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  Her thoughts trailed off, as she looked down at her foot. This snare wasn't to capture intruders; it was to capture a large animal. She unhooked her mini-computer from her belt to find the planet's information in the Academy database, scrolling through boring information about the water quality and number of different species of trees, until she happened upon the statistic that most interested her.

  She stifled a happy giggle. Most planets were Hunting Class B or C planets—limited hunting was allowed by locals for food and in very limited amounts for heavily licensed sport. But a Class A planet explicitly outlawed hunting of any living creature on the planet, either due to the small number of species or because something about the species would draw an inordinate amount of hunters.

  She snorted. Of course pirates would flock to a planet where there was illegal hunting.

  Unlike the Universal Police, though, the Academy of Planetary and System Sciences took a very hard line on illegal hunting, as its creed was to preserve and protect all living beings, sentient or not. Based on the reactions of the three men below her, she was pretty sure that this was not the first time they'd been visited.

  And that was when she was struck with a brilliant idea, but then she saw her black pants and remembered that at least one of those pirates knew her as Razia. Even though Jukin didn't recognize her, she didn't want to take the chance that Evet Delmur would. A bounty hunter wouldn't know anything about Game Class A planets or the rules of interplanetary settlement.

  She chewed on her lip, wracking her brain for what to do when she heard a loud whooping.

  "Well, well, well, who do we have here? A pretty girl?"

  "Ain't seen one of them in a while!"

  "Whatchoo come all this way out here for?"

  Lizbeth stood in the middle of the three men, looking slightly nervous. Apparently, she hadn't had the sense to hide when she heard voices.

  "Shit," Razia muttered, quickly slicing the rope around her ankle. She wrapped it around her hand and repelled down the tree, catching the attention of the three men on the ground.

  "Oh, look there! We got another one!"

  "Hello boys," Razia said confidently.

  "Oi! I remember you!" Delmur locked eyes with Razia. The fresh air seemed to have done him some good, as he appeared a bit spryer than when she saw him last. The angry look on his face was enough to let her know that she'd been right to think he'd recognize her as a pirate.

  Especially when he started cackling loudly.

  "Oi, you here to bring me more chocolates from Dissident?" Delmur chortled. "This girl says she's a bounty hunter—"

  "She is a bounty hunter," the man to his left muttered. "Done busted up a poker game I was playing a few months ago. Took Guido straight to the bounty office!"

  "Oh yeah?" Delmur said, giving Razia an appraising look, then turning back to his friend. "What'd he do, faint? Who couldn't take on this little thing?"

  "Well, you know, Guido's getting up there in age, too."

  Razia cleared her throat loudly. "So we want to ask you a few questions."

  "We?" Delmur said. "You mean you and your girlfriend here?"

  "Yes, my name is L—"

  "Lyssa Peate," Razia cut her off, adjusting her original plan to suit the present circumstances. "Dr. Lyssandra Peate, from the Planetary and System Science Academy."

  "Oh yeah?" Delmur swallowed. "Say, you aren't related to that numbskull Peate are you?"

  "Yeah, he's my b-brother?" Lizbeth said a mixture of confusion and amusement on her face.

  "What was that you were saying about illegal hunting you saw here?" Razia said, hoping Lizbeth would pick up the ruse. "What was it, a Class A restricted planet for game hunting?"

  "Y-yeah," Lizbeth said with a sly and almost proud grin. "Class A."

  "Boy, and look at all these animal traps around here," Razia said, tossing a stick over into a pile of leaves. The trap clamped shut, metal teeth slicing through the thin leaves that had been covering it.

  "Totally illegal?" Lizbeth said, watching Razia's slight nod. "Yes, totally illegal. I am here to…report you to…my brother?"

  "Well, and it's a good thing here," Razia said, walking up to the three, now petrified, old pirates, "that Lyssa and I happened to have struck up a conversation. Because I am wondering about your little business dealings over the past eight months."

  "I am retired," Delmur repeated, but more nervously. "I ain't got—"

  "You weren't when I caught up with you eight months ago," Razia said without qualifying. "And you know how old 'numbskull Peate' can be—once a pirate, always a pirate…"

  "So what are you saying here?" Delmur said nervously.

  "You come with me, and answer some questions about your little trips to S-6642, and Dr. Peate and her big bad brother will leave you alone."

  ***

  The inside of Delmur's mansion rivaled anything Mrs. Dr. Sostas Peate had in the Manor, although it still had that air of nouveau riche. In the Manor, the fixtures had been attached to the walls for so long they seemed to have grown into them. Here, everything was purposely placed to look old and refined. The most out of place was Delmur himself, as he settled into an exquisite chair still wearing his camouflaged hunting clothes.

  "So, what do you want?" he grunted.

  "So, we—I," Razia said, clearing her throat, "I have been working on a project."

  "Oh yeah?" Delmur chuckled. "Dissident not giving you any more jobs, huh?"

  "Side project," Razia said, needing to get off the background quickly. "Your name came up as Benson Zephyr. You've got a company, yes? Contracted with the government?"

  "I don't know nothin'."

  "Lyssa," Razia said, feeling rather odd calling out her own name.

  "One phone call to brother dearest," Lizbeth taunted. Razia tried not to look annoyed by the brother dearest comment and turned back to Delmur, who was sufficiently compliant.

  "I meant"—he cleared his throat—"I didn't know it was with the government. Was doing some sub-contracting work with a company called Salazar."

  Both Razia's and Lizbeth's eyebrows went up, but Razia recovered faster.

  "Go on," Razia nodded.

  "I was on contract to pick up a shipment from G-245 and deliver it to J-646 for the military. But I got orders to just deliver it to a little diner near S-6642 and leave it. Return back to G-245 and go back again."

  "Was anyone else coming there as well?" Razia asked.

  "I suppose so, yeah," Delmur said. "Somebody was moving the cargo from the diner to the planet, I suppose."

  "What kind of cargo was it?" Lizbeth asked, and Razia elbowed her. "I mean, I'm curious to know if you were…transporting…animals or something…"

  "No animals," Delmur said, giving Lizbeth an odd look.

  "Do you know why they only built one building?" Razia said.

  "One?" Delmur guffawed. "With the amount of material I delivered there, there'd probably be a hundred buildings there!"

  "Was there anything different about what you picked up?" Razia pressed. "Was it all building materials, or was it something else?"

  "Honey, I never knew what was in my shipping boxes," Delmur laughed. "That's why they chose me, right? Got that pirate mentality."

  "I bet," Lizbeth said. "And you never peeked inside?"

  "I will thank you, Dr. Peate, to leave the questioning to me," Razia growled before turning back to Delmur. "So why'd you stop? Seems like you were making a lot of money."

  "They told me the job was done," Delmur shrugged. "Said they had all they needed for now, and they'd give me a plenty nice bonus for, uh…for keeping my mouth shut." He looked around with a satisfied smirk. "All bought and paid for anyways."

  "Pirates are still moving stuff though," Razia said. "Know anything about that?"

  "No, I—" Delmur started, but stopped when Lizbeth raised her mini-computer to her ear. "On second thought…well, you know, he asked me if I could put him in touch with some other pirates."


  "Which pirates?" Razia asked. "Dissident's?"

  "To be perfectly frank, I wasn't too pleased about his little bounty hunter joke," Delmur snorted. "So I sent him over to Contestant."

  "And so Contestant's pirates picked up where you left off then?" Lizbeth asked.

  "You working with your brother then?" Delmur asked. "Got a lot of questions—"

  "Oh you know those scientists," Razia said, giving Lizbeth another silencing glare. "Always curious about things they don't need to be."

  "Yeah…" Delmur said.

  "So back to S-6642," Razia said, feeling like she should wrap up the interview quickly, before their threats wore off. "Did you ever find out what you were delivering materials for?"

  Delmur glanced at Lizbeth and cleared his throat. "Now, I don't know if this is true or not, so don't be coming back here if it's wrong, but I overheard my guy saying they's gonna build a new military base on that planet."

  Razia and Lizbeth exchanged glances.

  "It's a commercially owned planet," Razia said. "Why would they build a military base on a commercially owned planet?"

  "Like I said, I ain't sure. I just know they talked an awful lot about a bunch of contracts with the military, and all that stuff I was bringing to them was gonna be put to use when they got it. So I only assumed they's building a base with all the materials they assembled."

  "But you already had a contract to ship the materials," Lizbeth said.

  "Wasn't about my contract," Delmur said, shaking his head. "One they hadn't gotten yet. Jos said—"

  "Jos!" Lizbeth gasped, looking to Razia.

  "Old boyfriend." Razia cut her off with another glare. "What else can you tell us about—"

  "I think that's quite enough," Delmur said, giving them the eye. "I'm starting to think that this girl ain't really related to Jukin Peate after all."

  "You're right, I lied," Razia said, standing up, and yanking Lizbeth up with her. "But thanks for the information anyways!"

  Before Delmur could say anything, they bolted out of the house, filled with more questions than answers.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  "Alfr Jos was the other man in the pirate meeting," Lizbeth said, pointing to the account history displayed on Lyssa's dashboard. Unsurprisingly, it was sparse, as was the history of Krishna Harman next to it. "He's been giving marching orders to pirates for months."

  "Jos told Delmur to take the cargo to a diner near S-6642," Lyssa said. "The planet where our friend Antica and her secretary are sitting in a single office building."

  "So where'd the rest of the cargo go?" Lizbeth asked.

  Lyssa chewed on her lip, deep in thought, and wondered about the supposed boss of Jos and Harman. "Do you think General State knows what's going on?"

  "If it were Llendo, I'd say no way in Leveman's." Lizbeth shook her head. "But General State runs a tight ship from what I hear. I'd be surprised if too much goes on without him knowing about it."

  "Why is he doing this though? If this kind of deal were to get out, people would be pissed," Lyssa said. "He's already going to win the election."

  "That's what concerns me the most," Lizbeth muttered darkly. "Especially considering Delmur mentioned those contracts that Wedekind was hoping to get. There's already an arsenal planet nearby."

  "Wait a minute," Lyssa said. "That's where they store—"

  "Guns…" Lizbeth trailed off, catching onto Lyssa's train of thought.

  "How much do you want to bet that Delmur was transporting guns instead of building material?" Lyssa said with a knowing smile. "That was a big tower on S-6642, you could store a lot of weapons there."

  Lizbeth didn't share her excitement. "That doesn't make me feel any better."

  "But that's two places where pirates are involved in the same activity," Lyssa said, ignoring the implications of pirates covertly transporting guns. "Not only that, but Delmur said he was working for Salazar. That's the same company that Relleck hijacked from—twice."

  Lizbeth shook her head. "No, remember, it wasn't Salazar, it was a different company."

  "I'm telling you that I remember Salazar."

  "So you're saying the Universal Bank is wrong?" Lizbeth asked.

  "No," Lyssa mumbled, sitting back in her chair, mulling over what Delmur had said, trying to fit all of the misshapen puzzle pieces together.

  She was right that he had stopped transporting cargo because his job was completed, but that wasn't the end of it, was it? He had sent them over to Contestant.

  "What about Cree Hardrict," Lyssa said suddenly.

  "What about him?"

  "Remember that Delmur said he sent Jos to Contestant to continue moving stuff," Lyssa said, typing in her dashboard. "And you said that Hardrict had been on your radar for months, right?"

  "Yeah," Lizbeth said, unable to resist a small smile. "I would have been able to question him if somebody wouldn't have interfered."

  "But he wasn't anywhere near S-6642 nor the capital," Lyssa said before snapping her fingers. "But he was moving cargo from a military planet."

  Her fingers flew over her dashboard as she located her previous search history for Cree Hardrict. She drew up his bank account information:

  "See, he's barely even on G-279—" Lyssa did a double take to the transport station. "Hang on a second, that's the same transport station Relleck picked up his cargo up from!"

  "Oh Leveman's, you're right!" Lizbeth gasped.

  "Hardrict was moving something from A-539 to B-725425," Lyssa thought aloud. "And that planet was filled with boxes, just like that warehouse in the capital."

  "A-539 isn't on my master planet list," Lizbeth said, flipping through the original government contract that started the investigation. "And neither is G-249."

  "Hm…" Lyssa said, searching the internet for information on the military planet. She clicked on the first news report that appeared in the search results.

  A-539 Exercise Bravo Considered a Success

  200015-01-05 / A-539 | General Charles State announced the completion of a three month long military exercise on A-539. Members from the Universal Aquatics Elite Squad completed several live fire simulations resulting in…

  "Live fire means…?" Lyssa said, knowing the answer.

  "Real guns," Lizbeth said, chewing on her lip. "You know, military exercises are huge things—lots of cargo coming in, lots of cargo going out. The Universal Military is notoriously terrible at keeping track of equipment. Wouldn't surprise me if they had a couple thousand guns missing and they didn't know about it."

  "So someone is amassing weapons on S-6642 and B-725425, as well as the capital planet," Lyssa thought aloud. "What's the connection? Both B-725425 and the capital are highly populated areas, but S-6642 is newly settled in the middle of nowhere."

  "They're all near military planets," Lizbeth offered. "Maybe General State is funding his campaign with the illegal sale of weapons."

  "Yeah, but to whom?" Lyssa asked. "Pirates don't use weapons."

  They sat in silence, and Lyssa's mind began to spin out of control with wild conspiracy theories of why the highest ranking general and a presidential candidate would be secretly transporting guns—especially to the capital.

  "Maybe there's something else," Lizbeth said, sounding as if she was on the same train of thought as Lyssa. "Can you check to see who owns the B-7 planet?"

  Lyssa switched applications to the Academy planet database and searched for the purchase history of B-725425.

  "Wedekind Planetary Services owns both planets," Lizbeth said, sounding a little less nervous than before. "Maybe they're behind all of this."

  "So safe to say that we should probably look into them next…" Lyssa smirked. She searched the internet for Wedekind, unsure of what she was searching for. She scanned their webpage, but nothing of interest caught her attention. Until she moved to the "about" section:

  Wedekind Planetary Services (Est. 20012) includes subsidiaries Salazar Shipping, Mason Dining Services, and Secure Solution
s.

  "Secure Solutions!" They exclaimed at once, sharing a look of surprise.

  "Wedekind owns the company guarding Relleck's guns!" Lizbeth said.

  "And the company that hired Delmur!" Lyssa replied, blinking and narrowing her eyes at the date of establishment. "And how in Leveman's Great Vortex does a planetary services company have three subsidiaries when they're only a few years old?"

  "I don't follow," Lizbeth said.

  "Most planetary services companies are formed from existing companies, because it takes a lot of capital to buy and colonize planets," Lyssa said. "So for this company to be only three years old, to own all of these planets, to have purchased all of this material, and to also have three subsidiaries? That seems off to me."

  "And they're offering the pirates fifty million credits for hijacking ships," Lizbeth said. "And they've been paying at least some of it; you remember the size of Delmur's mansion."

  "So it sounds like they got a windfall of credits from somewhere," Lyssa said, turning to the Universal Bank to search for the company's financial history.

  But nothing could have prepared her for what she found.

  "That's odd," Lizbeth remarked. "Maybe…maybe it's just a different name in the Universal Bank? Does that happen?"

  "Not usually," Lyssa said, chewing on her lip. "But let me try looking for the subsidiaries."

  "Ok, that is definitely unusual," Lyssa said. "Because I know that Salazar and Secure Solutions are paying people."

  "How difficult is it to remove transactions from the Universal Bank?" Lizbeth asked in a quiet voice.

  "Impossible unless you're…well…Jukin," Lyssa said.

  Lizbeth nodded, absorbing this information.

  "I don't want to jump to that conclusion," Lyssa said quickly. The idea that someone could be removing transactions out of some nefarious intent, and not simply because they were an immature little…that was almost as concerning as the guns. "Maybe you're right. Maybe they were bought out or renamed. Maybe, if I can find the original purchase receipt for S-6642 in Dorst's transactions…"