The starship Wild Ride blasts away from Velinx Station at an acceleration that, were it not for the various esoteric fields pervading the interior, would reduce me and my girlfriend to a thin layer of comingled paste on the rear bulkheads. We’re pursued by a desultory spatter of pulse-beams, fired by a Commonwealth weapons officer who knows he hasn’t got a hope of stopping us but needs to be seen making an effort. A few moments later, a burst of blue-white light envelops the ship as it drops into the trackless depths of hyperspace, and we’re safe.
“Well,” Ahn says, leaning back in the battered pilot’s chair and tossing the Skolig idly from one hand to another. “Chalk up another one for Plan Z?”
I’m working on my breathing, resting my head against the cracked cushion of the co-pilot’s chair in the Ride’s cockpit, looking out the forward viewport into the blue nothing of hyperspace. In and out, in and out. Keep breathing so you don’t have the chance to scream. Not from fear at our narrow escape—say one thing for Ahn, it’s that she’s good at flying and blasting, and anyway if I screamed every time I’d nearly been shot, disintegrated, asphyxiated, devoured, torn to spaghetti by gravitational forces, and generally come within a whisker of having my corporeal existence prematurely terminated over the last few years, I wouldn’t have time for anything else. Rather, it’s Ahn who is on the verge of provoking me into hysterics, because under the circumstances she has the audacity to fucking grin at me.
Plan Z, in her parlance, means, oh shit everything’s gone wrong, time to blast our way out. Plan Z means, shoot first, run for it, and ask questions probably never. Plan Z means burning away from yet another station at top speed, with nothing to show for our efforts but carbon scoring on the hull, the unwanted attention of the authorities, and an utterly priceless gemstone that is now so radioactively hot (in the stolen-goods sense) that no fence in the Commonwealth would lay a finger on it.
Ahn is extremely fond of Plan Z. To her credit, she’s an amazing shot, and has a sixth sense about diving for cover. It makes her good to have on your side when things take a sudden lurch into the shit, and utterly fucking useless when it comes to little details like keeping the ship fueled and paying overdue docking fees.
She knows she’s in trouble. I can tell by the way she’s suddenly making shiny megakitten eyes at me, like she can get me to ignore what just happened by being unutterably adorable. It’s a delicate moment for our relationship, and definitely requires a touch of diplomacy. Fortunately, diplomacy is my specialty.
“Fuck you,” I tell her, “and fuck your Plan Z.”
I turn around and stalk down the long central corridor of the Wild Ride—named by Ahn, of course, because my girlfriend’s sense of humor apparently fossilized at age twelve—kicking aside a half-eaten box of jyck-buns and snatching a pair of stray underwear from where they inexplicably adorn a light fixture. Ahn, after hurriedly checking the autopilot, comes after me.
“Come on,” she wheedles. “We made it, didn’t we? And we’ve still got the thingie.” She holds up the crystalline Skolig, which throws multi-colored sparkles from its many facets. “It’s fine!”
I turn around, waving the dirty undergarment with such vigor that she takes a hasty step back.
“You shot a Commonwealth customs officer!” I growl. A thoroughly dirty one, but still. “In the face!” I still have evidence of this, in the form of bits and pieces and fluids that had once belonged to said customs officer, smeared and drying all over my dress and in my hair.
“He had a gun to your head!” Ahn says.
“We were negotiating.”
“He was going to negotiate your brains across the wall.”
“I could have talked him down.”
“Forgive me if I wanted to protect you.”
“Protect me by getting into a gunfight with half a company of marines.” I let out a long sigh and use the underwear to mop a bit of customs officer off my forehead. “Who by now will have uploaded our descriptions, and that we were trying to sell the thingie”—I indicate the priceless Skolig Ahn is again casually juggling from hand to hand—“which has therefore gone from a billion-credit score to the galaxy’s most fabulous paperweight.”
Ahn frowns at the Skolig. “I told you this job was too complicated.”
“It would have been fine if you could keep your blaster in your pants!”
She grins again. “I thought that was what you liked about me, Princess.”
“Don’t call me princess.”
“It’s still technically true, even if your father disowned you.”
“He disowned me because I ran away with you!”
“I can’t be held responsible for the effect my roguish charm has on a certain type of girl—”
I hit her in the face with the wadded-up underwear and stalk away to slam the button that opens the door to my cabin.
“Ilya, wait!” Ahn peels the panties off and frowns at them, then holds up the Skolig. “What are we going to do with the thingie?”
The suggestion I offer is anatomically improbable, or at least extremely uncomfortable. Before Ahn can think of an appropriate retort, I hammer the control panel with a fist and the door hisses closed behind me.
By the time I emerge, she’s had the chance to come up with something.
“I thought about what you said,” she says, turning the Skolig over in her fingers, “and, you know, with a little industrial-grade drive lubricant I might be able to—”
“If you can cease being puerile for one moment,” I say, going for austere haughtiness, “I have something to show you.”
“Do you need the thingie?” Ahn says innocently. “Or the drive lubricant?”
Fortunately, a few hours alone in my cabin, including an extended shower to rid me of the customs officer’s lingering presence, have done wonders for my disposition and I’m able to respond to Ahn’s “humor” with something approaching equanimity. I find it helps to think of her as a divinely appointed burden, assigned to me by the creator of the multiverse to make up for my sins. Which particular sins, I’m not sure, but they must have been fucking awful ones.
Ahn comes in and sits on my unmade bed, which takes up at least half the diminutive cabin. I ignore her and move to the console, tapping at the inputs.
“Do you remember my smuggler friend Kestra?”
Ahn frowns. “I remember Kestra, but I’m not sure about the friend. Didn’t she try to kill you after Gaios?”
“If I cut off contact with people after they tried to kill me once or twice, I’d have a hard time filling out a dinner party. I got in touch with her, and she’s willing to take the Skolig off our hands.”
Charts flicker into being above the console, showing the Igan system and an object in a long, elliptical orbit. I rapidly plot a hyperspace course from where the Wild Ride is currently resting, somewhere above the third fractal harmonic.
“She hasn’t heard about the Commonwealth alert yet?” Ahn says.
“I warned her myself. Less chance of a misunderstanding that way. But she’s a smuggler, and she has a better chance than we do of selling the thing over the border somewhere. So she’ll buy it, at a significant discount.”
“Perfect!” Ahn bounces to her feet. “See, I told you it would work out.”
“You did not, in fact.” I press my hand to my forehead. “And it may still not ‘work out.’ Kestra can be... twitchy, and she might expect me to be angry about Gaios. So when we get there, no Plan Z, understand?”
“I mean, sure.” Ahn grins. “Unless there’s no other alternative, right?”
“Ahnika.” I grab her shoulders. “Please. I need you to trust me. I will make this work, but I need you to stay calm. Can you do that for me?”
She blinks her irritatingly beautiful blue-green eyes. “Okay.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
I let go of her, and she leans in to kiss me.
“Looks like we’ve got...” She taps the console, and the ship thrums as it starts executing the hyperspace transition. “Three point two five hours to kill.” She arches one eyebrow.
My girlfriend, master of subtlety. But there’s fuck-all else to do in hyperspace, I suppose.
Three point one hours later, Ahn is hurrying through her shower, while I finish getting dressed. I frown at my reflection, and reluctantly conclude that the crown with the spikes is perhaps a bit over the top.
Ahn emerges, naked and tracking wet footsteps across my bedroom floor. She gives a low whistle. I turn around, fast enough to make the cloak flare. No point in wearing the thing if you’re not willing to go for effect.
“Wow,” she says, toweling off. “Are we selling stolen goods or accepting the surrender of an enemy kingdom?”
“One never knows,” I say coolly, “what the day may bring.”
But I’m smiling, because the dress is a good one, red and black with little silver touches, clingy where it needs to be and swinging dramatically elsewhere. It’s the kind of thing you could wear on the bridge of your battlecruiser to order the subjugation of a recalcitrant planet. My hair, long and red, gleams like it’s been polished.
Ahn, of course, dresses in dark pants, a light shirt, and the same ratty synthleather vest she always wears, open at the front. Her hair, still damp from the shower, is short and brilliantly blue, contrasting with her soft brown skin. And, of course, there’s the pair of blasters holstered low on her hips. She honestly wouldn’t look dressed without them.
The ship’s system pings, indicating imminent emergence into realspace. I turn the wall from a mirror into an exterior display. Labeled AH-1310, the small object we’re approaching looks like a smallish asteroid. There are thousands like it scattered across the Commonwealth—played-out mines, abandoned military outposts, and so on. A typical smuggler meet.
It isn’t, actually, quite typical. But if all goes well, that’s not going to matter.
Kestra’s ship, the Alcie, is already docked to one side of the rock. It’s several times larger than the Wild Ride, with a crew of about a dozen and plenty of space for illicit cargo. Our security system reports they’re scanning us, but politely, no targeting beams. I tell the ship to take us in, and the Wild Ride accelerates, leaving a wake of coronal blue particles dragged out of hyperspace.
“So what are we going to do?” I ask Ahn.
She frowns. “Sell the thingie to Kestra?”
“And?”
“Not shoot anybody.”
“Right.”
“Unless—”
“Ahn!”
“Right.” She sighs, patting her blasters mournfully. “But what if—”
“Don’t shoot anybody unless I tell you to, all right?”
She takes in my expression, which is thunderous, and grins. “All right.”
I examine her for signs of insincerity and find nothing obvious, so I give a short nod. “Good. Let’s go.”
We dock on the opposite side of the rock from the Alcie, nestling against the bulbous surface of AH-1310. The Wild Ride attaches itself to the airlock, proclaims the environment safe, and opens her doors onto a corridor lit by intermittent glowpaint. It’s native rock on all sides, bulgy and weird-looking, with only the floor smoothed. I step out gingerly, but gravity holds.
“You have the Skolig?” I ask Ahn.
“The what?”
“The thingie.”
“Oh, yeah.” She holds it up, spraying rainbows, and tosses it to me as though it weren’t a priceless cultural treasure. “Here.”
I catch it—not that it really matters, the thing is basically indestructible—and run my fingers over the sharp facets. It’s surprisingly heavy, denser than lead. I tuck it into a hidden pocket—of course this dress has hidden pockets—and stride purposefully into the asteroid, with Ahn following cheerfully behind. It’s a good dress for striding purposefully.
The tunnels are a maze, but that doesn’t bother me. My ability to keep track of myself by dead reckoning is essentially perfect, courtesy of the genetic meddling of a long-ago ancestor who figured that would be a useful ability for the royal family of an orbital kingdom. A glance at the map before we left the Ride was all I needed to keep it straight.
I direct us through several junctions to a large central chamber, roughly equidistant from both ships. It’s some sort of old command center, its walls lined with derelict equipment. A catwalk overhead supports more dead monitors and broken terminals.
Kestra’s waiting in the middle of the room. She’s a large, broad-shouldered woman, blonde hair buzzed short, her lower body swathed in a power suit. I recognize the man standing at her shoulder as Drav, her lieutenant, who has sleepy eyes and a ready smirk. But it’s the third figure that really catches my attention. He’s a Wrax—a humanoid lizard, basically, though that description would annoy any Wrax as human-chauvinist. He wears what looks like a gilded loincloth and a purple sash over hard gray-green scales, stippled with blue patches.
His presence is unusual not because the Wrax are unknown in Commonwealth space—quite the opposite, rather. For the last decade, the Wrax and the Commonwealth have been in a state of not-quite-war, fleets bristling along the shared border. Finding one of the lizards here is a bit of a surprise.
I can tell it unsettles Ahn, too, by the way her hands drop to her blasters. I quickly touch her shoulder, and she subsides. Kestra glares at us like we’re a particularly unpleasant bit of septic discharge, and I give her my sweetest smile in return.
“Hello, Your Highness,” she says.
It’s mockery, but I accept with a nod. “The correct term of address would be ‘Your Radiance’, actually, but I appreciate the effort. Hello, Kestra.”
“You're looking well.”
“That must be very disappointing for you.”
“A bit.” She smiles, humorlessly. “But from failures come new opportunities, they say.”
“So I hear.” I glance at the Wrax. “Fascinating company you’re keeping.”
“This is Custodian Xythiss,” Kestra says. “He was very interested in meeting you.”
“Custodian?” Ahn says. “Like he cleans the toilets?”
“The translation is not exact.” Xythiss takes a step forward and executes a deep bow with unexpected dexterity. His speech is surprisingly good, too, with only a trace of the hiss one usually hears from Wrax. “It means one who cares for the needs of his people. In your language, ‘prince’ might convey the meaning better.” He straightens up, a forked tongue flicking past a muzzle full of needle teeth. “Greetings, Princess Ilya Fortuna Dobraev McDonaugh. Rumors of your beauty have, if anything, understated the case.”
Bemused, I bow in return. “Greetings, Custodian Xythiss.”
“Smooth-talking lizard,” Ahn whispers, and I wave a hand to shush her.
“Before we get bogged down with chit-chat,” Kestra says, “can we finish what we came here to do? I’d like to see the merchandise.”
I turn my back on them for a moment and extract the Skolig, holding it up for inspection. Even in the dim light of the corridor, the gemstone throws fractured rainbow patterns into every corner.
“Drav?” Kestra says, her eyes fixed on the stone.
“It certainly looks right,” he says. “Have to run a test to be sure, of course.”
“Of course,” I say. “We'll wait right here while you do that.”
Kestra gives a nod, but Xythiss holds up a hand.
“Actually, I think that Princess Ilya would be much more comfortable aboard our ship. I would like to extend an... invitation.” His tongue flickers again. “We have a great deal to discuss.”
Kestra turns her glare on her companion, frowning. “That wasn’t what we agreed. If you want to talk to her, you can talk here.”
“Indeed,” I put in. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m afraid I must... insissst.” Some of Xythiss’s hiss comes through.
Now, I’ve been doing this long enough to know that when someone says that, in that tone of voice, everything is about to go rapidly sideways. More to the point, so has Ahn, and so I get ready to throw myself flat in anticipation of the inevitable thunder of blaster fire. But it doesn’t happen—there’s a clank of metal and the rising hum of energy weapons overhead, but that’s all.
The catwalk above us is suddenly ringed by two dozen armored shapes. Half are Wrax soldiers with long, ugly-looking rifles, while the others are spindly wardroids, skeletal things that look like they’d fold up into neat little cubes.
From the looks on Kestra and Drav, this development is as unexpected to them as it is to me. Even more unexpected, though, Ahn is standing still, perfectly calm, arms crossed and not going for her blasters. When I look at her incredulously, she raises her eyebrows, and I can practically read her mind.
No Plan Z, right? There’s no gloating in her expression, nothing passive-aggressive, just simple faith. You asked me to trust you.
Which is, of course, what I wanted. I just wasn’t anticipating running into a platoon of Wrax marines on top of Kestra’s smuggler goons.
I force myself to take a deep breath and be calm. It’s probably for the best that Ahn hasn’t defaulted to shooting everyone. Twenty wardroids and lizard soldiers might be a bit much, even for her, and it’s a long way back to the Wild Ride. Whatever Xythiss wants, there’s still a chance of getting out of here without bloodshed.
“You fucking snake,” Kestra snarls. She rounds on him, suit legs whirring. “What exactly do you think you’re doing—”
Xythiss calmly draws a small pistol from behind his back and shoots her in the head. The crackling energy bolt sprays a mist of blood, brain, and bone against the wall behind her, incidentally painting Drav a mottled red in the process.
Okay. We can still get out of here without any of my blood getting shed, which is what really counts. Xythiss holsters his pistol as Kestra’s body wobbles and topples over. Drav, looking up at the ring of weapons, raises his hands sheepishly.
“I hope that clarifies matters,” Xythiss says. “Master Drav, in case you are pondering anything clever, the squad I left on your ship will have secured it by now. Princess, will you do us the honor of accompanying me to have a conversation in less... squalid surroundings?”
“Well,” I manage calmly. “When you put it that way.”
The Wrax soldiers descend from the catwalk while the wardroids keep us covered. They search me, not roughly, and to my surprise make no attempt to confiscate the Skolig. Whatever this is about, it doesn’t appear to involve the most valuable gemstone in the sector.
Two lizards relieve Ahn of her gunbelt and take hold of her arms. She gives a yelp when one of their claws catches her, and I see a trickle of blood. I take a long step forward and glare at Xythiss.
“I don’t know what you’re planning,” I tell him. “But if you don’t tell your thugs to back off, I swear I won’t rest until I put you out an airlock.”
He blinks, nictitating membranes sliding into place, and hisses something in his own language. The two Wrax step away from Ahn.
“Escort Master Ahn somewhere she can... rest,” he tells them. “Politely, please.”
I catch Ahn’s eye as they lead her away. There’s no sign there that her faith in me has been shaken, which perversely shakes me in a way I can’t really explain. The last I see of her, she’s vanishing into one of the weirdly bulbous tunnels, flanked by armed Wrax.
Fuck.
Xythiss’s soldiers provide a polite escort back to the Alcie. He dismisses most of them, and they take Drav away, while a couple follow us to the rear of the ship. The Alcie is older than the Wild Ride, but she’s in good repair, with no discarded underwear strewn in her corridors. We end up in a passenger cabin—Kestra’s smuggling business often includes people, especially those interested in staying clear of the authorities. It’s furnished neatly but blandly with a simple bunk, storage unit, and wall console, while a few alien-looking pieces of machinery are presumably Xythiss’s. I can’t tell if they’re navigational systems or kitchen equipment.
“Leave us,” he says to the guards. “And do not bother me unless a Commonwealth battleship drops out of hyperspace.”
They hiss in the affirmative, and the door slides closed behind us. Xythiss lets out a very human-sounding sigh.
“I apologize for the... unpleasantness,” he says. “My research indicated that you and Kestra were not on the best of terms. I hope her demise was not unduly painful to witness.”
“I’m used to it,” I say. I walk slowly around the room, feeling wary. “It’s going to make my business arrangements significantly more difficult, though.”
“Selling the Skolig?” He extends a clawed hand. “May I?”
I hand it over with a shrug. He holds it up to the cabin light, watching rainbows swirl and re-form on the walls.
“Beautiful,” he says. “But ultimately, of course, simply a gew-gaw.” He hands it back to me. “I have a proposition for you, Princess. One I think you will find considerably more advantageous than disposing of stolen merchandise.”
I toss the Skolig from hand to hand, feeling its weight. “I’m listening.”
“How would you like to be queen?”
I nearly miss the next toss. Xythiss smirks at me, to the extent a lizard can smirk, and turns to a wall console. A few taps bring up a map of the Commonwealth, with the Kingdom of Ventimosk highlighted. My father’s kingdom. My home. Two dozen orbital habitats and half a hundred asteroids spread over three systems.
“You may not be caught up on current events,” I say, finally. “My father disowned me and officially struck me from the line of succession. And even if he hadn’t, I have two sisters, three brothers, and a great-grandfather in cryonic suspension who would ascend the throne before I could.”
“I am aware,” Xythiss says smoothly. “But as your father demonstrated, the legalities can be... amended.”
He taps another key, and long, curving blue lines slice over the display, crossing the Commonwealth border from Wrax space and impaling it like a volley of arrows. One them goes straight through Ventimosk.
“You’re planning an invasion.” I keep my voice level, not quite successfully.
“The Commonwealth has grown weak,” he says, staring at the plans with satisfaction. “Kingdoms like your own chafe under the rule of your obstreperous Senate. With the proper encouragement, we believe the people of Ventimosk would accept a new ruler. One with... more appropriate ideas.”
“Proper encouragement meaning a Wrax war fleet, I assume.”
He inclines his head. “Certainly it would be preferable to the alternative, in which your ships are broken and your stations taken by storm. A great deal of unnecessary resource expenditure, and unnecessary bloodshed for you. It could all be so much... simpler.”
My heart is beating fast. I swallow, playing for time. “Why me? Why not my father or someone else in the family?”
“Your father and your siblings have a great deal invested in the current order,” the lizard says. “You, on the other hand, are an outlaw. Hunted by your own people. Our analysts suspected you would be more open to persuasion.”
On the surface, it’s not a completely crazy idea. Well. The Wrax are crazy if they think they can defeat the Commonwealth, or that because the people of Ventimosk grumble about taxes and bureaucracy they’d be willing to knuckle under to a bunch of lizards. Clearly Xythiss has not read much of our history, which is about eighty percent doomed last stands against impossible odds. But given that he thinks he can pull that off, having a puppet monarch to put on the throne seems like a good way to go, and who better than the runaway princess playing at thief-with-a-heart-of-gold?
More importantly, by showing me this, Xythiss has made it clear that I’m not walking out of here a free woman. Either I sign on to this scheme, or he’ll have to dispose of me for knowing too much.
Fortunately, I have a plan, and it isn’t Plan Z.
I hope Ahn is all right. They wouldn’t hurt her before Xythiss gets what he wants from me, would they? I made it clear enough that I wouldn’t cooperate if he did.
My fingers tighten around the Skolig.
“I'm sorry,” I tell him, “this is just a lot to take in.”
“I understand.” His tongue flicks. “But you appreciate that our position here is precarious. I require an answer.”
“You’ve got the defenses at Anaxomander Gap wrong, though.” I step closer and point to the wall display. “There are three battle stations, not one, and they’re closer to the edge of the system.”
Xythiss blinks, then turns to examine the map more closely. “Impossible. Our plans are based on the latest intelligence—”
At which point I hit him very hard on the side of the head with a priceless gemstone.
Knocking out an alien is always tricky business, but the Wrax are humanoid enough that the procedure is similar. Xythiss stumbles sideways and sprawls on the floor with barely a squeak. I polish a little green blood off the Skolig and tuck it back in a pocket, then step to the console. A few moments later, a data crystal joins the gemstone, and I gesture the display off.
Time to think about getting out of here. I go to the door, tap the pad to open it a hand’s breadth, and call to the guards outside.
“Custodian Xythiss requires the human prisoner Drav,” I tell them.
There’s a long silence. I picture them looking at one another.
“If I could speak to him—” one says.
“Custodian Xythiss is busy,” I snap, with my best royal hauteur. “He ordered that he not be disturbed.”
Another silence, then an affirmative hiss. One of the guards walks away.
I spend five minutes pacing back and forth, fretting about Ahn. I have the presence of mind to make sure Xythiss’s unconscious body isn’t visible from the doorway, though, so when the guards return with Drav, they don’t see anything obviously amiss. I wave them away, and they leave the smuggler and shut the door behind him.
Drav has cleaned himself up, thankfully. He raises his eyebrows at me, and I beckon him closer, until he can see Xythiss stashed behind the bed. He gives a low whistle.
“I’m assuming,” I say, “that you’re not thrilled about working with a bunch of murderous lizards.”
He looks at Xythiss for a moment, and my pulse slams in my throat. This is the most dangerous bit—if Drav has cut some kind of private deal with the Wrax, I am fucked. Last time I met him, he struck me as a run-of-the-mill scoundrel, but loyal to Kestra. But I’ve been wrong before.
“No,” he says, with a slight spacer drawl. “I can’t say that the prospect has me enthused.”
“Then you wouldn’t be averse to working together to get the fuck out of here?” I produce the Skolig and give it a twirl, spraying rainbows. “In exchange for, say, a share in the proceeds? Assuming you’re privy to enough of Kestra’s contacts to sell it on.”
“I don’t think I’d be averse to that at all,” he says, smile widening.
“Good.” I tuck the Skolig away. “If you can get us off the ship and back to the asteroid, I can get us to the Wild Ride and we can be in hyperspace before the lizard wakes up.”
This is another gamble, but a safer one. If I know anything about smuggler ships, it’s that they tend to be fitted with a bunch of extremely non-standard passages, tunnels, and crawl spaces, ideal for avoiding the attention of any snooping authorities. Sure enough, Drav gives a confident nod.
“I can manage that,” he says.
“Then what are we waiting for?”
He grins. After taking a moment to claim Xythiss’s hidden blaster pistol, he leads me into the cabin’s small washroom, where a wall panel pops off with a few sharp raps. Behind it is a narrow corridor, sandwiched between the outer hull and the inner bulkheads. It’s low enough we have to walk bent over, the murmur of the ship’s systems washing over us.
“So how did Xythiss and his goons manage to get on board?” I ask quietly. “I thought Kestra was more careful than that.”
“Times have been hard lately, and we needed a big score.” Drav grimaces. “Xythiss and his entourage paid well. He said he was a merchant who needed escorting around Commonwealth space without official questions. When we heard from you, he acted very interested in that gemstone. Then once we get here, it turns out his big cargo container of ‘merchandise’ is full of battle armor and wardroids.”
“Ouch,” I sympathize.
“Fucking lizards.” He holds up a hand. “Gotta be quiet for a bit. There’s a hidden tunnel under the docking corridor, but if anyone’s up there they’ll hear us.”
I nod and follow his lead. He kneels by a small opening at floor level, barely large enough to crawl through on hands and knees. After listening for a moment, he scoots into it. I follow, with only a slight sigh at the thought of the dust that’s going to get all over my beautiful, swoopy dress. Can’t look a proper space pirate with gray streaks messing up your black and red. But needs must.
At one point, Drav freezes as heavy footfalls pass directly over our heads. But no one notices our hushed breathing, and once they’re past, we keep crawling, until Drav pushes loose another panel and we emerge at the other end of the Alcie’s boarding tunnel. Drav wiggles out, pistol first. The rocky corridor is empty, the lock behind us closed and dark.
“I hope you know where to go from here,” he says, “because I sure as fuck don’t.”
“I grabbed a map off Xythiss’s console.” I turn slightly, lining my memory up with the dead-reckoning sense in my head. “This way. Come on.”
We hurry down the tunnels as quietly as we can, ducking into side junctions whenever we hear an approaching Wrax. Fortunately, Xythiss’s soldiers think they’re alone and make plenty of noise. Most are heading back to the Alcie, presumably wondering what’s keeping their boss. Eventually, somebody is going to overcome their reticence and break into his cabin. We’d better be well away from here by then.
“Shh,” Drav says, crouching by a tunnel entrance. “There’s a guard.”
We’re back at the central cavern. All roads lead through here, unfortunately, which makes it a good place to post a watchman. I risk a quick glance and spot an armored Wrax, blaster rifle in hand, walking a slow circuit.
“Can you hit him from here?” I ask, nodding to the pistol.
Drav shakes his head. “With that armor, it’ll take a head shot to be sure.”
Ahn would have been able to make the shot. Ah well. “I’ll get him closer then.” I brush dust off my dress. “Be ready.”
Before he can say anything, I step into the open. The Wrax hears me and turns, rifle coming up. Whatever he was expecting, though, it’s not me in full imperious stride. I figured he wouldn’t shoot, since he last saw me in the boss’s company, but I can’t deny my heart beats a little faster until he lowers the weapon.
“What... you... doing here?” His words are a choking hiss, with none of Xythiss’s sophistication.
“I’ve come to collect you, of course,” I tell him. “Custodian Xythiss wants to speak to everyone, now that we’ve come to an arrangement.”
“You... prisoner!” He raises the rifle as I get closer. “Sssstay back!”
I hold up my hands and put on a demure smile. “Well, not a prisoner, but I’m certainly not going anywhere. Come on.” I loop one arm around his and bat my eyes. Probably wasted effort, given that he’s a lizard, but you hear stories. “Custodian Xythiss is waiting.”
“Waiting?” He looks confused, but allows me to tug him forward a few steps. Then he shakes his head. “Musssst check in. Orders.” He reaches for a control pad at his throat.
“He did say he was in a hurry,” I manage, dragging the guard another step. “Just ask him yourself.”
“No!” He pulls away from me, raising his rifle again. “You, hands up!”
The Wrax takes a couple of steps back, putting him well out of my reach. Fortunately, since I managed to turn him around, this also puts him within a meter of Drav’s hiding place. The smuggler emerges, pistol raised, and I sidestep neatly to avoid being caught in the spray of lizard-bits. The headless guard sprawls on the floor, rifle clattering away.
“You,” Drav says, “have got some serious guts, I have to admit.” He shakes his head. “What would you have done if he’d started shooting?”
“Fucking died, obviously,” I say. “But in this line of work you develop a sense for itchy trigger fingers.” I let out a breath and point to another tunnel. “All right. That way.”
Drav’s eyes narrow, and he points another direction. “Your ship is that way. I saw it when you came in.”
Damn. I was hoping not to have to explain. “It is, but Xythiss has got Ahn locked up over there. We need to grab her before we get out.”
“You’ve gotta be kidding,” he says. “There’s a half-dozen wardroids with her, and they’ll be on to us any minute now. We’ll get slaughtered.”
“I have a few ideas.”
“I’ll hear them once we’re out of here,” he says. “Besides, the fewer shares the better, right?”
“Ahn’s my partner.” For my sins.
“You can find a new partner.” He grins. “Hell, we might do pretty well together, have you considered that?”
I give a tired sigh, because I can see exactly where this is going. “I’m not leaving without her.”
“Really,” he says. “What’s she got that I don’t?”
For starters, I think, as he turns the gun on me, I trust her. And she trusts me. No Plan Z, I’d told her, and she’d gone along quietly when a bunch of lizards marched her to a cell. Trust was important to me when I was a princess. Now that I’m a thief, it’s a commodity more valuable than even the Skolig.
Plus, of course, she’s a hell of a lot better looking than Drav.
I shrug.
“Fair enough.” Drav aims the blaster at my chest. “I’ll take the gem and be on my way, then.”
“How unexpected.” I raise my hands. “It’s in my pocket.”
“Slowly,” he says.
I extract the Skolig, and he points to the floor. With another sigh, I set the gemstone down and back away. He shuffles forward, snatches it up, and backs off again.
“I guess this is where we say goodbye, then,” he says. “Unless you want to change your mind.”
“Aiming a gun at me is not helping your argument,” I tell him.
“Nothing personal.” He reaches the tunnel’s mouth and salutes me with the weapon. “Another time, Princess. Good luck with the lizards.”
Then he’s gone, running toward the Wild Ride. His footsteps fade away, and I sigh for a third time.
I really didn’t want to do this. My poor dress.
I pick up the guard’s blaster rifle, make sure I know how to fire it, and go to the wall. Picking a section that bulges outward, I deliver a few hard kicks. It cracks open like an eggshell, revealing darkness beyond.
The thing about AH-1310 is that it’s not really an asteroid. It’s a waxworm nest.
It looks like an asteroid, which is the whole point, as far as the waxworms are concerned. Only if you did a really detailed subsurface scan would you notice the sinuous tunnels running everywhere, just below the larger spaces that long-ago humans sealed off and pumped full of air.
Waxworms are large, harmless creatures with a complicated life cycle, one segment of which involves a sort of space orgy. A writhing ball of worms, furiously mating in all directions, builds up a nest out of their waxy secretions. Where the stuff is exposed to vacuum, it goes hard as rock, leaving an asteroid-like object shot through with weird tunnels, perfect for unsuspecting guests to take over.
The worms have long since moved on (or, more accurately, metamorphosed into space-going moths coasting on diaphanous lightsails) but the nest is still here. Under the thin shell, it’s a spaghetti-like mess of tunnels just about wide enough for a human to move through, if said human were willing to hold her breath and deal with the fact that the place is still half-full of worm secretions.
I thought this particular quirk of AH-1310 might come in handy, and so it has proved, but I really, really hoped I wouldn’t have to use it, or at least would have the chance to change into a spacesuit first. The worm goo isn’t toxic, but it smells awful, like rotting meat.
Once again, though, needs must.
I take a lungful of air and climb through the opening I’ve made, rifle first. It’s like stepping into gelatin, not quite liquid but definitely not solid either, light enough that I can make reasonable progress with a sort of half-shuffle, half-swim. The map in Xythiss’s console helpfully indicated the old storeroom where they’re holding Ahn, and combined with my inborn navigation talent—thanks again, great-to-the-whatever-grandma—it’s not too difficult to worm (pun somewhat intended) my way there. By the time I arrive, my lungs are burning, but breathing in is too horrible to contemplate. I slam the butt of the rifle against the wall until the rocky shell breaks, letting me slide out with a gush of waxy, gray fluid, like some horrible mutant birth.
Ahn, sitting on a dusty crate, jumps to her feet in alarm, then rushes over as I clamber up onto my hands and knees, dripping slime.
“Ilya!”
“Please don’t kiss me,” I say, getting up, “I’m—”
She kisses me, then backs away, making a face.
“—covered in worm goo,” I finish wearily. “Love you, too.”
“Are you all right?” she says. “I’ve been really worried.”
“Am I all right? I’m here to rescue you, aren’t I?” I run my fingers through my hair and whip a handful of slime to the ground. “I have everything under control.”
“I’ll bet.” She gives me her lopsided grin. “Have you still got the Skolig?”
“Not exactly. Drav took it when he ran off to steal the Wild Ride. But I’ve got something better.” I pat my pocket, where the data crystal from Xythiss’s room is still safe. “Wrax invasion plans, signed and sealed. I figure delivering these to Commonwealth intelligence should get them off our backs and score us a fat bounty in the bargain.”
“Brilliant.” She frowns. “But how are we getting out of here if Drav took the Ride?”
“The Ride will still be waiting. I didn’t give Drav the trap code.” Some time ago, we equipped the ship with a mechanism that floods the cockpit with a powerful neuroelectric stun field if the proper code isn’t entered at startup, with exactly this sort of situation in mind. “So we can pick up the Skolig on the way out as well.”
“Fucking brilliant.” Ahn hugs me, in spite of the slime. “I knew you’d come up with something.”
“You really did, didn’t you?” I stare at her for a moment, then shake my head. What did I do to earn trust like that? Or to deserve it?
“Something wrong?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
I turn to the storeroom door. It’s locked from the outside, but a blast from the rifle fixes that. Ahn’s pistol belt is lying nearby, and I toss it to her. She buckles it on with a big smile, looking fully dressed again.
The wardroids have heard the shot, of course. I see lights flicker at the other end of the corridor as they clank toward us to investigate.
“Now what?” Ahn says, eagerly. “Time for Plan Z?”
I look at her, then down at my ruined dress and the blaster rifle in my hands. I can feel my own grin spreading.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Definitely time for Plan Z.”