It had hit him then, hard. Had he been so long the skypirate then, that making sure that anyone who chose to accompany him on this fool’s mission would be rewarded was the only way he could think of to entice them? He should have seen the truth after Qantar’s moving, surprising speech; there were things other than profit that drove his crew, just as it was something other than profit that held them together. He hadn’t had to bribe them, just to show them how what they would be doing would strike their mortal enemy.
He hadn’t had to bribe Califa, either. And not just because it would be a blow against the system that had enslaved her. Because, God help her, she cared for him. She would have done it for that. But instead he had bargained with her, in a way trying to buy her as surely as if she’d been on the slave block at Ossuary. As Rina had said, no wonder she was furious.
And the knowledge that even had she refused he would have done his best to see that she was freed from the collar that marked her as slave lay silent and unspoken—and now, for her, unbelievable—within him.
Now they had, at last, reached their destination. Dax stopped for a moment to catch his breath—a difficult task in the dense, Omegan air he wasn’t used to breathing. Califa was a few steps behind, as ill-adapted as he was to this high-gravity world.
He should have taken Hurcon up on his offer, he thought. The short, muscular native of this planet would no doubt have found this an easy trek. But he would ask no one else to take this, the greatest of the risks on their fool’s mission. And besides, he was still rankling over Hurcon’s well-intentioned warning against taking Califa with him into the heart of Coalition strongholds; the Coalition wanted him so desperately now, she might well be able to buy her life back by turning him over to them on one of these raids. A few well-chosen words to the right Coalition officer, and Dax would be on his way to Legion Command in chains.
That the thought had occurred even to Hurcon, who had no idea that she could easily know exactly the right Coalition officer to make her deal with, was disconcerting. Dax didn’t want to believe it, but she was so angry with him now . . .
He pushed away the thought. Gently, he lifted the fragile old woman into the cockpit of the fighter. It would be a tight fit, he and Califa and the woman, but they needed the adaptability; it would take the fighter’s wings, adjustable to a much greater surface area, to get through the soupy Omegan atmosphere.
Califa ignored his proffered hand and climbed into the fighter without help, despite the pronounced worsening of her limp on this world. Smothering a sigh he went after her. And as usual, the moment they were back aboard the Evening Star, she walked away from him without a word.
Nelcar was waiting for them, and took the old woman—her name was Fleuren, she’d said on the flight up, which, unexpectedly, she seemed to take great delight in—rather tenderly into his care. But not before she had held Dax back with a gentle touch of her thin hand.
“I never thought to see another flashbow warrior,” she whispered.
Dax stared at her. How had she known?
“My grandfather was one,” she explained as if he’d spoken. “I felt around him the same aura I feel now. And besides”—her worn, weary face creased into a bright, dimpled grin that spoke of the beauty she must once have been—“I saw the bow beneath your cloak.”
For the first time since he’d begun this task, Dax laughed. She watched him, her gaze lingering on the dimple that creased his cheek.
“Ah, yes, my grandfather was a charming rogue as well. It seems to come with the bow.”
Dax grinned, more from the change in this woman than her words; she was coming alive now, knowing she was a step closer to home. He’d warned her of the unlikelihood they’d make it, but she’d cared nothing for that. If she were to die, she’d said, at least it would be in freedom, trying to go home. It was a sentiment Dax understood very well.
“Perhaps,” Fleuren said as Nelcar carefully took her from Dax, “you should use some of that charm on your woman. She seems a bit . . . vexed.”
Your woman. The words struck some chord deep inside Dax. He tried to shake it off.
“It takes a woman of rare courage and love to stay by a man she’s furious with, through such danger,” Fleuren said.
“You are a very astute woman,” Nelcar said as he settled her in the cradle of his arms. Then he gave Dax a sideways look. “Perhaps he’ll get lucky and some of it will rub off.”
Fleuren laughed. “Oh, I’m going to like it here. Let’s go, young man.”
Nelcar laughed with her, and headed to the lounge that had been converted to a fairly efficient sick bay; Dax had foreseen that they would need it. Dax watched them go, then stood for a moment, rubbing at his gritty eyes.
“Vexed,” he muttered, “isn’t the word for it.”
Then he turned to secure the fighter.
Three raids, and eight new passengers. Only two had been Triotian; there were three now counting Fleuren, four with Rina, but when he’d found others in the isolated cells that seemed to be universally designated for the captives he sought, he couldn’t bring himself to leave them behind. So their compliment now included one more from Clarion, one from Zenox, a ragged Daxelian he’d ordered Hurcon to keep an eye on, and two Arellians.
It had been the Arellians they had found first, on the first raid. The Triotian who had been in the cell with them had been, they said, an old man who had died a week before.
“He was a tough old man,” they’d said admiringly. “He never once gave in to them.”
For a moment Dax had wondered if the entire mission would go like this, with them being just too late to save the few Triotians who had survived. It had been Califa who had made him look at the promising side.
“At least we know he was here. My information was old, but still accurate.”
“I never doubted that,” he’d said, hoping to placate her somehow.
“Good,” she’d said coolly. “Then there will be no argument about my having fulfilled my part of our bargain.”
He’d winced inwardly, but said nothing, because just then one of the prisoners had come forward to the bars, staring at Califa.
“You’re Arellian!” he exclaimed.
“Yes.”
“Then you’ll take us out of here?”
The urgent plea was more than Dax could resist. Besides, perhaps rescuing a couple of her fellow Arellians might warm Califa up a bit. So the two—brothers who had been coffee growers who had had the audacity to resist the Coalition seizure of their lands—had been the first to board the Evening Star.
When they had discovered they had been set free by the famous skypirate, they regaled all with tales of his heroics, and stories of his generosity to victims of the Coalition, which they could, of course, personally attest to now.
Dax had quickly vacated the lounge when that talk started. He was no hero, and what pittance he’d given others was nothing compared to what they’d lost.
Now, when he’d finished securing the fighter, he walked to his quarters. He’d slept little in the past week, and he knew he would be risking making mistakes out of fatigue if he didn’t get some rest. Once inside, he verified with Roxton over the comlink that they were on their way to the next stop at full speed. Then he sat down on the edge of his bunk.
This mission had been hard on everyone. Speed was essential, and Larcos had spent many long hours coaxing extra power from the ship’s engines, and Rina had mapped out some wild but effective courses that cut precious time off their travel. She’d used every available astral body with enough mass to inch up their speed, dipping into the gravitational field and then bouncing out, having picked up some of the body’s own speed. He was bone deep proud of her. And of the Evening Star, for holding together through all this.
He guessed they would have one more chance to use the slave ruse. After th
at, it was too likely that the Coalition outposts would have been warned about a slave bearing wine, warnings that even the Evening Star’s blasting through hyperspace couldn’t beat much longer. After the next run, then, they would have to come up with something else. He tried to think, but he felt as if he were still on Omega, fighting the heavy pull of the planet’s mass. When at last he toppled over, he had already fallen asleep sitting up.
CALIFA CREPT DOWN the dark byway, the familiarity of this place hammering at her from all sides. She sensed rather than heard Dax behind her; he moved with a silence that was amazing for a man his size.
She remembered this outpost on Darvis II too well. She had postponed telling Dax of the rumor she’d heard in the slave quarters on Carelia, that there was at least one Triotian in the prison here, until last. She’d had no desire to return, and had thought, rather grimly, that if they were killed before reaching here, it would save her from it.
Besides, it made sense to come here last; of all the places she knew of that possibly held Triotians, this one was the closest to Trios itself.
She’d been surprised, when she’d brought it up at last, that Dax had remembered.
“That’s where you were hurt, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Then Qantar and I will handle it.”
She’d been surprised at his words; he had to know, as she did, that her presence, her knowledge of this outpost, could make the difference between success and failure. She hadn’t expected such sensitivity to her feelings, and in an odd way she resented it; it made it even more difficult to stay angry with him.
That was a task she was finding it hard to carry out, anyway. With every raid her admiration for him grew. He seemed to have a clever plan for every situation, from distracting the guards on Clarion with an explosion that rocked the entire outpost, to blasting the power plant and blacking out the city of Zenox until well after they’d escaped. They’d rescued three more Triotians, one of them so ill he was hanging on only so he could die on his homeworld, yet another from Clarion, and a Carelian; all almost without having to fire a shot, thanks to Dax.
Once aboard, the Carelian had startled them all by kneeling before Dax the moment she recognized him; Carelians were a fierce, proud breed, and knelt willingly to no one.
“Your name is sacred to my clan,” she told the embarrassed Dax. “It is my sister you gave the means to escape her captivity on our homeworld. She would wish you to know that all others held there escaped with her, as you requested.”
While the others gaped, Roxton grinned. “So that’s what you did with that code key!”
And Califa’s admiration for him expanded yet again.
And then there was the matter of his apology. He’d quickly realized he’d hurt her grievously. Her surprise at his apology was matched by her surprise that he understood just why she was so angry; she hadn’t expected him to. But she wasn’t quite ready to forgive him, not yet. That he’d thought he’d had to buy her help still dug at her painfully.
But the realization that he’d assumed no one would help him on this chase without compensation because he felt he did not deserve such loyalty, also nibbled away at her anger, threatening to undermine it.
She gave herself a little shake. She knew she had been thinking of other things to distract her from the fact that the ordnance bunker where she had nearly died was their target. But if she didn’t concentrate on this mission, all of the risks they’d taken, all that they’d miraculously succeeded at would be for nothing.
The bunker—or what was left of it—was just ahead of them. It had nearly been destroyed, that day. And, with grim Coalition practicality, the hulk had been converted to what they needed most: another prison. It was this Califa had heard, the name of Darvis II catching her attention, then the news that they had turned the ruin into a one-cell prison mainly to make existence as miserable as possible for a Triotian captive. And from what she could see now, they’d succeeded; she and Dax had circled the place, and it looked uninhabitable.
And watched by two well-armed guards who circled the building every few minutes. Perhaps word had reached here to be on guard, although thanks to Dax’s penchant for rescuing anyone else they could along the way, the Coalition couldn’t be sure exactly who they were after. But since Triotians were their most precious prisoners now, the guard had been intensified anyway.
At Dax’s gesture, she inched a little closer. They waited, then moved forward again, each small gain of distance seeming to take forever. But the guards were watchful, and she knew they couldn’t move any faster without risking discovery.
She didn’t know what would happen this time; Dax had merely assured her the diversion would be there when they needed it.
They moved a little closer.
They had worked out the plan beforehand, based on Califa’s knowledge of the outpost and the surrounding area. They’d come down in the shuttle, while the Evening Star was well out of range on the dark side of the planet. Dax had brought the little craft straight down to the planet, then, using Rina’s incomparable memory as a guide, had flown to within a mile of the outpost, never once rising high enough to register on the outpost scanners. It was a hair-raising, incredible piece of flying, and Califa swore that more than once she’d heard the brush of branches against the underside of the shuttle.
They moved farther, a gain of a few feet this time as the guards both arrived at the far reach of their circling path. The two men were nearly out of their line of sight now, and Califa quickly followed Dax’s lead until he stopped once more.
The shuttle sat about a half mile away, in a narrow cleft between two scarps created by one of the sudden shifts of the land this area was prone to. The handheld comlink Dax carried could easily reach the shuttle, but the Evening Star was far out of its range. So Rina, grudgingly, had stayed aboard the shuttle, and when the time came, Dax would signal her, and she would relay the signal to the Evening Star with the shuttle’s much more powerful communications system. The outpost would hear the transmission, no doubt, but it would be much too quick for them to trace where it had come from.
And hopefully, they would quickly forget all about it when that transmitted order was carried out.
They were now within a stone’s throw of the barred door that had been implanted in the wreckage of the bunker. They waited, barely breathing as the guards came back. The two men exchanged a few words neither Dax nor Califa could hear, then began the circuit again.
As they approached that most distant point again, Dax lifted the comlink. Califa watched him as he watched the guards, his gaze intent as he gauged the timing. Time seemed to lock in place, to hold, as she looked at him. He was tense, yet crackling with vitality, more alive than any man she’d ever known. And suddenly all her anger drained away; what good was it, when they might die in the next moment?
He moved suddenly, flipping the comlink on and snapping out the order.
“Now!”
The prearranged double click came back at them; Rina had copied. Dax shut the comlink off quickly. Then, with a rakish, reckless grin, he reached out and cupped Califa’s cheek. She nearly jumped; he hadn’t touched her except accidentally since that day in the lounge, when he’d bargained with her. Then she realized he was tilting her head toward the sky.
It was silent, dark, and spangled with distant stars. Nothing unusual, nothing—
The sky above them erupted. Fiery objects rained down, looking like the most intense meteor shower she’d ever seen. But this was more massive than any natural event; the sky lit up as if with the flames of Hades.
Predictably, the two guards stared upward in shock at the blazing display. It was almost frightening, even to Califa, who at least knew it was somehow arranged; those two were stunned into immobility.
Dax nudged her then, and she tore her gaze from the blazing heavens. They ra
n the last few feet and ducked into the shadow of the ruin. By the time they reached the door, shouts of amazement and fear were echoing around them from the astonished inhabitants of the outpost; the noise was enough to cover the sound as Dax hit the door lock with his disrupter.
“What in Hades was that?” Califa whispered.
Dax grinned, that wild, exhilarated grin that never failed to make her heart race. “Larc finally got to use that rail gun of his. That’s every bit of space debris we’ve been able to collect over the last week.”
Califa stared at him as he pushed the door open. Fired from the modified rail gun into the upper reaches of the atmosphere above Darvis II, any object of size would indeed burn up as it reached thicker air. And a mass of them would do exactly what she had just seen.
Wordlessly—not the first time she’d been awed speechless at this man’s resourcefulness—she followed him into the cell.
This Triotian was a young one, not even Rina’s age. All this, for a child, Califa thought. She glanced at Dax. His face was set, his jaw rigid, and she knew he was thinking the same. And wondering how long the boy had been here.
He was chained to the wall by one thin ankle. He looked at them wildly, and Califa felt a vicious pang at the thought of him being held in this pit. The boy backed against the wall, shaking his head with fear. She couldn’t blame him.
“It’s all right,” she said as she knelt beside him. “We’ve come to take you out of here. But we haven’t much time.”
“I don’t believe you,” he said, pulling away.
“You must hold still,” Califa urged. “Or I can’t break you free of this shackle without hurting you.”
The boy trembled. “You’re Arellian,” he said. “There are Arellian officers. There is one in charge of this place. How . . . how do I know you’re not with the Coalition? How can I trust you?”
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