CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
COLE
We were just finishing breakfast when my comm beeped, and I glanced down to see that the incoming call was from Aiden. I’d have been happy to hear from him on a normal day, but today, I couldn’t get my finger on the answer button quick enough.
“Hey, what’s happening?” I greeted him, as his harried face appeared on the holographic screen.
I honestly wasn’t expecting much to have changed since yesterday – moving Alliance-wide politics took time, after all – but perhaps he’d been able to get us some sort of security detail in the short term?
“Hey, um… How are things over there?” he asked, in the sort of tone that instantly had me on edge – because he clearly expected something to have gone wrong.
“Same old,” I said warily. “Nothing unexpected happened last night.”
“Okay, okay, good,” he said, nodding slowly. “So… sorry for the short notice, but you’re about to have a visitor.” The look on his face was a mixture of apprehension and apology. “I contacted that smuggler friend of Rohinavon’s.”
“How did you get his details?” Rohinavon asked, leaning over to join the conversation. I slid my chair closer to hers to make it easier for her.
Aiden hesitated before answering. “I hacked your comm,” he said, sounding only moderately repentant about it. “Yesterday, while I was at the sanctuary.”
That was far from the answer I’d been expecting.
I’d thought perhaps the military had managed to track the ship after it had come through the Rendol wormhole.
But military-grade comms were bloody impressive things, and if Rohinavon’s security codes weren’t up to scratch, it would likely have been an easy feat to break into her device.
“You had no right!” Rohinavon screeched, leaning in closer so she was nearly on top of me. “I came here asking for your help and you just walk straight over the top of me? I told you I don’t want him arrested! He saved my life, he defied the entire Vangravian fleet, and he-”
“He’s not being arrested!” Aiden said loudly, cutting her off.
“He’s not in any trouble at all. We’re asking for his help, not accusing him of anything.
We talked about your idea of getting a few more…
shipments,” he said, clearly being careful about the exact words he was using – no doubt to minimise the risks, in case any of our communications were intercepted.
“He said he wants to come and talk to you and Cole about it, clear up a few ethical concerns and set up a few guidelines for his own safety. He actually seems like a really decent guy.”
“You had no right to hack my comm,” Rohinavon repeated, not the slightest bit placated by the fact that this was a relatively good outcome to the situation. “You think this is how you go about getting me to trust you, is it? By going behind my back and stealing information from me?”
The fact that this conversation was taking place via my comm was rapidly becoming very awkward. I kind of wanted to leave them to sort out their differences in private.
“We want to help you,” Aiden said, and I was a little surprised to hear his voice tighten.
Overall, he seemed a very patient and calm man, but today, he was clearly on edge.
“But the reality is that you landed on our planet without authorisation, and if we play this wrong, then we could very easily end up in a war with not only Vangal, but possibly Eumad as well. So you’re going to have to give us a bit of leeway as far as what methods we use to end up where we want to be.
We’re taking your ideas seriously, and we’re trying to keep you safe.
But right now, that’s as far as the promises go. ”
Though not exactly happy about his response, it seemed that Rohinavon was willing to see reason. “Point taken,” she said, subdued, but not angry. “So what happens now?”
“I’m sending you a file,” Aiden said to me, tapping at his comm.
“It’ll be encrypted and your comm will need to scan your irises before it’ll open it.
It’s a list of things for you to discuss with the smuggler, and a preliminary proposal from the Parliament about what we can offer him in return for his help.
Please make the point that the offer isn’t set in stone, and if he wants something specific that’s not covered, we’re open to negotiating.
” My comm beeped a moment later, but I didn’t move to open the file.
There would be plenty of time for that after we’d hung up.
“As far as meeting this man, I’d love to come and help, but I’m absolutely swamped dealing with the Alliance Parliament at the moment. I outlined the preliminary details to them yesterday, and they’ve sent me back about three hundred questions they want answers to at a briefing this afternoon.”
“Holy fuck, that was quick,” I muttered. “I thought we’d be looking at weeks of prevaricating and navel gazing.”
Aiden shrugged. “Two years ago, you might have been right. But the Culrads are part of the Alliance now, and they’ve had a bone to pick with the Vangravians for a long time.
They’ve absolutely leapt on the chance to make some real inroads into ending the slave trade – whether or not that process is going to take a couple of decades to complete.
And so far, no one seems to have any real objections to the plan, they’ve just got a long list of questions as to how we’d go about making it work. So fingers crossed, I guess.”
“What about security?” I asked next. “Any luck on that front?”
“I’ve spoken to my contact, and he’s seeing what he can arrange. That’s more of a delicate situation, so I can’t rush it.”
“We’re not talking Alliance soldiers, are we?
” I asked, working off a hunch. Getting either Alliance or Rendol military personnel wouldn’t require any clandestine prevaricating.
But Aiden’s lack of willingness to give us details meant he was attempting to involve some people who really shouldn’t be involved.
“I’ll let you know when I have more information,” Aiden said, completely ducking the question. “I’ve got to go, but there should be a ship landing in your back paddock any moment now. Good luck, and I’ll talk to you later.”
He hung up before I could say anything more, and I rolled my eyes. Bloody evasive bastard. “All right, then, let’s go meet this guy,” I said, glancing at Rohinavon. “Anything important we should know about him before we do?”
She shrugged. “He’s a smuggler. So he might mention a few illegal activities that you should just overlook. But aside from that, no.”
“Fair enough. Xel, you don’t have to come, but you’re welcome to if you want to.” Despite Rohinavon’s reassurances, I honestly wasn’t sure how much of a threat this guy was going to pose, so I felt happier giving Xel the option, rather than ordering him to come.
“I’ll come with you,” he said, as I’d assumed he would.
I hadn’t heard the engines of any ship yet, so I was assuming the smuggler hadn’t quite arrived.
But when we got to the back paddock, I found, to my complete shock, that there was now a large cluster of ‘bushes’ sitting in the middle of the paddock.
To someone who didn’t know the property, the mass would have looked completely natural, and the only reason I knew it wasn’t was because I was damn sure that yesterday, the paddock had contained nothing but long grass.
“That’s quite the disguise,” I said to Rohinavon, as we came to a stop at the edge of the paddock. “Can I assume he has multiple disguises for the ship?”
She nodded, looking rather pleased. “Visual, infra-red, mirror panel and radio-wave cloaking. Unless you already know it’s there, it’s pretty much indetectable.”
“What about the smuggler himself?”
She grinned. “Let’s go meet him.” She led the way towards the ship, stopping a few metres back from it. “Yohana! Come out,” she called loudly. “It’s Rohinavon. These are my friends. They want to talk to you about my ideas.”
There was no response from the ship. “So he already knows about what you want to do, then?” I asked, while we waited. Perhaps he was doing some sort of security sweep on us?
“I mentioned it in passing,” Rohinavon said.
“More as a fantasy than as a realistic plan. But he thought it was interesting. He transports the babies to Eumad, but he’s not generally in favour of the slave trade as a whole.
It was something of a surprise to find that most smugglers have their own set of ethics.
It’s not as simple as just being willing to trade anything at all for a handful of credits. ”
The ship remained eerily silent… and then I heard a faint click behind us. I froze, at the same time as Xel glanced my way, his eyes wide.
“Turn around,” a husky voice said, and I did so, slowly, keeping my hands were he could see them.
Behind us stood a creature that I immediately recognised as an Anicrian male.
They were a small species, standing about four feet tall, and this one was covered in short, orange-and-white striped fur.
He had a long tail and two nubs on his head that weren’t quite developed enough to be called horns.
The females of their species were very similar, but without the protrusions on their heads.
And in his hand, he held a pulse projector.
“Vonnie, please step away from the human and his pet,” the man said, not taking his eyes off us.
“They’re no threat to you,” Rohinavon said, though she did take a couple of steps away from us. “We just want to talk.”
“Xel isn’t a pet,” I told him firmly, not giving a shit whether or not that pissed him off.
“I inherited him from his previous owner and I consider him to be a member of my family.” If we were going to be talking about dismantling the slave trade, it wasn’t a surprise to find that he objected to there being dimari here.
Rohinavon had had much the same reaction at first.