“At the door,” Laney’s voice echoed in the kind of whisper that he could hear.

  Wyatt moved exactly enough to see someone rattling the front door of the bank, then checking his pocket watch impatiently.

  Long pause. More rattling. The man leaned in to cover his eyes and study the interior. Wyatt was perfectly still.

  The man shook his head disgustedly and stomped off.

  With any luck, he wasn’t about to call the authorities with his complaint.

  Then there’d be a firefight getting out of here.

  Scene Eighteen

  Brianna heard the sound change as Marusya’s drill bit got through the second lock. She backed it out and nodded up at Brianna.

  Brianna pulled a crowbar from the bag and slipped the chisel edge into the gap, then levered hard. Something inside snapped, but the door opened easily.

  Brianna swapped places with Marusya and looked inside.

  Space inside was sixty centimeters wide by forty tall. Something was in it that almost filled that space. A box.

  Brianna grabbed it and pulled. Banker’s box. In a bank.

  A quiet part of her found the symmetry pleasing.

  Heavy with papers. File folders when she popped the top off to look inside.

  Brianna withdrew one at random, studying the name, face, and life of the woman revealed. Nobody she knew, but she wondered if she should commit the entire box to deep memory against future need.

  They had programmed such things into her, able to recall the image of the page perfectly at a later date to the point of reciting the contents.

  It would take nearly a month, though.

  Perhaps she would ask Wyatt to locate Warchild’s file. He would know the man’s face. Brianna wanted to know who he really was.

  Wyatt could keep being Wyatt. That past was dead and buried, as far as Brianna was concerned.

  She pulled the box to one side and squatted down to look inside. A variety of bundles of cash, both Ergrove and Lorastir when Brianna pulled them out. She took the largest two and slipped them into an air duct overhead, where it would not be visible.

  “That will be yours against what we are doing to your bank upstairs,” Brianna told Solari as the woman sat there with her mouth wide open.

  The other papers she stuffed into Marusya’s bag unseen. If they were not in the files, they belonged to the deposit box’s owner. That might be clues she needed to find out who was behind all of this.

  Only a fool would assume that this was the only copy of such files made. Warchild wanted it destroyed so he might have the last copy, but she doubted that.

  Fewer copies floating around, which meant more power to the person holding them.

  “I have what I need,” Brianna told Marusya, utterly silent up until now.

  They both rose and Brianna took Solari by the arm.

  “I threatened you with torture and all manner of unpleasantness, when someone inquires later,” Brianna told her, again using that voice that compelled obedience.

  Solari nodded vacantly, as if her mind had fled, leaving only the shell behind.

  It was a feeling Brianna knew well.

  Marusya led. Brianna compelled Solari up the stairs and into the rest of the bank.

  “Vulture One, we are ready to depart,” Brianna said aloud.

  Scene Nineteen

  Fin didn’t hardly ever fly this shuttle. Last Stand had come without any shuttles when he and Tessa had bought it. They’d managed to find an old Velasquez Dynamics (of Baramunz) Bulwark model cargo runner that honestly wasn’t much more than a pickup, with two seats up front in a small cabin and an enclosable bed about king-sized if you were going to sleep in it.

  Abigail had brought the McDaniel Semiconductor Bank Envoy Personal Runner with her when she’d hired them. Sleek and sexy, but hey, it fit the woman.

  Cockpit forward with two big seats and a coffee maker. Because coffee.

  Salon/Library as the main cabin, when the seductions needed to be intellectual. The stuff you did over tea or whatever. Boudoir behind that, all frilly, though Abigail had privately complained more than once that she’d have done something entirely different if it wasn’t for that one movie series about the traveling Player who solved crimes and seduced people.

  Abigail’s was an almost perfect copy. For a reason. Expectations.

  Engine room and thrusters at the back.

  No way to jump to FTL, but as an in-system racecar, it was kinda awesome.

  “Vulture One, we are ready to depart,” Brianna’s voice suddenly came over the radio, even faster than she’d been expecting, so either things had gone exceptionally well, or utterly to shit.

  He’d find out shortly.

  Last Stand—with him still attached—had moved off over the horizon after the team had departed. He’d even let Abigail fly, just because it was a beast compared to what she was used to. She still had handled it like a pro.

  Just part of the reason he loved that woman.

  “Vulture One, understood,” he replied, then flipped to the intercom. “Status, beautiful?”

  “They don’t even have weather radar on this planet, Fin,” Abigail laughed. “Try not to get mugged by any aggressive crows on the way.”

  Fin laughed as well and brought everything live.

  He could have put Last Stand down in that park a block away, but this would be easier and faster, assuming he had surprise on his side.

  Best to do it right then.

  Thrusters lifted as he unlocked the landing slide, letting Abigail’s Envoy leap into the sky.

  To be safe, however, he didn’t go high. No radar out there meant that the only people who would see him coming would be using eyeballs.

  Fin dropped it down under fifty meters flight elevation. Not a lot of trees around here, and most of them bushy scrub stuff. Buildings this far out were rarely more than two stories tall, as long as he avoided overflying the starfield where a couple of cargo beasts were waiting for their grain loads, either delivering or hauling off.

  Buzzing them at high speed might be fun, but they might also remember him later, and Fin was all set to convince the love of his life never to set foot on Leagrove again. Freighters might still show up elsewhere.

  So he brought it down and locked his mind on the horizon as he pushed the throttle not quite to the last stop. Still faster than Abigail probably ever ran, but he’d had Auntie check things before she left, after explaining his intentions.

  She’d laughed even louder than he did.

  “Vulture One is currently sixty seconds out,” Fin announced.

  Didn’t matter who might be listening. They wouldn’t know what it meant until afterwards.

  And he’d be gone by then.

  And off to offer this Warchild punk a piece of his mind.

  Scene Twenty

  Brianna had left Solari’s hands tied behind her. Safer for everyone that way. She got the woman set down in her office and studied her.

  “Remember, threat of torture,” Brianna said.

  “Might be better for her if you hit her right now,” Marusya opined quietly, pulling the door closed.

  Brianna turned to the smaller, older woman. They always said old age and treachery were better than youth and skill.

  Brianna would be hard pressed to find a more perfect comparison.

  She turned back to Solari.

  “Would a blackened eye be better for your explanations?” she asked.

  Solari was only partly home behind those eyes, but she did nod.

  “Very well,” Brianna said.

  It was a snap punch to the outer edge of the eye socket and forehead. Solid bones, but blood vessels would make the whole turn black and puffy quickly enough. The sound was exceptional, but Brianna put that down to closed space and hypersensitive senses at the moment.

  She hadn’t been this person in several years. Constanz had spent all of his time, money, and effort trying to bury her, after all, that a new person could emerge.

  Brianna would slough this killer off later like a cloak, but then hang her by the door against future need.

  She’d remained in control through all of this.

  When was the last time she’d been able to say that?

  “You will remain here,” Brianna told the woman when her head rocked back to center and her eyes focused again. “We will depart. None of your people have been hurt even as much as you now are. We do not intend to ever return to your business. Thank you for being compliant.”

  Always remind them of that. Leave something to take off the edge of madness and rage that anyone would experience after being so badly treated.

  If you must leave people alive, do not leave them mortal enemies.

  She could still hear the voices whispering those commands in the darkness.

  Brianna shook herself like a wet dog and turned to Auntie.

  It almost felt like she’d just awakened from a nap.

  Auntie nodded sagely and opened the door, peeking around the frame into the wider space.

  “Are we clear?” the woman called.

  “Affirmative,” Laney replied a moment later. “Were we successful?”

  “Affirmative,” Auntie said. “Emerging now.”

  Brianna followed Auntie into the bigger space. Laney and Wyatt watching a man and two women that had been nothing but moving shadows in her mind earlier. The guard she had struck was awake but bound and gagged under a desk, eyes tracking her with more than a hint of fear about them.

  It was good. She didn’t think he even noticed that she had a face, with the way her top was cut low.

  Not her preference, but that other person in her head had been making decisions for all of them at that point. Brianna had merely nodded and allowed it to happen.

  Brianna moved to the locked front door, looking through to confirm that the sidewalk was empty. More importantly, that pedestrians continued to walk by.

  She remembered stories from Wyatt about how police would ring a facility to hold in bank robbers and hostage takers.

  It had not come to that. In the quiet-for-now privacy of her mind, Fin was ten seconds from landing. Brianna had flown enough with Finlay Barton to understand that he would be there in ten seconds.

  She turned to the others and nodded.

  “Move,” Auntie barked.

  Laney and Wyatt popped up like gophers and all three started her way, walking with deliberation, rather than running for their lives.

  It might yet come to that.

  Brianna unlocked the door and emerged first. Again, her disguise might buy a second or three, as no weapons were currently visible, the pistol held tight against her thigh and concealed by the folds of her skirt.

  Still immediately available if she needed to shoot someone dead.

  A sound rising. A whine in the distance closing and growing louder, like a hive of angry bees coming for your soul, for all the honey you have ever stolen from them.

  But nor for Brianna’s soul today, as Abigail’s shuttle raced up the street towards them, before flaring out and landing, the side door beckoning them.

  Brianna was already running. Behind her, footsteps as the others fell in.

  As she reached the hatch, an alarm bell began ringing behind them, someone inside having finally overcome inertia to hit one of those foot pedals.

  Insufficient, as Brianna’s team was aboard and Fin was already airborne.

  First step complete.

  Scene Twenty-One

  Tessa could at least say that breakfast hadn’t been bad. Almost as good as Laney or Maru would have made it. Nobody was as good as Abigail, though Fin occasionally got into the same general region when everything came together just right.

  Eggs scrambled with peppers and a little sausage, but she wasn’t entirely sure which critter had contributed. Drop biscuits only over-kneaded a little before baking. Coffee that had been roasted dark enough for travel and storage, but that was the nature of the Periphery, with the exception of that one lady who custom roasted her own and traveled to moots and rendezvous with her equipment.

  Constanz hadn’t been the only one to clean his plate. Riker and one of the women—both armed—arrived to collect things.

  “Do we know how long we’ll be here?” Tessa asked idly.

  “Until Nakada returns,” Riker replied enigmatically.

  Then the woman shut the top half of the door and locked it with a solid thump.

  Knowing Wyatt, he was moving heaven and earth, assuming Fin and Brianna hadn’t torn him limb from limb when he got back. And they might have.

  Tessa crossed to the bunk and sat. Hadn’t even been that bad to sleep on, though as a woman in a strange place, she hadn’t slept well or deep. At least Constanz presented as male, though that might not have kept Riker or the two women out, if they’d had a need.

  Tessa was just fine with everyone on their correct sides of those locks, at least for now.

  “Should we be planning an escape?” Constanz asked.

  Like her, he’d made the bed this morning, tucking everything in with a fussier precision than Tessa ever felt or managed.

  Tessa shrugged.

  “Not a lot we can do, blocked back in here like we are,” she said, aware that Warchild would be listening if he had the brains Allah gave a goose. “And even Wyatt will need time to scout and hit the place, whatever is involved. I’m not going to worry for a few days.”

  Constanz nodded. Thought.

  “Is such a thing considered normal behavior on the Periphery?” he asked a moment later.

  “It goes back to ancient kings on prehistoric Earth,” Tessa laughed. “Hostage is an ancient term. Civilized folks on Falorea or Baramunz might not talk about it much, but all those nobles residing near the Emperor don’t always have a choice in the matter. Especially not the Zaddinul ones who might yet get their pretty titles and estates stripped from them if they get out of hand. So, no, not normal behavior, but at the same time, not badly abnormal, either.”

  Constanz shrugged, head bobbing side to side.

  “I feel that I should probably take Wyatt up on his offer at some point,” he replied.

  Tessa fixed him with a hard glare. That offer was to learn how to shoot people. Which a doctor like Constanz had taken an oath against.

  “Wouldn’t have done much good,” she pointed out.

  “This time,” Constanz noted drily. “As you said, there might be a next time. I should endeavor to not be a liability to the group in such situations.”

  It was Tessa’s turn to shrug. Constanz McLaren would never be deadly on a level with Wyatt, Laney, or Brianna, but he might still prove effective enough, if she needed someone down in the middle of things while those three were nearby with long arms and spotting scopes.

  Misdirection, when strangers might have heard the name Wyatt Nakada as a sidekick, but not known the physicality of the brute.

  “You are hardly a liability,” Tessa reminded him. “Not everyone has to be everything.”

  “Except you,” he said.

  Tessa’s eyes snapped around, but Constanz was being perfectly sincere, rather than teasing or coldly vicious.

  She supposed that there was something to that, but now was not the time to explore that, either. Warchild would be listening. Looking for more ways to blackmail them.

  And if that man had the slightest clue who Constanz really was under that disguise, they were all in a great deal more trouble.

  For now, she needed to remain calm, cool, and as much in control as she could, understanding that to be a low bar at present.

  Until Wyatt returned, then maybe there’d be some settling up.

  Scene Twenty-Two

  Wyatt found the file that Brianna wanted in the box quickly enough. Filed under W for Warchild, just like he’d be under N if it came to that. He watched her pull out two pieces of paper and scan them front and back like she was reading, though she’d said that she could memorize the contents that quickly for now, then write it all down later.

  Not even the weirdest shit he’d seen her do, so Wyatt nodded and settled.

  “What’s the next step, big guy?” Fin called from the shuttle’s cockpit.

  Last Stand was out there, waiting. For now, they were running the wrong direction, then would find a corridor that was uninhabited to loop around when nobody could see them.

  Lotsa misdirections built in on this one. Gotta keep Warchild guessing.

  “Once we’re back to the ship, we call him on a certain wavelength he’s monitoring,” Wyatt called back. The rest of them were aft for now, in Abigail’s pretty tearoom. “He’ll either have us meet in the middle of nowhere again, or vector us in on his bolthole so we can make the trade.”

  “And he’ll go through with it, just like that?” Fin asked, a little incredulously.

  “That’s what he said,” Wyatt replied. “Not certain I entirely believe him, but also not a lot of leverage on my part. And that was the deal. He’s always been square with me. It was outsiders that got screwed, but by the unit.”

  Fin muttered something that sounded like a profanity. Fortunately, the engine noise was enough to cover it and Wyatt didn’t press. Instead, he turned to Laney and Auntie.

  “Should we be prepared to just kill everything that moves?” he asked.

  Auntie’s eyes got cold and hard, but Wyatt knew enough of the truth there not to be offended if she wanted to murder a lot of white folks. Not like she didn’t have a reason. Tessa, too.

  “It is on the agenda,” Laney replied instead diplomatically.

  He’d be down in the middle of wherever, making the hand-off. Probably with Fin in the cargorunner, if they had to haul that damned box any distance and assuming they didn’t land close to the bolthole.

  That put Laney and Brianna off with Tessa’s rifle and whatever else they could scrape up. He really needed to break into a police office somewhere. Or a militia armory.

  Team around him needed some serious firepower on tap if shit got out of hand, and he’d let them all down by not suggesting it before this.

 

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