As she said the words, she realized another reason why she hadn’t turned to help until now: no one would have listened to a nobody freighter captain. Whenever she saw news reports about the Fleet, they had always served the interests of important victims. The rich investors bilked out of their savings, the missing heiresses living it up on leisure worlds without telling their handlers, the expensive private star yachts stolen from governors’ homes—they were the crimes investigated by Alliance law enforcement. No one really cared about the underclass in the Alliance, or if one smuggler killed another.
She and Falta glared at each other through the screen, waiting for the other to speak. Finally, Falta cleared his throat and in a restrained voice said, “All right. We will investigate your claims and you have the Fleet’s cooperation. One of our patrol ships will be at the rendezvous point where you are to unload your cargo, and Lieutenant Toric will be keeping in touch with the Fleet during your journey. However…” He leaned forward. “If at any point we discover you are lying to us, or keeping any information from us, you will not receive any amnesty from the Fleet. Is that understood?”
“I expected that,” Brya said. “I’m not a total idiot.”
Kai cringed.
Falta glowered at her for another moment, and Brya stared right back at him. “I would like to speak with Lieutenant Toric,” he said icily.
“Of course,” she replied with exaggerated politeness, and stood up. Kai immediately took the seat at the desk. “Admiral,” he said crisply.
“We expect regular communication with you via military channels and your remembering that you’re supposed to be on medical leave. You’ll to be in touch with Interior Security and your commanding officer on the Starspot. It will be the patrol ship assigned to that area, and it is equipped to handle a mass arrest.”
Having been assigned to the Starspot for the last three years, Kai already knew that, but he nodded anyway. He and Falta exchanged a few more forced pleasantries before signing off.
He leaned back in the chair and pinched the bridge of his nose. “That was Admiral Falta,” he said.
“What’s your point?” Brya was in the bathroom, running water in the tub.
“He can be difficult and a know-it-all, but he’s still the commanding officer for a quarter of the Fleet. He’s in charge of all the patrol ships and battleships. He’s not someone you want to piss off.”
“I know what I’m doing on a freighter,” Brya said. She stripped off her pants and faced him wearing only his T-shirt. It hung halfway down her thighs. Kai didn’t let himself get distracted too much and kept his gaze on her face. “I know I’m new at living like a normal civilian, but I can pilot a ship blindfolded and I know more about the back star lanes than the Fleet does, I guarantee it.” She turned to the mirror and made a face, picking at her hair. “I really need my comb,” she muttered.
Kai finally let himself sneak a peek at her legs. There were elaborate tattoos of stars snaking down her calves to the tops of her feet, done in glittery black and silver laser ink. Tattoos didn’t usually capture his interest, but on her, coupled with the multicolored hair, they seemed right. It was such a Brya thing to do. She caught him staring and rolled her eyes. “I’m more covered up than I would be in a dress,” she said.
“I’m not complaining. Where else did you get inked?”
“A few other places that are decently hidden right now. Do you have a datapad, and does it have anything interesting to read on it?”
“Yes to both. Why?” he asked suspiciously.
She went to the replicator and ordered a cup of tea. “I wanted to read something in the tub. I’m taking advantage of it for as long as I can.”
Kai found his datapad in a side pocket of his duffel. “Don’t drop it in the water,” he cautioned. “It’s not waterproof.”
Brya tabbed it on and scrolled through the serials and vids saved on it. She settled on a novel and opened the file. “Ooh, you have Thunderstar on Holy Ground. I’ve wanted to read this for a while.”
“Can I see where your other tattoos are in exchange for borrowing my only source of entertainment? That may possibly be submersed in water?”
Brya’s eyebrows lifted. “A novel in exchange for seeing some skin? This is like a low-rent version of stripping, you know.”
“You’ve never been in a strip club, then.”
“Actually, I have. And since most of my tattoos are in places that are acceptable to see in public, I’ll show you one.” She tugged down the neckline of the T-shirt until her shoulder was exposed, revealing a gold and pink flower that resembled the vine roses native to Ra’lani.
“You didn’t have to show me,” Kai said. He sounded guilty, like he thought he forced her into baring the erotic body part that was her shoulder.
“I know,” she replied brightly. “I wanted to. It’s not like I showed you the one on my ass.”
Kai stared at her, slack-jawed.
She laughed. “Oh, for gods’ sakes, I don’t have anything on my ass.” She picked up the teacup from the replicator and stepped into the bathroom, closing the door behind her with her hip.
She settled into the tub, the tea balanced on the side. She was careful not to splash water on Kai’s datapad, and she half-heartedly read the introduction to the novel before setting it aside on the commode. If this were another time and place, and if she and Kai hadn’t been forced into marriage, if she hadn’t deserted him, if she wasn’t dependent on him to live, she would be giving serious thought to going back in the bedroom naked and seeing what happened from there.
She gave a soft snort at that idea. Their banter aside, the same things they had joked about when they were married, there was no indication on his part that he was remotely attracted to her, and besides, he was Fleet now. If she hadn’t woken up with him pressed up against her, she would have assumed the Alliance Space Fleet neutered all of their recruits. Besides, he probably wanted nothing to do with her after their flight, and certainly not that way.
This wouldn’t be the first time she had wondered how her life would have turned out had she stayed with Kai when they fled Ra’lani. She knew now that it would have been the right thing to do, even if they hadn’t stayed together. She’d had a bad feeling about her marriage to Dav within a few months, and by their second anniversary she had stayed with him solely because she had nowhere else to go. He and Wethmore had made sure of that. Brya would have gladly gone to the Fleet if she thought she had a chance of surviving beyond a few weeks away from the merciless smuggler. She was a coward, and she hated that.
She quickly washed her hair and felt some regret when she drained the water. She wouldn’t be getting a bath again any time soon. She dressed in yesterday’s clothes and returned to the hotel room, Kai’s dry datapad in hand. She presented it to him dramatically. “Not a drop of water reached it.”
“Thank you. Thunderstar on Holy Ground is pretty good. Did you like it?”
“I only read the introduction,” she admitted. “I was thinking.”
He nodded and went to the bathroom to take a shower. “I’ll be out in a few minutes, and then we’ll talk strategy.”
****
Brya was a nervous wreck when she finally went to the civilian docks. She and Kai had agreed it was best that they not be seen together once they left their room, so she had slipped out of the hotel via their side entrance an hour before he checked out. She hadn’t seen anyone familiar or suspicious, but she still hurried through the station to the docks. The Fleet outpost had conveniently arranged to have a small passenger shuttle docked next to the Rapture, which Kai would pretend was his, should anyone be watching the area. When he was inside, someone hiding on board the shuttle would pretend to be Kai and depart the station, and Kai would be transported to the Rapture via the shuttle’s unit when they hit the safety of space.
She checked in without incident, and paid the docking and refueling fees with the near-last of her credits. “Have a good time on station?” the
dockhand asked.
She nodded. “Always.”
“Your friends loaded cargo on your ship per your instructions,” he said. “You know that isn’t regulation here, but they had your authorization.”
She nodded again and kept her hands tightly clenched in front of her to keep them from trembling.
He fished around in a battered metal desk and came up with a datakey. “The first one asked me to give this to you. Fenton, I think he said his name was.”
She nodded and kept the fear out of her voice. “I was expecting this,” she said. “Thank you.” But something the dockhand said stopped her from leaving right away. “The first one?”
“Yeah, two guys dropped by, about two hours apart. I only got Fenton’s name.”
“Oh. Well, thanks.” That was weird, but so was this whole situation.
She quickly made her way to the access corridor and let herself into the Rapture’s dock, shivering in the cold. No matter how well-maintained docks were, it was impossible to keep the areas regularly exposed to space warm. A few other ships were docked nearby, locked into the station, but she didn’t see another soul. The Rapture’s door opened and its ramp extended with her palm print and retinal scan, and she walked up it gratefully. Despite her troubles, the Rapture was her home. It wasn’t pretty or fast, but it was hers.
She ran a diagnostics when she powered up the boat, expecting to find nothing suspicious but still remaining distrustful of the results. Fenton, or whatever his name was, likely left something in her ship, and she would have to rely on Kai to find it. She checked her starboard cargo bay and saw it was loaded with the ungraded fuel Fenton promised, and the bay itself was fully operational. Its doors were sealed and locked down in the event of combustion. The malfunction or outright lack of lockout doors on freighters were the reasons accidents still occurred in space.
A voice broke through the comm system. “Rapture, retract your ramp and seal the doors. Dock two has requested permission to depart.” Right on schedule, the Fleet’s shuttle was leaving the station. Brya pulled up the ramp and closed the doors in preparation. Through the portside viewport, she saw the access corridor’s safety lights change from green to yellow as the dock’s sensors checked for life forms. A warning alarm blared through the docks, and the lights changed to red as the airlock next door released the shuttle.
“We may as well kill two birds with one stone,” Brya said into the comm. “My flight plan’s uploaded. Did you get it?” Her flight plan was bogus, listing a route that was supposed to take her to a tiny moon orbiting Pentalon. She’d change it after she read her instructions from Wethmore. Freighter operators did that all the time.
“Just popped up on my screen.”
“Rapture requesting clearance to depart.”
“Cleared for departure. You’re free to go, Captain.”
Brya keyed in her command codes to launch the ship from the dock. It smoothly unlocked itself from the station, and from the aft monitor she saw the airlocks cycle shut. “See you later, Captain Dennir,” said the dockhand.
She said goodbye and put some distance between her and the shuttle before hailing it. “Kai?” she said.
“Right here. Sikra has the transport unit ready to go, just say the word.”
“You have my exact coordinates?” Brya disliked transporters. Every damn time she had gone through one she had left her lunch on the floor.
She could hear him roll his eyes across space, and she grinned. “Of course. I’ll be on your bridge in a minute.”
“Bridge?” she repeated and looked around the cockpit. It was too small to be called a bridge, and could barely fit both of them.
He materialized behind her, his duffel in hand and a greenish cast to his face. “The Fleet hasn’t approved testing for my new transport code,” he said.
“Why not?”
“If something goes wrong, you could turn into molecular soup,” he explained. “I haven’t had a lot of volunteers.” He looked around for somewhere to sit and sank into the unused copilot’s seat.
He leaned over, touching his forehead to his knees. “That was rough,” he said. “Smaller units are always bad.” He gingerly lifted his head and looked around the cockpit. “So this is the Rapture?”
“Just the bridge,” she said. “The cargo holds, engine, and control rooms are belowdeck, and the living area is through the back.” She pointed to a door on the opposite side of the tucked-in ramp and set the ship to autopilot. She produced the datakey Fenton had left for her from her pocket. “This was left for me when I checked out of the docks. It’s supposed to have instructions on it.” She found a compatible port on a computer built into the wall. Kai grabbed her wrist before she could plug it in.
“It could be a trap,” he said. “It could trigger an explosion or launch a tracker.”
“Kai, that’s stuff you learn your first month in smuggling,” she said, exasperated. “That’s why this computer exists. It works separately from my primaries and can’t infect any files.”
“How often do you get stuck with these kinds of assignments, anyway?” he asked suspiciously.
“This is the first time since I went legit. The previous owner had this installed. I usually use it to play music or vids when I’m working.” She fitted the datakey into the port.
The contents were exactly as Fenton had described them: written instructions to take her cargo to a small planet in the Outer Rims, a round-trip journey that would take the Rapture at five to seven days given that her hyperspace engines were currently useless.
“Ishka,” Kai read on the screen. “I’m not familiar with that planet. You?”
“I’ve heard the name, but I’ve never been there.” She saw Kai eyeing the pilot’s seat. “I told you not to get any ideas. This is my ship.” She keyed in the amended flight plan. At least Ishka wasn’t too far away from Pentalon. The switch wouldn’t raise any red flags.
“I can help.”
“Have you ever worked in navigation?” she asked. He shook his head. “How about a freighter?”
“No, aside from the one we took to the Alliance.”
“It’s different than flying one of your fancy Fleet ships,” she said. “Autopilot is actually useful on these ones.” She crossed back to the controls, where she looked up the best way to chart a course to the unknown planet. Her estimate of how long it would take her boat to get to Ishka was correct. They were looking at a minimum five-day journey, not including a stop for refueling on the way back. Kai followed her and peered over her shoulder as she examined the star charts saved in the computer.
“Impressive,” he said. “I haven’t seen these routes before. How many people actually use them?”
“Anyone who has a commercial transport ship knows about them,” she replied. “They’re not secret. They’re just not used as often because there aren’t a lot of hypergates in them and communications get spotty in some areas. The Landen star lane is one of my favorites to use when I go to the Rims.” She tabbed through the star charts displayed on the computer screen and plotted a course using the Landen lane. If she used that route, she wouldn’t have to be at the controls for a few hours, at least until the lane turned into an asteroid belt, which would require manual piloting. The asteroids were spaced far enough apart so it wasn’t completely treacherous. She he never worried too much about it.
“Let me show you the rest of the ship,” she offered. Kai nodded and followed, duffel in hand.
The area off the bridge was a modest living space. There was a combination galley and lounge, equipped with the malfunctioning replicator and laundry machine. Off that area was a pair of small bedrooms separated by a bathroom. Like all of the doors on board, they weren’t automatic, the previous owner having replaced them for reasons unknown. She slid open the door to the spare room and gestured for Kai to step inside.
“It’s nice,” he said appreciatively. “I mean that.” He dropped his duffel on the floor and sat on the bed, massaging his leg.
>
“Are you okay?” she asked.
He nodded. “The transporter didn’t help. That’s part of what I’m trying to fix with my new project.” He stood up. “Lead on.”
The stairwell to the lower deck was accessible through a doorway beside the laundry machine. There she showed him the engine room and her pitiful first aid station. “Don’t get sick,” she said. “I can only afford to keep this at the minimum requirements. The dispensary has enough medication to treat a bad case of food poisoning or a severed finger, but that’s it. It would have been useful when it happened to me.” She didn’t bother to hide the bitterness in her voice.
“Just out of curiosity, why weren’t your fingers regenerated?” he asked.
“I couldn’t get to a clinic in time,” she said. “You have three days tops to start bone regeneration. When I stopped screaming, Wethmore treated my hand just enough so I wouldn’t get an infection, and it was another week before I was dropped off at Prime. It was too late.”
“Brya,” he began, but she cut him off.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I didn’t even lose the entire fingers, and I’ve adapted. I’m just grateful he didn’t cut off a hand or foot or outright kill me. He was certainly capable of it, but he liked Dav enough not to.” She held up her left hand and inspected it. “I’m used to it.” She arched an eyebrow at him. “Does it put you off?”
“No,” he said, and strangely, she believed him.
She pointed to the various panels in the room. “There’s life support, gravity, shields, and weapons. Everything important works.”
“Except water and the replicator.”
“I have enough water to live, and not having a replicator won’t make me die in space,” she explained.
“Can I take a look at them?” he asked.
She bit her lip. She really didn’t want him doing any more for her.
“Come on,” he wheedled. “I don’t like being bored, bad things happen. Busy hands are happy hands.”
Rapture Page 5
