Free [01] Elite: Wanted by Gavin Deas

as easily been handled on Whit’s Station. As certain as she had been then, after the fact she was finding explanations for everything. The snipers were reasonable operational security to an ex-military mind. To the paranoid, the crew of the
Song
’s close relationship with the ‘authorities’ on Whit’s Station was too much of a risk.
    ‘It was a burn. There’s no question of it,’ Orla told the engineer, glancing over at Ravindra as she did so. ‘We start second guessing and we’ll screw up. Harnack had seventeen hard years at this game, more before he ended up in the Warren. We all know the risks.’ Jonty’s head had jerked up at the mention of his lover’s name but the goldskin remained silent.
    ‘Do we run or deal with the Syndicate?’ Ravindra put to them.
    ‘Can we offload the cargo anywhere else?’ Orla asked.
    ‘It’s too hot,’ Ravindra said.
    ‘If we run, we may as well leave the cargo for them somewhere. Maybe they’ll leave us alone,’ Orla said.
    ‘I don’t think they knew what Newman was planning,’ Ravindra said.
    ‘I think we should contact the Syndicate. Give them the cargo, get paid, smooth things over. This mess isn’t our creation,’ Ravindra stated.
And then we don’t have to run
, she added silently.
    ‘You think they’ll care whose mess it is?’ Jenny asked bitterly.
    ‘I think it’s worth the risk. We still have the option to run if it all goes wrong,’ Orla said.
    We do, but the longer we leave it the less chance we have
, Ravindra thought, though she kept it to herself.
    ‘We agreed?’ Orla asked. Jenny nodded but didn’t look happy. Ravindra nodded as well. The three of them turned to Jonty.
    ‘Newman,’ was all he said.
    Orla was shaking her head.
    ‘That’s exactly the shit we don’t do,’ she insisted.
    ‘Never personal,’ Ravindra said. ‘Dane’s L—’
    ‘Fuck Dane’s Law and fuck Dane. Where’d that get him? Dead, that’s where, just like Harnack!’ Then Jonty’s face crumpled and the tears came. He slammed his fist into the edge of the control panel before slumping back in his seat. Jenny was closest to him. She reached over to squeeze his arm.
    ‘In time, brother,’ Orla soothed. ‘In time, we promise.’

Chapter Four
    You got all sorts in this job. Maintenance supervisor John Graham turned out to be one of the harmless ones. He lived in a decently sized multi-function cabin in a slightly low-gravity section of the station. Not prime real-estate but close enough to show he a had credits to his name. He had a nice smile and bright eyes under greying black hair, and the easy happy manner of someone who’d largely had what he wanted from life because what he’d wanted had never been too much. From Ziva, all he wanted was to be able to say he’d met the infamous Blink Dog. After five minutes of fan-boy awe and asking all sorts of dumb questions about whether this, that, or the other was true, he asked Ziva if she was as fast as they said she was. Ziva drew her pistol on him and he spent the whole next minute gawping and gasping and asking her to do it again – and could he make a recording of her doing it, please? She told him that would be just fine as long as he didn’t mind it ending with her shooting him and could he please tell her what he thought she might like to know.
    ‘That guy you were looking for. I heard a couple of his crew. I didn’t know they were with him until your avatar came showing their pictures. Didn’t think anything of it at the time, but I heard them talking about the
Black Mausoleum
. Kind of pricked my ears, that. That’s why I remembered them.’
    ‘How long ago?’
    ‘Couple of weeks.’ When he’d told her the rest of what he’d heard, it wasn’t the wasted trip she’d feared it would be. Putting Graham’s story together with what she already knew, Newman was working with the Judas Syndicate – with the Veil of Beta Hydri – and if Newman was working with a Judas crew then there was a