[01] Elite: Wanted (14 page)

Newman laughed a low throaty laugh and grinned, baring all his teeth. ‘Is that what
you’re
thinking about?’ He sucked in a sharp breath. ‘Does it make you afraid?’ Truth didn’t let you lie, but it wasn’t perfect.

‘Not really. What were you doing in an escape pod in 61 Cygni?’

‘It was our rendezvous …’

‘Whose rendezvous?’

‘With Khanguire. Like I told you. She was supposed to meet me after we took the
Pandora
. Ravindra Khanguire. Bitch. I went there to pay her off like, I was supposed to, and she took my ship and I want her dead. I’ll kill her if I find her.’ He cocked his head. ‘Tell you what, bounty hunter – I’ll help
you
. Plenty of bounty on
that
ship. We’ll take her down together.’

‘The job that got you in this mess: who set it up?’

She listened impassively as Newman ran through the attack as though it was nothing. The Orca was carrying a cargo and the Judas Syndicate wanted it. The Veil of the Black Mausoleum had hired him and given him what he needed to get it. He didn’t know what the cargo itself was except that it was in a sealed secure crate. Didn’t know and didn’t much care. And of course he had no idea who the Veil really was.

‘Tell me about the
Pandora
and how you hit it.’

Newman grinned again. ‘It was sweet. We jumped into the Kuiper boundary and she was right in front of us. Khanguire might be a bitch who’s going to die slowly and in a world of hurt, but she was all over that Orca. Cut it open for me with the precision of a surgeon and so quick and far out there was no way the Darkwater Vipers were going to get to us before we were in, out, and gone – with our trails all evaporated.’

‘So Khanguire stood overwatch while you and your crew went in? Who blew the ship?’

‘I had a bit of fun with some of the crew and then I had to take them down. Couple of pods got away. Khanguire went mental and dropped an E-bomb. She nearly took me out. That’s what you get when you deal with amateurs.’

‘But you’re not an amateur, are you?’

Newman laughed. ‘I trained with the best, bounty hunter. Fifteen years. I’ll show you a trick or two if you like. Or are you still scared?’

‘With these bars between us?’ asked Ziva drily. ‘Terrified.’

It took a bit of poking to get at the whole of everything that had led up to the
Song of Stone
letting off her E-bomb, but by the end she thought she understood. Newman had started on the Orca’s crew. His reason for it had been that he could; and that was the Newman she’d been hunting, right enough, the Newman who thought laws and morality were for the weak and stupid, who was probably responsible for a string of savage murders across Federation space. Executing the crew changed the game, made the bounties a whole lot higher, and so Khanguire had been minimising her risk. Newman had made it the logical choice. A cold one, though – Newman might be a sociopath but this Khanguire, if anything, sounded worse. And then, as Newman told it, Khanguire had tried to take him down too.

‘Why’d she do that, Newman?’

‘Because she’s a stupid amateur bitch who doesn’t know who she’s dealing with, that’s why.’

‘She knew she was dealing with
you
, didn’t she?’

‘61 Cygni was our rendezvous. I was supposed to pay her off. If it had been down to me then I’d have wasted her there, her and her whole junk crew for what they pulled. But this was a Syndicate deal. They like quiet and people sticking to their scripts. So I was ready to do my bit and do what I was told and everything looked sweet. And then the next thing I know she’s wasting the men I’ve got on overwatch and turning her ship’s lasers on us.’ He spat. ‘We barely even got off the ground before she hit our engines. Bitch had a missile loitering right from the start.’ He glared at Ziva as he told her how Khanguire had dismantled him. ‘My Cobra against an Imperial cutter? Hardly an even fight.’ He looked about. ‘Now this ship, though – a Fer-de-Lance. Didn’t get to have much of a look at you when you were chasing me but you’d have a much better chance with this.’

‘I’m quite sure you’re right. You went straight to 61 Cygni from Stopover?’

‘Yes. You want to cut a deal? I’ll help you get Khanguire. The Syndicate will want her head on a stick for what she pulled.
I’m
not worth anything to you, but
she
is. I’ll tell you where to look, you take her down. You keep the bounty, give me the cargo and let me go, and I’ll split the credit packs that were meant to be hers.’ He grinned. ‘Yeah, I still got them safe. The Syndicate gets what it wants and we both get to keep our heads.’

‘We do, do we?’ Ziva chuckled. The Syndicate wasn’t known for being forgiving.

‘Maybe. I don’t know. But it’s the best chance either of us has, bounty hunter.’

‘Khanguire didn’t go straight to 61 Cygni. She went somewhere else first. Another rendezvous?’ But Newman only shrugged. ‘Tell me about this cargo.’

‘I’ve got no idea. Khanguire has it now.’

‘You want to deal? You go first. Where will I find her?’

‘At Whit’s Station, probably. If she doesn’t vanish.’

Ziva had a micro-drone bite Newman with a sedative, then returned to the cockpit and told the
Dragon Queen
to jump back to Beta Hydri. Newman had said he wasn’t aiming to burn Khanguire at their rendezvous. He’d been dosed up with Truth so he probably meant it but Ziva could see how it might have looked the other way. First impression? This Khanguire was cautious, clinical and cold. Newman looked like a risk and so she’d taken him out. Good girl. If she’d done the job properly then no one outside the Syndicate would know the first thing about her and she’d be clean. As it was, Khanguire had the Syndicate’s cargo and the Syndicate were going to be hopping mad. They’d go after her like wolverines. Khanguire would either deal or vanish.

Or maybe she’d roll over.

Ziva paused to consider this. She had Newman cold for the
Pandora
, which made him good for the Darkwater bounty and worth too much money to simply eject into space, tempting as it was. Most of the rest of what she’d been chasing him for had gone when he’d lost his ship. Irritating, but that was the way the Pilots’ Federation worked. Maybe if she dug and probed she might find stuff he’d done that no one had linked to him yet but it would be pocket change compared to Darkwater.

Fifteen thousand credits for each made this Khanguire very interesting too.

The
Dragon Queen
arrived back in Beta Hydri and micro-jumped to the gas giant Endl. While the Fer-de-Lance skimmed fuel, Ziva sent avatars across to a handful of people who’d known her back when she flew a Viper. There was some explaining to do about what had gone down on the Black Mausoleum, although technically she ought to be doing that explaining to the nearest Imperial ambassador. She told them anyway, gave her side of the story and made sure everyone knew she wasn’t about to run anywhere. When she was done, she traded in a few old favours and looked into the law enforcement databases, trawling for anything she could find on Ravindra Khanguire. Whit’s Station made for an interesting dilemma. The Black Mausoleum operated under a façade of order and compliance to Federation ordinances because the rest of the system would have swept it away otherwise. Whit’s Station didn’t give a fuck about any of that shit. Reddot was an anarchy system and proud of it. Pirates operated openly, some of them quietly sponsored by the Federation to be a nuisance to the Empire, some of them the other way round. Both sides talked loudly about shutting the place down, wading in with a battlecruiser or an interdictor and rousting everyone out; but neither did any more than rattle their sabres because they both had the place riddled with their own spies. A pirate who made Whit’s Station their home normally didn’t last long, but there were plenty of others who would flit in and out and use the place for supply and repair.

Ravindra Khanguire. The name didn’t mean anything. If she was as good as the
Pandora
take-down made her look, what was she doing in a place like Whit’s Station?

Ziva checked the bounties open on Newman again. She didn’t need to take this Khanguire down as well. She could haul Newman back to Stopover, claim the reward and go home. Put her feet up for a few months. Get the
Dragon Queen
serviced. Pass on the capacitors for the
Dragon Queen’
s lasers. Give Enaya what she wanted.

Yeah. Until the itch bit her again.

Shit! Aisha!
Right in the middle of the Black Mausoleum En had been trying to tell her something about Aisha. She deserved some time, a call … but …

Fifteen thousand credits for taking Khanguire to Darkwater. And maybe that was only the start of it. It wasn’t the money. She didn’t need the money. It was the itch. The not being able to let a thing rest when she had it in her sights.

The
Dragon Queen
drifted on through Endl’s upper atmosphere. Dozens of avatars crawled through archives and open-access databases. A few more showed off her credentials to the authorities and begged and wheedled their way into more classified records, the sort the Federation didn’t mind sharing with the handful of bounty hunters they’d come to trust. Ten years and she’d kept her nose clean. Maybe she pushed to the edge of the line sometimes, pulling stunts like the one on the Black Mausoleum and stuffing the bounties she caught full of Truth; but none of that was any secret, and however much she walked the line, she never actually crossed it. Most bounty hunters did, sooner or later. Most of them had a streak of pirate but not Ziva. She’d never taken down a ship that didn’t have a bounty on it, never killed anyone she didn’t absolutely have to and, even then, never anyone who didn’t deserve it. There was no collateral damage in her past, no fire-fights in crowded space-station lounges, no scattering of anti-matter minelets in busy shipping lanes. She was meticulously clean and careful, always tidied up after herself and never got into a fight she couldn’t win. In fact she rarely got into a fight at all until she’d manoeuvred her target into a corner with no one else around and the odds were stacked heavily to her advantage.

She thought about running the Jameson simulation again but hesitated. Enaya deserved better. She closed her eyes.

‘Start a k-cast,’ she sighed. ‘See if you can raise Enaya.’

It took a while. Setting up a k-cast always did. Ziva almost cancelled it twice. The words were right on her tongue when the link crackled open and a grainy video feed fizzed across the
Dragon Queen
’s screens.

‘Ziv?’ Enaya looked like shit. She looked like she’d crawled out of bed and was nursing the god-emperor of all hangovers. Which didn’t make sense because En didn’t drink on her own and it was the middle of the day back on Delta Pavonis.

‘En. Christ, what happened to you?’

‘Ziv, it’s Aisha. She’s …’

‘What? What’s happened?’

‘She’s gone, Ziv.’ Shit, were those tear-streaks on En’s face? Damn video bandwidth was too crappy to tell.

‘
Gone
? En … What happened? Some sort of accident?’

‘No. She …’ Enaya’s head sank into her hands and she started to shake with sobs. It took her a few moments to find her voice again. ‘She ran away with that Odar. She didn’t even say anything. She left a note, Ziv. A
note
. Is that what I’m worth? She can’t talk to her own mother? And then she got herself arrested.’

‘Arrested? Aisha? What the fuck for?’

‘Pills, Ziv.’

‘Pills? What fucking pills?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, how did she get them?’

‘I don’t know!’

‘What sort of pills?’

Enaya almost screamed at her. ‘I said I don’t fucking
know
! They let her go but they … She didn’t want to come. She started screaming at me. She’s sixteen. They wouldn’t let me take her with me. She didn’t want to … I don’t know where she is, Ziv. I try to call but she doesn’t answer.’

Ziv made herself count to ten. ‘En, I’ve got Newman in my hold. I need to take him in. Give me a couple of days and I’ll be home.’

The uncertain hope that washed over Enaya’s face left Ziva feeling as though she’d been stabbed. ‘For how long, Ziv? Because if it’s just a day or two and then you’re gone again then I don’t …’

‘A while, En. A while. I don’t know. Long enough. However long Aisha needs. We’ll talk about it when I’m there. The
Dragon Queen
’s due a service anyway. So there’s that.’ She winced. It was the wrong thing to say. ‘And … and we need to talk, En. I know that. About … things. And how they are.’

Enaya nodded slowly. ‘Yes. We do. But okay. A couple of days, then.’

‘You’ll let me know if you hear from Aisha?’ Ziva tried to bite back the anger but she just couldn’t. ‘She’s really with that shit Odar again? After everything he’s done to her?’

‘I’m pretty sure. I don’t know. I sent him a message. I haven’t heard anything. He despises me.’

‘I’m going to find him and I’m going to break his knees.’

‘Ziv!’

‘No, En. I told you he was bad news. Look, he’s not going anywhere. He’s got a non-transit order which means he can’t leave Delta Pavonis without picking up a Point of Principle that would let me fuck with him to my heart’s content. No, Odar Shit-for-brains can’t go anywhere.’ Ziva shook her head. ‘I almost wish he would. I’ll put as many credits as you like down on him being the one who gave her whatever it was that got her arrested. He needs to hurt for it.’

‘Ziv, no, that’s …’

Ziva snarled. ‘If you
do
talk to him, tell him I’ll gouge his eyes out when I catch him.’

‘Ziv!’

‘You know he’s a piece of crap!’

‘And how would
you
know? You’ve hardly seen him! You’ve hardly seen her! For months!’

‘I know because I spent ten years dealing with shit-bags like him before I traded my Viper for my first Cobra! I
know
, En. He’s a shit and he’s bad for her, and you should never have let her see him.’

‘So it’s
my
fault now?’ Enaya’s face twisted in rage and pain. ‘It’s
my
fault that Aisha’s run off with a junkie?’