‘Harlan really would kill me.’ Ravindra ignored the counter threat. ‘I need you to go away. I need you to do it quickly and I’m prepared to take the most expeditious route to achieve what I want. How much do you cost?’
‘That’s not how I work.’
‘No? Pity. Worth a try, though.’ She took a good long look across the table. Eschel held her gaze. ‘The Imperials will pay a lot for me,’ she pointed out. For some reason Ravindra wanted to know where this Eschel stood on hunting escaped slaves. She hoped she already knew the answer.
‘Yes. Runaway slave and a murderess, too. Did you do it?’ Eschel asked. Ravindra said nothing. ‘I don’t think you did. Even at fifteen, I don’t think a crime of passion was quite your thing. Not that it particularly matters.’
‘At fifteen I was capable of murder.’
‘I don’t doubt it.’ Maybe Eschel was impressed that she didn’t baulk at the word; but Ravindra had never been one to hide from what she was.
‘If you want to hear excuses then I’m afraid I don’t have any.’
‘I haven’t heard you deny anything.’
‘That’s true.’
‘But I think even then you were too careful.’
Ravindra almost laughed at that.
Careful?
‘You know I was in the Warren, right?’
‘I don’t hunt slaves, if that’s what you’re asking.’
‘Principled?’
Eschel shrugged. ‘Just doesn’t feel right.’
Both women took a sip of their drinks.
‘What’s the bounty like on me?’
‘You don’t check?’ Eschel asked. She was smiling now.
Ravindra shook her head. A lot of pirate captains used the bounty on themselves as a measure of their notoriety but she’d always thought that was dumb. It was a measure of how well known they were, how many mistakes they’d made.
Eschel put her glass back on the table. It was a slow, careful gesture. ‘A hundred thousand for the
Red Hourglass
, though I don’t know if anyone else has figured out that was you. Darkwater put another fifteen each on you and Newman for what you did to the
Pandora
. You’ll be a name-maker for whoever takes you down, Khanguire.’
Ravindra gave this some thought. ‘That’s certainly a lot of motivation.’
‘There are better ones.’
‘Such as?’
‘I imagine the families of the crew you killed with that E-bomb would have some suggestions for you.’
‘I hadn’t realised your work was so altruistic. Will you be giving my bounty to charity?’ Ravindra rubbed the base of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. She was tired and cranky and she knew it.
Eschel pursed her lips. ‘Actually, I had my eye on a new Zyfon reactor core.’
For a moment Ravindra stared, then her mask cracked and an unfamiliar smile spread across her face. ‘The Zyfon’s pretty good. If you’re using a military grade laser – and you’d better be if you plan on coming after me – then be careful. The cyclic rate can create feedback in the reactor. Fools the diagnostics into thinking you’ve got radiation leaking into the coolant system.’
‘Ha! You try feeding in a trickle of anti-matter to boost the output and see what happens
then
.’ The bounty hunter laughed. ‘I’m afraid I have a bit of a thing for anti-matter.’
‘Last time I tried a stunt like that I had to vent plasma during a dogfight. Caught it with one of our own lasers as it came out and kicked off a fusion reaction. My … one of my crew said I’d set fire to space …’ It had been Harnack. Ravindra went quiet, tried not to show any of the emotion that she felt. ‘So it’ll be you coming after me, then?’ Her voice had hardened.
Eschel stared across the room, lost for a moment. ‘Radiation’s a bitch too.’ She closed her eyes and shook her head. ‘Yes. I suppose it will.’ There was no suggestion of threat. It was a simple statement of fact. She sounded almost … reluctant?
‘You know that’s not going to be as easy as the other bounties you’ve taken down, right?’
‘I’ve taken down all sorts. You’ll take more effort than some dipshit novice in his first Cobra, eh?’
‘Remember what I said about expedience. I’ve got other things I need to worry about.’
‘Then how do you expect to deal with me?’
‘Are you that committed to making my life difficult? You must have nothing in your own.’
Again Eschel looked distant. She didn’t smile this time. ‘Right now, not that much.’ The words came with a bitterness not quite hidden. Eschel drained her glass and looked Ravindra in the eye. ‘Right now, how can
you
have anything to worry about that isn’t
me
? Or someone like me? How do you do that?’ She pushed the glass to Ravindra. ‘Refill?’
Khanguire nodded, took the bounty hunter’s glass to the bar and poured another generous measure.
‘What I
should
be doing is being somewhere else. What I
should
be doing is spending time with my lover helping her to sort out her damn teenage daughter before she falls off the tracks completely. But I’m not. I’m here.’ Eschel took the glass as Ravindra handed it to her. ‘You want to make my life easy, hand yourself over and let me get on with that.’ She laughed. ‘But we both know that’s not how this plays. You’ll be as hard as you can be and I won’t let go until one of us loses.’ She raised the glass. ‘Here’s to being a single-minded daughter of a bitch.’
‘Go and look after your woman and her kid,’ Ravindra suggested.
‘That what you’d do?’
Ravindra had to stop and think. ‘You’ve seen my files from the Warren?’
‘I know you left prison pregnant.’
‘I’ve got a kid too.’ She caught Eschel looking at her expectantly. ‘And this game’s messing him up. So if I’ve got to go through you so I can be the one who’s looking after him, that’s the way it’ll be.’
‘Good luck with that. You’ve made your choices. Leave him money. Turn yourself over. Spare him any more of this shit.’
‘Or
you
could walk away.’
Eschel shook her head. ‘I could, but even if I did, then what? Someone else steps up, that’s what. Once your name’s tagged to the
Red Hourglass
, you’ll never be clear. You know that. They’ll come for you in droves. Maybe one of those wankers from
Federation's Most Wanted
. They'll make a game out of killing you. A bit of mass entertainment. That how you want to go?’ Eschel shook her head again and took another drink. ‘What about your boy – you want him to see that? You want someone like me coming after
him
one day?’
‘Don’t talk about my …’
No
, Ravindra thought,
you let her in
. ‘He’s not making good decisions … He needs …’ Suddenly it all came rushing over her. Harnack, the betrayal, Jenny taken, Ji, this bounty hunter. She was just so tired.
‘Then show him what one looks like. Turn yourself over. You know how it ends, how it
always
ends if you don’t. Maybe it’s me this time, maybe it’s not, but there’s always going to be someone coming for you. One day …’ The bounty hunter shrugged. ‘You have to know that.’ Ravindra’s face hardened. ‘Sorry. That was cheap. True, but cheap. Of course you know.’
‘Spend some time in the Warren and then we can talk about good and bad decisions. See, here’s the thing you need to remember if you want to come after me. I’m
not
going back.’
‘I hear you.’ Eschel stood up. ‘Good Scotch. And here’s the thing I need
you
to remember: if I see you out there, I won’t hesitate. If I have to burn your ship and your crew to take you down, then I won’t like it. But I’ll still do it. Whoever you’ve got with you.’
Ravindra just nodded. She watched as the bounty hunter left, downed the rest of her brandy and sat in the empty bar for a bit longer.
Ziva let the Sidewinder pilot go and got out of Whit’s Station as fast as she could. She left a Sly-Spy behind on the off-chance that Khanguire was stupid enough – distracted enough, perhaps – not to notice and she was already micro-jumping back to the Kuiper belt when Enaya tried to reach her. She didn’t take it. She didn’t know what to do about Khanguire either. Bloody woman had rattled her cage.
Go and look after your woman and her kid.
She had a point.
While the
Dragon Queen
flickered in and out of normal space, alternating between lower and higher dimensions according to a physics Ziva couldn’t begin to understand, she went back to the spare cabin to see Newman again. He was sitting up and alert against the back wall of the makeshift cell. Ziva wrinkled her nose. He was starting to smell a little ripe. ‘You didn’t tell me Khanguire had a son.’ Harris, the Asp II pilot, was still there too, tripped out on the
Dragon Queen
’s sedatives.
Newman spat. ‘You didn’t ask.’
‘Close, are they?’ Maybe the son was a way to get at Khanguire? She had a weakness there.
‘Didn’t look like it. Seemed to me they were at each others’ throats.’
Which only went to show how little Newman understood. He wasn’t going to be much more use. ‘He have a name, this son?’
‘Of course he has a name, bounty hunter.’ Newman held out his hands. ‘You going to let me out? I’ll help you find the bitch and take her down.’
‘Yes, yes, you said. Dear God but you can be dull and besides, I found her already. We had a nice little chat.’
And now I have to keep reminding myself that she murders people in deep space and E-bombs escape pods
. ‘What’s his name, Newman? Or do I have to get the Truth out again?’
‘Ji.’ Newman turned and spat on the unconscious Harris. ‘Upstart toe-rag. Thinks he wants to be a space-pirate. Clueless as they come. He wouldn’t last a day.’ A smile broke across his face. ‘You’re going to use him to get to her are you? I wouldn’t count on it. Bitch is too cold. No heart there. Nothing.’
Ziva turned away and left him there. She had other questions about Khanguire; and maybe Newman knew some of the answers or maybe not, but right now he made her sick. No, she wouldn’t use Khanguire’s son against her. ‘
Dragon Queen
, if I have a momentary impulsive lack of judgement and ask you to open the passenger cabin into deep space, don’t let me. Talk me down. It would be unfair on Harris.’
‘And also in violation of the Mars treaty.’
She looked over the files she’d made on Khanguire again. Hunting her down and catching her out was going to be a bitch. Going toe to toe with the
Dragon Queen
against the
Song of Stone
didn’t look promising either, especially not in a hostile system, and so lurking outside Whit’s Station to jump her when she left wasn’t going to fly. She’d have to catch Khanguire off guard, and Khanguire didn’t look like someone who was easily caught that way. She’d need a lure and an ambush. Months of work. A bucket-load of patience and a fistful of frustration; and Khanguire had the smarts to slip out from under her nose if she made even a single mistake, the patience to simply sit and do nothing at all for months, waiting her out, possibly the discipline to vanish entirely and forever. Ziva couldn’t really want that, could she? Newman had been bad enough. Hunting Khanguire would devour her.
Perhaps she could release what she knew about the
Red Hourglass
? Let someone else do it … Except most hunters in the top league had corporate sponsorship deals and their own news feeds and weekly shows k-cast across the Federation. They hunted the bounties their sponsors thought would make the best entertainment. Never mind what she'd said back on the station, the cold truth was that stalking Khanguire would be a slog. She wouldn’t make for compelling viewing. No one capable would actually do it.
She murders people in deep space.
The
Dragon Queen
was flashing a light at her, telling her she had a k-cast waiting. Ziva closed her eyes. She’d always turned the offers away. She didn’t need them. She didn’t need an audience, didn’t
want
an audience, didn’t want to be another smiling empty celebrity. She should take Newman back to Stopover and take the bounty off Darkwater, that’s what she should do. Then sell them the file she’d amassed on Khanguire providing they took the flag off her with the Pilots’ Federation. They could set their own hunters after the
Song of Stone
. Presumably they had them. They wouldn’t be the best otherwise they wouldn’t be working for Darkwater, but there would be a lot of them. Maybe that was what it took. A great big dumb corporation with endless resource and persistence.
Yeah, and maybe she should send Khanguire a message while she was at it:
Good luck. Keep to what you’re doing and no one’s going to come after you.
But then presumably she knew that already, which was why she did what she did.
‘Play me the message.’
It was short and hard from En. ‘She left me another note, Ziv. A
note
. Why doesn’t she talk to me anymore? He’s taken her off Delta Pavonis. I don’t know where. I thought you said he couldn’t do that. Anyway, he has. I’m scared, Ziv. I’m in Alioth. I tried to go after them but I can’t find out where they went. I don’t know where you are, but I want to see you again. If we can’t make this work then we can’t. But … He took her away from me, Ziv. I just want to see you.’
The anguish in Enaya’s voice settled any doubts. Khanguire could wait. The
Red Hourglass
wouldn’t be going anywhere. The
Song of Stone
might vanish without a trace but Khanguire would be back before long, dressed up as something else.
‘Tell her we’re coming.’ Ziva had the
Dragon Queen
set a course for Alioth, then went back to her cabin for some sleep. The
Dragon Queen
could find her own way, jumping from system to system as she needed, micro-jumping in to skim fuel from gas giants as and when she wanted and with standing orders to avoid any trouble. She could cross the whole of human space that way without Ziva ever having to lift a finger, plotting her own cautious course from one civilised world to the next, keeping away from any trouble; and if the ship ever got that part wrong, she was a Fer-de-Lance. When she ran, almost nothing could catch her. When she powered down to hide, almost nothing could see her. When she turned to fight, few ships could match her.