willing to set you up in a rather prestigious position in the Order’s Intelligence Division. You can make your own hours, choose from a vast number of assignments.”
“Like going after the Triton.”
“As I said before, that’s under control.”
“Bullshit! Capturing the Triton would have made huge news, especially since I played your spokesman less than two weeks ago and let everyone know there’s a huge reward for any of her crew.”
“And that was helpful. Meunez has determined the whereabouts of the ship and is in control of the situation.”
“So that’s it. You’ve got the cyber freak jacked in to the right uplink and he got to it before I did. Where’d you plug him in? Maybe I can cut a deal with him. Something he’ll deliver on.”
“That’s none of your concern. You should be relieved that I’ve found a way to retire you from errands, and hunting. This is the kind of retirement people like you dream about.”
“Retirement,” Wheeler spat under his breath. He looked at the half dozen guards, eight attendants, then back to Hampon. “What if I just cut ties here and just drop off your scanner?”
Hampon fixed Wheeler with a look of mild surprise. “With Collins’ memories?”
“We’ll call it even. I’m leaving my best number two here, after all. Not much hope of a refund there either.”
The younger looking man looked to two of his attendants as if to verify he was hearing correctly before returning his gaze back to Wheeler. “And what would you do?”
“Live the dream,” he replied sarcastically. “What’s it matter to you once I’m out of range?”
“I’m sorry, that’s just not possible. No one else knows Collins’ memories like you do.”
“You won’t get anything out of me if you force me to stick around.”
“You’ve forgotten where you are. We can ask, or we can install a deep tissue interface. Either way, it saves us the time of implanting the memories in someone else and having them sift through.”
“Hell no, I’m gone,” Wheeler’s anger was audibly tinged with fear as he turned to leave.
The hatchway behind him closed.
For some reason Eve believed Wheeler, and whether it was in gratitude for her host body, or because of some residual reflex, she forced the door’s mechanism to open.
Wheeler took advantage of the opportunity and was down the hall before Hampon’s guards could make it to the door. The airlock door of the Ferryman slipped open in time for him to make it into his ship before they began firing.
Eve took the next step and released the mooring clamps on the corvette class ship so he could reverse out of the bay. Sections of the hull slipped open to reveal hundreds of micro emitters that formed a wormhole behind the ship.
“Find out who let him escape!” Hampon screeched, his pre-adolescent voice cracking.
As one of his aides began to check Eve erased all record of her activities and implanted evidence of her own making. By the time the cybernetically enhanced human checked the logs he could only come to one conclusion. “Captain Wheeler must have used one of Collins’ override codes. I’m sorry sir, there’s no record of anyone interfacing from our end.”
Chapter 12
“You’re angry.” Hatter concluded from the pilot seat of his Uriel fighter.
“Nope,” replied Hood shortly.
They were adrift in featureless, dead space, half way between the nebula and their destination. The rendezvous point with the Clever Dream “No, you’re pissed, I can tell.” Hatter sighed, tapping the power indicator on the instrument screen. It read seventy percent and crept up by fractions of a percentage.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Hatter looked to where Hood drifted in his own Uriel fighter only a hundred fifty-three meters away and zoomed in. He could see him rubbing his eyes with his palms. The silence didn’t last long.
“Okay, fine. You were supposed to be building a charge in your capacitors while we were in transit so you’d be ready to open a wormhole when we arrived here, in the middle of nowhere.” Hood said in a rush.
“I’m sorry, I was distracted. You could have reminded me.”
“That’s not the point, you should have a handle on the basics. I just don’t get it; you can calculate wormhole navigation in your head but setting your reactor to charge a capacitor bank slips your mind.”
“I just wasn’t thinking, I’m sorry!” Hatter replied, wishing he’d never prodded.
Silence hung heavily between the pair for several minutes before Hood finally said; “I miss her too, man.”
“She was the only one who took me seriously, you know? I mean, it didn’t look like it I guess, but when it came down to it, she knew I had the chops to be in a cockpit.”
“Buster was one of the best pilots I’ve ever seen, good leader too. Tell you what, when we get back to Triton, we’ll put her picture up in the Pilot’s Den and have a drink to her.”
“Or five.”
“Or five.”
“On you.”
“You’re pushing it.”
“Hey, what’s that?” Hatter said, bringing up new tactical information. Several ships were emerging from wormholes only a few thousand kilometres beneath them.
“That’s gotta be everything the Triton had in her hangars, with the Samson in the lead.”
“What? I didn’t think she was even space worthy,” Hatter said with heavy disbelief.
“You think I’m lying? Look.”
“I’ll be damned, three engines down and she’s still running. Uh-oh. Incoming transmission.”
“Hatter, I’ll do the-“
“Good to see you folks! For a minute I thought Regent Galactic sent an entire fleet after us.”
“This is Laura Everin, Acting Captain of the Samson. What the hell are you two doing out here? You should be just about to link up with the Clever Dream by now.”
“Uh, well, this is awkward… Hood, this one’s all yours.”
“Hood here, we had a bad power connection under one of our seats, got it fixed and we were almost at full charge, about to take the last jump. Mind if I ask what brings you and everyone else on the Triton out here, Captain?”
“Not right now. Fall into formation and prepare to take the last jump with us. We’ve got plenty Uriels with enough reserve power to take you along for the ride, that is all.”
“She sounds pissed,” Hatter commented over a private channel with Hood.
“From the looks of it, I’d say she has too much to deal with to worry about the slowest pilots in the fleet.”
“Oh, who are they?”
“Hatter…” Hood started with a chuckle. “Aw, you’ll figure it out on your own eventually.”
He didn’t bother thinking on it, concentrating on piloting his Uriel fighter into the position indicated on his navigational panel. Then it struck him. “Oh, right,” he chuckled sheepishly.
Chapter 13
