Smuggler Queen Read online

  Helping herself to some of the brandy, Izza raised her tumbler and toasted the new recruit. “To Green Fish! Welcome to the crew.”

  The others echoed the toast. Even Lynx. It was all smiles and laughter, the awkwardness of the flight deck forgotten.

  “Thank you,” said Green Fish. “Everything is possible when the girls do it for themselves.”

  She winked at Izza, but before anyone could ask why, Catkins snapped, “That makes no sense. I am not a female, and gender holds no meaning for Lynx. Well, except when Captain Fitzwilliam ordered Lynx to cease using that alluring femme fatale persona as he called it.”

  Sinofar loomed menacingly over the engineer, muscles bulging. “I agree with Green Fish. I enjoy men whenever I can—” she paused as if remembering a recent event, “—but we shall do better without them. You will have to be an honorary female, Catkins. There’s nothing else to be done about it.”

  Catkins didn’t look enamored with the idea, but he held his peace. Sinofar often had that effect on people.

  “Yes,” said Izza. “Speaking of which, our next job is to rescue a princess.”

  “Already, I love this,” said Sinofar. “Rescuing princesses is a classic mission objective.”

  “The individual in question,” said Izza, “is bearded and heavily tattooed.”

  “Sounds intriguing,” said Sinofar. “I like her already.”

  “Yes, about that…” Izza threw up her hands. “Oh, hell, I don’t know how to keep spinning an amusing line like that irritating human who used to share my quarters.” Izza nodded at Green Fish. “It’s your old sergeant, Vetch Arunsen.”

  “Why?” asked Fregg. “I thought we had split from the old captain’s group.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Izza. “It’s just Arunsen. There’s no Fitz. None of the others are involved.”

  “I say we pick him up,” said Sinofar. “I enjoyed his beard. It was very manly.”

  Fregg shook her head at her Pryxian friend. “I can’t figure you out sometimes, Verlys. So, boss, who’s holding Arunsen?”

  “Details later,” said Izza quickly. “Celebration now.”

  Fregg looked at her suspiciously. “What aren’t you telling us?”

  Izza put down her drink. The lounge went quiet. “We’re stopping off en route at Elder Sun. I have someone I need to see there. I can’t think of anything beyond that.”

  “The Elder Sun system,” Catkins mused. “Isn’t that where…?” He drew in a sharp breath and wrapped his wings about him.

  When it came to reading the room, Catkins was mostly blind. But even he remembered who lived at Elder Sun.

  “What?” Green Fish didn’t act like a wannabee starship captain now. “Catkins, what’s so important about Elder Sun?”

  The Gliesan pulled his wings tighter around him. “I don’t know,” he mumbled.

  “Let him be,” said Izza. “It’s where my mother-in-law lives. I need to see her.”

  The celebration wound on for a while, but the mention of Mama Zi’Alfu sucked the life out of it, and the crew couldn’t wait to sneak away to reconvene somewhere safer. Either the mess room or Catkins’ eyrie.

  Izza let them go, chewing over how easy she had found it to skirt around awkward details. Just the same as Fitz, though without his charm.

  When her crew eventually learned who was holding Vetch, they wouldn’t be so cheerful. As to how she was going to explain the need to fail convincingly without any of them getting killed…she decided that was the kind of detail best left alone for as long as possible. Preferably until after the events played out.

  She wanted to muse on that in private, but one person hadn’t deserted the lounge.

  “Why are you still here?” she demanded of Green Fish. “You want to pry into my personal affairs now? You want to know about Fitz’s mother?”

  Green Fish folded her arms. “No. Although, if you need to tell me, I’ve a listening ear and all the time you need. It’s obvious your relationship is complicated. That’s not really what’s on my mind.”

  “Spill your thoughts, Green.”

  “I’ve been thinking about Omicron. The salvage mission on the science station. We got lucky that day. The mission could have gone to merdeville because Fregg flies this ship like a blind woman wearing rocket skates.”

  Izza shrugged. “Fregg does her best.”

  “That’s fair. Until her best isn’t good enough, and we all die. Here’s a better idea, Captain. Teach me to fly the Phantom.”

  “What?” Izza took a deep breath. “Have you any flight experience?”

  “On game sims, yeah.”

  Izza snorted. “Flying starships is nothing like playing a sim, you simpleminded clown-human.”

  Green Fish looked unimpressed.

  Izza realized she was pulling her ear lobe, a nervous habit she had when she was lying. Damn! Thought I’d killed off that tell.

  The problem was that flying a starship was exactly like the sims. The maneuvering and weapons fire parts anyway.

  “So, you played spaceflight sims. What are you saying? That you beat your mom once?”

  “On my homeworld of Taractacus Alpha, I was consistently ranked in the Top 100 for SysDef Patrol 4, out of 30 million active players.”

  “You’re a gamer girl. Good for you, but sims don’t give you the feel of a real vessel under your feet. Flying Phantom is like a partnership. The ones and zeros of a game don’t convey the intimacy of partnering with a ship like her.”

  “I agree. I’ve also clocked over four hundred hours flying gliders in real life.”

  For some reason, Izza didn’t want to be impressed. But she was. “That’s proper flying. Girl, you’ve got the wrong name. They should have called you Flying Fish. We’ll speak about this, I promise. I can’t think about such things now. We’re two days out from Elder Sun. Before I can face Fitz’s mother, I plan to sail to the Seven Suns on good brandy and sober up just in time to dock. This place is dead. No wonder we don’t use it. Let’s grab some bottles and join the others.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 8: Izza Zan Fey

  Phantom fell through the skein of reality into the Elder Sun system.

  Fitz liked to say, at these moments, that he felt the universe popping with excitement as it welcomed him back into its more civilized dimensions.

  Zhoogene eyes saw more clearly than humans’, and hers perceived more keenly than most.

  To her, the sight through the cockpit window as they left the rift tunnel was like passing through a flight path ladder of raging star stuff. Except this wasn’t an artificial view generated by a HUD. The fiery exit tunnel was really there, just meters away.

  A loud hiccup escaped her lips, punctuating the final moment of emergence.

  Izza’s body always did this. It was embarrassing, but it was what it was.

  “Are you okay, boss?” asked the young human from the copilot seat.

  Izza glared at Green Fish and her idiotic grin. “Report!”

  The girl lost her smartass attitude and studied the console displays with the same seriousness she had shown during Izza’s coaching sessions.

  “Klein-Manifold horns actively tunneling. Force keels biting. Emergence position within tolerance. No collision hazards. No hostile threat. Green across the board.”

  From the pilot’s position, Izza confirmed her new apprentice’s assessment. “I concur,” she told her. “Inform the crew.”

  The girl’s grin came back as she flicked on the intercom. “All hands, emergence from J-space has been successful. The jump went without a hiccup. Well…” She winked at her boss. “Except for the captain, of course. ETA at Kryzabik is…”

  Izza flicked across the course plan she’d just worked out.

  “We will be docking at Alsace-14, an orbital around Kryzabik, in fifteen minutes,” said Green Fish. “Last one at the bar buys the drinks. That is all.”

  * * *

  In the end, Izza made the call to her mother-in-law
from the flight deck. It was more formal than doing so from her quarters. More businesslike. The downside was that Fitz’s absence loomed even more heavily here.

  If he had tapped her on her shoulder and yelled, “Surprise!”, she wouldn’t have been surprised at all. The sense of him was so strong, he almost had a physical presence.

  The holo-comm registered a successful connection, and Izza’s heart stopped beating. She waited for someone to answer.

  Most likely, that person would be Creyoh Zi’Alfu.

  Zi’Alfu was just an old human woman, she told herself. Fitz had to have had a mother at some point, and it just so happened it was this woman.

  No matter how much Izza told herself she did not require the woman’s approval, the knowledge that Mrs. Zi’Alfu despised her daughter-in-law cut deeply.

  The holo flickered for a moment and then she was there. Arms folded and a look of defiance on her face, it was Creyoh Zi’Alfu.

  “You!” Zi’Alfu’s purple eyes widened in shock. Her arms dropped to her sides.

  “Good day, Mrs. Zi’Alfu.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “I was in the system and wanted to drop in and see you.”

  “You were always a weak liar.”

  “I just want to see you for a private chat. On a…” Under her skin, the hydraulic bands around her chest tightened so much she could barely speak. “Family matter,” she squeaked.

  “Make it snappy, Izza. You caught me heading out on vacation.”

  “No problem,” she replied, relieved not to be meeting the woman in her own territory. “Tell me where you’re going, and I’ll meet you there.”

  “Well, you see…” A distant look slid over Zi’Alfu’s features. The same expression Fitz had when he was spinning a yarn. “When I say vacation, I mean go anywhere but here fast, or the bad people will get me.”

  “Are they really bad, Mrs. Zi’Alfu? Or did you do something first to make them angry?”

  “There may have been a misunderstanding,” the old woman admitted with a grin. “And they are angry. Are you in orbit, dear?”

  “Yes. We’re docked at Alsace-14. How should I contact you?”

  “You shouldn’t. I’ll find you.” She sighed. “I’ll be lying low for a while, so call me.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ll be traveling as Creyoh Fitzwilliam.”

  Izza laughed. Mama Zi’Alfu hated the family name Fitz had dreamed up.

  “How is he?” asked the woman, her features suddenly aging. “I don’t see him on your flight deck.”

  “He’s not aboard.”

  “I figured that much. He might not think much of his poor old mother, but he has the decency to speak for himself.” She sighed. “So, you two are going through a rough patch. It’s to be expected, I suppose. My advice to you, Zan Fey, is to divorce him. Get yourself a nice green man.”

  Izza felt the hydraulic bands around her abdomen harden more firmly than ever. Mother-in-law always had this effect on her. “See you on Alsace-14,” she gasped and cut the link.

  * * *

  Thirty-six hours later, the last of Phantom’s crew began to return from the orbital, weary, pale, shaking a little, but happy.

  Izza was not amused. There had been no word from her mother-in-law and no reply to her comm pings.

  “You have command,” she told Sinofar, who looked the least wasted of the group. “I need to go find someone.”

  “Good luck, I think,” Sinofar called out as Izza stormed off the ship, “I hope you don’t find her.”

  Izza growled but didn’t answer. Sinofar was probably right. Izza had never met Fitz’s father, but she was damned sure all his bad impulses had been inherited from his mother.

  * * *

  The data broker’s premises were extremely spartan. Bare, metal bulkheads and a high grip plas-steel lattice floor. Izza passed through the final security arch into a compartment housing twenty-eight identical booths secured behind shielded doors.

  It looked like a high security lavatory block.

  She pushed through one of the doors marked with a green ‘vacant’ glyph, half expecting to see a toilet on the other side. But it was a narrow space divided in half by a security screen. A Transgoan sat on the far side, a particularly sullen example of the squat, three-legged species.

  Izza sat on the stool on her side of the barrier. “I wish to trace someone. Two days ago, they were planetside. They were supposed to meet me here on the station but never showed.”

  “One hundred and fifty credit fee. Fifty credits payable in advance. The rest on successful completion.”

  In front of her, she could see the Transgoan’s mouth moving, but its voice came from the air behind her, which was unnerving.

  She placed her Guild token against the screen.

  Seemingly bored by this development, the Transgoan drew a transparent disk the same size as Izza’s token and aligned it against hers on the other side of the screen. Izza felt her disk vibrate in her hand, and saw bars appear on the data broker’s. They stabilized in the same pattern of pixelated stalactites and stalagmites as those on her own token.

  “I accept your status, Guild member,” said the broker. “No initial fee. Fifty credits on completion. What can you tell me about the target?”

  “Her name is Creyoh Zi’Alfu, though she may be traveling under Creyoh Fitzwilliam. Resident of Otizen in Kadeja Province. Age 92 years, though she’s had rejuvenation. Her eyes are…purple.”

  “Ah, yes. The mutant. Creyoh Zi’Alfu should present us with no problems. I’ll be a few moments. You can wait here if you like, or if you prefer to give me your contact details—”

  “She’s not a mutant,” Izza insisted. “Her eyes are purple. That’s all.”

  “Yes, but surely…” The broker stopped. It wasn’t uninterested now. If anything, it looked worried. Slowly, it raised its gaze to meet Izza’s, swallowing hard when it saw the unique eye coloring of its new client. “My apologies, Del-Saisha Zan Fey. I misspoke.”

  “When Creyoh Zi’Alfu’s son was aged just nineteen standard,” Izza told the broker, “she stole his first starship, his pride and joy, and emptied his credit account while she was at it. She is not a good person, but she is a human with purple eyes. Not a mutant.”

  “Again, my apologies, ma’am.”

  Izza sat back and let the broker do its job.

  The alien jerked suddenly. “Found her.”

  From the way the Transgoan’s thin lips trembled, this wasn’t good.

  “I regret,” said the broker, “the price I must charge has risen to accommodate a risk surcharge. It now stands at 350 credits.”

  “And for a Guildswoman?”

  “That is with your discount. Full price is now 2000.”

  Izza pressed her forehead against the security screen and looked threatening, although she very much doubted she had the firepower to get to the person on the other side. “I’m not paying that,” she said quietly.

  The broker sighed. It looked highly relieved.

  “Apologies for the inconvenience, ma’am. I’m sorry we couldn’t do business.”

  “Why is it so damned expensive?”

  “Because aiding you could be seen as an aggressive move by people our organization does not wish to cross.”

  Izza brandished her token once more. “I understand. And I hope you understand that not charging a fair rate would have the same effect with me. I am also somebody you do not wish to cross.”

  Transgoans didn’t go pale when they were worried. Their flesh hardened. Izza enjoyed watching this one’s skin transform from Slern-like smoothness into rough bark. “The security in this booth is significant,” it stated.

  Izza rested her head on her steepled fingers and whispered, “I wasn’t thinking of killing you here.”

  She enjoyed watching beads of sweat on the broker’s craggy face coalesce into rivulets of fear. But she decided this danger surcharge was not a battle she wanted to fight. “Very well then,” she said. “I sha
ll pay your fee.” She made the transfer. “Now tell me where that damned woman is!”

  “She is at the Orion Nights Club, an entertainment venue on Sector Four, Level VIII.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Why would she be there?”

  “The club is owned by one of the two primary crime gangs on the station, led by Miss Kilrine. The trail I’m following indicates your target has been either at the club or locations associated with Kilrine since shortly after arriving on the station the day before yesterday. Creyoh Zi’Alfu has been developing a certain notoriety in the Elder Sun system. You might call her toxic. I suspect that Miss Kilrine has found a way to leverage that toxicity. Perhaps she’s enjoying her company while she negotiates with Zi’Alfu’s enemies the price of her return to the planet. There are vested interests who don’t wish her to die quietly. They wish her end to be that of a reviled monster, not someone who could be held up as a martyr.”

  “Who wants her dead planetside?”

  “That would require me to charge for a new query.”

  Izza casually drew her blaster pistol and blew over the barrel. “Alsace 14 is a big orbital, my friend. That means there are many places to hide and to observe.” She leaned forward and smiled. “And to ambush.”

  The broker swallowed hard. “What I meant to say is that, although it’s a new query, I would be honored to answer your question as a personal favor without charge. The truth is that many people want Creyoh Zi’Alfu dead. Most of them because they’re conditioned to hate her. But if you want to point the finger at a single entity most likely to be behind all this, it would be Gliar-G Mining Corporation. She’s been a shard in their flesh for years.”

  “Because she stole something valuable of theirs?”

  The alien’s head blew up to twice its normal size, a Transgoan expression of surprise. “No, ma’am. Because she’s eaten into their profits. Kryzabik is a mining world, and your target is a violent environmental extremist.”