The Phobos Maneuver Read Online Free PDF Page B

also pocketed an important recent purchase: a black-market transponder. He had been making sure he could install it without breaking the comms system, once they were too far away to chase.
    “Why would she lie?” he echoed. “Easy. She’s wanted to quit for ages, but she could never come up with a good enough reason. So this was the perfect excuse. But she definitely wouldn’t go back to Earth. She hates Earth. And volunteer for Star Farce? No way. Petruzzelli isn’t the do-gooder type. Not by a long shot.”
    Codfish’s wife, Coral, nodded in agreement. “She’s a selfish, mercenary bitch.”
    Michael did not take offense at that assessment. There was nothing wrong with being selfish and mercenary, in his world. “Yes, and she hates it when anyone gets the better of her.”
    The Kharbage Collector launched while he was speaking. Haddock crouched on his haunches in front of Petruzzelli’s workstation—no, not Petruzzelli’s anymore—playing arpeggios on the consoles with one hand. In his free hand he gripped a bottle of tequila. From somewhere he had produced a cocked hat with an ostrich plume, which now rested rakishly on his brow. Codfish leaned awkwardly over him, talking to traffic control, so they’d think he was flying the ship.
    The pirates had only been aboard for a few hours, but the bridge already smelled like kimchi instead of Italian food. They had found Petruzzelli’s stash of black-market booze, too. He couldn’t believe she had not taken that with her. It was like she’d left her whole life behind.
    He waited patiently on his knees, holding onto the loose front of the comms workstation to stop it from falling off, while thrust gravity tugged everything sideways. When the Collector cleared Ceres space, Haddock damped their burn. The ship stopped rattling. Ordinary spin gravity returned. Michael picked up where he’d left off. It felt good to finally say these things he’d been thinking for so long.
    “Petruzzelli is obsessed with her ex. She even set up a DNA trace on him! The supermajors have DNA sniffers at all the big spaceports, you know. We can, ahem, access that data through the company. So she’s been stalking him online. And I even caught her writing to him once, although I’m pretty sure she didn’t send it.”
    “She is the obsessive type,” Coral agreed.
    “Yeah. And it drives her nuts that he slept with her, and then took ten thousand spiders off her, and hacked her watch—” Michael giggled; it had been pretty funny at the time, to him— “then vanished. So that’s where she’s gone. I’m sure of it. She’s going to track him down.” Michael giggled again. “For his sake, I hope we find him first!”
    “Wait,” Haddock said. Now that Ceres traffic control was no longer on the screen with them, he sat up on Petruzzelli’s couch, feet planted wide. “Who are we talking about?”
    “Scuzzy the Smuggler, of course. You know him.”
    The pirates exchanged dark glances.
    “We do,” Haddock acknowledged.
    They’d all met back when they were running that UNVRP scam. Scuzzy the Smuggler had been involved with that somehow, although Michael had never set eyes on him. So had the pirates . When it all went sideways, Petruzzelli had given the pirates a lift to 6 Hebe. That was how they’d gotten to be so familiar with the Kharbage Collector. And it was on 6 Hebe Petruzzelli and Scuzzy had had their fateful one-night stand.
    “Have you seen him since then?” Michael asked.
    “Never a hair, and I thank the gods of my ancestors for that,” said Haddock.
    “Then I bet you don’t know where he is now. But I do. He’s at home on 99984 Ravilious.”
    Michael expected the pirates to react with blank stares to the name of this asteroid. But Anemone yelped, and Codfish muttered a curse. Even Haddock seemed to pale slightly.
    “You’ve heard of it?” Michael said in disappointment.
    “Who on Ceres has not heard of 99984 Ravilious?” Haddock said. “The Belows is