“I’ll go that way.” Thor pointed straight ahead toward trees in the distance, trees that were not near the road.
It took Jelena a second to realize he didn’t intend to come with them.
“Thor,” she blurted, “we came here for you.”
“Then that was a mistake.”
Erick growled in his throat like a dog, probably thinking of Thor as being selfish again. Jelena didn’t think that, but she certainly felt stung that he wouldn’t take a week’s vacation from his dire assassination plans to help them.
“We were friends once,” she said, her voice coming out more hurt than she intended.
“That was a long time ago.” He sighed, sounding less cool—less cruel—but no less unrelenting. “It’s too dangerous for you to be anywhere near me. Why do you think I stopped writing?”
“You said you were busy.”
“Busy being trained to be an enemy to the Alliance, to kill their leaders and to raise an army to reestablish the empire and take over the system again.”
“Is that still what you intend to do?”
“Masika’s here,” Erick murmured, glancing to the road and then back through the fence.
The shuttle had landed near the trees, and its people had climbed out and were going to search around the wreck. Once they saw all those bodies, they might call in the local law enforcers. That would make it difficult to drive back along this road and into the city without being seen—especially if Thor didn’t come with them to help camouflage the vehicle. Jelena knew all that, but she kept her focus on him, waiting for his answer. If he did answer.
“I haven’t figured out how yet,” Thor said softly, “but it’s what my father expected me to do.”
Expectations. The words she’d quoted to Masika floated through her mind again.
“It sounds suicidal,” she said.
“I know. But it’s my path.” He looked toward the road, the rumble of the truck’s engine floating over the grass. “You’ll only get in trouble if you’re seen with me.” He pointed to the trees, to his own road. “This is for the best, trust me.”
“We can get into trouble just fine without you.”
“It’s true,” Erick said, surprising her since it was support of a sort, arguing for Thor to come with them. “She should be at her father’s side right now, but she stole lab animals and kidnapped an apparently invaluable guard, and now we’re being chased by a powerful corporation whose people are trying to kill us.”
“The animals were liberated.” Why couldn’t anyone get that right? “And the guard was rescued.”
Thor snorted, sounding faintly amused for the first time, but when he spoke, there wasn’t any humor in his words. “Who’s in charge of the corporation?”
“Uh.” Jelena had no idea. “Some collection of board members?”
“Find out,” Thor said. “Convince them to leave you alone.”
“Convince?” Erick looked back the way they had come, perhaps thinking of the headless soldier.
“If someone wants to kill you, you either have to kill them first or convince them to leave you alone. Anything else is to spend the rest of your short life living in terror.”
“Erick did blow up part of one of their ships.”
“Good.” Thor nodded, as if that was the end of the conversation, and started toward the trees.
“Thor,” Jelena lunged after him and grabbed his arm, though she immediately felt presumptuous for doing so. “Come with us. Please. Just to Arkadius. Leonidas . . .”
She thought he would shake her arm off and keep walking. After all, they had already made all their arguments, and this was nothing new.
But he paused. “What happened exactly? Leonidas had a heart attack?”
Jelena knew she hadn’t said that, but she would worry about his mind reading skills later. “That’s what Mom said, yes. I haven’t spoken to her real-time yet. And, uhm, I haven’t asked her for as many details as I should have because I haven’t wanted to admit to some of the trouble I’ve picked up, since—well, that’s a long story and not important. I just know Leonidas is having a surgery, and it may involve a heart transplant, so it’s a big deal, and I’d really like to be there with him, but now, I’m afraid we’ll bring this trouble down upon the family, and even though Grandpa can handle just about anything, I’d rather not . . . I’d just rather not,” she said, finishing quietly.
She was on the verge of admitting that she’d screwed up and didn’t want her parents to be disappointed in her over that. She couldn’t regret saving the animals, but she’d gotten in over her head, and she knew it. She didn’t want to have to ask Thor for help, and she’d find a way to make it all work out on her own if she had to, but it would be good to have him along. Not just for her sake. Leonidas had always cared about him, and he would want to see him.
Erick stirred. “I think some law vehicles are coming, either up the road or in shuttles. We may want to have this chat somewhere else.”
That would be hard to do if Thor insisted on going in a different direction. Jelena groped for something else she could say to sway him. But he spoke first.
“All right. I’ll come.”
“Good.” She had an urge to hug him, but thought of the bloody sword and the dead men, and instead, only squeezed his arm and stepped back. He wasn’t her childhood friend anymore. That saddened her, but she lifted her chin, telling herself to accept what he had offered. It would have to be enough. “Thank you.”
Chapter 15
Jelena was relieved when the truck came into view, already turned around to head back to the city. Once they reached Blue Armadillo, they ought to be able to disappear into the anonymity of its population. Alfie’s woofs and Masika’s subsequent sssshh came from the vehicle as they approached.
When Thor gripped the handle to the passenger door of the truck, it fell off.
“This is your escape vehicle?” He eyed the rusted hulk. He hadn’t even sat on the springs thrusting through the seat yet, and he already sounded disappointed.
“I can fix that,” Erick said, picking up the latch and fiddling in the dark at the door.
Masika peered through the open window at them. “You really found him?” she asked, sounding surprised.
On the way out here, after she’d admitted to sensing his presence, Jelena had explained they were hoping to find Prince Thorian and keep him from assassinating more people.
Thor had pulled his hood over his head again, so he might have been anyone, as far as Masika knew, but she seemed to assume they’d acquired their target.
“Starseers are good at finding people,” Jelena said.
Thor looked at her, but she couldn’t read him in the dark—she wished she could get a sense for his thoughts as easily as he seemed able to decipher hers. Was he irritated that she’d told a near stranger about him and where he was?
Sirens sounded in the distance, and red lights flashed in the sky over the road leading to the ranch.
Jelena nudged Erick. “You can do that later. Let’s go.”
“Already done.” Erick lifted his hands with a triumphant noise, then jogged to the driver’s side. “Scoot over, not-a-cyborg. I’ll drive us back to the space base.”
“You sure? I noticed the truck hit a lot fewer potholes when I was driving.”
“Then why was the handle falling off over there?”
“Because of your subpar workmanship.”
“Really.” He shooed her out of his seat. “Scoot, scoot.”
Grumbling under her breath, Masika crawled into the back again. Jelena, worried that the law enforcement shuttles were heading straight toward them, accepted a quick lick from Alfie, then urged her to get into the back too. The sooner they got off the senator’s doorstep, the better.
Thor sucked in a soft, pained breath as he climbed into the truck, and she remembered his injuries. She would have to talk him into letting her give him some painkillers—and maybe a few repair nanobots—in sickbay when th
ey returned. She slid in beside him, her shoulder and hip pressed against his. There was barely room for three, and she almost clunked him in the head with her staff when she shut the door.
The vehicle surged forward, Erick not hesitating. They hit three potholes in the first five seconds, and Thor almost ended up in Erick’s lap. Alfie crooned a protest. Or maybe that was Masika. There wasn’t any padding on that bench behind the seats.
After the next pothole, Thor gripped the dashboard with his hand. “I’m already regretting the loss of my ship.”
“This isn’t a thrust-bike race, Erick,” Jelena said. “I think you can slow it down a tad.”
“I don’t want to be right up the nose of the ranch when the law enforcement shuttles fly overhead. Wasn’t there a turnoff up here a ways?” Erick leaned forward, eyeing the red lights of the approaching shuttle. Shuttles. There were two, and they were almost on top of them.
“Slow down,” Thor said. “I’ll make sure they don’t see us.”
Erick frowned over at him. “How can you do that to so many people at once?”
“The same way Jelena can lead herds of chickens at once, I suspect.”
Jelena started to smile, pleased that he remembered, but her smile faltered. Did he think of those law officers—of human beings—as being as simple-minded and easily manipulated as chickens? The notion made her uncomfortable, and once again, she had the thought that she was riding shoulder-to-shoulder with a stranger, and she didn’t know how she felt about being pressed so close together, of being aware of the heat of his lean form against hers.
The shuttles passed over the truck without slowing down. None of them turned back as Erick drove in the opposite direction. Jelena let out a relieved breath when they reached the city limits, and the roads turned into broader streets, all paved and pothole free.
After a few minutes of navigating traffic, the river and the space base came into view, the latter lit up for the night, its ramps and tiers of docks outlined by the lights. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that late, and there were a lot of people out in the city as well as on the main road leading into the base. When Erick drove past the guard station, not committing to turning down the road leading to it until they investigated, they spotted twice the people that had been there earlier.
“Busier than before,” he noted, cruising past and turning down a side street in the opposite direction.
Jelena reached out with her mind toward the Snapper, hoping to find the area around the ship empty. Her stomach sank when she encountered people. Not simple passersby, but a group of men and women in combat armor loitering outside the cargo hatch.
“Someone’s waiting for us,” she reported glumly. She couldn’t tell if they were Alliance soldiers or if this was another group sent by Stellacor.
“Yes,” Thor said, his voice distant, distracted. “That’s your ship now? The big turtle-shaped freighter?”
“The Snapper, yes,” Jelena said. “We talked Mom and Leonidas into expanding the fleet and letting me start to run freight on my own.”
“We?” Erick protested. “That was all your plan.”
“You agreed to be my engineer.”
“I agreed to come along and keep an eye on you and your engine for your first run. That’s not quite the same thing.”
“You also found a replacement engineer for the Star Nomad,” Jelena said. “That suggests you were planning to stay for a while.”
“A replacement? I talked my brother into coming to work for a few weeks so he could save some money for school. I fully plan to return to learning from Stanislav while working for your mom.”
“I’m wounded that you want to leave me already.”
“Did you actually complete a cargo run?” Thor asked.
“We absolutely did,” Jelena said, as if that outcome had never been in question.
“So long as Xing was willing to make a full payment when he saw how much monkey and dog hair was sticking to his cargo.” Erick turned down a dark alley and slowed to a stop. “We better wait until closer to midnight to attempt to get up to the ship. In the meantime, I need to find someone to give the truck to.”
“Give?” Masika asked.
“We’re not going to keep this one?” Jelena added, though she’d seen Erick refurbish a vehicle before and knew what to expect.
“No need. We have our bikes on the now animal-free ship.”
Alfie whined. It might have been because she wanted to get out of the truck, or it might have been a response to Erick.
“Mostly animal-free,” he amended. “I’d like to find something for us to eat too. I’m starving, and I’m deathly sick of ration bars. Why don’t you schemers and skulkers go study the base and figure out a way in while I run my errands?”
Jelena opened the door and climbed out. Thor said nothing as Alfie clambered over the back of the seat beside him and also hopped out. He hesitated, then followed suit.
“Schemers and skulkers?” Masika asked. “Am I in that group too?”
“Unless you want to come on a dinner date with me and spend some of that big money Jelena gave you.”
Masika clambered over the seat back and out of the truck.
“Yup,” Erick said. “I’ve still got my touch with women.”
“If there are people waiting at the ship, they probably have to do with me.” Masika looked in the direction of the base and then deeper into the city. “I should go. I drove your escape vehicle. I believe that’s a fair trade-off for the help you gave me.”
“Erick, have you noticed that nobody truly wants to come with us on our adventures?” Jelena asked.
“Because they know you’re trouble.”
“Just me?”
“Definitely just you. I’m a simple engineer.”
“If I turn myself in to the local enforcer station,” Masika said, still gazing toward the city and not acknowledging their conversation, “they may withdraw the troops guarding your ship.”
“We’re not even sure those troops are there for you. They could be Alliance soldiers looking for Thor. Or for all of us, I suppose.” Jelena thought of the camera that had been at Albrecht’s gate, the one that would have footage of her and Erick climbing over the gate. “If you want to go, Masika, that’s fine, but if you don’t want to . . .” She shrugged, not sure why she was hinting that Masika could stay. The road ahead would be easier if she went back to her corporation, and Stellacor no longer had a big reason to chase after the Snapper. Jelena didn’t know if they would completely forget the stolen animals and the damage done to their facility and ships, but they might be less motivated to hunt her down if they had Masika back.
“I’ll go.” Masika started to walk away, but paused and peered into the truck. “What did you mean when you said you’d give your vehicle away?”
“We don’t need it anymore,” Erick said, “so I’ll find someone who can use it and give it to them.”
“He’s done it before,” Jelena said. “Even though he complains a lot and drives like a maniac, he has a good heart.”
“I like to be useful. Helpful.” He smiled at Masika. By the suns, he wasn’t trying to flirt, was he? “Not everybody has my exquisite tool-handling skills and can go into a junkyard and fix up an old truck from scratch.”
“He’s also arrogant,” Jelena said. “And doesn’t know he shouldn’t brag to women about handling his tool.”
“I said tools.” He glared at her. “Screwdrivers. Wrenches. Nothing dirty.”
“Huh,” was all Masika said. She lifted a hand in parting, crossed the street, and headed into the alley on the other side.
“I’ll catch up with you soon, Jelena,” Erick said, but he hesitated to drive off. He frowned slightly at Thor, then gave her a concerned look. He wasn’t worried about letting her go off alone with him, was he?
She almost snorted in dismissal at the idea, but maybe his concern wasn’t unfounded. Neither of them truly knew Thor anymore, did they?
“Good,” she sai
d, nodding firmly, hoping he wouldn’t worry. He ought to know she could take care of herself. “We’ll see you soon.”
Besides, she wouldn’t be alone. She had Alfie, who was currently sniffing behind a dumpster a few feet away. Not that she looked like a fearsome protector. Oh well. Jelena also had a Starseer staff and experience kneeing men in the groin when necessary.
Thor looked at her, his expression inscrutable.
She walked toward the end of the alley, and he followed her, as did Alfie—though at a much slower pace. The dumpsters here were extremely interesting.
Jelena turned one corner and then another, and they came out back on the main street. She thought to stand there, in the mouth of the alley, studying the space base from afar, but she spotted a trail along the river. That would allow them to observe from even closer.
“Let’s go over there,” she said, nodding toward the trail.
Thor offered another look she couldn’t decipher, but this time, she had a sense that he found this skulking about bemusing. He would probably stride straight in and deal with those men in combat armor, as he’d done in the woods. But even for him, facing so many must surely be a challenge. He might be powerful, but if he were invincible, his ship wouldn’t have been shot down in the first place.
“It was sabotaged,” he said dryly, as they crossed the street.
Jelena stumbled. “What?”
“My ship. Somewhere along the way, probably while it was getting maintenance at Triton Station, someone planted an explosive. I made it all the way here without trouble, but I believe it was capable of being remotely detonated. As I was descending into the atmosphere, it blew. I managed to react quickly, and partially contain the explosion, otherwise I’d be dead already. But those Alliance ships appeared out of nowhere seconds afterward, before I could even think about attempting repairs.” His dryness had turned cool as he spoke, and he sounded vengeful when he added, “I won’t make the mistake of leaving a ship with a mechanic without staying to supervise again.”
“You are reading my thoughts,” Jelena said, hurrying to finish crossing the street, since ground vehicles were roaring toward them.
The Rogue Prince Page 21
