Chapter 125: Shipbound With the Enemy
“The Tralgon Cartel must take priority in CID investigations… [we] have seen violence before in the Underworld and frequently so, but theirs is bold and unshackled by rule or convention. For too long the Synatorium’s law enforcement agencies have turned a blind eye to the activities of the Big Five of Tedano… how long did they think it would take for a group to come along and take advantage on a systemic scale of the lawkeepers’ willingness to look the other way?”
—CID Report 10003-2Bh4.009812247 on Organized Crime within the Modern Nova Rim
Zaina sat straight up with her arms crossed, not taking her eyes off Reida for a moment. Baeus told them they’d have to skip through three dimensions in the Void, so the journey would take a bit longer than the ride to Calkhor. There was nothing to do but make sure Reida didn’t cause trouble.
The pirate met Zaina’s gaze and smirked.
“What?”
“You’re staring.”
“I’m making sure you don’t—”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. That’s real smart,” Reida replied, then leaned in. “So what’s all this for, anyway? What kind of mission are you on?”
Zaina scoffed. As if she’d share anything with her. “The need-to-know kind.”
“Ah. Must be exciting.”
“Sure.”
“It does beg the question, though, of why you have a scholar with you. They tend to stay away from the exciting ones, don’t they?”
Zaina glared. Even when she thought she wasn’t giving Reida anything to work with, the damned pirate figured something out. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
Reida sighed. “I want to know what you’re after so I know how I can expect the rest of the mission to go. And so I can work around what you need.”
“Yeah, right.”
“It’s true,” Reida replied with a shrug. “Listen—we both know how this is going to go. In the end Kazlo is leaving with me. You know that, don’t you? So it’s really a matter of whether or not you get what you need from him before then. So if it really is important, something need-to-know, I need to know.”
Zaina shook her head. “You really think I’m going to let you take him?”
“In the end, it won’t be up to you,” Reida said, a charming smile coming over her face. “So if you need him for a long time, it’s better to say—that way I know to wait a little bit. If I’m in the dark in terms of timeframe I’m going to err on the side of making my move earlier—I’ve got a captain to impress, you know.”
“You’re such a piece of shit.”
Reida didn’t seem bothered. “For a pirate, I think I’m actually being quite nice.”
Zaina didn’t bother responding. Once we’ve got Kazlo, we might have to make a stopover at the CID. Then we’ll see what she has to say.
“Plus,” Reida continued, much to Zaina’s chagrin, “you never know—could be useful to have a friend in my line of work. The shifting winds of the galaxy touch us first.”
“You’re not my friend.”
“Well, what would you prefer? Contact? Acquaintance? Partner?”
Zaina sighed, not wanting to litigate. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. Call it what you want. It’s not like we’ll see each other again once this is over.”
Reida shrugged. “Never say never.”
“Well, I can hope, can’t I?”
When Reida didn’t respond, Zaina looked into her eyes—there again was a flash, a glimpse of pain beneath the surface. Zaina almost felt a little bad. Instead, her anger redoubled—how dare Reida ploy for pity after all she’d done.
“Listen,” Reida said, her voice soft. “About all that business back on Otmonzas—look, I didn’t want things to work out that way. It was never my intention to leave you there—”
Zaina was in disbelief. “That’s—that’s so far from what the problem actually is.”
Reida’s eyebrow rose.
“You really don’t get it, do you?” Zaina asked, exasperated. “I don’t care that you left me behind. That was the best possible thing for me at that point. But everything else? The lying, the stealing, killing all those innocent people—those are the reasons I can’t trust you. Those are the things I can’t forgive you for.”
A sharp sigh came from Reida. “We come from different worlds.”
“Yeah, I know. Because you apparently come from a world where randomly killing whoever you want is perfectly okay.”
A tense silence fell between them for a few still moments. Then, Reida said, “I don’t like killing.”
Zaina rolled her eyes. “Good for you. I hope it keeps you up at night.”
“What about you?” Reida replied. “You’ve been a lancer for what, a few months now? I’ll bet you’ve had to kill.”
“Yeah, to survive,” Zaina shot back. Images flooded her mind—Ovela Midor’s pained face, mutilated mercenaries in the desert outside Archavo Outpost—she winced. It had certainly kept her up at night.
Reida shrugged. “I’ve been killing to survive since I was seven years old. That’s just how it is in this line of work.”
“Seven? What, were your parents pirates too?”
Reida’s brow furrowed and her lips pursed while contorting into a deep frown; her face was angry, but her eyes reflected sorrow. “That’s not important.”
Before Zaina could respond Baeus shouted from the cockpit, “That was the last skip—five minutes to Dralkooth. Let’s start prepping.”
Reida stood—whatever deeper truths her face held were now gone, replaced by a coy smile and a charming mask. “Well, duty calls.”
Zaina shook her head. How did someone change their whole demeanor so quickly? Was either Reida even the real her, or were they both halves of the same lie? How much of this woman was a performance?
“Oh, by the way,” Reida said, “there’s something you two should probably know going into this.”
Zaina sighed. So it began—the layers of deception peeling away. “What now?”
“I neglected to mention it earlier, but I don’t think the cartel is exactly going to be cool with us absconding with one of their assets.”
Now Zaina groaned. “So what, we have to break him out?”
Reida blinked rapidly. “I—yes. Tralgon does rent people out, but Kazlo’s not in that line of work.”
Zaina shuddered, not knowing how Reida was able to talk about such horrible things so casually.
The pirate continued, “That being said, you’ve got a little bit of an advantage—you can always pretend you’re on official Order business, and I have a feeling they’ll leave you alone. Hell, if you say you need to interrogate Kazlo, they might even lead you to him. At that point it’s a breakout situation.”
“You really think they’ll cooperate?” Baeus chimed in.
“I do,” Reida said. “Even the Tralgon Cartel doesn’t want to start shit with the Order of Riiva. Just don’t be rude and make it clear you’re not there to arrest anyone, and I think you’ll be fine.”
Zaina crossed her arms, suspicious. “And what will you be doing?”
Reida smirked. “Someone’s gotta make sure we’ve got a way offworld, right? I’ll secure the ship.”
Baeus turned to Zaina with a ‘she-has-a-point’ face, and she replied with a groan. “Fine. But I want to go on record saying I don’t like it.”
“If you want Kazlo, this is how it has to be,” Reida replied. “Unless you want to fight your way in and out—you could show me how powerful you’ve become as a lancer.”
It pained Zaina to even think it, but Reida was right. Pretending to be on official Order business was their best bet of getting inside. From there they’d find a way out, ideally with as little violence as possible; under normal circumstances Zaina liked her odds against a bunch of criminals, but with her leg still hampering her it was better to avoid a fight.
Besides that, this was Reida—there had to be more lies. Zaina knew better than to ever think Reida was telling the truth about anything. For now her plan looked like the best option, but Zaina decided to stay vigilant in identifying what she was really after.
The ship pulled closer to Dralkooth, a planet mostly covered in water with three large continents and thousands of smaller ones speckling the surface. Zaina took a deep breath—for better or worse, they had arrived.
“So,” Baeus said, “where exactly is this data center? One of the main islands, or an offshoot?”
“Oh, right here,” she replied, projecting a holographic image of the coordinates from her vis-screen.
Baeus examined the coordinates and then gave Reida a strange look. “That’s the middle of the ocean.”
“Exactly. You think they want their data facility on one of the main islands?”
Baeus sighed. “I suppose I don’t know where they’d want it. Though it may help to know what we’re looking for.”
“If you go to those coordinates, you won’t be able to miss it. Trust me. Tralgon builds big,” she said.
Zaina could tell by Baeus’s furled brow that he shared her suspicions of Reida. Still, their only hope of fixing Gizmo was to play along—for now.