Starfall

by Melissa Landers

  “Add a hundred sweaty jockstraps, and you nailed it.” Doran waved a hand to dispel the stench. “It’s making my eyes water.”

  “What is that?” Cassia asked.

  Renny pointed ahead toward the mouth of an open doorway. The entrance was too dark to reveal anything inside, but a sign affixed to the wall promised CHEAP LABOR!

  “Low-end slave traders,” Renny said. “Their product doesn’t have a long shelf life, so they don’t bother with basic hygiene.”

  Everyone quit complaining after that.

  Kane lowered his shirt collar out of respect as he passed. There was nothing like slavery to put his problems into perspective.

  The crew continued in silence for a while, following Renny as he led them out of the marketplace, past a stretch of storage units, and toward what looked like an office door with a single word stenciled above it: INQUIRIES.

  “What are we doing?” Cassia whispered.

  “We can’t go around asking questions,” Renny told her, “or it’ll draw too much attention.” He nodded toward the door. “We’ll hire someone to do our digging for us.”

  “A ferret,” Kane said. He’d heard of that service. For a fee, a local with the right connections would find the information they wanted while protecting their identity.

  “Exactly. Now, let’s see what we can afford to bid.”

  Renny dug in his pocket and pulled out a handful of fuel chips. Cupping his palm, he used a finger to push aside the random junk he’d stolen—a pillbox, two disk batteries, the tip of a broken grease pencil, and Cassia’s pink laser blade. Kane had borrowed it enough times to know.

  “Hey!” Cassia objected.

  Renny ducked his head. “Sorry. I can’t—”

  “Help it,” she finished, snatching the object from him. “Yeah, I know.”

  “Thirty chips,” Renny said. “It’ll have to do. Wait here while I put in our bid.”

  He returned five minutes later, followed by a young bearded guy whose bouncing steps reminded Kane of a grasshopper. The ferret couldn’t stand still, even when he reached them. He shifted his weight back and forth, compulsively scratching his beard while peering around the group for instructions. Whatever money they paid him was going up his nose tonight.

  “Whatcha want me to find?” he asked Renny.

  Cassia spoke first, lifting her chin in that haughty way of hers. “I’m here representing my husband, Marius Durango.”

  Kane felt a pinch in his gut. He kept forgetting that Cassia was married. The union was in name only, but that didn’t mean he liked it.

  “He gave me this transmission code.” She handed the ferret a slip of paper. “He’s been using it to talk to someone on this hub. I’d like to set up a meeting with that person. Whoever it is, tell them it’s regarding our partnership on Eturia. They’ll know what that means.”

  The ferret glanced at the paper while bouncing one heel on the floor. He’d fidgeted so much his forehead was glistening. “Okay. Gimme a day or two. I’ll get it done.”

  Cassia wrote down the Banshee’s radio frequency so he could contact her when he’d finished the job. The ferret bounded away, and the rest of them agreed there was nothing they wanted from the marketplace except to put it behind them. So they returned to the ship, where they took extra precautions to lock themselves securely inside.

  When three days passed without word, they were forced to revisit the hub.

  Again, Renny led the way through the fetid marketplace, past the storage units, and to the inquiries station, but this time with the rapid stride of a man who’d been cheated out of his last thirty fuel chips. Kane almost felt sorry for the ferret. Renny was a gentle captain, but he knew how to bring the pain when a situation called for it.

  Renny rapped on the office door, and it opened a crack. “I’m looking for my rep. Tall kid. Brown hair, short beard. Jumpier than a caffeinated squirrel.”

  “That’s Gill,” came a man’s voice. “Haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

  “Where does he live?”

  A knobby finger extended from the crack, pointing behind them. “Check the bordello. The girls let him sleep there when he brings new clients around.”

  Kane snickered and elbowed Doran. “Our ferret’s a genius.” When Solara and Cassia burned their glares into him, he clarified, “I mean, if you’re into hired ladies. Which I’m not.”

  “Let’s go,” Renny told them.

  The crew followed as he charged down the side corridor to a two-story building with a glowing red rooftop. No matter how far you traveled, that was the mark of a flesh house. At this early hour, they didn’t pass any travelers except for a drunkard or two curled up on the floor in a Crystalline coma. If there was ever a time to go nosing around a black market hub, it was now.

  Renny pushed open the brothel’s front door and met a bouncer the size of a whale. The giant didn’t bother standing up from his stool. Renny told him, “We’re looking for Gill. Did he stay here last night?”

  The bouncer grunted. “Up the stairs. Room thirteen.”

  One by one, they skirted around the man and crossed the lobby to the staircase. Renny held a finger to his lips in warning, then led the way quietly up the steps and down the hall to room 13. When they reached the door, he pressed an ear to it, listening for movement from the other side. Instead of using the touch-sensor keypad on the wall, he hooked a finger around the door’s manual latch and gave a sideways tug.

  It was locked.

  He moved aside and pointed from Solara to the keypad. She nodded and pulled a small tool kit from her inside jacket pocket. In less than a minute, she’d overridden the lock, and the crew filed inside the room. Kane spotted Gill at once, sprawled faceup on a stained mattress in the corner with his jaw askew and his eyes half-open.

  Dead as a stone.

  Kane froze. From behind, someone shut the door, probably Renny because he was the only one to have broken out of the paralysis of shock. While the captain crouched down and inspected Gill’s bloated face, Kane reached out and linked his hand with Cassia’s. The act was reflexive, like breathing.

  Renny puffed a sigh and stood up. “Poor kid.”

  “An overdose, you think?” Kane asked. “I could tell he was on something.”

  “Oh, he was definitely using,” Renny said. “But I don’t think that’s what killed him. I imagine this was an occupational hazard.”

  Nobody spoke for a while. They let the implication hang in the air, unwilling to acknowledge that a young man had died because they’d paid him to dig in a land mine.

  “But it had to be drugs,” Solara said. “The door was locked from the inside.”

  “And there’s no sign of a struggle,” Doran pointed out. “He’s not bruised or stabbed or shot. Probably he died in his sleep.” Doran sounded confident, but he looked away from the body and began chewing his thumbnail.

  “Check his pockets,” Cassia told Renny.

  “Already did. They’re empty.”

  “Then look under the mattress.” She pulled her hand free from Kane’s and crossed both arms across her chest. “No matter how he died, addicts always hide their stash. If he found any information, maybe he put it there.”

  While Renny knelt on the floor to lift a mattress corner, Kane glanced around the room for a place to hide money or drugs. There was no furniture other than the bed, and anyone smart enough to reset the keypad after killing a man was also smart enough to check for loose floorboards or removable heat registers. If there was anything to find, the killer had probably beaten them to it. On a whim, he reached up and skimmed his fingers along the ledge over the door. At first he felt only dust, but then his hand brushed something, and a folded piece of paper fell to the floor.

  He unfolded the scrap and recognized Cassia’s meticulous handwriting. It was the paper she’d given the ferret, the one with Marius’s transmission code on it. Kane turned the slip over and squinted at the messy scrawl on the back. In letters so jumbled he could bar
ely make them out, it read, adelvice.

  He handed the paper to Renny, who spoke the word aloud. “It sounds like ‘edelweiss,’ the little white flower that grows on Earth.”

  “Maybe he misspelled it,” Kane said.

  “Could be. Whatever it means, if someone killed this kid for finding it, there’s a good chance he gave up our names before he died. We should go. Preferably out the back door.”

  “But what about Gill?” Solara asked, casting a sideways glance at the mattress. “Shouldn’t we tell someone what happened?”

  Renny placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “It’s best if they don’t find him until we’re gone.”

  She nodded, and together they all made their way out of the room as silently as they’d come, but using the emergency exit at the other end of the building instead of the main stairs. Minutes later, they were back at the marketplace, which was beginning to bustle with morning activity.

  Steam rose from food carts, heating the air and sending up the scents of bread and sausage. Ordinarily, the combination would make Kane’s mouth water, but here it mingled with the stench of unwashed bodies and turned his stomach. He kept pace with Renny, eager to return to the docking station and put some distance between himself and this hellhole.

  They were nearly out of the market when a woman called, “Popovers! Hot popovers!” Renny stopped so quickly that Kane collided into him from behind. The pileup continued as Cassia stumbled into him, and then Doran and Solara into her.

  The crew righted themselves while grumbling complaints, but Renny didn’t seem to notice. He stood there, stiff as titanium, staring at the woman selling breakfast from a food cart five yards away. Kane glanced at the vendor. She was about thirty years old with owlish blue eyes and a round, freckled face framed by scarlet curls. She was cute in a motherly sort of way, but he didn’t see what the big deal was.

  Until Renny opened his mouth and said, “Arabelle?”

  Kane almost sprained his neck craning for a better look. He stared at the woman through the fresh eyes of someone who’d heard stories about her—plenty of stories, none of them ending well. Arabelle was the love of Renny’s life, the girl he’d left behind years ago when he’d made an enemy of the mob. But what was she doing in the outer realm? She was supposed to be on Earth, leading a safe, normal life.

  When the captain didn’t budge, Solara moved up from behind. “Who’s that?”

  Kane was almost afraid to say. Losing Arabelle had wrecked Renny. He still talked about her in his sleep. The whole crew knew better than to mention her name unless he broached the subject, which only happened when he overindulged in Crystalline.

  “It’s her,” Kane whispered. “Arabelle.”

  Solara clutched Kane’s left arm while Cassia grabbed the right. At the same time, they hissed, “Are you sure?”

  Kane watched the woman’s gaze meet Renny’s and hold there. The whites of her eyes grew while her lips parted. She went every bit as still and pale as the captain. Soon her fingers slackened, and she dropped a pastry to the ground.

  “Yeah,” Kane said. “I’m sure.”

  “What’s she doing here?”

  That was what Kane wanted to know. It seemed a little too convenient that after years of no contact she happened to cross Renny’s path at this exact moment. The captain finally sobered up enough to process the questions buzzing around him. He kept his eyes glued on Arabelle when he spoke, as if afraid she might vanish if he looked away. “She’s wearing a collar. She belongs to someone here. Probably the owner of that restaurant.”

  Kane took notice of the slim silvery choker around Arabelle’s neck. It was a device programmed to deliver pain injections if a slave or an indentured servant strayed too far from home.

  “I have to buy her contract,” Renny said.

  Kane nodded. “Of course. We’ll help you.”

  “I hate to bring this up,” Doran cut in, “but what if she doesn’t want to come with us? She could have a husband, or someone she doesn’t want to leave behind.”

  “I don’t care,” Renny told him. “I’ll buy her freedom anyway. And her husband’s or friend’s or boyfriend’s, too, if that’s what she wants.”

  It was then that Kane saw two major snags in their plan. The first was Renny. “You can’t be here. You have to go to the ship and let us handle the deal. If Arabelle’s contract holder sees the look on your face, he’ll ask for the moon…and you’ll give it to him.” Which led to their second problem. “We don’t have much to spend.”

  “I have the Banshee,” Renny said, confirming Kane’s worst fear.

  The crew traded nervous glances.

  “Renny, listen to me.” Cassia touched the captain’s elbow. When that didn’t get his attention, she cupped his cheeks and turned his face until it met hers. “Come back to the ship with me. Let the others do the negotiating.”

  “But what if—”

  “They won’t let you down,” she told him. “Kane could sweet-talk water from the desert, and Doran and Solara have more street cred than anyone in this hub.”

  Doran cracked his knuckles menacingly. “It doesn’t matter who owns her contract. I promise he won’t say no to Daro the Red.”

  Renny still didn’t look convinced.

  “Do you trust me?” Kane asked.

  Renny’s gaze wandered back to Arabelle. “Yes, but—”

  “Then let Cassy take you to the ship.”

  “But I have to talk to her first, to tell her I’m not really leaving.”

  “No. She could belong to anyone. Maybe he’s watching right now.”

  “You don’t understand,” Renny said in a small, broken voice that plucked at Kane’s heartstrings. “I walked away from her once, and it almost killed me.”

  “I do understand,” Kane promised. “And I won’t come back without her.”

  After a long pause, Renny took one backward step and then another. Each pace toward the docking lot seemed to cause him physical pain, but he kept his boots moving. A group of men passed in front of him, breaking his view of the food cart. That seemed to help because he turned around, paused for another moment, and strode away.

  Right before Cassia followed him, she crooked an index finger at Kane and waited for him to lower his ear to her lips. “Don’t bring that woman on board until you scan her for weapons,” she whispered. “Com devices, too.”

  For once, they were on the same page. “Already planned to.”

  Cassia had a feeling Kane might not follow her instructions to the letter, but she never expected him to come barreling into the docking lot with Arabelle hoisted over one shoulder, shielding his head with his free arm and yelling like his pants were on fire. Behind him, Doran and Solara ran through the open doorway, each armed with a stolen pulse pistol and firing indiscriminately at someone out of view.

  So much for smooth negotiating.

  Cassia darted up the boarding ramp while tapping her com-link. “Fire it up, Renny. We’ve got Arabelle, but it looks like we wore out our welcome.”

  “Copy that,” Renny said from the pilothouse. The engine rumbled to life, followed by the low whine of the thrusters warming for takeoff. He asked in a tentative voice, “You’re sure they have her?”

  Standing out of the way, Cassia glanced down the ramp and watched Arabelle’s skirt-clad rear end bounce atop Kane’s shoulder as he hauled ass—literally—onto the ship. “Yep, I’m looking at her right now.” Once Doran and Solara made it up the ramp into the cargo hold, Cassia punched the Retract button and told Renny, “Go!”

  The floor lurched, sending Cassia to her knees. She met the metal grating with a jolt of pain and scrambled toward the stairs for something to hold on to. As soon as she gripped the bottom step, she hollered to Kane over one shoulder. “Did you scan her?”

  He didn’t answer right away. He was too busy belly-crawling toward a stabilizing strap bolted to the floor. “Sure!” He wrapped one fist around the belt while hooking his opposite arm around Arabel
le’s waist. “There was plenty of time for that in between holding her boss at gunpoint and running for our lives from the mob!”

  The mob?

  A burst of energy struck the hull near enough to travel through the floor and rattle Cassia’s bones. As the ship rolled in an evasive maneuver, she hung on tightly while her body skidded sideways. Screams filled the cargo hold, mostly coming from their new guest.

  If Arabelle belonged to the Zhang mafia, that explained why Doran’s reputation as Daro the Red had backfired. Pirates weren’t exactly at war with the mob, but both groups were territorial. Every once in a while someone would sneak a toe over the line, and the other side would bring down the hammer. That meant the Zhang operative they’d just busted had two choices: close up shop and return to Earth, or kill the witnesses before word got out.

  Cassia swore to herself. “We have to scan her,” she shouted. “We can’t hide if they’re tracking us.”

  “Be my guest,” Kane shouted back, clearly in no position to help. He resembled a man stretched on a torture rack, both arms spread wide between Arabelle and the floor strap.

  Arabelle’s red brows formed a slash over her eyes. “I’m not bugged! And I didn’t ask to come here with you people!”

  Cassia fought to maintain her sweaty grip on the stairs. Before she could give the matter any more thought, the Banshee’s signature shriek pierced her eardrums, and the ship rocketed forward with enough velocity to pry her fingers loose. She slid across the floor until her back hit the wall, knocking the wind out of her.

  For what felt like an hour, she stayed pressed there by acceleration. Then the ship slowed and lurched to a stop, sending her into a roll in the opposite direction.

  She landed on her back, blinking at the dancing ceiling lights. All motion had ceased, but it took a few seconds for her body to get the message. Soon the engines powered down, and her ears detected a harmony of high-pitched ringing and low groans of pain. She pushed to her elbows and instantly regretted it. They were bruised, much like the rest of her.