by E. R. Paskey
“Apparently not for long.”
Her mind spinning, Anna dragged in a deep breath, and then another. Something is wrong here, she thought hazily. She thought of silver-tipped fingernails, sultry looks, the irrational spike of something she refused to call jealousy she had felt in the woman’s office, and felt sick. “Why would they kill Scarlet?”
“Because we’re on to something and Lobai or whoever he’s working for knows it,” Colin said grimly. He paged through the rest of their messages, but none of them were pertinent. He glanced over his shoulder at Anna. “I have you to thank for the advance notification. Your friend must have gotten wind of it immediately—nobody else has said a word.”
Anna nodded. She’d have to thank Mal personally someday.
“What are we going to do?” Deek asked bleakly.
Colin closed his eyes and dropped his chin to his chest. “I could drop you—all of you—somewhere, land on Opaline, and remand myself to custody. Return to the Raveena Space Station, stand trial, blah blah blah.” He waved a hand.
Something clenched in Anna’s chest at that. “You don’t believe for one second you’d get a fair trial, do you?” Deek looked at her, startled, but she only had eyes for Colin. “I think it’s obvious somebody framed you. Do you honestly want to take that risk?”
“The alternative is to become a fugitive on the run,” he pointed out in an unnaturally calm voice. “That’s likely to prove a significant hindrance to our investigation.”
“Trying to prove you’re innocent of murder charges will prove a significant hindrance to our investigation,” Anna shot back.
Colin spread his hands. “I’m afraid our options are rather limited, my dear. I would rather you did not fall into the Federation’s hands on piracy charges.”
The very thought twisted her guts in anxiety, but Anna brushed it aside. “There has to be something else we can do.”
His blue eyes roved over her face briefly before he looked away. “Murder charges have a nasty habit of following one around—and news of Scarlet’s death will spread quickly.”
“Can’t think of anybody who’d actually believe you’d kill her or Lacy,” Deek said stoutly.
Colin brushed that aside with a wave of his hand. “I’m afraid I don’t have much of a choice. I lack the necessary connections to continue to pursue Lobai underground and I refuse to put you, Tatiana, and Mondego in any further danger.”
Deek jerked his chin toward Anna. “What about her? She’s a pirate. Don’t you have connections?” he demanded.
“A few.” Anna shrugged awkwardly.
“She’s not that kind of pirate,” Colin said firmly.
Anna glanced at him, surprised by the conviction in his voice, and bit her lip. Her thoughts continued to swirl around in her head, round and round, tumbling over each other into a tangled jumble of words and pictures and sounds. She closed her eyes, trying to make sense of them, but they just continued to chase themselves in a never-ending circle. A circle.
Her eyes popped open. “The Whirlwind.”
Colin blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
Anna’s heart sped up; she clutched his empty tea mug with a tighter grip. “I could take you to the Whirlwind.”
Deek just looked confused, but Colin’s blue eyes narrowed. He rose to his feet. “The place you mentioned earlier? Your last resort should you and your brother become separated?”
Anna nodded; she had to swallow twice before she could force words out. “I could take you there and we could wait until things blow over. Or my brother comes looking for me. The Federation won’t be able to find you there—we’d have time to put a plan together.”
Colin held her gaze. “You would do that? For me?”
Anna nodded before she quite realized what she was doing. Deek and the rest of the cockpit seemed to fall away; the galaxy narrowed down to the two of them. “Yes. I know you didn’t kill her—anymore than I did. This is bigger than we thought. We need time.”
He took a step closer toward her. “I thought it was supposed to be a secret.”
“Up until we need it, yeah.” Her heart was still thudding in her chest.
“You think your brother will come looking for us there?”
“I do. Especially when he hears you’re wanted for murder. He’ll figure out I took you there.”
Colin arched a dark eyebrow. “Unless he thinks I’ve kidnapped and/or killed you too.”
At that, Anna rolled her eyes. “Mal will make sure he doesn’t worry about that.” She smiled ruefully. “If he had thought I was in serious danger, you and Deek wouldn’t have made it out of the cantina alive.”
“If you’re sure, lass … ”
Anna exhaled slowly and nodded. Resolve hardened inside her; she knew with crystal clear certainty that they needed to do this. She needed to do this. “I’m sure. I’ll give you the coordinates.” Her eyes flicked back to Colin. “Just you.”
He inclined his head in a gracious nod without breaking eye contact. “I’m honored. Thank you, Anna.”
Someone cleared their throat—loudly—and the bubble in which they had been suspended popped. They both turned to find Deek regarding them with a strange look on his face, something halfway between disbelief and resignation.
“We’d probably better make it fast, then, Cap’n.” He grimaced. “Before somebody else comes along and decides to take us in.”
“We’d best wake Tatiana and Mondego.” Colin reached for the intercom panel. “I hate to interrupt them,” he shared a wry look with Anna over his shoulder, “but we haven’t time.”
Deek started to speak, but then clearly thought the better of it, shaking his head as though he didn’t want to know.
Tatiana and Mondego came tumbling into the cockpit five minutes later. Both were dressed, albeit hastily, as evidenced by the fact that Mondego’s shirt was only half-tucked in and Tatiana’s curly hair was disheveled.
“What’s wrong?” Mondego demanded without preamble.
Colin laid the situation out for them in a few brief sentences, finishing with, “Anna’s taking us to the Whirlwind to wait things out.”
“Wait things out?” Tatiana echoed suspiciously. “What, exactly, will that entail, Captain?”
“Waiting.” Colin gave her a blank stare. “Honestly, Tatiana, I haven’t the faintest idea where we’ll proceed from there.” He ran a hand through his dark hair, mouth slanting unhappily. “I would prefer to drop you and Mondego off on the way there so you won’t be involved in this mess.”
Mondego gave an inelegant snort. “Too late for that, Captain.” He hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “We’re tainted by association now, you might say.”
Tatiana shot him a sharp, reproving look, and started to open her mouth, but her husband forestalled her with an upraised hand.
“Besides, we’re not leaving anyway. Right, hon?” He glanced at his wife.
“Right.” Tatiana folded her arms across her chest. “I see what you’re doing, Captain, trying to be all noble and such, but there’s no getting around the fact you need a mechanic — ”
“And a cook,” Mondego added.
“ — and a cook.” Tatiana shook her head. “He’s right. We’re not leaving.”
Deek shot Colin a look that clearly said, I told you so, but he tactfully refrained from speaking.
Colin surveyed his crew for a tense moment, before he resigned himself to the inevitable. His shoulders relaxed a fraction, even as he threw up his hands in mock-surrender. “Fine. There’ll be no getting rid of you—I can see that.”
“Not a bit,” Mondego said cheerfully. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Captain, I think I’ll go whip up something for breakfast.”
Nobody said a word about it being too early.
“I’ll be in the engine room,” Tatiana announced. “Just in case.”
Colin glanced sideways at Anna, amusement and frustration vying for chief emotion in
his eyes.
“You tried,” she told him, feeling the urge to laugh despite the gravity of the situation. “Ready for those coordinates?”
“Aye.” Colin tapped the console. “Input them to the navcomputer, if you please.”
Anna slid into the copilot’s seat and tapped out a string of numbers and symbols from memory. Viktor had made her study them until she could recite them with her eyes closed. I wonder if he’ll be there. It all depended on what leads he was following.
She felt more than saw Colin’s eyes on her. “What?”
As Deek was still in the cockpit, Colin deliberately did not speak the system’s name aloud, but he said, “I never realized there was anything in that particular system.”
“There isn’t any more.” A mischievous smile curved Anna’s lips. That was partly what made it such a perfect hiding place.
“How in the galaxy did you come across it in the first place? I’m sure that’s quite a tale.”
“Oh, it is.”
A pregnant pause filled the cockpit, and then Colin pinned her with a faintly exasperated look. “Well?”
“Well, what?” Anna gave him an innocent look in response.
“You’re not going to tell me the story?”
She grinned at him, her dark eyes sparkling with impish mirth. “Oh, you wanted to hear the story?”
Behind them, Deek muttered something that sounded like, “Oh, for the love of — ” and departed the cockpit, but neither of them noticed.
Anna waved a hand. “Vik’s copilot, Hugo, survived a run through that area a few years ago—found it completely by accident. He was marooned there, however, and thought he’d probably be stuck for the rest of his life, but he managed to fix a comm relay and sent out a distress signal.”
“And you found him?”
“We found him.”
“How?”
“Well … ” Anna drew the word out; she had never cared for this part of the story. “Let’s just say we’d had a recent run-in with the Federation and were attempting to find a place to lay low for a while. Our options were rather limited.”
Colin shifted in his seat. “So you rescued him. How did he end up becoming your brother’s copilot?”
“It took a while,” Anna said honestly. “Hugo didn’t quite trust us, and we didn’t quite trust him, but it all worked out eventually.” She shrugged one shoulder. “There may or may not have been a trap, shoot-out, and rescue involved, but that’s a story for another day.”
Seeing the slight confusion knitting Colin’s dark eyebrows together, Anna leaned over and patted his arm. “Don’t worry. You’ll understand when we get there.”
“I’ll hold you to that, my dear,” he said lightly, before turning back to the controls. “Have a look at the navcomputer and tell me how long it’ll be, will you?”
“Three days in hyperspace, from here.”
His jaw tightened. “And you’re certain no one will think to look for us there?”
“Positive. Trust me, Colin, you’ll understand when we get there.” Anna shook her head. “The Whirlwind is a deathtrap for anybody not privy to its secrets—the only people who can find us there already have to know where it is.”
“I hope you’re right, lass.”
She gave him a confident smile. “I’m right. You’ll see.”
~oOo~
Though Mondego did his best to tempt them with breakfast, no one had much of an appetite. News of Scarlet and Lacy’s murders had effectively put a damper on everyone’s spirit. It felt like they had just started to make progress on hunting Lobai down, and then this came along to drag them down.
Anna had assured Colin that Mal would have ensured Viktor understood he was not holding her hostage…or worse…but she couldn’t shake the faint sense of unease flickering around the edges of her mind. I’d feel better if I knew where Viktor was, she thought, frowning into the depths of her coffee mug.
For all she knew, he could have gone straight to the Whirlwind and had no idea about any of this.
She had to promptly dismiss that thought as ridiculous. Don’t be silly, Anna. He wouldn’t go straight there, not until he thinks there’s a good chance you’ll actually be there.
“Coffee not to your liking?”
It took Anna a second—and a nudge from Tatiana, beside her—to realize she was being addressed. She looked up with a start to find Colin staring at her from his end of the table. “What?”
“You’re scowling at that poor mug as though it’s personally wronged you.” He indicated her coffee.
“Oh.” Anna straightened, feeling her cheeks begin to burn under the combined scrutiny of all four other people at the table. “I was just thinking. About Lobai,” she hastened to clarify, when her erstwhile captain started to open his mouth.
And my brother, rose to the tip of her tongue, but she held it back. Bad enough she couldn’t control her facial expressions right now. She didn’t need to share everything with her temporary crew.
Deek abruptly cleared his throat. “If you’re done flirtin’, Cap’n,” he shot a pointed look in Colin’s direction, “we’d best get back to flyin’. I’d hate to run into that asteroid belt.”
Instead of turning five shades of red and sputtering—which was what Viktor would have done under similar circumstances—Colin merely fixed his second-in-command with steely look that promised dire consequences if Deek continued on in the same vein.
Under any other circumstances, Anna would have been impressed with his calm—after she stopped sputtering denials herself—but the latter part of Deek’s statement caught her attention. Asteroid belt? There isn’t an asteroid belt in that system.
Anna furrowed her brow, but held her tongue…until she realized no one else intended to correct Deek’s mistake. Clearly, they’ve not spent a lot of time in this part of the galaxy. “I think,” she said cautiously, “you’re thinking of the Galadriel system a parsec over. There’s no asteroid belt at any of the places we’ll be making hyperspace jumps.”
“You sure about that?” Deek frowned at her.
Anna held her ground. “Unless a moon or planet has imploded, there are no asteroid belts.” Something shifted in Deek’s weathered face…and too late, Anna realized she’d been had. Deek hadn’t seen the coordinates yet; there was no way he could even wrongly speculate about an asteroid belt.
He did that on purpose—just to see if he could get anything about the Whirlwind’s location out of me. Some of the color drained from her face. I’m slipping. A fine pirate I am, giving away sensitive information like that just so I can prove I’m right.
“Deek … ” Colin’s voice held a warning note; he had apparently come to the same conclusion.
The older man gave his captain an innocent look. “Yes, Cap’n?”
What remained of Anna’s appetite drained away. She drank the last of her coffee, though for an instant she thought her stomach would rebel, and pushed away from the table. “You got me, Deek.” She shot him a brittle smile. “Didn’t see that coming.”
The words, I should have, hung in the galley between them.
“I’ll be in the cockpit, Captain, when you’re ready for the coordinates for our next jump point.” Turning on her heel, Anna swept out of the galley. She had to make a conscious effort not to clench her hands into fists; she couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid and careless.
Chapter 16
SHE WAS SITTING RAMROD STRAIGHT in a flight seat behind Deek’s empty copilot’s seat, staring out at the streaks of light flashing past the viewport, when Colin entered the cockpit. He settled into his seat without a word and began checking the console panel.
After a long moment, and without looking at her, he said conversationally, “Tatiana thinks it means you’re starting to trust us, you know.”
Anna huffed under her breath. “Oh, really?”
“Aye.” Colin slanted a sideways glance at her,
the corners of his mouth pulling up into a teasing grin. “I think there’s a bit of truth to that, but I also think you wanted to prove Deek wrong.”
Several replies rose to the tip of Anna’s tongue—none of them polite. She flicked her gaze up to the overhead and took a deep breath before looking over at Colin. “Is that so?”
He was still looking at her, but while his mouth was smiling, his blue eyes were somber. “You’re part of the crew, Anna. That means you can trust us.” A beat. “And we can trust you.”
Her mouth went dry, as though she had been stumbling through a desert for hours. She wanted to speak—though she had no idea what to say—but her mind ground to a stuttering, dusty halt and words refused to come.
“I understand, lass. I do. You’re entrusting us with something precious. But,” Colin shifted in his seat to face her, “Deek is my second-in-command. Should something happen to me, he takes command of the ship.” His eyes bored into her face. “You know that’s how it works.”
Anna wet her lips and forced herself to speak. “I know.” Her voice sounded scratchy to her own ears. “I know. I just—Bear … ” She shrugged, helplessly.
She was still realizing the full extent of the damage Bear had done when he shattered her trust.
Colin just gave her a knowing look and turned back to the controls. “We’ll be arriving at our jump point in about two minutes. Ready for the next batch of coordinates?”
“Ready.” Anna tapped them into the navcomputer and waited, her finger hovering over the input button.
“Out of curiosity, darling, how many more of these jumps will we be making?”
“From here, at this point in the galaxy?” Anna shrugged. “Four. All in unoccupied space, let me assure you.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “Viktor and Hugo plotted it rather carefully.”
“I would imagine so.”
~oOo~
By the time they finally reached their destination, Anna was a nervous wreck. Equal parts anticipation and nervous dread mounted in her with every passing moment, until she thought she might explode if somebody so much as brushed her arm. When she was little, she had been a nail-biter, but losing a hand had cured her of that particular nervous habit. The last thing she wanted to do was draw attention to her hands. She’d switched the chewing the inside of her lip—and she had, until it was ragged and sore. It was hard to look so unaffected.