Stealing Mercury (Arena Dogs Book 1) (27 page)

Haverlee Port, Krena

Gollerra Sector

2210.170

Samantha yawned as Haverlee’s controller confirmed her account, finalized the portage and wished her well. Handling all the ship’s systems herself had made it a short but punishing journey. Before Samantha closed the communication channel she checked one more time for any response to the encrypted relay she’d sent out for Sevti, but there was nothing.

She stood and stretched, pushing her worry away. She could only hope Sevti was okay and being cautious. No use in assuming he’d been caught when she was too far away to help him. Besides, after a year away, she was back in Haverlee. Surely that earned her a few hours of peace before she had to start worrying again.

Turning to leave the pilot’s station she found Mercury watching her with intent eyes. She brushed her fingertips across his cheek and enjoyed the warm rush of affection that heated her skin when he pressed a kiss to her palm. His tongue traced a circle across the kiss dampened skin. Her pulse skipped and pleasure zinged outward to all her more feminine places.

She pulled her hand free. The last thing she needed was to face the Chief with her brain floating on a cloud of lust.

“I need to go speak with the Port Chief. He’s the local authority. He controls everything in Haverlee. I need to explain about the ship in case it comes up on a port bulletin.”

“I’ll go with you.” He crossed his arms over his chest, presenting an appealing show of strength and determination.

“You should all wait here. Haverlee is a multi-species port, so I don’t think you’ll stand out so much, but—”

“There could also be a bulletin on us—stolen property.”

She cringed and patted his bicep. “I’ll talk to the Chief about that, too.”

He didn’t budge to move aside or let her through the hatchway. “I’ll go with you. Carn and Lo will stay here.”

Over his shoulder, she could see the two men standing in the corridor.

“You should all stay here. I grew up in Haverlee, I’ll be fine.”

A rumbling growl reverberated in Lo’s chest.

Carn looked somber. “We listened to the ship’s data entry on this port. There’s a traveler warning posted.”

She couldn’t help the eye roll. Why had she taken the time to teach them how to use the ship’s com interface? “There have been warnings about Haverlee since I was no taller than your hip, but nothing truly bad happens here. I promise.”

Red fire sparked in Lo’s eyes and a muscle in his jaw twitched.

Mercury wrapped his hands around her arms, stroking with his thumbs. “If you don’t let me go with you, I won’t be able to keep Lo from following you. He doesn’t seem in a very agreeable mood. It’d be better if you let me stay at your side.”

Samantha humphed. “You think I’m falling for that?”

He nodded, face carefully neutral. “It’s true.”

Damn them. She knew she was being maneuvered, but she also knew Lo would do exactly as Mercury warned.

“Okay. You win this one.” She strode over to Lo and put her hand against the sleek expanse of his muscled chest. “You stay here. Mercury will go with me.”

The rumble quieted beneath her palm. His lips tilted in a half smile that pressed his prominent canine teeth against his lip. The man didn’t know how to look anything but deadly. She turned in a slow circle. What was she thinking? None of them could look anything but lethal.

She shot Mercury a grin. “Come on. First stop, we find something to cover you up. No way are you walking around out there with all those pretty muscles on display.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Pretty?”

She traced a finger down his sternum. “I call ‘em like I see ‘em.”

Ten minutes later, he walked at her side through the bustling port and into the market that sprawled right up to the gate. They found a hooded jacket for Mercury and arranged to have two more delivered to the ship in an hour. With the hood up, it covered Mercury’s ears and shadowed the distinctive features of his face, but there was nothing she could do to disguise his size.

The chief’s assistant led them into his office. Port Chief Pillar sat behind an ancient but tidy desk. A window looking across the port stretched across the wall behind him, like his own personal backdrop. The older Golley had the blue-tipped, silver hair that put his age well into his senior years, but to her he’d always looked old. The wrinkled gray skin and rounded shoulders were typical Golley, but as a child she’d thought him just another elderly human. That was back before she’d had access to the port. Most of the Golley worked and lived within its walled shelter.

Samantha sat in the faded chair across from him and Mercury stood behind her, one hand reassuringly on her shoulder. “It’s good to see you, Pillar.”

“And you, Sammie.” The chief eased his chair back. “You here to file a claim on the
Bucket
?”

Samantha shook her head. “No. My father left it to Shred. I’ve accepted that.”

His bushy brows shot up. “Shred doesn’t seem so sure.”

Samantha adjusted her boots beneath her seat. She didn’t want to talk about Shred. “I told him as much, last I saw him.”

The chief tapped crooked fingers against the arm of his chair. “Shred and the rest of the crew seem to think you’ll put in a claim to cut them out and throw them off.”

Samantha frowned. “I’d never do that. The
Bucket
is their home.” Of course it had been her home too.

“So you’re here for something else then.”

A miniature of the Earther scales of justice sat on the corner of the chief’s desk. A strange artifact to find in a Golley port office. On Haverlee he was judge, jury, and jailer should the need arise. He’d been on Halston before Haverlee and Golley Minor before that. He was more than a backwater caretaker, or had been. Samantha lifted the figurine in her hand.

“I need your expert knowledge of the Gollerra judiciary.”

He smiled, nodding his head in a way humans couldn’t duplicate. It was more like moving his head up and down rather than tipping it forward and back. “Clever start, acknowledging my ex-par-tese and appealing to my sense of self-importance. Go on.”

“This is a hypothetical.”

The chief waved one hand in sharp little circles, urging her to get to the point.

“How exactly does Gollerra law determine who is a person?”

The chief leaned forward letting the legs of his chair slam forward. “Now
that
is quite a question. You’re going to have to explain that one.”

“I mean, if someone claimed someone else wasn’t a person, that they were property, more animal than humanoid, how would they go about deciding it one way or another?”

The chief’s attention shifted briefly to Mercury’s shadowed face, before he turned serious and met her gaze levelly. “Well, it isn’t something that often comes up. It’d have to be basic sentience testing. Self-aware, able to communicate on some recognizable level, capable of comprehending complex social structures. But, if the person can question the claim of ownership and be understood, that’s evidence enough of sentience.”

“No genetic requirements? Nothing about DNA?”

He frowned, doubling the number of wrinkles across his forehead. “No. We have our share of prejudice, but it is usually more cultural than species related.”

“What about a claim of ownership…or creatorship?”

“Ha!” He let out a puff of amusement. “Parents create their children, doesn’t mean they own them.”

Samantha reached up to lay a hand over Mercury’s on her shoulder. “Good. Perfect.”

Pillar’s gaze tracked the movement. “I take it this hypothetical has some basis in reality?”

Fabric rustled from behind Samantha as Mercury pushed back the hood of his cape. The chief wouldn’t be able to miss his less human features. “This is Mercury.”

“The Roma Company created my people through genetic manipulation.” Mercury gave nothing of his anger away in his tone. “They have deemed us animals and claim ownership.”

“Roma?” The chief’s face scrunched with derision as he said the word.

“They own a small planet,” Samantha added. “In the Earth Alliance Beta sector.”

“I know the company, but they have no legal standing here.” The chief got to his feet and extended a hand to Mercury. “Welcome to Haverlee and Gollerra sector.”

Mercury hesitated for only a moment before he stepped forward and took the man’s hand. “Thank you.”

Samantha cleared her throat to draw Pillar’s attention. “I should also tell you that the ship I arrived in may have been reported missing or stolen.”

The chief settled back into his chair. “How did you end up with it?”

“I was hired to pilot some freight for Roma.”

“Your friend here?” He indicated Mercury with a tilt of his head.

Samantha nodded. “I took an unconventional route. When they realized that, one of the idiots they sent along tried to take over the pilot’s station.”

His brows lifted again, like two fuzzy caterpillars trying to walk off his face. “He thought he could fly a transport?”

Samantha shrugged. “To skip ahead a bit, we took the escape-pod to the surface of a planet and the fellows on the ship I brought here came to rescue the Roma men. They didn’t have any intention of the rest of us getting off the planet alive. Taking their ship was the only way we were getting back.”

“Hmm...They…and Roma might not see the logic of that. Those men on the planet, what exactly happened to them?”

“We left them there with supplies. Roma knows where they are. It was habitable. Lush even. I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

“Well, then. You best make this an official report so your side of the story is on record before they can twist the facts around.”

“I can do that. Pillar, I need a favor.”

The caterpillar brows crawled toward each other as his face scrunched. “Oh, Sammie. I hope you’re not going to—”

“I need you to hold the report locally for a few days.”

His hands fisted around the arms of his chair. “You’re not thinking of flying that ship back out of here.”

“I promised Mercury and his brothers that I’d get them where they need to go.”

“I’m sorry, Sammie. I have to impound the ship. If you hold onto it, no one will believe you’re not a thief.”

“I’m willing to risk it.”

Pillar shook his head. “No. This is my port, but I can’t control every bit of news or gossip that gets out. Someone will have noted your landing and your launch. And no other port is going to clear you inbound without your license number.”

“That won’t be a problem.” Samantha hadn’t expected it to be easy to convince him.

“Where—? Never mind, don’t answer that. Probably best I don’t know too much of what you’re planning, but I can’t let you pilot that ship, Sammie. Keeping that ship would cause you nothing but trouble. And I don’t want trouble coming back my way.”

The floor beneath her boots shook as she got to her feet. Through the window, she saw a Golley freighter in the distance, lumbering skyward. “I understand, Chief. We’ll find another way.”

“Twenty-four hours, Samantha. I’m impounding the ship now, but I can hold the paperwork until tomorrow. Give you one peaceful night’s sleep.” He reached across the desk as if to take her hand but stopped when Mercury growled a low warning. “Sorry, I can’t do more.”

“There is one more thing.”

His head dipped with interest. “Yes, if I can.”

She dug the metal disk she’d picked up from the bottom of the ravine and handed it to him. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

His lips pursed and slid right and left as he thought. “No, don’t recognize it, but I can try to identify it. Would take some time.”

Samantha had already done a complete scan of the object so she decided to leave it with him. “That would be a great help. Thank you.”

“No trouble,” he said. “I like a good puzzle.”

 She and Mercury turned to go.

“Sammie.” The chief’s voice stopped her.

She looked over her shoulder. “Chief?”

“What you’re doing for these men. Your father would be proud.”

She spun on her heel, not sure why his misguided attempt to be kind made her so angry. “My father’s first rule was to stay beneath the notice of powerful people.”

The chief sighed. “He learned to be careful to protect those in his care. Back when he was relocating refugees, flying beneath the radar was the only way to stay alive.”

Samantha shook her head. “My father was never a refugee runner.”

Pillar smiled. “It was when you were a tot. Before he started spending more time here.”

She frowned. “More time?”

“He told me he went to visit your mother once and realized you’d gone from being a baby to being a person. He made a point of working this port more after that.”

Samantha blocked out his words. She didn’t want to hear that she’d ever meant anything to her father. In the end he’d proven what she meant to him. Exactly nothing.

“We should get going,” said Samantha.

“One more thing.” He held up a finger as if to reassure her he knew her hold on her emotions wouldn’t last longer than that one more thing. “Shred’s been in my office checking on you every time the
Bucket’s
been in port this last year. More than any other year I can recall.”

“Checking on me?”

“Asking if you’ve been by to clean out your dad’s lock box over at the Treasure. Seems only next of kin, a blood relative, can clear the box.”

“I didn’t even know he had one.”

“Well Shred did and it sure makes me wonder what he thinks you’re going to find in there.”

“I’m wondering that myself. Thanks, Chief.”

He acknowledged her gratitude with a nod. “Give my regards to your mother. And do let me know what you find in that box.”

Haverlee Refugee Camp, Krena

Gollerra Sector

2210.170

Samantha considered Pillar’s claim that her father had been a refugee runner on the way back to pick-up Carn and Lo. Why wouldn’t he or her mother have told her if it was true? No, she would have known.