In Earth's Service (Mapped Space Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

side street and circled around the spaceport so I could approach
from the opposite direction.
    When the terminal came into view, I searched for
any sign of my pursuer. Finding none, I ran to the two Nisk security drones stationed
at the entrance. It was the first time since landing I was glad to stand beside
a giant beetle. To the southeast, the silhouette of the barrel chested humanoid
stood on a roof watching. I glanced at my two stoic guardians then gave him a
triumphal wave. He made no response, but turned and jumped out of sight.
    Filled with a great desire to get off this bug
infested quagmire, I hurried through the terminal back to the Silver Lining wondering who the humanoid was and why was he tracking me?
    Whoever he was, I suspected I hadn’t seen the last
of him.
     
    * * * *
     
    “Those thieving, six legged bandits!” Jase declared
angrily as I visited the flight deck on the way to my stateroom. My blonde copilot
sat on his acceleration couch seething as he watched a live feed from the cargo
hold. “They’re saying five containers were contaminated.”
    “Accept their count.”
    “No way, Skipper! I supervised that load. Those
containers were sealed tight. They must have damaged them.”
    Ories were known for their stubborn combative
natures and I couldn’t alleviate his anger by telling him I’d sabotaged the containers
myself.
    “Tell them to load whatever gel they owe us. I
want to get off this rock.”
    Jase glanced in my direction, then furrowed his
brow in confusion as he saw the dark stains on my flight jacket. “Is that
blood?”
    “Yeah,” I said sourly, feeling the back of my
head. The Nisk doctor had shaved it to the scalp, but the skin and bone showed
no sign of the injury thanks to Nisk regenerative tech. “Long story.”
    Before he could start probing, I headed for my
stateroom. After shedding my jacket and mud covered boots, I flopped onto my
bunk, feigning sleep. Since Lena had brought me back into the EIS as a freelance
asset a year ago, I’d added countermeasures to my cabin to disrupt
eavesdropping. I could rely on it to jam human snoopers, but had to assume it
was ineffective against alien-tech, which was why I couldn’t use the ship’s datanet,
not with bug eyes on me.
    I relaxed, regulated my breathing, then summoned Sorvino’s
data block and the required encryption key from my bionetic memory. When I put
the two together, the data block transformed from meaningless fractals into
legible characters. It was a surprisingly simple message: a set of astrographic
coordinates to a planet I’d never heard of, a latitude and longitude, and a
date. If there was more, Sorvino hadn’t had time to transfer it. At the end of
the data block was the same security classification he’d whispered in my ear, a
rating so high I’d never before encountered it in the field – aleph-null!
    Derived from mathematics, aleph-null was an
infinite cardinal number used by the EIS to describe the highest possible
threat. The data block gave no indication what the threat was, but Sorvino had
sacrificed his life for it, leaving me in no doubt it was the real deal. All Lena
had told me was that Sorvino had been in deep cover for two years. Whatever
he’d found was important enough for her to be waiting with Earth Navy in the Paraxos
System, squarely in the middle of Outer Draco. From there, they could hit any
target in the region. The problem was, Paraxos was three weeks away at maximum bubble.
The date in Sorvino’s message was just six days from now. If we launched
immediately, we could make Sorvino’s rendezvous, but Lena would have to wait.
Once she received my message, saw the aleph-null reference, that’s exactly what
she’d do – until Breega froze over.
    I wanted to review Ambassador Singh’s report on
the three man hit squad, but I didn’t dare put it in my reader with the Nisk
watching. Instead, I rolled over and activated my bunk-side intercom. “Jase, is
that niskgel loaded