Page 33 of Shielded in the Shadows

I couldn’t hide my surprise. “You don’t know?”

“No, I don’t.” She glared at me. I admired her fierceness and all her fire, even when it was directed at me. “If I did, don’t you think I’d already be trying my damnedest to get them off my back?”

“Of course you would,” I said, raising my hands to signal that I’d meant no offense. “I’m just surprised. Generally if someone has a bounty on their head, especially one this large, they’re well aware of why it exists.”

“You’d think, wouldn’t you?” She scowled ferociously. “Believe me when I say I have wracked my brain. I’ve gone back over the jobs I did around the time I first became aware someone was targeting me, but nothing jumps out at me. I’d almost think it was a case of mistaken identity, that either I or my ship were misidentified as being the culprit in something, and someone didn’t do a good enough job of verifying the information. And if that’s the case, it’s going to be difficult to prove.”

Everything she was telling me seemed to be the truth, which meant not only did we have an uncounted number of hunters trying to track us down, but we didn’t even know why.

“When did you first become aware of the bounty?” I asked. “I saw the posting and the date it went out on the network.”

“Yes, that’s when I got an alert from an acquaintance.” Keela grimaced. “But I got targeted before that.”

Briefly, she described being betrayed and attacked at Daventi Station, an outpost on a shipping route in the Alpha sector I’d visited twice myself.

I’d known Vinian Ykottaran, the money-grubbing Wundi male who’d stabbed her and attempted to turn her in. We’d crossed paths a few times during my years undercover on various privateer vessels. Sjer had even taken some jobs from him, proving both how small the galaxy could feel sometimes and how wide Vinian’s network had been before his death.

Suddenly, I thought of the odd trophy on the wall above the cargo bay doors. “That wouldn’t happen to be Vinian’s tentacle on display in the corridor, would it?” I asked when she’d finished the story of her escape from Daventi.

“Indeed it is.” She arched her eyebrow as if challenging me to disapprove. “He tried to steal my ship. I took that personally.”

“Perfectly understandable.” I swirled the tea in my mug. “Altasian soldiers came to the pick-up, you said?”

“Soldiers or mercenaries. It wasn’t clear who they were or who they worked for. I didn’t get much of a chance to try to extract any intel. Everything went to shit pretty fast.” She raised her uninjured shoulder in a half shrug. “Vinian said he planned to collect favors as his reward for turning me over alive, which fits with the bounty that showed up on the network the following week. I’ve been keeping my head down since then, taking jobs on the edges of Alliance space—at least until yesterday, when I had to come to Ghira Station.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Had to?”

Keela sipped her tea. “Had to.”

I waited, but she didn’t offer anything more about why she’d visited the station. I doubted it was because the drinks at Final Chance were irresistible.

“So the obvious conclusion is whoever summoned you to Ghira did so to draw you out,” I said when she didn’t elaborate further.

“That would be a logical deduction, but I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because the meeting was requested by someone with information to sell after seeing a posting made by someone calling herself Asta Irclion, a name that has no connection to me or my ship whatsoever.” She shrugged. “I’m not saying it’s not possible, but my gut says no.”

“Then how did the word get out so quickly that you were on Ghira?” I asked. “Could there be a tracker on your ship? On you?”

“Not on me,” she said instantly, making me wonder how she could be so certain. “On my ship, unlikely, but I suppose it’s not completely outside the realm of possibility. Siber runs constant scans and I had the ship checked by a…friend…after I left Daventi. It came up clean. This friend is usually reliable on such things.”

I wondered who this friend was and just how truly reliable they were. The ties of friendship, even long-lasting ones, had a tendency to evaporate as soon as credits and/or threats started flying around.

“So my best guess is someone identified me at one of my most recent drops,” she continued. “They probably shadowed my ship and sent a message ahead to a confederate that got intercepted. The word must have spread from there.”

It was a reasonable theory. Still, I suspected there might be a tracker on her ship, and I wanted to find out for sure sooner rather than later.

“Anything else?” I asked. “Any other clues we could follow up on?”

She shook her head. “Not on my end. I don’t suppose you can add anything?”

“Just what’s on the bounty posting,” I said, then reconsidered. “My former captain mentioned that once you were captured, he planned to rendezvous with someone on Forval IX. It sounded like he intended to hand you over to someone there. Does Forval IX bring anything or anyone to mind?”

She frowned and thought. “No, I don’t think so. I’ll look back through my records and see if I can spot any connections.” She tilted her head. “Siber, what general information do we have regarding Forval IX?”

“According to the database, Forval IX is located in sector Delta-nine-eight and is not part of the Alliance,” the AI said. “The planet is categorized as a Class P world. It is extremely isolated and generally considered uninhabitable due to volcanic activity, extremely arid environment, lack of arable land, toxic atmosphere, and exceedingly hostile flora and fauna.”