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Katherine watched her people quickly scatter to various ships, then casually walk toward one of the multiple exits. Heidie had even managed to make it look like she and Martin were a couple. She went back inside, and climbed the ladder to the second level, the one where the captain's ready room had been.

Now all it contained was a bed, dresser and shower. The bed was equipped with a cryo field generator because she hated the blood replacement system. If she'd been able to afford it, that was the system she would have used on the chairs. Some of her people had reactions to the blood replacement system and she had to keep that into account when she calculated her timetables.

She showered and dressed in something more appropriate to a corporate security agent. Later, once the hunt was truly underway, showing up in body armor wouldn't be a problem, but she needed to make the right first impression if she wanted the local Law to be on her side.

She didn't hurry. She wanted her people far from the port before she made her appearance. She wanted anyone who might have seen them exit this ship to have moved on or forgotten about it.

As a last piece to her costume, she pulled an ID out from the bottom of the drawer. It was gray and only had the word Luminex on it. She closed her eyes as memories of better times flooded her. Memories of Tom, of him laughing with her, of them enjoying food in his office while going over security plans.

But immediately on the heel of them came the memory of stepping into his office after Tristan had been there. His body on the ground like a discarded doll, his head twisted to an impossible angle. She hadn't been there to save him because she'd been making arrangement for a special dinner. She'd wanted a romantic place to tell him that it was time for them to have children. Tom had wanted kids. She'd been the one unsure of it.

She forced the memories away. She couldn't indulge in them. Not until his killer was brought to justice. A swift and final justice. Tristan wasn't getting a prison cell from her. He wasn't getting a chance to escape an do this to another wife. All she would give him was a bolt at the back of the head. It's what he should have gotten the first time he was caught. Monsters like him didn't deserve to be part of some corporation's bottom line.

She slipped the ID in her breast pocket and looked at herself in the mirror. At her mangled face, a reminder of the last time she'd been close to getting Tom's killer, but somehow he'd known it was her. How he'd known that when basically every mercenary in the universe was also there she didn't know. Maybe Alex had told him about their encounter.

She hands closed into fists. Crimson. She'd known he was in on it. She'd known in from the start, but they'd been too good at hiding the evidence. Still, if she'd been given the time, she would have gotten the truth out of him, but that new president had been too scared of the bad press it could have caused. He'd forced her to release him, he'd given him back his job, given him access to the mainframe. The idiot had given the coercionist who had let Tristan inside the company access to where any proof might have been of what Tristan had done.

The previous president would never have let that happen. She hadn't met him, but Tom had talked about him. About how security conscious he was, about how he wasn't afraid of making the tough calls to ensure the company's survival. The fact he wasn't human had been an afterthought for Tom after all that.

She cursed silently. Now wasn't the time for Tom. Now was the time to get to work, to avenge him.

* * * * *

Reaching the port's administrative office was simple. She'd memorized the way, and had headed there. If anyone had wondered if she belonged beyond the public areas, her confident stride and focused expression told them she belonged where ever she wanted.

Her entrance into the office drew a few gazes, and then some double takes. Her face tended to cause that. She went to the third desk on her right because the woman there was younger. The display at the front of the desk said her name was Tiffany.

Katherine stood before her and waited.

The young woman finished typing, reached for a mug and took a sip before noticing her presence.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, looking up. "What can I--" She startled hard enough she spilled some of her drink. She cursed softly and dabbed at the liquid on her jacket. Anything not to look at her face, Katherine knew. Putting people off like this was the main reason she hadn't gotten it fixed. The other was that she wanted the reminder of what Tristan took from her.

The woman composed herself and when she looked up again she didn't react. "Hello, how can I help you?"

"My name is Katherine." She produced her ID. "I'm with Silt Security. We're employed by Luminex. I need access to your security feed."

She just stared at Katherine. "Excuse me?"

Katherine sighed. "You heard me."

"We don't make our security feed available to the public." The woman had regained her composure.

"I'm not 'the public' Tiffany. I'm Corporate Security. Now, I'm sure you don't get visits from us all that often, this place seems quiet enough, but unless you want me to bring down a ship's worth of trouble on you, you're going to give me that access."

"I can't do--"

"You know what. I'm not dealing with this. Call your supervisor." Katherine gave the shock a moment to register with the woman. "No, better yet, call his manager."

The other people had glanced in their direction and then fastidiously gone back to their work.

"Wh--why do you need that access?" the question was tentative.

Katherine gave the woman a pleasant smile. "Now that's a productive question." She took out her datapad and brought up a picture. "There was a breakout from a prison. I'm hunting down one of the prisoners." She showed Martin's picture to her. "I have reason to believe he came through here so I need to go over the recordings."

The woman hesitated. She looked at the comm system, then her screen and then Katherine.

She sighed. "Look, if you're doubting who I am, check Luminex's public database. You'll see that Silt Security does their security." She knew that was true because she'd paid good money to make sure the public side of that database hadn't been informed of her termination.

The coercionist hadn't been cheap, but he'd done the job. She still dealt with him from time to time because she hadn't been able to find a coercionist of her own. Those she'd approached were too comfortable inside the corporate structure. Those who weren't in there, were criminals, and while she might use criminals here and there, she wasn't going to have one in her employ.

The woman made her decision and stood. "If you'll follow me, Ma'am." She led Katherine through a locked door, down a few corridors, past people and doors until they reached one marked 'security.' She buzzed it and it opened.

The man seated in front of the screens was overweight, probably a reject from the Law. Corporate security rejects were still too good to end up in this kind of position. He was staring at Katherine's face.

"This is Katherine," the woman said, "She's with Luminex, she needs to look at our security feed.

Katherine moved around the woman. The man was still staring. She stared back, and he realized what he was doing. He turned to face the screens. "What can I do?"

"You can get out of the chair."

He didn't even hesitate.

She took his place and surveyed the wall of screens until she found Tristan's ship. She kept her gaze moving. The camera was stationary, good, it would make this easier. She entered commands and every feed moved backward.

"Ma'am," the man said, "If you tell me what you're looking for, I'm sure I can get it for you."

"She's looking for an escaped convict," the young woman whispered.

"Shouldn't you get back to your desk?" Katherine said.

"Won't you need me to take you back?"

"Thank you, but I can find my way out. The doors aren't locked from this side." She kept her eyes moving, but kept Tristan's ship in her peripheral vision.

Then it wasn't there anymore.

She got the feed moving forward at double speed. She watched as it landed. She watched the time stamp. Barely more than a day ago. She almost smiled. Other than when she'd lost half her face, this was the closest she'd ever been to him. She would get him this time.

She watched his accomplice leave the ship, then return. Both of them exited the ship. Tristan closed it. She followed them from feed to feed until they reached a shuttle rental. She made a mental note of it and went back to looking at the feeds, speeding them up.

She watched her ship land. The next thing that happened was her exiting. She rewound a few minutes and set the feeds moving at regular speed. This time when she looked at them, she was searching for a specific face among them. She smiled when she found Martin's worried expression.

"Gotcha."

* * * * *

The motel room was empty.

It wasn't just empty, it had been sterilized.

Katherine wasn't surprised. Unless Tristan was destroying a place, he never left evidence of his presence. Even in Crimson's place there had been nothing but some shed fur to indicate he'd been there. She was confident that the only reason that had been there was that she'd beaten him there. He hadn't had time to get to his accomplice's apartment and clean everything out. Or, possibly, because he had a worse reaction to the fabricated virus they'd used to justify his absence from work, Tristan had abandoned him.

She had to admit that Crimson was good. He wasn't a plant, she was certain of that, he'd worked for Luminex for decades before Tristan became aware of them. How the alien had turned him she didn't know. Everything in Alex's file said he was loyal. He had a near perfect attendance record as well as being one of the top coercionists the company had. The one eccentricity he had, was his attraction to male aliens.

They had to have missed something. That wasn't enough for Tristan to have gotten so much of his loyalty that, within months of getting his job back, Alex was stealing from the company and running to space to rejoin his partner.

She stepped out of the room and looked at the shuttle. It was the one Alex had rented. Convincing the rental agency to give her the tracking frequency had been simple, and she'd confirmed they had been at the Telrize complex when the attack there happened, but now they were off to whatever other part of their job needed to get done, and they'd changed vehicle.

Of course the motel didn't have anything resembling security. Tristan wouldn't pick a place that could give away his presence that easily. There were cameras in the surrounding streets, but that meant dealing with the local Law to gain access to them. She wasn't sure her ID would survive the level of scrutiny they could put it through. It had the previous times, but all it took was one time for it to become useless.

Sure, Silt Security still existed even without the ID, but without the Power a corporation like Luminex brought, it wouldn't help open doors.

She'd start by doing