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

  “Sure.” Jan snatched his seat again as Galloway took a right-angle turn at a decidedly unsafe speed, and Miller whooped. “And once that matter concludes?”

  “You walk right out of the admin building and into the alley, smooth as butt silk,” Rafe said, which assured Jan it wasn’t going to be nearly that smooth. “I’ll have an autocar waiting and the cameras on loop. They’ll never see you leave!”

  “Except for our mutual friend, yes? I imagine he has a very good memory for documents.”

  “Oh, right.” Rafe sounded just a teensy bit sorry. “Sheriff might remember your face, even if I wipe the archives after. Sorry, mate, didn’t think that one through.”

  Two people in worn orange jumpsuits waved from a tavern topped by what looked like nothing more than a life-sized cargo rocket. Miller waved back as the ATV hit another jarring bump. Galloway didn’t even glance their way.

  “Anyway,” Rafe said, “get those archives deleted, and I’ll see you soon. I want to know everything about your new friend and your new job and, oh, Emiko’s gonna be chuffed to see you!”

  Jan felt a rush of warmth. “She’s there?”

  “Oh, shit no,” Rafe said. “She fucking hates me, mate, ever since Fatima left. But don’t you worry, I’ve kept tabs on her. Delete my files and we’ll find her and say hey, yeah?”

  “Yes,” Jan said, as Galloway whipped his way around another ATV going in the opposite direction. “Once I’m done with my business here, I’ll give you a call.” Was this lead-footed sheriff trying to get them into a wreck?

  “Top notch.” Rafe killed the call.

  Jan attempted to hand back Galloway’s ear-comm, but Miller twisted in her seat again and took it instead. She tucked it into a vest pocket, still watching Jan with eyes that were far more curious than before the call. A curious cop was never good.

  “So,” Miller said, “you get an Advanced bodyguard, huh?” She turned her far-too-welcoming smile on Bharat. “We have Advanced living here too, you know! Mayor Solace welcomes everyone. Don’t you believe that talk about old grudges.”

  Jan did believe the talk, though he wasn’t going to say that right now. Most everyone on Ceto hated Advanced, given their Supremacy had occupied Ceto for over a decade before mysteriously pulling out for no reason. Even in orbit, Jan had heard about the pullout. He also suspected any Advanced who wasn’t watching his back in Cliffside was likely to get dead real quick.

  “So what’s your name?” Miller asked Bharat.

  “Dave,” Jan said, before Bharat could say something incriminating. “His name is Dave. This is his first week.”

  “Well, pleased to meet you, Mr. Dave,” Miller said, lightly slapping Bharat on the knee. “You need a guide while you’re here, you let me know, all right? I can make time.”

  Was Miller hitting on Bharat? Between Galloway’s reckless driving, Miller’s blatant flirting, and Deputy Carrell’s aw shucks routine, Cliffside PD couldn’t be more unprofessional. Either that ... or every last one of them was fucking with him.

  “Thank you,” Bharat said, smiling unconvincingly. “But I’m simply here to keep the senator out of trouble. No need to roll out the welcoming carpet on my account.”

  Welcoming carpet? Christ. Bharat was going to be in real trouble if he got lost out here, despite his muscles and combat skills. And if Bharat got lost, all that waited for Jan was nano-magma hell and a bullet in the head. That did not appeal.

  Jan resolved to keep Bharat as close as possible until they were gone from Cliffside and its clown car of police officers, with Rafe. Assuming they got out of Cliffside at all, of course, and he didn’t get arrested for impersonating a senator. Assuming Rafe didn’t screw them over or blow something up.

  They were finally speeding up on the administration building, a two-story structure of glass and biocrete. It looked like an Advanced design, fancier than the boxy habitation units whooshing by on either side of the bumpy, barely paved street. This building was where the money was, and Cliffside’s central servers, which must be why Rafe wanted to get him in here.

  Jan did a silent inventory of past jobs and winced mentally. Rafe had said this town was thick with Patriots of Ceto, who must have “retired” here after the armistice. He’d done enough jobs for Ceto’s so-called freedom fighters that someone might recognize him. Someone might yell “Hey, I know that asshole!” and then there would be running and shooting.

  Galloway roared onto a paved circle and skidded to a bumpy halt in front of the admin building’s double doors: polished glass and metal. The two-story administration building was shaped like a blocky C with glass walls instead of solid ones. Those walls looked pretty, but would offer absolutely no cover in a gunfight. No one emerged to greet them, which was a relief.

  “Admin building,” Galloway said, as calmly as if he hadn’t just attempted vehicular manslaughter. “Out you go, Senator.”

  Jan allowed Bharat to hop out before him — that was what a senator would do — then hopped out as well. He was understandably dismayed when Sheriff Galloway hopped out as well, and Deputy Miller slid over to the driver’s seat.

  Galloway was supposed to leave now. That was the plan, for Galloway to go away.

  “Can’t let you into a secure building without an escort,” Galloway said, offering a very non-apologetic shrug. “Can’t get you another escort because everyone’s busy and you didn’t tell us you were coming. So, here we are.”

  “Ah ... thank you, Sheriff, but you don’t need to put yourself out on our account.” Jan glanced at Bharat. “I can find the archives myself. If you need to get back—”

  “Yeah,” Galloway interrupted, “no. I don’t. At least not until I know you’ve left without one of my overzealous citizens caving in your skull. The paperwork would keep me busy until next year, and Mayor Solace would be understandably pissed.”

  “I have Dave,” Jan pointed out.

  “And I have a rifle.” Galloway glanced at Miller, who waved, smiled, and peeled off in a shower of gravel. “Between my rifle and your Dave, we shouldn’t have any problems. Now, you ready?” He gave Bharat a warning look. “Dave?”

  Jan knew he’d already set off this man’s bullshit detector. How was he to delete the files Rafe needed him to delete with Sheriff Galloway watching over his shoulder? How was he going to even find Rafe with Galloway escorting him back to the maglev station after he’d deleted Rafe’s data?

  Jan turned his back to Galloway and glanced at Bharat, then gestured with his eyes toward the sheriff. Bharat nodded. They’d simply have to choke Galloway out, tie him up, stuff him in a broom closet, and get the fuck out of town with Rafe. It wasn’t a great plan, but Jan rarely had the luxury of those.

  “Thank you, Sheriff,” Jan said agreeably. “Please lead us to the town’s archival server now.”

  “Right,” Galloway said. “This way.” He walked toward the doors, which opened for him, then stood in the doorway without going inside. He waited for them instead.

  So the administration building’s doors were keyed to open only if authorized personnel approached. That would make it a real chore to get out again without a lot of noise or an authorized body. It seemed Galloway’s unconscious body would accompany them on their escape.

  Once inside, Sheriff Galloway led them across clean tile floors. They walked past walls covered in what looked to be work boards displaying what were probably planting schedules and other data Jan truly did not care about.

  What was surprising was the number of colorful scrawled pictures festooning the halls. It seemed there were quite a few children in Cliffside, and apparently, they had no shortage of art supplies. In the Sledge, where Jan had grown up, you could trade one set of intact chalk markers for a week’s worth of food.

  They followed the sheriff up a flight of weathered metal stairs to the second floor, then down another hall that curved around the building. The walls here were biocrete, not glass, and no more charming child pictures hung on their gray surfaces.
>
  Galloway led them to a reinforced door. The sheriff pressed his palm to the glowing square beside it. The door whisked open.

  “Thank you, Sheriff.” Jan gave Bharat a cautionary look before he stepped into the chilly server room. “If you don’t mind, I must ask you to wait outside.” He really hoped that would fly, because if it didn’t ...

  “Sure,” Galloway said. “Take as little time as you need.”

  “Dave,” Jan said, “why don’t you remain with Sheriff Galloway?” And make sure he doesn’t call for help or lock me in here until the Patriots show up.

  “Yes, sir,” Bharat said, almost convincingly.

  Jan smiled at Galloway. “Close the door?”

  Galloway grunted. The door closed, leaving Jan alone in a humming server room filled with metal racks, filled with blocky computers, filled with blinking lights. A speaker crackled in the ceiling, invisible to Jan.

  “Top notch, mate!” Rafe again, already on their internal systems. “Server I need you to wipe the data off of is to your right. Yeah, keep walking. No, the other right. Sorry, mate, everything’s mirrored on my screen. Yeah, there you go. More right. Next row. Stop. Go back.”

  Jan didn’t knock any shelves over or yell at the ceiling.

  “There you go. That one. You got it, mate!”

  “If you can talk to me in here,” Jan said, assuming the room was relatively soundproof, “why not delete this data yourself?”

  “Can’t access it from here,” Rafe said. “Servers I need are all air-gapped except during archiving periods, when the external network is locked down. That’s about the only smart thing these farmnecks have done since I hacked them.”

  Jan didn’t ask what the data was. Knowing Rafe, it could be anything from malware he forgot to delete to compromising video of him masturbating. Whatever it was, Rafe wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble to delete it if he was going to tell Jan what it was. Truth be told, Jan could not possibly care less.

  “Press the small green button on top,” Rafe said. “Hold it for five seconds to enable wireless networking. That’ll get me into the server so I can delete what I need to. Then, boom, Senator Patterson leaves the building a happy man.”

  Jan pressed the button. Before Senator Patterson could leave the building, the door to the server room slid open.

  Jan finished counting five seconds and stepped back. He walked out from behind the server rack to find a radiant woman with long legs, a gorgeous face, and dark hair striding into the room like she owned it — which she did, actually. Jan recognized her immediately, even though they’d never met.

  This was Morna Solace. This was the mayor of Cliffside and, quite possibly, one of the most powerful Patriots of Ceto still alive. That was what the rumors said.

  Cliffside’s mayor wore dark slacks, sensible boots, and a button-down shirt with the top two buttons undone, which was sexier than reasonable for some town mayor. She offered a gracious smile and extended one hand. “Senator Patterson, welcome. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”

  Right. He was a visiting senator, and this was Cliffside’s mayor. It made sense Morna would pop by to say hello. She’d just picked the worst possible time to do that unless Rafe already had his wireless server access, which he should, since Jan had pressed the button. This couldn’t possibly be a trap.

  Behind her, at the door, Bharat glanced inside, and Galloway glanced at him. Something was wrong here. Still, until Jan knew what that was, he might as well stick with the script.

  Jan extended his hand and shook Morna’s firmly. “The pleasure is all mine, Mayor Sola—”

  Cliffside’s mayor slammed into Jan with speed that was thoroughly unreasonable, snapped him around in front of her like a doll, and dropped him to his knees with a painfully bent arm. She moved like an Advanced! What the bloody hell was this about?

  Ah. As Jan spotted Bharat moving into the room with Sheriff Galloway stumbling before him, in an equally arm-clenching grip, Jan realized they had given up the game somehow. Yet Bharat had seen what Morna was doing and gotten the drop on Sheriff Galloway, despite the sheriff waiting to get the drop on him.

  “Hayden!” Morna shouted.

  “Busy!” Galloway replied, struggling with a visibly unconcerned Bharat. “Did I mention this guy’s Advanced?”

  “Ah, Mayor Solace?” Jan craned his neck as best he could with his arm pinned behind his back. “Is something amiss?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You aren’t Senator Patterson.”

  The server room door slammed shut of its own accord. Morna’s eyes snapped to the door as Jan’s did too. Galloway just shook his head and sighed, like this was a normal day for him.

  Rafe’s voice flooded the room. “Hey, so, nobody do anything crazy, ’kay? I’ve just locked the door and blocked all building communication, so even if you could call for help, no one would hear it. We’re clear on that, yeah?”

  “Who the fuck is this guy?” Galloway demanded.

  “No one important,” Rafe said. “What is important is the data in this room, and, you know, your secret identities. Wouldn’t want your identities to leak to the public.”

  “What is he talking about?” Bharat asked. He restrained Sheriff Galloway with as much ease as Morna restrained Jan.

  “Oh, right!” Rafe said. “So, the yokel you’ve got in that death grip is not actually named Galloway.”

  “Balls,” Galloway said.

  “His name is Hayden Cross,” Rafe continued, “and he was actually a Supremacy Special Investigator before the armistice. Worked for the guys these Patriots of Ceto would really like to kick in the teeth, you know? He arrested or shot a whole lot of people a whole lot of people here knew.”

  Galloway — no, it was Cross now — aimed a death glare at the ceiling. “To be fair,” he said, “I am retired.”

  “Oh, and Mayor Solace was the primary money launderer for the Patriots of Ceto,” Rafe continued happily. “Still is, when they need money for things the Ceto senate doesn’t approve. Can’t imagine it’d go well for her if the Supremacy learned who she was, really. Can’t imagine it’d go well if the Ceto senate learned she was funding her own private army.”

  “Great,” Cross said. “Now I have to kill this guy.”

  “No one has to die today, mate!” Rafe said. “I like you folks! Mayor Solace, you’re a bloody hero! It took balls to take on the Supremacy like you did, and if you got this Cross fellow in your employ, well, he can’t be that bad either, can he? You’re good folks! I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “But you will,” Morna reminded everyone, staring at the ceiling as she effortlessly restrained Jan. “Unless?”

  “Oh, just let these two leave town,” Rafe said. “I’m leaving too. Totally bored now. So, you don’t try to alert your people, and you don’t shoot anyone, and you let my buddies walk out, and we’re good. No one knows anything!”

  “Right,” Cross said. “Because we have your word on it.”

  “Yeah!”

  “The word of someone who infiltrated every system in our administration building after altering the archive data of a sitting Ceto senator, and who just revealed he could blackmail us all into doing anything for him at any time.”

  “Wouldn’t do that to you, mate,” Rafe said. “Promise! This is a onetime threat, just to get my friends back.”

  Morna released Jan and stepped back. “Stand down, Hayden.”

  Jan pulled his arm back into position and rubbed his aching shoulders. Morna was fast and entirely too strong for her size. Was she cyberized? Or worse ... was she Advanced?

  Morna didn’t look to be Advanced, cyberized, or secretly a killer robot, but Jan didn’t dare take anything off the table at this point. That woman was freakishly strong. He backed up between Cross and Morna and kept one eye on them both.

  “I’ve released your man,” Morna said, frowning at Bharat. “Release mine.”

  “Promise not to punch me?” Bharat asked Sheriff Cross.

&n
bsp; Cross shrugged. “Like it’d help?”

  Bharat shoved Cross forward and stepped back. Cross didn’t try to punch him in the face. So ... progress.

  There was silence for a moment. And a moment after that. Bharat looked around, looked at Jan, and frowned. “What now?”

  Jan rotated his arm, which had all but been wrenched out of its socket, and turned to Cliffside’s mayor. “Mayor Solace, you have my sincere apologies for this deception. This was not, as you may have surmised, my idea. I intended merely to visit and retrieve my partner, when” — he gestured — “all this happened.”

  “That’s true!” Rafe said over the speaker. “I totally sprang this on Jan without telling him ...” He paused, gasped. “Oh, shit! Sorry, mate.” He’d just revealed Jan’s real name.

  No help for it now. “Jan Sabato.” Jan bowed, rose, and fixed Morna with a radiant smile. “And may I say that the archives I’ve seen of your speeches scarcely do your beauty justice. You are truly a delight for the—”

  “Please shut up.” Morna raised one hand. “And tell me what you’re doing in my server room.”

  “The man on the speaker needed me to delete something for him,” Jan said. “Something he could not access on your servers despite compromising almost all of your systems.”

  “Personal matter!” Rafe added. “Nothing of yours!”

  “And I need the man on the speaker to pull off a job with my partner here,” Jan said, motioning to Bharat. “Which is why we came here to retrieve him and were ... enlisted in his scheme.”

  “Right.” Cross glanced at Bharat. “Great job, Dave.”

  “So if you’d be so kind as to let us leave,” Jan continued, “I will acquire my opportunistic partner, and the three of us will depart Cliffside, never to trouble you again.”

  “Jan Sabato,” Cross said, eyes distant, like he was trying to remember something. His eyes widened. “Oh, shit! The Jan Sabato from Mercy Plaza? That Jan Sabato?”

  Jan didn’t know word had gotten around about that. “Ah ... yes.” Where had Cross heard about the job at Mercy Plaza?

  The hot air and thrilling suspense of his last job all came flooding back. The smashing success where he and Fatima — well, mainly Fatima, posing as an Advanced businesswoman — bluffed their way through three layers of Supremacy security using Rafe’s false IDs to steal four truckloads of Supremacy regenerative drugs. They’d sold those drugs to the Patriots of Ceto for an obscene amount of money, all of which had vanished when Fatima sold Jan out a day later. It was a good memory, up until it wasn’t.