Horse Latitudes: A Lesfic Space Opera (Black Flag Book 8) by Rachel Ford

Author:Rachel Ford [Ford, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-12-14T16:00:00+00:00

Adjudicator Ri’Ai didn’t have much more for us. She didn’t know the technical details, nor did she know the full scope of whatever Space Futures had planned. She hoped Matilda’s data would have that.

But she did at least fill in the blanks about Matilda Rathbone. The woman was a scientist working for New Gaia, on a team investigating alternatives to terraforming – less intrusive ways of altering the makeup of a planet, of strengthening atmospheres, cleaning air, encouraging rain production, and so on.

Until she’d been assigned to a top-secret team, a joint effort between the corporations, with the singular goal of restoring Site Icarus to its former bounty.

New Gaia’s scientists favored her approach – the longer, slower, natural healing. Space Futures’ employees preferred their own faster, more profitable – and riskier – approach.

Microterraforming.

Matilda had turned whistleblower, enlisting Jack to leak what information she had through Space Futures ports. A solid enough plan – move the information out of her own territory and get it down to Kel’Kul, all without running the risk of meetups in an area where someone might have recognized her.

But somewhere along the line, something had gone wrong. Someone had caught on.

And now Matilda was gone.

So with these explanations, we took our leave. Maggie alerted the crew, asking Frank, Ria and Corano to be onboard in the morning. She didn’t need to specify the reason. It was obvious.

We weren’t expecting trouble. But we’d be prepared.

Just in case.

Bright and early the next morning, we all piled into the skimmer and made our way to the Black Flag. The old girl lay dark and still. She glistened with morning dew, looking like an abandoned relic against the lush backdrop and deserted streets.

A forgotten ship on a forgotten world.

I shivered as I stepped into the crisp morning air, the feeling striking me with an almost physical force.

Pure nonsense, of course. Kel’Kul teemed with people, even if I couldn’t see them at the moment. But I couldn’t quite shake the feeling. It settled on me like a premonition from some old tale of ghosts and death on the moors, the kind that warned the foolish protagonist she was going to her doom.

And just like those stubborn old-world heroines, I brushed it off.

Because what else could we do? Refuse the adjudicator’s request, leave Matilda to her fate, because of a feeling? A feeling of – what? Doom? Dread?

“Are you unwell, Katherine?” Sydney prodded as we mounted the gangplank.

I shook my head. “No. I just – I have a bad feeling about today.”

“Another feeling,” he said. “I see.”

“It’s probably because of last night,” I said, feeling ever more foolish. “What the adjudicator was saying, about – about Kel’Kul being in danger. About that planet, that got destroyed.”

“The stakes of our current course of action are indeed higher than Ri’Ai acknowledges. They do not merely relate to Ms. Rathbone’s whereabouts or wellbeing.”

I nodded. If we screwed up here, if we gave away any inkling of how much we knew, we could push New Gaia and Space Futures to more than harming a whistleblower.

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