Finders Keepers (23 page)

He adjusted his desk screen, pulled the data from hers.

Yavo Mitkanos. Of course. He expected that. Then three more names. Two from Fleet. Basil Enzio. Dallon Patruzius. And one
Stegzarda
. Farra Rimanava, the young woman with Mitkanos in the mess. Not surprising. All good choices, judging from a quick glance at their service records. Just one too many.

He tapped his own lightpen on the list. “You have four here.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to use six. Just five—”

“I’m giving you five. Myself as captain. Patruzius as copilot. Enzio, Rimanava, and Major Mitkanos. That’s five.”

“And me.” For a moment he thought his participation in the mission had slipped her mind. Then he saw the line of her mouth tighten. She was excluding him. “I am in charge of this mission,” he said softly. He didn’t want to sound overbearing. He wanted her to see that he valued her. Trusted her.

But she didn’t seem ready to trust him. “That doesn’t mean you have to be part of my crew.”

“Trilby—”

“You asked my opinion.” She leaned forward, pushed the auxiliary desk screen out of the way. “I’m giving it. Mitkanos, Enzio, Rimanava, and Patruzius. You don’t belong.”

He did. He had to. He was putting her back in touch with Jagan Grantforth. He had to be there. “I’ve spent a good part of my life doing intelligence work. I can belong and will. I am in charge of this mission,” he repeated.

“Then let me make it clearer. I don’t want you there.” She leaned back, crossed her arms over her chest.

She was still angry with him, pushing him away every chance she got. He saw that, hoped in time she’d understand why he’d had to lie about who he was. It took some of the sting out of her rejection, but not all. A small cruel voice in his head whispered that it might not only be anger. That it might be something else. Something she had alluded to in the officer’s lounge on Degvar.

Something that labeled him a freak. An unholy experiment. Or worse: how Malika had seen him. A curiosity to be conquered, bragged about, laughed at.

“I will be on board as copilot. And mission leader.” He touched his screen, sent the list back to her. “And I think we both agree on Mitkanos. So the last two choices are yours. But only two.”

She glared at him for a moment. “Rimanava,” she said. “And Patruzius.”

He tabbed down to their bios, scanned them. Patruzius was Fleet, currently assigned to the Degvar quartermaster’s office. He’d worked Saldika, was fluent in Standard. That would’ve been one of his choices as well. Something flickered in his mind when he looked at Patruzius’s image, something familiar. But he couldn’t place the face with the neatly clipped beard, close-cropped hair.

Rimanava wasn’t fluent in Standard, but then, their cover was that of a mixed crew. She’d grown up in Port Balara, worked for two years on the merchanter docks. He could find no flaws in her record, and perhaps her inclusion would placate Mitkanos.

“Good,” he said. “I’ll tell Mitkanos. We’ll meet with him in two hours.”

He recognized the man as soon as he and Trilby walked into Mitkanos’s office. The beard was gone, the hair longer and now pulled back at the nape of his neck and secured with a black cord. Black, like his uniform. A Fleet supply-ship captain.

Patruzius. The man who’d sat so close next to Trilby in the officers’ lounge, who’d placed his hand in such a familiar manner on Trilby’s arm, was Dallon Patruzius. And Rhis had just authorized his placement on the mission team. On Trilby’s ship.

Rhis suppressed a groan and wondered, not for the first time in the past few days, if a permanent place had been etched for him on the divine shit list.

He nodded to Mitkanos. The young woman standing next to him was the
Stegzarda
corporal, Farra Rimanava.

Trilby was already shaking Rimanava’s hand, then Patruzius’s. The bastard winked at her.

“Good to see you again,” she told him.

Actually, no, it isn’t.
Not as far as Rhis was concerned. Things had been said at that table in the lounge, and Patruzius and Rimanava had been there to hear them. Suddenly he wasn’t as pleased with his new crew as before.

But Patruzius was Fleet. One of his own people. His allegiance was to Senior Captain Tivahr. He’d make sure Patruzius didn’t forget that.

19

She couldn’t bring herself to sit in this captain’s chair. Not yet. The ache of losing the
Careless Venture
was still too new. But the pull of this ship, an Endurance Class freighter only a few years old, was enticing. The Empire was handing her this beauty. Tivahr had made that much clear. It was hers to keep after the mission. Regardless of how the mission turned out.

Helluva reward for returning their prized senior captain. Providing, of course, that she survived.

Shame Dezi was still in a hundred pieces and not here to see it.

She ran her hand over the back of the captain’s chair. High-backed and cushioned, upholstered in a soft fabric that felt like woven leather. No duct tape. No lumpy welds holding the armrest to the frame. On the console, a microthin screen that slid noiselessly up at her touch, blinked on instantly.

She felt Tivahr standing behind her, waiting for her reaction. She’d kept herself in check all the way through the large freighter bay on Degvar. Not the commercial bay, nor the docks the
Stegzarda
used. But one that required them to pass through three security checkpoints.

She assumed, by that point, he wasn’t leading her to a generic Imperial cargo ship. But it still took some discipline on her part not to let a well-deserved “hot damn” slip through her lips.

An Endurance Class short-hauler. Hot damn, indeed.

He grasped her elbow lightly, guided her to the front of the chair. “Sit.”

She felt his touch like firewasps in her veins, jerked away. “In a minute.”

She wrapped her arms around her chest, continued her methodical check of the command console. Then turned to her right and inspected the copilot’s screens and, behind that, navigation.

This was a real bridge, with space—walkable space—between the stations. Not like the
Venture,
whose bridge hadn’t been much more than an oversize cockpit.

Enviro. Communications. Weapons. As for the last, she could see the modifications still under way. Cables snaked over that console and into an open access panel underneath.

She heard him step toward her. Turned, because she didn’t want to feel his breath on her hair again, or the heat of his body against her back.

“Where’d you steal this from?” And then a sickening thought. How many Conclave crew had died defending it?

He shook his head. “It’s not stolen.”

Oh, right. She forgot. During the war, the Empire labeled any captured ships as “transferred property.” “Okay, who involuntarily transferred this ship to you?”

A small grin crossed his lips. He reached for the back of the captain’s chair, swiveled it around, then sat. “No one.”

Why was he grinning like that? She didn’t see anything funny in standing where some of her own people may have fought for their freedom.

“You really think this is an Endurance C-Two? Trilby, Trilby.” He shook his head. “Come. Three more minutes. I’ll give you three more minutes.”

For a moment she didn’t understand. Of course this was an Endurance C-2. She knew a C-2 when she saw one. She—

—uncrossed her arms, stared around the bridge again.

Then she stormed off the bridge and down the corridor. Tivahr’s boots thudded behind her. She could hear him chuckling, damn him!

She clambered down the ramp, her hand sliding on the railing, grasping it just as it ended, and she used her own body weight to swing herself around. She darted under the thick landing struts and peered up at the belly of the freighter. Saw the square drain locks, red-ringed fuel ports, docking-clamp interfaces. The latter, especially, looked all too familiar.

Damn! Damn! Double damn!

She emerged on the starboard side, ran her gaze down the length of the ship, seeing now what she’d missed before. Differences. There were differences. Hull-plate size and configuration. Viewports.

She took a few steps backward, saw braking-vane patterns that didn’t belong. And stumbled against something hard but soft and warm.

Tivahr locked his arms around her waist, pulled her against him, laughter still rumbling in his chest. She pounded her fists halfheartedly against his hands at her midsection. She was too intrigued by the ship to be completely annoyed at him.

“Okay, so it’s not an Endurance C-Two,” she admitted. She leaned her head back against his shoulder to get a better look. It wasn’t even a Conclave-produced ship. “What is it?”

His voice was low and sexy in her ear. “I like to think of her as an illegitimate but well-loved offspring. You know, perhaps this
Dasja
Conclave freighter falls in love with a
Dasjon
Imperial huntership. This is the result of their liaison.”

“Seriously, Rhis. Where’d you get her?”

His arms tightened around her, the fingers of his right hand threading through her own. She suddenly realized what she’d done. Rhis. She hadn’t called him Rhis since she found out who he was. He’d been Tivahr since then. Or, preferably, Captain Tivahr.

“Tivahr,” she said with a warning tone, as much to herself as to him. She damned her tongue and wished her brain wouldn’t go into stasis every time he got near her. Her body certainly didn’t respond that way.

She wriggled against him and he released her, reluctantly.

“She was built here,” he told her when she turned. “No, not on Degvar. But she was constructed at an Imperial shipyard and, yes, to resemble an Endurance C-two. Oddly enough, your military has never been able to see through her deception. But I’ve yet to be able to pass her by a freighter captain.”

Now she knew how the Empire, how Tivahr, conducted intelligence missions in Conclave space.

“What’s her name?”

“She’s had many. None of course can be used again once we cross the zone.”

Changing a ship’s sealed ID program was easy for the likes of Tivahr.

“She’s got to have a name.” It was almost sacrilegious.

“You’re her captain. That honor is yours.”

The thought immediately thrilled her, then alarmed her. Whatever she was, she was magnificent. Far too magnificent for the likes of Trilby Elliot.

Jagan had bought her bracelets, silk blouses, perfume. Tivahr was giving her a ship.

And just like the bracelets, silk, and perfume, she’d give this gift back too. But this one she’d regret for the rest of her life.

But for a while, just a little while . . . A name rose suddenly in her heart. Her throat tightened and she wiped her hand over her eyes, smearing the dampness there.

She stared at the ship, an Endurance C-2 but so much better, with systems and capabilities that bordered on brilliant.

“Shadow’s Quest,”
she said softly. It fit. Because in the end, she’d lose this Shadow too.

It was the second message she’d received from Jagan since she’d agreed to work with Tivahr. But the first to come to her on
Shadow’s Quest
. She sat in her office—small, but it was hers—behind the bridge and listened to it twice.

Then she keyed in a request for a fresh cup of coffee from the replicator—
her
replicator—and listened to it again.

Jagan Grantforth seemed greatly disturbed that she was no longer in command, and in possession, of the
Careless Venture
. “I’m worried about you. You must be devastated, Tril. You’re all alone. I know how much that ship meant to you.”

He didn’t know diddly-squat. He’d never given a damn about the
Venture
before, except to make sure the mattress in her cabin was soft enough for him.

“Did this transport company let you transfer all your map files to this new ship? Make sure they know how useful all your years of experience in the business are. All those shortcuts you know.”

Map files? The
Venture
’s map files? She couldn’t place the term, thought for a minute it might be an acronym. MAP, with the
M
standing for Major, Minor something . . .

Map. Charts. Navigational charts.

The
Venture
’s nav banks.

She bolted out of her office, skipped down the stairs two at a time. The lift would probably be quicker, but she kept forgetting about it. Besides, her brain seemed energized by the pounding of her feet on the resilient decking.

Tivahr was in engineering. A real engineering room. Two techs from the
Razalka
and one from Degvar’s ops were making a last-minute install. They had a deadline of 0600 tomorrow.
Shadow’s Quest
would officially enter the freighter business at that time.

She spotted him kneeling on the floor, holding a small datalyzer into an access hatch.
“Vad,”
he called in approval to the gray-clad tech at the far end of the console. “The signal’s balanced now.”

She barely noticed that she understood his Zafharish response to the tech. She squatted down beside him, grabbed his arm. “It’s not me. It’s my ship!”

He sat back on his haunches and stared at her.

She felt almost giddy with relief. And idiotic for not seeing it before.

“It’s not me,” she repeated. “Jagan. He’s not, he’s never been, interested in me. It’s my ship. The
Venture
. He’s having shit fits in his latest transmit because he thinks I junked her nav banks.”

The same nav banks that held not only the data on all of her routes and runs but the routes and runs of every captain the ship had ever had in the past sixty-five years. All the old trade routes that no one used anymore because the guidance beacons were outdated.

No one, maybe, except the ’Sko.

Tivahr followed her into the lift and up three decks to her office. She turned her desk screen toward him. He sat on the edge of her desk, sipped the coffee that she’d gotten for herself, and watched the playback of the transmit.

“He could just be saying how sorry he is because he’s trying to get back in your good graces.”

Yeah, you’d know about playing those kinds of games, wouldn’t you?
She leaned forward in her chair. “Jagan doesn’t even know a ship has nav banks. Trust me. Someone fed him that line. He refers to the shortcut in my map files. He couldn’t even get the line right. He’s an accountant, for the Gods’ sakes!”

“His family owns GGA—”

“And he’s an accountant. Has no military or merchanter flight time. He goes to the depots on his family’s private yachts and takes inventory. He wouldn’t know a star chart if it bit him in the ass.”

She could see his mind working. He took another sip of her coffee. She wondered if he had come to the same conclusion she had. She couldn’t be the bait because she wasn’t what Jagan or the ’Sko wanted. The Empire could let her go now, if not in
Shadow’s Quest
—and she didn’t remotely think they’d just hand her this ship, especially if the mission were scrubbed—then at least with a one-way shuttle ticket in hand back to Port Rumor. Plenty of people there would be willing to help her find Carina.

But he shot her hopes down with his next sentence. “We can integrate the
Venture
’s nav banks onto this ship. It will take us only another six, eight hours.” He slapped his hand against his thigh. “Bloody hell! I should have thought of that.”

“But they’re damaged—”

“The data’s intact. Only the retrieval programs and some of the hardware integrators were lost.” He put her empty cup down, then pulled his lightpen from his jacket pocket, tapped the end against his mouth while he thought. “We could trap them. Set it up so they obtain the nav banks. But I can put in a code, traceable by us. We can track who the data goes to and how.”

He swiveled the screen back to her. “Compose a message. Send it in an hour or two. Praise your new employers, Vanur Transport, who had, of course, been more than happy to integrate your nav banks. And paid you well for it.”

He was grinning, but his smile had distinctly feral undertones.

She voiced her supposition. “The ’Sko are looking to use the old lanes to move in and out of the Conclave undetected. And someone in GGA is supplying them with the means.” She couldn’t quite believe what she was saying. GGA working with the ’Sko. Is this what Carina, or maybe Vitorio, found out? Vitorio’d had contacts in GGA through Chaser long before Trilby had met Jagan. She pushed the ugly thoughts from her mind.

Tivahr seemed to sense her discomfort. “I suspected that for a while. Now I think we have proof.”

“Then why all the attacks on Rinnaker, on . . .” She shook her head. Stupid, stupid, stupid! It was the one common thread she’d seen but ignored. She answered her own question before he could.

“Most of Rinnaker’s ships are older.” She pointed her finger at him as if lecturing him. “They’ve been in business for almost eighty years. Longer than Norvind or GGA. Only Herkoid was around longer.” Over one hundred twenty. And their ships, when they still traveled the lanes, looked it. “When Herkoid folded, Rinnaker’s nav data was the oldest in the lanes.”

“Which the ’Sko want. And GGA wants.” Tivahr repocketed his pen. “So they hit Rinnaker’s old freighters, force them to sell them as scrap.”

“To GGA. Which also graciously gives them low-cost loans to buy new ships.” Things were starting to fall into place in Trilby’s mind. But not everything. “But GGA’s got Rinnaker’s data. Why do they need mine?”