Angle of Truth (Sky Full of Stars, Book 2)

by Lindsay Buroker

  “That’s him, isn’t it?” Hoshi asked, grinning as she looked past Leonidas and Mom and the twins to Grandpa. Huh, she definitely had some talents waiting to be developed.

  “Er?” Kiyoko appeared far less certain. She squatted down to her sister’s height and looked in the direction she was looking, maybe wondering if they had identified the same person.

  “The one in the big hat, yes,” Jelena said dryly.

  “Oh.” Kiyoko looked like she had more to say about Grandpa’s Starseerness, but she closed her mouth and kept it to herself.

  Wise move.

  Jelena ran forward to meet Mom and Leonidas, whose frowns had faded by now, and hugged them. They returned the embrace enthusiastically.

  “Jelena!” Maya and Nika shouted.

  They came up and threw themselves into the hug, spreading their Asteroid Icy juice to the rest of the family. Jelena shook her now-sticky hand, then squeezed both of them and tugged at ponytails.

  From the top of the ramp, Hoshi looked down at the twins. They were of a similar age as Hoshi, and her eyes gleamed with curiosity. Jelena was on the verge of introducing everyone when Alfie bounded out of the cargo hold.

  “Jelena,” Maya blurted. “Can we take your dog to the park?” She flung her arm toward the fenced area where a couple of other dogs frolicked.

  Jelena looked to her parents, intending to ask if they minded, but Nika spoke first. “Dogs have to go to parks,” she said, as if this was a statement of the obvious—and an answer to Maya’s question.

  The twins, who had made Alfie’s acquaintance back on Arkadius, called to the dog, and Alfie trotted after them without so much as a backward glance. Leonidas’s eyebrows rose, but he didn’t stop the girls from taking off, perhaps because he could cross the distance from the Snapper’s ramp to the park in one big cyborg spring.

  Mom tapped the table, eyeing the lemonade pitcher and the sign proclaiming a “unique experience for your taste buds.” Masika had drawn a very lifelike lemon and cactus on there, but even so, it hadn’t done much to draw in interested parties.

  “That’s not working, is it?” Mom pointed at the nearly empty tip cup on the table.

  “She’s doing what you suggested,” Leonidas said, smiling at Jelena and nodding to the rest of her crew. He eyed Hoshi and Kiyoko, who were watching quietly from the ramp.

  “I’m certain I didn’t mention cactuses,” Mom said.

  “We came into a supply of free cactuses,” Jelena said.

  “Does one usually pay for them?” Mom looked like she couldn’t imagine it.

  Grandpa ambled past them, patting Jelena on the shoulder on the way, and stopped in front of Hoshi and Kiyoko.

  Jelena was tempted to eavesdrop, but Mom tilted her head to draw her aside. Leonidas eyeballed the pitcher of cactus lemonade and tapped a finger on one of the glasses. Did he want to try it? It smelled good, in Jelena’s opinion, and he did have those enhanced nostrils and taste buds—a gift from the imperial military to ensure enemies weren’t easily able to poison its cyborg soldiers. The beverage tasted fine to Jelena, but she only had run-of-the-mill taste buds. And nostrils.

  “You should have baked some brownies to put out too,” Mom said.

  “To draw customers in or to draw Dad in?”

  “It certainly would have worked on him.” Mom smiled fondly at Leonidas as he put a half-tindark coin in the cup and poured himself a glass.

  “Eggs aren’t always easy to find on a space station, and we don’t have a flock of chickens on the Snapper yet.”

  “Yet?”

  “Yumi always swore by the merits of using chicken droppings for compost.”

  “Are you planning to grow things?” Mom raised her eyebrows. “You never showed much interest in Yumi’s… vegetables.”

  Jelena snorted. Yumi had grown vegetables, yes, but she’d mostly grown mushrooms and plants with unique medicinal properties. Often psychedelic medicinal properties.

  “I haven’t decided yet,” Jelena said. “We’re still feeling our way into our independence and self-sufficiency.”

  “Chickens and eggs wouldn’t be a bad idea. One can only eat so many meals out of pouches.”

  “So Erick tells me.”

  Mom smiled and drew her farther to the side, resting a hand on her shoulder. Jelena braced herself, afraid she would bring up Thor. Would her parents believe something was going on between them? And would this be a lecture about how dangerous it was to walk at his side? Especially now?

  “Jelena,” Mom said slowly. “About the loan…”

  “The loan?” Jelena had been ready to argue vehemently that she’d never even held Thor’s hand. It took her a moment to shift gears.

  “Leonidas feels strongly that you should be held accountable for your actions and help us repay it.”

  “I know, and I will.”

  “Good, but I’m worried—I don’t want you taking undue risks because you feel the weight of this obligation.”

  “Making cactus lemonade isn’t that risky.”

  “We’ve had reports from our Alliance contacts,” Mom said, her tone turning extremely dry. “They came in after the fact this time. Fourseas is farther out, and it takes news a while to filter to the networks. They also have to decide if some border planet at war is considered news. Or should I say a planet ceasing its war?”

  “Ah. Hm.” Jelena could tell her mother was proud, but exasperated, too, so she didn’t know what to say. She probably shouldn’t mention that aspirations of mercenary life had taken her to the planet in the first place.

  “You will tell us the story, won’t you?” Mom asked. “Leonidas is curious.”

  “Just Leonidas?”

  “I feel like the more I learn, the more horrified I’ll be.”

  “I don’t think it was any worse than our first adventure. I’m fairly certain fewer people tried to kill us.” Jelena decided not to mention the gold ship, and that it might be out there looking for Thor, even now.

  “Just what a mother wants to hear.”

  “I found it encouraging.”

  “Jelena…”

  “Wait, before you decide to lecture me, let me send you something.” She took out her netdisc and opened her bank account—technically, it was the business account for the Snapper. She transferred the money Erick had transferred to her, deciding to let her parents worry about her tax liabilities, at least until she had a chance to take some of those boring classes Erick had mentioned.

  “You’re making a payment? Leonidas will be proud. But, Jelena—” Mom’s netdisc beeped, alerting her to the transfer, and she took it out to look. And then blink. And then look again. “Jelena, that’s more than a third of the loan amount.”

  “It’s enough for the first payment, isn’t it?” Jelena asked with a smirk, knowing she’d only needed to pay two hundred-some tindarks for the first installment. Only. She almost laughed at the word now. A couple of weeks ago, that would have seemed like a fortune to her.

  “You didn’t get this from the Chollans,” Mom said, sounding certain. “You didn’t do anything illegal, did you?”

  “We sold some cactuses. The Chollans gave us several crates of an apparently rare and desirable type, one that hasn’t been easily obtainable for years. Erick is fairly certain we were underpaid, but one can’t expect great deals out here among the border worlds, right?”

  “I…”

  “Did you say cactuses?” Leonidas asked, his enhanced hearing apparently catching the conversation even though Mom had taken her to the side. He squinted at Jelena over the rim of his glass.

  “Desirable ones, yes.”

  “Well, one thing is clear,” Mom said.

  “That Dad is drinking my lemonade?” Jelena asked.

  “All right, two things are clear. That and that we dare not let you have four entire days off in a row again, nor have any delays scheduled between when you drop off a cargo and pick up the next one.”

  “Mom, everything worked out fin
e. You don’t need to worry about us. We can handle our problems, and we’ll get that loan taken care of before you’ve had to pay hardly any interest on it at all. We are professionals.”

  Mom’s eyebrows flew up. In skepticism of her claims, Jelena thought at first, but then Austin ambled past, whistling and swinging something that looked like a metal detector from side to side as he headed up the ramp.

  “Austin,” Jelena said, “what are you doing?”

  “Erick said we’d be getting paid, like a real salary, so I went out and bought an extendable shaft and search coil for my ghostometer. I also found a Divine Suns Trinity monk on the station who’s familiar with séances. He said he would come guide us in communicating with the spirit realm. Are there candles on the Snapper? We’re going to need candles for the ceremony. Once we’ve contacted the ghosts and learned their names, we can ask them to leave. The monk will talk us through an official cleansing.”

  Not waiting for a response, Austin went back to whistling and walked into the cargo hold. Grandpa didn’t bat an eye at his words, but Kiyoko put a hand on Hoshi’s shoulder, pulling her back as Austin passed.

  “Have no fear,” Grandpa said. “We don’t have any trouble with ghosts on the Star Nomad.”

  “Won’t I be staying on the Snapper?” Kiyoko asked.

  “I do believe you’ve made a deal to be my granddaughter’s doctor, yes.”

  “Does that mean you’re taking me to study?” Hoshi clapped her hands together.

  “Yes, and you’ll see your sister often,” Grandpa said. “My daughter has decided that we need to have many, many business meetings to check up on the progress of our new ship and its captain.” He looked past Jelena to Mom, and Mom returned his gaze with appreciation.

  Business meetings? Jelena wrinkled her nose and looked toward Thor and Erick.

  Erick shrugged at her. He probably thought it was a wonderful idea, since he hadn’t had any luck at squelching Jelena’s enthusiasm for finding adventure.

  Thor merely pointed at the lemonade stand where Leonidas was pouring a second glass.

  I’m not sure he paid for that refill, Thor said silently.

  He deserves it. I’m going to invite him to do my taxes for me.

  Ah. In that case, maybe you should buy him dinner too.

  Of that I have no doubt.

  THE END

  Book 3, Stolen Legacy, will be available May 2017.