Shadow Agents Read online

  “Once we’re out of their field of view,” Siv said, “I will maneuver around to the top of the freighter and enter through their emergency airlock. Silky, you can open the emergency airlock remotely, right?”

  “I believe so, sir. I will look into it.”

  “Then I will sneak in and ambush them. As soon as I make my move, Mitsuki and Kyralla, you will burst in through the docking tube so we can catch them in a crossfire.”

  Kyralla sighed. “I see how this is easy enough in your head, but too much could go wrong, way too much.”

  “I’m a procurement specialist. Breaking in is what I do. And it doesn’t seem like too much to me.”

  “I agree this is all too risky,” Bishop said, coming onto the bridge. He looked almost as pale as Oona. “Do you have any experience with spacewalks or breaking into ships?”

  “How hard can it be?”

  Bishop slapped his forehead, and Kyralla groaned.

  “Look,” Siv said, “if I can’t get in, then we abandon the plan and fly away. But I think it’s clear now that if our enemies had people this far out searching for us in this system, there’s no way we’re getting onto Zayer Prime without a battle far more dangerous than the one we just finished. And directly approaching Titus II is out of the question.”

  Reluctantly, they all agreed. But they weren’t happy about it.

  “Sir, this is a little crazy. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always admired your ability to improvise on the fly. And I like your patented brand of nutty scheming that almost always works out. That said, we work best when we have time to plan out our crazy capers in detail.”

  “Times change, Silkster.” Siv headed toward the big locker next to the engineering station in the center of the ship. “Now, it’s time for me to learn how to use a spacesuit.” He opened the locker and stared at the spacesuit. “Pull up a user’s guide for me, please.”

  10

  Siv Gendin

  “Jamming enabled, sir. You’re good to go.”

  “Be careful, Siv!” Oona said over the comm with a worried tone.

  “Good luck!” Kyralla and Bishop called out.

  “Don’t be a hero,” Mitsuki added. “Be a smart criminal.”

  “Silky’s got my back,” Siv said. “What could go wrong?”

  “Oh, sir, should I count the ways?”

  “Don’t you dare.”

  “Oh please, sir. I love counting! I do it all the time. I’m like a super smart counter.”

  Siv rolled his eyes as he opened the emergency airlock on top of the Outworld Ranger. With the bulky spacesuit on, he could barely squeeze through the hole. Its oversized backpack kept catching on things when he didn't expect it, throwing off his normally excellent balance.

  He carefully maneuvered himself so that he could put a foot down as soon as possible. The maglock in his boot clamped to the top of the vessel. He bent down and closed the airlock.

  “Best get moving, sir. You’ve got a narrow window of opportunity.”

  The Outworld Ranger had just pulled past the bridge of the long freighter. Kyralla began rotating the ship so that their rear section could connect to the freighter’s docking tube.

  Siv bent his legs, squatting down as far as he could in the spacesuit. Its bulk made it feel as if he were wearing four of his battlesuits stacked on top of one another.

  “I feel so…”

  “Fat, sir?”

  “I was going to say awkward.”

  “I’ve studied the first spacewalks earthlings made, sir. You wouldn’t believe how bulky their suits were. Think four times bigger than this.”

  “How did they do anything in them?”

  “Clumsily? I have no idea, sir. Though obviously, they managed. Go now.”

  Siv deactivated the maglock and pushed himself outward with all the strength he could manage. He shot free from the Outworld Ranger and zipped into the depth of space.

  His breath caught as he realized he was floating free, that nothing was tethering him to anything. Panic shot through him for a moment, then faded away as he forced himself to breathe. It wasn’t that bad. The suit could propel him for up to half an hour, and he was very near a large target.

  “Those guys in the beginning, they didn’t have much in the way of spacecraft, did they?”

  “They did not, sir. If they drifted too far off, they were simply gone.”

  “They must’ve been terrified doing this.”

  “I imagine they only sent out the brave, sir. Feeling scared?”

  “A little, even though there’s a ship nearby that can easily fly over and rescue me. I can’t imagine how I’d feel knowing no one could pick me up if something went wrong.”

  “Shitless? Activating thrusters, sir.”

  Air jets on the suit’s backpack altered his trajectory. As he zoomed above the freighter, Silky activated the jets again, arcing him downward and forward, back toward the bridge.

  Once he was near where he needed to be, he caught on to a docking spine and pulled himself in. His feet struck, and he activated the maglock. The emergency airlock was only five meters away.

  “Nice steering, Silkster.”

  “Thank you, sir. But it wasn’t my first time, and I am quite clever.”

  “I assume Dad never did this.”

  “Eyana, sir. Several times. She had your boldness. But unlike you, she had gone through training for this sort of thing.”

  Siv stomped clumsily toward the airlock. He worried they would hear his footsteps but reminded himself it was highly unlikely given the thickness of the freighter’s hull. He reached the airlock and was pleased to discover it was twice as big as the one on the Outworld Ranger. That should make infiltrating significantly easier.

  As Silky went to work, he radioed the others on their secure channel. “I’m in position.”

  “We’re about to begin the docking procedure,” Kyralla responded.

  The door to the freighter’s emergency airlock unclamped, a puff of air escaping into space.

  “You’re good to go, sir.”

  Siv checked the locator on his HUD. It showed four of the men inside moving from the freighter’s bridge toward the docking tube where the Outworld Ranger had just pulled up.

  “Confident in your readings?”

  “Well over ninety percent, sir. Are you concerned about Oona’s vision?”

  “A little.” He sighed. “Life was easier before we were dealing with mystical teenagers.”

  “Yes, but don’t you think everything was starting to feel a little too routine?”

  “You’re an adventurer at heart, Silkster.”

  “It’s what I was designed for, sir.”

  “Okay then, let’s do this.” He radioed the others. “I’m going in.”

  Siv bent down and lifted the hatch. He peeked inside. Everything looked normal. He crawled into the airlock, found the ladder to climb down, and closed the hatch behind him. When he reached the bottom, Silky activated the seal on the airlock, pressurizing the chamber.

  “You can take off the suit now, sir.”

  Siv released the catch on his helmet, but then thought better of it and resealed it. “You know, just in case they’ve caught on somehow, I think I’ll wear it until I’m outside the airlock.”

  He trudged forward and opened the door leading into a storage area. Crates of nutrition blocks, spare parts, and repair equipment lay in haphazard stacks. He stepped into the darkly lit room, and the door to the airlock slid closed behind him.

  The overhead lights flashed on, and he stood face-to-face with a slender, female Ekisian aiming a heavy blaster pistol at his head. She twisted the shimmering, meter-long shock-blade she held with her other hand, making sure he noticed it. As if he could have missed it.

  Ekisians were one of the few unquestionably alien species within the Terran Federation. With most species, like wakyrans, it wasn’t always clear whether they were true aliens or humans the Benevolence had genetically altered in the early centuries
of galactic colonization, as it had done with gizmets and engers. Some thought that wakyrans, in particular, had been uplifted from a more primitive species. Records of such activities, however, had never been made publicly available, so no one knew for sure.

  Like all the members of her species, the Ekisian woman had parchment skin, a broad yet flat face, a stubby nose with three wide nostrils, blue hair, and black, bulbous eyes. Siv found it difficult to distinguish one Ekisian from another. Most humans did. Ekisian physical differences were subtle to outsiders, and they primarily discerned individual characteristics among their own kind through scents and sounds.

  This one was easily recognizable though, thanks to the crisscrossing scars that marred her face.

  “Zetta,” Siv muttered in disbelief. “This is rotten luck.”

  “For you, maybe.” A wicked grin spread all the way across her face, and then she licked her pale lips with a dark purple tongue. “For me, it is best.”

  “Sorry, sir. Oona was right the first time. I don’t know how I could have missed Zetta…again. I thought I had her figured out.”

  Zetta wore a plain, dark brown tunic over a pair of tan pants. She had a holster for her gun, and a scabbard slung over her back. If there was any armor plating beneath the spider-mesh clothing, it wasn't obvious. He doubted there was. Zetta didn't like to be slowed down. She also didn't use any always-active tech that could make her traceable. She didn't even own a chippy. Of course, she wasn't opposed to using other types of advanced gadgets when the need arose. Usually, the blaster aimed at his face was the most advanced tech she carried.

  This carefulness, along with the fact that Ekisians were coldblooded and could slow their heartbeats, made her difficult to detect in sensor scans. What made Zetta practically impossible to pinpoint, though, was a mystery.

  “Sir, I’m contacting the others to let them know something’s gone wrong. I suggest stalling her if you can.”

  “I thought you might pull something like this, Gendin,” she hissed.

  “You waited out here on the edge of this system for me?”

  “Informants on many vessels. One contacted me. He gets paid. Lucky I’m already in area on other job when bounty comes through. Told myself, Gendin smart. Never go straight to Titus system. Go Zayer first. I gamble. I win.”

  Siv stared down the barrel then glanced at the sword again. There wasn’t much he could do wearing the bulky spacesuit with his weapons all tucked inside a storage compartment in the backpack. His force-shield was strapped to his arm beneath the suit, but that wasn’t going to be enough.

  “Two years it has been?” Zetta asked.

  “Two too few.”

  She smiled. “You did not enjoy our last mission?”

  Zetta knew damn well he hadn’t. The Shadowslip had hired her for an assassination, and it had been Siv’s job to aid her in planning and to serve as backup in case something went wrong. He had always refused kill missions, and Big Boss D had respected that, up to a point. He saw no problem making Siv help someone else carry out one. He and Zetta had not gotten along, and not just because Siv hated the very idea of the mission.

  “Sir, I calibrated all my sensors to pick her up last time.” Silky groaned. “I shouldn’t even have had to do that. It’s not like we didn’t deal with any Ekisians back in the day. Eyana took part in the quelling of the rebellion on Ekisia.”

  “She’s good at what she does.”

  “But how is she masking her body signature this well—again? You’re looking at her, yet she’s still invisible on all our scans. Hmm, maybe it’s something in the fiber of her clothes or—”

  “Find a way to get me out of this, and then you can figure out how she did it.”

  “You wonder how you scan missed me?” Zetta asked. “You chippy think he not so smart after all, eh?”

  “It had crossed my mind. And it’s driving him crazy.”

  “Too bad. Is secret I take to grave.”

  “I can help you get there.”

  Zetta frowned. “Gendin, why you always so mean? I am not hurting you.”

  “You’re not going to kill me?” he asked incredulously.

  She shook her head. “Kill others. Except for little girl and Reel. Big money for turn them in. Especially girl. Worth three fortunes. I retire for life, have harem men do my everything for me.”

  She backed up a step, standing just far enough away that he'd never be able to get to her before she could shoot him. Keeping the gun pointed at him, she sheathed her blade then reached into a pocket with that hand, drawing out a drug injector.

  His eyes went wide and a deep ache he’d suppressed for a week, with a lot of help from Octavian’s medications, awoke within him. His eyes watered, saliva flooded his mouth, his heart rate increased.

  “Is Kompel, see. You say, ‘I own you bitch,’ yes?”

  11

  Vega Kaleeb

  The Spinner’s Blade, a bullet-shaped starship of the Infiltrator class, dropped out of hyperspace and cruised into the edge of the Ekaran system. The matte black, diamondine hull absorbed nearly all the light that struck it so that the ship merged with the dark of space and only the stars it blotted out revealed its presence.

  The exceedingly rare Infiltrators—equipped with cloaking technology, dual-lasers, and the most advanced countermeasures available—were designed to transport Forward and Empathic Services agents on dangerous missions into enemy territory. While intended for a crew of up to three, the Spinner’s Blade carried only a single android and his sky-blade combat companion.

  Vega woke up from his daily, hour-long nap, his cache memory sorted, his subroutines optimized, with all of his operative systems checked for errors. Finding himself in optimum health, he unplugged the cable leading from a port on the small ship’s surprisingly large flux capacitor to the socket on his chest where a human heart would have been located.

  His built-in power pack, protected by a diamondine box beneath his reinforced titanium ribcage, now held a full charge that could sustain him for a year of regular activity or three months of intense action. He zipped up his flight suit and pressed a button, causing the cable to retract into the outlet.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t have access to an unlimited power source like Faisal did. The ultimate goal of the experiment allowing the 9G-x models to tap directly into flux space had been to give androids limitless “hearts.”

  But that access had caused rampant instabilities in the 9G-x models, leading to all but two, that he knew of, being scrapped. However, those two had gained tremendously from their direct exposure to flux space, finding their capabilities enhanced. The Benevolence, in its seemingly ultimate wisdom, had abandoned the project.

  Vega marched the five meters from the engineering station near the center of the ship to the cramped cockpit. Now that he no longer had Gyring riding along, he was considering dumping the other two seats and stations.

  He dropped into the command chair and called up a favorite movie from two hundred years ago, one he’d seen a dozen times. He would’ve preferred something new, but modern flicks never did anything for him.

  “Faisal, let me know when you’ve got something. I’m going to—”

  “Boss, I’ve already broken into the secure channel for the Shadowslip Guild. I can patch you into their leader whenever you’re ready.”

  “Damn, Faisal, that was fast!”

  “I’d love to take all the cred, boss. But I didn’t do anything special. There was already a back channel in place, allowing emergency access to their command group. It wasn’t being used, and I’m certain they don’t know about it. Highly secret, highly elegant.”

  “Then how did you find it so quickly?”

  “That’s what disturbs me, boss. Whoever did it used the same method I always use for such occasions. It’s as if I’d broken in before and had opened up access to their network.”

  “Sounds impressive.”

  “Too impressive for my tastes, boss. You’d need a damned good h
acker for this, with a deep understanding of how the networks function at the root level. And I didn’t think anyone was capable of this sort of work, this elegantly, anymore. Save for me. But maybe some standard 9G’s out there with the right programming could do it.”

  “Is this going to pose a problem?”

  “No, we’re good, boss.”

  “Okay then. Patch me through. Video feed.”

  A micro-camera on the ship console in front of him began recording. Despite being half a light year from the planet, his echo space connection to the network would allow instantaneous communication.

  “Who will I be talking to?”

  “Big Boss D, boss.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I wouldn’t make up something that lame, boss.”

  “Make sure I can see him.”

  Vega put on his most intimidating expression and waited while Faisal directly called the leader of the Shadowslip Guild on Ekaran IV. He always loved this part of the game.

  A giant of a man trembling with rage appeared within his HUD. He was behind a desk in a dark room filled with smoke. Vega could see little else since the man took up so much of his camera’s view.

  “Big Boss D?” Vega asked.

  “Who the hell are you?! And how did you get access to my c|slate?”

  “I am Vega Kaleeb. And I have access because I wanted access.”

  Big Boss D went rigid, his eyes flaring with surprise. “I…uh…didn’t…um…recognize you, Mr. Kaleeb.”

  “How would you have?”

  “I…I don’t know.”

  “I will give you a moment.”

  “Right, thank you.” The man frowned. “A moment for what?”

  “To find an image to verify my identity.”

  “Right.”

  Faisal regularly scrubbed images of Vega from the galactic net, but always left a few on sites regularly accessed by criminal guilds looking for bounty hunters. It was difficult to intimidate people who didn’t recognize you.

  “You appear to be…um…you. But I…I am not sure what can I do for you Mr. Kaleeb. I’m not authorized to negotiate on behalf of the Shadowslip.”