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Da’shay’s hand caressed his cheek and Tom could feel his
face getting warm as her other hand crept down to cup his privates before she
curled fingers between the buttons on his shirt to touch the skin below. His
dick was getting hard and the hand on his cheek slipped back behind his neck to
pull him close. Tom groaned.

“Too many ant trails. Can’t let him lay down another one,”
Da’shay whispered, and she had an oddly apologetic tone in her voice.

“Don’t understand a word of that, but I figure you’re only
doing what you have to,” Tom reassured her.

He no more than finished before she whirled around, ripping
herself out of his arms and going on full attack against Ramsay. Ramsay blocked
her first blow and then scrambled for his gun, but before he could get his
weapon clear, Da’shay had an arm across his throat and had him pinned to the
wall. With her other hand, she trapped his gun hand so that he was holding his
gun, but he couldn’t pull it clear of the holster.

Kada had gotten up and scrambled back away from the fight,
but Tom wasn’t sure what to do. He’d follow Da’shay, but that sure didn’t mean
he was okay with her killing the captain. Before Tom could decide to do
anything, Ramsay threw a hard punch with his left. Tom could hear the thud of
flesh against flesh, but Da’shay barely even swayed from the hit, and the look
of utter panic on Ramsay’s face meant she was retaliating—either squeezing his
gun hand or pressing off the air with the arm across his throat.

“Want you to see, but you can’t lead. Follow, walk away,
don’t care. You don’t lead. Can’t lead. Human colors and human
thoughts…straight lines turn cat’s cradle in a maze of all circles. Stop trying
to lead.” She held him for another long minute, but the look of anger had faded
out of her face, so Tom was hoping she wasn’t killing mad anymore. Every single
blessed thing she’d done had made sense after the fact, and he was really
hoping that was going to be true this time too. More than that, he was going to
put his faith in that. For the first time in a lot of years, Tom was putting all
his faith in something other than his own ability to shoot straight.

She let go and backed away, her body still curled and bent
as if she was ready to spring on Ramsay. For his part, Ramsay ignored her; he
sank to the ground, coughing and rubbing his throat. “If that’s your idea of
playing the devil with someone—” Ramsay had to give up talking when another
coughing spell hit him.

Tom moved to Da’shay’s side and ran a hand up and down her
back to soothe her. She started to hum as she leaned into him, her arm slipping
around his waist. “I reckon she’s not teasing, Captain.” Ramsay looked up and
his expression was still full of disbelief. “A mission can only have one
Commander and you ain’t it this time.”

Ramsay grew still. “The last time I followed someone was the
war and I can’t say I like how that turned out. I spent three years strapped
down and drugged while
casslit
poked and prodded me, looking for better
ways to kill humans. You can’t suggest that she’s got the DNA of some species
we don’t know—something that looks a hell of a lot like
casslit
—and then
tell me I have to follow blindly. I ain’t built like that, Tom.”

Da’shay looked up at Ramsay. “Then walk beside…silently.
Then walk away. Don’t lead.”

“Seems like she’s being real fair, especially considering
that she could have just killed you,” Tom pointed out. But it also seemed like
a good time to change the topic. Da’shay never was going to be able to explain
why she felt so strong and Ramsay wasn’t one for stepping back and letting
someone else make the decisions. About half the seconds who’d ever served on
the ship in the last six years had asked for a transfer because Ramsay expected
them to follow orders blindly and never take their turn at learning to lead.

Tom turned to Kada. “So, Da’shay said you had some other
color running through your brain. Whatever you’ve got to say, just say it,” Tom
said. He tried to keep his voice a little quieter so this time Ramsay didn’t
have cause to get on him. He figured if the captain aggravated Da’shay one more
time, broken bones would likely be involved.

“I—” Kada froze.

“Like diamonds with no light source, all colors gone.”
Da’shay sighed and leaned into Tom. Tom figured if he was as small as Kada and
stuck in a room with fighting people, his brain would lose all the colors too.

“What were we talking on?” Tom looked at Da’shay and then at
the captain.

Ramsay was picking himself up off the floor, his hand still
rubbing at his neck, which was blotchy red. “I was saying that if Earth Command
was building up for a war, the slaver colonies would have seen it.”

Da’shay sucked in a fast breath. “Prisms through the
diamond.” She smiled at Kada, who was still looking a good bit of panicked.

“So, say what you’re thinking,” Tom prompted him.

“I mean no offense,” he started, his voice shaky.

Ramsay stepped forward. “As much as my crew’s been offending
me lately, I’m not sure it’d even bother me if you went and called me old, ugly
and as smelly as my late Aunty Nee three days after she was dead. It’s fine to
say what you’re thinking.” Ramsay had his victim-voice on again, but Kada
didn’t seem near as annoyed by it as Tom.

“The independent colonies just don’t spend as much time
worrying about Corps controlled space as you seem to spend worrying about us,
that’s all. Our government isn’t as big and we don’t pay the same amount in
taxes to keep some oversized, rule-happy, secrets-obsessed government well-fed
with credits.”

“Your government lets you get turned into a slave and you’re
criticizing us?” Ramsay seemed shocked, but Tom figured Kada wasn’t totally off
the mark. He’d still rather have all that than live on a planet that put up
with slavery.

“Finish the report,” Da’shay interrupted before Ramsay could
go off on some rant of his own.

Kada nodded. “Thirteen years and seventy-two days ago,
marauders started making references to trading ‘wet tech.’ There’s no
description of the technical specifications, but even the earliest posts to the
e-boards make it clear this is an established term and over the next few years,
I found requests for wet drives, wet comms and wet relays. Starting six years
ago, there was a sharp drop in the number of times the wet tech was mentioned
and the last reference was four years, fifty-five days ago.” Kada inched back
toward his computer, his gaze on Ramsay. One tap and a series of postings from
a discussion board flashed across the screen. Da’shay moved closer to the
screen. Raising her hand, she touched a name. A profile opened to show the
public information, including a picture of a man so old he looked as if he were
dead already. Or he might if it weren’t for his sharp eyes.

Tom looked at all the evidence lined up on the vid. Kada
didn’t have time to create all that, so Tom figured it was real. “I know I’m
one for seeing enemies behind every corner, but you have to admit that looks
like a conspiracy.”

“Only if we believe intel from a questionable source,”
Ramsay said. Tom noticed that the captain kept his hand on his gun and his gaze
on Da’shay. “As far as I’m concerned, Hou is still a suspect in blowing us up
and all this is nothing more than speculation, something for people back home
to worry over.”

Da’shay sighed. “Come and come and come,” she said. Catching
Tom’s leash, she started for the door without giving him time to grab their
carryall. Kada tapped something before hurrying to follow and all the tech
started to sink back into the floor.

“Are we going to discuss this?” Ramsay asked.

“Nope.” Da’shay didn’t even pause.

“Either put a little trust in Da’shay or go back to the
Kratos
and do nothing,” Tom pointed out. Ramsay always hated doing nothing. During
surveillance, when Tom would settle down and wait for the target, Ramsay would
fidget and fuss.

“This is stupid,” Ramsay muttered, but he followed.

Tom leaned in to whisper to Da’shay. “You got a plan,
right?”

“Slip away from human colors. New prisms, new diamonds,” she
answered. Being that Tom was human, he wasn’t so sure that sounded good, but
she’d kept him safe, even when he’d been cursing her out and blaming her
because Ramsay had put them in a God-awful bad spot. He figured he could trust
her even if she did slip away from human colors. If he couldn’t…well, he
supposed he wouldn’t have long to worry about it if that happened.

She was already on the escalator and she stopped and tilted
her head. She was on the step ahead of him, so she was shorter than normal. It
made her look odd. Before Tom could say anything, she stepped back up onto his
level, pushing him up against the rail as she wrapped her fist around his
leash.

“I ain’t going anywhere,” he promised her, slipping one hand
around to the small of her back.

She hummed. “Want to share colors,” she finally said in a
defeated voice.

“I know,” Tom agreed. “I never did have a captain that
shared even half of what he was thinking, so as long as you can promise me that
you know what you’re doing, I’ll follow. I don’t have to understand to shoot
whatever target you point me at.”

Da’shay tightened her hand around his leash until he could
feel his neck strain against the weight of her hand pulling down at on the
collar. Her hum got lower as she leaned close, and while she might not be using
words, Tom couldn’t help but think she was making some sort of promise.

“This is feeling like such a bad idea,” Ramsay muttered. Tom
had to disagree with the captain. This was feeling as though maybe Da’shay
finally knew where to go.

Da’shay took off the second they reached the bottom of the
last escalator and rejoined the more crowded public spaces. She didn’t stop
until she’d led them through corridors and down stairs and escalators into a
section of the lower town Tom hadn’t seen before. Like the part where they’d
been when they first came, this was deep enough that no natural light reached
it, so a line of yellow lights hung from the ceiling and cast an ugly glow on
the gray walls Tom walked closer to Da’shay, his hand on his weapon. People
moved carefully, their eyes checking the shadows and their hands near their
guns.

Kada moved forward until he was almost plastered to
Da’shay’s other side and Ramsay was muttering behind them. However, when Tom
glanced back, he was keeping an eye on their six. The captain might complain,
but he still had their backs.

Da’shay’s finger whipped out and she pointed toward a
shadow. Tom had his gun out and targeted before he even noticed the dark face
hidden behind a tall sign with a picture of an axle and a sniper rifle standing
on their ends. The man smiled and raised his hands to show he meant no harm,
but Tom kept his gun steady as Kada and then Ramsay passed him. Eventually the
leash pulled tight and Tom backed up away from the alley, turning to trot after
Da’shay only after he’d made his point clear.

Ramsay had shifted to the side and behind Da’shay and Kada
to watch the rear better and Tom hurried to Da’shay’s side as he holstered his
weapon again. She didn’t say anything, but she caught his leash closer to the
collar and kept walking. There was something different in the angle of her
shoulder and the way she walked, but he didn’t have too much time to think
about it considering he was trying to keep an eye out on the crowd. He was
starting to be really sorry he hadn’t insisted on grabbing at least one of the
rifles out of the carryall they’d abandoned in Hou’s apartment.

She stopped just outside an arched entrance carved into the
rock itself. A man was leaning against the wall, his pose too casual for
comfort. People who worked too hard at not looking dangerous made Tom itch and
he glared at the man, trusting Ramsay to keep an eye on other trouble that
might develop.

Da’shay gave his leash a sharp yank and Tom tried to dial
back the aggression a bit. “Open,” Da’shay ordered.

The man turned a slow eye toward Da’shay and looked her
over. “Don’t want any trouble,
genta
, but this place isn’t friendly for
your kind.”

She didn’t give any hint of aggression before darting
forward with inhuman speed and catching the guy by the belt and flinging him
backward, toward Tom. Tom barely had time to bring his fist up before the guard
ran his face right into it. The force of the blow propelled him back toward
Da’shay and she caught his arm and slammed his face into the wall before
catching his hand and pressing it to the biometric lock. Tom was a little
surprised. That was the sort of solution he usually proposed and Ramsay ignored.

Still silent, Da’shay tossed the guard to the side the
moment the door clicked open and headed into the dark space beyond. Tom’s guts
were screaming at the danger as he followed her into what looked like a poorly
lit and perfectly empty stone chamber. Kada followed. He looked pale and ill,
but he was still on his feet and that was more than Tom had expected at this
point. For a second, Tom thought Ramsay was going to back away, but with a
softly muttered curse, he came into the chamber and let the door click shut
behind him.

One of the rock walls slid away to reveal a staircase going
down another level. Ramsay was still muttering, but Da’shay started down the
stairs and the leash was short enough that Tom had to follow on her heels, a
bit quicker than he would have liked. He didn’t even have time to properly
check on enemy positions or weapons before he was halfway down the stairs. No
wonder they didn’t want a
genta
in the place. Weapons lined the
walls—blades and guns and lasers in every size and shape. A good number were
illegal in Command controlled space and some were illegal in the colonies too.
As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Tom ran a hand over an S-series
percussion shoulder bomber. A heavy bolt and strap held it to the wall, but a
laser could cut through that easy enough. Hell, Da’shay might be able to break
it with her bare hands.

A heavy-set man walked toward them, but Tom was guessing the
real power was the wizened old man who sat near the counter, watching
everything with sharp eyes. His arthritic hands scrolled through data on his
screen.

The heavy-set one gave a smile that showed off a gap where
he’d lost a front tooth. “Welcome to the shop. We don’t normally have
genta
in here. Perhaps you’d like to visit one of our other establishments. I could
provide—” Da’shay pushed him aside without a glance. Tom noted that Ramsay had
that man covered, so he focused on the old man. With one touch on a computer,
someone who was an expert in arms could launch any number of attacks, and this
man looked as if he’d been around for a while.

“Divy,” Da’shay said when she reached him. He had to look up
at her from his stool and he frowned. If this was the old guy whose profile
Da’shay had looked over in the apartment, he’d shriveled up some since having that
picture taken.

He tilted his head to the side and studied her. “You do
remind me of someone.”

“A lost
genta
-girl wandering through the shadows.”

The man scratched his shoulder. “Maybe. The girl I knew
didn’t really talk much.” He looked at her suspiciously and then turned to Tom.
“Can I help you folks buy something?”

Using slow and precise movements, Da’shay unwrapped Tom’s
leash. “Will be capturing a ship. A big ship.” She turned to Tom. “Get
weapons.” She returned to looking at the old man. If they were going after a
ship, they wanted heavy-duty ordinance for frontal assault…something to punch
through metal, and something very accurate, sniper-quality guns most likely.
He’d also want some pulse guns for fighting closer in without damaging the
ship’s equipment.

Tom moved around the room, his leash dragging across the
metal grating on the floor. Since this planet didn’t have flooding, Tom wasn’t
sure he even wanted to know why they had a floor made for draining off liquid.
The room probably had all sorts of security measures and a quick-drown system
would take care of intruders without damaging most of the weapons. Hopefully
the fact that employees were still standing around with their hands on their
weapons meant the automatic systems weren’t going to kill them all.

Ramsay was leaning against the rail watching. “Are you going
along with this?” he whispered.

“Yep,” Tom said easy enough. His girl might not be one for
explaining, but she’d found the biggest arms dealer in the area, uncovered a
conspiracy, and now she planned to take a big-ass ship. That was the sort of
planning he could get behind.

The old man was watching Da’shay, and she had a friendly
look on her face that Tom wasn’t quite understanding. “The girl I knew might
not be able to pay for these things and I got out of the business of doing
favors a long time ago,” Divy said. “The profits stank and the health benefits
were worse.”

Da’shay tilted her head and brought a hand up to trace the
wrinkles across Divy’s forehead. Tom reached for a forty-pound lobber hanging
above a selection of blades. The strap held, but then the old man touched his
screen and the security lock popped, allowing Tom to pull it down. “Could go
back into business of favors,” she said gently.

Divy openly laughed at that. “Yeah, you’re my Da’shay, but
you sure haven’t aged, not even for a
genta
. Do you still have your
ghosts chasing you?”

“Through the shadows,” Da’shay agreed solemnly.

He seemed to think about that for a while, scratching with
fingers that were so swollen up and bent that Tom wasn’t sure he could use them
much at all. A man had to be real old to get arthritis so bad the doctors
couldn’t fix it.

“You know her,” Tom said as he brought the weapon to the
counter.

“A long time ago, I did.” He looked at Da’shay. “Shadows are
a bad place to live a life.”

“Going to blast light into all the darkness.”

“Hell yes,” Tom agreed. “I figure someone needs a good
blowing up.”

Divy openly studied all of them. “I know she isn’t going to
pay. Do any of you have credits?” Tom cringed. They actually did, but Da’shay
had rushed them out of Hou’s apartment, so most of them were back in the
carryall. He sure didn’t have enough in his pocket to cover what Da’shay had
told him to pick out.

Da’shay smiled and caught Kada by the wrist. He yelped. “His
credit will work.”

Tom returned to picking out weapons while Divy looked at
Kada with suspicion. “We’ll see. Put your hand here,” Divy held out the screen
and Tom pulled down three of the best sniper rifles he could find. Divy
chuckled. “Well, what do you know? Your master will cover the purchases. Master
Hou doesn’t usually do business in this part of town.” Divy sounded surprised.
“Da’shay, you seem to understand the concept of money a little better this time
around.”

Ramsay cleared his throat. “What do you know about Da’shay?”

Divy studied the captain for a minute, as if he was trying
to decide whether to trust him. “About ninety years ago, I found her. She’d
been tortured something terrible and she had raw flesh still clutched in her
hands where she’d ripped it right off someone. She always did know how to make
an impression on a man.”

“Ninety years ago?” Tom looked at Da’shay, searching for
some sign that she was ninety years old. Older actually. She’d been grown
ninety years ago.

“I was twenty-three, a navigational officer on a
generational ship hired to try to cross the void, and still idealistic enough
to think I’d save the lady in distress. It turned out the other way around and
she vanished after getting us clear of the worst danger. I always did wonder if
you had gone off on some idiotic suicide mission.” He shook his head at
Da’shay.

Da’shay looked sad. “Too much darkness in the light. A cat
climbing into a hole to heal before ants chew her to bits.”

“Yeah, I had hoped it was something like that,” he said
sadly before he turned to Ramsay. “I named her Da’shay. She had this weird
collar that had some sort of audio file, but it would only play the first two
sounds, ‘da’ and ‘sh’. That was before slavery got to be popular around here
and I see that now she’s taken up with being on the other end of the leash.”
Divy looked toward Kada and Tom. Kada dropped his gaze to the floor, but Tom
put the three sniper rifles down and met the man’s gaze.

Tom bristled. “We both got in a spot and had to play at going
along, but if you think she’s—”

Divy held his hands up. “I don’t know and I don’t want to
know. I’ve been here so long that I can tell you the names of the men who
carved this city and I can tell you this. I don’t want in on Da’shay’s kind of
trouble again. I’m too fucking old. When I hit a hundred and ten, I figured I
didn’t have to worry about this sort of crap anymore. So, do you have what you
need?”

“Nope.” Tom turned back to the shelves, collecting
ammunition and weapons of all sizes. Ramsay was frowning at him, but Tom felt
like a cow in the grain bin and he wasn’t giving up a chance to get some
top-of-the-line weaponry on Hou’s credits.

He brought the last load to the counter and Divy recorded
their purchase. “You’re planning to have fun blowing something up, aren’t you?”

“Hope so,” Tom said.

“Too much thinking in human colors,” Da’shay said.

Divy gave a fond look that made Tom uncomfortable. “Well,
you never were one for conventional plans, that’s for sure.”

“What sort of plans is she known for?” Ramsay asked.

“The sort that save ships and lives.” Divy paused. “The sort
that lead a man to grow all sorts of gray hair. If you’re interested, it seems
like certain people have had access to a whole lot of wet-tech lately.”

“Why would you think we’d be interested in that?” Ramsay
asked.

Divy looked amused as he shook his head. “She’s still
finding her white knights to fight next to her.” He chuckled. “And I knew
because the audio file she was wearing like a collar was wet-tech. She always
had a fondess for it. I made my first fortune trading stuff she taught me how
to use when it was the two of us and a ship full of sleeping colonists against
some pretty bad shit. You can always tell it from the way the metal colors
blend together so that at first glance it looks like it’s made out of one
material that’s gotten wet. It used to be marauders and pirates traded the
stuff, but the last few years, something shifted.”

“New trails wandering through leaves. Tried to come back,
but all the colors and the darkness made the path hard to follow,” Da’shay
said, her voice sad.

“Well, if anyone can find a new path, you can,” Divy said.
He turned to Tom. “Thirty thousand souls were on that generational ship and the
only one we lost was Da’shay. That’s not a bad plan. Not a good one, but not
bad.” He looked off to the side, his gaze lost in some memory.

Da’shay reached out and touched Divy’s hand. “Indigo
reflections. Can take up doing favors again.”

Tom swallowed as he realized Da’shay was asking Divy to come
along. He wasn’t sure how he felt about having to share Da’shay with someone
she’d known before and he really wasn’t sure how he felt about the fact he was
jealous of someone already mostly in the grave.

Divy’s eyes were bright, but he shook his head and took a
deep breath. “No, that’s a younger man’s game. Besides, with all the profits
off this sale, I plan to take a nice long vacation somewhere with low gravity
and warm water. I get the feeling it might be healthy to be somewhere else for
a while and I’ve learned to put staying alive ahead of riding to a damsel’s
rescue.” Tom tried hard not to show just how relieved he was at that. He
wouldn’t have made a fuss over Divy coming, but he sure wouldn’t have been
happy.