Free The Peyti Crisis: A Retrieval Artist Novel: Book Five of the Anniversary Day Saga (Retrieval Artist series 12) by Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page A

outfit, a blue pair of slacks, a matching blue shirt, and her favorite blue shoes—but she knew. And that was what mattered.
    That, and the fact that she had been right all along.
    She got to the “sky bridge” which connected the Human Investigative Unit and the Joint Investigative Unit, and continued to stomp. If she were going to change her mind, this was where she should have done it, right here, as she crossed out of her jurisdiction to the one she got criticized for consulting all the time.
    But she had come here six months ago, and had been shot down, and she had been right, dammit. She had believed that humans and aliens should have been jointly investigating the Anniversary Day attacks, because—despite what everyone said—the Moon was not just a human place.
    It was the gateway into the heart of the Earth Alliance. Earth herself, the very center of the Alliance, the place where it had all began.
    Not to mention the fact that every species traveled to Earth at one point or another, and that meant every species traveled to the Moon.
    But noooo, Xyven would have none of that. Xyven believed the bombings on the Moon had been a human problem. Xyven had turned down her petition for joint investigatory teams.
    And she couldn’t help think that there might have been more to it.
    She had spent all night trying to shed that thought, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t sure if she was being as bigoted as Xyven had been when he quashed the idea of joint investigations or if she had reason to be suspicious.
    And, since she was the kind of woman who didn’t even know how to be circumspect, she was going directly to Xyven first , even though she probably should have gone farther up the ladder, to the Director of the entire investigative unit—the one that coordinated every single department, human and alien, and the joint department where humans and aliens investigated together.
    She hated this damn sky bridge. Because there was no sky. She was on starbase that housed all of the Earth Alliance’s Security division. She thought of the entire thing as a giant spider web, with smaller bases encircling the larger base, and all of them attached by tunnels and “bridges” and all sorts of other walkways and passageways that made the place the most confusing she had ever worked.
    At least she had memorized it. So many staff members simply let the maps on the links guide them, which she figured would bite them in the ass one day. What would they do when the systems went down and they had to get from one part of the base to another?
    They’d have no idea where to go or how to get there.
    But she would.
    She slammed her way through Joint Unit’s green and gold reception area, past the android receptionist that sent a panicked message to her links:
    You do not have an appointment!
    She never had appointments, but she knew one day that bipedal thing with the green/gold/blue eyes and the face that tried to shift from preferred species to another would try to stop her from entering.
    If it tried today, she’d—oh, she had no idea what she’d do, but it would be bad.
    She ignored the insistent messages, and stomped down the Disty-decorated hall. Because the first director had been Disty, everything was warrenlike—small and twisty. Fortunately, she wasn’t very tall either. Some of her colleagues couldn’t even stand upright here.
    A few other android security officers tried to stop her along the way, but she put her security clearance badge as a response to all messages, and that slowed everything down.
    Then she reached the rack of environmental suits, and those did stop her. For one brief moment, she thought about returning to her office, and summoning Xyven there.
    Of course, he wouldn’t come. And then she’d have to go through this all over again.
    But it was hard to keep a mad on when she was having to pick through the suits, slide one over her clothes, and find a mask that wasn’t too funky.
    Somehow she managed to get