Page 3 of Defiance
Bael clacked his mandibles once in the negative. “Not listed.”
“Damn.”
They didn’t need to say anymore about the cargo ship because they both knew the danger. Only covert elite vessels were cleared to have their own chainskipping engine core that allowed them to bypass the queue for long-space travel. If a ship like that came disguised as an industry-class vessel, dropped off cargo and disappeared…
“They could be anywhere.” Bael said the worst part out loud.
Ferulis ground his teeth together. It wasn’t just the ship being a ghost that was the problem. Engine cores capable of creating their own gravity wells were rare and expensive. They could bankrupt a small planet. Which meant there were only a handful of entities that could afford something like that.
The Nephim Employment Agency being one of them, a company that had drilled holes into the soul of the Outer Rim for more than a century under Rakta Corps's umbrella of unscrupulous subsidiaries. They specialized in slave contracts, smuggling, illegal substances and mining, and were the company that seemed to be funding Chairwoman Guei’sattempts at stealing living code from humans to sell for a mind-boggling cache horde.
Ferulis felt a rare moment of helplessness with the fountain’s spray pelting the back of his head. He’d been chasing Guei’s shadow for months, pulling every trustworthy string at his disposal, Duram and Baellanus Atarian included. He knew she was involved. He had the recording to prove it.
But audio-visuals didn’t hold up in a court of law in the Union. He needed a lot more than a vid the defense would tear apart as politically-motivated generative lies. He needed raw numbers. Data. He needed to form a web around her and catch her in it.
Except she was a spider too. Only night show hosts and impressionable academy grads ever mistook her for a fly.
Ferulis stared at the cafe across the plaza like a petrified lump of wood, wondering at the venandi couple pretending they weren’t touching knees beneath their table during work hours. He opened the collar of his uniform and withdrew an old chrome bone scarred from years of clenching it between his fangs. With a twist of the cap, the pipe glowed up, turned warm against his mandible, and he took a drag of spiced smoking oil.
“I muttered it the first time I saw Liv,” he admitted, exhaling lavender mist as he watched that couple like a hawk. “Muru grace us.”
Bael exhaled, shoulders rounding. “As did I. My sister-in-law isn’t a god, but… Well, maybe she’s a sign.” Their stares met, determined and solemn. “HIXBS is throwing a bash on Piaoguo in a satbit. They’re raising funds for human advocacy.”
“You mean they’re raising a bribe cache to lobby for access.”
“Correct. They’ve sent an invitation to Imani James as their honored guest, but curiously no invitation has come through your office.”
Of course not. He would have burned their party to the ground. Maybe he still would. There was time.
“How did you find out about it?”
“TS Pau on theYafridiis an old friend from my first tour. She’s been keeping tabs on the colony for us while Thel and Liv are away. Guei will be there.”
Ferulis took another drag off his bone, contemplating. It was a trap, no question. Imani James had been the one to record Guei at the dollhouse on Huajile. It was a good opportunity to get on the inside. James was ferocious, smart… but a terrible actor. The moment she and Guei locked eyes, the chairwoman would know Ferulis was closing in. Then he’d lose her.
Ferulis’s one living eye glowed bright with a sudden realization.
He would lose her.
The chairman stood abruptly, screwing the cap closed on his chrome bone and stowing it away again. His mind raced as his strategy unfolded.
“I’ve rested long enough,” he declared. “Let’s get this lunch over with.”
Bael’s green eyes shone just a little brighter. “Yes, sir.”
01
Huajile, Taixi System.
Expelling a sulfuric mist of early morning breath, Novak Gaul stood in line in the narrow Huajile alley behind HIXBS fertility clinic like any other advenan, though perhaps a little taller and prouder. His long ears skimmed the coolant mist leaking from the pipes of the neighboring bullpen, listening to the sleepy black market wake up. Sniffs, grunts, coughs, groans. Crates getting jostled, tossed, pried open. Door shutters rolling up with a clatter and shop awnings extending with a heavy snap… He felt bitter for the first time in a long while.
Even among the Union’s finest thieves, cut-throats, and swindlers, an advenan still had to check-in.
Novak blinked his bionic optics once, bringing up his citizen ID to double-check one more time that all of his biometrics were up-to-date. He blinked again to minimize his heads-up display, momentarily satisfied by the anxious habit. He’d gone his entire life without a delinquent mark on his record, and he planned to keep it that way.
Delinquency meant no travel. No travel meant no work. No work meant no freedom.
So he sighed away the bitterness, chanting that lifelong cause-and-effect in his mind, and settled into waiting, even if the bullpen next door made his plumage tingle and his scales itch for a fight. He squeezed his nostrils shut and pressed his tonguetight to the soft bed of his mouth, letting saliva cover its split tines and ease the violent twitch of being near other virile men.
