Chapter 166: Chapter 160

“He’s been asking for another private meeting, you know,” Axle said, once the noisy crowd was far enough behind us.

“Give it to him. I’d love to talk to him one on one. Alone,” I replied. “I’ll work my schedule around whipping that guy’s ass.”

Axle snorted but grabbed his tablet and started swiping at it. “Please don’t murder him, he’s becoming a rather public figure in Prescott. Has been ever since he moved in a few days ago,” he muttered.

“I promise nothing. He and his sub-letters belong in the Siberian wastes,” I muttered back.

“Well, the Siberian wastes are gone,” Axle replied. “And your policy is to let in anyone from this planet who needs or asks for shelter.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t expect a bunch of pampered trust fund idiots to set up shop and start making demands,” I said.

“You could consider relocating them,” Axle offered.

The ‘them’ under discussion was little more than D’lon’s coattails. A small group of formerly wealthy Nu-Earthers who rented out rooms in the building I was renting D’lon since his facility in Siberia was destroyed by Kraken Corp’s manufactured earthquake.

They had become immediately disruptive, making demands of BlueCleave hobbs as if they were servants, and one of them had trashed their room during a domestic argument, throwing furniture out of the windows and injuring one of my other citizens.

We were still trying to figure out exactly what to do about that, aside from a stern warning not to let it happen again.

I had BlueCleave keeping an eye on the building, but I greatly desired to remove these people. To treat them like the problems they were. However, I’d made a rather public proclamation about Nu-Earthers being welcome in Prescott, and it would hurt the affiliate if I went back on my word so quickly.

Tollya called and distracted me, as the donut’s primary doors slid open wide enough to let Axle and I through. He took and equipped a shield from the local hobbs, and I didn’t bother telling him it wouldn’t be effective if we encountered a reaper hound. It was more for his nerves than actual protection.

“Boss!” Tollya started. “Jada find something you should see.”

“On our way,” I replied.

The interior of the donut was essentially just a series of oversized cargo areas wrapped around a solid mechanical climbing engine. Under Dearth, they’d had the cargo elevator under tight wraps, and only Dearth personnel could use it for Dearth cargo needs. When Silken Sands took over management, we opened it to the public, and anyone on Nu-Earth could rent space to cheaply escape our gravity well.

Dearth was making more morties off the elevator in my possession than they ever had under their own, and all from a small percentage I paid to keep them at bay. Profit margins are powerful motivation, to some.

My personal favorite customer had been a small pod of blue whales, who used our donut to escape Nu-Earth’s gravity well before rendezvous with a ship equipped to carry them to the stars. Smart shoppers, they got out while the getting was good, and morties seemed like they were of no concern to them at all.

I often stayed awake at night, wondering what those whales did to make the king's ransom in morties they were capable of shifting at whim.

I shook my head clear of the memory and followed Axle to the small tram that circled the donut. Walking everywhere would have taken hours. The tram car accelerated and decelerated like an amusement park ride, and we were at Tollya’s position within a minute.

She was in the rear of the primary cargo compartment facing north. It had been sectioned off with collapsible partitions, and behind one at the back, stood a series of stacked kennels.

I did a quick count, as Jada and Tollya approached. Twenty-five cages, all in stacks of five.

“It’s them,” Jada said.

“I can smell them too, it’s definitely their point of ingress,” Axel confirmed. The Knowle stepped closer, leaning in to inspect one of the cages.

The kennels could be opened from the inside and were each large enough to fit a single reaper hound. The partitions covering the hidden area were free of markings, but the rest in the compartment were all designated for the Dearth Conglomerate.

I growled low in the back of my throat. Axle looked up to see what I was staring at and nodded.

“We suspected it was them. This is merely confirmation,” he said.

“No, this is confirmation that someone in the city is working with them. I need the camera footage for this area. If this is any of my people . . .”

I left the threat unspoken.

Everyone in Silken Sands knew; loyalty was a requirement, and went both ways. They all knew, each and every one of them, that we were at war with the entire multiverse.

Turning on me meant undermining that war effort and putting the entire affiliate at risk. And this infiltrator, whoever they were, was killing my starfish troopers. Morale would take a huge hit when our regular forces got word that the starfish troopers weren’t immortal.

Hobbs took their gossip a little literally sometimes, and I certainly didn’t set a great example, being ripped apart and put back together publicly so often.

“Tollya!” I shouted, as I turned to walk away.

She fell into step at my side, leaning in for her instructions.

“Get this cleaned up please. I need to meet with the starfish troopers and Jada in secret, anyone with a suit,” I muttered as I walked.

“Yeah boss, Rayna already got that planned. Was supposed to get YOU to attend. It’s tonight. Midnight, in the barracks,” she grunted back.

“Good, I’ll be there. Thank you, Tollya,” I said. She grinned and saluted, then jogged off back to the kennels.

Axle walked toward me and the tram I plopped into, conversing quietly with Jada. When they parted, he deactivated his shield long enough to lean in and hug her, followed by a quick, toothy kiss.

When they parted, she nodded, and he jogged to the tram car.

Once it had been directed to the donut's security office, we braced for the sudden speed, and jetted off around the curve of the massive structure, heading up on the system of tracks.

A hobb in BlueCleave armor manned the station and stood stiff at attention when we entered the small, cramped room. It was in the rafters along the ceiling, along with the other operational offices and steerage for the donut. Not that it needed steering, its two options were ‘up,’ and ‘down.’

He helped us with our inquiries, pulling up all relevant video footage. The partitions hiding the kennels fell away, as if on their own at one point, and the kennel doors all opened and swung in the air. No hounds were visible in any frame at any point, and the cameras across the rest of the ship saw nothing.

Axle took over at the controls and started working, switching the cameras first to low-light, then thermal vision. Still nothing.

“Why can’t we see them?” I hissed. “We could see the last one on camera.”

Axle shook his head. “The only thing I can think of is that they can control it, somehow. They control when they are seen,” he suggested.

“That would mean the first one wanted to be on camera,” I muttered.

Axle and I both shared a look, and the hobb guard shivered at the sight of it.

Finally, Axle accessed an unusual element of our donut security system, which we called the sniffers.

Sniffers were basically bomb sniffers. They were programmable, and could be used to seek out virtually any form of contraband, thanks to Dearth’s poorly-implemented paranoia.

Axle tuned the devices, explaining, “If we use the sniffers records of any animal scents, we should be able to follow their pathway through the donut, if not determine exact numbers.”

He ran the device, and showed our assumption of one hound per kennel was correct.

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“Twenty-two left,” I growled.

“Twenty-three,” he replied. “At least. The first was likely not part of this shipment. And there could be more we haven’t discovered yet.”

“Fuck,” I whispered. Axles ears twitched anyway.

He found the path they had taken, all of the reaper hounds had exited the craft in broad daylight, some right in front of hobb and human workers. Axle pulled up a map of the donut and overlaid the pathways for us to look at.

Only four had gone toward the battlefield. The rest had headed directly into Prescott.

I sighed and shook my head. “We need Lee,” I said.

Axle took a copy of his map to his tablet, then updated the security device with a new scent profile and handed it back to the terrified hobb guard.

I stood and held the door open for Axle, before closing it after him and turning to face the hobb.

His grey skin paled even further, and the poor hobb short circuited. He just gave me another salute and stood at attention.

“Hey, what’s your name?” I asked.

He stared at himself in my helmet for a long moment, jaw working as no sound came out. Finally, something clicked behind his eyes, and he barked, “Gahlyn, boss!”

“Well, Gahlyn, I want you to keep an eye on the sniffers. They’re tuned to the smell of the reaper hounds now,” I told him, in a low voice.

He nodded rapidly, then frowned. “Wait, boss. What I do if they come back?”

“Try to secure them in a compartment away from everyone else and lock the whole donut down. Then you call Tollya, or Rayna directly. Our regular teams would just get killed. It’s your job to make sure that doesn’t happen, you got it?” I asked.

“I got you boss!” Gahlyn shouted back, back stiff. He thumped me another salute as I turned to leave.

As I was slowly closing the door behind myself, I stopped before it could click closed, and waited until a count of five. Then I swung the door open again and watched as the guard fell out of his chair and scrambled back to attention.

“And Gahlyn,” I said.

“Yes boss?” he asked, as his chair lightly swiveled.

“Don’t tell anyone about this,” I said, closing the door with a loud click.

I could just hear his whispered “Yes boss,” before the door clicked shut.

Axle and I rode the tram back down to the front entrance and started walking back to the APC. The hovercraft were all in use, as usual, so I directed our driver to head to the tower.

My Knowle friend shook his head and chuckled. “What about when that hobb’s shift is over?”

I shook my head. “Oh, we loop in the next one, obviously. Probably the whole security staff for the donut. Just makin’ an impression,” I said.

Axle nodded and shrugged. “You can be quite intimidating when you want to be. Very authoritative”

“Yeah, about that. This is going to hurt your feelings, Axle, but I need you to stay in the tower for a few days,” I told him as we rode in the APC.

“You think they’re targeting your command structure?” he asked, licking his nose. “Your inner circle?”

I shook my head. “Not yet, but these things are a massive threat, and your library isn’t as secure as the tower. You should bring Jada with you, if she’ll go. She’s a target for sure, wearing a starfish suit.”

The hulking hyena man at my side nodded and licked his nose again. His claws shook slightly as he used his tablet to call Jada and discuss the situation with her. She surprised me by agreeing to live in the tower for the time being.

Her voice came through the psychic device, directly into my mind, since I was part of the call. MortMobile had been giving us little upgrades like that without being asked, I noticed.

I’d check the bill later, to be sure, but it felt like I couldn’t overhear a call normally.

“Yes, I agree,” Jada said. “All the starfish troopers should move into the tower, it has the space. I want to assemble a rapid response team, there’s going to be more attacks. We can operate it out of the tower, it’s our most secure location.”

“Shit, that’s a good idea,” I sighed.

Axle’s eyes widened at me, but he didn’t argue.

“I can’t handle that many of them at a time, Axle. We can figure out a way to lure and trap them, and I’ll happily be bait, but right now Jada is right. We need a team to respond to the next attack,” I explained.

“She’ll stay at the tower, but Jada is one of our best military assets. I need her help too, I’m sorry.”

“I get it,” he snapped. Axle sighed and took a long, shaky breath. “I understand the situation and our roles in addressing it, I really do. I just don’t like the idea of Jada in danger.”

I nodded and rested a hand on his shoulder briefly.

“Jada, you know this only works if I’m on the team,” I said.

“When you can be, yes. But the affiliate needs you in more places than just here,” she replied.

“What does that mean?” I said.

Axle sighed and shook his head. “Los Angeles is providing what little drinking water we have right now, and we’re having a hard time keeping the desalination facility safe. BlueCleave is regularly fighting off large, oceanic bugs, and their numbers are becoming a problem.”

I nodded, and muttered, “Whale bugs. They’re attracted to the freshwater.”

“How did you know that?” Axle asked, staring at me.

“Captain Jeonjo Omen, of the WHS Whalehunter, is how I know that,” I told him.

“They captured Molls but gave her up the instant I threatened them. Claimed it was a simple military operation for morties, nothing personally, that her mother was a reputable client, all that. We’re not exactly the good guys, in the eyes of everyone else.”

Axle nodded. “Molls must have a wealthy family,” he said.

“That is my impression of the situation, yes,” I agreed. “At any rate, Captain Omen told me to contact him when the whalebugs became too much of a problem for us. His crew has experience fighting them.”

I shook my head and sighed as the APC rumbled into the underground parking lot of the Prescott tower.

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