It started in a bar.
Didn’t it always? Exciting things in space never began in a station library or a barber shop, although Valentinian wasn’t about to say that too loud, even in his own head. Tempting the gods, and all that.
Valentinian had never really been a reader type so he hadn’t ever spent that much time in libraries. Still, that always struck him as the far end of places from a bar, when it came to thinking up dumb ideas. Starting an adventure in a library, as it were.
Best not to push his luck too far, ya know?
Coming to this station had been a dumb idea, but what was he, if not a living example of bad decisions in life?
How many other people had managed to get themselves kicked out of the Gymnasia Dominia? He had heard somewhere that more than ninety thousand applicants filed paperwork each year, for one thousand slots for students. Sure, half those would wash out in the next three years before they became officers in the Dominion Armada, but Valentinian hadn’t exactly washed out.
Been kicked to the curb, more or less. The one guy they could pin it all on, when he’d only been one of the ring-leaders. Can’t have the kids of important people sullied by scandal now, can we? Oh, heavens no.
Valentinian nursed the drink in his hands, scanned the rich and important people around him, and tried not to snarl too loud or dwell on the distant past. Well, three years. Twenty years old and he had thought he had it made. Top quarter of his second-year class on grades and points. Gonna be a star.
Nobody had counted on the White Hats, the Dominion’s Internal Security Bureau, suddenly getting involved. It had only been a little contraband, nothing even illegal on about half the planets of the Dominion.
But enough to open a space in the roster when he got frog-marched out the side door and tossed into the metaphorical street on his ass.
Valentinian suppressed the growl.
Coming here had been a bad idea. Not just this bar, but this system, let alone this station. Normally, he would have said you couldn’t pay him enough to come to Dominion Prime, the so-called Winter Palace Orbital Station of the Dominator himself. Security checks at damned near every frame and hatch. Places off-limits to everyone most of the time.
But yeah, he’d apparently been lying about no price being enough. Someone had offered him a stupid amount of money to come here. To pick up a cargo, well, whatever you called it. A charter, he supposed. The contract had been stupidly long, but Valentinian had always had a head for legal mumbo-jumbo and esoteric accounting.
Had gotten him into Gymnasia. And probably gotten him kicked out, too, one of those times when the dice rolls just fell the wrong way when he had already pushed his luck too far.
He still didn’t know, three years later, where his scams had fallen apart. Didn’t really matter. Just being here, smelling the scent of these people, brought it all back to the surface.
He took another tiny sip and kept his face calm.
Being around the beautiful people had him grouchy. And he missed Artaxerxes.
His now-former first mate had been, was, would always be a doughy, goofy, engineering-type. And probably more than twice Valentinian’s age. Into his fifth decade, anyway, although the man never really talked about it. Beard all gray coming in now and wrinkles etching themselves into that laughing forehead.
Artaxerxes had gone and found himself a woman. Worse, a woman who owned a bar and had decided to marry herself a partner. Bed or business was a little fuzzy, but Valentinian hadn’t seen the marriage contract. Didn’t really care that much.
It had been enough that the man had packed his few belongings at Tuska Station and departed with a skip in his step.
Normally, Valentinian would have remained on Tuska Station for longer than a day, looking for his next cargo run somewhere, and doing more than putting up a couple of help-wanted posters, but a chandler had gotten in touch with him. Had a contract for Valentinian, was he interested? Total stranger personally, but the man had good reviews on the public boards and no major lawsuits that Valentinian had been able to find in the records.
Not that that mattered as much in the Dominion as other nations, like Qetesh or Lei-Zu. Even beyond those in Wildspace you weren’t going to find anyone as militantly crazy as the Dominion.
Nobody was.
A caste of warrior monks dedicated to the military arts and surrounded by nervous neighbors. A meritocracy in the hardest sense, where your birth would only get you as far as your family might lift you, with the understanding that your screw-ups might bring them down as well, so nobody was going to do you favors that didn’t make them look good in the process.
A place where a kid from the wrong side of the tracks, with the right kind of mind, could score a place at Gymnasia on his brains, since he was nothing like those blade-fighting lunatics. At least until the day he screwed up and didn’t have the sorts of family support network his unindicted co-conspirators had been able to hide behind, when it came time to sweep it all under the rug and find a scapegoat.
But he was here. Dominion Prime itself, don’t you know. With the promise of a contract paying way too much cash for something as simple as a straight charter.
Valentinian didn’t believe for a moment the story that his ship, the Longshot Hypothesis, was exactly the perfect one to hire for six months.
For one thing, the ship was a cargo transport that had been modified to have a half-dozen cabins for paying customers, not a dedicated pleasure yacht. And the contract specified that he would be hauling nearly twenty people, so that upper deck would be crammed full and then some.
Granted, the semi-famous girl-band/dance troupe Solaria Femina had nine members these days, all ethnically and physically identical girls aged sixteen to twenty-two, answering to the woman in charge, plus a Dancemaster, a Songmaster, and a Chastitymaster, whatever the hell that was. Throw in a couple of costumers. And we can’t forget the a Nutritionist, however nice it would be, since part of the contract involved them bringing their own food aboard and feeding his crew. If he had one beyond himself at that point.
Working on that.
Valentinian had almost talked himself out of the contract, in spite of the money he would make, but somehow just couldn’t let that kind of cash go by the wayside. His profit margin after operating costs alone after six months would cover him for at least two years of pure goofing off afterwards, if he wanted.
Not that he would. Every single spare Solar would go into a series of investment accounts, mostly in Laurentia or Lei-Zu. Never places where the good folks of the Dominion who had screwed him so bad already could get at it easily.
Brains and luck only got you so far. And Valentinian had learned the value of hustle. It had gotten him back on his feet after the fuck up. Had gotten him into a crooked card game where he wasn’t the mark, and could score enough collateral damage on the final few hands to buy himself a broken-down, vintage cargo transport.
The good ship Longshot Hypothesis. Because him being any kind of success at that point in his life had only been that, a longshot hypothesis.
But luck and hustle also found him Artaxerxes as a crew to help get it into pretty decent shape. Gave him a future.
Gotta save funds at all times.
Even this drink cost more than he would have spent, normally, but he was waiting for the woman who represented Solaria Femina to arrive with executed contracts that had been filed with the authorities.
The Dominator, leader of the Dominion, might be a crazed berserker intent on taking over the universe, but the government itself was run by the Solar Party, and they were all about legal contracts. Maybe the only way to keep the warriors in check.
A Dude walked into the bar and almost everybody at least glanced over at him. Noise didn’t stop, but it hiccupped, even with the jaded denizens of a high-class joint like this. Nobody came to Dominion Prime without a reason, and a lot of Solars in their pockets.
And this dude looked like trouble.
Big man, just a little shy of two meters tall. Broad shoulders. Intense face.
Valentinian had a good view of the guy, as he was facing the door with his back tucked into a booth in the corner. Monster. Valentinian was a little over average height and had acquired a few muscles from moving pallets and boxes around.
Stranger had half a head on him. And muscles on muscles. Like maybe he could bend nails with his fingers.
Older. Maybe fifty. Blond hair cut short enough to start to show the gray hairs through. Clean shaven, with a jaw that would probably make women swoon.
Valentinian was expecting blue eyes when the guy locked on him across the bar. That was the most common genotype among the warrior nobility of the Dominion. Not dark-haired and dark-eyed exotics like Valentinian was.
Instead, eyes like molten bronze focused this way. Valentinian suddenly regretted ever setting foot on this station. Tuska, or other places, and he would have a shock pistol on his hip, everywhere he went. Didn’t prevent ruckus, but sure tamped it down a lot when people wanted to get out of hand.
But nobody was allowed to be armed around here except the Solar Guard. And maybe any White Hats he ran into.
This would have been a good time to have a weapon. Dude looked serious about whatever was crossing his mind. Troublesome serious.
Staring at Valentinian.
And walking this way.
Crap.
Valentinian considered the booth. He should have picked a standing table to wait. That would have at least given him something to knock over at the guy, but this booth was attached to the floor and wall, and somehow, he didn’t think a face full of cheap whiskey would do much more than just piss that monster off.
Hopefully, one of the bartenders or waitstaff had their hands near a panic button right about now. Bad day to get your ass kicked.
Monster got closer. He was wearing baggy gray pants tucked into tall, leather boots. Blue tunic, belted and long sleeved, was half-hidden under a light jacket in the same gray fabric as the pants. It was the kind of outfit you wore shipside when you left the heater down a few degrees or so to save money. Like Valentinian routinely did.
Rough hands. Gnarled and scarred, like the man had done decades of work with his hands in rough circumstances, except his face didn’t have the matching battering Valentinian would have expected.
The man did have a scar on his face. Faint enough to be almost invisible, so old.
Started just inside the hairline on his left forehead and came inward on the cheek diagonally, just missing the eye and fading before it got to his beard. Only thing Valentinian could think of that made a cut that straight and that clean would be blade-fighting, the kind you did without sparring armor. What the craziest of the craziest warrior monks of the Dominion did to prove they were tougher, meaner, better than everyone else.
What the hell did I do to warrant this guy’s attention?
The man stopped about a body length away. Somehow, Valentinian knew it was the proper distance to greet someone, just before combat broke out on the training floor.
“Valentinian Tarasicodissa?” he asked.
Man had a rich voice. Baritone. Sure of himself. Hard as nails.
Probably mean as a hungry snake, too.
“That’s right,” Valentinian replied with the faintest nod. No point denying it or trying to weasel his way out of whatever trap he had stepped into this time.
He would have liked to see if the bartender was calling for help, but taking his eyes off the stranger sounded like a bad idea. Not that he could have done something to prevent getting his ass kicked by this stranger, but Valentinian still wanted to see it coming.
Dude reached a hand inside his jacket and pulled out something as Valentinian tensed. Looked like a wad of paper, folded over a couple of times and kinda mashed into a pocket too small.
The man pulled it more or less flat and stepped close enough to place it on the tabletop in front of Valentinian, leaving him no choice but to take his eyes off the stranger and see what it was.
HELP WANTED. FIRST MATE POSITION.
Shit.
I put that up at Tuska Station. And a couple here when I landed.
Valentinian looked up at the monstrously-huge man towering over him. The man did not look anything like an engineer. Not that Valentinian really needed one. He could do most of the technical work himself by now, after Artaxerxes had taught him the right systems.
Maybe a pretty good stevedore, with all those muscles.
“You know how to tune a solar engine?” Valentinian asked pointedly.
Might as well cut to the chase. Anything to get rid of trouble like this.
“When I was about your age,” the man answered with the faintest hint of a gleam in those bronze-colored eyes. “Not since, but I figure I can pick it up again. Got more experience programming them.”
“Job doesn’t pay much,” Valentinian offered, hoping something would drive the man off.
Being a tramp freighter crewman on a starship always sounded way more alluring and rewarding than the squalid realities of broken life-support fans, bribes at stations to not get roughed up by local hoodlums, or the monotonous boredom of travel between stars.
“Got some money saved up,” the man replied easily. “Really looking for something different in my life.”
Oh, goody. Mid-life crisis has hit and dude wants to grow his hair long and hang out with babes, rather than deal with a shrill harpy of a wife and kids he doesn’t know. Isn’t that the Dominion Dream?
“Warrants in any systems?” Valentinian pressed, hoping to find a lever on the man. Anything. “Prior convictions or powerful enemies I should know about?”
“No warrants,” the man’s shoulders came down and back. “No convictions. No enemies I know about, but I’m sure there are people out there looking to do me wrong for something I’ve forgotten about by now.”
Valentinian was about to ask for paperwork he could use to look the man up, when a small commotion at the door distracted him.
The pictures did not do the woman justice. Any of them.
Tall and elegantly thin, she looked like she had been built out of anger and barbed wire then covered over with expensive beauty cream and mascara.
Slightly-oversized chest was mushed up in a royal blue top a little too tight, but he doubted that was an oversight on her part. Focused the eyes on the center of her body rather than her face. Tight waist below that just emphasized amazing hips as well.
She spotted him and started to cross the bar, clacking on high heels as most of the eyes in the place followed her. Like you could miss the waves of frustrated anger radiating off the woman like a short-range sensor probe.
Lianearia Cleray. The woman in charge of Solaria Femina.
Valentinian had looked her up and gone pretty damned deep when the first contract request came through. She had been with that very first batch of girls, when some music mogul put together a girl-band dance troupe, nearly twenty years ago. The list of ex-members who had been chewed up and spit out since then was amazingly long, but few ever lasted until they were even twenty-two.
Somehow, this woman had clawed her way back in years later, on the business side of things, until she was running it now, too old to be part of the in-crowd, at all of thirty-six, if the bio wasn’t lying about her age.
Up close, lines and shadows out of place suggested some amazingly-expensive work on her face and neck, the parts not covered by the blue bodice and matching skirt.
Valentinian guessed her hair was naturally a mousy brown, based on her eyebrows, but the rest of her mane was a lush strawberry-blond that came down to her shoulders and framed her beauty.
She could stop traffic with that body on any planet or station he’d ever visited.
“There you are,” she snapped as she came to a halt beside the tall stranger, her eyes locked on Valentinian.
The woman registered the giant next to her with a look of such calculated disdain that Valentinian was pretty sure he’d be rich, if he could figure out how to bottle and sell it on the black market.
“Go away,” she commanded the giant in a shrill, waspy voice.
For the briefest moment, Valentinian saw a rage of immense depth appear in the giant’s bronze eyes. Volcanic, in every sense of the word. Trouble.
The guy surprised him by silently nodding to Valentinian and bowing slightly to Madame Cleray. He withdrew to the bar, and Valentinian lost track of him as the woman stormed his booth and whistled loudly for a waitress.
“Cheval,” she demanded.
Valentinian hoped that they didn’t put the single most expensive brandy in the bar on his tab. That was the sort of thing that killed profit margins, and he didn’t even know if he had a deal with the woman yet.
“Is your ship ready to load?” she demanded as the waitress left.
Gods, the woman was gorgeous. And that smell. Being this close just made it all the more obvious. That scent of something sharp and sweet and sexy emanated from her like chemical warfare agents. His brain noted that it was almost pheromonic in nature, and not just intense.
Not a woman who let any possible edge elude her.
He had wondered why the music industry hadn’t given her a second career, after Solaria Femina was done with her, but those girls were supposed to be bubbleheaded bimbos who were interchangeable. Not sharks. Nothing like Cleray.
“It is,” Valentinian answered simply.
“Good,” she snapped.
The bodice apparently had a pocket across the front, almost like a kangaroo’s pouch. She reached a hand inside and pulled out a thin sheet of plas-paper and slid it across the table to him.
Valentinian reached into a pocket on his jacket automatically and pulled out his card-reader, sliding the plas-paper into it and letting the system start chugging.
He already had a copy of the agreed-upon contract loaded, so now it just had to confirm that the signed and executed version was identical. And had all the right stamps and approvals from Dominion authorities on it.
Handshakes were nice, but contract law was serious business. You shook hands over a bar bet. When serious money was changing hands, you filed the paperwork with the Hall of Records first. Way safer after that if there were any misunderstandings that you couldn’t settled before you were explaining things to a Dominion Magistrate.
The machine chirped happily a few seconds later.
He looked up to see her eyes hooded, the rage masked, at least for now.
“You have a reputation for integrity, Tarasicodissa,” she announced in a low, compelling voice, eyes sharp and probing, like maybe she didn’t believe it. “I’d hardly start off our relationship by trying to screw you over.”
Which merely suggested she’d be trying to chisel corners later, and looking for scams and outs once she got tired of him.
Not that Valentinian was surprised. The woman was a cold-blooded predator. She might look beautiful, but a good deal of work had been done above her collarbones, although he supposed she probably had done the breasts as well.
It just wasn’t as obvious, if she had.
It was the hands that gave her away. Claws tipped in blood-red and starting to show liver spots on the back. She had built a career and a business empire on beauty, and it was fading a little every day.
Valentinian nodded and held his peace as the waitress returned with a glass of liquid gold. At least by price.
“To business,” she said, raising her glass in a toast.
Valentinian joined her. He wasn’t about to drink the rest of his whiskey in one breath, even as she put the whole glass of brandy away.
He did make a note to never get into a drinking contest with the woman, if she could hold her alcohol like that. Good way to lose money. And days.
Maybe he could take her to Tuska Station, just once, and let her loose on the old farts there who thought they could handle their booze.
That might be fun to watch.
“Shall we?” she demanded, sliding to the edge of the booth.
Valentinian was a beat behind her as she rose, taking a moment to ogle her bottom and finish his whiskey after all. She must still work out and dance hard, to have an ass that nice.
He was pretty sure she was utterly poisonous, though. Burn you just by touching, like some weeds he had heard about on wilder parts of many planets. Valentinian generally never got farther away from civilization than the closest bar or chandlery to the starport, unless he had to.
And even that was iffy. Going places and having fun usually required money he would rather spend on getting his ship, Longshot Hypothesis, in better running order. Or saving for a rainy day.
But it was a stupendous ass. And the bodice showed off muscles in the woman’s back as he stood up to his full height, staring just about at the back of her head. But he already knew she was wearing heels.
Madame Cleray stopped so suddenly that he almost plowed into her from behind, but Valentinian had spent enough time on spaceships to dance to one side safely.
He stopped, too, when he saw what had caught her eye.
There were six of them.
Valentinian thought that was overkill, but maybe they knew something about the woman that he didn’t.
Five bruisers in black and one pudgy lawyer in a fancy suit. The kind that probably cost about what his ship’s operating costs ran per month.
“Going somewhere, my dear?” the lawyer asked in a honey-smooth voice that still managed to sound like rusty bearings in a fan about to seize.
The five goons spread out a little. More than enough to block the wide doorway.
And of course a joint like this didn’t have a bouncer on duty. Possibly a few off-duty naval officers that might be capable of handling one of these guys, but not all five, assuming they even found a reason to get involved.
Valentinian knew he should have never gotten out of his bunk this morning.
“Go away, Nash,” Cleray sneered. “I’m not signing your contract. We’re done. Find some other fool you can skim funds off of.”
“My dear, I’m wounded at such accusations,” the man, called Nash apparently, answered. “I wonder if I should file for a breach of contract. And maybe throw in slander as well. I’ve heard some of the things you’ve said about me.”
“Truth is a perfect defense against libel, Nash,” Cleray cat-called cheerfully. “Try it. I’d be happy to be deposed officially.”
Valentinian noted how quiet the bar had gotten. Upper middle class folks apparently not used to the posturing and braggadocio he ran into regularly, down dockside.
He really missed his shock pistol about now.
“We’ll just see about that, Lianearia,” Nash snarled, gesturing at Valentinian. “I see you’ve found a new victim.”
“Interesting choice of words,” she said. “Especially coming from you.”
“Did you already sign a contract with this woman, boy?” Nash asked. “About to lose your soul?”
He didn’t take particular insult from the term. Nash looked to be in his sixties. Squishy and soft. Manicured nails. Dyed hair.
Instead Valentinian just grinned. It had been a pretty good contract, but Valentinian supposed that maybe these other two folks hadn’t had as pleasant a negotiation about things.
“Yes, it looks like he has,” Nash continued. “I suppose we’ll just have to convince you to tear it up.”
Nash took a step forward. His goons spread out even more, actively intimidating the political whores and flunkies that had picked the wrong afternoon for a drink.
Five on one sucked. He was likely to end up in medbay, if he didn’t do whatever this butterball demanded. And somehow, that deal didn’t sound as good as hauling a crew of nubile teenage girls all over the galaxy for six to twelve months.
The woman shifted her feet a little. Not much, but enough that Valentinian decided that maybe some of that dance training might have taken place on a dojo floor.
“Seriously, Nash?” Cleray taunted the man. “Physical violence in public? Not your style at all. And I’m a girl.”
Low blow. Telling, too, considering the way the man’s eyes turned red.
“Grab her,” he demanded.
The goons moved.
All of them were big fellows. Valentinian’s height, with a bunch of extra weight. Not all of it was muscle, but these boys were bad bouncers, not ninjas. The first one stepped close and threw a punch.
It was slow, awkward, and his feet were in the wrong position, so obviously he’d never actually learned how to fight in a bar. It was a MOST useful skill to develop.
Valentinian ducked the haymaker and used the crouched leverage to drive a fist into a soft belly, the kind that was spilling over a belt.
Air rushed out of the man in a hurry. He collapsed around the fist as Valentinian side-stepped. The rest were coming.
The woman did know some combat skills, but that just meant she tried a stupid, head-high kick at the man trying to grab her instead of punching him square in the balls. There was no force behind it, so she pretty much just slapped him with her foot. And pissed him off.
And then the others were all over him.
Valentinian threw a fist and hit something before he got clocked pretty good. Not spiraling stars, but close.
Somebody grabbed his right arm before he could pull it back.
Somebody else tangled his left arm against his side and grappled.
Third guy punched him square in the face.
That brought out the stars, but the two goons with holds kept him upright when falling on the floor right now sounded like a good idea.
Big dude pulled back his fist for another go.
This was gonna suck.
And nothing.
The fist never landed.
Instead, the mild concussion inside Valentinian’s head made time slow way down, like those really good action movies, where so much is happening that they slo-mo the fight sequence and spin the camera around a few times in a single, dramatic shot so you don’t miss anything.
The fist was like the sun overhead, about to rain down pain, when somebody hooked the wrist.
Valentinian felt the camera operator pivot expertly, even as his own head never moved.
The big guy, the one looking for a job before Cleray chased him off, had stepped up and hooked his elbow around the other dude’s wrist and stopped the punch in the middle of the sky like an eclipse.
With his left hand, big dude rabbit-punched the goon three times, so fast that at normal speed it might appear as a single blow.
Awesome.
Then he GRABBED THE GUY AND LIFTED HIM OFF THE GROUND.
Except it was a hip-pivot throw that landed the victim into the legs of the goon that had just grabbed Madame Cleray in a body hold. Knocked him down and staggered her.
Other two were just too slow to process. Or maybe they were moving at normal speed as Valentinian went into overdrive to watch.
Dude bent forward and drove a kick back like an angry horse into the man holding Valentinian’s left side. And suddenly that guy was gone.
Poof, just like that.
Then big and mean pivoted the other direction with the momentum, turning into the bouncer holding Valentinian’s right hand with an elbow slam ox blow to the head straight out of a movie or something.
Cows usually went down for the count when the guy with the stun hammer hit them that hard. Bouncer wasn’t a cow, but he wasn’t still waking up for a while either.
One of the guys tangled around Madame Cleray’s feet managed to stand up. Valentinian might have told him that was a really bad idea, but he didn’t like these guys that much.
Monster dude took a step and it was like he was flying through the air, except he was moving big-ugly-booted-foot-first into the goon’s chest, and kicked him hard enough to drive the guy into one of those tables that were apparently bolted to the deck so that it wouldn’t fall over. Bouncer three (four? whoever?) dented the post. Post dented bouncer three.
Last guy seemed just about ready to find his wits and his feet, maybe even standing up when the big guy fell on his head fist first.
And down.
Big dude straightened back up and looked around. Smiled at Nash.
Total elapsed time, even flowing at the amazing speed of an action movie: maybe three seconds. Five guys down. Not just down. Out. Bye-bye.
Big guy’s hair wasn’t even mussed.
He took a step up to this Nash fellow and leaned down to get right into his face.
“Don’t follow,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.
Might as well have been a shout, because the place was dead silent. Only noise in here were the fans circulating station air through the nearby park the Dominator kept as part of his palace.
Big guy turned back to Valentinian with a smile, standing among the carnage with a mild concussion.
“We should depart, Valentinian,” he observed.
Even station security would wake up and get here soon. After that display of martial awesomeness, though, they had probably already gone back for more reinforcements.
Valentinian would have.
Nobody moved. Big guy held out a hand, like he would assist a lady into a skycar. Madame Cleray shook her head and woke from the nightmare she had apparently been expecting.
“You’re right,” she noted, turning to Valentinian. “I’m so glad your crew was here to help.”
She turned and fled for the door before Valentinian could correct her assumption.
Did he want to? Guy had been asking for a job.
Dude cocked his head and smiled at him now, like he was offering Valentinian an out, if he wanted it.
But you know what? There were a lot of crazy folks out there with fists and guns. Valentinian and Artaxerxes had had to fast-talk their way out of trouble more than once.
Being able to punch your way to the door of an angry bar had a certain appeal of its own.
“Let’s go,” Valentinian decided aloud, racing to catch up with Madame Cleray.
Out the door, she had stopped suddenly. Valentinian almost ran into her again, hoping that she hadn’t just spotted the Gendarmes. Although, considering the display of bad-assery back there, they might have just waved from a distance as they called in the Caelons, the Dominion’s elite Assault Cavalry troopers.
“Where are you docked?” she said as he came alongside.
Oh, right. It had all been paperwork and electronic messages before now. She’d never been physically aboard, instead taking a three-Dee tour of the space.
“This way,” Valentinian said, grabbing her arm just enough to drag her the other direction.
That nearly got him punched as she wriggled away angrily at the sudden contact. Maybe she’d go for his eyes with her claws, but he was not about to stay put to get arrested.
Instead, Valentinian dropped her hand and moved towards a nearby staff stairwell. Never get yourself trapped in an elevator when fleeing shore patrol or gendarmes. Important lesson every spacer learns eventually.
Down two long flights as fast as he could move, Valentinian had to stop at the first landing and look up. Cleray had made enough noise clacking down the metal stairs that he could track her, but the big guy moved like a jaguar.
Eerily silent in combat-looking boots that came almost to his knees.
Valentinian found his platform and palmed the switch to open the door, vibrating with impatience as the hatch retracted into the bulkhead.
Nobody on the other side as he emerged. They were on Deck Eleven now. The seedier parts of the station that the beautiful people never saw, where cargo came and went behind pretty sets designed to protect their delicate sensibilities.
Because he could, Valentinian ran. Cleray kept up, in spite of the heels. Big guy wasn’t even breathing heavy.
Deck Eleven, Arm Three stuck out of the side of the station like a middle finger. All the big ships docked on Arms Two and Six to handle major cargo loads. Three was for the unfavored children. Or cheap bastards like him.
Metal floors with scratches and stains underfoot. Walls last painted maybe a decade ago. Not a single plant anywhere in sight. Industrial misery, down here where that was all the people around here needed.
Nobody emerged from a side door as they got close, smiling at him with a badge on their chest and a shock pistol in their hand. Hopefully, either he had outrun news of a bar fight or nobody was wishing to press charges right now.
Nash had started it, after all. Cameras would show that. And one of his bouncers had thrown the first punch. Just bad luck they ran into Pain Incarnate in blue and gray back there.
Valentinian pulled his card-reader from the inside pocket of his jacket and pressed it against the locking mechanism, pressing his thumb to the lifesign imprint. The two machines argued for a second, and then bolts retracted noisily into the bulkhead and the airlock door started to beep. A moment later, it moved outward, forcing Valentinian to the side.
Last time he had been chased like this, he had slid around the heavy door as soon as he could fit, and then triggered the override to slam it back shut again once he was in the airlock and legally aboard his own ship.
Couldn’t really do that today, so he turned and watched the long walkway to make sure no uniforms were headed this directions.
Ten more seconds, and they’d be safe.
Cleray pulled her card-reader and began typing.
“Deck Eleven, Three-Three?” she asked, looking around.
“That’s right,” Valentinian nodded nervously. “Who are you contacting?”
“The girls,” the woman looked at him with a barely suppressed eyeroll. “We have a contract, so they need to get aboard as soon as they can, before Nash finds them. And there will be a cargo sled full of gear as well.”
Right. The girls. How could he forget a contract to transport a team of nubile virgin dancers from planet to planet for six months, along with a Dancemaster, a Songmaster, and a Chastitymaster and the others?
Dear Lord, just let me get aboard the ship. Way harder to arrest us, that way.
Big guy loomed close.
Crap, forgot him as well.
Valentinian pulled him close enough to whisper up to the giant.
“I guess you’re hired,” Valentinian shared a grin with the guy. “What gear do you need to grab?”
“It’s in a locker up a level in the transient housing,” the man replied just as quietly.
“Can you get it and get back here without being arrested?” Valentinian asked.
“Fifteen minutes,” the man said.
“Comm code is Four-Seven-Six-Nine when you get back,” Valentinian said. “Hey, you got a name?”
For a moment, the big man glared down at him, like he needed to remember something, and then relented.
“Dave,” he said simply.
“Dave?” Valentinian was aghast. “That’s it? What’s it short for?”
“Nothing, just Dave.”
And the guy was gone.
Dave? Valentinian had never met somebody with such a short name. Like, ever.
“Where’s he going?” Cleray demanded, turning to watch Dave jog silently away.
“To get some things we left aboard station in our rush to get gone,” Valentinian told her. “Let’s get aboard now, and then wait for everyone else to arrive.”
“Good idea,” she said, striding importantly by him, into the massive aft airlock.
Valentinian keyed the systems to shut the airlock, and thought he caught a sniff of disapproval from Madame Cleray.
Like maybe a freighter like this should have been spotlessly clean and freshly painted.
Right. With the margins he normally ran?
If she was really offended, her girls could always paint the place in their spare time. Valentinian wouldn’t argue. And this was just the passenger airlock. Wait until she saw what the big cargo airlock looked like.
He grinned with anticipation. She had walked the ship in three-Dee, stains and all, so it wasn’t like this was new. If anything, it was cleaner than the three-Dee had been. Artaxerxes had cleaned up some before he left, what with all the nervous energy of going to meet his future spouse.
The outer door closed and the bolts set. The inner door began to beep and open onto the cargo deck of Longshot Hypothesis. Valentinian let himself breathe.
Safe.
Inside the big cargo bay were both cargo sleds currently docked to the side and plugged in to keep the batteries topped off. Two full decks of open space in here, since the volume was actually designed to slide in a pair of standard Anuradhan cargo pods, ten by ten by thirty meters, with clearance to walk around them on all sides and work.
The Dominion economy didn’t work anything like the planet Anuradha, which had built the original vessel that became Longshot Hypothesis. After the Dominion had conquered and finally subdued the place a few years ago, their ships were stupidly cheap, right at the moment when Valentinian had just enough winnings and hustle to buy something, as prices collapsed and everyone else upgraded their rides.
Valentinian had made his margins since then by hauling small, priority goods point to point, and supplementing with paying passengers who either wanted to rough it, or needed to go places that the big, luxury lines didn’t serve adequately.
There wasn’t a box in here bigger than a two meter cube right now, although that would change when Solaria Femina got here with all their crap.
He led Cleray forward, through the inner bulkhead that separated the cargo bay from the engineering spaces. The hallway here was three meters wide, but he had all the doors closed and locked. No reason a civilian should be getting into his life support, computers, or auxiliary power reactors. They might want access to the machine shop at some point, but she could ask politely.
“Here’s the elevator,” Valentinian pressed the button and opened the space.
“What’s through there?” she pointed forward at another bulkhead hatch, again locked, next to the stairwell to the upper deck.
“My cabin and the crew’s space,” Valentinian replied tartly. “We’ll stay down here most of the time, except when we join you for meals.”
“Okay,” she decided, entering the elevator.
Valentinian joined her in the small space, staying as far away as he could while she pressed the button and they rode up a deck.
They came out in the passenger lounge, running out the port arm.
Longshot Hypothesis was built like a capital-Y, with the bridge at the fork below and the base backed up against the station for cargo. The upper deck here had a nice kitchen more-or-less above the bridge, with a lounge to port and a wardroom/dining hall to starboard. Three small cabins out each arm off a long hallway, with a small head and fresher unit at each end, and then storage and access to the oversized Anuradhan engines that hung from the ends of the spars.
Valentinian had no idea how twenty people would be crammed into a space that would crowd twelve, but again, she had presumably toured the ship and read the specs. He suspected that the nine dancers would end up in three cabins, with Madame Cleray having one to herself and everyone else crammed in wherever they would fit.
Her money was good and he could always lock hatches. The only time they would have to interact would be when the girls wanted to practice routines in the cleared-out cargo bay, and he, or Dave now, needed to do some maintenance in there.
He’d burn that bridge when they got there. Anybody who brought along a Chastitymaster wasn’t going to let the girls out of her sight for a moment, so interactions would probably be limited to dinners.
And feeding him and Dave was in the contract.
Now he just needed to get the girls aboard and settled.
And figure out who the hell this guy was that he had apparently just hired.