Dangerous Data (The Meridian Crew Book 2) Read online

  “Nothing you need to concern yourself with.”

  Amelia wanted to respond, to press him for more information, to find out just what they had gotten themselves into.

  But before she could say a word, a great, dark shadow filled the room, a rumbling shaking the framed pictures on the wall and the wine glasses in their racks.

  “What is that?” asked Benkei.

  Amelia looked at Geff, who seemed to be looking through information off-screen.

  “You’re certain?” he said to someone not in frame. “I see.”

  Amelia didn’t want to wait. She sprang from her seat and ran to the window just in time to see the unmistakable form of the Basileus, the flagship of the New York fleet, descend from the sky, a wash of orange and yellow flames covering its belly. The ship was massive—over four kilometers long. The Basileus was one of the largest and most powerful warships in the solar system, built in the years after the Sector War by New York in order to establish their position as an independent power. The ship was long, silver, a boxy shape bristling with armament. Atop the ship was a tall, T-shaped command structure where the top brass of the New York fleet commanded the rest of the ships in the navy.

  The Basileus completed its descent, the sunlight that it was blocking returning to the room, the ship dropping slowly until it came to a stop over the Hudson River, the ship nearly as long as the island itself.

  Amelia and the rest of the crew watched as the incredible, massive craft hovering silently over the river below, a long, dark shadow beneath it.

  “Please tell me this is a coincidence,” said Amelia to Geff, her eyes on the ship.

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “What?” demanded Amelia turning her attention back to the screen. “You had us steal something from New York that got the goddamn Basileus to come down and make as special little trip, just for us? What did you have us steal?”

  “You may have wondered why the payment for such a simple mission was so high. Well, now you know. But rest assured, I’ll make sure that your safety is guaranteed. For now, there’s no way you’ll be able to leave the city with the Basileus there. It’s surely scanning every ship leaving for space. Just sit tight. I’ll be in touch soon.”

  And with that, the screen went blank again. Amelia once more turned her attention to the ship over the river, realizing that it was there just for her.

  CHAPTER 14

  “He’s right,” said Benkei, taking another look down the length of the Basileus. “We’re not going anywhere with that beast parked over the Hudson.”

  “Can’t we just cloak and fly out of here?” asked Sasha.

  “No can do,” said Sam. “That’s one of the most advanced ships ever built. We might get a little ways passed it, but it’d see right through our cloak, lock on to us, and blast us out of the sky for trying to sneak past the blockade before we even knew what was happening.”

  “So, we’re stuck,” said Amelia, as much stating as she was asking.

  “Stuck waiting for a client who may or may not be on the level to plan our next course of action.”

  Amelia shook her head, scolding herself for letting her thirst for a quick, easy payday cloud her judgment.

  “I think I need a drink.”

  “You said it,” said Benkei.

  “Me, too!’ said Sam.

  The three of them headed toward the door, nearly leaving before they noticed that Sasha wasn’t following them.

  “You coming?” asked Amelia.

  “You know what? You guys go ahead,” he said, leaning his lanky frame against the door to his bedroom, stray strands of hair hanging in front of his face. “I’m going to take a look at this data. If they’ve brought in that thing to make sure it doesn’t get out of the city, it’s worth knowing exactly what it is.”

  “Good call,” said Amelia.

  “Just…don’t leave me here alone too long,” he said. “Who the hell knows what this Geff guy has in mind, you know?”

  Amelia nodded, and the three companions were off. They made their way down the clean, spare and tasteful halls of the luxury condo, a wall-length vid screen playing an animation of a rainforest so real that Amelia cloud almost feel the humidity on her skin. They reached the elevator bank and headed down to several dozen floors to the canopy level, a large, glass-walled lobby replete with golden, Greek-inspired statues and bubbling, frothing fountains.

  The Basileus was visible through the enormous, glass front of the building, the silver stretch of the ship visible through the thicket of towers beyond. Men and women dressed in ornate, flowing clothing and with faces so beautiful they could’ve only been sculpted in a lab looked at the ship as they chattered among themselves, pointing at it with mechanically-augmented arms.

  “Talk of the town, it looks like,” said Benkei, his eyes on the civilians as they left through the front doors of the place, the gold and marble that the lobby was decorated with gleaming like heaven’s own lobby.

  The rush of the altitude air swirled around the group as they stepped out onto the walkways of the canopy. Amelia looked around, noting the stately towers of impossible heights gridded with white lights and decorated with animated advertisements that stood above her, the endless lines of traffic that moved forward in stops and fits just below, and the thousands of men and women walking here and there, most chatting into their ear pieces as the stomped along in purposeful strides.

  “What I don’t get is what’s going on with the people below us?” asked Sam as they walked along the canopy floor, a flat surface carved with paths of gray rectangular stone and decorated with all the greenery that one might find on the actual floor of the island. “Are they stuck looking up at the bottom of this thing?”

  “Well, yes,” said Benkei. “But the other side of the canopy is one big vidscreen that alternates between daytime and night, even mimicking weather. They get all the artificial sunlight they need, plus simulated rain and snow for verisimilitude.”

  “Yeah,” said Amelia. “They’re still rich down there, just not as rich as these assholes.”

  “But you have to pay a premium to see the real sky here in the big apple,” added Benkei.

  “Then where do the poor people live?” asked Sam.

  “Outer boroughs,” said Amelia. “Packed into sock drawers that they pay most of their income for the privilege of living in.”

  Sam scrunched her face in disgust, her pert nose wrinkling as she winced her eyes.

  The three of them made their way through the crowds, looking for a bar that wouldn’t require them to take out a loan to afford a round. As they wandered, Amelia noted the amount of guards posted everywhere, men in black armor with blood-red trim as ubiquitous as street signs and sidewalk vendors. And security drones zipped overhead constantly, scanning the crowds. The place had an atmosphere of constant and oppressive surveillance, and she knew that they needed to keep a low profile to not be spotted.

  Eventually, they found a hole-in-the-wall bar, a place marked only with a small, neon purple sign with a simple drawing of a glass of beer in the middle. They entered and saw that they place was little more than a bar with a row of stools and a handful of tables. Behind the bar was a thin, short Japanese man with a shaved head and a jaded expression on his face. The place was lit with a few dim bulbs that hung over the bar, and aside from a few framed replications of Edo-era woodcuttings, the bar was hardly decorated. In spite of this, the bar was packed full, mostly with younger professionals, one table in the back crowded around by a handful of important-looking men. Amelia, Benkei, and Sam slid into the three remaining seats at the bar that just happened to be vacated as they entered.

  Amelia made a quick flourish with her hand, which the bartender understood immediately as a signal for three beers. Within seconds, a trio of tall, golden beers in tall, frosted glasses was placed in front of them.

  “Small place, but no complaints about the service,” said Benkei, taking a sip of his beer, a wisp of beer foam left lin
gering in his upper-lip stubble.

  “…those Chicago assholes,” said a man at a table behind them as Amelia listened in on the conversation. “They’re relentless with the market pressure.”

  “No kidding,” said the other voice at the table, a woman’s. “They must figure that since they can’t do anything about our fleet that they’ll just squeeze us out of the economy.”

  “I mean, I get it. It’s stupid, but get it. But what they don’t get is that New York’s the goddamn lynchpin of the North American economy. We get to stay independent because all it would take is a week embargo and the rest of the continent would go into a damn freefall. They can’t function without us.”

  “That’s not gonna stop them from trying, though.”

  “No kidding. And they’re gonna get desperate, just you wait and see.”

  Benkei shot America a look, and she realized that he was listening in on the same conversation. This new information in mind, the security of the city made some kind of sense.

  Amelia took a slow draw of her beer as she considered her situation. But before she could think it over much further, she felt a small tap on her shoulder. She spun around in her seat, ready to chew out whoever was interrupting her drink.

  But when she turned, her mouth instead went slack and silent. She found herself face-to-face with a man that she thought she’d never see again.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Now, there’s a face I haven’t seen in a while,” said the man.

  “Alain!” stammered Amelia, frozen in place.

  She couldn’t manage another word beyond that as she stood still, her empty glass in her hand.

  “What, not even a hug?”

  Alain Rickert was a slender, handsome man, with a narrow face, sharp nose, tan skin, and light green eyes that always looked a little sleepy. A former officer with the Federation, he was currently dressed in the trim, stylish red and black officer’s uniform of the New York Navy.

  Amelia still couldn’t manage a word, Alain deciding to go in for the hug himself. He gave Amelia a quick wrap-around with his arms followed by a chummy pat on the back, Amelia still standing with her arms wide.

  “What…what are you doing here?” asked Amelia, regaining some composure and setting her glass down on the bar, Benkei and Sam standing behind her, watching the scene with curiosity.

  “What am I doing here?” he asked, smiling. “I live here, for one. And I could ask you the same question.”

  Amelia wracked her brain for a response, her fight or flight instincts kicking in as she looked over Alain. It’d been years since she’d seen him, and a bar in New York during the middle of a mission was the last place she expected to bump into him again.

  “We’re, uh, just stopping to see the sights. My friends’ve never seen the city, so, you know, no time like the present!”

  Alain looked them over with a wry grin and skeptical eyes.

  “I’m sure. Still in the merc game?” he asked, his fellow officers watching the exchange from the table next to them.”

  “Something like that,” said Amelia.

  A moment of silence passed, and Benkei and Sam shared an intrigued look.

  “Well,” said Alain. “I’ll let you get back to it. Look me up if you’re in the city for a while. I’m in the navy directory.”

  “Okay.”

  “Good seeing you, Doolittle.”

  With that, Alain gave a friendly nod and turned back to his fellow officers.

  “Let’s go,” said Amelia, herding Benkei and Sam out of the bar and back onto the busy street.

  “What was going on there?” asked Sam, her feet struggling to keep up with Amelia’s pace.

  “I don’t think it’d be too far-fetched to suggest that that handsome young man was a familiar face,” said Benkei

  “Not now, not now,” said Amelia over the din of the street, her pace fast, as if trying to put as much space between her and the bar as possible.

  But before Benkei and Sam had a chance to grill her further, Amelia’s slate buzzed in her pocket. Slipping it out, she saw that it was an incoming message from Sasha.

  Found out exactly what this data is. Get back to the apartment now.

  “Something wrong?” asked Benkei.

  “No,” said Amelia. “At least, I hope not.

  ***

  The three of them hurried back to the apartment, which was strewn with take-out food containers.

  “Guys!” called Sasha. “In here!”

  The three crew members made their way into one of the bedrooms, and once they entered they spotted Sasha sitting cross-legged in total darkness aside from the glow of the computer screen, the blinds of the bedroom drawn.

  “What’s up?” asked Amelia, trotting to his side.

  “That story about ‘farming data’ sounded like a load of bullshit to me, so I decided to take a closer look at what, exactly, we were stealing for Geff.”

  Sasha’s fingers chattered away at the keyboard, the screen filling with wire-frame diagrams on one monitor and a cascade of numbers and letters on the other.

  “You see that?” he said, tapping the a portion of the screen that displayed a repeating block of text.

  “I see it,” said Amelia. “But you’re gonna have to explain what that block of random letters means.”

  “Oh, sure, sorry,” said Sasha, tapping at the keys. “It’s encrypted.”

  A few more key strokes, and the text changed, the word “Azani” appearing over and over.

  “Azani,” said Benkei. “My Sanskrit’s a little rusty, but that means thunder, right?”

  “Lightning,” said Sasha.

  Amelia narrowed her eyes, thinking where she’d heard the name before.

  Then it occurred to her.

  “That’s the name for the Federation ion array!” she said, her eyes wide.

  “The what?” asked Sam.

  “Oh, I remember now,” said Benkei “Supposed to be the crown jewel of the Federation’s Earth defenses. Never got finished, though, if I recall correctly.”

  “Right,” said Amelia. “They didn’t keep Geists too in the loop about what was going on in the rest of the military, but you couldn’t help but hear about the Azani Project.”

  Sasha made a few more keystrokes, the wire-frame diagrams forming into coherent, more detailed shapes. The Earth was in the center of the monitor, and surrounding it was a grid-shaped array of what appeared to be dozens, if not a hundred satellites.

  “Wow…” said Sam, looking over the display.

  “Each one of those is an orbital ion cannon, capable of firing a blast of particle beam energy down to the surface,” said Sasha, pointing to the screen. “And with coverage like this, they’d be able to hit any place on Earth instantly.”

  “They’d have an iron grip over the entire planet.”

  “And not just Earth,” said Sasha. “It looks like the long-term plan of the Federation was to have every holding, from Earth, Mars, and Venus to every last asteroid and moon with a population of more than five-hundred covered with cannons.”

  “Good thing the Sector War happened when it did, then,” said Benkei.

  “No kidding,” said Amelia. “With power like this, any rebellion would be blasted before they even had their second meeting.”

  “It’s amazing,” said Sasha, zooming in on a single cannon, a satellite that had the appearance of a flower with angular petals of solid durasteel. “Just one of these could do everything from a pinpoint strike on a moving car to a blast capable of bringing down a super-scraper.”

  “What happened?” asked Sam, her voice heavy with worry. “They just planned it and that’s it?”

  “No,” said Sasha. “They built a prototype, and according to this, it’s in orbit.”

  Sam let out a small gasp as Benkei and Amelia drew closer to the screen.

  “In orbit?” Amelia asked.

  “Yeah, hidden in the debris field of Icarus Station, of all places. Well, it wasn’t always t
he Icarus we all know and love now. At one point it was the main Federation space station. According to this data, Icarus housed the targeting platform for the cannon.”

  “And New York was working on getting it online?” asked Benkei.

  “Maybe. It’s hard to say,” said Sasha, dipping a wad of French fries into a goopy pool of ketchup nearby and bringing them to his mouth. “They might’ve just had the data. New York was the Western Hemisphere headquarters of the Federation. It might’ve just been, you know, kicking around on their networks.”

  “And this Geff…his interests clearly are less altruistic than he’s letting on.”

  “No kidding,” said Amelia. “If he managed to get that cannon online, and had Icarus on his side…I don’t know what he’s got in mind with it, but whatever it is, he’d have more than enough firepower to pull it off.”

  “So, what are we gonna do?” asked Sam. “We can’t just give him the data, right?”

  But before any of them had a chance to even begin to think of a possible response, the door chime to the living room sounded, followed by the soft woosh of the door opening, followed by the sound of several pairs of boots on the living room floor.

  “We’ve got company,” said Amelia.

  CHAPTER 16

  “Hello, hello!” called out a chipper, Southern-accented voice laced with the melodic twang of Aphrodite Terra region of Venus. “I’m looking for a merc team. Anyone here who might help me find them?”

  The crew exchanged looks. Amelia tilted her head toward the living room, signaling for the team to follow her.

  “Someone made a damn fine mess of this here luxury condominium. Good thing these fancy places come with maid service, right?” the voice called again.

  Amelia and the rest walked down the narrow hallway leading to the living room. Once there, they were greeted with the sight of their company.

  It was a team of three men and one woman, all clad in light, flitty garb, the kind of colorful, textured clothing one would find at a Venusian high society party. Of the four, two of the men were twins, both with the same red, shaved hair, goatees, brawny bodies, and serious expressions. The woman was a lithe, pretty girl who couldn’t have been over the age of twenty-two, her hair pin-straight, blonde, and parted in the middle, the two tresses falling on both sides of a face with mischievous blue eyes and a red-lipped smirk. The man who had been speaking stood in the middle of the living room, a tall man of lean musculature, his coal-black hair slicked backwards with a clean line part on the right side, his face ruddy, his expression conveying a sense of both flippancy and hostility.