Rebels and Lovers (24 page)

“And it’s just Kaidee. Or Kaid,” she countered.

He shook his head. “Makaiden. Don’t short yourself. Don’t shorten your name. Both are … extraordinary.”

He watched her eyes widen at his blatant compliment. It wasn’t like him. He knew that, and she knew that. And he knew he was staring at her again.

Her lashes dipped, her mouth parted slightly. Uncertainty? He was horrible at reading her. He hoped she believed him.

“Are you going to tell Trip about his grandmother?” she asked finally.

He started to say, “Yes, of course,” then he caught himself. Trip already felt to blame for Ben Halsey’s death, for Devin’s injury, and for all the troubles chasing them on Dock Five. He was only nineteen. If Valerie Guthrie had collapsed because of her worry over Trip, then the news that Devin and Barthol had found him would restore her, and Trip didn’t need to add that to his list of faults. If the reason for her hospitalization was something else, there was nothing Trip could do right now and the knowledge might only hamper him.

“I’ll update him when we’re on the
Prosperity
, headed for Sylvadae. My mother might even be out of the hospital by then. Until that point, he has enough to worry about with Ben Halsey’s death and Barty’s illness. And facing his father and grandfather.”

She was nodding as he spoke, but he needed to hear it.

“I take it you agree?”

“He’s your nephew, but, yes, I do. I spent a fair amount of time with him a few years ago. What you said about your mother holding things inside—so does Trip. If he didn’t, someone would have known about this whole crazy scheme of his to meet up with his uncle Philip.” She hesitated, then continued. “Maybe there’s a lesson in this,” she said softly. Then something on her console trilled, and she swiveled back before he could admit he’d thought that same thing. But he was beginning to believe the lesson was also his.

“We’re cleared for Talgarrath,” she said, with a quick glance over her shoulder.

He rose. “I’ll tell Trip we’re meeting up with the
Prosperity.”

And try to think of more ways to knock down those walls he felt Makaiden was building between them.

Kaidee silently blew out a long sigh between her lips when she was sure Devin was off the bridge and—judging by the muted ping—on the lift to the lower deck. She did not want to go to Port Chalo, and her reasons went beyond what she’d told Devin … was it only an hour ago? The place was ridiculously expensive. And corrupt. Though Dock Five could also fit that description.

But Kiler’s involvement with something or someone in Port Chalo had gotten him killed. She never truly believed the repair-bay explosion was an accident. Accidental explosions didn’t obliterate all traces of a body. There were too many safeguards in repair bays: alarms, fire suppressants. Injuries were common. Total
incineration? Someone had helped that explosion along.

She hadn’t been to Talgarrath since. She was going there now only because … Devin had ordered her to do so.

Right?

No. Even if Devin had left it totally up to her, she’d have agreed to take him to Port Chalo. His family was at risk. The same beliefs and values that had driven him to go against his family to find Trip were now driving him home again. She could see that in his eyes, in the thinning of his mouth.

She not only respected that, that kind of devotion damned near put a lump in her throat. She remembered only too well how her father had been abandoned by his brothers and sisters when he’d decided to do the right thing with his life. Even some of his crew had walked off. Only Kaidee and a handful supported him. And then, on Moabar Station, he was killed—likely because a former crew member, or even his own sister, had turned on him.

Maybe being owned by Devin Guthrie wasn’t such a bad thing—except it would put her in regular proximity to him. And that, she was learning, was dangerous. Around him, it was too easy to let her guard down. She’d already made the mistake of encouraging him to call her Kaidee, not Captain Griggs or even Captain Makaiden. She couldn’t afford that kind of familiarity. She couldn’t afford to open her heart, because the results would be only pain—again.

She’d have to correct her mistake, keep that chasm between them wide and impassable.

It was the only way to keep her sane. And the only way to keep him safe.

They cleared the outer beacon for the Talgarrath jumpgate with no further communications from Baris Central, no strange and threatening blips on the
Rider’s
scanners. Devin was in sick bay with Barty; Trip was on the bridge at navigation, listening intently as Kaidee explained how to snag a news-and-message feed from the beacon—always a good idea before going into jump, because, if nothing else, it gave you something to read in transit. Then she showed him how to take the sublight engines off-line and segue over to the hyperdrive. In between explanations, he peppered her with questions.

Some seemed overly simplistic, but Kaidee didn’t mind. She needed to keep her thoughts off Devin and knew that Trip needed something to keep from worrying about what would happen when he got home to Sylvadae.

Or else he had no intention of returning to Sylvadae at all but still intended to find his uncle Philip—and believed her instructions could land him a berth on a freighter bound for Calth.

Hell, Trip was a Guthrie. If he wanted a freighter, he could follow in his uncle Devin’s footsteps and buy one in Port Chalo.

“Watching me pilot this ship isn’t the same as doing,” she said, shooting him a warning glance. “Just so you understand.”

“I remember some of this from when you flew for us,” Trip said, “but this isn’t like the
Triumph
.”

“A freighter handles differently from a passenger yacht. Part is design, part is weight distribution. That’s a consideration on docking and a huge issue if you go dirtside. The other difference is that passengers complain if jumpgate transit is too stressful, if the hypers shimmy too much as they come online. Cargo doesn’t.”

“What did you learn to fly first?”

“Cargo. I didn’t get my passenger rating until I went to work for Starways.”

“That’s where you met Captain Kiler, right?”

His comment startled her. “How do you know that?”

“Captain Kiler told me. Said the prettiest girls always worked for Starways. That’s where he found all his girlfriends, and if I wanted one, that’s where I had to go to work.”

All his girlfriends
. Kiler already had quite a reputation by the time Kaidee came to work at Starways, but he always swore that was because he hadn’t met her yet. It was a charming line; Kiler was a charming rogue. And as wary as she was, she was flattered by his interest. They dated; six months later, they married. And for the first four or five years, she thought they had a great marriage. But what she’d seen as ambition in him soon was unmasked as greed and jealousy. Whatever they had wasn’t enough or wasn’t good enough.

His obsessions had escalated when they went to work for the Guthries and GGS.
That
was the lifestyle Kiler not only wanted but felt he deserved. Right away, not in the five-year plan he and Kaidee had developed toward their goal of owning their own transport fleet, starting with the down payment they had on the purchase of a newer Blackfire 225. He wanted it
now
. And Kiler didn’t care what he had to do to get there.

That included using GGS executive vacation residences to run an illegal prostitution ring. Kaidee felt as if her life had been thrust back twenty years, to when her aunt had the nighthouse on Dock Five and Kaidee’s father was forever trying to come up with funds to pay off the stripers or get his beloved older sister out of jail. Again.

Within a month of Kiler’s firing from GGS, Kaidee filed for divorce. But the
Rider
was in both their names, and neither she nor Kiler had enough capital to buy the other out. So her soon-to-be ex-husband became her business partner.

And just as the divorce became final, she became his widow.

A triple chime. They’d reached the jumpgate’s inner beacon. Kaidee abruptly pulled herself out of her memories, double-checking the screens before her. For the minute or so that she’d been lost in thought and time, her pilot self had continued to log in the necessary preparations for jump.

“Yes, we met at Starways,” she told Trip, wondering if he’d noticed her momentary lapse and hoping, if he had, he’d assumed she was simply busy piloting. “But I don’t think you need to get a job there to meet girls. I’m sure between the university and your family’s business, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to meet someone.” A lot of someones, actually. Trip had the Guthrie charm and good looks.

And he was nice—a genuine niceness. It was something she sensed from Philip Guthrie, and from Devin—

She pushed the thought away. “I want you to watch how coolant levels spike on the hypers as we transit the gate. Blink your eyes if you have to clear them.
Blurred vision isn’t an unusual reaction to gate transit on freighters of this class.” GGS ships, she knew, had top-grade comfort dampers and other expensive hardware she couldn’t afford. “You’ll get used to it. But watch the pattern in the spikes.” She caught his nod and tapped open intraship. “Two minutes to hard edge. Secure.”

It was a standard warning. Ships under her hands rarely shimmied on gate entrance or exit, but there was always the chance of an odd hyperdrive surge, and she didn’t need Devin or Barty taking further injuries.

The
Rider
flowed through the jumpgate, hyper-drives thrumming smoothly, communications links falling silent as the here and now of realspace was replaced with the neverwhen timelessness of hyperspace.

For the first time in weeks, Kaidee felt completely safe. All hell might wait for them at gate exit, but for the next three days they were, for all intents and purposes, inviolate. She leaned back in her chair with a soft sigh and with a practiced glance confirmed that all was as it should be on the
Rider
.

For now
, a little voice said in her head.

But it was true. Her life lately seemed to go from one tailspin to another. And just because no one could shoot at them in jumpspace didn’t mean a whole phalanx of ships didn’t intend to do exactly that when they exited.

Some could be after Trip. But some could arguably be after her.

“Trip—”

“I saw the spike pattern, Captain Makaiden!” He sounded excited, dropping the false cool polish he’d adopted in the past two days. “I didn’t think I did, at
first,” he continued. “But it’s just odd, even, even, odd. A pattern that mirrors itself. Isn’t that right?”

She nodded over her shoulder at him. “I’ve had people watch through five jumps and not figure that out. You’ve earned yourself dinner and dessert. Go hit the galley.” She knew she’d told him to get something to eat right after they left Dock Five, but when Barty fell ill, those plans were sidetracked. Now she was hungry and guessed everyone else would be too. And it was … later than she thought. The time stamp on her pilot’s console still reflected Dock Five time—which would stay as shiptime until they hit Talgarrath—and it told her dinner should have been two hours ago.

She was hungry
and
tired.

Trip rose. “Can I bring you something?”

“I’ll be down in a bit. There’s a secondary pilot’s panel just off the galley, if something does need my attention.” And one in the captain’s cabin on this deck as well. She’d run the ship in her nightshirt and sweatpants before. As she was the only qualified pilot on board, it looked as if she might be doing that again.

Trip left with the thumping boot steps so common to tall young men still getting used to the height and weight of their bodies. Kaidee rechecked ship’s status, then shunted the routine duties over to autopilot. Despite the fact that she wasn’t needed on the bridge when in jumpspace, she might bring her dinner up here. She didn’t feel up to sharing a meal with Devin, trying to figure out what was going on behind those silver-rimmed glasses of his. Let the Guthries have their privacy, and let the division between employer and employee be glaringly obvious.

Besides, she needed some private time herself. She
had to figure a way to buy her ship back from Devin Guthrie.

Devin steadied his Rada microcomp in Barty’s hand. The older man was awake and demanding updates but still weak. And he was as unhappy as Devin with Ethan’s message—other than the fact that a GGS star yacht would be available to take them home.

He brushed away Devin’s concern over his condition—“It’s manageable when I don’t make stupid mistakes with my medication”—and concentrated instead on the immediate Guthrie problem.

“The main house link being compromised is almost inconceivable.” Barty inched himself a little higher against the raised back of the diag bed, adjusting the pillow as he spoke. “Not impossible, mind you. I helped Petra Frederick make updates to the system, oh, eight months or so ago. There is no such thing as an impenetrable security net, but we thought we caught all the glitches.” He frowned. “Evidently not.”

“Was Halsey in on any of this? Could someone have gotten that information out of him before he died?”