Captain Hargrove told me it would be ten minutes before they got a jump point from the gate. I asked to be notified just before they jumped, so I could shut down communications. It wouldn’t be very convincing if I was supposedly somewhere else but still receiving calls here.
And I expected Ian to call at any minute.
He did not disappoint. The call came through voice-only and I wondered what he was hiding. I needed to keep him distracted for the next ten minutes, then drop the call in the middle of our conversation. I connected voice-only, too.
“Hello, Ian,” I said. “Did you enjoy your vacation?”
“Lady von Hasenberg, you are to return to Earth immediately, by order of your father. Failure to do so will result in criminal charges and the posting of a sizable bounty for your return.”
My eyebrows climbed upward. “Going to air dirty laundry in public now, are we? What charges do you think you have?”
“Treason against a High House.” He said it without a hint of humor. Yeah, he was still furious with me.
“That will never stick.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s enough to post a bounty, and Lord von Hasenberg is insistent on your return by any means necessary.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say,” Ian said, unbending enough that frustration crept into his tone. “Perhaps he fears for your safety.”
I couldn’t help the dismissive scoff. “Have you seen any pigs winging past your window lately?”
“The reason doesn’t matter. He has ordered you home and you must comply or face the consequences.”
“Then I will face the consequences.”
“Bianca, be reasonable. You won’t be able to help Ferdinand if you’re locked up in some merc’s ship. Return to Earth and I promise I will allow you to assist with the investigation as much as I am able.”
“That’s not good enough.”
“I am trying to compromise,” he growled. “I can investigate just as well without your help.”
I let the pause stretch as I debated playing my wild card. What the hell, it might not make any difference, but if ever there was a time I needed an edge, it was now.
“Did you know, Ian Noah Bishop, that there is no record of you prior to when you joined House von Hasenberg as a bodyguard? Oh, there are a few false trails, extremely well done, level four at least, but they ultimately lead nowhere. You just appeared one day, a fully formed twenty-one-year-old with no history. Why is that, do you think?”
Dead silence greeted me from Ian’s side of the line.
“I am uniquely suited to find Ferdinand,” I continued, “but I will be hobbled if I am locked up at home. Persuade Father to let me run with this one.”
“I can’t,” he said, his voice like gravel. “Believe it or not, I tried. He is adamant that you return.”
A one-minute warning message arrived for Jester’s jump. “Well, then, I guess I’ll have to dodge you and the mercs. Farewell, Ian.”
I disconnected the call and put Aurora into deep stealth. All communication ceased and the ship no longer repeated broadcasts or used any sort of signal-emitting technology.
It was a little dangerous to use deep stealth so close to populated space. First, it would limit the amount of information I could gather about the ships around me, so Aurora’s navigation computer would have to work harder. And second, it made my ship nearly impossible to track, which meant other ships’ navigation computers wouldn’t route around me until the last minute. But as long as I stayed vigilant, the danger was minimal.
Without communications, I couldn’t check to see if Ian followed through with his threat to put a bounty on me. I had five hours to kill before the FTL drive was ready to jump and nothing to do but watch empty space roll by. I couldn’t even catch up on my sleep because I had to keep an eye out for other ships.
It was going to be a long five hours.
I managed to stay awake by drinking copious amounts of synthesizer coffee and pacing. The real coffee Ada had given me would’ve been wasted on my tired taste buds, and I didn’t want to leave the flight deck long enough to find it anyway.
Ian had not shown up and demanded my immediate surrender, so it seemed that he had taken the bait and followed Ada. I hoped she led him on a merry chase before he figured out she wasn’t me.
I routed Aurora on a direct course to Delta Tucanae Dwarf Four. DTD Four was a known Syndicate stronghold and general information hub. Secrets were traded like commodities, and because of that, it was also a popular mercenary hangout. If Ian really had posted a bounty on me, I would have to be extremely careful.
I lowered the stealth level enough to allow the ship to request a jump point from the gate. I was twenty-ninth in the queue with an estimated wait time of eight minutes. If my contact on DTD Four came through with information, I’d have to leave my beloved ship behind and start hopping starliners, because the jumps after this one would each require a two-day recharge for the FTL drive—time I didn’t have.
It was absolutely clear why Rockhurst was willing to go to war to keep fast FTL technology to themselves. It would be a game changer in more ways than one, and the House who controlled the technology would be unstoppable.
The one-minute warning sounded, and I brought Aurora out of stealth. The engine noise changed as the FTL drive engaged, then DTD Four appeared on the vid screens, shrouded in darkness. A solar day on the planet was long enough to be measured in months of Universal Time. I wouldn’t be seeing sunlight anytime soon.
I connected to the planet’s network and secured a berth in one of the nicer spaceports in Brava, the main city. A nice spaceport had fences, security checkpoints, and armed guards that patrolled constantly. Cheaper spaceports had none of those and a good chance that your ship would be missing pieces when you returned.
Many first-timers left their ships at the orbiting station, thinking they would be safer than on the planet. They were wrong. Entire ships had vanished from the station without a trace.
While I was on the network, I checked the news. There was no news of a bounty on me, so either Ian had been making idle threats—unlikely—or he still thought he could persuade me to return. When he caught up to Ada he was going to go ballistic. I would worry for her, but she’d spent two years looking out for herself. Plus, with both Rhys and Loch with her, she had plenty of extra protection.
Aurora descended smoothly through the atmosphere. The ride got a little choppier as we neared the hangar. Rain lashed the outside cameras, dropping visibility to mere meters. Luckily, the ship’s sensors were well equipped to deal with inclement weather and Aurora landed gently on the assigned launch pad.
This spaceport could hold a dozen ships spread out in two rows of six. Based on the limited view from the outside cameras, about half of the pads were occupied with ships of varying quality. A couple of newer ships meant Aurora wouldn’t stand out too much, but some extra protection wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Before I could arrange that, however, I had to change clothes. Not only had I been wearing these for two days, but my blouse, slacks, and heels were wildly inappropriate for Brava.
I kept spare clothes and boots onboard, simple clothes in sturdy materials that made me look more like a merc and less like the daughter of a High House. In Brava, it was far better to be unremarkable.