“No, I didn’t have time. I just searched for the Institute mark.”
Justyn pondered that. Every item stored in the Institute of Historical Preservation was coded and marked. “Where?”
Solomon shuffled over to the workbench and lifted his cuffed hands. “Bottom right corner. You’ll need a magnifier to see it.”
Luciana moved to a shelf of tools on the far wall and came back with a flat metal magnifier. She held it over the spot Solomon had indicated.
The image popped up on the screen. Crossed scrolls enclosed by a circle—the Institute logo—along with a long sequence of numbers and letters.
Luciana tapped at the Sync she was holding. “The code matches the Institute’s records.”
“Can the mark be faked?” Justyn asked.
“Possibly.” Luciana shrugged. “But this mark is authentic. There’s an image of it in the Institute files.”
Nissa strode forward now. “So this is the document that’s been stored in the Institute for almost a thousand years?”
Holy space dust, it had been a fake all along. The document that had helped found law in the galaxy hadn’t been the real thing. Justyn almost felt like laughing.
But one look at Nissa’s face made that urge die a small death.
Solomon laughed though, and everyone turned to glare at him. “This isunreal.” The treasure hunter laughed harder. “Did not see this coming at all.”
Nissa stared at him for a moment. “Commander, please escort Mr. Solomon to a guest cabin and remove his restraints.”
“What?” Justyn demanded.
“I can’t charge him with stealing a priceless artifact because that piece of paper there is worthless.”
With a nod, Tryker shuffled Solomon out the door.
Nissa scraped a hand over her face. “I should go and break the news to the admiral.” Her shoulders slumped. “There goes my transfer.”
Justyn ground his teeth together. She really couldn’t make it any clearer that the edge and what it had to offer wasn’t enough for her.
“Captain Sander, there’s a message from the bridge.” Luciana tapped on her Sync. “We’re about to dock at Galaxy’s Edge.”
Justyn felt a confusing rush of emotion.Time to go home. He met Nissa’s gaze. “Looks like our adventure is over, Captain Sander.”
CHAPTER TEN
Nissa was so weary she felt about two hundred years old.
The sounds and smells of Galaxy’s Edge battered her. Her feet dragged as she made her way up the travel tubes to the level Upper 13—one of the main entertainment levels. As a blast of compressed air took her car upward, she pressed a finger to her left temple. Her headache was heading from bearable to ion-pick-into-the-eye bad
The admiral had been furious at the events surrounding the Constitution. Nissa had always admired the older woman, but seeing her lose it so completely had left Nissa shaken. DeRuyter had not held back as she’d berated Nissa for her failure. Talk about kill the messenger. Goddess, Nissa wondered if the admiral thought Nissa had stolen the damn artifact herself and generated the fake.
With a sigh, she tugged at the neck of her uniform jacket, loosening it. She stepped off the tube and winced at the bustle of Upper 13. Clubs, bars, and restaurants lined one side of the open level. The other was all stores offering…just about anything a deep-space explorer might need. Neon signs flashed and blinked, promising anything from the best pizza on the edge, tocold ales and holo-pool, to the tastiest packaged cloned food, and spacesuits in any color you wanted.
She really needed a drink.
Nissa headed to Moonrakers. Tucked around a corner from the main pulse of Upper 13, it was frequented by off-duty Patrol officers, adventurers, and a lot of the people the Patrol officers arrested. It was an unwritten rule on the space station that you checked your grievances—along with your rank—at the door and just enjoyed your downtime.
As she stepped inside, she sighed with relief. The lights were always dim—hiding both the laser-scarred walls and some of the clientele who’d rather not be seen. The long bar on the left wasn’t too busy this time of day and manned by a cheap serving syndroid. The bar’s owner, a cranky Taxalian named Dob, wasn’t around, but he’d appear once it got busy or if there was any trouble. Most people moved on station time when they docked at the Edge, and right now local time was late morning.
But there were a few who kept ship time, and Nissa’s body was telling her it was time for a glass of wine. She spotted a few of her people from theFreedomplaying holo-pool at the tables at the back, some in civvies, others still in their uniforms, with collars unbuttoned and jackets thrown over the backs of chairs. She raised a hand in greeting, but headed for the bar. Regardless of how much her crew liked her or how relaxed she might be off duty, she was still their captain, and it made socializing…uncomfortable. Her rank and title could never completely be ignored, and her shipmates still felt like they had to be on their best behavior. They deserved their time off, and that meant keeping her distance.
She walked through the tables and past the booths lining the wall. Most were empty, but when her gaze fell on the booth at the back, her steps faltered.
