Read Fox Hunt (Fox Meridian Book 1) for Free Online Page B

area had been cleared until morning and the little robot was free to emerge when it received the signal it had been waiting for. It scuttled out of the trashed room on six little legs and had just made it to the door when a voice broke the silence.
    ‘It’s a clever plan, Seeforth. I have to admit that I didn’t tag you for it.’
    Eyes wide, Seeforth spun on the spot. The tick-like shell scuttled about his feet like a slightly disgusting puppy. Fox ignored it, watching the cop as he tried to work out how he was going to get out of this.
    ‘Meridian? What are you doing here? I was just–’
    ‘Picking up the data Kriel’s people dug out of the offline storage downstairs. None of them are talking, because that’s how idiots like that are. It’s professional integrity, despite the fact that they’ll get screwed over while you walk away rich. It’s the helium-three mining allocations, right? You get the details on which areas are going to be opened up for mining, sell them to the right people, you make millions, they make billions. Let me guess. You need the money for pulling in voting delegations. You want your political career to shift into high gear and you either need charisma or money.’ Fox saw the moment when he worked out that she was standing there alone, not holding a gun, not immediately arresting him. She knew what was coming.
    Seeforth pulled a snub-nosed automatic from behind his back and aimed it at her. ‘Both is a lot better. What do you want? A few hundred thousand?’
    ‘No, I really don’t need the money. Technically I can’t arrest you here because I’m not a cop. Otherwise I’d be pointing a gun at you. I could defend myself now, of course. I don’t think you’d die as fast as Kriel. I’d have to hip-shoot and you’d catch a burst in the gut.’
    ‘Are you insane? I’ve got the drop on you. I’m… I’m going to have to kill you.’
    Fox shook her head. ‘I think they might take exception to that.’
    ‘They? No one’s going to–’
    He stopped as the entire ERU moved out of cover around the lobby area, all of them with raised weapons, aside from Driscoll who stepped up beside Fox with a pair of handcuffs in his hands. ‘Drop the gun,’ Driscoll ordered, ‘or there won’t be enough of you left to identify.’ There was a clatter as the pistol hit the ground. Fox winced. ‘Want to put the cuffs on him?’ Driscoll asked. ‘You figured out the way they were making the drop.’
    ‘Your collar. Pierce and Barnes located the bot. Besides, I don’t think I want to dirty my hands by touching the prick. I hate political cops.’
     

Part Two: Lunar Transit Blues
    Lunar Transit Shuttle, 14 th January 2060.
    They did not bother putting windows of any sort in the economy cabins on lunar transit shuttles which only tended to add to the somewhat claustrophobic feel of them. There were good reasons for it, to do with radiation and the dangers of microimpacts, but it did not lessen the fact that a sterile, white, rectangular cupboard with little in it aside from a single bunk bed was not exactly the most exciting place to spend the two days of a typical Earth–Moon transit flight.
    In Fox’s case, lying in the spartan room was just making her feel like repainting the place in blood. You could, if you wished, activate a virtual environment system and give the place more colour, but she generally found that made it more claustrophobic. They said that long-term spaceflight was more likely to result in suicide than any other form of transport, and she could well believe it. At least there were some vaguely entertaining sensies in the ship’s library. She was enjoying the rush of a high-speed buggy ride across the plains of the Arcadia region of Mars when a message pop-up alerted her to someone requesting access to her cubicle.
    Mars dissolved into white walls and she shook her head to clear it of the false motion before rolling into a sitting position and selecting the lock release the