“Let’s see if this works,” she muttered, prying open the lid of the motor and searching for manual controls. A small circuit board lay inside, wired to the treads. There was nothing as obvious as a control box, but when she fiddled with the wires, she got the robot to roll forward. “Ah ha.”
After another minute of fiddling, she figured out how to get it to roll backward, left, and right.
“Good enough.” She drove it toward the abandoned pertundo, its heavy treads crunching over the drone debris.
There was no way to get to the weapon without doing so, but she winced at the noise. If the leader—Dubashi’s son—had left a man out in the corridor, he was sure to investigate the noise.
She stopped the robot and made herself wait another long minute before lifting the head again. The chamber remained empty and silent, save for the hum of computers in the control center and the distant clang of machinery separating ore from rock in the bay.
Nalini slithered out of her cramped nook. She lifted the pertundo and climbed back into the robot, wincing when she banged the wide blade on the housing. She twisted it but realized it wouldn’t fit inside with her. Groaning, she pushed herself out and looked for some way to bring it along without tipping anyone off—she fully expected her robot to be noticed. Her hope was that it would be mistaken for some of the automated mining machinery in the ship.
There was nowhere obvious to stick the pertundo. She leaned it artfully against the robot’s back panel—maybe the men would mistake it for part of its framework.
“Sure, Nalini,” she muttered, dropping back inside. “This is definitely going to work.”
Fearing she’d already wasted too much time, she rolled her strange conveyance toward the corridor. It was slow going, giving her mind the opportunity to worry.
What if the team had already searched as much of the ship as they were going to and were on the way back? Or what if they’d decided to torture Tristan instead of healing him, to make sure he’d truly told them what he knew?
As she navigated the robot into the corridor, one of its treads caught against the jamb. She wasted even more time backing it up and awkwardly shifting it to try again. The tiny rusted-out peephole provided a limited view of the way ahead. On the third try, she squeezed the robot through.
She passed the bank of elevators—two sets of doors had been forced open. Or maybe not forced. Dubashi’s people might have the passcodes for the mining ship.
When her robot rolled out into the big bay, she almost jerked her hand off the wires. An armored man stood to the side of the sliding door. He wasn’t engaged in searching—he’d been left to stand guard.
Was he one of the six men she’d already seen or another one?
Realizing it would be suspicious if the robot reacted to him, Nalini kept it rolling forward. She had no way to see what was happening behind her—alas, the robot hadn’t come with a rear peephole—so she could only hope for a bland and bored expression on the guard’s face.
She wanted to roll straight for the combat shuttle, but that would also be suspicious. If the guard believed the robot was on an automated circuit, he would be far less likely to follow it—or blow it to pieces. She hadn’t missed the big rifle in his grip.
Nalini allowed the robot to roll halfway toward the shuttle, then veered off toward a conveyer belt that ran along one side of the bay. She parked her ride between two piles of ore, lifted the head enough to peer behind her, then shimmied out, grabbing the pertundo on the way down. For the moment, nobody was in sight, aside from a couple of automated ore carts rolling their loads toward the smelting area.
Though she wanted to hurry to the combat shuttle, she scooted into a nook between two piles of pulverized rock and made herself wait to see if anyone had followed her robot. She was about to step out when the armored guard appeared, walking along the aisle she’d used, heading toward the conveyer belt.
She melted back into the shadows, pushing her back into the rock. As the guard walked, his helmet turned from side to side, searching. He spotted the abandoned robot and left the aisle to walk slowly around it.
Nalini tightened her grip on the pertundo, the weapon cool and unfamiliar in her hands.
Dare she attack an armored man and hope for the best? She’d never used anything like it and doubted she would have a shot against her opponent unless she caught him by surprise. Since combat armor came with a rear helmet camera, that seemed unlikely.
The man looked at the front of the robot—he stood no more than five feet from the nook Nalini had hidden in. A faint voice sounded—someone comming him? She couldn’t make out the words, but he walked back into the aisle and toward the guard post he’d occupied.
Nalini didn’t know if she’d gotten lucky or if that had been the announcement that the rest of the men were returning, but she hurried out of the alcove and chose a circuitous route toward the shuttle. If she could get on board it without being spotted and taken prisoner, maybe she would find a chance to contact her father’s people. Maybe she could even sneak back and free Tristan if he was in the brig.
When the craft came into sight again, the hatch was still open, and nobody was guarding it, at least not from the outside. She bit her lip, pausing to observe it from the shadows between two pieces of machinery. If someone was waiting inside the hatch, she might be walking herself into a trap. No need for Dubashi’s men to search for her; she would have turned herself right over to them.
Nearby, a trio of ore carts whirred toward a conveyer belt. She jumped in front of the last one, hoping it had a sensor to keep it from hitting people. She suspected it did since it looked similar to carts she’d played in during trips to her father’s mines as a girl. She’d even disassembled one when her chaperone had made the mistake of looking the other way for too long.
The cart stopped as the other two sped off. Hoping she wasn’t wasting time, she stepped forward and tried to remove a control panel on the front, but it was screwed on too tightly. She wedged Tristan’s pertundo blade into the crack and found it had an impressively thin and sharp edge. With a flick of her wrist, she popped the panel open. The control boards inside were familiar.
She popped out the guidance card, along with one that allowed it to sense obstacles and steer around them, then pushed the cart toward an open area beside the shuttle. It whirred past the hatch, then it rammed against a pile of rock on the far side of the landing pad. And it kept ramming it, trying to get through to deliver its load.
If anyone was inside the shuttle, that ought to draw them out to investigate. Then she could sneak inside.
Unfortunately, the cart made more noise than she’d expected. She worried the guard back at the corridor would hear it and be the one to come investigate.
A head poked out of the hatchway, not a helmeted head.
“Tristan!” she whispered at the familiar tousled hair.
He was looking at the ore cart, but he spotted her and waved, a stunner in his hand. He turned the wave into a come-here gesture.
Nalini raced across the deck and scrambled through the hatch, Tristan giving her a hand up. As soon as she was inside, he slapped a control panel, and the hatch swung down.
“I’ve secured the shuttle and was about to come back to get you, Nalini. This makes things easier.”
She grew warm all over at the sound of her name on his lips and loved that he’d forgotten to call her Your Highness.
Tristan looked down at his pertundo in her hands. “Is that for me?”
“I don’t know. You left it, so I claimed it as a souvenir.”
“I left it because I was hanging over some goon’s shoulder.” He headed toward the front of the shuttle, stepping over an unconscious body in the aisle—the man wore armor, but his helmet was off.
“I suppose I’d be willing to trade it to you for something more useful for someone like me.”
“Such as what? Shoes?”
“Shoes are inherently useful.” She followed him toward the navigat
ion station.
“Even if they have fuzzy blue worms growing out of them?”
“Especially then. Function plus fashion are all the things a lady could need.”
They reached the front where the unconscious pilot lay crumpled on the deck beside his pod.
“It looks like you objected to them putting you in their brig,” Nalini said.
“Yes. I don’t suppose you know how to fly a combat shuttle?” Tristan waved hopefully at the empty pilot’s pod. “I’ve found the controls to lower the forcefield, so we can leave anytime, preferably before the rest of the men get back here.”
“I do have a pilot’s license, but I’ve only flown my yacht and a small ore transporter.”
Tristan beamed a warm smile at her, though his face was still mottled with bruises and tender-looking lumps. “That’s two more things than I’ve piloted, so you get the job.”
She settled into the pod as he dragged the unconscious men into the back—hopefully to the cell Dubashi’s son had mentioned.
The shuttle’s navigation console wasn’t too different from that of her yacht—she thought the ships might have been made by the same manufacturer—so it didn’t take her long to fire up the engines. She rotated through the various exterior cameras, checking for threats. As soon as that guard realized his ride home was taking off without him, he would alert the others. If he hadn’t already done so because of a certain suspicious robot…
“We’re ready to fly,” Nalini said as Tristan eased into the co-pilot’s pod, wincing again. “And I see you’re ready for a first-aid kit.”
“As soon as we’re out of here,” he agreed, tapping the controls. A display monitoring the forcefield shifted from red to blue.
“I hope that means we can fly out.” Nalini fired the thrusters to raise them from the deck.
“Yes, and we should do it now.” Tristan pointed to one of the camera displays.
Six armored men sprinted out of the corridor and ran toward the shuttle. Nalini engaged the forward accelerator and held her breath. The men fired, orange energy bolts striking the exterior of the shuttle. An alarm flashed.
Grimacing, she flew the craft out of the mining ship without resistance from the forcefield. She turned to the side, and the men stopped firing.
The comm panel lit up with someone trying establish a connection. At least that meant that this ship had operable communications.
“I suggest we ignore that,” she said.
“I’m amenable to that.” Tristan leaned back in his pod and closed his eyes.
As soon as they fully cleared the mining ship, Nalini would comm Jenna and the palace. But she first let herself bask in knowing that they’d escaped.
She gazed over at Tristan, relieved that he didn’t seem to be any more injured than before, and also relieved that he hadn’t been tempted by the Dubashi boy’s promise of more money.
Maybe that was because he hadn’t believed it had been a genuine promise. Or maybe it was because she could trust him.
Nalini smiled, choosing to believe that. She wasn’t sure what she had done to win his loyalty, but she felt honored to have it.
12
Even though Tristan hated to be a burden on anyone or ask for help, he admitted that it was more practical to have someone else tend his wounds, especially those on his back, than attempt to do it himself. So, when Nalini walked back with his pertundo, caught him slathering SkinFill on his cuts and abrasions, and took the tube from him, he didn’t fight it. In nearly thirty minutes of gingerly working on himself, all he had managed was to peel out of his galaxy suit again, wash his wounds, and take a painkiller. Thanks to the last, he felt numb enough that he didn’t flinch when she touched him.
“Sit down, please.” She pointed his weapon at the deck-locked chair in the back corner of the shuttle’s main cabin.
A sign labeled the area as the sickbay, with a couple of cabinets and extendable monitoring instruments built into the wall. There was also a fold-out exam table, but he didn’t need that. He sat on the edge of the chair and let her run a medical scanner over him. They were no longer affected by the spin gravity of the mining vessel, but the shuttle was accelerating enough to keep them pressed to the deck.
She leaned the weapon against the bulkhead next to him.
“Did you decide I don’t have to trade you anything to get it back?” He smiled, certain that she’d only been teasing him.
He had felt like an idiot for leaving it behind, even if he’d been playing the part of a docile and defeated man too wounded to fight, and he’d been considering how to go back for it—and her—when that ore cart had crashed outside the shuttle. Having Nalini stroll up with the weapon had saved him a lot of time.
“No, but I decided what to ask in trade.”
“Oh?” Should he be wary?
She smiled cheerfully at him. “I want to know why you really took a sample of that dirt.”
“Oh,” he repeated, his cheeks warming again. He wasn’t sure why he was embarrassed, but he was. The anticipation of being mocked, he supposed. “I wasn’t doing anything that would interest you—or anyone. I genuinely wanted a sample for my dirt collection. I know it’s silly—you’ve probably traveled a lot and think nothing of it—but I only got off Odin for the first time last year for a trip to the orbital moon base. I had the opportunity to get some fancy lunar dust, and that’s when I started the collection. I thought it would be neat to get different kinds of dirt from all over the Twelve Systems, or at least anywhere I had the opportunity to travel.”
“That’s not silly. I take souvenirs from the job sites of the projects that I’ve helped develop. That way, I can remember something about the place and the people who did the hard building work to make it a reality.”
Tristan nodded, encouraged that she understood. He waved toward his utility belt and the pouches there. “I am a little disappointed that I don’t know the specific asteroid that dirt came from. I put labels on the tubes. I guess this one will be: From a random mining ship in System Stymphalia.”
“How about From a random mining ship in System Stymphalia where I kept Princess Nalini from being captured by nefarious conspirators determined to undermine her father’s wishes for an alliance with the Kingdom?”
“The labels aren’t that large.”
“You may need bigger sample tubes.”
“It is possible.” He waved toward the comm console up front. “Did you manage to get through to your pilot and your family?”
He’d heard her talking to someone, but there was background noise in the shuttle, so he hadn’t been able to make out the words.
“Yes. My father already had people on the way to search for us. A couple of ships have diverted to escort Jenna and the yacht back home—that combat shuttle chased her but didn’t fire. I think they thought I might have been aboard. The rest of my father’s ships are coming to provide an escort for us. He was very apologetic about not getting help here earlier. I told him that you rescued me and kept me from being hurt, even though you were injured yourself in the process.” Nalini smiled at him, her dark eyes warm as their gazes met.
Tristan swallowed, appreciating the acknowledgment—and the smile. “Thank you.” He thought if he kept looking at her eyes and her lips that he might end up kissing her, and he could not do that, so he studied his lap. “Are we en route back to the palace?”
“Not precisely.”
He met her gaze again. “How not precisely?”
“We’re going in the opposite direction. Toward Oceanus.”
He didn’t try to hide his dismay. With so many people openly after her, she should go straight back home to the safety of her father’s palace. A palace buried deep within an asteroid and full of armed men who could protect her, along with countless fighter ships that could be deployed against enemy invaders.
He knew that he shouldn’t, in his role as bodyguard, question her, but he was here to make sure she survived to marry Jorg. He ought to steer her
in a direction likely to ensure that.
Though a treacherous part of his mind pointed out that he would get to spend more time with her if they headed away from the palace instead of toward it. But that would be dangerous for reasons that had nothing to do with kidnapping.
“I did a few calculations,” Nalini said. “This shuttle is fast and has long-range travel capabilities. We can reach Oceanus in time for the big event, my asteroid delivery. I have people waiting there for me, and once I give the go-ahead, the biggest project of my lifetime will be underway. Tristan, I’ve developed condominiums and single-family housing complexes—even a huge mixed-use commercial and condominium project that took up a third of a space station—but nothing like this.” She leaned forward and gripped his forearm, her eyes bright. “We’re building an entire island. A huge island. If all goes well, it’ll one day be able to house millions.”
Tristan should have tried to sway her—he wanted her to be safe, and not just for Jorg’s sake—but he didn’t want to put a damper on her dreams.
“My father’s escort will catch up to us before we get to the planet,” Nalini added. “We’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I’ll even fix up your ribs.” She lowered the scanner and opened a cabinet. “Or at least I’ll stick the tech to your skin that will do the job for you. I see some nanites in here that can be programmed for bone repair.”
“Thank you.” He leaned his head back and pretended not to notice how nice it felt as she brushed her fingers across the skin of his chest. Thanks to the painkillers, his injuries had settled to a dull ache, so he could focus on other sensations.
“I should thank you,” Nalini said as she worked. “I don’t know if you were tempted at all by their offer of more pay, but I would be in their brig right now if you hadn’t stuck with me.”
Tristan kept his mouth shut because he couldn’t explain that she was his mission and he never could betray the Kingdom and the king. If they weren’t a factor, he still wouldn’t have betrayed her for money, but could he say he would never betray her under any circumstances? What if Jager or one of Tristan’s supervisors insisted that he betray her for some reason? Even if they didn’t, wouldn’t he one day betray her, in a sense, by leaving? By being moved to a new post? He was a spy, not a permanent bodyguard. As soon as she married Jorg, his superiors would switch him to some new job. That saddened him. And the idea of leaving her alone with Jorg worried him.
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