Which Ear gave it to you? His voice sounded like a growl to his own hearing.
Sherin stared back at him, wide-eyed and startled. No, Ser! I did not bring a tracker on board. I...I told the Pilot-Captain that too, but I don’t think she believed me. A tear trickled down her cheek and she scrubbed it away, the motion of her hand rapid and furious. I did not betray you, Ser Vahn. You must believe me.
Why did the Pilot-Captain not believe you? She must be wiser than I to have become so quickly suspicious. Vahn could feel Sammo shift into a defensive posture behind him and a distant part of his mind reminded him to add more credits to the man’s account. He would earn more than his agreed upon fee on this journey.
Sherin dropped her face into both hands, a cascade of ebony hair shielding her expression for a few seconds. When she looked back up, it was obvious that she was beginning to regain control. I am sorry that you have received bad tell, Ser. The glance she threw at Sammo was a flame of pure hatred. I spoke to an Ear before we left Kyrin, but it was regarding another matter, not about you or your concerns, Ser. TiCara has an unreasoning distrust of all Ears and accused me of planting the tracker because one of the crew saw us sharing tell.
Vahn suppressed another flash of anger. Why had the pilot confronted the rep instead of telling him? It should have come to him first to discipline his own employees. Which Ear was it?
Sherin looked at her hands. It was the one called Zig, Ser. I know him from…before. He is a friend of my mentor, former Pilot-Captain Elia LJ786. She made a vague gesture at her head by way of conveying the before and after that she referred to. We spoke of navigation and he wanted to know more about Pilot-Captain TiCara and whether I had seen her in port. I told him I did not know her and had heard tell only that she was a good pilot. That was all the tell we exchanged. She looked up at Vahn, dark eyes pleading now.
This time, Vahn found himself looking away. Could he believe her? It was the word navigation that had him worried. If the tracker was meant to reveal Electra’s location, and the techs learned that it was his own employee who had betrayed them, they would be within their charter to refuse to help him. Killing him would be almost secondary to that.
Zig, he knew of only by reputation. Not an Ear that he would hire to represent his interests, based on the little tell that he had heard. He wondered why another corp would, until it came to him that the Ear might be working on his own, might have gone rogue in this matter without his employer’s knowledge. But there was nothing he could do about that now. The tracker had been purposefully planted, suggesting Ear involvement, whether directly or through an agent on board the ship.
Sherin coughed and murmured, I didn’t give him the coordinates, not the tru ones. I couldn’t do that to you. Or her. Vahn refrained from asking which her the rep meant, and bit back an angry retort. It was clear which of them was more important from the tone of Sherin’s voice.
But you don’t know what they offered, what they said they could do on Electra. She ran her fingers through her hair and over her scalp in a nervous, jerky gesture. Her voice shook with emotion. I went there before, back when I was a medusa pilot, with a different employer. They were working on new tech in their labs. I was there because I was curious, wanting to see what the tech would do. Then, something went wrong, and the nanobots were released. I lost consciousness and when I was resuscitated, they…my medusas were gone. Her voice broke.
Vahn frowned, filling in the gaps in what she was telling him. Her tale matched much of what he had already heard. They, your shadow employers, offered to have them restored if you betrayed me? And you expect me to believe that you refused to do this?
She glared up at him now, angry at his obvious contempt. Do you know what it cost me to deny this, Ser? To be whole again, to be able to fly as one with a ship, even a small one like this? She gestured around at the walls of the Astra, her face filled with desperate longing for an instant, before shifting back to outrage. But I couldn’t. You would have never forgiven me. And she--she would not want me, not if I did that. Now, neither of you believes that I’m giving you tru tell and I’m losing it all anyway. Again. She slumped on the bed as if the fight had drained out of her.
Vahn felt a small twinge of compassion. True, she had nothing but motivation for betrayal, and he had no reason to believe her tell. But she was lovely in her vulnerability and despite knowing better, he was drawn to her and found himself wanting to accept her explanation. With an effort, he stilled his emotions and asked another question. How long have you known the Pilot-Captain that she should have such a hold on you?
Sherin’s voice was dull and listless, but got more animated as she got lost in her memories. She used to come to hear me when I sang in the bars. Her face, the way she watched me, she was really hearing me, not like most of the others. I was the most amazing thing that she’d ever heard. I could see that in her face. And she wanted me, wanted me so badly I could taste it even on stage. But we never spoke, not back then. Too afraid. She smiled a little, as if she was laughing at herself.
Sherin paused to draw a shaky breath, before continuing, Watching her with the other medusa pilots, that was made me want to get wired. They were all so strong, so full of possibilities. I wanted that, almost as much as I wanted her, so I got wired myself. Then I went to Electra and was…cured. After that, you hired me. And you began hiring her.
At your recommendation, Vahn pointed out.
She nodded. She’s a good pilot, reliable, just what you wanted. But I wanted to be near her, to see if she still saw me the way that she had. She was different too. And she was still wired. I couldn’t bear to get too close to them or her, too close to everything I’d lost. Who would want me without them? Her voice broke again and she started crying.
Vahn tilted his head to look up at Sammo. His bondarmin made a small motion with his hand, one that suggested locking and sealing a door. It was clear from the set of his mouth that he thought that Sherin was trying to manipulate her employer. Vahn looked away, studying the wall for a moment and weighing his suspicions and fears against each other.
She could not be allowed to contact the Ear again, not while they were still in flight nor any time thereafter until their mission was complete. Her handheld was sitting on a shelf nearby and he reached toward it, only to discover that he would have to stand to pick it up. Instead, Sammo reached past him and dropped it into his outstretched hand. Sherin looked up at the sound, but said nothing. She was silent as Sammo checked the rest of the room for other handhelds or communicators.
Then he helped Vahn stand. Vahn looked down at her. You know that I can’t let you out until we reach the asteroid. It would be a nova risk, and I do not have another such risk in me, not now. Sammo will make sure that you have food. The ship will provide everything else that you need. He turned and walked from the room, his bondarmin at his heels.
Behind him, his former representative was silent, her gaze fixed on them as the door slid closed behind them, cutting her off. Sammo yanked the panel off the door lock and crossed one of the wires with another. Not enough to do permanent damage: they could still free her. But she would stay in her room and Vahn could worry less about what she might be doing for the rest of their trip.
Let us find out what the good Pilot-Captain is evading and whether or not she succeeded. He gestured and Sammo led the way back to their quarters.
Chapter 16
TiCara strained her senses and every sensor and view screen that the Astra had trying to see if the corp ship had followed them into the comet’s tail. It might even be shadowing them on the other side of it, where the sensors couldn’t pick up. As the moments, then a machron, then two passed, the strain began to tell and her concentration wandered. Erol’s fidgeting distracted her, that alone being enough to realize that she was tiring. Even being wired could not keep her body on red alert indefinitely.
She wrenched her attention to the navigation sensors and the coordinates that Vahn had provided. How much longer did s
he need to do this? Were they still out there? She took precious moments to orient where they were against the comet’s current trajectory to determine where they were headed.
Something looked wrong with the Electra coordinates at first glance, but when she checked again, the anomaly had vanished. She must be imagining things. Navigation showed her much of what she expected: they were close to the outer Gathwaite planets. Between them and the far side of the system where Electra was supposed to be located, there were 3 planets, their moons, an asteroid belt and a lot of moving objects, including pirates, if the tell was true.
As TiCara tried to remember what else she knew about the system, the pirates were so close to the top of the list of her fears, that they almost went without mention. Gathwaite was a system with minimal corporate control, but she had trouble reconciling its reputation in the spacer bars with the stories about Electra. If the system was lawless, who controlled the asteroid? Who guarded it? She couldn’t imagine a sophisticated lab setup or its equivalent surviving without corp protection.
That contradiction by itself was enough to revive her doubts about the lab’s existence.
She nudged the Astra’s information cortex, trying to tap deeper into it at the same time that she flew the ship, but her medusas responded with a sharp warning. She was going to overload herself very soon if she kept it up. TiCara tried to shrug that off, but was unsuccessful. Her implants began blocking her access to nonessential functionality.
TiCara surfaced long enough to glance at Erol. Look up Gathwaite after we settle. Need more tell. I’m going to hop us into the ‘stroid belt, hide us there. Before he could answer, she was back under, lost in the tide of information about the ship and its status.
When she thought she had a solid enough sighting on the edge of the asteroid belt through all the comet debris, she sent out a warning to all aboard, then nudged the Astra into the belt. It was a just a short hop, not even a jump really, but she felt it jar painfully through her overextended body until she ground her teeth together to stay conscious. She pulled them out of the jump shivering and swearing at the pain in her head, surprised and annoyed at how poorly she was handling something that should have been relatively simple.
But then she wasn’t as focused as she should have been and she’d been on edge since before this trip started. That thought drove her to pull up the sensors for Sherin’s room. Readings were high, suggesting strong emotions and a lot of movement. But nothing more than that, nothing to tell her whether to rep was anxious or injured.
Or to tell her if Sherin was thinking about her and what they might have had. TiCara groaned and quietly promised herself a long trip to a VR spa when next she was planetside. If the best her meatspace interactions had to offer was Elia and Sherin, she was better off in virtual reality. She shook her head and opened her mouth, moving her jaw from side to side to ease her rapidly growing headache.
Some of her medusas detached themselves from the ship and were brushing her jaw and her neck in a wave of warm vibrations. She relaxed into their touch as well as she could while she checked the rest of the sensors on the ship. At least she still couldn’t see the corp ship on the aft sensors or in any of the other views. Maybe they had lost them.
She let her consciousness roll over into the weapons system, checking its status as well. Erol had everything they had armed and ready. They might be able to shoot before running, if the corp ship or pirates found them. That might be enough to let them escape. But better to not be found at all. She let herself roll back out of the Astra with that thought.
Erol was frowning at the consoles when she was able to turn her head to look at him. She nearly frowned herself. She wanted to drift in the gentle comfort that being plugged in gave her, wanted to drift in her fantasies once more before she had to leave them behind for awhile, perhaps for good.
Instead, she made herself ask, What is it? She hoped that he hadn’t found their pursuers, not again. She wasn’t ready to fly like that again, not right now.
Erol jumped in his seat as if he had forgotten that she was there. He didn’t meet her eyes as he spoke. I thought the coordinates changed from the first time I looked at them, but that can’t be. Probably space dust clouding my head. He shook his head. Sending you everything I could find on Gathwaite, Captain.
A feed rode from his console to her medusas, filling her in on everything that her ship had stored on the system. It wasn’t much more than she remembered: the files some mining, some agriculture, pirates, asteroid belts and a few other unimportant details. The corps in the system had heavily armed ships and the miners and farmers had some kind of protective guild to protect themselves from the pirates. And probably were the pirates, when times were lean. It didn’t mention Electra or nanotech or anything else of any use. Shady tell. Guess we’ll just be going in and find out, she grimaced and rubbed her head.
Something was definitely wrong with her Second. He was still fidgeting, but he also wasn’t meeting her eyes when she glanced at him. When she stopped to think about it, he’d been behaving oddly this entire trip. Not that she blamed him. Between the passengers, the tracker and the corp ship, emotions had been running high and it was already more than she thought she had bargained for.
But that wasn’t really true, at least not for her. She knew what she’d bargained for on this trip. Sherin’s face rose in her mind, and the rest of her beautiful self wasn’t far behind. TiCara swallowed a lump in her throat at the idea that she was never going to touch or taste the other woman again. There had to be another way, some solution that would make it possible for them to be together. But she wasn’t seeing it, not now.
Erol cleared his throat and TiCara emerged from her thoughts to squint at Gathwaite ‘s sun through the viewer. It was nothing special, just a yellow star slightly smaller than the one that Old Earth orbited around. Its size meant that it was freezing on the outer planets and the asteroid belt. Good thing they weren’t planning on being planetside much.
Her Second tapped the console with his fingers to get her attention and she gave him a grimace of apology. She must be drifting pretty badly to tune out so much. Erol wrinkled his nose at her and hesitated, lips parted but still not saying anything. TiCara made an impatient gesture and Erol closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them, cleared his throat again and said, Look, Captain...TiCara, I have tell I need give you.
TiCara frowned. This couldn’t be good. He was only formal when things were very serious. Her handheld buzzed sharply: Vahn’s code flashed on the screen when she looked at it. Probably wondering why they had been moving so fast. That much speed would have been hard on the old man. She would need to check in with him soon or lose what she retained of his confidence.
But she clicked the option to postpone in favor of hearing whatever it was that Erol was about to say. Anything that came with this much hesitation couldn’t be good. She wondered if he had found a berth on another ship and was choosing now to tell her.
He glanced at her handheld, then back up at her in time to catch her impatient head jerk of assent. Then he went back to looking at the screens. Before we left Kyrin, I...heard tell from someone I had not spoken to in a long time. Erol paused and frowned, as if he was lost in some unpleasant memories.
TiCara fought the urge to howl with impatience. She needed to rest and there were passengers to attend to before she could do that, but she clamped down on her frustration as well as she could. There might be a very good reason for all this reticence. An image of the tracker popped into her head unexpectedly, and once she started thinking about it, she couldn’t stop. The sooner her Second set her mind at ease, the better.
He was still staring at the screen in front of him and frowning, but his expression had shifted. He stiffened and leaned forward, Captain, you might want to plug back in. I’m not sure but I think we’ve got more company.
TiCara swore and clicked back in, letting her senses extend through all of the ship’s scanners. Before the comet, there had be
en one ship out there that was too close for comfort. Now, there were four.
Navigation informed her that they were just inside the edge of the outer asteroid belt. So the ships were either mining security, flying in remarkably close formation. Or they were pirates. Given the way this job had gone so far, it wasn’t too difficult to determine which ones these probably were. Need to run for the asteroids and find a big rock with craters, she told Erol.
She slipped back into the ship’s computer as he swore in turn and hit the alarm to notify the passengers of another unexpected acceleration. It wouldn’t be as bad as the last one because the Astra was too far into the belt for
even a short jump, but they might not appreciate the distinction. But there’d be time to explain that later. If they made it.
TiCara whipped the ship through evasive maneuvers, twisting and spinning around the nearest asteroids, and dodging between two that were about to collide. Behind them, the pirates began firing, their shots clearly intended to disable, though she doubted that they could aim that effectively, given what she was making the ship do. Which meant she might get her ship destroyed trying to save it.
Time to find a hiding spot before that happened. She looped around the next asteroid, and flinched as the Astra shuddered and a loud klaxon alarm sounded through the Bridge. They’d been hit on one of the wings. She could feel the Astra list sharply starboard and she compensated with a sharp shift in the engine and thrusters.
A visual map of the known asteroids popped up in front of her with a thought. She scanned it in a blink, then three, spinning and turning the map as she did the same with the ship. C’mon, give me something, she thought with desperate impatience.
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