Slip Point (4 page)

When the pack was finally emptied, turned inside out and its seams thoroughly inspected, the woman let it drop. “There’s nothing in there,” she said, turning an accusing look on Shayalin.

That pack had held everything from Centuris she had decided to keep, now strewn about for anyone to see. Certainly more than nothing to her. “What were you expecting?” Shayalin snapped.

“Oh, maybe a special item to be delivered to Urioq. I seem to have heard of it from someone.” Her smile promised unpleasant things.

Shayalin hadn’t really planned this through. She parried with, “Who said it was tangible?”

To her surprise, a thoughtful look crossed the woman’s face. Her eyes narrowed. “Speak plainly, girl. Why were you so worried about a pirate attack if what you have is in your head? Who would know about it—and what is it?”

Shayalin retreated to the truth. “I wasn’t worried about the attack. I was worried it wouldn’t happen.”

This time the woman’s eyes widened. Then she laughed—not in derision, but with the full-throated amusement of someone appreciating a good joke. “And so you fed me that tale. I didn’t think to look past the surface with a Rim girl. You could hustle a few bets with that act.”

“Thank you,” Shayalin said dryly.

“Most people would call you stupid instead of clever for arranging this. So now the question is, why?”

Shayalin took a deep breath. “I’m looking for Kennick Bailey,” she said. If this was some other pirate entirely, she’d just walked neatly into a trap of her own devising with no way out.

The woman eyed her with suspicion but not, Shayalin was relieved to see, confusion. “You look young to be a bounty hunter.”

“I’m not a bounty hunter,” she said. “I have…a business proposal.”

“Something in your head after all,” she mused. “Careful, little girl. Admitting to business with a pirate is as good as being one, as far as the law’s concerned.”

Shayalin bristled at the condescension. “But you’re not the law, are you?”

The woman grinned. “We all have our vices. All right.”

“You’ll take me to him?” Shayalin hadn’t actually believed she would.

“Not if you stand there gawping all day. Come on.”

The woman didn’t wait for Shayalin’s reply but grasped her shoulder and gave her a good shove. They made their way through the ship, the woman staying behind Shayalin the whole way. They passed other people, both pirates ransacking rooms and the passengers they had cowed.

“Here he is,” the woman finally said as they entered the bridge. She pushed Shayalin in front of a large man with a shaved head and a scowl.

“Hmm?” He was frowning at a console.

“Says she’s got business to talk about,” the woman reported laconically.

The man transferred his glare to her. “That so?”

He didn’t look anything like her. The shape of his face was all wrong. “You’re not Kennick Bailey.”

He crossed his arms. They were thickly muscled, and words in a language she didn’t know were inked along them, like lines of poetry. She shrank back a little as he said, “And how would a Rim girl know that?”

Her timidity fled. She was tired of being labeled a Rim hick. “I’m sure he’d want to know that too.”

He snorted, but looked her over a little more sharply. “And if you told me, I could tell him.”

“He’ll want to speak with me.” She hoped that was the case. “There’s a blood-debt.” She tried to imply she was the one who owed it.

He turned to the woman. “Well? You brought her to me for a reason.”

“She arranged for us to raid this ship. I think she’s gone to enough trouble that her reason may actually be worthwhile.”

They both looked at her, while Shayalin tried to look like someone with important things to say.

The man finally jerked his head to one side, indicating she should go that way. She turned, and he stepped forward and pressed a hypo against her neck before she could protest. Vertigo suddenly overcame her. She put out a hand to try to catch her balance and accidentally elbowed someone—the woman, from the sound of the cursing. She stumbled forward, her vision still lurching.

“Creeds! Get ahold of her.”

“Don’t tell me this little wisp managed to hurt you,” the man said, amused.

“Just shut up and carry her.”

A blur of color approached her, and then he took hold of her waist and smoothly hoisted her over his shoulder. The world kept tumbling. She tried kicking out, but the motion rocked her and nearly set her to retching. She couldn’t keep track of where they went; sound swung between a roar and a low hum.

Shayalin gritted her teeth and endured.

After a quarter of an hour, she was finally set down. Someone took hold of her wrists, and there was a pinch of pressure against her neck and a hiss. The world swung back into balance.

She was cuffed to a chair, as she quickly found out when she tried to push her hair away from her face. She tried to shake her head instead but subsided when she discovered there were aftereffects to whatever drug they’d given her, making her stomach churn.

“And who’s this chit?” asked a baritone from behind her. It was the same voice that had come from the speakers earlier.

The man who’d carried her here answered, “Girl said you’d want to talk to her.”

“What about?” the other asked irritably. With the way Creeds deferred to him, he had to be the captain.

“She mentioned a blood-debt.”

“What, are we in medieval times?” Footsteps, and through the curtain of her hair, someone’s boots stopping in front of her. He swept her hair back. “You look familiar…”

She lifted her head. “So I should.”

And so did he. She’d seen that nose in her mirror and the shape of those eyes. He must have passed on his wiry build to her, if not the paleness of his hair or the square jaw.

“Mara!” He caught her chin and turned her face this way and that to study it. “How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“You’re the right age, then.” He let go of her and leaned back. “So. What is Mara Cho’s daughter doing away from Centuris?”

“I want a ship.” The raw hunger in her voice startled even herself.

His brows flicked up. “And I should just hand you one?”

“No. I’ll earn one.”

“You think piracy works on a merit-based system? Why don’t you run off to the Corps? They like hard workers like you.”

She finally looked away. “I tried.”

His hand was on her face again, bringing it back. “Why didn’t they take you?” His voice was mild but his eyes sharp.

“Because of you.” She felt the prick of tears and fiercely wished them away.

Her father stepped back at last. The mockery had left his face. “It seems I may owe you something, though I didn’t know you existed 'til now,” he said. “What did she name you?”

“Shayalin.”

“So, Lin, you would enter a life of crime, of constant flight from the Corps, of highest bids from unsavory bidders for goods taken from those who need them?”

She swallowed. She couldn’t back out now. “I’ll do what I have to.”

“Fair enough.” He bent down to release her from her bonds. “You’ll have to get rid of that accent.”

“It’s gone,” Shayalin promised. She stood, gratefully stretching her limbs.

The mate stirred uneasily. “You’re going to take her on?”

“Think of it, Creeds, a pirate dynasty!” Her father gestured expansively, as though an entire line of descendants stretched out before him. “There’s always the one patrol ship too quick to be outsmarted. When that one gets me, I’ll have a living legacy.”

“But she—”

“And it’ll be nice to have an apprentice who will actually listen to me, since there seem to be those on this ship who don’t.” Her father smiled lazily.

Creeds fell silent with a resigned air.

Her father pivoted to look at the rest of his crew. “Lay a hand on her,” he said in a pleasant voice, “and you’ll answer to me.”

Though people nodded, their gazes flickered to her. She knew they were wondering if she truly merited special attention from the captain. But she’d prove herself his daughter in spirit as well as in blood, now that he’d let her join his crew.

It was almost as good as having him acknowledge her as his own.

He did not call her his daughter until a year and a half later, when she stole her first ship.

10 years later

“Dearest daughter—”

Shayalin turned away from the newsfeeds and cut him off. “What do you want?” Her father only called her that when he wanted a favor. She was convinced he was the most notorious pirate in the Wheel not because he stole things, but because he talked people out of them.

“We have a commission.”

Her father usually liked to pick out their targets himself, but he occasionally undertook special requests for the wealthy and unscrupulous. He rarely involved her though, knowing she preferred corrupt targets, or clever schemes with little damage.
Squeamish
, he called it.
Discriminating
, she liked to say, although she suspected the Steader principles her mother had instilled in her had as much to do with it. But she’d impressed him by how much she’d accomplished with her stubborn rules in place, and so he let her keep them.

“Do we?” she asked with a skeptical lift of her brow. She’d learned the precise intonation and gesture from him.

“Just you,” he conceded. “I’m busy with something else. You’ll need to handle this one.”

“Sir—”

“Do it as a favor for me. It’s a two-parter, anyway. The first is to talk to our client in person. That’s all I want you to do. He’ll tell you what he wants, and you can decide whether to do it.”

“No strings?”

“Believe it or not.”

She didn’t, and let it show on her face. “Why do we have to meet in person? Smells like a trap to me.”

“It’s not. I swear it.”

Her father rarely made such assurances, but they were solid when he did. She sighed. “Fine.”

He smiled, confident all along that she would say as much. “I think you’ll actually like this one. You’ll meet our client on the
Ionia
.”

Through some quirk, the station was only a single slip away from three Hub worlds. As such, it was dead neutral ground, safe for anyone who set foot upon it. “All right,” she said. “Who is it?”

“He’d rather not say at this point.”

“Then how will I know who he is?”

“He insists on a rather devious way of meeting. You’ll be picked up at the Questor Lounge with an End of Days.”

It took her a moment to realize he was referring to the mixed drink. “He’s going to hit on me? Now that’s just degrading.”

“How better to get complete privacy with a stranger?”

“No wonder you wanted me to take care of this for you,” she said with a sigh. “Fine.”

“You can drop off some cargo while you’re at it,” he said cheerfully.

“I was planning on it.” They still had some loot from their most recent run that they hadn’t manage to offload in the black market. No one was dealing with bulk goods right now.

The entire Wheel was in a state of disarray ever since first contact with an alien race had been made. Havoc had ensued, and the Senate had placed the involved planet, Albarz, under quarantine—and since Albarz was a Hub world, positioned near the major slip point for the entire spoke, all of Atia was closed to traffic. Some of the Rim colonies would be mostly unaffected—Centuris among them, self-sufficient as the Steaders prided themselves on being—but Albarz itself had attracted a number of scientists and was usually a major exporter of advanced tech.

Shayalin and her father slipped around the barricade, finding the opportunities it provided by blocking other ships, although never quite reaching Albarz itself due to the heavy military presence around the planet. But the Senate couldn’t keep such tightly controlled access to the aliens forever, and Shayalin was looking forward to the stream of novel, exotic goods an entire new race must be able to provide.

That wasn’t why she was anticipating restored order, though. She was insatiably curious about the aliens—the Bellers, as they were called—and so far almost no information about them had leaked out. Despite this, a faction had sprung up almost as soon as the news had hit the feeds: the Purists, determined to keep human society uncontaminated by any alien influence. Shayalin knew better than to wonder how people could be so small-minded in this age, having been raised by Steaders who had deliberately sought the most forsaken planet they could find and turned their back on advanced tech. She still thought they were idiots.

Of course, it was hard to tell the aliens’ intentions. So far only one person had been able to communicate with them: Speaker Nala Zakiyah, born with a mutation that allowed her to speak in their tongue. She was said to be working with a team of xenolinguists to decipher one of their languages and build a device capable of emitting their words. But no reports of her progress had come out of the quarantine.

Shayalin allowed herself a quick check of the newsfeeds—still nothing—before rounding up her crew. They were more accustomed to her father’s mysterious commissions, as some of them had worked with him before coming over to her ship, and most were glad of the opportunity to visit the
Ionia
.

Creeds, her second, reacted the way she had. “You don’t even know what the job is yet? You have to go find out in person?”

“I know,” she said, strangely reassured by his scowl. “But I can handle it.”

His frown only deepened. “You’re meeting the client alone?”

“I’m getting picked up in a bar,” she said in disgust. “Having you with me might get in the way.”

“I could watch from another table,” he suggested.

She patted his arm. “Stop hovering. You’d think you were my chaperone.”

He snorted.

Their slip to the
Ionia
was uneventful. They avoided the established slip points as a matter of habit—her father had given Shayalin the compass to use—and sailed into one of the
Ionia
’s docking cradles.

She unstrapped herself and hit the lock, letting the door swing open and downward. Security guards flanked the ramp before she even set foot upon it. None of their rifles was aimed at her, but they still made for an ostentatious display.

The head guard pointed Shayalin toward a portable scanner. “No weapons,” he said.

“You think I’m an idiot?”

“Does that mean you have some or that you don’t?”

Shayalin refrained from rolling her eyes. “I don’t.” She walked through the scanner, which remained cooperatively quiet, and the guard waved her on. Most of her crew made it past with equal ease, although Apris had a such a nervous demeanor they made him run through it a second time, and Ramiruz’s cybernetic hand always warranted a particularly detailed inspection.

“All right,” she said to them in the hall once they’d all gotten through. “Scatter, have fun, but not too much. I’ll let you know more when I do.”

Creeds waited 'til everyone else had left then gave her a single, sharp nod. She knew he’d quietly keep an eye on her—unless she was fool enough to protest, and any semblance of quiet would be abandoned for an argument she couldn’t win. She’d never out-stubborned Creeds, and she didn’t try this time.

She found the Questor Lounge easily enough. It was dimly lit, but its old-fashioned wood veneers told her it was a classy place, at least enough so to keep out the common riff-raff. Less crowds meant it was easier to find someone, she supposed, although that also translated into being more easily noticed. Shayalin claimed a seat at the bar and ordered a drink to nurse while she waited for her contact. She knew that behind her, Creeds was similarly sitting down with a nonchalant air where he could watch her.

She was careful not to drink so fast as to blur her judgment, but the sooner she neared the end of this glass the sooner contact could be made, and she was already a little weary of this clandestine way of meeting. And she wasn’t sure how to look believably approachable without attracting people other than her contact. She settled for engaging the bartender in conversation, regaling him with outrageous tales of her father she disguised as hearsay.

He laughed in amazement when she finished her story about the Galatian glass theft. “Wily old bastard, isn’t he? I think he’s been around for decades now, and not caught once.”

“Maybe we’re just hearing stories of his exploits after he died a peaceful death on some resort planet,” Shayalin said. She liked to muddy the waters.

The bartender shook his head. “Haven’t you heard about his daughter, Lin Bailey? They say he taught her everything he knows, and she’s as tough and sly as he ever was. If he’s gone, it’s because she took him out to get all his treasure.”

“If she did, it was to have one less person to rat her out—just like he taught her!” She grinned and drained the last of her drink.

“Care for another?” the bartender asked her, taking the glass as she set it down.

She opened her mouth, not sure what she was going to say, when a man deftly inserted himself between her and the person next to her. “Actually,” he said, “if I may?”

She looked him over, glad to have an excuse to be obvious about it. He was easy enough on the eye, with blond bangs and an open smile. Too open. He didn’t seem like a secret contact, but she supposed if he were blatant about it, she’d be even more concerned.

“Thanks,” Shayalin said with a nod.

He turned to the bartender. “Two End of Days,” he ordered.

She gave him a smile of her own. “So, stranger…”

“Grayson,” he said, offering his hand and her drink.

She took both. “Shayalin.”

His smile grew warmer. “So, Shayalin, what do you do?”

“I’m in the trade business,” she said vaguely. “And you? What brings you to the
Ionia
?”

“Trying to set up some meetings,” he said. “Sometimes it’s easier in person.”

That fit in well enough without giving anything away. Naturally neither of them would reveal their true purpose. She’d been hoping he’d at least give her a clue, but she couldn’t detect anything behind his interested expression. She’d talked over the details of contracts in her share of bars, and it made her wonder what business he was involved in that required such secrecy.

“So you must be on the
Ionia
often,” she said. “Thoughts?”

“It has at least one passable bar,” he said judiciously.

She quirked a brow at him. “It has alcohol, which is all I need. You must have higher standards.”

“I do,” he said. “This bar normally wouldn’t rate a mention, but when you average it out with its patronage…” He smiled at her.

He certainly moved quickly. She decided against making this too easy for him. “Why, thank you. Unless you’re flattering yourself?”

“I’m trying to flatter you,” he said. “And my taste. Certainly not that hulking fellow in the booth behind us who’s been glaring at me since I came to sit by you.”

She propped her chin up with both hands to hide her surprise at how easily Creeds had been spotted. There were other people in the bar, but her second-cum-bodyguard had been singled out among them. “He’s just jealous he didn’t work up the courage first. So where does a man of such refined tastes come from?”

“Albarz. Have you ever been to the Atian spoke?”

“I’ve passed through a time or two,” she said easily. She wasn’t about to admit she’d been born on one of its Rim worlds, nor that she regularly smuggled goods through Albarz’s quarantine these days. “I was born on a ship.” True of Lin Bailey, if not of Shayalin Cho.

“A born traveler then, I see.”

It pleased her to be called that, even under these false pretenses. She couldn’t help warming to him.

Their flirtation progressed through another couple rounds of drinks until there was a natural pause in their conversation. He had edged his stool closer to her so there was barely any space between them. He leaned in then let her close the distance.

The kiss was more competent than heated, but she was sure she was flushed anyway, from the embarrassment of this façade.

He stood. “I think I’m done here. I have a suite,” he said, and left it there as a suggestion.

She looped her arm through his. “Lead on.” She allowed her movements to be loose and easy as though she were intoxicated, although it took more than a few cocktails to get a pirate drunk. Whenever he leaned down to nuzzle her ear or murmur some endearment, she laughed lightly. But her palms were sweaty.

When she glanced at Creeds, he was staring fixedly down at his drink. No doubt he was embarrassed to have his captain acting like this, even in pursuit of a commission. Her father owed her one. Creeds’s loyalty hadn’t been easily won.

Grayson led her through the station, down a hallway and to a door. “Almost there.” But instead of pulling out a key chip, he backed her up against the wall and bent his head over her. Perhaps someone was watching. She reciprocated the kiss, finding to her surprise that he was putting a lot more into this one.

His hands roved down her sides and over the curve of her ass to pull one of her legs up and around him. It seemed a bit much, but she kept her body pliant so no onlookers would doubt her willingness. His mouth moved hotly on hers and his fingers skimmed up to the curve of her breast with light but insistent pressure. Frankly, at this point, she
was
willing.

When he pulled away, his breathing was a bit ragged. If she was honest, so was hers. “Shall we?” he asked.

“You have the key,” she reminded him, trying to keep her tone teasing instead of tart.

He gave her a wry smile, as though well aware of her true feelings, then unlocked the door, waved her in and closed it behind them.

The heavyset man seated in the living room stood up at her entrance. He was either on the far end of middle age, or perhaps his tired expression just made him look older. “Lin Bailey?” he asked.

She nodded, unsure what to expect.

Grayson, her erstwhile affaire, came to attention beside her. There was no mistaking that posture—he was security. No wonder his hands had roved so much. He’d been frisking her for weapons.

“Thank you, Kens,” the man said, and the guard bowed before ushering them into the inner chamber. That would be where Grayson—Kens?—and Shayalin were purportedly sporting between the sheets.

The client seemed to follow the line of her thoughts because he said, “I apologize for the manner in which you were brought here. But it’s urgent no one learn of your true purpose here, and I don’t think it would’ve been as believable if I’d been the one to meet you out there.”