Rebels and Lovers (19 page)

But she doubted CFTC would approve of that expenditure.

It took her fifteen minutes, with nonfunctioning escalators and ovecrowded lifts, to make her way to CFTC’s offices on Blue. She recognized Dabberly’s
dark bushy hair and angular face as he turned at the front desk. He smiled as she approached, his teeth white against his dusky complexion.

“Always good to see you, Captain.”

“You too, Dabberly.” She let some of the ire drain from her voice. She liked the middle-aged man. What was happening here wasn’t his fault. “Where do you need me?”

“Executive offices.” He waved toward a door on the left. “We have a barrister and a licensed certifier just finishing up the paperwork. And congratulations, by the way. I know you’ve been worried. This, along with the renewal of your passenger-transport certification, will really help.”

Renewal of her passenger certification? She couldn’t see Frinks or Orvis getting into the passenger business. What in hell were they going to do with her ship? Turn it into a flying brothel?

“Right,” she said, frowning as she slipped around his desk, then past a row of storage cabinets. She would have loved to barge into the office with her L7 drawn and primed, but that would be bad form. Still, she flicked off the safety. Frinks rarely went anywhere without his Takan muscle. She was entitled to her own security blanket.

The door was partly ajar. She knocked on it anyway and, when a female voice said, “Come,” stepped inside, schooling her features to somewhere between furious and neutral.

And found herself face-to-face with smoky-blue eyes behind silver-rimmed glasses.

“Devin?” To her shame, her voice squeaked.

She glanced rapidly around the room. No Frinks. No towering Taka. Just Devin, standing, and, seated behind a wide desk, a dusky-skinned woman wearing
a neatly pressed light-blue business suit, her dark curly hair shot through with silver.

“I’m Barrister Layton,” she said, rising, holding one hand out. Kaidee realized she’d seen her in CFTC’s offices before, but they’d never been introduced.

Kaidee accepted the woman’s hand as if on autopilot. “Makaiden Griggs.”

“Yes, Captain Griggs. Have a seat, please. We’re just waiting for the certifier to return with the retinal and bioprint scanner.”

Certifier. Retinal scanner. For the transfer of ownership of her—

“Just what in hell do you think you’re doing?” she blurted out. Devin had taken the only other chair opposite Layton’s desk and sat with his hands loosely folded in his lap, his features a mask of perfect professionalism.

“Fixing things,” Mr. Perfect and In Control said calmly after a moment’s silence.

“Fixing things? You shouldn’t even be here! Do you have any idea—” She clamped her mouth shut and fought the urge to scrub at her face with her hands. God, he was supposed to be on a shuttle out of here. She didn’t see Trip or Barty, but she prayed they were far away from Dock Five, because all that had to happen was for Frinks to see her with Devin. “You have to leave.” Her voice was harsh. “Now, Mr. Devin.”

“Barrister Layton, if you’d be so kind as to give us a few minutes?” Devin asked in that smooth, well-schooled, and so very Guthrie-in-charge voice she remembered well. It matched the businesslike effect of his cream-colored shirt and blue-and-gold silk scarf with the signature intertwined Gs peeking out from under the edge of his suede jacket. No hint of a knife
wound or struggle. Though his slight beard shadow added a hint of rakish charm.

“Of course, Mr. Guthrie. I’ll check on the certifier and bring us all some coffee.”

“Tea,” Devin said. “And thank you.”

The door closed.

“Makaiden—”

“You gave her your real name? Are you crazy?”

“There wasn’t time to set up a corporate shell.”

“People are trying to
kill
you. Or haven’t you noticed? And now you’re going to put your very well-known name out there on a ship registration? On Dock Five?” She shook her head in frustration. “Tell me Barty and Trip are safely on a shuttle and heading back to Sylvadae.”

“They’re down the corridor at Trouble’s Brewing, having lunch.”

She stared at him. “You’re out of your fucking mind!”

Something sparked in his eyes briefly, but his demeanor didn’t change. Calm, collected, in-control Devin Guthrie. “Barty’s armed. So is Trip.”

“So are Fuzz-face and his friends, and they outnumber Trip and Barty.” Especially when you added in Frinks. But Frinks was her problem, not Devin’s.

“Exactly. That’s why I bought your ship. There were no seats available on flights out for at least four days. We very much need off Dock Five as soon as possible. The
Void Rider
is now certified to carry passengers. All you have to do is transport us back to Sylvadae.”

And what happens after that? I’m stuck on Sylvadae, a destitute cargo captain on a luxury-yacht world, with no ship and no job
. She wanted to throw
that at him, rattle his calm façade, but Barrister Layton returned with the certifier—a nervous young pale-skinned man in his mid-twenties—and a dark-wood tea tray with two red CFTC mugs.

“Everything settled?” she asked brightly. Too brightly.

“This is for the best, trust me,” Devin said quietly as Layton set the tea tray on her desk.

She stared at him. How many times had she heard exactly those words from Kiler? She turned away, then looked up at Layton. “Let’s get this over with.” She suddenly felt the pressure of time. She had to collect Barty and Trip and get back to the
Rider
before Frinks or the Taka saw them. Before Orvis found out. But the
Rider
was low on fuel and water.

The passenger-transport certification permitted her to leave Dock Five. But without fuel they weren’t going to get very far. And Devin had already spent—she quickly scanned the docupad Layton handed her—more than thirty-five thousand just paying off her debt and renewing her passenger certification. Another twenty for his CFTC registration as owner—

The figures almost leapt off the screen at her, jolting her as much as if there had been physical contact. She swallowed, hard, her throat dry. Devin Guthrie had paid off her and Kiler’s purchase loan on the
Rider
of two million seven hundred forty thousand. In full.

“Captain Griggs?” The young certifier waited in front of her, scanner in hand.

She was out of options. She stared at the small blue retinal-reader light as he waved it past her face, then closed her eyes and put her palm against the cool surface of the screen.

It was done. Devin Jonathan Guthrie now owned the
Void Rider
. And he also owned her.

——————

Kaidee waited until they were outside the CFTC office and heading for Trouble’s Brewing before speaking, even though she knew this wasn’t the time to vent her frustration. There was too much at stake, too many problems nipping at their heels, and she strode down the corridor as if she could feel their tiny pointed teeth tearing at her flesh.

“You need to listen, Mr. Devin, and listen good.”

“Makaiden—”

“Listen
, damn you! You have no idea what you just got yourself, or me, into. You may think this is for the best”—God, how those words rankled her!—“but in buying my ship, you also bought yourself all my troubles. There are other issues here you know nothing about. If you’d even—”

“What issues?”

God, where did she begin? How do you give someone like Devin Guthrie a crash course in real life, dockside? Could she even do so without admitting things she did not want to admit? “Issues that say we have to get off Dock Five, fast. But I’m low on fuel—”

“I’ve already paid for the
Rider
to be refueled.”

The ease with which he spent large amounts of money stunned her. Almost as much as the ease with which he made decisions without consulting her. Not that fueling her ship was wrong, but, damn it, did he even
know
what kind of fuel? She stared up at him, losing track of her surroundings for a moment and almost mowing over a pair of Takan women in long white aprons, who guided a wobbling antigrav pallet between them.

He owns your ship. He owns you
. She bit back the next angry barrage that was on the tip of her tongue and wrenched on the employee demeanor she’d worn
so successfully first at Starways spacelines, then at GGS. “Thank you. That’s … that’s efficient.” She almost said
kind of you
, but he wasn’t being kind. He was acting as an owner should. “However, someone needs to be there to unlock the fuel ports. And no one is.” The last few words came out through clenched teeth. Owner or not, he had no clue as to what was waiting for them just around the corner. Which—with Frinks or Fuzz-face—was a statement that could be taken literally.

“We will be there shortly.”

Shortly might not be soon enough. Not with Orvis’s network of paid eyes and ears. She sucked in a hard breath. “There’s another problem. The minute Frinks—there are certain people who will get nasty if they find out I’m fueling my ship. Preparing to leave.”

“The debt to Orvis is paid off.”

“The financial one, yes. But nothing with Orvis is ever that simple.” She quickened her pace; Devin easily kept up with her as they threaded through clusters of freighter crew and overall-clad dockworkers. “This is not two corporations playing nice while jockeying for market position. The man’s a criminal.”

“I know that.”

“No, you don’t. Your kind doesn’t know what Orvis is like. The threats he makes. The people he controls.” She stopped at the wide doorway to Trouble’s Brewing and grabbed his arm. “He sent Frinks to my bay a few hours ago with a vid image and a demand. The image was of you, me, and Trip yesterday, in here. The demand was that I deliver you to Frinks in the next three hours. I ignored it because I thought you were gone! You’re
supposed
to be gone, on your way back to Sylvadae or Garno or to wherever in hell you could buy passage. Instead …” And she tore her hand
from his jacket sleeve, then flung both hands wide in frustration. “You’re here. Still on Dock Five, buying my
ship!
And in so doing you have put all of our lives at risk, because if Frinks finds you with me or in my bay, he may kidnap you and Trip. Or kill you. Now do you understand what you’ve done?”

The lean face in need of a shave and the smoky-blue eyes behind silver-rimmed glasses showed no emotion as he looked down at her. “That does make things slightly more complicated.”

“Slightly?” The word came out in a harsh whisper because she was that close to screaming at him.

“We’ll collect Barty and my nephew, then deal with what needs to be done.” He swept one hand out in a courteous gesture, motioning her into the pub.

She strode through the doorway without further comment, not only because she knew she was running out of time but because she knew that if she hesitated one minute more, she was going to punch Mr. Perfect and In Control right across that lean, chiseled jaw of his.

The pub was busy but not overcrowded. She spotted Trip and Barty seated along the side wall, remnants of a meal on their plates. Trip was shoving the last of a piece of bread into his mouth as she approached. Barty tapped the younger man on the shoulder, then looked at Kaidee. “Everything went smoothly, I trust?”

“We need to move, and move quickly,” she said without any preliminaries. “We may have big trouble waiting for us at my bay. If not, it’s real close behind. Keep the safeties off your weapons.”

Trip wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Sounds like fun.”

“It could be fatal, Master Trip,” she said tersely, as
Barty shot Trip a warning glance. For a fleeting second Kaidee wondered what Devin was like at that age. Did he have Trip’s sense of adventure and excitement? Or had he always been a quiet loner, calculating and distant?

“We’re paid up,” Barty said with a nod to Devin, now standing—looming, in her estimation—at Kaidee’s side. “I suggest you follow with Trip. I’ll take point with Captain Griggs.” He grabbed the strap of a duffel tucked under his chair. “She can fill me in on the details as we go.”

It was easier talking to Barty. Probably because, Kaidee mused, he was an employee—as she had once been. He knew an employee’s need for approval, the desire to perform, the importance of knowing how and why and when to cover your ass. And while he shared Devin’s calm demeanor, there was an intensity, an emotion, in Barty’s questions that Devin “Perfect and In Control” Guthrie lacked. An excitement tempered by a dry humor. He understood the urgency and the irony.

Plus, she didn’t have a soft spot for Barty.

Devin was … calculated. Quantified. Redacted. Though he wasn’t always that way. In the last two years she worked for GGS, she’d seen Devin thaw, open a bit with her. She’d glimpsed his shy smile, heard the deep rumble of his laugh. Sometimes the employer–employee line blurred a bit. Those times felt good.

But that was then. This was trouble—a trouble partly of her own making, but, damn it, Devin had just made a huge contribution. At least it wasn’t a trouble Barty was unfamiliar with.

“ImpSec watched Orvis for years. Still does,” Barty told her, as they wove their way through freighter
crew, shop workers, and the occasional pair of robed Englarians moving at various speeds down the corridor. Despite the tension of watching for unfriendlies, Kaidee relaxed infinitesimally. For all his outward pomposity, Barthol was a soldier, and one with sources of information. She didn’t have to explain about what Orvis had done or could do. Barty knew—enough that he kept his hand on his Carver’s grip as they hit a set of lesser-used stairs on the way down to Green, then across several corridors to another set leading down to Yellow. They stopped there because Barty’s microcomp pinged. They tucked themselves behind a support strut while Barty checked the data.

Trip was grinning, and she could almost hear
Full apex!
running through his mind. Duck-and-hide with weapons primed appealed to him. Devin’s expression was his usual inscrutable mask, but when she looked up at him, his gaze locked on hers and something hot and electric shot through her veins, startling her. It had to be her imagination.