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  “That’s what we were talking about. Mob connections. You might be ready and willing to fall in with that crowd again and get mixed up in their schemes, but I’m not willing to stand idle while you do it.”

  He gritted his teeth as the cooker bleeped. Squee sprang to the ground and commenced hopping up and down, practically to shoulder height, in anticipation of the meal.

  “So let me get this straight. Ripping across the landscape at super-sonic speeds, no problem. But the possibility that I might have to say no to someone offering to pay me to do the thing I least want to do—lose a race—and suddenly I’m this wide-eyed rube who can’t be trusted to make the right decision.”

  “You did it before.”

  “Yes! We’ve established that! I just—” He shut his eyes and took a breath before setting the beans down for Squee to dig into. “Look. We can discuss this if you want to. Over dinner. At Sarafa. Tonight at six p.m. I’ve already got reservations.”

  “Tonight at six?” she said.

  “Yep! Come on. It’s supposed to be the most authentic Indian cuisine outside of Earth.”

  “I can’t make it. Not tonight.”

  He tapped out the warmed beans and rice, which Squee promptly shoved her face into.

  “You have plans?” he said, eyebrow raised.

  “I do. Should run until seven.”

  “What sort of plans?”

  “Work stuff.”

  “But you are on sabbatical.”

  “Yeah. That means time off work for study.”

  “And you’ve got studying to do here.” He glared at her. “Haven’t we already learned what happens when you do that?”

  “For your information, it isn’t here.” She glanced aside. “Which is another thing. I’m going to need to borrow your ship tomorrow.”

  “My ship. The SOB. You need to borrow the SOB,” he said, like a parent who was asked for the keys to the family grocery hauler right before spring break.

  “Yeah. You’ve been teaching me how to fly it. It’s a short trip. I can probably do ninety percent of it on autopilot.”

  “You can probably do one hundred percent in a rental.”

  “You won’t let your own girlfriend borrow your precious ship for a few hours?”

  “Where are you taking it?”

  “That’s… private.”

  “Then no, I’m not letting you borrow my ship.”

  “Please…” she said with a calculated shift in tone. She ran her fingers through his hair and pulled him close. “I know you like the thought of me at the controls of a ship.”

  He winced at the words.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “It’s nothing. I was reminded of something. I didn’t—” He shook the rest of the sentence away. “Listen, I’ll make you a deal. You can borrow the SOB on three conditions. First, you promise to have it back by 8 p.m. tomorrow.”

  “Done.”

  “Second, you deliver it to me at Sarafa right before we have dinner at 8 p.m. tomorrow.”

  “I thought the reservation was for tonight.”

  “You let me worry about that.”

  “Okay, fine. Done. And the third?”

  He pulled her just a bit closer. “We stop with the arguing for the rest of the night and just enjoy ourselves.”

  “I think I can manage that.”

  He gave her a kiss. “Okay. The ship’s yours for tomorrow.”

  “Great!” She pulled away and checked the fridge. “Are there any leftovers?”

  Squee, having made short work of her meal, bounced back to Lex’s shoulder and immediately left a smear of beans on his cheek in her eagerness to lavish some more affection on him.

  “We were going to go shopping, but the press conference ran long. I figured we could order in.”

  “No time,” she said, snatching a hummus. “I’ve got an appointment in twenty minutes.”

  Lex tried to deliver a withering glare, but his intensity was somewhat diffused by Squee industriously licking his ear.

  “More ‘study’?”

  “What else would I allow to take me away from a night in with you two?” she said.

  “You’re finding an awful lot of journalism to do on a planet that has exactly three industries,” he rumbled.

  “Uh-uh-uh! You’re the one who said no more fighting.”

  “That’s dirty pool, Michella Modane.”

  Squee finally settled down and went into “scarf mode,” flopping down on one shoulder and curling her enormous fluffy tail around his neck. Lex grabbed a beer from the fridge.

  “When will you be back?”

  “Maybe ten?”

  “Okay. Now I’m not telling you how to live your life, but I’m just giving you fair warning. At 10 p.m., there will be a chocolate cake sitting on that table. And if you’re not here by 10:15, me and Squee are splitting it and you’re not getting a piece.”

  She offered a wry grin. “How dare you threaten me like that.”

  He raised his hands. “Hey, don’t blame me. This little cutie’s sweet tooth will not be denied.”

  She grabbed some carrot sticks and checked the time.

  “I’d better get going. Maybe next time don’t finish in the top three and we’ll get out of the press event quick enough to have dinner together,” she joked.

  Michella tousled Squee’s hair, then Lex’s, and hurried out the door.

  Lex took a sip of his beer and looked wearily at Squee. “Just you and me for the night. Again…”

  He stood and paced through the apartment. The living room alone could probably fit two of his apartment back on Golana. The furniture was sleek and modern. More impressively, thanks to the housekeeping the building provided, the cushions and carpets were still pristine white. How they managed to keep everything free of hair despite Squee’s best efforts was as near to a genuine miracle as Lex had ever witnessed.

  The amount of time Lex and Michella spent on the road meant the bedroom was virtually unused. Despite having been living on Operlo for the eight weeks that had passed since the league’s preseason, they still had bags and boxes waiting to be unpacked. He shifted them around and popped the lid off a plastic crate near the bottom of the stack.

  Squee peered down into the box from her perch on his shoulder as he rummaged through it. Eventually, he turned up a small white box of a distinctive size and shape. He opened it and gazed at its contents.

  “Going on three months and I still haven’t gotten a chance to give it to her. I’m not going to lie, Squee. Ignoring these red flags is starting to be a full-time job.” He snapped it shut. “But enough about that. I’ve got another first-place finish under my belt. My first official race season is just a week away, and one way or another, I’m going to execute Operation Romantic Surprise. Things are finally going my way. What do you say we go for a ride?”

  Squee’s eyes lit up, and she sprang about the room happily before trotting for the door.

  “Just let me get cleaned up and we’ll—”

  He was cut off by the sound of the door hissing open and Squee trotting out into the hall. Lex sighed.

  “Someday I’m sure one of the women in my life will actually care about the sounds that are coming out of my mouth.”

  #

  Michella tapped open the door of the autocab that had dropped her off. The sun had slid from the sky already, casting the dry desert landscape into a surprisingly brisk night. That was something that always came as a shock to newcomers, just how quickly and sharply the cold could descend once the sun was gone from the sky. Fortunately, she’d been here long enough to bring her long coat. Today, that coat would serve a dual purpose. Not only would it keep her teeth from chattering, but its upturned collar and her wide-brimmed hat would keep her from being recognized, too. Success as a reporter had brought fame, which helped give her more latitude with the stories she could investigate. That fame also made it harder for
her to actually do the investigation. People with something to hide weren’t likely to open up to a woman renowned around the galaxy for revealing secrets.

  She paced through the cool streets of what would soon be a new neighborhood. Operlo was growing quickly, with lots of fresh construction springing up to house the crews associated with Nick Patel’s venture into sports and entertainment. Lots of new construction meant lots of new employees. Lots of new employees meant security stretched ever thinner. That was a golden opportunity for someone in her business. All it took was a single new hire who’d skipped the section in the employee manual about nondisclosure agreements and she had her next scoop.

  A large, freshly applied sign on a chain-link fence labeled the construction site ahead as a project under the oversight of Technic Infrastructure Solutions. A wry smile came to her face.

  “It must burn at him to have someone else doing construction on his home turf,” Michella said. “I’ll bet he never thought he’d see the day that there’d be a worksite on Operlo that didn’t bear the Patel Construction logo.”

  She continued along the fence until she came to a flimsy metal trailer with a huge air-conditioning unit hanging off the side. Doors on either side of the trailer made it clear this was some sort of access control point. Workers must have had to pass through it to reach the worksite. Though it was well after hours, the small window on the door showed that a light was burning within.

  Michella climbed the wobbly aluminum steps and knocked on the door. After a moment, a sunbaked fellow in TIS overalls opened it a crack.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “Hello, we spoke earlier. About the interview?”

  “Huh?”

  “The interview. About these new construction projects.”

  “Oh, oh. Right. Yeah. I remember. I remember there was… uh… some criteria for the interview.”

  She casually slipped her hand into her purse and pulled out a short stack of casino chips.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said with a straight face as she dropped the chips into his waiting palm. “This was just an interview.”

  “Right. Right. I must’ve been thinking about someone else. Come on in.”

  He held the door, and she stepped into the trailer. The inside wasn’t much to look at. It was all one big room with some desks, some chairs, and a strange chain-link fence with an extra gate blocking off the door that would lead into the construction site. The metal walls were unpainted. They got hot enough to scald anyone foolish enough to touch them during the day. The whole trailer had the lingering funk of sweat-drenched workers popping inside to cool off a few times a day.

  Her host wiped a layer of caked dust off a folding chair and invited Michella to sit. He took a seat opposite.

  He leaned down to get a better look at her face as she removed her hat.

  “Heh. I figured it was you. Michella Modane.” He reached out a hand. “Pleased to meet you. I got this job because of you.”

  “I don’t know that I really deserve the credit,” she said.

  “Too bad this meeting is all hush-hush,” he said. “A bunch of the crew is from Golana. I remember when you were just doing financial news on GolanaNet Local. You were the hottest of the money honeys.”

  “Well thank you,” she said with an expertly crafted false smile.

  “Hey, you think maybe we could get a picture together? Not to show anybody.”

  “Let’s talk about that later,” she said quickly, fetching a pad and pen from her bag. “I don’t have a lot of time, so I wonder if we could get straight to business.”

  “Sure, sure. Ground rules, though. No recording. And if I tell you to put the pen away, put the pen away. I don’t want my name or any me-specific info getting out there and losing me my job.”

  “That’s fair.”

  “Good. So, what do you want to know?”

  “Let’s start with what exactly your role is.”

  “Security. I’m the jobsite security tech for this project. The, uh…” He leaned aside and tapped a datapad sitting on a nearby desk. “The Workers Housing Project, Unit 5. I’m only a temp here, though.”

  “I see. When did you get started?”

  “Heh. You know that. I got started about six weeks ago, when you went on the newsfeed talking about how all the construction on the planet was Patel Construction projects and how that seemed like a perfect chance to do money laundering. TIS got the contract for the overflow work when Patel agreed to subcontract some stuff, and that’s when I got brought in.”

  “They subcontracted security?”

  “Uh, no. They subcontracted construction, but every site handles its own security.” He shrugged. “Nothing much to secure here, anyway.”

  “What is being built here?”

  “Down south of here, they’re putting the finishing touches on a racetrack. I guess they expect there to be a ton of upkeep on it, because this place is supposed to house like a two-hundred-member crew to keep it running in tip-top shape. So it’s nothing but some housing and some workshops and garages. I don’t even know why they need security in the first place.”

  “How are you liking the work?”

  “It sucks. I’m just working the office and it sucks. I can’t even imagine how the workers handle it.”

  “Patel doesn’t treat you well?”

  He shrugged again. “He doesn’t. Patel’s not in charge of us. Running this little operation is all on TIS. You ask me, I don’t think the eggheads handing out assignments even checked the climate of Operlo before they took the contract. From what I hear, Patel’s guys have plenty of shade and drinks and stuff out there in the worksite. We’ve got the same setup we had when we were doing a job on Movi. And if you ask me, they don’t have half as many people down here as they should to get the job done. Seriously understaffed. I’ve been working a double assignment. Lucky for me, I’m fully reassigned to a cushier part of my job starting tomorrow.”

  Michella jotted down some notes, then flipped back in her pad. “Yes, you mentioned something about an orbital job.”

  He glanced aside, as though the room that they’d had to themselves since she’d arrived might suddenly have eavesdroppers.

  “You put that pen away, and we’ll talk about it. This is one of the super hush-hush things.”

  She stowed the pad and pen.

  “Yeah. They’ve had me on the low-level security staff on this big orbital project for almost as long as I’ve been here. Same stuff as in here. Access control. Some scheduling. They’ve got a mandatory security bulk-up on the station around the same time every week. That’s why I’m due up there tomorrow. But now I’ll be staying up there until the project is done, apparently. Sweet gig, as long as you can handle a little zero-g.”

  “So there is a large space-station construction project going on?”

  “Yeah. I guess they’ve been saying it was just building up the communication system.”

  “There have been an awful lot of network outages and slowdowns lately.”

  “Right, yeah. That’s what this is supposedly about. You ask me, I think it’s more than that.”

  “You think it’s more than that? You don’t know what the station is for?”

  “Not really. I mean, I’m only doing access control and some camera monitoring and stuff. It’s not like they gave me the operating manual.”

  “How close to completion is it?”

  “It’s pretty much done. They’ve had some of us TIS guys up there working on it round the clock.”

  “But you don’t know what it is.”

  “No idea.”

  Michella’s mind clicked through some possibilities. “Would you agree it is fair to say Mr. Patel and Ms. Misra are going to reveal it when it is complete?”

  “Who knows what the C-level people are thinking?”

  “You’ve got me intrigued, sir. I smell the opportunity for an exclusive.” She deli
vered the line with dramatic flair, expertly masking the fact that she’d been planning the next little exchange since before she’d left her apartment.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I don’t suppose you could find some time for me to visit the station while you’re on duty tomorrow.”

  “What for? Why not just ask what you want to ask down here?”

  “There’s no substitute for a hands-on tour.”

  He whistled. “That’s a tall order, Miss.”

  She reached into her bag and jingled some casino chips. “How tall of an order are we talking about?”

  His jaw tightened and his brow furrowed slightly. From the looks of him, it was all he could do to keep from salivating at the potential palm-greasing another favor would earn.

  “You’d have to get up there without anyone knowing.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “If you do this wrong, I’m going to ignore your hail and pretend like you’re not there.”

  “I’ve handled far more harrowing situations than this. I’m confident I can slide in without anyone noticing.”

  “Let’s call it… fifty thousand credits? Half now, half when I come through with it?”

  “That sounds fair to me.”

  “And I want the full ‘top secret source’ treatment. No one can know I’m the one who let you up there.”

  “Absolutely. I’ve covered the work of spies who would be killed if their identity was known, and they remain safe and sound.”

  “Good, good. Then let’s see the down payment.”

  She retrieved five 5K chips from her bag and dropped them into his hand.

  “Pleasure doing business with you.”

  “And with you.”

  “Here. Gimme that pad of yours. I’ll write down the coordinates.”

  She obliged. When he returned it and her pen, a geostationary orbital position was jotted down in shuttle notation. Below it was a user ID for a messaging service. When she looked back up to him, he winked. “In case you ever want to ditch that racer of yours and get with a real man.”

  Michella flipped the pad shut and stowed it. “As you said,” she said, standing and extending a hand, “it has been a pleasure doing business with you.”

  She emphasized the word “business” in order to underscore that pleasure was not on the menu. After a few more bits of idle chitchat about the way TIS did business on Operlo, she excused herself and went off on her way.