Aries sighed. “That’s what I’m afraid of. He’ll kill you, Striker. I know it. I won’t have you die for me.”
“No one’s dying. You’re helping me find the last piece of my ship so we can get the hell out of here.” He stared at her with an intense gaze. “Besides, you’re worth any risk.”
A shot of heat ran through her. His compliment jump-started her heart. She wanted to ask him about the woman he’d loved, but she stopped, unable to form the right question. She envied her, whoever she was, this woman who’d once held Striker’s heart. Aries yearned to ease the pain this woman had caused him, just like he wanted to protect her. Could she be the woman to make him love again? Aries took a deep breath before pushing the issue.
“Any risk? But—I thought last night, when you said…?”
Striker ruffled his hair, the black waves resettling in such a way Aries longed to run her hands through them. “I said I didn’t want a lover. That doesn’t mean I don’t value your friendship. You’re special, Aries. You’re smart and kind. You want to help me save this dying species. You deserve better than Barliss, and I won’t let him have you.”
Aries wanted to scream at him, If I deserve better than Barliss, why can’t I be with you?
The question rested on the tip of her tongue. Why couldn’t she spit it out?
Striker spoke before she could voice her thoughts. “Now, let’s have some breakfast, shall we?”
Aries sighed as disappointment overwhelmed her. She’d missed her chance. But maybe life was better this way. She couldn’t handle being rejected twice. She’d storm off into the desert alone, with no ride home. “Scrambled eggs and bacon?”
“More like scrambled scorpion and lizard-strips.”
“Sounds delicious.”
They ate and packed up camp, stuffing the tarp into Striker’s backpack. He smoothed over their indents on the side of the dune with his walking stick, then they followed the same path as the raiders.
Aries had to make sure her clothing covered every bit of her skin. Flakes peeled off her nose and arms from the previous day’s trek, and she didn’t want any more of her body to burn. Striker’s skin was darker than hers, tanned from his years of exposure. The way the sun hit his cheeks and forehead made his skin glow like he was some bronzed demigod. Again, she wished she could reach out and touch him, but after the scene last night, she decided against it, holding her hands close to her sides.
They climbed a plateau to a large plain. Spindly thickets of grass grew in patches and cactus rose in bulbous forms with sickly, sweet-smelling flowers and prickles the size of her hand.
“Don’t eat those.” Striker kicked one out of his way as it hung down. “They’re poisonous.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Aries turned in the direction they were headed. White structures littered the horizon like an abandoned city. Her eyes squinted against the glare of the sun as she peered out from underneath her raised hand. “What are those?”
Striker turned around and gave her a wistful smile. “That’s what I call the Sea of Bones.”
“Bones?”
Striker gestured ahead. “You’ll see.”
As they trekked closer, the white stalks poked out of the ground and curved around in patterns. Aries realized that they weren’t frames of buildings at all, but giant rib cages of massive beasts, sprawled out like some doomed migration, all heading the same way.
Aries stepped through the first skeleton, making sure not to trip on the bumps in the sand. “Jeez. What happened to them?”
Striker shrugged. “Climate change? Like the dinosaurs on Earth?”
The skeletons looked far nastier than any triceratops or tyrannosaurus. Their teeth curved out like a wire fence blasted with a laser gun, sharp as diamond points and as thick as her fingers The sockets where the eyes had been lay deeply sunk in each skull and slanted in an empty but still menacing predator’s stare.
Aries skirted around the skulls as if they’d come to life at any moment and swallow her whole. A great sense of futility washed over her with the transient nature of all things, large and small. The universe was a vast wasteland with small pockets of life, and even those pockets faded out like dying stars.
“You okay?”
Aries stared into the mouth of one of the beasts, unmoving. Striker had picked his way through most of the bones and waited for her on the open plains. All I can do is hold on to what I have. She scrambled to catch up, leaping over a serrated tail.
Striker waited for her with a questioning look on his face.
She shivered despite the arid heat. “It’s just unsettling, that’s all.”
He put an arm around her shoulders. “Everything has its time. The trick is to enjoy life while it lasts.”
Aries settled against his hard body and allowed herself to soak up his comfort. She breathed in deeply, smelling the morning’s smoky laser breakfast on his clothes. He squeezed her close to him and she put her arm around his waist. She felt so alive in that moment and held on tightly, as if he were all she needed in the world, but Striker ended the embrace and resumed their trek.
The sand turned to hard soil, and the dunes became small mountains of jagged rock. They reached the edge of the raiders’ den when the dual suns rose and set. Using the tarp as cover, they crept closer and peered from the top of a ledge.
Hundreds of rawhide tents flapped in the dry breeze, painted with red and blue, the colors of the lizard men’s scaly skin. Tethered desert cows stomped the ground and bleated, stinking up the air. Aries watched as raiders darted in between dwellings, carrying buckets of water and sacks on the tips of sticks. They moved in sinuous arcs, graceful as snakes in water, leaving little or no tracks in the hard-packed sand.
Aries brought out her locator, having muted the sound after its last ill-timed alert, and searched for the coral readings. At first it registered all the life-forms, green dots blinking everywhere. She narrowed the search, adjusting the parameters to locate only the material matching the alien ship. It took a few moments to scan the area before honing in on a target thirty meters away.
“Over there.” She pointed to the western side of the camp near a pen of desert cows. It appeared the raiders had built a statue using the coral processor as a foundation. Skulls and rocks dangled from sticks, decorated with beads and tinkling pieces of metal.
Striker pulled the binoculars from his backpack and peered through them. “It’s right in the middle of their tents. We need a diversion.” He handed her the binoculars.
“We could create a landslide from the cliff’s edge.” Aries brought down the binoculars to look into Striker’s eyes.
“One of us would have to stay behind, and it’ll take two people to move it. Besides, they’re smarter than you think. They’ll search for the originator of the disturbance.” Striker held his chin in his hand. “I don’t want to risk it.”
“Oh.” Aries’ heart sank. The task seemed so impossible. She didn’t want to sacrifice Striker for her freedom. She’d go back to the New Dawn before she’d cause this good man’s death. “How are we going to get that part?”
Striker settled back against a rock cropping. “Sleep on it. Maybe one of us will think up something in the morning.”
Aries clenched her fists in frustration. They were so close. Just as she set her life-form locator down on the sand, a deep buzzing sound rumbled in her ear. She scrambled to look over the ledge. Raiders slithered out of their tents in chaos like a brood of snakes, some arming themselves with feather-tipped spears. Striker whipped out his binoculars and searched the horizon behind them. “Damn. Looks like we’re not the only visitors.”
He handed her the binoculars, although Aries knew who approached. She’d heard that rumbling sound her whole life. Raising the binoculars to her eyes in resignation she looked and affirmed her worst fears. Scout ships hovered over the sand. Focusing on the hull of the lead ship, she could see the painted insignia of the New Dawn.
“Are those your friends?”
“More like my enemies now.”
Barliss stood on the prow of the lead ship, holding up a laser gun as long as her leg. Aries swore and pounded her fist in the sand.
Striker pulled her back behind the ledge. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“No.” She jerked out of his grasp and turned toward the processor. That smooth object represented her only chance at freedom. “Now we have our diversion.”
Chapter Thirteen
Bargaining Chip
The smooth flight was almost surreal to Tiff as she maneuvered through the last pebbles of the asteroid belt. The Morphic Marauder’s engines thrusted, and she zipped into the clear space, feeling as though they’d all escaped death. She didn’t ease her grip of the controls until the litter of rocks became specks on the horizon behind the ship. Her thoughts were too tumultuous to revel in the victory. The navigational controls clocked Sahara 354 as one more day away.
“Is it over?” Reckon’s raspy voice interrupted her concentration. She turned to see the old man hunched over and wheezing like he’d run a marathon. His dark cloak hung half off, as if an asteroid had hit the hull before he could slip the second arm in its sleeve. His wispy, rat-gray hair stuck up in the back.
She sighed in resignation. “Yes.”
“I didn’t know you were such a risk taker, sweetie.”
“I’m not.” Tiff restrained a rising thread of anxiety. “A gravitation force pulled us in. It was beyond my control.”
“Was it, now?” His beady eyes narrowed, and she wondered if the uncertainties lurking in her heart shone clearly on her face.
Tiff tried not to set her temper loose on the old man. “I would never intentionally put us in danger.”
“Where’s Drifter?”
She resisted the urge to wince at his name. “He’ll be here shortly.” She wanted to curl up and hide in the wires under the control panel, but showing such weakness was unthinkable for a pirate. Weakness got men like Striker marooned on desert planets. Weakness got men like her brother blown up in space.
“I know what you did.” Reckon pointed a grime-crusted finger with a broken nail at her. “You tipped the ship. You came close enough to risk the upper gun pod.”
“Shut up!” Tiff shot him a sizzling stare. “Or I’ll push your wiry body into space before you can get a helmet on.”
Heavy footsteps stomped down the corridor, and she flicked the switch to autopilot. She didn’t know how long this argument would take.
Drifter barged in like a star about to go supernova, pushing his way past Reckon and honing in on Tiff. Sweat soaked his oily, long hair, and he wiped it back from his fierce eyes. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Tiff stood her ground. “I was doing my job, trying to get the ship out of those asteroids safely.”
He stared at her incredulously. “I don’t know who you are anymore. You could have gotten me killed.”
“You’re still standing here, right?”
“Yeah, no thanks to you. I could have sworn the ship tilted as that mother of an asteroid came too close.”
Reckon cleared his throat and spoke up from behind him. “It did. It swerved toward the right, which was the top, because she had us turned sideways.”
Tiff gave Reckon a nasty look and the old man shrugged. “I’m siding with him,” he said.
Drifter’s eyes lit up with the new information. “I see. You were trying to keep Loot safe, weren’t you?”
Tiff had to look away this time. She couldn’t deny his accusation.
“You chose that ragamuffin over me, a looting pipe rat you found cowering in the air shafts.”
Tiff turned away toward the main sight panel. The glinting stars mocked her. “He’s still a boy. I couldn’t let him die.”
“I see how it is.” Drifter walked up behind her and swiveled her chair around so she had to face him. He stuck his nose right up to hers. “You swoon over your old boyfriend all the time and kick me out of your bed, then you chose a teen brat over me.”
Spittle leaked from the corner of his mouth and Tiff wondered if it would sizzle and foam.
“It’s over, Tiff. Once we’re outta here and on that moon, you’re on your own. No more free rides on my ship. You’re lucky I keep my end of bargains, or else I’d leave your sorry ass in the desert.” He tore his face away from her and stormed out of the room, leaving Reckon to stand like an awkward gremlin by the door.
Tiff crunched up inside like recycled metal in a garbage compacter. She’d remade herself so many times she didn’t think she had anything left to morph into.
Reckon stepped forward and held out a hand, his raggedy cloak dragging on the floor. “If you’re not with Drifter anymore, I’d be happy to take his place.”
“Get away from me.” The words came in a squeak. She searched the control console in front of her and scooped up her only working light pen. She threw it at him, but it missed and shattered in three pieces against the wall. The old man ducked and hustled into the shadows of the corridor, muttering under his foul breath.
Tiff held her shoulders and tried to keep from shaking. Goosebumps pimpled her skin and nervous jitters ran down her arms and legs. The sprawling vastness of space stretched out before her in an endless slate of black, cold and empty. The feeling of being on her own scared her more than anything else in the world.
…
Reckon settled on the floor next to his cot and typed in the code to open his tool box. The back of his head ached where he’d fallen during an asteroid hit, but Drifter had given him clear instructions and he needed to get his work done before they reached Sahara 354.
“Yeah.” He clicked open the lid. “Find a way to steal a piece of DNA and record Striker’s voice patterns so we don’t have to keep him around. Easy enough to say, but hard to do.” Drifter might as well have asked him to clone the exile.
He puttered around in the box, throwing used nanodrives over his shoulder to find one with recording space available. “Yeah, I’ll just get him to recite the entire alphabet and count to one hundred. What does Drifter think this is? Sesame Quadrant with Kyro the Alien Bird?
Besides, even if he did have him speak every known letter and number, the rhythm would be off and, knowing Striker, the coder would sense that. The only way they were going to get those coordinates was to have Striker release them. Whether or not the man would be willing to divulge them was another matter altogether, and not Reckon’s responsibility.
As he reached for another nanodrive, a glossy green case poked up from the pile, catching his eye. None of his scratched-up copies had such a shiny sheen. Reckon picked it up and examined the cover. The plastic had no nicks or scuff marks. He popped it open and handled the glistening nanodrive that lay inside. Had Tiff’s or Drifter’s stuff gotten mixed up with his? He turned it over and saw a small label with his name written in unfamiliar handwriting.
Reckon scratched his head. Who would leave him a message? He didn’t have many contacts back at the spaceport, and whoever had left this must have known the combination for the toolbox and slipped it in when he wasn’t looking. The only person better than he was at combinations had been marooned five years ago, left to live the life of a desert nomad.
As Reckon popped the nanodrive into his central processor, a series of codes blinked on the screen, asking for answers. It looked like Striker’s work, indeed. Reckon began decoding the string of numbers, his fingers typing fast. It was easier than he’d expected, and he wondered if the person behind it made the code only hard enough to keep from everyone except Reckon himself.
The screen flickered and Reckon secured the door panel to his room before turning back to watch the nanodrive play.
On the screen, a man in his sixties appeared, wearing an old flight uniform from Outpost Omega. He had the prominent forehead and sharp nose of a general, but wrinkles and dark shadows circled his deep-set eyes. He carried an aura of wistful regret, like an old bald eagle with a broken wing. He had Reckon’s complete
attention. Listening carefully, Reckon upped the volume with a few flicks of his fingertip and leaned closer.
“You may not recognize me, Reckon, but I’m James Wilfred the third, otherwise known as Decoder, Striker’s father.”
Reckon inhaled sharply. Hadn’t the man died years ago? He’d never given any credence to the rumors that Decoder had retired in seclusion, shutting himself in his small cell in the far reaches of the space station. For a moment, Reckon considered turning the message off, in case James Wilfred the third had programmed some type of bomb, but if Striker’s old man had wanted their ship destroyed, he would have done it by now. No, he’d meant this message to be heard, and by Reckon’s ears alone.
“I’m aware of your mission to find my son. Don’t concern yourself with the details, just know I have my sources and know about the map. As you figured out, there’s no way you can decode it without him.” The old man smiled as if experiencing a happy memory. “My son is too smart to trust pirates with something so valuable.”
Reckon clenched his fist. “Get on with it, Decoder.”
“I thought, as a coder yourself, you were smarter than that, as well.” Striker’s father leaned in, as if he could see Reckon sitting there on the floor, and narrowed his eyes. “What makes you think these people are going to take you with them to paradise? Why won’t they dump you in the desert like they did my son?”
Reckon snorted and looked away, but Decoder had a point.
“You and Striker must work together as allies if you ever want to see the greenery of paradise. I can give you what these other pirates can’t. Bring my son back to me, and you’ll have your ticket to the better world. I’m a man of my word, and I can assure you I’ll keep to it. Convince these pirates they have to keep Striker until the very end. Watch his back. When the battle begins, remember who your true ally is.”
The image flickered out, leaving Reckon with a decision to make. He couldn’t break the code on the map, and it was close to impossible to record Striker’s voice and gather enough DNA to make it happen without him. He might as well play his cards wisely and convince Drifter to keep Striker safe until they reached the space station. Then he could see which bargain turned out for the best.
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