part0230

Nova looked up from her breakfast bowl when the call cut through the chatter, the scrape of chairs on the bare floor, the clatter of dishes being stacked and sorted in the nearby kitchen. Lieutenant Sulean and her Caga squad roommate also scanned the mess hall to find Captain Dakad striding toward them. Nova slapped the com screen on her sleeve as if that would make it work properly. “I could have sworn I wound this thing up this morning.”

Sulean snickered and nudged one of the replacement pilots who had finally arrived just two days ago. “He likes to shout. The com bands aren’t conducive to shouting.”

“He’d find a way,” Nova mumbled. The day had barely begun and already Dakad had found some reason to bark.

“He scares me,” the pilot said, not frightened enough to let it interrupt his breakfast.

Nova cast a curious glance his way. That Lieutenant Ko hailed from Feyd was clear by the deep brown of his skin, embellished on all exposed parts with intricate tattoos that carried much meaning for his people. Having seen him at his exercises, she knew that the patterns were not restricted to just his face and neck. But his long-limbed body was typically Centauri as was the black hair. Centauri and Feydans carried nearly identical DNA and most other Prime species were also not that far removed. This was as much a reason to suspect divine intention as much as some shared origin in another part of the galaxy, depending on one’s viewpoint. Nova had no precise viewpoint but she found the possibility endlessly fascinating. Interspecies breeding was rare and often problematic and so generally not encouraged by those who had any say in the matter. Still, people had a way of getting together. Proof of that was sitting right here, slurping the last of his fruit soup.

The captain arrived at their table. “Saddle up, Whiteside. You’re taking a few pedestrians back down to the Shon Gat garrison and then you’ll pick up three more pilots while you’re there. A bunch of day trippers want to go, too.”

“Aye, sir.” They still hadn’t replaced the lost shuttle pilot and so the combat pilots had filled in for her, not averse to the break in routine or the chance to spend the occasional evening on the Siolet base.

“No layover. You’re back here tonight.”

“Thank you, sir,” she said.

Dakad’s narrowed eyes exuded disapproval while he tried to decide if sarcasm was involved in her reply. Seeing nothing on her guileless face, he spun and left them to their tea.

“Some day, Nova…” Sulean warned.

Her roommate smirked, like Lieutenant Rolyn well aware of how Nova was spending her downtime. “Something tells me she meant it.”

Nova stood up. “Bus is leaving soon. Better be on it.”

She left the mess and bypassed the restricted lifts leading to the fighter plane levels to take the one to the passenger concourse. The supply clerk supplied her with the latest gossip while issuing her the uniform used by non-military pilots. He also promised her a fresh flight suit upon her return, for which she was grateful. The suits had a way of picking up an unpleasant rankness well before new ones were issued.

She waited at the shuttle gate while security checked it once more for possible sabotage and then completed her own pre-flight inspection before allowing the passengers aboard. The civilians returning to the base were the last of the team still investigating the explosion on the flight deck. Despite Nova’s carefully padded inquiries during the trip to the surface, none of them seemed inclined to discuss the case. She wondered if the supply clerk would have better luck with them. Perhaps he gave lessons in prying gossip out of people.

She landed them on the dusty airfield that served the elevator base garrison and saw them safely transferred to another shuttle leaving for Siolet. Then there was not much to do but wait for her new passengers. She knew no one here that she cared to visit. Her temporary squad during her stint as ground pounder was now manning Rim Station, her old base. She cared little for the ones here now, consisting mostly of troops either belonging to or afraid of Captain Beryl. She ambled to the garrison administrative building, craning her neck up at the elevator looming over the landscape. It was impossible to ignore.

It was cooler inside and she flapped the front of her uniform blouse to circulate the air under there while she filed her report with a bored clerk. “So where is everybody? I’m expected back topside today.”

“Not here yet. Sandstorm grounded their skimmer. I’ll tag you when they’re ready to leave.”

“Storm heading this way?” Although Shon Gat was officially cleared of militants now, the absolute least entertaining thing she could think of was to be grounded here overnight. Perhaps there was time to head to Camomas or one of the other towns instead.

“Nah. Blowing itself out over the flats. You’ll be okay.”

Nova looked out of a sand-encrusted window over the training grounds. A few grunts were jogging around out there, no doubt cursing the grit drifting into their lungs. How fortunate her own team was to be stationed aboard the skyranch with its new, clean exercise equipment and a view of the green space while doing their laps.

“Is the pilot here yet?” she heard a gruff voice through an open door.

“Yessir, right here,” the clerk replied.

Nova raised an eyebrow and walked into the commander’s office where she saluted with the least amount of decorum she could get away with. “Major Trakkas,” she said.

He looked up. “What are you doing down here, Whiteside?”

“Driving the bus.”

“You air jockeys don’t have enough to do,” he muttered. He gave her a card. “Get over to the climber hub and pick up a packet from Sergeant Srilk to take up with you. I don’t have three days to get it up there.”

“Yessir. Who is the receiver?”

He returned his attention to his data sheets. “Just leave it with Private Maxen at supply. Dismissed.”

She hesitated a moment. As far as she knew, Trakkas had not once inquired about her capture during the Shon Gat siege. The fact that he was to blame for her even being there didn’t seem to bother his conscience. She wanted to ask about the others and perhaps say a few words about Lieutenant Reko, but staring at the top of the major’s unevenly shaved head suddenly made her averse to even talk to him. She left without another word.

The air outside was now thick enough with the abrasive dust to force her to pull up her filter cowl to cover her mouth and nose, glad that she had remembered to grab one from the shuttle. The tether’s anchor building loomed above the surrounding structures, looking impressive and efficient and, although really little more than a shipping facility, decidedly military. Most of that was due to the armored vehicles, patrols and of course the massive scaffold surrounding the lower part of the tether, studded with communication and surveillance equipment covering the entire hemisphere. The security checkpoint at the entrance was meant to look sleek and elegantly designed but whoever was in charge of the place had by now lost the battle of trying to keep the dust from covering everything. She patted her clothes to add her contribution while the guard checked her credentials and scanned her irises.

The zone beyond the checkpoint looked like a larger version of the elevator hub on the orbiter. The climber loading deck was more tightly guarded and armed guards walked among the rows of containers awaiting shipment. She walked around the hub to a service area and presented the card Major Trakkas had given her.

The clerk glanced at it and then nodded to his left. “Go see Ton Srilk. The Caspian over there.”

She nodded and followed his direction. The woman he had pointed out was busy overseeing some sort of repacking of one of the containers. She turned her long, densely furred head when Nova approached. Her yellow eyes were watering even in here. Caspians wore clothes only where custom or policy demanded it but Nova suspected that this one was glad for the coveralls that kept the dust from her intricately patterned hide.

“Sergeant,” she said and showed her card again. “Trakkas asked me to pick up a package?”

“And about time,” the woman said and dug through her pockets while walking away from the dock workers. “Can’t wait to get rid of this.”

Nova followed her, baffled by this process and the soldier’s lack of manners toward an officer. The Caspian found what she was looking for and slapped a flat metal case into Nova’s hand. “Those guys are paid far too well for easy work, if you ask me. Tell Beryl his bag is in—”

“Srilk,” a harsh voice barked behind them. Another guard, this one Centauri, glared at her. Nova had no trouble recognizing him as one of Beryl’s associates. The last time she had seen him had been with her gun to his throat at Rim Station. “Whiteside,” he said. “Moonlighting again? You just can’t keep your ass in your Kite, can you, Lieutenant?”

The Caspian’s short intake of breath told Nova that a different sort of courier had been expected here today.

“Got to keep things interesting,” she said and flipped the container into the air before dropping it into her pocket. “I’ll tell Beryl you said hello.”

Having no other place to go, Nova walked quickly across the garrison’s central square and to the mess hall where she asked for cold tea. Her hand explored the lump in her pocket while she sipped. Payment for what? What was Beryl up to? She frowned, rejecting the idea that he and his men were behind the recent sabotage. They were rotten to the fibers of their pharmaceutically enhanced bodies but they were in this for themselves. She doubted that any of them had the necessary interest or concentration to work for the rebels.

Smuggling was the most likely reason for this payment. If they themselves weren’t smuggling goods past the checkpoints, they were allowing shipments to go through uninspected. With Beryl’s men in control of security at both the base station as well as the hub on the ranch, doing so was not a difficult feat. And of course Major Trakkas seemed to be in charge of it all, adjusting duty rosters to place his men where they needed to be to keep the goods moving.

Nova tapped her com unit to contact the tower. “Boss, how long till the transport from Siolet arrives?”

“Hours yet, Lieutenant. Still grounded.”

Nova considered. Technically, she was on her own right now, with her commanding officer somewhere in orbit. “How’s the weather to Rim Station?”

“Clear. Storm’s heading west.”

Nova signed off, gulped the rest of her tea and hurried to the vehicle depot where she borrowed a skimmer for a trip to visit a friend at her former base. No one seemed to care very much. She remembered to let the clerk at the administrative building know where she was going before jumping into the car and heading out into the flats north of Shon Gat.

An hour of zooming over the barren salt flats brought her to where the base nestled among the foothills. Drab and storm-battered, it resembled any of the Air Command stations on planets like these. If she imagined the dusty ground red, this might be Targon. If she pictured more sand and less rock, it might be K’lar. She pulled into a charging station and left the hangars for the base interior.

“Welcome, Lieutenant,” she was greeted by a mechanical attendant at the entrance to the base clinic. Her profile was already displayed in front of the Bellac medic at the main desk when she got there. He greeted her as well but only to inform her that she was not due for an appointment.

“I’m here to see Doctor Soren,” she told him. “Could you ask her if she’s available, please?”

“I will. Please wait here.”

Nova paced around a bit and then stopped to run her hand through a scanner provided for self-assessment. “Ah, I’m Human. Good to know. And indeed a healthy specimen.” She slapped the top of the display. “Shots? I’m not due for my shots, you snoop.”

“Doctor Soren said she can see you for a moment.”

Nova smiled politely and followed his direction to the doctor’s workspace. Soren came to her feet when Nova entered, a concerned look on her face. “Hello, Lieutenant. I hadn’t expected to see you back here so soon. Is… is everything all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” Nova assured her, realizing that the doctor worried about some lingering effect from her encounter with Captain Beryl. “Everything working as it should. I need to talk to you about something else.”

“Oh?” Soren’s expression was guarded.

Nova sat down and gestured for the doctor to do the same. “I want to ask you something about the previous crew here. I think you know who I mean.”

“I guess I do.” Soren let the door slide shut before taking her chair again.

Nova wondered how to approach this. Now that she was here, the whole thing suddenly seemed a lot more delicate. “I’ve got reason to suspect that Beryl and his gang are involved in some smuggling at the elevator,” she said finally, as so often choosing the most direct route to get to the point. She made a mental note to look up the talented gossip at the ranch to find out how to start conversations with non-coms.

Soren said nothing for a moment. She looked out of the window, thoughtfully tugging on the purple tips of her white hair. “What do you want me to add to that?” she said finally.

“What you know about it.”

Nova sighed, having half expected this. “I think they’re smuggling mince . I’m pretty sure they’re using it, too.”

Soren frowned. “What else would you smuggle out of this place? Half of his thugs are chewing that garbage. Makes things hurt less and it obscures the rest of the dope they use when I test them. The sort that I have to report or the system will do it for me.”

“What else are they using?”

She shrugged. “You don’t get to be that size without some help. Certainly not the Centauri. They’re not built for carrying around all that muscle. They didn’t get it from me, if you’re wondering.”

“I’m here to ask about the mince . I’m guessing they’re smuggling the stuff up to the station and from there onto commercial ships heading elsewhere.”

“It’s much bigger than that. They’re just paid off to look the other way when the shipments arrive. To make sure they’re not searched for contraband. Believe me, the best present Major Trakkas ever got was when General Ausan moved the whole outfit to the elevator. Before that they only had the supply ships that came by here.”

“Could they be gun running as well?”

Soren shook her head. “I can’t picture it. I can’t think of a life form lower than those men but they look down upon rebels as the scourge of the galaxy. They live to destroy them and take pleasure in finding interesting ways to do that. Beryl’s squad doesn’t take prisoners. The only reason to smuggle guns is to get them to the rebels. They’d never consider that.”

Nova nodded. “And Major Trakkas is steering this whole thing?”

“He takes a cut but he lets Beryl do the work. It’s why he let them hound you off the base.”

“Because of who I am. Because of my father,” Nova said, mostly to herself. “They didn’t think I’d bend.”

“Probably. Not like some of us.”

Nova looked into Soren’s face, seeing little more than shame there. She leaned forward and placed her hand on the woman’s arm. “You can help to stop this,” she said urgently. “I have some proof, but not enough. I can’t just point a finger and hope Beryl doesn’t break my leg for in retaliation. You can come forward and tell what you know. What you’ve seen.”

“Including what he did to you?”

“Yes. Including that. This isn’t just about smuggling. It’s about people getting hurt if they get in the way. We can’t let this happen. Not in the Air Command that I want to work for.” Djari’s angry face passed briefly through her mind. “This is the sort of thing that makes people distrust the Union. Hate Air Command presence.”

“What proof do you have?”

Nova reached into her pocket for the parcel she was to deliver. “I’m guessing that’s payment in here. Maybe instructions, messages they can’t broadcast. Trakkas told me to take this up to the station. The woman who gave it to me let a few things slip about where it’s going.”

“So?” Soren smiled sadly. “Trakkas will have a million reasons for whatever he’s doing. They’ve been in this for a long time.” She took the box and stood up to run it through an analyzer without opening its seal. “No organics. No dope in there.”

“Trakkas has no reason to send money up to the orbiter unless it’s pretty damn personal. We don’t deal in hard currency, if that’s what’s in there.”

“Maybe it’s a pretty bauble for his girlfriend. Even if it isn’t, he’d find a way to make sure that’s your dope. Or your money. You have nothing.” She looked over the results of the scan again. “The only DNA on that thing is yours. I don’t even see a Caspian on that.”

“She wore gloves.” Nova recalled taking a curious glance at the woman’s six-fingered hands. “Can we tag the box somehow? That way we can trace it to Beryl after I deliver it to supply.”

Soren laughed. It was a brittle, cold sound. “This is a clinic, not a Prime Staff lair full of gadgetry and dark schemes. Leave the spying to the agents, Lieutenant. Go to your CO. If you need to expose this, tell him what you suspect and walk away.”

“Is that what you’re doing?” Nova said softly. “Walking away?”

“Yes,” Soren said, equally subdued. “Because the things that’ll happen to you if Beryl is even just questioned are not something I want visited upon me.”

It was not the best of moods that accompanied Nova as she left Rim Station and headed back into the flats. She flew manually, mulling over Soren’s words and very clear warning. The only thing accomplished here was to update her immunization shots, leaving her with a throbbing arm and another reason to have visited the base. She doubted that anyone had even noticed her absence.

She watched the rocky ground pass silently beneath her skimmer as she raced over a landscape too lacking in interest to distract her from her thoughts. Was Soren right? Was staying out of the fray it once again the best option? Avoid getting hurt again? Certainly, the doctor was right in that Nova had little evidence for her accusations. Vague mumblings from a stranger, her assertion that Beryl was impaired while on duty, some orders from a superior officer that weren’t entirely protocol. So what?

And what if more people were involved? What about Dakad? What about the station master in charge of the shipping traffic? There was no way to know. Perhaps Djari was right, all along.

Nova’s eyes shifted to the horizon when she thought about Djari. His work took him down into the shipping level as new supplies for the grow rings arrived daily. Was he aware of something going on? Perhaps he had seen something, heard something that would offer more evidence.

She brought the skimmer to a halt so abruptly that it nearly crashed the short distance to the ground instead of settling gently according to its design. She opened the canopy and leaped out of the plane, pacing away only to turn around to pace back again.

Djari! She recalled his unheard conversation with Beryl in the corridor. What about that trip to the surface he had not bothered to mention and that his supervisor knew nothing about? Those boxes in his room? With all the equipment available in the grow rings, why would he clutter up his quarters with those analysis tools? Nova leaned against the skimmer, feeling her stomach churn. Could it be? Djari a smuggler? Djari as part of that miserable gang of louts?

So stupid! Nova glared into the direction of the distant elevator, invisible in the haze above the flats. She wanted to storm up there right this very minute to confront him with what she had found. She wanted to shout and rail at him for disparaging the Union’s ethics while all along playing his own games. She swore loudly and in several languages, her voice unheard in the empty afternoon desert.

Most of all, she wanted him to deny all of it and show her that none of this was true. Maybe all of this was just a series of coincidences, a chain of small events that really didn’t fit together.

But what did she really know about him? Nothing at all. They had shared a few difficult days together and she had been swept away by good looks and a concerned face like some little greenie fresh out of the academy.

A buzzing sound from the skimmer’s console interrupted her furious rumination to alert her to the perimeter alarm. She leaned into the vehicle to see what approached, likely a caravan or perhaps an Air Command patrol. Instead, she saw two skimmer sleds closing in from the direction of the base, their destination unmistakably this very spot.

“This is Lieutenant Whiteside to approaching traffic,” she said, sounding even to herself like someone not in a mood for company. “Identify yourselves immediately.”

She set her skimmer in motion and veered toward the rolling hills to the east, not surprised when the two other vehicles changed their course as well. Bandits, likely, roaming the flats in search of anyone stupid enough to be out here on their own instead of joining a caravan. But was it possible that Trakkas had sent someone to waylay her? She coaxed more speed out of her machine but a glance at her sensors showed that the skimmers behind her were faster.

She was now heading directly toward the edge of the flats. Hiding herself and the skimmer was not possible with both the vehicle and her com band quite clearly broadcasting her location. Her pursuers were still lost to the distant haze but they drew nearer with each second that passed. “Son of a leprous Rhuwac,” Nova cursed. “And you, too, Dakad. Could have sent Sulean. But, no, you had to send Whiteside. And Whiteside had to get nosy. Stupid, stupid—”

Something landed just off her skimmer’s port side and exploded in a cloud of dust and sand. Whatever they were lobbing at her from the distance, although not terribly accurate, was sure to stop her skimmer, if not flatten it entirely.

Another burr from her sensors showed more life forms ahead. “Enough already!” she shouted. But these were scattered and there were no power signatures among them. Likely, a caravan bedded down for the night at the edge of the desert.

Without thinking much about the likely outcome of her unformed plan, she entered a new course into the vehicle’s systems, working with little more than the view of the hills in front of her. Quickly, she unclipped a gun from beneath the console and then dropped her data sleeve to the floor of the skimmer. Slowing only enough to avoid a broken neck, she retracted the canopy and vaulted to the ground where she tumbled wildly, endlessly until she fetched up against a rock.

Nova lay still, ignoring the pain from whatever damage she had sustained, her attention only on the skimmer. It followed her program to veer south and accelerate toward the rock formations ahead. It was soon out of sight and then Nova heard the distant roar as it crashed into the rocks.

She scrambled to her feet, daring to test her limbs for breaks and sprains, finding nothing more serious than a twisted ankle. “Where is the damn gun!” she shouted, looking around. It had spun from her hand when she leaped from the car and was now nowhere in sight. She decided to ignore the blood on her arms and knee and limped toward where she thought the caravan had stopped. Her pursuers would soon realize that she was not in the crashed skimmer, depending on how much fuel had to burn out before they could check the wreckage.

She fumbled her way through the boulders and scrub, painfully aware that her career choice had made her reliant on sensors and guidance systems. Her standard training in more primitive navigation was ridiculously inadequate for wandering around the plains of Bellac. Trying to remember if Bellac’s tusked, meat-eating and much-dreaded owgs roamed as far west as this desert didn’t make her feel much better about being out here. She stopped to calm her breathing and to listen for the approaching sounds of the sleds.

Fortunately, the nomads weren’t concerned about concealment out here. The mournful bellows and bleats of their animals revealed the way to their camp. Nova pushed forward and reached the edge of a herd ambling around the meager scrubland. She sprinted toward one of the churries lolling in the sand. A startled herder moved aside when she lifted the beast’s front paw and slipped into the sandy wallow below.

She lay quietly, hoping that the animal, unaccustomed to her, would not decide to evict her. Breathing through the fabric of her sleeve to filter the dust and the churry’s aroma, she waited, listening for nearby voices. Soon, she made out the muffled vibration of a skimmer’s thrusters through the ground. It stopped.

She flinched at the sound of projectile weapons. It was followed by a clamor of panicked animal grunts and bellows and then the ground shook with the thunder of hooves. Only her sheltering churry remained, apparently trained to stay on the ground when someone lay beneath it. Surely a convenience but now it served only to point out her hiding spot. She felt it tremble.

A long moment later the animal finally rose and shuffled aside. Nova turned onto her back and then slowly came to her feet to face the two Centauri looming over her, both dressed as civilians. She did not recognize either of them. Their guns, however, were of military issue as were the two nearby skimmers.

She looked to her right and left to see the nomads silently approaching from the direction of their camp to investigate the cause of the stampede. They looked like thin, ghostly figures of dun-colored cloth in a dun-colored landscape. Most covered their dyed hair with a burnoose worn against the drifting sands and she did not see their faces. They moved warily, as if waiting to see what would happen here today.

“What do you want,” Nova said to her pursuers, doing her best to sound belligerent.

One of the Centauri grasped her arm to pull her toward their vehicles. She moved defensively, drawing on years of close combat training to escape the man’s grip. She got free but he simply raised a fist and slammed it into the side of her head. She stumbled and dropped to her knees.

The response to that was immediate. The nomads surged forward like a silent drift of dusty rags and pointy weapons to force the Centauri away from Nova. Her assailants staggered back, arms and weapons raised in surprise as much as surrender. They were forced to the ground and Nova waited for the sound of fists and the screams of pain. None of that happened. Instead, the nomads withdrew after a while, having stripped the men nearly bare of anything even remotely valuable or useful. For one of them that meant a pair of expensive leather trousers.

The Bellacs waited, weapons poised, while the Centauri scrambled to their feet and returned to their skimmers, cursing and glowering but not inclined to linger. One of them shoved aside a young nomad who was busy raiding the skimmer’s storage compartment. They departed in the direction of Shon Gat.

Hands reached out to pull Nova from the sand. She let them, crying out when someone gripped her abraded elbow. A searing pain in her foot told her that something wasn’t quite right on that end of her body, either.

She was made to sit on a rough-spun blanket and someone gave her a drink so strongly fermented that she nearly gagged. After a moment she took another sip, grateful for the soothing heat that spread through her limbs. A young man with long braids dyed an earthy red took her arm and smeared her wounds with a thick, gritty paste. Nova shook her head in disbelief when she realized that both the drink and the salve were made from the cactus also used to make mince .

Others sat nearby, watching silently while the herders strolled off to retrieve the scattered animals. Nova returned their curious gaze, never having been among a tribe of nomads. Union soldiers were not the most popular visitors to Bellac but the plains people were not known to be hostile toward them. Living in this harsh desert had taught them to make the best of both rebel and colonist presence.

An older woman, this one with green tufts of short hair and wearing a gown that had probably been fashionable in Siolet many years ago, reached out and poked a gnarled finger at Nova’s insignia. Her long nails were yellowed and thick and resembled claws. “You’re an officer,” she decided.

“They, too?” The nomad showed Nova one of their new prizes, an Air Command data sleeve. It was a basic com unit without security access or identification.

“Looks that way.” Nova watched two nomads admire each other’s newly acquired duster and leather pants. “You’re well-armed.”

“As it must be. Now we’re armed even better.” The woman laughed, her voice rough with age and desert grit, and pulled the Centauri’s rail gun from beneath her once-stately dress.

Nova joined the laughter. By the deep wrinkles around some of the other nomads’ eyes visible above their wraps, it was clear that the others were also amused. It seemed that, instead of a caravan of traders and herdsmen, she had stumbled upon a pack of desert bandits. She was untroubled by the distinction. “I need to get to Shon Gat.”

“Your skimmer is broken.”

“I’m afraid so.” Nova looked around the camp and saw a dilapidated hover among the wagons. “Does that thing work?”

Nova reached into her pocket and withdrew Trakkas’ package. Having those men sent after her had added a whole new dimension to things today. Perhaps this thing held some answers. “Do you have something sharp? A blade?”

The matriarch beckoned one of the other nomads who produced a ferocious-looking dagger.

Nova took it gingerly, not without first admiring its design. The handle was a traditional carving although the blade itself was bartered from an off-world supplier. Carefully, she sliced into the seal on the box, aware that those around her were as curious as she was about its contents.

“Well, now we know,” she said when the broken case revealed colored and etched metal rods bound with tape. Her new companions exclaimed in wonder at the currency but it meant little to Nova. As Soren had said, a stack of money was proof of exactly nothing. Disappointed, she held the sticks out to the woman. “Will this buy me a quick ride back to the garrison?”

“And dinner, if you wish.” The Bellac showed her few remaining teeth. The rods, like her gun, disappeared into the depths of her gown. “Every day for the rest of the wind months.”

Nova decided that churry would not be on her menu today. She came to her feet, happy to find her ankle more or less in working order. “No, I need to get back fast.”

After enduring a cup of oily tea that was not to be refused, the nomads tinkered with the skimmer until it started up. The vehicle chugged away from the camp on thrusters so misaligned that the man at the controls had to correct its course continually to keep it from tipping. But it moved at a decent speed and the perimeter scan worked, even if its protective dome was long gone and Nova had to avail herself to one of their dense head-coverings to shield her face. Another Bellac rode behind them, legs dangling over the back end, a rifle held across his chest. They left her at the edge of the garrison with a wave and a smile. She looked after them for a moment before limping to the gate.

She stayed within view of the buildings along the entrance into the base and was soon met by several surprised soldiers and ground personnel. She exaggerated her limp and allowed them to usher her to the small hospital, a place she had hoped to never visit again.

Major Trakkas burst into the room, ignoring the medics’ protests as he strode to the table where she was still being patched up. “What the hell happened, Whiteside?” he thundered.

She lowered the cooling pad from her lip and stared at him, wide-eyed. “It was terrible, sir! Bandits! I was on the way back from visiting Sergeant Rander and the others at Rim Station when they hit. Out of nowhere! Not a single patrol in hailing distance. I bailed just in time before my skimmer went down.”

He glared at her and she practically saw the gears turning in his head. “The package?” he said finally, very quietly.

“Went up with the skimmer. I’m so sorry, sir. But don’t worry; those brigands probably didn’t get their hands on it. Was it important?”

“No,” he said and forced a smile. “It’s nothing that can’t be replaced. We’re all glad you escaped those pirates. I think it’s best if you stayed with us overnight, though.”

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate your concern.” Nova swung her legs over the edge of the stretcher and put her feet on the floor. She reached up to twist her hair into a knot, mainly to hide a grimace of pain when the stretched muscle in her foot agreed with the major. “I’m perfectly fine. Colonel Thedris is expecting me to return promptly with the pilots.” She was certain that Thedris had no idea who was piloting the shuttle, if he even knew it was down here. She beamed at Trakkas and directed a meaningful glance at the nearby medic. “I would appreciate if your depot could spare a fresh uniform, though. I’m a complete mess.”

His eyes narrowed even as he nodded his agreement. “Of course.”

She stood up and found that her foot was likely to cooperate until she got to the shuttle and on her way back to the ranch. If she could manage to get there without finding herself alone somewhere with one of Beryl’s thugs, she might even end this day in her own bed behind a locked door.