CHAPTER 10
Once the night got good and dark, Eilif and Jim transferred to the Veracity. They settled into the spare cabins. Gisela came too, to continue to guard them. Haoun decided he’d stay at the boarding house, rather than live so close to the Thallians. Ariel planned to continue on in her hotel near the Hall of Justice, but she came to say goodbye to Kavanaugh and Vezali.
While Mykah pulled out a range of weapons, Vezali looked the Veracity over to make sure it hadn’t been tampered with, that it was still space-worthy. Mykah was sorry to see her go, but admired her bravery for volunteering to explore Drusingyi with Kavanaugh.
The Thallians had been used to fishing and fending off predators in their home ocean, so they had a number of weapons designed or modified to fire underwater. Mykah spread them out in the lounge for Ariel’s inspection. She seemed impressed by the variety of antique weaponry.
“They had all this onboard when you took over the ship?” she asked.
“And more,” Mykah said. “Raena’s been teaching me what it all can do.”
“It looks like everything is in excellent shape.”
“We only had what Father brought with him on the Arbiter,” Jim said. “We had to take care of things, because nothing could be replaced.”
No one had an answer for that, so Ariel changed the subject. “If we were dreaming here, I’d send Vezali with the new 728 pulse rifle. That would stop a leviathan dead, guaranteed.”
“No place on Kai to buy one,” Kavanaugh pointed out.
“I could order one for you to pick up en route.”
“No,” Kavanaugh said. “Let’s just get this done. There’s plenty here to choose from.”
Ariel nodded. She picked out a couple of guns and had Vezali hold them, get the feel of them. “It’s a shame you can’t actually test-fire anything,” Ariel said. “That would give you a sense of how hard it’s going to kick. You can’t tell much about a gun just by picking it up.”
“I don’t want to carry much,” Vezali said. “It will be awkward to swim if I’m weighted down.”
“How many tentacles do you need for swimming?”
“I’m used to using them all, but I can adapt. I’m concerned about the drag as I swim with something in my arms.”
“I should be able to rig up a carrying case,” Jim offered, “something smooth-sided enough to be hydrodynamic.”
Vezali nodded her eyestalk. “That would be great, Jim. Thank you.”
* * *
Kavanaugh insisted that he and Vezali walk Ariel back to her hotel. “I’d feel better if you’d stay on the Veracity with the kids,” he confided.
“I’ll be okay,” she promised. “Now that we’ve seen the Templar fire, I’m much less worried about things coming off of Drusingyi after me.”
“I’m worried about things on Kai coming after you,” Kavanaugh argued. “If you were armed, I wouldn’t worry at all, but how many days of trial is it going to take before they decide that Raena isn’t the only threat to them?”
Ariel smiled. “They won’t give me that much credit.”
“They’ve got to know who’s paying Corvas.”
She shrugged. “That’s obvious, I suppose. But they didn’t put much thought into this mess before they stirred it up. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have chosen the Veracity. I mean, come on. The faintest bit of research would uncover all the mysteries the Veracity has revealed to the galaxy. Why would you attack someone who is going to expose you?”
Kavanaugh didn’t have an answer for that, but Ariel figured it out on her own. “This goes deeper than the Business Council of Kai,” she said.
“Somebody put them up to this, that’s for damn sure,” Kavanaugh agreed. “The question is: is this only about keeping Raena off the street? Or are they distracting you from something?”
Ariel stopped in front of her hotel and looked around. The travel ban had obviously affected Kai badly. Six months ago, when she and Sloane had hidden Raena here, the city had bustled with life at all hours. Now there was almost no one on the street, even though it wasn’t much past midnight.
She shook that thought away. The silence stretched awkwardly, then Kavanaugh stepped over to kiss her goodbye. Ariel wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held him close.
“Be careful,” she ordered.
“We will,” Vezali promised.
* * *
The following morning, Raena had an unexpected visitor. Ariel looked nervously inward before she stepped into the cell.
“I’m surprised to see you here, Ms. Shaad.” Raena got off her bench to give Ariel a deep, hard kiss. “I can’t offer you much hospitality, but come sit down.”
“Thanks,” Ariel said shakily. “They only let one of us come each day and Haoun has been pretty determined he’d be that one.”
Raena smiled. “He’s really a pussycat.”
“You just like it when he growls,” Ariel teased.
“Among other things.”
Ariel grinned.
“It’s good to see you,” Raena said. “Been a while since you’ve been in jail?”
“Actually, I was in this one last time we were on Kai—right after you left. Planetary Security gassed everyone who didn’t run from the souk and dragged the survivors here. One of Thallian’s men is still here.”
“Oh? Corvas said Kai didn’t hold prisoners long-term.”
“This guy is a special case. They’re hoping he’ll become sane enough for trial. No prison will take him until he’s been found guilty in court—and no one is offering to transport him to a psychiatric hospital on charity. Kai won’t pay to get rid of him, so here he sits.”
“Does Corvas know about him?”
“Yes. Kai is going to press more charges today, so our friend may become involved in your defense.”
“Keep away from him,” Raena ordered. “Seeing me is going to spark his conditioning. Everyone in the courtroom will be in danger.”
“You think he’s been brainwashed?”
“Of course. Jonan would never have let him off the planet unless he was absolutely confident in his loyalty.”
“There’s more good news,” Ariel threatened. “If the Business Council decides to blame you for bringing the Thallians to Kai, Corvas wants to get into why they were after you. He wants to trace it back to your ‘mother.’ Kai knows some of the story already, since Gavin used RespirAll on our friend, but of course the story got all garbled. Anyway, the first Raena may come up in court today. I wanted you to know in advance.”
Raena took a deep breath, understanding exactly what Ariel meant by that. Corvas wanted to connect Raena Zacari, the Imperial assassin, to the Thallians. There was no ‘first Raena,’ only Raena herself, pretending to be her own daughter. She hoped like hell the identity Coni had created for her would stand up in court.
Ariel offered her hand and Raena clasped it, her fingers naturally finding their places between Ariel’s. They sat silently, shoulder to shoulder. Eventually, Raena said, “Thank you for warning me.”
“Not something I wanted sprung on you in public.” Then Ariel collected herself and handed Raena another transparent shopping bag. “I brought your costume for the day.”
Raena turned the bag upside down. Out tumbled a silver catsuit, supple and reflective as mercury. She smiled, truly pleased. “The crew got the ship back.”
“Last night.”
Raena peeled off her dress and skinned into the catsuit. “This makes me feel more like myself than I have in weeks,” she said. “Thank you, Ariel.”
“I know what you like, little sister.”
Raena grinned at her. “You do, don’t you?”
* * *
As everyone settled into the courtroom for the second day of Raena’s trial, Mykah watched the Mistress of Ceremonies preparing to face the cameras. Her dress was even tighter today, her heels even higher, as if her appearance had to compete with the subject matter of the trial.
The Mistress of Ceremonies spoke into camera number one. “Yesterday was an explosive day of testimony, wasn’t it? We learned that one of the terrifying Thallian clan had been killed on Kai. You’ll be relieved to know that the dockmaster who allowed Revan Thallian onto the planet has been arrested by the Business Council. I’ll bet his replacement does a much more thorough job of screening visitors to Kai.”
“Meanwhile,” she continued, turning to the second camera, “the Imperial-era Veracity—impounded by Kai City Spaceport on our sister pleasure planet Lautan—has been released from custody. Apparently, there is no evidence to prove it was the same ship as the Raptor, which has now been linked to the Thallians. The Raptor itself seems to have completely disappeared. Let’s hope the new dockmaster can whip the spaceport into shape.
“The Veracity has been returned to Captain Mykah Chen and his crew, who were the first to pick up the distress call from the survivors of the Arbiter on the Thallian homeworld. Let’s chat with him now. Captain Chen, do you have a moment?”
“Of course,” Mykah said. He smiled at the feline MC, seeing echoes of Coni in her face.
“Yesterday,” she said, “you asked the court if Kai was in the habit of impounding ships. Do you have any reason to think the Veracity was singled out?”
“There’s no reason—that I know of—that it should have been.” Mykah stared into the camera, thinking, “Even humans have rights.”
The MC prodded a little more. “Do you have any evidence that other ships have been impounded unjustly?”
“The judges said yesterday in court that they would look into it. That satisfies me for now.”
And really, that was all he was prepared to say on the subject, until Raena was out of Kai’s clutches. Both Ariel and Corvas had cautioned him not to put her into any more danger. He intended to be careful.
* * *
Haoun didn’t actually hate Kai as much as Mykah did. His own job here had been fairly cushy. He’d shuttled tourists out into the desert to explore the Templar ghost towns. Mostly Haoun waited in the temperature-controlled buses, playing video games, while the tourists exhausted themselves in the heat. If the tourist parties featured any human females, he invited them for revivifying drinks afterward. He’d met a lot of people, collected a satisfying amount of tips, and dated some very nice warm girls.
He hadn’t realized he was bored until Mykah offered him a job piloting the Veracity.
Haoun looked down at Raena, who was once again chained to the defendant’s chair. Today she wore a skin-tight outfit that shimmered in the bright courtroom lights. The reflective catsuit wouldn’t leave any of her body to the imagination, except that you couldn’t look straight at her with the glare it gave off. He wondered how it registered to the cameras.
He also wondered if anyone else understood the social critique she offered without saying a word.
The three judges took their places in the courtroom.
The Shtrell court reporter said, “The prisoner here before us has been charged by the Business Council of Kai with kidnapping a young human male who has not yet been identified. Raena Zacari has requested that the charge go to trial.”
The court recorder replayed the video of Jain Thallian jumping off his jet bike and running toward the lock on the ship now recognized as the Veracity. Haoun had to admit, he was impressed with the job Coni and Mykah had done altering the metadata on the recording to make it appear that this was a different docking bay than the Raptor had landed in. He didn’t know how they’d managed to change the record under Kai’s nose. It was scary that they had that kind of power. He hoped that would continue to use it for good.
* * *
When the video of Jain’s capture finished, Raena looked up at Corvas. He smoothed an invisible wrinkle out of his blue and aquamarine caftan and said, “I call the next witness.”
Preceded by an oversized blue-furred Haru bailiff, a slim boy came out of the waiting room. He wore an expensive sleeveless green brocade pullover with a high silk collar. It looked to Raena as if it hid body armor. Muscles striped his bare arms. His posture was perfectly straight, shoulders back, chin up, and yet he didn’t look haughty as much as frightened. He held himself too taut, as if he might crumble.
He had the bluish black hair, the silver eyes, the long straight nose and pointed chin, but this was not Jain Thallian. Raena had respected Jain, even felt comradeship for him, damaged as he was. She’d known Jain was just as proud as she was of what they’d survived at his father’s hands. She guessed this must be Jimi, Jain’s younger brother, the sole surviving Thallian clone.
The boy’s eyes flicked to Raena’s face. She gave him a nod that didn’t begin to encompass her gratitude. Raena hadn’t known Jimi well enough to feel any affection for him, but she understood exactly what it cost him to appear in public.
“State your name for the court,” Corvas said.
“I traveled to Kai under the name Jim Zacari,” Jimi said, “but my given name is Jain Thallian. My father was Jonan Thallian, the man who carried out the Templar genocide.”
The audience in the courtroom exploded. Jimi flinched away from the furor. The Haru bailiff came to stand protectively over him, arms crossed on his too-broad chest. The boy shrank from him as well, uncertain if the blue-furred guard was for his protection or not.
The judges howled for silence, but the crowd struggled toward the half wall that separated them from the courtroom set. The cameras turned toward the mob, recording their anger in all its spectrum of details.
Shackled as she was, Raena remained seated in the defendant’s box. She scanned the area around her, but saw nothing that could be used as a weapon. If anyone came over the railing within her reach, she would have to kill them barehanded, before they could touch Jimi. Undoubtedly, that would play well around the galaxy: the ultimate proof that humans were violent and dangerous. Raena wondered if she had been set up.
A forcefield shimmered into place just inside the half wall, isolating the courtroom from the audience. The forcefield flickered several times until the old circuitry stabilized.
“It’s been a while since we needed that,” the gray judge said.
“Glad it still works,” the insect answered. “I thought we were going to have a full-scale riot.”
“We may yet.” The rock judge nodded toward the audience, who still shouted and gesticulated behind the wall of silence. To the bailiff, he said, “Will you pass along an order to clear the galleries and close the court? We’ll proceed without all that foolishness.”
Corvas came over to talk to the Thallian boy. “You all right, son?”
“Yes, sir. That’s the reason I work and travel under an assumed name.”
“Very understandable.”
The judges looked past Raena to check on the audience, but the evacuation seemed to be underway at last.
“When can we resume?” the stick insect asked.
“Whenever the court is ready,” Corvas said.
“Let’s give them another moment,” the gray judge suggested.
Raena spent the time breathing deeply, gazing at the floor between her feet. She felt sick, amazed at herself, ready to die to protect a Thallian.
“All right,” the female judge said at last. “They’ve gone.”
“Jim,” Corvas said, “tell us your story.”
So the boy spun out a tale of how he and his uncle Revan and a handful of soldiers from the Arbiter had come to Kai to capture Raena Zacari. How they had trailed her to the souk in Kai City and how they attacked her party there.
“Did you know Raena Zacari before the attack?” Corvas asked.
“Yes,” the boy said. “I had been in contact with her over the grid.”
“Why?”
“I needed help to escape my family.”
“Why was that?”
A camera zoomed closer to get a tight shot of the boy’s face. He glanced at it, glanced back to Ariel seated calmly in the gallery, then focused on Raena. “Because my father was a murderer of epic scale,” the boy said. “My brothers and I were prisoners on Drusingyi, because of the crimes our elders committed before we were born. My father’s generation weren’t the glorious heroes they wanted to believe they were. What they’d done disgusted me.”
It had been one thing for Jimi to tell Raena how he felt on the cusp of his escape, right before she wiped his family out. Now, with the galaxy listening in, he revealed the depths of his loathing. It was obvious from the fury trembling in his voice that he did not lie when he proclaimed how much he hated his family.
“How did Raena help your escape?”
“She made sure that Uncle Revan couldn’t follow me.”
“By killing him?” one of the judges asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then what happened?”
“She followed me back to Captain Chen’s ship and we left Kai together.”
“Captain Chen’s ship is the Veracity?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And where did you go?”
“I took them through the satellite defenses to Drusingyi.”
The levels of dishonesty in Jimi’s account made Raena’s head swim. Reality bore so little resemblance to what he said on the witness stand that she was amazed the judges couldn’t taste falsehood in the air.
In reality, Jimi had never been to Kai before. He’d never been off of his homeworld, until Raena told him how to reconfigure a hopper and offered a distraction to cover his escape. Yes, Jimi had given her enough information that she could bring the Veracity to Drusingyi, but he’d done it inadvertently.
Or so she had believed. She gazed at the boy now, calculating. He lied to his family for years about his feelings for them. More than that, he’d lied to his father, an Imperial torturer who once lived to root out dishonesty. The boy must be craftier than she’d thought. Jimi was, after all, one of Thallian’s sons.
“What happened after you reached Drusingyi?” the rock judge asked.
“The Veracity picked up the distress call from the men from the Arbiter. A malfunction had destroyed the city’s air filtration system. The men were stranded on the planet’s surface, without any kind of supplies or survival equipment.”
“None of this is related to the trial here before us,” Corvas pointed out.
“True,” the twiggy judge agreed. “It’s fascinating nonetheless.”
The defender inclined his head. One of his eyes slid sidelong to look at Raena. Then he faced the judges again. “Since Jain Thallian clearly was not kidnapped, I ask that the charge of kidnapping be dropped against Raena Zacari.”
“We will withdraw to chambers to discuss,” the head judge said. “Court is dismissed for the rest of the morning. We will meet back here this afternoon.”
* * *
Again the lunch they brought Raena was impressive, a green salad flecked with nuts, seeds, and dried berries. The accommodations might be dusty and the showers rationed, but the food could not be beat.
The jail guards escorted her back into the courtroom afterward and chained her once more in the defendant’s box. Jimi had gone back to hiding in protective custody. The audience seats seemed even fuller than they had been in the morning, but with a noticeable increase in the number of Planetary Security agents stationed around them.
“Raena Zacari,” the court recorder said, “the Planetary Business Council of Kai has agreed to drop the charge of kidnapping. Instead, it charges you with being a party to violence on a weapons-free world, violence that ended in the murder of four men. How do you answer these charges?”
“If I killed anyone on Kai, it was in self-defense.”
“Kai does not recognize self-defense as justification for violence,” the rock judge said. “How do you plead?”
Corvas pre-empted her response. “We insist on our right to trial. Please show us your evidence for the charge.”
A security cam, meant for catching shoplifters, provided grainy low-res video of seven men and Jain attacking a small party of tourists in the souk on Kai. One minute Ariel Shaad, Gavin Sloane, and Raena Zacari were sampling exotic fruits under a silver-shot canopy. The next, a soldier dressed in nondescript black livery had grasped Ariel’s arm and tried dragging her away. She fumbled for the gun no longer hanging at her thigh.
Gavin Sloane turned right into another assailant’s fist. Sloane staggered into a wall and slid to the dirt.
Raena Zacari spun into her own attacker’s grip on her arm and brought the heel of her free hand up hard under his chin. Still turning, she pulled him off balance and used his body to take the blow aimed at her by his accomplice. Then she dropped the man with the busted jaw and leapt onto the next man. In a movement as economical as poetry, she had broken his arm, several of his ribs, and vaulted over him as he dropped so she could come to Sloane’s aid.
Sloane’s attacker didn’t even know Raena was coming. Jumping onto his back, she twisted his head sharply enough to snap his spine, then turned to deal with the man dragging Ariel away. Less than a minute had passed, and already three attackers were down. One was dead.
Raena moved from one man to the next efficiently, dropping one with a scorpion kick, the next with a roundhouse punch. Her small stature made her tricky for the larger men to grab. The high-heeled boots she wore proved lethal. Most unnerving of all, she laughed through the whole attack, as if it was the most fun she’d had in years.
Then her gaze locked on Jain Thallian in the shadows.
A smoking canister dropped at her feet. Others rained down around her. Jain pulled his mask up from under his chin. Raena leaned into a sprint toward him, but Revan Thallian bulled after her. They came at Jain so fast he couldn’t do anything more than raise the shock net he carried.
Raena wound her fists in the sparking net and yanked hard. She hauled it out of Jain’s grasp and whirled, catching Revan upside the head with it. Then she tugged on the edge of the net and sent Revan to the dirt.
She turned a cartwheel after him and brought the toe of her boot down hard on Revan’s throat. He wilted, obviously dead. Raena snatched the mask off his face and held it over her own nose. For the first time in the fight, she seemed to be breathing hard.
Bending down, she scooped up a sleep canister with her spare hand. When her head came up, her insectile sunglasses fixed on Jain. Both of them ran out of frame.
The broadcast video usually cut at that moment, but this version continued long enough to show seven bodies in black uniforms strewn across the cramped market street, with barely a splash of visible blood.
The recording ended with a rain of sleep grenades. Pale blue smoke shrouded the scene.
Over the stunned silence in the courtroom, Corvas said, “I call Ariel Shaad to witness.”
* * *
Ariel strode out of the gallery to sit in the witness box. Mykah noticed she’d dressed up during the lunch break: ropes of gemstones shimmered on her chest and both wrists sported gem-studded bracelets. She’d traded her usual uniform of white blouses and gray trousers for a warm green dress that played up the flawless gold of her skin. Only the braid remained, but even it was more complicated than usual.
Now she looked less like a veteran and more like the upper-class clientele of Kai. When Corvas introduced her as the head of the Shaad Family Foundation, she looked the part. It was hard to picture her as the heir and one-time owner of the Shaad Arms Company.
Ariel told about her first visit to Kai, soon after the War ended. She and her mother had come to gamble, to be pampered, to relax. In a galaxy where humans—even those who fought with the Coalition—seemed more in danger all the time, they’d had a wonderful time and felt very safe on Kai.
Because of those fond memories, Ariel’s mother had come back to Kai several times since, bringing all her wealthy friends. Ariel never worried about the older ladies on Kai because she’d known that Planetary Security was so good.
So when it came time to choose a place to bring Raena, Ariel’s only choice had been Kai. Ariel expected that Kai’s weapons-free status would keep Raena safe.
And they had enjoyed a marvelous stay on Kai. Ariel name-checked the restaurants, the amusements, the casinos they’d frequented. It was as good a commercial for the pleasure planet as anyone could wish. Mykah expected an advertising flack somewhere was even now figuring out how to illustrate the list so that a human woman wasn’t seen to be the spokesperson gushing about how great Kai was.
“But when we needed Kai to protect us,” Ariel said, “they failed utterly. They didn’t arrest the Thallians at the spaceport. They allowed Revan Thallian and his kill squad to roam around Kai City, armed with a shock net and sleep grenades, if not additional weapons that they didn’t get a chance to use against us. When the Thallians attacked my party, Kai Planetary Security didn’t arrive until well after the fight had broken up. We are extremely lucky that Revan Thallian didn’t plan to kill Raena until after he’d taken her hostage, because if he’d wanted to kill her on Kai, Planetary Security provided no defense at all.”
Corvas set the video of the assault in the souk to play once more. This time, it had a counter embedded in it, clicking off the time parts before the Planetary Security team finally arrived.
It was long enough for Raena to incapacitate three soldiers and kill the rest.
“Where were you?” Ariel asked. Anger choked her voice. “I trusted Kai to protect us. Not only did no one come when we needed help, now you are prosecuting Raena for not going docilely to her death. You’re blaming her for bringing violence to a weapons-free world, when you did absolutely nothing to prevent that violence from happening here. I’m sure she is not the last person to visit Kai who expects your protection.”
She almost said more, but Corvas gestured and drew her attention. Ariel took a deep breath and leaned back into her chair.
“Raena Zacari was orphaned by the War. I took her under my Foundation’s protection. Her safety is personally important to me. I’m disappointed that it wasn’t as important to Kai.”
“Thank you, Ms. Shaad,” Corvas said. “I’d like to call prisoner #1823 to the stand.”
* * *
The man was marched in and shackled to the witness box. He looked calm for the moment, if not particularly clear. The jailers hadn’t made much of an attempt to clean him up. He wore an ill-fitting jumpsuit that hung on him. His hair had been washed, if not combed. His bleary gaze fixed on nothing.
Raena wasn’t exactly sure what her role in this bit of theater was going to be, but she inched toward the edge of her chair in readiness. Her ankles were chained to the base of the chair. The chair was bolted to the floor. The tether that connected the restraints around her wrists to her hobble allowed her to raise her arms about shoulder high. Her wrists could reach about a half-meter apart.
The judges questioned the man about who he was, why he’d come to Kai. He muttered, “Can’t tell. Can’t reveal the family.”
Raena watched the three judges exchange a look.
Corvas stepped forward, moving quickly enough that he caught the prisoner’s attention. Suddenly the man came alert, eyes clear and focused.
Corvas asked, “Son, do you know who this is?” He stepped aside to reveal Raena sitting behind him.
The soldier launched himself forward. The attack was all the more frightening for being entirely silent. He was hobbled, just as Raena was, but the chain that attached him to the witness stand tore the wood apart. He bounded forward like a beast.
He slapped Corvas to the floor as he plunged toward Raena. She stood to meet him.
The first punch came toward her head. She sidestepped it easily. The second one aimed down toward her heart. She raised her manacled hands, tangled the cable between them around his arm. A quick circle of her foot wound her hobble around his calf. She yanked hard, falling backward into her chair as she shoved his shoulders away from her.
He lost his balance and fell. His head hit the floor with a thud.
Raena clutched the seat of the chair and managed to prevent herself from falling atop him. She disentangled her leg from his, wrapped her feet in the tether running down his body, and yanked him over onto his stomach. Then she pressed his head to the floor with her foot.
He flailed beneath her, trying to flop himself over. Raena got her other foot atop his shoulders and pushed down as hard as she could. If the chair hadn’t been bolted to the floor, she would have fallen. For once, the restraints worked in her favor.
The bailiff had moved into place to protect the judges. Only now that Raena had the soldier pinned did the guards finally move into action.
She knew they were going to stun her before anyone else had figured it out. They really couldn’t stun the soldier without hitting her, too, and they weren’t going to get close enough to grapple with him until he was unconscious. She would have done the same thing.
She was glad when the cameras zoomed in close. They would show how defenseless she was as the stun staff put her down.
Damn, she hated the feeling of current running over her skin,
co-opting her muscles. She clenched her teeth to keep from biting her tongue.
* * *
Haoun exploded to his feet to go to Raena’s rescue. Ariel had been expecting that, so she grabbed his forearm. Belatedly, Mykah took hold of him too. Luckily, Haoun hesitated before doing something foolish.
“She’s okay,” Ariel said quietly. “Settle, before you catch the cameras’ attention.”
Haoun sank back to the bench, shaking. “What was that all about?” he whispered angrily.
“Proof that Kai couldn’t protect her,” Mykah guessed. “Did you see how fast she is?”
“But how does that help her?” Coni asked. “Kai doesn’t recognize self-defense as an appropriate response.”
“She didn’t fight him,” Mykah explained. “She stopped him. Kai couldn’t stop him, now or when he attacked her before.” He turned to Ariel. “Do you think they’ll drop the charges?”
“No. They’ll still try to fine her. That’s why we’ll have to prove he came from the Arbiter and they should never have let him onto the planet in the first place.”
The bailiff helped Corvas to his feet. He limped over to speak to the judges, cradling one of his arms awkwardly across his body.
“Oh, Corvas is hurt,” Coni said.
“He’s lucky it wasn’t worse,” Ariel said fondly. “I warned him. He was supposed to get out of the way.”
“You knew this was going to happen,” Haoun accused.
“Yes,” Ariel admitted.
“Did Raena?”
“As soon as she saw him, don’t you think?” Ariel offered him a tight smile, not liking his tone. “I told her this morning that Corvas planned to call for him.”
Raena was being unshackled from her chair now. She wasn’t unconscious, but she looked pretty out of it. One of the guards heaved her across his shoulder. Her limbs hung down, swinging like a doll’s.
Three other guards picked up the soldier.
“Court is adjourned,” the bailiff announced.
“’Bout time,” Ariel said. “I need a drink. Anyone else?”
“Is she going to be all right?” Haoun asked. “She looks terrible.”
“You know she’s had worse, right?” Ariel asked. Then, relenting, she said, “I’m the last person to be unsympathetic to Raena, but I also know how much she’s endured. Stun is uncomfortable, but it doesn’t cause lasting effects unless you get hit repeatedly in a short amount of time. Even then, it won’t leave a mark.”
They all understood she was referring to the scars striping Raena’s back.
“She won’t like it,” Ariel summed up, “but it won’t damage her.”
“I’m going to see if they’ll let me up to sit with her,” Haoun said.
“She’s only allowed one visitor a day,” Coni reminded.
“Every legal system has its price,” Ariel told Haoun as she stood up to give the big lizard room to get past her. “Take her some food. The stun will make her hungry when she wakes up.”
“You’ve been stunned before?” Coni asked.
“In my misspent youth.” And that was all Ariel wanted to say with the cameras still buzzing around. She smiled at Coni and Mykah. “I’m serious about getting a drink. Please come keep me company.”
* * *
The guard placed Raena back on the bench in her cell, making sure her head went down softly, then left her alone. Raena couldn’t even turn over yet, but the stun was wearing off. She felt as if medium-sized insects crawled all over her skin, biting out mouthfuls of flesh.
Stars and sky, she hated to be stunned.
She wasn’t sure where the trial would go next, but Kai would have to respond to the accusation that they couldn’t protect the wealthy people who came to enjoy their hospitality. She had to admire Ariel for attacking the pleasure planet’s most vulnerable point. If the Business Council wasn’t careful, Ariel could end tourism to the planet.
Raena realized this might be a dangerous time for her, alone in her prison cell with no one to watch her back. Too bad the Business Council had already tried the deranged roommate gambit to settle the case before the trial started.
At the very least, they would hold Raena responsible for drawing the Thallians to Kai. She wondered what kind of blame-the-victim crime they would label that.
She hoped that Corvas was okay. He’d hit the floor hard enough to snap something. Raena knew the bone repair technology on Kai was state of the art. She just wished they weren’t so often in need of it.
* * *
The kids let Ariel pick the bar, so she chose a funky little place lit with strings of multicolored lights. Ariel summoned the serving robot and paid before anyone could object.
The kids were fond of Raena, which was enough of a point in common for Ariel. Crusading Mykah reminded her of her own kids. Coni’s sense of humor made her think of Heddryn, a Fossa she’d been friends with back in the War. Heddryn had been dead more than a decade, but it felt good to honor her memory now.
Once everyone had tasted their drinks, Ariel asked, “What’s going on between Haoun and Raena?”
“It started on Lautan,” Mykah said.
“No, it started on the ship,” Coni corrected. “It might have been all on his part then, but he was always sitting beside her, trying to get her to notice him.”
“Raena can be kind of oblivious,” Ariel said fondly. “He knows her story?”
“She’s been open with us about it,” Coni said.
“She’s Haoun’s type,” Mykah added, “meaning human. He used to romance the human ladies when he was working here on Kai.”
“It’s different with travelers passing through,” Ariel pointed out.
“We worried about that at first, too,” Coni said. “This seems more serious.”
Ariel raised her glass and wished, “May they find happiness.”
The others hurried to join the toast.
* * *
Despite the discomfort of the stun wearing off, Raena must have drifted off to sleep. When she jerked awake, Haoun had placed her head on his thigh. He stroked her hair.
“Hey,” he said softly. “Are you with me again?”
“Yeah.” She pushed herself into sitting up and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “I wasn’t drooling, was I?”
“Were you? I didn’t notice.” He handed her a foil-wrapped tube still toasty warm to the touch. “Ariel said you would be hungry. It’s human food. A tikka burrito.”
Suddenly, she’d never wanted to eat anything as much as she wanted this. She tore the foil away and bit off a huge mouthful of tortilla stuffed with saffron rice and some kind of poultry. Once she got that swallowed, she asked, “What’d you get for yourself?”
“Apparently, I got it for the guards,” Haoun said. “They told me I could bring you food, but I couldn’t bring a picnic.”
“Want a bite?” she asked with her mouth full.
“Eat what you want first.”
She was so ravenous that she couldn’t stop to make conversation. Haoun didn’t seem to mind. He watched the patch of sunlight traveling across the opposite wall. Raena watched him. He sat twisted sideways on the bench, so that his tail could trail off onto the floor, which meant he couldn’t put his back flat against the wall. For the first time, she realized that, just as things in the galaxy weren’t made for her because of her size, things were also not made if you had to watch your tail. She stopped feeling quite so singled out.
She made herself offer the burrito to him again. “Please help me eat this.”
“I’ll just have a taste.” His bite was as big as three of hers.
“Thank you for this,” she said, when he handed the burrito back. “I’d forgotten what it was like to come out of stun.”
“You’re welcome. Are you starting to feel normal?”
“As normal as ever.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “How long can you stay?”
“’Til morning.”
“Don’t tease me,” Raena said seriously.
“I’m not. I bribed the guards.”
“You didn’t really,” she accused.
“Ariel said all legal systems have their price. Luckily, your guards had a price I could afford.”
She set the remains of the burrito aside and wrapped her arms around him. “Did you really?” she asked again.
“I was worried about you. I know I’m not a lot of protection, but I couldn’t stand the thought of you in here alone tonight. I may not be able to stay awake in court tomorrow, but I will watch over you while you sleep tonight.”
She snuggled against him, thinking, this is the best boyfriend I’ve ever had. Judging from the last two, her taste must be improving.
“I don’t think anything will happen.” She yawned. “They have me under surveillance.” She nodded toward the camera she knew about, the one in the corner above the door. There were undoubtedly others she didn’t know about.
“They had you under surveillance the night you were attacked by your cellmate, too,” Haoun pointed out. “Coni got a hold of the recording for Corvas.”
“Ariel made my safety the personal responsibility of the commandant after that.”
Haoun looked at her with a tilt of his head that she read as skepticism.
“Not that it matters,” she said. “I would rather have your company.”
“Go ahead and snuggle down,” he said. “I’ve got you.”
Raena got up to wash her face and hands. Her stomach felt almost too stuffed now. Should have shared more of the burrito, she thought. Now, though, she should sleep well.