Excerpt

Sheff exited the passenger car at the Orbital Exchange on Ursalia Agritech, feeling out of place as she stood on the oversized, pristine chrome and plastiglas platform. Her new duster coat squelched as she repositioned her satchel over her shoulder. The area was almost deserted; few travelers criss-crossed the white tiles of the interior, and sparse traffic flitted around the skies. She turned and almost reboarded the transport.

I was so close. She shut her eyes against the memory; she didn't see Daryn's last seizure, she saw him when they'd been kids riding hover cycles through the ditches. If she could have infiltrated one more tier of Zloto's drug ring, she would have brought down the whole damned trade structure that had sucked away the last of her family.

Stubborness made her hesitate. She had a few things that needed saying to her handler, so she watched angrily as the sliding doors hissed shut and the heavy metal carriages slid forward into lauch position. The departure doors of the Exchange lowered and sealed before the transport engines fired up for lift off. A concierge approached her and smiled politely.

"Adynn Sheffield? Central Dispatcher Reynolds is waiting for you in the lounge."

Sheff followed the woman across the tiles and into the plastiglas enclosure where her handler from the Interplanetary Conduct Authority, or ICA, was pacing around in a bad suit.

"Your visitor is here," said her escort before leaving. Terry Reynolds stood still and held out his hand. Sheff shook it even though she didn't want to. He sat down and gestured for her to do the same.

"I could have finished the job," was the first thing she said.

"Yeah." Reynolds had the audacity to chuckle. "Problem is, it never was your job."

"No, it was yours, and you gave it to me. You promised that if I brought down Argent, which I did, you'd let me enter the Academy and get a proper ICA commission. Then it will be my job."

"No. I said if you helped bring down Argent, I would consider finding you a more formal spot within the ICA."

"I got him for you. And I could have brought down Copper if you'd let me—"

"You took a major risk and could have been killed. You were only contracted as an informant Sheff, not an Investigator."

"And yet you sent me in to do an Investigator's job. I'm good at what I do, and you know I'm committed. I've completed all your stupid classes for Academy entry. Let me go back to Sarah's Cove and finish it. You know I'll get it done. I don't understand why you stopped me."

Reynolds swiveled in his chair. "You were made."

"That was your fault. If you'd stayed out of my way instead of bursting in and making me lose my mark—"

"The ICA couldn't tolerate the flight risk of a major target—"

"Who would be in custody now if you had let me do my job. I can still get him. He doesn't know much beyond the fact that you were tailing me."

He smiled annoyingly and tapped a vape stick against the table. "You've been using."

Sheff's anger made her vision dim around the edges. She barely resisted the urge to rip out the shank she had hidden in her boot and shred Reynolds' carotid.

"Of course, I've been using. You knew I'd have to when you sent me in."

"You expect me to condone your habits?"

"I don't have a habit, I had a cover, same as everyone else. You blew it for me. Damnit, Reynolds. You owe me. Let me go back in and finish Copper. I can prove my—"

"Look, I get it. You're mad because you lost a few of your friends—"

"My brother." Her rage built even higher. Reynolds had a complete dossier on her and Daryn. He knew Daryn was the reason she'd subjected herself to cooperating with the ICA in the first place. He also knew Daryn was the reason she couldn't walk away.

"—your brother because of a bad drug deal. I get that you want to clean up your home turf. I get that you want full instatement to the ICA."

"But?"

"Hate to say it, but you're too old to enter the Academy."

Sheff's mind went blank for a few seconds. That's the best you can do, Reynolds?

"That has to be the biggest pile of horsesh—"

"That, and the Directors don't like you. You've got a nasty attitude and violent tendencies."

"Well, I grew up on a rough world. You need someone with my attitude to get this job done. Or is what you actually mean is that you don't want to give status to someone who grew up in the 'Cove? Someone who wasn't born on one of your elitist dipshit worlds."

"I didn't say that. But there is…a bit of a ceiling for someone like you."

"And what exactly am I like?"

"You did have familial connections to the drug trade prior to your association with the ICA."

Sheff gave him an incredulous look. Those connections had died with Daryn. All her associations with the trade now were ICA authorized.

"Then why are you bothering to reassign me? Why not dump my contract?"

Reynolds swiveled some more and spread his hands. "You don't want the job?"

Sheff held back the slough of bridge-burning retorts forming in her mind.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Research. We need someone to do computer tracking of underground technology that's being traded on and around Ursalia."

"A desk job?" Sheff's eyes narrowed. "Since when do I get desk assignments?"

"Since you've always been good at sticking your nose into other people's business and digging up crap."

"Everything I stuck my nose into was public record. You know that's how I identify my marks. Or are you referring to the time I got into your data cloud? What was it that you didn't want me to see?" Reynolds looked uncomfortable, so Sheff tossed out a guess about something she wanted confirmation of. "You got in trouble over Copper, didn't you?"

Reynolds angrily leaned over the table. "I kept telling you not to get so close."

"I remember that very differently," said Sheff.

"You screwed it up."

"I also remember that very differently."

As Reynolds glared at her, a puzzle piece clicked into place. "If the Directors didn't value me, I'd have been cut loose. But you—you're putting me somewhere out of the way," she said.

His brow lifted. "Hardly."

"Then what's going on?"

"I told you. We need someone tracking unregistered tech. There is apparently a 'Dark Market' somewhere, and we need to find it."

"Why?"

"A lot of this stuff is…unreal. Things no one has seen before. Everything from toys to weapons, all unregistered, untested, and uncontrolled. Your job will be, and only will be, to track where it's coming from. When you find out, you'll report it."