Backburn (The Fixer, #9) by Andrew Vaillencourt

Author:Andrew Vaillencourt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Andrew Vaillencourt
Published: 2023-07-17T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Fleming drummed his fingers on the cool black surface of his desktop. To his surprise and chagrin, he found himself missing the hum and vibration of Sloane’s ship. The eerie silence of his Uptown office, once comforting, now felt odd. The floor seemed too solid, too lifeless compared to the background thrumming of the Maid of Orleans’ deck plates. If not for the insistent brightness, the absence of any sort of tactile feedback from his environment might drive him mad. It was like being inside a vault, or worse, a coffin. Sloane told him this would happen, and he hoped he would recover his “land legs” sooner rather than later. It was enough to drive a man mad.

His eyes flew back and forth across his terminal screen as he skimmed through the flood of angry messages still filtering into his inbox. The OmniCorp legal team had far too many questions they would not understand the answers to for his taste. After the sixth missive directing him to explain how his project had resulted in a firefight with the UEDF announced itself with a soft chime and all-caps text, Fleming stopped drumming his fingers and stabbed the call button at the bottom of the message.

A flashing red comm icon appeared in the air before his eyes, and after eight angry chimes, it morphed into the head and shoulders of a stern-looking woman in what had to be the official blue suit of lawyers everywhere. She did not bother with a greeting.

“Mr. Fleming!” began the floating hologram. “I see you have deigned to speak with me at last. How gracious.” Her eyes turned down, and Fleming assumed she was looking at notes. “I hope you are prepared for some very lengthy depositions and conduct reviews, because this is not the sort of incident that—”

His time aboard a warship had impressed upon Fleming the utility of a clearly designated command structure. The terse and dismissive tone of this lawyer irked him, as he could only imagine how Miranda Sloane might react to the naked disrespect. His interruption was equal parts curt and angry. “I do not give a flying rat’s ass how you choose to characterize this incident Miss—” he squinted at the screen “—Miss Fairchild.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, I do not give a flying rat’s ass how you choose to characterize the incident. Mostly because, unless I am mistaken, you do not have the slightest idea as to what happened or why. You can’t, obviously. It’s all very far above the responsibilities of your position. So instead of pretending you get to dress me down for, anything, really, why don’t you just go ahead and file whatever legal paperwork is necessary to register our displeasure with the UEDF over their interference in a corporate matter.”

He let that settle, watching the expression on the lawyer’s face morph from cool disapproval to shock and then anger. “Excuse me?” she sputtered.

“You already said that,” Fleming remarked. “And I am definitely not in the mood to excuse you either way.

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