“Precisely,” he cut in. He glanced around, as if to make sure the area was clear of listening ears or spying eyes. Even though they were alone, with only the background noise of passing traffic and the rustling of the cycads planted in the courtyard to keep them company, he lowered his tone. “It was too neat. And it was none of my doing.”
“Whose doing was it?”
Again he paused. “I wanted to see you because I feared you would think I somehow plotted your downfall. Lira, I did not. I swear this to you on the bones of my ancestors.”
A strong oath for a Stacian. The strongest, perhaps, although Stacian cultural studies were not her area of expertise. She forced a dusty little chuckle. “Then what? Just horrible luck?”
“No.” He reached out and took her hands in his, fingers strong and warm around hers. And although her first instinct was to pull back, to step away from any contact with him, something in his eyes stopped her, something pleading and fierce. “I thought about this, Lira. I thought a good deal. We were maneuvered, you and I, although you came off the worst for it. I knew nothing about those five cruisers lying in wait — I swear this to you also. But my admiral certainly did…and possibly yours did as well.”
She stared at him. That didn’t make any sense. Why would Admiral Horner collude with the Stacians to destroy his own people, to make sure Chlorae II and its valuable resources fell into enemy hands?
It had to be Iradia’s dust that made her mouth and throat suddenly so dry. “That’s ridiculous.”
“I thought so as well — at first. But think, Lira. My superior officer makes a wager with me that I can’t refuse. The fallout from that wager is your removal from command. And the consequence of that removal is Chlorae II left undefended, and easy prey for the Stacian squadron that just happened to be in the vicinity. Too many coincidences, don’t you think?”
Only one word seemed to penetrate her brain. “Wager?” she demanded, and abruptly pulled her hands from his. “That’s why you asked me to come to you? For a goddamn bet?”
His mouth tightened. “Such a thing has far greater weight with us Stacians. We — ”
“Fuck the Stacians,” she said clearly. “And fuck you, too.”
She wheeled away from him, thinking it was a good thing the officials in Aldis Nova didn’t allow civilians to carry sidearms. Not that the stricture affected Gared Tomas and his thugs, but she didn’t need to go armed. Everyone knew who she worked for.
Before she had gone a single foot, Rast reached out and grasped her by the sleeve of her jacket and pulled her back toward him. Instinctively, she jerked backward, preparing to pivot and slip out of the garment as she’d been taught in her self-defense training, but he seemed to have predicted her movements. He caught her other arm in his free hand, fingers like steel digging into her flesh.
“Anger I can understand,” he said. “I respect your anger, Lira Jannholm. But what began as a wager became much more. Do you think I would have traveled halfway across the galaxy for a woman I had only been with once if I thought of her merely as a pawn in a bet? Do you believe I would have relinquished a prestigious post in my own fleet for a trifle? There is something between us, and you know it. Don’t bother to deny it.”
She forced herself to remain still. With another man, she might have attempted a swift kick to the privates, but Rast had shown himself to be faster than she. No real surprise, as she had only the basic self-defense training everyone in the GDF received, while he had learned to fight in the harshest proving grounds of all, the sands of his home world. Knowing he outmatched her physically didn’t prevent her from retorting, “I do deny it. You’re crazy if you think there’s anything between us, that there ever could be anything — ”
“I see I must prove you wrong,” he told her, and then, so swiftly she didn’t have time to react, pulled her against him, smothered her mouth in his.
The taste of him swirled through her senses, that spicy flavor which found its echo in his hair and his skin and his clothing. It would have been easy to surrender to it, to forget her outrage, but weeks of bitterness and disappointment could not be abandoned quite so quickly.
She tore away, breaking the kiss, moving fast enough that his hands lost his purchase on her arms. “Don’t ever do that again.”
“Kiss you?” he inquired, his tone one of silky innocence. “But it’s such a pleasant prelude to even more interesting things.”
Her body remembered those things all too well, even if her mind wanted to forget them. As for the rest — well, she couldn’t allow herself to believe anything he said. There might be a few things that would drive a man to travel parsecs to find a woman, but she had a difficult time believing love…or lust…was one of them.
She forced herself to focus on his earlier comment. “So it’s your belief that the whole thing was a setup so the Valiant would be removed from the Chlorae system.”
If he was disappointed in her for guiding the conversation away from the personal, he didn’t show it. “Yes, that’s what I think. And if that’s true, then there had to be forces at work on both sides to make sure everything went smoothly.”
“That’s one way of putting it.” Lira glanced around once more, but no one seemed to be at all interested in their little tête-à-tête, or in entering the courtyard at all. “So why?”
“I don’t know yet. But I’m going to find out. And I want you to help me.”
His tone was calm, reasonable. But he couldn’t be serious. He didn’t really expect her to drop everything and go off on some wild goose chase, did he?
On the other hand, if there were any chance of proving that Admiral Horner had acted treasonously, had discharged her with impunity just to get her out of the way, then she’d be an idiot to let such an opportunity pass her by. Such proof would be enough to get her command back. Maybe not of the Valiant, but some other ship of the line. And that would be good enough for her.
“If I agree,” she replied, speaking slowly so he couldn’t possibly mistake her meaning, “it’s just business. Got it? If these bastards really did frame me, then I want them caught and punished, but that’s my only reason for working with you.”
He nodded, although his jaw looked a little tense. “I understand.” A small pause, and he added, “I have no idea where this investigation will take us, but I do know that it would be best if we had our own ship. Too easy to trace our movements if we have to book passage on a commercial ship, the way I did coming here.”
That made sense, although a shiver of unease worked its way down her spine as she considered his words. The sort of ship he had in mind couldn’t exactly be picked up at a corner used transport lot. No, very few people had access to a ship small enough for two people to crew and yet with the subspace drive capabilities necessary to hop from star system to star system.
A note of warning entered her voice. “I hope you have a ship in mind.”
“Oh, I do,” he said cheerfully. “I want you to steal the Mistral.”
* * *
All things considered, she took his suggestion rather well. For a few seconds she merely stared up at him, blue eyes narrowed slightly. Then she crossed her arms and remarked, “Oh, is that all?”
“Yes, that’s all.”
Her mouth pursed. He doubted she did so only to distract him, but because he could still feel the pressure of her lips against his, he had to make an actual physical effort to listen to her next words…which were far from flattering.
“You’re insane. Do you have any idea exactly who Gared Tomas is, what he’s capable of? I’ve got enough problems without having someone like Tomas out for my blood.”
He’d expected such a reaction, and had his arguments ready. “It is true that this Gared Tomas is no one to trifle with…for a Gaian, at any rate. But the Mistral is the only Sirocco-class ship on Iradia, correct?”
“Yes,” she replied grudgingly.
“So, if his best and fastest ship is stolen, what exactly will he use to pursue us
?”
“I’m guessing he could call in a few favors.”
“But not before we’d already left the system.”
“Probably not.”
She didn’t like it, of course. He read her reluctance in the frown that tugged at her brow, in the way she crossed her arms as she thought it over. But he didn’t need her to love his plan, only recognize that it was a necessary step in achieving her goal of discrediting Admiral Horner.
Rast would never admit it, but he didn’t altogether like the plan, either. However, he also knew they needed a fast ship, and one they could fly on their own without having to rely on easily traceable commercial starships or the chancy assistance of a chartered freighter. They might get someone trustworthy to take them wherever they needed to go…or they might not.
Upon his arrival on Iradia, he’d spent some time learning what he could about Gared Tomas. A nasty customer, but one whose reach didn’t extend far from the Iradian system. Rast guessed that once he and Lira were safely away in the Mistral and headed toward Gaian space, Tomas probably couldn’t do all that much to catch up with them. Of course, they wouldn’t dare to show their faces in this sector again, but that was no great loss.
The concept of the theft itself didn’t bother Rast overmuch. Gared Tomas traded in misery, human and otherwise, and the Mistral had been purchased with the profits from his peddling in drug trafficking, extortion, and a list of other crimes too lengthy to recount in full. Taking the ship from such an individual seemed almost the noble thing to do. The man certainly didn’t deserve such a fine vessel.
“How many men are there when you go to perform your preflight checks?” Rast asked.
“Two, usually. Mingus — he’s one of Tomas’s bodyguards — and most of the time Istafa Morain, Tomas’s right-hand man. Sometimes Morain doesn’t accompany his boss off-planet, but we can’t count on that.” She sounded resigned, as if she knew she’d just committed to an insane scheme but didn’t quite know how to back out of it.
“And how long before Tomas actually comes on board?”
“About a quarter-hour, give or take.”
Plenty of time for them to eliminate the bodyguard and the lackey and be on their way. “This Mingus. He’s big?”
Lira turned a look of not-quite scorn on him. “He’s Gared Tomas’s bodyguard. What do you think?”
“But I should be able to take him.” Rast didn’t see much difficulty; after all, even an average-sized Stacian was larger than most Gaian males, and he was big for a Stacian.
“If you get the drop on him,” she allowed with a shrug. “Yes, he’s Gaian, but he’s got to be almost seven feet tall. We’re not all shrimps like me, you know.”
“Oh, I plan to,” he replied, and rested a hand on the pulse pistol he wore concealed under his long jacket. With any luck, the bodyguard wouldn’t even see Rast before he shot the Gaian in the back. No worries about honor here; Lira had already made it abundantly clear that they weren’t dealing with a couple of upstanding citizens. Besides, the men in question were Gaian, not deserving of the considerations he might extend to a member of his own race.
He didn’t stop to decipher why he no longer considered Lira Jannholm a member of that group.
CHAPTER SIX
She’d done a few crazy things since being forced from the GDF, but this definitely topped them all. Rast seemed blissfully unconcerned about the repercussions of stealing a spaceship from the planet’s most powerful crime lord, but Lira couldn’t be quite that zen about the situation. Yes, it was true that part of Gared Tomas’s success lay in consolidating his power on Iradia and one of its attendant moons, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t call in a few favors if necessary.
Worry about that later, she told herself. You’re not even on board yet.
True, some might call Tomas arrogant for having so few men guarding his ship. On the other hand, most people knew better than to even look at the boss cross-eyed, let alone attempt something as insane as trying to steal the Mistral. Also, he made sure the ship was a moving target, berthing it at various locations both in and out of Aldis Nova. Even Lira never knew until the day of a trip exactly where she would be climbing up the gangway into the sleek little ship. Morain knew enough to get the ship to lift off, achieve suborbital altitude, and guide it into that day’s hidey-hole, but he lacked the training to manage the life-support systems necessary for extra-orbital flight, or the knowledge of how to set up the ship’s computer to safely guide it from the planet to its moon and back again.
So Tomas operated on the concept that the fewer who knew about where he or his ship were at any given time, the better. As she’d sat in the bar earlier that afternoon, he’d sent the code to her handheld to let her know where she was headed. Sundowner, which meant the berth on the western outskirts of Aldis Nova, in a mean area given over to warehouses and a few factories where the moon-moth silk was dyed and prepared for shipment off-world. Its location meant that most of the stink from the dye factories would be blown westward, away from town, given the region’s prevailing winds.
She wrinkled her nose now as she approached the ship’s docking pad, an abandoned warehouse with the roof conveniently blown off in some long-ago skirmish between crime lords. There wasn’t much wind today, and the acrid scent from the factories seemed to have settled on the area like a stinking cloak, burning at the back of her throat.
Rast had said nothing about what he planned, only that she should go in and approach the ship just as she always did. “Best to give them no reason to suspect you,” he’d told her. “Besides, you’ve worked with these men. I don’t want any hesitation because you know them and may lose your nerve over some imagined connection.”
She’d wanted to argue, but deep down she knew he might be right. Both Mingus and Istafa Morain were hideous excuses for human beings, no doubt about that, and usually she would have said she’d have no problem putting a pulse bolt between their eyes. However, she’d also seen fellow crew members freeze in combat for no apparent reason, and she knew she couldn’t risk such a thing now. Not when they only had this one chance.
So she walked calmly toward the entrance to the warehouse, hands out where the currently hidden Mingus and Morain could see them. No doubt they were scanning her, too, and for that reason she went unarmed just as she always had. Aldis Nova was a rough town, the roughest she’d ever seen, but she probably could have walked naked down its streets and not encountered any difficulty. That was the surety of Gared Tomas’s protection.
“Hold,” came Morain’s voice, and she paused just outside the doorway.
Then the door slid open, and Mingus came out, looming over her as he always did, watching her with a leering expression that seemed to tell her exactly what he would like to do to her, if she weren’t Tomas’s pilot. And as always she stared ahead, not allowing him to see how he disturbed her.
Morain followed, elegant and spare. She found herself wondering how a man like him had ended up here on Iradia in the first place. Not that it mattered how he got here.
What mattered was that he was going to die here.
“All clear,” said Mingus, and Istafa Morain nodded.
“Go on,” the lavender-skinned man told Lira. “She’s all yours.”
“Got it,” she replied, about the only response she would allow herself in that moment. All right, Rast…now or never.
The thought had barely crossed her mind before an orange-red pulse bolt flashed from somewhere above them, striking Mingus directly in the chest. He crumpled to his feet as Lira let out what she hoped was a convincing little yelp and darted forward past Morain, into the interior of the warehouse where the Mistral waited. The half-Eridani already had his own gun out, but he ignored Lira, obviously thinking she was only trying to get to the safety of the ship and away from their unseen attackers.
An exchange of pulse shots echoed behind her, but she didn’t dare look back, only pounded forward to the ship, which awaited its passengers with the door ope
n and the narrow little gangplank extended to the shabby floor of the warehouse. Everything depended on getting the Mistral ready for immediate takeoff, as there was no guarantee Morain wouldn’t call for reinforcements before Rast took him out.
The ship was approximately thirty meters long, with the entrance located in the center of the passenger compartment. Lira hurried past the heavily padded seats and their matching low tables, and on into the cockpit. Even though she was its sole pilot, the Mistral had been designed to accommodate a copilot as well. She ignored that seat and slid into the one that had become her home for the past few weeks. First to reach under the copilot’s seat, locating the device Tomas didn’t think she knew about, and yank the wire that connected it to the ship’s propulsion system. Then it was on to flipping switches, tapping the commands into the nav-computer that would send them out of the Iradian system altogether, into a neutral location a few parsecs outside the uninhabited Corael system where they could stop to catch their breaths and figure out what they were going to do next.
If, of course, Rast managed to kill Istafa Morain. The man was cagey, no matter what sen Drenthan might feel about the relative battle prowess of Gaians, or half-Gaians, in Morain’s case. And if the Stacian had somehow met his match…well, she’d just have to do some damn quick reprogramming before anyone noticed the nav-computer wasn’t set for a quick jaunt to one of Iradia’s moons.
Heavy footsteps sounded behind her, and she forced herself not to look back, to keep working away as if she fully expected Morain to come in and tell her everything was fine and that Tomas would be along in a few minutes.
Rast fell into the seat next to her, dropped a satchel made of some unfamiliar hide on the floor, and flashed her a ferocious grin. “Ready? Because I believe a quick getaway is our best option right now.”
She had to ignore the relief that flooded through her, concentrate instead on getting the last of the coordinates programmed in. “Just about. So Morain didn’t give you any trouble?”
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