Songs of Love & Death

I’m not Brackton, he almost told Leonoso, but held back. His case agent didn’t need to be reminded of the mission failure at Able-Trade. But Nic wasn’t Depvar Brackton. He’d never blown his cover, not in five years, not even when threatened with death. After what happened at Widestar, the job was everything to him. The agency knew that and—he suspected—used that.

“Everything’s clean.”

“Keep it that way. Next contact in thirty-eight.” The transmission cut off with the usual sharp click.

He was about to move out of the alcove when a woman in a dark green flightsuit jogged by, her long dark braid swinging across her back. The ship’s patch on her left sleeve was emblazoned with a silver star. A very large black-and-white Skoggi in a matching dark green CI—command-interface—vest bounded on all fours by her side. The patch on his vest showed an identical silver star.

Nic’s chest suddenly went tight. He recognized and expected to see the Skoggi. Quintrek James—a familiar name in political circles—was owner of record of the Star of Pandea, a jump-rated short-hauler working the ass end of the Dalvarr System along with the usual assortment of pirates, mercenaries, and con artists. Which was the reason Nic Talligar was here—tracking cargo that the Dalvarr Intelligence Agency had, three days ago, deliberately placed on board Quintrek James’s ship.

But what in hell was Serenity Beck doing here? The answer was in her green uniform with its silver star emblem on the sleeve. She was ship’s crew, very likely ship’s pilot.

Death threats he could handle. But Serri Beck was trouble—a seriously unexpected complication. And one that made his chest go tight and his breath hitch.

If Nic thought Serri disliked him six years ago, there was no doubt in his mind that she was really going to hate him now! Damned shame he couldn’t return the favor. But six seconds of watching her sprint past him just destroyed six years of his hard-won sanity. And might well destroy his career.

He almost flexed his wrist to contact Leonoso. But he couldn’t—not for thirty-eight hours. Mission rules. Cursing himself silently, he waited for a boxy anti-grav cargo auto-pallet to whirr by before slipping out of the shadows to follow her. Some rules were about to be broken.

....

SERRI QUICKLY TAPPED in the codes to open the freighter bay’s airlock. Quin bounded through ahead of her, tail flicking as if to propel him forward. The Skoggi raced across the metal decking for the hulking deltoid-shaped ship that nearly filled the bay. Rampway lights, triggered by the thought-receptors in Quin’s vest, winked on as he approached.

“Try scrambling the airlock codes to give us time,” he called out. “I’ll bring main systems online.”

“They’ll fire the ion cannons at us before we even hit the lanes,” she called back as the airlock door wheezed closed. Not many stations packed a full complement of ion cannons. But Jabo had a reputation for using them to prevent captains skipping out on dockage fees.

Quin hesitated in the ship’s hatchway. “I’m not looking to escape but to obfuscate. If they can’t get in our cargo holds, they can’t rob us of our cargo.”

There was that. Serri programmed in a second override to the corridor airlock pad, then bolted for the rampway. If the manifests were accurate, Filar’s interest in their cargo made no sense: forty-seven containers of Tillithian fermentation essence. A small winery operating out of a hydroponics outpost was the documented recipient. Partial payment was in account on Jabo. It wasn’t the usual setup, but they needed to stop for fuel and water anyway. Even full payment wouldn’t cover Filar’s bogus importation tariff.

“Anything?” she asked Quinn as she jogged onto the bridge.

The Skoggi was hunkered down in the command sling, lights on his CI vest blinking in syncopation with lights on the ship’s consoles as the vest translated his thoughts into actions on a ship made for humanoid hands, not Skoggi paws. “I’ve jammed the access doors to bays two and three. One and four, however, are being enthusiastically uncooperative.”

“And Filar won’t find it unusual that we can’t get into our own cargo holds?” Her partner’s perfect plan suddenly held huge flaws.

“Not when we tell him the winery has the only unlock codes. To prevent us from selling the essence elsewhere, of course. Considering that we took prepayment.”

Yeah, with an invoice for unpaid tariffs served on her as soon as she left the bank. Serri hated coincidence. She just wished coincidence didn’t like her so much.