Finders Keepers (24 page)

“We’ll have to take a look at the data to answer that.” He slid off the desk, then turned, planted his hands on top of it and looked at her. “You worked for Herkoid, didn’t you?”

She nodded. “So did Vitorio. Carina’s brother.”

“You ever take nav data from their ships?”

Oh, Gods. She closed her eyes for a moment. “Shadow did.”

“Shadow?”

She waved one hand in the air. “This ship’s namesake. Shadow was a genius. Even when he was a kid, he could’ve run circles around the stuff you create. We grew up together—Carina, Vitorio, Shadow, Chaser, and me.”

“And he took the Herkoid files from you, or Vitorio?”

“No. He worked with me and Vitorio on a Herkoid long-hauler. Died on it too. He started copying Herkoid’s command files and nav files and the-Gods-only-know-what-else before he was killed. He had this beat-up old datapad. He listed me as his sister in his personnel file. Herkoid gave me his things, including the datapad, after he was killed.”

“And the files?”

“When I got the
Venture,
I dumped everything into her banks. Not just Herkoid nav data. Everything. Everything Shadow ever created, every program he ever wrote. I got some fail-safes—”

“I saw them.”

Hell, of course he had. Sometimes she felt so naked around him! In more ways than one . . .
Bad choice of words, Trilby-girl.
“The original fail-safe was his program. Some of my diagnostics were too. I just expanded them, customized them to what I needed. And the programs he didn’t finish, I did.”

“And Jagan knew about this?”

“He knew we worked for Herkoid.” She was thinking hard now. “He’s met Vitorio. Chaser. He heard some of the old stories. It was common for one of us to brag about what Shadow had done. What he could’ve been. But there’s no way Jagan would know what to do with information like this.”

“But somebody does.” He pushed himself upright and ran a hand over his face. “And somebody still wants that data. Jagan’s the link. Send him that message about the wonderful people at Vanur Transport. I am very interested to see how he responds.”

He stopped as the door slid open. “And by the way, also inform Jagan Grantforth you’re neither heartbroken nor alone. Tell him your fiancé is making sure you’re well taken care of.”

“My fiancé?” For a moment she thought he was going to recruit Dallon Patruzius for that position. Or, Gods forbid, Mitkanos. Then she saw his sly grin and wished she could wrench the screen from her desk and chuck it at him.

“Yes, your fiancé. Rhis Vanur, CEO of Vanur Transport.”

She shot to her feet. “You are not!”

“Did I forget to tell you about my promotion, darling? Yesterday a mere lieutenant. Today, a corporate CEO. Hard work does pay off.” He shrugged, then ducked quickly as an empty coffee cup sailed past his head.

There was a palpable hush in the Tactical Briefing Room. The overhead lights were dimmed, better to see the data highlighted on the holochart suspended over the middle of the table. Rhis strode quietly around the table, glanced down at Jankova’s pad. She was linked with Demarik’s. His executive officer had returned to his usual seat at the far end of the table. A seat Kospahr had occupied during their last meeting, four days ago.

But Rhis had somehow forgotten to inform the lord minister of this late meeting. Oddly, so had Demarik and Jankova. Of course, they were delegated the duty of fetching the new team on board: Mitkanos, Rimanava, and Patruzius. When the
Stegzarda
major offhandedly noted the lapse with an undisguised grin of pleasure, everyone exchanged glances and shrugs. Undoubtedly, they were all working too hard. It was an understandable oversight. And the general consensus was that the lord minister wouldn’t want to be disturbed at this late hour.

They’d accomplished much in those four days. The transferal of the files to
Shadow’s Quest,
and the implementation of the tracking codes, delayed them only six hours. Vanur Transport would be up, operating, and—barring any other unforeseen revelations—departing Degvar by 1200 hours tomorrow, with Captain Trilby Elliot at the helm.

And Captain Khyrhis Tivahr—Rhis Vanur—in command.

He stopped behind Trilby’s chair, smoothed a wrinkled section of her jacket collar. She flinched away, but not as much as she had yesterday, when he’d wrapped his arms, briefly, around her waist. Or the day before, when he’d rested his hand on her shoulder, then touched her face.

One step at a time. He would get her back, one small touch, one small step at a time.

He was also sending a message. Not to Demarik or Osmar or Cosaros or Bervanik. Demarik and Jankova had known what Trilby meant to him before he’d set foot on the
Razalka
. His executive officer often received information that no one else did.

And Jankova’s team followed her lead. They had eyes, and brains, as well.

As did Doc Vanko, who had greeted Rhis’s first appearance in sick bay after Trilby’s accident with two words:
excellent choice.

They’d known each other a long time. Nothing more needed to be said.

No, the message he was sending had two destinations. The first was to Trilby. He wasn’t giving up on her, nor on what he knew they could have.

The second was to Mitkanos and Patruzius, seated across the table from her.
She’s mine. Don’t even think about trying to change that fact.

He was having second thoughts about permitting Dallon Patruzius on the team. The same easygoing manner that marked the supply captain a natural on the freighter docks, and on this mission, also made him a natural flirt with Trilby. And Farra Rimanava. But Rhis wasn’t concerned with Rimanava.

Nor did he think Trilby or Mitkanos would find his objection valid. And they had an ETD of 1200 to concentrate on, a little more than ten hours from now.

“It is something in Herkoid’s data, there’s no doubt.” Mitkanos was shaking his finger at the holochart in the same way Trilby had wagged her finger in Rhis’s face earlier. And in response to the same information.

“
Vad! Yasch
—Yes, I have examined these stats from Rinnaker too.” Osmar gave a quick nod to Trilby as he switched from Zafharish to Standard. “They all reference a Herkoid route. Here, so to save you time.” Osmar tapped his pad, sent his summation to Mitkanos’s team.

This was the first time Mitkanos’s team viewed the total picture. Rhis was interested in their input, especially that of Patruzius, as much as he was reluctant to admit it.

Patruzius had come to Fleet out of the merchant sector five years ago. Before that he’d worked with Fennik Import–Export, based in Saldika and, when the war ended, with runs to Port Rumor.

Patruzius had even been to Flyboy’s. That fact had surprised him more than it had Trilby, when Patruzius had mentioned it yesterday on the bridge. Though he’d never been in Neadi’s bar when Trilby had been there.

“That’s Herkoid’s Black Star route.” Trilby pulled up Osmar’s summation from her files. Rhis leaned on the back of her chair, read over her shoulder.

“Strezza ebohr,”
he said in her ear. He knew she was learning more and more of his language. He wanted her to. She would need it.

Trilby touched her pad. The trade route shimmered into solidity to the left of the holochart. She dragged her lightpen, superimposed it. It went from Marbo to an empty spot in the Yanir Quadrant. Imperial space.

It should have gone somewhere else. Rhis slid into his seat, brought up Trilby’s file, checked the coordinates. No, everything was correct. Except that it only had a Point A. Not a Point B. Not a station, not a planet, not even an intersection with another trade route.

He heard Rimanava and Cosaros arguing the same thing. In Standard, fortunately, for Trilby’s sake.

“Mister Demarik, what are the oldest star charts we have on the
Razalka
?”

Demarik looked at him through the swirl of colors in the middle of the table. “Five years in our banks, ten in archive, Captain.”

Bloody hell. Sometimes he was too efficient for his own good. Herkoid had ceased operations fifteen years ago, but this data looked to be at least thirty years old, if not older.

“We’ve got older than that on the
Nalika Gemma
.” Dallon Patruzius leaned forward, looked at him past the bowed heads of Mitkanos and Rimanava, who were comparing data on their pads. “Let me borrow your ship’s comm and I’ll see what I can find for you.”

Farra Rimanava’s hand on his arm stopped him from rising. “Degvar ops—”

“Doesn’t need to know what we’re doing.” Patruzius stood.

Rhis nodded his approval. Damn it! The man was good.

“Use my office, Captain Patruzius.” Jankova swiveled her chair around, rose to meet him.

“Dallon,” he told her, grinning.

Rhis waited until the door slid closed behind them before meeting Demarik’s gaze. His exec shrugged. Rhis went back to the data on his pad, scowling.

His ship badge pinged. He answered with a tap to his pad. His screen shifted to a view of the duty officer at communications. “Captain, a Delta Priority One transmit from Admiral Vanushavor’s office.”

“Transfer it here.” He didn’t like Delta Priority Ones, usually took them in the privacy of his office, where he could swear long and loud without disturbing his bridge crew. But he didn’t think his bad habits would come as a surprise to anyone in the Tactical Briefing Room.

“Disturbing news, Tivahr. Unconfirmed at this point.” Neville Vanushavor’s dark eyes narrowed. He was in his formal dress uniform, had probably been called out of some elegant social function to deal with this latest development. Medals glinted on his chest, gold braid dripped down his left shoulder. He was in his late sixties, but still powerfully built. Still in control of the Imperial Fleet.

“Sources tell us that there is an ‘open trade’ agreement being negotiated between the Beffa trade cartels and the Conclave government. I know we’ve heard rumors before. I’m bringing this to your attention now because a name’s been mentioned. Garold Grantforth.”

Rhis saw Trilby stiffen in her seat next to him. The admiral’s message was in Zafharish. He didn’t know how much she understood, though he knew her vocabulary had grown in the past few days. However, Grantforth’s name needed no translation.

“I’m sending a copy of our information with this transmit. So there’s no need to go into the details at this point.

“This much, however, I will tell you. Whatever your schedule is with your current mission, it needs to go into double time. Now. There’s no such thing as ‘open trade’ with the ’Sko. Once they devour the Conclave, they will be coming after us.”

The screen shifted to an image of the seal of the Imperial House of Vanurin, then flashed off.

There was a palpable silence in the room. Rhis stood, jerked his thumb toward the door. “Get Jankova,” he told Demarik, who was already rising.

He glanced down at Trilby, saw her eyes dark and wary, her mouth pursed in distaste. “Did you understand?”

“Some. Maybe too much. Grantforth’s bringing the Beffa cartels in.”

He pointed to the holochart. “When Jankova and Patruzius return, I’ll bring up that transmit. Then we will talk about pushing up our departure time.”

“We can be ready in two hours,” Mitkanos said with a quick glance at Farra Rimanava.

“Two hours,” Trilby agreed.

Rhis drew a deep breath, pushed down the sick feeling rising in his stomach. This was too fast, too soon. He had been so sure Grantforth would wait until his nephew met with Trilby, obtained the Herkoid data he now knew they needed.

Something had changed their minds. He didn’t know what it was. And he didn’t like that feeling one bit.

20

It would be a deuce to Port Saldika, then a trike to Port Rumor. A waste of five valuable days, in Rhis’s opinion. But to head straight to Rumor would raise too many red flags. They needed Saldikan transit stamps on their manifests, Saldikan clearance codes in their personnel files.

Files that made Khyrhis Tivahr into Rhis Vanur. And showed Farra Rimanava as recently hired out of the Port Balara freight-consolidation office.

Patruzius and Mitkanos’s profiles needed only a little muddying. Both had ties to the freighter community. And Mitkanos’s contacts allowed Port Balaran origination codes to be added to the ship’s registry, no questions asked.

But five days! A full hand, he corrected himself, knowing that’s how Trilby termed it. He tapped the end of the lightpen impatiently against the desk. Even with the rest of the Herkoid files to unravel and then the addition of the final tracking codes, it was more time than he wanted to waste.

The door to the small office slid open. A flash of gray beyond it. They all had new uniforms: Vanur Transport gray. Trilby stepped in, laughing, then turned and took a playful swipe at a man just out of her reach. Patruzius. “You watch yourself, mister!”

“Aye, Captain!” Patruzius saluted her, stuck his head through the open doorway. “Captain.” He nodded to Rhis, then disappeared. His heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor.

Rhis flipped the lightpen in his fingers, rapped it against the edge of the desk in a brisk staccato.

Trilby sat in the chair across from the desk, leaned casually against the armrest. “We’re clear of Degvar’s outer beacon.”

He’d been on the bridge with her when
Shadow’s Quest
had departed Degvar over an hour ago, wanting, if nothing else, to watch his air sprite handle her new toy. But there was little for him to do once the ship took a heading for Saldika. Via trader’s lanes. Not military ones.

His time was better used on recording the Herkoid files. He’d told Trilby to join him in her office as soon as they hit the lanes. He just didn’t count on Patruzius being her escort.

“You auditioning for the percussion section of the Imperial orchestra?” She pointed to his lightpen. “Or sending a message in code?”

He stilled the lightpen, then dropped it onto the desk. “Have you heard anything from Grantforth yet?” Another individual he wasn’t keen on in Trilby’s vicinity.

“Jagan? No. He probably figures he has time, knowing we’ve got a trike to Rumor.”

“Not if someone else is dictating his timetable.” He’d mulled over Trilby’s earlier comments on Jagan’s transmit. It did look like someone was feeding the man his lines.

“Do you think they’ll try to intercept this ship?”

It was a possibility he’d considered, after learning of the sudden negotiations with the trade cartels. It was also why he’d ordered Mitkanos to have the weapons systems on a cold standby. No heat signature to pick up. But ready. Even though Grantforth had no way of knowing their exact location.

“Stage an ambush before we reach Saldika? It would surprise me. You know your answers to him show a Port Balaran code.” Courtesy of the Mitkanos family and a touch of Rhis’s wizardry. “More likely between Saldika and Rumor. ’Sko activity, if that’s the route they take, is more prevalent there.”

It wouldn’t be a true kill order, he knew. They’d want the ship’s nav banks intact. And her captain alive. They’d do a ram-boarding. Just like they had with
Bella’s Dream
.

He had every intention of letting them have the altered nav banks. He’d kill every last one of them if they even looked in Trilby’s direction.

Trilby tilted her head, peered at the data on the desk screen. “Is that Hana’s report?”

Jankova had performed a thorough analysis on a small section of the Herkoid data from the
Venture
. With the change in schedule, there hadn’t been time for her to do more. He nodded. “Your Black Star route integrated with the old charts from the
Nalika Gemma
.” Old, but not old enough. Twenty-five years, with sections going back twenty-seven. “It is a place to start,” he said.

“Agreed. Can I have my chair back?”

A small smile crossed his lips. The five days wouldn’t be a total waste if he could enjoy himself with Trilby. He let a thick Zafharin accent lace his words. “You may share it with me.”

“And you may get out of it, now.” She mimicked his accent, wrinkled her nose at him. Her tone was light and teasing. Very much the Trilby he missed. Very much the Trilby he wanted to find again.

“Come to the ready room, then.”
Shadow’s Quest
had a small one, complete with workstations, at the opposite end of the corridor. “Work with me. We can trade a few wogs-and-weemlies.”

He could tell immediately she didn’t like his suggestion. He’d only been thinking of the camaraderie they’d shared on her ship. She was remembering, probably, what he’d done to her primaries.

She stood, dismissed his suggestion with a shrug. “Dallon’s using the ready room. Go work with him.”

Dallon. So Patruzius was Dallon now. Or had been for a while, judging from the teasing going on in the corridor. He reached for his lightpen. Tap. Tap. Tap.

She leaned over the desk, snatched the pen from his fingers. “Get out of my chair, Tivahr. I’ve got work to do. And I don’t need an amateur drummer in my ear when I do it.”

He saw his chance, wasn’t about to let it pass him by. He stood, feigning a grab for his pen. His hands found her shoulders instead. He pulled her onto the narrow desktop as he sat down on it, covered her mouth with his own when she started to protest.

She wrenched her face to the side. “Damn you!” She swore softly at him, tried to pull back from his kisses, but was off-balance and ended up sprawling awkwardly on one hip on the desktop. He yanked her against him, one arm solidly against her back, the other threading into her hair.

He had no intention of letting her go until he wiped all thoughts of Dallon Patruzius from her mind, until he branded her once again with his own heat, his own scent. He kissed her through her squirmings, through her hands pushing ineffectively against his shoulders, trying to break his hold on her.

Then her struggles ceased, her body arching against his. Her scent of powder and flowers intoxicated him. She nuzzled her face into his shoulder. He held her tightly, trailed kisses down her neck.

“Trilby-
chenka
. . . ow!”

She bit him, hard, sinking her teeth right through his shirt into his shoulder.

He jerked backward just enough to see her grin of triumph.

He was about to kiss that too, when the office comm pinged.

She twisted abruptly out of his arms, leaned in front of him, and tapped the flashing box on the desk screen. “Elliot.” She sounded more than a bit breathless.

“Farra here. I, oh—!” Farra Rimanava’s face tilted on the screen to match Trilby’s odd angle.

“I’m on the other side of the desk. Wait.” She swiveled the screen around. “What’ve you got?”

Rhis rested one hand on her waist, out of Rimanava’s line of sight. She tried to push it away but he caught her hand, held it, knowing she wasn’t about to get into any further wrestling match with him as long as the screen was on.

“I am checking through this septi’s freighter schedule at Saldika. The data is now just in. Logs show a GGA wide-body scheduled in depot. First time”—Farra glanced back at her data—“in four months.”

Coincidence? Rhis looked over Trilby’s shoulder. Gods, he hated coincidences. “On-loading or off?”

“Off-loading, sir. But I do not know what. She is Conclave. Manifest details are not public—”

“Resource code,” Trilby cut in. “Two alphas, one numeric. Right after their docking-bay assignment.”

“EV-Seven.”

“Spare or replacement parts for enviro systems,” Trilby said. “Could be anything from link cables to containers of filters. Not a real profitable item for a wide-body. Short-haulers usually get those small runs. Or they piggy-back them to something else.”

Farra nodded. “Very true. Does not feel right to me either.”

“Send the whole schedule to the ready room.” Rhis slid off the desktop, turning the screen with him as he did so.

“Aye, sir.” Farra’s image blinked off.

He held his hand out to Trilby. She flashed him a narrow-eyed look and hopped down from the desk. There was a telltale blush of color on her cheeks. She may not have wanted to respond to his kisses, but her body had.

He took that as a small point in his favor, for now. Changed the subject to the more pressing concerns. They had time, yet, for personal things. A deuce, then a trike.

He palmed open the office door. “Why would GGA use a wide-body for enviro parts?”

“They don’t. Wide-bodies have a lot of mass, use a lot of fuel. Bulky as hell.” She followed him into the corridor, her hands clasped firmly behind her back, as if she didn’t want to chance brushing against him. “They’re for moving big things. Prefab housing domes. The military likes them for moving armored ground tanks, like P-Ninety-fives.”

He knew what the Conclave’s platoon tanks looked like. Massive, turreted, heavily plated. He could house four fighters in the same bay as—

He stopped, grabbed her arm. “How many cargo bays does a GGA wide-body have?”

She shook him off, stepped back. “Six, if it’s B-class. Four, if it’s F-class. Why?”

“You tell me. How many ’Sko fighters could a wide-body haul?”

He saw her eyes widen, saw her mouth open in disbelief then close quickly, as if to let the words escape would damn them all.

“No,” she said finally, sounding clearly unconvinced by her own denial. “They couldn’t. Someone would notice on off-load. Customs inspectors, dockhands. Come on, Tivahr, you can’t believe they could sneak—”

“Who said they’re off-loading them on Saldika? Or any port? Why not drop them into the lanes, those lanes that Herkoid loved to use, and then continue on to their scheduled destination with the small, easily movable cargo of enviro parts?”

“Shit.” She said the word softly, almost under her breath, then bolted down the corridor and squeezed through the parting doors to the ready room. “Dallon!”

Rhis strode after her. He stepped through the still-open doors. Trilby was in a seat at the end of the table and already had Farra on screen.

“Both of you, listen to me. I don’t want to repeat it twice.” She glanced at Rhis as he sat next to her. “Three times,” she amended. “Yavo, you listening?”

“Here.” Yavo’s voice came from behind Farra’s image. They were both on bridge duty.

“GGA might be hauling something other than enviro parts in that wide-body. Farra, pull from Saldika all GGA wide-bodies that logged through there in the past four—”

“Six,” Rhis said.

“Six months. Then, Yavo, I need the same from your people on Balara. I also need arrival times and, especially, any delay advisories.”

“Anything else, Captain?” Farra asked.

“Not for now. Thanks.” Trilby tapped off the screen, looked at Rhis.

“They could also just figure their delay for the drop-off into the ETA,” he told her. It’s what he would do. Consistently late arrivals would eventually raise someone’s curiosity. If GGA were doing what he suspected they were, they couldn’t afford questions.

“Someone want to clue me in?” Patruzius asked.

Rhis swiveled toward him. “Grantforth’s using wide-bodies to transport low-volume cargo across the border.”

“Unprofitable.”

“Unless they’re transporting more than cargo.” Rhis explained his theory briefly. Patruzius’s previous experience with the freighter industry didn’t require more than that.

Trilby tapped her fingers on Rhis’s arm, drawing his attention. “Bogus arrival times. You said they’d just schedule later ETAs . . .”

That’s where their discussion had left off when Patruzius interrupted. He nodded.

“But they can’t alter their departure. I know—
we
know,” she made a small gesture toward Patruzius, “pretty accurately how long it would take a fully loaded wide-body to go from Rumor, or even Quivera, to Saldika. Or an empty one, for that matter. I should be able to pick up departure times, or at least out-system transits at the border beacons on my side of the zone. Then compare that to their arrivals.”

“Without alerting the Conclave government?” Patruzius leaned forward. “You can’t be positive Grantforth doesn’t have someone watching for a pull on that data.”

“The government,” Trilby told him, folding her hands in front of her screen, “isn’t the only one who tags that data.” She arched her eyebrows slightly, looked at him with a patient expression, as if waiting for comprehension to dawn.

“In the Empire, the border beacons are all military,” Rhis said, puzzled.

But Patruzius was nodding in agreement with Trilby. Rhis damned his own lack of familiarity with the commercial freighter industry. And the too-slick supply-ship captain’s experience in it. It put Patruzius and Trilby on the same side of the fence, if only for a moment. He didn’t like that at all.

Patruzius rapped his fist against his forehead. “Sorry. My lapse. Your Intersystem Commerce Department—”

“Sends all their data to the Freight Traders’ Union as well. And as a member of IFCA—”