Chapter 12

 

This time when he woke, Dejo knew Vaughn would be somewhere near.

They were too close. Not them personally, physically, but too close to finding the missing Earth brides.

The ship’s chronometer told him it was already the planet’s night-cycle. He’d seen Sunset Falls mostly in the dark. Just as well their Big Sky was so beautiful with all its stars.

He found Vaughn in the data core sitting on the floor where he’d been with his port-link. The busy blinking of the gels told him the data was still unpacking and collating, so he studied his erstwhile partner since she hadn’t yet sensed him.

She might be a less advanced Earther, but she had no fear of diving in, whether that be down the well of a data gel central core or into the possibly painful truth of what had happened to her sister. If only she’d been around when he’d been a prisoner.

When he cleared his throat, she jerked her head up, guilt flashing in her blue-gray eyes. “I didn’t break anything,” she blurted.

Except his previously satisfying self-imposed isolation.

“I wouldn’t let you.” He triggered a bench seat from the wall and sat.

She glowered at the seat, as if it should have revealed itself earlier, and scrambled to her feet to bring him the port-link. “Look here.” She sat next to him, her knee brushing his as she turned to hold the scanner between them. “This is the black hole you mentioned, right?” She summoned up the map of the scavenged data. Like a galaxy of information, areas of like kind were grouped together, connected by travel lanes of shared information. At the center was the emptiness.

He nodded. “Like a real black hole, there’s often an accretion disk of broken, degrading data. Sometimes it’s possible to salvage and interpret what went missing.”

“But watch.” She tensed beside him.

“What are we—” A burst of light shot from the darkness. “What the larf was that?” Real singularities emitted relativistic jets of ionized gas, but this was different. “Someone is sending a message from the hole.”

Vaughn quivered beside him. “The IDA’s missing brides?”

Despite her obvious yearning for him to agree, he shook his head slowly. “There’s no way an Earther would know how to send such a message.”

She stiffened. “We’re not so backward as you seem to think—”

He touched her clenched fist to quiet her. “Not for that reason, but simply because you wouldn’t have the tech.” He frowned. “But you’re right that someone is signaling. Someone who didn’t want to be found.”

She frowned. “But you said Blackworm was already in prison. He has been found.”

“Obviously there’s someone else involved. He had mercenaries transporting the Earthers stolen from the IDA—incompetent mercenaries, who were discovered by a Jaxian metal-lord here to match with a bride, which is how Blackworm was caught. But someone else isn’t willing to let the data disappear.”

“Maybe he had a partner in crime,” Vaughn said. “I’ve seen how when perps are under pressure of getting caught, they might try to get rid of the evidence, but their buddies will keep holding on, as if they can’t believe it’ll ever happen to them.” She scowled. “You said nothing ever really disappears. But that’s not just because all data leaves a footprint. People won’t let it go, even when they should.”

He wondered at her grim expression but then pointed at another flash from the hole. “Whoever is signaling deserves an answer, don’t you think?”

She glanced up at him, eyes bright with determination. And maybe a hint of vengeance. This close, his every breath was tinted with the scent of her: coffee and minty soap and a clear, sweet heat like a rising thermal wind that was just her. “Probably at the point of a laser.”

He smiled.

After setting the gels to focus on the intermittent pulse from the data black hole, he fixed a quick meal that he ate side by side with Vaughn. She told him haltingly, with more words unsaid than said, about how she’d been turned away from service to her world after she’d pursued justice for a crime that her superiors preferred to ignore.

“I just…” She quirked her lips wryly. “Once I realized our superiors weren’t going to pursue a real case, I should’ve shut up, just been happy that we got a few of the revenge porn sites shut down. I guess I was like those guys who just can’t let it go, thinking it was never going to blow back on me. Well, I was wrong.”

“Or right,” he said softly. He felt he understood her better, even though he couldn’t believe she’d been so naïve. Or maybe that wasn’t fair to her. She’d had hope.

She grimaced. “I could’ve handled the whole thing differently, better.”

He smiled. “At the point of a laser.”

She flushed. “If that’s what it takes.”

When the ship chimed a warning that the gel collation was nearly complete, they returned to the core. Vaughn rolled forward to the balls of her feet as she stared hard at the blinking gels.

He touched her tensed shoulders. “You can’t will yourself there, wherever the message is originating,” he warned her.

Although he thought if anyone could…

The encryption on the message collapsed under the attack of his gel’s lightning, and he found himself leaning forward in anticipation too. He never got personally involved in the data. That wasn’t why he did it. He only needed to keep flying.

“‘You owe me’?” Vaughn wrinkled her nose and settled back on her heels. “What kind of secret coded message is that?”

“One more common than you might think in the universe.” He parsed the incidental ciphers around the message. “Seems like Blackworm went to prison with his debts unpaid, leaving someone with their ass hanging out.”

She put her hands on her hips, her chin set pugnaciously. “That’s a common intergalactic saying?”

“For all the varied costuming in the universe, most beings prefer their privates covered, at least when there are thieves and lasers around.” He frowned. “There’s another layer of unusual encryption degrading the originating signal. Which is strange, since they wouldn’t have any reason to think their message was going to be intercepted…” He grunted and recalibrated the analysis. “This isn’t like anything I’ve seen before. It’s an auditory marker. Maybe something from a more advanced world, or something very far away breaking down in transit.” He sent the marker to the speakers and tilted his head at the harsh, annoying buzz. “Interstellar interference, maybe? Another layer of encryption based on multi-hertz auditory cycling? I’m not—”

“It’s a dial tone.”

He looked at her. “A what?”

“A dial—not important.” Her expression was flat and furious. “Whoever is sending that message is here on Earth.”

 

***

 

The kidnapped women had been betrayed by their own kind? If she’d had a laser gun in her hand, Vaughn would’ve shot the traitor right then, rule of law and due process be damned.

After a moment of shock, Dejo’s fingers were flying over the gel interface, and the lights danced to his silent tune. He paused, clicked again, and lifted his chin.

“Not just Earth,” he said. “The originating message came from here, from Sunset Falls. And the most recent pulse was last night.”

If Rayna was still in this blasted town… Vaughn let out a slow, steadying breath. “Can you narrow it down anymore?”

Another flick of his fingers and a map like the one he’d been looking at in the sheriff’s office hovered above his tablet. A light pulsed.

At the sheriff’s office.

“That fucker Henson,” she hissed. “He’s the one who tried to convince me Rayna had gone off on her own. Never mind a tidy laser hole, I’ll burn him alive—” She choked off the rest of the ugliness when Dejo’s hand clamped on her shoulder.

“One step closer,” he said softly. “Another data trove may yield what you need.”

She was done with cautious, well-planned steps. She wanted to jump down someone’s throat.

And Dejo was conveniently nearby.

“You’ve helped enough,” she said tightly. “You have the rest of your data. And I have the piece I need.” She was going to punch out Henson’s teeth as she’d been inspired to do the first time he opened his mouth.

“I’m going with you.” Dejo’s fingers gripped hard, almost making her wince.

“I don’t need you to beat Henson,” she growled.

“To find the second half of the message: Where it was being sent.”

Despair shredded her from the inside. It was too big a puzzle for her. And there was no guarantee her sister was even the prize anymore. Rayna was as lost as ever, maybe lost for ever.

She slumped.

“Are you giving up now?” Dejo demanded. “This close?”

She snapped her head up. “Close? It’s the whole fucking universe in my way!”

“Not me.” He rose. “Let’s go.”

When he held his hand down to her, she wanted to growl and rage some more. Too late, too hard, too unfair. But she remembered what Rayna had told her growing up, watching out for her when Dad was deployed. “Do your best. That’s all you gotta do to make him proud.”

She slid her fingers across Dejo’s and he closed his strong grip over her wrist to haul her to her feet.

He smiled at her approvingly. “Henson won’t know what hit him.”

She glowered. “Oh yeah he will.”

Without her car, the return to town was longer than she wanted it to be. On the outskirts, Dejo stopped her to consult with his tablet, confirming the source of the message was the sheriff’s office.

She tilted her head back to look up at the night sky.

Big Sky Country. Above the black spears of the pine trees, the stars were laser-sharp points of light in the even blacker velvet sky. The hazy band of the Milky Way stretched across the firmament like a pale, cupped hand holding the night.

“I’m coming,” she whispered.

“Confirmed,” Dejo said, stepping up beside her. “The technology in the sheriff’s office is antiquated but is clearly the same as the packet data on the black hole signal.”

She focused on him. Against the ambient glow from the sky, he was a big, imposing shadow. But the white flickers in the feathers of his hair and the glint around his yellow-ringed eyes caught the light like fallen stars.

Maybe she should tell him to go. This wasn’t really his fight. But while she might be able to punch Henson herself, she couldn’t go to the authorities with a report of alien abduction. No one would listen to her.

Dejo Jinn was her and Rayna’s only hope.

Sunset Falls was quiet except for the drifting thread of jukebox music filtering out of the saloon. Since the sheriff’s office was quite properly situated on the other side of town from the saloon, they found themselves the only moving objects in the night.

Dejo forced her to a halt while he sent the drones ahead.

“Henson won’t have security like the IDA compound,” she protested. “He could barely work the fire extinguisher.”

“He has the technology to send a message to Blackworm,” Dejo reminded her. “And whatever other tech he possesses, we know he has a gun.”

“Not a laser gun,” she muttered, but she waited impatiently as the drones reconnoitered the dark, shuttered office.

She wished she’d paid more attention when she’d been talking to the sheriff’s clerk, but the drones returned with decent diagram from peeking through the windows.

If only these spying powers could be used for good… Oh wait, she supposed they were.

At least from her perspective. Breaking into the sheriff’s office might not seem like the best idea ever to someone on the outside.

“No wonder you prefer remote access jobs,” she said.

He nodded. “Keeping the heart of a data trove disconnected is about the only way to keep it safe,” he said. “But if it’s not connected, it’ll never be as valuable or powerful as it could be.”

“Your gels seem strong and protected enough on your ship.”

He shrugged with a touch of modesty. “Because I’m really good. And I make sure nothing can reach me.”

So much for modesty. “Why don’t you sell that instead of scavenged data?”

He blinked at her. “What do you mean?”

“You could sell your gel system and its security.”

He jerked his chin back. “Who would want to take the word of an untrained hivre iomale scavenger?”

“Are you saying you’re not really good?”

He scowled at her. “I thought we were here to shoot people?”

“I thought you didn’t like shooting?”

“You inspire me.”

They approached the sprawling one-story building from the rear, where the drones had identified only one security camera. Dejo set up an illusion to keep that camera happily staring at an uninterrupted parking lot while Vaughn picked the lock on the back door.

He scowled. “Why do they not have a high-security digital lock?”

“One, because this is Sunset Falls, Montana. Two, it’s a sheriff’s office. And three, if they did you’d already be inside with your fancy tablet.” The door popped under her hands and she gestured him in.

He grunted. “It’s careless.”

“They can be your first client when you open your new data security business.”

He grumbled some more but followed her in.

The interior, which she’d remembered as small and sparse was small and sparse but somehow still difficult to maneuver through and taking a long time to case. Maybe she was too painfully conscious of breaking the law she’d once sworn to uphold by breaking into the law. Or maybe it was the knowledge that she was so, so close to finding Rayna.

Dejo scanned the back storage room, the bathroom, the short hallway leading toward the front office. Nothing. They fanned out through the front, Dejo behind the main counter where the clerk had been, Vaughn to the two desk areas.

The sheriff’s desk held a tidy pile of manila folders and a small shooting range trophy.

A coffee cup sat in the middle of the second desk. Catching a whiff—bitter and dank, nowhere near as good as Dejo’s—Vaughn set the back of her knuckle against the ceramic.

She looked at the nameplate on the desk.

Fucking Henson.

“Getting warmer,” she whispered. She raised her hand to catch Dejo’s attention.

He nodded once and pointed down the hallway of the second wing, which housed the holding cells.

She took the small gun out of the tac vest side pocket. It wasn’t much bigger than her Mustang, but Dejo had explained that it could stun, injure, or kill, depending on the setting. With a faint sigh, she dialed it all the way down.

Henson might’ve helped abduct Rayna, but if he had intel they needed, he could keep his life, if not his teeth.

The first cell was empty.

The second cell held Henson.

He was asleep on the bunk. His hat over his face gave the sleep apnea hitch of his breath a Darth Vader-y sound.

But really, this was going to be too damn easy.

Vaughn edged toward the cell and slammed the door shut.

Henson lurched to his feet with a half-throttled shout, his hat tumbling off his face. His pants, which he’d apparently left half-unzipped for comfort while he napped, sagged, revealing sherbet-orange boxers.

Vaughn narrowed her eyes. She didn’t want to avert her gaze, but she didn’t want to be blinded either. Ugh.

The deputy rushed the door, but it was well locked. No picks or super-smart alien tablet would open it, only the key she swept from the hook by the door. She dangled it between her fingers.

“Where’s my sister?” she snarled.

“Wherever the fuck you left her, you crazy bitch,” Henson hollered back. “You can’t just break in here and assault an officer of the law—”

Dejo said nothing but slammed his fist against the bars, shaking the cage.

The clanging echo of steel silenced everything else.

Except the ringing elation she felt at his presence beside her.

“Try again,” Dejo said quietly. “We tracked the Blackworm message here. We just want to know where the brides are.”

“The…brides?” Henson squinted at them. “What, you mean that fancy-fuck resort? It’s closed. Nobody’s there. The sheriff told you that.”

Henson was everything she hated in a bad officer: inattentive, slovenly, bumbling, aggressive, and—worst of all, to her mind—uncaring.

But what she hated even more…she feared he was being straight with them.

Her pulse slowing with that dread, she said, “We followed an encrypted electronic signal coming from this office that matches the signature of a message about women who have gone missing from Sunset Falls.”

As she’d guessed it would, the big words pacified him, and his jaw hung open a little. “An…encrypted…”

She didn’t have time to let him repeat the whole thing. “Who else was here last night?”

His muddy eyes boggled. “Wait… You think I had something to do with this?” He grabbed the cell bars. “Bitch, no. The sheriff doesn’t like me, but she’s never going to believe I had anything to do with those women.”

From the doorway, a cutting voice said, “You’re right, Henson. I’d never think any woman would have anything to do with you.”

Vaughn spun around, her slowed pulse stuttering again to see Sheriff Giles lounging in the doorway. How had the older woman got so close without Dejo noticing?

He looked equally taken aback.

Henson, however, was practically dancing in his half-undone pants. “Sheriff, these people broke in—”

“And you’re also right,” the sheriff continued, “that I just don’t like you.”

She shot him.