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  “No,” Riordan answered. “These are sloppy. Seems like last minute. So it was probably one of Proctor’s people. Maybe even Stevens or the guy who came after us in lockup, as a security measure in case he… well… Anyway, I’d bet this came from a downloadable program, if anything. Probably monitoring the prison ship to make sure Taav put us on it and sent us to Purgatory after our arrest.”

  Aralyn turned to the controls. “You think this thing has an AI?” she asked. “Phantom AI… continue on course to Purgatory, but proceed at half speed”―she turned to look around the cabin―“Phantom AI―”

  “Affirmative,” called a snooty-sounding robotic voice. “Course input will be maintained. Speed at half maximum until further notice.”

  Kita gave an appreciative nod and gestured to the control panel in the cockpit. “Fancy! Even their ships sound like bored old rich women.”

  “We’ve got bigger fish to fry than just who might have bugged this ship,” Caden said. “Taav certainly wasn’t exactly free with any intel we could use, was he?”

  “I suppose,” Aralyn agreed. “This whole cloak and dagger business is already getting old. One look at our non-discreet record and you’d think he could tell that ‘furtive’ isn’t exactly our modus operandi.” Aralyn slouched back to the sofa and picked the file Hooper had left them. It held a single holo-chip that presumably contained the details of their mission. “Besides, I think we can count their collusion as a non-issue at this point. As secretive as your father and Eladia are, this isn’t their thing, either. Eladia sent a guy to kill us in custody. Your father released some of the scummiest people in the galaxy to go after us. Taav’s got his own agenda, sure, but he’s gotten us this far, at least.”

  “Of course they don’t have to hide their bullshit,” Kita said. “Who needs secrecy when you make enough creds to pay off or kill anyone asking questions?”

  “Don’t forget―they didn’t know we’d be taking charge of the ship. They just thought some ‘yes men’ would take control and guide us back to them. Most likely they’ve got an ambush waiting for us closer to Purgatory. They might have even told Stevens to take over and drop us straight off at Tartarys, or perhaps to fake an attack—they could claim not to recognize the ship as UDA.” Caden pushed away from the window and headed toward the back of the ship.

  “Don’t you want to know what’s in here?” Aralyn asked him as Kita crossed the room to come sit beside her and peer at the strange folder.

  “Taking a shower,” Caden said, rounding the corner. “Want to get the brains off my shoes.”

  “Jeez, dude,” Kita said, staring after him. “He really should work on that.”

  Aralyn sighed and dropped her chin against her chest. “I know I’m going to regret this… but… work on what, exactly?”

  “Getting the stick out of his ass,” Kita replied matter-of-factly. “Now let’s see what’s in there! Didn’t Hooper say something about cover identities…?”

  Aralyn rolled her eyes and opened the folder and pulled out the chip, which opened in her palm and created several holo “documents” that she skimmed the contents of. It only gave the sparsest physical description of the informant they were supposed to meet, and then one page each for their fake IDs. Aralyn swiped the digital ID papers and cover information to Kita and looked at the rest of the documents as though she’d missed something.

  “There’s practically nothing there,” Riordan said, looking up from behind the computer only long enough to frown before returning to his scan.

  Aralyn slapped the chip back down on the table and let out an aggravated breath. “This? This is Taav’s big fuckin’ plan?” She reactivated the chip and pointed to some of the thin lines of writing on the sheets. “Informant is tall and slim with dark hair. Do not seek him out or question anyone as to his location. You will meet him at the Redux club on Halis Three. He will make contact.”

  “Halis Three? Where in stars is that even at?” Kita asked, frowning down at the folder, secret identities temporarily forgotten.

  “Sounds like another mining station,” Aralyn said, keying it into the ephemeris map and waiting while it scanned through a list of stations.

  It wasn’t uncommon for temporary mining stations to be set up on asteroids or even dwarf planets, and then abandoned months or years later until salvagers moved in, fixed up the place, and marked them as way stations or ‘entertainment’ venues. Aralyn flicked her eyes to the back where Caden had disappeared. Lyria V had been one such planet, and it had eventually grown popular enough among smugglers, runners, and traders that it had warranted UDA presence. Would Halis Three be similar? Or just a total heap of rock? The soft ping of the map table told her it found a match. The 3D image of an irregularly-shaped asteroid that had clearly seen some better days circled lazily on the holo-screen in front of them along with what must have been its sister moons, Halis One and Two, drifting aimlessly in the background.

  “Hello, Halis,” Aralyn murmured, looking over the station’s specs.

  It was small, but not completely non-descript, and located in a cluster of other asteroids in the Kuiper Belt that had all originally been part of a much larger one. Likely, miners had broken it apart to get easier access to whatever mineral or metal it offered. And, like everything and everyone else in the galaxy, once it was used up, they’d abandoned it once it served no purpose to them anymore.

  “This is clearly some kind of set up,” Riordan huffed, standing from the computer and crossing his arms. “The question is, by whom?”

  “Well, then I guess we’re screwed either way,” Aralyn said. The prospect of secretly working with the UDA―which was an awful lot like the UDA not having their collective asses at all―didn’t delight her. Nor did the realization that at any point, Eladia might rear her ugly head out of whatever hole she was hiding in or Proctor could find a way to locate them. “But it’s better than what we had before, and we’re still headed in roughly the same direction: Eladia.”

  “But this way puts us in a whole hell of a lot hotter water,” Kita added. “And if we mess up, we’re still just as dead. Maybe even more dead”―she frowned, contemplating― “dead… er?”

  “Then we can’t mess up,” Caden said, appearing from behind her in the doorway, auburn hair slick with water. He had toweled off and wore only a fitted tee and a pair of blue pants with utility pockets on the sides.

  “Oh, is it that simple? I guess that’s all we’ve gotta do,” Riordan spat, anger flaring. “We’ve done a really great job of ‘not messing up’ until now, right? Why are we even trying to do this anymore?”

  The cabin grew quiet at Riordan’s outburst.

  “Look, all I’m saying is, maybe we could find another way? Why should we endanger our lives for Taav or anyone else in the UDA? It was one thing when it was on our own terms, but now they’re just leveraging us as weapons so they don’t have to get their hands dirty. There are other star systems, other stations we could go to…” Riordan sat back down, anger and frustration seemingly deflating as quickly as they’d come. Flustered, he picked at his fingernails and shoved his glasses firmly back onto the bridge of his nose.

  Aralyn wiped the image of Halis Three from the ephemeris table and leaned against it. “Because Kragg is that bitch’s prisoner”―she had to fight the urge to snarl―“and he’s a slave. Because of me.” She turned and took a deep, steadying breath. “And I know that we got you involved in this, and I’m sorry, but it’s a hell of a sight better than sitting in Tartarys for the rest of your life, isn’t it?”

  “And speaking of Tartarys, my father has been enslaving people in Sol for at least fifteen years or possibly longer,” Caden said. “And we’re in a position to stop it.”

  “Are we?” Kita asked, voice small in the sudden stillness of the main cabin. “I mean, I know what you’re saying, but Rio has a point. We’re basically just unwilling mercs at this point.”

  A small electronic beep interrupted them.

  Riordan loo
ked back to the thin computer screen and pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. “…We’re clean,” he announced. “No viruses or tracers that I can detect”―he looked down at the crook of his arm―“in the system, anyway. And we’ll be able to stay on the ‘net, at least until our cover is blown and they start searching for us.”

  “Well, if we’re going to do this, then I guess now’s as good a time as any, right?” Aralyn asked and then turned toward the cockpit. “Phantom AI, new destination: Halis Three, in the Kuiper Belt; engines at maximum.”

  “Affirmative,” repeated the ship. “Adjusting course now.”

  Aralyn looked back down at the digi-paper and scowled. There was no certainty they wouldn’t be tracked and eviscerated upon landing, or even shot out of the stars on the way there, but they were out of other options. Taav had them; he knew it, they knew it, and certainly there was no backing out of the one opportunity they might have to infiltrate Eladia’s set up and destroy her from the inside out.

  “We always have a choice,” she muttered. “And I won’t let Kragg pay for mine.”

  She crushed the chip and ripped the folder until it was little more than confetti and threw the remains into the incinerator.

  ****

  “All right, ladies and gents, we’re on approach to Halis Three, so get your rears in gears,” Kita’s voice pitched over the intercom of the ship.

  Aralyn tugged a pillow over her ear and reached over to grab hold of Caden’s shoulder, but the space in the bunk next to her was already empty. Bleary-eyed, she sat up and looked around the small room and frowned, then studied her wrist module. She’d been out for a few hours; had he even slept at all?

  She groaned and threw the covers aside, fishing a fresh pair of pants and a tank top out of the small plastic chest of drawers, and then pulled her boots on. Aralyn also picked her small switchblade up out of one of the boxes that had come from Caden’s ship and slipped it back into the familiar space beside her ankle before pressing the button to slide the door open and stepping out.

  As she entered the cabin, she noticed Kita sitting in the pilot’s seat and Caden studying a display on the ephemeris map. The room was silent, but she could almost palpably feel the tension emanating from him as he looked over what appeared to be a layout of Redux, the club where they were supposed to meet their mysterious informant. Brow furrowed, he gave her a wan nod and returned to studying the table, so she approached the cockpit instead, where Kita looked over her ID card on the screen with a frown.

  “It says here that I’m a bounty hunter. A bounty hunter. Ugh! Couldn’t I have been an inter-systems mystery woman of crime?” Kita lamented, poking a finger at the e-doc they’d fed into the system that read Zoe Honzu at the top of it, above a series of information on her backstory.

  Aralyn shrugged. “At least you’re not a straight merc for hire like they made me,” she said. “And they made Caden an orachal smuggler.”

  “Seriously?” Kita asked.

  Caden looked over with a sigh. “Yeah. They didn’t like me, remember?”

  “Well obvs,” Kita replied. “But that’s still pretty harsh. They didn’t even try for Rio’s. They made him a hacker for pretend, too.”

  Aralyn gave a cursory nod to the view screen and asked, “That our rock?”

  “Sure is,” Caden replied. “Got here just over a standard hour ago.”

  Outside of the holo-window was a lumpy gray asteroid in the distance. It was rather small, but there were bands of black flex-fiber cloth, metal, and wires circled it like Ouroboros constricting the rock. At strategic points along the mass of giant tubes there were welded-on metal attachments where ships could dock.

  “Oh stars,” Aralyn said, once she realized what it meant. “No holo-field. Artificial gravity. Low-g at best, and at worst, none at all if they can’t afford the upkeep on a generator big enough to run a station this size.”

  “So we might end up swimming away through the air really slowly if this turns out to be a bad situation,” Kita added, nodding to herself. “There are worse ways to go, I figure.” Aralyn turned to Caden. “Anything useable in there?”

  Caden shook his head. “Nada. Finding blueprints for this place wasn’t easy either―I’m assuming they didn’t go through proper channels to get the building codes, you know?” He sighed and stepped back. “Everything about this place on the ‘net reads like some weird porno shop.”

  “Well, going in blind does seem like our style,” Aralyn muttered. “It’s probably best if we go in before the arranged meeting time and scope the place out. Maybe by twos, for safety”―she turned to the computer area in the back and found it empty―“where’s Riordan?”

  Kita leaned forward and pressed a button on the dash. “Rio!” she called. The words echoed in the overhead system through hall that led to the galley and the bunkrooms at the end.

  There was no way he hadn’t heard her, but it was clear that he wasn’t interested in answering at the moment, either.

  Before Kita could press the comm button again, Aralyn said, “That’s all right. We don’t have to go right away, I guess. We can figure this out later.”

  “But the sooner we do, the surer we are that our mysterious host isn’t already there scoping the place out,” Kita reminded her.

  Aralyn considered the meeting time from the dossier and frowned. They had about twenty-two standard hours before their meeting with this potential friend―or enemy―and she wanted to make sure it wasn’t time spent wasted. Having little to no info going in meant that they would have to scope the area out manually, rather than rely on building print imaging to establish exits, safe routes, and dead ends. There was no telling what they’d find once they were in there, either.

  “You know, for such a run-down cesspool,” Kita said, staring through the holo-field at the station, “there certainly are a lot of ships docked there.”

  “It’s either some kind of brothel or virtual sex den,” Caden said, shutting the image off on the table. “And it’s far enough out that it probably isn’t regulated by the UDA, just because they can’t be bothered.”

  “Great,” Aralyn said. “So watch for strange bodily fluids floating around, and avoid them like the plague. We’ll have to check it out first and figure out where to go from there. Redux is only one part of this place. If there’s anything else even remotely dangerous on that rock, we’re gonna need to know about it before our ‘friend’ arrives.”

  Riordan walked out from the hall and nodded his greetings, crossing his arms over his chest and looking warily at the others. “So I take it we’re going ahead with this idiotic plan of the Spector’s now?”

  “Sooner rather than later, I’d imagine,” Caden said. “If we’re dealing with low-g, that’s going to be one hell of a crawl to get around there. Luckily it seems a little on the smaller side, so hopefully it will only take us a few hours and then we can get some shut eye before the morning.”

  Riordan moved over to the computer console and tapped the slim monitor screen awake with an impatient push from his finger. After briefly scanning the reports from several systems he’d been looking over, he pushed his glasses back up on his nose and nodded. “No unexpected background processes running,” he announced before unplugging a few wires from the compact tower below the desk.

  “Looks like we’re not being monitored for now, but I’m going to keep it off of Halis’s ‘net just in case it pings anything in their system.”

  “Looks like it’s only been normal traffic in and out for a while,” said Kita, pointing to the few ships already docked. “What are we waiting for? We got the invitation. Let’s go already!”

  Aralyn eyed Caden, but he only shrugged. She sighed. “All right. Kita, can you take us in? We’re off the ship in fifteen standard.”

  Kita shot off a poor salute and moved back to the pilot’s console, beginning the sequence to bring them in to dock.

  “This place doesn’t even verify security clearances… It’s basica
lly one big red sign saying ‘warning’ in bright neon letters,” grumbled Riordan.

  “Does anyone else have a better plan?” Aralyn looked around the room. “Because I get that this is probably a set up one way or another. Do you see another option? I would love to know; honestly.” At their silence she repeated, “We’re out in fifteen.”

  The station didn’t grow much in size as they approached, which surprised Aralyn. It was small; intimate, almost, compared to some of the bigger places they’d visited. If someone was trying to set them up, wouldn’t they have opted for a bigger place with better gravity to spring a trap? She wasn’t sure if the size and the circumstances should worry her or give her hope, so she let it leave her mind as they opened the bay doors and descended from the higher gravity of their own ship’s systems to the floating sensation of low-g.

  First out the door, Aralyn couldn’t help but feel a childish thrill run through her as she stepped and bounced off the floor to the docking strip. She barely suppressed a nervous giggle as Kita followed, eyes widening in delight as she pretended to swim through the air.

  “Oh my stars!” she exclaimed as she landed delicately on one foot. “I forgot how much fun this can be!”

  The two men tried―and failed―to remain stoic as they floated down to the metal floor strips. Aralyn found herself smiling before she realized it when she looked up and met Caden’s gaze. Though she could see the hint of sadness still in his face, he mirrored the smile back to her and made his way over. Strange, how such a simple change of environment seemed to clear the air between them. She’d been missing his smile; the one that didn’t bear the clenching anger at his father in it.

  “You ready?” Caden asked, tucking his blue t-shirt into the belt of his pants to keep it from floating up around his chest.

  They each wore jackets to conceal the weapons at their waists, but Aralyn wasn’t sure why she bothered. It was likely no one on this tiny facility would blink an eye if they had guns. Helios, it was probably more suspicious if they didn’t.