“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” Loch said. “I was moving slower than my normal speed, but I’ve sparred at that speed with many trained soldiers who couldn’t dodge and deflect as well as you did.”
I smiled at the compliment but shook my head. “It’s because the mind-set is different,” I said. “Soldiers don’t retreat by default. I do.”
Between the martial arts warm-up and sparring, I was feeling nearly relaxed. My muscles were warm and pliant with none of the residual soreness I’d been carrying for the last couple days. Even my mind was clear and focused.
“So the fence yesterday did not carry any ranged weapons,” I said. “Any idea why?”
“Supply is locked down. Mr. Goswami—of the wives and daughters fame—has the only shop in town. And he prefers it that way. Even the fences won’t cross him. Those who do disappear.”
“Security?”
“Guards twenty-four-seven. Electronic locks and surveillance equipment with redundant fail-safes. All with internal battery backups.”
“And you know that how?” Sometimes I wondered if Loch just made shit up to see if I’d believe him.
“You aren’t the only person in this group who’d like to have a gun,” he said. “I checked out the situation yesterday morning. The door I was watching was the one to Mr. Goswami’s shop.”
“Okay, so the shop is out. Surely some merc on this planet is stupid enough to have both guns and bad security. We just need to find one.”
Loch held out his com. “The address of one Vance Burnam and his boss, August Chisholm. Both of whom are currently in the medbay.”
“No!” I said with a disbelieving gasp.
“Indeed yes,” Loch said. “Even better, it’s nowhere near the central district.”
“Why didn’t you just lead with that? We could be there already!”
“Even in the shadier districts, it’s generally frowned on to break into someone else’s house at high noon.”
Personally, high noon seemed like an excellent time. The shadier elements were probably fast asleep from their late-night shenanigans. But maybe if people were out causing trouble they wouldn’t be home to see us sneaking into their neighbor’s house.
For now I needed water, food, and a shower. Definitely water first, though, if I had to choke down another energy bar. I collected my empty bottles and made my way to the kitchen. The hallway was dark but dim light spilled through the frosted glass front window. The endless twilight was starting to get to me. How did people live here?
Unfortunately, I knew better than to turn on a light that could be visible from outside and since the kitchen opened to the dining room window, I had to feel my way around until my eyes adjusted.
I turned on the sink full-blast and let it run for five minutes. We were lucky that frontier towns like this generally didn’t meter water or power and didn’t shut them off when the occupants left. Yamado owned the whole town—both buildings and infrastructure—so it was easier to just leave everything hooked up for the next tenant.
I filled the bottles and carried them back into the bedroom to check the clarity before I risked a drink. The nanobots in my blood would knock out any waterborne pathogens before they had a chance to take root, but I still didn’t relish the thought of drinking dirty water.
The light revealed clear water, so I drank a bottle while choking down two energy bars. They did not improve with familiarity. I had enough to last me a few more days but I wasn’t exactly relishing the prospect.
Next up: shower. My delight at a real water shower dimmed significantly when I realized there was no hot water. Someone had probably scavenged parts off of the water heater. The lack of soap worked in my favor, though, because I didn’t have to stay in the frigid water long enough to rinse away soapy residue.
Even with the brief shower I was shivering violently by the time I was done. I dried quickly then draped the heated cloak around me while I dressed in the black pants and long-sleeved black shirt I’d bought from the fence. The chill settled into my bones.
This sucked.
Admitting it helped. There was a lot to be said for pushing on without complaint, but sometimes it was nice to just stop and admit things were terrible. Embracing the terrible made it more manageable, at least for me.
I spent the rest of the day catching up on news. There was no mention of the Mayport. The SOS beacon should’ve activated as soon as the emergency ship undocked, so it was unlikely that it hadn’t been found. Unless the override Richard’s soldiers had used to disable the ship’s computer had also disabled the SOS beacon.
The Mayport wasn’t due at the next jump point for another couple days, so Father wouldn’t be searching for me yet, which gave Richard time to act. I’d thought he’d been in the area and I had been a convenient political target, but with everything I’d learned from Bianca, I wasn’t so sure.
I checked my accounts to see if Richard had reached out. He hadn’t, not even to my personal account, which he knew was secure from the rest of the House.
With nothing else to do, I settled in for a few hours of sleep. It was still early, but I’d learned to catch sleep where I could. I was nearly out when Loch joined me, a wall of warmth against my back that I could feel through our clothes. I hummed in appreciation and snuggled back against him. The man was better than a heat field.
“Go back to sleep, Ada,” he murmured. And I did.
Hours later, Loch and I slipped into the twilight and skirted around the central district. We headed for the same seedy area we’d visited the first day but we took a much longer route.
We kept to the shadows and darkened alleys when possible. Because we were at the inflection point between late and early, only a handful of people were out. As we got into the more residential areas, even those few people disappeared.
No witnesses was nice, but it also made us stand out. “Is there a curfew?” I whispered to Loch at the next corner.
“Not that I know about,” he whispered back. “But I’m avoiding the lawmen just the same.”
“Good plan.”
We wound through shabbier and shabbier neighborhoods until the plastech buildings were more boards and mud than plastech.
We circled the same block twice before Loch stopped behind the middle house on the block. He checked his com. “This is it,” he said. The house was dark, as were the two beside it. Either luck was with us or the occupants knew better than to let light escape.
I peered into the twilight while Loch opened the door. Nothing moved, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched.
“I think we should abort,” I whispered as soon as we were inside. Loch was a dark shape against the deeper darkness of the room.
“Why?” he asked.
“Just a feeling.”
To his credit, Loch didn’t scoff. “Five minutes?” he asked.
I nodded reluctantly. If someone was watching us, I doubted five minutes would make a ton of difference. But for us it could mean the difference between finding guns or going home empty-handed.
We moved quickly through the house. I set my com flashlight to the lowest setting and turned it on. It was hard to tell if the house had already been ransacked or if the people living here were just slobs.
Once we checked the house for occupants, Loch and I split up. I searched one bedroom while he searched the other. I found two well-used blaster pistols in the top of the closet, as well as a small cache of energy cells. No holsters, though, so I shoved one gun in my pocket and left the other out for Loch.
I was shoving energy cells into my other pockets when Loch entered the room. “Trouble,” he said. “You were right.”
I handed him the gun and ammo. “How bad?”
“Rockhurst’s men, at least a squad of six. We’ll have to split their attention. You should take your hood down.”