Mystic

by Cheryl Brooks

  “I should be able to predict a gap in traffic and set us down, preferably with no one behind us. If we’re lucky, no one will notice when we decloak.”

  “What happens if we aren’t lucky?” Sula asked.

  “We’ll be spotted by the police. Getting arrested for driving a cloaked speeder in the city would really slow us down.”

  * * *

  Sula couldn’t find any fault with his logic. The best she could hope for was a relatively smooth transition from flying to hovering at a normal level. But as she looked down upon the city lights with a seemingly continuous flow of speeders on every possible route, she had her doubts. “Maybe we should’ve landed a little sooner.”

  Abuti reached forward and gripped Aidan’s shoulder. “Are we going to crash?”

  “Not today,” he said, sounding suddenly more cheerful. “I got this.”

  “Seeing into the future?” Sula asked.

  “Sort of. Back off the throttle to about half normal speed.”

  Sula did as he asked, then had to bite back a scream as the speeder seemed to plummet toward the ground. The suspensor force kicked in with a slight jolt, and suddenly, the speeder was moving normally behind a long line of other vehicles. She was about to profess her amazement at such a smooth landing when Abuti beat her to it.

  “I don’t believe it!” Abuti yelled. “Woo-hoo! What a rush! Are we still cloaked?”

  “Nope,” Aidan replied. “Did that on the way down.” Sula’s sideways glance caught his grin. “Timing is everything.” He tapped the control panel, and the canopy slid shut.

  Sula had grown so used to the altitude and wind speed that her ears popped when the canopy locks engaged. Even with the canopy closed, the speeder continued to swing from side to side, requiring her to make constant course adjustments. Her first thought was that there might be a malfunction of some sort until a quick peek over her shoulder revealed Abuti hopping around in the backseat like some weird alien toad.

  Apparently, Aidan noticed the same thing. “Put your safety harness back on and settle down, kid. We’re conspicuous enough as it is without you rocking the boat.”

  Abuti paused long enough to speak. “The most fun I’ve ever had in my life, and you’re telling me to settle down?”

  “Yes, I am,” he replied. “Sorry.”

  “Okay. I’ll be good.” To Sula’s relief, the erratic swaying ceased. “Wouldn’t want you to send me home now. I wouldn’t have missed this for anything.”

  Sula was a bit breathless herself. However, she had other reasons for that. A closed canopy meant she’d be inhaling Aidan’s aura or scent or whatever it was that drove her mad with desire. “I need a drink,” she muttered.

  “Curly’s always been the most free-spirited of Cat and Jack’s boys,” Aidan said. “He probably has some booze on hand, although with a Drell on board, he probably has to keep it locked up.”

  In all the excitement, Sula had forgotten about the Drell. On the whole, Drells tended be terribly rude, and liquor didn’t improve their manners. Hopefully, she would have very little interaction with him. “What did he say the Drell’s name was?”

  “Jetoc,” Abuti replied. “And don’t worry, I know how to keep Drells in line. You just have to swear at them, and they scurry right off.”

  “Hmm, well, since he is Curly’s navigator, I wouldn’t want him to scurry too far.” She yawned. “What time is it, anyway?”

  “Half past three,” Aidan replied. “I don’t know about you two, but I’m ready to call it a night.”

  “Same here.” Sula glanced at the rear viewscreen. A few speeders that had been stopped at the previous traffic signal were catching up to them, but nothing unusual stood out. “We probably shouldn’t relax just yet, though. Do either of you see anything suspicious behind us?”

  Aidan peered at the viewscreen for a moment, then twisted around in his seat. “Not at the moment. What about you, Abuti?”

  “I don’t see anything out of the ordinary,” Abuti replied. “Not even the big bird.”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say Val is flying somewhere above us.” He leaned his head back and stared up at the sky. “He’s fast enough to overtake a speeder in the city. With no stoplights or speed limits up there, he might even beat us to the spaceport.”

  Sula knew of several intelligent species that were capable of flight. As diverse as Damenk’s population was, it was a wonder the air wasn’t thick with them. She tried to remember how many there were—that had been a test question somewhere along the line—but recalling facts and figures wasn’t nearly as interesting as Aidan’s fully exposed arched neck. She could even see the spot where she’d bitten him earlier. With a difficult swallow, she returned her attention to the road ahead.

  Would he bite her like that if they ever made love? She couldn’t remember if Zetithian women enjoyed being bitten. She certainly didn’t, nor did she possess a Zetithian’s rapid healing ability or saliva that could stop bleeding. Her fake fangs would have to go, and the sooner the better. Multiple puncture wounds wouldn’t be good for either of them.

  The linkpad lit up. “What’s your status?” Curly asked over the link.

  “Almost there,” Aidan replied. “We had a tail but lost it. You?”

  “Ours is pretty much the same story,” Curly said. “Just came aboard. I’ll say this for our tail, he was persistent.”

  “So was ours. We had to cloak to lose him.”

  Aidan was stretching the truth ever so slightly, especially by not mentioning anything about having flown most of the way, and if the snicker from the backseat was any indication, Abuti had also noticed that omission.

  Curly chuckled. “Amateur.”

  “I take it you didn’t have to fire any weapons or engage your cloak.” Aidan’s tone was perfectly even. As tired as he had to be, how he kept from rising to the bait was a mystery.

  “Nope. Just outmaneuvered him. It’s more fun that way.”

  “I’m sure it is,” Aidan said, still without even a hint of sarcasm. “See you in a few.” He terminated the link with a tap on the pad.

  While trying not to laugh, Sula had bitten her lip, which, of course, was a mistake. “Ouch!” She shot a sheepish glance at Aidan. “Forgot I had fangs.”

  He grinned. “One of the hazards of being Zetithian.” He glanced toward the backseat. “You can laugh now, kid.”

  On cue, Abuti went off in a peal of giggles that lasted even longer than Aidan’s conversation with Curly. “Thank the stars and planets!” she gasped. “Outmaneuvered him, my ass. Bet he didn’t fly the way we did. Dunno how you kept a straight face.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve known Curly all my life,” Aidan said. “He’s a great guy, but talking to him without resorting to one-upmanship requires practice.”

  “And a will of iron,” Sula added. “He reminds me of one of my cousins. Never mattered what your story was—you could be telling her about a good day or a bad dream—she would always find a way to top it. Sometimes I embellished the truth just to see what she would come up with.”

  Aidan, on the other hand, wouldn’t need to exaggerate to top Curly’s adventures on the way to the spaceport. Telling the truth would do it quite nicely.

  “My take on it is to wait and see what he’ll do when left to his own devices. Sometimes I even try to predict what he’ll say.”

  Sula gave him a warm smile. “I’ll bet you’re good at that too.”

  He shrugged. “Sometimes I get it right. Sometimes not. Even a fortune-teller doesn’t know every detail of the future.”

  “Must be freaky knowing any of it,” Abuti commented.

  Having reached the next intersection, Sula turned right. “Yeah. Like whether we’ll make it to the spaceport or not.”

  “We’ll make it,” he said. “There was never any doubt about that.”

  “How
do you know for sure?” He’d already told her he couldn’t read any of her future—or his own. That left Abuti…

  “Knowing the future doesn’t mean you don’t have to work at making it happen,” he replied. “The future is always in a state of flux. Anything can change it, and when the stakes are high, it’s best not to leave the outcome to chance.”

  Abuti folded her skinny arms and rested them on the top of Aidan’s seat back. “Okay, then. Whose future have you been seeing?”

  “Yours.”

  “Mine?” Abuti squeaked. “What did you see?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” he said with a sly smile. “But you will get older, and if you survive this adventure, that means we probably will too.”

  “Wish I shared your optimism,” Abuti drawled. “Not everyone involved in a speeder accident dies, you know.”

  “True, but none of us is going to die tonight.” He gestured toward the left. “The docking bays are down that way.”

  Sula nodded, banking the speeder around the turn. She didn’t need any directions at this point, but she recognized his change-of-topic tactic for what it was. Unfortunately, it didn’t appear to work on a Norludian.

  Abuti sat back and huffed out an indignant breath. “You really aren’t going to tell me, are you?”

  “Nope,” he replied. “So don’t even bother asking.”

  “Why not?”

  “Personal policy,” he said firmly. “Until recently, no one knew I could see into the future, so I’ve never been asked, but I make it a rule not to volunteer the information. Just because you know what I can do doesn’t mean you’re exempt.”

  “But I won’t tell anyone!” Abuti exclaimed. “I promise!”

  To his credit, Aidan didn’t laugh at the idea of a Norludian making such a claim. “Even if you kept it to yourself, knowing what I’ve seen in the future may cause you to do something that changes it.”

  “You mean like crashing into a lamppost just to make sure we don’t board that ship?”

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t have to be that drastic. Timelines are fragile, and it doesn’t take much to alter them. Other futures seem to be inevitable, and while there are many different paths to the same end, I prefer not to influence those paths.”

  Sula couldn’t help wondering what he’d seen. Did it involve other people aside from Abuti? Had he seen a specific event or random images?

  Something told her his “personal policy” wouldn’t allow him to answer those questions.

  Like everyone else who lacked prescient abilities, she would have to wait and see how the future played out.

  Chapter 19

  Aidan had always known he would regret admitting to his fortune-telling ability. He just hadn’t known how much. Telling Abuti anything was tantamount to shouting it from the rooftops. And the scene he’d witnessed was something he really didn’t want to mess with.

  “In the meantime, you need to be watching our six,” he reminded her.

  “Our six?” Abuti echoed.

  “Out the back,” he replied. “Our tail end. To the rear. You know, like you’ve been doing.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I got it,” Abuti grumbled. “I guess hindsight is the only thing I’m good for.”

  “At the moment, hindsight, as you well know, is extremely important.”

  “Where’s bay ninety-four?” Sula asked. “Or am I still following that dot on the navigation screen?”

  Aidan had been through the maze of the Damenk spaceport many times. If there was any rhyme or reason to the numbering system, he had yet to discover it. “Better keep following the dot. If we have to stop and ask directions, someone will try to sell us a ship of our own.”

  The worst part was that at least one of their group would be tempted to buy it. The subliminal advertising was so strong in this district, it was a wonder anyone made it out of there with any credits left to their name.

  “I certainly didn’t have any trouble selling the ship I came here on,” Sula said. “The trick was not turning right around and buying another one.”

  “What’s the name of Curly’s ship?” Abuti asked.

  Aidan scratched his chin. “I honestly don’t know. I haven’t flown with him since he went out on his own, but it’s probably something cleverly macho.”

  “Whatever it’s called, we just missed it,” Abuti said. “I saw a number ninety-four on that side street we just passed.”

  “I’m on it,” Sula said as she made a U-turn that pulled at least four Gs. “That dot must be the central hangar.”

  As they zipped down the narrow street, Aidan spotted Curly waving at them from the open doorway of one of the towering docking bays. Sula brought the speeder to a halt next to the loading ramp and lowered the parking struts while Aidan called Onca.

  “We’re at docking bay ninety-four as planned,” Aidan told Onca when he answered. “Any idea why Val is following us?”

  “I thought you might need a good hacker, so I told him where you were going,” Onca replied. “He said he’d try to catch up with you.”

  “Sounds good. I should’ve called him myself. Thanks again for the speeder. The cloak came in very handy.”

  “No problem,” Onca said. “Try to stay out of trouble.”

  Aidan couldn’t help but laugh.

  “About time you got here,” Curly shouted the moment the canopy slid open. “We were starting to think you’d gotten lost.”

  “If it weren’t for Abuti, we would’ve been.” Aidan hopped out and went to collect their gear from the cargo compartment. He’d already handed off Sula’s and Abuti’s bags to their respective owners when Curly sauntered down the ramp.

  “How come you weren’t driving?” he asked.

  “Defensive strategy,” Aidan replied, determined not to let Curly get a rise out of him.

  With a skeptical lift of his brow, Curly motioned toward the open door. “Head on in, and we’ll get out of here. The engines should be warmed up by now.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve seen Val, have you?”

  Curly frowned. “Val? You mean the Avian clone guy?”

  “Yeah. He was following us at one point. Thought he might’ve gotten here ahead of us.”

  “Haven’t seen him,” Curly said. “If he doesn’t get here soon, he’s gonna miss the boat.”

  Aidan’s brief survey of their surroundings showed nothing out of the ordinary. “Seems pretty quiet. We can give him a few minutes.” Shouldering his duffel bag, he followed Sula and Abuti up the ramp and into the cavernous building.

  Granted, it wasn’t important enough to warrant a peek into the future, or even a Zetithian-style vision, but he wasn’t the least bit surprised to see the name painted on the side of the S-class Telageist starship.

  Interstellar Express—when you have a need for speed.

  “I should’ve known.”

  “Sweet, isn’t she?” Curly said with undisguised pride. “Faster than Mom’s ship, even though she won’t admit it.”

  Aidan had heard that story before. Didn’t believe it then and didn’t believe it now. “Newer, anyway,” he conceded. “The Roger’s starting to get a little age on her.”

  Curly nodded. “Mom had her in for an overhaul a few months back. I keep telling her she needs a new ship, but she won’t part with it.”

  “Can’t say as I blame her,” Aidan said. “That ship has been home for a long damn time.”

  “True. I used to think she and Dad might settle down somewhere, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon.”

  “Neither do I.” Aidan couldn’t imagine Jack without Cat or the Jolly Roger. It was almost as if together, they made one composite being. The closest he could come to imagining Jack settling down would be if she were to park her ship somewhere and continue to live in it like some sort of souped-up mobile home.


  The Interstellar Express certainly didn’t fall into that category. The interior wasn’t what anyone would consider posh, but it was a cut above the Jolly Roger’s rather Spartan décor. The main deck’s lounge at least appeared to be comfortable with an assortment of armchairs and sofas scattered about.

  “Ever carry passengers, or do you only handle freight?”

  “Just freight,” Curly replied. “Sometimes large crates, but mostly small packages. You’re the first passengers we’ve ever transported.”

  “Transported?” Abuti echoed. “You make us sound like cargo.”

  “Right now, that’s technically what you are,” Curly said. “The only difference is we have to feed you.” He hesitated. “Although come to think of it, we did haul a dozen Yerkatian cormorants once, but they were shipped along with enough dried fish to last until we delivered them. Noisy rascals.”

  “I’ll bet they were,” Abuti said. “Speaking of food, do you have enough to feed us?”

  “We do if Jetoc took on supplies like he was supposed to. He’s very susceptible to the subliminal advertising around here. To be honest, we’re more likely to have too much than too little.” With a glance toward Aidan, he added, “And if you’ll do the cooking, you’ll eat better. You know how Drells are about their sausages.”

  The best Aidan had ever been able to tell, Drells never ate anything else, unless it was crackers. “I can do that. Where are Qinta and Giklor?”

  “Checking out their quarters, I expect,” Curly replied. “Qinta wanted to get out of her disguise.” His slightly disgruntled expression suggested that the wig ruse had already been resolved.

  “Speaking of disguises, I need to get out of mine too,” Sula said. “I’m okay with the curls, but I’d really like to lose the fangs.”

  Abuti swept her with an appraising gaze. “I dunno…I think they look great.”

  “I’m not worried about how I look,” Sula insisted. “I’m afraid I’ll bite a hole in my lip while I’m asleep. Don’t think I want to try eating anything, either.”

  Having had fangs practically from birth, Aidan had never considered them to be a problem in either of those situations. “Can you put them back on if necessary?”