A Grand Imperial Heir by Ray Tabler

Author:Ray Tabler
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781961511545
Publisher: Novus Mundi Publishing

After the morning rush passed, Suarez and Chen ventured out from the apartment. Gold locked the door behind them, in charge until they returned. In the unlikely event the pair wasn’t back before dark, gold was to us his best judgement. Mr. Gray had provided gold with the address of an alternate safe apartment elsewhere in the city, not disclosed to Suarez. Each of the team was expendable with the goal of protecting Jessica and her son.

Early that morning, Gupta’s trolling through the local database had shown their contact was in town. That was a piece of luck. It would save weeks of waiting until she showed up. Following a circuitous route through the airy, morning city, and checking constantly for followers, Suarez and Chen finally paused to observe docking platform 287B from across a busy pedestrian walkway.

287B clung to the bottom levels of Mac Town. These docks and facilities catered mainly to mining vessels, the foundation of the economy on MacPherson’s World. Dozens of weather-battered, utilitarian cloud-mining ships squatted on splayed hydraulic landing jacks in docking bays lining the walkway. Some were brightly painted. Others sported dull gray, brown, or, slate coloring. All featured enormous scoops at their bows, for gathering the diamond rain which fell from the stormy clouds of this world.

Suarez decided he and Chen had watched long enough to be reasonably sure there was no surveillance. There were no certainties in this business, only a constantly shifting calculus of risks and responsibilities. Suarez arched an eyebrow at Chen, who had followed the man long enough to almost read his mind. Chen nodded, indicating his favorable assessment for proceeding.

The pair of Marines stood on a catwalk between a chandlery and a diner. The catwalk was a no-frills thing, the floor a metal latticework below which was only morning sky. A stray gust of wind blew up through the lattice, momentarily staggering both of them. Behind them, the back door to the diner opened, and a dishwasher stepped out to empty a smelly pail of kitchen scraps over the railing. Paying Suarez and Chen no mind, the dishwasher slammed the door on his way back in. Local flying creatures, roosted nearby for just such a windfall, screeched and dove after the scraps as they plummeted.

Suarez and Chen wove through the thick pedestrian traffic and onto docking platform 287B. Halfway along the curving hull, a woman in grimy coveralls pounded a prybar between the metal and some encrustation with a sledge hammer. The upper half of the coveralls was tied loosely around her waist, and she wore a tank top shirt. Muscles rippled beneath her tanned, sweaty skin with every rhythmic blow of the sledge.

The Marines stopped far enough away so she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable when they were noticed. After a few more strikes with the hammer, the woman stepped back and inspected the job with her head tilted slightly to the left. She panted with the effort of her labor, and spoke with her back still to the visitors.

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