by Mima
“Don’t call your brother. By now they’ll surely know about him. They’ll be looking for any communication to your allies.”
“I understand.” Her voice began to show the tension. She stared at him as she tied on her shoes. “Listen. You have to trust me. If I get caught, you’ll still have a chance. Let me try first.”
When he’d told her many people would recognize his face, it had seemed obvious that she would have to go alone to pass a message. He’d reluctantly agreed. In the long hours of silence, she’d stared and stared at his handsome profile, with the strong chin, sharp cheekbones, and bladed nose. Nope, she didn’t know him at all. Was he an actor? Perhaps a sports star? She could envision him playing meteor ball. But in the end, she was going because she was dying to get out herself, and get him on his way.
“You can’t trust anyone. Don’t go to the captain, don’t ask crew for help.”
“I. Under. Stand,” she gritted out.
He scowled at her. “Don’t give that code to anyone, and don’t come back here. You deliver it, then you get yourself off the moon.”
“Take the third-class transport, I know. We’ve gone over everything.” She reached out and took his hand for the first time since he’d told her he loved her. “I’m ready. I can do this. I’ll be all right.”
He held her hand tightly, searching her face. He opened his mouth, as if to tell her something momentous, but then shook his head faintly and leaned in to kiss her. His lips were gentle, almost regretful. She squeezed his hand and set off into the undershaft. She didn’t look back.
It took a long time to cut her way through the maze of adjacent ducts. Finally, she was over the line of chattering crew filing onto the station. She scuttled over into the closest pod, waited for someone to leave, then dropped down into the bathroom. Luckily, one of the lockers there held a jersey. She pulled it on, snagged an apple from the locker, and slouched into line.
Some of the crew who’d been waiting gave her dirty looks, but since the line was moving, everyone was in good spirits. She made it off the Cider Pot’s docking ramp with a shiver of relief. The halls of London Moon were wide and bright, with gray metal flooring and white walls. The first thing she noticed as she followed the flow of people heading toward the taverns was the extra security. They weren’t wearing station uniforms, but they were clearly looking for her and Silas.
She kept her head down and her hood forward, communing with her apple. When she chose a tavern off the main hall, she immediately spotted two men by the communication center on the wall. She sat at the bar and had a drink. They didn’t seem to be scanning the bar, just guarding the booth. Someone came up to use it and the two burly men demanded identification. The person whined and argued but showed them, and they let the guy use it. This bar wouldn’t work.
Becca went to six other bars, and every single one had a guard. She wandered the halls and found a few other com centers, but they, too, were watched. She sat by a fountain and looked in at lovely fish. She’d never seen lavender winged fish like these, but she couldn’t even enjoy her first exploration off ship. Her gaze drifted around the shops at this hall juncture. There was a dress shop with truly ugly dresses. Her mother would be appalled. That corner held a courier service. There was a candy shop. Over there was a—Her gaze ripped back to the red-fronted store. A courier service! Turning her face down, she stared at the drifting fish in delight.
It would be a simple matter to go into the courier service and give them the number and code. Let them take the risk of getting the message out! Silas had told her not to trust anyone, but these people weren’t involved. The chance of them being part of the Syndicate’s smuggling on the Cider Pot was incredibly rare. Perhaps they’d have a com center right in their store, and they’d be in no danger at all. Plus, they’d be able to call her brother for her directly, so she wouldn’t have to take the extra time or risk the danger of taking a third-class transport to another port before she contacted him, as Silas’s plan called for. He’d been very intense about his plan, but neither of them had thought of a courier service being available.
Biting her lip, Becca knew she had to focus. Would she prudently hire a courier or risk delivering the message in person, as she’d promised?
“I’ll do it.” Becca decided to take the position of cargo overseer at the captain’s request. It was too big an opportunity and offered real responsibility. Her heart pounded with adrenaline. “If you’ll give me the cargo codes and manifests, I’ll have all bays secure by the time we hit our first planetswing.”
The captain grinned. “That’s only tomorrow. But I like ambition in my people.” He stretched his hand out and she shook it firmly. Turning to his plax-page on the table, he tapped in some orders. “There you go, overseer. I’ll bet you do get it secure by then, too.”
She nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
“Head through that door there. That will be your office. Get acquainted with it and then meet your staff. I’m sure Don, Security Master Djetivoch, will be by to see you soon. I think you’ll be pleased with your berth. It’s a sight better than sharing a pod with five others.” He shuffled some papers on the desk and she could tell she was dismissed.
Swallowing, Becca went through the same rear door she’d seen the tall man use. The door zipped up behind her. The room was tiny and empty but for a one-drawer desk with a plax-page magnifier and a com. She walked over to the drawer and opened it. There was a screw, a pile of ashes, a deck of cards, and half a pretzel. Frowning, she looked around, but there was no waste slot. Nor was there a chair.
Propping her butt on the desk, she tossed through her plax-page files until she found the new data the captain had sent. The four guys who had to accept, organize, shift, and disembark the cargo containers were all much older than she. One caught her eye because he had a prison release on his file. Cal looked tough in his photo. Another, Feor, caught her eye because he was a slink. The slinks were a human-variant race, and Becca shuddered as she stared at the thick, rubbery lips hiding his two rows of pointed, dagger-like teeth. She’d never met a slink in real life before. Then there was Joe, who looked so old and gnarled Becca doubted he could work a pallet loader himself. He was one of the men she’d seen in the captain’s office before. But the man she lingered longest over was Darnell. He was pretty-boy handsome and oozed bad-boy confidence. He stared out of the picture like he was sizing her up for bed, and she still wanted to smile at him.
The door whooshed down and she jumped, which ticked her off. The tall man she’d seen duck out of the captain’s office before stood there. He had black hair and an enormous thin nose.
“Hello.” She smiled pleasantly.
“Security Master Djetivoch.” He looked her up and down. “Fuck the senior chief?”
“Excuse me?” Becca seriously doubted she’d understood him correctly.
“Did you do him yet or not?”
Her head reared back in shock. “I’ve been on ship for half an hour. That’s a little fast, even for a whore, which I’m not. I’ve never even met the man, and now I’m reassigned.”
He grunted and tossed a sizzle sheet on the desk. “Here’s what we’ve signed on invisibly, and the delivery list at our dockings during our three-month starcourse. You’ve got ten minutes to memorize it before it goes poof. Do you play poker?”
“The captain sent me the cargo manifest already. What is this?” Becca picked up the privacy paper and stared in disbelief at the two dozen units listed.
“The captain knows there’s a little smuggling. He’s a Syndicate man.” Djetivoch snorted. “It’s in his record. You can’t be so stupid as not to have read up on him.”
She looked at the thin-faced man. “Of course I did,” she lied. She’d cared much more about the Cider Pot’s senior chief than about the captain she’d thought to have no contact with. “He’s retired.”
Djetivoch laughed, a wheezing
snicker that set him coughing. He sighed out his amusement at her, shaking his head. “At least you’re a looker. Keep your nose out of our shit and you’ll get a cut.” He rolled his dark eyes. “Get to work lookin’ that over. I’m not doing the fruiting math of where to stack which box. Work it out so we can get balanced aisles set then you’re pretty much done except for offloading at our ports. If you screw up and the men have to juggle too much, they’ll find a way to get back at you.”
Becca stared blindly at the list of containers. “If these are contraband, they could be lying about their weights. The ship could be drawing the wrong power range, endangering everyone.”
“We’re not stupid. We limit the containers for that reason, and our pallet loaders won’t work over a certain weight, so we can tag things coming in way too heavy. You need to get us stacked before planetswing.” He heaved himself off the wall he’d been leaning on and walked out the door at the far side of the office. A dark room was exposed, accompanied by a blast of cold air. “See ya.”
“Security Master!” Her cheeks were blazing hot and her hands were shaking. Just a short distance beyond the door she could make out a solid wall of cargo crates stacked out of sight.
He looked back at her over his shoulder and his deep-set black eyes seemed . . . hungry. “What?”
She stared back at him. “Yes. I play poker.” She’d learned from her brother’s navy mates and she was good, despite the flush riding her face right now.
He grinned, and this time, it wasn’t at her expense. He moved off into the darkness and the door closed with a hiss.
The sizzle paper shivered in her hands. Gasping, she quickly counted how many containers were at each drop. The first port, London Moon, only had one. She repeated the numbers, struggling to memorize them, and then the sheet flashed. With an acrid crumpling, it reduced to a pile of ashes. She stared at it, then opened the drawer and added it to the pile inside.
Just then she felt a shudder pass through the ship. Her body strained back and then forward. Pressure filled her head. The Cider Pot was underway. She was in space, with no way off the ship for a week.
Her next task was to examine the cargo level, since she hadn’t studied it closely. She pulled up the ship map. There was one large bay and three small ones. The large bay was the room next door that Don had gone into. Right now, all the cargo containers were stuffed into this bay, nearly solid. She’d have to find a way to spread them out so the weight balanced, stacking them so the ones to be delivered last were in the farthest back, and the ones accessed first were in front. But they were all different sizes and some had specific care requirements. They needed to be kept room temp, for example, or cold. It was like one of the massive jigsaw puzzles that her Uncle George used to love.
After an hour she jumped off the desk and rolled her neck. She’d need more time and it was silly to work here in this poor excuse for an office. Messaging her team, she summoned them. The slink Feor came in from the cargo bay almost immediately. He was visibly annoyed, but gave no response to meeting her.
She straightened. “Hello. I’m Becca Sharpin. I’ll be the cargo overseer, although hopefully not for the whole starcourse.” Inwardly, she winced, wishing she hadn’t sounded like she was complaining or made herself seem temporary and less deserving of respect.
His legs were short and bowed, his torso extra long, and he flowed into the room with the swaying, curling movement that had earned his race their nickname. He didn’t say a word, just stared at her, standing against the wall.
“Sorry there’s no chairs.”
The door from the main office opened and two guys walked in laughing. It was old Joe and Cal the ex-con, who was lean but fit in the way of men who worked out hard. When they saw her, they both fell silent and raised their brows in identical expressions of astonishment.
“Hello, I’m Becca Sharpin, your new cargo overseer.”
“Hellll-oh, angel. What the fuck are you doing on the Piss Pot mucking in cargo?” Cal asked. He came up and offered his hand.
She shook it, but he held on to it. She frowned at him. “I’m doing a job, same as you. Let go of my hand.”
He grinned and brought his other hand up to trap hers in both of his. “This is as close to heaven as I’ve gotten lately. You look like you could be fun, honey. What’d you say your name was again?”
“Ms. Sharpin to you.” He was smiling, but his eyes freely roamed to her chest and mouth. She focused on staying calm.
“Miz Sharpin, you sure are pretty. You got a man?”
She smiled. “Aww. Park your loader, valentine. The way you’re acting won’t get you any points with me at all.”
The desk pressed into her ass, and she had nowhere to go when he stepped up closer. His eyes were dark, his thick brown hair combed neatly. He appeared clean and was freshly shaven.
“Well, I want you to know I appreciate a fine woman.” He finally managed to meet her gaze. “After all, once you see Darnell, you’ll forget about me. But he won’t last, and you’ll remember I was always real clear.”
She twisted her arm, trying to ease from his hold. “Don’t you worry, Cal. You’ve achieved your goal. I won’t forget.”
“Get your hands off the woman, Cal.” The new male voice drawled but spoke with a finality that held no doubt.
Cal winked at her and let her go. He stepped back and Becca drew a breath. Darnell was in the cargo bay door and his flight suit, navy like all the others, was peeled down around his trim hips. It hung there as if it would fall off at any moment, and she could tell from his sculpted hipbones he wasn’t wearing underwear. His chest and arms were simply the finest Becca had ever seen. He was totally bare and shining with sweat.
He nodded at her. “Ma’am. You the new overseer?”
She lifted her chin. “Yes. Becca Sharpin. Come on in, Darnell.” And feel free to stay undressed. She focused desperately on not staring at his rippling abs, bulging pecs, or mounded biceps.
“Sure.” He came in to stand near Feor, his blue-gray eyes sliding down her with pure appreciation. “Nice to meet you, Becca. You’re a damn sight easier on the eyes than Tony. He had a head like a meatball.”
She raised one brow. “Was Tony the guy who blew out of here without stopping by the captain?”
Darnell’s eyes flickered.
The guys all went very still, then.
Feor said, “You’vvve got barrrely a day till planetssswing. We need to get ssshifting.”
“I’m working on it.” Becca nodded to him, hoping the way his sibilant speech startled her didn’t show. “I wanted to ask you about your rotations, and I wanted to make sure you all understand what to do if we find a seal’s been tampered with or if someone’s been fingering the manifests, looking for locations. The procedure is simple: report it immediately.”
“You’re the overseer. What are you asking us about rotations for?” old Joe mumbled sullenly.
Becca looked at him. “I figure you have a way of working you might prefer. I figure you’ve at least seen how not to do it. I figure I’d be an idiot to make up a roster without talking to you about it.”
“I do like you,” Cal laughed.
“So, Joe? What do you think?” Becca prodded him. “Are you a morning person or an evening person?”
He hunched his shoulders. “Neither. I like day.”
“Bullshit.” Cal turned on him. “I get days.”
“You always get days,” Joe muttered. “I want ’em.”
Uh-oh. Becca glanced at Feor and Darnell. Feor watched the bickering men, but Darnell watched her.
She fought not to blush. “What’s your second choice, Cal?”
“What! Fuck this. I always get days. He’s just saying that ’cause you’re new and he can mess with me.” Cal had unsettled her when he was pleasant. When his face darkened, he took on a tension that made her distinctl
y uneasy.
“I’m not saying this roster will last the whole starcourse. But for this week, Joe will get days, and you just lost your chance to voice your next preference.” She turned to Feor. “What slot would you like?”
“Laaate night.”
“Darnell?”
“I’ll take anything but evenings. I’m usually . . . busy . . . in the evenings.”
Cal snorted. “Fucking man-whore.”
Darnell slid him a look and Cal took a step forward. “You heard me.”
This was the captain’s idea of a quiet team? She made an announcement to the ceiling. “We are not fighting over a work roster.”
Cal the ex-con shrugged and crossed his arms.
Well, it had all worked out. “Mornings, Darnell. Days, Joe. Evenings, Cal. Late shift, Feor. I’m on during transitions and random daily checks.” She was really pleased with herself for just making that last bit up on the spot. It seemed thorough and professional. And she prayed she’d only have to get up in the middle of the night for a week. “It was nice to meet you, and I’ll krong you as soon as I get the packing order arranged.”
Cal stormed out into the cargo bay. Feor, well, Feor slinked out after him, and then old Joe stooped out.
Darnell scratched his chest. “You met Djetivoch yet?”
Becca nodded. “Yes, the security master and I spoke.” Every instinct sat up. How wide did this smuggling operation reach?
Darnell’s gaze flicked over the barren desk. “You’ll make sure all the packing is accounted for. Some packages almost seem invisible when you’re not used to working with such a complicated arrangement.”
She didn’t need the reminder to account for the illegal cargo. Becca gritted her teeth. If the ship were to be boarded and audited to code, she’d be beyond losing out on her berth as an intern, she’d be arrested. “I’m good with numbers.”
