Finders Keepers (10 page)

She announced the problem before he did. “Starboard shields down forty percent.”

They were just skimming the first debris from the asteroid field. Already several shots from the Tarks exploded off target, shattering the small asteroids instead.

“We’ll make it.”

She wished she had his confidence. She checked the scanners, saw the two lead Tarks and one behind. Her stomach clenched. “They’re still on us.”

“When we get into the larger debris field, it’ll force them to loosen formation. I should be able to get a clear shot then.”

“That big debris will get through my starboard shields eventually.”

“Logged and noted, Captain.”

“Unless I—” Trilby spun out of her seat. “Take over, Rhis. I might be able to do something here.”

He reached over and transferred control just as she wrenched the lower panel off the auxiliary power console on his right. She hunkered down, a crystal splicer already in her hand. But she kept a vigilant watch on her screen.

The Tarks started to change formation. Then the weapons sensors showed incoming fire. He banked, maneuvering the freighter around several larger groups of debris.

Trilby braced herself against the edge of the access panel as her ship veered sharply. “Don’t forget my starboard aux thruster’s a bit oversensitive.”

Aft shields showed two grazing hits from the Tarks. Then a readout on the main console went suddenly from red to green.

“Got it!” Trilby pushed herself upright. “Just bought us about ten minutes more on the shields, Rhis-my-boy.”

“Good. Our friends are starting to get careless.”

Trilby lunged for her seat, rehooked her straps, and swung the armrest controls in front of her. The debris fields on the viewscreen were tightly grouped, with boulder-size asteroids trailing away from one almost as large as her ship.

Rhis wove the freighter through the fields with practiced precision.

Trilby saw a brief opening ahead and poised her hand over her controls. “I’ll take her back when we get there.”

“We’re not going there.”

“We’re not?”

Rhis banked the freighter without warning, sending the bulky ship into a narrow space between two asteroids. Smaller debris pinged off the shields. Proximity alarms wailed in complaint.

Trilby ignored what her eyes told her and worked the data from her navigational systems. Rhis flew her ship as if he’d been born in the captain’s chair. She patched in small corrections, playing with attitude and yaw as he sloughed off their speed.

“Use the braking vanes,” she told him, but he was already tabbing them down to fifteen percent, then twenty.

She caught his swift, questioning glance in her direction. He was no doubt wondering how she knew that trick. And she was wondering who taught him.

A flare on the aft viewscreen drew her attention.

Rhis’s smile, when she looked back at him, was almost feral. “A Trahtark’s main flaw. Increased power means decreased stability in tight quarters.”

They emerged with only two Tarks on their tail. Trilby retracted the vanes quickly.

“They’re persistent, though.” She saw the splattering of their lasers on the port shields now. There was an ominous hissing and popping noise from a console to her right.

“Let them be so.” Rhis magnified the viewscreen until a large angular object came into view. “There. The Drachnar mining rafts. Should be two of them.”

“One and a half,” Trilby corrected as she scanned her data.

“Let’s take our friends for a tour.”

“We might be able to do better than that.” Trilby brought up a file from her nav charts. “This ship used to dock here. I’ve still got the codes.”

She caught his brief look of appreciation. It meant more to her than she wanted to admit. “Head for the red launch tower,” she told him. “I might be able to release the maintenance ’bots from those bays below. Drachnar always staffed at least sixty to a bay. If even half are left, that should play hell with their targeting sensors.”

The lead Tark got in two good shots before they got to the raft. “Starboard shields down twenty percent!” Trilby hung on to the armrest as the freighter shimmied in response.

“Two minutes, Trilby-
chenka
.”

“Got a leak in the compression feed.”

“One minute, forty-five.”

Another alarm wailed overhead. Trilby slapped at the panel, silencing it. “I’m not getting a response from Bay Eighty-Seven. Affirmatives from Eighty-Five and Ninety-Two.”

“One minute.” The console behind Rhis continued to hiss and spark.

Trilby ignored it. She focused on the weak signals from the mining raft. “I’m getting a readout on Eighty-Seven. It may open and discharge. It may not.”

“Forty-five seconds.”

“Remember my ascent indicator is wrong.”

Rhis reached over her head and tapped the plush felinar.

“You learn quick. For an Imperial.”

He flashed her a conspiratorial grin. “Twenty-five seconds.”

“Sending release codes. Bays Eighty-Five and Ninety-Two responding. Bay Eighty-Seven—” Trilby took her eyes from the data scanners and glanced at the aft viewscreen. It looked as if a hundred metallic balls suddenly shot out of a gigantic pinball-machine tube. She gave a short whoop of delight. “Eighty-Seven’s decided to party!”

Both Tarks banked sharply as the maintenance ’bots bounced off their shields. The pilots’ attentions and targeting computers suddenly overloaded. Rhis targeted, locked on, and fired the ion cannon.

The lagging Tark, the one he’d damaged earlier, exploded into a ball of debris and escaping gases.

“Damned good shot, flyboy!”

Several thousand tons of plasteel gridwork loomed ahead. One Tark followed behind, closer now, firing more insistently.

“Aft shields down another twenty percent. I’m going to pull power from the port shields, Rhis. Aft is critical now.” The ship’s drives were in the aft section. The drives and Dezi.

“I can compensate.” He made some quick adjustments, keeping the Tark targeted to starboard.

The
Venture
hugged the perimeter of the larger raft, proximity alarms again screeching. It was a close, dangerous maneuver.

Rhis banked the ship sharply, cutting power.

The Tark’s view of the raft was blocked by the larger freighter in front of it. The pilot tried to pull up abruptly at the last moment but slammed into a protruding launch tower, shearing off one wing. Jagged chunks of metal wheeled through the airless void toward the raft’s empty launchpad.

Trilby hollered with joy again, reached for Rhis’s hand in a congratulatory handshake. His clasped his large hand around hers, grinning, but there was something more than the thrill of victory in his eyes.

Just as she had no doubt there was in hers.

His hand tightened around hers. Warmth flowed up her arm. Flustered, she plastered on her “professional captain” mien. “We did good, flyboy.”

His fingers squeezed hers. “We did very good.”

Not “we.” Rhis was the hero, and not only because he’d just saved their lives. But because he cared about Carina’s plight. Pored over shipping logs rather than sleeping. Poured her tea and brought it to her. Folded the towels, nice and fluffy, just as she liked them.

Damnation! She pulled her hand back. She had to stop touching him. Next time she might not be able to stop.

She feigned a proprietary look and keyed control of her ship back to her station. She guided it between two large storage depots, but her heart was still pounding. Which reminded her of the larger problem: the ’Sko. “Anyone else out there?”

They were too deep in the asteroid field for the mother ship to come after them. But another set of Tarks, if diligent, might find their trail.

Rhis looked up from the scanner and wiped one hand over his face. “No. The mother ship seems to have pulled out of range.”

She heard his emphasis on “seems” and grudgingly acknowledged her scanners were often myopic, at best. And they were not at their best right now.

“Well, we’ll keep out eyes peeled.” She keyed open intraship. “Dezi? All clear, for now.”

“I am pleased to learn that. Shall I reconnect life support?”

“I want to do a systems check first.” She nodded to Rhis. “We took some damage.”

He leaned forward, bringing the data online as Dezi acknowledged her request. “I have begun repairs on the compression feed already.”

“Get back to me when you’re done. Captain out.”

A low exclamation in Zafharish was followed by a few curse words she recognized. Her heart stopped for a moment and she glanced at her long-range scanner. But it showed no intruders, ’Sko or otherwise.

Then she remembered she’d started a system check. He probably was compiling a damage report. “Tabulating repair times for me?”

He raised his gaze from the screen, and for a moment she thought she saw something hard glitter in his eyes’ dark depths. Something more than annoyance at her ship’s mounting ills. Then he shook his head, his mouth twisting into a cynical half smile.

“Have you ever had the feeling,” he asked her, with an aimless wave of one hand, “that the Gods are conspiring against you?”

She burst out laughing. “My whole life. Don’t be so sure it’s you. Could be the Gods don’t want me to make a nice profit off that Bagrond run.”

“Or maybe the ’Sko don’t,” he put in quietly.

Trilby’s smile faded. “You can’t be serious. They were purposely waiting for the
Venture
? There’s no way they’d know my schedule. It’s not as if we departed from a controlled port where I’d have a flight plan filed.” Like
Bella’s Dream
had, coming out of Marbo.

“You’re right. Of course,” Rhis said quickly. “I was thinking of something else.”

“That they knew you were on my ship? How? Nothing came by to check out where your Tark went down. Not a seeker ’droid. Not even a flyby.”

He ran one hand through his hair before answering. “Sorry. It is only that . . .” He paused, then quickly, almost harshly: “I don’t know what it was I was thinking.”

Her comp screen chimed twice softly. She turned from him, paged down the data from her systems check, then sent it to Rhis’s screen. He wasn’t going to like the results, but then, she didn’t like what she was hearing. Or his sudden evasiveness, his hesitancy with his words. “Okay, so we’ve got problems. Why all of a sudden do you think it’s personal?”

“I don’t. It is just that . . .” He shrugged. “I’ve been in Fleet for too long. Paranoia is part of my job description. We most likely came across the Tarks by happenstance. A routine patrol.”

It was a totally believable explanation. And she totally didn’t believe it.

“In Conclave space, nowhere near any trade lanes? As soon as we get up and running, I’m sending out an advisory.” She didn’t think for a minute the Conclave would investigate. But at least a warning would be posted. The kind of warning that could have saved
Bella’s Dream
.

“We’re close to the border. By the time you contact a patrol base, the ’Sko will be long gone. Besides,” Rhis added with a shrug, “your people may ask what you were doing out here.”

True, but the gain seemed to outweigh the risk to Trilby. “I’ll take that chance.”

“I advise you not to.”

It was the first time she’d heard that sharp tone from him since he’d grabbed her in sick bay. She leaned back in her seat, was about to ask him just who he thought he was to dictate to her, when he touched her lightly on the arm.

“Sorry.” And he sounded sorry. “I’m not giving you orders. But I am trained to deal with security issues. If the ’Sko have left this area, your report will generate nothing. But if they’ve not, your report will help them trace us again.”

He had a point. She nodded, slowly. The light touch on her arm changed to a reassuring and not at all unpleasant clasp. Warm, almost possessive. But his evasiveness rankled at her. She leaned away from him. “Okay. But I’m filing as soon as we pick up Rumor’s outer beacon.”

“Agreed.”

“Can I have my seat back now? That routine patrol poked some holes in my ship. I want to get her into one of the raft bays so we can patch her up. Just in case they’re still waiting for us when we leave this asteroid field.”

“Of course.” He unsnapped the harness strap. “Let me know what you need me to do.”

Be honest with me,
Trilby thought, but said nothing. Her disquieting sense of unease about her “hero” was back. She hated being kept in the dark. Bad things always seemed to follow. Like Jagan’s marriage. Her agent’s desertion.

She guided the
Venture
into an abandoned bay, worrisome thoughts trailing through her mind like the debris floating through the wreckage behind her.

7

The
Venture
’s landing struts locked onto the docking rails with a loud clank that reverberated through the ship.

“Would be nice if the gate fields still worked.” Trilby motioned to the darkened ring of lights at the wide docking-bay entry. “Then we could all help with outside repair.” She kept her voice level, professional. Rhis seemed to have the uncanny ability to get her emotions seesawing, and she was, frankly, tired of it. She had to remember he wasn’t “her” hero. He was her passenger. One she’d never see again after Port Rumor.

“As it is,” she said, unsnapping her straps, “best this raft can do for us is let us filch power from its solar grid.”

Rhis turned. “You don’t have EVA suits?”

“One. Mine. Doubt it’ll fit you.” She paused in the hatchway to glance at the life-support lights above the door. The
Venture
was back to normal, at least where that was concerned.

She reached for the palm pad, but Rhis’s voice stopped her. “How much experience do you have with zero-g repairs?”

He sounded concerned about her. Troubled by whatever it was he wasn’t telling her, she didn’t want him to be. His concern felt false, somehow. She leaned back against the hatchway. “Funny thing about EVA suits. Bigger they are, more they cost. Herkoid found that out a long time ago. Wasn’t a kid in Port Rumor, ’specially a girl, who didn’t get lots of training in zero-g repairs. And I don’t mean in sims.”

She saw his eyes close and bit her lip. Her answer had been sharp. But if he were truly concerned about her, then he had to be honest. All she could think about when the Tarks showed up was survival. She never questioned for a moment why they were on her tail. It had taken Rhis and his Fleet-issue paranoia to do that.

It bothered her that she didn’t have an answer. But it bothered her more that she thought he did. And, in spite of the way he held her hand and looked at her with a dark fire in his eyes, he wasn’t willing to share it.

That hurt her, just as Jagan’s lies and polished subterfuge had. Just as the supposedly wise social workers in Port Rumor had. Everyone seemed to know better than she how to run her life. And none ever saw fit to tell her. After all, who was she? Nothing but another cast-off kid to the Iffys—
the
Iffys—and nothing but a low-budget jumpjockey to Jagan Grantforth.
The
Jagan Grantforth.

She slapped at the palm pad. The door whooshed open, letting in the tinny smell of a ventilation system that had just kicked on.

“It’ll take Dez and me about two hours, I figure, to patch what we can. I’ll be on intraship.” She pointed to a small overhead speaker in the corridor. “I’ll tell you what we find. And you tell me the minute you see any hint of visitors on my screens.”

He put his elbow on the armrest, then covered his mouth with one finger. After a moment, he nodded.

Talk to me!
She wanted to yell at him. He was flatlining. Withdrawn. She could only figure it was because of the ’Sko patrol.

“Understood,” he said finally.

She wished she knew just what it was he understood.

Rhis listened to the cadence of her boots descending the metal stairs.
Short. Probably female.
He remembered coming up with that appraisal as he lay in sick bay.

Definitely female. He ran his hand over his face and turned back in the seat. He felt like the Gods had plugged his name into the number-one slot on their shit list.

He had to tell her the truth. Now. Who he was and what had brought him here. And that they were returning to Imperial space. He’d hoped to take over the
Venture
about six hours from now. They’d be close to a jumpgate he’d used before for a quick transit back to the Empire. He needed more time as well to finalize the wogs-and-weemlies he’d added to her ship’s systems, so that with one signal, all controls would be his. But the bits of coded transmissions he’d snagged from the ’Sko mother ship had forced him to accelerate his plans.

The ’Sko were looking for him. Waiting. He should have known they’d try to trace the energy signature from his Tark and then position patrols at the most likely coordinates. Anticipating, no doubt, a rescue by an Imperial ship.

But the patrol by Avanar had seen only an old Circura II starfreighter, which they almost let slip by.

Except for the second bit of data he pulled from their transmission.

The
Careless Venture
was flagged in their files for immediate destruction upon sighting. His air sprite was marked, targeted. And the kill order was tagged with the code symbols
Dark Sword
.

Dark Sword. He didn’t have to translate it from Ycskrite to Zafharish. He’d seen the symbols enough during the war to recognize it immediately. Dark Sword was the ’Sko code name for their contact in the Conclave. An anonymous, but well-placed, double agent, from the little the Empire had been able to discern.

He clenched his teeth. The data obtained from his near-fatal mission to Szed alluded to this same high-placed contact in the Conclave. A transport corporation was also involved, as a conduit for funds and information. Both Rinnaker and GGA could fit the profile of the latter. But there were too many possibilities for that crucial government contact. And no new clues.

Until now.

But why would Dark Sword want his air sprite dead? Rhis drummed his fingers on the armrest. He had no answers to that one. But this much he did know: the ’Sko and their spy would have to kill him first to accomplish that part of their mission. And take out the
Razalka
as well.

Because that’s where he was taking her. And that’s where she was going to stay.

He listened to her chatter to Dezi as they welded patches on the ship’s hull. She was working with an array of tools as threadbare as her ship. And as sparse as her closet.

That had shaken him. He’d stared at her empty closet because he couldn’t look at the few items of clothing on the floor. He’d always prided himself on his spartan lifestyle. But he had seven daily uniforms in his closet, three dress uniforms, and a workable collection of off-duty clothes.

Trilby Elliot had almost nothing. His closet, his quarters, his entire lifestyle was lavish in comparison.

He had more than one working EVA suit. And he’d been chosen for his assignments because of his qualifications, his intellect, his physical strength.

Not because he took up less space. Or because he was expendable.

Trilby was expendable. Not only to Herkoid but to Jagan Grantforth. Both had shamelessly used her. Both had carelessly endangered her. The thought made him want to punch holes in the bulkhead with his fist.

He settled for answering her question in a sharper tone than he intended. “That scanner disk is still not receiving, no!”

“Well, hell, Vanur, don’t bite my head off.” Her voice sounded hollow on intraship. But he could clearly picture her rolling her eyes in frustration at him. “We’re doing the best we can.”

“Of course. Sorry.”

“But long-range is okay?”

“Long-range is clear.” He hadn’t taken his eyes off it. Couldn’t afford to. The
Venture
was uncomfortably vulnerable right now, for all the protection afforded by the asteroids and the rafts.

“We’ve got one more patch to try. If that doesn’t work, then it’s going to be a slow, careful ride back to Rumor.”

No. A slow, careful ride to the border.

The time spent on repairs had been productive, not only for the
Venture
but for Trilby’s attitude. Some of her disquiet had abated. The ache between her shoulder blades had far more of her attention at the moment than Rhis’s elusive comments. She heard the buckle on his safety strap snap into place as she powered up her ship’s engines. Maybe it was time to let things get back to normal. “With no more surprises we’ll ETA at Rumor in about forty-three hours.”

“Unlocking landing grapples,” Dezi intoned.

“Affirmative,” she replied. She angled the thrusters, felt the ship shimmy slightly. “You hear me, Vanur? Forty-three and you’re free.”

“Will you miss me?”

His comment startled her. That and the playful tone in his voice. His evasiveness seemed to have dissipated along with her annoyance at him.

She’d thought about it while she wrangled with the repairs. Maybe he’d told her the truth when he said it was just a routine patrol. She had to admit he had a lot more experience in that area than she did. If the
Venture
jumped through hyperspace as quickly as she jumped to conclusions, she’d have to apply for a patent for a miraculous hyperdrive.

She shot a quick grin over her shoulder and found him looking quizzically at her. “I’ll miss you every minute of every hour of every day. Now stick your nose back in your station and holler like hell the second anything even farts out there.”

“Captain.” Dezi tilted his tarnished head. “I don’t believe this ship’s sensors are calibrated to detect the discharge of organic digestive—”

“Long- and short-range on full sweep,” Rhis said loudly.

“Then we’re out of here.” She increased power. The
Venture
glided smoothly away from the raft.

Trilby watched the first coordinates flow across her screen. She let Rhis plot a course out of the asteroid field. He had, after all, gotten them in rather skillfully, and in one piece. There was still a bit of weaving to do before they could head for Port Rumor.

At the eight-minute mark the asteroids became smaller and more widely spaced. She gave her ship a little more power and was pleased with the way she handled. Maybe getting knocked around a bit had done the old girl some good.

At fifteen minutes they were at the outer edges of the last bands. At twenty, completely clear.

“Log notes we have cleared the belt at nineteen minutes, thirty-one seconds, and—”

“Thanks, Dez. Got it.” She looked back over her shoulder and caught Rhis slowly shaking his head. She grinned, then settled back, her smile fading. It might be about forty-three hours until they reached Rumor—and she was sure Dezi would be glad to give a more precise estimate of the time—but the next two hours were the most critical. If the ’Sko mother ship was still around, she’d make her presence known before the
Venture
cleared Quadrant 84 and was back in Conclave patrol range.

It was one of the reasons she’d used Avanar for so long. No one, not even the Conclave, liked to come this far out. Except now her little secret had been discovered by the ’Sko.

One hour out and the engines were purring at max. Long-range and short-range were blissfully silent. They were still too far from the trader lanes to see any merchant traffic on the screens.

Rhis had to be right. It was only bad timing that’d made them cross paths with the ’Sko. Nothing was out here now. It was almost peaceful. Trilby relaxed a bit more and realized she was hungry. Soup sounded good. She unsnapped her buckle.

“Take the con, Dez. I’m going to see what I can scare up in the galley. Soup for dinner okay with you?” she asked Rhis as she stood.

“Need some help?”

“Nope. I’ll bring a couple mugs up here.”

She found two large packets of vegetable soup in the food locker and set the timer for three minutes. She turned and was looking in the galley lower racks for two mugs when she heard footsteps coming down the corridor.

She raised her head over the counter just as Rhis walked in. His hands were shoved in his pockets. His face wore the look of a small boy who knew he was about to get into big trouble.

“I need to talk to you.” His voice had the tight tone of a grown man who knew he was in trouble.

Damn, double damn. Her heart plummeted just as unease raced up her spine again. Her mind raced over several things. First was the location and status of her hand weapons. She had never given him the codes to the weapons lockers, but then, he was Zafharin. Still, his hands in his pockets didn’t appear to conceal a laser pistol.

The second was a reappearance of the ’Sko. But her alarms were silent. And Dezi would’ve been on intraship long before Rhis could make the trek down the ladderway.

Then for a brief moment she wondered if he was ill. The crash of the Tark was no child’s play. And he had bounded—quite naked, she remembered—out of the regeneration unit long before he was completely healed. Her gaze raked him head to foot. No, he looked fit, disgustingly fit. If he dropped dead now he’d be the best-looking corpse she’d ever seen.

So it had to be about that evasiveness that had settled over him after the ’Sko attack. And his cryptic comments. Maybe there was something to his paranoia after all.

And maybe, just maybe, he’d finally realized he should share that information with her. A bonus point, if he did. She patted the high counter. “Have a seat. Soup’s almost ready.”

The timer pinged while she was placing the mugs on the counter. He climbed onto a stool but was silent as she poured the thick, fragrant liquid full of sweetroot and goldbulb. Crisp chunks of greenlace floated to the top.

She perched on the stool next to him and wagged her spoon in his face. “Talk.”