Read Online Dark Beneath the Moon by Sherry D. Ramsey - Free Book Online

will be careful,” I said, but it sounded hollow, even to me. I wished I’d asked Lanar more about it when I’d had him on the comm.
    “By all accounts the Chron were some mean bastardos ,” Viss said. “I hope being careful will be enough.”
    We all went off to our quarters then, but the jarring note of the end of the conversation replayed in my mind. Despite the comforting presence of Hirin’s even breathing at my side in our quarters, hours passed before sleep deigned to visit me.
     
     
     

Chapter 7 – Jahelia
Cat and Mouse
     
     
     
     
     
     
    THE EIGHT YEARS since my father died on Quma have been busy for me. I spent two trying to track down his old PrimeCorp colleague, Emmage Mahane, whose name I’d finally found in my father’s datapad. His notes on her were extensive, enough to make me think he’d been a bit unhealthily obsessed with her all these years, although he’d never mentioned her in my hearing. PrimeCorp wanted her, and wanted her badly, since she’d absconded with every speck of data on the nanobioscavenger project when she objected to the ethics of PrimeCorp’s marketing plans.
    Except the data that lived on in my parents and me. Fortunately, Dad had covered his tracks or played dumb well enough that PrimeCorp wasn’t suspicious enough to test us. I guess we had to thank Emmage Mahane for taking the heat on that one.
    Why did I think I could succeed where PrimeCorp, with all its resources, had failed? Because every big corporation in Nearspace suffers from a bad case of bureaucracy, and it seemed to me that one person, in a case like this, would simply be more efficient.
    “I can’t figure out where they’re headed now,” Pita fretted, bringing me back to the present. “I mean, there’s nothing out here!”
    “Maybe they’ve got Paixon’s mother stashed on an asteroid somewhere,” I said.
    “You know as well as I do that she’s got to be on Kiando again. Otherwise why would the Tane Ikai even have gone there?”
    I shrugged. “Because the Protectorate told them to? Paixon dances to her brother’s tune.”
    “I’ve done the math, Jahelia. There’s a ninety-six point oh four percent—”
    “Oh, shut up, Pita. I don’t really doubt that Emmage Mahane is back on Kiando with Gusain Buig.”
    “Then why are we out here following her daughter’s ship? I thought the point was to get to Mahane through her.”
    “Because I’m working for PrimeCorp, and that’s what they want me to do.”
    “I thought you were only using PrimeCorp as a means to an end. The end being—”
    “Will you shut up ?” I stood from the pilot’s seat and stalked to the little galley, although it wasn’t really far enough for stalking. And there was nowhere on the ship I could go to actually get away from the annoying AI.
    I took deep breaths as I pulled a cazitta from the machine. I wished I hadn’t been quite so open, talking to Pita, before I’d realized that she’d remember everything I said and bring it up in later conversations. “Look, PrimeCorp is paying me pretty well to keep tabs on Paixon and her little gang. It’s a good gig, so I’m playing it as long as it’s worthwhile.”
    “Hey, hey, all right,” Pita huffed. I could imagine her, if she were a person, throwing her hands up in exasperation. The PrimeCorp programmers were good. “I just like to know the program. I’m the one flying the ship, right?”
    “Yeah, right, that’s you,” I agreed sarcastically, rolling my eyes. She couldn’t fly the ship without me giving her instructions. Unfortunately, since Pita was based on my personality, she was proficient at recognizing my sarcasm.
    “Pfft,” was all she said.
    I ignored her and sipped at the cazitta, savouring the licorice bite . I wasn’t about to tell her that now, suddenly, when I finally knew where to find Emmage Mahane, I didn’t know what to do with that information.
    After two years of searching, I hadn’t been able to find Emmage Mahane on my own,