Syndicate Files: The Sister - Part 5

No caper ever goes according to plan, even in the holos, and this was no holo.

The back room was set out in the same style as the front, only more so. More surprised-looking dead things on the walls, more tidy attendants in black suits and white gloves, more heavy paneling and ornate holos of improbably handsome people doing improbably heroic things.

In the middle of the room was the table, a monsterous, heavy thing. A fortune in wood. The Colonel probably looted it from some Guardian Angel casino in Outer Ring. It fit the men and women sitting around it in equally heavy chairs with gilt-edged arm-rests and slippery velvet cushions.

Our friend, Mavare was there, of course. A woman in a severe business suit was at the place next to him, I recognized her as a banker that helped clean money that had got a little dirty in its trip through the station's underworld. Maybe it was handling all that cash she couldn't keep that had given her the sour expression she wore, like a librarian forced to check out dirty holos when she knew she'd be spending the night alone with her furrier.

Next to the banker was Molotte Voirot, one of the most successful smugglers on the station, even if, or perhaps because, he had the fresh-faced looks of a teenage cadet. Next to him was a Civire with scars criss-crossing the backs of his hands and a very expensive suit, a high ranking Gurista, Ojavas 'Knuckles' Inheras. The last player was a Minmatar woman I didn't recognize, but I smelled an Angel.

If any of them noticed that Siarente was a podder, they didn't show it.

The Colonel was serious about preventing cheating. Apart from the players, only his staff were allowed to approach the table, and there were a couple of dedicated autoturrets ready to make confetti of anyone else who tried to break the rule. The players had all handed over their jewelery and any other personal effects that might be used to mark cards or give them some other unfair advantage, and the faint shimmer of a distortion field made sure no bystander could catch a peek of someone's hand and give another player a high sign. Electronic jamming was in place at the table to defeat any communication to or from the players, and leaving the table except at designated breaks or when you were bust was an automatic forfeit of your entire stake - and any future invitations.

The Colonel explained all of that to Siarente, who thanked him, and slipped into her chair with a giggle and gave a little excited bounce, for all the world like a little girl thrilled to death to be allowed to stay up past her bedtime and socialize with the grownups. She ordered a glass of champagne from the white-gloved waiter, complimented the banker on her hair and winked at Voirot. Her aura of just-waiting-to-be-fleeced had the other players welcoming her.

I'm sure the dress didn't hurt, either.

I was optimistic. Mavare was probably the lightweight at the table, but a million syns should take a while to burn through. Sami was confident she could beat the jamming, and all Sia had to do was keep playing until Ydet was done.

Yeah, I really was that stupid.

The Colonel announced the start of the game, and the first set of hands shot out across the table from the dealer - a real, human one.

The first thing that went wrong was the jamming. Sami's confidence that she could defeat the baffling and get a signal through to Siarente's neocom was justified: right up until the jamming signal cycled through to the next random frequency.

And it was too late to try and back out.

I guessed Sia knew the silence over the internal neocom she hadn't wanted to get in the first place wasn't intentional. She studied her cards with pursed lips and then fiddled with the dress strap, fragile as a Breacher's hull, over her left shoulder - the sign we'd agreed on if something went wrong short of an emergency.

But Auvy knew her cards and Sia was a quick study. She bet a little, lost it trying to draw to fill a hand of three acorns, won on the next with a pair of sixes when the rest of the table had hands full of even more trash, and then twisted a curl around her finger and laid down a flat flush.

Ydet sighed, rolled her eyes, fidgeted, and finally excused herself. Right on schedule. I checked my watch. Forty minutes, she'd said. In and out.

That's when the second thing went wrong. Mavare started losing. I'm no cardsharp, and I couldn't see the cards clearly through that distortion field, but even I could tell he was a terrible player. Not only that, he tried to make up for it by throwing on money. Never play loose in a tight game, Auvy had warned Sia, but that was clearly a maxim Mavare had never heard. I did some quick calculations, and figured we'd be ok, if not by a wide margin, though.

Then the third thing went wrong.

"Rory," Ydet hissed over my earpiece. "I've got a guard and a waiter going at it in the storage room. Right under my exit. I'm gonna have to wait it out. I'll need more time.

Sami was still fighting with the electronic jamming but she was able to get through to Sia for a few seconds here and there. She got word to the pilot about the need for delay.

Sia fiddled with that strap a bit more emphatically than before, putting the whole miracle of engineering at risk, and then eyed the cards face up on the table, twirled that curl around her forefinger and bet high on a five and seven of acorns. Her fake tell had the other players folding fast, but luckily Mavare wasn't so smart, and when Sia's hole cards turned out not to be the missing cards of a straight he raked in enough chips to stay in the game.

There was a break at the hour and a half mark. Sia and Sami's best efforts hadn't been able to keep more than a handful of chips in front of Mavare, so as I escorted Sia towards the bar for the break, I hoped we had bought Ydet enough time.

There she was, waiting in the lounge area when we walked out. She gave the slightest nod when she saw us.

I leaned closer to Ross, "Time to go, Captain."

Ydet joined us as we made our way across the room toward the exit. Then Siarente stumbled. I thought she'd turned an ankle in those fashionable heels, but as I reached out to steady her she bolted, heading across the room at a brisk clip, toward a knot of people around the Civire with the scarred knuckles. Her attention was fixed on a woman with grey, metallic prosthetics in place of both arms. The woman was talking to one of the Gurista's lackeys, making a report it looked like to me. She finished, whatever it was, and was gone again before Siarente got close. The Captain stopped, and the rest of us caught up to her.

"Who is that?"

I looked where Sia was pointing, probably under the illusion she was being discreet. "Him? that's Ojavas Inheras. A ... " I hesitated. Even in a dress that qualified as a fire-hazard for its ability to cause spontaneous combustion in innocent bystanders, there was something about Siarente Ross that made a man feel reluctant to use words like 'gangster' ... or 'murderer', for that matter. "A local businessman," I temporized.

"He's a regular here," Sami supplied. "Likes to win, and wins a lot - maybe because people know what happens to those who get too lucky at his expense."

"Really," Sia said thoughtfully. She turned to look up at me with a smile. "Could you give me a just a second here, Rory? I'll be right back."

That was the fourth thing that went wrong.

Before I could say a word she'd taken off, her heels tapping lightly on the parquet floor as she headed back to the poker table.

Syndicate Files: The Sister - Part 4

Inside, a bar occupied one wall, floor-to-ceiling shelves of bottles every color you could imagine and a few you wouldn't want to, from innocent-looking pastel lolly-water to deep blue syrup that promised to make you forget your troubles - and your door-key, your address and your name. Behind the long expanse of gleaming stone, two bartenders in matching uniforms and matching faces dispensed poisons-of-choice to the clientèle.

The floor was made up of little bits of what might even be genuine wood fitted together to make a pattern out of their different colors, and as I followed Sia and Ydet toward the bar a momentary ebbing of the crowd showed me the pattern was another version of the deformed bird Mordu's used as their logo.The pattern almost filled the room, except for a space about two meters by three alond the left wall where the wood gave way to a solid stone around the big fireplace.

I could tell from how close people were standing to it that the fire blazing away wasn't a real one, but the illusion was pretty good. The fire was framed by a dark wood mantle and along the top of the mantel were three large guns, antiques from the look. Directly above each of those guns was the head of an animal, different kinds of animal but all with the same look of slight surprise, as if they hadn't expected to be shot by the Colonel and they certainly hadn't expected to spend their afterlife watching rich people get drunk and lose money for fun.

At the other end of the room, directly in the line of sight of the decapitated and preserved wild-life, a half-a-dozen tables with green baize covers just like the holos were surrounded by little clusters of customers. Their expressions ranged from exhilaration to despair as the roulette wheel spun and the dice fell. For most of the residents of the station, drinking the water that came out of the tap was enough of a gamble for any one day, but I guess the rich had to get their thrills elsewhere. The Colonels' gaming tables were as good as any.

The flickering firelight gave the same febrile glitter to the eyes of the dead animals and the live gamblers alike.

Siarente and Ydet headed straight to the bar, a couple of thirsty rich girls on a night out, Neve and I trailing behind. Sia ordered a glass of champagne and then gave an excited squeal as she 'spotted' the roulette wheel. Glass in hand, she headed towards the gaming tables with all the uncertainty and delay of a piranha missile. Ydet followed with an amused smile but a distinct lack of enthusiasm, a lack of enthusiasm she made more obvious as Sia bounced from roulette to vingt-et-un to craps.

So far, so good.

Ydet examined her nails as Sia swept a pile of chips together and looked around. "Where is the poker game?" she asked guilelessly. "I heard there was poker here!"

As we'd hoped, one of the other patrons was all too eager to enlighten her, pointing out the door to the back room. Sia thanked him with a happy giggle and made her way towards it, the high heels of her strappy red sandals tip-tapping on the parquet floor.

She was stopped, of course, by the guards discreetly posted there. Stopped politely, but even so Neve tensed beside me.

Siarente smiled and twirled a lock of hair around her fingers and fluttered her eyelashes and professed herself most terribly keen on poker and just heartbroken that they wouldn't let her in to the game and before long Colonel Kurata himself emerged from his office.

He didn't stand a chance, by the time Siarente had told him that her little sister was just dying to join Mordu's Legion when she grew up and did he have any advice, and by the way, did he know Jude Kopenhagen?

The Colonel harrumped and patted her on the shoulder and warned her that this was no game for amateurs, but she could play a few hands if she wanted, and just tell him if she wanted to leave early.

Maybe he had a daughter, or a granddaughter, that she reminded him of.

Then again, maybe it was the dress.

Siarente thanked him charmingly, sipped her champagne, linked her arm through his and headed over the threshold with Ydet, Neve, me, and the hapless Colonel in tow.

Syndicate Files: The Sister - Part 3

A game like this one could only be held on neutral ground. Holding it in any of the clubs or casinos associated with one or another of the pirate factions or criminal organisations on the station would have been an invitation for cheating, stealing, and a spot of murder: and not a 'call round if you're in the neighborhood' invitation but the kind of invitation that came in a full-color holo of dancing girls and maybe some exotic animals as well.

And neutral ground was in short supply around here. This is Syndicate: everybody owes somebody. Some people owe everybody.

But there was one man on the station who had no debts and owed no favors. Colonel Nesen Kurata, highest ranking officer in Mordu's Legion for a coupla systems in any direction, had come through a long career without giving anyone anything to hold over him and without losing his reputation as an honest man. He was sometimes asked to arbitrate conflicts between factions on the station, and his HQ - The HQ, it's called - is considered neutral ground. In fact, it's enforced neutral ground. He might seem like a rather charming, harmless, antique warhorse, but noone wants to piss off someone who could call in a battalion of MTACs.

He was getting on these days, and most of the business of the Legion was run by his second-in-command, but everybody including his superiors knew that the chances of the old man retiring were right up there with Heth and Roden sharing a sloppy kiss on a cluster-wide live broadcast.

The HQ was the headquarters of the Legion on the Station. The only sign is the Legion logo - you know the one, some kind of bird with a birth defect - etched on the crystal of the recessed double doors. It's not where you'd go if you wanted to hire them, that's a store front in one of the swankier business districts (buy a war, get a minor conflict free!) This was where the commander for the Legion spent his time though, so this was the HQ.

Colonel Kurata liked to think of himself as a gentleman, and from what I'd heard he was. Anyway, he ran his club like the gentleman he thought he was. It was a nice place for the right kind of people to meet and mingle and talk politely, and maybe lose a little money at roulette while they were doing it. The Colonel hobnobbed with bosses, charmed society ladies, drank with the influential in politics and business, and swapped lies about how good things had been with other veterans.

And it was a nice place for a high-stakes poker game, too.

There was that battalion of MTACs, after all.

Another good reason not to get caught.

Getting inside the main part of the club wasn't going to be a problem: the doors of the Colonel's club would open for Siarente, or for her bank-balance and podder implants, at least.

Getting the invitation from the Colonel to the game was a different question.

"Are you ready for this?" I asked Siarente.

She nodded, face pale, and then swallowed hard. "'sec," she said, and hastily snapped open the beaded purse she was carrying, pulling out a small packet of dry crackers.

I watched as she crammed a couple in her mouth and chewed. "Look, if you're having second thoughts ... better to say something now. Once we're inside there won't be room for mistakes."

Siarente swallowed. "I know. I'm fine. It's just ... brain surgery doesn't agree with me."

That had been the point where Sami's plan had nearly come unstuck. She hadn't been able to believe any pod pilot wouldn't have an internal neocom, and at first Siarente had been adamant in her refusal to have one put in. I like picking up my neocom like a normal person, she'd said in a sweetly reasonable tone. And I don't like people poking around in my head.

But the whole plan depended on Siarente keeping Mavare at the poker table until Ydet had time to steal Tialya's ring from the cloakroom and leave the carefully made replica in its place. Mavare wouldn't know that the family heirloom was also a family hairloom with a lock of someone's great-great-grandmother's coiffure sealed beneath the gem for verification. He'd be happy with the high-quality fake Auvy's contact had made, and never know the real thing was back on Tialya's hand - if Mavare didn't loose all his money in the first three hands and go to collect his belongings while Ydet was still wriggling through the airducts.

And Siarente might have been a quick study and Auvy a good teacher, but even when you're planning on losing card-sharping takes a lifetime to master and this table was not a place to make mistakes.

Sami was sure she could hack through the jamming and use the venue's security drones to watch the play. But it wouldn't do us any good if she couldn't get that information to Siarente, and sitting at the table with a comm handset held to one ear wasn't exactly the best way to avoid suspicion.

The pilot had hemmed and hawwed and asked Sami to come up with a different plan, and when Sami hadn't, Siarente had taken herself off to find someone else to look for her sister.

I might have panicked if there'd been anyone else on the station dirt-dumb enough to take the job. Fortune just isn't that fond of me, most days.

Siarente had come back within the day. Another twenty-four hours of lessons from Auvy while we waited for the replica ring to be made and the pilot's own medical team had arrived by Interbus to put in the neocom. Once they arrived, it was over so quick I couldn't work out what all the fuss had been about. The lead surgeon seemed to know her business, her manner as sharp as her scalpel. When they were done, I couldn't even tell where they'd done the work.

So there we were: me in my best suit, the podder's bodyguard with her best deadly expression, Ydet in a deep purple skin-tight that was both fashionable and perfect for eeling through narrow crawlspaces, and Siarente in a scarlet dress Auvy had had to stitch her into. I didn't need to know much about couture to be able to tell that the only thing keeping it up was some sort of technological miracle and from the heads turning as we headed down the boulevard towards Legion HQ, I wasn't the only one wondering how long that miracle would last.

Too many more of those crackers, I thought, and not much longer.

"Are you sure you're all right?" I asked Siarente again.

She dropped the packet back in her purse and snapped it closed. "Yes," she said.

"Now remember," I told her, "You just have to keep him busy at the table, you don't have to win. In fact, do your best not to. These people, they don't like people getting lucky at their expense."

Siarente nodded. "You told me," she said, and tucked her hand in the crook of Ydet's elbow. "Don't let me fall over in these heels,dear."

"Never, darling," Ydet said with a wink.

The bodyguard and I following, they sauntered arm and arm into the club.

Syndicate Files: The Sister - Part 2

When it comes to poker, my skills just about extend to knowing how much money I'm about to lose in the five seconds before I lose it. If Captain Siarente Ross was going to give a convincing impression of a high-roller in the highest-stakes game on the station, she was going to need help from someone besides me.


And that was just for starters. Getting into the game, not getting rumbled in the first hand, those were the easiest parts of the whole scheme.


I needed experts.


Ydet is a professional thief. A specialist. She could probably steal the ears off the Rabbit, but the poker game only had one way in: the front door.


Auvy is an expert in lots of things, though I think sometimes mainly in making me scramble. I happened to know she was a damn good poker player too.


I can't say the thought of introducing Auvy to my new client didn't cause me a twinge of anxiety. As for adding Ydet to the mix ... well, I guess sometimes I'm just a glutton for punishment.


I had a stiff drink and made the calls.


My office was crowded with Auvy, Ydet, Siarente and her bodyguard all in there, and not just cause it was a storage closet before I rented it. Four women, all of them blonde - even Auvy, this week - all of them as different as could be.


Ydet, with her wide smile and her honey-colored hair pulled back in a ponytail was the kind of blonde you played stick-ball with on the rec-deck, in your dreams anyway.


The bodyguard - Neve, her name was - was the sort of dirty white-blonde that looked like ice in the 'cycler: she was cold and hard and she'd been around.


Siarente Ross was what I always thought of as a default blonde - with her soft blue eyes and her gentle voice, she would have been blonde even if her hair color had been black as the space between the stars.


And Auvy, well ... today Auvy had her hair a shade of gold so rich it made Siarente's earrings look cheap and fake and a jacket in a lustrous red with a shimmer of the same tone. She looked like a million syns and maybe a million sins, too.


I had the schematics for the place the game was held spread out on my desk, courtesy of Sami, but I was the only one looking at them. Ydet and Auvy were giving each other the kind of polite smiles that make a wise man come up with a reason to be elsewhere, the pilot's bodyguard was studying each of them with flat-eyed professionalism and Siarente was looking from one to the other and then at me with knowing expression that made me even more nervous than Auvy and Ydet did.


I cleared my throat. "So. Getting into the HQ is easy enough, but to get into the Table we'll need the Colonel's invitation. They take their security seriously inside - weapons checked at the door, scans to make sure, auto-turrets to take care of anyone who tries to start any trouble; no surprise given the mix they get."


Auvy spoke up, "So, how are we going to get an invitation?"


"Well." I picked up my glass and realized it was empty. "That part I haven't exactly worked out yet. We can go down there and do some recon though. See if there's a way. We'll have to get one somehow, though, unless you wanna try and mug Mavare in the corridor on his way there."


Ydet stretched out her shapely legs and then curled up in her chair like a cat - or the cat-burglar she was. "Remind me again why it's such a good idea to pick the most tightly-guarded social gathering in Syndicate for this little heist?"


"Security might be tight at the game but it's tighter where Mavare spends the rest of his time," I said.


Ydet snorted. "Your lack of faith hurts my feelings, Rory."


"I'm not a religious man. And I'm sure you could get in - "


"Oh, I'm sure Ydet has no problems getting into gangster's bedrooms," Auvy said.


"And no problem getting out again," Ydet said, and smiled. "Unlike some."


Auvy drew breath to reply but before she got a word out Siarente leaned forward. "Is that jacket a Ceverette?" she asked Auvy. "It looks like his new line but I don't think I saw anything that nice at the show."


All I know about clothes is that it's a good idea to tell Auvy how good she's looking in whatever she's wearing, which isn't hard to remember since she always looks good, but the name Ceverette seemed to work as some kind of code. Auvy half-boasted, half-admitted that the jacket was her own design and not the work of a Federation fashion house and Siarente widened her eyes in what seemed to be genuine admiration and asked a half-dozen questions about seams and facing that had me mystified.


Ydet shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes and leaned forward to study the plan. "So why aren't we hitting this guy's crib?"


"Because the only time Mavare takes off his little love-token is when he has to," Sami piped up from my NEOCOM. Right at that moment, she sounded blonde, too: the kind of blonde who'll promise a man the world and leave him flat broke in the gutter - and grateful for it. "Believe me, the hours I've spent wandering around in his surveillance system. The things I'm seen. Sometimes deleting just isn't enough. Anyway, the thing about poker games with high stakes ... they tend to be pretty strict about cheating. Especially the Colonel's Table. High quality comms jamming, for example, although nothing that'd cause me trouble. And they don't like giving people the chance to mark the cards. You know, like ... with a ring."


Ydet nodded. "So we go in as what, the girl's staff?"


"Me and the bodyguard will be flunkies," I said. "But you'll need the chance to slip away and break into the cloakroom. You'll be the bored girlfriend."


Ydet glanced back at Siarente. "Girlfriend, sure. Bored?" She gave me a wink. "That might take more acting."

Syndicate Files: The Sister - Part 1

Her name was Siarente Ross and the story she told me was a simple one, the kind of simple you get when you skip, eyes closed, straight past all the awkward, embarrassing, unpleasant details. The sister, who'd been 'experiencing some personal difficulties', was overdue back from a business trip to meet 'associates in the area'. The podder was concerned enough to be out here looking. Even with podder resources, she'd realized quick enough that she needed a native guide, and the ad that Sami'd tricked the station channel into running had brought Mademoiselle Ross straight to my door.


If I'd had any intention of taking the case I would have asked some of the obvious questions. Questions like 'Are these 'associates' Serps or Guristas?' for example. Or 'Personal difficulties with gambling, booze or boosters?'


But I wasn't going to take the case - I'd had enough podder trouble to last a lifetime.


I should have said that straight out, but the girl's lower lip started quivering as soon as I shook my head and I tried to soften it a little.


I should have remembered that the ones who don't look like trouble at first glance are sometimes the ones that end you up in the airlock with the wrong door open the fastest. More fool me.


"I'm all tied up with another case right now, Miss," I said. "If it weren't for that, I'd help you, but - " I spread my hands. "Sorry. You know how it is."


"Is this other case going to take you long?" she asked. "Because ..."


"Could take weeks," I said, and I wasn't lying this time, except for where I didn't tell her I'd been about to throw the case in. "It's pretty complicated."


"What sort of case?"


"Recovering stolen property. A ring."


"And it's complicated?"


A big part of my business is discretion, and I'm good at keeping my mouth shut - even when it's a pretty girl asking. Those blue eyes, though, or maybe it was the gentle lilt of her accent and the soft curve of her lips ... she was made to draw out a man's troubles just as surely as a tractor beam draws wrecks. A few details won't hurt, I thought, Fortune help me.


"The guy who's got it is a Serp lieutenant, Voilies Mavare. Few steps below the top of the ladder, but still out of my league. Bases out of a club, The Nest, and security is air-tight."


Siarente blinked thoughtfully. "Maybe you could just buy it back from him," she said.


I shook my head. "My client's bankroll doesn't run to the kind of sums that would tempt Mavare. And mine sure doesn't. Besides, she wants it kept quiet - and throwing that kind of money around would make plenty of noise. Even if he were selling."


"Steal it?" she suggested, with a matter-of-factness at odds with her innocent expression.


"Thought about it," I admitted. "But getting anywhere near him is the problem. Sami says he never leaves his place, The Nest - well, almost never."


"Sami?" she asked.


"My ... assistant."


A faint, delicate raspberry came from my neocom at that. The podder didn't notice, but her bodyguard flicked a glance at the handset and then looked back at me, eyes as grey and hard as the skin of the station, and twice as cold.


"Associate. My very talented, brilliant associate," I corrected hastily, before Sami could make her feelings known any more clearly. "Anyway. The only time Mavare every goes anywhere is to a monthly high-stakes poker game, the Colonel's Table."


"And why can't you steal it there?"


"Security's almost as tight there," I explained. "Only players and their flunkies get in."


She looked puzzled. "Can't you just go and play, then?"


"This is a real high-stakes game," I said. "The buy-in is a million syns."


"That's about 10,000 isk?" The look of bemusement lingered a moment longer before comprehension dawned. "Oh," she said. "That's a lot of money, isn't it." She looked at me for a moment, chewing thoughtfully on that full lower lip, and then went on: "More money than I'm going to just hand over, that's for sure. So I'll tell you what. I'll buy in to the poker game. You can come along as my ... boyfriend? Bodyguard? You can steal this silly ring back and then you'll be free to help me find my sister."


It took me a couple of seconds to grasp that she'd just tossed away 10,000 ISK - more than a million syns - without blinking. Then I realized she'd just solved my most pressing problem and trapped me into working for her in the same breath.


"Do you know how to play poker?" I managed to ask.


She smiled serenely. "I think I had a lesson once," she said. "It didn't seem too hard."

Syndicate Files: The Sister - Prologue

((Co-Authored with Ciarente))

The trouble started with the girl.


That's not where the whole thing started, of course. The whole thing started with Tialya Kikkettan's ring.


Tialya Kikkettan was like just about everyone who ended up in my office: she had just enough trouble on her plate to want to pay someone to make it go away, just enough money in her bank account to afford my rates, and just enough to hide to want to keep the whole thing off any official radar.


Her husband gave her the ring, a family heirloom, Tialya said, sitting in my office clutching her bag so hard the swollen joints of her skinny fingers were white with the force of her grip. I wasn't sure which she was worried might try and scuttle away into the corner and do something unmentionable: the bag or her hands.


The ring had been stolen, probably by the maid she'd fired last week. She wanted it back, and she didn't want the police involved.


The way her gaze slid away from mine when she mentioned the police made me think that 'stolen' might not be the right word, but it's not my place to judge, especially when there's 500 syns a day plus expenses at stake. She wasn't the first woman to give a trinket to a lover, and she wasn't the first woman to regret the gift after the relationship went sour.


Trace and retrieve, that was the job. How hard could it be? I thought.


Then it turned out that Tialya's former 'maid' was keeping new and dangerous company. The ring that Tialya's husband thought had been sent away for cleaning was on the hand of a mid-level Serpentis boss. Trace, well, I'd done that. Retrieve? Getting anywhere near him was next to impossible.


So I was having a cup of coffee and glumly contemplating how I was going to return Tialya Kikkettan's advance, since I'd already given most of it to my landlord, when the door to my office opened and trouble walked in on two-inch heels.


At first glance, she didn't look like trouble: soft blue eyes, a pretty face too young to have lines to show if that polite smile was her usual expression or if she'd worn it just for me, and a well-tailored dress doing its best to play down curves that could stop traffic. But the pretty face and the softly curling blonde hair and the demure dress all had that faint gloss of wealth, like they started their day being polished with 500 Syn notes. And if that hadn't warned me, then there was the bodyguard who came in with her sporting a look that said 'I can kill you with my pinky', the two big, square-jawed types who blotted out my doorway looking just as mean, and when soft blue eyes sat down in the chair across from me I caught a flash of jewels and metal on the back of her neck, almost hidden in that gently curling blonde hair.


Podder.


That was enough to tell me she was trouble, however she looked. Besides, trouble is why people come to me. They're in it, they want to cause it, they want to head it off at the pass, or -


"It's my sister," the podder said, in the soft Gallente accent of the high-sec Fed-bred. "She's in - "


"Trouble?"


Her blue eyes widened. "How did you know?"

Concussion

((Co-Authored with Ciarente))

"Commander Invelen. Commander Invelen, sitrep, please."

The voice faded in and out, or maybe that was her.

Amieta tried to wipe the blood from her eyes but the servos in her arm just keened and squealed uselessly. Shit. She blinked, blinked again, and her vision cleared enough to show a shattered flight console, tilted at a strange angle. All the angles she could see looked wrong. Twisted. Jarred.

I'm in a shuttle. The shuttle's broken. I'm hurt.

I guess we crashed.

We?

She could still hear the voice that had woken her through her earpiece. Male. Ishukone accent. "Commander Invelen. Commander Invelen, sitrep, please."

Invelen. That's me, right? Commander - guess I'm in charge.


She turned her head painfully to look around the rest of the cockpit. Most of the pilot was slumped over the controls. Another body against the wall, eyes open and blank.

Guess I fucked up, too.

Or somebody did.

A wave of dizziness, then, black dots dancing before her eyes. The voice was still talking. "Commander Invelen. Commander Invelen. Amieta."

Then it went dark.

"Amieta," Val said.

She glanced over. Like her Val was... eight? Nine? It didn't matter, he was always so serious. "Tell Supervisor we all had the idea. It wasn't just Jan."

Jan

The stocky boy was standing just past Val, with that stubborn expression he got sometimes. Of course it had been his idea. Jan had found them a place, a new place to explore.... somewhere. Somewhere they weren't supposed to go, and the three of them had been caught.

Amieta opened her mouth to explain, of course they had all thought of it, it hadn't been Jan's idea. Val interrupted her though, "Amieta."

She winced and blinked, something in her eyes.

"Amieta, please respond," Val said. No, not Val. Val was the past. She groped for the name that went with the voice she could hear and found it. Captain Night. The shuttle. The crash.

"Captain." A dry whisper. She put more effort into it, "Captain Night. I'm here."

"Do you remember what happened?"

I think... the shuttle crashed?"

"Can you tell me what year it is?"

It took Amieta a moment to remember, "106. It's 106."

"Situation? Injuries?"

"I'm ..." Amieta tilted her head, fighting a wave of nausea, trying to see what was keeping her from sitting up, "Left arm and left leg are pinned. Some kind of structural support. The pilot and copilot are dead. My leg - I'm bleeding. A lot. I think I hit my head too. Feel sick."

Captain Night's voice was calm. "Can you reach the first aid kit?"

She tried, couldn't suppress a groan at the movement, her right arm moving in jerks and starts as it recovered function.

She tried again, felt the prosthetic respond, and got a fingertip on the strap. "Yes. Hold on."

The mini-AIMED that came with the kit was no substitute for the real deal, but the info it could give was bad enough.

"Commander?"

"Gonna need evac pretty soon, sir," she said, fumbling one-handed with the kit. "Trying to get a tourniquet on ... I'm not in real good shape, here."

"The storm that brought your shuttle down is peaking," Captain Night said. "We'll have a medivac team down there as soon as they can get through the front."

Amieta grunted acknowledgement, tightening the bandage as hard as she could. The blood seeping from her thigh slowed.

"The storm, I remember. I came up to the cockpit to ask... to ask about the storm. Our flight status." Came up to the cockpit from the passenger compartment where the rest of the team ...

Amieta held still, held her breath, listened. Silence. "Sir, the others, Sarakai ... "

She tried to turn enough to see through the cockpit door and lost his next words to a stab of pain. Spirits fuck my ancestors.

"Commander? Amieta?"

"Fine," she gasped. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

Are you sure?

She stood in front of his desk, shoulders square, hands clasped behind her back and eyes fixed on the wall above his head, absolutely regulation. "Yes, sir, I'm sure."

"Ms Voutelen's employment history is a little ... irregular," Captain Night said, browsing through the red-flag-riddled file in front of him before looking back up at her.

"So is mine, sir," Amieta pointed out.

"Not for the same reasons."

"No sir. But Sara is loyal, she's experienced, and she's damn good at what she does. Those are all things you need in a CTO, especially when your XO is still learning her job."

He studied her for a moment, as hard to read as always, and then held out the file. "Very well. I'll trust your judgment on this, Amieta."

"Yes sir, thank you sir," she said, not following his lead into informality. Hecould risk forming bad habits. For Amieta, there was more at stake. There's already scuttlebutt that I got this job for being the 'Captain's woman.' One careless word in public from her and the rumor-mill would explode.

She took the file. "Permission to call Ms Voutelen, sir?"

Captain Night nodded. "Of course. You're dismissed, Commander."

Amieta saluted, turned precisely on her heel, and left. In the privacy of her own office she made the call, getting Sarakai's recorded message. "Good news, Sara. Sara? Sara, you there?"

It hurt to raise her voice. "Sara? Sara, you there?" There was rain coming through the rent in the fuselage, cold droplets splashing off the open eyes of the co-pilot. "Sara!"

Silence.

"Sir, Sara, she's not answering. Sir?"

Silence over the comm line, too.

"Sir? Captain? Captain?"

Nothing. She was the only one left alive, the only one of all her people and there was no-one -

No. That wasn't here. That wasn't now. That was -

She slammed the door on the past and tried again. "Captain?"

This time Captain Night answered and Amieta closed her eyes against a wave of relief. "Captain, Sara, Colonel Voutelen - "

"Is uninjured," Captain Night said quickly. "The cockpit and the crew compartment separated on impact. Most of the fuselage is a few dozen meters above you."

"Is everyone - ?"

"Some serious injuries, but nothing immediately life threatening. The cockpit took most of the impact, broke off and ended up in a ravine."

"Thank the ancestors," Amieta whispered. "I thought - "

"The rest of the team are in no danger," Captain Night said, almost as if he knew what she'd been about to say.

Of course he knows.

She'd told him. She'd been drunk, spirits, he'd been drunk that first night, the one and only time she'd seen it.

The day of her brother's funeral, not that she could tell anyone at the service that it was her brother, standing there in long sleeves and silk gloves, behind the thin protection of forged papers. An old girlfriend, she told anyone who asked. Salt on the wound, not even being able to claim him, the brother she'd waited just too long to visit, and her now a stranger on the Ishukone Station she'd grown up on.

Maybe that was why she'd looked twice and then a third time at the tall man with pilot implants on his neck marking him out as just as much a stranger on the station as she. Up close, he had the bland, interchangeable good looks of a tubey, and he met her gaze with only a hint of surprise.

"I'm Amieta," she said, holding out her hand.

He shook it, and if he felt the steel beneath the silk there was no sign of it in his expression. "Pleased to meet you," he said courteously. "I'm Captain Silver Night."

I'm right, I'm wrong, Amieta thought, and then: He's still holding my hand.

I'm right.

"Do you want to get out of here?" she said. "Maybe get a drink?"

Captain Night released her hand, gaze still steady on her face. "I would like that, yes," he said.

And that'd been that.

Funny the things your life turns on.

That decision to go to a funeral ...

She looked down at the blood still seeping from her leg. Might just lead to mine.

If the Ancestors have a sense of humor, they must be having a good laugh at this one.

Not that she had any ancestors, in the way most people meant them.Tube-bred, guess maybe there's a petrie dish somewhere that might count.

And Jan, of course.

Jan ...

She could feel herself greying out again and fought against it. Focus. Don't let go. "Captain?"

"I'm here." There was a subtle difference on the comm line, a low hum behind his voice. Engines. Spirits, he's on the rescue shuttle.

Probably flying it. Damn unprofessional. What happens if the Captain crashes trying to retrieve the XO?

The thought turned her cold, or maybe it was the rain chilling her. At least it's water. So thirsty. Somewhere at the back of her mind was the vague awareness that she shouldn't be so thirsty. Bad sign. Of something.

She licked raindrops from her lips and fought another surge of dizziness. Fight. Focus. Here and now, Ami.

"Do you remember ... my brother? Jan?" she said, the first words to come to mind. Talk. Keep talking. Stay awake. She couldn't remember what she'd told Captain Night, or what was there in the public files for anyone to read, or which bits of the complicated truth were common knowledge and which not. She played it safe. "Did I tell you? About him? About Jan?"

"You did, yes," Captain Night said. "We are on approach. Help will be there very soon."

"I think ... it better be," Amieta said.

"A little longer, Amieta. That's all."

"Has the storm stopped?" She couldn't hear anything over the roaring in her ears, even Captain Night's voice was soft and faint.

She couldn't be sure, given how far away he sounded, if the tiny hesitation was real or just her imagination. "Enough for a competent pilot to land."

"'kay. 'cause I ... I might be seeing my ancestors soon, otherwise. Or Jan. He's not really an ancestor, I guess. A brother."

"I am sure he watches over you, nonetheless."

"You really believe all that stuff, don't you?" Amieta asked.

"I am quite certain," Captain Night said, "your brother sees and protects you."

Amieta blinked hard until she could focus her eyes enough to check the bandage on her leg. Still bleeding. She didn't need the AIMED in the shuttle's first aid kit to tell her she was losing too much blood. Hang on a little longer. It was so cold, though. A little longer. Val had promised the rescue team would be there soon. No, not Val. Captain Night. Val was a name from her past, not from the here and now. She couldn't afford to loose track of the here and now. Shock. It's shock. Stay focused, come on. Fight the shock. Stay here.

"Stay here, stay with me, Invelen, fight the shock, come on now ..."

What the - how did - why - ?

There'd been light and noise and then nothing, nothing until the medic's low, urgent voice. Amieta tried to ask What happened? but suddenly her mouth was full of blood and the medic was swearing and she was -

Floating in a comfortable haze of bright light, surrounded by machines that whirred quietly. Nothing hurt. That would have been worrying, if she'd been able to worry, but the fuzzy blur that enveloped her didn't let anxiety through.

Drugs. Hospital.

I got hurt? When the shuttle crashed I - no - there was an explosion - but the shuttle ...?

"Hey, Ami, don't know if you can hear me in there." A familiar voice. A familiar face: Jan. Jan, I thought I'd never see you again. "The doctors say you'll be out of here in no time."

Jan. You shouldn't be here. This isn't -

"Out of here in no time, Commander." The lights were blindingly bright, the figures behind them a blur of darkness.

"Jan?"

"I didn't know I'd be seeing you so soon," Jan said.

The light was so bright Amieta could hardly make out his face. They were lifting her up, now, up into the light, to where her brother waited and she had a moment's piercing regret to be going, until that faded out into the light as well and she was -

"She's coming around."

It hurt, again, a lot. Amieta opened her eyes and looked up at the medics bending over her.

"Welcome back, Commander," one of them said. "Gave us a scare, there."

Beyond them she could see the roof of a shuttle. She turned her head a little. Jan was ... right there?Beyond the medics she could see a couple of marines, equipped for rescue rather than combat, and beyond them, standing in the cockpit doorway, Captain Night, with his habitual, hard-to-read expression of polite, if slightly distant, interest. Amieta thought his gaze was a little sharper than usual, though, and when their eyes met she was almost certain the corner of his mouth twitched up in what might, in anyone else, have been a smile.

"You'll feel a sharp pinch, Commander" the medic said, and Amieta did, and was out.

When she woke again, the medics were carrying her from the rescue shuttle. Jan was gone. So was Captain Night - no, there he was, at the bottom of the ramp. As she was carried past him, Amieta reached out and grabbed his hand, "I saw Jan. He was there, with me. Down there. I saw him."

Smooth, uncalloused clone fingers closed around her battered metal ones. "I believe you."

"Captain, we need to be moving," one of the medics said.

His hand tightened briefly on hers, before he released it with a nod to the medics, and stepped back.

Amieta saw the looks that passed between the medics. Gossip incoming.

Fuck it, she thought.

Some days you're entitled not to give a damn what people think.