[04] Elite: Mostly Harmless (19 page)

‘You … what did you say?’

Her mother’s voice was barely a whisper, as if asking the question might blow away the delicate possibility of what she’d just heard.

‘Captain Riley; he went off grid -
we
went off grid - because we wanted some privacy. He asked me to marry him and I said yes. We didn’t want to tell anyone yet because it was going to be a surprise.’

Katherine was making silent retching motions. Angel waved her crossly away.

‘Surprise?’

‘Yes. We were planning to surprise you with a huge wedding party on Panmore. What do you think I need so much alabaster for? We’re building a ginormous altar so all the important people we’re going to invite to watch us make our vows will be comfortable and impressed.’ Angel felt like retching herself but continued to doggedly dig the trap for her mother’s attention. ‘DORIS has been compiling a guest list from a database of some of the most powerful and influential people this side of Diso.’ Angel looked at DORIS meaningfully.

 ‘Ah, yes,’ processors clicked busily. ‘The current acceptance list stands at two hundred and twenty-five Imperial and Federal patrons and agents. Most are respected dignitaries, politicians, business leaders and high ranking naval personnel. I am trying to keep news of the affair out of the Prism system though, on account of that nasty scandal with the senator’s daughter. We don’t need
that
kind of patronage.’

There was a crackling silence across the comms loop during which Angel swore she could hear her mother’s social influence meter calculating the potential for the event. She let it sink in, and then plunged on courageously reminding herself; we just have to get off the station.

 ‘Well, the surprise is ruined for you mother, but it doesn’t have to be for everyone else. The invitations were scheduled to be sent out tomorrow anyway so if you can just keep the secret for twelve hours or so. Why not use that time suggesting anyone we might have missed? You know, dig through your social connections for anyone important?’

Angel was sure such an activity would keep her mother tied up for at least half a day.

‘But … Twelve hours? A wedding? But there is just so much to organise!’

‘I know, mother. I have it under control. But we need to get this alabaster back to finish the altar or there will be Imperial princesses sitting on wooden benches. Captain Riley was able to charter this ship for me and clear it with the pilot’s federation so I could get in and out without too many questions - you know, to save time? No-one was supposed to know I had been here.’

Angel was really beginning to warm to the theme. The blood rushed in her ears as the false words spilled out of her mouth, growing the lie bigger and bigger. It was quite an exhilarating feeling when she thought about it.

‘Rachel was kind enough to slot us in to a last-minute cancellation in the jump schedule – which incidentally, Rach, we will miss if you don’t give us launch clearance right now …’ she really hoped her mother had pissed Rachel off enough with the cadet comment that she would play along and help them get away from the woman.

‘Oh, right ... yes …’ the confused launch controller stammered and started punching command codes into her tablet.

Angel’s mother finally found her flabbergasted voice.

‘A wedding!’

‘Yes mother. Can you think of any other reason I would have a facial? You know how much I hate the idea but …’ Angel swallowed hard, hating herself for what she was about to say … ‘But you always tell me how much it improves your skin and I want to look my best for my Micky-boo on our wedding day …’

Angel’s mother gulped audibly and Angel wondered if she might pass out with the shock of it all …

‘My wedding day
two days
from now.’

There was the briefest of pauses during which all three in the cockpit held their breath, then the comms speaker suddenly exploded with a distorted scream:

‘TWO DAYS!?’

‘We didn’t want to wait,’ Angel simpered, pulling a face at Katherine and Admin who had started to snigger at the reaction.

‘How am I supposed to get ready in two days!? TWO! DAYS! Oh you selfish little …’ Maugvahnna seemed to check herself and flick an internal switch back to ‘sweet as pie’. ‘A
wed
ding …’ she sighed with exaggerated joy. ‘Oh, I need to get a dress made; I’ll need a full set of fresh implants … There’s no time for a natural tan of course – but the Uncanny-Valley derma-dye treatments are VERY reliable these days … Oh a WEDDING. Oh Angel, at last! I‘m so happy!’ she gushed across the comms link.

Angel pulled a pained expression at her travelling companions, who were now barely holding on to their composure and had started miming silent retches again.

‘Yeah, well … the wedding is kind of hanging in the balance … on account of them running out of alabaster and what-not. So unless I can make that launch slot and get this cargo back to Algreit it’s wooden benches and rubble all round, and we’re going to look like the laughing stock for several hundred light years in every direction.’

An encouragingly sharp intake of breath came from her mother’s side of the comms link. Angel experienced a fleeting moment of sadness that her mother knew so little about her she could be taken in by such an outrageous ruse. Then the silence was broken by an almighty shriek.

‘Well, what are you waiting for you stupid girl? Get my daughter’s ship off this platform and straight to the head of the hyperjump queue! We don’t pay you to stand around up here doing impersonations of a stuffed meerkat! She has an altar to build!’

Even from this distance they could all see Rachel’s face turn from grey to scarlet. Angel wanted to feel sorry for her but was too exhilarated by the rushing sensation that they might actually be getting away with this. Her body was fizzing with adrenaline. So this was what it felt like to break the rules?

‘And if that twit in jump control gives you any trouble just use my husband’s security override: FCI4242,’ her mother continued to issue breathless instructions. ‘Oh, my goodness, I have to get ready! Peter, get in touch with Royston Glee at the spa. Tell him I’ll need a full team of beautechnicians … no, make that TWO teams … Have Steve Varey bring his buttock lifting team too! I have to get ready!’

In a whirlwind of excited panic Maugvahnna Rose swept out of the control room sucking her attractive entourage along with her in her wake.

After a moment’s stunned silence Rachel spoke up.

‘I can fit you in to a jump slot in six minutes, but it’s really tight as I have a frigate making its final approach to dock right now. You need to be off your stand in less than a minute if you’re going to make it out of the space port before it gets here.’

Angel stuck her hand straight down on the flight desk, releasing the
Daisy Chain
’s controls to the station’s docking computer. Thrusters roared and the ship started immediately lifting off the launch pad, tilting towards the letterbox exit of the port.

‘Thank you Rachel,’ she said with real feeling. ‘Computer, activate ferromagnetic floor panels; check all systems for immediate spaceflight.’

‘
All systems checked and online; receiving hyperjump allocation data now.
’

‘Angel …’ the thin voice over the comms link was almost lost beneath the fuel-burning din of the launch sequence.

‘Rachel?’

‘Are you really marrying Captain Riley?’

‘Get LOST!’ Angel said with such emphatic disgust Katherine and Admin burst into gales of tension dissipating laughter.

‘
Daisy Chain
, you are cleared for launch,’ Rachel said with an unmistakable air of huge relief. ‘Good luck out there, Commander.’

* * *

The crew breathed a collective sigh of relief as the Fer-de-Lance popped out of port. A huge frigate loomed silently through the dark towards them and they pitched sharply to the left, scudding along the flank of the station. Close, in every sense of the word. Angel started preparing for the first jump. It was all pretty routine from here – apart from the insanely fast hammering of her heart. Admin was grinning at her.

‘What?’

‘I think this Trumble-headed spacer might finally be getting it.’

‘Getting what?’

‘The buzz of being a pirate?’

Angel frowned. ‘I’m getting a buzz alright.’

She had become aware her chest plate was vibrating. She patted herself down and found a small disc-like object slipped inside a pocket of her flight suit. She took it out and they all looked at it, exchanging mystified glances.

The jump operator started issuing instructions about space lane and position over the comms link.

‘Computer, engage autopilot. Lock to command jump sequence alpha-three-zero,’ Angel said as if on autopilot herself. They all stared at the metal disc. It started flashing in a way that demanded attention.

‘Oh shit,’ said Admin turning white. ‘A holo-bug.’

‘You what?’ asked Katherine and Angel in unison.

Both turned to face Admin, the force of their collective attention causing him to step back a little in surprise.

‘A holo-bug. It’s a universal tracker that records holographic imagery using sine waves. Basically it can see and hear everything for about ten metres even through several layers of material as it uses ultra-high frequency sound waves to map the environment; like sonar. The recording can be streamed in real time as a hologram to the disc’s pair.’

They looked at each other.

Pair?

The device in Angel’s hand fizzed with an electrical surge and she dropped it on the flight desk out of surprise more than anything. A holographic projector field sparked into life from the centre of the disc and a tiny figure appeared, almost blending in with the rest of the holography adorning the flight desk.

‘And very interesting viewing it has made too, I can tell you, although I’ve only caught up with snippets so far.’

It was Jack Nova, or at least a tiny, flickering rendition of him drawn out in faintly green-glowing light beams.

‘A fair description young man, although I would add that the latest holo-bug model offers full duplex exchange. It’s perfect for catching reluctant interview subjects in persuasively compromising situations.’ The tiny figure paused for effect. ‘So, any comments for the record?’

 The three of them just stared slack-jawed at the apparition.

‘Ha ha, your faces are a picture … and it’s a picture that’s going to look great as part of my 3-D strapline in … Ooh, I’d say about twenty-five-minutes?’

Angel’s heart, having failed to find refuge in her stomach earlier decided to attempt an escape through her mouth instead. She gulped it back down as blood whooshed noisily in her ears, vaguely aware of the
Daisy Chain
’s jump engines winding up in the background.

‘By the way,’ the hologram turned to look at Katherine. ‘Next time you slip a narc into someone’s drink you could try for a little finesse. You were about as subtle as the Darkwater Guard!’

Angel glared at Katherine.

‘What? I thought you had already got him hammered. I wasn’t exactly trying to be subtle.’

The tiny holo-reporter laughed. ‘Yeah, they did that a lot back at the academy too; underestimate me. Oh and by the way, whatever ‘mess’ you were talking about at the Cheese Wheel, I’m heading over now before I write up this story. So don’t bother trying to hide anything. That place is so wired for anti-snooping I couldn’t pick up a live stream but I should have no trouble hacking into the bug’s cache once I’m in inside the dampening web. So, anything you want to get off your chest up front?’

Angel’s eyes opened wide as her mouth snapped up shut.

‘Don’t you just love personal tracking technology? Oh … no ... I suppose
you
don’t love personal tracking technology just now, do you? But trust me, our readers LOVE it. And you know what else they love? A story with SEX in it! Damn it, Angel! I can’t believe you tried to keep that from me! Captain Riley? What a SCOOP! This story is going galactic! Trust me. It’ll be all over the Buzz Wires in a matter of hours! Grats Angel, you’re about to become very famous… and I’m going to make a bomb out of inter-stellar syndications!’

Chapter 19

Admin already had the little holo-bug cracked open and was poking at the insides with a tiny screwdriver as the Fer-de-Lance blasted through into hyperspace.

‘Clever … I think I can clear the history – or at least overwrite it before that little worm can hack into the echo at his end. I’m pulling something down from Galaxiflix to dump over it now.’

‘Make it something nasty,’ Katherine said with grim hatred.

‘Way ahead of you … ‘Two bile bugs, one cup …’ The pirate grinned. ‘He’s going to need therapy when he watches that.’

‘It’s not exactly going to help us if you destroy the recording,’ Angel pointed out, exasperated. ‘There is the tiny matter of a partially decapitated corpse behind the bar at the Cheese Wheel, remember? At least the bug proves we didn’t kill him, right?’

The pirates both looked at her.

‘Wrong,’ Katherine said as Admin went back to fiddling with the disc. ‘All it proves is that you and Admin were there, and that’s plenty for you to make the BHD most-wanted list.’

‘Plus,’ Admin chimed in, ‘if Eddie gets wind it wasn’t you who killed Dennett you won’t get paid on the contract. No sense looking a gift horse in the mouth; even if it has been sawn in two by a cheese grater.’

DORIS bleeped, startling them all with the reminder it was still there and processing the situation.

‘You weren’t responsible for killing Dennett?’

Angel’s cheeks flushed pink. ‘Not exactly, no.’

 ‘Well then the idiot is correct for once.’

Admin flung DORIS a poisonous look. ‘I am not even going to speculate how a man’s head got sawn in half of its own volition, but you need to be credited for the kill if you want get paid on the contract. It’s in the small print. And you need the rep points to survive in the Hollows; otherwise you’ll just be a walking pay-cred for whichever shark fancies snapping up the bounty on your head. While I have no particular attachment to your head either way, I have yet to recover my client’s investment.’