47.

Jaxon began to stir, and when he opened his eyes, he only saw darkness. He blinked several times, hoping to clear his vision. As the rest of his senses returned, he determined that his eyes were fine, but he had a hood draped over his head. He tried to pull it off, but his arms were bound behind his back.

Shit. Not this again.

Determined, Jaxon dropped his head between his knees and worked his leg pressure in concert with the strategic twisting of his neck until he was able to work the hood loose. Once enough slack was at the top of the hood, he was able to pinch just enough of the cloth between his knees to pull it all the way off.

With his sight returned, he looked around. He appeared to be in a bunkroom quite similar to the one back on the Buddha. There was a single bed along the wall and a small desk opposite it. There was a small portal halfway up the wall, looking out into space.

"Mffer," Jaxon tried to say, but the ball gag strapped to his mouth prevented any legible words from escaping.

He swung his feet to the ground and looked at them, expecting to see shackles. Thankfully, he thought, he was only bound at the wrists, with a gag to keep him silent.

He stood and wobbled about from sudden dizziness. He sat back down until he regained his balance. As he waited for the room to stop spinning, he took stock of the rest of his condition. His head throbbed, and various parts of his face ached. No doubt from the last thing he remembered-being punched in the face. He looked down at himself and saw that he was still wearing the tuxedo he'd purchased on Beta Station.

After several minutes, Jaxon stood, slowly, and began walking in circles in the small bunkroom. He'd always thought better when he paced, and thinking was exactly what he needed. He began to determine the depth of the shithole he was in.

First, he was clearly no longer on Delta Station, made obvious by the spaceship bunkroom. Furthermore, when he leaned his head against the bulkhead, he could sense a gentle vibration caused by the ship's engine.

Thoughts of escape flooded Jaxon's mind, and he knew that he'd be fighting an uphill battle with his hands tied behind his back. He knew what he had to do, and his stomach tightened at the thought.

Slowly, Jaxon bent over at the waist and pulled his left arm tight against the restraints. Once he felt the resistance at its extreme, Jaxon jerked his head hard to the right, dislocating the left shoulder. The pain was severe, but it allowed him to loop his arms down past his lower back and legs. Finally, Jaxon leaned back and fell onto the bunk as he lifted his feet in the air, allowing his bound hands to pass over freely.

Perspiration began to flow as Jaxon stood once again, his left shoulder slumping unnaturally. He walked to the bulkhead and raised his left elbow so that it was perpendicular to his torso. The position was painful, but he knew it would be over soon enough. Once his position was set, he rammed his shoulder back into its socket by driving his body sideways. The pain was most severe at that moment, but it subsided quickly once everything was back in its proper place.

Jaxon craned his neck from side to side, cracking his vertebra in the process. Much better, he thought.

He reached up and touched the skin beneath his ear and felt his tracking module still in place. At least they didn't take everything, he thought.

With a sense of clarity returning to him, he went to the portal and peered out, hoping to see something, anything, remotely familiar. There were no space stations or other ships in sight. All he could see was darkness. A moment later, the door to his bunkroom whisked open.

Jaxon turned and saw a familiar face, but he couldn't quite place him. After a few seconds, though, the battle injuries on his arm and face gave it away. He was one of the killers on Taloo Station, an obvious survivor from the grenade barrage he'd unleashed just outside his apartment door.

"You're up," the disfigured man said as he stood at the threshold. "Come with me."

The man grabbed Jaxon firmly by the shoulder and shoved him out into the corridor, slamming him into the adjacent wall. Jaxon was prepared for the hit and twisted his body at the last moment, avoiding a face-first collision.

The killer followed after Jaxon and continued to thrash him forward, down the corridor and into a large holding room, quite similar to the one back on the Buddha. Strangely, the ship's layout was actually quite similar to his own.

As Jaxon tumbled into the main hold, there were two other men, both dressed in the same black ninja suits that he'd seen on every other man or woman trying to kill him. At least he now knew who his captor was. All he could think about was how he could get away.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Rasner. You are, no doubt, thinking of a way out of your situation, but I assure you, there will be no escape for you today," came a voice from the control room door.

The man walked down the ramp, his hands neatly clasped behind his back. He maintained eye contact with Jaxon.

"Who are you?" Jaxon asked from the grasp of the killer at the center of the main hold.

"My name is Theodore Johansson, and I'm so very pleased to meet you," he said as he walked right up.

"I'd say likewise, but ... all I know is you guys have been trying to kill me for-"

"Don't hold that against us, Mr. Rasner. We were only doing our job. It really wasn't anything personal. Besides, the assassination order on you has been retracted now that we have you in custody."

"Well, there's that at least," Jaxon said sarcastically.

"Ah, yes. They've told me that you are a positive thinker. Always looking at the bright side of things. I find that endearing in a man, and I think more people should think like that. Don't you agree, Mr. Rasner?" Johansson asked, clearly looking for an answer from Jaxon.

Who is this guy? Jaxon wondered. As far as I know, I haven't had a tremendous amount of positive thinking lately.

"Yeah, sure. There's a bright side to everything," Jaxon said.

Johansson paid no attention to Jaxon's reply. "Well, I just wanted to introduce myself. Your time here on the Calliope is about to come to an end. I trust the ride was smooth for you?" he asked condescendingly.

Jaxon ignored the question and asked his own. "Where are we docking?"

"Yes, that's right. It's my understanding that you've been looking for Mr. Guzman's secret hideout. Is that correct?" Johansson asked.

Jaxon shrugged but remained silent.

"Well, you'll be happy to know that your search will be over momentarily. I just came from the control room, and we're approaching Mr. Guzman's station as we speak."

"Guzman's here?" Jaxon asked, startled.

"Why yes," Johansson said. "He's the one that put the hit on you in the first place. Well, Pablo and his de facto cohort at the GSA, that is. Isn't it wonderful how two distinctively different organizations can function as one?"

The moment Johansson's words hit him, Jaxon began to put the pieces together. Obviously, the mole inside the GSA worked for Guzman. Current mission planning had been in the works for many months, giving Guzman enough time to hire mercenaries to prevent Jaxon from carrying it out. Everything began to make sense.

"Cat got your tongue?" Johansson asked.

Jaxon kept quiet and just glared at Johansson.

"Suit yourself," Johansson said as he turned toward the control room. "I assure you, though, our conversation would have been far more civil than what you're about to experience with Mr. Guzman himself."

And then he was gone.

48.

"Clay, I need you to take over my console. Continue to monitor the stealth frequency," Camille said as she entered the cockpit.

"No problem, Camille," Francisco said, "but isn't that automated now?"

Camille walked past him as she headed for the pilot station. Jaxon's chair. "Yes, that's right. But I have reason to believe our efforts might be all for not."

"Then should I just change them manually? Or is that futile as well?" Francisco asked.

"Unknown. If we remove the subroutine, perhaps we'll be able to stay ahead of them. It's worth a shot at least." Camille turned to Oliver next. "Miles, can you program the navigation computer to follow a frequency beacon?"

Oliver nodded. "I don't see why not. You can program it to follow a specific number of waypoints and even tell it to avoid certain regions, whether it's spatial radiation or gamma rays, so I don't see why it would be any different to follow something specific."

"Okay, great. Why don't you get working on that and as soon as we can locate Jaxon's tracking device, be ready to enter it in."

"Sure thing, boss," Oliver said, getting to work. "Where should we set our heading for until then? We've just cleared the restricted idle zone around Delta Station. But we're not exactly heading in any specific direction."

"Leave it be for now," Camille said as she activated the long-range sensors on her display. "I'd hate to go too far in the wrong direction until we locate Jaxon's tracer."

The next several hours passed by wordlessly as each of the remaining team members focused on their individual responsibilities. Camille continued to analyze the readings of the sensors, trying to locate Jaxon's signal. Not having adequate training on the ship's systems or even a marginal understanding of what exactly she was looking for made the effort that much more difficult.

When a new signal blip appeared, she highlighted it in zoomed in, only to find out that it was some random freighter ship heading in the opposite direction. She knew enough about the transponder frequencies that once she found it, it would be obvious. But it was still like finding a needle in a haystack.

After what felt like an eternity of benign starts, a new signal blip entered the top of her screen. As she zoomed in and highlighted the signal, the frequency initially read out of range, but after a moment, the frequency readout changed, displaying exactly what she was looking for. It was Jaxon's transponder.

"Got it," she exclaimed. "He's on the far edge of our sensor range, and it looks like he's ... hold on." Camille paused as she analyzed the signal data for its trajectory. "At zenith: Longitude, 113 00' 37.7". Latitude, +0 57' 42.2". Distance, 697,384 kilometers."

"Got it," Oliver said, entering the coordinates into his control panel. "I see it, but it's-"

"It's what?" Camille asked, prompting Oliver to continue.

"It's just there. There's no ship on our sensors-just the signal. They didn't eject him out into space, did they?"

Camille cringed at the thought. Not exactly sure who they were dealing with, she couldn't discount it either way.

"Lord, I hope not," she said. "Are you sure your readings are correct?"

"Positive, boss. It's like he's just zipping through space all by himself."

Camille pondered the situation. At his current speed, he had to be assisted by some kind of thruster or impulse drive. If he'd just been ejected into space, there'd be no way he could reach that velocity on his own.

"Maybe he's on some kind of cloaked ship or one that has a stealth device like ours."

"Could be. Only way to find out is to get eyes on it."

"Right. How long until we can intercept?" Camille asked.

Oliver tapped in a few computations in his computer and waited. "At maximum speed, we could be there in a little over thirty minutes. That's assuming they don't increase their speed in the meantime."

Camille thought about the attack on the Buddha earlier, and how they somehow got through the stealth frequencies. She was concerned that it could happen again.

"No, I don't want to crowd them. If they can somehow see us coming, which I suspect they might be able to, I don't want to provoke a confrontation. Let's go at half speed, but not on a direct course. I want to plot an undulating course, keeping Jaxon's transponder on the edge of sensor range. With any luck, if they can see us, they'll think we're just some kind of mining vessel."

Oliver entered Camille's instructions into the navigation computer and engaged the engines. The ship banked left swiftly, and they were under way. "ETA, fifty-eight minutes," Oliver said.

49.

As the familiar clank and whine of the ship's docking clamp engaged, Jaxon's disfigured guard pulled him up from his flight chair and thrust him toward the airlock. Stepping through the docking ring and into the space station, Jaxon glanced back and discovered that they were on a ship identical to the prototype that the GSA had provided for him and his team. Jaxon wondered just how deep the deception ran.

The guard continued to guide Jaxon through the corridors of the space station, which were more like a military installation than the pleasure station that he'd known until now. As they moved through bleak hallways, they passed several men and women wearing white lab coats hustling about.

After numerous twists and turns through the corridors, Jaxon was led down a particularly wide hallway that was lined with glass walls. Because of the transparency, it was clear that they were some kind of chemistry labs, but not the production facility that he'd been looking for. Jaxon attempted to slow his pace to try and glean as much information as he could, but the guard continued thrusting him forward.

Finally, after even more stark hallways, Jaxon was shoved into a small holding cell, and then the door slammed. The door was solid, save for a small window peering out. Inside the room, there was a fold-out cot on the side wall and a combination sink-toilet directly next to it. Unfortunately, the guard did not remove his restraints, so he was still limited in his escape potential.

Jaxon sat on the cot and considered his situation. He only hoped that his tracking device was still functioning and that Camille was on her way. Next, Jaxon thought about the links between the company and his captors. The prototype ship was clearly provided to both Guzman and the GSA, no doubt giving Guzman full knowledge of its stealth capabilities and weaponry. Jaxon was honestly surprised just how far he and his team had gotten, considering how underhanded they'd been the whole time. Or perhaps that was the plan all along-get them this close before Guzman swooped in and snatched him away.

Jaxon's thoughts were interrupted as the door clanked open, and in stepped Pablo Guzman himself.

"Well, if it isn't Jaxon Rasner in person," Guzman said. "Let me tell you, you're a tough man to kill."

"You're behind my assassination attempts?" Jaxon asked, already knowing the answer, but he wanted to hear it from Guzman himself.

"Yes, that's right. I am the monster that you created ... when you killed my father all those years ago."

"But I didn't-" Jaxon began but was interrupted.

"Do you deny being in Ixtapa eighteen years ago? Do you deny shooting him from the hotel room across the plaza?" Guzman asked. "Do you deny maiming a young man-a mere child?" Guzman turned his horrifically scarred face toward Jaxon. "Do you deny being a coward?"

Guzman's anger radiated through the small cell. With each accusation, he became angrier, causing redness to flourish across his olive-colored skin.

"You should have been murdered years ago for the pain you've caused my family," Guzman said, relaxing his angry grimace into a pleasant smile. "But if I'd known that this moment would be so glorious, seeing your face in person, I would've never put the hit out on you as suggested by Brutus."

"I'm sorry," Jaxon said, "but you have me at a disadvantage. Who is Brutus?"

"Ah, Senor. Brutus and I go way back. Actually, Brutus goes so far back that I'm not even sure you were born yet when he and my father agreed to help each other with their various complications."

"So, Brutus is your mole? Does he have another name that I might-"