Pilot's Quest by L J Dix

Author:L J Dix [Dix, L J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2024-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Veraz was growing frustrated, although he reminded himself this was part of his chosen life. No one else had decided to shift from working for a small mercenary army, then running his own, to establishing a much smaller specialty team. The choice had been his alone, and for the most part he was pleased with how it had turned out. This had been a few decades ago, right after the debacle on Bythia. He’d lost a lot of good men and women in a fight he should never have taken on.

It still pained him if he thought about it too deeply. Time had, if not precisely healed, added a protective layer between his conscious mind and that pain. Reliving the decision wouldn’t help the current situation.

He'd taken this job in part because he already knew and liked Martin Garcia. He also felt some sympathy for the inhabitants of Nuevo Havana who wanted to end Estancian rule. It hadn’t hurt that the government of Lao’s World was willing to pay quite well for him to locate Garcia. He’d originally hoped to reach Open Port, speak to Garcia, then take him safely to Lao’s World, and the job would be over. Once he realized Garcia would be more difficult to locate, he'd thought that with Shir-ella’s help they could track the man down quickly enough. It would be a relatively easy job for everyone, which would be welcome after their last couple of jobs.

The Estancians had changed his calculations. As had Garcia, who was much closer to starting his rebellion than the politicos on Lao’s World realized. Instead of finding the man and transporting him, his team was in a race to locate Garcia before the agents of the Estancian crown found him.

Dyvia’s information so far wasn’t as helpful as Veraz had hoped. It wasn’t her fault. Veraz admired the woman. On short acquaintance, she was smart and tough-minded enough to be a good match for the Garcia he had known in the past.

Still, Parvent had been a complete waste of their time. Nothing they could find indicated Garcia had been here more recently than a few years ago. If anyone could locate more recent information, it should have been Shir-ella. They had left Parvent and approached the hyper limit for their trip to St. Helen’s with Drew at the helm.

Shir-ella and Mark chose that moment to walk into the tiny office Veraz kept on their ship, where he had continued to sip a cup of coffee that had long since grown cold. He smiled when Shir-ella removed the mug from his hand and replaced it with a fresh one. How had he become so addicted to this bitter Earth brew? He looked at his team members.

“Thank you,” he offered first to Shir-ella for the coffee. “What brings both of you here?”

Shir-ella spoke first. “I did some research while we were on Parvent,” she began. “I think we’ve found another location where Garcia might be going.” She looked at Mark as if turning the discussion over to him.

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