by Dan Oakley
Kira raised an eyebrow. “Maybe, but aren’t they very expensive?”
“We should be able to get a second hand one. We need new clothes, too. Why don’t we try the market area this morning?”
Kira shivered but nodded.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said, avoiding eye contact.
I guessed this whole situation was strange for her, and it would take some time to adapt to this new environment. I didn’t want to be pushy, so I left it at that.
“I wonder how Trella is doing?” I mused before taking a sip of my coffee.
“Have you heard from her? Maybe you should send her a message.”
I shook my head. “She made it quite clear she didn’t want my interference.”
Kira rolled her eyes. “I told you. She only said that to protect us. Why don’t you just send her a message and ask how she’s doing?”
I thought it over and decided Kira had a point. Just because I was hurt that Trella had rebuffed my offer of help didn’t mean I could never contact her again.
I hesitated and then tapped out a quick message using my wrist device.
I kept it simple.
Kira and I have found somewhere to stay and we are settling in well. How are you doing? Any news?
Tomas.
There was nothing wrong with that. It was just a friendly message. Even if someone was monitoring her communications, I hadn’t said anything that could get her into trouble.
I cleared the screen as Madam Loren walked back into the dining room, carrying two plates piled high with crispy bacon and fluffy scrambled eggs.
The food was delicious.
The coffee was good, though not quite as good as the coffee I’d had earlier.
Although Trella had done her best with her magic, converting the raw materials we had on the planet Tor into more appetising food, there was nothing like the real thing. The bacon was salty and crispy and the eggs combined to make it a perfect meal.
“I got you a present,” Kira said suddenly, looking up from her breakfast, eyes glinting.
“You did? How? I thought you stayed in the boarding house all night.”
She grinned. “I did. A trader called after dinner. I bought two leather satchels.”
“Two?”
She nodded. “Yes, one for me and one for you. I thought they’d come in useful and even Madam Loren said I’d gotten them for a good price.”
“Thanks, I could have done with it yesterday. I bought a book on runes.”
“Oh, trying to brush up on your magic?” she asked, spearing the last piece of bacon with her fork.
“Yes, it only covers the basics, but it’s a start.” I hoped it would provide me with a solid foundation. I sure needed it.
When we’d cleared every morsel from our plates, Madam Loren returned to collect them.
She eyed the clear porcelain approvingly.
“I take it you enjoyed your breakfast,” she said with a pleased smile.
“I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed a breakfast more,” I said, truthfully. “It was absolutely delicious.”
She flushed with pleasure as Kira chimed in. “It really was. And so was dinner last night. You’re an excellent cook.”
Madam Loren’s smile broadened. “You’re too kind. Will you be back for dinner tonight?” She addressed us both but looked pointedly at me.
I nodded. “We will. I wouldn’t miss it for the world after tasting the breakfast.”
She pressed a hand to her chest, beaming with pleasure, and I guessed I’d been forgiven.
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table. “Look, I need to talk to you,” I said once we were alone in the dining room again.
“What about?”
“The reason I was late last night.”
Kira sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I overreacted because I was worried. Trella’s left already, and I thought maybe you’d gone too.”
I shook my head. “I would never leave without telling you.”
Kira shrugged.
“Yesterday, when I was exploring some of the space station, I ran into Bayliss. Do you remember him?”
Kira frowned. “Was he one of the crew from the KSS Morellic?”
“That’s right. And he had bad news. He told me that the recordings they had of the commander were corrupted, and although they’d reported him when they got back to the ship, the commander hadn’t been punished. In fact, it was Bayliss that came off worse after he reported the commander. He lost his job, and he’s working the Marrachi docks. Draylan is here too. The KSS Morellic has been docked here for a refit.”
Kira blinked at me, and her face paled. “Do you mean the commander is here on the space station?”
I nodded. “Yes, but there’s nothing to worry about. He doesn’t know we’re here.”
Kira paused for a moment and looked away, trying to process the information. “But what if he finds us?”
“He won’t,” I said confidently. “They are only in dock for another week.”
“But your name is on the watch list. Did he put it on there?”
I scoffed and looked over my shoulder to make sure we weren’t overheard. “The watchlist has the name Tomas. No last name. I hardly think that is going to help them track us down, and your name isn’t on the list. You don’t have to worry.”
“It’s not right that he gets away with what he did.” She looked up sharply. “What about the other man who stabbed you? Is he here too?”
I shook my head. “No, Zarak was transferred off the KSS Morellic. We don’t have to worry about him now. But Draylan and Bayliss might be able to help us.”
“How?” she asked suspicion lacing her voice.
“Draylan still works aboard the KSS Morellic. So I was hoping we’d be able to find some evidence in the commander’s quarters. Maybe some records of his communications with his sister, or perhaps even some record of the faulty weapons we were given for our mission to Tor.”
Kira’s jaw dropped open. “You’re not seriously considering going back on the ship, are you?”
“I’m going to try and persuade Draylan to get me aboard.”
“No.” Kira shook her head vigourously. “It is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard. Why would you deliberately try and get yourself killed?”
“It’ll be fine. I’ll go aboard when the commander isn’t there. I just have to persuade Draylan to help me.”
Kira slouched back into her seat. “Even with Draylan’s help, I still think it’s the dumbest idea I have ever heard.”
“Well, you might have a point. But both the KSS Morellic and Commander Taggert will be gone in one week, and I can’t sit back and do nothing.”
Kira’s damp hair was starting to dry and spike up in its usual style. She raked her hand roughly through the spiky strands.
“I’m meeting Bayliss and Draylan for lunch to discuss my plan,” I said. “You can come if you’d like to, but it might be safer if you stayed here.”
“That’s fine with me. I don’t want to go on a suicide mission anyway.”
She was angry with me, and I couldn’t blame her. Going back to the KSS Morellic was a huge risk.
I wasn’t going to get her to come around to my point of view, so I changed the subject. “Are you ready to go to the market? We’ll get the comms device first and then sort out the clothes.”
With a sigh, Kira got up from the table. “I don’t suppose there’s anything I can say to put you off going ahead with this plan?”
I shook my head. “No, but I promise I’ll be careful.”
Kira exhaled another long breath and shook her head sorrowfully. “I have a bad feeling about this, Tomas.”
We returned to our rooms, and I slipped the rune book into one of the satchels Kira had bought. If I decided to go straight from the marketplace to the pub then I wanted it with me. I planned to study the runes during any downtime I had during the day.
The marketplace was already bu
sy when we got there. Kira was enchanted by a stall displaying jewellery, with stones that looked like coloured glass to me.
“The wrist device is going to set us back a pretty penny,” I reminded her, and reluctantly she walked away from the merchant and his sales pitch.
Although we’d intended to purchase the wrist device first, we found a shop along the way selling clothing. Peering in the window, I could see they sold everything we needed.
We ducked inside the dark shop and began to sort through the clothes on the shelves. I opted for brown heavy cotton trousers and a cream linen shirt. The boots that came with my Kingdoms uniform were still serviceable, so I didn’t bother to look at the footwear section. Purchasing two of everything struck me as a good idea. We could wash our clothes every night and have a fresh set the following day.
Kira gathered a selection of clothes, which I thought were unsuitable. I’d chosen my clothing to blend in, but she had selected a pair of scarlet pants and a billowing white top.
“That’s not exactly understated,” I grumbled.
“Who said I wanted to be understated?” she replied with a frown, but she mollified me by also picking up a pair of plain grey trousers and a cream linen shirt, similar to my own, but a little more fitted.
We paid for our purchases and left with them bundled into our new leather bags.
Our next stop was a small pawnshop. There were a number of dusty, forgotten items in the window. Inside, there was some intricately carved furniture and a huge great grandfather clock constructed from a wood I didn’t recognise. The clock face appeared to glow in the dim light.
I made my way to the counter, which doubled as a glass cabinet, and peered down, inspecting the more valuable items that were kept locked away.
The shop owner, a stout man with a ruddy face tottered over to us. “Does anything take your fancy?” He spoke the common Kingdoms language with a heavy accent, but I couldn’t quite place it.
Though he’d lost most of his hair, what little remained looked blonde, and I guessed he wasn’t a native born Marrachi.
He spread his plump fingers on top of the glass and looked up at me eagerly. “We are looking for a communication device that can be worn on the wrist like this one.” I held out my arm so he could see.
The old man lifted his spectacles and inspected the comms device on my wrist.
“We don’t have anything like that. The device you’re wearing is issued by the Kingdoms. I take it you are in the service…” His eyes narrowed a fraction.
I nodded but didn’t elaborate. Trella had hacked the devices while we were on the pirate ship, so they couldn’t be traced by Commander Taggert, but they still looked the same.
He reached down, pulling out a bunch of keys from his pocket, and unlocked the glass cabinet. “I do have something that might interest you.”
He pulled out an electronic device which was quite a bit smaller than my own. “Let’s just check it’s charged up,” the man said, deftly operating the device with his chubby fingers.
“There,” he said, pushing it across the counter to us. “It’s working perfectly.”
Kira inspected it first, swiping through the multiple screens.
“You bring up the keyboard by making a circular motion on the screen,” the man said, following up with some more sales patter.
Kira let out an exclamation of delight when the miniature keyboard appeared on the touchscreen.
It appeared to offer many of the same functions as my wrist device. It was better than I’d hoped. Mainly we needed it as a communications device, and as long as we could send messages, I would be happy.
“How much?” I asked, preparing to haggle.
The first price he named was extortionate and would have taken almost half of the money we’d taken from the pirates.
I pulled a face and shook my head. “Madness. We couldn’t possibly pay that much.” I named a number less than a quarter of his original price.
He sucked in air through his teeth, grunted and made a terrible fuss as we bargained, but in the end we got it for only ten credits over my original offer.
We left the shop with Kira wearing the comms device on her wrist, tapping away happily through the multiple screens.
As it was approaching lunchtime, we headed back to the boardinghouse and dropped off our parcels.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me to meet Bayliss and Draylan?” I asked as we approached our temporary home.
Kira shook her head, still fascinated by her new device.
“Now you have the wrist device, you can contact me any time. Maybe you could explore the city on your own this afternoon. I’d stay close to the marketplace for a while, though, until you get used to things.”
Kira grimaced. “I’m fine here, thanks. I’m feeling tired anyway. I’ll probably just take a nap.”
“What about lunch?”
She shook her head. “Still full after breakfast. Maybe I’ll get something later.”
I put the packages in my room and changed into my new clothes. They fitted pretty well. I’d definitely blend in now.
There were a bunch of cultures living together on the space station. The population wasn’t only red-haired, dark-skinned Marrachi, though all the security agents I’d seen had been typical Marrachis.
“Have you changed your mind?” I asked when I exited my room and saw Kira standing in the hallway.
I suspected she’d been waiting there, trying to think of ways to persuade me not to go.
“I’m not going to do anything foolhardy, Kira. I promise. I’m just going to ask Draylan and Bayliss for help.”
Kira wrapped her arms around her midsection and sighed. “I just have a really bad feeling about this…”
Chapter 23
I tried to put Kira’s negative thoughts out of my mind as I headed to the Explorer’s Inn to meet Bayliss and Draylan.
My mind was full of questions as I walked through the marketplace. How would they react to my plan? Bayliss would probably be all for it, but Draylan was another story…
The market was even busier than yesterday, and I wished I had more time to stop and look at the different stalls. The shops that lined the market street, had displays in their windows to entice passers-by. I paused to peer into almost every shop, knowing I was still a little early for lunch and had plenty of time.
The pirate loot I’d stashed in my bag added up to more money than I’d ever possessed at one time in my life. The credits sat there in my bag, tempting me.
There were so many mage shops, all selling different types of magical equipment.
One shop I passed, had a window display full of intricately designed copper tiles, each carved with runes. The copper gleamed, and I found it hard to turn away and keep walking. Maybe I would come back tomorrow.
I reached the courtyard with its prominent fountain in the centre and found I was still too early, so I perched on a curved bench beside the fountain, pulled out my book and began to read.
Though the old man had told me it covered the basics, I didn’t find it basic at all. Some pages had equations I’d never seen before and others had intricate diagrams.
The words swam in front of my eyes as I tried to make sense of them. I’d been so excited about unlocking the world of runes that the idea of not understanding this book at all made me feel bitterly disappointed. I turned the page and saw a whole sheet filled with rune illustrations, underneath were descriptions of what each symbol represented. If I got nothing else from the book, at least, I would be able to memorise the page of rune drawings.
Checking my wrist device, I saw it was time to meet Draylan and Bayliss.
I entered the bar and weaved my way around the mostly empty tables. Spotting Bayliss’s bulky form straightaway and seeing Draylan hunched over beside him, I made my way over to their table.
I slid into the seat opposite them. Bayliss had a foaming mug of beer, but Draylan was sitting brooding over a steaming hot coffee.
>
“Have you ordered lunch yet?” I asked.
Bayliss shook his head. “No, I’m going to have the Marrachi pops, but I don’t think Draylan here is able to stomach lunch.”
He poked Draylan in the ribs, making him groan.
Draylan didn’t look so good. He had bags under his eyes, and his skin had a grey tinge. Rubbing a hand over his face, he said, “I think I enjoyed myself a little too much last night. I’ll be sticking with coffee.”
I turned my attention to Bayliss. “What exactly are Marrachi pops?”
“Small pieces of protein replacement, coated with a mixture of spices and flour and deep-fried. They serve them here on a bed of mashed corn.”
I pulled a face.
“It tastes better than it sounds,” Bayliss reassured me as a waitress arrived at our table.
She smiled sunnily at us. “What can I get you?”
“A plate of Marrachi pops, please,” Bayliss replied.
Draylan put a hand up and shook his head when the waitress turned to him.
When she turned to me, I said, “I’ll have the Marrachi pops, too, and a cup of coffee, please.”
Beer would cloud my judgement, and I needed a clear head today.
After the waitress left us, Bayliss leaned forward, resting his muscular arms on the table. “So, what’s this plan you wanted to tell us about?”
I took a deep breath. I needed them both on my side, Draylan especially. I couldn’t do it without him.
“I want to get evidence on Commander Taggert before the KSS Morellic leaves in a week.”
Bayliss leaned back and shrugged. “Don’t we all?”
I looked at Draylan. He massaged his temples.
“I need Draylan’s help to get aboard the Morellic.”
Draylan’s fingers stopped circling his temples, and his eyes narrowed.
Bayliss chuckled. “I’ve not heard a plan as crazy as that for a long time.”
He had a point.
It did sound crazy when I said it aloud. But I couldn’t see another way to get the evidence we needed.
“Why would you want to get back aboard the ship?” Draylan’s features were tense.
“I want to look through the commander’s things, and access his personal computer files.”
