The far wall glowed yellow-orange and a discreet warning pinged through hidden audio transmitters. "All passengers must initiate restraints or void contracts and warranties." The message repeated, this time in French.
Right. They'd used his French credentials to book this trip.
"Haven't had a void contracts and warranties warning before," Malachi said, sitting on the next leather chair and tapping the closest screen to activate the molecular shields. "Have you?"
"Corporate boundaries are more important than national boundaries," Hector said, his tone distracted as he cued the virtual systems over both their restrained forms. "Ah, now this is what I call in-flight entertainment." A miniature figure wrapped in feathers and fire pirouetted into view.
With an abrupt motion, Malachi dismissed the sensuous female form dancing in the air over his couch Instead, he pictured Keya flitting between her clients, checking their safety before attending to her own.
Starting with the universal voice commands, he attempted to access the most recent passenger and cabin listings. The yellow-orange light was gone, but the countdown continued on the wall. One minute to lift off and they'd see what the "most advanced ship in the galaxy" could really do.
"Who's the woman?" Hector asked as the engine noise ratcheted up to a moderate hum. The vibrations were nothing compared to any interstellar vessel they'd used. After clearing Earth's outer atmosphere, the real test would be the first transition to hyperspace.
"I don't know who the woman is," Malachi said casually as he eyed the projected dancer circling and bending in front of his partner. "One of the biggest names in fire-dancing? Part phoenix or something, according to the advert.”
"The woman in the lobby,” Hector said. "Not the entertainment. The one you talked to."
His friend's expression was mild, but Malachi chose not to avoid the question. "Remember our first job with the agency? Outside of Boulder?"
Just then, LS Quantum switched to vertical acceleration and Hector shifted as if he was going to hit himself on the forehead. "Mother of volcanos, that job." His fingers twitched, the tiny gesture adjusting his display to connect with the portholes. "Mal, do you feel that?"
"No," Malachi laughed. "Not really."
"So what about Boulder? I'll try to listen while I enjoy the hell out of this smooth ride."
"Remember the girl?" Malachi asked.
"The crazy one you had to take home?"
"No, her sister. The crazy one's sister."
The molecular shields kept their bodies in perfect alignment, but if he could've moved his head, Hector would have tilted it to one side as he did when he was in deep thought. "Some kind of local cop or something? She was the reason the crazy girl didn't get charged."
"Not exactly, she was private security back then. Now she’s moved up to the big time. In the lobby earlier, that was her running the crew for the sultan."
"Holy Kanaloa! Did she recognize you?"
"No," Malachi said as clear bell tones chimed through the cabin and the molecular shields retreated into his chair.
The ride out of Earth’s atmosphere as smooth as the curve of Keya's neck, but it was brief. Brief like this job would be if Keya outted him as a federal agent working against alien technology.
The holowall in Sultan Nurbanu’s cabin flashed red and showed twenty seconds remaining to launch when Keya dropped onto her chair and triggered the molecular shields. Her two best people had the room under control. Alix was right next to the sultan and Holt sat between the two head scientists. They'd done transport jobs as a team before, just not this far and not on this size of ship.
Keya ground her teeth, bracing for her least favorite part of space travel. But as LS Quantum burst free of Earth’s outer atmosphere with the muscle and smooth transition of an early twenty-first-century race car, her jaw muscles unclenched. So far the luxury cruise liner was living up to the hype.
Surveying the room, she counted heads. Her group appeared to be previewing the entertainment connected to the Cosmic Cabaret. Good.
Using the virtual interface, Keya confirmed her access to the ship's data files with a series of taps and blinks. She initiated a slow scroll through the passenger manifest. It was a final review and a reasonable precaution to check the list of who was actually on board against the list she'd been given when she accepted the job.
A picture from each passenger's intergalactic credentials had been imported into the individual files.
Images ticked by, face after face...and stop.
"Uwa," she said. Handsome didn’t even describe him. Even the photo, which made her heart race, didn't capture the symmetry of his face or the dark spark in his eyes. Malachi Cartier. Was that his real name?
Malachi Cartier, native of the Pyrenees. Native of Paris was more like it. Monsieur Cartier looked like someone who not only lived in a high population-density area but someone who owned a high population-density area. It was astonishing their paths had ever crossed.
Keya stared at his face while she rolled his name around in her mind. Malachi. Mal.
The smell memory came first, pine. Next came the tactile memory of a crisp uniform shirt. Short sleeves, strong arms.
He'd carried Emiko out of the mess in Boulder, helped Keya take her sister home. What happened afterward had been part brushfire attraction, part Keya’s relief her sister was safe, part working off the stress and adrenaline from the crazy situation out on the Flatirons. She licked her dry lips, suppressing a groan. Malachi Cartier was the one who got away. In her entire life, he was the only second date she regretted not having.
Almost six months ago, Emiko had been arrested while protesting the artifacts’ removal from the sultan’s homeworld, Sahkra. Emi’s visa had been revoked and she’d been thrown in jail. Working remotely, Keya had negotiated the charges down to the Sahkran equivalent of a misdemeanor. After appearing in person and paying Emi’s fines, the authorities would release her to Keya to be escorted back to Earth.
The rescue plan depended on the sultan's ignorance of her sister's crime and subsequent captivity on his home world.
And because Malachi Cartier knew Emi’s history, he was the only person who could disclose Keya’s ulterior motives to her current employer.
Not only was Quantum's transition to space smooth as a thirty-year scotch, so was her switch to artificial gravity.
"A seasoned traveler like myself wouldn't bother to compliment the captain," Malachi said, “but I am impressed with this ship so far."
Hector shrugged, then stood up to stretch his shoulders and roll his neck. "I'm reserving judgment until we jump to FTL."
"That's wise," Malachi agreed.
FTL, or faster than light, travel was one version of how lay people explained the ability to travel massive distances within a manageable time frame. “Hyperspace” was another frequently used term. Intergalactic travel was only a few decades old and the jargon hadn’t settled yet.
"Would you access the passenger manifest and confirm our target is quartered nearby? I want a look at Ms. Security Chief's personal data." Malachi tried to hide the depth of his interest with an impersonal tone of voice.
Mid-stride, Hector shot him a skeptical look. "She didn't have an implant?"
"Not that I could see, unless it's under her hair, which wouldn't be practical."
He hoped Keya didn't have a neuroimplant. They were not only vulnerable to infection but also to hacking. In their profession, it was better to store data in something small but physically detachable.
He held out a lapel pin, the tiny black gem pinched between his thumb and forefinger.
"You swiped that from a well-respected security professional on a brush pass? Not bad." Hector shook his head and activated the desk in the room.
"I learned much growing up on the mean streets of Lisbon." Malachi thickened his accent and roughened his voice. "As a poor child, always with my hand out, I had to learn many skills to survive."
Hector raised an eyebrow.
"Heard that story before, still don't believe it. How will you return the pin without causing suspicion?"
"Let's see what we find out first, then decide what we're giving back." Malachi took a small tool bag from his suitcase and removed a metal interface cube filled with a translucent gel. He opened and unlocked it with a series of voice commands and then inserted the lapel pin. Text and image files opened on the wall behind them.
He admired the file structure. It was clear, consistent, and encrypted. He smiled as he gave the decryption command. If memory served, Keya herself was also clear, consistent, and full of secrets.
Would she say anything about his profession to her employer or any of the others? Last time they'd met, he was doing large-scale crowd control. Yes, it was to protect classified information, but he wasn't outright thieving then like he was now. For her family's sake, she was probably glad all of the information from the Boulder event had been scrubbed from public domain.
But now? Now he had to decide how to play this. Too bad he and Keya weren't on the same team.
With a deep bass chime, the image files continued to pop open. Suite and room layouts, ship blueprints, personnel photos, all items he was certain were restricted by LS Quantum Corporation.
The data files listed the equipment and artifact crates from the sultan’s science corps by number. The contents of each crate were also listed by number. Damn. Numbers wouldn't tell him where the key pieces were, or the ones that needed to disappear before further study revealed their true secrets. For that he needed at least dimensional images.
"Any of the intel from the conference that might help us out with these artifact and materials numbers?" he asked.
Hector tapped his virtual screen and muttered a string of commands. "Starting cross-reference now. Just be a minute.” He moved to the other wall and expanded the floating three-dimensional view of the ship. "Looks like a whole bunch of our scientist friends are using their investigative skills to unlock the delights of the Comets and Caviar Lounge. Makes sense, dipping their studious toes into the shallow end of the entertainment options."
Hector brushed at his white sleeves and shook out his tan trousers. "Time to get my nerd on."
"We're not here to make friends," Malachi warned. It was an old joke but one he meant this time.
"Cross-referencing will take another ten minutes. If that doesn't help match crate and item numbers with actual artifact content, we're going to have to do this the old-fashioned way."
"And what's that way entail?" Malachi asked. "Refresh my memory."
With a smirk, Hector said, "The quickest way to a woman's data files is through her panties. Best get to it, son."
Where in the cosmos was Crate WIK37?
Keya shoved the last stack toward the wall of the cargo bay, then kicked it the final centimeters. Her head was pounding. She needed two liters of water and thirty minutes to sleep. Instead, she was going to triple check the cargo list against every single crate.
She'd already commed her team to ask if any of the scientists had taken a crate into a personal suite or sleeping area.
The virtual list floated in the air, each crate with two neat ticks next to its number, except W1K37. And, to add to her bad luck, W1K37 was highlighted in red on her list. Why? It held the most critical, most valuable artifact of the entire collection. If any crate needed her personal attention, up to and including being tucked into her bed with her at night, it was W1K37.
It seemed like a security chief worth her pay and a ticket to Sahkra wouldn't lose the most important piece of cargo she was supposed to guard. A security chief who needed a visa and a royal sponsorship to get her sister out of jail should probably have locked the blasted artifact around her torso in a chest carrier.
Between worrying about Emiko, and drafting a professional caliber bid for this job in less than forty-eight hours, Keya hadn't slept in...how long could a person be sleep deprived before the hallucinations started?
The earlier sensation of being watched returned. She rubbed her eyes and reached for her water bottle. "I'm not crazy," she muttered. "Just tired." She took a long slug of cool water, not minding the flat taste. Clean drinking water was a luxury she'd never complain about.
The triple-check took the better part of an hour. Her team reported in; no crates in the staterooms. After she marked a third check next to the last crate on the list, she dropped to the floor like gravity had increased threefold, a heavy sigh bursting from her lungs.
It was quiet in the private cargo hold. The hum of the ship provided a soothing background, and for a moment, Keya seriously considered taking a catnap right there.
A strange pressure in her mind woke Keya from a deep sleep. She wiped drool from the corner of her mouth as she slowly sat up. The sensation was like someone had struck a tuning fork against the base of her skull. Bracing one hand on the velvety soft carpet, she rose slowly, heeding the warning from her empty stomach. Her list still hung in the room, but the time had updated to show she'd been asleep for twenty-five minutes.
Oddly refreshed, Keya turned in a slow circle, checking the crates but also checking her balance. She felt fine, better than fine. The strange sensation at the back of her skull ebbed as she rolled her neck and shoulders.
"Locations?" She broadcast the message to her team via their secure comms.
Two dots appeared on a map on her virtual desktop.
"Meet in my cabin in five," she said. The dots flickered once as her message was delivered.
Something in the room had changed.
Worrying her lower lip between her teeth, Keya surveyed the space again. The last stack had a new crate on top. When she'd kicked it into the wall, the last stack was three crates tall. Now it was four crates tall.
Moving with caution, Keya stopped a meter away and leaned in to read the label. W1K37. The smart label glowed a light reddish-pink, which meant that it wasn’t sealed properly. On a deep breath, Keya moved forward and opened the crate. Molded aerofoam filled the bottom and the sides. But the space in the center, where the artifact they were calling the Rosetta Stone had been stored, was empty.
Someone had entered the private cargo hold, walked around her sleeping form, and placed crate W1K37 on that precise stack.
Stomach knotted with frustration and worry, Keya hurried to her cabin.
Malachi timed his approach so that he met Keya just as she arrived at her suite door. Her ponytail was loose and several strands of dark hair fell across her face. Lines of strain bracketed her full mouth and heavy shadows curved under her eyes.
His instinct to offer comfort or at the least, assistance, had to be suppressed in favor of the role he played on this voyage, the role he'd been playing in his professional life in the years since he'd met Keya.
"Evening," he said as their paths intersected. He’d left the sunglasses in his cabin, his ego curious to see if she’d recognize him.
She nodded and laid her palm on the doorframe. The door unlocked with a barely perceptible click.
He could work with “not interested,” but the message pouring off Keya was distraction and frustration. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he slowed his steps and meandered past her stateroom.
The door opened and softly scented air flowed into the corridor. "Wait," she said. "Excuse me, sir?"
Malachi turned and looked both ways before tilting his head and allowing a small smile to play across his lips. "Yes?"
"We spoke earlier."
"We did," he agreed.
"I"—she swallowed and raised her chin—"I...we've met before." She opened her door wider and said, "Would you come in for a moment?"
Decisive and beautiful were hard to resist traits, and playboy that he was supposed to be, Malachi could not refuse. "After you," he said.
Her stateroom was as opulent as his but smaller. The large bed was in the center of the floor close to a single desk and chair. Instead of an adjoining office suite, a small table with a vase of white and orange chrysanthemums s
tood against the near wall. None of the walls had been modified to add holographic amenities or illusions.
"Not rooming with anyone on your team?"
Keya braced both hands on one of the conference chairs. "My team will be here in four minutes."
That wasn't what he'd asked, but he let it go. He nodded and waited.
Her fingers moved as though the chair back was a keyboard. She gave a tiny sigh and tucked some of the hair behind one ear. “I’m Keya Murakami.” She watched him for a reaction. When he gave none, she continued. "A while back, you helped me with my sister. A little more than four years ago, on Earth."
He stroked the back of one hand along his chin. "Did I?"
She dropped her gaze. "It's fine if you don't recall..." Her tone said it wasn't fine. "But I, if you do, I need you not to suddenly announce what you remember in front of my employer."
Malachi gave her a genuine smile. "Do I strike you as the sort of person to publicly announce anything?"
With a pretty flush, she lowered her eyes. "No, you don't. But it's important to me."
He decided to end her suffering. "Outside of Boulder?"
Shoulders slumping in relief she said, "Yes. There was an incident."
"Extraterrestrial markings on the Flatirons.” He nodded as though he was slowly remembering.
"Yes," she said. "A larger than predicted gathering of the—"
"The Welcome to Earth movement."
"Right," she said. "My sister is...was...an active member and you helped me get her home."
Malachi waited to see if she'd prod his memory further. She'd kissed him to thank him that night. That memory of the kiss and what came afterward had kept him company on many lonely evenings since. "That job became complicated rather quickly," he said. "How's your sister now?"
Keya's fingers tightened on the chair back until her knuckles whitened. "She's been in some similar trouble but that's almost, uh, taken care of."
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