Page 30 of Journey to the Forbidden Zone

Nick’s voice was a whisper, but it silenced Maltese instantly. The fixer shrank back into his chair, which groaned in protest. Nick turned away from the desk, pacing a tight circle. His mind raced.

Díaz. That stubborn, self-righteous bitch. Stumbling blind into a job this big, this hot? She had no idea what she was carrying. No idea the firestorm she was sitting on.

“Where was Díaz taking this coffee?” he asked.

Maltese gulped audibly.

“Babcinq,” he said.

“Oh, shit,” James cursed.

The implications hit Nick like a pulse cannon. If Díaz tried to deliver the Xena to Babcinq – if she even made it past the COPSpatrols in that piece-of-shitAntilles– she’d bungle it. She’d get scanned, boarded. They’d find the Xena. And when they did, the interrogation wouldn’t stop with her and her pathetic crew. They’d trace the manifest. They’d trace the broker. They’d trace it back to Maltese.

And that meant they could trace it back tohim. To Nick Corso. Harboring a Forbidden Zone species, a XenX! That wasn’t just a fine. That was a one-way ticket to a penal asteroid, life spent breaking rocks until your body gave out.

He stopped pacing, facing the wide viewport that looked out over Alora’s grimy docking spires. Distant ships crawled like insects through the perpetual twilight of the asteroid field.

Carmen Díaz, flying blind with a live grenade in her cargo bay. The sheer, staggering incompetence of it made his teeth ache. She was going to get them all killed. Her, her crew, Maltese, him. Because she was too proud, too stupid, to know when she was out of her depth.

Contempt, cold and familiar, washed over him, momentarily eclipsing the fury. Always playing captain. Always thinking she knew better. That little spitfire back onThe Buccaneer, refusing his advances, refusing his authority, thinking her technical skills made her his equal. His better, even. The memory of her face, twisted in disgust.

Get the hell out of my workspace before I dock you a day’s pay for interfering with critical repairs.

She didn’t understand power. Real power. She didn’t understand the game. And now her ignorance was going to burn down everything around her. He almost laughed. The cosmic fucking irony of it. Díaz, thinking she was running beans, hauling the hottest cargo in the sector.

He turned back to Maltese. The fixer was mopping his brow with a dirty handkerchief, his breathing ragged. The guard stood rigid, sweat beading on his forehead. Brask and Voss watched him, waiting for the order.

“Babcinq,” Nick said, his voice flat, devoid of the earlier rage. It was worse, this cold certainty. “She’s heading for Babcinq with a Xena aboard, and she may not even know it. You’re right, Maltese. This is the most colossal fuckup of all time.”

Maltese nodded miserably. Nick threw him a smile that was all malice. He jabbed a finger at the fixer.

“Get me everything you have on theAntilles’s last known trajectory, projected jump points, estimated arrival at Babcinq. Everything. Scrape every sensor log, bribe every dock rat, hack every buoy. I want to know where she is, where she’s going, and how fast that rust-bucket can limp through the black.”

Maltese scrambled, fumbling with a data-slate on his desk. “Yes. Yes, of course. I have her departure logs, her filed flight plan, though gods know if she stuck to it. I’ll get my slicers on it immediately. Full passive sensor sweep along the probable routes.”

“Good. James, recall the crew. We’re lifting off in ten minutes. Prep theShrikefor a maximum-burn run to Babcinq. Tell Sarkov to have the jump-drive spooled and ready the second we’re clear of the station’s mass shadow.”

She nodded sharply, her expression grim.

“Understood, Captain. Babcinq direct?” Her eyes flickered with the unspoken question – the risk, the COPS presence.

“Direct,” Corso confirmed. “Shortest possible route through hyperspace. We cut corners, ride the edge of the safe lanes. I don’t care about the wear on the drive coils. We need to be therebeforeDíaz screws the pooch for the entire sector.”

He turned back to Maltese, who was frantically tapping commands into his slate.

“And Maltese? You breathe a word of this to anyone – your clients, your rivals, the fucking station janitor – and I won’t just kill you. I’ll make sure you watch while I dismantle every single operation you’ve got on this station, brick by greasy brick. Then I’ll feed you to the recyclers feet first. Understood?”

Maltese looked up, his face ashen. He managed a jerky nod.

“You got it, Corso. Not a word. My slicers are already tracing theAntilles. You’ll have her projected course within the hour.”

“See that I do.”

Nick didn’t wait for further assurances. He spun on his heel and strode towards the ruined doorway, his enforcers falling in behind him.

Díaz. That infuriating, incompetent woman. She had his prize. The biggest payoff he’d ever had, the greatest smuggle in the history of the Belt – stolen.

And she was flying it straight into the jaws of the UPA’s most draconian enforcers.