Heavy is the Crown (Backyard Starship Book 16) by J.N. Chaney & Terry Maggert

Author:J.N. Chaney & Terry Maggert [Chaney, J.N. & Maggert, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Variant Publications
Published: 2023-09-16T16:00:00+00:00

14

We were once again left contemplating our next move. We still had no solid leads on Adayluh or the other hostages. At least, we were still calling them hostages, sticking to the paradigm that eventually there’d be some sort of demand in return for their release. The alternatives were too awful to contemplate, and none of us were prepared to give up hope.

As we departed Earth, though, we got a fortuitous call. It was from Essie, via B.

“Essie has some information you might be interested in, given your recent cases,” she said, no preamble, just launching right into it. I got the sense from B’s clipped, business-like attitude that this was something important. If so, then doing it through a relay just slowed things down, made them more cumbersome.

“Okay. How come he isn’t making this call himself?”

“He’s on an undercover op and doesn’t want to risk it, I guess. Anyway, he wanted me to get this to you ASAP. The individual he’s been tracking is one Jukiso Switmarr, formerly a mid-level researcher at Pont Alus Kyr.”

I glanced at Torina in the Fafnir’s copilot’s seat. We both leaned into the call. “Formerly?”

“Formerly. He was released, as it were, for research ethics violations. And before you ask, no, I don’t know what those ethics violations were. I’ve put in a call to a friend on Pont Alus Kyr, but I haven’t heard back yet.”

“What was this Switmarr’s field of research that he, um, ethically violated?”

“Bio-integration. Basically, incorporating synthetic components into living organisms. Mind you, this is Pont Alus Kyr we’re talking about, so that’s not a big surprise. It is one of their main fields of research, after all.”

I sat back. “Yeah, but still—that Sorcerer’s Bracelet horror show you showed us would count as bio-integration, I think. I mean, there’s no direct link, but—”

Funboy spoke up from behind us. “Essie would not have risked blowing his cover to pass this message on to you, Van, unless he thought it was important.”

“Yeah, I get it. It’s just kind of… tenuous.”

“Right now, tenuous is really all we have,” Rab put in.

I had to nod at that. “The man speaks the truth. Okay, so keeping with the tenuous theme, did Essie say anything about where this guy is? Or where he’s going?”

“No—”

I started to open my mouth to say something frustrated, but B cut me off.

“But Essie did tell me that he left Pont Alus Kyr less than a day ago. He has a creaky old class 4 workboat not suited for anything but short twists, and he has very little money and no known family. His first stop is probably going to be Spindrift since there’s nowhere else he might be able to afford some fuel.”

“Wow. We are taking tenuous and stretching even it pretty thin, aren’t we?”

B barked a laugh. “Hey, if I could give you the exact twist coordinates to drop on top of this guy, I would. We like to think this investigative work is all hard facts uncovered by diligent

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