Starfall (Starflight #2)(51)
“Okay,” Renny continued in a low voice. “Like I said, I’ve been doing some digging into what happened the day Cassia was taken. The Daeva shouldn’t have known we were coming, because I used an alias for the delivery. Cassia was right when she told Kane it was a setup.”
“Someone tipped off the Daeva,” Solara said. “For a finder’s fee.”
“Exactly, so I followed the money.” Renny tapped the pilot seat’s armrest. “Turns out one of the warehouse workers had a sudden windfall that week, and for an interesting amount of credits—exactly ten percent of Cassia’s bounty. By all accounts the idiot couldn’t find his ass with both hands, but he claims he won the money in an off-world survival contest.”
“Who is he?” Kane asked.
“Jess Ranger. The hovercraft pilot.”
Kane remembered that guy. He was tall and young, and not terrible-looking for a fringe yokel. Cassia had thrown a few glances his way, and the guy had flirted right back. He’d seemed a little too friendly, but Kane had dismissed his suspicion as jealousy.
“Looks like he used the money to buy a farm about a mile outside town,” Renny said. “From what I hear, he has a cash crop ready to harvest.”
Kane expelled a bitter laugh. “Not for long.”
“You said it,” Doran agreed. “We’ll burn it to the ground.”
“Wait.” Solara seemed conflicted as she picked her cuticles and peered from one person to the next. “Are you sure he’s the one?” she asked Renny. “There’s no doubt in your mind?”
“Not one iota.”
“Then I want in, too. But I don’t think we should kill him.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Kane said. “Jess Ranger isn’t getting off that easy.”
If someone had stashed any surveillance bugs on the Banshee, Cassia couldn’t find them. Since they’d landed on Vega, she’d been over every inch of the ship with a voltage scanner, and that was after shutting down the electrical systems and disconnecting the ship’s battery supply to eliminate all current. Anything using the slightest trace of power should’ve shown up like a flashing billboard.
She blew a lock of hair out of her eyes and tossed her scanner onto the galley table.
How was Fleece doing it?
“No luck here,” Arabelle said, approaching from the lower-level staircase. She strode into the galley and opened one hand to reveal a ball of auburn fur. “All I found was this delinquent trying to get inside a crate of dried apples.”
Acorn spread her winged arms and glided to the table, where she scurried across its surface until she reached the hem of Cassia’s T-shirt. Seconds later, the troublemaker found her favorite pocket and nuzzled her way inside it.
Arabelle tucked a scarlet curl behind one ear and opened the cooler to retrieve the iced tea she’d left to steep overnight. “Want some?”
“Sure.” Cassia strode to the cabinet and stood on tiptoe to reach the cups. She wished Kane wouldn’t put them up so high. When she noticed Arabelle watching, she laughed. “Short-people problems.”
“Tell me about it.” Arabelle flourished a hand at her own petite body.
“Do you ever feel like people don’t notice you?” Cassia asked. “Whenever I make deliveries with the crew, the warehouse workers barely look at me. They glance at whoever’s tallest, and then they start talking like I’m not even in the room.”
“Yep.” Arabelle nodded. “But that can actually be a good thing.”
“How so?”
“You can learn a lot if you blend in and listen.”
Intrigued, Cassia slid onto the bench.
“Fleece had a lot of shady people working for him,” Arabelle said, pushing a cup of iced tea across the table as she took the opposite bench. “Shady but smart. A while ago, two of his tech guys were talking about how to hack transmissions—and how to keep from being hacked. They said all it took was tweaking the advanced system controls.” She took a long pull of tea and smiled. “So I restored Fleece’s transmitter to factory settings.”
Cassia gasped. “That’s how my team is hacking him.”
Arabelle lifted a shoulder. “It felt good to get back at him in some small way.”
“What about the Banshee’s settings?”
“Renny already asked me to check. They’re secure. I don’t know how Fleece was trailing us yesterday, but I don’t think it had anything to do with our transmitter.”
“Did Fleece ever say why he was in the fringe to begin with?” Cassia asked. “I mean, I assume the mafia’s making a power grab outside their territory, but what’s his role?”
Arabelle frowned as she nursed her tea. “I’ve been thinking about that ever since you said he was killing pirate lords. Fleece was always tight-lipped, but I heard him mention Daro the Red once or twice. He’d been planning the hits for months. I think that’s why Ari Zhang sent him out here, to clear the way for some kind of expansion.”
“But what can the mob do in the fringe that they can’t do on Earth?” Cassia wondered aloud. It was true the outer realm had no laws, but Ari Zhang had successfully operated outside the law for decades, mostly because he had half the Solar League in his pocket. Expanding into the fringe didn’t make sense from a business standpoint, either. Most of the galaxy’s wealth was concentrated on Earth, so Zhang should fight to stay there, not leave. “Even if the mafia wins a foothold in pirate territory, they’ll have to spend a fortune on security to keep it. What’s the point when most of the fringe settlers are too poor to gamble or hire a hit man?”