by S. E. Smith
Tears stung her eyes, but she refused to let them fall, not sure if she was grieving his losses or her own frustration. Because she’d heard the story from the other side, about the undercover operative who’d stopped a riot on Adiona in its tracks without a shot being fired. Who’d been found dead years later, and everybody suspected he’d crossed a mob boss. The man’s picture was in the academy on Farhope. Like a hero, instead of the monster that he was.
That she was.
“I’m sorry.” She sank down to the mat and crossed her legs in front of her. “It’s not enough. The words. Hell, even the revenge. It never feels like enough. It doesn’t ease the hurt.”
When he looked at her, his dark eyes had gone flat. “Except it was. It was plenty. I joined a mercenary unit not long after, someplace my skills could be useful, and didn’t mind the blood on my hands. They helped me get off the ’Vax and didn’t ask questions. But that’s not the kicker.” He picked up Darcy and crossed the rope to stand outside of the ring. “The thing that’s sticking in my head, over and over, is that he fought exactly like you. Even had that fancy duck-slide-into-armlock move you used.”
He had her dead to rights, and still her first instinct was to lie to him. Her mouth opened, ready to say she took self-defense classes because being a woman on the docks meant sooner or later a creep would get handsy. It wasn’t wrong, but self-defense didn’t tend to teach the kinds of locks and strikes that restrained an opponent. The point was to cripple and get away, not to detain and subdue.
“Don’t make me ask again.”
Lying was an excuse to drag out whatever this thing was between them, to drag his hurt on longer. And he’d already been hurt enough, long before he’d arrived on the scene. He didn’t even know who she really was—he looked at her and saw a dockrat, exactly as she’d intended. Rayan couldn’t see the girl who’d grown up in the bright skylines of Skyreach, who took jobs in space because she hated being planetside and loved the organized chaos of shipboard life. She’d buried those parts so deep she barely saw them anymore. How could anyone else? So, she told the truth instead.
“I got invited to apply coming out of my secondaries. The academy takes care of all the advance degrees as part of your training. When you aren’t learning the craft, that is.” She moistened her lips and studied him, hoping for some sense of understanding in his eyes, but he was pointedly staring elsewhere. “Triptych is expanding their reach. We needed allies among the smugglers. My original plan had been to help you steal a planted cargo; a juicy score you could re-sell easy and which would buy my way into your trust. I never meant to rope you and your crew into Ariadne’s web.”
Barr nodded, voice thick. “Which is why you were surprised by the ’Vax too. And the thugs on Hodur?”
“They were real enough. The contact was my old partner, but I’m pretty sure he’s been flipped. Or he’s so deep undercover that he’s gone native.” She shrugged. “Either way, his reaction was real enough.”
He snorted. “As real as the rest of it, maybe. At least a bunch of the pieces of the puzzle fit now. I just don’t appreciate the picture it’s making.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. I never intended to drag any of you into this mess with Ariadne. Once I realized we’d robbed the Spider Queen, I had to play the hand I’d been dealt.”
“You’d make a poor card player.” He pulled a shirt over his chest, the fabric stretching as it struggled to contain him. He walked to the water-reclamation unit set into the wall and tapped the panel above it. “Barr to Bridge.”
“Bridge here.” The captain’s voice was taut, and Sheri wondered how much of her confession had been heard on the other end.
“Tell Zion I owe him an apology. And set the dockrat’s quarters to external locks only.”
Mira responded after a thoughtful pause. “I’m sorry, Rayan.”
“Is what it is. Out.” For all the indifference of his words, she could hear his contained anger, and worse, his disappointment.
Sheri’s shoulders dragged down as though weights had been strapped to either side of her. The pain hooked in her chest like a fresh wound.
He turned and looked at her. “As security officer of the Sentinel of Gems it’s my responsibility to tell you you’re confined to quarters until further notice.” After a pause he added, “I can’t decide if I want you to resist or not.”
She stood. “I won’t. But I have one request, if you’ll let me.” When he didn’t stop her, she continued. “IntCom is waiting for you on Farhope. I was supposed to contrive an excuse to bring all of you in. Just… Don’t go there.” She wanted to add and please don’t space me, but she’d promised a single request.
He gave a curt nod and opened the door to the hall. “You know the way.”
Chapter Ten
Changing into her Nobu Station dock uniform felt like the right choice. It was, other than the Spectrivax, the only thing she’d brought onto the ship. Sheri looked at the folded pile of Hicks’s hand-me-down clothes on the bed. If the pilot didn’t want her clothes back, they could always be passed on to the next person. She set her respirator and her augmentation unit on the bed next to the clothes. It wasn’t like she’d need them again, whatever happened.
Her omni chimed, indicating its tasks were complete, and she picked it up just as the door to her cabin opened. She didn’t need to look to know it was Barr, could feel her body pull in his direction like dust falling into a star. If she turned around, she’d break, so she tucked her omni back in her pocket and waited. The fact that she knew she deserved whatever happened next didn’t make it easier to bear.
When he didn’t say anything, she took a chance. “I felt the transit drives engage. Am I allowed to ask where we are?”
“You can ask,” he said. “I’m not supposed to tell you. You’ll find out soon enough anyway. Do I need to put cuffs on you?”
She looked at last, to see him holding up a pair of restraints, looped over his finger. “I thought we were done with foreplay.” The shiver that rolled through his skin was raw, uncut lust, and pride and regret twisted together at her ability to still have some impact on him.
“You lost that privilege when you lied to me.”
His disappointment tore at her like talons, and she snapped back, “I was never not lying, Barr. From the very first, it’s been lies.” She shoved past him and out into the hall. “Everyone in the galley?”
He nodded, following as she stalked down the hall that had only started to become familiar. She brushed her fingers over the spadeleaf mint near the showers and inhaled a big sniff of the scent.
“Not everything, apparently.” He kept his voice quiet, as though wary of being overheard. “You told me your real first name. Sheri.”
She shrugged. “Call it a weakness. I hate trying to remember a name too different from my own.” She climbed the ladder into the galley, surprised to see the entire crew in the space. Even the engineer, April, had brought themself up from the microgravity of the engine room, their elongated limbs and milk-pale skin setting them apart from the rest of the crew. A comms monitor had been lowered from the ceiling, a makeshift rats’ nest of wires connecting it into the rest of the Sentinel’s systems.
Mira Barnes, ever the captain, sat in her throne at the head of the table and nodded to April once Barr had followed Sheri into the galley.
The static on the screen intensified as April worked some set of controls, resolving at last into the face of Ariadne, the Spider Queen herself. Sheri noted that the woman looked older than the pictures she’d seen. More lines around her eyes, her hair pulled back just that much tighter on her head.
The sound was off from the video, with her voice starting a full second before the lips on her image moved. It was almost as disconcerting as the liquid charm of her tone. “You do still have her. Honestly, I hadn’t expected that, Mira.”
“You say things like that, but when have I ever lied to you?” Mira leaned forward in her chair, fingers laced toge
ther and elbows on her knees. “Even in this, we were honest about who we’d robbed. You can’t blame us for seeing if there was a better offer.”
“I can blame whoever I like,” Ariadne barked. “But you make it difficult to stay angry when you make a deal like this. Send me the spy, and I’ll let you keep the ’Vax. Sell it, hang on to it. Use it yourself if you like. I hear your boatswain has an old habit.”
Sheri felt Barr bristle at her back, but he stayed silent. She knew how difficult it was to break the hold Spectrivax could put on a person. That he’d gotten free and maintained his sanity was the sort of power she appreciated.
Could have appreciated.
She took a breath to say something, but Barr’s hand on her shoulder let her know she shouldn’t speak.
Mira shrugged. “The ’Vax is nice but hard to move. What I want is something different.”
“I have a point defense system that says you’re in no position to negotiate, Barnes.”
“A system I’m well out of range of and have no intention of approaching. We’re happy to give up the spy, but we want access to the Night Market.”
“Is that all?” The Spider Queen’s smile was cold and humorless. “Bring her aboard, and we’ll discuss it.”
“Not so fast.” Hicks held up her hand and hope flickered when Sheri thought she had a defender. Then the pilot continued. “Which part of ‘not approaching’ did you miss? We’ll load her into an e-pod. You can come pick her up if you want her so bad.”
Mira glanced at Sheri, then at Barr behind her. “Indeed. Those are our terms.”
Ariadne’s lips flattened out into a thin line. Twice she glanced at where Sheri stood. “If you want my backing for the Night Market, I need to know I’m not besmirching my good name with amateurs.”
“We robbed you,” Hicks muttered, earning her stares from both Mira and Ariadne.
Sheri could feel the annoyance in the Spider Queen’s slow blink. The fact that she hadn’t sent wreckers to tear the Sentinel apart spoke volumes as to how badly she wanted Sheri in her grasp. That thought made ice knot in her belly—Ariadne was only this restrained when she wanted a personal kind of revenge.
“I had a courier fail me on Sagan. I’ll transmit the specifics. Leave the spy. Return with my delivery, and I’ll sponsor you into the Night Market.”
For the barest moment, she hoped they saw it for the trap it was. Ariadne would be more likely to keep dangling the promise of her sponsorship in front of them, in exchange for having a personal courier service. A subtle incline of the captain’s head snuffed out any chance of Sheri getting out of this alive.
“We have an accord.”
The Spider Queen smiled, smug and satisfied as she turned her gaze to focus on Sheri. “Excellent. I’ll send out a tug. Don’t be there when it arrives.” As soon as the words left her lips, the transmission cut off.
Hicks looked at her omnidevice. “Captain, there’s a long-range tender leaving Nobu Station on an intercept course.”
“She’s nothing if not efficient.” Mira leaned back to cross her legs over the arm of her chair. “Barr, please escort Mx. Tyler off my ship.”
“I can’t believe you’re just going to go along with this. You know if she gets her talons on me, I’m good as dead.”
Rayan wished he could tune her out, or at least pretend she wasn’t right, but there was no mistaking the predatory glee in Ariadne’s face. The Spider Queen was looking forward to what was coming, and that bode ill for Sheri. Whatever else he’d done, and it was plenty, he didn’t torture people to death. The Spider Queen had no such compunction.
Sheri knew that too, obviously. She froze in the hall outside of the e-pod and looked at him. “At least give me the dignity of sabotaging the seals in my pod. That tug’s not going to be here for twenty minutes. Plenty of time for me to die from oh-two-dep.”
“You know I can’t.” He stopped before saying more. Let her think it was his loyalty to Mira, let her think he’d sold himself so completely that following orders was just part of his character. It was easier than admitting the truth—if she had a chance to survive, however slim, it was better than the certainty of death that sabotage would give her. Sheri was clever, a hell of a fighter. If anyone was able to evade the Spider Queen’s clutches, it would be her.
The pride he felt in that knowledge should have bothered him more than it did.
“You as bad as she is, then.” She scoffed in angry frustration. “I didn’t believe the report in your dossier. Did you know it said you were a throwback? A full-on sociopath?”
He shrugged. If it did, then he deserved it. He’d certainly done enough to qualify, in the name of keeping the people he cared about safe. It was his sole useful skill set, honed by years of practice. “You should have asked. I’d have confirmed what they said.”
Sheri’s spine straightened. “You know she’ll never sponsor the crew, right? She’s playing you to get me. You’ve put all the chips in her hands.”
He’d considered that in the galley, worried that Mira had allowed herself to get blinded by the lure of getting into the rare, dangerous, and illegal deals of the Night Market. She’d fallen victim to greed only once before to his knowledge and had been more than punished for it. He fell back on the mantra that had gotten him through the destruction of his mercenary unit and every hardship the crew faced since. “The captain knows what she’s doing.”
“Do you?”
The question gave him pause. His reflex was to say yes, but for the first time in a long while, it didn’t feel certain. Ariadne was a different level of cruel. Having her sponsorship meant a tacit approval of her activities, including peddling ’Vax. Instead of answering, he countered with a question of his own. “How did you think this was going to end, exactly?”
She looked at him and sighed, deflating as the weight of it dragged her down. “I don’t know. Not with me gasping for breath just outside an airlock, but...” She shrugged. Without any further argument she opened the hatch and climbed into the pod. “At the very least I thought you were different.”
Because they’d shared stories. Because of the sex. Because of more than sex—the way they complemented each other in battle and the bedroom. Because she made him wish he could be someone different than who he was, so he could deserve her. He hated to admit how much she’d gotten under his skin. He dragged a palm over his scalp. “I never gave you any illusions about who or what I was.”
She flinched, and he realized after the fact that it could have been a slap at her for having lied to the whole crew. For having lied to him. He opened his mouth to apologize, but she cut him off. “That’s fair. You should get out of here. You heard her warning.”
Sheri pulled the pod hatch closed, and he knelt to watch through the rear viewport. At least until she pushed the internal launch button and the protective plate slid down to cover the interior hatch. A heartbeat later, he heard the pop of explosive bolts detonating to force the e-pod free from the Sentinel.
She was gone, but he stood there too long, just to make sure.
Chapter Eleven
Rayan stepped into the hatch for the bridge, unsurprised to find only Hicks and the captain. He gripped the handhold on the ceiling and leaned into his arms. “Why aren’t we moving yet?”
“We’re on a trajectory away from the pod,” Hicks said. “Initiated by the launch of the pod itself. Technically we are moving.”
“Smart-ass.”
“You asked.” The pilot tapped in another set of coordinates, but they were rejected. “Dammit! Fine.” She slapped her hands on the arms of her chair, then grabbed her deck and thrust it toward him. “Pick a card.”
He thought about protesting, but it would only push Hicks further. Something was wrong with the system, which she took personally. Rayan shuffled the deck several times, fanned it, and pulled out one card to flip over. The image was an old-fashioned scale, with a skull on each plate. “Two of skulls.”
“Balance?” Mira sounded
as annoyed as he was.
“It’s also a stalemate,” Hicks added. “Nice choice.”
“So, is this something Ariadne did?” Guilt soured his stomach. They’d turned Sheri over to her, and the Spider Queen was going to even the scales by eliminating them as well. A ship-tender loaded with explosives could take out an immobile Sentinel as easily as it could an e-pod, and he wouldn’t put it past her to use a worm to corrupt a ship’s nav files, masquerading them as a set of coordinates. Hicks was usually better at protecting them from threats of that nature. And Baker certainly was.
“More likely a rat’s been chewing at the wires,” Mira growled. “You’re here, so I assume she’s gone?”
“You sound surprised.” He grabbed his chair and twisted, stretching his shoulders. The exercise didn’t alleviate the tension across his back.
Mira raised one imperious eyebrow. “I’m not sure what I am. I said you were getting tangled up with her. That it wasn’t like you. Maybe I expected to be replacing my security officer.”
He stood and pulled the hatch closed behind him. The three of them were the original crew, and he could say things for their ears that he wouldn’t with the door open. “I was tempted.”
“You think I made a bad choice.”
“I think you made the choice you had available to you. The Sentinel is more important than any member of her crew.” Knowing she’d protest, he held up a hand to cut her off. “Not that Sheri was part of the crew. Trading her to Ariadne meant healing a rift that could affect business. She’d lied her way aboard, and there was no way to know what her—what IntCom’s actual agenda was. As you and I have both said, this ship’s not a democracy. That goes both ways. If I thought you were leading us in the wrong direction, you’d be replaced.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie, but enough of one that he felt guilty for it. He owed Mira his life. But the Sentinel functioned because the crew had faith in her. And they had faith in him to keep her in check. The weight of the realization dragged on him. It wasn’t a responsibility he’d asked for. It wasn’t one he deserved.
