“Hey Chica!” one of them yelled to her as she approached. “You looking for a man?”

  Rico smiled. “Actually, I am. Is Able around?”

  A group of six cons stood up, quickly surrounding her. “Who’s asking?” one of them asked.

  “Special Officer Rico Rodriguez,” she replied.

  “What generation are you?” a woman in the background asked. Rico looked over at her. She had a similar build and nearly identical hair, though her face was a little wider. She was a Rodriguez too.

  “Sixth,” Rico said.

  “Damn,” Rodriguez replied. “I wish I was sixth. I’m a fourth.”

  “You look good for your age.”

  “What good is that going to do me? No work for cons unless you want to join the Trust. I made a mistake, but I was a good soldier. No way I’m signing up with them.”

  “Copy that,” Rico said.

  “Special Officer,” the man blocking her path said. “Centurion Spacer?”

  “Adjunct. I told you, I’m looking for Able.”

  “What’s your business with him?”

  “That’s my business.”

  “I’m making it my business.”

  “Are you his bodyguard?”

  “No. Just a concerned friend. Able’s a popular guy the last couple of days.”

  “Who else came to see him?”

  “Some gort with silver-blonde hair.”

  Rico nearly bit her tongue. “Last name Bennett?” she asked.

  “How’d you know?”

  “Lucky guess.” Her heart fluttered anew. “I need to see Able. Now.”

  The man rubbed at his chin. “How much is it worth to you?”

  Rico was tired of the game. She lunged forward faster than the man could react, grabbing his neck and twisting him into a choke hold. “How much is your life worth to you? I’m a Special Officer. I can get away with it.”

  The man started coughing, his eyes dancing to his henchmen, expecting them to help. They weren’t going to. Not against a Spacer clone.

  “Ghost’s Tavern,” the man wheezed out. “Two strands east, and then—”

  “I know where it is,” Rico said, letting the man go. “Thanks for your cooperation.”

  She hurried away, not bothering to look back. The cons wouldn’t harass her. Their lives were shit, but they still wanted to live them.

  She was more confused than ever. What the hell was Haeri planning, and why had he sent a Bennett?

  9

  Rico

  There was a time when Ghost’s had been a popular place of business. Back when Praeton had first been founded and Dome One was the only dome in the city. It still wore the callbacks to that golden age proudly, it’s stark metal interior a reminder of the days before the replicators were unpacked and the raw materials processed.

  But the owner of the place kept the aluminum walls, table and bar polished. He kept the floor clean. The bathrooms cleaner. He provided live music, and his liquor was still made the same way it had been back then—cheap and hard.

  It was early enough in the evening that there was still enough of a crowd in the old pub to fill the tables and most of the stools at the bar. The band was thankfully taking a break, keeping the volume down enough for Rico to hear herself think.

  She approached the bar, knocking on the surface to get the bartender’s attention. He was a burly man with a thick beard and enormous arms, his hair cut in a mohawk. He smiled when he saw her.

  “Is that Rico Rodriguez?” he asked.

  “It is,” she replied. “It’s been a long time, Jake.”

  “Hell yes it has,” he replied. “I thought you were too good for Ghost’s these days?”

  “Not by choice. I’ve been on assignment.”

  “For six years?”

  She nodded. “I’m still on assignment. I need to talk to Able.”

  Jake pointed up and to the left. Rico followed his finger to the second floor of the establishment, where a metal walkway provided access to private rooms.

  “Thanks, Jake,” Rico said.

  Jake nodded in reply. He had been a Spacer once too. One of the few to get a job after Reclamation. Of course, it helped that the Trust had a substantial ownership stake in Ghost’s. Jake knew better than to ask questions when it came to Centurion business.

  Or Trust business.

  Rico still wasn’t sure which one she was working for at the moment.

  She made her way across the bar, slipping between the other patrons and climbing the stairs. She headed to the room Jake had pointed out. The door was closed, the window beside it opaque. She knocked. “Able. It’s Rico.”

  It took a couple of seconds before a muscular thug pulled the door open. Standing beside it, he glared at her. She ignored him, her eyes crossing to the aluminum table in the center of the room where half-downed drinks rested beside crumb covered plates. An elderly woman sat directly behind it. Rico’s eyes tracked to the right where a muscular soldier with silver-blonde hair and two days’ of scruff sat, looking back at her.

  All of the air went out of her, and she balled her hands into fists to keep her reaction localized. Including a Bennett was intentional. Designed to pull her deeper into whatever web Haeri was spinning. And she knew she was trapped the moment she saw him.

  “Steven,” she said lightly, still staring at the clone.

  “Ryan,” he replied, smiling. He knew why she reacted the way she did. Did he know this moment was the reason he had been grown?

  The heavy beside her wanted to close the door. She stepped aside to let him, returning her attention to Able. Her contact was thin and stylish, with white hair and a semi-wrinkled face that had been rejuvenated at least twice. “What is this about?”

  “You got the files, I assume?”

  “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.” She knew Able as an informant for Centurion Intelligence. Was he a member of the Trust too? “I’m not going to get court-martialed for this, am I?”

  “No guarantees. What we’re looking at is way beyond politics or laws.”

  “The Hunger is coming,” Rico said.

  “With a vengeance,” Bennett replied.

  “I need more intel than that.”

  “No, you don’t,” General Haeri said as he opened the door and stepped into the room beside her. He had traded in his uniform for a pair of worn jeans and a synth leather jacket, and his clean-shaven face for a line of stubble. Rico would never have recognized him if he weren’t standing right there, his face in full view.

  “General Haeri,” she said, coming to attention out of habit.

  “Relax, Rico,” he replied. “I’m not here as a general of the CSF.”

  “The Trust?” she asked.

  “No. Not the Trust, either. Not exactly.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “We had a three-day window for you to catch up on your own, so you’re slightly ahead of schedule.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t follow you.”

  “But you understand the danger we’re in. An enemy starship is on its way here.”

  “Yes, sir. What I don’t understand is why we’re talking about it in secret here instead of sounding an alarm.”

  “Because the time for alarm hasn’t arrived yet. The ship’s position and velocity means it will be another week before it passes Proxima, and a week after that before it reaches Earth.”

  “Passes Proxima? It looked like it was headed right for Proxima.”

  “It’ll go past by about three AU, assuming it maintains its current trajectory. We haven’t figured out yet if the path is intentional and it’s sending a message, or we just happen to be in its way, but we’re pretty sure it’s going to Earth first.”

  “Who’s we?” Rico asked.

  “The less you know about that, the better,” Haeri replied. “Let’s all have a seat.”

  The general walked past her, sliding in beside Able and leaving her no choice but to sit across from Bennett. She did, forcing herself to stay professional as she looked across at him. Clones were supposed to have their genetics modified just enough so that their physical appearance was unique. It was better for their mental health. But with Steven gone, his code was fair game, and Haeri hadn’t wasted any time playing with it. Ryan Bennett was an identical copy of her late husband.

  “Why him?” Rico asked, pointing at Bennett. She had never been one to mince words, and if Haeri said not to treat him like a general, then she was going for the jugular.

  Haeri smiled. “I know what you’re thinking, Rico. And on one level, you’re correct. I want your loyalty in this. I need your loyalty in this. And if this is the best way to get it, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

  “That’s pretty twisted,” Rico said.

  “I don’t care. This is bigger than morality. And it isn’t the only reason. Bennett was one of the best soldiers we’ve had in the last fifty years. The Council jumped at the chance to bring him back.”

  “That isn’t him.”

  “I know this is awkward,” Bennett said. “But I am sitting right here.”

  Rico looked at him. “Sorry. This is a bit—”

  “I understand,” he said. “But we have a mission to worry about.”

  Rico had to remind herself he wasn’t Steven. But that was exactly what he would have said.

  “Let’s stay focused,” Haeri said. “Able, thanks for helping me arrange this.”

  “Of course, Aeron.”

  “Rico, I know you aren’t sure about my motives, and that’s fine. Suffice it to say, I’ve got the best interests of humankind at heart. Not only Proxima. All of humanity. I’ve had a long time to think about how to best ensure our survival in a universe that’s a lot bigger and scarier than most people realize, and I recognize that we can’t do it alone. In that sense, Isaac’s arrival has been incredibly valuable, especially considering how it came about.”

  “We’ve only got two weeks,” Rico replied. “Can you be a little more forthright?”

  Haeri smiled. “That’s why I chose you, Rico. You don’t flinch. You get things done.”

  “I want to get things done right now.”

  “I’ll keep it simple. We’re preparing a counter-offensive just in case the Relyeh ship does decide to stop here instead of continuing to Earth. But if it doesn’t, we need to be able to attack the problem there.”

  “You mean Sheriff Duke?”

  He nodded. “I mean Sheriff Duke. Like you, he’s already proven he can get things done.”

  “So why all of this bullshit? Why not just send me back to Earth on a diplomatic mission?”

  “Two reasons. One, I want Isaac to go with you, and the Council refuses to allow it, at least not before they pick his brain for everything he knows. He’s the only survivor from the original trife invasion. You can imagine what that means to them.”

  “I can imagine it means they don’t want him getting out into the open and countering the lies the entire planet’s been living under for the last two hundred years.”

  “I’m impressed. You know how to play the game.”

  “It’s not as hard as you want to think.”

  “I had to arrest him and put him in solitary. Council’s orders.”

  “That’s illegal.”

  “I know. So does the Council. But he’s dangerous. And nobody will miss him.”

  “I missed him.”

  “Did you consider that put a target on your head too?”

  Rico froze. She hadn’t considered it.

  “It might not be as easy as you want to think,” Haeri said. “In any case, I need to get you and Isaac back to Earth to warn Sheriff Duke that things are going to get ugly in two weeks time.”

  “Don’t you mean in a week’s time? It’ll take a week just to get there.”

  “We think we can get you there a little faster. How does two days sound?”

  There was the anonymous ‘we’ again. If it wasn’t the military or the Trust, who was Haeri referring to?

  “How?”

  “One of our scientists, Niobe Stacker, was working on an algorithm to improve space fold efficiencies,” Haeri said. “Unfortunately, she didn’t get to finish that work. But she got us far enough along that we were able to improve the calculations and upload the new algorithms into the fold computer of one of our ships. It’ll drop you a lot closer to Earth than our current math.”

  “Is this a Centurion ship?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “You’re saying that a lot, Aeron.”

  “There are good people on Proxima who are doing dangerous things to make this happen. Things that will bring the wrong kind of attention from the Council, the military and the Trust. They all have their own agendas.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “I do. I told you, my motivation is to preserve humankind on both planets. I’m not the only one who feels that way.”

  “Sheriff Duke doesn’t trust you.”

  “No, he doesn’t. That’s why I’m sending you and Isaac.”

  “Okay, so you have a ship for us. That sounds like the easy part.”

  “It is. I can’t release Isaac to you without risking my cover. You’ll need to break him out.”

  Rico smiled. “So, there it is.”

  “Yes.”

  She leaned back against the seat and sighed. “Can you get us equipment?”

  “I’ll take care of that,” Able said.

  “My fingerprints can’t be anywhere on this or we’re going to fail,” Haeri said.

  “And I can trust Bennett here?”

  “Yes,” Bennett replied. “I’ve got your back, Rico.”

  “He was coded to be loyal to me first and you second,” Haeri said.

  “That kind of coding is illegal,” Rico replied.

  “Everything you’re about to do is illegal. But it just might save Earth. Hell, it just might save us all.”

  Rico picked up her head. Then she stood up, leaning over the table. “Then what are we waiting for?”

  10

  Rico

  Rico had expected Isaac to be held in the brig on the Centurion Space Force base at the center of Praeton, and she was surprised when General Haeri told her she was wrong.

  According to Haeri, while the brig in CSF Alpha was secure, it was also too high profile to make someone like Isaac disappear. Instead, the Council needed a place they could trust with certainty. A place that didn’t carry the risk of someone saying too much to the wrong person.

  A place outside the domes of Praeton.

  They were sitting in a coffee shop, at a table near the window. Six hours had passed since their meeting with General Haeri, which had concluded with Able leading them from the private room to a hidden back door out of Ghost’s and into a waiting transport. The transport had carried them to a warehouse the other side of the dome where Able had efficiently fulfilled each of Rico’s requests, albeit with a personal twist on the meaning of some of her asks. With that done, they had been afforded a few hours to rest before boarding the transport again, taking it only a short distance before they were unloaded into the foot traffic to make their own way.

  “What’s our plan?” Bennett asked.

  Rico glanced over at the clone, only maintaining eye contact for a moment before looking away. Bennett’s eyes seemed to penetrate her soul without trying, digging too damn deep into her for her liking.

  She looked out the window, raising her head to gaze up past the dome to the massive silhouette of the generation starship Dove at rest in the distance. Nineteen ships had landed on Proxima within a two-week span over two hundred years earlier, each of the ships having ferried between thirty and forty thousand settlers away from an alien-ravaged Earth to start a new life. The Dove was the first to arrive, the founding ship and cornerstone of Praeton. It was still in use today, home to a museum, a CSF starship hangar, and most importantly the Proxima Civilian Council and its adjunct political bureaus.

  She had laughed when General Haeri told her Isaac was being held in the same apartments where dignitaries from Proxima’s other cities would stay during sessions of the planet’s Congress, finding it sadly amusing that it was the only place the Council felt it could trust. Then again, they intended to make a legal citizen of Proxima vanish without a trace.

  The whole situation bordered on insanity.

  She tapped on the small, flesh-colored patch Able had adhered to her wrist over her real identification chip. The fake would identify her as an employee of the Praeton History Museum, which was located in the smaller hangar near the back of the two-kilometer long ship. Bennett wore a matching patch that would claim he was an administrative assistant for the representative of Caesar, one of the smaller cities along the tropical hemisphere, about six hundred kilometers away.

  “Chips get us in,” she said quietly, reaching down to tug on the hem of her brown skirt, part of the uniform the museum guides wore. She hadn’t been in a skirt since she was eight years old. “Uniforms get us close.” She patted her large purse slightly, referencing the bodysuit and sidearm inside. “This gets us out.”

  “I don’t think museum guide was the best choice,” Bennett said. “A skirt? Don’t you think you’ll be recognized as a Rodriguez?”

  He was in a navy blue guard uniform, a utility vest strapped over his shirt and a bodysuit resting beneath it. His sidearm was part of his suit.

  Lucky bastard.

  “Able apparently doesn’t think so,” she replied. “Either that or he has some personal vendetta against me that I would’ve rather settled with a death match.”

  Bennett laughed, and Rico’s heart fell again. It had been months since she had heard that laugh. Damn, she missed her husband. “Maybe when this is over, you can get your wish.”

  She forced a smile. “Something to live for. I’ll go first. Wait ten minutes and then follow behind me.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And don’t call me ma’am. Not when we’re about to break about a hundred laws. Rico will do.”

  “Copy that.”

  She stood up, straightened the skirt heading for the door. She was uncomfortable walking in high heels instead of combat boots. Maybe if she were going out to a fancy dinner or to a show, she could make do. But to break a non-fugitive out of a non-prison and steal a non-military starship? She didn’t even know if she could run in the damn things.