by T. M. Catron
“That’s when you ran away.”
Solaris nodded.
“How did Kaau li get away?”
He smiled. “Orion was furious about that. She had help—from guess who?”
“Pirate Kaur.” Rance got excited. It was an interesting story with juicy gossip.
“Correct.”
“I thought you said she had nothing to do with him.”
“Well, she hadn’t for a long time. She didn’t even know where he was until he showed up in a stolen Renegade, boarded the prison transport, and slaughtered anyone who got in his way. Turns out she’s the mother of his child.”
Rance gasped.
“I discovered all of this after I left the Wizards, but Kaur rescued her shortly after I was sent away.”
Rance looked over her shoulder as if the door at the end of the alley was still right behind them. “So, what’s Kaau li doing here?”
“I don’t think she gets along with Kaur.”
“Wonder why.”
“No telling.”
Rance rolled her eyes at him. She would have to stop doing that, or Solaris would think she had developed a tick. “I was being sarcastic—I don’t think anyone gets along with Kaur.”
Solaris shrugged. “Well, some might. If he likes them first, I guess.” He glanced behind them, too. “She must have at one time.”
“You fought Orion’s guys for Kaau li when all along she was connected to Kaur.”
“I still don’t think she knew where he was. After her encounter with the Enforcers, she won’t make the mistake of dropping his name again. Against the Enforcers, she was powerless and afraid. Not the picture you saw a little bit ago.”
“I wonder where the child is.”
“Don’t know.”
“Aren’t you curious?” Rance thought it was a harrowing, romantic story, but she’d die rather than tell Solaris her thoughts. He’d laugh at her all the way to the ship.
“I’m only curious about what’s in this box.”
“Aren’t we all? I guess we’ll just have to live with our curiosity.”
“You can, but, as soon as we get on board the Streaker, I’m going to see what’s in it.”
Chapter Eleven
“You can’t open it!” Rance hissed as they exited the alley and crossed the landing pad.
“Says who?”
“Says me, your captain. It’s breaking a code.”
“What code? A smugglers’ code? With all due respect, Captain, I’d like to make sure it isn’t rigged with explosives. It’d be a nice thing to get out of the atmosphere and pop like a burst bubble.”
“I already checked it. Like I said, I’m not an amateur. We’ll check it again with the scanning tech on board. It’s standard procedure on the Streaker.”
Solaris’ face fell. She had him.
“We don’t look at the cargo unless it’s allowed,” she continued, pressing her advantage. “This isn’t my first gig. I would never endanger the crew or ship.”
“That’s a bit much, considering your profession. Come on, don’t you want to know what’s inside?”
The ramp lowered as they reached the ship, and Rance and Solaris climbed into the cargo bay. They set the box down with a final clang.
Rance massaged her sore right arm. “Are you seriously trying to tempt me?”
Solaris stretched his left arm. “Yes.”
Harper and Abel came out of the galley to see what the commotion was about. Rance gave them the short version of events, and Harper almost squealed with delight when she heard about the new registration codes. She accepted Rance’s transfer and hurried off to the control room to install them into the ship’s system.
“I’m checking them for bugs, first, though,” she called over her shoulder.
“There, you see?” Rance told Solaris. “We’re careful around here.”
Abel walked around the box before stopping to look at the lock. “Can’t we peek, Boss?”
“No. Abel, get it moved over and strapped down for flight. My arm feels like it’s going to fall off. Tally!”
Tally came out of engineering, pulling off a dirty apron he used when cleaning the hyperdrive. Rance never knew where he found the dirt. Engineering always looked spotless when she went in there.
“Yes, Captain?”
“We’re going on a short run. Once I get feeling back in my fingers, I’m going upstairs to plot a course for Coru. Is James here?”
“No, Captain. He’s out visiting his girlfriend—or one of them. You gave him permission, remember?”
Actually, Rance had forgotten. Since they hadn’t planned an immediate trip, she hadn’t seen the harm.
“Do you want me to cancel his leave, Captain?” Solaris asked as he helped Abel secure the box with strong magnetic fasteners. He looked positively gleeful at the idea of interrupting James’ date.
Rance decided that Solaris had a definite mischievous streak somewhere beneath the proper façade. “No. I want to get this thing off the ship. Apparently it’s messing with everybody’s heads, and suddenly rules don’t matter anymore.”
“Oh, the horror!” Solaris shot back. “Whatever would we do without rules?”
He mimicked her voice as he repeated them: “‘No companions in quarters, no drinking on board, and no swearing while on duty.’ I’m going to make you a sign, Captain.”
“Says the man who can’t buy fake registration codes without hyperventilating.”
“Says the smuggler who ran away from home to avoid a law.”
Tally sighed. “You know, Captain, when you brought Solaris on board, I thought he would bring some seriousness and gravitas to this outfit. Instead, I see you have corrupted him.”
Solaris grinned. “Consider me corrupted.”
“I’ll fly us to Coru,” Rance said as she turned toward the stairs. “Send James word.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Rance ran up the stairs to the top deck, her boots clanging on the metal. She liked flying. Although James was by far the better pilot, Rance hadn’t been top of her class at the Flight Academy for nothing. The way the ship moved at her touch, the total control and yet total abandon of flying, these were things she lived—
A blinding flash of light burst out behind her. Solaris and Abel yelled, and something hit the deck with a thud. Rance’s heart almost stopped, and she felt sick.
The box had exploded. Kaau li had betrayed them. Solaris and Abel… Tally.
She turned around and jumped down the stairs two at a time.
At the bottom, Solaris, Tally, and Abel stood against the far wall, looking stunned. The metal box had been propelled across the hold and now lay on its side. The wall contained a hole so wide the captain could have stuck her head in it. Thankfully, it didn’t look like it had damaged any wiring or support struts.
Harper came out of the control room, her spiky hair flopping over her wide blue eyes.
“What happened?” Rance asked. Then her gaze went back to the box.
It was open.
The lid blocked her view of the contents. Now that it was open, Rance wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to look inside.
“The magnets must have set off the box’s security. Fried the electrical system,” Tally said, recovering and meeting Rance at the box.
She walked around to look and gasped. A sparkling diamond half the size of her fist lay on the floor. Beautifully cut and flawlessly polished, it grabbed the lights from the hold and threw them up on the ceiling in a rainbow of colors.
“Wow,” Abel said. “Why is Kaau li smuggling diamonds?”
“More importantly, why would she give it to us?” Rance asked. “It’s got to be worth more than a Renegade.”
Rance had grown up around the diamond mines of Xanthes. While the sight of diamonds didn’t send her into endless rapture like they did some people, she couldn’t help but be impressed by the one laying on the floor of her ship. She’d never seen one so flawlessly cut. Or so sparkly.
> So sparkly it glowed.
“Guys, it’s not a diamond,” she said.
Abel reached down to touch it. “Aw, come on, boss! What else could it be?”
“No, wait!”
He stopped just before his hand touched it.
“Let me scan it first.”
Rance linked with the ship and scanned the gem with her ZOD. A few seconds later, an analysis came out. “It’s not a diamond,” she said, reading the text crossing her vision. “At least—not all the way through. It has a port or something on the bottom.”
Solaris crouched down and tapped it with his staff. Nothing happened. He rapped it again, sharply. The diamond rolled over, revealing a metal device like a flat chip protruding out the bottom.
“That’s a Tritonion sync,” Harper said.
“A computer?”
“My guess is it’s more than that. Shall we try it out?”
Rance could only guess what would befall them if they plugged it into the ship’s computer. Despite the threat of disaster, she was insanely curious to find out what it was. She wracked her brain, thinking of possibilities. The worst involved explosions and mayhem. At the very least, a complete system meltdown.
Solaris picked it up. Rance winced, waiting for his hands to burn off or something similarly horrible. Would Kaau li have the tech for that?
Possibly.
But Solaris’ hands stayed firmly attached to his arms. He turned the diamond over, handling it as if it were heavy. “Look,” he said, turning it toward them.
They all leaned closer, looking where he pointed. Small letters were etched into the diamond casing next to the port: Caduceus—Zeus Corporation.
Beneath, a tiny picture of a winged staff with two snakes wrapped around it.
“That’s the same manufacturer that made my NNR and ZOD,” Rance told Solaris. “What is it?”
“A Caduceus Drive—an advanced AI,” Solaris said. “I’ve only seen them on the Wizard ships and the transports used by the Emperor.”
“The Emperor?” Rance asked. “As in, our great supreme leader living on Triton?”
“Yes.” Solaris handed it to her. He crossed his arms and put a hand on his chin. All traces of amusement had disappeared, replaced by look of concern. “I don’t know why Kaau li has it, but it’s more valuable than the whole planet of Ares, maybe even Doxor 5. They’re very rare.”
“How in the galaxy did she get a hold of it?”
“Ah. Well, you’re the smuggler. You’d have a better answer for that than I.”
Rance sighed. Whatever the reason, she didn’t need it aboard her ship. The Caduceus Drive was stolen. No wonder Kaau li had wanted someone else to transport it.
Their small smuggling job had just become infinitely more dangerous. The first chill of fear crept up Rance’s spine. What waited for them on Coru? She didn’t want to find out, but they couldn’t keep the Caduceus Drive on the ship. Take it back to Kaau li? Rance deliberated for a moment. If they took it back, they would still need a new registration. Something told her Kaau li wouldn’t give back Rance’s money, either.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said, making up her mind. “Send word to James—we’ll be back in a day and a half.”
“You don’t want to wait for him?” Solaris asked as he followed her up the stairs. “What if we get in a tight spot?”
“I’m not a bad pilot myself, sunshine.”
“I wasn’t implying otherwise. I take it James is better.”
Rance stopped mid-step, and Solaris collided with her. He pulled back, moving out of her way.
“Are you trying to annoy me?” she asked.
He grinned—that big, goofy grin that would have been endearing if it weren’t so profoundly irritating. “Maybe.”
“I don’t know where James is, exactly. It could take him all day to get back. I want that thing off my ship. We shouldn’t have even agreed to take it.”
“I accept full responsibility, Captain.”
Rance turned toward the stairs. “I’ll let you tell that to the crew when we’re nabbed for transporting stolen proprietary technology. I’m sure they’ll let you serve their prison sentences for them.”
Later, when the ship was in hyperspace, Rance sat back and imagined having a chip like the Caduceus Drive to run the Star Streaker. Solaris had left the cockpit sometime before, claiming he wanted to sleep. She suspected he was down in the hold with Abel, Harper, and Tally, admiring their new find.
She’d downloaded information about Caduceus Drives from the public archives and wasn’t surprised to find little information about them. The AI sitting in the hold could run an entire warship all by itself. It was so rare, they didn’t even teach about it at the Flight Academy.
Rance looked around the cockpit, still amazed that the Streaker was hers. The ship was built for luxury. What if its systems could fix themselves and it operated like a full-on military machine? All they needed were a few more additions—like cannons and advanced targeting systems—and the Streaker would be unstoppable.
Harper would be out of a job.
Rance decided that would be an acceptable trade-off. Harper could stay on board and tinker with advanced hyperspace physics and convoluted black hole patterns. Or she could be a weapons specialist. Nothing would make her friend happier.
The captain paused. Was that the kind of ship she wanted? When she’d graduated from the Academy five years before, she had thought so. Now she wasn’t so sure.
Rance leaned back and looked through the window to the blue haze of hyperspace. She liked sitting in the pilot’s seat. It reminded her of when she was a little girl and her father let her sit in the cockpit of his personal transport.
After a while, Rance’s eyes closed, and she dozed in the chair, uncomfortable but too tired to make the effort to go to bed.
She woke hours later, in the darkness of the ship’s night cycle with a crick in her neck. At some point, she’d stretched her long legs up onto the console in front of her. James wouldn’t like that.
What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Not only did Rance have a crick in her neck, but one in her lower back as well. Pain shot up her spine as she extricated herself from the chair. She was too young to hurt like this. But she supposed it was the price to pay for being tall. Everywhere she went felt too small for living.
She eased down the ladder and along the top corridor. At Solaris’ door, she stopped mid-stride. It was open. He lay sprawled on the bed, still dressed in his flight suit, feet hanging off the mattress. His mouth lolled open as if he had a cold and couldn’t breathe through his nose. He let out a violent snort and rolled over.
Rance added the snoring to her arsenal of insults and pressed the button next to his door. It hissed closed, and she continued through the top deck, passing her own quarters and going downstairs.
The hold was quiet. Once again, the box was secured to the wall. Rance crept over to it and opened the lid. She was being silly, waiting until everyone was asleep. By herself, she could gaze at it as long as she wanted—everyone else had.
The diamond was cold and smooth in her hands. She turned it over, inspecting the drive. Although she’d learned the ins and outs of flight electronics at the Academy, it had never been her favorite subject. She’d always enjoyed flying over learning how it all worked. The chip obviously connected to the main computer systems, and she thought the drive would fit.
Rance carried it through the med bay, past its emergency medical pod, and climbed four steep steps into another room.
Crammed into the nose of the ship under the cockpit, the control room was so tiny that Rance had to crawl up through the door to get inside.
The room was shaped more like an escape pod than a room. Inside was a small chair where Harper spent her days tweaking their already well-running computers. Buttons and screens covered every surface.
When Rance sat in the chair, her knees came up to her chest. Harper had no such problems. Although s
he could strap into the fold-out crash chairs in the hold with Abel and Tally, she preferred to be in the control room, watching their flight on-screen. She sat in here during take-off, double-checking all their hyperspace coordinates in-flight. Exact coordinates were essential. Otherwise the Streaker might jump right into a planet and blow them—and the planet—into the wide expanse of space.
Here in the nose of the ship, Rance imagined she could smell the blue of hyperspace. The tangy current of electricity running throughout the ship made her tongue tingle.
With an advanced AI, they would never have to worry about hyperspace coordinates again. Except Rance doubted she’d ever fully embrace letting a machine do it.
She examined all the ports around the console. Just as she suspected, the Caduceus Drive would plug directly into the ship’s system.
Rance had never been tempted to steal anything they transported. And after learning what Kaur had done to protect Kaau li, she’d be insane not to deliver this item as instructed. Despite her fear of Kaur, it didn’t stop her from imagining a sophisticated AI aboard the Star Streaker.
Rance sighed. She was teasing herself, making herself miserable. She extracted herself from the control room and walked back through the med bay with the drive in her hand.
She pulled up short when she saw Solaris, who stood grinning at the door. His tousled hair stuck up in the back of his head. “Couldn’t resist, huh?” he asked.
Rance scoffed and pushed past him. He followed, unable to resist teasing her further.
“I thought you were too noble to fantasize about stealing it?”
“I never said that.” Rance put it back in its case and closed the lid. Then she turned to look at him. “Tell me, really, why do you think Kaau li had this?”
Solaris’ mood flashed from playful to somber. He shook his head. “Whatever it is, it can’t be good. But I’ve realized something.”
“What is that?”
He leaned down conspiratorially, his breath tickling her ear. Rance held her own breath, anticipating what he was about to say.
“It’s none of my business,” he said, smirking.