Finders Keepers (7 page)

There was a talent there. The brash little air sprite had a real knack. Had she been raised in the Empire, schooled through the Imperial Academy, she probably could have run circles around half the chief engineers he knew.

He could learn a few things about wogs-and-weemlies from her, though he doubted she’d want to teach him. But he should be able to find some answers in her Master Program Templates. It might be interesting, later, to run her patch methodology through the
Razalka
’s computers.

He tapped at the pad, trailed down a datafeed to her personal files, the most likely place for her templates to reside.

But found the
J
files first. It took him a few minutes to understand
J
was for Jagan Grantforth. Grantforth Galactic Amalgamated. The Empire had taken enough of their ships that he recognized the ID stamp in the transmission code. What tugged at his curiosity was the regularity of the entries over the past year and a half that had ended abruptly about four months ago.

Grantforth was a well-heeled outfit. New money, it was true, but then most of the Conclave was built on new money. Not like the long clan heritage of the Zafharin.

He couldn’t imagine why a high-profile export firm like GGA would utilize a short-hauler like Trilby Elliot. Or why she hadn’t profited from the relationship.

Except the relationship hadn’t been business. He discovered that as the messages scrolled by on the small screen. And his real reason for accessing the
Venture
’s primaries, as well as Trilby’s intriguing patch templates, slid from his mind.

Wealthy, influential Jagan Grantforth had thoroughly bedazzled, and seduced, an unsuspecting, gullible Trilby Elliot of Port Rumor.

He watched Jagan’s vid transmissions with growing distaste. The well-tanned blond-haired man on the screen dished out compliments with a sugary sweetness. A few later transmissions were also the same; only the last two were obviously different.

“But, Trilby, little darling,” Jagan’s miniature image said on the screen. “You know I adore you; you know no other woman can make me feel what you do. But there are differences in our lives and that can’t be ignored.” The image looked down at the half-empty wineglass in his fingers for a moment, then back at the vid lens. “Sorry you had to find out about my engagement to Zalia that way. I didn’t mean to hurt you. But there’s no reason why we can’t keep on with this beautiful relationship we have. You just have to understand I’m going to marry Zalia out of . . . well, duty. Her family’s wealthy, well connected. And I am, after all, one of
the
Grantforths.”

The final transmission was a bit more heated. Jagan still pleaded that he wanted her, but there was an anger there as well. Evidently Trilby had given him his walking papers and he didn’t like having his sweet little setup so peremptorily disrupted. And, judging from his closing remark, she had also been less than diplomatic in her ending of their affair:

“Mother was right.” Petulance clouded Jagan’s handsome features. “You
are
nothing more than low-class trash from Port Rumor.”

An unexpected bolt of hot rage shot through Rhis’s chest. With surprise he realized that had Jagan Grantforth been standing in front of him at that moment, he would’ve gladly flattened the man against the nearest bulkhead.

Trilby glanced at Rhis as he strapped himself into the copilot’s seat and saw shadows under his eyes. It was 0542. He looked like he could use another few hours of rest.

She should have forced him to spend another day in sick bay. But her need to get the
Venture
functioning quickly had taken precedence over his medical condition. She felt slightly guilty about that now. “You want a light trank?”

“Of course not! I am fine.” He tugged on the strapping with a show of force.

“Yeah, yeah. I heard that line before, Rhis-my-boy. That’s what you said just as you passed out in—”

“You said something about a full systems check?” He overrode her comment, focused on the screen flickering to life on the console.

She chuckled, swiveled her datapad into position. “Okay, tough guy, have it your way. Full power active. Let’s run down the list. Life support.”

“Power levels optimum. Filters online.”

“Got it. Auxiliary generators?” It was odd hearing Rhis’s voice, not Dezi’s reply to her routine questions.

“On standby.”

They went back and forth for the next five minutes, making a small adjustment here, a slight change in levels there. Several times Trilby noted Rhis almost issuing the command before she did, as if he were about to take over the captain’s prerogative. She doubted that Senior Captain Tivahr would have tolerated that on the
Razalka
’s bridge.

But evidently a lowly Zafharin lieutenant felt himself more qualified than an Indy freighter captain. Well, she’d show him a thing or two yet. “Do much heavy-air flying, Rhis?”

“Enough.”

“Keep in mind that this is a cargo freighter, not one of your sleek, high-performance Imperial toys, okay? Try to let me handle her ’til we clear dirtside gravity.” She tapped at his hand resting on the throttle and command pads. “I do know how to fly this ship.”

He snatched his hand away.

“That’s better. Now, let’s get this bucket of bolts in the air.”

As the bulky ship strained upward, Rhis grudgingly admitted she’d been right about one thing. His heavy-air time had all been in high-performance and high-priced Imperial toys. Toys that had better gravity buffer systems than the
Venture
did. His side twinged again. He worked on his breathing, brought his mind out of his physical frame and focused on the instrument readouts before him.

A half hour, twenty-nine minutes . . . his focus changed from the readouts to watching Trilby Elliot at the controls. She was breathing a little harder, her own body fighting the strain. But her hands moved flawlessly, correcting rotation and axis, fiddling with a thruster.

“The starboard auxiliary is always fritzy,” she said when she saw him watching her. “That’s my safety valve. Some damned fool tries to steal my ship, hell, he’ll find her skittering out of control before he can begin congratulating himself on his prowess.” She gave a small chuckle. “If I thought the Zafharin had any interest in old junkers like mine, I wouldn’t be telling you this.”

The Zafharin never had much use for small freighters. Warships, scoutships, large-cargo conveyors, yes. But an old Circura II wouldn’t be worthy of their attention. He, however, would never be able to see one without thinking of a certain pale-haired air sprite. But perhaps air sprite wasn’t the proper analogy for her. Her fragile appearance was all a sham, a trick of nature that had given her the face of a princess and, he was beginning to understand, a life of privation.

A very wrong number on the console caught his attention. “Your ascent angle’s too steep.”

Trilby raised her right hand over her head. The plush toy felinar bumped against it. “Nope. Just fine.”

He looked at the long-tailed toy, at the red-tinged readout, then at Trilby. “Don’t tell me you’re serious.”

She grinned.

He understood. “Another theft-prevention device?”

Dezi answered for her. “Captain Elliot has always stated that pirate factions intent on capture or sabotage would overlook the simplistic. Begging your pardon, Lieutenant, for of course the Zafharin’s high rate of success reveals that your people are more thorough than most. For example, the
Razalka
’s ambush of GGA’s sharvinite convoy five years past certainly showed tremendous—”

“Thank you, Dezi,” two voices said simultaneously. But for different reasons.

“Would you check incoming messages, Dez?” Trilby disengaged the heavy-air engines and primed her ship’s hyperdrives.

Rhis realized his training had him anticipating her movements like a slightly fractured shadow. He folded his hands to keep them from wandering to the controls. “Waiting for confirmation on your Bagrond pickup?”

“Got that already.” The ship had pulled free of Avanar’s gravity and leveled out easily. The forward viewport filled with the dark elegance of deep space.

Rhis relaxed back into his seat.

“Waiting,” she continued, “for some news from Neadi Danzanour.”

“Danzanour?” It was a Zafharin surname.

“Neadi’s husband, Leonid, had a Zafharin father. But he was raised here, in Gensiira, on Marbo. He and Neadi run a great little pub near the spaceport. Good people,” she added, almost as an afterthought.

“You’ve known them long?” Other than stumbling over her personal letters from Jagan Grantforth, Rhis had no other source of information on Trilby. And working on her ship’s systems hadn’t provided for the time to ask such questions. But the next three days—a “trike,” as she termed it in her freighter lingo—had no demands on them. Other than to babysit the
Venture
on her journey.

Trilby was nodding. “I met Neadi when I worked for Norvind Intergalactic.”

“Norvind hired you out of the Merchant Academy?”

She glanced at him, then at the scanner at her right. “I thought I saw something,” she began. “Probably just interference. Now, what? Oh, yeah, Norvind. You would’ve heard of them, I guess, wouldn’t you?” Referring, he knew, to the fact that Norvind had lost its share of cargo to the Zafharin during the war.

“No academy. That, Rhis-my-boy, costs money. Worked in a tool shop in Rumor since I was, I don’t know, twelve or thirteen. Learned enough to sign on with Herkoid a few years later. But they folded, just before the war, you know. Rinnaker bought some of their ships. Norvind took over some of their routes, personnel. I was just part of the package.” She turned to Dezi. “Got any new messages?”

“Transferring them to you now.” His metal fingers tapped at the keypad.

The data light on her screen flashed. Trilby pulled up the first message.

Rhis saw the face of an attractive woman fill the screen; her deep-golden skin and thick curly hair indicated her Bartravian heritage. She was probably in her late forties. The lines on her face were those of a woman who laughed often, and easily. But she wasn’t laughing now.

“Good to hear you’re back online, Tril. And glad I reached you in time about Rinnaker. There’s been more bad news. I hope you get this before you make Rumor. Send me your ETA.” She hesitated, pursing her lips. “It’s about Carina. Carina’s missing.”

Trilby tensed visibly.

“I sent her the same warning I did you. But you know how her brother is, how her whole crew is. It’s profit first, all else be damned.

“Looks like they were hijacked. They were hauling a shipment of Grade-Two sharvinite. Gensiira patrol found
Bella’s Dream
not far from the border at Q Eighty-four. Next thing after that’s Szed.”

“’Sko.” Trilby breathed the word quietly.

“Ship was ram-boarded, bridge trashed. Cargo was gone. Two crew, left for dead. Carina and Vitorio are missing.”

He’d seen the carnage wrought by the ’Sko too many times not to recognize the description. But it was the location at the border that set off his internal alarms. This was not an average ’Sko strike. Not there. Not now. He listened more carefully.

“Patrol’s trying to reconstruct the logs. As soon as we hear more, I’ll let you know. Be careful out there, little one.”

The screen blanked out. Trilby covered her eyes with her hand, then pinched the bridge of her nose.

Dezi’s joints squeaked as he stood. “I’m truly sorry to learn this news.” He patted her head in a clumsy yet strangely endearing fashion.

Trilby nodded. “Thanks, Dez.” She drew a deep breath and raised her face, her eyes bright with unshed tears when she turned to Rhis.

He felt as if something were tearing him in half. The information he’d just heard was vital. He had to investigate it, act on it. But he found all he could think about was the pain of the woman before him.

He heard himself telling her he’d take the helm. “Pour yourself a drink, Elliot. And send an answer to
Dasja
Neadi,” he said, using the Zafharin word for
Lady
. “She needs to hear you’re safe.”

He expected her to protest, to bluff that she was all right. But she didn’t. The meekness with which she accepted his offer and the quiet way she left the bridge bothered him. Bothered the arrogant, insufferable, Imperial hard-ass who had never been bothered by such things before.

“Captain Elliot and Carina have known each other since they were very young.”

Rhis turned toward Dezi and found the ’droid looking at him. Envoy ’droids were supposed to be adept at interpreting human facial expressions, even the most minute ones. He wondered just what had played across his face and how much he had given away. Enough, evidently. He nodded for Dezi to continue.

“They grew up in Port Rumor together. Captain Elliot has often told me of the games they played to circumvent capture by the Iffys—”

“Iffys?”

“Indigent Family and Youth Authorities, I believe. All unclaimed children were to be placed in orphanages. However, Captain Elliot—”

“Trilby was an ‘unclaimed’ child?” To a Zafharin, the terminology was appalling. It was one of the first things he’d learned as a child. Lineage and clan history formed the essence of a person’s identity.

“Yes.” Dezi’s optical sensors blinked. “As were Carina and her brother, Vitorio. That is why I believe this news is so upsetting to Captain Elliot.”

“This is more than losing a friend, then. This is as if she lost someone in her family.”

“I believe that would be a correct analysis, Lieutenant.”

Rhis thought of Rafi. Not family, but the closest thing he had to it. How would he react to news of Rafi’s capture by the ’Sko? “Perhaps I should go check on her.”

“I find that advisable. Be assured I can handle the helm. I’ve done so for many years now.”

Rhis watched the message transit light on the comm panel. He knew she needed time to compose a message. And herself. The light blinked out. He unstrapped the restraints and stood.

And again, for a moment, duty warred with a part of him he didn’t know existed. Duty decreed her personal concerns were not his problem. He was an officer in the Imperial Fleet. She was just a low-budget freighter operator. She—