Rebels and Lovers

by Linnea Sinclair

“Kaid! Makaiden Griggs! Over here!”

  Kaidee turned at the sound of her name, recognizing the voice of the bald-headed, pale-skinned older man whose hand splayed in the air. His brown coveralls bore the glowing-wrench logo of Popovitch Expert Repair Service. She dodged a ’droid server with two trays full of dirty glasses and headed for the corner table where Pops, his office manager/daughter Ilsa, and his repair techs often lounged.

  Garvey—she didn’t know his first name—was leaning over the back of a chair that was empty except for one of Pops’s scuffed boots. Next to him was Aries Pan, a tech Pops had hired a few weeks back. A small screwdriver tucked behind her right ear held her pink and purple hair back from her face. She smiled as Kaidee approached, her face impish yet intelligent.

  “Need a seat?” Pops asked, motioning to the bearded dark-haired tech. “Garvey was just leaving.”

  “Don’t mean to put you out,” Kaidee said to Garvey, as she returned Aries’s smile.

  Garvey wiggled his thick eyebrows. “Meeting up with my little honey. It’s yours, Captain Griggs.”

  “And he’ll come back covered with love bruises and a happy twinkle in his eye,” Aries drawled teasingly.

  Chuckles sounded around the table. Garvey looked sheepish.

  Kaidee nodded her thanks. “You could have probably sold this seat and made some money.”

  Pops dropped his foot from the chair to the decking as Garvey disappeared into the crowd. “We’re all going to be needing a new business before long, if Tage don’t let up.”

  That was the truth. Kaidee liked Pops. She’d known of his repair facility for more than a decade but had dealt with him for only about a year now. Which meant she didn’t know him well enough to dump her troubles on him. She snagged a bottle of ale from a passing ’droid server, dropping a credit chip in the slot in its left arm, and tried to focus on something other than her personal problems. “You mean that with all these ships on dock, Pops’s Repairs doesn’t have a captive audience?”

  “With no one moving goods, no one’s getting paid. Which means captains don’t want to spend money they don’t have.”

  She understood that only too well. “They have to open the lanes soon.” Real soon. She didn’t want to see Frinks on her rampway again.

  “Tomorrow.” Pops looked around the table with a snort. “Isn’t that what we hear every few hours? Lanes’ll be open tomorrow.”

  Kaidee had heard the same line. Last time Tage pulled this, it had been almost a shipweek of tomorrows. And a shipweek would create serious trouble for her.

  “Or we’ll all starve to death, eventually,” Ilsa was saying, leaning against a sandy-haired man’s shoulder. Ilsa was about Kaidee’s own age, the man perhaps a little younger. His hair was pulled back in a long tail, which he had draped over the other shoulder. She’d seen him in Pops’s place before but didn’t know his name. And he didn’t wear tech coveralls but a spacer’s black leather jacket.

  She gathered from Ilsa’s posture that this was her current lover.

  “You’ll have riots here before that,” the man said. “Heard Trel’s had a big bar fight. Stripers had to fire-hose the place to stop it. Next time they’ll probably use gas.”

  Aries nodded. “No one in Aldan would cry big tears if we all got spaced or Dock Five imploded.”

  Aldan was the central hub of the Empire, with worlds like Sylvadae, Garno, and Aldan Prime, whose wealthy denizens would, no, not miss Dock Five at all. It had been a gathering place for pirates, mercenaries, and other ask-me-no-questions types for centuries, back when the Empire was just Aldan, Calth was first being colonized, and Baris sector was some unpronounceable Stolorth name.

  Dock Five was also home to a lot of hardworking traders and spacers and ships that did the backbreaking runs the larger shipping companies had no interest in doing. So it was a place where a lot of careers started—and a place where many of them died.

  Kaidee wasn’t sure right now which end of the spectrum she was on. But if Frinks had his way, it would be the latter.

  “We’re not the only ones the Baris blockades have locked in,” she said, after taking a swig of ale from her bottle. It was icy cold and had a bittersweet tang that suited her current mood perfectly. “There’s Starport Six—”

  “Which houses a military base, so they’re getting supplies,” Ilsa’s lover said. “Lots of ’em, now that Corsau Station’s gone over to the Alliance.”

  Corsau? She hadn’t heard. That had long been an active and prosperous station on the opposite end of the B–C. She’d been there dozens of times. No wonder Tage was angry. “When?”

  “Shipweek ago, maybe less,” Pops put in. “Depending on which source you hear it from.”

  Aries turned her near-empty bottle in her hands. “I heard the Empire took it back again, but I think that’s just what they want us to believe.”

  “Like I said, depends who you hear it from.” Pops leaned forward, dropping his voice. “Right now I trust this new Alliance a hell of a lot more than I do our crazy emperor and his flunky. And sources I know and trust say Corsau joined up with Kirro, Umoran and the starports in Calth sector, and the rest of Dafir. Tage can’t risk losing more of Baris sector.”

  “And locking us in helps him how?” Aries grumbled.

  “The new Alliance has Ferrin’s and the shipyards there,” Ilsa said, with a vague motion of one hand, indicating something beyond Dock Five’s hull. “That puts the Alliance in the position to build more ships and then move into Baris from both ends of Calth.” She looked at her father. “Ain’t that right, Pops?”

  Pops sighed. “Sounds like you been listening in to my office when you were supposed to be working, girl.”

  Ilsa shrugged, then laughed lightly. “And you just figured that out?”

  “Just watch what you say and who you say it to.”

  Another shrug. “Can they really expect we’ll all sit here, happy as you please, without bitching? Without wondering what’s going on?”

  “My feeling is they’re looking for certain people. And they’re listening to the bitching to find out where those certain people are.”

  Kaidee could almost hear her father’s voice: Time to run, girl. Except the Empire had found him and killed him almost a year ago. No, this was some new project of Tage’s.

  Maybe that was why Frinks was suddenly pressuring her for the rest of Kiler’s debt. Orvis was smarmy enough to work for Tage as an agent. Kiler had probably blabbed about his “close personal contact” with the Guthries. It wouldn’t be hard for someone like Orvis to check that out, to verify that they’d flown for GGS for five years.

  But that didn’t mean she had Philip Guthrie in her cargo hold and Guthrie funds in her account.

  You’re hallucinating, Kaid. This has nothing to do, personally, with you or your family. And the Empire knows exactly where Admiral Philip Guthrie is: in command of some Alliance warship that kicked the shit out of an Imperial cruiser out by the C-6 jumpgate. Or so she’d heard about a shipmonth ago.

  So who did the Empire want badly enough to damned near bring Baris sector to a halt? Kaidee had a feeling Pops knew, but she wasn’t about to ask him. The last thing she needed was to get involved with volatile Imperial politics. She had enough problems on her own.

  She had to come up with thirteen thousand credits—and fast.

  They pored over the police reports from Aldan Prime and Montgomery University security for the better part of two hours. Ethan even dug out vids of his and Hannah’s visit to Trip’s apartment only two weeks ago and painstakingly went over every scene of every room, comparing it to the police images, looking for something the police might have missed. They came up with nothing.

  They viewed Rallman’s logs, again, in detail. “Professionals,” Jonathan said, as Ethan nodded in agreement. “It was done quickly, neatly.”

  Neatly, yes. But other than that, the data made no damned sense at all.

  Devin scrubbed at his face with both hands, then slipped
his glasses back on. “I’m not ruling out that Tage may have had Halsey killed,” he said, leaning his elbows on his knees as he sat in the high-backed leather library chair near the polished gray stone fireplace. Jonathan, eyes still shadowed with worry, was in the matching chair on the other side. J.M. looked pale, his mouth pinched as he sat behind his large, ornately carved desk. Ethan lounged tiredly—one leg propped up on the sofa table—on a nail-studded couch catercorner to the desk.

  Hannah was upstairs with Marguerite, Valerie, and the children.

  A half dozen armed security personnel were milling about the house, their footsteps and occasional low conversations drifting into the library.

  “But I have a hard time believing,” Devin continued, “that kidnappers would have cleaned Trip’s apartment, packed his duffel and his bookpad, but left his deskcomp behind. And where’s his pocket comm? Why would they leave him with a means to contact us?”

  “Stop playing detective, D.J.,” Ethan drawled. He was the only one who called Devin that, and he knew Devin hated it. But everyone was strained, nerves taut. That was just Ethan’s way of showing his frustration. “The police are trained for that kind of thing. You’re not.”

  Devin shook his head and looked at Ethan. His brother’s dark hair was tinged with gold from the sun, his face tanned from the hours he spent sailing. But all the fresh air and sunshine hadn’t been able to remove the dark circles under Ethan’s eyes, the result of hours of drinking. And—Devin often suspected—possibly worse. His brother was in no shape to handle this kind of stress from his family. “It has nothing to do with playing detective. It has to do with logic.”

  “People don’t become criminals because they have an excess of logic.”

  “If they were criminals, Ethan, they would have taken Trip’s vidcams, comps, everything. Nothing that happened there bespeaks a lower criminal element.”

  Ethan snorted. “Bespeaks?”

  That rewarded Ethan with a slanted glance from his father. Ethan shrugged and fell back against the couch cushions. There were six years between Ethan and Devin, so for six years Ethan had been the baby of the family. Devin’s arrival didn’t seem to change that. If anything, it made it worse. Or so Devin had heard the servants whisper more than once.

  But this wasn’t sibling rivalry. This was something no Guthrie did well: feeling helpless. Ethan just did it worse than the rest of them.

  “Explain to me why there’s no sign of a struggle in the apartment,” Devin asked again.

  “To throw us off,” Jonathan said grimly.

  “But if they wanted to cover the kidnapping by making it look as if Trip ran away, then why leave Halsey’s body behind? If they had time to get a cleaning crew in Trip’s apartment, they had time to get someone to dispose of Halsey’s body. Any other explanation is illogical.”

  “Tage wants Philip, badly.” J.M.’s voice was tight. “That kind of hatred can make a man do illogical things.”

  Just as the horror over Halsey’s death and Trip’s disappearance was making Devin’s father and brothers jump to illogical conclusions. “Tage doesn’t kill people himself, Father. He farms that out to his ranks of ImpSec assassins. And ImpSec wouldn’t be that sloppy.”

  Ethan waved one hand dismissively. “So you’re an expert on ImpSec now?”

  That earned him another warning glance, this time from Jonathan. “Try contributing instead of complaining.”

  “I’m not complaining. I’m as upset as the rest of you are.” Ethan’s voice rose to an almost petulant whine. “Just because I don’t have all the degrees you and Devin have doesn’t mean I’m stupid. Neither is Father. We’re Guthries. We have money. Lots of it. And people who want that try kidnapping. All the time.” Ethan switched a look from Jonathan to J.M. “You know that’s true. There’ve been kidnap threats against us before.”

  Devin opened his hands in a helpless gesture. “Kidnappers work against time and discovery. They’re not going to let a kid pack his duffel and his bookpad. It would be of no use to them.”

  But it would be of use to Trip. That was something Devin thought of as soon as he saw the police reports. Trip never went anywhere without his bookpad, which held his prized collection of Philip’s training manuals.

  Ethan sat up straighter. “Kidnappers plan—”

  “Father, Uncle Devin’s right.”

  Startled, Devin glanced to his right. Sixteen-year-old Thana stood in the library’s wide doorway, a large, long-furred black-and-white cat in her arms. Cosmo, Devin remembered. Petra Frederick had evidently let the children stop home long enough to retrieve Cosmo—a source of comfort—but not to change their clothes. Thana was still in the dark-blue pants and white tunic that comprised her school uniform, her long dark hair pulled back and tied with a white ribbon. “Trip takes his bookpad everywhere.” Her voice wavered slightly. She sucked in a breath. “Not only because it has his class work. It has all of Uncle Philip’s stuff. If someone kidnapped him … well, he’d make sure that was left behind. Because then we’d know he really didn’t want to leave. I’d know.” She held her father’s gaze for a moment, then looked at Devin. “He cried a lot when we heard Uncle Philip was dead. I told him he should talk to you or to Father, but he … he said no. He said …,” and she hesitated, her desire to find her brother clearly warring with her desire to protect him.

  “I know you’re worried about Trippy.” Devin prompted her as gently as he could. “I am too. But if you know anything that might help—”

  “He said he was gonna join the Alliance and help them kill Prime Commander Tage,” twelve-year-old Max said, stepping into the open doorway. Like Thana, he was in blue pants and a white tunic. But his dark curly hair was mussed.

  “Maxwell Macy!” Jonathan shot to his feet. “If your brother was talking such nonsense, I should have been told. Immediately.”

  Max dropped his gaze to the carpet under his shoes. “I know. I’m sorry.”

  Devin stared at Max, then at Thana, seeing—feeling—their fear. And not of their father but for their brother’s safety. Jonathan was stern, but he was fair. And, in rare moments, he could even be kind.

  But Max and Thana, who knew Trippy better than anyone, were afraid. So was Jonathan. So was Devin. Trippy had spoken to him about Philip’s reported death, but Devin hadn’t taken the young man’s rantings against Tage seriously. More than half the Empire was ranting about the new prime commander lately.

  Jonathan looked at his daughter. “He told you this as well, Thana?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Something?” Jonathan’s voice rose as he stepped toward his daughter. She lowered her face into Cosmo’s thick fur, cradling the cat more tightly against her. “Your brother’s missing and all you can remember is ‘something’?”

  “That’s because they’re lying.” Ethan cut in, his voice hard and angry. “They just want the attention—”

  “That’s not true, Uncle Ethan!” Max’s hands fisted at his side.

  “Enough.” A deep voice that hadn’t lost its firmness or ability to issue orders in almost eighty years halted them all in their tracks. J.M. splayed his large hands on his desktop. “Yelling and unconfirmed suppositions are unproductive,” he said to Jonathan. He nodded at his grandchildren. “Thana, Max, please go to the kitchen and tell Audra we’d like some coffee brought to the library. Ethan.” He pinned his third son with a meaningful glare. “Go see if your mother needs anything.”

  Thana let Cosmo slip to the carpet then turned, grabbing Max’s shoulder as Ethan shoved himself off the couch. The cat on their heels, the children hurried away from the doorway, obviously glad to have escaped their father’s wrath. Ethan followed, but not without one final glance back into the library, peevishness clear in the tight lines of his face.

  “Sit down, Jonathan,” J.M. ordered. Then, as Jonathan returned to his seat: “I understand exactly what happened now. If your son did in fact have some wild idea to harm Darius Tage, it stands to reason Imper
ial Security would have taken him into custody. It also stands to reason we will be hearing from them or Tage’s office shortly. We will, of course, get our barristers working on the case immediately.”

  “But why kill Halsey?” Devin persisted. “Halsey wouldn’t have stood in the way of a legitimate arrest warrant. And why remove Trip’s bookpad?”

  “Evidence, of course.” Jonathan’s tone was as hard as his father’s was earlier.

  “But they didn’t take his deskcomp. Any research Trip did—and I’m assuming we’re all now thinking he hacked into plans for the palace or schematics for Tage’s personal transport—would have to go through his deskcomp first. He could download things onto his bookpad, but how and where and when he acquired them would reside on his deskcomp.”

  “Maybe he erased them,” Jonathan said.

  “Trippy doesn’t know how to permanently erase data. I would know if he did.” If there was one thing Devin Guthrie knew, it was data. Data, computers, numbers. “ImpSec could recover erased data. If they believed Trip was involved in something subversive, they wouldn’t leave a deskcomp behind.”

  J.M. dismissed Devin’s argument with a sharp wave of his hand. “They probably have some specialist retrieving his deskcomp. They’re not going to lug that and my grandson out the door at the same time.”

  No, but they had time to bring in a cleaning crew. The illogic of it all made Devin’s stomach twist into a knot. He pulled his glasses off again and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

  “You really should get your eyes fixed,” Jonathan intoned. “It’s a simple five-minute—”

  A soft double knock halted his brother’s relentless recommendation for eye surgery. The pungent, nutty aroma of coffee drifted into the room. Devin peered over his hands, expecting Audra’s short, rotund form in the wide doorway but seeing Barthol’s lanky one instead.

  “Coffee, sirs?” Barthol asked as Devin straightened.

  Devin glanced at his watch. It was almost one-thirty in the afternoon, seven hours since the discovery of Trip’s disappearance. Twelve hours since Halsey’s death. That had to mean Trip left to “join the Alliance”—he could still hear the excitement in Max’s voice—twelve or so hours ago.