a response, “There are exactly zero commercial flights out of this shithole. Three days from now a merc ship is leaving for the nearest station, but for reasons that should be obvious, that’s not our best option.”
“Is that the bad or the worse? Wait, did you do a sweep of this stuff to make sure it’s clean?”
“That’s the bad news. And yes, I checked for bugs, all of it is clean. The worse news is that Rockhurst’s team landed two hours ago. So far they don’t seem to have alerted the locals to who they’re searching for, but it may only be a matter of time.”
“They landed the Santa Celestia here and no one blinked an eye?” Yamado may have left the planet to the mercs and smugglers, but that didn’t mean they’d overlook a rival House landing a battle cruiser on their planet, worthless or not.
“No, they left the Santa Celestia in space. It’s too large to land here. They’re in a smaller unflagged merc ship, probably one they kept in the Santa Celestia’s hangar for covert planet landings.”
Mercenaries weren’t required to flag their ships to one of the High Houses unless they wanted to announce that they were under that House’s protection, so an unflagged ship wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. It was the perfect cover to land on an enemy planet, and one that House von Hasenberg had been known to use as well.
Could I buy a ship before Rockhurst’s men found me? Possibly, but it wouldn’t be easy. “I don’t suppose you bought an extra com while you were out?” I asked. I was sorely tempted to yell at him for leaving me alone while I was sleeping, but it wasn’t his job to be my babysitter. I should’ve woken the moment he moved. The fact that I hadn’t meant I’d been in much worse shape than I’d realized.
He gestured to the floor near the top of the bed. I slid over until I could see where he was pointing. My pack sat with yesterday’s clothes folded on top. On top of that was a small com tablet like the one Loch was using. It was a cheap, mass-produced model. I had a moment of silence for the top-of-the-line unit I’d left on the station where I was captured.
Thin, handheld devices made of glass and metal, coms were the glue that held the universe together. I’d felt naked for the last couple days without mine. This one was produced by a Yamado subsidiary, so it was in no way secure. I reset it, touched my right thumb and pinky finger together, then held the com up to the tiny chip embedded in my right arm.
The tablet chirped, then the screen lit up with Welcome, Irena. Irena was one of my middle names and Irena Hasan was a burner identity that hadn’t yet been compromised. This tablet now belonged to her, along with all of her accounts that had been linked from the chip in my arm.
The tablet synced to both local and Universal Time. Because the sun never set on this planet, they had conveniently decided to stick with Universal Time. It was approaching noon. I had a feeling that my internal clock was going to have a hard time adjusting to constant twilight.
I checked my messages and found several from my older sister Bianca. I tried to keep her informed of my aliases and whereabouts, at least in general terms. In return, she let me know where House security was searching for me.
Hannah and Bianca were my two oldest sisters. Neither had married happily and they didn’t want their little sister to suffer the same fate. They’d quietly cheered my escape and funneled me money on the sly.
Bianca’s messages contained neither names nor specifics, but I knew everyone at home was fine just from the way they were written. However, there was an undercurrent of unease and an implicit plea for caution. That was worrisome.
I sent off a quick reply, letting her know in very oblique terms that Rockhurst was after me but that I was okay. We were both using insecure alias accounts, so there had to be a lot of reading between the lines.
I checked the news feeds and didn’t find any mention of unusual Rockhurst activity. If they were willing to risk House von Hasenberg’s wrath to capture me, I assumed that we were on the brink of war. Instead, it seemed like business as usual—a tense, hostile truce hidden behind a facade