Jessica wondered about that. Even if RHY hadn’t preserved some strain of their Retyna product, why would they hunt her down? There was no reason to believe that RHY—or anyone else, for that matter—knew that they had survived Sabrina’s destruction of the planet back in the Naga System.
Then it dawned on Jessica, and she shook her head. “Derrick.”
“So you’re not dumb as a plum after all,” Perry said with a smirk. “Yes, Derrick has placed a rather hefty bounty on your head. He even sent ahead an incentive for us to keep an eye out for you.”
“That was very thoughtful of him,” Jessica replied. “I’m surprised his message beat us.”
The Perry shrugged. “You’re not the only ones who know about this route through the nebula. We’ve traded with Derrick for some time. His message said he was almost certain you’d come this way. When Brooke saw your shiny purple ass, she knew we’d hit a nice little jackpot.”
“You run a whole system,” Trevor said. “What could Derrick offer you that would make this worth it?”
“The Perry Strait is a complex operation. The system and the nebula are constant adversaries. Every little bit helps. Derrick, however, wasn’t interested in you. He seems to want your ship. What he doesn’t know is that no ship is worth what RHY would pay to get their hands back on Retyna Girl.”
“How would you know what RHY would want?” Jessica asked. “You run a system in the ass crack of nowhere.”
“Ever heard of jump gates?” The Perry asked. “They’re a new FTL tech. RHY has some. News of their…troubles…in the Naga System traveled fast and came to us through the coreward end of the strait. Turns out you were already in their corporate reports. There was mention of the Retyna subdivision being shut down because all viable samples were lost.”
<Well, now we know that we stopped their plan to make a planet-killing bacteria,> Iris said.
“That’s a real shame,” Jessica said aloud. “I bet their board was very displeased.
“Yes, they were quite upset from what I heard,” The Perry said before he leaned forward and placed his elbows on his desk, rubbing his meaty hands together. “But Derrick’s message had this interesting little tidbit in it. He noted that you’d been injected with the Retyna product, it’s what makes your skin glow.”
Awww shit, Jessica thought.
“I was, but they took it out,” Jessica replied. She doubted The Perry would buy it, she had glowed faintly the entire time they had been speaking.
“Sure, yeah, keep telling yourself that,” The Perry said. “So, anyway, I’ve already sent a message to RHY that you’re alive, and that I’m willing to discuss…oh…a planet or two in trade for you. Derrick is also coming to get his hands on your ship—though I can’t imagine why. He’s going to kick himself when he realizes what he let slip through his fingers.”
<You know,> Jessica said over the team’s net. <This was one of those times where getting captured to find out what the enemy wants was not a good idea.>
<It’s rarely a good idea,> Cargo replied.
<This time it’s been great,> Finaeus replied. <This is very useful. I, for one, am very happy to learn that RHY does not have any of their bacteria—or at least not enough to engineer their weapon.>
<What about us?> Jessica asked.
<Well, it’s good to know that RHY knows about you again. Well not good that they know, but good that we know that they know,> Misha said. <Imagine if we docked at a station and they were lying in wait, ready to pick you up?>
Cargo sighed. <What do you think just happened, Misha?>
<Uh, yeah, well, I mean a real station, not some flying V in the backend of nowhere. We can take these guys, right?>
<I’m all for that,> Jessica replied. <Screw this station and whatever cargo we had for it. I’m ready to shoot our way out of here. We’ve got what we need.>
<I don’t think that’s a very good idea,> Iris replied.
<Why not?> Jessica asked. <Their head honcho is some guy named ‘The Perry’. On that alone I know we can take them.>
<Look,> Iris said. <If we don’t nip this in the bud here, we’ll have Derrick chasing us all the way to New Canaan, spilling the beans everywhere. Not only that, but RHY is going to be looking for us. Really ruins the whole fly under the radar thing we’ve been working so hard at.>
<You really stacked a lot of metaphors up nicely,> Finaeus said with what sounded like sincere appreciation. <I’d hardly believe you are an AI at all, Iris.>
<I blame The Dream,> she replied sourly.
<Iris makes a good point,> Cargo said. <We need to kill Derrick, and somehow convince RHY that The Perry has led them astray.>
<OK, so how are we going to do that?> Jessica asked.
<Umm…good question.>
Jessica brought her attention back to The Perry’s office. The man had been going on about how she was a fool for docking there—which she completely agreed with. It seemed as though she and Trevor would be his guests for some time.
“So what now?” she asked.
“Now?” A menacing grin split The Perry’s face. “I suppose I should put you to use.”
CHEEKY’S OUTING
LOCATION: Sabrina
REGION: Perry System, Stillwater Nebula, Perseus Arm
<OK, I’m suited up and ready for EV,> Cheeky said over the shipnet. <You sure you’ve found a dead spot in their station sensor grid, Nance?>
<Yeah, Erin and I both agree. They have a maintenance scaffold sitting out near our berth and it’s blocking their view of the lower aft section of the ship,> Nance replied with calm certainty.
<If I get my ass shot off, I’m holding you responsible,> Cheeky replied as she opened the ship’s lower service hatch. She recalled the last time she had used this as an emergency exit. It had been back when she and Finaeus had used it to slip past the Transcend soldiers on Gisha station.
She remembered it fondly. It was the event that had started…whatever it was she and Finaeus had going on.
Cheeky peered out along the hull and gauged the distance to the maintenance scaffolding. It was at least twenty meters past the ship’s starboard fusion engine. If she was careful, she could make it without using the jets on her EV suit.
After the events at the Grey Wolf Star, Cheeky had studiously avoided any EV. Any time she thought of going outside the ship, memories of slipping past the mining ring and accelerating toward the black holes filled her mind.
The fact that the suit she was wearing was little more than five millimeters of flexible polymer between her and the cold vacuum of space, didn’t help either.
<Easy, Cheeky,> Piya said privately. <You got this. Nothing to worry about out here.>
<Except for that very large jovian planet down there. You know, the one that will have no trouble sucking me in?>
<Not going to happen. You’re just going a few meters; you’re not going to lose any relative velocity. This is a piece of cake.>
A piece of cake. Right, Cheeky thought.
She wished she hadn’t volunteered to go across to the station, but she knew that no one else could do it. Cargo had to stay with the ship—at some point someone would expect to speak with the captain and it would be awkward if he were on the station.
Finaeus and Misha were useless for this sort of work. Well, Finaeus could do it, but he was often indelicate. No one had even asked Nance. Stealth and smooth talking were not her thing—at least they didn’t used to be, that had begun to change in recent years.
No. When it was time to send in the cavalry for a rescue—or at least intel gathering—it seemed she was the best option.
What have we come to?
Cheeky activated the maglocks in her gloves and carefully pulled herself across the hull of the ship. She moved slowly, keeping in the shadows just in case someone peered out an observation port. When she reached the engines, Cheeky very carefully clambered over its fins before coming to the furthest p
oint on the ship.
<There, see that spar sticking out on the scaffolding? Aim for that. If you miss, there are two others beyond it,> Piya advised.
<And then?> Cheeky asked.
<Well, past that is the station, which is where you want to go anyway,> Piya’s voice was calm and soothing. <Worst case scenario you alert them to your presence. You’re not going to get lost in space out here.>
<I’m glad you’re so confident.>
<Hey, I’m in here too. If I didn’t think you could do it, I’d tell you not to.>
Cheeky nodded. <Good point.>
She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath before opening them again, taking careful aim, disabling her maglock, and pushing off from Sabrina.
Twenty meters. A breeze, you could do this in your sleep.
The spar approached, and Cheeky reached out for it, only to realize at the last moment that she forgot to reenable her maglocks, and her glove slid off the spar.
She activated the magnets in her gloves, but it was too late. “Damnit,” she whispered as she began to spin, though still on course for the next spar.
<Do you need jets?> Piya asked.
<No, I’ve got it, if I just, stretch…. Got it!>
<Told you that you could do it!> Piya exclaimed.
Cheeky clamped her second hand around the spar, and then worked her way toward one of the scaffold’s main struts that was anchored to the station.
A minute later her boots were maglocked onto the station’s skin and she slowly walked to the closest airlock. When she arrived, Cheeky peered through the window to see that it was empty.
Thank the stars for small miracles.
<Time to see if Nance and Erin can remote hack this thing on a tightband,> Cheeky said to Piya before connecting back to the ship. <OK, I’m here and I’ve placed the hack terminal over the access pad.>
<Good,> Nance replied. <Give us a minute…altering their logging parameters…oh this weird stuff. What were they thinking?>
<There, that service,> Erin said, <shut it down and I’ll reset the parameters. Good.>
<Go for it, Cheeky. The override passcode is one-one-one.>
Cheeky chuckled. <I can’t believe they have a system that even lets you use that as a code.>
<I think their security systems predate space flight,> Nance added. <Or someone was just really lazy. Or both.>
<I’ll take either,> Cheeky replied as she punched in the new code and smiled with delight as the airlock door slid open. She stepped inside and scanned the airlock which also doubled as EV suit storage.
The station’s suits were larger, heavy-duty affairs, all standing in recessed racks along the right side of the airlock.
“Which suit does everyone hate?” Cheeky asked softly as she looked them over.
Sure enough, there was an older suit that looked unused. She could tell because there was a cobweb between the arm and the hip. There was also a bit of a musty smell coming from inside.
“Jackpot. You’re my new storage locker,” she said with a smile. The outer door finished sealing, and Cheeky pulled off her helmet, and then shimmied out of her EV suit. She rolled it up and stuffed it inside the unused station suit before tucking her helmet behind it’s boots.
Once she was satisfied that the helmet wasn’t visible, Cheeky checked herself over. Halter top and short skirt were in place, an extra layer of sim-skin was firmly attached to the bottoms of her otherwise bare feet, and her hair looked perfect.
Time to gather some intel.
She palmed the control to open the inner door and almost collided with a tall, spindly man.
“Hey,” he said, scowling down at her. “What are you doing in there?”
Cheeky recalled a name she’d seen written on tape over one of the EV suits and smiled sweetly. “I was waiting for Jerry, he told me to meet him here for a bit of hanky panky. He never showed, and I got tired of waiting. I guess he’s off with someone else.”
The man scowled at Cheeky. “I’m his someone else! Where did you meet him?”
“Uhh, at the bar?”
The man turned and stormed away, muttering angrily, “That dickhead, I’m gonna tear his ears off.”
<Smooth,> Piya said. <You never even batted an eyelash.>
<You know me, Piya. I think I’ve used that same excuse a hundred times now.>
<Closer to two hundred, but who’s counting?>
<You, apparently.>
Piya gained access to the local public network and they searched for any infrequent visitors to The Reach who bore a passing resemblance to Cheeky.
They finally found one—a woman named Arn who had been on station ten years ago, but hadn’t shown up since. She looked similar enough to Cheeky, and Piya was able to lift her public tokens out of the logs.
Piya grinned as she updated their net presence to appear as Arn. <I’m not a patch on Nance and Erin, but like they said, this place has really poor net security. I guess they don’t get a lot of traffic from more advanced systems.>
<You’ve got mad skills, Piya. Sucks that we have to go by ‘Arn’, though. What a dumb name.>
<Says ‘Cheeky’,> Piya replied with a smile.
<Cheeky has special meaning—meaning everyone gets right away. ‘Arn’ just sounds like ‘Arm’ with a stuffed nose.>
Piya laughed in Cheeky’s mind, and then provided the route to a bar that was in the opposite direction of the angry man they had just encountered.
In the ten minutes it took to get to the bar, Cheeky concluded that Jessica had been right in the observations she’d passed back to the crew. The Reach was dull with a side of boooooring. It was like everything had no color. The people simply milled about, doing…whatever it was they were doing…with minimal effort.
She hoped the bar scene would be a little more exciting, or she was going to have a hard time getting people to talk.
The first bar they came to bore the name, ‘The Warped Hull’. Cheeky stepped in to find it half empty. A bit surprising, given the hour. As she looked over the décor and the menu, she wasn’t surprised. The place was minimalist in both food and atmosphere.
People liked to drink in places where they could feel nestled in. Close, protected. Where everyone was just another guy or gal trying to make it through this thing called life.
Cheeky doubted that she’d be able to get anyone to talk in a place like The Warped Hull. She needed to find a seedy joint where the locals cut loose. No matter how repressed they all were under this Perry guy, people were people, and they always found a way to have a good time.
After three more strikeouts, Cheeky decided to try a place called Sally Jane’s Liquor Outlet. Its listing on the nets made it look like a wholesaler of some sort, but there were also comments about what was on tap by some visitors.
<Couldn’t hurt to try, right?> Cheeky asked Piya.
<Sure. If that doesn’t work you can always hang out a shingle.>
<Piya!> Cheeky exclaimed with mock outrage. <I don’t do sex for money. That’s crass! It devalues the whole thing.>
<I love you Cheeky, you’re a glorious mess.>
<I’m not above a tip, though.>
When they reached Sally Jane’s Liquor Outlet, Cheeky saw a rather sedate looking storefront—closed this late at night—but there was a narrow corridor running alongside it, and she walked into it. Sure enough, she could hear the thrum of music, and the sound of voices raised over the din.
Finally.
A door stood at the end of the corridor and Cheeky reached out to palm the access panel when it slid aside and a couple lurched out.
She realized that one of them was the man she had met at the airlock and quickly turned her head as the pair stumbled out into the corridor.
If this place was ‘the bar’ then she had finally struck gold.
The music wasn’t as loud as Cheeky had expected, but as she slipped past the couple, she found herself in a small room with a rather lanky man blocking a second door.
“Password?” he asked in a bored tone of voice.
“The rubber duck quacks at midnight?” Cheeky asked with a grin.
“Not even close.”
“Uh…Perry’s a sonofabitch, but he’s our sonofabitch?”
The man laughed at that one, but still shook his head.
Cheeky tapped her chin and looked up at the overhead. “How about: I fuck for drinks?”
That one got a loud bark of laughter from the man and he shook his head. Cheeky began to think of another, but he leaned over and opened the door.
“Your funny and ready for fun. I like it. You’re in.”
The music hit her like a wall, right along with the smell. It wasn’t bad, per se, but there was a certain odor a place got when a hundred drinks sloshed on the floor, right along with the sweat from the hundred people holding them. Cram it all into one place and it was like humanity’s third-watch perfume.
Cheeky reveled in it. Finally. This was her kind of place.
<OK, Piya, so we’re here to find someone who works for The Perry so we can get them to talk about his operation, and what we can expect him to do. Got any candidates?>
<I see a couple in The Reach guard uniforms over there,> Piya said, highlighting a pair of women who were arm-wrestling with a slew of drinks around them.
<They scare me. Next?>
<Hmm…that guy over there is wearing the same uniform that Brooke had on, maybe he’s a good one to start with.>
Cheeky spotted the man. He had long red hair, a bit of an aquiline nose, and full lips. His shoulders were broad, but he didn’t look like he was modded up to attain the look.
<He’ll do.>
He didn’t do.
The man was waiting for his wife and wasn’t about to risk her ire chatting with Cheeky. Eventually, Cheeky gave up and sat at the bar. She ordered a Serenading Peacock, which they all seemed to call Sex on the Moon in the Stillwater Nebula.
<I’m a failure, Piya. Have I lost my charm?>
<One bar out of ten thousand where you can’t get someone to open up is hardly a failure.>
Cheeky shook her head. <No, there was that other one too…out in Deneb, remember?>