Seeing Stars

  “S-s-sorry, chick-a-lee. Can’t shoot to save myself anymore. Go.” Shaking her head free, Shiv started rocking harder, her thin gnarled arms wrapped around the filthy blankets and clothing. “S-s-so s-s-sorry. Just go.”

  Drew rose to her feet, the reboot kit in hand. Shiv’s lucidity lasted a little longer.

  “They sez you took up with Capn’ Larissa’s boys. They good crew, I heard. You could be on top again.” Shiv repeated her earlier comment. Or was it a warning? The rocking commenced again and her eyes glazed, as she sing-songed her goodbye. “Go, chick-a-lee. Fly fast. Chicka-chicka-lee.”

  Movement behind some of the racks caught Drew’s attention. She eased in that direction, hand on the stunner she’d secreted in her waistband. “Hello?” No one answered. Shiv’s muttering and singing was background music to the emptiness of her shop. Outside, Sefnee pulsed with activity. Drew turned to leave, laying a final hand on Shiv’s shoulder. “Go to the sisters, Shiv. They can help.”

  Shaking her head, Drew’s old friend rocked harder. “No help. Go-go-go. Treasure. Mara’s treasure.”

  The pathetic waste filled Drew’s eyes with hot tears. Giving Shiv one last pat on the shoulder, she left, getting a good grip on her emotions before the brat packs marked her. “Goodbye.” Movement out of the corner of her eye made her turn. She blinked, pure shock freezing her system at the dark-haired man she never expected to see again. Eyes dark as night set like twin black holes in the paleness of his face. His beard and moustache were trimmed short, the colour as black as the hair that touched the tops of his ears. He spun a walking stick between his fingers. Fight or flight response kicked in, making her heart pound in both fear and the call for retribution.

  “Hello, chick-a-lee. I see you still have abominable taste in attire.” Dresher, Mara’s murderer, was the only one besides Shiv to call her that. In her will, Mara left everything to Drew, indicating that her mate didn’t know about the gem. And frankly, Drew didn’t think Captain Larissa would send an assassin to retrieve Ash and Korm. Apparently, she thought wrong.

  Drew ducked at the evil laughter that followed her out of the shop. The knob of the walking stick tapped her and pure electricity shot through her body. Drew cried out and fell. The lightning rod shocked her again. Dresher’s face swam into her wavering vision. “Now, about my Mara’s treasure.” The words were reasonable, spoken in the smooth accent that had drawn her friend in. Drew would have spat at him if she could have made her muscles cooperate. He lifted a gloved finger, the elegance that drew her friend to him so very evident. “Now, now. That’s not the proper way to greet your brother-in-law.” Drew stared at him in confusion. He bent down closer, lowering his voice. “Did not tell you that little bit, did she? What she ever saw in the likes of you, I will never understand. It is your fault, primate, that Mara succumbed to the dark so quickly. And your drugged shipmate?” He sniffed a disdainful laugh. “Her usefulness is over. Where is my gem?”

  “Fuck you, lizard.” Drew choked the words out. Electricity burned through her body, losing her throat in a strangled scream. Every muscle twitched and seized. Numbly she thought she might have pissed herself. The world shifted out of focus, the soft blurring edges closed around her consciousness.

  Korm snarled at the vagrants and thieves that made up the population of the Sefnee asteroid port. He hesitated to call the place habitable, much less a station. If Lanard-ra and the small band of kith-ra Captain Larissa sent after them still operated on the belief that they would stick to what was known, Korm hoped that Ash would have a chance at the freedom he craved so badly.

  Ahead of him, he could see his quarry poking at a rolling junk-pile. Literally, the thing rolled on wheels, belching poisonous grey smoke from a pipe welded to the top. He shook his head. It was no wonder these people looked so ill and starved. Ash looked up, wonder and excitement filtered through the bond between them as Korm absently dissuaded a pickpocket from his belt. The pockmarked thief bawled in a heap behind him, cradling what was left of its fingers. He didn’t care to know the amateur’s sex. “You should not breath in the exhaust.” He waved at the lingering grey cloud. “This cannot be healthy.”

  “It is a wonder.” Ash touched the beat-up hunk of metal with unabashed awe as he reverted to their natural tongue. The kith-dana accent flowed more easily, emphasising the kith words properly, adding sophistication to speech that Korm would never be able to duplicate, had he even wanted. He was bred and born to be exactly what he was. Unlike Ash, whose elegance and obvious breeding hid a far more complex nature than was needed or desired in the dana station. “The combustion engine is precursor to the solar engine. Every human culture is different, some skipping the atom splicing stage, other the core inversion. But everyone goes through the combustion, solar, then ultimately harnessing black hole tech.” He stared at the vehicle a bit longer before Korm sensed that Ash was ready to step away. “But the interconnection of all civilisation begins with this simple machine.”

  “The owner thinks you’re touched in the head.” Korm gave the speculative, hunch-backed driver a stare that meant business. “I think you’ve inhaled too much of the fumes. We should go back to the ship before our captain leaves without us.”

  Ash moved to his side. The action was practiced, grounded in the need for the rich kith-dana to pair their sons with someone who could provide protection. The system had worked well since before the kith had taken to the stars. “Captain Drew is our one. The trilliacia is complete. She will not leave without us.” The repetitive refrain made Korm want to grind his teeth in frustration. When Drew discovered their deception, she wouldn’t just leave them. She was a woman who counted on trust. His honest nature writhed at having abused that trust from the beginning. He and Ash would be lucky if she did not toss them out of her airlock once they hit space.

  Korm focused on their surroundings and the hawkers that came too close with skewers of unidentifiable meat. He glared until they backed away, finding other, less discerning, customers. Every one of Korm’s nerves stood on alert. Danger was more than discovery.

  The crowded den of the fallen and the depraved made his kith-ra trained senses scream to leave. He paused, scanning the way he’d come and decided to detour around a cluster of open-roofed shops. “Dead body.” Ash craned to see over the uninterested crowd to the two people in dark jumpsuits poking at a sprawled body. “Maybe we should—”

  “We should leave. The authorities have it handled.” Korm pulled his charge closer and speed-walked to pass a small alley. Death and filth hovered in the air, making him think that those officials may want to take a look in there too.

  Two lean figures shuffled out, blocking their path. Small, spare men, Korm gauged. They’d be fast and desperate. Their clothing hung on them in rags, the colour reminiscent of dirty mud. One held a sharpened spike, the other pointed a modified stunner at Korm. “Give over yer creds, trader-boys,” said the one holding the stunner. His guttural speech had an Ormber Forges rumble.

  “Long way from the starship assembly lines.” Ash shifted, one hand rubbing down his forearm. “You do not hear of many assembly workers leaving the union.”

  “Shaddup and give over yer creds or I’ll shoot yer, friend. Stab the mouthy bastard if’n he talks again,” the thief with the stunner told his partner.

  Laughing evilly, the spike-wielder discharged spittle through his thin, greasy beard. He waved the spike in Ash’s direction. “Yer the pretty one. Soft. Mebbe we can work something out, heh-heh.” He reached out to touch the hair Ash had begun wearing loose lately. Ash exploded into action, slicing the dagger he’d pulled from his sleeve across the robber’s weapon arm.

  Korm slipped the waerspic handles from his belt. The curved blades popped into place with flick of his wrists. In a smooth motion he inserted himself between the squealing spike-holder, dodging the red wave of light and thump of sound that would have slammed into him with the force of a small transport. The waerspic danced in his hands, handle jabbing into the ne
ck of the spike-attacker, while he opened a red path down the upper arm of the other. Bright red blood splashed on the ground, the first spot of colour he’d seen in this forsaken place. The stunner fell from the robber’s nerveless hand. Korm crouched, spinning both waerspic.

  “This is a bad decision. Continue and I will end your pathetic existence.” His thumb ghosted over a concealed button, springing the hilt spikes free. He waited a heartbeat. “What do you choose?”

  The thieves jumped back into the death-ridden alley, scurrying through trash and things Korm had no intention of seeing. He glanced at Ash, calmly wiping the blade of his dagger on a handkerchief. “Are you well?” He quelled his worry at the amusement dancing in Ash’s eyes. His excitement in the adventure was at odds with the calm, tidy way he folded and put away the soiled cloth. Korm shook his head. “Your breeding is showing, kith-dana.”

  “Why? Because I own a handkerchief?” Ash pushed up the loose sleeve of his tunic and re-strapped the weapon. The natural fall of the sleeve hid the outline. He looked up. “The use of a handy cloth is not regulated to the dana.”

  Korm chuckled. “No, but the use of Spyder silk and using a star fold before putting it away is very much a tell.”

  Ash narrowed his eyes, his fingers going to the belt pocket he’d slipped the cloth into. Pursing his lips in thought, he finally let out an undignified lower-class grunt. “Well… Is that not our Captain Rogers?”

  Automatically grasping his charge’s arm, Korm pulled them back into a crumbling archway as he tracked another, far more dangerous threat than the robbers. So far, Lanard and his kith-ra group were focused on Drew as she left the building in a hurry. Korm could not see her expression, but from the faint link he and Ash now had with her, he guessed that surprise made her duck and turn. She was aware of the danger before the shock rod first slammed into her. He kept his grip, hardening his feelings against the second shock from the rod that her cloaked attacker jolted her with.

  Drew’s pain and fury in the face of her helplessness made him want to cheer her on. She spat at her attacker, crouched over her. Their words didn’t carry well in the constant back noise of the Sefnee marketplace.

  “Dresher,” murmured Ash. Korm nodded, holding tight in case the other man tried to bolt to rescue. Dresher, Captain Larissa’s pet draconi, had managed to slip his leash long enough to find a mate, only to lose her to the dark sleep. Most thought the dark sleep was a disease that only affected female draconi. Korm had never been close to Captain Larissa’s pet and Dresher wasn’t the kind to make friends or spill the close kept secrets of his species. The draconi was sneaky, dangerous, and now that his mate was gone, loyal once again to the most powerful kith captain in their people’s fleet.

  Korm watched, feeling like the lowest of the low, while Dresher hauled an unconscious Drew like a common sack of supplies and tossed her over his shoulder. The kith-ra who wouldn’t have touched her, except to kill, followed. Lanard stopped and turned on his heel. The kith-ra had been the most intuitive of their class. Once, their parents had thought to pair them up to fashion an incredible fighting unit. The offer of a match to Captain Larissa’s only son changed that, with no hard feelings on either side. Or so his parents had told Korm; living among the dana put him in the tenuous position of not truly belonging to either class.

  Lanard slipped into the shop and returned, dragging a weak, shaking, drug addict behind him.

  Curious and curiouser, Korm thought.

  The pounding woke her. The heavy pulsing heartbeat of a massive cruiser. Drew opened her eyes to slits, realising that the pounding was her head. Hanging upside down, the blood rushed towards where gravity shoved it. Her shoulders ached from the shocks and from nearly brushing the floor. The tight grip of prisoner manacles gripped her ankles in a bruising, biting vice. For a tiny moment terror held Drew in its clutches. She was trapped in a hole where no one would ever find her. She’d die alone in the dark.

  Sanity returned as she recognised the bone-deep thrum of a cruiser classed ship. She took a breath and forced the panic into a small airlock it the back of her mind. Experimentally, she moved her arms, feeling more constrained by the jumpsuit than before. Every muscle in her body ached from Dresher’s little lightning rod. A shuffle and moan made her freeze, then relax as she realised she wasn’t alone. A guard wouldn’t sound that pitiful. “Shiv?” she whispered.

  “S-s-sorry. Chick-a-deee,” the woman whimpered.

  “It’s okay, Shiv.” Her old partner’s distress was enough to prod Drew into action. Lifting up, she grunted as her abs protested the crunch. Feeling the manacles around her ankles didn’t help, but knowing the cold metal was a simple magnet lock helped some. Not very many people used magnetised locks anymore, not with crystal tech so readily available to every Joe and Slar who travelled the universe.

  “I s-s-sold you out,” Shiv whispered. The raspy sound caught on a sob. “S-s-sold you for rooma. An’ dinn’t get none. Kill me quick afore I do worse.”

  Drew’s head pounded out her fear and frustration. For a moment she wanted to scream. Traitor! I will fucking kill you! After all we did for you? Fucking traitor! Instead, she forced herself to look through the anger, to push it away and look for an escape. Still, her eyes caught on Shiv’s huddled, shaking form. “It will be okay.” The words were met with denial. “Look at me. We’ll get out and you’ll get help. Shiv. We will get through this,” she said the last, raising her voice to get past the moaning and into Shiv’s consciousness.

  Letting herself relax as much as she could, Drew crossed her arms over here chest. Her shoulders didn’t hurt so much in that position. She narrowed her eyes, thinking, staying as still as possible to minimise the discomfort of the manacles around her ankles.

  They would get out. And then, she’d make certain Dresher never laid a finger, claw, or eye on the treasure Mara entrusted to her. Oh, yeah. Drew was fully invested now. She was looking forward to the inevitable meet with that bitch, Captain Larissa of the Nightsky clan.

  Chapter Five

  The cell door slid open with a grinding slide. “You should get that looked into,” Drew said, “but then, good mechanics are hard to come by. Aren’t they?” She watched the smartly dressed woman advance into the room, loyal lackeys at her heels. Smart, in her Spyder silk, hand-stitched uniform. Her hair was sharply cut at the collarbone, angling up and back to the base of her skull. Drew couldn’t see features, but she tried on her best sneer since she couldn’t play dress-up too. “Nice boots.”

  One of the lackeys punched her in the kidney. Drew grunted from the force of the blow. Her eyes smarted at the pain and she gritted her teeth, refusing to whimper. Captain Larissa crouched until they were eye level. Focusing upside down on the other woman was a little disconcerting. “Now,” Larissa rested her gloved hands on her knees, “why don’t you tell me where you put my dragon egg?”

  Raising one eyebrow—or was it lowering when you were hanging upside down?—Drew crossed her arms again. The position gave her a vague sense of security. “Egg? Captain, you disappoint me. There are no dragons.” Slowly, she shook her head from side to side. “Surely, you don’t believe in that old tale that the draconi are really dragons in disguise. And to think, you were my favourite adversary. I guess I’ll have to re-evaluate my plan to annoy you.”

  The guard punched her kidney again, harder. The grunt was much more pronounced and Drew swallowed to keep from throwing up bile. She imagined she was going to be peeing blood for a week. It took a little longer to regain her composure.

  Larissa leaned in a little further, so that their noses almost touched. Her voice lowered to a confidential tone. “I know your mechanic, Mara Destris, was draconi enough to mate and breed. I also know what their eggs look like.” The smile was harsh, a baring of teeth instead of a friendly gesture. “So where is the gem she gave you?”

  “There you go, Cap’n Larissa. Assuming things again.” Drew’s return smile was tight with the pain of her aching kidneys. “You ass
umed I wanted the salt mine deal because it would turn over a good revenue. But you’re a little rocket-burned from the piddling amount that the miners are willing to export. You assume that my mechanic gave me an expensive gem when we weren’t all that close. A dragon egg, no less.” Drew snorted a laugh, tensing for the blow that Larrissa waved off at the last moment.

  She sobered and met Larrissa stare for stare. “There’s an old Earther saying about assuming something. You make an ass of u and me.” Drew swore she could see the other woman’s blood pressure rise. One of her temples throbbed, a tiny tell that Captain Larissa wasn’t as sure of Drew’s possession of Mara’s treasure as she let on.

  “You’re rooma-addicted draconi friend over there will feel twice the pain of torture during withdrawal.” Larissa’s threat almost made Drew smile. Instead she shrugged, knowing she had the upper hand. Captain Larrissa Nightsky of the trader ship Starpath had nothing.

  “Go ahead. She sold me out.” Drew wasn’t a fighter, but a skid trader had to make a living on her wits and her old-fashioned poker face. She shot a hate-filled glare at Shiv’s huddled form. “Do whatever you want, but get that stinking traitor out of here.”

  “She is bluffing, captain,” one of the lackeys said. “Lanard-ra believes the prisoner has a certain soft spot for the addict.”

  “Soft spot?” Twisting around, Drew tried to grab the lackey. “Let me go and I’ll show you a fucking soft spot. The one I use to rip out the bitch’s heart, because I’ll kill her myself.”

  Larissa grabbed her coveralls, stopping the wild movement. At an unseen signal, the manacles on Drew’s feet let loose, slamming her into the metal floor. Yep, she decided. The gravity worked really well on the Starpath. The room spun as Larissa pulled her to her feet. The soft chink of the metal belt made them all stop. “What was that?” The captain looked uncomfortable, as if an unthinkable thought had entered her head.