Alexis pushed out her bottom lip and nodded with appreciation before tapping Cad on the shoulder and saying, “I think her shot was better.”

  21

  Cad pressed what he assumed to be the door buzzer to Falken’s bunker for a fourth time, his foot tapping impatiently as he did so. As first impressions went, the mysterious hacker had not made a good one. On top of being forced to wait, the missile battery on Falken’s mountainside fortress had also locked on to Cad’s ship as he’d approached. The half-assed, insincere apology that had followed over his new holo-comm system merely added insult to injury. To make matters worse, it was also freezing cold and snowing. Cad hated snow.

  “What the hell is keeping this lady?” growled Cad as he rubbed his arms, trying to work some life back into them. “And what kind of nutjob builds their house on the side of a mountain? That’s some evil genius-level nonsense.”

  Draga Vex walked up to the thick metal door, which looked like it had been built to withstand a nuclear blast. “On the plus side, this is probably the least awful place I’ve seen on Vediovis,” she said as she hammered her armored fists on the metal, yelling at the top of her voice for the occupier to open up. Cad could see that she had actually pressed dents into it. By the eighth strike, the door creaked open, and the petite frame of a young woman peeked through the narrow gap.

  “Alright already, I heard you the first ten times,” she snapped, immediately hugging her thin shoulders as the bitter wind whipped inside. “Do you know how long it takes to get down here?”

  Draga pushed the door open wider and barged through it, almost knocking Falken off her feet. She then grabbed her by the neckline of her tank-top and said, “Do you know how long it would take for you to hit the ground if I tossed you off this mountain?”

  Falken looked into Draga’s dark eyes, curiously without fear. “Well, the landing platform is one thousand and fifty-four meters above sea level, and the gravity here is about point nine four g, so I reckon about fifteen seconds,” she said, throwing Draga off her stride completely. “Assuming I free fall the whole distance, that is.”

  Cad was certain that his menacing accomplice was gearing up toward a “do you want to find out?” sort of punchline, but Falken’s factual answer and unruffled delivery had ruined her comeback.

  Draga released the young woman, apparently not knowing what else to do, and Falken then ushered them inside with a waft of her hand, as if nothing unusual had occurred.

  “Come on, and shut the door; the heating costs for this place are astronomical…”

  Cad laughed and walked inside, while Alexis followed a short distance behind, shrugging at Draga as she passed.

  “Close the door, will ya?” Alexis said to Draga, smirking.

  Cad followed Falken through the sprawling interior of the mountainside structure, peering up at the industrial-looking beams and wide-open spaces. It then dawned on him that this wasn’t a purpose-built dwelling at all; Falken appeared to have adapted it from something that had already been there.

  “What is this place anyway?” Cad asked as they walked up a long, winding metal staircase to an open-plan area that looked like a high-tech military intelligence command center.

  “It used to be part of a precious metals mine," said Falken, leading them toward an elaborate array of computer consoles and physical and holographic displays. “It was abandoned decades ago, back when the ass fell out of the industry on Vediovis, and all the gangs took over. Most of it was scrapped, but I rescued this place; got it nice and cheap too. No one bothers me up here; not even the gangs. Not that they’d be able to get in, even if they did make the climb. And since there are no laws on this planet, I can hack into the BridgeNet and pretty much scam whomever I like, and no one can touch me.”

  Falken sat down in an enormous red chair and spun it around to face her consoles. Cad noticed that much of the room was given over to a variety of home entertainment systems, holo projectors, and a full reality-immersion suite. There was an old-fashioned two-dimensional projection screen that was part-way through what looked like an old Hollywood action movie. It was showing a scene with a guy in a bloodied white vest, running around on the roof of a tall office tower, letting loose with a sub-machine gun. There was also an enormous fridge, filled with an assortment of brightly colored drinks, and a row of shelves with a wide assortment of sweet and savory snacks. The whole thing occupied nearly an entire wall.

  “Help yourself,” said Falken, noticing that Cad had spotted the mini food market.

  “I’m good, thanks,” replied Cad, thinking he’d probably rather drink more of Doyle’s revolting million-dollar whiskey than the crap in Falken’s fridge. “We’re sort of on the clock here, lady, so can we skip to the part where you help us find our renegade spy?”

  “On it,” said Falken, who then began working on her many different terminals and screens. As she was doing so, Alexis strolled over to the enormous fridge, grabbed a bright purple-colored drink, plus a straw, followed by a party-size bag of chips from the adjacent shelf. She then strolled back over in front of the projection screen, and flopped down into a huge reclining leather sofa.

  “What?” said Alexis as Cad stared at her with a “what the hell are you doing?” look. She pulled open the bag of chips and gestured to the projection screen. “This is a classic!”

  Cad shook his head and turned back to Falken with Draga at his side. Her arms were folded like a nightclub doorman’s; returning to Vediovis always put her in a foul mood.

  “The information you forwarded to me from the Consortium’s intelligence network was pretty useful,” said Falken, continuing to work as she talked. “But most of the people they were tracking are actually moles for some of the other mega-corporations, rather than these renegades you’re after.”

  “How is that useful?” asked Cad, already getting bored.

  Falken stopped typing and smiled up at Cad. “Because I’m still blackmailing all of them as a nice little side-gig.”

  “Whatever pays the bills, huh?” said Cad, both impressed and a little worried at how shamelessly Falken seemed to enjoy screwing people over. Not that he was any different; Cad just preferred a straight fight to snooping around in the shadows. Even so, he still felt the urge to check his own personal account on his watch to make sure the hacker hadn’t already emptied it.

  “There were a few pretty strong contenders for renegade double-agents, though,” Falken went on, clearly enjoying herself, “besides the one who exposed his identity on Vesta, during the HQ raid, that is.” She then brought up a personnel file for a woman called Scarlett Brock, and threw it up on the large holo screen to Cad’s left.

  Cad read the file. The woman was an accountant at one of the major banks on Janus. She looked to be in her early forties and in every way possible was entirely unremarkable, at least to Cad’s eyes.

  “You’re trying to tell me she’s a renegade spy?” he said doubtfully. He then shot a quick glance over to Draga, who looked similarly unconvinced. Alexis, meanwhile, was still engrossed in the movie, while working her way through the bag of potato chips.

  “Not all spies are like super-cool secret agent types, you know?” Falken hit back. “From what I’ve discovered, this woman works on the accounts for some of the Consortium’s larger Randenite fuel retail partners. So she knows who is buying what, and in what quantities, and on what schedules.”

  Cad nodded. “Right, I can see how that information might be useful to Rand’s little group of bandits.” He continued to read the file, noting that Scarlett Brock worked for Wareham & Doyle, which was based in the main financial district on Janus.

  “The Consortium monitored some encrypted data streams originating from her office, but they couldn’t trace the destination,” Falken added. “It was like the signal just disappeared inside the BridgeNet. That shouldn’t be possible, so whoever is behind this has got some smarts.”

  “She could just be sending secrets to some rival firm, like your other suspects,” Cad replied. “What makes you so certain that she’s working with the renegades?”

  “It’s all there in her social profile,” said Falken, wafting a hand toward the holo screen. “She was a big supporter of stopping bridge travel, in favor of fixing Earth’s problems instead; attended marches and all that stuff.”

  “Seems a bit obvious,” said Cad. “How come no one found her sooner?”

  Falken switched the holo screen to another section of Scarlett Brock’s profile. “She would have been, but someone wiped her social accounts a couple of years ago – a real professional job too – and started again. Same goes with criminal records and anything tying her to activism. Now she reads like the galaxy’s biggest Consortium fangirl and proponent of interstellar expansion. This was also around about the same time she took the job on Janus.” Falken shrugged nonchalantly again. “A nice bit of profile reengineering so that she’d be above suspicion. But I’m certain this is your woman.”

  Cad sighed, “It’s not going to be easy to get to her on Janus,” he said, stroking his chin with his thumb. The security on that planet is tight, and we can’t just stroll into a major city-center office block wearing power armor and weapons.”

  “Speaking of weapons, cool sword, by the way,” said Falken, reclining back in her seat and pointing to Cad’s Black Prince.

  “Thanks,” replied Cad insincerely. The overly chipper demeanor of the young hacker was getting on his nerves. Cad again checked his watch; this time because he was actually conscious of the time, rather than whether Falken had hacked him. “Look, this is all fascinating, but couldn’t you have transmitted this to me over a secure comm? Why drag my ass all the way out to this worthless rock?”

  Falken reached across her desk and picked up a small device. “Because in order to find out where the data stream ends up, you’ll need this,” she said, holding the plain-looking plastic object out to Cad. He thought it looked like a baseball that had been squashed into an oblate shape. “If you can catch her transmitting the data from her terminal and link that device to it, then it will trace and decode the final end point.”

  Cad shrugged. “Which means what?”

  “It will give you the co-ordinates of the location in the Darkspace where the spy is sending data to,” Falken clarified. “Maybe one of these hideouts you’re looking for.”

  Cad pocketed the device and called over to Alexis, “Hey, come on, we’re leaving.”

  “Just a minute, this is almost finished,” Alexis replied, slurping on the brightly colored drink.

  Falken then held out another device to Cad, and this was one he recognized.

  “Now there’s just the small matter of payment,” said Falken chirpily.

  “What makes you think I won’t just kill you and take the information for free?” said Cad, genuinely curious as to why the hacker had so unreservedly let them enter her fortified bunker.

  “You’ll need me again,” said Falken with the fearlessness she had shown when Draga confronted her. “Plus, that device won’t activate until you’ve paid.” Then she smiled a toothy grin. “Plus, plus… I could hack your account and take the money after you’ve gone, so you may as well get it over with now.”

  “You’d just better hope you stay useful,” Cad hit back before grabbing the palm computer. He looked at the figure on the screen and snorted. The sum wasn’t nearly as obnoxious as the bill for upgrading their ships, but it was still more than most regular people earned in twenty years. “Nice work if you can get it,” said Cad, authorizing the transaction from Doyle’s corporate account before passing the device back to Falken.

  The woman took the pad back and shrugged. “Beats working for a living.”

  Alexis then strolled up beside Cad, slurping loudly on the last dregs of her drink. Cad noticed that the credits were rolling on the movie she’d been watching. She belched loudly, then threw the plastic bottle at a nearby trash can, missing it by a considerable distance. “Oops,” she said, not bothering to rectify her mistake.

  “We’ll see ourselves out,” Cad announced before turning to leave. Then something that Falken had said earlier popped back into his mind, and he stopped. “Wait, you said before that the identity of the guy who stole data from the Consortium HQ was blown. Do you know who it was?”

  “Of course,” said Falken, quickly tapping away at her console. A cleaner bot scurried over to collect the discarded soda bottle, then rapidly shot away as Alexis glowered at it. “But I doubt you’ll see him again, now that his cover is blown,” she added. “Likely, he’ll stay holed up in one of these hideouts from now on.” She finished working and threw up the file onto the large holo screen.

  Cad shook his head in disbelief, “You have got to be kidding me,” he said, glancing at Alexis and Draga, who both looked as astounded as he was.

  “You know this guy?” said Falken.

  “Yeah, we’ve met,” said Cad, glaring at the image of Hallam Knight on the holo. He rested his hand on the pommel of his sword and squeezed it tightly. “And you’re dead wrong about him laying low from now on,” Cad growled. “In fact, I have a feeling that we’ll be seeing a lot more of this asshole in the future.”

  22

  Hallam stepped off the metal stairwell that the ground crew had wheeled up to the side hatch of Dakota’s fighter and got his first good look at the hangar of the Darkspace Renegade hideout. The last time he’d been inside one these bases, Dr. Rand had insisted he was blindfolded before leaving in order to preserve the base’s secret location. Hallam had argued that this was pointless, considering the hideout was on some uncharted planet he’d never seen or even heard of before, but Dr. Rand preferred to take no chances. The reason for her caution had become obvious after learning about the hideout’s true, and remarkable, location. Even so, after his escapades at the Consortium HQ on Vesta, he still doubted if the genius scientist would be more trusting of him.

  “Not quite as plush as the Centrum’s hangar area, is it?” said Dakota as she jumped off the steps behind Hallam.

  “No, but in many other ways, it’s just as impressive,” Hallam replied, looking around the unique space. Dakota was right that the hangar was more than a little rough around the edges, but it was also a remarkable feat of ingenuity. “Is this the same hideout you brought me to originally?” Hallam then asked.

  “Yes, this is the largest front-line base we have in the Darkspace,” said Dakota, peering around the hangar with the look of someone who’d just come home after a long day. “Though, wait till you see Dr. Rand’s personal hideout,” Dakota added with an air of mystery. “That’s even more remarkable, though for very different reasons.”

  Hallam raised an eyebrow, curious to learn more about that unique base, but since he’d only just been let over the threshold of his first secret hideout, he didn’t want to push Dakota for more information just yet.

  “It’s literally unbelievable that you managed to build this all the way out in the middle of nowhere,” Hallam said, focusing back in on his current miraculous location. “No wonder the Consortium has never been able to find these hideouts.”

  The renegade base had been built on the surface of an earth-sized moon that orbited a Jupiter-mass rogue planet. Prior to setting eyes on the renegade base during his return with Dakota, Hallam had assumed that the planet Dr. Rand referred to during their first meeting was a regular one, orbiting a regular star. He’d never even heard of a rogue planet before, never mind visited one. Instead of orbiting a star, the rogue planet circled the galactic center, sailing through the Darkspace, utterly alone, apart from its companion moons.

  The rogue planet itself was an incredible sight, but to then discover that Dr. Rand’s insurgent organization had constructed a base on the surface of the second moon was even more fantastic. It had been built by landing and then piecing together a fleet of large commercial starships and super-freighters. It was like building a three-dimensional jigsaw, except that to make the pieces fit, you needed heavy-duty power tools and construction machinery. However, once the ships had been bolted and welded together, and doorways cut through from one to another, each vessel’s own reactor and life-support systems were fired back up to supply heat, air, and power. It wasn’t pretty, but it worked, and had resulted in a functional base with a ready-made set of amenities, from living spaces to reclamation facilities.

  During their journey from Vesta to the hideout, Dakota had explained that the vessels had been stolen from dozens of orbital and deep-space scrapyards over a number of years. After Dr. Rand’s cyber-attack had put the Randenite refineries out of action, with the exception of the Centrum, thousands of interstellar ships ended up being mothballed or sold for scrap. There simply wasn’t enough fuel to sustain them all. And even for the majority of haulage firms and interstellar transport companies that could get hold of Randenite, the radically spiraling fuel costs soon put them out of business. However, while the market for interstellar transportation and haulage contracted massively, the Centrum still produced enough Randenite to keep the network of bridge worlds supplied and fed.

  Hallam followed Dakota toward the hangar exit as engineering crews rushed in to take care of her fighter. In amongst the throng of blue overall-wearing techs, there was someone else approaching, and she looked ready for a war.

  “What the hell happened out there?” yelled the woman, marching directly up to Dakota and blocking her path.

  “Kien disobeyed my order and got himself killed, that’s what happened,” snarled Dakota, meeting fire with fire.

  “You should have let me come with you, like I said. Then he wouldn’t have felt like he had to go it alone,” the woman hit back, eyes still locked on to Dakota’s. “But it sounds like we were both right, because he saved your ass.” Hallam felt as though he was invisible.

  Dakota stood her ground. However, although she was giving no quarter, she hadn’t gotten angry. It was a side to his usually hotheaded partner he hadn’t seen before; Dakota was usually the one to give in to emotion.