Double Sharpe Read online

  This small, utilitarian-grey room was her private living space. She spent much of her time in the main cabin, but slept in here. There was a compartment on floor level where Kyra could crawl in to sleep and then a bunk bed cut out just above that where Raven slept. An attached cubicle had the bathroom and a particle-wave shower. Whenever she stayed in rooms on colonies and starbases, she always took baths. She missed a tub, and water, but had learned to live with this.

  It was more efficient, after all.

  She felt like she was peeling her clothing off, almost as if they were stuck to her by the grime she’d waded through on the colony. It was beyond her how people could live there, although she realized that—just like her and the shower—you could get used to anything over time.

  Kicking the pile of clothing into a corner, where she’d eventually get it into the laundry processor, she stepped into the shower and activated it. She heard the familiar hum and felt the tiny vibrations run along her skin, peeling and pushing away the dirt on top. She pressed her hands against the side of the shower stall and let her head drop, just breathing and feeling.

  Uncalled for and definitely unwanted, a memory popped up in her mind.

  She and Blake had already been married when they decided to try their hands at bounty hunting as a career. Perhaps ironically, it had been his idea, but she was the one to excel at it. That had been a major factor in their breakup. She remembered how daunting it had been, to a married couple, to realize that the ships were really only made for one person.

  Somehow, they had made it work, at first. She remembered that they used to sleep on the couch in the main cabin together—sometimes on Silvanus and sometimes on Nyx, while the AI of the other ship kept the two ships in sync. They sometimes went off on their own missions, but would come back together again for downtime or sharing hunts.

  Although as time went on and she got more solo contracts, and he got less, they drifted further apart…but now she was remembering the time before that. She was thinking about the fact that they had been happy. That they didn’t mind sharing the small couch, since it was bigger than the bunk in the little bedroom.

  She thought about how she still preferred the couch and main cabin, even though she was alone now.

  7

  After her shower, Raven crawled into her bunk and fell into a fitful sleep that she intended to remain in until they reached Kona IV.

  Silvanus woke her about an hour out from the planet.

  Dressed, somewhat awake, and holding a cup of strong coffee, she stood in the main cabin and stared down at the screen of her primary computer console. There really wasn’t all that much to see, but she needed to look at something, so she stared at a satellite image of Kona IV.

  The planet that was about to cause her a massive headache.

  “How did we not know this sooner?” Raven asked with a sigh.

  “Governments are not known for helping make things convenient for others,” Silvanus replied. If a computer could sound frustrated, she did. “The most they apparently chose to do in this case was put beacons on an outer perimeter to alert any ships coming into the area.”

  The alert broadcasting from those beacons let ships know that the United Earth Government had qualified Kona IV as Primitive Four. Which Raven thought sounded stupid as a qualification, but there it was. A “Primitive Four Planet” was one deemed too primitive for space traffic. Which meant they didn’t think any ships should land or otherwise make contact with the persons of the planet, although the planet was not so primitive as to not know others existed out there.

  Otherwise, it was a governmental terminology mess with a side of bureaucratic nonsense.

  Raven took a long drink of coffee, rubbing the back of her neck with her other hand.

  “Okay, so, they don’t think people should land there and show off shiny spaceships,” she thought out loud. “Have they put any sort of protection or policing measures in place to stop people from actually doing so?”

  “There are no records of any protections, and the beacon broadcast does not refer to any. My sensor scans so far cannot see anything of that sort either,” the AI replied. “I believe we could land, if we chose to do so. However, should it be discovered, there may be repercussions later.”

  Raven rolled her eyes, feeling like a teenager even as she did so. “I don’t really care about what they say, now or later.” She hesitated. “However, we probably should try to do this as covertly as possible.”

  The AI said, “I would agree. We don’t need to aggravate the matter.” After a moment, she went on. “There are surveillance satellites in orbit. I can tap into them and get an idea of the planet below.”

  “Good,” Raven said with a nod, finishing her coffee. “Locate the area we need and see if there is somewhere we can land, a big field or forest clearing or something. Also what the populace looks like. I need to try to blend in.”

  ‘I suppose that means I’m staying with the ship,’ Kyra commented dryly.

  “Unfortunately yes, my friend. Although you may be able to help distract anyone who comes near so they don’t see the ship and get us in deeper trouble than I think we already are, thanks to Blake,” Raven said with a sigh. She hadn’t wanted to let herself think about that part too much.

  What the hell had Blake gotten himself into? And what was she now getting herself into by helping him?

  Kyra made a disgruntled noise in her throat. ‘So. Pest control.’

  “Somehow, I think you’ll survive,” Raven muttered, getting another cup of coffee.

  In what seemed, perhaps, like the only good luck she’d had, Raven’s normal utilitarian, rough-and-ready wardrobe was pretty much just what she needed to look like she belonged on Kona IV.

  The bad luck, however, was that she was human. The natives of Kona IV were not.

  However, the pollution levels were also very bad on this planet, particularly in the area that she needed to go, so almost everyone wore masks over their face to be able to breathe as close to normally as possible. She had to hope that the mask would be enough to hide her humanity from the populace.

  It had to be. If Blake was here—and it was actually a good place to stow someone—then both he and his captors had to come here, and at least one of them was human and had to get down there somehow.

  Once they had arrived in orbit, it had taken a while for Silvanus to use the satellite to not just gain an image of what the natives looked like, but also where they could put the ship down that would be close to where they needed to go and unlikely to be spotted. That was a pretty tricky task, but Silvanus figured it out.

  “Are there going to be news stories about flying saucers and bizarre lights in the sky after we land?” Raven asked as she strapped herself into the seat.

  “Chances are good,” the AI replied simply.

  “That’s great,” her human murmured, leaning her head back. “I always wanted to be famous.”

  ‘No, you haven’t.’

  ‘Considering how much sarcasm you use, I would think you’d be better at recognizing it,’ Raven retorted.

  The cat made an odd chortling-like noise. ‘Perhaps you’re just not that good at it.’

  Raven sighed, trying to figure out if the cat was honestly being this much of a jerk or was trying to take her mind off of things. It was a fifty-fifty chance, she figured, but she wasn’t going to ask. She wanted to think it was the latter and she didn’t want to find out that she was wrong.

  She had enough problems to deal with.

  8

  ‘Close’ to where she needed to go was a relative concept.

  The only viable option for what they needed was on the far side of a hill trying to be a mountain, where the hill would obscure the ship from the city beyond and there wasn’t any population close enough on the other side to be a concern. The hill and forest around it would be good enough cover for what they needed.

  The downside to the good hiding place was that it was going to be a long walk int
o the town. Although calling it either town or city was also a relative concept, since from everything they could see, it was a sprawl of buildings—factories with a few domiciles and businesses in between. Standard living for these manufacturing cities were big multi-person dwellings.

  Raven hung her filter-mask around her neck while she climbed over rocky parts of the hill and wound her way through the trees. It wasn’t pleasant to wear, and she intended to wait as long as possible before putting it on.

  The terrain was uneven at best, and even though she was trying to go as quickly as possible, she moved slow. A broken ankle wouldn’t help anyone, and getting back to the ship might well be impossible.

  Eventually, the land began to even out as she crossed onto a plain. The town was in sight, and she was able to see small crowds of pedestrians following roads toward the outskirts. She knew she needed to put her mask on, and she needed to be careful.

  “Blake,” she murmured to the open air as she pulled on the filter-mask, “I hope I find you alive so I can kill you for putting me through this.”

  Part of her still wondered why she was doing all of this…but she also knew that complicated history aside, she wasn’t the type of person to turn down a call for help like that. Her heart wasn’t that cold, no matter how she might want it to be sometimes. She did think life would be easier if she didn’t feel so much.

  She picked a section of road that she’d been able to see from the distance was less populated. Walking along the street, she blended in with the people coming and going, all of them wearing masks like hers. She saw immediately that she stood out a little because her clothing looked a bit too…unused compared to everyone else’s, but she couldn’t do anything about that.

  On this planet, there were three different cities that could have potential buildings, and she knew this was going to be a long day.

  Silvanus had been able to identify two buildings in this city that matched their various criteria.

  Raven found a building she recognized from the satellite imagery, and oriented herself to it. She thought back to the map that Silvanus had constructed and then started heading that way. This path led her through one population-dense area, but then it thinned back out as she headed into a darker section.

  It was darker both figuratively and literally. There seemed to be less light filtering into it, but it also just had that feeling. It was a feeling she had known a time or two and it usually meant trouble was likely. It put her on her guard and she rolled her shoulders anxiously.

  She had her weapon concealed under her jacket, but she resisted the urge to put her hand on it.

  A clicking sound behind her told her she’d been found, and she sighed. She wished her paranoia wasn’t right.

  “Hold it right there,” a muffled male voice said. “Hands up.”

  Of course, Raven heard his native language first and then her neural chip processed and translated a half-step behind. For one inane moment, she was amazed they had studied the planet enough to put the language into the database. She assumed it was accurate, since the words made sense to the situation.

  Slowly, she lifted her hands.

  ‘Your heart rate is elevated,’ Silvanus said.

  ‘I’m hardly surprised,’ Raven replied tightly. ‘I’m getting mugged, after all.’

  ‘This is why you shouldn’t go anywhere without me!’ Kyra barged into the conversation just to snap at Raven.

  Raven didn’t bother to reply to that.

  She heard a footstep and tried to calculate just how far behind her this person was, and she tried to identify if she heard any other steps or noises to indicate whether he was working alone or there was a group. She was, of course, acutely aware of the gun where it sat against her ribs and not in her hand.

  “Give me all your—” The final word came through as a combination of static and whatever those native sounds were. She would have assumed it was “money,” but realized she couldn’t actually assume that here, and since she had no idea what he said, he was about to be sorely disappointed by the ignorance of his victim.

  It took a lot of will power to not reply. She knew that he wouldn’t understand her since he didn’t have the neural chip.

  “What?! Are you just a dumb—” Another static-gibberish word. “—or what?!”

  Or what…

  She felt the hard end of some sort of weapon press against her lower back, and she smiled darkly.

  “You know, you shouldn’t press your gun right against someone’s back like that,” she said, knowing that he wouldn’t understand her, but also knowing that it would work in her favor. His confusion was almost audible, and it made him hesitate.

  The hesitation was just what she needed.

  Spinning around, the man didn’t have time to react before her gloved hand was wrapping around the barrel of his weapon. She ripped it out of his surprised grip, seeing his startling red eyes over the edge of his filter-mask. The weapon itself didn’t feel like any she had ever used, and she couldn’t spare the time to look it over and figure it out.

  Her would-be mugger recovered faster than she anticipated and took a swing at her head. He caught the side of her face and she felt the skin over her cheekbone split, a trace of wet warmth slipping down her skin. Instead of letting herself feel the pain too much, she used it to fuel her anger.

  She brought her hands up and returned the swing. He blocked with his arm, and she reflected for a split-second that fighting was apparently fighting anywhere.

  They traded a few more hits until—

  “Raven! Duck!”

  9

  The voice was familiar, but she almost didn’t believe it.

  Raven jumped back a step and then dropped to her knees. She felt the reverberation of her impact with the hard ground as it raced from her kneecaps to her hips, but she ignored the pain as she heard weapons fire over her head. It had a sound somewhere between an old-fashioned bullet and a high-energy electro-weapon, but she didn’t look up to see just what it was.

  She did look up when she heard the man hit the ground. Whether he was dead or just unconscious, she didn’t know, and she wasn’t sure she cared. She stared at him a moment to be sure he wasn’t getting up too soon and then she got to her feet and looked behind her.

  There, after all the searching and worry, was a battered, bloodied Blake with the mugger’s weapon in his hand.

  “Come on!” he hissed, waving at her to follow him as he turned and sprinted away.

  “What the—” she began, but then gave up and just followed.

  The building he ran to was very, very close. He pulled back a thin, weathered piece of wood and ushered her inside. He followed almost before she was all the way in and then replaced the board.

  “You came!” he exclaimed, sounding choked with emotion as he threw his arms around her and pulling her into the tightest hug she’d ever experienced. He loosened his grip when she started coughing, but he didn’t let her go.

  She pulled off her filter-mask. “Of course I came,” she said, looking up at him almost incredulously. “Did you really think I’d just let you languish out here? Die?”

  He smiled weakly, the expression made even more feeble by the bruise and cut at the corner of his mouth. “I’m not sure I wouldn’t have deserved it, to be honest,” he said. “I mean… I don’t know that I deserve to die, really, but I don’t know I deserve you riding to my rescue. Of all people. I just… I didn’t know who else to call.”

  ‘I found him!’ she reported back even as she reached up and took his face gingerly in her hands, turning his head this way and that to survey the damage. The wounds seemed to be of varying ages, although none too fresh since he had been in hiding while she searched for him and they’d healed somewhat. Still, the varying colors spoke of his having been held for some time.

  Someone had really done a number on him, and it hurt her almost physically just to look at it.

  He put his hands over hers and gently pulled them away. “I’m
okay,” he said. “At least, I don’t think there’s any serious damage. Everything will heal. Didn’t you always say I had a pretty hard head?”

  Raven laughed softly. “I did.” She sighed. “We’ve gotta get back to Silvanus and out of this place—”

  “I can’t,” he interrupted her. “Not yet.”

  She just blinked at him. “What do you mean, not yet?!”

  His brown eyes pleaded with her through their shadows. “Raven, of course not yet! Do you see Axel here anywhere?”

  Her brain came into focus and she didn’t need to look around. “Right,” she said, shaking her head slightly to clear it. “Of course. Do you know where he is? Is he even still on the planet? What about Nyx?”

  “One thing at a time, honey,” he said.

  She didn’t correct him on the affectionate terminology. It wasn’t the time.

  Finally, he released their embrace but immediately took her hand. “I do know where Axel is,” he said. “They’re keeping him where they kept me, but in a separate area. I couldn’t get him out when I escaped, but I knew if I survived, I’d get him. He’s still alive. He’s been talking to me.”

  “That’s a relief,” she said sincerely. She couldn’t talk to Blake’s wolf, just like he couldn’t talk to her mountain lion, but she’d always liked the scruffy canine. “I presume you remember how to get back there?”

  “My skills may be limited, but my memory is still sharp,” he said, the weak smile returning.

  She didn’t recall him being so self-deprecating, but maybe being abducted and having the crap beaten out of you did something to a person. She didn’t mind the lack of wounded ego, but she missed his confidence.

  “What else do you remember about the building?” she asked. “What are we going to face when we try to go in there? Do you know where in the building Axel is being held?”