kept going. You didn’t run a huge company without a list of assets. Ferdinand’s location was buried somewhere in this data, I just had to find it.
“Fuck, elevator incoming. Twenty seconds,” Loch whispered.
I was so deep in the data that it took Ian shaking my shoulder for me to process the words. “You go, I have to stay,” I whispered. I picked up the com and dove under the desk, being careful with the connection to the diagnostic port. I lowered the brightness on the screen until it barely emitted any light.
Ian cursed and followed me. The desk was two meters long by a meter wide, but we were both crammed as far back as we could get, which made the space feel smaller. The chair and half-height panels seemed very flimsy cover from this angle.
A man wearing an expensive suit and carrying flowers and a bottle of wine appeared on Ada’s video. He walked with purpose and didn’t so much as glance our way.
“Oh shit, that’s the husband,” Ada breathed. “Do you think he’s invited?”
I checked the video from the office. The two women did not look like they were expecting company. The door eased open, and the man entered with a smile that promptly died. “What the fuck, Carly?” he roared. I had the video muted but he was loud enough that I heard him through the wall.
“Let me know if we’re going to have to move. I’m close to finding Ferdinand,” I said.
The cable wasn’t long enough to reach from the plug under the desk to the floor, so I couldn’t set the com down and use the projected keyboard. Rather than use the on-screen keyboard, I connected the secondary com to my smart glasses. It pushed my primary com’s display into the background, but with Ian next to me, that shouldn’t be a problem.
I was well over my twenty-minute deadline by the time I found the information I was looking for. Three days ago, just a day after he was grabbed, Nando Black had been “acquired” on a space station in the sparsely populated Toucana Dwarf sector. He was listed as physically healthy but mentally unstable. He was also listed as mute. Dread curled into my stomach and made itself at home.
I scanned the files, looking for his location. He’d been tagged as a flight risk, which meant they would send him to the most dangerous, most isolated site they could find.
When I found the information, my heart stopped. I checked the file again, but the value hadn’t changed. MineCorp had sent my brother, the von Hasenberg heir, to a Rockhurst planet in the disputed Antlia sector—while we were at war.
Chapter 21
I quickly scanned the news feeds but I didn’t see any notice about Ferdinand’s capture. Would Rockhurst keep it silent if they’d found him? It could go either way, but it was more likely that they’d crow about it as a major victory.
The MineCorp records put him on Xi Antliae Dwarf Seven, the planet next door, cosmically speaking, to XAD Six where Ada had infiltrated the Rockhurst base and found they were actively mining and processing alcubium—right before Richard had captured her.
The XAD solar system was the heart of the Rockhurst stronghold in the sector. House von Hasenberg forces were concentrating around our planets, mostly in the Nu Antliae Dwarf system. Same sector, but they were so far apart it required a jump to move between them.
I pulled files to my com, taking more than I needed to hide my true intent. I also scooped up everything I could find about transport times and asset relocation.
“Something is happening,” Ada whispered furiously. “The VP’s com went off and she’s looking your way as if she’s trying to see through the wall. Time to move. Now!”
I kicked off a script to hide my tracks and unplugged the com. Ian pulled me out from under the desk and crouched down in front of me. “Climb on my back,” he said.
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and my legs around his waist. He stood and quickly moved beneath the ceiling panel we’d come down through. “Hold on,” he warned.
I tightened my grip as he leapt straight up. He popped up the ceiling panel with his left hand while his right clamped on the metal grating of the maintenance walkway. We hung in place while he slid the panel out of the way, then he used both arms to pull us up into the crawl space.