Rystani Warrior 04 - The Quest (22 page)

“Not since we blasted in here.” Her eyes widened with fear, but she didn’t panic in the face of what appeared to be imminent death. The cars sped on electromagnetic tracks, and their incredible speeds were lethal.

“All right.” Time for an alternate plan. “Jump on my back.”

He had to give her credit. She didn’t waste time asking why. She simply leaped and locked her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck, careful not to choke him. “What now?”

“There’s not enough room to flatten ourselves to the sides, above, or below. So we might as well catch a ride.” He turned and faced the oncoming mag car, a silver streak, growing larger by the second.

The mag car’s roar rushed into their ears. The blast of air buffeted him.

“Stars,” she swore. “That’s your brilliant plan. You’re going to jump on?”

“Yes.” The mag car appeared to be maintaining a constant speed, making his calculations a bit easier. Equations balanced in his head, matching his internal clock. He tensed his muscles, readied his psi.

“You’re going to get us both killed.”

“Hang on.” Kirek stood, knowing the timing would be critical. With his partially healed psi, he could still manage null grav. The tricky part would be timing his wild vault against the front of the vehicle while keeping his shields tight enough to prevent the deadly force from striking them—all while finding and maintaining a grip.

“You’re insane.”

His heart pounded. “That’s why you love me.”

“I don’t—”

As if they could get out of the way, the mag car’s automatic warning system’s siren blasted and cut off Angel’s words—words he didn’t need to hear. He knew she didn’t love him, but if he got her killed, she might not even live long enough to yell at him, nevermind fall for him.

For Kirek, time slowed, stretched. The shrieking mag car seemed to alter its velocity, but in reality, his perception changed, allowing him to time the jump with computer accuracy. One moment they stood on the electromagnetic car tracks, the next, he used his psi and muscle to jump up and angle forward.

He slammed the psi shield up, preventing them from splatting like bugs on a skimmer’s windshield, then spread his arms, praying he’d find a handle, an edge of metal, anything to cling to.

But the metal was sleek, slippery. He could only hold them with null grav for so long before he fell. He poured on more psi, his brain cells burning.

“Lower us four inches,” Angel shouted into his ear, her voice tearing against the wind.

His psi already weakened, he did as she asked. His fingers found no handhold, but his toes levered onto a perch of protruding bumper. It wasn’t enough. His psi drained quickly.

Angel used her own, picking up the slack as he weakened. His legs strained, his toes ached. His lungs gasped, and he gulped in huge breaths.

“Hold on.” He felt Angel turning her head. “There’s a station up ahead.”

Kirek didn’t have the spare energy to nod. Or speak. He focused every psi cell on maintaining his precarious balance, not easy as the string of cars decelerated. He had to match his null grav and maintain focus on his abused toes. Sweat trickled under his arms and down his chest, his suit unable to keep up with his body’s efforts.

When the cars finally stopped, Angel leaped off his back and had to pry him down. His toes were cramped and frozen. But she forced him to exit with the crowd, giving him no time to recover. If she was trying to kill him, she was succeeding, but he focused on putting one cramped foot in front of the other and couldn’t spare the breath to complain.

The terminal was like any on a hundred worlds, long, shimmering gray corridors filled with crowds and botcops. Vendors sold snacks, meals, and drinks. Just as one botcop headed their way, Angel yanked Kirek around a corner and into a diner, found a booth near the back by an exit, and shoved him into it.

He collapsed, knowing he couldn’t have gone another five steps. His pulse rate had yet to recover, and his legs still shook. But even though his mind had yet to return to proper functionality, he sensed that his psi had strengthened again before he’d drained it, and hopefully, he hadn’t done any more damage. But he alone hadn’t held them in null grav for so long. Angel had helped—a lot, and once again he wondered just how powerful her psi truly was.

Without asking what he wanted, Angel ordered from the materializer. Food and drink appeared instantly.

Kirek realized he was starving. He couldn’t recall the last time they’d eaten. He’d used a tremendous amount of energy to prevent them from dying in front of that oncoming vehicle, and his body demanded food as if every cell required refueling.

Kirek downed an entire packet of water then ordered another before touching his food. While he ate, Angel pulled up their table’s vidscreen and turned on the news. Dakmar only had twenty channels—and half of them were focused on the school. As they stopped on one, an announcer stated that fugitives were inside the building and that botcops expected to apprehend the suspects for the deaths at the Lay Down Easy within moments.

The perimeter was tight with troops. The Kraj had either paid off the officials or pulled all sorts of behind-the-scenes strings to find them.

Kirek swallowed his food, his mind recovering from their ordeal. “So you were correct. If we’d tried to walk out the front doors, they’d have shot us.”

“I’ve always had this sense of anticipating trouble. Mom used to say that trouble found me
…
but I have a knack for getting out of it.”

“I’m glad.” When he placed his hand over hers and squeezed, the hardness in her eyes softened.

Angel had spoken as if her ability had been a source of difficulty between her and her mother. But her special psi sense had saved them, and he thought it useful, wonderful.

He was about to say more when their images suddenly flashed on the vidscreen. The botcops had pulled their likenesses off the vidrecorders in the Lay Down Easy. Someone had altered the recording to make it appear as if he and Angel had drawn weapons, killed his contact, and then everyone else in the bar who’d tried to stop them. They were accused of a dozen crimes, from stealing a skimmer to murder.

Angel snapped off the vidscreen. “We need to return to the
Raven.
”

“She should be done by now. Let’s hope they haven’t confiscated her.”

“I’ll check.”

Kirek stopped her. “Now that we’re fugitives from the law, the authorities may have a reverse trace on all transmissions to and from your ship. It’ll be difficult enough sneaking back without letting them know from which direction we’re coming.”

Angel slid deeper into their booth then adjusted her suit to form a hood to cover her blond hair. She also added padding around her middle. She changed her suit to match a maintenance worker’s dull tan. Following up on her idea, Kirek did the same. However, his height and the width of his shoulders tended to get noticed, no matter what he wore.

“You done?” Angel asked. She hadn’t touched her food but had sipped some water.

Despite the quantity of food he’d eaten, he was far from full, but they could delay no longer. He ordered a sandwich and another drink to take with him and planned to eat on the run. “All right, keep your head down, shuffle, and hunch your shoulders.”

“Anything else?”

“Turn your face away from the street vidrecorders.”

AN HOUR LATER after walking through the city with surprising ease, they’d arrived to find the Kraj and botcops watching her ship and locks on the landing gear to prevent takeoff. Kirek had cleverly rerouted a smelly sanitation offloader to secretly bring them aboard. The ride hadn’t been pleasant, but their suits had filtered the terrible smell and shielded them from the filth. Angel had never been so glad to be back home.

Lion spotted her where he’d been exploring in the ship’s belly. He hissed at Kirek then leapt into her arms. She hugged her cat, and he placed two feet against her chest, sniffed her neck, welcomed her with a lick, then began to purr. She petted him, and he settled into the crook of her arm. Normally she didn’t bring him onto the bridge, but she couldn’t bear to put him down so soon and kept him with her.

They’d climbed from the ship’s hold through engineering, and she’d made her way to the next deck. Angel’s mind was full of the problem of taking the
Raven
off Dakmar when she strode onto her bridge and almost dropped Lion.

Stars.
She barely recognized the ship she’d retrofitted by hand when she’d left Earth almost a decade ago.

If Lion hadn’t greeted her, if Petroy hadn’t been on the bridge, if she hadn’t just strode down familiar passages, she would have thought that the sanitation device had delivered them to the wrong ship. Her old and reliable vidscreen was gone, replaced by a new and unaffordable model. Her com station had had a total upgrade, and the same went for weapons, engineering, and navigation. Her old gray
bendar
ship sparkled and shimmered as if it had a new coating, some kind of peculiar force field spread along the interior walls, ceiling, and floor.

A man’s voice she didn’t recognize greeted her. “Welcome aboard, Captain.”

“Who the hell are you?” Angel spun, searching for a new crew member. But only Kirek and Petroy were on the bridge. Lion hissed and jumped from her arms, the fur on his back raising before he sprinted away. Smart animal.

“I’m Ranth, your new computer system.”

“I didn’t order a new computer system. Or new nav and com controls.” Head reeling from the unauthorized alterations—especially the new technology she didn’t understand—she turned and glared at Petroy. “I could barely afford fuel and the engine overhaul. How did this happen?”

Petroy frowned and met her gaze, but his voice remained cheerful. “Captain, I merely followed your requisition requests.”

“Who paid for this?” she demanded.

“You did,” Petroy replied, his gaze puzzled.

Stars. She hadn’t the funds for a ship of this caliber. She doubted anyone did. Either the computer had mixed up her order with a military or government vessel or
…
there had been some other huge mistake. Even if the old systems hadn’t been scrapped, now with the botcops and Kraj after them, she didn’t have the time to spend in dry dock to take out the new systems and put back in the old ones—or have the credits to put everything right.

She didn’t understand how even a computer foul-up could have created such a disaster. Because the funds simply weren’t
…
or were they?

She fought past her shock and spun around to face Kirek. He met her gaze, nodded at her suspicion.

And then she knew.

Kirek had taken care of the overhaul. Kirek had gone into the computer and altered her orders. Kirek had done this to the
Raven.

Her rage boiled over. This was her ship. Her home. And he’d changed every system without telling her. How dare he put her in debt? How dare he go behind her back and counter her orders? Fury so white-hot that she could barely see caused her to have trouble speaking and breathing. “You
…
you did all this to my ship?”

He kept his tone calm and even. “We can’t go after the Zin without every advantage at our disposal.”

She’d be in debt for ten lifetimes—even with a lifetime one thousand years long, thanks to the life-extending properties of the suit. She closed her eyes and reopened them, hoping it was all a dream. But the shiny new instrumentation mocked her. “How
…
much
…
do I owe?”

“Consider the alterations payment for my passage.”

Her eyes narrowed, her temper so out of control, she shook with the need to slap him. “We already agreed that the Zin salvage would pay for your passage.”

“Then consider the ship’s overhaul advance payment from a grateful Federation for your help.”

He was lying to her. Again. Damn the man. “The Federation paid you to overhaul my ship? I don’t think so.”