Free The World Forgot by Martin Leicht

heroics and other boring derring-dos,” I say. “The Almiri can have their little race war. I’m getting my daughter back.”
    â€œYer going to track down Marsden?” Marnie asks. “How?”
    I wield the tracker. “With this.” The elevator doors slide open, and we’re down on the hangar level. I make a beeline for the sealed bay doors.
    â€œElvie, you heard the commander,” Cole says. “That thing won’t be able to penetrate whatever interference is mucking up the signal. You’d have to be, like, right next to Olivia for it to pick her up.”
    â€œThen I guess we have a needle in a haystack to find,” I say. “Marnie, your contacts in the Rust Belt. Where can we reach them?”
    â€œWe’ve eyes ’n’ ears on several installations,” Marnie says. “I’d start on New Moon, the ozone refinery station.”
    â€œVery well, then. We’ll start there. Maybe your guys have heard about some unsavory types lurking about, hiding with the rest of the floating garbage up there.”
    â€œAnd how do you propose we get there?” Ducky asks. “Swim?”
    â€œIf it wasn’t already clear, I’m stealing a spaceship,” I say. “One of those neat little numbers with the stealth shield.”
    Ducky slides in front of me, bringing me to a halt. “Elvie, you’re not thinking.” He turns and points at the bay doors. “Unless you’ve suddenly jumped several ranks in the military service of the aliens who don’t even like your kind , you don’t have the clearance to open those doors, let alone launch a ship.”
    â€œTrue,” I say, twirling my grandfather’s security clearance card around in my hand. “But Byron does.”
    â€œHow did you get that?” Ducky asks.
    â€œYou son of a bitch!” I fake-cry as I pantomime slapping Ducky in the chest. I burst into a great big smile.
    â€œAren’t ye the canny lass,” Marnie says, a grin spreading across her face.
    â€œWhen the need arises,” I say. “Always have a plan.”
    â€œEven if you can get the ship started up,” Cole counters, “they’ll spot it and shut the outer doors down.”
    My smile only broadens as I turn to Cole. “Then I guess I have some pretty extraordinary hacking to get started on.” Hold on, Olivia. Mama’s coming. “Let’s get to work.”

Chapter Five
    In Which Communications Begin to Break Down
    Not to brag or anything, but if they gave out medals for stealing invisible ships and piloting them away from your alien grandfather undetected, yours truly would grab the gold, easy.
    â€œOkay,” Ducky says after we’ve successfully broken away from the Almiri strike force and plunged into the blackness of space. His face is green, naturally, because we are moving, and he grips the armrests of his seat tightly. “So, like, now what?”
    To that I have absolutely no response. But at least someone else does.
    â€œWe’re thirteen-point-three-thousand clicks from the Rust Belt,” Marnie tells us. The chick’s been standing over my shoulder for the past fifteen minutes or so, watching me work the controls, and it’s making me mildly claustrophobic. “New Moon is near the center of the densest cluster of ships. Tricky flying, but this ship’s slight enough that we shouldnae have much trouble.”
    â€œWhat are spies doing sitting in the middle of an orbital ghetto?” Cole asks, fiddling with the tracker. He wanted something to do so I let him hold it, but I’m getting worried he’s going to break it.
    â€œCole!” I snap as he bangs the tracker with the heel of his hand. “Be careful with that.”
    â€œThey’re na’ spies,” Marnie tells him. “More as like they’re untapped fonts of information.”
    â€œHow much info can you get sitting on a defunct