Double Sharpe (Raven Sharpe Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  “Confidence-inspiring, thank you.”

  The door opened to reveal the retractable tunnel from Silvanus that connected one ship to the other. The tunnel was not ideal for ship-to-ship movements, usually being used just for ship-to-station docking.

  He took an audible deep breath and then dashed through the small tunnel. Raven heard the hissing of Nyx’s door opening, and then closing again. She assumed he was inside once Silvanus closed her own door.

  “Are there communications?” Raven asked. “Will we know how it’s going?”

  “I’m afraid communications are not working on Nyx’s side, so I cannot provide that,” Silvanus said, sounding apologetic. “However, because of my connection to the ship, I will be able to tell you the progress he is making.”

  Raven nodded. She didn’t understand why, but she felt disappointed about that first part. She tried not to think about it.

  “How’s Axel doing, Kyra?” she asked instead, slouching down in her chair with her head against the back. She closed her eyes, feeling weariness sinking deep into her bones.

  ‘He is recovering,’ the cat reported. They couldn’t talk to each other using their chips, but they still managed that magical animal communication. ‘He is working very hard to not vomit all over your floor.’

  “Well… I definitely appreciate that.” Raven blew out a breath. Too many references to vomit in her ship had come up. “I’m going to take a shower. Call me if anything changes.” She got up from the chair and went into her little bedroom and then her little bathroom, wondering how long it had been since she was in here last.

  It didn’t really seem long enough to need another shower, and yet it also seemed like it had been a decade or two. She felt older, after a day like this.

  The pollution, the sweat from the adrenaline, mucking through the mud… The fighting and the running for her life, jumping between spaceships…

  Yeah, it had been a crazy day.

  She stripped off her dirty clothes and tossed them in the corner, briefly considering just burning them. She didn’t know if she would ever be able to get Kona IV out of them. For now, she’d just do her best to get it off herself.

  ‘You need to eat and drink some water,’ Silvanus intruded on Raven’s solitude. ‘Your blood pressure is above its normal range because you’re dehydrated, and you are greatly fatigued, partly because you haven’t given your body enough fuel.’

  ‘I’m just not hungry,’ Raven replied, even though she knew the AI was right. Sometimes the computer was more like her mother than the ship’s computer consciousness.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s irrelevant,’ the AI responded evenly. ‘Your body requires the fuel to continue functioning properly. You wouldn’t let me avoid a re-fuel if I said I didn’t feel like it, would you?’

  Raven grunted by way of reply, scrubbing her hands through her hair and cleaning it of the sweat and grime. She hated it when Silvanus was right.

  ‘There will be a meal and a ten-ounce glass of water waiting for you after your shower,’ Silvanus went on. ‘Finish them both, please.’

  “Yes, mother,” Raven muttered.

  Silvanus didn’t reply to that.

  20

  By the time Raven was done eating and drinking her water, Silvanus announced that Blake had repaired Nyx and the other AI ship was running through its startup sequence.

  Once life support was back to full capacity, Blake got Axel and they loaded up onto Nyx so everyone could have some space, but they weren’t going anywhere. The two ships remained side by side in the cover of the nebula. Silvanus and Nyx connected so communications could be open between everyone.

  “Nyx, how are you doing?” Raven asked. She was stretched out on her couch, staring at the cabin’s ceiling while Kyra lay sprawled on the floor beside her.

  “I am better. Thank you, Raven,” Nyx’s more lilting, musical voice returned. Silvanus had a rather deep, no-nonsense tone, especially in comparison. “They did a hurried sabotage job, which meant it did take me out but not deeply enough to permanently incapacitate me in any way.”

  “And we are all grateful for that,” Raven said. “How about you, Axel?”

  Nyx’s translated his response from the neural chip into a masculine digital voice. “I am also better, although still a little wobbly on my feet. I do not like this drug.”

  No one could blame him for that.

  “And you, Blake?” she asked last, her voice a little softer. “Are you better now that you’ve got them both back in your head?”

  He laughed. “I am.”

  “Good. Well, let’s figure out what’s going on then.”

  “I’ve been trying to remember more,” Blake jumped in. “As time passes, I feel like some other pieces are coming back to me, and having Nyx and Axel okay again has definitely helped.” He paused. “But even remembering more, I don’t feel like I know much of anything.”

  “Tell me what you remember,” Raven said.

  He sighed loudly enough for the speakers to pick up on. “They asked me a lot about where I went and what I did after I ran away from Halliwell,” he said. He had already told her that, but she didn’t interrupt. “Now I recall that I thought, at the time, that they seemed really…upset about it? They seemed angry, almost. Like I had personally offended them. I tried to apologize for taking off on the company and pointing out that I was paid off now—which I think I have you to thank for, I’m guessing—but they didn’t seem to care. It wasn’t about that, but about me taking off.”

  Raven tried to think through that one, but it didn’t really seem to make a lot of sense. Why would they care so much? She got why it had been a problem and they wanted him back, he had basically committed theft without being paid off, but that was something different than such a personal investment.

  “They also,” he was going on, “asked me…something about the ‘others’. I asked what others, but they wouldn’t explain. They just kept asking the same questions, as if my answer would change.”

  “They didn’t ask me anything,” Axel jumped in, “but I could overhear some stuff. I think they forgot, at times, that I was more than a big dog.”

  ‘How they forget is beyond me, but people so often do,’ Kyra said, and her voice was repeated aloud in Nyx’s cabin.

  “What did you hear, Axel?” Raven asked.

  “I didn’t really understand the context, but they were worried about an item. It sounded like some possession of theirs had gone missing, and they believed that Blake was somehow to blame.”

  Raven frowned. “Well, technically, that was true. He’d taken you guys.”

  There was a strange grunt and then, “I’m aware, but it didn’t sound like that was what they meant. It was something that was supposed to be a secret.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” Raven said. “They are obviously up to something illegal.”

  She closed her eyes and let out a heavy sigh, resting her elbow over her head. That weariness was still deep in her bones. The food and water had helped, though, despite a reluctance to admit it.

  This somehow involved Blake. Did it involve his ship too?

  There was something that they thought he’d taken.

  It involved “others” of some sort.

  Illegal activities. Halliwell involvement, at least one employee. Halliwell was a bounty hunter company. What sort of illegal activities could you best make use of there?

  Illegal use of ships…or illegal items…items on ships…

  “Smuggling.”

  She said the word rather suddenly and apparently loudly, judging by the dirty look she got from her cat. She just gave Kyra a dirty look back.

  “They were smuggling something,” Raven clarified. “I’m not sure what or how, but it’s what makes sense, right? Something illegal, involving an item of some type, and ships, and all the different places a bounty hunter goes. Places that they’re allowed to go that others aren’t!”

  “It is a logical conclusion,” Silvanus ag
reed, “although it’s not proof until we have evidence of such. We need to know what they were smuggling.”

  Everyone was quiet as they thought through the possibilities.

  “It can’t be people,” Blake said. “Not unless they’re tiny. Bounty hunter ships are too small to carry anyone else without noticing, and I think that would be too hard to get on and off without the hunter or ship knowing.”

  “I’m sure they were able to put programs into the ship systems to help hide it from the AI,” Silvanus pointed out.

  Raven thought. “It has to be small… Drugs or guns, right? There are plenty of either that’s outlawed in Earth space, and many of those from Earth-Allied space as well.”

  “I think I might be able to help with figuring that out,” Nyx announced.

  21

  “Before I fully lost consciousness, you could say,” Nyx explained, “I became aware of them doing something in my lower cabin. They were accessing an area that doesn’t house anything, as far as I’m aware. Once they had accessed the space, I realized that I was unable to use my internal sensors in that area. However, I lost awareness at that point.”

  “How would someone be able to get onto you to access this area without you knowing about it, though?”

  “I believe this compartment can be accessed from the outside and I am sensor blind in that area, then they could get to it.”

  Blake snorted. “Most of the time, they’d have to be in a space-suit to get there,” he said. “That’s dedication.”

  Raven smiled wryly, but the feeling all over was tight. “We need to get into that compartment and fix Nyx’s sensors so she can examine it. I’m sure whatever was there isn’t there now, but maybe there’s a clue left behind.”

  “I’m on it,” Blake said.

  Tension got the better of Raven as she waited, and she got off the couch to start pacing her small cabin. Every other step had her lifting her feet to cross over Kyra, who refused to move.

  It seemed to take forever before she heard from him again. “I’ve got it!”

  “I’m scanning the compartment now,” Nyx said. A few moments later, she continued, “I am finding traces of a substance. Running analysis. Comparing to database.” Another long pause, and she said, “The common name of this substance is Exotic K.”

  Raven’s head snapped up. “Exotic K?!”

  Kyra also lifted her head, a little slower. ‘I take it this name means something to you?’

  “It’s been all over the news wires for months now,” she said. “It’s outlawed in every corner of Earth and Earth-Allied space, with pretty big penalties if you’re caught with it,” she explained. “But that’s stopping, you know, no one. It has a high, high mortality rate, but that’s not stopping anyone either.”

  “And they had that stuff on my ship?!” Blake almost screamed.

  “That explains a lot, though,” Raven said, “about their reaction to it all. The others they talked about… It must be other hunters they’re using as unwitting mules?”

  There was a long pause, then she heard from Blake, Kyra, and Axel. “As what?”

  She sighed. “Don’t you guys ever watch the old movies or shows? Anything? No? Okay. It’s just an old term for someone who carried drugs. Usually in ways a lot less pleasant than this.”

  “Okay…” Blake said uncertainly. “Anyways. Yes. I’m betting they have way more than just me, but, I mean, that’s kind of risky too, isn’t it?” He paused. “I mean, in more than just the obvious way. I mean, like, hunters can be a transient bunch.”

  A thought popped into Raven’s head…and she instantly didn’t want to say it.

  So, no one said anything for a while.

  “This is a suspiciously long silence,” Blake said.

  “I really don’t want to say this…”

  “You? Are afraid to say something?”

  She groaned and winced, rubbing the back of her neck. “What if…they are just using the hunters who aren’t as good as some others?”

  Knowing she had brought up a sore subject, she was waiting for an angry retort, but instead, he just sounded tired. “That makes sense,” he said. “I bet it was in my ship when I ran off, and they got really worried. Then angry…” He sighed. “Oh, crap… Rave…” He sounded pretty emotional, and she had no idea how to make it better.

  “It is a logical assumption,” Silvanus began, “that someone at Halliwell could be adjusting the financial numbers against you as well. For those hunters not making great deals of money, it is likely easy to adjust those numbers in small ways and keep you in debt longer.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Blake groaned. “That would make sense, too.”

  “We’ve got to talk to some of the others,” Raven said. She didn’t want to let Blake go off on some pity-party. They couldn’t really afford it while they were playing hide-and-seek in a nebula. She needed to figure this out and figure out how to fix it so they didn’t have to both go on the run forever. “I’m willing to bet that none of them know they’re participating, because that sets things up well for the group running it. They may still be able to help, though, and we can try to confirm our suspicions.”

  “So…we have to look for the bad hunters,” Blake said.

  “The ones who have been at the company the longest without paying off,” Raven replied dryly. She tried to put a top on her irritation, but she didn’t have much spare energy to do that with. “We need to find them without alerting Halliwell to the fact that we’re tracking any of them.”

  “I believe we can do that,” Nyx said. “I think with the computing link between Silvanus and I, we can penetrate some of Halliwell’s systems behind an information wall that will keep them from knowing it’s us.”

  “I have not done this before, but I believe that Nyx is correct,” Silvanus agreed. “This will not, however, be a swift process. You’ll need to give us some time, but we will keep you apprised of our progress, as always.”

  “Then, ladies, get to it. Do your magic.” Raven smiled tiredly, thinking about how grateful she was for her companions. Then she thought about the man on the other ship and said, “Blake?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Get some rest.”

  22

  They found Marlo Kye sitting in a booth at one of the seediest bars in existence on Starbase Marauder.

  Once both ships were back to full capacity, they were able to fly out of the nebula and very carefully fly on course for the nearest hunter that met their criteria. Marlo had said he was available to chat with them. Since he had met them both before, and Blake was almost a friend, the call from them was less strange than it could have seemed.

  Still looking over their shoulders, Raven and Blake sat in the booth across from him and Raven gestured for the server. He came over and took their orders, then Raven paid to cover the tab for all three of them.

  “Thanks,” Marlo said, nodding his hairless, pale green head. “Quite the honor, Miz Sharpe. I read about you in the news recently.”

  Blake looked at her with surprise. It took her a moment to recall that he had been somewhat busy of late and wouldn’t have seen the news. She didn’t really want to talk about it, since ending up in the news was never her favorite thing to do.

  “You didn’t hear?” Marlo said with surprise. “She caught the shapeshifter assassin.”

  “You did?” He blinked at her, brows up.

  “Yeah,” she said simply. “It sucked, if you want to know, but she’s in jail again. I think they’re keeping her in a medical coma until they can be sure of their means of keeping her confined.”

  “Wow,” was all Blake said.

  “Anyway.” Raven turned to Marlo. “That’s not what we’re here to talk about it, as I’m sure you figured.”

  He nodded again. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”

  Although they had discussed the best ways to approach this on the way to the star base, Raven still didn’t feel confident. Mostly, she didn’t know if there was
a good way to approach this.

  “We have pretty strong reason to believe that at least one person inside Halliwell, possibly more, are up to illegal activities and are using their hunters to do it,” Raven said, playing it straight.

  Marlo didn’t reply right away. His copper-colored eyes (all three of them) shifted from Raven to Blake and back again before he lowered his gaze to the table. For the next couple of minutes, he sat so still that someone might have thought he’d died. Fortunately, they knew him well enough to recognize a trait of his species.

  Blake and Raven exchanged a gaze, then waited to see what Marlo had to say…assuming he had anything to say. One could rarely ever predict an Aloan.

  Finally, Marlo blinked and looked up at them again. “I think you’re right.”

  Raven’s dark brows rose with surprise. She had expected more shock, and to have to make a case. She waited for him to elaborate, then prodded him a little when he didn’t. “You do?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I have had suspicions that something was going on for a while now, but I didn’t have anything to go on.” His eyes shifted between them again. “What do you think is going on?”

  It was time to go all-in now. “Drug smuggling.”

  Marlo made a strange noise in his throat that wasn’t close enough to a word for their neural chips to translate. “That would make sense.”

  “People are saying that a lot lately,” Raven murmured, mostly to herself but Blake smirked.

  “What was that?” Marlo asked.

  Raven shook her head and moved them on. “What made you suspicious?”

  He went still again for a little while before answering. “My assignments,” he said. “Not the assignments themselves, they’d always been pretty standard work, but it seemed that I was always being dispatched to stations and colonies not in Earth-Allied space. I’m used to not being put to work in Earth space, but I always used to be in Allied space. Then for the past several months, that has not been the case. My first ports are always in neutral space, before my hunts take me back to Allied space.”