Page 57 of Smuggler's Beauty

Evelyn stayed silent. She could see the tension in the corners of Nannette’s eyes, the grip she had on her water bottle. Her stomach dropped as her mind raced. Getting other people hurt trying to clean up her own mess was the last thing she wanted to do.

“My parents were the leaders of the Cygnus Colony. Well, my father is. The governor. My mother’s background was scientific, and she continued her work on the colony after they married. She died in a routine sample survey on one of the moons. Equipment failure.” Nannette took a sip of water, and Evelyn could only imagine how dry her mouth was.

I can’t get through these sorts of talks without turning beet red. She’s so composed.

“My father didn’t take my mother’s death well. He became obsessive about my schedule,” Nannette continued, stone-faced and even-toned. The faint trembling of her water bottle was the only thing to give away her discomfort. “My safety. My diet. My friends. My wardrobe. Any aspect of my life he could control,he did control, and he truly believes it was for my benefit. He managed my education, maneuvered my job prospects. His eventual goal was to elevate my status to the one my mother held.”

Evelyn’s stomach clenched. She didn’t like the way this was heading at all. “In . . . in more ways than one?”

Nannette nodded. Her fingers stopped trembling, but her eyes were lightyears away.

“Well, shit. How did you get away?”

Nannette smiled. “I met Aiden. They were doing a gig on the colony. I didn’t know that they were smugglers when I bribed him to let me hide on his ship. Little did I know where that would lead me.”

“Life beyond your wildest dreams?”

“It’s not a bad one,” she said, grabbing a set of sparring pads. “But I don’t want to keep running anymore. Especially not from a fight that’s worth fighting. So this is as much an experiment in freedom for me as it is for you.”

If they were successful, this would be galactic news. The implications of that not only for Nannette, but for the crew at large staggered Evelyn. Their livelihoods depended on their ability to blend in, and this sort of publicity could shatter that.I’m sure they have a plan to spin things.She felt a fresh surge of guilt for not considering that. She’d been so focused on her own shame and guilt about her siphoning she’d allowed everything else to be eclipsed.

“Thank you,” Evelyn said. “For telling me. And for being here. I don’t know if they’ve told you or not, but you’re kind of a badass.”

Nannette laughed. “Certified, baby.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Pearl watchedIvan regain manual control of their ship. She had managed to track theRising Dawnfrom their stop on the 14 And. station to Earth’s general entry field, and from there to this station in Nevada.

Hewouldwind up in Vegas.

She marveled at how much of the surrounding landscape around Las Vegas remained untouched. The strip glowed as brightly as any tourist trap on any pleasure planet, but the chaos of lights and signs maintained its focus on the single winding stretch of road. No matter how far technology advanced, some structural hurdles to population growth could not be surmounted. Deserts were inhospitable on any planet. It was a testament to the bloody-mindedness of Earthlings that Vegas had flourished at all.

The scenery came into sharper and sharper relief as the ship soared closer. Ivan gave the subtlest of nudges to a flight control, and they were banking left, toward the spaceport. Within minutes he had executed a flawless dock and had the ship de-pressurizing. The hatchways cracked open, and the hiss of fresh air permeating the seals sent a shiver down Pearl’s spine.

She picked up the photo array she’d prepared while Ivan had been plotting their course. It had a selection of official ID photos of theDawn’screw members, plus an old candid photo of the target. Pearl hated including it, but needs must. All of the target’s other photos were highly formal society stills, and nothing screams, “Hey, we have a missing princess!” louder than showing around photos of a woman in a tiara, no matter how tasteful the headpiece.

They’d learned that lesson the hard way. They could learn from their past mistakes.

Sometimes.

Ivan rose from the controls. He cracked his back and took a deep breath in before stretching out his arms. When he was piloting their small craft, he tended to lose focus on everything else, and he’d been hunched over the controls for hours. He picked up his own copy of the photo array and slapped it against his hand.

“You know, we could have avoided this whole leg of the trip if you’d just make a comm call.”

Pearl glared at him. “And forfeit the billable hours? Anika would not approve.”

“You could bill for the call,” he said, shrugging. “Hell, if you made small talk, you could stretch it a whole fifteen minutes.”

“I don’t do small talk.”

Ivan snorted. “No, you don’t.”

“You wanna call so badly, you know how to dial the comm. Be my guest.” She gestured at the communications array with her copy of the photos. The paper smacked a screen, and a commercial for a local brand of soda started blaring. Pearl ordered the screen off, then locked it. “That jingle’s going to be in my head all fucking day.”

“They don’t like me,” Ivan said. He had grabbed his jacket and pulled it on. “Besides, I’m not the one that was sleeping with one of the crew.”

There wasn’t much sleeping.