The Complete Razia Series, page 99
She fingered the folder in her hands, promising herself that if she was a good girl and did what she was told, she'd sweet talk her way into getting some more information from Jeff in the computer sciences division. It wouldn't be a lot, but it could get her further along than the stack of papers she was carting around with her.
The U-POL tower was the nicest building on the entire planet, and the inside looked almost the same as the U-POL headquarters back on S-864. If Lizbeth hadn't paused by a window, she never would've known that she was in the biggest hotbed of illegal activity in the universe.
Lizbeth chatted with Peate's secretary, as her father had taught her that getting inside an executive's office was always about the gatekeeper, not the executives themselves. Lizbeth made sure to remember everything the woman told her; about her husband who was a security guard and her son, one of Peate's officers.
Finally, Peate buzzed and called Lizbeth inside. She was met with an ornate office with a panoramic view of the pirate planet. Captain Peate sat at a large, dark brown desk, oblivious to the view and scribbling something on a piece of paper.
"Come in, Carter," he said without looking up. "Quarterly reports?"
"Yeah," Lizbeth said, handing him the paper. "We've seen a bit of a decline in activity recently. The Geological Sciences case was a fraud, too. Captain Bledsoe made the arrest."
"Mm."
Lizbeth chewed her lip for a moment. She knew she shouldn't ask him about the case. But then again, if anyone would believe her, it would be the almost-overzealous Peate.
"Have you noticed an uptick of pirate activity by Contestant's pirates? Or know anything about two guys name Harman and Jos?"
Peate stopped scribbling on his paper and finally looked up at her. He wasn't too bad to look at, although she could've done without his rudeness.
"There's been a spate of activity that's piqued my interest. Just curious if you guys were following it as well?"
"No." The word came out almost too fast.
"But—"
The doors flew open, and Lizbeth nearly fell out of her seat. That arrogant, bitchy bounty hunter came storming into the office, a murderous look on her face. She wore a pair of glasses and a white lab coat, but it was clearly her.
"Where in Leveman's Vortex is my inheritance?" she bellowed.
Lizbeth stared at her, mouth agape. While Jukin hadn't actually killed anyone in a few years, he'd done it before. Most pirates thought him a joke, but steered clear of him regardless. This woman had some brass balls to walk into his office and start screaming at him.
"What is the meaning of this?" Jukin said after a moment.
"You took my inheritance," Razia snapped. "Give it back."
"It's not your inheritance if you've been disowned."
Lizbeth's mouth dropped further. Razia was related to Jukin? How come she'd never heard that before?
"I'm sorry, but it doesn't work like that," she snarled. "You stole from me."
"Well, why don't you go crying to Father? I'm sure he'll happily baby you."
Not only related, but siblings? Lizbeth could barely believe her ears.
"Baby me?" She laughed. "Baby me? Leaving me on planets for days at a time was babying me?"
He scoffed and rolled his eyes. "God in Leveman's Vortex, you are so melodramatic."
"I'm melodramatic?" she sneered. "Thirty-five years old, and you're still pissed off that Sostas spared you from his unique brand of parenting? So pissed off that you stole five billion credits from me? You win the prize for melodrama, Jukin."
"I needed that money for an investigation," he said, his face unreadable.
"What, the pirates don't give you any money, so you just stole from me?"
Lizbeth covered her mouth with her hand to keep from showing her reaction. That was a low blow from the pirate.
"Watch your mouth, Lyssandra," Jukin seethed. "Sister or no, I can and will throw you in jail."
"Be sure you throw me in that pirate jail. I hear they've got a great breakfast."
The tension in the room was thick, so Lizbeth made quick work of searching the public intraweb for one Lyssandra Peate. To her utter surprise, there she was, a member of the Academy of Planetary and System Sciences.
Dr. Lyssandra Peate, DSE.
She did another quick search for "Lyssa Peate" and "Razia" and came up with no hits.
Lizbeth's mouth drew to a small 'o.'
Jukin had no idea that his sister was gallivanting around the universe as a wanted pirate. Which meant that the bounty hunter had a secret. Lizbeth tapped her hand against her chin and considered how this might be beneficial.
"Get. Out."
"Fine," Razia said, straightening up. "But know this: I'm going to get my money back if I have to break into the Universal Bank and steal it from your account myself."
Razia looked right at Lizbeth, but showed no sign of recognition. Then again, based on the way the other woman stormed out like a toddler having a tantrum, Lizbeth was fairly sure that she wasn't thinking clearly.
Jukin's face was almost a mirror image of rage and anger, and, in a manner eerily like his sister, he stormed back to his desk and sat down, ignoring Lizbeth completely.
"Er…" Lizbeth said after a full minute of silence.
Jukin looked up, and the faintest blush appeared on his face. He, too, must've forgotten she was there.
"I'll just let myself out," Lizbeth said, standing and walking out of the office.
***
Yet again, Lizbeth was the only person in the U-POL waiting room for the shuttle. She stared at the recruiting poster on the wall and mulled over this new information.
Jukin Peate, the universe's most vocal objector to piracy, had a pirate sister. Lizbeth had spent a few minutes looking up Razia the Bounty Hunter. She'd been in the high six hundreds for months, but suddenly skyrocketed to the thirties when she'd kidnapped her own brother. But there hadn't been any record of her doing anything else since, not even a note about her capture of Cree Hardrict. Razia was also in the same web as Sage Teon—
—who was calling Lizbeth right at that very moment.
"Hey!" His smile was bright as usual.
"Mr. Teon, what can I do for you?" Lizbeth asked, glad there was no one else in the room with them.
"So I hear you met Razia."
"I…" Lizbeth's eyes narrowed. "You wanted me to meet her, didn't you?"
He laughed. "I thought you two would get along great. Besides, she's the best bounty hunter I've ever seen."
"Yeah well, she's also kind of a bitch."
Sage howled with laughter. "You got that right! But she's got a good heart. Somewhere under that tough shell."
Lizbeth eyed him curiously. "Doesn't seem like the kind of person you'd be friends with."
A small blush crept up on his face. It was clear Sage considered Razia more than a friend. "I mean, we just…we go way back. That's how I know her so well. She hasn't always been so closed-off. She's always been a pain in the ass, but she used to be less mean about it."
"What happened to her?"
"She really changed after Tauron died," Sage said, looking as though he, too, had changed. "It's like something just shut down inside her. That, and she found out that nobody was giving her credit for all the work she'd done for Tauron and she was down in the lowest rungs of the bounty ladder."
"What do you mean?"
"Tauron was a terribly bounty hunter," Sage said with a smile. "I mean, he could do it, but he didn't have the patience for it. When Lyssa came along—"
"Lyssa?" Lizbeth said, her eyebrow arching. "You know she's Lyssa Peate?"
"Oh Leveman's," Sage said, running a hand over his face. "Don't tell her I told you—"
"I'm more surprised you knew," Lizbeth said. To Sage's stunned face, she replied, "She interrupted a meeting I was having with Jukin a few minutes ago. Came flying in the front door screaming about an inheritance. I wasn't sure she even noticed I was there."
"That's Lyssa all right."
"And yet, you still consider her a friend?"
Sage quieted for a moment. "Like I said, once you get past all her bluster and bullshit, she's…she's not a bad person. And I think if you need help navigating the waters of the Universal Bank, she's the one you need to talk to."
"You could've just mentioned that's why you left me on that planet."
"Where's the fun in that?" Sage said with a devilish grin. "For what it's worth, I think you two would make a good team."
"Why, because we're both female?"
"No, because I don't think you'd let her get away with anything," Sage said. "She needs to be put in her place from time to time." Lizbeth snorted, and Sage chuckled again. "But actually, I was calling because I got a really strange invite today. Apparently, there's this big meeting of all the pirates tonight on D-882. Dissident told me not to mention it to anyone, so I thought it might be something you'd want to know about."
Lizbeth chewed her lip. She was under a lot of scrutiny already, and if she didn't make her shuttle, Dmitri would have questions. But at the same time, pirates didn't usually meet in secret. The pit of her stomach lurched, as it always did when she knew something was afoot.
"Can you get me in the front door?"
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOHN HARMS
At precisely 08:00 Local Time (LT/D-822), John Harms' alarm went off. He rose from his bed with a smile, already smelling the coffee brewing in the kitchen. He whistled to himself as he padded through the quiet apartment, following the scent until he reached the gurgling pot. Today's coffee selection was from a small planet that produced the richest, darkest coffee and had been a gift from Max Fried for assisting in the particularly difficult capture of Gunnar Bodhi.
For breakfast, he made himself the usual—two eggs, bacon, and toast—while he caught up on all the non-pirate news of the universe. The top story was an investigation into former presidential candidate General State. Two of his aides had been indicted in a conspiracy involving nearly all the pirates. The face of the investigation, one Lizbeth Carter, was on all the news outlets, giving yet another briefing. She looked exhausted but determined as she fielded more questions about what they knew, when they knew it, and who was going to fry for it.
Briefly mentioned in the news reports was the runners had been getting paid to target government ships, when, in fact, they were unwittingly running guns to prepare for a pseudo-coup. Thanks to the nebulous laws of the Piracy Act, no pirate belonging to any of the four webs would be prosecuted. But, of course, they weren't going to be getting the fifty million credits per ship either.
Harms chuckled to himself; he'd been around long enough to know that when something sounded too good to be true, it usually was.
Tucking the tablet under his arm, Harms left his apartment, making sure to lock the door behind him. He passed by the window facing the orange-coated pirate city and stopped to admire the sun glinting on the dingy buildings. Most of the city's inhabitants were still sleeping off their hangovers from the night before, but Harms liked to make it down to his bar for those patrons who hadn't been out and about until the wee hours of the morning.
His bar sat on the bottom floor of his apartment building—both of which he owned. Before the Piracy Act, when pirates could still be arrested and put to death, he'd been relegated to skulking around bars and keeping on the move to avoid arrest. Even as a young man, he'd always been eager to know who was doing what and when, so he hadn't minded that much. But when the Act passed, Harms had decided to put his now-considerable wealth to good use and purchase himself some property.
Never one to need much flash for himself, he'd chosen one of the smaller apartments on the top floor, and let the rest to the waitresses and dock workers who fed him information. He'd learned early on that the best way to get information was to befriend the invisible workers on this planet. Those who provided juicy tidbits on a particularly well-known pirate were offered discounts on their rent, even though his were still the most reasonable rates in this part of the city.
He smiled to one of the waitresses who lived on the third floor. She looked about ready to keel over, the result of a long night on her feet. But she brightened when she saw Harms.
"I saw Cree Hardrict last night," she said, her voice gravelly from smoke. "Or really, Douglas Smithurst."
Harms pulled his tablet out and added the note to his growing collection. "Thank you, Sherry. How's your cold?"
She shrugged and placed her hand on the door. "Getting better. That tea's been doing wonders."
"I'll see if I can't get you some more," Harms said, nodding goodbye as she disappeared in a fit of coughing.
He paused and added another note to see about getting more tea for her. Sherry was one of his best informants, as she worked as a waitress at Madam Guerre's, a popular brothel. Guerre and her girls were in Contestant's pocket, but the waitresses seemed a bit more eager to share details.
Once he reached the bar, Harms set his tablet down on his usual table in the back and went to the front of the bar to open the doors and windows. As usual, there was nary a person on the streets, but a ship flew overhead and landed in the parking deck directly across from him.
Smiling to himself, he prepared for the first customer.
***
At precisely 10:00 LT/D-882, Harms' alarm went off on his tablet and he stood to stretch. Sitting around talking with pirates all day wasn't the healthiest endeavor, and a few years ago, he'd begun to remind himself to get up and walk around. Tucking his tablet under his arm, he turned the sign on his bar door saying he'd be back later, and left to walk around the city.
It was nearing midday on the planet, and the sun was the usual level of boiling. Harms had made a habit of rotating lunch spots every day, so today he chose the Amadis Cafe.The proprietor looked up when Harms entered the establishment and rose to greet him.
"John Harms! How've you been, you old dog?"
Harms and Amadis exchanged pleasantries, and Harms ordered a sandwich before sitting down and waiting. Amadis disappeared to bark the order into the back before returning with a large glass of ice water. He groaned as he sat down across the table.
"How's business?" Harms asked.
"Oh, decent to fair. Had Sage Teon in here a few weeks ago, but he's one of your guys, so you probably know his aliases."
Harms sighed. "One of these days, I'm going to give that kid a good talking to about using those aliases of his."
"Let's see, who else…Royden Relleck was skulking around here but he didn't use anything of value. Got himself a few new body men, they wrecked the place. His buddy Linro Lee was here, too." And on the conversation went. More pirates, more alias information. Unfortunately, none of the information offered was news to Harms, which happened from time to time. With such a large informant network, he often heard the same news repeatedly.
After finishing his sandwich, Harms decided to take a quick trip over to the U-POL offices. The bounty office was already hopping with pirates—the captives wearing glowers, the captors wearing smug grins and comparing notes. A few of them spotted Harms and waved, pointing to their quarries and thanking him for his help. Harms nodded his hello to the man at the window and walked into the back offices.
Dipzenski sat at his normal desk and grinned when Harms placed a sandwich from the shop on his desk.
"Harms, old buddy, you shouldn't have!" Even so, he wasted no time and took a huge bite of his sandwich. "This is from Amadis's? That's a damned good place. Oh, and they've got those banana peppers I like, too…" He groaned and took another bite.
"Looks like Sloan finally captured Brendler," Harms said. "How'd that one go down?"
In-between large bites of his sandwich, Dipzenski recounted the story as it had been told to him, about how Sloan and his men had cornered Brendler outside Eamon's. The brawl had lasted for almost an hour, and ended up with Brendler needing medical assistance at the bounty office.
"Yeah, he was bleeding all over the place. Thought Peate was going to bust a nut."
Harms scratched his beard. "What's he up to lately? Anyone heard anything about his involvement with State?"
"Nah, that whole political mess is just that—a mess. Though Peate's got a bigger stick up his ass than usual. Walking around here like somebody died. Tossing out our paperwork if we didn't do it just so. Ass."
Harms smiled and stood. "Well, I've got to be getting back. Thanks for the chat, Dipzenski."
***
At 12:00 LT/D-882, Harms had spoken with three pirates and made over one hundred thousand credits. All in all, it was a slow day, but it had given him a chance to catch up on some pleasure reading. Just as he was finishing the last page of his book, his tablet lit up with an incoming call.
"Lane, how's business?" Harms said.
The man known to the rest of the pirate world as Dissident, the runners of one of the four webs, grunted in welcome and shook his head. "Not so good, John."
Harms propped his tablet up on the table and sat back. "What's the matter?"
"It's that whole government ship thing," Dissident said, predictably. It was all he'd been talking about for weeks now. "I had plans for that money. It's gonna take me six months just to make it back."
Harms chuckled, knowing where this conversation was going.
"I've half a mind to kick her out of the web, but she's got Sage Teon wrapped around her finger, so if she leaves, he goes," Dissident said with a scowl. "Don't know what he sees in her."
"Oh, Razia's all right," Harms said lightly. "A little too headstrong, perhaps, but a good girl."
"She's a pain in my ass, is what she is. Contestant brings her up every time he calls, you know. Wants to remind me that she's my problem." Dissident sighed loudly, but then cracked a wry smile. "At least that bastard lost twice as much money as I did."
There was no changing Dissident's mind about Razia, and it didn't do her any good for him to dwell on her boneheaded mistakes, so Harms changed the subject. "What else is going on?"
