3013: CLAIMED (17 page)

Suck it up, Serra told herself. It did no good getting emotional over what was going on. Still, her hand reached over to Sully underneath the table, seeking comfort. When he caught it in his and held it firmly, the connection immediately soothed that ragged part of her that had begun to ache. She needed to be logical, not emotional, she told herself again. More steady now, she forced herself to study the images on the screen with impassive interest.

“I’m surprised you aren’t up on the board, too.” she said, proud that her voice was steady when she addressed Troy.

A small smile lifted his lips. “I feel sort of left out.”

“Takeshi consented to a mind scan and has been cleared completely,” Arik said.

“Then why are Officers Meyers and Rhine up there? I thought they’d also been cleared.”

“They are, and have agreed to stay under wraps until we need them for the takedown,” High Commander Newgate informed her. “They still have a part to play in this, so we’re leaving them up on the board. Same goes with your flight crew. Since you aren’t scheduled to meet up with them until after the sale in New Vega, it lowers them down the list.”

Takeshi studied the board. “Gavin worked with us on the stealth project.”

Serra shook her head. “He did, but only on small parts of it, and he hasn’t been around for months now. One of his fathers is sick and he’s been on leave.”

“But he worked on the project and had knowledge and access, which means he stays a person of interested until we have proof he’s not a part of this,” Dom added.

“My gut says it’s one or more of the guards, so we’ve been taking a hard look at the four that aren’t in custody,” Jax said.

“I’ve been looking at Officer Rick Harding,” Andrew informed them. “Digging into his data confirms he is what he seems on the surface. A solid officer, who likes to travel when he’s on duty, and spends time with his family on X4 whenever he isn’t on the roll.”

“Same goes for his partner, Officer Diego Ramirez, except for the family ties,” Jack said.

“He was a lone wolf until he paired up with Harding. My sources say they are courting a woman on X4,” Archer added after he finished chewing a bite of his sandwich. “I think they will be putting in for a transfer as soon as they work up the courage to ask her to be their chosen.”

“You mean some men ask?” Amusement sparkled in Serra’s eyes as she smiled at him.

“If we had asked, you might have said no,” Archer said before leaning in to kiss her.

“There is no kissing during a briefing!” Dom snapped. Archer sent him a pitying glance before Dom switched the topic back to intergalactic conspiracies and treason. “What we’ve found on Officers Nolan and Prentice has my bell ringing. They’re fucking dirty.”

“Charles Nolan has a gambling problem, and was under for almost sixty thousand two years ago on New Vega,” Jax said, speaking of the large, impressive vessel that traveled around space. New Vega catered to all types of clientele, all looking for the same thing…pleasure. Whether it be gambling, sex, or other entertainment, New Vega offered it, for a price. “One week later, the marker was paid off in full. Timing coincides with a sale of the shield tech we discovered later when a Sentinel seized a marauding vessel in Alliance territory.”

“They put up resistance, but the shielding didn’t hold against the Alliance Sentinel’s firepower,” Cade added. “When they were boarded, they had the stolen tech uploaded and installed onboard. That incident was six months after the sale.”

“I remember that,” Serra said. “Whoever is buying the shield tech on the black market doesn’t understand that if it isn’t installed properly, it begins to break down….becomes ineffective over time. We built in that failsafe in case something like this happened.”

Takeshi grinned at her. “Your idea. And it was a brilliant one at that.”

“I only thought of it because you suggested it,” Serra argued.

A dark frown settled over Regent Spartan’s face. “Why wasn’t I told about this failsafe?”

“Regent Kobe knows, as he is my liaison with the council. Only the people on the install team knew about the failsafe. I believe Regent Kobe thought it was safer that way.”

“Damn bastard. He’s been quiet about it, and convinced the council to downgrade the threat level since we’ve discovered the shield tech on unauthorized vessels. We thought someone was cloning the tech, but this makes more sense now. He and I are going to be having words soon. Very soon,” Regent Spartan repeated ominously.

“We became aware of this problem when we discovered that a D’Aire traitor had purchased the shielding through improper means. He was questioned after he and his men attacked another ship, but he refused to give us the name of his contact,” Arik said, almost pleasantly.

“Can we question him?” Roman Newgate demanded.

“He is no longer living. D’Aire justice is swift and exacting.”

“I’ll say,” Cade muttered, then raised his voice to address everyone. “Nolan still spends most of his time off duty on New Vega.”

“Not just Nolan. Jacob Prentice is into this up to his neck, too,” Dom remarked. “Whenever Nolan is gambling, Prentice goes with him, but he tends to spend most of his time at the sex clubs. He prefers real to sex droids.”

“That would take a lot of money. The places on New Vega aren’t cheap. Or so I’ve heard,” Jack added quickly.

“More money than he has. His accounts don’t have enough to cover his spending habits, so he has to have one hidden somewhere.”

“They both have lines of credit on New Vega, with more than they make from their positions, but not enough to cover what they’d be making from the sales. Could they have someone working with them on New Vega?”

Dom shook his head. “I know the Krytos who own New Vega. They may make their money dealing with vices of all kinds, but they wouldn’t allow something like this. They may skirt the lines of regulations, but they’d never cross it. Not this far. When the Krytos made the pact with the Alliance, they took it very seriously. Anyone found going against our laws would be considered the worse sort of betrayer.”

“They would personally rip anyone into pieces if they discovered someone dealing black market goods aboard their vessel,” Arik added. “We’ve seen them in action. If you think D’Aire justice is harsh, Krytos justice is even more brutal.”

Archer frowned. “Something isn’t playing right for me. These two assholes were too easy to find. If they are in charge of this, don’t you think they would have done a better job hiding it?”

“It hasn’t exactly been easy,” Regent Spartan pointed out. “It’s taken all of us, and we still haven’t found their hidden accounts. We have no actual proof.”

“We will. I’m sure of that. But I get what you mean,” Dom agreed grudgingly. “These two are too fucking stupid to run a scheme like this. I see them as a blind. Someone to take the fall for the real person in charge.”

“But who then?” Serra asked. “There isn’t anyone else who has access and the knowhow to pull this off.”

“I think there is,” Cal said quietly. All eyes turned to Officer Cal Ryans, making him fidget in his seat.

“Explain.”

Cal cleared his throat that had suddenly gone as dry as the badlands. “You’ve overlooked the one person up there that has both the access and a foundation in electronics.”

Serra followed his gaze back to the board, where he was looking at the smiling face of Eloise Greer, her mother’s assistant. She battled back her first instinctive denial, and thought it through. Eloise had come to her three years ago as a potential assistant for her own work. Even though she had a basic knowledge of electronics, Eloise hadn’t been able to grasp the work fast enough for Serra to continue using her. Eloise had seemed happy enough staying with them as Tania’s assistant, enjoying the travel and exposure to other cultures.

It all made a terrible kind of sense.

“I think Cal is right,” she said softly. “She’s around enough to know what I’ve been working on and has the access to my mother’s accounts since Eloise pays her bills.”

“Which means she’s had access to yours.” Jax’s jaw clenched.

“Yes. I found she lacked the skills to be useful as my own assistant, but she’d know enough to put that block on my unit. I don’t think she would be capable of creating it, but she’d know enough to install it.”

“And maybe by installing it, she got a look at the data you had on your unit and thought about how she could profit from it,” Archer said thoughtfully.

“This is good. Let’s dig into this woman’s life. Accounts, contacts, the works.” Jax turned fierce eyes on Officer Cal Ryans. “Damn good work, Cal.”

“Thank you, sir!”

“If it’s her, we’ll take her down.” Jax turned to Serra. “How close are you to finishing that program?”

“I think we almost have it. This was a good place to stop, actually. I need to think a few things over before we run a sim on the cloned unit.”

“We need to make sure we don’t ping any security on the end-user’s unit when they upload the altered schematics we tag.” Takeshi agreed after he swallowed a bite of his sandwich. “What if we put some sort of timer on the tag so that it doesn’t activate until the unit idles—”

“No, I’ve got it set so it burrows deep upon upload,” Serra responded.

“I think my eyes just glazed over,” Dom said to no one in particular.

“We don’t need to understand what they’re talking about, as long as they do,” Andrew said, patting Dom on the shoulder.

“Sorry. Basically, yes. We’ll be ready to run the tests later.”

“You mean tomorrow,” Archer said. “We have the gala tonight.”

Serra barely held back a groan. How could she have forgotten about that? She had to bite her lip to hold back her apology, but sensed that Jax and Sully knew what she was thinking by the way they were looking at her. She’d gotten so used to apologizing for her behavior over the years that it was a knee-jerk reaction now whenever she forgot something because of her work.

Her mother had been the ultimate at laying on the heavy guilt trip whenever Serra screwed up. She’d gotten used to hearing how selfish she was to make her mother drop everything to make sure Serra ate or slept. Serra knew she often lost
herself in her projects, and had tried changing that, but it was no use. At least Jax and Sully didn’t seem too bothered by it.

“We can do the tests tomorrow,” she said after taking a sip of her coffee. “I’ll have to start getting ready soon anyways.”

“I am always fascinated by the female rituals one goes through before an event,” Arik said.

“And you’ll keep wondering until you find your keeper,” Jax warned.

Arik smiled in response. Amused, Serra watched their exchange, then was distracted as her wrist unit beeped. She looked down at the data scrolling on the screen and smiled. “Ah. Troy, I forgot to tell you. I signed a licensing agreement for the nano-cleanser with G-Mex Robotics. You should be getting…there it is.”

Takeshi looked at his own wrist unit, checking the message, then the usually taciturn man’s eyes widened comically. “Holy shit! What the hell is this?”

“That’s your half of the sale. We should also be receiving royalty percentages each month from now on. I think I got us a pretty good deal. I may not particularly care for the owners of the company, but they do have good market shares.”

“I can’t accept this. I only tweaked some of the code—”

Serra held up a hand. “I told you, if I took the concept to the private sector I would split it with you. You helped me complete the project, so you deserve half.”

“I could retire on this now,” he whispered with a baffled laugh.

“I really hope you won’t,” Serra said, honestly. “I sincerely enjoy working with you, and hope to continue doing so well into the future.”

“I wouldn’t give up my position for worlds,” Takeshi swore with fervor. “Plus, I love the travel and all the places we get to go to.”

“Guess you’re going to miss that now,” Jax said absently as he continued to eat.

Serra paused with her sandwich in her hand. She slowly lowered it back to her plate, staring at him. “Miss what?”

“The traveling. It’s not like you can bounce around planets now that we’re a bonded unit. You belong here with me and Archer now, not gallivanting around space.”

Temper flashed bright and hot inside of her, obliterating everything else that she had been thinking about. Who the hell did he think he was making that decision for her without even discussing it? Turning to Sully, she asked, “Is that how you both feel?”

Archer opened his mouth to respond, but seeing the fury on her face had him pausing. That seemed enough to set her off, though.

“How dare you,” she said softly. Finally sensing her anger, Jax finally turned and looked at her, and the surprise on his face made her want to smack him.

“You’re angry.”

“You think? You have no right to dictate to me like your word is law as to whether or not I continue my work. Just because you’re the commander of the Capital, that doesn’t make your job more important than mine. You may run this city, but you don’t run me, not even as my bonded.”

“Serra, listen—”

“No, you listen,” she said, rising to her feet. “What I do isn’t just gallivanting around the damn universe. I might not hold your rank, but what I do saves lives.”

“He didn’t mean—”

She rounded on Sully, burning him with the heat of her rage as well. “Don’t you defend him. What he said was clear enough. Both of you just assumed that you would go on with your own duties, without a single thought for what that would mean to me the work I do. Perhaps you should have considered this before you claimed me. Now, I have a gala to get ready for and I would like to do so alone.” With that, she stomped off, leaving the room as she muttered about the stupidity of men.

“Stupid,” Cade said in agreement, once she was gone. “You two are dumb as rocks.”

“Hell, I’m not even bonded and I know better,” Dom retorted with a shake of his head. “That was fucking painful to watch.”

“What the fuck?” Jax exploded, on the defensive now. He could feel shame curl in his gut, and that only made him more furious. “It’s not like we haven’t had to adjust our lives as well. This isn’t easy for any of us, but what the hell are we supposed to do? We can’t just leave the Capital for months at a time.”