His eyes on the newfound mess Zelle created, Soren said, “Nether Ops made the arrangements with the Reason courts. It’s not something I can change.”

  Zelle tossed the spoon into the pot with clear disgust. “I mean…what are we even doing out here? We found some leej gear on the black market. Oba’s tears, what does that matter? Bunch of dead gangers, maybe you got a hit back on some loggy puke making a little extra on the side. This is what Nether Ops does? Plays around the edges?”

  “No. There’s more to it than that. Nether Ops is the Republic’s immune system, killing threats in their crib before they can grow into full on monsters.”

  Zelle fished her spoon out of the pot and licked it clean before pointing it toward a porthole. “The MCR’s out there right now, raising all kinds of hell. How many legionnaires lost on Kublar? Their ship too. Then they work with some terrorists and almost wipe out the House of Reason with a corvette—and all that drama, Senators and Delegates with mid-life crises being reminded that mortality applies to even someone like them, and they turn Nether Ops loose on the edge of civilized space? Not the MCR—just scum sack gangers who lucked out and got some mil-spec weapons. Want to explain that?”

  “We know what we need to know,” Soren said with a slow shake of his head. “Nether Ops has a far longer and wider view of the fight with the MCR than we ever could. I trust our leaders. We execute their orders and deliver success.”

  Zelle rolled her eyes. “You missed your calling as a navy poster boy. I know you grew up on Oliphant right after it was incorporated into the Republic. You got nothing but propaganda telling you how awesome the Republic is, but you’ve been out here long enough to realize it ain’t all sunshine and puppies, right? Strach was a sket-hole. It’s been in the Republic for hundreds of years.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “You think we’re making a difference by nabbing a couple crates of guns? All that effort and it’ll amount to a feel good report for some Delegate… and a pat on the head for you. Good boy.”

  “Nether Ops will hunt down whoever stole those weapons from the factory. Once that’s done, they’ll find their contacts, which will lead to other enemies of the Republic. Those ‘couple crates of guns’ are a thread that will help unravel an entire network. It’s our job to pull it.”

  “True believers are insufferable.” Zelle poked her spoon into her stew.

  “You’d prefer to believe everything is awful? So let’s all steal what we can and take care of number one?”

  Zelle shrugged. “Plenty of people in the Republic look at it that way. ‘Specially on Utopion. They seem to do all right.”

  “Until they come under scrutiny from the Republic. Then comes justice.” Soren slapped the back of his hand into his palm. “We’re nineteen hours from Rintaka. I need you to manufacture trackers for the contraband.”

  “What’s wrong with the Tick-9’s we have onboard? You know how long it take to do a custom job?”

  “Anyone that’s a part of Republic security would find a Tick model tracker easily. Your devices are a cut above.”

  Zelle inclined her head in mock appreciation. “Aww…that almost sounded like a compliment.”

  Soren looked down, focused on stirring his stew.

  Rolling her eyes, Zelle said, “Fine. It’ll take me a couple hours to get one done…”

  “Four. We need a tracker for each case.”

  “Four? What the hell, man.” Zelle let out a growl. “Okay. Four. So much for a nap. Can I ask you one little favor before I get started, Soren old buddy old pal?”

  Soren raised an eyebrow at her.

  “I may have gone a little overboard with the gang tats.” Zelle rolled her jacket down to reveal her shoulders. “Would you run the dermal down my back? I can’t quite reach.”

  “You got a spine tattoo?”

  “Alcohol may have been a factor.”

  Soren settled onto the top bunk of the Iago’s berth room and stretched. The low hum of the ship’s systems were a welcome change of pace from the erratic noise of the gang stronghold on Strach IV. No arguments bleeding through the walls. No crying babies or the sound of air cars and gun shots. Actually, it felt a bit like the Iago was almost too quiet.

  He reached into his pants now hanging from the bed post and pulled a datapad from the pocket. A swipe from his thumb brought up his unread messages and he scrolled through, looking for anything that demanded his immediate attention. Nether agents in the field were exempt from most mundane paperwork issues… that included the five different notices that he was overdue on his mandatory Zhee religious awareness and tolerance training.

  Soren considered tapping out a terse message to the admin officer who was threatening to dock his pay for being out of training tolerances, but a message at the bottom of the screen made his heart skip a beat.

  It was from Vanessa, his fiancée on Oliphant. Dated a week after he went undercover in the Scions. That he only had a single message from her gave him an educated guess to its contents. It didn’t look promising.

  Dear Soren…

  He read through a few densely worded paragraphs. Skimming for confirmation that this was the end. Maybe looking for some sign of hope that it wasn’t. The letter was half an accusation against him and half justification for her ending the engagement.

  Soren couldn’t fault her decision.

  Tradition on Oliphant demanded a couple be wed within two years of the proposal. Extensions were granted only in the event of wartime, provided that both parties agreed to extend the engagement. Vanessa had opted out.

  Soren shut the datapad off and tucked it under his pillow. He felt as though he should be angry. Like the appropriate thing to do would be to break his hand punching a bulkhead and raging for all to hear. But, in his mind, he couldn’t blame her. He’d essentially vanished from the navy after Nether Ops recruited him. Details of his training and mission were forbidden even from full agent’s husbands or wives, let alone the betrothed.

  And then he pushed back their wedding date and then went off world…

  It wasn’t fair to make her wait, he’d thought. She was young, beautiful and from a well to do merchant family. There were suitors on Oliphant for her, ones around every day.

  While his head could accept this…his heart didn’t. He stared at the ceiling as emotions swelled in him. Not anger. Something else… the temptation to write to her—to explain everything—was strong, but such an action would wreck his status in Nether Ops.

  His engagement was over. His mission remained.

  It took hours for the immediate hurt to subside, to move to the back of his mind where he knew it would linger. He didn’t sleep.

  Zelle came into the room and unzipped her dirty coveralls as she sat down on the lower bunk, evidently finished with her work. The smell of grease and ozone wafted up from her. Her boots clomped against the deck as she removed them.

  “Feels good to do something useful.” She threw the coveralls onto an empty bunk across from her. “Anyone finds those trackers and I deserve to have my parole revoked.”

  The beds rumbled against the bolts fastening them to the bulkhead as she struggled to get comfortable.

  “Ah crap are you asleep?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Oh. OK then.”

  Soren heard her tapping against a datapad.

  “Some mushroom wants me to do what for Zhee culture?” Zelle mumbled. “I’ll tell him where to stick that training.”

  “It must be important,” Soren murmured.

  “The donks will kill me and eat me no matter how much I’m forced to appreciate their culture. I know enough to hate those animals. Get me back on a Republic network and I’ll find this mushroom threatening me for not doing training and I’ll send some donk mating videos from his account to everyone he knows and then—ah to hell with it. Problem solved.”

  He heard her tap on the screen, drop it on the deck then crawl under her blanket.

  “You can’t have finished the training,” Soren said, finally starting to feel sleepy. “There are videos, anthropologic studies…”

  “I told Heywood to do it for me. He’s got my HR code. Not like he’s got anything better to do.”

  Soren rolled over and looked down at Zelle. Half a dozen different violations came to his mind. “That’s…”

  Zelle winked at him. “I told him to do yours, too.”

  “You have my HR code?”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Soren rolled back onto his bunk and drummed his fingers against his chest. He decided to re-do the training when time allowed.

  And to change his HR code.

  04

  Soren and Zelle stood behind Heywood in the Iago’s cockpit, both wearing armored vac suits with blaster pistols strapped to their chests. They watched as an asteroid field grew closer through the windows. Tens of thousands of rocks spun slowly in the void, forming a seemingly endless field. In the distance, what looked like a dusty grey boulder hung against the abyss.

  “I thought cracking a dwarf planet to mine it was illegal,” Zelle said.

  “It is.” Soren crossed his arms across his chest. “The spoil infects the entire system, multi ton asteroids become a threat to every space station and city. But whatever rogue operation did this did it hundreds of years ago. Most of the dangerous rocks have been removed by gravity or drone ships.”

  “The hazard rating for the Rintaka systems remains high enough to negate the Iago’s collision insurance policy,” Heywood said. “Though there is enough of a haul bonus for independent contractors to offset that risk. The Republic maintains its presence on Rintaka Prime at considerable expense.”

  “I’m glad you’re flying,” Zelle said. “Can’t dock my pay if the bot bangs up the ship.”

  “You’re implying that this asteroid field is some sort of a challenge to my programming,” the bot said, somewhat impishly.

  Soren reached over Heywood’s shoulder and brought up the message they’d pieced together from the contraband on a forward view console. The text seemed to float on the display, a washed-out blue glowing against a black screen.

  “We’re in the right spot,” Soren said, pointing at the message. “The mining survey file must point to one of these asteroids.”

  “So we know there’s a transmite in this datastack.” Zelle went to a works station. “I don’t want to get old and gray waiting for our scans to finish up. This is a smuggling run, right? Where would smugglers want to hide? Soren, can you dip into the Republic’s police archives and pull up every patrol through this field in the last six months?”

  “What, you can’t splice it?” he asked.

  “This is a military system. I could get in but there’s enough people that care about their jobs that one or two might notice my passing. Your Nether Ops clearance gives you full access and covers your tracks. Must be nice.”

  Heywood turned his head, causing a soft whine of internal servos. “A wide band sensor pulse would find the target asteroid quite easily.”

  Zelle shook her head. “And beg local security to come looking for us. Don’t tell anyone, but we’re supposed to be smugglers. Shh.” She put a fingertip against her lip.

  Soren opened his void suit and lifted a chain off his neck that had a data chip dangling from it like a pendant. He plugged it into the control panel. Information feeds from the local REPUB NET system came up on the screen. He began to swipe his fingers in the air, manipulating the program.

  “Okay. You’ve got real-time station access with archival clearance for the last two years.”

  An overlay of the patrol routes traced through the asteroid field on a screen.

  “Oh wow,” Zelle said, eyes scanning the display. “Local security is lazy in this system. Fly the exact same routes every time. No wonder it’s a smuggler stop…next sweep is in a couple hours.”

  “This one,” Heywood highlighted an asteroid the size of a cruiser on the outer edge of the field. “Other bodies near it show signs of tungsten extraction. Consistent with the mining survey of the drop site.”

  “He’s right,” Zelle said. “See? No need to scan. It must take the system police cruisers seven hours to make it from Rintaka Prime, another seven hours back. Whole day crammed into a shuttle, must be miserable. No wonder they short change the inspection.”

  “Fair enough,” Soren said, rocking back and forth on his heels. “Let’s get over there without bouncing off anything.”

  “Is that an insult?” Heywood accelerated the ship forward.

  Soren gripped the hydraulic struts of the Iago’s ramp as the ship flew slowly over their target asteroid, his feet mag locked to the ground as he looked down at the dust filled craters.

  Zelle was just inside the cargo bay, holding onto the cart with the weapon cases. “What exactly are you looking for? A nice big ‘smuggle here’ sign?”

  “Yes, exactly that.” Soren tapped a button on the side of his helmet. “Heywood, do you see that bare patch in the crater to our five o’clock, two hundred meters?”

  “Yes, sir,” the bot answered through the agent’s ear pieces. “Aster areata. Dust free areas of an asteroid subject to solar winds. Of course, the solar wind doesn’t exert enough force to move dust but the charged particles can create a magnetic field that—”

  “Set us down there,” Soren ordered.

  The Iago banked around.

  “Why there?” Zelle asked.

  “That bare spot’s on the asteroid’s leeward side of the system’s primary. No way that areata’s natural.”

  Zelle looked up at the bay ceiling. “Oh. Sure. Of course not.”

  The ship came to a stop over the crater and lowered, dipping all the way beneath the top edge of the crater walls before it finally came to a landing. Whiffs of dust scattered around across the smooth surface.

  “Here we go.” Soren pulled the ramp’s release and watched as the ramp lowered onto the asteroid. He turned to look back at Zelle. “Be ready for anything.”

  “Duh.”

  Soren stepped off the ramp and felt the solid rock beneath his feet. He looked around, noting the unblemished ground. Straight ahead was a gap in the crater wall, large enough for two people to walk through side-by-side.

  “Now what?” Zelle asked from the top of the ramp. “I know I’m just an auxiliary without all that super top-secret Nether Ops training about smugglers and natural aerates, but something tells me we’re not supposed to just leave this stuff out in the open.”

  Soren turned around, then pointed to a gap in the crater wall. “There. Let’s go take a look.”

  Heywood’s voice came over the comm. “Two hours until system patrols arrive. There is a thirty-seven percent probability of them detecting the Iago in this depression. Even with crew fatigue factored in.”

  Paused mid-stride, Soren asked, “And the chance of them finding us if we take an eccentric course back to Rintaka Prime?”

  “Minimal.”

  “Then let’s hurry.”

  Soren bent slightly at the knees and jumped. In the asteroid’s microgravity, he loped forward traveling nearly three meters before coming back down. He skipped ahead, crossing to the edge of the crater quickly. Stopping his momentum at the crater wall with two outstretched arms, he leaned over to look into the gap. Dust had settled into the groove the size of a small room extending from the opening. Footprints consistent with vac-suited humans led to and from the middle of the area.

  Zelle approached, allowing the repulsor cart to pull her across the surface, her legs dangling behind her as though she were flying. “This it?”

  “See for yourself.”

  She brought the cart to halt just behind Soren and then peered around him. “Not quite an X to mark the spot but I’ll take it.”

  She reversed the cart’s repulsors, forcing it to settle to the asteroid’s surface as though inside a gravity well.

  Soren felt the pull against his hands. Dust flowed toward the cart like it was pushed by a slight breeze. He removed a small baton from his belt and twisted off its cap before peering back into the opening.

  “What’s up?” Zelle asked.

  “Checking for traps.”

  Soren flicked the disk-like cap toward the footsteps and it slowly turned end over end in the micro-gravity. Two tiny repulsor rings popped out of the disk and it came to a sudden stop. He flicked a switch on the baton and pointed one end at the target area. The cap, actually a tiny drone, zipped to a bare batch of dust and traced a slow and deliberate spiral outwards.

  While Zelle watched the bot as it went round and round, Soren kept his eyes on a blinking green light on the baton. The bot finished scanning the area, actively searching until stopping a foot away from Soren’s chest. He clicked a button and the drone snapped back onto the end of the baton.

  “Curious,” he said. “No explosives or countermeasures of any kind.”

  “You’re complaining?”

  “Dead drop like this, easy for word to get out to other smugglers and have your shipment stolen.”

  “That’s complaining. Don’t forget that this is a Republic military system. The risks of using this place for a drop are way too high for those so criminally inclined. Speaking of that military, you want to hurry this up?”

  Soren looked back to the system’s primary star as his mind raced with possibilities.

  “Maybe we should get Heywood out here to do the digging,” Zelle offered. “He can handle a boobie trap blowing up in his face better than us.”

  “I heard that,” the bot said. “You’re fortunate my programming does not allow for grudges.”

  “Let’s be done with this.” Soren moved forward and knelt next to the patch surrounded by foot prints. He pushed his fingers into the fine dust and pulled out a battered cargo box the same size as the cases they brought from Strach IV.

 

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