’d heard the Carmichaels mention a sister, and none of the news agencies had discovered the information. Yet apparently here she was.

“Ms. Carmichael is ready to assist us in restoring peace to the station. She is not as interested in direct management as her brothers were. In fact, she’s working on creating a civilian board to manage oversight. That could be good news for us, or it could also make life difficult as we try to please a board rather than just two owners. The future will tell on that point. Until that time, we have her full support in our latest operation, which I’m calling Grid.”

Bird motioned toward the wall behind her and a map of Taurus appeared on the screen. The station was split by its Casino and retail promenades, with the industrial areas and shipping docks on the outer edges. She motioned again and the map was split into sectors, and then each sector into grids following streets and major housing complexes.

I knew where she was going with this, so I waited for the grid to zoom in and grow more detailed. The blocks were at least whole city blocks, and knowing how many people we had, there was no way a team could cover a grid square effectively.

She didn’t zoom in.

If Bird had one blind spot, it was her love of describing complicated or bureaucratic concepts. It was a holdover from her years spent in Internal Affairs. She started with a recent data analysis of the crime stats from the last six months by location, something we all knew well enough, wasting a good ten minutes before she finally got to the core of her plan.

We knew the “why” of the problem and we could see its effects plain enough. We all wanted to know how it was going to get fixed.

Bird concluded by saying, “I’m sure you can all see this is going to be a labor intensive plan. It’s going to take deputies on the street. That means we’re going to need to add mandatory overtime and, as of now, leave requests are cancelled. I know you all miss your families, but this is war. We need everyone in the fight.”

Shouts rose from the back of the auditorium. Three deputies stood up, shaking their heads. I recognized a couple from the locker room strategy talks. A big guy named Arnold tore his badge off and shook it at the Sheriff, then he threw it on the floor.

Beside me, Keldon rose and pointed at Arnold. “How can you just up and leave?”

Arnold shook his head. “I need to take care of my family. I’m no good to them dead. You’re lucky to be alive yourself, Keldon.”

He walked out.

Four more tossed down their badges and followed Arnold.

Keldon watched them, squinting slightly. Eventually he just shook his head, his face a mix of anger and disappointment, and sat back down.

Bird waited.

When it looked like everyone who was going to leave had done so, she nodded. “You are the shield. Every one of you, here, right now. You are the force that will keep Taurus safe. Thank you. Now, I’m going to turn the presentation over to the command staff for our detail assignments.”

Sheriff Bird turned, shoulders stiff, and stepped down from the podium.

11

I got out of my cruiser and stood at the base of the cargo ramp leading up into Afterburn. After today, the sight of my sleek ship was like a shot of visual relaxation. While I hadn’t been able to actually go anywhere in Afterburn, just the thought of being able to leave whenever I wanted served as a bit of internal freedom and personal responsibility. I was a Sheriff’s Deputy because I chose to be, and every day was my choice.

After the meeting on Operation Grid, I found myself wondering how much longer there might be a Sheriff’s Department on Taurus Station. It was amazing to me how quickly something that had felt like an institution could fall apart.

At the top of the ramp, I checked the security panel and saw that Yola was off somewhere. Looked like I’d be sipping whiskey in my underwear, an excellent end to a stressful day.

When the hatch had closed behind me, I reached behind my ear and tapped my comms control, activating Ellie. After my conversation with Jones, I figured I would wait to activate her until I was away from the department and any other potential threats.

“Hello, Deputy Walker,” she said. “I show offline status. I appear to have reverted to a save state. Am I operational?”

“You’ll have to tell me, Ellie. What’s the last record you remember?”

I climbed the ladder to the ship’s central corridor and walked down to my room. Pouring myself a drink, I listened carefully as Ellie recounted her last memories of arriving at the alley behind the jewelry store.

“The subject had just committed suicide,” she said. “I attempted identification using facial recognition, pattern recognition, and then action matching on his weapon. I had no returns.”

I sipped my whiskey and frowned. “What do you mean by no returns? You mean you got no response from the central database?”

“There is an anomaly here, Deputy Walker. I believe there was an attack on my communications systems. I was not connected to the central database.”

“I’m no hacker, but could bad info from home send you into some kind of recovery state? Because you weren’t acting like yourself.”

“I would no longer have access to my normal duty functions, or the upgraded functions from the new personality module.”

I threw back the whiskey, grimacing. “You were lobotomized.”

“That would be a way of describing my state, Deputy Walker.”

“All right. Stam Jones is going back over your saved state, looking for where you were attacked. I figure you can do that too, can’t you?”

“I am investigating the breach now.”

“Good. You do that, and I’m going to take a shower.”

There was a pause. “I apologize for my lapse, Deputy Walker. It is not my intention to fail you.”

Could she actually mean she was sorry? It had to be some kind of fallback programming, meant to make me feel better. It didn’t. This experience was just a reminder that I had been depending too much on Ellie.

“Don’t worry, Ellie. We’ll get you fixed up.”

I was in the shower when a tone came over the internal security system. I leaned out of the shower to check the panel, figuring it was just Yola with her hands full.

Instead of the short-haired hacker, I found a short man with close-cropped gray hair looking up into the camera. It was Mr. Oragga.

I tapped the panel. “I’ll be right down.”

Oragga nodded. “Thank you.”

After drying myself off as quickly as possible, I jumped into my clothes and flattened my hair. It was just like Oragga to show up in person, unannounced. He was the richest person I had ever met, but he sure didn’t act like other rich people.

The hatch opened on Oragga and a woman in a black suit with slicked-back blond hair, who was carrying a rifle that looked like a piece of alien technology.

“Gage,” Oragga said. “Thank you for seeing me. I would have called you first, but time didn’t allow for it.”

“It’s fine. Come on in.”

The guard stepped through first, looking me up and down as she passed. She walked up to the ladder and checked every corner, then nodded to Oragga.

“This is rude,” he said. “But necessary, I’m afraid. Taurus has changed a lot in the last five months.”

“Yes it has. Let’s go up to the galley. It’s right up the ladder and down the corridor.”

Oragga studied the Afterburn as we walked, complimenting a few sections of the ship that I hadn’t paid much attention to before.

In the galley, he asked, “Does your ship mean you’ll be leaving Taurus someday?”

I handed him a coffee from the espresso machine and sat down with my own.

The guard had refused a beverage and stood just outside in the corridor.

“I grew up off-station,” I said. “My people were asteroid miners. Honestly, I hadn’t thought very far beyond my career as a deputy, but now I’m not so sure. I like the idea of freedom but don’t do a good job actually taking advantage of it.”

Oragga smiled. “I’m the same way. I enjoy my work too much to stop. What I do enjoy is choosing my next project and seeing it through. That’s my favorite way to live.”

I nodded. “So what can I do for you, Mr. Oragga?”

He sipped his coffee. “You refused me the first time I offered you a job. I didn’t make more of an effort, and that might have been a mistake.”

I had to smile. “It wasn’t you. I appreciated the offer. But like you said, I need to see this job through.”

“I think the job might not have been communicated well. Sometimes when you need a certain amount of expertise, you retain someone’s services in that regard. It might not seem like a job, exactly, to the person who’s performing the work. It’s quite valuable though. That’s the kind of help I need. Expertise.”

“I’m still not the best person to provide that sort of thing. I could introduce you to a few deputies with more experience than me.”

He smiled. “Not just expertise. Also a way of looking at problems, responding to problems. A person who has the skills to reach a certain end point.”

“You talk like you can see the future, Mr. Oragga.”

“I’m good at making highly educated estimations. Anyway, this all has to do with my ultimate goal, which is to own Taurus Station.”

I had figured that was what Oragga wanted, and if anyone was going to accomplish such a task, it would be him.

“I guess if anyone had the money, it would be you. I think the problem is that Taurus doesn’t seem to be for sale.”

Oragga tapped his temple. “See? You act like you don’t know how valuable your skills are. No, Taurus is not for sale. And the person who controls Taurus is in the midst of actively breaking it apart so they can make it into something I don’t think it should be. There is a way to stop that person. There is a key.”

“I heard about the key,” I said. “Apparently it’s lost.”

“Whoever told you that was lying.”

I leaned back in my seat, crossing my arms. The small bit of whiskey I’d had earlier had faded. While I’d been ready to collapse in my bunk when I got home, now I felt focused.

“You’re saying Pamela Carmichael is behind this crime wave? Why?”

“I don’t have the whole picture yet, Gage. I want you to find out for me. I want you to work for me in this capacity. I think it’s something you can do without compromising your duties to the department.”

“You seem to be making a point of not calling me deputy, Mr. Oragga. Is there a reason for that?”

He nodded. “People hide behind titles. People take courage from their titles. I prefer to use regular names. That way the people I work with know I value them for who they are, not the position they may be filling at the time. Titles and positions are very shortsighted when you’re in the business of solving problems and building things.”

“I’ll need to share what you just told me with Sheriff Bird. Do I also understand that Pamela is in possession of the Station Control key?”

“All my estimates indicate that is true. My estimates are rarely far off target. I would expect you to share this information with the Sheriff. People’s lives may depend on it. I wouldn’t have shared the information with you otherwise, and I respect your use of it.”

“I appreciate that.”

Oragga nodded. He stood and smoothed his suit jacket. “That’s the offer I needed to make. I’m sure you’ll need some time to consider it.”

I stood with him and extended a hand. “I’ll take the job, Mr. Oragga.”

We shook hands. He turned his head to give me a sideways grin. “We haven’t talked about pay. I’ll send you a number tomorrow, and you can counter or walk away. I’m grateful for your time.”

He nodded to the guard and then assured me they could find their own way out.

“Have a good night, Mr. Oragga.”

“You, too. Get some sleep, Gage. I have a feeling you’re going to need it.”

I sat back down at the small table, then I rose again and returned with a whiskey bottle from the cabinet. I poured myself three fingers of the brown liquid and sat studying its legs in the tumbler, moving the glass from side to side.

12

The tourist district outside Ollie Trinidad’s shop was nearly deserted. People didn’t feel safe down here, which couldn’t be good for business.

Keldon and I approached the front of the little shop, its windows full of knick knacks constructed from bits of junk and broken electronics. There were no lights on in the front.

“Is Ollie home?” I asked.

Keldon pulled open the front door, which made a chime sound from inside the store. “Ollie’s always home. I don’t think he goes anywhere, ever.”

We spent a minute looking around the cramped store, until as Keldon had predicted, Ollie appeared through the door marked “Backstock.”

“Keldon and Walker,” he said. “How are you two doing?”

The short man cast a decidedly anxious glance at the street through the front windows. He seemed relieved to find it empty.

“How are you doing, Ollie?” I asked. “How’s business?”

“Come on back. I’ll give you the update.”

We followed him through the backstock door into a mantrap with an interior door that didn’t open until the outer door had closed. From there, we entered Ollie’s small warehouse, which was stacked with unlabeled crates and barrels. Like the last time I’d been here, his workbench showed several half-built projects where he was turning junk into the tourist toys in the front. His current project appeared to be a casino facade built from electronic components with a series of intricate flashing lights.

“You want coffee?” he asked. “Of course you do. I want coffee. I let mine go cold. It’s a tragedy.”

One new item sitting on the workbench was a heavy pistol with a power indicator glowing on its grip.

Keldon used his gift of gab to get Ollie talking about his sparse tourist business, along with some hints of import and export through the secondary cargo port. The warehouse was mostly full, which seemed to keep Ollie pleased.

We’d nearly finished our coffees when Keldon shifted gears. “What do you know about Pamela Carmichael?”

Ollie spit out his coffee. He looked from me to Keldon, then down at the front of his shirt. “Damn. I just washed this.”

“I’ll get you another coffee, Ollie,” Keldon said. “I’ll get you another shirt if you want. I don’t think you’ll like my style, though.”

“Keep your damn shirt,” the shopkeeper said. “Why don’t you just ask me what you want to know, Jack? Why lead me around the block like you want to date me?”

Keldon grinned. “Where’s the fun in that? So what can you tell us?”

“Nothing much to say. She’s the youngest in the family. Stayed out of the limelight. I’m surprised she wants anything to do with this place. Taurus is going to hell.”

“Ollie,” Keldon scolded. “That’s not the whole story.”

“What makes you think I know anything?”

I set my cup down on the workbench. “Because you know everything that’s moving on Taurus.”

Ollie scowled.

“You ever been to Leah?” Keldon asked.

“Of course not. Why the hell would I ever go there? It’s a shit station that only attracts the worst kind of miscreants, but it’s lucrative. Are you saying Pamela Carmichael is responsible?”

“Somebody’s causing it,” I said. “You tell us.”

Ollie chewed his lip. “You’ve seen the individuals wearing the blue and gray suits, right?”

“Oh, we’ve seen them. Can’t say we’ve arrested many of them. They off themselves before we can get them in custody. The one we did manage to put behind bars was dead before anyone could interrogate him.”

“That’s right,” Ollie said. “You call them suits. They call themselves Devoted. Once you’re Devoted, life doesn’t matter if you fail. So you don’t fail.”

“Any idea where we can find these Devoted?” Keldon asked.

“You’ve been so busy chasing crime you haven’t noticed any of the new businesses popping up all over the station.”

I shook my head. “What are you talking about? Business has been leaving every day. Look at all the empty storefronts on your block alone.”

“My block doesn’t matter. These are all fronts anyway. You need to follow the money. When nobody wants to go to the promenade, where do they go?”

“Hotels,” Keldon said.

He was right. I’d been on street patrol for months now, barely going inside a store unless there was a crime inside. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been inside a casino or a hotel.

“Take a look at your biggest hotels. Your resorts. Your communities within communities on Taurus. You think the rich are bothering themselves with whatever’s happening outside? Nah. They’re behind gates. That’s where the money’s still being made.”

“Just spit it out,” I said. “Where are we going to find Pamela?”

Ollie looked at Keldon. “He used to be such a sweet kid. What did you do to him, Jack?”

“It’s a cruel universe.”

“Her place is called Avalon. You’ve probably never been there because they employ their own security. Nobody gets in unless they’ve got a pass. That’s the richest of the rich there.”

Avalon. I’d heard the name before but couldn’t place it. There were only so many gated communities around the station, places like the apartment stack where I’d first met James Carthage and then Kiren. This place sounded bigger.

“You really think Taurus is going to get as bad as Leah?” Ollie asked.

Keldon shrugged. “If we don’t do something about it, that seems to be the case. They don’t call our piece of space the Deadlands because people live happy lives here.”

I laughed. “You better watch out, Sarge. You’re waxing as eloquent as Bird.”

“Maybe I agree with her. I think you do, too.”

“You’re both suckers for justice,” Ollie said. “It’s the only reason I let you in here.”

13

Despite the late hour, we found Sheriff Bird in her office.

“Told you she’d still be here,” Keldon said.

“Does she have a home? She lived down in Investigations when she was in IA.”

“I don’t know,” Keldon said. “You couldn’t drag me down there.”

“If you remember, I had to report to her down there for months. Thanks to you.”

“Thanks to my sweet metal limbs, you mean. You can thank me the next time I save your ass.”

“Will you two shut up and get in here if that’s what you’re here for?” Bird said, voice projecting into the bullpen. “I can hear everything you’re saying.”

“Think she’s got any liquor in there?” Keldon asked in a lower voice.

“No,” Bird said.

The Sheriff sat reading a tablet, the tension plain in her shoulders. A display to one side of the desk showed a map of Taurus with the grid assignments laid out, each marked with a different color based on progress.

She didn’t look up as we filed in to stand in front of her desk.

“I’m asking myself why you’re either not sleeping if you’re off shift, or out on Patrol if you’re on shift.” Bird looked up, her eyes hard from pressure. “Isn’t that what you were ordered to do?”

I cleared my throat. “Technically we’re both off-shift, Sheriff.”

Bird glared at me, then looked at Keldon. “Why are you letting your officer speak for you, Sergeant. Who’s in charge here?”

Keldon raised his eyebrows, obviously surprised. “Well, Sheriff. Deputy Walker has some new information he would like to share with you.”

“Are you going to bring me more proof that our systems have been hacked by an unknown aggressor, making it necessary for me to spend even more time with Director Jones? Or maybe you’re going to bring in another arrest so someone can break into my department and help them commit suicide in our secure holding facility?”

“I guess a bit has happened since the last time we talked, Sheriff,” I said.

Bird stared at me like she wanted to embed her tablet in my forehead. Maybe this was why Nagel had looked furious all the time.

“You know what they say about more contacts, more complaints,” Keldon said. “Deputy Walker is out there doing his job. Naturally, he would come into contact with more—”

“Shut up, Jack.” Bird dropped the tablet on the desk and rubbed her temples. “Tell me whatever it is you came here to say.”

I crossed the room to her map, tapped a section of it, and zoomed in. An area near the financial district came into view.

“What do you know about the Avalon Resort, Sheriff?”

She looked at me, then at the map. “I’ve been there. It’s a high end resort. Very exclusive. They’ve got their own security. I was only there investigating an incident that happened to one of their members. They damn well weren’t going to let me in.”

“Pamela Carmichael owns the Avalon,” I said. “I’ve received two verifiable pieces of information about Ms. Pamela that don’t match with her public story.”

I started with Oragga’s visit, telling Bird about the original job offer I’d turned down. That earned me a raised eyebrow.

“You probably should have taken the job.”

I gave her a half-smile. “I’m not finished yet.”

Oragga’s information about the station key got me a slight nod, as if she’d expected it. “And the second job offer?”

“I’m running the situation past you, Sheriff. I believe any outside employment has to be approved by my chain of command.”

“We’ll see about that. What’s your second piece of information?”

Keldon jumped in. “Ollie Trinidad told us that those guys in the suits call themselves the Devoted. They work out of the Avalon Resort.”

Bird had been studying the map as I talked. When Keldon added his bit of info, she leaned back in her seat and rubbed her chin. This was the Bird I had first met down in IA, surrounded by files, sorting through information to find her suspects.

“I figured she had to be lying about the key. It didn’t make any sense. But leading a gang? Why?”

“Oragga said he has theories but doesn’t know precisely why. He wants us to infiltrate Avalon and verify her operation.”

Bird narrowed her eyes. “And identify the location of the key. He wants to buy Taurus.”

I nodded. “He said he’s interested in buying Taurus. Who knows how much we can trust that, but why else would he go to all this trouble?”

“So that’s the job?” Bird asked. “He wants me to send you into Avalon, and he’s going to pay you for it? He should be paying me.”

Keldon pointed at the map. “This goes to the heart of everything we’re fighting right now.”

Bird stared at the map for almost a full minute, thinking. Then she nodded.

“I’m not stopping the current operation. It has an effect beyond our gang violence, and we still have a number of questions to be answered that can’t be wrapped up so neatly. Pamela Carmichael might be running a gang out of the Avalon Estates with the purpose of destabilizing Taurus. But there are other players as well. It’s a crowded playground and everybody’s fighting over the toys.”

She turned to me. “I’m authorizing your operation, Walker. You’re on your own, though. I can’t spare a single deputy. I can barely spare you. Talk to Oragga and let him know you have my blessing, then report back with your plan and a timeline. This isn’t a blank check. Understood?”

“Yes, Sheriff.”

“Good. You’re doing good work, Walker. If you get yourself killed though, gods help you. I’ll be there to bring you back just so I can kick your ass again. You understand?”

I fought to keep a straight face. “Yes, Sheriff. Understood.”

“Now, get out of here. I’m busy figuring out how to save this department.”

14

Kiren’s voice in my ear was sleep-heavy and warm. It reminded me of the bed I’d left barely hours before. “Where did you go?”

“Had to go to work.”

“You hide behind that, don’t you?”

“They do call us the shield.”

“It’s not funny,” she said, stretching. “Do you miss me already?”

“I need your help. Fratley and Haley too. Can you meet me at the same bar?”

The line went quiet for a few seconds. I wondered if she was going to hang up on me.

“All right. I guess I didn’t get off Taurus fast enough.”

“Are you in a hurry to leave?”

“Yes.”

There was obviously something she wanted to talk about, but now wasn’t the time. Kiren said she’d get the other two together and closed the connection.

Yola found me staring at the galley wall. I didn’t realize how long I had been lost in thought.

“You all right, Walker?”

“Yeah. Thinking. What are you doing the next couple days?”

Yola was dressed in her usual mix of fashionable clothes with a utilitarian addition. In this case, a brightly colored shirt, cargo pants, and a web belt with tools dangling off her hips.

She crossed her arms and leaned against the side of the hatch.

“What’s the job?”

“You know the Avalon Estates?”

She raised an eyebrow. “The resort? Yeah. That place is locked down like a prison. Probably harder to break into than the last station you dragged me out to.”

“You didn’t complain too much. That’s the place.”

“I’m in.”

I took a drink of my coffee. It had gone cold. “You aren’t going to ask me what the job is?”

“I figure it’s got something to do with the chaos taking over Taurus. That means it’s going to be more interesting than scraping financial data.”

I raised a hand. “Don’t tell me about any of that. All right. We’re meeting Kiren, Haley, and Fratley in an hour.

* * *

“Let me get this straight,” Fratley said. “You want us to help you break into this playground for the ultrarich to verify that Pamela Carmichael is really the secret head of a new gang on the Station.”

“I didn’t say we had to break in. I said we needed to get in.”

Fratley tapped his chin. “You did, right. But breaking in is more fun. I’m not one of these types who enjoys the tension of a disguise. I want people to know who I am when I shoot them in the face.”

Sitting next to me, Kiren rolled her eyes. “We won’t need to break in. I have a membership.”

I looked at her, impressed. “I guess I forgot you were part of the Station’s ruling class.”

“I still am as far as people at Carthage Heavy Industries are concerned. They call me every day.”

“She’s a member,” Fratley said, staring at Kiren. “I was looking forward to a good straight-ahead battle. I suppose you’re going to want me to wear a suit like one of those Devoted fools we fought at the bar?”

“It will make things easier if we dress the part,” Kiren said.

“Do I get to dress Gage?” Haley asked. “That’s the job I want.”

“If that’s what you want to do,” Kiren said. “You go right ahead.”

I finished my whiskey. “I think I get a say in this. I’ll be dressing myself. We’re going to need a vehicle, as well. We’ll need to get through the main gate, either on wheels or by transport through one of the upper levels.”

“Ground level will be easier,” Kiren said. “I can’t remember them ever checking our vehicle.”

“Good,” I said. “So we’ll need clothes, a vehicle, and then whatever identification they require.”

Kiren pursed her lips. “That’s going to be the hard part. As far as I know, all the internal security is managed by surveillance and guards. They scan everything. I never carried any kind of ID. They just knew who you were and waved you in.”

“That’s not security,” Fratley said. “That’s called laziness.”

“Oh, I saw people who weren’t on the list get dealt with. There are exits everywhere to remove people that don’t belong. Sometimes a tourist might wander in, but it’s more people trying to get in touch with the ultrarich patrons. Avalon is supposed to be a sanctuary. It’s one of the few places on Taurus you could do business with complete privacy. People were always trying to sneak in to take advantage of that.”

“I think we can use their own uniforms against them,” I said, tapping the table as I considered the plan. “They travel in groups. Intel has come in that they’re using a certain type of transport to move in and out of the estate. We grab one of their vehicles and their suits. It would have to be a quick turnaround before word got back.”

We spent the next thirty minutes debating the plan. What we had working in our favor was the increasing number of the Devoted in their suits appearing across the city. Choosing a group to grab wouldn’t be difficult. There were a few outlying problems, like figuring out how they were communicating, and what they were using to verify their IDs once they entered the Estate.

“We can use my ID,” Kiren said.

Fratley shook his head. “What I don’t like about the disguise idea is that there are too many problems with getting the vehicle, getting the suits, using their right language. I’m no good for any of that. We especially don’t need to introduce all these complexities when we’ve got Ms. Kiren here to get us in. Why don’t we just go in as her retinue. She’s rich. She’ll have her boy toy, her concierge, her assistants. That’s what we use. She can get herself a room beforehand if she doesn’t already have one, and that becomes our base of operations while we look for Lady Carmichael.”

“I think that’s a better plan,” Kiren agreed.

I couldn’t think of a reason to argue. “All right. I still want one of their vehicles. I want to know what they’re using to communicate. Yola’s going to need more information about their security systems. We can get that from the vehicle.”

“You get the vehicle,” Yola said. “I’ll scan them—discreetly, of course—for a bit. Between those two vectors, I should be able to find a few entry points into their systems. Before anybody else pipes up, I’m calling dibs on Concierge.”

“I’m the Concierge,” Fratley said. “Walker is the boy toy.”

“We can all agree on that,” Haley said.

“If it keeps us from getting killed, I’ll be the boy toy.” I finished my coffee. “Do we all have our assignments?’

“I get to shop for you?” Kiren asked.

“Wait,” Fratley said. “If Yola’s the Concierge, what am I going to be?”

Kiren considered for a second. “Porter. You can carry my bags.”

“That’s not right. That’s Haley’s job.”

“You can be Haley’s porter then,” Kiren said. “Your head’s getting too big as it is.”

Fratley grumbled and finished his beer. “The only reason I’ll carry any luggage is if it’s full of weapons and ammunition.”

“That we can do,” I said.

15

“Ugly on the outside but there’s a party inside.” Yola whistled with her head stuck through the transport’s open driver side window. “This thing is up-armored, and it’s got a whole arsenal of weaponry.”

I’d had time to get a better look at the weapons, explosives, and expanded communications system on the trip back to the department. If the average Devoted team was carrying this kind of firepower, we were going to have a problem.

Standing behind the hacker, Stam Jones rubbed his hands together, looking anxious. “If you’ll step out of the way, we can open the door and get into the main systems.”

“Slow down,” Yola said from inside the transport. “I like to get a look at a thing before I tear it apart. Maybe the person who built it had a plan. Maybe we can exploit that plan if they were stupid.”

Jones frowned and shook his head at me. “Since when are you authorized to bring in contractors about technology, Walker? This is my division. You didn’t clear any of this with me.”

“I think you’ll get to like Yola once you’ve worked together. She’s good.”

“I heard that, Walker. You’re making me blush.” Yola stepped back from the transport and straightened. She brushed off the front of her shirt and inserted a pen light in her web belt.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“Custom built. Very nice. All the mounts are custom work, and everything matches. Whoever built this fleet put some thought into it. I’ve looked at vehicles like this, especially cop cruisers like your department uses, and they’re a mishmash of wiring and mounts and different systems that weren’t designed to work together. You get all kinds of failures that can be exploited. Usually in something as simple as the power system. Their batteries are already overloaded, so a little nudge is enough to light the whole thing on fire. The users don’t even know what hit them. That’s not even getting into the mixed up software running things.”

Jones sniffed. “You try building police cruisers when you’re dealing with budget constraints and a bunch of whiny officers who don’t know what they’re asking for.”

Yola raised her hands. “I never said I wanted your job. I’m sure you do the best you can. I think we’re going to need more time to dig into this car and figure out what makes it tick.”

“All we need is the security system to get us into Avalon,” I said. “We don’t have time for a complete tear down.”

“I’ll focus on that.” She slapped Jones on the shoulder. “You ready to get dirty?”

Jones didn’t seem to know how to deal with Yola, which I’m sure amused her greatly. Still, they talked the same language and quickly fell into a partnership as they pulled a panel off the side of the transport. It looked like Yola would be doing most of the work, but that was how she preferred things.

* * *

Keldon stepped back and inspected his work. “Stop moving, you’re messing it up.”

I sniffed. “It keeps tickling my nose.”

“Well, if you could grow a mustache like an ordinary adult, we wouldn’t have to do this.”

“I can grow a mustache just fine. I don’t want to look like a math teacher, like you.”

“Math teacher? What makes you think I can teach math?”

Keldon pressed his thumbs into the false mustache and stepped back.

Inspecting his work in the locker room mirror, I nodded. “Looks like it’s going to work. How good is this glue?”

“Good enough. Don’t start sweating. That’s where it starts getting loose. Also, avoid steamy places.”

I frowned, moving my jaw back and forth as I got used to the look. I was definitely in math teacher or middle manager territory.

“I think it’s better if it looks a little off. You want people to think you’re vain. Nobody’s going to wear a mustache that bad unless they’re an arrogant idiot.”

“Thanks. I hate it.”

Keldon slapped me on the shoulder. “When you’re old enough, you can have a real one like me. Until then, you can play dress-up. I was going to say I didn’t think anybody would recognize you anyway, then our new perps both popped in the database.”

The two Devotees I’d picked up were both known criminals on Taurus, members of the gang for less than a month. They didn’t seem any less enthusiastic about the organization than the others. Both were on suicide watch in specialty cells with redundant security systems. Sheriff Bird didn’t want a repeat of what had happened with Sanden.

The arrests worked in my favor since they made the hit on the jewelry store look like typical law enforcement action. Detectives were interviewing the suspects, trying to dig out new information about the gang that was hitting even more locations across the Station. So far, neither had been willing to talk.

“It’s a resort,” I said. “I guess I’ve got a higher likelihood of walking into steamy places than I would on other parts of the station.”

“You’ll be fine. I’d start working on your backstory now.”

I’d already told him how we were going to enter as Kiren’s employees. We would carry the suits from the jewelry bust in Kiren’s suitcases in case they were needed later.

“After Ollie said Avalon, I took a look at the place. I’ve passed it a thousand times. Always wondered what was inside. It’s kind of bland from the outside though. You don’t notice it right away unless you’re looking.”

I straightened my tie and reached for my jacket. “You better not forget where it’s at in case I need to call for help.”

Keldon slapped me on the shoulder. “I will if I can. A place this hard to get into is going to be twice as hard to get out of when you need to run. Be looking for a way out for when this goes south. There aren’t enough of us to fight our way in to save you.”

“You think we’re going to fail?”

He grinned. “I always aim low. That way waking up feels like a win.”

16

The air transport passed over the expanse of Avalon Estates before coming back around for the landing. The complex took up three whole city blocks, with walls surrounding the ground level, and only two gates into the area. A collection of high-rise buildings filled the middle of the complex, with the area on the outer edges comprised of parks, waterways, and what looked like forest. It was a small world all to itself, hidden on the edge of Taurus.

Viewpoints dotted the upper edge of the wall, serving as guard towers that provided observation of the streets outside and the space between the buildings and walls on the inside. From another perspective, the place was as secure as a prison from the inside and out.

“Preparing landing procedure, Deputy Walker,” Ellie reported. “Sending Ms. Carthage’s member codes now.”

“This place is a damn fortress,” Fratley said, watching the complex through his window. “Good thing we didn’t try to come in from the ground.”

The security codes from the gang transport would still be useful, according to Yola. Once we were inside the complex, she would use them to gain access to the local networks and start burrowing her way into their systems. She had been staring at her data pad as we approached, checking the various available networks.

The transport came back around as our landing zone came into view. The pad sat on the roof of one of the interior buildings. A circle of flashing white lights designated the landing point, and a gilded doorway was visible even from our altitude.

“Heading down,” Ellie said.

“You ready?” I asked Kiren.

She smiled. “Now or never.”

Kiren was wearing one of her business suits from back in her days as an executive with her father’s company, Carthage Industries. With her hair up in a tight bun, the tailored outfit made her look like a completely different person. The rest of us wore the plain business attire of an executive’s staff. As usual, my suit was too tight over my shoulders, making the holster under my left arm pinch every time I moved. I was also wearing the light armor under my clothes, which made me sweat.

The Devoted suits were packed in a suitcase in front of Haley. The case packed with weapons sat in front of me. Kiren had been adamant they wouldn’t check our bags.

I felt it in my stomach as the transport dropped. Behind me, Fratley sniffed hard and rubbed his nose, reminding me of the scene from the bar bathroom. He seemed fine, so far, but I didn’t like the nagging feeling that I couldn’t depend on him.

“That’s pretty,” Haley said, pointing at a fountain on the edge of the landing pad. Beside the blue pool with several falling streams, there was a small buffet with silver service and a bar where attendants stood ready to serve.

“Landing now,” Ellie said.

Across from me, Yola’s grin turned feral. “I’ve got their service network. Time to start digging.”

“Ellie, inform Sheriff Bird we’re inside the complex.”

There was no answer. I frowned.

“Ellie?”

“You lose your partner?” Yola asked. “I was worried about that. They’ve got signal blocking tech happening. I didn’t pick up their system until we were directly above the building. There must be some highly focused comms systems in use. The signal strength is going to block everything else.”

“Great.” I could certainly operate without Ellie, but a lack of outside comms meant we weren’t getting backup until we got out of this place.

The transport settled on the pad and opened its side door, then it went to standby power.

I looked at Kiren. “Where do they park the vehicles?”

“I’ve got no idea. I never parked my own transport before. They handle that.”

Yola tapped her pad. “I’ll find it. Don’t worry.”

I left the transport first, carrying the suitcase loaded with our weapons. The air was a little cold but there was little wind.

“How are you, ma’am?” a man called from the buffet table. “Can I interest you in a cold drink?”

Kiren followed me out.

“Would you like a drink?” I asked, trying to add a note of servitude to my voice. I wasn’t especially good at it.

“No, thank you,” Kiren said. “I want my suite. Do you have the room info?”

The server nodded toward the double doors ten meters away. “Down the lift, miss. You’ll find the check-in desk and our Lead Welcome Team.”

“Good.” Kiren waved for the rest of us to follow as she headed for the lift.

Yola brought up the rear, staring at her data pad like an assistant rechecking an itinerary.

The lift dropped silently into the building, where the air was delicately scented with something spicy. I checked my mustache and found it where I expected.

Kiren gave me a half-smile. “You really don’t like that thing, do you?”

“It’s not my favorite.”

It was likely our audio was being recorded, so Kiren took the opportunity to tease me. I couldn’t really fight back.

“I like it. It makes you look grown up. Growing a mustache is what made me finally trust you.”

“Thanks.”

“Not that you were a little boy before. Well, maybe. But now I’d say you look like a man. Like a person who can get things done. Like I can finally trust you to get my bags where they belong.”

Fratley snickered.

“It’s not as thick as I would have expected,” she said. “It reminds me of some lint you find in your pocket. You can see through it.”

I nodded. “You’re too kind. I’m certainly glad for the opportunity to work with you.”

“With me?” Kiren said. “For me is how you should characterize our relationship. You may have worked for my father, but he’s dead. I’m in charge now.”

“I haven’t forgotten it,” I said.

“Good.”

Haley gave Kiren a sideways glance like she hadn’t ever heard her talk this way before.

Fratley couldn’t hold in a hoot of laughter. He coughed, laughing into his hand.

The lift came to a stop and the doors opened on a broad lobby lined with marble flooring, fluted columns running the length of the space. The visitor desk ran down the wall to our right. Kiren walked out of the lift with her head held high. The role playing seemed to have helped her slip back into her old life.

Four workers at the desk smiled at her as she approached. A woman wearing some sort of badge on her maroon jacket stepped forward. “How can I help you today, Ms. Carthage?”

So they already had her identified. I figured that was good. Yola walked forward with Kiren to do most of the talking with the concierge. I noticed she set her data pad on the desk next to one of the terminals.

Kiren made a few unplanned demands, including a type of candy that apparently wasn’t available on the station.

“It’s not my job to solve your problems,” Kiren said when the concierge tried to offer an alternative. “My requirements have always been plainly noted in the retainer. Are you saying the Avalon can’t meet my needs?”

“No, Ms. Carthage. We’ll have the truffles for you immediately, I assure you. Please forgive the oversight. Avalon is always your oasis in the midst of these difficult times.”

That was a veiled excuse, I guess, but Kiren ignored it.

“I’ve been looking forward to them all week. I believe they’re the only reason I came here.”

The concierge cleared her throat and glanced at Yola, who was studying her pad again.

“Please accept the Namesake Suite,” she said. “We’ll get you situated in an upgraded room and bring your truffles just as soon as I can.”

“I suppose,” Kiren said.

Five minutes later, we rode the lift up one floor to a level that must have been just below the roof. The doors opened on a single suite that rolled away from the entrance in multiple tiers, with couches, bars, balconies, and windows that seemed to appear everywhere.

“Now this is all right,” Fratley said, stepping out first.

Yola raised a finger for him to stop where he was. She raised the data pad in front of her face and walked into the suite, scanning the area. We waited in the lift as she checked every room, including the three bathrooms.

“No bugs,” she said when she came back. “There’s a signal scanner near the entertainment center. That could be for the remotes, but I’m going to cut it anyway. Those things can be reprogrammed on the fly.”

I left the lift, getting a good look at the suite. It had good sight lines but little actual cover, and there appeared to be only one exit if you didn’t count the windows. It was a long way down to the park below.

“So nobody’s going to be watching me pee?” Fratley asked Yola as he left the lift.

Haley lifted her suitcase and followed. “You sound disappointed.”

Fratley laughed. “It’s the small things in life, love. The small things.”

17

The ride down to the main promenade took seven minutes. I watched the levels count down, trying not to think about the mustache constantly itching the edges of my nostrils. I didn’t know how the hell Keldon dealt with his.

Once we reached the mall, the plan was to follow Kiren during some basic ‘bored rich lady’ shopping. This would give Yola time to scan for the internal security system she needed to access so we could get out of the guest areas.

The lift didn’t stop on any other floors, although it did notify us of other amenities it passed on the way down, like sauna, pool, casino, and restaurants.

“There’s a level below the mall,” Kiren said. “I’ll be going there once we’ve done some shopping to attend a meeting. The note was cryptic, something about investors. I get these all the time. It’s more of a social area, with bars and restaurants that open on the central promenade. I don’t expect you to stay close to me there, but you need to be near in case I call you, understood?”

Haley raised an eyebrow. “Is there a place where other staff can wait until we’re needed?”

Kiren smiled. “You expect me to know that?”

“I guess not.” Haley didn’t look like she appreciated this whole act. It probably ran counter to every egalitarian criminal ethos she held dear. She’d been one of the first people to turn on Kallaver and his gang, after all.

The lift came to a stop and the doors slid open on a wide path made of smooth gray cobblestones. Broad-leafed plants leaned on either side of the walkway, with cloth-covered tables and entrances to shops situated between.

I took a deep breath and let it out, feeling my armor stretch against my chest and shoulder blades. Time to perfect an expression of bored pleasantry as I followed Kiren and studied everything around us. I seemed to be getting a lot of practice at this particular task.

The mall was populated by the people I would have expected. Groups of teens followed by servants walked between shops, while the small tables were mostly filled with people sipping cocktails or tiny coffee drinks.

Yola stayed close to Kiren as she entered different stores. It looked like there was nothing out of place with staff waiting outside various storefronts, so the rest of us waited. Fratley nodded at people as they walked by, which earned him a few surprised and disgusted looks.

It didn’t take me long to spot the now signature blue-gray suit of the Devoted. Two men and a woman were sitting at one of the tables outside a cafe about fifteen meters away. They had the stiff posture of guards, heads moving on a swivel as they scanned the guests walking by.

I got Fratley’s attention and nodded in their direction.

“Well, they look like a bunch of robots, don’t they?”

“Everyone seems to be ignoring them. I wonder how many more we’ll see.”

Fratley motioned toward another restaurant where a blue-gray suit sat with his back to us. As I checked further down the promenade, more of the suits came into view. There was no way we were going to walk the length of the mall without passing them.

Kiren came out of the store, sniffing her wrist where an attendant had sprayed perfume.

“Lots of Devoted down here,” I said in a low voice.

She nodded as she passed me, heading for the next store.

Kiren was diligent about her shopping. Yola was too busy watching her pad to give me any updates on what she was finding. When we passed the first table of Devoted, one of them watched her staring at the data pad and then looked away.

Kiren spent nearly an hour working her way down through the available shopping, checking inside any store that appeared to interest her. I realized after a few that she was choosing places to reinforce her profile as an elite executive. Clothing stores, perfumeries, a jewelry store.

Kiren walked out of the latter wearing a delicate necklace made of white diamonds. “What do you think?”

“Looks breakable,” I said.

She lifted the necklace off her neck and twisted one of the diamonds in her fingers. “I imagine that’s deceptive.”

“I’ve got it,” Yola said in a low voice. “We can get past the security in here at least. Just need an ingress.”

“There are doors past those trees over there,” Haley said.

“Not yet,” I said. “Let’s continue with Kiren’s act. Go downstairs like she planned, get a better sense of this place. Then we’ll make a plan from there. We’ve got time.”

A group of Devoted walked past us, headed for the end of the promenade.

Kiren let the necklace fall back in place. “That’s where we’re headed.”

“I’m curious what you rich lot do when no one’s looking,” Fratley said.

“I think we already saw that on Rivas,” Kiren said, an angry look crossing her face. She took a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”

A guard at the interior door watched Kiren as she approached. “Ms. Carthage?”

“Yes, thank you.”

He nodded and pulled the door open. The guard gave me a bored glance as I passed. The door closed behind Haley, leaving us in an area that was significantly darker than the promenade. A wide stairwell in front of us spiraled down to an underground level, lined by the same broad-leafed trees. Small white lights floated in their leaves, providing the only light in the space. There were plenty of shadowed areas where someone could pull back and hide.

With her shoulders straight, Kiren walked down the middle of the staircase, focused on the area below. She looked vulnerable for a second.

I followed, hoping no one could see through us yet. We still had work to do.

18

The lower area was a very different scene. Kiren walked through an arch made of tropical plants and a server handed her a cocktail, a pistol plainly visible at his waist.

The area was lined by gaming tables with serious looking players. Several were surrounded by gates. The small shops we passed were selling arms, armor, and invitations for other equipment to outfit a private army. The clientele changed subtly. There were no kids down here. The guests moved in small groups, like they were afraid to be alone with the workers.

Devoted in blue-gray suits were everywhere. Many served as security at VIP parties, stood guard in the gun shops, or stood along the promenade watching us as we walked by.

Kiren made a show of sipping her drink and nodded to a few of them. She received no response.

The air smelled of cigar smoke and food, and as we reached the middle of the space, an open air banquet came into view in a circle obscured by the trees. A large grill sat on the far side, cooks working cuts of meat sizzling on the open flame.

Kiren made a circuit of the new area, picking up a pistol in one shop and feeling a piece of armor in another. Haley and Yola both followed her in this time, while Fratley and I stayed out on the promenade.

“This is a specialty club for assholes,” the Renegade said in a low voice.

“You sure you’re not jealous?”

He glanced at me. “Me? If I want to buy some weaponry, I go do it. I don’t slink around in a fancy club paying twice what I should for an engraved bang stick. You must think I’m very petty, Walker.”

“You’re right about that,” I said. “This all seems small time. Why go to all this trouble? There’s no real money here.”

“It’s in the back,” Kiren said, approaching from a gun shop. “This is all for show. The guy in there just said if I want the real goods, I need to go through the checkpoint on the other side of the buffet over there.”

Haley frowned. “We can’t go with her though. It’s VIP only.”

I looked past the grill to where I could just make out a short line of people waiting to go somewhere. They did appear more excited than the people wandering around this section.

“Can you get in there?” I asked Kiren.

She shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

Haley stiffened as a group of Devoted walked past us. One of them glanced at me, and for a second I thought I’d been recognized. I gave him a nod and he turned away without responding.

“I’ve got the building blueprint,” Yola said. “There’s a service entrance that runs into the area where they’re holding the VIP gathering. We can go through there while Kiren takes the main entrance. I’ve got the access code.”

“I don’t think we should split up,” I said.

Kiren looked toward the VIP entrance. “Do you see an alternative? In the worst case scenario, I meet you all later at the suites and we think of a new plan.”

“You’ll be on your own,” Haley said.

“Don’t worry. I can take care of myself. I have a feeling what we’re looking for is in that private area.”

“You’ve got your pistol?” I asked.

Kiren nodded. “And a knife or two tucked away. Don’t worry about me, Walker.”

Without allowing further debate, Kiren turned and continued down the promenade to where it turned to skirt the eating area.

Fratley jabbed me in the ribs. “You’re a little sweet on her, aren’t you, Walker?”

“I’d be worried about you, too.”

“You wouldn’t be watching my backside the same way.”

Yola tapped her data pad. “Let’s go. The service entrance is over here.”

Since the hacker knew where we were going, Yola took the lead. She kept her data pad at her side, checking it occasionally as we left the promenade and walked onto a service path behind the shops. Power cabling ran over the cobblestones to linkage points in the wall. Fratley cursed as he tripped on one. He would have fallen on his face if I hadn’t grabbed his collar.

“You all right?” I asked. “You’re sweating.”

He jerked away from my grasp. “I’m fine. Don’t need you holding me up like a toddler. These damn cables are all over the place. It’s a mess.”

He sniffed hard and pulled the front of his jacket down to straighten the material.

I paused to let Fratley get ahead of me a few steps. Haley walked alongside me and gave me a knowing look.

“You see him acting strange, too?”

She nodded and held a finger against her nose to make a sniffing sound.

I frowned. “I didn’t see him use anything.”

“He’s sneaky about it. I think it embarrasses him. I noticed it right after we came back from our last job.”

Fratley might not be the most selfless person around, but I called him my friend. I didn’t like the idea of something like Flow taking over his life. It also meant I couldn’t depend on him.

“Be careful,” I told Haley.

She gave me one of her bright smiles. “You’re always so sweet, Walker.”

Ahead of us, Yola reached the break in the wall that turned into a pair of doors as we approached. The seams were almost concealed in the design. She tapped a section next to the door and an outline of the locking mechanism appeared with a number pad. Her fingers seemed to blur in the dim light as she entered in strings of numbers. At one point, it looked like she hit two numerals simultaneously.

Eventually the lighted number pad flashed and went out. Yola inserted a thin piece of metal in the seam between the doors and pried the right door open. Fratley opened it wider as she stepped through.

I was the last one through the door. It closed quietly behind me, leaving us in an unlit corridor.

The screen on Yola’s data pad flared as a white panel, illuminating her face. The glow was enough to make out the smooth walls of the service corridor. Stacks of inventory boxes and empty service carts littered the path. It looked like the space wasn’t used much by actual people.

“This way,” Yola said. “Try not to make much noise. There’s a guard station on the other side of the wall.”

19

A glow appeared at the far end of the corridor that turned into an unfinished space lined with concrete pillars and exposed wiring conduit. Dust and bits of crumbled concrete covered the floor. The small bit of light in the space appeared to be coming from a row of parked transports to our right, all looking as dusty as the general area.

“They’ve got this marked as long-term storage,” Yola said. “I don’t think there’s anybody down here, but we should be careful just in case.”

Fratley sniffed again, then sneezed. He wiped his nose and spat on the floor.

“How long do we have to stay in this damned place?”

Yola shrugged. “I can’t really tell if the area we’re heading into is any better. It’s off that main section we just left. Based on the drawings though, I think it’s going to be just like this.”

“Let’s go,” I said. “We’ll figure it out when we get there. Kiren is already inside.” It had taken us too long to get down the dark corridor, and I couldn’t help thinking we’d been heading in the wrong direction.

Skirting the parking area, Yola consulted her pad as we continued along the outer edge. The light was even worse here as we left the vehicles behind, with more discarded construction material to trip us up as we walked. I had to grab Fratley twice before he face-planted.

“Your shoes fit all right?” I asked the second time.

“Piss off, Walker.”

There were few sounds except our shoes scraping on the dusty floor, until I became aware of an echo from the distance.

“Yola,” I said in a low voice. “Wait.”

She paused. “What?”

“You hear that?”

We waited with Fratley sniffing every few seconds.

“Voices,” Haley said. “Someone’s talking.”

Yola continued, a little slower now. There was a corner in the wall where she paused before turning out of sight. When I followed, I spotted light behind the concrete pillars about fifty meters away.

The columns cut the view ahead into black strips that didn’t reveal the scene behind them until we’d walked forward another few meters. A tent had been erected in the unfinished space. Its walls and ceiling were a white material that glowed from internal light. A cordon of velvet ropes led from a doorway that had to be off the main promenade, into the tent. Devoted in blue-gray suits stood at the entrance to the tent and along the cordon.

I paused and drew my pistol. If there were guards on the tent, there were going to be rovers out near us. I scanned the nearby pillars for shapes that would indicate someone leaning in the dark.

“What is it?” Haley asked in a low voice.

“Look out for guards,” I said.

“What makes you think people are going to be wandering out here in the damned dark,” Fratley complained, thankfully keeping his voice down.

“Wouldn’t you do the same thing?”

“Yes, damn it. That doesn’t mean I’m pleased about it.”

With everyone stopped, I held up a hand to wait for a second, studying the layout of the area ahead. I pointed to our right, into the dark.

“Let’s skirt that way, just out of the light. We can come up at the back of the tent and get a look at what’s going on inside.”

Yola nodded and put her data pad away. “You lead the way. I’m done with this front of the line stuff.”

I backtracked about ten meters and moved to the next pillar, keeping it between me and the tent. Moving from pillar to pillar this way, I led the others around the edge of the light, until we’d reached the far side of the tent. The voices we had heard before had relaxed to the low rumble of people mingling. What we heard before must have been a warning about the main show coming.

So far, I hadn’t seen any guards like I expected. That was good, but I didn’t want to fall into the trap of believing the Devoted were stupid. If there were no people out here, there was probably some kind of surveillance system.

I should have thought of that sooner.

I scanned the ceiling, searching for the telltale red dots that would indicate dark vision cameras. I couldn’t see anything from this vantage point, anyway.

Kiren was already inside the tent, and we didn’t have much time to play everything safe. I chose a pillar closer to the tent and started to work my way closer, watching out for movement.

On my fourth pillar, I was close enough to make out the speaker inside the tent.

Pamela Carmichael.

I thought I recognized the voice, but I’d only heard her once before. I had to be sure. I motioned for the others to wait and pushed forward until I was just a couple meters from the side of the tent. I’d be exposed to anyone coming around from my left, but I’d see the movement as they circled the tent.

I dropped to my stomach and low-crawled to the edge of the tent, where a rip in the material gave me a slanted view into the interior.

The view didn’t make sense at first, until I realized I was looking at the back edge of a raised platform. On one side was a cut-off view of luxury seats with side tables covered in food and drink. On the upper edge of the stage I could barely make out the base of a huge holodisplay that covered the closest audience members in a blue glow.

I couldn’t see Pamela, but her voice was unmistakable as she walked across the stage, welcoming everyone.

“Did everyone get a drink?” she asked. “Once I start talking, you’ll want to listen.”

There was a hint of threat in her voice, gloved in welcome. I could only see three of the people in the front row. They reminded me of members of the Carthage Board. Manicured, brittle people who nodded and followed the woman on the stage with cold eyes.

“I wish I didn’t have to ask you all to come here,” Pamela said. “But times have gotten bad enough that we can’t entrust this kind of meeting to anything but in-person and face-to-face. We need to be able to look each other in the eyes and know that we’re ready.”

She spent a few minutes on niceties, calling out different people in the audience. She even recognized Kiren.

“Carthage Heavy Industries is here today as well. Thank you, Kiren. Your father was a forward-thinking man. I know he didn’t get along with my brothers when it came to the plan behind Taurus, but then, neither did I. And here we are. I’m excited you’re here.”

I couldn’t see or hear Kiren’s response, but it seemed to satisfy Pamela.

The lights in the tent were dimmed for the next part of the presentation.

Pamela Carmichael spent twenty minutes explaining to what I came to understand was a group of socialites like Kiren, how she was in the process of destroying the institutions that had kept Taurus Station functioning and safe for the last hundred years. She called her actions “destabilization” operations designed to discredit and weaken the existing systems of control, including the Sheriff and station administration.

“Taurus has been a powerful revenue generating engine,” Pamela said. “But it wasn’t working for the right people. We can make it work a thousand times harder for a small group of powerful investors. Now, you might ask why I need your help at all? That’s an excellent question.”

Something in the display shifted, changing the blue light spilling across the audience to a warm pink. A few expressions hardened. They didn’t like what they saw.

“You’re all familiar with places like Leah. Taurus was on that path whether I helped it or not. There’s a reason I never saw eye-to-eye with my brothers. They were small-time, really. They wanted to be part of bigger things in the Deadlands, but they were never going to make that happen. They had reached out to a group you may have heard of. They’re called Lyon. And they are powerful.”

Again, all I could do was watch the responses on the nearby faces. One man seemed to know who Pamela was talking about. He looked sick and angry at the same time.

“You should know that I have Lyon’s full support. They’re sending that support to Taurus to assist in the transition. When I offered you investment opportunities in the new life of Taurus Station, I suppose what I should have said was the opportunity to pay tribute. You can join the new world, or you can be swept aside and your businesses and families destroyed.”

The man I’d been watching shook his head in disgust. He stood and threw down his drink. The glass shattered on the concrete floor.

“You’re full of shit,” he said. “I know for a fact you don’t control anything but your gang of thugs and this hotel. I came here to see if you were going to do something about this violence, and instead we find out you’re behind it.”

“Ken,” Pamela said, almost lovingly. “I’m glad you’re pushing back. What makes you think I can’t do my brothers’ job better?”

“You don’t have the Control Key,” he said. “No one’s in charge of Taurus right now.”

“You sure about that?”

Ken was standing five meters from where I hid. From the shadows on his face, I could see Pamela approach him. His gaze fell to something near her throat, and then his mouth fell open.

“How did you get that?” he said.

Her voice was a purr. “I always had it.”

Abruptly, Ken raised his hands to defend himself. There was a pistol crack, and a hole appeared between his eyebrows. Blood sprayed across the white tent wall from the back of his head and he fell sideways, pointing toward my hiding place. Pamela Carmichael knelt next to him and touched his face with the muzzle of her pistol almost lovingly.

She stood and turned so I couldn’t see her anymore.

“Any other questions?” she asked.

From the middle of the room, I heard Kiren’s voice. “I’ve got a question.”

“Yes?”

Three more pistol shots split the air inside the tent.

20

I started to shove myself away from the edge of the tent, then thought better of it and lifted the fabric so I could slide underneath. Rising to a crouch with my pistol drawn, I took stock of the situation.

People were struggling to get out of the chairs in the middle of the tent, falling over each other. Kiren stood in the middle corridor, sighting down her pistol at Pamela Carmichael as she dove behind the display projector. Behind Kiren, two Devoted ran into the entryway, drawing weapons.

“Kiren,” I shouted. “Look out.”

She ignored me for a second, squeezing off two more rounds that missed Pamela, then turned to fire on the men behind her. She hit one in the chest and missed the second one, who fell across a table and took down a nearby tent pole.

That side of the tent slid and collapsed. More Devoted were pouring through the collapsing opening, fighting the falling walls with their free hands as they tried to aim at Kiren.

Pamela disappeared behind the stage. Kiren seemed set on standing her ground and taking out as many of the Devoted as she could. She was going to need some convincing to get out of the rapidly collapsing tent.

“Kiren,” I shouted again. “We need to get out of here.”

“Walker? Where’d you come from?”

“This way. Come on.”

Keeping her pistol aimed at the front of the tent, which was going down faster now, she moved backward until she reached the stage. Turning, I could finally see what was on the display. An image of Leah Station in a dilapidated state. Another image to the left showed the place in what must have been it’s beginning because it was clean and didn’t look half bad.

I motioned toward the edge of the tent where the gap had grown more loose as the tent lost tension. I raised the edge for her so she could slide under, then I followed.

From the outside, the tent looked like a glowing balloon slowly deflating. Shouting came from the other side as attendees fought their way out of the walls.

Haley caught Kiren in a hug. “You’re all right. Are you shot?”

“No,” Kiren said. “But I should have killed Pamela when I had the chance.”

“You know her?” I asked.

“Yeah, unfortunately. She’s always been a ruthless bitch, but I had no idea it went this deep. This was supposed to be her brothers’ playground. I guess she’s as bad as they are.”

The sound of tent poles shattering came from under the tent, and the whole thing went down. We were abruptly visible from the entryway where a group of Devoted appeared to be helping people get out from under the mess. Shouts went up as one of them recognized Kiren, and then I heard Pamela yelling for someone to deliver Kiren’s head.

“I guess you made an impression.”

“That woman is crazy,” Kiren said.

“Hey,” Yola shouted from behind us. “This way.”

I spotted the hacker behind a column about ten meters away, the light from the fallen tent catching her face. She moved behind the column once I’d seen her and disappeared.

“We need to get out of the light,” I told Kiren. “This area is all unfinished, like a giant garage. None of it is lighted.”

“Where are we going from there? We need to get back up to the room and either get the big guns or get out of here.”

I shook my head, grabbing her forearm as I headed toward Yola and the others. “I don’t think we’re going back to the room.”

“I’m never getting those truffles,” Kiren said with a sigh.

That made me laugh as I slid around a column and kept running. There was more shouting behind us, and then an automatic weapon opened fire. Bits of concrete flew off a nearby pillar. I pulled Kiren back behind another pillar before she ran into the line of fire. The weapon ran through its magazine quickly, with no pause to control fire. That was good.

As soon as the weapon went quiet, I sprinted toward Yola, putting more pillars between us and the light.

“I want to head back to that guard station,” Yola said when we reached her. “There should be a control system there for their security, more weapons, and maybe even some uniforms.”

“So much for those damn suits,” Fratley said.

Haley stood with her back to the Renegade, watching around the opposite side of the pillar. “I didn’t want to wear those ugly suits anyway.”

I nodded. “That sounds like a good idea. What about grabbing one of those vehicles they’ve got in storage?”

Yola shrugged. “I might be able to get into one of them using the main network. I’ll have to see. The other problem is going to be trying to get out of this place on the ground. I’d rather get back to the roof if we can.”

In front of us, Kiren stood with her hands on her hips, shaking her head. “I can’t believe she’s got the command key.”

I focused on Yola and her plan. Pamela was lower on the list now that I had an idea of what she meant to do. I needed to get this information back to the Sheriff as quickly as possible.

“What about getting a message out?”

Yola shook her head. “I won’t know until I get my hands on their system.

The machine gun wound up again, grinding concrete from a row of pillars some twenty meters behind us.

“They can’t see us,” I said. “As soon as the shooting starts, we need to get out of here. Is there some landmark we can use in this place to get back to the corridor? I’m turned around.”

“The line of vehicles,” Yola said. I think if we head straight back that way until we find them, they’ll basically lead us back to the guard shack. Some of them had lights on, so we need to look for that.”

Fratley shook his head. “Bumbling around in the dark. Running from machine guns. Why did I agree to this again?”

“Because your life is boring,” Haley said.

Fratley sniffed. “Spending time with Walker is anything but boring. I think I’ll actually miss our little trips when Taurus station completely goes to hell. How sad.”

“Less talk, more moving,” I said, and set off into the dark.

21

An alarm started howling in the distance as I ran through the dark garage, making sure the others were still behind me. Fratley ran out of breath quicker than the others, and we waited for him a couple times before I spotted the glowing lights from the parked vehicles in the distance. From there, the black square of the corridor we’d left was visible along the wall, and ten meters from that was a set of metal doors.

“According to the map, that’s it,” Yola said.

“Nothing about how many people we can expect inside?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Nope. I don’t even know if it’s in use.”

“All right,” I said, following the line of vehicles back toward the wall. “Haley, you and Yola pull the door open. I’m going in. Fratley and Kiren come behind me. We’ll hit whatever we find.”

Coughing to catch his breath, Fratley slapped Kiren on the shoulder. “I’ll be right behind you, love.”

Haley looked into the dark behind us. “I think there are more people following us.”

I nodded. “We’ll deal with that when they show up.”

Looking past the row of dusty hover cars, I wondered how they had gotten down here. “Is there a ramp out of this place?”

“Nope,” Yola said. “There’s a service lift. It goes up to the ground level.”

We reached the doors. There were no cameras I could see, or windows into the interior space. I waited, listening. The only sounds were Fratley’s boots scraping in the dust as he struggled to keep up with us.

Kiren went to the door and grabbed the latch. She activated the mechanism and nodded to the rest of us. It was unlocked. She pulled the door open and dim light poured out into the garage. I went through it with my pistol raised, sliding to the left against the other door and scanning the room.

Two workstations sat against one wall. The rest of the space was taken up by a desk and a closed cabinet. There was no one here.

“Perfect,” Yola said, not waiting for me to announce the room was clear. She slid into one of the chairs at the workstation and activated the terminal.

As the others came in behind me, I opened the cabinet to find four rifles in a rack and a box of flash grenades. They wouldn’t blow a hole in anything, but they would push back pursuers. The rifles were standard automatics with forty-round magazines. I found a case of ammunition sitting in the bottom of the cabinet. They weren’t the specialty rifles we had stowed in our luggage in the suite, but they would do. I handed a rifle to Kiren and Haley.

“I don’t want one of those things,” Fratley said. “Too much noise. My pistol will suit me fine.”

I shrugged and ran a functions check on my rifle, then I slung it over my shoulder.

“I’ll take one,” Yola said, face still in the terminal. “Not that you offered.”

“You don’t seem like the rifle type,” Haley said.

The hacker grinned. “You haven’t met my ARNYE, have you? Walker met my machine gun.”

“We could use your little friend right now,” I said. “You found anything?”

“Working on it. They’ve actually got some pretty good security. I’m using a brute force attack to get through their authentication system. Could take a little while.”

Time was what we didn’t have. There were only so many ways out of this area, and I expected the Devoted to show up any minute.

In one of the desk drawers, I found a small communications device with an earpiece. After fitting the earpiece on, I turned on the device and scanned channels.

“Level clear,” a voice said. “We’re checking grounds now.”

I listened to two security teams reviewing the ground level, looking for us, although it sounded like a few of Pamela’s guests from the meeting were trying to get out as well. Their conversation verified that Avalon Estates was on lockdown.

“They’re not letting anyone out,” I said. “The guests are being moved back to their rooms.”

“There’s where I’d like to be,” Fratley said. “Think we can sneak onto one of the lifts and get back up there? Pamela doesn’t know what I look like.”

“It’s my room,” Kiren said. “She sure as hell knows me.”

The Renegade scowled. “That’s what happens when you try to shoot people.”

Yola raised a finger. “Hold on. I just got into their main comms network.” She switched on an external speaker and adjusted the volume.

It was Pamela’s voice: “No one in or out. We’re going to give everybody some time to breath. All we need to do is wait a little bit and Carthage will show her face. There’s nowhere to run here or once she’s outside. We control the whole area. Remember that. Take your time. Until then, I need a report from the teams at the Port. What’s the status on the mission there?”

The port?

Three voices that sounded like leaders with the Devoted reported that they had established secure locations and were moving equipment from warehouses to the flight areas. They would be ready to move in a few hours.

“Good,” Pamela said. “Our friends are about to hit the slip tunnel and will soon be in the neighborhood. I want everything in place and ready to execute when they arrive in system.”

One of the leaders in Avalon asked if that meant they should hunt room to room for Kiren.

Pamela sighed. “Maybe I was being too patient before. We don’t have the time I think we do. Find her. I want her head. I want her head on a silver platter on a room service trolly delivered to my office. How’s that for a mission?”

A chorus of people responding, “I serve,” filled the channel.

What had she done to these people to gain this kind of loyalty? It couldn’t be just money. Or maybe it was.

“Well, that’s not creepy,” Haley muttered.

“I know her,” Kiren said. “We moved in the same circles when I was younger. The same party circuit, I guess you could say. She’s always had this fascination with dominance and submission. Not sex stuff. Just getting people to follow her. It’s like a secret skill she has. Everyone wants to please her.”

I guess I could see it. Even Keldon had been fascinated by her when she left the Sheriff’s office. Something about the way she looked at you made you want to serve. I kept that thought to myself.

“Huh,” Yola said. “She does have an office. It’s in that wooded area on the edge of the compound. Looks like there’s a separate data store there.”

I glanced at Kiren. “I couldn’t see the presentation she was showing back in the tent. Was she showing a link to another system? If I could get that data, we’d have everything we need about her plan. The Sheriff is going to need that information.”

“The building is air-gapped,” Yola said.

“What the hell does that mean?” Fratley asked.

“It means I can’t hack my way in unless I’m physically there. And, yeah, I think all signs point toward that being a place we want to go. I want to know more about these friends she’s talking about. Doesn’t sound good.”

“Lyon Group,” I said.

“Oh, damn,” Yola said. “Really? Then we need to shut her down. Even the Ghosts don’t really mess with Lyon.”

“Do you have a map of the hotel?” I asked.

Yola activated another display and pulled up a layout of the compound. Four high-rises stood in the center of a three block area. Courtyards filled the space between the buildings, while the outer edges were mostly green parks. The forested area in the lower part of the screen was where Pamela’s building was located. There were a few other outbuildings around her office for storage and maintenance.

“What’s the best way out of here?” I asked.

“Probably that service lift for the vehicles I told you about. That will put us on the ground level over here.” Yola pointed to a location on the left edge of the map. From there, we would need to cross a courtyard with outdoor restaurants and a swimming pool, then move into the woods where the office lay about five hundred meters in.

Fratley sniffed. “Let me ask you this. Where the hell are we going to go once we’re inside her office there?”

I pointed at the map and the outer wall. “We’re going to blow a hole in that wall.”

“With what?”

“That’s a problem to solve on the way,” I said.

22

I checked the action on my rifle as the service lift rumbled to a halt and its doors slid open. We were arrayed against the sides, so anyone looking in from the courtyard outside would see an empty car.

From what I could see, the cobblestone courtyard was deserted. Empty restaurant tables stood to one side, chairs pushed back with food left on plates and glasses half-full. Someone had cleared everyone out in a hurry.

Moving around the edge of the lift, I used a hedge to my left as cover and checked the balconies above us. For a second, everything looked clear. Were the Devoted focused solely inside the hotels?

The others followed me into the shrubs running around the edge of the building when the whine of an aerial drone stabbed the air above us. The drone dropped from the building, directly over Fratley’s head, and then shot toward the other side of the courtyard.

“Move,” I said. “We’re not going to hit that thing with our rifles.”

I kept low and close to the building, checking for movement as we passed brick partitions designed to separate the pool from the eating areas. Another drone hovered to my right, but that one seemed focused on the area outside the wall. The drone behind us dropped and fired three times, shattering the window behind Haley. Glass and metal sprayed across her back as she threw herself forward.

“Lay down some fire,” I said, sprinting back to where Haley lay on the ground. Her back was bloody, with a wider spot growing on the back of her thigh.

She looked at me, her face pale. “I think I’m shot.”

“Hold on.” I slung my rifle and knelt to get one of her arms around my shoulders. I helped her to her knees as Fratley and Kiren fired on the drone.

“I’m leading you, bastard,” Fratley said. He sniffed and fired three times. The fourth round hit the drone and knocked it to one side. Limping in the air, it drifted into the wall and crashed. Unfortunately, that seemed to attract the attention of the other drone, which spun in the air and shot toward us.

“I’m running for the trees,” I said. “Try to keep the drone back.”

Yola moved to Haley’s other side and helped lift her. It was hard to keep low as we ran, Kiren and Fratley firing behind us.

We reached the corner of the building. There was a good fifty meters of open courtyard between our location and the edge of the forest. In the distance, more drones hung in the air along the wall. We couldn’t wait. I needed to get Haley into cover so we could get some pressure on her wound.

“Sorry, Walker,” she said, hiding a whimper in her voice.

“Getting shot is nobody’s idea of fun.” I looked at Yola. “You ready?”

She nodded, and we left the shadow of the hotel. In the distance, I saw two drones rotate and jerk in the air, picking up our movement.

“Keep going,” Kiren said. “We’ll worry about the drones.”

Haley collapsed against my side. She was losing blood fast. I had to pause to adjust my grip on her arm, and we started running again. There were three drones bearing down on us now, and the tree line still seemed impossibly far away.

Fratley fired on the closest drone. It was approaching on a straight line, and he missed with the first shot, then caught it with the second. Behind it, one flew higher and started shooting at Kiren, while the last continued coming in fast and low.

“Split up,” Fratley shouted. “Make those bastards chase us.”

We were about ten meters from the woods now. There was a slight rise covered in ivy. Kiren paused to fire again and hit the drone, knocking it out of the air.

I lifted Haley over the rise, and we passed into the trees. Yola stumbled as we came down the abrupt drop on the other side. I struggled to hold both of them up as we came to a stop, then I turned to take Haley and lower her to the mostly even ground. The spaces between the trees were covered in more of the coarse ivy, with what looked like bare dirt underneath.

Fratley and Kiren reached the tree line and each dropped to a crouch, scanning for more drones. Fratley was breathing hard again, holding his chest with his free hand.

“What’s wrong with you?” Kiren asked. “You going to have a heart attack?”

He sniffed. “I’m fine. Fine. Just need a second.”

With Haley on her back, I ran my hands down her sides, looking for more bloody areas. Her right thigh was soaked but that seemed to be the worst area. Taking her pant leg in both hands, I tore off the fabric beneath her knee and then ripped that apart until I had a makeshift bandage.

“You’re doing fine, Haley. Really good.” With Yola’s help, we lifted her knee to expose the bullet hole in her thigh. There was no exit wound that I could find. I gathered up some fabric and packed the wound as best I could, until the outer bits weren’t soaking blood anymore, then wrapped the longer piece of fabric around her leg. At least the bullet hadn’t hit anything major.

Pamela’s office lay through the trees, a low building with concrete walls and a flat roof. A heavy forklift was parked behind the building, a pallet stacked full of cobblestones sitting on its forks. In a clearing next to the building sat a luxury air-capable cruiser with a blood red fuselage.

“Look at that sweet thing.” Fratley pointed at the cruiser. “I’d like to put it through some paces.”

“We’ve got Devoted coming this way,” Kiren said. “They just left the building. I don’t know if they’ve seen us yet.”

“This is as good as I can do right now,” I said.

Yola helped me lift Haley again, and we moved toward the office, Kiren and Fratley pulling rear security again. When we reached the single door at the side of the office, Yola left me with Haley as she went to work on the lock.

“It’s a deadbolt,” she said, reaching into her belt for a set of picks. “How quaint.”

She had the door unlocked in less than a minute, then she held it open so I could get Haley inside.

23

The building was taken up by a single room with thick carpet on the floor that absorbed our footsteps. A desk sat in the middle of the room with holo screens on each wall. Currently the screens were set to public views of different sections of Taurus. There was the main terminal at the Port Authority, the primary street system leading into the warehouse district, and the Promenade running through the tourist district, lined by casinos and restaurants. The Promenade would normally have been choked with pedestrians and party buses. There was hardly any traffic. The Port Terminal was the same. Taurus was going quiet, something that seemed wildly out of place.

Yola was already sitting behind the desk, working on a data pad that had been lying there. “This is her personal stuff. She needs to fire her Chief of Info Security.”

Kiren set her rifle against the wall and breathed for a few seconds, resting. Beside her, Fratley slumped with his forehead against the wall.

“She’s arrogant,” Kiren said. “That’s always been her downfall. Why do you need security when you can do whatever you want?”

“I always want security,” Yola said. “You never know when people like me come along.”

I cracked the door and checked the nearby woods. So far, everything was quiet. The earpiece had been strangely quiet, so I tapped it again and went to scan channels.

I pulled the earpiece out and set the rig on the desk. “It’s not working,” I told Yola. “Can we take that with us?”

“We could, but if it’s got any sort of location-based security, that would be bad. We’ll lose everything.” She frowned “Pamela spends a lot of time talking to someone named Brit.”

“Oh no,” Kiren said.

The display where she had been standing had shifted to the interior of a warehouse. It was an open floor plan, like the garage we had just left. The whole space was filled with armored vehicles. One column had open beds stacked with drones.

“They’re ready for a damn war,” Fratley said.

Movement outside the door drew my attention. Devoted were entering the tree line about twenty meters away.

“We need to get out of here,” I told the others. “We’ve got a group headed this way.”

Haley looked pale but at least she wasn’t bleeding anymore. She shifted, trying to stand on her good leg.

“Stay where you are,” I told her. “We’ll get you out of here.”

“I can walk,” she said. “Let me get up. I’m not going to have one of you getting killed for me.”

Fratley holstered his pistol and looked around.

I frowned. “What are you looking for?”

“Nothing,” he said, preoccupied. Finally, he walked to a cabinet behind Yola, faced away from us, and dug in his pants pocket for a small metal case. He snapped the box open and lifted out a small tube that he raised to his nose. He sniffed hard, shook his head once, then closed the case with a practiced movement and shoved it back in his pocket. If I hadn’t been watching, I might have missed the whole thing.

Fratley turned and found me looking at him.

“That’s right, Walker. You going to arrest me?” He flexed his shoulders and stood straighter. “I’ve had enough of these bastards in their suits chasing me around. I think I’m going to show them what happens when they mess with Fratley Oxonos. I’m going to show the whole damn system soon enough.”

The Renegade picked up his rifle and pulled the charging handle back, then he slammed it home.

“Wait,” Kiren said. “We need to make a plan. How are we getting out of here?”

I glanced at Yola. “Ready to go?”

She picked up the data pad and turned it in her hands. “I’ve got everything on this tablet that I can get. Her maps, correspondence, and financial information. That should be enough for your Sheriff, right?”

“Good. I need you to get that forklift behind the building running. You use that thing to punch a hole in the wall, and we’ll hold off the suits.”

Yola raised her eyebrows. “Smash a wall with a forklift. Yeah, let’s do it.”

Fratley sniffed hard and turned to the door. His eyes were bloodshot. “I’m going, Walker.”

I nodded. “We’ll go with you. Haley, I’ll be back for you once we’ve got a way out of here.”

Haley gave me a little wave. “I’m just fine, Walker. Don’t worry about me.”

Fratley threw the door open and stood in the opening. “I’m coming for you, Suits. I’ve got something you can devote yourselves to.”

The Renegade walked into the woods, shooting.

“Damn it, here we go.” I went after Fratley with my rifle raised. Finding targets in the trees, I squeezed the trigger. They apparently hadn’t expected us to come out shooting, so I had to give Fratley that. A drone floating above the trees opened fire on Fratley, forcing him around the side of the building as concrete exploded.

I dropped to a knee behind a tree trunk and fired on the drone. It rose higher, rounds going wide.

Fratley just laughed and sprinted toward the Devoted cowering behind tree trunks. He shot one in the face as he came on him, then he turned to sprint at a group trying to flank him.

I fired on them as they raised their weapons, forcing them back down. Fratley shot another man point blank, spraying blood all over a tree trunk and the suit next to him. The second man died before he could land a single shot.

Fratley’s wild laughter floated back through the tree trunks. More drones whined above us, held off by the trees for the time being. They opened fire, clearing leaves and branches, but Fratley had already moved by the time the drones sighted-in on his location.

I ran away from the building, moving to the right of the group of Devoted focused on the Renegade. When I had a visual of three lined up behind a row of trees, I fired and moved, only taking out one that had been ready to shoot Fratley in the stomach.

Behind me, the forklift roared to life. “Time to go, Fratley!” I shouted.

He ignored me and caught a suit in the cheek with the butt of his rifle. Fratley knocked the man to the ground and shot him in the face, then he stomped on his hand as the wounded suit still tried to reach for a pistol. The Renegade shot him again, white teeth shining in a fierce grimace.

Yola backed up the forklift to get some running distance to the wall. The thing looked big enough to move several vehicles at once, its wheels nearly as tall as the flat-roofed office building. Yola revved the engine until it screamed, then accelerated toward the wall, the pallet of cobblestones crashing to the ground. She jumped out of the cab at the last minute.

The forklift smashed into the wall and continued right through it, disappearing in the street outside.

Fratley wasn’t listening to me, so I fired again for cover and then sprinted back to the office to grab Haley. I found her leaning against the desk, gritting her teeth.

“I heard a crash,” she said. “Was it a good crash?”

“Yes, it was. Let’s get out of here.”

“Walker,” Kiren shouted from outside. “We’ve got more coming in.”

There was a pause, followed by more gunfire. I helped Haley to the doorway and found Kiren kneeling behind a nearby tree trunk, firing on movement near the tree line. I continued around the edge of the building and found the hole in the wall where the forklift had run through. Yola waited at the corner of the building, looking pleased with herself.

“That’s a big hole,” she said.

I called for Kiren and Fratley as Yola helped me with Haley. With my free hand, I tapped my earpiece again, trying Ellie.

She came through brokenly. When we reached the hole in the wall, I finally heard her clearly.

“Deputy Walker, can you hear me? Tactical is on scene. What is your location?”

“Have you got the big hole in the wall on a camera? That’s where we’re at. Tell Sheriff Bird we’ve got an update for her. I need to talk to her right now. And we’re going to need medical support. I’ve got one with a gunshot wound.”

Fratley ran past us, still laughing. He stopped on the sidewalk and turned, holding his pistol out like a gunfighter. His cheeks and beard were speckled with blood.

“I take back everything I said, Walker. This was a fine time. An excellent way to spend an afternoon. I’d steal that cruiser if I could. I’ll have to come back later.”

Kiren moved up beside me, keeping her rifle trained on the hole in the wall, then the top of the wall where drones floated. They didn’t seem ready to follow us out to the street.

I soon saw why as five armored personnel carriers from Tactical arrived and set up a perimeter. Four men in blue-gray suits walked up to the hole in the wall and watched us cross behind the police line with their hands in plain view. They had holstered their weapons.

Walking behind us, Fratley turned and shot one in the head. Smoke trailed from the Renegade’s pistol as the Devoted fell backward. The others didn’t flinch.

“Damn it, Fratley,” I said. “What are you doing?”

He gave me a wild look. For a second, he didn’t seem to recognize me. Then he blinked and holstered his oversized weapon.

“That mustache is terrible,” he said.

* * *

“Stop here,” Fratley said, slapping the wall of the troop carrier.

“What are you talking about?” I was still holding Haley upright as she floated in and out of consciousness. “We’re nowhere near the hospital.”

“This is my stop.” Fratley’s knee bounced as he looked through the thick windows.

I didn’t recognize anything about the street outside. He seemed to have picked it randomly.

“You got someone meeting you?”

“This spot feels right. I’ve got more work to do and I can’t do it tied up with a bunch of cops.”

“We’ll get you a ride back to the port,” I said. “It’s safer.”

Fratley turned from the window, his eyes wide and angry. “I didn’t ask your permission, Walker. I’m leaving. Stop the transport.”

Ellie sent the request to the driver, and the truck pulled alongside an empty stretch of sidewalk. The side hatch lowered to show the blank wall of a warehouse. Fratley moved to the door.

“Don’t forget you owe me, Walker. We’re nowhere near square. And this isn’t farewell. We’ll be seeing each other again. I’ve got a lot of work to do. Same for you, Kiren, dear. I’ll see you back at the port.”

“Maybe,” Kiren said.

Fratley laughed. “Don’t get haughty with me. I’m your ticket off this chunk of metal. You think you’ll get anywhere as a Renegade with no sponsorship? Maybe I’ll take your ship out in open space just to show you how much I care. Better me than someone else.”

“Are you drunk?” Haley asked, frowning at the near distance.

“Never,” Fratley said. “Get well soon.”

He jumped out of the transport and twirled his cane, adjusting his bowler hat, then walked jauntily down the empty sidewalk.

“Where’s he going?” Haley asked.

I shook my head, wondering where his path would take him. “No idea.”

24

Sheriff Bird stood facing her window. From where I was standing at parade rest, I could see the ghost of her reflection in the glass. There was cold anger in her face.

“We’re going to need that key,” she said. “There’s nothing to stop her from shutting down Taurus. I have to wonder why she hasn’t already. Why go to this trouble with her gang, harassing people? It’s like this is a game for her.”

Beside me, Kiren nodded. “Yes. That’s exactly what this is to her. She plays with people like toys.”

Bird turned to glance at the data pad on her desk, then she tapped the display. “We’re down to half of our original force since Nagel died. In just five months. Some people out there would like to say it’s all my fault, but this rot started a long time ago. Things have been changing on Taurus. I thought I could stop the wave, but it’s still coming. This place makes too much money. It was going to draw outside attention sooner or later.”

“The Lyon Group,” I said.

Bird nodded. “And what do we know about them? I don’t know much. Only rumors of things I’ve read from other systems. All open source. A massive crime syndicate. I don’t know. My mission is to keep the people of this station safe, and every day more of them are leaving. You haven’t brought me good news, Walker. This is the worst news you could have brought.”

“We can take the fight to her,” I said. “We can find the warehouses. We know she has teams at the Port. We can start there. There are only so many places they can hide.”

“But what authority?” Bird asked.

I frowned. “The Sheriff’s Justice. You are the authority.”

“I work for the owners of Taurus Station. There has been no public owner for five months. Now you tell me the person carrying the Control Key means to close everything down. Well, that’s her prerogative.”

I studied Bird. Was this some crisis of faith? Did she really need me to tell her the right thing to do? I could tell her what I thought, and she could fire me or tell me to shut up. At this point, what happened to me didn’t matter. If we didn’t stop Pamela’s army from rolling across Taurus, a lot of civilians were going to die. As far as I was concerned, my duty was to them, not whatever despot held the key to the station.

“We don’t have the manpower,” I said. “But we do have resources. I reported to you first. My next stop is Oragga. He wants that key.”

The Sheriff shook her head. “How do we know Oragga is any better than Carmichael?”

“Sheriff,” Kiren said. “We know Min Oragga is not a Carmichael. He has his profit motive, but show me a world where he was in control that wasn’t well-maintained and prosperous? I think he’s our best shot.”

Bird looked at Kiren, then me. “All right. Go update Oragga and find out his next move. I’m going to put Investigations on finding the locations you want. It can’t be that easy to hide a battalion of tanks on this station. Same thing with the Port Authority. Once we know where these bastards are hiding, we’ll start hitting them. I’m going to drop the Grid Operation down to a skeleton crew and focus on this. We don’t want to force Carmichael’s hand. She sees me looking for her, she might just start her invasion early.”

“There are also the ships arriving in the system that she mentioned,” Kiren said.

“Of course. Don’t let me forget.” Bird’s sarcastic smile was grim.

“I’ll report back as soon as I can, Sheriff.”

“Dismissed,” Bird said, sounding defeated.

In the lift, Kiren let her head fall back against the wall. “I knew I should have left when I told you I was going to.”

“Is that what you want?”

She smiled to herself. “Yes. Do I want to leave you in the middle of this mess? No. But I’ve never wanted anything as badly as I want to leave Taurus under my own steam. Now I’ve got a ship. My one crew member might be sitting in a hospital, but she’ll be all right. Haley’s a trooper. What I want is to get five slip jumps away, work jobs, and see what the galaxy has for me. Every time I try to leave this place, something claws me back. It’s in my best interest if Taurus does explode.”

I didn’t have a good answer to that. The picture of the armored vehicles loaded with drones, ready and waiting to pummel the people of Taurus, hung in my mind. But what were they to me? I had a ship as well. I could leave while it was still possible.

No. I couldn’t do that. If my parents were still around, they would kick my ass. Keldon would kick my ass. Real people lived here, and they all deserved better. This could be a great place to live.

Maybe I’d believed in Sheriff Nagel too much when he called us the shield against the dark. Bird had been working in that dark for too long, seeing too much of it. She didn’t have the same spark of hope to light a fire in her people.

Damn it, she needed to find it. I could help her.

“I’m not leaving yet,” I said. “Maybe someday. I’m not saying never. But not today. I owe it to the people here. I swore an oath, and that means something to me.”

Kiren straightened and looked at me, her lips curving in a smile. She surprised me by crossing the lift to put her hands on my chest and give me a peck on the lips.

“You like speeches?” I asked, looking down at her.

“I like you. I know it will never work out between us, but I’m glad I know you, Gage Walker.”

“You seem pretty sure about that.”

“I know,” Kiren repeated.

I put my hand in the small of her back, pulled her in close, and bent to give her a real kiss. She relaxed against me.

“Damn,” Keldon said, stepping on the lift. “You trying to get fired, Walker?”

I looked up. The doors were open to the motor pool. I’d lost time for a second.

Kiren stepped back from me, adjusting her hair. “How are you, Jack?”

“I’m good. How are you?”

“I’m going to check on Haley.” She gave me a nod goodbye. “Let me know what happens with Oragga.”

“I will,” I said.

25

“This place is a dump,” Keldon said, pushing a barrel out of his way. “You sure he gave you the right coordinates?”

The alley ran between two old warehouses near the secondary cargo port. The area didn’t look like it had been used much in the last few years, and I spotted several squatter’s huts as we made our way deeper in.

“You heard Ellie verify the location the same as I did.”

“Ellie’s been buggy.”

“I apologize for my earlier lapse, Sergeant Keldon,” Ellie said, using an open channel between us. “I have been cleared of all system anomalies.”

“You’re not responsible, Ellie,” Keldon said. “It’s like asking me to use the right fork at dinner. It’s just not in my programming.”

“I do not believe that is an apt comparison to my recent system attack.”

“Hold on,” I told Keldon. I bent to help him move a pile of pallets out of the way, revealing a manhole cover half-covered in mud.

“No one’s been through here in years,” Keldon said. “Min Oragga is down there?”

“I’m just following the instructions.”

We knelt to lift the iron cover off the shaft. A wave of fetid air blew into our faces, and Keldon gagged dramatically.

“That’s going to sit in my mustache for days.”

I climbed down the rusted ladder, expecting to end up in a sewer. Instead, the ladder dropped into a metal-lined corridor with dim emergency lighting.

Keldon dropped down behind me and looked around, nodding. “Looks like an old depressurization protection zone. These things are scattered all over the old construction areas.”

I tapped my earpiece. “We in the right place, Ellie?”

“You are close to the final coordinates, Deputy Walker.”

The metal-lined tunnel extended ahead of us for another twenty meters, then made a right turn. I led the way, expecting to come across another squatter’s living room. Instead, the corroded metal smoothed and shifted to a clean gray material. The lighting improved as white squares appeared in the ceiling. The technology seemed to have moved forward a hundred years.

The tunnel made another turn and ended on a sealed gray door with a security panel. I tapped in the code that Oragga had sent me. The hatch slid open on an immaculate room that looked like the command center for an advanced military. Screens covered the walls, showing views of Taurus, nearby space, and other cities I didn’t recognize. The center of the room was filled by an oval shaped conference table with a holodisplay in its center. A map of the local system floated above the table, extending out to show the Slip Point.

As Keldon followed me into the room, the hatch slid closed and a chime sounded in the ceiling.

“Hold for Mr. Oragga,” a voice said.

“He’s not actually here?” Keldon asked. “Couldn’t he have called us someplace more pleasant, like Drake’s Bar?”

“This is a secure connection,” the voice replied.

One of the center screens on the main wall went dark. When it came up, Min Oragga filled the screen. He was sitting in what looked like a flight seat. A bulkhead curved behind his head.

“Gage,” he said. “I was looking forward to your call. What can you tell me?”

I leaned a hip against the table and crossed my arms. “Well, Mr. Oragga. I’ve got some bad news.”

I spent a good ten minutes explaining everything we’d found in the Avalon Estates, including the imagery of the military vehicles, the staged forces at the Port, and the location of the Station Control Key. Oragga listened intently, nodding, and asking me to repeat certain parts of my story like any good detective.

“She definitely said Lyon was sending forces to the system?”

I nodded. “That’s what she said.”

That seemed to trouble him most. “We’re not prepared for an outside invasion. There’s no way anyone’s getting backup here fast enough to stop a rapid takeover. If she has the means to lock down the ports so no one can get in or out, then all she has to do is squeeze the residents until they fall into line.”

“That’s what we were thinking,” I said.

Keldon rubbed the side of his face. “Our department is at less than half its original strength. I don’t know if we can stop a group this size. Not with everything else that’s going on at the same time. She’s done a good job of wearing us down.”

“What can you tell me about this Lyon group?” I asked. “I’d never heard of them, and now they’re some organization powerful enough to invade a whole station?”

Oragga gave a grim smile. “Oh, those organizations are out there. Lyon Group is just one of the largest. There are plenty of reasons why Taurus is attractive to them. They’re probably coming because Evan and Sten invited them, and now Pamela won’t have much choice but to play along. The same way she was inviting members of the station elite to pay tribute to their new masters, she’s doing the same with hers. She’s a pawn in this game as well. To answer your question, they command mercenary groups collected from worlds all across the Deadlands. If they land a force on Taurus, it will be a mix of former Union military and possibly even Sarkonian defectors. They will be heavily armed and highly trained. In other areas I’ve observed their operations, they were ruthless and efficient, and civilian life is not a factor in the attainment of their goals.”

Keldon cursed. “We can’t stand up to that kind of force. We’re going to need an army we don’t have.”

“The Lyon Group is not interested in committing their forces to a losing battle,” Oragga said. “If you can show that Pamela Carmichael is not in control of the situation here, they might see it as a losing proposition for themselves. You could win the battle before it starts.”

“Taking out Pamela will at least buy us some time,” I said. It seemed strange saying that. This was the Sheriff’s decision to make. I didn’t see her disagreeing with me.

Oragga nodded. “You think big, Gage. I like that. You should consider being more than just a deputy.”

“Talk to me when this is all over.”

“I appreciate the information you’ve provided. It’s immensely helpful. As I mentioned before, since you’ve located the Station Control Key, if you were able to get it into your possession, that’s something that I would be very interested in attaining.”

I chewed on that. “We get the key before Lyon arrives, and maybe we’ve got a shot at saving the station.”

“I believe so, yes.” Oragga leaned back in his seat, folding his hands.

A warning sounded in my earpiece.

“Excuse me, Mr. Oragga,” I said, tapping my ear. “What’s going on, Ellie?”

“Deputy Walker, all units are being called to the central administrative zone. A paramilitary force has taken control of the Station Administration Building.”

I glanced at Keldon. “They’re rolling.”

Keldon clapped his metal hands together. “Looks like we’ll be getting your key, Mr. Oragga. Or we’ll be sucking void.”

“I’ll report back,” I said. “Is there an easier way to get hold of you?”

“I will reach out to you, Gage. Good luck.”

Oragga nodded and the screen went dark.

26

“All units report to Taurus Administration, Sector 1,” Ellie said, relaying the command from Dispatch.

“Hear you loud and clear, Ellie,” I said. “In case you were wondering.”

I slid into our cruiser’s driver’s seat and activated the mapping console, then I chose Sector One as Keldon climbed inside.

“Is there a reason I should be concerned about your hearing, Deputy Walker? Are you having trouble understanding me?”

“Not at all.” The cruiser shot forward, our path appearing on the shifting map of Taurus on the front display. Other units came into view as we neared Sector One.

Keldon pulled up the rolling inputs from Dispatch. “Looks like there were a rash of small robberies and instances of vandalism just while we were down there with Oragga. This is off the charts. Someone should have called sooner.”

He highlighted the incident tracker on the display, and Taurus went red with icons. Each incident had happened in the last hour, and they appeared to be growing more dense as we neared the governmental district. We turned onto a section of the promenade and raced past a block’s worth of casinos, all empty. The streets were dead, and no one was walking down the sidewalks. I spotted one lone concierge standing outside a restaurant.

Then we started seeing the Devoted. They roved in groups of three and four, carrying metal bars, with short-barreled rifles slung on their backs. One group smashed a storefront as we approached, making sure to break all the glass.

“Keep going,” Keldon said. “We’ve got bigger problems right now. Besides, look at that. There are more of them.”

Both sides of the promenade were under attack. Storefronts, restaurants, and casino entryways had been shattered.

“At least Kallaver didn’t pull crap like this,” Keldon said. “This is bad.”

The suits heard our sirens, and those that weren’t actively engaged in destruction turned to watch the cruiser stream past. Most just stared, while several grinned, like they were looking forward to seeing us. All I wanted to do was jump out and knock those smiles off their faces, but I had a growing sense of dread about what we were going to find when we reached the admin complex.

I left the main strip, and in another four blocks we entered the park center that ringed the main administration building. The area was normally a beautiful stretch of greenery. Now it was a parking lot for every tactical vehicle available. A police line had been set up at the edge of the entry plaza, with cruisers parked haphazardly in the nearby streets. There didn’t seem to be an incident commander yet, so everyone had dumped their vehicle when they arrived. Deputies were suiting up in duty armor and loading out automatic weapons and grenade belts.

The admin building itself looked quiet. The huge glass facade dark and foreboding.

“What the hell is going on?” Keldon asked. “Doesn’t look like anything’s under attack here. Is it a false alarm?”

I parked the cruiser on a side street that wasn’t clogged with other vehicles yet, and we climbed out. I opened the driver side storage unit and pulled out my go bag and grenade belt, as well as the rifle and extra magazines.

“Walker, look sharp.” Keldon tossed me another two magazines taped end-to-end for easier reloading. “A couple extras.”

I thanked him and fit the magazines into a side pocket. I certainly hoped this was all a false alarm. The events of the last twenty-four hours made that seem like the least likely possibility. Still, something didn’t feel right.

We were crossing the street for the main police line when light filled the glass facade of the building. At least four stories of windows glowed bright enough that I wanted to drop my face shield. Then the light changed and became an image of Pamela Carmichael.

She was wearing a black business suit with crimson accents, and she stood with a hand on one hip like she was inspecting herself in a mirror. Her sharp gaze looked out at the plaza and then seemed to settle on the police line. Through the side window on a nearby cruiser, I saw the same image was being broadcast on other station channels. She was making a message for all of Taurus.

“Taurus Station, hello.” Her voice boomed across the plaza, the speakers too loud and crackling at the ends of her words. “My name is Pamela Carmichael. Evan and Sten were my brothers. They’re gone now, and ownership has passed to me.”

She paused to let the statement sink in.

“You might not know who I am, and that’s fine. What matters is that I am the legal owner of this station. You can check your lease agreements if you like, no matter how old they are. Also, I own this.”

Pamela held up a silver card and turned it in her hands, one side dull and the other covered in circuitry that glimmered like it had an internal power source.

“This is the Station Control Key. With it, I can override every security system on the station. I can power off the streetlights. I can close the Port. Just like this.”

She glanced away for a second and then all the streetlights around us went dark. The only light in the plaza was from Pamela’s glowing image.

“You’ll have to ask someone at the Main Terminal what just happened. If you’re on the station, you’ll be leaving when I say you can. So, I am in control. The sooner you accept that new reality, the happier you will be. My other action at the moment will be to disband the Taurus Station Sheriff’s Deputies. Your agency is no longer needed on Taurus. Anyone acting in a security capacity that does not work for me will be subject to lethal force.”

Her face seemed to look down at us again. “You have had a good run, and each of you has served honorably. But it is time to move forward into the future. There is no place on Taurus station for your antiquated brand of maintaining the peace. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. However, any of you that remain in the vicinity of the Taurus administration building will be considered hostile and treated accordingly.”

Everyone around me was stunned. I stared up at Pamela’s image, hating her smug face. She wore a half-smile that was kind, while mocking us at the same time.

“I do want to say,” she added. “If you leave the area now, I will extend to each of you the opportunity to work in my new security service. You’ll have the latest equipment, and quite a generous pay raise.”

“Pay raise,” Keldon said. He shook his head, stepping forward before stopping himself. “Disband the department? She can’t do that. What gives her the right?”

“The Control Key,” one of the TacDiv guys said. He stood looking down at his rifle like he didn’t know what to do with it.

“What are you doing, Arndt?” I asked. “We still need to go in there. What about the employees? They’re hostages.”

The TacDiv commander heard me and made a cutting motion at his neck. “Mission scrub. We’re not doing anything. Everyone holds.”

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Keldon said. “My daughter didn’t give her life to this station for us to become mafia. Fuck that.”

Keldon fired on the front of the admin building. The first few bullets sent webs of cracks through the glass.

I raised my rifle and targeted the cracks. More deputies raised their rifles.

The glass that allowed projection of Pamela’s face shattered and fell from the building, sparkling until it hit the plaza floor with a crash. The giant, smug head was replaced by a block of darkness.

“Well, then,” Pamela said. “At least I can always call you predictable.”

A soft whining started in the distance that grew immediately louder. From around the sides of the building came a swarm of drones like two black wings. They opened fire on our line.

27

“The cruisers,” I shouted, pulling back from the line of tactical vehicles.

Officers sprinted for their vehicles. The deputies in tactical units were climbing in the armored personnel carriers. A few closer to the building went down under a wave of bullets from the streaming drones.

I left the strip of greenery and hit the street, grenade belt slapping against my chest. I looked back to make sure Keldon was still coming.

“Don’t wait for me,” Keldon said, eyes flashing. “I’m right behind you.”

A spray of bullets peppered the top of the cruiser as I got the door opened. I ducked and slid into the driver’s side. Keldon threw himself inside and yanked the hatch closed.

“Ellie, notify Dispatch. We need to warn all units on the street.” The front screen came online, showing the cloud of drones as hostile icons covering our location. Second and third waves were spreading out across the city from our center location.

“I have no contact with Dispatch, Deputy Walker. I have transferred systems to the control unit in your armor. The Sheriff’s Department has been placed in lockdown. All personnel are ordered to evacuate the building, or they may find themselves trapped inside. Compliance codes initiated.”

“Compliance codes?” I said. “What are you talking about?”

“Primary programming, Deputy Walker. All units must comply. All systems are ordered offline.”

Bullets continued to hit the roof. I put the cruiser in auto mode and set a destination for the warehouse district, away from where most of the hostiles seemed to be moving. Once we were there, we would have to make a decision.

“Is there anyone in that building?” I asked, pointing at the admin center.

“Internal surveillance shows the Administrative center in lockdown, Deputy Walker. There are no civilians inside.”

“What about Pamela’s people?” Keldon asked.

“I currently see no activity inside.”

As the cruiser turned, I got another look at the building. The air above the plaza was full of swarming drones. Pamela’s projection had gone out, leaving only white light in the windows as a backdrop for the drones. Then that light went out, and the drones became indistinguishable from the sky.

We took fire for the rest of the block, until I took control of the cruiser and cut under a pedestrian bridge between two admin buildings, braked hard, and slid the vehicle up against the side of the building. I waited a few seconds as the drones shot past us, then spun the cruiser and accelerated in the opposite direction. Once we were out of the admin section, I took the cruiser airborne and rose above the altitude where the drones were operating. Taurus spread out below us, part of the station dark that I’d never seen without light before.

“Holy shit,” Keldon said, looking at the scene below us.

“Ellie, can you reach Sheriff Bird?”

“Primary compliance systems operational. Local communications systems currently offline.”

“Ellie’s busted,” Keldon said, still scanning the area below us. He leaned forward to run a few commands on the cruiser’s operating system. Our situational awareness systems were down, showing only traffic that was within the vehicles physical sensor range.

“This is no good, Walker. No good.” He leaned back in his seat and flipped up his face shield. “I’m not sure what to do here.”

“Let’s get back to the station,” I said. “That’s where everybody else is going to go. If it’s in lockdown like she said, at least we’ll be able to link up with other people from the department. Bird should be there or have left some kind of message.”

“What’s Bird going to do? If we’re locked out of the department, it’s going to be chaos outside and inside the place. What’s going to happen with the prisoners in Holding? All the admin staff are still trapped in there.”

We flew in silence for a few seconds.

“What do you know about these Primary Commands Ellie is talking about?”

He shook his head. “No idea. I’m not an egghead. I guess it’s just her basic programming. If they’ve locked her out, too, we’re really screwed.”

This was a problem for Yola or Stam Jones. Thinking of Jones put a face on all the people I was sure were trapped inside the building.

The cruiser came around an apartment stack that appeared to be in lockdown as well. People stood against their windows, backlit by their interior lights as they stared out at the dark station. I slowed the cruiser down to patrol speed and checked the windows as we flew past. A little boy waved at us.

There were thousands of people in this stack alone, all frightened and confused about what was going on. They spotted the Sheriff’s badge on our cruiser and waved frantically. A few flipped us off.

On the other side of the apartment stack, we passed above a drone swarm. For a few minutes I thought we were going to get past them without being noticed, but then the swarm spread out and followed. It took a good hour to shake them, and I lost one of the cruiser’s thrust units in the fight, forcing us to limp back across the station. A trip that should have taken twenty minutes took nearly three hours of careful flight, using rooftops and overpasses for cover from the drone swarms and ground units corralling people out of public areas.

Small gangs of Devoted roamed at the street level, and then we spotted the up-armored vehicles from the warehouse views in Pamela’s office. These were operated by soldiers in black tactical gear, their faces hidden behind masks. They were armed with rifles and shoulder-fired rockets, and one ground unit nearly took us out from behind. If I hadn’t rolled the cruiser behind a rooftop cooling tower that went down in a shower of flame and debris, we would have been knocked out of the sky.

“Don’t ever let me say you suck at EVOC, Walker. I was full of crap.”

He’d been ruthless with me during our days on the vehicle obstacle course. Apparently, it paid off.

When we reached the department building, the blast doors were closed on the entry points to the motor pool. I set the cruiser to hover as we looked around, then ascended again to fly a block over.

“Heading to Drake’s Place,” I told Keldon.

“Good idea. Damn, I hope they’re all right, too.”

We came down in an alley two blocks from the building where Drake’s Bar was located. I spotted a few other cruisers sitting among the civilian vehicles. As the cruiser powered down, an open truck rolled past the mouth of the alley, Devoted members standing in its back. They were all carrying rifles. The truck passed without stopping.

Keldon followed me around the building and through a small sunken plaza that would normally have been filled with tourists enjoying drinks and finger foods. The tables were scattered, menu pads lying on the ground among the overturned chairs. It looked like people had been chased out of the area. We climbed a short set of stairs to an open-air mall that was also empty. If everyone was hiding out in hotels or the apartment stacks, the public wasn’t going to take that kind of confinement for long.

“This place was just cleared out,” Keldon said, pointing to spilled drinks and what looked like someone’s discarded shopping bags.

“They must have started during the broadcast. Probably here first to keep people from coming to the Department for help.”

“I hate this,” Keldon said. “Look at how fast everything falls apart. I think we’d be better off out in the Chop Zone. At least people can run somewhere out there. Here, where is anyone going to go?”

I turned down another alley that was full of parked ground vehicles. Someone must have forced them off the main street. In the middle of the block was a plain door with “Drake’s” printed above its security lock. I banged on the door.

The lock flashed to indicate the camera was active. From the other side of the door, I heard someone say, “Damn, it’s Walker.”

The door opened to show the bar’s kitchen. Instead of Drake, it was Captain Kaffrey from the command staff, his duty armor scorched and dented. A gash puckered his left check.

“You two made it. Good. Get in here.”

28

An empty Drake’s was a sad place to be. Tables and chairs in the middle of the bar had been pushed back to allow Kaffrey to pace. He was a big man who liked to talk with his hands, and anyone in his periphery was likely to get hit as he railed against the status of the station.

“This is insane. Keldon, did you see this coming?”

The sergeant had poured himself a beer and sat back in one of the chairs. He took a long drink, emptying half the pint glass, and set it on the table. “The station has been at war for six months. We didn’t want to call it that, but every day that went by with no owner in place, no leadership, was just inviting someone to come in and do this. Pamela Carmichael could have stepped in back when Evan and Sten were gone, but she didn’t for whatever reason. Now here we are, and she’s making her presence known. The question is, should we be hanging around?”

Kaffrey shook his head. “We can’t talk to anybody inside the department. The intel is that the port is locked down. No one’s going anywhere right now. Are we supposed to just sit on our hands and wait for those assholes to round us up? I don’t think so.”

“There are still people inside the department,” I said. “Bird is in there. I think she’d want us to get them out first. That’s where all our equipment is if we’re going to do anything to stop Carmichael.”

“She’s the owner,” a deputy named Charl said behind me. “What do you mean, stop her?”

Keldon finished his beer and stood to walk back behind the bar for another pull at the tap. “There’s ownership, and there’s doing what’s right. I’m on the side of doing what’s right.”

Charl grumbled something, then said, “How do we know what’s right?”

“Easy,” Keldon said, holding up his new beer to inspect the foamy head. “We take care of our people. We take care of the people of Taurus Station. It’s never been complicated. If it’s complicated for you, then you’re probably doing the wrong thing. That’s what my trainer told me back in the day.”

“All right,” Kaffrey said. “So, we get inside the department. It’s on lockdown and made to withstand just the kind of firepower we would bring against it. How are we supposed to get in?”

“I’m sure we’ve got some explosives on hand,” Keldon said. “We blow the front door off and fight our way in.”

Kaffrey spread his arms again, nearly taking off the head of a nearby deputy. “The security system is going to be live, Jack. We’re talking about wall mounted turrets and drones. That thing was designed for a pretty rough time.”

“I’d call now a pretty rough time,” Keldon pointed out. “I can’t tell you how, Captain. We take it one step at a time. But I’m going to get our people out. That’s step one in a multi-step process.”

There was a tone in my ear from Ellie. “Deputy Walker, I believe I can assist.”

I tapped my earpiece and moved to the side of the room so I could hear her. “What have you got, Ellie?”

“I believe I have found a method of communication to the personnel inside the Department building. I am attempting to reach them now.”

“What are you doing?”

“I am attempting contact through the HVAC system, Deputy Walker. I can try to get Director Jones’ attention using a HVAC alarm, then continue communication using the onboard voice troubleshooting capability.”

I laughed. “Ellie, you’re a genius.”

From the other side of the room, Kaffrey shot me a scowl that could melt metal. “What’s so funny, Walker?”

“I have an onboard version of Ellie. It was an upgrade. She thinks she has a way to talk to Jones.”

Kaffrey’s mouth fell open.

There was a crackle in my ear, and then I heard Jones complaining.

“What? Is someone there? Why won’t this damn alarm turn off?”

“Jones,” I said. “Can you hear me? It’s Walker.”

“Walker?” His voice got louder as he continued. “I’m talking to a thermostat in my office. How did you manage to get through?”

“It was Ellie. We’ve got a group ready to get you out. What ideas do you have about getting through the lockdown?”

“Right,” Jones said. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?”

“Are you all right?” I asked. “How many people are in there with you?”

“TechDiv, Records, Dispatch, Holding, and a few of the other admin folks. Two detectives in Investigations. I’d say about twenty people. The problem is that the internal security system is treating the main floors as hostile. Even if you get inside, you’re going to get mowed down by the security system.”

“Crap.”

Kaffrey had crossed the room to stand next to me, staring at me as I talked. “What’s he saying?”

“There are about twenty inside. The internal security system is active. They can’t get close to the exits or they’ll get shot.”

He shook his head. “Those systems are a relic. They should have been torn out. What’s he know about other ways to get in?”

“He’s figuring that out,” I said.

“I think I have an idea,” Jones said. “There’s the roof and the maintenance access up there, or the same thing under the building. You can get into the lower operations level and come up through the support sections where the main heating and plumbing systems are set up. I’ve only been down there a few times. The problem is that they both have security. The roof is going to leave you exposed to whatever’s out there. If you come in from below, you’ll need to do it on foot. There are drones down there, if I remember right.”

Kaffrey nodded. “Do you have any schematics of the entry points?”

“I think so,” Jones said. “I’ll come up with a way to transmit them to Ellie. It might be data over this channel. She’ll be able to translate that.”

The captain took a deep breath and let it out. “Alright. This is good.”

Crossing back to the front of the group, Kaffrey raised his voice. “Listen up. Here’s the plan. I’m sending a team into the basement and a team up the middle. I’m going to lead the team up the middle, and Keldon and Walker there will take the basement route. Keldon’s right, we can handle the security system inside. And if they get in sooner, then we’ll be able to walk in. But we can’t commit all our resources to just one plan. Now, let’s wargame this thing.”

Kaffrey spent the next thirty minutes laying out the plan. We were going to give up our cruiser to the other deputies headed for the front entry.

“Deputy Walker,” Ellie said. “I have the schematic information for the operations sections. The entry point is ninety meters from your current location.”

“Well, isn’t that convenient?” I got Keldon’s attention and shared the new info with him.

“Good,” he said. “Let’s get going. Drake’s is just depressing the hell out of me. I need to take it out on some security drones.”

“Be careful,” Kaffrey said. “Send me an update as soon as possible.”

Sending and receiving updates depended on us getting Dispatch back online, but I didn’t need to get into that now.

“We’ve got this covered, Captain.”

He pointed at Keldon, who was slamming another beer. “Just in case we don’t make it out.”

“You’ve got this, Walker. Try and keep Keldon alive, too. Those metal augments don’t make him invincible.”

29

I slammed my shoulder against the hatch at the top of the maintenance ladder. The metal plate gave slightly, which only indicated that it could potentially be opened, not that it was going to move any further.

Beneath me on the leader, Keldon burped and squinted up. “What’s going on? You got it?”

“The hinges are pretty rusted,” I said. “Give me a second.”

On the second try, the hatch opened enough that I could wedge an arm inside to use as a lever. The hinges squealed as I finally got it moving. Any sensors in these lower levels were going to pick us up from a klick away.

“Good job, deputy. You’re a detriment to the department.”

“Don’t you mean benefit?”

“Sure,” Keldon said, tapping my heels as he climbed up behind me.

We had passed from a grimy tunnel under the street to a concrete tube that didn’t look like anyone had entered it since the department’s foundation was built. As I searched the dark space above the hatch with my flashlight, it looked like we were entering the support structure beneath a massive lift. Concrete walls reinforced with metal ribs surrounded the area, with power conduit snaking along the floor. The beam of the flashlight caught a landing on the other side of the square room with a door leading out.

“There’s a door over there,” I said. “Come on up.”

I climbed out of the hatch and stood over it, scanning more of the space with my flashlight as Keldon followed. He slipped and caught the rim of the hatch, chuckling at himself, then climbed up to stand beside me.

I squinted at him, trying to decide if he was weaving from side to side. “You drunk, Sergeant?”

“Yeah, Walker. I’m a bit drunk. No better way to take on a terrible task like breaking into your own beloved department, the institution that has defined your life and the life of your daughter, so that you can probably, eventually blow it all up.”

“You think that’s what we’re going to end up doing?”

“We can’t leave it all here if Carmichael doesn’t want a Sheriff on the station. All this needs to come down and go away. I won’t have anybody pissing on my Sherrie’s face in the Hall of Heroes.”

I aimed the light at his face. “Look, we’re about to climb up there and get into the fight. Can I count on you? You’re acting like I can’t. “

Keldon swatted the flashlight down. “Damn it. I’m not drunk. I’m sad. Let me be sad. And if anybody’s going to blow this place up, it’s going to be me.”

“We don’t have time to be sad.”

I crossed the room and climbed the metal steps up to the door. The only lock was a hasp that I broke with the butt of the flashlight.

Keldon stood in the darkened room for a second, then he shook his head and followed me.

After a short concrete antechamber with a drain in the floor, we entered a long tunnel with thick pipes taking up most of the space. The air was humid with steam, and water ran down the walls.

“We headed the right direction, Ellie?” After too many climbs and turns, I felt like we were headed away from the department.

“You are directly beneath the main heating system, Deputy Walker. Continue another twenty meters and look for a ladder taking you to the next level. Exercise caution when entering the next floor. Security measures will be in effect in that area.”

“Ellie says we’re getting close to the security system,” I told Keldon.

He slapped his pistol. “I was having too much fun counting pipes. You had to go and ruin it for me.”

There was a note in Keldon’s voice that he was coming back to normal. His gaze roved over the ceiling and walls behind me, checking for trouble.

When I reached the last hatch into the department, I drew my pistol and checked the magazine, then I reached up with my free hand to work the latch. This trap door opened with little trouble, showing a brightly lit concrete space above.

“What can I expect up there, Ellie?”

“According to the schematic, you should be in a warehouse area adjacent to the main boiler. If there are patrolling drones in the area, they will have room to maneuver and target you. The only cover will be storage racks mounted to the floor designed to hold maintenance parts.

I popped up through the hatch to verify what she had said. Two storage racks ran the length of the room from where the hatch sat in the floor. A set of double doors stood at the other end of the room, probably ten meters away. I waited a few seconds, then I threw the hatch open and climbed through.

Behind me, somewhere near the ceiling, something beeped twice and the high whine of drone rotors wound to life. I turned, raising my pistol, and moved away from the hatch.

“Watch out,” I told Keldon.

Two drones dropped from corners of the ceiling, black canisters with guns mounted on either side of their bodies. They rotated in tandem, spreading out to catch me in crossfire.

I shot at the drone on my right as I ran for the storage rack. If I could get on the other side next to the wall, I’d have some cover from at least one of the drones.

Running for the door wasn’t the best option. I should have sprinted toward the drones and the closer end of the speed racks. That path was no longer available, unfortunately.

Keldon stuck his head out of the hatch and fired on the drone above his head. I forced my chosen drone to dive and spin, sending its fire off in random directions. I kept shooting until I reached the end of the rack. The double door was just behind me.

The second drone had locked on Keldon and hovered over the hatch, buzzing to each side with furious sprays of bullets that only pocked the concrete floor. Keldon waited for each burst, then fired on the drone, forcing it back.

I got around the storage rack and used the cover of the parts on its shelves to move back toward the drone chasing me. It bobbed in the middle of the room as it tried to track me. We traded fire for nearly a minute until I finally hit one of its guns, throwing it to the side. The bullet must have dented its turbine casing because the whine turned into a screeching sound, and the drone fought to maintain height. It sank to the floor as it lost thrust, and I shot it again through the center of its body. The turbine stopped, indicating it was down for good.

Keldon laughed in the hatch when he hit his drone in the belly, knocking it off its flight path. I fired on the black canister as it listed to one side, then slammed into the wall and crashed.

“We’re clear,” I shouted.

Climbing out of the hole, Keldon looked from his drone to mine in the center of the room. He stomped on the drone near the hatch, nodding with satisfaction. “I’ll be perfectly glad not to deal with any of these things anymore. How did we ever get plumbers to come down here?”

“Now we know why the AC never worked.” I pulled open one of the double doors and got a look at the broad boiler room on the other side. The boiler sat in the middle of the floor with piping coming into its head unit from the ceiling. The air was humid and seemed to shimmer with heat.

“Dang,” Keldon said, walking up beside me. “Remind me never to come here again.”

I was about to step onto the metal catwalk running the perimeter of the room when drones dropped from all four corners of the ceiling, their whining turbines cutting through the boiler’s hum.

I slammed the door closed and slid to the concrete wall away from the door. Keldon did the same on the other side.

“This is going to take a long time, isn’t it?” I said.

“Enjoy the moment, trainee.” Keldon slapped a new magazine into his pistol, then he yanked open the door and ran into the room.

I checked my weapon, then went after him.

30

We reached an area behind holding that had been used by Evidence for years. Metal cages full of storage cabinets created a maze with sight lines that made it possible to see the walls and even exit doors, but no direct path to reach them.

“Ellie, do you have comms with anybody? We should be within range.”

“Director Jones has not answered my attempts at contact. I have been retrying every minute.”

I let Keldon know Jones wasn’t answering.

“Damn,” he said. “I sure hope he didn’t run into one of those flying saucers. He doesn’t run too fast.”

After the fight in the boiler room, we hadn’t seen any more drones. These areas looked like sections of the station that hadn’t been meant for use, so the security system hadn’t been built here originally. As he sobered up, Keldon seemed to appreciate the breather.

Pausing at a corner between two evidence cages, he glanced back at me. “Hey. Thanks for knocking me back into shape. I let my head get away from me.”

“It’s understandable. This place has been your life. I’m having a hard time thinking about it going away. Just a couple days ago it seemed impossible. Now it’s on us to hold everything together.”

“Nagel always said we were on the edge, holding back the wild Deadlands. I guess the Deadlands got the better of us.”

“Not yet,” I said.

He nodded. “That’s right. Look at that over there? See that sword? I took that off a drunk tourist down on the Promenade. Guess he never got it back.”

“Is that blood all over it?”

“The black stuff? No, it’s lubricant from under a bus. He got run over thinking it was a monster. Dude was high as a kite.”

Keldon laughed and continued with the story of pulling the man down from a landing on the side of a nearby restaurant, after a chase where he called them all Knights from the Spirit World.

“I hope that was his worst day because things could only get better from there.”

A side door out of Evidence opened into a stairwell, and we climbed three flights to the main level of the Department. I pushed open the exit door and glanced down a hallway I recognized as leading to a couple restrooms and a custodial closet. I waited a few seconds, then I opened the door wider and checked corners for more drones. Back in the boiler room, they had been painted gray to match the concrete, which was probably why I’d never noticed them before.

“See anything?” Keldon asked.

“No. This is the ground level.”

Muted gunfire cracked in the distance. I pulled the door shut to just a crack, listening to the sounds of a firefight in what I estimated was the main lobby, about fifty meters away through the admin area.

“Sounds like Tactical got inside. Let’s go.”

“No time to take things slow anymore.”

I shoved the door open and moved down the hallway. The door at the far end opened on an office space full of desks and small cubicles where citizens could file complaints and make records requests. The desks were all empty, and the chairs were scattered.

“Where’s everybody hiding?” Keldon asked, looking around. “They didn’t get out of here in time. I hope they aren’t caught up in whatever’s going on in the lobby.”

I crossed another hallway and found a door that opened on the side of the lobby. Cracking the door, I got an earful of more gunfire.

The lobby was about twenty meters square with a couple of chairs in the middle where people could wait before they talked to someone at the service desks. Columns ran down the side of the ornate space, and there were a few signs about community initiatives. There was a tornado of swirling paper and dust from the swarm of drones filling the center of the two-level lobby.

I spotted Kaffrey in the entryway, taking cover behind a piece of metal that had been ripped from the exterior blast doors. Deputies were arrayed behind him, trying to take aim on the moving targets in the lobby. The enemy was pinned down, unable to move forward without crossing the open center of the room.

“We need to draw them off,” I said.

Keldon nodded. “There’s another door on the other side. I’m going to head over there. Once you see me pop out, we’ll both start firing on the damn drones. We flank them like that, it should give the TacDiv guys some room to maneuver.

“Let me see if I can get Kaffrey on a local net.”

Ellie set up a local comms net and my ear filled with the sound of the captain breathing hard. “Walker. It’s about time you got here.”

“We had a fight down in the boiler room. You all right?”

“I lost Carver outside. It took a lot more to get through the blast doors than I expected. Finally had to blow two vehicles and the blast went sideways. We’re in though. You and Keldon still together?”

“I’m right here, Captain,” Keldon said.

“Good. You two flank these bastards so we can get moving. We’re wasting too much time.”

“We’re flanking now. Keldon is going around to the other side.” I checked the opening again as Keldon sprinted through the open office that surrounded the lobby.

“All right.” Kaffrey grunted and the channel went quiet.

There was another crackle in my ear, and Stam Jones asked, “Walker, is that you?”

Ellie had reached him. That was some good news, at least. Jones sounded like he was being chased by a drone. Something whined in the background.

“We’re inside, Stam. Down in the lobby. As soon as we clear the drones down here, we’ll be heading up. Where are you?”

“You can’t take the lift. Every exit off the elevator has drone coverage. Damn this security system is too good. Take the maintenance lift. There’s a central control in operations that will shut them down.”

Central ops was in the middle of the building. “Wasn’t there anybody on that level?”

“They must be dead. I don’t know. I’ve been trying to get hold of someone for hours now. As soon as the lockdown went into effect, a lot of people were caught. We were lucky Technical Division didn’t have much security. I think it was originally a cafeteria.”

The door on the other side of the lobby opened, and Keldon gave me a thumbs up.

“Hold on,” I told Stam. “We’re about to clear the lobby.”

Sliding around the door, I moved behind one of the concrete pillars and aimed at a concentration of the drones. I couldn’t see Keldon from my position, so I just opened fire on the drones. Drones jumped sideways, taking fire from Keldon’s side of the room, and then TacDiv opened up as well. It took us another ten minutes to drop every drone, but eventually the room was quiet, and we met in the middle near a destroyed planter covered in smashed concrete.

“If I never hear another drone, I’ll be a happy man.” Keldon checked his pistol and slammed another magazine home.

Kaffrey was limping from a wound in his right leg.

I pointed at the smashed armor. “You going to be alright, Captain?”

He grimaced. “The auto-splint is holding things together. For now it just hurts like hell. I’ll deal with it when we get this lockdown lifted.”

“I got through to Jones,” I said. “He says we need to get to Operations using the maintenance lift. The main lift has drones targeting it on every level.”

“Have we heard anything from the Sheriff?” the captain asked. “She isn’t on our tactical net.”

I shook my head.

“Damn. Well, let’s hope we haven’t lost her in this mess. I’m not looking to be in charge.”

Once everyone checked their weapons, we left through the main customer service area. Just off the main hallway, we passed a conference room with five admin employees who had been gunned down by a drone. The table was splintered, and blood covered the walls. All I could do was bite down anger and scan the ceilings for more drones, vowing to make Pamela Carmichael pay.

I also started running through all the personnel necessary to make her operation work, from the tech people controlling the station to the leaders of the Devoted. These events had been planned for a long time, and every death was on their hands. If I made it out of this alive, there was going to be a reckoning.

There was another drone swarm in the hallway leading past the admin cafeteria that pinned us down for nearly thirty minutes. Once we reached the maintenance lift, it was a ten minute ride to the middle level of the building. We all rode in silence, checking weapons and breathing slow, getting ready for the fight ahead. I did my best to remember the names of the people in the conference room, hoping there weren’t going to be more.

I knew that was a false hope.

The lift stopped and the doors opened on a wide corridor designed to allow parts sleds to pass each other on their way to the motor pool. A few flatbeds, parts crates, and what looked like an engine block sat along the closer sides of the corridor.

The far end was a mass of drones that didn’t seem to have scanned us yet.

31

Closer movement caught my attention, and I spotted Stam Jones crouched behind one of the crates. He was still wearing his magnification goggles. His clothes were singed and torn, and a shirtsleeve was missing from the elbow down, his forearm covered in bloody scratches.

“Quiet,” he hissed in a low voice. “They’re best at tracking sound. If you stay along the walls, they won’t pick you up right away.”

Kaffrey was leaning against the wall of the lift, his face looking pale from what I was worried was loss of blood. I moved forward and crouched next to Stam.

“What are you doing here?”

He shook his head. “I realized none of you knew how to remove the lockdown. There’s a sequence of controls, and I’ve got the admin keys. It’s not something we could try to figure out by voice. I expected you to get here a lot sooner.”

“We ran into more trouble in the cafeteria.”

“All right. Well, we need to get down to the middle of this hallway and take that door on the left down there. That’s going to put us in another hallway that goes to the main ops control room. Based on the other hallways in this damn building, I expect there to be either more drones mounted to the ceiling or gun turrets. They’re everywhere. How the hell didn’t I know about this system? We had a security system that was painted over at least a hundred years ago. Can you believe that, Walker? Someone painted over those drones, and then people stopped looking at them. I thought they were old smoke detectors. I’m an idiot. People are dead.”

I had been about to ask him about the sheriff, but I stopped. Instead, I rested a hand on his shoulder. This wasn’t his kind of stress.

“We’re doing the best we can, Stam. That’s all we can do. Focus on the problem in front of you. What have we got here to throw those drones off their patrol paths?”

He nodded, running a hand down his face, leaving streaks in the sweaty dust.

Keldon knelt beside us. “What’s the plan, Stam?”

“You always think that’s so damn funny, don’t you? Haven’t I told you I don’t like jokes about my name? Everybody thinks my name is funny. It’s a family name.”

“The plan,” I reminded him.

Jones blinked. “Right. I think we should send one of these parts sleds down the middle of the hallway. They’ll attack the sled first, then we—I mean you—start shooting them as they approach. I think that will give us a bit of time before they start targeting this end of the hallway.”

I studied the swarm, trying to count the drones. These ones seemed smaller than the others. They couldn’t be carrying the same size weapons or magazines.

“Let’s do it.”

Slowly, we slid along the wall until we reached the first of the flat auto-carts. Each one could lift off the floor about half a meter and had an assist motor so the person driving the cart didn’t pull so much as just steer. There was no lockout function. Someone had to depress a lever on the handle to keep the cart rolling. It was a safety feature.

“Here you go,” Stam said, pulling a piece of wire out of his shirt pocket. “Get it moving, then wrap this around the safety. Get off quick, though. They’re faster than you think.”

I nodded and took the wire, then I shared the plan with Kaffrey. He gave me a slow thumbs up from the lift.

Staying low, I climbed on the back of the sled and turned the handle back toward me. The whine from the drones was louder here. Every slight rise in the volume made me think they were racing toward me, but each time it was just a drone passing the nearest section of their flight plan.

I wrapped the wire around the safety lever and turned on the sled. Its control panel lit up, followed by the high-pitched jingle of a wake-up tone.

“Crap,” Keldon said behind me.

The whining at the end of the corridor increased to a frenzy. I hit the motion control for the sled, and it jerked forward. I barely got off it before it sped down the middle of the hallway.

The closest drones picked up the movement and sound from the sled. Instead of hanging back in a swarm pattern like other drones, two shot toward the sled.

Two small explosions threw dust back down the hallway. Something flashed and started to burn, which I figured was the sled. I raised my pistol and moved toward the cloud, keeping along the side of the hallway.

Less than a dozen meters away, three drones emerged from the dust cloud, smoke roiling behind them as it caught in their turbines. I hit the nearest one, knocking it against the far wall. There was a flash and another explosion, but it wasn’t strong enough to damage the concrete.

“Stay on the side, Walker,” Kaffrey commanded in my ear.

From behind me, the others moved forward to shoot at the drones flying through the smoke. Jones covered his ears and crouched behind his crate.

I started recognizing the twist in the smoke as the drones passed through and aimed at those spots. Several drones exploded before I ever saw them. Eventually Keldon and TacDiv were standing beside me, and the whine had died to silence.

Kaffrey released a long breath of repressed pain and shifted his stance off his broken leg. He walked stiffly forward to inspect the smashed sled and the remains of exploded drones.

“There were reports of more drones down at the Port,” he said. “I’m not looking forward to that fight.”

Jones pushed his way through the exhausted deputies. “Let me through. I need to shut these things down.”

“I’ll go with you,” I said.

When we arrived, I told Jones to wait a second while I cleared the room, which was filled with terminals flashing their lockdown status. The place looked like the command section of a ship that had been upgraded and refitted a hundred times at least. Standing in the doorway, I searched for more of the canister-shaped drones or other hazards and found only old coffee cups and discarded candy wrappers.

I stepped to the side and motioned Stam over. “All right. I think it’s good.”

“Thanks, Walker. I don’t need something exploding in my face down here. Wouldn’t that be my luck?”

“It’s bad luck to make jokes about bad luck,” I said, sliding my pistol back in its holster.

Jones stood in the doorway for a second, looking around until he seemed to figure out where to start. He found an older terminal that was covered in old data tablets that probably belonged to the other systems in the room. Stam knocked the tablets on the floor and wiped dust off the screen.

“This is it,” he said, and he sat down to work.

It took him a good thirty minutes to figure out the old system and then answer its questions. When the terminal finally reported lockdown status lifted, Jones quickly jumped to another control panel to make sure all the exterior doors to the building remained locked and the lights stayed off. We didn’t want to draw any attention to the department.

Jones keyed a mic connected to an ancient notification system. “This is Stam Jones. The lockdown is showing as lifted. However, verify your safety. I say again, verify the drones in your area are deactivated. Treat any uncleared area as hostile. There will be wounded to care for. Send all updates to the Ops Center control room.”

He repeated the number of the Ops Center comms panel, which started ringing immediately. Since Jones was still talking into the mic, I picked up the comms receiver.

“This is Walker.”

“Walker,” Sheriff Bird said, sounding like she wanted to kill me and hug me at the same time. “Tell Jones to make sure the armory and motor pool are online. We’re going to need access to every seized weapon the department has ever put in evidence. I also want these damn drones working for us. Then get your ass up to the command plans room.”

Finally, she let me get a word in. “I’ve got Captain Kaffrey and Tactical down here, Sheriff, as well as Sergeant Keldon.”

“Good.” She sounded relieved. “That’s good news. Get them all up here. We’ve got a war to plan.”

32

After a couple hours sleep, I was slapping water on my face in the latrine when Ellie sent me an alert.

“Deputy Walker, all personnel are being directed back to the Plans Section.”

“I guess the party’s starting, huh, Ellie?”

“What party are you referring to? This is an official directive from Sheriff Bird.”

“Are you back to your old self? That sounds like you were teasing me.”

“My systems are back online, and I am functioning at eighty percent capacity,” she said. “My external sensor net is at reduced function.”

“Are you angry about that, Ellie? I’d be angry.”

“I am fortunate not to be susceptible to your moods, Deputy Walker.”

I dried my face and grabbed my helmet. “You say that, but I think you’d benefit from some righteous anger. We can imagine what we’re going to do to the first Devoted we come across.”

“I am sure you will administer the Sheriff’s Justice to the best of your ability.”

Out in the hallway, other deputies were pulling bits of armor back on as they walked. We’d been dispatched to grab sleep as Jones got the Department back online.

With the help of the admin personnel, Dispatch was back up and running. We had limited communications with the Port Authority security group and a few scattered private security companies across the station. While I’d been ordered to get some sleep, I knew the plans team was working on getting a tactical picture of the station.

I entered the long room where the Special Planning Team worked and found the space packed with deputies in duty armor. That didn’t leave a lot of room for plans personnel to squeeze through as they checked terminals around the room, updating information on maps and screens showing civilian casualties, checking power outages for the station, and monitoring the number of open docks at the port, which was currently zero.

An image of Taurus floated in a holodisplay in the middle of the conference table. I recognized the normal number of ships in orbit around the station, their icons showing them as freighters and fuel carriers. What didn’t look right was the swarm of red icons between Taurus and the Slip Point on the edge of the system. That could only be the armada Pamela had been talking about. I was no expert on star charting, but it looked like the ships would arrive within the day.

“Are we all here?” Bird asked. Her voice sounded strained but forceful.

Deputies pushed against the walls and moved so they didn’t block screens. When the shuffling finally stopped, Bird paced a strip of floor between the display screens and the conference table.

“All right. If you haven’t had a chance to look at the latest situation maps, they’re over there.” She pointed at a constantly updating map on the far side of the room. Little dots of green and yellow were surrounded by red. I spotted the Department as a location marked in green, so I figured red was Carmichael controlled real estate.

Just like Sheriff Nagel before her, Bird had a way of looking at you like she was reading your thoughts. She didn’t seem to make a point of giving each of us her intense stare, but when her eyes met mine, she seemed to look right into me. I didn’t look away, just gave her a slight nod, and she moved on to the deputy next to me as she continued her update.

“Our basic situation is this: Pamela Carmichael has taken control of the station’s basic functions using her Control Key. We knew this capability existed, but no one in the station’s history—that I know of, anyway—has made the changes she has. The Port is closed. Power is out in most of the civilian sectors, and the housing blocks are all locked down. Any facility with an internal security system is treating its residents as hostiles, just like what we experienced here. We appear to have a hostile force approaching from the Slip Point. This may be the Lyon Group that Carmichael has been talking about as an outside organization providing her support. I don’t have more information than that. Any questions?”

Bird looked around the room, her face iron hard. No one disagreed with her assessment.

“All right. I am establishing two objectives for the department. We can’t help the people of Taurus station if we can’t get supplies on or off the station. We also can’t help them so long as Carmichael holds that Control Key. We are going to divide the department into three teams. One will infiltrate the Station Admin building where the main Ops Center is located and do whatever is necessary to eliminate Carmichael’s use of that key. If I could bomb that building off the station, I would do it. If you can get the key, that’s primary. The second team will lead an attack on the forces holding the Port Authority in order to release the public terminals and allow transport exit from the station. The third team will move on the Secondary Docks in the Cargo Processing District. Carmichael appears to have focused her efforts on the main port, forgetting that we have perfectly serviceable docks in the warehouse district. Since Captain Kaffrey is wounded, he will head the ops center here. I will lead Group Two and the assault on the Main Port. Sergeant Keldon will lead Group Three to secure the Warehouse Docks. Sergeant Walker will lead Group One to seize the Control Key.”

I was the only Walker in the department. Did we have somebody from Port Security? “Who’s Sergeant Walker.”

Bird turned to me. In different circumstances, she might have smiled. “Attention to Orders, Deputy Walker.”

I stared at her for a second, then snapped to attention with my helmet in my free hand. The rest of the room came to attention as well.

Bird crossed the room to stand in front of me. “I don’t have time for a bullshit speech. You’ve earned this. Keep earning it every day.” She raised her voice. “Deputy Walker, I promote you to Sergeant, with all the rights and responsibilities of the rank. May you serve the Sheriff’s Justice and be the shield against the dark.”

She held up a new badge that read sergeant across its upper half. I saluted the Sheriff, then accepted the badge and her handshake.

“Thank you, Sheriff.”

Bird nodded. “Well-deserved. Now get your team together and get out of here. Don’t forget to check the Armory and Evidence for anything that might be useful.”

“Yes, Sheriff.”

I don’t know where they found the energy, but the room filled with cheers and clapping.

* * *

“Deputy Walker, I have located Yola Deris. Should I attempt communication?”

“Please do, Ellie.”

Crouching beside me on the rooftop so we could watch the warehouse below, Deputy Crowley glanced at me. “What was that, Sergeant?”

Six hours in, I still looked around for someone else when he called me sergeant.

“I’m talking to my LE-DB. I call her Ellie.”

“I thought we just asked them for records checks. I didn’t realize they could hold a conversation.”

Crowley was a stocky man with a bent nose and brown eyes. He came from ship engineer stock and had the thick fingers and muscled forearms of a mechanic. So far, he’d followed my every instruction without argument. I was going to have to break him of that.

“It’s a long story. I’ve got a few extra tricks up my sleeve. Ellie is one of them.”

We were going to need all the tricks I could summon, since Crowley was the sole member of my “team.” There hadn’t been anyone else to spare, and since I was breaking into a facility, smaller was better. I also wanted to check up on Yola and Kiren, so this was my excuse.

As Ellie conducted her search, I’d taken Crowley to the edge of the Port warehouse district, not far from where the Afterburn was berthed, so we could scope out one of the warehouses that had been on Pamela Carmichael’s status screen.

Below us, a wide door slid open and a squat wheeled vehicle rolled into the street. As I expected, the back of the truck was covered by a rack full of canister-shaped drones.

“See that truck? We’re going to get one of those.”

From where we were positioned, I could see at least five more vehicles parked inside the warehouse. So far, I’d only counted four Devoted on guard duty. Vehicles rolled by to drop off drivers, who then entered and left. Otherwise, security looked light. Maybe Carmichael was finding her forces stretched until Lyon arrived. That could mean an opportunity for us.

There was a tone in my earpiece. “Walker?”

Crowd noise muffled Yola’s voice.

I tapped my ear. “Are you in a bar?”

She laughed. “Hell yes, I am. People are getting wasted. The station’s going to hell. We might as well drink up what’s left while we can.”

“I need your help. Are you on board?”

“Hold on.”

More crowd noise filled my ear, until it sounded like she’d entered a bathroom. I heard faucets running and people talking in lower voices. “There. How’s that?”

I started to ask her where she was, then I dropped it. “You remember those drone delivery trucks we saw on Pamela’s surveillance screens?”

“Yeah. Did you find them?”

“I’m looking at their front door right now. I’m going to get in there and grab one, then blow the place up. You tell me where you are, and I’ll come pick you up. I’m going to need your help operating the drones.”

“Where are you planning on taking these drones?”

I grinned. “I’ll tell you when I pick you up. Send me your location.”

Yola didn’t hesitate. “I’m in. Hold on, I’ll send Ellie the address. How long? I’m going to have to figure out how to get past the lockdown.”

The bar showed up on my helmet’s HUD, about twenty minutes from our location if we hadn’t been in the middle of an occupation. The good news was there was an alley running behind the bar.

“Meet me in the alley in an hour,” I said. “If it changes. I’ll send you an update.”

“I can do that. You want me to bring you some whiskey?”

I watched another vehicle drop off a driver in front of the warehouse.

“Don’t worry about that. We’ll have a drink when we’re through this.”

“That’s no fun. I’ll see you in an hour.”

I cut the connection and looked at Crowley. “My drone operator is on board, but we’ll need to pick her up. We’re going to drop down to street level and wait for the next taxi to pull up and drop off a driver. When the door opens, we’ll start off with the grenades, then follow with the machine gun. Any questions?”

Crowley glanced at the case we’d taken out of evidence, a crew-served gun with two canister-shaped magazines full of 50mm projectiles.

“I don’t know how to use that thing. Do you?”

I nodded. “If anything goes wrong, like they drop the door, that thing will tear us an entrance. We can’t hesitate. Tell me beforehand if you lose your nerve.”

Crowley didn’t seem to want to look at me at first. “I’ve never done anything like this. I was on traffic yesterday.”

“Just follow me then.” I slapped him on the shoulder. “We’re a team.”

“Right. Yes, Sergeant.”

Now that was weird to hear. I had gone from being the person needing reinforcement to the one giving it. Sure, I’d given advice before, but this was different. I was responsible for this mission, for Crowley.

I couldn’t say the feeling was good or bad, just right, like something I had been waiting for and now it was here. I didn’t have time to dwell on it. Part of the feeling was that it was time to focus on the job, getting it done, and I had to make sure that happened.

We had reached the roof from an adjacent building with a flight of service stairs running up one side. We’d have to go back down that way and then travel the alley that fed into the street in front of the warehouse. I’d considered rushing the warehouse with the cruiser, but I didn’t want to get stuck here if we ran into more resistance than I expected. If things went bad, we’d have to run and then circle back to the vehicle.

I picked up the case and stayed low as I crossed the roof. We reached the street and I waited for a minute, listening. Everything was so much quieter than usual. This area would normally vibrate with cargo traffic between the Port and the warehouses. There was also the background roar of engines near the docks, that was all quiet now.

I kept close to the blank wall of the alley until we got within twenty meters of the opening. The warehouse door would be to our right across the street when we came out. Watching again, listening, I decided to push forward another ten meters and crouch behind a dumpster. Crowley knelt beside me as I laid out the gun case and assembled the weapon.

With the canisters attached, the thing was a beast to carry and turn. I ran a functions check, and each component moved freely. That was the best I could do right now. I set the safety and rested the weapon across my knee, waiting for traffic in the cross street.

“Deputy Walker,” Ellie said. “I have located Kiren Carthage. Would you like to speak with her?”

I needed to listen to the street and react when the next vehicle rolled by. “No, Ellie. Thank you. Hang onto her comms link. I’ll call her as soon as we’re through this.”

“She is located at the Priva Hospital. She is with Haley.”

They were both safe. That was good news.

“The hospital reports security lockdown status with a general support request. They have been placed under the control of the new station leadership.”

“What? What does that mean?”

“I have been checking the CCTV, Deputy Walker. Pamela Carmichael’s personnel are inside the hospital.”

Focus. I needed to get this done. Then I would call Kiren, pick up Yola, and take the next steps. I had a mission. I couldn’t help Kiren right now.

“Sergeant,” Crowley said, pointing at the mouth of the alley. “Sounds like we’ve got a vehicle coming.”

Dammit. I’d let myself get distracted. “Good. Here we go.”

33

A squat vehicle rolled up next to the warehouse as its wide door slid to the side. A woman in one of the all too familiar suits jumped out of the back of the car, and it accelerated away.

“Took you long enough,” one of the guards called out from inside the warehouse.

“We got held up at the hospital,” the woman said. “Ms. Carmichael wants them all occupied. They weren’t going to let me go at first, but I had to remind my lead that things would be easier with a buzz truck.”

A thin man walked out of the shade of the warehouse. “Damn right it is. The sooner I get this warehouse emptied, the sooner I can see some real action. You do anything at the hospital?”

The woman laughed. “Shot a doctor. That wasn’t anything special.”

“We’ll open with the machine gun,” I told Crowley. “Keep the grenade belt across your chest and ready, but carry your pistol and get anything I miss. Understood?”

He nodded with an anxious blink.

“You going to freeze on me, Crowley?”

“No, sir. I’m ready.”

Nodding, I left the mouth of the alley, carrying the machine gun slung low against my hip, and squeezed the trigger. Adjusting to the recoil took a second as I drew a line of bullets along the foot of the warehouse. Then I walked my line of fire up to the two standing in the opening.

They both froze. I hit the guard facing me first, tearing apart one of his legs. He collapsed, screaming in pain, as the woman sprinted toward the doorway. She drew a pistol and started firing as she ran. From behind me, Crowley fired three times, hitting her on his last shot. Her weapon spun away as she hit the pavement.

Crossing the street, I kept my focus on the dim area inside the warehouse where the other guards would be running out. The four remaining buzz trucks were parked in a line to my left. It looked like there was an office against the back of the building on the right. The office door opened, and two men ran into the warehouse.

I squeezed the trigger while walking past the two lying in the doorway. The gun kept wanting to jog upward on me, so I kept the muzzle down, paying attention to the bullet holes spraying dust and bits of concrete. One of the men seemed to realize they didn’t have any cover. He ran back inside the office and locked the other one outside. Another three seconds of rounds cut the exposed guard down.

Movement near the trucks caught my attention. There was a guard moving along the wall there, carrying a pistol. He couldn’t hide his blue suit against the gray warehouse wall, despite how dim it was compared to the street outside. The trucks provided him cover though.

“Follow me,” I told Crowley. “Keep that guy down. We don’t need to kill all of these guys. Just get a truck and get out of here. I’ll protect you while you climb up in the cab.”

He nodded and we ran toward the parked vehicles. Crowley took down the guard in the back as I kept the machine gun trained toward the office.

Crowley checked the driver side controls. “It’s unlocked.”

“Good. You take the machine gun and climb in the passenger side. I’m driving.”

“I’ve never fired one of those before, Sergeant.”

His shoulders dropped under the weight of the gun.

“It’s just another gun, Deputy. Keep the muzzle pointed away from you, and squeeze the trigger. We don’t have any more rounds once you’re out, so put it aside when you’re done. And watch out, it gets hot.”

I climbed into the driver side of the truck and activated the engine, grinning when the beast roared to life. Crowley was climbing in, struggling to manage the machine gun, when there was a squealing sound in the street outside the warehouse.

Two trucks had stopped in the middle of the street, blocking our exit. Devoted were jumping out of their beds, armed with pistols and rifles. One man was carrying a shoulder-mounted rocket.

I grabbed Crowley’s collar and pulled him the rest of the way inside, then I put the truck in gear. We jerked forward as I turned the wheel and aimed the truck at the doorway. I jammed my boot on the accelerator, and the engine screamed beneath us.

“Are you going to hit them?” Crowley asked, putting his hands on the dashboard.

“Buckle your harness and hold on.” Light turned the windscreen white for a second as we left the warehouse. The truck bounced on the curb, and then a crowd of Pamela’s men was scattering directly in front of us. Two stood their ground, firing on the truck with rifles. They disappeared as we slammed into the back of the truck on our right, spinning it around. I shifted down and hit the accelerator again, turning left.

The crack of bullets hitting the back of the truck reached the cab, then grew quieter as I accelerated down the empty street. Just as I was slowing to make the turn on the cross street, something threw the rear end to the right, spinning the truck into the intersection. The wheels shrieked on the pavement as we ended up facing the crew of Blue Suits back by the warehouse. A cloud of smoke from the rocket launcher hung in the air.

“They’re getting in their trucks,” Crowley said, pointing.

“Let’s see if this thing can still move.”

I shifted again and worked the steering wheel. The rear end was stiff, but we were moving. I straightened the wheel with the truck aimed directly at the crowd in front of us and hit the accelerator.

“You’re going back?” Crowley asked.

“Did you put your harness on like I told you?”

Crowley looked down at his front and groped for his harness. I changed gears as the truck picked up speed. The Blue Suits seemed undecided on how to respond this time. Three took cover behind their parked trucks, while others ran inside the warehouse. The Devoted with the RPG struggled to load another rocket as we accelerated toward him.

Leaning out his window, Crowley squeezed off four shots with his pistol, knocking the grenadier out of the way.

“Good work,” I told him.

I reached the other intersection and turned, focusing my attention on putting distance between us and them.

“All right, Ellie.” I relaxed in my seat. “Let’s go get Yola.”

“Sending location data to your HUD, Sergeant Walker. Would you like to speak with Ms. Carthage now?”

“Yeah, if we can.”

“Establishing connection.”

The first thing Kiren said was, “I think this line is monitored.”

She sounded tired.

From the background, Haley asked, “Is that Walker? Tell him I’m good as new. I can jump.”

“We should keep this short,” Kiren said.

I glanced at my HUD and made a turn onto another mostly empty street. We didn’t appear to have any followers. A vehicle with Blue Suits in the front seats passed us, and one of them waved at Crowley.

“Can you get to the street?” I asked.

“I think so. How soon?”

I checked the map of Yola’s location. “Ellie, can you add Priva?”

The hospital appeared on the map a good two klicks from Haley’s location. The streets in between showed as red with Devoted activity. The good news was that the hospital was on my path to the Admin building.

“Thirty minutes,” I told her.

“We’ll be in the Emergency Room drop-off zone. It’s a mess down there.”

“I’ll send an update.” I closed the connection.

“You think it’s a good idea to make another stop?” Crowley asked.

“I need to get them out of there, and we could use the help.”

Ahead of us, the front of the building was on fire, pouring black smoke into the sky. Blue Suits stood in the street drinking beer and throwing the bottles at the blaze. As we passed by, I saw it was another jewelry store. They pointed at the truck and cheered.

“Screw those guys,” Crowley said.

“We’re working on it.”

34

“You’re lucky they bought such cheap security for these drones,” Yola said. “This is knockoff Sarkonian stuff. I don’t think it gets much worse.”

I kept my eyes on the road. “Can you control them?”

“Of course I can control them. The question is whether you want me to just set them all to fly into the air and self-destruct. They’re not good for much.”

Slowing down as I approached an intersection, I checked the map and made the turn toward Priva. The streets were getting busier. There were more civilians in this area. Most looked like family members carrying wounded. It killed me not to jump out and help, but now was for the good of the station. If we failed, the injured civilians would be on their own.

“What can they do? We’re going to need to use these to get into the main admin building.”

Yola raised her eyebrows. “So that’s the plan. I figured as much. Well, you’ve got some outfitted with guns, a couple with cutting torches, and five that can drop grenades. They move in swarm configuration, so you can also use them for suppression of ground forces. They’re pretty hard to hit.”

“Can I take them inside the building?” I asked.

“Sure, but it’s going to be easier to hit them in there. If we’re going in through the main lobby, they’d be pretty good for hitting the security in there. Do you know what we’re up against?”

“Not yet.”

“Excellent,” Yola said. “Nobody said you were a boring guy, Walker.”

“I think Fratley just tried to tell me that.”

“Fratley has issues. You think he got off the station?”

I nodded. “I think he would have tried to contact me if he hadn’t. We probably won’t be hearing from him for a while.”

“He’s on a bad path,” Yola said. “I’m surprised you’re friends with him, honestly.”

My HUD flashed an update that the hospital was just up ahead. The emergency room section was around the back side of the complex. The street was filled with an even larger crowd as we approached. People glanced back to see the truck and gradually got out of the way, but there were too many. I could see the hospital ahead of us, including the street where I needed to turn, all blocked by crowds. We would have to find another way.

Ahead of us, there was a loud bang, then gun fire. I glanced at Crowley. “You hear that?”

“I heard it.” He opened his door to stand on the runner and peered into the distance.

More gunfire echoed in the street. People started running past the truck, trying to get away.

“There’s a truck moving up by the entrance,” Crowley said. Abruptly, he drew his pistol and fired at the hospital.

I ducked to get a better view through the windscreen. “What are you doing?”

“They’re firing on the crowd. We need to stop them.”

“Well you’re not going to hit anything from here. Hold on.”

Laying into the horn, I rolled forward again. People were moving now, and they got out of the way of the truck. The gunfire increased, and people started running.

I turned to the backseat. “Yola, can you drive?”

She looked up from her work, and then at the scene through the windscreen. “Holy crap. Are they shooting at the people out there?”

“We need to stop it,” I said.

I opened my door as she slid into the driver’s seat. On the other side of the cab, Crowley did the same. We each took a side of the truck’s bed, hanging onto the drone rack. From this height, I could clearly see the front of the hospital and the truck parked there. Four Devoted stood in the back, shooting indiscriminately at the crowd trying to get away. Dead and wounded lay on the street in front of them, with more revealed by the panicked crowd.

“I’ll start on the left,” I told Crowley.

He nodded. “I’ve got the bastard on the far right.”

Aiming was a challenge on the moving truck. I sighted in, but Crowley fired before I did. He missed and the four Devoted dropped for cover, searching the crowd for where the shots were coming from.

Squeezing my trigger, I nodded. The bullet hit my target, knocking him against the cab of their truck.

The street below was in chaos. At least people weren’t targets anymore.

More Devoted ran out of the front of the hospital to take cover behind the truck. Two had rifles and sprayed bullets at me and Crowley, but their aim was bad. I hit another one, knocking him back. The area around the enemy’s truck was clear of civilians now, so as Crowley kept firing, I pulled a grenade from my bandolier and tossed it toward the front of the hospital.

I hit the street where I’d planned, and the grenade rolled another ten meters under the truck. Pamela’s men were yelling to each other to get off the bed when it exploded, bending the cab away from the rest of the truck. A cloud of smoke floated back toward us, bringing the smell of fuel and burnt plastic.

Crowley grinned at me. “If you set the truck on fire, I’m buying you a beer.”

“Make it a whiskey,” I said.

Flame cut the smoke as the truck’s undercarriage caught fire, forcing the Devoted away. A group of medical personnel from the hospital ran out to start working on the wounded in the street.

One of the nurses stopped to stare at me, then shouted, “Are you really Sheriff’s deputies? I thought you were all dead?”

“Not yet,” I said. “I wish we could help more here.”

She surveyed the carnage in the street. “Are we going to get out of this?”

“We will. We’re working on it. Thank you for being part of the solution.”

The nurse only shook her head and knelt beside a woman with a gunshot wound in her side.

I slapped the top of the cab. “Around the back. We need to get to the Emergency Room. It’s back that way.”

“I hear you,” Yola said. “Give me a chance to figure this thing out.” She put the truck in reverse and navigated around the abandoned vehicles littering the street. From the height of the truck bed, I could see more fires in the distance, with black columns of smoke fading into the sky. The Station Admin building was lit again and appeared to have some air traffic moving around the landing pads on its roof.

I watched the air traffic for a minute, and it looked like most of them were coming from the direction of the main port.

The Emergency entrance came into view. The area was choked with more abandoned vehicles, and people who had run from the other street were now collecting here. Hospital personnel stood along the sidewalk, trying to get people to form lines and moving the worst wounded to the front.

A few people panicked when they saw the truck, but they appeared to calm down once they saw the Sheriff’s insignia emblazoned across the front of our armor. We seemed to get an equal number of cheers and middle fingers as we passed.

“Walker!” Kiren shouted from up ahead.

I searched the crowd and found Haley’s blond hair. Kiren stood next to her, just past the emergency room entrance.

“I see her,” Yola said, easing the truck forward as people continued to wander into our path.

Jumping down from the truck, I worked my way through the crowd as Haley and Kiren tried to get closer. I reached Haley first. She was walking normally, though her pants were torn up to her upper thighs. She grinned and wrapped her arms around me in a hug that threatened to crack ribs, even with my armor.

“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again, Gage.”

“I’m right here.”

She growled affectionately and let me go. Kiren pushed her way in and I wrapped my arms around her. She rested her head against my chest. The embrace might have been better if I wasn’t wearing armor, but I’d take it.

“So what are we going to do?” Haley asked. “Blow up the Admin Building?”

Eventually I let go of Kiren. She stepped back and looked up at me, wiping the edges of her eyes. “Like she said. I didn’t think we’d see each other again.”

“You sounded very business-like before,” I said.

“I had to keep it together. It’s a mess in there. They need help. The Devoted are prioritizing their people over the residents. Some of the residents are fighting back. One floor is a war zone.” She glanced back at the Emergency entrance. “We should get out of here. They aren’t organized. That’s the only reason we were able to get down here. They could come out any minute.”

“There’s room in the cab.” I pointed at the truck, where Yola was waving.

“Who’s your friend?” Haley asked. “He’s cute.”

“That’s Ben Crowley. I think he’s single, so you better keep him alive.”

35

“Sheriff Bird has reached the main port facility, Sergeant Walker,” Ellie reported, using the truck’s speaker system. “Sergeant Keldon appears to be backed by a number of combatants near the transition zone to the secondary port. They are much more heavily armed than the criminal subjects you have encountered so far.”

I was back in the driver seat so Yola could work on programming the drones. This was bad news on several levels.

“How are they different?”

“They are more heavily armed and outfitted with personal protective armor of Union origin. They appear more disciplined, and their tactical approach has proved highly effective at stopping our vehicles.”

“So we’ve got new enemies. I hope those aren’t part of the air traffic we saw landing at the Admin building. Do you still have CCTV views in the building?”

“I am able to view the plaza, main lobby, and lower public access areas, Sergeant Walker. The areas that formerly belonged to the Carmichael Brothers are on a separate security system that I am unable to access at his time.”

“Let us know as soon as you see one of these new guys in the Admin building. I want to know what we’re up against.”

“Affirmative, Sergeant Walker.”

Kiren looked at me from the passenger seat. “Sergeant Walker?”

I nodded. “I got a promotion. Apparently they were short staffed, so the Sheriff didn’t have much choice.”

“It’s about time,” Haley said. “They need to put you in charge of the place. Sheriff Walker sounds pretty good to me.”

I snorted. “No, thanks. Bird’s aged ten years in five months. You couldn’t pay me enough. Besides, I can do more on the street. This is where I’d want to stay. As long as there are streets left.”

Kiren gave me a sideways look. “I think you’ll want more eventually. Taurus isn’t the place it was even a year ago. Are you sure you want to stay here?”

I leaned forward to spot the Admin building in the distance. We were going to need to choose our approach soon. “I don’t plan on staying. But that’s a conversation for long after we make it through today.”

Kiren and Haley were both armed with service pistols from the stash I’d grabbed from the armory. Yola had an SKG-style rifle that hung from a loose sling. We also had grenades and a cutting torch. The loadout had never been meant to support a frontal assault on the building.

“All right, Ellie,” I said. “How should we do this?”

A translucent map appeared on the windscreen with the admin building and its surrounding areas in the middle.

“I show multiple underground entry points, Sergeant Walker.” Icons blinked on the map. “I recommend an entrance through a nearby public works office. The basement there has an entrance into the maintenance tunnels. This will allow you access to the infrastructure beneath the building and a service lift running parallel to the building’s main elevator banks.”

Crowley frowned. “We don’t know where the key is, right?”

I pointed at the penthouse on the top floor, adjacent to the landing pads. The last time I’d been there, Collin Charles nearly killed me. “It’s in here.”

“This is correct,” Ellie said. “While the station’s primary control center is adjacent to the basement ops area, the lockdown commands originated in a secondary station in the penthouse. This appears to be an override point installed by the Carmichael Brothers. I did not have a record of its existence prior to their purchase of Taurus.”

I had her describe the other entry points into the building’s lower areas. None were as close or easy to access as the Public Works office. “We’ll take that one.”

I slowed at the next intersection, then I turned right and followed the street where an alley opened on our left. Halfway down, I parked the truck between two dumpsters where it would be out of sight from either street.

Yola tapped her data pad. “If we’re entering here, what’s the plan for the drones?”

“You can still call them from inside the building, right?”

“Sure.”

I opened my door and jumped out. “Those drones are going to be our ticket out. When the time comes, you’ll have them attack the outside of the building. We’ll need to draw off the security inside so we can get out.”

Haley stood in the alley and looked up at the Admin building in the distance. “How are we getting out again? Our last plan got me shot.”

I counted five blinking lights traveling to the top of the building as we watched. There was a lot of activity up there. And plenty of aircraft appeared to be parking without any leaving afterward.

Was Pamela holding another one of her meetings? The station elite might be changing their minds now, if they’d survived the first meeting.

When everybody was out of the truck, we checked our weapons. Kiren snapped the cutting torch to her utility harness.

I pulled my helmet back over my head and adjusted the fit as the HUD came to life, showing the path to the Public Works office. We would need to cross another two streets and enter an alley. Ellie didn’t have any info on traffic, so we would need to keep our heads on a swivel. We hadn’t seen much vehicle traffic, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be guards on foot this close to Pamela’s headquarters.

* * *

The Public Works office was a bloodbath. It looked like the Devoted had forced their way in using the same alley entrance we had found. People were slumped across their desks and caught in doorways. I led the way through the maze of offices with my pistol ready. The lights were still on, and everything else in the building looked no different than a regular workday, so the staring dead made the place seem otherworldly.

They looked like they had been dead longer than a day, meaning these murders would have taken place before Pamela launched her attack on the station.

I suspected what we would find in the main operations center, a room not unlike the control room back at the Department. The room was located in the basement of the Public Works office. It looked like it took up half of the office footprint, with walls covered in terminals that monitored all aspects of Taurus’ operation, from air quality to pressurization and energy output. The vault door leading into the maintenance tunnels stood against the wall opposite the entrance. A bead of welded metal as thick as my forearm ran around the outer edge of the door, sealing it closed.

“Well, damn,” Kiren said, walking forward to run a finger along the seam. “They must have used plasma for this. There’s no way I’m getting through with the torch we’ve got. It could take hours.”

I tapped my chin. “Ellie, can you take a look at the activity around the other entry points? Do you see people? Any indication of activity at all?”

“Checking for indications of attack, Sergeant Walker.” In a few seconds, my HUD flashed with images from CCTV, showing dead people through windows and broken-in doors.

“Looks like the other ground entry points are sealed as well.” I kicked the floor. “We’re going to have to go in through the front.”

From behind me, Yola chuckled. “There you go wanting to go in the hard way. Why break down the door when you can pull the pins out of the hinges.”

“All right, hacker. What’s your idea?”

“We keep seeing all this traffic going to the top of the building. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like climbing a bunch of stairs or fighting my way up. I say we go in from the top.”

“We don’t have a cruiser,” I said.

She smiled. “I remember where there’s one sitting in a nice forest glade.”

Yola continued to grin at me as I tried to figure out what she was talking about. The Afterburn? It was at the Port.

Then it clicked. Pamela’s office back at the Avalon. Her personal transport sitting in the circle of trees next to her office.

“You got it?” Yola asked.

“I think I do,” I said. “And there’s still a hole in the wall to let us in.”

“What are you two talking about?” Crowley asked. “Where are we supposed to go now?”

“Avalon Estates,” I said.

36

I pulled back on the control stick and Pamela Carmichael’s luxury air cruiser lifted into the night sky. Avalon fell away behind us, a burning jewel box with tiny people in blue suits running from buildings to the edge of the fire.

“You think they’re going to report this to Pamela?”

Kiren chuckled in the co-pilot’s seat. “No way. If the Devoteds have one weakness, it’s that they’re all terrified of her.”

Crowley, Yola, and Haley sat in the mid-section of the cruiser, an interior space that looked a lot like a stretch limo. Yola had her head in the mini bar.

“Ellie, you got any updates for me on the other missions?”

“Sheriff Bird is progressing at the Port. Sergeant Keldon appears to have progressed one block toward the Warehouse District.”

“One block? They must be under some serious pressure over there.”

“Sergeant Keldon has requested reinforcements, Sergeant Walker. However, Sheriff Bird does not have anyone to spare, and Captain Kaffrey has been unable to locate assistance from private security.”

I checked our flight plan, which would take us around the station to approach the Admin Building from the port side, joining all the traffic that had been flowing from that direction. If there was some kind of landing authority operating in the building, we weren’t going to have approval. My hope was that we could at least land alongside the other cruisers, then deal with what we found on the roof when it came at us. All we had to do was get down to the penthouse. I’d blow a hole in the top of the building if I had to.

Keldon’s situation was adding more pressure. If I could shut down the exterior control of Taurus’s systems, that would free up the resident population to fight back as well. The Devoted might have better weapons for the moment, but there was no way they could stop the combined force of the station’s highly angry residents, not when they’d been locked up for nearly two days now.

“There’s some mighty fine whiskey here,” Yola reported. “You want some, Walker?”

“I’m good. You got an update on the drones?”

Yola lifted a miniature bottle of vodka to her mouth and emptied it. She smacked her lips as she checked her data pad. “They’re less than a klick from the rooftop. Just give me the word and they’ll start raising hell.”

I glanced at the map, checking the drone’s direct path. “How are you going to have them do that, exactly?”

“Maybe I’ll have them take the elevator up. I don’t know. We can do whatever we want.” She tapped the face of her data pad. “They’re our pets.”

Kiren raised an eyebrow. “Pets? You need to get out more.”

Yola shrugged. “They’ve got personalities. I guess it’s actually inconsistencies in their crappy code, copy of a copy. I like to think of it as being unique. And I’ll love each and every one of them right up until they run out of power or blow themselves up.” Haley and Crowley appeared to be in a conversation about his armor. He had been pointing out the latch points and demonstrating how to remove different pieces. The cruiser banked as I brought it around to the flight lane from the Port, and Haley slid into Crowley, not bothering to catch herself.

Sensors told me there was another aircraft ahead of us on the same approach for the roof of the Admin building. It was too dark now to pick anything up visually, so I slowed the cruiser down to give us some space.

“Five minutes,” I said. “Get ready.”

Yola reached for another mini bottle as Crowley straightened against Haley.

“Why are you all acting like we’re going to die?” Kiren asked.

After tossing aside her empty bottle, Yola unscrewed another. “Have you been paying attention? We’re dropping into what might be the most dangerous place on the station. I’m going in with a buzz.”

“We’re going to be fine,” Kiren said, then glanced at me. “Right?”

“Right.”

“Oh,” Yola said. “Drones are in position and there’s a cruiser landing. It’s party time.”

In the dark below us, the roof of the Taurus admin building went from a series of interlocking circles marking landing pads, to a mass of explosions. One after another, cruisers parked on the roof exploded, sending orange plumes of flame into the night sky.

“Woah,” Yola said, checking her data pad again. “That’s cool. I didn’t expect that.”

Crowley grabbed his helmet and slid away from Haley. “Are we going in?”

“Soon,” I said. “Let’s give the flames a minute to die down.”

I adjusted the approach to hold us in a stand-off pattern above the roof. We had just slowed airspeed to a hover when something shot past the cruiser, setting off proximity alarms.

“What was that?” Kiren said. “A missile?”

“It’s got bad aim if it was a missile.” I checked the sensors again, looking for more objects in our vicinity. “Could have been some debris blowing off the roof.”

The sensors didn’t pick up any more fast-moving objects, but they did send an alert that the cruiser I’d thought was landing ahead of us was still airborne. It appeared to be coming back around to our direction.

“Hold on,” I said. “We may have some trouble.”

Pamela’s luxury cruiser was only lightly armed. We weren’t going to survive a head-on battle with anything designed for combat. If the other cruiser meant to fight, I’d need to make a run for the still-burning roof or somewhere close by, like a set of windows in a lower floor. That was not my first choice. This luxury scow might collapse like a piece of metal foil on the side of the building.

“That doesn’t look good,” Kiren said, pointing at the sensor display. “They’re definitely on an attack vector.”

“All right.” I brought the engines back up to full-power and dropped altitude until we were below the roofline of the building. The other vehicle shot past us, cutting into a long turn to come back around.

“Everybody hang on,” I said, climbing again. Acceleration shoved me against my seat. We came up over the edge of the burning roof and I braked hard. The cruiser dropped straight down, landing in the middle of a smoldering landing pad not far from the entrance lift. We skidded, the ship creaking and squealing as metal strained and ripped away from the fuselage.

The hostile spun and came to a stop with the nose pointing off the rooftop. The proximity alarms screamed as the other cruiser roared past us and away from the building, braking hard for another run. We were out of surprises now.

“Everybody out,” I shouted. “Grab every weapon you can carry and follow me to the lift.”

I dropped my face shield and grabbed my assault rifle and grenade belt, then I pushed my way past the others to the center of the cruiser. The hatch complained for a second before swinging open on the rooftop littered with burning debris, flames dancing in the wind. I jumped to the landing pad and moved away from the cruiser to give the others room to get out.

“Ellie, are you tracking that cruiser?”

“The hostile is on approach now, Sergeant Walker.”

Kiren and the others ran past me, headed for the lift. I scanned the night sky, not seeing the vehicle. Then a shape moved against the dark and I caught the flare of its engines.

“Run!” I raised my rifle and fired ahead of the dark shape. My rifle wasn’t going to do much. At this close range, I might take out a sensor if I was lucky. I probably wasn’t going to be lucky.

Concrete exploded around me as the cruiser strafed the landing pad. An impact hit me in the back, and I slid face-first on the scorched pad. I got back to my feet and spotted the others almost at the lift. There was no sense trying to shoot the cruiser, not in the dark. I focused on the yellow square of the lift and sprinted in a zig-zag, my legs screaming from the strain.

Two explosions rocked the roof beneath me, nearly knocking me off my feet. I skidded on the uneven concrete. A hole appeared in the landing pad, forcing me to change my path as the roof collapsed into the level below. Leaping clear, I managed the last twenty meters into the open lift and slammed against the inside wall when I couldn’t stop myself.

Kiren slapped the control panel, and the doors slid closed on another explosion in the middle of the roof. A nearby air cruiser rolled to its side, triggering an explosion in its engines that covered the area in blue fire.

“You all right?” she asked me, eyes wide.

I flipped open my face shield and breathed deeply in the smoke-free air. Then I checked my rifle and faced the door.

“Good enough.”

The lift chimed, and the doors opened.

37

A corridor ran from the lift with doors on either side and a reinforced entrance at the end about fifty meters away. I had been in that suite before and remembered its open, multi-leveled space. The place looked very different now. Hundreds of framed paintings leaned against the walls, with statues set haphazardly down the hall. What looked like trash on the floor was jewelry. The floor was covered in necklaces, bangles, rings, and hairpieces. Stepping into the hallway was like walking onto a beach made of finery.

Two soldiers in black armor with helmets were walking away from us toward the end of the hall. One of them turned at the sound of the lift doors opening. He immediately dropped to a firing position and raised his rifle to his shoulder.

“Look out,” I shouted. Adrenaline from the run across the roof was still pounding in my veins. I raised my rifle and charged forward, firing three-round bursts. A statue in front of me exploded in a cloud of dust, probably giving the small bit of cover necessary to slide left and hit the first soldier in the helmet. He fell back as the other one took a firing position.

These were professionals. A round hit my chest and dented the armor. A second glanced off my helmet. Crowley fired from behind me, and the others fired as they slid along the walls. It took their combined attack to bring the second soldier down.

“Grab their weapons,” I told Haley and Kiren. “We’re going to need some bigger guns against these guys.”

“Ellie, where are we headed?”

“I do not have a specific location, Sergeant Walker. According to building schematics, there is a reinforced central room approximately fifty meters to your right. However, the entrance to that space is only accessible from the main suite on the level.”

Just to make sure, I slammed the butt of my rifle against the locking mechanism on the door next to me. The door bent, and it took another hit to get it open. The offices on the other side were packed with more stolen goods. Clothing, jewels, data pads, and piles of retail items that looked grabbed from stores were heaped around the room. A window into an adjacent office space showed more of the same. This was looking a lot like Kallaver’s hoard back in the Ice Factory.

Yola whistled as she looked around the room. “Somebody’s grabbing everything they can from the station. Seems like an inefficient way to do it though. Why not move the stuff to a warehouse so you can ship it out, or sell it later?”

“This is pure spite,” Kiren said from the doorway. “The only reason she’s collecting any of this is to hurt people. That’s how Pamela operates.”

“So you know,” Yola said, “I can hack the locks on any of these doors. You don’t have to beat them down.”

“Next time,” I said.

Crowley shouted from the hallway. “We’ve got incoming.” Rifle fire filled the space outside the door.

I ran for the door. Crowley and Haley had taken cover behind a large statue that was rapidly losing parts of its face and angel wings. Four black-armored soldiers were pushing forward from the end of the hallway. A grenade bounced down the middle of the floor and stopped near Crowley’s boot.

He surprised me by grabbing the grenade and tossing it back. It exploded before it reached the other end of the hall, filling the area with dust and heat.

“In here,” I said. “We’ll have to see if these offices go around.”

I didn’t want to get pinned down. If we had to, we’d blow holes in some of these interior walls and make our own hallway.

The soldiers pushed through the smoke as Crowley and Haley ran into the office. Kiren helped me shove the door closed and barricade it with a desk, then we left the room and moved deeper into the office suite.

I led the way, with Crowley taking up the rear. There were explosions behind us as it sounded like the soldiers were blowing the door up rather than shoving it out of the way. I guess that meant they didn’t care much about the building or making Pamela angry. These guys were a different breed than the suit wearing Devoted.

We reached an open floorplan area full of desks. Conference rooms and larger offices opened off the main area, and it didn’t look like there was another exit out.

“Ellie, you got any ideas?”

“The wall you are facing is shared with the main living suite, Sergeant Walker.”

I looked at Kiren. “All right. We need to make a way out of here. Ellie says that wall opens into the suite.”

She nodded. “Give me three of your grenades.”

“Three? That’s only leaving me two.”

Kiren held out a hand. “Do you want out of here or not?”

Crowley turned from the door where he was pulling security. “They’re thirty seconds away, Sergeant.”

There was no time. “Everybody take cover and get ready.”

I passed Kiren the grenades.

Crossing the room, I kicked over a line of desks and checked my remaining grenades. After pulling the others back behind our limited cover, I moved to a position where I could see down the hallway out of the office. The soldiers had just entered at the far end. I raised my rifle and laid down some suppressing fire. Beside me, Crowley tossed a grenade down the hallway.

We traded fire with the soldiers for several minutes as Kiren stacked two desks against the wall, leaving enough room to drop the grenades. It looked like she was trying to control the explosion and push it back against the wall. There was also the possibility we’d end up impaled by shards of desk.

“Get down,” she said, sliding behind a desk near me.

I started counting. On three, the first grenade went off. The others followed in a chain afterward.

Kiren jumped to her feet and ran into the dust cloud, carrying the cutting torch. The hiss of the torch activating cut through the dust, and then she shouted, “Let’s go.”

I waved for Yola and Haley to move, as Crowley continued to crouch next to me and provide covering fire. The soldiers had fallen back to the end of the string of offices, maybe because of the explosion. I glanced at the dust cloud to see Haley disappear through the hole. It was time for us to follow.

“What’s that?”

In the far office next to the inner hallway, something blotted out the light. It became clearer as it stomped forward.

I could only stare at the inhuman thing. “That’s one big soldier.”

The person in the heavy armor had to be augmented in some way. Massive arms and legs hung from an oversized torso covered in thick black armor like a human tank. The beast bent his legs slightly, hunkering down, and opened fire with twin machine guns in either hand.

We hit the floor as bits of wood and metal sprayed all around us. The stream of bullets tore through walls, leaving ragged tears showing other rooms piled with stolen goods.

The guns stopped, and I looked up to see two soldiers sprinting ahead of the tank.

I didn’t have time to aim, just raise my rifle and fire. That was enough to force them to the sides of the adjacent room. With my free hand, I motioned wildly for Crowley to run through the opening.

He nodded and then turned to toss a grenade through the open door.

I got up and ran after him as the room filled with more dust and shards. The tank opened up again, rounds slicing through the room behind us. They were probably penetrating every wall on their way to the outside.

I shouldered my way through the crumbled wall and bent inner supports, and I emerged in the executive suite. Most things were as I remembered them, with the bar in the middle of the room and couches and chairs filling each level. Windows covered the outer wall, allowing a seamless view of the dark station below. Fires burned and the streets were black.

“Walker,” Kiren shouted. “Look out.”

I turned toward her voice as a soldier popped up from behind a line of couches. Turning, I realized there were black-armored soldiers changing positions all over the left side of the room, trying to flank the others. Crowley and I had walked into the middle of a field of fire.

Behind me, the tank stomped into the open office. I had seconds before he opened fire on the hole in the wall. Sooner than I expected, the machine guns opened up.

I hit the floor as a barrage of rounds poured through the air above me. The outer windows shattered and exploded outward under the attack. Rolling over to get my rifle up, cold air streamed across my face. Crowley was moving toward Kiren’s position, and if I could hold off the tank for just a few more seconds, he would make it.

The tank appeared above me. He rotated, scanning the room, and it looked for a second like he didn’t see me on the floor. I aimed for the joint where his right leg met his pelvis and squeezed the trigger in a three round burst. Then I fired again.

A whining sound rose above the wind. Had I damaged his armor somehow?

The noise didn’t make any sense until a black shape shot through the room and hit the tank directly in the chest, exploding in a ball of force that threw him over a couch and against the wall.

38

The room went dark as the power cut out. Emergency lights flickered on, casting dim light across the wrecked suite. As I got to my feet, I spotted two of the regular soldiers lying in a heap on the floor. The tank was on his back, half inside the other room.

“Gage,” Kiren shouted. “Are you all right?”

I nodded, running through an automatic check on my rifle. I was down to half my ammo but everything else looked all right. My armor was covered in dust from the smashed walls.

“Where’s Crowley?” He wasn’t on the other side of the couches where I’d seen him before with Haley.

“He ran through here,” Kiren said. “There are more of the Devoted guys down this hallway. They started shooting and he went after them.”

“Pamela has to be down there.”

An aircraft roared past the broken windows, dropped down the face of the building, and then rose to the same altitude as the suite. Spotlights shone across the wreckage inside. The others pulled back inside the hallway where Crowley had left, and I followed them. I was just out of the room when cannons opened fire from the aircraft, and the room disintegrated behind me.

From the hallway ahead, Pamela Carmichael’s voice cut through the crumbling section of the building.

“What are you doing? We’re in here. Stop attacking the building.”

Her voice sounded amplified. A man’s voice answered, deeper and angry. “If your building is unsafe, leave. We have bigger concerns than your personal safety.”

“This is the control center. If one of your missiles lands in this room, every defensive system on the station goes away. What’s Lyon going to do then?”

I found the others in an anteroom that opened up in the middle of the hallway. A metal security door stood at the end of the hallway. The door was closed, and the voices seemed to be coming from a speaker at the top of the door. The destruction in the building must have crossed some wires somewhere.

“So it’s Lyon after all,” Yola said. “That name came up quite a few times among the Ghosts. They’ve got their fingers in all kinds of crime across the Deadlands.”

Crowley had taken a knee to rest for a second. I put my hand on his shoulder. “You all right?”

He nodded and pulled off his helmet, still breathing hard. “I’ve never been so close to buying it before. I thought that big guy was going to destroy us.”

“Not today.” I approached the security door to get a better look. “What do you think, cut through or can we take the pins out of the hinges?”

Yola looked up from her data pad. “I’m working on it. The system is a mess. Half the building is about to collapse, and it’s taking the network with it.”

Spotlights continued to roam the wreckage. Based on the Lyon leader’s attitude, I doubted they were looking for their own people.

“Get back,” Yola said. “I got it.”

Crowley climbed to his feet, and I moved to one side of the door with my rifle at the ready. Kiren and Haley got behind Crowley as he slapped his face shield down and checked his weapon.

The door slid open, revealing a short hallway with an open door at the other end. I checked the corners and then stepped in to clear the ceiling corners inside the door. Two turrets rotated their muzzles to target me. I hit one before it could fire, then I pulled back inside the door. The echo of gunfire rattled down the hallway.

“So much for sneaking in,” I said. Waiting for the turret to pause, I stepped back through the door and shot the second turret housing. The muzzle froze in place, dead.

“Crowley, let’s go.”

We jogged down the corridor and emerged in a server room filled with computer stacks, their faces a crosshatch of blinking lights. Two men came around a stack, shooting as soon as they spotted me. I took the first one down, and Crowley shot the second. From there, we moved fast, engaging small groups of Devoted as we pushed into the room.

Crowley and I worked as a team, one pinning down the Blue Suits as the other covered a server stack. The enemy weren’t communicating between their teams and kept looking back toward another part of the room. It wasn’t until I came around a metal partition in the room that I saw Pamela standing in the middle of a large console, arguing with a holodisplay of a man in a black uniform.

She turned at the sound of my approach and scowled at me. “How the hell are any of you still alive?”

“You can’t even secure your own building,” the man said. He had short gray hair and a blade-shaped nose that dominated his face. His brown eyes looked nearly black in the display. He sneered at Pamela like he was enjoying her frustration.

“Shut up, William. You can’t have Taurus without me.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Looks like I’m about to.”

“Step away from the console and raise your hands,” I told her, moving toward her with my rifle at my shoulder. Crowley got behind me.

The holodisplay went out. Pamela turned to face me with her hands on her hips. Looking past me, she spotted Kiren and her mouth set in an angry line.

“You again. You should have died with your father.”

“Good thing I don’t listen to you,” Kiren said.

Pamela’s hand shot forward, reaching for something on the console that was just out of my view. It had to be the key.

“Stop!” When she didn’t listen, I squeezed my trigger. Her hand disintegrated in a spray of blood and bone.

Pamela screamed, jerking her ruined hand against her stomach. She stumbled back, catching herself on the other side of the console. She leaned over the display, breathing heavily, then she formed a fist with her left hand and hit the metal casing.

“You’re under arrest,” I said, taking another step forward. “I don’t want to kill you. Walk over here where I can see you and we’ll take care of that injury.”

“You have no authority to do anything.” Pamela made a growling sound and stepped to the left. She dropped out of view.

I sprinted forward. A hatch was closing in the floor next to the console, the area around it covered in blood.

“An escape hatch,” Yola said, entering the console behind me. “That was not what I expected. You want me to shut down the station defense systems?”

“Yes.” I didn’t have time to be angry at Pamela. She didn’t even matter, really. We had the key.

Yola tapped a command into a terminal and flipped up the safety cover on a blue button. She pressed the switch with her thumb.

A silver canister raised from the workstation in front of her, the control key inserted in its top. Yola pulled out the key, and the blue button turned yellow.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but nothing changed in the room around us.

“Ellie, what’s going on outside?”

Ellie projected her voice through the same speaker Pamela had been using. “Lockdown has been cleared on all residential areas, Sergeant Walker. I show the Port Authority lockdown lifted. Their personnel are leaving the department now. All station controls are returned to individual sectors.”

“So we can leave the station?” Haley asked.

“All civilian docks are currently occupied by Lyon troop carriers,” Ellie said. “Tactical Division appears to be trapped between the incoming Lyon forces and the Devoted personnel.”

I wanted to punch the console. “So Pamela does matter. We get her, we shut down the enemy.”

“I show an aircraft leaving the building, Sergeant Walker. Would you like me to track its flight path?”

“That’s her,” Yola said.

“Yes, Ellie. Now find us a ride out of this building.”

39

The maintenance cruiser barely fit all of us. Crowley and I took the larger front seats while the others squeezed in between two tool racks. I dropped out of the parking bay and passed the edge of the building, the dark station spreading out beneath us. It was designed to check the exterior sections of the Admin building, with articulated arms under its belly for making repairs.

“This thing’s built like a tank,” Yola said. “When you find her, just blow right through her vehicle. This thing can take it.”

“Let’s see if we can catch up, first.”

Ellie was doing her best to pick up Pamela’s aircraft using CCTV and other sensors in public areas. She updated the map in my face shield, which I had to translate to the flight control panel in our cruiser. I wanted Pamela to land already so I could set a destination.

We passed over an apartment stack and the streets were crowded with people. It looked like a fight was taking place on the edge of the crowd as Devoted personnel in a truck tried to get away from the mob. They didn’t make it fast enough, and two Devoted were dragged out of the vehicle to disappear into the crowd.

Crowley watched the attack and shook his head. “As long as no more of the Lyon bastards show up, the people of Taurus will be able to take the station back from Carmichael’s people. But what then? I don’t know what we’re going to do without the department. We’re barely alive.”

He was irritating me. “Look, Crowley. That kind of thinking is going to get you killed. You understand me? Focus on the problem in front of you. Right now you should be checking your equipment, rearranging your ammo, and getting ready for the next fight. If you’ve got all that taken care of, start thinking about how you’re going to write your reports.”

Crowley looked out the side window. “What’s the point of a report now?”

“You plan to win. You’ve got a loser’s mindset right now.”

His mindset was probably my fault for not keeping him occupied. I was supposed to be the leader here. I had Ellie start passing her location data to Crowley so he could update the flight controls as I focused on being the pilot. In a few minutes, he seemed to have gotten past the mood.

Pamela’s path took us back across the station toward the Port Authority. The sky in that direction was thick with smoke and flashes from explosions. It looked like the fighting there had only grown more intense with the lockdown lifted.

Kiren kept her face close to the side window, biting her lip. “If they damage my ship, I’m going to strangle the first Blue Suit I come across.”

Yola nodded. “Let’s hope the Afterburn is still in one piece. The whole flight line is going to be vulnerable right now.”

My ship was another thing I didn’t want to think about right now. There was nothing I could do if it did get stolen or hit by a stray ordinance.

Focus on the now.

Focus on the problem in front of me.

What was going to happen when we caught up to Pamela again? She would most likely be surrounded by her Devoted, and that was good news compared to the Lyon soldiers. The tension between her and William meant that she couldn’t count on his support. He might even be turning on her. Pamela would be looking for medical support if she couldn’t find it at the Port, and she might even be out of the fight if we were lucky.

I wasn’t going to count on that.

“Sergeant, what are those flashing icons on the display?”

Crowley pulled me out of my thoughts. I glanced down at the sensor display to find two fast-moving aircraft approaching us from behind.

“Those are most likely not our friends.”

I wasn’t going to outrun anything in this hulk of a craft, but I could take some abuse. I checked the sector below us—an area full of residential stacks, a school, and a power distribution center.

Dammit. All places I couldn’t smash up.

A second check of the display verified the other craft were definitely on a collision course with our vector. I braked and let the cruiser drop straight down. Haley and Kiren shouted in surprise.

“What the hell?” Yola barked. “I almost dropped my data pad.”

Haley grabbed an oversized wrench moments before it flew into the back of Kiren’s head.

“Hold on,” I said. “We’ve got unfriendly people coming after us.”

I boosted the thrusters and shot forward at the lower altitude. We were skimming along rooflines now. People were visible through the glowing windows. This definitely wasn’t the place for a dog fight.

“Ellie, is there any uninhabited area nearby?”

“Checking, Sergeant Walker. There is an amusement park here.” She lit an icon on the navigation panel. Less than three klicks away. We could be there in a few minutes.

“Here we go.” I banked and brought the engines to full power. Behind us, the other cruisers adjusted course. They were definitely following us.

“Any idea who that is?” I asked Ellie.

“The craft match the same profiles as those used by the Lyon group around the Admin Building,” Ellie said. “Pamela Carmichael’s employees have not shown themselves to be competent pilots. Their usage of drones would confirm this.”

“Great. Any idea how many of these aircraft Lyon is operating across the station?”

“Sensor data is unreliable,” Ellie said. “In place of an estimate, I will search for their launch locations. Most appear to be originating at the Port Authority. Lyon ships are landing multiple vehicle and weapons types on the station.”

“It’s a godsdamned invasion.”

The amusement park appeared beneath us. After warning the others this time, I dropped altitude again and shot through the middle loop of a roller coaster. Something was hanging off one of the rails, invisible in the dark, and our hulk shot right through it. Metal screeched and fell behind us.

The Lyon cruisers were maintaining their altitude now, watching us. If I couldn’t get them to engage me down in this obstacle course, I was going to be screwed when I tried to head for the port again. I brought the hulk back around on a vector toward the other aircraft.

Haley cursed. “You aren’t going to ram them, are you?”

“Not currently.”

With the nearest Lyon aircraft on visual now—it had two useful navigation lights blinking on its belly—I extended the maintenance arms from the bottom of our hulk and dropped airspeed to aid manual control. The other cruiser didn’t adjust its course, probably not thinking I’d risk coming this close, and I shot across it, raking its fuselage with the arms.

“Damn that was close,” Crowley said, grabbing the edges of his seat.

But did it work?

Behind us, the aircraft I’d scraped was falling back. I hadn’t knocked them out of the air, but they definitely weren’t flying well. The icon in the sensor display continued to indicate the craft loosing speed and then dropped beneath our altitude threshold.

The second craft banked and came around on a full burn. I couldn’t tell if they were shooting at us. All I could do was pick up our own speed as I flew across the park. I scoured the ground for something I could use to try to lure the aircraft through while the rollercoaster grew in the forward display. It had two main loops: the large one I had passed through before and a lower one toward the beginning of the ride.

If the other pilot was smart, they would just gain altitude again and then wait for me to come out in the open. They might be pissed I’d hurt their friends, though.

I kept one eye on the scanner display as we approached the roller coaster. The other aircraft slowed slightly and rose above us.

Damn. They weren’t going to take the bait.

I slowed to give myself some time to check the map. The only thing that might prove useful was the power station a klick away. It didn’t have any obstacles, but it did have a whole bunch of wires leading out to the nearby apartment stacks.

Those people were going to hate me when I killed their power.

I was halfway to the station when Ellie came up on the comms. “Sergeant Walker, I have an update from TacDiv at the Port. Sheriff Bird has been wounded. If you are clear, they are requesting our team assist them.”

My heart dropped.

“What do you mean wounded?”

“That is all the information I have. I apologize.”

The power station was the opposite direction from the Port.

“We’re turning again,” I told the others. After shifting the engines to drift for a second, I entered a command for full reverse. The hulk spun around in a complete turn that threw me against the controls. It was worse for the others in the back. Without waiting, I kicked the thrusters up to full burn.

The other aircraft shot past us as I raced for the Port. They hadn’t managed to turn by the time I cleared the amusement park. I had a general location for Pamela. That would have to do for now.

“What’s wrong with you?” Kiren said, hair flying in her face.

“Change of plans,” I said. “The Sheriff needs our help.”

40

I dropped the hulk next to a warehouse on the outer edge of the Port Authority. Apparently, Bird had set this up as her command post and then moved forward to where the Devoted were holding the entry points to the Port. All the main roads out of the docks had been closed off with drone swarms and Devoted carrying small arms and RPGs. Normally that wouldn’t have been enough to stop TacDiv from getting through at least one of the checkpoints to clear a dock. Today had been a different story. The department was understaffed and could only hit one checkpoint at a time, which created room for the Blue Suits to move in reserves and flank the deputies.

This was the kind of situation that proved deputies weren’t soldiers. Up against overwhelming numbers, the department simply didn’t have the resources to fight back.

Port Security had apparently moved on checkpoints in their area once the lockdown lifted, but they were several klicks from Tactical’s location.

Bird was back in the warehouse, sitting on the tailgate of a truck. She looked all right as I approached, until I realized the arm across her stomach was hiding a bloody bandage.

“Sergeant Walker,” she said, straightening slightly. She scowled with pain.

“Sheriff. We got the Control Key.”

“We saw that. Where’s Pamela Carmichael?”

I shook my head. “She had an escape plan. Ellie tracked her to a location near here, but then we got your message. I don’t know how much she matters now. You’ve seen the Lyon Group soldiers?”

“We were introduced. They have anger management issues.”

I told the Sheriff what we’d seen in the Admin building, including the confrontation between Pamela and the Lyon leader, William.

“His name’s William Brit,” she said. “We picked that up. They’ve got a small fleet off-station and most of the docks that used to be open tied up with troop carriers. These people have their own army.”

Bird coughed and pulled her hand away from her stomach. It was covered in blood.

The TacDiv medic spotted her and came over with a new bandage. Bird accepted the bandage but wouldn’t let him do anything else. She ignored him when he offered painkillers.

“Must have been a pretty good shot to make it through your armor,” I said.

“That bastard popped up behind a crate I’d already cleared. Hit me point blank. He didn’t live long enough to smile about it.”

One of the TacDiv team leaders named Haras came running back from the front of the truck. “Sheriff, we’ve got another wave of the Lyon soldiers coming in. We’re going to need all the help we can get.”

Bird nodded and looked at me, her mouth still a grim line. “I called you back here because I’m putting you in charge.”

“I’m not the ranking deputy here, Sheriff.”

“Until Keldon comes back, you’re our sergeant on-site. Even Haras here has less than six months. That’s where we’re at, Walker. Battlefield commission. I can stay here and help you over the comms, but I need you to move forward and direct operations at the line. Can you do it?”

Keldon would have made a joke about can versus want. I swallowed.

“I’ll do it, Sheriff. Do we have comms with the Port security?”

“Yes, but they’re still too far away to help us. Haras can share the operational plan with you.” She coughed.

Haras went back to the front of the truck to get his data pad, leaving us alone for a second. Crowley’s questions rose in my mind, making me ask myself the same questions about what was going to happen. What did the future hold if we lost?

“Sheriff, what do you want me to do if we don’t make it?”

Bird blinked as another wave of pain passed through her body. She looked past me and then her gaze rose to my face. “You take care of your people, and you take care of this station. That’s what you do, until you can’t do it anymore. You understand?”

I nodded and gave her a slight grin. “That’s what I told Crowley, more or less. He just asked me the same thing.”

“I’ve always said you aren’t as dumb as you look, Walker.”

Bird’s eyelids fluttered as she nearly lost consciousness. She came back, focused, and gripped my wrist. “We’ll get through this, Walker.”

She was out when Haras came back. He looked from the Sheriff to me and then passed me the data pad. “That’s got all the operational data on it. The others are about a klick ahead. Things were quiet, but it’s looking like it’s going to heat up again.”

“Get the medic and take Sheriff Bird back to the department.”

Haras’s eyes went wide. “Don’t you need me back here?”

“I need you to do this. When you get to the department, make sure they’re safe and they’ve got some kind of defensive plan. The lockdown lifted with no one there but the admin folks and Dispatch. They don’t have anyone looking out for them. Understood?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

I slapped him on the shoulder. “I’ll see you at Drake’s.”

The mask of worry on Haras’s face lifted for a second, like he could suddenly imagine the future. “Yes, I will.”

* * *

The crew was waiting for me at the air cruiser. Crowley had an ear cocked as he listened to Tactical’s comms net, and he frowned at the update.

“Things don’t sound good, Sergeant.”

“Sheriff Bird is getting evacuated,” I said. “Crowley and I will be going up to the line.”

“What about us?” Haley asked.

I nodded. “That’s what I wanted to talk about. We don’t have a lot of time. You can all fight, and we could use your help. But it’s not like you have armor or much weaponry. We can see what we can find when we get up there. If you’re going to get off the station, now is the time to go.”

Kiren crossed her arms, watching me. Her face was unreadable. “The docks are all taken up by Lyon ships. We couldn’t leave if we wanted to.”

“But you’d be civilians. There’s no helping us if this goes wrong.”

That seemed like the best way to say it.

Kiren shook her head. “No. I’m fighting with you. It’s not like anyone’s getting out of here if Lyon beats both the Sheriff and the Port Security.”

“I’m not leaving,” Haley said, mouth set in a firm line.

I looked at Yola. “I won’t blame you if you go.”

She glanced up from her data pad. “What? Oh, are you crazy, Walker? I’m a Ghost. I’m fighting Lyon every chance I can get.”

“All right. Well, there’s equipment over there by the truck. We need to get you some armor and heavier weapons. Grab whatever you can find.”

“Do I get to keep it?” Yola asked.

“I’m not taking any of it back.”

As the others left, Crowley gave me a nod. “You knew they wouldn’t leave.”

“Not really. But I’m glad they’re staying. I already grabbed some more grenades. You should go see if you can find some more.”

Crowley walked toward the truck where the medics were strapping Bird to a transport board. Even from this distance, I could see she was still out cold.

“Ellie, can you get me through to Sergeant Keldon?”

“As soon as possible, Sergeant Walker.”

In a few seconds, static fuzzed in my ear and Keldon answered, sounding far away. “What’s your status, Walker?”

“We shut down the Control Key. I’m at the Port now. Bird is wounded.”

There was a pause, and I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me. Gunfire cracked in the background. “Damn. Is she okay?”

“Shot in the stomach. She should be fine, but she lost a lot of blood. I told the medics to get her out.”

“Who’s in charge over there, then?”

I nodded. “That would be me.”

Keldon laughed like he’d expected the answer. “Good. You took down Carmichael, you can knock out these Lyon bastards.”

“What’s your status?”

“We’ve nearly pushed them back. Once the lockdown came up, I got some help from a local private security team. We haven’t cleared the docks yet, but we’re nearly there. They managed to get one transport on-station and dumped some big tank looking vehicles. Watch out for those.”

“I already met one.”

“One is enough. I don’t want to blow the docks, but we may have to just to keep them off the station. This is a war, Walker.”

There was an explosion in the distance, and I spotted a plume of smoke rising from the TacDiv line.

“I have to go. Keep me posted on when you pull out. We’re going to have to regroup and start clean-up once we’ve beat them out of the ports.”

“Positive thinking. I like it, Walker. Keep talking like that and you’ll have a real mustache in no time.”

I cut the link as Crowley climbed back into the co-pilot’s seat, the others just behind him. Kiren was carrying two SKGs, and Haley had a shoulder-fired rocket with a bag of stubby missiles. Yola was lugging a machine gun against her hip, a rifle slung across her back. They had all found pieces of department duty armor and helmets, so we’d have comms.

“Keldon says they almost have them pushed back at the cargo port,” I said, powering up the cruiser. “So this is the main effort. We beat them here and we win.”

“Hell, yes.” Yola rubbed the gun in her lap like a pet. “I’m getting one of those black helmets as a souvenir.”

Crowley laughed and then grew serious. “Thank you. You don’t have to do this.”

Haley smiled at him. “You can thank me personally after we’re done.”

41

The entrance into the main port was wide enough to accommodate four lanes of traffic and at least four levels tall. Usually it was backed by vehicles transporting tourists down to the casino and entertainment sections of Taurus. The sides of the transit path were covered in flashing advertisements that hid the empty warehouse districts on either side. Many of those ad boards were still flashing, despite the chewed concrete at their feet. Smoke floated back through the gate from the most recent explosion on the Lyon side of the gate.

TacDiv had blocked off the road with a line of cargo trucks, which provided cover to the deputies moving behind them. One of the trucks was lying on its side as we approached, black smoke pouring from the burning tires.

From the cruiser, I could make out the Lyon troops moving behind barricades on the other side of the gate. Drones were actively dumping off crates of what had to be ammo and supplies as ground troops gathered in teams. They didn’t appear to have any armored vehicles, which might have been the only thing keeping them from charging into the TacDiv line. We still had the weapons to cut down troops.

I dropped the cruiser behind the cargo trucks and killed the engines.

A battered deputy left the line and met us outside the cruiser. His name was Tigg, and I’d only met him once in the motor pool. He’d looked a lot more cocky back then.

“Sergeant Walker? You got here sooner than I expected. Are these the reinforcements? Are they with the department? I don’t recognize them.”

I introduced Kiren and the others as Crowley pulled ammo cans out of the cruiser.

“Deputized,” I said. “And here to help.”

He held up dirty hands. “Hey, I’m not arguing. I’ll brief you on the way back.”

According to Tigg, there were twenty deputies left on the line, down from nearly forty. They had been holding back waves of the Devoted, making gains against the enemy until Lyon arrived and the losses started piling up.

“We’ve been spending most of our time laying down covering fire while the medics get people back for transport. That gave the Lyon troops time to resupply. They seem like they’re ready to start an assault here soon. We’ve been wondering if it’s time to fall back. Then you got here. You know you’re the ranking deputy, right?”

I nodded. “So I’ve been told. Do we have anybody on the line that needs to be evacuated?”

“I don’t think so, but I haven’t been around to check in a while. I was waiting for Sheriff Bird to come back.”

Anger flared up that he hadn’t taken charge. I let that go. Nobody could have guessed what Pamela would do. We were all just reacting.

I sent Crowley along the line to check ammo, and Kiren, Haley, and Yola to an obvious empty area. Then I spent twenty minutes making the rounds, making sure to talk with every deputy. They were beat down and worried about the others that had been transported. Several were certain Bird was dead. Once I’d had some time to get a look at the situation, I could give them the bare bones of how we were going to respond to the incoming Lyon forces. Crowley’s ammo and grenades helped their spirits as well.

Barely fifteen minutes had passed when there was a wave of shouting from the other side of the gate. A group of the Devoted had lined up in front of the Lyon troops—or had been pushed out there, I hadn’t seen—and they were now running toward us across a good fifty meters of chewed up concrete and smoldering vehicles.

This was a feint. The Lyon commander was going to get us to waste ammo on the Devoted and send something bigger once we’d cut them down. I didn’t like the idea of that, but having someone worse than our previous enemy attacking us didn’t make the earlier crimes any less. The scene at the hospital was fresh in my mind.

The Devoted looked pretty determined anyway. On my signal, Crowley fired two rockets into the first line of sprinters. The explosive arced slightly and spiraled down between two rows of suits. The explosion threw debris and bodies all over the street. Those that had made it past the explosions kept running, trying to raise weapons and fire on us as they navigated the torn ground. Devoted on the other side turned to run back toward the Lyon troops.

The Lyon forces opened fire.

Soldiers in black armor stepped out as a line, rifles at their shoulders. They moved forward deliberately, forcing the Devoted who hadn’t been shot to turn and run back toward us.

“Don’t waste ammo,” I said over the TacDiv comms. “One shot, one kill. We’ll get some rockets on the soldiers.”

Tigg grabbed a second rocket launcher and fired in tandem with Crowley. Smoke and dust covered the street ahead of us, with only a few Blue Suits visible. Then the line of soldiers walked out of the cloud. Less than thirty meters away now, they kept firing.

Bullets ricocheted off the trucks around us. I held my position until my magazine ran out and dropped behind cover for a reload. The Lyon soldiers weren’t producing accurate fire, but they also weren’t dropping from our attack. They would be on us in minutes. The only thing that seemed to have any effect were the rockets.

Yola popped up in the bed of a cargo truck and opened fire with the machine gun. She started at the outer edge of the Lyon line and worked her way inward, apparently aiming at their legs. Soldiers started to drop as bullets penetrated the joints in their armor. Some were knocked back by the sheer force of the gun, which looked like it was about to drive Yola over backward. She took bullets on her chest armor and slid to the side of the bed, taking a knee. She readjusted the machine gun and kept firing until the canisters ran dry.

I ran from where I had been helping deputies along the line and climbed into the back of the truck with Yola. She was struggling to reload the gun, and as I’d expected, she was a target. Bullets ricocheted off the truck’s cab and bed around us. She was bleeding from a cut running the side of her face, probably from a piece of shrapnel or a bullet that made her the luckiest person I knew.

Crouching beside her, I fired on the oncoming soldiers. Several were sprinting now, ready to close the space to our line. One of the fastest Lyon soldiers had moved his rifle to his free hand and ran with a naked bayonet. I tracked him for a meter and shot him in the leg, then again in the arm. I’d been aiming for the bayonet hand. He went down in a heap, tripping a soldier sprinting behind him. I set the rifle down, lit a grenade, and tossed it toward the running soldiers. The grenade hit the street and bounced sideways, exploding a little too soon. Broken bits of concrete blew on both sides, but we had cover.

Ten of the Lyon soldiers reached our line.

I pulled my pistol and jumped out of the back of the truck, running for the closest fight between a black-armored soldier and a deputy. The soldier had his rifle up to butt-stroke the deputy when I shot him in the neck. I turned in time to catch another soldier with his rifle up, spraying bullets, running out of the smoke behind me.

Two impacts against my chest and arm knocked me back. I kept firing as I stumbled, hitting the soldier somewhere mid body. The bullet didn’t stop him, and he was on me in another second, trying to drive his rifle up under the edge of my helmet.

I grabbed the muzzle and rolled, pulling the rifle out of the soldier’s hands. I rose on my hands and knees and turned the weapon. He was struggling to his feet as I found the trigger and pulled.

Nothing happened. I threw the rifle away and drew my pistol, and I fired into his face shield as he charged me. The first bullet glanced off, but the second dropped him.

There was fighting all around me. I took down two more Lyon soldiers with my pistol. When I ran out of rounds, I grabbed a rifle from a fallen deputy and smashed another soldier’s helmet from the side, breaking his neck.

Eventually I couldn’t find any more black uniforms on their feet. Down the line of trucks, the deputies on their feet were struggling to catch their breath and pick up dropped weapons.

“Reload,” I said hoarsely over the tacnet. “Get your heads on straight. This isn’t over.”

I’d lost count of the soldiers approaching through the smoke once the hand-to-hand started. Did they have anyone left to send after the second wave?

If not, we needed to advance and take the gate. This would be the foothold into the port once Keldon got back from the secondary docks.

My face shield had cracked at some point, splintering the lower edge of my HUD.

I didn’t realize Ellie was trying to get my attention until I heard Yola shouting my name from outside the helmet. I turned and looked up at her where she was still standing in the truck bed. She pointed through the gate.

Turning to see what she was pointing at, I finally heard Ellie’s voice, faint in my damaged speakers: “Sergeant Walker, Lyon has deployed a tank.”

42

Out of the smoke from behind the scattered Lyon soldiers rolled the blunt nose of a black-armored tank. The dark mouths of cannons appeared on either side of the beast.

I slapped my helmet, barely hearing the impact. I’d lost my hearing at some point. I turned and spotted Kiren and Haley at the far end of the line. Both were carrying shoulder mounted rockets.

“Everyone get to cover,” I said, barely hearing my own voice, unable to tell if there was other traffic on the comms net. “Get around that thing. Keep moving. Anybody that can move, move now.”

I felt the vibration in the street now as the first cargo truck neared. Yola had jumped back down to the street and was running with the machine gun across her shoulder.

The tank’s side cannons dropped slightly and opened fire on the cargo truck. Metal slag flew everywhere as the cannons cut the truck in half.

Four black-armored soldiers appeared out of the smoke behind the tank, carrying combat rifles. They must not have seen us or didn’t think we were going to put up much of a fight, because they all seemed to be watching the tank as it pushed the wrecked truck out of its way.

I reached Kiren and tore off my helmet. The air on my face was hot and smelled like burned plastic, but at least I could hear.

“What are we going to do?” I’d never seen her look so terrified.

“Draw them this way.” I raised my rifle and fired on the trailing soldiers. I hit one in the back and he stumbled. That caught the others’ attention, and they turned to start shooting at us. The tank paused just past our broken line.

“What are you doing?” Kiren had her rifle up, returning fire.

“I’m going to get to the cruiser,” I said.

“And do what? That thing doesn’t have any weapons.”

“It’s the biggest bullet we’ve got.”

I ran back into the road, keeping behind the trucks. If there were any Lyon soldiers still coming from their side of the gate, I’d be an easy target. This tank looked like their only play, though. Otherwise there would be more. I didn’t have time to ask Ellie for more information about her earlier report.

“Walker!” Crowley shouted from behind a truck. He stood and fired on the Lyon soldiers, drawing them away from Kiren and Haley. Other deputies were moving on either side of him, establishing a new line now that it looked like we could do something against the tank.

As I came around, I realized the tank was more of an armored transport, with a door in the back designed to drop and let out troops. The cannons on either side couldn’t rotate behind it. A turret on top was turning to track my movement. I hadn’t seen it before.

“Look out,” I shouted, pointing at the turret with my rifle.

Crowley spotted the gun just as it opened up and tore through the middle of the truck next to him. A deputy who had been standing there was cut in half.

“Move!” Firing on the tank with my rifle was just wasting ammo. I shot at the nearest Lyon soldier and sprinted to the end of the line of trucks. From there, I was in wide open territory until I reached the cruiser.

“Cover me,” I shouted at Crowley.

I didn’t have time to see if he realized what I was doing. From somewhere behind me, I heard Yola’s machine gun wind back to life, rounds bouncing off the body of the tank.

The cruiser became the center of my vision, and I ran as hard as I ever had in my life. The battle continued around me. Something exploded to my left, nearly knocking me off my feet. I stumbled and kept running, and then I was sliding around the nose of the aircraft. I dropped my rifle as I climbed through the open pilot’s hatch, and I ran my shaking hands over the startup sequence.

The engines came alive as rounds from the tank’s cannon cut through the storage area in the middle of the cruiser. Parts shattered and sprayed bits of metal against the back of my seat.

I pulled back on the flight control and the cruiser shot upward. I rolled slightly as more rounds hit the arm assembly hanging under the cruiser’s belly, though it didn’t appear too damaged. The craft righted itself, and I ran a quick check of the systems. All necessary systems were green.

Flying over the gate, I got a look at the Lyon line. Only a few soldiers were visible, and the street back to the docks was empty. The tank had to be all they had at the moment.

I came back around and slowed as I approached the tank, considering my options. My first thought had been to fly the cruiser into the tank and jump out at the last minute, but that seemed like a bad idea now that I was reminded how fast I was moving. I didn’t have a lot of time to overthink a plan. What did I have?

The hulk wasn’t armed in a conventional sense, but I did have the grabbing assembly hanging from the belly of the craft.

I switched control systems, grabbed the control for the robotic arm with my right hand, and activated its control mechanism. The cruiser switched over to an auto mode that adjusted to assist the arm. This meant I could designate one of the trucks as a target, drop to grab its bed, and gain elevation again with a relatively simple maneuver.

In ten seconds, I’d dropped half a truck on the two soldiers taking cover in front of the tank.

The tank rotated in place, trying to target me before I could pick up the other half of the cargo truck. The hulk was actually pretty fun to fly. I dropped in a quick motion and reapplied thrust as I clamped down on the roof of the truck’s cab, then I was airborne again. I gained more altitude and dropped the front end before the tank had time to move.

With the tank caught up in the same truck it had torn in two, I had more time to drop two full-sized cargo carriers on top of it.

I hovered above the tank for a minute, watching as Kiren and the others started moving the wounded away from the line. Tigg jumped into a truck and got it started, and they were able to use that to move the wounded.

I reached for the comms panel, but it took me a minute to figure out how to patch Ellie from my armor’s communication system.

“Sergeant Walker,” she said finally. “I am pleased you are still alive.”

All I could do was laugh. “Thank you, Ellie. That’s awfully kind of you.”

“Did you receive my earlier message?”

“About the tanks? Yeah, you see what I did to it down there?”

The personnel on the ground were out of the way now. The tank looked like it was still trying to move. One of the shattered truck batteries was starting to burn, taking a tire with it. As I watched, a soldier managed to climb out from the side of the tank and reach the ground. Kiren shot him before he could run.

She waved to me from the ground and then jumped into the truck bed with the wounded. Maybe we were going to be alright, after all.

“That is not the armored vehicle I was referring to, Sergeant Walker.”

Below me, a blur shot through the gate and stopped. It looked like a large drone that was airborne at first, skimming along the ground. When it stopped, it rested on two back-bent legs. The egg-shaped body bristled with cannons and couldn’t have held any more than two soldiers, if it was crewed at all. Three more blurs appeared behind it, and then a full team of six stood in the street behind the burning tank, arranged in a wing shape.

Before I could pull my hand away from the comms control, three of them targeted me. The air cruiser jerked upward, metal creaking and breaking around me as warning alarms wailed. The aircraft rolled until I was hanging upside down, and then the engines lost power and I fell.

43

My ride was on fire. Smoke filled the crew compartment as failure alarms continued to squawk all around me. I was lying on my side, my legs crushed against the bulkhead where the cruiser’s nose had crumpled in the crash. I didn’t seem to be bleeding.

I forced myself to stop struggling and take stock of the situation.

I forced a hand up beside my head and tapped my earpiece. “Ellie, are you there?”

“You are still alive, Sergeant Walker. That is good news. Very good.”

“Not for much longer if I don’t get out of this smoke.”

“I have lost my connection with your vital statistics. There appear to be multiple malfunctions in your armor. I am attempting to reroute. Oh, Sergeant Walker. I am detecting large vibrations nearby. These indicate—”

I lost the last part of what she said as something hit the cruiser and sent it rolling. In the shattered glass of the side windows, I watched sky replace ground several times, until I came to a stop in a sitting position.

“Well, thank you, Lyon bastard.” I pulled at my harness and found the buckles crushed. I had to dig a knife out of a side pocket and cut the webbing.

When the vibrations of massive feet approached the cruiser, I heard it this time. I turned to work the emergency hatch and yanked the release lever upward. There was a hissing sound and then the hatch exploded away from me. It landed on the street several meters away. In the distance, I spotted the squad of mobile armored units. A larger unit at the front of the line had lowered its crew unit close to the ground, and a man in heavy gray armor was walking toward me. I recognized William Brit’s blade nose even at this distance.

Cutting the remaining straps holding me in the pilot’s seat, I pulled myself out of the wreckage and stood in the street taking stock. My legs ached but seemed unharmed. There was stabbing pain in my left shoulder that I could live with. And my pistol was still in its holster.

Brit was about fifteen meters away when he stopped. We were easily within range of his squadron. I stretched my neck and looked around, but I didn’t see anyone from the department except the dead still lying near the old battle line. The Lyon tank was still piled with crushed trucks and containers. It looked abandoned now.

The others had escaped. That was good news. That was something to feel accomplished about.

“Throw that pistol on the ground and you might live,” Brit said.

“Are you authorized to make that promise?”

“I’m the commander here. My name is William Brit. I see you’re wearing a Sheriff’s uniform. Is that why you smashed my transport?”

“That’s right.”

Slowly, I moved my hand to my pistol and loosened it in its holster. If I tossed down the duty pistol, my only remaining weapons would be the second pistol sitting against my stomach inside my patrol armor and the knife I’d used to cut myself out of the harness. I hadn’t fired the backup pistol in a while, and there was no guarantee it hadn’t been damaged in the crash. Still, I was thoroughly outgunned with a lot of open space between myself and cover. Brit had a bored look about him, like he wouldn’t go out of his way to dirty up his uniform.

I pulled the duty pistol free and tossed it on the pavement between us.

“Good. So you’re a reasonable man. I want to talk to your sheriff. You people need to stand down and let us finish what we came here to do.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“My people tell me you were chasing Pamela Carmichael. She’s not in charge of anything, but she works for us and is under our protection. Working for Lyon has its price and its benefits. Taurus Station belongs to Lyon now. I’m here to make sure the station is secure for its new owners.”

I nodded, working my jaw. “A whole lot of people call Taurus home. They don’t like the idea of being owned.”

“It’s always been that way.” He shrugged. “The Carmichael family didn’t maintain as tight a ship as they should have. That’s going to change. Taurus isn’t special.”

I glanced past him where one of his troops had just jumped out of their mech to check one of its legs. They weren’t paying attention.

Brit looked bored but also vain. His uniform was impeccably clean, his hair neatly combed.

“So let me make sure I’ve got this right. You’re just the bitch boy making sure Pamela Carmichael stays in line.”

He blinked and moved closer. “What did you just say?”

I shrugged. “If Taurus isn’t special, then that means you’re just the errand boy more important people sent down here, right? Why you? What did you screw up somewhere else?”

Brit’s hand reached for the holster at his hip, and he drew a pistol with a laser sight. I didn’t have to look down to know there was a red dot dancing across my chest. He continued walking forward until we were only a meter apart.

“You worried about your aim?” I asked, staring down at the muzzle in front of me. Behind him, a couple soldiers sitting in their mech’s upper hatches were watching their leader. None of them had weapons ready.

“You’ve got a big damn mouth for a dead man. I told you I want to talk to the Sheriff.”

“I’m asking why she should bother talking to you.”

His finger rubbed at the pistol’s trigger guard. He hadn’t touched the trigger yet.

I spread my hands and hooked my thumbs in the edges of my chest plate. The backup pistol was centimeters from my right hand, but I’d have to reach in and pull it out, an action that would cost me time.

There was a rumbling in the distance, and Brit turned his head to look back through the gate. I moved my hand down and wrapped my fingers around the short butt of the pistol.

Brit looked back, grinning at me. “What kind of errand boy brings this kind of firepower to your stupid little station? I’m going to crush your populace into submission. Those who can’t work are going to take a one way trip to the void. You’ve got kids in this place, right?”

“That’s right,” I said.

He shook his head. “That was a poor choice.”

Behind him, a line of even larger tanks appeared, flanked by more of the bipedal patrol vehicles. Foot soldiers walked alongside the armored vehicles, carrying combat rifles and grenade launchers. This was no police force. It was an occupying army.

I squeezed the butt of my backup pistol, finger on the trigger. He didn’t seem to have noticed the hand inside my armor. He was too busy smiling at the firepower behind him.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll get the sheriff. I’ve got a comms link here.”

“I’m not getting any closer to you.” He motioned with the pistol. “You’re coming with me. You’re going to ride in my vehicle. How long have you lived here?”

I had the pistol half out of its soft holster when a high-pitched whining rose in the distance. I immediately recognized the sound as a Devoted drone swarm, only this one was louder than any I’d heard before, even at the Admin building. Relaxing my hand slightly, I peered into the distance behind the new line of tanks in the street, where the sky was darkening. At first it looked like smoke, until the haze started to grow denser. I could see that it was composed of moving black dots against the gray sky.

“What the hell is that?” Brit demanded. He turned away from me to watch the sky through the port gate.

I drew the pistol and pointed at his head.

Behind me came the hiss of a rocket propelled grenade. I spun to find the source and spotted a deputy on the upper edge of one of the giant ads on the side of the road. It was Crowley, crouching behind a giant flashing credit sign promising big casino winnings. The grenade was leaving a corkscrew vapor trail as it shot toward William Brit’s position.

I faced Crowley’s casino ad and ran like hell.

The street exploded behind me. I glanced over my shoulder to see Brit sliding on the broken concrete, blood smearing the front of his gray uniform.

Unfortunately, the grenade had left a line of smoke pointing right to Crowley’s position. Two of the drivers in the bipedal tanks dropped inside their vehicles and powered them up, then they turned in place to decimate the flashing ad with cannon fire.

I hope you ran, Crowley, I thought.

With the rounds howling above my head, I cut right to run straight down the street and threw myself left between two billboards just as the street where I’d been turned into a maelstrom of burning concrete.

“Walker, over here.” Crowley caught me by the arm when I got up and pulled me into a sprint alongside him. Just ahead of us sat a police cruiser in dark mode. Kiren sat in the pilot’s seat.

Two billboards behind us exploded, sending plastic and metal shards in all directions. A sharp pain pierced the back of my calf, and I stumbled. I caught myself and pushed through the pain, then I kept running.

Crowley threw himself into the rear seat, and I stepped up into the co-pilot’s seat as Kiren lifted the cruiser just a meter off the ground and pointed the nose away from the port gate. I had time to pull my hatch closed, and then our surroundings blurred as she accelerated, staying hidden behind the line of billboards.

Haley was in the back seat as well. She pulled Crowley into a hug and planted a wet kiss on his cheek.

“You did it! I knew you could do it.”

He grinned. “I did, didn’t I?”

I looked down to find my lower leg leaking blood onto the floorboards. Kiren glanced at my bloody hand and her eyes went wide.

“It’s my leg,” I said, leaning back in the seat. “Just a scratch. Billboard shrapnel.”

“Do you need a medic?”

“No, a bandage will do it.” I looked out at the flight line where ships sat in the dark. What were we going to do against this kind of invading force? I needed to get hold of Keldon and tell him to go to ground. To find some place to conserve our strength. We needed to clear out the station. Get every weapon we could. Nowhere was going to be safe.

Why did that bastard have to ask about kids?

My thoughts raced for a solution, for what we had available to help.

“Did Yola go back to the Afterburn?” I said. The pain in my leg was already making me slur my words. Maybe I was losing blood faster than I thought.

Kiren shook her head. “She’s with the medics getting the wounded back to Priva hospital. They had to move the sheriff.”

I let my head fall back against the headrest. The edges of my vision were blurring.

“We need to get her,” I managed to say. “Then get to the Afterburn.”

“Gage, we can’t fight these people on our own.”

“We’re calling for help.”

Sleep came over me like someone pulling a sack over my head. The world went heavy and dark, and then I was out.

44

The Afterburn’s command deck could barely fit everyone squeezed inside. I sat stiffly in the captain’s seat with my leg out straight in front of me, stripped of armor and wrapped in a bandage up to my knee.

Yola stared at the comms terminal, entering strings of commands.

“Sergeant Walker,” Ellie asked. “Sergeant Keldon reports that he has cleared the secondary dock area. He will send an updated location as soon as possible.”

Keldon wasn’t wasting any time. Or maybe I had been out longer than I thought. I checked the time and saw that barely two hours had passed since Crowley planted the RPG in Brit’s rear end. Unfortunately, the Lyon leader didn’t appear to be dead. He had been spotted at the head of his tank squadron driving down the middle of the Casino Promenade, fighting bands of private security that had come out after the lockdown was lifted.

No one had seen Pamela Carmichael.

Captain Kaffrey and Stam Jones had reactivated the department’s external security systems. The only problem was that Kaffrey had blown a hole in the blast doors covering the main entrance, so that area was now covered with a stack of cargo trucks that probably wouldn’t hold up to the Lyon tanks. Or the department might look abandoned.

As I waited for Yola, I watched CCTV feeds Ellie was picking up from all across Taurus. The sight was grim. While the Devoted were lower in the pecking order than Brit’s black-clad troopers, they had no discipline and were trashing any area not directly under Lyon control. Maybe word had got out that Brit was holding Pamela and they were trying to ruin the Lyon spoils. In any case, civilians were caught in the middle, and gangs formed from apartment complexes, as well as actual criminal gangs, were engaging the Lyon armored forces and withdrawing as soon as they came under heavy fire. The guerilla warfare slowed the tanks, but when Brit got angry enough, they just leveled any buildings housing snipers. Three casinos had come down so far, smashed by tank cannons.

Every docking station in the main port was filled by a Lyon ship, I suspected there were other people hiding out in the spacecraft parked on the flight line, but currently no one could leave. I didn’t have an update on the status of the secondary docks once Keldon had pulled out. I didn’t expect those docks to be clear for long. Lyon had more ships in their fleet, and they would be moving them in soon to drop off more troops, and to start loading up the spoils of their occupation.

“How much longer?” I asked.

“You sound cranky,” Yola said, not looking up from her work. “Do you need some meds? I think he needs some painkillers.”

“Do you?” Kiren asked, shooting me a concerned look.

I shook my head, growling at the pain in my leg. Kiren’s hasty stitching pulled and bit like claws digging into my skin every time I moved. If I didn’t move, I started getting dizzy and feeling like I was going to pass out again. I couldn’t do that.

Haley sat at the ops station with Crowley. He looked overwhelmed but not entirely displeased with the interaction.

“We can shoot you up with some good stuff if you need it, Gage,” she said. “Just say the word. You don’t have to be a big tough guy.”

“I’m good.” I bit down another stab of pain in my calf and adjusted my sitting position, keeping my focus on the shifting images on the display. “My pain has nothing to do with how long you’re taking. Are you going to be able to make the connection or not?”

“It’s just a matter of cracking the encryption on their tactical channels,” Yola said. “There are multiple ways to do that, and that’s what I’m doing. The more you distract me, the longer it’s going to take.”

She had barely finished chastising me when she hooted with joy.

I sat up and immediately regretted it. “You got in?”

In the loudspeaker over my head, a sleepy voice asked, “Who the bloody hell is waking me up? I told you bastards to leave me alone.”

Fratley sounded hungover, or probably still drunk.

“It’s Walker,” I said.

“It was a lady’s voice before. A very sensual sounding lady penetrating my dreams. I don’t think that was you, Walker.”

“That was me,” Yola said, looking proud. “Fooled you, didn’t I?”

“Is that Yola Deris? I’d take you in a pinch, love. Don’t sell yourself short.”

“Look,” I said. “We need help. Lyon has the port locked down with troop carriers and they’ve occupied the station with tanks and troops. Taurus is headed for a real bad future.”

There was a rustling that sounded like Fratley was sitting up in bed. “You’re asking for my help?”

“Not just for me,” I said. “For all of Taurus.”

“What happened to me being a petty criminal with a drug problem?” An angry edge hardened Fratley voice. “You remember those words, Walker? I do. Now you want something and we’re pals again. Is that it?”

Pain in my leg flared and I almost yelled out. Instead I bit down and gripped the arms of my seat. “We need your help. We need the ships you’ve got in the system to take out their fleet and block their re-supply. And if you’ve got people you can land on the station, we can use all the guns we can get.”

There was another pause that threatened a hang-up until Fratley’s hoarse voice filled the speaker. “What’s in it for me, Walker?”

I shook the spins away from my head. “I’m not the person to negotiate anything. I need your help. Will you come?”

“You’re going to serve me, Walker. For five years you’re going to serve me as my personal bodyguard. That’s my price.”

Kiren’s mouth turned down. “He can’t be serious. That’s slavery.”

I scowled at the speaker. “I thought you weren’t a fan of running slaves. That’s what you said back on Rivas.”

“This isn’t slavery. This is indentured servitude. A regular business agreement. I’ll just happen to enjoy this one a whole lot more. And maybe you’ll learn something about being a Renegade in the bargain. What do you say, Walker? If Lyon is tied up like you say, that means I can fight my way past their sentries on the Slip Point. That’s all I was waiting for.”

Kiren shook her head. “This is a bad deal. You don’t have to do this.”

My head throbbed. “Whatever it takes, Fratley. I agree.”

“Not so fast,” he chided. “Say: Fratley Oxonos, I agree to serve you for a period of five years.”

“Sergeant,” Crowley said. “You can’t do this.”

Part of me didn’t think I’d live to fulfill any oath to Fratley. It was meaningless. And if serving his ego got the people of Taurus the help they needed, then I’d do whatever it took.

“How many ships do you have now?” I asked.

“Fifty fighting vessels in my little fleet,” Fratley said. “Each with an average crew size of fifteen. Kallaver would have been on his knees begging me for mercy if he was still alive. I’ve got his people and more.”

“That’s almost as many ships as Lyon,” Yola said. “If his all have offensive capabilities—”

“They do,” Kiren said. “It’s all he’ll take. He was making crews fight each other for a place in the fleet.”

“When did he turn into a sociopath?” Haley asked.

“Money,” Kiren said bitterly. “He got rich. Like my father.”

“I agree to serve you,” I said, cutting them off.

“No,” Kiren said.

Fratley chuckled. “Say the words, Walker.”

I grunted at another wave of pain.

“Fratley Oxonos, I agree to serve you for a period of five years.”

The Renegade laughed and clapped his hands, sounding more awake and sober. “That’s what I’m talking about, Walker. We’re in for some good times, you and me. Yola, darling, I’ll be sending you the link for my tactical net. Accept the invite like a good hacker and keep Deputy Walker apprised of my progress out here.”

“He’s Sergeant Walker now,” Yola said, voice flat.

“Even better!”

45

A view of the Taurus docks filled one holo screen. Everything was eerily quiet, the station’s normal orbiting traffic reduced to almost nothing. The only spacecraft in close orbit of the station were Lyon ships defending the transports that had docked.

An explosion flared in the display as one of the Lyon frigates flashed and disappeared. Four icons appeared on an attack vector for Lyon craft.

“He’s got cloaks?” Yola said, mouth falling open. “How’d he get so many?”

Kiren stood and walked closer to the floating display. “He’s spending his money.”

Two more Lyon ships went down. As the mayhem progressed, three docked ships separated from the station and moved to help the others under attack.

“Looks like we’ve got an exit point,” I said.

Crowley gave me a startled look. “We’re going out there?”

“Yes, we are.” I ignored the pain in my leg as I pulled up the ops panel on my seat. “What am I doing? I don’t need to clear anything with the port. Kiren, light the engines. Yola, get us exit access.”

The hacker grinned. “Gladly.”

The deck vibrated as the engines came online. Status bars went yellow and then green across my display. The satisfaction of watching the Afterburn come to full fighting power wasn’t something I’d been able to experience much. The pain in my leg practically disappeared.

“Buckle in,” Kiren said.

Crowley slid away from Haley and sat in one of the free seats.

“That’s a weapons control panel,” I told him. “You know how to aim and shoot?’

“I had a bit of training in the Academy. It was all simulators, though. They added the section after your fight at the Ice Factory.”

“Don’t waste my torpedoes. They’re expensive.”

We experienced a few seconds of weightlessness as the ship left Taurus and took on our own power. Engine acceleration kicked in, reasserting gravity, and I shifted my targeting display to start choosing targets.

“Yola, talk to me?”

“They aren’t doing anything with the docked transports right now. We seem to be in a good position to take them out.”

“That’s an excellent idea. Crowley, start popping those ships. Try not to damage the docks if you can help it.”

There probably wasn’t much we could do about explosive decompression at each docking point, but that would be easier to repair than a massive hole in the port. Crowley nodded and wiped his forehead, which was already covered in sweat. Haley moved closer to him and helped him set target priority on his display. With her help, all he had to do was push the firing control.

The overhead speaker crackled, and Fratley’s voice spilled out. “Is that you, Walker? You come to join the party?”

“We’re taking out the docked ships. You keep the defenders off our backs, and we’ll clear you some landing locations.”

“I’ve already sent people around to the cargo docks. You think this is all I’ve got? These are just my hungriest fighters. The rest will be landing within the hour so they can get in the fight.”

This could be a mess if the forces already fighting on Taurus didn’t know who Fratley’s people were.

“Are they wearing some kind of uniform? This could be a mess of friendly fire.”

“You’ll know who my people are, Walker. Don’t worry. They’ll be the berserkers cutting off Lyon helmets and stringing them up by their guts.”

I cut the connection. “Ellie, send that info to Keldon and Captain Kaffrey. Let them know we’ve got friendly forces landing at the cargo docks. There’s no telling what they’re going to do from there.”

“I am sharing Fratley Oxonos’s last transmission with leadership, Sergeant Walker.”

That might get me some questions, but I’d deal with them when they came.

Crowley fired on the nearest Lyon transport ship. Its hull ruptured and burst outward, spraying atmosphere. The rest of the ship disintegrated as the dock’s emergency systems cut it off from the station.

“Good shooting,” Haley shouted, slapping his shoulder. “You don’t need any help.”

“Keep it up,” I said, checking Fratley’s progress on the fighters. So far, none of the Lyon vessels had changed course to engage us.

We made two sweeps of the docks and hit four of their transports. Debris blew out from the station and collided with other Lyon ships that appeared to have been parked in a close orbit.

“We’ve got some fans,” Kiren said.

Two of the Lyon fighters had broken off from the engagement with Fratley’s ships to approach us on a hostile vector. We weren’t going to outrun them if we kept up the attacks on the docked ships.

“You’ve got new targets, Crowley. Look fast.”

The new ships were trying to come around between us and the station so they didn’t do any more damage to their own transports. I took us closer to Taurus, and I fired on the docked ships while Crowley took on the fast movers.

“Can I use the quad cannon?” he asked.

“Go to town. They’re getting a little too close.”

The nearest Lyon fighter released two missiles. They were close enough to lock on us immediately.

I rolled through a series of evasive maneuvers, nearly skimming one of the docked ships. As I’d hoped, the missile lost its lock on us and fixed on the more massive transport. Another ship exploded behind us as I followed the curve of the station. I dumped a load of chaff as I shot through a cloud of debris from an earlier explosion. The hull took a beating as the missile disintegrated in the spinning junk.

“Yes!” Haley cheered, raising her hands. She grabbed Crowley and kissed him on the cheek.

“No clapping yet,” I said. “Time for another run.”

There were three transports left. All the Lyon fighters seemed to have figured out they were losing the war as long as we killed their docked ships. They broke off with Fratley, and a hoard of hostile icons converged on our flight path.

Fratley’s hoarse laughter filled the speaker. “You’re making friends, Walker. Don’t get yourself killed before you can serve your time. I’d be very disappointed.”

“I don’t plan on it.” I kept close to the docks. We were going to finish this strafing run.

Crowley hit the nearest transport, blowing its engine section into debris. The next target was another two minutes away.

“We’ve got more missiles inbound,” Yola said.

I’d been so focused on the targeting display that I had missed the sensors. There were four missiles on their way now. Checking the nearby space, I saw there weren’t any more debris clouds to use as chaff. We might survive one direct hit from a missile. Four would turn the Afterburn into a flaming cloud of debris.

The transport was growing closer.

“Crowley, aim for the dock.”

He looked back at me. “What? I thought you didn’t want them damaged?”

“The safety systems will kick in but not before the airlock explodes into local space. We’re going to need that debris as cover. I want you to fire as soon as we’re passing that transport.”

Nodding, Crowley focused on his weapons control. I watched our icon moving closer to Taurus, the dock ID flashing as we were aligned and then passing the other ship.

“Firing!” Crowley called. Two torpedoes lit beneath us and shot toward the docked ship. They hit the airlock this time, blowing out a large section of the Taurus dock.

I gripped my armrests, watching the four missiles on our tail pass through the new debris field.

Two blinked out, but another two were quick to take their place.

I brought the ship around on a vector taking us away from the station. We probably couldn’t outrun the missiles, but I could at least get into some friendlier territory.

The engines went to full burn, slamming us against our seats.

I opened another line to the Renegade. “Fratley, need a little help with these missiles on our tail.”

He chuckled, his voice sounding too close to my compressed ears. “Bring ’em to me, Walker. I’ll make sure you live to fulfill your deal.”

G-forces made my vision blur. I barely made out our location relative to the station while moving through the line of Fratley’s fighters. Within seconds, the icons blinked out in my display. The missiles were dead.

I slowed the engines, and the weight lifted from my chest. Yola sucked a deep breath at her console.

“Every time I fly with you, I remember why I hate space travel.”

I glanced at Kiren. She was staring at the speaker with a scowl.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

Her eyes met mine. “We need to deal with Fratley. You know that, right?”

“I do. I don’t know what’s gotten into him, but something has to give.”

Kiren didn’t respond, but the look on her face mirrored what I thought—that wasn’t likely.

46

“Walker!” Fratley shouted.

The Renegade appeared from the arch of a wide cargo airlock, flanked by heavies from his new crew. They were dressed in ragged armor and carrying a mix of weapons, burglary tools, and hacking gadgets. They looked hungry but unwilling to pass their leader.

We stood in the middle of a wide street where the cargo docks emptied into transit lanes for drones to carry shipments down to the staging and warehousing areas. Forklifts, cranes, and flat-bed trucks were parked where they had been left by escaping civilians. There were still stacks of crates left by Lyon before Keldon’s team pushed them out. The air smelled of smoke and ruination

“What did we have to promise this guy?” Keldon asked.

“I’ll tell you when we’re done.” My leg itched from the ready-cast wrapped beneath my knee.

“Sergeant Walker,” Ellie said. “I have located Pamela Carmichael on CCTV.”

“Where’s she hiding out?”

“She is no longer hiding. She is with the Lyon leader and their forces on the promenade.”

Lyon was currently in a holding position as they gathered their forces from across the station. They appeared to be getting more resistance than they had planned. If I was Brit, I would have pulled all my people into a defensible position to mount attacks. Since we’d denied him the use of his transports at the main docks, the middle of the station was probably the best place now. His people kept attacking buildings, so he’d be camping on a pile of broken concrete before long.

“I’m glad to see you’re still in one piece,” Fratley said. More crew members walked out of the airlock. There were others appearing from cargo docks down the street as well, carrying crew-served weapons.

“So far,” I said.

“Where’s Kiren? I miss her lovely face.”

“I’m here.” Kiren walked out from behind a forklift where she had been cleaning a machine gun with Haley. “This isn’t just some job, Fratley. You should be here because you want to help Taurus, not because you think it’s going to give you an opportunity.”

Fratley tipped back his bowler hat and smiled. “Why not both, love? Haven’t you been paying attention to anything I’ve been teaching you? When opportunity lands at your feet, you pick it up and run with it.”

He sniffed and rubbed his nose.

“How many fighters do you have?” I asked, tired of this already. Trading insults wasn’t going to win this war.

“There are already some hundred or so at work out in the streets,” Fratley said. “They landed about three hours ago, after you cleared these docks for us. It was nice of you to leave them open, Sergeant Keldon.”

“We had more pressing matters,” Keldon said, still looking angry about having to abandon the cargo docks. “Lyon could have landed here if they’d realized what was happening.”

Fratley nodded. “So those crews are out causing trouble for the Lyon troops. From what they’ve reported back to me, Lyon has some big guns but they’re top heavy. They rely too much on that Brit and don’t think for themselves. There’s also infighting between them and the idiots in the Devoteds.”

“They call themselves Devoted,” I said.

“Devoted to blowing their heads off. That’s about all they’re good for.” Fratley squinted at Keldon. “Is it true the current owner of Taurus Station disbanded your police force?”

“Sheriff’s Deputies,” Keldon corrected. “She did. That doesn’t mean we’re just going to stop protecting the people of Taurus.”

“Right. But you’ve already lost most of your force to private security forces, quitting, and now battles with the Devoted and Lyon Group. So how many of you are actually left? There used to be some 300 of you when I first met Nagel.”

Keldon’s lip twitched. For a second, I thought he was going to hit the Renegade.

“We don’t know,” I said. “We’re trying to get our people collected, but we’re scattered. There’s been fighting in the streets. Some of them went home to help their families and some ended up leading guerilla groups.”

“What you’re saying,” Fratley said, sniffing again. “Is that I’m your only hope. Me and my crew.”

Squeezing his hands into fists, Keldon faced the Renegade. “Are you trying to get us to beg? Is that what you want? You’re here. That means you’re going to fight. Taurus isn’t some bandit hideout for you to take over. There are families here. Businesses. People have built something.”

Fratley raised his hands. “Be calm, Sergeant. I’m just trying to get a sense of the problem. My assistance is already paid for. Full measure. Your Sergeant Walker there took care of it for you. Now, we should put our heads together and make a plan, then execute. Time is money, as they say.”

Kiren laughed derisively. “How magnanimous of you.”

* * *

The conference room belonged to a shipping company that evacuated, leaving their offices scattered with equipment and data pads. Yola hacked their network, and now the holodisplay in the middle of the table projected the central sectors of Taurus. The promenade ran from the edge of the Port Authority down through the tourist areas, where casinos and restaurants lined the wide avenue, through retail malls and then the financial district.

Ellie had been tracking Lyon and Devoted movements via the public security systems, and now their locations and strength indicators dotted the map. Brit had been moving his troops down the Promenade and expanding from there along multiple side streets. His forces were concentrated in the center of the station, with outposts reaching out to the edges, where housing sectors and infrastructure made it harder for him to control movement. That was where the residents were attacking, and it looked like the commander was caught as he decided where to commit his forces.

We didn’t have enough personnel or heavy weapons to take on the armor defending his base on the Promenade, and if we joined the smaller units harassing his outposts, we’d have the same problem of being spread too thin.

Fratley wasn’t interested in a protracted battle. He wanted to hit Lyon and break their will as quickly as possible. While the Renegade made it sound like his own patience was the deciding factor, average members of his new crew obviously weren’t ready for an extended fight. They wanted spoils of battle, which was another problem we’d need to tackle when the time came.

The Renegade pointed at the middle of the map, where a line of tanks controlled the main intersection crossing the Promenade. Four casinos made up the corners of the intersection. The place was usually jammed with tourists and party buses. Now armored vehicles filled the square.

“I say we hit the heart of his line with everything we’ve got,” Fratley said, sounding a bit more like himself. “We take out the main battle tanks and then flank from this side over here. While they’re tied up thinking we’re coming up the middle, we hit them from the side and wreck their rear area. Steal their weapons and ammo. Stab them in the back.”

I studied the map. I liked the idea of the flanking maneuver into the Lyon rear area. There were plenty of buildings we could use to cover an attacking force. We’d need time to get the overwatch in place, and the coordination with the diversion would be tough. Communication among Fratley’s people was sporadic at best.

“What are we going to use to take down those tanks,” Keldon said. “We’ve got anti-personnel grenades, RPGs, and crew-served machine guns. Those aren’t going to stop their tanks on legs.”

Fratley sniffed and grinned at the question. “I knew you would ask that. I’ve got a quad cannon that my people are mounting on one of those cargo drones right now. We’ll open them up with a steady ballistic attack. Our Yola also has two truck’s worth of attack drones. Those should keep them busy while the main effort makes their move.”

It seemed a foregone conclusion that I was leading the flanking attack. I was good with that. Fratley could sit back and take on those tanks. I wanted to face Brit again. With Ellie, Keldon and I also had the best situational awareness and communications.

Captain Kaffrey was sitting on the roof of Priva Hospital, ready to pass coordination to the residential groups that included deputies and their families. While I didn’t expect any major victories from a group that were so lightly armed and untrained, they could slow down any Lyon forces Brit tried to call back to save him.

We spent another thirty minutes debating the best way to make the operation work. Brit would expect a feint. Fratley would have to come at the armored units like he expected to break through. And if he did break through, we needed to make sure our comms were working well enough to keep us from killing each other in the middle. Or that we had a signal.

“Nobody remembers signals,” Fratley said. “It should be simple enough. The Lyon bastards are all wearing gray uniforms. None of us will be. You’ve got Sheriff written across your chest, and what do the Port police have on them?”

“Police,” Keldon said.

“That’s right. Police. Any private security gets in the way, they better be running their mouths or they’re going to die. Seems easy enough to me. We’re overthinking this, Walker.”

I crossed my arms. The plan seemed too simple. But that was probably the best way to go.

“If you were Lyon, what would you be planning right now?” I pointed at the map. “He’s going to have sentries that will be tracking us as soon as we leave the cargo district. They may see my team split off. We need to assume their comms are better than ours. What are they going to do to stop our attack?”

Keldon raised an eyebrow. “They’ve been pretty damn good at blowing up buildings. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were setting up kill zones right now along every main street. That’s what I’d do.”

“And the only air assets we have are drones,” I said. “We have to take the ground.”

Fratley slapped the table. “Then I say we get moving, and if it looks like a building is about to crush me, I’ll run away and take another route. They can’t blow up the whole damn station.”

“You don’t care if they do,” Keldon said.

“Stop.” I shoved my chair back and stood, then I picked up the helmet I’d scavenged. “I agree with Fratley here. It’s a good plan. We don’t have time to keep going over it. We need to get our teams together and roll out.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Fratley said, hooting.

Keldon shook his head, frustrated. He stood and grabbed his helmet, his metal fingers denting its shell.

“We’re going to win,” I told him.

Our eyes met. I’d never seen fear in his gaze before. It was there. He gave a tight nod.

“Keep talking to me,” he said. “Shoot, move, communicate. We stop talking, we’re dead.”

“You hear that, Ellie?”

“I rely on you to do the talking, Sergeant Walker. Silence has never been your strongest characteristic.”

“You’re going to hassle me until I die, aren’t you?” I left the conference room and headed for my vehicle.

“Yes,” Ellie said. “I am.”

47

From the upper level of the Starbound Casino, I looked down on the Lyon rear area. The main line of their tanks was still arrayed at the intersection as they had been during our planning meeting. Based on reports from across the station, Brit was tying his people up with the smaller fights out near the residential areas. Maybe he thought we were all finished.

I looked at Crowley in the next window over. He had one hand on the rocket launcher leaning against his knee as he eased the window open. As soon as I had the word from Fratley that his people were in contact at the intersection, my team would hit the supply points below us with rockets. On the other side of the street, Keldon led another group of snipers.

Kiren, Haley, and Yola were pulling security on the first level of the casino. If anything changed, they would let me know. I adjusted the grip on my rocket launcher, checking my targets below. I would empty my magazine and dump the launcher and then get to the street level to lead the assault into the Lyon rear line. That was the goal, anyway, as long as everything went as planned with Fratley’s people. I had a bad feeling about them.

The Promenade below was littered with abandoned vehicles. Lyon had stacked supply crates in the traffic lanes, and two party buses had been knocked over to use as barriers blocking side streets. Several flatbed trucks were parked in an area below us, loaded with shipping containers that had to have been stolen from the nearby mall. Those crates made me think of Ollie. I hoped he was alive.

“Something’s going on over there,” Crowley said, pointing toward one of their command vehicles, an armored transport with gun turrets running along its sides and roof.

A group of dark-uniformed Lyon soldiers were escorting someone from a tank that had just parked outside the defensive line. As I watched, they pointed for the command transport.

I leaned forward at the edge of the window. “It’s Pamela. Are they moving her?”

“Looks like they’re delivering her. That tank came from outside the line.”

“Where’s Brit, then? I thought he was up at the intersection?”

“Ellie, mark that transport. If it leaves, I need to know. We can’t let Pamela escape when the fighting starts.”

“Marked, Sergeant Walker.”

Crowley picked up his launcher and rested the nose on the windowsill. It was dark in the room behind us. Unless one of us leaned out of the window, the troops on the ground weren’t going to see any silhouettes. Still, we were staying out of the windows as a precaution. Crowley had been tapping the barrel of his launcher for the last five minutes.

“This is going to work out, right, Sergeant?”

His lower lip trembled.

“Focus on your job, Crowley. When I give you the word, the only thing on your mind should be aiming that launcher and pulling the trigger. Then you reload and do it again. After two launches, we’re going to move. Anything about the plan not make sense to you?”

“I didn’t want to join the Union Army. I thought being a deputy would keep me away from stuff like this.”

“Didn’t we all.”

I focused on the activity below. The transport with Pamela inside had started its engine without moving. Fratley needed to hurry the hell up.

“Ellie, do we have an update on Fratley’s position?’

“Civilian forces are moving to contact now, Sergeant Walker.”

“He is? Damn it. Why didn’t he send us an update?”

I waved at Crowley. “Get ready. The shooting’s about to start. Get through the next fifteen minutes. What are you going to do?”

“Fire, reload, fire, and move,” he said, repeating what I’d told him.

“Good. The only problem on your mind should be the operation of that launcher.”

I tapped my earpiece, not expecting Fratley to answer.

“Walker, are you getting impatient?” Fratley’s voice was more hoarse than usual. He sniffed.

“Ellie says you’re moving. Is that true?”

“Hold on a second. I need to take care of something.” There was another hard sniffing sound, followed by Fratley clearing his throat. I recognized the long beep of a rocket launcher’s target system.

The launcher roared in my ear.

“Damn it.” I killed the connection.

“Sergeant Walker,” Ellie said.

“I know. I heard. Crowley, let’s go!”

I sighted-in on the stack of ammo crates I had identified as my first target. The missile spiraled down on a direct line from my position, but I didn’t wait to see what I’d hit. I was already reloading. The sound of explosions rocked against the face of the casino.

Crowley’s launcher fired and another ammo dump went up.

My second target was the tank sitting in overwatch behind the admin area. I hit one of its supporting legs and the gun pod toppled over, spraying fire as the pilot tried to shoot back at us.

Crowley had loaded his launcher and settled it back on his shoulder to pick up his second target. I waited for him, just in case.

There was movement below us as two tanks rolled in from the sides of the casino.

“Walker,” Yola shouted on the comms link. “They’re tracking you.”

“I see them.” Come on, Crowley.

He fired, his missile arcing slightly before it dropped directly in the middle of the Lyon command area. Then one of the transports disappeared in a cloud of dust and debris.

I grabbed Crowley by the collar and yanked him away from the window to run for the exit. Behind us, the outer wall disintegrated in a wave of cannon fire. I hit the door to the emergency stairwell as bullets continued to fly around us, throwing Crowley down the stairs in front of me. A round hit me in between my shoulder blades. I was thrown against the wall, helmet cracking into the concrete.

Crowley pulled me forward this time. My head rang, and I thought one of my ears was bleeding. There was a wetness on the side of my face.

We dropped four levels and emerged on the casino’s main floor. Slot machines and game tables exploded in front of us as the tanks continued to fire on the building. There wasn’t going to be anything left in a matter of seconds.

I pointed for the rear exit where the others should be waiting. Together, we sprinted behind a line of fragmenting support columns as the ceiling collapsed. The alley on the other side of the door filled with dust blowing past us, painting the opposite wall gray.

“Walker!” Haley shouted from the end of the narrow street. “This way. They’re moving this direction.”

“Did we do it?” Crowley asked, breathing hard.

I slapped the side of his helmet. “It’s happening right now. Let’s go.”

48

The street on the other side of the collapsing Starbound was a mass of smoke and burning vehicles. It looked like the ammo dumps we’d hit had sent explosives arcing all over the place and they’d landed in a makeshift storage area where two tanks were in maintenance. Those armored vehicles were actively burning, pouring black smoke into the sky. A few Lyon soldiers were trying to fight the fire. Others were watching the intersection a half a klick away where Fratley’s forces had finally opened up on their main effort.

As we watched, several Lyon soldiers fell where they stood, hit by Keldon’s snipers from across the street.

“We’re getting Pamela,” I said, jogging toward the fight. Crowley followed, and then the others spread out behind me, picking targets as we ran. There was just a second of satisfaction as I glanced back to see my crew following me into the fire, and then I focused on the task ahead of me.

Only one of the two tanks that had attacked the Starbound was still operational. It was trying to climb a pile of rubble that had fallen and was now blocking its escape as more of the casino slid into the street. Dust covered everything like fog, hiding our advance into the middle of the Promenade. I crossed the median and climbed over a stack of empty crates, watching for movement from either side.

“Walker, I think we got them all.” Keldon’s voice sounded tired. It was obvious he didn’t like this kind of work. “We’re on our way down.”

“Wait,” I said. “Pamela Carmichael is in the armored transport they’re using as their command post. I’m taking her in.”

“Copy.” Keldon’s voice clipped off.

The armored transport sat twenty meters away now. The sounds of machine gun fire echoed off building facades from the fight at the intersection. So far, there was no movement of soldiers coming back from that direction. The transport was still running, and I expected it to roll away any moment now, those heavy cannons trying to cut us down.

Once I got out of the burning debris from the ammo dump, I ran the rest of the way to the transport. Kiren had moved up to follow me as the others hung back to provide security. There wasn’t going to be much room inside the transport.

I kept my rifle at the ready, expecting the cannons on top of the transport to come to life any moment. I reached the side of the vehicle and moved to the hatch, hitting the unlock switch.

The hatch didn’t respond.

“You forget your key?” Yola asked, walking up behind me.

I stepped back as she held a data pad next to the lock. “They locked her in. That’s why they’re not shooting at us.”

The lock rotated, and the hatch separated from the body of the transport.

I raised my rifle again and stepped up into the cramped interior. Benches ran on either side of the interior space, ending in the two driver’s seats. Pamela sat on a bench near the front of the vehicle, her hands behind her back. Her gaze dropped to the Sheriff on my chest and she glared at me.

I took a step forward. “Are you alone?”

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“You’re under arrest.”

Pamela laughed. “Arrest? Are you paying attention to what’s happening here?”

She was tense. I couldn’t see if she was handcuffed.

Sure enough, as I took another step forward, her firing hand appeared with a pistol. She tried to aim before firing, and I shot the weapon out of her hand.

Pamela screamed in pain. She rushed at me and scratched at my armor with a bloody hand.

I shoved her back. She had a knife in her left hand now and was swiping the air in front of her.

“I’m trying to help you,” I said, taking a step back. “You think Brit is letting you out of here alive?”

“I’m not a prisoner,” Pamela said, breathing hard. She dove at me again and I turned, grabbing her wrist as the knife slid past my stomach. I wrapped an arm around her and shoved her against the bulkhead as I squeezed the knife-hand. Smashing her hand against the metal bulkhead weakened her grip, and I twisted the knife away from her. She raged at me as I pulled her arms back to wrap a restraint around her wrists.

Eventually Pamela’s shoulders dropped when she noticed Kiren standing in the hatch.

“You think you’ve beat me?”

There was a heavy explosion from the direction of the intersection, followed by a series of smaller bursts. The sound of another building collapsing roared passed the hatch, more dust blowing in the distance.

I turned Pamela and pushed her down on the bench again, and then I latched one of the safety harnesses through her wrist restraints. She could try to kick someone, but she wasn’t going anywhere.

I nodded at the co-pilot’s seat. “How about I drive and you blow stuff up?”

“Aren’t you kind?” Kiren smiled at me as she slid past a scowling Pamela to reach the front of the transport.

Haley, Crowley, and Yola climbed inside, carrying weapons they’d grabbed from one of the remaining depots. Yola had an automatic grenade launcher, and Crowley carried a laser-guided anti-tank missile.

Haley sat down across from Pamela and grinned at her. “Ms. Carmichael, it’s so nice to meet you. I’m Haley. Who does your nails?”

The conversation had me chuckling as I climbed into the pilot’s seat and checked the transport’s control systems. Kiren could manage all the gun turrets from her seat, and all I had to do was get the thing into the fight. It looked like we had a shield system in addition to the plate-armor covering the transport’s outer shell. The nose of the thing was sloped, designed for ramming.

I shifted the rig into reverse and closed the hatch, then I backed over a pile of burning debris and roared through a barrier blocking our access to the Promenade. The transport bucked and struggled for a second, then shot forward. For about two hundred meters, there was only open avenue in front of us. It was lined with ornate trees and two surviving casinos, their facades still flashing gold and silver.

The promenade made a slight turn and the plaza came until full view, a mess of smoke and burning vehicles. The Lyon forces had been pushed to the right side of the plaza, their six remaining tanks arranged in a shallow curve. Fratley’s people were arrayed among the wreckage of several tanks and the rubble of a collapsed building, providing them plenty of cover to harass the Lyon armor. Without room to maneuver, the tanks were basically defensive emplacements, firing until their guns overheated. They didn’t seem to be following any firing order in the time that I watched.

I hunted for the command tank as I rolled closer. We were going to have to choose the right or left side of the battle in about a minute, and I didn’t want to waste the element of surprise I had on Lyon. They didn’t seem to realize that we weren’t on their side.

“Walker, is that you?” Fratley’s hoarse voice cracked in my earpiece.

“It’s about time you answered. I’ve been trying to get an update from you.”

The Renegade laughed. “We almost blew you into bloody meat. Let somebody know the next time you roll up to a battlefield in the enemy’s colors. Damn, you’re wearing the enemy’s underwear. How’d you get that thing?”

“I took it,” I said. “Is the big tank the leader? That’s the one I’m going to hit.”

“That’s not him. He’s in one of those little egg-shaped things on legs. He kept trying to trick us, but I’m on to him. These Lyon bastards are spineless. It’s like fighting ooze, Walker. Where’d you find these bastards?”

“You heard Collin Charles say he worked for them, just like I did. They were behind Rivas and Fereen. They want to turn Taurus into something similar.”

“Yeah,” Fratley said, his voice losing most of its humor. “He’s in that tanker with the black stripe across its front. You hit him first, Walker. We’re about to crack their line. I’ll meet you in the middle.”

“It’s about time,” I said.

“Don’t get smart with me, now. I’ve got big plans for you.”

I cut the comms link as I set the transport’s navigation system to home on the spot where Brit’s tank currently stood, its cannon pointed at Fratley’s position. With any luck, he wouldn’t know what hit him.

“Hold on,” I told the others, and set the transport to full torque. The rear end shifted as the wheels spun in place for a second before catching. We shot forward and slammed through a hasty barricade of stacked civilian vehicles. The cracked battlefield appeared ahead of us, with Brit’s tank dead in the center.

“What are you doing?” Pamela demanded. Her voice rose into a screech as I ignored her.

The transport’s nose dropped closer to the street as we reached its max speed, the bulkhead vibrating around us. We plowed into the enemy line, Pamela howling the whole way.

49

A force hit the transport hard from my right. The rear end swung, sending the nose wide of my target. I hung on the steering control, braking as I tried to get the unwieldy vehicle back on target for Brit’s tank.

The display in front of me blinked. Abruptly the steering control locked up, and then it went completely loose. The display blacked out, and I felt the drive system die. We were still moving forward but without power. The only light in the cabin was from four narrow windscreens along the roof of the passenger area. The display in front of me was black. We were traveling blind.

“What happened?” I checked the system status panel and found another black display.

“I think we got hit with some kind of magnetic pulse,” Kiren said. “Did you feel it?”

I shook my head and tapped my earpiece. “Ellie, you there?”

Nothing.

Maybe my armor had absorbed the pulse, taking Ellie out in the process. In the cabin behind us, Haley looked disoriented. Yola was hitting her data pad, and Crowley slapped the side of his helmet.

Kiren unfastened her harness to turn toward the others.

I had time to say, “Wait,” before we hit the rear of Brit’s tank.

The impact wasn’t as powerful as it should have been. With the screens out, I couldn’t see where we’d hit exactly. Kiren was thrown backward against the control panel behind her, one arm still caught in the harness.

The transport didn’t stop rolling. I tried applying the brakes, but with the motor out we had no slow-down control. The front of the vehicle bounced over what felt like a median, and then we hit something hard, crushing the control panel against my lower half.

I waited for a second, listening for any movement around us, and then I struggled out of the vice on my legs. Kiren shook her head next to me, a line of blood leaking from the hairline above her temple.

“You all right?” I asked. “I’m caught.”

She freed her arms from the harness and felt at her head. “Maybe I have a concussion? Everything sounds far away.”

“Hey!” Haley shouted.

I managed to turn in my seat. Pamela was climbing over Haley’s legs on the way to the exit hatch. Her hands were free.

“That was a magnetic lock on those cuffs. Crowley!”

The deputy’s helmet was blocking his view. He turned in time to get one of Pamela’s fists in his gut. He slid against the bench behind him and managed to get an arm up to grab Pamela’s legs, but she just kneed him in the side.

I unlatched my right leg armor and used the back of my seat to pull away from the crushed pilot’s station. At least I still had my boots.

Drawing my pistol, I got around the seat and rushed down the middle of the troop area. Pamela had reached the hatch and was pulling the emergency release with both hands. I fired at her as the hatch swung outward. She rolled through the opening and dropped to the street outside.

“Come on,” I told Crowley.

“The controls are fried in my helmet. I can’t see anything.”

“Dump it. We need to get here before she runs off.”

I hit the street outside to find a crush of Lyon troops and Fratley’s crew, fighting hand-to-hand. There were a few small skirmishes with weapons among the piles of rubble. The troops seemed to be focused on keeping the pirates away from their tanks, with little ground support. Twenty meters away, two pirates yanked a Lyon troop out of his tank’s hatch and threw him down to the street where two more mercenaries waited with knives.

The side of the transport was crushed, the tail of a harpoon sticking out of its fuselage. The cable ran back to a tank with a huge battery pack sitting on its rear rack. So Kiren had been right. EMP.

The blast didn’t look like it had stopped me from hitting my target. Brit’s tank was smashed between the nose of the troop transport and a bus stop that was now a pile of bent metal and broken concrete. I ran a quick check on my rifle and jogged around the bus stop, searching for the hatch into Brit’s tank.

On the far side of the wreck, I found the hatch hanging open. More piles of rubble created bits of cover near the crushed tank, and from the other side of one came Pamela’s pleading voice.

“We have to get out of here. This isn’t turning out like we planned.”

“Get off me,” Brit said bitterly.

“You told me you would take me with you.”

There was a short laugh. “That was never the plan.”

Crowley and Kiren caught up with me, and I raised a hand to indicate we should wait. Kiren gave me a frown before she heard Pamela.

“I own this station!” The fury in Pamela’s voice was stronger than anything I had heard from her yet.

I continued around the rubble pile to see her hit the Lyon commander twice in the face, followed by another jab in the throat. He stumbled and caught a piece of concrete to keep himself upright. He spotted me in the fall and used the moment to turn and run the other direction.

“Come back here,” Pamela yelled. “Are all of you cowards?”

She drew a pistol from her waistband and fired after the retreating soldier. Bits of concrete popped around him as she missed with all three shots.

I wanted to take her in alive. There was no way we would get control of the station once this was all done if the residents didn’t have someone to blame. Not knowing what had happened to Evan and Sten had created five months of chaos. It couldn’t continue.

Sprinting toward Pamela, I brought the rifle up crosswise to knock her down. She turned at the last minute and fired. I felt a round hit my armor, and then another went through my side like a hot knife.

I fell across her, driving against her body to hold her down. With my free hand, my side flaring with pain, I punched the hand holding the pistol. The pistol was already covered in blood from her earlier wound, and I twisted out of her grip.

“I’ve got her,” Kiren said. “You and Crowley get Brit.”

I nodded. She didn’t seem to have noticed I’d been shot.

Kiren knelt to take over the rifle holding Pamela down, and I stood to motion for Crowley to follow me.

“Are you going to keep fighting?” Kiren asked.

“Kill me,” the other woman raged. “Kill me, damn it.”

Haley knelt beside Kiren and caught Pamela’s other hand. “We’re definitely not going to do that. Do we look like murderers? Do we look like you?”

With Crowley beside me, I bit down the pain in my side and ran up the pile of rubble where Brit had disappeared. The leader was climbing into an abandoned tank on the other side.

“Shoot him,” I told Crowley as I dropped over the pile and hit the street. Bullets ricocheted off the tank’s armor around Brit, and Crowley hit him in the middle of the back. The colonel slid down the access ladder and turned to see me sprinting toward him. He ran for the back of the tank.

I caught him as he tried to get over the smashed hood of a vehicle. I grabbed his leg and wrenched him off the wreck, onto the cobblestone street. He rolled, pulling a pistol from the holster on his belt.

I dropped to the left, threw myself forward, and landed across his firing arm. The pistol fired back toward where Crowley was jumping down the rubble pile. I shoved my elbow in Brit’s throat, pushing his head back. He got his feet under him and tried to push himself out of my grip. The pain in my side felt like a fire getting hotter, blotting out the pressure of his throat under my hands. I pulled myself up his body and got my knees down on either side of him so he couldn’t move.

“Give up,” I said. “You’re done. The battle is done. We destroyed your fleet and your transports. You don’t have any more tanks. I’ve got Pamela.”

He sprayed spittle, choking. “You think I’m all Lyon has?”

Brit grunted as he tried to roll me off him. In my armor, I was too heavy. All he could do was struggle. His left hand tried to dig into my unprotected knee where I’d lost the armor. His thumb ground into my patella, but the irritation was nothing compared to the fire in my ribs.

“You’re passing out,” he said. “I see it. Look, you’re bleeding. Did you get shot?”

I leaned forward, pressing my hand on his throat down harder. I needed to end this soon or I was going to pass out.

Crowley came up beside me, aiming his rifle at Brit’s head. “You’re under arrest,” he said, falling back on our training. “Yield to the Sheriff’s Justice.”

The Lyon commander laughed. I couldn’t feel his left hand anymore. That was the one closest to Crowley. I turned my head to warn the other deputy when the hand appeared with a snub-nosed pistol the size of Brit’s palm. His fingers moved ponderously slow to squeeze the trigger.

Or was my sense of time slowed? Was I passing out.

I raised the hand that had been holding Brit by the throat and formed a fist, and then I brought my armored glove down on his face. I hit him again, smashing teeth, then the bladed nose. Blood burst across his face, his wild eyes staring at me. Then his head fell to the side.

He was out.

I stared at him for what felt like a minute and then let my fist fall. Crowley was yelling at me and pulling me off the soldier.

Hands worked at my armor. I was too far away to fight them.

50

I jerked awake.

“Hold on, Walker.” Keldon’s voice. I turned to see him leaning over me, focused on something below my neck.

“I got shot.” I tried to sit up, and he pushed me back down, his metal hand scarred and gray dust.

“Stay down for a second. You’re lucky the bullet lodged itself in a rib. The medics have it out. You’ll be wrapped up in a second.”

There were other people nearby, I realized. My armor was gone. Cold air blew across my chest, bringing the sound of an approaching aircraft.

Keldon glanced in the direction of the sound. “Looks like Fratley has joined the party. I thought he was up here fighting with his people the whole time. Coward.”

“Watch him,” I said. “He’s getting erratic.”

“Well, you got him to help us, anyway. He’ll have another fight on his hands if he wants to overstep his bounds.

Were there any of us left to fight?

Every breath felt a little better. The medic finished up with a shot of something that made me feel pretty good, and liberal amount of clotting powder, then gave me a thumbs up. “Try and sit up, Sergeant.”

Keldon reached behind me to help. I waved him away. Aside from little stabs of pain and soreness in my gut like I’d been sucker punched, I had functionality.

“Good.” Keldon nodded. “Kaffrey is moving back to the department. I’ve got my team on mop-up in the surrounding streets, and we got word out to the resident militia that the main threat is gone. If the Lyon soldiers surrender, they should let them. The Devoted trash probably aren’t going to get that option. I’ve got reports we’ve got a bunch of people running around in their underwear as their blue suits get ditched.”

I got a look at our immediate surroundings. I was still lying in the small clearing between piles of rubble where I’d fought Brit. His body lay where I’d left it, blood pooled around his head.

“How long was I out?”

“Not long,” Keldon said. “I got around the wreck over there in time to see you finish off our Lyon commander.”

I tapped my earpiece. “Ellie, you there?”

Oh damn. I hadn’t heard from her since the transport got hit by the EMP.

“You got zapped pretty hard,” Keldon said. “Looks like your fancy armor is dead. We had to cut through it to get to your side anyway.”

I nodded, only half-listening.

“Ellie, you there?”

I got to my feet as a group of Fratley’s pirates came around the smashed bus stop, the Renegade at their front.

“Walker,” Fratley called, rubbing his hands together. “I see you’ve accomplished your goal. It’s time for us to conclude our business.”

The pirates looked like they’d been through hell, while Fratley’s brown trench coat and bowler hat were clean. He bit down on a cigar, grinning at me.

“Looks like you’ve got some people that need help,” I said, facing him. “We’ve got medics here.”

Fratley waved his cane. “Whatever you want to offer. I’m not paying for their services, mind you. Getting hurt’s part of the job. So are the spoils.”

Keldon rested his hand on his service pistol. “What spoils are you talking about? Taurus isn’t some war prize for you to pillage.”

“Calm yourself, Sergeant Keldon.” Fratley gave a dry smile. “Are you still a sergeant? I heard your department doesn’t exist anymore, so you’ve got no authority to tell me anything. But besides that, I’m a reasonable man. I made a deal and I’m here to collect on it.”

“What’s he talking about?” Keldon asked.

Kiren and Haley walked up from behind us. Crowley was behind them, leading a newly restrained Pamela Carmichael. I spotted Yola behind the pirates, reading a data pad but obviously listening.

“That deal’s no good,” Kiren said. “You made it under duress. You were trying to save Taurus.”

“And we did,” Fratley said. “So the deal stands.”

“What damn deal?” Keldon asked, looking at me.

“I’ll be working for Fratley for a while. That was the deal for his help.”

“Working for him?”

“That’s right,” Fratley said, walking forward until he was close enough for Keldon to take a swing. His crew stayed back.

“There’s no need to argue about it,” I said. “We made a deal. Right now we need to make sure there aren’t any more wounded out here in the street and then get the department back into working order. Taurus is still a wreck. We need to decide what to do with Ms. Carmichael over there.”

Fratley laughed. “You’re talking like you’re in charge, Walker. From what I see, there’s no one in charge here but whoever has the biggest guns.”

The Renegade pushed his coat back and set his hand on his pistol, mirroring Keldon’s stance.

Behind the group of pirates, a rumbling sound grew closer, until two of the Lyon battle tanks rose to the top of a pile of broken concrete, side cannons rotating down to cover the clearing where we stood.

“Those are your people?” Keldon asked.

“That’s right. Just a little security in case you planned on backing out of our deal. But Walker’s an honorable man. I knew he wouldn’t do that.” Fratley looked around, lifting his gaze to the surrounding casinos. “Thing is, you’ve reminded me there’s more at stake here than just my crew in the Deadlands. Taurus needs protection. I don’t see how you’re in a position to provide that.”

I shook my head. “No. We’re not having that conversation. I’ll uphold my part of the deal.”

Fratley’s smile widened, growing more feral. “You don’t get a say in this, Walker.”

He took a step toward Keldon, drawing his pistol.

I stepped between them and hit Fratley in the jaw, knocking him back. He stumbled, arms going wide, then got control himself. He shook his head as he straightened.

None of the pirates behind him made a move.

“It’s like that then?”

I raised both fists. “I told you what we’re doing. I’m honoring my deal. You want to overstep, then we don’t have a deal.”

The Renegade wiped a line of blood from his mouth. “You would really come with me, wouldn’t you?”

I frowned. “That’s the agreement.”

“You think I could sleep knowing I’ve got an honorable man on my ship? You’re no Renegade, Gage Walker. Stay here and write your parking tickets, help old people cross the street.”

He picked up his cane where he’d dropped it and snapped his jacket, then he turned to gather his crew.

“Come on, we’re getting off this heap. We’ll let them run it into the ground. I’ll be back in six months to snap this place up cheap.”

“We’ll be watching you, Fratley,” I said.

“Then be sure to kiss my ass while you’re at it.” He laughed heartily at his own joke as he climbed over the pile of rubble and waved back the tanks watching from above. His crew followed, looking angry they weren’t going to get to loot anything after all.

“What did you agree to do for him?” Keldon asked.

“He wanted an apprentice Renegade,” Kiren answered for me.

Keldon raised an eyebrow. “Walker, a Renegade?”

Kiren nodded. “I can’t see it.”

“No,” the sergeant said. “Nope, never. Besides, we’ve got work to do. The job isn’t over, not by a long shot.”

“You made it sound like you wouldn’t stick around if the department folded?” I said. “What changed?”

“I said I wasn’t going to be responsible for anything. Big difference.”

“Walker!” Yola shouted from the block she’d been sitting on. She waved her data pad as she ran over.

“You all right?” Kiren asked.

“I found Ellie. Your suit was fried, but there’s a backup at your department.”

Finally, some good news.

Keldon slapped me on the back. “Go wake her up. I’ll get things cleaned up here. I’ll see you back at Drake’s.”

I had to chuckle. “I made the same promise earlier today. Thought I was just making somebody feel better.”

“You know what makes me feel better?” Keldon said. “You buying me beer. Don’t forget your wallet.”

It took a while to find a functioning cruiser to transport Pamela back to the department.

She didn’t resist as I put her in the back of the vehicle, just spat, “You aren’t in charge.”

“Thankfully neither are you,” I said. As Crowley climbed in the passenger side, I tapped the dash comms, expecting to reach Captain Kaffrey at the department.

“Dispatch,” came the response. “What’s your status, Sergeant Walker?”

Crowley blew out a breath in surprise and looked at me.

“Glad to hear your voice,” I said. “One in custody. Returning to station.”

51

The chime from Afterburn’s security system coincided with the coffee maker’s finishing hiss. I checked the outside camera and wasn’t surprised to see the small man in a gray business suit. I grabbed the cup and took a first sip, then I left the galley to walk down to the cargo bay.

Oragga gave me a nod as the ramp lowered to show him waiting outside.

“I hear I should call you Sergeant now,” he said.

“That’s still a matter for debate.”

“But you’re the person I should talk to about Pamela Carmichael?”

I waved him on board. “I can tell you where she’s sitting. Don’t know much about what’s going to happen to her. That’s above my paygrade.”

Oragga gave me one of his secretive smiles. “Mind if I come aboard?”

I invited him up the ramp. He appeared to be alone, but I doubted that was the case. I reset the security system and led him up to the galley where he accepted his own cup of black coffee.

“Tell me about the station,” he said. “I’d like a personal update from you.”

I took a second to gather my thoughts, sipping my coffee. Oragga didn’t look like he was in any hurry, which was something I appreciated in a man of his stature.

Bird was still in recovery, and Captain Kaffrey had been making it sound like he wasn’t going to stay on the station. Things had been quiet across Taurus for the last few days as residents and companies fell to cleaning up the mess from the occupation. The Port Authority police had locked down the entry points. People could leave as they wished, and there had been hundreds so far, but no one came on the station without a good reason.

“We’re making sure Pamela’s fed and cared for, and that the business leaders on-station know she’s still alive. Since the question of ownership is still up in the air, I think everyone is waiting to see what’s going to happen. I give that another week.”

“But you still have the Control Key?”

I reached in my shirt pocket and pulled out the key card. I set it face down on the table and slid it to Oragga

He didn’t touch the card immediately.

“The transaction is complete,” he said. “As far as those details go, I owned the station not long after you disabled Pamela’s control. Once the instability of her ownership became apparent to the market, her company’s shares hit the ground. When Lyon invaded, there was effectively no owner of Taurus. The station could be considered the spoils of insurrection.”

“Seems like a real tightrope, owning a station. If you’re doing things right, people probably shouldn’t know you exist at all. Why create trouble for yourself?”

“That’s been my philosophy. Based on experience in other locations, I have a system for managing places like Taurus. My methods have seemed to work well for residents and business interests. This area is rich in resources, and Taurus is an engine that generates multiple types of profit. One thing I don’t have in my other locations, though, is a Sheriff. I’m afraid the Sheriff’s Office of Taurus Station will need to take its place in history. I think there’s an inherent conflict between too many officials, and a Sheriff with too much power could impact that balance quite negatively.”

I could have argued with him about that. Although I wasn’t sure I disagreed. With all the competing interests on the station as it had been, how could I know if allowing politicians and law enforcement to battle it out hadn’t led to the last two years of strife.

“I will have an office here, of course,” Oragga said. “And I will need someone to ensure that the peace is maintained to support my interests. How would you like to head that security arm of my local business?”

I studied him. “You mean security for your team, or the whole station? Those are two very different jobs.”

“You would work for me but have the resources necessary to ensure the peace is maintained. Like all my business interests, discretion is at the core of our operations. Most of the residents of Taurus would not know that you exist.”

My coffee had gone cold. I swirled the last bit in my cup, envisioning what he was describing. A secret service? Something like Mr. Black? I liked Black’s ability to solve problems in any way needed. But I was a Sheriff’s Deputy—Sergeant. I worked best when people could see me, when they saw the uniform and knew we were there to keep them safe.

Or did? Would Bird tell me I was thinking too small?

I started to answer thank you, but no, when Oragga held up a hand.

“I can see you would benefit from some time to consider my proposal. I am not in an extreme hurry, although I do need an answer soon. Consult with some of your trusted friends and then let me know. I don’t make offers lightly, Gage, as I hope you’ve learned. But I have little time to wait. The people of Taurus want normalcy, and money will find a way if we hesitate.”

He was right. The Port Authority Police were already expanding their patrols at the request of certain business owners.

“I understand,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Speaking of money, I neglected to pay you for your previous consulting work.” He placed a credit token on the chipped table. The amount flashed on its surface for a second. More than I had made in three years as a deputy.

“That’s generous of you,” I said.

“Not generous. It’s what I promised, and you fulfilled your part of our deal.”

I expected Oragga to make some excuse then that he needed to leave. Instead, we sat for a few minutes and talked about the ship and how it had handled during the battle with Lyon. He also seemed to enjoy hearing about the tank battle on the promenade. The wreckage had already been cleaned up and repairs were underway.

“I’m sorry to hear about Ellie,” he said. “That’s a true loss. Has every backup been verified?”

“I’m no expert. Apparently, the attack on the department’s security system wiped our main backups. She was still operating from my enhanced armor, and then the last EMP attack knocked that out too.”

“More than 300 years of knowledge, gone.”

“She was fun to tease, too.”

Oragga smiled. “You know she’s not capable of being teased.”

“I know. Sometimes just talking to someone helps, you know? Even if they don’t understand what you’re saying. She got me through some stressful times. People are going to think I’m crazy now if I’m talking to myself.”

“I’m sure we can find you another AI partner.”

I tapped my empty cup. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

Oragga’s assistant was waiting outside the ship when the ramp dropped. He opened the door to a nondescript personal vehicle.

“I appreciate you coming to talk to me in person,” I said.

Oragga smiled. “I enjoy our conversations, Gage. You have such an interesting life.”

That made me laugh. “I’ll let you know how that turns out for me.”

“Hopefully soon. I need an answer to my question by tomorrow.”

I nodded.

“And if I could ask another question. Do you mind if I put some resources toward recovering your Ellie? Her loss is a true blow to the history of the Deadlands, I think. There must be some way we can rectify the problem.”

“That would be great,” I said, really meaning it. I didn’t expect him to make any other offers, especially after I had turned him down.

“Good,” Oragga said. He gave me a little salute-wave and walked toward his car.

* * *

Drake’s Place looked a lot better than the last time I’d been here. The crowd was small, sitting at a collection of about ten tables in the middle of the room. There were enough of us to have our own conversations, but I got the sense that people wanted to stay close. There was a feeling of finality about the party. Even Stam Jones had come out for a beer. He alternated between his standard sour expression and barking a laugh at someone’s joke.

I sat at a table with Bird and Keldon. Bird had just been released from the hospital, probably because someone more injured than her needed the bed. I didn’t think she looked like she should be moving under her own power. True to her nature, Bird couldn’t be told otherwise.

“You’ll always be the Sheriff,” Keldon said. He was four pints in and starting to get emotional. The night was early yet.

“There’s no department anymore, Jack. There’s no point in calling me by the title.”

He shook his head. “The last in a long and storied line of public servants. The savior of Taurus Station. Without your leadership, we’d all be licking the toes of Lyon’s jackbooted thugs.”

Bird wasn’t drinking. She rolled her eyes and took a sip of her water. “I wouldn’t place the label of truth anywhere near that statement. You had more to do with beating Lyon than me. I got shot and evacuated. If we’re going to hold anybody up as a hero, it should be Walker here. Who thought he would have risen to the occasion? When I first met him, I thought he was going to get himself thrown out an airlock. And now look at him.”

Keldon laughed and held up his near-empty pint glass in a toast. “To Gage Walker. He didn’t die.”

The table next to us heard the toast and raised their glasses as well. I finished my whiskey.

That brought on a good fifteen minutes of jokes and reminiscing about the battle, and then the department in general. Deputies shared their favorite stories of those we had lost, including Sheriff Nagel. The evening stretched into night, and before I realized it, people were getting up to leave. A lot of these remaining deputies had families to get back to.

Most stopped to say goodbye to Sheriff Bird before they left, some in tears, as the alcohol and realization set in that this was the end. Taurus was a different place, and no one was sure what exactly was going to happen. There might have been a sense of guilt among them, or maybe that was just me, thinking things should have turned out differently. Nagel should still be alive. I should still be wearing the uniform.

When we were the only three remaining, Keldon cleared his throat and set down his glass. He looked first at Bird, then me. “So, are you going to take the job?”

I squinted at him. “What job?”

“With Oragga.”

I chuckled. “I’m not the one who should take the job. It should be Sheriff Bird, or you.”

Bird shook her head. “I’m done for now.”

“What are you going to do then?” I inspected my glass and then refilled it from the bottle Drake had left on the table.

“Investigations are what I love. Being Sheriff was never my goal. I certainly didn’t see myself ending up here. Maybe I’ll bust cheaters at the casinos. That was always fun.”

Keldon laughed. “So, you’re going to be a pit boss? Wear a red jacket and watch me play blackjack?”

“No,” Bird said. “High-level stuff. People trying to hit the whole house with AI. I busted a couple of those, and both times the house wanted to hire me. But I didn’t because of the job. I’ve always had a mental block when it came to making money. Thought it was more honorable to serve.”

“It is,” Keldon said. There was finality in his voice.

“What about you?” Bird asked. “What are you going to do?”

Keldon poured himself half a pint from the pitcher and swirled the beer in his glass. “Probably never told you I bought a ship. A little light cargo hauler called the Stowaway. I’m going to go out for a bit, but I’ll probably come back to the Chop. I might stay at Rolo Hab for a bit, see what’s there for me. After that, I don’t know.”

“You’ll need cash to keep those metal arms and legs repaired,” Bird said.

After finishing his beer, Keldon smacked his lips. “I’ll just find me a rich sugar mama to pay for my upgrades. That’s what Walker’s going to do. I can see his future now.”

I didn’t laugh right away. I hadn’t been sure how to bring up Oragga’s offer. Now that I’d heard that neither of them were interested in staying in law enforcement, it made my decision easier. The truth was, I didn’t want to leave. Not right away.

“Oragga offered me a job running security for him.” I took another sip of my whiskey.

Keldon stroked his mustache. “For his team?”

“For the station, if necessary. It sounded like a flexible sort of position.”

They both stared at me. I thought Keldon was going to bust out laughing, but he just nodded, looking at his glass.

Bird also nodded. “Some people might say you’re too young, too inexperienced. You just joined the force. But Oragga obviously knows how to choose people. That’s twice now he’s offered you a job.”

I looked at Keldon. “You don’t have an opinion?”

“I’m trying to keep the world from twisting me in half. Damn, Walker. I don’t want the job, and I can’t think of a better person to do it. Who knows what the future holds here? I think that’s what we’re all scared of. Cops don’t like change. Not really. You’re the right person for a job like this. Don’t have twenty years of history weighing you down. That’s what I can’t get out of my head. All the history. Everywhere I go on this station, there’s an arrest, or a fight. I need to get somewhere and start fresh. Taurus just isn’t for me anymore.”

We were all getting tired. The silence stretched for a minute.

“What I’m saying is I think you should take this job,” Keldon said.

I nodded. “That’s what I’m leaning toward.”

Keldon frowned. “Don’t let me do your thinking for you.”

“Don’t worry yourself about that, Sergeant.” I raised my glass. “I learned from the best. I salute you both.”

“Screw off,” Keldon said, raising his glass.

Bird laughed and finished her water. She stood carefully.

“You better help me get into the transport,” she said. “I didn’t realize how much this splint was holding me upright. I turn the wrong way and I think my guts are going to spill out.”

“I’ll help you,” Keldon said, pushing his chair back. He stood up and then dropped back in his chair, eyes wide. “Why’d you make the world turn upside down, Walker?”

“Just to keep you on your toes,” I said.

I tucked the half-full bottle under my arm and helped them both out the front door of the bar. After I’d made sure the place was locked up like I’d promised Drake, we stood outside waiting for the transport. Keldon fell into a story about an arrest he’d made right outside Drake’s, one that had turned into a drag-out fight. He’d thought he was going to die, until the door to Drake’s opened up and fifty deputies piled out.

“I never saw a perp run as fast as that guy. He had a whole train of deputies on him. Thought he was going to get away until he ran right into the department across the street. Thought it was a store. He wasn’t the brightest bulb.”

The front of the Sheriff’s Department was a jumble of quick repairs to the blast doors, making it look like a scarred helmet over a tired face. The wide stairs leading down to the street were marked off with caution tape, and a dead security drone still sat in the middle of the entrance.

When the transport arrived, I got Keldon and Bird inside and ensured the system had their addresses, then I stepped back into the street. I wished them the best as the hatch closed.

“Take care of yourself, Walker,” Keldon said. “Ask yourself if I’d do it, then do the opposite.”

“Exactly.” I held up the whiskey bottle in farewell and turned away as the transport left.

In the alley behind Drake’s, there was a car waiting for me. The hatch opened to show Kiren leaning forward with dark eyes, her lips curved in a smile.

“Hello, stranger,” she said. “Haley’s off with Crowley, so I’ve got the ship to myself. Want to hang out before I leave town?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Damn, she looked good.

Epilogue

I closed the interface on the panel that controlled the Hall of Heroes display and waited for the system to reboot. In a few seconds, the black screens came to life, showing the flow of personnel the department had lost across its long history.

It took a minute to spot one of my latest additions, and then another came into view, a deputy who had died at the port.

Time disappeared for a while as I watched the names and faces scroll past—a long, solemn procession. Yet each of them was smiling, alert, and focused on the day of the photo, their uniforms perfectly arranged. Professionals ready to give their all for the people of Taurus Station. And they had.

The bullpen behind me was empty. Data pads and boxes of evidence sat abandoned on the desks. Cabling ran from the central lift where Stam Jones had jury rigged something for Sheriff Bird while the security system was trying to kill us all. What had been a living place full of people focused on a single goal, now sat empty. The dust hadn’t settled yet, and the place seemed to be waiting for something.

Bird’s office was neatly arranged, and the display windows behind her desk showed a Taurus recovering from battle. The once-vibrant grid had several missing teeth and black eyes where buildings had been demolished and streets chewed by combat. Repair teams were doing their best, but it would take time to get life back to normal, and then who knew how long it would be before the tourists and miners returned? Everyone was functioning on hope, it seemed. That was a precarious road to walk, but people were picking up bricks and cleaning away the twisted metal, focused on a future we would have to claw from the rubble.

There was an old data pad sitting on the desk, its notification light flashing. I sat down in the chair that had been Nagel’s and then Bird’s, and I took a second to lean back and turn to either side. I’d kick my boots up on the desk later.

The data pad took a few seconds to load, and then it showed a list of files. First on the list was a recording called “For the Sheriff.”

There was no origin date on the file. The pad’s battered and outdated chassis indicated that neither Bird nor Nagel had recorded the message.

I wasn’t the Sheriff. I was the guy who had accepted a job that might involve the responsibilities of a sheriff. It might not. That was up to Min Oragga.

Screw it. I tapped the file.

The sounds of boots scraping on the floor and the creak of a chair, which might have been the one I was sitting in now, emerged from the pad.

“If you aren’t the sheriff, then you’re standing in their office, and that means you’re in charge.” The man’s voice was rough and tired. Something about it made me assume it was decades old, but there were no indicators of that.

“I didn’t get jack shit when I took this job, so I figured I would get some notes down now that I’ve been doing it a while. There don’t tend to be handover periods in this line of work. You do the job until you stop, and usually that’s a bullet’s doing, not yours. Whoever you are, here’s what I want you to do. Look out that door at all the people out there. Whatever you do, don’t get rid of that bullpen. You want a place where you can see all your people together, hear them, get a sense of the organization. You lose that, you’re going to lose the station. You need to hear every complaint and every victory. You’ll know when you’ve got a bad one on the team because they’ll tell you. They always do. The farther from your people you get, the more chances you’re going to have to fail. And on the flipside of that, talk to the people on the street. Just like a beat cop, get out there and talk to the people.”

He sighed. “Not that I listened to my own advice. I should have admitted that I needed their help. All of them. You can’t do it alone.”

The speaker went on about another owner of the station. I didn’t recognize the name, but the situation sounded too similar to Nagel’s complaints, and then Bird’s. Were things going to be different under Oragga?

The sound of the lift opening on the other side of the bullpen caught my attention. I dropped the data pad back on the desk.

Stam Jones and Yola Deris walked through the doorway. Yola gave me a wave, while Stam’s gaze was fixed on the cable running from outside the office. He crossed the office to the wall where it entered a terminal, and then he noticed me sitting behind the desk.

“What are you doing there?” He pushed his glasses up his nose.

“Got a new job.”

Stam blinked. “You’re the new Sheriff? I thought there wasn’t a department anymore.”

“There’s no more sheriff. I’m working for Oragga now. The building belongs to him.” I wasn’t sure how else to explain it.

Yola pushed past Stam to pull up the second chair and sit at the terminal. “If you guys are going to jabber, I want to see if this is going to work.”

“If what’s going to work?”

The former tech director’s face split in a secretive grin. “We got some help. Not long after you came back in the building, actually. I think it was from Oragga’s people. Yola thinks so.”

“I think whoever sent us the files and tools is damn good. Better than anybody I’ve seen in the Deadlands.” She glanced at me. “If you’re going to be working for people with these kinds of resources, then sign me on as your Technical Director.”

Stam’s mouth fell open. “That’s my job.”

“Was your job,” Yola said, working furiously. Menus flashed across the terminal. She finally paused on a black screen with a series of rotating symbols and lines of text that she manipulated, and then she completely focused on the screen.

“You’re firing me?” Stam asked.

I frowned. “I never hired you.”

“But you’re going to need staff, right? You’re going to need people to run the organization.”

I sat up in the chair and spread my hands at the office, indicating the empty desks outside as well. “I don’t know where to begin. I’m nowhere near bringing other people into this mess. I don’t even know what our mission is going to be.”

“Seems simple to me,” Yola said over her shoulder. “Keep Taurus safe.”

While the words from the data pad might have sounded good when I was alone, having other people chime in with their opinions was reminding me of all the basic thinking I needed to do about how to move forward. It was like building a foundation with no knowledge of the ground underneath.

“I’m still figuring out where to start,” I said. “I don’t know what help I’m going to need yet.”

“You already hired me,” Yola said. “No going back.”

“No, I didn’t.”

She grinned. “I’m working for you right now.”

“Me, too,” Stam said.

“How are you working for me?” I shifted in my chair to get a better look at what she was doing on the terminal.

“Getting you some help,” Yola said. She tapped the screen with a satisfied motion and sat back to watch the results.

The terminal went dark and then scrolled with text as it appeared to reboot itself. Once the restart sequence was finished, the symbol of Taurus Station flashed on the screen. Above our heads, the speakers crackled.

I glanced upward, frowning.

“Hello,” a familiar voice said. “I am LE-DB. Please call me Ellie. How may I assist you?”

I’m sure I had a stupid grin on my face. “You got her back. Is she the same? Does she remember?”

Yola rolled her eyes upward.

As if on cue, Ellie said, “Of course I remember you, Gage Walker. My assessment of the department and station status indicate you are fortunate to be alive. Your chances of surviving to age forty have increased by ten percent.”

“I haven’t told you about the new job yet.”

There was a pause. “I retract my previous estimate. Will you allow me to assist you?”

I smiled. “Yes, I will.”

* * *

For more updates on this series and others in the Renegade Star Universe, be sure to join the Facebook Group, “J.N. Chaney’s Renegade Readers.”

Need more? Keep reading to discover other series in the universe…

Renegade Star Universe

The Renegade Star Universe

Click the titles below to find them online

The Renegade Star Series

They say the Earth is just a myth. Something to tell your children when you put them to sleep, the lost homeworld of humanity. Everyone knows it isn't real, though. It can't be.

But when Captain Jace Hughes encounters a nun with a mysterious piece of cargo and a bold secret, he soon discovers that everything he thought he knew about Earth is wrong. So very, very wrong.

Climb aboard The Renegade Star and assemble a crew, follow the clues, uncover the truth, and most importantly, try to stay alive.

The Last Reaper Series

When a high value scientist is taken hostage inside the galaxy's most dangerous prison, Halek Cain is the only man for the job.

The last remaining survivor of the Reaper program, Hal is an unstoppable force of fuel and madness. A veteran amputee-turned-cyborg, he has a history of violence and a talent for killing that is unmatched by any soldier. 

With the promise of freedom as his only incentive, he’ll stop at nothing to earn back his life from the people who made him, imprisoned him, and were too afraid to let him die.

The Orion Colony Series

Humanity’s Exodus is about to begin.

When half of mankind revolts and demands more opportunity, those at the top decide on a compromise: they will build the first colony ships and allow those who are willing to discover new worlds to leave and start over.

Twelve ships are built, the first of which is called Orion. Many are eager to go, but only one hundred thousand are chosen for each vessel. Far from Earth, a new life awaits, and it promises the prosperity they’ve always wanted.

But still, resistance stirs, eager to sabotage this new expansion effort, threatening the promise of a new life. As Orion moves through the void of space, towards a distant world, its passengers must fight for survival in an unprecedented conflict. 

Win or lose, their future will be forever changed.

The Fifth Column Series

After a soldier is left for dead, Eva Delgado's life begins to unravel.

The truth of what happened remains a mystery, and the government will stop at nothing to keep it buried.

Together with the unit's medic, Eva finds herself branded a terrorist and enemy of the State, hunted by two opposing governments.

When the pair uncover a plot that could have ramifications for the whole galaxy, they know they have to act, but it will take all of their training, cunning and just a bit of luck to do what no one else has achieved.

But what do you do when every secret begets another? And how far will you go to find the truth?

Nameless (Abigail’s Story)

Abigail and Clementine were just a couple of orphans looking for a home. 

But when the two girls witness something terrible, they have no choice but to leave their orphanage and go into hiding. The only person willing to take them in is a man named Mulberry, but his home isn't the safest place for two innocent children.

Abigail and Clementine quickly discover that their new caretaker is the head of a guild of assassins, and the two are thrown into a whole new world of danger. To survive, they'll need to adapt, focus, and learn how to survive in a world of killers.

The Constable (Alphonse’s Story)

My name is Alphonse Malloy, and I see everything.

From a simple glance, I know your hobbies, what you ate for breakfast, how well you slept, and whether or not your wife is secretly seeing the high school biology teacher when you're not around.

I can't explain how or why I get these feelings, only that I know they're true. 

All the little secrets you're too afraid to tell.

Sometimes, that means helping people. Other times, it means staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.

I wish I could tell you I was using this ability for good.

I wish I could tell you a lot of things.

* * *

The Constable Returns

Alphonse Malloy may just be the smartest man alive.

A year has passed since Alphonse joined the Constables, but his work is only just beginning. In order to graduate and achieve full Constable status, Alphonse will need to complete one final mission.

When new information about an old enemy arises, Al and his mentor Dorian must head deep into the Deadlands in search of answers.

But in a galaxy of secrets, the truth is often more elusive than it seems.

As the search continues, Alphonse's talents will be pushed to their absolute limit, and he'll need everything he's learned to make it out of this one alive.

Warrior Queen (Lucia’s Story)

On a lost world, far removed from Earth, a group of humans struggle to survive.

Two thousand years after their ancestors lost control of a hidden genetics research facility, the descendants of mankind have been reduced to a tribe of two hundred survivors. They fight, kill, and die in an endless cycle, all in the hope that things will get better.

Lucia is one of these colonists and the daughter of the tribe's leader, the Director. Together with several other candidates, she must soon undergo a trial to decide her father's replacement. The winner will shape the future of the entire colony.

But the trial is dangerous, meant to test each candidate's wits and strengths to see who is truly worthy. To claim victory, Lucia will need to venture out into the tunnels near the city to search for lost artifacts known as Cores--small but powerful devices capable of harnessing endless energy.

But there are monsters here, waiting in the dark, and they are always hungry. Beware the Boneclaw, Lucia's father use to tell her, for it lives only to kill and to feed.

Lucia must do whatever it takes, learn as much as she can, and fight with every ounce of strength if she hopes to make it through the day.

Forget winning the trial. The real challenge is staying alive.

Resonant Son Series

30 floors of nightmare fueled action. An ex-cop with nothing left to lose.

After losing his job and family, Flint Reed finds himself in the middle of a terrorist attack. With nothing but his wits and experience as a former Union police officer, he must do everything he can to stay alive.

As he soon discovers, however, there are also hostages, and no one is coming to save them.

All hope falls to Flint.

But as he fights to navigate the building, the real answers begin to unravel. What are the terrorists really after, and why are they so intent on getting into the vault?

Experience the beginning of the Resonant Son series. If you're a fan of Die Hard, Renegade Star, or the Last Reaper, you'll love this epic scifi thrill ride.

Galactic Law Series

Lethal force is authorized.

In the wild space of the Deadlands, Taurus Station is where miners and tourists come to play, and the ravager gangs follow close behind. Out here, far from the civilized world, the Law has a name.

Gage Walker is the son of hard-nosed asteroid miners. Brash, rough, and crude, he's one of the few deputies working the station.

Still a rookie, Walker is tasked with the security of a mining magnate's daughter, an easy job that quickly takes a turn for the worst.

The ravager gangs want her, and it falls to Walker to find out why.

In a chase across Taurus Station, Deputy Walker must prove he's fit to wear the badge and issue his own form of justice...one body at a time.

Deadland Drifter Series

When a dental appointment goes sideways, former Union Operative Jack Burner wakes to find himself drugged, and imprisoned.

And he's given a choice: assassinate an Admiral... or allow himself to be killed.

With no other option, Jack reluctantly accepts the mission, only to find himself being trailed by a mysterious blonde woman... and she may or may not want him dead.

As if dealing with a terrorist group wasn't enough.

With the fate of the Admiral and thousands of lives on hanging in the balance, Jack stands in the middle of an event that could ignite a war on the edge of the Deadlands and Union Space.

Despite his exceptional abilities, training, and tenancy, even Jack has little to no chance of preventing this particular powder keg from exploding.

He's going to need a miracle.

The Renegade Series

Jace Hughes is a Renegade.

That means taking jobs and not asking questions, whether that involves smuggling, transporting runnaways, or performing other, far less wholesome work. Whatever the situation, Jace is willing to do what it takes to achieve his dream and live the life he’s always wanted.

That is, until he comes face to face with an item of unprecedented value—something that could give him everything he needs to pay off his debt and be free.

The only problem is that selling it would also shift the balance of power between the two largest empires in the galaxy.

And spark another intergalactic war.

Unfortunately for Jace, he won’t have long to decide. Renegades, assassins, and government cronies are after the item, too, and unlike Jace, they won’t hesitate to kill.

Join the conversation and get updates on new and upcoming releases in the Facebook group called “JN Chaney’s Renegade Readers.” This is a hotspot where readers come together and share their lives and interests, discuss the series, and speak directly to J.N. Chaney and his co-authors.

Join the Facebook Group

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About The Authors

J. N. Chaney is a USA Today Bestselling author and has a Master's of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. He fancies himself quite the Super Mario Bros. fan. When he isn’t writing or gaming, you can find him online at www.jnchaney.com.

He migrates often, but was last seen in Las Vegas, NV. Any sightings should be reported, as they are rare.

* * *

James S. Aaron is a science fiction writer living in Oregon by the McKenzie River.

He is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America and has been a reporter, a magazine writer, and a U.S. Army medic and company commander.

When he's not writing, he loves spending time in the outdoors, studying space exploration and retro futurism, doing his own DIY projects, reading and talking about Science Fiction, Fantasy and pretty much any speculative fiction you can think of.

His latest series is the Galactic Law series.