by Jaleta Clegg
She sent them away to shower and dress for dinner. She went alone to her room to think. She had to leave Fedrithus and soon. She wasn't going to do it through official channels. The Patrol was going to leave her here until she died. She had to find another way. She had to find a contact at the port, a ship that could get her somewhere more useful. Maybe that was what the medic was hinting at. Maybe he could get her a way off Fedrithus.
And then what? She couldn't go back to Linas-Drias and Lowell.
She could find Dace and the Phoenix Rising. Chances were Dace would need her help sooner rather than later. The fact that Beryn was crew on the ship made it all the easier to decide. She'd give it another week. And then she'd turn in her resignation and leave Fedrithus and the Patrol.
With or without the proper approval, she was leaving.
Chapter 14
The afternoon sun was scorching. We'd finally tracked down the last of the parts we needed. Three more days and the ship would be ready to fly again. We needed a cargo still. Money was tight. Between fines and repairs, we'd depleted our cash funds almost completely. We still had plenty of money, if we didn't mind proving who we really were. Last I knew, my personal account alone still had close to a million credits in it.
Jasyn had checked for Gypsy ships. None of the ones in port claimed any affiliation with Gypsies. We couldn't look for help there.
I put down the coupling unit I carried and wiped the sweat out of my eyes. The thing was heavy. For some reason, there weren't any small sleds available for rent here. The only cargo haulers available were the giant ones. I'd offered to carry this part back while Darus and Beryn fetched the rest.
The streets were deserted and quiet. No one stirred during the heat of the day if they could avoid it. It was spring, but already the weather was blazingly hot. Thunderstorms happened frequently, like the one we'd landed in. The air was muggy. There was another storm predicted to hit later that day.
I picked up the coupling and started lugging it down the street. This section of town was mostly junkyards and used part stores. The high plascrete wall next to me reflected the sun's heat making the road even hotter.
A group of mechanics came out of the shop across the street. They were loud, talking boisterously. I glanced nervously behind me at them. I'd been out of the ship too long. I had no reason to suspect anything was wrong. I shrugged off the sick feeling in my gut.
I lugged the part down the street, now quiet as the group turned a corner behind me. The afternoon air was heavy, hot and still. I stopped to wipe sweat again. My arms ached from the heavy engine part. I was hoping to have it ready to install as soon as Beryn and Darus returned with the rest of the parts we needed.
I was trying to overcome my nervousness at being away from the ship. It was completely irrational, but that didn't make it better. My stomach was still in knots as I walked down the street.
Maybe I shouldn't have gone by myself. I'd felt safer with Beryn and Darus. They'd distracted me enough that I didn't notice the fluttering in my middle or the nervous twitching along the back of my neck.
Another group came around the corner in front of me, three tough looking men in dockworker's coveralls. They gave me one glance then dismissed me, talking quietly with each other.
I shifted the coupling unit to the other arm and tried to shake out the cramps in my hand.
"Let me help you with that," one of the dockworkers offered.
I looked up at him. My sense of danger quivered, something shifty about his manner that made my skin crawl.
"It isn't a problem," I said through clenched teeth. I didn't want his help. I wanted him to go away. I wanted back in the safety of the ship.
"Oh, but I insist." He grabbed the part and pulled it out of my hold. His two friends closed in on either side of me. I backed away and ran into the wall behind me.
The little voice in my head was screaming at me to run away as fast as I could. It sounded like a very good idea. I could always track the part down later.
"I don't have any money," I said.
They didn't answer. They shuffled closer. I shifted to my right. They followed, boxing me in. I kicked out at the one on my left then threw myself at the man in front. I was hoping to break through. The man on my left caught my foot. I fell headfirst into the man in front of me. He grunted as my head slammed into his stomach. The third man caught me and shoved me back against the wall.
I bounced off the roasting plascrete and scrambled to get my feet under me. I tried running past the man who had just thrown me, ducking under his arm. I almost made it. He dropped my engine part, turning to catch me. I hit the wall again, slamming my head so hard I saw stars. The man didn't let go. He shoved me back farther, his forearm pressed against my neck. I swallowed hard, standing on my toes to keep breathing. He towered over me, leaning closer.
"Are you afraid?" he breathed into my ear.
I squirmed and tried to kick him. He shoved harder on my neck. I grabbed his arm. He slid it higher up the wall, dragging me with it. I dangled, my toes barely touching the ground. I would have screamed if I could, not that it would have done any good. The streets were deserted. No one was there to hear me.
"You should be afraid," he said, his breath hot on my cheek. "Captain Dace."
It didn't matter that the air was hot as engine exhaust. I was suddenly cold inside. He knew who I was. There were plenty of people in the Empire who wanted my blood. I wasn't going to give it to him without a fight.
I twisted my head to the side and sank my teeth into his arm, lashing out with both fists at the same time. I didn't have the leverage to hit him very hard. He swore and jammed his arm harder across my face, smashing my cheek against the rough surface.
"Get the cuffs," he snarled at one of the other men. He shoved my face into the wall.
I clawed wildly with my hands, trying to do as much damage as I could. All three of the men were swearing, but very quietly. I tried to get my face free so I could scream. One of them shoved a wad of nasty smelling cloth into my mouth. The smell made me gag. It filled my head. Lights swirled in front of my eyes. I couldn't breathe. I reached for the cloth. They caught my hands and snapped them into force cuffs, squeezing them so tight they burned my wrists.
The one holding my head on the wall finally let me go far enough for my feet to reach the ground. I staggered into a run. I tried to spit out the cloth, but my lips had gone numb. The taste of it burned my tongue, leaving streaks of numbness and pain behind. I stumbled like a drunk.
The men grabbed me, wrapping me into a long cloak. They pulled the hood of it over my head, hiding my face. One of them swung me over his shoulder. My hands were caught in front of me, pinned to his shoulder. The force cuffs buzzed and stung.
"This way, quick," the leader said.
I tried to track where they carried me. I was too dizzy and sick. The heat was stifling. The cloth in my mouth was treated with some drug. My head swam. Lights danced in front of my eyes. My ears rang with noise that I knew couldn't exist. I tried to work the cloth out of my mouth. My tongue was too dry. The cloth sucked up moisture.
The sunlight cut off abruptly. I heard a door slam shut. They carried me into a hot, musty space. I heard more doors open and close. The one carrying me finally stopped. He dropped me onto a very hard floor. I couldn't help the groan when I landed.
They stripped off the cloak, rolling me into a corner in the process. The leader leaned over me and jerked the cloth out of my mouth. He took skin with it. He didn't seem to care. He glared. I closed my eyes. I couldn't focus them anyway. He slapped me, knocking my head to one side. I tasted blood. I blinked my eyes open.
"What do you want?" I croaked.
He studied my face as dispassionately as I would have studied a broken engine part. He grabbed my chin and studied my eyes.
"Thirsty?" he asked.
My mouth felt gritty and full of sand. Did I dare show weakness to him? I tried to swallow. I couldn't read his face. I had no idea what
he wanted from me. He knew my name.
He dropped my face then stood, looming over me. "You will be."
I watched them walk out a door. The door shut. I heard a lock click. I sagged onto the floor.
My head hurt. My cheek stung. My hands were slowly going numb. The cuffs were defective. Shivers of static electricity wormed up my arms from the cuffs. I closed my eyes and tried to ignore it.
What did these men want from me? Who were they? How was I going to get out of the locked room? How was I going to explain to Jasyn that I was in trouble? Again.
I tried to swallow. My tongue was swollen, feeling three times its normal size. I pushed up to my hands and knees. I fought waves of dizziness and lost. I collapsed back to the floor. I closed my eyes, promising myself that I would only rest until the dizziness passed.
I heard the lock click. I opened my eyes. The room was dark. The only light came from around the door as it opened. I squinted at the figure in the door. There was another click and the room was flooded with artificial light. It was dull yellow, coming from old, cracked fixtures. Dust floated lazily through the dim light. The open door allowed a very sluggish movement of air to drift past me.
The man in the doorway was the leader. He stared down at me. His face was devoid of emotion. I felt like a package, a stray bit of cargo. Despite the heat, I shivered.
He watched me for a long time, standing completely still in the doorway. He was tall, lanky. I knew he was strong. I'd felt the wiry muscles in his arms while he was pinning me to the wall. His hair was worn a bit longer than most spacers would wear it. It curled over the collar of his coveralls, dull brown in the dusty light. He had a scar across one side of his face, twisting the corner of his mouth into a cynical expression. His arm had a coating of medical sealant just the size of my mouth. I must have drawn blood when I bit him.
Nothing about him said he was anything more than a dockworker. Except for his eyes, they were cold and hard.
"What do you want?" I croaked.
He didn't answer. He just stood and studied me. I glared back. We stayed that way for a long time.
When he finally moved, I twitched in surprise. He pulled a pouch of water from his pocket and tossed it at me. It landed right in front of my cuffed hands. He didn't say anything. He turned away. The door locked behind him. He left the light on.
I looked down at the pouch of water. Was it drugged? Or poisoned? Did it matter? My mouth was so dry it hurt.
I reached to pick up the pouch. The cuffs were so tight on my wrists that my hands had gone numb. I fumbled the pouch up, wedging it between hands that felt like blocks of plascrete attached to my arms. I tore it open with my teeth. Water squirted free, running down my hands. I sucked the pouch dry. It wasn't nearly enough. I licked everything I could from my hands. I was careful to avoid the cuffs. Licking force cuffs was a very painful way to electrocute yourself. As it was, the water that made it that far caused them to spark and sizzle. I winced at the shocks running up my arms. They were defective but they worked well enough.
I lay back down, resigning myself to playing a waiting game. Sooner or later, the dockworkers would let me know what they wanted. Sooner or later, I could start negotiating my way out of here. Sooner or later, Jasyn and the others would come looking for me.
Or would they? I tried to banish the malicious thought from my head. They'd come for me on Shangrila. They'd come for me before. They would come for me again. I had to believe that. I tried to believe it. I couldn't shake the nagging doubt, though. How many times would Jasyn come for me? How many times would she put up with the trouble I inevitably dragged into her life? She had a child now, and a husband. She had told me she wanted no more troubles.
I crouched against the wall, feeling very small and sorry for myself. How much could I ask from her? I'd promised to stay out of trouble and I'd intended to keep that promise. But here I was, in trouble again. I should have never left the ship.
Maybe it would be better for everyone if I died. Maybe it would have been better if I'd died on Shangrila from the poison Vance's mother had fed me. Maybe I should just curl up and die now.
Anger at myself shattered my bleak mood. I yanked my hands apart, straining the force cuffs until they showered sparks over me and sent jolts of electricity up my arms. I wasn't going to let the universe win that easily. It had been trying to kill me, destroy me, for years.
I was going to get out of this hot, dusty room. I was going to get back to my ship. And I was never going to set foot off it again.
I had to get the force cuffs off. I slammed my wrists on the plascrete floor, trying to snap the controls for the cuffs. I got shocked for my efforts.
"Think," I told myself. "Quit being stupid."
I sat against the wall and tried to think my way out. I came up with exactly nothing. I had no way to remove the cuffs, defective as they were. I had no way to open the door. My lockpicks were still on the ship, what was left of them. Most of them were long lost and scattered.
There was nothing useful in the room. It was bare, except for me and the dust. The walls were blank, except for the door and a single ventilation duct located close to the floor on the wall next to me. The grate covering it was loose, but the duct beyond was much too small for even me to squeeze into.
I had little in my pockets, my id plates and a handful of credit chips. My hands were too swollen and clumsy to get anything out anyway. Most of the tools I'd been using lately were too big to fit into pockets.
I slumped against the wall. I was out of options and ideas. I would have to wait until I could figure out what the men wanted from me.
I fell asleep waiting.
Chapter 15
Smells of cooking wafted out of the open hatch. Beryn and Darus walked tiredly towards the ship. The heat was draining and they both had armloads of boxes containing parts. They'd arranged delivery for the heaviest but those wouldn't arrive until morning. Evening light poured sideways across the port.
"I hope Dace has that coupling unit pulled," Beryn said as they walked up the boarding ramp and into the ship.
"She will," Darus answered.
Jasyn stirred a pot on the stove. Clark talked with Louie in his nursery. Twyla and Ginni were in the cockpit, surrounded by wires and stripped control panels.
"Smells good," Beryn told Jasyn as they lugged the parts past her and down to the engine room.
"She hasn't touched the coupling mount," Darus said, frowning. There was no sign of anyone in the engine room. The engine was as they had left it earlier when they went to fetch parts.
Beryn put his stack of boxes down and turned to Darus. "She did say she was coming right back, didn't she?"
"Maybe she's in her cabin," Darus said.
"Where's Dace?" Jasyn asked when they came back up to the lounge.
"She isn't here?" Darus asked back. "She said she was going to strip out the coupling unit. She said she was coming straight back here. That was hours ago."
"She didn't come back," Jasyn said. She moved the pot off the stove, placing it on the table.
"Then where is she?" Beryn asked. "We could go out and look for her."
Jasyn shook her head. "Maybe she just needed time by herself. We have been hounding her a lot lately. I'm sure she'll be back before long."
"That doesn't sound like her," Beryn said. "It took major convincing to get her to come with us this morning."
"And a promise that we were just going to find parts," Darus put in. "She made us promise we'd come right back. She was a bit jumpy."
Jasyn sat in a chair with a sigh. "We could check the local police bulletins. She promised she was through getting in trouble." She spread her hands on the tabletop. "I don't know her anymore," she said quietly.
"I'm not sure any of us do," Darus said.
"So what are we going to do?" Beryn asked. "We can't do more on the engine until we get the coupling unit replaced and Dace has that."
"Maybe we'd better go looking for her," Jasyn sai
d.
"Dace didn't come back?" Clark said as he joined them. He handed Louie to Jasyn. "I'll try paging her." He went into the cockpit. "Does the com still work?" he asked Ginni.
"It should," Ginni answered. "We're checking circuits on the engines. I did the com board two days ago." She leaned around him to look into the lounge of the ship. "Is something wrong?"
Clark shrugged. "We don't know yet. Dace didn't come back this afternoon."
"She didn't fit in here anymore," Twyla said. "She wasn't happy."
Ginni glared at Twyla. "Don't say that. This is her home and she knows it. This is where she belongs."
"Then why isn't she here? Why didn't she come back with Beryn and Darus?" Twyla shifted a pile of wires to the empty chair.
Clark was at the com, keying in the code for the com unit Dace should have been carrying.
"Something's happened to her," Ginni said.
"When hasn't something happened to her?" Twyla said. "She brings trouble everywhere she goes."
"Not deliberately," Ginni said. "And if she hadn't gotten into trouble over me, if she'd done what she should have done, I wouldn't be here."
"I've got a signal," Clark called to the others in the lounge. "It's receiving."
"What are we going to do this time?" Twyla asked, loud enough they could all hear.
"You can leave if you want," Jasyn said tiredly. She had Louie in his chair. He was busy smearing food across the table.
"I didn't mean it that way," Twyla said.
"Then what did you mean?" Jasyn answered.
"Maybe she was picked up by a Patrol enlistment crew," Beryn said. "I've heard rumors."
"If she was, they'll id her and either lock her up or escort her back here. I doubt they want her," Clark said. He flipped a switch and pushed more buttons. "Finally, an answer," he said. "Dace?"
There was a burst of static. Everyone watched Clark, waiting, except for Darus. He came up from the engine room and crossed the lounge into the cockpit. He put a com unit on the panel next to Clark.
