Page 75

“I have a thought about that.” I grimaced. “But I doubt you are going to like it.”

CHAPTER 18

KEELA

Jarrix was right—I didn’t like his idea. Not one bit.

To be fair, neither did he, but our choices were woefully limited.

Hands on hips, I stood on the deck of Docking Bay 1910, eyeing the sleek little star-runner on the platform as Jarrix walked around it for the third time and Byx extolled its virtues from his tank beside me.

“Brand-new engines, fully fueled,” he said, gesturing at the vessel’s aft section. “Full cloaking ability, shadow mode, slipstream jump capability, and a Mok-Tur artificial intelligence system. The waiting list for one of these is ten years long.”

“Which is one of the things I’m concerned about.” I watched Jarrix examine the ship, trying to get a read on his feelings about the star-runner. “We’ll be noticed anywhere we dock. Where we’re going, we need to blend in.”

“You only need to blend in if you can be seen.” Byx was watching Jarrix too—with several of his many eyes, at least. “In this ship, you won’t need to dock. You can go in cloaked, put down in a derelict building near your target, and leave the same way when you’ve finished your business. And best of all—” he puffed out his thick, round body “—this vessel travels regularly from this outpost, so there will be no reason for anyone keeping watch to believe anyone is on it besides its usual pilot and co-pilot, thanks to the ship’s other modifications.”

“False bioscanner readings?” Jarrix guessed, looking over from the vessel’s open hatch.

Byx pointed a tentacle at him. “Exactly. I’ll have my people put your tracker aboard the Bandit’s Blade and go through pre-launch routines while you depart from this bay on the opposite side of the outpost, blending in with the rest of today’s scheduled traffic. Anyone who scans the ship will see two Dakarans making their weekly run to Mborsi. Once you’ve cleared the sector and ensured you haven’t been followed, you’ll drop into shadow mode and reroute to Saistea.”

It was a good plan, other than it meant leaving the Nivilus here and trusting my life—and Jarrix’s—to an unfamiliar vessel and AI.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a better plan, and time was not on our side. The launch window for the star-runner was coming up fast, and every passing minute brought the Fleeting Fancy closer.

Jarrix and I had already looked at the ship’s interior and decided it was adequate for our needs—more than adequate, really—but I was far less concerned about the luxurious shipboard amenities than surviving this trip to Saistea and back.

“What do you think, Captain?” Jarrix said, abandoning his examination of the ship and coming to my side.

What I thought was that I missed the days of simply smuggling goods while dodging the Trade Barons, Alliance patrols, raiders, and drunken space station bar patrons with too many wandering tentacles.

What I said was, “I want to take Zwee. If anything gets aboard this ship but us, I want them to live just long enough to regret it.”

“Agreed.” Byx leaned over the side of his tank until his head was closer to Jarrix’s height rather than towering over both of us. “My people will help transfer your necessary gear to the star-runner. In the meantime, the regular pilot and co-pilot will begin launch procedures on their normal schedule. You’ll be leaving this dock at 1500 hours station time, giving you more than four hours to get clear before the Fancy reaches scanning distance.”

He handed me a datapad. “This is everything I could get on the Aiphelevia, Orqiel unha’Feste, and his ties to the Liktarr syndicate. If anyone else but you two touches that datapad, it will be instantly and permanently wiped.”

“Understood.” I tucked it under my arm. “Thank you, Byx. For everything.”

“You and your mate can thank me by returning in the same condition you’re leaving in,” he said with surprising heaviness.

“I’m sure you’d like your ship back the same way,” Jarrix said, placing his hand on the side of the beautiful star-runner.

“Did I mention the ship?” Byx swirled his tentacles in his tank. “Ships can be replaced. Friends cannot.”

And there was nothing I could say to that except, “We’ll do our very best.”

With little encouragement needed from me, Zwee boarded the star-runner Vespira as if she owned it, commandeered the nicer of the two crew cabins for her nest, and hissed at anyone who came near the ship’s open hatch or cargo door.

Byx had introduced us to the ship’s AI, Lumos, as Captain Beatrice Farai and First Mate Staevix Nadal.

The Vespira launched at precisely 1500 hours, just after a Haboori freighter and followed almost immediately by a scientific research vessel bound for the Nalin Nebula.

Our route for the first part of our journey, before we’d slip into shadow mode and redirect to Saistea, took us closer to the nebula. With navigation in Lumos’s hands, Jarrix and I sat in the cockpit, our eyes glued to the wrap-around front window and the breathtaking sight beyond.

Like Jarrix, I couldn’t picture myself putting down roots and staying in any one place, but if I had to, living somewhere with a view like this wouldn’t be too much of a hardship.

“Captain Farai, we are being scanned,” Lumos said not long after we’d joined the shipping lane headed for Mborsi. The AI’s voice was male and surprisingly melodic, with a slight accent I couldn’t quite place but that might have been Halutan. “Two standard passive scans from nearby ships and one very intrusive scan from a trailing merchant vessel matching the description of the ship that docked at Trakhan earlier today. It appears to be scanning all vessels in the vicinity.”