Heaven's Queen (13 page)

Rupert didn’t seem to have an answer for that. He just stood there, looking at me with some strong emotion I couldn’t name, and then he hugged me tight, pressing me into his chest. He didn’t say anything, didn’t make a sound, but I could feel him shaking harder than ever, his fingers digging into my back until I tensed.

“Sorry,” he whispered, loosening his hold at once.

“It’s okay,” I said softly, locking my arms around his chest before he could pull away. When he stopped trying, I pressed my face against his ruined shirt, which still smelled like burning plasma. “It’s okay, Rupert.”

I’m not sure how long we stayed like that. It felt like hours, but it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes before the soft tone of the hyperspace exit alarm pulled us apart. Rupert let me go reluctantly, trailing his fingers down my arms like he wanted to keep touching me for as long as possible.

He still looked like hell, though. “Would you like me to get you a drink or something?” I asked softly. “Anthony stashed some whiskey in the freezer.”

Rupert shook his head. “Symbiont metabolism is incompatible with alcohol. We digest it before it can do anything.”

I arched an eyebrow. “So if you can’t get drunk, what were you doing that night in the lounge?”

He sighed as he walked toward the pilot’s seat. “Trying very, very hard.”

Inappropriate as it was, that made me giggle. I was just walking up to take my own seat when he suddenly said, “Thank you.”

“For what?” I asked. “Not taking your bullshit? ’Cause I do that free of charge.”

Rupert must have been feeling better, because that got a laugh out of him. “Thank you for drinking with me that night and for not letting me go now,” he said as I sat down. “Thank you for not hating me.”

Maybe I’d hit my head at some point during our fight, because when I got that sudden feeling like my heart was too big for my chest, it didn’t bother me at all. “My pleasure,” I said, shooting him a smile.

He smiled back. A real, wide, honest-to-god smile that went straight to my head and left me stupid and breathless. Sacred King, I thought as I fumbled with my harness, I’d forgotten how good he looked when he did that. He was still doing it, too, the bastard, smiling to himself as he worked the controls. Even when it wasn’t directed at me, the warm turn of his lips made my stomach do all kinds of acrobatics.

Get a grip, idiot
, I snarled at myself when I finally managed to tear my eyes away. What part of ‘Nothing could come of this’ didn’t I understand? I had a job to do, one that a lot of good people had sacrificed for. The whole universe could be riding on my virus, and if I let myself get distracted away from that because of a stupid man and his stupid smile, then I was the most selfish, awful, empty-headed idiot of a merc girl ever to put on a suit.

Properly chastised, I turned away from Rupert and began trying to rebuild my walls. I was so busy listing all the ways the events of the last half hour were
never happening again
, I didn’t even realize the line of phantoms that had been tormenting me for the last four hours had vanished until the jump flash started washing over the ship.

I twisted around in the chair, positive they must have just moved off while I wasn’t looking, but I didn’t catch so much as a glimmer. I was still looking when the jump flash faded, leaving us floating high above a small, cold world.

That made me forget about the phantoms real quick. “God and king,” I grumbled, leaning forward to get a better view of Kessel’s icy mountains, which looked just as cold and miserable as I remembered. “Never thought I’d be back at this dump.”

“You’ve been here before?” Rupert asked, surprised.

“Of course,” I said. “I’m a merc. Kessel is a lawless pirate haven. When pirates steal something valuable from people they shouldn’t, we get hired to steal it back.” And make an example of the thief, which was my favorite part of Kessel missions. “I took my team here to retrieve a shipment not six months ago, right before I quit the Blackbirds. Well, fourteen months ago, counting the eight we lost, but you get the idea.”

“Good,” Rupert said. “So you know how to find a reputable doctor, then.”

“On Kessel?” I said with a snort. “No such thing. We don’t need a doctor, anyway. I’m fine.”

Rupert shot me a cutting glare that had me throwing up my hands. “No,” I said. “Did you not listen to what I just said? It’s a
pirate haven
. If I go into a clinic down there, I’ll probably come out short half my organs.”

“Your neck needs more than I can do with first aid,” Rupert said, crossing his arms. “You’re going.”

I crossed my arms back. “I am not.”

When Rupert gave me an implacable look, I arched an eyebrow, daring him. But Rupert could be as stubborn as I was when he put his mind to it, and I could almost see him digging for a long fight as he put the ship on auto and turned his chair to face me. I didn’t care. I’d do an arena fight naked before I set a toe inside a Kessel medhack’s lair. But Rupert clearly wasn’t going to see reason easily, so I settled in for the long haul, pressing my back deep into the hard chair as we both began to push.

I
caved after only twenty minutes.

Not from any lack of dedication on my part. I would have kept going until the king came to take me home, but the anti-inflammatory shot Rupert had given me had started to wear off halfway through, and the fact that I was having trouble speaking through the swelling was fatally undermining my “I don’t need a doctor” argument. Even if I’d been perfectly fine, I don’t think I could have won. I might have convinced Rupert not to run off in a guilt-induced panic, but I could tell he still blamed himself for what had happened. He was going to get me to a doctor if he had to carry me kicking and screaming, and since we both knew he was perfectly capable of doing just that, it was probably better for everyone that I quit while I was ahead.

He gave me another anti-inflammatory shot to tide me over until we landed, prepping my arm so gently and expertly I didn’t even notice the needle until it was over. And weird as it sounded, I kind of liked that. I might have flat out hated the idea of getting my neck anywhere near the sort of unlicensed quack who’d set up shop on Kessel, but I had to admit it was nice to have someone who cared enough to take care of me even when I fought them. So nice, in fact, that I didn’t even feel too put out that I’d lost the argument—that was, until Rupert told me I couldn’t wear my armor.

“Are you out of your damn mind?” I cried, stabbing my finger against the ship’s window at the planet below. From orbit, Kessel looked a dirty snowball filled with bits of metal and rock, and this was the scenic distance. “That is a
pirate haven
that I used to
raid
. If I go down without my suit, I will be
dead
.”

“Unless you did that raiding with your helmet off, your chances of being recognized and attacked are actually lower without your suit,” Rupert calmly pointed out. “And it’s not like I’m asking you to go unarmed. You’ll have a gun and I’ll be with you the whole time. You’ll be perfectly safe.”

“I’ll be perfectly shot,” I snapped.

Rupert arched a skeptical eyebrow, and I stopped for a deep breath. “Listen,” I said, striving to match his calm. “You’re talking about landing a Paradoxian military ship in an enemy starport and then walking out barefaced. That’s like tying a bow made of bacon onto a pig and then throwing it into a shark-infested sea. They’ll shoot us and steal our ship just on principle.”

“Devi, if you go out there wearing your armor, you might as well throw a party to announce your presence here. I am completely confident in your ability to hold your own against a few pirates with or without your Lady, but I am far less sure of our odds for dodging the Eyes once they hear you’re on Kessel.”

“Eyes are not going to listen to pirate gossip about a supposedly dead merc,” I reminded him.

“Once your Anthony reports back to the Home Office that you’re alive, which he probably already has, they’ll listen to everything,” Rupert said. “Trust me, this way is much safer.”

I crossed my arms and glowered out the window. I couldn’t even say what I was angrier about—that I was going to a doctor on Kessel or that I’d be doing it unarmored. But pissed as I was, even I’m not stubborn enough to ignore sense when it’s spoken. Didn’t mean I had to like it, though.

“Fine,” I snarled. “But I’m bringing my case and weapons with me. First sign of trouble, I’m rolling everything I have.”

“Compromise accepted,” Rupert said, turning back to the flight controls. “Was that so hard?”

I glowered at him. “I think I liked you better when you were desperate for my forgiveness.”

“Really?” Rupert said as he began our descent. “I think you like someone who will stand up to you.”

I didn’t even dignify that with a response, focusing on the view outside as we entered Kessel’s cloud cover.

The trip down was a hairy one. A former corporate mining colony, Kessel had fallen on hard times when the minerals ran out. Its icy surface was littered with the husks of old extractors and huge, open pit mines filled with toxic yellow ice. There were underground mines, too, thousands of miles of abandoned tunnels that ran under the planet’s rocky exterior like termite tracks under bark. Combine that with Kessel’s isolated location far from the core worlds and a shoddy jump gate that tended to “malfunction” whenever the Republic Enforcers needed to use it and you had smuggler heaven.

We were headed for Kessel’s only real starport, located at the center of its only major city, the aptly named Port One. This wouldn’t have been a big deal on most planets, but Kessel’s mountainous terrain vastly limited the approach options, which meant that all incoming planetary traffic ended up funneled into a single flight path, and since pirate havens don’t bother with official flight towers or landing regulations, we were dodging ships the whole way down.

In addition to its starport, Port One had also been the central processing facility for Kessel’s mineral wealth. From the sky, you could still see the outlines of the huge factories and warehouse complexes under the crust of caked-on black ice and makeshift repairs. Since it was so cold, most of the planet’s population stayed underground all year long, but judging by how packed the starport was, Kessel was doing good business. There had to be a hundred ships parked on the dock where Rupert set us down, and every single one of them was old, dented, and armed to the teeth without a serial number in sight. They might as well have just spray painted
PIRATE
on the side and called it a day.

Since I wasn’t going to be wearing my armor like I’d expected to, my lack of shoes was now a problem. Rupert wasn’t much better. Dress shoes and a suit look nice on a ship, but they weren’t much good in the snow. If we were going to make it ten feet without freezing, we needed new clothes.

Fortunately, the Home Guard flies prepared for anything. The ready closet at the rear of our ship was stocked with gear for all kinds of weather. I found a thermal shirt and cargo pants to go over my tank top and leggings from the embassy and a pair of general-issue combat boots that, while two sizes too big, were better than nothing. But while I looked like a kid playing dress-up in my oversized clothes, Rupert looked amazing.

After months of conservative white button-ups, old-fashioned suits, and black alien scales, seeing him in combat gear was something of a revelation. He’d always been easy on the eyes, but seeing his broad shoulders and long limbs defined by the thin, clingy, black fabric of a long-sleeved Paradoxian underarmor shirt was almost indecent. He’d traded out his slacks and dress shoes for gray fatigues and tall combat boots like the ones I wore, except that he wore his
much
better.

He wore everything better, I thought with a sigh. Even before I’d gone off to the army, I’d always had an appreciation for guys in military wear. Combine that with my appreciation of Rupert, and I decided it would be much safer if I just focused on finding us some coats.

While I searched through the gear trunks, Rupert grabbed a black surplus duffel and headed for the mess. By the time I’d dug up two dark gray and red snow jackets, he’d packed the large bag full of prepackaged rations, the ship’s first-aid kit, and extra ammo for the standard-issue sidearm pistol he now wore at his hip. I’d grabbed one for myself as well, a sleek little Maraday S Class Automatic that was no bigger than my hand but still capable of punching a hole through most light-armored suits if you knew where to aim. It wasn’t a patch on any of my girls, but for a standard-grade gun, it wasn’t half bad. Home Guard always got the best stuff.

Loading up on Anthony’s gear made me feel a little guilty, but considering where we were, I reasoned it was just going to get stolen anyway, and it wasn’t like we’d be coming back. I had no doubt Rupert was right when he said Anthony would report that I was alive. The Paradoxian army would be combing the galaxy for this ship soon, if they weren’t already. If we wanted to stay free and clear, we had to ditch it, but I’ll admit I felt a pang as Rupert lowered the ramp. This ship was the closest I’d been to home in a long time now. Abandoning it unprotected in a pirate haven, especially when we had no ship to replace it, felt both reckless and blasphemous.

“Blasphemous?” Rupert asked, raising his voice over the wind.

I nodded, trying not to slip as I lugged my armor case down the rapidly icing ramp. “Home Guard ships are the Sacred King’s own property. Leaving it here for pirates to pick over seems wrong.” I glanced up at the ship’s prow where the Home Guard crest and serial were proudly displayed. “Are you sure you can find us another ride?”

“Sure as I can be,” Rupert said, strapping both bags over his chest so his gloved hands were free to help me step down into the crust of dirty ice that covered the starport’s landing deck. “Come on, let’s go.”

I nodded, lugging my armor case onto my back as we hurried toward the exit.

Kessel’s lone starport was guarded on all sides by five-story windbreaks to protect landing ships from being blow off course and possibly into mountains. Once we stepped outside, though, the wind hit us like a train, pushing me sideways into Rupert. He grabbed my arm after that, steadying me down the huge loading ramp to the covered road that had once been a railway between the starport and the mineral processing factory just across the valley. Now the rails had been paved over and huge pieces of sheet metal had been welded between the warehouses that flanked the path on either side, creating a covered corridor that was packed to the rafters with people.