Authors: Linnea Sinclair
“Probably on a commercial passenger flight, or maybe even a private one.”
“Then he won’t have people waiting for us at the freighter docks.”
Devin shook his head. “You really think that Ethan didn’t send that message, don’t you?”
“You know your brother’s messages. But, remember, I was one of those pilots who would be handling a pickup like this. And I can’t see why someone would choose Port Chalo for you and Trippy. Why not Marker or Garno or, hell, assuming they heard about the problems on Dock Five, Calfedar? Come to think of it, since you told them you were having problems booking transport, why not send their ship to Dock Five?” She leaned forward, arms on the table. “Why Port Chalo?”
“I can only assume the
Prosperity
was already headed there. Or maybe to Starport Six—you know we have clients there. Diverting it to Port Chalo might have seemed the easiest thing to do.”
“Then why not—” Noise in the corridor outside the mess area halted her words. She recognized the timbre of Trip’s voice and Barty’s deeper one. Footsteps followed. Devin turned toward the sounds just as Barty, leaning one hand on Trip’s shoulder, shuffled around the corner.
“Should you be up and around?” Devin asked before Kaidee could.
“Trip’s bragging he invented some new food and it’s almost dinner. I’m tired of eating in sick bay. Actually, I’m tired of sick bay altogether. No offense, Captain Griggs,” Barty added with a smile.
“We now have apples. Excellent ones,” Kaidee confirmed, amused when Trip blushed at her compliment.
“There are honey-grapes too. At least, there should be,” Trip said, helping Barty into the chair next to Devin. Kaidee leaned back, waiting for Trip to sit, too,
but he remained standing. He glanced at Barty, then looked at Devin. “I heard about what some slag-heads did to your offices, Uncle Devin. I feel—”
“It’s not your fault, Trip,” Devin said.
“It’s like every bad thing has happened because I left.” Trip flopped down into the chair, then ran one hand through his hair in a move reminiscent of Devin’s own habit.
“You’ll be home soon. We’ll get it all straightened out.”
They would. Where would she be then? Once again, the feeling of loss washed over her. Her ship belonged to Devin, but it hardly fit with GGS or Devin’s personal investments. Plus there was the not-so-small matter of her being Kaidee Milo. It might not mean anything to Devin, but she was sure Petra Frederick would be furious. And Barty …
She glanced at the man, who looked paler and thinner than he had three days ago outside Trouble’s Brewing. He would know the Milo name. He also deserved to know the truth. She turned to Devin. “Do you want to go over my optional landing sites with Barty now or wait until later?”
Barty deserved the truth, but Devin had been circumspect in what he said around his nephew. She wanted to open that door, though, so that at some point Barty would be told.
Devin put his Rada on the table and tapped up the holographic screen, angling it toward Barty. “Makaiden’s concerned that the message from Ethan might have been forged. Or forced. Here’s the code breakdown. It looks like our genuine house code and Ethan’s personal code to me. But Makaiden is worried someone might be drawing us into a trap.”
“I also thought they knew you were coming in on
my ship.” She caught herself after she said it. Technically, it was Devin’s ship. But damn it, it
was
her ship. She shoved the problem to the back of her mind. “If it is a trap, it’s possible they’d have someone at the Compass Spacelines terminal. If not there, then at the private docks at Terminal D, which is where the
Prosperity
would normally berth. Either way, I’d rather have us, not them, in control of the situation. Which means not landing at Port Chalo Spaceport at all.”
“Because our IDs would be scanned upon landing,” Barty put in. “And if Tage’s people are behind this—which that stealth pointer seems to suggest—ImpSec would have immediate access to those files.”
She nodded. “Exactly. So I discussed some, um, optional landing sites with Devin that would put us anywhere from an hour to three hours outside the spaceport. We could either contact the
Prosperity
and see who answers or grab a ground-flitter and take a look around for ourselves.”
“If you’re considering either Lufty’s or Uchenna’s, I’d go with Lufty’s.”
She stared at Barty, wondering if the man was some kind of human
Ragkiril
who could read minds. She’d heard whispers that human mind-rippers actually existed, but then she saw his lips curve into a smile. He
was
ex-ImpSec. But if ImpSec knew about those smugglers’ ports, why were they still operating?
She noticed Devin’s narrow-eyed glance at Barty too.
“Lufty’s was my first choice,” she said carefully. Her father always trusted the Luftowski family. “Should I even ask how you know Lufty’s?”
“You may, but the story would go better in different surroundings. One that serves saltbeer and limes.”
“I had saltbeer once,” Trip said. “Horrible stuff.”
She barely heard his comment. Saltbeer and lime was her father’s favorite drink. Barty was telling her he knew who she was, and in a way that wouldn’t incriminate her in front of Devin and Trip. She was heartened by his concern for her, but it wasn’t necessary. “Devin knows.”
“Saltbeer?” Trip asked.
“When you mentioned optional landing sites,” Barty said, “I suspected he might but wasn’t sure.”
Trip’s gaze went from Barty to his uncle to Kaidee and back to Barty again. “Would someone please tell me what we’re talking about?”
“Captain Griggs’s family had some interesting connections,” Barty told him.
“Connections?” Trip asked.
“You knew?” Devin put in, staring at Barty.
Kaidee ignored Devin and looked at Trip. “My father’s family ran a smuggling syndicate in Baris and Calth.”
“Smugglers?” Trip sat up straighter. “For real?”
Devin pointed at Barty. “You
knew?”
he repeated. “And Frederick let—”
“Frederick didn’t know. And I was satisfied, based on my investigation, that Captain Griggs wasn’t applying for the position in order to further her family’s business but was simply an excellent pilot who happened to be married to another excellent pilot, who unfortunately turned out to be a very bad husband.”
“Is there anything,” Devin asked, exasperation clear in his voice, “that you don’t know?”
“Yes. I don’t know what’s for dinner. Since I’m still not too steady on my feet, Trip, would you mind making a selection for me? A cold beer as well.” Barty reached over and patted Kaidee’s hand. “And before
you ask, yes, I cleared it with your sick bay med-unit. I’m allowed to have just one.”
Kaidee smiled and gave Barty’s hand an affectionate squeeze. Trust the older man to pick up on the tension floating in the air and do what he could to lighten it, as well as indicate that he didn’t hold her Milo heritage against her. That would help her get through the remaining day and a half in jump. After Port Chalo, she’d be alone again, rebuilding her life once more.
Providing whoever was waiting for them at Port Chalo didn’t decide to end her life first.
It had been almost five years since Kaidee had plotted a course to Lufty’s—the last time was when she’d used her vacation from GGS to visit her father, and she’d sat helm on the
Diligent Keeper
. It had been a huge risk doing that. She was a GGS employee. If someone had seen her, she could have lost her job. But things were going sour with Kiler, and when her life was a mess, talking with her father was one way she had of sorting things out.
The man might have been an arms smuggler and a pirate, but he was intelligent, fair, and wise. If situations had been different, if he’d not been part of a large and struggling family out of one of the worst sections of the Walker Colonies, he might have been able to apply to the Imperial Fleet Academy, maybe even become an officer in the Fleet. But he couldn’t, so instead he took a small pirate operation his uncle had started decades before and turned it into a profitable—if somewhat infamous—syndicate.
But he was so very proud of his daughter: Captain Makaiden Malloy Griggs. Except Kaidee’s life with Kiler was falling apart in great, shattering chunks.
So Nathaniel Milo did the unthinkable and unexpected. He turned the syndicate over to his brother and sister and, with financial help from a friend he called Sully, went legitimate, hauling freight and paying off the few fines the government had been able to levy against him. For almost two years, while Kaidee struggled with Kiler’s increasingly aberrant behavior, the
Diligent Keeper
was an honest freighter operation. And once Kaidee’s divorce was final, a slot waited for her and the
Rider
in her father’s new company, if she wanted it.
She did, but Kiler’s death and subsequent debts delayed her. These were her problems to solve, not her father’s. Plus, if Orvis found out she was a Milo, the amount of the debt would triple.
Then, six months after Kiler died, Nathaniel Milo was killed on Moabar Station. It haunted Kaidee that she wasn’t there. ImpSec maintained that her father had been part of a Farosian plot to free Sheldon Blaine. She knew that was a lie, but it didn’t matter. He had defended his ship with his life. The
Keeper
was still missing, even after almost a year. Kaidee didn’t want to think that his ship and what was left of his crew might be stuck in jumpspace somewhere, the ship malfunctioning. But if it had been destroyed, the Empire would have announced that. Gleefully.
Kaidee wiped the dampness from her eyes and focused back on the nav display in front of her. The
Rider
would have to take a heading away from Talgarrath upon exiting the gate in order to pick up the signal from the hidden trader gates smugglers preferred to use.
Slippery space
, her father used to call it, because the old gates were often unreliable, their guidance signals fluctuating. She’d have to transit one for a
few hours in order to avoid detection by Imperial beacons.
Lufty’s had its own beacon, secreted inside a miners’ raft that orbited Talgarrath’s smallest moon. She prayed her access ping codes would work. It had been almost five years.
She saved the course to the nav comp, then entered an alternate using Uchenna’s data. It was always wise to have an escape hatch.
The whine of the lift doors opening, then closing, interrupted her work and had her turning just as Devin stepped over the hatch tread and onto the bridge. She’d left him—she glanced quickly at the time stamp on a nearby screen—two hours ago in the galley with Trip and Barty. She wondered if Devin had pressed Barty for more details on her father; he hadn’t seemed pleased that Barty knew who she was and hadn’t told him.
“Problems?” she asked as he swung around the chair at the closest console, then sat.
“I’m not sure. It depends on your answer.”
Her answer? She hadn’t even heard the question yet, but she could guess
. “Did I ever steal anything from GGS or pass on proprietary GGS data? The answer is no. And not because I tried and failed or because your security measures stopped me. I never tried. I had no interest in trying. I loved piloting the
Triumph
. It was,” and she paused, drawing a short breath, “probably one of the best times in my life. A ship of that level of sophistication was, simply, a joy.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“Then what do you want to know?”
He looked down at his hands clasped between his knees, then back up at her. “Are you still in love with Kiler?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it, his question so unexpected she had to stop herself from answering with a quick
Of course not
. Because Devin couldn’t possibly care whether she was in love with Kiler Griggs. Rather, he wanted to know if her love for her husband made her look the other way when he carried out his schemes.
“I had no idea whatsoever,” she said carefully, “that Kiler was using—
abusing—
Guthrie property. Those last six months we flew different routes. I rarely saw him. He was assigned to Mr. Jonathan and Mr. Ethan,” she said, falling back into the old GGS lingo. “I was assigned to you and Master Trip and, when needed, Miz Hannah and the children.”
“That’s not what I asked.” His voice was quiet, but she detected a note of tension. That wasn’t like him. Not Devin, perpetually calm and in control.
“You asked if I loved Kiler.”
“Still
loved.”
She shook her head, puzzled. “Why would that matter?”
“Because
I’m
in love with you, Makaiden.”
Kaidee’s world suddenly went into free fall, as if her ship’s artificial gravity had shut off. Then she felt heat rushing to her face. She had to have misheard. She glanced toward the hatchway, expecting to see Trip or Barty laughing. This had to be some kind of prank. Or … she remembered their dance lesson, his kiss. Was this another attempt to collect “appreciation” for paying off her debt?
She scrambled to put her thoughts into words that wouldn’t insult the man who owned her ship. And who—damn it, yes—considered her a friend, ship’s papers notwithstanding. “You don’t … Okay, there seems to be a certain physical attraction between us.
Right now. That can happen when people are thrown into tense circumstances like this. But that doesn’t mean … You don’t fall in love with someone in three days.” Her last words came out in an uncomfortable rush.
“It’s been seven years.” His voice was a deep rumble. “The five years you worked for us. The two where you disappeared from my life. Not three days. Seven years.”
Seven years?
“When I worked for—You never said anything.”
“You were married. And so much in love with your husband that when he was fired, you quit your position in order to be with him.”
God, yes, that’s what it looked like, didn’t it?
“He threatened to tell Mr. Jonathan who my father was if I didn’t.”
Devin frowned, then briefly closed his eyes. He opened them. “Is that why you stayed with him, bought this ship together?”
“Kiler always had some grand plan. He saw GGS as a stopping point on the way to owning his own fleet. I probably should have fought him on contracting for the
Rider
, but we’d been together almost ten years, and when things are going badly, you really want them to go right. It was a stupid thing to do, but I signed on the loan. I thought, I don’t know, maybe this would give him a focus. Settle him down.” She laughed harshly. “I filed for divorce right after he was fired. The marriage was over, but the ship tied us together financially. Neither of us could afford to buy the other out.” She looked pointedly at him. “Didn’t you notice the ship has two captain’s quarters?”