The Transporter's Favor by C.M. Simpson (pride and prejudice read .txt) 📕

liaison with Sharovan and acting liaison with Selimen’s, until we change our minds.”

I watched Bennett’s jaw drop open, and then he snapped it closed, and blinked a couple of times.

“I can do Sharovan,” he said, “but it’ll take me some time to get up to speed with the rest of the company. Costoganzi had a lot of secrets.”

“Then you’ll ferret them out, report them, and find me who, in each branch or subsidiary, is best to approach. You will hunt the rotten apples and dig them out of every barrel we’ve just inherited, preferably before they have time to do something we’re all going to regret.”

Bennett’s face closed over, and he pushed himself back from the table.

“I… If you’ll excuse me, I have a lot to do,” he said, but Delight shook her head.

“Your primary task is to give us the security run down on the mining operations out at Rigel’s.”

He gave her his best blank look.

“As far as I was aware, we had no mining operations at Rigel’s. As I said, I have a lot of work to do. If you’ll excuse me.”

Delight narrowed her eyes at him, but Bennet didn’t give in.

“Abs?” he said. “I’ll need that terminal, if it’s free, and I accept your offer.”

“Her offer?” Delight demanded, and, this time, the smallest of smiles cracked Bennett’s mask.

“Quarters and Dasojin’s assistance,” he said. He might not have said more, but Delight insisted.

“In exchange for what?”

Bennett looked to the ceiling, and then made his way to the door. He might not have made it, if Abby hadn’t responded via the room’s intercom.

“Well, Hon, with his position at Sharovan in question, I made the nice man an offer. Dasojin need an investigator—and we’re always glad to hire him out at Odyssey’s request.”

Bennett slipped out the door, gone before Delight gave Abby her answer.

“You, me and him are going to talk,” she said, then added, “as soon as the mission is done.”

“Sure, we are, Hon, but the paperwork’s signed.”

Abby’s tone had a happy lilt, and the look on Delight’s face was as frightening as it was comical. I really hoped she was never that angry with me. Never. Pretty sure, though, that Abs had this one sewn up tight, and had already made darn sure Bennett was safe. From what I could see, Dasojin protected its employees a whole lot better than Odyssey did.

“Sure,” Delight snarked, inside my head, “and you be sure to tell that to the three missing HMTs and their shells, too.”

Well, that told me.

I shrugged, rolling her words away and focusing on the map of the mining outpost nearest Rigel’s Banter. If I were a nasty-minded oligarch working in conjunction with the shadiest of star-roving wolf families, where would I hide a mining operation that was acting as cover for a black-market HMT sales and separation yard? Where?

I stared at the map, and then hooked into the data stream that would take me to a more recent scan of the mining field, because, if I was such an operation, then I probably wouldn’t have those shadier areas mapped where folk like Odyssey could just grab them, right?

I heard a distant ‘wuff’ and someone shout my name, but I figured there was nothing anyone would need me for, and this was the kind of stuff I retrieved, so they’d manage while I was gone.

After all, I wasn’t going to be that long.

29—Mining the Recon

Turns out I was gone a lot longer than I’d thought I would be, but I hadn’t gone alone. I’d slipped through the top layer of the net and worked my way into the outer layer of the Rigel’s Banter observation scans, by the time Cascade, Rohan, and Tens had caught up with me.

“Wow, the whole gang’s here,” I managed, and Tens gave me a mental slap upside the head.

“You’re not the only information specialist on board,” he said. “Abby’s not happy with being left behind.”

“I figured Abby was busy enough as it was,” I said.

“She wants a full report.”

“Since when does she think I can do that?”

“Since you owe her a favor, and it transferred to Mack as an additional contract.”

Oh, yeah. There had been that, hadn’t there?

“You’re unbelievable.”

I shrugged. Whatever. We had more important shit to do than worry about the rest of it. The scans from Rigel’s Banter showed a few more habitats than the map Delight had pulled up. Tens shunted them back through the data stream, adding the new data to the board.

“I want maps,” Delight said, then added. “Tens, you’re in charge of the intel gathering. I have training to do.”

I registered Tens’s feeling of surprise, and shrugged it off. I’d seen Delight’s training regime; it was a miracle she was letting the three of us play in the data while the rest of the team worked that hard.

“It’s necessary. We need the data, and we don’t have time to fuck around.”

Whatever.

I went looking for the linkages that would either get me the habitat schematics, or would get me out onto the habs, themselves, so I could draft up the schematics, with an internal deck scan. This was gonna take a bit…

“Cas and I’ll take these,” Rohan said, highlighting two I hadn’t noticed.

“And I’ve got those,” Tens added, painting the three to the other side of the one I’d chosen.

For a moment, I was torn between frustration at having others do what I’d set for myself, and relief that I wouldn’t have to work alone—and then I found the path I’d been looking for.

The first hab was on the edge of the asteroid belt, and it surprised me by being more heavily shielded than the mining HQ. Why was that?

I slid through the comms link between Rigel’s and what the mining company had termed Rumah Aman Tiga. ‘Tiga’, huh. I had no idea what language that was based on, but it wasn’t any of the Gals I’d ever heard of. My guess it was an old Terran tongue, the whos and whys I could figure