Private Pieces of Shade

[Shade]

The name had appeared four times before Shade decided it was worth following. Darik Sorn. Whether it belonged to a real person remained an open question.

Shade sat alone in the cockpit of her ship as hyperspace stretched beyond the transparisteel into endless ribbons of blue and white, the glow reflecting faintly across her crimson eyes while several displays surrounded her with the accumulated results of nearly three weeks of work. Financial transfers occupied one screen. Communications metadata filled another. A third displayed a map of the frontier surrounding Raxus, marked with shipping routes, settlements, refueling stations, and half a dozen locations she had already eliminated. None of the evidence was conclusive by itself. That was precisely why whoever had constructed the network had remained hidden. Payments moved through intermediaries. Messages bounced between relays. Information was divided into pieces before being sold, ensuring that few buyers ever received enough to understand exactly what they possessed.

Shade understood the method because she had used variations of it herself.

What concerned her was the merchandise.

The first fragment she discovered had been little more than an old operational alias associated with a mission years ago. Unpleasant, but hardly catastrophic. The second had included a physical description and several known behavioral patterns. The third contained travel records that should never have been connected to either identity. Then she found references to Republic Intelligence. Not public records or speculation, but details accurate enough to suggest someone had access to information that should have remained buried behind layers of restricted archives. Whoever was assembling the dossier knew that Shade had served RIS. They knew she had operated independently before that. Worse, scattered references suggested they were beginning to connect people and places from different periods of her life.

That changed the nature of the problem.

Shade no longer had an intelligence service behind her. There was no department she could alert, no superior who could authorize an investigation, and no institutional machinery quietly identifying who had accessed classified records. She had resigned. Whatever protections came with serving the Republic had ended with that decision, and she had accepted that consequence willingly. It did not mean she intended to sit quietly while someone packaged her life into convenient pieces and sold them to strangers. She needed to know what had been compromised, who had purchased it, and where the information had originated. Killing the person responsible before answering those questions would accomplish nothing except destroying her best lead.

Darik Sorn had surfaced at several points along that trail. Once attached to a payment routed through a shipping concern that did not appear to own any ships. Once buried in the registration history of a communications relay. Twice in encrypted correspondence where the name might have been a person, an account, or simply a designation. The most recent trace had placed Sorn somewhere along the frontier surrounding Raxus. Shade had narrowed that further to a small settlement whose spaceport served miners, homesteaders, traders, and anyone else traveling through a region where official infrastructure became increasingly sparse. It was not proof that Sorn was there. It was enough to look.

She expanded the settlement map across the central display. The spaceport occupied the southern edge of town, little more than several landing pads, maintenance sheds, fuel facilities, and a customs office connected to the main settlement by a broad commercial road. From there, buildings spread outward without much apparent planning. Lodging houses clustered near the port. Markets occupied the central district. Warehouses and freight yards extended toward the eastern outskirts, while several smaller roads disappeared beyond the settlement into the surrounding frontier. Shade studied each route until she could reproduce the important portions from memory. She marked three places where someone could observe traffic arriving from the spaceport without appearing conspicuous, two alternate routes into town, and several locations where public surveillance coverage appeared either incomplete or nonexistent.

The ship emerged from hyperspace hours later, and Shade closed the research files before beginning her approach. She transmitted nothing beyond what local regulations required and landed under credentials that were legitimate enough to withstand ordinary scrutiny without advertising anything useful about her history. The landing itself was uneventful. She preferred it that way. Once the engines powered down, Shade remained aboard for several minutes rather than immediately joining the beings moving through the port outside. Her crimson eyes moved between exterior feeds, watching patterns instead of individuals. Dockworkers crossed between ships. A fuel crew serviced an aging transport two pads away. Passengers disappeared toward customs. Nothing immediately suggested unusual attention.

That did not mean no one was watching.

Shade had spent too many years making people disappear to believe attention always announced itself. Before Republic Intelligence, she had been an assassin. During her years with RIS, she had learned how governments watched people without their realizing it. Now she belonged to neither world, yet carried enemies and secrets from both. If someone possessed enough information to sell pieces of her history, they might also possess enough sense to notice when she started pulling on the threads connecting them. She had approached this investigation assuming that possibility from the beginning.

Her first objective was not Darik Sorn. It was information.

Shade rose and pulled on her coat, checking her equipment by touch before securing the ship behind her. She would enter the settlement openly rather than skulking through alleys and giving anyone watching an immediate reason to remember her. Find somewhere frequented by travelers. Learn how strangers moved through town. Establish which businesses handled information without advertising that fact. Determine whether Darik Sorn was a resident, a visitor, a false name, or merely another intermediary between herself and whoever had decided there were credits to be made selling the life of Nys'rei Tal'voss.

Only then would she decide her next move.

Shade descended the ramp into the frontier air and paused just long enough to orient herself toward the road leading from the spaceport into town. She already knew the map.

Now she needed to learn the people.

Jud Renrok

 

[Jud Renrok]

Jud Renrok had seen the pattern before. It never started with an army. It started with people deciding it was easier to keep their heads down than ask questions. The Longwatch drifted through the pale morning sky before settling onto one of the outer landing pads with the quiet confidence of a vessel built for places exactly like this. It lacked the polished lines of military craft or the extravagant styling of civilian yachts. Instead, every plate, every reinforced strut, and every weathered panel spoke of countless frontier landings where reliability mattered far more than appearances.

Jud lowered the boarding ramp before the engines had fully cooled. The Pantoran stepped into the dusty air with one hand resting near the grip of the lightsaber hanging opposite the heavy blaster at his hip. His long tan duster stirred in the breeze, revealing the deep blue and brass colors of a Frontier Warden beneath. Gold facial markings caught the morning light while pale blue eyes swept the port with the practiced calm of a lawman who expected trouble but never hurried toward it.

Stonewatch Hold had received three requests for assistance over the last month. Officially, they had come from different people. A freight broker whose caravans had begun disappearing along the eastern trails. A family of farmers claiming someone was demanding "road insurance" to reach the markets. Finally, a merchant captain who refused to put his concerns into writing, insisting only that "someone is organizing things out here" and local authorities either couldn't—or wouldn't—stop it.

Individually, none justified deploying Wardens. Together, they painted the sort of picture Garrick Calder had taught them never to ignore. Crime became power when honest people stopped believing anyone would protect them. Jud entered the modest spaceport administration office. The clerk looked relieved the moment the silver Warden badge appeared. "You really came."

Jud offered the man a small smile. "That's usually what happens when we say we will."

The office wasn't much. A few outdated terminals, shelves of cargo manifests, landing permits stacked in uneven piles, and a caf pot that looked older than the building itself. The clerk slid several datachips across the counter. "I pulled everything that's happened over the last few weeks. Missing cargo. Complaints. Ship registrations. Arrivals and departures. Figured you'd want all of it."

"I usually do." Jud accepted the chips, slipping them into a datapad without immediately reading them. "Anything stand out?"

The man hesitated. "Depends what you mean."

"Something your gut says doesn't belong."

The clerk scratched the back of his neck. "Honestly? That's just it. Nothing really does. Folks come through here every day. Miners. Prospectors. Traders. Independent haulers. Even a few bounty hunters. Everybody's paperwork checks out." He tapped another terminal. "I included today's arrivals. Nothing illegal. One independent courier. Couple bulk freighters. Passenger shuttle from Raxus. Private transport under legitimate registry..." He shrugged. "Nothing I'd have flagged."

Jud nodded. Sometimes that was the most useful answer. Professionals rarely announced themselves. He scrolled through the arrival log only long enough to build a mental picture of who had entered town that morning. One registration—an independent traveler whose credentials cleared routine inspection—earned no more attention than the others before he continued down the list. The name was filed away with dozens of others. If every lawful visitor became a suspect, he'd never solve a thing.

No. The answers weren't likely waiting on a landing pad. They were waiting in the spaces between frightened conversations. Jud clipped the datapad back onto his belt before tipping his hat to the clerk. "If anyone asks why I'm here?"

The clerk looked uncertain. "What should I tell them?"

Jud's smile returned, carrying just enough confidence to be reassuring. "Tell them a Warden stopped in for supplies." He stepped back into the frontier sunlight.

The reports would give him names. The streets would tell him which ones mattered. Somewhere in this settlement, someone had begun weaving enough fear to make honest people whisper instead of speak. Jud intended to find the hand holding the thread.

He simply didn't know yet that every trail, however indirect, eventually led toward a man named Darik Sorn.

Jud Renrok

• Location: Frontier Settlement, Raxus territory
• Objective: Investigate
• Outfit: Warden Attire
• Company: Shade

 

[Shade]

The settlement was different on foot.

Maps reduced places to useful certainties. Streets became lines, buildings became shapes, and distances became numbers that could be measured before a person ever set foot upon the ground. Shade appreciated those certainties, but she had never mistaken them for reality. The road leading away from the spaceport was broader than the survey maps suggested, its edges worn unevenly by years of freight traffic and weather. Buildings that appeared identical from orbit revealed their differences immediately at ground level. Some were maintained with obvious pride despite their age, while others had been repaired so many times that little of their original construction remained. People moved between them according to rhythms no map could record.

Shade walked without apparent urgency.

She had chosen clothing appropriate for a traveler rather than the armor she might have preferred for a hunt. Nothing about her appearance concealed that she was Chiss, but neither did it advertise what she had once done for a living. Her weapons remained where they belonged, accessible without being displayed as a threat. Anyone watching her would see a woman newly arrived from the spaceport making her way into town. That was precisely what she wanted them to see.

Her crimson eyes moved constantly without seeming to settle anywhere for long. The settlement had its own patterns already beginning to emerge. Freight traffic favored the eastern road she had identified aboard her ship. Travelers remained concentrated near the port before thinning considerably toward the central district. Locals moved differently from visitors, choosing narrower routes between buildings and greeting one another with the familiarity of people accustomed to seeing the same faces every day. Shade noted each distinction as she walked. She was not searching for Darik Sorn yet. Searching too eagerly for one person had a way of making an investigator blind to everything surrounding them.

Instead, she began with the places through which information naturally flowed.

A public terminal near the edge of the commercial district provided her first stop. Shade spent several minutes appearing to review lodging and transportation listings while quietly comparing local business records against the information she had gathered during the journey. Darik Sorn did not appear among registered property owners. That meant very little. She checked commercial licenses next, followed by freight registrations and publicly available docking records. Again, nothing obvious surfaced. No business bearing the name. No residence. No conveniently registered ship waiting to confirm that three weeks of investigation had led directly to the correct door.

She had expected as much.

The absence itself was useful.

If Darik Sorn was a real person living openly within the settlement, he had taken precautions to separate that identity from anything easily searchable. If the name was false, then Shade needed to discover what it represented. She closed the terminal without leaving behind anything more suspicious than the browsing history of a traveler looking through local services, then continued deeper into town. Her next destination was not somewhere she expected to find Sorn. It was somewhere she expected to find people who knew who came and went.

The establishment she chose sat near the point where traffic from the spaceport divided between the market district and the eastern freight road. Food, drinks, rented rooms, and enough transient customers that strangers were unlikely to draw immediate attention. Shade paused outside only long enough to study the reflection in one of its windows rather than looking directly behind herself. No familiar face had followed her from the port. No one appeared to have maintained a consistent distance behind her. That did not mean she was alone. Surveillance conducted properly was rarely so obliging.

She entered and selected a place where she could observe both the primary entrance and a portion of the street outside without claiming the most obviously defensive seat in the room. Her first order was something simple to drink. Her second purchase would be information, though whoever eventually provided it did not need to know that yet.

Shade set a small credit denomination on the table and brought up a local map on her datapad while she waited. To anyone nearby, she might have been another traveler planning the next leg of a journey. In reality, she was comparing what she had already seen against the settlement she had memorized aboard her ship. Freight yards to the east. Markets farther north. Several lodging establishments within walking distance. Beyond those, roads leading toward farms, mines, and smaller communities scattered across the frontier.

Somewhere along that network, Darik Sorn had left a trace.

Shade intended to find it carefully.

There was another possibility she refused to discount. Whoever had been selling information about her had known enough to connect fragments that should never have touched one another. If Sorn was responsible, then he was either exceptionally good at gathering intelligence or had access to someone who was. Either possibility meant Shade could not assume this hunt moved in only one direction. Every inquiry she made created a disturbance, however small. Enough disturbances formed a pattern.

Perhaps no one had noticed hers yet.

Perhaps someone already had.

Shade accepted the drink when it arrived and took an unhurried sip, crimson eyes passing casually over the room before returning to the map displayed before her.

For now, she would listen.

People eventually talked about strangers.

And if Darik Sorn had passed through this town, Shade only needed to find the right person who remembered him.

Jud Renrok

 

[Jud Renrok]

The first rule Garrick Calder had drilled into every Frontier Warden was deceptively simple. Listen longer than you speak. People wanted justice. Most simply weren't convinced anyone was willing to deliver it.

Jud wandered the settlement at an unhurried pace, hat casting a welcome shadow across his features while his eyes took in far more than they seemed to. Fresh wagon ruts cut deeper into one side of the main road than the other. Several storefronts had reinforced shutters despite the weather being fair. A freight hauler paused to greet nearly everyone he passed, while another received little more than cautious nods. Little things. The sort that rarely appeared in reports but often explained them.

His first conversation came outside a repair garage where an aging Duros mechanic wrestled with the exposed engine of a battered cargo speeder. Jud waited until the man had finished tightening a coupling before speaking. "Morning."

The Duros looked up, wiping grease from his hands before his eyes settled on the silver Warden badge. "Haven't seen one of you folks in these parts."

"We're trying to improve on that."

The mechanic snorted. "So's my oldest son."

Jud chuckled softly. "He making any progress?"

"About as much as you."

The remark wasn't hostile. Just tired. Jud leaned casually against a nearby post. "I hear freight's been having a rough go of things."

The mechanic's expression tightened almost imperceptibly. "Freight's always rough."

"So I've heard." A pause. Then another.

Finally the Duros sighed. "Couple caravans gone missing east of town."

"Bandits?"

"Maybe."

"You don't sound convinced."

The mechanic glanced toward the eastern road before lowering his voice. "Bandits steal cargo." Jud nodded. "They don't usually leave half of it behind."

That earned the Warden's full attention. "They hit specific containers," the mechanic continued. "Ignore the rest. Like they already know what they're after."

"You report it?"

A humorless laugh. "To who?"

The question carried enough answer by itself. Jud thanked the mechanic, wishing him luck with the engine before continuing along the street.

The second conversation proved shorter. A middle-aged human woman arranged produce beneath a canvas awning while occasionally glancing toward passing traffic. She greeted customers warmly enough, but every few moments her attention drifted toward the road leading east.

Jud bought a small bag of dried fruit before asking the question. "You always watch the road that closely?"

She hesitated. "Used to just be looking for deliveries."

"And now?"

She looked at him for several long seconds before noticing the Warden badge. "Now I look to see who they're with." Jud let the silence linger. People often filled quiet better than questions. "There are folks," she finally admitted, "who've started arriving before shipments do."

"Expecting them?"

"No."

"Nervous?"

Her lips pressed into a thin line. "They ask very polite questions."

"What sort? 'Who's receiving the shipment?' 'Who's guarding it?' 'How long's it staying?'"

She shook her head. "Always smiling."

"Recognize any of them?"

"Never the same faces."

Professional. Jud filed the thought away. One caravan disappearing could be opportunists. Repeated precision suggested planning. Planning suggested leadership. Leadership suggested someone making money. He thanked her, wished her prosperous sales, and resumed walking.

By midday, the settlement had begun to reveal its rhythms. No one described an organized gang. No one named a local crime boss. Nobody even admitted to being threatened directly. Instead, every conversation carried the same strange shape. Small questions. Missing shipments. People deciding not to ask too many questions afterward. Fear without spectacle. Exactly the kind that spread furthest.

Jud unfolded the datapad from the spaceport once more as he slowed near an intersection where several streets met. The location matched one of the clerk's suggestions—a place where travelers, merchants, freight crews, and locals crossed paths throughout the day. A tavern stood at the corner, its weathered sign swaying gently above the entrance. It wasn't the largest establishment in town, but its location made it ideal for overhearing arrivals before they scattered across the settlement.

Information tended to gather wherever thirsty people did. Jud smiled faintly to himself. "Caf first," he murmured beneath his breath. "Questions second."

He pushed open the door. The familiar mixture of conversation, cooking food, and well-worn wood greeted him immediately. His pale blue eyes swept the room with practiced ease—not searching for anyone in particular, merely taking stock of who had arrived before him and who seemed more interested in watching than talking. Then, adjusting the brim of his hat, the Frontier Warden stepped inside.

Jud Renrok

• Location: Frontier Settlement, Raxus territory
• Objective: Investigate
• Outfit: Warden Attire
• Company: Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade remained seated, the local map still displayed on her datapad though she had long since committed it to memory. It now served another purpose. Travelers often looked at maps. Investigators preferred reasons not to be noticed.

The tavern settled into a comfortable rhythm around her. A pair of freight haulers argued amiably over shipping rates near the bar. Someone laughed from the back corner. The proprietor moved between tables with the efficiency born from years of repeating the same routine. Patrons came and went in ones and twos, each changing the atmosphere just enough for Shade to notice without disrupting it.

The door opened again.

Her attention shifted no more than anyone else's might have, a brief glance acknowledging a new arrival before returning to her drink.

Only it didn't. Not entirely.

The newcomer did not enter like a man looking for a seat. He paused only long enough for his eyes to drift across the room before continuing inward, his attention never appearing to linger on anyone. It was practiced enough that most would mistake it for idle curiosity.

Shade did not. She had spent too many years perfecting the same habit.

The brim of his hat concealed as much as it revealed, but it was his movement that held her attention. Relaxed without becoming careless. Deliberate without becoming rigid. Every step offered him another angle from which to observe the room while appearing to do nothing more than walk toward a cup of caf.

Interesting.

Her crimson eyes followed him only for the span of a heartbeat before returning to the datapad in front of her.

There were countless ways to learn how a room worked. Some people asked questions. Others watched until the answers revealed themselves.

He belonged to the second group. Shade found herself raising an eyebrow almost imperceptibly. Not because he was dangerous. Because he was disciplined.

She recognized the quiet patience of someone who understood that information was rarely taken. More often, it was allowed to reveal itself to those willing to wait. It was a lesson she had first learned among the Veiled Sight, refined through her time with Republic Intelligence, and never truly forgotten despite leaving both behind.

Whether his discipline had been forged by military service, law enforcement, or something else entirely remained an open question. For now, that question could wait.

She took another unhurried sip of her drink, content to let him believe he had entered a room occupied only by strangers.

Sometimes the most revealing moments came before either party realized they had been noticed.

Jud Renrok

 

[Jud Renrok]

The tavern quieted for all of half a second. Not enough for anyone unfamiliar with frontier settlements to notice. More than enough for Jud Renrok. Conversations continued. Glasses still clinked together. Someone laughed a little too loudly in the rear corner. Yet beneath the familiar sounds lay something subtler. A hesitation. A collective weighing of a newcomer before deciding whether he belonged.

Jud had grown accustomed to it. Frontier Wardens carried an unusual reputation. On worlds that welcomed them, they were often greeted with a relieved smile and a fresh cup of caf before their boots had fully crossed the threshold. On others...

People suddenly remembered somewhere else they ought to be. His brilliant yellow eyes swept the room once, neither hurried nor lingering. Freight crews. A pair of local miners still carrying dust beneath their fingernails. Several travelers whose boots hadn't yet accumulated the same red dirt coating everyone else's. The proprietor behind the bar.

And one Chiss woman seated alone. She fit the room well enough to avoid standing out, yet not so well that she belonged. Her clothing spoke of a traveler. Her posture spoke of someone who preferred to keep every entrance within sight. Interesting.

As Jud stepped farther inside, the Force brushed gently against his awareness. Not danger. Attention. Someone was studying him with practiced restraint. His gaze drifted naturally toward the Chiss woman for no longer than it had anyone else before moving on. He dismissed the sensation almost immediately. She wasn't the only one watching. Nearly every set of eyes in the establishment had measured him the moment the badge at his chest became visible. Some knew exactly what a Frontier Warden represented. Others merely recognized the look of unwanted justice arriving in town. Either way, curiosity came naturally.

Jud couldn't blame them. He wasn't exactly here on holiday. Removing his hat briefly, he settled onto a stool at the bar before setting it back upon his head with an easy motion. "Caf, if you've got it."

The bartender nodded. "Fresh pot."

"That's my favorite kind."

The older man poured a steaming mug before resting both hands upon the worn countertop. "You passing through?"

Jud wrapped his hands around the warmth. "For now."

The bartender regarded him for another moment. "You looking for something specific?"

Jud took an unhurried sip before shaking his head. "Just seeing the countryside."

The bartender snorted. "Not much scenery around here."

"So I've noticed." Jud smiled faintly. "If there was something worth looking into..." He let the sentence hang comfortably between them. "...I'd imagine someone would mention it."

Silence. The kind that stretched just long enough to become noticeable. The Force carried tiny echoes through the room. Not words at first. Just shifting emotions. Unease. Curiosity. Calculation. Then, somewhere behind him, barely louder than a mutter. "...Darik..."

Jud heard it as clearly as though the speaker had leaned over his shoulder. He didn't turn immediately. Instead, he lifted the mug for another sip, allowing the name to settle naturally into memory before giving any outward sign he'd heard it at all.

Only then did he glance over one shoulder. A small table near the back. Three locals. One had spoken. The other two were already trying—with varying degrees of success—to convince him he'd said enough. Jud regarded them for a heartbeat before offering the sort of easy smile that rarely made anyone feel threatened.

"Can't say I've ever met anyone by that name around here." No accusation. No challenge. Just idle conversation.

The speaker looked as though he might answer. The companions seated beside him had other ideas. One planted an elbow squarely into his ribs. The other gave a nearly imperceptible shake of the head.

The room breathed again. Jud merely shrugged. "Huh." He turned back toward the bar as though the exchange had already slipped from his mind, taking another drink of caf while allowing the conversation behind him to dissolve back into hushed whispers. Sometimes the quickest way to frighten a witness was to let them know they'd stumbled onto something important. Sometimes the better approach...

...was to convince them they hadn't said anything worth remembering at all.

Jud Renrok

• Location: Frontier Settlement, Raxus territory
• Objective: Investigate
• Outfit: Warden Attire
• Company: Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade had not missed the name.

Darik.

The syllables reached her as clearly as they had the Frontier Warden. Unlike him, however, she sat only a few paces from the table where the conversation had begun. Proximity, more than sharpened hearing, gave her the advantage. She did not turn toward the speakers. Looking acknowledged interest, and interest invited caution. Instead, she lowered her eyes to the datapad resting on the table before her, its map still open despite no longer requiring her attention. To anyone watching, she remained another traveler occupied with planning the next leg of a journey. Her focus, however, rested entirely on the voices behind her.

The Warden handled the moment well. His reply carried precisely the right amount of idle curiosity before he returned to his caf as though the name had meant nothing at all. Shade suspected the indifference was intentional. It was the sort of restraint she had learned first among the Veiled Sight and later refined during her years with Republic Intelligence. Questions could close mouths just as easily as they opened them. By refusing to pursue the remark, he allowed the tension to ebb naturally. The room settled. Glasses lifted again. Conversations resumed. At the table behind her, one of the men relaxed enough to speak.

"I told you," the first muttered, to which another replied under his breath, "You tell everybody." "I didn't tell him anything." "You almost did." A chair scraped quietly against the floor before the third voice finally entered the conversation, whispering, "It doesn't matter. Sorn won't like hearing strangers asking questions." The first man scoffed softly, "He won't hear about it if nobody tells him," and another dry laugh followed as someone asked, "You think nobody tells him?" Silence answered the question—not uncertain silence, but accepting silence.

Shade lifted her cup for another slow drink while considering what she had learned. The conversation had revealed very little about Darik Sorn himself, but a great deal about the people speaking his name. None of them questioned whether Sorn would learn about strangers asking after him. Their only concern was that he eventually would. That implied information moved through the settlement with remarkable efficiency. Whether by willing informants, frightened citizens, or something more organized remained uncertain, but the effect was the same. Darik Sorn possessed awareness beyond his immediate surroundings. For someone trading in information, that fit almost too well.

Her crimson eyes drifted briefly toward the Frontier Warden before returning to her drink. He had heard the name. He had chosen not to press. Another sensible decision. Whether by instinct, experience, or training, he understood that frightened people rarely became more forthcoming after being cornered. They became quieter. Shade found herself recognizing more than discipline now. She recognized judgment. It was still far too early to decide whether he represented an obstacle, an ally, or merely another investigator following a different trail. For now, he remained exactly what she preferred to keep most people.

An unknown.

Jud Renrok

 

[Jud Renrok]

Jud wrapped both hands around the warm caf mug, taking another slow sip as the tavern settled back into its familiar rhythm. To the casual observer, nothing had happened. Conversations resumed. Cards slapped against tabletops. The pair of freight haulers near the opposite wall had already returned to arguing over whose route was more miserable. Somewhere in the back, someone laughed loud enough to earn a glare from the proprietor. The brief ripple caused by the mention of Darik had passed. Or at least...

Everyone wanted it to appear that it had. Jud's expression never changed. Years riding the frontier had taught him that the loudest silence in a room often came after someone realized they had spoken a little too freely. Push then, and doors slammed shut. Wait...

...and sometimes people forgot they had ever closed them. The Force drifted around him like a lazy current. He wasn't searching minds—that was neither his way nor an ability he particularly valued. Instead, he simply let himself become aware of the room. The ebb and flow of attention. Tiny shifts in emotion. The natural cadence of conversation. Most of it was ordinary. Fatigue. Annoyance. Contentment.

One miner debating whether he could afford another drink. Another wondering if his wife would notice. Jud hid a smile behind the rim of his mug. People rarely realized how loudly ordinary thoughts echoed. Only one table remained different. Not tense. Careful. The three locals had returned to talking, but the conversation now carried the measured rhythm of men checking every sentence before speaking it aloud. Good. That meant they still believed they had escaped notice. Jud intended to help them keep believing exactly that.

If anyone in the room happened to possess the same patient habits he did, they might notice that his eyes never quite settled on the trio. They wandered naturally from table to table, lingering no longer on them than on the freight crews or the card players. His attention, however...Never truly left them.

The bartender wandered back down the polished stretch of wood. "Caf treating you all right?"

Jud nodded appreciatively. "Strong enough to wake the dead."

"We're famous for it."

"I've had worse."

The older man laughed. "You Wardens always this talkative?"

"Depends."

"On what?"

"If the caf's good." That earned another chuckle.

"Business been steady?"

The bartender shrugged. "Enough."

"Travelers keeping you busy?"

"Always."

Jud glanced idly toward the windows overlooking the main street. "Must get interesting folks through here."

"From time to time."

"Anyone worth remembering?"

The bartender wiped a glass with a rag that had seen better years "Most folks passing through prefer not to be remembered."

"Can't fault 'em for that." Jud took another drink. Neither man rushed to fill the silence.

Eventually the bartender leaned against the counter. "You headed farther east?"

"Haven't decided."

"Road's quiet."

Jud raised an eyebrow. "Quiet usually means one of two things."

The bartender looked at him. "Either nothing's happening..."

"...or folks stopped talking about it."

The older man offered no reply. He didn't need to. Sometimes silence answered more honestly than words ever could. Jud let the subject drift away as naturally as it had arrived. Instead, he asked about fishing in the nearby river. Whether the old irrigation pumps still worked. Which farm outside town sold the best smoked nerf. Harmless questions. Questions a traveler might ask. Questions that made people comfortable.

Behind him, the room continued breathing. The table that had spoken Darik's name relaxed another fraction. Not enough for most to notice. Enough for Jud. Across the tavern, he had the faint impression that at least one other pair of observant eyes might have recognized what he was doing. If so...

They possessed remarkable patience. Jud found himself almost hoping they stayed exactly where they were. Two people quietly watching the same room often saw different things. And on the frontier, different things sometimes completed the same picture.

Jud Renrok

• Location: Frontier Settlement, Raxus territory
• Objective: Investigate
• Outfit: Warden Attire
• Company: Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade had seen enough performances in her life to recognize one when it was done well. The Warden had not abandoned the three locals any more than she had. His attention wandered through the tavern with convincing ease, never lingering long enough to betray where his actual interest remained. He spoke with the bartender about roads, travelers, fishing, irrigation pumps, and anything else sufficiently mundane to make the earlier exchange seem forgotten. To anyone without reason to examine him closely, he was simply a lawman drinking caf and passing the time. Shade knew better.

The interesting part was that he almost certainly knew better about her as well. She had caught the occasional drift of his attention in her direction, never prolonged enough to become an accusation or invitation. He knew someone else in the room was watching. Whether he had determined precisely what interested her remained uncertain, although Shade suspected he was intelligent enough to make the connection eventually. Two strangers had entered the same settlement asking their own questions, and both had become interested when the same name surfaced. Coincidence remained possible. Shade had survived too long to rely upon it.

She left the Warden alone and returned her attention to the greater opportunity he had inadvertently provided. The three locals were relaxing. Not completely, but enough. His harmless questions at the bar had done precisely what Shade imagined he intended them to do, convincing the men that the dangerous moment had passed. Their voices remained lower than before, yet the careful pauses between every sentence gradually shortened. Shade stayed exactly where she was, one hand resting beside her datapad while the other occasionally lifted her drink. She did not need to watch them. The reflection in the darkened portion of her screen gave her enough to follow their movements without turning her head.

"You think he's here because of the caravans?" one of them finally asked.

"What else would bring a Warden all the way out here?"

"Could be nothing."

"Since when does nothing wear a badge?"

The third man shifted in his chair, glancing toward the bar before lowering his voice further. "Doesn't matter why he's here. If he starts asking about Sorn, somebody will tell him to leave."

"And if he doesn't?"

Another pause.

"You know what happens."

Shade's expression remained unchanged, though the exchange settled another piece into place. Darik Sorn was no longer merely a broker whose information had somehow included fragments of her past. Whatever operation he maintained here extended beyond selling secrets. The caravans had interested the Warden, apparently enough to bring him here, and the locals believed those same activities could eventually lead him to Sorn. That did not prove Darik was responsible for whatever was happening outside the settlement, but it narrowed the distance between two investigations that had begun for very different reasons. Shade had come because someone possessed information about her that they should never have obtained. The Warden appeared to have come because something was happening to the people living here. Somehow, both trails were beginning to converge on the same man.

Her crimson eyes lifted from the datapad long enough to settle briefly on the Warden at the bar. She understood what he was doing now, and there was little doubt left that he understood someone else was paying attention. Neither of them needed to acknowledge it. Not yet. Approaching him would tell the room that two strangers had found common cause, and Shade saw no reason to surrender that advantage before either knew what the other wanted. So she took another measured sip and returned her attention to the three men nearby. For the moment, she and the Warden could continue pretending they were strangers following separate trails. The people watching Darik Sorn did not need to know otherwise, particularly when Shade herself had not yet decided whether it was true.

Jud Renrok

 

[Jud Renrok]

Jud let the tavern breathe. The caf disappeared gradually while conversation rebuilt itself around him. He offered the occasional comment when the bartender spoke, laughed when one of the freight haulers complained that half the settlements on the frontier measured distance by how many suspension components a road destroyed, and otherwise seemed perfectly content to spend part of his afternoon doing absolutely nothing useful. At least, that was what Jud wanted everyone to believe.

The table behind him remained the center of an awareness he never outwardly acknowledged. He didn't need to hear every word. Darik's name had already told him enough to know there was something worth finding. More important was what had happened afterward. Men had gone quiet. Others had stopped them from talking. Fear had entered a room where, moments before, there had only been curiosity about the newly arrived Warden.

Someone would tell Darik if Jud started asking questions. That meant someone was probably going to tell Darik about him regardless. Jud drained the last of his caf and placed the mug upon the bar. "That's good caf."

The bartender glanced at the empty mug. "Another?"

Jud considered it with exaggerated seriousness before shaking his head. "Tempting, but I reckon I've imposed on your hospitality long enough."

"Thought you were passing through."

"Still am." Jud stood, adjusting his coat before settling his hat more comfortably upon his head. He looked toward the windows and the road beyond them. "Think I might wander east awhile. See what all that quiet looks like."

There it was. Small. Barely anything. The bartender's hand stopped for perhaps half a heartbeat before collecting Jud's mug. "Not much out there."

"So I've heard." Jud placed enough credits on the counter to cover the caf and a generous gratuity. "Appreciate the conversation."

He turned toward the door. His eyes made one final sweep across the tavern as he went. The freight haulers. The miners. The card players. The three men.

And the Chiss woman. Jud never actually turned his head toward her. Instead, as he passed her portion of the room, his gaze shifted just slightly. A fraction too precise to be accidental and far too brief for anyone who wasn't already watching him to notice. There was no smile. No nod. Nothing that publicly acknowledged her. Just a momentary meeting offered between two people who had spent the better part of the last hour pretending neither had noticed the other.

I know you're watching.

Whether she caught it was another question entirely. Jud didn't look back to find out. The door swung open, and the Frontier Warden stepped into the afternoon sunlight.

---

The eastern road was easy enough to follow. Buildings gradually became farther apart as Jud moved away from the commercial district. Shops gave way to repair yards, warehouses, storage lots, freight depots and fenced compounds where cargo waited for transport farther into the frontier.

The character of the settlement changed with them. Back near the tavern, people walked. Here, things moved. Cargo speeders rolled between warehouses. Loaders carried containers toward staging areas. Mechanics worked beneath raised vehicles while drivers argued over manifests and departure schedules.

Jud slowed his pace. He had told the bartender he intended to look east. That didn't mean he intended to march blindly down the road where caravans had disappeared. Not yet. Instead, Jud stopped near the settlement's eastern boundary where the last warehouses gave way to scattered structures and the road stretched toward the distant frontier.

He rested one boot against a low barrier beside a freight yard and looked outward. To anyone passing, the Warden appeared to be doing exactly what he'd announced. Looking at the countryside. Jud's pale yellow eyes instead moved across the nearer details. Which businesses loaded freight. Which crews traveled together. Who watched the road. Which warehouses seemed busier than their manifests ought to justify. And, perhaps most importantly...Who seemed particularly interested in the Frontier Warden who had just announced to half a tavern that he was heading east.

Jud adjusted the brim of his hat against the afternoon sun. He wasn't ready to leave town. He wanted to see who thought he already had.

Jud Renrok

• Location: Frontier Settlement, Raxus territory
• Objective: Investigate
• Outfit: Warden Attire
• Company: Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade

Shade caught the look.

There was no telepathic whisper accompanying it, no intrusion brushing against the carefully guarded boundaries of her mind. She needed neither. The fraction of a second in which the Warden's eyes found hers was deliberate enough to communicate everything that mattered. He had noticed her. More importantly, he wanted her to know that he had noticed her without informing anyone else in the tavern. Shade offered nothing in return. No nod, no smile, not even a lingering glance. Her crimson eyes simply returned to the datapad as he continued toward the door. Acknowledging the exchange would have accomplished nothing that silence had not already done better.

His announcement about traveling east interested her considerably more. It had been made loudly enough for the bartender to hear, naturally enough to sound incidental, and shortly after the three locals had established that word of strangers asking questions would eventually reach Sorn. Shade doubted the timing was accidental. Whether the Warden intended to actually travel east was another matter entirely. She remained seated after the door closed behind him, taking another measured drink while listening for the tavern's reaction. If someone inside reported his intentions, leaving immediately behind him would only ensure that she became part of the same story.

The three men did not disappoint. Their conversation remained subdued, but the Warden's departure loosened tongues that his presence had kept restrained. One muttered something about the eastern road, another insisted that it was no concern of theirs, and the third finally silenced both with a terse reminder that someone ought to know where the Warden was going. Shade did not need a name attached to someone. Not after everything she had already heard. One of the men rose several minutes later, finished what remained in his glass, and departed alone. She resisted the obvious temptation to follow. Darik Sorn's network was beginning to reveal itself, and sometimes allowing one messenger to disappear produced more information than catching him halfway to his destination.

Shade waited longer. She paid for her drink, closed the map on her datapad, and stepped outside only after enough time had passed that following the Warden would no longer appear intentional. The afternoon light forced a brief adjustment from eyes more comfortable with shadow, but her pace remained that of someone with nowhere particularly urgent to be. She did not head directly east. Instead, she crossed through another street and followed a roughly parallel route, occasionally stopping at storefronts or allowing passing freight traffic to interrupt her progress. The Warden had publicly announced his destination. Shade preferred that nobody could say the same about hers.

She found him again near the settlement's eastern boundary, though she did not approach. From farther down the adjoining road, partially obscured by the ordinary movement of freight crews and cargo speeders, Shade watched him settle beside a freight yard and apparently contemplate the countryside. The performance might have fooled her had she not spent the last hour watching him work. His attention remained closer than the horizon. Warehouses. Crews. Traffic. People. Most tellingly, the people who were paying attention to him. The realization brought the faintest lift to one eyebrow. He had told the tavern he was going east because he wanted to know who cared that he was going east.

Shade changed her own focus accordingly. Watching the Warden would tell her little she did not already know. Watching everyone else watch him was another matter. Her gaze moved across loading bays, warehouse entrances, parked speeders, workers lingering without obvious purpose, and anyone whose attention returned to the solitary lawman too frequently. Somewhere among them might be the next thread leading toward Darik Sorn. The Warden had chosen to pull it openly. Shade was content to remain invisible beside him, figuratively if not literally, and see what unraveled.

Jud Renrok

 

[Shade]

Shade caught the look.

There was no telepathic whisper accompanying it, no intrusion brushing against the carefully guarded boundaries of her mind. She needed neither. The fraction of a second in which the Warden's eyes found hers was deliberate enough to communicate everything that mattered. He had noticed her. More importantly, he wanted her to know that he had noticed her without informing anyone else in the tavern. Shade offered nothing in return. No nod, no smile, not even a lingering glance. Her crimson eyes simply returned to the datapad as he continued toward the door. Acknowledging the exchange would have accomplished nothing that silence had not already done better.

His announcement about traveling east interested her considerably more. It had been made loudly enough for the bartender to hear, naturally enough to sound incidental, and shortly after the three locals had established that word of strangers asking questions would eventually reach Sorn. Shade doubted the timing was accidental. Whether the Warden intended to actually travel east was another matter entirely. She remained seated after the door closed behind him, taking another measured drink while listening for the tavern's reaction. If someone inside reported his intentions, leaving immediately behind him would only ensure that she became part of the same story.

The three men did not disappoint. Their conversation remained subdued, but the Warden's departure loosened tongues that his presence had kept restrained. One muttered something about the eastern road, another insisted that it was no concern of theirs, and the third finally silenced both with a terse reminder that someone ought to know where the Warden was going. Shade did not need a name attached to someone. Not after everything she had already heard. One of the men rose several minutes later, finished what remained in his glass, and departed alone. She resisted the obvious temptation to follow. Darik Sorn's network was beginning to reveal itself, and sometimes allowing one messenger to disappear produced more information than catching him halfway to his destination.

Shade waited longer. She paid for her drink, closed the map on her datapad, and stepped outside only after enough time had passed that following the Warden would no longer appear intentional. The afternoon light forced a brief adjustment from eyes more comfortable with shadow, but her pace remained that of someone with nowhere particularly urgent to be. She did not head directly east. Instead, she crossed through another street and followed a roughly parallel route, occasionally stopping at storefronts or allowing passing freight traffic to interrupt her progress. The Warden had publicly announced his destination. Shade preferred that nobody could say the same about hers.

She found him again near the settlement's eastern boundary, though she did not approach. From farther down the adjoining road, partially obscured by the ordinary movement of freight crews and cargo speeders, Shade watched him settle beside a freight yard and apparently contemplate the countryside. The performance might have fooled her had she not spent the last hour watching him work. His attention remained closer than the horizon. Warehouses. Crews. Traffic. People. Most tellingly, the people who were paying attention to him. The realization brought the faintest lift to one eyebrow. He had told the tavern he was going east because he wanted to know who cared that he was going east.

Shade changed her own focus accordingly. Watching the Warden would tell her little she did not already know. Watching everyone else watch him was another matter. Her gaze moved across loading bays, warehouse entrances, parked speeders, workers lingering without obvious purpose, and anyone whose attention returned to the solitary lawman too frequently. Somewhere among them might be the next thread leading toward Darik Sorn. The Warden had chosen to pull it openly. Shade was content to remain invisible beside him, figuratively if not literally, and see what unraveled.

Jud Renrok

 

[Jud Renrok]

The eastern edge of town had its own language. Repulsor engines hummed beneath overloaded freight speeders. Loading machinery whined as containers were lifted from warehouse floors and settled onto transport beds. Drivers shouted instructions that nobody seemed particularly interested in following. Somewhere inside an open maintenance bay, metal struck metal with enough regularity that Jud suspected someone was either repairing an engine or taking out several years of frustration on it. Jud listened to all of it.

More importantly, he listened for the things that changed. He remained beside the low barrier with one boot resting against it, hat shading his eyes while he appeared to study the countryside stretching beyond the settlement. There was no hurry. If someone had cared enough about his announcement in the tavern to pass it along, Jud figured they'd need time to decide what to do about it. Maybe nobody would. That would tell him something too.

A cargo hauler rolled past, kicking dust across the road. Jud turned his head slightly away from it, using the motion to sweep his attention across the freight yard again. Workers. Loaders. Drivers. A foreman near one of the warehouse doors stood studying something on a datapad.

Jud had noticed him earlier mostly because there hadn't been anything worth noticing. Middle-aged human. Work clothes. Heavy boots. The sort of man who looked like he'd spent enough years around freight yards to complain about his back whenever anyone asked how he was doing. The man's commlink vibrated. He checked it. Jud's eyes had already moved elsewhere when the foreman's lifted.

But the Force noticed what his eyes didn't. Attention sharpened. Not fear. Not quite hostility. Purpose. Jud continued looking toward the road. A moment later, the man's gaze landed upon him. Then disappeared. That was interesting. The foreman returned to his datapad with considerably more concentration than the device seemed to require.

Jud almost smiled. Once could be coincidence. Twice was worth remembering. He remained exactly where he was. Several minutes passed before the foreman finally tucked the datapad beneath one arm and started across the yard. Not directly toward Jud. That would have been too obvious.

He stopped first to speak with one of the loaders. Checked a container identification plate. Exchanged a few words with a driver. Then his wandering path eventually brought him toward the barrier where the Warden stood. "Afternoon."

Jud turned. "Afternoon."

The man nodded toward the road. "You waiting on somebody?"

"Nope."

"Transport?"

Jud shook his head. "Got my own."

The foreman's eyes traveled briefly across the badge before returning to Jud's face. "Saw you looking over the yard. Thought maybe you needed something."

Jud glanced toward the nearest warehouses as though only now realizing how his presence might appear. "Just stretching my legs."

"Long way from the center of town to stretch your legs."

"Good caf." The man blinked. Jud continued with perfect seriousness. "Figured I'd better walk some of it off." That earned something halfway between a laugh and uncertainty. The Force whispered beneath it. Careful. Jud's expression remained pleasant.

The man leaned against the opposite end of the barrier. "Not much worth seeing east of here."

"So I've heard."

"Mostly farms. Mines. Couple settlements farther out."

Jud nodded. "Sounds peaceful."

"Usually."

There it was. Jud looked toward him. "Usually?"

The foreman shrugged. "Frontier."

"Fair enough."

Another freight speeder passed. The man's attention followed it for a moment before returning to Jud. "Road can get dangerous for folks who don't know it."

Jud smiled. "Good thing I've got a map."

The foreman's expression didn't change. His emotions did. Not anger exactly. Frustration. Jud had answered the warning without acknowledging there had been one. "Maps don't tell you everything."

"No." Jud looked east again. "That's why I like talking to people."

Silence followed. The man studied him more openly now. Jud let him. If Darik Sorn had sent someone to determine why a Frontier Warden had arrived, there wasn't much point pretending he didn't know questions were being asked. That didn't mean Jud intended to answer them.

"You Wardens operate alone?"

There it was. Jud turned his head slightly. "Sometimes."

"Seems dangerous."

"Sometimes."

"Someone know you're here?"

Jud smiled pleasantly. "Folks usually notice the hat."

The foreman stared at him for a heartbeat. Then laughed. This one sounded more genuine. "You're a funny man."

"My mother thought so."

"Didn't mean funny like that."

"I know."

Neither spoke for several seconds. The Force pressed gently against Jud's awareness again. Intent. Pressure. The man wasn't here to attack him. At least, Jud didn't think so. He was measuring. Trying to determine what the Warden knew, who had sent him, whether he was alone and, perhaps most importantly, whether he could be persuaded that whatever waited east wasn't worth finding.

Jud had learned something already. Someone cared very much about him going east. What he didn't know was that someone else cared about this conversation. Farther down the adjoining road, partially obscured by freight traffic and the constant movement surrounding the warehouses, Shade had a better angle than Jud did.

From there, another detail was visible. A second man had stopped working shortly after the foreman's commlink received its message. He hadn't approached. Instead, he crossed behind a parked freight speeder and settled near its open cargo compartment, adopting the posture of someone checking securing clamps along the vehicle's side. Except he checked the same clamp three times.

His attention repeatedly returned to the conversation beside the barrier. When the foreman shifted, he shifted. When Jud moved his hand, the second man's eyes followed it. The Warden never looked his way. From Jud's position, the speeder concealed most of the man's movements. From Shade's...

The coordination was obvious. Two men. Perhaps more. Jud knew none of that. He merely rested his forearms casually against the barrier and continued speaking with the one threat he could see.

The foreman finally straightened. "Friendly advice?"

Jud glanced over. "Always willing to hear it."

"If you're really just passing through..." The man paused. "...keep passing."

There was nothing friendly about the emotion behind those words. Jud considered him for a moment. Then nodded. "Appreciate it."

That response seemed to surprise the man. "You do?"

"Sure." Jud pushed away from the barrier. "Good advice is hard to find." The foreman watched him carefully. Jud adjusted his hat. "Doesn't mean I'm gonna take it."

For the first time, the man's practiced friendliness disappeared entirely. Only for a heartbeat. Long enough. Then the mask returned. "Safe travels, Warden."

Jud tipped the brim of his hat. "You too."

The foreman walked away. Jud didn't watch him go. Instead, he returned his attention toward the eastern road, seemingly fascinated once more by the empty frontier stretching beyond town. The Force still carried unease around him. He couldn't identify every source. Didn't need to. Someone had heard about the Warden. Someone had sent a man to investigate. And that man had wanted to know whether Jud Renrok was alone. Jud slowly folded his arms across his chest. That last question bothered him most.

Behind the freight speeder, unseen by him, the second man finally moved away. And somewhere else along the eastern edge of town, the Chiss woman from the tavern had just learned something the Frontier Warden hadn't. Jud had been right. Someone cared that he'd come east. He simply didn't yet realize how many someones were watching.

Jud Renrok

• Location: Frontier Settlement, Raxus territory
• Objective: Investigate
• Outfit: Warden Attire
• Company: Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade waited until the second man disappeared before moving.

She had no intention of following him immediately. That was precisely what someone watching the freight yard would expect from anyone who had noticed the coordination, and Shade had already learned enough to justify patience. The foreman had approached the Warden after receiving a message. Another man had positioned himself where he could watch the conversation without appearing involved, paying particular attention whenever Jud moved his hands. Neither had attacked, and neither had needed to. They had been evaluating him. The question about whether he worked alone had only made their interest clearer.

Jud Renrok, whether he knew it or not, had disturbed something.

Shade had watched enough of him by now to be reasonably certain it wasn't accidental. The man had spent the better part of the afternoon behaving as though he had nowhere important to be while quietly encouraging people to reveal exactly how interested they were in his presence. She recognized the method because she'd used variations of it herself. He wasn't an intelligence operative, at least not in the manner she understood the profession, but he possessed the patience of an investigator and enough discipline not to grab at the first useful thing placed in front of him.

That made what she was considering slightly less foolish.

Shade stepped away from the position she'd occupied and disappeared briefly into the traffic moving between the freight yards. By the time she emerged onto the road leading toward Jud, something about her had changed. Her normally economical stride had acquired a slight inconsistency. One step landed perfectly, the next required a small correction. Her shoulders were looser than they had been in the tavern, her attention seemingly divided between the road beneath her boots and some considerably more interesting thought inside her own head. It wasn't the ridiculous stagger of someone performing intoxication for an audience. Shade had seen enough genuinely drunk people throughout her life to know most of them were perfectly capable of walking until suddenly they weren't.

She let one shoulder clip Jud as she passed.

The collision wasn't hard enough to threaten either of their balance, though Shade allowed it to affect hers considerably more than it should have. Her hand reached toward him as though seeking something stable, and for the brief moment that brought them close enough to speak without carrying her voice beyond him, the vague softness disappeared from her crimson eyes.

"There was a man behind a speeder also watching you."

There was nothing slurred about those words.

Her weight shifted again, and the illusion returned almost immediately as Shade appeared to struggle with the terribly complicated business of deciding which direction she'd intended to travel. Whether Jud steadied her or merely allowed her to recover was his choice. She didn't look toward the speeder or indicate where the second observer had gone. If the Warden was half as perceptive as she suspected, telling him where to look would only encourage him to look there, and anyone still watching would learn considerably more from that reaction than Shade wanted to give them.

"Kept checking the same cargo clamp." Shade added quietly, her expression carrying the faint, unfocused amusement of someone who had probably enjoyed one drink too many. "Three times. Started watching after your friend's commlink went off."

Then she smiled at Jud. It wasn't Shade's smile.

It belonged entirely to the mildly intoxicated traveler who had accidentally wandered into a stranger and seemed only now to have realized she had done so. "Sorry." The apology came louder than everything preceding it, accompanied by a small shake of her head as though trying to gather thoughts that refused to cooperate. "Road moved."

She made to continue past him, leaving the Warden with the choice of letting the apparently drunken Chiss wander away or stopping her long enough to ask why the woman he'd noticed watching him in the tavern had just quietly provided information about someone he hadn't been able to see.

Shade rather hoped he chose the latter. Not because she particularly wanted the company. She wanted to know what Jud Renrok did when someone handed him a piece of information he hadn't found himself.

Jud Renrok

 

[Jud Renrok]

Jud didn't look toward the speeder. Didn't search for the man Shade described. Didn't so much as twitch in the direction she'd indicated. Instead, his attention remained entirely upon the apparently intoxicated Chiss who had just collided with him. There had been two. That changed things. More importantly, she had seen the second when he hadn't.

Jud had only a heartbeat to consider that before Shade's performance resumed and she offered her apology to anyone who might still be watching. "Road moved."

The corner of Jud's mouth threatened to betray him. "That'll happen." Shade started past him. Jud let her get exactly one step. Then his hand caught her gently above the elbow. "Whoa there, ma'am."

His voice carried farther now, loud enough for nearby workers to hear without sounding deliberately projected. He stepped alongside her, offering an arm for support while adopting the resigned expression of a lawman who had unexpectedly inherited responsibility for someone else's poor afternoon decisions. "Think maybe you've had enough sightseeing for one day."

Whether Shade actually needed his support was irrelevant. Jud suspected she could have crossed the entire settlement walking a perfectly straight line while balancing a blaster on her head. The point was giving anyone still watching a simple explanation for why the Frontier Warden and the Chiss traveler were leaving together. Jud started them back toward town. "Come on." He didn't immediately lower his voice. "Let's find someplace you can sit down before that road jumps you again."

They passed the freight yard without hurry. Jud didn't look behind them. He didn't need to. If Darik's people were watching, let them see exactly what he wanted them to see: a Warden whose afternoon reconnaissance had been interrupted by a traveler who couldn't hold her liquor.

Only after they had moved several streets inward did Jud alter course. He guided Shade away from the main commercial road and onto a narrower lane running between an old repair shop and a warehouse whose loading doors faced the opposite direction. Machinery hummed somewhere beyond the wall. Pedestrian traffic was sparse, but they weren't trapped in some blind alley either.

Jud slowed. His hand slipped away from Shade's arm. He regarded her for a moment. "You seem to sober up quick." A faint smile accompanied the observation. Then he offered his hand. "Jud Renrok." No title. No explanation. The badge had already handled that part.

His eyes remained on hers while allowing her the choice of what, exactly, she wanted to give him in return. Once introductions were made, Jud glanced briefly toward the mouth of the lane—not searching for anyone specific, simply checking their surroundings—before returning his attention to her.

"Didn't see the second one." There was no excuse attached. No explanation about angles or blocked sightlines. He simply hadn't seen him. "Appreciate you seeing him." Jud leaned one shoulder casually against the wall. "Means my friend back there wasn't just curious."

The question about whether he operated alone carried considerably more weight now. One man conducting the conversation while another watched from concealment suggested organization. Preparation. And perhaps contingency. Jud studied Shade again.

She'd noticed Darik's name in the tavern. She'd noticed Jud noticing it. She'd remained behind after he left, eventually made her own way east, spotted surveillance he hadn't, and then constructed an excuse to pass that information without exposing either of them. That was an awful lot of effort for a traveler with idle curiosity.

"You've been following Darik longer than I have." It wasn't phrased as a question. Jud didn't demand an explanation either. He simply let the observation settle between them before adding: "You after him..." A small pause. "...or is he after you?"

Whatever answer she chose to give him, Jud wasn't expecting her life story. He certainly wasn't about to offer his own in exchange. But they had reached the point where pretending their investigations hadn't crossed was becoming more dangerous than acknowledging that they had.

"For what it's worth, mine's simple." Jud folded his arms comfortably. "Freight's disappearing east of here. Whoever's taking it knows what they're looking for before they hit the caravans. Folks around town have started getting real careful about what they say, and the people who were supposed to do something about it either couldn't or wouldn't." He shrugged. "So somebody asked the Wardens."

That was enough. No names. No witnesses. No reports. Just the shape of the problem. Jud's yellow eyes remained on Shade. "And somehow, every time I poke that problem..." His smile returned faintly. "...Darik Sorn seems to twitch."

For several seconds he said nothing more. Then the smile became just a little more amused. "For the record..." Jud tipped his hat back slightly. "I've seen worse drunks." A beat. "Not many."

Jud Renrok

• Location: Frontier Settlement, Raxus territory
• Objective: Investigate
• Outfit: Warden Attire
• Company: Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade allowed Jud's hand to settle above her elbow without resisting. For the briefest instant, her crimson eyes dropped toward it, not because the contact threatened her but because permitting someone else to guide her anywhere ran against instincts cultivated over considerably more years than she cared to count. Then the moment passed. Jud had understood what she was doing without forcing her to explain it, and more importantly, he had never looked toward the speeder after she'd warned him about the second observer. That earned him considerably more credit than the badge.

She leaned into the performance as he offered his arm, allowing just enough of her weight against him to sell the impression without making him genuinely responsible for keeping her upright. Her steps remained fractionally uneven as they started back toward town, and Jud's remark about the road jumping her again earned an indistinct sound that could have been agreement or the irritated response of someone who considered the pavement personally responsible for her condition. Anyone watching them leave would see a Frontier Warden saddled with an intoxicated traveler at an inconvenient moment. It was simple, mildly embarrassing, and considerably easier to believe than anything closer to the truth.

Shade noticed when Jud altered their route, just as she noticed the decreasing pedestrian traffic, the repair shop, the warehouse, and the possible approaches into the narrower lane. She made no objection. By the time his hand left her arm, however, the transformation was immediate enough to make the earlier performance almost difficult to reconcile with the woman now standing beside him. Her shoulders straightened, the slight looseness disappeared from her posture, and when she shifted her weight, it settled with perfect balance rather than the uncertain sway she'd maintained since colliding with him. Even her crimson eyes lost the deliberately unfocused quality she'd given them before.

"It's a remarkable recovery." Dry amusement warmed the words as she met Jud's faint smile with one of her own. Her gaze dropped briefly toward his offered hand before she accepted it with a firm, brief shake. He had given her a name without demanding one in return, and Shade decided that warranted the same courtesy. "Shade." Nothing more followed. It was the name she'd used professionally for years, and if Jud eventually discovered there was another attached to her, that could happen when there was a reason for him to know it.

She listened without interruption as Jud described the missing freight and the information someone appeared to possess before the caravans were hit. It fit disturbingly well with what she'd observed since arriving. The careful conversations, the watchers, and the question about whether Jud operated alone no longer looked like isolated precautions. Someone wasn't merely stealing whatever happened to pass through vulnerable territory. They were selecting targets, meaning information reached them before the cargo did. Darik Sorn, twitching whenever Jud disturbed that arrangement, was considerably more interesting.

"Then we may be looking at different parts of the same problem." Shade folded her arms loosely, her attention remaining upon Jud even as some portion of her awareness stayed on the lane around them. "I don't know whether Sorn is responsible for your missing freight. I hadn't heard anything about it before coming here, so I'm not going to pretend I've established a connection I haven't." There was something almost approving in the glance she gave him afterward. He had been equally careful with what he'd told her. No inflated certainty. No attempt to make the evidence cleaner than it was. Shade could work with someone who understood the difference between knowing and suspecting.

His earlier question was more complicated. Was she after Darik, or was Darik after her? Shade regarded him silently for several seconds, though there was less suspicion in that consideration than there had been when they'd first noticed one another. Jud had offered her the shape of his investigation rather than demanding the entirety of hers in return. More importantly, he'd admitted without excuse that he hadn't seen the second watcher. People who could acknowledge what they'd missed were usually considerably safer to work beside than people who needed to be the cleverest person in every room.

"Somewhere between the two, I think." The faint humor disappeared from her expression, replaced by something quieter as she continued. "Someone has been selling pieces of my life. Old identities. Travel records. Places I've worked. Pieces of assignments that should never have reached anyone outside the people involved." Her mouth tightened slightly. "Not enough in any one place to tell someone everything about me, but enough that the right person could start assembling a picture."

That was the part Shade disliked most. A single compromised identity could be abandoned. A leaked destination could be accounted for. Even an exposed operation had limits if one knew precisely what had escaped. This was different. Someone was collecting fragments separated by years, employers, worlds, and identities, then putting those fragments where interested people could acquire them. She still didn't know who had begun the process, and that uncertainty bothered her considerably more than knowing someone had purchased the information.

"I followed the transactions through intermediaries until Darik Sorn's name began appearing." Shade shifted slightly, resting one shoulder lightly against the opposite wall rather than remaining quite so formally poised across from him. It wasn't much, but the posture was marginally less guarded than before. "I don't know whether he's the original source. I don't think he is. Brokers survive by standing between the person who has something and the person willing to pay for it, which is why I'm not here to kill him."

Her crimson gaze remained on Jud's as she explained the distinction. "I want to know where he gets the information, who has bought it, how many copies exist, and whether someone commissioned him to collect it or he simply realized there was a market. What happens after I have those answers depends considerably upon the answers." Shade suspected Jud could draw whatever conclusions he wished from that without her spelling them out, but there was no threat in her voice. For now, Darik was worth considerably more to her capable of answering questions than incapable of answering anything.

Jud's freight problem nevertheless changed the investigation. Darik trafficking in information about Shade was personal. Darik potentially participating in an organized operation that obtained advance knowledge of valuable cargo suggested information brokerage might be more than an incidental sideline. She wasn't prepared to call the connection established, but neither was she willing to ignore it. "If your caravans are being selected before they're attacked, somebody is selling information there too. Cargo, routes, guards, schedules. Different information from mine, but the same kind of commodity." Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully before a small smile returned. "You may have just given me another reason to be interested in what Sorn actually sells."

The smile lingered when Jud offered his assessment of her drunken performance. Shade regarded him with exaggerated consideration, as though deciding whether the remark deserved offense. "I'll try to be less convincing next time." Her gaze dropped briefly toward the ground between them before returning to him. "Although in my defense, the road was behaving very suspiciously."

It was a small joke, but genuine. The amusement softened rather than disappeared entirely when Shade considered what had happened back at the freight yard. "You didn't look at the second man when I told you." Coming from her, the observation was closer to praise than it initially sounded. "And you admitted you missed him instead of spending five minutes explaining why you couldn't possibly have seen him from where you were standing. I appreciate both."

Shade let her arms fall naturally to her sides. Jud had given her enough to understand why he'd come east, and she had given him enough to understand why Darik mattered to her. Neither needed the other's life story, nor did either of them have reason to trust the other completely. They didn't need to. For the moment, competence, overlapping interests, and a willingness to be truthful about the limits of what they knew were enough.

"You need to know who's feeding people information about those caravans, and I need Sorn talking before he realizes I've found him." Shade held Jud's gaze for another moment, the reserve in her expression eased by the faintest trace of that earlier warmth. "Those objectives don't seem incompatible. We might even make each other's afternoon slightly easier."

Jud Renrok

 

[Jud Renrok]

Jud listened. That was usually the useful part. People had a habit of telling you considerably more than they intended if you gave them enough room to decide which words belonged in the silence. Shade was different. Jud doubted a single word escaped her that she hadn't already considered from three different angles before letting it out.

Even so, she'd told him plenty. Old identities. Travel records. Assignments that only the people involved should have known about. Following transactions through intermediaries. Knowing exactly how to pass information beneath the noses of men watching them. And then there was the particularly interesting clarification that she wasn't here to kill Darik Sorn because he was presently more useful alive.

Jud kept his expression unchanged. He had a pretty good guess what Shade did for a living. Or had done. Spy came immediately to mind. Intelligence operative sounded more respectable. Assassin wasn't out of the question, particularly given the casual way she'd discussed the possibility of what might happen to Sorn after she had her answers. Probably some unpleasant combination of the three. Whatever the precise answer, people didn't collect multiple identities because they sold irrigation equipment. Jud didn't ask.

Shade had given him what she wanted him to know. She had also been surprisingly straightforward about the limits of that information. She hadn't claimed Sorn was responsible for the caravans. Hadn't claimed he was even the original source of what was being sold about her. She had separated what she knew from what she suspected. Jud appreciated that. He wasn't entirely sure Shade was a good person. He was becoming reasonably sure she was an honest one. Those weren't always the same thing. Out here, sometimes the second was enough to start with.

Her theory about information being the common commodity drew a slow nod from him. "That's what I'm thinking." His eyes drifted downward for a moment as he considered it. "Someone knows which caravans are worth hitting before they leave. What they're carrying. Where they're going. Maybe how many guards they've got."

Jud looked back at Shade. "Could be somebody inside the freight companies. Could be someone watching manifests. Could be half a dozen people selling little pieces that don't mean much until somebody puts them together." Which sounded rather similar to what had happened to Shade. Different merchandise. Same business.

The fact that Sorn appeared whenever either trail was disturbed didn't prove anything, but Jud had learned long ago that coincidences deserved attention even when they hadn't yet earned conclusions. Shade's assessment of his behavior at the freight yard earned a slight lift of his eyebrows. "Well, thank you." He said it as though being congratulated for not immediately turning around and staring at the concealed observer was considerably more praise than he'd expected to receive that afternoon.

As for admitting he'd missed the man, Jud merely shrugged. "Didn't see him." That remained the beginning and end of it. He could invent a dozen reasons why. Bad angle. Parked speeder. Attention occupied by the foreman. None of them changed the useful part. Shade had seen him. Jud hadn't. Next time, he'd know to look.

Her comment about making each other's afternoon easier brought the faint smile back. "Don't know about easier." Jud straightened from the wall. "You've already assaulted me once." His expression remained perfectly serious for approximately two seconds. "Could be dangerous working with you." The suspicious road received a glance. "Though I suppose we've established who was responsible." A beat. "Road's got a mean streak."

Then he extended his hand again. The first time had been an introduction. This wasn't. "Reckon we might." There wasn't much ceremony to it. No speech about trust. No demand for promises about what Shade would or wouldn't do. Jud didn't trust her. He doubted she trusted him. Trust came later. For now, their interests lined up, she had covered something he'd missed, and neither of them appeared interested in making the other's problem worse. That was enough.

Once the understanding between them was settled, Jud glanced back toward the mouth of the lane. "Think I liked us better when everybody thought we didn't know each other." The wording drew another small smile. "Professionally speaking."

Walking around town together would accomplish little except tell Sorn's people that the Warden and the suspiciously observant Chiss had compared notes. Better to leave them believing the freight-yard encounter had been nothing more than an unfortunate meeting between law enforcement and an unsteady traveler. More importantly, Jud had already become interesting. There wasn't much point wasting that.

"They're watching me." He didn't sound particularly bothered by the realization. "Might as well give 'em something worth watching." Jud tipped his hat back slightly. "I can keep making noise. Ask questions. Wander places folks don't think I ought to wander." Another shrug. "Seems I'm pretty good at bothering people."

His gaze settled on Shade. "And you seem pretty good at noticing who listens." He didn't phrase it as an assignment. Shade wasn't a deputy, and Jud had no intention of treating her like one. It was simply the obvious advantage their different positions offered them.

Sorn's people already knew why the Frontier Warden was here. Or thought they did. Every pair of eyes Jud pulled toward himself was a pair that wasn't looking elsewhere. That elsewhere could belong to Shade. "We keep looking like strangers. Whoever comes asking about me, you watch where they came from and where they go afterward. If you shake something loose on your end, I'll do the same."

Jud considered the idea another moment. "No chasing the first thing that moves. We let 'em show us the network." Garrick would probably approve of that. Listen longer than you speak. Sometimes that applied to people. Sometimes it applied to an entire town.

Jud's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Sorn's comfortable right now. Comfortable enough to have people watching strangers instead of disappearing the moment somebody says his name." That was useful. "So let's not make him uncomfortable yet."

The smile returned. "Well..." Jud adjusted the brim of his hat. "...no more uncomfortable than I've already made him."

He gave Shade another look. "Unless you've got a better idea." That part mattered. If they were going to work together, Jud wasn't interested in acquiring a particularly talented subordinate. He wanted the judgment that came with the talent. For now, he had no reason to believe Shade would disappoint him.

Jud pushed away from the wall and glanced toward the road they'd entered from. "Give it a few minutes before you leave." His gaze returned to her. "I'll go first." Then, with perfect solemnity: "Wouldn't want anybody thinking I take advantage of intoxicated travelers." The corner of his mouth twitched. "Especially ones assaulted by roads."

Jud Renrok

• Location: Frontier Settlement, Raxus territory
• Objective: Investigate
• Outfit: Warden Attire
• Company: Shade

 

[Shade]

Jud's assessment of the possible information leak earned a slow nod from Shade. He had arrived at much the same conclusion she had without attempting to force the pieces together simply because Darik Sorn happened to sit somewhere near both investigations. One person inside a freight company was possible. Someone with access to manifests was possible. Several people unknowingly contributing individual pieces was equally possible, and Shade knew better than most how dangerous apparently insignificant fragments became once someone possessed enough of them to assemble the larger picture. "That's the part I'd be careful with. The person who knows the cargo may not be the person who knows the guards, and neither of them necessarily has to know when the caravan leaves. If Sorn is the one assembling those pieces, finding one leak won't solve your problem." A faint tightening touched the corner of her mouth before dry humor softened it. "I've recently developed a professional dislike for people who assemble pieces."

Jud's response to her earlier praise drew something warmer from her. He didn't explain away the observer he'd missed. He simply accepted that he'd missed him and moved on to what could be learned from it. Shade found herself liking that considerably more than she had expected. Her experience with capable people had included far too many who considered acknowledging a mistake an unacceptable injury to their reputation, whereas Jud appeared perfectly comfortable allowing reality to remain reality even when it didn't flatter him. Then he accused her of assaulting him, and Shade stared at him for two perfectly solemn seconds before answering. "You walked directly into me under extremely difficult circumstances." Her crimson eyes shifted toward the apparently dangerous stretch of pavement nearby. "I think we've established the real criminal here. I'm fortunate to have survived."

When Jud extended his hand again, Shade understood the distinction immediately. She looked at it for only a moment before accepting, her grip firm and brief. The first handshake had exchanged names. This one established something considerably less formal and perhaps more useful. They weren't partners yet, certainly not friends, and neither had earned enough trust from the other for the word to mean very much. What they had established was that neither intended to interfere with the other's investigation and that, for the moment, cooperation offered both of them more than competition did. "Professionally speaking," Shade agreed when he suggested they were better off remaining strangers.

His plan made sense. More than that, it suited her considerably better than any suggestion that they begin confronting people would have. Jud had already attracted attention simply by doing what a Frontier Warden was expected to do, and trying to make that attention disappear now would itself be suspicious. Better to use it. Let Sorn's people continue watching the obvious investigator while someone considerably less obvious watched them. Shade listened through the entirety of his suggestion without interrupting, and the faint approval in her expression became more noticeable when he reached the part about not chasing the first person who moved. "I was beginning to worry you were going to suggest we grab the first nervous person we found and ask them where Sorn is. This is better."

She shifted away from the wall as she considered the arrangement more seriously. "You're already supposed to be asking questions, so keep asking them. Don't become careless simply because we want people watching you, but don't suddenly change what you've been doing either. If someone has already decided you're worth monitoring, consistency will make them comfortable." Her gaze briefly moved toward the entrance of the lane before returning to Jud. "Comfortable people develop routines. They use the same meeting places, contact the same people, take the same routes home, and eventually stop checking behind themselves quite as often. I'll stay away from you in public unless there's a reason not to. If someone follows you, I'll follow them. If someone starts asking questions about you, I'll find out who they're reporting the answers to."

Shade paused before adding, "And you don't need to worry too much about someone noticing me. Avoiding attention is something I've had a considerable amount of practice doing." She left it there. There were ways she could make herself considerably more difficult to find than changing clothing, choosing the right shadows, and understanding where people naturally looked. Jud didn't need an inventory of them. That wasn't an indictment of him. Shade simply didn't volunteer capabilities until someone needed to know they existed, and at present there was nothing her more unusual talents could accomplish that ordinary tradecraft couldn't accomplish just as well.

His invitation for a better idea received a small shake of her head. "No. I think yours is the right one. Sorn doesn't know what either of us knows yet, and I'd rather keep it that way. If we start pulling people out of his network now, everyone still inside it changes their behavior. We learn considerably more by letting them believe nothing has changed." There was no reluctance in admitting that Jud had proposed the right approach. Shade had never understood people who treated another person's good idea as somehow diminishing their own competence. More significant was that Jud hadn't attempted to give her instructions. He had offered a division of effort, explained why it made sense, and then explicitly asked whether she saw something he didn't. It was a small distinction, but one Shade noticed.

There was, however, a practical problem with remaining strangers. Eventually they needed to compare what they'd learned, and doing so by openly finding one another would undermine the entire arrangement. Shade considered the surrounding district for several moments, mentally reviewing what she'd seen since arriving. "We'll need somewhere to compare notes. Not here again, and preferably nowhere either of us has already shown an interest in." She thought for another moment before settling on something suitably mundane. "There was an old public transit shelter on the western edge of town. Two streets beyond the repair district. Half the route board is missing, and I haven't seen more than a handful of people use it."

It wasn't private enough to make two people meeting there inherently suspicious, nor busy enough that conversation would be difficult. More importantly, neither Shade nor Jud had any apparent connection to it. "Tomorrow evening, after the work shifts change. I'll arrive first. You come ten minutes later. If either of us thinks we're being followed, we don't approach the shelter. We walk past and try the following evening again at the same time." Shade's expression turned faintly amused. "And if we both spend three evenings walking past it because we're being followed, I think we'll have learned something useful anyway."

Her amusement faded only enough for the next point to carry the seriousness it deserved. "If either of us finds something worth acting on before then, we wait unless someone is in immediate danger. I'm not going to watch somebody get hurt for the sake of preserving an investigation, and I don't imagine you are either." Given what Jud had already told her about why the Wardens were involved, she suspected that particular boundary wouldn't require much negotiation. Otherwise, the network was more valuable intact for another day than one frightened intermediary would be dragged into a room and questioned.

Then Jud announced that he would leave first and solemnly expressed concern for his reputation around intoxicated travelers. Shade's eyebrows rose slightly as she regarded him, the seriousness of the investigation giving way once more to the understated warmth that had gradually entered their conversation. "Very considerate. Although if anyone asks, you abandoned a vulnerable woman alone in an alley after she suffered a traumatic encounter with hostile infrastructure." Her crimson eyes held his as she allowed the accusation to settle with perfect seriousness. "I'm not convinced that's better for your reputation."

Shade would give him the few minutes he'd requested. Not because she particularly needed them. There were other ways out of the area, and if she truly wanted to leave without being noticed, Jud would probably discover that keeping track of her was considerably harder than he'd anticipated. But there was no reason to demonstrate that simply for the sake of demonstrating it. Before he could leave, however, her expression softened slightly. "Jud, be careful while you're making yourself interesting." It wasn't an order, nor did she insult him by explaining dangers he already understood. It was simply concern, offered without making more of it than necessary, before her eyes moved once more toward the road and the faint humor returned. "Apparently this town is dangerous enough already."

Jud Renrok

 

[Jud Renrok]

Jud's expression grew thoughtful as Shade expanded upon the information problem. One person knew the cargo. Another knew the guards. Someone else knew when the caravan rolled out. None of them necessarily knew enough to understand what they were contributing.

"Yeah." He didn't particularly like that possibility. "Means I could find somebody selling manifests, shut 'em down, and congratulate myself while the rest of it keeps working." Jud rubbed his jaw. "Wouldn't be the first time somebody mistook cutting a branch for pulling a root."

Shade's professional dislike for people who assembled pieces earned a sideways glance. "Recent development?" The question carried precisely enough innocence to make it clear that he knew the answer. He let the joke go there.

There were questions he could have asked about those pieces. Plenty of them. The investigator in him wanted to know how many identities Shade had possessed, what sort of assignments produced records worth selling, who had been trusted with them, and exactly what kind of work she'd once performed.

The lawman in him had another question. What did she mean when she'd said what happened to Sorn afterward depended upon his answers? Jud had guesses. None of them needed to become accusations simply because they'd occurred to him. Shade had been honest about what she knew, honest about what she didn't, and honest enough to admit that Darik Sorn's continued good health presently owed something to his usefulness.

For now, Jud could work with that. Her counteraccusation regarding the alleged assault drew a solemn nod. "Terrible." His gaze followed hers toward the offending pavement. "Broad daylight, too." Jud shook his head. "Place really has gone downhill."

The handshake settled the more important matter. Afterward, Jud listened as Shade refined his proposal. Consistency. That was the part he liked most. He shouldn't suddenly become louder, more careless, or conspicuously interested in being followed. Darik's people had already started reacting to Jud Renrok behaving exactly like Jud Renrok. Changing that behavior now would tell them something had changed.

"Then I'll keep being me." A pause. "Been practicing awhile." The corner of his mouth lifted. Shade could have the harder job. She would watch the watchers. Jud would continue asking questions, visiting freight companies, talking to merchants, checking routes, and generally providing the sort of irritation people expected from a Frontier Warden who had been sent somewhere because the locals couldn't get help anywhere else. If Sorn's people settled into routines around him, Shade could begin pulling at the connections without touching any of them.

"Works for me." Her confidence that she could avoid notice didn't surprise him. "Figured you'd had some practice." Nothing more. Jud had already made his private guess about the woman standing opposite him. Everything Shade said seemed to reinforce it, but she hadn't volunteered the answer and he saw no reason to demonstrate how clever he was by forcing her to confirm it. He suspected Shade spent enough time around people trying to discover things about her. Jud didn't particularly feel like joining the competition.

The transit shelter received considerably more consideration. "Western edge. Two streets past the repair district." He repeated it once to fix the location in memory. "Tomorrow evening. Shift change. You first, me ten minutes behind." If followed, keep walking. Try again the next night. Simple.

Jud nodded. "And if we're still walking past each other three days from now..." His expression turned faintly amused. "I'll wave." He waited just long enough. "Professionally speaking." The humor faded when Shade established the other rule.

Immediate danger changed things. There was no hesitation. "Agreed." That one didn't require discussion. Jud wanted Sorn's network intact because it could lead them somewhere useful. He wanted the people inside it comfortable because comfortable people made mistakes. He was perfectly willing to let smugglers, thieves, brokers, extortionists, or whatever else they were continue believing themselves clever for another day.

He wasn't willing to purchase that advantage with somebody else's blood. "Investigation's supposed to help these people." His voice was quieter now. "If keeping it clean means standing around while one of 'em gets hurt, we've lost sight of why we're doing it."

Shade's reasons for being here were different. Personal. Potentially considerably darker than his. Yet she had drawn exactly the same line. Jud noticed. He was accumulating quite a few observations about Shade. Most of them didn't fit comfortably beside the occupation he'd privately guessed for her. That interested him. Probably more than it should have.

Then came the considerably more serious matter of his reputation. Shade accused him of abandoning a vulnerable woman after her encounter with hostile infrastructure. Jud stared at her. Slowly, his eyes narrowed. "Damn."

He looked toward the entrance of the lane as though reconsidering the entire plan. "You're right." A thoughtful pause followed. "Can't have folks talking." His gaze returned to her. "Suppose I'll tell 'em you became belligerent and refused assistance." There was the faintest twitch beneath the brim of his hat. "Heroically, I respected your independence." That ought to save him. Probably.

Jud started toward the mouth of the lane. Then Shade said his name. He stopped. "Jud, be careful while you're making yourself interesting." For a moment, the humor disappeared. Not because the warning bothered him. Because of the way she'd given it. Shade hadn't told him something he didn't know. Hadn't warned him that Darik's people might become dangerous or explained the risks of deliberately attracting their attention. She knew perfectly well he understood those things. She'd simply told him to be careful.

Jud looked back at her. There were plenty of answers available. A joke would have been easy. So would some reassuring promise that he knew what he was doing. Instead, he gave her a small nod. "I will." Simple. He found that he meant it as more than an acknowledgment. "Same goes for you."

Whatever Shade had done before arriving here—and Jud had increasingly interesting theories about that—someone was collecting pieces of her life and selling them. That meant the danger surrounding her extended considerably farther than a freight yard outside a frontier settlement.

Jud didn't know enough about her to worry about that yet. At least, that was what he told himself. The faint smile returned when Shade reminded him how dangerous the town already was. "Yeah." Jud glanced suspiciously down at the road. "Keep your eye on that one." He tipped his hat toward her. "Shade." Then he walked away. He didn't look back. Partly because anyone watching might notice. Partly because he suspected Shade would be gone before he got very far anyway.

Jud emerged from the lane at an unhurried pace and headed back toward the center of town, hands loose at his sides, hat shading his eyes. To anyone who happened to notice, the Frontier Warden had apparently finished helping an intoxicated traveler and resumed whatever pointless wandering had occupied his afternoon. Good. Let them believe it.

Tomorrow evening he would compare notes with Shade. Until then, Jud Renrok had questions to ask. And somewhere in town, somebody was apparently very interested in hearing them.

Jud Renrok

• Location: Frontier Settlement, Raxus territory
• Objective: Investigate
• Outfit: Warden Attire
• Company: Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade watched Jud leave without answering his final warning. There wasn't anything else to say. They had a plan, a place to compare what they learned, and enough understanding between them that neither needed the reassurance repeated. She remained in the lane after he disappeared, exactly as they'd agreed, allowing several minutes to pass before moving herself. She didn't follow him immediately. Anyone interested enough to watch the Frontier Warden leave might also be interested in whether the intoxicated woman he'd assisted came stumbling after him.

When Shade eventually emerged, the woman who had collided with Jud in the freight yard had effectively disappeared. There was no dramatic transformation, only a collection of small changes that mattered more together than separately. Her posture was different, her pace belonged to someone with somewhere ordinary to be, and she chose a route that carried her away from the direction Jud had taken. She stopped once to examine merchandise she had no intention of buying, continued through a busier commercial stretch, and only much later began working her way toward places from which she could observe the Warden without appearing to do so.

Jud had been right about one thing. Keeping their apparent acquaintance confined to an unfortunate encounter made her part considerably easier.

For the remainder of the afternoon, Shade rarely watched Jud himself. She already knew what he was doing. The useful question was who cared that he was doing it. She positioned herself where she could observe entrances and intersections rather than conversations, sometimes close enough to see him in the distance and sometimes relying entirely upon the movement around him. People looked at law enforcement. That meant nothing. Merchants watched a Warden enter neighboring businesses, pedestrians glanced twice when a badge passed, and conversations changed naturally when authority came close. Shade discarded those reactions almost as quickly as she noticed them.

A smaller number survived.

One man appeared near two different places Jud visited. Shade didn't recognize him from the freight yard, and nothing about him would have attracted attention by itself. He carried a small parcel the first time and had nothing in his hands the second. He never approached Jud. More importantly, he never appeared to watch him directly. Shade marked the face and left him alone.

A woman outside a freight office interested her for a different reason. She was already there before Jud appeared, which made coincidence entirely possible, but after he left she spent considerably longer speaking into her comm than she'd spent using it before his arrival. Shade couldn't hear the conversation and refused to manufacture significance from that alone. She recorded the detail mentally and moved on. If the woman appeared again, the first observation would become more useful. If she didn't, it might remain nothing.

The most interesting reaction came from someone Shade never saw clearly enough to identify. Jud's presence near one of the commercial buildings was followed several minutes later by a departure through a side entrance. The figure moved quickly but not urgently, crossed into another street, and disappeared among enough pedestrian traffic that Shade would have needed to abandon her observation of the building to follow. She didn't. Chasing the first thing that moved would have violated the principle they'd agreed upon hours earlier, and one hurried departure wasn't worth sacrificing everything else she might see.

By the time Shade withdrew for the evening, she had no revelation to bring Jud. She preferred it that way. What she had instead were three observations, each weak individually, one potentially recurring face, and the beginning of a baseline against which tomorrow could be measured.

The following day unfolded much the same way. Shade changed clothing, changed the places from which she watched, and never allowed herself to settle into a pattern simply because the people she was studying might. She didn't shadow Jud continuously. Doing so would have made her another follower rather than an observer. Instead, she anticipated the kinds of places his investigation was likely to take him and watched the spaces around them whenever their paths overlapped. The distinction mattered. She wasn't interested in learning where Jud went. She was interested in discovering who adjusted their own movements because he'd gone there.

The man from the previous afternoon appeared again.

This time Shade noticed him before she noticed Jud.

That made the observation considerably more valuable. He was positioned near another commercial property, apparently occupied with something on his datapad, and remained there long enough that his presence looked entirely ordinary. Shade didn't stare. She watched reflections when available, movement in peripheral vision when they weren't, and the behavior of everyone else around him. When circumstances eventually carried Jud elsewhere, the man remained where he was for several minutes before leaving in another direction.

Shade let him go.

Two appearances weren't enough to identify his purpose, but they were enough to elevate him from possibly irrelevant to worth finding again. More importantly, she now had a face that might eventually connect Jud's investigation to someone else without requiring either of them to touch the network prematurely.

As evening approached, Shade disengaged well before their planned meeting. Arriving at the transit shelter directly from surveillance would have been careless, particularly if someone had noticed her without her realizing it. She spent the intervening time ensuring she hadn't acquired company, changed her outer layer once more, and approached the western edge of town by a route unrelated to any she'd used while observing Jud.

The shelter was exactly as she'd remembered it. Age had rendered much of the route information useless; half the board was missing, and the handful of people who still used the stop had little reason to pay attention to another traveler waiting beneath its cover. Shade didn't approach immediately. She passed it once from the opposite side of the street, continued beyond it, and satisfied herself that nothing nearby felt arranged around the location before circling back several minutes later.

Only then did she enter.

Shade took a place where she could see the approaches without appearing to wait for anyone in particular. She didn't repeatedly check the time. She didn't watch every pedestrian with obvious interest. To anyone passing by, she was simply another traveler waiting for transportation that seemed to operate according to a schedule known only to itself.

The ten minutes began to pass.

Shade already knew what she would do when Jud appeared. If he entered the shelter, she would know he'd reached it without detecting anyone behind him, and they could compare what they'd learned. If he walked past, she wouldn't look at him twice. She wouldn't follow, signal, or give the slightest indication that she'd expected him. Tomorrow evening they would try again.

Until then, all she had to do was wait and see whether Jud Renrok came inside or kept walking.

Jud Renrok