The Flight of the Tombaugh 2/5
J2 RPS AU
PG-13
Part 2 of 5
Master post
Art
Bob put the two of them in touch with an underground distiller who could sell them a load of untaxed hooch. It seemed all anyone wanted lately was to sneak stuff past the duty officers. Not that Jensen cared, but he didn't want to be pigeonholed. The distiller let him and Jared taste the liquor, which Jared proclaimed “Wicked” after recovering from a coughing fit. It was awful, but it was cheaper and would get you hammered faster than the legitimately-distilled stuff, so onto the Tombaugh it went.
Jensen and Jared had enough credits to restock the Tombaugh's galley before they went on their way. They were several hours out when Bob pinged the ship to let them know he'd asked his friend about Sahar Tech, but she didn't have anything interesting to share that they didn't already know.
Jensen was fine with that. He wasn't expecting much, anyway.
Two days later he was in the engine room, tinkering with the sublight drive, when the comm on the wall buzzed and Jared asked him why the Sahar CEO might have gone private to find his daughter. Private contracts sometimes skirted the edge of legality and could thus be pretty shady, especially if you gave the contract to someone without a bounty or investigator license. It was the kind of thing mobsters turned to when they wanted to find a rat who had fled their organization, or that corporate overlords used to find former employees who had absconded with industry secrets, or that governments even occasionally took advantage of to find rogue spies or secret agents or even just garden-variety dissidents that someone didn't like.
“It's not a bounty,” Jared went on. Jensen heard chewing noises over the comm. “I mean, there's no warrant. It's just a missing-persons case. Why does it have to be private?"
“Missing persons show up on the public bounty feeds. Maybe Dad decided he didn't want every scruffy bounty hunter in settled space looking for his little girl.”
“Maybe. I still think it's a dumb idea to try and sell that napalm shit to the Unseen.”
They'd decided they may as well take their shipment of untaxed moonshine to La Spina and unload it there, so if Misha fell through they'd still get something out of the trip.
“You know any better bars on La Spina?”
“That one place, what's it called, the Hawk's Nest, their drinks were harsh but no one ever shot at me there.”
It was a thought. Jensen hadn't minded it the one time they went - Jared was right that the drinks weren't top quality, and it wasn't the nicest bar either of them had ever been to, but it also hadn't seemed like the kind of place that would turn down cheap liquor. They could try it first.
Jared had left the comm open and Jensen could still hear chewing as he sat back on his heels and squinted at the sublight drive. A reasonably competent engineer would be able to find a lot of the after-market work Jensen and Jared had done to it, and any ship's tech could tell it wasn't still factory-pristine, but very few people would know from looking how fast the Tombaugh's engine could go, how quickly it could push the ship across space, and how many bigger, heavier ships it had enabled Jensen and Jared to outrun.
It would have enabled them to outrun the law in Ayre those months ago, if the law hadn't set a trap and waited for them to fly right into it, like the idiots they sometimes were.
Chris still wanted his credits back for that. Jensen wiped his hands on his thighs and went out to the lounge, where Jared was snacking on reconstituted orange slices and reading something projected on the wall. There was music playing faintly in the background, probably Sterling K Brown's latest.
“What's that?” Jensen asked, pointing to the wall.
“Old news,” Jared said. “I was just looking up Alona Tal, the CEO's daughter. She was a scientist. She worked for Green Worlds. There was some charge of nepotism during the trial, but it didn't come to anything. She's got her name on some patents for some terraforming processes - it's all geoscience, I don't understand it - but they're all a few years old. There's nothing about her after Green Worlds closed up shop, just speculation as to what happened to her. Because her dad's company went ass-up, you know? And she worked for them.” He popped an orange slice in his mouth, chewed, swallowed, then poked at the screen in front of him. A new item appeared on the wall, half on top of the old news items. “Check it out. Sterling K Brown's doing a tour in the Cluster.”
Jensen read the text projected on the wall. A list of dates and places, at least six months into the future.
“Looks like we have some time to get tickets.”
“You'd think so, wouldn't you? But he'll sell out really fast. He's really popular.”
“We'll try the Hawk's Nest first,” Jensen said, to change the subject. “See what they'll give us for the moonshine. If it's not enough, we'll go to the Unseen.”
“And then we'll meet Misha. We still owe Chris.”
Jensen thought about the diamonds that had bought the Tombaugh an EMP cannon, and the one time they'd had to use it. He and Jared could never go back to Gadyukino Sector - militaries took a dim view of you frying a pair of their fighter ships, even if you did do it in self-defense - but if nothing else he'd learned what a good investment that cannon was. And he had Misha to thank for that job.
He sighed. “If you get killed,” he told Jared, “I am not telling your mother.”
A day later they got a ping from Chris, reminding them in the friendliest tone possible that they still owed him for freeing them and their ship from the law.
“I'm just saying,” he concluded casually. “I'd hate to take her from you.”
“We have a line on a job,” Jensen told him. “We'll get you your credits. We've been paying you back.”
“It's the only reason I haven't come after you. But you're due another installment.”
“I know, I know. We're on it.”
Soon they were getting clearance from La Spina and putting the Tombaugh down on the cracked asphalt of a landing field. La Spina the settlement took its name from La Spina the mountain range, a terrifyingly high ridge of sharp peaks curling half around the settlement and then swinging north. There were supposedly good hiking trails and camping spots along the base of the range, but as neither Jensen nor Jared were camping or hiking people - few spacers were - they'd never been. It was not Jensen's favorite place, violent bars aside, because the mountains made him feel hemmed in. He'd spent the first eighteen years of his life on the flat plains of a sparsely-settled planet, and the next ten flying freighters and spending most of his time in space. High mountains - anything, really, that so thoroughly blocked his view of the horizon and the sky - made him nervous.
But Misha and Chad were theoretically here, and with them an equally theoretical job with a theoretically high payout, so he'd put up with the twitchy feeling on the back of his neck as long as it took to learn why they wanted to meet him and what he was going to get out of it.
But first, they should unload the liquor. The owner of the Hawk's Nest took one sip of the contraband and spat it right out. Jensen thought she shouldn't pass judgement when the stuff she served was just as bad, but he let Jared try to convince her the taste could be disguised and she could make a good profit. Jared was much better at the sweet-talking, and Danneel had been right that people were nice to him because he was cute.
The owner of the Hawk's Nest still wasn't interested in buying their contraband booze, so they cut their losses and hauled it to the Unseen, where the bartender was in charge of buying the liquor and knew whether or not it would sell. Apparently he thought it would, and after some haggling, he bought it all. Jensen immediately sent some credits to Chris.
They'd conducted their business right over the bar counter, because clearly no one cared. The Unseen was dim and smoky and low-ceilinged, but at least today it wasn't too crowded. That not only made it easy to talk to the bartender but also cut down on the possibility of violence, for which Jared and Jensen were both grateful. They were also grateful for the bartender's offer of a free drink to seal the deal, as long as it wasn't the stuff he'd just bought from them.
A woman ambled up and put her elbows on the bar, chattering away at no one. Jensen could see a bright green bud in her ear, probably giving her a commlink to a ship or -
“What?” she snapped, her tone changing sharply. “Good Christ. Get him down. Now.” She tapped the bud, changing the channel, and demanded “Who gave Captain Ford clearance? Yes, he went up again. Stranded hikers or some nonsense. Man's ancient, get him down before he kills himself.” She pushed herself away from the bar and Jensen heard her saying “He what? 'You can't tell me what to do'? Like fuck I can,” before she vanished.
It occurred to Jensen that if air traffic control - which this woman probably was - was drinking at the Unseen, it probably wasn't as dangerous a bar as they previously thought. Jared must have caught that girl on a bad day, when she tried to shoot him.
They took their free drinks and found Chad holding down a table in a back corner, sipping a beer and glancing around.
“Boys!” he cried, holding out his arms as if for a hug. Jared let himself be hugged. Jensen did not. “You got drinks! Come sit.”
They sat.
“Where's Misha?” Jensen asked.
“Getting another beer,” Misha said, appearing out of nowhere. “I knew you'd see sense.” He plopped down in a chair and slurped his beer. “Chad, tell them.”
“The reward went up,” Chad said almost proudly.
Misha pulled his beat-up handheld out of a pocket, brought something up on the scuffed screen, and passed it to Jensen. The same private contract he'd shown them in the Glass Lamp, to find Alona Tal, the daughter of Sahar Tech's CEO, for an even more obscene number of credits.
Jensen whistled. He and Jared could almost retire on that.
“Holy shit,” Jared breathed, reading over his shoulder. “Why is he offering so much?”
“No one's worth that,” Jensen said. “Not if it's legal.”
“She is,” Chad said. “Sahar Tech is very, very profitable, and the execs are very, very rich.”
“Why do you need us?” This was directed at Misha, still drinking his beer. Chad looked smug to give them a reasonable answer.
“She's on Bernon,” Misha said. “There really is a cult buried under the old settlement.”
“Again, why do you need us? You know where she is, and you're not even the ones holding the contract.”
“No, but we shook with the person who is.”
Jensen heaved a sigh and pushed his chair back from the table. “Be straight with us, or we're leaving.”
“Okay, truth?” Misha put down his glass. “The Tombaugh's the fastest ship I've ever seen. Much faster than the Asmodeus. You'll get the missing person, because you have the best chance of escaping with her. Then we'll all rendezvous, return her to Dad, and split the reward.”
That was one of the dumbest things Jensen had ever heard. “We're going.” He stood and tapped Jared on the shoulder.
“Wait,” Jared said. “There's gotta be more. And we still owe Chris. You don't want to lose your ship.”
Misha gestured for the two of them to listen closely. Against his better judgement, Jensen sat back down.
“This is the story,” Misha said, his voice quiet enough that Jensen and Jared had to lean very close to him to hear. “This Alona was a scientist for Green Worlds, right? And Green Worlds basically destroyed Bernon. Her dad's company, and some of her patents, wrecked a moon and killed people. We don't know why she joined the cult, but that's where she is. We need you because you're one of the best pilots I know and you have one of the fastest ships in settled space - I'm not just blowing smoke, I know how fast that thing can go - and if anyone comes after you, you'll leave them eating ions.”
“We can't go to Bernon,” Jensen said. “We had a... run-in with a gun-runner in the general vicinity.” Jared looked at him curiously. “Katahdin. Cluny Sector.”
“Shit,” Jared said, remembering. “The thing with the guns.”
They hadn't thought it was any big deal at the time - just some small-time weapons smuggling to help out a struggling revolt on one of the little planets in that sector - how were they to know there was already a gun-running ring in place, and the head of the ring would take offense to them horning in on her action? They'd managed to escape Cluny Sector with their skins and ship mostly intact, but Kim, the gun-runner, was still working that part of settled space, and she'd know - and be pissed - if they came back.
“Now we're really leaving,” Jensen said, annoyed, but Chad reached across the table and grabbed his arm to stop him.
“We can figure this out,” he said. “We'll make a deal with - what's their name?”
“Who?”
“The gun-runner. What's the ring?”
“Kim Rhodes.”
“Oh, I know her.” Chad sat back, all confidence. “We go way back. She got her start on Groff, in the Cluster, back when me and Misha were baby lockbreakers. We did some jobs together. I'll talk to her, get her off your butts.”
“Do it now. Otherwise we're walking.”
Chad stood, took a swallow of his beer, and slid away into a dark corner.
“We're fucked,” Jared commented almost cheerfully. “She still wants our hands.”
“Trust in Chad,” Misha said. “And remember that you still owe credits on a loan with your ship as collateral, and we all know you don't want to lose her.”
“Let me get this straight,” Jensen said, “because I don't trust in Chad. You want us to, what, sneak into a ruined settlement on a frozen moon, grab someone, and escape, just so you can claim a missing-persons reward?”
“We'll split it equally.”
“You still want us to do all the work. I don't care what Chad says - Kim still wants our skins and my ship, and you're asking us to take all the risk for just an equal share of the reward.”
“We found this woman. She worked very hard to hide, and we know where she is. We're probably the only people in all of settled space who know, and that's worth as much as actually grabbing her.”
“Who are you even working for?” Jared asked.
“Working with,” Misha corrected.
“Whatever. This isn't your job. It's not what you do. Why would anyone come to you to find a missing person?”
A woman in a jumpsuit walked up to the table.
“Hi boys,” said Adrianne.
“Fuck me,” Jensen said, impressed in spite of himself.
She leaned down next to Misha and put her elbows on the table so she could smile serenely at Jensen and Jared. “I have to tell you, it's so nice to breathe free air again.”
“No one else would get her out of Port Wombat,” Misha said, “so she called us. We cleared the warrants for her and her ship. It was part of the deal.”
“That couldn't have been cheap,” Jared said in disbelief.
“You'd rather split a massive reward than owe someone?” Jensen demanded of Adrianne. “Your warrant was pocket change compared to that contract.” He could understand not wanting to be in someone's debt, but he couldn't understand splitting such a big reward to avoid it.
Although he'd put up his ship as collateral on a loan to get himself and Jared out of jail, rather than work it off as part of someone else's crew, so maybe he did understand. That deal with Chris was turning out to be one of the dumber things he'd ever done. He felt like he'd have it hanging over his head forever.
“So that's the plan,” Misha said. “I'd like to say you can think it over, but we need an answer now.”
“We need one from Chad first.”
“What's the problem here?” Adrianne asked.
“There's a gun-runner working Cluny Sector who really doesn't want us there,” Jared told her. “Chad said he could make a deal with her, so we're waiting.”
Adrianne hmphed, took Misha's glass, and drank. He made an annoyed noise. She just patted his hand. “Remember who brought you this job. So. Boys.” She directed herself to Jensen and Jared. “How've you been?” She grinned.
It didn't take long for Chad to come back, but his news wasn't great. Kim would give them exactly thirty hours' grace in Cluny Sector, and once that time was up, if she or any of her crew saw the Tombaugh, they were going to shoot her out of the sky.
“That's no problem,” Chad said, waving his hand airily. “Misha did say you had the fastest ship in settled space.”
“We'll do it,” Jared said. Jensen elbowed him hard. “What? It's a lot of credits, and thirty hours should be enough.”
Adrianne looked at Jensen expectantly. Jared looked at him expectantly. Misha looked at him expectantly. Chad still looked smug.
“Even if we run down the time,” Jared went on, “you know we can outrun any of Kim's ships.”
“Her ships are armed, Jared,” Jensen said.
“So's ours.”
“You can pay off your debt all at once,” Misha said, and Jensen couldn't really argue with that.
“We have to work with her.” He pointed to Adrianne, who pasted the fakest innocence he'd ever seen on her face. But he was much closer to saying yes, and everyone knew it. “Tell me the plan, in detail.”
“First, we go to Bernon. Second, you take Adrianne to the surface. Third, Adrianne sneaks into the cult's compound and grabs Alona. Fourth, you all escape Cluny Sector. Fifth, we rendezvous here, call Dad, and turn her in for the reward. Sixth, we spend our credits.”
“How are we landing on Bernon, and how's Adrianne getting inside the cult? There's nothing there but a research station, right? They'll have schedules of what's arriving and when, and that place is so inhospitable I can't put the Tombaugh down just anywhere.”
“That's covered,” Misha said. “The scientists made some kind of deal with the cult to stick sensors around the place. That's how Adrianne will get in. You have to bring the scientists something in exchange, though.”
Of course they did.
“What?” Jared asked.
“They sent us a list.”
“It's straightforward,” Chad said.
“No it isn't,” Jensen countered. “We have to trust we can land on the surface in the first place, then we have to trust these scientists to get Adrianne into the cult compound, then we have to trust her to get the target without everyone getting up in arms, then we have to trust Kim, then we have to trust you.”
“Then let me convince you,” Misha said, his voice uncharacteristically serious. “The cult renamed the dead settlement 'Purmort'. Pure Death.” He let that sink in. “It's a doomsday cult, Jensen. They have a short expiration date, and if Alona Tal stays there, it will kill her.”
“So we're rescuing her from certain death,” Chad said, “and getting well-paid in the meantime.”
“We're still running all the risk,” Jensen pointed out.
“Kim gave you thirty hours.”
“And I'm going with you,” Adrianne said. “If you fuck up, I can lose the contract.”
“We'll take the job,” Jared said. “Yes, I'm going to speak for you,” he told Jensen. “We can do it. They did all the legwork. We just have to fly the ship.”
“If this comes back to bite us - “
“It won't,” Chad interrupted.
“I want you all to know this goes against my better judgement,” Jensen told the entire table, “and I'm only doing it because if it works, we can pay Chris off and still have enough credits to upgrade my ship in ways we can't even imagine yet. And if it doesn't work, we'll be dead, and it won't matter.”
“That's the spirit,” Misha said, clapping him on the back. “Now go get another drink and we'll shake on it.”
That night Jensen did what he thought was the last smart thing he was going to do for a while, and pinged Danneel on the screen in the Tombaugh's lounge. She didn't want in on the action - it was a private contract, and she respected that - but he wanted her to know where he vanished and who was likely responsible, if no one ever heard from him again.
“Come on, Jensen,” she said, “you can't go to Cluny Sector.”
“I know,” he said, “but I'm going anyway.”
“You really trust Chad made that good a deal?”
“I have to. I got a ping from Chris before we hit La Spina, just reminding me that we owe him another installment. We have to get out from under him. I can't have him take my ship.”
“You remember when I told you it was a bad idea to take a loan to pay your bail, and put up your ship as collateral?” She looked almost smug. “This is why.”
“It was either that or rot in jail. Jared and I weren't about to let someone bail us out just to make us work for them, and if we had, he'd have kept my ship anyway. Look, Danneel, this is our best option. I don't trust Chad and I sure as shit don't trust Adrianne, but we can pay off all our debt at once and be done.”
“How much is this woman worth?”
Jensen told her. She cocked a disbelieving eyebrow at him.
“No one offers that much for a missing person. Not if they're on the up and up.”
“Does it matter?”
“I wouldn't trust it.”
Jared picked then to come into the lounge, rubbing his hair with a towel. “Hi, Danneel.”
“Hey,” Danneel said. “Jensen was telling me about your big score, and I was telling him no one puts up that much for a missing person unless there's something iffy going on.”
“I thought it was weird that it was a private contract, but we figured Dad just didn't want everyone and their dog looking for his daughter. He's got a lot of money. How's that iffy?” He sat on the edge of the table. Jensen nudged him to get off.
Danneel shrugged. “I don't know, but it doesn't smell right to me. Just be careful and keep your ears open.”
“Always do,” Jensen said. “Did you get your bounty in the Cluster?”
“Two days ago. He fought me like you have no idea, but I got a new trick.” She poked herself in the neck with a finger. “God's own tranqs. Made my life so much easier.”
“Are they pink?” Jared asked, grinning. “Maybe we could use those.”
“Hey, why are you on your ship and not in a rented room with a real bed and a real shower?”
“La Spina makes Jensen nervous.” Jared glanced at him. “I don't mind, but the mountains freak him out.”
“They're too tall and too close,” Jensen said. “Besides, we might have to take Adrianne on board before we leave, and I want as much time without her as I can get.”
“Watch out for her, okay?” Danneel said. “She has to split this reward and don't think for a minute she's satisfied with her split, as big as it might be. She'll cut you out without a second thought if she can.”
“We're watching,” Jared said, and grinned when Jensen rolled his eyes. “I'm speaking for Jensen tonight.”
“I should sign off. Let me know when you're done with this thing. We'll meet at Port Wombat and do something fun. Maybe we can even rope Genevieve in.” She blew them each a kiss and then the screen went blank.
“Get off the table,” Jensen said, nudging Jared again. Jared obliged this time. “Final check tomorrow morning, and we firm up our plans.”
He did not want to take Adrianne to Bernon. He didn't trust her enough to want her on his ship, not when he still owed Chris and there was apparently a chance she might use that against him and Jared. Jensen thought it through overnight, and in the morning he gave Misha and crew one last condition: he and Jared would agree to snatch Alona Tal as long as they didn't have to ferry Adrianne back and forth through Cluny Sector. She could take the Asmodeus with the rest of Misha's crew, and when they reached Bernon, she'd fly the ship's tiny landing pod to the surface. She'd grab Alona, hand her off to Jensen and Jared, and fly the landing pod back. Jensen and Jared would keep Alona as assurance, and then they'd all meet back at La Spina.
Jensen didn't think this was a great plan, but so far nothing sounded like a great plan, and it would keep Adrianne off his ship. But Adrianne said no, absolutely not, she was going to the surface of Bernon in the Tombaugh or the whole deal was off, did they really think she'd let her target out of her sight for any reason?
Jared spoke for Jensen again - “We need the credits too bad to turn this down, and you know it” - Misha and Chad loaded the crate of stuff for the scientists onto the Tombaugh, Adrianne collected her things from the Asmodeus, Jensen plugged the coordinates for the research station into his ship's navigation system, and they were off.
“This is one for the records,” Jared commented, as they left La Spina and its terrifying mountains behind them. “Our first missing person.”
They'd smuggled people before, but those folks were in on the plan. This was definitely the first time they'd be smuggling someone who had no idea they were coming.
And Danneel and Jared had both voiced Jensen's own silent thoughts - why was this CEO offering so much, and why didn't he go to a licensed PI or even a bounty hunter to find his daughter? Jensen wondered idly if Alona had stolen something from Green Worlds before she vanished, and her father wanted it back.
But that was absurd. Bernon had been destroyed, and Green Worlds put on trial, several years ago. Green Worlds had apparently been allowed to just rebrand itself as Sahar Tech and keep doing its thing. Why would it suddenly matter now if someone had stolen something back then?
His original suggestion to Jared was probably right, that Dad didn't trust any of the bounty hunters working settled space. Would Jensen want some unknown grabbing his little girl, if he probably had enough money to buy and sell half the Cluster? That kind of pedigree, you wanted someone you knew, and could trust.
Not that he'd trust Adrianne, himself, but Dad either didn't know her reputation, or didn't care. Or it was a feature, not a bug.
And aside from all that, there was something annoyingly familiar about Dad. He had a different last name from Alona, but that wasn't necessarily relevant. It could have been her choice, for professional reasons. Jensen was pretty sure the familiarity was related to some deal with the mining conglomerate, from when he was still flying freighters - maybe it wasn't a good deal? - and while it probably wasn't important in the grand scheme of things, it was nagging at him.
Well, it didn't matter now. Jensen and Jared had made a deal with Misha and shook on it, and Misha had made a deal with Adrianne, and Adrianne held the contract to which they were all bound. Danneel knew what was going on in case something happened. The Tombaugh's fuel cells were fresh. The EMP cannon was charged, just in case. Adrianne accepted that she'd have to share the spare cabin once she got her target. They were as ready as they could ever be.
The trip to Bernon passed without much issue, although suddenly having to share the ship with someone in addition to Jared was an adjustment for Jensen. He and Jared tinkered with the ship, played holo-chess, exercised. Adrianne commented snidely on the galley facilities. Jared made her and Jensen listen to Sterling Brown's most recent song sequence on repeat, and when she admitted it was pretty good, Jared was insufferable for three days. Chris sent them a payment reminder. Genevieve sent them a message to tell them to come see her when they were done.
“Is Adrianne Palicki really traveling with you?” she asked.
“Yep,” Jared said. “I don't know why Danneel's all bent out of shape about her. She's not that bad. She likes The Hidden Country in the Last Bend of the Swirl and she agrees with me that we should install a grill in the galley.”
“But can she cook?” Genevieve grinned.
“Better than me. Not as good as you.”
“Not as good as me, either,” Jensen added.
“My ears are burning,” Adrianne called from elsewhere in the ship. “I know you're saying nice things about me.”
Jensen rolled his eyes. Genevieve giggled. They were chatting with her through Jared's handheld to avoid just this kind of eavesdropping.
“You need to turn off your internal comms, Jensen,” Genevieve said. “You know smugglers have very sharp ears.”
“So who are we talking to?” Adrianne asked casually, walking into the lounge. “If that's Danneel Harris, give her my love.”
“If it was Danneel you'd have heard more swearing,” Jensen said. “Is there any hot water left?”
But as much as he hated to admit it, Adrianne wasn't the worst passenger they'd ever had. She wasn't at all considerate when it came to noise, food smells, or length of showers, but at least she cleaned up after herself and she hadn't been poking around the engines or screwing with the navigation systems or (as far as Jensen or Jared knew) sending messages that could get them in trouble. So far, she was sticking to the plan as much as they were. They didn't think she'd even called Dad to let him know she was on his daughter's trail.
Jensen had finally figured out why the guy's name was familiar. The mining conglomerate had indeed done some work with Green Worlds - tech stuff, mostly, but Jensen remembered contract jobs going up for flying the seeding ships that started the terraforming process - word had gone around the freighters that Green Worlds was a shit contract and the CEO was especially ruthless. Fish stinks from the head, one of Jensen's crew chiefs had said.
The mining conglomerate wasn't perfect by any measure, when it came to squeezing work out of its employees - Jensen had indentured himself for ten years and they held him to that, to the minute, and because he couldn't quit they didn't bother to treat him well - but the owners were garden-variety corporate dicks, not complete criminals. Jensen knew he'd forgotten details about Alona's dad because they hadn't been important at the time, but what he could remember now wasn't great. He hadn't been surprised when the guy came out the other side of the trial completely clean, and wasn't surprised that he was now the CEO and owner of another big corp. People like that always got away.
The Tombaugh was at the edge of Cluny Sector when Misha pinged the ship to review the plan. Jensen brought him up on the screen in the lounge for ease of conversation.
“We got your landing code from the research station,” Chad said, appearing over Misha's shoulder. “We're sending it now.”
“You'll set down on their landing pad,” Misha said. “The contact's name is Lupita. She'll take delivery of the crate, make sure everything's there, and then take Adrianne to the old settlement. You'll wait on your ship. Keep an eye out. As soon as Adrianne gets back with Alona, you go. We'll meet you on La Spina. Go straight there. Do not stop for anything.” He sounded very serious.
What do you think we're going to stop for? Jensen thought. Coffee?
“You got thirty hours from the second you cross into the sector,” Chad added from off-screen. “Don't fuck up.”
“Charge your engine. It's go time.” Misha signed off and the projection went blank.
“Strap in,” Jensen told Jared and Adrianne, hustling into the cockpit. They could use the sublight engine to get to Bernon, but that drained the fuel cells and he didn't want to risk running them down. They'd just have to speed the old-fashioned way.
Fortunately they'd gone around the long way, to enter Cluny Sector as close to Bernon as possible, and they were maybe twelve hours away from the moon if they burned ions and didn't run into any patrols. Jensen had no idea how Adrianne planned to extricate Alona from the cult compound, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know, but if she managed it without alerting anyone, and without hurting anyone, he'd revise his opinion of her a little bit.
A little less than twelve hours later, they were there. Jensen checked the landing gear, the fuel gauge, the landing code. Everything was in order. The skies over Bernon were clear, the atmosphere thin and cold. There was nothing to see as the Tombaugh descended but fields and fields of emptiness, broken by the occasional sharp hill or rocky crag, everything covered in blinding snow and flat white ice. The ruins of the settlement were just dark enough to stand out, sand-colored buildings cracking in the cold and roads and sidewalks hidden under all the white. The research station, however, was painted black, and the landing pad had been cleared of snow and ice. There was a speeder parked near the station, but the pad was otherwise empty. Someone was clearly prepared for their arrival. Jensen set the Tombaugh down, pinged the station, and waited.
It wasn't long before two figures wearing what looked like slimmed-down black atmosphere suits came out of a hatch in the side of the building. One of them was pulling a dolly with a box on it. The Tombaugh's comms crackled.
“Jensen and Jared and Adrianne, right?” a voice said. “I'm Lupita. Let me in.”
A blast of intensely cold air preceded the two figures and the dolly through the ship's starboard hatch. “Fucking hell,” Jared said under his breath, but whether that was for the cold or the sight of two people dressed for a spacewalk standing in the ship, Jensen wasn't sure. The smaller one of them pulled off the suit's facemask, revealing a woman with a round face, hair cut close to her scalp, eyes bright and mouth grinning. She held out a hand, giggled as Jared tried to shake, and let him shake her thumb instead.
The crate was waiting in the loading bay. Jared cracked it open for Lupita and waited while she checked the contents against the list on a small handheld strapped to her forearm. Her companion just stood there, watching and looking intimidating in the black suit with the facemask still on.
“Perfect,” Lupita said, indicating that Jared could close it up again. She indicated the box she'd brought, which her companion took off the dolly. “That's for Adrianne. Otherwise you'll freeze to death,” she explained, as Adrianne held up the suit that had been in the box, apparently measuring it for size. “Winston will take you to the ruins in our speeder. He'll check our sensors while you're doing your thing. We're pretty sure the cult has a cannon, so we have to be careful with them. I can bring you boys something hot while you're waiting. We don't know how long it will take.”
“No, we're good,” Jensen told her, “but thanks.” He and Jared and the other scientist, whose name was apparently Winston, loaded the crate onto the dolly. “We're going to take off as soon as we can. Thanks for helping us out.” Lupita had taken off her gloves to check the crate and hadn't put them back on, so he and Jared could shake her hand like normal people.
“We get supplies out of it, you rescue a girl from a death cult. I hope you know a good deprogrammer. Do you need help with the suit?” she asked Adrianne, who had already taken off her boots to put the thing on. Adrianne shook her head, but Lupita had to help with the facemask anyway. Lupita put her own facemask back on, followed by the gloves, and gave Jensen and Jared a thumbs-up. Adrianne gave them a thumbs-up. They let everyone out, shut the hatch as soon as the dolly was through, and looked at each other.
“They don't know why we're really here,” Jared said. “They think we've been hired to get Alona away from the cult, not because there's a reward for her.”
Jensen shrugged. “If you look at it a certain way, we were hired to get her away from the cult. It's just that the guy who hired us didn't know that's where she was when he offered the contract.”
“Now what?”
“We wait. I kick your ass at holo-chess some more.”
Onward!
PG-13
Part 2 of 5
Master post
Art
Bob put the two of them in touch with an underground distiller who could sell them a load of untaxed hooch. It seemed all anyone wanted lately was to sneak stuff past the duty officers. Not that Jensen cared, but he didn't want to be pigeonholed. The distiller let him and Jared taste the liquor, which Jared proclaimed “Wicked” after recovering from a coughing fit. It was awful, but it was cheaper and would get you hammered faster than the legitimately-distilled stuff, so onto the Tombaugh it went.
Jensen and Jared had enough credits to restock the Tombaugh's galley before they went on their way. They were several hours out when Bob pinged the ship to let them know he'd asked his friend about Sahar Tech, but she didn't have anything interesting to share that they didn't already know.
Jensen was fine with that. He wasn't expecting much, anyway.
Two days later he was in the engine room, tinkering with the sublight drive, when the comm on the wall buzzed and Jared asked him why the Sahar CEO might have gone private to find his daughter. Private contracts sometimes skirted the edge of legality and could thus be pretty shady, especially if you gave the contract to someone without a bounty or investigator license. It was the kind of thing mobsters turned to when they wanted to find a rat who had fled their organization, or that corporate overlords used to find former employees who had absconded with industry secrets, or that governments even occasionally took advantage of to find rogue spies or secret agents or even just garden-variety dissidents that someone didn't like.
“It's not a bounty,” Jared went on. Jensen heard chewing noises over the comm. “I mean, there's no warrant. It's just a missing-persons case. Why does it have to be private?"
“Missing persons show up on the public bounty feeds. Maybe Dad decided he didn't want every scruffy bounty hunter in settled space looking for his little girl.”
“Maybe. I still think it's a dumb idea to try and sell that napalm shit to the Unseen.”
They'd decided they may as well take their shipment of untaxed moonshine to La Spina and unload it there, so if Misha fell through they'd still get something out of the trip.
“You know any better bars on La Spina?”
“That one place, what's it called, the Hawk's Nest, their drinks were harsh but no one ever shot at me there.”
It was a thought. Jensen hadn't minded it the one time they went - Jared was right that the drinks weren't top quality, and it wasn't the nicest bar either of them had ever been to, but it also hadn't seemed like the kind of place that would turn down cheap liquor. They could try it first.
Jared had left the comm open and Jensen could still hear chewing as he sat back on his heels and squinted at the sublight drive. A reasonably competent engineer would be able to find a lot of the after-market work Jensen and Jared had done to it, and any ship's tech could tell it wasn't still factory-pristine, but very few people would know from looking how fast the Tombaugh's engine could go, how quickly it could push the ship across space, and how many bigger, heavier ships it had enabled Jensen and Jared to outrun.
It would have enabled them to outrun the law in Ayre those months ago, if the law hadn't set a trap and waited for them to fly right into it, like the idiots they sometimes were.
Chris still wanted his credits back for that. Jensen wiped his hands on his thighs and went out to the lounge, where Jared was snacking on reconstituted orange slices and reading something projected on the wall. There was music playing faintly in the background, probably Sterling K Brown's latest.
“What's that?” Jensen asked, pointing to the wall.
“Old news,” Jared said. “I was just looking up Alona Tal, the CEO's daughter. She was a scientist. She worked for Green Worlds. There was some charge of nepotism during the trial, but it didn't come to anything. She's got her name on some patents for some terraforming processes - it's all geoscience, I don't understand it - but they're all a few years old. There's nothing about her after Green Worlds closed up shop, just speculation as to what happened to her. Because her dad's company went ass-up, you know? And she worked for them.” He popped an orange slice in his mouth, chewed, swallowed, then poked at the screen in front of him. A new item appeared on the wall, half on top of the old news items. “Check it out. Sterling K Brown's doing a tour in the Cluster.”
Jensen read the text projected on the wall. A list of dates and places, at least six months into the future.
“Looks like we have some time to get tickets.”
“You'd think so, wouldn't you? But he'll sell out really fast. He's really popular.”
“We'll try the Hawk's Nest first,” Jensen said, to change the subject. “See what they'll give us for the moonshine. If it's not enough, we'll go to the Unseen.”
“And then we'll meet Misha. We still owe Chris.”
Jensen thought about the diamonds that had bought the Tombaugh an EMP cannon, and the one time they'd had to use it. He and Jared could never go back to Gadyukino Sector - militaries took a dim view of you frying a pair of their fighter ships, even if you did do it in self-defense - but if nothing else he'd learned what a good investment that cannon was. And he had Misha to thank for that job.
He sighed. “If you get killed,” he told Jared, “I am not telling your mother.”
A day later they got a ping from Chris, reminding them in the friendliest tone possible that they still owed him for freeing them and their ship from the law.
“I'm just saying,” he concluded casually. “I'd hate to take her from you.”
“We have a line on a job,” Jensen told him. “We'll get you your credits. We've been paying you back.”
“It's the only reason I haven't come after you. But you're due another installment.”
“I know, I know. We're on it.”
Soon they were getting clearance from La Spina and putting the Tombaugh down on the cracked asphalt of a landing field. La Spina the settlement took its name from La Spina the mountain range, a terrifyingly high ridge of sharp peaks curling half around the settlement and then swinging north. There were supposedly good hiking trails and camping spots along the base of the range, but as neither Jensen nor Jared were camping or hiking people - few spacers were - they'd never been. It was not Jensen's favorite place, violent bars aside, because the mountains made him feel hemmed in. He'd spent the first eighteen years of his life on the flat plains of a sparsely-settled planet, and the next ten flying freighters and spending most of his time in space. High mountains - anything, really, that so thoroughly blocked his view of the horizon and the sky - made him nervous.
But Misha and Chad were theoretically here, and with them an equally theoretical job with a theoretically high payout, so he'd put up with the twitchy feeling on the back of his neck as long as it took to learn why they wanted to meet him and what he was going to get out of it.
But first, they should unload the liquor. The owner of the Hawk's Nest took one sip of the contraband and spat it right out. Jensen thought she shouldn't pass judgement when the stuff she served was just as bad, but he let Jared try to convince her the taste could be disguised and she could make a good profit. Jared was much better at the sweet-talking, and Danneel had been right that people were nice to him because he was cute.
The owner of the Hawk's Nest still wasn't interested in buying their contraband booze, so they cut their losses and hauled it to the Unseen, where the bartender was in charge of buying the liquor and knew whether or not it would sell. Apparently he thought it would, and after some haggling, he bought it all. Jensen immediately sent some credits to Chris.
They'd conducted their business right over the bar counter, because clearly no one cared. The Unseen was dim and smoky and low-ceilinged, but at least today it wasn't too crowded. That not only made it easy to talk to the bartender but also cut down on the possibility of violence, for which Jared and Jensen were both grateful. They were also grateful for the bartender's offer of a free drink to seal the deal, as long as it wasn't the stuff he'd just bought from them.
A woman ambled up and put her elbows on the bar, chattering away at no one. Jensen could see a bright green bud in her ear, probably giving her a commlink to a ship or -
“What?” she snapped, her tone changing sharply. “Good Christ. Get him down. Now.” She tapped the bud, changing the channel, and demanded “Who gave Captain Ford clearance? Yes, he went up again. Stranded hikers or some nonsense. Man's ancient, get him down before he kills himself.” She pushed herself away from the bar and Jensen heard her saying “He what? 'You can't tell me what to do'? Like fuck I can,” before she vanished.
It occurred to Jensen that if air traffic control - which this woman probably was - was drinking at the Unseen, it probably wasn't as dangerous a bar as they previously thought. Jared must have caught that girl on a bad day, when she tried to shoot him.
They took their free drinks and found Chad holding down a table in a back corner, sipping a beer and glancing around.
“Boys!” he cried, holding out his arms as if for a hug. Jared let himself be hugged. Jensen did not. “You got drinks! Come sit.”
They sat.
“Where's Misha?” Jensen asked.
“Getting another beer,” Misha said, appearing out of nowhere. “I knew you'd see sense.” He plopped down in a chair and slurped his beer. “Chad, tell them.”
“The reward went up,” Chad said almost proudly.
Misha pulled his beat-up handheld out of a pocket, brought something up on the scuffed screen, and passed it to Jensen. The same private contract he'd shown them in the Glass Lamp, to find Alona Tal, the daughter of Sahar Tech's CEO, for an even more obscene number of credits.
Jensen whistled. He and Jared could almost retire on that.
“Holy shit,” Jared breathed, reading over his shoulder. “Why is he offering so much?”
“No one's worth that,” Jensen said. “Not if it's legal.”
“She is,” Chad said. “Sahar Tech is very, very profitable, and the execs are very, very rich.”
“Why do you need us?” This was directed at Misha, still drinking his beer. Chad looked smug to give them a reasonable answer.
“She's on Bernon,” Misha said. “There really is a cult buried under the old settlement.”
“Again, why do you need us? You know where she is, and you're not even the ones holding the contract.”
“No, but we shook with the person who is.”
Jensen heaved a sigh and pushed his chair back from the table. “Be straight with us, or we're leaving.”
“Okay, truth?” Misha put down his glass. “The Tombaugh's the fastest ship I've ever seen. Much faster than the Asmodeus. You'll get the missing person, because you have the best chance of escaping with her. Then we'll all rendezvous, return her to Dad, and split the reward.”
That was one of the dumbest things Jensen had ever heard. “We're going.” He stood and tapped Jared on the shoulder.
“Wait,” Jared said. “There's gotta be more. And we still owe Chris. You don't want to lose your ship.”
Misha gestured for the two of them to listen closely. Against his better judgement, Jensen sat back down.
“This is the story,” Misha said, his voice quiet enough that Jensen and Jared had to lean very close to him to hear. “This Alona was a scientist for Green Worlds, right? And Green Worlds basically destroyed Bernon. Her dad's company, and some of her patents, wrecked a moon and killed people. We don't know why she joined the cult, but that's where she is. We need you because you're one of the best pilots I know and you have one of the fastest ships in settled space - I'm not just blowing smoke, I know how fast that thing can go - and if anyone comes after you, you'll leave them eating ions.”
“We can't go to Bernon,” Jensen said. “We had a... run-in with a gun-runner in the general vicinity.” Jared looked at him curiously. “Katahdin. Cluny Sector.”
“Shit,” Jared said, remembering. “The thing with the guns.”
They hadn't thought it was any big deal at the time - just some small-time weapons smuggling to help out a struggling revolt on one of the little planets in that sector - how were they to know there was already a gun-running ring in place, and the head of the ring would take offense to them horning in on her action? They'd managed to escape Cluny Sector with their skins and ship mostly intact, but Kim, the gun-runner, was still working that part of settled space, and she'd know - and be pissed - if they came back.
“Now we're really leaving,” Jensen said, annoyed, but Chad reached across the table and grabbed his arm to stop him.
“We can figure this out,” he said. “We'll make a deal with - what's their name?”
“Who?”
“The gun-runner. What's the ring?”
“Kim Rhodes.”
“Oh, I know her.” Chad sat back, all confidence. “We go way back. She got her start on Groff, in the Cluster, back when me and Misha were baby lockbreakers. We did some jobs together. I'll talk to her, get her off your butts.”
“Do it now. Otherwise we're walking.”
Chad stood, took a swallow of his beer, and slid away into a dark corner.
“We're fucked,” Jared commented almost cheerfully. “She still wants our hands.”
“Trust in Chad,” Misha said. “And remember that you still owe credits on a loan with your ship as collateral, and we all know you don't want to lose her.”
“Let me get this straight,” Jensen said, “because I don't trust in Chad. You want us to, what, sneak into a ruined settlement on a frozen moon, grab someone, and escape, just so you can claim a missing-persons reward?”
“We'll split it equally.”
“You still want us to do all the work. I don't care what Chad says - Kim still wants our skins and my ship, and you're asking us to take all the risk for just an equal share of the reward.”
“We found this woman. She worked very hard to hide, and we know where she is. We're probably the only people in all of settled space who know, and that's worth as much as actually grabbing her.”
“Who are you even working for?” Jared asked.
“Working with,” Misha corrected.
“Whatever. This isn't your job. It's not what you do. Why would anyone come to you to find a missing person?”
A woman in a jumpsuit walked up to the table.
“Hi boys,” said Adrianne.
“Fuck me,” Jensen said, impressed in spite of himself.
She leaned down next to Misha and put her elbows on the table so she could smile serenely at Jensen and Jared. “I have to tell you, it's so nice to breathe free air again.”
“No one else would get her out of Port Wombat,” Misha said, “so she called us. We cleared the warrants for her and her ship. It was part of the deal.”
“That couldn't have been cheap,” Jared said in disbelief.
“You'd rather split a massive reward than owe someone?” Jensen demanded of Adrianne. “Your warrant was pocket change compared to that contract.” He could understand not wanting to be in someone's debt, but he couldn't understand splitting such a big reward to avoid it.
Although he'd put up his ship as collateral on a loan to get himself and Jared out of jail, rather than work it off as part of someone else's crew, so maybe he did understand. That deal with Chris was turning out to be one of the dumber things he'd ever done. He felt like he'd have it hanging over his head forever.
“So that's the plan,” Misha said. “I'd like to say you can think it over, but we need an answer now.”
“We need one from Chad first.”
“What's the problem here?” Adrianne asked.
“There's a gun-runner working Cluny Sector who really doesn't want us there,” Jared told her. “Chad said he could make a deal with her, so we're waiting.”
Adrianne hmphed, took Misha's glass, and drank. He made an annoyed noise. She just patted his hand. “Remember who brought you this job. So. Boys.” She directed herself to Jensen and Jared. “How've you been?” She grinned.
It didn't take long for Chad to come back, but his news wasn't great. Kim would give them exactly thirty hours' grace in Cluny Sector, and once that time was up, if she or any of her crew saw the Tombaugh, they were going to shoot her out of the sky.
“That's no problem,” Chad said, waving his hand airily. “Misha did say you had the fastest ship in settled space.”
“We'll do it,” Jared said. Jensen elbowed him hard. “What? It's a lot of credits, and thirty hours should be enough.”
Adrianne looked at Jensen expectantly. Jared looked at him expectantly. Misha looked at him expectantly. Chad still looked smug.
“Even if we run down the time,” Jared went on, “you know we can outrun any of Kim's ships.”
“Her ships are armed, Jared,” Jensen said.
“So's ours.”
“You can pay off your debt all at once,” Misha said, and Jensen couldn't really argue with that.
“We have to work with her.” He pointed to Adrianne, who pasted the fakest innocence he'd ever seen on her face. But he was much closer to saying yes, and everyone knew it. “Tell me the plan, in detail.”
“First, we go to Bernon. Second, you take Adrianne to the surface. Third, Adrianne sneaks into the cult's compound and grabs Alona. Fourth, you all escape Cluny Sector. Fifth, we rendezvous here, call Dad, and turn her in for the reward. Sixth, we spend our credits.”
“How are we landing on Bernon, and how's Adrianne getting inside the cult? There's nothing there but a research station, right? They'll have schedules of what's arriving and when, and that place is so inhospitable I can't put the Tombaugh down just anywhere.”
“That's covered,” Misha said. “The scientists made some kind of deal with the cult to stick sensors around the place. That's how Adrianne will get in. You have to bring the scientists something in exchange, though.”
Of course they did.
“What?” Jared asked.
“They sent us a list.”
“It's straightforward,” Chad said.
“No it isn't,” Jensen countered. “We have to trust we can land on the surface in the first place, then we have to trust these scientists to get Adrianne into the cult compound, then we have to trust her to get the target without everyone getting up in arms, then we have to trust Kim, then we have to trust you.”
“Then let me convince you,” Misha said, his voice uncharacteristically serious. “The cult renamed the dead settlement 'Purmort'. Pure Death.” He let that sink in. “It's a doomsday cult, Jensen. They have a short expiration date, and if Alona Tal stays there, it will kill her.”
“So we're rescuing her from certain death,” Chad said, “and getting well-paid in the meantime.”
“We're still running all the risk,” Jensen pointed out.
“Kim gave you thirty hours.”
“And I'm going with you,” Adrianne said. “If you fuck up, I can lose the contract.”
“We'll take the job,” Jared said. “Yes, I'm going to speak for you,” he told Jensen. “We can do it. They did all the legwork. We just have to fly the ship.”
“If this comes back to bite us - “
“It won't,” Chad interrupted.
“I want you all to know this goes against my better judgement,” Jensen told the entire table, “and I'm only doing it because if it works, we can pay Chris off and still have enough credits to upgrade my ship in ways we can't even imagine yet. And if it doesn't work, we'll be dead, and it won't matter.”
“That's the spirit,” Misha said, clapping him on the back. “Now go get another drink and we'll shake on it.”
That night Jensen did what he thought was the last smart thing he was going to do for a while, and pinged Danneel on the screen in the Tombaugh's lounge. She didn't want in on the action - it was a private contract, and she respected that - but he wanted her to know where he vanished and who was likely responsible, if no one ever heard from him again.
“Come on, Jensen,” she said, “you can't go to Cluny Sector.”
“I know,” he said, “but I'm going anyway.”
“You really trust Chad made that good a deal?”
“I have to. I got a ping from Chris before we hit La Spina, just reminding me that we owe him another installment. We have to get out from under him. I can't have him take my ship.”
“You remember when I told you it was a bad idea to take a loan to pay your bail, and put up your ship as collateral?” She looked almost smug. “This is why.”
“It was either that or rot in jail. Jared and I weren't about to let someone bail us out just to make us work for them, and if we had, he'd have kept my ship anyway. Look, Danneel, this is our best option. I don't trust Chad and I sure as shit don't trust Adrianne, but we can pay off all our debt at once and be done.”
“How much is this woman worth?”
Jensen told her. She cocked a disbelieving eyebrow at him.
“No one offers that much for a missing person. Not if they're on the up and up.”
“Does it matter?”
“I wouldn't trust it.”
Jared picked then to come into the lounge, rubbing his hair with a towel. “Hi, Danneel.”
“Hey,” Danneel said. “Jensen was telling me about your big score, and I was telling him no one puts up that much for a missing person unless there's something iffy going on.”
“I thought it was weird that it was a private contract, but we figured Dad just didn't want everyone and their dog looking for his daughter. He's got a lot of money. How's that iffy?” He sat on the edge of the table. Jensen nudged him to get off.
Danneel shrugged. “I don't know, but it doesn't smell right to me. Just be careful and keep your ears open.”
“Always do,” Jensen said. “Did you get your bounty in the Cluster?”
“Two days ago. He fought me like you have no idea, but I got a new trick.” She poked herself in the neck with a finger. “God's own tranqs. Made my life so much easier.”
“Are they pink?” Jared asked, grinning. “Maybe we could use those.”
“Hey, why are you on your ship and not in a rented room with a real bed and a real shower?”
“La Spina makes Jensen nervous.” Jared glanced at him. “I don't mind, but the mountains freak him out.”
“They're too tall and too close,” Jensen said. “Besides, we might have to take Adrianne on board before we leave, and I want as much time without her as I can get.”
“Watch out for her, okay?” Danneel said. “She has to split this reward and don't think for a minute she's satisfied with her split, as big as it might be. She'll cut you out without a second thought if she can.”
“We're watching,” Jared said, and grinned when Jensen rolled his eyes. “I'm speaking for Jensen tonight.”
“I should sign off. Let me know when you're done with this thing. We'll meet at Port Wombat and do something fun. Maybe we can even rope Genevieve in.” She blew them each a kiss and then the screen went blank.
“Get off the table,” Jensen said, nudging Jared again. Jared obliged this time. “Final check tomorrow morning, and we firm up our plans.”
He did not want to take Adrianne to Bernon. He didn't trust her enough to want her on his ship, not when he still owed Chris and there was apparently a chance she might use that against him and Jared. Jensen thought it through overnight, and in the morning he gave Misha and crew one last condition: he and Jared would agree to snatch Alona Tal as long as they didn't have to ferry Adrianne back and forth through Cluny Sector. She could take the Asmodeus with the rest of Misha's crew, and when they reached Bernon, she'd fly the ship's tiny landing pod to the surface. She'd grab Alona, hand her off to Jensen and Jared, and fly the landing pod back. Jensen and Jared would keep Alona as assurance, and then they'd all meet back at La Spina.
Jensen didn't think this was a great plan, but so far nothing sounded like a great plan, and it would keep Adrianne off his ship. But Adrianne said no, absolutely not, she was going to the surface of Bernon in the Tombaugh or the whole deal was off, did they really think she'd let her target out of her sight for any reason?
Jared spoke for Jensen again - “We need the credits too bad to turn this down, and you know it” - Misha and Chad loaded the crate of stuff for the scientists onto the Tombaugh, Adrianne collected her things from the Asmodeus, Jensen plugged the coordinates for the research station into his ship's navigation system, and they were off.
“This is one for the records,” Jared commented, as they left La Spina and its terrifying mountains behind them. “Our first missing person.”
They'd smuggled people before, but those folks were in on the plan. This was definitely the first time they'd be smuggling someone who had no idea they were coming.
And Danneel and Jared had both voiced Jensen's own silent thoughts - why was this CEO offering so much, and why didn't he go to a licensed PI or even a bounty hunter to find his daughter? Jensen wondered idly if Alona had stolen something from Green Worlds before she vanished, and her father wanted it back.
But that was absurd. Bernon had been destroyed, and Green Worlds put on trial, several years ago. Green Worlds had apparently been allowed to just rebrand itself as Sahar Tech and keep doing its thing. Why would it suddenly matter now if someone had stolen something back then?
His original suggestion to Jared was probably right, that Dad didn't trust any of the bounty hunters working settled space. Would Jensen want some unknown grabbing his little girl, if he probably had enough money to buy and sell half the Cluster? That kind of pedigree, you wanted someone you knew, and could trust.
Not that he'd trust Adrianne, himself, but Dad either didn't know her reputation, or didn't care. Or it was a feature, not a bug.
And aside from all that, there was something annoyingly familiar about Dad. He had a different last name from Alona, but that wasn't necessarily relevant. It could have been her choice, for professional reasons. Jensen was pretty sure the familiarity was related to some deal with the mining conglomerate, from when he was still flying freighters - maybe it wasn't a good deal? - and while it probably wasn't important in the grand scheme of things, it was nagging at him.
Well, it didn't matter now. Jensen and Jared had made a deal with Misha and shook on it, and Misha had made a deal with Adrianne, and Adrianne held the contract to which they were all bound. Danneel knew what was going on in case something happened. The Tombaugh's fuel cells were fresh. The EMP cannon was charged, just in case. Adrianne accepted that she'd have to share the spare cabin once she got her target. They were as ready as they could ever be.
The trip to Bernon passed without much issue, although suddenly having to share the ship with someone in addition to Jared was an adjustment for Jensen. He and Jared tinkered with the ship, played holo-chess, exercised. Adrianne commented snidely on the galley facilities. Jared made her and Jensen listen to Sterling Brown's most recent song sequence on repeat, and when she admitted it was pretty good, Jared was insufferable for three days. Chris sent them a payment reminder. Genevieve sent them a message to tell them to come see her when they were done.
“Is Adrianne Palicki really traveling with you?” she asked.
“Yep,” Jared said. “I don't know why Danneel's all bent out of shape about her. She's not that bad. She likes The Hidden Country in the Last Bend of the Swirl and she agrees with me that we should install a grill in the galley.”
“But can she cook?” Genevieve grinned.
“Better than me. Not as good as you.”
“Not as good as me, either,” Jensen added.
“My ears are burning,” Adrianne called from elsewhere in the ship. “I know you're saying nice things about me.”
Jensen rolled his eyes. Genevieve giggled. They were chatting with her through Jared's handheld to avoid just this kind of eavesdropping.
“You need to turn off your internal comms, Jensen,” Genevieve said. “You know smugglers have very sharp ears.”
“So who are we talking to?” Adrianne asked casually, walking into the lounge. “If that's Danneel Harris, give her my love.”
“If it was Danneel you'd have heard more swearing,” Jensen said. “Is there any hot water left?”
But as much as he hated to admit it, Adrianne wasn't the worst passenger they'd ever had. She wasn't at all considerate when it came to noise, food smells, or length of showers, but at least she cleaned up after herself and she hadn't been poking around the engines or screwing with the navigation systems or (as far as Jensen or Jared knew) sending messages that could get them in trouble. So far, she was sticking to the plan as much as they were. They didn't think she'd even called Dad to let him know she was on his daughter's trail.
Jensen had finally figured out why the guy's name was familiar. The mining conglomerate had indeed done some work with Green Worlds - tech stuff, mostly, but Jensen remembered contract jobs going up for flying the seeding ships that started the terraforming process - word had gone around the freighters that Green Worlds was a shit contract and the CEO was especially ruthless. Fish stinks from the head, one of Jensen's crew chiefs had said.
The mining conglomerate wasn't perfect by any measure, when it came to squeezing work out of its employees - Jensen had indentured himself for ten years and they held him to that, to the minute, and because he couldn't quit they didn't bother to treat him well - but the owners were garden-variety corporate dicks, not complete criminals. Jensen knew he'd forgotten details about Alona's dad because they hadn't been important at the time, but what he could remember now wasn't great. He hadn't been surprised when the guy came out the other side of the trial completely clean, and wasn't surprised that he was now the CEO and owner of another big corp. People like that always got away.
The Tombaugh was at the edge of Cluny Sector when Misha pinged the ship to review the plan. Jensen brought him up on the screen in the lounge for ease of conversation.
“We got your landing code from the research station,” Chad said, appearing over Misha's shoulder. “We're sending it now.”
“You'll set down on their landing pad,” Misha said. “The contact's name is Lupita. She'll take delivery of the crate, make sure everything's there, and then take Adrianne to the old settlement. You'll wait on your ship. Keep an eye out. As soon as Adrianne gets back with Alona, you go. We'll meet you on La Spina. Go straight there. Do not stop for anything.” He sounded very serious.
What do you think we're going to stop for? Jensen thought. Coffee?
“You got thirty hours from the second you cross into the sector,” Chad added from off-screen. “Don't fuck up.”
“Charge your engine. It's go time.” Misha signed off and the projection went blank.
“Strap in,” Jensen told Jared and Adrianne, hustling into the cockpit. They could use the sublight engine to get to Bernon, but that drained the fuel cells and he didn't want to risk running them down. They'd just have to speed the old-fashioned way.
Fortunately they'd gone around the long way, to enter Cluny Sector as close to Bernon as possible, and they were maybe twelve hours away from the moon if they burned ions and didn't run into any patrols. Jensen had no idea how Adrianne planned to extricate Alona from the cult compound, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know, but if she managed it without alerting anyone, and without hurting anyone, he'd revise his opinion of her a little bit.
A little less than twelve hours later, they were there. Jensen checked the landing gear, the fuel gauge, the landing code. Everything was in order. The skies over Bernon were clear, the atmosphere thin and cold. There was nothing to see as the Tombaugh descended but fields and fields of emptiness, broken by the occasional sharp hill or rocky crag, everything covered in blinding snow and flat white ice. The ruins of the settlement were just dark enough to stand out, sand-colored buildings cracking in the cold and roads and sidewalks hidden under all the white. The research station, however, was painted black, and the landing pad had been cleared of snow and ice. There was a speeder parked near the station, but the pad was otherwise empty. Someone was clearly prepared for their arrival. Jensen set the Tombaugh down, pinged the station, and waited.
It wasn't long before two figures wearing what looked like slimmed-down black atmosphere suits came out of a hatch in the side of the building. One of them was pulling a dolly with a box on it. The Tombaugh's comms crackled.
“Jensen and Jared and Adrianne, right?” a voice said. “I'm Lupita. Let me in.”
A blast of intensely cold air preceded the two figures and the dolly through the ship's starboard hatch. “Fucking hell,” Jared said under his breath, but whether that was for the cold or the sight of two people dressed for a spacewalk standing in the ship, Jensen wasn't sure. The smaller one of them pulled off the suit's facemask, revealing a woman with a round face, hair cut close to her scalp, eyes bright and mouth grinning. She held out a hand, giggled as Jared tried to shake, and let him shake her thumb instead.
The crate was waiting in the loading bay. Jared cracked it open for Lupita and waited while she checked the contents against the list on a small handheld strapped to her forearm. Her companion just stood there, watching and looking intimidating in the black suit with the facemask still on.
“Perfect,” Lupita said, indicating that Jared could close it up again. She indicated the box she'd brought, which her companion took off the dolly. “That's for Adrianne. Otherwise you'll freeze to death,” she explained, as Adrianne held up the suit that had been in the box, apparently measuring it for size. “Winston will take you to the ruins in our speeder. He'll check our sensors while you're doing your thing. We're pretty sure the cult has a cannon, so we have to be careful with them. I can bring you boys something hot while you're waiting. We don't know how long it will take.”
“No, we're good,” Jensen told her, “but thanks.” He and Jared and the other scientist, whose name was apparently Winston, loaded the crate onto the dolly. “We're going to take off as soon as we can. Thanks for helping us out.” Lupita had taken off her gloves to check the crate and hadn't put them back on, so he and Jared could shake her hand like normal people.
“We get supplies out of it, you rescue a girl from a death cult. I hope you know a good deprogrammer. Do you need help with the suit?” she asked Adrianne, who had already taken off her boots to put the thing on. Adrianne shook her head, but Lupita had to help with the facemask anyway. Lupita put her own facemask back on, followed by the gloves, and gave Jensen and Jared a thumbs-up. Adrianne gave them a thumbs-up. They let everyone out, shut the hatch as soon as the dolly was through, and looked at each other.
“They don't know why we're really here,” Jared said. “They think we've been hired to get Alona away from the cult, not because there's a reward for her.”
Jensen shrugged. “If you look at it a certain way, we were hired to get her away from the cult. It's just that the guy who hired us didn't know that's where she was when he offered the contract.”
“Now what?”
“We wait. I kick your ass at holo-chess some more.”
Onward!