Starshine: Aurora Rising Book One (47 page)

As his thoughts drifted back to her yet again, he thudded the back of his head slowly, deliberately against the wall. He hated being dependent on someone else. For his life, safety, finances, freedom—but most of all, for his happiness.

It both pleasantly surprised and unpleasantly disturbed him to find he rather missed her. Part of it was the isolation, the real and virtual silence. But part of it was he genuinely missed her. He’d known her for all of eight, nine days now? And for at least half of the hours of those days she had alternately annoyed, exasperated and infuriated him. The other half, though….

Already he couldn’t imagine
not
knowing her.

But he
wasn’t
dependent on her. Not technically. If need be he could break himself out of here. Escaping wouldn’t be easy—he’d probably be required to hurt or even kill at least several people who didn’t deserve it, which he really tried to avoid doing whenever possible. But if it came down to them or rotting in a cell…it may be an unpleasant choice but it wasn’t a difficult one.

He understood quite well how military security facilities operated. Hell, he had even broken
into
one a few years back. He chuckled a little to himself…that was a good time. He’d broken in to break out an insurgent leader on Andromeda so the man would then lead him to the ringleader of a group disrupting commercial shipments out of Elathan. Of course everything had gone sideways five minutes in, as it always seemed to. But it had worked out in the end.

He’d prefer a few upstart insurgents disrupting shipping routes about now. Certainly beat a war with the Alliance—for reasons he continued to be highly suspicious of—being held captive in a secure facility at the literal heart of the enemy’s nerve center, and most of all facing the prospect of staggeringly powerful aliens gathering to wreak destruction upon them all.

Well, at least he also had the benefit of a brilliant, resourceful, gorgeous, clever, determined woman on his side. He definitely hadn’t had
that
before.

No, he reassured himself, he wasn’t dependent on her.
Technically
. But he was playing a long bet. And even now, thirty-plus hours into his captivity, he remained fairly confident in the rightness of his bet.

So he chose to continue believing her.

45

PANDORA

I
NDEPENDENT
C
OLONY

B
EEP

Beep

Beeeeeeep

Beee—

“For fuck’s sake….” Noah groaned and rolled over, squinting one eye open. It wasn’t even 0700 yet. He set nanocyanobots working to cleanse his bloodstream of the alcohol and ease the hangover, then stumbled out of the bed and to the kitchen for some water.

Only after he had gulped down half a glass did he run a hand through unkempt hair and activate the holocomm. “What you need, Brian?”

“Boss has got a job for you.”

He leaned against the counter and tried to blink away the grogginess. It had been a late night…course, it usually was. “I don’t
have
a boss.”

“My boss. Sorry. Tight timetable, but it’s a simple fly and drop, and the credits are sweet.”

He grimaced. Brian worked for Nguyen, who worked for Kigin, who, though it wasn’t common knowledge, worked for the Zelones cartel. He made a point to stay clear of the cartels whenever possible; he knew more than one colleague who had found themselves beholden to a cartel for not merely their livelihood, but their life, before they realized what had happened.

On the other hand, it was a rather tenuous connection. “What’s the job?”

“Package drop to Earth, Vancouver. Needs to be there by Saturday night Galactic.”

“That’s fast. Where’s the package?”

“Locker at the spaceport. You say yes and I’ve got a code for you.”

“Ah, hell, Brian. I’m trying to get away from the smuggling gigs. Too much risk for too little reward.”

“Well this reward is good.”

He did a double-take at the number Brian sent. The reward
was
good. Damn good. He blew out a breath and took another swig of water. His schedule looked light for the next few days…he could squeeze it in.

“Okay. Just this once though. Don’t let Nguyen start thinking I work for him.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Sending the code now. Oh and one last thing—boss said not to inspect the package.”

“Right….”

Noah strolled through the spaceport with practiced nonchalance. The usual excess of tourists rich in credits and poor in sense meandered around in search of direction. Merchants and holo-babes hocked all manner of maps, temporary cyber-enhancements, pharmaceuticals—mostly amps and boosters that would extend the party—and recreational chimerals.

He rounded the corner and stepped into the long storage room. It was used primarily by those visitors who didn’t even intend on acquiring a hotel room for their stay, and for transactions such as this one. So voluminous was the selection of illegal goods in here, anywhere other than Pandora it would get raided by the cops every other day.

The locker in question was located on the second row about halfway down. He pressed his fingertips to the panel and input the code. Inside he found a large pack; it was heavier than he had been expecting, but not so heavy he couldn’t carry it.

He hefted the pack over his shoulder and headed for the restrooms. Once ensconced in a stall, he set it on the floor and unlatched it.

Inside lay at least forty kilos of HHNC blocks.

Shit.
He dropped his elbows to his knees and groaned into his hands. He
knew
the job was paying too well. Reason number forty-seven why he was trying to get away from smuggling gigs? Every so often someone wanted you to smuggle enough damn explosives to bring down a moderate-size skyscraper.

With a heavy sigh he closed the pack up and carried it back to the locker. He stuffed the pack inside, wiped his prints off the door and walked out.

He waited until he was on the street and a fair distance from the spaceport before livecomming Brian.

It took a solid twenty seconds for the response to come.
“Yo, dude. Problem?”

“Deal’s off. Get somebody else to do your dirty work. And do me a favor? Don’t come to me with any more jobs for a while.”

“What the hell, man?”

“The package is fucking
explosives
. You know I don’t traffic in explosives. Nothing comes of them but trouble.”

“You weren’t supposed to look in the package, man! I told you that!”

“You seriously think I’m going to smuggle a payload through Earth customs in the middle of a damn war without knowing what it is? How stupid do you think I am?”

“Shit, man. Boss is not going to be happy.”

“Good thing he’s not my boss, then. Adios.”

He killed the connection and sank against the façade of whatever building bordered the sidewalk. What the crap was someone planning to do with that much HHNC?

Presumably blow something up, dumbass.

For the briefest second he actually considered notifying the authorities…but it would be asking for the kind of trouble he so did not need.

Not your problem. Leave it behind.
Move on.

He headed for the nearest pub. Lunch was still hours away, but he found he wanted a drink something fierce.

46

EARTH

V
ANCOUVER,
EASC
H
EADQUARTERS
D
ETENTION
F
ACILITY

C
ALEB SAT ON THE EDGE
of a plain cot, legs swinging leisurely in the air, when the door slid open and she stepped in. At the sight of her his eyes lit up, his mouth curling up in a quite pleased smirk that sent her stomach straight into flip-flops.

She spun and placed her palm on the panel in the wall by the door; it glowed and pulsed as she fed it new instructions. “I
know
, it’s been a day and a half. Sorry, but I had a lot to do—you have
no
idea—and they’ve got a field on the building blocking all comms, so I wasn’t able to get a message to you.”

She felt him approaching and held up a finger. “One sec.” The panel shifted to green, and she turned around. “Okay, we—”

—his lips were pressed against hers before she could blink. His left hand was caressing the curve of her neck, while the right grasped her waist in a firm hold. Of their own volition her lips—hell, her entire body—responded enthusiastically. For three-point-two seconds she found herself overwhelmed by visceral sensation and heated desire, while her brain desperately tried to catch up.
Dear god he tasted good. Felt good. Perfect, even. Right.

She pulled back abruptly, a hand pressing on his chest for added effect. Her eyes were wide in semi-mock indignation. “
What
was that?”

He shrugged, grinning impishly with the rise of his shoulders. “A hello…?”

She did her best to glare at him in annoyance, though she was fairly certain her eyes were telling a different story. She was absolutely certain her pulse was, but didn’t think he could
see
it.

“
Uh-huh
. Hold out your left wrist.” He complied, and her thumb hovered above his pulse point to deactivate the prisoner code holo encircling it. “That how they say ‘hello’ on Seneca?”

“Nope.”

She failed to fully stifle the chuckle which bubbled forth as she glanced up at him with a quick roll of her eyes. Then she produced a dark gray cap out of her pack and thrust it toward him. “Put this on. Shouldn’t matter, but just in case.”

He accepted it without question. “It almost matches yours.”

“What can I say, fashion isn’t my specialty.” She wore a burgundy cap over unbound hair, the better to mask facial features in a stray cam capture. She also wore a black dress overcoat, because it was even colder here than it had been in San Francisco and here she was going to wear a damn coat.

He didn’t have a coat of course. He still wore the same clothes, the only clothes, he had worn for as long as she had known him. At least his shirt had long sleeves.

He slipped the cap on over his once again wild shock of curls. “What’s the plan?”

“We walk out. Come on, let’s go.”

“We simply walk out.”

“Yup.”

He exhaled and smiled gamely. “Okay.”

It pleased her more than it should to see he trusted her and didn’t argue. She reached into her pack again and removed a small rectangular object. She handed it to him. “Stunner. Just in case. Now let’s
go
.”

He nodded and followed her out the door and down the hallway. Her voice was low, almost under her breath. “All the surveillance monitors are on a loop for the next hour. I fed in the previous hour’s data, and they think they’re recording new images. There won’t be a record of me arriving or us leaving.”

“You hacked Strategic Command military security.” It came out not so much a question as a statement of incredulity.

She shrugged as they took a hallway to the right. “I did.”

“Seriously.”

“
Yes
.” She groaned in feigned annoyance. “I do have a little inside information on the subject. And it still wasn’t exactly
easy
, if it matters. Did you expect me to show up with a commando squad and blood from the guards decorating my face?”

“I…I honestly had no idea how you might accomplish it—only that you would.” He reached over and squeezed her hand, sending an ardent flutter up her spine. “What happens when they find me absent?”

“You were released from custody at 0100 on the authority of Staff Commander Willoughby. Until someone shows up to interrogate you—tomorrow at the earliest, maybe never—the people who care won’t even know you’re gone.”

“Nice. And this Willoughby character?”

“He’s a complete asshole. Don’t worry about—” He pressed her into the wall, into the shadows, and placed a finger to her lips.
Jesus he smelled nice. How could he possibly smell so nice after not having showered for almost two days?
She was having some small difficulty breathing and it wasn’t because he was pressed against her too tightly. His eyes flickered in a way which suggested he was enjoying the whisper of her breath along his finger, though she couldn’t be sure.

Three seconds later a guard strode down the crossway. He counted down with his fingers; when the last one dropped they stepped out and hurried across.

It was the last hallway. She touched the already-hacked exit panel to open the door and they were quickly on the lift to the parking level.

He rolled his shoulders and sucked in a deep breath of the chill night air. “So…what’s the plan? I realize I keep asking. I’m afraid I’m kind of used to being the one in
charge
of these sorts of capers.”