by S. E. Smith
One of the guards pushed the call button for the lift, and all hell broke loose.
The maintenance ladder door opened, and a familiar red-and-black shape rocketed across the floor toward the nearest guard. Sheri stepped through the open hatch, stunner firing. Two guards dropped immediately. A third screamed and opened fire on the goanna before Darcy reached him.
Barr jumped over his restrained wrists, getting his hands in front of him. The guard who’d hit him had already turned to face the commotion. A fatal mistake. Rayan looped his restrained wrists over the man’s head, spun, and snapped his neck. Another guard turned to fire in the close quarters, and Barr bull rushed into him. Another dropped to Sheri’s stunner fire. The remaining three retreated around the corner, getting cover that was sorely lacking in the corridor.
Sheri trilled, and Darcy leaped off his victim; she stunned the man before he could recover. Rayan charged to hide behind the open maintenance door. “What are you doing? I was here to rescue you.”
“You were doing a great job, what with you being arrested and all.” Sheri was bleeding from a wound in her arm. The sight made rage boil in his blood, a primal need to rend and tear in her defense. She grabbed his head with one hand and tugged him close. Her mouth slashed across his in an angry, hungry kiss. “Grab a set of keys and free yourself, dummy.”
A guard poked around the corner to fire on their position, and Sheri caught him with the stunner. He dropped, and another pair of hands pulled him back into cover. Rayan dragged a stunned guard close and found the keys to his restraints. Sheri handed him the stunner, and he put down suppressing fire with one hand while she released him.
She grabbed the flechette rifle from a downed guard and charged forward, firing blind at the guards’ cover. Darcy climbed onto Rayan’s shoulder as he took off in pursuit.
Around the corner, both the remaining guards had vanished, leaving their colleague behind. Rayan looked at Sheri. “They’ve gone for reinforcements.”
“No kidding.” She grinned. “They’re also the only guards in the bay. Think we can get back to the launch before they arrive?”
He dragged her mouth back to his for another kiss, one laden with promise, and her growl of desire ignited a different fire in his blood. “I’m game if you are.”
He held his arm out for Darcy and whistled, but the goanna climbed up onto Sheri’s shoulders instead. The possessiveness in the lizard’s face made Rayan cough out a laugh. “So that’s how it is, eh?”
Sheri shrugged. “We bonded, what can I say.” She chewed her lip for a pensive heartbeat before adding, “I have things to ask you, later. When we’re clear.”
They ran for the docking bay, their openly carried weapons sending crew and dockworkers scrambling for cover. As she’d said, there weren’t guards on the active floor of the bay, and no one else wanted to get in the way of two obviously armed and dangerous people. He charged through the door of the Sentinel’s launch with Sheri on his heels. She closed the doors while he ran to the cockpit and fired up the ship’s power unit.
She dropped into the chair next to him, buckling up. “Well, let’s get out of here.” Her casual tone wouldn’t have been out of place on a quiet Sunday drive somewhere, instead of leaping into the firing zone outside of Nobu Station.
Rayan couldn’t help but grin. His fighter. His spy. Whatever happened next, they would live or die together.
He was okay with that.
Chapter Thirteen
Sheri held her breath. While it was designed to deal with dangerous asteroids and large space debris, she had no doubt that Nobu Station’s point defense system could track and hull the launch without difficulty. Any moment, she’d hear the clanging thump of a projectile hammering through the ship and then the deafening silence of fatal vacuum.
“Did you actually come to find me? What about the Sentinel?”
“Mira and I had a difference of opinion. She wasn’t wrong, but I didn’t agree with her answer. So…” His voice trailed off, and the phantom pain she could hear in it made her want to hold him. He’d given them up for her. In spite of what she’d done. Of who she’d been.
“But your family—”
“—will either forgive me or they won’t,” he said. “But in the end, you helped us. Feeding you to Ariadne was a bad call.”
Sheri watched him, fire burning in her throat at the undeserved loyalty. She’d spend the rest of her life trying to be worthy of his faith, and even then, she doubted she could measure up. When the communications array lit up, she gasped and jumped in her seat.
“Put that on overhead. Anyone wants to say something to me, they can say it to both of us.”
She smiled to herself as she moved to comply. He trusted her, even after everything she’d done. No matter how much she’d done to prove how little she deserved it.
Ariadne’s voice came over the ship address system. “Barr, you have something of mine. It’s only out of respect for your captain that I haven’t shot you down already.”
“Then you should know I no longer serve aboard the Sentinel.”
“You clearly don’t understand how to bargain.” Ariadne’s laugh was incredulous. “Giving away your only leverage is a poor starting position.”
“I wouldn’t want you to make a decision with inaccurate facts,” he replied. “After all, if I’m no longer sworn to the Sentinel, I’m open to take other work. But only if she and I are alive.”
The silence on the other end was deafening. Sheri muted their mic from the ship and looked at him. “Rayan. You can’t.”
“I can if it keeps us alive. She’s not going to have me do anything worse than I’ve already done.”
She could hear the resignation in his voice, knew the lie because she’d told it to herself too many times to number. “Except she would. Because you’d have to do them for her. Everything else you’ve done, it was because you knew it kept people safe. Because it brought justice that the system had dispersed. Ariadne’s not going to have that kind of morality. She’ll pick things she knows will break you. And if that doesn’t bother you, then she’ll do it to get to me.”
His eyes closed, and he hung his head. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning I love you too much to watch her kill you one job at a time.” The words were a surprise to her, too soon in a relationship that she was only beginning to appreciate the value of. And yet, as soon as she’d said them, she knew they were the right ones.
He stared at her, mouth curled in wicked promise. “Then make sure it doesn’t. Give me something to live for instead.”
The comms crackled again, Ariadne’s voice smug and triumphant. “Very well. For your first assignment, I need you to kill Mira Barnes.”
Sheri’s sharp inhalation surprised Darcy where he clung to his perch, and the goanna shot her a dirty look. “You can’t!”
“Indeed, he can’t. Those services aren’t his to offer.” A shadow blocked out Nobu Station’s light as the Sentinel of Gems hove in between the station and the launch. Mira’s voice was a naked blade. “And if you think you can come for me, Ariadne Thraice, then you’d best send someone you don’t mind losing.”
“Barnes,” the Spider Queen spat. “You’re too late. We’ve already reached an accord.”
“Until it’s signed, it’s nothing but words. You of all people should know how cheap those are.”
Rayan looked at Sheri with a shrug, but she didn’t have any more idea what Captain Barnes was talking about than he did.
“My doctor ran some tests on one of your respirators that had been left in my care. Did you know that?” When Ariadne offered only silence, Mira continued. “The filter in that respirator was part of a recalled batch from nearly three years ago. A recall which conveniently went missing.”
Sheri saw Barr’s hands tighten on the arms of his chair, knew he was reliving the horrors of his childhood. She reached over to thread her fingers into his. He loosened his grip slightly to clutch her hand.
“Far
be it from me to criticize what people do of their own free will,” Mira said. “But if you manufactured a lung fungus epidemic, just to create and corner a new market for Spectrivax? That’s the sort of information I’d be hard-pressed to keep from the authorities. I suspect the Joint Council would take a dim view, no matter how many of them you have in your pocket.
“In fact, I’d have to work very hard to keep them from hearing about it. At the moment, I have to refresh a code in my omni every twenty-four hours, or the data will be broadcast to every councilperson and media outlet in the Three Systems.”
Sheri’s heart lurched. A public tarring was the one thing Ariadne couldn’t afford. Like all spiders, the woman thrived in the shadows. Too much exposure would be the death of her enterprise. Sheri looked at Barr, saw the same fleeting hope reflected in his face. With her dead-man’s switch, the captain may have just saved them all.
Silence stretched out on the comms, past uncomfortable and well into damning. At last Ariadne spoke, her voice barely above a hateful whisper. “Well played, Barnes. But you should remember who you’re dealing with. There’s nothing illegal in the Three Systems that doesn’t move through me. I may not whisper in every ear, but I can whisper in a lot of them. You’ll never take a job again when I’m done. You’ll be lucky to get contract work as a refuse hauler.”
“That would violate my trust, Spider Queen. After all, if I can’t afford to feed myself, then I might not have strength to keep my codes renewed…”
Sheri stifled a chuckle into her shoulder. Collectively, they had Ariadne in a corner.
Ariadne answered again. “You have twenty minutes to leave my airspace, Barnes. And if you ever approach Nobu Station again, I’ll hull that broken-down Frizian of yours and pull that omni from your cold, lifeless fingers. Nobu Station out.”
Sheri shut off the comm and let out a whoop of exhilaration. “Amazing!” Adrenaline kept her heart pumping rapid-fire, and she unbuckled her harness to cross the short distance and lose herself kissing Barr. When she broke apart to take a breath, his expression was serious despite its warmth.
“We need to talk.”
Sheri looked at him, and Rayan took the time to study her face. The scar that split the bow of her lip. The bump where her nose had been broken. The way her hair had grown in shaggy and uneven on her temples, a darker brown than the mop of orange-bleached hair on top of her head. He wanted to remember her like this. Not perfect, possibly not even beautiful, but undeniably, inarguably her. Every scrape and scar.
“You’re still bleeding.”
She glanced at her arm. “It’s not bad. Shrapnel from a near miss.” A chuckle broke her smile. “You know how it is.”
He did, in fact. Flechette weapons were the preferred armament for shipboard combat. The high-speed ceramic shards they fired couldn’t penetrate a hull, but they did shatter when they struck walls, creating additional messy shrapnel. “Yeah,” he said after a moment. He swirled his hand in the space between them. “Look, I’ve never been good at this whole thing.”
Sheri nodded, but didn’t say anything. Waiting instead for him to continue. He thought of what she’d said—love—and knew he had to keep going. For all the deceptions they’d endured, she deserved this honesty.
“Even if I were good at relationships, though, I’d know. We haven’t got a future. I wish it were some other way, I want it to be some other way.” His throat tightened, and he swallowed against the hot lump.
She took advantage of the pause. “Then make it different. Let it be another way.”
Rayan shook his head. “That’s not how it works. You think you’re one of the good guys. And I’m…not.” A bitter laugh dropped from his mouth. “I’m the furthest thing from. I’ve done terrible things.” Even before he’d become a mercenary. Before he’d become a smuggler. He could justify them to himself, because he’d done what was right, even if it hadn’t been legal.
Her hand cupped his cheek. “Rayan, I’ve seen your file. I knew what you’d done before we’d ever met.”
He didn’t know when she’d switched over from calling him Barr to using his first name, but he liked the way she said it. She made the word gentler than the braying sound it too often could be. “It’s just a matter of time before Intelligence Command orders you to bring us in. I can’t let that happen to the Sentinel. If Mira’s willing to have me back, it’s my job to keep them safe.”
“I’d never ask you to do anything else. Also, I don’t have any friends at IntCom anymore.” She kissed the middle of his forehead then sat back in her chair. “They’ll as likely arrest me as you the next time we cross their paths.”
That didn’t make sense. Rayan glanced at Darcy, to see if the goanna had a better idea of what she was talking about, but he’d stretched out on his perch and fallen asleep. “What?”
“IntCom fired me. I was endangering ongoing investigations and risking valuable assets.” She raised her middle finger to the endless void beyond the launch’s tiny window. “Screw them.”
“I’d rather screw you.” The flirtation left his mouth before he could stop it. Not that he felt the words were wrong, just inappropriate for the moment.
“That’s a plan I can get behind.” Her grin was languid and full of promise, sending an electric jolt down his spine and making him thankful for the microgravity in the launch. Otherwise, he’d be embarrassing himself. Or not. “Or you could, anyway. There’s gravity in your cabin, right?”
She glanced at his lap, and Rayan couldn’t keep from chuckling. “Yeah, I’ve got grav… Shit.”
“What.”
“I don’t have a cabin. Or at least I don’t know if I’ve got one. Like I told Ariadne, I walked out on the Sentinel.” The realization brought a heavy weight of disappointment. He still half operated as though he had a crew. A place where he belonged. Just because Mira had come to save him didn’t mean that she’d forgiven him.
“Then we pay them for passage to their next stop. We figure it out from there. It’s you and me together; we can make the rules as we go along.”
“Actually, I make the rules.” Rayan turned to stare at his console, where Mira’s voice came through loud and clear. “First rule is that someone needs to teach her how to shut off a comm channel.”
Sheri looked at her console and put her face in her hand. She reached to kill the connection this time, but Rayan stopped her. “How much did you hear?”
It wasn’t the question he wanted to ask, but it would have to do.
“Zion didn’t hear, if that’s what you’re worried about.” She paused as Rayan let out a breath of relief. “But it does bring me to a more important issue.”
Sheri squeezed his hand, her voice braver than the concern in her eyes. “Which is?”
“Theft. Someone stole one of this ship’s launches, you see. It’s damned inconvenient, as the other one doesn’t work.”
Rayan scoffed. “Sounds like security’s gone to hell on your ship. Ma’am.”
“Exactly what I’ve been thinking.” He’d worked with Mira long enough to recognize the calculated grin in her voice, knew she enjoyed dragging this out. “The question is, where do I hire a decent security team in the middle of blasted nowhere?”
He blinked, and Sheri squeezed his hand again. “Team, Captain?”
“Clearly a team,” Mira answered. “I mean, I tried it with just the one person for a while and look where it got me. No, I need a team. Preferably one that’s already experienced working together. Know anywhere I can find one?”
Sheri looked over at him. “I might have a lead, but you should know—one of them is a lousy comms officer.”
“Fortunately, we’re not hiring them for their communications skills, Mx. Tyler. Now, both of you dock my launch. We’ve got less than five minutes to get out of here before Ariadne gets upset.”
“Aye, Captain,” he said. Laughter bubbled in his bloodstream. He’d have been satisfied to have just Sheri in his life. To get both her and his family back?
It was almost too much. He dragged her knuckles to his mouth and brushed a delicate kiss across them. The same way he planned to kiss every other inch of her once they got back home.
Chapter Fourteen
Darcy was trilling, loudly.
Sheri opened one eye and looked up at the offending goanna, debating whether Barr would be mad if she threw a pillow at the lizard. The amount of light in the tiny room was ridiculous. “I thought it was supposed to be dark in space.”
Barr, solid and hot, nuzzled into the back of her neck as he locked an arm around her. “I like to keep a daylight cycle in my quarters. It’s good for Darcy’s metabolism.”
His teeth caught her earlobe, and a cascade of pleasure waterfalled through her nervous system. “You should have told me that before I agreed to share your berth,” she muttered. “It’s decidedly less good for mine.”
“Would it have changed your mind?” Another nibble, and her breath shuddered in her throat.
“No, but I could have protested a little.”
“You’re protesting now.” His hand eased down her side, forming itself to her hip as he pulled her closer.
She smiled, breathing in the smell of him, of them, that permeated the sheets. They had a long road ahead of them. It was only a matter of time before IntCom realized that Ariadne hadn’t killed her. If they decided she was a risk, they wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate her and anyone she was with. She’d explained all that to the captain, who’d taken it in stride and answered with the simple sentence, “We look after our own.”
Belonging felt strange, but she was learning. Getting used to it. And Barr was a constant; if she fell, he’d catch her. Just as she’d do for him. She rolled in his arms until her face was close to his so she could whisper, “I love you.”
He chuckled quietly. “I love you too.” His goanna made another ear-ripping trill. “Darcy says you’re just okay though.”
