[01] Elite: Wanted (6 page)

‘A station maintenance supervisor claims to know who Newman is working for but he won’t pass it on except to you in person.’

Who Newman was working for? The second ship? Ziva rolled her head on her shoulders. She was drunk and felt sick and slightly hungover but that wasn’t a problem. She pulled a needle of Purge out of her pocket and stabbed it into her arm. It took a few seconds and then the hangover and the haze of the Scotch started to drain away. You could actually feel it happen, watch your own thoughts sharpen up again.

Oh damn and she’d done it again, jabbed herself with Purge in the cockpit. ‘Shit! Water!’ She pushed herself sharply out of the pilot’s couch and shot down the corridor. Nice thing about micro-gravity: with a bit of practice you could get about real quick. Useful for those times when you suddenly
really
needed a piss and then to drink two litres of water because, for example, you’d shot yourself with Purge without thinking.

By the time she left the
Dragon Queen
, she was as sharp as a knife. Tight leather, tight jeans, tight boots, pockets everywhere, belt, bandoleer, two holstered guns – worn openly. In part it was a matter of being practical and not wanting anything to float off or catch on anything in the low-gravity parts of the station. In a larger part it was what people expected when the Blink Dog came by. Whoever this maintenance supervisor was, he surely had a certain anticipation of what he was going to see.

‘So?’ Ravindra had unlocked her high-backed pilot’s chair and turned to face the rest of the crew. Debussy played softly in the background. Outside the stars were smears of light as the ship traversed hyperspace. They had made a series of jumps, laying a false trail.

There was a lot of shifting and nobody was looking at her. She wondered how much of that was down to her order to kill a number of innocent people. Only Harnack looked her straight in the eyes.

‘Newman’s going to screw us,’ the ex-Gurkha told her. She thought about this, a grimace on her face.

‘Yes, he really is, isn’t he?’ she finally said.

‘Shit!’ Jonty spat. ‘Why did we get in bed with these people?’ he demanded angrily.

Jenny looked scared, but Orla seemed as impassive as ever.

‘We talked this out and voted,’ Orla reminded him. ‘There’s not much point in whining about it now.’

‘Catharsis?’ Jonty suggested.

‘That doesn’t matter,’ Ravindra said quietly. ‘The question is, what do we do now?’

‘Realistically, what are our options?’ Harnack asked, though it was more thinking out loud.

‘We run,’ Jenny suggested.

‘Can you run from the Judas Syndicate?’ Jonty asked. ‘They’re everywhere. Anyone could be a Veil.’

‘For all we know you’re one,’ Jenny said, smiling weakly.

‘Surely Ravindra’s the criminal mastermind?’ Jonty replied, also smiling, easing the tension just a little bit.

‘We run,’ Ravindra said. ‘We don’t go back to Whit’s Station, we sell the ship, new identities, reconstructive surgery and we go our separate ways. Who we are now dies.’

‘What about Ji?’ Harnack asked.

Ravindra swallowed but tried very hard to show no outward reaction to the question, despite how her stomach was churning.

‘There are contingencies,’ she told them evenly. Contingencies that meant she never saw her son again. She had left enough money with Harlan Whit, along with instructions. She trusted the station boss to do the right thing. It wasn’t a coincidence that they had settled down on Whit’s Station.

‘Ravindra—’ Orla started.

‘I said it’s sorted,’ Ravindra said, cutting Orla off.

‘So we spend the rest of our days looking over our shoulders?’ Jonty asked. Ravindra nodded. The rest of the crew went quiet as they thought about this.

‘Is it just us he’s going to screw over?’ Jenny asked.

‘You mean is he going to screw the Syndicate as well, sweetheart?’ Jonty asked. Jenny nodded. Her hands moved in the holographic control gloves as she did busy work to distract herself. ‘We’re a lot easier to rip off than they are.’

‘Are we?’ Ravindra asked. Jonty looked a little taken back.

‘Well, yes.’

‘We’re easier,’ Harnack said. ‘But we are not a push-over crew. There are a lot easier crews to rip off than us.’

‘We’re assuming that he is going to rip us off,’ Jonty said. Everyone turned to look at him sceptically. ‘Just trying to stay positive,’ he muttered.

‘Look at what he did on the Orca,’ Ravindra said. She reached for a bulb of water adhered to the control board, knocking it free. It spun up in the zero G, drops of condensation whirling away from it. She caught the bulb and took a drink from it.

‘He’s a sick bastard,’ Jenny said.

‘He’s a crazy bastard,’ Harnack added. Ravindra nodded. ‘So if he’s messed up in the head enough to do that …?’

‘Then he might be crazy enough to rip off the Syndicate,’ Jonty finished.

‘That doesn’t help,’ Jenny said. ‘The Syndicate still doesn’t get what they want and we’ll be in the frame for it.’

‘He could be following the Syndicate’s orders. If he screws us, I mean,’ Harnack said. ‘They get what they want and save some money.’

‘Do that often enough and people won’t work with them,’ Orla commented.

‘That depends on whether or not anybody finds out, and the spin you put on it, darling,’ Jonty muttered.

‘The Syndicate always do what they say they will, no matter what,’ Ravindra pointed out.

‘So we run?’ Jenny said, looking less than happy about the idea. They were all looking at Ravindra. She alone had somebody she cared about she would be leaving behind.

‘This is what we agreed,’ Orla said. ‘We don’t do the stupid stuff that gets the others caught. We’ve made enough money. We had a good long run and we got away with a lot.’

‘Except that Newman’s a threat,’ Harnack said. Jonty intimated his agreement.

‘No witnesses,’ Jenny said coldly. ‘Leaving witnesses behind is part of the stupid shit that would get us caught. Also, we deal with him, get the payload – we can still square this with the Judas Syndicate.’

‘That’s a lot of ifs,’ Ravindra said. ‘And you know the rumours – he’s some kind of ex-military, special forces, with a crew of similar.’

‘We have our own skills’ Harnack said.

‘And if we’re running I don’t want to leave that sick bastard in my six,’ Jonty said. Jenny obviously agreed.

‘Orla?’ Ravindra asked. Orla seemed lost in thought.

‘I don’t like the options. We go to the rendezvous. It’s a risk, but everything we do is a risk.’

‘Okay,’ Ravindra said. ‘Harnack, you’re up.’

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Newman demanded. He sounded like he was trying hard to keep a rein on his anger.

Ravindra was bringing them in low over the ice asteroid they had agreed on as their primary rendezvous point. Frozen, ugly, it was shaped like an elongated potato. They had come in low, using fissures and contours in the ancient, crystal-clear surface as cover. They had popped up over the nearby horizon, a range of jagged ice hills, and Jonty had put a missile lock on the waiting Cobra. That was when she had received the angry message from Newman.

‘We don’t like how it went down—’ Orla said across the comms.

‘
You
don’t like?’ Newman demanded, interrupting. Now that he wasn’t getting things his way, now that she knew what to look for, Ravindra could hear it in his voice. Newman clearly wasn’t as mentally well as their initial meetings had led her to believe. ‘The E-bomb almost took us out! What were you thinking, you amateur bitch? Take the lock off now!’

‘This goes down smoothly and you don’t need to worry about the lock,’ Orla told him. ‘Any messing around and we just take you out.’

‘Look, nothing—’ Newman started. Orla cut the link. Ravindra bought the
Song of Stone
to a stop hovering over the small plateau of ice that Newman’s Cobra had anchored itself to. She knew that, as well as the missile lock, Harnack would have the lasers targeting the Cobra.

‘What have we got?’ Ravindra asked. Sensor information from Orla’s scans started appearing in her lenses. It showed a three-dimensional, topographical image of the surrounding landscape. There were two roughly person-shaped heat ghosts lying in overwatch positions overlooking the wedge-shaped Cobra’s position.

‘They’re good. Their thermal signatures are well shielded and they’re camouflaged; I almost missed them.’

‘Snipers?’ Ravindra asked.

‘At least one of them will be,’ Harnack said. ‘The second one could have a support weapon.’

‘And there’s no guarantee I found everyone,’ Orla said.

‘Give them a chance,’ Ravindra instructed as her hands moved slightly, working the manoeuvring engines, keeping them in place. Newman was still shouting when Orla reopened the comms.

‘Newman … Newman … Shut up. We’ve got two heat signatures, both a little more than a klick from your position. Want to pull them back in?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Newman declared.

‘Sure?’ Orla asked.

‘Of course I’m sure’ Newman said. Orla cut the comms link.

‘This guy’s a moron,’ she muttered and looked over at Ravindra.

‘Do it,’ Ravindra said.

Port and starboard pulse lasers fired. The least accurate and powerful of their laser weapons, they were more than enough to turn two ten-metre radiuses of ice into steam. The steam almost instantly re-froze, creating multi-trunk tree-like structures of ice rising up from the surface of the asteroid. Some of the ice was red.

‘He seems angry,’ Orla said. She hadn’t bothered putting Newman’s ranting over the loudspeakers. She would handle comms now. She didn’t want to distract the rest of the crew.

‘We should take him from here,’ Jonty said. ‘Cut our losses.’

‘Jonty,’ Harnack said softly to his lover, ‘we agreed that we were going in to get the payload and confirm a kill on Newman.’

‘Quiet,’ Orla told a furious Newman over the comms. ‘You said they weren’t yours, we took you at your word. No more pissing about. We’re going to come down, get our pay and then we don’t ever have to have anything to do with each other again. Mess around and everyone dies, understood?’ Orla listened to Newman’s reply. ‘Okay, we’re on,’ she told the rest of the crew.

‘You think he realises we’re playing a zero sum game?’ Jenny wondered.

‘I don’t think empathy’s his thing,’ Jonty muttered.

‘Tell him he delivers our money,’ Ravindra said. Orla nodded and repeated the instruction.

‘He wants to see you as well,’ Orla said.

Of course he does
, Ravindra thought as she brought the ship into land..

The loading ramp airlock’s inner doors slid shut behind them. The air cycling out of the airlock made them sway in their armoured spacesuits. The monomolecular hooks on the griphook soles of their suits kept them solidly anchored to the loading bay ramp in the asteroid’s microgravity.

‘Ready?’ Harnack asked. Ravindra and Jenny nodded. Affirmatives came across the secure comms link from Jonty and Orla.

‘Lower the docking ramp,’ Ravindra told the ship. Harnack knelt down, the griphook kneepad on his space suit adhering to the ramp. Ravindra and Jenny stood to either side of him. All three of them were holding their EM carbines ready. Crosshairs appeared in their vision, either on the heads-up display on the helmets themselves, or, in Ravindra’s case, on her lenses.

There were five of them positioned in a rough semi-circle around the Cobra’s ramp. Ravindra was reasonably sure that it was Newman in the centre of the five. Four of them had carbines levelled at the
Song
’s crew. Ravindra was gratified to see that they were only lasers. There was a reason her crew carried EM carbines. Jenny, Harnack and Ravindra brought their own guns up. The targeting systems showed them the best places to point them. The ice all around them glowed deep blue, reflecting the landing lights of both ships.

‘I thought you were professionals. Where’s the trust gone?’ Newman asked. He
was
the man stood in the middle, his hands behind his back.

Harnack stayed kneeling on the loading ramp. Ravindra and Jenny edged down, carbines snug against their shoulders, and then moved to either side of the ramp.

‘Professionalism includes torturing the passengers on the yacht?’ Jenny demanded. Ravindra cursed the engineer. There would be no closure here. No point in discussing it.

‘What about the ones you killed in the escape pods? I’m not sure you’re in a position to morally judge me.’

‘Just give us our credit packs and we’ll be on our way,’ Ravindra said through gritted teeth. Even in Alliance space all electronic financial transactions could be traced. The best way to move around large amounts of credits unnoticed was using credit packs. They were little more than specialised, secure, electronic storage devices.

‘You killed two of my people—’ Newman said angrily.

‘We gave you a chance …’ Jenny pointed out fiercely.

‘The E-bomb nearly killed all of us.’

‘We had to clean up your—’ Jenny started.

‘Are we doing this?’ Ravindra demanded, cutting the engineer off.

‘I think you need to—’ Newman began to shout.

‘Now,’ Ravindra said.

It was difficult to say what happened first, though Ravindra knew the order of events. The night turned an angry hot red as the
Song
’s military laser punched a hole through the Cobra’s armoured hull and the Cutter’s pulse lasers fired. Two of the five mercenaries in front of them just became so much red steam, which then instantly refroze into root-like, red ice sculptures. Black score marks appeared on the front of the Cobra.

Then everything in front of them turned into glittering silver as Orla fired all the front-facing reflective chaff launchers. The return fire from the Cobra’s pulse laser batteries was refracted into so much red light and heat. Ravindra’s suit’s expert systems transmitted warning icons to her lenses as it partially melted. She ignored them and moved forwards firing, the griphook soles of her suit keeping her adhered to the ice.

Harnack fired the underslung grenade launcher on his EM carbine. The recoil rocked him back but the griphook pads kept him on the loading ramp, the suit’s servos compensating and returning him to a firing position.