The Fold (Skiptracer Book 2) by Micky Neilson

Author:Micky Neilson [Neilson, Micky]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2020-04-20T16:00:00+00:00

23

Ballard stood, with Blake and Sekkha, at the now-open pressure door on the other side of the nerve center. He looked back at Gork, who had turned to face the passageway leading to the bay. "Gork!" Ballard barked. "Tarry any further and you'll sprout roots!"

Gork turned around, then tried to lean over to see his feet past his belly. Ballard extended his hand toward the door. Blake and Sekkha entered and Ballard shouted for Gork to join them as he stepped in.

The small room held a large, windowed door at the opposite side. This opened into a pod, similar to the tube-cars at Fahlbak but larger. Five or six people could stand or sit comfortably. Blake stood, holding an overhead rail. Sekkha and Ballard both sat at benches on either side. Blake was still wondering what 'surprise' had been prepared for him as Gork trundled in, his mechanical arms folded behind him, an open-mouthed grin on his face as he hurried to the pod's other end, looking through the round window in a second door there.

"Away," Ballard said.

Momentum caused Blake to lean slightly as the pod sped along the tube. Gork held handles on either side of the door, watching through the window, squealing with delight.

Ballard spoke again: "While I'm aware that you're currently engaged… I have also been made privy to additional employment, should you be so inclined."

Blake had learned earlier that Ballard often provided Sekkha with Skiptracer work. In fact, the assignment to find Jorn had come from Dekker through Ballard. Before deciding to stay with Sekkha and the boy, when Blake had been hacked off at Sekkha, he had planned to ask Ballard about any outstanding job offers. Now, Blake looked to Sekkha, who waited. When Blake didn't say anything, Sekkha replied to Ballard: "Might be good to have something for when we finish this one."

Ballard nodded as the car came to a stop. Gork hit a button to open the pod door and stepped through. Ballard followed and Blake found himself in a new chamber, this one smaller than the nerve center, with passages branching off in three different directions. "Gork!" Ballard blurted. "Go prep the table."

"Table?" Blake said, feeling slightly anxious.

Ballard drew close to Sekkha and Blake and spoke in a lower voice. "A mining operation on the Outer Rim has been 'losing' shipments of its product. In the last few quads, two freight vessels have disappeared in the Vastlands, en route to the Inner Bodies."

"Shipments of what?" Blake asked.

"Boromite," Ballard replied.

Boromite… Blake thought back to Hypertek, the data that had been stolen by his old lieutenant Rhyden and sold on the black market. Hypertek was the science employed by an alien race called the Kronians, stewards of the Hyper Gates, transportation channels used by the Vruul and Daeman alien races to travel to and from the human sector.

Almost twenty units ago humans, Vruul, and Daeman had waged all-out, bloody war that was ultimately brought to a close with the truce known as the Solarran Accord.

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