Page 153 of Trove’s Purpose

“What’s going on?!” She yelled.

The console crackled and hissed. Then, a familiar voice replied happily-

“Please be calm, Rinnicks,” Alred said evenly. “We’ll be with you soon.”

Chapter 52

Chee

Tracking down Rinnicks turned out to be very easy.

They lost the delivery ship that stole him quickly after they disembarked from the station to chase after it. They didn’t make it very far before the other ship swung away into subspace. After that, there was no way to track it.

However, they didn’t really need to. That ship made only two stops – one to that station, the other to the industrial station where their raw materials were processed. They already knew where it was going, it was just a matter of catching up.

They had swung out of subspace right as the delivery ship was in the midst of unloading.

And right as a smaller ship was taking off. One that Alred just managed to scan and identify before it was making its own swing.

That might very well have been where they lost it.

But Chee had made a call to a friend.

This wasn’t one of Hyde’s jobs, therefore he wasn’t funding or providing them with resources. But she wasn’t at all above asking him for help in this. That’s what friends did, after all. And she wasn’t too proud to do whatever it took to bring her male back.

She had no idea what Hyde did on his end, but shortly after providing him with details of the ship that had gotten away, he returned with the exact location of where it had gone. A place that also happened to be where Rinnicks was currently.

Rinnicks was a wealthy woman, with a vast empire. She had holdings and properties all across the cosmos. Mostly for business, but she also had plenty of homes that she kept solely for the sake of satisfying whatever whim and desire entered her head.

For her attempt at claiming Trove, she had chosen an asteroid large enough to be considered a moon if it ever got caught in a planet’s orbit. It also happened to be full of platinum and many other precious metals used for industrial purposes and so had been turned into a mining and processing plant. She owned it through one of her subsidiary businesses beyond Vaulted Trade.

And just like the Vaulted Trade headquarters on Heava Yu, it had been designed to provide for the boss’ comforts and pleasures whenever she deigned to come around.

Which, for this place, was rarely. But it did happen. And it just so happened that they had been alerted to prepare for her arrival right before the smaller starship that left the other industrial plant arrived and unloaded one, single box.

Meanwhile, the Vainglory was already hot on their tails, tipped off to where he would likely be going by Hyde, just based on what Rinnicks was doing.

Chee didn’t care what else happened, but she hoped that they were able to reach him before that bitch put her hands on him.

Meanwhile, Hyde assured them that, since Chee was going after her mate, she was legally allowed to do most anything within reason to get him back safely. And he also was going to make sure the peacekeepers looked away for a short while.

He wasn’t just giving them free reign. He was going to watch to see what they did when they were given that free reign. When they knew they were essentially working without any oversight, with complete immunity.

It was permission and a test all in one.

And it was a good thing Tanin was there, or they very well might fail that test.

Sorbet and Tebros suggested that they could just collapse the mine. The rest of the structures would automatically lock down, meaning whatever room Trove was in would be safe, and they could cut their way through into each one to look for him at their leisure. Chee loved that plan. Especially the part about throwing Rinnicks out into deep space unprotected.

But Tanin shot it down. Too big a liability or something. And came with the risk that they accidentally hurt Trove in the process.

They were going to do this the hard way.

Or the fun way, depending on who you asked.

Just like when they went to get Rinnicks precious painting, they sent out an emergency beacon, the kind that demanded they answer. And because it was something so ordinary and typical, they were granted brief entrance to do emergency repairs immediately. Meaning that no one even bothered to check that it was okay with Rinnicks.

Maybe she would have caught on if they had.