gaian consortium 05 - the titan trap (11 page)

“Thank you,” he said, and her eyebrows went up in surprise. “No, I mean it. Thank you for trusting me.” He sounded a little rattled, even to himself, and he reached for his wine and took a sip in an attempt to regain his composure. It had been so very long since anyone had believed anything he said, had thought of him as anything except a murderer. Well, he supposed the people who’d been trying to kill him knew the truth, but that was cold comfort.

“So…can’t you think it over for a bit? I’m not even sure how easy it’s going to be to find a ship, so we might not be doing anything for a few days.” Her eyes seemed to be pleading with him, and he gave a slow nod.

“I can do that,” he replied, and although he didn’t say the words aloud,
for you
echoed in his mind.

She seemed to pick up on that echo, because she nodded, then returned her attention to her meal.

In that moment, he wondered if he’d just made a promise he couldn’t possibly keep.

CHAPTER SEVEN

So just how close had she come to giving herself away?

Way too close.

Maybe it had been the wine, the mood of cozy intimacy in the restaurant. Her surroundings made it too easy for her to relax, to not guard every word she was saying. Whatever it was, she’d almost admitted that she cared more than she wanted to admit. She didn’t want him to go back to Gaia and get his damn fool ass killed. She wanted….

What did she want?

That was a question she’d stopped asking herself years ago. What did it matter what she wanted, when it was pretty clear she’d never actually get it? She hadn’t wanted to be raised on that freighter, basically teaching herself to read and write, because even before he got the Titan gig, her father was shuttling cargo all over the Gaian system, and there was no way she could go to a proper school. She hadn’t wanted to be stuck with the
Avalon
and the MaxSec contract after her father died, but it was the only thing she knew, and she didn’t know what else to do with herself.

And now her father was gone, and the
Avalon
was gone, and she really didn’t know what she should do. Maybe she was clinging to Derek, trying to keep him from going back to Gaia, because then she would be alone, truly alone, and the spurious security of his presence was better than nothing.

No, she didn’t want to believe that about herself. Hadn’t she made it these last three years all on her own? She didn’t need a man around, especially some crazy idealist like Derek Tagawa. The only reason she didn’t want him to go was that she didn’t want to think all of this — helping him get away from Titan, losing her ship — would end up meaning absolutely nothing in the end.

That sounded like a very good reason. Too bad it wasn’t even close to the truth.

Attraction she could deal with. She’d met men over the years she was attracted to, and either things happened, or they didn’t. With each of those men, though, she’d known there was no chance of a future, and most of the time it didn’t bother her that much. They were people to spend a day or a weekend or — in a few very rare cases — a few weeks with, nothing more.

But Derek was so very different from all of them, in ways she couldn’t begin to quantify. He was…decent. Thoughtful. Intelligent.

Way above your pay grade.

The remainder of their dinner had been conducted mainly in silence, with only a few comments on the food. He seemed to realize that she wanted to leave the subject alone, and, unlike most of the men she’d known, he’d respected her wishes, hadn’t attempted to poke or prod any further. And then they’d walked back to the hotel, gone up to the suite, and retired to their respective sleeping quarters after taking turns in the restroom.

But she couldn’t help thinking about how he was right there, just on the other side of the bathroom. Was he asleep already? Or was he as preoccupied as she was, lying awake when he should be getting his rest?

She rolled over once again, cursing her brain, which didn’t seem to want to leave her alone. Maybe it had been a mistake to try to sleep, since she’d only been up for about three hours since that marathon twelve-hour coma. But the wine had made her feel tired, and she knew the best thing she could do for herself was get back on something of a normal schedule.

Normal. There was a joke.

After punching the pillow to get it to lie flatter, she let out a breath, then drew in another. That was it. Deep, soothing breaths, the kind that would bring the oblivion she craved. Her body needed sleep, her brain even more so. Breathe…breathe….

Her handheld beeped into the silence. Cassidy froze, mentally scrambling to figure out who in the world could be calling her. Derek? No, that was silly. He didn’t even have her code, and besides, if he wanted to talk to her, he’d just come and knock on her door.

The beep came again. She knew it would automatically go to voicemail if she left it alone, but her curiosity got the better of her. Pushing back the covers, she climbed out of bed and picked up the device, then squinted at the screen.

No identifying image, no code. No nothing. Just five terrifying words.

We know where you are.

Derek had just drifted off into blessed blackness when he heard Cassidy’s harsh whisper.

“Derek.
Derek.
”

He sat up, blinking, and realized she stood in the open door of his bedroom, her figure vaguely outlined by the soft illumination of the one lamp he’d left on in the main sitting area. The second thought that struck him was that she wore only a sleep shirt, and her long, slim legs were visible from approximately mid-thigh down.

Somehow he managed to shift his attention away from those legs and up to her face. Now that his eyes were adjusting, he could see the strain in her features, how pale she was.

“What’s the matter?”

Wordlessly, she crossed the room to him and extended her handheld. He took it from her, then froze as he read the words glowing pale blue against the dark gray of the screen.

His heartbeat sped up, but he made sure his voice remained calm as he asked, “When did you get this?”

“Just now. I heard it beep and wondered who it might be, since not many people have my code.”

God damn it. He should have known this bit of breathing space couldn’t possibly last.

“When you say ‘not many people,’ how many is that actually?”

She went over to a chair placed up against the wall and sank down into it. “I don’t know — that is, of course it’s in the Corrections system database, since I had a contract with them, and because I’m a contractor, I assume that any other government agency would have access to that information as well. So that’s a pretty big pool to choose from. But other than that? Not many. The company that leases me hangar space on the Moon. The health clinic I go to. Things like that.”

Shaking his head, Derek replied, “I doubt it’s any of them. You just gave the finger to the GDF, and by extension the whole government, so I don’t think we need to look any further than that.”

After giving him a shaky smile, she said, “Well, my father always did say to go big or go home.” She drummed her fingers on her bare knees. “The thing is, okay, they know where we are. But how likely are they to come after us here on Triton?”

He wasn’t sure of the answer to that question. True, the outlaw outpost was not the sort of place for GDF troops to come swaggering in and waving their guns around, but that didn’t mean the Consortium wouldn’t send a different kind of agent to dispatch the two troublemakers. He had a feeling that sort of operation would be a lot more difficult for the powers-that-be on Triton — such as they were — to stop.

“Very likely,” he said, not bothering to be politic in his reply. “It’s not if, but when.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.” She pushed her hair back, off her shoulders, then asked, “How soon?”

“I have no idea.” While he was gratified that she thought he’d have some insight on the matter, the truth was that he really had no idea. Researching the methods of the Consortium’s black ops personnel fell a little outside his particular field of expertise. She gave a grim nod, and he added, “I suppose it all depends on how close any agents they’d use for this job might be.”

“They could still be on Gaia?” she asked in hopeful tones.

“Maybe. Or on Ganymede…or even embedded here on Triton.”

“Thanks for that ray of sunshine.”

Despite their current situation, he couldn’t help cracking a grin. “Just trying to be practical.” But since they’d already spent too much time talking, he pushed the bedclothes away and got up, heading toward the closet so he could get dressed. “We need to get ready, and we need to be prepared. Go ahead and pack your things.”

“On it,” she said, sounding resigned, and rose from the chair. “But Derek — where exactly are we going?”

“I don’t know,” he told her. “Anywhere but here.”

Thank God for those twelve hours of sleep, because Cassidy had a feeling it might be a long time before she found a safe place to lay her head. No other messages had been forthcoming, even as she felt her gaze keep shifting to the dresser where she’d set down the handheld. Now she was dressed in the pants and jacket and long-sleeved knit shirt Derek had purchased for her, glad that the spacesuit she’d worn had been designed to go over clothes and footwear, and so she still had her favorite pair of flat boots, broken in and shabby and endlessly comfortable. She had a feeling she was going to be needing them real soon.

They had no luggage, but she fished the bags that the clothing and other items had been delivered in out of the trash, then packed everything as quickly as she could. Barely five minutes had passed since she’d alerted Derek to the unwelcome message, and yet it still felt as if they were taking too long, as if Consortium agents would be breaking down the door at any minute. No, that probably wasn’t right. Any dirty work they planned to engage in would be done as quietly as possible to avoid any unwanted attention.

She felt a stir of triumph at being ready sooner than Derek. Then again, it wasn’t as if he’d spent a lifetime learning how to travel light. But he emerged from his bedroom only a minute or so after she’d put her bag down on the coffee table to wait for him, so she couldn’t really blame him for any delays.

“Do you have a plan?” she asked him, hoping he’d say yes and knowing he’d probably say no. It wasn’t as if she’d come up with anything terribly constructive in the meantime. After all, they were stuck in a domed city. There weren’t that many places they could go. She’d never bothered to read up on Triton, and anyway, any facts she might have gleaned from official sources were no doubt completely inaccurate. But she guessed, from the size of the dome and the density of the buildings it contained, that maybe six or seven thousand people lived here. It might be enough for them to get lost in.

Might.

“Other than keep moving, no, not really,” he responded.

“Well, that’s slightly better than ‘stay here and wait for someone to come and kill us,’ so I’m on board with that.”

He shot her a sideways glance but didn’t say anything, instead went to the door.

“Open it from the side,” Cassidy told him, moving to flatten herself against the wall on his other side.

“Why?”

“Because it’s easier to get shot if you’re standing right in front as you open it.”

“Ah.” He flicked her another one of those sidelong looks. “Was that part of your training as a freighter captain?”

“No,” she said easily. “It’s just something I’ve seen on the cop vids I’ve watched over the years.”

His pained expression told her exactly what he thought of using scripted vid shows as a basis for formulating a survival strategy. However, he did as she’d instructed, hugging the wall next to her. It was the first time he’d been this close, only a few inches away, and in that moment she realized how tall he was, how broad his shoulders. Maybe he’d been eating slop in the MaxSec for the past two years, but you’d never know it to look at him.

And that is exactly the last thing you should be thinking about right now.
She held her breath as Derek pushed the controls for the door.

It slid open…and nothing.

No pulse bolts, no troop of heavily armed men running into the suite. Derek moved away from the wall an inch or two, just enough so he could peer through the doorway.

“Looks clear.”

Cassidy slipped past him and looked as well. No one outside, no sign of movement at all — which made some sense, as it was now close to eleven hundred hours, not exactly peak time for people to be coming and going from their rooms. She wouldn’t exactly allow herself a sigh of relief, but it did seem that they’d made it past the first hurdle.

The second was the stairway. They’d both looked at the lifts and, by mutual agreement, shook their heads and continued instead to the access stairs at the end of the hall. Yes, there was still a surveillance camera mounted in one corner, but at least it would be easier to make a break for it on the stairway than it would trapped in an elevator.

No one stopped them, though, and they emerged in the rear of the lobby, far enough away from the front desk that Cassidy thought they’d be able to slip out the back door without too much trouble. Then she looked down at the new clothes she was wearing and paused. The last thing she wanted to do was skip out on their bill.

“How much did all this stuff cost?” she asked Derek, pointing at his jacket.

“I — what?”

“How much? They put it on our tab, and now we’re taking off without paying for any of it. Doesn’t seem fair.”

He frowned, appearing to do a quick mental calculation. “Maybe three hundred units?”

Well, that was doable at least. She took the pouch with their cash and removed a hundred units, then handed them to Derek. “You keep these. I’m going to leave the rest behind to pay for everything.”

A look of surprise flitted over his features, followed by another one of those admiring glances. “Good idea. We wouldn’t want to add petty theft to our long list of crimes.”

Crimes that now did include murder, if you wanted to call the deaths of the two men in the starfighter murder. She preferred to think of what she’d done as self-defense, a clear-cut case of “us or them,” but she could see why Consortium authorities might view the matter differently.