<So here’s the thing,> Jessica said. <We need to figure out the ‘why’. Why would someone grab Cheeky?>
<Sex?> Cargo asked.
<Uninspired, but possible,> Jessica replied. <What else?>
<They need a pilot, a getaway driver,> Misha suggested.
<We can’t discount RHY Dynamics,> Iris said. <We spotted one of their research vessels six systems back. What if they followed us?>
<Why grab Cheeky, though?> Jessica asked. <I’d be RHY’s target, not her.>
Trevor reached down and stroked Jessica’s arm. <Maybe it was because you were outside doing your impression of a flower with a crowd gathered ‘round, so they decided to take second best.>
<Kinda tips their hand,> Erin said. <Better to hold back and wait for Jessica to be alone again.>
Jessica agreed with Erin’s assessment. <OK, then who have we pissed off enough to chase us and abduct Cheeky?>
<Lately?> Misha chortled.
Jessica nodded. <We’ve travelled over three thousand light years in the past nine years. That’s more distance than most people ever dream of covering—unless they have jump gates.>
<OK, so who have we pissed off in the last five hundred light years?> Cargo asked.
<There was that guy back at Philias,> Trevor suggested. <He thought we’d ripped him off with that fish we delivered.>
<Really?> Jessica shook her head. <Think someone would chase us nine months for fish?>
<They were expensive fish,> Iris countered. <Though I can’t imagine why…too many tentacles.>
Misha made a gagging sound over the Link. <Stars, don’t remind me about those thi—>
<Hey!> Sabrina interrupted. <There’s a ship docked at one of the stations in orbit that we ran into three systems back.>
<Really?> Cargo asked. <In…Hallas? Which ship and station?>
<It was at Sergis Station same time as us. Ship’s name is the Laren.>
Sabrina passed the details over the Link, and Jessica looked the ship over. It was a freighter. Not a small one either. The Laren measured in at over three kilometers in length, and could haul millions of tons of cargo. It was a bit strange to see a ship like that in a system like Sullus. Unless it planned to pick up a lot of beef.
<Doesn’t seem like the sort of ship you sneak around in,> Iris said before Jessica could.
<She’s right,> Cargo replied. <Ship like that does not scream stealth.>
<Do they make regular calls here?> Jessica asked.
Sabrina’s mental tone was short. <Checking. The STC NSAIs here are a real bunch of asshats. Who makes them like that? NSAIs have no personalities. Someone had to program them to be dickheads.>
<Stuff’s weird in the retro-zone,> Cargo replied with a shrug of his shoulders.
The retro-zone was a name the crew had given to the region of space they were currently traveling through. The official name was the Orion-Perseus Expansion Transit District 4A. A fancy way of saying a region of space that lay close to the Inner Stars, and which had to keep its use of advanced technology to a minimum to ensure they remained undetected by Inner Stars civilizations.
Many of the systems within the retro-zone were settled by refugees during the FTL wars; ships that had fled into the far reaches of space, only to meet up with the FGT who had worlds ready for them.
The trade-off, however, was an enforced limitation on technological advances, specifically advanced personal mods and a near-ban on sentient AI.
It was markedly different from the further reaches of Orion Space, which were even more advanced than Inner Stars civilizations—with no limitations to speak of when it came to advanced mods. As evidenced by what RHY Dynamics had done to Jessica.
The only constant was the dearth of sentient AI.
<I see that some of the Laren’s crew is down here on Ferra. Captain too,> Cargo said. <They’re staying at a resort by the northern mountains.>
<Whatever for?> Nance asked. <There’s nothing up there on Ferra.>
<Skiing,> Erin supplied.
<Pfft,> Nance breathed out derisively and shook her head. <Seriously? That thing where people strap things to their feet and slide down snowy mountains?>
Jessica patted Nance on the shoulder. <Some people like to be cold. It’s their jam.>
<Sounds like madness to me,> Nance replied.
<It’s only forty five minutes by maglev,> Cargo said. <Someone can hop up there, scope them out. See what there is to see.>
<I nominate Jessica,> Nance said. <She seems to know all about that stuff.>
Jessica shook her head and turned back to peer at the curiosity shop across the street. <No chance. I’m our lead detective. I don’t go off to chase down crazy leads.>
<No, Mish, it’s because I was a detective. And I still am a super hero. Retyna Girl never chases down weak leads! She has sidekicks for that.>
<So who’s the sidekick that gets to go freeze their ass off?> Nance asked.
<You should go,> Finaeus said with a grin over the Link. <Would build character.>
<I repeat, pfft!>
<I’ll go,> Trevor volunteered. <If those bastards have Cheeky for…well, some reason I can’t discern, they’re gonna regret it.>
<I’ll join you,> Cargo said to Trevor. <It’s just a short trip, we’ll be back by evening.>
The idea of splitting the team up didn’t sit well with Jessica, but a ship like the Laren appearing here after being at the same station as them all the way back in Philia was unusual. Especially since it wasn’t a regular stop for the massive freighter.
She nodded slowly, looking Cargo, then Trevor in the eyes. “You two be careful. A lot of coincidences here.”
Cargo nodded solemnly. “Don’t worry. If we need an extract, you can fly the pinnace over and give us a hand.”
“The pinnace?” Nance asked with a grin. “Do you mean the Sexy?”
“No, I mean the pinnace.”
<OK. That’s settled, the boys are going to go north to the mountains. Nance and I are going to follow some leads here in the city.>
<What leads are those?> Nance asked.
<We’re going to look into every single vehicle that left this area in the last twenty minutes. Iris has already worked her way into the local traffic systems.>
<What should we do?> Misha asked.
Nance laughed. <Make lunch.>
<I feel like none of you are taking this seriously enough!> Sabrina said, sounding exasperated. <Cheeky is missing and you’re all goofing off.>
<Sorry, Sabrina,> Jessica said, her tone conciliatory. <Pesky organic stress responses. I’m not too worried yet, because if it’s a local group, they’re holding her for ransom, and will contact us soon. If it’s someone from offworld, they want something and also won’t hurt her yet.>
<Yet,> Iris repeated.
<Right. Yet. OK, Finaeus, can you help Sabrina review profiles of ships on planet and docked above? The Laren may not be the only vessel that we’ve seen before, just the only one using the same name.>
<You got it. Misha, finish stowing all this food, then meet me on the bridge. We get to match scan and burn profiles!>
<Joy.>
“Let’s go,” Cargo slapped Trevor on the back. “We’ve got a maglev to catch.”
“And some mountains to fall down.”
“What exactly are we doing?” Nance asked Jessica. “We’re going to look at every vehicle that left the area? That has to be in the thousands since Cheeky disappeared.”
“Close to five thousand, yeah,” Jessica said. “But Iris and Erin will be able to go through them faster than us. You and I are going to do the legwork.”
“Gonna show all that leg while doing the legwork?” Nance asked, looking Jessica over.
Jessica chuckled. “I don’t really blend in here, do I?”
“Jess, you don’t blend in most places, but down here, yeah, not even a little bit.”
Jessica fingered a lock of her hair. “Ship’s thirty minutes out. Looks like I have to go shopping.”
A nervous laugh burst from Nance’s throat. “Jess, only you could turn Cheeky’s abduction into an excuse for a shopping trip.”
“It’ll just be something simple,” Jessica said. “We’re not going partying or anything. Cheeky and I passed by a place that looked promising a block back.”
Ten minutes later, Jessica and Nance stepped out of the store. Little they carried fit Jessica’s exaggerated figure, and in the end she had resorted to buying a long, white and blue dress. She wore a loose white jacket overtop, matched by a broad rimmed white hat.
“You’re still glowing a bit,” Nance said as they stepped out onto the sidewalk once more.
“I know, my little microbes are fully charged. There’s no stopping them when they get like this.”
<Get to the alley behind that curiosity shop,> Iris instructed. <We need your meaty appendages to check something out.>
<Oh yeah?> Nance asked as the two women began to walk down the street. <I don’t know how much meat Jess has in her fingers. I think they’re all poly-skin, carbon fiber, and alien germs.>
<I’ll have you know I still have all my natural muscle. Sort of.>
Nance laughed. <Sort of.>
<Well, it’s enhanced, but it’s still there.>
They reached the alley and Jessica looked up and down the narrow stretch of road. City trash receptacles lined the alley, and little else—Ferra was nothing if not a clean planet.
“So what do you need our fleshy bits for?” Jessica asked.
<Iris and I have wormed our way into all their local traffic control systems,> Erin began. <We have every bit of movement within twenty blocks mapped out. Problem is, no cars or foot traffic left this alley the entire time.>
<Cheeky wasn’t carried out slung over someone’s shoulder,> Jessica countered. <People would have noticed that.>
<And we’d’ve seen it on the streets,> Iris said in agreement.
<So no cams cover this alley?> Nance asked.
Erin sent a mental affirmation. <That’s correct. Video coverage here in Parda City is spotty at best.>
<So when you said you needed our fleshy digits, what you really meant was that you wanted us to walk over here so you could use my nanocloud to get a local tap into the cameras on the street here to see if the original recording matches the feeds.>
<She’s a smart one, Iris,> Erin said with ghost of a smirk in their minds.
<I’m in,> Iris said a moment later. <Annnnd nothing. This camera’s local storage agrees with what it transmitted. Go to the far end of the alley, let’s see what that camera has to say.>
Jessica and Nance shared a look and walked down the alley. Iris directed Jess’s nanocloud up to the camera mounted on a building and a minute later they were staring at a deepening mystery.
It was confirmed. There was no sign of anyone exiting the alley.
Jessica crouched down beside a drain pipe and wrapped a hand around it, discharging some of her skin’s accumulated energy into the ground.
“That helped,” Nance said. “You are decidedly less glowy.”
“Good,” Jessica said as she rose and dusted off her dress. “Getting tired of the gawking.”
Over the next ten minutes, Jessica and Nance circled the block, the AIs tapping every camera as the two women spoke with store owners, looking for any clue that someone had come through with a small blonde woman slung over their shoulder.
In the end they were back in the mouth of the alley, no closer to finding the abductor’s egress route than before.
“It’s like they just flew away,” Nance muttered as she looked to the sky.
“Yeah,” Jessica said in agreement as she leant against one of the buildings, staring down the alley. “But that would be on the ATC logs. No way to hide that.”
“You sure?” Nance asked. “We seem to have a magician on our hands here.”
“Magician…” Jessica said as she stared down the alley. Then something clicked. “Nance, you are really, really going to hate this.”
“Why?” Nance asked as Jessica began to stride toward the back of the curiosity shop.
Jessica stopped and looked down at a sewer access cover.
“Oh, hell no!” Nance said. “You’re not getting me down there without a hazsuit. No way, no how. I just bought these boots too!”
“I thought that you don’t worry about being fashionable,” Jessica said as she crouched and stuck her fingers in the three holes on the cover.
“Not like you and Cheeky, no, but I do like boots that aren’t soaked in piss and shit. Call me crazy.”
Jessica lifted the cover free and set it aside, sending her nano down into the hole. “Looks like it’s just a storm drain, Nance. No piss and shit in there.”
Nance snorted. “Not human, no, but guess where the animals go?”
<The nano can scout the tunnels,> Iris offered. <You don’t really need to go down there.>
“I know,” Jessica chuckled. “But messing with Nance was worth it.”
“Dammit, Jess!”
<OK, now we’re cooking,> Iris said. <I’ve got one of Cheeky’s hairs down here. This is definitely the abductor’s egress route.>
“Of course, you know what that means, right, Jess?” Nance asked.
Jessica nodded. “They could be anywhere by now.”
MOUNTAINS AND GEESE
STELLAR DATE: 03.10.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Nise Maglev Line, Ferra, Sullus System
REGION: Midway Cluster, Orion Freedom Alliance Space
“Feels like a wild goose chase,” Trevor said as he settled into his seat on the train. “Why would they abduct Cheeky and then go on a ski trip?”
“Could just be cover,” Cargo said. “Ship like that has a big crew, plenty of people to pull off a snatch and grab while the captain and officers take a little vacation.”
“You realize that if they’re after us, we can’t just walk up and start asking them questions. They’re gonna know who we are.”
Cargo thought about the possibility for a moment. “Subterfuge really isn’t our thing, is it?”
“Not even a little bit,” Trevor replied. “That’s the girls’ gig. We’re usually just the muscle behind their plays. Well, at least I am.”
Cargo caught the implication. Sure, he was Sabrina’s captain, and most of the time he directed all the ship’s operations, but everyone knew that when push came to shove, Jessica called the shots as often as not.
It didn’t bother him, she was a skilled pilot, had captained much larger ships than Sabrina, and had been in more fights than anyone he knew.
Most of the time. It didn’t bother him most of the time.
<You don’t normally let it get to you,> Hank said. <You and Jessica make a good team leading the ship.>
<Yeah, and she’s very good about not seizing control. I guess I’m just worried about Cheeky and Piya. We’ve gotten too blasé out here, acting like nothing can hurt us—which is mostly true—but all it takes is a bullet to the head, and they’re gone.>
Hank nodded solemnly in Cargo’s mind. <We’re not going to let anything happen to them.>
<And if something does….> Cargo let the thought hang.
Hank let slip a grim laugh. <I know a starship that can smash planets.>
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Trevor said, correctly interpreting the cause of Cargo’s silence.
Cargo laughed. “It’s OK. Hank was just telling me not to be such a baby.”
<I was a touch more subtle than that.>
“You were, but I’m not,” Cargo replied. “I guess that’s why the girls do the sneaky stuff, and we go bust heads.”
“Except for Finaeus,” Trevor added. “That guy’s like a ninja. Just appears out of nowhere.”
“Must be all those years on the run.”
Trevor nodded silently, and Cargo stared out the window wonde
ring how they would feel out the crew of the Laren. He pulled up the list of crew Sabrina had located at the ski resort, a place named Killashandra Mountain. The name rang a bell, but he couldn’t place it just now.
Sabrina hadn’t accessed the resort’s member list, just a flight record of a shuttle leaving the Laren and landing at Killashandra. The STC records showed the Laren’s Captain—a woman named Hunter—was at the helm of the shuttle, but no other passengers were listed.
That didn’t mean she was the only one aboard. A private ship like the Laren’s shuttle wouldn’t be required to list passengers.
Customs would have the records, and Cargo considered asking Iris to access their systems but decided against it. For now, they’d use some old fashioned legwork to find out who had come down from the ship.
Or, at the least, see if they could access Killashandra Mountain’s surveillance feeds.
“So if they were following us,” Cargo said after looking over the information he had, “they will know who we are. I think we do a frontal approach. Find out where they are and simply show up. Their reactions should tell us everything we need to know.”
Trevor chuckled. “Well, depending on where they are. If they’re asleep in their rooms the reaction will be startlement whether they’re involved with Cheeky or not.”
“Sorry, in my mind they were at a bar or something.”
“You know, Cargo, not everyone hangs out in bars. Some people do other things with their spare time.”
Cargo frowned. “Like what? Gamble?”
“Or read a book, go to a museum, take in a live show somewhere.”
“A live show of what? Like acrobats or something?”
“Yeah, or music. Heck, some people even go bowling.”
“Trevor, no one goes bowling, that’s just some ancient game you see in old vids.”
Trevor held up his hands. “OK, you got me. But they could be curling.”
“Well yeah, that I could see. Everyone loves to throw a rock from time-to-time.”
“So we just need to figure out where they like to hang out—other than on the mountain. I don’t think you and I are skiing material.”