“Wow. Honesty at last.” Kylee leaned forward, gesturing with her knife. “So, pay attention. To come out of this in first place, you’re going to have to face Donovan. By that, I mean the planet. On its rules. Out in the bush.” She paused. “And you’re going to back Kalico, no matter what comes down.”

Kylee saw the hesitation, especially at that last. “I mean it, Falise. If you can’t do that? Even if this IG appointed you the new Supervisor? You’re dead in a week. Same with Cinque or Bart.”

“And what are my chances doing it your way?”

“Maybe ten percent, if you listen and learn.”

“Ten percent? That’s . . . that’s . . .”

Kylee smiled. “Welcome to Donovan.”

Chapter 44

  44  

Of all the jobs he did for Kalico Aguila, Fenn Bogarten hated going to Freelander the most. That was saying a lot, since he’d worked in the shadow of cave-ins while they drifted the Number Three through shocked rock and into the mountain under Corporate Mine. He’d been lost and alone in the forest down on the smelter floodplain. Barely escaped with his life. Fenn had faced mobbers and even murderers. He’d been one of the men who had Kalico’s back when she braced the ex-marine, Kalen Tompzen, and declared him a spy and a traitor. He’d survived gunfights and quetzal attacks.

He’d have traded any of those threats to have avoided this current duty. Freelander scared him down to the marrow in his bones; visits to the ship left him haunted by nightmares for weeks afterward.

Seated as he was—right seat in the row of three behind the pilot and copilot’s chairs on the command deck of Kalico’s shuttle—he should have been enjoying the ride. This was the elite seat. Normally, Kalico herself sat in this chair where she could look out the side window. Bogarten had always ridden in the back. That was the cargo/passenger hold. No windows. And nothing like the plush seat his butt was now planted in. The thing conformed to every curve, was comfortable as all get out.

Didn’t matter. Looking out the window, he couldn’t miss it: Freelander loomed before them like a giant gray-white ball, its crew and cargo tori like fat rings atop the globe.

Just the sight of its corroded hull sent a shiver down his spine.

“That’s it?” IG Soukup asked, leaning over and pointing.

“That’s it.”

“What’s that slight shimmer?” Soukup asked, still leaning close for the view. “It looks . . . I don’t know. Watery? Grungy?”