Finders Keepers

by Linnea Sinclair

  “His pants too. The regeneration needs to—oh! Would you prefer I undress our patient, Captain?”

  “I’ve seen naked men before. But thanks for defending my virginity.” She grinned at the ’droid. “You’re a tad late, though.”

  She pulled off the black jacket, then the shirt, as carefully as she could. A harsh line of darkening bruises started at the pilot’s left shoulder and continued under the soft mat of curly black hair sprinkled across his torso. The bruises marred a well-muscled body that seemed younger than the age the medistat had assigned. She’d seen enough spacers and company-freighter officers in her thirty-three years to know that long hours seated at flight controls—and even longer ’tween time seated on a bar stool in station pubs—weren’t conducive to a flat stomach and muscled shoulders.

  Even Jagan, at thirty-eight, had gone soft around the middle. Though she doubted he’d ever had a body quite as nicely defined as this.

  She and Dezi slid the regeneration cylinder over the pilot’s body and latched it in place. Maybe the medistat was wrong. Maybe he was a younger crew member and not an officer as his uniform suggested. Fewer responsibilities and smaller salaries often meant grunts spent more time in a ship’s gym than in high-priced bars and eateries.

  But no. The lines around his eyes attested to a familiarity with tension and stress. His face, with its square jaw and thick dark brows and mustache, was strong and almost stern. But not unattractive. Still, she had a feeling that it was the sternness most people would remember. Smile lines were noticeably absent.

  She moved a lock of hair from his forehead. There was more bruising to match the welt on his cheek. He stirred slightly. Quickly, she withdrew her hand, surprised he’d sensed her touch. Or had he? The regen unit had already tranked him to mask any pain. His reaction might just be coincidental.

  She considered adjusting the sedative dosage manually. That would leave him in an unconscious state longer. But her curiosity right now was stronger than her fear of this Zafharin officer, her former enemy.

  After all, it wasn’t as if he were going to come bounding out of sick bay, naked, and chase her around her ship.

  Still, a bit of precaution was advisable. Especially as she had some quick work to do back at the wreck. She removed the rifle strap from around her shoulder and tossed the weapon to Dezi. The ’droid caught it gingerly.

  “Keep him tranked up as long as you can,” she said. “But if he wakes, make sure he knows you mean business.”

  “Of course, Captain.” Dezi drew himself to attention as Trilby stepped past him. His voice followed her out into the corridor. “But what business am I supposed to be in?”

  The deep-night hours on Avanar, home to a variety of lethal nocturnal reptiles, were inhospitable to further salvage work. She gunned the AGS in the darkness, its pallet heavy with bulky components, and headed back to her ship. There was still time, however, for her to clean up, then stop briefly in sick bay just to make sure their guest was still alive.

  He was. Satisfied, she returned to her bridge and perused the latest shipping-quote requests she’d managed to download before her comm package had gone off-line.

  Requests were dwindling. Only four this past septi, eleven for the month. She could remember over forty per month this same time a year ago.

  The small-freighter business was in bad shape. A series of recent raids by the ’Sko had all but obliterated any decent contracts. No one wanted to risk shipping goods on short-haul freighters with antiquated navigational systems and inadequate defenses. Nor ship them through a quadrant like Gensiira, where the Conclave border patrols were out of funds and, at best, merely decorative when they were in the lanes.

  So business had moved to the pricier, but well-protected, large freighter companies, like Rinnaker, Norvind, and Grantforth Galactic. They could afford to hire private security escorts to protect their ships and cargo. And put small traders like her out of business as a result.

  It flitted briefly through her mind how eerily the situation mimicked her relationship with Jagan. They’d met when business was good, contracts coming in at a nicely profitable pace. He’d demanded as much of her attention as the shipping agents had. But then the raids had started, and little by little those same agents avoided her transmits.

  And Jagan canceled dates.

  Then four months ago the bottom had fallen out.

  “We can’t work with independents,” the agents had said.

  “I’m marrying Zalia,” Jagan had told her.

  She leaned back in her chair, pinched the bridge of her nose. To hell with Grantforth. And the ’Sko. Then, as an afterthought, she added: To hell with the Zafharin. The war with the Empire, her government announced, had drained their budgets. But it didn’t keep them from slapping more taxes onto the already high dock fees at the station depots off Quivera and Bagrond, or dirtside ports like Rumor. Nor from levying heavy fines on any small trader who was found with illegal weapons-systems upgrades. Like the set of LD-5 torpedoes she had her eye on. Word of that, spread quietly through the trading community, could improve her chances for contracts.

  But Lady-Fives wouldn’t do her a bit of good if she couldn’t get her communications package working again. Even her customizations there were illegal: range boosters and transmit scramblers were frowned upon but essential to survival in Gensiira.

  And she needed them; her customers depended on her ability to stay one step ahead of the ’Sko and the government. The Techplat contract was proof: they had a good-size pickup ready for her at Bagrond as soon as she finished her repair work here.

  That run would pay for the auxiliary drive feed she installed last month. She didn’t want to think about who or what was going to pay for her new comm package.

  For the next twenty minutes she tried to cajole her ship’s failing comm system to handshake with her new range boosters. It was an effort that only produced more problems, including a cramp in her leg.

  She slid awkwardly out of the narrow maintenance tunnel and limped toward sick bay.

  Dezi was still diligently on guard.

  “Anything new this hour?”

  “No, Captain. He’s still improving. Vital signs appear to be stronger.”

  “That’s encouraging. But I was wondering if we should—”

  “Nav! S’viek noyet.” A deep male voice rasped over her words.

  Trilby watched the man’s head move slowly side to side. His respiration rate was increasing. He murmured again, but more softly. On the panel covering his chest, a series of lights danced first green, then yellow, then green again.

  “He’s still having nightmares.”

  “It could be a reaction to the trank. The regen does not indicate anything threatening.”

  “To him, maybe not, Dez. But I know Zafharish when I hear it. And it never, ever sounds good. Even if I don’t have the damnedest idea of what he’s saying.”

  More proof of the Conclave’s lack of concern for its citizenry, in Trilby’s estimation. The desperately needed Zafharish-to-Standard translation programs, required by the Conclave to conduct business in the trade lanes bordering the zone, were two years behind in distribution.

  “I regret I have no extensive knowledge of Zafharish either. However, I do believe nav indicates no.”

  “And vad means yes, and dharjas taf, viek is what you’d say to get a cold beer. But unless he speaks Standard, I doubt my pub-crawling vocabulary is going to help me find out his name. Or his rank. Or how in the Seven Hells he ended up here in a ’Sko fighter.”

  Trilby glanced at the tattered black uniform draped in the closet opposite the diag bed. She’d already turned it inside out, hoping to find some clue to his identity. The slight possibility of a reward hadn’t escaped her notice. And the higher the rank, the greater the reward. That is, providing the Empire wanted him back.

  But any ship’s ID patches were conspicuously missing.

  In the hours that followed, she and Dezi played with theories as to ho
w a Zafharin pirate could end up with a ’Sko Tark.

  It couldn’t have been easy.

  The two factions probably hated each other almost as much as Conclave trading companies hated them. If not more. Yet since the war’s end, there had been rumors of a power shift. Of individuals high in the Zafharin Empire who were willing to sit down at the table with certain other individuals in the Ycsko.

  For the most part, the rumors were disregarded. The two were incompatible. The Ycsko were as lunatic in their organizations as they were in their raids. Both Niyil military parties fought with the Dakrahl religious faction who plotted against all six Beffa trading cartels. High Rulers were crowned almost as frequently as Trilby filed flight plans.

  The Zafharin were more organized, though no less deadly. Theirs was a linear society, patriarchal. Clan name bestowed rank and status. The House of Vanurin had reigned for more than eight centuries; Kasmov, its emperor, for the last thirty-one years. His eldest son and daughter sat in positions of power in the Council of Lords.

  Vanurin blood also ruled in the Zafharin Fleet. First High-Commander, Lord Admiral Neville Vanushavor, was Kasmov’s cousin. Two of his sons held the rank of Senior Captain. Even more powerful than Vanushavor’s sons was Senior Captain Tivahr. Port gossip tagged him to be a brilliant but arrogant, cold-blooded man who knew nothing of fear. Or compassion.

  Cooperation between the ’Sko and the Zafharin seemed unlikely. Still, both factions had the same goal: the acquisition of Conclave goods and, it was said, the eventual domination of Conclave space.

  Neither of which was encouraging to Independent traders like Trilby Elliot. Political machinations, border disputes, and the constant games of spy versus spy between the ’Sko and the Zafharin were just more aggravations on a struggling freighter captain’s already long list. Whatever funds she could grasp from salvaging the Tark were, as far as she was concerned, way overdue.

  And if the Zafharin Empire had the decency to throw some reward money her way as well, those Lady-Fives she desperately needed might just become her ticket to happiness.

  If she didn’t decide to hunt down Jagan Grantforth and use them on him first.

  2

  He knew where he was. He recognized the pitted gray metal walls, the filthy stone floor. His cell on Szedcafar.

  But this time Rafi was there, in full dress uniform. Gold braid on one shoulder, medals glinting on his chest. And Malika, in a provocative black skinsuit. Gemstones dangled from her ears and wrists.

  And another woman, smaller than Malika. She had silvery-blond hair and was dressed in faded green fatigues. She wore no glinting medals, no gems. Yet her very simplicity made Rafi look pompous, and Malika harsh and tawdry.

  The red glow of a force field pulsed all around them. They were prisoners. He knew they had to escape but Malika wouldn’t listen. She laughed at him and stroked his face, taunting him.

  He batted her hand away, annoyed, then again saw the woman in green. She stood on the other side of a wide chasm in the floor, reaching out to him. She reminded him of the air sprites in his childhood stories. Or the Gelfaia, legends from the Faytari Drifts, worshiped by the ’Sko for their fragile beauty.

  He called to her, but she didn’t seem to understand his words. Yet she wanted to help. Somehow he knew that. He was moving toward the edge of the chasm when Malika grabbed his arm.

  “She is common.” Her voice hissed cruelly. “Low-born. Do not soil yourself with her contact.”

  “She can help,” he said to Malika, and looked at Rafi for assistance. But Rafi only shrugged and looked away.

  Suddenly, the Ycsko were there—seven of them, almost skeletal in appearance in spite of their billowing red robes. The air sprite spoke quickly to him. Her words sounded like a warning.

  Next to him, Malika laughed again, higher now, almost hysterically. She handed something to the red-robed Ycsko. A cylinder. A hypospray.

  He watched it come closer, knowing once it touched his neck the pain would start, flooding his body, burning his mind. He tried to will it away by sheer force of thought …

  His eyes shot open. The stark whiteness of the walls rushed in, almost blinding him. He flinched in pain, but silently. Always silently.

  Then the darkness engulfed him, and he slept.

  After a while his eyelids fluttered again, more slowly this time, letting his pupils adjust to the light. It didn’t seem quite as bright as before but still stung his brain like a thousand needles.

  He forced himself not to hurry his surreptitious scrutiny, yet his body was on alert. The memory of his short-lived captivity by the ’Sko came back, with the pain of their drugs and interrogation attempts. His ears took in the low whoosh-and-hum of something around him. It didn’t sound or feel like the high-ceilinged, brightly lit interrogation room he remembered.

  Through slitted eyes he glanced around, aware of the diagnostic cylinder fitted over his body.

  He was in a medical unit, a small one. Ill-equipped too: his regen bed was the only one.

  He longed to move his head, flex the aching muscles in his arms and—damn!—scratch that insistent itching over his wounds. But his senses had alerted him to another presence. He wasn’t yet ready to make an official appearance. Not until he knew exactly where he was, and why.

  Years of intense training allowed him to feign sleep. Not even the regen bed registered any change in his heart rate or respiration. Yet he was completely aware of all his surroundings. By habit he began calculating the distance between his left side and the wall. Three feet six inches, roughly. The wall to his right was five feet from him, perhaps two inches more. It contained a small ship’s diagram, illuminated icons showing emergency stations and fire equipment locations.

  He memorized the diagram.

  There was a doorway, a hatchway about seven feet from the line of his right shoulder.

  A metallic-skinned ’droid, an old DZ-9, he noted with mild surprise, stood by the hatchway, laser rifle in hand. Its joints squeaked every so often as it changed position to glance down the corridor or at the panel on the wall.

  Since when, he wondered, had envoy ’droids been used in security? And by whom?

  If that were the only impediment … but then there was a sound. Quick footsteps approaching on a metal floor. The steps echoed, solitary, telling him the walker was alone in the corridor. He heard no other noises, no other people but the walker and the ’droid.

  He listened to the cadence of the steps, mentally timing their separation. Whoever was coming toward him was light in weight and short in stature. Probably female.

  She was. As the woman entered the room, the dim overhead lighting caught the glisten of gold in her short cap of pale hair. Rafi would have described her face as winsome, sweet, with large, long-lashed eyes. And a mouth with just the right touch of poutiness. But Senior Captain Rafiello Vanushavor was an inveterate lady’s man, well versed in cataloging a female’s charms.

  Unlike Rafi, his own expertise lay more with weapons and strategies. A woman’s allurements were inconsequential. His exposure to Malika had taught him just how shallow those outward observations could be. And how painfully wrong.

  “How’s he doing this morning?” The woman’s question drew his attention. She spoke Standard. He knew immediately he was on the wrong side of the zone.

  “Still unconscious,” the ’droid replied. “Though the nightmares have stopped.”

  “I don’t understand why he’s still out cold. When’s the last time you ran a diagnostics?”

  “Ten minutes ago. But internal diagnostics is off-line again. I can bring up the data manually, through the medistat, if you want to look at it.”

  She sighed tiredly. “Maybe I should.”

  The ’droid turned to interface with a small console near the door. “The medistat will relay test results on its screen in forty-three seconds, Captain.”

  Captain? She was too young to hold such rank. Perhaps in her twenties? He found it difficult to judge her ag
e through his narrowed eyes, but the outline of her form was clear against the room’s white walls. The top of her dark-green shirt hung open to her waist, its sleeves rolled up. The tight sleeveless ribbed T-shirt underneath hugged her breasts. The curve of her hips and rear filled out the baggy pants. A wide utility belt sagged around her small waist from the weight of a laser pistol and several spare charger clips. It wasn’t the uniform of a med-tech.

  She stepped closer, studied the screen on the diag cylinder. A sweet, musky scent of flowers and perfumed powder drifted to him.

  “Think we should risk a stim? I don’t see anything here that tells me why he’s still unconscious.”

  “His level of pain may be too great.”

  It was. He used the pain as a point of focus. He’d lived with pain, and the discipline it brought, almost his whole life.

  He’d also lived with the knowledge of his power, his control. He’d be there again. Soon. He just needed for her to come a little closer.

  He slowed his hearbeat, his breathing, using methods he had been taught over thirty years ago. Just a few more seconds. Just a little closer …

  A red light flashed in warning on the cylinder.

  “Damn, what’s happening?” There was a note of panic in her voice.

  “A cardiac irregularity.” The ’droid stepped quickly to the other side of the unit. “I cannot tell if it’s serious enough—”

  The diagram and diagnostic panels blinked off in one swift motion. The cylinder went dark.

  “Shit! What’d you do?”

  “I did nothing. I was merely attempting to calibrate the unit.”

  “He’s stopped breathing, damn it!” She quickly unlatched the lock on the unit, sliding it down the bed.

  He felt her hand on his throat, her fingers prodding gently for a pulse. Her voice was tense in his ear. “Don’t you dare die on me, you ungrateful son of a Pillorian bitch! I’m in enough trouble already. I—”

  He moved with unerring precision. One hand clamped tightly around her neck. He clasped her left wrist with his other and yanked her arm up behind her back. Thrown off balance, she fell forward and was crushed against his chest.