The human looked away under Tristan’s gaze. Not that he showed it, but Alex trying to come up with a plan was almost amusing. And how it was so centered on what he could do, as if he was trying to show how invaluable he was. If he smiled it would just encourage him to waste more time in trying to come up with more such plans.

“We don’t need to find Masters. We already have what he wants.”

Alex looked at the closed door. He wanted to object, but he was learning his place. He sighed and nodded.

“I’ll get Emil ready for cryo.”

“No, I’ll take care of that. You continue searching the net for information.” That would keep him out of his way.

Emil looked up from his datapad when Tristan entered. He smiled for a moment, then his face became serious as he put the datapad aside.

“Hey Buddy, it’s time to go in cryo.”

“Are we going to see my father?”

“That’s the plan, I think we found him.”

“And the bad men?”

“We’ll make sure to protect you from them.”

“And my father?”

“Him too.”

Emil nodded. Put the datapad away in his suitcase, closed that and carried it to one of the cabinets. Again, Tristan was impressed at how well behaved the boy was. Emil closed the cabinet and made sure the door had latched properly before going back to the bed.

The academy had taught him proper safety stowing for ship travel? The boy’s father had wanted him well trained. This was different from what he’d observed among other human families.

He tapped at the controls on the wall and the emitters raised up the sides of the bed.

“Won’t be long now until you see your dad,” Tristan said. Emil nodded, and Tristan activated the cryo. There was a buzz and field of static flashed over the bed, encasing the boy.

Tristan wondered what the reaction was going to be when he found out his father had ordered the kidnapping? He opened the cabinet and placed the suitcase on the table. It was locked, but it was a simple biometric lock. The suitcase contained folded clothing. Copies of what the boy was already wearing, the datapad, and a box with data chips. History, general and military, social studies, more mathematics and a bunch of others, what Tristan expected was human courses, but they were far more advanced than a boy his age would normally study.

These level of courses were what he’d encountered when he’d had to join the Mobile University while Tracking the bounty hunter who’d tried to kill him. All the humans there had been adults.

The datapad was locked, but that too was easy to bypass. Most of the data there was yet more courses. Except for the section with the picture Emil had shown him of his ‘father’. It contained information about his time at Vertix, instructions on the order of what to reveal. The boy should have deleted that after memorizing it.

He found the hidden section, and that one contained messages from the boy’s father. Short conversations between the two of them. In a few of them Emil asked when his father would come get him. There was no pleading, which human children tended to do a lot of. As did Justin, now that he thought about it.

The father’s response was always something to the effect that he was too busy and it wasn’t safe for Emil to join him. So Emil was the boy’s actual name. Tristan got a sense that there was no personal connection from Masters to Emil. None of the messages about the boy’s wellbeing, the questions were always about his courses. He didn’t seem to be interested in his son’s happiness.

Tristan found a picture of Masters there, but he was much younger in it. There were no pictures of Emil’s mother. 

Tristan erased his usage log then put the datapad back in the suitcase, putting it in the cabinet and ensuring the door had latched.

The tone of the messages led Tristan to think that Emil’s birth hadn’t been an act of emotion. Masters had planned for him, and probably had plans for him. So his desire to get him back was genuine. Good, he could use that. He could make sure whatever his plans were wouldn’t come to pass.

The simplest would be to just kill the boy, that would derail Masters’ plans permanently, but it wouldn’t resolve his current situation, in fact, doing that would just reinforce Masters’ attack on him and justify his plan to remove all mercs.

What he needed to do was demonstrate to the mercs this had been a setup. That Masters was behind it. Only that couldn’t happen in private. Masters could fight such allegations. Tristan would have to get him to admit to it in such a way that he couldn’t later deny it.

He smiled. If it was revealed to the universe as it happened, not only would Masters not be in a position to fight it, but SpaceGov would also find out, and they were bound to have something to say about one of their people setting up his son’s kidnapping.

He left the room and headed to the pilot’s chair.

“Tristan, I don’t think you—” Alex shut up under the glare.

Tristan closed a hand into a fist and was tempted to give the human a reminder of his place. But if he did that Emil would notice. Part of his plan depended on the boy becoming at ease. The reminder would have to wait until this was over. Then he could work Alex over as much as he wanted.

He opened his hand. “Go under cryo.”

The human almost objected, and Tristan added to the tally. At this rate, he might just have to kill the human in the end. Maybe there was no other way for him to learn.

Alex tapped at the controls next to the cryo chair. “What parameter do I put it to be woken up?”

“I’ll wake you up.”

Alex finished setting it up and then sat. A moment later he was enveloped in the static field. Tristan sighed. Finally alone. No one to question him or his orders. This was why he worked alone. Partners only got in the way.

Once in the chair he wrote down a list of what he’d need. Cameras, recording equipment, a broadcaster. He’d have to get access to one of the major companies so the signal would go everywhere, but if Alex was as good as he claimed to be, he could do that.

With the list he set to find a planet which would suit his needs. It couldn’t be one of the major worlds, there would be too much security, but one of the perimeter worlds would not be advanced enough to have what he needed. He also didn’t want to be in transit for too long. He couldn’t take the chance someone would work out where he was going and intercept him.

He found the world that suited him in London. It was two month of objective travel time away, had a major communication hub, as well as a few entertainment companies, but it liked its independence, so it didn’t have any of the major corporations there, nor a SpaceGov office.

That would do nicely. He set the course and went under cryo.