Chapter One

 

 

“Captain Dace?”

I glanced up from the stack of papers piled on the table. I’d been sitting in a tiny room of the local branch of the Independent Traders’ Guild for the last three days looking for a co-pilot. Out of the thirteen applicants so far, none of them were qualified to tie their shoes much less fly a spaceship. I’d been stuck on Rucal for almost two months, long enough to work out a contract with Belliff, Inc., but their contract didn’t include a copilot and regulations required one, so I was looking on my own.

The man waiting in the doorway was short, slender, almost too good-looking to be real. Tayvis was better, a little voice in my mind whispered. I squelched that thought. Tayvis was a Patrol Enforcer, tall, well-muscled, the perfect image off the recruiting posters. He was also out of my life.

“I heard you were looking for a pilot.” The man handed me a paper before sitting in the rickety chair across the table.

I skimmed his application. His name was Jerimon Pai, no home planet listed, and he was a fully qualified pilot. I flipped through his papers, not trusting my luck in finding him.

“I want to see your personal file.” What I asked was definitely rude and only borderline legal.

He looked surprised but pulled out his ID plates, sliding them into the terminal set in the wall over the table. He typed in the password codes then sat back.

I scrolled through his file, glancing over past ship postings. I didn’t see anything suspicious. I closed his file.

“Sorry,” I apologized, “I’ve just had bad luck hiring crew before.”

“Does this mean I’ve got the job?”

I nodded. “It’s a courier ship, you and I are the only crew. We fly at the whim of Belliff, Inc. My contract term with them is seven years, at the end of which I own the ship. You technically work for me. You have your choice of salary, though I can’t offer much, or a percentage of profits and a share in the ship.” I paused, something felt off kilter but I couldn’t put my finger on it. “First trip is a trial period to see if this is going to work out. Your pay is free passage to wherever we get sent.”

He nodded. He didn’t ask questions, which made me a little nervous. Everything I’d offered him was standard contracting procedures on an Independent ship, though. I shrugged the feeling away.

“Where are we going?”

“Tebros. Lift off in three hours. The ship is in slot five-oh-nine.”

“The name of the ship?”

I could barely bring myself to say it. As soon as the ship was mine I was going to rename it. “Twinkle.”

“I’ll be there in an hour.” He nodded politely as he left.

He hadn’t cracked a smile. I worried at the edges of his application while I thought. Most spacers would throw fits over such a dumb name. I was surrounded by snickers and rude remarks from the dock crew every time I walked past them. Jerimon Pai hadn’t even seemed to notice. I examined his papers trying to find something to justify my sense of unease.

His last job was piloting for a transport company. Nothing unusual there. His contract term had expired and he had left, or so the paper said. He was twenty-four. His voice was cultured and smooth as Sirian silk, surprisingly deep. His short hair was dark black, with blue highlights under the lights. My mind filled in more details than I thought I’d noticed.

He had only glanced up briefly during the short interview, showing dark lashes and just a hint of blue. His hands were elegant, fingers moving gracefully over the keypad as he entered his information. He exuded competence and polish. His face could make grown women swoon, if he were in vids. He made my skin crawl but I was prejudiced against handsome men. I didn’t have much of a choice, he was the only person even close to qualified.

Pushing the uneasy feelings away I stood, shoving the stack of applications into the disposal slot. I could always dump him on Tebros.

I left the Guild office, crossing the port to file the necessary papers, once at the registry board, again at Belliff, and in triplicate back at the Guild office.

Jerimon was waiting at the ship when I finally made it to the docking bay. A single duffel bag slumped against his leg, probably everything he owned. The dock workers made their usual rude commentary. I thumbed the lock, ducking through the hatch before it finished opening. Jerimon followed me inside. I shut the hatch, closing off the dock workers’ suggestive remarks.

The hatch opened onto the crew quarters, a space about six feet wide and maybe ten long. It held two bunks, a couple of storage lockers, a compact galley, a tiny fold-out table, two chairs, and personal facilities. Forward was the cockpit, with room for two pilots and a navigator if you really pushed it. I didn’t want to push it. Belliff management provided preprogrammed disks for the nav comp as part of the contract.

Aft was a small cargo bay, about the same size as the living quarters, and access to the engine. The cargo bay was currently full of crates that needed to be on Tebros within the week. From what I gathered listening to the talk at Belliff, shipments had been disappearing. Hiring a courier made sense. If cargo turned up missing or damaged, it came out of my hide. I made certain the papers were in order and no one touched the cargo but me after I’d inspected it. I’d insist on the same procedure when we reached Tebros.

“You can have that locker and the top bunk.” I pointed to the storage cubby next to the two stacked bunks.

I checked the seals on the cargo while Jerimon stowed his gear. I opened the access panel into the engine compartment. The engine was pretty much self-contained, designed to be replaced in chunks rather than repaired. I checked fluid levels. Everything came up normal.

Jerimon sat in the cockpit running the first of the flight checks. I slid into my seat and started down my list, pulling on the headset. This was the first time I’d ever flown the ship. The ink on my own contract was barely dry. I flipped on the com and called up the flight tower.

“Rucal Tower One, this is Twinkle.” I suffered through a round of snickering. “Belliff filed a flight plan this morning, I’m activating it. Request permission for liftoff.”

“Flight plan is registered and activated. You’re clear for liftoff at fourteen twenty-two.” Tower control paused. “Is your ship really named Twinkle?”

“Their name, not mine. Liftoff time acknowledged at fourteen twenty-two.” I shut off the mike.

Jerimon watched me, his face bland.

“What?” I expected him to say something about the ship’s name. I was going to have words with someone at Belliff headquarters about it.

“Are you ready to test the main drive?”

“Just about.” I checked a few more readouts and flipped a few more switches.

“Have you flown this ship before?” he asked as he watched me double-check the list and hunt for switches on the control panel.

“First flight for both of us.” I found the right switch. The light above it faded from yellow to green. “Just let me check the disk.” I swiveled my chair to the side and slid the disk with our flight plan into the nav comp. The computer beeped and chuckled to itself. “Have you flown one like this before?”

“Pretty close.” He checked a couple of switches over his head. “Drives at one-tenth power. Holding green.”

The computer burped. The screen told me the program was valid and accepted. Unless someone at Belliff had screwed up, it would take us to Tebros. We should be there within four days. The ship vibrated quietly, the engines running smoothly.

“Five minutes to liftoff.” I turned back to the controls. I was confident I could fly it. I’d qualified on eighteen different ships when I was at the Academy less than a year ago. A courier ship didn’t present much challenge.

Jerimon flipped switches and set sliders. The engine’s rumbling grew in pitch and volume. The lights stayed green. I made the final call to the tower and confirmed liftoff. The ship rattled as we lifted free of Rucal’s gravity.

Seven moons and three sets of rings orbited the planet, a cluttered mess to navigate. Jerimon flipped on the shields once we cleared atmosphere. Dust sparked and crackled as it hit. I watched the show on the viewscreen, keeping an eye out for big rocks. We had at least two hours of flying before we would be clear enough to risk jumping to hyperspace. As long as we kept the shields up and an eye on the scanner so we could avoid the big stuff, it was routine flying. I twitched the thrusters to one side to avoid a chunk of ice three times the size of the ship.

The engines purred, a subliminal vibration. Air hissed through the filters. I relaxed in my seat. I was back in space, where I belonged.

“What are we carrying?” Jerimon asked after a while.

“Some kind of computer control. As long as the seals on the crates are intact when we land, I don’t much care. We only get paid if they arrive untampered.” I checked the scans again then made a slight correction to our course. “Do you mind if I ask why you chose Rucal to end your contract?”

“I was doing piece work, flying whatever, wherever for a couple of weeks, looking for something more permanent.” He adjusted the shield levels. The viewscreen crackled with dust.

“Are you moving on at Tebros?”

He shrugged. “Depends. Are you going to kick me off?”

“Depends. Do you snore?”

“Not that anyone’s ever complained about.”

“Then I probably won’t.” Maybe I was being too cautious. “Why don’t you have a home planet listed in your file?”

“I was born in space. I’ve never found a planet I wanted to claim. What about you? Where are you from?”

“How easy is it to remove or change your planet of origin? I don’t want to claim the one I was born on.”

“I don’t know, I’ve never tried. What planet was that?”

“Tivor.”

He stared blankly. “Never heard of it.”

“I wish I hadn’t.”

“Why not? What can be so bad about it?” He sounded as if he really had no idea.

“You never heard of the food riots? Tivor’s government runs everything on Tivor.” They’d tried to make me a model citizen and I hadn’t cooperated. Tivor wanted its women quiet, docile, and obedient. Life hadn’t been easy or fair on Tivor. I didn’t want to discuss my personal hangups with a man I barely knew. I switched subjects.

We discussed politics while we dodged asteroids and watched dust flash against the shields. The shield indicators flickered yellow a few times, but mostly stayed green. Belliff didn’t stint on their equipment. Jerimon relaxed the farther we strayed from personal topics. I thought it odd but not worrisome.

We rounded the last big moon into clear space. I checked the nav program one last time, to make sure we were headed in the right direction before we jumped. The chatter of local pilots was steady as a background noise that dissolved into static as we passed into the moon’s shadow. The ship lurched, then slowed, the engines whining.

I flipped switches, trying to find the problem. Jerimon pushed the thrusters all the way to the stops. The engine whine rose in pitch. The ship shuddered. The emergency lights flashed. Warnings hooted through the ship.

“Shut it down!” I yelled over the noise.

Jerimon stubbornly tried to pull more power from the engines. His face was pale and his chin set as he goosed the throttles. I reached across the controls to slam the switches off. Jerimon slumped in his chair, hands over his face. The engines spun down. The alarms shut up, all except one. It was a quiet, insistent beeping with a single, flashing red light.

I checked the screen, then muttered a bad word at the unknown vessel showing on the scans. “Who’d be using a tractor beam out here?”

The ship was bigger, but that didn’t mean much. Anything was bigger than my ship. The scanners didn’t show any ID traces from the other ship.

“Does it look like pirates to you?” Pirates weren’t uncommon in this sector but Rucal had a major Patrol station out beyond the moons. What pirate would be stupid enough to operate under the Patrol’s nose?

I knew of at least one, but he was in prison. I scowled at the screen. In a few moments, I wouldn’t need the scanner. I could just look outside.

Jerimon dropped his hands to his lap, staring bleakly at the monitor. If he didn’t know who was on that ship, I’d eat my socks—the ones I’d been wearing for three days without washing because I hadn’t found the time.

“Who are they and why are they dragging us in?”

Jerimon shook his head, eyes locked on the approaching ship. He gripped the chair so hard his knuckles went white.

A grappling arm locked onto the metal hull with a loud clank.

I had a blaster somewhere in my gear. It wasn’t technically legal but after what I’d been through on Dadilan, I felt much better with one somewhere close. I tore off my restraints then scrambled out of the cockpit.

I slammed open the locker, digging through the jumbled contents. I burrowed frantically, tossing clothes onto the floor. The air lock hissed open. I reached the bottom but still hadn’t found my blaster. I grabbed a tunic, shaking it out before shoving it back inside.

Boots clomped on the deck. I stood, leaving the locker hanging open, my clothes still strewn over the floor. Jerimon waited in the doorway to the cockpit, his face pale. I stood between him and the airlock. I turned slowly.

Five non-humans edged into the ship. The shortest one stood seven feet and a bit. They were reptilian, their skin gray-green and lightly scaled. Crests of spines rose erect across their heads and down the back of their necks. Their yellow eyes narrowed in the white lights of the cabin. They had no visible ears, their noses were almost nonexistent.

The one in front raised an elongated, bony hand and pointed. It wore a garishly bright scarlet tunic; the others wore black with a weird emblem worked in gold on the left shoulder. “Where is it? What have you done with it, human?”

Jerimon swallowed hard, clinging to the doorframe as if it were a lifeline. It was obvious he knew what these creatures wanted. I was going to beat the information out of him as soon as I got rid of them.

I turned on the leader, planting my hands on my hips. The creature loomed, the spines of its crest almost brushing the ceiling. I refused to let it intimidate me. “What do you want on this ship? You are in violation of all free trade regulations.”

“Silence!” The leader dismissed me, raising his slit-pupiled glare to Jerimon. “Where is the Eggstone?”

“I don’t know.” Jerimon’s voice cracked with strain.

“Perhaps this will sharpen your memory.” The creature’s hand shot forward, bony claws digging into my shoulder. It pulled me close, forcing my face into its tunic. I struggled but the lizard-creature was too strong. It smelled odd, a weird mix of sharp plant and musty animal. The claws twitched once, digging furrows through my shoulder.

“She has nothing to do with this. Let her go.” Jerimon took one step forward.

I had to give him points for chivalry, but it was too little too late. I twisted my head to the side, sneezing at the scent. I pushed against its torso, fighting for my space.

The creature flexed its claws. “She is with you. Return the Eggstone to us.”

“I can’t.” Jerimon ducked his head. “I sold it.”

The claws jerked closed. I stifled a moan as blood dripped down my shoulder.

“You defile our sacred place and steal the Eggstone, only to sell it as a common thing?”

The creature’s smell sharpened. The claws flexed again. This time I couldn’t keep the moan in. Red splotched the front of my shipsuit.

“You shall return the Eggstone or you shall face the altar of Sekkitass. This shall remind you.” The claws shredded my shoulder.

Needles of hot fire lanced through skin and muscle, clear to the bone. I crumpled to the floor when it released me. White hot sheets of pain spread from my shoulder followed by a strange numbness.

The creature turned its back, its companions already entering the airlock.

“Sessimoniss!” Jerimon dropped to the deck beside me. “Give me the antidote.”

“She will not die. She has but tasted of the poison. Return the Eggstone.”

I heard the airlock hiss shut through ears that rang and buzzed. My eyes would no longer focus. Jerimon’s face loomed over me, his forehead creased with worry. Waves of ice and fire swept through my body.

“Blast it!” I hated Jerimon. I’d been suckered again, hiring a troublemaker. I struggled to curl one hand into a fist.

Jerimon touched the bloody mess of my shoulder. The pain reached a new level of agony and I passed out.