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  “We’ll save it for an emergency, then,” said Bishop, passing him a holstered gun wrapped in a shoulder rig. March took off his coat, donned the shoulder holster, checked the gun, and pulled his coat back on. His coat was loose enough, and the gun was compact enough, that it shouldn’t be noticeable to casual observation.

  They settled down to wait. Forty minutes remained until their scheduled meeting with Bavier, and Bishop passed the time by talking about whatever subject happened to cross his mind. Most of those subjects involved women and alcohol. March grunted from time to time as he listened, glancing at his phone every so often to cycle through the camera feeds.

  “Anyway,” said Bishop. “Brunettes are my favorite. They’re jealous of the blondes, so they feel like they have more to prove.”

  “Haven’t you been divorced twice?” said March.

  Bishop grinned. “That just means I’m experienced. I know what I like. Speaking of which, we need to find you a woman at some point, Jack. What has it been, five years since you’ve been with a woman?”

  “You haven’t known me five years,” said March. “And we should focus on the mission.”

  “Ah, but the mission isn’t enjoyable to have in bed with you at night.”

  “I should hope not,” said March, and then his phone buzzed.

  One of the cameras had detected motion. March looked at the screen and saw two men in dark coats hurrying down the corridor towards Cargo Bay 19. Both men had the tough look of veteran fighters, and they were carrying pistols.

  Neither one of them were Adrian Bavier.

  “Trouble?” said Bishop.

  “Trouble,” agreed March, drawing his pistol with his right hand. “Get to the left side of the door. Hopefully, we can surprise them and make them talk.”

  Bishop nodded, and he pressed himself along the wall to the left of the cargo bay’s doors, pistol in both hands. March moved a few paces to his left, gun grasped in his right hand. About thirty seconds later the doors hissed open, and the two men in dark coats stepped into the bay.

  “Gentlemen,” called Bishop. The men froze. “I think we ought to…”

  The men snapped up their pistols and started shooting.

  But March was already moving.

  He had seen their reactions, and he surged forward, his training and reflexes taking over. Both men shot at him, and his left arm snapped up in guard. The bullets shattered against the Machinist alloy that made up his left arm, though he felt the impact vibrate through his shoulder and chest. In an instant, he closed the distance between them, and March’s left hand seized the first gunman’s weapon.

  A squeeze of his cybernetic fist and he crushed both the gun and the hand that held it.

  The gunman started screaming, the second dark-coated man trying to line up another shot. March shoved the screaming gunman, and he lost his balance and fell into the second man. Both attackers went down in a heap, and March strode forward and brought his boot down.

  The impact broke the second attacker’s gun hand, and he screamed.

  March stooped down and wrenched the weapon away.

  The entire fight had taken about four seconds.

  “Jesus,” said Bishop, leveling his pistol at the gunmen. “I always forget how fast you are. Hurt?”

  “No,” said March, rolling his left shoulder. “Stings a bit.”

  “Now, gentlemen,” said Bishop, his pistol leveled at the gunmen, who glared up at him. “I wanted to have a civilized discussion, and you shoot at my friend! Very tacky. We could have had a pleasant conversation, and now it’s come to this. Regrettable.”

  The first gunman sneered, cradling his broken hand. “Go to hell.”

  “No, thanks,” said Bishop. “I’d rather go to the headquarters of your employer and have a nice chat with them.”

  “We shall never reveal any secrets to our oppressors!” said the second gunman.

  March shared a look with Bishop.

  “Given that we’ve never met before today and that you tried to shoot us,” said Bishop, “I fail to see how we are oppressing you.”

  “Calaskaran scum,” spat the first gunman. “We shall be free of your tyranny.”

  “Let me guess,” said March. “Antioch Liberation Front?”

  “The rightful government of the Antioch system,” said the second gunman. “We shall defeat the Calaskaran oppressors and liberate the system!”

  March snorted. “And you’re useful idiots for the Machinists.”

  The first gunman grinned. “When the Final Consciousness conquers the Kingdom of Calaskar, we shall become part of the next phase of human evolution, and…”

  March’s kick bounced the gunman’s head off the deck.

  “We’re not going to get anything useful out of them,” said March as the gunman moaned.

  “No,” said Bishop, finger tightening against his pistol’s trigger. “We won’t. Better clean up and move on.”

  “Wait,” said the second gunman. “Wait!”

  In one smooth motion, Bishop drew a neural stunner from the inside of his coat, leveled the stubby, boxy weapon, and pulled the trigger. Two bursts of blue light from the weapon later, and the ALF agents slumped unconscious against the deck.

  “The one you kicked is going to need some dental work when he wakes up,” said Bishop.

  “He can ask the next goddamn stage of human evolution to fix his teeth,” said March. He holstered his pistol and produced his phone. “You tie them up, I’m going to check on Bavier. If ALF sent agents to kill us, they must have realized that something was up.”

  Bishop went to work, cutting strips from the gunmen’s coats and using them to produce ropes and gags. March contacted the Tiger, asked Vigil to connect the camera, and saw a live feed of the corridor outside Bavier’s apartment. There was no one there, but March pulled up the recording and sped through it.

  About five minutes ago, three men had broken through the apartment’s door and dragged out a screaming Bavier. They threw him into one of the station’s autocabs and drove off.

  “Shit,” said March.

  “Bavier’s dead?” said Bishop, tying up the second gunman.

  “Maybe,” said March. “They grabbed him and threw him into an autocab.”

  “Did the camera get the operating number of the autocab?” said Bishop.

  “Yeah,” said March. “Does that do us any good?”

  “It does,” said Bishop, straightening up. “On Mercator Station, you can ping the autocab service with the number of any individual autocab, and the station computer will tell you where that particular vehicle is. Supposed to cut down on complaints.”

  “Handy,” said March, turning the screen so Bishop could see the autocab's number. Bishop pulled out his own phone, tapped in a series of commands, and waited.

  “Got it,” said Bishop. “Looks like it’s heading to…the lower station core. The industrial sections.”

  “Good place for a quiet murder,” said March. “We had better move.” He gestured at the bound ALF agents. “Do you want to call them in, or should I?”

  Bishop shrugged. “I’ll make an anonymous call after we get an autocab of our own. We wouldn’t want Mercator Station’s sterling reputation to be sullied by the presence of ALF terrorists. I’m generous like that.”

  “Truly.”

  ###

  Five minutes later March and Bishop drove through the station’s corridors in an autocab of their own, heading for the lift system. Bishop kept the autocab locator open on his phone, monitoring the vehicle that had taken Bavier and his attackers.

  “Still in the industrial level,” said Bishop. “Looks like they’ve parked.”

  March grimaced. “Bavier might be dead.”

  “Could be,” said Bishop. “But if we hurry, we might be able to save him yet. Those ALF sympathizers are going to want to talk to him. And if Jardem is telling them what to do, maybe we can catch her in the act.”

  “Maybe,” said March. “I don’t su
ppose your map tells you where in the industrial levels that cab is. The industrial levels on a station this size will be bigger than some starships.”

  “It doesn’t,” said Bishop, “but I’ll cross-reference the map.” Their autocab reached a lift lobby, and March and Bishop got out. The vehicle rolled away at once, no doubt to pick up another paying customer. “Let’s see…Hydroponics Bay 3.”

  “Hydroponics,” said March. “Bavier said that Jardem was shipping out weapons marked as foodstuffs.”

  “A hydroponics bay would be the place to do it,” said Bishop. They stepped into an empty lift car. Bishop tapped a command into the panel, telling the car to take them to Hydroponics Bay 3. The doors hissed closed, and the car whirred into motion, the hum of its engines filling the air. “Lot of space, lot of noise. Most of the work is automated, and the technicians only come around for weekly inspections or when something breaks down. Easy place to ship starfighter-sized weapons off the station.”

  “And a good place for a quiet little murder,” said March. “Hell, they can even feed Bavier’s body into the protein recyclers when they’re done.”

  Bishop scowled. “Makes me think twice about buying food on Mercator Station.” He hesitated. “How do you want to play this? We might not be able to save Bavier.”

  “No,” said March, “but we’re going to try. We could have spent weeks tracking down the flow of weapons, but Bavier pointed us to the source. The Silent Order has to look after its friends. Besides, whoever took Bavier will likely lead us right to Jardem.”

  “Then we play it by ear?” said Bishop.

  “Afraid so,” said March.

  “I hate playing it by ear,” said Bishop with a sigh, checking his pistol and his neural stunner. “Well, no plan of battle survives contact with the enemy.”

  “I’ll take point,” said March. “You bring up the back.”

  “Agreed,” said Bishop. “You’re bigger and will soak up more bullets.”

  “Cheering,” said March.

  Three minutes later, the lift car came to a stop. The doors slid open with a hiss, and a wave of wet, hot air slapped March in the face. It was so hot and steamy that he started to sweat at once.

  It seemed that Hydroponics Bay 3 was devoted to tropical fruit.

  March took a slow step forward, both hands wrapped around the grip of his pistol. Ahead of him was a long, low room that stretched forward as far as he could see and a hundred meters in either direction. The ceiling was a maze of pipes and conduits, and twenty-four rows of hydroponic racks stretched ahead of them. Small fruit trees grew in specially prepared baths of nutrients and fertilizer, and the air smelled of sweetness and decay and moisture. March looked back and forth, wondering where Jardem’s thugs had taken Bavier.

  There. Signs of a struggle in the corner. One of the trees had been kicked, knocking leaves to the deck and sloshing water over the edge of a hydroponic tank. There was also a spatter of blood on the floor, likely where Bavier had been kicked or punched to subdue him. March beckoned, and Bishop nodded and moved after him in silence. Together they walked around the perimeter of the hydroponics bay. The walls were lined with doors that led into cargo bays that stored harvested fruit. The bays were refrigerated, which made them the perfect place to stash a corpse. For that matter, each bay had a cargo airlock that opened into space, which would make them the ideal place to store smuggled weapons.

  One of the bay doors was open, and a man in a dark coat stood watch there, pistol in hand. March recognized him from the video. He was one of the men who had dragged Bavier out of his apartment.

  March gestured to Bishop, and they ducked behind a row of hydroponic equipment. They moved down the aisle between two rows of trees, using the branches and the leaves as cover. As March drew nearer to the waiting guard, he heard the sound of someone shouting in anger, followed by a fist striking flesh and a squeal of pain.

  That was Bavier’s voice. He was still alive, at least for now. Though depending on just how angry Anna Jardem was, Bavier might wish he had died.

  March holstered his pistol, reached into his coat, and drew out his own neural stunner, shifting the weapon to his right hand. With his left hand, he grasped the edge of the hydroponic rack, his metal fingers dipping into the warm water.

  Then with one smooth motion, he leaped over the rack, vaulted between two slender tree trunks, and landed before the guard. The man’s eyes went wide, and he opened his mouth to shout and started to raise his pistol. By then March had already leveled the stunner at the center of the guard’s chest.

  There was a pulse of blue light, and the guard went limp, his mouth sagging open as his eyes closed. March caught the guard’s gun before it could clang against the deck, and Bishop seized the man’s other arm. Together they lowered the man to the floor in silence.

  Again, a voice rang in anger from the cargo bay, and March’s gaze snapped up, expecting an attack. But it was still the sound of an argument, not of alarm. March drew his pistol, and he and Bishop headed into the cargo bay.

  The sudden drop in temperature was shocking, and the sweat on March’s forehead and neck turned cold and clammy. The bay was an enormous rectangular space, with metal grill stairs descending to the floor a story below. Right now, the bay was full of merchandise, and not tropical fruit. March saw dozens of racks holding the long black tubes of fighter-to-fighter missiles. Laser turrets were stacked in neat pillars three high, and more racks held fighter-sized plasma cannons. There wasn’t enough firepower here to destroy Mercator Station, but there was enough to make a hell of a hull breach and more than enough to cause a lot of trouble on Antioch.

  Another cry came from the far end of the bay, behind a missile rack. March and Bishop moved down the stairs in silence, their breath steaming in the air.

  “You idiot!” said a woman, her voice shrill with anger. “Do you have any idea what a mess you have made?”

  “Please, Ms. Jardem,” said Bavier, his voice trembling with pain. “Please, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please, I…”

  “You contacted the Silent Order, did you not?” said Jardem. “I had you followed. I know that you have spoken with Calaskaran agents!”

  March peered around the edge of the rack.

  He saw Bavier at once. The unfortunate technician had been shackled to a pipe, his face half-covered in blood, his shirt torn open and his pudgy torso darkened with bruises. Three more men in dark coats stood facing him, guns in hand. A Mercatorian woman in late middle age stalked back and forth before him, her high-heeled boots clanging against the deck. She wore a black pantsuit and had pale blond hair, pale blue eyes, and a thin face marked with fine lines around the mouth and eyes.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, ma’am,” said Bavier.

  “Bullshit!” said Jardem. She stalked forward and jabbed a finger into one of the cuts on his chest, and Bavier cried out in pain. “I know you went through my databases. My men saw you talking to the Calaskaran agents at the bar. Well, those agents are dead now. What did you tell them? Damn it, what did you tell them?”

  “Nothing,” squealed Bavier. “Nothing!” March was impressed. Jardem’s thugs had given him a beating, but he hadn’t broken yet. But no man’s strength could last forever. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I…”

  “Lies!” said Jardem, and she slapped him. She had a heavy ring on her finger, and it opened a cut on Bavier’s cheek as it bounced off his jaw. “Fine. I’ve had enough of your nonsense, Bavier. Sniffing around where you don’t belong. Let’s see how you’ll squeal when we start cutting fingers off.”

  “Three of them,” whispered Bishop. “Can you take them?”

  “If you make a distraction,” whispered March back.

  Bishop nodded, sheathed his stunner and his pistol, and moved to the left side of the missile rack. March crouched behind the right edge and waited.

  “But I don’t know anything!” said Bavier, his voice rising.

  “
You,” said Jardem, pointing at one of her mercenaries. “Cut off…”

  “Gentlemen and lady!” said Bishop, stepping into plain sight, his hands raised. “I suggest we take a moment to engage in reasonable discussion.”

  All three mercenaries whirled to face Bishop, raising their pistols. Jardem turned, scowling.

  “Who the hell are you?” she said.

  March eased around the missile rack in silence.

  “An interested party,” said Bishop. “If you’ve been selling to the Antioch Liberation Front, we can double their prices. I…”

  “You’re one of the Calaskarans!” said Jardem. “Kill him! Kill…”

  March surged to his feet, raised his neural stunner, and fired.

  The blast caught the nearest mercenary in the back, and the man toppled to the floor. The other two men whirled and started shooting, and their bullets went wide. March surged forward, his left arm snapping up to deflect the bullets. He fired the stunner a second time, and another mercenary went down. The third gunman tried to line up a shot on March, and he dodged as Bishop yanked his own stunner free and fired.

  Jardem snarled and reached into her coat, and March shot her with the stunner.

  She went down in a boneless heap to the deck.

  “Good timing,” said March.

  “Thanks,” said Bishop. “Mr. Bavier! Sorry we could not arrive sooner. It seems that Jardem had you followed and sent some men to kill us.”

  “How did you find me?” said Bavier, shaking with relief as March cut him free from the pipe.

  “The Silent Order has its methods,” said Bishop.

  “What…what are we going to do now?” said Bavier, rubbing his wrists as he staggered forward.

  “Easy,” said March. “We leave Jardem and her thugs tied up down here, wipe the security recordings, then make an anonymous message to station security with the files from the database attached. Station security will do the rest.”

  “Oh, God,” said Bavier.

  “And we’ll get you to the infirmary, of course,” said Bishop.

  “I just…I just can’t believe that it’s finally over,” said Bavier.