Star Road (32 page)

“I might question the word ‘ruthless.’ Some people don’t think the World Council has the right to control the Road. Even some council members. People want the Road open and free ... to everyone who wants to take the risks.”

“Yeah. I heard that speech before,” Jordan said. “You can save it.”

“What did they ask you to do?” Annie asked, still not convinced.

“Ever hear the expression: ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend?’ “

Annie nodded.

“They let me go so I could cut a deal with my brother Kyros. Or stop him. He took over leadership of the Runners after I was captured. But as soon as he did, things started changing.”

“No shit,” Jordan said.

“The council saw that my capture didn’t weaken the Runners. It only made them stronger. And now under Kyros, worse. What was that word you used, Jordan?”

“Ruthless?”

“Yeah. Ruthless. The Runners attacked mining operations, and they not only raided them for their ores and heavy metals. The death and destruction left behind were warnings. These weren’t the Runners I used to lead.”

“So you took the deal to get your freedom?” Annie said.

“Yes—and no. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my days on some barren prison planet. But also”—he glanced at Jordan—”despite what you might think, this wasn’t the organization I led. Something went wrong, and all because of my brother.”

“A
lot
went wrong,” Annie said. “You’re responsible for the deaths of a lot of people.”

“Not me. Kyros. I was in prison, awaiting trial for a long time. I had plenty of time to wonder about what had changed him. Changed the Runners. If that was my legacy, I needed to find out and—if possible—stop it.

“So the deal was, I would go to Omega Nine, talk peace with Kyros. Offer him and the Runners a pardon from the World Council. If he doesn’t take it? I’m ready to do whatever I have to.”

“You can’t reason with an animal,” Jordan said.

“He wasn’t always like that,” Ivan said, turning to him. “Something’s changed.”

“And we’re going to Omega Nine for what could be”—Annie shook her head slowly—”a showdown?”

“I take it you don’t like the idea of that?” Ivan said with a grin.

Annie didn’t smile, thinking,
This isn’t what I signed up for.

But then ... something was nagging at her. Something still didn’t fit.

“Hang on,” she said. “Your solo SRV breakdown, then the cruiser coming to get you ... it doesn’t add up.”

Ivan nodded.

“Didn’t for me, either. Not at first. But then, when I watched our gunner here blow that boarding party away, I finally got it.”

“Go on,” she said.

“I don’t think you’re going to like it....”

~ * ~

31

QUESTIONS

Ivan looked at the shimmering
ribbon of Road un-spooling ahead.

So peaceful. So hypnotic. It was as if they were sailing a calm, flat sea, not racing halfway across the galaxy at seemingly impossible speeds.

“The plan was I would go to Kyros, unannounced, in the solo SRV.”

“After changing your face?” Jordan asked.

“Just some quick minor stuff so if I had to stop, hopefully I wouldn’t be recognized.”

“Yeah,
hopefully,”
Jordan said. “I had my suspicions right away.”

“And your solo failed because
...?”
Annie asked.

“That’s where it gets interesting,” Ivan said, frowning. “The vehicle had been thoroughly checked out. Vehicle cores don’t just ‘fail’ like that. That’s when I knew something else was going on.”

He looked at them as they listened to the story.

It looked like they believed him.

And that’s good. I will definitely need their help before all of this is over.

“Someone sabotaged my solo. I checked it out myself just before I left, and it was perfect. No way I would have missed that someone had tampered with it. But somehow ...
someone
got to it before I left. They set me up to be Road kill.”

“Why? If you had an agreement with the World Council?” Annie said.

“Yeah. The World Council wanted me to make peace with the Runners, with my brother ... but someone who was privy to our deal
didn’t
want that to happen. I figured it had to be someone deep inside the World Council.”

“That’s the only thing that seems to make sense,” Annie said.

“If you hadn’t come along when you did? The Road Bugs would’ve gotten me. End of story. Mission—failure.”

“And your brother, he’d be able to go on doing what he’s doing. Killing. Destroying—” Annie said.

“King of the Road. No one—not even the World Council—could stop him.”

Jordan shook his head and said, “There’s still one thing I don’t get.”

“Only one? Wish I could say the same,” Ivan said.

“If your brother wants you dead, why didn’t he wipe us out back there on Hydra Salim? Why not blow our SRV to smithereens and be done with it? Instead, he—”

“He—or at least the captain of the cruiser chasing us—wanted to get me alive. But if he thinks I’m a traitor to the Runners—or wanting to take charge again.” He let the thought hang there for a few seconds.

Annie checked the controls. The SRV was rolling along just fine on autopilot now. She looked back at Ivan.

“Any theories?”

Another tight smile.

“A few.”

Ivan was enjoying trying to figure it all out. He enjoyed trying to crack the mystery, looking at possibilities. Maybe that’s why he loved leading the Runners. Sometimes he dealt with unknowns better than he did the known.

“Theory one: Kyros wants me alive because he wants to do something with me.”

“Beyond killing you, you mean?”

“That’d be too easy,” Ivan said.

“From what I’ve seen, not so easy,” Jordan said quietly, almost to himself.

“Maybe he thinks he needs to kill me himself, some crazy idea he has to make sure everyone knows he’s the true leader now. So maybe he was worried that something might happen along the way ... that he’d miss his opportunity of bringing me to my knees in front of all the Runners.”

“Interesting,” Jordan said. “Makes me wonder why you—or we—would want to keep going to Omega Nine.”

“I know. But here’s theory number two.”

He had their total attention now, but he could see that both of them were tired. Worn out. He wasn’t feeling all that frosty, either.

“There’s something on this ship that Kyros wants. Otherwise, he would have had it destroyed.”

“Or someone,” Jordan said.

Annie’s eyes widened.

“Yeah. And whatever it is, he needs it more than he needs me dead.”

“Makes sense,” Jordan said. “What would it be?”

“Did either of you ever wonder how they knew I’d been picked up by your SRV?”

Absolute silence for a long time.

Apparently not.

“Far as I can tell, there’s only one place... one time that any word of that could have leaked out.”

Now Jordan nodded. “The Nakai Way Station.”

“Uh-huh. When we were dealing with the warrows, someone got a message pod out. We know it wasn’t either of you. And you know it wasn’t me. With Sinjira and Ruth both waiting in the SRV, that leaves ...”

Annie stood up, her face set, this theory not sitting well.

“Nahara or Rodriguez.”

“Unless it was McGowan ...”

Annie looked long and hard at Ivan.

“Whoever sent that pod has something your brother wants more than he wants you dead.”

It took some time for that to sink in for all of them.

“So it would appear.”

“And what could it be?”

Ivan shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. If you were Kyros, if
you
were leading the Runners, what would you want? And then who could give it to you?”

She turned to her gunner.

“Jordan, I’m going below with Ivan. You okay here?”

He nodded. “The Road’s smooth up ahead for a few hours, anyway.” Then ... an uncharacteristic smile from the gunner. “I’m disappointed I’m going to miss the next scene, though.”

Ivan reached out and gave the gunner a tap on his shoulder.

“Don’t worry. You can watch it on the screen.”

Then he turned and followed Annie down the steps to the passengers’ cabin.

~ * ~

Annie took a breath before she opened the hatch.

“I hope you’re right about this. Otherwise it’s a serious violation of passengers’ rights.”

“Not to mention looking a touch paranoid,” Ivan said. “Could be we have a mix of theory one and two here. Either way, we’ll know soon enough.”

She nodded. Braced herself.

As captain, what was about to happen next was all her responsibility.

She opened the cockpit door and walked down the steps. The cabin lights were dimmed in case anyone was trying to sleep. As if sleep was even possible. But it’d been a long trip so far, and they still had a ways to go.

Sinjira was sitting next to Rodriguez, both of them leaning back, their eyes closed.

Ruth, though, sat straight up, wide awake. She flashed Ivan a smile when he came down the steps behind Annie.

As he walked toward the seats, she undid her safety harness and stood up.

“You’re okay? They,”—she looked directly at Annie—”believed you.”

“We’re all on the same page, Ruth,” he said. “And—”

When he looked at Ruth, Annie had a sudden thought.

Is there something going on between these two?

The Runner leader and a Seeker... Pirate and mystic.

There was a definite vibe.

Stranger things have happened.

“—if you hadn’t trusted me,” Ivan said, “released me when you did ...
You’re
the one who saved us. Not me.”

Ruth Corso smiled and put a hand on Ivan’s arm. The touch lingered.

“I can sense things about people ... See them for who they really are,” she said.

Annie stood there for a moment, the two of them seemingly oblivious to her presence.

And thinking,
Later. Right now, we have a traitor to smoke out.

Ivan fired a quick glance at Annie. Back to Ruth. Smiling.

Annie nodded at Nahara, strapped into his seat. His eyes shut. His breathing shallow and steady.

Asleep? Resting? Or faking it?

Maybe this conversation between Ruth and Ivan was good. It made everything seem ordinary ... routine.

No sense of urgency.

Annie felt Ivan’s eyes on her as she walked to Nahara and leaned over him.

With a nod to Ruth, Ivan took a few steps so he was standing directly behind Annie.

“Mr. Nahara,” Annie said, shaking his arm gently.

Nothing.

A bit louder.

“Mr.
Nahara?”

His eyes slid open. Mere slits. But perfectly clear. She had the distinct impression he hadn’t been sleeping at all.

Closing his eyes... wishing this would all go away.

No, he’d been feigning sleep.

Because maybe if you have a secret—a secret that’s against the law—maybe you’d find it awfully hard to sleep.

“How are you feeling?”

“Feeling?”

He licked his lips. Sat up a bit in his seat.

“Your leg ... those bites.”

“Oh, my leg. Yeah. Right.” He cleared his throat and sat up as best he could with the safety harness on.

“Not bad. Still some pain, but I can manage. I should be fine until we can get to a med center. Omega Nine, they have a full—”

Annie patted him on the shoulder and smiled, cutting him off’.

“Glad to hear it. Oh. One more thing ...”

Her hand now clamped his shoulder. Hard enough to make him wince. Ivan was hovering close behind her.

Glad he’s got my back,
she thought.

“We need to know who you sent that message pod to and what it contained.”

Now Nahara’s eyes widened, maybe taking in the fact that Ivan wasn’t simply standing there listening—an innocent bystander.

He had a pulse pistol in his hand. Lowered. But at the ready.

“Message pod?”

Lulled by Nahara’s apparent grogginess, Annie missed the next move as his right hand dropped down to his lap and undid his safety harness. The click of the latch sounded unusually loud.

Ivan shifted behind her, but Nahara moved remarkably fast, considering the pain he had to be feeling from his leg wounds.

~ * ~

In a flash, Nahara pulled a gun from a holster strapped to his right leg.