Deadly Ghosts, page 16
It didn’t take long for us to reach the parking structure and take the lift back up to our spot.
“It feels like a month since we’ve been here,” Imogen observed.
“Agreed,” I said, and it was true. The idea that we had only parked here in the morning was absurd given everything that we had been through.
“Interestingly, a day on Parm is longer than a day on Bussel by several hours but shorter than that of a day on Emortium. So, the days Imogen grew up with were actually longer than today,” Ned explained, but I was hardly listening.
I was just happy to walk up the ramp and into the Buzzard where Lara and Alek were sitting across from one another in the common space.
“Did you two do anything else?” Imogen asked as we entered to find them playing Warhero.
Lara rolled her eyes in annoyance, but Alek answered first. “We have done quite a lot,” he announced, turning to look at us. “But it looks like you two have done more.”
He stood, walking straight over to us to examine our wounds.
Lara set her hand of cards down and stared at me. “We had the news on earlier. Heard about what happened at the stadium, but I’m guessing a lot more’s happened since.”
I stepped around and collapsed onto the couch where Alek had been, the indent he had left still warm. “You could say that again.”
I proceeded to explain everything that we had been through and the brief investigation prior to the attack on Vince’s estate. I talked about the Gaskyn and how I had somehow been able to correctly guess that the vapor might combust on impact.
When I got to the end, Lara was beaming at me. “You’re becoming one hell of a bounty hunter.”
“And he left out that Vince offered to pay double,” Imogen added as Alek handed her an ice pack.
Lara could hardly contain herself. “I’m so proud,” she said. “I feel like you’re all grown up.”
She stepped around the table and came over to tussle my hair like I was a child.
“That hurts,” I winced, reaching up and patting her hands away.
Affecting a baby voice, she said, “Oh, my poor little bounty hunter got a boo-boo?”
“What happened to you being proud of me?” I asked, pushing her hands away as she went for my bruised head once again.
Laughing, she moved toward me again but slipped and fell toward me. I caught her, and we stared at each other for a long moment. I pushed her off, and she awkwardly cleared her throat, pulling at the hem of her sweatshirt.
“What did you guys do?” I asked, hoping to change the subject quickly.
“We finally put together all the information we have to make one master map,” Lara said, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Combining the shipping manifest, medical information and most current bounty database, we isolated some parts of some Sectors where we believe Twain is rebuilding his strength through surviving soldiers from the Old War.
“Obviously, this is based on limited information, but there’s enough evidence to start investigating. And, of course, this might lead us directly to Extinction.”
“Great work,” I said, and I meant it. “The moment we hunt down Extinction, we can begin to wake the universe up to the threat.”
“It’s all coming together,” Alek said.
I smiled. “It is. I want to start looking into your leads, but we should head to the Conclave first so that I can move up a rank and have my weapon consecrated to me.”
“I can’t believe we are going to be the same rank,” Lara said, and though she was putting on an annoyed tone, I could tell she was still proud and excited for me.
“You are far further in your progress to four, though,” I said as though she needed reminding. I knew that the experience needed to move up got exponentially higher, so it was going to be a long time before I got anywhere else.
“I know,” she said and looked down, smoothing out a crease in her pant leg. “It’s just that I started so long ago, and you are so new that it’s hard to believe.”
“Your mentor probably got most of the credit for a lot of the time you were working together?” I asked, not knowing if it was true.
“Yeah, of course,” Lara said, but she was starting to turn inward.
Ned decided to save the moment by being blunt. “What happened to him?”
“To Syn?” Lara asked, though she knew that’s what he meant.
“Affirmative.”
“He died,” she said.
Ned snorted. “Whoa-ho-ho don’t overload me with details!”
Lara folded her arms across her chest. “You know I don’t like to talk about it.”
“It helps to talk about it,” Alek offered, and Imogen simply nodded. I stayed still and silent.
Lara huffed and tapped her foot against the metal floor of the ship. “He was killed while on the job. I tried to find the people responsible, but the trail went dry.”
“See, that wasn’t so hard, now, was it?” Ned asked in as perfectly patronizing a tone as she would use with me.
She turned on her heels and began to stomp from the room, but when her first step hit the ground, the entire Buzzard shook violently.
19
All of us were up and rushing to the cockpit immediately, but we were thrown back and forth across the hallway as we hurried forward. The Buzzard rocked this way and that, and I could feel the engine rumble to life immediately, Ned wasting no time in getting us going.
We slammed into our seats, pulled the straps across our body, and secured ourselves in place. Looking out the front viewport, the parking lot was crumbling all around us, pieces of rock and debris raining in every direction and beyond, several black starships firing missiles into the building.
They weren’t being attacked or swarmed. The ships were being allowed to destroy an entire civilian structure right on the surface of a Consortium planet. This could mean only one thing.
“Hank Spears.” I heard the unmistakable voice of John Gregory through my comm system. His face then appeared in the little screen on my console.
“He’s overriding my countermeasures,” Ned informed me, and I wasn’t entirely surprised. When we had first taken Imogen on, she had explained that the Inquisition had access to most manufacturers and product designers. They had information on how things worked long before the public and were often many steps ahead.
“You evaded me for far too long, and now you will die,” the man, never lacking in theatrics, said as more missiles struck the front of the parking structure. For just a flash, I couldn’t help but think of the street below. Crowds watching the news with friends or eating or simply killing time were now in the direct line of fire as chunks of the structure crashed down upon them.
The mouth of the parking spot began to collapse and cave in, and Ned, without asking, took control of the ship and fishtailed it in a complete one eighty. I didn’t even have time to think. The micro missile battery opened fire, blasting out the wall behind us.
Without hesitation, he accelerated us forward, slammed the Buzzard into a little hot rod, and smashed it off to the side, opening fire again and devastating another wall. Again and again, he did this as the building began to crack and collapse behind us.
The ship shook and rattled and rumbled as it was struck with pieces of concrete and scraps of metal. It crashed through starship after parked starship until, eventually, we hurtled out of the far side of the structure just before the entire building fell smashing onto the streets below.
The Inquisition killed so indiscriminately that I still couldn’t believe they were allowed to exist and that people like Vince had been so blind to what they were capable of. Dust rushed up from the surface of the planet, slammed into the bottom of the Buzzard, and knocked us from below, throwing the ship while it consumed the world. Ned evened us out and continued us streaking away.
Using our scanners, he navigated us between buildings, avoiding skyscrapers that only appeared when they were within a few meters of us in the brown darkness. We gasped and winced as Ned continued to pilot us, doing something only a computer could: flying through an obstacle course while completely blind.
When we emerged from the plume of dust, I squinted into the darkness and saw all of the streaks of ships coming and going to the planet’s surface.
But all of the equipment on board began to flash and beep all at once as it warned of an oncoming missile attack. Looking at the rear facing camera display, I saw four Inquisition ships following us including John Gregory’s Phoenix class.
“That artificial plague you call ‘friend’ can’t save you from what’s coming,” Gregory announced, and I reached out to manually shut off the comms, but even when I flipped the switch, I wasn’t able to make him disappear.
“And you, my Acolyte fallen from grace, I am sad that you will earn so quick a death. I could hear Imogen gasp behind me, her breathing came out in the shuddering pants of hyperventilation. “You deserve a slow, painful, torturous death, and once I am done destroying you, I will find the family who harbored you and make sure they suffer as you deserve to.”
“Fuck off,” Lara said without hesitation. “If you think you can blast us out of the sky, then fucking do it.”
“The Conclave will forget about you as quickly as they did Syn Kel Kal,” he said with a mocking laugh.
It was designed to get under her skin, and it did. Immediately, Lara screamed and pulled the release on her chair, sending it along the track through the ship and to the gun battery where she immediately opened fire on the ships.
Ned was doing a good job of keeping us out of the streams of the micro missiles and energy blasts, but some were striking our shields, damaging their integrity. The others crashed into the nearby buildings, undoubtedly cutting short the lives of the civilians within.
He had activated the Tidal Drive, but even when it warmed up, we wouldn’t be able to activate it so close to the surface and surrounded by buildings. We couldn’t exit into open space without being blown to pieces.
Between buildings and advertisements, we ducked and dodged, avoiding the fire as best we could, but it was only a matter of time before they could disable our shields and one of the ships would eventually strike true with their attacks.
Knowing that I was no good up here, I pulled the release on my chair. The seat slid along the track and into the other gun bay. After activating the controls, I fired a few shots at one of the Inquisition ships as it appeared from around the side of a building, but my few missiles erupted harmlessly against their shields.
I was exhausted and drained, adrenaline and alcohol having coursed through my body several times throughout the day that had actually been described as feeling like a month.
We disappeared between two buildings, and when another of the Inquisition ships followed, I peppered it with a few more micro missiles.
The shield integrity continued to drop as the four ships kept in hot pursuit. All of Ned’s fancy flying could only do so much.
I thought about how far we had come and everything that we had done. About the morning, the fight in the bank, the meeting with Vince in the stadium, and finally about the knock down drag out in the security office.
For some reason, the memory of getting showered with sparks as the shot was fired into the screens behind me flashed in my mind, and my mouth dropped.
“Ned, prepare to get us out of here,” I announced. “I only have one shot at this, so I need to be ready.”
“I’m always ready.”
“Let all four of them come,” I ordered, lining up the missile battery toward the left-hand side of the commercial shopping district we were flying through.
“We won’t last long that way,” he warned.
I didn’t answer. I just lay in wait, watching as the first Inquisition ship came out from between two buildings. Then the next dropped down from above another.
Ned swung back and forth to avoid some shots, but they were beginning to target us, predicting our movements. They continued to close, and I wondered if this was going to work as we passed another large black-and-green-display digital billboard.
“Losing shield integrity fast,” he informed me, though I was watching the percentage go down with every splintering blast.
Lara was returning fire in a consistent stream, sending rounds streaking through the sky toward our pursuers, keeping them on their toes.
The third Inquisition ship closed on our flank and laid into us with a devastating volley of micro missiles and one powerful energy blast that struck the shield so hard it sent the Buzzard careening toward a nearby building but Ned corrected just in time.
Lara turned her cannon on the new ship, devastating it with a line of perfectly placed shots, destroying its shield and even sending a few rounds exploding against their hull.
Then the Mortal Coil, John Gregory’s Phoenix class ship, dropped in nearly on top of us.
Ned swept down, moving the Buzzard so low that I could see carts shake, animals dart under cars, and garbage blow everywhere as we seared past.
The Mortal Coil dropped a mine.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing as the huge explosive fell from the bottom of the ship. Ned fired the thrusters to max one more time, and we roared forward as the incendiary fell to the ground.
Orange, red, and yellow cut the darkness as the explosion erupted from the ground. The force threw us forward, the Buzzard flipping end over end, the world blurring around me.
As soon as we were level and the four ships behind us had shifted into formation, I took the opportunity. Passing another electronic billboard, I pressed hard against the trigger. The controls vibrated in my hand, and the seat rattled as the micro missiles launched out, detonating against the giant painted face of a woman drinking soda.
When I did, the famously delicate electronics of the large screens began to burst, spraying the air with lightning and sparks. The view was spectacular for the moment before Ned tilted us up and away, burning through probably an entire barrel just to accelerate us above the skyline and into the clouds at night.
With no artificial aid, the brilliant lights were enough to blind the pilot, interfere with their instruments, and cause them to reactively slow for just long enough for us to get a little distance between us.
As soon as we were far enough away, I saw the washing blue begin to ripple around us as we were sucked into the gyre tube.
Once again, we had avoided John Gregory, but he had done incalculable harm to the world and the people around us.
I released the controls, balled my fist, and slammed it against the armrest of my chair, the metal neck cracking at a rust point. I was so tired of always running from him. I had once vowed to turn the tables and knew that through my partnership with Vince, I might be able to in a different way. But it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as it would’ve been to simply blast him out of the sky.
“To the Conclave,” I said, relieved to be heading someplace where no one was trying to kill me.
20
“So, the Gaskyn that Syn was trying to discover are a true species in the universe,” Zenobia said, pulling her glasses from her nose and cleaning one of the frames against her bright, multicolored shirt.
Back in her office at the Conclave, we had filled her in on what had happened since last we spoke, though I had left out everything about the deal with Vince and the Inquisition. It wasn’t that she didn’t know but that she didn’t want to be told.
Eventually, I figured that all of it would come out and we would have to have a serious conversation with Zenobia about everything that we had been doing on the side. But today was not that day.
“Yes,” I affirmed unequivocally. “But I managed to get the best of him.”
After placing her glasses back on the tip of her nose, Zenobia appraised the two of us with our yellowing bruises and torn and tattered outfits. “It looks as though it gave as good as it got.”
“There’s no denying that the last few bounties have not been easy,” I said as Lara now looked completely lost in thought. “But we were able to find a way to complete two bounties in one day.”
“I’ll admit it was impressive,” Zenobia praised. “And, in addition to the funds you have earned, Hunter Spears, you have also earned special commendation from the Council of Six for taking swift and decisive action against one who defiled a bounty hunter enclave.”
From under her desk, she pulled out a badge for me with the bounty hunters’ emblem at the center, three marks on the rim to denote my new rank, and a small metal swirl fused onto the other side, which I extrapolated was the commendation.
I stared at it a moment, reaching out and placing the badge from my pocket on the desk and grabbing the new one.
“The bounty you received for the Ghost of Korfuu was… substantial…” Zenobia said. “As was the bonus you received from the Conclave.”
That was good news. “How substantial?”
She rotated her computer monitor to show me the number. “And that is not even including the fee from bringing in the banker.”
“And that’s all in my account?” I asked, knowing the answer but hardly able to believe it. The amount of money that bounty hunters traded in was like nothing I had ever known as a scrapper.
Though, seeing it, I thought back to when Lutch had come home after winning big at the tables that afternoon. Rather than continuing to play, he had cashed out and come home, telling me all about his winnings.
We spent the rest of the day talking about what we would do. How we would use the money. Lutch ordered our favorite dinner, and we ate paneer korma on rice and fantasized about the life we were about to begin.
When I lay down my head that night, belly full and glowing with the thought of a new dawn, I remembered being as happy as I thought possible.
Which only made the sound of him sneaking out after I had fallen half-asleep that much harder. The moment I heard the door, I knew.
All of the joy and elation that I had felt seeped from my body, and when he finally showed back up the following afternoon, I didn’t even bother to ask. After spending the morning making the repairs he was supposed to have been working on, I ate all the leftovers myself. I didn’t want to share them with him.
