Galaxy's Way

by E. R. Paskey

  A broad grin spread across the dark-skinned man’s face; he snapped his fingers. “Give the girl a prize. You always were quick on your feet, Anna.”

  Anna rubbed her jaw. “It probably won’t stop him, you know. Won’t matter how much I reassure him, Viktor’ll still think you’re coercing me.”

  “What? No special code words?” Thabati wiggled his eyebrows. “I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

  Oh, I’ll think of something, all right. Anna regarded him through narrowed eyes. “I’m sure I will.” She cast one last look at Colin, his face slack and his head lolled to one side, and remembered the hurt, betrayed shock in his eyes. Steel slid into her spine, stiffening it. It’s worth it if it means he lives.

  “Now … ” She motioned to the corridor. “Tell me about this plan of yours.”

  Smiling affably, just like he had smiled at her a thousand times in the past, Thabati slung a friendly arm around her shoulders and steered her down the corridor to the map room. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  ~oOo~

  When they arrived in the Calamia system, Anna was neck-deep in an array of city and building layouts, but she took a break to supervise Colin’s escape pod being ejected from the Solace. Colin was still unconscious; she checked to make sure he was still breathing with trembling fingers before sealing the pod and turning to Thabati. “Do it.”

  Thabati waved a hand toward the pod. “I think it will be better if you do it yourself.”

  Anna’s heart lodged in her throat, but she forced herself to look cool and collected as she nodded. “Good point.” She stepped up to the control panel in the bulkhead beside the escape pod’s hatch and initiated the ejection sequence. You’ll be fine, Colin. I promise.

  As she gave the final command that disengaged the escape pod from the Solace and sent it zooming away into the blackness of space, she resisted the urge to flatten a hand over her heart. Thabati and his men didn’t need to know what this was actually doing to her.

  “All right.” Taking a deep breath, Anna turned back to Thabati and posted her hands on her hips. “Let’s get back to business.”

  They returned to the compartment that passed as the Solace’s recreation compartment, where Anna and Berenger had commandeered the large screen-table, and Anna listened in growing horror as her new captain unfolded his plan.

  “This is basically galactic terrorism,” she said flatly, leaning back in her seat and bracing her hands on the screen-table.

  “If Lobai sets the device off, sure.” Thabati shrugged, remarkably unconcerned.

  “If Lobai sets it off?” Anna shot him an incredulous look across the table. “What about your employers?”

  He brushed her words aside with a flick of his wrist. “That’s above my pay grade.”

  “And your pay grade is pretty steep,” Berenger drawled.

  “Exactly.” Thabati flashed them both a grin. “Besides, I don’t think Lobai’s going to risk setting it off. From what I hear, he likes life too much.”

  “Then why did he run off with it in the first place?” Anna demanded.

  “Who knows? Probably got greedy and thought they ought to pay him more for it.”

  Anna propped her elbows on the table and stared down at a passenger manifest, massaging her temples. “How did you even get your hands on this information?”

  “Came from my employers, and I didn’t ask.”

  Sighing, Anna swept the manifest aside with a swipe of her finger, replacing it with a map showing Lobai’s last known location on Ydris. It had been confirmed that he arrived on-world, but once he left the spaceport, all traces of him vanished. “Clearly, the man doesn’t want to be found.”

  “Hence the reason they hired me.”

  She closed her eyes, pressing the heels of her hands against her face. “You know, the only thing I still don’t understand about this entire mess is why he screwed all of his suppliers over. You’d think if he wanted to vanish into space he’d just pay us all what he owed us and none of us would have been any the wiser. Did he need the money because he was planning to disappear?”

  Silence greeted these words. “I’ve wondered that too.” Berenger tapped the table absently. “The money’s as good a theory as any.”

  “Except even that doesn’t really add up.” Anna straightened in her chair. “Look, we all know Lobai’s reputation. He’s not somebody you want to cross, and his contracts are twisty, but he does keep them. This — ” she swept a hand to encompass the screen-table, “ — is sloppy. If I didn’t know it was Lobai‌—‌if I hadn’t seen him in that cave on Plimus with my own eyes, you couldn’t convince me he’s behind it.”

  “But you did see him.” Thabati’s eyes glittered.

  “Oh, yeah,” she grumbled. “He was there. Just ask Bear.” She jerked a thumb in Berenger’s direction.

  For his part, Berenger’s forehead was ridged with deep frown marks. “Kid’s got a point.” He looked at Thabati. “Hadn’t thought about it that hard‌—‌ain’t had time‌—‌but it can’t be just about the money. Lobai knows her brother, by reputation, if nothing else. He knows how tight the two of them are — ”

  “ — but he went ahead and pissed Viktor off anyway.” Thabati was nodding.

  “It’s almost,” Anna said slowly, several thoughts slowly coalescing together in her mind, “almost like he wants us all to hunt him down.”

  Startled silence fell over the compartment, before Thabati shattered it by throwing back his head and laughing. “That’s a good one,” he gasped when he could draw proper breath. “I’ll have to remember to pass that along to my employers.”

  Anna and Berenger both scowled at him. “Listen to her,” Berenger said roughly, waving to Anna. “Her theory makes more sense than anything I’ve heard so far.”

  “Why would he do that, Anna?” Thabati gave her a patently disbelieving look. “Why would he deliberately betray a score of pirates, smugglers, and other folk, and then run off with a device that could blow up an entire planet?”

  “You’ve got me.” Anna wet her lips; her mouth had gone dry. An entire planet? “Maybe he figured out where your employer is planning on using the thing?”

  “No.” Thabati scoffed at that.

  “Then why else do they want him back?” Berenger asked knowingly. “They hired him, Thabati. Had to have.”

  Anna met the captain’s eyes across the table. “Are you sure they actually intend to pay you for this?”

  His eyes darted back and forth between them for a moment, and then he leaned back in his chair, chuckling softly. “You two are better at playing tag-team than I expected.”

  Anna snorted. “Nothing tag-team about it. I’d still like to punch his — ” she waved to Berenger without looking at him, “ — lights out for what he did, but something about this whole mess doesn’t make sense, Thabati. You have to have noticed.”

  “All the money in the galaxy won’t make a bit of difference if you ain’t alive to spend it,” Berenger said soberly. When Thabati scowled, he leaned forward. “You really don’t know who you’re working for?”

  Thabati’s throat worked as he swallowed. Finally, he exhaled heavily and tipped his head back to consider the smooth gray overhead, lit only by a few glowpanels. “Nittern,” he said finally. “Judd Nittern. That’s the name of my contact.”

  He and Anna both jumped as Berenger slammed a hand down on the screen-table. A tiny fracture spiderwebbed out from his palm.

  Thabati glared at him, but Berenger was too busy running through every invective he had ever heard in his life‌—‌and making up a few he hadn’t.

  Dread pooled in the pit of Anna’s stomach. “What is it?”

  Berenger kept cursing fluidly.

  “Bear,” she snapped. “What. Is. It?”

  He raised fury-filled eyes to her face. “That’s the name of my handler at the DOJ.”

  Anna blinked, rearing back in her seat, but Thabati only frowned and shook his head. “Can’t be. Trust me
, I did some research on the guy before I accepted the contract. He’s a lawyer. Nothing to do at all with the DOJ.”

  “That’s what you’re supposed to think,” Berenger growled. “No strings, nothing to connect ‘em.” He clenched his hands into fists. “But trust me, Thabati, he’s DOJ.”

  Anna felt the oncoming of a severe headache. “Wait a minute, wait a minute.” She waved her hands. “That doesn’t make any sense either. Why would the DOJ be sending out the equivalent of a very highly paid hit-team to find Lobai and this device? Why don’t they just send their own people?”

  It was Thabati who answered. His face had lost every trace of amusement; his expression was cold. “Because somebody in the Federation is in bed with somebody they shouldn’t be and they’re trying to clean up the mess.”

  Anna thought of Scarlet and Lacy. “Does that mean they killed Scarlet? Because she was putting together the pieces about Lobai?”

  “Probably,” Berenger answered. “If you’re sure Dupree didn’t.”

  “He didn’t,” Anna said coolly.

  Thabati abruptly slumped forward, burying his face in his hands. “Oh, stars, what a mess. Should have known the money was too good to be true. And here I was looking forward to retiring.”

  Anna and Berenger exchanged wary sidelong glances. That’s a mighty quick attitude adjustment, she thought suspiciously.

  “Now what do we do?” Thabati raised his head to pin each of them with a bleak, questioning stare.

  Anna almost laughed. “What do you think we’re going to do?” She scowled at him. “We’re going to land on Ydris, find Lobai, and find out what he has to say about all this.”

  Chapter 33

  ANNA WAS NOT ENTIRELY SURE what to expect from Ydris’s Spaceport Control, but fairly easy passage through the defense armada ringing the world was not what she had in mind. She leaned forward against the safety straps of her flight seat in the cockpit, frowning at the sparkling blue sea and emerald forest looming in the viewshield. “Is it supposed to be this easy?”

  “For me?” Thabati shot her a grin over his shoulder from the copilot’s seat. “Sure.” He turned to his pilot, an otherwise silent young man with dusky brown skin and a mop of curly black hair. “You heard Spaceport Control. Berth 368A-13.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Anna glanced sideways at Berenger. Catching his eye, she nodded to the worldscape before them and muttered under her breath, “This should be fun.”

  His face was healing, still discolored and a little swollen in places, but he managed a grim smile. “Oh, yeah. Just like old times.”

  That sent a pang shooting through Anna, but she shoved it into the mental equivalent of a lockbox and stowed it deep in the recesses of her mind. If this is going to work, we’re going to have to trust each other. She swallowed; her mouth had gone dry. Even if that’s the last thing I want to do.

  They landed with little fuss; Thabati and the pale man immediately set about strapping on weapons in discreet locations on their bodies. Anna watched with amusement that faded quickly into concern.

  “Are you sure you aren’t going to tip off any sensors with those things?” She propped her hands on her hips, arching a dark eyebrow at the dark-skinned captain.

  “Nah.” It was Palmer who answered. “Everybody and his brother here has private security. We’ll fit right in.” He threw a pointed look at Berenger. “Except for you.”

  Berenger waved his good hand. “I’ll just be a guy who had the bad sense to end up on the wrong side of a bar fight.”

  Palmer just snorted.

  Chewing on the inside of her lip, Anna looked at Berenger again. “I still don’t understand how you think you’re just going to start walking into places and ask for Lobai.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’ll be a little more subtle than that, kid.”

  She gave him a dubious look, to which he replied with a sheepish shrug.

  “Right,” Thabati said dryly. “That’s why I’m doing the talking.”

  Berenger waved again. “Be my guest.”

  As they started toward the landing ramp, Palmer led the way. Thabati hung back to sling an arm around Anna’s shoulders. She stiffened at the contact, but did not pull away. “What?” she asked in a sharp undertone.

  Thabati directed a meaningful look at Berenger’s broad back. “You think he’s actually got contacts here?”

  Irritated, Anna huffed. “You think he’d have said something if he didn’t? Besides, you’re the one being paid a fortune to find Lobai. Where’s your inside scoop?” When Thabati did not reply, she huffed again and deftly slipped out from under his arm.

  “We’re trying Berenger’s method first,” he called after her.

  And hope we don’t disappear before we get to yours, she thought tartly, but she was wise enough to keep it to herself.

  Aside from the fact that even the commercial section of this spaceport, known as the Zenca Spaceport, looked vaguely palatial, nothing about it stood out to Anna as unusual in any way. The same passenger pilots, freighter pilots, and other miscellaneous pilots, engineers, mechanics, and other crewmembers streamed back and forth between the rows of berthed ships. It was a familiar din, almost comforting, and for a moment Anna could pretend that nothing extraordinary was happening at all. Just another day in the life of a Federation-branded space pirate.

  One look at her traveling companions, however, killed the dream.

  Thabati promptly tucked her arm through his. “It’ll work better this way,” he assured her, before setting off at a sedate pace through the spaceport.

  Anna let him; it was easier than fighting and she saw the sense in it. This way, they looked like a captain and his ladyfriend out for a stroll trailing a couple of bodyguards. It was impossible for her to look at Palmer any other way.

  Once they left the spaceport proper, they proceeded to chart a dizzying trail across two city districts to lose any potential tails.

  “Probably nobody’s noticed us,” Berenger said thoughtfully, “but considering this is Ydris, better safe than sorry.”

  Thabati directed the other half of their backtracking; by the time two men agreed enough was enough, Anna’s feet were sore and they found themselves on the edge of what passed as Ydris’s version of a middle-class business district. Anna thought that was interesting‌—‌anywhere else in the galaxy, this would have been considered at the very least lower upper class.

  Fancy shops and restaurants lined most of the streets here, and the people leisurely strolling up and down the elegant, tree-lined sidewalks were dressed in clothes Anna strongly suspected cost more than the entire contents of her own wardrobe. Her grip tightened on Thabati’s arm. “Are you sure we ought to be wandering around here?”

  He gave her a bland smile. “Just act like you belong here and we’ll be fine.”

  Oh, galaxies. Anna plastered a pleasant smile on her face‌—‌though it felt like more of a grimace‌—‌and matched her pace to his as they meandered down a sidewalk.

  “We need to head southwest,” Berenger said quietly.

  “To?” Thabati’s cheerful expression did not alter.

  “Night club.”

  “You’ll have to be more specific than that.”

  Beside Thabati, Anna rolled her eyes. “Bear — ”

  “Rainbow Vortex.”

  Rainbow Vortex? Anna almost laughed, despite the anxiety making her heart pound in her chest. “Sounds like a drink supposed to knock you flat on your rear.” She felt the weight of the look Berenger directed at her back.

  “Who says it’s not?”

  Okay, then.

  “Where is it?” Palmer asked coolly.

  Behind them, Berenger waved a vague hand. “Southwest of here. That’s all I know.”

  Thabati pulled out his comlink. “We’d better look it up.”

  Anna glanced down at the comlink screen with interest as he pulled up a map with highlighted directions from their current location to the night club. �
��I’ve never been in a night club before.”

  “They’re all right if you like loud and obnoxious,” Thabati said off-handedly, memorizing the route before sliding the comlink back into his pocket. “We’d best rent a car.” He nodded to Palmer. “There’s a place not too far from here.”

  ~oOo~

  Within a half hour, the four of them sat in a large green hovercar while Palmer navigated the city’s traffic to take them to the Rainbow Vortex.

  Thabati shot Berenger a keen look. “Who or what is at this night club?”

  “Should have a friend there who’ll have a bead on Lobai’s location,” Berenger said gruffly. “Says he’ll be there, at any rate.”

  Anna clasped her hands in her lap, her prosthetic fingers tightening painfully over her flesh-and-blood digits. An image of Colin popped into her mind, slumped unconscious in the escape pod flight seat. Please pick him up, Viktor, she prayed silently. Pick him up. Don’t let him die.

  Her knuckles turned white. She’d never forgive herself if he died as a result of this.

  The remainder of the trip to the Rainbow Vortex was mercifully short. Within five minutes, Palmer smoothly pulled into a parking garage and the four of them spilled out of the car. Anna flipped her braid over her shoulder and straightened her spine. Act like you belong, she told herself, suppressing a borderline hysterical laugh. Even if your only idea of what a night club is actually like comes from spacenet dramas.

  Stepping over to Thabati, she looped her arm through his without being prompted and they set off toward the night club. Even from the outside, she could feel the bass vibration in the air from the music.

  When they reached the front entrance, Berenger took the lead and exchanged a few sentences with the muscled bouncer standing guard at the door. They received a dubious once-over, but were waved inside without any trouble. Berenger gave Thabati a sharp-toothed smile, but did not speak as they threaded their way inside.

  Music‌—‌loud and deafening, even louder than the occasions they used to play music in the Iliana’s cargo bay when she was younger‌—‌slammed into them like a physical wall of sound. Anna had to make herself breathe; she felt like all the air had been knocked out of her. She also felt like she’d just been rendered deaf. Her grip tightened on Thabati’s arm as they worked their way through gyrating dancers clad in scanty, wild outfits.