Excerpt

Chaos Zone Sample - Chapter 4

Sloane felt fairly confident about the last-minute brig she'd set up for Brighton. Whatever her uncle had been hauling—or pretending to haul—before he disappeared, he'd hauled it in huge plasterboard crates. And once she'd rigged the stolen set of Fleet magna-cuffs to make a lock, the crate made an excellent cell. She didn't think even Brighton could break the slats, though so far the big man had just been sitting there, picking his nails and throwing out occasional comments.

The only problem was that the crates were too heavy to move, and the one where Brighton now rested his laurels was right next to a cluster of Moneymaker's system controls. Everything that wasn't stuffed into engineering—a room that Sloane had so far managed to avoid, mostly—was right here in cargo.

Which meant that Brighton had been heckling her for the last hour while she watched the ship's science officer trying to install the new onboard AI. Sloane had picked up the unit on her way out of Shard, much to Hilda's consternation.

"Thought she'd be done by now," Brighton said as Alex connected a bunch of rainbow-colored wires and inserted data chips into data-chip holders. Sloane didn't know their official names. "It's not all that complicated."

Brighton's voice was as thick as his neck, but he sounded more bored than anything else. He had no reason to complain. Sloane had given him water, and a snack. She'd gotten him away from the Fleet. What more could the man want? Aside from the obvious don't-turn-me-in-to-the-Federation request.

"I'm not a computer scientist." Alex's head was half-buried in the box of wires, her red hair tied on up top of her head in a thick bun. "I'm an astrophysicist."

"An out-of-work one," Sloane said. Alex had studied wormholes, dedicated her life to them, and even created one—before discovering that using wormholes could potentially implode the universe, and that she'd better stop playing with them. Now, she seemed to be at loose ends, unsure of what to do next.

Sloane figured the task would be good for her. Get her out of her room, which was starting to smell like the cheesy snacks Alex liked. Get her working on a new problem.

"I thought you were going to hire a security officer," Hilda said. The pilot had set Moneymaker on auto while they orbited a random asteroid near Shard. Most likely another sliver of destroyed planet, but Sloane tried not to think too much about that. Hilda was smoking one of the flowery-smelling rolls that she usually saved for the quiet hours of the night.

Sloane couldn't blame her for being on edge after the show on Shard. She still had adrenaline bursting through her own veins after that, to be honest.

"We can't afford a double-cross-proof security officer," Sloane said, "because I can't get through to the Federation to ask them to front us the tokens."

Sloane held up her fliptab, which had been repeatedly dialing the Federation offices for the last fifteen million years, give or take. She had their auto message memorized. Thanks for your call! Please refer to your bounty posting for delivery instructions. Have a great day!

"They won't front you the tokens," Brighton said.

Hilda squinted at Alex's work, though Sloane doubted she knew any more about installing ship AIs than Sloane did. "But we can afford a state-of-the-art ship AI."

"Oh, no," Sloane said, "we definitely can't. This is a discount model."

She'd picked it up at Shard's spaceport, in the kind of hole-in-the-wall shop that would switch locations every day, if it'd happened to be located in a place that cared about enforcing laws and things like that.

"I think it's used," Alex said, her voice muffled by cords.

Brighton snorted. "That means stolen."

"Wonderful." Hilda let out a puff of perfume-laced smoke. It smelled distinctly judgmental.

A click sounded from Sloane's fliptab, and the figure of an annoyed-looking Federation official popped into view, his hands on his hips, a knit cap tugged down over his skull. Everyone looked diminutive when you shrank them down into holographic fliptab figures, but this one looked particularly flick-able. Like an angry little elf. "You're tying up the line," he said.

There was no way the Cosmic Trade Federation had one comm line in and out of their facility. "I am not," she said.

The angry little scowl deepened, along with Sloane's urge to flick him. "No, you're not," he said. "But your number's come through approximately ninety-two times in the last hour."

"That doesn't sound approximate."

"Stop calling. Have a great day."

He really didn't look as if he meant it.

"Wait," Sloane said, flashing her fliptab up and over her shoulder so he could get a look at Brighton, whose wide face should be more than recognizable between the slats of the crate. "We picked up Brighton. But I can't get him to you without—"

"Ms. Tarnish, we don't take calls, and we don't negotiate. We accept bounty deliveries at Bay 35 of our headquarters in the Pike System, as every single bounty posting clearly states."

"Told you," Brighton said. He didn't have to sound so pleased, though she supposed she couldn't blame him under the circumstances.

Sloane straightened her back and lifted her chin, narrowly deciding against the addition of a hair flip. It wouldn't look right in holograph. "Then I would like to speak with a manager."

The mini Federation official rolled his eyes, then flickered out of sight as he ended the call.

Sloane started to dial again, but a voice cut her off. It seemed to come from everywhere at once—the floor, the ceiling, even the walls of Brighton's crate—but that had to be an illusion. Something about acoustics.

"Welcome to the ship," the voice said, its tone almost as cheerful as the recorded Federation message but much less squeaky. "I am BRO, your onboard AI. During this fifteen-minute tour, I will orient you to the features of the Grendel."

Sloane cringed. Not stolen. Not stolen at all. "Moneymaker," she corrected.

"Confirmed. I will orient you to the features of the Moneymaker."

"Did it just welcome us to our own ship?" Hilda asked.

Sloane decided to find it charming.

"Please accompany me on a tour of the facilities," BRO said.

Alex sat back on her heels and brushed her hands together, though Sloane seriously doubted it was very dirty in those boxes. "What does BRO stand for?"

"Why do we think it stands for anything?" Sloane asked. "Maybe it's got a sister."

"I am the Best Robotic Operative," BRO said.

Okay, so it stood for something. Alex squinted at the box of cords. "You're not robotic."

A pause. "I'm not?"

Sloane stood, folding her fliptab with a click. She was never going to hear the end of this one.

"You're not an operative either," Hilda said.

"I'm not?"

"And I seriously doubt he's the best," Brighton put in.

BRO sniffed. "Hurtful."

Sloane held up a hand. "Let's try not to traumatize the AI. BRO, you're the one who's new to the ship. I'm Sloane. Alex is the one who installed you. Hilda's the pilot."

"And the man in the box is Brighton Walsh." BRO actually sounded proud, as if it'd passed a test of some kind. "He's a Level 14 criminal, according to the Fleet database."

Sloane grimaced. "I hope that was a public database."

"Nope!" BRO said cheerfully.