Dragonfly (3 page)

In the corner near the blast doors, half in the Starshine’s shadow where the setting sun shone onto the hardstand, stood my new ship. An old Phoenix-class dart, about as big as a hovertrain carriage, with a sharp nose and twin side fins sweeping back to a scalloped stern. The Phoenix was swift, reliable, simple and responsive to fly. But the nose on this one was flattened, its dented bodywork patched together from a dozen different ships in a dozen different shades of filthy. The stealthplate tiles designed to hide the ship from unwanted sensor sweeps were mostly missing, and dark corrosion patches stained the fins and cracked the anodized surface. Someone had blown a hole in one fin, just for realism, and the energy exhaust vents at the back were chipped and seared with atomflash.

Whoever I was pretending to be got shot at a lot. I just hoped the inside was better than the outside, or it’d be a long ride to Esperanza.

Onyx grinned, pleased with her handiwork. “Aragon, meet the starship
RapidFire.
She fly true, even if she look like shit.”

My home for the next eleven days. Excellent.

4

RapidFire
turned out to be better than she looked. The main cabin was neat, the white plastic walls a bit dented but clean, and the separate sleeping cabin at the back smelled fresh. The navset wasn’t the latest, but it was new, hardly a scratch on the glass console, and the ion drives ran smooth as air.

I spent an hour or two testing everything, flashing the arc rockets and disinfecting the air scrubbers and running diagnostics on the life-support computers. All systems functioning. I checked the weapons cache too, making sure the plasma charges were full, no expired atomflashes or dirty contacts on the shock grenades. Our hardware people were competent; I didn’t expect problems. But if I’d learned one thing from Malachite, it was
trust no one but yourself.

Once I had everything the way I liked it, I grabbed my stuff from the locker room, sealed the airlocks and prepped the console for departure. No need to hang around. I was still packed from my trip to the pleasure resort—could be I’d need a thong bikini at Esperanza—and it wasn’t like I had anyone waiting for me at my apartment. Besides, I didn’t fancy another visit from Surov’s black ops goons, and the longer I stayed, the more perilous my position became. Renko could find me out any moment, and if she even suspected I was thinking about defying her, I’d be doing the filing in a dusty vault with my clearances revoked before the day was out.

I strapped myself into the carbonsteel command chair, the three-point harness tight over my shoulders. The glass console glowed silver and blue as I manipulated the controls. Propulsion, fuel, gravity, life support, nav sensors. Datastreams climbed like columns of green fireflies, showing me engine sensors, tactical schematics, slipspace equations.

I selected control frequency on the etherwave comms, and thumbed the contact. “Axis Arclight, this is
RapidFire
, Phoenix on platform six-five, flightplan delta one epsilon. Request departure vectors.”

A crackle of etherstatic, and a deep male voice came on. “
RapidFire
, this is Arclight, affirm. Cleared on vector one-seven-five, departure pattern theta.”

Sexy voice. I resisted the temptation to ask him what he was wearing. “One-seven-five theta, Arclight. Have a nice day.”

The blast doors ground aside, scarlet sunlight pouring in, and I kicked the arc rockets alight and speared out into the traffic. Wind buffeted the ship as I climbed on my assigned departure trajectory, rockets howling. Particle coolants hissed as the ion stardrive accelerated to escape speed. My clearview windows dimmed, polarizing to block out UV and sunflash. The thinning atmosphere gave one last golden glimmer and broke to black.

My butt lifted in the chair as the console chimed the escape velocity warning, and I killed the rockets and spiraled sunward on stardrive, the smoky red globe of New Russiya receding in the rear clearview.

I’d seen the view a hundred times. Normally I didn’t think much of it, but today it invigorated me, the stars misting into sight beyond that dusky twinkling planet I now called home. Here I was, just a girl from some grotty farm world, off on another mission to save the Empire. It seemed naive, but I couldn’t deny the thrill sparkling through my body, the navset’s static-charged warmth under my fingertips, the excitement pulsing in my blood. I was alive. I was making a difference. And that’s more than anyone else on that grotty farm world could say.

Not that they talked to me any more. The last conversation I’d had with my father, right before I ran away to join the marines, had involved yelling and tears and the words
traitor
and
collaborator
. I just wanted a decent life, proper food and an education. But my parents were separatists, opposed to Imperial expansion, and they’d disowned me.

I still missed my family: Mom, Dad, Janey and little chubby-cheeked Will, who’d be grown into a young man by now and breaking hearts with his big brown eyes. For all I knew, they were dead, starved or frozen or killed in a food riot. But they were the ones who wouldn’t return my calls. I’d given them the chance to support me, and they’d thrown it back in my face. I was sorry they were gone. But I wasn’t losing any sleep over it.

I glanced out the clearview again, where stars glittered golden in fading sunset swirls, and smiled.

Once I’d cleared Moskovi space and passed the last departure beacon, I set an evasive course for Esperanza. Straight lines had landed me in trouble before, and even though it was difficult to track a ship through slipspace, if anyone was watching for my arrival I didn’t want it to be too obvious where I’d come from.

Besides, to say I wasn’t keen to see Malachite again would be a cosmic understatement. Damn it if he wasn’t already in my mind, in the way my sweaty fingers slipped as I entered the course coordinates. I’d avoided thinking about him for six years, but now the memories came flooding back to swamp me. Malachite has gentle, precise fingers, a lilting voice I could listen to all day, a smile that weakens my knees. He smells of something exotic and mysterious that drives me wild. He’s funny, charming, a good listener, embarrassingly good in bed. The bastard can even cook.

It’s ironic how attraction blinds us to the bleeding obvious. When Malachite left me to burn on that dying prison hulk, my oxygen depleted and my rifle’s last laser charge half-empty, the only one left wondering why was me.

I dragged the last coordinate across the glass a little too hard, scorching my fingertip. The past didn’t matter any more. I was smarter now. I’d be frosty, professional, detached. I wouldn’t fall for his lies. We’d bring Dragonfly down and I’d walk away. Right?

A trigger on my console flashed, indicating transition velocity, and I confirmed the nav course equations and engaged slipspace drive. The air in the cabin glowed momentarily red like sunset, and in the clearview window the stars winked out.

Bumps prickled my arms, and I turned up the heating. Slipspace is dark and motionless. There are no streaking stars or swirling mist as you hurtle on, faster than light, through the slit you’ve made in space–time. No visible light, no color, no sensation of movement. It’s an in-between place, a wacky warp-assed dimension where relativity doesn’t ruin all the fun. But stay there too long and you’ll lose your mind.

I rolled down the clearview shutters—all that
nothing
gives me the shivers—locked on to the nearest navnode and hit the automatics.

Long ago, the first slipspace travelers left beacons to find their way, and, with a bit of Imperial maintenance, their ancient tech still works. These days, slipspace navigation is like following the strands of a four-dimensional cosmic spider’s web. You can’t always travel the shortest route, and straying too far from the beacons is asking for trouble. It’s a bit tedious, but it’s the only way. Get disoriented out here and you could disappear forever.

Corporations will pay millions to get an exclusive on a new streamlined slipspace trade route, and if you’re the suicidally reckless type, you can make a very good living mapping out new beacons. But beacon jockeys don’t usually get to enjoy their riches for very long. They strike off into the black unknown and don’t come back. Some say that slipspace is a dimension humans were never meant to navigate.

Bullshit, if you ask me. There’s nothing out there. Maybe they get lost, disoriented, too far from any beacon to recover. Maybe their ships malfunction or their fuel depletes beyond return. Or maybe their minds crack, out there all alone in endless silent darkness.

Sometimes, death just happens.

With the nav neurospace keeping
RapidFire
safely on the slipspace web, and drive coolant humming softly beneath the floor, I opened a bottle of fruit juice—you can tell when the galley’s been stocked by a woman—and slouched back into the command chair to read my omega briefing and get my mind off what I’d say to Malachite.

Curiosity itched me about this mission. Something had tasted odd when I’d swallowed Director Renko’s story. I’d visited Casa de Esperanza before: a glitzy space station on the Imperial fringe, run by Empire-sanctioned mob bosses with freightloads of cash. Gambling, guns, drugs, black biotech—anyone with enough imagination who wants something done away from the spotlight goes to Esperanza. It’s a luxury pleasure palace for high rollers, a place where if you have to ask how much, you can’t afford it. Many negotiations, legitimate or otherwise, go on there. First, it’s nominally neutral. And second, Esperanza’s security is notoriously infallible. The vault has one of the nastiest reputations in the galaxy for impregnability, and the mob aren’t known for mercy toward those who piss them off. Attempting a heist there is a suicide mission.

It didn’t sit right with me. I knew how Dragonfly’s mind worked. The man was a coward with an inflated opinion of his own importance, surrounded by sycophants and brainwashed disciples. The night my team was massacred, he’d burned Urumki City and murdered hundreds of people so he could get away. As much as he loved to embarrass the Empire, I didn’t think he’d be prepared to kill himself to do it. He had plenty of people ready to kill themselves for him.

More likely, Dragonfly wanted to muscle in on the mob action the Empire took such a large piece of, and Renko wanted it stopped. I guessed I’d see when I got there.

I brushed my hand above the little projected display and text scrolled. The surrendering rebel colony in sector five was called Santa Maria, a tiny system of agricultural and mining worlds a long way from anywhere, headed by a politician named Alvarado. I’d never heard of either of them. No apparent connection to Dragonfly.

Intelligence division fixed me up with a false identity for the mission. My name, apparently, is Lazuli. Sounds like a showy parody of an Imperial codename, which makes me either a rebel or a smart-ass. I’m a young thief with a growing résumé of impressive jobs, itching to get in on something bigger. I’m ex-military, probably where I learned my tricks, but I don’t like telling people because it makes me look uncool. No insurrection history yet, but I lost friends in the marines, and my parents died in our colony’s forced surrender. So sad.

I’m Rus by birth and my Brit sucks, so I’d better remember to speak it with an accent. I’m a crypto expert, they say, which means I’m probably too smart to have much common sense and not too hot at the physical stuff, like getting in and out. Could be handy. Rumor has it Dragonfly has a histrionic gallant streak, thinks he’s some hero in ultraglass armor. Maybe I could use a bit of rescuing from time to time.

I’m hetero, a non-smoker, a vegetarian. My favorite drink is the Lvov martini, and I use oblivion crystals, but only when I’m not on the job. I’m right-handed—good thing Aragon is too—and I’m a quick shot with my favourite weapon, the Molokovsky SK-195X, better known as shatterfire junior or the shatterjay, a delightful little close-range fingergun that slots minuscule slivers of hot ultraglass into the target’s blood vessels. I’ve killed four people in the course of my career, and I’m only just getting started.

Charming, aren’t I?

5

Forty-four hours later, I docked
RapidFire
at Casa de Esperanza.

The station—Esperanza for short—is two great sparkling spires laid end to end, spearing through the centre of a shining ring that holds the spaceports. The whole thing spins slowly, three and a half revolutions a day, and in space you can see its lights from eight hundred spacials away.

The briefing told me to be at the Spire North tarocchi room at twenty-two hundred local, so I only had a few hours to adjust to the gravity, shower, and get my bearings. I could have checked into a suite—the rooms at Esperanza are palatial, and normally only the owners of the most luxurious space yachts would want to stay on their ships—but I wanted to prepare for a swift departure if necessary, so I remained aboard
RapidFire
and ordered up a ridiculously expensive meal of real shellfish on company cash.

My new wardrobe was tailored to my new identity. I whipped my hair up in a twist, squeezed into a tight black evening dress that ended a hand’s-breadth shy of my knees, and slipped on a pair of black stilettos. My permanent make-up tint is only light, and I figured Lazuli for a glamor girl, so I chose a sparkling silver shadow for her eyelids and a lipstick called Frosted Mocha Plum. Someone had thoughtfully slipped a little suite of diamonds into her kit—a choker and a pair of teardrops, nothing too flashy—so I put those on too.

I wasn’t usually nervous before heading into the field, but tonight my mouth felt dry, my guts twisted up. I checked my flushed face in the mirror, trying not to hyperventilate, and washed a couple of beta-blockers down with OJ so my hands wouldn’t shake. I hated both Malachite and Dragonfly more than ever for making me like this.

Now, I lounged stiffly at the bar in the tarocchi room, where crystal chandeliers shone like sun clusters over the black carpet. Players in tuxedos and cocktail dresses leaned over the velvet-edged card tables, gaudy jewelry dripping. Metal chips flipped back and forth, the black-suited croupiers spreading and collecting the bets almost too rapidly for me to follow the game. When the smallest chip is ten thousand sols, time really is money.