CHAPTER 15

“Brody, what part of ‘keep a low profile’ did you not understand?” Nat rubbed at her temples. She’d gotten up to check on the network requests that she’d put in before sacking out last night, and found on the main compartment’s table a cheery note from the pilot about going into the settlement for supplies. Tempted as she had been to go after him, she’d decided to drink some coffee instead. In the end, it had just made her frustration build, to the point that when the pilot finally returned, groceries in tow, she’d been sitting in the cargo hold, tapping one foot on the floor like a parent waiting up for a teenager.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, having the decency to look abashed, and Nat’s frustration ebbed out of her as she reminded herself for what felt like the millionth time that, despite a certain amount of instinct and luck, Eli Brody was not a trained covert operative. “I didn’t think it would be that big a deal.”

Nat took a sip of her rapidly cooling coffee and let out a breath, trying to expel the last remnants of her annoyance. What was done was done. “The man who was watching you. Describe him.”

Brody squeezed his eyes closed and ran down the details for her. “I’m not sure it was a badge on his belt, but it could have been.” He let one blue eye crack open. “What is the law enforcement situation out here anyway?”

“Even calling it ‘law enforcement’ is giving it too much credit,” said Nat, leaning over and flicking a holoscreen into existence from the tablet in front of her. “It’s basically Horvat corporate security. They don’t enforce the law so much as company policy. Nominally they need to comply with the laws of the governments they do business with – which includes both the Commonwealth and the Imperium – or face sanctions, but there is unsurprisingly a lot of willingness on the parts of politicians to look the other way, especially when they’re providing valuable resources.”

With an uncharacteristically moody sigh, Brody opened his eyes and flopped into the chair across from her. “My homeworld was strip-mined by the Imperium for every piece of ore and rare metal they could find. Sometimes feels like the whole galaxy has just become a machine for moving resources from one place to another – and wealth along with it.”

Nat’s eyebrows rose. She hadn’t taken the brash young pilot for a deep thinker, but apparently he had hidden depths. Come to think of it, Simon had said as much after he’d first recruited Brody; there was a reason he was still part of the crew, after all.

Drumming her fingers on the table, she considered the rest of what he’d told her. “The news about the Illyricans buying up palladium is curious.”

“What do you think they’re using it for?”

She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. It’s got any number of applications in electronics, manufacturing, fuel storage. Any large industrial project would need it. I’d be tempted to think warships, but we haven’t heard any reports of the Imperium spinning up its shipyards recently.”

“So they’re working on something else.”

“Maybe,” she said. “Honestly, I’m more curious about how they’re affording it; their financial circumstances are shaky to say the least. Last chatter I heard even fueling their fleet seemed like a dicey proposition.” Maybe they’d sourced some alternative currency through a third-party, Nat mused. Not that they were widely regarded as a good investment, especially after their botched attempt to annex Bayern. Still… she shook her head to clear it: this wasn’t relevant. “Doesn’t matter, lieutenant; this isn’t our business right now. We’ve got more urgent problems, as you might recall.”

“Right. Well, I mean, we’re out in the middle of nowhere. Chances that some rent-a-cop is going to figure out that we’re on the Commonwealth’s most wanted list seems kind of slim.”

He wasn’t wrong. Corporate security’s job was to prevent things from blowing back on the company, and much as Horvat Heavy Industries valued doing business with the Commonwealth, if they spent all their time checking on whether everybody who showed up on Juarez 7A was wanted in this jurisdiction or that, they’d do little else. Not to mention it would put a bit of a crimp in their hiring practices – most people didn’t come here when they had other options.

“Probably not,” Nat agreed. “But we should be careful anyway. I don’t want anybody going out on their own.”

“What happened?” A bleary-eyed Tapper stepped into the hold, stretching. “Brody, did you accidentally kick the mayor’s dog or something?”

“I was just making friendly conversation!”

“That’s always how it starts. But somehow it always ends with a dog getting kicked.”

Brody shot him a look, then dragged his bag of provisions off the table and into the galley to start unpacking.

Meanwhile Tapper pulled himself a cup of coffee and sat down opposite Nat, his levity evaporated. “Anything we need to worry about?” he asked quietly.

“Unclear,” said Nat. “We may have attracted some local security attention. Hard to tell if it’s just cursory or something more, but it can’t hurt to be cautious. Are you armed?”

The sergeant took a sip, but didn’t bat so much as an eyelash. “I can be. But as the boss always says –”

“Oh, I know. ‘Carrying a weapon is the fastest way to get shot’.”

A slight smile crossed the old man’s weathered face, but it faded as he put the mug down on the table, cupping it in both hands. “Commander, how long are we going to be out here?”

“I wish I knew.” Her gaze drifted to Brody, prodding a bruised tomato and looking disappointed. “How do you think they’re doing, sergeant?”

“In what way?”

“This is more than we’ve ever asked of them.” Her chest tightened and she tried to force the knot there to unravel. “It’s one thing being on an operation when we’re running towards the danger. It’s a little different when we’re running for our lives.”

Tapper snorted. “Tough.”

“Good pep talk.”

“No, I mean it.” He leaned back and held up the mug, steam rising from wisps that made her think of watching the fog rise over the lake from the cabin Simon had built. “Sayers and Brody will follow your lead. But they need you to lead.”

She pressed her lips together. “I’m not even sure where to start.”

Tapper’s eyes sharpened, reminding her that the man had been a drill sergeant for a reason. “Don’t ask me. I’m just a simple grunt. You, though, you’re one of Naval Intelligence’s sharpest minds. There’s a reason you got that chief of staff job with Admiral Chatterjee.”

“I suppose – wait, how did you know? I only found out…yesterday?” Had it just been yesterday? It seemed like a week since she’d been headed into the Commonwealth Executive compound to meet Simon for lunch and break the news.

He sipped his coffee and shrugged with more than a hint of false modesty. “I hear things.”

That was Tapper for you: somehow he seemed to know everyone and everything worth knowing – even when that shouldn’t be possible. “I hadn’t said yes yet.”

“Yeahhhh, well, I wouldn’t put that high on your priority list right now anyway.” Tapper gestured at their surroundings. “It’s going to be tough to explain this on your résumé.”

Nat leaned back in her chair, staring glumly at her coffee going cold. Everything that she’d worked for her entire career, potentially up in smoke.

Technically, she was only on secondment to the Special Projects Team from Naval Intelligence Command, though that was pretty much academic since she’d chosen to help the team in their flight from the authorities.

But she wasn’t about to go sit in a cushy office while Brody, Tapper, and Sayers were all disappeared to a CID black site. For now, she was still the team’s executive officer.

And, as Tapper said, she had to set the direction and the tone. The sergeant, you could point him at a problem and he’d solve it – probably with the liberal application of explosives – but he wasn’t the ranking officer. Which left Brody who, while capable of incredible feats from behind the controls of a ship, wasn’t trained for anything like this. And Sayers, well, there was no question that she was a force to be reckoned with, and Nat saw a lot of promise in her – if she could just get that temper under control.

No, the sergeant was right. This situation they found themselves in required a sharp analytical mind, and she wasn’t flattering herself to say that was her wheelhouse.

Pulling out her tablet, she flipped through the newsfeeds that had made their way to Juarez 7A. “There’s nothing in any of the Commonwealth sources that mentions anything about arrests on the Executive campus.”

“I’m sure they’re keeping it quiet,” said Tapper. “Military’s good at that.”

“We don’t even know what they were accused of.”

“Well, when the acting director of CID shows up at your door with marines, it probably ain’t unpaid parking tickets.”

Fair point. Aidan Kester wasn’t going to waste time on trumped-up charges; if he was there, then the allegations were not only serious, but he had proof to back them up. His presence at the general’s office suggested that Adaj was his primary target, which wasn’t surprising; there was no love lost between the two.

But if Kester believed he had some sort of smoking gun, they needed to know what it was.

A day ago, Nat would have had access to every database in the Commonwealth, not to mention the technology necessary to analyze all that information. But now here they were, exiled to the far end of nowhere.

“It’s an awful coincidence,” said Tapper, his fingers drumming across the cup of coffee. “Just a few days back, Page was telling us that he found evidence that the general had been funneling money to those Nova Front loons… and now Aidan Kester shows up to arrest them?” He raised his eyebrows significantly.

Simon had filled her in on what Page had been up to over the last nine months and what he’d found on Bayern. Was it possible that Kester had the same information?

The idea sat uneasy in her stomach. “You know as well as I do, sergeant, that in espionage there are no coincidences.”

Tapper lifted a finger. “The operative’s creed: never attribute to happenstance that which can be explained by enemy action.”

Nat tilted her head towards him. “You think the Illyricans are involved somehow.”

“Maybe I’m just taking a river cruise in Egypt, but it’s a sight more palatable that the old man is being set up for a fall than that we’ve been working for a traitor all that time.”

It bore investigating, that much was for certain. “I’ve got some sources I can reach out to. Might take a while to get a response – the net here is spotty at best – but at least it’s something to do.”

Tapper nodded, then stretched as he got up. “And I’ll re-check our inventory. Don’t want to be caught flat-footed when we do need to move.”

Nat turned and made her way to the Cavalier’s cockpit, trying to stave off the foreboding feeling that had come with the rain and the sergeant’s hypothesis. And Brody’s earlier report continued to linger in the back of her mind.

Somebody on this rock had taken an interest in them. Maybe the far end of nowhere wasn’t far enough.