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Hopefully the tool I’d left behind and the nicks I’d etched into the inside of the cell would lead them to conclude Jessie had escaped under her own steam. They’d wonder how the tool had gotten in there but would guess she had had it on her—or, even better, that one of them had slipped it to her. They might try to cover their ishtas by not revealing she’d escaped at all. They might report they’d been unable to kidnap her. There were many possibilities, but the important thing was that Jessie wasn’t there anymore.
“Halfway house? That’s what they’re calling a locked cell these days?”
“The place is located about midway between the city and the landing site. They keep captives there temporarily while waiting for the cargo ship to arrive.” Although ships were cloaked by a shimmer, the longer they stayed, the greater the odds of detection, so vessels didn’t stick around. They landed, people were herded aboard, and they left.
She sneered. “Nice.”
I eyed her, weighing the pros and cons of revealing what her fate probably would have been if I hadn’t gotten her out of there.
Pro: She might drop her dangerous crusade.
Con: The information might invigorate her crusade.
Pro: She would work with me rather than against me.
Con: She’d redouble her resistance and fight me every step of the way.
No matter the scenario, she wasn’t leaving this safe house until the operation concluded.
“Except you weren’t going to leave the halfway house alive,” I told her. “They didn’t take you to sell you. They took you to shut you up. You were going to be interrogated and then probably executed.”
Her face drained of color, but she brazened it out with a jut of her chin. “You’re trying to scare me into compliance. How do I know I didn’t jump from the frying pan into the fire? You kidnapped me, too. They drugged me, but you shocked me. How are you any better than them?”
“I didn’t kidnap you. I took you into protective custody. My name is Maxx. I’m an agent with the League of Planets.”
Chapter Ten
Maxx
Jessie blinked, and then snorted. “Yeah, right.”
“You don’t believe me?” I showed her my ID on my handheld.
“A picture of your face doesn’t prove anything.”
“You don’t recognize the official seal?” I’d figured she couldn’t read Ara-Cope or the other half dozen languages my ID was printed in.
“Anybody can fake a logo.” She crossed her arms. “If you’re from the LOP, you’re in violation of your own law. No one from the galaxy is allowed to visit this planet or contact us in any way.”
“Certain units with the organization are allowed access.” I maneuvered around the truth. The Copan-Cerulean Cartel had infiltrated New Terra. If LOP agents couldn’t follow them, the humans here didn’t have a pudgee worm’s chance at a barbecue. The governing General Assembly didn’t understand this, but field commanders and task force leaders did and had a tacit understanding with their agents. Don’t ask. Don’t tell.
“And what unit would that be?”
“The anti-trafficking task force.”
“You’re with the anti-trafficking task force? Fine job you’re doing.” She managed to be both incredulous and disdainful.
Sarcasm didn’t faze me; I’d expected it. She had more reason than most to doubt me, and most believed the LOP had been lax on combating trafficking. For obvious reasons, we couldn’t go public with our strategy or our operations, which had created a void of information.
The anarchist Galactic Justice Warriors had filled the void with lies, convincing many the LOP was colluding with the cartels. The GJW had been eradicated, but altering the prevailing beliefs would take years. Decades. GJW propaganda was like a huge toxic gas cloud drifting through the universe, poisoning public opinion.
“If you’re with the LOP, why did you burglarize my apartment?”
“To recover the handheld you misappropriated.”
“What’s on it that you want so much?”
“That’s what we need to find out, and, secondarily, it doesn’t belong to you. We want it back.”
