“I thought K’kadi seemed in pretty good shape,” Mical offered.
“Until he tried to stand up,” Dorn growled. “I had to get Distler to help him back to his quarters.”
“And Kass has always indicated he’s not as stable as she would like,” Tal said. “She’s been working with him, but it may be asking too much. We have both ends of the next two jumps to worry about, plus whatever might be waiting for us on Tat. Not to mention the possibility someone leaked word of our route back to Blue Moon.”
“Never!” Mical roared. “Tal, you know damn well none of our crew would betray us.”
“Right now I’m operating on worst case—I don’t have a choice.”
“Well . . . fyd! Come on, Captain, we haven’t given up our lives to the rebellion to die out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“Never said we were.” Tal took a long pull on his ripka, lowered the bottle to the table with exaggerated care. “But if we don’t consider ‘worst case,’ we could end up in pok up to our necks.”
Over his friends’ grumbles, Tal thought he heard a noise. He lifted a hand for quiet. A knock on his door, not a confident one. Someone aware of the seriousness of intruding on the captain when his privacy field was engaged .
Tal pressed a button on his comm unit and the door slid open, revealing a wide-eyed Kass Kiolani, obviously horrified to discover he had company. “Come, Kiolani,” he said in a rush before she could dash off.
“I beg your pardon,” Kass murmured, “but I really need to speak with you.”
It must be important to bring a reluctant virgin to his quarters. Unfortunately, he feared his sudden high hopes and Kass’s reason were not the same. But he let hope surface. “In private?” he inquired smoothly.
“I believe you would prefer to have your officers hear what I have to say,” Kass returned, dashing Tal’s ego, but igniting a flare of interest in S’sorrokan. Had his little Psyclid found a way out of the Empire’s trap?
“Please sit.” He waved a hand toward the leather sofa and sat down beside her. His officers resumed their seats across from them. Tal popped the cap on a bottle of ripka. “And now,” he said as he handed it to her, “tell me you’ve come up with yet another miracle to get us home in one piece.”
Kass took a swallow then fingered the bottle for a moment before slowly lowering it to the table. “We have a history, the four of us,” she said. “You took me to the Archives and brought me out again, saving my life twice over. And I believe what I learned during the years I spent there may be what saves us now.”
Kass frowned, knuckling her hands under her chin. “You’re not going to like it, Captain, but what I’m suggesting will get us back to Blue Moon undetected.”
“Why won’t I like it?” he inquired without heat.
“Because we have to bypass Tatarus.”
“Impossible! I need Scorpio.”
“Then find another way to get her back to Blue Moon, preferably just the ship without the crew. I don’t trust them!”
“Fyd!” Dorn exclaimed. “You think Tegge betrayed us?”
“I don’t know,” Kass returned, “but I doubt Fleet sends a cruiser and two hunterships to the far end of the sector on drunken rumors in a bar.”
“I can’t give up Scorpio,” Tal declared, damping an urge to shout. “And, besides, Tegge’s as solid as they come.”
“Solid for whom?” Kass shot back.
“What was your idea, Kiolani?” Dorn inserted before Tal could respond. “Let’s hear it before we shoot it down.”
Eyes narrowed, Kass drew a deep breath. Batani witch, Tal thought, she wouldn’t even look at him.
“I’ve always been interested in navigation,” she said, focusing on Dorn and Mical. “So while I had access to the Archives, I spent a great deal of time studying our whole quadrant, not just the Nebulon Sector. I memorized the coordinates of every wormhole ever recorded, paying particular attention to old explorers’ and smugglers’ logs. Granted, some of the wormholes may be hard to find or far from an easy ride. Some may even be gone, in which case we’ll have to improvise, but I believe I can get us home on routes Regula Prime forgot hundreds of years ago, if they ever knew of them at all.”
“You memorized them?” Mical Turco stared at Kass as if she’d just turned into a three-headed Hydron.
“It is part of my talent,” Kass replied modestly, peeping at him from under her long black lashes. “I have an unusually retentive memory.”
Dorn glanced at Tal. “You could send a volunteer crew to Tat aboard Gemma.”
“No! You want me to slink off through some moldy old tunnel through space while I send some of my people on a possible suicide mission?”
“If you’re right and Tegge’s stand-up, then it’s not a suicide mission,” Kass pointed out oh-so-sweetly.
“I never said I’m infallible,” Tal ground out. “I leave that for Psyclids, who have such a very high opinion of themselves.”
Silence. Four bottles of ripka raised, four throats swallowing, four bottles plunked back on the small table. “Kiolani,” Tal said at last, “do you, by any chance, have an alternate route to Tat?”
“Not alternate enough. It’s a fairly well-known smugglers’ route. Tat is a major player in what might be called the—ah—barter system.”
“Smugglers we can handle.”
“If Fleet’s going all out to get Astarte,” Dorn said, “they might cover that gate too. And if not, they’ll be waiting for us at Tat.”
“You can’t take Scorpio right out from under their noses,” Kass said. “And if Tegge turns on us—recall the ancient tale of the frog and the scorpion! We haven’t a chance. Go home, Tal, I beg you. Don’t let them lop the head off the rebellion.”
“On the other hand,” Mical said, “if Tegge’s for real, then Fleet might not have any idea we’re returning to Tat. They’ll expect us to take 591 back toward Reg space.”
“Do not encourage him!” Kass snapped.
“Best guess where Fleet will be waiting?” Tal asked, studying each of his officers in turn, including the most junior.
“They’re not going to beat us to either 591 or 828,” Dorn said. “Mondragon fooled them good.”
“Nor to the smuggler’s route,” Kass added. “Even I never dreamed Jagan could lead them so far astray,” she added with a note of pride Tal could have done without.
“So worst case,” Tal summed up. “If we divert to Tat and give Fleet time to catch up and fresh ships sent from home, they could be waiting for us at both 828 and 591.”
“Attacking us is new,” Mical offered. “They’ve mostly ignored us, like we didn’t exist.”
“A step up,” Dorn agreed with wry smile. “Guess the stings are beginning to hurt.”
Tal raised a blond brow in his First Officer’s direction. “So why am I not smiling?” He leaned against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes, picturing in three dimensions the long route home. With the next jump—whichever one he decided to take—they would be back in the Nebulon Sector of the quadrant, half of it under the control of Regula Prime. If Fleet was determined on a serious hunt for S’sorrokan . . .
“Kass, what tricks do you have on the other side of Tat?”
“My best tricks involve avoiding Tat altogether.”
“Kiolani, answer the question!
Mouth pursed in a clear case of the sulks, Kass intoned, “The old trader wormholes aren’t numbered. They’re named for the person who discovered them. The hole nearest here is Renner. At the other end we’re seven days from a jump that will take us around the far side of Regula Prime and on to a third that leads almost directly back to Psyclid—a backgate, if you will, well known to our merchant captains, but long kept as our own special secret.”
“There’s a gate near Psyclid?” Dorn exclaimed. “No way. We would have found it.”
“Like Blue Moon, it has its own ridó. Only our Psyclid captains know how to pierce it,” Kass returned in a softly superior to
ne that grated on Tal like fingernails on glass.
“And Kass Kiolani,” he ground out. Of course she did, the little witch.
“Only theoretically,” Kass admitted cooly, “but to Jagan it will be child’s play.”
No time for temper, though his jaw ached from grinding his teeth. “Can we get to this gate from Tat?”
“It is not a case of can, but should,” Kass retorted. Fists clenched, she turned to face him, amber eyes blazing. “Do not go to Tatarus, Captain, I beg you.”
“Can we get to your back door to Blue Moon from Tat?” he repeated, emphasizing each word.
Kass splayed her fingers over her mouth, as if keeping hot words inside. “There are ways,” she admitted from behind her fingers. “If we are still alive.
So she was fallible, his little Psyclid. So very certain Tegge had betrayed them, when he was ninety-nine-point-nine percent certain she hadn’t. It was a chance he had to take.
“Kiolani, how many days to Tat from the end of your smugglers’ jump?”
She lowered her hands to her lap, revealing a face that looked resigned to death. “Longer than from 828. Five or six Reg days, depending on speed.”
“Give Dorn the coordinates. Mr. Jorkan, make best speed to the smugglers’ gate.”
“Aye, Captain.” His two officers jumped to their feet. Kass input the information into the Dorn Jorkan’s handheld and returned it to him.
“Kiolani, stay,” Tal ordered, as she too started to rise. “This conversation is not finished.”
She settled back onto the sofa, scooting herself into a corner as far away from him as she could get. Great going, Rigel, scaring her isn’t exactly what you had in mind.
Chapter 25
“I know you think I’m being difficult,” Kass burst out the moment the door slid closed behind Dorn and Mical, “but Tegge’s the one who knew we were going to Hell Nine. And that we’d never suspect an ambush at a gate so far from our own sector.” Silently, Kass groaned. Fizzet! Why couldn’t she leave well enough alone? Tal was offering a compromise, accepting the smugglers’ route. She still had time to talk him out of going back to Tat.
From the opposite end of the leather sofa came a long-suffering sigh. Tal’s blue eyes darkened. Dear goddess, now he was really angry. But in his usual keep-it-together-no-matter-what style, all he said was, “The Empire’s set a high price on rebel heads, Kass, particularly rebel captains, dead or alive. And I doubt anyone really thinks Captain Kane is a smuggler. So your Pybbite could have been setting us up. And what about the attack on X-33? Someone has set a price on my head—though it could be Captain Kane’s as much as S’sorrokan’s. Though after what happened today,” he added slowly, “it seems more likely it was a formal assassination attempt by the Empire. We may have changed Orion’s ident codes, but we can’t hide her structure. Even a Fleet cook could recognize her as a Reg huntership.”
“If that’s true, why didn’t the cruiser that chased you to Blue Moon recognize Orion?”
“So I exaggerated a little.” Tal shrugged, but his eyes held the satisfied gleam of a successfully crafty captain. “We not only changed her ident, we tarted her up a bit—black paint, trader-type logo, tweaked her silhouette. From a distance we could pass as almost any smuggler in the sector. But when we didn’t respond to the cruiser’s hail—and, believe me, the Empire wants a cut from any free trader it can lay its hands on—we were fair game. They started shooting.”
“And Blue Moon let you in.” Kass could only hope Tal hadn’t caught the odd note in her voice.
“That’s where we were headed all along—I remembered it from a visit many years ago. And by some quirk of fate, her force field let us through while keeping the cruiser out. And Fleet seemed to forget about us. Guess a stray smuggler wasn’t worth the effort.”
Uh-uh. Not the right time to go into why Blue Moon’s ridó favored the rebels.“You changed Orion again after that, didn’t you? New ident, new paint, new logo?”
“Regularly, though just the ident and the markings. Painting takes more time than we can spare.”
Kass nodded, returning doggedly to the point she had been trying to make. “During our trips to Tat, to X-33, and Bender’s Folly, we never saw a single Fleet ship.”
“Traders have sharp eyes. Many know Fleet ships as well as the Empire, so, believe me, Tegge isn’t the obvious choice you think she is. And, besides,” Tal added less decisively, “that’s not why I wanted to talk with you.”
“Oh?” Kass lowered her lashes to hide her reaction to the sudden gleam in his eyes. Almost . . . a flash of warmth? He was so gorgeous sitting there, little more than a meter away, his golden hair shining above Captain Kane’s dashing black shirt, pants, and boots, his often stern lips suddenly gone as a soft as his eyes. Were they about to have a more . . . intimate conversation?
“Listen closely,” he said in a voice far from the resolute command mode of Captain Rigel, Captain Kane, or S’sorrokan. “I have a lot to say, and this isn’t easy for me.” Kass nodded, hope soaring. Maybe, at long last he was seeing her, not his fantasy whore . . .
“There’s nothing like the whiff of death to clarify the mind,” Tal said. “Knowing tomorrow could bring what we escaped today is a powerful motivator. Damn it, I don’t want to talk to your eyelashes, Kass. Look at me!”
“I beg your pardon,” she murmured. “I seem to be so much better at arguing with you than carrying on a civil—”
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to say! Fyd!” he added under his breath. “You and I are always going to fight, Kass. I was brought up to give orders, and evidently so were you. No, no, we’ll get to secrets in a moment. But fighting is all right. I have no interest in a woman without a thought in her head, one who agrees with me all the time.”
Kass propped a hand under her chin and gave him her most skeptical look.
“I didn’t say I was always going to like opposition,” Tal conceded. “I’m just saying it doesn’t put me off.”
Kass blinked, clamping her lips over her unruly tongue. Tal’s monologue was sounding more intriguing by the moment. Even if that momentary flash of warmth had vanished once again under the aura of stern captain.
“As for secrets,” he continued, “don’t think you’re the only one who has them. I’m carrying around a few of my own—”
Kass’s good intentions imploded. “I always knew your father was mixed up in this somewhere!”
“Mallick, Kass!” Tal slammed his fist onto the table, scattering the empty ripka bottles. “You will never mention my father again. Do. You. Understand?” Amber eyes wide, Kass managed a nod. So she’d been right. It was Admiral Vander Rigel who had sheltered an enemy in Regula’s Interplanetary Archives.
“Point three,” Tal declared. “I was brought up on Regula Prime where fear of Psyclid magic is taught from birth. You were brought up on Psyclid where fear of Regulon might is taught from birth. Plus scorn for our culture—”
“Or lack thereof.”
Tal sucked in a sharp breath, shot to his feet. Almost she felt sorry for him as he paced the room, couch to galley entrance and back again, while pounding his fist against his thigh.
“I beg your pardon,” Kass said. “I was also brought up from birth to be polite, and that was way out of line. Come back, please, and finish what you wanted to say.”
Tal paused at the edge of the sofa, looking down at her. “You are a very aggravating female. No wonder we had to save you from your fellow cadets.”
“I’m sorry, Tal, truly I am.”
He sank back down on the couch, but not so far away this time. He was close enough to touch, close enough to smell. Shades of the Round Tower. Essence of Talryn Rigel flooded through her. She could never get enough of him. And this was real, not fantasy.
“Point four,” Tal murmured far more softly than the bark of point three. “I’ve been celibate for close to two years now. Ever since I realized that the fantasy I’d built around a cadet named Kass Kiolani was m
ore real to me than my mistress. That no one else, not even solid flesh and blood, would do.”
Blessed goddess, he meant it! And feared she did not feel the same. Captain Talryn Rigel—the legendary S’sorrokan—was anxiously waiting for some kind of response.
Kass wanted to leap into his arms, tell him everything was wonderful, perfect . . . Instead, she clasped her hands tightly in her lap, thinking hard. Her lips tilted up ever so slightly as she thought of all the elegantly worded vowals of love and devotion she had received since she was allowed to dine at the high table at age fourteen. Frankly, Tal was making a botch of it, but a wise woman would let him finish what he started. And, Kass vowed, she was going to make a start this very moment on being a better, wiser person than she’d been in the past.
“We have been singularly fortunate then,” she told him, with only a slight qualm about laying herself at his feet, vulnerable as no princess should ever be, “for I too have managed to merge fantasy with reality and know that no other man will do.”
Tal continued to frown. “Your sorcerer understands this?”
“He does not like it, but he understands.”
After several moments of thoughtful silence, Tal murmured, “Midamara?”
Dear goddess, he was as jealous of Jagan as she was of Tegge. And with far more reason. “An endearment,” she assured him, “nothing more. Like ‘my dear.’”
“Or ‘my darling’?”
“Somewhere in between,” Kass confessed, staring down at her hands. “But it doesn’t mean anything,” she added hastily. “It’s just Jagan trying to cause trouble. He enjoys it.”
Tal blew out a breath. “And after his heroics today, I can’t possibly complain.”
Kass looked up, offering a tentative smile. “I told you he would be a great asset, but our personal connection is severed. Or will be . . .” She gulped, swallowing the rest of her thought. There were some things a girl just could not say.
But of course she didn’t have to. Tal read the unspoken message quite clearly. She felt his shock as he caught her meaning and, as always, seized the moment.
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