Aiden did his best not to roll his eyes. It was a good speech, no question. It would be a lot more impressive if he didn't hear it every time he haggled with the man. “Fifty percent. Like you said, I can fly off to some other part of the galaxy. Other buyers, other contacts. I don't need to risk my neck getting these parts, just to give them to you for practically free.”
Harran scowled. “You can fly anywhere you want, you won't find anyone willing to let you bend them over with a price like that. We both know it. And in the meantime you've got a ship full of hot cargo you're desperate to unload, precluding any other business ventures you might have planned. Twenty percent.”
If the miserable wrench banger thought he was going to eventually pressure Aiden into meeting him halfway at thirty-five, he had another thing coming. “Guess I've wasted enough time here.” Aiden stood, adjusting the belt holding his cauterizer. “Always a pleasure, Harran.”
The mechanic swore, realizing he'd pushed too far. “Forty!” he snapped. Aiden started to smile until the man continued sharply. “If you also give me what you pulled from your target's logs and databanks.”
He snorted. “Not happening. That's how I pick my next targets, you know that. If that knowledge is floating around to everyone in the quadrant, I might as well just make blind rift jumps and hope to get lucky and stumble on a ship to go after.”
Harran threw up his hands. “You're a miserable piece of unreclaimed waste, you know that? Thirty-eight, then! And if you're such a cheapskate you won't even take that, you can go off and find some other idiot to screw over.” He pointed a thick finger at Aiden's chest. “But this better be the last time you darken my doorway, Thorne, you hear?”
Fantastic. Negotiation was about finding a deal that you weren't satisfied with, and the other guy really wasn't satisfied with. Aiden offered his hand. “In that case, thirty-seven. I don't want to end up shot the next time I drop by to say hello.”
The mechanic glared murder at him for several long seconds, then abruptly threw back his head and roared with laughter. “There it is! Savage me at the bargaining table like you're fighting for your own grandmother's repossessed house, then the moment I give in slap me with one percent like you're a class act, not a piece of work!”
He shook Aiden's hand with a crushing grip, still chortling. “Thirty-seven it is you stellar chaff. Just count yourself lucky you don't need repairs on this visit, or I'd return the favor and haggle you into destitution.”
Aiden grinned back. “Why do you think I fought tooth and nail this time around?”
Chapter Six
Hidden Depths
How was this possible?
The allnet had everything. Everyone in the known universe seemed to have pictures, videos, audio recordings, and public records of them ranging from birth to ten seconds ago. It seemed impossible to not find at least some documentation about even the most unimportant event in someone's life.
And yet Lana's face came up with nothing. Her fingerprints, nothing. Her retinas, even her DNA, nothing. She tried looking into Helios 4 next, and while it seemed like a pretty small and low-tech place, even it had allnet access. But she couldn't find any reports of a woman of her description being kidnapped, or reported missing, or seen leaving from the colony world's spaceport.
Even more aggravating, the harder she searched the more she felt like her past didn't matter, that she should just focus on making a new life for herself on the Last Stand. She ignored the feeling and stubbornly kept up her search, and it was only after almost an hour of exploring every possibility she could think of that she was finally ready to give up.
Just as Lana was standing up to leave, a random thought popped into her head, too insistent to ignore. Frowning, she settled back into the chair and typed quickly, pulling up the node for the brothel she'd been destined for. She'd seen its name in the Fleetfoot's logs, and they might have some record of expecting her arrival, if she could find it with her limited skill with computers.
It was a long shot, but she decided to try anyway.
To her mild disappointment, aside from being surprisingly informative about the mysteries of sex, and very motivated to sell it to anyone interested, the brothel's node didn't offer anything useful. She was about to give up, begin her search to find possible options for a life somewhere besides the Last Stand, or maybe just give up entirely and go back to the ship, when a tiny fuzzy blur at one corner of the brothel node's display layout caught her eye.
Lana's face went blank, eyes locked on the blur, and her fingers began flying across the keys. Posture rigid, expression slack, she worked for several minutes in absolute silence other than the clicks of the keys echoing through the confined space like a hailstorm.
Then she signed off the terminal and pocketed the remaining chits. Finally, motions swift and efficient, she took a dab of antiseptic solution and a sanitary wipe from the complimentary dispensers beside the terminal, using them to wipe the entire terminal down with obsessive care, eliminating every trace she'd been there.
Disposing of the wipe, she used her uniform sleeve to open the privacy screen and ducked back out into the crowd.
Lana's shoulders immediately hunched, the chaos and noise of the station hitting her like a sonic boom. She looked around in bewilderment, wondering why she'd left the terminal when she didn't think she'd finished her search, not to mention obviously wasn't mentally prepared to be out in this hubbub yet.
Part of her wanted to return
