Rogue Elements by John Jackson Miller

Author:John Jackson Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books/Star Trek
Published: 2021-08-17T00:00:00+00:00

—2392—

THE TRAITOR IN THE FLAMES

In which Cristóbal Rios sees a ghost—and gets the kiss-off

33

LA SIRENA

DEEP SPACE

“I don’t know what it is with you,” Raffi said over the comm in Rios’s cabin. “Whenever I call you, you’re bleeding. What’s today’s special? Knife slashes or puncture wounds?”

“Dragged across a gravel road,” he said, wiping the side of his torso with a towel as he sat on the edge of his bed. “A Gorn working for Claggett tried to haul me back to his ship, but I pelted him with rocks until he got so pissed he let go.”

“At which point I hope you found your phaser.”

“No, Glake found him. It helps to have Frankenstein’s monster on the payroll. He still doesn’t say much, but he doesn’t seem to want me pummeled.”

“I’m surprised you kept the others on,” Raffi said.

“It was a rough start, but the women are coming along—we’ve almost come to an understanding on landing gear.” He winced as he raised his arm and applied the hypospray Emil had dropped off. “And Glake is handy for moving things.”

There had been many things to move in recent months. Since before the new year, he had committed less time to the bottle and more to building a business. The cargoes had been small and not very lucrative, and with Claggett’s people hounding him, he hadn’t been able to do repeat business. But he had earned enough to keep La Sirena in dilithium and his crew from bolting.

He still hadn’t found Hain’s brother, and Emil hadn’t learned much more about what killed the rancher. Then again, Rios rarely kept the EMH active. Did holograms think while they were offline? He assumed they didn’t but had never been interested enough to study the matter.

Instead, he’d been making his way through Javen’s philosophy collection, much of which now sat on his shelves. To the extent that he used to drink to get to sleep, several of the Vulcan thinkers were a worthy substitute.

He’d also spent his evenings alone. Raffi didn’t call as often as she once did to listen to his adventures, but there was a subject she always returned to. “You haven’t mentioned any lady friends in weeks. Miss Marquesa still haunting you?”

“There’s this thing called ‘work.’ ”

“What about you and that mob bookkeeper?” She laughed. “Now, that would have been an interesting pairing. Two rogue elements, mashed together—”

“Yeah, like in a bomb. Civilizations would fall.”

Donning his undershirt, Rios explained that Claggett’s hired guns had been watching Fajo’s place, forcing Ledger to slow-roll the valuation process. According to her infrequent messages, she’d been forced to send Wolyx and Burze as her mules into the Argelius facility with only a couple of books at a time. The fact that Wolyx always wanted to jaw with the assayers about every single tome had only drawn the process out further.

He got a coffee from the wall replicator. It was something he could ask the concierge system for, but it was a short step from there to asking for aguardiente. The sense memory of walking to the replicator helped him pretend that the room was a dry zone.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.