Rebels and Lovers (7 page)

Pops was right. “Tomorrow” was now well into day four. And Frinks’s Takan thug had taken to following Kaidee damned near everywhere, as if she didn’t realize she had three days left to come up with thirteen thousand credits. She refused to flinch every time she saw him behind her, but her insides churned like an old sublight drive gone bad. Her appetite was gone. Just as well. Food cost money.

Kaidee considered selling the
Rider’s
prepaid docking bay space, but that would mean she’d have to put the
Rider
somewhere else, and she couldn’t drift aimlessly off Dock Five. There were fuel costs and fees associated even with that. She had to breathe air, she had to eat food when her ship’s meager stock ran out, and she had to make sure her ship’s toilets flushed.

There were also abandoned docking rafts out in the 501, a mined-out asteroid field about a half shipday from Dock Five—if the Imperial grunts let her get that far. There wouldn’t be any food, but there might be some power she could filch. If she didn’t get raided by pirates first.

You’re going to get raided by pirates either way
, a small voice warned her. The irony of that didn’t escape her.

She damned the fact that Kiler had never renewed the passenger certification for the
Rider
. They’d discussed it, but it took money—a lot of money.

Hauling cargo’s a hell of a lot more reliable
, he’d
said.
And you don’t have to worry if the containers are comfortable
.

No, but a passenger certification would have provided her with an alternate means for an income.
And
a means to be long gone from Dock Five by now.

But she didn’t have even the funds to pay Frinks. She was sure, with the current situation on dock, the cost for certification had probably tripled.

She stopped again at the Free-Trader Collective offices and tried not to look desperate.

“We don’t know any more than you do, Captain Griggs,” the round-faced man at the front desk said. His gray shirt bore the CFTC logo. His pale eyes looked tired. “The lanes open tomorrow. That’s all we’re told.”

But they wouldn’t open tomorrow. The Imperial destroyers were still out there. She was still stuck here, along with hundreds of other increasingly unhappy and agitated stationers—many also in financial straits.

But none, as far as she knew, with a hulking eight-foot-tall Taka shadowing them.

Her last chance would be to hop a commercial passenger shuttle to Starport 6. It would mean losing the
Rider
, but, if it came to that, it was honestly better than losing her life. But she was saving that for her very last-chance effort. She’d hate to be on board a shuttle only to see the lanes open and freighters streaming away from Dock Five.

Her ship was all she had left. Even her pride was gone. Hope had fled more than a year ago, with Kiler’s death in Port Chalo.

She hit the next—perpetually nonworking—bank of escalators and used them as stairs down to Green Level. Four Englarian clergy—two shorter humans, two taller Takans—in their usual sand-colored robes
were in a circle, holding hands, praying a few steps from the base of the stairs. Maybe it was some special religious holiday—she never could keep up with the Englarian ones—or maybe, like everyone else, they just needed answers. She knew the feeling. She hadn’t talked to Pops since Trouble’s Brewing. She didn’t want to bother the man. But she knew he had connections—connections that should scare her.

Still, Frinks and Orvis scared her more.

There was a job board at the other end of Green—hourly odd jobs and daily work. Postings were filled as soon as they came up, but maybe today there’d be something no one else wanted. At this point, providing it didn’t require her to remove her clothes or someone else’s, she’d do anything. A couple hundred credits wouldn’t satisfy Frinks, but it might buy her another day. She needed that day.

The corridors were crowded—they were always crowded—and, as was happening more and more, people in the corridor were arguing. Kaidee slowed her pace, hearing the shouts before she saw the pushing and shoving. She tried to sidestep the problem, but the ring of onlookers was large and growing as some people shouted encouragements, others laughed, and someone actually threaded through the crowd taking bets as to which one of the malcontents would hit the decking first.

The lunatics are running the asylum
. She was skimming the bulkhead, looking for a place to squeeze through, when a familiar face caught her attention. A face that shouldn’t be on Dock Five—not ever. She blinked, staring. She could be wrong. She had to be wrong.

She wasn’t.

What in hell was Trippy Guthrie doing on Dock Five?

She recognized him immediately, even though it had been almost two years since she’d last seen him. He was around seventeen at that time—a friendly, intelligent kid. The young man she stared at now was a little taller, a little more broad-shouldered, but he was definitely Trippy. She’d know the Guthrie good looks anywhere, and Trippy had them by the handful, from his shiny dark hair to his lean, square-jawed face to the long dark lashes that shaded bright-blue eyes.

Plus, with his light-tan suede jacket and what looked like a leather backpack, he was far better dressed than anyone on the docks.

Was one of Guthrie Global’s yachts stranded here? There was no other explanation. Because Guthries didn’t belong on Dock Five.

She scanned the crowd around Trip, looking for Ben Halsey. If a GGS ship was here, then Halsey would be right on Trip’s heels. Or Rallman, if Halsey was sleeping. But she couldn’t spot Halsey. She couldn’t spot anything that might be GGS security.

A trickle of alarm ran up her spine.

“Trippy!” she called ineffectually through the shouts and jeers. She tried to elbow her way past a knot of drunken spacers, but they pushed back, and for a moment she lost sight of him. She shoved harder, squirming through, and saw him again, because he
was
tall—over six feet, she judged. She picked up her pace, trying to keep up with his long-legged gait as he suddenly moved away from her—or from someone coming after him?

His wide-eyed expression said as much.

Shit. Where in hell was Halsey? Or Rallman? Or whoever was assigned to Trip now?

She flicked the safety off the L7 laser pistol at her side. Something was very wrong.

He turned the corner into a cross corridor and, moments later, so did she, but she slammed against a wall of spacers moving in the opposite direction and had to backtrack and then dodge sideways. By the time she reached a clear spot in the corridor, he was gone.

She spun around, hand still on her pistol. Dark-haired men were common, but there was something about a Guthrie, something in the set of their shoulders, in the straightness of their spines. … It was as if they were hand-fed prowess for breakfast from the time they were born. Even ten-year-old Max had had it. Even
Ethan
had it—though on him, it was a waste. Jonathan, being the eldest, practically oozed it, as did Philip. And Devin … Trippy had his father’s mien, but he had his youngest uncle’s shy smile and intense, penetrating gaze.

Of all the Guthrie brothers, Devin was the enigma. Part of her might even admit she missed him. The other part of her—the realist, the one who barely survived a fiasco of a marriage to Kiler—would tell her she was clearly out of her mind to even let Devin into her thoughts, let alone her fantasies.

Idiot
. This was no fantasy. This held the potential for very real trouble, unless … She scanned the crowd. Not a Guthrie anywhere in sight.

Shit. That was not good news.

She was probably wrong. It probably wasn’t Trippy. But she knew it was.

And with Imperial destroyers sitting out there and the likes of Horatio Frinks in here, that fact worried her. She changed direction back to Pops’s with more than her own troubles on her mind.

——————

“A luxury star yacht?” Pops looked up from his deskcomp as Kaidee crossed her arms over the high back of the empty chair opposite his desk.

“There can’t be that many on Dock Five.”

“Actually, there are four or five here regularly—not that you’d know what they are. Most are pirate rigs, heavy-duty conversions.”

Actually, she would know what they were, but that wasn’t the topic. “No conversion. This would be either a PanGalaxus Splendera or a BGR-750. Or something top of the line like those.”

“I don’t have access to every ship that makes dock here, Kaid. Just my clients’.”

“Don’t know why, but somehow I thought you’d hear if there was a Splendera on dock.”

Pops sighed, but he was grinning. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It is.”

“The answer’s no. I’m sorry. And, yes,” he continued, because Kaidee did little to hide her disappointment, “I would tell you. You’re good people, and I know you wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important.” He glanced back at his screen, then up at her again. “There are two pirate rigs stuck here with the rest of us, but no PanGals or BGRs or anything of that caliber. So.” He raised his chin. “Why is it important?”

Kaidee leaned a little more heavily against the back of the chair. Pops trusted her. She had to do the same. “I saw Trippy Guthrie on dock not fifteen minutes ago, and not a GGS bodyguard in sight.”

“I get the Guthrie part. Who’s Trippy?”

“Jonathan Macy Guthrie the Third. The old man’s grandson—
eldest
grandson. Son of the eldest. All that stuff.”

Pops let out a low whistle. “How do you know the Guthries?”

“Kiler and I flew for them for five years.” Pops’s eyebrows shot up into his bald pate as Kaidee continued. “Trip used to like to hang out in the cockpit of the BGR, to get informal flying lessons. He’s a good kid. A
real
good kid. He doesn’t belong here. And it looked like he was just figuring that out.”

“You think he’s a runaway?”

Kaidee narrowed her eyes, thinking. “He’d be in his first year at Montgomery University. So, no, I can’t see him running away. He’d have too much freedom there, even with his required bodyguards. Granted, he has a strong adventurous streak—he’s like Philip Guthrie in that. That’s why they put Ben Halsey on him. Halsey’s ex-ImpSec and real seasoned.”

“You’re worried.”

Kaidee nodded reluctantly. Like she didn’t have enough problems? “Yeah.”

“Young men his age often do stupid things.”

“Like borrowing one of Grandpa’s sailing yachts, loading it with friends and beer, and partying for three days straight? Absolutely. But they don’t end up on Dock Five alone.”

Pops blew out an exasperated sigh between thinned lips and poked at his compscreen for a few minutes more. “Nothing, Kaid. Sorry. Not a ship that I’d think would be associated with GGS or even a university transport. He must have gotten here by freighter or commercial passenger shuttle.”

“Can you, um, access passenger records?”

Pops snorted. “You do have a too-high opinion of my abilities. But if I hear anything, I’ll let you know.”

She nodded her thanks. She in no way saw herself as the savior of wayward university students, but
people had watched after her when she was that age and crazy and had saved her unruly ass more than once. And if there was a problem with Trip’s over-domineering family, Kaidee felt fairly sure Trip wouldn’t see her as one of the oppressors. She’d get him to tell her what the problem was, and they’d solve it together.

Then she’d deal with the rest of the thirteen thousand credits Frinks wanted.

Maybe Trip would give her a loan. Then again, given the trouble Kiler had caused, maybe not.

She threw one last question at Pops before she left his office: “You have any need of a Welcran data-booster system? Slightly used? Or”—she hesitated, her mind running over how much of her ship she could gut without putting herself in a serious hole—“a Gartol sublight regulator? It’s only two months old.” It made her sublights run so sweetly, but it could also garner her a couple grand. She still had the older unit. She could reinstall that. And hope it didn’t break down again.

“Not right now. But if someone comes asking …” He let his voice trail off, and she could see troubled thoughts clouding his gaze as his eyes narrowed. Yeah, she was broke, and yeah, it was tough admitting that. But Pops wasn’t the type to dole out pity.

“You know where to find me. Thanks.”

“They’ll open the lanes soon, Kaid. Hang in there.”

“Working on it,” she replied with a halfhearted salute as she turned away. Soon. It was always soon. She just didn’t know if soon would be soon enough.

Devin Guthrie had never been to Dock Five.

He’d heard stories—some from the various GGS pilots
over the years, and some from Philip—and all had highlighted the aging station’s decrepit condition, unsavory denizens, and general air of impending peril. Along with any number of other things that defied identification.

In Devin’s estimation—as he and Barty threaded their way through the bedraggled, unkempt stationers and the whirring, blinking, barely functioning servobots filling the corridor on Green Level—the stories paled in comparison to the actual experience.

It wasn’t the acrid tang of sweat or the torn and greasy coveralls that made him itch. Dirt didn’t bother Devin. Like the rest of his brothers, he loved competitive sports. Handball was his choice, but he’d spent years on basketball courts and ice rinks. He’d taken his spills in the mud and dropped his gloves on and away from the blue line. But even the worst locker room didn’t have a fragrance quite like Dock Five.

“The air recyclers,” Barthol said, as Devin again raised his hand to his nose, far less discreetly than he thought, “aren’t one of Dock Five’s strong points.”

Neither was the shuttle flight here—a very long two and a half shipdays, even in first class, or what passed for first class on a spaceliner that serviced Dock Five. Devin slept through the six hours in jumpspace, though dreams of a woman with short, tousled pale hair kept intruding. During the time in realspace, he grabbed what data he could from whatever Imperial data beacons’ frequencies he could snag with his Rada and tracked Trippy’s financial withdrawals—which were all small amounts so as not to raise any alarms.