Opening scene Escape From Shar Burk

JIRRA

The woman’s body crashed onto the table, then slid to the ground.

In apparent slow motion the table toppled and thumped onto the pavement, bouncing once before it stilled. Toreni knelt beside the body, pressing her fingers to the woman’s neck. Chet went into copper mode, extracting her pistol from her shoulder holster, scanning the road and the restaurant. One look at the awning above the table they’d been sitting at gave a clue. The edges of the hole flapped a little.

Jirra shook herself. Toreni was talking to the woman, so she must be still alive. “Should I call an ambo?”

The woman moved, mumbled words which sounded like ‘kill’.

Toreni looked up, her gaze calculating. “No.”

Running footsteps announced the arrival of the restaurant’s proprietor, wide-eyed and shocked. “What happened? I heard a crash.” He noticed the fallen woman and sucked in a breath. “Is she all right? Should I call an ambo? The… police?”

The few patrons still inside craned their necks for a view. The only couple who’d been at one of the other outside tables had left. Jirra didn’t blame them. Nobody on Shar Burk wanted to know about an incident like this if the Sharpos were called.

Chet stepped in, holding up her fake security badge for long enough for him to notice it. “We’ll take care of it. Looks like an accident in the hotel.” She pointed at the hole in the awning. “No sense involving the police and we can get her to Shar Burk Central.” She gestured at the hospital building a few streets away.

The tension in the manager’s shoulders oozed off him. “Yes. Yes. No point in involving the Sh… police.”

Toreni was helping the woman to her feet. Jirra noted the expensive cut of her orange gown, now torn and dirty. A tangle of dark curls hung around her shoulders and across her face, but not enough to hide the bruises and the ragged cut that ran down her left cheek.

“I’ll settle the bill,” Chet said, taking out a credit chip.

The manager waved her away. “No. Consider it done.” He smiled. “Do come another time.”

Huh. In other words, bugger off quickly before anyone else notices. That suited Jirra. She joined Toreni, helping to balance the woman between them. Jirra caught a hint of perfume mingled with blood and fear. This hadn’t been an accident or attempted suicide.

Chet smiled and squeezed the manager’s shoulder. “Thanks. You’ll see us again.”

“Around the corner. Quickly,” Toreni murmured. The big woman headed away from the hotel’s main entrance on the other side of the restaurant. Most of the buildings around here were offices, so the streets were semi-deserted at this time of what passed for night. A passer-by glanced at them and looked away. Hopefully he’d seen a couple of women helping a drunk friend. More likely he had the usual Shar Burk approach to anything unusual; he hadn’t seen a thing, none of his business.

Even with Toreni taking most of the weight, the woman was heavy, dragging down on Jirra’s shoulder and arm. There were questions, lots of them, but they would have to wait. Toreni had to have her reasons for this. They’d all worked together long enough to trust each other.

After a block and a half, Toreni motioned at a service alley between two buildings. “That’ll do.”

With a last glance around they slipped into the shadows between the buildings. Toreni lowered the woman to the ground. “Where’s Chet?”

As if in reply Jirra’s sanvad vibrated. She sent Chet their location and she joined them. “We need to get out of here.”

“Yes, we do,” Toreni said. “She’s in pain. Can you get one of your dark cabs?”

Jirra nodded. She called down the nearest autocab and applied a masking module so they could ride without being identified. The autocab control system wouldn’t even know the cab wasn’t parked, let alone where it went. Jirra was proud of that code. She’d done it without any help from Morgan. “Which hospital? Shar Burk Central’s the closest.”

“We’re not taking her to a hospital. Head for the ship.”

The ship? Jirra exchanged a glance with Chet, who shrugged. Oh well, there had to be a reason. She’d ask questions later.

Chet and Toreni lifted the woman into the cab while Jirra set the destination. The cab lifted off into the station’s public transport lane, heading for Shar Burk station’s axis D where their ship was berthed.

The woman was delirious. Jirra made out a few words, slurred and grating. “Kill me. He wants to kill me. Gotta get away.”

“Why are we doing this, Toreni?” Chet asked.

Good question. Jirra would like to know that, too.

“This is Marisa Marglev.”

Chet nodded slowly. “So. Soldar’s decided it’s time for a new dolly.”

Governor Soldar, dictator of Shar Burk, with a finger in every bit of nastiness festering in the space station. Patron of opera and pirates, known slaver. A suave, smiling piece of shit. He’d had a string of mistresses over the years, all of them succumbing to an accidental death before the new model took over. Marisa had lasted longer than most. Jirra checked her databank. A little over a year. Not bad. Most of them didn’t last half that.

Toreni snorted. “I suppose this will be a suicide.”

“Except there won’t be a body.” Jirra glanced at the other two. “Somebody will have come to check.”

The cab dropped down through the hub and settled near the travelator leading to the docking berths. Jirra had thought about landing right at the bay but travel down the axis required a permit and it was the sort of thing people remembered. Not a good move.

While Chet and Toreni helped Marisa out of the vehicle, Jirra set the cab’s system to drop the masking routine when it resumed its position, then sent the vehicle back to park.

“You two take her to the ship,” Chet said. “I’ll hang around here for a bit, see if we’ve been spotted.”

Jirra took up position on the woman’s right side, while Toreni, one arm hooked around Marisa’s waist, took most of the weight on the left. They walked slowly, letting the travelator carry them. It wasn’t much of a ploy, but at a glance it would be the three women who’d left the ship returning from a night on the town.

Space stations were busy around the clock. Several groups went past, heading away from their ships into the station’s hub. None of them gave more than a cursory glance at the women as they strode past.

Jirra was more worried about anybody behind them. Had Chet seen anyone outside the Pinnacle Hotel apart from the manager and the few people in the restaurant? And had they been followed?

Like all the up-market businesses in Shar Burk, the Pinnacle Hotel had surveillance systems. A bit of elementary checking would have identified them and that would lead them to the ship they used.

A burst of shouting behind her had Jirra’s heart racing. Toreni looked back, alarmed, then her lips jerked. “Couple of drunks in a fist fight. Just as well we’re nearly there.”

It certainly was. Chet had better hurry. If the fight became a brawl the Sharpos would turn up and that might cause… problems.

Jirra hit the release for the hatch into Vulsaur’s bay, leaving Toreni to help their new guest inside.

Toreni lifted the woman and carried her like a child, arms and hair hanging down. “Get onto the Sharpo talk, see what you can find,” she said as she headed down to the crew quarters.

That went without saying. Jirra checked the tracers that always monitored the Sharpo traffic, picking up anything of interest to Fleet, anything about Governor Soldar. Nothing. Not even a mention of the fight on the travelator. That was good.

She started a trace on Soldar’s comms system, looking for Marisa Marglev, or anything recent.

“Anything?”

Jirra jumped and looked up at Chet. “No. Nothing from the Sharpos. What happened with that fight?”

Chet waved a hand. “They sorted it out. Nobody followed us.” She dropped into a chair. “Huh. I hope this is going to be worth our while. Can we get a departure slot really soon?”

“You want to run?”

“I think it might be a good idea. See if you can bump our slot up.”

Vulsaur, currently disguised as Trader’s Gem, had a slot for tomorrow morning, anyway. Jirra entered her system admin credentials into Shar Burk’s traffic control system. The station was always busy but there was an empty slot in half an hour. She moved Trader’s Gem in. “Half an hour, pre-scheduled, nothing out of the ordinary.”

Chet nodded approval.

Toreni slipped into the common room, her eyes shifting between them. “Safe?”

“So far. We’re out in half an hour.” Chet leaned forward. “How is she? And has she said anything?”

“She’ll be okay. Sprained ankle, broken arm. The break’s clean. I’ve injected nanobots to fix everything and put her to sleep. She should be reasonably okay tomorrow.” Her lips curled in a snarl. “She was chucked out of a window.”

Bastard. “Who?” Jirra growled.

“One of Soldar’s security. One of the Shubas. She’ll be able to show us which one when she wakes up.”

Jirra pulled up the database she had on Soldar and asked for visuals of his Shuba guards. Six men appeared, all big, hulking individuals. She displayed the images on the common room display. Her lip curled. “One of these. The two on the left were on duty tonight.”

Toreni shrugged. “Maybe one of them. Probably one of the guys not on duty. A special job.”

Chet leaned forward and pointed at the second from the right. “This one. I saw him at The Pinnacle after you’d taken her way. I kept my eye on him. He talked to the restaurant manager.”

Jirra’s heart bounced. “They’ll know it was us.”

Chet’s eyes glittered. “I left a snoop dot on the manager’s shoulder. The goon said he’d heard a noise out here. The manager told him somebody had had an accident. People had come to take the person to hospital, he thought Shar Burk Central. That was it.”

“Crap, girls. Soldar will know she’s not dead. That’s not good.”

Chet and Toreni exchanged a look. They didn’t seem to understand, didn’t seem to care.

As soon as he realized Marisa was alive, he’d send people to finish the job. Surely.

Sometimes Jirra felt left out, two ex-coppers sending signals to each other.

“He won’t find out,” Toreni said. “That asshole,” she pointed at the image on the screen, “isn’t going to go back to Soldar to tell him the ex is still around, that he fluffed the job.”

“He might well try out the hospital, see if she’s there and finish her off.”

Jirra licked her lips. “If he comes looking here, we’re in trouble.”

Twenty minutes before the ship could leave.

How many times had she had to cut and run? Quite a few and she still ended up with sweaty palms and a racing heart.

She switched vision to the security cameras at the hub entrance on this level, watching people in ship suits coming in and going out.

“You know, if I were in his situation, I’d let it go,” Toreni said.

She had her head to one side, gazing at the face on the screen.

“He’d have to ask somebody to check on our IDs and where we came from. That would be his boss, who would want to know why.”

“Let’s assume he comes up with a plausible excuse without admitting Marisa got away and finds out we operate a freighter.”

“Let’s assume he connected the autocab with us, in spite of the fact there’s no record in the control data.”

“Then he’s surely not stupid enough to come down here by himself.”

“If he tells his boss to hold up a ship with a legit departure slot, he’d have to explain why.”

Chet grinned. “This is all after he’s checked the nearest hospital?”

“Yep.”

“The upshot is if Marisa has disappeared, he’d better hope she doesn’t show up, because then Soldar will find out she’s not dead.”

“And shortly after that, our man…” Chet found the name associated with the face, “Habid will be dead.”

“Soldar has zero tolerance for mistakes.”

“Besides, you’ve joined an awful lot of dots that an investigator won’t have.”

“There’s nothing to associate this ship with her.”

“We’re legitimate traders, been here many times.”

“If anybody came to ask me, I’d say we helped her out, offered to take her to a hospital but she said she was fine.”

“Last we saw her, she limped off into the back blocks.”

“Still, if it makes you feel better, we can hide her in the secret compartment until we’re past Shar Burk’s security cordon.”

Chet turned to Toreni. “Could she handle that?”

Toreni shrugged. “She’s sedated. She won’t even know.”

They’d used the scan-proof compartment before to hide a fugitive, and that time they were boarded.

Jirra’s heart rate slowed. “That would be good.”

Toreni stood. “I’ll do that now. I’ll put her back in bed when we’re in shift space.”

It all made sense, Jirra thought.

And made her feel better.

But the main question still hung in the air, like a real, live vulsaur in the corner.

When Toreni returned, she said, “Okay, sounds like we’re fine. And I realize that you’ll want to talk to her about our favorite governor.”

“But what do we do then? What do we tell her?”

“We don’t have to tell her anything.”

“We have a legit cargo, traveling via Crossmar.”

“En route we can organize via Morgan to create a new ID for her, give her some credits, and leave her alive and well on Crossmar.”

“And in return for services rendered she just might be able to tell us some interesting tales about Sur Soldar.”

Jirra folded her arms. “Oh yes. And what do you think she’d know?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“But if he talks in bed… who knows?”

Chet was shaking her head.

“Marisa’s going to ask why.”

“Why didn’t we take her to a hospital?”

“Why did we put her on a ship and take her away?”

“And we’re going to have to come up with a story she’ll believe.”

“If we’re really lucky, she’ll be one of those brainless beauties who believes everything you tell them.”

Toreni’s shoulders sagged. “That’s me, act without thinking. Stupid.”

Chet aimed a playful punch at the big woman’s shoulder. “Stop with the stupid.”

“You recognized her, realized she’d be dead without help.”

“We’ll come up with something plausible.”

“Private investigators?”

Toreni smiled. “Well, that’s sort of what we do.”

“That’s right.”

“We don’t have to mention,” Chet dropped her voice to a whisper, “Fleet.”

“No, we don’t.”

“But I still feel a bit vulnerable.”

“If Soldar does find out Marisa’s alive and has us followed, he has a ship name and images of all of us as well as names.”

Chet put her hands on Jirra’s shoulders. “There is nothing to directly associate us with Marisa.”

“The last thing we want to do is panic-react.”

“We’re traders on a routine run back to Crossmar.”

“End of story.”

Jirra stared at her.

Chet was an ex-copper, much more experienced with this undercover activity.

She sighed.

The nerves still tingled but not as much.

She’d be happy to be out of here.

“Okay.”

Jirra’s sanvad chimed, summoning her to the bridge.

“Time to move, suris.”

“Take up position and strap in.”

They trooped off to the bridge together, Chet taking up her usual position in the first officer’s seat, Toreni behind watching the scanner screens.

Jirra had been persuaded that Habid wasn’t a threat.

More or less.

But she kept the surveillance screen in the corner of her main screen just in case.

When she glanced over at Chet, the other woman was doing the same thing.

She grinned.

She’d bet Toreni was, too.

The umbilicals connecting the ship to the dock snaked back into their housing, the walkway with the airlock to the station concertinaed against the dock.

The ship’s engines thrummed briefly and Vulsaur reversed out before turning into the traffic lanes.

Soon Shar Burk floated in space behind them, a giant, silent hive surrounded by an orderly swarm of ships.

Ten minutes in the traffic lane to the jump gates and they were off into the safety of shift space.