Steel Coyote

by Beth Williamson

  He chuckled. “There she is.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The captain who would shoot me if I got in her way.”

  She almost smiled. “Your charm is still annoying.”

  “Then I accomplished what I set out to do.”

  “You’re an ass.”

  “I think we’ve covered this already.”

  This time Remy did smile. The tension from the past hour had drained her and Max, well, his ridiculousness revived her.

  “I was serious, y’know. Those kids smell like burned cat piss.”

  “What?” The abrupt change in topic confused her.

  “I was trapped in that damn hold with them for an hour. They stink. There isn’t enough water on this boat to get them clean.” He wrinkled his nose. “I think the stench singed my nose hairs permanently.”

  “They were dirty.”

  “Dirty is too kind. They are grimy, bordering on disgusting.” He glanced at her. “The water purifier won’t be enough. Will the air lock knock the filth off them?”

  Remy frowned. “We are not putting those kids in the air lock.”

  “Your choice.”

  Remy wasn’t particularly fond of children, but she wasn’t going to cause them bodily harm to get rid of dirt. The fact was, they had a week and a half on the ship and had to make the best of it.

  “Maybe they should stay in the crew quarters with you.”

  He stiffened, and she foolishly noted how nicely formed his arms were when he was tight. “I don’t think so.”

  “It’s a wonderful idea. You can keep an eye on them, and they can learn how to be responsible crew members.” The words rolled out of her mouth, but she wanted to laugh instead.

  “You are a cruel woman.”

  “This much I already knew.”

  “Foley better fix that goddamn water purifier.”

  “I already talked to him about it. I’ll get him on it.” Remy turned to look at him. Max Fletcher had more than a day’s growth of dark whiskers, bags under his eyes, and tension lines at the side of his mouth.

  “We’re in trouble.” His tone had darkened.

  “Yes, we are.” She didn’t know where he came from, but he wasn’t stupid by any means.

  “Someone set me up on Azesus. I didn’t touch that old man.”

  “I reckon that’s true. There was no blood on you, and you had no time to commit the crime. Your Moral Compass vouched for you, too.”

  He grimaced. “I’m glad I bring out such trust in you.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Even if I thought you’d kill an old man for a crate of dented cans, kids’ clothes, and a, uh, nightie, there wasn’t time.” She tried to puzzle out why they would target Max or the old man. “Why kill?”

  He snorted. “To set me up. Maybe get rid of me, so it’s just the regular crew on board the ship. For someone who’s tough as hell, you’re naïve. Do you really think those two are Jean’s cousins?”

  She started. “Of course not, but I don’t know—”

  “I’m a threat to whatever plan is in play. Your pal Jean is working with a slaver. Those two are meant for some fat pig on Haverty who likes ’em young and agile.” His bitter tone had a hint of ancient pain beneath it. “You picked them from Azesus only to bring them to something worse.”

  Remy knew the truth when she heard it. She hadn’t wanted to believe Jean would stoop to selling child slaves, but Max was right. Morgan and Mason were chattel. She’d known that on Azesus.

  “The question now is, what do I do? Take them there knowing they’ll wish themselves dead? Or release them into a world that will just resell them again and in the process, get myself and my crew killed?” She rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand. “Fucking hell.”

  “You’ve got a week and a half to decide. For now, let’s see if this turtle can fly. We need to get out of this area before the military police come sniffing up our ass again.” His mouth twisted. “Plus, I saw someone from the Great Family.”

  A thread of cold panic coiled up tight in her gut. “You saw what?”

  “A woman wearing one of those poke bonnets. She raised her hand and showed me the tattoo on her wrist. Once I noticed her, she disappeared into the crowd.” His words echoed around the bridge as her heart pounded hard enough to crack a rib.

  “Shit, shit, shit. I saw someone on Station Twenty, too. The Great Family is watching us.” Her breath came out in choppy gusts. “We need to get out of here.”

  Max throttled back on the thrusters and glanced at her, ready to engage the hyperdrive. “She’s fast, right?”

  Remy stared at him, the incredibly handsome pilot she’d just committed a crime to protect, and wondered what the hell she was doing. Was any of this worth her future, her ship?

  There was only one real answer. Gunnar would tell her to go balls to the wall and do what was right.

  “Faster than any turtle that ever graced the universe.”

  He raised one dark brow. “You wouldn’t be stretching the truth, would you?”

  “Not even an inch.” She pressed the speaker button on the comm panel. “Everybody buckle up. We’re about to rip a hole in space.” Remy took a few minutes to lock her harness. “Punch it, Fletcher.”

  With a heart-stopping grin, he tightened his own five-point harness and reached for the hyperdrive lever.

  The Steel Coyote hung suspended for a moment before it shot like a bullet, slicing through the darkness of space. Unlike the turtles with no modifications, Remy’s ship was beautiful and powerful, fast as tachyon particles in a frenzy of speed.

  Stars flew past in a blur, extending smears of white lines against the windows of the bridge. Her stomach slammed against her backbone, her lungs had to work hard to pull in air. Her head pushed into the headrest, keeping her in place. Anyone else would be miserable.

  She loved it.

  From the first time she’d experienced hyperdrive five years earlier, she’d become addicted to it. That was the day she’d realized her friend Katie was a genius. Who knew Remy had a weakness for speed?

  She looked over at Max, and he smiled with what she could only describe as joy on his face. He loved it as much as she did. It didn’t surprise her, and at the same time it reaffirmed what her gut had told her. Max Fletcher was a good man and a good pilot. She could lose herself with him, and that was more dangerous than the dizzying thrust of the Steel Coyote as they hurtled through space.

  One wrong move and Remy could be destroyed.

  …

  Max throttled back on the hyperdrive with a twinge of disappointment. They couldn’t push the engines for more than thirty minutes at a time, but they needed to move as fast as possible and he was addicted to the thrill. Whenever he was on land, real dirt, he always found a way to race something with wheels or hooves or thrusters. Didn’t matter what it was, as long as it went fast.

  The Steel Coyote proved to be a surprise, a flying turtle that smoked the competition. Katie was a genius with machinery, that was a certainty. There wasn’t another ship of this type that could do more than lope through space. He could hardly wait the two hours for the engine to recover to slam into hyperdrive again.

  What didn’t surprise him was Remy’s love for speed. It was written all over her face every second the hyperdrive had been engaged. She was a ship owner’s daughter, and now an owner and captain in her own right. Why wouldn’t she love to fly through the blackness at a breakneck pace? It was the first time he’d seen something like happiness on her face. The emotional reaction transformed her from a beautiful woman to a breathtaking goddess.

  His entire body had reacted to the sight, tightening so much the hardness had cut into him. He’d had to concentrate on relaxing or find a way to live without blood circulating through his body. With some concentration, he managed to calm his reaction and enjoy flying the ship. Experiencing it with her had changed things between them.

  Max couldn’t explain what had changed, just
that it had. A subtle shift, but enormous in its effect. The air in the bridge grew thick and heavy. He couldn’t even look at her for fear it would start his body in a spiral of foolishness again. An awkward silence made it worse. The only noise was the ship humming along and Max’s breathing. If he wasn’t careful, he might actually say something stupid like “Wanna fuck?”

  Even Saint was quiet, choosing to stay tucked away rather than interrupt. Holograms couldn’t feel, but sometimes, Max swore, the little man could sense emotions.

  “I’m going to go check on the twins.” Remy saved them both and left the bridge, her long legs quickly carrying her out of the hatch and down the stairs to the galley.

  He didn’t know whether to call her back or be glad she was gone. He wasn’t the type of man to be at odds with his instincts, but damn if it wasn’t happening. They had a tight timeline to get to Haverty, and he wasn’t going to be the one who made them miss the deadline.

  “What happened?” Saint popped onto the console, concern in his tiny expression. There was that glimmer of emotion again.

  “We went fast. Now we’re going normal speed.” He wasn’t ready to discuss her with his Moral Compass yet. Maybe never.

  “Your sarcasm is sharp today.” The hologram shook his head. “Someday, you are going to actually need to talk to me.”

  “And will you listen?” Max wasn’t sure what prompted him to ask, but he didn’t want to know the answer. At least, he didn’t think he did.

  “You might not want to hear what I have to say, but I will always listen to you.” Saint was programmed to say that, of course.

  Max might have stumbled into Remy’s life, but now that he held her fortune and her ship in his hands, literally, he had to keep focused. All of them were now in this together, and their choices from here on out would determine if they lived or died, got rich or poor as church mice.

  The problem was, if he stepped foot on Haverty, his life expectancy plummeted, the twins would be in danger, and Remy could lose her ship.

  He didn’t know what they would do, but if they were smart, and if she listened to him, they might make it out unscathed. If the last week taught him anything, it was that Remington Hawthorne liked to make up her own mind and everyone else’s opinion be damned. Because she was a woman with strength and drive, folks likely called her a bitch. He knew differently.

  …

  Three hours into flight, Max set the autopilot and went downstairs to lay down for half an hour. There was nothing in the immediate vicinity that would affect their flight. The ship’s sensors would alert them if anything came within a thousand clicks. He was used to running hard, but the last week had drained him in more ways than one.

  He needed time to rest his brain, find a way to reconcile what his head and heart were saying to each other. Confusing muddle of shit he didn’t ask for, but it was his to own. He made his way down to the crew cabins, his steps heavy. Max glanced up as he stepped through the hatch to the corridor and stopped in his tracks.

  The door to his cabin was closed.

  He’d left it open, deliberately, to be sure he could see what he walked into, even in the dark. A weak light flickered from a cracked fixture on the wall in the hallway, certainly another one of Foley’s fuck-up repairs. Max walked on the balls of his feet toward the cabin, ready to confront whoever had decided to invade his privacy. There was no reason to snoop—it wasn’t as though he had valuables hidden away. He had very little, much of which was worthless, except to him.

  He pressed his ear to the steel door and closed his eyes. A low murmur of conversation vibrated through the metal. Two voices. He straightened up and frowned. Remy put the twins in his cabin, although there was another one next door they could have used. Why the hell did she make his private space into a nursery? He’d told her not to, but she’d done it anyway.

  He lifted the lever and pushed the door open. It banged into the wall, echoing through the ship like a bell. The twins sat on the lower bunk on the left, cross-legged, facing each other. Both of them stared at him with that doe-eyed look as though he were the interloper.

  Surprisingly, they were clean, wearing the clothes he’d purchased from the now murdered shopkeeper. Their hair was a lighter brown than he expected. At least the room didn’t smell of three-day-old rotten meat. It actually held a hint of lemons.

  “Why are you in here?”

  Neither of them spoke.

  “This is my cabin. I ain’t keen on sharing it with a couple of young’ns.” When he was annoyed, his speech fell back to the cadence of his childhood on Haverty.

  Saint appeared on his shoulder. “They are children.”

  “We don’t know that for certain. They could be boogedy creatures who are a hundred years old that look like young’ns.” Max sounded idiotic to his own ears. He blew out a breath and remembered he was exhausted. Some good sleep, and he’d stop being an asshole.

  They looked at each other and then back at him. He pulled the pistols out of their holsters. Morgan’s eyes widened, and Mason jumped to his feet, skinny fists raised.

  “Relax, little man, I ain’t gonna hurt you and I’m sorry for acting stupid. I need some time in the rack before I go back up to the bridge. You two need to get gone.” He set the pistols on the top bunk on the right and reached for his boots.

  Morgan pointed at the hologram. “What is that?”

  Of course they didn’t know what a Moral Compass was. They probably grew up in a very small, very controlled world.

  “I’ll show it to you later.”

  “Be nice,” Saint whispered.

  “It’s a hologram. More like a pain in my ass. His name is Saint, and he’s supposed to help me make the right decision.” Max didn’t listen to his companion as much as he should. He assumed he’d be dead already if it weren’t for the hologram, though.

  That’s when he noted the bag beneath the bunk—his property—was moved. Anger swept through him. If there was one thing he’d learned in life, it was to protect what little he had. So many important things in his life had been stolen. He remembered turning feral when someone threatened his precious possessions. Thieves had taken from him until he’d been big enough to fight for himself, and then they’d left him alone. These two “children” might be skilled thieves, using their sweet exterior to fool people into thinking they were innocent lambs.

  Max turned to face them, noting they now stood together, wide-eyed and silent.

  “What did you take?” He put his hands on his hips.

  Mason shook his head.

  “I know you explored my personal things. I’m going to look at my bag. Nothing better be missing.” The bitter taste of past betrayals clouded his sight. These two had brought an element of danger and frantic escape he never wanted to feel again. Their presence had condemned the entire crew to an impossible situation. It didn’t need to be worse.

  “We took nothing.” The boy finally spoke.

  Max squatted down and pulled out the bag. “I think it’s best if both of you move into the other cabin. Have Foley clean it out since he doesn’t do much of anything else. I have trouble sleeping with anyone near me.”

  He dug through the bag, mentally checking off each item as he had so many times before. Until his hand touched the small metal box, he hadn’t realized he was holding his breath. Thank God it was still there. He opened the box and it let loose a tiny creak from the hinges as it opened.

  Empty.

  He stared at it, willing it to not be empty. The one thing he’d kept more precious than anything else in the world was gone. Son of a bitch.

  Max looked up to find himself alone. “Shit.” He shoved his feet in the boots again then burst out of the cabin. As he cursed, he raced down the corridor and up the stairs to the galley.

  “Do not do anything you will regret.” Saint’s words were the last he’d speak for a while. Max clicked the hologram off with one tap on his wrist.

  Katie sat with Remy, reviewing a tablet. They both lo
oked up at him as he burst in.

  “Where are they?” he snapped.

  “Who?” Remy frowned. “And why aren’t you at the helm?”

  “I needed a half hour to shut my eyes. Those two little innocents you put in my cabin stole from me. Mason and Morgan, my ass. I’m going to call them Filch and Pilfer.” He was exhausted and stressed and now acting like a lunatic.

  “What did they steal?” Remy set the tablet aside.

  “Something that belonged to me.” He narrowed his gaze when he spotted Katie’s innocent expression. “What do you know?”

  “Me?” She touched one hand to her chest. “I haven’t seen them in an hour.”

  “I’m only going to ask one more time. Where are they?” He rolled his shoulders to release some of his tension. The kids were a product of their experiences. They probably had to steal to survive. Same as he used to.

  “Do you know where they are?” Remy asked Katie.

  “I, uh, saw them dart past a few seconds ago heading toward the cargo bay.”

  Remy got to her feet as Max pounded out of the room. “Wait!”

  He wasn’t going to wait. Filch and Pilfer owed him something, and he intended to get it back no matter what. The item they stole was the key to his life, to his future, to his past. They had no idea what they’d taken, and he’d make sure they never did. Until he had it back in his possession, he’d keep looking for them.

  The cargo bay was quiet when he stepped in. He fisted his hands and wished he’d thought to keep the small box on him. Then this wouldn’t have happened. What a mess. His boots echoed on the steel grate floor.

  “All I want is what you took. You give it to me and we’re square. Don’t make me chase you.”

  “Jesus, Fletcher, you’re threatening a couple of children,” Remy hissed from the doorway.

  “They’re thieves.” He tapped his fists against his thigh. “Thieves who have ten seconds to come out from behind the goddamn tractor tires.”

  Remy frowned at him and walked toward the tires that hid Cooper’s cargo for Haverty. She put her hands on her hips.

  “Come on out, then. It’s a small ship and we’re stuck on here together. If you took something of Max’s, you need to give it back.” She stood there, a calm Valkyrie. No doubt she’d be wielding her own weapon like a true goddess if they’d taken her property.