Free Time Siege by Wesley Chu Page A

clients together so everyone got what they needed. All for a small fee, of course.
    In under a week, she moved up to bigger and more lucrative projects: business mergers and classified information, and even brokered a kidnapping exchange. In a frighteningly short span of time, she somehow managed to worm her way deep into the highly volatile and lucrative underground trade network and grow a fair-sized information brokerage within the colony.
    â€œFor now, I have some information to expedite your search.” Two messages appeared in his AI band. “Someone owed me a favor and provided me lists of salvagers and doctors for you to hit up. Pay them a visit and see if any would consider helping our cause.”
    James went over the lists of nineteen salvagers and forty doctors and cross-referenced them with the list of Bulk’s Head alliances he was cobbling together. Seventeen of the doctors were indentured to various crime syndicates or gangs. They would be protected and off-limits.
    That left just a few independents. He had to persuade them to accept what limited scratch they had to come pay Sasha a visit on Earth. James was not beneath kidnapping them outright, though that was a sordid business. Kidnapping skilled technical and medical labor was considered one of the more heinous crimes in the solar system. James wasn’t ready to go that far yet. However, for Sasha, he was starting to consider it.
    Grace also sent him an updated figure of how much scratch he had to work with. He grimaced. “That’s it?”
    â€œI need the rest for cash flow. You need scratch to make scratch,” she said defensively. “When I’m done getting what I need, you can use the rest.”
    James spent the remainder of the day visiting three salvagers and seven of the doctors on the list, confirming they weren’t interested in coming to Earth. The cheapest doctor quoted five times the scratch he was allocated, and the salvagers didn’t even bother asking a price. Most just laughed, some even harder when he tried to appeal to their humanity. One of the salvagers threatened to kill him for being too stupid to live.
    James spent over an hour with the last doctor, at one point simultaneously pleading and threatening to get the poor man to come to Earth, half promising riches and half making death threats. He couldn’t help it. His sister’s life was on the line, and no one seemed to care a whit about it.
    By evening, he was so frustrated, he wanted to break something. Disheartened, he dragged his exhausted body back to the residence. This was a fool’s errand, one that kept him away from Elise and Sasha. That’s where he belonged, not here in the middle of the Ship Graveyard begging criminals to join a hopeless cause.
    He stood outside the door to their residence and thought about telling Grace just that. They should just abort this. They both should be somewhere else. He should be at home protecting his loved ones. She should be working on the cure to the Earth Plague. He worked up the courage to tell her to pack up and walked in the door.
    Grace hadn’t moved from the table. She saw the look on his face when he stormed inside and focused her attention back on the vid. “You look exhausted. Get some sleep.”
    â€œGrace,” he began. “We should reconsider—”
    â€œPet.” Eyes still glued to the screen, she pointed at the bed. “The answer is no. You still have the majority of the salvagers and doctors to talk to.”
    â€œWe’re wasting our time here.”
    She tore her gaze away from the screen and spoke to him in a measured tone, as if talking to a child. “The TIs have a saying: before making decisions of consequence, count the stars. Why don’t you do that first thing in the morning?”
    â€œI don’t know what that means.”
    â€œIt means get some rest and do your damn job, for space’s sake.” She stood up and