Her Brother's Keeper - eARC (36 page)

“Oh, sweetie,” the blue woman said, “it’s okay.” She reached forward and caressed the side of Lana’s head, again touching the plate where here ECCOM had been. “I know you’re not from around here.” With her left hand, she brushed back her own hair, revealing a synthetic plate of her own. “It’s hard, getting used to life in the real world,” she said. “I’ve been where you are. My name is Lucy.”

Lana’s eyes were wide. “The winds of time carry away all things,” she said.

“And all things are dust in the wind,” Lucy replied. “What’s your name, child?”

“Lana Nine-Zero-Eight-Nine-Zero,” Lana answered, looking up into Lucy’s eyes, almost in shock.

“Not any more, honey. That was your slave designation. People have names, not numbers.”

“Just Lana, then,” she said quietly.

Lucy leaned in close to Lana, almost like she was going to kiss her, but stopped short. “Welcome home, sister,” she said.

“My…my friends here helped me escape,” she stammered, a tear rolling down her cheek.

“Ma’am,” Marcus said professionally. “My name is Marcus Winchester. I need your help.”

Chapter 26

The Privateer Ship
Andromeda

Freeport Spaceport, Equatorial Region

Zanzibar

Captain Catherine Blackwood checked herself on her screen one last time. Her sage green flight suit was crisp and fresh. She straightened her leather flight jacket, gold wings on her left breast and the four gold captain’s bars on each shoulder. The peaked cap, the one she almost never wore, was sitting perfectly on her head, very slightly cocked to one side. Behind her command chair, Wolfram von Spandau stood quietly, striking an imposing figure with his shoulders squared and his hands folded behind his back.

On one of Catherine’s screens, Mordecai Chang’s face appeared. It took some prodding, but he, too, had cleaned up his normally disheveled appearance. Catherine wasn’t able to coax him out of his tiny cabin, but there wasn’t really any reason for the eccentric purser to be on the command deck anyway. She needed him to be on top of his game, and that meant keeping him in his comfort zone. Mordecai was not the social type, and he didn’t like to deal with people face-to-face.

The command deck of the
Andromeda
was unusually quiet. Aside from Catherine and her exec, it was deserted, and the hatches were closed. For highly sensitive negotiations like this, she needed to be able to focus and not have any distractions.

“Are you ready,
Kapitänin
?” Wolfram asked.

She took a deep breath. “I am. Let’s do this. Mordecai, make the call.”

“Yes ma’am,” Mordecai said. “Stand by.”

Though outwardly she projected the perfectly calm demeanor of confident command, Catherine’s heart was racing. She’d sent a message to Aristotle Lang upon arriving in-system, and again after landing. The only response was a terse text message telling her when to place a video call to begin negotiations. She didn’t know what to expect when the call went through.
What if something happened to Cecil? What if he’s been tortured?
It had taken her an awfully long time to get to Zanzibar.

Catherine’s heart jumped up into her throat as Cecil’s face appeared on the screen. Apart from dark circles under his eyes, and the facial lines of a man who drank too much, her brother looked no worse for wear. “Hello, Cat,” he said with a weak smile. “It’s…it’s good to see you.”

“Cecil…” she said, trailing off. She couldn’t help but let her expression soften. She hadn’t seen him in years, but he was still her baby brother. She had carried him around when he was an infant, played with him as a child, and hugged him as he cried after their mother passed away. “It’s good to see you too, little brother.”

“I was worried you wouldn’t come.”

“I’m sorry it took me so long to get here.” Catherine took a deep breath. It was time to get down to business. “Tell me, Cecil, where was our secret hiding spot as children?”

“What?”

“Where was our secret hiding spot as children? The one we never told anyone about.”

“Oh! My God, I can’t believe you remember that. It was in that grove of trees on the northwest corner of the estate. We hid there for a day after you broke mother’s Earth-native vase.”

“
I
didn’t break that vase, Cecil,” Catherine said, unable to stop smiling. “
You
broke that vase and
I
got blamed for it.” She was relieved. There’s no way anyone but Cecil would know that. She’d just verified that it was him, and not a trick.

“That’s not how I remember it, Cat,” he said coyly. “It’s good to see you. Thank you for coming all the way out here.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I got you out of trouble, would it now? Are you well?”

“As well as can be expected,” he said.

“He is
quite
well, I assure you, Captain!” Aristotle Lang said, stepping into view. He sounded pompous, overconfident, but Catherine could tell he was not a man to take lightly. He was a stocky man with a bald head, dressed in a gaudy fur coat. “I am a businessman, not a monster. I have no interest in damaging the merchandise! As you can see, your brother is quite well. Once we’ve settled the small matter of payment, he’s all yours, and you can be on your way home.”

Mordecai Chang chimed in. “Our correspondence is all months out of date at this point, but I don’t believe you have specified a price. I am sending you what I think you’ll find is a very generous offer.”

“All I want,” the captain added, “is to bring my brother home safely. I would like this matter to be resolved as quickly and painlessly as possible.”

“And my associates,” Cecil interjected. “Zak Mesa and Anna Kay.”

“Yes, yes,” Lang said, silencing Cecil. He looked away from the screen, presumably at the offer Mordecai had sent, but seemed nonplussed. “Captain, that is indeed a generous offer, but I have more money than I can spend on Zanzibar as is.”

Catherine’s eyes narrowed. “Then what is it, exactly, you want?”

Lang leaned in toward the camera. “What I
want
, Captain, is
Freeport
. What I
need
in order to
get
what I want are
weapons
. Modern weapons, the kind you can’t get on this world. Powered armor. Plasma weapons. Long-range missiles. This planet is nothing but chaos and squalor. I can change that. I have the will, and the loyal followers, but I need better tools to do the job. Once it is over, there will be peace, and I will bring to Zanzibar prosperity that it hasn’t known in any of our lifetimes. With these weapons, I can not only take Freeport, but
hold
it. Defend it from off-world interlopers who come to steal our natural resources.”

The captain kept her game face on, but a quiet rage was boiling inside her. “I have spent over four thousand hours in transit, operating under the assumption that the payment you sought was money. At no point did you specify specific goods in exchange for Cecil. As such, I didn’t
bring
the specific goods you want. My cargo hold is full of the supplies I needed for this journey, not weapons for your army. What would you have me do, fly back to New Austin and buy the weapons you want?”

“No need for such hyperbole, Captain. I am not an unreasonable man, and I do not make unreasonable demands. Valuable trade goods have come into my possession. I have made deals for the tools that I need. However, because of Frank DeWitt’s cowardly defamation of my character, none of the ships at the spaceport will let me hire them, and I’d be hesitant to trust them with this cargo in any case. You,” he said, patting Cecil roughly on the shoulder, “you have cause to honor a deal.”

It was all Catherine could do to stop her hands from shaking with anger. “Very well,” she said calmly. “Send me the specifics of what you require.”

Lang tapped his screen, sending Catherine the requested data packet. “Excellent! If you do this thing for me, you will have your brother back, no worse for wear.” Cecil went to say something, but Lang hushed him. “I will demonstrate my sincerity. If nothing else, it will calm your brother down. I will send his assistants to Freeport to meet with you. Consider it a symbol of my good faith. They will carry with them the coordinates of where you will land your ship to collect my trade goods.”

Cecil’s mouth fell open. “My God, thank you. Thank you so much. I—”

Lang pushed him out of view of the camera, interrupting him. “Do not mistake my generosity for a lack of resolve, Captain. If you want your brother back, you will do as I ask.”

“I understand,” Catherine said, ice in her voice. “I need
you
to understand, Mr. Lang, that I
will
kill you if this is some kind of a trick.”

Lang laughed. “Many have tried, my dear Captain, many have tried. But you needn’t worry. Everything you need to know is in the packet I just sent. Your brother’s associates will arrive in the city within a day, and I will leave them with instructions to contact you.”

“I will have to come back to Freeport first,” she said. “The port services here are slow. It will take a few days to get the ship refitted for a long flight.”

From the look on his face, Catherine could tell that Lang didn’t like that. She expected him to tell her to wait, to come get his trade goods when she was ready to lift off, but he surprised her by just shrugging it off. “Very well. You should know, Captain, that I have people everywhere in Freeport. If it is you who tries to trick me, your ship will never leave this world. I promise you that.” The connection was cut.

“God
damn
it!” Catherine snarled, slamming a fist onto her armrest.

“Cap’n,” Mordecai asked, “do you have any idea what these trade goods are?”

“No, Mordecai, I do not, and I don’t care. Paying a ransom is one thing. I will be
damned
if I’m going to be an errand girl for that pompous ass, flying all over known space fetching weapons for his army!”

“There is another matter to consider,
Kapitänin,
” Wolfram said. “If we do equip his forces with weapons, and our involvement in the matter becomes public knowledge, our license to operate in Concordiat space could be revoked. There is a clause in the interstellar trade laws regarding the arming of brigands and terrorist groups. Aristotle Lang almost certainly meets that definition.”

“I’m aware, Wolfram. I’m not worried about the Concordiat. It’s the principle of the matter.”

Wolfram nodded. “We always knew this could happen.”

“Indeed, Cap’n,” Mordecai agreed. “He got greedy. He seems overconfident, though. Perhaps we can use this to our advantage?”

The captain sat quietly for a moment, brow furrowed in thought. “Perhaps we can, Mordecai,” she said. “Perhaps we can. Is Marcus Winchester back yet?”

“Negative.”

“Send him a message explaining everything that happened. Tell him I need him back here as soon as possible to begin contingency planning. Lang is in for a
very
rude surprise.”

“I just received a message from him,
Kapitänin.
He says that he has made contact with the Orlov refugees. Lana is being delivered to Sanctuary.”

Catherine rubbed her chin, thoughtfully. “Perhaps they can help us.”

* * *

Dressed in a long brown cloak, respirator, and tinted goggles, Catherine was indistinguishable from anyone else on Zanzibar. Away from the security of the ship, discretion was a necessity. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself, and the people she was meeting didn’t want attention drawn to them, either.

Mazer Broadbent wanted to go along, to protect his captain if she insisted on leaving the ship, but Catherine had ordered him to stay behind. She didn’t trust the security of the ramshackle spaceport and wanted him there to handle any problems that might arise. Escorting her were three of her hired mercenaries: Marcus Winchester, Randall Markgraf, and Benjamin Halifax. All were dressed in similar garb as they quietly moved through a bustling bazaar, trying not to draw attention to themselves. They were led by the blue-haired prostitute that Marcus had made contact with. She, apparently, was a point of contact for Sanctuary.

As Danzig-5012 sunk below the horizon, the woman with blue hair led the spacers away from the noise and crowds of the market, into the slums that surrounded it. She turned down a rapidly darkening alley and motioned for the off-worlders to stay behind. A lone figure was waiting for them. The man was also cloaked and masked, and was leaning against a wall. The woman, Lucy, went forward and spoke with him quietly. After a few moments, she motioned for Catherine and her men to approach.

“This is where I leave you,” Lucy said. “This is Strelok. He will take you the rest of the way.”

“Where are you taking us?” Catherine asked. She wanted these people’s help, so she didn’t want to sound too demanding, but the veteran spacer wasn’t about to let herself get complacent, either.

“To a safe place,” the man called Strelok responded, “where we can discuss matters.”

“I must go,” Lucy said. “Thank you for bringing Lana to us. She is among family here.” Without another word, she turned down the alley and walked away.

“Are you taking us to Sanctuary?” Marcus asked.

“No,” Strelok said. “We do not speak of that out here. We have a safe house nearby. Follow me, and do not draw attention to yourself. Aristotle Lang’s spies do not go where I am taking you, but it is not a safe place for off-worlders. Come.”

Forty-five minutes later, Catherine found herself inside a partially damaged building beneath the crumbling ruins of a highway overpass, on the very edge of Freeport. Her mercenary escorts had balked when Strelok insisted that they disarm and submit to a weapons scan, but she ordered them to comply. No one was waiting for them in the main room of the building, but it was stocked with provisions and beds. There were no guards, but the off-worlders were tracked by a ceiling-mounted turret as Strelok led them into the building. He pushed open an ancient, creaking door and motioned for them to follow him down a flight of stairs.

One floor below was a small room filled with a cluttered mishmash of computers and communication equipment. At least a dozen screens illuminated the otherwise darkened room, as did a holotank. At the center of it all was a pale, skinny man with a headset over his eyes and ears, and cables leading into the back of his neck. Standing next to him was an older, silver-haired woman with a weapon in her hands and an unhappy expression on her face.

“Ah…Captain Catherine Blackwood, of the privateer ship
Andromeda,
” the wired man said, without turning his head in Catherine’s direction. An unkempt mop of hair hung down over his face and headset. “I’m glad to meet you.”

Strelok indicated the strange man plugged into his machines. “This is Piro, our—”

“Technomancer,” Piro interrupted. I am a Technomancer. I am connected to every network on Zanzibar, every satellite, every ship in orbit. I go everywhere and see everything.”

Strelok sighed audibly through his mask. “No one actually calls him a
technomancer.
” The woman didn’t say anything, but she rolled her eyes.

“It’d catch on if you people would use it!” Piro protested.

“But he is very good at what he does,” Strelok said. “The best, in fact.”