Of course, they all assumed I would pull a miracle out of thin air, and I’d attempted to do just that. So far, my miracle was looking a little ragged around the edges.
“There must be something—” he started.
“There is. I’m doing it right now. Soon you’ll be safe at home, and my people will get to eat for a while longer.”
He stared at me for so long that I wasn’t sure he was going to answer, but just as I was about to leave, he spoke. “I’ve spent the past eleven months dodging assassins and attempting to keep a fractured Empire functioning while trying to ferret out who is loyal to me and who is not. I was following up on a lead on one of my top-level advisors when I ran into Commander Adams.”
I blinked at him in shock. If Valentin had been dodging paid hitmen, then the fact that he wasn’t dead was a testament to both his luck and skill. Even excellent bodyguards were barely an obstacle to a determined assassin.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention to how the war affected the neutral territories,” he said. “I knew my advisors were feeding me false information, but it never occurred to me that they would lie about your sector.”
“You knew your advisors were lying to you?”
He nodded, then the corner of his mouth tipped up in a grin. “I told you I wasn’t incompetent or indifferent.”
“You also said you didn’t need my help,” I reminded him drily. “Yet…” I waved at his cell.
“I’m working on it,” he said. Before I could worry about that statement, his expression turned calculating. “My advisors won’t pay for my return, but I’ll pay you a million credits for your help if you let me go.”
I laughed at him. “Even if your advisors won’t pay, Quint will. They’ll pay ten times that.”
His eyes glinted in challenge as he stepped closer to the cell wall. “Three million if you help me figure out which advisors are loyal.”
“That could take forever. I have my own sector to run. Nine million and your word that you won’t declare war on us, and I’ll drop you off in CP57—after the money clears, of course.”
“Five million, I won’t declare war on you, and it won’t take more than three days.”
“Eight million, half up front, no war, and I won’t put my people in danger,” I said. “How do you plan to figure out which advisors are loyal?”
He smiled and shook his head. “Seven million and you can find out.”
Curiosity was a curse, but I didn’t let it show on my face. “I’ll think about it,” I said. “But for now, I have to get the ship up and running.”
“Please let me out,” he said. “I’ve been cooped up for weeks.”
“I’ll think about it,” I repeated. “Right now, I need to get Invictia back online in case Commander Adams shows up again.”
After a stop by my quarters for my mag-boots, I headed down to maintenance. Slowly. Walking in mag-boots required a different set of muscle contractions than walking with gravity. With gravity, you pushed off the ground. Without gravity, the electromagnets in the soles of the mag-boots were the only thing holding you to the floor, so you had to pull yourself toward the ground with each step.
And having a busted-up thigh made it excruciating, even with the boots set to their lightest walking level.
I manually opened the door to the engine room and met a wall of heat. It was at least ten degrees warmer than the rest of the ship. My face burned like I had a fever. Well, this would be unpleasant.
By the time I made it to the main maintenance terminal, sweat clung to me in a thin sheet. If I moved too quickly, droplets drifted away like my own personal rain cloud. Ugh. I needed gravity, pronto.
I swiped my arms against my shirt to remove most of the sweat, then powered up the terminal and checked the diagnostics. The stardrive was still in the red zone. The system estimated it would be ten minutes before the drive dropped out of danger, then at least five hours before it would be recharged and cool enough to tunnel again.
The drive diagnostics showed some minor damage. It wasn’t enough to prevent us from tunneling, but it would need to be repaired soon. Repair wouldn’t be cheap; parts alone could run into tens of thousands of credits. It would have to wait until Kos paid me, one way or another.
Valentin’s offer wasn’t a bad one, assuming I could trust him. And that was still an open question. But for now, I had to deal with one problem at a time or I’d go crazy. Getting Invictia back online was my main concern.
I redirected some of the power from cooling back to the ship’s most basic systems. The time to exit the red zone doubled, but the drive temperature didn’t go up. The lights flickered on as Invictia sensed my presence in the room.
So far, so good.
With the lights on, the visual drive inspection would be far easier. I grabbed the checklist and lifted my heels, disengaging the electromagnets in my boots. I pushed off and floated up to the second-level walkway.
Using the walkway railing to spin around, I planted my feet on the ceiling. My boots engaged and I walked out over the stardrive enclosure. This might be the only use case where zero gravity was helpful because it was easier to see the top of the drive. Visual inspections very rarely turned up something the diagnostics had missed, but they were included on the checklist for a reason.
And you ignored the safety checklist at your own peril.
I completed the checklist and didn’t find any additional issues. While I’d been busy, the stardrive had edged out of the red zone, though the room was still way too warm. My clothes were soaked through with sweat.
With the drive stabilizing, I could continue to reenable the ship’s systems, but first I had to manually disable the communications array. I didn’t know which system had Jax’s tracker attached, but if I had to guess, it would be something vital like stealth or life support.
The system control box was plastered in dire warnings, all of which I ignored. This wasn’t the first time I’d disabled this particular system. Inside, manual switches were neatly labeled with the functions they controlled.
I flipped the master communication array switch to the off position. In an abundance of caution, I also turned off the four secondary switches that controlled the individual antennas. I would have to turn them on again to send any outgoing messages, but I’d wait until just before our next tunnel transit.
I returned to the maintenance terminal and opened the intercom. “Life support will be returning in thirty seconds,” I announced. “Prepare for gravity.”
“Did you find the tracker?” Valentin asked.
“Not yet,” I said.
“I’m good with software,” Valentin said. “I could find it for you.”
I rolled my eyes. Like I was letting him within three meters of my ship’s systems. I’d be neck deep in Kos warships before I knew what happened. But the guy was persistent, I’d give him that.
I enabled the ship’s stealth capability and then life support. Gravity returned and I hissed out a curse as weight settled on my bad leg.
“What’s wrong?” Valentin asked.
Shit, I’d left the intercom on. “Just my leg letting me know I’m still alive,” I said. I changed the subject before he could respond. “We have about five hours until we can tunnel again. I’ll let you know a few minutes before the transit. Until then, I’m shutting down the intercom.”
“Wait—” he started.
I cut him off, then ran a quick system scan while I was still in the maintenance terminal. The ship’s shielding was beat to hell, as were a few places in the hull where we’d come dangerously close to a breach. Invictia had kept us alive, but only just. She’d be in dry dock for weeks after this.
I powered off my mag-boots and headed back to the bridge. I needed to find the tracker. Plus, I had to decide whether I should trust the Emperor or continue with my original plan.
My only leverage was the Emperor himself. The Kos Empire had more than enough firepower to take out my fragile sector. I needed to en
sure the path of least resistance was to pay me and move along, whatever form that took.
8
I glanced into Valentin’s cell on my way past the door, then froze and backtracked. Another look confirmed what I had seen the first time—the cell was empty.
The hallway was clear. The door to medical was open, but the bridge and my quarters were both hidden behind closed doors. The bridge door should’ve been open.
I quietly moved to the door to my quarters. When it slid open, I peeked inside. The bedroom was empty but I couldn’t see into the bathroom. I entered, keeping an eye on the door to the bathroom, but nothing moved.
I opened the wall panel that hid my armory. None of my weapons were missing. I pulled out an electroshock pistol and checked the magazine. I considered grabbing a plasma pistol as well, but if I couldn’t take out Valentin with a magazine full of stun rounds, then things would be dire indeed.
I cleared the bathroom, then moved out into the hallway. I cleared the rec room again, followed by medical. Valentin was either on the bridge or hiding in the cargo bay, and I’d bet all of the imaginary credits we’d negotiated that he was on the bridge.
The door to the bridge slid open as I approached, surprising me enough that I stopped in my tracks.
Valentin looked up from the navigator’s terminal and barely glanced at the pistol in my hand. Both of his hands were visible and he appeared unarmed.
“I found the tracker,” he said calmly. “It was hidden deep in the life support code. You were right to turn everything off.”
I brought the pistol up and he tensed but didn’t move.
“How did you get out?” I asked quietly.
“I told you I’m good with software,” he said with a grin that stopped just shy of cockiness.
I stepped into the room, keeping the electroshock pistol trained on him. “You were in an isolation cell.”
“Not really,” he said. “If you want true isolation, you need a Faraday cage. Software isolation can be defeated.”
“Why didn’t you lock the bridge door?”
“A locked door wouldn’t have stopped you, but it would’ve pissed you off, making you more likely to shoot first. I’m not your enemy,” he said. “I want to work with you.”
“And you decided to prove that by escaping?”
“I could’ve escaped last night,” he said, voice cool. “I could’ve locked you out of the bridge, taken control of your ship, and returned us directly to Koan while you slept.” Koan was the Kos Empire’s capital city on Achentsev Prime.
“So why didn’t you?”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I considered it,” he said honestly. “But once I calmed down, I realized you risked your life to rescue me from Commander Adams. You had your own motivation, but you still rescued me. Repaying that debt by stealing your ship would be dishonorable. And I have enough people who want me dead.”
He seemed strangely sincere.
“What made you think I wouldn’t just shoot you and be done with it?”
“Despite what I said yesterday, I’ve heard many things about you, Queen Rani, including that you are reasonable. Trust is a two-way street. If I didn’t trust you to hear me out, I couldn’t possibly ask you to trust me in return.”
I tipped the pistol toward the floor. I could bring it up again in half a breath, but he was right that trust had to work both ways. “What is your plan and why is my help worth seven and a half million credits?”
He smiled but didn’t contradict the amount. “Do we have a deal?” he asked.
“Will you pay four million up front?”
“If you insist,” he said. At my nod, he continued, “Shall we shake on it?”
Trust was easier with a room between us and a pistol in my hand. Did I really trust him enough to let him close? I tried to think about what I’d heard about Valentin Kos. There wasn’t much, but I’d never heard that he went back on his word, and that tended to get around faster than the opposite.
“I’d rather have a signed and sealed document,” I said, “but I suppose a handshake is a start.”
Valentin stood slowly. I transferred the pistol to my left hand. I could shoot with either hand, so it wasn’t much of a sacrifice. I stood my ground and waited for him to come to me, so I could see if he had any concealed weapons.
His grin told me he knew exactly what I was doing, but he obligingly moved my way, being careful to stay nonthreatening. He stopped far enough away that I would have to take a step toward him, then he extended his hand. “If you help me with my advisor problem for a week maximum, I will pay you seven and a half million credits, four million up front, and I won’t declare war on the Rogue Coalition without provocation.”
“And whatever plan you’re hatching won’t put my people in danger,” I reminded. He inclined his head in agreement.
Tension crawled up my spine, but trust had to start somewhere. And despite my claims, I had expected to get maybe five million for Emperor Kos. If he kept his word, seven and a half million was a good deal, especially with four up front.
I closed the remaining step between us and clasped his hand. His skin was warm and his grip was firm. This close, I could see the tension in his body. He was doing his utmost to look cool and calm, but he, too, found trust harder than his easy words made it appear.
After the universe’s briefest handshake, I dropped his hand and stepped back. “Tell me your plan.”
He smiled, and again I felt the pull of attraction. The man was dangerously handsome. He said, “It’s your plan, actually. We’re going to send my advisors the ransom request you planned to send.”
When he didn’t say anything else, I prompted, “And?”
“And we’ll see how they respond. It might require a few follow-ups from you. We can wait here or in Arx, whichever you prefer.”
“You agreed to pay me over seven million credits to send some messages?” I asked in disbelief. If so, it was the easiest job I’d ever taken.
“No,” he said, and I braced myself for the real job. He continued, “The credits were for rescuing me from Commander Adams. The messages are just a bonus.”
I blinked at him, feeling like I’d been played, but not exactly certain how.
“Before we work on the ransom message, do you want me to show you the location tracker?” he asked. “I haven’t removed it yet because I didn’t want to change your ship’s code without your permission.”
I nodded and followed him back to the navigator’s terminal. I knew just enough about software to get myself in trouble, but if Valentin could disable the tracker for now, I could have an expert go through the code in Arx to ensure Valentin didn’t leave me any surprises.
He pulled up the system code for the carbon dioxide scrubber and scrolled down through the file. “Whoever did this was clever and covered their tracks well,” he said with a note of admiration. He highlighted two lines. “This is the change.” He then launched into a detailed explanation that I only barely followed. “Do you want me to fix it?” he finally asked.
“Yes,” I said. “We’ll need to be able to use the communication array without bringing Commander Adams down on our head. He already knows where I’m heading, so we will have to wait for your responses in Arx. I want to be there if he attacks.”
Luckily for me, even a destroyer couldn’t tunnel straight to Trigon Three from our last location. If Commander Adams did decide to follow us to Arx, by the time he arrived, he’d find a few nasty surprises waiting for him. The Rogue Coalition might not be able to hold off an army, but a single destroyer was well within our capability.
“Arx is fine,” Valentin said as his hands flew over the terminal.
“You know that if you betray me, I’ll kill you, right?” I asked. “And I’ll be far more successful than the assassins who have tried so far.”
He paused and met my eyes. “I know,” he said simply.
I nodded at him. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, my thigh throbbed wi
th pain. I needed another dose of painkiller, but no way was I taking it with Valentin running around loose. I’d have to deal.
I moved to the captain’s chair and lowered myself into the seat with a silent hiss.
But not silent enough, apparently. “Are you in pain?” Valentin asked.
“I have a gaping hole in my thigh,” I said drily. “What do you think?”
He glanced at me and understanding dawned across his face. “And you’re not going to take more painkillers, are you?”
“Not until we’re in Arx,” I confirmed. It would be a miserable few hours, but I’d survived worse. I needed all of my wits because I only trusted him so far.
“I need a few more minutes here. Why don’t you start on the ransom message? Write whatever you were planning to send before.”
I started on the message but kept an eye on him. Eventually, he finished with the tracker and started helping, but he remained in the navigator’s chair. I appreciated the distance.
It took an hour and a half of constant revision before Valentin and I were both happy with the wording. I demanded a ten million credit payment for the safe return of Emperor Kos. I worked in a few subtle threats, but mostly I spun it as a finder’s fee.
While we waited for the stardrive to cool down and recharge, I wrote a second message to my advisors to let them know what was going on. I’d likely arrive before most of them read it, but if anything went wrong with the next transit they’d at least know I didn’t vanish into the ether on purpose.
With nothing to do but wait and dwell on the throbbing in my thigh, I turned to Valentin for a distraction. “Why do you keep advisors you know are disloyal?”
“It’s not as easy as that,” he said. “They have been playing the game for a very long time. They are careful and crafty. And I can’t afford to be wrong.”
“I figured for seven point five million credits you were going to ask me to quietly take a few of them out,” I said.
The Queen's Gambit Page 6