After he cleared the security checkpoint, he lined up again with the other visitors. An officious little Pityuka came by with a handheld, asking each visitor the name of the prisoner they wanted to see.
“Raena Zacari is no longer in custody,” she told Haoun.
“When was she released?”
“She was remanded to transporters for extradition to Kai during the night.”
“What?” He hadn’t meant the question to come out so loud. The poor little Pityuka quivered, ruffling her yellow feathers.
“I’m sorry,” Haoun said, although he wasn’t, really. “She just got arrested yesterday.”
“Yes, well, Kai seems eager to have her back.” The Pityuka consulted her handheld again. “Looks like her effects were unclaimed. You can retrieve those from Property.”
So he wandered off in search of that office. He would have liked to comm Mykah and arrange transportation to Kai, but the jailhouse was dampened so that his comm wouldn’t connect.
It took Haoun a while to locate the Property office. Of course, once he found it, he didn’t have any ID to connect himself to Raena. Haoun sighed. Mykah would have to come back with the crew manifest.
*
Mykah checked his handheld against the number on the docking slip. The Veracity really was gone.
Anger overrode his paranoia. He marched down to the dockmaster’s office.
“Where’s my ship?” he demanded.
“According to Planetary Security, it wasn’t yours,” the clerk said, after consulting the computer. “They said it was the Raptor, stolen on Kai six months ago. It’s in the process of being towed back to Kai, where it will be auctioned off to pay back fees. If you hurry, you can probably get there in time to buy it back.”
Mykah noticed the dock’s security team moving into place behind him. Raena was nowhere around to get him out of this fight. Besides, even she wouldn’t take on Planetary Security face to face. He sucked in a shaky breath. “Did you even look at the Veracity before you let them take it? Did anyone compare the ID numbers?”
The clerk did that for herself. “Hm.”
“Yeah,” Mykah said. “Hm. Somebody was in a hurry to steal my ship and you just let it go.”
“I wasn’t on duty when it was—”
Mykah cut her off. He kept his voice low, calmer than he felt. “I want the name of the clerk on duty at the time the ship was released. I want a copy of the records, complete with signatures. I want to know who took the bribe that bought my ship. Then I’m going to calculate lost revenue as well as travel expenses. I will bill Lautan for not preventing the theft of my ship from their spaceport.”
And he was tempted to call Mellix. This incident was so much smaller in scale than the journalist usually looked into, but maybe it indicated a larger issue, if Kai—or pleasure planets as a rule—were impounding and selling independent spaceships at will on any sort of trumped-up charges. Because of the tesseract flaw, big cruise liners were already not traveling to the pleasure planets. If the pleasure planets tried to make up the revenue on the back of independent travelers, they would put themselves straight out of business.
Maybe he didn’t even need Mellix’s name behind this exposé. He just needed to find out if the Veracity was the only ship to be stolen like this. Was it targeted—or was this a trend?
*
The bounty hunters were as good as their word. They left her alone.
Raena spent her time searching every crevice of the room. She wasn’t sure why they didn’t come in to stop her. Perhaps the room didn’t have a working surveillance system. She considered doing something lewd to see if they were paying attention, but decided it wasn’t worth the fallout.
Maybe they were all asleep. Or maybe Chale and the human had something better to do than watch a girl. It didn’t matter to Raena. After she discovered a jagged wedge of metal jammed in the top of the doorframe, she was ready to take the room apart.
Her stomach grumbled. She’d lost track of time, but she couldn’t remember eating anything since breakfast with Coni on Lautan. She missed Mykah’s cooking. That boy could turn the blandest vegetable protein into a feast.
The lights in her cabin went out. Raena wasn’t sure if she’d tripped something or if her captors simply decided it was time for her to sleep. The sounds of the engine did not change, so she got to work reconfiguring the ventilation system. She was almost more comfortable in the dark than in the daylight—and she didn’t want them to be able to gas her when they made planetfall on Kai.
*
Haoun discovered there wasn’t any human consul on Lautan. He went to the Shtrell Embassy instead. In general, the Shtrell were fussy enough that bureaucracy suited them. They were also nosy enough that it should be easy to enlist their aid, if he piqued their curiosity.
As he’d hoped, the ambassador had time to see him, now that travel had fallen off on the planet. Haoun brought a bribe. He set a bag of mixed dry roasted insects on the desk as he sat in front of it. The ambassador hooted, pleased. “How can I help you?” she asked.
“My girlfriend got arrested yesterday,” Haoun said. “Before she’d even been charged with anything, she was transported to Kai in the night. I’d like to get a message to her, make sure she’s all right, but the jail wasn’t any help. And since there’s no human embassy here—”
The Shtrell clicked her beak. “Your girlfriend is human.”
Even though their translators both spoke Galactic Standard, Haoun’s still decoded the words for him. It didn’t give any context for the emotion behind the Shtrell’s words, but Haoun didn’t entirely like the bureaucrat’s tone.
“Yes,” Haoun said. “Could you help me find her? You know how humans are mistreated in the galaxy. I’m worried about her.”
The Shtrell ruffled her feathers, but merely asked, “What is her name?”
After Haoun told her, the ambassador poked around on the computer. She fluffed and resettled her feathers again.
“She was taken from a holding cell around midnight,” the Shtrell said. “By Planetary Security.”
“That seems a strange time to transfer someone who hadn’t even had a hearing yet,” Haoun said.
“It gets stranger. On the way to the spaceport, the truck crashed. Apparently, the entire contingent of Planetary Security agents were injured in the wreck. Your friend was removed from the wreckage by a trio of bounty hunters.”
“What?” Haoun leaned forward. “How bad was the crash? Was Raena hurt?”
“There’s a video.” The Shtrell turned the monitor so that Haoun could see. The truck lay on its side, but didn’t look particularly damaged. Raena walked out of it with her hands fettered in front of her. One of the bounty hunters—a human—clipped a lead to her restraints and led her away from the camera.
Raena appeared unharmed. She walked upright, straight and proud as ever, despite being barefoot. Haoun could see no obvious bruises or blood on her—even though fallen Planetary Security agents lay all over the street. It didn’t look like a vehicular accident so much as the site of an attack. While Haoun had never seen an attack in real life, he had played enough games to recognize one.
“Who are those guys?” he wondered aloud. “How did three of them take out a truck full of Planetary Security?”
“They haven’t been identified officially,” the ambassador said.
“Is there any indication where they might take her?”
The Shtrell pecked at the keys, then sat back and cocked an eye at her screen. “There’s a bounty put on her by the Business Council of Kai.”
“Nothing else?”
The Shtrell stared at Haoun, unhappy that Haoun already knew about Kai’s bounty. “I don’t see anything else.”
By tesseract drive, Kai was only a day’s flight away. Since the bounty hunters were likely to have a slower ship, no telling how long the trip would take. The only way Haoun would know if she got to Kai would be if the bounty was claimed. Otherwise, Raena was lost in t
he galaxy.
It wasn’t the Shtrell’s fault. Haoun struggled to remember that. He flexed his hands, wanting desperately to shred something. “Thanks for your help,” he ground out as he got up to leave.
*
Haoun met his crewmates on the beach for lunch. Coni had never seen him angry before, but the way the muscles bunched alongside his jaw was ominous. She knew that whatever he was about to say would be bad news.
“Raena was extradited to Kai last night,” he announced. “As local Planetary Security escorted her to the spaceport, their transport truck was attacked. In the end, a crew of bounty hunters took her off Lautan.”
“Is she all right?” Vezali asked.
“Lautan does not seem to care. Apparently, their responsibility for visitors to their planet ends when anyone else accuses those visitors of a crime. I mean, she’s only human. Who’s going to protest if she’s hurt?”
Coni was surprised to see just how much Haoun cared for Raena.
Haoun continued, “If they could blame her kidnapping on her—or on us—they would. They’re just relieved that she’s gone.”
“Strangely enough,” Mykah said, “they feel the same about the Veracity. It was also kidnapped in the night.”
Coni watched the others react to the news that their home had been stolen away. She knew the fury and bewilderment they felt.
“Is this happening because we stole the Veracity from the Thallians?” Vezali asked.
“The Raptor was never reported stolen,” Coni answered. “Anyone who might claim it is dead. It’s registered in Mykah’s name. The loan was refinanced and paid off. We own the ship free and clear. Even the ID numbers don’t correspond to the Raptor’s. The only connection between the ships is that they are both Imperial diplomatic transports and both were on Kai.”
“Can you make them believe that?” Haoun asked.
“There’s no evidence to contradict it,” Coni said. “Kai’s dockmaster obviously confused the two ships. Everything else follows that mistake.”
“Stellar,” Vezali cheered.
“What do we do about the charge for kidnapping the Thallian boy?” Haoun asked.
“Again, no one reported Jain missing,” Coni said. “All Kai has is the video of Raena following him onto the Veracity. Once she gets to trial, it should be easy to refute.”
“What can we do now?” Vezali asked.
“Some of us are going to have to go to Kai to get the Veracity back,” Mykah said. “It would be cheapest to find a working passage, if there’s a delivery ship going from here to Kai. But that might take a while to arrange.”
“Or we could all get on the first transport out,” Haoun insisted.
“It’s too costly,” Coni protested. “We’ll need to save enough money that we can afford a place to stay when we get there.”
“And pay the docking fees to get the ship back,” Mykah said.
“And whatever Raena’s fine is going to be,” Coni added.
“She has some money of her own,” Haoun pointed out. “Didn’t her friend Ariel set her up with a trust fund?”
“It won’t do us any good,” Coni said. “We can’t access it for her.”
“Have you told Ariel that Raena was arrested yet?” Vezali asked. “Maybe she can arrange to pay Raena’s fine from Callixtos.”
“If Raena’s been taken to Kai,” Haoun pointed out. “Since the bounty hunters captured her, they could be taking her anywhere.”
“All the more reason to get the Veracity back first,” Mykah argued. “Once we have the ship, we can go after her.”
“Call Ariel,” Coni soothed. “She deserves to know what’s going on.”
*
Ariel expected a call back from Raena, but she wasn’t expecting to hear from the former waiter from Kai. “Captain Chen,” she acknowledged. He looked like he was calling her from a bar.
“Hi, Ms. Shaad. We got the message you forwarded to us, but there’s a problem.”
Before he could tell her what the delay might be, Ariel asked, “Is Raena all right?”
“She was arrested on Lautan yesterday.”
“On what charges?”
“Kidnapping the Thallian boy and stealing an Imperial transport on Kai.”
The Veracity, Ariel understood. Ariel had told her sister that prank would bite her in the ass. Anger prickled over Ariel’s skin. She couldn’t believe Raena had been stupid enough not to obscure the ship’s origins.
Mykah interrupted her thoughts. “The officials on Lautan mistook the Veracity for the Raptor and impounded it. An honest mistake,” he said, rolling his eyes, “since they’re the same class of ship, but if they’d just compared the ID numbers …”
Ariel drew a deep breath, relieved the kids had that taken care of. “Sounds as if you ought to sue for wrongful seizure.”
“We’re trying to figure out how to get to Kai to file now.”
“What do you mean, trying?” Ariel stared at him, but Mykah wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Is it a matter of money?”
“Well, there are four of us and we can’t all afford to go anywhere until we get our ship back …”
Ariel cut him off. “Captain Chen, you know I consider Raena family. If you need to get to Kai to bail her out and get her chosen home out of hock, then arrange it and let me know how much it’s going to cost. Don’t waste time being too proud to take a handout. I would do anything to help Raena.”
“Thank you,” he said, awed. “We’re pretty confident we can get the ship back. But there’s still the kidnapping charge …”
Ariel suspected that particular Thallian clone was dead. She would have to ask Eilif. In the meantime, she said, “I’ll have the Foundation investigate. Since Raena’s one of my wards—and it was my idea to take her to Kai in the first place—I am responsible for her. Can you send me a copy of the charges?”
The boy looked to someone offscreen, then nodded. “They’re on the way to you.”
“We’ll get this handled,” Ariel promised. “I have an advocate on retainer to protect my family in court. But the shadows on Drusingyi … Don’t go without Raena. I met him—” she paused, unwilling to say Thallian’s name. “I was his prisoner during the War. If we can’t get Raena to explore this, I will turn it over to the galaxy to handle. I want them all erased.”
Mykah nodded. A string of numbers came across her screen. “This is my comm code. Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help with Raena’s defense.”
“Thanks.” But as Ariel signed out, she was tempted to go to Kai herself and straighten everything our firsthand. The sooner this was cleared up for Raena, the sooner Ariel would know what was going on in the Thallians’ undersea city.
CHAPTER 6
When Raena got the ventilation to her cabin blocked up, she returned the grate to its place and tightened it back down. Whenever the lights came up again, the bounty hunters shouldn’t be able to tell she’d been tinkering.
She climbed down onto the floor and rested with her back against the bunk. If she slept, her body would use less oxygen. It would be stupid to die because she’d cut off her own air supply.
How many hours had she been awake, anyway? The day began with a bubble bath in Haoun’s hotel room, she remembered. That seemed so long ago.
She rested her head on her arms and thought about what she’d like to be doing with Haoun right now.
*
Ariel watched the news from Lautan, but didn’t see anything about bounty hunters capturing a small human tourist. Only after she delved deeper into the public Planetary Security records did she find what she was looking for. Raena Zacari, ward of the Shaad Family Foundation, had been arrested on a warrant from Kai.
Interesting that they should designate Raena as one of the Shaad Foundation wards. Ariel had run into the Security system on Kai twice before, after Raena went chasing off after Thallian. The first time, Ariel and Gavin Sloane had been picked up by Planetary Security and held in the local jail until Ariel�
�s mother paid their bail. They’d used false names then, but when Sloane returned to Kai later to beat up the Thallian soldiers left behind, he’d been subjected to a truth drug and blown their cover. Once Kai knew their real names, they’d called Ariel to pay Sloane’s bail. And she’d refused, because he’d burned his last bridge with her. Kai seemed to drop the matter.
Now, months later—when times for pleasure planets were hard—Kai remembered that Ariel had money. Apparently, they had decided to help themselves to some of it.
Ariel returned to the computer search to see what else she could find.
During Raena’s transfer to Lautan Spaceport for extradition, the truck she was riding in had been attacked. The entire PS detail had been taken out of commission. Raena had been seized by three bounty hunters.
That drew Ariel’s attention. How had three hunters taken out a truck full of Security? Why would they risk it, if they were only transporting Raena to Kai—where they would presumably turn her over to Kai’s Planetary Security? Ariel poked around some more, expecting to find warrants for the hunters, but there was nothing. It looked as if they’d gotten away with poaching a prisoner from Planetary Security. How was that even possible?
Planetary Security was a relatively new organization, created during the chaotic years after the Templar Plague. Security agents all trained on a planet out in the Guida system, then were hired as independent contractors by each planetary government according to that planet’s security needs. On duty, they usually wore helmets that didn’t reveal their species. That was supposed to protect their identities and keep them from being subject to bribery. Since they were planet-bound, Ariel suspected that corruption crept in to the organization anyway—and the helmets only made it more difficult to assign blame. She generally tried to avoid their notice. It wasn’t that any particular Security agent was dangerous, but there were always plenty of them. Like wasps, they didn’t take kindly to having one of their own attacked.
Ariel turned up a video that showed Raena leaving the Security truck. The public recording was only a snippet, which—interestingly enough—didn’t show the bounty hunters’ assault on the PS crew. The recording had been edited down to Raena walking out of the truck, onto a street littered with fallen Security agents.
No More Heroes: In the Wake of the Templars Book Three Page 9