Parker Interstellar Travels 4: The Trilisk Hunt Read Free Page A

with the bureau if
you want. I’m just processing you. Close down your net storefront. You’re no
longer licensed to operate as a security agent on Bliss. Give us a list of your
last year’s active clients so we can inform them. If you cooperate from this
point forward, I’m going to drop the weapons charge, given that you probably
believed you still had authorization for it.”
    “Or given that your jail is
already full of people who’ve broken your idiotic rules, and your budget has
been cut in half because of the alien menace, and you’ve probably realized
crossing me is a mistake,” Imanol ranted. He barely managed to stay seated.
Though he could not avoid venting his anger, some part of him knew if he stood
and began to physically move in on the officer, it would go badly.
    “Last chance,” the officer said
levelly. “Cooperate now, or be incarcerated.” He watched Imanol to see which it
was going to be.
    If his cells weren’t full, and
his budget not cut, the arrogant bastard would have already thrown me in there
just for mouthing off to him , Imanol thought. Nevertheless,
some shred of intelligence crept back into his thinking. Time to cut his
losses.
    “I’ll shut it down,” Imanol
said as calmly as he could manage. Which was a very poor acting job, but the
officer accepted it. He started to think on which clients he would report, and
which ones he would leave out.
    I’m washed up here. The only
place I’ll get work now is way out on the edge of the frontier. With people who
care nothing about licenses.
    On his initial list, Imanol omitted
the wealthiest clients. They might hire him again for high-paying jobs. At the
last minute, he added two shady clients to the list. He had not done anything
illegal for them, though he suspected those two were into black-market stuff. If
they knew he was out with the police, it might actually help his chances with
them.
    Even with fully automated
systems to handle his incarceration and release from beginning to end, and
Imanol’s cooperation, the bureaucracy moved at a crawl. It wasn’t until the
next day that he was released to clean out his office.
    Imanol stopped to take a call from
someone named Jason Yang.
    “Mr. McCollum,” Mr. Yang said.
“I’d like to hire you. It’s a very special job, off the beaten path. I think
you would find it very challenging. I’m prepared to pay your travel expenses in
full to come out and consider us.”
    That was fast.
    “Who was the referral?” Imanol
asked.
    I need to know who tipped these
guys I was available.
    “A friend of a client in the
force. Nick Vrolyk?”
    “Who?”
    “Nick Vrolyk. It would have
been a while ago.”
    “That was a long time ago all
right,” Imanol said. “Thank you for calling, but I’m not really interested in
any opportunities back on Earth, Mr. Yang.”
    “This is quite the opposite,”
Mr. Yang said. “Though my headquarters is on Earth, you’d be traveling farther
out from the core worlds than you are now. The work, should you join us, is on
the frontier as well. We’ll pay your expenses to come out and listen to us,
with no obligation.”
    “Very well, send me the
details,” Imanol said.
    At this point, what have I got
to lose?

Chapter
3
     
    Siobhan Cutter was in a good
mood. A wicked smile started to form on the edges of her lips. A few strands of
dark hair obscured one of her gleaming eyes.
    The sinuous young woman from
Spero Five, an old but huge space habitat, was about to exact her revenge upon
the company that had famously owned two generations of her ancestors, using
their slave labor to maintain Spero’s vast space-based solar array.
    It was the main reason she had
traveled here to Valomine. There was also healthy self-interest in mind, as her
scheme would prove lucrative.
    An expert in industrial design,
Siobhan had worked to put a backdoor into a factory control module installed
for the new colony. Though not an employee of Speronautics Space