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  Small mercies, she noted to herself with a wry smile.

  She got to work.

  The thing she most needed to figure out was where they were going when they disappeared off-world. She already suspected the asteroid belt, but she couldn’t be sure. If she could figure out their flight time from the black box, she could use the average speed to pinpoint a distance, and narrow it that way.

  Unless…

  She swiped a few screens, diving deeper into the hard drive of the nav system. If she could access the last few flights this bird had taken… well then it would have coordinates and everything there.

  ACCESS DENIED.

  Ass burgers.

  She tried something else.

  ACCESS DENIED.

  Fucking crapolo with an ass on top!

  She looked up for a moment, letting her mind process the frustration. She was still exhausted, and time was running out. They could leave at any moment.

  Her mind went blank.

  Her eyes fixated on a point in space, and she allowed her brain the space to reset itself.

  After a few moments, she had a thought. If she could find out what kind of encryption these systems used, then maybe she could find a crypto program to decipher it.

  But that meant she needed access to the XtraNET.

  Andskotinn!

  She looked up into empty space again. She couldn’t use her connection. The big bad would trace her.

  She breathed. Think, Maya. Think.

  The personal holos next door!

  She could piggy back off their XtraNet connection, get the crypto-program, and access everything she needed. They would never know. She excitedly flicked back to the network screen, and connected in with one of the personal devices in the next hangar. There seemed to be very little traffic going through it.

  Perfect.

  Getting to work again, she settled down with her butt on the ground, and her back against the hangar wall, legs straight out in front of her.

  This may take a while, she told herself. If anyone shows up and asks what I’m doing, I’ll just have to turn on the water works and pretend I’m upset… People can’t bear to see a stranger cry.

  Hope this works.

  ArchAngel3, Yollin Space

  General Lance Reynolds wandered into his private office. It had been a day of tedious meetings and balancing egos… but now it was time for the real work.

  The door slid quietly closed behind him as the lighting adjusted for his arrival.

  “Good evening, Lance,” the voice piped out to him.

  “Good evening, ADAM.” Lance hung up his jacket and stepped around to his control console, with an antigrav chair and all the mod cons. “Want to update me on the Sark situation?” he asked.

  “With pleasure,” ADAM replied, materializing a collection of holoscreens in front of the colonel. One frame maneuvered in front of all of the others; it was a video feed showing Joel and Sean taking down the scientist.

  “As you can see, Molly’s team did a great job of intercepting the toxin.”

  He swung a second holo frame out in front, dematerializing the first. “Then our guy, Sean Royale, neutralized the second threat.”

  Lance leaned in a little to see the footage better. Keeping his eyes on the screen he asked: “So they didn’t figure out there were two devices?”

  “Negative,” replied ADAM. “Although Joel Dunham did have the thought about 18 minutes after Sean neutralized the second device.”

  “How do we know this?” Lance’s voice was analytical.

  “He checked the cameras they had set up. I’m assuming that he made some cognitive association whereby something was niggling at him.”

  The General made a mental note. “And Molly? Where was she in all this?”

  “She developed the antidote off-world. I suspect the reasoning for this was the increased media pressure.”

  The General stroked his chin, considering the situation as a whole. “Yes. I can imagine that would be difficult for her, given her background. It will be interesting how she handles that going forward. Keep me updated on that.”

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, ADAM.”

  “There’s something else.”

  Lance waited.

  ADAM pulled forward another holoscreen. “It looks like Molly may have inadvertently attracted some more potential.”

  Images of Maya flashed up on the screen, complete with footage from the security gate at the hangar.

  Lance raised one eyebrow. “She’s been sniffing around?”

  “More than that. She managed to hack into Molly’s ship and find the coordinates of the base.”

  Lance smiled. “Well this is getting interesting.” He zoomed in on Maya’s image, committing her face to memory. “Anything else?”

  “Yes, sir. Your hundred credits are in your account, from my account. Your betting wins.”

  Lance laughed out. “Pha! Excellent. Thank you, ADAM.”

  He smiled, leaning back in his chair.

  Finally, he sat up. “Okay. Keep me apprised of the Sark situation. What’s the latest from the Yollins?”

  Spaceport, Hangar 08771A, Outskirts of Uptarlung

  Still reeling from the curveball Sean had lobbed them, the team sat around on the ship, wondering about their next move.

  Crash quietly continued to eat his pizza.

  Joel stopped pacing, and put his hands on his head, turning back to Pieter and Crash who were still at the table.

  “Okay. How soon can we get out of here?” he asked Crash.

  Crash checked the time on his wrist holo. “Still a few hours away from our window.”

  Joel hardly showed any emotion. “Any way we can get bumped up?” he asked.

  Crash finished chewing what was in his mouth and placed the rest of the slice down. “Yeah. The skies have been clear when I’ve been checking in. If it’s a quiet day, then they’ll probably be able to move us up.”

  Joel pursed his lips tightly. “Okay. Let’s try it.”

  Pieter hadn’t taken his eyes off Joel since he started speaking. He sat, looking up at him, and only now spoke. “You don’t want to contact Sean again?”

  Joel shook his head. “No - he knew what he was doing. I dunno what game he’s playing, or who he’s really working for, but the city seems safe from the threat now.”

  He paused, dropping his hands from his head, and wandered back to the table to sit. “Plus, I don’t expect Sean will be forthcoming, even if we were able to track him down.”

  Pieter looked a tad disappointed and a little confused. “You don’t want to investigate? I thought that was what we did?”

  Joel shook his head. “I don’t want us to get drawn into a game before we know what we’re playing. This is one to get Molly in on. She can see if Oz can dig anything up.”

  He sighed, understanding the operational elements of this only too well. “We’re playing at a disadvantage right now.”

  Pieter nodded. “Ah, I see,” he said. “I guess we should get packed up then.” He started to clear the pizza boxes away.

  “Yeah! Remove any trace of meat products from the ship!” Joel joked.

  Crash, who had started a holo call with ATC, slapped the box down out of Pieter’s hand, opened the lid with the free hand without his holoscreen attached to it, took out another piece of pizza, and put it into his mouth.

  Pieter looked on surprised and amused.

  Then Crash, holding the slice temporarily in his teeth, closed the lid, and handed the box gentlemanly back to Pieter with a grin.

  They all laughed, and Crash moved away from the group, taking the pizza now into his hand, and starting to talk to whomever his option selections had put him through to.

  Within the hour, they were taxying out of the hangar; fine payment accepted, and with full clearance to take off this time.

  They all sat up front in the cockpit.

  Joel saw his opportunity to send Molly a quick message before takeoff. He
opened his holo and started recording.

  “Hi, Molly, it’s Joel. Just wanted to let you know that the threat is neutralized, and we’re on the ship with Crash heading off-world now. Hope all is good there. Looking forward to seeing you all soon!”

  Joel clicked off his holo recorder, and sent the data packet to the secured server that would get the message to Molly.

  He took a moment to collect his thoughts, and then turned to the others in the cockpit. He smiled, watching Crash finish his checks with Pieter watching intently, agog at the tech in front of him.

  Joel raised a bottle of water to his comrades. “Well, congratulations on a successful mission, boys!”

  Crash raised his fist in the air and Pieter scrambled for the open water bottle he’d wedged between his legs, raising it up in the spirit of the toast.

  Joel couldn’t help but grin. “And thank you, Crash, for coming back to get us!”

  Crash, his normal, collected self, cracked just a small smile. “Any time, boss. It was worth the kilometers just to have meat on my pizza.”

  They erupted in laughter as the hangar doors closed behind them. The ship pulled out onto the road, and started its short trek over to the launch pad, under the guidance of Air Traffic Control.

  Air Traffic Control came on over the radio. “Novelty to have you following our instructions, XC-094B,” came the quip.

  Crash responded in his even pilot’s voice. “Always happy to comply with the folks keeping our asses from colliding.”

  There was static on the line and a hint of laughter, and the radio channel closed out.

  Crash flicked the channel to mute. “Assholes,” he said, humorously.

  ***

  A few minutes later, unbeknown to anyone on the site, a quiet Estarian journalist poked her head out from behind the hangar. Checking that there wasn’t anyone left around, she stalked stealthily over to her car.

  Getting in, she breathed a sigh of relief. Now that she knew exactly where they were going, her investigation into this strange off-world team could really begin.

  Gaitune-67, Safe house, Common area

  “Hey!” Paige walked into the common area, and plunked herself down on the sofa next to Molly. “Whatcha watching?”

  Molly flicked the sound down on the main holoscreen. “I don’t even know. It started off as some history program, and now I don’t know what it is. Something about a special crystalline set of skulls…”

  Paige had glazed over already.

  Molly knocked the sound down even more, and turned to face Paige a little. “What you been up to all day? I haven't seen you since breakfast.”

  “Oh, you know,” Paige waved her hands, casually. “Setting up the company structure for that nail polish project you’re going to help me with.” She tilted her head and tried to look innocent, like a little girl saying “Pleeeeeeaaaase?”

  Molly hung her face in one hand, her arm now half folded defensively. She looked up, a tired look on her face. “That’s still happening, huh?”

  Paige nodded. “You betcha, it is!” She narrowed her eyes. “Wait. Did you think I was just going to forget about it?”

  Molly said nothing.

  Paige had a look of mock indignation. “Is that why you agreed to it?”

  Molly dropped her head back into her hands, hiding her eyes. “Maybe,” came her muffled response.

  Paige grabbed a cushion from behind her and threw it against Molly.

  Molly squealed. “Wait! Wait. It’s not fair. Hey…”

  Paige hadn’t let go of the cushion and continued to beat her with it.

  Molly surrendered. “I give up. I give up. I’ll do it.”

  Paige stopped hitting her, allowing Molly to take the cushion off her. “Good,” she said, in a very final tone. “I need you to get going on the goddamn sciencing, though, now that the crisis is over.”

  Molly sighed. “Okay. I’ll start tomorrow.”

  Paige eyed her.

  Molly confirmed. “Tomorrow. Promise.”

  Paige lifted one eyebrow, as if she didn’t believe her.

  Molly relented. “Okay, cross my heart, tomorrow I’ll get going on it.”

  Paige looked satisfied. She glanced back at the holoscreen, watching it for a few moments. “So when are the boys back?”

  Molly had gone back to watching the moving images too. “Tomorrow afternoon.”

  Something occurred to her. She turned and looked back at Paige. “Hey, you know they’re bringing a new team member back with them, right?”

  Paige didn’t miss a beat. “Is he hot?”

  Molly looked back at the screen. “I didn’t say ‘he’ is a ‘he’.” She tried not to let Paige see her smiling a little.

  Paige noticed Molly’s expression. “’He’ is a ‘he’! I can tell. So… is he hot?” she asked again.

  Molly teased her. “I dunno, I haven’t met him.”

  Paige humphed. “Would you know, even if you had?”

  Molly laughed, and chucked the cushion back at her. “Yes. Of course! I have needs - just like anyone else.”

  Paige bobbed her head. “Yeah, speaking of. We’re on this ancestor-forsaken rock. How are we even going to manage long-term?”

  Molly laughed, but then started marinating on the question seriously. She paused, her eyes revealing she had gone somewhere else. “You do have a point,” she agreed.

  Paige picked up another cushion and was hugging it close to her. “I suppose we could go into town. You know. Find the clubs and restaurants in the brochure.”

  Molly looked confused. “What brochure?”

  Paige rolled her eyes. “Really?

  Molly caught on. “Oh, you were kidding!”

  Paige nodded.

  Molly paused again. “I dunno the answer to that. We’ll have to think of something.”

  Paige grinned her most evil smile. “Unless this guy is tasty, in which case, I call dibs.”

  Molly laughed. “You can have dibs, as long as he agrees to it, too. Apparently, using feminine wiles isn’t ‘playing fair’. At least that’s what I’ve been told.”

  Paige went back to watching the holoscreen, which was now showing sweeping images through some area of space she didn’t recognize. “Sounds completely logical.”

  Molly smiled. “Honestly, folks that say this kinda shit have no concept of logic.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO