Rebels and Lovers

by Linnea Sinclair

  “Keep your head down,” she added. His height wasn’t an advantage at the moment—not unless she could insert them both into a trio of Takas. But with Frinks’s friend on the loose, that held trouble too. A group of Stolorths, maybe …

  “This way!” She dragged him abruptly into a side corridor, took the first left, then the next right into a service alley. She had to be careful she didn’t double back and run into their pursuers. Dock Five—which had grown out of several enormous mining barges—wasn’t unlike a large rectangular maze.

  Now, if they could get behind their pursuers …

  “Any idea who’s trying to kill you, Master Trip?”

  He snuffled. “Not sure.”

  Not sure or not willing to admit it? She thought of all the trouble she’d gotten into—and could have gotten into—when she was nineteen. Filching kegs of ale and joyriding in station maintenance flitters were the least of it. “You do something to piss off the local stripers? Or,” and it sounded crazy but she had to ask, “ImpSec?” Stripers she could likely outsmart. ImpSec would take a lot more work. “Someone after your family’s money?”

  “Not stripers.”

  Footsteps banged loudly against the decking behind them. She shot a quick glance over her shoulder. “Shit.” Fuzz-face and friends. Running noisily. Attracting attention.

  Stationers filled the corridors left and right. She and Trip could play duck-and-hide, but if their pursuers got smart and came at them from opposite sides, they were dead. And so were a lot of other people who just happened to be in Pisstown at the wrong time.

  A flash of white light caught her attention. Lifts, off to their left. The blinking light meant a car was arriving. There was a line waiting …

  Fuck the line.

  “Trip, when I tell you, groan really loud. Like you’re going to die, got it?”

  “But I’m not—”

  “Do it, or you will be dead.” She shoved him toward the lift banks.

  “Got it,” he said over his shoulder.

  “And don’t wipe any more blood away! Lean on me.” She snaked her left arm around his waist as if she held him on his feet. “Now!” she said as they neared the end of the line.

  “Owww,” Trip moaned. “Ohhhh.”

  “Medical emergency!” Kaidee shouted. “Clear the way!”

  “Owww! Ohhhh!”

  The line shifted slowly—except one woman, with eyes narrowed. “He don’t look like—”

  “Body-fluid biohazard!” Kaidee barked at her. “He’s got the red scum. Move or—”

  The woman jerked back. Trip moaned again, thrashing his head left and right as the lift doors opened.

  “Medical emergency! Biohazard!” Kaidee bellowed, glancing over her shoulder. Fuzz-face and two others were at the edge of the corridor, pistols in hands, surging toward her and Trip. The lift emptied quickly. Kaidee pushed Trip inside. “Against the side wall!” she hissed, slapping blindly at the pad to close the doors. He was too big of a target.

  Through the slowly closing doors, she saw Fuzz-face elbow an elderly man aside, then claw his way past more people toward the lift. Heart pounding, Kaidee punched the Close Door pad again, then jabbed the icons for Violet, Pink, and Black Levels. Anything up, away from here, quickly.

  C’mon, c’mon! Close, damn you!

  The doors sealed and the lift shuddered, hard. She could hear someone shouting on the other side of the doors, then she and Trip were moving up. Away from Fuzz-face. Relief cascaded through her, forcing Kaidee to drop her hands to her thighs and bend over at the waist. She sucked in gulps of air as she looked up to study Trip, who leaned against the opposite wall, his face pale, blood-streaked. But he was grinning.

  “That was full apex, Captain Makaiden! Um, I mean, Captain Griggs.”

  “That was …?” She shook her head in disbelief as she straightened. “Wipe your face. It’s not over yet. We still have a ways to go.”

  And Jonathan Macy “Trippy” Guthrie III better have a damned good explanation of just what in hell was going on when they got there.

  Two lumpy beds with threadbare green coverlets, a narrow black desk, and two matching black metal chairs did not, by any stretch of the imagination, qualify as the “luxury” hotel room promised by the ’droid clerk behind The Celestian’s lobby desk. But all Devin cared was that he had a place to work. And this was, if nothing else, that.

  Part of him wanted to bolt back out into the grimy corridors of Dock Five and locate Trip. But Barty was right—the place was a maze of cross-connecting corridors, many of which dead-ended without warning because that particular section of the dock had ceased to exist, either from neglect or by accident.

  An ore tanker with a drunken captain at the controls could put a fairly large hole in the side of any station, and Dock Five had had more than its share of those.

  They needed to define locales and establishments where Trippy had been or was likely to be, based on his credit usage or withdrawals. That meant Devin had to sit in their “luxury” hotel room for now and confine his investigations to dock-and banking-computer pathways via his Rada. Its highly sophisticated sensors poked holes into the local datagrid while its thermal-sensitive holographic screen—an adjunct to the unit’s embedded main one—floated in front of Devin’s eyes like a square green-tinged cloud.

  He was peripherally aware of Barty prowling about the small white-walled room, poking his bald head into the closet, thunking and clunking something around in the lav. He was just as aware when, with a sigh, Barty pulled up the remaining hard-backed chair and sat at the other side of the narrow desk, tapping on his own microcomp.

  Then there was silence again, broken only by the breathing of two men working and the occasional grunt or stomach growl. At some point they would need to track down a restaurant that wouldn’t fatally poison them. But right now … Devin jerked his hand back from the Rada’s holographic screen as a series of numbers flashed in the upper right corner and then was gone. “Shit!”

  “Something?” Barty looked up from the DRECU.

  “Not something. Someone. Someone else is looking at Trip’s accounts.”

  “Someone from GGS security—”

  “Not like that. This is someone hacking, like I am.” And damn it, he should have expected that. He should have taken more precautions. Or had a trap running for just this situation.

  “Did they see you?”

  He pulled up two more filters, ran a bit of code that had worked for him in the past. “Not unless they’re better than I am.”

  Barty coughed lightly. “Which means …?”

  “Likely not, but we can’t rule it out.” Damn it, whoever it was was gone now. It could be they saw him. But it could also be that they’d tripped one of the bank’s alarms he’d deftly avoided. Either way, he shouldn’t hang around. This was part of Dock Five’s data pathways. He had no idea of the overall level of security of the system. He had to assume it was less than he’d like and more problematic than he wanted to consider.

  He dumped out of the system with a bit less grace than he’d have normally used, but speed at that moment was more important than skill. Getting caught wasn’t the issue. Getting flagged was. He didn’t want the account locked down and more people watching for intruders.

  Mouth pursed, he reviewed the data he was able to save. He could feel Barty watching him, impatience hanging in the air as strongly as the musty metallic odor that he was already associating with Dock Five. But this was not something he could rush, even though he wanted to.

  Trip’s life hung in the balance. Accuracy was essential. Especially because now Devin had proof that others were tracking the Guthrie heir. He had to locate Trip before they did. He damned the fact that the entries had to be screened chronologically, oldest first, or else the data would skew and he’d lose it all.

  And lose the only clues they had to Trip’s whereabouts.

  “It looks as if he arrived about fourteen hours ago,” he said after several minutes o
f intense focus. “I’m guessing whatever transport he used disembarked him in Orange, because that’s where his initial purchases for food and drink were.” He brought up a diagram and angled the floating screen so Barty could see it. “I’m not showing any lodging charges. That could indicate he’s staying with someone.”

  “Someone he met in transit?” Barty suggested. “Or someone who convinced him to leave the university campus—either through persuasion or force?”

  “And is using Trip’s credit chips to throw us off track? I can’t discount that.” But he didn’t like it; it made his jaw tense and his stomach sour. It also kept him from sending a message to Port Palmero that they’d found Trip. They hadn’t. Yet. They’d only found usage of his financial account.

  “Did he ever mention associating with any political groups on campus? Blaine’s Justice Wardens have had underground meetings there for years.”

  Devin nodded. “They were there when I was on campus too. But, no, Trip didn’t seem to go for that kind of thing.”

  “Reports of Admiral Guthrie’s death could have changed his thinking.”

  Devin sucked in a slow breath. Reports of Philip’s death had changed a lot of things. “He idolizes Philip. And I know he felt Philip believed Blaine and his group are dangerous. Were you in the library when Max said Trippy ran off to join the Alliance? As crazy as it sounds, it makes the most sense.”

  “Thana and Max told me first. I was the one who suggested they bring that information to their father.”

  The fact that the children trusted Barthol more than their own parents didn’t surprise Devin. He remembered feeling that way when he was younger. Hell, he still felt that way.

  “I didn’t know,” Barthol continued, “if Master Trip gave you any further insight into his feelings.”

  Devin shook his head. “You know Guthrie men don’t discuss feelings,” he said absently, moving down the data again as quickly as he safely could. Small expenditures. His nephew hadn’t sat down for a meal but was buying small foodstuffs. Eating on the run? Or just cautious when it came to Dock Five’s sanitary procedures? He couldn’t blame him if it was the latter. He—

  “Wait, we have a small credit transaction seven minutes ago. But, damn it! I lost half that string when I had to dump out.”

  Barthol stood, leaning over Devin’s shoulder. “Blue Corridor Twelve. Tidymart Pro?”

  The vendor name made no sense to him either, especially without a more specific location code. “That’s all I could get.”

  “That’s enough. Grab your jacket and your Carver. I fear we’re not the only ones with that information.”

  Devin shoved the Carver into his shoulder holster, then snagged his jacket from the bed, praying he and Barty got to Trippy first.

  Kaidee waited outside the door to the male-gender lavatory in the far corner of Trouble’s Brewing, arms folded across her chest, and endured the disparaging glances from the various males striding by.

  The similar facility for female gender was on the other side of the bar. So there was only one reason she’d be on guard here.

  “Can’t trust him out of your sight, eh?” she heard one brown-suited dockworker say with a snicker.

  She smiled wanly in return and played the part of the overpossessive lover, knowing the dockworker had no idea that the center of her impatience was a runaway nineteen-year-old. But, no, she couldn’t completely trust Trip to wash the blood off his face and make some attempt to clean the stains from his shirt without doing hell-only-knew what else. Nor could she trust that Fuzz-face and his friends might not have tracked them here—even though she’d pushed Trip out of the lift at Violet Level, then dragged him through two different stairwells to Blue and then came into the bar through a service-alley supply-room entrance.

  She’d hoped Pops might be at his usual table, sucking down an ale. Hell, she’d have settled for Ilsa. Aries would have been a boon—Trip would have deemed her “apex”—but none was here. Still, she’d make do. There were other faces and ships’ patches Kaidee recognized, and she felt more than fairly sure that in a standoff with Fuzz-face, she’d find most of Trouble’s Brewing on her side.

  She hoped.

  Trip emerged, face damp and somewhat ruddy from scrubbing, jacket sleeves pushed haphazardly up—though not enough to hide the water stains trailing to his elbow. She stepped toward him and stopped abruptly, as if hitting an invisible wall.

  She sniffed. “What in hell?”

  He ducked his head slightly and loped two long steps over to her, smelling like a twenty-credit prosti.

  “Antiseptic dispenser was empty,” he said, with a shrug that sent another wave of noxious fumes wafting under her nose. “But aftershave contains alcohol, and it didn’t cost much more. I figured it was—”

  She sneezed. “I get it. I get it.” Maybe it would wear off. Or maybe if Fuzz-face grabbed Trip, it would knock the bastard unconscious.

  It certainly made a few patrons back away, eyes slitted in defense, as they returned to the main area of the bar.

  “Sit,” she told Trip when, by some miracle of the bar-and-space gods, three patrons suddenly vacated a nearby table that bordered the bulkhead.

  Maybe not a miracle. The Takan one was sneezing.

  “Put your back to the wall,” she ordered him, then dropped into the seat on his left, where she had a clear view of the bar’s front entrance and a decent one of the two exits behind the bar. Either the bar’s air recycs were sending Trip’s noxious scent away from her or whatever he’d liberally applied to his skin was fading. She palmed her L7 and then noted, with a small start of surprise, that her charge was also taking stock of his surroundings. Actually, his mostly calm demeanor through this whole ordeal surprised her.

  Then again, he was a Guthrie.

  “So tell me in detail this time,” she said, her gaze drifting over the bar’s inhabitants, her voice low but audible. “You didn’t see Fuzz-face until after you hit Dock Five. And you’ve never seen him before.”

  Trip had already said as much, in his brief recounting in the lift and then in spurts and gulps as they ran up and down stairwells. But she needed the whole story. Kaidee also desperately needed to believe that Jonathan Macy Guthrie III’s appearance on Dock Five had nothing to do with the Imperial warships out there, or with Frinks and company in here.

  Or her delightfully dead ex-husband.

  And there were other questions she wanted answers to, like why Trip was on Dock Five in the first place. Was there a problem at home or at school? They hadn’t delved into that, because her immediate concerns were the people who’d almost succeeded in grabbing him. No matter how bad a problem was at home, his parents wouldn’t send someone to harm him—and they wouldn’t send strangers. That meant Fuzz-face worked at someone else’s commands.

  “Didn’t see the bearded guy on my flight, no. But like I said, I slept. Or was reading.” He patted the leather backpack hanging off one shoulder. “I didn’t think to be looking around. Stupid, I know.” He glanced at her, then back at the throngs of people standing around the bar—gray shipsuits, green shipsuits, humans, and Takas. Two dark-haired women were laughing loudly, one wiping tears from her eyes. A group of five dockworkers—three human and two Takas—seated at a nearby table had their heads together, intent on something a thin-faced young human male had on the datapad in his hand. No one seemed to be looking at her and Trip. Yet.

  “Uncle Philip would hand me my head for not keeping track of my surroundings,” Trip continued. “’Specially because I ditched Halsey. None of us is supposed to be out without security, you know?”

  “When did you first notice the guy?”

  “Not long after I got off the shuttle. I was hungry. The snack stall has this polished metal wall, almost like a mirror. I saw this guy … behind me, sort of. Then I remembered he was the same one who’d bumped into me a few minutes before. Something just wasn’t right, so I pulled my pack around, like I was looking for credit chips. But I was really
checking it because that’s where he bumped me. And I found a tagger. A Lockpoint, I think.”

  A Lockpoint tagger. A tiny tracking device that easily latched on to fabric or, in Trip’s case, expensive leather. Not much more than a small metal bump, which could feel to inexperienced fingers like a slub in the material. But Trip had known what it was.

  She wondered if Kiler had shown him. She couldn’t see Trip’s father being aware of those kinds of things, but Ben Halsey would have known and quite possibly educated Master Trip. Halsey would know a Lockpoint from an Alphoid RLM.

  “Where’d you leave it?” If he knew what it was, then he knew it was important to ditch it.

  He shot her a quick grin as if he heard her confidence in him, then let his gaze sweep the crowd again. Definitely Halsey’s training, she thought. “I put enough space between him and me, and then I latched it on to a cleaning servo’s towel rack. I figured that was the end of it. The guy—well, this is Dock Five, and I know what my pack costs. I thought he was going to wait until I hit an empty corridor, then rob me.”

  She studied him as he spoke. Smart enough to know what a tagger was and that it was a Lockpoint but naive enough to believe the whole thing was over his two-hundred-fifty-credit leather backpack. Not experienced enough to recognize that a goon like Fuzz-face was far beyond petty thievery. And spoiled enough not to know no one was going to waste a high-tech piece of equipment like a Lockpoint tagger for a two-hundred-fifty-credit leather pack.

  At least not until Fuzz-face showed up with reinforcements.

  “Yeah, I kind of figured at that point it was more than just my pack,” Trip admitted with a grimace. “Plus, the bearded guy knew my name. Kind of.”

  “Kind of?”

  “He called me Jonathan. No one calls me that. Well, sometimes Grandpa J.M. does.” He shrugged. “Some of my professors do. And Uncle Ethan when he wants to annoy me.”

  Ethan, Kaidee remembered clearly, excelled at annoying people. But Ethan wasn’t the problem here.