Biondine, Shannah

by Shadow in Starlight(lit)

  Finding her fencejumper - that was the problem. Pilots-for-hire who operated outside the law probably didn't advertise in the local service directory.

  In fact, the only way there was likely to be any record of one on official channels was if -

  It was worth a try. After all, at this point she had very little left to lose.

  "Captain Locke? Captain Aden Locke?"

  Aden raised his eyes from the untouched drink into which he'd been staring and glared at the creature who'd dared disturb him. It had been so tempting to simply go back to drowning his brain cells, but he couldn't do it. It was one thing when the only life at stake were his, but...

  "Captain Locke?" his tormentor repeated, more tentatively this time. It was a child, a boy, not much older than six or seven. Way too young to be in here.

  "This is no place for a kid, son," Aden said. "I'm nobody for a kid to be talking to, for that matter."

  "But the lady said to give you this." The child held out a scrap of paper, once neatly folded - Aden could see the original creases - but now badly stained and crumpled. It looked like it had shared the kid's pocket with a half-eaten cookie and several dead bugs.

  Aden ignored it. "What lady?"

  "Just a lady," said the kid impatiently.

  That could mean any female over the age of twelve on the whole blessed planet. "Did this lady happen to have a name?"

  "Not that she told me, Cap'n."

  With a grunt of displeasure Aden took the note and shook it open. The text was concise: I need a pilot, you need a ship. Meet me at Dock 34, 17:30 hours.

  Aden's first instinct was to give the message back to the kid and tell him to throw it into the recycler. It could only be a trick, a way for Gandes to torture him a little more by raising his hopes only to have them shatter like a child's toy hit with a blaster beam. Nobody was going to hire a smuggler who'd been caught and lost his ship. It was absurd. Ridiculous. Crazy.

  It was also the only thing resembling a chance he was likely to get.

  "Captain?" the kid prompted.

  Aden dug into his pocket and pulled out a couple of coins, which he dropped in the boy's outstretched hand. As the boy dashed off, Aden gave his drink one last scowl and pushed it away.

  He read the message over at least a dozen times, studying it - the phrasing, the handwriting, the weight of the paper and the color of the ink - looking for the stamp of Gandes' twisted style and failing to find it. Just a simple note in a vaguely feminine hand on plain, unlined white paper.

  All singularly unrevealing. The only way Aden was going to find anything out was to make the rendezvous. If it was a trap, he'd find out soon enough.

  Kerra powered down the Talya's computer, smiling in satisfaction. The ship was hers - well, Captain Locke's. A private yacht belonging to some wealthy dilettante, it had seen the top side of Divras Four's atmosphere a total of twice in the past ten years. It had been a simple matter to tap into the spaceport files and change the name on the ship's documents to that of the false identity she had already established for Captain Locke.

  Her conscience experienced an uncomfortable twinge at the thought of stealing the vessel, but it wasn't as if the owner had valued it. It might be months or years before he even realized it was gone.

  What worried Kerra most was their false identities. Sure, she'd worked with computers all her life. They'd been the tools of her trade, and her only link to the world outside the lab. But she'd certainly never used one to forge documents before. Heck, in the past few days she'd done quite a few things she had never expected to try.

  She glanced at the ship's chronometer. 17:24.

  A tall, rough-looking man was waiting for her when she emerged from the ship's main hatch. He greeted her with a curt nod before gesturing toward the ship. "Fancy. But does she have any teeth?"

  "Not so fast." Kerra said. "Your name, if you don't mind? And I.D. if they left you any."

  "Aden Locke. I believe you're expecting me." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a datacard, then watched warily as she scanned it.

  The text that scrolled across the card's surface indicated that this was indeed Aden Locke, and that he wasn't eligible to own a weapon, to pilot any orbital, suborbital, or extraplanetary craft, or to conduct any form of commerce while on Divras Four or in Divran-controlled space. Kerra nodded, satisfied, and handed the card back to him.

  He certainly didn't look like Internal Security, but she'd had to make sure. Though what she'd have done if he had been she couldn't have said.

  "The ship," Locke prompted. "Is she just another pretty face, or does she have some firepower?"

  Kerra shrugged. "She has defensive guns and standard shielding, and a good fast engine. She'll get us off the planet."

  "Us?" He raised one eyebrow.

  "That's the job. Fly the two of us off this planet and drop me off somewhere obscure and safe. The ship is yours to keep, over and above whatever you consider a reasonable fee."

  Captain Locke leaned against the ship's port engine pod and studied Kerra. It was not a comfortable experience. His ice-blue eyes seemed to bore into her very soul, but betrayed no clue as to what they saw there. He was an intimidating man - tall and unshaven, with wide, powerful shoulders. Scuffed pants of black leather hugged his well-toned thighs, and a loose black shirt hung open almost to the navel, revealing a broad expanse of chest that the word "muscular" couldn't begin to describe. His long, sandy hair hung loose around his shoulders, with one stray lock slipping forward from the rest to hang down just over his left eye. He wore no weapons - they would have been seized along with his original ship - but he seemed no less dangerous for their lack.

  He didn't bear much resemblance to the heroes of her beloved holovids. With his dark clothing and rugged appearance, he looked more like one of the villains.

  The kind of villain who'd be a serious danger to the heroine's virtue. Kerra's heart skipped a beat.

  "So, what's the catch?" Captain Locke's voice was a low, lazy drawl.

  "Catch?" Kerra asked.

  "Obviously there's a reason why you need someone of my talents - someone who doesn't mind bending a few inconvenient laws. You need to get offworld, and fast. Just what kind of trouble are you in?"

  "Does it matter?" Kerra tried to sound worldly and casual, with mixed success. No, no point in kidding herself. She failed miserably.

  "Yes, it matters. I don't work blind. The more I know about what I'm dealing with, the better I can deal with it. If that's a problem..." He let his voice trail off, but Kerra had no trouble hearing what he didn't say.

  Kerra nodded reluctantly. If he turned and ran after hearing her out, she probably wouldn't blame him. "Have you been following the newsvids? You've heard about a scientist who's wanted by Internal Security for stealing top-secret military research?" Captain Locke's eyes widened, but Kerra continued before he had a chance to speak. "That was me. But I stole nothing. I erased it. Every copy, every file, every note. It was my own work, and it was never intended as a weapon." Her throat burned as she spoke the words, but she wouldn't cry. She wouldn't.

  Sweet shit, Aden swore inwardly, his heart coming up to lodge somewhere just south of his adam's apple. This kid's going to get me killed.

  He should have walked away, should have washed his hands of the girl and her problems and gone back to washing away his sorrows in a river of rotgut. He'd wanted a way out of this impossible situation, but he hadn't been planning to do it by dying.

  A single tear slipped from the corner of the girl's eye. Aden wasn't sure she even noticed it.

  Damn.

  With that solitary, orphan tear, suddenly she was real.

  For the first time, he realized how small she was. Had she not been standing on the ramp leading up into the ship, she would only have come up to his chest. Her fine-boned, delicate build was saved from pixyishness only by an unfashionable but not unappealing roundness at breast and hip. She was, he realized, very young. From what he knew about ho
w things were done on this world, she had probably spent most of her life cloistered in some godforsaken Science Ministry think tank.

  Her disguise - the orange-striped hair, darkened skin and mirrored lenses virtually screamed "disguise" - wouldn't fool a maintenance robot.

  Get him killed - she very well might. Get herself killed, without his help - that was a given. And he did need a ship.

  "Thirty thousand," he said. "Up front. And you pull your weight - do what I say when I say it, and save your questions for later. If you managed to purge protected files from a government system, you're obviously good with computers. We'll need that, since I don't think this gilded crate of ours has the firepower to shoot our way out of a bad situation. Now, show me what we've got to work with."

  "I still wish we had the time and resources to upgrade the weapons and shields." Captain Locke sighed, sliding his long form into the pilot's seat four hours later. "The engines are the best that money can buy, but it's pretty clear that this was never a working ship."

  "But that's good, isn't it?" Kerra asked. "I mean, wouldn't they get suspicious if a pleasure craft had state-of-the-art offensive weaponry and combat shielding?"

  "There are ways of concealing illegal upgrades if you know what you're doing, Doc." The Captain had called her Dr.Telsier for a grand total of about three minutes. "Still, you've got a good point. I just feel kind of naked on a ship without teeth."

  Unbidden, an image of Captain Locke sitting naked in the pilot's chair flashed across the screen of Kerra's imagination, and blood rushed hotly to her cheeks. Her nerves were doing strange things to her mind.

  "Did you finish the adaptations on those false I.D.'s?" he asked her. "They have to match our disguises dead on."

  Kerra nodded. "I still don't think you look old enough to be my father, even with the gray in your hair."

  "Thanks, Doc, but remember, they marry young on Aldera, and you're small enough and cute enough to pass as a schoolgirl - if girls on Aldera were allowed to go to school, that is. Just remember to keep your veil on, and let me do the talking. Think meek and submissive. I beat you regularly to keep you that way."

  Kerra remembered her own father, a big, husky bear of a man whose rough, callused hands had felt so gentle and loving each time he touched her. In leaving Divras Four, she was giving up any chance of ever seeing him, or her mother, again. As well, she decided regretfully. How could she face them, knowing she'd destroyed the very research that could have helped her mother live a normal life again?

  Kerra glanced back over at Captain Locke in the seat beside her. His skin was now darkened to the same dusky shade as her own, his hair black with streaks of gray, his blue eyes disguised with brown lenses. Her coloring now matched his, less the gray hairs, and her features were further obscured by a gossamer veil that covered her nose and mouth, as well as most of her hair.

  "We should have straightened that hair, I guess, but I couldn't bring myself to do it," Locke confessed. Not knowing what to say, Kerra kept silent.

  "Okay, let's get this bucket airborne. Do you believe in God, Doc?"

  Kerra gave an eloquent shrug. "My father taught me to. I suppose I still do, deep down."

  "Good enough. I don't, so you'll have to do the praying for both of us."

  "Normally," Aden said as they rose through the planet's atmosphere, "I'd avoid the checkpoint, fly out under cloak, and be prepared to fight my way out if they managed to detect me. But since we don't have a cloak, or any weapons worthy of the name, we're going to have to be clever. These people are looking for you; they'll be more suspicious of any outgoing ship than they might normally be."

  Kerra nodded. "Captain - what if I could make it look like I was on another ship?"

  "What do you mean?" Aden was certainly open to suggestions.

  "I could project a false life sign reading. Maybe even plant the documents for my original false identity - the one you said they'd see right through - in their computer. It just might confuse the checkpoint authority long enough for us to get through."

  Aden stared at her, surprised at her ingenuity. "You can do that? Without a direct line into the other ship's system?"

  "I can tight-beam an electronic signal across space straight from our computer to theirs as long as there are no large physical barriers between us. The trick is to keep it from being detected. I suppose we could disguise it inside a normal communications signal, but that might make our target suspicious, being hailed by total strangers - "

  "Doc," Aden cut in softly, "call up the port manifest. We want the names of all other ships cleared for launch around the same time we were. There's a slim chance - " If they'd bothered to repair the main drive before selling her, instead of just scuttling his poor baby for parts...

  Kerra's gaze flicked toward him, her expression doubtful, but she did as he asked. The list scrolled up the tiny screen almost too swiftly for the human eye to follow. Still, Aden spotted what he was looking for, freezing the screen with the punch of a single key. He grinned wickedly. "I was wrong, Doc - there is a God." He stabbed a finger at the display. "There. That one. I knew that bastard couldn't resist!"

  "Red Lion. Wasn't that - "

  "My ship! My own blasted ship! He probably bought her at auction for a fraction of what she's worth - with that ship he could fly right into Beckhaven Station free and clear. Her arrival would set up a flag in the Net for Vaia and Jannia - they'd come right into his waiting arms, expecting it to be me! That bastard - that's the ship, Doc. And I know just what to say to the creep."

  "You got the package ready, Doc?"

  Kerra nodded. "You're not going to identify yourself, are you?"

  Captain Locke shot Kerra an offended look. "Gandes'll know who the message is from. That's what I'm counting on. If this goes the way I planned it, we might not even have to pass a visual check." He grinned devilishly, looking more like a holovid pirate than ever. "Heads up, Doc. We're approaching the checkpoint. I'll let you know when we have line-of-sight on the Lion."

  Kerra's heart pounded so hard that she half expected it to burst free from her body. This was it - there was no Plan B, and the thought of how many things could go wrong with Plan A made her head spin.

  "There she is, Doc. Wait - wait. There. Prepare to transmit when I start talking."

  Kerra's fingers hovered over the send key, her eyes on Captain Locke.

  He hailed his former ship, not bothering to await an answer. "Hello, Gandes. Just wanted you to know that you've failed, as usual." He nodded to Kerra, who activated the data beam. "Then again, you've always been a loser. That was why Vaia left you - you weren't man enough for her. They shouldn't have called what you did to Jannia rape. They should have called it assault with a dead weapon."

  Before Aden had even finished speaking, Gandes' ship veered off from the immense bulk of the checkpoint station. The sensors on Kerra's panel indicated that the Red Lion was bringing its entire powerful arsenal to bear on the Talya's undershielded hull.

  Just when Kerra was certain that her companion had made a horrible, suicidal mistake, sleek one- and two-man security boats poured out of the station and swarmed around the little freighter like hornets around a piece of rotting fruit.

  "They've taken the bait," Kerra hissed. "Let's get out of here."

  * * *

  WINTERTIDE

  A Novel

  by Megan Sybil Baker

  ISBN 1-55316-024-X

  Published by LTDBooks

  © August, 2000

  www.ltdbooks.com

  PROLOGUE

  CIRRUS COVE

  It was well past midwinter. The deep snows had thinned, their ice-crusted shells sparkling in the bright morning sun. Already a few green shoots poked brazenly through the ground. Yet, the Healer felt a chill in her bones as she walked down the rutted path into the village. She drew the embroidered shawl more tightly around her shoulders, scanned the familiar horizon for the baneful shape of a black crow. She saw nothing. Only smoke rising hopef
ully from chimneys into a clear blue sky.

  Just my old bones, she chided herself. Old bones, weary from winters spent in the damp cold of Cirrus Cove. Ninety winters of tending to minor ills and life passings, and ninety summers of harvest blessings and plague wardings. Healer's work. But watching, ever cautious, for things beyond the ken of an ordinary Healer.

  In the small square that was the center of the coveside village, cart ponies plodded steadily, hauling their burdens for the first time without their woolen blankets. She touched their essences as she passed. Dark magic wore many disguises. But all seemed to be as it should.

  Miles to the south, hooves pounded. The ominous thunder of their approach was still distant and the Healer heard nothing but the shrill cry of sea-fowl.

  She followed the wheeling birds towards the pier. The Covemen were out in their square-rigged boats seeking the first harvest. Tradition demanded the Healer greet their return, sprinkle their catch with herbs specially chosen for the First Harvest Blessing. She had a few hours yet. The Healer drew in a deep breath of the pungent sea air and felt, as always, the presence of Merkara, God of the Sea. It was his blessing she would seek, though not without a prayer of thanks to the Sky Goddess, Ixari, for a mild and uneventful winter. Storms had been few.

  Though a last one might yet be on its way. That wouldn't be unusual for Wintertide. Perhaps that's what she felt in the sharpness of the air, what she glimpsed in the murky shadings darting through the waves. It was still a winter sea: muddy-gray and crested with white foam. The air was crisp; the Healer could imagine the shouts of the Covemen framed by frost. They'd be working their nets with frozen fingers, anticipating warm ale brewing for tonight's hearth side celebration.