Chapter 50 Dax #2
Burn winced. “Nope, I didn’t see anything that looked like our ship.”
We had to find her sister. Even more so now than before. If Lacy had lost her beloved ship, she deserved to have her sister returned, alive and well. And I’d do my damnedest to make sure that happened. After this conversation, I thought Burn would too.
Mercer and Orion approached our position, hauling a conscious but tied-up worker with them.
“Thought it’d be easier to get some answers this way.” Orion’s deep voice sounded menacing. The bound guy shivered.
Good. That might make this easier.
I maneuvered the entire team into the shadows, keeping Lacy behind me.
I hoped the interrogation would go easy, that the man would tell us what we wanted to know quickly and without bloodshed.
I didn’t want Lacy to witness this. Didn’t want her to see this side of me, of the team.
I thought I’d left this behind when I’d left the corps, but for her, I’d get my hands dirty again.
Mercer and Orion had let the man fall to his knees, so I crouched in front of him. “We have some questions. You’re going to give us the answers. If you don’t, if you try to call for help, it will not go well for you. Nod if you understand.”
His head bobbed up and down.
“Good. Let’s get started.” I pulled down the gag. “Who owns this place?”
His mouth opened wide. When Orion nudged him in the back of the head with his weapon, the guy reconsidered his plan to yell.
“The Farrows and the McMillers.”
“And what do they do?”
He opened his mouth, closed it. Orion prodded him again.
“Hey, man, stop it!”
I gave him a look.
He scowled at me. “They’re entrepreneurs.”
That was a nice, bland term for a bunch of criminals. “And?”
“What do you mean ‘and’?” the guy asked.
“It’s not a difficult question,” I said. “What’s their business?”
“Selling,” he said quickly. When I looked at him, unimpressed, he hurried to add, “They sell everything. But, uh, mostly ship parts. Like these.”
“How do they get the ships?”
“I dunno. They just do.”
I was pretty sure he was lying.
Tired of squatting, I stood, stretched, then pointed at the skeletal ship. “Where’d they get that one?”
If anything, the guy got even paler. “Crew got in a bar fight, so it was confiscated.”
That was a pretty broad answer. I didn’t trust it. “Who confiscated it?”
“The town.”
That wasn’t . . . unexpected. This place seemed to run on nothing but dust and despair. Of course, they would all be a part of it.
“Where did you get this?” Lacy pushed past me, shaking the shark toy at the man.
Dammit, Lacy.
I bounced on my toes, ready to sweep her away, but the guy lurched backward. Whether to get away from the shark or the wild-eyed woman wielding it, I wasn’t sure. Orion blocked his way, forcing him to stay in place.
“That’s . . . that’s not mine. It’s Bert’s.” His gaze darted around, like he was looking for Bert. Or for an escape.
She bent forward and glared at him, all while shaking the shark. “No, it’s mine. Where is the ship that it came from? Where is the crew?”
If anything, his eyes got wider. “It wasn’t our fault. No one told us that ship was off limits. Farrow was pissed when he learned that the team had taken it in. I don’t know what he did with it. Really, I don’t.”
Lacy growled, low and deep in her throat.
Holy shit.
I looked at Burn, then Mercer and Orion. Their eyes were as wide as the mechanic’s, but their expressions held respect.
“And the crew?”
“There was just one.” He held up his bound hands in a protective gesture and his voice wavered as he stared at the shark. “Bert thought she was a cop, but the way Farrow whisked her away, everyone else thought she was a hooker.”
Based on Lacy’s expression when he said that, if MAKO had actually been a shark, this guy would have been chum.
I put my hand on her shoulder and gently urged her upright. “Easy there, tiger . . . uh, shark. You got the answers you wanted.”
I looked at the man on the floor, surprised he hadn’t pissed himself in the face of Lacy’s fury. “Anything else we should know?” I glanced from him to Lacy, the message clear. If he didn’t answer me, he’d be answering to her.
The words tumbled out.
“Ship came in late in the day, so we figured we’d strip it in the morning. We got on board and the ship started sending out some kind of signal. We freaked out, man. We just strip the ships, nothing more complicated than that.” His gaze begged me to believe him.
I did. That explained Lacy’s data chip.
“What happened then?”
“I don’t know. Our computer guy did a trace, but said it looked like a data dump, rather than a call for backup. McMiller hired some guys to track the signal, but we never heard from them. Guess they didn’t find it. Old Man Farrow was pissed.”
And that explained the guys who’d come after her. But I knew that those weren’t the answers she was looking for.
“Where’s this compound?’
The guy swallowed hard and looked like he was thinking about not answering.
Lacy must have thought so too because she shook the shark at him again, a sneer on her face.
“Just a few miles out of town. Can’t miss it. Head west on the main road and you pretty much run into it.”
Well, shit. It wouldn’t take the team and me that long to run that far, but I wasn’t sure that Lacy would be able to keep up. Leaving her behind wasn’t an option.
“Where exactly are they holding her?”
“I don’t know. There’s the main house and a couple of outbuildings. Probably one of those. I’ve only been there once!”
This was going to be like a needle in a haystack. And we only had tonight to figure this out or I was pretty sure we were going to become the next ship to disappear.
“Anybody got any more questions?” Maybe one of them would think of something I hadn’t.
Lacy nodded, gripping the shark tightly. “You got any working ships in here? Small ones?”
He swallowed hard but considered her question. “Naw, we strip them pretty quick. Most of us live in town and don’t have ships. There’s a shuttle in the corner that might work. Doors are a bit twitchy.”
“Which corner?”
He pointed to a section closest to the front of the hangar that we hadn’t cleared.
I leaned close to Lacy so I could whisper in her ear. “You got any more questions?”
She shook her head.
“What about keys or whatever it takes to fly it?” I asked him.
She turned her head, her lips curving into a smile. “I can hotwire it.”
The pure confidence in her voice was a turn-on in an otherwise tense situation.
“All right, let’s roll.” I nodded to Mercer.
He pulled the guy’s gag up and stuffed it back in his mouth, just in time to stifle his squawk of outrage. “Sorry, man.” He pulled an auto-injector out of the med kit he wore on his hip. He pressed it against the mechanic’s neck and the other man slumped in Orion’s grip.
“What did you give him?” Lacy asked.
“A light sedative,” Mercer said. “He’ll be fine. But since we can’t have him following us . . .” He shrugged.
Orion picked the mechanic up and carried him deeper into the shadows, tucking him into a corner.
“Time to go,” I said, when he rejoined the group. “Burn, you and Orion take point. Make sure no one is between us and the shuttle. If they are, knock them out like everyone else.”
I looked at Lacy. “We need to be out of here before they wake up.”
“Got it.” She unzipped the top of her suit and tucked the shark in. Then she transferred the wrench to her right hand. “I’ll need one of these tool chests when we’re at the shuttle. Hopefully there will be one close by.”
“Got it.” We’d deal with that when we were closer.
“Everyone ready?” They nodded. “Let’s go.”
Lacy was in the middle of the group again. As she started walking, Mercer leaned close. “You better be as good as you say you are.”
“Oh, I am.” Lacy followed Orion and Burn without a backward glance.