Supremacy's Outlaw: A Space Opera Thriller Series (Insurgency Saga Book 3) Page 3

  “I did. She didn’t feel it was sufficient. I told her the nanos were not necessary, but she didn’t really care.”

  Jan nodded with professional respect. His new employers were going with the old classic: “good cop, bad cop.” Senator Tarack, obviously bad, had forced Jan to inject himself with torture nanos, but Bharat, obviously good, didn’t approve.

  Naturally, the good cop would be his partner in this endeavor. Assuming Tarack actually kept her word after Jan found her data disc, he and Bharat would amicably part ways after Bharat disabled Jan’s torture nanos. And assuming Tarack didn’t keep her word, Bharat probably had orders to kill him.

  Jan set their impending struggle to the death aside. First, he’d find Tarack’s disc. Then he’d speak to Fatima and shoot her in the head. Everything after that was a pair of rolling dice, but at least he’d finally know the answer to the question that had haunted him every day locked in an orbital prison.

  Why the woman as close to him as a sister had betrayed him.

  “We didn’t have a lot of time to talk on Tarack’s yacht,” Bharat said. “Do you have any questions before we land?”

  Jan had an awful lot of questions, actually, but he kept most to himself. “Why not remotely delete Tarack’s disc?”

  Bharat nodded as if relieved Jan had asked. “We tried that. We can’t find it. Whoever took it must have it in a Faraday box, because otherwise, it would have reported home by now.”

  “Doesn’t Tarack have a backup?”

  “Sure, but that doesn’t mean she wants another copy floating around on Ceto. It’s not that she’s lost the information. It’s that someone might find it, and subsequently not pay her for it.”

  “Fair,” Jan said. “So we need not necessarily recover the disc intact, so long as we can verify it has been destroyed.”

  “I suppose.” Bharat frowned. “Do you plan to destroy it?”

  “Just weighing my options.”

  “Right,” Bharat said. “Speaking of options, I don’t plan to micromanage you. I wouldn’t set foot on Ceto unless I was confident you could actually find the Golden Widow.”

  The wind outside was a steady whistle now. Jan opened his eyes. “So you will do as I suggest?”

  “So long as your suggestions don’t include crossing Senator Tarack, I will follow your lead. Just remember we’re on a timetable. Tarack expects results. If we don’t give those to her quickly enough ...”

  “She grows bored.” Jan kept smiling. “We would not want our lovely employer to become bored, yes?”

  Bharat stared at the seat across from them as if it had insulted his beard. “You have no idea what she’s capable of.”

  That sounded far more truthful than Jan expected, and Jan wondered then if Bharat truly was an aberration among his people: an Advanced who despised Tarack’s casual cruelty. Perhaps jobs on Phorcys were as difficult to find as jobs on Ceto. Perhaps shitty employers were shitty employers on both planets.

  Still, good man or not, Bharat was a problem, and no one survived long in Jan’s line of work by ignoring problems. For now, at least, they were allies, and Jan would give his captor every sign that he was cowed, subservient, and loyal.

  At least until he found someone capable of cutting that PBA out of Bharat’s head and using it to disable the torture nanos.

  Eight hours later, on a surprisingly sunny and cheerful early morning, Jan Sabato stood once again on his home soil, in Duskdale, in the Sledge: where he and Fatima had grown up. It still didn’t seem real. He still couldn’t believe he was back on Ceto again, breathing shitty, dusty Ceto air again.

  Over the five years he’d spent in prison, he’d given up on ever standing here again. It was only now, in a run-down slum where the average person would knife you as easily as tell you the time of day, that Jan realized how much he’d missed home. And, more importantly, how much he’d missed taverns.

  Even in the Sledge, there were a few decently safe watering holes if one knew where to look. The Dustup, on the main strip. Stacy’s, just off the main strip. Even the Kicking Bronto could be fun if you tipped the bartenders and kept your hands off the waitstaff and didn’t, you know, stab anyone.

  The Greasy Bowsprit, by comparison, was about as far from those establishments as any bar that hadn’t literally burned down could be. It was not clean, it was not safe, and the local CSD didn’t bother coming down here for anything less than a multiple homicide or a riot involving, at minimum, thirty people.

  That made the Bowsprit precisely the place Polina Rostov — or Pollen, as she happily called herself — would feel at home, which meant soon Jan would either be crushed in a painful bear hug ... or dead. It could go either way in the Greasy Bowsprit.

  Bharat looked a bit nonplussed. “So ... this is a tavern?”

  Jan admitted it was a fair question. The building across the street looked more like a dilapidated military bunker. Bullet holes pockmarked what biocrete wasn’t covered by armored plates on the Bowsprit’s front wall. In front of that lay a man who was either dead or extremely passed out, slumped against a busted hydrant and covered in dried vomit.

  What had probably been glass windows had been shattered and welded over long before Jan had popped out of his mother. There were actual autocars parked out front, if one could call burned-out skeletal husks that had been stripped of everything save their molecular structure cars. The sidewalk was cracked everywhere.

  Still, the sign above the door was pleasant, a curvy female silhouette with both long legs wrapped around an extremely phallic wooden pole. The sign was pink and purple neon and one hundred percent holographic, which was the only reason it hadn’t been stolen, pulled down, or shot out by the Bowsprit’s clientele. Its patrons consisted almost exclusively of thieves, drug dealers, hired killers, and, on occasion, a lawyer.

  “They do serve drinks,” Jan said. “Shall we?” He looked to Bharat for permission. He didn’t cross the street.

  Bharat frowned so hard it furrowed his beard. “You don’t have to clear things with me every time you take a piss, Sabato. I told you, I’ll follow your lead.”

  “Ah,” Jan said, allowing himself a smile. “Then please, if you would, try not to kill anyone inside.”

  “Why would I ...” Bharat started, but Jan was already walking across the deserted morning street.

  Jan savored the feeling of freshly laundered clothes. The first thing he’d had Bharat do after they landed was take him shopping for something that wasn’t a flight suit. Jan now wore hiking boots, a pair of weathered cargo pants, a loose cotton shirt, and a brown vest with only a few obvious stains.

  Bharat wore frayed jeans, another pair of hiking boots, and a short-sleeved muscle shirt that looked damn good on him. Jan had no expectation of getting laid — as Bharat had pointed out, Jan wasn’t his type — but Bharat’s shirt-straining physique might discourage the casual asshole from trying to take his stuff.

  Once Jan reached the Bowsprit’s front door, he waited in silence, searching the shadowed alleys on either side for hungry pickpockets or bored murderers. Neither stirred, which wasn’t surprising for eight in the morning. There was a very good chance the entirety of the Bowsprit was still passed out from whatever shenanigans had occurred last night, which made early morning the best time to slip inside without being shot.

  Jan tilted his head, just once, in the direction of the northern alley. Bharat nodded. Jan didn’t actually hear Bharat following, which suggested the man could move in a good approximation of sneakiness. Encouraging.

  Once in the shadow of the alley, Jan skirted piles of broken bottles and discarded food containers, stepped right over one passed-out body, and then sidestepped another — no, that one was definitely dead — before stopping by the Bowsprit’s very locked service door. It was thick enough to stop a decent bomb.

  There was no keypad beside the door — just a plated-over hole in the wall — but no man who had invested as heavily in the Bowsprit’s bottom line as Jan would ever be t
urned away. He beckoned for the palm-sized transmitter they’d purchased before coming here, took it from Bharat, and booted it up.

  He scanned for local signals until he found the Bowsprit’s data network — appropriately titled Don’t Even Fucking Try, Asshole — and connected. A password prompt appeared.

  “So,” Jan said, as his fingers hovered over the projected keyboard. “In one moment, I’ll enter my personal secret passcode. When that happens, one of two things will occur.”

  “Right,” Bharat said. “Which things?”

  “One. This door will pop quietly open, and the two of us will slip inside, equally as quietly.”

  “Sounds good,” Bharat said. “What’s the other thing?”

  “We will explode.”

  Bharat watched him for a moment. “How the hell are we going to explode, Sabato?”

  Jan pointed down. “Antipersonnel mines.”

  Bharat’s eyes went very wide. “In the bloody biocrete?”

  “Where else would one bury them?”

  “And you don’t think it’d be better to try your passcode from, I don’t know, the bloody street?”

  “The code must be entered in proximity to the door, here,” Jan explained, as if to a small child, “because any access attempt from farther away than that will alert the very hungover security guards inside, who will, it being far earlier than they are comfortable with, emerge and shoot us.”

  Bharat glowered at him. “And you didn’t think I should wait on the street while you tried the code?”

  Jan smiled agreeably. “Given your employer forced me to inject myself with torture nanos, I simply enjoy your company.”

  “You know—” Bharat started, then flinched as Jan punched in a series of keypresses. “The fuck, man?”

  Jan waited. Nothing exploded. After a moment, the Bowsprit’s side door clicked open.

  “And we live to drink another day,” Jan said. “Inside.”

  “After we get done here,” Bharat whispered, as Jan pushed the door open and slipped inside, “we are going to have a very long talk about acceptable risk threshold.”

  Once inside, an audible series of metallic clicks announced the side door locking itself in multiple ways, which was just what it had done the dozens of other times Jan had slipped into the Bowsprit to avoid the authorities. No alarms, no shooting, and no blood. So far, so good, and so dark.

  Jan let his eyes adjust to the gloom inside the Bowsprit, as there were no windows in the central hallway. It led straight to the kitchen (or what passed for a kitchen in a bar like the Greasy Bowsprit) and if Tiana Johnson — the Bowsprit’s battle-scarred proprietress — hadn’t remodeled in the last five years, the stairs to the right would lead up to the public sleeping quarters. They were a duo of bunk-filled rooms, which Tiana made available to anyone too drunk to get home without passing out.

  Jan heard audible snoring from upstairs — a good sign — but nothing from farther into the bar, which could be good if no one was passed out in there. Unfortunately, they’d have to slip through the kitchen to get to the actual living quarters on the upper floor, where Tiana and her security staff bunked, and that should include Pollen — assuming she hadn’t quit, of course.

  Jan started forward and beckoned Bharat after him.

  Still, Jan couldn’t imagine Polina Rostov sleeping anywhere but this shithole. Tiana had raised Pollen from a pup after her parents cashed in their chips in a mine collapse, and the only thing more legendary than Pollen’s loyalty to those she loved was her brutality toward those who crossed them. After a boastful gangster made the mistake of battering Tiana’s niece, Jan had watched Pollen pop the man’s eyes out by squeezing his face rather hard ... and that had been one of her nicer murders.

  They were almost to the closed kitchen doors when a door slammed loudly in the hallway perpendicular to theirs. Jan slapped himself up against the left wall and found Bharat had mirrored his motion as smoothly as if they’d rehearsed, which was another encouraging sign. Bharat seemed like he’d be useful in a brawl, assuming whatever happened if they ran into someone turned into a brawl and not, instead, attempted murder.

  Heavy, unconcerned footsteps creaked in the hallway, and Jan reflexively checked his weapons. Bharat had bought him a brace of slim throwing knives (currently holstered in a belt concealed beneath Jan’s untucked shirt) but sidearms were illegal without the proper paperwork, so no help there. If it came to a fight, Jan would use knives. Quiet was always better than loud.

  A shirtless white man about a half-head taller than Jan stumbled into view, bleary-eyed and obviously puzzled by the zipper on his pants. Jan froze against the wall, not daring to breathe, as the man burped loudly, scratched himself, and stumbled into a turn that left him staring at Jan and Bharat.

  The man’s eyes had only begun to widen before a shadow moved, blink fast, to wrap an arm around his neck from behind. The man gurgled and flailed at the muscular arm, bleary eyes wide and increasingly alarmed, until he shuddered and passed out. Bharat — who had somehow crossed the distance from the wall to choking the man out in half a second — settled his unconscious victim, stood, and frowned at Jan.

  “Well?” Bharat whispered. “Where now?”

  Jan didn’t want to admit how impressed he was (and honestly, a bit turned on) both because it would give Bharat the satisfaction of knowing he was impressed, and also because he had halfway entertained the idea of jumping Bharat in the darkness and choking him out. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, it seemed like a good way to get his ass kicked.

  It wasn’t that he actually disliked Bharat. It was just that knocking Bharat out, tying him up, and driving a few blocks out of PBA range while Tiana and Pollen beat the disarm code out of Bharat was an efficient way to get the torture nanos out of his blood. Yet it wasn’t. Not any longer.

  Bharat was one fast and obviously deadly Advanced, so Jan would have to wait for another opportunity to knock Bharat out and tie him up. Perhaps an autocar would hit him. Bharat might actually go down if he got hit by an autocar.

  Jan pointed toward the kitchen and moved on, all too aware of Bharat silently falling in behind him. Still, Bharat hadn’t been able to buy a gun either. Jan was glad of that now.

  The Bowsprit’s darkened kitchen was blessedly empty. Unwashed glasses and plates filled the grubby sink (Tiana’s kitchen staff didn’t get started until well past noon), but other than a few discarded bottles and a questionably stained pair of overalls heaped on the floor, the kitchen was free of vomit and spilled alcohol. Last night must have been a good night.

  Jan reflexively catalogued the two dozen carving knives in sprinting distance (he did love knives) and four big freezers, which were all padlocked from the outside. So no one was waiting to spring out from those and attack him this morning. As he led Bharat through the murky kitchen, he spotted a familiar sight.

  A handwoven mural sat in a pristine glass frame on the kitchen’s back wall. It was Tiana’s threadwork, bearing the rather endearing words “You’re Home, Asshole” above a pair of crossed beer bottles mocking the Supremacy’s crossed hammers.

  Jan had to admit he’d missed Tiana, too.

  The second hallway was also empty, and more snoring was audible from upstairs. Normally, that would be comforting, except for the pressure plates Jan knew waited beneath those stairs. Each was hooked to electrified panels that would shock him into unconsciousness and likely make him piss himself. Fortunately, Jan knew which steps to skip on his way up ... assuming Tiana hadn’t changed them in the last five years.

  As for the Bowsprit’s proprietress herself, she would be passed out in her own room, probably with a bed buddy or two, while Pollen and the other people Tiana paid to keep her bar secure would be bunked in the room leading to Tiana’s sleeping quarters, probably with a bed rifle or two.

  Now for the risky part. Jan turned on Bharat and motioned him down low. “The woman who may start us on our path to the Golden Widow is upstairs, sleeping. Thes
e stairs are booby-trapped. I need you to remain here while I evade the mechanisms, quietly rouse my contact, and reveal that I’ve returned.”

  “I see,” Bharat whispered back. “And how do I know you don’t need me to stay here so you can slip out a window?”

  “You doubt my sincerity?”

  “You let me walk on mines, asshole.”

  “Ah,” Jan said, “that was, as you must know, a joke.”

  Bharat blinked. “What?”

  “There are no mines buried in the pavement outside.”

  “Then ...?” Bharat stared. “Why tell me that?”

  Jan thumped his shoulder. “I wanted to learn how much you’d swallow.”

  Bharat glowered. “Oh, fuck you, Sabato.”

  “If you like,” Jan said. “Later.”

  He started up the stairs before Bharat could demand he stop. There was always the chance Bharat would just disable him with the torture nanos, but Jan needed to know how long his leash was. Bharat had said he would follow Jan’s lead, but if he wouldn’t, it was better to find out now — in a bar filled with people who really hated Advanced — than in some dark alley, alone.

  No magma hell arrived. The stairs creaked, but only the ones without pressure plates. Given she was pushing sixty now, Tiana probably didn’t want to re-memorize her own stairs. Undiscovered and unelectrified, Jan crouched by the door into the security bunker. Mammoth snores greeted him from inside as he tried the door: locked, of course.

  The lock was an ancient keylock. Tiana was paranoid about electronic locks getting hacked, since some of the people who frequented her bar did that for a living, so on her own doors, she used old-fashioned keylocks. Picking manual locks was a skill so rarely needed on today’s Ceto that almost no modern thief actually knew how to do it. Fortunately, Jan had also insisted Bharat buy him a set of lockpicks.

  Picks worked and pins tumbled, and then the lock clicked open. Jan silently slid the door open with steady hands. The only problem, once the door stood open, was the rifle tip a hand’s width from his nose.