ORLI COVITZ
After they left the disaster site of the clan Duquesne extraction field, knowing that Elisa Enturi had murdered all those people, the mood aboard the Curiosity was a grim mixture of outrage and disbelief.
Tasia fumed. “Who knows how many other massacres she’s caused to keep the secret?”
Orli said, “We would never even have known about this one if we hadn’t followed the tracker on her ship. All those people from clan Duquesne just … wiped out, and she did it so easily.”
“And apparently without remorse,” said Robb.
Tasia slammed her palm down on the control deck. “What if she lost her temper with Xander and Terry and decided to blow the Verne into debris? Our son isn’t safe.”
Robb clenched a fist. “We’ve all made a fortune from distributing ekti-X, never asking where it came from, and now we know that the new stardrive fuel came at the cost of a lot of blood.” He made up his mind. “Obviously, Kett Shipping will sever all dealings with Iswander Industries. We don’t do business with murderers and criminals.”
Tasia continued to simmer with anger. “By the Guiding Star, it’s just … just—” When she couldn’t find the words, she slammed her other palm down on the control panel.
Orli slumped back in her seat, suddenly dizzy, and DD hurried to her, concerned. Ever since her near death from the Onthos plague, he had watched her like a hawk. “Are you ill, Orli? How can we assist you? I can make tea.”
“Nothing you can do, DD. I just realized how lucky I am to be alive—in more ways than one. If it hadn’t been for Seth…”
“Seth?” Tasia asked. “Garrison Reeves’s boy? What does he have to do with this?”
“Remember, Elisa is his mother,” Orli said. “We were at Iswander’s first extraction field. After the bloaters fissioned and flew away, Garrison took Seth—along with me and DD—and we left. If the boy hadn’t been with us…” A wave of nausea passed over her, and she swallowed hard. “Seeing this now, I’ll bet Elisa would have hunted us down and destroyed our ship in empty space, where no one would ever have known.”
Tasia called up the star charts and overlaid where the tracking device had recorded Elisa’s stops and course changes. After pausing for several days at a primary destination ahead, her ship had embarked on a great loop before returning to Ulio Station.
Orli asked, “Do you think we’ll find another massacre site? Bloaters aren’t hard to find if you actually look for them, and if Elisa caught another Roamer clan secretly harvesting ekti-X—”
Robb said, “If word gets out that there’s stardrive fuel for the taking, Iswander won’t have a monopoly anymore. Ekti will get so cheap and plentiful that there’ll be no profit in it.”
“Which is why Elisa was willing to commit murder to keep that secret.” Tasia struck the piloting panel again, this time with her fist.
They were silent in the hour leading up to their arrival at the next destination. During that time, Orli rewatched the log entry from the wreckage of the Duquesne cargo hauler. She feared they would find more devastation, more destroyed ships, more frozen bodies drifting in space.…
Instead, the Voracious Curiosity found a crowded industrial site in and around another cluster of bobbing nodules. Hundreds of desiccated bloater husks drifted at the fringe of the operations. Large tankers hung in place, collecting racks of ekti-X tanks. Pumping machinery clung like parasites to swollen bloater sacks.
It was like a city in space, drifting along in the archipelago of gray-green nodules. Orli spotted habitation rings, a docking hub, an admin complex, much like the one she had stumbled upon in the last stages of her plague.
The ships and habitation domes proudly displayed the logo of Iswander Industries. This was Lee Iswander’s return to prominence.
“Looks familiar,” Orli said, “but this operation seems even larger than the last one.”
Tasia was amazed. “Maybe he’s making up for lost time.”
DD said, “Assessing these operations, I can run calculations to determine the approximate ekti output, if that would be useful.”
As the Curiosity hung there in silence, Robb shook his head. “Right out here with no systems around for parsecs, Iswander can do whatever he wants. It’s obvious how he produces so much stardrive fuel.”
Listening to the chatter of operations over the comm, Tasia looked at Robb. “We haven’t been spotted yet. Maybe we should just duck out of here.”
Robb was grim. “Considering what Elisa did to the last person who discovered the truth, that would be a good idea.” He worked the piloting controls.
“Too late.” Orli pointed out a flurry of short-range transmissions. Five scout fliers swooped in from the industrial pumping operations. Alarms flashed throughout the facility.
“Shizz, intruder alarms,” Tasia said. “They don’t like visitors. I think we can outrun them, though.”
“Let’s try something else first. Remember, we are their business partners.” Robb switched on the comm. “Iswander operations—this is Robb Brindle and Tasia Tamblyn, acting administrators of Kett Shipping. We’ve come to inspect your operations and reaffirm our distribution agreement.” He forced a chuckle. “I have to say, we’re quite impressed!”
Tasia blinked at him in surprise. Muting the comm, she said, “You know Elisa already wiped out the Duquesne fields!”
“They don’t know we know that,” Robb said.
As the short-range security ships approached, a faster vessel streaked away from the main admin hub, heading straight toward them.
Orli said, “They’re closing in, and they don’t look friendly.”
Robb worked hard to keep his voice light and friendly on the comm. “We request a meeting with Lee Iswander. Please provide instructions for docking.”
A signal came from the foremost ship racing toward them. “Your instructions are to stand down and surrender.”
Orli recognized the ship and the voice. “That’s Elisa. She’ll know me, but that won’t buy us any goodwill. She thinks I ran off with her husband.”
“Great,” Tasia muttered. “Let’s add vindictive jealousy to irrational and murderous behavior.”
Elisa’s ship swooped in. “These private extraction fields are under high security. We cannot allow outsiders to see them.”
“A little late for that,” Tasia muttered.
On an impulse, Orli activated the cockpit scanners to automatically record everything, hoping that their last log entry would not be just like the one they had found in the ruins of the Duquesne tanker.
Tasia and Robb activated the comm together. “Elisa, you know us—Kett Shipping has a business arrangement with you.” Tasia was tense on the piloting controls. The Curiosity’s defensive shields were already up, but they would not withstand a prolonged attack, and there were plenty of security ships at the extraction field. “If we could speak with Mr. Iswander—?”
“Mr. Iswander is currently at Newstation, but he gave me instructions that no one was allowed to see our operations. You’ve made an unfortunate choice in coming here. You are trespassing.”
“Wait, you should—”
Then Elisa opened fire.