by Natalie Grey
“I know.” Nyx put out a hand to stop him, and sank her face into her hands. “Oh, God. She’s actually involved in all of this.” She considered, pressing her hands against her eyes until she saw spots again. “And how do we figure it out?”
“We could throw her in the brig. I know you don’t want to, but it’s an option. Whatever she’s doing, she’s either not very suited to it or she’s sociopathically good at acting—either way, the brig will fix it.”
“I’m not throwing her in the brig.”
“Then what?” Loki was staring at her when she picked her head up. “We need to find out the truth. How do you propose to do it?”
24
It was all Mala could do not to retreat onto the Ariane. She had been through Akintola Station once before, as a provincial girl with an identification chip and apartment key clutched in one shaking hand and her arm wrapped around the single bag of possessions she owned. She could see herself in every scared child that went past, some twenty, some twenty two, a few perhaps at sixteen or seventeen, running away from God only knew what. Part of her wanted to shove her way after them and catch up, make them promise not to do anything stupid.
Like she had.
Then again, a larger part of her said that there was no way in hell these kids would do anything near as stupid as she had.
And most of her wanted to look away and pretend she didn’t see any of it. Two weeks ago, she would have said she was almost as far from that life as it was possible to be, but it turned out that a great deal could happen in two weeks—and Mala had realized just how thin the wall was separating her from everything she’d fled.
“Are you all right?” Nyx was beside her, black armor now devoid of its standard red patch. She was scanning the hallways with practiced watchfulness, her gaze catching on a crate here, the bulge of a weapon there. When she looked over at Mala, her brown eyes were sharp. She had been unusually businesslike this morning, almost withdrawn. Even now, there was a distance.
Luckily for Mala, it was easy to think of something to comment on, something she could easily be thinking about.
“You’re just letting him go free?” She kept her voice low, trying not to be overheard by the captive who waited at the bottom of the gangplank. “Here, of all places?”
“We’ll keep an eye on him.” Nyx did not sound worried in the least, but she did not sound like her normal, amused self, either. She took a moment to study their captive, and then looked over at Mala. “You really should go stretch your legs, you know.”
“If it’s all the same to you—”
“Go on.” Nyx’s voice wasn’t angry, not exactly, but it brooked no argument. She saw Mala’s quick look and her lips twitched in a forced smile.
“Are you all right?” Mala asked her, frowning.
Nyx hesitated a split second too long. “Of course I am.” She turned away and started back into the ship, throwing one glance over her shoulder. “Go. You’ll be back on the ship before you know it, and you’ll wish you’d taken the chance to get some fresh air.”
‘Fresh air’ wasn’t exactly the term Mala would use to describe Akintola Station, but she knew Nyx had more experience with prolonged space travel than she did. She shrugged her coat on and nodded to Tersi as she left. Maybe she would go get some coffee and a pastry. She was probably beyond the point where that would help her mood, but it would pass the time, at least.
The experience, however, did nothing for her at all. She chewed moodily on a cherry pastry that seemed far too flavorful after her time eating reconstituted noodles, and spent an exorbitant amount on a cup of coffee—GROWN RIGHT HERE ON AKINTOLA STATION!—that she didn’t even taste. The words of her confession kept turning over and over in her head. She could not stop playing out the confrontation she was sure would ensue, and every day it seemed to be getting worse. She forced herself to sit at her table as long she could, willing the guilt to go away until she could admit everything to Nyx from a safe distance—preferably a few planets’ worth.
With an oath, she sank her head briefly into her hands. It wasn’t going to go away. She took a few napkins and wrote the words down on them in an unsteady scrawl. If she couldn’t say them aloud, she could slip them into Nyx’s room and leave. The woman wouldn’t be sad to see her go when she knew the truth.
Mala was passing through the main plaza when the comm terminals caught her eye. She’d sent a quick message to her boss pleading a death in the family, and without her computer and its research available to review, there was no reason for her to check her messages. Still, the Dragons seemed to think they would all be back on Seneca within a week or two, and Mala might as well see how things had fared in her absence.
And, of course, delay the screaming match.
She waited as the terminal connected, tapping her fingers on her stomach inside her coat pockets, and then scanned the messages quickly. There was one from Jessica, sent just a couple of hours ago, sounding extremely worried. Clearly, the woman feared that something dark was afoot.
Of course, Mala reflected, that would make Jessica’s instincts spot on. She typed back a quick message, sure to include some of the phrases they used often to assure Jessica that it was, indeed, her, and then her eye caught on a strange message near the top of the list. MESSAGE ORIGIN UNKNOWN, the comm announced in red letters, but as Mala scrolled over the text, the subject line caught her eye: Unusual Market Fluctuations in Ore Values. It was a response to her own email two weeks prior.
Mala,
If you see this before you get back, give me a call on my personal comm 4.8522.9980.74. I want to know more about what you found.
Jack
Why her boss would have changed his personal comm number, Mala couldn’t fathom. Then again, perhaps he kept more than one—a few people in Intelligence seemed like they might be that paranoid. She’d never thought he was one of them, but she’d never spent too much time observing the man. He stayed out of her way for the most part, and never asked personal questions, and that was good enough for her. She dialed the number and closed out her session on the comm terminal, stepping away to let the next person in line access it.
“Hello?” The voice that answered the call was female, and no-nonsense enough that Mala took the comm away from her ear for a moment to stare at it.
“Hello?” she responded, feeling somewhat out of her depth. “Ah. Is Jack there?”
The voice changed in an instant. “Jack’s not here right now. Are you calling about the market fluctuations?”
“Yes. Could you tell him….” Mala paused, unsure what to say to this unknown person. A scandal of this magnitude was not hers to talk about to random people with her boss’s comm information.
“Yes?” the woman prompted.
“Well, I’ve found out a lot more,” Mala said finally. She shook her head. “I, uh, don’t really want to say more until I’m talking to him. Just tell him there’s a lot more going on than I thought.”
“Interesting.” The voice did, indeed, sound interested. “Any specific complications I should pass on to him?”
“No, thank you.” Mala frowned. She did not like this at all. When she got back to the office, she was now going to have to mention that Jack’s wife, or secretary, or possibly daughter, was a bit too curious about Intelligence matters, and that conversation was just going to be awkward. She forced herself to smile, knowing that the woman on the other end would have heard the frown in her voice. “Thanks for taking the message. I’ll call him back later.”
“Wait.”
“Yes?” Mala’s frown deepened.
“When are you expecting to be back on Seneca?”
“Soon,” Mala said. “I’m not sure exactly when, but—”
Her voice trailed off. There were two men making their way toward her through the crowd, their eyes scanning the plaza and their manner determinedly casual.
“I have to go.” Mala hung up, turned, and almost ran. They weren’t looking for her, she told herself.
How could they be? No one here knew who she was—
Except, of course, the man who had hosted her on Camelot had known. He’d known, and he’d been sure that Ghost was watching him. What if he was right? What if Ghost knew the Dragons had picked him up, what if Ghost knew everything the other man did—and thought Mala was in on the smuggling scheme?
Mala’s fingers fumbled at the comm, trying to connect the call to Nyx’s personal number. Would she be carrying that comm here? Mala could only hope. She pushed her way through the crowds and into the smaller, less-traveled corridors of Akintola’s residential district, breathing a sigh of relief as the noise quieted. The comm rang in her ear, and went to voicemail, and she paused as she tried to figure out what to say. Now it just seemed ridiculous. There were armed guards everywhere on Akintola station. No one was looking for her.
A hand clamped down on her shoulder, and she was yanked around to face the two men who had, it seemed, been following her. The one at her side held a pistol casually aimed at her chest, and the other smiled.
“Come with us.”
Mala had no intentions of doing that. She looked into his eyes, considered her options, and then—as her eyes caught on a security camera nearby—she drew in a breath and screamed at the top of her lungs. Her arm knocked the gun sideways and her other hand came in for a punch before she ducked between them and sprinted for the bustling hallways of the main plaza once more.
She got three steps before the second man caught a handful of her coat and dragged her back. She was still screaming when his hand clamped down over her mouth, and he grunted in pain when her elbows and feet caught his sternum, his shins, his throat.
She was making relatively good progress, Mala thought dimly, until she felt the stab of a needle through her jacket, and the world faded away in an eyeblink.
25
“He’s really just mocking us at this point,” Loki said grumpily.
Grose had bowed elegantly when the handcuffs were removed, and strolled away into the hallways of Akintola Station as though he were out for a morning walk in his private gardens. He had stopped to scan the latest headlines, spent an inordinate amount of time reading about New Arizona’s fashion industry, and then stopped in at one of the tailors to have the hems of his suit pants restarched. He was presently sipping espresso while gazing out beatifically at the main plaza.
“He’s planning to wait until we undock,” Nyx said simply.
“What?”
“He keeps checking his comm with his fingers, see?” Grose’s fingers moved elegantly, turning the comm over and over in a practiced motion. Every few revolutions, however, his finger pressed against the button to check messages. “He’ll have an alert set. The question is, how paranoid is he?”
“How do you mean?” Loki looked over at her.
Nyx only grinned, and tapped her own comm switch. “Tersi.”
“Boss.”
“Send a false alert to his comm, saying that a warrant has been issued for his arrest.”
“Aye aye, one moment.”
“You’re evil,” Loki said, wide-eyed and admiring.
“And someday you’ll grow up to be evil, too,” Nyx promised him. She shot one look over to where Mala was sitting at a different café, her head now resting in her hands, and frowned. Was Mala doing the same thing as Grose? She looked too miserable for that, but then, something was clearly off.
“I’m twenty-three,” Loki said plaintively, drawing Nyx’s attention back.
Your paperwork says nineteen, and it would be a miracle if anyone even believed that, Nyx wanted to say. You’re seventeen if you’re a day. Instead, she patted his arm with a grin. “Aww, can you tie your shoe laces all on your own now?” She grinned, letting herself fall into the easy humor of the group with relief, and her gaze sharpened as Grose put down his coffee a bit too hard. “We have a lead. Tersi, you’re locked in on his calls, right?”
“What is this, my first day?” They heard typing, and then the audio of the call was patched into their headsets.
Hello?
It’s me. Grose’s voice was tight. I need a safe house at Akintola.
I’ll contact you in twenty minutes.
Five. For the first time, the man sounded as uncompromising as Nyx knew he was. He was no longer the suave businessman, trading recipes with his silk-clad dinner guests. He was a criminal on the run, and he was dangerous.
Five, the other voice agreed.
“Boss, I have a lock on that call.”
“Send the information to Lesedi, and tell her I’ll be at her new office shortly.” Nyx looked over to where Mala was now checking her messages. “Any way you can read the public terminals?”
“Ironically, no. The encryption on those is stronger than most of the Defense network.” There was a pause. “I should probably talk to them about that.”
“Well, someone keep an eye on Mala,” Nyx snapped. “Loki, you stay.”
“I don’t get to see Lesedi?”
“You’ll still be handsome, whether she gets the chance to compliment you or not.” Nyx spared him an amused glance. “Make sure Mala doesn’t do anything stupid.”
She was halfway down the corridors to Lesedi’s office, Jim trailing her on the right and Jester on her left, when Loki’s voice was back in their earpieces, tight and panicked.
“Boss, you need to come back right now.”
“What is it?” But she was already turning, pushing her way back through the crowd. She never discounted her crew’s instincts, not in this.
“She’s gone. I can’t see her. She must have taken off, and—shit. She’s being followed, and she’s running. South southwest, toward the residential district.” He was gone, and a few shouts went up in the plaza ahead.
Nyx broke into a sprint. She felt the impact as she knocked people aside, and she did not even take the time to apologize; they were used to it, in a sense, this being Akintola. Something was always happening here. Someone was always going rogue in these halls, being chased down.
“I hate Akintola,” Nyx forced out as they sprinted. They could see Loki disappearing around a corner and they followed at top speed.
“Nyx, my dear.” Lesedi’s voice sounded in her personal comm channel.
“Civilian abduction in the residential hallways,” Nyx gasped out. “Obdredi Avenue. Look at the security feeds for me.”
“Civilian abduction?” Curiosity radiated in her voice. Nyx heard her murmuring to herself as she brought up the video feeds. “Ah. Yes, I see. Oh, dear.”
They came around the corner and saw Loki moving up the hall, pressing his ear to the doors.
“Where did they go?”
“They’re making for the lower docks.” Lesedi’s voice was crisp. “I’m not sure—”
“One moment!” Nyx grabbed Loki by the shoulder plate as they sprinted past, and he fell into pace beside them.
Their breath settled into a harsh rhythm as they took the twists of the station’s passages and sprinted, at last, into the stairwell. Talon liked to remind them all grumpily that some Dragon commanders let their team go blind into unknown space stations, while he made sure all of them had seen blueprints. It was a habit Nyx had kept on this mission, and one she was grateful for. She knew which turns would bring her to the stairwell, how many floors to descend, and how to get to the lower docks.
“Did you see her?” she demanded of Loki.
“No, but she was running from two guys.”
“His?” Nyx jerked her head toward the plaza as they took the steps at high speed.
“No. He didn’t seem to notice. And you know he’d want to watch.”
“Then who?” Nyx whispered.
“Boss, she did make a call just before she went. I’m not sure if it’s related.” Tersi’s voice was miserable. “I was listening in on Grose, I didn’t catch that she’d started a call until it was too late.”
“Dammit.” Nyx threw herself out the exit door with a bang and pushed herself until sh
e started to see spots dancing in front of her eyes. They tore around one corner…and she saw them, one of the guards looking back at them. The other one carried Mala slung over his shoulder. At a quiet word from the other, he, too, gave a quick look, and then they took off.
“Stop!” Her quarry had already passed the first docking bays, and Nyx felt fear rising in her gut. Mala had run, Loki said. She’d known something was wrong, and she was unconscious now. There was blood running from one guard’s nose, and Nyx felt a certain savage satisfaction at that, but Mala had not won. Her last waking thought had been fear. As they watched, the guards began to climb one of the gangplanks. “No!”
They were close—clearly too close for comfort, as other guards appeared off the ship with their guns drawn. Nyx was on them in a moment, Loki cheerfully breaking arms at her side, Orin and Jester, smashing into their opponents with the same verve. Screams rose around them as the guards fell, and Nyx found that she had precious little sympathy for them. They had seen Mala carried past them. If they wanted to stand in her way—
“Lesedi! Put a hold on that ship!”
“I’m trying.” Lesedi’s voice carried a hint of frustration that told Nyx there was something deeply wrong.
“Now!” The gangway was starting to ascend. Nyx put all of her strength into a punch and was moving over the guard’s inert body as three others left off their fights to drag her down. “Loki! Jim! Lesedi—”
“They must have anticipated you’d be here. There’s…oh, God.” Her voice changed. “I can’t stop this. Get to your ship. I’ll try running a trace.”
“There’s still time!” A gap still showed between the rising gangway and the ceiling. Nyx broke free and ran as the airlock doors began to close.
“I can’t get around this. Not this code.” Lesedi’s voice was firm. “Get to your ship. I will send tracking information.”
“No,” Nyx whispered fiercely. But it was Loki who slammed her sideways, holding her down until the airlock doors closed. His gaze told her that he knew all too well why she was running—and that she would not make it. A chill caught her as she heard the airlock vent, and she let her head drop back on the floor at the unmistakable sound of ship engines firing. “No,” she whispered again. She felt tears in her eyes.
